Gold Strike, Relating To Cry, :: essays research papers

â€Å"Gold mining union plans one-day Free State strike† An article dated March 17, 2000   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  NUM, or South Africa’s National Union of Mineworkers, is organizing a one-day strike at Free State gold mines. They are protesting the poverty and job losses from the mines. NUM is the country’s biggest mining union with 50,000 members, and on March 22 the strike would affect five gold companies; AngloGold Ltd., Gold Fields Ltd., Harmony Gold Co., Avgold and African Rainbow Minerals. NUM spokesman Ikaneng Matlala didn’t say, however, how many members of the union would participate on the strike, but did say â€Å"All the gold mines in the Free State gold fields are going to embark on a strike.† The protest is against the gold mines because of the huge job losses in the last fifteen years. In 1987, gold, being the backbone of the economy, employed 530,000 miners. After the end of apartheid in 1994, South Africa’s economy was open to foreign competition, and the gold industry had to be restructured. The gold price has been decreasing as well, and today only 200,000 miners are employed. This current event relates to Alan Paton’s, Cry, the Beloved Country, because mining supported Johannesburg, and references were made to the mining industry throughout the book. Many characters voiced their opinion that it was the black men that economically supported the white men in South Africa, and they were diseased and injured by it. That they worked for cheap, were exposed to dangers, and then when they needed medical attention the non-European hospitals were less than inadequate. John Kumalo gave speeches on strikes against the gold mines. Gold was found in a new area, Odenaalrust, and the white men wanted to change the name because it was too hard to pronounce.

Animal Mitochondrial Genome

One of the most essential organelles in the animal cell is the mitochondrion, as it is not only the center of ATP production, it also have a phylogenetic value that reveals taxonomic relationships among organisms. These are rod-shaped organelles convert oxygen and glucose into adenosine triphosphate (ATP), otherwise known as the chemical energy â€Å"currency† of the cell that powers the cell's metabolic activities. This kind of respiration is termed aerobic and it supplies energy to most cellular activities.This mode of respiration is more efficient than in the absence of oxygen as anaerobic respiration can only produce two ATPs, as opposed to the 36-38 ATPs produced by the aerobic mode. This is why higher life forms are adapted to utilize oxygen for their ATP production (Davidson, 2004). Mitochondria are hypothesized by scientist to have evolved from a symbiotic relationship between aerobic bacteria and primordial eukaryotic cells (Wallace, 2005), otherwise known as the endo symbiont theory. It functions in common physiological processes such as metabolism, apoptosis, disease, and aging. Being the primary site where oxidative phosphorylation occurs, these double-membrane organelles are efficient in aerobic respiration which allows eukaryotic cells to generate the necessary amount of ATP (Chan, 2006).The mitochondrion maintains its own set of genes although most of its proteins (about 900) are synthesized within and imported from the nuclear genome necessary for its respiratory function (Wallace, 2005).The genome contained by this subcellular organelle separate from the nuclear chromatin is otherwise referred to as the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Particularly in animals, mtDNAs commonly have a closed-circular molecule, with the exception of certain classes containing linear mtDNA chromosomes (Boore, 1998).These extrachromosomal genomes contain 37 genes composed of 13 protein subunits for enzymes coding for oxidative phosphorylation, two ribosomal RNAs of mitochondrial ribosome, and 22 tRNAs for protein translation. Together with proteins and RNAS synthesized in the cytoplasm, products of these 37 genes allow the mitochondrion to possess its own system facilitating DNA transcription, translation, mRNA processing and protein translation. This circular genome is comprised of a mixture of covalently closed circular monomers and different amounts of concatenated dimers and higher oligomers (Burger et al., 2002).Genes contained in the animal mitochondrion are usually encoded on both strands. The H-strand, or the heavy strand, and the L-strand, or the light strand, are these two mentioned strands that comprise the genome. Their names are derived from their molecular weight differences caused by their varying base compositions. 12 out of the 13 protein coding genes comprise the H-strand while only the single gene left belongs to the L-strand. The genome also contains noncoding regions which are restricted to certain areas known as the D-Loo p (Shadel and Clayton 1997).These two strands, the H-strand and the L-strand, originated within the D-Loop, or the displacement loop, region and within a cluster of five tRNA genes respectively. The entire replication process only commences in the initiation of the H-strand synthesis, while the L-strand lags behind. The L-strand synthesis can only begin when two-thirds of the H-strand synthesis across the circular genome is already completed. Therefore, only in the intiation of H-strand synthesis can mtDNA start replicating. Aside from its mentioned function, the D-Loop region is also the location of two transcriptional promoters (HSP and LSP), one for each strand of mtDNA. Synthesis of polycistronic transcripts for the expression of the majority or all of the genes encoded in each strand are directed by these promoters (Chang and Clayton, 1985).Scientists have speculated that the mitochondria are derived from eubacterial endosymbionts. This is due to the possession of mitochondria their own genetic material (DNA) and their own system for genetic expression. Although mitochondria are contained in species belognoing to different kingdoms, they offer considerable differences and even reveal phylogenetic relationships and distances.There are characteristic variations among the three major kingdoms Animalia, Eukaryomycota, and Plantae (including protests). Among animals, their mitochondrial genome is relatively small, having an approximate measurement between 16 and 19 kb, and are compactly arranged as they lack introns or spacer regions. Fungal mtDNAs are considerably larger that animal mtDNAs. Their size is within the range of 17-176 kb and they encode more gene sequences than those of animals.It can be observed that the size range is quite vast, reflecting great variations in genome size. This is not due to coding capacities, instead it can be attributed to the presence of varying sizes of introns and spacer regions. In the case of plants, the genome size range is even more variable as it spans 16 to 2400 kb. Its mtDNA is distinctly characterized by a wide variety of gene content and molecular structure, and the variation of the length of spacer regions and introns (Ohta et al., 1998).One of the most extensively studied group are those of the protists. Their mtDNAs are considered intermediate in size with a measurement range of 6 to 77 kb. Most of protist genomes are compact having little or no non-coding regions. Although present, intergenic spacers are sparse and are generally small, with some coding regions overlapping. There is an general high concentration of Adenine and Thymine that are particularly elevated in non-coding intergenic regions (Gray et al., 1997).Mitochondrial genome composition in vertebrates predominantly includes a standard set of genes coding for 13 inner mitochondrial membrane proteins for electron transport and oxidative phosphorylation functions. Included genes for this function are nad1-6 and 4L, cob, cox1-3 an d atp6 and 8. Genes for both large subunit (LSU) and small subunit (SSU) rRNAs are also contained within the animal mitochondrial genome.The mentioned set of mtDNA-encoded genes (plus atp9) is also found in fungal organisms such as Allomyces macrogynus mtDNAs. However, particular ascomycete fungi such as Schizosaccharomyces pombe lack all nad genes. Both animal and fungal mtDNAs do not encode a 5S rRNA nor, with the exception of rps3 in A. macrogynus mtDNA, do they carry any ribosomal protein genes. Terrestrial plants contain mitochondrial genomes with a few extra respiratory chain protein genes such as nad9 and atp1 in M.polymorpha. But the most distinct variation of the plant mtDNA from the animal and fungal mtDNAs is the presence of both the 5S rRNA (Gray et al., 1997).Animal mtDNA sequences are found to evolve rapidly however they maintain their genetic arrangements for long periods of evolutionary time. A notable example is the identical arrangement of humans and trouts. Althou gh there are few exceptions, gene arrangements are considered stable within major taxonomic groups but are variable between them. We can potentially utilize these data comparisons in reconciling phylogenetic conflicts. Greater differences would entail divergence among the taxa. Comparisons of mitochondrial gene arrangements have provided convincing phylogenies in several cases where all other data were equivocal, including the relationships among major groups of echinoderms and arthropods (Burger et al., 2002).Although studies in mitochondrial genomes of different taxonomic groups are still inconclusive, it still holds a large potential in revolutionizing the taxonomic field. It has opened avenue for prospective discoveries on the currently unknown areas of biological sciences. Therefore, mitochondrial genome research studies are yet to reach their pinnacle and would surely still be an essential focus of phylogenetic sciences.BibliographyBoore, J.L. (1998) Animal Mitochondrial Genom es. Nucleic Acids Research. 27 (8), 1999, pp.1767-1780.Burger, G., Forget, L., Zhu, Y., Gray, M.W., and Lang, B.F. (2002) Uniquemitochondrial genome architecture in unicellular relatives of animals. PNAS, 100 (3), 04 February, pp. 892-897.Chan, D.C. (2006) Mitochondria: Dynamic Organelles in Disease, Aging, and Development.Cell. No. 125, 30 June, pp. 1241-1252.Chang, D. and Clayton, D. (1985) Priming of human mitochondrial DNA replication occursat the light-strand promoter. Biochemistry. Vol. 82, January, pp. 351-355.Davidson, M. (2004) Mitochondria [Internet], Florida State University. Available from:;http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/cells/mitochondria/mitochondria.html;Gray, M., Lang, B.F., Cedergren, R., Golding, G.B.,Lemieux, Sankoff, C.D., Turmel, M., Brossard, N., Delage, E.,Littlejohn, T.G., Plante, I., Rioux, P., Saint-Louis, D., Zhu, Y. andBurger, G. (1997) Genome structure and gene content in protest mitochondrial DNAs. Nucleic Acids Research. 26 (4), 1998, pp. 865-878.Ohta, N. , Sato, N., and Kuroiwa, T. (1998) Structure and Organization fo the MitochondrialGenome of the Unicellular Red Alga Cyanidioschyzon merolae Deduced from the Complete Nucleotide Sequence. Nucleic Acids Research. 26 (22), 24 September, pp. 5190-5198.Shadel, G. S., and D. A. Clayton. (1997) Mitochondrial DNA maintenance in vertebrates.Annu. Rev. Biochem. 66:409–435.Wallace, D.C. (2005). A mitochondrial paradigm of metabolic and degenerative diseases,  aging, and cancer: A dawn for evolutionary medicine. Annu Rev Genet. 39, pp. 359–407

Ford Motor Management Accounting - 3056 Words

Case Study Report- Ford Motor Introduction Ford Motor Company (Ford) is an American multinational corporation which produces cars and trucks. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. Ford is the second largest automaker in the U.S. and the fifth-largest in the world based on annual vehicle sales in 2010. Ford introduced methods for large-scale manufacturing of cars and large-scale management of an industrial workforce, using elaborately engineered manufacturing sequences typified by moving assembly lines. In the first part of report, we will analysis the financial issue of how Ford Motor Company deals with the largest slump in sales on 2008. This will be examined in the aspect of†¦show more content†¦The assumption is based on high proportion of labor cost (fixed expense) involved in automobile company for assembly purpose. With a large scale of lay-off, the fixed expense reduced in higher proportion which causes the break-even point (=Fixed expense/Contribution margin) reduced. This requires another assumption that the decrease of variable expense has offset a part of decrease on sales so that the decrease on contribution margin is smaller. With higher reduction of fixed expense than that of contribution margin, the break-even point is smaller and therefore the net operating loss is reducing with easier achievable target. From the annual report of 2008 to 2010, the net operating loss is reduced from $14.6 billion to net profit of 6.557 billion, an increase of 144.9%. Table 1: Summary of CVP analysis | |Increase/Decrease |Explanation | |Sales |Decrease (Larger) |Price and Volume decreases | |Less: Variable expense |Decrease |Sell unprofitable brand | |Contribution Margin |Decrease (smaller) |Larger decrease in sales | |Less: Fixed Expense |Decrease (larger) |CostShow MoreRelatedFord vs Toyota Essay935 Words   |  4 PagesFord vs. Toyota Ford Motor Company is the second-largest automobile company in the world. Fords main focus is automobiles; however, they also operate in Ford Credit and Hertz Corporation. Ford also has controlling interest in Mazda Motor Corporation. Ford was established June, 1903; in an old wagon factory in Detroit Michigan. In 1903, Ford began production on a two-cylinder, 8 horsepower called the Model A. They produced a total of 1,708 of these cars in their first year of operation. ToyotaRead MoreLean Vs. Lean Manufacturing Industry1049 Words   |  5 Pages Lean accountings primary use is in the manufacturing industry. 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