Monday, December 30, 2019

Battle of Ia Drang in the Vietnam War

The Battle of Ia Drang was fought November 14-18, 1965, during the Vietnam War (1955-1975) and was the first major engagement between the US Army and the Peoples Army of Vietnam (PAVN). After a North Vietnamese strike against the Special Forces camp at Plei Me, American forces deployed in an effort to destroy the attackers. This saw elements of the air mobile 1st Cavalry Division move into South Vietnams Central Highlands. Encountering the enemy, the battle was primarily fought at two separate landing zones. While the Americans won a tactical victory at one, they took heavy losses at the other. The fighting in the Ia Drang Valley sent the tone for much of the conflict to come with the Americans relying on air mobility, air power, and artillery while the North Vietnamese sought to fight at close quarters to negate these advantages. Fast Facts: Battle of Ia Drang Conflict: Vietnam War (1955-1975)Dates: November 14-18, 1965Armies Commanders:United StatesColonel Thomas BrownLieutenant Colonel Harold G. MooreLieutenant Colonel Robert McDadeapprox. 1,000 menNorth VietnamLieutenant Colonel Nguyen Huu Anapprox. 2,000 menCasualties:United States: 96 killed and 121 wounded at X-Ray and 155 killed and 124 wounded at AlbanyNorth Vietnam: Approximately 800 killed at X-Ray and minimum of 403 killed at Albany Background In 1965, General William Westmoreland, commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, began utilizing American troops for combat operations in Vietnam rather than solely relying on the forces of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. With National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) and Peoples Army of Vietnam (PAVN) forces operating in the Central Highlands northeast of Saigon, Westmoreland elected to debut the new air mobile 1st Cavalry Division as he believed its helicopters would allow it to overcome the regions rugged terrain. Ia Drang - Vietnam. US Department of Defense Following a failed North Vietnamese attack on the Special Forces camp at Plei Me in October, the commander of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Colonel Thomas Brown, was instructed to move from Pleiku to seek and destroy the enemy. Arriving in the area, the 3rd Brigade was unable to find the attackers. Encouraged by Westmoreland to press towards the Cambodian border, Brown soon learned of an enemy concentration near Chu Pong Mountain. Acting on this intelligence, he directed the 1st Battalion/7th Cavalry, led by Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore, to conduct a reconnaissance in force in the area of Chu Pong. Arriving at X-Ray Assessing several landing zones, Moore chose LZ X-Ray near the base of the Chu Pong Massif. Roughly the size of a football field, X-Ray was surrounded by low trees and bordered by a dry creek bed to the west. Due to the relatively small size of the LZ, the transport of the 1st/7ths four companies would have to be conducted in several lifts. The first of these touched down at 10:48 AM on November 14 and consisted of Captain John Herrens Bravo Company and Moores command group. Departing, the helicopters began shuttling the rest of the battalion to X-Ray with each trip taking around 30 minutes. Soldiers of the U.S. Amry 1/7th Cavalry disembark from a Bell UH-1D Huey at LZ X-Ray during the battle of Ia Drang. US Army Day 1 Initially holding his forces in the LZ, Moore soon began sending out patrols while waiting for more men to arrive. At 12:15 PM, the enemy was first encountered northwest of the creek bed. Shortly thereafter, Herren ordered his 1st and 2nd Platoons to advance in that direction. Encountering heavy enemy resistance, the 1st was halted though the 2nd pushed on and pursued an enemy squad. In the process, the platoon, led by Lieutenant Henry Herrick, became separated and was soon surrounded by North Vietnamese forces. In the firefight that ensued, Herrick was killed and effective command devolved to Sergeant Ernie Savage. As the day progressed, Moores men successfully defended the creek bed as well as repelled assaults from the south while awaiting the arrival of the remainder of the battalion. By 3:20 PM, the last of the battalion arrived and Moore established a 360-degree perimeter around X-Ray. Eager to rescue the lost platoon, Moore sent forward Alpha and Bravo Companies at 3:45 PM. This effort succeeded in advancing around 75 yards from the creek bed before enemy fire brought it to a halt. In the attack, Lieutenant Walter Marm earned the Medal of Honor when he single-handedly captured an enemy machine gun position (Map). Day 2 Around 5:00 PM, Moore was reinforced by the lead elements of Bravo Company/2nd/7th. While the Americans dug in for the night, the North Vietnamese probed their lines and conducted three assaults against the lost platoon. Though under heavy pressure, Savages men turned these back. At 6:20 AM on November 15, the North Vietnamese mounted a major attack against Charlie Companys section of the perimeter. Calling in fire support, the hard-pressed Americans turned back the attack but took significant losses in the process. At 7:45 AM, the enemy began a three-pronged assault on Moores position. With the fighting intensifying and Charlie Companys line wavering, heavy air support was called in to halt the North Vietnamese advance. As it arrived over the field, it inflicted major losses on the enemy, though a friendly fire incident led to some napalm striking the American lines. At 9:10 AM, additional reinforcements arrived from the 2nd/7th and began reinforcing Charlie Companys lines. By 10:00 AM the North Vietnamese began withdrawing. With fighting raging at X-Ray, Brown dispatched Lieutenant Colonel Bob Tullys 2nd/5th to LZ Victor approximately 2.2 miles east-southeast. Moving overland, they reached X-Ray at 12:05 PM, augmenting Moores force. Pushing out of the perimeter, Moore and Tully succeeded in rescuing the lost platoon that afternoon. That night North Vietnamese forces harassed the American lines and then launched a major assault around 4:00 AM. With the aid of well-directed artillery, four assaults were repelled as the morning progressed. By mid-morning, the remainder of the 2nd/7th and 2nd/5th arrived at X-Ray. With the Americans on the field in strength and having taken massive losses, the North Vietnamese began withdrawing. Ambush at Albany That afternoon Moores command departed the field. Hearing reports of enemy units moving into the area and seeing that little more could be done at X-Ray, Brown wished to withdraw the remainder of his men. This was vetoed by Westmoreland who wished to avoid the appearance of a retreat. As a result, Tully was instructed to march the 2nd/5th northeast to LZ Columbus while Lieutenant Colonel Robert McDade was to take the 2nd/7th north-northeast to LZ Albany. As they departed, a flight of B-52 Stratofortresses was assigned to strike the Chu Pong Massif. While Tullys men had an uneventful march to Columbus, McDades troops began encountering elements of the 33rd and 66th PAVN Regiments. These actions culminated with a devastating ambush in the vicinity of Albany which saw PAVN troops attack and split McDades men into smaller groups. Under heavy pressure and taking major losses, McDades command was soon aided by air support and elements of the 2nd/5th which marched in from Columbus. Beginning late that afternoon, additional reinforcements were flown in and the American position was appearance during the night. The next morning, the enemy had largely pulled back. After policing the area for casualties and dead, the Americans departed for LZ Crooks the next day. Aftermath The first major battle that involved US ground forces, Ia Drang saw them suffer 96 killed and 121 wounded at X-Ray and 155 killed and 124 wounded at Albany. Estimates for North Vietnamese losses are around 800 killed at X-Ray and minimum of 403 killed at Albany. For his actions in leading the defense of X-Ray, Moore was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Pilots Major Bruce Crandall and Captain Ed Freeman were later (2007) awarded the Medal of Honor for making volunteer flights under heavy fire to and from X-Ray. During these flights, they delivered much-needed supplies while evacuating wounded soldiers. The fighting at Ia Drang set the tone for the conflict as American forces continued to rely on air mobility and heavy fire support to achieve victory. Conversely, the North Vietnamese learned that the latter could be neutralized by quickly closing with the enemy and fighting at close range.

Sunday, December 22, 2019

Unifferentiated Cells - 915 Words

In the Nature paper â€Å"Bidirectional developmental potential in reprogrammed cells with acquired pluripotency†, published in 2014 and now retracted, Haruko Obokata et al. described a new methodology for the conversion of somatic cells into pluripotent cells, without genetic manipulation or DNA transfer. Somatic cells were subjected to sublethal stimuli and, therefore, named â€Å"stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency† (STAP). The research consisted in introducing mouse somatic cells into a very acidic solution (low pH) or subjecting the external cell membranes to pressure. These stressful environmental stimuli led the somatic cells to a cell reprogramming. Obokata and colleagues, therefore, presented a fast, simple and cheap method of†¦show more content†¦On June 4, 2014, Obakata accepted the retraction of her 2 publications and Nature retracted the papers on July, 2014. After the great disappointment, the journal Nature investigated in depth its system of review and publication of articles. They found some inconsistencies in their system, which the worst consequence could be the loss of confidence in science by the citizens. Furthermore, the RIKEN centre also became the target of criticism, which focused on the lack of ethics and the decline of the institution in recent years. Yoshiki Sasai (co-author of the articles and Obakata’s supervisor), committed suicide in August, 2014 after months of criticism and accusations of fraud which led him to suffer of depression. He was not found guilty of misconduct, but he was seriously responsible for the incorrect verification of the data. In the suicide note that he addressed to Obokata, Sasai asked her to demonstrate the existence of somatic cells that could be easily transformed into stem cells. Obokata and the other authors recognized the existence of wide errors. However, Obokata continues claiming the existence of STAP. C) In 500 words maximum, write a summary of your views on the ethics and the personal motivation/psychology that drove Obokata to this level of misconduct. Additionally, what is your opinion on the institutional/scientific journal/media handling of this case? Haruko Obokata completed her masters degree in

Friday, December 13, 2019

Web Analytics Free Essays

string(48) " so the users can find our website more easily\." The explosive growth in the amount of smartness and tablets marked we have fully entered the RA of mobile computing. There are more and more people prefer to buy the products or services they desired online. The company who can success overnight must be the one who can better understand the demands of customers. We will write a custom essay sample on Web Analytics or any similar topic only for you Order Now For those who have no Idea of the power of Internet marketing, Axiom Technology can be a good example. It has been established since August 2010 and there are no any offline franchised stores ever opened. The only channel for customers to get their products is ordering from their online store. This is totally an Internet marketing model and no one knows what will happen to this company in the future. Now only four years have passed Axiom Technology has overtaken Samsung to become the biggest seller of smartness in China and the company valuations has approaching 40 billions dollars (BBC, http://www. BBC. Com/news/business-28684581). The success of Axiom is not accidental but using tons of techniques to analyses customers and trying to understand their needs. Behind this web analytics is the most important tool to achieve this in Internet marketing. What web analytics does Is the study of visitor, navigation, and traffic patterns to determine the success of a given web site then through the objective tracking, collection, measurement, porting, and analysis of quantitative Internet data to optimism websites and Internet marketing initiatives (Web Analytics Association, http:. ‘/ indicators could tell us the operation performance of a website. Such as the sources of the visitors (where our visitors come from), the conversion rates of the visitors (includes the registration rates, opportunities to sale and other conversion rates we setup to monitor). Knowing these indicators is the basis of Internet marketing initiatives. In short, web analytics is a tool to help us optimism our website and align our resources to fit the Internet marketing strategies. This could be divided into several aspects. I will explain them one by one in this article. Monitoring the Operation Status of the Website This is the most basic function of web analytics. Web analytics tool like Google Analytics can collect the data which provided by the website such as slipstream data, user experience data and operational data then generate different kinds of statements through analyses the collected data. These statements can give a overview of the website and tell us whether it is healthy or not. The variation trend of clicks, umber of visits, number of users and other data like this can help marketers maintain the website from different aspects. However, for those non-technical specialist stakeholders web analytics tool can be an important tool to translate the professional terms such as page views, average time per visit and conversion rates to readable information. Monthly summary is one of the most common reports that web analytics tool can generate for a company to monitor its website. The information contained in the summary is of a relatively basic level. The monthly summary shows page views, visits ND visitors, as well as average time per visit and average page views per visit. The main purpose of the monthly summary is to inform key stakeholders about the level of activity on the website throughout each month (A. Phone, et al. , 2004). Figure 1 is a typical monthly summary. There are also other reports such as monthly dashboard which allow users to compare the activity on the website over a year, because of the limited words it is not possible to detail here. Figure 1. A Typical Monthly Summary The operators of the website will be panic without the support of different kinds of data. Because it means they have lost the perception to the status of the website. They have no idea how many visits today, thousands or none, will be a mystery. Without the direction of data, the operators will lost their target and path for Internet marketing. Evaluate the Efficiency of the Promotion Campaigns Like offline business processes, Internet marketing also needs promotion campaigns to acquire customers, improve brand image and customer perception. However, without web analytics we can not measure the help that the promotions bring to our websites Kips and we even can not know whether the growing Kips are profit from With web analytics we can track the sources of our visits then identify whether they are visiting through our promotions such as pay-per-click ads or banner ads. Moreover, we can further analyses the conversion rates relate to registration and order placing then find out the efficiency of our promotions and to what extent they can improve our Kips. Finally, according to the analysis we can adjust the Internet marketing strategies about the promotions. For example, to measure the efficiency of a banner ads we can easily calculate cost per acquisition to find out that: Cost per acquisition = Advertising and promotional cost/Number of click-troughs. Promote the Website Effectively Search Engine Optimization (SEE) and Search Engine Marketing (SEEM) SEE and SEEM are two vital parts in web analytics because they are the most important way for a website to fetch visits. Search engines are a key part of any company’s acquisition portfolio. For good reason, citizens of the Internet use search to find everything they are looking for. The business impact of this customer behavior is that we all pour a lot of resources into optimizing our websites to show up optimally in search engines for relevant queries (Vanish Sushi, 2010). There are several indexes for us to analyses SEE such as related keywords ranking, the click through rate (CTR) of the search terms and the number of invalid pages of the website in the search results. The traffic level is the foundation of a website. So it is necessary for us to know how good our website performing on SEE and SEEM clearly (Eric Eng, et al. , 2012). Precision Marketing SEE and SEEM can improve the web exposure of the website so the users can find our website more easily. You read "Web Analytics" in category "Papers" But sometimes it is also necessary to push our website to some specific users directly so called online promotions. Online promotion included customer segmentation, source segmentation and target market segmentation. Customer segmentation which based on customer behaviors can reveal the customer types our website attracts. The search terms based on source and affiliated websites analysis can let us know which parts on our website were cared about by our users and how our users found us. This analysis could direct us for our online promotion. We will know which groups of users we should send them e-mails. Moreover, web analytics can also help us find suitable places to do the online promotions. For example, the most related website we should put the advertisements on if we want to issue a product or organize an activity or the frequently searched keywords to do the sponsored links and SEE. So it can help us avoid the inefficiency promotions which will waste our operating costs. Through eliminating low efficiency costs and increase the ratio of high efficiency costs we could keep the budgets constant but have a better publicity. In the meantime, we can also find out which websites have more relevance with us then we can improve our how to organize the contents we want to promote. Optimizing the Customer Experience of the Website Simple and Effective Interactive Process The simple and easy-to-use interactive process will help the users achieve their targets and operations better. And the users are tend to visit the website which have more friendly interface that can let them surf on it without any troubles. Help the Users to Find What They Interested Recommend the contents which the users may interested are far more better than let themselves find what they want. Many websites like Amazon, eBay now have recommendation function based on the analysis of users behaviors, this function will elf on keep customers and let them browse more contents or use the services provided by the websites. Listen to the Users Web analytics is more than tons of daily statements of the websites. Actually, survey, lab usability testing and site visits are all belong to web analytics. Vanish Sushi were sorted them as the qualitative analysis in web analytics. These methods can let us listen to our users’ heart. With the results of these surveys we can do better on our website includes the design of function, interactive and navigation. All of these are aimed at enhancing the user experience of the website. In a word, the websites are living for traffic level, all what we do above can be concluded as three stages: monitoring the traffic, attract the traffic and keep the traffic. The traffic level can be easily translated to users, and the users are the only core for the websites. Part 2: http://www. Activation. Co. UK/ is a local company. You are required to: Identify its main line of business and its online marketing strategy, Critically evaluate its website designing and its online marketing strategy, and Make recommendations for improving the effectiveness of its website and online marketing strategy. Main Line of Business Active Alton is a local company operating a variety of sports and leisure facilities in Alton and it claimed itself as a non-profit organization. It currently operates 7 leisure and activity centers including Dell Farm, Inspire: Alton Sports Village, Lessee Sports Park, Highpoint Community Sports Arts Centre, Lea Manor Recreation Centre, Stockroom Park Golf Centre and Stockroom Park Athletics Centre Health Club. The main business that Active Alton run are the fitness and leisure events. Rely on the activity centers Active Alton provides its own brands covered a wide range of ports and services such as Profiles Health Fitness, Hydra Swim, Active Golf, Kid Around, Active Education, Active Communities, Active Training Development and people will enjoy a discount price to access the facilities through Join the membership and this is also the main sources of income to the organization. Online Marketing Strategy As a local organization who have held so many sports centers and leisure facilities, Active Alton seems has no intention to invest vast amount of time and money in online marketing because people are ultimately prefer to choose a fitness centre by sitting it not by Just browsing it online. The website of Active Alton are more like a exhibition not an online franchise store. I have drawn a structure chart of the website below and will analyses the online market strategy by using it. Through the structure chart we can have a general understanding of the whole website of Active Alton. As I state before, the website is consist by the introduction of the sports centers and leisure facilities. The only entrance for customers to checkout is in the membership page and will be shown after click ‘sign up online’. And there is o any online customer service but only two forms in the feedback and contact us pages. Because the organization possesses venues and stadiums and only provide very limited online transactions channel and customer service (the digital channels complementary is relatively low), the e-commerce business mode could be defined as between ‘Bricks and mortar’ and ‘Bricks and clicks’ refer to Figure 2. Figure 2. Three Business Modes in E-commerce In conclusion, the online marketing strategy should have objectives for online contribution in percent which means sales, service, profitability should drive the strategy. From the structure of the website I did not see much of elements which can bring extra incomes for the organization. Because of the products the organization provides is fitness and leisure services it is not possible to exploit new geographic markets. So the website has communicate benefits of existing products to existing penetration strategy (H. Igor Anions, 2007). Figure 3. Nations Product-Market Growth Matrix Website Designing There are eight most important factors in successful e-commerce site design (Lauded and Travel, 2009), in this part I will use this figure to evaluate the designing of the Bessie. Figure 4. The Eight Most Important Factors in Successful E-commerce Site Design All functions of the website are working normally during my test but it has no obvious funnel which can guide visitors to the checkout system and finally become customers. In general, there must be a button or link to purchase the product when we click into the introduction page of a product but for this website there is not. What instead of is a sign up online button which is in membership page so we can not see it directly. This will largely reduce the conversion rates and lower the functionality of the website. The information provided by the website are quite rich, from the introduction of the organization to the details of every venues and brands. And they have been placed in landing page so they are full accessible. But the customer service is a short slab of the website. There are only two forms provided in the contact us and feedback pages. According to Lauded and Tracer’s research it will annoy 75. 1% visitors if a website has no contact information available. Figure 5. E-commerce Website Features that Annoy Customers For other aspects in the figure 4, the layout and design of Active Lotto’s website are happily integrated style, both aesthetically and functionally. It has a dominant hue which is blue and the color is not been abused everywhere. The text are legible enough and the graphics are simple therefore the visitors will not be distracted. To sum up, the website is easy to use but lack of functionality and it need to be improved. Recommendations For the Web Designing To improve the effectiveness of the website can be translate to improve the user experience of it. First and the most important thing is to add a purchase button with the corresponding price table in every introduction page of the stadiums, this will increase the conversion rates and lead to a higher incomes which is the fundamental goals of e-commerce. And for the customer service, add at least one contact information (landlines, e-mail or both) to contact us page that visitors can use it to contact the organization actively. If the visitors are confused about some descriptions the conversion rates indirectly because people will not purchase anything if they are confusing about it. For the Online Marketing Strategy According to the organization’s conditions I did a SOOT analysis for it. Active Alton Strengths – S 1. Well-known brand 2. Abundant Resources 3. Extensive Services Weaknesses – W 1. Internet channel using 2. Web technologies 3. Online customer service Opportunities – O 1 . New customer segment 2. Co-branding promotion 3. Cross-selling SO strategies Integrate the services and trying to attract new customers through cross-selling and co-branding promotion WOW strategies Improve the user experience of the website and introduce new services to attract new customers Threats – T 1 . Other competitors who have advanced technologies 2. Customer choice 3. New entrants SST strategies Attract competitor’s customers by provide better services and hardware WET strategies Improve the user experience of the website and build a thorough customer relationship management system Figure 6. A Internet-specific SOOT Analysis for Active Alton Active Alton is an organization who has possessed a lot of resources including stadiums and parks. So the products and services it can provide can be varied if introduce cross-selling method. The growth point of the business is to attract new customers through new products and services and better user experience of the website. In this circumstance I would like to recommend WOW strategies for the organization. This kind of online marketing strategy is focused on improving the effectiveness of the website and develop new products that fit the e- commerce business such as special offers which people can only get from the online store. How to cite Web Analytics, Papers

Thursday, December 5, 2019

Analysis on Accounting Theory and Using Them for Practical Cases

Question: How To Using the Accounting Theory Practical Cases? Answer: Introducation This is on the article Costs blow out for Suncorps natural hazard allowance to $350m, 4th period in row for over-size claims. Suncorp being a financial institution with the main business of Banking and insurance had faced a lot of claims in the near past and also in the period in the current topic. The article describes that fact why the same happened with the company which had over crossed their budget for the consecutive four times. This mainly happened because of two big events that took place which was Wild storms and earthquake in New Zealand which had mainly increased the claims and thus leading to negative cash flows for the company. This is somewhere effected by aggressive approach and some incorrect decisions and planning that the team is making up. Accounting Theory TheAccounting theory selected is Legitimacy Theory. This theory generally implies that what is the generalized assumption to prove that the actions of an entity are desirable, appropriate and in the interest of socially constructed norms, beliefs and definitions. The more an organization is legitimate the higher are the chances of survival in the current market situation. The entity respecting the social values finally tend to benefit from the organization activities at large.(Aldrich, 1994) The social and moral values that tend to help an entity to grow are the ones which are socially accepted and helps the management to take correction steps at the necessary time to stand up in the environment.(Hybels, 1995) Analysis In the given article for Suncorp the issue in question was the increase in the costs of claims which the company is incurring in the times and how the same is being faced by the various stakeholders of the company as well. The article describes the reason of the problem to be highly aggressive and not thinking in a legitimate manner in taking any such important decisions. The company is continuously crossing the budget allowances and still the attitude to plan and covers its liabilities is not taking place. The legitimacy theory clearly points out how the entities should think before framing any such policies and this theory integrates with the problem where the company should focus on the plans by using past trends of data and helping to have a better position in the social and required values of the organization.(RAMALLAH, 2013) The company should neither go too conservative by tucking up too much money for claims nor should they be too much aggressive with the budget that it makes for the disasters as budgets are the picture of actuals and hence the team should focus on the same before proper decisions might be taken by the company as a whole. The company and its planning might not help the investors to reach to their objective to invest in the company and should focus on the correct estimation of the losses that happened in the future along with a better disaster budget which will help to plan the things and profitability in a much better way. Hence the problem statement in the article lies in the estimation error any further values added to the same through legitimacy would add value to the situation and develop more ecofriendly situation for the company on an overall level. These theories focusing on the external environment speaks a lot about the success factors of many organizations and thus helps to take decisions in a better way and develop better market superiority.(Reuters, 2012) Conclusion The overall understanding of the case here is that sustainable thinking is very important for an organization and there are lot of factors that the companies should focus upon before giving the final outcome of a particular solution. These theories help to understand the correct way and regain the market position at difficult times. References Aldrich. (1994). Fools rush in? Academy of Accounting Management Review,, 645-670. Hybels. (1995). A critical review and integrative theoretical model. Academy of Management Journal, Best Conference Proceedings, 241-245. RAMALLAH. (2013). Abbas seeks legitimacy in Palestinian strategy splurge. Chicago Times, 1-1. Reuters. (2012). Communique To Recognise Legitimacy Of Steps Taken. Chicago Tribune, 1-1.