The Merger of Granda and Compass Research Proposal

The Merger of Granda and Compass - Research Proposal Example The success/failure of the merger will be analysed according to the Economies of scale: "This refers to the fact that the combined company can often reduce duplicate departments or operations, lowering the costs of the company relative to theoretically the same revenue stream, thus increasing profit."2 Many authors have dealt with the issue of clarity and understandability of the topic of mergers. Most of the research studies are aimed at studying the factors, which motivate the management of the companies to undertake the decision of merger and the benefits or the losses The study of mergers and acquisitions focuses on understanding what motivates managers to engage in this type of activity and the impact that mergers and acquisitions have on shareholder returns. Mostly the main aim of the companies for mergers could be empire building through growth in size, sales, and assets. 3 Mostly the motivation for the merger involve the increase in the market gains, the competitive advantage in shape of technological advancement, and the increase in the strength of the companies. In some cases the HR practices also improves as the result of these mergers. Efficiency improvements can be gained from synergy of target and bidding firms due to economies of scale and use of excess capacity. Recent studies stated that value creation couldn't be achieved in case of horizontal merger. 4 5 6 The entity formed by the merger of Granada and Compass, "Granada Compass", was 66.25% owned by Granada shareholders and 33.75% by those of Compass. The merger proposal said that prior to the IPO, Granada Media was expected to be capitalised with no net debt. At the end of March 2000, Granada's net debt was 1.9bn and Compass's was 1.1bn. In a joint statement Granada and Compass said that they expect their combined businesses to be "better placed to exploit the significant growth opportunities in each of its core markets and to benefit from the combination of its complementary businesses." 7 On the other hand the horizontal merger of Bell south and AT&T is expected to provide both the companies with the following advantages. Cross selling: Through the merger the companies become enable to sell their products to the customers of the other company. The natural combination of two will improve the services provided to the customers. Financial Benefits: The merger of both the companies will lead to a "financial benefits for stockholders of both companies; an expected net present value of $18 billion in synergies resulting from a more than $2 billion annual run rate in synergies expected in 2008, growing to $3 billion in 2010." 8 On the other hand the expected merger will lead to "accrete AT&T adjusted earnings per share in 2008, double-digit adjusted EPS growth in each of next three years (earnings adjusted for merger integration costs and amortisation of intangibles) and significant growth in free cash flow after dividends in 2007 and 2008". 9 Geographical or other diversification: Another advantage

Art and Society Essay Example for Free

Art and Society Essay All art whether it be visual, music, literature, film, etc. is affected by the specific cultural climate in which it is produced (time, place, social conventions, etc.) and is often created in reaction to movements or styles that came before it. How important is it to know these sorts of historical details to appreciate a work of art?  To know the historical details of a work of art is essential because without it you would never be able to aprreciate the work the same way. To be able to understand it better one has to know at what point in time was it made so when you see a painting of a steamboat knowing that the painting was made just after it was invented would give you a much different understanding than if it was made yestaerday. To whole different emotional responsed would be made. This is the same for the place (culture) social conventions, etc. What is Good Art?  8. As you wander through the contemporary galleries on the first or second floor, select a work of art that leaves you puzzled at best. Write down the title and the artist. Research the piece at the library or on the internet, or speak to an art expert to understand the artist and the intended message.  (a) Does this new information change your appreciation for the piece? Explain by referring specifically to the artists intention and the specific work. I chose The Bremen town musicians by Gim Hong-Sok South Korea. After searching in the internet I found out that the sculpture of the Donkey, Dog, Cat and a Rooster, is actually based on a story by the Brothers Grimm with the same title, I had no idea what the sculpture meant at that time because there is no description except a fictional one which states that the furry animal costumes are a family of Mexican illegal aliens and that they are paid 8 dolars a day for posing as said sculpture. I think that Gim just wanted to add some humor to art and to the viewer, as many works of art are deeply sentimental and emotional, which I found very satisfiying. In your contemporary gallery wanderings, choose two pieces of work you consider to be good and two you consider bad art.  (b) Identify the pieces and state the criteria you consider to be important in making good contemporary art[PH1].  Ã‚  Good Art  Why?  Impenetrable-Mona  I think its very good art because its a very innovative piece of work, it is just long lines of steel tubes in the form of a cube but the spaces are so tightly together and with small spikes which make the piece impenetrable just like its named. It also looks modern and neat as it appears to be floating in the air and can be appreciated in 360. Bad Art  Why?  Jean Paul Riopelle-Untitled  I think this is bad art because, there is no pattern at all its just random splashing of colours, and the piece of work doesnt even have a title, which makes me think as a receiver that Riopelle was just too lazy to come up with a decent name because there was no feeling input into it.  (c) If the artworks you were looking at werent part of a national collection and within a purpose-built gallery designed by an internationally recognized architect would you still view them the same way? Who do you think makes the decisions of what appears in National Gallery exhibits? Does their expertise and background matter in your experience of the works? If the pieces I saw were not a part of the national collection, I wouldnt view the same way because they wouldnt have the same artisitic value. If a piece of art is recognized by the world and known artists and collections, it gives the works of art much more significance. This doesnt mean everything that they consider art is something I will also consider art just because its in the gallery.  (d) Do you have the same reactions to the works online as you did viewing them in person? Whats missing? Is this important in viewing art? Can we have the same understanding of something filtered through a virtual experience as exposed to actually experience it in person? Interestingly, one exhibit in the galleries is two computers linking to the website atworkandplay.ca  No I dont have the same reaction because the quality and the size you can appreciate the works of art is totally different in real life, art is not just viewing but also EXPERIENCING and if you just view it online you are missing the experience of actually being there.

Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX)

Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) Anjan Thapaliya Abstract AJAX stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. It is a web technology that evolved in early 2000 and uses a mix of technology like JavaScript and XML. This paper discusses about how AJAX technology works in modern web application and various advantages and disadvantages. This paper also discusses about various frameworks available for AJAX that can be used on different platforms. History In the past, when there was no such thing as AJAX, the websites needed to reload each and every time for retrieving even small bits of information from the server or processing a tiniest client request, which made the webpages very inefficient. Every time there is a page refresh, it put consumed some bandwidth and put some load on the request processing server. In order to overcome this cycle of request-response, and fetch required data from the server without having to make a round trip, Microsoft came up with iframe technology is as early as 1999 but it was clunky and not efficient. The core of today’s AJAX technology, known as XMLHTTP object was first implemented by Microsoft Outlook in 1999. The term â€Å"AJAX itself was first used my Jesse James in one of his articles in 2005 to talk about this new technology. W3C came up with its first round of documentation for the XMLHttpRequest and called it a web standard in 2006. Classic web application vs. Ajax web application AJAX has transformed how people view at webpages from a simple HTML document into a dynamic web application. The early web sites rendered the webpage as a plain HTML pages. It lacked features like dynamic updates and synchronization with services and servers. The web server in classic web applications performed all the serving up responses to requests with each round trip. Due to this overhead of constant server round trips, web sites in the early 2000 performed poorly and were not as dynamic in terms of updates and synchronization. On the contrary, AJAX based web sites perform better in terms of faster rendering and quicker updates. Not all the data processing is done on the sever side, as a connection is silently made to the server in the background which responds back by giving back the required data in some format like XML or JSON. The resulted data is then formatted using XSLT or CSS in the client side for a better rendering of the view. The diagram below shows how websites in the past differ from modern web sites that make use of AJAX technology: (Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications, J. Garrett, 2005) What is AJAX? AJAX is a modern web technology that leverages a bunch of existing web technologies to create faster and more efficient web applications. AJAX frees web sites from the need to post the whole webpage back to the server for small piece of information and lets pages or parts of a page update by receiving small chunks of data from the server magically behind the scene – without users barely noticing the page refresh. This is what is referred to when people talk about the â€Å"Asynchronous† behavior of AJAX. In a tradition sense, a classic web site always has to have an event send some kind of request to the server which will then result a response being sent back to the client from the server. That usually means, only one request can be responded at a time and any subsequent request have to wait until the previous requests have been processed by the server. When a user clicks on a button, that will trigger some kind of event resulting in either post or get request to the s erver, which will need to be processed by the server first and then the right view is served up to the user. Now this can happen behind the scene without the browser needing to do a complete post back to the server. The advantage of asynchronous call is that data can still be requested from a server without a complete post back to the server and all happens behind the scene and the user is barely affected by what is going on behind the scene. Instead of having to wait for the response result, pages or even parts of a page load asynchronously. What make up AJAX? AJAX is not a new programming language, nor is it just one new technology. It is rather a mix of existing technologies. The following make up the AJAX: JavaScript: It is a client side scripting language interpreted by browsers. JavaScript is one of the most important components of AJAX technologies. It is responsible for capturing user events and making a call to the server asynchronously for the needed data. Today, there are many JavaScript libraries like jQuery that have simplified how AJAX calls are made and in what format are the response data received. Since the advent of JSON, the response of an AJAX call doesn’t just have to be in XML format, but it can also be in JSON format. DOM: DOM stands for Document Object Model, which means it is a JavaScript Object model of an HTML document or XML document. It is the way JavaScript sees its content and structure. It is an object that includes how the HTML/XHTML/XML is formatted, as well as the overall state of the browser. CSS: CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet and is used to present data or document in a certain style. It is the language to decorate the content, essentially separating the style from the actual content. XMLHttpRequest: XMLHttpRequest is probably one of the most powerful JavaScript Objects that has properties and methods to really change the overall architecture of today’s modern web application. It was designed by Microsoft and are now widely being adopted and by IT giants like Google, Mozilla, and Apple etc. This JavaScript provides an easy mechanism to fetch data from a URL without having to do a complete post back to the server over either http or ftp protocols. A web page can have a part of it doing something dynamically through the use of this object while the user is doing something else without really affecting user’s interaction with the page in any manner. XMLHttpRequest object has various properties and methods to open, close or cancel connection to a server and fetch data or send status of current request whether it is a success or failure etc. Below are some of the important properties and methods commonly used in AJAX based web applications. XMLHttpRequest object has following six methods abort (): This methods basically cancels an asynchronous call being made to a server. getAllResponseHeaders (): This methods returns all headers information as a string. getResponseHeader (header): It returns string containing header information or null if there is no header in the response at all or response is not sent out yet. open (method, url): This method is used to initiate a request call to a server. send (body): This method is used to send a browser request to the server, irrespective of whether it is synchronous or not. setRequestHeader (header, value): This method is used to set the HTTP request header to a certain value. There are six important properties of the XMLHttpRequest object: onreadystatechange: This property determines which callback function to call when the readyState property changes readyState: It is the current status of XMLHttpRequest object and can have any possible values from 0 to 4, where each values have a certain meaning. 0: The request has not been initialized. 1: The AJAX call has established connection to the server. 2: request received: The AJAX call request has been received by the server. 3: The AJAX call request is being processed. 4: The AJAX call request has completed and the response is ready. responseText: It returns a string which contains the body of the response responseXML: It retrieves the response body as XML DOM Object. status: Indicates what the current HTTP status code is like 200 for OK and 404 for server not found etc. statusText: It retrieves a friendly HTTP status of an AJAX request. Ajax Event life cycle The below diagram show the lifecycle of AJAX events in a web application (AJAX Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, Saikrishna, 2009): When a user visits an AJAX web site, the engine is first loaded and initialized before any AJAX related operation. The Ajax engine basically works around the two processes shown in cyan boxes in the above picture. The lifecycle of an AJAX operation is as follows: A user requests a webpage with AJAX implementation in his/h. Page is loaded in computer browser. User interacts with the site and creates an event, like a button or a link clicking. The click event initiates the AJAX call, and sends a data request to the server and also specifies how the needed data should be returned back, either as XML or JSON etc. The server resolves and processes the request and also prepares the response data in the required format. Server responds to the client browser with the requested data. A callback function gets the data, and transforms and updates the web page. This happens all behind the scene and user will never have to see his/her page post back to the server like the regular web pages do. Ajax Frameworks Like any other web application framework, people have developed various frameworks around AJAX so that an these frameworks can be used on a specific platform, with a specific language etc. and basically provides API for developers to easily make use of AJAX technologies in more efficient and abstracted manner. These frameworks have unique components to accept request or process request using AJAX and are adapted to a particular language platform like ASP.NET or PHP etc. There are many AJAX frameworks for different platforms and languages. Some of the notable AJAX frameworks are listed below: For .NET web applications: ASP.NET Ajax Framework Web.Ajax For PHP web applications: Tigermouse Zephyr Pherry For Java web applications: Salto Ajax Buffalo Ajax Apache Wicket For JavaScript based web applications: jQuery Prototype Atom.js etc. Real World Usage of AJAX: Live searches: It is an important feature in modern search engines made possible by AJAX. Users don’t have to type the whole thing and autocomplete kicks in as soon as few letters are typed in and the expected results show up instantly as we start entering the term we are looking for. When we visit the large search engine sites like Google or Bing and search for anything, then we get the autocompleting service as well as list of matching results instantaneously instead of having to wait for the server to process and send back the results. In the below figure, while searching for Chicago Airport, the auto-completion kicks in and the user can see a list of his/her choices. Real time messaging and chat with Ajax: Ajax updates social media pages like Facebook and twitter pages without refreshing the page which helps user see updates and communicate with people real time. Chat web applications like meebo use AJAX extensively to enhance the chat experience. Drag and drop: One of the important features of Ajax is that it lets users drag and drop files and plugins on a webpage and such drag/drop events are automatically persisted to the server. This can be seen in cloud storage sites like dropbox or onedrive. Instant login feedback: When user enters the wrong login credentials, then the login failure response is instantaneous, instead of having for the page to post back to the server and the failed response to come back to the user. Real world Users of AJAX There are many web sites and applications that use AJAX nowadays. The most prominent and early adopters are sites like YouTube, Google maps, Gmail, Facebook etc. Facebook seems to have great implementation of AJAX as the posts and updates are show almost instantaneously and doesn’t need any page refresh. AJAX implementation in Facebook site is what does the trick in instant updates of user status, messages etc. A Google map is one of the oldest and the most popular AJAX based web application. The Google map fetches XML data of the places a user is looking for and transforms the received data into complex map imagery. Users can drag locations around or zoom in and out and the page doesn’t have to reload to reflect the new changes. Gmail also uses AJAX for variety of useful features like spell check, auto save incomplete as drafts, fetching new emails etc. Flickr uses AJAX in its site for loading pictures in a picture carousel manner where when a user clicks for next pict ure, there is no page refresh, the click of the next button simply fetches the next pictures and presents the user with the next picture – which makes perfect sense because there is not really a need to refresh the whole site to just to retrieve one photo in a current sequence of photos. Advantages and disadvantages AJAX has become a vital aspect of modern web application. AJAX has many advantages but it does also have some disadvantages. Here are some advantages and disadvantages of AJAX: Advantages: AJAX helps lessen the round trips between the client and the server. A site’s overall response time will be a lot faster. Open source JavaScript libraries like JQuery, Prototype, etc. for development Disadvantages: AJAX is an extra abstraction layer and will complicate design and development Security is a concern since files are downloaded client side. AJAX based web pages are not indexed for search. Browsers with JavaScript turned off won’t be able to render AJAX web sites. Summary Ajax is a great technology and should be used when sites have a lot of plugins on a page and each need to refresh dynamically. AJAX makes a site more dynamic and performance is improved significantly as it cuts down on the number of post backs the page has to go through. It is also important to know that AJAX has its own advantages and disadvantages. It is important to distinguish which web applications require AJAX and which ones can do without it. Very simple web pages with very little data interactivity can probably do away with AJAX. Developers should always focus on the requirements of the site and wisely if AJAX is necessary or not to match the requirement. References Saikrishna. (2012, June 9).AJAX Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. RetrievedJuly20, 2014, from http://wegonemad.blogspot.com/2012/06/ajax.html Advantages of using Ajax in your website | BounceWeb Web Hosting Blog. (n.d.). Retrieved from  http://blog.bounceweb.com/advantages-of-using-ajax-in-your-website/ Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications | Adaptive Path. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.adaptivepath.com/ideas/ajax-new-approach-web-applications/ Ajax History Information. (n.d.). Retrieved from  http://www.xmluk.org/ajax-history-and-information.htm Ajax pros and cons. (n.d.). Retrieved from  http://www.jscripters.com/ajax-disadvantages-and-advantages/ Codeproject. (). What is AJAX? Retrieved from  http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/534632/WhatplusisplusAJAX-3f Getting Started AJAX | MDN. (n.d.). Retrieved from  https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/AJAX/Getting_Started The characteristics of Ajax Applications. (n. d). Retrieved from http://www.openajax.org/member/wiki/images/8/89/NexawebAjaxCharacteristics.pdf

Drug Testing in the Federal Workplace Essay -- Substances Employment Pa

In September 1986, President Reagan issued Executive Order 12564. This was done in an effort to make the Federal Government a drug free work place. He believed that persons who used illegal drugs were not suitable for Federal employment. The order required the heads of governmental agencies to establish both a voluntary and mandatory testing program to determine the use of illegal drugs by employees in sensitive positions. Sensitive position employees were defined to include employees granted access to classified information and individuals serving under presidential appointment. It further included Law enforcement officers and other positions that the agency head determined involve law enforcement, national security, the protection of life and property, public health or safety, or other functions requiring a high degree of trust and confidence. Executive Order 12564 allowed the testing of federal employees when there is reasonable suspicion of an employee using drugs. Testing can be done if there is an examination authorized by the agency regarding an accident or unsafe practice. It can also be used as part of a follow-up to counseling or rehabilitation for illegal drug use through an Employee Assistance Program (EAP). A follow-up two months later to the order spelled out the requirements for random drug testing of employees in sensitive positions. Agency heads were to take into consideration the nature of the agency mission; it's employee's duties, and the efficient use of agency resources. Also taken into consideration was the danger that could result from the failure of an employee to fulfill his responsibilities sufficiently. Right of Privacy Most Americans probably feel they have a right to privacy concerni... ... Bibliography Cozetto, Don A., Theodore B. Pedeliski and Terrence J. Tipple. Public Personnel Administration. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1996. Federal Employees Almanac, 45th Edition: Federal Employees News Digest, 1998. Inaba, Darryle S. and William E. Cohen. Uppers, Downers, All Arounders. Ashland, Oregon: Cinemed, 1989. International Labor Office. Conditions of Work Digest, Volume 12, Number 2,Workers Privacy Part III: Testing in the WorkPlace. Geneva: International Labor Office, 1993. Potter, Beverly and Sebastian Orfali. Drug Testing at Work: A Guide for Employees. Berkeley: Ronin Publishing, 1990. Savage, David, "Federal Workers Lose Bid to Halt Drug Testing," Los Angeles Times, 3, March 1998, Sec. 1A, p.10. Thompson, Robert Jr., Substance Abuse and Employee Rehabilitation. New York: Bureau of National Affairs, Library of Congress, 1990.

Romeo and Juliet Act3 Scene 1

What happens in Act 3 Scene 1? It is a crucial scene, a turning point and it determines the rest of the action. It is a tense and exciting scene for the audience and tragic at the same time. In this scene, soon after Romeo and Juliet secret marriage, Tybalt kills Mercutio and then Romeo kills Mercutio to take revenge. Then, Romeo is banished from Verona. Paragraph1: Why were tension and excitement created? Mercutio is not in a good mood but he is in argumentative mood, he seems angry.The audience is prepared for the fact that a fight is going to occur (tension and suspense are built). He tells Mercutio that if someone is in a bad mood, everything even an unimportant cause will end to a fight. Benvolio is warning Mercutio that because it is a hot day he is sure there will be a fight (and if we meet we shall not scape a brawl-Benvolio). He suggests Mercutio that they should go home. The strong use of vocabulary and personification here increases the tension. for now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring, Benvolio). We know that a fight is inevitable. The use of symbolism with awhiskers in beards, cracking nuts etc make the audience even more worried for what will happen after (thou, why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair less in his beard than thou hast, Mercutio). When Tybalt arrives, the atmosphere immediately changes, becoming much tenser, because of his dangerous reputation, yet he remains polite to Mercutio as Mercutio is not his real target.Mercutio uses provocative language towards Tybalt and Tybalt reacts in a similar way (make it a word and a blow, Mercutio) (you shall find me apt enough to that sir, an you give me a reason, Tybalt) Tybalt tells Mercutio with irony that he hangs out with Romeo, so Mercutio gets angry and threatens. It is evident that he will not withdraw calling him aa villaina (Romeoa ¦ thou art a villain, Tybalt). This is a great insult to Romeo who is of noble birth. He tries to start a fight with Romeo and he accus es Romeo to antagonize him in the hope of starting a fight. The audience adopts negative feelings towards Tybalt.

Account for hitler essays

Account for hitler essays From 1929 to 1933 one of the most well-known events in the history of the world occurred, Hitler's rise to power. It tokk him a mere 4 years to go from being the leader of the NAZI party with no real power to being the dictator of a totalitarian state. At first he tried to overthrow the government, but he eventually was to become the dictator of Germany in 1933. Before looking at the steps taken by Hitler in his rise to power, it must be established that Hilter didn't always have the support of the German people. During the 'golden years' of 1925-1929, the majority of votes were held by chancellor Stresemann. The German people liked stresemann as he was turning the country around, making it better for the people. For example, he introduced a new currency, the rentenmark, to try to stablise the hyperinflation that was occurring at the time. As a result, in the the elections of 1928, stresemann and the SPD held 153 seats to the NAZI's12. However, with the death of stresemann and the beginning of the depression, attitudes towards the new chancellor, Bruning, changed dramatically. When the US stock market crashed, the German economy took a hard blow, and the majority of the country was plunged into poverty. Bruning thought that government needed more money, so he invoked article 48 which gave him emergency powers in 1930. This allowed him to raise the taxes, which in turn caused mass starvation. From this point on he was known as the 'Hunger Chancellor'. After this the german people lost all faith in the ruling government and were looking elsewhere for support. The 2 parties they looked to for support were the extreme left wing and the extreme right wing, these being the NAZI's and the communists. This end of parliamentary democracy was the foot hold Hitler needed to start climbing to the top. In the elections of 1930, the NAZI's increased their vote to 107 seats in parliament. Although they gained many votes, the SPD still held m ...