Augustus Ceasar :: Essays Papers

Augustus Ceasar Two of the most destructive problems facing the late Roman Republic were the instability and disunity caused by incessant civil wars. Rome's rapid expansion, after the Punic Wars, resulted in socioeconomic changes that permanently divided the state. Both aristocratic and plebeian parties sought total control of Rome and tried to destroy each other. Civil war was the continuation of party politics by other means. Consequently, the power of the military became supreme. Control of Rome's armies steadily shifted away from the legitimate government to the generals because the soldiers began to give their allegiance to their generals rather than to the civil authorities. On dismissal from military service, the legionnaires had no farms to return to, and they depended entirely on whatever land and money their generals could provide since the government was unwilling or unable to supply veterans with livelihoods. Thus, the generals became autonomous centers of power. The general who dominated the strongest army ruled the state. Repeated power struggles of these military strongmen ignited more civil wars that further undermined the stability and unity of the late Roman Republic. Augustus saw how divisive to the Roman polity civil war was. He understood that control of the legions by the civil government was necessary for the establishment of peace and order throughout the Roman Empire. He wanted to reorganize and institute changes in the military to assure that it would not rise again in support of some triumphant general to challenge the legitimacy of the state. Since warfare within the Empire was eliminated, the role of the legions changed. Its main objectives consisted in protecting the borders from foreign foes and pacifying conquered lands through the gradual introduction of the Roman language, law, administration, and engineering. Augustus' priority was to reduce the number of the legions from 60 to 28, settling in the process more than 100,000 veterans in colonies in Italy, Africa, Asia, and Syria. While proscription financed previous resettlement efforts, the vast wealth of Egypt, which he seized after Antony's defeat, subsidized Augustus' massive resettlement program. He raised the troops' salary and regularized the payment of pensions, which consisted of land and money, to veterans. Augustus, thus, reduced the old threat of soldiers giving their allegiance to wealthy generals rather than to the state. He also standardized the length of military service. The Roman legion became a professional, long service force with an esprit de corp that earlier legions did not have. Each legion was commanded by an officer

Little Mermaid

This is the story of a little mermaid named Ariel, who dreams of going above the sea. When her father, King Triton, forbids her to go above the sea, she visits Queen Ursula who her father had banished. Even though she helps her get to get above the sea, what Ariel doesn't know is that Ursula has plans to destroy her to get revenge on her father. Ariel uses her voice to get the prince attention. In this paper I will use theories to summarize Little Mermaid movie.I believe Ariel is at stage 6 of Erickson`s theory because she is now at the age where she think she know what love is. Her father forbid her to go above the sea but the love she had for the prince caused he to defy what her father instructed. Ariel was determined and will not let nothing stop her. She went into a stage of isolation everything she did or thought about was revolved around getting married to the prince. She had other sisters and a father but whenever it was time for the other mermaids to sing or put on an show, little Ariel was no where to be found.When her Father learned of her defying his word, he was angry. Ariel took matters in her own hand, by consulting with the wicked Queen alone. Yes granted the wicked Queen Ursula made Ariel human, but at what cost? The cost was her voice (operant conditioning). Not really understanding how she would get the prince to know her because she was unable to talk, Ariel used her looks to entice the prince. She was like some typical teenagers today.Ariel's father wanted to reinforce a positive behavior (not allowing her to go above the sea, for her safety), but Ariel acted out in a negative way (she went above the sea anyway). Ariel performed a voluntary action to get something she wanted (operant behavior). Growing up as the youngest of her other five sisters, Ariel felt a sense of inferiority to her older sister. They were all able to go above the sea but she was not because of her age (industry vs inferiority, Erikson's Psychosocial Stages of Developm ent).The feeling of inferiority that Ariel felt was so strong, that she felt the need to go above the see everyday. In Piaget's theory which states as a person goes through life Ariel was so determined to become a human that she imitated and idiolized what humans did. Each time she woud visit above the sea she would come back with a keepsake that humans used(comb, fork, and even the statue that fell off the prince's boat during a storm one particular day. This type of behavior

Kidney Function

It is said that we are what we eat. Because the food we eat is assimilated into our blood. And the nutrients circulating in our bloodstream replenish every cell of our body. On the other side of the coin, this blood needs to be constantly cleaned and maintained at an equilibrium. This is where the kidneys come in. It is the function of the kidneys to continually filter out the impurities and toxins from the blood.   After the body tissues have taken what is needed from the nutrient-laden blood, waste is sent back to the blood. If our kidneys did not remove these waste substances, they would build up in the blood to the point of death. Kidneys excrete the unwanted stuff from the blood and retain only the essential ingredients. In this sense, it can be said that we are indeed what our kidneys keep. Kidneys are such vital organs of the body that we can only keep going as long as the kidneys keep functioning.The kidneys regulate the composition of the blood by 1) removing waste chemica ls from metabolism of body’s tissue cells and various chemicals that have been detoxified by the liver (such as drugs, toxins and hemoglobin breakdown products) – i.e. excretion 2) maintaining the concentrations of various ions (including sodium, potassium, chloride, calcium, magnesium, sulfate, phosphate) and other important substances at optimum levels   – i.e., osmoregulation. 3) keeping the volume of water and in the body at the right levels and 4) keeping   the acid/base concentration of the blood constant.Besides regulating the blood composition, kidneys also help maintain the body’s blood pressure through the action of an enzyme called renin. Further, they actually help new blood cells to generate from the bone marrow. This they do by acting in the capacity of endocrine glands by releasing a hormone called erythropoietin. The kidneys also release a hormone called calcitrol which helps the body sythesize calcium.Blood is pumped down from the hea rt, and the kidneys receive this blood through a branch of aorta called the renal artery. Although the kidneys are relatively small in size and constitute less than 1% of the total body weight, they can take in up to 20% of the body’s total blood volume at a time. Blood flows from the renal artery into progressively smaller arteries, the smallest being the arterioles. From the arterioles, blood flows into tufts of microscopic capillaries called glomeruli. Blood exits each glomerulus through another arteriole, which connects to a small vein. The small veins join to form a single large renal vein, which carries blood away from each kidney. After the processing of the blood, the purified blood is returned to the body through the renal vein and the filtered-out waste products and other unwanted substances move out through the ureter. Urine flows from the kidneys through the ureters to the bladder.The kidneys filter and return to the bloodstream about 200 quarts of fluid every day . of which about two quarts are removed from the body in the form of urine.Excretion in the kidneys removes water, inorganic ions, products of detoxification of blood, and nitrogenous waste products that result from the metabolism of protein taken into the body in food. Protein is broken down by the process of digestion into amino acids which are carried to the liver by the blood and get converted into body protein. But the surplus amino acids which cannot be stored by the body undergo a process of deamination, i.e. are broken down. Ammonia is formed as a by-product. Ammonia is an extremely toxi substance. Inside the liver it combines with carbon dioxide in a series of reactions known as the ornithine cycle. Urea is formed as a result, which then passes into the circulation and is carried to the kidney, is processed by nephrons and then excreted in the urine. With waste products thus expelled from the body, the purity of the blood is restored – an this is a continuous process inside our bodies.The NephronThe key functional unit of the kidney is called the nephron. Each kidney contains about a million nephrons. It is these nephrons that contain glomureli. Each nephron consists of a glomerulus surrounded by a thin-walled, bowl-shaped structure (Bowman's capsule), a tiny tube (tubule) that drains fluid from a space in Bowman's capsule, and a collecting duct that drains the freshly-formed urine from the tubule. Each of these tubules has three parts: the proximal convoluted tubule, the loop of Henle, and the distal convoluted tubule. It is in this closely packed intricate network of glomeruli and tubules that the basic process of blood filtering takes place.Nephrons regulate water and electrolytes in the body by filtering the blood, after which necessary fluid and molecules are reabsorbed and unneedes substances are secreted. Reabsorption and secretion are accomplished with both cotransport and countertransport mechanisms established in the nephrons and asso ciated collecting ducts.Blood enters the glomeruli at high pressure. Much of the fluid part of blood is filtered through small pores in the glomeruli, leaving behind blood cells and most large molecules, such as proteins. Thus filtered fluid then enters Bowman's space and passes into the tubule leading from Bowman's capsule. In the first part of the tubule, most of the sodium, water, glucose, and other substances are reabsorbed and returned to the blood. In the next part of the tubule, the remaining sodium,   and potassium, and chloride are pumped out, and the resulting fluid becomes increasingly dilute. The dilute fluid then passes through the next part of the tubule, where more sodium is pumped out in exchange for potassium and acid, which are pumped in. A complex series of chemical exchanges constantly take place inside the glomeruli and tubules of nephrons.The Kidneys and the Liver  There is also another major organ responsible for filtering out toxins from the blood, and th at is the liver. The liver performs several roles in carbohydrate and lipid metabolism. Further, the liver breaks down toxin substances, and it also breaks down hemoglobin.  Food nutrients entering the liver from the intestine are changed into forms usable by the body cells or are stored for future use. Fats are converted into fatty acids and then into carbohydrates or ketone bodies and transported by the blood to the tissues. Sugars are converted into glycogen, which remains stored in the liver until it is needed for energy production, when it is reconverted into glucose and released into the bloodstream. In its role as a blood purifier, the liver metabolizes nitrogenous waste products from body processes and detoxifies poisonous substances, preparing them for elimination in the urine or feces.The human liver secretes about one litre of bile each day to aid the digestion of fats in the food. Bile is also the medium of excretion for certain metabolic waste products, drug compounds , and toxins. Bile secreted into the common bile duct enters the gallbladder, where it is concentrated and stored. When needed,   this bile flows out of the gallbladder and into the intestine. Worn-out red blood cells are destroyed in the liver, spleen, and bone marrow.   A pigment, bilirubin, formed in the process of hemoglobin breakdown, is released into the bile, creating its characteristic greenish-orange colour.The red blood cells are degraded at end of their lives in liver and spleen, with hemoglobin breaking down to heme and globin. Erythrocytes of red blood cells carry oxygen and carbon dioxide by binding them with iron in hemoglobin. Erythrocyte production in the body is stimulated by a hormone called erythropoietin, secreted mainly by kidneys. The fixed phagocytic cells of the spleen and bone marrow destroy old blood cells and convert the heme groups of hemoglobin into the pigment bilirubin. The bilirubin is secreted into the blood and carried to the liver where it is conjugated with glucuronic acid, a derivative of glucose. Some of the conjugated bilirubin is secreted into the blood, and the rest is excreted in the bile as bile pigment that passes into the small intestine. This â€Å"conjugated† bilirubin is called direct bilirubin, while the â€Å"unconjugated† bilirubin is called indirect bilirubin.The conjugated bilirubin that is excreted into the bile by the liver is stored in the gall bladder or transferred directly to the small intestines. Urobilinogens are colorless compounds formed by bacteria in the intestine from bilirubin after the conjugated glucuronic acid has been removed. The urobilinogen remaining in the intestine is oxidized to brown stercobilin which gives the feces their characteristic color. A small portion of the urobilinogen is reabsorbed, extracted from the circulation by the hepatocytes and excreted by the kidney. This constitutes the normal â€Å"intrahepatic urobilinogen cycle†.If a liver disease su ch as hepatitis interferes with the normal intrahepatic urobilinogen cycle, increased amounts of urobilinogen may appear in the urine where it is converted to yellow urobilin.Whearas in a typical case of biliary obstruction, decreased amounts of direct bilirubin reach the intestine for conversion to urobilinogen. With little urobilinogen available for reabsorption and excretion, the amount of urobilinogen in the urine is low, which would be detected in a urinalysis.UrinalysisUrinalysis is a physical and/or chemical examination of the urine. It consists of a series of chemical and microscopic tests to identify urinary tract infections, kidney disease, liver disease, and diseases of other organs that may result in the appearance of abnormal metabolites (break-down products) in the urine.In urinalysis, a small, randomly collected urine sample is examined physically for things like color, appearance, and concentration (specific gravity); chemically for substances such as proteins, gluco se, and acidity vs. alkalinity (pH value). Further on, tests can be conducted for the presence of cellular elements (red blood cells, white blood cells, and epithelial cells) mircroscopic organisms, crystals, and casts (structures formed by the deposit of protein, cells, and other substances in the kidneys' tubules).Normal Values and DeviationsNormal urine may vary in color from nearly transparent colorlessness to dark yellow. If the urine is of an unusual color that cannot be accounted for by food intake or medication, it is an indication of some abnormality. The urine specific gravity ranges between 1.006 and 1.030. The specific gravity varies depending on various factors such as food and the time of the day. If the specific gravity is above or below the normal range, or if it does not vary, it may indicate a kidney problem.The urine pH value is also influenced by a number of factors. Generally the normal pH range is from 4.6 to 8.0. If the pH is very acidic or alkaline, beyond wh at could be attributed to normal levels of variation, then there could be a problem. There is usually no detectable urine glucose, urine ketones, or urine protein. Significant amounts of glucose and ketones point to uncontrolled diabetes. There should be no red blood cells present in urine. If blood is found in the urine, it is a sure sign of trouble, possibly of a serious nature. It may indicate a urinary tract disease, or the dreaded cancer.Bilirubin is normally not found in the urine, as it would only be present in such tiny quanties as is undetectable by a routine test. There may be a trace of urobilinogen in the urine, but bilirubin in discernable amounts in the urine is a sign of a liver or bile duct disease. Nitrites and white blood cells (leukocytes) too should not be normally present in the urine. And if they are, a strong possibility of an urinary tract infection rises.Creatinine Clearance Test for GFRCreatinine is a metabolite of the compound creatine that is found in mus cles. Creatine is a by-product of muscle energy metabolism. It is filtered from the blood by the kidneys and excreted into the urine, in the same general manner as urea. Creatinine clearance is the process of removal of creatinine from the body, and technically signifies the volume of blood plasma that is cleared of creatinine per unit time (typically, milliliters per minute).Creatinine clearance is used for estimating the glomerular filtration rate (GFR) of the kidneys, which is the volume of fluid filtered from the renal glomerular capillaries into Bowman's capsule per unit time. GFR measurement is often considered to be the best avilable determinant of renal function. The normal range of GFR for males is 97 to 137 ml/min, and for females is 88 to 128 ml/min. The average for men is 120 ml/min and for women 95 ml/min. The GFR may reach 200 ml/min during pregnancy.A clearance of less than 80 ml/min is significant except in people over 80 years. A decreased creatinine clearance rate is an indication of increased blood creatinine level, and happens due to the diminished capability of kidneys to carry out their function, under conditions of abnormality and disease. A creatinine clearance of 50 ml/min or less indicates serious renal insufficiency.The GFR can predict the signs and symptoms of uraemia, especially when it falls to below 10-15 ml/min. It must be noted that the GFR varies according to renal mass and correspondingly to body mass. In a lab report, GFR is corrected for body surface area (which equates with renal mass), which in normal humans is approximately 1.73m2 and represents an average value for normal young men and women.   Impaired renal function is indicated by a GFR of 30-80 ml/min/1.73m2 and in cases of less than 30 ml/min/1.73m2 – there is a strong possibility of renal failure.References:Freudenrich C C (n.d) How Your Kidneys Work. Retrieved May 08, 2006 fromhttp://science.howstuffworks.com/kidney.htmNIH Publication No. 06–4241 (November 2005) Your Kidneys and How They Work. Retrieved May 09, 2006 from http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/pubs/yourkidneysStone C.(Nov 2005) Bilirubin. Retrieved May 09, 2006 from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003479.htmMerck Manual. (February 2003) Kidneys. Retrieved May 09, 2006 fromhttp://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec11/ch141/ch141b.htmlFord-Martin, P.A. (n.d.) Kidney function tests, Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine. Retrieved May 09, 2006 from http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g2601/is_0007/ai_2601000790/pg_1National Kidney Foundation. (n.d.) How Your Kidneys Work. Retrieved May 09, 2006 from http://www.kidney.org/kidneydisease/howkidneyswrk.cfmLAb Tests Online. (n.d.) Creatine Clearance. Retrieved May 09, 2006 from http://www.labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/creatinine_clearance/test.htmlFadem S.Z. (n.d.) How the kidney works, The Nephron Information Center. Retrieved May 09, 2006 from http://links.nephron.com/nephsites/htkw/r2_htmlWikipedia. ( April 2006) Renal Function. Retrieved May 09, 2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renal_function

Paper on Depression

Thresa BigMan University of phoenix PSY270 Week 4 Depression paper Depression is a mental illness that a lot of individuals have in today’s society. According to the University of Phoenix fundamentals of abnormal psychology, describes many different mood disorders that effect many people today, â€Å"Depression is a low, sad state in which life seems dark and its challenges overwhelming.Depression can be an illness that can be manageable to an individual that has mild symptoms there are cases of depression that can be so severe that it can take over someone’s life in the aspect that it is manageable with daily living assistance and treatment plans that include assisted living environment and anti-depressants. Patients can even be misdiagnosed to have other disorders if not have a proper evaluation.Mania, the opposite of depression, is a state of breathless euphoria, or at least frenzied energy, in which people may have an exaggerated belief that the world is theirs for the taking. Most people with a mood disorder suffer only from depression, a pattern called unipolar depression. † When an individual has no history of mania and after the episode return to their normal mood others may experience periods of mania that o back and forth with periods of depression in a somewhat of a pattern is called bipolar disorder. (University of phoenix, 2011).Many individuals of all walks of life suffer from mood disorders according to the University of Phoenix Fundamentals of abnormal psychology (2011), â€Å"Mood disorders also have plagued such writers as Ernest Hemingway, Eugene O’Neill, Virginia Woolf, and Sylvia Plath. † Mood disorders have different stages of symptoms, according to the university of phoenix fundamentals of psychology (2011), â€Å"The symptoms, which often feed upon one another, span five areas of functioning: emotional, motivational, behavioral, cognitive, and physical. Emotional symptoms can have the individual feelin g miserable, humiliated, and sad. In severe cases many individuals can suffer from anhedonia which can cause the patient to have the inability to feel pleasure. They begin to have no self-worth. Motivational symptoms can include according to the University of Phoenix Fundamentals of psychology (2011), â€Å"Depressed people typically lose the desire to pursue their usual activities. Almost all report a lack of drive, initiative, and spontaneity. They may have to force themselves to go to work, talk with friends, eat meals, or have sex. The patient will not have any motivation to get up and get out of bed at times. Motivational symptoms could be that a patient doesn’t want to do anything and has to force one self to do the littlest of things in their daily life. Behavioral symptoms include behaviors where the individual becomes less active productive. Cognitive symptoms people see themselves in a very negative light and do not have a high self-worth when they accomplish somet hing that is very substantial they do not see it in the right regards to see what they did was successful.Physical symptoms can include headaches, nausea, vomiting and sleeping issues. Physical symptoms can vary from person to person when it comes to mood disorders. Many times physical symptoms can often cloud proper diagnoses to mood disorders, according to the University of Phoenix Fundamentals of abnormal psychology (2011), â€Å"In fact, many depressions are misdiagnosed as medical problems at first. Disturbances in appetite and sleep are particularly common (Neckelmann et al. , 2007; Genchi et al. 2004). Most depressed people eat less, sleep less, and feel more fatigued than they did prior to the disorder. Proper diagnoses are often over looked because of all the physical symptoms that a person with a mood disorder can develop. Often the symptoms are treated before depression is diagnosed. When diagnosing unipolar depression, according to the University of Phoenix Fundamentals of abnormal psychology (2011), â€Å"People who experience a major depressive episode without having any history of mania receive a diagnosis of major depressive disorder. Individuals who display a longer-lasting but less disabling pattern of unipolar depression may receive a diagnosis of dysthymic disorder.Bipolar I disorder have full manic and major depressive episodes. Most of them experience an alternation of the episodes; for example, weeks of mania followed by a period of wellness, followed, in turn, by an episode of depression. Some people, however, have mixed episodes, in which they swing from manic to depressive symptoms and back again on the same day. In bipolar II disorder, hypomanic—that is, mildly manic—episodes alternate with major depressive episodes over the course of time.When dysthymic disorder leads to maojr depressive disorder, the sequence is called double depression (Taube-Schiff & Lau, 2008). † Unipolar depression is often triggered when the individual is experiencing extreme stress. Forms of treatment for these types of mood disorders may include antidepressants, individual therapy, and in extreme cases an individual may have to be under constant care as the disorder has caused them to not be able to maintain their normal quality of life and may be harmful to themselves or others.Group and family therapy can be an effective form of treatment for patients. According to the University of Phoenix Fundamentals of abnormal psychology (2011), â€Å"Family-Social Treatments Therapists who use family and social approaches to treat depression help clients change how they deal with the close relationships in their lives. The most effective family-social approaches are interpersonal psychotherapy and couple therapy. † Anti-depressants are commonly given as a part of the treatment plan for a patient.According to the University of Phoenix Fundamentals of abnormal psychology (2011), â€Å"Two kinds of drugs discovered in the 1950s reduce the symptoms of depression: monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors and tricyclic’s. † Proper diagnoses are the most important part about treating any mental disorder. Many times physical symptoms cloud the illness. When treating this disorder it is important to diagnose to be accurate because often these types of disorders are often prescribed antidepressants as a way to treat the illness.After proper accurate diagnoses developing a treatment plan to determine what types of treatments would the patient benefit from. Assisting the patient in a proper evaluation to diagnose correctly is also a way for the patient to learn what is a normal mood or reaction to events or stress that happens in their life time can help determine what the patient is experiencing and often even why. Treatment and proper diagnoses goes hand in hand they are as important to the patient. References University of phoenix. (2011). Fundamentals of psychology. Retrieved from University o f phoenix, PSY270 website.

Woman with Hat Painting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Woman with Hat Painting - Essay Example With the artist’s choice of portrait as a subject, use of energetic paint strokes, and combination of unusual colors, the painting stands out as a model of the essential characteristics of fauvism. Overall, Matisse has applied an active brushwork to depict his wives’ dress, skin, and feathered hat, together with the background of the portrait with weird vivid colors. The Woman with Hat Painting premiered in Salon d’Automne in the year 1905 and it has been presented through the oil on canvas medium, much more of a splattering of paint on the canvas material; this was an quite an unusual piece among Matisse’s contemporaries. Through his successful art career, Henry Matisse became renowned as one of the giants of the 20th century art, and has ever since been readily recognized for his pioneering works that set the stage in the fauvist art style; in addition to the fauvist art style, Matisse was also identified with paper cut-outs later in his career. Even tho ugh Matisse was born to an artistically inclined mother, he received very little early encouragement to become an artist and so he proceeded to study law in Paris (Matisse b); however, after suffering appendicitis and being confined to bed, Matisse explored his artistic bent with a lot of encouragement from his mother who was keen to help him recover. Overall, the Woman with hat painting was inspired by Matisse’s desire to challenge the rigid concepts of art to both the critic and the viewer in his period, which largely had evolved into a status quo. The Woman with hat painting was created in the 20th century period between 1905 to 1906 in Paris and was first exhibited in the Salon d’Automne in the year 1905; however, the portrait’s rough application of bright colors on the face, hat, dress, and even background was shocking to critics and Matisse’s contemporaries. This period was defined by phenomenology, a concept that was familiarized by Edmund Husserl as an attempt to break down phenomenon into verifiable form in order to understand its essence (Ayanna). This concept inspired the creation of Woman with hat painting because the painting clearly reflects the essence of phenomenology as conceptualized by Husserl; using the proposed method of stratified formation, Matisse observes and challenges the phenomena of art. Through the Woman with heart painting, Matisse challenges the concept of art according to both the critic and the viewer in particular, and the concept of art in general; he established a model for modern art that came to be known as fauvism style. The subject of the Woman with hat painting is a portrait that depicts Matisse’s wife in the oil on canvas artwork (Matisse b); this subject is recognizable to me today due to the massive influence of this pioneering fauvist work on modern art. However, this subject may not have been recognizable to the people in the time it was created due to the rigid concepts of the e ssence of art that existed at that time, until later when critics recognized fauvist style of art. The unusual bright color combinations heavily characterize the Woman with hat painting, and these have been utilized to symbolize the expression of Matisse’s wife; the artist’s use of color to capture expression rather than form is a radical idea that challenged the status quo that paintings should depict the subject matter accurately by using forms. Similarly, the color symbol was not understandable to the people in the society in which this painting was created because the concept of fauvism was still uncommon at the time of completion of this painting. However, this color symbol is understandable to me today because the fauvism style of art has taken form and challenged the age-old

Marketing Inteligence Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Marketing Inteligence - Essay Example This is a stage whereby a consumer realizes that he needs new clothes for example. The next stage is information search whereby the consumer analyzes all the possible companies selling clothes such as Tesco and its competitors. The alternative evaluation stage is the third stage in which the consumer evaluates the quality of clothes and prices charged by various companies. For example, a consumer can compare the prices of Asda and those of Tesco. In the fourth stage, purchase decision, the consumer makes his decision on which store to purchase clothes from and goes for the company that offers quality clothes at affordable prices. The last stage is post-purchase behavior whereby the consumer analyzes if the clothes he purchased from Tesco for example satisfied his needs or not and taken relevant actions. Maslow’s theory of needs- This theory outlines that individual have certain needs that he needs to satisfy all through his life. In the buying behaviors of consumers, they first consider satisfying the most urgent needs necessary for their survival and good living (Kelly, 2002). Consumers start with satisfying basic needs then safety needs followed by social needs then self-esteem needs and lastly self-actualization needs. Diffusion of innovation theory- This theory outlines how advancements such as new technologies spread throughout cultures and societies from introduction to wider adoption. The costs, accessibility and familiarity with the technological change influence that buying behavior of consumers (Lehman, Ramsey and David, 2000). If the cost of new advanced products and services is much higher than those of the old ones, consumers will prefer purchasing the old ones since they satisfy the same needs. Cultural and religious factors- The consumer’s buying behavior is highly influenced by the cultural and religious beliefs of a consumer. For example Muslims cannot purchase pork products being offered by

Business Strategies by Alex and Doreen Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Business Strategies by Alex and Doreen - Essay Example With the company’s total sales of $597,123 compared with the average of best of three of the companies at $653,764 from the CRR, the company could be deduced to be nearly closed, although below, to the average. Since the company ranked third out of eight companies and yet below the average, it would mean the top and second ranking companies may have higher sales revenues than the company. Â  As to what the best companies are doing in terms of strategies, the facts case study is not also clear. There is also no information on industry or company growth from one period compared to others periods for the purpose of deriving information on whether the industry is characterized by growth or not. Â  In term of profitability, the company is observed to be performing less than the industry average using the best of the three from the other companies. With $39,227 as net income compared with $110,254 average of the best of three, the company is less superior. Thus the company can be considered performing less than the average, which indicates the weakness of its strategy. Since the company ranked fifth out of eight firms in terms of net income in relation to sales, it would mean that Sparke Electrical was performing less than half of all the total of the number of companies on the average. Â  Any strength of Sparke Electrical is not evident based on its revenue and profitability performance compared with an average of eight companies in the industry.