Machiavelli's view of human nature in The Prince Essay

Machiavelli's view of human nature in The Prince - Essay Example Machiavelli's view of human nature in The Prince In chapter 15, Machiavelli writes, â€Å"men†¦and princes†¦, are remarkable for some of those qualities which bring them either blame of praise† (Machiavelli, 1961). The princes show those characters that will not deprive him of his state. In this case, men follow what brings them benefit even if it is a vice – â€Å"it will be found that something which looks like a virtue, if followed, would be his ruin; whilst something else, which looks like a vice, yet followed brings him security and prosperity.† Being in the highest position of the land, and with the highest authority, the prince should put in effect policies that will serve his best interest (Machiavelli, 1961). This shows that Machiavelli supported any action of princes that will give them satisfaction, even if it will hurt the citizens. He believed that the prince’s followers are sometimes unreliable, and the prince might lose their loyalty. This is indicated in chapter 11: â€Å"For such a prince cannot rely upon what he observes in quiet times, when citizens have need of the state, because then everyone agrees with him; they all promise, and when death is far distant they all wish to die for him; but in troubled times, when the state has need of its citizens, then he finds but few† (Machiavelli, 1961). The prince should therefore ensure that at every moment citizens are in need of the state, and they will always be faithful to him.

Case analysis Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 4

Analysis - Case Study Example ABC focuses on accumulating cost thru activities while traditional costing focuses on accumulating costs within functional areas. ABC system is used as an internal system for management decision while traditional accounting is for external purposes used by stakeholders and government’s review. The rich information provided by the review of literature in the study further confirmed the advantages that managers acquire in terms of costs association by implementing ABC. Managers are able to reduce costs in designing products and improve coordination with suppliers and customers. However certain limitations of ABC use are observed in the case study. Particularly, the case findings said that thru statistical computations, it was proven that ABC has no dependent relationship with the Return on Assets. Further, it was gathered from the study that there was a weak evidence associating ABC and accounting profitability is dependent on plant’s operational characteristics. The above findings suggest cognizance of both methods. Profitability is a measure that is very much relevant for stakeholders. They are very much interested in ROA and profitability which are their primary concern in investing. These factors are measured by traditional method of accounting, while internal factors that will add to profitability are best measured by ABC system. Ittner, Christopher, William, Lanen, and Larcker, David. â€Å"The Association between Activity Based Costing and Manufacturing Performance.† Journal of Accounting Research, Vol. 40, June 3, 2002, pdf. Web. 11 Sept.

How organisations can become better managers of cultural diversity on the global market

How organisations can become better managers of cultural diversity on the global market Introduction The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how organisations can become better managers of cultural diversity on the global market. This paper argues that organisations can achieve success with diversity environment by finding and accepting visible and non- visible differences between values and factors in the workforce (Kandola and Fullerton, 1998). Consequently, individual organisations need to have their own theories and ideas about management and development diversity environment in the context of social-economic conditions, national legislation, culture, demography, history factors (Jones, Pringle and Shepherd, 2000; Syed 2008a). There is plenty of evidence which highlights cases of diversity management and its inputs into organisations. A significant part of the discussion in this paper is based on the framework of micro-, macro- and meso-level analysis relevant to PO Ferries as a multicultural organisation, while creating their strategy of working culture, respect and values around different level of diversity (Schneider, 2001: 27). In other words, the issue of diversity involved diverse personal characteristics, such as gender, race, culture and disability (Cox 1993; Ottaviano Peri, 2006; Thomas 1991), but also social discourses, national structures, institution and organisational processes and behaviours in the development of a multicultural workplace. This paper is structured as follows. The next section has been divided into three smaller sections in which each of them deeply explain diversity management levels based on PO Ferries examples and some of criticisms. Those sections highlight aspects and approaches which need to be taken into concern in professional management decisions if organisations want to become better in a cultural diversity market. Background Diversity management is a cultural change process (Singh, 2002) of set values and recognises the difference between people and organisations. An integrated approach to managing diversity means understanding differences which has been created by environment, adopts an opportunity, improved employee motivation (Beaver stock, 1991) and at the same time meet organisation objectives. Globalisation, migration from developing countries and a shift away from economic barriers (Hill, 2009: 3) is extremely challenging for HRM in the context of human rights laws, limitation on employment opportunities, culture influences or organisational approaches towards managing diversity. According to researches, the phenomenon of managing diversity has taken into account the framework of multilevel factors, macro-national level, micro-individual level (Syed, J. Ozbilgin, M. 2009) which can improve rules of diversity legal organisation policies and respond to a power of different circumstances in the workp lace (Johns, 2001: 39). The micro level Diversity based on individual attributes and aspirations which are part of the micro- level analysis. It is crucial to understand the individual- level factors if organisations want to achieve success and minimalism conflict and lower job satisfactions which can become the potential future problems (McMillan- Capehart, 2005). People should be treated equally regardless of race, ethic, gender, sexual, orientation or other social rewards (Jewson and Mason). For example, PO Ferries employ over 35000 employers around the world of which 34% of them are non- British and that includes 65% of men and 35% of women. Average age is 19-55 years old for man and 23- 57 years old for woman. Over 25% of non- British employees are working in highest positions like: managers, officer or team leaders (56% woman, 44% man), about 40 % are working in PO offices as call advisers and translators and the rest 35% are working as customer service stewards on boats (HRM- PO, 2009) . Previous statistics suggest that culturally diverse backgrounds do not block their career and activities because of the separation from their home country. There is a limited evidence of companies where diversity management is well- organised like PO Ferries. Organisation as a global institution need to take into concern national culture influences and design their jobs, values and multiple identities to effectively promote outcomes but also individual relationships and interaction within an organisation. Thus, Sign (2002) explain that by developing peoples opportunities to the best of their ability will be paid by commitment, innovation and creativity to organisations by employees. Managers, who manage diverse teams must adopt mix perspectives and make sure that diversity contributions are integrated into organisational objectives. Only by personal contact, face to face interactions or indirect electronic interactions, the organisation is going to build strong micro- level relationship where employees will fe el that their contributions are influenced and noticed by employers. According to PO Ferries, micro- level of analysis is representing by face to face communication between managers and employees. All ideas, problems or suggestions which involved organisation performance or sometimes even some employee private problems are discussed carefully with managers attentions and ideas to help. The literature review criticises many organisations around the world in which the opportunity for foreign woman to achieve better positions are not the same as foreign men. This can be classified as sexual discrimination which is part of micro- level diversity recruitment. UK statistics show that womens gross individual income is on average 51 per cent less then men (ECO, 2009). Employers still forget about relevant legislations and the fact that organisations need to play by the rules which cause controversial problems and criticisms. PO Equal Opportunities Policy covers all legislations which deal with discrimination (EOP, 2007). Furthermore, women who work for PO Ferries have the same respect as men and sex has no influence on the position they have. The company has 35% women working as a manager or a team leader which is 7% more and 27% in customer service which again is 12% more compared to men (PO, 2009). The macro level In management- orientation, focus should be not only on organisation benefits but also on people performances from difference of capital, labour, skills, knowledge, behaviours, communications and other cultural differences which are keys of organisations improvement and positive action (Bratton and Gold, 2004). The local phenomenon of managing diversity cannot be separate from its social- cultural, social- economic, social-political and institutional contexts (Syed and ÃÆ'-zbilgin, 2007). Professional diversity management offered by organisations needs to be universal and flexible for cultural changes. The multicultural, multilingual and multidisciplinary nature of the professional workplace has to take responsibility for cross- culture communication, corporate and dimensions. According to National Statistics (2007), Great Britain has 507,000 non- British which constitute 87% of all UK population on the end of 2007. This means that diversity is more usual than it was before and it is giving organisations opportunities to be competitive and flexible on the global market. For example PO Ferrys staff come from different countries like: Scotland (34%), Poland (20%), Spain (3%), Slovakia (9%), Italy (5%), Ireland (10%), France (15%) and other (4%). Those differences are building high performance and quality customer services compared to other subsidisers (PO, 2009). If diversity management is prepared to take organisational culture into the company environment, their success will be higher. The key point is to understand social difference codes in the workplace. Ridgeway (2006) explain social difference codes as the widely shared cultural beliefs that delineate the socially significant distinctions among people on the basis of which a society is structured and inequality is organised (p.180). In other words people can be categorized based on individual attributes and dimensions of diversity which has been mentioned as a part of micro- level but also adopted into macro- level analysis where focus is on social stratification and stereotypes as a persons status or ethnicity (Syed and ÃÆ'-zbilgin, 2007). The diversity management effort must integrate both micro- and macro- diversity awareness to make organisations effective and a friendly place for employees with different backgrounds. Management should design a polycentric strategy for managing diverse environments. There are lots of literatures which criticise the ethnocentric ways of looking on diversity. There are still many organisations where staff have not been trained to work in a diversity environment and cannot recognise the potential of cultural diversity. It is hard for them to accept the fact that changes can be good and an ethnocentric strategy will cause many problems and will not bring any improvements into the organisation. There are evidences which criticises how the host market ignored and stayed closed for changes. For example, being a foreign employee can be a disadvantage because English is not their first language (Bertone, 2004) and some employers cannot understand that foreign qualifications are as good as home ones. As a result, an immigrants education is less important as a home citizens and the possibility to find a job in their profession becomes mission impossible. PO is not allowed to discriminate anyone who has got international qualifications, because that company focuses on knowledge and training their staff to make sure that performance and high quality of service is competitive compared to other similar companies. PO is quite happy to train those people who are open for development and improvement in qualifications as long as those qualifications are relevant to job. Diversity management should in their behaviours and decisions appropriate international standards not ethnocentric mentality and go forward to improve all the time. This paper also argues that national or organisational laws, labour policies and social- economy issues can affect diverse workers. Nowadays, there are many organisations which have designed their own diversity- oriented policies. Indeed, as a result of human rights and equal opportunity laws, those policies create anti-discrimination rules in the context of micro- and macro- levels. PO in their policies clearly explain that discrimination on those levels is not allowed (EOP, 2007). Management in their responsibility must ensure that they do not engage in any form of discrimination and that they are fair with their decisions. The management strategy should not only provide rivalry (Porter, 1990) but take opportunities to embrace the high- performance based on high trust, commitment and productivity and at the same time not forgetting about employment social relationships (Godard, 2004). The meso level The last but as important as micro- and macro- level is the meso- level of analysis which highlights relationships between organisational context and component behaviour in the aspect of organisation outcomes (McCarthy, 2002: 59). In other words, social capital (Bourdieu Wacquant, 1992) is a resource which is important for a diversity managers work through organizational levels and networks between companies and employees. Most organisations expect from foreign employees to assimilate to the domestic culture. It is the management responsibility to make that happen and help a diverse workforce to achieve that access (Thomas and Ely, 1996). Being a multicultural workplace is compromised when they give employees opportunities to make their own choices based on cultural backgrounds and by not playing organisational rules. Thomas and Ely (1996) calls that approach multiculturalism. The work environment is not involved in only multiculturalism but also in the context of diversity circumstances. Bourdieu said that diversity habits like: what the worker eats, their practices, political opinions and all other individual activities are principles in the workplaces for employees. Professional organisations create friendly environments for those values, beliefs which in some points are responsible for organisational improvement and success (Syed and ÃÆ'-zbilgin, 2009). Because PO have employees from different pa rt of the world, some of the diversity habits have been taken into concern in management decisions. Food and drinks which are served for different cultured staff included French, Polish and Spanish meals. The same is with customers. The Dover- Calais route offers French and English menus. So, everyone can find something nice in the menus that the company offers. Konrad (2003) notes that it is important for managers to have focus on power relations between various identity groups in organisations and in all dissimilar individuals behaviours to avoid misunderstanding. Stone, Stone-Romero Ã…Â ukaszewski (2007) recommended that HRM processes and practices must change to be more flexible on increasing cultural diversity and HRM as a modernist project (Legge 2005: 337) should support diversity management with improvement in their decision making within the working environment. Conclusion This paper explains a framework through which diversity management can be understood from different perspectives. That framework not only brings together micro-, macro- and meso- level analysis but also helps better understand how important each of those approaches is for multicultural organisations. Both multinational businesses and multinational management need to learn how to recognize the significant of multidimensional investment in human resource development which approaches the need to develop strategy, collaborative and cross- culture competence to improve business and employees performance (ÃÆ'-zbilgin, Tatli 2008: 65). Managers need to understand that a diverse workforce can improve organizational productivity and creativity. Managing a diverse workforce is a challenge. When people from different backgrounds come together in the workplace, there is a potential for great improvement, but also a possibility for conflict. This paper has highlighted the diversity efforts on different levels and PO Ferries is an example of a company where diversity management is still developing on all micro-, macro- and meso- levels. The paper has also argued that organisations still have to change in their structures, strategy and management knowledge about diversity. Improvement and understanding is needed to become better employers, managers or leaders of diversity teams. The implications of the paper is that managers need to do more then just manage people, they have to take into account the above framework and try to do the right things (Druckers, 2001) because managing people is a challenge but also a compromise. References: Drucker, P. (2001), The essential Drucker: selections from the management works of Peter F. Drucker. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Konrad, A. (2003), Defining the Domain of Workplace Diversity Scholarship, Group and Organization Management, 28, 1, 4-17. Bourdieu, P. (1998), Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action, p.8, Cambridge: Polity Press. Stone, D., Stone-Romero, E., Ã…Â ukaszewski, K. (2007), the impact of cultural values on the acceptance and effectiveness of human resource management policies and practices. Human Resource Management Review, 17, 152à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢165. Jones, D., Pringle, J., and Shepherd, D. (2000), Managing Diversity Meets Aotearoa / New Zealand, Personnel Review, 29, 364-380. Syed, J. (2008a), A Context specific Perspective of Equal Employment Opportunity in Islamic Societies, Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 25, 1, 135-151. Cox, T. (1993), Cultural Diversity in Organisations. San Francisco, CA: Barrett- Koehler Publishers Inc. Ottaviano, G.I.P. and Peri, G. (2006), The economic value of cultural diversity: Evidence from US cities, Journal of Economic Geography 6(1): 9-44. Thomas, R. Jr. (1991), Beyond Race and Gender: Unleashing the Power of Your Total Workforce by Managing Diversity. American Management Association, New York: AMACOM. Hill, Ch. (2009), International Business. Competing in the Global Market, 7th Edition, Irwin McGraw- Hill and London. Beaverstock, J. (1991). Skilled international migration: an analysis of the geography of international secondments within large accountancy firms. Environment and Planning, A23, 1133à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢1146. Syed, J., ÃÆ'-zbilgin, M. (2009), A relational framework for managing diversity. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, December 12, 2435-2453. Syed, J., ÃÆ'-zbilgin, M. (2007), A relational framework for managing diversity. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, August 3-8, Philadelphia, PA. Johns, G. (2001), In praise of context, Journal of Organizational Behaviour, 22:31-42. Thomas, D., and Ely, R. (1996), Making Differences Matter: A New Paradigm for Managing Diversity, Harvard Business Review, 74, 5, 79-90. National Statistic 2007, (online). Available at: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?id=260 (Accessed 24th November 2009) Ridgeway, C. (2006), Social Relational Contexts and Self-organizing Inequality, in Relational Perspectives in Organizational Studies: A Research Companion, eds. O. Kyriakidou and M. ÃÆ'-zbilgin, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, pp. 180-196. EOP, (2007), Equal Opportunities Policy- PO Ferries Limited, Dover. Porter, M. E. (1990), The Competitive Advantage of Nations, Macmillan, London McCarthy, (2002), System trump program- Organizational Components and External Influence, Chapter 6, p.59 Bertone, S. (2004), From factory fodder to multicultural mediators: A typology of NESB immigrant work experiences in Australia. PhD Thesis. Sydney: University of Sydney. ÃÆ'-zbilgin, M.F., Tatli, A. (2008), Global Diversity Management: An Evidence-Based Approach. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Parker, C. (1999) Singh, V. (2002), Managing Diversity for Strategic Advantage. London: Council for Excellence in Management and Leadership. McMillan- Capehart, A. (2005), A configurational framework for diversity: socialization and culture. Personnel Review, 34(4): 488-503. Jewson, N. and Mason, D. (1986), The theory and practice of equal opportunities policies: liberal and radical approaches. Sociological Review, 34(2): 307-34. Legge, K. (2005), Human Resources Management: Rhetoric and Realities (anniversary edn). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan: 337. Godard, J. (2004), A critical assessment of the high-performance paradigm. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 42(2): 39-78. Schneider, R. (2001), Variety performance. People Management, 7(9): 26-31. Bratton, J. and Gold, J. (2007), Human Resources Management: Theory and Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, (4th edition). Kandola, R. and Fullerton, J. (1998), The Diversity Mosaic in Diversity in Action: Managing The Mosaic, (2nd Edition) London: Institute of Personnel and Development. Bourdieu, P., Wacquant, L. J. D. (1992), An invitation to reflexive sociology. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Equality Human Rights Commission, 2009, (online). Available at: http://www.equalityhumanrights.com (Accessed 26th November, 2009) HMN- PO PO (2009), PO Performance for 2009, Dover.

FEMINIST CRITISM OF THE STONE CARVERS :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The feminist approach of the Stone Carvers allows us to look at Klara’s role as a spinster in a new perspective. It allows us to analyze the role of a woman in the first half of the twentieth century.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  A woman’s role in the early twentieth century still revolved around serving the male members of one’s family. Klara was tied to the traditional role of a female. She would have chores as well as having to make supper for her father, grand father and sometimes Eamon. Klara was more independence than the average woman because she was taught two arts by two masters. She could tailor suits, and carve wood. She had two skills that were named to be man’s skills. Her knowledge gave her the power to control what happened in her life. Klara was respected in her town for her skills because they usually came to her to make suits. Eamon acknowledged her skill and asked her to make a red suit. Her knowledge of these skills gave her more independence, freedom and power. She was one of the few female members in her community who had their own income. She had freedom to do what she wanted with her life but she was still restricted by her society because she w as still a woman. Time plays a key part in the role of women. In the late nineteenth century, Klara’s grandmother was an excellent tailor. She tailored suits for all members of the community as well as for Father Gstir. She always referred to herself as a seamstress because she was a woman and at this time period a woman’s skilled was less valued than the skill of a man. The battle for equality between men and women is clearly depicted by Helga. Klara’s mother always stated that she was a tailor rather than a seamstress. She valued her skills greatly and taught Klara to be proud. Klara can carve and tailor, so she had more power than the generations of women before her time.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Klara Becker’s role as a spinster in the novel gives her to have an advantage over other women. As a spinster, society allows her to be a bit eccentric. Taking over the farm after the death of her father and grandfather was considered eccentric for a spinster but madness if it was a widow. This shows that the place of the women in this society is not equal to that of a male.

Two Kinds Amy Tan Outline

Thesis: In Two Kinds, Amy Tan uses defiant americanized Jing-Mei and her native mother’s expectation of obedience to depict the clash of the cultures and its effect on the relationship between the two.I. Jing-Mei is overpowered by her hopeful and ambitious mother who believes that anything is possible and is willing to take any measures to achieve it: however her ambitious nature weighs heavy on Jing Mei and places strains on their relationship. a. â€Å"My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America† I. â€Å"Like many immigrants to the United States, Jing-mei’s mother has created visions of her adopted country as a land of opportunity where all dreams may be realized (Brent)†II. Culture aspect because mother holds ambitions shared my immigrants and childlike faith B. â€Å"You could open a restaurant. You could work for the government and get good retirement You could buy a house with almost no money down. you could be instantly fa mous† I. â€Å"Opening paragraph introduces an element of irony in the narrator’s attitude toward her mother’s vision of America as a place where â€Å"you could become anything you wanted to be (Brent)†. II. Her mother has unreal expectations because she expected her to achieve greatness instantlyC. â€Å"Soon after my mother got this idea about Shirley Temple, she took me to the beauty training school in the Mission District and put me in the hands of a student who could barely hold the scissors without shaking.† I. â€Å"Her mother’s American dreams, function as a symbol of hope for a brighter future for her daughter(Brent)† II. Her mother is doing what she believes to be best for Jing- Mei but is causing her to resent her.III. â€Å"When she looks in the mirror one night, she sees only her mother’s of her as a failure and a disappointment(Brent)† II. Her mother’s asian culture means that pride and honor paired with the sacrifice of her other children make Jing- Mei an outlet for her mother to channel all her hopes and dreams into. A. â€Å"And after seeing, once again, my mother's disappointed face, something inside me began to die.† I. â€Å"Jing-Mei’s sense of failure to embody her mother’s hopes and dreams is†¦distressful (Brent)†.B. â€Å"Three days after watching the Ed Sullivan Show my mother told me what my schedule would be for piano lessons and piano practice.† i. again her mother  is trying her best to make Mei-Jing be better than she was trying to vicariously live through her Conclusion: Although Mei-Jing initially resents her mother’s cultural exceptions of her initially she then realizes as she comes of age that her mother only has her best interest in hear. The piano symbolizes the struggle to stay true to herself but also trying to remain obedient and respectful to her mother. Acceptance of the piano as a gift symbolizes her mother’s forgiveness of her. Coming of age means maturity for Mei-Jing and regret towards her actions when younger.

Memo †Investment Recommendation for Centagenetix Essay

After looking over the material regarding Centagenetix, I have a recommendation as to whether or not MPM should invest in Centagenetix. I realize that we have spent a great deal of time and resources on this project already, and that Harvard Medical School is anticipating that this deal will go forward. I also realize that backing out of the deal now could reflect badly upon MPM and upon you, but my recommendation is that MPM invest in Centagenetix at this point. The main reason is that if Centagenetix is actually able to create a product to increase human longevity, there are some major questions and concerns about first getting this product to market, as well as what conditions this product might carry for measurable efficacy and if the market will be willing to accept them. I will discuss other considerations shortly but I think that is itself a potential deal-breaker. Let us first consider the New England Centenarian Study (NECS). While it is a worthwhile and interesting study, w ith good correlations between family members and a sample pool large enough to provide preliminary findings, it still has some weaknesses. The two major ones being how geographically centric it is and the size of it. Scientists who study aging have long argued that environment and lifestyle play the largest role in longevity, but Centagenetix is setting out to see if that is incorrect: if there is in fact a heritable gene (or genes) for longevity. It would seem that in order to provide a strong argument that the study reaches beyond environment, there should be more samples from areas beyond the eight towns around Boston that the NECS used. It could also be a problem that the majority of the centenarians used had no history of smoking or obesity and were generally small in stature. Granted that using these samples, they found a linkage on chromosome 4, but this does not seem to match the homologous zones for longevity in the previously studied model organisms. There are possible correlations on other chromosomes that track with those model organisms, but the patent that they filed is for the 10 million base pair region on chromosome 4. I am also concerned that the first attempt to scale the study to a larger population resulted in a noteworthy decrease of the linkage’s strength. Scaling it up further restored the statistical strength of the linkage, but the overall strength and valuation of the IP remains in question. We also need to consider the possibility that this 10M bp region will contain genes that other groups are already studying and that the patent is not strong enough to survive a challenge. It is possible that these longevity genes will be related to insulin receptors or free radical management: two areas that several groups or companies are already studying. How strong will the IP remain when there is competition for these hypothetical genes? If that is the case, the company’s major resource will be its SNP datab ase of centenarians, which will cost at least another $10 million to get to a functional state, plus more money to expand and maintain it. I have not seen any market analysis as to how much companies will pay for access to such a database. While Millennium has a somewhat similar model, they are much more pro-active in what they offer their clients, and that is what arguably drives their profits. The database will be valuable, but just how valuable is an important question. We need to know what the likelihood is that building such a SNP database will turn a profit, who specifically would be interested in paying for its use, and how much they would pay. In addition, would Centagenetix receive any royalties or payments for products based off findings from that SNP database? These are important considerations, especially if the possibility exists that the SNP database will have to support the company for any protracted amount of time. There remains a conflict-of-interest issue with Tom Perls and Harvard. If he can be enticed away from Harvard, the study that the company is based on will potentially no longer be available. Perls will be a key founding member of Centagenetix, and is expected be motivated and incentivized to work hard. Without a stake in the company, it remains unclear if that will happen. We also need to consider that if Perls does leave Harvard, will BIDMC still allow Centagenetix the use of the NECS, or should we re-consider the proposal from Whitehead to buy them out? The value of the IP revolves strongly around the NECS and Dr. Perls’ work. There needs to be a much clearer sense as to if or how these issues will be resolved, or else MPM might own a major stake in a company that will require a much larger investment to restore the IP we have assumed they already have. Finally, I want to return to my main point: Aside from a SNP database, what is at the end of the Centagenetix pipeline? Let us assume that they do find a gene or several genes that directly relate to longevity and are not in conflict with another group or company, that they can find the function of these genes, and eventually develop a product built on that discovery. Presumably, the function of this product would be to increase longevity in humans. How would they run clinical trials for this, and how long would they take? If the measure of success is how long someone lives, might not the trials take far longer than is feasible for us to provide funding? Assume that they get past pre-clinical trials; will the FDA even allow such a product to be tested? I th ink that we need to know more about how the FDA would approach such a product, as it seems like the regulatory hurdles for this will not be what most pharmaceutical companies are accustomed to. They are not trying to treat or effect a disease state, but rather to increase longevity. Granted that Ponce de Leà ³n spent much of his life searching Florida for the Fountain of Youth, and that a product like this will appeal to the general public, there is likely to be some serious regulatory and clinical trial hurdles to get it there. We also need to consider how the medical community and public will react to such a product. It seems likely that, given how many of the subjects from the NECS lived relatively healthy lives, the product will have some stipulations about health for maximum efficacy. If the public is required to not smoke, or be obese before this product will work for them then that will significantly affect adoption. In addition, how would the medical community respond to so mething with claims of increasing longevity? I think it would be highly skeptical and cynical. There will be difficulty in both convincing doctors to prescribe it, as well as getting payers to compensate for it. This will presumably be a product that patients will take for the rest of their lives, meaning there will likely be a struggle for both adoption and compliance. The only real gauge of such a product will be how long someone lives, and it will be challenging to demonstrate proof that any increase in longevity is a direct result of Centagenetix’s product. Significant market research needs to be done that considers the varying scenarios for adoption and lifestyle changes, to see if the market size is as big as one would expect it to be. In closing, I acknowledge that other products may come out of Centagenetix that are related to actual disease states or physiological processes. It is possible that they will develop an impressive and profitable drug that is related to the longevity of the patients of the NECS and be yond. Heck, they may even discover the cure for cancer. Even so, there are far too many unknowns and uncertainties in this proposal. The strength of the IP is in question. The availability of the NECS and even Dr. Perl is uncertain. What an end product looks like and what sort of market exists for it. How much more money it will take if they need to build a SNP database to remain in business, or if they have to do another NECS-like study of their own. The risks and uncertainties are sizeable, and the question about actual market size is significant. I do not think that MPM should invest in Centagenetix at this point.

Conflict in Good Country People Essays

Conflict in Good Country People Essays Conflict in Good Country People Essay Conflict in Good Country People Essay The main conflict in the story, â€Å"Good Country People†, is between Joy/Hulga and Mr. Pointer the â€Å"Bible salesman†. Joy had her leg shot off in a hunting accident when she was twelve years old. From then on she was always depressed. She changed her name to Hulga because it was the ugliest name she could come up with and she only wore the rattiest clothing so it was impossible for any person to find her attractive. She also has a wooden leg, which becomes the centerpiece of the focus of the entire story. One day a bible salesman comes along and is invited to dinner by Hulga’s mother, Mrs. Hopewell. During dinner Mr. Pointer becomes fascinated with Hulga. His is eerily attracted to her and she cant figure out why. She finally takes a liking to him and the make their way to the barn so they can be alone. Hulga thinks they are going to make love, but Mr. Pointer is only attracted to one thing, her wooden leg. Once she becomes comfortable with him he begins asking questions about it. He finally just takes the leg from her. She tries to take it back but is too weak with only one leg. She finally realizes he’s a fake when he goes to put her leg in his briefcase and sees I fake bible with a flask and condoms between the cover. She finally comes to grips with who she is after allowing herself to be close to someone who wasn’t who they said they were. Joy finally realizes that she has been hiding who she really was. Her wooden leg made her extremely self-conscious to the point that she changed her name and only wore the dirtiest, rattiest clothing. When someone showed the least bit of affection torwards her she instantly fell in love with him. She opens up to him and finally feels comfortable about who she is. Once he steals the leg she realizes that he was a fake the whole time. She sees that what he was doing with his life was no different than what she was doing with hers. They were both living lies. So not only was there a conflict between Joy and the bible salesman, but there was also conflict between Joy and Hulga as well.