Carbon, Phosphorus and Nitrogen Cycles Essay Example for Free

Carbon, Phosphorus and Nitrogen Cycles Essay The carbon cycle starts with the reservoir of the carbon dioxide in the air, the carbon atoms move from carbon dioxide through photosynthesis into atoms of organic molecules that form the plants body. These carbon atoms are then further metabolized and are eaten and turned into tissue that all organisms in the ecosystem use. Half of the atoms are respired by the plants and animals and half are deposited back into the soil in the form of dead animal and plant matter, which are eaten by decomposers and transformed back into carbon dioxide. Humans impact this cycle because we are removing so much of the photosynthetic efforts of the plants in order to support our enterprises, we are â€Å"diverting 40% of the photosynthetic productivity of land plants to support human enterprises,† (pg 67). Two examples of our harmful tendencies are burning fossil fuels which has increased atmospheric carbon dioxide â€Å"35% over preindustrial levels,† (pg. 67) and logging. These both are being used naturally by the ecosystem and the lack of these resources causes stress and strain to keep the balance. At the rate it is going carbon to complete its cycle from the atmosphere through one or more living organism and back to the atmosphere happens about every 6 years. The phosphorus cycle includes the cycle of all the biologically important nutrients found in the natural minerals. These elements include iron, calcium, potassium found in the rock and soil minerals in the lithosphere. Over time a rock breaks down and releases phosphate (PO43-) and other ions which replenish phosphorus that is lost due to runoffs and leaching. The phosphate is absorbed by plants and turned into compounds that are moved through the food chain. Humans impact this cycle because we are using the phosphorus to make fertilizers, animal feeds, detergents or other products and mining these locations. Our water systems are being damaged because â€Å"human applications have tripled the amount of phosphorus making it to the oceans,† (pg 68). This is a problem because it causes over fertilization or eutrophication of the aquatic ecosystem. The waterborne phosphorus cannot be returned to the soils this causes too much bacteria or algae in the water and kills of the fish and other water mammals. The nitrogen cycle is similar to the carbon and phosphorus cycles; because it has a gas phase like carbon and can also be a limiting factor such as phosphorus. The main form of nitrogen is in the air â€Å"which is about 78% nitrogen gas (N2),† (pg 68). The plants change the nitrogen into organic compounds which are necessary like proteins and nucleic acids. Humans impact this cycle because many of our crops are legumes or nonleguminous. Legumes like peas, beans provide the bacteria a place to live and a source of food and receive nitrogen in exchange, where it enters the food web. Nonleguminous crops such as corn, wheat, potatoes and cotton have to be heavily fertilized with nitrogen’s from industrial fixations. The over fertilization of nitrogen into the soils are destroying lakes, ponds and forests. However our actions are more than doubling the rate which nitrogen is moved from the atmosphere to the land, â€Å"nitric acid has destroyed thousands of lakes and ponds and caused extensive damage to forests,† (pg 70). Humans have a great impact on all three cycles. If it continues the way that we are using fossil fuels, and destroying the land as we are currently are. We are depleting our resources at a faster rate than we can sustain naturally which is causing harmful living conditions which we may not necessarily feel the repercussions of immediately.

Point of View in Everyday Use by Alice Walker Essay -- American Litera

Point of View in "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker Point of view is described as the perspective from which a story is told (Literature, G25). In the story "Everyday Use" the point of view is that of first person narrator or major character. The story is told by the mother in the story. The theme of this story is that of a mother who is trying to cope with changing times and two daughters who are completely different. Having the story told from momma's point of view helps to reveal how momma feels about herself and how she defines her daughters Dee and Maggie. "Everyday Use" is told from momma's point of view which helps to reveal how she feels about herself. Momma feels that she is an uneducated person, she says "I never had an education myself," this creates barriers between her and her oldest daughter Dee who has a college education (94). She describes herself as "big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands" that wears overalls by day and flannel gowns by night (93). From momma's point of view one can tell that she favors her relationship with her daughter Maggie mo...

South African Financial Industry

Non-traditional participants continue to aggressively explore revenue opportunities offered by the South African banking industry. The increased market threats, highly competitive and continually changing environment has led to Strategy& (2017) to refer to it as â€Å"a market place with no boundaries†. Figure 1 below, shows how the South African financial industry has progressed into the current state from just over a decade ago. The environment is characterised by intense competition, globalisation, heightened customer mobility and demand and deregulation (Bedeley, 2014; The Banking Association South Africa, 2014). Advancements of digital solutions has been the key enabler for the non-traditional participants to re-shape their value proposition and endeavour into the banking market. This has resulted in empowered global customers (Somal, 2017). To combat the increasing threats and outperform the new entrants, traditional banks continue to seek out digital transformational strategies (Bedeley, 2014; Somal, 2017; Strategy&, 2017). To South African traditional banks, the more threatening challenge is customer retention over attraction (Bedeley, 2014). They acquire vast customer data from the large market share evident in the second paragraph. This data continues to emerge at an alarming rate, due to increased market shared, increased customer base and innovation (Bedeley, 2014). The South African Banks have the opportunity to develop more customer centric strategies to respond to the wealth of data at hand. The key lies with translating this customer data into insight to enhance relationships with existing customers. Referred to, in the modern age, as data analysis. Data collection and analysis need to be a crucial part of business strategy (Somal, 2017). Data analysis depicts what has changed, and how to respond to it (McKinsey&Company, 2018; SAS, 2018). This implies the data capture, storage, processing and analysing strategies must make full use of the technologies available to take up the challenges born from the data surge (Bedeley, 2014). Harvesting data and looking for patterns and anomalies to provide insight lead to better business decision making and outcomes. This is not limited to, but includes, reduces operational costs, business risk analysis, reduced business uncertainty, consumer behavioural predictions, and guide smarter strategies to optimise current offerings or develop new ones (Bedeley, 2014; EY,2017; Stringfellow, 2014). Collecting and analysing customer data is not a new trend, the challenge is storing vast amounts of data, but, new technologies have relieved that liability (Forrester, 2018; TDWI, 2011). Organisations that adopt data analysis surpass their competition by 5% in productivity, and 6% in profitability (EY, 2017; Stringfellow, 2014). According to EY (2017), by 2020, each human being will generate 1.7 megabytes of new information per second. And, in the past two years, human beings have generated more information in the history of humankind. Effective internal and external knowledge management grants organisations the agility to detect opportunities and threats (e.g., reacting to new products or services of competitors); grasping possible opportunities (e.g., expanding into new markets), and staying afloat in a market whilst possessing competitive advantage (e.g., digital strategies to deliver efficient products or services) (Cà ´rte-Real, Oliveira & Ruivo, 2017; Bedeley, 2014; EY, 2017; McKinsey&Company, 2018).Understanding the South African MarketThis section aims to put into perspective the current market that South African banks serve. In 2017, 80.1% of South Africans lived in formal dwellings, 16.5% in informal dwellings, and 5.5% in traditional dwellings (StatsSA, 2017). According to a report by Standard Ba nk (as cited by BusinessTech, 2014), the poorest of the households in South Africa account for 62.3%, with members who earn a combined income of R7, 167 per month. Middle class households, earning from R86, 001 to R1.48 million per annum, account for 26.4%. Affluent households account for 0.4%, with an income of more than R2.36 million per year. The bank notes, only 5.5% of households possibly have the capability to save each month; Furthermore, the affluent households have a 65% saving capability each month of their income after-tax. The poor households contribute 11.2% to the country's income, the middle class contribute a total of 64.6%, whilst the affluent contributes 22.6%. This report highlights the severity of inequality in South Africa, whilst on the flip side highlights growth in the middle class (BusinessTech, 2016). Businesslive (2017) states, in the fourth quarter of 2016, there were 24.31-million credit consumers in South Africa, which is 8 million more than the employed South African population; Moreover, two out of every five credit-active consumers have an impaired record, which is 40% of the 24.31-million credit-active consumers; However, other debt including loan sharks debt were not included. In 2015, the World Bank report, declared South Africans as the world's largest debtors (Businesslive, 2017).?Costumer Satisfaction Index for the South African Banking IndustryIn the fourth quarter of 2017, Consulta released a Customer Satisfaction Index (SAcsi) for the South African banking industry. This satisfaction index is based on brands exceeding or falling short of customer expectations, and the respondents' idea of the ideal product to achieve an overall result out of 100 (Consulta, 2017). The report reveals the degree of satisfaction of South Africans with their banks. Survey participants included 13,099 bank customers across various segments selected at randomly (Consulta, 2017). The table below shows the year-on-year SAcsi scores for the South African traditional banks from the year 2017 till 2017. Absa shows a decline in the past three years, dropping from 74.8 in 2014 to 73.3 in 2017, resulting in obtaining the bottom position among the banks included in the benchmark. Standard bank previously held the last position, but, made a recovery with a substantial 3.3% increase in 2017 from the previous year. Nedbank suffered a 0.9% in 2017 from the previous year, 2016 77%, obtaining a 76.3% moving it to below the industry average of 77%. FNB obtained a 0.4% decrease in 2017 from the previous year, 2016 81.3%, but remains above the industry average. Capitec customers have remained the most satisfied for past five consecutive years. The 2017 Capitec score was 85.3%, 8.3% above the overall industry average.Gap Withing the South African Banking Industry Regarding Data AnalysisBanks are only using a portion of the customer data that is available to them to generate insight to optimise current offerings. The reasons for the low insight is silos and organisational structures, skills and talent gaps, data privacy, regulatory and legal framework or ethical issues and high costs associated to data analysis strategies (Somal, 2017). This prevents them from responding to changing customer needs; hence, leads to missed revenue opportunities. By prioritising data analysis to a key component to daily decision making, South African Banks can be equipped to integrate data from the different sources and develop solutions to better serve their customers, which will deliver noteworthy benefits (Strategy;, 2017). The outcome of this section suggests that with data analysis South African banks can provide business value by facilitating the acquisition of supply chain and marketing knowledge (Cà ´rte-Real et al., 2017). That translate to the right person offered the right product on the right device at the right time (Bedeley, 2014). Since banks have so much data available with the necessary analysing tools, they have a 50% chance of retaining a customer that is about to leave (Somal, 2017). Section three forms the fundamentals of the investigation of this paper. The section begins with the use of insight harnessed from customer data analysis to enhance customer experience by reviewing closely related literature; and then grants much needed detail on the data required for this resolution; how it will be collected from diverse sources to build better models and gain more actionable insights; improved to generate the right results and avoid making incorrect conclusions; and analysed for better decision making. The section concludes by presenting some key challenges and benefits of data analysis.

The Most Dangerous Game Summary - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 1 Words: 299 Downloads: 8 Date added: 2017/09/20 Category Advertising Essay Type Argumentative essay Did you like this example? At the start of the story, Sanger Rainsford is sailing south to hunt jaguars in the Amazon with a fellow hunter named Whitney. Rainsford is presented as heartless hunter, unconcerned about the life or feelings of his prey. In the middle of the night, Rainsford accidentally falls over the side of the yacht, but saves himself by swimming to the rocky shore of Ship-Trap Island. He discovers a large manor on a cliff. He knocks at the door and is welcomed by General Zaroff, a man of noble Cossack heritage who apparently lives on the island alone with his servant, a deaf-mute named Ivan. Zaroff explains that he is the ultimate hunter; he recieved his first gun at the age of 5, and has traveled the world and hunted every possible game animal. Now he has become so good at it that hes bored with his beloved pastime. After reaveling that he had to create a new animal, he indirectly states that he hunts men. He stocks his prey by tricking ships into wrecking near his island with misl eading navigation lights. When the surviving crew swim to his shores, he offers them a choice: they can be murdered by Ivan or choose to be hunted on the island by Zaroff. If they survive three days, he promises to set them free. Rainsford, who is immediately against the idea of hunting humans, tries to convince General Zaroff that hunting humans makes him a murder, not a hunter. This, of course, doesnt work and Zaroff offers Rainsford the choice: become prey, or die. Rainsford must set out to survive his three days as a game animal with only a sack of food and a knife. The conclusion of the story focuses on what happens when these two skilled hunters finally match wits. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "The Most Dangerous Game Summary" essay for you Create order