Saving on Home Energy Cost Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Saving on Home Energy Cost - Essay Example the different ways in which energy is utilised in my home such as through heating and electrical equipment, thermostat, laundry, dish washer, shower, laptops, phones and other rechargeable items, television, furnace, kitchen appliances, lighting, and others. This was followed by a very detailed and thorough audit to determine ways in which the home could cut on energy consumption and eventually save on costs in the range of 10-25% and even more. This was conducted by checking for air leaks such as carbon monoxide around the walls, ceilings, windows, doors, light and plumbing fixtures, switches and electrical outlets. In addition, moisture levels were assessed, combustion and electrical equipment checked and insulations examined. These were followed by inspecting the furnace and ductwork, performing a blower door test to help determine the home’s air tightness, using an infrared camera to help gauge from where the house was losing energy, carrying out thermographic inspections to detect thermal defects and examining air leakage in the building with a PFT air infiltration measurement technique to facilitate the summing-up of a rampant audit process and provide more information about air leakage and energy loss. A personal walk around residence was also done to analyse the energy consumption and come up with solutions for saving on costs. As a result of the extensive audit, a plethora of solutions that would ensure the home saved on energy costs were observed and recommended. Such tips included replacement of some faulty HVAC equipment and combustion appliances and regular checkup of such to ensure their proper operation. If an appliance was not functioning as it should, upon inspection, immediate repair and maintenance according to the manufacturer’s manual is recommended. Conversely, that appliance may be discarded and new well-functioning one purchased in its stead. There was also the need to do away with unnecessary wirings around the house and switching

Are online courses taught responsibility Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Are online courses taught responsibility - Essay Example One of the areas where it has exerted great changes is in education whereby, learning activity has changed from more interactive face-to-face learning to a less interactive online learning environment also referred to as e-learning (Sandel, 2007). This form of training is gaining popularity across the globe due to increasing use of internet and need to streamline the flow of information in all sectors of the economy. This has resulted to student’s reliance on computer from their own places of convenience as opposed to classroom culture where students interact with their teachers and their colleagues (Tait, 2003). However, this approach of teaching has raised concern of morality regarding the competence and fairness of online tutorials in fulfilling the essence of learning to the students. This system may still disadvantage some learners who may lack access to online tutorials due to high cost of connection and other materials (Howar, Schenk, & Discenza, 2004). This study will focus on different moral rules to assess the efficiency of online teaching to the distance learners. Education should contribute to equality of all students from various backgrounds by making it available and affordable to all. â€Å"Utilitarianism theory of ethics,† requires individuals to k\make their own decisions based on what they consider best for them (Sandel, 2007). Therefore, individuals can chose between online and classroom approach depending which method will satisfy their needs best. Electronic learning offers equality to many families as opposed to traditional methods of attending their studies in a classroom (Bates, 2005). This is because all students face equal treatment in case of online learning and is not biased compared to face-to-face learning where students attend different learning institutions based on their social status (Tait, 2003). However, this may turn out to be inaccessible by some students who cannot afford to pay for the services. Traditionally,

How Business is Conducted on a Social And Ethical Sense Research Paper

How Business is Conducted on a Social And Ethical Sense - Research Paper Example As the paper declares  some of the practices that will be practiced and encouraged by a business doing its business in an ethical and social manner include doing honest business, practicing truthfulness and the prohibition of stealing among its different stakeholders. Business ethics covers the moral nature of company practices and actions.From the discussion it is clear that the statements of the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch were met with a lot of criticism and reactions, mainly because he made the statements that his company would only market clothes for the people with good-looking figures, and not other groups. The most sensitive of the statements made included that the company does not offer women’s shirts’ sizes beyond large, and gave the reason that the company was not out to supply its clothes for fat people. The emphasis of the statement was that fat people did not have the right to wear the clothes produced by the company. The reasons given for the statement i ncluded that only people with cool bodies could be considered winners, in that they have managed to keep a lean body figure. On the other hand, the emphasis was that fat people are losers that have failed to keep their weight in check, and therefore they did not deserve to wear the clothes made by the company.  The comments were taken seriously, by the company’s customers and potential customers, and that became evident from the uncontained reduction in sales revenues over a short duration.

A Peep of History and Lifestyle Through Cookbooks Essay

A Peep of History and Lifestyle Through Cookbooks - Essay Example Historical cookbooks are mainly to pass on certain traditions of food preparation. It is also ought to preserve the heritage brought about by cultural evolution which happened in local kitchens. These kinds of cookbooks tell a story. It teaches the passionate cook about how such food came about- the story behind the ingredients, the reason for its conception etc. These kinds of books are very exact. If it is Italian cooking then expect the prominence of cheeses, tomatoes and other herbs. For French, the prominence of wine and butter are expected. And for most Asian dishes, chilli spices and noodles are to be look forward to. Artistic cookbooks bring about new ways of preparing traditional foods so it can be appreciated by more people, or specific types of people. An example is a vegetarian cookbook or a cookbook which targets diabetics. These are the "usual" dishes but meat is sometimes changed to vegetables or tofu, and carbohydrates are often changed to whole wheat and whole grains. Cookbooks are definitely helpful in understanding the way of life of different societies. These books tell a story of survival, celebration, scarcity or bounty or certain places, regions, era, or century. It can also be observed that the diet of different societies sometimes depend on their faith, beliefs, demography or most often than not, climate. It is of course, expected for people who live near the sea to have lots of sea foods in their diets. Food as Nostalgia Some women in the study conducted by Jean Duruz (1999), considered their successful food making practice as derived from natural ability. Most confess early interests in cooking, as they watch their mothers prepare the favorite foods of the family. However, through their narration of experiences, they illustrated how they learned to cook through a layering of knowledge from different influences. The women learned to cook from mothers, mothers-in-law, grandmothers, sisters, servants, aunts, female friends and neighbours, and occasionally fathers, fathers-in-law and husbands. They augmented this knowledge with domestic-science classes in high school and adult-education classes at technical college. Some were self-taught, both before and after marriage, through trial and error and reading cookbooks. According to Jean Duruz (1999), food brings about so much nostalgia in the Australian Society. Duruz describes for cookbooks which evoke 1950s nostalgia in Australia, a nostalgia for times perceived as conflict-free, pre-political, and child-like: "the fifties as a childhood for the nineties." Duruz' nostalgia is comprised of memories, such as the idealized 1950s nuclear family, which never in fact existed. According to Duruz(1999), he recipes and reminiscences are meant to evoke a lost Eden, a time before the fall, with the stress not only on the extended family, but the harmonious community. It is interesting to note that Duruz did not learn to cook as a child, as she recalls that household helpers did most of the cooking in

Investment That is to Develop New Products Essay

Investment That is to Develop New Products - Essay Example The development of new product is of course risky, time consuming as well as expensive. Firms need to produce dozen of ideas regarding new products where only one idea might result in successful product. The failure rate of new product is much higher than the success rate, as high as 80% and the reason for failure are numerous, like inadequate market survey, poor screening, market orientation, product defects, and some inadequate launching effort (Boone & Kurtz, p.398). Due to high investment which is needed to produce the products and various other steps needed to take care of by the manufacturers to ensure success of the new product, most of the firms think that new product development is not worth huge investment because of the rate of failure, and believes that it is much more feasible and easier to copy the market leaders product. Market leader are referred to as those organization which poses the largest market share in a particular market and the market followers are those org anizations which imitates the top market leaders but at the same time do not upsets the ongoing balance with respect to the competitive power of the respective industry. These market followers prefer to avoid the direct attack and reap the product benefits of innovations which are made by the leaders of the respective market through imitations. To imitate the market leader and avoid making huge investment, the market followers adopt four major approaches, Counterfeiter strategy is adopted by the market followers when they aim to duplicate the products of market leaders and packaging style and therefore sell in the black market. The strategy of counterfeiter has plagued brands like Apple and Rolex mostly in Asia. Secondly, cloner strategy is being used to emulate the market leader’s product name and packaging one such example of cloner is Ralcorp Holdings which sells off imitation of brand cereals in lookalike containers at a much lower price. Thirdly, the market followers ado pt imitator strategy where some features are copied from the market leader while retaining few features of its own. The last strategy used by market followers is the adapter strategy which involves adoption of owns product as that of market leader and sells the product into different market. S&S Cycle supplies engine to the firms which builds bikes like Harley. The company buys, every year Harley Davidson and takes off the engine apart and finds out what to be improved. The followers earn or make profit at a lower rate than the market leaders. One such example s the food processing industry which revealed that only the top two companies were profitable (Kotler, p. 194). Among the mobile phone manufacturer, Philips a well known European brand also fall under the category of market followers. There are other Asian companies which operate on the European mobile market such as Sharp, Haier, Pantech, NEC, Innostream and Sanyo (Anonym, p. 15). Market followers is the runner up organizatio ns in the industry whose major intentions are to hold the market share without investing and also providing challenges to its strong competitors. But however this does not mean that the market followers lack any kind of strategies in fact it is believe of the followers that it is much more advantageous to remain follower and pursue the ‘me too strategy’ rather than being the market leader. The strategy to remain market follower is believed to be effective because the

Widows of the New Testament Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Widows of the New Testament - Essay Example With this concept in mind, the purpose of this essay is to discuss how the New Testament represented these women, given the context of the time as well as deciphering what message was intended by including the tales of these widows in the Bible. Although widows are featured in the books of Luke 7 and 18, Acts 6 and 1 Timothy 5, this essay is going to focus on another selection that discusses widows in the book of Mark, chapter 12. Through an analysis of this text, as well as some secondary references, this paper will discuss how widows are represented in the New Testament, if the context of both the era and culture attribute to this representation and hypothesize about what message the Bible is intending to impart to readers through the inclusion of these tales about widows. In beginning this essay, it is first essential to summarize the text of Mark 12. Amid the lines of Mark 12, there are certain key lessons and parables that emerge. Aside from the parable of the vineyard and the w icked husbandmen, another key part of the chapter is the parable of the widow’s mite. ... Through this parable, there are several key issues that come to light. First and most obvious, the widow is portrayed as a person of kindness and generosity. As Jesus speaks of this widow women, he notes how she was not well off financially but, still found the ability to give all she had in an effort to pay homage to the church and God she loved and revered so much. This aspect about the widow highlights the fact that Jesus seems to be showing readers the gentle and giving nature of women, in this case a widow. By using a widow for this parable, it is evident that Jesus is attempting to demonstrate that even those women who have lost their partners in life still maintain the often feminine traits of unyielding compassion and maternal nature to care and give to others. Through featuring women this way, the parable begins with the widow being immediately established as a woman with a giving and caring nature. In addition to this initial view of the widow, a more complex analysis of th e context of the era surrounding this time leads to the discovery that the widow was in a very desolate position. During the time of the New Testament, poverty levels were at literal desolation. To indicate that someone was particularly poor meant that they were at the lowest level of society possible (Study Light). As Jesus did this in regard to the widow with the two mites, readers can decipher that she was a person who literally had nothing to live off of and struggled just to find food everyday. With this realization, it makes the message of the parable even more astounding that someone in this situation could find it within themselves and their faith to give

Investment That is to Develop New Products Essay

Investment That is to Develop New Products - Essay Example The development of new product is of course risky, time consuming as well as expensive. Firms need to produce dozen of ideas regarding new products where only one idea might result in successful product. The failure rate of new product is much higher than the success rate, as high as 80% and the reason for failure are numerous, like inadequate market survey, poor screening, market orientation, product defects, and some inadequate launching effort (Boone & Kurtz, p.398). Due to high investment which is needed to produce the products and various other steps needed to take care of by the manufacturers to ensure success of the new product, most of the firms think that new product development is not worth huge investment because of the rate of failure, and believes that it is much more feasible and easier to copy the market leaders product. Market leader are referred to as those organization which poses the largest market share in a particular market and the market followers are those org anizations which imitates the top market leaders but at the same time do not upsets the ongoing balance with respect to the competitive power of the respective industry. These market followers prefer to avoid the direct attack and reap the product benefits of innovations which are made by the leaders of the respective market through imitations. To imitate the market leader and avoid making huge investment, the market followers adopt four major approaches, Counterfeiter strategy is adopted by the market followers when they aim to duplicate the products of market leaders and packaging style and therefore sell in the black market. The strategy of counterfeiter has plagued brands like Apple and Rolex mostly in Asia. Secondly, cloner strategy is being used to emulate the market leader’s product name and packaging one such example of cloner is Ralcorp Holdings which sells off imitation of brand cereals in lookalike containers at a much lower price. Thirdly, the market followers ado pt imitator strategy where some features are copied from the market leader while retaining few features of its own. The last strategy used by market followers is the adapter strategy which involves adoption of owns product as that of market leader and sells the product into different market. S&S Cycle supplies engine to the firms which builds bikes like Harley. The company buys, every year Harley Davidson and takes off the engine apart and finds out what to be improved. The followers earn or make profit at a lower rate than the market leaders. One such example s the food processing industry which revealed that only the top two companies were profitable (Kotler, p. 194). Among the mobile phone manufacturer, Philips a well known European brand also fall under the category of market followers. There are other Asian companies which operate on the European mobile market such as Sharp, Haier, Pantech, NEC, Innostream and Sanyo (Anonym, p. 15). Market followers is the runner up organizatio ns in the industry whose major intentions are to hold the market share without investing and also providing challenges to its strong competitors. But however this does not mean that the market followers lack any kind of strategies in fact it is believe of the followers that it is much more advantageous to remain follower and pursue the ‘me too strategy’ rather than being the market leader. The strategy to remain market follower is believed to be effective because the