The Eightfold Path is a treatment :: essays research papers

The Eightfold Path is a treatment, a treatment by training (smith 104). Buddha taught that man is a slave to his ego (smith 108). That man wishes happiness, security, success, long life, and many other things for himself and his loved ones. However, pain, frustration, sickness and death are all impossible to avoid and the only way to eliminate these evils is to overcome desire. In Buddhism, the Eightfold Path is meant as a guideline, to be considered, to be contemplated, and to be taken on when, and only when each step is fully accepted as part of the life you seek. Buddhism never asks for blind faith, it seeks to promote learning and a process of self-discovery. The First step of the Eightfold Path is Right View. This is a significant step on the path as it relates to seeing the world and everything in it as it really is, not as we believe it to be or want it to be. Knowing reality is of very little value if we don’t put it to personal use in our lives. The second step on th e Eightfold Path is Right Intent. This is the step where you become committed to the path. Right Views shows us what life really is and what life’s problems are composed of. Right Intent must come from the heart and involves recognizing the equality of all life and compassion for all that life, beginning with you. Right Speech is the next step of the Path. Our speech reflects our character. We must avoid speaking falsely, obscene, slanderous, and belittling words. Right Conduct recognizes the need to take the ethical approach in life, to consider others and the world we live in. This includes not taking what is not given to us, and having respect for the agreements we make both in our private and business lives. Right Conduct also encompasses the five precepts, which were given by the Buddha, not to kill, steal, and lie, to avoid sexual misconduct, and not to take drugs or other intoxicants (smith 107-108). The next on the Eightfold Path follows on from Right Conduct, and thi s is Right Livelihood. If your work has a lack of respect for life, then it will be a barrier to progress on the spiritual path. Buddhism promotes the principle of equality of all living beings and respect for all life. Certain types of work were discouraged by the Buddha, in particular those where you deal in harmful drugs and intoxicants, those dealing in weapons, and those harmful to animal or human life.

Harley Davidson – Organizational Behavior

Harley History Harley Davidson was seen in America as a company that produced motorcycles with â€Å"raw power. † The company was founded by Arthur and Walter Davidson and William Harley in 1903. In 1918, Harley Davidson had become the largest motorcycle producing company in the world. Their production totaled 28,000 motorcycles. Production continued to increase with the onset of World War II and the military use of Harley’s motorcycles. The mystique of the product had a tough sense to it with famous actors such as James Dean and Marlin Brando sporting the bikes.After World War II, foreign competitors became interested in the motorcycle market. Japanese competitors entered the market in 1959; Harley Davidson executives did nothing to counter the advance of the competition. Harley Davidson’s share of the industry began dropping while Japanese competitors introduced high quality products. The confidence in Harley’s reputation was causing the firm’s ma rket share to decline steadily. AMF Years Harley Davidson lacked resources to finance new products and designs to expand their production. They were taken over by AMF, a heavy-industrial conglomerate.At this time there was high demand for motorcycles in the U. S. The AMF team thought that they would be able to sell anything they produced, even without taking quality into consideration. After the take over, production was increased drastically at the cost of the quality of the product. AMF began spending large amounts of money on Harley’s manufacturing plants. Production increased from 15,475 units in 1969 to 70,000 units in 1973 due to these new expenditures on capital. To make things worse for Harley, the Japanese firm Honda introduced the â€Å"Goldwing. This was the first introduction of a foreign â€Å"heavy weight† motorcycle that would directly compete with Harley’s market share. With Harley Davidson’s share of the heavyweight market beginning to d ecrease, the quality of their products also decreased because they were becoming outdated compared to the new advanced Japanese products. Vaughn Beals was brought into the picture by Harley executives to lead the firm. Vaughn Beals Saves the Day Vaughn Beals’ ideals were different than those of AMF its top management. It became clear that AMF did not have the same amount of concern for Harley’s success as Beals, so AMF began looking for a buyer.With Harley Davidson’s profitability down, Beals and some other Harley Davidson managers orchestrated a highly leveraged buyout. This large amount of debt for the buyout forced Harley Davidson’s managers to adopt a new strategy: survival. Vaughn Beals realized that his firm needed to change to become a more competitive force within the motorcycle industry. Change Many things at Harley Davidson were going wrong. The motorcycles were being made at a low level of quality and the focus was too much driven by quantity r ather than quality. The organization was formed around the traditional top thinks and everybody acts.It was very apparent that if nothing changed, Harley Davidson’s reputation would be forever tarnished due to low quality products. Forces for Change: Competition (chapter 19) Competition for business is changing. Competitors can come from across the ocean or from across town. For Vaughn Beals, his main force for change was the Japanese competition that was continuing to decrease Harley Davidson’s share of the market. He realized that something had to be done. While visiting the Honda plant, he learned many things that the Japanese did better than Harley Davidson. The differences between Harley Davidson and Honda were striking. For example, only 5 percent of Honda’s motorcycles failed to pass final quality inspection; over 50 percent of Harley’s failed during the same test† (Buller & Schuler 2006). Job Design Instead of allowing manufacturers to keep producing the products at a high pace, with little attention to quality, Beals and his top management wanted to change the way the elements in an employees job was organized. Harley Davidson initiated this new job design through the productivity triad. The Productivity TriadAfter the visit, Beals and his team realized the only way to compete with the very effective management of the Japanese was to improve the quality of their product and the production process that was necessary to produce it. The productivity triad was based on Japanese methods of manufacturing and production. â€Å"This new approach involved (a) employee involvement, (b) use of JIT inventory practices, and (c) statistical operator control (SOC). Organizational Structure (chapter 16) To improve the quality of Harley Davidson’s motorcycles, a complete change of the organizations structure was necessary.Job tasks would be divided, grouped, and coordinated much differently under the productivity triad. To cha nge the structure, Beals and his management introduced many new aspects to the employee’s average day at work. Employee Involvement (chapter 7) Harley Davidson executives realized that using the input of employees would increase their commitment to the much-needed new success of Harley Davidson. They â€Å"reasoned that full participation of employees at all levels was the key to successful improvement of both the product quality and the production process† (Buller & Schuler 2006).Job Characteristics Model Harley Davidson uses 3 out of 5 of the characteristics in the model developed by J. Richard Hackman. This model proposes that any job can be described in terms of these core dimensions. Autonomy (chapter 7) Since the line workers were more knowledgeable about what techniques would work and not work in the production process, they were encouraged to make decisions about the production process. This provided a substantial amount of freedom in determining the procedures to be carried out for producing the product. Skill Variety (chapter 7)Instead of just relying on the line workers to construct the product, Beals and his team wanted to make sure that the motorcycles were going to be of a much higher quality than in the past. To avoid catastrophes, such as oil leaking onto a showroom floor, â€Å"top management reasoned that training and empowering employees to measure quality and recommend change was essential for improvement† (Buller & Schuler 2006). Using the Statistical Operator Control method, employees could now see how problems developed and how they could fix them during the production process.Task Identity (chapter 7) The same employees that were measuring the products for quality issues were also manufacturing the product. This would allow the employee to really become part of his/her product. It would also allow for a more efficient method of production. Creating a Learning Organization Learning Organization (chapter 19) To have a continuous ability to adapt and change would allow Harley Davidson to keep up with the competition and provide its employees with the knowledge to continue to produce quality products.In the 1990’s, Harley Davidson â€Å"began emphasizing organizational and individual learning at all levels through a program it termed the Leadership Institute† (Buller & Schuler 2006). The organization took on a strong belief that anyone could learn more. The traditional top thinks and everyone else acts was merged into thinking and acting in all jobs. Along with all this learning, the firm began to change many core aspects of its operations. New Design Options To help Harley Davidson compete more effectively, top management began to mphasize teamwork at all levels. This would allow for easy information sharing and constant learning throughout the organization. To enhance the effectiveness of teams, Harley Davidson wanted to break down any barriers that would prevent employees from sha ring information, developing new ideas, or catching current production problems. To do this, they needed to get away from the traditional roles that employees and managers play. Team Structure (chapter 16) Harley Davidson eliminated the positions of senior vice president in marketing and operations.They observed that these jobs did not add any value to the motorcycles. A create demand team, a team that was in charge of producing the products, and a product support team were introduced to help employees. Instead of having to approach one top manager for help and get sent to another department to solve the problem, Harley executives realized these teams would be more efficient. Boundaryless Organization (chapter 16) For all of these new changes to actually work, executives in a sense had to let employees become their own managers.To make the changes the most effective, Harley Davidson eliminated the chain of command, allowed the employees to have limitless spans of control, and replac ed departments with empowered teams. Types of Teams Self Managed Work Teams (chapter 10) Harley-Davidson employees were put into work teams and encouraged to participate in the decision making process because they knew better than management what worked and what did not. Because the productivity triad emphasized employee involvement so much, the logical way to form teams would be to allow the members to make most decisions. Types of TrainingMost of the training that the employees would go through when they sought new knowledge was technical based. They would be taught about any aspect of the firm they felt would benefit production or quality. Technical Training (chapter 18) At Harley-Davidson top management saw that as technology became a larger part of the production process their employees needed to have better training to be able to operate productively. Also, after benchmarking itself against Japanese competitors Harley-Davidson saw that learning about all fields within the orga nization would benefit everyone.This led to the invention of the â€Å"Leadership Institute†, which encouraged employees to seek out training when they needed it. They wanted to create a program that would allow employees to have the opportunity to do a quality job every time. This included learning more about the theories behind the latest technologies and learning about related fields. Since Harley-Davidson was now using empowered teams to make important decisions throughout the organization, each team member needed to have a good handle on technical aspects involved with their responsibilities. CultureWith all of these changes underway, Harley Davidson began to develop its own sense of internal culture that became a system of shared meaning held by the employees. The productivity triad and the Learning Institute both helped pave the way for a unique new culture at Harley Davidson. Organizational Culture (chapter 17) It is not hard to assume that with such drastic changes i n an organization’s structure, there could be changes in the culture as well. Since employees were allowed to make a lot more of their own decisions and management was not seen as so much of an authority, gaining knowledge in the organization became more of a choice. An employee must make the decision that he or she wants more training – no one will tap you on the shoulder – but once you are there, we will help you† (Buller & Schuler 2006). The executive committee wanted to heavily emphasize that they too had much to learn. This became the norm for employees and managers throughout the firm. A willingness to learn about all fields within the production of a motorcycle was seen as a very desirable trait within Harley Davidson.This would improve the quality of the product because increased knowledge about different aspects of the motorcycle, which were perhaps previously unknown organization wide, would now be put to use. Core Values (chapter 17) The primary or dominant values that were accepted throughout the Learning Institute included the work itself, the supporting systems, and how the work was done. Employees were encouraged to master all the skills necessary to do a quality job every time. To uphold the idea of constant learning, they were expected to learn more of the theories behind the latest technologies of one’s job.To emphasize the boundaryless aspect, employees were expected to branch out and learn the related fields of work around them. Each employee should also have a high degree of knowledge about how the motorcycle works and how it can be improved. If they have a good handle on how the motorcycle operates and how to fix it, this could drastically improve customer relations. Since employees became empowered to make decisions for the production process, they were also expected to take responsibility for their product.If there was a quality problem in their product, it was up to them to figure out how to solve it. Having an open mind was important too. An employee was expected to always be looking for new things to learn about improving their work. There were no strict guidelines that employees had to stick to when it came to brainstorming ideas. Creativity and experimentation were encouraged. Conflict Functional (chapter 15) Since Harley Davidson’s new culture involved a lot of participation and independent learning, there were a lot of different opinions from different employees.This would be a good amount of conflict that would avoid groupthink and promote creativity. Process (chapter 15) After production quality began to increase, the idea of over seas production had come up. There was a lot of debate about whether or not Harley should produce motorcycles abroad, or just increase domestic production for export. Some of the employees thought that the overseas manufacturing of Harley Davidson motorcycles was inconsistent with â€Å"buying a piece of the American Dream† (Buller & Schuler 2006). The international market for Harley Davidson is growing.The firm has subsidiaries across the globe in countries such as: Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom. The German subsidiary also serves Austria, France, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. Germany, Japan, Canada, and Australia represent the firm’s largest export markets. It is very apparent that Harley Davidson is known worldwide. Europe holds the world’s largest heavyweight motorcycle market and is â€Å"expected to become the next battleground for heavyweight motorcycles† (Buller & Schuler 2006). Rewarding EmployeesTo increase motivation and work performance, Harley Davidson really wanted their employees to understand empowerment. They rewarded them with power and of course pay. Participative Management (chapter 7) At Harley-Davidson top management realized that the employee needed to be utilized as a resource for ideas on how production of motorcycles should work. Harle y-Davidson also realized that there were un-needed positions at the corporate level of the company â€Å"We eliminated those jobs because they didn’t add value to our products. The people were auditors.They were checkers† (Buller & Schuler 2006). This led to the company eliminating the Senior Vice President in Marketing and Operations position among other positions. These positions did not add value to the product. Instead of having these jobs, employees were put into teams and were encouraged to use their own expertise in the decision making process. Harley-Davidson wanted their employees to become more like managers and to not feel the need to ask someone above them on how to do things. This is a key tool for increasing job satisfaction and motivation.Merit Based Pay (chapter 7) Another new program that Harley-Davidson began was a pay for performance pay system. Harley-Davidson wanted their employees to understand empowerment, so they encouraged their employees to le arn as much as they could about the company. This would improve quality, which would allow a general wage increase to take place. Task Groups (chapter 9) When Harley-Davidson created these teams it meant that employees had more power in their own decisions. Many of the teams specialized in one aspect of production, so they had very specific tasks.After the teams were created, these teams would make decisions on production instead of higher ups in the company, â€Å"Before Harley established teams, people would go up to one boss and that boss would go over to another boss and he would go to still another boss. And we wondered why the Japanese beat us on the issue of time† (Buller & Schuler 2006). Conclusion Harley Davidson’s market share began to dramatically increase in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. The structural and cultural change that Vaughn Beals and Harley executives imagined truly did save the firm. Harley Davidson motorcycles today are seen as very high quality machines.They have become a symbol of status and lifestyle in today’s society. Observing how much customization a consumer can request for his/her bike reflects the creative aspect of the firm’s internal culture. Harley continues to exemplify individuality through its production process and large amount of die hard followers. Contributions to the project: Jared and Scott wrote the paper; everyone did their part for the power point. References: Buller & Schuler. (2006). Managing organizations and people. U. S. : Thomson South Western. Judge, J. A. , & Robbins, S. P. (2008). Organizational behavior (13th edition). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Evaluation of Genetic Diversity of Golden Apple Snail, Pomacea Canaliculata

ABSTRACT Genetics is a trend these days especially that, DNA barcoding has been developed. DNA barcoding is an important tool in categorizing the taxa of different species and it tells so much about the species’ traits, including genetic diversity. The Pomacea canaliculata was introduced in different parts of Asia and had been an invasive species and a pest in different ecosystems ever since the introduction. In understanding this species of snails, samples were collected, DNA’s were extracted, undergone PCR and electrophoresis, and was sequenced and analyzed.The analysis was qualitative In the Philippines while quantitative in China. In the Philippines, the cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (COI) genes was used and compared among the species collected and when it was sequenced, it showed differences due to localized gap, mismatch and non-correspondence of bases. And in China, the diversity was analyzed by means of Nei’s gene diversity, Shannon’s information in dex, percentage of polymorphic bands (PPB) an AMOVA anlysis. Both the quantitative and qualitative showed that there was diversification within and among the populations of these snails.INTRODUCTION Genetics is the study of the genes, and the heredity and variation of individuals. Understanding the genome, which is the complete set of chromosomes or the entire genotype of an individual, is important because it helps in the taxonomy of species, especially nowadays wherein advancements in science needs more specific information, and that basing on morphological features is not enough. Life is specified by genomes which contain all the biological information which is encoded in its deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and divided into units or the genes.The genes are the blueprint for life because it is the particulate determiner of hereditary traits. Hence, DNA barcoding became a trend for scientists and researchers for the understanding of the different variations in the traits of different o rganisms. The golden apple snails (Pomacea canaliculata) originated from the South America, Central America, the West Indies and the Southern USA (Pain 1972) and was spread in the past decades to the different parts of Southeast Asia, namely Philippines, China, Thailand, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Japan.The introduction of the P. canaliculata without prior studies caused damages to the different plants and it became an invasive species which resulted to becoming pests to humans and competitors to other local snails, example of which are those from the genus Pili. The P. canaliculata was observed to have different growth and reproduction in different parts of Asia, together with their external characteristics due to the different habitats and environmental conditions (Keawjam, 1986 and 1987), therefore there is the possibility to misidentify two sympatric species as one.On the other hand allopatric populations inhabiting different habitats may show ecomorphological variations and questionable species status and it was also suggested that the golden apple snails had high adaptability hence it was easier for them to form new populations (Dong et al. 2011). The understanding of the genomes of different species is a trend for scientists these days but the information about the different mollusks is still limited. The basic information on the number of species and/or population is of help for conservation programs (Carvalho and Hauser, 1994) and for building appropriate management schemes.In contribution, the studies aims are to evaluate the genetic diversity of the golden apple snail population in Asia, namely, Philippines and China via molecularly characterizing the P. canaliculata and to find different ways of analyzing the gathered data from the sequenced DNA of the said species. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE Genetic diversity (Reed 2005) The significance of genetic diversity arose from two necessities: genetic diversity is required for populations to evo lve in response to environmental changes and heterozygosity levels are linked directly to reduce population fitness via inbreeding depression.The amount of genetic variation a population contains is predicted to correlate with current fitness and, in the case of heritabilities (which can remain high or even increase despite severe reductions in population size) with evolutionary potential. This correlation between fitness and levels of genetic variation, however, may be weak or nonexistent due to the neutrality of molecular markers used in estimating heterozygosity, nonadditive genetic variation and the purging of deleterious alleles because of increased selection against homozygotes.There is a body of literature that suggests that allozyme heterozygosity is a good measure of population fitness and adaptive potential. Others caution though that such molecular genetic data generally reflect only a small portion of genome and thus may not be indicator of adaptive genetic differences. But molecular markers may be useful for assessing the extent of genetic drift. Moreover, deleterious alleles, in mutation-selection balance, are responsible for at least half of the genetic variation in fitness.Selection has the tendency to purge the population of the deleterious recessive alleles which in theory creates inbred populations with a higher fitness than their outbreed progenitor. In other words, inbred populations with less genetic diversity would have higher fitness if the population is not kept small enough for a long enough to allow the fixation of deleterious alleles to occur. Fitness and future adaptability are reduced in smaller populations of plants and animals due to drift and inbreeding depression.Commonly used surrogates for fitness such as heritabilities, heterozygosity, and population size, significantly correlate with fitness and explain 15-20 % of the variation in fitness. Correlations suggest that many populations have reduced fitness as a result of inbre eding depression and genetic drift. There is much fuss and concern thus, over genetic variation because of the fact that endangered species typically have lower levels of heterozygosity and the loss of adaptive genetic variation and inbreeding depression puts wildlife populations at an increased risk of extinction.Finally, this increase occurs as a result of the reduction of productive fitness because of inbreeding depression or due to the failure of tracking the change in abiotic and biotic environment of the population as a result of the loss of genetic variation through drift. DNA barcoding (Moritz & Cicero 2004) At the very core, the purpose of DNA barcoding is for large scale screening of one or a few reference genes in order to assign unknown individuals to species and enhance discovery of new species.In the hope of developing a comprehensive database of sequences that will serve as a comparison tool to sequences from sampled individuals, proponents used DNA barcoding. There i s, however, nothing new with DNA barcoding as it is an offshoot of the use molecular markers for the very same purpose except, in DNA barcoding, there is an increased scale and proposed standardization. The selection of one or more reference genes characterizes standardization, with regards to microbial community and in stimulating large scale phylogenetic analyses if of proven value, though whether or not one gene fits all remain to be a question.Presently, most methods of DNA barcoding are tree-based and can fall into two broadly defined classes. One class is the distance-based, wherein it is based on the degree of DNA sequence variation within and between species. This kind of approach converts DNA sequences into genetic distances and then uses these distances to establish identification schemes. It further defines a similarity threshold below which a DNA barcode is assigned to a known or a new species. There is also the mention by several authors of a â€Å"barcoding gap† , a distance-gap between intra- and interspecific sequences, for species identification.However, the distance-based approach seems to be ill suited as a general means for species identification and the discovery of new species. One reason is that substitution rates of mitochondrion DNA vary between and within species and between different groups of species. The varied substitution rates can result in broad overlaps of intra- and interspecific distances, and hinder the accurate assignment of query sequences. Another class which is the monophyly-based requires the recovery of species as discrete clades (monophyly) on a phylogenetic tree and is used to assign unknown taxa to a known or new species.Similarly, some issues complicate the use of monophyly in a barcoding framework. For example, the long-recognized problem of incomplete lineage sorting will yield gene genealogies that may differ in topology from locus to locus. The recently divergent taxa may not be reciprocally monophyletic due to lack of time needed to coalesce. In addition, the gene trees are not necessarily congruent with species trees, and the monophyly, while a discrete criterion is arbitrary with respect to taxonomic level.Moreover, there is a recently applied new technique that has been proposed as an alternative to tree-based approaches for DNA barcoding, the so called character-based DNA barcode method, which is based on the fundamental concept that members of a given taxonomic group share attributes that are absent from comparable groups. It is the kind of method that characterizes species through a unique combination of diagnostic characters rather than genetic distances. The four standard nucleotides (A,T,C,G) if found in fixed states in one species can be used as diagnostics for identifying that species.This way, species boundaries can be defined by a diagnostic set of characters which can be increased to any level of resolution by applying multiple genes. Presently, character-based DNA b arcode method has been proved useful for species identification and discovery of several taxa. In the view that single-gene sequence should be the primary identifier of species, a contention arises that if that is the case then there’ll be a real need to connect different life history stages and increase the precision and efficiency of field studies involving diverse and difficult-to-identify taxa.Although the DNA barcoding community has put emphasis on the importance of large-scale sequence database within the existing framework and practice of systematics, it should be bore in mind that DNA barcoding is not the primary answer in resolving the tree of life. Furthermore, as much as the term â€Å"DNA barcoding† appealing, it implies, however, that each species has a fixed and invariant characteristic. But this kind of implication renders unrest to the minds of evolutionary biologists.In evaluating thus, the promise and pitfall of DNA barcoding, two areas of application should be distinguished: the molecular diagnostics of individuals relative to described taxa and DNA-led discovery of new species. And although there is little doubt that large-scale and standardized sequencing, when integrated with existing taxonomic practice, can contribute significantly to the challenges of identifying individuals and increasing the rate of discovering biological diversity as presented by this study, the general utility of DNA barcoding still requires further scrutiny.PCR (Moore 2005) In rapidly copying a selected template sequence from a DNA mixture in vitro, PCR offers a wide range of applications such as sequence detection and isolation for research, forensics and species identification through the PCR itself and in combination with other techniques. PCR's new technique uses flourescent probes to monitor the amounted product at end of every cycle and PCR machines look for the cycle at which the can readily detect flourescence.PCR is also being used to monitor RNA through the addition of reverse transcriptase enzyme at the beginning to generate DNA template. In addition, there are now new applications of PCR like single nucleotide polymorphism detection and screening. Cytochrome Oxydase subunit 1 (COI) (Buhay 2009) COI plays a significant role in documenting biodiversity and remains to be the choice for phylogenetic and phylogeographic studies. COI is a mitochondrial protein-coding gene which is a widely accepted marker for molecular identification across diverse taxa.Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) have a relatively fast mutation rate, thus they result in significant differences between species. With respect to this, the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene with ~700bp was proposed to be a potential barcode or marker for molecular identification across various taxa. Furthermore, COI is a protein coding gene that has an open reading frame and in thecase of barcoding, COI can be highly divergent from the actual COI sequences which may cause major problems because species identification is based on sequence similarity.Pomacea canaliculata (Cowie 2002) The Pomacea canaliculata belongs to the family Ampullariidae. Its structure appears to have a slight dimorphism in shape of aperture and operculum. Females have broader mouth and concave operculum while convex in male. In terms of reproduction, oviposition often takes place at night or at early morning or evening about 24 hrs after copulation up to two weeks after mating (occurs three times per week) which occurs anytime of the day or night although there may be some diurnal rhythm.On each oviposition occasion a single clutch is laid of highly variable egg number. Moreover, the interval among successive ovipositions for p. canaliculata has been reported to be about five days and hatching generally takes place about two weeks after oviposition. The P. canaliculata breeds only during summer and grows into maturity in less than two months. P. canaliculata is s aid to be prolific and hence has rapid succession of generations which leads to rapid population expansion.They relatively inhabit still water and in water temperatures above 32 degree Celsius, it has been observed that the mortality of p. canaliculata is high. Whereas in low temperature p. canaliculata can survive 15-20 days at 0 degree Celsius, 2 days at -3 degree Celsius but only 6 hrs at -6 degree Celsius. And it is sufficiently tolerant of sea water to survive long enough to be carried by currents from one stream mouth to another, thereby expanding its distribution. P. canaliculata shows preferences among food plants.Its rate of growth has a direct correlation with its feeding on the preferred plant. Moreover, it is able to detect its food plants from some distance using chemical cues in the water. P. canaliculata, however, appears to be relatively generalist and indiscriminate that it is viewed to be particularly voracious compared to other Ampullariids. METHODOLOGY Sampling S nail samples were identified and collected from 2 countries in Asia, specifically in the Philippines and in China, where the P. canaliculata was introduced. In the Philippines; Los Banos (Dong et al. 011, p. 1778), 2 barangays in Tarlac (Brgy. Cabayaoasan, Paniqui and Brgy. Pance, Ramos) and Iloilo (Chichoco & Patdu 2012, p13), 44 snail samples were collected. And in China, specifically from Yuyao and Taizhou in Zhejiang province, Fuzhou in Fujian province, Guangzhou in Guangdong province, Nanning in Guangxi province, Kunming in Yunnan province, wherein a total of 120 samples were identified with the conserved sequence by Matsukura et al. (2008) and Pan et al. (2009) and then was collected (Dong et al. 2011, p. 1778).The snails were then stored, either by wrapping in paper, freezing or preserving it in ethanol, and brought into the respective labs in each country for the next steps; DNA extraction, PCR, electrophoresis and sequencing. DNA extraction The two studies used the phenol-c hloroform method (Bergallo et al. 2006) with an alternative of the Qiagen’s Dneasy extraction kit for China. The DNA concentration was determined spectrophotometrically and adjusted by a mini-gel method (Maniatis et al. , 1982) when the extracted DNA was enough, it was stored at 4oC to -20oC until needed. PCR and ElectrophoresisThe PCR method was basically done by choosing the right primers that will yield clearly reproduced bands and they tested the proper amounts and amplification effects of the components of PCR, which were the Mg2+, dNTP’s, DNA templates and polymerase, and the primers. After the mixture of the components and the DNA extracted, it was carried out in the thermocycler programmed for pre-denaturing at 94 °C for 3 min, followed by 26 cycles of 94 °C for 10-30s, 36-52 °C for 30-45s, extension of 65-72 °C for 60-90s, and the final extension for 5-7mins at 72 °C for final extension with 38-48 cycles.After which, the amplified products together w ith negative controls were run in electrophoresis to be separated and tested for contaminations, respectively. The products were then purified later on with the respective kits present in each lab. In the Philippines, the reaction was done with 2? L MgCl2, 5? L PCR buffer, 1? L dNTP, 2. 5 ? L of the primers, which were the LCO1490 and HCO2198, distilled H2O with 22. 75 ? L, 0. 25 Taq, and 10 ? L Q-buffer. The electrophoresis was done after the ethidium bromide staining (Maniatis et al. , 1982), analyzed through 1. % agarose gels and visualized under a transilluminator. In China, they made use of the ISSR-PCR analysis where they got four primers, which produced clearly reproduced bands, out of the 90 that was screened from the University of British Columbia’s primer set and the reactions were done with a volume of 20 ? l, containing 0. 2 mM of each dNTP, 1. 5 mM MgCl2, 0. 5 ? M primers, 1 U Taq polymerase and 10 ng DNA template, and also with the determination of the optimal r eaction system of ISSR for P. canaliculata (Dong et al. 2011, p. 1779).The products’ sizes after the amplification was estimated using DNA marker DL2000 and then was run in electrophoresis, which was done on 6% polyacrylamide gels, visualized by silver staining and then photographed (Li et al. , 2009). Sequencing/ Data analysis Chichioco and Patdu (2012) sent the DNA samples to the First Base Laboratory in Singapore for sequencing and the results were sent back to the DNA barcoding Laboratory after a week. The COI sequences were aligned in the BLAST, specifically the STADEN package version 1. 5. 3 and Bioedit Sequence Alignment Editor version 7. 0. 9. 0.Aside from the sequences sampled, other sequences and their haplotypes from the GenBank were also compared and matched. In Dong’s (2011) research, he made use of the RAPD fragments by labeling them into binary matrices, used them to get the similarity index, Sxy = 2nxy / nx+ ny, where nx and ny represent the number of R APD bands in individuals x and y, and nxy represents the number of shared bands between individuals, as stated by Nei and Li (1979), then averaging it across all the possible comparisons between individuals within a geographic sample to get the within samples similarity (Si).Between sample similarity corrected by within sample similarity Si and Sj of geographic samples i and j, respectively) is also calculated between pairs of individuals across samples i and j using the equation; S’ij = 1 + Sij – (Si and Sj)/2. Genetic distance between paired samples was then calculated as D’ij = 1- S’ij (Lynch, 1990). RESULTS AND DISCUSSION In the Philippines (Chichioco & Patdu 2012, p. 18-31) The collected samples from Brgy. Cabayaoasan were found in the elevated parts of a rice paddy, specifically, it was a muddy substrate with decaying leaves from the rice plants and surrounding trees while those that was found in Brgy.Pance was in the muddy bottom of the shallow fis h pond in the roots of water lilies and grasses. The samples from the two barangays in Tarlac and Iloilo had relatively different colors and sizes. Those that were collected from Brgy. Cabayaoasan had the largest size and they are colored black while those in Brgy. Pance had brown in color and still, those in Iloilo had very small sized specimens and some of the specimens can be mistaken as Pila conica snails if not examined properly. Primers affect the amplification success greatly, since according to Hajibabaei (2005) a 95% success is necessary for barcoding.The primers LCO1490 (SENSE) and HCO2198 are generally used for the amplification of forward and reverse fragments from COI genes. The DNA samples were subjected to the PCR and agarose gel electrophoresis (AGE), and they produced single discrete bands that suggest that the fragments were homogenous and start and end at the same point (Reece 2004). The bands that were brighter and distinct are more appropriate for sequencing bec ause it means that the DNA fragments were well amplified. The best DNA’s were chosen and forwarded to the First Base Laboratory in Singapore for sequencing.At the return of the results, other sequenced DNA barcodes were also collected and was aligned and compared with the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) database. Fig 1. Alignment of the COI gene sequences of the Pomacea canaliculata (CPT1-5 from Brgy. Cabayaoasan, PRT 7,9,10 from Brgy. Pance, IICK & IIPC1,3 from Iloilo) from the Philippines using Bioedit Sequence Alignment and ClustalW multiple Alignment (Chichioco & Patdu 2012, p. 26) By aligning the sequenced data, it can be seen that there are both similarities and differences among the genetic make-up of the samples.The differences are due to localized gap, mismatch and non-correspondence of bases along the COI fragments as pointed out in fig. 2 Fig 2. Comparisons of the COI sequences of the P. canaliculata samples from 35bp- 120bp (Chichioco & Patdu 2012, p. 28 ) As emphasized in fig. 2, on the 55bp-58bp, a sequence from CPT1 was observed having (5’-AATT-3’) while all the others have (5’-GGTA-3’). Even though this is a noticeable difference and could have been caused by mutation or variation, the difference is still low enough and less that 1% difference to be considered significant.But on the other hand, the PCa1 sample had 36 different base pairs compared with the others, which was 5. 5% difference and is high enough and can be considered significant since it is ;4% divergent(Meyer and Paulay 2005). Then with a ~98% confidence, it could be said that PCa1 is from an independent evolutionary lineage and might indicate a divergence within or outside its population or might have occurred due to relationships and interactions among the other species.The introduction of the P. canaliculata to different places may have an effect on its intra- and interpopulation and might be why it has various genetic sequences altho ugh it goes against the theory that introduced species becomes a founding population in a new habitat thus they have a limited gene pool and as a consequence genetic drift, which removes variability since it affects all genes, and bottleneck might occur, which reduces the new species to have a reduced genetic diversity.To observe the genetic variability, the sequences collected were compared with those from GenBank with the use of the BLAST software. As a result from 81 COI barcodes and 55 haplotypes, the samples collected showed 99% and 100% similarities with the different haplotypes thus it showed that the species has a high diversity within the populations. The phylogeography within and among the species does not apply on the P. analiculata since intra- and interpopulation diversity was observed which was shown by the multiple introduction throughout the Philippines, hence the different times of the introduction contributed more to its diversity and it coincides with the migrant pool model that says that the introduced population acquires more genetic variability because of the multiple sources of genetically divergent populations as compared to that of the local species (Slatkin 1997, Sakal et al 2001). In China (Dong et al 2010) The chosen primers an average of 124. bands, since they generated a total of 498 bands, which ranged from 150-2500bp and qualifies them for barcoding, as seen in table 1. Among the 140 individuals, 435 bands were polymorphic which was different for each primer. In table 2, Nei’s gene diversity (H) varied between 0. 2612 and 0. 3340, with an average of 0. 3044, and arranged in a descending order the populations, LB ; KM ; NN ; FZ ; TZ ; GZ ; YY while the Shannon’s information index (I) ranged from 0. 3910 to 0. 4856, with an average of 0. 4499.At the species level, the values of Nei’s and Shannon’s showed the same trend as that of PPB. AMOVA analysis showed that there are highly significant (P ; 0. 001) genetic differences among the seven populations of P. canaliculata. The genetic diversity was mostly due to the differences within the population (92. 76%) while the rest was due to among populations. The analysis tells the same as that of the Nei’s and Shannon’s information, which says that there was a relatively high level of genetic differentiation among populations. CONCLUSIONGenetics of different species are studied by means of DNA barcoding, mostly of the COI gene in the mitochondria, to know the taxon of a species and to understand their trends and characteristics not only morphologically but also genetically. The diversity of a species can also be tested by means of DNA barcoding as seen in the study of the Pomacea canaliculata. The P. canaliculata was introduced in Asia for agricultural purposes and was seen for its benefits but not its drawbacks, which later on resulted to it being invasive and a pest for both humans and other species.To understand the P. can aliculata further, its diversity was studied by means of DNA barcoding and was analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively in the Philippines and China, respectively. Both the analysis showed the same outcome, wherein the results showed high levels of genetic diversity among populations. Because invasive species tends to give a negative feedback to those species in the local area, it is important to understand these alien species and to know how diverse they are so that proper management of these species could be done. REFERENCES Barker, G.M. 2002. Molluscs as Crop Pests. UK: CABI Publishing. (pp. 147-182) Buhay, Jennifer E. 2009. ‘‘COI-like’’ Sequences are Becoming Problematic in Molecular Systematic and DNA Barcoding Studies. Journal of Crustacean Biology 29(1): 96–110 Burns, George W. , Bottino, Paul J. 1989. The science of genetics 6th ed. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. Chichioco, Monique Faye & Patdu, Edel Marie. 2012. DNA barcoding of Pomacea canaliculata and Pila conica using cytochrome c oxidase 1 (CO1) and small subunit (ssu) ribosomal (r) RNA barcodes (Undergraduate thesis).Main Library, University of the Philippines Baguio, Baguio City. Cowie, R. H. 2002. Apple snails (Ampullariidae) as agricultural pests: their biology, impacts and management. In: Molluscs as Crop Pests (ed. G. M. Barker), p. 145-192. CABI Publishing, Wallingford. Dodson, Edward O. 1956. Genetics: The Modern Science of Heredity. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Company. Dong, S. , Shentu, X. , Pan, Y. , Yu, X. , Wang, H. 2011. Evaluation of genetic diversity in the golden apple snail, Pomacea canaliculata (Lamarck), from different geographical populations in China by inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR).African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 10(10), 1777-1783. Mendoza, Monica P & Serra, Karen Mae S. 2011. Mitochondrial DNA barcoding of Pomacea canaliculata and Pila conica (Undergraduate thesis). Main Library, University of the Philippines Bagu io, Baguio City. Moore, Pete. 2005. PCR: Replicating Success. Nature 435, 235-238. Moritz, C. , and Cicero,C.. 2004. DNA barcoding: promise and pitfalls. PLoS Biology 2(10), e354, 1529-1531. Reed, D. H. , Frankham, R. 2005. Correlation between Fitness and Genetic Diversity.Conservation Biology. Conservation Biology 17(1), 230-237. Wang, Xu-Mei. 2010. Optimization of DNA isolation, ISSR-PCR system and primers screening of genuine species of rhubarb, an important herbal medicine in China. Journal of Medicinal Plants Research 4(10), 904-908. Zou, S. , Li, Q. , Kong, L. , Yu, H. , Zheng, X. 2011. Comparing the Usefulness of Distance, Monophyly and Character-Based DNA Barcoding Methods in Species Identification: A Case Study of Neogastropoda. PLoS ONE 4(10), e26619.

Bahrain Bay Essay

1. What are Bahrain Bay’s four foundational philosophies, and how might they be used as marketing tools? The first is aesthetics, a dedication to state-of-the-art architectural designs that create a modern image of this real estate project. From a marketing perspective, the artistic designs are the key edge of Bahrain Bay’s buildings. The second is community. Rather than marketing each building individually, Bahrain Bay seeks to maintain unified community for its residents and business people. It extends beyond the traditional concept of marketing a service into place marketing, where an integrated community is born. This is supported by the digital technologies and infrastructures. The third is social equity. The Bay offers a wide range of opportunities for all. It believes to serve its stakeholders. Bahrain Bay promises a quality of life for residents, businesses and visitors alike. The fourth and last philosophy is tomorrow’s environment. By employing top-notch technologies and ecologically sound infrastructures, Bahrain Bay is environmentally friendly, sustaining a city for generations to come. 2.What would you see as Bahrain Bay’s mission?  Bahrain Bay is a stunningly presented collection of waterfront residential, retail, and commercial developments, representing a unique new focal point in Bahrain. 3.What is the MIPIM, and why was it important far Bahrain Bay to target as potential customers, investors, developers, and retailers? MIPIM is the world’s foremost real estate trade show, held on a yearly basis. It brings together the most influential real estate professionals to explore major international property development projects, connect with potential partners, and strike deals over 4 intensive days. Bahrain Bay had to promote their project, in a setting that gathers would-be investors, real estate professionals, who are their ultimate potential customers. 4.Why might the Kingdom of Bahrain be an attractive location for overseas investors? Because its stable rather booming economic status as a major financial and commercial center, as well as many rising projects like Bahrain Investment Wharf, Bahrain Financial Harbor, Bahrain City Center and many others.

Crime News for the Week Essay

The local paper that I decided to peruse was The New York Sun (online version). There were a total of seven articles, in relation to crime, which were dated from June 2 to June 9 of this year. The following describes each of these articles: The first article was dated June 2, 2008 and was entitled ‘Operation set to combat youth violence’. It talks about the event wherein state officials of New York City, including Governor Paterson and some police officials, discussed the rising gun violence in the state for the past weeks, concerning teenagers who were as young as thirteen years of age. They plan to implement SNUG that should start by putting additional funds for exercises and programs. The second article was dated June 3, 2008, written by Josh Gerstein, and entitled ‘Lawyer Weiss gets 30-month sentence for kickbacks’. It talks about the 30-month sentencing of New York’s plaintiffs’ bar Melvyn Weiss for his involvement in paying â€Å"secret kickbacks to investors who helped his firm file class-action securities lawsuits† (Gerstein, 2008). Judge John Walter called it a ‘breathtaking’ conspiracy. The third article was dated June 4, 2008, and was entitled ‘Group files suit to stop Paterson’s gay marriage directive’. It talks about the Alliance Defense Fund filing a lawsuit against the New York state government for not recognizing same-sex marriages that have been allowed by other states like Massachusetts. However, Governor Paterson mentioned that, for those who are interested in gay marriages, they would only have to go to places like Canada and Massachusetts to avail a legal marriage contract. The fourth article was dated June 5, 2008, written by Kate Taylor, and entitled ‘Embattled assassination exhibit may be hoax’. It talks of the art exhibition of Yazmany Arboleda at 264 West 40th Street in New York, where the following phrases were imprinted in the sign: ‘The Assassination of Hillary Clinton’ and ‘The Assassination of Barack Obama’. Arboleda was released without charges when he mentioned that they were merely part of art. The fifth article was dated June 6, 2008, written by Hope Hodge, and entitled ‘Report: school custodial workers stole $60,000’. This article relates to the stealing done by former custodial workers of the Department of Education from Grover Cleveland High School situated in Queens. This was in the form of forged checks and unauthorized wage increases through an increase of pay rate without legal authorization. The sixth article was also dated June 6, 2008, also written by Hope Hodge, and entitled ‘Report: majority of sellers in city are overcharging for milk’. The article tells us that â€Å"[m]ore than 85% of milk sellers in the city are charging illegally high prices† (Hodge, 2008). The overcharge was an average of $0. 40 and, thus, needed an enforcement of the law. Lastly, the seventh article was dated on June 9, 2008, written by Anna Phillips, and entitled ‘Police department changes sought in wake of Sean Bell shooting’. It talks of the need to implement changes in the police department after the Sean Bell shooting event in 2006. Officials say that laws in the criminal justice system should be enforced all the more, and that there should be implementation of tests (i. e. , drug) on those who shoot their guns. To sum it all up, the seven articles that were retrieved this past week from The New York Sun talked of the following crimes: (1) youth and gun violence; (2) illegal kickbacks to investors; (3) legal adaptation of same-sex marriages; (4) character assassinations; (5) stealing; (6) illegal product price overcharging; and (7) wild shooting episodes. Conversely, these crimes can be grouped into the following major sets: (1) crimes against public safety; (2) crimes against effective business environments; (3) crimes against the practice of liberty and human rights; and (4) crimes against legal properties. It appears that the types of crime nowadays consist of those that are in connection to safety and welfare, human rights, and the economy. Despite what people say that the world is becoming more liberated and open-minded, the opposite appears to be the true trend. References Gerstein, J. (2008, June 3). Lawyer Weiss gets 30-month sentence for kickbacks. Retrieved June 9, 2008, from The New York Sun database: http://www. nysun. com/business/judge-sentences-mel-weiss-to-30-months/79104/. Group files suit to stop Paterson’s gay marriage directive. (2008, June 4). Retrieved June 9, 2008, from The New York Sun database: http://www. nysun. com/new-york/group-files-suit-to-stop-patersons-gay-marriage/79210/. Hodge, H. (2008, June 6). Report: majority of sellers in city are overcharging for milk. Retrieved June 9, 2008, from The New York Sun database: http://www. nysun. com/new-york/report-majority-of-sellers-in-city-are/79468/. Hodge, H. (2008, June 6). Report: school custodial workers stole $60,000. Retrieved June 9, 2008, from The New York Sun database: http://www. nysun. com/new-york/report-school-custodial-workers-stole-60000/79458/. Operation set to combat youth violence. (2008, June 2). Retrieved June 9, 2008, from The New York Sun database: http://www. nysun. com/new-york/operation-set-to-combat-youth-violence/79062/. Phillips, A. (2008, June 9). Police department changes sought in wake of Sean Bell shooting. Retrieved June 9, 2008, from The New York Sun database: http://www. nysun. com/new-york/police-department-changes-sought-in-wake-of-sean/79525/. Taylor, K. (2008, June 5). Embattled assassination exhibit may be hoax. Retrieved June 9, 2008, from The New York Sun database: http://www. nysun. com/new-york/embattled-exhibition-may-be-hoax/79370/.

Should Wal-Mart opens in Hong Kong Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Should Wal-Mart opens in Hong Kong - Essay Example ing is conferred on the basis of points given on the â€Å"ease of doing business index† which means the regulatory environment is conducive to the operation of business. This index averages the countrys rankings in 10 significant areas of economic environment, which are again made up of a variety of indicators, and by giving equal weight to each subject Ever since the political power was handed over to Mainland China in 1997 by the British government, Hong Kong has functioned as an autonomous region with minimum control from the mainland. It has an independent government and although it had looked for guidance from China, it is fiercely independent in its Open Market policies. It is headed by a Chief Executive who is selected by the Chief Executive Election Committee comprising of 800 members. They are drawn equally by different sections of the society composed of the industrial, commercial and financial sectors; the various professions, labour, social services, religious and other similar sections; and finally by the members of the Legislative Council, the Peoples Congress and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Conference. Laws are enacted by the Chief executive in consultation with the Legislative Council and that is a democratic set up duly elected by universal suffrage. The beaurocracy or the civil service maintains its neutrality as was the case during colonial times and is largely respected by the population and is effective in execution of its duties. There is no interference from China in the pursuit of Hong Kong’s liberal policies and pro-democratic governance. Hong Kong has been a world financial and Trade centre for several decades. It unique position was further strengthened by China retaining it as it main source of exports despite the changeover in its political nature. It remains a capitalistic economy with a free market system with low taxation and non-intervention by government in its commercial ventures. It has ranked 1st as the

History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 3

History - Essay Example They loathed anything that was even remotely communist in nature. This feeling was partly fuelled by the innate anti-communist spirit as well as the effect of the vendetta by the politicians. This was a part of the wider policy of containment followed by the United States of America (Addington, 2000). The war ended with the takeover of Saigon by the North Vietnamese in the year 1975 and the cessation of war which was a byproduct of the Case-Church agreement. Military intervention by the Americans was a strategy that was followed with great effect in the Korean War. However, the defeat in the Vietnam put a serious mark on the policy of containment that concentrated on the military intervention as a deterrent (Daum & Gardner, 2003). The war showed a lot of inadequacy on the part of the Special Forces in the country. Even the American marines also failed severely in the war. It put into doubt and criticism on the American military’s policy of attrition. This policy came under hea vy fire as that led to a lot of casualties on the war front. This particular war showcased the vulnerability of the American forces towards guerilla warfare. The Vietnam War caused a widespread imbalance on the industrial front. The factories that would be used for the production of domestic goods were used for the production of military goods. The funds were mainly overseas, that caused the incidence of a weak dollar (Isserman & Bowman, 2003).