Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller Essay - 1241 Words

Death of A Salesman, written by Arthur Miller, is a play based on the turmoil within an average American family. Miller wrote Death of A Salesman easily showcasing the elements of drama. I was easily able to follow the plot, identify with his characters, and picture the setting. The main theme of the plot seemed to be Willy reaching for the American Dream. Financial success, business success, outwardly perfect family, revered by your peers, and in general respected by all. Early on in the play two things are evident to the reader; Willys questionable mental status, and his tumultuous relationship with his sons. Willy is apparently suffering from some sort of mental or emotional issues. These issues are causing†¦show more content†¦Happy mislead is family into thinking his job position was higher than is actually was, and Biff could not settle down and stick with a job. Willys fear of change and evolvement is evident in his resentment of the apartments and in his reaction to the recorder of Mr. Wagners. He is also unable to come to terms with his own advancing years as a salesman. He only goes to Mr. Wagner to ask for a job strictly in New York when Linda insists. What he sees as valuable experience others see as obsolete. Willy longs for the days when the boys revered him and they were pals. Scott Foll states the driving point of plot is conflict (1182). This play definitely has the ultimate conflict. That is simply, family. Conflict with Willy and Biff, Willy with himself, and Linda with her sons. For me the turning climactic point is when while talking with Ben, Willy believes he can regain what he lost years ago with Biff by ending his life. He thinks the twenty-thousand from the insurance money will fix it all. I suppose the resolution in this play was Willys death. Although I do not imagine this could truly be resolution for the remaining family. Characterization seemed to be the most well developed element of the play. The patriarch of the family, Willy Loman was portrayed as the tragic hero. I believe his character did indeed possess some character flaws that inevitably led to his death. However, I agree withShow MoreRelatedDeath Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller1387 Words   |  6 PagesAmerican play-write Arthur Miller, is undoubtedly Death of a Salesman. Arthur Miller wrote Death of a Salesman in 1949 at the time when America was evolving into an economic powerhouse. Arthur Miller critiques the system of capitalism and he also tells of the reality of the American Dream. Not only does he do these things, but he brings to light the idea of the dysfunctional family. Death of a Salesman is one of America’s saddest tragedies. In Arthur Miller’s, Death of a Salesman, three major eventsRead MoreDeath Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller888 Words   |  4 PagesDeath of a Salesman† is a play written by Arthur Mi ller in the year 1949. The play revolves around a desperate salesman, Willy Loman. Loman is delusioned and most of the things he does make him to appear as a man who is living in his own world away from other people. He is disturbed by the fact that he cannot let go his former self. His wife Linda is sad and lonely; his youngest son Biff is presented as a swinger/player while his eldest son Happy appears anti-business and confused by the behaviorRead MoreDeath Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller1573 Words   |  7 Pagesrepresents a character with a tragic flaw leading to his downfall. In addition, in traditional tragedy, the main character falls from high authority and often it is predetermined by fate, while the audience experiences catharsis (Bloom 2). Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman is considered to be a tragedy because this literary work has some of the main characteristics of the tragedy genre. In this play, the main character Willy Loman possesses such traits and behaviors that lead to his downfall, and theRead MoreDeath of Salesman by Arthur Miller972 Words   |  4 PagesIn the play Death of a Salesman by the playwright Arthur Miller, the use of names is significant to the characters themselves. Many playwrights and authors use names in their works to make a connection between the reader and the main idea of their work. Arthur Miller uses names in this play extraordinarily. Not only does Miller use the names to get readers to correlate them with the main idea of the play, but he also uses names to provide some irony to the play. Miller uses the meanings of someRead MoreDeath Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller1628 Words   |  7 PagesArthur Miller wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning play Death of a Salesman in 1949. The play inflated the myth of the American Dream of prosperity and recognition, that hard work and integrity brings, but the play compels the world to see the ugly truth that capitalism and the materialistic world distort honesty and moral ethics. The play is a guide toward contemporary themes foreseen of the twentieth century, which are veiled with greed, power, and betrayal. Miller’s influence with the play spreadRead MoreDeath Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller949 Words   |  4 PagesDeath of a Salesman can be described as modern tragedy portraying the remaining days in the life of Willy Loman. This story is very complex, not only because of it’s use of past and present, but because of Willy’s lies that have continued to spiral out of control throughout his life. Arthur Miller puts a modern twist on Aristotle’s definition of ancient Greek tragedy when Willy Loman’s life story directly identifies the fatal flaw of the â€Å"American Dream†. Willy Loman’s tragic flaw can be recappedRead MoreThe Death Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller846 Words   |  4 PagesA Dime a Dozen The Death of a Salesman is a tragedy written by playwright Arthur Miller and told in the third person limited view. The play involves four main characters, Biff, Happy, Linda, and Willy Loman, an ordinary family trying to live the American Dream. Throughout the play however, the family begins to show that through their endeavors to live the American Dream, they are only hurting their selves. The play begins by hinting at Willy’s suicidal attempts as the play begins with Linda askingRead MoreDeath Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller Essay2538 Words   |  11 PagesSurname 1 McCain Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course: Date: Death of a Salesman Death of a salesman is a literature play written by American author Arthur Miller. The play was first published in the year 1949 and premiered on Broadway in the same year. Since then, it has had several performances. It has also received a lot of accordances and won numerous awards for its literature merit including the coveted Pulitzer for drama. The play is regarded by many critics as the perfectRead MoreDeath Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller2081 Words   |  9 Pages#1 â€Å"Death of a Salesman† by Arthur Miller is a tragedy, this play has only two acts and does not include scenes in the acts. Instead of cutting from scene to scene, there is a description of how the lighting focuses on a different place or time-period, which from there, they continue on in a different setting. The play doesn’t go in chronological order. A lot of the play is present in Willy’s flashbacks or memories of events. This provides an explanation of why the characters are acting a certainRead MoreDeath Of Salesman By Arthur Miller1475 Words   |  6 Pagesto death to achieve their so- called American dream. They live alone and there is no love of parents and siblings. They may have not noticed the America dream costs them so much, which will cause a bigger regret later. In the play Death of Salesman, Arthur Miller brings a great story of a man who is at very older age and still works hard to achieve his desire, which is the American dream. Later, he no tices that his youth is gone and there is less energy in his body. Willy Loman is a salesman, who

The Freedom Of Travelling On Horseback - 2025 Words

To Arthur there was nothing like the freedom of travelling on horseback. The few times when he sat in the car and watched Merlin steer their way across the countryside along the roads it felt unsatisfying to him. The world passed by the windows too fast for Arthur to take in his new surroundings. He needed to feel the elements around him, like the sun on his face or the wind blowing into his hair as it did today. Here in the wide open air it smelled like humid soil, grass and flowers. That was far better to him then the confined feel and the awful smell of the car. Not to mention that he still did not trust the machine. It had the power to kill as far as he was concerned, and it put the fear in him. For some reason he could not get passed the image of how close he came losing Gwaine to one†¦ Arthur steered his horse through known territory as fast as he dared. The thrilling gallop made him feel alive again. In the last few hours he had felt more like his old self than ever since he came to this century. This century†¦ it still stunned him that so much time had passed in a matter of what felt like days to him. The way Camelot got snapped away from him in a blip of time made him feel as if part of his heart was ripped out. For his entire life he had known nothing else than it. He fought for his people and protected it with every fibre of his being. To be left without such a cause and without the love of his people, including his friends, was just too much to bear at times.Show MoreRelatedA journey is the act of travelling from one place to another. Both Plath and Larkin portray this in2100 Words   |  9 PagesA journey is the act of travelling from one place to another. Both Plath and Larkin portray this in a literal and metaphorical sense. I will analyse and compar e ways in which Plath and Larkin portray their ideas about what a journey is to them. ‘Ariel’ and ‘Sheep in Fog’ by Plath portray the idea of a journey as a metaphorical escape as she struggles with her own insecurities and paranoia and contemplates death as the end to her journey. ‘Here’ and ‘Whitsun Weddings’ by Larkin portray a journey asRead MoreApush Chapter 3 Notes3030 Words   |  13 Pagestrails †¢ Roads were made after order of provincial and local authorities †¢ Land travel had to be by horse or foot †¢ Stage coaches (horse-pulled carts) opened in 1732 E. Taverns †¢ Hotels and bars †¢ An important part of colonial travel since travelling during the night was too risky †¢ Taverns became extremely popular †¢ Originally called â€Å"ordinaries† that were simply farm houses that offered a bed in a corner or hayloft F. 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The venture capital and private equity industry Free Essays

string(130) " rate in India was the fastest globally and it rose to occupy the number three slot worldwide in terms of quantum of investments\." Journal of Indian Business Research Emerald Article: Venture capital and private equity in India: an analysis of investments and exits Thillai Rajan Annamalai, Ashish Deshmukh Article information: To cite this document: Thillai Rajan Annamalai, Ashish Deshmukh, (2011),†Venture capital and private equity in India: an analysis of investments and exits†, Journal of Indian Business Research, Vol. 3 Iss: 1 pp. 6 – 21 Permanent link to this document: http://dx. 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The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www. emeraldinsight. com/1755-4195. htm JIBR 3,1 Venture capital and private equity in India: an analysis of investments and exits 6 Thillai Rajan Annamalai and Ashish Deshmukh Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India Abstract Purpose – The venture capital and private equity (VCPE) industry in India has grown signi? cantly in recent years. During ? ve-year period 2004-2008, the industry growth rate in India was the fastest globally and it rose to occupy the number three slot worldwide in terms of quantum of investments. You read "The venture capital and private equity industry" in category "Essay examples" However, academic research on the Indian VCPE industry has been limited. This paper seeks to ? ll the gap in research on the recent trends in the Indian VCPE industry. Design/methodology/approach – Studies on the VCPE transactions have traditionally focused on one of the components of the investment lifecycle, i. e. nvestments, monitoring, or exit. This study is based on analyzing the investment life cycle in its entirety, from the time of investment by the VCPE fund till the time of exit. The analysis was based on a total of 1,912 VCPE transactions involving 1,503 ? rms during the years 20 04-2008. Findings – Most VCPE investments were in late stage ? nancing and took place many years after the incorporation of the investee ? rm. The industry was also characterized by the short duration of the investments. The type of exit was well predicted by the type of industry, ? nancing stage, region of investment, and type of VCPE fund. Originality/value – This paper highlights some of the key areas to ensure sustainable growth of the industry. Early stage funding opportunities should be increased to ensure that there is a strong pipeline of investment opportunities for late stage investors. VCPE investments should be seen as long-term investments and not as â€Å"quick ? ips†. To achieve this, it is important to have a strong domestic VCPE industry which can stay invested in the portfolio company for a longer term. Keywords Venture capital, Equity capital, India, Investments, Financing Paper type Research paper . Growth of the Indian VCPE industry Over the last few years, India has become one of the leading destinations for venture capital and private equity (VCPE) investments. Though the concept of VCPE investment prevailed in the country in one form or another since the 1960s, the growth in the industry was mainly after the economic reforms in 1991. Prior to that, most of the VCPE funding was from p ublic sector ? nancial institutions, and was characterized by low levels of investment activity. In recent years, VCPE commitments and investments in India have grown at a rapid pace. Venture economics data indicate that during the period 1990-1999, India’s ranking was 25th out of 64 and various VCPE funds raised $945. 9 million for investments in India; however, during the next decade, 2000-2009, India’s ranking rose to 13th out of 90 countries and the funds raised $16,682. 5 million for investments in India. Journal of Indian Business Research Vol. 3 No. 1, 2011 pp. 6-21 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1755-4195 DOI 10. 1108/17554191111112442 The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the ? nancial support provided by the Indian Council of Social Sciences Research and IIT Madras for this research. They would also like to acknowledge the support of M. B. Raghupathy and V. Vasupradha for this research. This represents a growth of 1,664 percent over the previous decade. The trend is even more encouraging for the most recent ? ve-year period 2005-2009, during which India’s ranking was 10th out of 77 countries, and various funds raised $15,073. 6 million for VCPE investments in India. Funds raised during 2005-2009, represented a growth rate of 837 percent as compared to funds raised over the previous ? ve-year period 2000-2004. The growth rate in investments made by various VCPE funds has been equally strong. During the ? ve-year period 2004-2008, the industry growth rate in India was the fastest globally and it rose to occupy the number three slot worldwide in terms of quantum of investments[1]. The amount invested by VCPE funds grew from US$ 1. 8 billion in 2004 to US$ 22 billion in 2007 before tapering off to US$ 8. 1 billion in 2008[2]. During the ? ve-year period ending 2008, VCPE investments in India grew from 0. 4 percent of GDP in 2004 to more than 1. 5 percent of GDP in 2008 (Annamalai and Deshmukh, 2009). The rest of the paper is structured as follows: Section 2 indicates the objective of the paper. Section 3 provides details on the data set used for analysis and the sources of data. Section 4, which covers the results and discussion, is divided into six sub-sections. The sub-sections are in the following order: round wise analysis of investments, time of incorporation and ? nancing stage, intervals between funding rounds, investment exits, duration of investment, and a statistical analysis of investment duration and type of exit. Section 5 provides a summary of the paper. 2. Objective of the paper Research on VCPE has not been in tune with the growth seen in the industry. Past research on the Indian VCPE industry can be broadly classi? ed into the following categories: studies that examined the evolution and the current status of the industry (Pandey, 1996, 1998; Verma, 1997; Dossani and Kenney, 2002; Singh et al. , 2005); multi country studies which also included India (Lockett et al. , 1992; Subhash, 2006; Ippolito, 2007); survey studies of VCPE industry practices in India (Mitra, 1997; Vinay Kumar, 2002, 2005; Vinay Kumar and Kaura, 2003; Mishra, 2004); and studies which can be considered as case studies of VCPE investments (Kulkarni and Prusty, 2007). The objectives of this paper are as follows: ? rst, research that has focused on the recent growth phase of the VCPE industry in India has been limited. Most of the papers that have studied the Indian industry were either before the growth phase (pre-2004) or did not cover the growth phase in full, starting from the onset of growth in 2004 until the slowdown in 2008, caused by the global ? nancial crisis. This paper is an attempt to meet the gap in research on the recent trends in the Indian VCPE industry. Second, there have been very limited studies that looked at the lifecycle of investments, i. . from the time of investment in the company until their exit from the investment. There have been several studies that have looked at areas related to investments such as investment decision making, structure of investments, and valuation. Similarly, there have been studies that have looked at topics related to venture exits. However, there have been limited studies that looked at the enti re investment life cycle. The main contribution of this paper is to look at the investment lifecycle in its entirety. Third, this paper aims to highlight some of the lesser known features of the Indian VCPE industry such as the characteristics of the investee ? rm at the time of VCPE investment, the duration of VCPE investments in the ? rm, and the timing and mode of exit by the investors. The objective of this paper is to provide an holistic understanding of the Indian VCPE industry to enable the creation of a policy environment to sustain the growth of the industry. VCPE in India 7 JIBR 3,1 8 3. Data set used and sources This study uses VCPE investment transaction data during the years 2004-2008. The choice for the period of analysis was driven by two considerations. First, it was during this period that the industry witnessed signi? cant growth and India emerged as one of the leading destinations for VCPE investments. Therefore, a detailed study of this industry growth would be of general research interest. Second, the choice of period was also governed by practical considerations. Data on VCPE investments in India before 2004 were not available in a form that can be used for a research study. Therefore, it was decided to begin the starting period of the study at year 2004, the year from which we had access to data. It was felt that a ? ve-year study of transactions would be a reasonable time frame to overcome the yearly ? uctuations. This ? ve-year period also coincided with a full ? nancial cycle in the global ? nancial markets, a period marked by dramatic growth and equally dramatic fall. The data for the study were obtained from multiple sources. To start with, deal data on the various investments and exits were obtained from two database sources: Venture Intelligence India[3] and Asian Venture Capital Journal[4] database. The data from both these databases were combined to form a comprehensive data set. The data set was then suitably checked for data repetition and duplicate data points were removed ? rst. Second, whenever there was a difference in the information given for the same deal, the correctness and accuracy was checked by independent veri? cation from other sources, such as newspaper reports and company web sites. Information that was not available in these databases was then separately sourced from the web sites of the independent companies. Admittedly, with the lack of a strong database on Indian investments, developing such a data set involved a lot of effort. The comprehensive data set that was developed provided various details on the VCPE investments and exits that happened in India during 2004-2008. It consisted of a total of 1,912 VCPE transactions involving 1,503 ? rms during the period 2004-2008. From these 1,503 ? rms, 1,276 ? rms had only investment transactions while another 129 ? rms had only exit transactions during the ? ve-year period. The remaining 98 ? rms had both VCPE investment and exit transactions. To facilitate a more detailed analysis, the investments were classi? ed into ten industry categories and four ? ancing stages based on the lifecycle stage of the investee ? rm and the objectives of the investment. Exits were classi? ed into two categories, namely initial public offer (IPO) and merger and acquisition (M) or trade sale. 4. Results and discussion 4. 1 Round-wise analysis of investments Firms seeking to raise VCPE investments normally receive the investment in multiple rounds (Sahlman, 1990); earlier works have provided several explanations for this trend. Gompers (1995) indicates that the staging of capital infusions allows venture capitalists to gather information and monitor the progress of ? ms, while retaining the option to periodically abandon projects. Admati and P? eiderer (1994) indicate that such an option to abandon is essential because an entrepreneur will almost never quit a failing project as long as others are providing capital and the threat to abandon creates incentives for the entrepreneur to maximize value and meet goals. Neher (1999) indicates that multiple rounds of ? nancing overcome the potential agency con? icts between the entrepreneur and investor as previous rounds create the collateral to support the later rounds. While the stage of ? ancing is determined by the objectives and timing of investment, the round of ? nancing simply indicates the number of instances of VCPE investments in the ? rm. Thus, for example, Round 1 ? nancing is the ?rst instance of the ? rm getting VCPE investment, but it need not be always early stage ? nancing. Depending on the ? rm lifecycle and the objectives of investment, Round 1 ? nancing can happen in any of the four ? nancing stages. Similarly, there could be multiple rounds of investment happening in the same stage. In a particular round of funding, there may be many investors jointly investing in the company. For example, when there is a co-investment by more than one VCPE investor at the same time, it is considered as a single round of investment. By the same token, when the same investor makes investments in the ? rm at different times at different valuations, each investment is considered a separate round of funding. Funding rounds are considered to be different when there has been a substantial time gap from the previous round of ? nancing and/or the investment happens at a different valuation from the previous round of funding. Figure 1 shows the results from the round wise analysis of VCPE investments. The results indicate that 82 percent of the total VCPE investments were in Round 1, i. e. ?rst time VCPE investments in the company. Out of the total amount of investment, follow on investments account for only 18 percent. It can be observed that investments decrease sharply with subsequent funding rounds. One possible reason behind this could be because of the nature of data: most of the investment has happened during the later years of the study period[5], indicating that suf? cient time might not have elapsed for the next round of investment. However, these results indicate the possibility that VCPE investments are happening at a much later stage in the ? rm lifecycle and the ? rm is not in need of an additional funding round for reaching a critical size that is needed for an IPO or for ? nding a buyer. This might also be explained by the grandstanding theory (Gompers, 1996), where VCs are keen to exit more quickly from their investments. Second, this trend can also indicate that the companies that have received the ? rst round might not have been able to achieve a strong enough performance to attract the next round of investment from investors. Further studies are needed to understand this pattern in detail. Table I indicates that the number of rounds of funding received by companies in different industries was 1,912 from a total of 1,503 companies. This indicates that the average number of rounds in a company was 1. 27. As can be seen from Table I, a large majority of the ? rms have received only one round of VCPE investment. This result accompanies the results in Figure 1 well, which indicate that 82 percent of the total Round 3 1,061. 85 (2. 6%) Round 2 5,394. 11 (14%) VCPE in India 9 Round 4 391. 25 (1%) Round 5 170. 6 (0. 4%) Round 1 2,961. 47 (82%) Figure 1. Round-wise VCPE investments (in US$mn) during 2004-2008 JIBR 3,1 Industry 10 Table I. Count of companies for different funding rounds Computer hardware Engineering and construction Financial services Healthcare IT and ITES Manufacturing Non-? nancial services Others Telecom and media Transportation and logistics Grand total Count of companies for different funding rounds 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 36 137 110 92 295 214 133 65 93 51 1,226 5 21 30 19 53 25 12 10 15 8 198 1 6 5 6 12 6 5 3 4 3 51 1 1 3 2 3 3 2 1 1 17 1 2 8 1 1 1 1 2 1 3 1 4 2 2 Total companies 43 167 151 120 364 250 153 9 112 64 1,503 investments were Round 1 investments. Only 13 percent of companies have obtained two rounds of funding, and approximately 5 percent of the total companies that have received VCPE investments during the period have obtained more than two rounds. The proportion of companies that have received the second round of funding in different industries is more or less the same as what we saw for Round 1 investments, except in the ? nancial services category. The phenomenon of some industries being more successful in getting Round 2 investments could not be clearly observed in our analysis. In a way, this is a surprising trend. For example, information technology (IT) and information technology-enabled services (ITES) companies constitute 24 percent of the total number of companies that have received funding, 24 percent of the companies that have received the ? rst round of funding, and 25 percent of the companies that have received more than one round of funding. This indicates that IT and ITES companies, seen as one of the engines of growth in India, have not had higher proportional success than companies in other industries in attracting multiple rounds of funding. The ? nancial services companies constitute 10 percent of the total companies that have received funding, 9 percent of the companies that have received one round of funding, and 15 percent of the companies that have received more than one round of funding. This indicates that ? nancial services companies have a better track record of getting additional investment rounds. The reasons could be numerous – the larger funding requirements created the need for funding to happen in multiple rounds and companies that had obtained the ? st round of funding would have been able to showcase a strong performance track record to attract the subsequent rounds of funding. The industry itself was in an upswing in India during the study period and this might have contributed to investor interest in investing in subsequent rounds. It could also be due to the institutional and regulatory features of private equity (PE) investing in India. For example, funding could be done in multiple rounds bec ause of the procedural issues in foreign investments in certain sectors. Further studies are needed to identify the determinants of funding rounds. One would reasonably expect that multiple rounds of funding would be observed in more capital intensive industries. Among the ten industry categories, engineering and construction and manufacturing sectors are very capital and asset intensive. However, it can be seen that the proportion of companies receiving additional rounds of funding in these sectors is not more than the proportion of companies that have received ? rst-round funding. On the contrary, the proportion of companies receiving additional rounds of funding in manufacturing is less than that of their proportion in Round 1 ? ancing. Several explanations are possible for this trend, which needs to be substantiated with further research. Companies are receiving VCPE funding at a much later stage in the lifecycle and they do not need additional rounds of funding before providing an exit to the investor. It is possible that, because of their asset intensive nature, they are able to get access to debt funding thereby limiting the possibility of additional rounds of VCPE ? nancing. VCPE in India 11 4. 2 Time of incorporation and ? nancing stage It is well known that VC investments happen early in a ? rm’s life. It is during the early stage that companies have limited means to raise money from conventional sources and look to sources like VC for meeting the funding requirements. Table II provides the results from our analysis of the interval between the year of incorporation of the company and the ? nancing stage. The results indicate some interesting trends. Early stage funding should normally happen within the ? rst couple of years after the incorporation of the ? rm. But in our analysis, we ? nd that 17 percent of the ? rms have received their early stage funding as much as ten years after they were incorporated. While the highest frequency of early stage funding can be seen in the one- to three-year category, a large proportion of companies get their early stage funding even until the ? fth year from the time of incorporation. This indicates the disinclination of the VCPE investors in India to make investments in very early stages. A majority of the growth stage investment happens between ? ve and eight years from incorporation. However, the second highest percentage of growth stage funding happens after 15 years after incorporation. While growth stage ? nancing during the ? e- to eight-year period seems reasonable (though it is still more than that which is normally associated with growth ? nancing), growth ? nancing happening after 15 years from incorporation needs to be studied in detail. It could either be a question of willingness or readiness. Either the investors are not willing to invest earlier or the companies are not ready to receive VCPE funding in their early years. The companie s might have explored funding from family, banks, or friends before taking investment from VCPE investors. Financing stage Early Growth Late Pre-IPO Time since incorporation (in years) ,1 20 13. 6% ,3 22 9. 3% 7 2. 3% 7. 7% 1-3 51 34. 7% 3-5 26 11. 0% 15 5. 0% 0 0. 0% 3-5 37 25. 2% 5-8 68 28. 8% 25 8. 3% 6 15. 4% 5-8 13 8. 8% 8-10 36 15. 3% 19 6. 3% 3 7. 7% 8-10 1 0. 7% 10-15 31 13. 1% 61 20. 3% 13 33. 3% Total . 10 25 17. 0% . 15 53 22. 5% 173 57. 7% 14 35. 9% 147 236 300 39 Table II. Number of VCPE deals for different ? nancing stages vs time since incorporation of investee companies JIBR 3,1 12 Analysis of late stage investment deals, as can be expected, show an increasing trend with time from incorporation. However, more than half of the late stage deals that have been studied are seen in companies more than 15 years after their incorporation. This again re-con? rms the earlier ?ndings that VCPE investors have been more inclined to invest in companies that have a longer track record and operating history, and have a suf? cient size. From the perspective of companies that are receiving VCPE funding, such late stage funding, could indicate that these companies might have been part of a larger business group, which provided the ? nancial support in their early years. Further studies need to be done to understand the antecedents of ? rms that receive late stage investment. But one of the most compelling observations which attracts immediate attention is that about 75 percent (541 out of 722[6]) deals are in companies that are more than ? ve years old. Almost 60 percent (429 out of 722) VCPE deal investments are made in ? rms that are eight years old or more. This supports the earlier inferences that VCPE funds in India are more inclined to invest in ? rms that have a track record of performance. While this investment trend might not be very different from that which is seen in other emerging economies such as Brazil (Ribiero and de Carvalho, 2008), it is much more marked in India. Therefore, it is felt that most of the VCPE investments in India are in the nature of PE investments rather than VC investments, which are typically investments made in early stage companies. 4. 3 Intervals between funding rounds Table III presents average time intervals in months between different rounds of PE funding (for Rounds 1-3)[7] across industries. The average time interval across industries between Round 1 and Round 2 funding is 13. 69 months, which is just slightly more than year. The average time interval between Round 2 and Round 3 funding is 10. 1 months, which is less than a year. The median values for the above intervals are 12. 17 and 11. 17 months, respectively. The closeness of the mean to median values indicates that there is no signi? cant skew in the time interval between different funding rounds. Figures 2 and 3 show the distribution of time intervals between rounds. These indicate that the deals are well distributed in the initial periods, with a slightly high er frequency around the mean value, and tapering down in the later periods. Since it takes about three to six months from the date of the ? rst signi? ant meeting with the investors to realize an investment, the low time interval between successive Industry Table III. Average time interval between successive rounds of VCPE funding (in months) R2-R1 R3-R2 Computer hardware Engineering and construction Financial services Healthcare IT and ITES Manufacturing Non-? nancial services Others Telecom and media Transportation and logistics Total 14. 43 17. 13 12. 28 14. 89 15. 64 11. 58 13. 93 8. 46 11. 16 9. 54 13. 69 16. 72 4. 88 7. 44 14. 22 12. 43 10. 14 16. 57 6. 03 15. 23 9. 63 10. 91 VCPE in India 50 45 Number of deals 40 35 30 13 25 20 15 10 5 0 3 3 to 6 6 to 9 9 to 12 12 to 18 18 to 24 24 to 36 ? 36 Duration (months) Figure 2. Time between Round 2 and Round 1 investments 14 12 Number of deals 10 8 6 4 2 0 ?3 3 to 6 6 to 9 9 to 12 12 to 18 18 to 24 24 to 36 Duration (months) ? 36 ?na ncing rounds indicates that the top management of the company might be continuously devoting their energies in raising capital. This might not be good for business, as spending more time on raising ? nancing is likely to affect their attention to business operations. Our results also indicate that in the Indian context the pace of ? nancing increases with time. This result is somewhat surprising as, under normal circumstances, the size of funding increases with every additional round of funding and is expected to meet the needs of the company for a longer duration even after accounting for the higher cash burn rates due to the increase in company size. Analysis of time intervals for different industry categories indicates that the engineering and construction sector had the largest time interval between the ? rst and second round of funding. Some explanations, which need to be followed with further research, for this trend include being capital intensive. They raise large sums which Figure 3. Time between Round 3 and Round 2 investments JIBR 3,1 help the companies to sustain the operations for a longer period. They are able to get additional funding from other sources such as debt. Cash ? ows from operations would also contribute towards the ? nancing requirements. However, the time interval between second and third round is the lowest for this sector, which indicates that this could be due to the pre-IPO nature of funding. 14 4. 4 Investment exits Venture exit has been an area where there has been limited research (Gompers and Lerner, 2004). The VCPE investor after a certain period has to exit the investment to recover the same as well as to earn a return on it. The different possible exit routes play a major role in VCPE ? nancing and the likely availability of favorable exit opportunities in lesser time is one of the key criterions used by investors while evaluating investment opportunities. Though there are several exit routes for the VCPE funds such as IPO, secondary sale of shares, M, management buy outs, and liquidation. Exit by IPOs and trade sale through M are the more prevalent methods of exit in Indian VCPE markets. Of the total 252 exit events that were recorded during the ? ve-year period ending 2008, 84 events were IPOs and the remaining 168 were M. Thus, the ratio of exits of IPOs and M is exactly 0. 5, indicating that an exit by M is twice as likely as that by IPO. However, an analysis of this ratio across different industries provides an interesting picture. The ratio is less than 1 for all but two of the industry categories – engineering and construction, and transportation and logistics. Companies in this sector tend to be capital intensive industries with a large asset base and largely dependent on the Indian market. Since companies in this sector are much larger in terms of revenues or assets, it becomes comparatively easier to achieve an exit by means of an IPO. For sectors, that are not so asset intensive, M seem to be a common form of exit for VCPE investors. Computer-hardware, IT and ITES, and healthcare – all traditionally attractive industries for VCPE investments – show a strong inclination towards M exit routes with the ratio of IPO-M exits being less than 0. 4 (Figure 4). The choice of exit route is also in? uenced by the state of the capital markets. The ratio of IPO-M exits in each of the ? e years during the study period is shown in Figure 5. Figure 4. Ratio of exits by IPO to M across industries Co En m gi pu ne te er r-h in g ar an dw d ar co e ns tru Fi na ct io nc n ia ls er vi ce s H ea lth ca IT re an d IT M ES an N uf on ac -fi tu na rin ci g al se rv ic es Te O le Tr th co er an m s sp an or d ta m tio ed n ia an d lo gi tic s 1. 6 1. 4 1. 2 1 0. 8 0. 6 0. 4 0. 2 0 VCPE in India 0. 9 0. 8 0. 7 0. 6 0. 5 0. 4 15 0. 3 0. 2 0. 1 0 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Figure 5. Ratio of exits by IPO to M during 2004-2008 While the overall ratio of IPO-M exits is 0. 5 for the ? e-year period ending 2008, the ratio varies in line with the state of the capital markets. The ratio ranges from 0. 3 to 0. 6 for all years, except 2006, when it is signi? cantly high (. 0. 8). This can probably be attributed to the ? ourish in the IPO market in India during 2006. This is consistent with the ? nding that IPOs are more likely to occur when equity values are high (Lerner, 1994). In addition to the type of exit, the capital markets also in? uence the time taken for an investor to exit. The pattern of variation in an average number of rounds for the two exit methods over the years is shown in Figure 6. It can be noted that there are large variations for those companies that provided exits through IPOs. The number of rounds of VCPE funding before the IPOs are lower during the years 2006 and 2007, when the capital markets were active. Such variations could not be seen in those cases where the exits were from M. The number of rounds of funding before an M has been gradually increasing over the years, indicating that the size needed before an exit from an M has also been increasing over the years. But a more interesting inference could be for companies that exit from an M; the circumstances in the capital markets do not have a signi? cant effect. On the other hand, if the conditions are favorable, companies tend to make their IPOs in a shorter period to take advantage of the momentum in the capital markets. This is also supported by the fact that the average numbers of funding rounds are nearly equal for both the exit types during 2006 and 2007. 3. 5 Average number of rounds 3 2. 5 2 IPO 1. 5 Trade sale – M 1 0. 5 0 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Figure 6. Average number of funding rounds before exit during the ? ve years JIBR 3,1 16 4. 5 Investment duration The duration of a VCPE investment is de? ned as the interval between the time of investment and exit[8]. It is generally considered that VCPE funds are not short-term investors, and stay invested in the ? rm between three and ? ve years; however, our analysis tells a different story. Table IV provides the investment duration for investments in different ? nancing stages. To make our analysis more accurate, this exercise was done only for those companies for which complete data on both investments and exits were available. A total of 110 transactions in 98 companies were included in this analysis. The main ? nding from Table IV is the overall short-term duration of VCPE investments in India. For 63 percent of the investment transactions, the average investment duration is less than one year. Even in those investments which can be classi? ed as growth stage, 75 percent of the investments have less than two years’ duration. For late stage investments, the proportion of exits within two years increases to 87 percent. Overall, the average duration of investment stands at just 17 months. In comparison, the investment duration for an IPO exit in the USA and Canada is 4. 7 and 5. 86 years, respectively. The investment duration for an exit through the acquisition route for the USA and Canada is 5. 17 and 6. 94 years, respectively, (Cumming and MacIntosh, 2001). For VCPE investments, which are generally considered medium to long-term investments, the observed duration in India is very low, indicating that most of the investments are late stage or pre-IPO types of investments. While Indian VCPE investors would generally indicate that they are long-term investors, the data corroborates that which many entrepreneurs have always felt: that VCPE funds need to be invested in the long term and not focused on quickly exiting from the investment. While these results are interesting, they also suffer from two limitations: the sample size and the ? ve-year time frame for analysis. Further con? rmatory studies that cover a longer time frame with more deals are needed. 4. 6 Statistical analysis of investment duration and type of exit As a part of this study, statistical analysis was done to determine whether any of the variables were able to explain the duration of VCPE investment and the type of exit. For this analysis, Investment duration and type of exit were taken as the dependent variables. Independent variables used in the study were industry, ? ancing stage, region, and type of VCPE fund. Bivariate regressions (Table V) indicate the relative in? uence of each independent variable on the dependent variables. As it can be expected, duration of investment can be best explained by ? nancing stage. The high f-ratio and the Financing stage Early Growth Late Table IV. Duration of VCPE investments Pre-IPO ,1 0 0. 0% 14 48. 3% 35 6 1. 4% 20 90. 9% Duration of investment (in years) 1-2 2-3 3-4 4-5 2 100. 0% 8 27. 6% 15 26. 3% 2 9. 1% 0 0. 0% 6 20. 7% 6 10. 5% 0 0. 0% 0 0. 0% 1 3. 4% 1 1. 8% 0 0. 0% 0 0. 0% 0 0. 0% 0 0. 0% 0 0. 0% .5 Total 0. 0% 0 0. 0% 0 0. 0% 0 0. 0% 2 29 57 22 R S. no. Dependent variable Independent variable(s) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Duration of Industry investment Financing stage Region Type of VCPE fund Exit mode Industry Stage Region Type of VCPE fund R2 Adjusted R2 SE of the estimate 0. 318 0. 387 0. 159 0. 278 0. 544 0. 429 0. 221 0. 115 0. 101 0. 150 0. 025 0. 077 0. 296 0. 184 0. 049 0. 013 0. 007 0. 118 0. 011 0. 066 0. 212 0. 154 0. 014 0. 001 10. 853 10. 157 10. 876 10. 453 0. 423 0. 439 0. 474 0. 477 ANOVA p-value F-ratio (Sig. ) 0. 938 4. 755 0. 696 6. 952 3. 506 6. 093 1. 389 1. 105 0. 498 0. 004 . 557 0. 010 0. 001 0. 001 0. 252 0. 296 VCPE in India 17 Table V. Results from bivariate regression analysis low p-value indicate the signi? cance of the regression. This can be easily explain ed as those investing in the early stage would remain invested for a longer duration and those investing in late stages would remain invested for a shorter duration. High f-ratio and low p-values are also noted for the bivariate regression that had a type of VCPE fund as the independent variable. In this study, VCPE funds were categorized into two: domestic and foreign. The fact that this has an in? ence supports the argument that domestic VCPE funds stay invested for a longer duration as compared to foreign funds. It was also noted that industry and stage of ? nancing have more in? uence on the exit mode as compared to other variables. These results can also be explained. Some industries could be more suited for exiting with IPOs because of the market bias. Similarly, many of the late stage and pre-IPO investments are made just before the company goes for an IPO. When these investments are being made, the investee company has a clear road map for going for an IPO. Therefore, the exit route in such late stage and pre-IPO investments are more or less clear at the time of the investment itself, unless there is an adverse change in market conditions. We performed a discriminant analysis in SPSS (Table VI) to predict the probable exit route for an investment, given the independent variables. Discriminant analysis Dependent variable (Y), i. e. exit method Original Count % Cross-validatedb Count % Predicted group membershipa 1 (IPO) 2 (M) Total 1 (IPO) 2 (M) 1 (IPO) 2 (M) 49 5 87. 5 17. 2 7 24 12. 5 82. 8 56 29 100. 0 100. 0 1 (IPO) 2 (M) 1 (IPO) 2 (M) 5 6 80. 4 20. 7 11 23 19. 6 79. 3 56 29 100. 0 100. 0 Notes: a85. 9 percent of original grouped cases correctly classi? ed and 80. 0 percent of cross-validated grouped cases correctly classi? ed; bcross-validation is done only for those cases in the analysis; in cross-validation, each case is classi? ed by the functions derived from all cases other than that case Table VI. Results from the discriminant analysis on exit method classi? cation JIBR 3,1 18 is typically used for the prediction of categorical or non-metric variable being classi? ed into two or more mutually exclusive categories. The independent variables used in the discriminant analysis were industry, ? nancing stage, region, and type of VCPE fund. The proportion of cases correctly classi? ed indicates the ef? cacy and relevance of the application of discriminant analysis for predicting the dependent variable, which in this case is the type of exit. Discriminant analysis was done on the investment and exit data for 85 out of 98 companies (for which all necessary details were available). Out of the 85 companies, IPO exits were observed for 56 companies and M for 29 companies. Table VI indicates the results from the discriminant analysis. It can be seen that 49 out of 56 IPO exits and 24 out of 29 M exits were correctly classi? ed, thus leaving an error of 12 out of 85 cases. Overall, 85. 9 percent cases are correctly classi? ed. To augment the validity and reliability of the ? ndings, a cross validation was done. In a cross validation, each case is classi? ed using a discriminant function derived from all cases other than the case being classi? ed. The cross validation results indicate that 45 out of 56 IPO exits were correctly classi? ed and 23 out of 29 M exits were correctly classi? ed. Overall, 80 percent of the cases were correctly classi? d. Both these results points towards the good predictive power of the available data in prediction of exit method choice. The results also indicate that it is possible to predict the type of exit based on the information available at the time of making an investment, i. e. industry, ? nancing stage, region of investment, and type of VCPE fund. This could indicate that investor s are reasonably clear about the type of exit that they might get from a given investment. While the timing of exit might be uncertain, the type of exit seems more or less evident at the time of investment. More research needs to be done to determine whether the variables identi? ed in this paper are a good predictor for exit type or not, even in other markets. 5. Summary The growth and vibrancy in the Indian VCPE industry has attracted global attention. This paper highlights some areas of concern that need to be addressed for the long-term growth in the country. First, there has to be a creation of an ecosystem that encourages early stage investments. It would be such early stage investments that would spur innovation and provide the pipeline for growth and late stage investments. Venture economics data indicate that of the total PE commitments made to India, VC commitments[9] accounted for 90 percent during 1990-1999, 55 percent during 2000-2009, and 51 percent during 2005-2009. This indicates that though there has been an overall growth in funds committed to India, the proportion of VC commitments that primarily fund early stage investments have been gradually decreasing. In the absence of early stage investments, many PE funds would ? nd it dif? cult to ? nd new opportunities for follow on investments. The result would be a funneling of investments in established companies with increasing valuations. In the long run, the industry would fall apart under the burden of such high valuations leading to an exit of investors from India. To prevent this from happening, it is important to ensure that there is adequate early stage investing. Since domestic VCPE investors invest more actively in early stages[10], this points to the need for creating a more stronger and active community of domestic VCPE investors in India. Second, the short duration of VCPE investment does not bode well. A recent World Economic Forum report indicates that PE investors have a long-term ownership bias nd 58 percent of the PE investments are exited more than ? ve years after the initial transaction. So-called â€Å"quick ? ips† (i. e. exits within two years of investment by PE funds) account for only 12 percent of deals and have decreased in the last few years (Lerner and Gurung, 2008). Seen from this perspective, most of the VCPE investments in India could come under the category of â€Å"quick ? ipsâ € . This trend, if it continues, would be a cause of real concern. It is expected that VCPE investors would do a lot of hand holding and participate in value-adding activities in their portfolio companies. However, contributing to the investment in such ways would happen only if the investors remain invested for a long term. Short-term investments deny the portfolio companies the opportunity to leverage the management expertise of the VCPE investors. Since the investment duration is also in? uenced by the source of VCPE funds, there is a strong need to promote the domestic VCPE industry in India[11]. The domestic investors would stay invested for a longer duration and this would give more opportunities to the investor to add value in the portfolio companies. Third, the time intervals between successive funding rounds should increase. Frequently, approaching the investors means that the top management attention gets diverted from the business operations. It would be bene? cial if the entrepreneurs and companies raise capital in such a way that the portfolio company can sustain the operations for at least two years. While they might feel that raising a large round would deprive them the bene? ts of valuation increases if funding is raised in multiple rounds, it would de? nitely help to keep the transaction costs lower. The issues of valuation increases can be addressed by incorporating suitable incentive structures in the shareholders’ agreement. The investors too should support the idea of a larger funding round for the companies and engage in co-investing with other VCPE investors if required. Given the exploratory nature of this study, further research and con? rmatory studies are needed to corroborate the ? ndings of this paper. It is felt that many of the results in this paper are suf? ciently interesting to warrant further studies. Notes 1. Based on Subhash (2006) and PricewaterhouseCoopers Global Private Equity Reports 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. 2. Investment data from the PricewaterhouseCoopers Global Private Equity Reports might not match with that of the funds committed data from venture economics as we feel that many investments might have been made outside of a formal VCPE fund structure. In addition, several funds locally set up in India might not have been captured in the venture economics database. However, both the reports indicate the strong growth in funds committed to various VCPE funds and actual investments made in companies. . Venture Intelligence can be accessed at: www. ventureintelligence. in 4. Asian Venture Capital Journal database can be accessed at: www. avcj. com 5. Out of the 1,503 companies that received funding from VCPE investors, 866 companies, i. e. 58 percent of the companies received their funding during the last two years of the study period. 6. Information on time of incorporatio n was readily available only for 722 out of the 1,503 companies. 7. Since there are very few companies that have received more than three rounds of ? nancing, Round 4 and above have not been included for this analysis. VCPE in India 19 JIBR 3,1 20 8. Strictly speaking, it would dif? cult to determine when the investor actually exited from the investment, either partially or completely. One could ? nd that information by studying the annual reports as well as stock exchange ? lings of the company, which was not done in this study. Exit in this paper is meant to be understood as the time of occurrence of an exit event, which may or may not be the time of actual exit. 9. A distinction can be made between VC and PE commitments. VC commitments are mainly targeted at the early stage and growth stage investment opportunities. PE commitments are primarily targeted at the late stage opportunities. Average investment in deals by PE funds is usually larger than those made by VC funds. 10. As per the India Venture Capital and Private Equity Report 2009, 70 percent of the early stage investments are by domestic VCPE investors during 2004-2008. 11. India Venture Capital and Private Equity Report 2009 indicates that foreign investors have contributed nearly 73 percent of the total amount invested in VCPE transactions during 2004-2008. References Admati, A. and P? eiderer, P. (1994), â€Å"Robust ? ancial contracting and the role of venture capitalists†, Journal of Finance, Vol. 49, pp. 371-402. Annamalai, T. R. and Deshmukh, A. (2009), â€Å"India venture capital and private equity report 2009†, unpublished report, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai. Cumming, D. J. and MacIntosh, J. G. (2001), â€Å"Venture capital investment duration in Canada and the United States†, Journal of M ultinational Financial Management, Vol. 11, pp. 445-63. Dossani, R. and Kenney, M. (2002), â€Å"Creating an environment: developing venture capital in India†, BRIE Working Paper 143, The Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy, Berkeley, CA. Gompers, P. A. (1995), â€Å"Optimal investment, monitoring, and the staging of venture capital†, Journal of Finance, Vol. 50 No. 5, pp. 1461-89. Gompers, P. A. (1996), â€Å"Grandstanding in the venture capital industry†, Journal of Financial Economics, Vol. 42, pp. 133-56. Gompers, P. A. and Lerner, J. (2004), The Venture Capital Cycle, 2nd ed. , MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Ippolito, R. (2007), â€Å"Private equity in China and India†, Journal of Private Equity, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 36-41. Kulkarni, N. and Prusty, A. (2007), â€Å"Private equity investment strategy in India’s port sector†, Journal of Private Equity, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 71-83. Lerner, J. (1994), â€Å"Venture capitalists and the decision to go public†, Journal of Financial Economics, Vol. 35, pp. 293-316. Lerner, J. and Gurung, A. (2008), The Global Impact of Private Equity Report 2008, World Economic Forum, Geneva. Lockett, A. , Wright, M. , Sapienza, H. and Pruthi, S. (1992), â €Å"Venture capital investors, valuation and information: a comparative study of the US, Hong Kong, India and Singapore†, Venture Capital: An International Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance, Vol. 4 No. 3, pp. 237-52. Mishra, A. K. 2004), â€Å"Indian venture capitalists (VCs) investment evaluation criteria†, ICFAI Journal of Applied Finance, Vol. 10 No. 7, pp. 71-93. Mitra, D. (1997), â€Å"The venture capital industry in India†, Journal of Small Business Management, Vol. 38 No. 2, pp. 67-79. Neher, D. V. (1999), â€Å"Staged ? nancing: an agency perspective†, Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 66, pp. 255-74. Pandey, I. M. (1996), Venture Capital: The Indian Experience, Prentice-Hall, New Delhi. Pandey, I. M. (1998), â€Å"The process of developing venture capital in India†, Technovation, Vol. 18 No. 4, pp. 253-61. Ribeiro, L. L. and de Carvalho, A. G. (2008), â€Å"Private equity and venture capital in an emerging economy: evidence from Brazil†, Venture Capital, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 111-26. Sahlman, W. (1990), â€Å"The structure and governance of venture capital organizations†, Journal of Financial Economics, Vol. 27, pp. 473-524. Singh, S. , Singh, S. J. and Jadeja, A. D. (2005), â€Å"Venture investing in India? Think twice†, Journal of Private Equity, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 35-40. Subhash, K. B. (2006), â€Å"How to teach the big baby to walk: case of the Indian venture capital industry†, Journal of Private Equity, Vol. No. 4, pp. 76-91. Verma, J. C. (1997), Venture Capital Financing in India, Sage, London. Vinay Kumar, A. (2002), â€Å"Venture capital ? nance in India: practices, perspectives and issues†, Finance India, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 247-52. Vinay Kumar, A. (2005), â€Å"Indian VCs’ involvement with investee ? rms: an empirical analysis of board composition, e xpectations and contribution†, ICFAI Journal of Applied Finance, July, pp. 28-39. Vinay Kumar, A. and Kaura, M. N. (2003), â€Å"Venture capitalists’ screening criteria†, Vikalpa, Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 49-59. About the authors Thillai Rajan Annamalai is an Associate Professor in the Department of Management Studies at IIT Madras. His research interest includes VC, PE, infrastructure, and corporate ? nance. Thillai Rajan Annamalai is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: thillair@iitm. ac. in Ashish Deshmukh was an MBA student at the Department of Management Studies at IIT Madras. To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight. com Or visit our web site for further details: www. emeraldinsight. com/reprints VCPE in India 21 How to cite The venture capital and private equity industry, Essay examples

Andover and Charleston Essay Example For Students

Andover and Charleston Essay Abigail swiftly becomes the centre of attention, where she is most happy, as we substantiate that a great deal more had occurred in the woods that night. They had been dancing around a kettle which contained; as Abigail attempts to justify a very little frog. Then the scene reaches a sudden climax as Hale shakes Abigail repeatedly, confronting her, shocking the audience and abrupting the atmosphere with the news, it may be your cousin is dying. The audience are immediately gripped and, enraptured by the melodramatic tension, continue to be riveted, as Hale asks Abigail then vital question, did you call the Devil last night? The continuation of such a novel inquisition leads to Abigails implication of Tituba. She does this as soon as the pressure becomes too much for her to cope with and she brings someone else into the hazy spectacle to relieve herself. It is now too late for Abigail to recuperate her actions and Tituba is retrieved from downstairs to be instantly questioned by Hale. Mrs. Putnam enters with Tituba and straight away Abigail points at her. This makes Tituba feel uneasy. This signifies Abigails arrogant nature and she makes Tituba feel patronized and terrified. Abigail screams, she made me do it, she made Betty do it! Due to the seriousness of this inquisition, Miller makes the atmosphere strained and the conversation is short and disdainful. The impact of this revelation is tremendous; the fact that they were not just dancing it was far more serious than that. Tituba feels forced into explaining she gave Abigail chicken blood to drink. She realises the only way to get out of this awful corruption is to lie and she makes herself take the blame. Hale is short tempered and offensive towards Tituba, woman, have you enlisted these children for the Devil? Tituba is direct and explains she never trucked with a Devil. She is lost for words and clarifies she loves Betty. The atmosphere becomes very tense due to the topic of conversation: drinking blood and trafficking with the Devil. There are no stage directions because the actions are being created by the words. Hale makes false accusations towards Tituba before he lets her answer for herself. Hale is arrogant towards Tituba due to the fact she is a black slave with no rights and no status. He declares that Tituba has sent her spirit out upon Betty and accuses her of gathering souls for the Devil. Using the idea Hale has insinuated Abigail uses it, much to her advantage and remarks that Tituba sent her spirit out to her in church. Parris supports Abigails false accusation and recalls; he remembers Abigail laughing in church. That was actually due to the fact she was making contact with John Proctor during Church. Tituba is in a very uncomfortably agonizing situation with not a leg to stand on, with three people resisting her explanations. Titubas speeches are long, drawn out due to the fact she is thinking on her feet and everything that comes to mind is spoken aloud. Abigail blames Tituba for her own corruptions and actions that have taken place because she is taking advantage of the fact that Tituba is a black, Negro slave with no rights and no status. Tituba turns aggressive and she asks why Abigail is using all these fabrications. Abigail gets carried away and her speeches become destructive e. g. sometimes I wake up and find myself standing in the open doorway in the nude. Nudity was seen as very rude and explicit and therefore this statement would have seemed very serious. Abigail explains she can hear Tituba laughing in her sleep and singing her Barbados songs and tempting with her. Lost for words, Tituba is in despair. A false misconception from Hale accuses Tituba of having power over Betty and orders to wake her. Hale is short tempered and threatening, the atmosphere clearly shows Abigail is such a persuasive and believably forceful character. Realising telling the truth is getting her nowhere; Tituba is forced into lying and explains of her inner desire to work for the Devil. Tension increases considering the fact the audience knows that Tituba does not work for the Devil. However, she was in the woods after all- although it doesnt seem such a big thing now. The audience knows Abigail is the guilty person in this dreadful act of trepidation. Hale hears what he wanted to hear; that Tituba works for the Devil and that she has power over Betty. Hale offers to help Tituba and is softer in his words and actions, he declares, we are going to help you tear yourself free. The word tear sounds tedious and painful sounding. Stage directions are present to create a different atmosphere. "Araby" by Joyce EssayThis sudden outburst reveals a lot about her character. This is virtually the only view throughout the whole play we have of her and it isnt a very understanding one. Her infliction of painful words and thoughts towards innocent people is misleading. The fact that she is doing this to gain a little self worth for herself. We do not know how Parris treats his slave pre- witchcraft accusations. This may have been a strike of revenge after how Parris treats Tituba. We do not know, and the audience does not know. At the end of Titubas sudden outburst, she is aware of the fact that they need a name and presents the name of Goody Good. The characters are overwhelmed by the fact more and more womens names are being accused and Parris is amazed by the fact Sarah Good is accused. The atmosphere becomes electric with suspense. Tituba then names Goody Osburn, the ageing mid wife. Abigail seizes the opportunity to endorse all that Tituba has said and exclaims, I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! the situation rapidly becomes infectious as Betty joins in the naming of innocent women. This is the first time Betty has spoken since she and the other girls from the village were caught dancing in the woods with Tituba. As Betty speaks the audience are silent with amazement and the characters believe Tituba is honoured to have woken this child. The characters are bewildered by the behaviour of the girls as they continue to name innocent souls. As the end of the act draws to an end and as the curtain falls, the scene draws to a climax as Hale sends for the Marshall and calls to him to bring handcuffs to make arrests. The audience is left in anxious doubt. The significance of the end of this scene and the inquisitions later on in court are relatively alike; the fact that the demoniac ways the girls asserted themselves aggressively, resulting in virtuous lives being lost. Abigails final accusations are dramatically ironic compared to the fact that when Abigail and John Proctor had a privately intimate talk, she told him they were just children being children and that it was so called pretence. The audience will have latched onto these facts and Miller has dramatically portrayed Abigail as a devious, hypocritical, two-faced, deceitful, lying young woman. Therefore, I can conclude; in relation to the question, consider the importance of this scene to the rest of the play and analyse how Miller makes it dramatic. That this scene contains vast amounts of valuable information that is later relied on in court and also the fact Hales ideas of the devils childrens characteristics are later used as a parable in Abigail and her little followers work. Miller uses many different devices to make this scene ultimately dramatic which have analysed each one carefully and displayed my information within this essay. The witchcraft trials in Salem were remarkable, mainly for the numbers involved. Before the witchcraft hysteria was over the girls had pointed the finger at hundreds of supposed witches, not only in Salem but also in places far apart such as Andover and Charleston. They even accused people they did not know e. g. Abigail accused Hales wife whom she had never met. By October 1692 doubts had set in about the girls testimony. In December 1692 Governor Phillips appointed a new session of the Superior Court of Judicature to clear the jails, and issued a general pardon to all persons still under suspicion. By this time, however, nineteen people had been hanged, one pressed to death under a pile of rocks (Giles Corey) for refusing to speak at his own trial, and at least two more people had died in prison, bringing the number of deaths to twenty-two.

Types of Racism free essay sample

Racism is both overt and covert, and it takes three closely related forms: individual, institutional, and systemic. Individual racism consists of overt acts by individuals that cause death, injury, destruction of property, or denial of services or opportunity. Institutional racism is more subtle but no less destructive. Institutional racism involves polices, practices, and procedures of institutions that have a disproportionately negative effect on racial minorities’ access to and quality of goods, services, and opportunities. Systemic racism is the basis of individual and institutional racism; it is the value system that is embedded in a society that supports and allows discrimination. Institutional and systemic racism establishes separate and independent barriers to access and quality of health care. Institutional racism does not have to result from human agency or intention. Thus, racial discrimination can occur in institutions even when the institution does not intend to make distinctions on the basis of race. In fact, institutional discrimination can occur without any awareness that it is happening. We will write a custom essay sample on Types of Racism or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page . 16 Although data on institutional racism iis scarce, it does exist. To understand institutional racism, it is important to understand the interaction between prejudice and discrimination. Prejudice is an attitude that is based on limited information or stereotypes. While prejudice is usually negative, it can also be positive. Both positive and negative prejudices are damaging because they deny the individuality of the person. No one is completely free of prejudices, although they may not have any significant prejudice against a particular group. Oppression is the systematic subjugation of a social group by another social group with access to social power. Power is the ability to control access to resources, the ability to influence others, and access to decision makers. Discrimination is behavior, intentional or not, which negatively treats a person or a group of people based on their racial origins. In the context of racism, power is a necessary precondition for discrimination. Racism depends on the ability to give or withhold social benefits, facilities, services, opportunities etc. , from someone who is entitled to them, and is denied on the basis of race, color or national origin. The source of power can be formal or informal, legal or illegal, and is not limited to traditional concepts of power. Intent is irrelevant; the focus is on the result of the behavior. Given the interaction of prejudice and discrimination, an institution can be a â€Å"non-racist†, â€Å"reformed racist†, â€Å"reluctant racist†, and â€Å"overt racist. (Chart 01) Using Blacks as the focal group, a â€Å"non-racist† is an institution that has no negative biases or prejudices against Blacks and no discriminatory behaviors. It is very rare that an institution has neither racial bias nor prejudices and engages in no discriminatory behavior. When institutions take the position that they are non-racist, it is possible that the institutions operate in aren as where they have very little contact with Blacks. However, it is more likely that they are in denial about the existence of either prejudices or discrimination. A â€Å"reformed racist† institution has definite biases or prejudices against Blacks but does not act on them. For example, an institution could hold a belief that Blacks are more likely to abuse pain medication, but notwithstanding those prejudices, pain medications are prescribed to Blacks equitably. In this situation, the institution makes no difference in health care based on race. This form of racism involves institutions that harbor biases or prejudices but are either too timid to discriminate or who are actively working on not discriminating. The prejudices or biases are still present, but these institutions do not act on them. An â€Å"overt racist† institution has definite bias or prejudice and definite discriminatory behaviors. For example, individuals in an institution could hold a belief that Blacks are more likely to abuse pain medication, and because of those prejudices, pain medications are prescribed to Blacks differently than they would be to Whites. Most people are familiar with this form of racism. Overt racism involves actively and intentionally expressing bias or prejudice and actively discriminating against others in public and private ways. Most discrimination in health care is not overt. A â€Å"reluctant racist† is an institution that purports to have no negative biases or prejudices against Blacks but has definite discriminatory behaviors. For example, an institution could hold no negative beliefs about Blacks but prescribe pain medications differently to Blacks as an indirect result of some other policies. This is the most pervasive form of racism and also the hardest to challenge. Reluctant racism occurs due to mistaken stereotypes, biases or prejudices that are acted out in an unthinking manner or through policies, practices, or procedures of institutions that have a disproportionately negative impact on Blacks. 17 Often, the behavior is motivated by non-race based reasons (e. g. economics). Because of this non-racial motivation, individuals leading and managing institutions often do not believe that their institutions are being racist. Furthermore, it is even more difficult for the institutions to change the behavior. For example, some teaching hospitals do pelvic exams on unconscious female black patients in surgery without the patient’s consent in order to train interns, and the hospitals do so without a conscious desire to discriminate. These hospitals would fit into this category of reluctant racist. As Kwame Ture (a. k. a. Stokely Carmichael) and Charles Hamilton explained in their landmark book, â€Å"Black Power: The Politics of Liberation†: â€Å"When White terrorists bombed a Black church and killed five Black children, that is an act of individual racism, widely deplored by most segments of the society.

Explore how the human body functions as one unit in harmony in order to maintain life The WritePass Journal

Explore how the human body functions as one unit in harmony in order to maintain life Explore how the human body functions as one unit in harmony in order to maintain life IntroductionPatient CasePreliminary Assessment StageFactors affecting Blood PressureCardiac Output.Blood Volume.Peripheral Resistance.Intraoperative Assessment StageEffects of Pharmacologic AgentsFentanyl.Propofol.Vecuronium (Muscle Relaxant).Nitrous Oxide and Isoflurane.Hemodynamic ChangesBlood LossConclusionList of ReferencesRelated Introduction The different parts of the human body function as one unit in harmony to maintain life. In this crucial goal, the body’s mechanisms are all functioning toward achieving homeostasis or simply put, balance. Homeostasis can be best defined by explaining its two root words: homeo, which means sameness; and stasis, which means stability (Clark 2005). Using these keywords, homeostasis is described as a stable state of balance, which the human body maintains to achieve despite influences that threaten to disrupt the balanced state (Clancy, Baird, and McVicar 2002; Clark, 2005). The nervous system and the endocrine system are the two main regulatory mechanisms in the body that maintain homeostatic balance (Clark 2005; Sherwood 2006). In order to maintain homeostasis, the body uses feedback mechanisms to respond to influencing factors that may disrupt homeostasis. These so called feedback mechanisms are categorised into either positive or negative feedback processes (Coad, Dunstall, and McCandlish 2005). This classification does not entail one as being good or bad but rather delineates the direction of change to stabilise or balance reactions. A positive feedback mechanism acts by synergising a change inside the body causing a bigger response than the initial one (Sherwood 2006). On the other hand, a negative feedback mechanism acts in the direction opposite of the change in such a way that the initial response becomes diminished (Sherwood 2006). These feedback mechanisms are in a loop in which these mechanisms that cause the initial changes to become either greater or lesser stop when the body achieves balance. An example of the positive feedback mechanism is when a tissue in the body becomes injured; this stimulus will signal the production of platelets for blood clotting (Coad, Dunstall, and McCandlish 2005). In this case, there is a need to increase platelet production thus the initial response will trigger more platelets to be produced to avoid further blood loss. On the other hand, a negative feedback mechanism is seen when the body experiences extreme cold – a state in which the body loses heat. In this case, the body will act in the opposite direction by producing heat through shivering, which is a state of muscle contraction that produces energy and heat for the body (Coad, Dunstall, and McCandlish 2005). Note that the direction of the feedback mechanism is dependent on the direction at which balance could be attained. In this paper, the concepts on anatomy and physiology will be applied to discuss and explain the body’s responses. A patient will be followed during the perioperative phase. Different body responses to both internal and external influences of the patient will be discussed in terms of physiological changes and body’s attempts to maintain balance. Patient Case The patient at focus in this paper is a 65 year old, healthy male who was scheduled for endarterectomy of common femoral artery under general anaesthesia. Endarterectomy is a surgery that is performed on individuals who manifest signs and symptoms of limb ischemia due to thickened or clogged arteries (Eskandari et al. 2010; Hands 2007). The surgical procedure is done to remove the fatty deposits or plaque in the arterial lining that occludes the normal blood flow in that area (Hands 2007). In the case of the patient, endarterectomy of common femoral artery will be done – indicating that the occluded artery is that of the common femoral artery. The pathology of this disease lies in its occlusive nature that disrupts the normal blood flow and oxygen delivery to other parts of the body (Smeltzer et al. 2009). The pathophysiology of the patient’s condition can be likened to a water pipeline. A normal artery looks like a new pipe that allows water to flow freely through it and deliver its contents sufficiently and timely. On the other hand, when dirt and other materials stick to its walls, a blockage is formed similar to that formed by an atheromatous plaque. This impedes smooth water flow thus delivering less water and in time, it may fully block the pipe. When the blockage is removed, the water may flow normally again. In this case, the patient needs to have the surgical procedure done to remove the cause of the occlusion in the common femoral artery; otherwise, blood flow as well as oxygen delivery will be compromised leading to vascular complications (Smeltzer et al. 2009). A dangerous complication is amputation of the limb because when there is poor blood and oxygen supply to parts especially those below the femoral artery, then the tissues will die in that limb. In the patient’s case, once the atheromatous plaque is removed, the femoral artery will be reopened thus restoring the normal blood flow in that area as well as other parts of the body (Smeltzer et al. 2009). The benefits of common femoral artery endarterectomy for this patient will save the patient from disability and death. There will be reduced risk for stroke and heart attack because these diseases are usually caused by ischemia or lack of oxygen, which usually results from poor blood circulation from any part of the body (World Health Organization 2003: 47). Also, it provides relief of symptoms and increase rates of saving the limbs from amputation (Hoch, Turnipseed, and Acher 1999). Preliminary Assessment Stage The patient is generally healthy. Vital signs as well as routine physical assessment and observations were performed and documented; assessment findings were normal. The client’s blood pressure is a very important measure in this pre-operative stage. Blood pressure is the measurement of the force acted upon on the arteries – which is the blood vessel that carries blood away from the heart – as the heart pumps out the blood into the different parts and systems of the body (Singh 2008). Blood pressure readings are expressed in two numbers in which the numerator is the systolic blood pressure and the denominator is the diastolic blood pressure (Dugdale 2010). The systolic blood pressure is the pressure that the blood in the heart exerts during contraction or when the blood is moved forward (Porth and Matfin 2010). This is the highest pressure exerted when the heart beats. On the other hand, diastolic blood pressure is the pressure exerted on the heart during its resting or relaxed state (Porth and Matfin 2010). Conversely, this is the lowest or minimum pressure exerted. The measure of the blood pressure is an indicator of the sufficiency of blood pumped out by the heart. If the blood pressure is too high, then the heart may be having hard time pushing out the blood into the system (Carter and Lewsen 2004). On the other hand, a very low blood pressure indicates insufficient output thus resulting to inadequate blood and oxygen circulation to other body parts (Carter and Lewsen 2004). These abnormalities can be attributed to different causes or factors that may affect blood pressure. Factors affecting Blood Pressure The three main factors that influence blood pressure are cardiac output, blood volume, and peripheral resistance (Carter and Lewsen 2004; Timby 2008). An important concept in understanding these factors is the Frank-Starling law of the heart. Starling’s law states that the amount of blood that fills and stretches the muscle fibres of the heart determines the force of heart contraction (Timby 2008). This means that a greater stretch in the heart’s muscle fibres will yield a more forceful contraction of the heart and vice versa. Cardiac Output. Cardiac output is the amount of blood that the heart ejects from the left ventricle to the aorta per minute (Timby 2008). The higher the cardiac output, the higher the blood pressure. Conversely, a lower cardiac output leads to lower blood pressure. An important concept in understanding cardiac output is stroke volume. Cardiac output is the product of heart rate multiplied by the stroke volume. Stroke volume is the actual amount of blood ejected by the heart every time it beats (Porth and Matfin 2010). Thus, the stroke volume is the amount of blood that is ejected during the systole or when the heart contracts. To measure the stroke volume, the end diastolic volume or the blood in the ventricle during the resting phase is subtracted with the end systolic volume or the blood that remained in the ventricle after the heart contracted (Timby 2008). If the heart contracts more forcefully, then there is a higher stroke volume because there will be more blood ejected per contraction. It also follows that when the heart is beating so fast, there is lower stroke volume because the heart is not given enough time for blood to fill and stretch its muscle fibres before it contracts again – thus less forceful contraction. Nevertheless, if either stroke volume or heart rate is increased, then the cardiac o utput increases. Blood Volume. The second factor that affects blood pressure is blood volume. This factor’s concept is also based on Starling’s law of the heart which states that the force of heart contraction is determined by the preload (Timby 2008). Preload is the volume of blood that enters the heart’s chamber and stretches its walls during its relaxed state (Timby 2008). The amount of existing blood that enters the heart determines the stretch, which consequently affects the blood pressure. When there is little amount of blood in the vessels to begin with, then there is also little amount of blood that enters the heart thus the heart’s muscle fibres will not be stretched enough – resulting to low blood pressure. This is seen in patients who have recently lost a lot of blood such as in haemorrhage (Carter and Lewsen 2004). On the other hand, when the blood volume is increased, the blood pressure is also increased because there is a greater amount of blood that fills and stretches the heart’s muscle fibres leading to a more forceful ejection of blood into the system (Carter and Lewsen 2004). Peripheral Resistance. Another factor affecting blood pressure is peripheral resistance. Peripheral resistance is the force that the heart needs to overcome in order for it to push blood into the system (Timby 2008). When there is greater peripheral resistance, the heart works harder to push the blood leading to a higher blood pressure. This occurs in conditions when the artery is either too narrow or obstructed (Timby 2008). On the other hand, a diminished peripheral resistance leads to a lower blood pressure because the heart needs to overcome very little resistance to eject blood into the system (Carter and Lewsen 2004; Timby 2008). This occurs when the blood vessel is dilated. Intraoperative Assessment Stage When the patient was transferred to the anaesthetic room, he was very nervous and his blood pressure, respiratory rate, and heart rate increased above normal limits. These manifestations are responses of his body to the perceived stress, which is the upcoming surgery. The stress response is the general adaptation responses produced by the body as it perceives stress (Martini 2005). Stress is any stimulus, both positive and negative, that may disrupt the body’s homeostasis (Martini 2005). It may be psychological such as joy of seeing one’s loved one, or physical such as exhaustion from a strenuous exercise. Stress serves as an information or signal to stimulate the hypothalamus, which in turn responds by activating the autonomic nervous system’s sympathetic division. The activation of the sympathetic division causes the adrenal gland to produce adrenaline and noradrenaline – also known as epinephrine and norepinephrine, respectively –as it works with the sympathetic nervous system (Martini 2005). When these hormones are released into the bloodstream, the sympathetic response is increased and prolonged. These hormones cause the blood pressure, pulse rate, and breathing to increase (Timby 2008). This reaction is the fight or flight response that occurs every time the body is faced with stress, which counteracts the parasympathetic division’s maintenance of the resting state (Martini 2005). Other effects of these hormones in the body include dilatation of the pupil and inhibition of the salivary glands (Porth and Matfin 2010). Glucose secretion from the liver is also stimulated as well as epinephrine and norepinephrine release from the kidneys – which has been discussed to intensify the sympathetic response (Porth and Matfin 2010). Vasoconstriction occurs in the blood vessels and stimulation of the sweat glands cause perspiration (Porth and Matfin 2010). This peripheral vasoconstriction draws the blood away from the digestive tract thus decreasing or inhibiting digestion (Porth and Matfin 2010). Effects of Pharmacologic Agents In the anaesthetic room, the patient was given different medications. The following are the medications given to the patient and their respective effects on the patient’s body. Fentanyl. The patient was given 50 mg of Fentanyl. This drug belongs to a class of opioid analgesics or opioid anaesthetics (Deglin and Vallerand 2008). It is given to the client to supplement the anaesthetic agent that will be administered to decrease pain (Deglin and Vallerand 2008). As a premedication before inducing anaesthesia, fentanyl is usually given intramuscularly at a dosage of 50 to 100 mcg (Deglin and Vallerand 2008). Its mechanism of action is binding to opiate receptors in the central nervous system wherein they increase the action of eukephalins and endorphins by mimicking the effects of these opioid peptides (Deglin and Vallerand 2008). Endorphins are commonly known as the happy hormone because it produces pain relief and feelings of pleasure. Similarly, fentanyl creates a similar effect that results to alteration of feeling and responding to pain (Deglin and Vallerand 2008). The adverse effects of the drug include bradycardia, depression of the central nervous system, hypotension, and increased intracranial pressure (Deglin and Vallerand 2008). Fatal effects include respiratory depression, laryngospasm, and bronchoconstriction (Deglin and Vallerand 2008). These adverse and fatal effects are related to its main effect on the body, which is depression of the central nervous system. Because of its possible life-threatening effects, special precautions are taken when administering the drug to patients with respiratory diseases and problems with the central nervous system. Propofol. Propofol was administered in the patient to achieve anaesthetic induction. Propofol is a short-acting sedative and hypnotic (Deglin and Vallerand 2008). In combination with the effects of fentanyl, this drug allows induction and maintenance of a balanced anaesthesia thus producing an analgesic effect with amnesia. On its own, propofol does not produce any analgesia and requires the supplementation of a narcotic for pain relief (Deglin and Vallerand 2008). Similar with fentanyl, propofol depresses the central nervous system. It decreases the blood pressure as well as intracranial pressure (Finkel et al. 2008). When the patient is on propofol, one of the most important adverse reactions to watch out for among many others is apnea (Deglin and Vallerand 2008). The occurrence of apnea upon anaesthetic induction by propofol is fatal. This drug can cause significant depression of the respiratory system leading to a period of breathing cessation that can last for several minutes (Finkel et al. 2008). This is life-threatening as it can significantly diminish the oxygen supply of the patient that can lead to hypoxia if no oxygen support is given. Vecuronium (Muscle Relaxant). Vecuronium is a muscle relaxant indicated to facilitate endotracheal intubation and to relax the skeletal muscles during surgical operations (De Jong and Karch 2000). It belongs to the drug class non-depolarising neuromuscular blocking agent (De Jong and Karch 2000). Muscle relaxants are usually given after the general anaesthetic agent has been administered. Aside from aiding in anaesthesia, this drug was administered in the client to facilitate his intubation in preparation for surgery and to control ventilation. This drug acts by blocking the neuromuscular transmission thereby paralysing the body and inhibiting muscle contractions produced by acetylcholine (De Jong and Karch 2000). Once muscle relaxation is achieved, the jaw and the larynx become relaxed that makes it easier to insert the endotracheal tube with the least resistance because the gag reflex has already been suppressed (De Jong and Karch 2000). Aside from this, the total muscle relaxation would allow undisturbed tissue handling during the surgical operation. Nitrous Oxide and Isoflurane. Blood pressure was monitored by means of an arterial line inserted into the patients radial artery. This provides constant and accurate measurements of his systolic, diastolic and mean arterial pressure. Anaesthesia was maintained using a combination of oxygen nitrous oxide and isoflurane. Isoflurane is an inhalational anaesthetic agent that is used for maintenance of a balanced anaesthesia (Aschenbrenner and Venable 2008). This drug is commonly administered with nitrous oxide and has a rapid onset of action within 7 to 10 minutes (Aschenbrenner and Venable 2008). Because of its bad odour, administration of the inhalant anaesthetic is slow to prevent coughing and holding of breath. Isoflurane depresses the respiratory system thus respiratory depression is one of its adverse and fatal effects. Increase in dosage administration of this drug causes the tidal volume and respiratory rate to decrease (Finkel et al. 2008). Moreover, isoflurane relaxes the muscles and produces peripheral vasodilation, which causes increased blood flow to the coronary vessels (Finkel et al. 2008). Nitrous oxide is an inhalation anaesthetic as well. However, it differs from isoflurane in such a way that it does not produce muscle relaxation thus providing incomplete anaesthesia (Finkel et al. 2008). Nevertheless, it is a good analgesic and has a similarly rapid onset of action and recovery. Nitrous oxide decreases the required concentration of isoflurane that need to be inhaled to produce a preferred level of anaesthesia (Finkel et al. 2008). The combination of these two gases aids in the maintenance of a balanced anaesthesia in the patient’s surgery. Hemodynamic Changes During the procedure, the observations remained stable with some exceptions; when the femoral artery was clamped, the cardiac output, blood pressure, and heart rate increased. In addition, there were some changes in the tissues below the clamp due to lack of blood supply and oxygen. These changes can be attributed to the altered blood flow and oxygen delivery. First, the hemodynamic status of the client changed because blood flow was impeded at the level of the femoral artery and below. When the artery is blocked, the peripheral resistance increases because there is a greater load systemically. As previously discussed in the earlier sections on factors affecting blood pressure, a stronger peripheral resistance will lead to an increased blood pressure because there is a greater resistance that the heart needs to overcome to pump out the blood systemically (Timby 2008). Also, the presence of a clamped femoral artery will trigger the activation of the sympathetic nervous system as it is under stress. When the sympathetic division is activated, the heart beats faster leading to an increased heart rate (Porth and Matfin 2010), which is seen in the patient. Similarly, cardiac output increases because it is directly related to the measure of heart rate. Since cardiac output is the product of heart rate and stroke volume, when either of the two factors increase, cardiac output also increases. Second, tissue changes were noted below the clamp because of the poor oxygen supply to this area. When the femoral artery was clamped, the flow of blood below that area also stops because arteries are the blood vessels that carry oxygen-filled blood away from the heart into other parts of the body (Porth and Matfin 2010). Since there is no blood supply below the clamp, there will also be no oxygen supply because blood transports oxygen. When there is no oxygen, the tissue will die and the earliest signs of compromised oxygenation that could lead to tissue death include discoloration of the area (Porth and Matfin 2010). Blood Loss About 1000 mL of blood was lost by the patient during the surgery that required blood transfusion. Blood transfusions are performed to people who had massive blood loss similar to the case of the patient. Also, blood transfusions are indicated for patients who undergo major operations because they would really lose a lot of blood because their skin and tissues will be injured during the operation (Ashalata 2006). During blood transfusion, lost blood is re-infused to the patient thus providing an active means to support and maintain homeostatic fluid balance in the patient’s body. Normally, the total blood volume of an adult person is 5600 mL (Ashalatha 2006). In the patient’s case, he lost approximately 18% of his blood. To restore the blood volume to the normal level, blood transfusion is done because the body on its own cannot cope with this big loss. Conclusion The concepts of anatomy and physiology are very important in understanding the changes in the body and its attempts to maintain homeostasis. When there is a change in the body that threatens to disrupt the balance, the body responds in a way to bring back the body to its normal state. In the case of the patient, disruption of homeostasis started with an atheromatous plaque in the artery that occludes normal blood flow. Since the body can no longer restore the artery to its normal state, endarterectomy of the common femoral artery was done to resolve this. Before, during, and after the operation, the body experienced many changes both from internal and external influences. In these changes, the body was in an active state of action toward maintaining homeostasis. List of References Aschenbrenner, D. S. and Venable, S. J. (2008) Drug Therapy in Nursing. PA: Lippincott Williams Wilkins Ashalatha, P. R. (2006) Textbook of Anatomy and Physiology for Nurses. New Delhi: Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers Carter, P. J. and Lewsen, S. (2004) Lippincott’s Textbook for Nursing Assistants: A Humanistic Approach to Caregiving. PA: Lippincott Williams Wilkins Clancy, J., Baird, N., and McVicar, A. (2002) Perioperative Practice: Fundamentals of Homeostasis. London: Routledge Clark, R. K. (2005) Anatomy and Physiology: Understanding the Human Body. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers Coad, J., Dunstall, M., and McCandlish, R. (2005) Anatomy and Physiology for Midwives. PA: Elsevier Health Sciences De Jong, M. J. and Karch, A. M. (2000) Lippincott’s Critical Care Drug Guide. PA: Lippincott Williams Wilkins Deglin, J. H. and Vallerand, A. H. (2008) Davis’s Drug guide for nurses. 11th ed. PA: F.A. Davis Company Dugdale, D. C. (2010) Blood Pressure [online] available from nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003398.htm [05 July 2011] Eskandari, M. K., Morasch, M. D., Pearce, W. H., and Yao, J. S. T. (2010) Vascular Surgery: Therapeutic Surgeries. Shelton, CT: People’s Medical Publishing House-USA Finkel, R., Clark, M. A., Champe, P. C., and Cubeddu, L. X. (2008) Pharmacology: Lippincott’s illustrated reviews (4th ed.). PA: Lippincott Williams Wilkins Hands, L. (2007) Vascular Surgery. Oxford: Oxford University Press Hoch, J. R., Turnipseed, W. D., and Acher, C. W. (1999) ‘Evaluation of Common Femoral Endarterectomy for the Management of Focal Atherosclerotic Disease.’ Vascular and Endovascular Surgery 33, (5) 461-470 Martini, F. H. (2005) Anatomy Physiology. Singapore: Pearson Education South Asia Porth, C. M. and Matfin, G. (2010) Essentials of Pathophysiology: Concepts of Altered Health States. PA: Lippincott Williams Wilkins Sherwood, L. (2006) Fundamentals of Physiology: A Human Perspective. 3rd ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson Higher Education Singh. (2008) Anatomy and Physiology for Nurses. India: Jaypee Brothers Publishers Smeltzer, S. C., Bare, B. G., Hinkle, J. L., and Cheever, K. H. (2009) Brunner and Suddarth’s Textbook of Medical-Surgical Nursing. PA: Lippincott Williams Wilkins Timby, B. K. (2008) Fundamental Nursing Skills and Concepts. PA: Lippincott Williams Wilkins World Health Organization (2003) Prevention of Recurrent Heart Attacks and Strokes in Low- and Middle-income Populations: Evidence-based Recommendations for Policy Makers and Health Professionals. Switzerland: World Health Organization