A Marketing Analysis on Disney Cruise Line

The objective of this thesis is to discuss the SWOT analysis and PEST analysis of Disney Cruise Line and to provide recommendations. The SWOT analysis involves identifying the company\u27s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, while the PEST analysis focuses on analyzing external factors that could impact the company\u27s success such as political economic, sociocultural, and technological factors. The SWOT analysis highlights the opportunities for the company to expand into new destinations, form partnerships and acquisitions, and capitalize on industry growth, while also identifying the threats of competition, changing consumer preferences, and economic downturns. The strengths of the company include its brand recognition, cruise options, and exceptional customer service, while its weaknesses are limited destinations, high prices, and being reliant on the cruise industry. The thesis provides recommendations for the company based on each of these factors, including expanding into new destinations, developing lower-priced packages, and using exceptional customer service to combat competition. The PEST analysis provides recommendations in four areas, including prioritizing safety and environmental protection, complying with labor laws, addressing geopolitical issues, and communicating effectively with guests for safety reasons. The thesis concludes that the most effective strategy will depend on the company\u27s specific situation and goals

Characterization of Damage Zones Associated with Laboratory Produced Natural Hydraulic Fractures

Both joint sets and fault-related fractures serve as important conduits for fluid flow. In the former case, they can strongly influence both permeability and permeability anisotropy, with implications for production of water, hydrocarbons and contaminant transport. The latter can affect issues of fluid flow, such as whether a given fault seals or leaks, and fault mechanics. These fractures are commonly interpreted as Natural Hydraulic Fractures (NHFs), i.e., mode 1 fractures produced when pore fluid pressure exceeds the tensile strength of the rock. Various mathematical models have been a rich source of hypotheses to explain the formation and propagation of NHFs, but have provided only limited information and nothing about processes of fracture initiation in originally intact rock. Recent laboratory experiments of French et al. (2012) have advanced our understanding of mechanical controls on fracture initiation and spacing. Here, detailed analysis of both through-going fracture surfaces, non-through-going fractures, in experimentally deformed samples provide a deeper understanding of NHF processes and resulting geometric features in porous siliciclastic sedimentary rocks. Observations indicate that both fracture planarity and microcrack damage (which has not previously been reported for opening mode fractures) vary significantly depending on the degree of mechanical heterogeneity and anisotropy of the host rock. Variations reflect mechanical controls on fracture initiation and propagation, suggesting that fracture spacing may in part reflect the distribution of mechanical heterogeneities. These data indicate that the more homogeneous the rock, the greater the microcrack damage surrounding a given NHF, increasing expected fracture-associated permeability for a given fracture aperture

Principal as caregiver of all: responding to needs of others and self

When the school buildings closed in the spring, educators and families faced unknown challenges of supporting students remotely and continuing to provide the necessary resources for student learning and well-being. Principals responded with advocacy and compassion. This is one of a series of briefs that focused on a ‘critical incident’ surrounding school closure and offers pragmatic suggestions to educational leaders as they continue to grapple with the disruptions of the pandemic

Investigation of Bacterial Load in Multi-Species Laboratory Workspaces

Multi-purpose/multi-species laboratories in veterinary clinics may have an increased risk for bacterial contamination due to the possibility for high traffic and diverse exposures from different farms and species. The goal of this trial was to investigate the level of possible contamination in the shared areas and to evaluate the efficacy of the current SOPs (standard operating procedures) in minimizing microbial contamination of laboratory areas. Specific objectives were to: (1) identify which areas of the laboratory and shared resources have the highest level of contamination and (2) determine whether the current cleaning and decontamination methods are effective and in use. Two trials, totaling 115 samples, were conducted over a two week period using Replicate Organism Detection and Counting (RODAC) surface contact agar plates. The first trial consisted of randomized sampling within the field laboratory, field equipment shared between species and veterinary service vehicles. The second trial further sampled identified problem areas before and/or after cleaning/disinfection procedures. The experimenter was blinded to the status of the surfaces tested. Commercially available disinfectants typically found in homes, farms, and/or clinic laboratories were used at recommended rates and contact times during testing. Samples collected were incubated for 24 hours at 37°C with 5% CO2. Following identification processes, the most common species of bacteria isolated were Staphylococcus sp. These were most frequently isolated in the service vehicles. Hard surfaces in the vehicle were able to be cleaned and disinfected sufficiently, but the carpeted areas retained contamination even after cleaning. The findings of this project suggest that fomite transfer of bacterial organisms through the use of a multi-purpose service vehicle could potentially spread undesirable pathogens from farm to farm unknowingly. Increased adherence to strict biosecurity standards at the farm level can help to prevent this transfer

Automated Mobile System for Accurate Outdoor Tree Crop Enumeration Using an Uncalibrated Camera.

This paper demonstrates an automated computer vision system for outdoor tree crop enumeration in a seedling nursery. The complete system incorporates both hardware components (including an embedded microcontroller, an odometry encoder, and an uncalibrated digital color camera) and software algorithms (including microcontroller algorithms and the proposed algorithm for tree crop enumeration) required to obtain robust performance in a natural outdoor environment. The enumeration system uses a three-step image analysis process based upon: (1) an orthographic plant projection method integrating a perspective transform with automatic parameter estimation; (2) a plant counting method based on projection histograms; and (3) a double-counting avoidance method based on a homography transform. Experimental results demonstrate the ability to count large numbers of plants automatically with no human effort. Results show that, for tree seedlings having a height up to 40 cm and a within-row tree spacing of approximately 10 cm, the algorithms successfully estimated the number of plants with an average accuracy of 95.2% for trees within a single image and 98% for counting of the whole plant population in a large sequence of images

Cognitive Demands of Lower Paleolithic Toolmaking

Stone tools provide some of the most abundant, continuous, and high resolution evidence of behavioral change over human evolution, but their implications for cognitive evolution have remained unclear. We investigated the neurophysiological demands of stone toolmaking by training modern subjects in known Paleolithic methods (“Oldowan”, “Acheulean”) and collecting structural and functional brain imaging data as they made technical judgments (outcome prediction, strategic appropriateness) about planned actions on partially completed tools. Results show that this task affected neural activity and functional connectivity in dorsal prefrontal cortex, that effect magnitude correlated with the frequency of correct strategic judgments, and that the frequency of correct strategic judgments was predictive of success in Acheulean, but not Oldowan, toolmaking. This corroborates hypothesized cognitive control demands of Acheulean toolmaking, specifically including information monitoring and manipulation functions attributed to the central executive of working memory. More broadly, it develops empirical methods for assessing the differential cognitive demands of Paleolithic technologies, and expands the scope of evolutionary hypotheses that can be tested using the available archaeological record

Short Peptides as Inhibitors of Amyloid Aggregation

The misfolding and aggregation of proteins into amyloid has been linked to a variety of age-related diseases. Aggregation of proteins, such as Aβ in Alzheimer\u27s disease and Islet Amyloid Polypeptide (IAPP, amylin) in type 2 diabetes, appears to lead to the formation of toxic assemblies. These assemblies range in size from small oligomers (2-8 proteins) to large fibrils (thousands of proteins). It remains unclear how these amyloidogenic proteins misfold and form toxic species, but growing evidence suggests that inhibiting the aggregation of these proteins could slow, if not prevent altogether, the progression of these diseases. We describe the use of small peptides (\u3c43 amino acids) as inhibitors of amyloid- based aggregation. These peptides, often short complementary segments of the amyloid proteins, can be useful (i) for identifying the aggregation-prone regions of the amyloid proteins (ii) as models for drug discovery and (iii) as potential therapeutic agents themselves