Discussing incentives to conserve marine biodiversity conservation Assignment - 1

Discussing incentives to conserve marine biodiversity conservation within the framework of impure public goods - Assignment Example e into limestone, the ability of the oceans to provide sustenance in the form of sea life to tens of millions around the globe, and the ability of these oceans to dissipate the heat that the sun emits forms an integral part of why the oceans and the marina diversity that is exhibited within them is of such extreme importance. Through such a level of understanding, the following discussion will be concentric upon defining what an impure public good is, the externalities associated with these impure public goods, the technology of public good supply, and the types of economic incentives that are created for impure public goods. Firstly, an impure public good is that which is represented to all members of society but one that dilutes the utility that an individual might otherwise gain from enjoying a completely and entirely â€Å"pure† public good. For instance, in the case of the world’s oceans and marine bio-diversity, an example of the impure public good would be the level of toxic waste that is dumped into these oceans each and every year. As this pollutes the environment and creates a hardship on the marine biodiversity that would otherwise be evidenced, the destruction to the environment decreases the utility that a person could stand to gain from this otherwise â€Å"pure† public good. The externalities to this are clear, food that is harvested from the world’s oceans then in turn is sickly and likely to diminish in overall quality; or at the worst – have high levels of toxins evidenced throughout their bodies. As a means of understanding the further nuances and dynamics of public goods, the weakest link rule denotes that the socially available amount equates to the minimum of the overall quantities that can individually be provided. By means of contrast and comparison, the â€Å"best shot† rule states that the socially available amount denotes the maximum individual quantity. Naturally, incentives, both positive and negative, can impact upon the

Exploring Information Leakage in Third-Party Compute Clouds Essay

Exploring Information Leakage in Third-Party Compute Clouds - Essay Example In the article, using EC2 service, a ‘map’ was created to understand the potential targets that may be located inside the cloud and also for instance creation parameters, which is needed to establish the co-residence of an adversarial instance. Creation of this type of Map can provide opportunities for the adversaries to place malicious VM on the same physical machine as a target. The authors provide extensive details on how to map the Cloud. According to them, the availability zones in the Cloud are likely to correspond to different internal IP address ranges, which also may be true for instance types as well. Thus, when the adversary maps the use of the EC2 internal address space, it can help them to find out which â€Å"IP addresses corresponds to which creation parameters.† (Ristenpart et al.). In addition, EC2’s DNS service has the provision to map public IP address to private IP address. The map thus generated can be used by the adversary to deduce th e instance type and availability zones of a target service, which sizably reduces the number of instances that needs to be tried, before a co-resident placement is successfully achieved. The authors evaluate the above discussed two vulnerable sections by using two data sets. The first data set is the one which is created by categorizing the public EC2-based web servers using external probes like WHOIS queries, and then translating the responsive public IPs to internal IPs. The second set is created by initiating a number of EC2 instances of varying types, and then surveying the resulting IP address assigned. (Ristenpart et al.). To fully utilize this data, the authors presented a heuristic algorithm, which has the ability to label /24 prefixes with an estimate of the availability zone. Thus, by using these options, a map of internal EC2 address space is outputted, which can allow adversaries to estimate the availability zone and instance type of any target. With outputted map, the a dversary can attempt to achieve placement on the same physical machine, and so in the next section of the article, the authors discuss about the several co-residence checks. According to the authors, instances are said to be co-resident, if they have matching â€Å"Dom0 IP address, small packet round-trip times, or even numerically close internal IP addresses.† (Ristenpart et al.). After providing this crucial piece of information, the authors focus on how adversaries can achieve co-residence in the same physical machine using the outputted map, by following two strategies, the brute-force strategy and the refined strategy. Under brute-force strategy, the attacker has to simply launch many instances over a relatively long period of time. In the case of refined strategy, the attacker has to target the recently-launched instances, as the Third Party providers particularly EC2 assign fresh instances to mainly the same small set of machines. According to the authors, the later st rategy has high chances of achieving co-residence, and they provide how this strategy â€Å"achieves co-residence with a specific (m1.small) instance almost half the time.† (Ristenpart et

Study of In-vivo Analgesic Activity | Experiment

Study of In-vivo Analgesic Activity | Experiment A) ANIMALS Swiss albino mice (20-25 g) of either sex were used for study of in-vivo analgesic activity. Animals were kept under standard laboratory conditions i.e. temprature is 24  ± 2 °C and relative humidity is 60-70%. The study protocol was approved by the institutional animal ethics committee (IAEC) before experiment (Approval No. 1452/PO/a/11/CPCSEA). Albino-Swiss mice were taken from Laboratory Animal House, Devsthali Vidyapeeth College of Pharmacy, Lalpur, Rudrapur (U. S. Nagar) and used for the study. The animals were procured from IVRI, Bareilly (U.P.) The animals were kept in polypropylene cages and maintained on balanced ration with free access to clean drinking water. All experimental procedures were conducted in accordance with the guide for Care and use of laboratory animals and in accordance with the Local animal care and use committee. All of the animals were left for 2 days in the laboratory for acclimatization before the day of experiment and on the last day they were giv en water only. Minimum of 6 animals were used in each group. Wistar rats of either sex weighing (150-200 g) were used for studying in-vivo anti-inflammatory and antipyretic activity. Swiss albino mice of either sex weighing 20-25 g were used for in-vivo analgesic activity. Animals were maintained under standard laboratory conditions (24  ± 2 °C; relative humidity 60-70%). Study protocol was approved by the institutional Animal Ethics Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision on Experiments on Animals (IAEC, Approval No. 1452/PO/a/11/CPCSEA) before experiment. Wiatar Rats and Albino-Swiss mice from Laboratory Animal House Section, Department of Pharmacology, Devsthali Vidyapeeth College of Pharmacy, Lalpur, Rudrapur (U. S. Nagar) were used in the study. The animals were procured from IVRI, Bareilly (U.P.). Minimum of 6 animals were used in each group. B) ACUTE TOXICITY STUDIES The acute oral toxicity studies were performed to study the acute toxic effects and to determine minimum lethal dose of the synthesized compounds. Swiss albino mice of either sex weighing 20-25 g were used for the study. The aqueous solution of compounds were administered orally to different groups of over night fasted mice at the doses of 30, 100, 300, 1000 and 3000 mg/kg body weight. After administration of the compounds, animals were observed continuously for the first three hours for any toxic manifestation. Thereafter, observations were made at regular intervals for 24 hrs. Further the animals were under investigation up to a period of one week. The dose calculated for the synthesized compounds are as following- I) ANALGESIC ACTIVITY A) Method 1: Hot plate method Heat is used as a source of pain. Animals were individually placed on the hot plate maintain at constant temperature (55 °C) and the reaction of animals, such as paw licking or jump response was taken as the end response. Analgesic drugs/compounds increases the reaction time. The method was first described by Eddy Leimbach (A cut off period of 15 sec is observed to avoid damage to the paw). The compounds were dissolved in the Carboxy Methyl Cellulose (0.5% suspension). Control, standard and test compounds were given per orally to the animals and the reaction of time of animals at 15, 30, 60 120 min interval was noted on the hot plate after drug administration. The method of Eddy and Leimbach using techno heated plat analgesic apparatus was used. The standard drug Diclofenac Sodium (50 mg/kg) was used reference drug for comparison. The result was tabulated in Table. Results were expressed as means  ± S.E.M. Statistical significance was analyzed using the one-way analysis of vari ance followed by Tukey’s Multiple Comparison Test where p B) Method 2: Acetic Acid Induced Writhing Method Analgesic activity was determined by calculating total number of writhings, following intraperitoneal (I.P) administration of 0.6% (0.1 ml/10g) acetic acid in mice .7 Albino mice of either sex (25-30 g) were used. Synthesized compounds (QAA-04H-04S) were administered intraperitonealy (0.5 ml) as a suspension in sterile 0.9% DMSO solution as vehicle. Diclofenac (10mg/kg) was used as the standard drug under same conditions. Acetic acid solution was administered intraperitonealy 30 min after administration of the compounds. 10 min after intraperitoneal injection of acetic acid solution, the number of writhings per animal was recorded for 20 min. Control animals received an equal volume of vehicle. Results of percentage Analgesic activity of compounds were calculated using following formula and the results are shown in table. % Analgesic activity = No. of writhings for control – No. of writhings for test compound *100 No. of writhings for control II) ANTI-PYRETIC ACTIVITY STUDIES: Albino rats of Wistar strain of either sex weighing between 170-190g were used. For induction of fever in rats, 20% w/v of brewer’s yeast in distilled water was administered by subcutaneous injection. All animals were induced pyrexia by injection of 10 ml/kg of brewer’s yeast solution under the skin in between the shoulder blades. The site of the injection was massaged in order to spread the suspension beneath the skin. Basal rectal temperature was measured before the injection of yeast, by inserting digital clinical thermometer to a depth of 2 cm into the rectum. The rise in rectal temperature was recorded 19 hours after yeast injection. The different groups of febrile rats were orally administered with the respective drugs and rectal temperature was recorded 30, 60, 120, 180 and 300 minutes post treatment. Decrease in rectal temperature post treatment indicated antipyretic effect. The difference in body temperature was recorded. III) ANTI-INFLAMMATORY ACTIVITY: The anti-inflammatory activity of compounds on carrageenin-induced rat paw oedema was determined according to the method described by Winter et al. (1962). The experimental animals were divided into ten groups, each containing five animals. First group received sterile normal saline (0.85% NaCl) assigned as control and the second group received standard drug Ibuprofen (20 mg/kg b.w., p.o.). The 3rd to 10th groups were administered the test compounds (at a dose of 20 mg/kg b.w, suspended in 10 ml/kg of 2% gum acacia) orally. After 30 min of administration of test compounds, 0.1 ml of 1% (w/v) carrageenin was injected subcutaneously in the subplantar region of the left hind paw. The right paw served as a reference to non inflammed paw for comparison. The initial paw volume was measured within 30 sec of the carrageenin injection by plethysmometer. The relative increase in paw volume was measured in control, standard and test compounds at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 h after the carrageenin injection. The difference between initial and final readings was taken as the volume of oedema and the percentage inhibition by the compounds was calculated using the formula (Kouadio et al., 2000): % Inhibition = 1-Ãâ€" 100 where dt is the difference in paw volume in the test compound-treated group and dc the difference in paw volume in the control group. IV) ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY Antimicrobial chemotherapy plays an important role in the treatment of many infectious diseases. However repeated and irrational use of some antibiotics result in resistance i.e., ineffectiveness of drug against the microorganisms. In the recent past, the emergence of drug resistance to antibiotics is more. This situation stimulated us to prepare new series of antimicrobials. The principle use of antibiotics is to help the body fight bacterial and/or fungal infections. The course of an infection is often linked to a race between the pathogen’s ability to grow in the host tissue and the tissue’s ability to capture and destroy the invading pathogen. Antibiotics are given to weaken or kill some of the invading Pathogens; hopefully, the body’s tissue can then destroy the rest. The effectiveness of an antibiotic is preliminarily determined by the size of the zone of inhibition, but zone size varies according to how easily the antibiotic diffuses through the agar, the type of medium used and many other factors. If a clear zone appears in which there is No microbial growth around the disk, it is called as the zone of inhibition, even though killing may have occurred in this zone. (A) Antibacterial Activity: In our current study, antibacterial activity was carried out by the agar diffusion method. Here the responses of the organisms to the synthesized compounds were measured and compared with the responses of the standard drugs. The standard reference drugs used in the antibacterial screening were Norfloxacin and Gatifloxacin. For antibacterial activity 2 gram positive bacteria i.e. Enterococci, Staphylococcus aureus and two gram negative bacteria i.e. Escherichia coli Shigella species were taken. Petridishes, cork borer, beakers, glass syringes and test tubes were sterilized by dry heat sterilization at 160 ºC for 1hr in hot air oven.All the synthesized compounds were dissolved in DMF to make the concentrations of 40 µg/ml. Preparation of nutrient agar media: Preparation of the bacteriological media involves the following steps:- All ingredients were dissolved in distilled water by boiling. The pH of the medium was determined with a pH meter and adjusted if necessary. The medium so prepared was sterilized by autoclaving at a temperature of 121 ºC for 15mins. Preparation of agar plates: The sterilized nutrient media was cooled to 45 º-46 ºC and inoculated with respective suspension of micro-organisms. They were mixed well and 200ml each of inoculated media were transferred into separate petridishes. They were allowed to cool at room temp. Until the agar medium completely solidified. Bores were made using cork borer and 0.1ml solution of test drug and control solutions were separately added to each bores. The sterile discs of standard reference drugs were placed on the surface. The petridishes were kept for 2hrs to allow the drug to diffuse into the agar media. A sterile atmosphere was maintained during the entire process by carrying out the work under Laminar Air Flow bench. All the plates were incubated for 24hrs at 37 ºC. At the end of incubation period, diameters of the zone of inhibition were measured and recorded. (B) Antifungal Activity: The antifungal activity was carried out by agar diffusion method. The responses of the fungal microorganisms to the synthesized compounds were recorded and compared with the standard reference drugs. Two fungal strains namely Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus flavus were taken for the study. Petridishes, cork borer, beakers, glass syringes and test tubes were sterilized by dry heat sterilization at 160 ºC for 1hr in hot air oven. Each sample compound was dissolved in DMF to make the concentrations of 40 µg/ml. Clotrimazole and Amphotericin B were used as standard dugs. Media for fungi: Sabouraud Dextrose Agar : 65g procured from Himedia, Mumbai Distilled water : 1000ml Preparation of agar media: The preparation of the media involves the following steps:- Sabouraud Dextrose Agar was dissolved in 1000ml of sterile distilled water by boiling. The pH of the medium was determined with a pH meter and adjusted to if necessary. The medium so prepared was sterilized by autoclaving at a temp. of 121 ºC for 15mins. The sterilized nutrient media was cooled to 45 º-46 ºC and inoculated with respective suspension of fungal organisms. They were mixed well and 200ml each of inoculated media were transferred into separate petridishes. They were allowed to cool at room temp. Until the agar medium completely solidified. Bores were made using cork borer and 0.1ml solution of test drug and control solutions were separately added to each bores. The sterile discs of standard reference drugs were placed on the surface. The petridishes were kept for 2hrs to allow the drug to diffuse into the agar media. A sterile atmosphere was maintained during the entire process by carrying out the work under Laminar Air Flow bench. Then the plates were incubated at 25 ºC for 48hrs. The zone of inhibition was measured and recorded. V) IN-VITRO ANTI-INFLAMMATORY ACTIVITY Method followed: In vitro inhibition of albumin denaturation: Denaturation of proteins is one of the causes of inflammation. Production of auto- antigens in certain rheumatic diseases may be due to in vivo denaturation of proteins. A number of anti-inflammatory drugs are known to inhibit the denaturation of proteins. Mizushima and other have employed protein denaturation as in vitro screening model for anti-inflammatory compounds. Materials: Bovine serum albumin (sigma) Buffer tablets (7.4 pH) DMF Ibuprofen (standard) Distilled water (q.s.) METHOD: The test compounds were dissolved in minimum amount of dimethyl formamide (DMF) and diluted with phosphate buffer (0.2M, pH 7.4). The final concentration of DMF in all solutions was less than 2.5%. Test solution (1ml) containing different concentration of drug was mixed with 1ml of 1mg/ml albumin solution in phosphate buffer and incubated at 27 ºÃ‚ ±1 ºC for 15 min. Denaturation was induced by keeping the reaction mixture at 60 ºÃ‚ ±1 ºC in water bath for 10 min. after cooling, the turbidity was measured at 660nm in spectrophotometer. The percentage inhibition of denaturation was calculated from control where no drug was added. And compared against standard (Ibuprofen).

Alexander The Great Essay -- essays research papers

Alexander the Great Alexander the Great, was born in June, 356 BC, in Pella, the ancient capital of Macedonia. His parents were Philip II and Olympia. Some say that Zeus was his father but it is probably just a myth. Aristotle taught Alexander in his early teen years. He stimulated his interest in science, medicine, and philosophy. In the summer of 336 BC, Alexander's father was assassinated, and Alexander ascended to the Macedonian throne. He found himself surrounded by enemies at home and threatened by civilizations all over. But Alexander disposed of quickly of all his enemies by ordering their execution. Then he took off to Thessaly, where partisans of independence had gained ascendancy, and restored Macedonian rule. Before the end of the summer of 336 BC as general of the Greeks in a campaign against the Persians, originally planned by his father before he croaked, he carried out a successful campaign against the defecting Thracians, penetrating to the Danube River. On his return he crushed in a single week the threatening Illyrians and then again took of to Thebes, which had revolted. He took the city by storm and razed it, sparing only the temples of the gods and the house of the Greed lyric poet Pindar, and selling the surviving inhabi ¬ tants, about 8000 in number, into slavery. Alexander's promptness in crushing the revolt of The ¬ bes brought the other Greek states into instant submission.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Alexander began his war against Persia in th...

According to the omnipotent view Essay

According to the omnipotent view, managers are directly responsible for an organization’s success or failure. The symbolic view argues that much of an organization’s success or failure is due to external forces outside managers’ control. The two constraints on manager’s discretion are the organization’s culture (internal) and the environment (external). Managers aren’t totally constrained by these two factors since they can and do influence their culture and environment. s the characteristics and importance of organizational culture. The seven dimensions of culture are attention to detail, outcome orientation, people orientation, team orientation, aggressiveness, stability, and innovation and risk taking. In organizations with strong cultures, employees are more loyal and performance tends to be higher. The stronger a culture becomes, the more it affects the way managers plan, organize, lead, and control. The original source of a culture refl ects the vision of organizational founders. A culture is maintained by employee selection practices, the actions of top managers, and socialization processes. Also, culture is transmitted to employees through stories, rituals, material symbols, and language. These elements help employees â€Å"learn† what values and behaviors are important as well as who exemplifies those values. The culture affects how managers plan, organize, lead, and control. current issues in organizational culture. The characteristics of an innovative culture are challenge and involvement, freedom, trust and openness, idea time, playfulness/humor, conflict resolution, debates, and risk-taking. A customer-responsive culture has five characteristics: outgoing and friendly employees; jobs with few rigid rules, procedures, and regulations; empowerment; clear roles and expectations; and employees who are conscientious in their desire to please the customer. Workplace spirituality is important because employees are looking for a counterbalance to the stresses and pressures of a turbulent pace of life. Aging baby boomers and other workers are looking for something me aningful in their lives, an involvement and connection that they often don’t find in contemporary lifestyles, and to meet the needs that organized religion is not meeting for some of them. Spiritual organizations tend to have five characteristics: strong sense of purpose, focus on individual development, trust and openness, employee empowerment, and toleration of employee expression. The External Environment: Constraints and Challenges Despite  the fact that appliance sales are expected to climb for the first time in four years, Whirlpool Corporation, which already shut down 10 percent of its production capacity, continues to cut costs and scale down capacity even more.7 And it’s not alone in its protective, defensive actions. The decade from 2000 to 2009 was a challenging one for organizations. For instance, some well-known stand-alone businesses at the beginning of the decade were acquired by other companies during this time, including Compaq (now a part of Hewlett-Packard), Gillette (now a part of Procter & Gamble), Anheuser-Busch (now a part of Anheuser-Busch InBev), and Merrill Lynch (now a part of Bank of America); others disappeared altogether, includin g Lehman Brothers, Circuit City, and Steve & Barry’s (all now bankrupt) and WorldCom and Enron (both done in by ethics scandals). 8 Anyone who doubts the impact the external environment has on managing just needs to look at what’s happened during the last decade. The term external environment refers to factors and forces outside the organization that affect its performance. As shown in Exhibit 2-2, it includes several different components. The economic component encompasses factors such as interest rates, inflation, changes in disposable income, stock market fluctuations, and business cycle stages. The demographic component is concerned with trends in population characteristics such as age, race, gender, education level, geographic location, income, and family composition. The political/legal component looks at federal, state, and local laws, as well as global laws and laws of other countries. It also includes a country’s political conditions and stability. The sociocultural component is concerned with societal and cultural factors such as values, attitudes, trends, traditions, lifestyles, beliefs, tastes, and patterns of behavior. The technological component is concerned with scientific or industrial innovations. And the global component encompasses those issues associated with globalization and a world economy. Although all these components pose potential constraints on managers’ decisions and actions, we’re going to take a closer look at two of them—the economic and demographic aspects. Then, we’ll look at how changes taking place in those components constrain managers and organizations. We’ll wrap up this section by examining environmental uncertainty and stakeholder relationships.

Stock Market and Paramount

Case Study Questions –Paramount Communications Inc. 1993- Why a paramount is a takeover target? Several Strategic Reasons – Cost reduction: through combinations of similar business and economy of scales – Sales increase: a) cross-promotions of each company’s brand and utilization of each company’s channels, and b) cooperation in international businesses. 2. Which of the two firms (Viacom or QVC) would make a better fit with Paramount? -Viacom: Overlap in the business creates synergies regarding cost and revenue. However, cannibalisation may happen in the near future. QVC: Small rooms for synergies (cost reductions may be limited to non-business section. ). Volatility may high regarding the realisation of synergies (Most of new synergies come from new businesses. ). Therefore, Viacom is more likely to be a good fit with Paramount. 3. Compare your valuation (stand-alone basis) with market price. What makes the difference between two prices? Target Pri ce: $26. 48 to 29. 41 Market Price: $ 48. 88 to 55. 50 Market Price Multiples: Multiples imply the current stock price is overvalued. PER 33. 46 X, PBR 1. 61 X, EV/EBITDA 13. 7X There is a big difference in our Target Price and Market Price.This may come from 1) Market expectation that the company will generate more Free Cash Flow growth in the next few years 2) Speculation regarding potential takeover 4. What effect would Viacom have on the costs at Paramount if it bought the company? What effect would Viacom have on Paramount’s growth rate? What would happen to costs and sales growth if QVC bought Paramount instead? 1) Viacom impact on the cost and growth rate at Paramount -Cost reduction can be expected thorough combinations of similar business and economy of scales -Viacom will increase sales growth of Viacom by cross-selling and cooperation in international businesses. ) QVC impact on the costs and sales growth at Paramount -Though QVC expects , the cost reduction will b e limited as both companies share the same business area. In addition, sales growth of Paramount will be cut as QVC has intention of restructuring some of the Paramount businesses. 5. What is Paramount worth to Viacom? – Theme park (cross-selling) – Film Library/Film Distribution Business 6. What is Paramount worth to QVC? – New business opportunities in Entertainment – Film Library/Film Distribution Business 7. Compare your valuation with Smith Barney’s.What assumptions do you have to make to get the terminal value EBITDA multiples used by Smith Barney. Is there any benefit of their method relative to FCF method? Smith Barney is using EBITDA of 14 to 16X. Since EBITDA multiple tends to revert to a certain level over the year, we need to assume that the market will keep pricing the company at the same level of 1993. The merits of EBITDA multiples: -They don’t need to assume the perpetual growth rate which is hard to calibrate but has substan tial impact on pricing. -They can ignore the capital structure change Easier to understand (it is â€Å"market consensus†) 8. What doe 30% premium suggest? Is it reasonable? 30% of premium over the market price may be reasonable given; a) control premium b) the nature of takeover (it can be considered as â€Å"Insider Trading†, and to avoid litigation by shareholders, an acquirer may need to pay premium) c) consideration of synergies through a takeover. 9. How should Redstone proceed? What price should he offer? Should the offer be a cash offer, a stock offer, or some combination? What should he do about the lock-out option and the termination fee?Should he bother trying to buy Paramount at all? -The price to offer: $63. 00 (after aggressive synergies consideration) > premium of 14. 55% over the current stock price ($55. 00) -The type of merger: The total amount required will be From $63. 00 * 120million shares * 50. 1% = $3,787. 6 million to $63. 00 * 120million share s * 100% = $7,560 million. Cash: $3,783. 6million to $7,560 million was too much as Viacom has only $28. 7 million cash and most of cash is supposed to be kept for working capital (total current liabilities amount to $848. 3 million).Also, as the LBO is impossible either since Paramount has only around Free Cash Flow of around $300 million. Stock Offer: Therefore, stock offer can be a more reasonable option. However, Redstone’s control over Viacom itself will decrease (see the table below). Lock-up and termination fee: Redstone should cease the options first if he really wants to buy the company. Conclusion: Redstone should not buy Paramount for the following reasons; a) He will substantially lose his control over Viacom b) Current market price is overvalued compared to Paramount’s intrinsic value. c) Realisation of synergies on revenue side is still uncertain.