Construction Business Memo Free Essays

The contract value for this project will be for a guaranteed maximum price of $). All work will be completed as required in the modified General Conditions and the Standard Form of Agreement for a Guaranteed Construction has great interest in this project because it is a design of steel base construction we are familiar with. The design is ambitious and will be a great addition to the campus. We will write a custom essay sample on Construction Business Memo or any similar topic only for you Order Now We are familiar with this type of space frame, base isolation design as it was recently implemented in the Lab project for which we were the General ContractorConstruction Manager. This project was successful through the involvement of the construction management team in the preconstruction process. A constant exchange of ideas determined the best fabrication and erection practices and team members were able to agree upon major cost and constructability issues. We propose for this project with the stipulation that we are highly involved in preconstruction process. On a site with such grade slope, shoring, erection and accessibility are complex issues that require strategic planning. Our project and field teams understand base isolator design constructability and will be able to fficiently and safely implement the product per the desired outcomes of To prepare to build a facility being constructed on a narrow steep slope between a road and adjacent buildings we will need to grub and clear the hillside, construct a retaining wall and begin excavation for the concrete pier foundations. This ensures the safety of the general public using the road and will provide the stability needed in a steep hillside. Construction will anticipate and schedule crane picks of steel and material to mitigate partial road closures. Supports will be temp welded to the oundations while the steel is being erected to counter uplift. This is a hazard characteristic of a raised deck structure that many overlook. BIM (Building Information Modeling) will be a valuable tool throughout this project. The facility’s design complexity will require a great deal of precise prefabrication. Each structural member of the base frame must be aligned perfectly and this task alone requires innovation. Our pre construction team worked very closely with the design team on our Lab project and the dividends were countless. We encountered one single misalignment in the space frame base which happened to be a flaw n fabrication. The use of BIM proved to not only save costs in time and material but was a means of checks and balances in terms of insuring engineering integrity of the structure itself. Our team is well suited for and recently experienced this preconstruction collaboration. The project will be a testament to the dedication has to pushing design and innovation to its limit. Construction offers the calculated construction techniques needed to safely and smoothly execute these leading edge designs. Please contact myself or our offices with any questions. We patiently await your response. How to cite Construction Business Memo, Essay examples

Debut Albums and Dear Friends free essay sample

Honorable Chief Guest of the day, distinguished guests for the occasion, teachers, parents and all my dear friends, this day 1 5th August of every year is a golden day engraved In the history of the world. We got freedom on this date and it Is a day worth a celebration. When we celebrate It hoisting the flag, playing our National Anthem with enthusiasm, distributing sweets, we need to seal back Into the past to remember and pay homage to the builders of our nation. My dear friends, we were he privileged lot to have been born in free India. We were able to breathe the fresh free air since our birth. If at all we want to know the pangs of agony of being slaves under a foreign rule, we must ask our elders born before 1947. It was indeed a Himalayan task for every Indian those days to fight against those powerful giants the British rulers. We will write a custom essay sample on Debut Albums and Dear Friends or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page We must not allow those hard times and struggles fade away from our memories.Hence it is befitting for us to celebrate such National festivals and call those heroic deeds of our National heroes. We remember them today. Right from Mahatma Gandhi to the local patriotic leaders we owe our gratitude. When we regard those martyrs who laid their precious lives for our sake, we must not Ignore the common people who sacrificed their lot for the good cause. There were farmers, land lords, businessmen, teachers, writers, poets and students who helped the land achieve the long cherished freedom.

How to Update WordPress Safely

Why would I update my WordPress site? I like it the way it is now! youre thinking.Well, your site might be safe for now but there are lots of monsters under the bed just waiting to attack it in the future. Thats why updating your WordPress site safely should be  one of the 10 WordPress commandments for everyone.Specifically:Why should I update my site?There are a couple of items that make this list, which will probably help you understand why updating really matters:Security. The WordPress platform faces lots of bugs, vulnerabilities, and hacks daily. Each one can be more or less dangerous. It depends  whether youre having good or bad luck. However, with each WordPress update, a number of bugs are always fixed and a number of security holes are patched, effectively making it harder for anyone to break into your site.New features and functionalities are added to each newly released version. Whether its completely new stuff, or just making the old stuff work better, those updates bring a lot of improvements. They will not only ease your work as a website owner, but will also improve your visitors experience.Speed.  Each new release comes with optimizations geared at making your website faster. Who wants a slow site anyway?Compatibility with modern tools and technology. Technology evolves so fast that its hard to keep up but WordPress somehow does. And some modern plugins require you to be on the newest version of the WordPress core in order to use them.If youre still not convinced that the update is essential, this resource will give you even more reasons why you shouldnt wait any longer.How to update my WordPress site safely?Okay, updating your site is easy, it takes 5 or 10 minutes tops.Here are the steps you should follow:1. Back up your siteBy backing up your site, you will make sure that your content is stored somewhere safe, so it wont be affected by the update. And in case anything goes wrong, you can always restore the old version of your site fr om the backup.There are lots of WordPress backup plugins  out here that will handle things for you on autopilot. So right now, proceed to install your plugin of choice, and then back up your files, database, themes, plugins, and uploads.Lets take BlogVault as an example to illustrate how backing up is done.Note. If BlogVault seems a bit too expensive ($7.4 / month), there are some alternatives available. Particularly, the new options in the Jetpack plugin allow you to take advantage of daily backups, one-click restores, spam filtering, and 30-day backup archive for the price of $3.50 / month. Quality-wise, Jetpack has everything you could need.After installing the main BlogVault plugin, go to the plugins section in the wp-admin, sign up to the service, and youll have the BlogVault dashboard on the screen right away.Add your site by clicking this button:After adding the site, click on Backup Now:Once the backup is done, click on History from the same menu to see all your backups.Yo u can download the backup to your computer or upload it to an off-site storage (I like to use Dropbox for that).2. Turn caching offIf you have any caching plugins enabled, turn them off during the update.Caching modifies the way your website works on the back-end, which will have an impact  on its performance, and who knows what else.3. Update your themes and pluginsJust like WordPress itself gets frequent updates, plugins do too (even more frequently). So first, update your themes and plugins.Lets start with the plugins.Go to your wp-admin and click on the button recommending you to update WordPress:There, youll see a list of all your plugins that need an update too. Select them all and click on Update Plugins:Return to that same WordPress update page, and do the same for themes. (By the way, make sure your plugins have been updated successfully. You should see an appropriate message when you come back.)Heres the panel for updating themes:Note. Theres also a second  way of upda ting your plugins and themes.Go to your wp-admin dashboard and click on Plugins (the sidebar menu). There, youll see a list of all your plugins. Those that are out of date will come with a message notifying you of the update available:Click on update now for each plugin thats outdated.Do the same for themes. Go to Appearance Themes (the sidebar menu again), and the themes list will appear. Check if your current theme is updated. If not, youll see something like this:Click on Update Available and then on update now:4. Update the WordPress coreIts funny how updating WordPress itself is actually the easiest and quickest step in the whole process.So, to update the WordPress core safely, you just need to click one single button. Which is:At this point, your site is  using the latest WordPress version!5. Turn the caching back onSince you disabled the caching mechanism before the upgrade, its time to reactivate it.6. Check if everything is okayNow your site is updated, but its a good id ea to browse around and make sure that things are in order.Go through your pages and posts to see if they are displayed properly. You dont really need to check every small detail, just take a general look.7. Back up your site againIf everything went well, you can back up your site again, just to have the most up-to-date version saved somewhere safe.Its very important to keep any major changes to your sites structure under control and always have the most recent image of the site backed up. If youre using Jetpack for backups, for example, you get a 30-day archive of all your backups, so reverting back to a previous one will not be a problem if anything should go wrong.So this is how you can update your WordPress site safely. At first, it might seem a bit difficult to go through all those steps, but the second time around youll be able to do it in less than 5 minutes. Be honest, when was the last time you updated your WordPress site, your plugins and themes?Free guide5 Essential Tips to Speed Up Your WordPress SiteReduce your loading time by even 50-80% just by following simple tips. * This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links and then purchase the product, well receive a small fee. No worries though, youll still pay the standard amount so theres no cost on your part.

Hunting and Gathering vs Sedentary Living Essay Example

Hunting and Gathering vs Sedentary Living Essay Example Hunting and Gathering vs Sedentary Living Essay Hunting and Gathering vs Sedentary Living Essay Gathering and Hunting Vs. Sedentary Living There are many events in the past that changed the course of history. The Neolithic Agricultural Revolution marked the transition between gathering and hunting to sedentary lifestyles. There were benefits to this change that have lasted until societies today. As well as benefits, there were also costs that effected people’s lives. The role of men and women shifted and things were slowly started changing to a world that is much like society today. Moving from gathering and hunting to sedentary living had its advantages. One of the advantages was the increase in their writing system. Writing was needed to keep track of the new flow of records coming in. As civilizations began to grow and thrive more people needed to be accounted for and these records needed to be recorded. It got to the point where the prehistoric pictures and murals weren’t enough. The civilians used symbols to account for the needs of the town. The creation of writing is beneficial also because it makes it possible for societies today to be aware and knowledgeable of the way that life was before them. It was also possible for laws to be set for the town’s people to see, and abide by them. One example of this is Hammurabi’s Code. Hammurabi’s Code was posted in the town and people were able to access it. The code set up rules for an ordered society. An ordered society was beneficial because since people were now becoming settled, there were new interactions that were unusual people didn’t know how to act around these situations. â€Å"Law codes give us an idea of a people’s sense of justice and notions of code† (Reilly 58). It also shows us how past societies, especially early civilizations lived their daily lives and kept order. There were other benefits of transitioning to a sedentary lifestyle such as the creation of centralized governments. Creating these governments along with the codes enforced order in the society and ensured the safety of the citizens. Another benefit was the creation of irrigation systems and farming. Farming is an imperative need to societies. People get their produce from farming. The creation of the irrigation system helped transfer the water from the surrounding rivers to the town so that they can farm crops. Also, the creation of stone tools helped make it easier to tend these crops. These tools also helped weave clothing and other needs for the new civilizations. The development of farming also was useful for domestication. By the villagers having an ordered way of growing and collecting food, the animals got drawn to the crops so they are easier to capture and tame. Farming also led to people settling down. People no longer had to go elsewhere to look for crops and herbds because they grew them in the community. Along with benefits, there were costs to moving to a sedentary lifestyle. For example, it changed people’s lifestyles. As gatherers, people were able to move freely and do as they please. There was nobody to tell them what to do such as leaders and tyrants. Once civilizations started to form everything had to be in order so there were changes. People were being told what to do and they suddenly didn’t have the opportunity to be nomads. This made it hard to adjust to third new society. As shown in the movie N! ai, the Story of a ! Kung Woman, this led to sickness in the village. People were dying left and right. Settling down also led to the introduction of slavery. People were set into social classes and people of the lower class were forced to do the labor that the upper-class didn’t want to do. Slavery was not here when there were Hunter- Gatherers because one more hand meant one more mouth to feed. They did things for themselves. There were also issues of social class. Citizens were classified by their occupation and what they could bring to the community. The commoners or lower class people with the less respected jobs ere always treated differently no matter what it was. With this shift in society also came the change of the status of men and women. Before settlement women held power and respect. People respected them because they were responsible for the farming which was the main way of acquiring food aside from hunting. Men and females were fairly equal in part. After settlement, the role of a female slowly began to digress and men became more powerful. In Mesopotamia as early as 2300 BCE inscriptions for ‘slave girl’ appear earlier than those translating as ‘slave male† (Reilly 31). There was also a high demand for female slaves as opposed to male slaves. In Marjorie Shostak’s Nisa: The Life and Words of a ! Kung Woman, she revealed how women weren’t able to speak their mind above a man. Men had final sa y in decisions and women were just there to back it up. Also young females were forced into marriage by their parents, but as mentioned before, the male parental figure would make the final decisions. In conclusion, the shift from a nomadic lifestyle to settled lifestyles has shown great change in the way that things were ran. The primary and secondary accounts listed in this essay helped readers see the emphasis that this change has on society today. There were sacrifices that people had to make in order to accommodate these changes. Even though one of these sacrifices had to be things such as equality of the sexes, this change still has marked something greater; a gateway for the development of future societies.

Macro Economics Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Macro Economics - Research Paper Example Macroeconomists create models that clarify the connection between factors such as national income, consumption, output, unemployment, savings, inflation, investment, international finance, and international trade. In contrast, microeconomics mainly focuses on the proceedings of individual agents, like firms, and consumers, plus how their actions determine quantities and prices in specific markets. Macroeconomics, on the other hand, is a wide field of research. There are two areas of study that are exemplary of the discipline. They are the effort to comprehend the causes and penalties of short-run fluctuations in national income, as well as the attempt to comprehend the determinants of long-run economic growth. Long term economic growth refers to the increase in national income. Macroeconomic patterns plus their forecasts are applied by both large corporations and governments to help out in the development and assessment of business strategy and economic policy (McConnell, 2011). This paper will discuss the basic concepts of macroeconomics. Macroeconomics takes in a variety of variables and ideas, but there are only three essential topics regarding macroeconomic study. Macroeconomic theories normally relate the phenomena of output, inflation and unemployment. Outside of macroeconomic theory, these areas are also extremely vital to all economic agents including consumers, workers as well as producers (McConnell, 2011). ... t can be considered as total income, or, it can be seen from the production angle and considered as the sum of all value added to the economy or the total value of final goods and services. Macroeconomic output is normally calculated through national accounts but mostly Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is applied in calculating macroeconomics (Hubbard, 2009). Progress in technology, addition of machinery and other assets, and improved education and human capital all bring about increased economic output ultimately. However, output does not at all times increase constantly. Business cycles can bring about short-term drops in output referred to as recessions. Economists search for macroeconomic plans that prevent economies from falling into recessions and that leads the economy to a faster and long-standing growth. Unemployment The sum of unemployment in an economy is calculated by the unemployment rate, the fraction of workers lacking jobs in the labor force (Abel, 2010). The workforce on ly consists of workers actively searching for employment. Individuals who are retired, still undertaking education, or discouraged from looking for employment by a lack of job prospects are not included in the workforce. Joblessness can be separated into a number of types that are correlated to diverse causes. Classical unemployment takes place when salaries are too high for companies to be ready to employ more staff. Income may be too high due to union activity or minimum wage laws. In harmony with classical unemployment, frictional unemployment takes place when suitable job vacancies exist for an employee, but the span of time needed to look for and get the job leads to an episode of joblessness. Structural unemployment, on the other hand, covers a number of possible reasons for

Managing for the future Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 6000 words

Managing for the future - Essay Example Development of the scenario 15 7. Development of the future 16 7.1 Future scenario of sustainability 16 7.2 Future scenario of CSR 17 7.3 Future scenario of distribution 18 7.4 Assessing requirements of management 18 7.4.1 Requirements in sustainability 18 7.4.2 Requirements in corporate social responsibility 19 7.4.3 Requirements in distribution 20 8. Comparison of the competence 21 9. Conclusion from the comparison 23 Reference List 24 1. Introduction The readiness for the future determines the ability of the company to face the unprecedented changes of the future more aptly. Thus strategic planning is all about planning for the future. The strategic planning for the future is a model that is in a continuous mode of change. In the initial stage of the planning process the strategic model is not sturdy but as time progresses and more variables are added to the model, then the model becomes scalable (Achrol, 2011). The strategic management model is developed depending on the way the future spans out. Apart from that the performance of the management for the last 7 years is also analysed. The present research endeavours to create a critical analysis of the performance of the management of Shell for the period 2007 to 2013. ... In a similar way the future capability of the management of Shell is dependent upon the way it prepares itself for the future. In order to prepare for the future it is necessary that the future conditions that may come are based on realistic assumption. Keeping this logic in mind, a similar pattern is followed in the preparation of the research. Three broad areas of operations are chosen for critical analysis as well as future prediction. The three broad areas are sustainability, distribution and another one is corporate social responsibility. The choices of the three areas deserve special mention. The three areas are linked to one another and in turn also influence one another (Bonaccorsi and Daraio, 2009). Effective corporate social responsibility of a company helps to improve the corporate social image. Improved corporate social image in turn also improves the confidence among the investors. Investors have strong preference for a company if it has good track record in performance as well as have a clean corporate image. Increased investor confidence helps to bring in more amount of capital. These in turn enable a company to carry on with its operations in a smooth procedure. Supply and distribution channels, two of the most vital life channels of an oil company need significant improvement from time to time (Clark and Mathur, 2011). There is a definite link between corporate social responsibility and distribution operations. Improved distribution operation in turn helps to bring in sustainability in the operation in future. 2. Analysis of the historical performance of the organisation Three separate areas are chosen for analysis. The three separate areas are corporate social responsibility, distribution and sustainability. 2.1

Over-spending and under-spending of the public sector budget

Over-spending and under-spending of the public sector budget The over-spending and under-spending of a budget is the positive or negative variance between what was actually spent and what was budgeted. Overspending Budgets overruns are the underestimation of costs and time or by the nonconformity of budget managers with the spending maximum defined in the budget, when projected. There are several explanations for overspending. Sometimes, it is simply bad forecasting on part of the budget manager. There was incomplete information or poor forecasting methods that led to an underestimation and/or unreal optimism of costs, expenses and revenues. Often there is change in scope of the project and costs associated with scope change are neither captured nor covered in the risk mitigation or contingency plan. Funds are allocated to the cost centers for spending, it is controlled. Overspent fund accumulate in arrears. Overruns could also be a result of off-budget spending which not considered part of the budget and is not included in budget totals. Off budget spending is often for political reasons. For example, after a request from President Reagan, Congress placed strategic petroleum reserve spending off-budget in 1982. Instead of using other means to control the deficit raising revenues or cutting spending placing this program off-budget gave the appearance of a smaller deficit, even though the government still needed to finance this spending. Source: Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United States Government, Historical Tables and Mid-session Review, FY2006. Sometimes the expenditure processes are complicated and difficult. To circumvent this process exceptional procedures are development to speed to the process to release the funds. These exceptional procedures are tolerated by the treasury for politically sensitive expenditures. The procedures are frequently abused and should be discouraged. These procedures are used my officials to order supplies without making a formal request and much later the year un-forecasted invoices appear. Sometime fund are unavailable to make this invoices which leads to generation of arrears for the following year. The compounding of exceptional procedures also has long-term implications, incentivizing spending agencies to go outside the budget system to avoid control altogether. Such procedures are associated with or result in corruption. Often past experiences can lead to overspending. If a department head under spent the previous year and the budget for the following year was lost. The department is highly likely to spend the entire amount for the fear of losing funds for the next year. The way in which performance is reported can have a significant effect on the camaraderie and coordination between departments. If participation of the managers implementing the budget was absent, then managers can blame this for the file to abide by the budget. In addition impact of inflation and a sense of entitlement towards certain funds are also factors to be considered in budget planning. Overruns can be caused by such deficiencies in budget preparation. Under spending Many governments do not spend their full annual budget. The reasons for this under spending can be various and can result in many outcomes. Lack of timely spending or under spending can affect the citizens not receiving essential government services. Certain areas have more economic impacts such as jobs created through the timely initiation of new infrastructure project. Under spending can often obstruct resources from other departments/managers which/who are spending their budget more productively, preventing them to reach their complete potential of success in delivery of the intended service. Under spending in particular year frequently leads to rollovers and modifications in the subsequent years. These modifications are irregular and are cumbersome to be forecasted leaving the department ill-equipped to spend these rollovers. Factors that result in under spending include insufficiencies in budget preparation and project/program planning, unrealistic projections of revenues, poor governance and off-budget spending. Virement is another factor that fuels under spending: It is the transfer of funds from one budget head to another. To achieve efficiency or prevent the need for a supplementary estimate as an under spending from one head may be transferred to another head which has overspending. One problem with unrestricted virement is that managers would inevitably spend al their budget allocation for fear of a budget reduction in the subsequent year. Example: Within the ministry of education budgets are transferred from primary education to higher education it can result in the delay of programs starting in the K-12 grades. Example: The latest un-audited expenditure reports from the National Treasury indicate that R3.48 billion of the national government budget went unspent in 2000/01 financial year- about R1.7billion on both the recurrent and the capital side of the budget. The under spend in provincial government was far greater at R5.5 billion. The latest available data indicate that this picture has not changed significantly in 2001/02. Although the government is moving in the right direction, most initiatives to address under spending appear rather general and details have yet to emerge on how the Treasury will specifically tackle the problem. In the meantime, under-spending seems set to remain with us. Source: Government under spending remains a problem February 2002 By Marritt Claassens and Paul Whelan, Budget Information Service, Idasa, http://www.idasa.org.za/bis/ Different kinds of variances A variance is the difference between a budgeted, planned or standard amount and the actual amount. Variances can be divided according to their nature of the underlying amounts and is determined by the needs of users of the variance information. These include : Variable cost variances Direct material variance Price variance: is the difference between the standard cost and the actual cost for the actual quantity of material used or purchased. Usage Variance: is the difference between the standard quantity of materials that should have been used for the number of units actually produced, and the actual quantity of materials used, valued at the standard cost per unit of material. Direct labour variance Rate Variance is the difference between the standard cost and the actual cost paid for the actual number of hours. Efficiency variance is the difference between the standard labour hour that should have been worked for the actual number of units produced and the actual number of hours worked when the labour hours are valued at the standard rate. Overhead variances Fixed overhead variances: identifies what proportion of the total fixed overhead variance is due to actual fixed overhead being different from the budgeted fixed overhead. Variable overhead variance measures the change between actual expenditure and the allowed overhead for actual labour hours. Income variance is the difference between actual income and budget income. It is used to measure the performance of a income function, and/or analyze business results to better understand market conditions. Actual income can differ from budgeted income either due to the variance in volume sold or the variance in the price point of the budgeted price point. Best Practices The following are some key good practice for prevention and minimization of the variances: Broad goals should be established to guide government decision making. Budgeting methods are developed to achieve these goals. An appropriate budget is developed to achieve the goals and the performance criterion is determined at the beginning. Close interaction between the financial information system and the budgeting systems is essential. There should be a control on collective spending and any deficit, a overarching prioritization of strategies with regards to expenditures and better use of the budgeted resources. The approved budget should be entered into the financial information system. In addition to a full commitment system, memorandum notes should be included the system that capture records of commitment but does not amend the financial records. Timely comparative financial statements on a regular basis. These statements should include original and revised budget, capture variances and explain major variances. The audited and reliable statements are based in solid accounting standards with regular external reporting. Budget Monitoring: Monitoring and controlling consists of those processes are performed to observe that potential problems can be identified in a timely manner and corrective action can be taken, when necessary. The key benefit is that the actuals are observed and measured regularly to identify variances from the budget. During the course of the year, instance may arise where the income or expenditure is very large that may require and supplementary estimate. The better the level of control and intelligence available the earlier this situations can be detected and more swiftly and appropriate an action can be taken to minimize the variance. However if is determined there has to be a change then the financial information systems can be updated as soon as possible. If a department become aware that it will overspend at any time during the year it must notify the Treasury department immediately. It is possible that a supplement estimate is provided if deemed appropriate. Transparency is key publish the State accounting policies, establish system of internal controls, and keep doors open for public and parliamentary scrutiny. Flexible budgeting is a performance evaluation tool. It is not be prepared before the end of the fiscal period. A flexible budget adjusts the initial budget for the actual level of output. The flexible budget answers the question: If the department had known at the beginning of the period what would the output volume (units delivered or sold) would be, what the budget would have looked like? If the department actually delivered X units, then treasury should compare actual delivery costs for X units to what it should have spent to make X units, not to what the department should have spent to deliver X-1000 units or X+1000 units etc. The flexible budget provides a better opportunity for planning and controlling than does a static (initial) budget.