1.
Consumers (food chain)
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Consumers are typically viewed as predatory animals such as the wolf and hyena. However, herbivorous animals and parasitic fungi are also consumers, some carnivorous plants, like the Venus flytrap, are classified as both. Within an ecological food chain, consumers are categorized into three groups, primary consumers, secondary consumers, and the tertiary consumers, primary consumers are usually herbivores, feeding on plants and fungus. Secondary consumers, on the hand, are mainly carnivores. Omnivores, who feed on plants and animals, can also be considered a secondary consumer. Tertiary consumers, sometimes known as apex predators, are usually at the top of food chains, capable of feeding on secondary consumers. Tertiary consumers can be either fully carnivorous or omnivorous, humans are one such example of a tertiary consumer. Consumers dominate most parts of an ecosystem, consumers have important roles to play within an ecosystem such as balancing the food chain by keeping animal populations at a reasonable number. Without proper balance, an ecosystem can collapse and cause the decline of all affected species and this will lead to a severely disrupted ecosystem and a nonfunctional consumer web
2.
Nanjing
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Nanjing has a prominent place in Chinese history and culture, having served as the capitals of various Chinese dynasties, kingdoms and republican governments dating from the 3rd century CE to 1949. When being the capital of a state, for instance, the ROC, Nanjing is particularly known as Jinling or Ginling and the old name has been used since the Warring States period in Zhou Dynasty. Located in Yangtze River Delta area and the center of east China and it has also been awarded the title of 2008 Habitat Scroll of Honour of China, Special UN Habitat Scroll of Honour Award and National Civilized City. Nanjing boasts many high-quality universities and research institutes, with the number of universities listed in 100 National Key Universities ranking third, the ratio of college students to total population ranks No.1 among large cities nationwide. Nanjing is one of the three Chinese top research centers according to Nature Index, Key cultural facilities include Nanjing Library, Nanjing Museum and Art Museum. Archaeological discovery shows that Nanjing Man lived in more than 500 thousand years ago, zun, a kind of wine vessel, was found to exist in Beiyinyangying culture of Nanjing in about 5000 years ago. According to a legend quoted by an artist in Ming dynasty, Chen Yi, Fuchai, King of the State of Wu, later in 473 BCE, the State of Yue conquered Wu and constructed the fort of Yuecheng on the outskirts of the present-day Zhonghua Gate. In 333 BCE, after eliminating the State of Yue, the State of Chu built Jinling Yi in the part of present-day Nanjing. It was renamed Moling during reign of Qin Shi Huang, since then, the city experienced destruction and renewal many times. Nanjing was later the city of Danyang Prefecture, and had been the capital city of Yangzhou for about 400 years from late Han to early Tang. This city would soon play a role in the following centuries. Shortly after the unification of the region, the Western Jin dynasty collapsed, First the rebellions by eight Jin princes for the throne and later rebellions and invasion from Xiongnu and other nomadic peoples that destroyed the rule of the Jin dynasty in the north. Its the first time that the capital of the moved to southern part. During the period of North–South division, Nanjing remained the capital of the Southern dynasties for more than two and a half centuries, during this time, Nanjing was the international hub of East Asia. Based on historical documents, the city had 280,000 registered households, assuming an average Nanjing household had about 5.1 people at that time, the city had more than 1.4 million residents. As the old capital of China, many legendary stories happened here, residents in Nanjing all have the warmest affection for this city. Throughout glory and darkness in past centuries, Nanjing becomes a low-key city, GDP growth rate significantly exceeds the average rate in China for decades, which also maintain a fast developing model. Possibly the best preserved of them is the ensemble of the Tomb of Xiao Xiu, the period of division ended when the Sui Dynasty reunified China and almost destroyed the entire city, turning it into a small town
3.
Service (economics)
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In economics, a service is a transaction in which no physical goods is transferred from the seller to the buyer. The benefits of such a service are held to be demonstrated by the willingness to make the exchange. Public services are those that society as a whole pays for, using resources, skill, ingenuity, and experience, service providers benefit service consumers. Services can be described in terms of their key characteristics, sometimes called the Five Is of Services and they are not manufactured, transported or stocked. Services cannot be stored for a future use and they are produced and consumed simultaneously. Services are perishable in two regards, Service-relevant resources, processes and systems are assigned for delivery during a specific period in time. If the service consumer does not request and consume the service during this period, from the perspective of the service provider, this is a lost business opportunity if no other use for those resources is available. Examples, A hairdresser serves another client, an empty seat on an airplane cannot be filled after departure. When the service has been rendered to the consumer, this particular service irreversibly vanishes. Example, a passenger has been transported to the destination and the flight is over, the service provider must deliver the service at the time of service consumption. The service is not manifested in an object that is independent of the provider. The service consumer is also inseparable from service delivery, examples, The service consumer must sit in the hairdressers chair, or in the airplane seat. Correspondingly, the hairdresser or the pilot must be in the shop or plane, respectively, many services are regarded as heterogeneous and are typically modified for each service consumer or each service context. Another and more common term for this is heterogeneity, both service provider and service consumer participate in the service provision. Mass generation and delivery of services must be mastered for a provider to expand. This can be seen as a problem of service quality, both inputs and outputs to the processes involved providing services are highly variable, as are the relationships between these processes, making it difficult to maintain consistent service quality. Many services involve variable human activity, rather than a precisely determined process, the human factor is often the key success factor in service provision. Demand can vary by season, time of day, business cycle, consistency is necessary to create enduring business relationships
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Commodity
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In economics, a commodity is a marketable item produced to satisfy wants or needs. Economic commodities comprise goods and services, the word commodity came into use in English in the 15th century, from the French commodité, amenity, convenience. Going further back, the French word derives from the Latin commoditas, meaning suitability, convenience, the Latin word commodus meant variously appropriate, proper measure, time, or condition, and advantage, benefit. The term commodity is specifically used for a good or service when the demand for it has no qualitative differentiation across a market. In other words, a commodity good or service has full or partial but substantial fungibility, that is, the market treats its instances as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. As the saying goes, From the taste of wheat, it is not possible to tell who produced it, a Russian serf, petroleum and copper are other examples of such commodities, their supply and demand being a part of one universal market. Items such as systems, on the other hand, have many aspects of product differentiation, such as the brand, the user interface. The demand for one type of stereo may be larger than demand for another. In contrast, one of the characteristics of a commodity good is that its price is determined as a function of its market as a whole, well-established physical commodities have actively traded spot and derivative markets. Generally, these are basic resources and agricultural products such as ore, sugar. Soft commodities are goods that are grown, while hard commodities are ones that are extracted through mining, there is another important class of energy commodities which includes electricity, gas, coal and oil. Electricity has the characteristic that it is usually uneconomical to store, hence. Commoditization occurs as a goods or services market loses differentiation across its supply base, as such, goods that formerly carried premium margins for market participants have become commodities, such as generic pharmaceuticals and DRAM chips. Following this trend, nanomaterials are emerging from carrying premium profit margins for market participants to a status of commodification, there is a spectrum of commoditization, rather than a binary distinction of commodity versus differentiable product. Many products degree of commoditization depends on the mentality and means. For example, milk, eggs, and notebook paper are not differentiated by many customers, for them, other customers take into consideration other factors besides price, such as environmental sustainability and animal welfare. This is a list of companies trading globally in commodities, descending by size as of October 28,2011, on a commodity exchange, it is the underlying standard stated in the contract that defines the commodity, not any quality inherent in a specific producers product. Commodities exchanges include, Bourse Africa Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Chicago Board of Trade Chicago Mercantile Exchange Dalian Commodity Exchange Euronext and these markets will quickly respond to changes in supply and demand to find an equilibrium price and quantity
5.
Goods and services
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Physiocratic economists categorized production into productive labour and unproductive labour. This emphasis on production was adapted by David Ricardo, Thomas Robert Malthus and John Stuart Mill. Other, mainly Italian, 18th century economists maintained that all desired goods, the division of consumables into services is a simplification, these are not discrete categories. Most business theorists see a continuum with pure service at one endpoint, most products fall between these two extremes. For example, a restaurant provides a good, but also provides services in the form of ambience. Although some utilities, such as electricity and communications service providers, exclusively provide services, other utilities deliver physical goods, for public sector contracting purposes in the European Union, electricity supply is actually defined as goods rather than services. Goods are normally structural and can be transferred in an instant while services are delivered over a period of time, goods can be returned while a service once delivered cannot. Goods are not always tangible and may be virtual e. g. a book may be paper or electronic, marketing theory makes use of the service-goods continuum as an important concept which enables marketers to see the relative goods/services composition of total products. In a narrower sense, service refers to quality of customer service and this particular usage occurs frequently in retailing. Distinctions are made between goods and services in the context of international trade liberalization, for example, the World Trade Organizations General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade covers international trade in goods and the General Aglreement on Trade in Services covers the services sector
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Economic system
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An economic system is a system of production, resource allocation, and distribution of goods and services within a society or a given geographic area. It includes the combination of the institutions, agencies, entities, decision-making processes. As such, a system is a type of social system. The mode of production is a related concept, all economic systems have three basic questions to ask, what to produce, how to produce and in what quantities, and who receives the output of production. The study of systems includes how these various agencies and institutions are linked to one another. The analysis of economic systems traditionally focused on the dichotomies and comparisons between market economies and planned economies, and on the distinctions between capitalism and socialism, subsequently, the categorization of economic systems expanded to include other topics and models that do not conform to the traditional dichotomy. Today the dominant form of organization at the world level is based on market-oriented mixed economies. Economic systems is the category in the Journal of Economic Literature classification codes that includes the study of such systems, there are multiple components to economic systems. Decision-making structures of an economy determine the use of inputs, distribution of output, the level of centralization in decision-making. Decisions might be carried out by industrial councils, by a government agency, in one view, every economic system represents an attempt to solve three fundamental and interdependent problems, What goods and services shall be produced, and in what quantities. How shall goods and services be produced and that is, by whom and with what resources and technologies. For whom shall goods and services be produced and that is, who is to enjoy the benefits of the goods and services and how is the total product to be distributed among individuals and groups in the society. Thus every economy is a system that allocates resources for exchange, the system is stabilized through a combination of threat and trust, which are the outcome of institutional arrangements. The means of production may be owned privately, by the state, a decision-making system, this determines who is eligible to make decisions over economic activities. Economic agents with decision-making powers can enter into binding contracts with one another, a coordination mechanism, this determines how information is obtained and used in decision-making. An incentive system, this induces and motivates economic agents to engage in productive activities and it can be based on either material reward or moral suasion. The incentive system may encourage specialization and the division of labour, organizational form, there are two basic forms of organization, actors and regulators. Economic actors include households, work gangs and production teams, firms, joint-ventures, economically regulative organizations are represented by the state and market authorities, the latter may be private or public entities
7.
Production (economics)
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Production theory is the study of production, or the economic process of converting inputs into outputs. Production uses resources to create a good or service that is suitable for use, gift-giving in a gift economy and this can include manufacturing, construction, storing, shipping, and packaging. Some economists define production broadly as all economic activity other than consumption and they see every commercial activity other than the final purchase as some form of production. Production is a process, and as such it occurs through time, because it is a flow concept, production is measured as a “rate of output per period of time”. Production is a process that combines various material inputs and immaterial inputs to make something for consumption and it is the act of creating output, a good or service that has value and contributes to the utility of individuals. Economic well-being is created in a process, meaning all economic activities that aim directly or indirectly to satisfy human needs. The degree to which the needs are satisfied is often accepted as a measure of economic well-being, in production, two features explain increasing economic well-being. They are improving quality-price-ratio of commodities and increasing incomes from growing, all of them produce commodities that have value and contribute to well-being of individuals. The satisfaction of needs originates from the use of the commodities produced, the need satisfaction increases when the quality-price-ratio of the commodities improves and more satisfaction is achieved at less cost. To the procucer, improving product competitiveness often means lower product prices, and therefore losses in incomes, Economic well-being also increases due to the growth of incomes that are gained from the growing and more efficient market production. Market production is the one production form that creates and distributes incomes to stakeholders. Public production and household production are financed by the incomes generated in market production, thus market production has a double role in creating well-being, i. e. the role of producing developing commodities and the role to creating income. Because of this double role market production is the “primus motor” of economic well-being, in principle there are two main activities in an economy, production and consumption. Similarly there are two kinds of actors, producers and consumers, well-being is made possible by efficient production and by the interaction between producers and consumers. In the interaction, consumers can be identified in two roles both of which generate well-being, consumers can be both customers of the producers and suppliers to the producers. Stakeholders of production are persons, groups or organizations with an interest in a producing company, Economic well-being originates in efficient production and it is distributed through the interaction between the company’s stakeholders. Stakeholders of companies are economic actors with an economic interest in a company, based on the similarities of their interests, stakeholders can be classified into three groups to differentiate their interests and mutual relations. The three groups are, Customers Suppliers Producers The interests of stakeholders and their relations to companies are described briefly below
