Fall the Soviet Union

Fall the Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was instituted in 1917 and later succeeded the Russian empire in 1921. The USSR did not last long; it collapsed in the year 1991. There were political, economical, and cultural reasons that led to the collapse of the USSR. The political set up of the USSR was based on a philosophy of socialism; it eventually became a communism state. This state had a centralized political and economic system. The political leadership had total control over all matters taking place in the state, whether economical, social, or cultural. USSR ended up becoming a dictatorial state. This led to internal resistances within the USSR. The assimilation policy put in place by the political leadership failed. More than half of the USSR citizens were of non-Russian ethnic groups. They were opposed to this policy. These resulted to resistance, which weakened the government leading to its collapse.Advertising We will write a custom assessment sample on Fall th e Soviet Union specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The economy of USSR crumbled. This facilitated the fall of the USSR. There was very poor economic planning. Most of the government’s funds were used for armament, leading to other important functions that needed funding unattended to. This resulted due to cold war between the USSR and the USA. People of the USSR started experiencing poverty, shortage of basic needs such as education, health services. This resulted to resistances that involved people refusing to work, further weakening the economy. The USSR’s economy reached a point where the amount of income generated by the government could not support major functions in the government leading to its collapse. By late 20th century, so many people had acquired university education. There was a good number of well-learned people in the USSR. This people were exposed to the knowledge from the outside the USSR. This made them to star t fighting for liberalization, democracy, and human rights. They also were against the government policy of assimilation; they wanted their government to embrace diversity. This led to revolts all over the states that made up the USSR. A more liberal leader, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power. He embraced liberalization and democratization. This is what led to the splitting of the USSR into different states. The freedom of speech given to people gave them a platform to fight for their rights, criticize the leader for failed economic plan, and hold rallies that preached democracy. The economic changes, which decentralized the economic system, allowed people to see the negatives of communism leading to its failure. This leader came into power when communism was losing favor in the east. He did not put in measures to counter that. This leader also came into talks with the USA to rescue his country’s economy by ending the cold war. The measures put in place to end the cold war furth er weakened USSR. By the time, Mikhail Gorbachev had put in place the measures he believed were the best for his country’s future. The level of liberalization and democratization witnessed could not allow for the continued existence of the USSR.Advertising Looking for assessment on history? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Even though the USA played a role in the failure and eventual collapse of the USSR, the effect of USA could have been negligible had Soviet Union put in place measures that could have guaranteed the survival of the union in to the future. The union was involved in power struggles with the United States instead of building the economy. Once its economy crumbled, its collapse was inevitable. The leadership in the Soviet Union did not involve the citizens in its functioning. This made USSR citizens to feel as if they were subjects in their own country resulting to uprisings, which facilitated th e collapse of the union. Those people who were in leadership made communism to fail as most people viewed it as dictatorship. This led to the collapse of communism as it had lost favor among people in the east.

Evaluation of Social Media Marketing Campaigns Research Paper

Evaluation of Social Media Marketing Campaigns - Research Paper Example The researcher states that marketing is an organizational function that strives to promote it in order to boost its image, products, and services. In a business, the fundamental aim of marketing is to realize increased sales geared towards the profitability. It is a fact that one of the core objectives of a business is profit maximization, and businesses have various marketing strategies to realize this important objective. The conventional means of marketing in a company or an organization involved strategies like advertisement, branding, discounts, after sale services and free samples among others. These strategies majorly utilized print media, televisions and radios as a medium of communication. However, the contemporary society has witnessed immense technological advancements evidenced, for example by the invention and adoption of computers and internet technology. This technology has necessitated the development and use of social media where individuals and organizations can int eract online. At this juncture, it is necessary for us to understand the term, ‘social media’ in order to tackle the topic effectively. According to About.com, social media is an instrument of communication through a website that enables people all over the world to access information and to interact with one another. The distinctive feature of social media from other instruments of communication is the fact that, apart from accessing the information, people are able to give their views online. Information on the social media is relayed to a large mass of people in real time and at affordable costs due to the internet technology. Due to these factors, together with its interactive nature, many companies have opted to use it to enhance their marketing campaigns. There are varied types of social media sites. Suraj, documents that there are three main categories of social media sites, social bookmarking, social networking and media sharing. Bookmarking involves utilizing t he bookmark function of the browser to create and save your account and share them with friends all over the world.

The Invisible Man written by H.G. Wells Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Invisible Man written by H.G. Wells - Essay Example After his initial surprise, Kemp settles, gives Griffin his word he will not betray him, and gives him food and clothes. His better judgment, however, makes him write a letter to Colonel Adye, in Port Burdock. On the next day, listens in complete astonishment to Griffin’s story. It is a long one: how Griffin made himself invisible, after experimenting on a cat, and the trouble he got himself into as a result. Towards the end of Griffin’s long recount, the reader senses that Kemp gives dry answers. Doubt has entered his mind about his old college acquaintance’s sanity. He agrees cursorily with Griffin’s suggestions, but he is somehow unconvinced and not as reassuring as the previous day. The doctor shows his uncertainty to Griffin: Kemp is now certain that Griffin is insane. Trying to lock Griffin up is unsuccessful, and Kemp is beaten up just as Colonel Adye, the chief of police, arrives to see him being tossed about as if by some invisible force. Why did Kemp betray his friend, and break his promise that he would not let him down? In the days that this book was written, an Englishman’s word was his bond. Personal morals and standards were high, and nothing short of death would get a man to betray a friend to whom he had given his word. This betrayal of Kemp’s must be seen in the context of this ethic. In normal circumstances nothing would have persuaded Kemp to inform on Griffin. The doctor, however, had deliberated over the situation for a long time, smoking three cigars. The situation was anything but normal, and Griffin was not sounding very rational to him. His morning recount of killing animals, robbing stores, and taking a man’s gold was enough for Kemp to be glad he had sent to note off to Adye. Griffin was a danger to himself and others. He was talking of going off to Algiers, where people did not know to look out for a swaddled man. His desire was to start a reign of terror. This was enough for

Burro Genius Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Burro Genius - Essay Example The one belief they instill in the child is that one should not lose perspective in order to excel or make progress in life. As a little boy aged six, I used to be extremely playful and forgetful at the same time. One day after school, I happened to bump into my toy as I was approaching my room, without thinking twice I dropped my bag, picked my toy and started playing with it. The game became more attractive, and I ended up in the garage, back in the house my little sister came across my bag, started playing with it and ended up messing with my homework. Since I had nobody to blame but myself, it meant I had to inform my mother so that she can go and explain to the teacher for me to get the homework. This situation also applies to Victor’s case, which left the car windows opened, and ended up with a cloth full of feathers. He learned that one does not need to be angry for every mistake one make nor does he need to look for someone blame for not correcting his mistakes for him but, embrace the mistake and work towards ensuring that it does not happen again. By helping me out on explaining to the te acher what happened to my initial homework, my mother instilled the lesson that helped me learn that no one is perfect, and people are not gauged on mistakes they made but how well they progress after the mistake. The thesis of this paragraph is, just like Victor no one is perfect not even parents, but the best thing they do is ensuring that the same mistake does not happen again (Villasenor p56). My mother was doing some work on a computer one night at home, being a mother of two she had to hop from one task to another. Since, my sister was still too young, and she required much attention she had to juggle from looking after her, cooking for all of us as well as finish the work she had on the computer. In the process of juggling, she had to leave the computer open, as I was passing around the house I

Prigogine Investigation Essay Example for Free

Prigogine Investigation Essay The origination and evolution of living organisms is considered by many scientists, due to general laws of nature, especially the second law of thermodynamics. In this paper this idea is explored, taking in account the dissipative structures and Prigogine’s thermodynamics. Introduction The use of thermodynamics in biology has a long history rich in confusion (Morowitz, 92) (Klyce, Brigg, http://www. panspermia. org/seconlaw. htm) The second law of thermodynamics was discovered by Clausius, who coined the term Entropy, which is usually defined as the degree of disorder. In the most general sense, Evolution of life means, growing in ordered combinations from cells, to tissues and organs, to plants and animals, families, communities, and ecosystem. It can be seen that these two terms: evolution and entropy express totally contradictory concepts. According to second law, Entropy of a closed system can never decrease, i. e. dSV ? 0 (Gibbs, 1928). But, in case of evolution, the living systems increasingly go on to complex state of more order, suggesting that entropy in this closed system has decreased. This is the paradox that has baffled both biologists and physicists alike. Hence, an initial theory which both physicists and biologists agreed upon was: life violates the second law of thermodynamics. Evolution of life and Entropy The contradiction can however be explained, by subscribing to one of the two very different schools of thought. Either we can accept that the order that is seen in the evolution and growth biological systems is maintained at the expense of thermodynamic order. That is to say, sustenance in the form of external energy is always provided to the organism from external environment and entropy of this larger system is increasing. Hence, living beings attract negative entropy, in order to compensate for this increase in the entropy, which explains the order. This concept was formed by Schrodinger. There is another explanation, which was proposed by Prof. Ilya Prigogine. According to him, the living organisms function as dissipative structures, i. e. thermodynamically open systems operating in non-equilibrium environment. These have the capacity for self-organization in the face of environmental fluctuations. In other words, they maintain their structure by continuously dissipating energy. Such dissipative structures are permanently in states of non-equilibrium. Ds/dt 0 away from steady state Ds/dt = 0 steady state (Prigogine, 1977) In this case, equilibrium is the state of maximum entropy. A system that is not in equilibrium exhibits a variation of entropy, which is the sum of the variations of entropy due to the internal source of entropy, plus the variation of entropy due to the interaction with the external world. The former is positive, but the latter can be negative. Therefore, total entropy of the system can decrease. Life according to this theory can then be summarized as: An organism lives because it absorbs energy from the external world and processes it to generate an internal state of lower entropy. It can live as long as it can avoid falling in the equilibrium state. According to the second law, only irreversible processes contribute to entropy production. This means the existence of a function in an isolated system which can only increase in time. It follows that the positive time direction is associated with entropy (Prigogine, 1977). Now, biological evolution is hierarchical and can be considered as an irreversible process of the variation of life with respect to the evolutionary time scale. The Law of Temporal Hierarchies makes it possible to identify quasi-closed thermodynamic systems and subsystems within open biological systems (Gladyshev, 2003). This facilitates the study of individual development (ontogenesis) and evolution (phylogenesis) of these subsystems. For instance, it is seen that the specific Gibbs function for the formation of supramolecular structures of biological tissues, G tends towards its minimum in the course of both ontogenesis and phylogenesis. (Gladyshev, 2005) The above model implies that, the mean flow of matter is quasi-stationary and the nature of incoming matter to the system remains practically unchanged. In other words, the supramolecular phase (structure) of the organism evolves against the background of the incoming flow of chemical substances of practically constant composition. This principle of the stability of chemical substances is a thermodynamic principle. Accordingly, the tendency of biological systems during evolution to generate relatively highly stable structures of higher hierarchies leads to the selection of relatively less stable structures of lower hierarchies. This rejuvenates the lower hierarchical structures and causes nearly unbounded evolution of the biological world. (Gladyshev, 2005) Conclusion The findings of hierarchical thermodynamics, specifically supramolecular thermodynamics of quasi-closed systems, confirm the thermodynamic tendency of biological evolution. Additional experiments could refine this model and further verify that second law can be applied in its classical definition to explain the origin and evolution of life References 1. Gladyshev, Georgi P. â€Å"What is Life- A physical chemist’s viewpoint†, 12th Dec. 2005 http://www.panspermia.org/seconlaw.htm

Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay -- Character Analysis, Janie

Speech is arguably the primary source of communication for humanity, enabling us to experience and share life with one other through our words. However, we see a different path of life in Janie, the main character in the book Their Eyes Were Watching God. Janie’s character evolves with using control of silence to her benefit, helping her find what she has always struggled to have: Individuality and independence. The relationships Janie has with her three husbands revolve around three versions of silence, while in pursuit of what she calls her â€Å"pear tree†, her true love. Logan forces silence from Janie which becomes an oppressor; Joe exploits Janie’s silence and uses it as a manipulator; and Janie’s only true love, Tea Cake, allows Janie to control silence, which becomes her liberator. In the book Their Eyes Were Watching God, silence is manifest as an evolving source of empowerment and identity for Janie, in that her character is molded not only by her speech but, more importantly, by her silence. In Janie’s journey to find herself, she initially has limited control of her own life, being forced into marriage by Nanny. Nanny wants what she feels is best for Janie, wishing for her to have security and protection. This marriage provides the perfect solution in Nanny’s eyes; Nanny promises Janie that all will go well with her marriage even though it may not seem so at the time. Janie reluctantly agrees, but soon realizes that Logan does not have her best interest at heart, causing her to quickly tire of him. Soon after Nanny’s death, the reader sees Logan change entirely. He commands Janie by ordering her around, expecting her to do whatever he demands of her. With Janie being a child, she is somewhat helpless to defend herself ... ...of love the reader sees from Tea Cake is his rescuing Janie from the dog attack. This unravels the mystery, revealing that Tea Cake does really love Janie; he is her pear blossom on her pear tree. Hurston successfully uses speech and silence to create a fascinating story about a young woman who grows up to find her individuality and in the end, her pear blossom. Logan, Joe, and Tea Cake all play an integral part in Janie becoming the strong, independent woman she is, ultimately allowing her to break the chain of abuse suffered by her mother and grandmother. Silence is the barrier in Janie’s life that she endures; through the suffering, Janie emerges to honor the struggles in her life, transformed into a woman who is beautiful, mature, and strong. Janie is rewarded with peace and happiness that her life now offers, with the pear tree that is forever hers to embrace.

Customer Lifetime Value Essay

Marketing Engineering for Excel is a Microsoft Excel add-in. The software runs from within Microsoft Excel and only with data contained in an Excel spreadsheet. After installing the software, simply open Microsoft Excel. A new menu appears, called â€Å"MEï€ ´XL.† This tutorial refers to the â€Å"MEï€ ´XL/Customer Lifetime Value† submenu. Overview Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) represents a metric of a customer’s value to the organization over the entire span of that customer’s relationship with a firm. Short-term sales influence CLV, but so do overall customer satisfaction, the churn rate in the segment, and the costs to acquire a new customer and retain an existing customer. The CLV approach helps firms answer such questions as: How much is my customer base â€Å"worth†? Taking into account observed churn rates, how many of the currently active customers will still be active in a few years? How much is a customer worth, depending on the segment to which he or she belongs? If acquiring a new customer costs $150, after how many periods can we recoup this investment? Customer lifetime value analysis considers your database at a segment level, using the answers you provide to the following questions: How many segments do you have in your database, and how many customers per segment? For a given period, how much is a customer worth, on average, in each segment (margins and costs)? What is the likelihood that a customer in segment A will switch to segment B during the next period? Getting Started A CLV analysis allows you to use your own data directly or a template preformatted by the MEXL software. The next section explains how to create an easy-to-use template to enter your own data. If you want to run a CLV analysis immediately, open the example file â€Å"OfficeStar Data (CLV).xls† and jump to â€Å"Step 3: Running analysis† (p. 4). By default, the example files install in â€Å"My Documents/My Marketing Engineering/.† Step 1 Creating a template Using the interactive assistant In Excel, if you click on MEï€ ´XL ï  § CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE ï  § CREATE TEMPLATE, a dialog box appears. This box represents the first step in creating a template to run the CLV analysis software. The first dialog box prompts you to use an interactive assistant. Unless you are already familiar with the methodology, you should select â€Å"yes.† Listing segments The first step of the template generation process requires you to label and list the segments that you want taken into account. Enter the names of segments to which a customer can belong. Press ENTER or click the â€Å"Add to list† button to add it to the â€Å"List of Segments.† Note that a segment of â€Å"lost customers† always appears in your list. This segment has the following properties: There is no activity by these customers (margins and costs equal 0). It entails an absorbing relationship state. As soon as a customer reaches this segment, he or she stays there forever. In other words, there is 100% chance the customer stays in that segment in the next period, and all other transition probabilities will be equal to 0%. After entering all your segments (at least one), click the OK button to proceed to the next step of the template creation process. Clicking on the OK button generates a template. Not using the interactive assistant You may skip this intermediary step and create a blank template. When you are prompted to use the interactive assistant, just click â€Å"no.† The following dialog box appears: When you click OK, you generate a new blank spreadsheet. You must enter the segment labels manually in the spreadsheet. In this example, if you update the names of the segments in cells B6, B7, and B8, the names of the segments automatically update in the other cells of the spreadsheet. Entering your data In this tutorial, we use the example file â€Å"OfficeStar Data (CLV).xls,† which in the default conditions appear in â€Å"My Documents/My Marketing Engineering/.† To view a proper data format, open that spreadsheet in Excel. A snapshot is reproduced below. A typical CLV analysis spreadsheet contains: Number of customers per segment. As of today, how many customers does the company have in each segment? Gross margins, or the average margins that the company expects from a customer over each period (e.g., year, quarter), on the basis of the segment to which this customer belongs during that period. In the OfficeStar example, a customer who belongs to the â€Å"Warm Customer† segment should generate $15 of gross margins on average during the next period (e.g., first quarter). Marketing costs, or how much money the company plans to spend per customer during the next period, according to the segment to which this customer belongs at the beginning of the period. Typically, active customers are followed more closely, receive more attention (e.g., direct marketing solicitations, sales representatives visits), and cost more to the firm. Transition matrix, which summarizes the likelihood a customer will switch segments during each period. This matrix should be read horizontally, and each line sums to 100% (because all customers appear in some segment). In the OfficeStar example, an active customer has a 75% likelihood of remaining in the same segment and a 25% chance of switching to the warm customer segment. A customer’s behavior during the previous period determines into which segment that customer is classified, and his or her segment membership then determines the marketing dollars the company should allocate to that customer in the next period. In the OfficeStar example, a customer who belongs to the â€Å"Active Customer† segment generates $90 of gross margins per period (e.g., quarter). Step 3 Running analyses After entering your data in the Excel spreadsheet using the appropriate format, click on MEï€ ´XL ï  § CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE ï  § RUN ANALYSIS. The dialog box that appears indicates the next steps required to perform a CLV analysis of your data. CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE – V130522 5/10 Number of periods: Specify the number of periods for which you want a detailed CLV analysis. Note that this choice does NOT affect the CLV computations, because the value of a customer always gets estimated over an infinite time horizon (though as time passes and discount rates apply, future revenues have less relative impact). The number of periods affects only the level of output. Discount factor: Indicate the discount rate to apply for the value of a dollar spent or received in the future as compared to the current period. A discount rate of 15% means that $100 profit in the next period is only â€Å"worth† $85 in today’s dollars. A greater discount factor reduces the impact of future revenues on CLV computations and thus focuses on shortterm  profits. You should increase the discount rate for turbulent or rapidly evolving markets, in which conditions change rapidly and future revenues therefore are highly uncertain. Setting: Select either Transactional or Contractual depending on the nature of the product or service you are modelling. Contractual models imply the existence of a contract between the transacting parties (e.g., a mobile phone contract between the provider and consumer). Contractual relationships imply continuous transactions and a known end to the contract. Transactional models imply discrete transactions with no implied end to the relationship. For use with our CLV model, the impact of this setting will affect the first period of the analysis. A Contractual setting implies no loss/gain in first month (since the customer is under contract) while the Transactional setting will reflect loss/gain in the first month. The discount factor gets applied after each period, regardless of how you define a period. If you define a period as a quarter, a discount factor of 15% translates into an effective yearly discount rate of almost 48% (15% discount rate applied four times per year). Remember to take this multiplicative effect into account when selecting an appropriate discount factor. After selecting these options, you must select the cells containing the data. First, the software asks for ranges of the current segment sizes and profits and costs for each segment, including a row dedicated to permanently lost  customers. If you use a template generated by Marketing Engineering for Excel, it has already pre-selected the cell ranges. Second, the software asks for a square range that shows the likelihood that a customer in each segment (row) will switch to each segment (column) in the following period. The newly generated spreadsheet contains the results of your CLV analysis. Step 4 Interpreting the results Customer lifetime value The last column of the CLV table outputs the expected CLV of a customer who currently belongs to a given segment, determined by summing the stream of all future gross margins, minus all future marketing costs, and taking into account both the discount factor and the likelihood of customers switching from one segment to another. These figures also appear in the â€Å"Lifetime Value† chart, shown below. A customer with a negative CLV actually means a loss of money for your firm. Number of customers per segment The next table (and chart) shows how many customers will be in each segment at each period of time in the future. The time horizon displayed on the chart matches the number of periods you specified in the â€Å"Run Analysis† options. Note that the â€Å"Lost Customers† segment is not displayed. In most applications, all customers eventually become lost customers, and over sufficient time, all other segments become empty. Customer base’s lifetime value The third table in the â€Å"CLV Analysis† sheet, labeled the Customer Base’s Lifetime Value, summarizes the future stream of revenues and marketing costs over a specified number of future periods (whether cumulative or not) at the global level. Some key elements of this table plot in the third (and last) chart of the spreadsheet. In particular, the Discounted Net Margins (cumulated) provide an answer to the question: â€Å"Over the next x periods, how much is my customer base worth?† Retention rates The final tables depict the likelihood that a customer will belong to any segment in any period of time in the future, depending on the segment to which he or she currently belongs. There are as many tables as there are segments in the analysis. In most applications, all customers eventually join the â€Å"Lost Customers† segment. The probability of belonging to that segment thus slowly reaches 1 (100%), and the probabilities of belonging to any other segment trend toward 0 over time.