Economics Commentary

Economics Internal Assessment Writing a Commentary on News article Task 1 Headline: Pharmaceutical giant Paladol misjudge its market by raising the price on its best-selling headache relief tablet. Price elasticity of demand (PED) is a measure of the responsiveness or sensitivity of consumers to a change in the price of a particular good. In this article, Paladol raised the price of its product, which was a mistake; there are a lot of other medicines for a headache and most of them would be cheaper which is what Paladol should have considered before raising their price.PED= Percentage change in quantity demandedPercentage change in price=%? QD%? P Cross-price elasticity of demand (XED) measures the responsiveness of consumers of a particular good to a change in the price of a related good, both complements and substitutes. In this article, however, we will be focusing more on the substitute goods. XED= Percentage change in quantity of good APercentage change in price of good B=%? QA% ? PB Substitute goods are goods or products that one might easily use in place of another; because they’re so similar, an increase in the price of one may lead consumers to switch consumption to the substitute.The substitution effect (which underlies the law of demand) states that as the price of a good decreases, consumers switch from other goods to this good because its price is comparatively lower. As the price of Paladol increases we can see the substitute effect, people switching from Paladol which is expensive to Tylonel, for example; because its price is still the same which is cheaper than Paladol. Demand is a curve showing the various amounts of a product consumers want and can purchase at different  prices  during a specific period of time.When Paladol increased its price for a particular headache relief medicine, consumers responded by decreasing their purchase of that expensive product, which decreased the quantity demanded; a movement up and left along the de mand curve. Consumers will now demand another good that is cheaper, a substitute, for example tylonel. Graph A represents Paladol. As the price increase for the product the supply decreases (a shift of the supply curve to the left) because the producers want to make more profit and increase their total revenue.However, the demand is slowly decreasing for Paladol as people realize that there are cheaper headache relief medicines; a movement up and left along the demand curve as was mentioned earlier. So, consumers start switching to substitute goods. Graph B represents Tylonel (a substitute good for Paladol). As the demand for Paladol decreases, the demand for tylonel starts increasing; a shift of the demand curve to the right. This happens as it’s less costly for consumers.The total revenue for Paladol will definitely decrease due to the decrease in quantity purchased and that will also decrease their profit as the cost is now more than the sales. However, the total revenue f or Tylonel will now increase in response to the decrease in Paladol’s decrease of quantity demanded. Paladol misjudged their market by thinking it has a relatively inelastic demand and that if they increased their prices a little it won’t change the quantity demanded by much.A firm producing at a quantity and price combination along the inelastic range of its demand curve can always benefit by reducing its output and increasing its price, since consumers will be relatively unresponsive and total revenues will therefore increase—that didn’t work well with Paladol. As their demand wasn’t inelastic, that plan couldn’t work out for them. They had a relatively elastic demand and one of the reasons of why they have an elastic demand is that they have a lot of substitute goods and competition in that particular good (headache relief medicines are very common).As a result of this misjudgment made by them, the quantity demanded decreased and caused a decrease in the total revenue and profit made by Paladol as well. Due to their bad decision, Paladol will certainly suffer a loss which is a decrease in total revenue. However, their competition (firm of substitute goods) will gain more consumers thus increasing their total revenue. The consumers won’t suffer or in other words they won’t be affected by Paladol’s decision to raise their price as they will have many substitutes to choose from.As Paladol is producing at an output and price combination along the elastic range, the firm could benefit if they change their prices again, this time by lowering them since consumers are relatively price sensitive and the percentage increase in quantity sold will exceeded the percentage decrease in price, improving the firm’s revenue figures and giving Paladol a competitive advantage over the market of headache medicines once again.

Language development with deaf children Essay

Erik Drasgow discussed in his article how important early exposure is for deaf children (Drasgow 1998). Unlike hearing children who are exposed to language early in the womb, deaf children get their exposure to language at birth (Drasgow 1998). Drasgow explains that studies show the earlier language is developed the higher children excel in language skills (Drasgow 1998). Deaf children born to deaf parents will acquire language as easily as hearing child born to hearing parents develops a spoken language (Drasgow 1998). It is vital for a child receive complete exposure to a natural language within their first twelve months (Drasgow 1998). Suppose a child does not have access to language until the age of six or seven, that child may never acquire a natural language (Drasgow 1998). Parents. Parents are the biggest influence for children, hearing or deaf. A deaf child born to deaf parents adapt language normally, because the parents know how to relate to their child. However, a deaf child born to hearing parents, who have no prior exposure to the deaf culture, struggle to learn how to communicate with their child. The absence of communication will interfere with a child’s development (Easterbrooks & Baker 2002). Hearing parents do try their best, but there are things a deaf child needs. The knowledge of visual and spatial relationships is a skill most hearing parents do not understand, however their child will need that understanding (Easterbrooks & Baker 2002). Also, we have learned that the signed language relies heavily on facial expressions and non-manual markers. If hearing parents choose manual communication they are so focused on the signs the parents lose the important facials that make up the signed language (Easterbrooks & Baker 2002). Deaf culture requires eye contact for a conversation to take place, because hearing parents are accustomed to calling out to children, peers, and family, the parents do not realize how necessary eye contact is for their child and have difficulty gaining their child’s attention (Easterbrooks & Baker 2002). Children, whether hearing or deaf, must have exposure, understanding, and support from family to truly adapt a language. b. Nanci Scheetz defines pragmatics in her book, Psychosocial Aspects of Deafness. She defines it as: â€Å"Pragmatics address how language is used to communicate in social contexts. It examines the rules that govern the exchange of language, and focuses on the reasons why individuals converse with each other. It delves into the realm of discourse and analyzes how speakers organize their thoughts into coherent conversations. Further more, it takes into consideration the speaker’s word choice, the recipient’s knowledgebase, and the choice† (Scheetz 2004). My understanding is that pragmatics takes a look at where a person stands in their social development. Society has social norms that must be followed. As we develop, we learn what is allowed in day-to-day conversation, but we also learn what is considered taboo. Christine Yoshinag-Itano makes an important point in her article. She explains those pragmatics are going to change for each developmental stage and the pragmatics for the spoken languages and the manual languages are going to be different (Itano 1997). In my opinion this is true. Deaf children should not always be compared to hearing children. Their development is not going to match a hearing child’s stage for stage. Hearing children have an opportunity to hear new words spoken by adults and can ask what they mean. While deaf children, especially in a mainstream setting, miss that chance because one sign has many different meanings. In the mainstream environment, an interpreter hears the new word and switches it to the signed language; the deaf child then misses what the educated word. In this scenario hearing children add a new word to their vocabulary and the deaf child sees the same signs he or she already knows. Instances such as these are why I believe hearing children have a higher pragmatic level and deaf children fall behind. c. Researchers Elizabeth Keating and Gene Mirus conducted a study on how deaf children relate to hearing children in a mainstream setting (Keating & Mirus 2003). These researchers observed deaf and hearing students at two Texas schools over a five-month span (Keating & Mirus 2003). They had never met the principles, teachers, or students prior to their observation (Keating & Mirus 2003). Their method was to get video surveillance of the deaf and hearing students interacting with each other (Keating & Mirus 2003). While reading this article, I was concerned that these researchers would not be able to understand the deaf children signing. However as I continued through the article they explained that Mirus is deaf, a native American Sign Language (ASL) signer, fluent in English, and was taught in a mainstream setting as a deaf student (Keating & Mirus 2003). Keating is hearing, a native English speaker and is a skilled ASL signer as well (Keating & Mirus 2003). These two authors had some helped from their research assistant Chris Moreland (Keating & Mirus 2003). He, like Mirus, was part of a mainstream deaf program, and is a fluent in ASL and English, but is not a native signer (Keating & Mirus 2003). These authors believed that having people who knew the cultures and languages was critical to the study (Keating & Mirus 2003). The authors discussed a point that I think is important, the difference between a hearing conversation and a deaf conversation. For the Deaf community, eye contact is key. If the signer trying to start the conversation does not have the desired recipients attention, then the conversation cannot take place because the signs would not be seen (Keating & Mirus 2003). Also, deaf require feed back during a conversation to ensure the other person understands and is attentive (Keating & Mirus 2003). Interruptions are common in conversations between two deaf persons and the understanding of space and time (Keating & Mirus 2003). Hearing conversations are different. Hearing conversations do not require eye contact or even be in the same room, also interruptions are considered rude in the hearing culture. These differences separate interaction with the hearing and deaf worlds. While deaf people have adapted ways to communicate with the hearing, hearing people still lack their resources (Keating & Mirus 2003). I think this area should be studied closely. Keating and Mirus’ study gives examples of conversations between children in a school setting. The researchers saw hearing children ignore the attempts of the deaf students to take part in the conversation by mimicking a hearing child’s actions or not knowing understanding why the deaf child is not paying them attention (Keating & Mirus 2003). However, when the deaf child was interacting the video showed gesturing to help the hearing child understand what was needed but the researchers also saw a deaf child misunderstand an incident with hearing children on a see-saw (Keating & Mirus 2003). A hearing child fell off the seesaw and fell, the deaf child thought another child knocked the other off on purpose (Keating & Mirus 2003). The researchers found that deaf-hearing relations never went past what was going on at the present moment and was much shorter than deaf to deaf relations and hearing to hearing conversations (Keating & Mirus 2003). I think this alone is cause for more research. It is not fair for children who are in the same classroom all day to not have anyway to interact with each other outside of gestures and lip reading. If a child is going to be placed in a mainstream setting other children should have the opportunity to learn ways to communicate with the deaf students. Chances are the same students are going to have classes together until they graduate; kindergarten to twelfth grade is far too long for children to go without learning signs or ways to communicate with the deaf students. Works Cited Drasgow, E. (1998). American sign language as a pathway to linguistic competence. Exceptional Children, 64(3), 329. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/201213704 Easterbrooks, S., & Baker, S. (2002). Language learning in children who are deaf and hard of hearing: multiple pathways. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon. Itano, C. Y. (1997). The challenge of assessing language in children with hearing loss. Language, Speech & Hearing Services in Schools, 28(4), 362. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/232585838?accountid=14800 Keating, E., & Mirus, G. (2003). Examining interactions across language modalities: Deaf children and hearing peers at school. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 34(2), 115. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/218136755?accountid=14800 Martin, D. S., Craft, A., & Sheng, Z. N. (2001). The impact of cognitive strategy instruction on deaf learners: An international comparative study. American Annals of the Deaf, 146(4), 366. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/214468209?accountid=14800 Scheetz, N,. (2004). Psychosocial aspects of deafness. Boston: Pearson.

Norm Violation Essay

Brenda Mora 4 October 2011 SOC 101-3003 Norm Violation Exercise The norm violation exercise that I decided to experiment with was invasion of space. My plan was to go up to random people in small groups of three or four and ask one of them for help, thank them, hug them, and walk away; my friend thought it sounded like fun so he volunteered to perform the encounters. If somebody I didn’t know came up and hugged me for no apparent reason I would most likely think they were either weird or drunk. For this reason I decided to do this particular experiment.Most of the people my friend hugged did not react in the way I predicted. I decided to carry out the experiment at the Wal-Mart on Charleston and Decatur since it’s close to where we both live and it is never scarce in people. We enacted the experiment in different sections of the store since there were more dense amounts of people in certain areas. The areas where we performed the experiment were in the electronics depar tment, the home decorations department, the food section, and the cash register section.The electronics department had plenty of people, males in particular, I was especially eager to see the feedback of the men in this section since my friend is a guy. The home decorations department had plenty of females; the food and cash register sections had a mixture of both genders. The first person we approached was a male Wal-Mart sales associate arranging phone displays in the electronics department. We both went up to him and my friend asked him where the exercising equipment was located, he responded and pointed us in the direction, as I walked my friend thanked him and gave him a big bear hug.The sales associate let my friend hug him, patted his back, laughed, and starred at us in an awkward manner as we left. He didn’t have much reaction to my friend hugging him. It didn’t seem to have bothered him, as soon as we left he simply returned to his work. The second encounter i nvolved a man with his wife and son and what seemed to be one of their friends or relative which also occurred in the electronics department. My friend went up to them as I stood behind a magazine rack and he asked the woman’s husband if he could point him in the direction of the clothing department.The man gave my friend directions and just as he was returning to the conversation between his friend and wife, my friend quickly put his arms around the slightly large man and embraced him for about three seconds before he let go, thanked him, and walked away. As my friend walked away I noticed the man simply and quickly returned to his conversation as if nothing had happened. His wife and friend starred at my friend as he walked away and laughed as if they still couldn’t believe what had just happened.The third and fourth group of people that we encountered took place in the home decorations section of the store. Both groups were all women; one group consisted of two wome n and the other group of three young women. The first group of two women seemed to have been a mother and a middle aged daughter, my friend approached the women and asked for their opinion on an item, the daughter answered him but before she could go back to her business he hugged her, I noticed a frightened expression on her face and my friend told me he noticed she held on to her mother’s arm as he hugged her.The second group of women were also asked for their opinion on a Halloween decoration, the girl told my friend what she thought and before she could get back to her business he hugged her. One of the two girls with her asked her if she knew him and the other girl laughed and starred at my friend, the girl herself couldnt believed it and she even blushed a bit.The fifth and sixth encounter took place in the food and cash register section with a distinct group of people; the first was a family of three consisting of a husband, wife and child and the second of two female Wal-Mart sales associates surrounded by people in line waiting to pay for their groceries. The family of three were choosing their food when my friend approached the husband and asked him if he could reach something from the top shelf for him since he was exceedingly tall, the man gladly agreed and my friend thanked him and quickly hugged him.The wife laughed while the child took no notice and as my friend walked away the man stopped him and said â€Å"Your welcome, man†, this was the first time anybody had responded to his action. The second group of females at the cash register were helping customers when my friend approached them and asked for help, one of them gave him directions and began about her business when he hugged her, she laughed and went back to what she was doing.However, her co-worker did not approve and gave my friend a cold stare as he walked away, the people waiting in line laughed for three seconds, gave a few stares, and went back to their business. The last group of people were two males, an older and younger brother who were testing out video games in the electronics section. My friend walked up, stood next to them and asked for their opinion on a video game, the older boy answered my friend and as soon as he finished my friend hugged him and quickly walked away.As he walked away I observed the younger boys face which expressed how much he couldn’t believe it, the older boy didn’t laugh at first but then he came around, shook his head, laughed and walked away. My friend said that as he hugged the boy he went stiff and said â€Å"whoa†, as if he tried to tell him to back off, but no words could come out. This boys reaction was my favorite because the expression on his face said let me go but at the same time he seemed scared as if my friend would hurt him if he said anything.This experiment was interesting because of all of the different reactions that I saw. I did not expect for most of the reactions to resul t in the same way. I hoped for somebody to speak up and ask what my friend’s problem was but nobody seemed to care much. The only reactions that truly caught my attention were the three females where one of them blushed and the group with the older and younger brother where the older brother tried to speak up but couldn’t. Besides a few cold stares, there were no severe consequences.

American Women in World War II

At the beginning of the Second World War, American citizens had a sense of unity. Men choose to enter the forefront off work and family, but women leave home for the first time and inherit the work left by their husbands. In 1943, many magazines chose to draw women's diligence. These articles concentrate their story on working women and make their non-traditional work better. If they make these small and hardworking jobs exciting and noble, they may think that more women will start participating in the work. Prior to World War II, Hispanic women were reluctant to work at home and were more irritated than other American women. During World War II, the widespread change in the role of women as a result of the necessity of family labor affected the role of Spanish women who served as secretary and nurse, Isabel Solis-Thomas and Elvia Solis was born in Veracruz, Veracruz, Mexico. The Solis family moved to the United States and moved to Brownsville, Texas. When World War II broke out, the two sisters voluntarily became roses from women of all races across the country, welded the pipes, and repaired the cargo ship. Mrs. Thomas Solis said recruiters wanted to climb a dangerous place on the ship to short skin, short skin women. She stated that he worked 9 hours a day, 6 days a week, beating and sealing the steel bar accurately and intentionally. An American woman of Asian Americans entered the military service for the first time during the Second World War. The Women Army (WAC) recruited fifty Japanese American women and Chinese American women, sent them to the military information service language school in Snellingburg, Minnesota, and received military translation training. In 1943, the Women Army recruited a Chinese-American woman to serve as aerial WAC. Air Force WAC provides various tasks such as interpretation of aerial photography, air traffic control, weather forecast.

Case study group project Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Group project - Case Study Example This paper evaluates the communication issues and communication effectiveness of Mr. Porter, Mr. Weigand, and the disgruntled teacher, where they all made communication mistakes because leaders did not establish strong relationships with their subordinates, while subordinates reacted with inadequate critical thinking. The first section of the paper assesses the e-mail communications of Mr. Porter and Mr. Weigand, which both manifested a lack of responsiveness to one of the crucial roles of leadership, the role of building relationships, which could have helped them become more perceptive of the current workload of teachers and their feelings regarding additional class requirements. Mr. Porter and Mr. Weigand did not effectively communicate the importance of the new performance objectives because they did not understand the workload of their teachers and how they would respond to the new class requirement that they have to submit in a month. First, Mr. Porter did not consult with his principals and teachers regarding the new performance objectives. ... Second, Mr. Weigand should know more about the teachers’ situation, but instead, he merely forwarded an unsympathetic e-mail to his teachers. Apart from not expressing empathy, he did not have sufficient perception of his role as someone who could have at least tried to communicate with the teachers first regarding how they felt about the performance objectives (Lunenburg, 2010, p.5). As the principal, he should have been more aware of the potential impact of the performance objectives on his teachers because he should know more about the teachers’ everyday activities. Instead, he acted as if he was another Mr. Porter. Third, if I would put myself in the position of these teachers, I would also be surprised and frustrated after getting the e-mail. The e-mail had a demanding tone and unrealistic perception of teachers’ workload. It would certain get angry responses because it did not consider its effects on teachers, who already had regular tasks and activities. T hus, Mr. Porter and Mr. Weigand failed to build a strong relationship with their teachers that could have given them the inkling that setting performance requirements could not be done in such a rushed manner. The second section of the paper discusses how Mr. Weigand should respond to the angry teacher, where he should reply with empathy and openness to further discussion. In his e-mail response, Mr. Weigand must sound concerned by saying that he understood her frustration and that he would open the topic for further discussion with other teachers. He must be open to suggestions too on how the relevance of the performance objectives could be better explored and highlighted to his teachers (Lunenburg, 2010, p.7). Furthermore, I could have

The Effectiveness of Performance Appraisal Dissertation

The Effectiveness of Performance Appraisal - Dissertation Example Performance appraisal refers to assess and analyze a worker’s performance and results at the work place. It refers to a system of retaining employees, by providing them the guidance, fair treatment and a sense of motivation towards work. These are built-in outcomes of a formally set performance appraisal system. Organizations need performance appraisal system due to multiple numbers of reasons. Out of all one major reason is employee performance and other is employee retention through employee rights. This chapter will signify the importance of performance appraisal system in the organization, by uncovering the effectiveness of the system and the positive outcomes it brings for the organization, managers and staff. To truly grasp the concept of performance appraisal and its effectiveness, a critical evaluation of the literature will be made. Research Aims and Objectives To determine the role of human resource management in achieving organizational goals. To determine how human resource management benefits employees to achieve organizational goals in Chinese business market. To analyze and assess the impact of performance appraisal on organizational performance. The aim is to focus on performance appraisal as one effective method of HRM to bring organizational performance. To understand the relationship between effective performance appraisal and organizational performance. To determine the relationship between effective performance appraisal and employee performance. The aim is to test and measure the effectiveness of performance appraisal of a selected food company in Hohhot China. Literature Review The Markets of Buying and Selling Labor When markets start flourishing with the capitalist regime, they have to bear challenges in the labor section. Markets which undertake industrialists’ basing and hold a major share of foreign direct investment, there is a chance that labor gets sidelined in such markets. India being an emerging industrialist econ omy upholds this situation where there is an excess of labor conflicts and strikes all over. Similarly, China where there is a trend of buying and selling labor in replacement of commodities, monetary and nonmonetary benefits precisely holds the same trend of labors’ strike and protesting. According to Chan (2010), in the last decade capitalism has been encircling around the communist state of China. A major investment has been brought into the Chinese private sector business which has invited the Stake holder’s interest and influence into the business function. Due to more power in hands of stake holders, the rights of labor are being avoided and ignored, which have created the revolt situation in most of the private sector firms. The protestation of labor is a situation where manpower has lost its focus, its direction and its willingness to work and perform respectively. The political segment of the country is dealing with this challenge as it is more on the national ist trail and wants to resolve the labor conflicts. This is because the country’s bureaucracy realizes the importance of labor power (manpower) - a source which it feels to be the primary base of industrialization and urbanization in the country (The Economist, 2010). From organizational point of view, employee constraining affects employee’s performance. Likewise, when employees are constrained by any means i.e by the market trend where labor is intensively sold and bought, they simply keep their directions straight- continuing to the job

Using Mathematics to predict traffic flow Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Using Mathematics to predict traffic flow - Essay Example In this paper, we study microscopic model in detail, which utilizes ordinary differential equations. We also provide the reasons for studying the traffic flow and the current applications in science. The basic aim of studying traffic is to comprehend traffic jamming and find ways to prevent it. The aim is to provide well-organized movement of traffic while reducing congestion problems. Traffic modeling is studied in different disciplines and each of the fields explains why we study traffic. In Engineering, civil engineers are interested in traffic to be able to forecast and model traffic flow to generate operative and safe road systems and intersections. In addition, electrical engineers may create intelligent electronic appliances, which will monitor and get used to traffic conditions. Besides, environmental engineers may study how traffic jamming affects fuel consumption and air pollution. For city planners, they study traffic to determine the most effectively use and apply traffic systems. A city planner may need to decide the effectof the addition of an on-ramp to a freeway or if to construct a bypass. Moreover, a city planner may need to determine certain types of cars that should be prevented from a certain roadway. The traffic models can assist state government and city planners to determine speed limits. Through creation of accurate simulations of traffic models, computer scientists enable city planners and engineers to rapidly test new designs. Simulations can define how a planned change in infrastructure will influence traffic before any building is initiated. There are two current types of models namely macroscopic and microscopic. Both models have modern state-of-the-art equations. Macroscopic models research on traffic from a general or average perspective whereas microscopic models research on the motion of individual vehicles. The traffic jams can be studied with both types of models. The models can simulate