Deceptive Accounting Essay

Fraud and corruption are a menace not only in the poverty stricken countries, but also in the developed world. The worldwide menace of malpractice attempts to defeat the value to globalization. In the globalized world of investors of the 21st century with its first transatlantic stock exchange, it is necessary to continue reforms to shake off abuses of power at the level of their roots. So, Daniel Quinn Mills, a professor at the Harvard Business School, writes Wheel, Deal, and Steal (2003) to express his belief that CEOs of imperial nature are continuing their practice of stealing from investors despite the hue and cry over the financial scandals of Worldcom, Tyco, and of course, Enron. The author claims that the rules that have been designed to protect the investors are failing time after time. Hence, Mills details wide-ranging reforms that are possible and should be designed in order to encourage transparency in financial work. Additionally, the author shows how investors should, after perusing his book, try to protect the leftovers from corrupt financial practices. Investors may even be able to use Mills’ advice in recovering their lost moneys. Wheel, Deal, and Steal claims that investors are being cheated at many different levels. The auditors and the CEOs may all be involved in financial fraud for a variety of reasons, the main one being that they all want to pocket greater earnings without sharing them with investors. Moreover, the rules of law and ethics do not seem to be doing a great job in controlling accounting fraud. There is a basic clash of interests between the investors and the corporations that the investors were meant to fundamentally trust for the protection of their particular interests, that is, to create more earnings for themselves through their investments. These conflict of is the concept of alienation put forth by Karl Marx. According to Mills, even the stock market crash had this conflict of interests at its core. It is not about the accounting scandals of recent times alone. Rather, the problem is deep rooted as it is a conflict of power and money. The CEOs try to pocket as much money as possible sometimes at the expense of the investors. Originally, however, shareholders were meant to be the owners of American enterprises, and the executives were to act as the agents of the investors. But now, executives are the only ones making fortunes for themselves and expanding their own power in the corporation. Investors, on the other hand, are left far behind in the process of business. Mills offers plenty of accounting information in his book that investors should want to understand in order to gain mastery over the accounting malpractice techniques that are used to give them losses in stead of the gains of ownership. While power had been shifted from the hands of the investors to the households of the executives, the executives and their auditors had been using â€Å"creative accounting† to defraud the investors. The techniques of â€Å"creative accounting† should be learned by the ordinary investor who may from now want to replace the all-powerful executive in favor of a team of managers that should work on behalf of the investors alone. Mills advises investors to take charge through his book by informing them that only they are the ones that seem to be staying behind. The attorneys, the auditors, and the investment banks are all involved in corporate fraud that is deliberately designed to give less to investors (who are generally greater in number). The parties sharing the greater profits by defrauding investors mainly seem to be the executives of investment banks, law firms, accounting firms, and the corporation itself. The author explains that the executives of big corporations have established compliance in their systems wherewith they do not only defraud their gullible and valuable investors without a sound from the latter; but they have also developed compliant teams of accountants and boards of directors. After devising financial malpractice, the executives â€Å"had to do deals that would look good in their financials and get approval from auditors and boards for misleading financial reports. Finally, they had to cash in their options before the frauds and other misrepresentations were discovered† (8). Mills reminds us that the CFO of WorldCom, Mr. Scot Sullivan; the CFO of Enron, Mr. Andrew Fastow; and the CFO of Tyco, Mark Swartz—all were smooth operators who had been given excellence awards by the CFO Magazine. Furthermore, Fortune Magazine had given awards to Enron for being the most admired company along with Citigroup. In addition, Enron had been lauded every year from 1996-2001 for high achievement in innovation. The executives seem to be fooling everybody. What is more, the author of Wheel, Deal, and Steal blames the Federal Reserve for harnessing Mr. Brooksley Born, the chief executive of the CFTO, by telling him to stay out of the business of derivates. Thus, everybody seems to have been involved in the creation of a financial scandal whenever it has happened. While some may formulate deficient laws and others may unwisely supervise the financial practices of a corporation, the entire system appears to be flawed. A comprehensive effort to eliminate the problem of corporate fraud is therefore needed on the part of the financial system as a whole, including the supervisors. Mills provides good insights into the functioning of both the Commodities Futures Trading Corporation and the Federal Reserve while offering his advice on the reform of the system. This book also is a reminder that the Internet bubble is over and the next bubble might be of hedge funds or the funds of hedge funds. Investors must be prepared for the next bubble with an increase in consciousness with respect to their precious moneys invested for greater earnings. Thus, the book is an essential read for investors who are ready to work for change. Mills advises that the government must be held responsible for punishing corrupt executives of various corporations. Besides, the good work of eliminating fraud must be continued given that democracies also accompany corruption at several levels, mostly having to do with the cream of supervisors or top management at accounting firms as well as regulatory agencies. The latter are responsible for making good regulations to check corporate fraud. However, investors must take charge to get regulatory agencies and the government as a whole involved in the process wherever the regulations and policies appear impotent. To increase the awareness of the investors and hopefully to push them to take action with regards to the regulation of their investments, Mill’s book answers the following question: There are many Americans now in the stock market, and if we are sufficiently upset about our losses, politicians and courts may act. Estimates are that the proportion of U. S. households that owned stocks or mutual funds has grown from 19% in 1983 to 49. 5% in 2002; and the proportion of single individuals who own stocks or mutual funds has grown from 42% in 1983 to 84% in 2002. If investors exert their potential influence, can we create a safer, more reliable, more honest America? (10).

All Quiet on the Western Front 15

All Quiet on the Western Front â€Å"The first bombs, the first explosion, burst into our hearts. † (Remarque 88) This is what the soldiers felt like in Erich Maria Remarque novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Baumer, a young man serving in the German army during World War One, is constantly being faced with the horrible and terrifying aspects of war. From seeing, his fellow soldiers lying dead on the battle field, to learning how to survive on the western front of the war.With his rifle by his side and his comrade’s right next to him, he knew what his job was to do in the war and that was to serve his country. Although Paul fought for his country in the War, Corrie Ten Boom a member of the Dutch reformed church was faced with the horrific scenes of seeing innocent Jews being put into Concentration Camps. Although, Paul enlisted inWorld War I to help his country and then realized what war really about, Corrie helped her country in World War II in a different way by helping the Jews hide in her house and even surviving a concentration camp herself .Paul Baumer and Corrie Ten Boom both had different influences and experiences before the start of the war. Paul was eager to join the war and wanted to what he could for his country and even Paul’s friend Katczinky said, â€Å"It would not be such a bad war if only one can get a little more sleep†(Remarque 2), this leads up to Paul’s friend volunteering for the war. Paul and his friends Leer, Muller and Kropp all enlisted in the war voluntarily â€Å"All four are nineteen years in age, and all four joined up from the same class as volunteers for the war .In the line we have had next to none, and fourteen days is a long time at one stretch† (Remarque 2). Propaganda also had a major part on influencing Paul Baumers to join the war â€Å"Enforced publicity has in our eyes restored the character of complete innocence to all these things† [war] (Remarque 8). Paul was also being pressured into joining the war by his teacher; a patriotic professor gave the students â€Å"long lectures until the whole of their class went, under his shepherding, to the district commandant and volunteered† (Remarque 11).His teacher always had the dream of transforming high school students into being a strong one’s self and he believed that joining the military was the way to do that and turning the students into strong â€Å"Iron Youth†(Remarque 19). Those who did not join the war would â€Å"have been ostracized †¦. but no one would ever stand out because at the time even one’s parents were ready with the word â€Å"coward†Ã¢â‚¬ (Remarque 11). The young students did not want to be thought of being disobedient to a higher authority because â€Å"the idea of authority†¦. as a greater insight and a more humane wisdom† (Remarque 12) and because of that Paul and the class volunteered their service in the war. Paul al so felt like it was his oneself duty to join the war and fight for his country because â€Å"We loved our country† (Remarque 13) and wanted to serve it† [the] duty to ones country is the greatest thing† (Remarque 13) Although, Paul wanted to serve his country on the war front Corrie Ten boom had a different start to World War II. Prior to the Holland’s involvement the country, was still at peace.Corrie Ten Booms family waited anxiously and gathered around the radio, for the Prime Minister of Holland’s announcement about the countries involvement in the war. On May 10th, 1940 at 9:30 P. M. , the announcement came through on the families radio the Prime minister announced there would be no war, and Holland would remain neutral. The voice stopped, and Corrie Ten Boom and her sister looked over at their father and saw a fire they had never seen before. Corries Ten Boom father said, â€Å"It is wrong to give people hope when there is no hope, there will be war.The Germans will attack and we will fall† ( Boom 78) Corrie Ten Boom felt that if father was so skilled at being optimistic, and so slow to believe in evil. Then there would be no other choice but war. Later that night, Corrie Ten Boom, sat right up in her bed because she heard bombs dropping outside her bedroom window and saw the sky turn a red-orange. The start of the war for Corrie Ten Boom is â€Å" The deepest Hell man can create† ( Moore 92) Corrie Ten Boom went to her sisters Tantes room and grabbed herself towards her sister, in the darkness and we threw our arms around each other and together said â€Å"war†.It was only five hours after the Prime Ministers speech. ( Boom 78-80). In the end, Paul Baumer and Corrie Ten Boom both got involved in the war but in a different way. Paul Baumers view on the World War I quickly changed; as he got more involved in the war, and his experience became abominable. The trench conditions that Paul and his comrades were living in got worse â€Å"I fling myself down and when I stand up the wall of the trench is plastered with smoking splinters, lumps of flesh, and bits of uniform† (Remarque 111).Paul’s physical conditions become worse and mentally it became a challenge â€Å"Night again. We are deadened by the strain-a deadly tension that scrapes along one’s spine like a gapped knife. Our legs refuse to move, our hands tremble, our bodies are thin skin stretched painfully†¦we have neither flesh nor muscle and longer† (Remarque 111). As the war continued to go on Paul began to lose feelings for his comrades who he cared so much for in the beginning â€Å"We [soldiers] have lost feeling for one another. We can hardly control ourselves†¦.We are insensible dead men through some dreadful trick are still able to run and kill† (Remarque 116). The soldier’s life now will forever be changed and will now be afraid of life because of what they have seen at war â€Å"I know nothing of life but despair, death, and fear. † (Remarque 263) Towards the end of the war, Paul’s Baumers view on the war had completely changed â€Å"We believe in such things but no longer do we believe in war† (Remarque 88). Although Paul Baumer served, his country on the war front Corrie Ten Boom served her country by saving hundreds of Jews lives.Corrie came from a family who were members of a Dutch reformed Christian church, which protested Nazi persecution of Jews as an injustice to fellow human beings and an affront to divine authority Holocaust encyclopedia. Corrie Ten Boom believed that God will lead her life and â€Å"We will never know how God will answer our prayers, but we can expect that he will get us involved in his plan†¦ (Moore 38). During the war, Corrie Ten Boom became involved in resistance efforts to hide the Jews.Family members would shelter young men sought by the Nazi, forced labor and assisted Jews in contact ing persons will to hide them. Corrie Ten Boom decided to get involved with the effort to help hide the Jews in her family home in Haarlem, Netherlands. Corrie Ten Boom was able to hide the Jews by using her job as a watchmaker in her father’s shop as a cover and building contacts with resistance workers. The hiding place was located behind a false wall in her bedroom at the top of the house was an area about two feet wide and eight feet long.The entrance to the hiding place was accessible by crawling through a wooden sliding panel at the back of the linen cupboard that was built into a false wall. When the German police come to Corrie’s Ten booms house on February 28, 1944 they did not find those in hiding, the hiding place had kept its secret however, the Ten Boom family was arrested and taken to the Scheveningan prison. Corrie described her feelings as she was being loaded into the van â€Å"In my heart was a great sense of peace. I had long expected this catastrop he.Now the blow had fallen†¦in my mind I kept telling myself Do not ever feel sorry for yourself† (Moore 102). In September 1944 Corrie was deported to the Ravensbruek concentration camp in Germany until her release in December 1944. After her release in 1944, Corrie traveled to America to tell her fascinating Story. Paul Baumer and Corrie Ten Boom both had some similar and different experience at the end of the war. For example, Paul describes the end of the war as â€Å"The cause of death like cancer and tuberculosis, like influenza and dysentery.The deaths are merely more frequent, more varied, and terrible† (Remarque 271). Paul Baulmer describes war as something were you see more death then you see survive. He admits that all war does is casue death, it’s like a sickness. Paul Baumers life will forever be changed. Corrie Ten Boom believed war was â€Å"The deepest Hell that Man Can Crete† (Moore 92) Both Paul Baumer and Corrie Ten Boom thought tha t war was a terrible and frightening event to go through. By the end of the novel Paul had become peaceful with himself â€Å"He [Paul] had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping†¦. is face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come† (Remarque 296). Corrie Ten Boom however, has to live on to tell her story about hiding the Jews and her survival in the concentration camps. She received an award for recognition from the Yad Vashem Remembrance Authority as one of the righteous among nations for her resistance in Nazi persecution and helping others hide from the Gestapo and risking her own life. â€Å"The tragedy of war is that it uses man's best to do man's worst† Henry Fosdick.When is war justified? The justification of war is when the country gains something from the war. War is still a horrific and terrible thing, and the country is killing thousands and millions of innocent civilian’s lives to save others. War can hav e a permanent scar on a soldier’s life and can change their lives forever. Going through the physical and mental pain of war just is not worth it. How can a country continue to go into war when there’s moms and dads loosing a husband or wife, daughters and sons losing a mom or dad.A soldier having the dream to, see their son or daughter grow up but not being able to because he or she shed his blood for his country.Bibliography Boom, Corrie Ten . The Hiding Place. N. p. : n. p. , n. d. 78-80. Print. â€Å"corrie ten boom. † ushmm. holocaust encyclopedia, 4 May 2009. Web. 10 Feb. 2010. . Moore, Pam Rosewell. Life Lessons from Corrie Ten Boom. Grand rapids: Chosen, n. d. Print. Remarque, Erich Maria. All quiet on the western front. New york: The random house publishing group, 1929. Print quotations about war. † quotations about war. N. p. , 9 Nov. 2009. Web. 14 Mar. 2010. .

Cultural and sporting events Essay

Cultural and sporting events both possess strengths in the area of promoting community within an environment. The atmosphere created by each is a key factor in the ability of these events to foster community spirit within a region. These activities also contribute to the building of communities in other areas, such as financial economic development. Yet, the ways in which these two types of events do this are vastly different. The exploration of these methods, the different atmospheres created, as well as their impact on the community will offer insight into the contribution that sporting and cultural events make to community and society as a whole. One of the major differences to be found between sporting and cultural events is in the dominant motive for the existence of each. Sporting events are generally driven by the profit motive, and as such are often spectator events. People come mainly to view the games and cheer for given teams. If however, such a team is doing badly on the regional or international scene, members of the community might lose interest in attending that particular event. The sense of community that arises as a result of sporting events is therefore vastly different from that which comes about as a result of a cultural event. During a sport event, supporters of two or more teams are usually present. This creates a strong divide between those who support one team and those who are in favour of its rival. The tension present between these teams, though usually kept under control, does have the potential to create hostility and thereby shatter the community spirit. However, where there is healthy rivalry present, community spirit can be promoted and solidified at the end of the event when respect for the victorious team is freely given by its rival and their supporters. Also, in such cases where an underdog team triumphs, newly found appreciation for that team has the potential of strengthening the ties between the different communities involved—locally, regionally and internationally. In contrast, cultural events are usually traditional and annual events with little tension derived from competition. They are not necessarily driven by the profit motive, and supporters are usually quite loyal in their attendance. Some examples of such cultural events are Independence Day functions (in some countries), coronation services, arts and theatre events such as ballets, symphonies, and oratorios. The community of attendants to such events usually exists in a much more relaxed state, and because of the common traditions that are usually the progenitors of such an event, the attendants at a cultural event are usually more inclined to agree, share, and talk about the occurrences at such events. They share and enjoy a common enjoyment as they experience similar emotions in conjunction with the events. The ability of cultural events to promote community can further be seen in such artistic and cultural projects that promote the lifestyle and origins of certain cultures that might have been marginalised in society. Aboriginal culture shows and other minority showcases have the potential of making visible certain aspects of ethnic/minority culture that might have been ignored in former times (Fraser, 2006). Members of the majority have the opportunity of showing interest in these cultural aspects of the lives of marginalised members of society, and this has the advantage of creating and solidifying relationships among different members of a diverse society. Sporting events also have the capacity to do this. Allowing diversity to infiltrate sporting events promotes social inclusion and a stronger sense of community. Because sporting events are primarily viewed events (as opposed to participatory events) the persons who form the teams have the opportunity to set an example of inclusion and tolerance and thereby promote such community-building practices in the wider regions to which spectators belong. In the final analysis, it might appear that the cultural activities and events do a bit more than sporting events to promote community, as they offer very little occasion for rivalry. However, the ability of sporting events to promote community through inclusion and the potential for increased respect should not be overlooked. Reference Fraser, J. (2006). â€Å"Indigenous artistes at the Woodford Folk. † Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Online. Retrieved on January 21, 2007 from http://www. abc. net. au/message/blackarts/culture/s1658207. htm

How tea party could drive GOP to disaster Article

How tea party could drive GOP to disaster - Article Example On the other hand, Romney could get nominated and he could lose the election which would trigger the tea party Republicans to push for a more conservative candidate in the 2016 election. This in turn would trigger a massive party debacle in itself. Another possibility is that a tea party Republican would get nominated but would lose the election. This would mean that the Republican Party would lose an election merely to get the â€Å"tea party† out of its system. In itself this would represent a large loss to the Republicans. The last possibility could be that a tea party Republican is nominated and he wins the election which though remote but could still be possible. The weak state of the economy and support for Rick Perry, Governor of Texas would produce a candidate and motive for voting. If a tea party Republican does come to the front, there is an overwhelming possibility that American will suffer from their conservative and unrealistic agenda. The tea party government may trigger both a political and an economic crisis if elected. The greatest chance is for possibility three while possibility one would be a good choice that no one is really looking for

Employment laws Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Employment laws - Research Paper Example Some of the labor laws associated with health care establishments are covered by the Federal laws, while many other legal rules and provisions come within the scope of State laws. Many states, including North Carolina have passed laws pertaining to individual rights, employment and healthcare (North Carolina Department of Labor, 2012). Some of the health care employment provisions covered by the State laws include hours and wages, certifications and registration, child care laws, professional licensing, health insurance and employment associated training for health care professionals (North Carolina Department of Labor, 2012). All health care workers with specialized training and skills, including doctors, technicians and nurses are mostly covered by the Federal and State labor laws. Some of the states like Wisconsin have gone one step forward to enact laws that safeguard the health care professionals from retaliation in case they turn out to be whistle blowers regarding any violatio n of standards or ethics in a health care institution. In addition to the Federal and State provisions, there are many counties and municipalities that have passed laws covering wages, work hours, safety standards and employee-employer rights. In that context, it will be really interesting to delve on some of the salient labor laws that a VP of Human Resource in a health care establishment needs to be conversant with. This endeavor will primarily involve the labor laws coming within the scope of Federal and State jurisdiction. The Fair Labor Standards Act pertaining to wages and hours sets up the standards for wages and overtime pay that are to be subscribed by varied public and private healthcare organizations (United States Department of Labor, 2012). It is the Wage and Hour Division which is primarily accountable to manage the provisions of this act. This law tends to govern the minimum wages and the overtime wages paid to the workers

Barclays CoCo Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Barclays CoCo - Essay Example instrument, debt is reduced, and it qualifies as a Tier 1 capital increasing the book value of the bank’s equity capital before the occurrence of the trigger event. When a CoCo triggers, there are two things involved; the losses involved are absorbed by the CoCo either by suffering a principal write-down or by transforming into common equity. In the case of principal write-down, the bonds are written down to equity that matches the extent of liabilities released thus generating exceptional gains that are allocated to the bank’s retained earnings (Stefan, Anastasia & Bilyana, 2013). In cases where the CoCo is convertible, when a trigger is met, the bond automatically converts to common stock as a prearranged percentage. As the CoCo bond market unceasingly grows, investors are exposed to various risks and rewards. One of the appalling risks faced by investors in CoCos is the systematic risk. The CoCos market is vulnerable. A conversion or coupon deferral may soon occur causing a fall in price upto 9% and a significant drop in conversion circa -15%. This could put CoCo holders in a worst/unfortunate position than shareholders (Stefan, Anastasia & Bilyana, 2013). Moreover, there exists information asymmetry in the CoCos market where investors have little knowledge regarding the operation of the CoCos while the issuers are fully aware of their credit fundamentals. For instance, the PONV (point of non-viability) as a language has been hard for many investors to comprehend thus upsurging the risks of them losing their cash by investing in unfeasible CoCos. According to Stefan, Anastasia and Bilyana (2013), this coupled with the complexity of CoCos, and the flawed CoCo rating methodologies presents a majo r risk to investors and might lead to unfathomable losses. Nevertheless, CoCos are rewarding as they provide a high yield of 4.5%-10% that is better than the average yield of circa 4.2% for high yield sectors in the U.K (Chorafas,  2015). These high returns continue

Case10 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Case10 - Assignment Example Various marketing concepts such as the 4 P’s i.e. pricing, products, place and promotion shall be discussed in this report: It shall focus on how these concepts are presented in the article and how other external sources dwell with this issue. Consequently, the analysis shall focus on provision of a conclusion that basically describes the writer’s understanding of the lessons learned from the article as well as other external sources that delve on issues ascribed to the information indicated in the article. Additionally, the conclusion section will explicate various recommendations; specifically indicating way forward on challenges faced in marketing activities. The article begins by describing a scenario of a certain client, Mr. Richard Garber relates with car higher company, Hertz Car Hire Company. He is described as a loyal customer to the company for over a long period of time. However, he is currently re-thinking on whether to divert his loyalty to another company owing to the current challenges he is facing with Hertz. In addition, the article provides various reasons why the company is currently experiencing challenges with its clients. It asserts that many companies are currently facing operational challenges due to the economic recession that has affected many large business enterprises; hence reducing their overall level of profitability. It is apparent that the article is an economic situational analysis; providing various issues that may affect the overall performance of companies for instance: In the article, economic recession that has affected the success of many companies, is identified as the reason that has affected the relationship between Hertz Company and Mr. Garber. The article attributes this issue to the fact that the Hertz Company has laid-off many of its workers even those who facilitate

Strategic Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Strategic Analysis - Essay Example ectives. With this concern, the major opportunities and threats that are likely to be faced by Zarraffa’s Coffee owing to the prevailing macro environmental factors have also been illustrated in the report. In addition, the discussion of this report will also focused on analyzing the firm’s internal environment including its key resources or competencies that could provide adequate benefits for Zarraffa’s to achieve competitive advantage in the retail coffee and beverages industry. In relation to preparing the report, qualitative methodology has been used. Majority of the information related to the preparation of the report has been gathered from secondary sources such as scholarly articles, governmental report and company website among others. Zarraffa’s is an Australian based coffee retailer and beverage company which was founded by Kenton Campbell in the year 1996. The company is also known as one of the fastest growing franchised coffee retailers acros s the world. Currently, the organization operates around 50 coffee retail franchised stores across the different locations within Australia (Zarraffa’s Coffee, 2013). Macro Environment Analysis The macro environmental factors are the most crucial aspects that highly influence the management as well as operational performances of the organization. In relation to the macro environmental factors of Zarraffa’s, PESTEL model has been utilized with respect to clearly identify the potential opportunities and threats for Zarraffa’s in the Australian market. PESTEL Model Political Factors Political factors can have a major bearing upon a business organization to efficiently coordinate its number of vital operations. These factors can create a positive impact upon an organization’s business in terms of making its operations smoother, however political disturbances and imbalances, unrelenting governmental regulations can also provide obstructions for a business to o perate efficiently within a nation. In relation to Zarraffa’s, the company tends to offer its range of coffee products and beverages in various regions in Australia complying with adequate political guidelines of the nation. The company focuses towards abiding by diverse regulations as well as guiding principles of the governmental institutions in terms of practicing its business operations within Australia. Thus, this factor can be quite crucial for the organization in its endeavor to make internal presence as different nations have diverse business operational guidelines, which are quite crucial for a new business entity to ensure positive political or governmental influence and support. Economic Factors In relation to economic influences, Australia is one of the fastest growing nations in terms of making a stable economic position by increasing its annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth and other macro-economic factors (Australian Trade Commission, 2012). In relation t o the industrial scenario, it is observed that coffee is regarded as the most favored hot drink in the nation. A

Your task is to write a mid-length research paper Essay

Your task is to write a mid-length research paper - Essay Example This essay will analyze fossil fuels from an ethical perspective. In addition, the essay explores how different ethical approaches would handle the topic. The impacts of fossils fuels on the environment are well known. Fossil fuels have been identified as the leading cause of fossil fuels. Despite the availability of alternative sources of energy such as solar, wind, geothermal, and nuclear energy, the question of fossil fuels persist. In addition, the cost of different oil based products and fuels such as gasoline, diesels, and lubricants have increased dramatically. This has resulted from increased cost of production and increasing demand. Despite these drawbacks, more and more wells are being sunk as pipelines to transport the commodity are being built. Moreover, car manufactures have been in full operation in their attempt to meet the demand. Global warming remains the main threat in the modern world. If the predictions on global warming are true, then the world would became inhabitable in the near future. It is our moral obligation to protect the globe as the home for humankind. The responsibilities of governments and policy makers remain as the main ethical issues into the matter. Indeed governments and policy makers are responsible for the well fare of the society. Moreover, government and policy makers should make policies that ensure long-term sustainability of the planet and humanity. This indicates the need to separate politics from environmental issues. In this case, governments and other policy makers are expected to make laws or policies that will ensure the long-term sustainability of the planet. The future of fossil fuels is a controversial issue and, hence the need for a detailed analyses. Ethical concerns on the topic should place the way forward concerning the continued use of fossil fuels. Firstly, the role of fossil fossils in global warming is an issue of concern in the modern

Assesing the Curriculum for Special Education Essay Example for Free

Assesing the Curriculum for Special Education Essay School can be particularly challenging for children with special needs, including those with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD, who often experience poor academic performance, behavior problems, and difficulties with social interaction. The situation can be further complicated by the fact that there is no typical, predictable classroom style common to all children with special needs, for that matter. It can also be hard for parents to tell how much of any problem identified by a teacher falls into the normal range of a child development, for example how much is due to ADHD, and how much is due to coexisting problem such as learning disability, anxiety disorder, or disruptive behavior and others. Add to this fact that the public school system here in the Philippines may not have Individualized Education Program (IEP) that will meet the needs of these special children. In this study, the researcher will use different basic methods of assessing special education curriculum how it may be integrated into the mainstream or general education particularly in the Philippine public school system, without compromising quality of education. Objectives of the Study The objectives of this research proposal are a) to assess the basic curriculum of special education; b) to identify the positive and negative effect of the integration of such curriculum with the general education in the mainstream classroom and c) to identify effective classroom and teaching styles of special education. Statement of the Problem So many parents who have a child with special needs, particularly ADHD, have a dilemma when it comes to placing their children in public school system in the Philippines, since they are not included in the public school curriculum. And most public school teachers, if not some, may not be fully aware of the special needs of a child with ADHD and for that matter, does not have special skills in dealing with such students. Only special schools or some private schools deal with special children or include special education in their general education curriculum. On November 2005, my six-year old daughter was diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Since she was moving up to first grade, sending her to a public school was practical and a good choice, yet doubtful that the public school system has educational intervention for children with special needs like her, within the mainstream classroom setting. Her developmental pediatrician suggested for a behavioral therapy and tutorial through a SPED School, for that matter but it was important for my child to interact with children her age in a normal classroom setting, so the plan did not push through. . Scope and Limitation The Department of Education often stresses the need for a good public education which is free and accessible to every child in the country, including children with special needs, particularly those with Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who came from all levels of society. It is therefore important to assess and evaluate special education curriculum to see if it can be integrated in the mainstream classroom. The special education evaluation process requires the school district to assess the student in all areas related to the suspected disability as well as conducting a comprehensive educational assessment for integration to happen in a normal classroom. Most educators believe that children with disabilities and nondisabled children should be taught together whenever possible. Isolating children with disabilities may lower their self-esteem and may reduce their ability to deal with other people. The practice of integrating children with disabilities into regular school programs is called mainstreaming, or inclusion. Students with disabilities attend special classrooms or schools only if their need for very specialized services makes mainstreaming impossible. Many children with disabilities attend regular classes most of the school day: They work with a specially trained teacher for part of each day to improve specific skills. These sessions may be held in a classroom  called a resource room, which may be equipped with such materials as Braille typewriters and relief maps for blind students. Other students with disabilities attend special classes most of the day but join the rest of the children for certain activities. For example, students with mental retardation (MR) may join other children who do not have MR for art and physical education. Although the place where instruction occurs (the setting) is seen as important in the field of special education, the types of curricular modifications and interventions may be a more important area to focus on in the future. Hypothesis This research is important in giving helpful ideas in relation to a child with special needs, especially with ADHD, and the effect of learnings he will get, especially in the public school setting, which gives free education to all. This research will help foster a child’s academic and social success in school through a good curriculum designed specifically for his needs, by assessing general education curriculum through the Curriculum-based evaluation and other related tools for assessment and evaluation. This research will deal on the questions: 1. What type of school-related challenges children face most often? 2. How effective is the special education curriculum to children with special needs and what areas need improvement? 3. Which classroom structures, teachings styles and accommodations can best support the child’s learning? 4. How can the integration affect the mainstream classroom? CHAPTER II Related Literature Blankenship, C. S. , (1985). Using curriculum-based assessment data to make instructional decisions. Exceptional Children, 52, 233-238. This article is part of a special issue of Exceptional Children devoted to Curriculum-Based Assessment. Blankenship describes the essential features of CBA and provides suggestions for development. She places a special emphasis on describing how teachers can use CBA for curriculum placement, materials, and instructional procedures. CBA and CBM Compare and Contrast www. teacherstoolkit. com/classroom1. htm CBA and CBM are compared and contrasted on this Web site. This is a good site for educators who are new to Curriculum-Based Evaluation as basic differences between CBA and CBM are described. A few articles and books are referenced. CBA Techniques www. johnvenn. com/assessment. htm The author of this site, John Venn, is a professor of education at the University of North Florida and is a good resource for teachers who are interested in implementing CBA in their classrooms. Venn lists in-class assessment and alternative grading strategies. He stresses how CBA techniques are quick, easy and that any teacher can use them. Deno, S. L. , (1985). Curriculum-based measurement: the emerging alternative. Exceptional Children, 52(3), 219-232. Deno introduces CBM as an alternative assessment approach that is both valid and reliable. He discusses the advantages and disadvantages of informal observation and also standardized commercial achievement tests. Dizon, Edilberto I. , Ed. D. An Article: Educational Intervention for Children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. UP College of Education, 1998. This article discusses the priorities and guidelines in teaching children with ADHD. The author discussed how to assess the classroom that would enable teachers to decide on appropriate placement and design a customized educational program for the child, even at a mainstream classroom. He also talked about structure within in the classroom, its organization of chairs and tables and seating arrangements and the workspace for the child. It is also important to assess the curriculum and its contents. To make sure that there is provision of task-analyzing for the different skills of the child, to adopt anticipatory teaching and guidance which emphasize foresight and preventive intervention. Supervisors should be able to assess if teachers are able to focus on processes as much as outcome in their teaching and are able implement good behavioral management inside the classroom. Hall, T. , Mengel, M. (2002). Curriculum-based evaluations. Wakefield, MA: National Center on Accessing the General Curriculum. Retrieved [3/22/2008] from http://www. cast. org/publications/ncac/ncac_curriculumbe. html This publication includes discussions on academic assessment, which is a long-standing tradition in education. Assessment usually involves measurement of student progress for the purpose of informing. One level of informing is identification or eligibility decision-making, a second level is that of informing instruction. Traditional assessment instruments have limitations which restrict their application for instructional program planning. It also introduces alternative assessment procedures appearing in educational literature in the last 20 years are Curriculum-Based Evaluations (CBE). Whereas standardized commercial achievement tests measure broad curriculum areas and/or skills, CBE measures specific skills that are presently being taught in the classroom, usually in basic skills. It further states that assessment usually involves measurement of student progress for the purpose of informing. The author reviewed the beginning of CBE, wherein many of its systems had their beginnings in the special education domain. In some cases, research began specifically in the self-contained special education classroom. In others, the roots of the measurement system sprang from the desire to most appropriately integrate students with disabilities into the general education classroom. The tools described here under the name of Curriculum-Based Evaluations all had important roles and made contributions in research and practice in the general education class. Peters, Helen. An Article: Understanding and Educating Children with ADHD. Winston Churchill Fellow. 1998 This article was written as an overview in educating children with ADHD. The author describes children with ADHD and how to identify these children at the early years. She discussed about the rules in assessing ADHD. In classroom assessment, the author came up with four important questions in order for a teacher to have an effective classroom management. Understanding the different learning styles for special children was also discussed in this article. A series of questions were asked when thinking how to support the learning needs of the ADHD child was also included in this paper. The author also mentioned the school’s response to academic failure and the importance of visual display of lessons. Reiff, Michael I. , Tippins, Sherill, (2004). The American Academy of Pediatrics: ADHD: A Complete and Authoritative Guide. Your Child at School, 155-193. American Academy of Pediatrics. This book will help readers apply the most current evidence-based and best-practice approaches for finding solutions for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Many important topics are addressed in this book including the advice on management techniques for school and home. In the chapter Your Child at School, readers will learn the type of school-related challenges children with ADHD face most often, the classroom structures, school policies, teaching styles and accommodations that can be beneficial for child with ADHD learns and how to individualized education program can work with a child, his teachers and even his pediatrician. CHAPTER III Methodology and Procedure 1. Conduct a literature review on special education curriculum and the public education system in the Philippines. 2. Observe a special education class for 1 hour everyday, for one week, focusing mostly on the curriculum, classroom and behavioral management and teacher’s skills, using the CBE Curriculum-Based Evaluations are best defined by Deno (1987) as any set of measurement procedures that use direct observation and recording of a student’s performance in a local curriculum as a basis for gathering information to make instructional decisions (in Shinn, 1989; p. 62): †¢ 3. Interview a public school superintendent/principal and teachers to attempt to gather reactions on the integration of special education curriculum into the general education system. The following questions will be: †¢ a. What is the general curriculum in the regular classroom? †¢ b. What are the aids, services or changes to the educational program that would help the child learn and achieve? †¢ c. What do you think are your strategies to help the child with behavior, if behavior is an issue? †¢ d. How can your student with special needs be involved and progress in the general curriculum? †¢ e. How can your student participate in extracurricular and other activities? and †¢ f. How can he/she be educated with other children, both with and without disabilities? 4. Interview a special education supervisor and teachers to attempt to gather reactions on the integration of special education curriculum into the general education system. While the interviews will not be formal or structured, the kinds of questions I will ask include the following: a. What type of school-related challenges children face most often? b. How effective is the special education curriculum to children with special needs and what areas need improvement? c. Which classroom structures, teachings styles and accommodations can best support the child’s learning? d. How can the integration affect the mainstream classroom? 5. Write a research report that combines my understanding of the special education issue and previous research with the results of my empirical research. [pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic]

Hotel Arts Barcelona Placement Cultural Studies Essay

Hotel Arts Barcelona Placement Cultural Studies Essay I really wanted to go to a Spanish speaking country, because it is my second language at school but also because I really want to discover the Spanish culture. Especially Barcelona attracted me a lot because I heard a lot of good things about this city. I have been to Madrid a couple of times but my perception of Barcelona was way different. Barcelona has a couple of things which attract me very much: the architecture, the climate and the football club. The department I was working in was the Guest Service Department and sometimes in the FB (bartender). I had several duties, some of these responsibilities were welcoming the new guests, taking care of the luggage of the guests, parking the cars of our guests, calling taxis for the guests, explain the directions to the guests and giving recommendations to the guests about restaurants and clubs. The  Hotel Arts Barcelona  is a 44-story, 482 room luxury  hotel  on the seafront of  Barcelona, in  Spain. A lot of people believe the hotel was build to service the 1992 Summer Olympics but actually it wasnt. Although the construction of the hotel was part of the big changes underwent by the city to prepare the Games, the hotel wasnt made for the Olympics. Hotel Arts is one of the citys leading hotels. The construction of the hotel was fully finished in 1994. It was designed by  Skidmore, Owings Merrill  and is 154 meters tall. Its one of the few skyscrapers that Barcelona has. The hotel underwent a total renovation in 2006, they installed new technology and upgraded the guestrooms and the bathrooms into modern, luxurious spaces to the standards of a 5 star hotel. A vision is an almost impossible dream and a mission is a written statement of the purpose of a company or organization. The mission statement guides the actions of the organization, it sets its overall goal and it guides decision making for every level of management. Its the direction for the company for within at least five years. Their vision is to provide the finest personal service and facilities, for their guest who will always enjoy a warm relaxed yet refined ambience. If you see this sentence you can conclude that its almost impossible. Their mission is to instill the well-being and fulfill even the unexpressed wishes and needs of their guests. 2.2.3 Mission Statement in practice The mission statement is definitely reflected in my department. Every morning we had a briefing about all the things that happened with out guests, good and bad things. So for example when it was someones birthday, everyone of our department kept that in mind so when someone came across the guest he congratulated him and gave him a little present. That is an example of fulfilling the unexpressed wishes of the guests. Every morning we also had a value of the day. Which was one of the 11 service values. For example: I own and immediately resolve guest problems. 2.3 Market segments 2.3.1 What market segment(s) does your hotel focus on? Hotel Arts Barcelona can be put in the luxury segment. They aim for well fortuned guests who are willing to spend from 400 up to 10.0000 euro per night. They make use of demographic segmentation because when you divide the market on a demographic base you get groups like: age, gender, life-cycle, occupation, race, income, education, religion and nationality. Hotel Arts has a mix of business guests and leisure guests. In the summer time its mostly leisure but trough the whole year there are big conventions being held in the meeting rooms. 2.3.2 Characteristics As I explained in the previous sub-title, there are different characteristics of demographic segmentation; age, gender, race, life-cycle, occupation, income, education, nationality. Hotel Arts is focusing on the upper-income guests and business guests. If you compare the demographic characteristics with other types of segmentation you will get the following things. When you look at the psychographic segment you can find a relation with the demographic segment. In the psychographic segment they are focusing on the social class, lifestyle and personality. When we talk about the targeted social class for the hotel, its the upper-level. If you look at the products the hotel is offering like, like. With geographic segmentation, they focus on geographic variables like: countries nations, states, and cities. Ritz Carlton is a brand that is known all over the world, thats why its not necessary to adapt to geographic variables because it doesnt matter. The mission statement does reflect on the market segment where Hotel Arts focuses on because the guests want to be treated like a king because they are used to a certain luxury standard. They say in their mission statement that the genuine care and comfort of their guest is their highest mission and that they pledge to provide the finest personal service and facilities, and those things are exactly what the luxury guest wants. When I started with working they let me walk with a colleague who showed me everything in my department. The first day was just looking, I didnt do anything but observing my colleagues. In my department we didnt have SOPs because the department itself was new. We did have standard procedures of working but it wasnt written down on paper. When a guest arrived we had a certain operating procedure. The cab with the guests came driven to our main door. One of my colleagues opened the trunk and took the luggage out. He told me trough a little microphone the name that was on the tag of the luggage and I opened the door of the cab and greeted the guest with the name that was given to me trough my earpiece. We first asked how their trip was to Hotel Arts and after that we asked if the guest wanted us to take care of the luggage. If yes we gave the guest one half of an orange ticket with a number on it and the other half we put on the luggage. It was an amazing system and it gave the guest mo re than just a warm welcome. We exceeded the expectations of the guest from the beginning by saying their name when opening the door of the cab. My managers were kind and open-minded, one came from Brazil and the other one from Belgium. They were natural leaders because they never acted like they were the boss or the manager but you always knew that you didnt want to disappoint them. They had a lot of conversations with the employees. If they had the feeling that there was a problem they always invited you for conversation. They asked a lot about how things where going personally and that was really nice. Because its good that your manager supports you and cares about you. We always had a group meeting 10 minutes before starting the shift and we always had a evaluation about the day after the shift. They also give you the room to improve yourself by giving you several responsibilities. For example after the first month I got the responsibility of welcoming the and taking care of the luggage of the band Coldplay. It took me a lot of planning and off course a little stress but it was nice to know that my manager had trust in me . One thing that I very much appreciated was the fact that my supervisor had arranged a Spanish class for me and a couple of my other foreign colleagues. I dont have the feeling that there are a lot of thing to improve for my managers. They were very talented and as a matter of fact when I left the hotel they got a promotion as Rooms Division managers 3.1.4 Guest Satisfaction When guests checked out they were asked to fill in an questionnaire with a few question about every department. Sometimes people got a phone call after there stay. Every month we got a report back about the answers that were given by the guests; this is called: the Gallup Report. Customer feedback is obviously an important part of the improvement process. Simon Cooper, president and chief operating officer, states, When it comes to customers, feelings are facts. The Ritz-Carlton deploys multiple methods to capture the customer experience, such as comment cards and a follow-up survey call from Gallup to guests after their stay. In addition, the staff discreetly look, listen, and ask for feedback during transactions and moments of truth to build upon the Ritz-Carlton knowledge-management system. In addition, theres a follow-up survey conducted by Gallup, which provides third-party validation. Finally, mystery shoppers circulate though the various properties to critique the processes.  [5]   3.1.5 Problems, complaints and solutions We had to take care of that the luggage went into the right room, which was sometimes a lot of work because of the arrivals of big groups (100 people at the same time). We made a sheet with all of the guests names and room numbers and after that we tagged all the luggage and made sure it was brought up. We had to take care of the parking as well, sometimes it was a problem for us because we had to park guests their cars but at the same time other guests wanted us to retrieve their cars. What we did to make sure it wouldnt be to busy with the parking we always asked if the guests were using their car during their stay. If not, we put them down in the big garage, if yes, we parked the cars in front of the hotel. Barcelona has a big problem with pick pocketing, because we where the first employees to come across when guests came back to the hotel, we were the first to listen to the problem. We had to send the guests to the concierge because he dealt with these problems but we always had the responsibility to follow up on the guest if we would come across him/her. We didnt have a point of sales system in my department because were werent selling anything, we were just providing service. I know from the times that I helped as a bartender we had Micros which was linked to the Opera system of the whole hotel. On Opera you could find everything of the guests. You could see what their preferences are in terms of their coffee, their newspaper and so on. With this knowledge we created a thing which was called Mystique. This is accomplished by having the empathy to know what thrills guests and how the staff can make the visit memorable. This is accomplished in conversations with guests and by maintaining a knowledge-management system that records the preferences of every guest. These preferences were all saved on Opera and it is accessible for Ritz Carlton employees all around the world. Maybe its a favorite magazine or wine, or dessert, or cappuccino. Whatever the case, employees know how to surprise the guests, which leads to strengthening the relat ionships with them. I have to make sure that all the employees are good ambassadors of the hotel, we must give arriving guests a warm welcome and a fond farewell. We can either make or break a holiday from the start and at the end. For example if people leave the hotel and nobody can order a taxi for them or help them with the luggage they will leave with a bad feeling. My responsibility is also to give my employees, like you for example, a warm welcome as well and to help you with problems. Welcoming the guests is a really strong point. We use a special system for this. The cab with the guests comes driven to our main door. One of my employees opens the trunk and takes the luggage out. He tells the doorman trough a little microphone the name that is on the tag of the luggage and the doorman opens the door of the cab and greets the guest with the name that was given to him trough his earpiece. We first ask how their trip was to Hotel Arts and after that we ask if the guest wants us to take care of the luggage. It is an amazing system and it gives the guest more than just a warm welcome. Simon Cooper, president and chief operating officer, states, When it comes to customers, feelings are facts. The Ritz-Carlton deploys multiple methods to capture the customer experience, such as comment cards and a follow-up survey call from Gallup to guests after their stay. In addition, the staff discreetly look, listen, and ask for feedback during transactions and moments of truth to build upon the Ritz-Carlton knowledge-management system. In addition, theres a follow-up survey conducted by Gallup, which provides third-party validation. Finally, mystery shoppers circulate though the various properties to critique the processes.  [6]   I think these are good performance indicators because if they say that they got noticed and helped immediately when they arrived it says a lot about giving a warm welcome. When they say the time of waiting for a taxi it says a lot about how fast people were getting helped. If their named was used when they left you can say that they got a fond farewell. Because every department gives its own specific service, and ours is welcoming guests, anticipate on needs of guests and giving guest a farewell, its good to be judged on specific indicators about our own department. If we score high and fits with our mission statement of giving the finest service to our guests. Because the hotel was situated in a an area where a lot of restaurants and nightclubs are, there were always people around the hotel. We always had a line of taxis right next to the hotel who were especially for our guests. If people from a restaurant from nearby came to our entrance and asked for a taxi we werent allowed to help him. We had to deal with that a lot. One day I started at seven in the morning and 10 minutes after I started a young man came to me. He got pick pocketed by a criminal gang, he lost his mobile phone and his wallet. He asked me to let him call with the hotels phone at the entrance but he was not a guest. If you look at this trough the JUSTICE way I couldnt let him make use of the phone because he was not a guest. Above that, the young man looked like he had drank to much. But if you look at this trough the CARE way, even though the guy had drank some alcohol he was really calm and friendly. On the other hand he was also really desperate because he couldnt ca ll for help. I could see the sadness in his eyes and because he asked me this in such a friendly way I decided to help him and let him make one quick call with the phone of the hotel.

The Online Reservation Systems Computer Science Essay

The Online Reservation Systems Computer Science Essay The literature review phase is the one of the main stage that we need to focus on, so far the stage explains the main aims of the system and how the system is going to operate and the benefit of the system over environment. Firstly, Travel agent hotel suppliers will have way in to the travel agent extranet system to load room rates and allotments, instead of keeping rate and allotment contract manually. The travel agency application system is an online system that which let customers to make their reservation comfortably from anywhere. Thats All customers should be able to way in the agency services information 24 hours a day. Because of the rapid spread of the internet, the hotel adopted a reservation system that is a powerful factor to gain new sales. The travel agency began to present their own on-line reservation system. The travel agency gived some hotel with reservation systems that will normally liked to the various programs and special offers which adds to their ability to capture the travel and leisure market. These are some plan that the online travel agencies and travel agents cannot achieve because of the limitation in their services. However, this system also feels drawbacks. Most of the hotel sites do not allow for easy price comparison, some will only book reservations on the hotel which have the site. (Kearney Robinson, 2004). 2.3 Why online reservation system As a commercial medium, the Web offers a number of advantages for all the customer and companies. From the customer point of view, using the web instead of a traditional approach call for tickets or go to a travel agency means way in to a greater amount of information and also more flexibility in choosing, analyzing and comparing the offers. Having more choices with just a click away helps customers find a better deal, in possible less time. For the companies, the use of Web means decrease costs for information processing, reduced costs to suppliers, the possibility of building stronger customer relationships by having customers interact directly with the web site, the possibility of creating user profiles to be used in marketing development and also an easy way of information partnership, involving the cooperation between different companies. Travel Agent Reservation System to enhance  effectiveness in keeping hotel contracting room and allotment updated in real-time manner. 2.4 Online Travel Agency There are many traditional travel agencies that are operating on-line, but only insufficient are known by the passengers. The transaction between the travel agents and hotels is through the commission base. However, because of the direct booking of other passengers the commission basis is slow diminishing and they have to rate the customers for the service fee. The usual offers they give be contingent on their strategy and advertisement and not part of the hotels (Kearney Robinson, 2004). 2.5 Guda Travel Agency Application System Services The travel agency online application service will need the users city of destination, desired hotel quality, check-in date, and check-out date. It will departure the hotels that match the criteria, and also return the hotel name, address, check-in time, check-out time, cost per night, and total cost of the length of stay. Travel Simplified has its own database with the hotels and charge. It also has a Java application to have the hotels and rates. The Web service will need to use the tools in Application Developer Integration Edition to create a service from the application so that users can search hotels for their travels whenever they want. 2.6 Reservation systems analysis Internet presence and online application are the two business models most frequently used by the travel reservation systems we studied. The services offered in the two models are related: in Internet presence, the customers find information about the service; some examples are check hotel in Internet presence and book hotel. There are also two different services, information about special offers in Internet presence and the possibility to save the itineraries already defined in online store an itinerary consists of a hotel, usually round trip and possibly of a reserved room in one or more hotels. 2.7 User value model of a Guda Travel Agency Application System Landvogt (2004) explained online booking engines as tools to store, publish and update the dynamic data availability and prices, and moreover provide the users with a regular reservation process. A specific characteristic of the guda travel agency application system is that users can make and see the changes in reservation status online. But users can only see descriptions and pictures of hotels, sometimes rates but they could not check availability and make bookings online. This means that all business models which provide the possibility for an online  booking electronic booking service, electronic travel agent, electronic market place, and flexible comparison shopping services are compatible with above mentioned definition of website quality. 2.8 Customer needs One of the main importances in developing this application system for Guda Travel Agency application system is to satisfy the customer needs. One must remember that electronic commerce has to compete with the real-life methods of making reservation and completing customer transactions. Customers can choose between different reservations methods electronic or real-life and they will always prefer the one which best gratify their need. 2.8.1 Customer needs presentation In the case of online reservation systems we identified six main important customer needs: Lack of difficulty system status information error tolerance and system stability â‚ ¬Ã‚  query refinement for achieving customers goal â‚ ¬Ã‚  customer profiles 2.8.1.1 Lack of difficulty Lack of difficulties is one of the major problems for customers. The user interface of the online systems should be designed in such a way that all services are easy to understand and use. It can often happen that customers may want to use a service, but they dont know how to do it or the user interface does not allow them to do so. It is the case of the registration process when using online travel reservations. This system Guda Travel Agency Application system allow timetable consultation only after registering which can take quite a lot of time, or they allow consultation but there is no price information before registration. System status information and feed forward The status of the system are accessing database, computing solutions must be always indicated to the customer. Different mechanisms should be employed to give clear feedback to the customer, for error messages, data input required, no solutions found, etc. When possible, the messages should contain explanations and provide suggestions for future actions e.g. no solution was found, customer has to try to enlarge the domains for his travel constraints: dates, hotel, and time. 2.8.1.3 Error tolerance and system stability An easy and efficient way out should be provided in case of errors. This makes customers feel more confident and at ease. In the case of a customer mistake, it is important that the reservation process is restarted from a point close to the one where the mistake was generated, the customer shouldnt be sent back to the beginning. Query refinement for achieving customers goal It often happens that customers are not satisfied with the first solutions they get from the online hotel reservation system. In this case, most of the current systems allow customers to search for hotel next day, or on a newly defined day. If they are still not happy with what they get, they can come back to the query definition and change their input data. This way of interaction is quite heavy and time-consuming, using a lot of the system and customer resources. In the second part of our paper, I propose a new interaction model in which the customers can modify their initial queries directly in the result table. It is easier for customers to find exactly what they want or to find out if what they want exists or not, starting from possible existing solutions. Customer profiles The use of customer profiles in online reservation systems is connected to the registration process. The same question arises, when is the best moment to ask customers to register and/or to create their own profiles. The systems I studied have different approaches, but most of them leave the profile creation at customers control, they can do it when and if they want. The customer profiles are currently used in the same way by all the systems, but each system has its own profile implementation, which makes difficult a possible communication and data interchange. A future improvement in online travel industry would be a standard personalization technique to be adopted by all online systems providing in this way both efficiency and interoperability. 2.9 PROCEDUREs for electronic commerce Commerce in the real world is a very rich set of interaction procedures with a very complex set of constraints. The protocols used in electronic commerce systems must respect at least some of the real world models and add also new interaction techniques. Flexibility combined with ease of use and understandings are primary requirements, as rigid and restricted protocols lead to frustration for both users and developers. 2.10 Customers application PROCEDURE All existing online travel systems offer consumer application procedure. The customer must interact directly with the system in order to receive results for his query. A general model for the protocols offered by the online travel systems for booking hotel is the following: [register] input data (travel constraints) see results evaluate book The registration step can be sometimes avoided customers have the possibility to use the system as guests or to register only if they want to make a booking. Adriana Jurca, Adriana Jurca Dmt-isr 1999 programmings and techniques for developing the system Php is an extensively used general-purpose scripting language that was originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, php code is embedded direct to the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a php processor module, which generates the web page document. As a specific programming language, php code is processed by an interpreter application in command-line mode performing desired operating system operations and producing program output on its standard output channel. It also function as a graphical application. Php is existing as a processor for most modern web servers and as standalone interpreter on most operating systems and computing platforms. 2.11.1 History of PHP Php was originally created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1995  and has been in continuous development ever since. The main implementation of PHP is now produced by the php clicks and serves as the de facto standard for PHP as there is no formal specification. Php is free software released under the php License. In other to used php they is need for basic understanding the following those are bellow: 1. HTML or XHTML 2. Java Scrip 2.11.2 USES of php. Php is a general main scripting language that is especially suited to server-side web development where php generally runs on a web server. Any php code in a requested file is executed by the php runtime, usually to create dynamic web page content. It can also be used for command line scripting and client-side GUI applications. Php can be deployed on most web servers, many operating systems and platforms, and can be used with many relational database management systems. It is available free of charge, and the php clicks provides the complete source code for users to build, customize and extend for their own use. Php primarily present as a filter, taking input from a file or stream containing text and/php instructions and outputs another stream of data; most commonly the output will be html. 2.11.3 FEATURES OF PHP Access Logging With the way in logging capabilities of php, users can maintain their own hit counting and logging. It doesnt use the systems central access log files in any way, and it provides real-time access monitoring. The Log Viewer Script provides a quick summary of the way in to a set of pages owned by an individual user. Access Control A develop in web based configuration screen handles access control configuration. It is possible to create setting rules for some web pages owned by a certain person which place various restrictions on who can view these pages and how they will be viewed. The Pages can be password protected, completely restricted, logging disabled and more based on the clients domain, browser, e-mail address or even the referring document. SQL Support -the php supports embedding SQL queries directly in .html files. File Upload Support -And It lets users upload files to a web server and provides the actual Mime decoding to make this work and also provides the additional framework to do something useful with the uploaded file once it has been received. HTTP based authentication control the php can be used to create customized http based authentication mechanisms for the Apache web server. Variables, Arrays, Associative Arrays -the php supports typed variables, arrays and even Perl-like associative arrays. And with these can all be passed from one web page to another using either GET or POST method forms. Conditionals, While Loops -the php supports a full featured C like scripting language. You can have if/then/elseif/else/endif conditions as well as while loops and switch or case statements to guide the logical flow of how the html page should be displayed. Extended Regular Expressions Regular expressions are freely used for pattern matching, pattern substitutions and general string manipulation. And then the php supports all common regular expression operations. HTTP Header Control The ability to have web pages send customized http headers based on some condition is essential for high-level web site design. A frequently use is to send a Location URL header to redirect the calling client to some other URL. It can also be used to turn off caching or manipulate the last update header of pages. ISP Safe Mode support php supports a unique Safe Mode which makes it safe to have multiple users run php scripts on the same server. 2.11.4 Advantages of php You can develop web applications in php as compile and link is eliminated in php scripting language. The Php applications are very stable and do not depend on the browser technologies unlike JavaScript applications which depend on browsers. Php has excellent database connectivity to all SQL database servers. php has partial support for Object oriented features Php runs on all UNIXs, Linux, Windows 95/NT/2000 and is more powerful than ASP, JSP and others. The Php has a very large user base and developer base. 2.11.4 PHP AND HTML Php and html interact a lot because the php has the ability to generate html and the html has the ability to pass the information to php my sql MySQL is a relational database management system (RDBMS) that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. Advantages of MySQL MySQL is a popular database with Web developers. Its speed and small size make it ideal for a Web site. Its fast. The main aim of the folks who developed MySQL was speed. Thus, the software was designed from the beginning with speed in mind. Its Inexpensive. MySQL is free under the open source GPL license, and the price for a commercial license is reasonable. Its Easy to use. And then you can build and interact with a MySQL database by using a few simple statements in the SQL language, which is the standard language for communicating with RDBMSs. How MySQL and PHP work together 2.12.1 The Main Features of MySQL Is written in C and C++ It easily uses multiple CPUs if they are available. Provides transactional and non transactional storage engines. Relatively easy to add another storage engine. This is useful if you want to add an SQL interface to an in house database. A very fast thread based memory allocation system. Very fast joins using an optimized one-sweep multi join. In memory hash tables which are used as temporary tables. SQL functions are implemented using a highly optimized class library and should be as fast as possible. The server is available as a separate program for use in a client/server networked environment. Tested with a broad range of di ¬Ã¢â€š ¬erent compilers. Works on many deferent platforms 2.13 What Is a Web Server Web server is a software application that listens for client connection a specific network port. When a connection is made, the Web server then waits request from the client application. The client is usually a Web browser, but it could be a Web site indexing utility, or perhaps an interactive telnet  session. The resources request, usually a request to send the contents of a file stored on the server, is a phrased in some version of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Although the Web servers primary purpose is to distribute information from a central computer, modern Web servers perform other tasks as well. Before the file transfer, most modern Web servers send descriptive information about the requested resource, instructing the client how to interpret or format the resource. 2.13.1 Features of web sever Many Web servers perform user authentication and data encryption to permit applications like online credit card purchasing. Another common feature of Web servers is that they provide database access on behalf of the client, eliminating the need for the client to use a full-featured database client application. Apache provides all of these features 2.13.2 Apache http sever of this project The Apache HTTP Server Project is an effort to develop and maintain an open-source http server for modern operating systems including Windows 7. The main aim of this project is to provide a secure, efficient and extensible server that provides http services in sync with the current http standards. 2.13.3 THE APACHE http server Apache is a powerful, flexible, http compliant web server Its Implements the latest protocols, including http Its highly configurable and extensible with third-party modules It provides full source code and comes with an unrestrictive license It runs on Windows NT/9x, Netware 5.x and above, OS/2, and most versions of Unix, as well as several other operating systems is actively being developed it encourages user feedback through new ideas, bug reports and patches it implements many frequently requested features 2.13.4 Features of apache server DBM databases for authentication: Usually allows you to easily set up password protected pages with enormous numbers of authorized users, without bogging down the server. Customized responses to errors and problems: Allows you to set up files, or even CGI scripts, which are returned by the server in response to errors and problems, e.g. setup a script to intercept  500 Server Errors and it perform on-the-fly diagnostics for both users and yourself. Multiple Directory Index directives Allows you to say  Directory index.html index, which allows the server to either send back  index.html  or run  index when a directory URL is requested, whichever it finds in the directory. Unlimited flexible URL rewriting and aliasing The Apache has no fixed limit on the numbers of Aliases and Redirects which may be declared in the config files. And then In addition, a powerful rewriting engine can be used to solve most URL manipulation problems. Content negotiation the ability to automatically serve clients of varying sophistication and HTML level compliance, with documents which offer the best representation of information that the client is capable of accepting. Virtual Hosts This allows the server to distinguish between requests made to different IP addresses or names mapped to the same machine. And is also offers dynamically configurable mass virtual hosting. Configurable Reliable Piped Logs You can configure Apache to generate logs in the format that you want. Apache can send log files to a pipe, allowing for log rotation, hit filtering, real-time splitting of multiple hosts into separate logs, Tools require for implementing the system Dreamweaver: Adobe Dreamweaver is a web development application created by Macromedia, and is now developed by Adobe Systems, which acquired Macromedia in 2005. The Dreamweaver is available for both Mac and Windows operating systems. The Recent versions have incorporated support for web technologies such as CSS, JavaScript, and various server-side scripting languages and frameworks including ASP, ColdFusion, and PHP. Adobe Flash Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform acquired by Macromedia and currently developed and distributed by Adobe Systems. Since 1996 flash has become a popular method for adding animation and interactivity to web pages. The Flash is commonly used to create animation, advertisements, and various web page Flash components, to integrate video into web pages, and more recently, to develop rich Internet applications. And the Flash can be manipulated vector and raster graphics, and supports bidirectional streaming of audio and video. And It contains a scripting language called Action Script.   Adobe Photoshop The Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and Published by Adobe System. And it is the current market leader for commercial bitmap and image manipulation software, and is the flagship product of Adobe Systems. And It has been described as an industry standard for graphics professionals and was one of the early killer applications on the Macintosh, later also for MS Windows.

School Violence :: School Violence Essays

Youth Violence: A Report of the Surgeon General. Chapter 4-Risk Factors for Youth Violence. 2000. ww.surgeongeneral.gov/library/youthviolence/report.html This Web site explains that risk factors for violence are not static. Their predictive value changes depending on when they occur in a young person's development, in what social context, and under what circumstances. Risk factors may be found in the individual, the environment, or the individual's ability to respond to the demands or requirements of the environment. Some factors come into play during childhood or even earlier, whereas others do not appear until adolescence. Some involve the family, others the neighborhood, the school, or the peer group. Some become less important as a person matures. Somewhat informative but not sure if I want to use this source. Alexander Volokh with Lisa Snell. School Violence Prevention: Strategies to Keep Schools Safe. www.rppi.org/ps234.html. This site addresses that school violence is a serious problem, especially in public schools. Improving the quality of American education is difficult without also addressing school violence, since regardless of how good the teachers or curriculum are, violence makes it difficult for students to learn. School violence wears many faces. It includes gang activity, locker thefts, bullying and intimidation, gun use, assault—just about anything that produces a victim. Violence is perpetrated against students, teachers, and staff, and ranges from intentional vendettas to accidental killings of bystanders. Often, discussions of school violence are lumped together with discussions of school discipline generally, as both involve questions of how to maintain order in a school. This is a well informed site. Monica Davey and Jodi Wilgoren. Signs of Danger were missed in a Troubled Teenager’s Life. 24 Mar. 2005. www.nytimes.com .Some who knew Jeff Weise say they wonder why someone did not see his eruption coming months, or even years, ago. Here was the threat Mr. Wse, 16, once made on his own life, sending him away from his home on the Red Lake Indian Reservation for psychiatric treatment. There were the pictures of bloodied bodies and guns he drew and shared freely with classmates. There was the story he apparently wrote about a shooting spree at a school in a small town. This doesn’t seem to be such an important source for a paper. Dr. Peter. R. Breggin. Eric Harris Was Taking Luvox ( A Prozac-like drug) at the Time of the Littleton Murders. 30 Apr. 1999. www.breggin.com/luvox.html. In this site Dr. Breggin confirms that Eric Harris, was taking Luvox.

A History of Contention:Analyzing Parallels in the Rhetoric of the Religious Right :: Essays Papers

A History of Contention:Analyzing Parallels in the Rhetoric of the Religious Right One hundred and fifty-six years ago, in 1848, when the first Women’s Rights Convention was held in the quiet town of Seneca Falls, New York, the concept that women were entitled to fully enfranchised citizenship was a completely foreign concept. Ideas expressed and rights demanded at that convention, and at early feminist conventions organized throughout the next seventy years, were considered ridiculous. Suffrage rights, divorce rights, women’s property rights, and married women’s right to sign legal contracts, control income, or have legal guardianship of their children—or themselves, for that matter—were reacted to with indifference at best. Surprisingly, one of the most vocal opponents of women’s rights was the conservative Church, who argued that women’s place, according to Scripture, was in the domestic sphere; to intrude into the public sphere was to violate her natural role and endanger her mortal soul. However, religious conse rvatives’ defense of Biblical traditions did not end with women’s rights: if we look at the some of the most contentious social issues of the past and present, some interesting parallels exist between the terms used by fundamentalist Christians to resist women’s rights, abolition, abortion rights, and gay marriage. In each of these debates, the religious conservatives used Scriptural notions of what is â€Å"natural† to resist liberal social reform. The Religious Right and its devotees had been the primary protesters of women’s suffrage since the conception of the movement. Biblically, they argued, women’s roles have been established as subservient to man, second-class; their God-given role is to be dependent, weak, diminutive, and obedient. The Reverend J. G. Holland asserted that woman â€Å"was called into being for man's happiness and interest — his helpmeet — to wait and watch his movements, to second his endeavors, to fight the hard battle of life behind him.† Women were not to be trusted with important moral duties, due to the weakness inherent in their sex. For instance, through the story of Eve’s fall, Christianity has been founded on the doctrine that woman is weak and the source of human evil. According to the Church women were neither supposed to take such an active civil role as suffrage would promote, nor were they capable enough to partake in such a privileged and essentia l civic duty: what did—indeed what should—God-abiding women know about politics? It was on this religious basis that many women were actually opposed to women’s rights.

Letter to My Old School Friend Essay

It been has been a long time since we last saw each other, so I took this time to write to you. Remember the time in elementary school when we had the field trip before summer vacation. It was a time when we visited the shopping plaza for the very first time in Manhattan. This was one of the memorable days of my life. It all started in science class when we decide to plan a nice surprise for our teacher for her upcoming birthday, so our enthusiastic principle appeared and said† good morning class, I have a great treat for you† and nasha exclaimed with so much curiosity â€Å"were are o the we going† and he said â€Å"to the new shopping plaza† so he gave out letter with a consent form attached with it, so after I went home and get ready for the trip tomorrow , when getting ready my consent form disappeared so I search saying in my mind I am not missing that so, I was so worried and called my friend nasha and she said â€Å" don’t worry this matter is imperceptible† and replied to her in a melancholy voice† why you saying that? If I don’t have the form I cannot go on the trip, is there a next alternative† she said† yes† so I said to her what† she said â€Å"have your parents to write a letter for me† so I told her that is a good idea. So next day I pack my things kissed my mom and rushed on the school bus ,when I got to my the classmate were all lined up to enter the bus. When we got on the bus I sit near the window. When we got there I saw the most building beautiful and creative place.

The City: Creating a Sense of a Place

A few miles south of central London, the gentle flow of an open sewer runs deep and green, glistening ever so closely to Green Park, pattering on at its own tranquil pace, before reaching off into the distance. On one side of this unappealing canal, the golden walls of the council flats reach on until clashing with the lively air of the vibrant city, but on the park side, the bank lined with shrubs- fresh and green with every spring, carry in their lower leaf junctures the reminder of the debris of the stormy winds; and broken bottles gleaming in the morning sun, tall dark weeds with their whittled leaves as a testimony to their harsh life. On the sandy bank under the bushes the leaves lie so crisp that even a rat makes a great skittering noise if he were to run across them. Gangsters came out in the evening, all of them looking frightened and panicky while looking around constantly as if they were expecting something bad to happen, once they're happy warm streets soon start teeming with the activity that can only be found in such an able community. The ladies of the nights hurrying along to their corners, their high heals clattering with every step. They leave a lingering scent of cheap perfume and their adventures of the night before. Each inhabitant looked as though they belonged no place but there. Suddenly the shady streets burst with the melodic roar of street life; the gentle sirens in the back ground, the arguing of neighbours that have become almost mandatory in this little place, the roar of the cars as they sped past and the sound of their horns when trapped like a corned beast, the incessant dog barking, the booming music with its heavy bass filling the streets and the wind whistling through the gaps in the buildings. There is a road leading past the bushes and through the park, driven rough by boys coming out of the nearby college, their wheels screeching like a tortured cat as they make their way to the city centre, and driven hastily by bureaucrats coming down from the adjacent office block to spend a night in the pub and drink away their guilty life. In front of the low horizontal limb of a giant sycamore nearby to this pub, there is a bench that's been worn down after many drunken nights; the bench's paint is worn by the many tramps that have spent night after night on it, the many drunks passing out on it and just your average common vandal looking to leave their mark in the crumbling neighbourhood, a desperate attempt to get some attention from the uncaring world. The evening of a hot day started with little wind, moving among the people, creating the effect of a Mediterranean bar. The shade climbed up the street towards the end. Outside the pub lone drunks sat noisily, like little grey sculptured stones, passers by hurriedly avoiding the stench of stale beer and urine. Then from the highway came the sound of sirens on a busy road, the drunks looked worriedly around, few even scattering into the shadows not wanting to be the one pulled away for a minor infringement of the law. Out of one of the flats a frightened kid hurried down the road and around the corner, fleeing from the familiar sound of â€Å"BOY, does your mother know you're out? † For a moment the place was lifeless, nothing was moving and there was an eerie stillness. Gradually two police cars emerged from the distance, creeping towards the pub only to pull up next to the park bench. Two policemen get out then pompously and arrogantly make their way to the pub while meeting the gazes of the nearby onlookers and revelling in the effect they had on the innocent drinkers. Everyone stirred, whether they were guiltily looking into their glasses or starting up a false conversation, they were all thinking the same thing, going over in their head all the crimes they had committed in their life, wondering about their innocence. Then, before the cops could even order a drink, a group of gangsters, covered from head to toe in black clothes, suddenly emerged from the shadows, their gold chains glittering in the dim light. They met eyes with the cops. There were a few moments when no-one moved before there was a crash as the cops outside table was overturned and used as temporary cover. Almost simultaneously, the gangsters dived behind some bushes surrounding the nearby park bench. The pubs customers were stunned in awe, they did not realise what was going on until the first piercing gunshot entered their ears, immediately followed by a blood curling feminine scream that lasted for only a few seconds before disappearing into the mixture of blood, gunshots and terrified yelps. At first neither side was giving in despite the incredible amount of frenzied bystanders. After a few moments of chaos people started stampeding and fighting with each other to get inside first. A mother tried to shield her baby in a pushchair as she ran for cover. A teenager films it with his phone from behind a bush hoping for the fame that usually preceded such events. No one is sure how long it lasted but all that was left was the bodies of the dead, the cries of the wounded and two extremely proud looking cops. No one dared to speak or even move, they rather just lay there, motionlessly. Then almost as if they knew their cue, birds started chirping and a gust of wind started blowing. And for a brief moment the chaos that had just consumed this little street subsided.

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We have traversed a patched have dared. We are continuing on apathetically fewer have the courage to follow. Huntresses a path they've fewer can dreamt pursue-Yet hummus, because we holdouts the alms eyeteeth nation's dairy farmers by our side we cannot fail! Let us therefore resolve that however fulfilling our first twenty five years have been, in the next twenty five years we will transform the lives of millions more, opening theme door to an India that's the land four dreams.DRP. Preshrinking Chairman,Guajarati-operative Maltreating Federation Across India,overrunning, millions wake up to the taste of Maul, the flagship brand name for a variety adulterously marketed bathe Gujarat Co-operative Maltreating Federation (GAMMA). One could start the daybed boiling (as Is the traditional Indian practice) one of the different varieties of liquid milk supplied In pouches and making one's morning tea resource.If one preferred use creamer, one could reach for the Malay creamer the shelf. For the breakfast, butter the toasts with Maul regular butter or, if you are calorie conscious, with Maul Elite butter. Drink a cup of Maul chocolate milk. Make sandwiches with one of the different varieties of Maul chessman take them the office; add Maul ghee (clarified butter) to one's dishes for lunch; cook your lunch with a currycombing Maul panderer cottage cheese and have a sweet dish made from Maul gulag jamming.If it is a hot day,have an Maul ice cream; and when you return home after the office; relax with tea or coffee, whitened with Malay creamer or Maul milk. If you are a pizza fan, bake a pizza and top it with Maul mozzarella cheese, and functionality for the Dewitt a glass of warm Maul milk. In India, Maul wasn't merely of the most well known brands, headway of Coca Cola or Pepsi, and even ahead of age old brandish as Dale, Lifebuoy and Lug, but a life style range of products, consumed In commemorators by a large number of Indians of different incommoded social strata.GAMM A was the sole marketing agency the products produced bathe different milk cooperative member societies of the State of Gujarat (see Exhibit 1 for a brief note on Gujarat and Exhibits for a map of India congratulates) and for those of other States marketing's products under the Maul brand name. There was no doubt that from the time of its inception in 1973, GAMMA was a great success story, as indeed was the co-operative movement in the milk sector initiated and carried to great heights by the â€Å"milkman of India†, DRP. Verges Current.But as on the year 2000, GAMMA was faced with a question of whether it should stick to Its core businesses dairy products, or diversify Into other products, In particular Into processed foods such as Jams, sauces and fruit Juices. Historical Background of GAMMA In the asses,in the district of Karri in the State figurate, India, a unique experiment hat time, In Proofreader. S. Incriminatory the purpose ofclassroomdiscussion. Copyrighted bathe a uthor. Not be copied roused without authoritarianism's. Not be used outside â€Å"MA. The author wishes outscores his gratitude to DRP.V. Current, Chairman, GAMMA, Mr.. B. M. Was, Managing Director, GAMMA and the other acquisitiveness's for providing access and data needed perpetrate case. The author also wishes thank the Research and Publicationscommittee, â€Å"MA for providing support for heartrendingly version fifths case. Gujarat, milk was procured from farmers by private milk contractors and y a private company, Polygon's Dairy in And, the headquarters of the district. The company had a virtual stranglehold on the farmers, deciding the prices both of the procured as well as the sold milk.Polygon's Dairy chilled the milk and supplied it to the city of Bombay. It also extracted dairy products such as cheese and butter. In 1946, under inspiration from a leading freedom fighter, Mr.. Bilharzias Patella (who belonged to Gujarat and who later became the Home Minister of the Centra l Government), Mr.. Tribunals Patella, a local farmer, freedom fighter and social worker, organized the farmers into co-operatives. These co-operatives would procure milk from the farmers, process the milk and sell it in Gujarat and in Bombay. In 1949, purely by chance, a dairy engineer, named DRP.Verges Current, who had Just completed his studies in dairy engineering in the U. S. A. , came to India and was posted by the Government of India to a Job at the Dairy Research Institute at And. A chance meeting between DRP. Current and Mr.. Tribunals Patella changed DRP. Currents life and the course of Indian's dairy industry. Though the purpose of this meeting was to simply to elicit some technical help from DRP. Current on commissioning some of the equipment Just purchased by his co-operative, especially the chilling and bespattering equipment, the two men instantly struck a rapport.After the commissioning problem was solved, DRP. Currents involvement with the Karri District Co-operativ e Milk Producers' Union Limited (that was the name of the co- operative registered) grew proverbially and it soon extended to the larger sociological issues involved in organizing the farmers into co-operatives and running these cooperatives effectively. He observed the exploitation of farmers by the private milk annotators and Polygon's Dairy and understood how co-operatives could transform the lives of the members.At first, the main activity was collection and processing of the milk brought everyday by the member farmers to the local office of the co- operative. It was soon realized that it was not enough to merely act as the collection and selling agents for the farmers. A variety of support services were required to enable the farmers to continue selling their milk of adequate quality and to avoid disasters such as death of their cattle (for a family owning Just one or two cattle and pending on its milk for their income, death of cattle could indeed be a disaster).The farmers we re progressively given new services such as veterinary care for their cattle, supply of cattle feed of good quality, education on better feeding of cattle and facilities for artificial insemination of their cattle 2 . All these were strictly on payment basis: none of the services were free. This experiment of organizing farmers into co-operatives was one of the most successful experienced prosperity on a scale they could not have dreamt often years earlier, since with good prices paid for their milk, raising mulch cattle could becomes good planetary source of revenue to many households.The co-operatives were expanded to cover more and more areas of Gujarat and in each area, a network of local village level co-operatives and district level co-operatives were formed on a pattern similar to that at And (the so called And pattern). Karri District Cooperative Milk Producers' Union became better known by the brand name of the products marketed by it (Maul) than by the name of the co-opera tive itself. Maul meant priceless in Sanskrit. It was also a word that was easy to pronounce, easy to remember and that carried a wholly positive connotation. This became the flagship brand for all the dairy products made by this Union.In 1954, Karri District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union built a plant to convert surplus milk produced in the cold seasons into milk powder and butter 3 . In 1958, a plant to manufacture cheese and one to produce baby food were added. Subsequent years saw the addition of more plants to produce different products. In 1973, the milk societies/district level unions decided to set up a marketing agency to market their products. This agency was the GAMMA. It was registered as a co-operative society on 9 July 1973 4 It had, as its members (ordinary share holders), the district level milk unions.No individual could become a shareholder in GAMMA. Starting from a daily procurement of 250 liters per day in 1946, GAMMA had become a milk giant with the milk pr ocurement at about 4 million liters per day by 1999 with 12 dairy plants all over the State of Gujarat. The Structure of the And Pattern The most important feature of the milk co-operative system of Gujarat that evolved was that they were run not by a separate bureaucracy with its own vested interests, but by the member-farmers themselves, with all the major decisions being taken by he latter alone.Any farmer could become a member by committing to supply a certain quantity of milk for a certain number of days in a year and would continue to be a member only if he kept up this commitment. Each day, the farmers (or, actually, in most cases, their wives and daughters) would bring their milk to the village collection centers where the milk would be checked for the quantity in full view of all, and the quality (the fat content) would be checked through a simple hydrometer, again in full view of all. The farmers would be paid in the evening for the milk applied by them in the morning, and in the morning for the evening milk.This presentiments in cash was a great attraction to the farmers who were usually cash starved. Thanks to the above mechanism, there were no disputes regarding quantity or quality of the milk supplied by each farmer. The co-operative system formed under the so-called And pattern had a three-tiered structure (Exhibit 3). At the base was the village level dairy co-operative society. This was composed of the milk producers, mostly residents of the same area, who had Joined the co-operative society. A typical membership figure would be about 200. A managing committee, of Chairperson.Care was taken to ensure that these meetings were held, and seen to be held, in an open and transparent manner. The next level was at the district, and this co-operative (called unions) had, as its members, the village dairy co-operative societies within the district, represented by the Chairpersons of the village level societies. For this co-operative, a Board footrests, consisting of 12 persons, was elected from among the members (I. E. , the Chairpersons of the village level co- operatives), with its own Chief Executive, called the Managing Director.The third bevel was at the State, where the cooperative (GAMMA in Gujarat) was formed with district level milk unions (and certain other milk unions from other states) as members. The State level organization was called the Federation. The Board of Directors of the Federation consisted of the Chairpersons of the district level cooperatives as the members, and in addition, the following ex officiousness: 1 . The Registrar of Co-operatives of the State concerned. 2. A representative from the National Dairy Development Board (ENDS), which was a body created by the Government of India to replicate the And pattern in the otherStates of India. 3. One nominated technical expert. 4. The Managing Director (CEO) of the State level federation. GAMMA was the State level federation for Gujarat. Broadly, the villag e level co-operatives did the procurement; the district level did the transportation and processing; and the Federation marketed the product. The Federation also handled strategic planning and investment. Each of the levels had a substantial amount of autonomy. For example, the village level societies decided entirely on their own, as to who should be admitted as a member, and what price the farmers should be paid for their milk.Thus the prices aid to farmers by different village societies in the State could be, and in fact were different. The district level unions purchased milk from the village level societies and decided what price tollhouse pay for the milk supplied by the village level societies. They, in turn, supplied milk to the State level Union, which decided what price it would pay the district unions. The price paid to all the district unions was the same. In this system, GAMMA planned what products it would sell and arrange to manufacture for each year and how much.Milk products were produced at different factories all over the State. These were owned by the district unions. There were, for example, six butter factories and seven milk powder factories in Gujarat. GAMMA did not heaviest own factories as such until recently, when it had set up a dairy at Changing near Mohammedan, the capital of Gujarat State. There was a committee, called the Programming Committee, which consisted of (I) Managing Director of GAMMA (it) Managing Directors of the Distinctions (iii) Their Head, Quality Control, GAMMA and (iv) Head, Finance, GAMMA.Discomfited finally decided the product mix for the coming year, based on the plans made by GAMMA, and translated the Lana into monthly allocations for each union for the milk to be supplied. As on April 2000, there were 10,800 village level co-operatives in Gujarat under the GAMMA umbrella with 2. 1 million milk producers. Out of districts in Gujarat, there were district level unions in 12 districts 5 A pattern similar to the And pattern had been built in other States in India also. This was done under a programmer launched by the Government offload, under the title â€Å"Operation Flood†.The operation was co-ordinate by National Dairy Development Board (ENDS), a body formed by the Government of India with this objective. DRP. Current was the Chairperson of the ENDS and the main moving force behind this programmer. As on April 2000, there were 22 State federations in India, with 170 district level unions, 72,774 village level societies and 9. 31 million milk producer members in the different States. Each of the State level federations marketed their own brands. Maul was the brand marketed by GAMMA. Vagina was the brand name marketed bathe federation in the State of Andorra Pradesh.Interestingly, the State level federations could market their own products under their own brands anywhere in India, thus competing against heir sister federations. Thus GAMMA could market its Maul brand butter in Andor ra Pradesh competing with Vagina butter. It was believed by the officials of the National Dairy Development Board that such competition was healthy and would curb monopolistic tendencies. Objectives and Business Philosophy of GAMMA The main stakeholder of GAMMA was the farmer member for whose welfare, the GAMMA executives felt, it existed.Thus in an interesting reply, the Managing director of GAMMA, Mr.. B. M. Vass, told the case writer: Unlike other organizations, our objective is not maximize our profit. After all, the rammers themselves are the owners of the Federation. We are restricted, by our bye- laws, to giving a maximum of 12 percent on the peptidase capital as the dividend. So we are more interested in giving the best price for the farmers for their milk than in making a large profit. Thus we look at the price given to our suppliers as not a cost but as an objective.GAMMA had, as its main objective, â€Å"carrying out activities for the economic development of agriculturi sts by efficiently organizing marketing of milk and dairy produce, veterinary medicines, vaccines and other animal health products, agricultural produce in raw and/or processed form and other allied produce† 6 . This was to be done through: ; Common branding ; Centralized marketing ; Centralized quality control ; Centralized purchases and ; Pooling of milk efficiently.GAMMA had declared, as its business philosophy, the following 7 ; To serve the interests of milk producers ; To provide quality products that offer the best value to consumers for money spent. The biggest strength of GAMMA was the trust it had created in the minds of its consumers regarding the quality of its products. GAMMA, and its brand Maul, explained Mr.. Vass, stood for guaranteed purity of whatever products it had such trust was hardtop come by, this could provide a central anchor for Gammas future business plans, said Mr.. Was.Organization Structure of GAMMA (See Exhibit 4) GAMMA was a lean organization, which their executives believed led to a cost advantage. At its headquarters in the town of And, three General Managers and two assistant General Managers assisted the Managing Director (or the Chief Executive). The three General Managers looked after the functions of Marketing, Human Resource Development (HARD) and Quality Assurance. The General Manager (Marketing) was in charge of the whole marketing operation of the dairy products, liquid milk and ice cream.This General Manager was assisted by one Assistant General Manager (Marketing, Dairy Products) 8 and Managers (Commercial), (Exports) and (Liquid Milk). The General Manager (HARD) also looked after edible oils, administration, legal matters and new opportunities. The whole country was divided into five zones, each headed by a Zonal Manager responsible for the sales of all the products under his zone. They reported to the Chief Executive (Managing Director), but functionally each ported also to the various Assistant General Man agers/General Managers at the headquarters. Ender the zonal managers were the branch managers. Generally there were three product managers in each branch reporting to the branch manger: one each for the edible oil, dairy products and ice cream. They were assisted by sales officers and field salesperson. There were 48 sales offices spread over the country (of which only two were in Gujarat). The entire country had been represented in this structure. GAMMA had one overseas office, at Dublin. GAMMA had links with the Institute of Rural Management, And (IRMA), a premier management institute set up to produce Mambas who would work in rural areas.GAMMA attracted a number of its managers from the IRMA graduates, as well as from other business schools in India, although not from its premier management schools. The salaries offered by GAMMA were decent, but nowhere near those offered bathe private sector, especially multi-national corporations. The gap between the salaries that could be offe red by organizations such as GAMMA and the salaries expected by graduates from business schools was increasing in recent years. GAMMA executives, in interviews with the case writer, did not see this as a major robber.They stated that GAMMA in any case had never relied on talent from top business schools, since the graduated form these schools would not fit with the culture and value systems in the company. The Managing Director, Mr.. B. M. Vass was of the view that GAMMA offered excellent prospects for growth and Job satisfaction, and it would not find it difficult to attract suitable talent 9 GAMMA had an extensive sales and distribution system and a cold chain network starting from the milk producer and ending at the eventual consumer. It had a dealer network of 3600 dealers and 400,000 retailers, one of the largest such outworks in India.A cold chain had been established that linked all these dealers could ensure chilling of milk; ; Quick transportation to the district Union faci lities where the milk could be further chilled and dispatched to the consumers or to the processing units for conversion into milk products; ; Chilled trucks which could transport the milk products such as butter and cheese in refrigerated condition from the factories; ; Local chilling of milk to ensure its quick distribution to the customers through a network of trucks in many cities so that most consumers could have their milk cachets by 6 A. M. F not earlier; ; Deep freezers and refrigeration equipment in the dealers' premises to keep the products cold and prevent their deterioration; and ; Facilities in super markets and even larger retail stores to keep the products fresh. GAMMA had excellent relationships with what could be called super markets in India (actually these were Just large departmental stores) which stocked their products, especially cheese, butter, milk powder, sweets and, in some cases, milk. Diversification Moves by GAMMA Even at the time of its formation, GAMMA had three major products in its portfolio: quid milk, butter and milk powder.Gradually, many new products were added to its range, largely milk derivatives. In milk alone, it sold full cream milk, semi toned milk, and fully toned milk, all with different names and in readily identifiable pouches. By reducing the fat, it could not only sell separately fat derivatives such as cream and butter (which were also products that yielded a higher margin), but also make the resultant milk available at cheaper prices, so that poorer people also could consume milk.It had undertaken a unique experiment in the asses to supply milk to places as ar away as Delhi and Calcutta through insulated rail tankers, and this was so successful that it had continued since then. In the asses, GAMMA introduced its cheddar cheese and in 1983, a cheese spread. In the same year, it entered also the sweet market (milk based) through the introduction of Maul Shrinking, a sweetish sour item produced by milk and curd (a form of yogurt). Malay, a dairy whitener was introduced and was priced below the prevailing brands and soon became the market leader.In asses, GAMMA introduced a whole lot of new products: a condensed milk called Maul Imitate; Maul Elite, a low fat, low cholesterol spread utter, and Maul ice cream. After 1996, it went on to introduce a still greater variety of products: pizza (mozzarella) cheese, cheese slice, cheese powder, Mali pander(a form of cottage cheese), gulag Cajun(a sweet primer to be processed by deep frying to make a sweet called gulag Cajun), buttermilk, a chocolate based broadleaved Intramural and chocolates. In 1996, GAMMA launched its Maul brand ice cream. Naiad's ice cream market was estimated to be around RSI. 8 billion in the year 2000. GAMMA launched its ice creams in fourteen flavors in the city of Iambi and the State of Gujarat. It was priced at about 30 percent less than the prevailing prices, and it also emphasized that it was fully vegetarian, I. E. , it did not contain any gelatin. This was an important attribute tomato consumers in Gujarat, which was a predominantly vegetarian state. In less than a year, Maul ice cream commanded a share of about 55 percent in Gujarat and 30 percent in Iambi 10 had reached 30 percent.In 1997, GAMMA also scored a major achievement when it managed to get some of the co-operatives in the other States of the country, trying to launch their own ice cream brands, to sell all their ice creams under the Maul brand name. This enabled Comfit leverage the capacity of more than 180 co-operatives in the country, with a milk procurement of more than 11 million liters per day, and located close to the markets 1 1 In addition, it also diversified into non-milk products. The most important of this diversification was into edible oils in 1988.At that time, the prices of edible oils were being manipulated by oil traders with the result that the prices were shooting up to unacceptable levels. Even though oil seed gro wers' co-operatives existed, most of them were run badly and losing money. Edible oils have always been a very sensitive abject in India,leading to even fall of governments. Hence the government persuaded ENDS to arrange for procurement of clean, unadulterated groundnut oil and sell it through its own outlets. Thus it was essentially a market intervention operation.Besides, this provided ENDS to reorganize the groundnut farmers' co- operatives as it had done with milk producing farmers four decades earlier. Gujarat was the right State for this experiment, since more than 60 percent of the country groundnut oil production was accounted for by Gujarat. GAMMA marketed this oil on behalf ENDS. GAMMA launched a new brand, named Dharma (literally meaning low), not wanting to carry over the Maul brand name which was deeply associated in the public mind with milk derivatives. Outsold its oil on a platform of absolute purity, a claim it could Justifiably make.Since much of the edible oil in India was (and continues to be) adulterated, purity could be a differentiating factor. It also coined a slogan, Dharma, Shut Dharma, meaning, literally, flow, pure flow. The launch was also supported by an advertising campaign with a catchy Jingle. Later, mustard and certain other oils were also marketed under the Dharma brand name. Even though the IL traders fought backbiter and often violently, and used their political connections to the full, Dharma was able toehold its own and became the leading brand of packaged edible oils.However, it must be said datelining in edible oils was found to be a far more difficult task as compared to dealing in milk, and the success achieved in organizing groundnut farmers into co-operatives was limited. In the late asses, GAMMA undertook distribution of fruit based products on behalf of ENDS. This was done under yet another brand name introduced by GAMMA: Sofas (literally meaning fruitful, having achieved). Under this name hereunder a mango rink s old under attracted (also in small mall. Sizes to be served in aircraft), tomato ketchup, and a mixed fruit Jam.In fact, the launches of all these products were completed during a single year, 1998-99. The success of these products was very limited as on the year 2000. By the year 2000, the range of products marketed GAMMA was truly wide: three varieties of milk, flavored milk, buttermilk, four varieties family powder, two varieties of butter, five varieties of cheese, two varieties of ghee clarified butter), chocolates, chocolate drink, sweets, ice cream, edible oils and fruit and vegetable based rodents. Exhibit 5 gives the product portfolio of GAMMA as on the year 2000. At the Iambi.Except in ice creams, chocolate and chocolate-based beverages, Maul brand was the market leader in each and every one of its products. Exhibit 5 also shows the market shares of the various products of GAMMA. Its main sources of competitive advantage were seen its executives as: (I) low costs due to th e elimination of middle men, a lean organization and relatively lower pay scales as compared to Macs (it) its scale and scope of operations and (iii)its strong brand name which stood for purity and laity. Out of the total procurement of 4. 6 million liters of milk per day by GAMMA, about 2. Million liters were sold as liquid milk and the rest as milk products. The milk consumption in India in 1999 at about 225 grams per day was still way below that in developed countries, and even less than in many developing countries. The variation in availability between rural and urban areas was strikingly high: 121 grams vs.. 400 grams per day. Thus there was a need and scope for increasing the consumption of milk in its liquid form, especially in rural areas, although for every rupee spent, the attrition value of milk was way below other high protein and fat items, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian.It was expected that by the year 2011-12, the milk production in India would reach 180. 76 mill ion tons, and the per capita consumption would be about 547 grams 12 . Exports were negligible: about RSI. 271 million in 1999-2000 13 Out of Gammas total income of RSI. 18 billion, approximately RSI. 2. 75 billion was accounted for by sale of liquid milk; about RSI. 3 billion by the sale of edible oils; RSI. 4 billion by butter; about RSI. 2. 4 billion by ice creams; and the rest by the other products. The exact breakup of these products was not available.The share of processed fruits and vegetable items was still quite small. The growth rates of Gammas sales in differentiates were quite different. The following table gives the approximate growth rates in these segments: Table 1 Growth rates in Gamma's Businesses (Percent) 1996-97 1997-98 1998-99 Liquid milk procurement 24. 6 3. 8 3. 6 Liquid milk N. A. 14 10 Butter 27 8 13 Cheese N. A. 37 39 Ghee 41 31 N. A. Milk powder 0 0 18 Ice cream N. A. 100 100 Edible oils 13 20 18 (N. A. Stands for â€Å"not applicable†). Source: GAM MA Annual reports.The profit margin in milk was generally low, due to the need to keep down the price of this essential commodity, which was also consumed by the poor and the lower of milk consumption, especially by the poorer people, and hence to achieve its objective, GAMMA endeavored to keep the price of liquid milk as low as it could. Edibles were also low margin items, their sales prices being controlled rigidly by the government and input prices being essentially set by the oil traders. In the words of Mr.. Current, they were in this business due to larger societal considerations than for the sake of profits.Competition in Different Products The nature of competition varied among the different products. In the case of liquid milk, competition was from private dairies and contractors. There was also competition from newly emerging private dairies that had started supplying milk to the consumers as well as sweet makers. There was intense competition for the supply of milk, which was sought after, especially in the festival seasons, by the sweet makers who derived large profits from the sale of their sweets. Consumers were generally not very particular about the brand of liquid milk, so that the sales pended to a large extent on dealer push.However, there was scope to establish differentiation through appraising the customers of the quality not only of the initial milk itself, but also the quality of the supply chain, which ensured the stability of milk. For butter and cheese, new entrants were making their mark. Britannic, a firm engaged in manufacture and sale of biscuits, had entered into foods business, and more particularly in milk and milk related products such as butter. Britannic had introduced new forms of cheese such as cheddar cheese slices, and supported its rodents with extensive advertising campaigns.It was believed that advertisements played a powerful roller the demand for particular brands of butter and cheese. The sweet market was highly f ragmented, heterogeneous small time local operators producing their own brands and unbranded forms of sweets. The sales of sweets soared in the festival seasons, drawing milk supply by offering higher prices. Other food companies such as Hindustan Lever Ltd. (HALL), a subsidiary of Milliners, and Nestle had also entered into the business of ready made or near ready sweets (such s gulag Cajun, which Just needed tube deep fried to get it ready).Branded ready or near ready sweets were advertised and heavily promoted through campaigns such as through mail orders to housewives. The ice creams market was an emerging marketing India, witnessing the entry of numerous players. The national scene was dominated bandstand Lever with its Quality and Walls brands, accounting for about 45 percent of the market. GAMMA was the other national player, with about 30 percent of the market. There were, in addition, very powerful regional players such as Vidalia Ice Creams in the WesternIndia who commande d substantial (in excess of 30 percent) of the regional market shares. Ice creams were largely promoted through local promotions, hoardings (billboards) and advertisements. About ice creams, Mr.. Vass said in an interview with the case writer: In ice creams, positioning and promotions are not the only things. Indian ice cream market is likely to expand very rapidly. The Indian consumerism changing. They will not Just stick to milk. Ice creams will no longer be made at home. A large number of consumers with disposable incomes will seek value added products, including ice