Coke Ethical Issues - 4934 Words

Coke Ethical Issues Our product is quite healthy. Fluid replenishment is a key to health. Coke does a great service because it encourages people to take in more and more liquids. - Michael Douglas Ivester, Coke’s Chairman and CEO. Public schools are funded by the public to educate the children as provided by state law. It is totally inappropriate that its facilities and employees are being used by corporations to increase their own profits on public time and with public dollars. Dr. Brita Butler-Wall, Executive Director, Citizens Campaign for Commercial-Free Schools, US. THE RECALL On June 13, 1999, Coca-Cola[1] (Coke) recalled over 15 million cans and bottles after the Belgian Health Ministry announced†¦show more content†¦_______________________________ [1] Coca-Cola, based in Atlanta, US, is the world’s largest soft drinks company. [2] These soft drinks were bottled by Coke’s bottlers which were not owned directly by the parent company. [3] Thomas Donaldson, professor of legal studies at Wharton and Director of the Wharton Ethics Program, in an interview with Knowledge@Wharton. BACKGROUND NOTE Dr. John Pemberton, an Atlanta-based pharmacist, developed the original formula of Coke in 1886. It was based on a combination of oils, extracts from coca leaves (cola nut) and various other additives. The ingredients were refined to create a refreshing carbonated soda. Pemberton’s bookkeeper, Frank Robinson, suggested that the product be named Coca-Cola. He even developed a way of lettering Coca-Cola in a distinctively flowing script. On May 8, 1886, Coke went on sale for the first time in the Joe Jacobs Drug Store. The first Coke advertisement appeared in The Atlanta Journal on May 29, 1886. Pemberton, with modest help from several investors, spent $73.96 on advertising, but was able to sell only 50 gallons of syrup at $1 per gallon. The product slowly gained acceptance after a heavy outpouring of free sample drinks. In 1888, after Pemberton’s death, Asa Candler, Pemberton’s friend and a wholesaler druggist purchased a stake in the company. Coke sales soared even without much advertising and asShow MoreRelatedEthical Issues Faced By Coke And Pepsi1247 Words   |  5 PagesContents Introduction: 1 Issues face by Coke and Pepsi: 1 Your Analysis: 2 The stake holders: 2 Top management: 2 Consumers: 2 Government: 2 My perspective: 2 Your recommendations. 3 Conclusion: 3 References: 4 Introduction: This case about Coke and Pepsi in India has been really interesting for me. I belong to Pakistan which is somewhat same kind of market as like India. This case focuses on ethical issue in host country and conflict management by multinational companies. Coca-Cola and PepsiCoRead MoreCoca-Cola Company901 Words   |  4 PagesWhy do you think Coca-Cola has had one ethical issue to resolve after another over the last decade or so? There is not single crisis situation for Coca-cola over last decade . The organization has been questioned in different areas of its operations from product to the relationship with workers . It has been facing allegations of misconduct and its questionable behaviour. Contaminated Product This is one of the most serious and frequent problem of Coca Cola products . In the case itRead MoreThe Effects Of Social Media On Coca Cola1387 Words   |  6 PagesIntroduction If you asked 10 followers on Twitter if they prefer Coca-Cola or Pepsi 9 out 10 would probably say Coca-Cola. This paper will explore social media presence for The Coca- Cola Company. Why do people drink Coke? Why is Coke so popular? Questions such as these will be answered throughout this strategy recommendation project. This paper will discuss the current effects of social media and how Coca-Cola should use social media to their advantage. Social media is an amazing entity for companiesRead MoreCoca Cola Ethical Issues Essay1246 Words   |  5 Pagesbased on the number of ethical issues that Coca Cola has had within the past decades. The company has been accused of a number of unethical behaviors that had to do with the safety of their products, financial issues, also a contamination scare in 1999, and issues based on their competition. They were also accused of racial discrimination, distribution of additional goods being sent out to suppliers before the quarter ended, also kno wn as channel stuffing. Other ethical issues Coca-Cola had were exhaustionRead MoreCoca Col The World s Largest Beverage Company884 Words   |  4 Pagesbrands namely Coke, Diet Coke, Fanta, and Sprite† (Ferrell, et al, 2013, p. 309). Over the years Coca-Cola has remained ahead of Pepsi, its main competitor. In 2006 however, Pepsi moved ahead of Coca-Cola by focusing on snack food and innovative strategies in the non-cola beverage market (Ferrell, et al, 2013, p. 309). The reputation of Coca-Cola has not only been among its customers but also among employees and potential employees. Coca-Cola also focuses on social responsibility issues such as educationRead MoreSocial Responsibility Of Coca Cola Essay1597 Words   |  7 Pagesâ€Å"Have a Coke and a Smile† â€Å"A Coke is a Coke, and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same, and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.(Andy Warhol, 1975) Regardless of its corporate reputation, the organizational performance and its social responsibility of Coca-Cola makes it loved around the world. Ever since its creation in 1886 Coca-Cola has been a householdRead MoreCoca Cola And Its Social Responsibility1093 Words   |  5 Pagesin the beverage industry, which ignited the â€Å"cola wars† with the company’s top competition PepsiCo. with Coca-Cola controlling 45 percent of the global soft drink market; Coca-Cola’s most famous brands include: Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, Powerade, Dasani water and Fanta with Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite and Fanta being four of the top five leading soft drinks. At the peak of Coca-Cola’s reign, an estimated $ 1 billion of their products were consumed daily. In 2006, Coca-Cola lost it’s top position to PepsiCoRead MoreEthical Issues With Ethical Marketing Essay1333 Words   |  6 PagesIssues with Ethical Marketing Ethical problems in marketing starts with conflicts and disagreements. Each party in the marketing transaction brings expectations of how the business relationship will exist and how the transaction should be conducted. Some ethical problems in marketing research aren’t always the invasion of privacy and stereotyping. Selective marketing is used to discourage the demand from undesirable markets or just by disenfranchising them altogether. Examples of unethical marketRead MoreCoca Cola Company Struggles With Ethical Issues Essay1502 Words   |  7 Pages The coca-cola company struggles with ethical issues Name Institution Coca-cola boasts of being the world’s largest beverage company serving approximately one billion customers daily. The most dominant products distributed by Coca-cola are Coke, Fanta, Sprite and Diet Coke. This strategy is aimed at ensuring that every customer gets satisfied whenever they use a Coca-cola brand. Coca-cola has large distributions across the globe making it the largest distributor in the world. The late Roberto GoizuetaRead MoreCase Analysis : Burger King834 Words   |  4 Pagesexecutives at Coke decided to go forward with he marketing studies because at first Pepsi had waged a bidding war to try to seize Coke’s customers and at that time Coke’s fountain sales were flat and they tried to prove that there is a chance to increase their sales who tried to gain the investment of Burger King 2. Burger king for one was affected, the Coke’s employees, marketing consultant, Mr. Berryman, the mystery shoppers, Robert Bader, as well as Matthew Whitley 3. The consequences Coke experienced

Persuasive Essay On Drug Testing - 927 Words

Recently, there has been a claim that people should be forced to take a drug test before receiving financial assistance from the government. In the United States, some people across the country are failing drug tests. This means that they are tested for having illegal drugs. This is bad for the country because this could lead to death and being arrested. So the government is seeking to make these people have immediate drug tests so they can â€Å"crack† this problem open. In the state of Tennessee, they passed a law to test people for drugs. As stated in Text 2, â€Å"Six months after rolling out a controversial law to test people for drugs who are applying for public benefits, only 37 of more than 16,000 applicants have tested positive for†¦show more content†¦In Text 3, welfare became more useful and popular to American society. As stated in Text 3, â€Å"Welfare is a social contract between the people in need and those providing for them.† (Text 3, lines 21-22). What does welfare have to do with drug tests? Drug tests would ensure that responsibility becomes upheld by those receiving assistance. This gives a connection to welfare and drug tests. A second connection is that people take drug tests in order to meet the standards for jobs or companies. It would also be given because it was the law. There are tons of people who must take drug tests like athletes, colleges, even the military. According to Dr. Pollack of the Substanc e Abuse Policy Research Program, he quotes, â€Å"Psychiatric disorders (most notably depression and PTSD) are more prevalent amongst welfare recipients than drug use, though he also reports that 20% of welfare recipients admit to recent use of illicit drugs,† (Text 3, lines 35-38). Mandatory drug tests could also provide medical care to people who are ill. As stated in Text 3, â€Å"Mandatory testing would not only hold welfare recipients to the same standard as everybody else, but it also would perform a critical service as a means of assistance for those suffering from psychiatric disorders, medical disorders, and/or abuse problems,† (Text 3, lines 41-44). Drug tests are doing very good in the state of Utah. According to the title of Text 4, Utah’s drug testing had saved more thanShow MoreRelatedPersuasive essay against animal testing764 Words   |  4 Pagesï » ¿Persuasive Essay against Animal Testing Abraham Lincoln once said, â€Å"I am in favour of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.†Ã‚  I couldn’t agree more with this statement as I do not believe that animal testing is right and I am totally against it. One of the main reasons I am against animal testing is the fact that the animals don’t have a choice and are being forced to be tested, which can lead to them getting seriously ill or dying as a cause of theRead MoreStem Cell Research1022 Words   |  5 PagesPersuasive Essay Many controversial and moral stricken issues have been put into question in todays modern society. Some of which include gay marriage, and abortion. Yet one of the most controversial has to be stem cell research. A Stem Cell is a generic cell that can make exact copies of itself indefinitely. It also has the ability to make specialized cells for various tissues in the body such as the heart muscle, brain and liver. But why exactly is stem cell research so controversial? WellRead MoreIs There A War On Drugs?949 Words   |  4 PagesSom Altena Ms. Van dyke Sun Nov, 30 Persuasive essay Is this really a war on drugs? Is this really a war on drugs? 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Men Are More Likely to Commit Crime Than Women Free Essays

Criminal commitment is one of serious problem in society. There is a question that crime is committed by more men or women. Some people think that women are considered as higher rate in criminals than men. We will write a custom essay sample on Men Are More Likely to Commit Crime Than Women or any similar topic only for you Order Now In contrast, others, including me, are in favor of contrary opinion. The first reason is that men are usually quick-tempered. When, problems happen, instead of discuss gently to find out measures, men frequently talk loudly and beat others. For example, if an accident occurs, men are often furious. They also use rough word to talk. Thus, they possibly hit each other easily. Male self-esteem is quite high, too. Men, due to a little lack of respect from other people, will be angry easily. Additionally, men always want to be respected and admired by other people. They are proud of themselves and want that others also appreciate them. They find many ways to prove themselves. They do special or strange things to attract attention. They let others know that they have ability, power and strength. Many hackers just hack website because of simple reasons, such as demand in showing competence Finally, men are the backbones of families. They have to shoulder great responsibility. One of them is finance. Men are more likely need to find jobs which can help their families pay living expenses. However it is not easy. Consequently, they may earn money by illegal ways, such as: fraud, robbery, smuggling†¦ In some case, men commit crimes accidently. When their family is damaged by others, they are forced to fight in order to protect their family. There are quitter a lot of case that as a consequence of self-defense, men commit manslaughter. Concluded, men are easier becomes criminals than women because of their personality and responsibility. How to cite Men Are More Likely to Commit Crime Than Women, Papers

Ready Mix Concrete Essay Example For Students

Ready Mix Concrete Essay ASSIGNMENT CONSTRUCTION METHODS AND TECHNOLOGY READY MIX CONCRETE SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY: PROF. SACHIN JAIN SONABH DHARIWAL VARUN GOEL INTRODUCTION: Ready-mix concrete is a type of concrete that is manufactured in a factory or batching plant, according to a set recipe, and then delivered to a worksite, by truck mounted transit mixers. This results in a precise mixture, allowing specialty concrete mixtures to be developed and implemented on construction sites. The first ready-mix factory was built in the 1930s, but the industry did not begin to expand significantly until the 1960s, and it has continued to grow since then. Ready-mix concrete is sometimes preferred over on-site concrete mixing because of the precision of the mixture and reduced worksite confusion. However, using a pre-determined concrete mixture reduces flexibility, both in the supply chain and in the actual components of the concrete. Ready Mixed Concrete, or RMC as it is popularly called, refers to concrete that is specifically manufactured for delivery to the customers construction site in a freshly mixed and plastic or unhardened state. Concrete itself is a mixture of Portland cement, water and aggregates comprising sand and gravel or crushed stone. In traditional work sites, each of these materials is procured separately and mixed in specified proportions at site to make concrete. Ready Mixed Concrete is bought and sold by volume usually expressed in cubic meters. RMC can be custom-made to suit different applications. Ready Mixed Concrete is manufactured under computer-controlled operations and transported and placed at site using sophisticated equipment and methods. Concrete’s natural color is gray. Its favored uses are utilitarian. Its very ubiquity causes it to blend into the background. But ready-mix concrete does have one remarkable characteristic: other than manufactured ice, perhaps no other manufacturing industry faces greater transport barriers. The transportation problem arises because ready-mix concrete both has a low value-to-weight ratio and is highly perishable—it absolutely must be discharged from the truck before it hardens. These transportation barriers mean ready-mixed concrete must be produced near its customers. For the same reason, foreign trade in ready-mixed concrete is essentially nonexistent. This article is an introduction to the basics of the market for ready-mix concrete, focusing mainly on its consumers and its producers in the United States, but with occasional comparisons to other countries when contrasts are useful. INDUSTRY HISTORY AND BACKGROUND: Ready-mixed concrete’s ubiquitous use as a building material is largely because of two advantages. It is cheap. It also allows great diversity in design and function, because in its fluid form, it can be poured into molds of any shape. Concrete’s weakness, quite literally, is that while it is reasonably strong when bearing compressive (pushing) loads, it is an order of magnitude weaker in its ability to bear tensile (pulling) forces. Concrete was regularly used as a building material throughout the twentieth century, but when the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association was founded in 1930, only a handful of ready-mixed plants operated in the United States. The standard practice at the time was for construction firms to mix their own concrete at the job site using bagged cement and aggregates the contractors purchased themselves. (This practice remains common in developing countries. ) However, with the wartime industrial and government building during the 1940s and the housing and highways building boom that followed, demand for ready-mixed rose sufficiently to take advantage of the scale economies of specialized offsite concrete mixers. By 1958, the first year in which the industry was considered a separate four-digit manufacturing industry in the Standard Industrial Classification system, there were 3,657 ready-mixed concrete plants. Since that time, the industry has continued to grow, albeit with occasional recessionary setbacks. Over the past 30 years, the industry has been shifting from one dominated by single-plant firms to one where multi-plant operations are becoming increasingly common. In 1958, about 3,100 firms owned the 3,657 ready-mixed plants. By 2002, the number of industry plants had increased to 5,570, but the number of industry firms had fallen below 2,600 (U. S. Census, 1963 and 2006a). This consolidation is reflected in the industry concentration measures seen in Table 1. In 1958, the largest four firms in the industry accounted for only 4 percent of output, and the largest 50 firms a mere 21 percent. The analogous values for 2002 were respectively 11 and 42 percent, still low compared to most manufacturing industries, but substantially higher than earlier values. However, these national concentration measures understate concentration within individual geographic markets, which because of the high transportation costs of concrete, better reflects the competitive environment industry producer’s face. A TYPICAL READY-MIXED CONCRETE PLANT: The manufacturing process for ready-mixed concrete can be crudely analogized to making mud pies, except a typical batch of â€Å"batter† weighs 20-40 tons and the output is delivered to customers in $150,000 vehicles. The plants where these pies are made are typically Spartan affairs, even as manufacturing facilities go. They include facilities for handling raw materials, usually including steel cement silos (cement must be protected from moisture in the air, lest it harden prematurely), open piles of aggregate (sand, gravel and rock) sorted by size, a pay loader and conveyor system for moving aggregate, and a water source. There is also often a structure with limited office space and rooms that house controls for the batcher—the equipment that weighs and feeds the various ingredients into the mixing bin. The bin sits n an elevated structure to allow drivers to pull the mixer trucks, which are the other key pieces of capital equipment found at ready-mixed plants, underneath for loading. Numbers from the 2002 Census of Manufactures, the latest for which comprehensive data are available, offer a sense of the economic scale of a typical ready-mixed plant. The average value of raw materials inventory on hand at a plant was $81,000. The average book value of its capital stock (both structures and e quipment) was $2. million, and mean annual sales were $3. 9 million. This typical plant had 18 employees, 14 of whom were considered production workers (which include truck drivers). FIRM STRUCTURE: Construction industry was benefited by Ready-mix Concrete right from its inception during the late 40’s. This technology has since then grown in a big way in Europe and USA, consuming more than 60% of the cement produced. In the coming years, Ready-mix Concrete industry in India is likely to consume more than 5% of the cement produced. Despite the industry’s move toward consolidation, hundreds of ready-mixed firms are still single-plant operations. In 1997, the most recent year for which such data were available, these producers accounted for 44 percent of industry plants and 80 percent of its firms. Ready-mixed concrete plants, whether in single-plant firms or not, are usually highly specialized. Plants in the industry fabricate few precast concrete products; despite similarities in precast concrete’s production process and that the ultimate buyers in the construction industry are often the same. Well over 90 percent of ready-mixed plant revenues come from ready-mixed sales, meaning single-plant firms in the industry derive the vast majority of their revenues from their primary product. Plants making prefabricated concrete products are similarly specialized in those products, with less than 10 percent of their revenues accounted for by ready-mixed sales (U. S. Census Bureau, 2006b). Multi-plant firms with ready-mixed concrete operations tend to be more diversified, but their diversification comes through owning plants in other industries. These can be prefabricated concrete operations, cement plants, or sand and gravel mines. In 1997, about half of the ready-mixed plants that were owned by multi-unit firms were owned by firms that also operated plants in other industries besides ready-mixed concrete. Thus, diversification among larger firms is not universal, since the other half of plants in multi-unit firms are owned by businesses that are ready-mixed specialists. TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE: The basic process for making ready-mixed concrete has not changed for the past 60 years: dry raw materials are measured, loaded into a bin, mixed, placed into a truck, and water is added (sometimes the order of the last two steps is interchanged). The modest technological advances that have occurred in the industry have come in five areas. The first change is automated batching systems. Batching—the process of weighing and mixing the raw materials before they are loaded on the truck—was once a manual operation. An operator would mechanically control the hopper gates that regulated the flow of raw materials into the central mixing bin, weighing each component while proceeding, often by eye on an analog scale. Automated batching systems, where an operator inputs the â€Å"recipe† for a ready-mixed batch into an electronic control system that handles the weighing and mixing operations automatically, began diffusing through the industry during the late 1970s and early 1980s. A second change is the substantial increase in the capacity of concrete trucks. A 1953 standards publication described certified mixing trucks ranging in capacities from 2. 5 to 7. 5 cubic years (National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, 1953), with standard capacities at the time being 3. 0 to 4. 0 cubic yards. Today, the typical truck capacity is 10 cubic yards, with some able to carry as many as 12. However, because a cubic yard of concrete weighs approximately two tons, the gross weight of a fully-loaded 12-yard truck could be upwards of 38 tons. This comes close to states’ legal limits, which are uniformly 40 tons (some allow overages with a special permit, but most do not have exceptions when the cargo is divisible like concrete). A third change is a continuing expansion in the variety of chemical admixtures that can be added to a concrete batch to affect its properties in useful ways. For example, admixtures can affect workability (how easily the concrete can be formed into shapes), curing times, color, porosity, and other attributes. This flexibility in the physical attributes of the final product has increased the range of uses of ready-mixed concrete. A fourth change involves improvements in logistical coordination gained through the move toward centralized delivery dispatch. Ready-mixed concrete producers are not just manufacturers, they are logisticians: they deliver, typically on short notice, a perishable product to time-sensitive buyers in multiple locations. Owning several plants in a local area and coordinating their deliveries through a central office offers potential productivity gains by consolidating overhead (one dispatcher handles deliveries from several plants that would each have their own dispatcher in single-unit firms) and allowing more efficient use of available resources through cross-plant substitution of production and deliveries. Hortacsu and Syverson (2007) find evidence of these productivity gains among ready-mixed plants whose owning firms are vertically integrated into cement. Non production workers account for a lower fraction of employment at these plants, consistent with a reduction in overhead labor from moving to central dispatch. Firms’ plant location choices also reflect attempts to harness such efficiency benefits. For example Lafarge (2005), an integrated cement and concrete producer, states in its 2004 20-F filing that, â€Å"We aim to place our ready mix concrete plants in clusters in each micro market in which we operate in order to optimize our delivery flexibility, capacity and backup capability. 3 While Hortacsu and Syverson look specifically at vertically integrated firms, the findings suggest that the logistical efficiencies do not rely on vertical structure per se. What appears instead to be important is the total size of the firm’s ready-mixed operation in the local market. That is, while plants in vertically integrated firms are more productive on average than unintegrated plants in the same market, they do not have signi ficantly different total factor productivity levels than plants in unintegrated firms with similar local concrete sales. Coordination and its possible efficiency gains are therefore not exclusive to vertically integrated firms, but rather are available to any firm with the necessary scale (and the operational ability to manage such operations). A final technological advance affected the concrete industry, although it actually occurred for the most part outside of the industry. Concrete pumps are used to place concrete on a job site by pumping it through tubes suspended from a boom. These concrete pumps are typically owned and operated by construction contractors or specialty firms, rather than by the ready-mixed producer. Pumps allow virtually uninterrupted placement of concrete and make it easy to change the location where concrete is poured. (The alternative process is to load bucket after bucket with wet concrete, move the buckets one load at a time into place with a crane, and pour the contents into the mold. ) Certain admixtures mentioned earlier increase the flow ability of wet concrete, improving pumping performance. Pumping is limited in practical terms only by the power of the pumps, which can be quite large. The 92-floor Trump Tower in Chicago, for instance, is being built with the help of a 680-horsepower concrete pump able to lift 3,000 pounds 1,000 feet in one minute (Sleets and Klaxton, 2006). ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS: Ready-mixed concrete plants can emit both waterborne and airborne pollutants. The former include spilled oil or fuel, as well as fine and coarse particles of aggregates and cement, which can be inherently detrimental as well as raise the alkalinity of runoff water to toxic levels. Airborne emission concerns primarily involve dust from the concrete mixing process itself or from trucks driving on unpaved portions of plants. Plants typically monitor potential pollutants and control them as required. Runoff water is often captured in settling ponds that allow solids to be separated before the water is either discharged or recycled. Dust is controlled by hooding mixing facilities and either paving or occasionally spraying-down unpaved areas of the plant. THE NATURE OF DEMAND: This section discusses factors that influence ready-mixed concrete demand: who the customers are, how one might define a market within the industry, the nature of the product, and its common substitutes. Ties to Local Construction The ready-mixed industry’s fortunes are closely tied to the level of activity in the construction sector. The sector buys the vast majority of ready-mixed output: 94 percent, according to the 2002 Benchmark Input-Output Tables. Bureau of Labor Statistics annual employment data over 1973 to 2005 show a simple correlation of 0. between the employment growth rates of the ready-mixed concrete industry and the construction sector. The combination of the industry’s high transport costs and its reliance on the construction sector imply that the ready-mixed â€Å"market† is not a singular, nationwide unit, but instead a collection of quasi-independent local geographic markets. Data from the 2002 Commodity Flow Survey indicate that the average s hipment distance for the detailed product category of which ready-mixed comprises the majority of shipments (â€Å"no refractory mortars and concretes†) is only 32 miles. By way of comparison, the average distance for all commodities is 546 miles. The basic demand conditions faced by ready-mixed producers in any given local market therefore depend on how robust construction activity is in that same market, not elsewhere. Moreover, this variation in market demand is likely to be exogenous to the nature of competition among local ready-mixed concrete plants. This is because construction projects require intermediate materials from a wide array of industries, making the cost share of ready-mixed small. Looking at the 2002 Benchmark Input-Output Tables again, ready-mixed concrete accounted for only 3 percent of the construction sector’s intermediate materials costs. Therefore a shock to the competitiveness of the local ready-mixed industry (that lowers average concrete prices, say) is unlikely to cause a construction boom. Causation thus travels from construction demand to concrete competitiveness, not in the reverse direction. Relationship Capital Ready-mixed concrete is physically quite homogenous. While concrete can be differentiated along some dimensions (like compressive strength or cure ime) by varying the cement-to-water ratio or including chemical admixtures, these differentiations are minor in scope relative to those seen within many manufacturing industries (automobiles or household audio and video equipment, for instance). Moreover, the differentiation in attributes of concrete output across plants is likely to be smaller still. Because of transport constraints, ev ery plant typically produces the entire spectrum of ready-mixed concrete varieties, rather than some plants specializing in certain types of concrete and others in different types. Space Exploration EssayThe capacity of the silo may range from 50-500 tonnes. Cement/ Fly-ash is pumped into the silo for refilling. The typical picture of a central mixer is shown in Fig-2 3 MATERIAL STORAGE YARD: Fig-5 A material storage is used for storing coarse aggregates(20mm, 10mm, 5mm), fine aggregates(river sand, crusher sand). Generally this is an open yard having separations for each materials. Wooden planks steel plates are used as separating material. A layer of PCC is poured at the base to prevent material wastage as well as mixing of undesirable materials from the soil. It is also elevated to prevent the ground water from mixing. The size of the storage yard should be sufficient to fulfill the requirement as per the batching plant capacity. Sometimes the storage yard may be a closed yard from which the materials may be transported through a belt conveyor to ensure better quality. The material should be properly laid in the yard so that it ensures easy flow of material from the yard to the auto weight through the gates. A loader is generally placed near the storage yard for the re-arrangement of materials. The typical picture of a central mixer is shown in Fig-6 CENTRAL MIXER : pic] Fig-6 A central mixer is one of the main component of a batching plant. Its function is to mix the materials properly to prepare the proper grade of concrete. The capacity ranges from . 5-3 m3 per batch. After mixing, it discharges the concrete into the transit mixer. The mixing time for concrete may range from 30-60 seconds per batch. There are blades inside the mixer fo r proper mixing of te concrete. The typical picture of a central mixer is shown in Fig-5 The aggregates are put in the mixer by the auto weight. The water and the admixture is pumped into the mixer by means of pipes connected to the mixer. There is also another pipe connected with the mixer from which the pumped cement comes in the end for mixing. Type of mixers: †¢ Single shaft mixer †¢ Twin shaft mixer. †¢ Vertical mixer. AUTO WEIGHT: Fig-7 An auto weight is used for weighing the materials. The gates are connected with the auto weight from which the material is flown into. The auto weight is connected with the central mixer in which it places the material. OPERATING UNIT: Fig-8 The operating unit is used to drag the materials near the gate by a drag-line. A boom is there which moves over the materials and the unit is generally a human operated system. AUTO GATES: Fig -9 MOISTURE CONTROLLER: Fig-10 ADMIXTURES: Fig-11 WATER PUMPING SYSTEM: Fig-12 CONTROL PANEL Control panel controls all the parts of RMC plant. It increases the workability of the plant. It is situated at the control panel room which monitors all the functions. It increases the accuracy of the concrete mix which in turn shows in the strength. Moisture content can also be controlled by the control panel. Different mode of mechanical transportation of concrete is †¢ Transit Mixer †¢ Concrete pump and pipeline. †¢ Tower crane †¢ Ropeways or cableways †¢ Belt conveyors TRANSIT MIXER: pic] Fig-13 Fig-14 Ready-mixed concrete, by far the most common form of concrete, accounts for nearly three-fourths of all concrete. Ready mixed refers to concrete that is batched for delivery from a central plant instead of being mixed on the job site. Each batch of ready-mixed concrete is tailor-made according to the specifics of the contractor and is delivere d to the contractor in a plastic condition, usually in the cylindrical trucks often known as cement mixers. As early as 1909, concrete was delivered by a horse-drawn mixer that used paddles turned by the carts wheels to mix concrete en route to the jobsite. In 1916, Stephen Stepanian of Columbus, Ohio, developed a self-discharging motorized transit mixer that was the predecessor of the modern ready-mixed concrete truck. Development of improved ready-mixed trucks was hindered by the poor quality of motor trucks in the 1920s. During the 1940s, the availability of heavier trucks and better engines allowed mixing drum capacities to increase, which in turn allowed ready-mixed concrete producers to meet the high demand for concrete that developed as a result of World War. In case of RMC industries since the demand is spread over a larger geographical area, transit mixers are invariably used for transportation of concrete. Transit mixers are truck mounted drum mixers in which concrete is kept agitated by the continuous rotation of the mixer drum. The transit mixer needs to have a water tank. Speed of rotation of mixer will depend on whether it carries ‘central mixed’ or ‘Transit mixed’ concrete. Function of Transit mixer varies from a mixer in case of transit mix concrete to an agitator in case of central mixed concrete. Depending on function, speed of the drum varies from 2 to 6 rpm for ‘Central mixed’ concrete to 4 to 16 rpm in case of ‘Transit mixed concrete’. Maximum no. of rotation is usually limited to 300. In RMC industry, fleet of transit mixer form a major portion of capital investment. For balancing a capital of 60 to 80m? /day of concrete production, at least 4 transit mixers are required. Generally the time of transit after addition of water is limited to 60-80 minutes. In India transit mixers are being extensively used by project sites having batching plants for concrete production. Manufacture of transit mixers in India is licensed. Mixers of 2. 5 to 7. 0 cum capacity are now available on order. An important consideration is the matching of payload of 3. 0 to 4. 0 cum of concrete i. e. 10 tonnes including the weight of the mixer with a standard chassis of trucks available. While a 10 tonner chassis is common, anything above this calls for change in axial load, traffic restrictions and huge price differential. The annual production capacity is around 50. A concrete pump can be advantageously used in conjunction with RMC. Deployment of a concrete pump would however mean an additional investment of at least Rs. 0 lakhs. The RMC plant in charge should be conversant with operations research techniques for optimum utilization of transit mixers. Fig 15 RMC PLANT TRANSIT MIXER CYCLE CONCRETE PUMP PIPE LINE Fig 16 A concrete pump is a tool for transferring liquid concrete by pumping. There are two main classifications of concrete pumps. The first type of concrete pump is attached to a truck. It is known as a truck-mou nted boom pump because it uses a remote-controlled articulating robotic arm (called a boom) to place concrete with pinpoint accuracy. Boom pumps are used on most of the larger construction projects as they are capable of pumping at very high volumes and because of the labor saving nature of the robotic arm. The second main type of concrete pump is mounted on a trailer, and it is commonly referred to as a trailer pump or line pump. This pump requires steel or rubber concrete placing hoses to be manually attached to the outlet of the machine. Those hoses are linked together and lead to wherever the concrete needs to be placed. Trailer pumps normally pump concrete at lower volumes than boom pumps and are used for smaller volume concrete placing applications such as swimming pools, sidewalks, and single family home concrete slabs. There are also skid-mounted and rail mounted concrete pumps, but these are uncommon and only used on specialized jobsites such as mines and tunnels. TOWER CRANE Fig 17 A crane is a lifting machine, generally equipped with a winder (also called a wire rope drum), wire ropes or chains and sheaves, that can be used both to lift and lower materials and to move them horizontally. It uses one or more simple machines to create mechanical advantage and thus move loads beyond the normal capability of a human. Cranes are commonly employed in the transport industry for the loading and unloading of freight, in the construction industry for the movement of materials and in the manufacturing industry for the assembling of heavy equipment. BELT CONVEYORS Fig 18 A belt conveyor consists of two or more pulleys, with a continuous loop of material the conveyor belt that rotates about them. One or both of the pulleys are powered, moving the belt and the material on the belt forward. The powered pulley is called the drive pulley while the unpowered pulley is called the idler. There are two main industrial classes of belt conveyors; Those in general material handling such as those moving boxes along inside a factory and bulk material handling such as those used to transport industrial and agricultural materials, such as grain, coal, ores, etc. generally in outdoor locations. Generally companies providing general material handling type belt conveyors do not provide the conveyors for bulk material handling. In addition there are a number of commercial applications of belt conveyors such as those in grocery stores. The belt consists of one or more layers of material they can be made out of rubber. Many belts in general material handling have two layers. An under layer of material to provide linear strength and shape called a carcass and an over layer called the cover. The carcass is often a cotton or plastic web or mesh. The cover is often various rubber or plastic compounds specified by use of the belt. Covers can be made from more exotic materials for unusual applications such as silicone for heat or gum rubber when traction is essential. Material flowing over the belt may be weighed in transit using a beltweigher. Belts with regularly spaced partitions, known as elevator belts, are used for transporting loose materials up steep inclines. Belt Conveyors are used in self-unloading bulk freighters and in live bottom trucks. Conveyor technology is also used in conveyor transport such as moving sidewalks or escalators, as well as on many manufacturing assembly lines. Stores often have conveyor belts at the check-out counter to move shopping items. Ski areas also use conveyor belts to transport skiers up the hill. A wide variety of related conveying machines are available, different as regards principle of operation, means and direction of conveyance, including screw conveyors, vibrating conveyors, pneumatic conveyors, the moving floor system, which uses reciprocating slats to move cargo, and roller conveyor system, which uses a series of powered rollers to convey boxes or pallets. TESTING LABORATORY One of the main features of RMC is uniform and assured quality of concrete. Also the mix is to be designed to produce concrete of desired properties. This calls for the RMC plant to have full fledged concrete testing laboratory of its own. The testing laboratory should have the following equipment. 1. Concrete cube testing machine 2. Apparatus for sieve analysis 3. Moulds for casting standard cubes 4. Table vibrator 5. Tank for curing cubes 6. Vicat`s apparatus 7. Slump cone 8. Weigh balance All necessary tests to ascertain the properties of ingredients are conducted in the laboratory. Various grades of concrete mixes are designed by usual mix design procedure. For each consignment, concrete cubes are made and tested to keep a a check on quality of concrete produced. This will also fulfill the mandatory requirement of concrete testing as laid down by the municipal bodies. NEW METHOD OF PRODUCTION OF RMC A new method for the recycle of sludge generated at ready-mixed concrete plant has been reported at present. This method is able to apply sludge water by adding a retarder for mixing water, without the amendment of mix proportion of concrete due to the use of sludge water, within 3% of sludge content by cement weight since ready mixed concrete made by this method was applied for a building construction. The growth of RMC is predominantly driven by demand from the metro cities. In cities like Mumbai, the mandatory use of RMC is in construction of flyovers provided the requisite impetus to growth, according to an ICRA analysis. RMC is particularly useful when the building activity is located in congested sites where little space is available for siting the mixer and for stock piling of aggregates. The use of RMC is also advantageous when only small quantities of concrete are required or when concrete is to be placed only at intervals. Even as the concept of ready-mix concrete (RMC) is still catching up in the country, cement majors are keenly focusing on entering the new area in a big way. Anticipating huge potential for the product, cement majors, including Associated Cement Companies, Grasim, LT, India Cements, Priyadarshini Cements, Chettinad Cement and Madras Cements, are foraying into the RMC business and the share of RMC is expected to go up from present levels of around 5 per cent of the total cement production to the global average of 70 per cent, according to industry players. The teething troubles has been overcome by the RMC Industry and at present there are over 37 RMC plants delivering over one lakh cubic metres of mixed concrete every month. RMC plants are working in Delhi area also. Envisaging higher demand, the 16. 4-million tonne cement major, ACC is planning to beef up its existing RMC infrastructure of 11 units with two new RMC units one at Noida and the other in Mumbai, during the current year. During the last fiscal, Madras Cements set up two RMC plants near Chennai, with a capacity of approximately 9 lakh cubic metres, while Chettinad Cements installed an RMC facility near Coimbatore. Grasims RMC business accounted for a turnover of Rs 116 crore during 2003-04, against a turnover of Rs 59. 8 crore during the previous year. For growth of the industry, government bodies, private builders, architects/engineers, contractors, and individuals required to be made fully aware about the advantages of using ready mix concrete, government bodies/consultants needs to include ready mix concrete as mandatory in their pecification for execution, government specifications for CPWD and PWD jobs should include Ready mix concrete as a mandatory item. Apart form this tax breaks are required for the growth of RMC and developers/contractors needs to be discouraged from piling up materials likemetal, sand etc. on roads/foot paths. metal, sand etc. on roads/foot paths. CONCLUSION: The concept of RMC is catching up in the country and the demand for this is increasing day by day. Anticipating this huge demand for the product many construction majors are entering in to the RMC business. So the growth rate is expected to rise from the current rate. Still then the product needs more improvement which requires more research and development. Now a days more compact and efficient RMC plants are introduced by various companies which will ensure more productivity and economy which will help in fulfilling the present market demand. ADMIXTURES WATER READY MIX CONCRETE 10 MM AND 20MM CRUSHED METAL CRUSHED/ RIVER SAND FLY ASH SILO CEMENT SILOS

19th-Century Military History

19th-Century Military History The documentation of military history begins with the battle near Basra, Iraq, circa 2700 B.C., between Sumer, now known as Iraq, and Elam, called Iran today. Learn about wars of invasion, revolutions, wars of independence, and others, and track the guideline below to learn more about military history. Military History February 9, 1801 - French Revolutionary Wars: The War of the Second Coalition ends when the Austrians and French sign the Treaty of Lunà ©ville April 2, 1801 - Vice Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson wins the Battle of Copenhagen May 1801 - First Barbary War: Tripoli, Tangier, Algiers, and Tunis declare war on the United States March 25, 1802 - French Revolutionary Wars: Fighting between Britain and France ends with the Treaty of Amiens May 18, 1803 - Napoleonic Wars: Fighting resumes between Britain and France January 1, 1804 - Haitian Revolution: The 13-year war ends with the declaration of Haitian independence February 16, 1804 - First Barbary War: American sailors sneak into Tripoli harbor and burn the captured frigate USS Philadelphia March 17, 1805 - Napoleonic Wars: Austria joins the Third Coalition and declares war on France, with Russia joining a month later June 10, 1805 - First Barbary War: The conflict ends when a treaty is signed between Tripoli and the United States October 16-19, 1805 - Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon is victorious at the Battle of Ulm October 21, 1805 - Napoleonic Wars: Vice Admiral Nelson crushes the combined Franco-Spanish fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar December 2, 1805 - Napoleonic Wars: The Austrians and Russians are crushed by Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz December 26, 1805 - Napoleonic Wars: The Austrians sign the Treaty of Pressburg, ending the War of the Third Coalition February 6, 1806 - Napoleonic Wars: The Royal Navy wins the Battle of San Domingo Summer 1806 - Napoleonic Wars: The Fourth Coalition of Prussia, Russia, Saxony, Sweden, and Britain is formed to fight France October 15, 1806 - Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon and French forces defeat the Prussians at the Battles of Jena and Auerstdt February 7-8, 1807 - Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon and Count von Bennigsen fight to a draw at the Battle of Eylau June 14, 1807 - Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon routs the Russians at the Battle of Friedland, forcing Tsar Alexander to sign the Treaty of Tilsit that effectively ended the War of the Fourth Coalition June 22, 1807 - Anglo-American Tensions: HMS Leopard fires on USS Chesapeake after the American ship refused to be allowed to be searched for British deserters May 2, 1808 - Napoleonic Wars: The Peninsular War begins in Spain when the citizens of Madrid rebel against French occupation August 21, 1808 - Napoleonic Wars: Lt. Gen. Sir Arthur Wellesley defeats the French at the Battle of Vimeiro January 18, 1809 - Napoleonic Wars: British forces evacuate northern Spain after the Battle of Corunna April 10, 1809 - Napoleonic Wars: Austria and Britain begin the War of the Fifth Coalition April 11-13, 1809 - Napoleonic Wars: The Royal Navy wins the Battle of the Basque Roads June 5-6, 1809 - Napoleonic Wars: The Austrians are defeated by Napoleon at the Battle of Wagram October 14, 1809 - Napoleonic Wars: The Treaty of Schà ¶nbrunn ends the War of the Fifth Coalition in a French victory May 3-5, 1811 - Napoleonic Wars: British and Portuguese forces hold at the Battle of Fuentes de Oà ±oro March 16-April 6, 1812 - Napoleonic Wars: The Earl of Wellington lays siege to the city of Badajoz June 18, 1812 - War of 1812: The United States declares  war on Britain, beginning the conflict June 24, 1812 - Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon and the Grande Armà ©e cross the Neman River, beginning the invasion of Russia August 16, 1812 - War of 1812: British forces win the Siege of Detroit August 19, 1812 - War of 1812: USS Constitution captures HMS Guerriere to give the United States the first naval victory of the war September 7, 1812 - Napoleonic Wars: The French defeat the Russians at the Battle of Borodino September 5-12, 1812 - War of 1812: American forces hold  out during the Siege of Fort Wayne December 14, 1812 - Napoleonic Wars: After a long retreat from Moscow, the French army leaves Russian soil January 18-23, 1812 - War of 1812: American forces are beaten at the Battle of Frenchtown Spring 1813 - Napoleonic Wars: Prussia, Sweden, Austria, Britain, and a number of the German states form the Sixth Coalition to take advantage of Frances defeat in Russia April 27, 1813 - War of 1812: American forces win the Battle of York April 28-May 9, 1813 - War of 1812: The British are repulsed at Siege of Fort Meigs May 2, 1813 - Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon defeats Prussian and Russian forces at the Battle of Là ¼tzen May 20-21, 1813 - Napoleonic Wars: Prussian and Russian forces are beaten at the Battle of Bautzen May 27, 1813 - War of 1812: American forces land and capture Fort George June 6, 1813 - War of 1812: American troops are beaten at the Battle of Stoney Creek June 21, 1813 - Napoleonic Wars: British, Portuguese, and Spanish forces under Sir Arthur Wellesley defeat the French at the Battle of Vitoria August 30, 1813 - Creek War: Red Stick warriors conduct the Fort Mims Massacre September 10, 1813 - War of 1812: U.S. naval forces under Commodore Oliver H. Perry defeat the British at the Battle of Lake Erie October 16-19, 1813 - Napoleonic Wars: Prussian, Russian, Austrian, Swedish, and German troops defeat Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig October 26, 1813 - War of 1812:  American forces are held at the Battle of the Chateauguay November 11, 1813 - War of 1812: American troops are beaten at the Battle of Cryslers Farm August 30, 1813 - Napoleonic Wars: Coalition forces defeat the French at the Battle of Kulm March 27, 1814 - Creek War: Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson wins the Battle of Horseshoe Bend March 30, 1814 - Napoleonic Wars: Paris falls to coalition forces April 6, 1814 - Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon abdicates and is exiled to Elba by the Treaty of Fontainebleau July 25, 1814 - War of 1812: American and British forces fight the Battle of Lundys Lane August 24, 1814 - War of 1812: After defeating American forces at the Battle of Bladensburg, British troops burn Washington, D.C. September 12-15, 1814 - War of 1812: British forces are defeated at the Battle of North Point and Fort McHenry December 24, 1814 - War of 1812: The Treaty of Ghent is signed, ending the war January 8, 1815 - War of 1812: Unaware that the war has ended, Gen. Andrew Jackson wins the Battle of New Orleans March 1, 1815 - Napoleonic Wars: Landing at Cannes, Napoleon returns to France beginning the Hundred Days after escaping from exile June 16, 1815 - Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon wins his final victory at the Battle of Ligny June 18, 1815 - Napoleonic Wars: Coalition forces led by the Duke of Wellington (Arthur Wellesley) defeat Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, ending the Napoleonic Wars August 7, 1819 - Wars of South American Independence: Gen. Simon Bolivar defeats Spanish forces in Colombia at the Battle of Boyaca March 17, 1821 - Greek War of Independence: The Maniots at Areopoli declare war on the Turks, beginning the Greek War of Independence 1825 - Java War: Fighting begins between the Javanese under Prince Diponegoro and Dutch colonial forces October 20, 1827 - Greek War of Independence: An allied fleet defeats the Ottomans at the Battle of Navarino 1830 - Java War: The conflict ends in a Dutch victory after Prince Diponegoro is captured April 5-August 27, 1832 - Blackhawk War: U.S. troops defeat an alliance of Native American forces in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri October 2, 1835 - Texas Revolution: The war begins with a Texan victory at the Battle of Gonzales December 28, 1835 - Second Seminole War: Two companies of U.S. soldiers under Maj. Francis Dade are massacred by the Seminoles in the first action of the conflict March 6, 1836 - Texas Revolution: After 13 days of siege, the Alamo falls to Mexican forces March 27, 1839 - Texas Revolution: Texan prisoners of war are executed at the Goliad Massacre April 21, 1836 - Texas Revolution: The Texan army under Sam Houston defeats the Mexicans at the Battle of San Jacinto, winning independence for Texas December 28, 1836 - War of the Confederation: Chile declares war on the Peru-Bolivian Confederation, beginning the conflict December 1838 - First Afghan War: A British army unit under Gen. William Elphinstone marches into Afghanistan, starting the war August 23, 1839 - First Opium War: British forces capture Hong Kong in the opening days of the war August 25, 1839 - War of the Confederation: Following defeat at the Battle of Yungay, the Peru-Bolivian Confederation is dissolved, ending the war January 5, 1842 - First Afghan War: Elphinstones army is destroyed as it retreats from Kabul August 1842 - First Opium War: After winning a string of victories, the British force the Chinese to sign the Treaty of Nanjing January 28, 1846 - First Anglo-Sikh War: British forces defeat the Sikhs at the Battle of Aliwal April 24, 1846 - Mexican-American War: Mexican forces rout a small U.S. cavalry detachment in the Thornton Affair May 3-9, 1846 - Mexican-American War: American forces hold out during the Siege of Fort Texas May 8-9, 1846 - Mexican-American War: U.S. forces under Brig. Gen. Zachary Taylor defeat the Mexicans at the Battle of Palo Alto and the Battle of Resaca de la Palma February 22, 1847 - Mexican-American War: After capturing Monterrey, Taylor defeats Mexican Gen. Antonio Là ³pez de Santa Anna at the Battle of Buena Vista March 9-September 12, 1847 - Mexican-American War: Landing at Vera Cruz, U.S. forces led by Gen. Winfield Scott conduct a brilliant campaign and capture Mexico City, effectively ending the war April 18, 1847 - Mexican-American War: American troops win the Battle of Cerro Gordo August 19-20, 1847 - Mexican-American War: The Mexicans are routed at the Battle of Contreras August 20, 1847 - Mexican-American War: U.S. forces triumph at the Battle of Churubusco September 8, 1847 - Mexican American War: American forces win the Battle of Molino del Rey Septebmer 13, 1847 - Mexican-American War: U.S. troops capture Mexico City after the Battle of Chapultepec March 28, 1854 - Crimean War: Britain and France declare war on Russia in support of the Ottoman Empire September 20, 1854 - Crimean War: British and French forces win the Battle of Alma September 11, 1855 - Crimean War: After an 11-month siege, the Russian port of Sevastopol falls to British and French troops March 30, 1856 - Crimean War: The Treaty of Paris ends the conflict October 8, 1856 - Second Opium War: Chinese officials board the British ship Arrow, leading to the outbreak of hostilities October 6, 1860 - Second Opium War: Anglo-French forces capture Beijing, effectively ending the war April 12, 1861 - American Civil War: Confederate forces open fire on Fort Sumter, beginning the Civil War June 10, 1861 - American Civil War: Union troops are beaten at the Battle of Big Bethel July 21, 1861 - American Civil War: In the first major battle of the conflict, Union forces are defeated at Bull Run August 10, 1861 - American Civil War: Confederate forces win the Battle of Wilsons Creek August 28-29, 1861 - American Civil War: Union forces capture Hatteras Inlet during the Battle of Hatteras Inlet Batteries October 21, 1861 - American Civil War: Union troops are beaten at the Battle of Balls Bluff November 7, 1861 - American Civil War: Union and Confederate forces fight the inconclusive Battle of Belmont November 8, 1861 - American Civil War: Capt. Charles Wilkes removed two Confederate diplomats from RMS Trent, inciting the Trent Affair January 19, 1862 - American Civil War: Brig. Gen. George H. Thomas wins the Battle of Mill Springs February 6, 1862 - American Civil War: Union forces capture Fort Henry February 11-16, 1862 - American Civil War: Confederate forces are defeated at the Battle of Fort Donelson February 21, 1862 - American Civil War: Union forces are beaten at the Battle of Valverde March 7-8, 1862 - American Civil War: Union troops win the Battle of Pea Ridge March 9, 1862 - American Civil War: USS Monitor fights CSS Virginia in the first battle between ironclads March 23, 1862 - American Civil War: Confederate troops are defeated at the First Battle of Kernstown March 26-28, 1862 - American Civil War: Union forces successfully defend New Mexico at the Battle of Glorieta Pass April 6-7, 1862 - American Civil War: Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant is surprised, but wins the Battle of Shiloh April 5-May 4, 1862 - American Civil War: Union troops conduct the Siege of Yorktown April 10-11, 1862 - American Civil War: Union forces capture Fort Pulaski April 12, 1862 - American Civil War: The Great Locomotive Chase takes place in northern Georgia April 25, 1862 - American Civil War: Flag Officer David G. Farragut captures New Orleans for the Union May 5, 1862 - American Civil War: The Battle of Williamsburg is fought during the Peninsula Campaign May 8, 1862 - American Civil War: Confederate and Union troops clash at the Battle of McDowell May 25, 1862 - American Civil War: Confederate troops win the First Battle of Winchester June 8, 1862 - American Civil War: Confederate forces win the Battle of Cross Keys in the  Shenandoah Valley June 9, 1862 - American Civil War: Union forces lose the Battle of Port Republic June 25, 1862-   American Civil War: Forces meet at the Battle of Oak Grove June 26, 1862 - American Civil War: Union troops win the Battle of Beaver Dam Creek (Mechanicsville) June 27, 1862 - American Civil War: Confederate forces overwhelm the Union V Corps at the Battle of Gaines Mill June 29, 1862 - American Civil War: Union troops fight the inconclusive Battle of Savages Station June 30, 1862 - American Civil War: Union forces hold at the Battle of Glendale (Fraysers Farm) July 1, 1862 - American Civil War: The Seven Days Battles ends  with a Union victory at the Battle of Malvern Hill August 9, 1862 - American Civil War: Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks is defeated at the Battle of Cedar Mountain August 28-30, 1862 - American Civil War: Gen. Robert E. Lee wins a stunning victory at the Second Battle of Manassas September 1, 1862 - American Civil War: Union and Confederate forces fight the Battle of Chantilly September 12-15, 1862 - American Civil War: Confederate troops win the Battle of Harpers Ferry September 15, 1862 - American Civil War: Union forces triumph at the Battle of South Mountain September 17, 1862 - American Civil War: Union forces win a strategic victory at the Battle of Antietam September 19, 1862 - American Civil War: Confederate forces are beaten at the Battle of Iuka October 3-4, 1862 - American Civil War: Union forces hold at the Second Battle of Corinth October 8, 1862 - American Civil War: Union and Confederate forces clash in Kentucky at the Battle of Perryville December 7, 1862 - American Civil War: Armies fight the Battle of Prairie Grove in Arkansas December 13, 1862 - American Civil War: The Confederates win the Battle of Fredericksburg December 26-29, 1862 - American Civil War: Union forces are held at the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou December 31, 1862-January 2, 1863 - American Civil War: Union and Confederate forces clash at the Battle of Stones River May 1-6, 1863 - American Civil War: Confederate forces win a stunning victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville May 12, 1863 - American Civil War: Confederate forces are beaten at the Battle of Raymond during the Vicksburg Campaign May 16, 1863 - American Civil War: Union forces win a key victory at the Battle of Champion Hill May 17, 1863 - American Civil War: Confederate forces are beaten at the Battle of Big Black River Bridge May 18-July 4, 1863 - American Civil War: Union troops conduct the Siege of Vicksburg May 21-July 9, 1863 - American Civil War: Union troops under Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks conduct the Siege of Port Hudson June 9, 1863 - American Civil War: Cavalry forces fight the Battle of Brandy Station July 1-3, 1863 - American Civil War: Union forces under Maj. Gen. George G. Meade win the Battle of Gettysburg and turn the tide in the East

These Are the Hardest AP Classes and Tests for You

These Are the Hardest AP Classes and Tests for You SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Thinking of signing up for AP classes? Want the greatest possible challenge? Or are you trying to avoid biting off more than you can chew? In this post, we’ll explain what makes an AP class hard, list the hardest AP classes, and help you prepare for them. What AP Passing Rates Tell Us You might think that the best way to tell which AP classes are the hardest is to look at the national data about how many students pass each test each year. We’ll start our discussion here, but beware that the passing rates don’t automatically tell you which classes are hardest. Want to get a perfect 5 on your AP exam and an A in class? We can help. PrepScholar Tutors is the world's best tutoring service. We combine world-class expert tutors with our proprietary teaching techniques. Our students have gotten A's on thousands of classes, perfect 5's on AP tests, and ludicrously high SAT Subject Test scores. Whether you need help with science, math, English, social science, or more, we've got you covered. Get better grades today with PrepScholar Tutors. This a complete list of passing rates on each AP exam with the most recent (2019) data. Exam Name Passing Rate (3+) Studio Art: Drawing 91.1% Spanish Language and Culture 89% Chinese Language and Culture 88.3% Studio Art: 2-D Design 86.4% Calculus BC 81.5% Physics C: Electricity Magnetism 81.1% Seminar 80.7% French Language and Culture 76.7% Research 76.2% Japanese Language and Culture 75% Computer Science Principles 72.7% Spanish Literature 71.9% Physics C: Mechanics 71.1% German Language and Culture 70.5% Studio Art: 3-D Design 70.1% Computer Science A 69.9% Microeconomics 68.4% Gov. and Politics - Comparative 66.2% Biology 64.6% Italian Language and Culture 64.6% Psychology 64.4% Art History 63.9% Physics 2 63.5% Music Theory 63.4% Latin 63.1% Statistics 59.2% European History 58.4% Calculus AB 58.3% Macroeconomics 57.9% World History 56% Gov. and Politics - United States 55.2% English Language and Composition 55.1% Chemistry 54.6% United States History 54.3% English Literature and Composition 50.1% Environmental Science 49.6% Human Geography 49.1% Physics 1 44.6% Source: College Board. For language rates, "Total" includes all students, while "Standard" includes only those students who didn't indicate they speak this language at home or spent more than four weeks studying it abroad. You might be tempted to look at this table and say the tests with the lowest passing rates are hardest, and the ones with the highest passing rates are easiest. After all, if not many students can pass an AP test, doesn’t that mean it’s one of the hardest tests? But when you look at the data, the exams with the highest passing rates (Chinese, Spanish, Calculus BC) are often considered among the hardest. We're not including AP Seminar and the AP Studio Art scores in this assessment, since those grades are all portfolio-based, rather than exam-based. Meanwhile, some of the tests with the lowest passing rates (Human Geography, US Government and Politics, Environmental Science) are often seen as the easiest. So what’s going on here? The truth is, the national passing rates often say more about the students taking the exams rather than the exams themselves. Some of the exams with low passing rates have those low rates because they are often taken in freshman/sophomore year, while some of the exams with high rates have more stringent prerequisites at many high schools. This means that the harder exams tend to have older, better-prepared students taking them, which raises their pass rates. In short, we have to look beyond national passing rates when figuring out which tests are the hardest. A Possibly More Reliable Indicator: 5 Rate Since pass rates don’t actually tell us much, what about the 5 rate? Remember, a 5 is the highest possible AP score (read more about AP scores here). Shouldn’t we be able to find the hardest AP tests by looking at the exams with the lowest 5 rates? Below is a table with all the AP exams, this time ranked by the percentage of test-takers who got a 5. Exam Name 5 Rate Chinese Language and Culture 57.2% Calculus BC 43.2% Japanese Language and Culture 38.2% Physics C: Electricity Magnetism 35.9% Physics C: Mechanics 34.6% Computer Science A 27% Spanish Language and Culture 24.9% Microeconomics 22.2% Gov. and Politics - Comparative 22.2% Studio Art: 2-D Design 21% Music Theory 20.9% Studio Art: Drawing 20.8% Psychology 20.2% Calculus AB 18.9% German Language and Culture 18.4% Macroeconomics 17.6% French Language and Culture 15.5% Statistics 14.5% Computer Science Principles 13.6% Latin 13.1% Gov. and Politics - United States 12.9% Physics 2 12.6% United States History 12.1% Art History 12% Italian Language and Culture 11.8% European History 11.7% Research 10.8% Chemistry 10.7% Human Geography 10.7% English Language and Composition 10.1% Studio Art: 3-D Design 10.1% Environmental Science 9.5% Spanish Literature 9.1% World History 8.7% Biology 7.1% Seminar 6.8% English Literature and Composition 6.2% Physics 1 6.2% Source: College Board. For language rates, "Total" includes all students, while "Standard" includes only those students who didn't indicate they speak this language at home or spent more than four weeks studying it abroad. The 5 rate, in fact, a decent way to spot some difficult exams, including AP English Literature and Biology. They both have very low 5 rates (7.1 for Bio, 6.2 for English Lit). But on the flip side, a relatively easy exam, AP Environmental Science, has a low 5 rate of 9.5%. Furthermore, some decidedly hard exams, like Chinese, Calculus BC, and Physics C, have very high 5 rates- up to 57%+ for Chinese! In other words, just looking at 5 rates doesn’t tell the whole story, though some other articles have assumed that. This is why the best way to find the hardest AP exams is to focus on the ones with the most material to cover- as well as the most conceptually difficult topics, which we will do below. Disclaimer: Take Into Account Your School’s Variation Before we talk about which classes are the hardest, we want to clarify we mean the ones with the most difficult course material and hardest end-of-year exam. There is enormous variation in how the same AP class can be taught at different high schools, so we can't speak to the specific class difficulties at your high school. It may be there is an AP class at your school that is known as the most difficult since the teacher is really tough, even though nationally it might not be considered one of the easiest. Or maybe there is an AP class at your school most students see as a joke, even though the material is still very difficult. Since we can’t report on the specifics at different high schools, we are focusing on which classes have the most/hardest material to cover and have a reputation for difficulty at multiple schools. We’ll discuss below ways to explore how hard AP classes are at your school specifically so you can build an optimal schedule. Any AP class Professor McGonagall teaches would likely be super hard. Okay, Seriously, Which AP Classes Are the Hardest? United States History, Biology, English Literature, Calculus BC, Physics C, and Chemistry are often named as the hardest AP classes and tests. These classes have large curriculums, tough tests, and conceptually difficult material. We put together this list based on personal experience, online chatter, passing rates, 5 rates, and looking at their curricula in depth. We are not ranking these since their difficulty will vary quite a bit based on the student. For example, if you're a math whiz, Calculus BC will likely be easier than AP English Literature. But the opposite could be true for another student. But if you’re considering any of these, be prepared for a tough course! AP US History Even though most students are exposed to American History multiple times, beginning in elementary school, AP US History is still a very tough class. First of all, this is a harder history exam than AP World History or even AP European History, since it covers a narrower span of history and a smaller geographical area, meaning the curriculum is incredibly detailed. This means you can’t rely on general trends and observations like you can sometimes in World History- you have to know specific dates, movements, people, and laws. To take a small example, in a world history class, you might need to know that slavery ended in the United States during the Civil War. For a US history class, you would need to know the dates of the civil war, the exact year of the Emancipation Proclamation, and the dates and content of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. You would also be expected to know about the major leaders and law-makers involved. The more detail you can remember, the better! This is because APUSH is known for having a very difficult multiple-choice section that requires a very detailed knowledge of US History from the pre-Columbian era up to the present day. Also, the more concrete evidence you can include in your free responses, the better essay scores you will get. If you have a knack for history, this class will be easier for you, but most students report it’s very challenging. It’s also likely to be a hard class to pass at many schools because teachers have to assign tons of reading and assignments to get through all the material before the AP test in May. Expect a fast-moving, assignment-heavy course. You can read College Board's full description here. If you think this is a figure from American History, you might want to consider fitting AP US History into your schedule. AP Biology This is a tough class and test, any way you slice it. Even with the redesign back in 2012, which was meant to make AP Biology more accessible and less memorization-heavy, you still have to memorize tons of material for the test, everything from super detailed chemical processes (Krebs Cycle, anyone?) to cell biology to evolution. This means AP Biology teachers have to pack a ton onto their syllabi for this class, including time for experiments. The huge volume of info, coupled with the fact that Biology can be conceptually difficult, makes this a tough AP course. If you have taken a strong prerequisite Intro to Biology course, this test will be more manageable. Check out a full course description here to learn more. AP English Literature Along with AP US History, this is one of the hardest AP courses in the humanities. While AP English Language is also challenging, Literature requires reading texts that are generally more difficult. Compare, say, AP English Literature staple Crime and Punishment to a non-fiction article about the criminal justice system you might read in AP English Language. Crime and Punishment is much more difficult! AP English Literature also tests more specific rhetorical/literary terms and requires you to have a more fine-tuned ability to close read a passage. You’re not just looking for the overall argument or effect like you are in AP English Language. You have to go under the hood and explain in detail how a piece of literature works. Finally, for AP Literature, you have to come prepared to write one of the essays about a book or play you read in class, but you can't actually bring the book or play with you to the exam. This means you have to study what you read in AP Literature very closely. So closely that you could write about a book, and even use quotes from it, without having the book with you! SparkNotes summaries won't cut it. In short, expect a longer and harder reading list, tougher multiple-choice questions, and more accountability for what you read in class. You can read the full College Board description of the test here. AP Chemistry Similar to biology, chemistry has a ton of material, lots of memorization, and requires a solid conceptual understanding of complicated chemical processes. AP Chemistry is known at many high schools for having tons of homework and tough tests- all necessary for students to learn enough to pass the AP exam at the end of the year. Don't attempt AP Chemistry unless you have already taken an introductory chemistry course. It would be impossible to learn everything you need to know about chemistry for the AP exam in just one year. You can read AP’s full course description here. AP Physics C Physics C is especially tough because not only are you learning physics material, which can be hard, you also need to know calculus alongside it. While AP Physics 1 and 2 are algebra-based, both Physics C courses (Electricity Magnetism and Mechanics) are calculus-based, meaning students need to know calculus well enough to apply it in physics. Some consider it â€Å"two classes in one† due to the necessary calculus knowledge. Furthermore, the material tested in Physics C is much more in-depth than Physics 1 or 2 (or the old Physics B). Physics C courses go into a great amount of depth about a few topics, while Physics 1 and 2 cover many topics with less depth. So just as US History is harder than World History, Physics C is tougher than Physics 1 and 2 because you need a greater depth of knowledge. Because of this, you should definitely have a physics prerequisite under your belt before taking Physics C, and you should have either already taken calculus or be taking it at the same time. You can read about Physics C at the course home pages for Electricity and Magnetism and Mechanics. AP Calculus BC Finally, AP Calculus BC is the toughest AP math exam, if not one of the hardest AP exams period. AP Calculus AB is also challenging, but covers less material and moves more slowly. AP Calculus BC often covers everything taught in Calculus AB in just the first semester of school- revealing one reason why it’s so hard: intense pacing. You move fast in Calculus BC, which means you need to be prepared to keep up. There is not a lot of time to be lost in this class. If you struggle with a concept at the beginning of the year, it can make it harder to learn everything after that. In fact, if you find yourself struggling, seek out extra help from the teacher or a tutor as fast as you can so you don't fall behind. In some schools, Calculus BC requires an extra period in the day to fit in all the material before the AP exam. You also get into more conceptually difficult calculus topics than Calculus AB. In short, be prepared to work very hard and be vigilant about keeping up with the course. You can read College Board’s description here. Want to get a perfect 5 on your AP exam and an A in class? We can help. PrepScholar Tutors is the world's best tutoring service. We combine world-class expert tutors with our proprietary teaching techniques. Our students have gotten A's on thousands of classes, perfect 5's on AP tests, and ludicrously high SAT Subject Test scores. Whether you need help with science, math, English, social science, or more, we've got you covered. Get better grades today with PrepScholar Tutors. Note on Language AP Exams You may be wondering how hard the AP language tests are- after all, you can take AP tests in languages from Chinese to Spanish to French. The difficulty of these is a bit tougher to quantify, since AP Language exams test multiple years of learning a language, as opposed to one year of material. For students with tons of foreign language knowledge these can be incredibly easy exams. If you’ve lived abroad or are fluent in a language, the AP language test will not pose much of a challenge. (Some students who are native speakers of a language will even take an AP language exam!) But for students who have just been taking a language in school, these exams can be difficult, particularly the listening portions. So if you’re thinking about an AP Language class, think about how many years of past experience you have. For example, if you’ve taken French for four years, you’re probably well-prepared for AP French. But if you’ve only taken it for two years, you will probably struggle. Most schools have pretty stringent prerequisites for AP language classes for this reason. Action Steps If you want to take any of these classes, you need to get info about the class at your school. Although they are all objectively difficult, there can be huge differences in how the classes are taught and graded. Ideally, these classes should be taught by excellent teachers who can not just teach the material clearly, but include plenty of review and AP exam practice. You should also think about your own strengths and weaknesses, and how well a tough AP class will fit into your schedule. Even though all of these AP classes have tough material, the difficulty of the class might vary from school to school. The class itself could be incredibly difficult (lots of assignments, reading, and hard tests)- and you should be prepared for that. However, the class could also be easy (not very many assignments, easy tests), meaning you will have to put in a lot of work on your own to be ready for the AP test. Knowing what the class’s workload is like, and how that prepares you for the exam, is crucial to being prepared once May arrives. If the class is easy and you don't actually learn the material, you could fail the test despite getting good grades in the class. The bottom line here is that you’ll have to work very hard to succeed in any of these classes. But that work could come at the behest of a teacher or from your own willpower. If you don't think you're learning the material well enough in class to pass the test, consider getting a prep book and studying on your own in the second half of the year. Get Info About a Class To get info about an AP class, first talk to your guidance counselor. Ask for the class's syllabus, the class’s passing rate on the AP exam for the last few years, and what other students tend to say about the class. This will give you an idea of how well-taught a class is. Your guidance counselor can also recommend good prerequisite classes and teachers. Next, speak to the teacher if you can, or speak to a teacher you have who teaches the prerequisite class (for example, the Honors Biology teacher if you’re thinking about AP Biology). The teacher can give you a sense of what the workload is like, what they expect of their students, and how much work they expect students to do on their own. Finally, find out what the word of mouth for the class is at your school by talking to older students. Don't rely too much on any one person's opinion, because students can exaggerate, but look for general trends. For example, if everyone says that AP Biology is really hard but they learned a lot and passed the AP exam, that's a sign the class is worth taking. Think About Your Strengths If you tend to do well in a subject, you will likely do well in a corresponding AP class, even if it's one of the hard ones. For example, even though AP Biology is hard, if you’ve done well in previous science classes, have a knack for memorization and critical thinking, you might be better prepared for AP Biology than, say, AP European History, even though that’s not seen as one of the hardest AP classes. On the flipside, if you really struggle with something- like writing or math- you need to be extra careful about taking a tough AP class like AP English Literature or AP Calculus BC. We’re not saying to avoid those classes if you think you might have a hard time. We are saying to be prepared to spend lots of time studying! Think About Your Overall Schedule How well you do in a hard AP class could also depend on your schedule. For example, AP Biology might be more feasible your sophomore or senior year since you won’t be worrying about the ACT/SAT. However, if you take it junior year, you might have a hard time balancing ACT or SAT studying with the AP Biology class. Also consider other classes, your extracurricular commitments, work schedule, and family commitments before signing up for any of these AP classes. You don't want a tough AP class to overload an already busy schedule. Along the same lines, do not feel pressured to overload on AP classes in general. More is not necessarily better, even if there is pressure at your school to take 5 AP classes in one year. It’s better to get two 4s than four 2s! And it's better to take AP classes that are interesting and meaningful to you. What’s Next? Find out about the flipside of this discussion, the easiest AP classes. Also read about how many AP classes you should be taking total. Also studying for the ACT/SAT? Come up with a target ACT or SAT score based on your top schools. When’s the ideal time in your high school career to take the ACT/SAT? Find out here. Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points? We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

Article Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 7

Review - Article Example It provides a succinct description defining the features of single-subject research. It also explains the criteria for determining when single-subject results are appropriate for establishing evidence-based practices. Using the Scientific Merit Rating Scale to quantify the study, the writer would assign a rating of two. The study gives participants sufficient description to enable the comparison of characteristics such as disability, age, and gender. The research gives accords operational precision to dependent variables. Collection of data is on reliability and meets IOA levels of minimum standards. For instance, Kappa is 60 percent and IOA is 80 percent (NAC). The research design gives at least three experimental demonstrations at intervals of three points. It also provides replicable precision on baseline conditions. The dependent variables have social importance. The research provides operational precision to dependent variables. A procedure generates a quantifiable index for the measurement of every variable. One can also notice that measurement of dependent variables takes place repeatedly over time (Horner et al., 2005). There is validity of measurement of dependent variables. The writer can use the SMRS to rate the dependent measure at two. The study describes independent variables with replicable precision. Through the control of the experimenter, the study systematically manipulates independent variables. There is high desirability of overt measurement for the independent variable. The measurement relates to the fidelity of implementation of independent variables (NAC). The authors would give the study a SIRS rating of four because of an almost perfect implementation of basic procedures. Single-subject research has a sufficient description of individuals. The existence of few participants enables proper analysis of each one of them. One can compare individuals based on

Phenyl Thiocarbanate (PTC) Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based Research Paper

Phenyl Thiocarbanate (PTC) Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based genetic analysis of the PTC genotype using human-specific DNA primers - Research Paper Example Phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) also known as phenylthiorea (PTU) is an organosulfur thiorea that has phenyl ring (Karlsson, Et al., 2001). This chemical has a unique characteristic in that it tastes very bitter to some people or has no taste to other people (Woodings, 2012). PTC tasting is a genetically controlled ability to taste PTC and related substances, these have antithyroid activity (F.D. Kitchin, 1959). The PTC tasting ability is governed by a pair of alleles, dominant T for tasting and recessive t for non-tasting. People who have genotypes TT and Tt are tasters while those with genotype tt are non tasters. PTC tasting is determined by the level of dithiotyrosine in the saliva and this may be correlated to the dislike of plants in the Brassica genus among some people (M. Padmavathi, 2013). PTC is not found naturally, however, the ability to taste PTC correlates with the ability to taste other bitter substances that are found naturally. The PTC gene explains 85% of the total influe nce on whether a person is a taster or a non-taster, other factors such as having a dry mouth, explain the remaining 15% (HHMI, 2015). This explains why some people find some food too bitter to taste while other find this food not bitter at all.PTC has a unique characteristic because it tastes bitter to some people and has no taste to others. . PTC tasting is a genetically controlled ability to taste PTC and related substances that have antithyroid activity. Genotype refers to the genetic makeup or composition of an organism.

Business strategy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Business strategy - Essay Example merger of the Tarmac and Lafarge organizations in the UK may have been a noteworthy undertaking, yet this ought to shock no one given the measure of the portfolio and advantages of each company, their joined assets, and the different legacy products or services that they both needed to incorporate into one new organization. From the beginning, uniting the qualities of two of the UKs top and most powerful materials companies – Lafarge (with their quality in concrete items, solid concentrate on R&D and advancement) and Tarmac (with their national foot shaped impression and quality in totals, street contracting, and solid ethic of customer service) – was continually going to be a huge undertaking. According to Graham, Smart & Megginson (2012), merging of two major companies comes with its challenges as well as the benefit. Stahl & Mendenhall (2005) adds that merging is one of the business strategies that any company should consider as a means of improving its operations an d the market share. The joint venture company has established cognitive structures for present and future prosperity. Primarily, the two firms entered the venture to fulfill certain objectives, goals and vision. The daily business of the joint venture is usually mission. The mission for the venture is to be provide incomparable products and services in the construction field that are geared towards promoting safety and sustainable development. The mission motivates the company to provide solutions to various dilemmas experienced in the building and construction sector. In essence, the company’s activities are tailored towards achieving the already established mission. The merging of the two companies gave them an upper hand in the industry. The core competence of the company is a diverse workforce and sufficient infrastructure that facilitates quality production and transportation of materials from the production site to the required destination. That is, the company’s employees are

The Skin and Sensation Physiology

The Skin and Sensation Physiology The Skin and Sensation Physiology Introduction Skin is the largest organ of our body that protects us from microbes and helps to regulate our body temperature. It contains different kinds of sensory receptors that respond to variety of stimuli: mechanical, thermal and chemical. The general receptors of the body react to touch, pressure, temperature, pain and change of the environment. The encapsulated receptors which include free nerve endings may sense pain and temperature; Merkels discs, which sense light pressure and root hair plexuses that sense touch by the movement of the hairs. While the encapsulated receptors are enclosed in a capsule of connective tissue which are the Meisnner’s, Pacinian and Ruffini’s corpuscles. The density of skin receptors is greater in areas that are designed to sense our environment. These receptors convey the information to the CNS thus, any stimulus should be of threshold magnitude in order to detect. The sensory system have a limit of its sensitivity therefore, stimulus below minim um magnitude cannot elicit a response. The cutaneous receptors are scattered throughout the skin and the underlying fascia. These receptors are the mechanoreceptors, thermoreceptors, nocireceptors and proprioreceptors that are sensitive to a certain stimuli. Sensation is defined as a state of awareness of the internal and external environment. There are four criteria to be considered in order for a sensation to occur. First is the stimulus, the change in the environment in which we should be aware of. Next, there should be a receptor- a cell or organ which is sensitive to the stimulus. There must also have an afferent nerve pathway that will carry the signal to the CNS and lastly, there should be sensory cortex where the signals was analyzed and interpreted. Hence, this activity aims to demonstrate the sensation acuity using various models in tactile localization and adaption, to determine relative sensitivity of selected areas of the skin and to be able to understand the different features of sensation in relation to various stimuli, adaptation and after image phenomenon. Methodology Tactile Distribution: Two-point Sensibility Begin the test by asking the subject to close his eye. Using a vernier caliper, test the ability of the subject to differentiate two distinct sensations by setting the vernier caliper at the distance with points close together and gradually increasing one or two points until the subject has reached the sensation when the skin is touch simultaneously at two points. Record the distance in which the subject first felt the two-point threshold and repeat two trials for each body area listed below. Back of the neck or nape area Fingertip Forearm (supine position) Tip of nose Palm of hand Tongue Upper arm Thigh area Leg area Tactile Localization Begin the test by asking the subject to close his eyes. Using a pencil tip, touch the skin of the test subject until it leaves an indentation. Then ask the subject to locate the exact spot using the pencil tips. Measure the error of localization using the vernier caliper and repeat twice for each body location listed below. Observe the localization of improvement. Palm Fingertips Forearm (dorsal side) Forearm (ventral side) Lips Thigh region Touch Receptor Adaptation Begin the test by asking the subject to sit and close its eyes. Place a coin on the forearm (antecubital fossa) of the subject. Record the time of how long it takes until the sensation cease. Once the sensation has ceased, add coins of the same size and record the time of pressure sensation. Repeat the same procedure on the other forearm and compare the observations. Ask the subject to close his eyes. Using a pencil tip, run the tip over the strand of hair and slowly pulling it up until the hair spring away from the tip. Ask the subject in which the sensation is greater when the hair is being bend or when it springs back. Weber’s Law: Sensation Intensity Difference Begin the test by asking the subject to sit on a bench and place his hand on the arm rest with eyes close. Put the 2-inch square cardboard on the distal phalanges of his index and middle finger. Gradually add 10 gram weight in the cardboard and ask the subject if he felt the weight. After the subjects feel the weight, remove the cardboard unto the finger and add additional weight from 1 to 5 grams, until he felt the weight increases and compared it with the initial weight. Record the weight increment that produced an added weight sensation. Test other initial weights at 50, 100 and 200 grams and get the Weber’s fraction. Temperature Adaptation and Negative After-Image Prepare three 1000 ml beakers with ice water, water at room temperature and waterbath at 50oC and assign each container into cold, room temperature and warm water. Ask the subject to immerse each of his hand on the cold and warm water for two minutes. Record which hands adapts faster in the said temperature. Then rapidly immerse both hands in the waterbath. Describe the sensation on each hand. Referred Pain Ask the subject to place his elbow in ice water for 2-3 minutes. Are there any changes in sensation localization? Record your observation. Results Various models in tactile localization and adaptation were used on selected areas of the skin for the demonstration of sensation acuity and relative sensitivity of the skin. Also, various stimuli, adaptation and afterimage phenomenon were also applied to understand different features of sensation. The following tables show the results on each exercises performed in this activity. Table 1. Two-Point Sensibility. The table above displays the results taken from the tactile distribution procedure for the two point sensitivity of different areas of the skin. Each area was applied with tactile stimuli from the caliper tips and the distance was recorded once the person had made a distinction of two-points. For the head portion or medial part of the body, the nape area or the back of the neck, the tip of the nose and the tongue got a threshold of 10mm, 8mm and 4mm, respectively. For the upper extremities, the fingertip, the palm of hand, the forearm in supine position and the upper arm got a threshold of 2mm, 8mm, 31mm, and 34mm, respectively. Lastly, for the lower extremities, the thigh area and the leg area got a threshold of 32mm and 36mm, respectively. Out of the nine different areas of the body where the stimuli was applied, the fingertip is noted to be having the most sensitive area while the leg area is the least among them all. Table 2. Tactile Localization. The table above displays the results taken from the tactile localization procedure of different areas of the skin. Two trials were performed and their difference measures the error of localization on each area. The fingertips and the lips received no error of localization since the subject had pointed the exact location of the indentation twice. This amount of error was followed by the palm having an error of localization of 1mm since the subject had pointed the indentation from a distance of 6mm on the 1st trial and 5mm on the 2nd trial. This was then followed by the thigh area, the dorsal part of the forearm and finally the ventral part of the forearm having an error of localization of 5mm, 6mm and 16mm, respectively. Noticeably, the fingertips and the lips had the least error since it received no error at all as compared to the ventral portion of the forearm that had the most error of them all. Table 3.a. Adaptation of Touch Receptors. The table above displays the results taken from the touch receptors adaptation procedure applied on the right and left forearm. The subject had a coin placed on its forearm with the time recorded once it can’t feel the weight of the coin anymore. The right forearm’s distinction is 5.1 seconds for one coin and 9.3 seconds for doubled while the left forearm’s distinction is 4.5 seconds for one coin and 8.8 seconds for doubled. This shows that the subject’s left forearm adapts faster than its right forearm. The difference of time in distinction was measured through subtracting the seconds felt by the right forearm to the left forearm. Having doubled coin received a less difference of time in distinction than having a single coin since the recorded seconds are 0.5 seconds and 0.6, respectively. It is also noticeable that the sense of pressure is shorter when there is only one coin then, returned but got longer after the addition of coins. Table 3.b. Adaptation of Touch Receptors. (++) = felt most; (+) = slightly felt; (-) = not felt Another adaptation procedure was performed using the subject’s hair and the results are being shown on the table above. Its hair strand was bent and sprung back using a pencil tip. The subject responded that the sensation felt greater when the hair was sprang back and least when it was bent. Table 4. Sensation Intensity Difference. The table above displays the results taken from the sensation intensity difference procedure of the fingers using Weber’s Law. Different initial weights were given to the subject’s two fingers which response was recorded after adding additional weights for the intensity difference. The Weber’s fraction came from the quotient of the two weights as how the formula displays on the table above. It is noticeable that the 10g weight got the most Weber’s fraction of 0.3 as compare to the other three weights – 50g, 100g and 200g – that got the same 0.1 Weber’s fraction. Table 5. Temperature Adaptation and Negative After-Image. (+) = adapts faster; (-) = adapts slowly/not adapting The table above displays the results taken from the temperature adaptation and negative afterimage procedure of the two hands exposed on different temperatures. With hands in each beaker, the hand that is placed on warm water adapts faster than the ones in the cold water. When both hands were transferred onto the third beaker containing room temperature water, the ones exposed on cold water earlier adapts too slow – â€Å"like it had gone numb† as compare to the ones exposed on warm water earlier. Table 6. Referred Pain. (+) = present sensation felt; (-) = no sensation felt The table above displays the results taken from the referred pain procedure applied at the elbow and had affected the sensation of the arm. After the elbow was dipped on an ice water for 2 minutes, the subject responded that the sensation had a change in location. It was then recorded that the location of the sensation is now felt on the upper arm. Discussion Conclusion The skin, the largest organ of the body and its somatosensory system or touch system, allows the human body to perceive the physical sensations of pressure, temperature, pain, experience texture and temperature and perceive the position and movement of the bodys muscles and joints. Using various models and procedures, several accounts were recorded including the lips and fingertips as the most sensitive and the more intense weights and temperature as the slowest to be adapted. These are all due to the receptor cells found in the skin that can be broken down into three functional categories: mechanoreceptors that sense different ranges of pressure and texture, thermoreceptors that sense and detect changes in temperature, and nociceptors that sense pain ranging from acute and easy to tolerate to chronic and intolerable. Literature Cited Boundless. â€Å"Skin and Body Senses: Pressure, Temperature, and Pain.† Boundless Psychology. Boundless, 06 Oct. 2014. Retrieved 16 Jan. 2015 from https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/sensation-and-perception-5/sensory-processes-38/skin-and-body-senses-pressure-temperature-and-pain-165-12700/ Experiencing Sensation and Perception. Chapter 12: Skin Senses. Retrieved from January 17, 2015. Available at: http://psych.hanover.edu/classes/sensation/chapters/Chapter 12.pdf. Touch. Retrieved from January 17, 2015. Available at: http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/634/Touch.html