Vertebrates - Vertebrata - the Animal Encyclopedia

Vertebrates - Vertebrata - the Animal Encyclopedia Vertebrates (Vertebrata) are a group of chordates that includes birds, mammals, fishes,  lampreys, amphibians, and reptiles. Vertebrates have a vertebral column in which the notochord is replaced by multiple vertebrae that form a backbone. The vertebrae surround and protect a nerve cord and provide the animal with structural support.  Vertebrates have a well-developed head, a distinct brain that is protected by a skull, and paired sense organs. They also have a highly efficient respiratory system, a muscular pharynx with slits and gills (in terrestrial vertebrates the slits and gills are greatly modified), a muscularized gut, and a chambered heart. Another notable character of vertebrates is their endoskeleton. An endoskeleton is an internal assemblage of notochord, bone or cartilage that provides the animal with structural support. The endoskeleton grows as the animal grows and provides a sturdy framework to which the animals muscles are attached. The vertebral column in vertebrates is one of the groups defining characteristics. In most vertebrates, a notochord is present early in their development. The notochord is a flexible yet supportive rod that runs along the length of the body. As the animal develops, the notochord is replaced by a series of vertebrae that form the vertebral column. Basal vertebrates such as cartilaginous fishes and ray-finned fishes breath using gills. Amphibians have external gills in the larval stage of their development and (in most species) lungs as adults. Higher vertebrates- such as reptiles, birds, and mammals- have lungs instead of gills. For many years, the earliest vertebrates were thought to be the ostracoderms, a group of jawless, bottom-dwelling, filter-feeding marine animals. But during the past decade, researchers have discovered several fossil vertebrates that are older than the ostracoderms. These newly discovered specimens, which are about 530 million years old, include Myllokunmingia and Haikouichthys. These fossils exhibit numerous vertebrate traits such as a heart, paired eyes, and primitive vertebrae. The origin of jaws marked an important point in vertebrate evolution. Jaws enabled vertebrates to capture and consume larger prey than their jawless ancestors. Scientists believe that jaws arose via the modification of the first or second-gill arches. This adaptation is thought to have at first been a way of increasing gill ventilation. Later, as musculature developed and the gill arches bent forward, the structure functioned as jaws. Of all living vertebrates, only the lampreys lack jaws. Key Characteristics The key characteristics of vertebrates include: vertebral columnwell-developed headdistinct brainpaired sense organsefficient respiratory systemmuscular pharynx with slits and gillsmuscularized gutchambered heartendoskeleton Species Diversity Approximately 57,000 species.  Vertebrates account for about 3% of all known species on our planet. The other 97% of species alive today are invertebrates. Classification Vertebrates are classified within the following taxonomic hierarchy: Animals Chordates Vertebrates Vertebrates are divided into the following taxonomic groups: Bony fishes (Osteichthyes) - There are about 29,000 species of bony fishes alive today. Members of this group include ray-finned fishes and lobe-finned fishes. Bony fishes are so named because they have a skeleton made of true bone.Cartilaginous fishes (Chondricthyes) - There are about 970 species of cartilaginous fishes alive today. Members of this group include sharks, rays, skates, and chimaeras. Cartilaginous fishes have a skeleton that is made of cartilage instead of bone.Lampreys and Hagfishes (Agnatha) - There are about 40 species of lamprey alive today. Members of this group include pouched lampreys, Chilean lampreys, Australian lampreys, northern lampreys, and others. Lampreys are jawless vertebrates that have a long narrow body. They lack scales and have a sucker-like mouth.Tetrapods (Tetrapoda) - There are about 23,000 species of tetrapods alive today. Members of this group include birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles. Tetrapods are vertebrates with four limbs (or whos e ancestors had four limbs). References Hickman C, Roberts L, Keen S. Animal Diversity. 6th ed. New York: McGraw Hill; 2012. 479 p. Hickman C, Roberts L, Keen S, Larson A, lAnson H, Eisenhour D. Integrated Principles of Zoology 14th ed. Boston MA: McGraw-Hill; 2006. 910 p.

Management Decision Making Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 3

Management Decision Making - Case Study Example In arriving at a decision, the team applies to cause and effect diagram, which investigates business systems for possible problems which cause inefficiencies. A decision making chain slows down due to lack of harmony among team members tasked with that responsibility. In the same way, a processing machine slows down hindering the continuous flow of goods in the conveyor belt. The team given this mandate uses cause and effect diagrams to come up with overall facts about the system. The process starts with investigations which look into possible reasons for a particular effect. In this case, the team investigates the Executive Information System (EIS) and finds out that major problems lie in the implementation. This is because the management is not equipped with the right skills required to run the system during the implementation stage. Cause and effect diagrams list from the biggest cause for the problem to the least, to guide the team in prioritizing courses for action (Sproull, 200 1). A Pareto chart is a combination of a line and bar graph, used to bring out the differences in data validity, and highlights the most useful ones. This helps quality assurance managers in testing the system for any faults which affecting business process. For instance, when investigating why ATM cards are taking too long to process at a bank, all ATM application issues are listed in order of frequency to establish where the gap is mostly concentrated. This is where problem-solving commences when addressing system issues. The team used a combination of these tools to come up with the recommendations, which excluded software and hardware components from the EIS implementation issues. In establishing the cause, right decisions are made in singling out the two issues. This two-tier approach is ideal for bringing out the most valid reasons for low uptake of the system. The only problem with this approach is that minor issues might be overlooked with has a potential of causing hitches later on in the system.

Internet and social media Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Internet and social media - Article Example I know a friend of mine, since childhood who used to remain very quiet in the classroom until few years ago. His name is John. He used to speak very rarely, and did not participate in group discussions. He remained silent and kept observing others. I seldom saw him speak in gatherings. I always found him more defensive than expressive in his speech. He could not bear someone contradicting his points of view or pass an indecent comment as friends normally do. This is perhaps the reason John did not participate in group discussions. But this John is completely different from the one I have in my friends list on facebook. John is too expressive in the virtual world. One day, I asked John the reason behind the disparity between his real world social interaction and that in the virtual world. He told me that he felt more protected while interacting in the virtual world. One reason why he thinks so is that he does not have to come up with prompt answers to the nasty comments made by his fr iends. When someone sends him a message on facebook and criticizes him in anyway, he has more time to select the most rational answer from a variety of choices. I have personally noticed that his responses to others’ comments on facebook are much more objective, well synthesized and well reasoned than what he normally makes in the real world conversation.

Marcel Duchamp and Dadaism Essay Example for Free

Marcel Duchamp and Dadaism Essay The art of Dadaism had its roots as an anti-art movement. The period of time in Art History Dadaism represents was approximately period of time from 1916 to 1924. Dadaism rejected the way art was appreciated and the way art was generally being defined in contemporary art scenes at that time (Tomkins, 1985). Dadism art movement was a response to World War I and was founded in Zurich, Switzerland. There weren’t any unifying aesthetic characteristics in Dada art; however, the Dadaists did share an extremely skeptical attitude towards what were at the time, the expectations of artists and writers. The word â€Å"Dadaism† was chosen for its naive sound (Gale, 1997). After originating in Zurich, the Dadaism art movement continued to spread to places like Berlin, Cologne, Hanover, Paris, Russia and New York City (Gale, 1997). Many of the original Dadaist would gather at a nightclub in Zurich, Switzerland called Hugo Ball’s Cabaret Voltaire, to express their ideas (Tomkins, 1985). As far as the United States, the central locations for Dada art were Alfred Steiglitz’s gallery â€Å"291,† a studio at 291 Fifth Avenue, along with the studio of the Walter Arensbergs, a Harvard-educated U. S. resident and art collector (Tomkins, 1985). Because Switzerland was neutral to both WWI and WWII, objectors to the war, those avoiding military service and those who just wanted to find a place for free expression gravitated to Switzerland. Integral to the Dada movement was the attempt not to categorize the art work using any association with any reference to analyzing the art intellectually. Dada was also a reaction the bourgeois Victoria values of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dadaism was considered â€Å"absurb and playful† but at the same time it was considered to be â€Å"intuitive and cryptic† (Art, 2006). The methods used in producing this Dada art were not conventional and they used what they referred to at the time as â€Å"the chance technique and found objects† (Art, 2006). The Dadaists were trying to make their statement on the â€Å"social values and cultural trends of a contemporary world facing a devastating period of war† (Art, 2006). One of the artists associated with Dada and Surrealism was French artist Marcel Duchamp. However, according to some of my various readings, Duchamp’s actual participation in Surrealism was mostly behind the scenes. Most readings on Duchamp states that once he became involved in New York Dada, he seldom ever participated in Paris Dada. One of the reasons Marcel Duchamp is viewed as an enigma is that he is regarded as having produced one of the most diverse collections of masterpieces in the shortest amount of time. Some of the work Duchamp is most noted for are his oil on canvas â€Å"Nude Descending a Staircase,† â€Å"The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors,† and his â€Å"ready-mades† which include the â€Å"Bicycle Wheel† and the porcelain urinal â€Å"Fountain† (Tomkins, 1985). In one source it was noted about Duchamp’s short creative period, â€Å"Duchamp was content to let others develop the themes he had originated; his pervasive influence was crucial to the development of surrealism, Dada and pop art† (Marcel, 2007). Upon viewing Duchamp’s various art pieces in the research I did for this paper, my personal thoughts are that Duchamp could have even felt that he was even using his Dadaism art in making fun of those who admired it, purchased prints of it and highly regarded it in any way. For example, in claiming a ready-made porcelain urinal and attaching a ready-made bicycle wheel to a ready-made stool, lacked pretty much any originality and even if it Dada was considered anti-art, he could have been fooling his audience. In one of my readings it noted that he was extremely surprised that he already had a large â€Å"fan base† in the United States upon arriving here. It could be that he thought he was â€Å"fooling† less people than he realized with some of the pieces he chose to present as â€Å"his† art. In one of the readings it stated that Duchamp â€Å"retained a sharp sense of humor in all circumstances—even to his death. Through humor, Duchamp abolished the difference between that which possesses and aesthetic quality and that which doesn’t† (Kuenzli). So it could be said that possibly Duchamp was just testing â€Å"us† to see at what if we got his Dadaism joke. While the Dadaist movement eventually declined in its popularity in the 1920’s, many artists who were before practicing Dadaism began practicing Surrealism. There was noted a Dadaism revival which occurred in New York in the mid 1950’s. Many feel this reaffirmed that Dada art was an important artistic movement in the world of arts. References Art History: Dadaism. World Wide. 2006. World Wide Arts Resources. 14 May 2007 http://wwar. com/masters/movements/dadaism. html. Gale, Matthew. Dada Surrealism. Art ideas. London: Phaidon, 1997. Kuenzli, Rudolf. Marcel Duchamp: Artist of the Century. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1989. Masheck, Joseph. Marcel Duchamp in Perspective. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1975. Tomkins, Calvin. The World of Marcel Duchamp. Amsterdam: Time-Life,1985.

Red Badge Of Courage :: essays research papers

Henry In Stephen Crane's novel "The Red Badge of Courage", we examine the episodes of war through the eyes of the main character, Henry Fleming. Because the book is rather vague about many details, we don't know how old Henry is, what he looks like, or where he comes from. We do know that Henry is from somewhere in New York and that he was raised by his mother. Although some people argue that throughout the novel Henry matures and becomes a better person, facts from the book show just the opposite. Henry is a conceited , smug young man who sees himself as a martyr and a hero; when in fact he is a coward. Henry begins his journey by signing up for the Union army. While this may seem like a brave step, Henry takes it for the wrong reasons. He is unsure of the Union cause, and without really understanding what he was fighting for, Henry saw visions of himself as a hero. Henry's thoughts of war are rather distorted: He had read signs of marches, sieges, conflicts, and he had longed to see it all. His busy mind had drawn for him large pictures, extravagant in color, lurid with breathless deeds(Crane, 3). This simply shows that Henry had romanticized the was to something of a glorious adventure in his head. Even when his mother tries to give him rational advice, Henry sat disappointed, expecting a speech on heroism and pride. When Henry and his regiment (the 304th New York) finally integrate into camp life, he begins to question himself. His regiment had been static for a long time and Hauptman 2 Henry becomes bored and unhappy. For time he begins to question his bravery and he feels rather insecure. In the regiments first battle, Henry fights well. His admiration for himself reaches a disgusting level: He felt that he was a fine fellow. He saw himself even with those ideals that he had considered far beyond him. He smiled in deep gratification (Crane, 30). In this passage one can see Henry beginning to falsely view himself as a hero. At the beginning of the 304th New York regiment's second battle, Henry notices that two other soldiers are running in fear of the fight. He suddenly becomes rather scared and flees the battle as well. He tries to rationalize his actions to himself by saying: Death about to thrust him between the shoulder blades was far more dreadful than death about

Market Strategy Analysis on Montgras

Hung-Chang Huang 1467751 Case Questions: MontGras 1. (a) To what extent can MontGras control its own market position, as opposed to being dominated by the country-of-origin effect, and be perceived as a â€Å"Chilean Wine†? MontGras, the export-focused winery that was founded in 1992, unlike many other Chilean wineries, actually possessed a considerable control on its own market position in the late 1990s and early 2000s.Although the overall consumer perception towards Chilean wine products indicated that they need to put more efforts to build a solid image globally and that their major advantage is the low price, the situation might not necessarily hurt MontGras’ current market position if and only if the management the link between the decision to adopt the quality strategy, rather than volume strategy, and the fact that Chilean wine lacked a proper image.By pursuing quality-oriented strategy, MontGras is able to further cultivate its brand awareness as a result of th e success of the ultra-premiums(Ninquen line) and the super-premiums(Reserva line), and to eliminate the inefficient cost spent on the joint effort with Chilevid aimed at building a stronger image for the entire Chilean wine industry.Consequently, the problem of country-of-origin effect was, in fact, not significant enough that hampered MontGras’ marketing position as long as the company is fully understand what the appropriate marketing strategy is and adopt it with regard to different market ecologies of MontGras’ export destinations. (b) What implications does this have for marketing strategy? With the worldwide overproduction of vintages, competitions of wines in all segments were predicted more intense, especially in the basic segment, which traditionally accounted for nearly half of the market share of many countries, and 55% of MontGras’ total product in 2001.This indicates that already saturated basic segment, with the smallest gross profit margin for al l the players within the segment, would become a less and less lucrative red ocean. On the other hand, with the recognition that the country-of-origin effect does not incur severe damage to the company as anticipated, MontGras is able to reallocate its advertising expense through emphasizing on the brand, or on the product lines instead of building a stronger image of country-of-origin that would consume a huge portion of its dvertising expense, but unsure of whether consumers in UK or US would buy their effort. Hence, both the two aforementioned factors might serve as a juncture for MontGras to reassess its business strategy, which could be broken into producing part and marketing part, in order to keep the profitable business for long. 2. Evaluate the US and UK options separately. For each country, which option would you recommend and why? In MontGras’ major export market, UK, the company has already gained a substantial success that it ranked one of the 10 most Chilean win e exporters in terms of the value of products.In this picture, its partner distributor in UK had played an important role in MontGras’ UK penetration since 1996. Considering UK market feature, partner with leading supermarket chains such Tesbury is a comparatively feasible way to expand MontGras’ market share because these chain systems control more than 60% of all wine sales. However, partner with Tesbury is not free from side effects. First, at initial collaboration phase, MontGras enjoyed a short term victory without paying the cost of promotion.But in the future, is it able to reap without paying, or would Tesbury ask for more contribution from MontGras after it become too subservient to the large retail system? Second, partner with Tesbury could well create a supplanting effect that threatens its old partner distributor. Thus, my recommendation for MontGras in UK would be to diversify its distributor partnerships as a way to prevent over dependency, which would so mehow cast uncertainty for MontGras’ positioning strategy in the long term.Also, in order to pave the way for future expansion in premium segment, MontGras should keep records of the new marketing plan for Ninquen wines that if the targeting sales of 5,000 cases can cover the proposed GBP 20,000 and generate profit. In the highly fragmented US wine market, with regulatory three-tier distribution system, MontGras had to tackle business with importers, which are usually state-licensed wholesalers too. In addition, by the four prescribed criteria in choosing a countable partner importer, MontGras should be able to prevent the failures from unsuccessful previous partnerships.The first candidate of its partner distributor, World Wine Importers, a larger player that operated 200 brands with a 60-staff sales force, proposed to promote the Reserva line in a volume-oriented strategy with a price range of $8-$11; Cabo Imports, another candidate that operated 50 brands and a sales force of 35, offered a distinct proposal for MontGras that it intend to raise consumers’ perception towards MontGras’ quality and pric range also to broaden the return for both parties through setting a price range $8-$15, and it also intend to release the Ninquen line as a flagship product targeted a $25 retail price.Although the partnership with World Wine Importers seems more lucrative to MontGras in terms of the sales generated by large amount basis, however, simply adopt the results from simple additive questions is obviously not sagacious enough for Mr. Middleton. In general, Cabo Importers would offer a great stage for Reserva(60% of the total), and the newly released Ninquen as well. Thus, accepting Cabo Importers’ offer would be advantageous for MontGras’ market position in US market.

Comparative Critique Of Comparative Capitalism - 1214 Words

CASE STUDY #4: COMPARATIVE CAPITALISM Case Study #4: Comparative Capitalism Florence F. Messi St Thomas University Miami Gardens, Florida Abstract The Merriam-Wester dictionary defines capitalism as an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market. (2015). However for an ideal capitalism to fully operate it requires a set of conditions or institutions such as legitimacy of government and the rule of law, a well-defined property right, firms acting as price takers, not barriers to entry and exit, free capital and labor†¦show more content†¦Yes, the â€Å"varieties of capitalism† model is a recognition that market capitalism economics is in reality political economy. Merriam Webster defines political economy as the theory or study of the role public policy in influencing the economic and social welfare of a political unit. (2015). When analyzing the â€Å"varieties of capitalism† model, spheres of coor dination-which are constraints placed on firms by their nation economic, political system and social system-that define a country capitalism, these spheres of coordination correspond to many fields of inquiry relevant to political economy. Spheres of coordination such as employees’ relationships, vocational training, internal finance governance, refer to the field of study such as regulation, interest groups, comparative institutions, relationships between government and business which are relevant to political economy. Insofar as the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter referred to capitalism as a process of â€Å"creative destruction†, which of the two â€Å"varieties of capitalism† is consistent with Schumpeter’s theory? 1. Before choosing which of the two â€Å"varieties of capitalism† is consistent with Schumpeter theory of creative destruction, it is important to remind here what creative destruction is. Creative destruction, an expression coined by the Economist Joseph Schumpeter refers to the incessant product and process innovation mechanism by which new production units replace outdated ones. (Schumpeter, 1942).