Breeders Pet Food Case Study Essay - 1294 Words

Breeder’s Own Pet Foods Case Analysis Arnell M. Carmichael Bellevue University MBA 652: Marketing Strategy Professor Dr. Doug Brown 03/23/2013 Case Recap There are three main categories of dog food: dry, canned and treats. In 2011 the sales of dog food totaled somewhere in the arena of 14 billion dollars. Endeavoring to bring new dog food to an already established market can be a â€Å"daunting† task, especially when that particular dog food is frozen. Breeder’s Own Pet Foods as a whole has realized how diverse the dog food market is; however, brokers within this conglomerate believe that the true organic potential of this marketplace has yet to be â€Å"tapped† into effectively. With an ever-changing push toward becoming†¦show more content†¦Effectively, Breeder’s Own Pet Foods will have to find an effectual manner in which it will overcome objections to frozen dog food, price of their food in contrast to their competition (350 various brands) , targeted geographic location and methodology they will utilize to successfully market their product to the world (Kerin Peterson, 2013). Identifying the Root Problem Components The over-arching problem that Breeder’s Own Pet Foods has is which marketing-strategy would best serve as a vehicle for entry into the dog food retail business. Additionally, it has to select the most prominent geographic location (s) for distribution of its product. Another root problem component is how to get the supermarkets to stock and distribute this dog food since it is in the frozen category and may not appeal to traditional dog food buyers because they don’t readily associate dog food with frozen goods. Since Breeder’s Own Pet Foods does not have any Brand Equity, they must win the â€Å"hearts and minds† of its consumers by performance, availability and pricing. To accomplish this feat, it must train the minds of its patrons to begin to shop in the frozen department for organic dog food. Without the latter two suggestions, Breeder’s Own Pet Foods may have unsuccessfulShow MoreRelatedCase 2 Breeder s Own Essay1231 Words   |  5 Pagesï » ¿Marketing Strategy Team 2/Case Study 2 September 15, 2015 Breeder’s Own Pet Foods, Inc Breeder’s Own Pet Foods, Inc is a major producer of dog food for show-dog kennels in the United States. Their executives viewed the retail dog food market as a growth opportunity and would like to begin by introducing their product; Breeder’s Mix dog food into the Boston area in 2011. Breeder’s Mix dog food is a nutritionally balanced, frozen dog food that is among the costliest to produce. Their product

The Personality Of Personality Psychology Essay - 1051 Words

People are constantly growing and changing from the moment they’re born until the moment they die. Yet, some researchers believe that the personality is the one thing about a person that does not change over time. Genetics and environment equally contribute to the development of the personality. This is shown through the nature/nurture principle. The way a person behaves towards others, and reacts towards the world around them is determined by that person’s individual personality. No two personalities are alike. This is because a person’s individual personality is made up of a unique variety of characteristics called traits. Raymond Cattell, a researcher in the field of personality psychology, found that there were at least 171 traits identified and labeled by researchers. Many of these traits were closely related to each other, and carried the same meaning. Cattell realized this and â€Å"took a set of traits, collected ratings on them, and factor analyzed the ratings. The emerging factors were the traits he believed mattered.† (Carver and Scheier, 2012) This allowed him to narrow down the 171 traits into 16 primary personality traits. Cattell then used those 16 primary personality traits to create a personality inventory called the â€Å"16 Personality Factor Inventory†, or 16PF. Another prominent researcher in the field of personality psychology was Hans Eysenck. He believed that the two super-traits, extroversion and neuroticism, were the key dimensions of personality. HisShow MoreRelatedThe Personality Of Personality Psychology2685 Words   |  11 PagesPersonality psychology is a vast field which includes theories ranging from biopsychosocial to behavioral to evolutionary for explaining differences in personality among individuals, cultures, sexes, and more. Even though some theories are stronger or more reliable than others, there is no one true answer for explaining origins and development of personality. Therefore it is my goal to better understand this phenomenon by analyzing a variety of studies and their findings for explaining differencesRead MoreThe Psychology of Personality1307 Words   |  5 PagesRunning Head: Psychology of Personality Psychology of Personality Introduction 1.The foundations of the third force of psychology were laid by Carl Rogers, William Glasser and Abraham Maslow who coined the term of the third force of psychology. The main belief of the third psychology is that all people are good in an inherent manner and through a constant change in the beliefs, attitudes as well as the values; a person can become self-actualized who has the morals and the beliefs that can helpRead MorePersonality, Psychology, And Psychology1929 Words   |  8 PagesMeasuring Personality Imagine being able to scan anyone to know their minds profile. People present themselves through their personality, and psychology is like the minds functionality breakdown. Psychology and personality go hand and hand together. Using psychology and examination, personality can be measured and determined. To discover the basics of how one would determine personality psychologically, it is important to understand the basics of what psychology is and what personality is. AccordingRead MorePersonality Psychology : Myer Bringgs Personality2309 Words   |  10 Pagesinterested in personality psychology which states that we all have permanente and defined traits. Our personality â€Å"type† is also classified and determined and associated with certain personality traits. Upon exploring Myer Bringgs personality information, I find it interesting to realize that everyone can be classified into sixteen categories. As you explore this information, you find that you can ‘fitâ€⠄¢ into a few different ‘types’, but you fit best into one specifically. A personality type also tellsRead MoreThe Theory Of Personality Psychology1292 Words   |  6 Pages Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that focuses on the differences between people’s behaviors in terms of patterns, cognitions, and emotion. Personality psychology has been around for centuries, since Hippocrates’ Four Humors. Personality psychology has taken on many forms and has continued to develop throughout the centuries. Personality psychology is also developed with and from other fields of psychology like child development, behavioral, cognitive, and few others. PersonalityRead MoreThe Theory Of Personality Psychology1019 Words   |  5 Pagesnot like you at all? It’s ironic how a person personality is shaped. Personality is included in basically everyday life. Personality defines a person. Personality is like a big stew mixed with emotions, behaviors, and patterns of thought that truly define a person. 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Some are specialist in treating a specific type of psychologicalRead MoreTheories Of Personality And Psychology1382 Words   |  6 PagesStudent: Nisaa Kirtman PSY8100 CLIFFORD THEORIES OF PERSONALITY 3 (DEBATE EXISTENCE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS) Faculty Use Only Debate on Psychoanalysis vs. Behaviorism: Freud and Skinner Moderator: Good evening, and welcome to the Northcentral University?s debate on psychanalysis versus behaviorism. My name is Nisaa Kirtman and I am from the Department of Psychology. It?s an honor to be the moderator of tonight?s debate. The topic for tonightRead MorePsychology : Personality Psychology Exam1709 Words   |  7 PagesPersonality Psychology EXAM 1 PART ONE: SHORT ANSWERS 1. Is being accurate the same as being reliable? Is it the same as valid? Being accurate is a measurement of how close data is to its real value. An accurate result is true (most real) to its real value. It differs from being reliable. Reliability is the measurement of consistency in results each time a test is repeated. For instance, if one is able to get the same results during an assessment more than once then the measurement is more thanRead MorePsychology : Theories Of Personality1577 Words   |  7 PagesKirtmanNPSY800-4 NORTHCENTRAL UNIVERSITY ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET Student: Nisaa Kirtman PSY8100 CLIFFORD THEORIES OF PERSONALITY 4 (ANALYZE THE HUMANISTIC APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING PERSONALITY) Faculty Use Only The Humanistic Approach to Understanding Personality In the 1950?s, the field of psychology was dominated mainly by two schools of thought: psychoanalytic theory (the unconscious mind and unconscious motivations that shape human

China’s Compliance with its obligations under GATT and WTO Free Essays

The history of China and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) dates back to 1948, when China became a contracting party after being among the 23 founding members of the organization. In 1950 however, the country under the Kuomintang government pulled out of GATT, but was later granted an observer status in 1982 after pleading that the pull-out was not done by a legitimate government. By 1986, China’s persistence to resume its position in GATT set a platform for talks with other member countries, which continued throughout the 1990’s. We will write a custom essay sample on China’s Compliance with its obligations under GATT and WTO or any similar topic only for you Order Now The country only managed to regain its membership in 1999 and joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. By Joining WTO, China agreed to be bound by Subsidies and Countervailing Measures Agreement (SCM), GATT and Trade-Related Investment Measures Agreement (TRIMs) trade agreements. The entrance of China to the WTO was of great importance not only to the country, but to other world economies, which had observed the economic expansion of the country with heightened interests in the past decades. In 2000 for example, China was the world’s eighth largest importer and the seventh largest exporter of goods. The country accounted for $249. 2 billion in exports and $225. 1 billion in imports. In the commercial services sector China ranked twelfth in position at $ 29. 7 billion, while it was it was ranked as the tenth largest importer at $34. 8 billion (WTO news ). It was not however smooth sailing for the country and the other WTO signatories mainly because China is enormous in size and had a set trade regime by the time it joined WTO. As such, a change of the country’s legal and regulatory system in trade was required in order to ensure consistency with the WTO regulations. Although most countries supported the entrant of China to WTO, many observed that compliance for the country would not only need dedication, but also transparency. Sentiments regarding the hard task ahead for China were for example expressed by the United States’ Trade Representative, Mr. Robert Zoellick in 2002 , who said that since China had freely chosen its WTO obligations freely, other countries expected that the country would comply with all. Zoellick however agreed that meeting some of the obligations would not be easy for China, but would play a major role in ensuring that China was open to trade with the rest of the world. CHINA’S WTO OBLIGATIONS China took up obligations laid down in GATT, under the WTO by agreeing to non-discriminate and equally treat national trade from WTO member countries and also agreed to a adhere to the national trade policies as set out by WTO. First on China’s list of obligations under GATT/WTO, was the quota’s withdrawal requirement as earlier stated by the People’s Republic of China, under a protocol document. The country was also obligated to conform to the GATT 1994 agreement and the WTO agreement that addressed procedures involved in import licensing. Another obligation was the right to have enterprises in China trading in exports and imports as authorized under the customs territory of China. As such, China agreed to wipe out state import monopolies earlier maintained in the agricultural sector. In addition, china was required to subject all its imports and exports to rules set out under the WTO. More to this, the country was also subject to varying terms regarding price control restrictions and state trading (Vallera pp 2-3) GATT obligations included the prohibition of restrictions on imports specifically agriculture related imports. Another requirement under the GATT agreement related to giving imported goods equal treatment with the domestic products. In addition, the GATT agreement spelt out that fees or charges imposed on imports would be approximate to services rendered (Williams, Brett p 3) GATT Requirements GATT was a brain child of the United States, which first floated the idea of regulating 45,000 tariff rates in 1947 during an international conference held in Geneva (econ. iastate. du) . A year later, 22 other countries signed the trade agreement. Under GATT, a member country was to treat other signatory countries as a â€Å"Most Favored Nation† (MFN). The MFN treatment assured GATT member countries that non signatory countries would not receive lower tariffs than them. China was at war during the early years of the implementation of GATT, the discussions to rejoin GATT , which started in the 1980’s was further curtailed by the Tiananmen announcement , which marked halted Chinese interaction with the GATT member countries in 1989 (Skanderup p32) . On resumption of the talks in 1995, WTO had taken over from GATT and with the new identity came stricter requirements, which often led to stalemates of the negotiations. It was however, china’s realization of economic gains in terms of expertise, technology and capital gains from other countries that eventually convinced the country leaders of the importance of joining GATT/WTO. China was petitioning to be recognized as a developing country upon resumption to GATT/WTO. This was rightfully so because despite China being the largest economy among the developing countries, most regions in the country still registered very low GDP. Being recognized as a developing country allowed the country to enjoy special benefits under the agreement. Such included the elimination or reduction of tariffs on products from the developing countries; developed countries were also encouraged to avoid imposing tariffs and internal taxes on products from the developing countries. More so, the developed countries were alerted not to expect reciprocal trade from the developing countries (econ. iastate. edu). Compliance with WTO By the time that China was re-admitted to the WTO, the organization had 140 countries signed up for membership. The Bilateral agreement between china and the other member countries was therefore complex and long, such that the entire document was 900 pages and covered every aspect of trade as discussed. It was a consensus that China would implement some of the agreements in the 900 page document immediately, while others would be stretched over a five year period. Others still w ere expected to last the entire decade before China could finally reform its system entirely to match the compliance requirements. To aid the Chinese government in this, a WTO secretariat was appointed, with an assisting 16 subcommittees being mandated at monitoring the country’s progress and producing annual reports about China over an 8 year period of time (Skanderup, Jane p32). On its part, the Chinese government took up massive public education campaigns that sought to offer insight on what compliance meant. Local universities started offering degrees on international law, finance, foreign trades and trade. By the look of it, China had every intention to stick to the rule of WTO. Foreign governments, such as the United States government extended a helping hand and offered to create oversight bodies in Chinese state departments with an aim of ensuring that China complied with the WTO agreement. Transparency China did not always operate transparently in its trade dealings, regulations and decision making. As such, the WTO requirement signified a great shift in the country and so far, the country has done well in compliance with the GATT/WTO requirement’s on transparency. In this, China publicized trade related laws to improve how people accessed them. The most notable efforts were from the Ministry of Commerce, which adopted impressive policies with the aim of complying to the WTO transparency requirements (United States Trade Representative). However, there were complaints that China was not fast enough in its compliance. This was especially the case with short term goals that were supposed to be met within the first two years. In a 2004 review, it was noted that China had challenges with conforming to transparent practices especially with international set standards and value-added tax. In the six year period ending in 2007, China had eight dispute cases filed against it by other WTO members (Stewart et al p7) . Five of these cases were by the United States, while the European Union, Mexico and Canada had one case each. The eight cases were based on china’s non-compliance on Value added Tax, automobile imports, tax reductions and exemptions, trading rights, distribution services and intellectual rights on publication and audiovisual. The Transitional Review Mechanism is in charge of monitoring China’s progress and has raised these issues. Because of non-compliance, foreign and domestic business suffers frustrations when establishing businesses and often suffers from systemic uncertainties. Because of the language barrier, China still under the transparency requirement agreed to translate laws and regulations relating to trade into French, English or Spanish. The country also agreed to modify hundreds of its laws and regulations in order to become WTO compliant (USTR. gov) China also agreed to eliminate the local content requirement, foreign currency balancing requirement and export performance requirements from its laws. Allegations that China still manipulates its currency to date however abound. Intellectual Property rights China has been accused of not doing enough to ensure that the intellectual property rights are upheld in the country. Since joining the WTO, a 2007 TLAG report states that IPR infringement was at its worst in 2005 and 2006. To make it even worse, the report indicates that China had demonstrated no initiatives in trying to reform the criminal code in the country, which is the only way through which the country can enforce the protection of the intellectual properties (Stewart et al p11). Industrial policies China’s industrialized policies have always sought to protect local industries. This was meant to change after the ratification of the WTO agreement. However, complaints from other countries still abound pertaining to china’s protectionism measures over its auto part industry, export restrictions, regulatory interventions and subsidies on domestic industries. Subsidies China agreed to eliminate subsidies on exports and industrial goods. This was done under the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM), China further agreed to stop subsidies on state-owned enterprises especially because some of the state owned companies were not profitable and only aided in destabilizing trade. The SCM agreement only prohibited subsidies on a limited range of products, and imposed countervailing duties. Such compliance encouraged Chinese industries to become more competitive especially because they were exposed to market pressures from foreign investors. Discriminatory Safeguard By acceding to the safeguard agreement China agreed to steer clear of WTO inconsistent tariffs and quotas, except those allowed by the organization on temporary measures. Under this agreement, non-compliance by China would earn her penalties that would see other WTO members imposing tariffs and Quotas on Chinese products, while denying China the ability to counter such actions (Halverson, Karen). Trading and Distribution rights China has scored fairly well in this front. However, the complaints from other member countries allege that the country still impose restrictions to specific products. Among the cases highlighted are import restrictions on copyrighted materials such as periodicals, books, audio and audio-visual products. The 2007 TLAG report indicates that China is yet to fully comply with the direct selling requirement since it still restricts direct sales from foreign companies (Stewart et al p12). Agriculture China has largely complied with the agricultural requirements but this depends on the market situation. At times, the country employs selective market interventions that cause delays in agricultural shipments. In addition, the country sometimes applies scientific rationales with the intention of preventing some agricultural commodities from entering her market. Other complaints allude that China lacks a consistent and predictable regulatory administration, which is laden with capricious practices in the customs departments. The Chinese agricultural market also lacks predictability and transparency. China’s agriculture obligations included her commitment to avoid providing export subsidies to the domestic producers. China also was obligated to lift the meat, citrus products, corn and wheat bans. The country further had to implement some tariff –rate quotas that world provide sufficient market to farmers from signatory countries. Services- Arguably, this is among the sectors where China has scored the least points as far as compliance to the WTO commitments is concerned. Despite the initial promises made under the general Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), China is yet to lift some of its restrictions in the services sector. As such, other countries still experience limited access to the Chinese services industry. Areas of concern between 2001 and 2004 remained the financial sub-sectors (insurance and banking), in a 2007report however, the United States lauded Chinas efforts to comply with the obligations (USCBC) . It confirmed that China has indeed complied with the insurance requirements by lowering the total assets to $200 million down from the earlier requirement of $300 million on foreign insurers. In the banking sector, the USCBC report further indicates that China has lifted geographic barriers earlier set on its local currency, which mad business challenging for foreign based financial institutions. China also allowed her nations to freely choose among foreign or domestic owned financial institutions. In addition, the country removed restrictions that hindered ownership and operations of financial institutions thus allowing more foreign owners to invest in the industry. Telecommunication sector was however dragging behind, with the report stating that although China had committed itself to lift geographic limitations on data services and mobile voice for joint ventures, China was yet to draft regulations on how to meet that commitment. Another requirement on the telecom sector yet to be met by China is her commitment to expand the geographical capacity of domestic owned telecom services by raising foreign ownership to 35 percent. The engineering, architectural and urban planning requirements were however met between 2003 and 2007 and foreign owned enterprises can now take part in integrated engineering, planning and architecture without the requirement of domestic partnerships. The country is also yet to fully comply with WTO requirements set on the express delivery sub sector (Stewart et al p13). Foreign owned enterprises can operate in courier services but restrictions on the scope of business that such enterprises can engage in still exist. Obtaining licenses for the foreign based firms remains a big challenge for many. China’s obligation in allowing foreign firms to operate in freight inspection and testing services were yet to be met in 2007 as their were restrictions on the scope of business that a foreign firm could engage in. In a 2005-2006 US-China Business Council’s (USCBC) report, China is said to have complied with the advertising requirements, which allowed foreign-owned enterprises to invest in advertising companies. China met this requirement in 2005 through the country’s ministry of Commerce Foreign owned business own and operate hotel and restaurant business in China, but have to abide by set regulations. In this sub-sector, China is yet to comply with the WTO requirements since foreign-owned enterprises are restricted on the amount of air cargo space they can book (USCBC). Tariff Reductions China agreed to reduce its tariffs on agriculture products to 15 percent, with average tariff level for industrial goods being set at 8. 9 percent. Tariff reduction obligations were scheduled for immediate, short term and long-term implementation. Trading Rights Trading rights are two way under the WTO agreement. They include the rights to I) other WTO member countries importing products and services to china, and ii) China exporting its domestic products to other WTO countries. In 2004, China enforced trading rights process that ensured that foreign nationals registering businesses in the country did so without any hindrances. This was a step that was lauded by many signatory countries, most notably the United States. However, some deficiencies in trading rights still existed. Such included commitments on pharmaceutical and books importations. Another deficiency noted in China’s compliance to the WTO trading rights requirement was the lack of liberalization of agreed trading rights. Such includes wholesaling services, retail services, franchising services, agent’s services and other related services. By 2004, China was yet to open its markets to allow foreign investors to practice direct sales or off-location sales. Among the notable compliances in the trading rights requirements was china allowing importers and exporters to conduct their businesses directly, without using middle men. Tourism In 2004, China took the first steps to complying with the WTO in the tourism sector by allowing foreign based firms to acquire joint ventures in China. It was expected that by December 2007, wholly foreign-based enterprises would be able to operate in the Chinese tourism industry. It was also expected that all branch restrictions, registered capital restrictions and geographical barriers would be lifted. The WTO requirements for China in the Tourism Industry were initially meant for Xi’an, Shaanxi, Shangai, Guangzhou and Beijing regions. In a 2004 report to Congress, the US lauded China’s progress in complying with the tourism, professional, education and environmental services (United States Trade Representative ) . CONCLUSION China’s compliance and non-compliance is widely a matter of government and industry protectionism. Whereas the private sector players may intentionally avoid adhering to the WTO rules, the government, which has the capacity to press the private industry players towards compliance does not apply the necessary internal pressure required to move the players. The spirit of WTO agreement that China exhibited on its entry to the WTO was already running out in the third year of implementation. Other issues that arise in the only communist country as it puts up measures that ensures compliance to WTO is the fear of the China Communist Party of loosing national support. This is especially likely because the income inequalities in China are on a steep incline, something that the locals blame on the market reforms under WTO and the expanded private sector (Halverson, Karen) Overall, China has received mixed rating for its compliance levels of the WTO requirements. The United States is among the biggest bilateral trader whose public holds mixed reactions on the role of China’s trade to the US under WTO. Some of the notable complaints from US investors include China’s continued protection of its steel and auto producers. Other claims allege that China uses her tax system to discriminate particular imports. Some export regulations in China also contravene the WTO requirements. Such include restrictions placed on raw materials, thus driving up production costs. Foreigners claim this is discriminatory since foreign investor’s ends up producing at higher costs, while the Chinese nationals operate at lower costs thus giving the former a market advantage. Eight years later after China joined the WTO; many member countries agree that it is the high time that the country took accountability for its obligations. This is especially so because most of its requirements were meant for accomplishment in the first five years. The United States is one such country, which is pursuing dialogue, dispute settlement mechanisms, legal action or a combination of all in order to ensure that China complies. How to cite China’s Compliance with its obligations under GATT and WTO, Papers

Research in Accounting Business Ethics

Question: Describe about the Research in Accounting for Business Ethics. Answer: Part A Introduction Not only for the Strong Build Construction Company, but also for each particular association, it is significant to gratify the right individuals for their managerial opportunity after making an appropriate classification. Consequently, the CFO and the acquaintances should need to meet the terms with the strong conciliation skills for fulfilling the requests of the persons contributed in the supervisory process. Thus, the CFO and the acquaintances ought to meet the need to act in accordance with the strong negotiation skills for fulfilling the requirements of the persons contributed in the decision-making process. In this case, the CFO must necessitate the desire to keep in mind that the unyielding posture in the employment offer will considerably challenge the employment arbitration process. Body (i) Not only for the Strong Build Construction Company, but also for every single organization, it is important to satisfy the right individuals for their executive openings after making a suitable identification. Therefore, the CFO and the associates should need to comply with the strong negotiation skills for satisfying the requirements of the individuals contributed in the executive process. In this case, the CFO must need to remember that the rigid stance in the employment offer will significantly undermine the employment negotiation process (Foss and Stea 2014). Apart from that, the CFO and the other associates should need to consult with the employees at the executive level to determine about their expectation before developing executive compensation packages for them. Considering the elements of a precise executive compensation package, there are five key features needed to be discussed below: Basic PayIn order to define the basic pay, the CFO must need to consider the payments made by the other similar sized companies in the certain construction industry to the employees falling in the executive category. Benefits The benefits section of the executive package must need to provide high emphasis to ensure the needs of the identified employees are met duly (Hermanson et al. 2012). Short-term Incentive Compensation The executive compensation package must need to be included of the short-term incentives in the form of either share in the company or cash with ensuring the measurable objectives can be attained within one year. Long-term Incentive Compensation Long-term compensation plays the major role in developing the motivational factors within the employees. Therefore, the particular type of incentive included should need to be generous and powerful to encourage the employees to commit towards the company on a long-term basis to promote the success in the respective industry (Ims, et al. 2014). Executive PerksGiven the strict regulation of the government and active responses from the media, the CFO of the company should need to be careful in deciding this certain category. Therefore, the company should need to provide creative thinking by providing multiple facilities to the company executive level of employees. (ii) According to the suggestion of the agency theory, a firm can be viewed from the perspective of the nexus of contracts between the different resource holders. Agency theory develops with the involvement of agency relationship where one or more individuals are hiring one or more persons for performing specific services (O'Reilly, et al. 2014). Here, the hiring individuals are called as the principals, and the hired or recruited persons are known as agents. The decision-making authority is delegated to these agents by the principals afterwards. For the CFO of Strong Build Construction Company, it is essential to understand what pay system will be efficient and how their effectiveness will vary by considering the various contingency factors, such the environmental culture, competition, business strategy, characteristics of the employees, etc. Therefore, the company should need to develop a conceptual framework to facilitate the specific understanding (Pepper and Gore 2014). Agency theory is one of the traditional theories focusing on the divergent set of interests and goals of the numerous stakeholders of the organization to shape up the utilisation of the employee compensation. It suggests aligning the compensation packages provided to the employees according to these identified interests and goals. (iii) Difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation: Sr. No. Extrinsic Motivation Intrinsic Motivation 1) Extrinsic motivation suggests motivating a person to engage in an activity or perform in behaviour. Intrinsic motivation suggests engaging in an activity or performing a behaviour due the process is personally rewarding. 2) In this case, the activities are done majorly due to avoid punishment or earn rewards (Pepper and Gore 2015). In this case, the activities are performed by the individuals for their sake, rather than earning some external rewards. 3) Extrinsic motivation is influenced by the external sources associated with the individuals. Intrinsic motivation is affected by the inner mind-set of the individuals. Relationship between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation: It is worth to mention that motivation can be categorised as extrinsic and intrinsic. There is a significant association between the both of the motivating factors. When the individuals want to do something for their sake is categorised to be intrinsic, whereas the extrinsic factors suggest the activities are done by the influence of outside elements (Ferrell, Fraedrich, and Ferrell 2014). Therefore, it can be observed that both of the motivational categories supports the organization to achieve their goals and objectives according to the mission statement, while both have their positive and negative impacts on the individuals. (iv) Due to the rapid change of technologic environment and different rules and regulations as part of the political atmosphere, competitive global markets including the construction industry are facing major challenges. The dynamics of the competitive global markets have accelerated the pace of the organizational change procedures. Similarly, the organizations are exposed to some major number of risks, as it can be observed in the example of Strong Build Construction Company. Due to the necessity of the organizations to go through the significant changes over the different periods, the attitudes of the employees are required to be modified accordingly (Guidotti and Guidotti 2013). Therefore, the employee perception should need to be developed with the capability of taking risks. To ensure the certain process, companies have developed different compensation packages for the specific employees. These compensation packages are required to promote the employee engagement towards the risk tak ing aspect. (v) Employee benefits known as the non-wage compensation offered to the employees are optional in additional to its core payment from an organization. Insurance benefits, disability protection, health, and wellbeing criteria, funding of education, and some other significant factors are the factors as part of the employee benefits (Hill 2012). These certain factors associated with the employee benefits have their individual time periods for acquisition, which drive the employees of an organization to achieve those based on their performances. Therefore, not only the additional benefits but also determining the proper timeframe with these factors be equally important for the identified company for promoting the employee desire for obtaining them (Huang, Leonard and Tong 1997). Additionally, it must need to mention that the company is only able to provide its employees the increased flexibility and access to these benefits, but also can recruit and secure their retention for a long-term per iod. (vi) The perceived fairness in determining the employee compensation plays vital roles, as it is considered as the fundamental reason causing the employees to leave the organization. The concept of equity developed by the additional efforts put forwarded by the employees to the goals of the organization or even the job objectives of their certain posts (Malik 2012). These are basic reasons leading the organization to ensure the compensation developed and offered to the employees are rooted from the principles of fairness. Major research successfully indicated that the employees perception of the fairness and the equitable treatment is the fundamental attribute for the organization to drive their performance, engagement, and retention with the company. Therefore, unfair treatment is corrosive, especially in the case of the employee compensation, because of the unfairness in the treatment might have devastating impacts of the organization (Mancini, Vaassen and Dameri 2013). Destructive, procedural, and interactional are the three key types of fairness that the organization should need to consider while determining the compensation. (vii) By judging the case of Strong Build Construction Company, the executive compensation committee should need to provide benefits in determining the compensation for its employees. Although these advantages might be expensive for the company, these provide multiple intrinsic benefits to both the organization and the employees with maintaining a comprehensive benefits plan (Mattone 2013). With the help of the process, the organization can develop and retain the highly skilled and committed staffs, which is the fundamental driver for achieving the success in the identified industry. Conclusion In order to structure the executive compensation committee, not only the CFO of Strong Build Construction Company should need to provide the utmost priority, but also, the board and management should need to provide increasing awareness (Muna and Khoury 2012). It is observed that the continuous evolution in compensation has ensured the factor to become more decisive in retaining and motivating the critical talents of the senior level executives of the companies. Such evolution is observed after recovering from the impact of the recession in 2008. In order to develop the structure of the executive compensation committee, four mix components, and trends should need to consist (Occupational Outlook Handbook 2014). Annual based salary Developing and maintaining the bonus plans or annual incentives by considering the short-term performance measures Determining the long-term incentives by considering the long-term performance plans related to the implementation of the budget or returns to the shareholders Developing and offering the benefit plan Recommendation Determining employee compensation is a delicate subject, where most of the organizations become highly passionate in deciding the most appropriate compensation plan for their staffs and workers (Puckett 2013). As for the recommendation in determining the optimal employee compensation, the sensitive balance should need to be developed between the expectations of the employees and meeting the financial goals of the company. In line with the particular fact, some critical recommendations are highlighted below: The compensation plan must need to be includedin the benefit plans and incentives for the employees with having the precise guidelines for minimising confusions (Sputtek 2012). Before developing and offering the benefit plan, the company should need to have a clear understanding of the overall cost of the process. Therefore, the compensation committee should need to assess long-term expenses and direct cost adding up the total price of the benefit plan. Last but not the least; it is crucial for the organization to develop awareness about the talent or skill required for the identified job roles to provide a balance between the supply of talent to the recruiting area and the demands of those talents (The CAESAR, POLO ESAU papers 2007). Part B (i) a. The paper developed by Gold, Gronewold, and Pott (2012) is named as The ISA 700 Auditors Report and the Audit Expectation Gap Do Explanations Matter?. The major purpose of developing this research-based paper is to measure and evaluate the effectiveness of the particular explanations dictated by the revised ISA 700 auditors report. The certain revision is done for minimising the gaps in the different expectations of the auditors. In order to meet with the identified purpose of the paper, the researchers have ensured the participation of the German auditors and the financial statement users within a specific experiment (Tietz 2013). The identified experiment was based on reading the summary of the auditors report and financial statements with considering the explanations mandated by the ISA 700. The overall purpose of developing such an arrangement is to measure the gaps between the directed explanations of the ISA 700 and the opinions of the auditors. The implication of the process can be further identified by developing a comparative overview of the perception of those participants with the reliability of the financial statements alongside the associated responsibilities of the management (Vidal and Casey 2014). Therefore, developing this particular knowledge regarding the comparative overview is also a personal purpose of developing the identified research paper. (i) b. Big incentive Medium incentive Small incentive Group1 The auditors must need to be both internal and external. Financial analysis is done with the involvement of junior and senior analysts. Detailed financial information related to the financial statements can be obtained Group2 The participation of both students from the high and middle schools and the investors can be maintained. Auditing report can be developed with the clear indication of the profitability position of the business enterprise. The ability of the financial information to reflect the financial strength of the organization. (i) c. The process related to the manipulation checks is based on determining the discrepancies involving the multiple reports developed by the auditors and the accounting statement prepared during the time of preparing the financial statements annually (Williamson, Campagna, and Ogden 2012). Apart from that, another significant purpose of the manipulation check is based on the supporting the formation of the financial statements with the accordance with the necessary guidelines and framework supposed to be adhered by the process. Based on the argument raised by Moser and Martin (2012), the auditors are responsible for producing authentic reports representing the financial statements associated with the business organizations. In order to ensure the achievement of such responsibility, the auditors must need to consider the essential roles played by the manipulation checks (Wilson 2012). On the other hand, it is necessary for the auditors to record and report the possible manipulations ident ified within the business organizations. In this case, the manipulation checking process must need to track different expenses associated with the operations of the organization with scrutinising the bills and vouchers generated from the transactions. Considering the overall understanding, it can be understood that manipulation checks are responsible for resisting the illegal manipulations giving rise to the operational expenses for the business (Yeo et al. 2012). By citing the statement developed by ODwyer and Unerman (2014), proper identification of the possible discrepancies within the financial statements as well as the auditors report can be ensured by maintaining the manipulation checking process. In conclusion, it is worth to mention that multiple stringent measures are included within the process for systematically evaluating the sales revenues of the business along with the tax paid by the business organization. (ii) a. Based on the investigation conducted by the studies developed by Agayei, Aye, and Owusu-Yeboah (2013) and Okafor and Otalor (2013), it is identified that both papers are developed with the primary intension of investigating the 20th century auditing process emphasising specifically to the detection of fraud (Young 2013). However, the shift of importance can be noticed within the two papers towards the detailed information maintained within the major financial statements developed by the businesses. The profession related to auditing seeks to reduce the impact of discrepancies due to the implication of different lawsuits involving the certain business industry and the operations. Considering the preliminary understanding, the researchers have observed that the numerous stakeholders associated with the business organizations are dissatisfied with the roles played by the auditors regarding successful detection of fraud (Tietz 2013). Therefore, the significant goal of developing both of the studies is developing an assessment regarding the validity and reliability of auditors roles in multiple organizations of Ghana while considering the perspectives of both the stakeholders and auditors. (ii)b. By considering the study developed by Okafor and Otalor (2013), it can be analysed that the auditing expectation gap is determined by preparing the difference between the certain amount of estimated performance encountered by the auditors and the multiple users of the financial statements. Apart from that, the particular study has also recognised the gap representing the expectation by establishing the differences between the auditing activities and performance and the level of information distributed through the auditing process (The CAESAR, POLO ESAU papers 2007). In order develop the evidence; the collection of data was necessary, which was performed effectively through the questionnaire. On the other hand, the study formed by Agayei, Aye, and Owusu-Yeboah (2013) identified that the particular gap in expectation related to the auditing process emerges mainly due to the biases of the terms and concepts involved in the overall process. Furthermore, these terms and concepts include materiality, relevance, fairness, reasonableness, reliability, and fair value. In order to accomplish the study and come up with certain findings, the sampling technique was applied sufficiently (Sputtek 2012). By looking at the overall discussion, it seems the approach developed by Okafor and Otalor (2013) is more rigorous due to the focus was provided to the quantitative research process with considering the two major hypotheses. (ii) c. As determined from the report produced by Agyei and Gyamerah (2014), the study developed by Agayei, Aye, and Owusu-Yeboah (2013) considered the selection of participants as both male and female representing 72.5% and 27.5% respectively. Amongst these participants, the researchers made sure that 60% should need to have the experience of 5 years, while 30% should possess a skill level between 5 to 10 years (Occupational Outlook handbook 2014). The rest of the participants, i.e. 10% should acquire an even higher level of experience. On the other hand, the research paper developed by Okafor and Otalor (2013) had considered the several participants with their individual involvement in the accounting departments of different universities and public institutions. Therefore, it is quite clear that the approach developed by Agayei, Aye, and Owusu-Yeboah (2013) is superior and rigorous due to the utilisation of sampling frames and different demographic criteria. (ii) d. Considering the responses obtained from the respondents of the study developed by Agayei, Aye, and Owusu-Yeboah (2013), 45% agrees with the information portrayed within the financial statements, whereas 45% disagreed, as dictated by Boateng and Agyei (2013). On the other hand, the 65% responses of the stockbroker suggest that those frauds are detected within the financial statements of the organizations or institutes. Alternatively, the responses collected by Okafor and Otalor (2013) have led the study to reveal that the auditors are always responsible for assuring the delivery of accurate and reliable auditing reports alongside publishing the major financial statements (Muna and Khoury 2012). Another significant finding of the study proposed that 67.12% respondents reflected that they did not know about the core set of expectations out of the auditors with accordance to the statute books and relevant documents. Therefore, by looking at the findings, it is natural that Okafor and Otalor (2013) have gained and maintained an adequate response rate whereas the various responses failed to lead the achievement of a precise conclusion by Agayei, Aye, and Owusu-Yeboah (2013). (ii) e. As outlined by Ayuurebobi et al. (2015), it can be determined that the study developed by Agayei, Aye, and Owusu-Yeboah (2013) has considered two major parameters, namely Agree and Disagree. Thus, the agreement and disagreement of the various variables are judged by the process. Okafor and Otalor (2013) measured the responses obtained from the participants by ensuring the collection of auditing and financial data. Therefore, it can be quietly observed that the data analysis approaches inducted by Okafor and Otalor (2013) are highly positive due to the consideration of the financial information will help to develop an accurate and relevant result. (ii)f. Based on the argument raised by Kusi et al. (2015), some of the critical flaws have been identified in the research paper developed by Agayei, Aye, and Owusu-Yeboah (2013). The most significant error of them all is the complicated responses from the users about the auditing analysis related to the financial statements. Conversely, faults are also there in the work developed by Okafor and Otalor (2013), as the proper emphasis was required to be provided to the educational qualifications of the research participants (Mattone 2013). References Ferrell, O., Friedrich, J. and Ferrell, L. (n.d.).Business ethics. Foss, N and Stea, D 2014, 'Putting a realistic theory of mind into agency theory: implications for reward design and management in principal agent relations', European Management Review, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 101-16. Guidotti, T.,andGuidotti, T. (2013).Occupational health services. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge/Taylor Francis Group. Hermanson, DR, Tompkins, JG, Veliyath, R and Ye, ZS 2012, 'The compensation committee process', Contemporary Accounting Research, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 666-709. Hill, C. (2012). Consensual qualitative research.Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Huang, Q., Leonard, J. and Tong, C. (1997).Business decision making in China. New York: International Business Press. Ims, KJ, Pedersen, LJT and Zsolnai, L 2014, 'How economic incentives may destroy social, ecological and existential values: the case of executive compensation', Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 123, no. 2, pp. 353-60. Malik, F. (2012).The right corporate governance.Frankfurt: Campus Verlag. Mancini, D., Vaassen, E. and Dameri, R. (2013). Accounting information systems for decision making. Berlin: Springer. Mattone, J. (2013). Powerful executive coaching.New York: AMACOM, American Management Association. Muna, F.,andKhoury, G. (2012).The Palestinian executive.Burlington, VT: Gower. Occupational outlook handbook. (2014). Lanham, Md.: Bernan. O'Reilly, CA, Doerr, B, Caldwell, DF and Chatman, JA 2014, 'Narcissistic CEOs and executive compensation', The Leadership Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 218-31. Pepper, A and Gore, J 2014, 'The economic psychology of incentives: An international study of top managers', Journal of World Business, vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 350-61. Pepper, A and Gore, J 2015, 'Behavioral agency theory new foundations for theorizing about executive compensation', Journal of Management, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 1045-68. Puckett, R. (2013). Food service manual for health care institutions. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint. Sputtek, R. (2012). Opening the black box.Wiesbaden: Springer Gabler. The CAESAR, POLO ESAU papers. (2007). [McLean, Va.?]: [Central Intelligence Agency]. Tietz, R. (2013). Executive teams in research-based spin-off companies. Wiesbaden: Springer Gabler. Vidal, D. and Casey, M. (2014).Next practices.Lanham, MD: Rowman Littlefield Education. Williamson, T., Campagna, M. and Ogden, A. (2012).Adapting sustainable forest management to climate change.Ottawa: Canadian Council of Forest Ministers. Wilson, M. (2012).The handbook of work analysis.New York: Routledge. Yeo, S., Pan, Y., Lee, Y. and Chang, H. (2012).Computer science and its applications.Dordrecht: Springer. Young, E. (2013). Ernst Young Tax Guide 2014.Hoboken: Wiley.

The Motivation behind Employer

Verbs Followed by Infinitive

Verbs Followed by Infinitive Many verbs are followed immediately by the infinitive form of the verb. Other verbs are followed by the gerund form of the verb. Finally, other verbs are followed by a noun, noun phrase or pronoun and then the infinitive. All of these verbs follow no specific rules and must be memorized. You can practice your knowledge once youve reviewed this sheet, as well as the other verb pattern reference lists by taking these quizzes: Verb Form - Gerund or Infinitive Quiz 1 Verb Form - Gerund or Infinitive Quiz 2 Gerund or Infinitive? An Interactive Reference Chart and Quiz The following list provides verbs that are immediately followed by the infinitive form of another verb (verb to do). Each verb followed by the infinitive is followed by two example sentences to provide context. affordI cant afford to go on vacation this summer.Can you afford to buy that sweater?agreeI agreed to help him with the problem.Do you think he would agree to take the test again?appearHe appears to think Im crazy!They appear to be available tomorrow.arrangeI arranged to spend the week in New York.Mary arranges to meet everyone each time.askShe asked to do the job.Franklin will ask to be promoted.begShelley begged to be released as soon as possible.The minister begged to donate as much as possible.careDo you care to spend some time with me?Tom doesnt care to ask any more questions.claimconsentWe consented to adopt the measure in the next year.Sherry will consent to marry you. Im sure!dareThose kids wont dare to break into that house.She often dares to break convention.decideIm going to decide to appoint the teacher next week.Mary and Jennifer decided to purchase an old house to fix up.demandThe protesters demanded to see the president about the economy.The client demanded to speak wi th his lawyer before making a statement. deserveI think Jane deserves to get the promotion.Our boss deserves to be fired!expectTom expects to finish the job soon.The students expect to receive their grades before the end of the day.failSusan never fails to mention that she knows the president personally.You shouldnt fail to mail in the form by the end of the week.forget - NOTE: This verb can also be followed by the gerund with a change in meaning.I think Peter forgot to lock the door before he left home.We seldom forget to do our homework, but last week was an exception.hesitateI hesitate to mention this, but dont you think ...Doug hesitated to tell us about his plan.hopeI hope to see you soon!He had hoped to have more success before he lost the election.learnHave you ever learned to speak another language?Our cousins are going to learn to mountain climb on vacation.manageTed managed to get his work done on time.Do you think well manage to persuade Susan to come with us?meanTim certainly meant to finish the job on time.They mean to do business here in town. needMy daughter needs to finish her homework before she can come out and play.They needed to fill out a number of forms in order to purchase the house.offerJason offered to give Tim a hand with his homework.She offers to help students whenever they have a question.planOur class plans to put on a play next semester.Im planning to visit you when Im in New York next month.prepareOur teachers are preparing to give us a test today.The politicians prepared to debate the issues on television.pretendI think he is pretending to be interested in the subject.She pretended to enjoy the meal, even though she didnt think it was good.promiseYes, I promise to marry you!Our coach promised to give us next Friday off if we win the game.refuseThe students refused to quiet down at the assembly.I think you should refuse to do that job.regret - NOTE: This verb can also be followed by the gerund with a change in meaning.I regret to tell you that it is not possible.The officer regretted to inform the citizen s of the horrific facts about the case. remember - NOTE: This verb can also be followed by the gerund with a change in meaning.Did you remember to lock the doors?I hope Frank remembered to telephone Peter about the appointment.seemIt seems to be a beautiful day outside!Did he seem to be nervous?struggleThe boys struggled to understand the concepts presented in the lesson.I sometimes struggle to stay concentrated when Im on the job.swearDo you swear, to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?Alice swore to help in any way possible.threatenChris threatened to call the police.The owner will threaten to kick you out if you dont stop making noise.volunteerId like to volunteer to judge the competition.Sarah volunteered to take Jim to the piano lesson.waitIm waiting to hear from Tom.She waited to eat until he arrived.wantJack wants to help everyone with the new concepts.The principal wanted to put on a teacher workshop.wishI wish to see you soon.Franklin wished to come and visit last month. More Verb Pattern Reference Lists: Verbs followed by the gerund - Verb Ing Verbs followed by a (pro)noun plus the infinitive - Verb (Pro)Noun Infinitive Verbs followed by the infinitive - Verb Infinitive

Great Wall Golf & Country Club Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Great Wall Golf & Country Club - Case Study Example The goal of Great Wall Golf & Country Club was not only to maintain its status but to be the best in Asia. From the case, we find that majority of senior managers were of Chinese origin who were recruited from the hospitality industry of Singapore and Hong Kong. When the Chinese market was at it’s over saturation level, the employees from the Mainland China were needed to take up the sport in order to continue the pace of Golf Course Development. Also, in order to increase the efficiency of the operations and developing specific skills, Great Wall Golf & Country Club organized itself with the help of HRM Department. The HR Department was used as a means of change agent, administrative expert, strategic partner and the champion of the employee in order to deliver the value. Recruitment & Retention: In order to meet the growing demand of Golfing facilities in China, 2000 employees were recruited by placing ads on the newspaper. The employees were selected on the basis of their e xperience and interpersonal skills accessed during an interview by HR Department. Due to the migrant nature of the employees, staffing was considered as a challenge for many businesses. In spite of being paid high, many employees resigned from the job after 18 to 24 months either due to financial reasons or because they wanted to be with their families. The Great Wall Golf & Country Club had the ability to retain the staffs due to their long-standing relations with the members. Food & Beverage, Caddies & Membership services, Golf Club reception were the departments where the long term services would initiate towards increasing the service standards of the customer thereby enabling The Great Wall Golf & Country Club to obtain its strategic objective, i.e., provide services of high quality. Education and Training & Development: The goal of Great Wall Golf & Country Club was to give services of high quality to its 2000 employees. The successful businessmen and government officials pref erred a high quality service. Delivery of high quality service was a challenging task in China which could be achieved by educating and training the employees. In many service industries, the employees were given the same pay cheque without considering the quality of the work. Human Resource Department provided language and practical training to the employees, generating awareness regarding the service and the mission, increasing the confidence level of the employees and also paying them according to the quality of the work performed in order to enhance their performance level for delivering better services. Therefore, it can be observed that the HRM practices in Great Wall Golf & Country Club fits together strategically. The strategies not only enabled the organization to attract employees from different regions but also retain them, as provided facilities at Great Wall were considerably more attractive compared to the industrial settings. The employees, especially who were migrate d, felt more confident as their fundamental needs were taken care of by the HRM practices. 2.0. How Do the HRM Practices at Great Wall Support Great Wall’s Strategy? Great Wall’s strategy has been to be world class in terms of provided services and facilities and also to be ‘among the best in Asia’. Great Wall’s prime emphasis was related towards quality, profit as well as innovation. The other aspects

Difference between Leaders and Managers Assignment - 13

Difference between Leaders and Managers - Assignment Example Following these theories in leadership, leaders should depict voluntary action; this is the difference between leaders and managers. Leaders in the article are acting like managers, whose role is to control the employees. They fail in their roles as they are supposed to listen to their needs and look for a way forward to create an admirable working environment. The success of leaders has a different interpretation, as it is governed by many variables; this includes the leadership styles, aspects of the situation, and quality of followers (Bertocci 22). This means that they have to create a basis to enhance their relationship with employees. Â  In the recent business world, there is a need for an integrated education system, which will produce effective people in the job market. This is the main objective Ohio States studies. Through this kind of initiatives, business leaders in China will be in a position to relate professionally with both customers and employees, which is the most prominent object in any organization. With this, industries will eliminate strikes enhance increase their productivity (Bertocci 45).

Book Review How Did That Happen by Roger Connors and Tom Smith 2009 Coursework

Book Review How Did That Happen by Roger Connors and Tom Smith 2009 - Coursework Example Something we go to when we are very close to pulling all our hair out from sheer frustration. Summary In most cases, we just need a surefire way to fix our problem, something that will guide us to the step of recovery, to save us from what has gone incredibly wrong and probably made us lose more than just our money. In such situations, more than the financial losses, we are worried about the amount of time, effort and energy we had put into the project. More often than not, we stress over our projects and spend sleepless nights wondering if our plan will be accepted by our targets and if we would achieve the success we had set out to. And when our project fails even a little bit, we can all but hang our heads in shame and disappointment. In How did that happen Roger Connors and Tom Smith address such situations. In the scene of the global economic crisis and where it was born, all managers have at some point or the other asked how all their plans went awry and how everything they had done was washed down the drain. But it’s not often that one can get answers to such questions. For one, the answer to every how did that happen is completely different. And another, no one will take the onus to explain to you what went wrong when you executed a particular plan. It is almost always up to you, the designer of the plan, to figure out what went wrong in your master plan, and where. In this day and age, we have the option to outsource our problems to consultants. They do an in-depth study of our plans and arrive at what went wrong and give us suggestions on how to rectify it. â€Å"Successfully holding others accountable to deliver on expectations, and doing it in a way that make others feel good about it, requires real effort and skill.† (Connors & Smith, 2009, pg.15-16). In spite of this, organizations may find it quite embarrassing to hand over their failures to random strangers. It makes the most sense to find the loopholes in the plan we have worked s o hard on. Review They say prevention is better than cure. But when the disease strikes, we cannot sob over not having taken the prevention. It is time for action. However, in most cases, when such crises strike, we have no clue where to begin to clean up the mess. We know that we have to do something to save our company from drowning, to keep ourselves afloat, but when disaster strikes, we lose our cool in all the panic. We need guidance, someone to tell us exactly what to do, when to do and how to do it. The only problem is, no one ever wants to take the responsibility to be that someone, probably out of fear of flopping out again. This is when smart people decided to write about foreseen crises when they were in a sober state of mind, so that when the problem showed its ugly face, people would have somewhere to turn to - a guide, a direction to move in to rectify what has gone horribly wrong. In How did that happen, Connors and Smith have defined in a very simple and comprehensib le manner what one must do in case of such outbreaks. Rather than giving us vague illustrations and long, complex instructions that no one will understand and confusing us even more, they have managed to break down the whole concept and give us step-by-step instructions that are definite, as opposed to the ambiguity one usually finds in such books. This may be the most important factor of this book, that even in spite of being a self-help book, it actually

J. David Bamberger: A Biography

J. David Bamberger: A Biography A  champion  of  land  stewardship  and  habitat  restoration J. David Bamberger has become an internationally known and highly respected conservationist who has dedicated his life work to protecting the environment while using its resources. He has transformed a once blighted.useless property into a beautiful sanctuary that serves as a model for others interested in habitat restoration. He has made strides in protecting and growing certain endangered species populations which have made positive impacts around the world. Bamberger shares the knowledge he has gained throughout his life by teaching others through trainings and workshops. Bamberger grew up in rural Ohio during the Great Depression and World War II. He had always admired the Amish for their ability to live in harmony with the land. (Greene, 2007) His father was a farmer so he learned to grow food at a young age. (Mcleod, 2001) His mother gave him a book titlePleasant Valley, written by Louis Bromfield, when he was growing up. Bromfield was an American advocate for land restoration and he wrote about his ideas in that book. Bamberger once said if I ever make money I want to do what Bromfield did,(Greene,  2007) referring to his work in habitat restoration. According to Goodwyn, (2010), Bamberger began working in Ohio as a door to door vacuum cleaner salesman in the 1940s. He received a Bachelor of Science Degree from Kent State University in 1950 before he moved to Texas where he continued to sell vacuum cleaners. He worked long hard hours with few days off to make as much money as he could, as he was paid by commission. Although his family was disappointed in his initial career choice according to Goodwyn (2010), he was able to bank half of a million dollars over a ten year period. Then he met another vacuum salesman named Bill Church who was trying to expand his fried chicken restaurant but needed some financial backing. Bamberger used some of his fortune to invest into the company known as Churchs Fried Chicken and became a partner in that business. By the  late 1960s the restaurant expanded across Texas making them both very wealthy. Bamberger used the wealth he had worked for to fulfill a lifetime dream in habitat restoration. Goodwyn (2010) reported while realtors were trying to show him properties with air strips and nice houses, he told them he wanted something nobody else wants. He ended up purchasing a 5500 acre ranch that was full of juniper plants which choke out other plants by spreading and taking over the landscape so nothing else can grow, reported in the article Restoring the Range. The land was overgrazed from years of misuse and there was little topsoil which had been blown away by wind due to the absence of plant root systems which would have held moisture in the soil. The creeks on the property were mostly dried up and not supporting the habitat. The animals that lived on the ranch were undernourished as well due to the lack of food in the area. Bamberger worked for decades to restore the ecological balance of the property.   He cleared the land of Juniper, carved plateaus into the hillsides to hold rain water, planted grass to hold the soil in place and to absorb the water into the soil. (Goodwyn, 2010). He changed and improved the water distribution across the property and planted trees and wildflowers according to the article Restoring the Range. Mcleod (2001) cited the incredible work he has accomplished on his property is evident by simply looking at his fence line. On one side of the fence, Junipers are still ravaging the landscape while on his side of the fence there are fields of grass along with a diversity of many other plants. The wildlife on the property have prospered on the revitalized ground according to the research. Bamberger said there were initially 48 species of birds when he first acquired the property but that number has climbed to over 219 species. (Restoring the Range, 2012) At the beginning the best deer harvested weighed 55 pounds after field dressing. (Mcleod, 2001) Now the average weight is 105 pounds. The ranch is also a working farm that raises and sells livestock. According to Goodwyn (2010), he used one square mile of his property to provide a  habitat for a highly endangered Scimitar-homed Oryx, an antelope that had disappeared from the African Sahara. The animal is currently extinct in the wild but still bred in captivity. The ranch is now home to a large herd of thriving Oryx and breeding aged males are regularly traded with  zoos and other animal preserves to preserve genetic diversity. He carved a three dome cave into a hillside on his property in 1998 and lined the ceiling wi th gunite, a mixture of cement, sand, and water that is generally sprayed into tunnels to line them with a hard dense layer. This is now  home to more than 400,000 Mexican Free-Tailed Bats.   Bamberger ranch has been one of the largest habitat restorations in Texas.   His work has not only improved the quality oflife for the 5500 acres and species living there, but has served as a model for others to follow. Goodwyn (2010) acknowledged he has improved the water quality of the water on his land which positively effects everyone downstream of his property. Bamberger hosts research on grasslands and range management at the ranch. He holds conferences and educational workshops on habitat restoration for students, landowners,  scientists, and conservation agencies.   He has earned dozens of awards for his work on the ranch and in the community. J. David Bambergers life journey is an inspiration to others. His inspiration came from a book his mother bought him. He worked hard, saved money, and fulfilled his dream. He found the worst piece of property he could find and he was able to transform it into a model for land stewardship. The refurbished property now boasts healthy water and vegetation. His work didnt stop there, as he added endangered species to the property,   as well as helped the species that  were already there to prosper. Then, he continued to help the enviromnent by passing on the knowledge he has gained through his experience to others by hosting training and workshops. He has shown that everyone can make a difference if they set their mind to it. Works Cited Around the Nation. Texas Rancher An Unlikely Environmentalist, Heard on All Things  Considered, by Wade Goodwyn, 2 February 2010 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storylcl=12306868 l The Austin Chronicle, Day Trips, J. David Bamberger has taken a slice of the Hill Country and restored it to pristine beauty, by Gerald E. Mcleod, 12   October   2001  http://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2001-10-12/8325 l/ Making a Difference: Restoring the Range, posted 29 May 2012 https ://hmclecozine.com/2012/05/29/restoring-the-range/ Water From Stone, The Story of Selah, Bamberger Ranch Preserve, by Jeffrey Greene, 26 March  2007

Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose :: American History

Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose I. Authors Background Stephen Ambrose was born in 1936 and grew up in Whitewater, Wisconsin, a small town where his father was the M.D. At the University of Wisconsin, he started as a pre-med, but inspired by a great professor he changed his major to History. After getting his M.A. degree at Louisiana State University, he returned to the University of Wisconsin to complete a Ph.D. Ambrose began teaching at the University of New Orleans. He started as a Civil War historian but changed to political history after President Eisenhower asked him to become his biographer. Since then, Ambrose has written more than twenty books. Among his best sellers are D-Day, Citizen Soldiers, Band of Brothers, Undaunted Courage and Nothing like it in the World. He was also a consultant for Steven Spielberg’s movie Saving Private Ryan. He is a retired Professor of History. Ambrose is now the director of the Eisenhower Center in New Orleans and is the founder of the National D-Day Museum. He is also a contributing editor of the Quarterly Journal of Military History. II. Synopsis Band of Brothers is a fascinating book that captures moments lived by soldiers during World War II. It specifically relates to the History of a small unit of paratroopers known as Easy Company, 506 Regiment, 101st Airborne. It is a story that follows the company from its inception to the capture of Hitler’s nest. It begins with the training of these soldiers at Camp Toccoa, Georgia. The 140 members of easy company who were young men from different social levels were physically and mentally trained. This particular company had an extremely harsh training, but many believe it is because of this training that they were considered as one of the best rifle companies in the army. Their trainer was Captain Sobel who they disliked but was later replaced with Lieutenant Winters. Two of the many things these soldiers learned were brotherhood and leadership. The first drop done by the paratroopers was on June 6, 1944 in Normandy. This drop did not result as planned. Planes were flying at a high velocity and at a short distance from the ground. Therefore one of the planes got hit. They arrived at Carentan which they captured and flew back to Aldbourne. Their second drop was on September 17, 1944 in Holland. This time it was perfectly done.

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. 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