Figaro Coffee Essay

Corporate Vision * We will be the preferred brand of specialty coffee of the international business traveler. Our products and unique style of service will leave a lasting impression among our customers. * We will be the investment of choice in the countries where our brand is represented thereby providing attractive returns to all our shareholders. * We will be a model employer that inspires its stakeholders to be better than its leaders because the opportunities for career and personal growth will drive them to excel. * We will be the most admired training facilities for coffee education making us the best training ground for those who want to establish a career or business on coffee and†¦ * We will be remembered as a committed advocate of corporate social responsibility by championing the cause of coffee to help farmers live a better life. * To cater to the different taste preferences, Figaro offers a wide selection of hot or cold coffee and tea concoctions, accompanying pastries and savory meals. * We recommend you try them all to encounter the unique delight each has to offer. Corporate Mission * We provide excellent coffee and gracious service creating a memorable experience for people who appreciate high quality coffee and demand for exceptional service. * Figaro’s distinctive store design, unique ambiance and style of service satisfy the global customer. * Figaro creates long-term value for its owners and business partners through profitable operations and business sustainability and dignity of life for its employees. * We will always practice good governance and actively pursue the cause of socio-cultural and environmental concerns. * We will always give you quality service, quality products & value for your money. SECTION 3 PRODUCT/SERVICE 3. 1 ABOUT THE COMPANY AND THE PRODUCT The Figaro Coffee Company is a popular specialty coffee store in the Philippines that is 100 percent Filipino-owned. Established in 1993, it is based on the concept of a complete store where â€Å"Filipinos can get the perfect coffee and all the necessary accoutrements for coffee making† that can compete internationally. From only two employees, a managing partner and a kiosk in the Makati Mall of the Ayala Centre, the company now has 64 outlets encompassing kiosks and cafes (including international branches). The company’s product line includes specialty roasted coffees and various coffee-related paraphernalia sold at retail. Aside from the superior-tasting coffee that a customer can enjoy in the Figaro Cafes, the company also offers a host of freshly roasted beans on retail. Among the selection is Barako and from the time it was introduced in 1999, Figaro Barako has become a bestseller. The ‘Save the Barako’ cause has somehow given the coffee added value as a portion of the bean sales is channelled back to into a project to promote the revival of the Barako. The project encompasses awareness programs, new plantings, research, and targeted marketing, and is coordinated with the Figaro Coffee Foundation. Meanwhile, as the consumption of Barako increases, a greater need arises to keep the production going which gives all the more reason why Barako needs to be saved from extinction. The continued increased demand for Barako on the other hand allows the advantage of bringing the price of Barako to a viable level that benefits both the farmer and the retailer. Through Figaro’s customer-loyalty scheme called Coffee Club, the company organizes farm tours twice a year wherein coffee enthusiasts show the process of coffee harvesting and planting. Since the company is primarily a coffee distributor and coffee shop operator, it did not have prior experience in actually growing coffee for commercial production. 3. 2 PRODUCT’S UNIQUE FEAUTURES Our Passion for Coffee. Our Beans are Always Freshly Roasted. Coffee beans need to be roasted to bring out their irresistible flavor and aromatics. The sooner a roasted bean gets into a cup, the better the flavor. Freshness is very important to us. We roast our beans in world class quality roasters, carefully watched over by roasting experts who make sure each bean is done perfectly. Once roasted, the beans are packed and sent to the stores immediately to ensure freshness. We make sure that every cup of coffee our customers enjoy is made of the best quality, perfectly roasted beans. After all, you deserve only the best from Figaro. Share our Passion Today, Figaro boasts 64 cafes in the Philippines. It is one of the fastest-growing coffee chains, in just over 17 years of experience in the art and business of coffee. We believe in catering to upscale coffee lovers, offering coffees expertly roasted and brewed according to the standards of French and Italian cafes. Figaro offers an ideal business opportunity that assures superior returns compared to an independent business of similar scope. After penetrating the international market, we are now keeping a critical eye on expanding in our home-market, which will zero in mostly on business districts around the country as we want more and more people to experience the sophisticated European coffee culture through our local barako coffee. 3. 3 STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT As the company started to get recognition as a major coffee chain, especially with the arrival in the country of international coffee brands such as Starbucks, Figaro was in search of the popular Barako coffee. Quite serendipitously, Figaro’s CEO Pacita Juan met Father Roger Bagao, a coffee farmer/priest in Tagaytay City who headed a farmer’s coffee cooperative. Father Roger hailed from the southern province of Bohol and has made coffee his life. A member of the Divine Word Seminary (SVD) in Tagaytay, Father Roger chose to live among the coffee-farming people. He knew that to assist them to attain spiritual awakening or enrichment, he first had to learn what crops they grew, how they made their livelihood. This meant first helping them to fill their stomachs, and later reaching their souls. So COFFEE was it. He organized a farmers’ cooperative that ran a coffee mill known as SMSK. Pacita Juan met Father Roger and asked him to show Figaro the other side of coffee – farmers, different varieties and where they grew, coffee in the south, coffee in the mountains. When Pacita was looking for the native Barako, Father Roger could only tell her that this variety or species was no longer profitable as their yields were low and Nescafe (the biggest processor) would have no need for the Barako. This saddened Figaro, as Barako is an important part of Philippine coffee history. â€Å"How do we change the tide? † she asked Father Roger. â€Å"Can we start planting Barako? How do we tell people about this sad fate of this species that is so popular among our people? † These questions made Figaro, with the help of Father Roger, establish a foundation to address the needs of the Philippines Coffee Industry – now known as the Figaro Foundation Corporation. The first project of the foundation was general coffee awareness-driven: The Coffee Farm Tour is now held every January in Cavite or Batangas, two provinces appropriate for a day trip. The second project is Barako awareness-driven. The Barako is slowly being cut down due to its ‘low’ demand among big processors. However, there is growing demand for Barako from specialty roast and ground processors in the Philippines, and for export to the Middle East. A related foundation project is called ‘Barako Tree Planting’. Launched in 2000, this project is run every July or August. The key challenges facing the tree-planting project are where to get seedlings and where to get land. Luckily, Father Roger found land during 2000 and 2001. After 2001, however, the foundation met with some problems regarding land ownership and could no longer access the first plantings to check on progress. In the same year, Father Roger introduced Cavite State University (CaVSU) and its research head, Dr. Andy Mojica to the Figaro Foundation. Dr. Mojica would be one of the keys to Barako seedling propagation, and he would also be a major part of the Presidential Task Force on Coffee Rehabilitation prompted by Figaro’s persistent invitation. In January 2002, Figaro (now working with Dr. Mojica’s group) began to visit CaVSU for its Annual Farm Tour and also to work with them on Barako seedling supply, a task that used to be performed by Father Roger. Meanwhile, Father Roger went on a sabbatical in 2002 and Figaro was subsequently invited to be a member of the Presidential Task Force on Coffee Rehabilitation (see below). In this same period, the coffee town of Amadeo was visited by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for the first-ever Pahimis festival to signal the start of today’s Filipino coffee revolution – a peaceful revolution of going back to coffee farms to increase production to turn the country from being a net coffee importer to a net exporter as it was until 1990. In Amadeo, Figaro met Mayor O. J. Ambagan who gladly offered his land for the next Figaro Tree Planting activity. In the same year, Leisure Farms, a first class farm community invited the Figaro Foundation to undertake another tree planting activity in Lemery, Batangas which would be provided with irrigation and all the care needed for a first class farm. These efforts have now grown into a series of projects with the local government of Amadeo such as the ‘Adopt-a-farm’ program, coffee farm tours, and the organization of a coffee cooperative to promote ‘Cafe Amadeo’ – a ‘monobranding’ exercise to promote Amadeo’s coffee roasters who used to sell under different brand names. More than just to sustain its core product or core business, Figaro has become the trailblazer on how ‘out of the box’ ideas can be used to encourage farmers to plant the Barako again, motivate local governments to do their part and get cooperatives working toward one goal. Through its partnership with the municipality of Amadeo, Figaro will be able to plant around 30,000 Barako trees in and around the Amadeo town providing farmers with a niche product that can be their ticket to higher selling prices and export potential of a value-added product branded with the Figaro name. 3. 4TRADEMARKS 3. 5PRODUCT There are five commercially known coffee bean varieties worldwide: Arabica, Robusta, Excelsa, Stenophylla and Liberica. The most popular beans in use all over the world are Arabica and Robusta. The former has a more subtle and distinct flavour and is usually used for gourmet coffees. However, due to weather conditions, it cannot be natively grown in the Philippines except in some mountain areas, and therefore is mostly imported. Robusta on the other hand is grown in many parts of the country. Due to its more full-bodied flavour, Robusta is used mostly for instant coffee. The Excelsa and Stenophylla varieties are not cultivated commercially in the Philippines. Liberica is known to be an indigenous product in only three Asian countries, including the Philippines, making the bean a very unique and potentially lucrative product. The term ‘Barako’ in the Philippines has become a generic name for the coffee grown and roasted in the Batangas region (just north of Manila). In truth, Barako is the Philippine Liberica bean known for â€Å"its particularly strong taste, powerful body and a distinctly pungent odour. † Because of its homespun image, domestic demand for Barako had slacked off in favour of imported international Arabica and large-scale production of Robusta by and for large corporations. Saudi Arabia has been the only known export market for Barako. As a result, the Barako is now in danger of extinction. In addition to the decline in Barako production, prevailing low world prices for coffee have meant that many Filipino coffee farmers have begun to shift to other crops and some have chosen to sell their land. 3. 6 FACILITIES (PLANT LOCATION) 3. 7SUPPLIERS A. RAW MATERIALS AND SUPPLIES Figaro buys Filipino coffee from communities and farmers nationwide at an average of 39 tons or 39,000 kgs of coffee every year: THUS BENEFITTING†¦ * 57 farmers and their families or approximately 688 persons benefit YEARLY * Coffee harvested from nearly 115 hectares of coffee farms are sold YEARLY * An estimated amount of P 4 million pesos is generated from the purchase of coffee from farmers YEARLY * More children are sent to school, more families are enabled to buy food, medicines, and earn more savings. Farmers from Kalinga, Ifugao, Benguet, Batangas, Cavite, Negros, Davao, Sulu and Basilan are integrated into the supply chain of Figaro. WITH MORE FARMERS HARVESTING COFFEE, MORE FIGARO PATRONS CONTINUE TO ENJOY CUPS OF FIGARO COFFEE. B. TOOLS, MACHINERY AND EQUIPMENT The company does not own roasting facilities, but employs the facilities of a sister company, Boyd’s Coffee Company. Today, Boyd Coffee Co. (Phils. ) Inc. has established its significant presence in the Philippine coffee industry. Capitalizing on its unique qualities as a trendsetter and an expert, Boyd Coffee continues its tradition of providing Fresh Roasted Coffee and Total Coffee Solutions designed specifically for each client’s needs. C. ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS The waning supply of Barako beans prompted the company to be more aggressive in securing supplies. The ‘Save the Barako’ campaign is its showpiece effort, and has earned the company a reputation as a company that cares for the coffee farmer. Figaro took up the cause of the Barako when everybody else thought it an Impossible task. But because of its belief in the cause, Figaro enjoined small groups who equally believed in the integrity of the cause and subsequently slowly built awareness towards a greater mass. Today, Barako has gained many supporters and made a dream a possibility, further proof that an inspired vision that is led by a credible company to sustain its own industry is the heart of corporate social responsibility. Ultimately, ‘Save the Barako’ has moved even the simplest coffee customer to help sustain this once-threatened variety – that is reward in itself. SECTION 4 MARKETING PLAN 4. 1 INDUSTRY PROFILE. Worth of the entire coffee industry in the Philippines : P21 Billion* Worth of gourmet coffee industry in the Philippines : 2. 1 Billion* Number of stores in the Philippines : STARBUCKS – 150 Figaro – 64 Bo’s Coffee – 40 Gloria Jeans- 38 Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf- 33 Seattle’s Best – 14 Number of coffee chain outlets – 400+ Growth rate of entire coffee industry : 7% annually Growth rate of gourmet coffee industry : 20% annually The amount needed by the government to sustain coffee industry : P200 million Total Coffee Demands: 65,000 tons, 2009;70,350 tons 2012,75,000 tons by 2015. Total Coffee Production : 30,000 tons Coffee Producing Provinces : 22 Coffee Varieties in the Philippines: Liberica, Robusta, Arabica and Excelsa Coffee has been around for more than 1,000 years. During that time, coffee has been considered a food, a medicine, an aphrodisiac, and even a wine. Today, however, coffee is known as a beverage to be savored and enjoyed. Such has coffee’s popularity grown through the centuries. Today, it can be safely assumed someone, somewhere is savoring a cup, a mug or any of coffee’s delightful and delicious preparations at almost every hour of the day. From sun up to sun down, its coffee time! All commercial varieties of coffee are available in the Philippines – Robusta accounting for 70% of the country’s total production, and Arabica with about 5-10%. Other varieties such as Excelsa and Liberica also thrives in the country and accounts for 15-20% of the total. Robusta is the chief source of the base for blending coffee and is important in the manufacture of soluble or instant coffee. Arabica remains the sole source of fine coffee. The Philippines produces approximately 1. 3 percent of the total global coffee production. In our country, no morning is complete without coffee. We have our own Batangas barako to be proud of. Instant coffee then came into the scene, and lately, gourmet and specialty coffee with the introduction of foreign cafes such as Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, and the like. Coffee drinking has now become more than just a way to wake up one’s nerves, it has become a trend. * First, the world’s coffee shops make up the fastest growing part of the restaurant business, checking in with a 7% annual growth rate. * Second, that the world coffee production is estimated at 110 – 120 million bags per year. * Third, that 14 billion espresso coffees are consumed each year in Italy, reaching over 200,000 coffee bars, and still growing. * Fourth, that Americans consume 400 million cups of coffee per day, or equivalent 146,000,000,000 (146 Billion) cups per year; making the United States the leading consumer of coffee in the world. * Fifth, that Japan ranks number 3 in the world for coffee consumption. * Sixth, that coffee represents 75% of all the caffeine consumed in the United States. * And seventh, that cafe bars have total average sales that reach 230 cups a day. * It is now an accepted fact that majority of Filipinos take to coffee like they take to rice, and beer. * Take â€Å"BARAKO† for example, this native-grown coffee bean for example, this native-grown coffee bean is not only famous for its strong aroma, as pinoy coffee lovers would atleast. * Although not a common coffee variety, â€Å"BARAKO† is abundant in Southeast Asia, especially in the Philippines. * Believe it or not, it has the largest beans of all the coffee varieties in the world. Its taste is said to be superior to that of Robusta, and some Filipino coffee lovers prefer Barako to Arabica 4. 2 COMPETITION PROFILE Major Players in the Industry of coffee: Starbucks strength rested on four factors: retail expansion, product and service innovation, having an observed clean store, and being a brand associated with the specialty/gourmet coffee niche. The strongest attribute that consumers associate with the Starbucks brand is its being known for specialty/gourmet coffee. Starbucks is a widely-recognized brand. Its top-of-mind recall is high. It is both a household name and a buzzword. Seattle’s Best Coffee LLC has been roasting premium coffee since 1970 and today roasts more than 20 million pounds of coffee every year and millions of cups of our coffee are served every day. Seattle’s Best Coffee is a featured brand within Starbucks Corporation. The smooth taste of Seattle’s Best Coffee has appealed to Filipino taste buds. Their smooth and flavor-filled coffees are often partnered with equally sumptuous meals that engage the taste buds. Their pastries and pasta are equally delicious and keeps customers coming back for more. The UCC started as a store under the name of â€Å"Ueshima Tadao Shoten† in 1933. It became limited partnership in 1940 and on 1951, became â€Å"Ueshima Coffee Co. , Ltd. â€Å". The company introduced the world’s first canned coffee, â€Å"UCC Coffee with Milk†on April 1969 starting the trend for Japanese Canned Coffee. The Euro-Japanese fused food, free wi-fi internet, and various cafe concepts makes the UCC Cafe a very trusty hangout place for Filipinos. They have several branches in the country and eight other Asian countries. They have a very simple layout but favorable quality. The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf is an American coffee chain, owned and operated by International Coffee & Tea, LLC, which has its corporate headquarters in Los Angeles, California. Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf has a very clean ambience, innovative coffee mixes and really good customer service. This makes them one of the frequented places for coffee and chilling out. Flavorful, reasonably priced and scenic, the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf stores continue to draw in the coffee-loving crowds. Gloria Jean’s Coffees an Australian owned global specialty coffee company, and is a brand synonymous with coffee quality and leading franchise systems. Personalized service, fun coffee flavors and strategic locations (as one of the awarded foreign franchises in the country) make Gloria Jean’s stay at the top of its game as one of the country’s best coffee shops. The store atmosphere is also excellent and they maintain a loyal following. The Chocolate Macadamia Coffee is a local favorite. â€Å"Bo’s Coffee† is a registered trademark of the business name of a chain of specialty coffee shops that serves espresso beverages, specialty coffee beverages and others, in an ambiance that has been created to cater to a lifestyle market with discriminating taste. Bo’s Coffee Club is very high end coffee shop that has services and product tailored to suit the needs of high society coffee drinkers. They maintain excellent service and product done in good taste, literally and figuratively 4. 3 CUSTOMER PROFILE The typical and most committed coffee drinkers are 25 to 45 year old, affluent, educated adults. While baby boomers have driven the success of coffee shops, specialty coffee appeals to a diverse adult demographic, including college students and young adults. Larger companies may also sell coffee beans wholesale to commercial customers, such as grocery stores and restaurants. SIZE AND GROWTH 1. Do you drink coffee? All of our respondents said that they drink coffee. Reason why they drink coffee 40% of our respondents said that they drink coffee because of coffee’s stimulating properties and benefits that help them in everyday work, 28% Said that its taste, 18% to fit in with others while 14% said that it’s out of habit. 2. When do you prefer to drink coffee? Most of our respondents said that they drink coffee anytime. 3. Do you go to coffee shops? 78% of our respondents said they go to coffee shops to drink coffee and have pastime activities. Reason why yes? 30% of our respondents said that they like the coffee that the coffee shop serves, 25% said that to relax and have pass time their, 15% said that to fit in with others, 10% said that they like the products they sell. Reason why no? 20% of the respondents said that it’s out of their budget and 80% said that it’s just a waste of money. 4. What coffee shops you usually go? 76% of our respondents said they go to Starbucks, 12% go to Kopiroti, and 6% each for Seattle’s Best and Figaro. 5. Do you know Figaro? Majority of our respondents said they know Figaro. How they know Figaro? Most of our respondents said that they saw Figaro branches around the cities and some are word of mouth from friends. 3. How much you are willing to spend in a coffee shop? 52% of our respondents are willing to spend if the price of the coffee will range from P100-P150 4. What do you expect from a coffee shop? Everyone expects a great tasting coffee, clean environment, good service and because of the technology everyone wants a free WI-FI 5. What food you want a coffee shop to serve? Most respondents want bread as a partner to coffee because they only want to ear light foods in coffee shops. 4. 4. TARGET MARKET PROFILE Primary Target Market Our target market is the business executives and young professionals because they hold a big part of the market share in the coffee industry. They are the people that have the habit in drinking coffee and they are the ones who frequently go to coffee shops and for them that is their third home. Usually this people do meetings in coffee shops and conference because of the good ambiance and good surrounding. They choose coffee shops as their third home because they can concentrate in their meeting or business affair especially because of the minimal noise in the coffee shops. They want to hang up in coffee shops because of the comfortable environment and it is affordable. Secondary Target Market Our secondary target market is the class B and C. In the generation today students and foreigners usually go to coffee shops because for them they can study in coffee shops and they can relax and do pass time works. They prefer to study in coffee shops instead in their homes because they can study here for hours without being disturbed and they also choose it as their secondary relaxations place. 4. 5 PRICING PROFILE FIGARO| STARBUCKS| SEATTLE’S BEST| GLORIA JEANS| HOT DRINKSMacchiato85. 00Espresso85. 00 – 109. 00Cappuccino95. 00 – 119. 00Cafe Mocha105. 00 -135. 00White Chocolate Mocha115. 00Cafe Latte95. 00 – 119. 00Cafe Au Lait95. 00 – 119. 00Americano85. 00 – 119. 00Brewed Coffee85. 00 – 119. 00Chocolate Cookie Latte120. 00Caramel Cappuccino Light115. 00Butterscotch Vanilla Latte115. 00 8oz. Peach Latte120. 00 8oz. Strawberry Latte20. 00 8oz. Creme Brulee Latte120. 00Raspberry Mint Latte110. 00Other Hot DrinksHot Tea 85. 00 – 115. 00Hot Chocolate85. 00 – 105. 00Cafe Mocha Light115. 00Steamed Milk85. 00 – 105. 00Blueberry Muffin65. 00Cheese Muffin65. 00Chocolate Muffin65. 00Asado Pie59. 00Tuna Pie59. 00Carrot Loaf69. 00Pudding with Vanilla Sauce69. 00Food for the God’s59. 00Heavenly Cheese Roll59. 00OatmeaL Chocolate Chevvy55. 00Chocolate Cake119. 00My Little Oscar119. 00Dark Chocolate Raspberry Symphony130. 00Strawberry Cheesecake135. 00Chocolate Chip Cookie59. 00Oatmeal Raisin Cookie59. 00English Matrimonial Bar59. 00Banana Hazelnut Turnover79. 00Marble Cream Cheese Brownie70. 00Chocolate Eclair75. 00Tiramisu Eclair75. 00Pepperoni Calzone95. 00Supreme Calzone95. 00Blueberry Cheesecake Lite130. 00Blueberry Almond Puff79. 00| COFEE, TEA AND CLASSICSHot Brewed Coffee80. 00 – 120. 00Hot Brewed Tea90. 00 – 105. 00Iced Tea90. 00 – 120. 00Signature Hot Chocolate105. 00 – 140. 00Caffe Latte90. 00 – 130. 00Cappuccino90. 00 – 130. 00Caffe Mocha100. 00 – 145. 00White Chocolate Mocha115. 00 – 160. 00Caramel Macchiato115. 00 – 160. 00Blended CoffeeMocha125. 00 – 150. 00Caramel125. 00 – 150. 00Dark Mocha155. 00 – 180. 00Coffee Jelly145. 00 – 170. 00Java Chip145. 00 – 170. 00Mint Java ChipvariesHazelnut MochaVariesCreme Brulee FrappuccinovariesChai Frappuccino with Coffee JellyvariesBlack SesameGreen TeavariesBlended CreamCaramel Cream125. 00- 150. 00Chocolate Cream 120. 00 – 145. 00Strawberries and Cream145. 00 – 170. 00Chocolate Cream Chip120. 00 – 145. 00Blended Juice DrinkMango Passion Fruit 125. 00 – 150. 00Raspberry Black Currant 125. 00 – 150. 00Honey Glazed Doughnut40. 00Chunky Chocolate Chip Cookie50. 00Old Fashioned Oatmeal Cookie50. 00Double Chocolate Walnut Brownie50. 00Butterscotch Fudge Bar 50. 00Cinnamon Roll/ Swirl55. 00Ensaymada65. 00Danish65. 00Tuna, Corned Beef and ChickenPandesal55. 00Pork Adobo Roll70. 00Cheese Croissant70. 00Sausage Roll75. 00Italian Pocket95. 00Banoffee Pie105. 00Banana Loaf50. 00| THE PERFresh Brewed Coffee80. 00 – 105. 00Americano Perfect85. 00 – 110. 00Cappuccino95. 00 – 120. 00Breve105. 00 – 130. 00Chai Tea Latte 115. 00 -145. 00Hot Tea95. 00Ice Blended and DeliciousMocha125. 00 – 150. 00JavaChip145. 00 Double Chocolate Mint 135. 00 – 160. 00Chai Tea145. 00 – 170. 00Java Jelly145. 00 – 170. 00Classic Iced Tea90. 00 – 120. 00Naughty Toddy90. 00 – 110. 00Classic American Latte 100. 00 – 130. 00Americano95. 00 – 125. 00World’s Best Coffee MilkshakeClassic Javanilla Shake155. 00Milkshakes155. 00HOT, HSeattle’s Best Coffee LattesHot Classic American Latte90. 00 – 115. 00Caramel Latte110. 00 – 130. 00Vanilla Latte110. 00 – 130. 00Hazelnut Latte 110. 00 – 130. 00Almond Latte 110. 00 – 130. 00Raspberry Latte 110. 00 – 130. 00Seattle’s Best Coffee MochasClassic Mocha100. 00White Chocolate Mocha 120. 00 – 150. 00Raspberry Mocha Kiss120. 00 – 150. 00Almond Mocha Joy120. 00 – 150. 00| Espresso ClassicsCappuccino85. 00 – 110. 00Caffe Latte85. 00 – 110. 00Caffe Mocha95. 00 – 125. 00Espresso80. 00 – 125. 00Machiatto80. 00 – 125. 00Americano80. 00 – 105. 00Filtered Coffee of the Day75. 00 – 100. 00Espresso ExpressionsCaramelae110. 00 – 145. 00Mocha Caramelatte110. 00 – 145. 00White Chocolate Mocha110. 00 – 145. 00Chocolate Macadamia Latte110. 00 – 145. 00Irish Nut Creme110. 00 – 145. 00Very Vanilla Latte110. 00 – 145. 00Tea & ChocolateChai Tea Latte95. 00 – 125. 00Hot Tea85. 00 – 110. 00HotChocolate& Marshmallows115. 00 – 140. 00COLD DRINKSVery Vanilla Chiller135. 00 – 165. 00Creme Brulee135. 00 – 165. 00Cookies ‘n Cream125. 00 -150. 00Mint Chocolate Bomb125. 00 – 150. 00Cappuccino ChillersVanilla Caramel135. 00 – 165. 00Chocolate Macadami140. 00 – 170. 00Gourmet Iced ChocolatesStrawberries n’ Cream130. 00 – 155. 00Iced Chocolate130. 00 – 155. 00Over IceCappuccino Chiller115. 00 – 155. 00Iced Mocha115. 00 – 155. 00Iced Latte100. 00 – 125. 00Strawberry Smoothie135. 00 – 165. 00Mixed Berry Smoothie135. 00 – 165. 00Mango Smoothie135. 00 – 165. 00Tropical Coconut135. 00 – 165. 00Fruit ChillersStrawberry130. 00 – 150. 00Mango Chillers130. 00 – 150. 00| 6 4. 6 ADVERTISEMENT AND PROMOTIONS Marketing Tools| Program Activities| Expansion of Coffee Shop Branches| Figaro will expand its selected coffee shop branches by adding a â€Å"conference section†. Additional space needed will be rented and additional chairs, tables and conference room equipments such as projectors will be provided. Conference Section will be used by business executives and the like, on a rental per hour basis. These spaces will form part of the general area if not rented. Figaro will implement this plan on business cities like Makati, Ortigas and some parts of Quezon City. | Television for Entertainment| There will be Televisions on every branches of Figaro nationwide. This is to entertain customers through movies, basketball games etc. | Customer Advantage CardMagazine Advertisements| For every purchase a customer will earn points that can be converted to freebies like free tickets to movie houses upon reaching a certain point. Figaro will have a picture advertisement in Entrepreneur Magazine and other business magazines, advertising the â€Å"Conference Section† of Figaro. We will advertise on Lifestyle Magazines as well. | Newspaper Advertisements| Newspaper Advertisements in the form of pictures will also be provided in the leading newspapers in the Philippines during Sundays on Manila Bulletin and Philippine Star. We will also make press releases on these newspapers. | TV Show Segment Promotion| Figaro, after the successful implementation of the proposed expansion, will be featured in a TV Show where it can showcase it’s being â€Å"Second Comfort Zone†. | Social Networking Sites| Improvements to the official Facebook page will be made. Designs will be added based on the season- for example: Valentines, Summer, Christmas etc. Links to the official company website, official twitter account and to Figaro’s press releases will be provided. This page will also serve as a place where customers can post their comments and reviews. A twitter account will also be established. These networking sites will keep the online community informed regarding the improvements. | Leaflets| Leaflets will be made available on Figaro branches nationwide. | SECTION 5 OPERATING AND CONTROL SYSTEMS Figaro Support System From helping you secure your site to the thorough training of your employees, Figaro Coffee Company has a strong support system to aid you in the opening and ongoing operation of your business. a. Initial site assessment. b. Training in the Figaro System for the franchisee and the Initial branch staff. c. Site design and construction assistance. d. Comprehensive Store Operations Manual. e. An opening team assigned for the branch’s first month of operations. f. Continuous research and improvement of the Figaro product line. g. Regular field visits by the Figaro Operations Team to give in-site assistance. h. Continuous training programs. i. A network of regular communications with franchises. Pre-qualification The qualities we look for in a franchise include: 1. A passion for coffee and enthusiasm for the business. 2. A strict adherence to Franchise Standards, and a commitment of time and resources to the Figaro System. 3. A desire for a mutually beneficial business relationship. 4. The resources to invest a minimum of ? 5 to 7 million, depending on the business model most suitable to the site chosen by the franchise applicant. Application Process To get your own Figaro franchise system started: 1. E-mail a Letter of Intent containing name of interested party, expressing interest in a franchise and proposed site and location (if any) to Franchise Relations Manager: franchise@figarocoffee. com 2. Upon receipt of the Letter of Intent, we will schedule a Franchise Orientation Meeting with you to discuss the detailed procedures on how to secure a franchise. 3. Fill out the Franchise Qualification Form. 4. If qualified, you will be required to conduct a feasibility study of the selected site using our Market Study form. 5. Upon submission of the feasibility study, you will be scheduled for a meeting with the Franch.

Japanese and American Business Behavior

Management sciences have long identified that there are many forms of business behaviors. Different organizations from different cultures tend to run their business in different manners, this include decision making activities, problem solving, future forecasting, and other issues within a business.The differences do not stop on the organizational level, managers of different cultures generally has their own personal style of managing their subordinates. These differences are interesting to study because of the increasing phenomena of globalization.II. Research BackgroundII. 1. The Need to Study Business StylesDifferent companies within different cultures previously have no need compare their business styles with those of foreign companies. However, with the rising of globalization and international competition, corporations are derived to take account of business cultures from all over the world. This is necessary in time where they have to make connections with foreign business in order to grow or survive. Furthermore, some business behaviors might be better suited in their local environment but contributes poorly within the global environment.There are times where changes of culture from local to global culture are necessities. Thus, to compare one business style to another is almost a common activity for economist and businessmen today.II. 2 Why Study Japanese CultureAsian economy has always been a matter of intense discussion among American scholars. There are predictions from many economist and observers that Asia will be the center of economic growth once the world has entered the new millennium. Although these predictions have not come through as expected, the rapid development of Asian economy is still an important event in the history of world’s economy.Let us take Japan as a representation of the strength of Asian economy. Japan produces some of the most innovative and highest quality products in the world. Since 1970’s, Japanese automa kers have been intensely competing with US automakers. Some even believed that they have exceeded the US automakers in some respects. The British motorcycle industry, which once considered as the one who brought the’ golden age’ on motorcycle industries has been wiped-out almost entirely by the presence of Japan’s futuristic motorcycles in their local soil.In fact, today, we have seen that Japanese culture is everywhere in the world. Many Americans today are fans of Japanese products since they were children. Japanese products have undeniably infiltrate US social and economic life in the most significant way. The popularity of Kill Bill, Iron Chef, Power Rangers, Hello Kitty, and Anime describes the strong presence of Japanese culture in the United States. Furthermore, American businessmen are today learning Japanese business style, more than just to communicate with their Japanese partners, but also to enhance their efficiency in doing business.The acknowledgem ent given to Japanese culture and their influence is overwhelming in many parts of the world (Palmeri, 2004). The popularity of Japanese culture in most parts of the world brought upon an interesting question for American business people. What are actually the differences between Japanese business behaviors and American business behaviors? Furthermore, the ability of Japanese businessmen to do what Americans cannot bring increasing interest in studying the popular culture. Within this paper, I am comparing two of the world’s most popular business styles, the American style and the Japanese style.There will be discussion on differences, similarities and some comparison of which has the advantage over certain situations.III. Research QuestionAs mentioned above, the strength of Japanese culture astonished economist from all over the world. With the increasing case studies where Japanese businessmen outperform others in international market, there is an interesting question of wh ether Japanese culture could have exceeded the dominating culture of the world (Americans). The implied research questions in the elaboration above are:‘With respect to its Strengths and Weaknesses, is Japanese business culture more suitable for business advancement and development than the American business culture? ’ In order to answer this question, a sufficient elaboration regarding both business cultures is required. The elaboration should lead to a comparative analysis regarding both business cultures. Based on book, journals and articles on Japanese and American business culture, I will divide the comparative analysis into several chapters focusing on different ways to compare the two business cultures.A concluding statement will be made to summarize the comparative analysis in the end of the paper. IV. Organizational Management StylesIV. 1 Roles and DecisionMaking In terms of managerial styles, American companies tend to be financially oriented and value autonom y. In a typical American company, the role of each employee is clearly defined and the employee is fully responsible for the activities assigned to him/her. Decisions generally come from individual authority, and the company usually makes clear definition of who is entitle for making what kinds of decisions (Engel, 2000).The Japanese style of management however, has a rather contrast approach. Japan companies (or Japanese style companies) has a more intuitive approach to management. Most of the employees have undefined roles and they are most likely to be assigned as teams to work together for group goals. Decisions do not come from a single person, but rather as a collective process involving many voices. However, when it comes to managing overseas, Japan companies seem to be more centralized that US corporations.For instance, if a Japanese company has an affiliate in US soil, their necessities focus on detailed communication across the Pacific. Generally, such communication is dom inated by Japanese employees, excluding many of the American employees from the managerial process. Furthermore, the US affiliate will most likely diminish in its ability to act independently. These issues created significant concern for American employees working for Japanese companies.IV. 2 Strategic PlanningIn strategic planning, Japanese companies seem to have a considerably different approach to Americans.For instance, while formulating a strategy, Americans are more-top-driven in their approach. They prefer to design changes and speed up evolution. This is in contrast with the Japanese who prefer to allow things to evolve from the bottom (Fiedler, 1965). American business people tend to finalize strategies quickly, sometimes without taking account of several issues and factors. They generally prefer to spend more time correcting the strategy in the implementation stage. The Japanese, on the other hand, tends to hold more careful discussion of what might go wrong and find their solutions.It is not until an all round agreement is achieved would the strategy be implemented. Many believe that the Japanese take more time to execute a plan and that is simply unacceptable. On the other hand, there are those who believed that the Japanese way is better, because they do not force the process. They allow everything to be in place, and when it does, they implement it quickly. Another argument in awe of the Japanese business culture is the fact that most Japanese managers prefer to look into the roots of the problem before making decisions, judgments and strategies.The American straightforward approach often result casualties of innocent workers being fired because management cannot see the root of the problem. This judgmental behavior is efficient, but not effective. Decisions are delivered in faster amount of time but less accuracy and depth of analysis. Japanese managers prefer to solve the problem first before looking for someone to blame. This culture evolves i n a manner that allows employees to feel shame even before they were even accused of misconduct. Mutual understanding and commitment to corporate goal is what fueled the Japanese strategy-machine to work.IV. 3 Employment and Personnel ManagementIn terms of employment, many writers indicated that Japan companies have distinctly unique system of ‘lifetime employment. Japanese companies are given credit by many for their ability in fostering loyalty and encouragement of their employees. Nevertheless, this is domestic in nature, and the system generally turns weak, once the companies enter international realm. Most of the modern nations found the Japanese employment system demands things that little (except Japanese people) would tolerate.Analysts indicated that these demands come from the lack of external labor market. There is not much choice for Japanese labor and employees in terms of employment. Thus, they tend to go along with every terms of the company, once they have signe d their contracts (Hersey, 1972). In foreign lands, Japanese companies who find that their system of employment is large unacceptable by non-Japanese, generally come up with an unfortunate solution. They would decide that the non-Japanese is to be hired under separate employment categories with little advancement opportunity or job security.IV. 4 Thickness of CultureOpening to new culture has been recognized as one of the popular traits of American business style. Corporations generally have a strong statement of their culture, but with a sense of flexibility and openness for new people and subsidiaries. Many writers consider this as advancement over other developing business cultures around the world. The Japanese on the other hand, develop a very ‘thick’ sense of corporate culture in each of their working generations. This strong sense of culture evolves from the fact that most Japanese employees work together for as long as a lifetime.Even a Japanese new entry would have difficulties in tuning-in to the corporate culture if they join in mid-career. Because of this tendency to form a strong bond among Japanese employees, Americans working within these companies generally experience numerous frictions and frustrations because they fail to understand the ongoing culture in the company (Kopp, n. d).V. Personal Leadership StylesV. 1 Types of LeadershipWithin this chapter, I will elaborate several types of leadership styles. Within each style there is an assessment of how Americans or Japanese favor the style. The types of leadership are: ? Directive LeadershipCompanies whose managers are accustomed to stress direction to subordinates are those of the directive leadership style. This style became famous in the United States, but it is now declining in frequency. Many stated that this style is currently most dominant is Asian countries. However, the Japanese seemed to be excluded in this particular category.Participative LeadershipThis style pursues c lose teamwork as a path to success. The Japanese are the symbol of this particular leadership style. Americans very seldom practice this type of leadership.Empowering LeadershipThis type of leadership is a brand new trend in America.It stresses on delegating responsibilities to subordinates and retain their passion in doing the best for the company. American Giants today are proclaiming themselves to be practicing this type of leadership. However, many Japanese multinationals (like Sony Corp. ) have this type of leadership style within their corporate philosophy. ? Charismatic Leadership Many CEO of multinationals have what is called human magnetism. It is the ability to gain trust from others to do what is needed for the company. These leaders usually exist within national boundaries. Their charismatic power seldom breaks through the limits of their culture.This type of leadership was dominated by Americans; however, their numbers are significantly reduced by as many of US companie s go global. More of them exist within the Japanese local culture now. (Cotter, 2001)V. 2 Family Succession LeadershipAccording to HBS (Harvard Business School) professor, D. Quinn Mills (2005), Japanese and other Asian companies are noted to pass down their line of leadership to family members. This is similar to the conduct of some of the largest American companies. However, it is more popular in American business culture that firms are run by professional managers and replaced by another professional manager.In American business culture, better companies generally have advance programs for developing executives within the firm. The next CEO will be chosen among them. There are also American companies who hire external CEOs without any familiarities of the company. This behavior is generally derived from the need to excel in growth or recovery. Despite the fact that several Japanese companies exceeded the Americans in terms of efficiency and profitability, many scholars still beli eve that the Japanese business style is only a stage of development which will finally lead to the American business style.These scholars argued using the leadership succession styles. They mentioned that the family succession culture was once a common practice among US companies. However, it was then replaced by the professional management succession line which is considered the latest piece of the evolutionary line. These scholars mentioned that it is possible that Asian firms will follow this evolutionary path in the future.V. 3 Political ConnectionsIn Japan and other Asian countries, it is more apparent that the success of a company depends to the intensity of its relations to political and social leaders of the environment.Japan and other Asian countries have developed a belief that connections to important people are crucial for the survival of their business. Quite contrast, the CEOs in America often have no direct connections to top politicians. The government only has autho rity at an arm’s length and business affairs are done by business people. Nevertheless, this does not include exceptions where older and powerful American companies take advantage of their political connections to enhance their success. The percentage of these companies is very low compared with Asian companies (Kopp, n. d).VI. Communication PatternsJapanese and Americans share some of their traits in terms of communication. Both of them are superpowers who held high their own culture. Americans and Japanese are known for their lack of knowledge over other languages. Few Americans speak and read foreign language enough to do business with people who do not understand English very well. Similarly, Japanese businessmen tend to be uncomfortable in detailed business discussion using English and English-language documents. Some other traits they share are their lack of experience in dealing with foreign people.Most of them lack the skills necessary to overcome cross-cultural chall enges (Kenna & Sondra, 1994). Japanese and American communication also has significant differences in their communication patterns. American business people tend to be more direct opened and values discussion. The Japanese style is on the other hand, more vague and roundabout. Much of the meaning is stated in nonverbal cues and subtle nuances of toning and wording. Different from Americans who viewed debate and challenging discussion as a positive trait, the Japanese tend to avoid them and viewed them negatively (Kenna & Sondra, 1994).VII ConclusionThe comparative analysis points out to several conclusions. The Japanese business culture is apparently very strong around its people. However, when their business expands to foreign lands, the power of their culture is either reduced, causing the lost of certain competitive advantages, or tightened, causing lack of collaboration to the surrounding environment. One of the reasons of Japanese rapid expansion into the international world is its unique managerial style. Successful Japanese companies have the ability to generate powerful motivation among its employees, thus, increasing corporate profitability, creativity and quality management.In this respect, the Japanese business culture has a significant advantage compare to the American business culture. The American seems to have superior business philosophy compare to the Japanese. Its ‘opened’ communication pattern and the lack of need for political connections and family ties provide high level of flexibility which supported expansion and business evolution. However, the quick decision making processes, the top-down evolution methods, and the impersonal relationship of its employees created a lack of strength in American managerial structure.Because of these, there are more strategies in the American culture that do not reach their goals, and more employees become left behind by the quick evolutionary stages. In this respect, the Japanese culture al so presents a favorable behavior for business evolvement. As a final conclusion, despite the fact that each business culture has their own strengths and weaknesses, this paper reveals a strong agreement that Japanese business culture has a significant advantage over the American business culture.A further study however, needed to be done over each and every aspects mentioned above in order to provide a more detailed explanation of how each culture excels or diminish within those respects.BibliographyCotter, Colleen. 2001. Lonely Planet USA Phrasebook: Understanding Americans and Their Culture Engel, Dean. 2000.Passport USA: Your Pocket Guide to American Business, Customs & Etiquette Fiedler, Fred E. 1965.Engineer the Job to Fit the Manager. Harvard Business Review. Vol. 43 Hersey, Paul. Blanchard, Kenneth H. 1972.Management of Organization Behavior. New Jersey: Prentic- Hall Inc. Kenna, Peggy. Sondra, Lacy. 1994.Business Japan: A Practical Guide to Understanding Japanese Business Cu lture. McGraw-Hill Kopp, Rochelle. N. d. ‘The Rice Paper Ceiling’. ISBN 1-880656-51-5. Stone Bridge Press. Mills, D. Quinn. ‘Asian and American Leadership Styles: How Are They Unique? ’. Harvard Business School. Retrieved June 2, 2006.Available at http://hbswk. hbs. edu/item. jhtml? id=4869&t=leadership Palmeri, Christopher. 2004.‘Is Japanese Style Taking Over the World? ’. Business Week Online. Retrieved June 2, 2006. Available at: http://www. businessweek. com/magazine/content/04_30/b3893091. htm,

No topic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 44

No topic - Essay Example However, they do not take an initiative of providing a systematic formula that can help people eradicate this kind of danger (Al-Nuemat Ahmed: pp. 56). Such ethical issues have a great impact on the consumers directly and to the society. Consumers always imagine they pay so much money because these companies spend a lot in advertising their products (Al-Nuemat Ahmed: pp. 58). However, since marketers are good at deceiving consumers, they always use the concept of deceptive marketing to lure them into buying. They do this by lowering the product prices but still putting into consideration the expenses. This kind of ethical dilemma has also made consumers materialistic because they tend to change their primary needs. In the process, the society ends up facing many problems. This is because people are quick at judging what other possesses and not how they behave in a society. Companies rely on marketing techniques to increase the number of sales. However, in the process of doing so, they always end up feeding consumers with wrong information through misleading advertisements. This is because they are after gaining a competitive advantage over their rivals. This in turn hurt the consumers after they realize the health issues related with the products. Al-Nuemat Ahmed Adnan. Current and Emerging Ethical Issues in Marketing New Directions and Proposals. Global Journal of Management and Business Research. 12.23(2012): 55- 62. Accessed 8 April 8, 2014

The Price of Doing Good - 12 Criteria Assignment - 1

The Price of Doing Good - 12 Criteria - Assignment Example Survival of business: Business ethics are mandatory for the survival of business. The businessmen who do not follow it will have short-term success, but they will fail in the long run. This is because they can cheat a consumer only once. After that, the consumer will not buy goods from that businessman. He will also tell others not to buy from that businessman. So this will defame his image and provoke a negative publicity. This will result in failure of the business. Therefore, if the businessmen do not follow ethical rules, he will fail in the  market. So, it is always better to follow appropriate code of conduct to survive in the market. Safeguarding consumers rights: The consumer has many rights such as right to health and safety, right to be informed, right to choose, right to be heard, right to redress, etc. But many businessmen do not respect and protect these rights. Business ethics are must to safeguard these rights of the consumers. Protecting employees and shareholders: Business ethics are required to protect the interest of employees, shareholders, competitors, dealers, suppliers, etc. It protects them from exploitation through unfair trade practices. Develops good relations: Business ethics are important to develop good and friendly relations between business and society. This will result in a regular supply of good quality goods and services at low prices to the society. It will also result in profits for the businesses thereby resulting in growth of economy. Creates good image: Business ethics create a good image for the business and businessmen. If the businessmen follow all ethical rules, then they will be fully accepted and not criticized by the society. The society will always support those businessmen who follow this necessary code of conduct. Smooth functioning: If the business follows all the business ethics, then the employees, shareholders, consumers, dealers and suppliers will all be happy. So they will give full cooperation to the business. This will result in smooth functioning of the business. So, the business will grow, expand and diversify easily and quickly. It will have more sales and more profits.

In all seriousness, what do you think is going to happen with regard Essay

In all seriousness, what do you think is going to happen with regard to global warming and climate change Are we going to make it if so or not, why - Essay Example Global warming/climate change is a human caused problem and the solution also will be provided by humans themselves. We as humans are causing changes to the Earth’s ecosystem and getting affected in return. Therefore, in order to make it through, in order to survive, we should agree to this effort for the conservation of life on Earth. Because if we’re not going to do to anything to prevent global warming/climate change, the countries will become hotter, sea level will rise, there will be an increase in rains and storms and the weather will go to its extreme. We can help reduce the global warming by using the energy sensibly. As everyone knows Global warming is a serious issue and everybody should come together to fight against global warming. These weather extremes affect those the most who are poor, old, very young or sick as they don’t have the capability to deal with the climate changes. But in a broader aspect the climate change/global warming is affecting humans. If we can cause a problem, we can surely solve the problem too. Climate change is a global issue. Dealing with it is a collective responsibility. Yet it is obvious that the world’s poorest countries will be the most affected by it. And failure to reduce global warming will cause a dangerous environment for millions of people. As many poor people already live in a deprived environment where food, clean water and shelter are inadequate– climate change will worsen their condition. As it is obvious that extreme weathers are the impact of global Warming, it will lead us to a state where hot days will become hotter, the rainfalls will become heavier, the flooding will become more frequent, the hurricanes more brutal, the draughts more acute. So as to get through this, all the awareness campaigns and efforts by environmental conservation organizations will not go in vein. They are playing their part and we should play ours by cooperating

Productivity and Cost Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Productivity and Cost - Case Study Example Given this basic economics law, companies must manage their resources effectively to create a more productive environment given their resources. In this regard, I examined the strategic decision of Company ABC - one of the largest personal computers and laptop manufacturers in the world and how this strategic decision incorporate the law of diminishing marginal productivity and the relationship of productivity and cost. Recently, Company ABC revamped its compensation and benefits program for its operations people. The new compensation and benefits program affects the salaries, wages and benefits of all production people - those employees who are directly involved in the manufacture and production of the company's products. The most prominent revision in the company's compensation package is the awarding of incentive to a production team's productivity rather than on the individual team member's performance. At the end of each month, the team's actual productivity is measured and compared to the team's target productivity for the month, then the team is given a bonus based on how well they exceeded performance and then the team divides the bonus to its members. The division is equal. Say, the team bonus is for $1000 and there are 5 members in the team, then each one will get $200 as incentive bonus. By directly linking the individual employee's incentive with that individual's team's productivity performance, Company ABC virtually acknowledge that the individual has a little impact on productivity and that the team's effort has a much more significant impact. Moreover, by putting the responsibility on productivity at the team level, the company is, in a sense, giving the responsibility to the team on how to fill up slacks in the team so its productivity does not suffer. This means that whenever a team member is absent, whether on sick or vacation leave, the team is responsible in ensuring that the team's productivity does not suffer in spite of the absence. I think that the decision to link incentive and team productivity is a very clever decision. The new incentive program allows the company a chance to increase its productivity without significantly increasing the company's payroll expenses. Moreover, by putting the responsibility to monitor productivity at the team level, slackers or below average employees will be pressured by the rest of the team to contribute more into the team's productivity efforts. However, according to the law of diminishing marginal productivity, the increase in the company's productivity as a result of the revision of the company's incentive program for its production employees will eventually diminishes. Hence, a new incentive program alone is not enough to sustain the increase in productivity for a long time. Another strategic decision should accompany the revised incentive program. According to the neoclassical growth theory, the "real GDP [or gross domestic product] per person grows because technological change induces a level of saving ad investment that make capital per hour of labor grow" (CFA, 2008, p. 440). Hence, a revised incentive program and an introduction of a technological change in the company's production floor will go a long way in terms of Company ABC's productivity. Interview with several production managers and employees of Company ABC reveals that this is actually what the company did and planned from the beginning. The company introduced its new incentive pro

Airports Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Airports - Research Paper Example The terrorists have started to believe that they can fulfill their objectives by ransacking property within the airports and by making people hostage due to the element of terror that comes to their rescue. What is even significant is the fact that they feel terrorism can turn the tide their way and make their unsuccessful attempts at propagating a message change into successful ones. The menace at airports is not just limited to the terrorism domains alone. These have also included the peril of smuggled goods and items across the shores. This is an element that demands a great deal of attention by the people who are behind such rackets. The airports are therefore the places where the terrorists find the best spot to make sure that the people remain under the subjugation of their objectives and goals (Alvarenga, 2011). Smuggling has been much talked about in the recent times and even the media has spoken about this subject in entirety. What this has implicated for is the fact that sm uggling can create bottlenecks for the government of the land, and thus could create anarchy of sorts. The role of the government under such considerations remains an important one.

The irrepressible conflict chapter 7 in the imperiled union, by Essay

The irrepressible conflict chapter 7 in the imperiled union, by kenneth stampp(pages 191 to 245) - Essay Example In the social science, historical theories and concepts are criticized by current scholars in search of new knowledge. If new evidence is discovered, scholars critically analyze it in consideration to the past evidence provided. The reason for revisionism is history relies on past distant events, and very little evidence is used in postulating of theories, therefore, when more evidence is found, it call for revision of the earlier theories or critic their explanation to the past event. This essay focuses on the civil war and the views of the revisionist via a Vis Stampp disapproval of them. How and why do revisionists argue that the civil war was a needless or repressible war? The proponent of revisionism argued that the case for a civil was a moral judgment of whether slavery was right or wrong. In addition, the agitators for antislavery had questionable attitudes towards the issues of slavery as political issues. As Steven Douglas argued, slavery was an issue of the southern people , and it did not affect people in the north. Therefore, the issues of slavery were better left to the white in the south to deal with and not engage in an unnecessary war. Moreover, revisionist says that the moral indifference of slavery was not a big issue to fight over it. Men and women are created sane and would solve their differences in a sane manner and avoid unnecessary bloodshed. According to Ulrich Philips, the black people had no problem being slaves because, in their nature, they were submissive, amiable, and light-hearted, imitative, ingratiating, and they were not progressive by the fact that they were Negroes. Philips also argues that the case for the plantation system among the slave was nothing ethical but nostalgia. Therefore, slavery was not a cause for the alarm, to instigate civil war because it had nothing to excite (Stampp 191-245). Another revisionist, Frank L, Owsley says that slavery was a moral issue and was not economic determinism of civilization in the s outh. He says that the issue of slavery has been dragged in the wrong case of the causes of a civil war. Furthermore, Randall believed that the black slave in the south had adapted to bondage without much resistance, and performing their tasks cheerfully. Randall also argues that, the southern slaves were abused, and this amounted to mistreatment, but it was a lenient way of treating slave by their slave owners. Randall says that, in reality the slave’s owners were more enslaved than the black by the set out institutions (Stampp 191-245). Craven brought his assertion that the different between the West and East were much greater than that of the North and South. Craven argues that abolition of slavery hindered the understanding of the effect of slavery to the modern employee –employer relationship. According to Craven, the life American worker today is much like that of the slave. Craven note that, even during the debate of the relevancy of slavery in the south, the pa tient blacks continued with their tasks unconsciously never minding the merits of the system he was working. David Potter in his analysis of revisionism says that, the facts that slave were left to live and even to grow and expand in a new world, was better off than engaging in a war. David concedes that emancipation of four million slaves was of great value, but he says it came at a greater cost. According to David, for every

PESTLE Analysis Google Lab Report Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

PESTLE Analysis Google - Lab Report Example The organization is full of young life and has been serving thousands of customers and user since its incorporation (Google, 2013a). The primary source of revenue is the online advertisements. As on 2011, the core areas on which the business focused was enterprise, operating system and platform, advertising and search. The business used its AdWords programs to promote their services and products with targeted advertising. Apart from this, the third party that included Google Network used its AdSense that delivered relevant advertisements and generated revenue (The New York Times, 2013). The study focuses on Google Inc., understands the methods followed by the company, conducts a PESTLE analysis and decides on the future performance of the organization. The Methods Google is known for its search engine. Larry Page describes a perfect search engine is one which exactly understands what the user wants and gives him back exactly that particular thing. Google has not kept itself restricte d to search engine only but has started offering products beyond that. They have shown whole lot of technological advancement staring from search to Gmail and Chrome. The goal of the organization remains the same; to assist their users easily access the things they require. Thus, the company follows a faster and smarter approach while developing its product (Google, 2013b). The huge success of the organization is based on the set of methods and beliefs that the company follows. Since the beginning of the organization they focus on providing the best experience to the users. Whatever new innovation they do, they always look towards the expectation of the users and try to fit into their requirements. At the same time when they are designing some new applications or tools they make them work so well that the user do not have to bother about the changes or think about how differently they have been designed. Google has a large pool of researchers who are extensively engaged in solving t he search problems. The company is well aware of what it does and also knows how to make it better. The company continues to make several attempts in order to solve difficult problems and has solved many complex issues. This leads to the improvement of the services that they provide and make the experience and search of the user better. The organization is fully dedicated towards developing innovative products (Google, 2013c). Google believes that time is valuable and this makes the company design their product in such ways that it takes minimum time for the customers to find what they are searching. This is the only company who aims towards making the user leave their website as soon as possible after accomplishing their objectives. This same belief is kept in mind every time the company launches their product whether it is a mobile phone application or a new browser. They understand the demand of the present moment and increasing use of mobile. Today people are seen to use mobile phones for accessing information, which has driven the company to implement new technologies and offer new products and solutions for mobile services that may help the users, present at various corners of the globe to accomplish their task. Google generates their revenue by offering search technologies to various companies and displaying advertisements on their own website and on other sites across the web. Several advertisers take advantage of AdWords to

Movie comment Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Comment - Movie Review Example There seems to be a break in connection with the past. This can be a good thing, however, because it forces the next generation to carve out a new way for themselves, and escape from the weight of history that has been handed down to them. One of the most interesting aspects of the film is that Pilar, who has a white father and Mexican mother, is a teacher whose job is to reinterpret the history for all of the different groups, even though the parents of the schoolchildren resist her open minded approach to the past. Cinema has a great power to play with time: â€Å"Sayles visually reinforces the weight of history and the past in Frontera with seamless chronological transitions smoothly effected by means of panning or other camera movement during uninterrupted takes.† (West and West, 1996, p.1) The flashbacks help to put history into context. Question 2. The town of Frontera, whose name literally means frontier or border, is at the meeting point of North America and South Amer ica, and it is also where the different mentalities of these two worlds meet.

Letter of Recommendation Essay Example for Free

Letter of Recommendation Essay Letter of Recommendation To the applicant: Please fill in your name and the other required information below. In turn, deliver or email this form to the person who will write this letter. NOTE: Request your recommender to seal his or her letter of recommendation in an official envelope and sign across the back flap upon completion. Recommendation letters that are not sealed and signed will not be accepted. Confidential Name of Applicant: (given name) Shajeel(family name) Rasool Nationality: Pakistani Desired Degree Program Doctoral Desired Major: Electrical Engineering To the recommender: The person named above has applied for the ‘Korean Government Scholarship Program’. We ask for your assistance, and would appreciate your frank and candid appraisal of the applicant. * Please type or print clearly using black ink. 1. How long have you known the applicant and in what relationship? Please assess the applicants qualities in the evaluation table given below. Rate the applicant compared to other classmates who are/were in the same school year with him/her. How well do you think the applicant has thought out plans for graduate study? 5. Please comment on the applicant’s performance record, potential, or personal qualities which you believe would be helpful in considering the applicant’s application for the proposed degree program. Recommender’s Name Date Recommender’s Signature Position or Title: University (Institution): Address: Tel: Fax: (zip-code:-) Please return this form sealed in an official envelope and signed across the back to the applicant. We greatly appreciate your timeliness regarding this letter for your recommendee.

Subscriber System using Identity-Based Encryption

Subscriber System using Identity-Based Encryption Secure Message Transmission to the Publisher Vivek Sharma INTRODUCTION The major mechanism regarding to the Publish-Subscribe based system are security, confidentiality, scalability and authentication. Publish-Subscribe system can be classified into two groups like as Type based and Content based message transmission. The publish-subscribe system is facing difficulties regarding Authentication just because of their Loose coupling nature. Content based routing face the difficulties in term of event confidentiality and their subscription. Hence, A new way is needed to the transmission of encrypted events to publishers-subscribers without knowing subscriptions between them and authenticate to each-other during transmission of an event. Security is the major facor in the broker less publisher-subscriber systems. To successful subscription, the subscribers should be in clustered form according to their subscription. The proposed approach gives permission to subscribers to manage the credentials in respect of their subscriptions. Credentials are labelled with private keys to the subscriber and Publisher connected with each-every encrypted event and related credentials. By using identity-based encryption, we must ensure that a particular event will decrypt only if a common credential between both publisher-subscriber associated with the particular event and their private key which is generated by the key generator are matched correctly in system and subscribers can check the authenticity of events to the publisher-subscriber system. SCOPE OF PROJECT : The project will provide the high authentication, reliability and scalability to the publish-subscribe system. An authentication and confidentiality will be achieved by the publishers and subscribers system to the particular occurring event by applying the pairing based cryptography and Symmetric encryption. Both publisher-subscriber are assigned with a same private key mechanism differentiate with the other mechanism like as public key infrastructure. So it provides more secure and reliable way to the communication between publisher and subscriber. LITERATURE SURVEY : Title: Cipher text Encryption based on attribute Author Bethencurt , Sahali A. Year: 2007 Description: According to the attribute based encryption based on the cipher text policy, the publisher or encryptor fix the policy to the subscriber, who will decrypt the message. With the help of attribute, the policy can be formed. In previous Cipher text encryption based on attribute, policy is embedded with the cipher text to the transmission. In this proposed method, the access policy is not sent with the cipher text, so it would provide better privacy environment to the encryptor. Title: Public-Key Encryption related Search of particular keyword Author: D. Boneh, P Crcenzo, R Ostrvky Year: 2004 Description: We study the problem of searching on data that is encrypted using a public key system. Consider user Bob who sends email to user Alice encrypted under Alices public key. An email gateway wants to test whether the email contains the keyword urgent so that it could route the email accordingly. Alice, on the other hand does not wish to give the gateway the ability to decrypt all her messages. We define and construct a mechanism that enables Alice to provide a key to the gateway that enables the gateway to test whether the word urgent is a keyword in the email without learning anything else about the email. We refer to this mechanism as Public Key Encryption with keyword Search. As another example, consider a mail server that stores various messages publicly encrypted for Alice by others. Using our mechanism Alice can send the mail server a key that will enable the server to identify all messages containing some specific keyword, but learn nothing else. We define the concep t of public key encryption with keyword search and give several constructions. Title: Identity-Based Encryption from the Weil Pairing.e Scheduling Independent Tasks Author: D. Boneh and M.K. Franklin Year: 2001 Description: We propose a fully functional identity-based encryption scheme (IBE). The scheme has chosen cipher text security in the random oracle model assuming a variant of the computational Die- Hellman problem. Our system is based on bilinear maps between groups. The Weil pairing on elliptic curves is an example of such a map. We give precise dentitions for secure identity based encryption schemes and give several applications for such systems. Title: â€Å"Supporting Publication and Subscription Confidentiality in Pub/Sub Networks Author: M. Ion, G. Russello Year: 2010. Description: The publish/subscribe model over’s a loosely-coupled communication paradigm where applications interact indirectly and asynchronously. Publisher applications generate events that are sent to interested applications through a network of brokers. Subscriber applications express their interest by specifying filters that brokers can use for routing the events. Supporting condentiality of messages being exchanged is still challenging. First of all, it is desirable that any scheme used for protecting the condentiality of both the events and filters should not require the publishers and subscribers to share secret keys. In fact, such a restriction is against the loose-coupling of the model. Moreover, such a scheme should not restrict the expressiveness of filters and should allow the broker to perform event filtering to route the events to the interested parties. Existing solutions do not fully address these issues. In this paper, we provide a novel scheme that supports (i) condentiality for events and filters; (ii) filters can express very complex constraints on events even if brokers are not able to access any information on both events and filters; (iii) and finally it does not require publishers and subscribers to share keys. Title: Efficient Privacy Preserving Content Based Publish Subscribe Systems Author: M. Nabeel, N. Shang, and E. Bertino Year: 2012. Description: Privacy and confidentiality are crucial issues in content-based publish/subscribe (CBPS) networks. We tackle the problem of end-user privacy in CBPS. This problem raises a challenging requirement for handling encrypted data for the purpose of routing based on protected content and encrypted subscription information. We suggest a solution based on a commutative multiple encryption schemes in order to allow brokers to operate in-network matching and content based routing without having access to the content of the packets. This is the first solution that avoids key sharing among end-users and targets an enhanced CBPS model where brokers can also be subscribers at the same time. Title: Encryption-Enforced Access Control in Dynamic Multi-Domain Publish/Subscribe Networks Author: L.I.W. Pesonen, D.M. Eyers, and J. Bacon Year: 2007 Description: This paper extends previous work to present and evaluate a secure multi-domain publish/subscribe infrastructure that supports and enforces engrained access control over the individual attributes of event types. Key refresh allows us to ensure forward and backward security when event brokers join and leave the network. We demonstrate that the time and space overheads can be minimized by careful consideration of encryption techniques, and by the use of caching to decrease unnecessary decryptions. We show that our approach has a smaller overall communication overhead than existing approaches for achieving the same degree of control over security in publish/subscribe networks. Title: Hermes: A Scalable Event-Based Middleware Author: P. Pietzuch Year: 2004 Description: The core functionality of an event-based middleware is extended with three higher-level middleware services that address different requirements in a distributed computing environment. We introduce a novel congestion control service that avoids congestion in the overlay broker network during normal operation and recovery after failure, and therefore enables a resource-efficient deployment of the middleware. The expressiveness of subscriptions in the event-based middleware is enhanced with a composite event service that performs the distributed detection of complex event patterns, thus taking the burden away from clients. Finally, a security service adds access control to Hermes according to a secure publish/subscribe model. This model supports fine-grained access control decisions so that separate trust domains can share the same overlay broker network. Title: Enabling Confidentiality in Content-Based Publish/Subscribe Infrastructures Author: C. Raiciu and D.S. Rosenblum Year: 2006. Description: we focus on answering the following question: Can we implement content-based publish/subscribe while keeping subscriptions and notifications confidential from the forwarding brokers? Our contributions include a systematic analysis of the problem, providing a formal security model and showing that the maximum level of attainable security in this setting is restricted. We focus on enabling provable confidentiality for commonly used applications and subscription languages in CBPS and present a series of practical provably secure protocols, some of which are novel and others adapted from existing work. We have implemented these protocols in SIENA, a popular CBPS system. Evaluation results show that confidential content-based publish/subscribe is practical: A single broker serving 1000 subscribers is able to route more than 100 notifications per second with our solutions. Title: EventGuard: A System Architecture for Securing Publish-Subscribe Networks Author: M. Srivatsa, L. Liu, and A. Iyengar Year: 2011. Description: a framework for building secure wide area pub-sub systems. The EventGuard architecture is comprised of three key components: (1) a suite of security guards that can be seamlessly plugged-into a contentbased pub-sub system, (2) a scalable key management algorithm to enforce access control on subscribers, and (3) a resilient pub-sub network design that is capable of scalable routing, handling message dropping-based DoS attacks and node failures. The design of EventGuard mechanisms aims at providing security guarantees while maintaining the system’s overall simplicity, scalability and performance metrics. We describe an implementation of the EventGuard pub-sub system to show that EventGuard is easily stackable on any content-based pub-sub core. We present detailed experimental results that quantify the overhead of the EventGuard pub-sub system and demonstrate its resilience against various attacks.

Ebola Virus Mechanism of Infection

Ebola Virus Mechanism of Infection The Ebola virus (EBOV) is an enveloped, non-segmented, negative-strand RNA virus, which  together with Marburg virus, makes up the filoviridae family. The virus causes severe  hemorrhagic fever associated with 50-90% human mortality1. Four species of the virus (Zaire,  Sudan, Cà ´te d’Ivoire, and Reston ebolavirus) have thus far been identified, with Zaire typically  associated with the highest human lethality2. A fifth EBOV species is confirmed in a 2007  outbreak in Bundibugyo, Uganda3,4. Infection with EBOV results in uncontrolled viral  replication and multiple organ failure with death occurring 6-9 days after onset of  symptoms5. Fatal cases are associated with high viremia and defective immune responses,  while survival is associated with early and vigorous humoral and cellular immune  responses6-9. Although preliminary vaccine trials in primates have been highly  successful10-13, no vaccines, specific immunotherapeutics, or post-exposure treatments are  currently approved for human use. Since 1994, EBOV outbreaks have increased more than  four-fold, thus necessitating the urgent development of vaccines and therapeutics for use in the  event of an intentional, accidental or natural EBOV release. The EBOV genome contains seven genes, which direct the synthesis of eight proteins. Transcriptional editing of the fourth gene (GP) results in expression of a 676-residue transmembrane-linked glycoprotein termed GP, as well as a 364-residue secreted glycoprotein  termed sGP14,15. EBOV GP is the main target for the design of vaccines and entry inhibitors. GP is post-translationally cleaved by furin16 to yield disulfide-linked GP1 and GP2  subunits17. GP1 effects attachment to host cells, while GP2 mediates fusion of viral and host  membranes16,18-20. EBOV is thought to enter host cells through receptor-mediated  endocytosis via clathrin-coated pits and caveolae21, followed by actin and microtubuledependent  transport to the endosome21, where GP is further processed by endosomal  cathepsins22-24. Essential cellular receptor(s) have not yet been identified, but DC-SIGN/LSIGN25,  hMGL26, ÃŽ ²-integrins27, folate receptor-ÃŽ ±28 and Tyro3 family receptors29 have all  been implicated as cellular factors in entry. Here, we report the crystal structure of EBOV GP,  at 3.4 Ã… resolution, in its trimeric, pre-fusion conformation in complex with neutralizing  antibody Fab KZ52. GP1 is responsible for cell surface attachment, which is probably mediated by a region  including residues 54-20132. GP1 is composed of a single d omain (∠¼65 Ã… Ãâ€" 30 Ã… Ãâ€" 30 Ã…),arranged in the topology shown in Fig. 2a, and can be further subdivided into the (I) base, (II)  head and (III) glycan cap regions (Fig. 2a and Supplemental Fig. S3). The base (I) subdomain  is composed of two sets of ÃŽ ² sheets, forming a semi-circular surface which clamps the internal  fusion loop and a helix of GP2 through hydrophobic interactions (Fig. 2b). Moreover, this  subdomain contains Cys53, which is proposed to form an intermolecular disulfide bridge to  Cys609 of the GP2 subunit17. Cys53 resides near GP2 in the ÃŽ ²2-ÃŽ ²3 loop at the viral membraneproximal  end of the base subdomain (Fig. 2a-b). Our EBOV GP contains an intact GP1-GP2  disulfide bridge, based on reducing and non-reducing SDS-PAGE analysis. However, the region containing the counterpart GP2 cysteine is disordered, which may reflect functionally  important mobility in the region. The head (II) is located between the base and glycan cap   regions towards the host membrane surface. Two intramolecular disulfide bonds stabilize the  head subdomain and confirm the biochemically determined disulfide bridge assignments17.   Cys108-Cys135 connects a surface-exposed loop (ÃŽ ²8-ÃŽ ²9 loop) to strand ÃŽ ²7, while Cys121-Cys147 bridges the ÃŽ ²8-ÃŽ ²9 and ÃŽ ²9-ÃŽ ²10 loops (Fig. 2a). The glycan cap (III) contains four  predicted N-linked glycans (at N228, N238, N257 and N268) in an ÃŽ ±/ÃŽ ² dome over the GP1  head subdomain (Fig. 1b and 2a). This subdomain does not form any monomer-monomer  contacts and is fully exposed on the upper and outer surface of the chalice. The central ÃŽ ² sheets  from the head and glycan cap together form a fairly flat surface and, in the context of the GP  trimer, form the three inner sides of the chalice bowl. Ebola virus GP2 GP2 is responsible for fusion of viral and host cell membranes and contains the internal fusion  loop and the heptad repeat regions, HR1 and HR2. Many viral glycoproteins have fusion  peptides, located at the N terminus of their fusion subunit, which are released upon cleavage  of the precursor glycoprotein. By contrast, class II and class III fusion proteins, as well as class  I glycoproteins from Ebola, Marburg, Lassa and avian sarcoma leukosis viruses, contain  internal fusion loops lacking a free N terminus. The crystal structure reveals that the EBOV  GP internal fusion loop, which encompasses residues 511-556, utilizes an antiparallel ÃŽ ²Ã‚  stranded scaffold to display a partially helical hydrophobic fusion peptide (L529, W531, I532,  P533, Y534 and F535) (Fig. 2c). The side chains of these hydrophobic residues pack into a  region on the GP1 head of a neighboring subunit in the trimer, reminiscent of the fusion peptide  packing in the pre-fusion parainfluenz a virus 5 F structure33. A disulfide bond between Cys511  at the base of ÃŽ ²19 and Cys556 in the HR1 helix covalently links the antiparallel ÃŽ ² sheet. This  disulfide bond between the internal fusion loop and HR1 is conserved among all filoviruses,  and is analogous to a pair of critical cysteines flanking the internal fusion loop in avian sarcoma  leukosis virus34,35. Interestingly, the EBOV internal fusion loop has features more similar to  those observed in class II and III viral glycoproteins (in particular to flaviviruses) than those  previously observed for class I glycoproteins (Supplemental Fig. S4). It thus appears that  regardless of viral protein class, internal fusion loops share a common architecture for their  fusion function. EBOV GP2 contains two heptad repeat regions (HR1 and HR2), connected by a 25-residue  linker containing a CX6CC motif and the internal fusion loop. The crystal structures of postfusion  GP2 fragments30,31 have revealed that the two heptad repeat regions form antiparallel  ÃŽ ± helices and that a CX6CC motif forms an intrasubunit disulfide bond between Cys601 and  Cys608 (Supplemental Fig. S5). In the pre-fusion EBOV GP, HR2 and the CX6CC motif are  disordered. By contrast, the HR1 region is well ordered and can be divided into four segments:  HR1A, HR1B, HR1C and HR1D (Fig. 2c), which together assemble the cradle encircling GP1. Similarly, heptad repeat regions in influenza and parainfluenza viruses also contain multiple  segments in their pre-fusion helices that substantially rearrange in their post-fusion  conformations33,36,37. The first two segments, HR1A and HR1B (residues 554-575), together form an ÃŽ ± helix with an  Ã¢Ë† ¼40 ° kink at T565, which delineates HR1A from HR1B. Interestingly, the bend between  HR1A and HR1B contains an unusual 3-4-4-3 stutter, which may act as a conformational  switch31, rather than the typical 3-4 periodicity of heptad repeats (Supplemental Fig. S6). A  similar stutter has also been noted in parainfluenza virus 5 F33. The Ebola virus HR1C (residues  576-582) forms an extended coil linking HR1B to the 14-residue ÃŽ ± helix of HR1D (residues  583-598). HR1D forms an amphipathic helix and the hydrophobic faces of each HR1D join to  form a three-helix bundle at the trimer interface. Although the breakpoint maps directly to a  Lee et al. Page 3 Nature. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2009 June 22. NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript  chloride ion binding site in the post-fusion conformation of GP230,31 and at least two other  viruses38,39, no chloride ion is observed here as HR1 and HR2 do not come together to form  the six-helix bundle. Instead, the pre-fusion GP2 adopts a novel conformation, intimately  curled around GP1 (Fig. 1c). Ebola virus GP-KZ52 interface KZ52 is an antibody isolated from a human survivor of a 1995 outbreak in Kikwit, Democratic  Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire)40. This antibody neutralizes Zaire ebolavirus in  vitro40 and offers protection from lethal EBOV challenge in rodent models41, but has minimal  effects on viral pathogenicity in non-human primates42. KZ52 is directed towards a vulnerable,  non-glycosylated epitope at the base of the GP chalice, where it engages three discontinuous  segments of EBOV GP: residues 42-43 at the N terminus of GP1, and 505-514 and 549-556  at the N terminus of GP2 (Fig. 3 and Supplemental Fig. S7). Although the majority of the GP  surface buried by KZ52 belongs to GP2, the presence of both GP1 and GP2 are critical for  KZ52 recognition43. It is likely that GP1 is required to maintain the proper pre-fusion  conformation of GP2 for KZ52 binding. Indeed, KZ52 is the only antibody known to bridge  both attachment (GP1) and fusion (GP2) subunits of any viral gly coprotein. Given that KZ52  requires a conformational epitope seen only in the GP2 pre-fusion conformation and that the  KZ52 epitope is distant from the putative receptor-binding site (RBS), KZ52 likely neutralizes  by preventing rearrangement of the GP2 HR1A/HR1B segments and blocking host membrane  insertion of the internal fusion loop. Alternatively, IgG KZ52 may sterically hinder access to  the RBS or to a separate binding site of another cellular factor, especially if multiple attachment  events are required for entry. The KZ52 epitope of GP is convex and does not have a high shape complementarity to the  antibody (Sc index of 0.63), although ∠¼1600 Ã…2 of each GP monomer are occluded upon KZ52  binding. The antibody contacts a total of 15 GP residues by van der Waals interactions and 8  direct hydrogen bonds (Supplemental Fig. S7). Ten out of 15 residues in the structurally defined  KZ52 epitope are unique to Zaire ebolavirus (Supplemental Fig. S6), thus explaining the Zaire  specificity of KZ52. Ebola virus GP glycosylation We generated a fully glycosylated molecular model of EBOV GP to illustrate the native GP  trimer as it exists on the viral surface (Fig. 4). The majority of N-linked glycosylation sites are  concentrated in the mucin-like domain and glycan cap of GP1. Given that the mucin-like  domain is ∠¼75 kDa in mass (protein and oligosaccharide), the volume of this domain is  predicted to be similar to each GP monomer observed here. The crystal structure suggests that  the mucin-like domain is linked to the side of each monomer and may further build up the walls  of the chalice, forming a deeper bowl (Fig. 4). Although a mixture of complex, oligomannose  and hybrid-type glycans are found on intact, mucin-containing GP144, those glycans outside  the mucin-like domain are likely to be complex in nature: the mucin-deleted GP used for  crystallization is sensitive to PNGaseF, but not to EndoH treatment (Supplemental Fig. S8).   Modeling of complex-type oligosaccharides on the EBOV GP indicates that the majority of  the GP trimer is cloaked by a thick layer of oligosaccharide, even without the mucin-like  domain (Fig. 4). The ∠¼19 additional oligosaccharides on the full-length GP (17 on the mucinlike  domain and 2 more on GP1, disordered here) further conceal the sides and top of the  chalice. The KZ52 binding site and, presumably, the flexible regions of HR2 and the  membrane-proximal external region (MPER) remain exposed and perhaps vulnerable to  binding of antibodies and inhibitors. Lee The development of neutralizing antibodies is limited in natural Ebola virus infection. Many  survivors have low or insignificant titres1,7, and those antibodies that are elicited preferentially  recognize a secreted version of the viral glycoprotein that features an alternate quaternary  structure and lacks the mucin-like domain43. The glycocalyx surrounding EBOV GP likely  forms a shield that protects it from humoral immune responses and/or confers stability insideor outside a host. The mucin-like domain and glycan cap sit together as an external domain to  the viral attachment and fusion subunits, reminiscent of the glycan shields of HIV-1  gp12045,46   and Epstein-Barr virus gp35047, perhaps pointing to a common theme for immune  evasion. Alignment of filoviral sequences indicate that regions involved in immune evasion  have a low degree of sequence conservation [i.e. GP1 glycan cap (∠¼5%) and mucin-like domain  (0%)], but the N-glycosylation sites in the glycan cap are mostly conserved among all EBOV  subtypes (Supplemental Fig. S6), indicating the functional importance of these posttranslational  modifications. Sites of receptor binding and cathepsin cleavage Although a definitive receptor for EBOV remains to be identified, previous studies32,48,49  have determined that residues 54-201, which map to the base and head subdomains of GP1,  form a putative receptor-binding site (RBS) for attachment to host cells. Additional  experimental studies have identified at least 19 GP1 residues, assigned into four groups based  on the location in the structure, that are critical for viral entry48-50 (Fig. 5). Many of these  residues are apolar or aromatic and are involved in maintaining the structural integrity of GP1  for receptor binding or fusion. However, six residues (K114, K115, K140, G143, P146 and  C147) cluster within a ∠¼20 Ãâ€" 15 Ã… surface in the inner bowl of the chalice and may thus  represent important receptor contact sites. All residues in the putative RBS are highly conserved  among Ebola virus species (Supplemental Fig. S6). Importantly, this putative RBS is recessed beneath the glycan cap and perhaps further masked  by the mucin-like domain (Fig. 4), suggesting that additional conformational change or removalof the mucin-like domain could reveal additional surfaces required for receptor or cofactor  binding. It has been demonstrated that endosomal proteolysis of EBOV GP by cathepsin L  and/or B removes the mucin-like domain to produce a stable ∠¼18 kDa GP1 intermediate which  has enhanced viral binding and infectivity22-24. The precise site of cathepsin cleavage is  unknown and the role of cathepsins in natural infection is as yet unclear. However, formation  of an ∠¼18 kDa GP1 fragment implies that cathepsin may cleave near the GP1 ÃŽ ²13-ÃŽ ²14 loop  (residues 190-213). Indeed, this loop is unresolved in the pre-fusion structure, suggesting  enhanced mobility and accessibility to enzymatic cleavage. Cleavage within this loop would  remove the entire mucin-like domain and glyc an cap region (Fig. 5). As a result, ÃŽ ²7 to ÃŽ ²9  strands and their associated loops would become exposed. These regions of GP are in proximity  to the previously identified residues critical for viral entry. The fold, location and  physicochemical properties of this site should now provide new leads in the search for the  elusive filoviral receptor(s). A summary of the Ebola virus mechanism of infection, including the events of cathepsin  cleavage and conformational changes to GP2 during fusion, is presented.

American Industrialization Essay -- essays research papers

Had it not been for the American industrialization, we would not enjoy the technology we have in the year 2002. The reason we have this technology is that between those years a great change in the world’s history was made. People started to discover faster methods of producing goods, which increased their economy. However, this industrialization had no effects on society. Society then was still very poor in some areas, but later on in the future the United States becomes the richest and most powerful country in the world. What do these industries depend on? Yes they depend on good transportation systems to bring raw materials to factories and to distribute finished goods. Thus they started building canals between mines and factories, then a road surface, and finally the rail road industry was developed. George Stephenson developed the Rocket; the first steam powered locomotive. Also the American Engineer Robert Fulton developed a way to use steam power for ships. The postal system was also introduced by the British but this time inexpensively. And last we should remember the telegraph that sent messages by electrical impulses not only in Europe but also between America and Britain. So after all the years we wonder why Britain lead the industrial revolution, well the reason is that they enjoyed many advantages that helped them take the lead in the revolution. As I have wrote the agricultural revolution increased food production, which freed many laborers to work in indust...