On September 28, 1994, Disney officials announced the end of the Disney’s America project in Prince William County, Virginia. Two representatives from Disney’s America flew to Richmond to brief Virginia’s Governor George Allen on the decision. The same day, Prince William County officials were notified as well. Peter S. Rummell, president of Disney Design and Development Company, issued a public statement, saying in part: We remain convinced that a park that celebrates America and an exploration of our heritage is a great idea, and we will continue to work to make it a reality. However, we recognize that there are those who have been concerned about the possible impact of our park on historic sites in this unique area, and we have always tried to be sensitive to the issue. While we do not agree with all their concerns, we are seeking a new location so that we can move the process forward. . . . Despite our confidence that we would eventually win the necessary approvals, it has become clear that we could not say when the park would be able to open—or even when we could break ground. The controversy over building in Prince William County has diverted attention and resources from the creative development of the park. Implicit in our vision for the park is the hope that it will be a source of pride and unity for all Americans. We certainly cannot let a particular site undermine that goal by becoming a source of divisiveness.1 Rummell stated that Disney would try to build an American history theme park elsewhere in Virginia, but that a site had not yet been selected. Many Virginia politicians were disappointed, but some tried to remain optimistic. Governor George Allen’s office issued a statement: “I’m committed to a Disney theme park in Virginia and the jobs that will be created thereby. I’m pleased that the Walt Disney Company shares that commitment.”2 Robert S. Skunda, Allen’s Secretary of Commerce and Trade, commented to reporters, “I think they see the likelihood of long-term damage to their image. No company likes to be publicly bashed when they feel as though they are doing something that is worthwhile. . . . The thing that a company values most is its reputation. It has to. Without a reputation a company cannot continue to exist. I think those things drove Disney away from the Haymarket site.”3 Prince William County executive James Mullen said the county would be forced to go through a time of self-examination following Disney’s exit. He stated, “Mainly I’m disappointed for the people in the community who supported the project and for our staff, who put so much time in on this. Disney certainly hasn’t helped our marketing effort. They’ve made it very difficult for us to overcome the perception that this is a place (where) you can’t do a big project without a hassle.”4 Other local politicians were not as generous in their remarks about Disney. State Senator Joseph Benedetti of Richmond stated, “Promises were made that they’d stay, come hell or high water. Whatever they do is going to have to be written in blood next time.”5 State Senator Charles Colgan of Prince William County stated, “I think they broke faith with us.”6 James McPherson, the Princeton history professor and one of Disney’s most vocal opponents, stated, “I’m very happy. It’s good news.”7 McPherson said that he would be happy to help Disney find another location in Virginia that would be less significant historically. He stated, “Some of us would be quite happy to advise them. This has never been an attempt to bash Disney.”8 Over the next few weeks, scores of municipalities wrote newspaper articles and petitioned Disney directly, stating that they would welcome a Disney park in their areas. Since the decision to halt plans for Disney’s America in Virginia, observers have tried to make sense in retrospect of the park’s failure. In 1998, Eisner issued a memoir, Work in Progress. In a chapter devoted to the Disney’s America project,9 Eisner freely and openly admits that Disney made many missteps, while still arguing for the vision he had for the theme park. Among the missteps Eisner identified were • Naming the project “Disney’s America,” which implied the company’s ownership of U.S. history. He said, “That was unfortunate because we were never interested in a park that merely reflected a Disneyesque view of American history.” • Failing to “recognized how deeply people often feel about maintaining their communities just as they are. . . . There may have been no collection of people [the Piedmont Environmental Council] in America better equipped to lobby a cause, whether with Congress or government agencies or through the media.” • Being “blindsided” by the issue of proximity to the Manassas Battlefield Park. Jody Powell’s advice had been that the distance of three miles would be great enough to avoid controversy. • Believing Disney “could announce the project on [its] own timetable. Our focus on secrecy in land acquisition had prevented us from even briefing, much less lobbying, the leading politicians in the state about our plans as they evolved. The consequence was that we lost the opportunity to develop crucial allies and nurture goodwill.” • Revealing to the public “a plan that looked relatively complete [which] opened ourselves up to every critic with different ideas about what a park based on American history should and should not include.” • Making emotional statements that critics latched on to, including being shocked about not being taken around on people’s shoulders and complaining that history in school was boring. Eisner reflects: “My comments made me sound not just smug and arrogant but like something of a Philistine. . . . Looking back, I realize how much my brief moment of intemperance undermined our cause.” To balance his story, Eisner also recollects his well-meaning intentions for the theme park, describing his motives as the patriotic and socially responsible vision of a son of immigrants. He wanted visiting Disney’s America to be as multimedia intensive and deeply moving an experience as the U.S. Holocaust Museum. In retrospect, Eisner explained “We saw ourselves as storytellers first and foremost,” who needed advice from historical experts to portray American history “knowledgeably and responsibly.” Working with the advisory group of “openminded” historians who critiqued comparable exhibits in Orlando was particularly eye-opening: “In our original plan, for example, we’d envisioned recreating a classic twentieth-century steel. mill and then putting a roller-coaster through it. To do that, we began to understand, could trivialize and even demean the attempt to portray the steel mill realistically.” Of his critics, Eisner complains, “By any reasonable measure, this attack on Disney’s America was dramatically overstated. . . . Much like negative advertising in a political campaign, [their] incendiary claims were effective in influencing public opinion and putting us further on the defensive. I was suddenly the captain of Exxon’s Valdez. . . . By the summer of 1994, opposing Disney’s America had become a fashionable cause célèbre in the media centers of New York City and Washington, D.C. . . . Fairness seemed to have given way to polemics.” In the end, Eisner explains that financial projections made in late August 1994 “showed that rather than the profit we’d previously projected for Disney’s America, we were now facing the prospect of substantial losses.” On the cost side, Eisner attributed the losses to the current and future expense of dealing with opponents’ legal challenges, to the carrying costs caused by a projected two-year delay before breaking ground, and to the modifications to the original plans that increased costs by almost 40 percent. On the revenue side, the Disney’s America team now projected a lower price point for tickets and a shorter season at eight months down from nine. According to Eisner, “Now that a dozen members of our team had spent a year living in the towns adjacent to our site, they had a different view. An eight-month season for the park seemed more realistic.” The revised figures, coupled with the psychic impact of Wells’ death, Eisner’s by-pass surgery, and Katzenburg’s departure led to the decision to abandon plans for Disney’s America. As Eisner concludes, I still believed that it was possible to get Disney’s America built, but the question now was at what cost. . . . [A]fter two weeks of soul-searching, we finally agreed that it wasn’t fair to subject the company to more trauma. The issue was no longer who was right or wrong. We had lost the perception game. Largely through our own missteps, the Walt Disney Company had been effectively portrayed as an enemy of American history and a plunderer of sacred ground. The revised economic projections took the last bit of wind out of our sails. The cost of moving forward on Disney’s America, we reluctantly concluded, finally outweighed the potential gain. Others interpreted the situation as one in which Eisner himself needed better handling. In The Keys to the Kingdom, former Washington Post reporter Kim Masters says Eisner’s dealings with the media had suffered since late 1992 when he lost his chief of corporate communications, Erwin Okun, to cancer. “Okun had a shrewd yet avuncular style that worked well with the press,” wrote Masters. Journalist Peter Boyer said of Okun “‘He somehow pushed that button in all of us that said Disney is an honest, good company that meant well. . . . He packaged [Eisner] well without seeming to do so.’” “Eisner said he relied on Okun ‘to counsel, review, berate, encourage, and protect me,’” Masters writes. Okun’s successor, John Dreyer, however, “came from the theme parks. He lacked Okun’s cordiality and treated the press with suspicion bordering on hostility. At the Washington Post, he quickly alienated the very reporters whose coverage of Disney’s America would prove most influential.”10 Pat Scanlon, formerly an Imagineer, speculated that Wells might have salvaged the Disney’s America project. “There wasn’t anybody at a high enough level to keep Michael in his box, [Scanlon] says. “Michael was making public remarks that weren’t helpful. Michael sounded a bit like an abrasive Hollywood producer coming to town. Frank would have shaped public relations because he would have made Michael more aware. Frank was the consummate diplomat.”11 Whatever the cause, Nick Kotz, a member of the Piedmont Environmental Council and author of the editorial in the Los Angeles Times, observed this about the effects of the Disney’s America theme park controversy: “Undoubtedly Disney had internal reasons for the decision to strike its tent on the Piedmont battlefield. But it had also faced the danger of a Pyrrhic victory. In all probability, it could have prevailed and built its theme park, but it would have suffered serious and perhaps permanent value to its reputation.”12 Despite claims by Eisner and Disney officials to the contrary, as of the writing of this case, no further plans have been announced for a Disney’s America theme park.

Discuss and Anlysis the Case Study.

L.B. and her husband, come to the clinic, saying they want to become pregnant. L.B. is 29 years old and a self-employed photographer. J.B. is 31 years old and a dispatcher with a local oil and gas company. They have been married for 4 years and have been trying to become pregnant for just over 2 years. L.B. has not been pregnant previously; J.B. says he has never gotten a girl pregnant “that he knows of.” 1. Is this couple infertile? Defend your response. 2. What type of infertility does the couple have, primary or secondary? 3. What are the common causes of male infertility? 4. What are the common causes of female infertility? 5. Describe the reproductive and sexual history you need to obtain from the couple. 6. In addition to performing a general physical examination, what lab tests do you expect the provider to order? Chart View General Assessment L.B. J.B. 29 years old 31 years old BMI 26.1 BMI 27.4 Reproductive structures normal Slightly irregular menses with a cycle of 28-35 days No problems with erection or ejaculation Nonsmoker; nondrinker Nonsmoker; drinks 1-2 alcoholic beverages weekly Both report their spouse has been their only sexual partner for the past 6 years. They engage in intercourse an average of 2 to 3 times per week and deny any sexual problems. L.B. had been using oral contraceptive pills for about 4 years prior to their attempting to conceive. She says her menses were regular before using the oral contraceptives, but once she stopped using them, regular menses did not resume. Both deny any history of the urinary tract and sexually transmitted infections. Their general physical assessments are remarkable except for their BMIs. Neither engages in any regular physical exercise. The provider orders an ultrasound for L.B. and lab testing for both. L.B. is to begin performing basal body temperature (BBT) charting in conjunction with using an ovulation kit. 7. J.B. needs a semen analysis. What instructions will give you him about specimen collection? Select all that apply. a. Keep the container in an insulated bag with ice. b. Bring the specimen to the office within 8 hours. c. Place the specimen in a clean container for transport. d. He can collect the specimen in a sterile, nonlubricated condom. e. He should not have sex or ejaculate for 2 to 5 days before the procedure. 8. What information is obtained from a semen analysis? 9. The provider orders follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), estradiol, and progesterone levels for L.B.; a luteinizing hormone (LH) level for J.B.; and TSH levels for both. When will you schedule these tests? 10. What is the purpose of BBT charting? 11. What teaching will you provide L.B. on how to perform BBT charting? 12. Outline the teaching you will provide L.B. on how to use an ovulation kit. 13. Because lifestyle and sexual practices can affect fertility, what do you encourage the couple to do to enhance their ability to conceive? Select all that apply. a. Relax in a hot tub daily before going to bed. b. Avoid the use of artificial lubricants during sex. c. Have them drink alcohol before sex to help relax. d. Eat a healthy diet with plenty of fruits and vegetables. e. Use strategies that are usually helpful in reducing stress. f. Engage in moderate exercise for 30 minutes, 3 to 4 times per week. 14. As you are finishing the appointment, L.B. begins to cry out and says, “I can’t believe this is happening to us when all of my friends are just popping out babies.” How do you respond? Chart View (Fill in the empty boxes with the appropriate information) Laboratory Results L.B. Normal Results J.B. Normal Results Color of Vacutainer Used to Obtain Sample Progesterone low Testosterone normal Estradiol normal LH normal FSH normal TSH normal Seminal parameters normal Pelvic ultrasound normal J.B.’s semen analysis reveals no apparent problem. L.B. appears to be ovulating normally. BBT charting captures a change in temperature, and ovulation testing reveals an LH surge. The provider suspects L.B. may have a luteal phase defect because her progesterone levels are low after ovulation. The provider decides to order a hysterosalpingogram (HSG) for L.B. 15. How will you describe an HSG to the couple? 16. You tell L.B. that it is important for her to call the office when her menstrual cycle starts so the HSG can be scheduled between days 7 and 20 of her cycle. It is important they abstain from sex between the first day of her cycle until after the test. L.B. asks why. What do you tell her? The HSG was normal, with no blockage to the fallopian tubes. The provider speaks with the couple about starting L.B. on clomiphene (Clomid) and progesterone vaginal suppositories, starting 2 days after ovulation. 17. What is the expected outcome associated with each of these medications? 18. You determine that L.B. understands your teaching about clomiphene therapy when she says: (Select all that apply.) a. “I do not need to use the LH testing kits anymore.” b. “There is a higher risk of my having twins, or more.” c. “I will take this medicine orally for 5 days each month.” d. “I may experience some flushing and breast tenderness.” e. “My husband will need to learn to give me daily injections.” On the fourth round of clomiphene, L.B. and J.B. were successful in becoming pregnant. She delivered an 8 pound, 7-ounce (3827 grams) baby boy vaginally at 38 weeks after having induced labor because of mild preeclampsia.

Nike: The Sweatshop Debate

Nike is in many ways the quintessential global corporation. Established in 1972 by former University of Oregon track star Phil Knight, Nike is now one of the leading marketers of athletic shoes and apparel on the planet. In 2006 the company had $15 billion in annual revenues and sold its products in some 140 countries. Nike does not do any manufacturing. Rather, it designs and markets its products, while contracting for their manufacture from a global network of 600 factories scattered around the globe that employ some 650,000 people.' This huge corporation has made founder Phil Knight into one of the richest people in America. Nike's marketing phrase, "Just Do It!" has become as recognizable in popular culture as its "swoosh" logo or the faces of its celebrity sponsors, such as Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods.

For all of its successes, the company was dogged for more than a decade by repeated and persistent accusations that its products were made in "sweatshops" where workers, many of them children, slaved away in hazardous conditions for below-subsistence wages. Nike's wealth, its detractors claimed, was built upon the backs of the world's poor. For many, Nike had become a symbol of the evils of globalization-a rich Western corporation exploiting the world's poor to provide expensive shoes and apparel to the pampered consumers of the developed world. Nike's "Niketown" stores became standard targets for antiglobalization protestors. Several nongovernmental organizations, such as San Francisco-based Global Exchange, a human rights organization dedicated to promoting environmental, political, and social justice around the world, targeted Nike for repeated criticism and protests.2 News organizations such as CBS's 48 Hours hosted by Dan Rather ran exposes on working conditions in foreign factories that supply Nike. Students on the campuses of several major U.S. universities with which Nike has lucrative sponsorship deals protested against the ties, citing Nike's use of sweatshop labor.

For its part, Nike has taken many steps to try to counter the protests. Yes, it admits, there have been problems in some overseas factories. But the company has signaled a commitment to improving working conditions. It requires that foreign subcontractors meet minimum thresholds for working conditions and pay. It has arranged for factories to he examined by independent auditors. It has terminated contracts with factories that do not comply with its standards. But for all this effort, the company continues to be a target of protests and a symbol of dissent.

THE CASE AGAINST NIKE

Typical of the exposes against Nike was a CBS 48 Hours news report that aired on October 17, 1996.3 Reporter Roberta Basin visited a Nike factory in Vietnam. With a shot of the factory, her commentary begin by saying that

The signs are everywhere of an American invasion in search of cheap labor. Millions of people who are literate, disciplined, and desperate for jobs. This is Nike Town near what use to be called Saigon, one of four factories Nike doesn't own but subcontracts to make a million shoes a month. It takes 25,000 workers, mostly young women, to "Just Do It."

But the workers here don't share in Nike's huge profits. They work six days a week for only $40 a month, just 20 cents an hour.

Baskin interviews one of the workers in the factory, a young woman named Lap. Baskin tells the listener:

Her basic wage, even as sewing team leader, still doesn't amount to the minimum wage.... She's down to 8 5 pounds. Like most of the young women who make shoes, she has little choice but to accept the low wages and long hours. Nike says that it requires all subcontractors to obey local laws; but Lap has already put in much more overtime than the annual legal limit: 200 hours.

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Baskin then asks Lap what would happen if she wanted to leave. If she were sick or had something she needed to take care of such as a sick relative, could she leave the factory? Through a translator, Lap replies:

It is not possible if you haven't made enough shoes. You have to meet the quota before you can go home.

The clear implication of the story was that Nike was at fault here for allowing such working conditions to persist in the Vietnam factory, which, incidentally, was owned by a Korean company.

Another example of an attack on Nike's subcontracting practices came in June 1996 from Made in the USA, a foundation largely financed by labor unions and domestic apparel manufacturers that oppose free trade with low-wage countries. According to Joel Joseph, chairman of the foundation, a popular line of high-priced Nike sneakers, the "Air Jordans," were put together made by 11-year-olds in Indonesia making 14 cents per hour. A Nike spokeswoman, Donna Gibbs, countered that this statement was in fact false. According to Gibbs, the average worker made 240,000 rupiah ($103) a month working a maximum 54-hour week, or about 45 cents per hour. Moreover, Gibbs noted that Nike had staff members in each factory monitoring conditions to make sure that they obeyed local minimum wage and child labor laws.'

Another example of the criticism against Nike is the following extract from a newsletter published by Global Exchange:5

During the 1970s, most Nike shoes were made in South Korea and Taiwan. When workers there gained new freedom to organize and wages began to rise, Nike looked for "greener pastures." It found them in Indonesia and China, where Nike started producing in the 1980s, and most recently in Vietnam. The majority of Nike shoes are made in Indonesia and China, countries with governments that prohibit independent unions and set the minimum wage at rock bottom. The Indonesian government admits that the minimum wage there does not provide enough to supply the basic needs of one person, let alone a family. In early 1997 the entry-level wage was a miserable $2.46 a day. Labor groups estimate that a livable wage in Indonesia is about $4.00 a day.

In Vietnam the pay is even less-20 cents an hour, or a mere $1.60 a day. But in urban Vietnam, three simple meals cost about $2.10 a day, and then of course there is rent, transportation, clothing, health care, and much more. According to Thuyen Nguyen of Vietnam Labor Watch, a living wage in Vietnam is at least $3 a day.

In another attack on Nike's practices, in September 1997 Global Exchange published a report on working conditions in four Nike and Reebok subcontractors in Southern China.6 Global Exchange, in conjunction with two Hong Kong human rights groups, had interviewed workers at the factories in 1995 and again in 1997. According to Global Exchange, in one factory, owned by a Korean subcontractor for Nike, workers as young as 13 earning as little as 10 cents an hour toiled up to 17 hours daily in enforced silence. Talking during work was not allowed, with violators fined $1.20 to $3.60 according to the report. The practices were in violation of Chinese labor law, which states that no child under 16 may work in a factory, and the Chinese minimum wage requirement of $1.90 for an eight-hour day. Nike condemned the study as "erroneous," stating that it incorrectly stated the wages of workers and made irresponsible accusations.

Global Exchange, however, continued to be a major thorn in Nike's side. In November 1997, the organization obtained and then leaked a confidential report by Ernst & Young of an audit that Nike had commissioned of a factory in Vietnam owned by a Nike subcontractor.' The factory had 9,200 workers and made 400,000 pairs of shoes a month. The Ernst & Young report painted a dismal picture of thousands of young women, most under age 25, laboring 10'12 hours a day, six days a week, in excessive heat and noise and in foul air, for slightly more than $10 a week. The report also found that workers with skin or breathing problems had not been transferred to departments free of chemicals and that more than half the workers who dealt with dangerous chemicals did not wear protective masks or gloves. It claimed workers were exposed to carcinogens that exceeded local legal standards by 177 times in parts of the plant and that 77 percent of the employees suffered from respiratory problems.

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Put on the defensive yet again, Nike called a news conference and pointed out that it had commissioned the report, and had acted on it.8 The company stated that it had formulated an action plan to deal with the problems cited in the report, and had slashed overtime, improved safety and ventilation, and reduced the use of toxic chemicals. The company also asserted that the report showed that its internal monitoring system had performed exactly as it should have. According to one spokesman, "This shows our system of monitoring works. . . . We have uncovered these issues clearly before anyone else, and we have moved fairly expeditiously to correct them."

NIKE'S RESPONSES

Unaccustomed to playing defense, over the years Nike formulated a number of strategies and tactics to deal with the problems of subcontractors' working conditions and pay. In 1996, Nike hired one-time U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and former Atlanta Mayor and Congressional representative Andrew Young to assess working conditions in subcontractors' plants around the world. After completing a two-week tour that involved inspecting 15 factories in three countries, Young released a mildly critical report of Nike in mid-1997. He informed Nike it was doing a good job in treating workers, though it should do better. According to Young, he did not see

sweatshops, or hostile conditions ... I saw crowded dorms ... but the workers were eating at least two meals a day on the job and making what I was told were subsistence wages in those cultures.9

Young was widely criticized by human rights and labor groups for not taking his own translators and for doing slipshod inspections, an assertion he repeatedly denied.

In 1996, Nike joined a presidential task force designed to find a way of banishing sweatshops in the shoe and clothing industries. The task force included industry leaders such as Nike, representatives from human rights groups, and labor leaders. In April 1997, the task force announced a workers' rights agreement that U.S. companies could accept when manufacturing abroad. The accord limited the workweek to 60 hours and called for paying at least the local minimum wage in foreign factories. The task force also agreed to establish an independent monitoring association-later named the Fair Labor Association (FLA)-to assess whether companies are abiding by the code.10

The FLA now includes among its members the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, the National Council of Churches, the International Labor Rights Fund, some 135 universities (universities have extensive licensing agreements with sports apparel companies such as Nike), and companies such as Nike, Reebok, and Levi Strauss.

In early 1997, Nike also began to commission independent organizations such as Ernst & Young to audit its subcontractors' factories. In September 1997, Nike tried to show its critics that it was involved in more than just a public relations exercise when it terminated its relationship with four Indonesian subcontractors, stating that these subcontractors had refused to comply with the company's standard for wage levels and working conditions. Nike identified one of the subcontractors, Seyon, which manufactured specialty sports gloves for Nike. Nike said that Seyon refused to meet a 10.7 percent increase in the monthly wage, to $70.30, declared by the Indonesian government in April 1997.11

On May 12, 1998, in a speech given at the National Press Club, Phil Knight spelled out in detail a series of initiatives designed to improve working conditions for the 500,000 people that make products for Nike as subcontractors. Among the initiatives Knight highlighted were the following:

We have effectively changed our minimum age limits from the ILO (International Labor Organization) standards of 15 in most countries and 14 in developing countries to 18 in all footwear manufacturing and 16 in all other types of manufacturing (apparel, accessories and equipment). Existing workers legally employed under the former limits were grand-fathered into the new requirements.

During the past 13 months we have moved to a 100 percent factory audit scheme, where every Nike contract factory will receive an annual check by PricewaterhouseCoopers teams who are specially trained on our Code of Conduct Owner's Manual and audit/monitoring procedures. To date they have performed about 300 such monitoring visits. In a few instances in apparel factories they have found workers under our age

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standards. Those factories have been required to raise their standards to 17 years of age, to require three documents certifying age, and to redouble their efforts to ensure workers meet those standards through interviews and records checks.

• Our goal was to ensure workers around the globe are protected by requiring factories to have no workers exposed to levels above those mandated by the permissible exposure limits (PELs) for chemicals prescribed in the OSHA indoor air quality standards.

The business press applauded these moves, but Nike's long-term adversaries in the debate over the use of foreign labor greeted them skeptically. While conceding that's Nike's policies were an improvement, one critic writing in The New York Times noted that

Mr. Knight's child labor initiative is ... a smokescreen. Child labor has not been a big problem with Nike, and Philip Knight knows that better than anyone. But public relations is public relations. So he announces that he's not going to let the factories hire kids, and suddenly that's the headline.

Mr. Knight is like a three-card monte player. You have to keep a close eye on him at all times.

The biggest problem with Nike is that its overseas workers make wretched, below-subsistence wages. It's not the minimum age that needs raising, it's the minimum wage. Most of the workers in Nike factories in China and Vietnam make less than $2 a day, well below the subsistence levels in those countries. In Indonesia the pay is less than $1 a day.

The company's current strategy is to reshape its public image while doing as little as possible for the workers. Does anyone think it was an accident that Nike set up shop in human rights sinkholes, where labor organizing was viewed as a criminal activity and deeply impoverished workers were willing, even eager, to take their places on assembly lines and work for next to nothing?'

Other critics question the value of Nike's auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Dara O'Rourke, an assistant professor at MIT, followed the PwC auditors around several factories in China, Korea, and Vietnam. He concluded that although the auditors found minor violations of labor laws and codes of conduct, they missed major labor practice issues including hazardous working conditions, violations of overtime laws, and violation of wage laws. The problem, according to O'Rourke, was that the auditors had limited training, and relied on factory managers for data and to set up interviews with workers, all of which were performed in the factories. The auditors, in other words, were getting an incomplete and somewhat sanitized view of conditions in the factory."

THE CONTROVERSY CONTINUES

Fueled perhaps by the unforgiving criticisms of Nike that continued after Phil Knight's May 1998 speech, a wave of protests against Nike occurred on many university campuses beginning in 1998 and continuing into 2001. The moving force behind the protests was the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS). The USAS argued that the Fair Labor Association (FLA), which grew out of the Presidential task force on sweatshops, was an industry tool, and not a truly independent auditor of foreign factories. The USAS set up an alternative independent auditing organization, the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), which they charged with auditing factories that produce products under collegiate licensing programs (Nike is a high-profile supplier of products under these programs). The WRC is backed, and partly funded, by labor unions and refuses to cooperate with companies, arguing that doing so would jeopardize its independence.

By mid-2000, the WRC had persuaded some 48 universities to join the WRC, including all nine campuses of the University of California systems, the University of Michigan, and the University of Oregon, Phil Knight's alma mater. When Knight heard that the University of Oregon would join the WRC, as opposed to the FLA, he withdrew a planned $30 million donation to the University. Despite Knight's opposition, in November 2000 another major university in the northwest, the University of

Etch-A-Sketch Ethics

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The Ohio Art Company is perhaps best known as the producer of one of the top-selling toys of all time, the venerable Etch-A-Sketch. More than 100 million of the Washington, announced that it too would join the WRC, although it would also retain its membership in the FLA.

Nike continued to push forward with its own initiatives, updating progress on its Web site. In April 2000, in response to accusations that it was still hiding conditions, it announced that it would release the complete reports of all independent audits of its subcontractors' plants. Global Exchange continued to criticize the company, arguing in mid-2001 that the company was not living up to Phil Knight's 1998 promises and that it was intimidating workers from speaking out about abuses."

Case Discussion Questions

1.Should Nike be held responsible for working conditions in foreign factories that it does not own, but where subcontractors make products for Nike?

2.What labor standards regarding safety, working conditions, overtime, and the like, should Nike hold foreign factories to: those prevailing in that country or those prevailing in the United States?

3.In Indonesia, an income of $2.28 a day, the base pay of Nike factory workers, is double the daily in- come of about half the working population. Half of all adults in Indonesia are farmers, who receive less than $1 a day. Given these national standards, is it appropriate to criticize Nike for the low pay rates of its subcontractors in Indonesia?

4.Do you think Nike needs to make any changes to its current policy? If so what? Should Nike make changes even if they hinder the ability of the company to compete in the marketplace?

Please read through the article below and answer the question at the end of the article.

Strategy as a Wicked Problem

Over the past 15 years, I’ve been studying how companies create strategy—the most important responsibility of senior executives. Many corporations, I find, have replaced the annual top-down planning ritual, based on macroeconomic forecasts, with more sophisticated processes. They crunch vast amounts of consumer data, hold planning sessions frequently, and use techniques such as competency modeling and real-options analysis to develop strategy. This type of approach is an improvement because it is customer- and capability-focused and enables companies to modify their strategies quickly, but it still misses the mark a lot of the time.

Companies tend to ignore one complication along the way: They can’t develop models of the increasingly complex environment in which they operate. As a result, contemporary strategic-planning processes don’t help enterprises cope with the big problems they face. Several CEOs admit that they are confronted with issues that cannot be resolved merely by gathering additional data, defining issues more clearly, or breaking them down into small problems. Their planning techniques don’t generate fresh ideas, and implementing the solutions those processes come up with is fraught with political peril. That’s because, I believe, many strategy issues aren’t just tough or persistent—they’re “wicked.”

Wickedness isn’t a degree of difficulty. Wicked issues are different because traditional processes can’t resolve them, according to Horst W.J. Rittel and Melvin M. Webber, professors of design and urban planning at the University of California at Berkeley, who described them in a 1973 article in Policy Sciences magazine. A wicked problem has innumerable causes, is tough to describe, and doesn’t have a right answer, as we will see in the next section. Environmental degradation, terrorism, and poverty—these are classic examples of wicked problems. They’re the opposite of hard but ordinary problems, which people can solve in a finite time period by applying standard techniques. Not only do conventional processes fail to tackle wicked problems, but they may exacerbate situations by generating undesirable consequences.

In the areas of public policy, software development, and project design, experts such as Peter DeGrace, Leslie Hulet Stahl, and Jeff Conklin have developed ways of spotting wicked problems and coping with them. DeGrace and Stahl wrote Wicked Problems, Righteous Solutions: A Catalogue of Modern Software Engineering Paradigms (1990); Conklin authored Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems(2006). Policy makers, in particular, have put this powerful concept to good use, but it has been largely missing from strategy discussions. Although many of the problems companies face are intractable, they have been slow to acknowledge the wickedness of strategy issues.

Between 1995 and 2005, I completed three research projects that provided insights into wicked strategy problems. First, as part of benchmarking projects that the APQC (formerly known as the American Productivity & Quality Center) and the Hong Kong Productivity Council conducted, I analyzed 22 North American, European, and Asian enterprises that use innovative strategic-planning techniques. They include ABB, Alcoa, Honeywell, John Deere, PPG Industries, Royal Dutch Shell, Siemens, Sprint, Whirlpool, and Xerox (China and USA). Second, I studied strategy implementation in depth at seven of these enterprises. Third, a colleague, Gaurab Bhardwaj, and I tracked DuPont’s pharmaceuticals business to learn how companies draw up strategies when returns will accrue only in the long run and are highly uncertain. Based on these studies, I’ll explore in the following pages how companies can tame—since they can’t solve—such problems. I’ll conclude by describing a planning process that helps PPG Industries tackle wicked issues.

What Is a Wicked Problem?

There are several ways to define a wicked problem, but according to Rittel and Webber, it has some or all of 10 characteristics. (See the sidebar “The 10 Properties of Wicked Problems.”) Caveat: The criteria are not a set of tests that mechanically determine wickedness; rather, they provide insights that help you judge whether a problem is wicked.

Wicked problems often crop up when organizations have to face constant change or unprecedented challenges. They occur in a social context; the greater the disagreement among stakeholders, the more wicked the problem. In fact, it’s the social complexity of wicked problems as much as their technical difficulties that make them tough to manage. Not all problems are wicked; confusion, discord, and lack of progress are telltale signs that an issue might be wicked.

In my consulting work, I’ve found that when five characteristics are present in a strategy-related issue, executives agree they have a wicked problem on their hands. I’ll list the key criteria below and use them to show how the challenge of growth that Wal-Mart faces today may well be wicked.

The problem involves many stakeholders with different values and priorities.

As Wal-Mart tries to grow faster, numerous stakeholders are watching nervously: employees and trade unions; shareholders, investors, and creditors; suppliers and joint venture partners; the governments of the U.S. and other nations where the retailer operates; and customers. That’s not all; many nongovernmental organizations, particularly in countries where the retailer buys products, are closely monitoring it. Wal-Mart’s stakeholders have different interests, and not all of them share the company’s goals. Each group possesses the capacity, in varying degrees, to influence the company’s choices and results. That wasn’t the case in 1962, when Sam Walton set up his first store in Rogers, Arkansas.

The issue’s roots are complex and tangled.

Wal-Mart’s slowing growth in the U.S. is a consequence of, among other things, a saturated market, its customers’ limited disposable incomes, and intense competition from rivals such as Target and Costco. Wal-Mart also faces resistance to imports, criticism about the wages and benefits it offers employees, and charges that illegal aliens work in its stores. All this has generated unfavorable publicity and strengthened people’s opposition to Wal-Mart’s opening stores in urban areas. Compounding the challenge, some of the company’s advantages have turned into disadvantages. For instance, Wal-Mart’s large market share in some product categories makes it tough to grow same-store sales rapidly. Its low-cost sourcing practices have rendered it vulnerable to the health and safety concerns that surround products made in China. Its supply chain expertise doesn’t help in the case of fashion and organic products, and its low-price image hurts its ability to sell upscale products. Moreover, Wal-Mart’s deep roots in rural America are of little use in overseas markets.

The problem is difficult to come to grips with and changes with every attempt to address it.

Wal-Mart has several options. It can try to boost revenues and profits by increasing sales from existing stores or raising prices, by expanding into urban markets in the U.S., by entering emerging economies, by diversifying into upscale product lines and creating new store brands, by forecasting better, or by cutting suppliers’ margins. These strategies demand different capabilities, are risky, and sometimes conflict with one another.

Consider two of the least complex options before Wal-Mart. It could boost profits by hiking prices, but until now, everyday low prices have helped the company fend off rivals. If consumers resist higher prices, the retailer’s sales will fall and profits will drop. To prevent that, Wal-Mart must first modify its value proposition, stock some upscale products, and develop a brand persona that warrants higher prices—challenges that have little to do with boosting profits immediately. Alternatively, Wal-Mart could enter a fast-growing emerging market, as it has done in India. It has found the going tough there, however. In India, local laws don’t allow foreign companies to operate multibrand retail outlets, so Wal-Mart has had to develop a special business model: cash-and-carry wholesale stores for local retailers. Besides being unfamiliar, the strategy contains the nucleus of another problem. When India’s laws change and allow Wal-Mart to sell to consumers, it will have to compete with the retailers it supplies.

The challenge has no precedent.

The two strategies we just discussed pose completely new challenges for the company. For instance, Wal-Mart would have to alter its brand image—for the first time in its 46-year history—to justify higher prices. Its recent foray into higher-priced garments is an experiment and doesn’t appear to have worked. Similarly, Wal-Mart’s India strategy differs from the M&A strategy it has used to enter other developing countries. Wal-Mart is a novice at managing partnerships, but it has had to team up with an Indian conglomerate, Bharti Enterprises. The group, whose primary business is telecommunications, wants to tap Wal-Mart’s expertise to set up a supply chain to get Indian produce onto Western tables! Wal-Mart will have to work with India’s bureaucracy to build the infrastructure that will support its operations, but in the past, dealing with governments hasn’t been the company’s strong suit.

There’s nothing to indicate the right answer to the problem.

In Wal-Mart’s case, going upmarket could boost profits, but it isn’t easy for a discount chain to develop a relationship with higher-income shoppers. Moreover, the retailer cannot ignore its existing consumers, who shop at Wal-Mart for inexpensive products. How much of a focus on higher-margin products and higher-income customers is appropriate? The company has no way of knowing that in the beginning. In like vein, Wal-Mart’s India strategy may be an effective way to enter a number of rapidly developing economies. However, the company will lose some of its competitive advantage when it shares expertise with local partners. What’s the optimal level of knowledge transfer? That’s impossible to estimate; Wal-Mart will find out only after it has shared best practices—and possibly created new rivals.

Growth is a hard problem for many companies, but it may not always be wicked. In Wal-Mart’s case, as we have just seen, the challenge bears all the signs of wickedness.

Managing the Wickedness of Strategy

It’s impossible to find solutions to wicked strategy problems, but companies can learn to cope with them. In accordance with Occam’s razor, the simplest techniques are often the best.

Involve stakeholders, document opinions, and communicate.

Companies can manage strategy’s wickedness not by being more systematic but by using social-planning processes. They should organize brainstorming sessions to identify the various aspects of a wicked problem; hold retreats to encourage executives and stakeholders to share their perspectives; run focus groups to better understand stakeholders’ viewpoints; involve stakeholders in developing future scenarios; and organize design charrettes to develop and gain acceptance for possible strategies. The aim should be to create a shared understanding of the problem and foster a joint commitment to possible ways of resolving it. Not everyone will agree on what the problem is, but stakeholders should be able to understand one another’s positions well enough to discuss different interpretations of the problem and work together to tackle it.

Companies must go beyond obtaining facts and opinions from stakeholders; they should involve them in finding ways to manage the problem. Getting a variety of opinions helps companies develop novel perspectives. It also strengthens collective intelligence, which counteracts groupthink and cognitive bias and enables groups to tackle problems more effectively than individuals, as Tom Atlee, the founder and codirector of the Co-Intelligence Institute, and Howard Bloom, a visiting scholar at New York University, have pointed out. Involving more stakeholders makes the planning process more complex, but it also expands the potential for creativity. Buy-in is an important result; companies should look not only for countermeasures but also for stakeholders to get on board with some of them.

Companies believe that shareholders and customers are important stakeholders, but employees are even more crucial. Their tacit knowledge and commitment often help enterprises develop innovative strategies. Merrill Lynch Credit Corporation, for example, places a great deal of emphasis on semistructured social processes, frequently organizing social events and encouraging employees to interact with one another. Everyone lunches in the company cafeteria, which allows employees to mix with senior executives routinely. A company intranet supports virtual social interactions such as blog-based discussions.

It may seem trivial, but documenting stakeholders’ assumptions, ideas, and concerns on an ongoing basis is important. It helps enterprises understand stakeholders’ hidden assumptions and gauge the effectiveness of the actions they have taken. Documents also help executives communicate ideas, which is essential if plans are to become reality.

All planning processes are, at their core, vehicles for communication with employees at all levels and between business units. This is particularly true of processes that tackle wicked issues. Smart companies emphasize such communication. At John Deere, corporate planners say that the quality of senior executives’ communications with divisions is the most important indicator of the effectiveness of strategy planning. Whirlpool believes that even the “janitor on the third shift” should be familiar with the company’s strategic goals. So assembly lines at Whirlpool shut down on a regular basis to enable managers and workers to discuss the progress of plans. At Shell a global electronic network, organized into forums with moderators, allows hundreds of managers and planners to discuss planning issues. At Merrill Lynch Credit Corporation, the corporate planners’ three most important rules for effective planning are simple: “One, communicate! Two, communicate! And three, communicate!”

QUESTION:

What is a "Wicked Problem" you have faced in your life. Could be work, home, school ... anything. What particular aspects made it a "Wicked Problem" and what did you / could you do/have done to address it? Provide the answers in a 2 ~ 4 paragraph essay.

The subject is STRATEGIC MARKETING MANAGEMENT CASE STUDY

BUYER BEHAVIOUR AND RELATIONSHIP DEVELOPMENT

RESEARCH COMPANY TRIES TO SHOW THAT YOU CAN ONLY UNDERSTAND CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR BY LIVING WITH THEIR BEHAVIOUR

How can any marketer get inside your mind to understand how you actually make purchase decisions? Structured questionnaire surveys may have a role for collecting large scale factual data, but they have major weaknesses when it comes to understanding individuals' attitudes. Qualitative approaches, such as focus groups can get closer to the truth, but participants often still find themselves inhibited from telling the full story. Many marketing managers, especially those without large research budgets, inevitably end up relying on their own personal experiences to understand how consumers behave. This may be easy for target markets which are in the 20-40 age range (the age of typical marketers), but how do you get inside the mind of teenagers, or elderly people?

Ethnographic approaches are becoming increasingly popular among marketers as a means of getting closer to the truth about consumer behaviour. Ethnographic research is nothing new, having been used by anthropologists in their study of the rituals of tribal people. Marketers have been relatively recent converts to the techniques of ethnography. The advertising agency BMP DDB has taken on board the techniques of ethnography in its "Project Keyhole" in a manner which is reminiscent of anthropologists' practice of living with tribes in order to understand them. Its consumer researchers live with a family for several days in order to record their every move. The project is designed to meet the needs of client companies who are looking for more than the data gathered using traditional quantitative and qualitative research techniques.

Participants record their views and actions on a digital video camera, in the presence of a researcher who stays with them from 8am until 10pm for a few days. A normal project would last four or five days and the client may be invited along for part of the time. Participants are paid £100 for their troubles. What did they do with the direct mail when it came through the letter box? Did they use the coupon offer which it contained? Who drinks the fresh orange juice in the house? How long do they spend cooking dinner? How do they actually cook the ready-prepared meals they bought earlier? Does the family eat together? These are examples of the vital information that sponsoring companies hope to get hold of in order to position their products more effectively.

According to the company, the advantage of this method over conventional research is that it picks up inconsistencies between what people say they do and what they actually do. Following them throughout the day allows the researcher to see why a person's habits might change according to random factors such as their mood, the time of day or the weather. Crucially it reveals the quirks in our behaviour that marketers are desperate to gain an insight into. For example, a person's store-card data might tell you that they buy bread and margarine, but it doesn't tell whether they eat the bread fresh, or toast it first before putting margarine on it.

In 1998, the magazine Marketing put this novel research method to the test with a guinea pig family called the Jones’s. It then compared the results of this approach with more traditional methods of profiling customers. In short, established systems such as CACI, Claritas and Experian might say one thing about the buying behaviour of a family, using lifestyle and electoral roll data, but did they bear any relation to reality?

The information that the researcher gathered in a short space of time told a lot about the Jones family. By contrast, the database information about the Joneses, although detailed and often accurate, could not capture the quirks and details that make up the personality of the family. For example, it transpired that the Joneses had a keener than average eye on value for money. Although information on them from the four database companies correctly suggested that they enjoy luxuries like good food and foreign holidays, it didn't say anything about the real life factors that influence their purchasing decisions. The most noticeable of these was that although they like good food, Mrs Jones mixed her shopping between the supermarket and a local discount store which sells cut-price brands. This means that she only bought at Tesco or Sainsbury's what she could not get cheaper elsewhere. She showed the researcher a can of branded plum tomatoes which she got for 10p at the discount store as an example, explaining that it would have cost 26p in the supermarket. Mrs Jones prided herself on being able to hunt down bargains like this and occasionally rewarded herself by buying "something luxurious", such as smoked salmon from Marks & Spencer. The freezer had an important role to play as it allowed Mrs Jones to buy things she sees on special offer even if she doesn't need them immediately.

Mrs Jones's eye for an offer made her a keen scrutiniser of direct mail. She checked mailings for 'catches' in the small print and for any special offers. She collected mailers worth chasing up on a clip on the fridge door, along with vouchers collected from magazines. Mrs Jones’s financial nous means that she managed the family's money.

Not surprisingly, these details did not come out in database information. Of the commercial databases, CACI's People UK and Lifecycle UK databases seemed to be most at variance with the reality of the Jones' life. They got their ages wrong, incorrectly surmised that they took business flights and incorrectly attributed Mr Jones with being computer literate. Nobody in the household read the FT or the Independent as predicted - they read the Daily Mail instead. Some of the other points made by CACI were right, but were felt to be very generalized and could apply to anybody.

Claritas seemed to be much closer to reality. The Jones' predicted jobs were about right and the database was correct in stating that they had credit and store cards. They managed to say that the Joneses liked antiques, perhaps learnt as a result of them occasionally buying Homes and Antiques magazine. They similarly were correct in stating that they like gardening, DIY, foreign travel and eating out. The database had predicted that the family would be most likely to own a Ford or Renault car. In fact, Mrs Jones owned a Ford, while Mr Jones had a company Renault.

Based on "Keeping up with the Jones's”, Marketing, 19th November 1998, pp 28-29.

CASE STUDY REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Why is it important to study the composition of the decision making unit? To what extent do you think this research approach will give a complete understanding of how family units make purchases?

2. What new possibilities, if any, for market segmentation are opened up by this approach to the study of buyer behaviour?

3. Critically assess the scope for expanding this type of research as a means of learning more about buyer behaviour.

2.What is the purpose (there’s two) of letting the transformed bacteria grow in recovery broth for a little while in 37 degrees before plating them on the selective media?

3.You are looking for a phage that will infect Burkholderia cepacia because it seems to be highly resistant to most antibiotics. You have the strain isolated in your lab so you can grow it up. You know it can cause onion rot, and is frequently found near tobacco or onion plants in the soil. Describe the steps you might take to isolate a novel phage from the environment that could infect Burkholderia cepacia.

Your answer doesn't need to be extremely detailed (you don't need to include specific volumes), just a couple sentences should suffice, but be sure to include any important details (i.e. if you need to make something sterile how do you do that)

4. For the bacterial transformation lab, what was the purpose of mixing calcium chloride solution with bacteria, and later performing a heat shock step after you've allowed the bacteria to sit on ice?

5. Giving animals too many antibiotics causes the animals to evolve resistance against the antibiotics.

True

False

6.

We went over two kinds of nucleic acid extraction. We went over "organic" RNA extraction where we use organic solvents to separate the RNA/DNA/protein/junk in a sample into layers or phases. In lab 3 you performed a DNA extraction but instead of the organic method you used a special column to collect the DNA. How did this work?

7. Beta-lactams target...

8. When we add Trizol (or phenol:chloroform:isoamyl alcohol, same concept) to extract RNA from a sample, the RNA is in the aqueous phase.

True

False

9.

Coronaviruses have plus-sense single-stranded RNA genomes (non-segmented). Rotaviruses have a genome divided into 11 shorter segments of double-stranded RNA. Say we had a sample that presumably contained both those viruses, and we wanted to make cDNA so we can sequence their entire genomes. Which of the following sounds like the best plan?

10. We can infer that bacteriophages form a monophyletic group outside eukaryotic viruses (so all bacteriophages are more closely related to one another than they are to any eukaryotic viruses), because they all infect bacteria and bacteria are a monophyletic group.

True

False

11.

Which of the following tests would enable you to distinguish a microbe’s ability to ferment lactose?

12.

You perform quantitative PCR using SYBR green dye (on the same DNA template/primers) in multiple wells. In one well ("well A") you get a Ct value of ~25. In another well ("well B") you get a Ct value of ~31.6. Which statement is most likely true based on this?

One major challenge in cancer research is developing robust pre-clinical models for new therapies, ones that will accurately reflect a human response to a novel compound. All too often, a potential treatment that initially looked promising in cells or animal models will not have the same effects in a human cancer patient. Given the enormous costs of clinical trials, researchers need pre-clinical models that accurately reflect human disease genetics and reliably predict which drugs have the most potential to succeed in patients. In Cell Stem Cell this week, a team led by Zuzana Tothova, a postdoctoral scholar at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and instructor in medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), and Broad institute member Ben Ebert, also a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and chair of medical oncology at DFCI, describe a new approach that has the potential to make this leap. Using multiplex CRISPR-Cas9 editing of human hematopoietic, or blood-forming, stem cells followed by transplantation in mice, the team designed customized mouse models for the progression of leukemia. In a number of different experiments, the animal models successfully reflected human responses to a therapeutic agent commonly used to treat blood cancers. "With our models, we can really test -- in a very controlled fashion, in the right setting, and using the right cells -- the genetic predictors of response to specific agents," said Tothova. Learning from human genetics The research team started by examining large-scale sequencing data from Ebert's lab and The Cancer Genome Atlas to determine which combinations of mutations occur most commonly in myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML), blood cancers in which the bone marrow fails to produce healthy blood cells. The researchers landed on nine genes that are recurrently mutated in MDS and AML. "We use human genetics to teach us which combinations of mutations lead to cancer," explained Ebert. "If we have sequencing data from enough tumors, we can identify the genes that are mutated recurrently and which combinations of mutations co-occur more commonly than expected by chance." Currently, many cancer models (such as cell lines) do not reflect the cancer genetics that a particular investigator would like to study, which often leaves both researchers and patients at a disadvantage. One strategy is to transplant an actual human cancer sample into a mouse, but the cancer tissue often doesn't engraft well, and researchers are only able to test against the specific combination of mutations accumulated in a given cancer sample in the first place. To study these specific MDS-driving mutations in combination, the team developed a pipeline to insert them into new lab models. "Say we're trying to develop a new drug against a particular combination of mutations, which we know about through the cancer sequencing efforts," said Tothova. "You might not have any sample available to study with that particular combination of mutations. We wanted to be able to engineer the right lesions in human cells, let them expand in mice, and generate an accurate genetic model of disease for testing new therapies. This has been a longstanding goal for cancer researchers, and for the pharmaceutical industry, for a very long time." Customizing cancer mutations with CRISPR To create models with the right mutations, Tothova and her team established a customizable system to introduce the cancer-driving mutations into human hematopoietic stem cells, where MDS and AML originate. The researchers already had extensive experience working with hematopoietic stem cells and progenitor cells, largely from umbilical cord blood or adult bone marrow, and in 2014, they published a Nature Biotechnology paper in which they described using the CRISPR-Cas9 system to create similar models of mouse cancers. This time, the team was aiming to model MDS in human cells, a much more challenging goal. The researchers took primary cells from healthy donors and used CRISPR-Cas9 to engineer them with a number of different mutation combinations, rather than a single alteration, in order to reflect the complexity of tumor mutations seen in patients. The combinations of mutations that the cells tolerated -- those that successfully altered the genes without killing the cells -- and that led to expansion over time were also the ones seen in human tumor samples. "Nobody so far has done this kind of multiplex CRISPR engineering in the actual hematopoietic stem cell compartment, adding specific mutations in combination to generate disease models," said Tothova. From there, the team injected the stem cells into the mice's circulatory systems, where a portion incorporated themselves into the bone marrow. The team monitored their progression, extracting and sequencing the human cells five months later to determine which engineered cells successfully propagated and which mutations became the most common over time in these pre-malignant and early malignant states. Testing therapeutic agents The mainstay of treatment for MDS patients are hypomethylating agents called azacitidine and decitabine. Based on previous studies, the team identified specific genetic mutations that could be used to predict cancer cells' response to these compounds in humans. (For example, mutations in a gene called TET2 predict treatment success for MDS patients, while mutations in the ASXL1 gene predict resistance in the tumors.) When the researchers treated the mice with azacitidine, they found that the response in the engineered cells matched what was expected from the human data: TET2-mutated cells responded to the drug, while ASXL1-mutated cells were resistant to the therapy. The team also discovered that mutations in a cohesin gene, SMC3, increased sensitivity to the drug -- data that could be important to clinicians and patients whose tumors share those mutations. "We are able to recapitulate findings previously seen in human clinical trials, which makes us feel more confident in the power of these models," said Tothova. "The data that comes from patients reflects the most important experiment we are trying to understand." She is currently working with clinical collaborators at DFCI to extend some of these findings into clinical trials. The team believes their approach to create this type of leukemia progression model for therapeutic testing can be applied to other types of cancer as well, as long as sequencing data is available to choose appropriate mutations and progenitor cells can be acquired from the desired tissue. "People in the field are hungry for these kinds of models," said Ebert. "We are modeling the disease in the right cellular context with a genetic complexity that reflects what we see in patients. This hasn't been done before, and it could become a really beneficial tool.

This study demonstrated which of the following?

Question 13

Researchers estimate the prevalence of caesarian section surgeries among pregnant women is on the rise. Suppose the researchers estimate that the current prevalence is 0.42.

1. Suppose a sample of 7 women at a clinic is collected. What is the standard deviation?
2. Suppose a sample of 10 women at a clinic is collected. What is the standard deviation?
3. Suppose a sample of 15 women at a clinic is collected. What is the standard deviation?

Question 14

Researchers are concerned about the prevalence of hypertension among a population of elderly patients at a cardiovascular clinic aged 45-60. Suppose the prevalence of hypertension in the group is actually quite high at 38%. Assume that a sample of 14 participants is collected.

1. What is the expected number of participants in this age range to report hypertension?
2. What is the probability associated with finding between 7 and 9 responses indicating hypertension?

Question 15

Recent research has suggested that adolescent drinking behaviors have escalated. Assume national statistics presume that only 14% of adolescents aged 13-17 engage in alcohol consumption. A sample of 58 participants in this age range is collected and 13 participants report consuming alcohol on a regular basis.

A) Can researchers carry out their analysis assuming an approximation to the normal distribution is acceptable?

B) Calculate the probability of observing the results witnessed in the sample.

C) Determine the mean and standard deviation for the distribution under the assumptions made in part A.

Question 16

A researcher is interested in looking at a new type of insulin that can treat diabetics with high fasting glucose levels. Suppose the researcher wants to take a sample of participants from the population of participants in the study in order to assess the progress by calculating their average resting glucose level (mg/dL). The researcher wants to be 95% confident using a population standard deviation of 27 mg/dL and hopes to have a margin of error at plus or minus 5 mg/dL. Calculate the sample size the researcher should get in order to answer his research question with all of the given information.

Question 17

Suppose the temperature that most foods can stay bacteria free in restaurants varies approximately according to a normal distribution with a mean of 31.3 degrees and a standard deviation of 2.8 degrees Fahrenheit. The Federal Department of Agriculture mandates that food inspectors make sure that all restaurants fine a location up to $1,500.00 if the temperature in cold food storage goes above the bottom 15% of that distribution for safety and insurance purposes. What temperature correlates to the bottom 15% of this distribution?

Question 18

Suppose a researcher is interested in the effectiveness of a new novel talk therapy technique in reducing overall depression as identified via score report on the geriatric depression scale (GDS). In order to carry out this hypothesis, the researcher gathers a SRS of participants in the program and performs the GDS test prior to, and after initiation of the new therapy technique. Assume the SRS score report presented below represents an approximately normal distribution.

A) What type of study design is this?

B) Conduct a paired sample t test investigating the effectiveness of the new therapy technique with 95% confidence. Write out your null and alternative hypotheses, and interpret your pvalue correctly.

C) Construct a 95% confidence interval representing the average difference in score on the GDS. Provide an accurate interpretation of your interval.

Question 19

A new vitamin supplementation program is intended to decrease average resting heart rate in individuals at risk for hypertension. Assume that a team of researchers are hopeful that resting heart rate in their population will get down to less than 68 bpm, in a population with a standard deviation of 2 bpm. In order to test this goal reduction, the team gathers a SRS of 273 participants in their program and calculates a sample average resting heart rate of 74 bpm.

A) Carry out a one sample Z test to determine if the team can conclude that the supplementation program is successful in meeting their goal reduction in resting heart rate. Use an α=0.05.

B) Construct a 95% Confidence interval about the sample mean, and interpret the result.

Question 20

Suppose a database contains population based statistics for a group of hypertensive potential participants in a new clinical trial. The systolic blood pressure of the population varies according to a normal distribution with mean 141 and a standard deviation of 8.4 mmHG.

Jim Young/Reuters

Screw the passengers.

That appears all too often to be the governing philosophy of the airline business.

Take the case of a United Airlines flight from Chicago to London last weekend. A technical problem forced the plane to abort its trans-Atlantic route and divert to Goose Bay in Canada. The 176 passengers were marooned there for more than 20 hours, sleeping in unheated military barracks at near-freezing temperatures.

“There was nobody from United Airlines to be seen anywhere,” one passenger told NBC News. “No United representative ever reached out to anybody, no phone calls, no human beings, no nothing. Nobody had any idea what was going on.”

It so happened that this came at the end of a week in which the world’s airline chiefs, junketing in Miami, celebrated their most lucrative year ever. They are projecting profits totaling $29.3 billion in 2015—almost double what they made in 2014.

And you must have noticed if you’re flying anywhere in the U.S. this summer that seat prices are not falling. Indeed, if the owners of those seats are suddenly feeling fat and happy, they are in no mood to pass on their swell feelings to you. It’s hard to imagine any other service industry being run like the airline business—but then there is no other business like the airline business.

So now we have a novel opportunity to see how airlines behave when, suddenly and much to their surprise, they find themselves with a business model that is working. If making a profit is a new experience for them, what effect will that have on their behavior?

First, let us consider why the numbers have been transformed.

There has been a steep change in the efficiency of jets. Beginning with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the combination of lighter but stronger composite materials in structures and a quantum leap in engine efficiency, using far less fuel, has slashed operating costs per airplane by as much as 30 percent.

In the last year, this windfall has been boosted by the large decline in oil prices.

However, these dual benefits are not being evenly spread either among airlines or continents. Airlines stuck with fleets of older airplanes are not getting these benefits. Fleet age has become far more decisive in deciding an airline’s profitability, particularly true in the U.S.

The three major U.S. legacy carriers—American, United, and Delta—failed to get in early to order the new generation of airplanes—the 787, the Airbus A350, revamped versions of the Boeing 777, the Airbus A320, and the Boeing 737—and allowed European, Middle Eastern, and Asian competitors to become first adopters and, thereby, reap the benefits of lower fuel costs.

The average age of the jets in the American fleet is 12.3 years; for United 13 years; and for Delta 17.2 years. It won’t be until at least 2020 that they can finally dump the oldest of their airplanes. (American has actually been delaying the delivery of some new jets that it ordered.)

Age doesn’t mean that an airplane is unsafe. Properly maintained 20-year-old jets are not in danger of falling apart. The frequency of flights determines retirement age more than years and the smaller single-aisle jets used on domestic routes age the fastest because they are making up to seven flights a day.

Age may not be dangerous but it sure registers with passengers when it contrasts with the comforts they encounter in the new generation of jets with their better cabin climate and quieter engines. So it’s not surprising that when airlines show up with all-new fleets as well as gracious cabin crews people start wondering, Why can’t it always be like this?

It’s also not surprising that the major American carriers are now trying to stop those airlines from coming to an airport near you.

When it comes to price and the domestic U.S. routes, not only are prices not coming down but there is persuasive evidence of price-fixing. The veteran investigative reporter James B. Stewart described this market as a classic oligopoly in a penetrating piece in The New York Times .

However, this is far from being a new phenomenon. These tactics began long before the final round of consolidation mergers when US Airways was swallowed by American Airlines in 2013. They have merely been continually refined to the point now when the airlines, suddenly enjoying profits, have responded not by lowering fares but by tightening control over the number of seats available and cutting back on flight frequency and destinations.

The reality is that the airlines don’t need to expose themselves to charges of collusion on fares and the operation of a hidden cartel that mutually governs capacity. That’s so 20th century.

These days their key tool is “yield management”—being able to precisely calculate how many seats should be available on any given route at any time of the day or night and adjusting the price hour-by-hour according to demand. This algorithm has become so refined and the market so controlled that each of the major airlines ends up looking at the same numbers on their computer screen. No human intervention is needed. In all but name it is a cartel—but one run entirely by unaccountable robots.

So?

We live in the world’s most vigorously capitalist marketplace. What’s wrong with airlines trying to make a decent profit, for once? And what is the point of them flying empty seats around the skies?

But I come back to my earlier point: How do these airline executives behave when, joy of joys, they find their balance sheets deeply in the black? Like a lot of other corporate minders they think a lot more about their shareholders than their customers. Short-termism rules. Wall Street responds to quarterly earnings, not patient long-term strategy.

A good example is Jet Blue. This airline was a rare example of a successful startup based on a maverick idea: super-chummy cabin staff and generously spaced seating. A new CEO (previously schooled by the stingy bean-counters at British Airways) is undermining that spirit by jamming more seats into the cabin and raising baggage charges, all at the behest of shareholders.

The problem is that the people running airlines in the U.S. have one part of their brain missing, the part that provides the service ethic. As well as fare-gouging they’re space gouging in the cabins. Even with the newest jets like the Dreamliner they are packing more seats into coach than the airplane designers (or nature) intended.

Q1. Read the above article and answer the questions that follow.

a. Why did the investigative reporter James B. Stewart describe US airlines as a classic Oligopoly?

b. What is the meaning of yield management as described in the above article?

c. Why did the writer accuse people running airlines of missing service ethics?