Please give a brief dicussion on :

Pork Production and Consumption in Mainland China

The topic should include few points realted to -
Shuanghui has run a successful pork business and its net income always grew at a two digit rate. Why does Shuanghui need to acquire Smithfield when it is already doing well in China? The pork business of Smithfield still earns acceptable profits and operates on a sustainable basis. Why does Smithfield need to sell itself to Shuanghui? Answers to these two questions partly lie in the status quo of pork production and consumption in China and the United States.

Suppose you are conducting a quantitative research study for a major car dealership in the United States with the objective to rate the importance of typical obstacles in consumers' car purchasing process (such as long wait times, complicated paperwork, aggressive salespeople, or insufficiently trained sales executives). Suppose you came to the conclusion that a random sample is not feasible or cost effective for this study. Which of the following nonprobability sampling designs (convenience sampling, judgment sampling, quota sampling, or snowball sampling) would you prefer for your study? And which of these four sampling design would be the least desirable? Please justify your assessment.

Part A: How does position in a structured hierarchy (stratification) impact quality of life? (Answer this question for inequalities on the national level for the United States)

Part B: How does position in a structured hierarchy (stratification) impact quality of life? (Answer this question for inequalities for the poor countries affected by multinational corporations)

Part C: How does position in a structured hierarchy (stratification) impact quality of life? (Answer this question for societies, but with caste structures)

Part D: How does position in a structured hierarchy (stratification) impact quality of life? (Answer this question for societies, but with with class structures)

Which of the following is NOT a potential benefit of using transgenic plants?

Imagine that you are working as manager of the Information Technology Department, ASCS College, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Write a business letter (Alternative block format) to Sales Manager, Dell Company situated at the following address

Dell Computer Corporation,
One Dell Way Round Rock,
Texas 78682,
United States of America.

Requesting them to send the price quotation of 100 workstations with the following configuration.

Precision T3630;Tower Workstation; Intel Xeon E-2174G, 4 Core HT, 8MB Cache, 3.8Ghz, 4.7GHz; Windows 10 Pro 64bit English.

1. To be enforceable, every contract must include an offer and an acceptance. Consider a typical online retail transaction in which an item is ordered and paid for online by a purchaser and shipped by the seller. In two or three paragraphs, identify specifically and describe the actions that constitute the offer and the acceptance.

2. In the United States, Great Britain, and many other countries, contracts of certain types must comply with the Statute of Frauds to be enforceable. In about 100 words, describe the specific elements a contract must include to comply with the Statute of Frauds. In your answer, provide one or two examples of how each required element could be satisfied.

Lakonisho Equipment has an investment opportunity in Europe. The project costs €10.5 million and it is expected to produce cash flows of €1.7 million, €2.4 million, and €3.3 million, for years 1, 2 and 3 respectively. The current spot exchange rate is $1.36/€; the current risk-free rate in the United States is 2.3%, compared to that in Europe of 1.8%. The appropriate discount rate for the project is estimated to be 13%, the U.S. cost of capital for the company. In addition, the subsidiary can be sold at the end of the 3 years for an estimated €7.5 million. What is the NPV of the project? What is the IRR of the project? Should Lakonisho Invest in this project?

The technology underlying hip replacements has changed as these operations have become more popular (over 250,000 in the United States in 2008). Starting in 2003, highly durable ceramic hips were marketed. Unfortunately, for too many patients the increased durability has been counterbalanced by an increased incidence of squeaking. An article reported that in one study of 146 individuals who received ceramic hips between 2003 and 2005, 13 of the hips developed squeaking.

(a) Calculate a lower confidence bound at the 95% confidence level for the true proportion of such hips that develop squeaking. (Round your answer to three decimal places.)

Case 1–2: True Religion Jeans: Flash in the Pants or Enduring Brand?

Founded in 2002 by Jeff Lubell, True Religion had become one of the largest premium denim brands in the United States by 2012. Although True Religion made its debut in upscale department stores and trendy boutiques a decade earlier, the company owned 86 full price retail stores and 36 outlet stores in the United States as well as 30 stores in international markets by the end of 2012. The company’s domestic retail store business accounted for about 60% of revenues and 64% of operating profit before unallocated corporate expenses in 2012. Just five years earlier, the U.S. retail store segment generated only 17% of sales and 25% of operating profit before unallocated corporate expenses.

Jeff Lubell’s vision of the company had come true—at least partly. The company had transformed itself from a jeans designer into an apparel retailer with it own brand à la Buckle and Diesel. At the same time, True Religion had managed to shift its product mix so that sportswear accounted for almost 35% of sales in its company-owned stores. Lubell felt these two ingredients were critical to establishing True Religion as a “lifestyle brand.” The ultimate in product differentiation, many companies attempt to create so-called “lifestyle” brands that transcend product category and inspire deep consumer loyalty. Lubell felt becoming a lifestyle brand was the key to insulating True Religion from the inevitable fluctuations in fashion trends.

Moreover, True Religion’s sales had grown at an average annual rate of almost 22% from 2007-2012. The company’s return on invested capital was an impressive 27% and its return on average assets was 12% in 2012. Despite these factors, press articles and analyst reports on True Religion described the company as, “the struggling maker of premium denim.”1 A New York Post article entitled “Escape From Hell for True Religion” described private equity firm, TowerBrook, as the company’s “savior,”2 when the company announced it had been acquired by TowerBrook in 2013. Other denim brands, such as Jeff Rudes’ J Brand, appeared to be usurping True Religion’s position as the “must have” denim brand for young consumers.

What had gone wrong at True Religion? Was the change in ownership the answer to the company’s problems? Was premium denim destined to go the way of Flash Dance legwarmers and Crocs as fast fashion from the likes of H&M became more mainstream? Private equity investors had snapped up stakes in both established and up-and-coming premium denim brands in the past five years—leaving just one publicly traded premium jeans maker, Joe’s Jeans. Should investors stay away from the industry?

It has been proposed that lightning be harvested for energy. Measurements of lightning strikes indicate that they have the following average properties (note, these are reasonable approximations):

• Potential difference between each end of 100 million V

• Current of 30000 A

• Time of 1.67E-4 seconds

• 20 strikes per square kilometer per year in lightning prone regions of the United States and 200 strikes per square kilometer per year in the most lightning prone regions in the world (Congo).

"Lightning collectors" are devices which have the following properties (I'm just making these up, though I think they are wildly optimistic):

• They can only collect lightning that would strike within a 100 m x 100 m area

• They each cost $10,000

• They last 40 years

• Maintenance costs and scrap value are negligible

The following economic data are also known (these are very rough estimations):

• Electrical energy is worth about $0.17 per kWh and is not expected to increase in value

• Investors in such projects expect to get back triple their initial investment in total after 40 years

As an independent energy consultant, it is your job to check if this project is a good investment in either the United States or Congo. Provide a report detailing your assertions and your reasoning. Assume that your audience is investors who have perhaps taken high school physics or college physics many years ago. You will be graded on both the correctness of your physics (and accounting) and your ability to explain the physics to such an audience.