Regression Analysis to Understand Cost Drivers in a Purchasing Department – Business Case
Each year Joe reviews the financial information for all the CWWR stores. This past year was a relatively good year; company profits were up despite the huge July Fourth fire in Las Vegas, Nevada, that shut down the store for four months and required replacements of all inventory. Joe did notice however that purchasing department costs varied considerably between stores. The minimum was $575, 000 and the maximum was $2.2 Billion. This was perplexing, and he thought this be an area where efficiencies could be achieved. Currently each store has its own purchasing department with full autonomy. In the western wear industry, regional customers have regional tastes and desires. Local purchasing agents are thought to be best able to understand the desires of local customers and to those needs.
On his management team, Joe has a managerial cost specialist with skills in data analytics. Together they discussed the purchase department cost problem and identified three potential cost drivers: merchandise purchased, number of purchase orders, and number of suppliers. To verify these ideas, Joe contracted purchasing managers from three different stores who agreed that these were potentially good cost drivers and they no others were readily apparent. The managerial cost specialist gathered the data for four variables from last year’s financial information and reported in Table 1. The data was also entered into an Excel spreadsheet (See appendix) By the team’s administrative assistant.
| Store Location | Purchasing Dept. Cost | Merchandise Purchased | No. of Purchase Orders | Number of Suppliers |
| Sheridan | $575,000 | $47,239,000 | 1708 | 61 |
| Denver | 1,226,000 | 102,364,000 | 2519 | 95 |
| Salt Lake City | 1,710,000 | 100,162,000 | 2506 | 139 |
| Kansas City | 881,000 | 95,760,000 | 1719 | 91 |
| Omaha | 1,544,000 | 51,466,000 | 2883 | 155 |
| Milwaukee | 794,000 | 50,631,000 | 647 | 75 |
| Minnealops | 1,341,000 | 84,753,000 | 2978 | 103 |
| Phoenix | 794,000 | 103,464,000 | 3761 | 117 |
| Las Vegas | 2,216,000 | 96,162,000 | 2584 | 73 |
| Albaqurque | 2,030,000 | 62,364 | 5497 | 176 |
| Tucson | 1,338,000 | 65,635,000 | 4347 | 130 |
| Houston | 856,000 | 88,524,000 | 2878 | 62 |
| Oklahoma | 1,122,000 | 72,645,000 | 819 | 129 |
| Tulsa | 863,000 | 61,638,000 | 1247 | 145 |
| Dallas | 1,085,000 | 105,666,000 | 2162 | 141 |
| San Antonio | 952,000 | 59,437,000 | 2822 | 105 |
| Austin | 1,134,000 | 38,542,000 | 5115 | 51 |
| El paso | 1,042,000 | 33,020,000 | 382 | 131 |
| Nashville | 1,634,000 | 36,322,000 | 5293 | 172 |
| Memphis | 699,000 | 34,121,000 | 967 | 34 |
| Indianapolis | 875,000 | 31,920,000 | 2425 | 48 |
1. Prepare a statistical analysis of the costs provided.
Plot the purchase department cost vs each cost driver (Graph per page)
Analyze the data for the potential problems, correct data problems if necessary and report any changes made.
Use the regression analysis to develop cost model for all potential cost drivers.
Identify the best model and explain why.
Explain what the model means from an economic perspective.
2. Use the model to make two recommendation to the CWWR management team for improving the efficiency of the purchasing operations
Be specific with the details of the recommendations
Estimate the cost saving from the implementation of your recommendations.
Consider the secondary implications, quantitative and/or qualitative.
Indicate how these changes (recommendations) should be implemented.
Discuss
1. What cost drivers are useful for predicting the purchasing departments costs? What is the recommended model? What does it mean? How can this model be used to reduce costs?
2. Does CWWR use a centralized or decentralized purchasing system? Why would the company use this strategy? Under what circumstances would a decentralized strategy be more valuable?
3. You developed recommendations, which are essentially are changes to human behavior. Is change in an organization easy? How can human behaviors be changed in a management setting?
In: Statistics and Probability
| Store Location | Purchasing Dept. Cost | Merchandise Purchased | No. of Purchase Orders | Number of Suppliers |
| Sheridan | $575,000 | $47,239,000 | 1708 | 61 |
| Denver | 1,226,000 | 102,364,000 | 2519 | 95 |
| Salt Lake City | 1,710,000 | 100,162,000 | 2506 | 139 |
| Kansas City | 881,000 | 95,760,000 | 1719 | 91 |
| Omaha | 1,544,000 | 51,466,000 | 2883 | 155 |
| Milwaukee | 794,000 | 50,631,000 | 647 | 75 |
| Minnealops | 1,341,000 | 84,753,000 | 2978 | 103 |
| Phoenix | 794,000 | 103,464,000 | 3761 | 117 |
| Las Vegas | 2,216,000 | 96,162,000 | 2584 | 73 |
| Albaqurque | 2,030,000 | 62,364 | 5497 | 176 |
| Tucson | 1,338,000 | 65,635,000 | 4347 | 130 |
| Houston | 856,000 | 88,524,000 | 2878 | 62 |
| Oklahoma | 1,122,000 | 72,645,000 | 819 | 129 |
| Tulsa | 863,000 | 61,638,000 | 1247 | 145 |
| Dallas | 1,085,000 | 105,666,000 | 2162 | 141 |
| San Antonio | 952,000 | 59,437,000 | 2822 | 105 |
| Austin | 1,134,000 | 38,542,000 | 5115 | 51 |
| El paso | 1,042,000 | 33,020,000 | 382 | 131 |
| Nashville | 1,634,000 | 36,322,000 | 5293 | 172 |
| Memphis | 699,000 | 34,121,000 | 967 | 34 |
| Indianapolis | 875,000 | 31,920,000 | 2425 | 48 |
Regression Analysis to Understand Cost Drivers in a Purchasing Department – Business Case
Each year Joe reviews the financial information for all the CWWR stores. This past year was a relatively good year; company profits were up despite the huge July Fourth fire in Las Vegas, Nevada, that shut down the store for four months and required replacements of all inventory. Joe did notice however that purchasing department costs varied considerably between stores. The minimum was $575, 000 and the maximum was $2.2 Billion. This was perplexing, and he thought this be an area where efficiencies could be achieved. Currently each store has its own purchasing department with full autonomy. In the western wear industry, regional customers have regional tastes and desires. Local purchasing agents are thought to be best able to understand the desires of local customers and to those needs.
On his management team, Joe has a managerial cost specialist with skills in data analytics. Together they discussed the purchase department cost problem and identified three potential cost drivers: merchandise purchased, number of purchase orders, and number of suppliers. To verify these ideas, Joe contracted purchasing managers from three different stores who agreed that these were potentially good cost drivers and they no others were readily apparent. The managerial cost specialist gathered the data for four variables from last year’s financial information and reported in Table 1. The data was also entered into an Excel spreadsheet (See appendix) By the team’s administrative assistant.
1. Prepare a statistical analysis of the costs provided.
Plot the purchase department cost vs each cost driver (Graph per page)
Analyze the data for the potential problems, correct data problems if necessary and report any changes made.
Use the regression analysis to develop cost model for all potential cost drivers.
Identify the best model and explain why.
Explain what the model means from an economic perspective.
2. Use the model to make two recommendation to the CWWR management team for improving the efficiency of the purchasing operations
Be specific with the details of the recommendations
Estimate the cost saving from the implementation of your recommendations.
Consider the secondary implications, quantitative and/or qualitative.
Indicate how these changes (recommendations) should be implemented.
Discuss
1. What cost drivers are useful for predicting the purchasing departments costs? What is the recommended model? What does it mean? How can this model be used to reduce costs?
2. Does CWWR use a centralized or decentralized purchasing system? Why would the company use this strategy? Under what circumstances would a decentralized strategy be more valuable?
3. You developed recommendations, which are essentially are changes to human behavior. Is change in an organization easy? How can human behaviors be changed in a management setting?
In: Statistics and Probability
No Explanation Needed. Just the answers and please copy paste the question from above and then the answer
2. Which industries fall under Canadian federal labour law?
Select one:
a. education and communications
b. media broadcasting and banking
c. mining and logging
d. agriculture and performing arts
3.Employment law is generally silent on which subject?
Select one:
a. hours of work
b. overtime
c. pay performance systems
d. health and safety
4. What are teleworking and flextime examples of?
Select one:
a. occupational shifts
b. contingent work
5.How are human resources management and industrial relations similar?
Select one:
a. Both believe that bargaining is the best way to ensure equity.
b. Both separate strategy from function.
c. Both were founded on organization justice theory.
d. Both place the organization's needs first.
c. union demands
d. employee demands
6.Which group of workers is included in employment legislation?
Select one:
a. farm workers
b. students
c. cab drivers
d. designated professions
7. What term is used for unions that organize all workers of an industry or workplace regardless of
occupation?
Select one:
a. industrial unions
b. trade unions
c. workplace unions
d. democratic unions
8. Which of the following statements about certification procedures in Canada is accurate?
Select one:
a. All provinces require unions to win a vote of the employees.
b. Management can have a say in selecting the union.
c. Certification may occur without a vote.
d. Employee votes are not legally binding.
9. The Ontario Nurses' Association is an example of which of the following?
Select one:
a. a craft union
b. an employer-sponsored association
c. a national union
d. an industrial union
10. Under what circumstances can a labour board certify a union without an employee vote?
Select one:
a. an unfair labour practice hindered employees
b. 40% of employees signed a union card
c. a community of interest exists
d. there is no application for certification
11. In a global economy where competition is intense, why will employers have greater bargaining
power?
Select one:
a. product markets are less competitive
b. supply of labour is elastic
c. demand for labour is elastic
d. substitutes for local labour are expensive
12. What is a hiring hall?
Select one:
a. a human resources tactic used to encourage employees to take different jobs
within the firm
b. a joint union-management plan to recruit workers
c. a union-run centre that coordinates the match between labour and job sites
d. a management-run operation used to recruit workers
13. Why are Canadian labour boards tripartite in nature?
Select one:
a. boards hear three kinds of cases
b. an odd number prevents a tie
c. they represent three competing stakeholder perspectives
d. to match the three levels of jurisdiction in Canada
14. What is the role of a neutral third party in arbitration?
Select one:
a. facilitates a negotiated agreement
b. imposes a settlement
c. observes and records negotiations
d. plays same role as an Industrial Inquiry Commission
15. What was the Wagner Act intended to do?
Select one:
a. protect property rights
b. establish international labour standards
c. protect the union right to organize and strike
d. replace industrial unionism
16. What are Marshall's four conditions related to wage elasticity?
Select one:
a. labour intensity, market for products, substitution effect, and wages
b. labour market, work-life balance, product market, and wages
c. wages, labour market, substitution effect, and product market
d. product market, substitution effect, market for substitutes, and labour
intensity
In: Operations Management
How to not fail
Or why there is not audience for what we make and why that truth will set us free, this is the language of marketing Audience, fans, commitment, relationships, engagement , relationship and love. It’s the language of consumers giving an awful all rhetoric no evidence so if you want to fail do this.
Assume that people care about brands
Assume that people want to have a relationship with you brand
Assume your fans are the most valuable consumer
Assume that everyone want to participate
Assume that people will find your content
Assume that depth is more important than breadth.
WHAT? Most people DON’T CARE that much about brands
The next generation of Bleach is here!
Most people don’t know how much about the brand they buy.
50% of all knowledge about a brand is held by just 20% of its buyers. 80% of buyer’s know a little or nothing about the brand.
0.5% people talking about a brand that don’t have a relationship with your brand
The vast majority of consumers have multiple partners 72% of PEPSI drinkers also drink COCA-Cola
Your Consumers are just somebody’s else’s consumers who occasionally buy you
Human relationship demand massive processing power 100 billion neurons with roughly one million s billions connections each firing at 10 time per second.
Relationship area matter of life and death
People like with strong social networks live longer. Compared with human relationships
Brand relationships are thin.
Most of us go through like it finding it hard enough to have
Good relationships with the real people in our life ”let alone all the brands are buy”
What’s love got to do with it ?
Your fans are not your most valuable consumer
This is what it needs to do to look like partners
Your brand’s health depends on lost people who think don’t know you well
Don’t think of you much and don’t buy your often it at all.
These consumers generate publicity not revenue
Distinguish between actors and the audience
Most people don’t want to participate passive consumption is not dead of 200 brands studied only one showed a level of engagement over 20%.
People’s digital participation is each other
20% passive
60% easy
44% initial
17% Intense
Just because people are participating with each other doesn’t mean they will participate with brands.
Mass reaction matters more than mass participation
People will not find your content
1 in 1,000,000 odds of a person viewing your content on YouTube
0.9% average click though rate
4.875 pieces of content the average Facebook user receive everyday
Over looked content publicized
Depth is not more important than breadth
Brand depends on big, board populations
The big difference between big and small brands is not how much loyalty they get
But how many people buy them
Engagement hasn’t replaced reach
SO, much of what we made is not vital but trivial
Much of what we make is not vital but incidental
Ordinary awful, awesome, everyday life
There is not audience for what we make
Our task is not nurturing enthusiasm
But overcoming indifference
This should inspire not depress us
All creativity demands resistance
And overcoming indifference demands awesome
Be part of what interest’s people, give more than you take
Take a position, don’t just have a “positioning “
Just move me, Dude
Dan Wieden
DESCRIPTION
Please check out the provocative presentation of Martin Weigel,
Head of Planning at Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam.
Regarding Social Media activity, ¿do you agree with Martin Weigel
and his main thesis? If yes, ¿what to do then (from an advertiser /
marketing&communications professional point of view)?
OUTCOMES
Thoughts related to Martin Weigel’s presentation.
In: Operations Management
The question is as follows with all of the requirements commented in.
/**
* A class that represents a Hounsfield unit. Hounsfield units are the units of
* measurement used in computed tomography (CT or CAT) scanning.
*
* <p>
* The Hounsfield scale is defined by specifying the radiodensity of air as
* {@code -1000} Hounsfield units and the radiodensity of distilled water as
* {@code 0} Hounsfield units. Adjacent tissues in the human body can be
* distinguished from one another if their radiodensities differ; see
* <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hounsfield_scale">the Wikipedia
* page</a> for a table of typical Hounsfield values for tissues of the
* human body.
*
* <p>
* CT scanners for medical purposes typically restrict the value of reported
* Hounsfield units to integers in the range {@code -1024} to {@code 3071} so
* that a Hounsfield unit can be encoded as a 12-bit value. This class uses
* the values {@code -1024} and {@code 3071} to represent the minimum and
* maximum, respectively, allowable Hounsfield unit values.
*
*/
public class Hounsfield {
/**
* The integer value of this Hounsfield unit
*/
private int value;
/**
* The minimum Hounsfield unit reported by medical CT scanners
* Look up the correct value in the documentation
*/
public static final int MIN_VALUE = 0;
/**
* The maximum Hounsfield unit reported by medical CT scanners
* Look up the correct value in the documentation
*/
public static final int MAX_VALUE = 0;
/**
* Initializes this Hounsfield unit to have a value of zero.
*/
public Hounsfield() {
// A constructor should assign every non-static field a value.
// Change the next line to assign the correct value to this.value
// or use constructor chaining.
//
// Implement the get method before trying to run the JUnit test.
// If you used constructor chaining you will also have to implement
// the next constructor before running the JUnit test.
this.value = -1000;
}
/**
* Initializes this Hounsfield unit to have the specified value.
*
* @param value
* the value of this Hounsfield unit
* @throws IllegalArgumentException
* if {@code value} is less than the minimum Hounsfield unit
* reported by medical CT scanners or greater than the maximum
* Hounsfield unit reported by medical CT scanners
*/
public Hounsfield(int value) {
// If you implement the set method first, you can simply call set
// from within this constructor to implement the constructor.
//
// Alternatively, implement the checkValue method first and call
// it from within this constructor to perform the necessary
// input validation, and then assign the appropriate value to this.value
}
/**
* Initializes this Hounsfield unit by copying the value from the specified
* other Hounsfield unit.
*
* @param other
* the Hounsfield unit to copy the value from
*/
public Hounsfield(Hounsfield other) {
// Assign a value to this.value by copying other.value
}
/**
* Throws an {@code IllegalArgumentException} if the specified value is less
* than the minimum Hounsfield unit reported by medical CT scanners or
* greater than the maximum Hounsfield unit reported by medical CT scanners.
*
* @param value
* a value to check
* @throws IllegalArgumentException
* if the specified value is less than the minimum Hounsfield
* unit reported by medical CT scanners or greater than the
* maximum Hounsfield unit reported by medical CT scanners.
*/
private static void checkValue(int value) {
// This method is useful for implementing the input validation
// needed in the constructor and in the method set
}
/**
* Returns the value of this Hounsfield unit.
*
* @return the value of this Hounsfield unit
*/
public int get() {
// Change the next line to return the value of this.value
return -1;
}
/**
* Sets the value of this Hounsfield unit to the specified value returning
* the value that was overwritten.
*
* @param value
* the value to set this Hounsfield unit to
* @return the overwritten value of this Hounsfield unit
* @throws IllegalArgumentException
* if the specified value is less than the minimum Hounsfield
* unit reported by medical CT scanners or greater than the
* maximum Hounsfield unit reported by medical CT scanners.
*/
public int set(int value) {
// Call checkValue on the first line to perform input validation
return 0;
}
/**
* Returns a string representation of this Hounsfield unit. The returned
* string is the numeric value of this Hounsfield unit (formatted as an
* integer) followed by a space followed by the string {@code "HU"}.
*/
@Override
public String toString() {
// Change the next line to return the approriate string
return "";
}
}
In: Computer Science
85) A Homo erectus-type left Africa at least by:
86) Alleles are:
87) Homologies are
88) Adaptive radiation
e) none of the above
89) The Regional Continuity Model
c) must have happened alongside the displacement model.
d) a and c
e) a and b.
90) That populations increase geometrically and that resources needed to support them increase mathematically was first suggested by
91) Injuries associated with Neanderthals have been attributed to
92) Which of the following is true:
93) The humeral-femoral index when applied to Lucy indicates
94) A major difference between the Plesiadapiforms and the Prosimians is
95) Many of the bog bodies found in England and Scandinavia
a) appear to have been killed ritually.
b) appear to be low class, working people.
c) are preserved by tannic acid.
d) a and c
e) b and c
96) Base pairs are
a) Adenine/Thymine and Guanine/ Cytosine.
b) monogamous couples inhabiting a home base.
c) A key to the understanding of DNA replication
d) a and c
e) none of the above
97) Prosimians
a) have claws on all digits.
b) do not have a post orbital bar.
c) have a mandibular symphysis and paired frontal bones.
d) do not have an opposable bit toe.
e) all the above
98) Which of the following is not true:
a) Trephination is the ancient human practice of cutting holes in a person’s head.
b) The images on the Nazca Plains have been carbon-14 dated to 190BCE to CE 660, a time
frame that corresponds to the Nazca culture.
c) Mummies are found all over the world.
d) Altruistic midwifery probably emerged with Homo erectus and changes in the pelvic girdle.
e) The Acheulean hand axe tradition did not appreciably change for over 1 million years because H. erectus’ cervical vertebras were too small to handle nerves for more complex hand-eye coordination.
99) Modern human’s oldest example of jewelry
a) was found in Brazil and dates to 40,00 years ago.
b) was found in Australia and date to 50,000 years ago.
c) was found in South Africa and dates to 75,000 years ago.
d) was found in the Levant and dates to 90,000 years ago.
e) was found in Turkey and date to 200,000 years ago.
100) Fear of rejection
a) is a basic organizing principle.
b) is an innate biological mechanism.
c) equals death.
d) all the above
e) none of the above
In: Anatomy and Physiology
Ethics in Animal Research Written Assignment
In this written assignment, you will act as the Animal Care Committee for your university. It is the committee’s responsibility to evaluate and either approve or reject research proposals submitted by faculty members who want to use animals for research or instructional purposes in psychology, biology, or medicine.
For this written assignment, choose two of the four case studies listed below and critically evaluate each one using the questions provided. The proposals describe experiments, including the goals and potential benefits of the research as well as any discomfort or injury that they may cause to the animal subjects. You must either approve the research or deny permission for the experiments. It is not your job to suggest improvements on technical aspects of the projects, such as the experimental design. You should make your decision based on the information given in the proposal.
Case Study Questions (1 Page Per Case):
1-Case Study #
2-Final Decision
3-What were three of your concerns regarding the ethical treatment of the animals involved in your case?
4-Cite and explain each of your three concerns using specific examples from the APA Guidelines for Animal Research (http://www.apa.org/science/leadership/care/guidelines.aspx).
5-What ultimately lead you to your decision?
6-What is one remaining question you still have about animal research in psychology?
CASE ONE
Professor King is a psycho-biologist working on the frontiers of a new and exciting research area of neuroscience, brain grafting. Research has shown that neural tissue can be removed from the brains of monkey fetuses and implanted into the brains of monkeys that have suffered brain damage. The neurons seem to make the proper connections and are sometimes effective in improving performance in brain-damaged animals. These experiments offer important animal models for human degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Dr. King wants to transplant tissue from fetal monkey brains into the entorhinal cortex of adult monkeys; this is the area of the human brain that is involved with Alzheimer’s disease. The experiment will use 20 adult rhesus monkeys. First, the monkeys will be subjected to ablation surgery in the entorhinal cortex. This procedure will involve anesthetizing the animals, opening their skulls, and making lesions using a surgical instrument. After they recover, the monkeys will be tested on a learning task to make sure their memory is impaired. Three months later, half of the animals will be given transplant surgery. Tissue taken from the cortex of monkey fetuses will be implanted into the area of the brain damage. Control animals will be subjected to sham surgery, and all animals will be allowed to recover for 2 months. They will then learn a task to test the hypothesis that the animals having brain grafts will show better memory than the control group. Dr. King argues that this research is in the exploratory stages and can only be done using animals. She further states that in the near future about 3 million Americans will have Alzheimer’s disease and that her research could lead to a treatment for the devastating memory loss that Alzheimer’s victims suffer.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
CASE TWO
The Psychology Department is requesting permission from your committee to use 10 rats per semester for demonstration experiments in a physiological psychology course. The students will work in groups of three; each group will be given a rat. The students will first perform surgery on the rats. Each animal will be anesthetized. Following standard surgical procedures, an incision will be made in the scalp and two holes drilled in the animal’s skull. Electrodes will be lowered into the brain to create lesions on each side. The animals will then be allowed to recover. Several weeks later, the effects of destroying this part of the animal’s brain will be tested in a shuttle avoidance task in which the animals will learn when to cross over an electrified grid. The instructor acknowledges that the procedure is a common demonstration and that no new scientific information will be gained from the experiment. He argues, however, that students taking a course in physiological psychology must have the opportunity to engage in small animal surgery and to see firsthand the effects of brain lesions.
In: Psychology
|
1. |
The ability of an English speaker to know the difference between "John hit the ball" and "the ball was hit by John" relies most heavily on the component of language called
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2. |
An individual has developed a program to teach English to children entering school who only speak Spanish. She did this by learning about the culture of the children and determining what training approaches worked best in that culture. This is an example of
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3. |
Which of the following is a major problem with using "wild children" such as the boy of Aveyron or even Genie to address the issue of the inherent nature of language?
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4. |
Chomsky revolutionized the study of language and language development by changing the focus from
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5. |
Which of the following goals would fit the focus of a domain-general cognitive approach to the study of language development?
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6. |
How would a constructivist such as Piaget explain language development?
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7. |
Which of the following findings would lend support to a language specific module in humans?
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8. |
Which of the following theories of language development would fit most best into the formalist view?
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9. |
How do the connectionists explain how a child learns to use the rules of language without acquiring the rules either explicitly or implicitly?
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10. |
You believe that language is acquired from the feedback an infant receives for making different sounds. Specifically, if an English-speaking infant makes English speech sounds they will be rewarded and not when they make sounds from other languages. Your views fit best into the framework called
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11. |
Which theoretical framework for language development would emphasize checking perceptual (e.g., hearing) and general cognitive (e.g., memory) abilities of a young child who manifests a problem with language?
|
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|
12. |
Which of the following methods of data collection would be the best approach if you wished to determine if children could learn the rules of language by attending to the speech inputted to them?
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In: Psychology
12. If white flowers are recessive to purple flowers, if two white-flowered peas mate, what proportion of the offspring would be white-flowered?
A) 0 B) 1.0 C) 3/16 D) 9/16 E) can’t tell
21. What are the Ediacaran fauna?
A. Rainforest organisms that form a “biodiversity pump”.
B. Fossils of the first living things on the planet, billions of years ago, and very tiny
C. A worldwide assemblage of large, animal-like fossils that appear, and vanish, before the contemporary animal fauna appear in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion.
D. The first life on land.
E. The ancestors of tetrapods
22. Which of the following organisms is an amniote?
A. A frog
B. A platypus
C. An alligator
D. A slime mold
E. B and C
23. A man is stranded on a desert island with NO VEGETATION. For some reason, an intact crate of corn flakes washes ashore with him, and a crate of 15 live chickens. What should he do to survive the longest?
A. Eat the corn flakes then eat the chickens
B. Eat the chickens then eat the corn flakes
C. Feed the corn flakes to the chickens, and eat the chickens one
at a time
D. Feed the corn flakes to the chickens, then harvest the eggs from
the chickens
E. It doesn’t matter-all the strategies are equivalent
24. Which of the following statements about the relationship
between CO2 and terrestrial climate, are well-supported
by evidence?
A. CO2 in the atmosphere is one of several gasses that
have the capacity to effectively trap heat, raising the equilibrium
temperature.
B. Periods of low CO2 concentration in the atmosphere are linked to cold periods in the history of the Earth.
C. CO2 is drawn down, removed from the atmosphere and incorporated into the biosphere, by photosynthesis.
D. A and B
E. All of the above
25. In Rosemary and Peter Grant’s study of evolution in Galapagos finches, which of the following were Darwin’s views that were NOT supported by the data?
Questions 26-27 refer to the following alternatives:
INTERACTION 1: Early summer flowers such as Trillium spp., are pollinated by a variety of flies, and bees. In exchange for providing pollination services, the insects receive nectar and pollen to eat themselves and to feed their young.
INTERACTION 2: Parrotfish are predators of marine invertebrates, including crustaceans, bivalves, and other reef fauna.
INTERACTION 3: Human eyelashes have at least two different species of eyelash mites. These mites feed off of dead skin cells, and obtain a sheltered habitat from us. They do not affect our ability to survive and reproduce.
INTERACTION 4: Humans all over the world harbor worms that live in their bloodstream and other structures. These worms use their human host as a staging area to release their eggs into the environment, and weaken their host, often shortening his or her lifespan.
INTERACTION 5: The desert tortoise shares a burrow with the sidewinder rattlesnake. The snake, unable to dig a burrow of its own, gets a place to sleep during the day. The tortoise gets a venomous snake to guard its burrow.
26. Which is an example of parasitism? A) Interaction 4 B) Interaction 2 C) Interaction 3 D) Interactions 3 and 4 E) None of the above
27. Which is an example of mutualism? A) Interaction 4 B) Interaction 2 C) Interaction 3 D) Interactions 1 and 5 E) None of the above
28. In terms of global climate, which is the most important reservoir for carbon?
A. The atmosphere
B. The biosphere
C. The oceans
D. The soil
E. None of the above are carbon reservoirs
29. What is a blastula?
A) An early stage in animal embryos
B) A feature of fungal reproduction
C) A hollow ball of cells
D) A and B
E) A and C
ANSWER THEM ALL PLZ NO EXPLAINATION REQUIRED
In: Biology
Customer Profitability Score
Exercise:
If the average annual cost per customer of a software house is $1592, customer A generates a profit of $365, and Customer B generates a profit of $1425. Calculate the CPS and compare the results.
Please type your answer below.
Search Engine Rankings (by
keyword) and
click-through rate
Why is this indicator important?
Along with page views and bounce rates (see KPI on page 155), search engine rankings (by keyword) and click-through rate are among a number of metrics that are used in website traffic analytics for assessing the effectiveness of an organisation’s internet strategy in attracting and gaining value from visitors.
Search engine rankings (by keyword) is simply a measure of website ranking based on relevant keywords. Unlike web directories, which are maintained by human editors, search engines operate algorithmically or are a mixture of algorithmically and human input.
The goal of achieving a high search engine ranking is to increase website visits. Sinply put, the higher the ranking the greater the likelihood that a person browsing the web (a searcher) will visit your site (obviously they are more likely to look at a website that appears on the first page than at one that appears on page 9 or 10 – see Tips/warnings). This is called the click-through rate (CTR), which simply means the percentage of time that a searcher clicks on a website displayed in their search results versus a different site. CTRs are impacted significantly by the search engine ranking for a particular keyword. At present, the most dominant search engine worldwide is Google.
How do I measure it?
Data collection method
The online collection of rankings from search engines, such as Google.
Formula
A search engine ranking is simply a website’s position on the search engine ranking. Consider the following as an example of measuring a click-through rate. A reported in the book The Small Business Owner’s Handbook to Search Engine Optimization (see References), a site that has earned a Google ranking of number one for a particular keyword produces a Google click-through rate of 42% versus the site that is ranked number 10, which produces a meager 6.06% ctr.
Example
This example comes from www.SEbook.com (see References) for predicting an increase in online sales for each keyword. For example say an organisation scored a Google website ranking of number one for a keyword that, according to the SEOBook.com Keyword Selector Tool (which provides a list of up to 15 of the most popular search queries for each word you enter), was searched on 100 times per day in Google. The site ranking number one would
Search Engine Rankings (by
keyword) and
click-through rate
receive a Google CTR of approximately 40%. This would translate into 40 visits to the website each day (100 searches x 40% CTR = 40 visits), or 1,200 visits per month.
Now we will convert the 1,200 visits into dollars. For this we will assume that the website delivers the average 2-4% conversion rate (sales from visits). This means that the 1,200 visits should produce approximately 24 to 48 orders per month (1,200 unique visitors x 2-4% = 24 to 48). We will also assume that your average online order is approximately %50. We will also assume that your average online order is approximately %50. Therefore, a single keyword with a Google website ranking of number one could drive between $1,200 and $2,400 of online sales for your business each month, or $14,400 to $28,800 annually.
Exercise:
Answer the following question.
1. What is the difference between organic click-through rate and inorganic click-through rate?
Please type your answer below.
2. How is click through rate linked to Search Engine Optimization?
Please type your answer below.
3. How can organic click through rate be improved?
Please type your answer below.
In: Operations Management