Psycholinguistics And Second Language Acquisition

Psycholinguistics And Second Language Acquisition In general, Lennebergs critical period hypothesis proposed that certain linguistic events must happen to the child during the Critical Period for development to proceed normally and language is acquired most efficiently during this period. Traditionally, the Critical Period Hypothesis is used to explain why second acquisition is so difficult for older children and adults. In this essay, the role of critical period in second language acquisition will be examined by using authoritative experiments, as well as my own experience. To begin with, the way in which Critical Period accounts for second language acquisition should be clearly clarified. Johnson and Newport (1989) refine the formulation of the Critical Period Hypothesis and explain how it interprets second language acquisition. They distinguished two further hypotheses: Exercise Hypothesis and Maturational State Hypothesis. Both of them assume that humans have a superior capacity for learning language early in life. These two hypotheses predict that children will be better than adults in acquiring the first language but only the latter one predicts that children will be superior at second language learning. Indeed, the Exercise Hypothesis even suggests that adults might be better than children because of their better learning skills possibly. Research has addressed the issue that whether there is an age-related effect on second language acquisition. First, there is a research states a point of view contrary to popular opinion. Most people think that children are better in acquiring both first and second language. However, Snow (1983) proposed that adults were actually no worse in acquiring second language and may be even better. Although it is difficult for a fair comparison because children have more time to learn language adults, Snow and Hoefnagel-Hohle (1978) conducted a research by comparing English children and adults in the first year of living in Holland learning Dutch. The young children (3-4 years old) scored lowest of all groups. Experimental and anecdotal evidence suggested that adults have a persistent foreign accent and phonological development might be the one area for which there is a critical period. Even if there are limitations of this study, it is possible that adults can acquire second language more e fficient than children. Certainly, there is some evidence for a critical period for second language acquisition. Johnson and Newport (1989) found evidence for a Critical Period for second language acquisition. They looked at native Korean and Chinese immigrants (3-39 years old) to the USA and found a large advantage for younger over older learners in making judgements about whether a sentence was grammatically correct. They found that their participants correlated strongly and significantly in the early arrivals (age 3-15) but not in the older arrivals (age 17-39). Johnson and Newport took this to suggest that à ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"language learning ability slowly declines as the human matures and plateaus at a low level after pubertyà ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ã‚ . This study is an important evidence of the presence of the Critical Period in second language acquisition. In fact, there is another study which examined the effects of maturation on pronunciation by using immigrants with various ages of arriva l as subjects can also show that the Critical Period really exists in SLA. Thompson (1991) collected data from 39 Russian-born subjects (4-42 years old) who had immigrated to the US. The result pointed to a strong link between a subjectà ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢s age of first exposure to English and the nativeness of his or her accent. From these two researches, it can show that the Critical Period really exists in second language acquisition. Apart from the authoritative experiments mentioned above, my personal experience of learning Putonghua can also support the Critical Period in second language acquisition. When I learnt Putonghua in primary school, my knowledge of Putonghua, especially the pronunciation, was acquired easily and quickly by imitating the pronunciation of my teacher immediately. However, I did not learn Putonghua in secondary school and learnt it again from last year. In other words, all the knowledge of Putonghua has lost and I needed to learn it from the beginning. Actually, I found it is more difficult for me to learn Putonghua when getting older with the influence of my first language Cantonese. Since the vocabularies and pronunciations of these languages are similar, I easily pronounced incorrectly or used some wrong vocabularies like Cantonese. Compared with the learning experience in primary school, I need to use much more time acquire Putonghua as second language more accurately and develop my l anguage proficiency at adult stage. To conclude, there is still some debate on whether there is a critical period for acquiring language. However, there is a general agreement that childhood immersion in a second language environment leads to widespread success in achieving native-like proficiency in that language. Likewise, the exposure to a second language in adulthood is marked by a failure to attain native-like competence. Therefore, the importance of age effects on second language acquisition is hardly controversial by a number of supportive studies on this hypothesis. (818 words) Reference Harley, T.A. (1995). The Psychology of Language: From Data to Theory. East Sussex, UK: Erlbaum. Johnson, J.S. Newport, E.L. (1989). Critical period effects in second language learning: The influence of maturational state on the acquisition of English as a second language. Cognitive psychology, 21, 60-99. Lenneberg, E. (1967). Biological foundations of language. New York: Wiley. Snow, C.E. (1983). Age differences in second language acquisition: Research findings and folk psychology. In K. Bailey, M. Long, S. Peck (Eds.), Second language acquisition studies (pp. 141-150). Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Snow, C.E., Hoefnagel-Hohle, M. (1978). The critical period for language acquisition: Evidence from second language learning. Child Development, 49, 1114-1128. Thompson, I. (1991). Foreign accents revisited: The English pronunciation of Russian immigrants. Language Learning, 41, 177-204.

midsummer nights dream :: essays research papers

As the play opens, the reader is told the setting and basis of the play and this is that the Duke, Theseus, is going to marry the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta, in five days time. Also Shakespeare also tells of most the characters in the play to set up who will be in the play. In the beginning of the play Hermia is brought to the Duke by her father Egeus to be judged, but this brings upon a problem considering that Hermia is already in love with Lysander despite her fathers disapproval. Egeus wants Hermia to marry Demetrius and if she does not she will die unless she wants her whole life to be lived by one of a virgin. From this Hermia decide to run away to the woods outside of Athens where they can be happy. When Hermia and Lysander run off into the woods, where Helena follows for she hopes that she can change Demetrius’ mind upon choosing Hermia as his wife and Demetrius also follows knowing that Hermia and Lysander have run there. In these woods live a group of fairies and a group of men who are practicing for a play they are to perform. In the group of fairies there includes the fairy king Oberon, his queen Titania, and his servant Puck. Oberon and Titania are not on the best of terms over an Indian prince given to Titania by the prince’s mother. With this Oberon sends Puck to go forth and retrieve a flower that is spread over a sleeping persons eyelids, when the person awakes they will fall in love with the first person that is seen upon awakening. When Puck retrieves the flower Oberon tells him to spread the flower over Titania’s eyes, but also to spread it on Demetrius’ eyes after seeing how he treats Helena. Puck spreads the flower on Titania’s e yes, but accidentally spreads the flower on Lysander’s eyes thinking this is the Athenian man that Oberon was referring to.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When Lysander awakens, the first person he sees in Helena and he falls madly in love with her despite his love for Hermia and Helena believes that Lysander is merely putting on an act to mock her for her undying love for Demetrius. Puck realizes what he has done and tries do undo his mistake that night, but instead makes both Demetrius and Lysander falling madly in love with Helena.

Octavia Butlers Kindred vs. Harriet Jacobs Incidents In The Life of a

Octavia Butler's Kindred vs. Harriet Jacobs' Incidents In The Life of a Slave Girl According to 'the conventions for slave narratives', it is possible to categorize Kindred by Octavia Butler as a slave narrative. However, the circumstances that take Dana back in time are imaginative and fantastical compared to slave narratives such as Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs. While reading Kindred, one doesn't really get the experience of the slaves, but how Dana feels as she participates in slave times. Compared to the lives of slaves, her life is much easier and she has the luxury of knowing she is not and never was a slave. In contrast, Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl is a direct portrayal of slavery through the eyes of a slave. Although the viewpoints are very different, there are similarities in their experiences and in the way each responds and fights for their freedom. The first parallel exists in how both Dana and Jacobs are taught to view themselves. Jacobs states, ? I was born a slave; but never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away? (Jacobs 7). Jacobs? father allowed her the freedom to grow up happy and unfettered by slavery. Once she did realize she was a slave, her mistress further encouraged independent thought with kind treatment and by teaching Jacobs to read. Therefore Jacobs had little worries about slavery for the first twelve years of her life. Dana grew up in 20th century America, where life for African-Americans is drastically changed. She never had to worry about slavery nor gave it much thought beyond what she read in books or learned in classes. She is even married to a white man. When transported back in time she is truly perplexed by the treatmen... ...wn time where slavery doesn?t exist, and Jacobs, desperate to save her children and give them freedom. As stated earlier, Jacobs and Dana experience slavery from very different perspectives. Dana is well educated and prior to going back in time, has only read about slavery, while Jacobs, although literate, is born into slavery and knows nothing else. Yet these major differences do not change the veneer of slavery. Both are considered property and both had to endure and watch others endure unimaginable cruelties. It seems only natural that the similarities in their experiences produced similarities in how they reacted and how they escaped to freedom. Works Cited: Butler, Octavia E. Kindred. Boston: Beacon, 1988. Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Ed. Jean Fagan Yellin. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1987.

Border Music by Robert James Waller :: essays research papers

Border Music by Robert James Waller 1.) Title: Boarder Music Published: Warner Books Inc. Author: Robert James Waller Where book was acquired: WBHS Library 2.) What type of book: Fiction 3.) Characters: 1986 1.) Jack Carmine- Is a 48-year-old man who lives an independent life style. Everything he does is a spur of the moment thing. He works all the time, and his jobs are as unpredictable as he is. He originally is from Alpine Texas, but he goes north for the summer. All he wants is to live his life the best he can, and do as much as he can. He also wants to keep Linda with him. 2.) Linda Lobo- She is a 37-year-old single woman with a four-year-old daughter. She was married twice, and both failed to last. She was a dancer at a nightclub in Minnesota, but she is from Iowa. She wants to find a man that will be faithful to her, and support her and her daughter. 3.) Sara Margaret- She is Linda’s four-year-old daughter who lives with Linda’s mother. She gets to be very fond of Jack, but is too young to understand what is going on around her. 4.) Earl- He is Jack’s best friend and houseguest. When Jack is gone, Earl lives in his house for him, and takes care of the farm. He becomes good friends with Sara Margaret, and Linda. He just wants to live his life like any other hard working man. 1993 5.) Vaughn Rhomer- He is Jack’s uncle in his early 60’s. He loves army trinkets and anything to do with the Vietnam War. He worked in the produce section of a grocery store for his whole life, and his son, Nathan, was ashamed of him for this. He lost his nagging wife, Marjorie, a few years earlier, and just wants to finds someone to live the rest of his life with. 6.) Marjorie Rhomer- She was Vaughn’s wife, and was very cranky and bossy. She disliked Jack very much, and didn’t want anything to do with him. All she ever wanted was for her son, Nathan, to never meet Jack. 4.) Two main conflicts: 1.) Jack vs. Self. Jack had episodes, where he couldn’t control what he was doing. He would be back in Vietnam with the other soldiers, and he would relive the day his friends died. He had to over come this, by becoming stronger. When he first started to be with Linda they didn’t happen, but as they grew apart, the episodes became more frequent.

Actor Audience Relationship

Actor Audience Relationship In my most honest opinion, I believe the ideal actor audience relationship is something that transcends the normal criteria for a performer/audience relationship. It can be a passive or active relationship, for both types fulfill their purpose-creating emotional stimuli- on some level. There is an unspoken, unseen connection between those in the seat and those in the stage. Both viewer and actor feed off each other, whether it is the subtle shedding of a tear from the front row or the impact of a tomato on an underwhelming performer’s face.There wouldn’t be an audience without actors and vice versa for the audience pays for a ticket to be entertained and the actor performs to entertain the audience. What an audience member wants from an actor/production could be anything; a reminisce of a lost love, resonating a political reservation, a laugh-all these differentiating factors form the distinction that the way an audience acts towards a play t otally up to the VIEWER.It’s their emotional responses; a play does not dictate one how to act but it is the responsibility of the actors and crew to produce emotions. Though on one hand some plays seem more fit to be taken more actively (Rocky Horror) and some more passively (Romeo and Juliet) because of their contextual meanings and how the production as a whole sees itself. A play full of beautiful monologues and sonnets is meant for the more passive viewer, to be soaked into the mind amidst audience silence where musicals sometimes prompt one to move their body and even sings.Some plays might not mean anything to an audience member so they will remain totally at the end of the passive spectrum just watching actors and waiting to leave their seat. The audience shapes the performance by acting as to whom the playwright wrote for before the production hit the stage. A good playwright knows the audience/anticipation of an audience influences the juxposition of critical dramat ic beats. So automatically the audience influences the script, something has to be written that will draw people into the seats.Also the audience shapes the overall performances and charisma of actors for those who smile and applaud actively at one’s performance will encourage an actor to commit even further into â€Å"the illusion† while being booed might can an actors fumble his lines and throw the performance off balance, thus losing â€Å"the illusion†. Furthermore the audience also acts as critics, regarding the chances and reception of future performances. Most importantly, the audience is what pays the bills of everyone involved with the show.Without the audience providing encouragement, criticism and money-there wouldn’t be the modern conception of a play. Ultimately I feel that the role of the audience should remain varied. Too much participation may not be right for some plays and too little participation may make you look like a lame duck (Rock y Horror for an example). Maybe that is why most plays institute the standard â€Å"fourth wall† rule, separating the stage from the audience because it would ruin â€Å"the illusion† of the so-called realism plays.The appeal of audience involvement theorized by the playwright Augusto Boal’s theatrical form of breaking down the â€Å"fourth wall† so everyone can participate in the drama seems to be on the rise again, for the evolution of the there world is giving way to experimental writers and directors who encourage audience involvement In the end I feel that Boal’s ideas may be too much of a good thing, and the actor-audience relationship is one where the audience mutes themselves (aside from laughter and applause) and lets the actors on stage be the sole center of attention where the activity of communication/reaction is transported passively to the viewer. (1) Felner, Mira. The World of Theater: Tradition and Innovation. 2006, Pearson.

Best Fit Vs Best Practice Essay

Amazon.com In 1994, with a handful of programmers and a few thousand dollars in workstations and servers, Jeff Bezos set out to change the retail world when he created Amazon.com (ticker: AMZN). Shel Kaphan, Amazon’s first programmer, assisted by others, including Paul Barton-Davis, used a collection of tools to create Web pages based on a database of 1 million book titles compiled from the Library of Congress and Books in Print databases. Kaphan notes that â€Å"Amazon was dependent on commercial and free database systems, as well as HTTP server software from commercial and free sources. Many of the programming tools were free software† [Collett 2002]. In July 1995, Amazon opened its Web site for sales. Using heavily discounted book prices (20 to 30 percent below common retail prices); Amazon advertised heavily and became the leading celebrity of the Internet and e-commerce. Sales and Relationships Amazon made its initial mark selling books, and many people still think of the company in terms of books. However, almost from the start, the company has worked to expand into additional areas—striving to become a global retailer of almost anything. Some of the main events include: 1995 books, 1998 music and DVD/video, 1999 auctions, electronics, toys, zShops/MarketPlace, home improvement, software, and video games [1999 annual report]. By the end of 1999, the company had forged partnerships with several other online stores, including Ashford.com, Audible, Della.com, drugstore.com, Gear.com, Greenlight.com, HomeGrocer.com, Kozmo.com, living.com, NextCard.com, Pets.com, and Sothebys. Of course, most of those firms and Web sites later died in the dot-com crash of 2000/2001. Amazon also established partnerships with several large retailers, including Target, Toys ‘R’ Us, Babies ‘R’ Us, and Circuit City. Effectively, Amazon became a service organization to manage the online presence of these large retailers. However, it also uses its distribution system to deliver the products. The Circuit City arrangement was slightly different from the others—customers could pick up their items directly from their local stores [Heun August 2001]. After Circuit City went under, the relationship ended. By mid-2003, the Web sales and fulfillment services amounted to 20 percent  of Amazon’s sales. Bezos points out that most companies realize that only a small fraction of their total sales (5 to 10 percent) will come from online systems, so it makes sense to have Amazon run those portions [Murphy 2003]. In 2001, Amazon took over the Web site run by its bricks-and-mortar rival Borders. In 2000, Borders lost $18.4 million on total onli ne sales of $27.4 million [Heun April 2001]. Also in 2001, Amazon partnered with Expedia to offer travel services directly from the Amazon site. However, in this case, the Amazon portion consists of little more than an advertising link to the Expedia services [Kontzer 2001]. The deals in 2001 continued with a twist when Amazon licensed its search technology to AOL. AOL invested $100 million in Amazon and payed an undisclosed license fee to use the search-and-personalization service on Shop@AOL [Heun July 2001]. In 2003, Amazon launched a subsidiary just to sell its Websales and fulfillment technology to other firms. Bezos noted that Amazon spends about $200 million a year on information technology (a total of $900 million to mid-2003). The purpose of the subsidiary is to help recover some of those costs—although Bezos believes they were critically necessary expenditures [Murphy 2003]. With so many diverse products, and relationships, it might be tempting to keep everything separate. However, Amazon perceives advantages from showing the entire site to customers as a single, broad entity. Yes, customers click to the various stores to find individual items. But, run a search and you will quickly see that it identifies products from any division. Additionally, the company is experimenting with cross sales. In 2002, the Project Ruby test site began selling name-brand clothing and accessories. Customers who spent $50 or more on apparel received a $30 gift certificate for use anywhere else on Amazon [Hayes 2002]. By 2004, 25 percent of Amazon’s sales were for its partners. But, one of Amazon’s major relationships took a really bad turn in 2004 when Toys ‘R’ Us sued Amazon and Amazon countersued. The complaint by Toys ‘R’ Us alleges that it had signed a ten-year exclusivity contract with Amazon and had so far paid Amazon $200 million for the right to be the exclusive supplier of  toys at Amazon.com. David Schwartz, senior VP and general counsel for Toys ‘R’ Us stated that â€Å"We don’t intend to pay for exclusivity we’re not getting† [Claburn May 2004]. Amazon’s initial response was that â€Å"We believe we can have multiple sellers in the toy category, increase selection, and offer products that (Toys ‘R’ Us) doesn’t have† [Claburn May 2004]. The lawsuit counters that at least one product (a Monopoly game) appears to be for sale by third-party suppliers as well as Toys ‘R’ Us. A month later, Amazon countersued, alleging that Toys ‘R’ Us experienced â€Å"chronic failure† to maintain sufficient stock to meet demand. The court documents noted that Toys ‘R’ Us had been out of stock on 20 percent of its most popular products [Claburn June 2004]. Although the dispute sounds damaging, it is conceivable that both parties are using the courts as a means to renegotiate the base contract. Small merchants accelerated a shift to Amazon’s marketplace technology. By 2007, Amazon was simply the largest marketplace on the Web. For example, John Wieber was selling $1 million a year in refurbished computers through eBay. But increased competition and eBay’s rising prices convinced him to switch to direct sales through Amazon. Similar small merchants noted that although the fees on Amazon are hefty, they do not have to pay a listing fee. Plus, eBay shoppers only want to buy things at bargain-basement prices (Mangalindan 2005). In 2010, Target ended its contract with Amazon and launched its own Web servers. Amazon does not report sales separately for its partners such as Target, so it is difficult to determine what impact the change might have on Amazon. However, Amazon has many other sellers who offer similar products. Digital Content Amazon has been expanding its offerings in digital content—in many ways extending competition against Apple, but also leading the way in digital books. Although it was not the first manufacturer, Amazon is reportedly the largest seller of e-readers with the Kindle. Amazon does not report sales separately for the Kindle. Amazon also noted in 2011 that ebooks for its Kindle reader have overtaken sales of paperback books as the most popular  format. The e-books had already exceeded hard-cover books the year before [Wu 2011]. For many of these reasons, Borders, a bricks-and-mortar competitor to Amazon went under in 2011. Amazon is also working to expand sales of music. The Web site has relatively standard pricing on current songs, but often offers discounts on older albums. By 2011, Amazon was also trying to expand into video streaming. Customers who pay $79 a year to join the  Prime program gain faster shipping, and also access to a library of digital movies and TV shows. Unfortunately, with limited ties to the movie studios, the offerings initially were relatively thin. However, other video streaming sites, including Netflix and Hulu, were also struggling to develop long-term contracts with studios. In September 2011, Amazon announced a deal with Fox to offer movies and TV shows owned by the studio. At the same time, Netflix announced a similar deal with the Dreamworks studio. It will take time for studios to determine strategies on streaming video services and for consumers to make choices [Woo and Kung 2011]. In late 2011, Amazon released its own version of a tablet computer. The company continued to sell the Kindle e-book reader, but the tablet focused on audio and video, using a color LCD display screen with a touch interface. Although it lacked features available on the market-leading Applet iPad, the Kindle table carried a price that was about half that of the iPad and other competitors ($200). The obvious goal was to provide a device that encourages customers to purchase more digital content directly from Amazon [Peers 2011]. Sales Taxes Sales taxes have been a long-term issue with Amazon. The Annual Report notes that several states filed formal complaints with the company in March 2003. The basis for the individual suits is not detailed, but the basic legal position is that any company that has a physical presence in a state (â€Å"nexus† by the terms of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling), is subject to that state’s laws and must then collect the required sales taxes and remit them to the state. The challenge is that the level of presence has never been  clearly defined. Amazon argues that it has no physical presence in most states and is therefore not required to collect taxes. The most recent challenges are based on Amazon’s â€Å"affiliate† program. Amazon pays a small commission to people who run Web sites and redirect traffic to the Amazon site. For instance, a site might mention a book and then include a link to the book on the Amazon site. Several states have passed laws claiming that these relationships constitute a â€Å"sales force† and open up Amazon to taxation within any state where these affiliates reside. In response, Amazon dropped the affiliate program in several states, has initiated a legal challenge in the state of New York, and in 2011, negotiated a new deal signed into law in California [Letzing 2011]. In the California deal, Amazon obtained a delay in collecting taxes for at least a year, in exchange for locating a new distribution center in the state and creating at least 10,000 full-time jobs. Amazon is also asking the U.S. Congress to create a new federal law to deal with the sales-tax issue. However, because the state sales tax issue is driven by the interstate commerce clause in the U.S. Constitution, a simple law will not alter the underlying principles. However, if Congress desired, it might create a Federal Sales tax law with some method of apportioning the money to states. But, do not be t on any major tax laws during a Presidential election year. Information Technology In the first years, Amazon intentionally kept its Web site systems separate from its orderfulfillment system. The separation was partly due to the fact that the programmers did not have the technical ability to connect them, and partly because the company wanted to improve security by keeping the order systems off the Web. By 1997, Amazon’s sales had reached $148 million for the year. The big book database was being run on Digital Alpha servers. Applications were still custom written in house. By early 2000, the company had over 100 separate database instances running on a variety of servers—handling terabytes of data. In 2000, Amazon decided to overhaul its entire system. The company spent $200 million on new applications, including analysis software from E.piphany, logistics from Manugistics, and a new DBMS from Oracle. The company also  signed deals with SAS for data mining and analysis [Collett 2002]. But, one of its biggest deals was with Excelon for business-to-business integration systems. The system enables suppliers to communicate in real time, even if they do not have sophisticated IT departments. It provides a direct connection to Amazon’s ERP system either through programming connections or through a Web browser [Konicki 2000]. About the same time (May 2000), Amazon inked a deal with HP to supply new servers and IT services [Goodridge and Nelson 2000]. The new systems ran the open-source Linux operating system. Already by the third quarter of 2001, Amazon was able to reduce its IT costs by 24 percent from the same quarter in 2000 [Collett 2002]. By 2004, the supply chain system at Amazon was a critical factor in its success. Jeffrey Wilke, Senior VP of worldwide operations, observed that â€Å"When we think about how we’re going to grow our company, we focus on price, selection, and availability. All three depend critically on the supply chain† [Bacheldor 2004]. Almost the entire system was built from scratch, customized to Amazon’s needs. When a customer places an order, the system immediately connects to the distribution centers, determines the best way to ship the product, and provides the details to the customer in under two minutes. The entire process is automatic. Dr. Russell Allgor moved from Bayer Chemical to Amazon and built an 800,000equation computer model of the company’s sprawling operation. When implemented, the goal of the model was to help accomplish almost everything from scheduling Christmas overtime to rerouting trucks in a snowstorm. Allgor’s preliminary work focused on one of Amazon’s most vexing problems: How to keep inventory at a minimum, while ensuring that when someone orders several products, they can be shipped in a single box, preferably from the warehouse — the company had six — that is nearest the customer [Hansell, 2001]. Dr. Allgor’s analysis is simple, but heretical to Amazon veterans. Amazon should increase its holdings of best sellers and stop holding slow-selling titles. It would still sell these titles but order them after the customer does. Lyn Blake, a vice president who previously ran Amazon’s book department and now oversees company relations with manufacturers, disagrees with this perspective. â€Å"I worry about the customer’s perspective  if we suddenly have a lot of items that are not available for quick delivery.† Amazon’s merchant and MarketPlace systems are powerful tools that enable smaller stores to sell their products through Amazon’s system. Amazon continually works to improve the connections on those systems. This system caused problems in 2001—the main issue was that the data on the merchant Web sites was being updated only once every eight hours. The merchant’s link to Amazon’s main database servers, and internal applications transfer the data onto the displayed page as requested. As customers purchased items, the inventory quantities were altered in the main servers, but the current totals were not transferred to the display pages until several hours later. Consequently, customers would be told that an item was in stock, even it had sold out several hours ago. To solve the problem, Amazon installed Excelon’s ObjectStore database in 2002. The system functions as a cache management server, reducing the update times from eight hours down to twoà ‚  minutes. Paul Kotas, engineering director for the Merchants@Group noted that â€Å"with the growth of this business, we needed a zero-latency solution† [Whiting 2002]. In 2003, Amazon added a simple object access protocol (SOAP) gateway so that retailers could easily build automated connections to the system. Data is passed as XML documents and automatically converted to Amazon’s format [Babcock 2003]. One of the most successful technologies introduced by Amazon is the affinity list. When someone purchases an item, system makes recommendations based on similar items purchased by other customers. The system uses basic data mining and statistical tools to quickly run correlations and display the suggested products. Kaphan notes that â€Å"There was always a vision to make the service as useful as possible to each user and to take advantage of the ability of the computer to help analyze a lot of data to show people things they were most likely to be interested in† [Collett 2002]. The system also remembers every purchase made by a customer. So, the Amazon programmers created the Instant Order Update feature, that reminds customers if they have already purchased an item in their cart. Bezo notes that â€Å"Customers lead busy lives and cannot always remember if they’ve already purchased a particular item.† He also observed  that â€Å"When we launched Instant Order Update, we were able to measure with statistical significance that the feature slightly reduced sales. Good for customers? Definitely. Good for shareowners? Yes, in the long run† [2003 annual report]. Capital expenditures for software and Web site development are not cheap: $176 million, $146 million, and $128 million for 2010, 2009, and 2008 respectively (2010 Annual Report). But, in comparison, in 2010, net income tax provisions were $352 million. New Services Amazon requires huge data centers and high-speed Internet connections to run its systems. Through vast economies of scale, Amazon is able to achieve incredibly low prices for data storage and bandwidth. Around 2005, the company decided that it could leverage those low costs into a new business selling Internet-based services. The company offers an online data storage service called S3. For a monthly fee of about 15 cents per gigabyte stored plus 15 cents per gigabyte of data transferred, any person or company can transfer and store data on Amazon servers [Markoff 2006]. Through a similar service (EC2), any company can use the company’s Web servers to deliver digital content to customers. The company essentially serves as a Web host, but instead of paying fixed costs, you pay 10 cents per virtual server per hour plus bandwidth costs. Amazon’s network can handle bursts up to 1 gigabit per second. The system creates virtual servers, running the Linux kernel, and you can run any software you want [Gralla 2006]. By 2011, the company had several locations providing S3 and EC2 Web services. It also offered online relational database services using either MySQL or the Oracle DBMS. Anyone can pay to store data in the DBMS, with charges being levied per hour, per data stored, and per data transferred. The point is that Amazon handles all of the maintenance and other companies avoid fixed costs. Even government agencies are adopting the benefits of storing data in these cloud services—including those run by Amazon. For example, the U.S. Treasury Department moved is public Web sites to the Amazon cloud. [Pratt 2011]. Perhaps the most unusual service is Mturk. The name derives from an  18-century joke where a â€Å"mechanical† chess-playing machine surprised European leaders and royalty by beating many expert players. The trick was that a human was hidden under the board and moved the pieces with magnets. Amazon’s trick is to use human power to solve problems. Companies post projects on the Mturk site and offer to pay a price for piecemeal work. Any individual can sign up and perform a task and get paid based on the amount of work completed. Amazon takes a 10 percent commission above the fee. For example, the company Casting Words places audio files on the site and pays people 42 cents to transcribe one minute of audio files into text [Markoff 2006]. The Amazon EC2 and S3 services suffered some problems in the summer of 2011. A configuration error during an upgrade in the East Coast facility triggered a cascade that delayed all services in the facility. Internet services including Foursquare and Reddit that used the facility were impacted by the problems for almost a week [Tibken 2011]. Amazon engineers learned a lot from the problems and the same issue is unlikely to occur again [http://aws.amazon.com/message/65648/]. But, the outage points out the risks involved in any centralized system. Ironically, the main problems were caused by algorithms designed to copy data to multiple servers to reduce risks. On the other hand, with multiple facilities, Amazon provides the ability to spread content and risk across multiple locations. Adam Selipsky, vice president of product management and developer relations at Amazon Web Services observed that â€Å"†Amazon is fundamentally a technology company; we’ve spent more than one and a half billion dollars investing in technology and content. We began by retailing books, but it was never in our business plan to stay with that† [Gralla 2006]. Financial Performance When Amazon started, it spent huge amounts of money not only building infrastructure, but also buying market share. It took Amazon nine years to achieve profitability. And the profits started to arrive only after the company changed its pricing model—focusing on retail prices for popular items and smaller discounts for all books. In the process, the company lost almost $3 billion. It was not until 2009 that Amazon had generated enough profits to cover all of its prior losses (ignoring interest rates and debt). The company’s financial position has improved since 2000. Most of the improvement is due to increases in sales—which is good. But, those sales increased largely by selling products for other firms, and from one more twist. Amazon no longer discounts most of the books that it sells. In fact, it is generally more expensive to purchase books from Amazon than to buy them from your local bookstore. For competitive online pricing, check www.campusi.com, which searches multiple Web sites for the best price, but the selection might not be as large. Another source of increased sales is the international market (largely Britain, Europe and Japan). Notice in the table that media sales (books, audio, and movies) are higher in the International market than in North America. More products are sold in North America, but clearly the growth path is the international market. Out of curiosity, where did all of that money go? In 2003, Bezos noted that $900 million went to business technology; $300 million was spent on the fulfillment centers; and $700 million on marketing and customer acquisition [Murphy 2003]. That last part largely represents selling books at a loss or offering free shipping while trying to attract customers. Those numbers add up to the $1.9 billion debt, but what happened to the other $1 billion in net losses? Interestingly, according to the 2010 Annual Report, Amazon still runs a loss on shipping. In 2010, the company declared shipping revenue of $1.2 billion, against outbound shipping costs of $2.6 billion, for a net loss of $1.4 billion! Amazon continues to expand aggressively. In 2011, Amazon estimated revenue increases of 28-39 percent but increased operating expenses by about 38 percent. Tom Szkutak, Amazon’s finance chief noted that â€Å"When you add something to the magnitude of 23 fulfillment centers, mostly in the course of the second half of last year, you have added costs and you’re not as productive on those assets for some time,† [Wu 2011]. For the longer term, Amazon’s leaders clearly indicate that they are aware of the stiff competition—both from bricks-and-mortar retailers and from online rivals including small start-ups and established rivals including Apple and Google. Case Questions 1. Who are Amazon’s competitors? 2. Why would customers shop at Amazon if they can find better prices elsewhere? 3. Why did Amazon create most of its own technology from scratch? 4. If Amazon buys products from other firms and simply ships them to customers, why does it need so many of its own distribution centers? 5. Will other retailers buy or lease the Web software and services from Amazon? Can Amazon make enough money from selling these services? 6. Write a report to management that describes the primary cause of the problems, a detailed plan to solve them, and show how the plan solves the problems and describe any other benefits it will provide. Additional Reading Babcock, Charles, â€Å"Amazon Makes Online Merchandising Easier,† Information Week, September 15, 2003. Bacheldor, Beth, â€Å"From Scratch: Amazon Keeps Supply Chain Close To Home,† Information Week, March 5, 2004. Claburn, Thomas, â€Å"Amazon.com And Toys ‘R’ Us Are On The Outs,† Information Week, May 31, 2004. Claburn, Thomas, â€Å"Why Amazon Is Suing Toys ‘R’ Us,† Information Week, June 29, 2004. Collett, Stacy, â€Å"The Web’s Best-seller,† Computerworld, September 30, 2002. Goodridge, Elisabeth and Matthew G. Nelson, â€Å"Update: Amazon Drops Sun, Compaq For HP,† Information Week, May 31, 2000. Gralla, Preston, â€Å"Computing in the Cloud,† Computerworld, December 21, 2006. Hansell, Saul. â€Å"A Front-Row Seat as Amazon Gets Serious,† The New York Times, May 20, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/20/technology/20AMAZ.html. Hayes, Mary, â€Å"CDs, High Heels, Flannel Shirts,† Information Week, November 4, 2002. Heun, Christopher T., â€Å"Amazon, Borders Team For Superior Customer Service,† Information Week, April 16, 2001. Heun, Christopher T., â€Å"Amazon Loss Shrinks; AOL Buys Amazon Search Service,† Information Week, July 24, 2001. Heun, Christopher T., â€Å"Amazon Plugs Into Circuit City In Profitability Drive,† Information Week, August 27, 2001. Konicki, Steve, â€Å"Amazon Taps Excelon To Redo Supply-Chain System,† Information Week, October 30, 2000. Kontzer, Tony, â€Å"Amazon Teams With Expedia On Online Travel Store,† Information Week, September 26, 2001. Letzing, John, â€Å"Amazon Wins Reprieve on California Tax in Exchange for Jobs,† The Wall Street Journal, September 23, 2011. Mangalindan, Mylene, â€Å"Threatening eBay’s Dominance, More Online Sellers Go It Alone,† The Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2005. Markoff, John, â€Å"Software Out There,† The New York Times, April 5, 2006. Murphy, Chris, â€Å"Amazon, The Services Firm,† Information Week, June 10, 2003. Peers, Martin, â€Å"Launching New Tablet, Amazon Plays With Fire,† The Wall Street Journal, September 29, 2011. Pratt, Mary K., â€Å"Feds Race to the Cloud,† Computerworld, July 13, 2011. Tibken, Shara, â€Å"Amazon Cloud Snafu Disrupts Websites,† The Wall Street Journal, April 21, 2011. Whiting, Rick, â€Å"System Overhaul Boosts Amazon’s Inventory Update Time,† Information Week, February 19, 2002. Stu Woo, â€Å"Expenses Eat at Amazon’s Profit,† The Wall Street Journal, January 28, 2011. Stu Woo and Michelle Kung, â€Å"Netflix, Amazon Add to Movies,† The Wall Street Journal, September 27, 2011.

Immune System and Blood Platelets A.

Which of the following are concerned with the prevention of bacterial Infections In different parts of the human body? Alimentary canal Respiratory tract Blood A. Digestive enzymes hair white blood cells B. Mucus cilia red blood cells acid blood platelets D. Bile salts Directions: Questions 48 and 49 refer to the graph below which shows the changes In the concentration of antibodies In the blood of a person with time: 48. The increase in the antibody concentration on day 7 might be caused by A. Excessive bleeding B. The entry of bacteria C. Recovery from a disease D. The intake of a large amount of antibiotics 49. The antibody concentration increased rapidly on day 21 because the person A. Developed a fever. B. Received a vaccination. C. Was Infected by the same type of antigen. D. Produced a large number of phagocytes. 32. Which of the following components of the blood can destroy bacteria that have entered the body? (1) antibodies (2) phagocytes (3) blood platelets A. (1) and (2) o nly B. (1) and (3) only C. (2) and (3) onlyD. (2) and (3) 46. Which of the following are examples of artificial immunity? (1) Injection of vaccine into the body (2) Injection of antibodies into the body (3) Injection of antibiotics into the body A. (1) only B. (1) and (2) only 34. In the alimentary canal, bacteria in food are mainly killed by A. Saliva. B. Mucus. C. Gastric Juice D. Pancreatic Juice Directions: Questions 49 and 50 refer to the graphs below, which show the changes in the antibody level in the blood as a result of two methods of inducing immunity in humans: 49.Substance P can be (1) bacteria. (2) antigens. (3) antibodies. B. (3) only C. (1) and (2) only D. (2) and (3) only 50. What is the advantage of method 2 over method 1 in inducing immunity? A. The B. The immunity can develop faster. C. It can stimulate the white blood cells to produce more antibodies. D. The body can become immune against a wider range of diseases. 01 18. Which of the following statements about a ntibodies is correct? A. They act on specific antigens. B. They are produced by phagocytes. C. They develop a memory for antigensD. They can replicate rapidly during infection. 60. Which of the following structures produce secretions that can protect the body from infection? (1) skin (2) stomach (3) trachea 02 42. A person was infected by the same kind of pathogen twice within a month. Assuming the quantity of pathogen for both infections was the same, which of the following graphs correctly shows the change in the pathogen level in the person's blood?