Sunday, January 26, 2020

Chemicals Needed for Muscle Contraction

Chemicals Needed for Muscle Contraction The goal for this lab was to determine the conditions that demonstrate what chemicals in muscle fibers are necessary for contraction and which ones prevent muscle contraction from occurring in a simplified system in order to determine the minimum requirement for contraction. Methods In order to prepare muscle fibers, a single thread was obtained from a mass of glycerinated muscle fibers which was about 0.5 mm in diameter. The muscle was a rabbit psoas muscle in 50% glycerol (stored at -10 degrees C) obtained from Carolina Biological. In order to have an observation of what was taking place with the muscle, Nikon E400 was used. The fiber was placed on a slide in the presence of 0.05 M KCl and 0.005 M K phosphate buffer (pH 7). The first step was to detect the minimum requirement solution for muscle contraction to take place. This was done by using the following solutions: 0.001 M MgCl2, 0.001 M CaCl2, and 0.1 M ATP. The requirement was determined after observing the changes taking place when each of the solutions were added to the muscle separately, in combinations of two, and all three solutions together. After the minimum requirement was determined, chelators were used to see whether they inhibited contraction in the presence of the solution that caused contraction. The chelators were 0.002 M EDTA and 0.002M EGTA. The EDTA binds Ca ++ and Mg ++. EGTA binds only Ca++. The chelating agents enhance the solubility of magnesium and calcium and allow them to spread out of the muscle fibers. This causes the removal of the ions from the actin and myosin environment. It was important that the chelators were added before the contracting agents when inhibition was being tested. Otherwise, it would be impossible to detect any changes once the contraction has taken place; contraction is not reversible once it occurs in a simplified system. Then Solution A and Solution B were used to examine the localization of myosin and actin in the myofibrils. Solution Aà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s function was to solubilize and remove myosin in the form of monomers from its loci which is in the myofibril. Solution B had the same behavior as the actin. The Solutions were placed on the myofibril to see changes that took place and observations were made. Discussion and Conclusion During this lab, using the microscope we examined the changes that took place when certain solution were introduced to the rabbit psoas muscle fibers. The solutions caused contraction, inhibited contraction to occur, or had no effect on the sarcomeres at all. We used glycerinated myofibrils from rabbit psoas muscle which is a type of striated muscle. Rabbit psoas muscle was a good model to use for this lab since the fibers are long and straight. Also one other advantage was that there were not a lot of connective tissues connecting the muscle fibers together. This was an in vitro model meaning that experiment was completed outside the living organism. The Phase Contrast with magnification of 10X/ 40X was used during this lab to examine the slide because the cells are transparent and Phase Contrast is the best option to use in order to have a good resolution. Under a microscope the myofibers were striated and they had a repeating pattern of bands and lines. The pattern was caused by parallel organization of protein filaments within the myofibrils. In the myofibril, there are two types of filament- the thick filaments which consist of the protein myosin and thin filaments composed of the protein actin. As demonstrated on Table 1, Mg2Cl2, Ca2Cl2, and ATP were the solution used to determine the changes taking place with the muscle. All of the three solutions were placed on the slide which consisted of a thread of muscle fiber and contraction of the muscle was observed. We could tell when contraction was taking place because the fiber was short in length and it was easy to see the changes such as the shortening in length and the color change. When Mg2Cl2 and Ca2Cl2 were added individually to the fiber, nothing happened. However, as soon as the ATP was placed on changes were easily observed. ATP caused muscle contraction by itself. The sarcomeres in the muscle fiber shortened in length and the color changed from light yellow to darker yellow. However, in order to make sure this was the minimum requirement for muscle contraction, we added Mg2Cl2 with ATP and Ca2Cl2 with ATP. With the MgCl2 and ATP, the contraction occurred immediately as the solutions were added. The contraction was even faster than the ATP alone. Then ATP and Ca2Cl2 solutions were introduced and this also caused contraction. Even though the combination of the two solutions caused contraction to occur faster than ATP by itself, it was slower than the solutions of ATP and Mg2Cl2. As a result, we concluded that ATP was the minimum requirement needed for the cells to contract. All the solutions that caused contraction were not in one dimension because every component of a sarcomere was facing changes except the A band which stayed the same. The I bands, the M line, the Z lines, and the actin and mysosin- they were all decreasing in length in order to cause contraction. At the end, it was determined that ATP was the requirement for glycerinated muscle contraction. When there is no ATP present, the myosin heads in the muscle will not be activated and it would not bind to the actin. In glyceri nated tissues, the combination of KCl and MgCl2 with ATP increased the strength of muscle contraction. This was mainly due to myosinà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s high affinity for these ions. Table 2 shows whether contraction was inhibited in the presence of chelating agents, EDTA and EGTA, when it was used with the main solution that caused contraction, ATP. EDTA and EGTA did not inhibit contraction from taking place, but the contraction was slower than when ATP was present. EDTA is a chelating agent that binds Ca++ and Mg++ and EGTA is a chelating agent that binds Ca++. The chelating agents increase the solubility of Mg 2+ and Ca2+ so that they can leave the muscle fibers. With ATP and the chelating agents, contraction occurred and there was no inhibition taking place. Table 3 shows two different solutions, Solution A and solution B, and their effect on actin and myosin. As shown in the table, solution A had KCl, phosphate buffer, Na pyrophosphate, and MgCl2 while solution B had phosphate buffer. Both of these solutions did not cause any contraction in the muscle based on our observations. However, changes were observable because in both cases the fibers changed color; they became lighter yellow. This meant that the muscles were not contracting. Solution A made the mysosin more soluble and solution B acted in the same manner as the actin. When comparing the muscle in living tissue, the glycerinated muscle system is different. The glycerination technique eliminates ions and ATP from the tissue and disrupts the troponin/tropomyosin complex. When the complex is interrupted, the available binding sites on the actin fibers are no longer blocked ( Cell and Molecular Biology). As a result, Ca2+ is not one of the requirements to cause contraction. On the other hand, since there is no ATP is in the glycerinated tissue, the myosin heads cannot be activated to cause contraction. After the muscle contracted it did not relax since there were no opposing muscles to pull it. Also, muscle fibers do not contract when there are no stimulations or nerve signals and this was one of the differences with glycerinated muscle and the living cell muscle. Errors could have occurred in this lab if one used very thick muscle strands. Having thinner strands were better to have good results. Also, it is possible that much of the calcium was still in the sarcoplasmic reticulum of the glycerinated muscle, which would have lead into incorrect results. All in all however, the lab was successful and we have obtained what we were looking for- what solutions cause contraction, which ones inhibit, and what is the minimum requirement for muscle contraction.

Saturday, January 18, 2020

Leadership Attributes Of Mark Zuckerberg Essay

Mark Zuckerbreg was born on 14 May 1984 at White Plains, New York. He is best known as CEO of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg is a technology innovator, CEO, Internet Tycoon and philanthropist who earned multi-billionaire status by his mid-20s. As the cofounder, chairman, and CEO of Facebook, Zuckerberg redefined the social media market and connected people in ways never thought possible. Zuckerberg recently topped a list of â€Å"Highest Rated CEOs† from online career community Glassdoor. The list was the result of employee reviews over the past 12 months. Technology Sensation Born into a well-educated family in New York, Zuckerberg developed an interest in computers at an early stage. He created his own messaging program at the age of 12, dubbed â€Å"Zucknet,† which his father used in his dental office. He would create games and programs under a private computer tutor, who later told reporters that it was hard to stay ahead of the technology prodigy. While still in high school, companies like AOL and  Microsoft expressed interest in buying his software and hiring him, which he declined. Later enrolling at Harvard University, Zuckerberg developed a reputation as a strong programmer and software developer. He created programs like CourseMatch, which helped students choose their classes based on the selections of their peers, and Facemash, which compared pictures of two students and allowed users to vote on who was more attractive. While popular, none of these programs matched to the later success of Zuckerberg’s development of Facebook. Approached by Divya Narendra, and Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Zuckerberg began working on a project called The Harvard Connection, a sort of dating site for the Harvard elite. Zuckerberg later dropped out and began working on his own site with friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin. This site, which started as thefacebook.com, allowed users to create their own profiles, upload photos, and network with users at specific universities. Run out of a dorm room at Harvard until June 2004, thefacebook.com thrived, and Zuckerberg dropped out to pursue it full time. By the end of 2004, Facebook boasted 1 million users. The site began to evolve. At first, it was only available to certain schools. Thanks to investments from venture capital firms, the site eventually opened up to other schools, then to the general public. Early on, Zuckerberg was turning down offers from Yahoo! and MTV Networks. â€Å"The thing that we are trying to do at Facebook is just help people connect and communicate more efficiently,† he said. Instead of taking lucrative offers (Yahoo! reportedly offered Zuckerberg $1 billion), Zuckerberg focused on expanding the site to bring as much value to users as possible. But legal troubles from his early dealings with The Harvard Connection plagued him, as depicted in the Academy Award-nominated movie â€Å"The Social Network.† Zuckerberg later noted that much of the story was exaggerated for Hollywood. â€Å"I just think people have a lot of fiction,† he said. â€Å"But the real story of Facebook is just that we’ve worked so hard for all this time. The real story is actually probably pretty boring, right? We just sat at our computers for six years and coded.† Despite some of the negative depictions in the movie and the lawsuit filed by the Winklevoss twins, Zuckerberg and Facebook continued to thrive. He was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 2010, and Forbes has ranked him at No. 36 on its 400 list, estimating his net worth at $13.3 billion as of March 2013. Transformation from a Hacker to  a CEO and then to a Leader With Facebook’s stock price crashing and employee morale sinking, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stepped up and delivered a home run he would never have been able to hit even just a year ago. Zuckerberg has been under fire the last few months for Facebook’s plummeting stock price. A darling of Wall Street before its IPO, Facebook fell to half its IPO price in just a few months. As a result, a growing chorus of critics has called for new leadership at Facebook. Some have even called for Zuckerberg himself to resign. Zuckerberg answered his critics at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference. During a wide-ranging interview with CrunchFund’s Michael Arrington, Zuckerberg addressed everything from the company’s plummeting stock price to its plans for mobile. By all accounts, Zuckerberg did a spectacular job. As a result, shares of Facebook have surged by 13 percent since then. It is a clear step in the right direction. If we compare his performance to his previous interviews, we can clearly see the change in his personality. He was stumbling during the interview and when he was asked few tough questions, he started sweating on stage. The new Mark Zuckerberg on stage at Disrupt didn’t look anything like the guy who squirmed at the D Conference just two years prior. No, this Zuckerberg was poised, confident, and articulate. He spoke fast, but only because he was clearly excited by Facebook’s future. Zuckerberg was able to simultaneously rally the Facebook troops and Wall Street with just his words. This is something he would never have been able to do even just a year ago. He wasn’t born with Steve Jobs’ onstage charm — instead, he had to work up to the comfort level he exuded on stage at Disrupt. We can witness a new chapter in Zuckerberg’s maturation. He was once a hacker who had to become a CEO. Now he’s a CEO who’s transforming into an articulate leader, the type a public company with sky-high expectations needs. Personal Traits There is one important element which can help or makes a particular person to achieve success; it is the personality of the person itself. Personality basically is the kind of personal characteristics which influence the behavior as well as perception and attitudes. It is an inner psychological  characteristic which cannot be copy such as emotion and taught. It can be build from the influence of heredity, or early childhood experiences. No doubt, personality of a person can be change due to the major life events and by the gradual maturing process. There are many personality classification methods; we had chosen the Big Five Model of Personality traits which are the most widely accepted way to classify personalities and to describe the personality which in Mark Zuckerberg. This model has been divided to five major dimensions i.e. Surgency, Agreeableness, Adjustment, Conscientiousness, and Openness to experience. Surgency personality dimension includes leadership and extraversion tr aits. Mark showed his strong surgency as he wants to be the person who is in charge instead of being the dominance of the others. Mark did not really accept or commit with the twin Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss idea which they try to hire Mark to build a dating, a social site which they called Harvard Connection. As a high surgency person, Mark does not like to be the dominance of others so he creates the website Facebook instead of working for the Winklevoss. The strong surgency has lead Mark to the success that he is enjoying today; if he had chosen to work for Winklevoss, he might still be a small potato and not much people would know about him. Dimension of agreeableness includes traits related to getting along with people. Besides that, if a person has high agreeableness, that person might be more sociable and spent more times with his or her friends. According to Mark Zuckerberg’s friends, he is an introverted person as they said he is kind of a geek who feels little uncomfortable around other people. Furthermore, they even speculated that that introverted personality of him had helped him deal with his creation of Facebook. The adjustment personality dimension includes traits related to emotional stability. Mark shows that he does not have a good adjustment personality; he created the facemash when he feels upset about a girl. Facemash is software where it uses to compare students to what kind of farm animals which seems like unethical to others. This software had helped him in the path of success as this software lends him some idea while creating Thefacebook.com. The high degree of conscientiousness of Mark has leaded him to the way of success, he is a hardworking, and always willing to put in extra time and effort to accomplish goal to achieve success. His willingness to put in extra time to complete something, such as he uses eight hours to  create the Facemash site. So, we can see that when he got an objective that need to be achieved, he will show his high conscientiousness to work on that aim in order to achieve success. The high openness to experience in Mark had made a big contribution to his success path, as he is a person who is willing to try and always willing to change. The Facebook which he had launched made a huge change in the connection between everyone in the world. Besides that, he keeps on developing the Facebook which was named as Thefacebook previously, in order to help people to connect, find new friends and share photos. He states in his Facebook account that his personal interest is about openness, making things that help people connect and share what is important to them, revolutions, information flow and minimalism. Besides that, from the beginning of Course Match until Facebook, the personalities of Mark willing to try and change had helped him to come out with something which can really connect people easily – Facebook. Situational Leadership style Leadership is the process of the influencing made by the leader to the follower to change them to achieve the organizational goal. Leadership is an important element for a successful leader, as the leader needs to have enough potential and abilities to influence his/her followers to work according to the leader’s objective or goal. However, if a good leadership style is being implemented, it can more or less help the employees to create organizational citizenship. Furthermore, the effective behavior of the leader may also determine the future or fate of the organization obviously. Besides, for Mark Zuckerberg leadership is basically about creating focus. It is about ensuring we are focused on the right stuff and getting good people in to help build what we are trying to do. From the way he doing things, we can see that Mark is actually quite a democratic style leader. He does not really act like a dictator as he is open to take and listen to others opinion and suggestion. When there was some crisis where people started to dislike Mark and said that Mark should be replaced, Reed – the recruiter of Facebook had talked to Mark. She told Zuckerberg what should he do in order to gain the favor and trust from the followers, then he did take her advice and started to get lessons on how to be an effective leader by seeing an executive coach. From the incident above, Zuckerberg shows his  high degree of acceptance to his dominance or followers ideas. Besides that, Zuckerberg is one of the people-oriented types of leader. He had asked for help from Sean Parker, who is a very talented person who created Napster, but had a bad reputation of getting around with bar, alcohol, drugs and always surrounded by girls. Zuckerberg did not concern about his bad reputation but he wanted the talent of Sean Parker who is also described as a business artist. In the end, Parker did help Zuckerberg with a lot of things in order to achieve the success of Facebook with the talent which Parker has. Zuckerberg is a good leader as we can see that he lead the Facebook to a greater and successful path. Without having the good behavior and guidance in him, Facebook would not able to be success and his followers love to work with him. Traits of Effective Leader, as seen in Mark Zuckerberg Dominance Dominance is the one of the most effective and major trait of leadership. Successful leaders want to take the charge and the responsibilities. Dominance trait effects all the other traits related to effective leaders. Mark has shown a very strong dominance trait as he has always shown this thing that he wants to take the charge and have a dominant personality. As mentioned above, if he had just followed what he was asked to do, he might not even have invented Facebook. High Energy To be a good leader, to go places, you must be willing to go further than others have and do things others won’t. He worked his ass off, did things he was uncomfortable with (like travelling across continents to speak to audiences about his vision) and did what had to be done to build his company. Intelligence No one can doubt about the intelligence of Mark Zuckerberg. Starting from very young age, inventing his own software programs, and then getting into an IVY League university and last but not the least, invention of Facebook, this all shows the very strong trait of Intelligence in Mark Zuckerberg. Flexibility Mark Zuckerberg has shown flexibility in his character. He has always been  open to change and has never been afraid of taking new steps and doing something new. Perhaps no Internet businessman has spit in the face of this attitude more than Mark Zuckerberg. Despite Facebook’s status as a social networking giant, Zuckerberg and Co. have never shied away from changing the user interface (sometimes in the face of protests) or shaking things up in the effort to break new ground. Though not all of his changes have been successful, a surprising majority of them have stood the test of time and boosted Facebook’s following. Integrity Mark Zuckerberg faces criticism for his unconventional leadership of Facebook as a business. Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission that was, to make the world more open and connected. Zuckerberg has shown strong integrity in his leadership by remaining consistent with his mission to make the world more opened and connected. He went incredibly far to make absolutely sure that this mission would not be compromised by maintaining a majority stake of the voting shares of Facebook. Locus of Control Recently, Facebook has had a lawsuit against them with the Beacon advertising system. After the court ruling, Zuckerberg made a public apology for the system and took full responsibility for the mistake. This shows that Mark Zuckerberg has an internal locus of control. Instead of blaming some other force, he took control of the situation. Self Confidence Even though Mark Zuckerberg seems to be quiet and humble, he’s also extremely self-confident. He has always had strong faith in himself and in his vision. He didn’t let naysayers along the way deter him or bring him down. He is able to persevere through criticism and any obstacles or setbacks because he continues to believe in himself no matter what anyone else says about Facebook. Sensitivity to Others Initially, it looked like Mark isn’t that much sensitive to others, as he was accused of using the idea of his class fellows and then cutting them out of the plan. But, since in 2012 he was named as the Best CEO and from the feedback that was given by his employers, it became apparent that he has  changed himself and had become sensitive to others and their feelings. Stability Mark shows that he does not have a good adjustment personality; he created the facemash when he feels upset about a girl. But as this has been mentioned earlier before, Mark has gone through a lot since he has became the CEO of the Facebook and has brought a lot of positive changes in himself, and stability is one of them as well. He has shown very strong emotional stability at various places and incidents. He has taken criticism openly and has faced all the difficulties while staying strong. Leadership Grid Theory Leadership grid theory explains leadership behavior on the basis of two dimensions which are concern for production and concern for people. Mark Zuckerberg is one of people oriented types of leader and He is also more concerned for quality and good work by employees. Due to these reasons he falls in The Team Leader style which is 9.9 in Leadership Grid Theory. Leadership Continuum Theory If we have a look at the Leadership Continuum Theory then we can see that Mark falls somewhere around 6th defined trait. He has received a 99% approval rate from his employees and they have said that they love working at Facebook reason being that what they say and think is considered and it matters to mark. Every decision taken at Facebook is a group decision. PATH-GOAL THEORY. Zuckerberg’s leadership style has been in question and will be in question as Facebook prepares to switch its funding to IPO. I believe Zuckerberg is a perfect example of path-goal theory. Path-goal leaders as we know need to adapt their style to one that allows their subordinates to achieve a specific goal. This can be done by being directive, supportive, participated, and achievement oriented. Zuckerberg fits all criteria. Throughout the growth  and development of Facebook he has changed his style to continuously achieve their overall goal. To start he began the company as a directive leader; providing guidance and instilling the psychological structure that the company needed in order to have constant expansion. It is hard to convey an idea to another, especially if it is one that could change the way society operated. Once Zuckerberg set the foundation of psychological structure, he could sit back and play a more supportive role. Being supportative allows for the vision of Facebook to take hold. Currently though Zuckerberg is the best demonstrator of a participative style. Facebook is now self sustaining and doesn’t need a hard-nosed leader under its ranks. The best way we can see this style of leadership in action is through his own Facebook page. He is currently promoting the need for driven individuals such as himself to work for the company. The Myers-Briggs Test Zuckerberg is known to be incredibly confident and decisive in his decisions. When he strives for something he reaches it and stands strong on the decision. This was shown to the many Facebookers years ago with timeline. When timeline was introduced, many users did not like it, but Zuckerberg stuck to his guns and kept it. Along with his decisiveness, Zuckerberg tends to be ‘robot like’ and socially awkward. People that have interacted with him say this because when having a conversation, Zuckerberg is straight to the point. As Time Magazine states, â€Å"He approaches conversation as a way of exchanging data as rapidly and efficiently as possible, rather than as a recreational activity undertaken for its own sake. He is formidably quick and talks rapidly and precisely, and if he has no data to transmit, he abruptly falls silent.† This shows him as being very analytical and specific. Zuckerberg is known to be an introvert as well. He doesn’t openly talk about himself and is well reserved. Even when in an interview, he answers the question that’s asked, but gives no additional or side information. From the above examples and descriptions, when taking the Myers-Briggs test, Mark Zuckerberg would be an ISTJ (Introvert, Sensing, Thinking, and Judging). ISTJ’s are quiet, serious, practical, logical, orderly, and loyal. Additionally, Mark Zuckerberg tends to have high  self-efficacy. Zuckerberg has confidence in his abilities. People with self-efficacy tend to overcome obstacles and work toward a specific goal. Zuckerberg has done this with the success of Facebook. Recently, Facebook has had a lawsuit against them with the Beacon advertising system. After the court ruling, Zuckerberg made a public apology for the system and took full responsibility for the mistake. This shows that Mark Zuckerberg has an internal locus of control. Instead of blaming some other force, he took control of the situ ation. Theory Y Working for Facebook is not your typical job. The word â€Å"Hack† is written on every wall in the building. Zuckerberg’s own personal innovation encourages employees to produce new codes to wow users and attract new one. He encourages employees to constantly innovate and think of outside the box. They attempt to eliminate failure out of the equation and the programmer’s mind. The environment is geared to help employees figure out what exactly they would do without the fear of failure. Fail harder: they are encouraged to fail in a triumphant blaze of glory. For Facebook, â€Å"the riskest risk is taking no risks†(Careers at Facebook). Without complete focus and effort, the employee might never know if the project was possible. Trying new things is always encouraged. This is the kind of effort Mark Zuckerberg put into Facebook to make a huge success. He encourages his employees to put everything they have into a project. This type of support shown to employees can satisfy McGregor’s Theory Y. Facebook’s full support and belief in the abilities of their employees motivates them to give their full effort in a project. Maslow’s Self Actualization Facebook’s view on recruiting is to â€Å"discovering top talent and serving our employees seriously†(Careers at Facebook). Facebook only hires the smartest and passionate people who are ready to hard and quickly. This could give Facebook employees pride for being the Best of the best. â€Å"We expect everyone at Facebook to focus every day on how to build real value for the world in everything they do†(Careers at Facebook). This type of emphasis on building social value and create social change through their job can help employees achieve Maslowe’s self actualization. This personal  growth and higher order achievement fulfillment can inspire employees to work harder and innovate. This type of social value can suggest a need for power. Employees want their work to influence others and create a change in the world. MCCLELAND’S NEED FOR ACHIEVEMENT In the early days of Facebook, Zuckerberg was known for his exuberance and sense of urgency. He would initiate a companywide lock down to launch a new campus. These â€Å"Hackathon† turned into a party including a keg and DJ in reward of the work. Zuckerberg maintains the mantra that is â€Å"done is better than perfect†(Careers at Facebook). They launched features before they are done. Facebook attempts to stay on the edge of technology, and is willing to risk flaws and imperfects to stay on the cutting edge. Facebook is â€Å"less afraid of making mistakes than we are of losing opportunities†(Careers at Facebook). This shows McCleland’s need for achievement. Facebook strives to be on the cutting edge of technology and be the first to develop new features for the site. With each new update to Facebook, they have achieved a new goal while continuing to improve on the site. Facebook does not let anything get in the way of a deadline to stay on top. Five IMPORTANT LESSONS MARK ZUCKERBERG TAUGHT US ABOUT Business Lesson 1: Be passionate about what you do If there is any way to create something that hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people will eventually use on a daily basis, you better be sure to create something that you would have passion and dedication in creating. The aforementioned isn’t exactly a revelation to anyone, but if you are not genuinely interested in what you are creating, why would anyone else be? They wouldn’t. It’s a serious problem for many entrepreneurs of both young and old. Mark Zuckerberg, however, is one of the most prominent examples in recent history of someone who has the passion. Not only did he care about his project, but he also turned down billions of dollars in order to let his company thrive. Lesson 2: Constant evaluation There are generally two types of people in business: those who prefer to play it by gut instinct and those who analyze every little measurable detail.  Both have their pros and cons; having a mix of both couldn’t hurt. Generally a person gravitates towards one or the other. Mark Zuckerberg is the analyzer. Zuckerberg always insisted that his employees create powerful analytics dashboards. Their purpose was simple: allow him and fellow employees to gauge the interest in newly released features to coordinate their global domination. While other companies were still figuring out which advertisements could be placed at which spot and generate the most return, Facebook focused on optimizing the performance of the user experience. He wanted to know which features worked and which did not. Lesson 3: Be willing to experiment In Facebook’s infancy, its founder preferred to push out enhancements and never look back. This is, admittedly, easy to do when you have a few thousand users; they expect things to change at a rapid clip. But Facebook was different. People relied on Facebook in more ways than most other websites — it was a service that connected people to each other. At this point, failure is unacceptable. Still, Zuckerberg preferred the gung ho method of development. He would regularly introduce new features — adding the â€Å"Wall,† introducing chat functionality, allowing third-party development, and changing the site’s layout. Lesson 4: Be aware of opportunity Before Facebook, there was CourseMatch, an application that allowed students at Harvard University to compare their course selections for that semester. With this, Zuckerberg indulged students’ desires to know which classes their friends were joining. He exploited an opportunity. Facemash was a similar expereince. It was Harvard’s Hot or Not for students. These students were interested in knowing where they stood socially — in some ways, we all do. And Zuckerberg, once again, saw an opportunity to exploit this as well. It isn’t magic. But it does require looking at things in a different way — to see things for what they could be, as opposed to only what they have been or currently are. Zuckerberg’s ability to notice these opportunities and execute on them gave him the edge in creating and maintaining products that  people believed in. Opportunity exists everywhere — especially with the Internet, where the ability to reach millions is easier than ever. Perhaps there is so much opportunity out there that, perhaps, we have become ignorant to spot the most obvious of opportunities. But being able to spot opportunity is an invaluable skill. Lesson 5: Make something useful Facebook isn’t simply another interesting website to visit every once in a while. It is a tool that millions of people use to connect to each other. People use it for sharing experiences and creating new ones. Most importantly, Facebook does something that no other website has been able to do as efficiently, effectively, and with such impressive scale: it creates a virtual environment to interact with your real friends. The 600 million plus members tells us how famous Facebook is. Yet it is this usefulness that makes the company a success. It is a recurring theme that all successful companies build upon. It is also something that many startups don’t seem to comprehend. Explaining what makes a product or service useful is simple: it is something that people are using repeatedly and on a regular basis. So the lesson to learn is, make something which is a everyday use thing, just like Zuckerberg did. Conclusion In order to conclude, we can say that Mark has emerged and evolved as an Employee Centered CEO, with a democratic style. He has come a long way to reach this stage with bringing a lot of changes in him. When it comes to personality traits, without any doubt his strongest trait would be his openness to experience and the willingness to always try something new which in result, has kept Facebook on the top among all other social media sites.

Friday, January 10, 2020

Managerial Accounting Notes

Accounting chapter 7 managerial accounting Exercises Lambert Fabrication, Inc. , uses activity-based costing data for internal decisions. The company has the following four activity cost pools: Activity Cost PoolAnnual Activity Producing units5,000 machine-hours Processing orders1,000 orders Customer support200 customers OtherNot applicable The â€Å"Other† activity cost pool consists of the costs of idle capacity and organization-sustaining costs. The company traces the costs of direct materials and direct labor to jobs (i. . , orders). Overhead costs—both manufacturing and non-manufacturing—are allocated to jobs using the activity-based costing system. These overhead costs are listed below: Indirect factory wages$100,000 Other manufacturing overheadS200,000 Selling and administrative expense$400,000 To develop the company's activity-based costing system, employees were asked how they distributed their time and resources across the four activity cost pools. The results of those interviews appear below: Results of Interviews of EmployeesDistribution of Resource Consumption Across Activities Producing Processing Customer UnitsOrdersSupportOtherTotals Indirect factory wages40%30%10%20%100% Other manufacturing overhead30%10%0%60%100% Selling and administrative expense0%25%40%35%100% a. Using the results of the interviews, carry out the first-stage allocation of costs to the activity cost pools. Producing Processing Customer UnitsOrdersSupportOtherTotals Indirect factory wages $ S S $ SOther manufacturing overhead Selling and administrative expense.. Total overhead cost $$ $___ ___ $ $__ ____ Chapter 7 b. Using the results of the first-stage allocation, compute the activity rates for each of the activity cost pools. (Activity rates are not computed for the â€Å"Other† activity cost pool because these costs will not be allocated to products or customers. ) Computation of Activity RatesActivity Cost Pools Total CostTotal ActivityActivity Rate Producing units $ machine-hours $ per machine-hour Processing orders $ orders $ per order Customer support $ customers $per customer c. Data concerning one of the company's products are listed below: Product W562 Selling price$100 Annual sales (units)1,000 Direct materials per unit$24 Direct labor per unit$6 Machine-hours per unit1. 5 Orders processed80 Using the activity rates you derived in part (b) above and the above data, compute the total amount of over ¬head cost that would be allocated to product W562.Overhead Cost of Product W562 Activity Cost PoolsActivity RateActivityABC Cost Producing units$per machine-hourmachine-hours$ Processing orders$per orderorders Customer support$per customerNot applicable Total $__________ d. Using the data developed above for product W562, complete the following report. Product Margin—Product W562 Sales$ Costs: Direct materials$ Direct labor Producing units Processing orders ________ Product margin $_______________

Thursday, January 2, 2020

Christianity The Old Testament And The New Testament

Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of their lord and savior Jesus Christ. Christianity was founded by Jesus of Nazareth in ancient Palestine under Roman rule in the first century CE. Christianity has about two billion adherents and is ranked first in size compared to the other religions. Christians spread their beliefs throughout many countries. For example, churches were built in major cities in Palestine, Turkey, Greece, Rome, and the whole Roman Empire by the end of the 4th century. Christianity’s sacred text is the holy bible which was written by forty prophets and messengers of God and the text reads the events that occurred through Jesus’s life and his idea of what is right or wrong in the world. The Christians sacred text the holy bible is a unified text. It has the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament is foundational: the New Testament build on that foundation with further revelation from God. The Old Testament has many prophecies that are fulfilled in the New Testament. The Old Testament focuses more on the history of a person while the New Testament focused on the person himself. In the Old Testament it states more of God’s wrath against sin, the New Testament shows more grace God gives towards sinners. The New Testament is what many people know because it’s where many things are revealed for example in the Old Testament a Messiah was predicted and the New Testament reveals who that Messiah is.Show MoreRelatedChristianity And The New Testament1311 Words   |  6 PagesChristianity is a religion that is based on the life experiences and teachings of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. Christianity is the largest religion on Earth, with over two billion followers which are called Christians. Jesus is believed to be the Son of God and the Savior of Humanity who is coming as Christ in the flesh which is prophesized in the Old Testament. Christian’s profession of faith is that Jesus suffered for everyone, died and was buried in the tomb, and was resurrected from theRead MoreComparing Islam And Baha I And Islam1264 Words   |  6 PagesIt’s incredible how two religions can be so different yet so similar. Whether it be the various branches of Christianity, the Chinese religions, or even Judaism and Islam, they have so much in common when you work down to the roots of the religions. For starters, I will be comparing Islam and Baha’i. Part of the reason that Baha’i and Islam are so similar is because Baha’i gets its start from some of the base beliefs of Islam. Some of the similarities between the two are the fact that both haveRead MorePlatos Belief that the Human Soul is Immortal1297 Words   |  6 Pagesthe Trinity Doctrine was born out of Plato’s triad. The Goodness is God; the ideas are Jesus; and the World-Spirit is the Holy Spirit. All were the same theory except reshaped in order to fit into Christian doctrine. While the divine aspects of Christianity are obviously derived from Plato’s theories, it is also important to discuss human nature – more specifically the idea of the immortal soul. Plato believed in the idea that the human soul is immortal and returns to the Goodness once freed fromRead MoreThe Discovery Of The Traditional Orthodox Form Of Christianity939 Words   |  4 Pagesperception of knowledge and was considered to be a heresy that was condemned by those who followed the traditional Orthodox form of Christianity. In the second century the movement of Gnostic Christianity occurred; it is also referred to as a Christian sect (Carus). Though people viewed Gnostic Christianity as a sect, it has never been denied that Gnosticism is older than Christianity and the relation and importance between the two groups have never been acknowledged (Gnostic Discoveries). Since the discoveryRead MoreChristianity And The Holy Trinity955 Words   |  4 Pages â€Å"Within the co vers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.† (Quotes About Christianity) This quote is from Ronald Regan, and I think it is a good representation of Christianity. Christianity is centered on the teachings and life of Jesus of Nazareth which is found in the Bible. Along with the teachings of Jesus, Christians believe in the Old Testament, that has biblical records that date back to 1500 B.C.E.. Some of these beliefs include the Holy Trinity, salvation, afterlifeRead MoreThe United States Of The Bible1536 Words   |  7 Pagesis comprised of the 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 books in the New Testament. A man by the name of Marcion is believed to have rendered the first canon of the Bible. Though he grew up in a Christian home, and is perhaps one of the most influential and impactful men to walk the earth, Marcion is also considered one of the most reviled heretics. So much so, he was excommunicated from the church because his teachings departed f rom traditional Christianity. His teachings were radical, and causedRead MoreThe Differences Between Judaism And Judaism888 Words   |  4 Pagesthe major religions of the world today, he or she might come to the conclusion that Christianity and Judaism standout as the most similar. Founded by Abraham, Judaism is the oldest of the world’s monotheistic religions that eventually led to the development of the two most dominant, monotheistic religions: Christianity and Islam. While Judaism found its beginning through God’s covenant with Abraham, Christianity originated through the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. JustRead MoreAnalysis Of The Poem The Storm On The Galilee 1656 Words   |  7 Pageshis oil paintings of biblical scenes from the Old Testament. Christ in the storm on the Galilee is an oil painting done by Rembrandt, which depicts one of the most important moments in the old testament. Not only is it mentioned before the crucifixion of Christ, but also after his resurrection. In order to understand how Christ was seen and the significant moments of the old testament, the Sea of Galilee needs to be investigated. In the Old Testament, it was called the Sea of Chinnereth that JesusRead MoreChristianity Presentation719 Words   |  3 PagesChristianity Presentation REL/134 Professor Pringle Chagoll Buhl Christianity Presentation Overview ââ€" ª What is Christianity ââ€" ª Christianity Beliefs ââ€" ª What is Nontraditional ââ€" ª Nontraditional Beliefs ââ€" ª Summary ââ€" ª Reference What is Christianity? Christianity[note 1] is an Abrahamic, monotheistic[1] religion based on the life and oral teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament. Christianity is the world s largest religion,[2][3] with about 2.4 billion adherents,[4][5][6] knownRead MoreA Comparison Of The Tanach And Bible1380 Words   |  6 Pagesbetter. A sacred text is what a religion believes is holy and authoritative. Religious texts show its followers what to do in worship, daily living and conduct. While Christianity and Judaism have numerous similarities because of the mother-daughter link, differences still exist. The sacred text for Judaism is the Tanach while for Christianity the Bible is used. This essay will explore the structure of each sacred text, the type of literature is in each canon, authorship of the text and how it is used