Concepts of Scarcity and Choice

Concepts of Scarcity and Choice Economics can be defined as the study of the practical science of production and distribution of wealth ( J S MILLS). The objective of all persons is to earn money by working in order to satisfy their wants. Unfortunately people earnings are never enough in order to satisfy their unlimited wants as there is a lack of resources in terms of workers, raw materials, time, and money in order to produce all the products that we would like to acquire which causes the problem of scarcity. SCARCITY AND CHOICE Scarcity is a relative concept that is resources are scarce relatively to unlimited wants. The problem of scarcity exists in all dimensions that are in terms of individual, society as well as countries. For example as far as individual is concerned in search of improving our standard of living we are always striving to have better and more luxurious shelter, latest fashion clothing, full option types of transport, better health care etc but due to limited resources we cannot satisfy all these wants and in terms of countries Governments are always having difficulties in choosing where to invest there are too many necessities to fulfill due to lack of resources. As a result of scarcity each and every person as well as the Government needs to make a choice so that the limited available resources is used efficiently. OPPORTUNITY COST As a result of the lack of resources and the problem of scarcity, we have to choose and decide which products or services are most important for us to buy with the limited amount of money we earn and which ones are less important that we could forego. As in define by Susan Grant Opportunity cost is the cost of a decision in terms of the best alternative given up to achieve it. Say if I have one hour free time during which I can either go the cinema or at the seaside, if I choose going to the cinema then the next best alternative forgone is going at the seaside. Quantity of Good X Given a production point on a PPC (A). If a country chooses to produce more of good X- in other words moving to point B on the PPC, this can only be possible by decreasing resources out of the production of good Y to the production of good X, implying a reduction in the quantity of Y produced. Therefore in order to produce more of good X, a country needs to give up some amount of good Y. In other words there is an opportunity cost of producing more of good X. Opportunity cost of producing X X1 of good X= Y Y1 of good Y. Micro Economics Micro Economics is the study of the behaviors of individuals and companies in line with income, profits, prices of available goods and services. These behaviors are directly related to supply and market as well as taxes and regulations impose by the Government. For example in the case of an individual Micro Economics examines how the latter make decisions on which products or services to buy depending on his income and as regards to a company it is the study of how the decision makers minimize production cost so as to offer competitive prices on the market. Macro Economics Macro Economics, on the other hand is the study of economics at a larger scale that is how a national economy works and its direct impact on growth in national income, employment and price inflation. In other words Macro Economics can be explained as the global decision making of the Government and its impact on aggregate demand. For example, macroeconomics would look at how an increase/decrease in net exports would affect a nationsÂÂ  capital account or how GDP would be affected by unemployment rate. (http://www.investopedia.com). TASK 2 How demand curve is derived. In order to determine how a demand curve is derived we need to know what demand is. Demand is the willingness of potential consumers to buy goods and services at different level of prices. Figure 2 shows a demand curve The figure below shows what the demand for apple at different prices is. The curve illustrates that when Price of an apple is at $1 demand is 53 Price of an apple is at $2 demand is 38 Price of an apple is at $3 demand is 27 Price of an apple is at $4 demand is 17 Price of an apple is at $5 demand is 10 Thus we can deduce that normally the lower the price of an apple is offered at the higher is the demand and conversely the higher price of an apple is offered at the lower is the demand. Demand is inversely related to price that is in this case demand of the apple is inversely related to price of the apple. Normally producers of a specific product need to study the demand curve of that product so as to decide the number of unit to produce taking into consideration production cost. With regards to demand producers will produce the product in demand provided The amount of a particular economic good or service that a consumer or group of consumers will want to purchase at a given price. The demand curve is usually downward sloping, since consumers will want to buy more as price decreases. Demand for a good or service is determined by many different factors other than price, such as the price of substitute goods and complementary goods. In extreme cases, demand may be completely unrelated to price, or nearly infinite at a given price. Along with supply, demand is one of the two key determinants of the market price. Read more: http://www.investorwords.com/1396/demand.html#ixzz1Dpf4aWxl

Homeless in Cincinnati

Contemporary ProblemsI have selected homelessness for this paper. The homeless in Cincinnati is a large job and there are many persons and organisations out at that place contending to eliminate this job in Cincinnati. One of the organisations making this is called StreetVibe. The people that work for StreetVibe are current homeless and/or former homeless persons. They contribute to the web site and newssheet by composing poesy, articles, and other types of artistic points to educate people on the homeless state of affairs in Cincinnati. This organisation provides exigency shelter, soup kitchens, medical services, lasting lodging, societal services and transitional life installations. They look for members of the community such as local companies to fall in the battle here against homelessness. Harmonizing to the article, Homeless in Cincinnati: A Study of the Causes and Conditions of Homelessness, one of the biggest challenges today is the medical status of those persons who find themselves stateless. These persons do non hold even basic health care, nor can they afford health care. Without this many everyday medical jobs can non be diagnosed or treated. The article besides discusses two grounds why homelessness is a go oning job ; drug maltreatment plays against an single seeking to acquire off the streets. They can non give up the substance maltreatment and keep a occupation, household, and other duties. Another issue that contributes to the issue of homelessness is the shutting of mental wellness installations. These persons may non hold medical resources to go on their intervention and stop up on the streets due to miss of aid in happening lodging, a occupation, etc. One of the biggest challenges confronting Cincinnati is holding an accurate history of how many stateless people there are. The people who live in the street are largely unseeable and unless sing a soup kitchen or shelter the true Numberss can non be figured. Too frequently these persons live on hillsides, under Bridgess, along the river and are really hard to acquire in touch with ( Burdell, 2001 ) . Harmonizing to the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless, 25 per centum of the homeless in the metropolis are kids, 45 per centum are kids under 5. It is interesting to observe that 68.5 per centum of all the homeless in Cincinnati are Afro-american. It ‘s besides interesting to observe that of all the homeless in Cincinnati, 30 per centum are alcohol maltreaters and 31.5 per centum are substance maltreaters while 31 per centum suffer from some signifier of mental unwellness. This makes the occupation of human service workers really hard as these people are close and difficult to acquire to cognize every bit good as the trouble of happening them on the streets to give them assistance. Many garbage aid or are really disdainful and do non desire aid. One of the organisations in Cincinnati that assists the homeless is The Salvation Army. In 2008, The Salvation Army provided impermanent lodging for over 6,800 people. This lodging includes shelters, grownup day care installations, transitional life agreements and helping with rent and public-service corporations. One of the challenges at this clip are the figure of homeless. With the downswing in the economic system, there are more households that need aid which is seting a strain on these types of services. Presently in Cincinnati besides the Red Kettle plan, there are Adopt-A-Family and the Toy Shop plan. These plans provide are for the populace or companies to supply a household with gifts and nutrient for the vacations. The Toy Shop plan provides kids with new playthings for Christmas. Another organisation in Cincinnati that assists with homelessness is Goodwill. Goodwill ‘s biggest are of aid is in contributions of vesture, family points, autos and trucks to assist people acquire back and Forth to work or to medical attention visits. Goodwill besides provide many other services such as vocational services for preparation, reding and employment services and many other services to help veterans, kids and adult females. The lodging plan that Goodwill provides includes aid with rent, security sedimentations, furniture, public-service corporations and other points that are required for the homeless to acquire off the streets and go independent. Cincinnati has legion organisations to help the homeless, the bureaus discussed supra are the largest bureaus that provide many services, in many countries to the people of Cincinnati. These organisations provide a valuable service that provides much needed aid to the metropolis ‘s homeless. Without these organisations, the homeless in Cincinnati would hold nowhere to turn for aid with lodging, repasts, occupations, vesture and many other points.MentionsApplied Information Resources, Inc. ( 2001 ) . Homeless in Cincinnati: A Study of the Causes and Conditions of Homelessness. Retrieved November 30, 2009, from hypertext transfer protocol: //www.cincihomeless.org/content/downloads/GCCH_HomelessInCincinnati.pdf Savage, C. , Lindsell, C. , Gillespie, G. , Lee, R. , & A ; Corbin, A. ( 2008 ) . Bettering wellness position of homeless patients at a nurse-managed clinic in the Midwest USA. Health & A ; Social Care in the Community. Retrieved November 30, 2009, from EBSCOhost: hypertext transfer protocol: //web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/ehost/detail? vid=3 & A ; hid=2 & A ; sid=514bc4fe-bd2f-4acd-90b4-90deafd349a1 % 40sessionmgr110 & A ; bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ % 3d % 3d # db=a9h & A ; AN=34138045 # db=a9h & A ; AN=34138045 # db=a9h & A ; AN=34138045 The Greater Cincinnati Coalition For The Homeless, ( n.d. ) . Homeless Statitists. Retreived from hypertext transfer protocol: //www.cincihomeless.org/content/hfacts.html, on December 3, 2009. The Salvation Army. ( n.d. ) .Facts and figures.Retrieved from hypertext transfer protocol: //www.use.salvationarmy.org/use/www_use_cincinnati.nsf/vw-text-dynamic-arrays/C840FE6A7522E69D85257478006596FB? openDocument, on December 4, 2009.

The Iconography of the Buddha Image

For the following report the concept of iconography in regard to the images of Buddha from the South Asia region (1-5 cc. A. D. ) is important. In general, iconography in art stands for studying the imagery or symbolism of the work of art; in regard to the Asian Buddha images, iconographical elements provide the worshipper and observer with multiple signs to differentiate between unique Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. There is a hot discourse in research literature about the nature and developmental stages of Buddhist iconography.Up to the 2-3 c. A. D. , Buddhist art used to be predominantly narrative consisting of jatakas (accounts of the Buddha’s previous incarnations) and nidanakathas (historical events related to the founder of religion, Buddha Shakyamuni or Prince Siddhartha Gautama). Due to the very nature of Buddhism, its iconography has been associated with aniconic symbols for a long time. Once Jain claimed that before its material anthropomorphic transformations the Buddha icon used to be initially of intellectual and imaginative nature.The idea echoes somehow with Diskul and Lyons’s proposition about the iconography in regard to the Buddha image standing for the goals of maintaining traditions and sacrificing exuberant decorative elements for the sake of immortality, sanctity and transitivity of Buddhism. However, the Buddha image is perceived mostly in its anthropomorphic dimension nowadays with a rigid system of metaphors and symbols standing for iconographical elements. All the researchers agree on the fact that the image of Buddha as anthropomorphic icon started being created approximately in the 1st century A.D. The gold and copper coins of Kanishka (Appendix A) contain Buddha images on the reverse sides. It is logical to assume that those images were simple and rather abstract because of the small size of those coins. During the five centuries of modern era, the iconography of the Buddha image has been made rich and complicated. Accordi ng to Diskul and Lyons, there are three key elements in the iconography of the Buddha image: these are anatomy, dress, and posture.Diskul and Lyons mentioned that the anatomy of the Buddha encompassed â€Å"the canons of proportion and the form of the supernatural details†; the dress might look either as the monk's garb (being placed on either both shoulders or the left shoulder only), or a princely garment (though in all the cases the elements of dressing are highly stylized); and, so far as postures are concerned, Buddha was portrayed as either walking, or standing, or sitting, or reclining, not to forget â€Å"less than a dozen usual gestures of the hand†.In Jain’s chronology of the Buddhist iconography, the researcher listed the specific elements of Sarnath Buddha images (3-4 cc. A. D. ) with their graceful and beautifully shaped bodies within eight iconographical types depending on the scheme of the dress (either the covered one with both shoulders being dr aped, or the open one with the right shoulder being bare) and the four gesture patterns.Meanwhile, the Huntington Photographic Archive of Buddhist and Related Art ignored anatomy and dress, concentrating instead on sacred bodily marks (lakshanas) and attributes (objects held by or belonging to the figure) or associated objects as the media through which the icon communicated to the observer. For the posture category, the Huntington Archive proposed the sub-division into postures per se (the one of sitting body is called asana, and the one of standing is sthana) and gestures (position of the hands, mudra, and position of the arms, hasta).The Grove Art Online derived the iconography of the Buddha from the one of pre-Buddhist yakss with 32 major and 64 minor prescribed signs; five gestures (mudras) – fearlessness (abhaya mudra), bestowing boons (varada mudra), meditation (dhyana mudra), touching the earth (bhumisparsa mudra) and turning the Wheel of Law; and three main postures – the one with crossed legs is called adamantine (vajraparyanka), the one where the Buddha is sitting with one leg placed across the other thigh is sattvaparyank asana, and the one with both legs hanging down is referred to as bhadrasana.Whatever the iconographical systematizations are, the image of the Buddha has been developing from abstractly carved prototypes to the detailed icons of magnitude and aesthetic recklessness. Under the Kushan dynasty that ruled from about the first to the seventh centuries A. D. in Afghanistan, north-western India, the Punjab, and in present-day Pakistan, there were two distinctive schools of portraying Buddha: the Gandhara and the Mathura ones.While in the north (Gandhara) the images of Buddha belonged to wandering craftsmen from the Roman East, in the south (Mathura or Muttra) the technique derived itself from native Indian sources. Both schools, though being distinct in iconographical elements and methods, portrayed Buddha both standing, se ated or reclining (in scenes of the Great Demise); either as a single and independent image or the one of the figures on panels. The earliest image of the Gandhara Buddhas Rowland referred to the second and third centuries A.D. judging from inscriptions. In regard to the standing Buddhas, there is one key characteristic of Gandhara images – though on the very first sight they look like reliefs, they can not be observed from the back, their back side is usually flat and unfinished. As for the material used, craftsmen carved the statues from stone and stucco or lime-plaster. The latter was popular in the first century A. D. already, and by the third century A. D. it has replaced stone.Another favourite medium for carving was the blue schist and green phyllite, while metal was less popular. Besides artists used to decorate both stone and stucco images with polychromy and gold leaf. In Mathura the sculptures were also covered in an analogous manner because craftsmen usually carve d the statues of Buddha of red sandstone, which was â€Å"an exceedingly ugly stone, frequently marred by veins of yellow and white, so that streaks and spots of these lighter colours disfigure the surface†.The researcher may compare two schools of portraying Buddha on the basis of the Gandhara Standing Buddha from the Guides' Mess at Hoti-Mardan, near Peshawar, and a life-sized standing Bodhisattva of Sarnath with an inscription about a certain Friar Bala dedicating the sculpture to the deity in around A. D. 131-147 (Appendices B and C). One distinctive point between the two sculptures is anatomical proportion. The Gandhara school adhered to the antique canons when the total height of the body was five times bigger that the head after late Roman and Early-Christian models.The Mathura school adopted special unit of measurement, the thalam, which had nothing in common with human physical anatomy. It is â€Å"the distance between the top of the forehead and the chin, which is divided nine times into the total height of the figure† to convey the heroic and superhuman posture. Subsequently, the bodies of the Gandhara standing Buddhas are more harmonic and natural, possessing â€Å"the Praxitelean dehanchement [†¦] beneath the robe†, which is also typical of Greco-Roman art.Meanwhile, the Mathura Bodhisattva is more massive and erect. Modern iconography owes lakshanas of the Buddha to the Mathura school. Rowland stated that whilst the shaping of the body in the Mathura images is â€Å"greatly simplified and still represented by the archaic technique of incised lines†, the modelling of the drapery reveals both texture and volume; in result, an observer may sense â€Å"the warmth and firmness of flesh and [†¦] a powerful feeling for the presence of the inner breath or prana. †In regard to the style of drapery (Diskul and Lyons), the Gandhara Standing Buddha from the Guides' Mess at Hoti-Mardan reminds of a Roman nobleman o f the Imperial Period. The eye of an observer catches heavy folds of the dress, which is a kind of Roman toga instead of Buddhist mantle. The Mathura images are often nude to the waist. The Bodhisattva of Sarnath rests his feet firmly on the basement, raising the right hand in the gesture of reassurance, and supporting the folds of his native Indian robe or dhoti by the left hand on the hip.So far as the physiognomic characteristics are concerned, the Gandhara Buddhas resemble of the Apollo Belvedere due to â€Å"the head, with its adolescent features and wavy hair†, though some distinctive Buddhist iconographical elements – the magic marks or lakshanas – may be also present. The Mathura's Buddha images, as Jain pointed out, are more round-faced with underlined â€Å"spiritual realization and beatitude. † There are also physiognomic distinctions between the two schools: In Mathura art tradition, Buddha image has longer earlobes, thicker lips, wider eyes a nd prominent noses.In Gandhara images, eyes are longer, chin more angular, earlobes shorter and noses more sharp and better defined. Under the rule of the Gupta dynasty (starting from A. D. 320), the Buddha images became even more anthropomorphic due to Mahayana Buddhism, and, at the same time more sacred due to the sharpening of the Buddha’s superhuman nature and his Oriental origin. In regard to the iconographical systems, the Gupta images are synthetic. For example, the body of Standing Buddha from Mathura (Indian Museum, Calcutta) (Appendix D) is fully covered by the monk’s mantel after the Gandhara models.At the same time, the folds of initial pseudo-togas gave space to stylized series of strings instead of multiple folds. Rowland provided the link to the classic Mathura school in regard to the rhythmical goal of stringed drapery, stating that â€Å"the repetition of the loops [†¦] provides a kind of relief to the static columnar mass of the body. † At the same time, unlike the early Buddhas of originally Indian type, this Shakyamuni, though being rather voluminous and powerful, is not crude or roughly carved.Jain noted that the Gupta Buddha images were remarkable for the facial expressions bearing â€Å"celestial calm, serenity, a gentle smile, divine glow and unique composure. † Rowland sang dithyrambs to Gupta Buddhas from Sarnath because of the exquisite carving of their haloes. After having defined the concept of iconography in relation to the Buddha images in South Asia and having traced the development of iconographical systems from the first up to the fifth centuries A. D. , it is possible to summarize the key trends of the craftsmen having been portraying Buddha in the multitude of forms, styles and types.The first anthropomorphic images of Buddha appeared in the first century A. D. and adopted the iconographical elements of both Greek-Roman Antiquity and native Indian styles. During the Kushan period (25 AD †“ 150 AD), there were the so-called Gandhara and Mathura (the north-west part of modern Pakistan) schools of portraying the Buddha. The Gandhara Buddhas adopted many iconographical features of antique sculptures in regard to the slightly curved posture, anatomic and physiognomic verity and refinement, heavy and voluminous drapery organized in parallel folds and mask-like expressions of the faces with matted hair on the head.The early Kushan Buddhas from Mathura were more massive and heavily built than Gandhara ones and demonstrated stricter adherence to the native Indian canons. There was a greater accent on lakshanas and attributes in the Mathura school. Both standing and seated Buddhas were depicted in one of the assigned postures and their gestures bore sacred meaning for the worshippers. The garment looked more like the typical dress of Indian princes with the folds having given space to the strings standing for native muslin or silk dhotis or monastic robes.The torsos of Math ura Buddhas bore distinctive marks of heroic and sacred life of the Buddha (the marks of wheel, the three white hair between the eyebrows, etc. ). Starting from A. D. 320 within the Gupta period, the iconography of the Buddha images became more synergetic having adopted both Gandhara and Mathura elements. After the Gandhara canon, the proportions were ideal and aimed to produce the effect of magnitude and super-human power. It could happen due to the distinction between the mortal Prince Siddhartha and the â€Å"real Buddha† as deity.The individual parts of the body were depicted in purely Indian manner with the emphasis being made on lakshanas (elongated earlobes, urna, webbed fingers and toes, etc. ) and attributes (lotus, Water bowl, etc. ). The faces of the Gupta Buddhas served the arena for metaphorical transformation: the eyes had the form of the lotus flower, the hair looked like snails or shells, the lips were full and ripe like exotic fruit and there was a mild smile on them, the eyebrows were curved like the Indian bow.Thus, one may say that since the first century A. D. up to the fifth century the iconography of the Buddha image has been remarkable for the shift from Greek-Roman models to the synthetical type with prevalence of Indian iconographical elements and from anthropomorphic and individualistic depiction to the icon of the super-human mighty deity with traditionally assigned symbols. Bibliography Diskul, M. C. Subhadradis, and Elizabeth Lyons. The Arts of Thailand: A Handbook of the Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting of Thailand (Siam).Ed. Theodore Robert Bowie. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1960. Huntington, John C. , and/or Susan L. Huntington. The John C. and Susan L. Huntington Archive of Buddhist and Related Art (a photographic research and teaching archive). 15 Oct. 1995/Oct. 2004. College of the Arts, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA. 13 Jan. 2006 . Jain, P. C. â€Å"Evolution of the Buddha Image. â⠂¬  Exotic India Art. May 2004. 13 Jan. 2006 . â€Å"Indian subcontinent,  §II, 2: Buddhist iconography and subject-matter, (i) The Buddha. † Grove Art Online. Oxford University Press, 12 Jan. 2006 . Rowland, Benjamin. The Art and Architecture of India: Buddhist, Hindu, Jain. London: Penguin Books, 1953. Appendices Appendix A Kanishka Coin (100 B. C. ), gold and copper. Benjamin Rowland, The Art and

What Is a Discount Factor

In mathematics, the discount factor is a calculation of the present value of future happiness, or more specifically it is used to measure how much people will care about a period in the future as compared to today. The discount factor is a weighting term that multiplies future happiness, income, and losses in order to determine the factor by which money is to be multiplied to get the net present value of a good or service. Because the value of todays dollar will intrinsically be worth less in the future due to inflation and other factors, the discount factor is often assumed to take on values between zero and one. For example, with a discount factor equal to 0.9, an activity that would give 10 units of utility if done today would give, from todays perspective, nine units of utility if completed tomorrow. Using the Discount Factor to Determine the Net Present Value Whereas the discount rate  is used to determine the present value of future cash flow, the discount factor is used to determine the net present value, which can be used to determine the expected profits and losses based on future payments — the net future value of an investment. In order to do this, one must first determine the periodic  interest rate by dividing the annual interest rate by the number of payments expected per year; next, determine the total number of payments to be made; then  assign variables to each value such as P for periodic interest rate and N for the number of payments. The basic formula for determining this discount factor would then be D1/(1P)^N, which would read that the discount factor is equal to one divided by the value of one plus the periodic interest rate to the power of the number of payments. For instance, if a company had a six percent annual interest rate and wanted to make 12 payments a year, the discount factor would be  0.8357. Multi-Period and Discrete Time Models   In a multi-period model, agents may have different utility functions for consumption (or other experiences) in different time periods. Usually, in such models, they value future experiences, but to a lesser degree than present ones. For simplicity, the factor by which they discount next periods utility may be a constant between zero and one, and if so it is called a discount factor. One might interpret the discount factor not as a reduction in the appreciation of future events but as a subjective probability that the agent will die before the next period, and so discounts the future experiences not because they arent valued, but because they may not occur. A present-oriented agents discounts the future heavily and so has a LOW discount factor. Contrast discount rate and future-oriented. In a discrete time model where agents discount the future by a factor of b, one usually lets b1/(1r) where r is the discount rate.