What is social justice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

What is social justice - Essay Example These states, events and processes include our actions, beliefs and thinking (Gao, 96). The relation between an event A and another event B poses a philosophical problem when there is something between A and B that makes the relationship between them problematic. The mind and body have many features that are said to be responsible for our sense of problem because they interact causally. Rene Descartes held a long tradition in philosophy that the mind is a non-bodily entity (Gao 98). He described the mind as a soul or mental substance. When the mind is said to be a mental substance, it is not implied to be made up of a non-physical material. The term substance, in a traditional philosophical use, refers to a substance as an entity. The mental substances in the mind and body are non-material or non-physical objects that exist independently of a physical object like the body of a person (Cahn, 117). But how do such objects relate to physical objects? Determinism is the philosophical view that all events have a cause. It posits that all mental and physical states of affairs are the result of their causes and in a way have a scientific law. Determinism comes with various implications. For example, it does not believe in free will, miracles or chance about the occurrence of various phenomena. Determinists argue that the future event or past event can be calculated (Gao 106). A special form of determinism believes that some mental processes might not be caused even though physical processes are caused. According to them, choices involve mental processes, thus have no actual effects in the extreme world. For example, when one watches a movie twice, he/she doe not hope for a different outcome, but do so in the interest in the event. One of the scholars that held the determinist view was Isaac Newton. Newton challenged the phenomenon around him when he ventured into discovering the cause a fruit from the top of a tree. His determination to question the its

Strabag Construction Company Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Strabag Construction Company - Essay Example The firm that is analyzed in the paper is Strabag Construction Company, a multinational construction company that conducts large scale operation and construction activities on a global scale. The company since 1891 is found to perform a large number of construction projects in about 60 countries on a global scale. Construction activities of the company fall in the niche and classical construction categories and ranges from both large scale infrastructural to the completion of building projects to other civil engineering project activities. Strabag’s locus of business operation mainly centers on countries pertaining to continents like Asia, Africa and other Middle East nations. The company also boasts of its large pool of multi-cultural human resources that has helps the concern to gain around 12.8 billion Euros on an annual scale. This company focusing on different categories like civil, infrastructure and building projects is eyeing on Russia to gain a new market in future. H ere the company though faced with initial setbacks owing to economic and infrastructural constraints is endeavoring to develop its hold through separate strategies. A formal look at the research objectives suggests that for the research in question there is a need for both primary and secondary research activities. In regards to secondary research the paper focuses on the company website along with other supportive literary sources like books and online articles. The use of secondary research activities is recommended for it helps in gaining access to a large scale of authentic data through the use of internet. This practice in turn helps in saving both cost and time and also acts as a formidable support to primary research activities (McQuarrie 35). However the research activity also focuses on conducting a primary research to gain meaningful insight into the practical scenario of the company’s expansion to Russia. Primary Research activity is conducted through designing a s et of questionnaires based on which an interview would be taken of the managers of the company (Czinkota and Ronkainen 253-254). The questions would be prepared for conducting an interview on a sample size of 30 respondents that would comprise of senior and middle level managers of the company. Inference would be drawn in regards to the manager’s understanding of the Russian construction market and the strategies taken thereof to counter emerging constraints. Secondary Research The secondary researc

Tcp Congestion Control Methods Tutorial Information Technology Essay

Tcp Congestion Control Methods Tutorial Information Technology Essay Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is one of the two core protocols of the Internet protocol suite. Together with IP, they constitute the backbone stack of many internet applications like the World Wide Web, the e-mail and file transfer (FTP). Its main function is to provide a reliable stream service utilizing an unreliable packet delivery system inherited by its underlying IP layer. By the term reliable, we mean the reliable ordered delivery of a stream of bytes from one peer to another that runs the same TCP protocol stack. To add this substantial functionality and reliability, TCP imposes complexity. It is a much more complex protocol than its underlying IP protocol. The main mechanism TCP uses to offer reliability is the positive acknowledgement and retransmission scheme. Transmitted segments must be acknowledged and if there is a loss, a retransmission takes place. To make the network utilization more efficient, instead of transmitting each segment only after reception of an acknowledgement for the previously transmitted segment, TCP uses the concept of a window. The window includes all those segments that are allowed to be sent without waiting for a new acknowledgment. TCP allows end to end adjustment of the data flow a sender introduces to the network by varying the window size. How can a sender know what is the suitable window size? A receiver indicates it in a window advertisement which comes to the sender as part of the acknowledgment. Since modern internet applications are hungry for bandwidth, there is a high possibility that network becomes congested at some time. Routers have a finite storage capacity for handling IP packets. If the packet flow rate becomes excessive, routerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s queue buffers will become full and their software will start to discard any new packets arrived. This has a negative impact in the TCP operation and performance in general. Increased delays and losses will impose retransmissions and hence increased traffic. In its turn, increased traffic will make congestion more severe and in this way, Internet will experience what is known as congestion collapse, exhibiting a performance fall of several orders of magnitude. To overcome this problem, TCP uses many mechanisms-algorithms to avoid congestion collapse and achieve high performance. The main idea behind these algorithms is to control the rate of data entering the network and keep it below a threshold rate. If this threshold we re to be crossed, a new collapse phase could be triggered. Data senders can infer from an increasing number of delays that the network is congested and so adjust the flow in order to mitigate the phenomenon and give the network the necessary time to clear the queues and recover from congestion. TCP Congestion Algorithms RFC5681 describes four congestion control algorithms. Slow start, congestion avoidance, fast retransmit and fast recovery. All these algorithms work with the admission that sender infers network congestion by observing segment losses. As mentioned above, in TCP, receiverà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s buffer capability can be advertised backwards in the acknowledgement messages. This helps the sender to adjust its window size. Congestion algorithms introduce a second limit which is named congestion window. This new window is used for restricting the data flow of sender below the limit that main window determines. Actually, in a congested phase, the TCP window size used is the minimum value between the normal and congestion windows sizes. Reducing the congestion window reduces the injecting data flow to the network. Congestion avoidance algorithm reduces the congestion window by half upon each segment loss. For those segments that remain in the window, it also backs off the retransmission timer exponentially. In this way, quick and significant traffic reduction is achieved. Upon loss of successive segments, the algorithm uses an exponential rate to drop the data flow and increase the retransmission timers. This gives enough time for the network to recover and become stable again. Slow start algorithm is used when the network has recovered from the congestion and the windows start to increase again. To prevent oscillation between network congestion and normal conditions coming immediately after recovery, slow start indicates that congestion window must start at the size of a single segment and increase by one segment for each acknowledgement arrived. This effectively doubles the transmitted segments during each successive round trip time. To avoid increasing the window size too quickly, once congestion window reaches one half of its size prior to congestion, TCP enters a congestion avoidance phase and the rate of increment is abruptly slowed down. During this phase, congestion window increases by just one segment and only after all segments in the current window have been acknowledged. Upon detection of a duplicate acknowledgment, sender cannot deduce if there was a loss or a simple delay of a segment. If ordinary out-of-order conditions are present, one or two duplicate acknowledgements are typically expected. If however, sender receives three or more acknowledgements, it can infer that there is loss of segments due to congestion and so it retransmits the segment (indicated by the position of the acknowledgement in the byte stream) without waiting for the retransmission timer expiration. This constitutes the fast retransmit algorithm. Fast recovery follows fast retransmit algorithm and in the real TCP implementations these two algorithms are usually working together. Since reception of duplicate acknowledgements is a clear sign that data is still flowing in the receiver, fast recovery algorithm puts the sender in the congestion avoidance phase instead of the slow start phase. Therefore, if losses are not due to congestion, there will be a faster recovery of data flow without the penalty experienced by the use of slow start. However, fast recovery only works well for moderate congestion conditions. Newer algorithms Although the aforementioned four algorithms offer substantial congestion control, newer techniques have emerged in the bibliography as a result of extensive research in this specific area. These new algorithms try to build upon the old methods, enhancing TCP performance and increasing the responsiveness to congestion. One limitation of normal TCP operation is that if a transmitted segment is lost but subsequent segments in the same window are delivered normally, the receiver cannot send acknowledgements for these last segments. The reason for this is that receiver can acknowledge only contiguous bytes that it has received. Sender will be forced, once retransmission timer for the lost segment expires, to resend not only the lost segment, but all subsequent segments in the window too. This was identified as a potential case for improvement which led to the creation of the selective acknowledgments (SACK) algorithm (Jacobson and Braden, Oct. 1988). The algorithm helps to reduce the number of unnecessary retransmissions by allowing the receiver to send some feedback to the sender about the contiguous byte stream blocks it has already received. In order to take advantage of the new technique though, the two TCP endpoints must agree on using SACK upon negotiation (by using the option field of the TCP he ader). Two TCP original software implementations in the BSD Unix environment were named Tahoe and Reno. Tahoe includes the slow start, congestion avoidance and fast recovery algorithms whereas Reno includes all four basic algorithms described in the second section of this tutorial. NewReno is a slight modification of the Reno implementation and aims in boosting the performance during the fast retransmit and fast recovery phases. It is based on the notion of partial acknowledgements. In the case where multiple segments are dropped from a single window, sender enters fast retransmit phase and gets information about the retransmitted segments in terms of the first acknowledgment it gets. If only a single segment was dropped, then the acknowledgment will probably contain all segments previously transmitted before entering fast retransmit phase. If on the other hand, there were losses of multiple segments, the acknowledgment will be partial and will not contain all segments transmitted prior to fast retransmit phase entry. Using partial acknowledgements, fast recovery performance is enhanced as described in RFC2582. NewReno also improves round-trip and back-off timer calculations. In the literature, it is found that its main drawback is the poor performance in bursts of losses of segments within the same window (Wang and Shin, 2004). Non-TCP congestion control There are also some non-TCP techniques that can indirectly affect congestion control performance of TCP. These methods are not directly implemented in TCP software. The most popular technique of this kind is Random Early Detection (RED). In order to understand the method, one first has to consider what is called the global synchronization problem (D. Comer, 2000). Routers in the global Internet use the tail-drop policy for handling datagrams. When their input queue is full, any incoming datagram is discarded. Since datagrams are usually multiplexed in the Internet, severe problems can occur regarding congestion. Instead of dropping many segments of one TCP connection, tail-drop router policy actually causes single segment drops from many TCP connections. This, in turn, put the senders of these connections in slow start mode at almost the same time causing the global synchronization problem, which degrades performance considerably. To overcome this problem, RED (which is implemented in router software) defines two different thresholds that are associated with its internal queue, Tmin and Tmax. The following three rules govern the operation of RED It the queue size is less that Tmin, add any new incoming datagrams to it If the queue size is bigger that Tmax, drop any new incoming datagrams If the queue size is between Tmin and Tmax, randomly discard incoming datagrams with the help of a probability p. The main reason for this approach is to drop datagrams as congestion increases so as to avoid a queue overflow and a subsequent transition of many TCP connections to the slow start phase. As it is obvious, success of RED algorithm is based upon careful selection of the two thresholds Tmin and Tmax along with the probability p. Tmin must ensure high network utilization whereas Tmax must take into account the TCP round trip time so that it can accommodate the increase in queue size. Usually, Tmax is at least twice large as Tmin, or otherwise the same global synchronization problem may occur. Probability p computation is a complex task that is repeated for every new datagram. Non-linear schemes are used for this calculation in order to avoid overreacting to short bursts and protect TCP from unnecessary discards. These schemes usually take into account a weighted average queue size and use that size for determining the probability p. Details of RED are described in (S. Floyd and V. Jacob son, Aug. 1993). Research simulations show that RED works pretty well. It successfully handles congestion, eliminates the global synchronization problem that results from tail-drop policy seen before, and manages to allow short bursts without the need for extensive discards that could compromise TCP performance. When implemented by routers together with the TCP congestion control methods already built in the various network software implementations, it provides the necessary protection for network performance, securing its high utilization. Conclusions TCP performance is essential for providing true experience to single users, enterprises and everyone connected to the global Internet. One of the biggest challenges TCP faces as years come by, is congestion control (along with security which is another hot topic for TCP and other protocols). The original TCP standards described four methods that succeeded to almost eliminate congestion. As Internet increases in size and applications are becoming bandwidth hungry, new techniques that enhance inherent limitations of the four original algorithms are introduced and overall performance is kept in acceptable levels. Ongoing TCP research still focuses on congestion control and many new methods or variations are coming to fill any gaps that are gradually discovered by the ever-increasing Internet utilization.

Gangs of New York Essay -- Film Analysis

Picture Manhattan in 1860, a time before the city had been dolled up and gotten ready for the silver screen, before the glamour and allure took over. Amsterdam Vallan (DiCaprio) is a young Irish man that migrates to the USA at a young age. Amsterdam’s story takes place in Five Points District of New York, a filthy and dangerous part of the city before it was deleted form history. As a young boy Vallan witnessed his father’s murder at the hand of William Cutting or Bill the Butcher (Day-Lewis) during one of their many gang wars. As Amsterdam’s story progresses along side The Butcher they become inseparable, but Amsterdam had ulterior motive. Ultimately, Amsterdam attempts to betray his new found ally in order to avenge his father’s death. Historical accounts of events are almost always synthesized by the storyteller; in the case Gangs of New York Martin Scorsese tells of Five Points, The Dead Rabbits Riots, and The Draft Riots, but is his fictional story a ccurate through history? "This is the place; these narrow ways diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth... Many of these pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright instead of going on all fours, and why they talk instead of grunting?" (Dickens 61) The outlandish filth described by Charles Dickens was a first hand account of the intersection of Orange Street, Cross Street, Anthony Street, and Little Water Street, better known as Five Points New York. It became the setting for many of 17th century gangs, but the most prominent were the Bowery Boys and The Dead Rabbits. This wicked part of town was known for its depravity the crimes that flooded the streets, from mugging to murder. Clearly, the slums were the place for v... ...†¢ Burrows, Edwin G., and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. Print. †¢ Cocks, Jay, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan. "Gangs Of New York Final Script." Web. . †¢ Dickens, Charles, and Patricia Ingham. American Notes for General Circulation. London: Penguin, 2000. Print. †¢ Ellis, Edward Robb., and Jeanyee Wong. The Epic of New York City. New York, NY: Carroll & Graf, 2005. Print. †¢ "RIOTING AND BLOODSHED; THE FIGHT AT COW BAY†¦ THE CITY UNDER ARMS." The New York Times. 6 July 1857. Web. . †¢ Sifakis, Carl. The Encyclopedia of American Crime. New York: Facts on File, 2001. Print. †¢ Slayton, Robert A. Empire Statesman: The Rise and Redemption of Al Smith. New York: Free, 2001. Print.

Juvenile Corrections Essay

Juvenile corrections encompasses the portions of the criminal justice system that deal with juvenile offenders. Many of these facilities and programs seem to mirror jails and prisons, but juvenile corrections are not meant for long term sentences. Sometimes sentences for juveniles are only several weeks long. Juvenile corrections also have a strong focus on rehabilitation because studies have shown that juvenile offenders are more prone to rehabilitation than adult offenders. These programs and services were aimed to help to teach these youthful offenders how to better deal with situations and how to avoid entering the into the criminal justice system again. (wisegeek) The judges who handle these juvenile cases specialize in working with juvenile offenders and their crimes. Others who specialize in juvenile crime are a part of the juvenile corrections system as well. This includes social workers, probation officers, as well as others. Their aim is usually not to punish the juveniles alone, but to use the punishment as a way to rehabilitate them as well. (USLegal) Historical Background of Juvenile Corrections The origins of juvenile corrections are not entirely clear. Juvenile and adult offenders have been treated differently for some time, but what ages are considered to be juvenile has changed over time. The United States’ perspective on juvenile ages and law was greatly influenced by English law. In the 1700s, William Blackstone, an English lawyer, published his Commentaries on the Laws of England, where he identified that young persons are incapable of committing crime. Generally, anyone under of the age of seven was incapable of committing crime. Any child over the age of 14 was able to be tried as an adult. Children between the ages of 7 and 14 are a gray area, but were generally not held accountable for their actions unless it could be shown that they knew what was right or wrong. Punishments for being found guilty of crime included the death penalty, even for juvenile offenders. (ABA, 2011) The juvenile corrections system began to change and be reformed in the nineteenth century. â€Å"Social reformers began to create special facilities to rehabilitate troubled juveniles, especially in large cities†, (ABA, 2011, p 5). These reformers stated that they wanted to protect these juvenile offenders by keeping them separate from the adult populations because they were better able to be rehabilitated. The first court system for juveniles in the United States started in 1899 in Illinois. These courts also aimed to rehabilitate the juvenile offenders. They had juvenile court systems in most states by 1824. The courts became the â€Å"guardians† of the juvenile offenders, or their â€Å"parens patriae†. These court proceedings were considered to be civil matters and not considered to be criminal matters. Their basic focus was on rehabilitating the juvenile offenders. (ABA, 2011) The juvenile courts changed again in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1967, the case of Gerald in In re Gault, the Supreme Court granted many juveniles some, but not all, due process rights in the course of their court proceedings. This included the right to be notified of their pending charges, the right to have an attorney, the right to protect themselves against self-incrimination, and the rights to confront and cross-examine their witnesses. Three years later, in In re Winship, the Court also established that the accused must be proven guilty â€Å"beyond a reasonable doubt†. In 1971, in McKeiver v. Pennsylvania, the Courts ruled that juries are not required for juvenile proceedings. In most cases, the judge in charge of the juvenile corrections department will hear the case, judge the offender, and sentence the offender. (ABA, 2011) Recidivism Rates in Juvenile Corrections When it comes to measuring a correctional agency’s facilities and programs, recidivism rates are most frequently used. These rates guide spending and funding decisions aimed to effectively combat crime. While there is no standard rate that is aimed for, the idea is to try to reduce the recidivism rate or even keep it the same opposed to raising it. When the recidivism rates are not progressing in the manner expected, these agencies must try to find other avenues and strategies that will make a positive impact on the recidivism rates, and in the long run, these juvenile’s lives. (CJCA, 2011) â€Å"The Indiana Department of Correction (IDOC) defines recidivism as a return to incarceration within three years of the offender’s date of release from a state correctional institution.† (Schelle, 2012) The 2011 recidivism rate for all juvenile offenders was 36.7%. The recidivism rate for African American juvenile offenders was 43.8%. Eighty-two percent of the juveniles who recidivated did so with a new crime, and the other 18% returned because of technical violations. â€Å"Of all juveniles released in 2008, 40.9% of males returned to IDOC, while only 15.8% of females returned,† (Schelle, 2012). Surprisingly, juvenile sex offenders had the lowest recidivism rate at 13.6%. (Schelle, 2012) Risk-Focused Juvenile Crime Prevention Risk factors for juvenile delinquency have been identified from multiple studies. These risk factors are different for older and younger juveniles. When focusing on the individual juvenile between the ages of 6-11, delinquency risk factors include; being male, having a low IQ, having antisocial attitudes and beliefs, dishonesty, having medical and physical problems, hyperactivity, exposure to television violence, petty offenses, having poor attitude and performance at school, and substance use. In this same age group, the child’s family environment can also include risk factors as well. Some of these risk factors are; being in a low socioeconomic status or poverty, having antisocial parents, having poor relationships, receiving harsh or inconsistent discipline, having a broken home, being separated from their parents, and having abusive or neglectful parents. (Przybylski, 2008) For children between the ages of 12 and 14, the individual risk factors include; general offenses, having a low IQ, displaying antisocial behavior, committing crimes against others, using physical violence, being male, displaying risk taking behaviors, displaying aggression, having low concentration, restlessness, and general offenses. Other factors also include having a poor attitude in school, academic failure, having weak social ties, and gang membership. Living in a community with high neighborhood crime, drugs, and disorganization are also factors. In this same age group, the child’s family environment can also include risk factors as well. Some of these risk factors are; lax or harsh discipline by parents, lack of adult or parental supervision, lack of parental involvement, having antisocial parents, having poor relationships, coming from a broken home, living in poverty, being abused, and experiencing family conflict. With all of these risk factors being mentioned, â€Å"It is important to recognize that risk factors cannot be used to identify which particular children will grow up to be offenders,† (Przybylski, 2008, p 84). There are also protective factors that may help counter-act the risk factors mentioned above. These include the individual juvenile; having a strong attitude or being intolerant toward deviance, having a higher IQ, being female, having more positive social skills and orientation, and understanding the sanctions for any transgressions. Some familial protective factors include; having warm, strong, and supporting relationships with caregivers, good monitoring by parents, and the general support of the juvenile’s friends by the juvenile’s parents. Other protective factors include; the juvenile being committed to their education, gaining recognition for extracurricular activities, and having friends who are also against deviant behavior. (Przybylski, 2008) What Rehabilitation Efforts Work for Juveniles and Which Do Not There has been much research on what programs work to rehabilitate juvenile offenders. The general results have been that the majority of the programs have no real effect on the juvenile recidivism rate aside from a few exceptions. The reason why juveniles have lower recidivism rates is believed to be because juveniles are not completely aware of the ramifications of their actions and do not always understand the true damage they inflict on their victims. (Lieb, 1994) The results of multiple studies indicate several approaches to rehabilitation that do not work. Those include; visiting a probation officer one time per month, diagnostic assessments, behavior modification for any complex behaviors, broad discussion groups, attending school as a single approach, field trips, work programs, psychodynamic counseling, and therapeutic camping trips. The research used 50 different juvenile correctional programs and came to the conclusion that the results were, â€Å"far from encouraging,† and â€Å"correctional treatment has little effect on recidivism,† (Lieb, 1994, p 5). The results showed that some behavioral approaches received more positive results. An analysis used 90 residential and community programs for juvenile offenders. The analysis concluded that, â€Å"Behavior approaches had the most success in reducing recidivism although the effects were so small that â€Å"they could not reject the null hypothesis.† Group therapy and transactional analysis programs were more likely to produce negative effects,† (Lieb, 1994, p 5). What does seem to work is using correctional treatment and service utilizing three principles that include; getting service to the high-risk juveniles, paying attention to the risk factors mentioned above, and using different styles of treatment depending on the needs and learning styles of the individual juvenile offender. (Lieb, 1994) References ABA. (2011, June 29). The History of Juvenile Justice. Retrieved November 29, 2012, from American Bar Association: http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/publiced/features/DYJpart1.authcheckdam.pdf CJCA. (2011). Recidivism Committee. Retrieved December 2, 2012, from Council of Juvenile Correctional Administrators: http://cjca.net/index.php/initiatives/recidivism-committee Lieb, R. (1994). Juvenile Offenders: What Works? ; A Summary of Research Findings. The Evergreen State College. Olympia: Washington State Institute for Public Policy. Przybylski, R. (2008). What Works; Effective Recidivism Reduction and Risk-Focused Prevention Programs. Denver: RKC Group. Schelle, S. (2012). Juvenile Recidivism 2011. Indianapolis: Indiana Department of Correction. USLegal. (n.d.). Juvenile Corrections Law & Legal Definition. Retrieved November 22, 2012, from USLegal.com: http://definitions.uslegal.com/j/juvenile-corrections/ wisegeek. (n.d.). What is Juvenile Corrections? Retrieved November 22, 2012, from wisegeek.com: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-juvenile-corrections.htm

Othello vs Iago

It is a known fact that the actions someone makes throughout his/her life fashions the kind of person he/she is, however this is not always the case. Ultimately it was Othello who was in control of his own behaviour though he was highly influenced. Despite the fact that Iago had finished the deed of killing Roderigo, he was more in control of the others thoughts than actions. Together, Iago and Othello were fundamentally in charge of their lives though powerless to their thoughts and actions.Nonetheless only one can be the most responsible for the tragic events that occur in this play. Insecurities have a powerful effect on the human mind, and thats just what happened to Othello, he succumbed to his insecurities. Being a different race and a general could be said to be rare in the time period that this play took place which may have led to why Othello was reacting so irrationally. He allowed his mind to play tricks on him by latching on to anyone who had shown kindness to him during a stressful event which led to his fatal flaw: Pride.Though he loved Desdemona with all his heart, his pride seemed to be a bit more important. He would not listen to his wife because of the newfound tainted picture of her which meant to him to eliminate the one thing that would ruin his image of himself. In the end actions spoke louder than words and he gave in to the murderous ways that ago had planted in his head. With a great minds comes great responsibilities, responsibilities Iago seemed to ignore by allowing his jealousy to take over.Honest Iago truly was honest however, he was also extremely clever. He knew how to twist the thoughts of the people around him turning them into his little puppets in order to keep his hands clean. A highly effective instigator which led to the deaths of all the characters who died by manipulating the people around him. when all is said and done, it was Iago who really Influenced the actions preformed by Othello.

CNC SYSTEMS AND SOME TYPES OF essays

CNC SYSTEMS AND SOME TYPES OF essays Numerical Control (NC) refers to the operation of machine tools from numerical data. Data are stored on paper, magnetic tape, computer storage disks or direct computer information. CNC Systems which have some important functions like being automatic, precise and consistent motion control has different types in different areas. CNC machines used to be associated with high volume production due to the time involved in machine programming, however new computer technologies along with software advances allow easy programming of CNC machines for low production parts. The program is an organized list of commands used repeatedly to obtain identical results. The way in which the CNC program is used to interact with the machine tool defines the type of CNC system. Systems à ½sing manual programming and punched paper or magnetic tape to store the program are known as numerical control machines. Equipment having a host computer controlliing one or more machine tools are known as CNC systems. Either type may have a dial control future, which is the ability to dial directly each axis dimension for the workpiece. Computer numerical control systems use a dedicated program to perform NC functions in accordance with control commands stored in computer memory. The computer provides basic computing capacity and data buffering as a part of the control unit. CNC is also known as soft wired, implying that the can be changed along with built-in control features. In addition, the computer is used as a terminal to accept information from another computer or telephone data. If the host computer is external to the machine tool and commands several machines as well as other NC devices, the system is a direct numerical control (DNC) system. If a microprocessor that interacts with the host computer is used as a resident controller in the machine tool, the equipment is a distributed numerical control (DNC) sys ...

Juluis Caesar Essay

Juluis Caesar Essay Juluis Caesar Essay Brutus, Noble Leader Corruption is something that tends to happen in a multitude of government systems. Such events occurred in William Shakespeare’s drama, Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar is based on the occurrence of Caesars assassination and the aftermath throughout the struggle for power. Brutus, a well-respected roman politician and also murderer of Caesar tries to maintain the power from Octavius, Caesars son and Antony, Caesars loyal friend. Some people may think that Brutus was not a noble leader because he was not loyal to Caesar and was not honest to the people of Rome when he attempted to justify his actions. However, Brutus was a noble leader because he was loyal to the people of Rome and was honest about his feelings. Although many argue that Brutus is not a noble leader because of his betrayal towards Caesar, it is clear that Brutus was loyal to the people of Rome. The text reads, â€Å"I have no personal reason to strike at him-only the best interest of the people. It is evident that Brutus’ objective was to improve the lives of the Roman people. Admitting to the fact that he plans to kill Caesar for the better of the people. Loyalty to their people is a trait any noble leader must have, therefore Brutus, seeking only to satisfy his people, is a noble leader. Others argue that Brutus is not a noble leader because he was not honest to the people of Rome when justifying his actions of killing Caesar. However he was honest about his feelings when he gave his speech after Caesar’s death. â€Å"I weep for Caesar in that he was good to me.† In tears Brutus honestly reveals to the people what he feels for Caesar and the

Learn Ten Facts About Washington, D.C.

Learn Ten Facts About Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., officially called the District of Columbia, is the capital of the United States. It was founded on July 16, 1790, and today has a city population of 599,657 (2009 estimate) and an area of 68 square miles (177 sq km). It should be noted, however, that during the week, Washington, D.C.s population rises to well over one million people due to suburban commuters. The population of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area was 5.4 million people as of 2009. Washington, D.C. is home to all three branches of the U.S. government as well as many international organizations and the embassies of 174 foreign nations. In addition to being the center of U.S. government, Washington, D.C. is known for its history, many historic national monuments and famous museums like the Smithsonian Institution. The following is a list of ten important things to know about Washington, D.C. Inhabited by the Nacotchtank Tribe of Native Americans When Europeans first arrived in what is present-day Washington, D.C. in the 17th century the area was inhabited by the Nacotchtank tribe of Native Americans. By the 18th century though, Europeans had relocated the tribe and the region was becoming developed. In 1749, Alexandria, Virginia was founded and in 1751, the Province of Maryland chartered Georgetown along the Potomac River. Eventually, both were included in the original Washington, D.C. District. The Residence Act In 1788, James Madison stated that the new U.S. nation would need a capital that was distinct from the states. Shortly thereafter, Article I of the U.S Constitution stated that a district, separate from the states, would become the seat of government. On July 16, 1790, the Residence Act established that this capital district would be located along the Potomac River and President George Washington would decide exactly where. The Organic Act Officially Organized the District of Columbia Initially, Washington, D.C. was a square and measured ten miles (16 km) on each side. First, a federal city was constructed near Georgetown and on September 9, 1791, the city was named Washington and the newly established federal district was named Columbia. In 1801, the Organic Act officially organized the District of Columbia and it was expanded to include Washington, Georgetown, and Alexandria. The War of 1812 In August 1814, Washington, D.C. was attacked by British forces during the War of 1812 and the Capitol, Treasury and White House were all burned. They were quickly repaired however and governmental operations resumed. In 1846, Washington, D.C. lost some of its area when Congress returned all District territory south of the Potomac back to the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Organic Act of 1871 then combined the City of Washington, Georgetown and Washington County into a single entity known as the District of Columbia. This is the region that became known as todays Washington, D.C. Washington D.C. Is Still Considered Separate Today, Washington, D.C. is still considered separate from its neighboring states (Virginia and Maryland) and it is governed by a mayor and a city council. The U.S. Congress, however, has the highest authority over the area and it can overturn local laws if necessary. In addition, residents of Washington, D.C. were not allowed to vote in presidential elections until 1961. Washington, D.C. also has a non-voting Congressional delegate but it does not have any senators. Economy Focused on Service and Government Jobs Washington, D.C. currently has a large growing economy that is mainly focused on the service sector and government jobs. According to Wikipedia, in 2008, federal government jobs made up 27% of the jobs in Washington, D.C. In addition to government jobs, Washington, D.C. also has industries related to education, finance, and research. D.C. Is 68 Square Miles The total area of Washington, D.C. today is 68 square miles (177 sq km) - all of which formerly belonged to Maryland. The area is surrounded by Maryland on three sides and Virginia to the south. The highest point in Washington, D.C. is Point Reno at 409 feet (125 m) and it is located in the Tenleytown neighborhood. Much of Washington, D.C. is parkland and the district was highly planned during its initial construction. Washington, D.C. is divided into four quadrants: the Northwest, Northeast, Southeast, and Southwest. Each quadrant radiates out from the Capitol building. The Climate Is Humid Subtropical The climate of Washington, D.C. is considered humid subtropical. It has cold winters with average snowfall at about 14.7 inches (37 cm) and hot, humid summers. The average January low temperature is 27.3ËšF (-3ËšC) while the average July high is 88ËšF (31ËšC). The Population Distribution As of 2007, Washington, D.C. had a population distribution of 56% African American, 36% White, 3% Asian and 5% other. The district has had a significant population of African Americans since its founding largely because of the freeing of slaves in the southern states following the American Revolution. Recently, however, the percentage of African Americans has been declining in Washington, D.C. as more of the population moves to the suburbs. Cultural Center of the U.S. Washington, D.C. is considered a cultural center of the U.S. because of its many National Historic Landmarks, museums and historic places such as the Capitol and White House. Washington, D.C. is home to the National Mall which is a large park within the city and it contains museums like the Smithsonian and the National Museum of Natural History. The Washington Monument is located on the west end of the National Mall. Sources: Wikipedia.org. (5 October 2010). Washington Monument - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_MonumentWikipedia.org. (30 September 2010). Washington, D.C. - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_D.C.

Components of Qualitative Approach Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Components of Qualitative Approach - Assignment Example The three topics all involve the use of qualitative information. To investigate the political opinions of citizens of a country A, a researcher has to set interviews that will convert qualitative attributes to quantitative measures. For example, an interview can set a question like â€Å"Do the contestants you intend to vote for know your economic challenges†. The responses can be assigned numeric indices to measure their strengths for example: Interviews usually have challenges during data collection because it deals with personal opinions and often touches on sensitive issues which many respondents may not be willing to provide information on. There is always a risk of collecting inaccurate data due to confidentiality. Secondly, respondents do not realize the importance of the data being collected. They thus do not present exact information. They either exaggerate and fabricate information or conceal real truth. Thirdly, language barrier may prevent the interviewer and the respondents from communicating. Involving an interpreter may be irritating to the respondents and they may not take part in the exercise. There are ways of dealing with the challenges in order to improve the quality of data collected. For the sake of accuracy, it is ideal to express friendliness to the respondents in order to win their confidence. This will encourage them to be honest with their information. The issue of language barrier can only be solved using an interpreter. It means the researcher has the responsibility to acquire an interpreter. Qualitative interviews according to the perspectives of Singh (2007) are essential for research works first, because the information regarding social and political subjects is usually of qualitative nature. Secondly, it is easier to interpret qualitative information into measurable quantities that people can easily understand. Qualitative

Summary and Impact Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Summary and Impact - Essay Example tudy shows that brain activity visibly increases in the process of nondirective meditation; however, it remains almost the same during concentrative meditation. Researchers explain these results by the fact that nondirective meditation allows more space for different thoughts and feelings in it which concentrative meditation is restricting them. Only 3 researchers involved in this study practice meditation to cope with daily stress. Stress follows people everywhere and they need to cope with it somehow. Since this article proves that meditation works, I can try to practice it in my daily life to come down during critical moments. I find this article useful because I often suffer from own inability to deal with stressful events effectively. As a result, I experience problems with falling asleep or feel nervous during the day. Out of two types of meditation described in the article, I would like to practice concentrative meditation first because it seems to be more understandable for me. Perhaps, meditation or simple concentration on breathing will improve my coping

Financial Statement and Operating Indicator Analysis Essay

Financial Statement and Operating Indicator Analysis - Essay Example The current ratio is a liquidity ratio and indicates the extent to which an organization can cover its short term liabilities by its liquid assets. It is calculated by dividing the total current assets in the organization with the total current liabilities.This ratio seeks to examine the revenue of the organization as a function of its expenses. It includes the revenues of the organization from all sources in its calculation. The ratio is usually derived by dividing the net income of the organization with the total revenue. A high ratio means that the organization can cater for its costs efficiently, and indicates profitability. On the other hand, a lower ratio indicates that an organization could be experiencing financial difficulties, and may not have the ability to give viable returns to investors (Chandra, 2010).A major challenge concerned with financial statement analysis relates to the inability of the statements to recognize the seasonal qualitative changes, which occur in the course of normal business. These changes include changes in management, government policies, as well as labor strikes. Such changes affect the financial position of the business, thus including them in the financial analysis is significant. Therefore, users of analysis should require financial analysts to assess the implications of such factors on the organization’s profitability, and report to them (â€Å"Foundation of the American College of Healthcare Executives†, 2008).

Road to Perdition Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Road to Perdition - Movie Review Example The movie is based on a graphic novel of the same title by Max Allan Collins. Depression-era Chicago serves as the perfect period in which to set the story of Road to Perdition. The stark grittiness of the early 30's best illustrates and complements the troubled nature of Road to Perdition's story. It provides a backdrop where gangsters rule and where death is an everyday business. The story is set in 1931, which is considered an in-between era since it is a different world from three years before and three years after. Albert Wolsky, costume designer for the film even found it hard to find existing clothes to match the era Michael Sullivan lived in since the 1930's is sandwiched between the flamboyance of the 20's and the fashionable gangsterism of the mid 30's. The early 30's was a time of austerity and depression, and the spirit of this era snugly fits the film's premise. The film, through an excellent use of the era, imposes a heavy, dark cloud of depression on its viewers which only briefly diffuses during the scenes between Sullivans Sr. and Jr. near the end of the movie. Technically and aesthetically, Road to Perdition excels. The film is a wonderful tour de force of some of the most notable figures in directing, acting, scoring, and cinematography. Sam Mendes (American Beauty), in his interpretation of the film, added to the depth of the conflict by using ingenious presentation methods. For example, to emphasize the gap between Michael Sullivan's Jr. and Sr., he employed a method that had both characters talk through obstacles like mirrors and doorposts. This had the effect of alienating both characters from each other since they had to communicate with each other indirectly. Later on in the film, Mendes uses close crops of both characters to symbolize a new found openness towards each other. The way Mendes presents each scene is subtle yet meaningful - a truly subconscious treat. Unfortunately, this may have backfired on many of the viewers, as there has been the comment that the movie left many of the viewers alienated and cold too. It may be that Mendes' plan worked a little too well. The story of Michael Sullivan and his son takes place mainly during winter. The eerie frozen landscape has a telling effect on the movie's plot. Mendes says the snow "symbolizes a frozen world... frozen in the emotional sense. It's a paralyzed family until the father and oldest son are thrown together by tragedy, and they begin to have the relationship they never had before. So out of the bad comes good, and everything that was intended to be set in ice at the beginning begins to thaw."(qtd. in "Road to Perdition Synopsis") The first thing to catch one's attention upon watching this film is the gorgeous cinematography by Conrad Hall. Hall is a master of mood and lighting, and it shows in his work on Road to Perdition. He makes good use of snow and the broke-down alleyways to convey a sense of despair in the film. The viewer gets the impression that beneath the paleness of the snow lies tension that has to be let loose. The film also uses washed out colors to give an aged look. This, in a way, authenticates the period which the film is based on. In one scene, Hall makes clever use of light shining through rained-upon windows to give the impression that the room is weeping. It would be observed that he does not use sweeping views of the backdrop. Instead, he uses pensive shots that are starkly beautiful. The screenplay by David

Operations and Projects Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Operations and Projects Management - Essay Example The quality of service to a customer is paramount in any service firm, and the Bank of Muscat has not underrated this fact. It is one of the banks offering the best quality of banking services in Oman. The bank has a strong believe in quality leadership that seeks to challenge everything the bank does. Such an approach helps the bank maintain and improve the quality of services offered. The bank’s quality policy is pegged on building and maintaining a good reputation and image by offering the best quality in services and products to customers (Ilin, 2010). The bank targets both international and international markets and boasts more about offering products that exceed the needs of their customers. On quality, the bank pursues the following objectives; Govindarajo & Kalyani, (2013, p. 569) Conducted a study to examined how the bank uses relationship marketing to deliver quality service to its customers. They found that the quality of services was measured in terms of responsiveness, ambience, trust and assurance. Bank Muscat has done very well in delivering quality service through the quality management system that ensures responsiveness to customer queries and complaints, their banking halls are designed to offer the latest and more comfortable service thereby creating the required ambience (Bank Muscat, 2013). Customers are served almost as soon as they appear on the bank. This has helped the bank to gain trust since customers are assured of the best service. The bank employees are specially trained to handle customers by offering the best services. The design of the banking facilities is one of the best in Oman as technology has been used to improve customer experience and delivery of service (Ilin, 2010). The bank is better pl aced because its services and products are based on Islamic beliefs, which are the fundamental religion in the area. The bank has designed its products to cover both individuals and

Essay questions Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 11

Questions - Essay Example Tamim was a woman who was thought to have transgressed the limits placed on women by the Egyptian society’s norms and values. According to the norms and values of the Egyptian society, women are naà ¯ve and are not able to make intelligent and informed decisions. Therefore, Egyptian women think that Ms. Tamim must have raged Moustapha with her acts to the point where he had no option but to have her killed. They think that had Ms. Tamim respected the societal expectations with her role as a woman, she would have had a better fate. The incident described in the article connects with the stereotypes of women in the region since it reveals the philosophy of the Egyptian society, that includes the philosophy of men about the role of women in the society in general and the philosophy of women about women’s role in the society in particular. Ms. Tamim was considered to deserve her fate because she belonged to a profession and had a kind of lifestyle that the vast majority of the society disapproved of. Everything from her relationships to her dressing was controversial given the Egyptian society expects women to be dressed modestly, and be submissive toward their husbands. Yes, honor does enter into why Moustapha had Ms. Tamim killed. Moustapha is considered honorable because he has lived up to the society’s ideal expectations. The Egyptian society’s ideal expectations from men include but are not limited to being rich, having a family and children, and having power and influence in the society. Sources of honor in the Egyptian society include having good family reputation and being wealthy. Since Moustapha has both, he is deemed honorable in the Egyptian society and is thus trusted for having a sound reason to have Ms. Tamim killed. The reduced sentence of Moustapha indicates the being a man is to a large extent reason enough to cause any harm to a woman in the Egyptian society. Factors like being powerful, rich, and

Operations and Projects Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Operations and Projects Management - Essay Example The quality of service to a customer is paramount in any service firm, and the Bank of Muscat has not underrated this fact. It is one of the banks offering the best quality of banking services in Oman. The bank has a strong believe in quality leadership that seeks to challenge everything the bank does. Such an approach helps the bank maintain and improve the quality of services offered. The bank’s quality policy is pegged on building and maintaining a good reputation and image by offering the best quality in services and products to customers (Ilin, 2010). The bank targets both international and international markets and boasts more about offering products that exceed the needs of their customers. On quality, the bank pursues the following objectives; Govindarajo & Kalyani, (2013, p. 569) Conducted a study to examined how the bank uses relationship marketing to deliver quality service to its customers. They found that the quality of services was measured in terms of responsiveness, ambience, trust and assurance. Bank Muscat has done very well in delivering quality service through the quality management system that ensures responsiveness to customer queries and complaints, their banking halls are designed to offer the latest and more comfortable service thereby creating the required ambience (Bank Muscat, 2013). Customers are served almost as soon as they appear on the bank. This has helped the bank to gain trust since customers are assured of the best service. The bank employees are specially trained to handle customers by offering the best services. The design of the banking facilities is one of the best in Oman as technology has been used to improve customer experience and delivery of service (Ilin, 2010). The bank is better pl aced because its services and products are based on Islamic beliefs, which are the fundamental religion in the area. The bank has designed its products to cover both individuals and

Memories of the mentor Essay Example for Free

Memories of the mentor Essay Often in our lives comes a person who leaves us completely changed and different, even to ourselves. In my life such a role has been played by a number of individuals combined but one of them whose influence was maximum was late Mr. Salim, my English teacher during O Levels. May Allah bless him a place in Paradise. I have never met such a person in my life, so gentle, so broad-minded. Even now when I remember him smiling, a smile appears on my face as well and I pray for him. He was a unique man; unique in, perhaps, every sense of the word. I had known him before I came to O Levels. He had been my Oral English teacher during the 8th class but he took only one period every week and hence we knew very little about him. When I entered O Levels he was our Class Teacher as well as our English teacher. He was aware of the fact that we were not very good in English and that we needed a lot of hard work. He gave us a nice little lecture about the new challenges we were going to face and how we were going to deal with them. He told us that everyday for the first five to ten minutes one boy was to come in front of class and make a speech, on any topic he wanted to talk, in English. The students were to come roll-number wise. This was perhaps the most interesting items during my first year at O Levels. Everyday in the morning a boy would come, often reluctantly, and tell Mr. Salim what the topic was. Many times it happened that the student said that he had not prepared anything. Then he would say, with a matchless wave of his hand which I remember clearly, Well, then do it offhand. Go on, speak on anything you want, anything you choose. The thing which impressed me most was his vast knowledge. Before the student started his speech, he would give a little introduction on that topic, and no matter what the topic was he always knew something about it, even if it was like Eating insects for food in the Far-East! I was a shy student at that moment and I knew that the speech-process would help me in over-coming it. When my first speech was drawing nearer and nearer, I searched for a unique topic. I had taken it as a challenge to find a topic about which Mr.Salim would know nothing. After a lot of search I found one: Antimatter. This was, I think, the real beginning of my relationship with Mr.Salim. When I came to make my speech, he asked me about the topic and I told him. For the first time in my life I saw an expression of unawareness on his old face. Ah, well, he said, its something about modern Physics. And then he beckoned me to make the speech. Now I had become a person he recognized. In fact, I think, he was impressed. A few days after that he praised me for an essay I had written. I used to do assignments given by Mr.Salim with great zeal, perhaps just to hear a word of praise because when I did hear one by him, I felt myself elevated. I wouldnt say I was very bad at English but I was not very good either. I was just an average yet somehow, slowly and gradually, like the dawn on a wet day, I was converted into a person who could write a good piece of English. I owe a lot of it to him, a lot. He understood the way we worked. He knew that we were short of time and we had a lot to do, but he knew that if he applied too much stress we would break, and so he went slowly. At that time we thought that it was folly on his part that he took us gradually, while the other sections were covering their syllabus rapidly, but now after it is over, I realize it wasnt folly but wisdom on his part. And Im thankful to him for the fact that he made English for us a lovely subject. While telling us the meaning of adolescence he pointed towards me, as I had at that moment faint traces of a mustache. Although I have shaved off that mustache long ago, I can never erase that memory. During his last days he taught us the past papers and he would share with me my book of past papers, which I did with great pleasure. If it had been just the love of English, I would never have written this article. He gave us a lot more than that. The outstanding among them is the broadening the horizon of my way of thinking. He was old, but he was not orthodox or conservative. He was a liberal and modern person. He understood the requirements of the modern age and he spoke fluently about it. Often, his views on Islam created disturbance among the orthodox Muslims of our class. Topics like Music, Nationality, Hadood Laws and Taliban were a cause of heated discussion. He had a weak and gentle heart. He couldnt bear unjustice to anyone, even to his enemies. He was highly against the Maulvies and called them ,Semi-illiterate, half-educated mullahs, they want to keep us in the past, centuries back. He was aware of the fact that the people are apt to use their emotions rather than mind, especially in matters of religion, and this is, perhaps, his greatest contribution. He taught me to use my brain, not my emotions, for emotions are blind. He developed in me a hatred for rage and emotional acts. Yet, he was believer of freedom of speech, and whenever any student of the class objected on his views, he would allow them to say whatever they wanted to say. He would say to them, I respect your views but I do not agree with them. He never forced anyone to change his views. Once the topic of Basant was under discussion and a few students of our class were speaking against it for in their view it was against Islam. He said, Why dont you people understand, its just a regional festival, why involve religion in this? You dont want to celebrate it, fine, but why do you force others to do what you want? Live and Let live! All his life he wanted to gain more and more knowledge. Perhaps, the only field in which he was weak was modern Physics. A few days before he came to know about his disease, I was sitting in the class reading the book A brief history of time by Stephen Hawkings and he saw me reading it. He asked me if he could see it and I gave it to him. He then discussed with me a little about Stephen Hawkings. He said that there was another book by the same author in the market and I told him that I had read that one too. Then he asked me that if I had read it could I give it to him for reading, and I told him that he could take it for reading at that very moment for I was reading it for the second time. He thanked me and took it. But he never returned it to me because we learned only a few days later that he had stomach-cancer and was now on long leave from the school. A few months after that, he died. I dont feel anything bad about that book, in fact I feel happy that he had with him something I had given, when he died. I remember exactly the last day he spent with us. He was checking our assignments day and while he was checking mine, he asked me what the word mentor meant for I had used it in my assignments and he wanted to know whether I knew its meaning or not, and I told him that it meant a wise teacher. He gave me an A on that composition and I feel, I just feel, that the moment he wrote an A on my notebook it was written in my fate that I would get an A in English. When my result came and I had scored straight As, the person I remembered the most was Mr.Salim. He was a patient person and bore everything with courage and determination. His son had died in an accident but he had kept himself steady and carried on with his life. He adopted a son and he once told us about him. He was very nice with his students and gave us a lot of time to complete our assignments but when a student wouldnt do any work for months he would say, Show me your knuckles, show me your knuckles, and then he would give a blow on them with a wooden duster. I think I wont forget him my whole life. I remember him quite often; his words, his expressions, his speeches, his advises, his laughes and his smiles. He was a little hard of hearing and whenever he a person said something he couldnt understand, he would bring his hand to his ear and say with an unparallel expression, Pardon? I remember it clearly, every moment of it. He never gave me any special treatment, he treated me like any teacher would treat a normal good student but the way he has influenced me is astonishing. I love that person. His death was a big loss, a big loss. I sometimes feel that I never got the time to tell him how much thankful I was to him, and that how much I owed to him, and that how much I loved him but he went away, unaware that he had changed the whole life and way of thinking of a person. At times when I remember him, I feel that he can see what I am doing and that he is happy. I feel that somehow he knows that how much I loved him and how much I am grateful to him. I know that some of his ideas were wrong and in some points he misunderstood Islam but I also believe that it was all due to his gentle and nice nature and he had no bad intentions, and I also hope and pray that Allah would forgive him for his mistakes because he did them in good faith. I believe that Allah is gentle with gentle people, and Mr.Salim was certainly a gentle person. Through this article I just want to thank him because I feel that he is reading this article. I just pray that Allah blesses him with a place in Paradise.

Dominos Marketing Strategies And Technology Commerce Essay

Dominos Marketing Strategies And Technology Commerce Essay According to Dominos corporate website (2010), Dominos pizza was founded in 1960 by Tom and James. It was bought and started as a small pizza store in Michigan. With $500 as initial investment, Tom joined forces with his brother and together they opened a pizza delivery store in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Initially it was known as Dominicks. As Monaghans operations grew, the original owner of Dominicks decided to maintain rights to the name. Under deadline for a Yellow Pages ad, driver Jim Kennedy came up with the name Dominos Pizza. The three dots of Dominos the fact that Tom initially started 3 stores. In February 1968 a fire accident took place in Monaghans original pizza store. Advertising manager Bob Cotman had a narrow escape from the building, climbing down a firemans ladder. Although the pizza shop started operations within two days, Dominos lost stored goods worth $40,000. (information from the UK site (2010). The staff pulled together, with each existing store location responsible for producing one pizza item cheese, dough, chopped toppings which drivers then ferried from one store to the next to keep operations running. After that a very difficult situation arose that he had to cover not only the total fire losses of $150,000, of which only $13,000 were paid by insurance but also had to pay leases of five new franchises and recruit five new store operators as soon as possible. In 1975, the trademark lawsuit was launched by Amstar against the company. Furthermore, they started preparation to launch themselves on an international scale. In 1989, the Dominos Pizza changed ent irely when the Deep Pan pizza was launched for the very first time in twenty five years as the company had the urgent need for reacting to market demand. This step proved vital in providing strength to the financial foundation and made certain the growth of Dominos Pizza because they started operating their five thousandth store. The chain of Dominos Pizza grew quickly as they were operational in all varied places. Despite Dominos Pizza grew up at diverse locations and started doing good business, they were still a very traditional company. (History of Dominos pizza) Tom retired in 1998. He was the one who expanded Dominos chain around the world making it the worlds largest pizza delivering company known for quick service restaurants around the world. In addition, he gave majority of the $1bn earned through the sale of Dominos to charity. Marketing Strategies In 1973, Dominos Pizza introduced the policy that customers must be receiving their pizzas not later than 30 minutes of placing their orders, or if not they would take delivery of the pizzas free. The guarantee was condensed to $3 off in the mid 1980s. In 1985, Advertising Age placed Dominos ad among the fastest-growing money makers in the restaurant industry. The company had to keep pace not only with its own growth but also with that of its competitors, including the industry leader, Pizza Hut, which had more than 4,000 units to Dominos 2,300.In the previous year, Dominos spent 249% more in advertising, media. On the other side, the biggest threat for Monaghans empire entered in delivery business that is Pizza Hut in 1986. (Advertising age, Dominos inc. 1985) In 1992, the company settled a case filed against it by an Indian family whose lady was killed by a Dominos delivery driver. The company paid the family US $2.8 million. In 1993, Dominos settled yet another case in which the company was sued because a Dominos delivery driver ran a red light and collided with a ladys vehicle. The woman was paid almost US $80 million. The guarantee was dropped the same year because of the public perception of reckless driving and responsibility, according to Monaghan.(Founder of Dominos) Dominos Truck Kills 2 En Route to Delivery, (Chaudhury,1998) In December 2007 Dominos introduced a new slogan, You Got 30 Minutes, sticking to the earlier promise but getting short of promising delivery in a half hour. (Dominos corporate website 2010) In addition to this, Dominos changed their menu in 1992 and introduced for the very first time a non pizza item to their menu. Being Domino Pizza already on hand, the making of bread sticks was not so different which was the introduced item. The company kept on advertising for many years that if the delivery of their pizzas took longer than 30 minutes, the pizza would be delivered at no cost. This was also copied by the Ninja Turtles movie and cartoons. The benefits to Domino Pizza were enormous as millions of kids heard the name of Domino Pizza out of their favourite cartoons and they were the prospective customers. In 1993, Domino Pizza discontinued this policy and came up with a new one stating that if a customer was unhappy he could on his will have a new pizza or a refund. By 1994, Dominos Pizza marketing policy winded and they introduced chicken wings also in to the menu. Not only this, the company hit the African market as they opened a new store in Egypt. 1996 was the year when Dominos Pizza website was launched. That year the company declared global sales to be nearly $3 billion. In the 1980s, Dominos Pizza was well known for its advertisement campaign featuring The Noid. (Dominos corporate website 2010) In the same way, the Super Bowl Sunday was the most hectic and very busy pizza delivery day of the year and Dominos Pizza sold over a million pizzas, which was forty-two percent more as compared to normal Sunday trading volume. According to Dominos marketing director Robin Auld (Noelle McElhatton, marketing director management) Dominos franchisees pay a 5% royalty of their net sales into Dominos National Advertising Fund (NAF). Thats centrally managed and used to maximize sales and grow brand awareness. He said door-dropped menus are very effective for prosperity of ordering pizza and we use news paper and royal mail. Dominos also launched new offers that can be ordered by national hotline (087 12121212), in-store and online at www.dominos.co.uk. or SMS ordering system, which was the first time in UK in 1999. The Dominos text service requires only five minute initial online procedure. Firstly customers register and create their favourite menus giving them each an easy to remember name, delivery address and mobile number for order. Secondly, the chosen menu is typed directly from mobile phone. Customer can put their credit card details while registering so that they can use their card when they order and pay with cash upon delivery. In February 2003, the company announced multiyear partnership with the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) through which Dominos became the Official Pizza of NASCAR. According to news paper article (Detroit News, March 26, 1997) Dominos delivered $2.8 Billion in world wide sales last year. By 2011 the value of the home delivery food market was estimated to have reached  £1,474 million in the UK and expects to grow 30% to  £1,918 million. At Dominos Pizza, the values are summed up in a chant thats sung in the Sell more pizza, have more fun! DPZ Dominos Pizza Inc (NYSE)   12:00 AM ET, 03/04/2010     Last:  13.70   Change:  -0.36   %Change:  -2.56%   Volume:  2,982,700  Ã‚     Open: 14.06     High: 14.06     Low: 13.36     Previous Close: 14.06     Market Cap: 805.0M     Shares Outstanding: 58.8M     EPS: 1.38     52wk High (3/3/2010): 14.13     P/E Ratio: 9.93     52wk Low (3/9/2009): 5.61     Dividend: 0.00     Dividend Date: N/A     Yield: 0.00     Average Volume: 572,000.00   Figure 1 : Marketshare (Dominios corporate website) Financial information Dominos Pizza UK IRL plc financial results.[1][9][11][12] Year to December1 Revenue ( £Ã‚  million) EBIT ( £m) Net profit ( £m) Earnings per share (p) 2008 136.0 22.5 15.7 10.9 2007 114.9 18.3 13.2 8.4 2006 95.0 13.7 10.0 6.2 2005 81.7 10.4 8.3 5.1 2004 74.2 9.1 6.7 4.1 2003 61.6 6.0 4.6 2.8 Note 1: Accounts to 2005 prepared according to United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Accounts from 2006 onwards prepared according to International Financial Reporting Standards. Figure: 2 Performance of the Dominos pizza 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 System sales ( £m) 293.6 240.1 200.7 174.3 142.3 118.9 98.4 Stores at start of year 451 407 357 318 269 237 215 Stores at year-end 501 451 407 357 318 269 237 (Dominos corporate website) Figure: 3 SWOT ANALYSIS STRENGTHS 3,500 global operating franchises in over 50 countries Well-built brand equity maintained by intense marketing campaigns Effective supply chain distribution network  with fast operations WEAKNESSES Slow further growing and decreasing existing-stores sales OPPORTUNITIES Growing presence in emerging markets, particularly in India, China Leverage supply chain distribution system to introduce new products   THREATS Ever-changing consumer food tastes Adverse effects due to foreign currency Tough multi-national competitors Hard competition with local pizza shops and small chaons Conclusion Like any other thing, there is a positive as well as a negative point and the negative point of Dominos is that it can be a burden on ones finances. The large pizzas can have a price of  £14.99. The side orders also can cost on average  £4 each and that in anyways not cheap. Occasionally, there are offers introduced by Dominos.   However, one can say that dominos is great because the food is fresh and always warm when delivered and the taste is fantastic. The group invests a lot of time and money in upholding the positive reputation of their brand and has remained successful quite a lot. Dominos brand marketing activity is financed through a National Advertising Fund (NAF) which is made up of franchisee contributions. Dominos pizza sells hot and freshly backed. There is neither a deep frying nor for any forms of cooking like baking on a gas-fired conveyer oven. Furthermore, Dominos believes to meet strict quality standards to ensure food safety measures that meet or exceed any applicable government guidelines and that is the reason it has come forward as a strong competitor of pizza hut and has outclassed it in many countries. Today there are over 8,000 Dominos Pizza stores in more than 50 countries, employing over 145,000 team member and involving over 2,000 franchisees. Globally Dominos Pizza delivers more than one million pizzas every day. So, it equates 25 to 30 part time or full time jobs in every new store. In the same way, conc ept of home delivery means its reduce noise of store and traffic. Bibliographies History of Dominos available from htpp://www.Dominos uk.com [Accessed June 22, 2010] Financial data available from http://Dominos_Pizza_UK__IRL and http://www.domino-s-pizza-inc#cite_note-19 Dt: 21-Aug-09 [Accessed June22, 2010] http://www.brandrepublic.com/Discipline/DirectMarketing/News/926816/Britains, Interviewed with Dominos marketing director Robin Auld [Accessed June 22, 2010] QSR Magazine, (27January 2006) Dominos pizza delivery in 8000 store.(Accessed June 22, 2010) Dominos Delivered $2.8 Billion in Worldwide Sales Last Year. (Detroit News, March 26, 1997.) Dominos Truck Kills 2 En Route to Delivery, (Chaudhury, 1998 Nations Restaurant News, August 29, 1988.) (Accessed June 22, 2010) Hume, Scott, and Raymond Sera fin, Dominos Burned Up Over Pizza Hut Spot, Advertising Age, January 7, 1991. (Accessed June 22, 2010) Food information from http://www.recipepizza.com/the_history_of_dominos_pizza.htm Dominos Franchises information available http://www.dominos.uk.com/franchising/ Dominos Information available from http://www.domino-s-pizza-inc#cite_note-19 httpp://www.dominos.co.uk.

Moralirtys Fickle Mind :: social issues

Moralirty's Fickle Mind If someone were to ask what morality is, what would one say? Some may think of it as integrity and decency, and others may see it as honesty and candor. However, by contrasting what was moral, and immoral in the past, one can clearly see that people’s concept of morality changes over time. Under what circumstances that this conceptual change takes place, one may never know. What many believe is that morality and immorality together have shaped both thinking and society as a whole, as it continues to be the â€Å"guiding light† under many circumstances. One example of our morality-based society proves itself through history. Slavery lasted for over four hundred years. It is apparent that harsh treatment of this manner lasted for such a long period of time because this type of thinking was accepted during those times. Once it was clear that this type of treatment was wrong, many people’s attitudes (other than blacks) changed toward the treatment of African Americans, so it is clear that morality played a key role in the thinking process and the outcome of how one race dominated another and what the result was. However, one must also take into account the fact that the rich and powerful have major influences over way of life; this is apparent even though a democratic society. The general dominating of one people or race over another still lasts to this day, as it is clear through the Palestinian and Israeli conflict. Another example of how society has been shaped by morality and immorality is the fact that immorality drove pilgrims from an â€Å"immoral† monarchy and led them to create a â€Å"moral† type of government on their own. However, even though morality seems to lead society in a general good direction, such as taking down Hitler’s army, it does not always lead to the best outcome in many circumstances, such as the taking over of smaller countries by the US, or reinstating the death penalty. Even though this government was created from a lesser, worse government, morality still is taking a few turns to make it the best government possible with amendments and laws. A capitalist society may not always benefit us, together as a people, in all the best ways. But as one can see, it is still apparent that morality, even if it is the morality of the rich and powerful, shapes our way of living.

The Scottsboro Trials, Brown v. Mississippi, and trial of Tom Robinson

The Scottsboro Trials, Brown v. Mississippi, and trial of Tom Robinson in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird The purpose of this essay is to compare three very similar cases, the Scottsboro Trials, Brown v. Mississippi, and the fictional trial of Tom Robinson in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird; and to prove why the defendant of the third trial never had a chance. Each took place in the rural South in the 1920’s and 30’s and involved the unfair conviction of young black males by all-white juries pressured by the threat of mob violence. Each lacked the evidence sufficient for conviction, most especially for the death penalty. Last, heroes emerged from each trial and made small but solid steps towards equal justice for all. â€Å"ROOSEVELT IS ASKED TO INTERVENE TO PROTECT SCOTTSBORO NEGROES: Warning of 'Massacre' of Seven Prisoners and Their Lawyers at Decatur (Ala.) Court Today, Defense Counsel Wire President a Plea to Obtain State Troops† (Linder), reads a headline from the New York Times on November 20, 1933. The nine Scottsboro boys accused of rape and their attorneys were scared to death, but the government did not seem to acknowledge their danger. The article also mentions Patterson’s previous trial where â€Å"Circuit Judge Horton, presiding, took judicial notice of incipient mob action to lynch defendants and attorneys by ordering soldiers in open court to shoot if necessary to preserve the peace† (Linder). On March 25, 1931, Victoria Price, a known prostitute, and Ruby Bates accused nine Negroes of raping them on a train in Northern Alabama. The trial took place in Scottsboro, amid much anti-black sentiment. An all white jury sentenced eight of the nine to death, despite the fact that one was blind and one could... ... about an ordinary hero, someone who merely did his job, and stood up to adversity, despite the cost to his career, himself and his family. These should not have been exceptional tasks, but the society that surrounded them caused them to stand out. Guilty or innocent, the Negro man did not stand a chance in the Depression Era rural South. Works Cited Cortner, Richard C. A â€Å"Scottsboro† Case in Mississippi. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1986. Lee, Harper. To Kill A Mockingbird. New York: Time Warner, 1982. Linder, Douglas O. The Later Scottsboro Trials (1933-1937). 9 March 2002 To Kill a Mockingbird: Then and Now. 31 July 1997. Think Quest. 10 March 2002 The Scottsboro Trials, Brown v. Mississippi, and trial of Tom Robinson The Scottsboro Trials, Brown v. Mississippi, and trial of Tom Robinson in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird The purpose of this essay is to compare three very similar cases, the Scottsboro Trials, Brown v. Mississippi, and the fictional trial of Tom Robinson in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird; and to prove why the defendant of the third trial never had a chance. Each took place in the rural South in the 1920’s and 30’s and involved the unfair conviction of young black males by all-white juries pressured by the threat of mob violence. Each lacked the evidence sufficient for conviction, most especially for the death penalty. Last, heroes emerged from each trial and made small but solid steps towards equal justice for all. â€Å"ROOSEVELT IS ASKED TO INTERVENE TO PROTECT SCOTTSBORO NEGROES: Warning of 'Massacre' of Seven Prisoners and Their Lawyers at Decatur (Ala.) Court Today, Defense Counsel Wire President a Plea to Obtain State Troops† (Linder), reads a headline from the New York Times on November 20, 1933. The nine Scottsboro boys accused of rape and their attorneys were scared to death, but the government did not seem to acknowledge their danger. The article also mentions Patterson’s previous trial where â€Å"Circuit Judge Horton, presiding, took judicial notice of incipient mob action to lynch defendants and attorneys by ordering soldiers in open court to shoot if necessary to preserve the peace† (Linder). On March 25, 1931, Victoria Price, a known prostitute, and Ruby Bates accused nine Negroes of raping them on a train in Northern Alabama. The trial took place in Scottsboro, amid much anti-black sentiment. An all white jury sentenced eight of the nine to death, despite the fact that one was blind and one could... ... about an ordinary hero, someone who merely did his job, and stood up to adversity, despite the cost to his career, himself and his family. These should not have been exceptional tasks, but the society that surrounded them caused them to stand out. Guilty or innocent, the Negro man did not stand a chance in the Depression Era rural South. Works Cited Cortner, Richard C. A â€Å"Scottsboro† Case in Mississippi. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1986. Lee, Harper. To Kill A Mockingbird. New York: Time Warner, 1982. Linder, Douglas O. The Later Scottsboro Trials (1933-1937). 9 March 2002 To Kill a Mockingbird: Then and Now. 31 July 1997. Think Quest. 10 March 2002

Westye

The first part of the process of selection of an applications software package was to determine what Westye needed. Under this process, they sought to develop criteria for how business solutions companies would address their specific needs. Here, they outlined these through the creation of 160 issues related to Westye’s business processes. The second step included determining the specific small midmarket business solutions that can address Westye’s needs. In here, considerable attention was given by the company towards finding competent providers and was equally reduced to 27 companies who shall then be subjected interview and questioning. The third process that the company took was the selection process. Here, Westye based their choice in the capacity of small midmarket business solutions to address their needs. Given the specific criteria, the company was able to consolidate effective responses coming from Microsoft Business Solutions – Navisione and became the primary choice. The last part involved finding the necessary partner that can help address the issues and problems of Westye. Here, the choice of ICS Advantage revolved around the ability of the company to facilitate better means of integrating a collaborative long term strategy and relationship with Westye. Likewise, the company also sought a committed and driven partners who can fulfill the company’s needs accordingly. Analyzing the specific strategy employed by Westye, it could have improved its selection process if it had tried (1) to set specific standards for choices above the 160 criteria, (2) provided inputs on how the old MAPICS system can be integrated towards the recommended changes, and (3) considering long term strategies and options for employees. Seeing this, the value then of the first input corresponds to the capacity to examine further not only the technical and operational business schemes influencing Westye but also try to integrate it in the way people do business. By setting up these standards, vendors can then align their proposals to meet these realities accordingly. The second part corresponds to allowing Westye proper transition from its old system and incorporating them into the new one. This can help new participants to have a grasp of what the new system is and leverage increased costs in education and training of people. The last part corresponds to outlining how these new strategies impact the workforce in both education and application. By inducing opportunities to include feedback and reaction, it can help facilitate better means of transcending competency and ability to harness effective skills for operation and diversification of tasks by employees within Westye. (2) Analyzing the specific advantages of utilizing a package development, it revolves around (1) revamping the old MAPICS system, (2) effective support mechanism, (3) allows standardization of Westye’s processes and (4) infusing simple means to increase efficiency of production. Here, the first process takes into consideration deriving valuable opportunities for Westeye to address the loopholes and inefficiencies of the old MAPCIS system. By incorporating packaged software, it can veer away from the old system and incorporate new ones that can be synchronized with the companies needs. The second advantage is that technicians can effectively carry out repairs and updates of a packaged system compared to a customized one. Such directions also provides standardization of processes as the new software then incorporates actions by the workforce and takes into account key trends in a more facilitative and effective manner. Lastly, using the tools of a packaged software, it can help Westye align these to infuse efficiency in production and consolidate these with the goals of the company. On the other hand, specific disadvantages of a packaged system revolves around (1) associated costs, (2) lack of innovation, (3) issue of control, and (4) the issue of customization. In the first part, it considers the value of costs related to training employees once again with new processes and how to operate such packaged system. Another hurdle that packaged system can contribute is the lack of innovation wherein companies have the last say in the design and applications included in the design of the software package. The same can be seen with the issue of control. Though ICS provides Westye control over data and inputs, it limits the capacity of businesses to take into consideration establishing a user-interface that is efficient for their use or responsive to their needs. The last one revolves around the process of customization. Here, additional costs can be incurred if new changes and amendments may be undertaken by Westye in expanding its business processes and integrating new means for gathering data necessary for production. Seeing this, the idea of using a Navision package is more suited to the needs of the Westye group. Such analysis revolves around the need to revamp and change the old MAPICS system and consolidate better means of acquiring information in a more effective and efficient manner. By using a packaged solution, the company can cater towards creating better means to address the problem in a faster manner and take advantage of its comparative advantage over its competitors. Similarly, this decision can also align the company’s processes to what is essential to the needs of the company both in its short and long term strategies. (3) Responding to the advantages of Navision compared to ERP, they include (1) filtering inefficient processes, (2) consolidating data effectively, (3) incorporating new technological features, and (4) new structure to cater for the needs of Westye. The value of the first advantage corresponds to taking into consideration changing the loopholes and boundaries within the old MAPICS system and generating better means for analysis and acquisition of data. In the second part, Navision gives better means of consolidating data with its new framework and platform different from that of the old system. Alongside this is the associated new features wherein employees can take advantage of. By using these new technologies, it has developed effective means to cater the needs of Westye in terms of determining inputs and data necessary to transact and establish partnerships with clients. On the other hand, there are also associated disadvantages that Navision has over adding ERP modules which include (1) costs, (2) employee integration and education, (3) adjustments, and (4) value of time. One essential setback by the Navision involves the corresponding costs. Since the overall system shall be revamped, it takes into account changing the business processes. Alongside this are the new means of training personnel and employees of proper procedures and mechanisms necessary. Such then brings about adjustments and puts into the table the question of time in achieving specific goals and objectives. These then create necessary implications for the company especially in the short term as it may affect the overall productivity of the company during these times of adjustment and changes. Though there are indeed associated setbacks with the application of the Navision package, it can be seen that it has consolidated better means for Westye to expand and develop its business processes. By utilizing specific strategies related to determining loopholes in the previous system, it was able to create a new framework that supports the interests and goals of Westye. At the same time, by infusing these directions, the company can then legitimize its opportunities to create competitive advantage and standardize the dynamics related to finding the means to diversify business processes and generate increased productivity. (4) Analyzing the advantages of the customization scheme created by Navsion, they correspond to (1) wider company control, (2) taking into consideration competitive advantage, (3) access to real time data, and (4) consolidating to the needs of employees. In the first one, it caters to the formalization of how employees control the system. The customization process furthered this by giving opportunities for personnel to make important decisions concerning specific business processes. Such dynamic then provided the ability to establish competitive advantage as it opened up means to establish efficiency in decision making and harness the skills in responding to such. Alongside this direction, Westye was also able to provide effective access to trends and data necessary. Since they are heavily reliant in these, the customization process help employees fulfill their roles without having to sort and tabulate trends, hence easier transmission of data to clients. On the other hand, there are also associated negative reactions to such customization. These revolve around (1) re-training of employees, (2) hampering of production, (3) difficulty in establishing technical support, and (4) complexity in administering changes. In here, the customization process hampers employee’s responsibilities because they are given new training about the system and what they do. Such actions then hamper time and capacity to work at their optimal level and in turn hamper production. Another setback is that it creates difficulty in pointing out problems particularly if these processes remain intertwined and correlated with one another. The same can be seen with the application of changes within the system. Since it is designed to fit Westye’s needs, Navision may find it difficult to correlate including new features as it may need to be synchronized with other related processes. 5) Analyzing the point established by the case that Westye’s system provides ‘real-time data access’, it can be argued that it is the same with the term ‘online input’ plus ‘online processing’. Here the idea of real time corresponds to the actual input of data provided by a specific program or software wherein it analyzes specific trends and issues inputted by the user. Seeing this, such process then corresponds to ‘online input ’ plus ‘online processing’ for it utilizes specific measures in generating effective patterns of analysis and justifying its scope and value to whatever purpose it may seek to serve. Seeing this, the company indeed has ‘online input’ plus ‘online processing’. This can be seen in the manner of how the company adheres to its business processes. In here, the derivation and analysis of information remains crucial for the company to remain competitive. That is why it needs up-to-date information to give its clients so as to harness effective means in making crucial business decisions and Westye provides such information to them.

What’s Up with Pasta

What's Up With Pasta Q1: We need to understand and research why the Spaniards are spending relatively less on Pasta than its European neighbors. Current market research done by AEFPA offers insufficient data, so we need to improve data quality. The main goal is the get a clear demographic segmented market overview. One of the problems is that we cannot clearly identify the potential and current pasta consumers clearly – we simply do not know enough about of core target group. In addition we need insights on consumer behavior and habits as we do not know what drives the consumer decision when choosing pasta and when declining pasta.Another advantage of a broad market study would be that it would become clear if there are segments in the market currently not being explored. As a result we will be able to clearly identify the market entry barriers for pasta. According to our calculations (Appendix 1), there is an underutilized yearly market gap of EUR 87Mln. Given this significan t amount we find it justified to spend 0. 2% (Eur 175. 000) of the market gap initializing the market research plan, collect the data and conduct the analysis.Costs to marketing strategy, marketing planning and implementation are not included in this figure. We estimate the overall cost of the market research will be Eur 132. 800 Judging from informal discussions with contacts in Unilever and Kraft Foods, our estimate seems to be on the low side. Q2 – Methodology: We are interested in conducting both quantitative and qualitative research. In our opinion we need both elements to fully understand the market. This will allow us to better segment the market. Starting point of the quantitative research is the detailed quantitative research already done by AEFPA.The Geographical sales overview, distribution channels and sales pr. pasta type, must be investigated further. We suggest conducting a demographic segmentation overlay to this data, as the segmentation will serve us by divi ding a large population/sample into specific customer groups. We are opting for the demographical segmentation as we expect to receive a large amount of data that otherwise would not be feasible to analyze. Therefore, we cluster the information to make patterns of sub-groups visible and will enable to identify consumer profile and behaviors.We refer to this as top-down market research. The consumer behavior can only be partly captured in the demographic segmentation, so to ensure we have a bulky sample of data, we introduce a bottom-up process by initiating â€Å"Shopper Insights† research. â€Å"Shopper Insights† will in addition to bring to additional data on behavior also provide invaluable insights to the customer’s perception of pasta. The aim with â€Å"Shoppers Insight† is to passively monitor the customer’s behavior in the situation of purchase at point-of-buying to learn about the â€Å"conversion rate†.Unilever defines â€Å"Shopp ers Insight† as † focus on the process that takes place between that first thought the consumer has about purchasing an item, all the way through the selection of that item†. This is further underlined by practical examples from Kraft Foods Switzerland, who has provided access to their methodology to this group. We will be adopting the methods of â€Å"5 S’s† to conduct our â€Å"Shopper insights† research and conduct this across the difference distribution channels mentioned in the case.Detailed explanation in Appendix 2 By making use of both top-down and bottom-up quantitative research, we feel we have adequate data quality. However it is critical to maintain a satisfactory sample size. We assume our sample pool will be the entire Spanish population. There are many considerations when choosing a sampling size. We consider it a tradeoff between costs and sampling quality as there is a linear relationship between the sampling size and the cost. We estimate that the sampling size must be at least 384 people. See further details in appendix 3.To finish the research we introduce â€Å"Consumer Insight† which is a qualitative overlay. Personal interviews with customers will be done immediately after the consumer has been observed in the â€Å"Shoppers Insight†. The sample size when conducting qualitative research is less important as there is no need for statistical significance, so we will be highly selective when choosing participants. Actually we will aim to only interview the â€Å"High-Consumer† and â€Å"Non-consumer† segments found in the top-down demographic segmentation research.This will provide strong qualitative data for creating the marketing strategy and planning. These topics will not be discussed in this paper. Q3 – Implementation: As we want to build in the existing data from AEPFA, significantly more data collecting must be done. We would conduct a survey on a large sample, using these four variables: Age, life-cycle stage (the life cycle stage of a consumer group defines what will be the need of that particular customer), Gender and Income. In addition questions in pasta purchasing history and frequency would be asked.The questions will be designed so the answers can be directly comparable across the entire sample. This can be achieved by having a 1-5 scale designed on which the answers must fit one of the numbers. Example: Question: â€Å"How often do you eat pasta†, Possible answers: â€Å"1: Never, 2: ones a day, 3: ones a week, 4: ones a month, 5: ones a year†. By constructing all questions to fit such answer-schedule, we will be able to achieve statistical significance. The result will be a clear segmented group, where we can establish who are the current consumers (core buying segment) and non-consumers (core anti-buyers).We believe these segments should be targeted for further penetration. Next step we passively and discretely mo nitor the consumer at point-of-buying using the â€Å"5 S’s† approach (See appendix 2). We will be present in all the distribution channels mentioned. This can be done via video or via physical presents. It is paramount the customer is unaware she/he is being monitored as this potentially would influence the buying habits. The consumer segments found above – the consumer and non-consumer – will be specifically targeted in the monitoring. I. e. hen a consumer fits one of the segments, the monitoring will be initiated. We wish to focus on these segments due to costs, but could increase the sampling to all customers across all segments if budget would allow. As the quantitative research should not stand alone, we would initiate in-depth interviews with more open-ended questions to better grasp the motivation behind the choice made by the customer. Such questions could be â€Å"Why did you buy pasta†, â€Å"What type of pasta do you normally buy†, â€Å"why did you buy pasta instead of rice or potatoes. . For the non-consumers questions could be â€Å"Why do you choose rice/potatoes instead of pasta†, †Which pasta products are you missing in the shop† etc. We believe the quantitative and qualitative output of this extensive research plan, by identifying the two interesting segments and dwell into their motivations behind their choice, would form an excellent base for developing an effective market strategy and for creating an overall marketing strategy for Pasta in Spain. ? APPENDIX 1For the calculations of the market gap – difference in current and potential market – we have assumed the following: †¢Current year is 1990. †¢Potential year is 1992. Population has increased by 0. 6% from 1990 to 1992. †¢Euro/Pesetas exchange rate is 166. 386. (Official final fixing when Spain adopted the Euro) †¢Consumer behavior in terms of demand of the different pasta types is unchange d from 1990 – 1992 †¢Pasta price was inflated with 4% from 1990 – 1992. †¢Consumption of pasta rose 1 kg pr. Capita from 1990 – 1992 Pasta Market in 1990: Pasta Market in 1992: ? APPENDIX 2:The 5 S’s method is designed so marketers can observe a customer from entering point-of-buying (POB) to final transaction. The method works on two levels: 1. Consumer level; The consumer are monitored so we follow the target discreetly around the POB. We observe how the consumer Sees, Scans, Spot, Show interest and (potentially) Select the product we represent. This gives us valuable information as we can identifies were in the process we lose the customer (also call Fall-out). The conversation rate is computed as number of consumers selecting our product out of shoppers entering the POB.The net sales for a given company is highly sensitive to changes in conversation rate – Only a small increase in conversion will generate a (relative) large increase i n sales. 2. Store layout and the category placement in POB. We can observe the customers’ ability to find the product in POB; is the product visible to the consumer, where on the shelve is it placed, is it placed with complementary goods? or supplementary goods? After the research is concluded feedback will be delivered to POB to improve visibility if required. ? APPENDIX 3: We recognize the sample size of 1067 is a (very) rough estimate.We opted for an internet resource from Creative Research Systems as we decided to focus our resources on the research planning and method. The sample size is computed using: Confidence level: 95% Confidence Interval (margin of error) 5% Population 40’000’000 We believe these input factors are comparable with real-life statistical simulations. ? APPENDIX 4: As we require a specialized set of data and therefore need a specialized report, we assume such report must be order and bought directly at a Market Research company or instit ute under normal circumstances.As it is specialized we assume the price will be high, so budget with a one-time payment of EUR 75. 000. We have only very little foundation for making this estimate. It was the conclusion of a conversation between marketing executives on Linkedin. The bottom-up research will need to conduct 384 observations in order to fulfill to the minimum sample size requirement found in appendix 3. Based on information from marketing sources at Kraft Foods, we consider it realistic one market researcher can conduct 25 observations in one day. This results in 15. 3 days of work at an assumed daily rate of EUR 1000