Political Factors And Legal Factors Marketing Essay

Political Factors And Legal Factors Marketing Essay Quality is a locally owned restaurant and fast food business. It is a medium size restaurant business which will be located in Dhaka which is capital of Bangladesh. Quality is discovered huge popularity in restaurant business according to Bangladesh current market. Quality is promised to offer best quality food to the customer. As a result Quality will put up their business by offering all kinds Chinese, Thai, Indian, traditional and fast food. It is constituted upon 4 partners with equal ownership. The target market will range from upper class to lower class customer. The market is demanding best product with affordable price so for that circumstance Quality will ensure that each every customer will receive best price and best product. Quality will follow up all the legal issue to register with national board of revenue (NBR). They are planning to keep some fund for corporate social responsibilities on their sales revenue. This business will initially recruit 25 part time and full t ime employees to run the business. Quality is raised available finance to use worth TK.5000000. And assuming to make gross profit margin 35% and it will lead to peak in coming days. 2.0. Business Description: 2.1. History and Background: Quality will be a medium size restaurant business which will be located in Dhaka which is capital of Bangladesh. The history of restaurant industry in Bangladesh not very long. The restaurant business industry is very competitive in terms of price, value, promotion, location. Quality will be a unique concept in Bangladesh. There are substantial number of restaurant is operating in Bangladesh that will compete with quality. There are few numbers of competitors exist in the current market what is called KFC (Franchise), Pizza Hut (Franchise) Nandos (Franchise) is leading the Bangladesh restaurant industry. That business has already coped the large number of market shares. In 2003 Pizza Hut and Kfc in 2006 was launched their business in the Bangladesh market. This is only DHAKA based supermarket chain. There is few more restaurant exist in current market such as BFC, FFC, Boomers, AW restaurant, Captain World. But they are not performing well in the current market to satisfy the custome r with their desire they keep failing to hold sufficient market share due to their strategic drift. But KFC and Pizza Hut will be a big challenge for Quality to compete. 2.2. Mission: Quality is promised to offer high quality food, good services with affordable price. To provide new job for the local community. To make fair profit for consumer. 2.3. Objectives: To make even in few months in setting up. To start making profit after few month times. To raise revenue year by year. To reserve some percentage of revenue for the corporate social responsibility. 2.4. Product and Services Description: Quality will provide quality product with excellent services to the customer. Quality will focus not only on single product based retail business but also verities of products. These are as follows: Chinese food Thai food Indian food Traditional food and Fast food 2.5. Supplier information: Supplier has defined as key factor for a business to improve their buying organization. All the suppliers should base on quality; reliability, on time delivery and the performance of produced which directly influenced to satisfy the customer with affordable price, Product availability with customer desire. Quality will make relationship with several supplier to hold their product quality and price control and supply chain includes most of them are from Bangladesh and few of them from Africa. In restaurant sector major suppliers of fresh produce in Bangladesh is SMEs. Therefore Quality is planning to collaborate with SME (Approximately SME have 70 suppliers in bakery, fast food, vegetables, beef, and chicken. There are few more such as Shiblee hatchery farms will provide all types of traditional food. 2.6. Business Ownership: There are different types of business which is discussed by( lonhnecker, 2010) which is brand new business, take over running business, franchise and family business. Therefore quality will be a new business which is not exists in the market for retail services. The suitable ownership in start- up business may depend on owner determination regarding business profitability, risk and competitive advantages and value of business according to (foss and lien, 2010). There are three types of business those are sole traders, partnership and corporation. Quality will follow partnership business strategy. Partnership business will help in sharing capital between partners, more flexibility to run the business, shared responsibility, easy to make decision. This business will consist with four partner .Every partner will share 25% capital. 3. Business opportunity: 3.1. Target market segmentation: The target market segmentation usually can be segmented on the basis of customer characteristics. These are follows: Geographic ( includes country, region, counties, customer density, climate) Demographic (includes age, gender, life-cycle, income, social class) Psychographic ( degree of loyalty, occasions, interest and hobbies) 3.1.1. Geographical segmentation: The perfect place of quality to do business in Dhaka city because people are gathered there from every corner of the country as well as outside of the country where the people passing at Least 20 hours in a day. Quality has a opportunity from the large number of workforce, good communication for delivering raw materials to other branch. The best place quality looks near the school, shopping centre and the corporate offices. Most of the student who are just finished class feels hungry and starved looks for nearest fast food or restaurant around them. And people love shopping  and go out with their family, quality will look for getting that customer. People who work in the office they may look for lunch or dinner. 3.1.2. Demographic: Quality is targeting people all round of the city such as all aged people (10-64) years, low income , middle Income, high income people . Quality  concern to launch their product with thinking those kinds of consideration. Because different age people have different food criteria to eat.   Example most school student aged 15 years has attraction to fast like burgers , fries , ice-cream etc because of their taste preference even though. They will not be able to pay that sum of money; they usually get allowance from their parents. Middle age people in Bangladesh are becoming hectic day by day   they probably go out with their family to have lunch or dinner therefore they prefer rice and curry so quality need to develop their menu according to those consideration . 3.2. Competitors analysis: Some potential business thinks to get on with their own plans. Some business think to analyse their to help management their competitive advantages and disadvantages. Also to understand competitors present, past, forecasting business strategies. Quality focus on their key competitors KFC and nandos both are located in Dhaka city and they their main competitors in that industry .Competitors analysis are as follows: Table: 1 Content Competitors 1 ( KFC) Competitors 2 ( pizza hut) Location Dhaka , Bangladesh Dhaka ,Bangladesh Established date September, 2006 in Bangladesh May, 2003 in Bangladesh Strength High brand equity High business growth Large amount of cash flow from franchise. Available capital reserve to expand the business World wide recognition High brand equity Specialized in Pizza Restaurant services and delivery services Good reputation Weakness Sales margin decline Labour turnover due to lack of opportunity High obligation from parents company Only based on chicken product Unplanned pricing Based on pizza services High overhead cost Unplanned pricing Focused on same ingredients in everywhere Opportunity Market leadership due to high brand equity Targeting all aged people Interacting with good suppliers New market leadership Introducing with new ingredients Opportunity to reduce the price to make it more affordable Threat Threat from other competitors in that industry Significant change in customer demands New rules and regulation impose by government Threat from other competitors in their revenue Changing in customer demands New government policies Market share Covering 40% in Bangladesh Covering 36% in Bangladesh 3.3. PESTEL Analysis: 3.3.1. Political factors and Legal factors: Political factors defines as government stability, taxation policy, introducing new law and regulation by the government,(Henry , 2008) .The political is regulated by elected government .The political issues in Bangladesh is much viable than the last decades to establish a new business. Elected government usually impose the new policy according to their election agenda. Bangladesh government is planning to launch some very effective scheme for the new investor with decreasing value added tax, business tax, income tax. There is also a legal issue which would affect quality such as new employment law, increasing minimum wages. 3.3.2. Economics Factors: Economics factor which affects on the running of the business activities.   It is undertaken In order to forecast the success of the business or evaluating the business risk involves economics activities. It includes unemployed of the country, buying power of consumer, demand and supply, inflation, economic resource, income level of personnel. Bangladesh Nowadays comparatively economically viable to invest than all other developing country. Because of low labour cost ,   Bangladeshi labour gets average us $ .22 dollars per an hour , rapid change in buying power for consumer, in order to more investment in Bangladesh it decrease unemployment level . 3.3.3. Social environment factor: The social environment factors defines the   combination of customs , poverty, literacy, life expectation, value , tradition , religion . In Bangladesh is improving in poverty level, people are being more literate, and most people are Muslim they prefer halal food. Quality has a wide concentration on those factors 3.3.4. Technology Factor: In major way , businesses are frequently developing their technology to platform to developing their business plan. Nowadays   people have more attraction on using   Social networking through Internet , all the businesses may get opportunity to advertise through Internet, business can use EPCS( electoral point of controlling sales) to evaluate their right stock , card payment against sales to help out the consumer on holding cash. So quality is concentrating on those issues. 4.0. MARKETING STRATEGY: 4.1. Marketing Research 4.1.1. Primary Research: Primary research is short term decision process. It includes observation on customer behaviour, taking face to face interview, focus group, online survey about relevant business. Observation process was done by Quality on strategic location where intended to open up their business. Data of market activities was collected through interviewing on customer with their expectation and who involves in those industries. Online surveys, it is very popular and relatively low cost, Quality has done their online surveys through over viewing on existing customer and potential customers comments. Quality has turned up to focus group to get more information about customer tastes and preference. 4.1.2. Secondary research: Secondary research is a collection of data what is already exists. Secondary research follows outside information clustered by government records, labour unions, media, newspaper commercial sources, These are usually free and provide a lot of good information. Quality has collected data from government statistics to understand about where more people are gathered for several purpose, their ages and their occupations and current growth in Bangladesh (6.5%). Quality also has done their research on commercial market report prepared by research experts that helps to evaluate the business risk, the size of the market, and market shares within these sectors. Example in Bangladesh food industries kfc covering 40% of market and pizza hut is covering 36% of market shares. 4.2. Marketing Plan: Combination of several market elements is called marketing mix. This element refers to 4ps which are product, price, promotion, Place.http://www.marketingplan.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/four_principles_of_the_mark-300300.gif Figure : Price, Product, Promotion, Place the process of implementing marketing strategy 4.2.1. Product Strategy: The product strategy is usually reinforced through marketing research. In terms of customer needs and desire, every company must amend their product strategy. The product concept describes the products details; it includes colours, flavours, objectives, and even the price. Before launching a product in the market, the product must be tested with customer. So, in that Circumstance Company may choose focus group that discuss about customers like and dislike. So, Quality will implement that making strategy on their making food with introducing right colours, right flavour, and relevant ingredients.i.e. Some of customer sometimes they turn up to the restaurant without knowing about the food description. So product information will help to evaluate what will be best for them. 4.2.2. Pricing strategy: There are three aspect of a business to set up pricing . 4.2.2.1. Cost based pricing   4.2.2.2customer based pricing   4.2.2.3competitors based pricing   4.2.2.1. Cost based pricing:   This pricing strategy is determined by adjusting profit on top of the product making cost . It is known as cost plus pricing. It uses widely in all major business operation. An opportunity to use that strategy to understand the business costs are covered. Quality will follow that strategy to forecast their profit mark up. Quality will use 20% mark up on cost:   Sales 100 [emailprotected]% 20 Selling Price 120 4.2.2.2. Customer based pricing:   This strategy is determined  by what a business   assume customers will be prepared to pay . This strategy refers penetration pricing which usually help to increase market share, it offers the  opportunity to increase the price when the objective has been achieved.   4.2.2.3. Competitors based pricing: Basically markets are full of strong competition . The customer always buys from the cheapest provider and who is providing great customer services. But the customer may make their who offers reasonable price with better quality. Quality will research their nearest competitors to fix up their pricing of product. Therefore quality intend to set up their pricing strategy base on 3CS where calculate all the cost with adding profit. Figure 2: Pricing strategy base on cost, customer and competitors 4.2.3. Promotion strategy: Promotion strategy is part of the marketing mix elements, It uses frequently in marketing plan. The business usually uses promotion strategy to deliver information to consumer, to increase product demand, to increase, to differentiate a product. It includes personal selling, sales promotion, direct marketing, and publicity (Rajagopal, 2007). Basically Quality will follow different ways to promote their food menu, Quality is intending to use media to advertise their food to bring more customer such as Facebook through internet (nowadays more people are addicted on it) there is an opportunity to cope up large number of customer, Local newspaper ( Prothom- alo most popular newspaper in Bangladesh ). In initial market plan, Quality will give out a discount card on purchasing food as well as discount on age range. Quality will introduce with special offer to promote their food menu as like buy one main course then second one half price. Quality will research their competitors promotions s trategy to understand what they are actually doing in promoting their product. Quality will keep their promotion campaign as long as their strategic objectives will be achieved. Promotion strategy as below: 4.2.4.Place/ distribution: Place or distribution define how the product and services gets to the customer for consumption ( kotler, killer burton, 2009). This is the method a business to get their product through diffrent channel those are as follows: C:UsersTAZNUBADownloadsphoto.JPG Figure 3: There is 3 distribution channel, channel 1 and 2 indirect marketing and channel 3 direct marketing. Channel 1 has two intermediary levels whole seller, and retailer. Normally wholesaler buys and stock large number of quantities of goods. Channel 2 has one intermediary level which is retailer. In typically they act as retailer in a consumer market. Some big production company produce their product and sell it to large retailer and e-retailer. This is basically happens more in supermarket business and electronic business. Channel 3 is called direct- marketing. There are no intermediary levels. In that case manufacturer sells directly to consumer. Quality is looking for direct marketing to reach to consumer. Quality will make the product and sell to customer directly. Quality is also planning to start to delivery service to customer directly to their home address to increase their revenue. 5.0. Business Operation: 5.1. Legal and Licensing: Normally all the business may obtain their license from city corporation. To obtain trade license Quality will provide the following to Dhaka City Corporation are as follows, copy of the companys articles, statement of bank solvency, corporation tax code number, photographs and name of the business persons. 5.2. Registered and Tax authority: To make a business every business must register with tax authority under national board of revenue. Usually all the business acquires tax identification number (TIN code) for the new company. For the VAT purpose, all the business needs to be registered separately with VAT commission (under NBR). Quality will go through all those process to launch their business proper pathway. 5.3. Organisation chart: Organisational chart are used in association with job description. Organisational chart draw a map for management process. Organisational chart provides the guidelines to employees by giving lay out the official reporting engagement (Ingram, 2009). Without the organisational chart employees may find difficulties to understand what responsibilities are there? So Quality will follow up the organisational chart to allocate each employee responsibilities. Qualities organisational chart as follows: http://www.myexceltemplates.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Small-Business-Organizational-Chart.jpg Figure 4: Organisational chart of Quality restaurant 5.4. Personnel plan: We believe that the personnel plan depends on the size of the business and expected revenues. Quality will recruit approximately 13 full time and 7 part time employees, who will work a total of 700 hours per week. All the staff will be well trained before starting work. Because there are many opportunity can obtain by investing on staff training. First of all, staff will be very efficient doing their work, then well trained staff will help to reduce the business risk, they will be able to perform in any given task. 5.5. Corporate social responsibility: Corporate social responsibility is the process to embrace responsibility for the business actions and influence for a positive impact through its actions on the environment, consumer, employees, communities. Quality will speculate that issue. Therefore Quality will introduce with CSR scheme to help environment, employees, and communities. Quality is assuming 2% of profit to invest in CSR. 6.0. Financial plan: The financial plan consists of a year profit and loss assumption, a cash flow assumption, balance sheet assumption, breakeven point, net present value of project. Quality is planning to finance TK.10000000 which will be provided by 70% of partners of the business and 30% as a bank loan. 6.1. Start up expenses: Every business have varieties of start up expenses it includes cost of capital, professional fees, administration cost, sales and marketing cost, wages and benefits. Quality will spend initially Tk.5500000 and rest will keep for further business operation, expenses as follows: Table:2 Expected : Cost of sales( Raw materials, equipment, furniture, packaging, insurance) TK. 4000000 Rent ( FOR YEAR 1 in advance) TK.1000000 PROFESSIONAL FEES TK. 100000 Sales and marketing cost Tk. 200000 Technology fees Tk. 100000 6.2. Financial indicators: the sales projection indicates, sales operating expenses, collection days, and inventory turnover. The sales growth will be 150% each year. QUALITY is planning to keep gross margin 35% each year. http://www.bplans.com/benefits_administration_business_plan/images/8df5decd340f4ab28c2048fa268c889b.png 7.2. Break Even Analysis: All the businesses concern to determine how much income business must need to pay off their expenses. At that stage business tries to make a breakeven point analysis. Businesses at least need to make the cost of staying in the market place. Businesses make their assumption about breakeven point when fixed cost is covered by sale. So QUALITY is assuming that their fixed cost will be TK. 200000 (Equivalent to $20000), so QUALITY need to make their sale at least TK. 2000000 to make a breakeven point.

Edge Detection in Claud Classification

It is a certain number of gradient operators using small arrays of pixels were tested in this study, in order to check their capacity to properly detect significant boundaries between different CTT and eventually cloud types. This capacity is 14 visually tested against direct CTT images. Among the detectors applied are the Canny, Roberts, Sobel and Kayyali 15 SENW (to be named here SENW) edge detectors, and the Harris corner and edge detector. The Roberts edge detector employs mainly 2 pixels in a 2*2 matrix for each computing direction (horizontal and vertical). The test conducted show a lesser sensitivity to edges i.e. the variation range of gradients is limited compared to the other methods.The Canny 18 method uses a 5*5 pixel matrix, that undergoes preliminary filtering before the use of a smaller-array gradient detector, making the calculation procedure longer. The Sobel detector uses a 3*3 matrix where 6 pixels practically contribute to 20 the gradient. The SENW edge detector i s based on the Sobel approach for edge detection but employs mainly 4-corner 21 pixels (upper and lower left, and right) in a 3*3 pixel-matrix, the remaining 5 pixels between the corners are set to zero.  The Harris detector detects both edges and corners.

Homosexulity & A sexual behavior Essay

A sexual behavior involving attraction towards individuals having the same sex is called Homosexuality. People have been wondering whether a homosexual couple should come out and tell all that they are homosexual. (Sullivan, 05) This is a great debate of present society over homosexual marriage, adoption by homosexual couples and the fight for homosexual partners to be treated the same as heterosexual partners in society‘s eyes. Homosexuality is not a disease even though it is treated as such. Homosexuality has been condemned in modern day society but was widely tolerated by the Greeks and Romans. When looking back at the history of the Greeks, Spartans and Romans , it is revealed that they were great fighters; one reason for this is because most soldiers were homosexual and their fellow soldiers were their lovers and they would do anything to save their lovers life. Homosexuality was actually encouraged by the ancient Greece which was written about in the heroic relationship between Achilles and Patroclus in the Iliad by Homer. It was thought that homosexuality would boost morale as well as bravery amongst the soldiers. The Greeks even practiced pederasty as a way of population control, education and crime reduction. It was also encouraged within the military to boost troop morale, bravery and overall fighting. Pederasty is a sexual relationship between an adolescent boy and an adult male who is not a family member. This could be referred to today as pedophilia. Some of the greatest men in history were homosexual or had homosexual tendencies such as (President) Abraham Lincoln, (artist, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, architect, writer) Leonardo da Vinci, (Greek King) Alexander the Great, (Roman Leader) Julius Caesar to name a few. According to the church and modern day society, homosexuality is wrong, Most of the religions believe that God hates homosexuals, homosexuals will never go to heaven and God destroyed Sodom because of homosexual behavior within the city. However, the church also says not hate the homosexuals but to only hate their behavior. Homosexuality is much more prevalent that one may want to admit; the figures are actually startling. ‘Alfred Kinsey‘s 1948 study of the sex lives of 5,000 white males shocked the nation: 37 percent had at least one homosexual experience to orgasm in their adult lives; an additional 13 percent had homosexual fantasies to orgasm; 4 percent were exclusively homosexual in their practices; another 5 percent had virtually no heterosexual experience; and nearly one-fifth had at least as many homosexual as heterosexual experiences. Two out of five men one passes on the street have had orgasmic sex with men’. (Nicolosi, 105) According to that study close to 80% of the male population has had or is having homosexual experiences. The reason why it is so shocking is because of the number of people that speak out against homosexuality far outweighs the 20% that supposedly is not or does not have homosexual experiences. Society ‘s misperception of a homosexual is an effeminate man that goes around talking in a feminine manner, talks about clothes or a butch woman who dresses like a man and talks like a man. However this perception is often wrong and in reality most homosexuals are people who we say are normal, our neighbors, friends, hairdressers and police. This has really opened my eyes and I am now questioning everyone around me; are they outspoken about gays because they are but they do not want to draw attention to themselves by keeping quiet so they shout the loudest? The numbers are quite astonishing which means they also may encompass any man a girl dates or even someone’s ex-husband. Is this study flawed? This means that two out of five men one may see walking down street have had some form of homosexual experience. Then question arises, should gay marriages be allowed? To date there are only two states that allow homosexuals to marry and they are the state of California and the state of Massachusetts. In 2004 Massachusetts became the first state to allow same sex couples the right to marry. California became the second state in 2008. Looking back at interracial marriages in the United States, the first state to allow interracial couple to marry was in 1948 in the state of California and it took 19 years before the U. S. Supreme Court changed the definition of marriage in 1967 and made interracial marriage available to committed couples that were in love throughout the entire country. If it was to use this as an example as to how long it will take same sex marriages to be accepted in every state, it would probably not be until 2023. In the bible it says marriage is a union between a man and a woman. Why does society cares about what other people do if it will never affect us in any way? Is homosexuality a genetic thing? It is for sure that there is a great excuse for homosexuals to use in order to brush people off and explain why they are gay. A scientific study that was conducted by a university in Ontario Canada suggested that male same sex orientation is linked to having older brothers even if they are not all rose together. They suggested that homosexuality results from an immune response to the mother to her male child in the womb. The research claims that a woman that has given birth to multiple males will be more susceptible to this abnormality. After having a male child or children sometimes the mother‘s immune response to her succeeding male pregnancies is to affect the child‘s future sexual orientation; which would be maternal anti-male antibodies on the sexual orientation of the brain. The immune response by the mother‘s body would damage the sexual differentiation of the brain of the male child in the womb which will in turn produce an abnormality in the fetus. This would conclude that homosexuality is not learned but a birth abnormality. There have not been enough studies done on this and there are no scientists that would come out and say this is definitive. (Sullivan, 305) However, after saying that homosexuality in animal world is widespread and has been well documented; this makes me rethink that there may be some validity to the genetic study above or maybe it ‘s just something that is a learned behavior in both the human and animal world. After all, it is known that animals do learn and explore different things so it may be that they learned this behavior and all others learned by example. Homosexuals believe that to have children is more about dependability and dedication, not sexual point of reference. They say that there is no valid reason behind passing the anti-homosexual adoption law by the government. Those who are against homosexual adoption believe that being adopted by parents who are living together as homosexuals, may bring out unrestrained homophobia from the rest of society. Children can be very harsh with their words and actions against others who know not how to react and defend themselves because they do not know the â€Å"normal† lifestyle in which the other children lead. They would probably be teased and tormented to no end and there is nothing anyone could to about it. If the male and female household has not been the norm for millions of years, this may not propose such a problem. The children may not even be the main problem. It is most likely that parents of male/female relationships would not allow their children to associate with gay or lesbian adopted children, and would probably create a major dispute with the school system in which they are attending school. (Mark, 3) Those who disagree with homosexual adoption also think that in response to being a child of such a lifestyle, it would encourage the children to be homosexual themselves. Whether this is true or not, I don’t know, but I do think that because that is all that they know they would most likely turn to a form of it sometime during their life ,which would in turn increase the homosexual population. This could also pose a problem for the many people who disagree with homosexuality and it is scary to think of the extremes people may take to rid or exclude this population from their lives. Think of the times of the Civil War days, when blacks were practically banned from the majority of public places because they were not the majority or the â€Å"normal† color. Could this ever happen to gays and lesbians? This is a question we must ask ourselves. I know there are laws prohibiting such acts, but there are laws discouraging many things that still go on today, like murder, sexual abuse, etc. There is nothing really stopping people from moving out of town ,taking their kids out of school, or utilizing the same public places that they share with homosexual people. There are cases where this has already happened. (Nicolosi, 104) Children have been moved to different schools because parents don’t want their child to be influenced in any way by a homosexual, or even a child of one. There is nothing to stop them from taking such actions or even actions much worse. It is hard to tell the extremes that people may go to in order to carry out their beliefs. There are several different web-sites that contained a lot of good information on homosexual adoption. First ,http://www. homes4kids. org/gay. htm is a web-site that explains some of the problems that gay and lesbian adoptive parents encounter. One of the problems that may be encountered is trying to find an agency that will work with them. A growing number of agencies are accepting applications from gay and lesbian adults, however, when the child to be adopted is a child with special needs. If the home study reveals that the applicant will be a good parent, his or her sexual orientation is immaterial. If state law does not prohibit gays and lesbians from adopting, most agencies will be willing to work with you. If you are successful in finding an agency, there are great places where you can find adoption support groups for gay and lesbian adults. One of these places is the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse, NAIC. The address and a little of their information is posted on the web-site mentioned above. Web-sites such as this one are good in my opinion because of the fact that I’m sure that people get down when they are turned away adoption agencies because of their sexual orientation, even though they know they would make fantastic parents and provide greatly for a child. Therefore,support groups may be needed at times to help individuals to keep their heads up and to keep trying until they find someone who can see it from their point of view. They may even be able to point you in the right direction in helping you to find an agency who works well with gays and lesbians wanting to adopt. This is a good site to utilize because like mentioned before, sometimes we need some assistance when we are trying to make a lifetime decision. People who have experienced such times as we may be going through are often times a lot of help and usually have a lot of information to share. This site was created by the North American Council on Adoptable Children. They are a valuable resource because they have experienced many different situations and know a lot about what the possibilities are of becoming an adoptive parent as a gay or lesbian. This particular web-site has any downfalls except that the could’ve put a few more links on it to point people to other options if these certain ones aren’t working for them. There are homosexuals in today‘s society that resist identifying themselves as homosexuals. They have homosexual encounters but have girlfriends so they do not consider themselves to be homosexual and they are mostly black college students. However alarming this may seem one can understand in the black culture homosexuality is looked down on more than in the white culture. (Gerard, 4) Like in Jamaica homosexuality is not tolerated at all, if you are found to be having a homosexual relationship whether it is men or women they are almost always stoned or hacked to death. The killers are never brought to justice since the society considers homosexuality as an immoral thing. Homosexuality is usually seen as abnormal however one should not forget that there are a number of other things too in present world that can be said as aberrant. However, a lot of individuals also believe that consenting adults are free to choose who they want to be with sexually as long as it does not include minors and we as society should not have a say in what other people do. Modern day society is way too concerned with what others do and not concerned enough with what is going on in their own household. If it does not directly affect us no one really care. Works Cited Baird, R. M. Same-sex Marriage: The Moral And Legal Debate Contemporary Issues, Prometheus Books, 2004, pg 135-150. Gerard, J. M, Aardweg. V. The Battle for Normality: A Guide for (Self)Therapy for Homosexuals. 2006, pg 1-5. http://www. religioustolerance. org/homosexu. htmhttp://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Homosexualityhttp://www. narth. com/menus/born. html . Mark. L. Homosexuality, Morality, and the Truth of Church Teaching, 2007, pg 1-4. Nicolosi. J. A ‘Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality’ IVP Books, 2002, 100-120. Rauch. J. ‘The Marriage Amendment : Constitutional issues’ , National Review, 2001, Retrieved from http://old. nationalreview. com/23jul01/letters072301. shtml. Sullivan. A. ‘Virtually Normal: An Argument about Homosexuality’, Vintage, 1996, 10-20. Sullivan. A. ‘Same-Sex Marriage: Pro and Con’ Vintage, 2004, 300-310. Sullivan. A. ‘What are homosexuals for? ’ 2010, Retrieved from http://mrglennjchs. files. wordpress. com/2010/01/sullivan. pdf

The Domestication and History of Modern Horses

The modern domesticated horse (Equus caballus) is today spread throughout the world and among the most diverse creatures on the planet. In North America, the horse was part of the megafaunal extinctions at the end of the Pleistocene. Two wild subspecies survived until recently, the Tarpan (Equus ferus ferus, died out ca 1919) and Przewalskis Horse (Equus ferus przewalskii, of which there are a few left). Horse history, especially the timing of the domestication of the horse, is still being debated, partly because the evidence for domestication itself is debatable. Unlike other animals, criteria such as changes in body morphology (horses are extremely diverse) or the location of a particular horse outside of its normal range (horses are very widespread) are not useful in helping resolve the question. Evidence for Horse Domestication The earliest possible hints for domestication would be the presence of what appears to be a set of postmolds with lots of animal dung within the area defined by the posts, which scholars interpret as representing a horse pen. That evidence has been found at Krasnyi Yar in Kazakhstan, in portions of the site dating to as early as 3600 BC. The horses may have been kept for food and milk, rather than riding or load-bearing. Accepted archaeological evidence of horseback riding includes bit wear on horse teeth—that has been found in the steppes east of the Ural mountains at Botai and Kozhai 1 in modern Kazakhstan, around 3500-3000 BC. The bit wear was only found on a few of the teeth in the archaeological assemblages, which might suggest that a few horses were ridden to hunt and collect wild horses for food and milk consumption. Finally, the earliest direct evidence of the use of horses as beasts of burden—in the form of drawings of horse-drawn chariots—is from Mesopotamia, about 2000 BC. The saddle was invented around 800 BC, and the stirrup (a matter of some debate among historians) was probably invented around 200-300 AD. Krasnyi Yar includes over 50 residential pithouses, adjacent to which have been found dozens of postmolds. The postmolds—archaeological remnants of where posts have been set in the past—are arranged in circles, and these are interpreted as evidence of horse corrals. Horse History and Genetics Genetic data, interestingly enough, has traced all extant domesticated horses to one founder stallion, or to closely related male horses with the same Y haplotype. At the same time, there is a high matrilineal diversity in both domestic and wild horses. At least 77 wild mares would be required to explain the diversity of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in current horse populations, which probably means quite a few more. A 2012 study (Warmuth and colleagues) combining archaeology, mitochondrial DNA, and Y-chromosomal DNA supports the domestication of horse as occurring once, in the western part of the Eurasian steppe, and that because of the horses wild natures, several repeated introgression events (restocking of horse populations by adding wild mares), must have occurred. As identified in earlier studies, that would explain the diversity of mtDNA. Three Strands of Evidence for Domesticated Horses In a paper published in Science in 2009, Alan K. Outram and colleagues looked at three strands of evidence supporting horse domestication at Botai culture sites: shin bones, milk consumption, and bitwear. These data support domestication of the horse between about 3500-3000 BC sites in what is today Kazakhstan. Horses skeletons at Botai Culture sites have gracile metacarpals. The horses metacarpals—the shins or cannon bones—are used as key indicators of domesticity. For whatever reason (and I wont speculate here), shins on domestic horses are thinner—more gracile—than those of wild horses. Outram et al. describe the shinbones from Botai as being closer in size and shape to those of Bronze age (fully domesticated) horses compared to wild horses. Fatty lipids of horse milk were found inside of pots. Although today it seems a bit weird to westerners, horses were kept for both their meat and milk in the past—and still are in the Kazakh region as you can see from the photograph above. Evidence of horse milk was found at Botai in the form of fatty lipid residues on the insides of ceramic vessels; further, evidence for consumption of horse meat has been identified at Botai culture horse and rider burials. Bit wear is in evidence on horse teeth. Researchers noted bitting wear on horses teeth—a vertical strip of wear on the outside of horses premolars, where the metal bit damages the enamel when it sits between the cheek and tooth. Recent studies (Bendrey) using scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray microanalysis found microscopic-sized fragments of iron embedded on Iron Age horse teeth, resulting from metal bit use. White Horses and History White horses have had a special place in ancient history-according to Herodotus, they were held as sacred animals in the Achaemenid court of Xerxes the Great (ruled 485-465 BC). White horses are associated with the Pegasus myth, the unicorn in the Babylonian myth of Gilgamesh, Arabian horses, Lipizzaner stallions, Shetland ponies, and Icelandic pony populations. The Thoroughbred Gene A recent DNA study (Bower et al.) examined the DNA of Thoroughbred racing horses and identified the specific allele which drives their speed and precocity. Thoroughbreds are a specific breed of horse, all of whom today are descended from the children of one of three foundation stallions: Byerley Turk (imported to England in the 1680s), Darley Arabian (1704) and Godolphin Arabian (1729). These stallions are all of Arab, Barb and Turk origin; their descendants are from one of only 74 British and imported mares. Horse breeding histories for Thoroughbreds have been recorded in the General Stud Book since 1791, and the genetic data certainly supports that history. Horse races in the 17th and 18th centuries ran 3,200-6,400 meters (2-4 miles), and horses were usually five or six years old. By the early 1800s, the Thoroughbred was bred for traits that enabled speed and stamina over distances from 1,600-2,800 meters at three years of age; since the 1860s, the horses have been bred for shorter races (1,000-1400 meters) and younger maturity, at 2 years. The genetic study looked at the DNA from hundreds of horses and identified the gene as C type myostatin gene variant, and came to the conclusion that this gene originated from a single mare, bred to one of the three founder male horses about 300 years ago. See Bower et al for additional information. Thistle Creek DNA and Deep Evolution In 2013, researchers led by Ludovic Orlando and Eske Willerslev of the Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark and University of Copenhagen (and reported in Orlando et al. 2013) reported on a metapodial horse fossil which had been found in permafrost within a Middle Pleistocene context in the Yukon territory of Canada and dated between 560,00-780,000 years ago. Amazingly, the researchers found that there were sufficiently intact molecules of collagen within the matrix of the bone to enable them to map the Thistle Creek horses genome. The researchers then compared the Thistle Creek specimen DNA to that of an Upper Paleolithic horse, a modern donkey, five modern domestic horse breeds, and one modern Przewalskis horse. Orlando and Willerslevs team found that over the past 500,000 years, horse populations have been enormously sensitive to climate change and that extremely low population sizes are associated with warming events. Further, using the Thistle Creek DNA as a baseline, they were able to determine that all modern existing equids (donkeys, horses, and zebras) originated from a common ancestor some 4-4.5 million years ago. In addition, Przewalskis horse diverged from the breeds which became domestic some 38,000-72,000 years ago, confirming the long-held belief that Przewalskis is the last remaining wild horse species. Sources Bendrey R. 2012. From wild horses to domestic horses: a European perspective. World Archaeology 44(1):135-157. Bendrey R. 2011. 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