Hillary Clinton and the Presidential Race Essay

Hillary Clinton and the Presidential Race - Essay Example The Choice on Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina The Democratic Primaries, in accordance with the election precepts in the US, always start in start in the states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina (Andrews, Bennet, & Parlapiano, 2015). The choice to analyze these three states is dependent on several factors. On the instance, they offer an early gauge on the strategies that are used by a political team (Lau & Pomper, 2004). Though there are the instances in which candidates have lost in these states and later recovered to win the primaries, most candidates do scheme to win here. That is because early wins bolsters plans and quivers opponents by creating the impression of a likely overall win. However, in the instances in which a candidate fails to win in these states, they always have the time to strategize and remodel their campaigns (Medvic, 2011). These two projections justify the choice on the three states as it is from whence that a campaign is dearly molded and catapulted for either a win or a loss (Coleman, Cantor, & Neale, 2001). Besides, New Hampshire and Iowa have largely been credited for their electoral independence. That implies that winning the electorate in these states a challenge to most of the candidates. According to Hart (2001), political strengths are majorly gauged by the manners in which candidates overcome challenges. Choosing these states was, therefore, also based on the objective of quantifying the Hillary’s ability to overcome political manacles.

Business Plan for a Real Estate Business in Bangladesh Essay Example for Free

Business Plan for a Real Estate Business in Bangladesh Essay It will make good quality flats for clients to live and enjoy lot more exclusive facilities. All these will be available at a very reasonable price. Since we believe in economies of scale. Slogan: â€Å"feel like living on heaven in every moment† Financing: To start up the business, Tk. 20 crores will be required, some additional needs to be financed by the bank. The loan will be repaid by five years. Confidentiality: This Business Plan is strictly confidential and is the property of the co-owners mentioned above. Any reproduction of the material inside will result is strictly prohibited. There has always been a good demand in the real estate market, and as the income level of the people of Bangladesh grows, that demand is surging even further. People want to buy unique, good-looking and attractive flats, but they want a good value for their money as well. That’s where we come in. We offer excellent quality flats, at reasonable prices. Another uniqueness of our business is that we have a separate line of apartments for office/bank use only. There is currently no such real estate companies in Bangladesh that offers an exclusive line of apartments. Therefore, in this segment, we can enjoy the benefits of being an oligopolist. On the other hand, we have the business-to-business prospect. Due to good economic growth, apartments are on the rise. Raihan with share of profit and loss according to ratio of equity invested. Together, we have gathered the necessary expertise required to run a real estate business. Initially, we will of course incur losses, but we plan to make profits in the fourth or fifth year. Real Estate Industry Analysis Industry Analysis: Real estate is a fixed, tangible and immovable asset in form of houses or commercial property. Real estate market involves developing, renting, selling/purchasing and renovating of these assets (houses). Market participants includes o Developers (contractors, engineers, and so on), o Facilitators (mortgage companies, real estate brokers, banks, anagement agents and so on), owners, renters (leasers) Each product (house) is unique in terms of buildings, location, and financing thus market has heterogeneous products. Transaction costs are high and the process is usually long. Though there are mobile homes, but the land underneath is till immobile, real estate is an immovable asset. Market Segmentations: The main factor that affects demand in real estate industry is demographic features. The demographic variables include population size and growth, cultural background, beliefs. However, other factors like income, price of housing, cost and availability of funds, consumer preference, supplier’s preference, price of substitutes and compliments. Future Outlook: One of the most startling statistics regarding real estate in this country, and a fact few people even realize, is that big portion of land in the Bangladesh is held either by the Government or is being used for agricultural purposes. The total farm area comprises about 62% of the total geographical area, forest area accounts for 15%, Perennial water 11% and urban area only 01%. The physical landscape is characterized by small arable fields. There are over 11 million farm holdings with more than 65 million fragments. The pattern of land ownership is highly skewed. 5% for the families having land above 7. 2 acres own 26% of the land and 70% of the families having land below 2. 5 acres own only 29% of the land. The per capita availability of crop land is at present only 0. 24 acre. Land utilization statistics indicate that 54% of the net cropped area is single cropped and area under double and triple cropping account for 72% of the gross cropped area. 20% of the total cropped areas have irrigation facilities. Yield is low i. e. rice -0. 703 metric ton per acre. Annual food deficit ranges between 1. 5 2. 0 million metric tons. Frequent natural calamities like cyclone, flood, drought, tidal bore etc. add to the shortfall of crops and livestock. What this means is that only few portion of the country is available to support all residential and commercial uses. This equates to nearly 1800 people per square mile of land by 2020. Despite the mortgage crisis and resulting financial meltdown of the last several years, these statistics seem to indicate that owning real estate in Bangladesh will continue to be a wise investment. In the very basic economic sense, there is no more land being created (limited supply) and more population density every day (increased demand). ? Economy: Growth in FY2010 was better than expected in April 2010 in Bangladesh, as a pickup in domestic demand neutralized the impact of weak expansion in exports. Inflation came in below the April projection, and the current account surplus was higher. For FY2011, this Update retains the outlook of a moderate uptick in growth, but with a slightly lower forecast for inflation and a larger fall in the current account surplus. To raise growth prospects, power and gas shortages need to be eliminated and reforms accelerated. More fundamentally, political stability will be critical to boosting growth. The bank’s Monetary Policy Statement (MPS), issued in July 2010, indicated that there may have been some diversion of private credit into consumer spending and into speculative investments in the stock market and real estate. . So we are expecting that, the economic condition in Bangladesh will be much better for business. If we also consider the given figures the scenario will be clear more.

Impacts of World of Warcraft

Impacts of World of Warcraft With reference to -world of warcraft, analyze the popularity of massively multiplayer online role-playing games and the effects of this gaming phenomenon in the Asian region, and how Asian culture and identity has permeated into this gaming phenomenon. As video games become more complex, so too has the degree in which players have been able to use the internet to find competitors, teammates and communities for play. Of course, online gaming is not a new phenomenon; however it is an ever-present topic of discussion. Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (mmorpg) in particular connect thousands of players in real time interaction and communication. The asian region is among those enamored by the gaming phenomenon and as a result, virtual game platforms such as world of warcraft have allowed for the emergence of complex social structures, reputation systems and even economies. Massively multiplayer games provide a three-dimensional environment for thousands of players to connect, interact and explore. Massively multiplayer online role-playing games, commonly referred to as MMORPGs, provide a unique platform for developing social interactions on the Internet. MMORPGs allow for simultaneous text-based and graphical communication with others and provide well defined structures that encourage a variety of social interactions. While some forms of Internet use encourage two-way communication, MMORPGs often require high levels of social interaction and facilitate the adoption of new personas and styles of interaction. (reference) World of warcraft Since its release in 2004, the World of Warcraft has remained one of the most popular international videogames. As of December 2008, California-based gaming company Blizzard Entertainment Inc. announced that membership for its award-winning MMORPG World of Warcraft had reached 11.5 million worldwide and is continuing to climb (Blizzard Entertainment, 2008). In Europe it hosts more than 2 million subscribers, more than 2.5 million in North America and approximately 5.5 million in Asia (Reference). With such astonishing figures, it undoubtedly brings about questions of what makes World of Warcraft so attractive and in many cases, so addictive. People flock to these programs seeking refuge from the imperfect world around them. Multiplayer online role-playing games offer a social attribute that many games lack; the worlds provide unique opportunities to create an entire virtual life, control your destiny, command teams, gain power, status, and prestige all without risk. Gamers can be anything they want to be without worry about the potential permanent repercussions of their actions. Causes of its popularity http://www.journal.fibreculture.org/issue8/issue8_chan.html Effects of WoW in Asian region, addiction Being that World of Warcraft is one of the most popular massive multiplayer online role-playing games, it has drawn an especially notorious reputation for addiction. But, is this reputation really deserved? Teenagers are often typified as the mainstay of the gaming population. Yet, even in this environment it appears that MMORPGs are considered taboo. Are these negative reactions legitimately based on widespread issues that affect players or is this genre of game play grossly exaggerated through excessive media coverage and a lack of understanding? To completely understand the conclusions drawn from gameplay, it is important to realize the context surrounding the typical gaming experience. This environment revolves around the stereotypical -gamer. Although about 15% of the MMRPG audience is comprised of females, it is a role largely filled by males. What happens is that gamers are often forced into acting like addicts. Through excessive social pressure, gaming is often hidden from public view, family, and friends for fear of reprisal. Often people feel embarrassed when talking about gameplay with non-gamers or in a public environment. Playing becomes a guilty pleasure, only to be indulged to the extent that it might be acceptable by others and to hide played time that might be deemed otherwise. All of these emotions and external pressures combine to create the very connotation of addiction, even for players who are not obsessed with the game at all. Why, if so many people exhibit interested behavior in the game are they so afraid of it? I think the answer lies in the very answers to their interviews: addiction. They feel drawn into the game. This immersion is particularly noteworthy in World of Warcraft because, as Krzywinska has argued, the games worldness is so comprehensive. Her research has focused heavily on the complexity of virtually realistic worlds. People who do not play see the respite that gamers find in the virtual world and realize that, yes, it is fun. Then there is a withdrawal, some moment of reality hits them or they temporarily lose interest and become determined to refocus themselves on their previous activities. To complete their rejection they add in their negative opinions, which force the gamer to feel guilty for -chilling in the game world. This does not happen with TV or social video gaming Mario Kart for example because people are interacting with each other as opposed to virtual players. In June 2005, it was reported that a child had died due to neglect by her World of Warcraft-addicted parents in Korea (Gibson). Her parents had left her alone while going to an Internet cafà © to play. They were charged with her death and similar stories of extreme gaming appeared around the world. These cases of addiction, along with growing memberships, have prompted equally extreme reactions from organizations and even governments. In August of 2005, the government of the Peoples Republic of China proposed new rules to curb what they perceived to be social and financial costs brought on by the popularity of online games in general. The measure enforces a time limit on Chinas estimated total of 20 million gamers (BBC News). Citizens are allowed to play for five consecutive hours before their characters abilities become severely limited; only after a five hour break will the limitations be removed. Due to extreme cases such as murder, neglect, and sudden death, media coverage has c apitalized on the worlds newest addictive trend. It is true, computer games, massive multiplayer online role-playing games in particular, can cause certain levels of addiction. So can television, violent videogames, sex, drugs, sports, and work, but these are no longer new, hot topics in the market. Case study of WoW in Singapore/Malaysia/China, how has it permeated into Asian region, Players and Culture, Identity, Paradise Crashed: Rethinking of MMORGs and Other Virtual Worlds. An Introduction Robert Alan Brookey Critical Studies in Media Communication, Volume 26, Issue 2 June 2009 , pages 101 103 There is a strong tendency among many scholars of cyberspace to offer it up as a new utopia. Online communities have often been celebrated as spaces that allow for an unbound human experience, spaces in which individuals are able to form identities and express themselves without the constraints found in the -real world. With the emergence and growing popularity of massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), this celebration seems to have grown in intensity. We are here to crash the party. This special issue is a collection of articles that challenge the assumptions about the positive potential of cyberspace. In the first article, David Gunkel and Ann Hetzel Gunkel discuss the concept of the body in virtual space, and critically examine how this space is often offered as a -new frontier. They argue that the use of this metaphor to conceptualize cyberspace carries risks. More specifically, they warn if we do not remember the history associated with that term, we may repeat the mistakes that occurred when White Europeans settled the American frontier. After all, cyberspace is often regarded with the same optimism of opportunity that was once held for the New World. Yet, as we all know, this land of opportunity was not opened to everyone equalitibly. For example, while racial minorities provided labor to open up the American frontier, they did not always enjoy the full economic benefits of their labor. Lisa Nakamura proves this mistake has already been realized in the online game World of Warcraft (WoW). Nakamura investigates the practice of -gold farming in online games, a practice in which in-game resources are cultivated by certain players, and then sold to others for a profit using real world currencies. Unfortunately, some of the players cultivating these resources work for a nominal wage, and do not share in the profits of their labor. Some of these gold farmers are Chinese, consequently old racial prejudices have reemerged around the practice of gold farming. Indeed, players thought to be gold farmers are singled out for racial ridicule, and as nakamura shows this ridicule draws on Asian stereotypes.

Lucian Freud Essay -- Visual Arts Paintings Art Artist Painter Essays

Lucian Freud Freud, Lucian (1922- ). German-born British painter. He was born in Berlin, a grandson of Sigmund Freud, came to England with his parents in 1931, and acquired British nationality in 1939. His earliest love was drawing, and he began to work full time as an artist after being invalided out of the Merchant Navy in 1942. In 1951 his Interior at Paddington (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool) won a prize at the Festival of Britain, and since then he has built up a formidable reputation as one of the most powerful contemporary figurative painters. Portraits and nudes are his specialities, often observed in arresting close-up. His early work was meticulously painted, so he has sometimes been described as a `Realist' (or rather absurdly as a Superrealist), but the subjectivity and intensity of his work has always set him apart from the sober tradition characteristic of most British figurative art since the Second World War. In his later work (from the late 1950s) his handling became much broader. Normally I underplay facial expression when painting the figure, because I want expression to emerge through the body. I used to do only heads, but came to feel that I relied too much on the face. I want the head, as it were, to be more like another limb. - Lucian Freud Freud was born in Berlin in December 1922, and came to England with his family in 1933. He studied briefly at the Central School of Art in London and, to more effect, at Cedric Morris's East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in Dedham. Following this, he served as a merchant seaman in an Atlantic convoy in 1941. His first solo exhibition, in 1944 at the Lefevre Gallery, featured the now celebrated The Painter's Room 1944. In the s... ...h seeing. His attempt to demystify the human form whilst recording the stories of his subjects marks a significant stance against the vacuity of much of contemporary art, which refuses to acknowledge even the existence of such stories and glorifies only the visible form. Even though he does not explore those stories, the fact that Freud records their presence within his subjects makes his work compellingly humane. "My work is purely autobiographical,...It is about myself and my surroundings. I work from people that interest me and that I care about, in rooms that I know... When I look at a body it gives me choice of what to put in a painting, what will suit me and what won't. There is a distinction between fact and truth. Truth has an element of revelation about it. If something is true, it does more than strike one as merely being so." - Lucian Freud

Developmental Reading Essay

What makes reading different from the other macro skills of communication? How does it relate to the other skills needed for communication? â€Å"Reading† is the process of looking at a series of written symbols and getting meaning from them. When we read, we use our eyes to receive written symbols (letters, punctuation marks and spaces) and we use our brain to convert them into words, sentences and paragraphs that communicate something to us. Reading can be silent (in our head) or aloud (so that other people can hear). Reading is a receptive skill – through it, we receive information. But the complex process of reading also requires the skill of speaking, so that we can pronounce the words that we read. In this sense, reading is also a productive skill in that we are both receiving information and transmitting it (even if only to ourselves). Reading is the third of the four language skills, which are: Listening Speaking Reading Writing In our own language, reading is usually the third language skill that we learn. Do we need to read in order to speak English? The short answer is no. Some native speakers cannot read or write but they speak English fluently. Read more:  How to write a reflective essay. On the other hand, reading is something that you can do on your own and that greatly broadens your vocabulary, thus helping you in speaking (and in listening and writing). Reading is therefore a highly valuable skill and activity, and it is recommended that English learners try to read as much as possible in English. A. The Psychology of Reading The last 20 years have witnessed a revolution in reading research. Cognitive psychologists, using high-speed computers to aid in the collection and analysis of data, have developed tools that have begun to answer questions that were previously thought unanswerable. These tools allow for a â€Å"chronometric,† or moment-to-moment, analysis of the reading process. Foremost among them is the use of the record of eye movements to help reveal the underlying perceptual and cognitive processes of reading. Reading is a highly complex skill that is a prerequisite to success in our society. In a society such as ours, where so much information is communicated in written form, it is important to investigate this essential behaviour. In the past 15 years, a great deal has been learned about the reading process from research by cognitive psychologists. Reading as a complex skill is pretty much taken for granted by those who can do it. While those who can do it fluently take it for granted, its complexity is more apparent to those who are having trouble reading. Reading is sometimes difficult for children to learn and illiterate adults find learning to read agonizingly frustrating. The roots of cognitive psychology, the branch of psychology which examines internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory and language can be traced to the experiment of Wundt’s laboratory in Leipzig in 1879. As a part of the larger field of cognitive science, this branch of psychology is related to other disciplines including neuroscience, philosophy and linguistics. The core focus of cognitive psychology is on how people acquire, process and store information. There are numerous practical applications for cognitive research, such as improving memory, increasing decision-making accuracy and structuring educational curricula to enhance learning. Until the 1950s, behaviourism was the dominant school of thought in psychology. Between 1950 and 1970, the tide began to shift against behavioral psychology to focus on topics such as attention, memory and problem-solving. Often referred to as the cognitive revolution, this period generated considerable research on topics including processing models, cognitive research methods and the first use of the term â€Å"cognitive psychology. † The term â€Å"cognitive psychology† was first used in 1967 by American psychologist Ulric Neisser in his book Cognitive Psychology. According to Neisser, cognition involves â€Å"all processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used. It is concerned with these processes even when they operate in the absence of relevant stimulation, as in images and hallucinations†¦ Given such a sweeping definition, it is apparent that cognition is involved in everything a human being might possibly do; that every psychological phenomenon is a cognitive phenomenon. † Today, we find many psychologists interested in reading. Why has the change taken place? The primary reason appears to have been the failure of behaviourism to account for language processing in many reasonable ways. The promise of behaviourism was always that if psychologists could understand the laws of learning and behaviour is simple tasks, those laws could be generalized to more complex tasks like language processing. Some cognitive psychologists who study the product of reading would also want to argue with the bias towards understanding the process of reading. To their way of thinking, what people remember from what they read maybe more important than how they go about the chore of reading. However, the response to such a point is that understanding the process by which some mental structure is created almost logically entails understanding that structure. In contrast, understanding what gets stored in memory may not reveal much about the processes that created the structure. Thus, understanding what is in memory as a result of reading discourse may not be unique to reading; essentially the same structures may be created when people listen to discourse. It is not saying that understanding the product of reading and how remarkable skill must be understood- quite apart from issues like general comprehension skills and intelligence. B. The Meaning of Developmental Reading C. The Teaching of Reading Traditionally, the purpose of learning to read in a language has been to have access to the literature written in that language. In language instruction, reading materials have traditionally been chosen from literary texts that represent â€Å"higher† forms of culture. This approach assumes that students learn to read a language by studying its vocabulary, grammar, and sentence structure, not by actually reading it. In this approach, lower level learners read only sentences and paragraphs generated by textbook writers and instructors. The reading of authentic materials is limited to the works of great authors and reserved for upper level students who have developed the language skills needed to read them. The communicative approach to language teaching has given instructors a different understanding of the role of reading in the language classroom and the types of texts that can be used in instruction. When the goal of instruction is communicative competence, everyday materials such as train schedules, newspaper articles, and travel and tourism Web sites become appropriate classroom materials, because reading them is one way communicative competence is developed. Instruction in reading and reading practice thus become essential parts of language teaching at every level. What is reading? Reading about understands written texts. It is a complex activity that involves both perception and thought. Reading consists of two related processes: word recognition and comprehension. Word recognition refers to the process of perceiving how written symbols correspond to one’s spoken language. Comprehension is the process of making sense of words, sentences and connected text. Readers typically make use of background knowledge, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, experience with text and other strategies to help them understand written text. Much of what we know about reading is based on studies conducted in English and other alphabetic languages. The principles we list in this booklet are derived from them, but most also apply to non-alphabetic languages. They will have to be modified to account for the specific language. Learning to read is an important educational goal. For both children and adults, the ability to read opens up new worlds and opportunities. It enables us to gain new knowledge, enjoy literature, and do everyday things that are part and parcel of modern life, such as, reading the newspapers, job listings, instruction manuals, maps and so on. Most people learn to read in their native language without difficulty. Many, but not all, learn to read as children. Some children and adults need additional help. Yet others learn to read a second, third or additional language, with or without having learned to read in their first language. Reading instruction needs to take into account different types of learners and their needs. Research has shown that there is a great deal of transfer from learning to read in one language to learning to read in a second language. The principles outlined below are based on studies of children and adults, native speakers as well as those learning to read in a second or foreign language. They deal with different aspects of reading that are important in the planning and design of instruction and materials. The practical applications are based on general learning principles, as well as on research. Briefly stated, these learning principles start with the learner in mind. The type of learner will affect the type of methods and materials to be used. The context of learning is also important. For instance, children and adults who are learning to read in a language different from their native language will also need to learn about the culture of the second or foreign language. Because texts are written with a specific audience in mind, cultural knowledge is present in texts and it is assumed that the reader is familiar with such knowledge. Both research and classroom practices support the use of a balanced approach in instruction. Because reading depends on efficient word recognition and comprehension, instruction should develop reading skills and strategies, as well as build on learners’ knowledge through the use of authentic texts. 1. Theories of Reading Just like teaching methodology, reading theories have had their shifts and transitions. Starting from the traditional view which focused on the printed form of a text and moving to the cognitive view that enhanced the role of background knowledge in addition to what appeared on the printed page; they ultimately culminated in the metacognitive view which is now in vogue. It is based on the control and manipulation that a reader can have on the act of comprehending a text. a. The Traditional View According to Dole et al. (1991), in the traditional view of reading, novice readers acquire a set of hierarchically ordered sub-skills that sequentially build toward comprehension ability. Having mastered these skills, readers are viewed as experts who comprehend what they read. †¢ Readers are passive recipients of information in the text. Meaning resides in the text and the reader has to reproduce meaning. †¢ According to Nunan (1991), reading in this view is basically a matter of decoding a series of written symbols into their aural equivalents in the quest for making sense of the text. He referred to this process as the ‘bottom-up’ view of reading. †¢ McCarthy (1999) has called this view ‘outside-in’processing, referring to the idea that meaning exists in the printed page and is interpreted by the reader then taken in. †¢ This model of reading has almost always been underattack as being insufficient and defective for the main reason that it relies on the formal features of the language, mainly words and structure. Although it is possible to accept this rejection for the fact that there is over-reliance on structure in this view, it must be confessed that knowledge of linguistic features is also necessary for comprehension to take place. To counteract over-reliance on form in the traditional view of reading, the cognitive view was introduced. b. The Cognitive View. The ‘top-down’ model is in direct opposition to the ‘bottom-up’ model. According to Nunan (1991) and Dubin and Bycina (1991), the psycholinguistic model of reading and the top-down model are in exact concordance. †¢ Goodman (1967; cited in Paran, 1996) presented reading as a psycholinguistic guessing game, a process in which readers sample the text, make hypotheses, confirm or reject them, make new hypotheses, and so forth. Here, the reader rather than the text is at the heart of the reading process. †¢ The schema theory of reading also fits within the cognitively based view of reading. Rumelhart (1977) has described schemata as â€Å"building blocks of cognition† which are used in the process of interpreting sensory data, in retrieving information from memory, in organising goals and subgoals, in allocating resources, and in guiding the flow of the processing system. †¢ Rumelhart (1977) has also stated that if our schemata are incomplete and do not provide an understanding of the incoming data from the text we will have problems processing and understanding the text. Cognitively based views of reading comprehension emphasize the interactive nature of reading and the constructive nature of comprehension. Dole et al. (1991) have stated that, besides knowledge brought to bear on the reading process, a set of flexible, adaptable strategies are used to make sense of a text and to monitor ongoing understanding. c. The Metacognitive View According to Block (1992), there is now no more debate on â€Å"whether reading is a bottom-up, language-based process or a top-down, knowledge-based process. † It is also no more problematic to accept the influence of background knowledge on both L1 and L2 readers. Research has gone even further to define the control readers execute on their ability to understand a text. This control, Block (1992) has referred to as metacognition. Metacognition involves thinking about what one is doing while reading. Klein et al. (1991) stated that strategic readers attempt the following while reading: Identifying the purpose of the reading before reading Identifying the form or type of the text before reading Thinking about the general character and features of the form or type of the text. For instance, they try to locate a topic sentence and follow supporting details toward a conclusion Projecting the author’s purpose for writing the text (while reading it), Choosing, scanning, or reading in detail Making continuous predictions about what will occur next, based on information obtained earlier, prior knowledge, and conclusions obtained within the previous stages. Moreover, they attempt to form a summary of what was read. Carrying out the previous steps requires the reader to be able to classify sequence, establish whole-part relationships, compare and contrast, determine cause-effect, summarise, hypothesise and predict, infer, and conclude. Tips and Guidelines for implementing a theory of reading which will help to develop the learner’s abilities Text characteristics. Pre-reading tips During-reading tips After-reading tips These tips can be viewed in three consecutive stages: before reading, during reading, and after reading. For instance, before starting to read a text it is natural to think of the purpose of reading the text. As an example of the during-reading techniques, re-reading for better comprehension can be mentioned. And filling out forms and charts can be referred to as an after-reading activity. These tasks and ideas can be used to enhance reading comprehension. Text characteristics. Good readers expect to understand what they are reading. Therefore, texts should contain words and grammatical structures familiar to the learners (Van Duzer, 1999). In texts where vocabulary is not familiar, teachers can introduce key vocabulary in pre-reading activities that focus on language awareness, such as finding synonyms, antonyms, derivatives, or associated words (Hood et al. , 1996; cited in Van Duzer, 1999). The topics of texts chosen should be in accordance with the age range, interests, sex, and background culture of the students for whom they are intended. Pre-reading activities that introduce the text should encourage learners to use their background knowledge (Eskey, 1997; cited in Van Duzer, 1999). Class members can brainstorm ideas about the meaning of a title or an illustration and discuss what they know. Pre-reading tips Before the actual act of reading a text begins, some points should be regarded in order to make the process of reading more comprehensible. It is necessary to provide the necessary background information to the reader to facilitate comprehension. In addition, as stated by Lebauer (1998), pre-reading activities can lighten students’ cognitive burden while reading because prior discussions will have been incorporated. Teacher-directed pre-reading (Estes, 1999) Some key vocabulary and ideas in the text are explained. In this approach the teacher directly explains the information the students will need, including key concepts, important vocabulary, and appropriate conceptual framework. Interactive approach (Estes, 1999). In this method, the teacher leads a discussion in which he/she draws out the information students already have and interjects additional information deemed necessary to an understanding of the text to be read. Moreover, the teacher can make explicit links between prior knowledge and important information in the text. Purpose of reading It is also necessary for students to become aware of the purpose and goal for reading a certain piece of written material. At the beginning stages this can be done by the teacher, but as the reader becomes more mature this purpose, i. e.awareness-raising strategy, can be left to the readers. For instance, the students may be guided to ask themselves, â€Å"Why am I reading this text? What do I want to know or do after reading? † One of the most obvious, but unnoticed, points related to reading purpose is the consideration of the different types of reading skills. Skimming: Reading rapidly for the main points Scanning: Reading rapidly to find a specific piece of information Extensive reading: Reading a longer text, often for pleasure with emphasis on overall meaning Intensive reading: Reading a short text for detailed information. The most frequently encountered reason as to why the four skills are all subsumed into one – intensive reading – is that students studying a foreign language feel the urge to look up every word they don’t understand and to pinpoint on every structural point they see unfamiliar. To make students aware of the different types of reading, ask them about the types of reading they do in their first language. The type of text – The reader must become familiar with the fact that texts may take on different forms and hold certain pieces of information in different places. Thus, it is necessary to understand the layout of the material being read in order to focus more deeply on the parts that are more densely compacted with information. Even paying attention to the year of publication of a text, if applicable, may aid the reader in presuppositions about the text as can glancing at the name of the author. Steinhofer (1996) stated that the tips mentioned in pre-reading will not take a very long time to carry out. The purpose is to overcome the common urge to start reading a text closely right away from the beginning. During-reading tips What follows are tips that encourage active reading. They consist of summarizing, reacting, questioning, arguing, evaluating, and placing a text within one’s own experience. These processes may be the most complex to develop in a classroom setting, the reason being that in English reading classes most attention is often paid to dictionaries, the text, and the teacher. Interrupting this routine and encouraging students to dialogue with what they are reading without coming between them and the text presents a challenge to the EFL teacher. Duke and Pearson (2001) have stated that good readers are active readers. According to Ur (1996), Vaezi (2001), and Fitzgerald (1995), they use the following strategies. Making predictions: The readers should be taught to be on the watch to predict what is going to happen next in the text to be able to integrate and combine what has come with what is to come. Making selections: Readers who are more proficient read selectively, continually making decisions about their reading. Integrating prior knowledge: The schemata that have been activated in the pre-reading section should be called upon to facilitate comprehension. Skipping insignificant parts: A good reader will concentrate on significant pieces of information while skipping insignificant pieces. Re-reading: Readers should be encouraged to become sensitive to the effect of reading on their comprehension. Making use of context or guessing: Readers should not be encouraged to define and understand every single unknown word in a text. Instead they should learn to make use of context to guess the meaning of unknown words. Breaking words into their component parts: To keep the process of comprehension ongoing, efficient readers break words into their affixes or bases. These parts can help readers guess the meaning of a word. Reading in chunks: To ensure reading speed, readers should get used to reading groups of words together. This act will also enhance comprehension by focusing on groups of meaning-conveying symbols simultaneously. Pausing: Good readers will pause at certain places while reading a text to absorb and internalize the material being read and sort out information. Paraphrasing: While reading texts it may be necessary to paraphrase and interpret texts subvocally in order to verify what was comprehended. Monitoring: Good readers monitor their understanding to evaluate whether the text, or the reading of it, is meeting their goals. After-reading tips It is necessary to state that post-reading activities almost always depend on the purpose of reading and the type of information extracted from the text. Barnett (1988) has stated that post-reading exercises first check students’ comprehension and then lead students to a deeper analysis of the text. In the real world the purpose of reading is not to memorize an author’s point of view or to summarize text content, but rather to see into another mind, or to mesh new information into what one already knows. Group discussion will help students focus on information they did not comprehend, or did comprehend correctly. Accordingly, attention will be focused on processes that lead to comprehension or miscomprehension. Generally speaking, post-reading can take the form of various activities as presented below: Discussing the text: Written/Oral Summarizing: Written/Oral Making questions: Written/Oral. Answering questions: Written/Oral Filling in forms and charts Writing reading logs Completing a text Listening to or reading other related materials Role-playing 2. The Reading Purpose Reading is an activity with a purpose. A person may read in order to gain information or verify existing knowledge, or in order to critique a writer’s ideas or writing style. A person may also read for enjoyment, or to enhance knowledge of the language being read. The purpose(s) for reading guide the reader’s selection of texts. The purpose for reading also determines the appropriate approach to reading comprehension. A person who needs to know whether she can afford to eat at a particular restaurant needs to comprehend the pricing information provided on the menu, but does not need to recognize the name of every appetizer listed. A person reading poetry for enjoyment needs to recognize the words the poet uses and the ways they are put together, but does not need to identify main idea and supporting details. However, a person using a scientific article to support an opinion needs to know the vocabulary that is used, understand the facts and cause-effect sequences that are presented, and recognize ideas that are presented as hypotheses and givens. Reading research shows that good readers Read extensively Integrate information in the text with existing knowledge Have a flexible reading style, depending on what they are reading Are motivated Rely on different skills interacting: perceptual processing, phonemic processing, recall Read for a purpose; reading serves a function Reading as a Process Reading is an interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text, resulting in comprehension. The text presents letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs that encode meaning. The reader uses knowledge, skills, and strategies to determine what that meaning is. Reader knowledge, skills, and strategies include Linguistic competence: the ability to recognize the elements of the writing system; knowledge of vocabulary; knowledge of how words are structured into sentences Discourse competence: knowledge of discourse markers and how they connect parts of the text to one another Sociolinguistic competence: knowledge about different types of texts and their usual structure and content Strategic competence: the ability to use top-down strategies, as well as knowledge of the language (a bottom-up strategy). The purpose(s) for reading and the type of text determine the specific knowledge, skills, and strategies that readers need to apply to achieve comprehension. Reading comprehension is thus much more than decoding. Reading comprehension results when the reader knows which skills and strategies are appropriate for the type of text, and understands how to apply them to accomplish the reading purpose. Developmentally Appropriate Materials for Preschool and Kindergarten Children (Ages 3-6). Materials for preschoolers and kindergarteners should support their developing social skills and interest in adult roles, growing imaginations, increasing motor skills, and rapidly expanding vocabularies. Refer to the table below for examples of developmentally appropriate materials for preschool and kindergarten children. Type of Material Appropriate Materials Examples Skill/concept Books/records Picture books, simple and repetitive stories and rhymes, animal stories, pop-up books, simple information books, wide variety of musical recordings. Games Socially interactive games with adults, such as What If; matching and lotto games based on colors and pictures, such as picture bingo or dominoes; games of chance with a few pieces that require no reading, such as Chutes and Ladders; flannel board with pictures, letters, and storybook characters Gross motor Active play Push and pull toys; ride-on toys; balls of all kinds; indoor slide and climber; rocking boat Outdoor Climbers, rope ladders, balls of all sizes; old tires, sand and water materials Manipulative Fine motor. Dressing frames; toys to put together and take apart; cookie cutters, stamp and printing materials, finger paint, modeling dough, small objects to sort and classify; bead stringing with long, thin string; pegs and small pegs; colored cubes, table blocks, magnetic board/letters/numbers and shapes; perception boards and mosaics Puzzles and form boards Fit-in or framed puzzles (for 3-year-olds: from 4-20 pieces, for 4-year-olds: from 15-30 pieces, for 5-year-olds: from 15-50 pieces); large, simple jigsaws; number/letter/clock puzzles Investigative. Toys, globe flashlight, magnets, lock boxes, weather forecasting equipment, scales, balances, stethoscopes Construction Building sets Small and large unit blocks; large hollow blocks; from age 4, interlocking plastic blocks with pieces of all sizes Carpentry Workbench, hammer, preschool nails, saw, sandpaper, pounding benches, safety goggles Self-expressive Dolls and soft toys Realistic dolls and accessories; play settings and play people (e. g. , farm, hospital) Dramatic play Dress-up clothes, realistic tools, toy camera, telephone, household furniture. Sensory Tactile boxes; auditory and musical materials such as smelling and sound boxes; cooking experiences Art/music All rhythm instruments, music boxes; large crayons, paint, paste, glue, chalkboard and chalk, sewing kits, collage materials, markers, modeling dough, blunt scissors Natural and everyday Sand and water Sandbox tools, bubbles, water toys Old clocks, radios, cameras, telephones; telephone books; mirrors; doctor kits; typewriter; magazines; fabric scraps; computer; cash register and receipts; measuring cups and muffin tins 3. Basic Reading Skills  a. Skimming – is used to quickly gather the most important information, or ‘gist’. Run your eyes over the text, noting important information. Use skimming to quickly get up to speed on a current business situation. It’s not essential to understand each word when skimming. Examples of Skimming: The Newspaper (quickly to get the general news of the day) Magazines (quickly to discover which articles you would like to read in more detail) Business and Travel Brochures (quickly to get informed) b. Scanning- is used to find a particular piece of information. Run your eyes over the text looking for the specific piece of information you need. Use scanning on schedules, meeting plans, etc. in order to find the specific details you require. If you see words or phrases that you don’t understand, don’t worry when scanning. Examples of Scanning The â€Å"What’s on TV† section of your newspaper. A train / airplane schedule A conference guide c. Extensive reading- is used to obtain a general understanding of a subject and includes reading longer texts for pleasure, as well as business books. Use extensive reading skills to improve your general knowledge of business procedures. Do not worry if you understand each word. Examples of Extensive Reading The latest marketing strategy book A novel you read before going to bed Magazine articles that interest you d. Intensive reading – is used on shorter texts in order to extract specific information. It includes very close accurate reading for detail. Use intensive reading skills to grasp the details of a specific situation. In this case, it is important that you understand each word, number or fact. Examples of Intensive Reading A bookkeeping report An insurance claim A contract Essential Components of Reading Reading is an astoundingly complex cognitive process. While we often think of reading as one singular act, our brains are actually engaging in a number of tasks simultaneously each time we sit down with a book. There are five aspects to the process of reading: phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, reading comprehension and fluency. These five aspects work together to create the reading experience. As children learn to read they must develop skills in all five of these areas in order to become successful readers. 1. Phonics Phonics is the connection between sounds and letter symbols. It is also the combination of these sound-symbol connections to create words. Without phonics, words are simply a bunch of squiggles and lines on a page. If you think about it, letters are arbitrary. There is nothing innately bed-like about the written word â€Å"bed†. It is simply the collection of letters and corresponding sounds that we agree constitute the word â€Å"bed†. Learning to make that connection between the individual sounds that each letter represents and then putting those together is essential to understanding what that funny squiggle means. There are a number of ways that phonics can be taught because there is a variety of ways to apply this aspect when reading. Each approach allows the reader to use phonics to read and learn new words in a different way. Synthetic phonics builds words from the ground up. In this approach readers are taught to first connect letters to their corresponding phonemes (sound units) and then to blend those together to create a word. Analytic phonics, on the other hand, approaches words from the top down. A word is identified as a whole unit and then its letter-sound connections are parsed out. Analogy phonics uses familiar parts of words to discover new words. Finally, phonics through spelling focuses on connecting sounds with letters in writing. All of these approaches can be taught and used independently or in combination to help young readers learn to identify new words. 2. Phonemic Awareness Phonemic awareness is closely related to phonics because both involve the connection between sounds and words.

The Ideal Man Essay

Ideal Man Essay: Rewrite Alicia Luttrell AP English October 11, 2012 From ancient times to present day, authors from around the world have tried to pursue the ideal man. After reading some of their stories, it is easy to see that each story depends on the type of culture the author was raised in. Throughout this pursuit, the ideal man has taken on many different forms. The ideal man may be thought of as someone who is perfect, but some may see him as someone who overcomes faults or doubts. He could also be seen as someone tries to become the ideal man or is well-known and liked throughout the land.In Flight, the young man Pepe has to learn to become a man after his father dies. His mother tells him almost daily that he is lazy and needs to get to work. As Pepe’s mother starts to rely more on him, she sends him into town to pick up some medicine and supplies. This is the start of Pepe forming into a man. His mother is instilling responsibility in him to help out the family. He goes on a journey and ends up proving that his mother should have never sent him because he kills someone. He runs from his crime and tries to get away from facing the consequences.Although he wanted to be like his father, the ideal man in Pepe’s eyes, he was young and foolish. The doubt of his mother didn’t help though. John Steinbeck wrote this story to show the reader that just because there is a void to fill does not mean that the person filling that void is ready for the task. Pepe tried to be like his father and fill his shoes. Some readers might view trying as a characteristic of an ideal man. Although Pepe tried he still lacked strength and courage to face his mistakes.The strange story of The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World is an example of creating an ideal man. The town’s people created a life that they thought this handsome man, they found on the beach, should have lived. Instead of just burying and being done with him, they chose to give him a l ife story so that he would not be forgotten. They gave him the name of Esteban, which means great and beautiful. The women compared him to their husbands, even though they knew nothing of him. The town’s people went out of their way to give him a lavish funeral, one that everyone would remember.These people were using Esteban for their own self-improvement. They saw how this man was forgotten and did not want the same thing to happen to them. This thinking caused them to change their life styles and better themselves. In the short story, A Good Man Is Hard to Find, there are many characteristics that could be put together to make up one ideal man, but separately everyone has flaws. The main character of the story, the grandmother, is in search of a good man. She is always quick to say someone is a â€Å"good man† before she knows anything about them.For example, when she meets Red Sam he mentions to the family that he let some â€Å"fellers† charge their gas las t week; she instantly decides that he is a good man. Red Sam was caring, generous, and thoughtful, things that an ideal man should be. On the other hand, Red Sam was lazy and rude towards his wife, not a characteristic of an ideal man. When the grandmother meets the Misfit, even though she knows he is a criminal, she still calls him a â€Å"good man. † He is kind to her, but in the end he kills her because she knows too much.Flannery O’Conner wrote this short story to let the reader know that just because someone may seem like â€Å"good man†, it does not always mean that they are. Red Sam seemed kind and caring, but he was really just lazy and rude. The Misfit turned out to be a cold-hearted killer after seeming like he cared to stop and help the family on the side of the road. There are people that are in the world today who seem good, but are nowhere close to it. They can say whatever they want but their actions will speak for themselves. As all of these stor ies show, being an ideal man is near impossible.Many people possess qualities that would make up an ideal man, but never all the qualities needed. They can never possess all the qualities because every perspective of an ideal man is based on what the reader believes in. Pepe was not mature enough, Esteban was not remembered for what he actually did, and Red Sam and the Misfit appeared like good men, but were not even close. There will never be an ideal man living in society. The ideal man will only live on through the stories, movies, and imagination people create. The ideal man is all based around culture and belief.

Using Meter

Using 'Meter' Meter is one of those verbs that can mean a wide variety of things depending on the context. Much like poner, with which its meanings overlap, it often carries the idea of interjecting someone or something into a place or situation. Meter has no direct English equivalent, although it is a cousin of words such as permit, commit and mission. It has no apparent connection with the verb to mete nor the noun meter. Meter comes from the Latin verb mittÄ•re, which meant to let go or to send. Meter is conjugated regularly, following the pattern of beber and many other verbs. It is frequently used reflexively. The most common translations for meter are to put and to place. Some examples: El empresario metià ³ el dinero en un banco suizo. The businessman put the money in a Swiss bank. Yo metà ­ la cabeza debajo de la almohada para no oà ­rla. I placed my head underneath the pillow so I wouldnt hear her. Cuando vamos a meter peces en el acuario, debemos seguir unas pautas. When were going to put fish in the aquarium, we should follow some guidelines. La chef metià ³ una pizza encima de papel de aluminio en el horno. The chef placed a pizza on top of aluminum foil in the oven. Van a la playa y meten los pies en el agua. Theyre going to the beach and putting their feet in the water. A la edad de ocho aà ±os, su padre lo metià ³ en la escuela jesuita. At the age of eight, his father put him in the Jesuit school. Go into or enter is a good translation in some situations: Un intruso se metià ³ en la casa de la cantante. An intruder entered the singers house. Se metieron en la oficina, cerrando la puerta. They went into the office, closing the door. In sports, meter can mean to score: El otro dà ­a nos metieron dos goles ilegales. The other day they scored two illegal goals against us. Meter can be used to refer to getting involved with something, often in a negative sense such as meddling: No es necesario meter a Dios en estas cosas. It isnt necessary to get God involved in these things. No te debes meter en mi vida. You shouldnt involve yourself in my life. Mis jefes se meten en mis asuntos privados. My bosses are meddling in my private affairs. In some circumstances, meter can mean to give, so once in a while its meaning overlaps with dar: Abrà ­ un mensaje una vez y se me metià ³ un virus. I opened a message one time and it gave me a virus. La policà ­a me metià ³ cuatro multas por tirar papeles. The police gave me four tickets for littering. Sources: Sample sentences have been adapted from a variety of sources that include Perià ³dico Santa Pola, ABC.es, Interzoo, Wattpad, El Paà ­s (Spain), es.Yahoo.com, Taringa.net, Zasca.com and Compartir Tecnologias.

How to Add Leading Zeroes to a Number (Delphi Format)

How to Add Leading Zeroes to a Number (Delphi Format) Different applications require specific values to conform to structural paradigms. For example, Social Security numbers are always nine digits long. Some reports require that numbers be displayed with a fixed amount of characters. Sequence numbers, for example, usually start with 1 and increment without end, so theyre displayed with leading zeroes to present a visual appeal. As a Delphi programmer, your approach to adding a number with leading zeroes depends on the specific use case for that value. You can simply opt to pad a display value, or you can convert a number to a string for storage in a database. Display Padding Method Use a straightforward function to change how your number displays. Use  format to make the  conversion by supplying a value for  length (the total length of the final output) and the number you want to pad: str : Format(%.*d,[length, number]) To pad the number 7 with two leading zeroes, plug those values into the code: str : Format(%.*d,[3, 7]); The result is  007  with the value returned as a string.   Convert to String Method Use a padding function to append leading zeroes (or any other character) any time you need it within your script. To convert values that are already integers, use: function LeftPad(value:integer; length:integer8; pad:char0): string; overload;  begin     result : RightStr(StringOfChar(pad,length) IntToStr(value), length );  end; If the value to be converted is already a string, use: function LeftPad(value: string; length:integer8; pad:char0): string; overload;begin  Ã‚  Ã‚  result : RightStr(StringOfChar(pad,length) value, length );end; This approach works with Delphi 6 and later editions. Both of these code blocks default to a padding character of 0  with a length of seven  returned characters; those values may be modified to meet your needs. When  LeftPad  is called, it returns values according to the specified paradigm. For example, if you set an integer value to 1234, calling LeftPad: i: 1234;r : LeftPad(i); will return a string value of 0001234.

Agencies And Information Classification Criminology Essay

Agencies And Information Classification Criminology Essay Individual agencies classify criminal information that is compiled in a report as Uniform Crime Reporting. The Uniform reports are usually compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and they consist of criminal data that belongs to all the states that form United States of America. This program began in 1929. It was the idea of police commanders, who saw the need of creating a reliable criminal statistics for the country (Anderson and Dyson, 2002). Today, the reports form an important element of fighting criminal activities within United States of America. This is because they necessary information that law enforcement officers can rely on for purposes of fighting criminal activities. For instance, the reports provide the names of the most wanted criminals, and the patterns of crime within a certain locality (Anderson and Dyson, 2002). The reports also help policy makers in the department of homeland security on how to develop policies that will help in making the country secu re. The various law enforcement agencies within the country have the responsibility of collecting these reports, and thereafter present them to the FBI for compilation. Currently, there are three Uniform Crime Reports published by the FBI, namely; Hate Crime Statistics 2011. Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted 2011. The Preliminary Uniform Crime report 2012. Resources Available for Sheriffs and Police Chiefs: One of the resources that public safety officials like police officers and Sheriffs have in classifying crimes in their locations is the fusion centers. A fusion center is an institution formed by the department of homeland security for purposes of receiving, analyzing, and disseminating intelligence information from to the relevant security bodies. These centers can therefore guide security officers and Sheriffs on how to classify the various crimes within their areas of jurisdiction. They have the capability of identifying whether a crime falls under terrorism, or i t is a murder/ homicide. The Central Investigative Agency is also another resource that police chiefs and sheriffs have that can help them in classifying and analyzing crimes (Dunn, 2012). The agency has the responsibility of collecting intelligence information, and provides it for assessment by senior policy makers in United States of America. On this note, Sheriffs and local police chiefs can benefit from their facilities and experience in analyzing and classifying the various criminal activities within their locality. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is another resource unit that the Sheriffs and local police chiefs can use to classify and categorize criminal activities. This is a Federal Agency that has the responsibility of fighting crimes within the United States of America. The department is well equipped to handle any forms of criminal activities. The department also has experts who can categorize and analyze various criminal activities within the state, and therefore She riffs and local police chiefs can use their experiences in analyzing the various criminal activities within their areas of jurisdictions. Pros and Cons of UCR: The Uniform Crime Reporting system is advantageous because people are able to know the crime rate of their locality. For instance, women who are concerned with the security of their children might know the crime rates of the schools in which they take their children to, or the surrounding environment where their children play or pass through. The report also provides information on the various crimes that occur within the state, and tries to project their occurrence in future (Dunn, 2012).

History assignmnt Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

History assignmnt - Essay Example bsite has been on-going with the effort to record and preserve the record of September 11, through the collection and storage of information from first-hand encounter of the event, digital photographs and artworks, and a variety of other digital materials associated to the attacks. The website also uses the events as a technique of evaluating in what manner history is being documented and conserved in the 21st century. It also helps historian’s better collect, preserve, and writes history in the new century. The main goal is to create an enduring documentation of events of 9-11-2001. The Archive has so far made contracting agreements establishing partnership with Library of Congress, which accepted a copy of the as its Archive permanent collections this ensures long-term preservation. Over the years, the archive has accumulated more than 150,000 digital files: stories, photographs, digital art images, videos, official documents, and oral histories. Altogether, these resources provide the substantial accounts of the event and instantaneous reactions of the events in New York, Arlington, and Shanksville. The site has also managed to archive record on the subsequent kaleidoscopic chronological remembrances that have been at the heart for much of the scholarship on September 11th. The September 11 website author being lovers of history and media, majority of them working in the George Mason University lack visible differences and thus the reason behind the continued success of the web page. Their love for history is said to be one of the pillars of the web page. Also, the model of data collection and preservation is a significant contributor to its continued success. Being in the 21st century majority of readers would prefer to get information on the website. This gives the September 11 a boost to its success as there are not many such sights where individuals can access such information. The website â€Å"The September 11† has been providing software’s that

Rise and Fall of Empires Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Rise and Fall of Empires - Term Paper Example tion and elevated levels of industrialization which may make a nation attain superpower status just like that of the People’s Republic of China (Fishman 112). In this essay, our focus will be on China as an emerging superpower capable of rivaling the status of the United States driven by its exemplary economic growth and military might. From our discussion, we find that China helped by its impressive economic growth can mount a successive campaign to become an important player capable of becoming a superpower in the world affairs. This is helped by the declining power of the United States as a major player in the international arena as it faces both domestic and international problems in its economy and policies. However, we will conclude that the People’s Republic of China is incapable of becoming the absolute global superpower to rival the United States due to certain inadequacies in its systems. For instance, China has poor governance and political situations that ar e not universally acceptable while it also has inferior military as compared to the United States of America. The People’s Republic of China has continuously risen to be a serious power as seen through its tremendous economic growth and transformation in its foreign policy aimed at increasing its power and influence (Shirk 77). The nation has used its growing influence to try and have a say on how the affairs of the world are run with the sole purpose of having the world serve its mainly economic interests. Through the increase of state power of China, it is increasingly becoming capable of creating and enforcing rules and institutions aimed at pursuing its interests and security as well as that of its citizens. Part of the reason put forward for China’s rise in global affairs can be attributed to the slow changes in its regime and its dissatisfaction of the old international order led by the United States. Though the rise of China had started during the Ming Dynasty, the foresight by the

Phase 5 Individual Project 5 Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Phase 5 Individual Project 5 - Coursework Example The global spread is due to its superior quality brand that meets consumers’ tastes and preferences and high reputation in customer service delivery a critical factor that its competitors lack. Currently, the firm is the fourth largest retailers in world. Profitability being one of the main objectives that guarantee sustainability and growth of an organization, Home Depot is trading at a profit. This is  showed  by an  increase in the Net sales from $78.8Billion in the year 2013 to $83.2Billion in 2014. The net earnings scaled up from $4.5Billion in 2012 to $5.4Billion in 2013 and finally to $6.3Billion in 2014. Additionally, the store count also improved from 2256 in 2012 to 2263 in 2013 to 2269 in 2014. This result indeed shows that the firm will continue operating at a profit for unforeseen future pursuant to the basis of a going concern (The home depot, 2015). For the purposes of financing its internal activities and investments, the firm preferred long-term debt because of the tax shield that is tied up in the debt. The total amount of debt that is spent by the enterprise is $16.869Billion. The huge sum loan was due to the decrease in its assets by $572Million, decrease in shareholders equity by $572Million, an increase in accounts payable by approximately $10Million all from February 2014 to February 2015. However, this is not  an issue  to shareholders as Home Depot’s statement of cash flows clearly indicates that the cash and cash equivalents have been increasing. This is evidenced by an increase in cash from operation from 6975 in 2013 to 7628 in 2014 and 8242 in 2015. The cash from investing activities increased from 1432 to 1507 and 1271 from the year 2013 to 2015 respectively. The cash from financing activities scaled up from 50354 in 2013, to 6652 in 2014 and 7071 in 2015. This stipulates that the cash and cash equival ents have been increasing substantially and, therefore,

Human resource Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Human resource - Essay Example One such factor is the excellent performance and reward management of the company. The founders of the company abided by all the principles and produced products accordingly. The performance of the company and its progress within a short period of time has made it a nationalised company holding the majority portion of the market share. Current Performance and Reward Management practises at Innocent Performance management is an important cornerstone in the Human Resource practises of an organization (Smither and London, 2009). It is all about measuring the performances of the employees doing their jobs and designing and implementing systems in order to strengthen the performance standards which have been set. It starts with measuring the daily operational performances of the employees. An organization should have a clear understanding about the kind of job for which they are hiring the employees. Based on that the training should be provided and finally the performances of the employe es should be measured. Performance management involves partnership agreement with the employees or the team of employees in order to increase their level of involvement in the organization (Cardy and Leonard, 2011). Moreover the future improvement in the performance of an organization needs the assessment of the past and the present performance. Every section of activities like providing feedback, coordinating with the employees to solve the problems related to their decreased performance, developing improved performance level etc play an important role in performance management. The method of evaluating the performance of a particular employee is known as the performance appraisal. It is a part of the career development and involves review of the performances of the employees

The true cause of World War I Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The true cause of World War I - Essay Example The period thereafter until 1918 marks the one of the most tumultuous times in world history. The royal murder at the hands of the Black Hand, a Serbian nationalist secret society, gave rise to an impulsive series of political happenings and fuelled the already existent conflict between Austria and Serbia that unexpectedly culminated into a global war. In order to impose authority on Serbia, Austria issued an ultimatum demanding justice to the murder of their heir. However, the ultimatum was not responded to as expected and Austria declared war on Serbia on 28 July 1914. Russia, Germany, France and Britain (along with all its colonies) plunged into the war as they were bound by treaties to one party or the other. In 1917, United States was finally forced into the war (despite its policy of absolute neutrality) as it received a commercial blow. Subsequently, Japan and Italy stepped into the field as they were in alliance with Germany. Various alliances that came into play during the war owe their roots to Bismarck, the Prussian Prime Minister's desire to unify the loose assembly of German confederation states into a single empire way back in 1860's. These states were primarily under Austrian influence and Bismarck bore ambition to defeat Austria and take over the territories. He finally succeeded in his endeavor and the German empire was created after a series of wars. At a grass-root level, it was Bismarck's foreign policies that eventually led to the sequence of events that we know as the "First World War". Bismarck was a shrewd strategist and in order to lay a reason to inflict war upon France, he tried to place a Hohenzollern prince on the Spanish throne, much to the objection of Napoleon III. He further insulted France and Prussia via telegrams thereby coaxing them into declaring war. The French forces were defeated and the Prussian forces laid siege to Paris along with Alsace and Lorraine. As a consequence, France was compelled to pay enormous reparations and the northern and southern German states allied to form Bismarck's German Empire. Monetary gain made Germany a financially powerful nation and instilled a sense of supremacy among the Germans that led to class conflicts at a later stage that led to internal conflict which Bismarck believed could only be resolved by war. "Bismarck's creation of a unified Germany was of direct relevance to the outbreak of war some 43 years later, since it resulted in the assembly of the key alliances that later came into play"1. In order to stabilize his empire, Bismarck started building European alliances for defense against potentially threatening nations like the French. As a matter of fact, the French plan for war in 1914, was actually aimed at recapturing Alsace and Lorraine. The Three Emperors League formed in 1873 was an alliance that tied Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia but Russia backed out five years later leaving Bismarck with a Dual Alliance with Austria-Hungary which contained clauses against Russia. These clauses invoked Austria-Hungary in calling Germany to her aid against Russian support for Serbia (who in turn was protected by treaty with Russia). The Triple Alliance involving Italy in 1881 provided for support from Germany and Austria-Hungary if Italy was attacked by France but Italy entered into a

Phase 5 Individual Project 5 Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Phase 5 Individual Project 5 - Coursework Example The global spread is due to its superior quality brand that meets consumers’ tastes and preferences and high reputation in customer service delivery a critical factor that its competitors lack. Currently, the firm is the fourth largest retailers in world. Profitability being one of the main objectives that guarantee sustainability and growth of an organization, Home Depot is trading at a profit. This is  showed  by an  increase in the Net sales from $78.8Billion in the year 2013 to $83.2Billion in 2014. The net earnings scaled up from $4.5Billion in 2012 to $5.4Billion in 2013 and finally to $6.3Billion in 2014. Additionally, the store count also improved from 2256 in 2012 to 2263 in 2013 to 2269 in 2014. This result indeed shows that the firm will continue operating at a profit for unforeseen future pursuant to the basis of a going concern (The home depot, 2015). For the purposes of financing its internal activities and investments, the firm preferred long-term debt because of the tax shield that is tied up in the debt. The total amount of debt that is spent by the enterprise is $16.869Billion. The huge sum loan was due to the decrease in its assets by $572Million, decrease in shareholders equity by $572Million, an increase in accounts payable by approximately $10Million all from February 2014 to February 2015. However, this is not  an issue  to shareholders as Home Depot’s statement of cash flows clearly indicates that the cash and cash equivalents have been increasing. This is evidenced by an increase in cash from operation from 6975 in 2013 to 7628 in 2014 and 8242 in 2015. The cash from investing activities increased from 1432 to 1507 and 1271 from the year 2013 to 2015 respectively. The cash from financing activities scaled up from 50354 in 2013, to 6652 in 2014 and 7071 in 2015. This stipulates that the cash and cash equival ents have been increasing substantially and, therefore,

The true cause of World War I Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The true cause of World War I - Essay Example The period thereafter until 1918 marks the one of the most tumultuous times in world history. The royal murder at the hands of the Black Hand, a Serbian nationalist secret society, gave rise to an impulsive series of political happenings and fuelled the already existent conflict between Austria and Serbia that unexpectedly culminated into a global war. In order to impose authority on Serbia, Austria issued an ultimatum demanding justice to the murder of their heir. However, the ultimatum was not responded to as expected and Austria declared war on Serbia on 28 July 1914. Russia, Germany, France and Britain (along with all its colonies) plunged into the war as they were bound by treaties to one party or the other. In 1917, United States was finally forced into the war (despite its policy of absolute neutrality) as it received a commercial blow. Subsequently, Japan and Italy stepped into the field as they were in alliance with Germany. Various alliances that came into play during the war owe their roots to Bismarck, the Prussian Prime Minister's desire to unify the loose assembly of German confederation states into a single empire way back in 1860's. These states were primarily under Austrian influence and Bismarck bore ambition to defeat Austria and take over the territories. He finally succeeded in his endeavor and the German empire was created after a series of wars. At a grass-root level, it was Bismarck's foreign policies that eventually led to the sequence of events that we know as the "First World War". Bismarck was a shrewd strategist and in order to lay a reason to inflict war upon France, he tried to place a Hohenzollern prince on the Spanish throne, much to the objection of Napoleon III. He further insulted France and Prussia via telegrams thereby coaxing them into declaring war. The French forces were defeated and the Prussian forces laid siege to Paris along with Alsace and Lorraine. As a consequence, France was compelled to pay enormous reparations and the northern and southern German states allied to form Bismarck's German Empire. Monetary gain made Germany a financially powerful nation and instilled a sense of supremacy among the Germans that led to class conflicts at a later stage that led to internal conflict which Bismarck believed could only be resolved by war. "Bismarck's creation of a unified Germany was of direct relevance to the outbreak of war some 43 years later, since it resulted in the assembly of the key alliances that later came into play"1. In order to stabilize his empire, Bismarck started building European alliances for defense against potentially threatening nations like the French. As a matter of fact, the French plan for war in 1914, was actually aimed at recapturing Alsace and Lorraine. The Three Emperors League formed in 1873 was an alliance that tied Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia but Russia backed out five years later leaving Bismarck with a Dual Alliance with Austria-Hungary which contained clauses against Russia. These clauses invoked Austria-Hungary in calling Germany to her aid against Russian support for Serbia (who in turn was protected by treaty with Russia). The Triple Alliance involving Italy in 1881 provided for support from Germany and Austria-Hungary if Italy was attacked by France but Italy entered into a

Origin of OSI Model Essay Example for Free

Origin of OSI Model Essay Much of the work on the design of OSI was done by a group at Honeywell Information Systems, headed by Mike Canepa, with Charlie Bachman as the principal technical member. This group was organized within Honeywell, with advanced product planning and with the design and development of prototype systems. In the early and mid 1970s, the interest of Canepas group was mainly on database design and then distributed database design. By the mid-1970s, it become clear that to support database machines, distributed access, and the like, a structured distributed communications architecture would be needed. The group studied some of the existing solutions, including IBMs system network architecture (SNA), the work on protocols being done for ARPANET, and some of the concepts of presentation services being developed for standardized database systems. The result of this effort was the development by 1977 of a seven-layer architecture known as the distributed systems architecture (DSA). Bachman and Canepa participated in ANSI meetings and presented their seven-layer model. This model was chosen as the only proposal to be submitted to the ISO subcommittee. When the ISO group met in Washington DC in March of 78, the Honeywell team presented their solution. An agreement was reached at that meeting that this layered architecture would satisfy most requirements of OSI, and had the ability to be expanded later to meet new requirements. A provisional version of the model was published in March of 78. The next version, with some minor adjustments, was published in June of 1979 and eventually standardized. The resulting OSI model is essentially the same as the DSA model developed in 1977.

Supporting It Infrastructure In Cimb Bank Information Technology Essay

Supporting It Infrastructure In Cimb Bank Information Technology Essay The Strategic Role of Information Systems and Supporting IT Infrastructure in CIMB Bank Berhad on the future direction to implementation of cloud computing in your organisation. The main purpose of this report is to add detail to the findings and recommendations of cloud computing which was being analysed in all aspects. We hope that our recommendations will be helpful as you consider the implementation of cloud computing to your organisation which would be cost savings whereby no additional infrastructure will be used and cloud computing also helps to save the environment by contributing to green computing. We look forward to discussing this report with you. Thank you. Yours sincerely TJ Consultant EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Cloud computing is a new way of delivering computing resources, not a new technology.  [1]   The CIMB Bank Cloud Computing Strategic Direction Paper describes the whole of MSF Sales Force policy position on cloud computing. The strategy will states that the MSF Sales Division can choose a cloud-based service if it show clearly and deliberately value for money, fitness for purpose and are adequately secure; provides guidance for MSF Sales Force on what cloud computing is; and some of the issues and benefits of cloud computing that MSF Sales Force need to be aware of. Our investigation focused on three areas such as IT infrastructure and related problems, business processes and Environmental issues. Result of our analysis has lead to several recommendations. The paper recognises that the public cloud is still undergoing a gradual change, particularly in areas such as security and privacy. These issues need to be adequately resolved before critical MSF Sales Division can be transitioned to the cloud. As a result, the paper outlines three streams of work: Stream One provides the sales division with guidance and documentation. Stream Two encourages sales division to adopt public cloud services for public facing unclassified government services and to undertake proof of concept studies to fully understand the risks of the cloud environment. Stream Three encourages a strategic approach to cloud. This work is dependent upon greater clarity around projects commissioned under the Data Centre Strategy. TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Page 1. Introduction 6 2. IT infrastructure and ecosystem 8 2.1 Data management storage 8 2.2 Consultant and System Integration 8 2.2 Network Telecommunication 8 2.4 Software Application 8 2.5 Operating System Platform 8 2.6 Computer/Hardware 8 2.7 Intranet Platform 8 2.8 Issues and Challenges 9 3. Cloud Computing and its business benefits and costs 10 3.1 10 3.2 10 3.3 10 3.4 10 3.5 10 3.6 11 3.7 11 3.8 11 4. Recommendations of Cloud Computing Adoption 13 4.1 Market demand for CIMB / MSF services 14 4.2 CIIMB / MSF Business Strategy 14 4.3 CIMB / MSF Information Technology (IT) strategy, infrastructure cost 14 4.4 Information Technology Assessment 14 4.5 Competitor firm services 14 4.6 Competitor firm IT infrastructure investments 14 4.7 14 4.8 14 4.9 14 5. Conclusions 14 5.1 Summary of key findings 14 5.2 Recommendations 14 5.3 Limitation of studies 15 LIST OF REFERENCES 16 APPENDICES Appendix 1 Journal 18 Appendix 2 Cost and Benefits 20 Appendix 3 21 Appendix 4 22 Appendix 5 23 1. INTRODUCTION CIMB Group is the leading Asean Universal banking franchise, offering full range of financial products and services covering consumer banking, corporate and investment banking, Islamic banking, assets management, wealth management, insurance and Takaful and private banking. However, we are writing report based on one of CIMB Bank sales division known as Mobile Sales Force. Mobile Sales Force or more known as MSF is the largest sales channel in CIMB Bank. Comprising more than 2,000 staffs, promoting and distributing CIMB Bank key products such as mortgage loan for private and corporate, personal loan for government sector, hire purchase and credit cards. MSF was established backed in 2006 with the vision to be the best-in-class sales organization with a passion for exceeding expectation. Prior approval and consent from MSF head of department had been obtained in conducting this research. CIMB Group Profile CIMB Group is ASEANs leading universal banking franchise. We offer a full range of financial products and services covering consumer banking, corporate and investment banking, Islamic banking, asset management, wealth management, insurance and takaful, and private banking. With over 37,000 employees, CIMB Group reaches 81% of the ASEAN population, representing 89% of the regions gross domestic product. Our retail network of over 1,000 branches is the widest in the region. Headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, CIMB Groups main markets are Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Cambodia. Our presence in 13 countries covers ASEAN and major global financial centres, as well as countries in which our customers have significant business and investment dealings. In addition, we extend our reach and range of products and services through strategic partnerships. Our partners include the Principal Financial Group, Aviva plc, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Standard Bank plc, Daishin Securities and the Kanoo Group, among others. CIMB Group As the leading ASEAN universal banking franchise, CIMB Group offers a full range of financial products and services covering consumer banking, corporate and investment banking, Islamic banking, asset management, wealth management, insurance and takaful, and private banking. We operate our businesses on a dual banking leverage model, giving customers a choice of both conventional and Islamic financial solutions. Our main markets in which we offer full universal banking facilities are Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand. We also have a presence in other countries where our customers have significant business and investment dealings. CIMB Bank Our Consumer Banking business offers a full range of conventional and Islamic financial products and services to meet the borrowing and financing, wealth management and transaction needs of our individual customers and businesses. Our spectrum of banking services include credit cards, mortgages, auto loans and financing, commercial banking services for Small Medium Enterprises and mid-sized corporate customers, insurance and takaful, investment and wealth management services. We have an extensive retail network across the region in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and Cambodia that serves over 11 million customers. (http://www.cimb.com/index.php?ch=g2_aupg=g2_au_contenttpt=cimb_groupcat=profile) The rest of this report is as follows : Section 2 : IT Infrastructure and Ecosystem. Explained the IT infrastructure and Ecosystem of the organisation. Section 3 : Cloud computing and its business benefits. Provided cloud computing and its benefits and costs. Section 4 : Recommendation of cloud computing adoption/adaption. Recommended a suitable cloud that MSF could adopt. Section 5: Conclusions. Summarises the key points from the analysis and provided recommendation 2. IT INFRASTRUCTURE AND ECOSYSTEM CIMB IT infrastructure today consist of seven major components that must be coordinated to provide the division with a coherent IT infrastructure and the major vendors within each category INTERNET PLATFORMS Microsoft, Unix, IBM, Java DATA MANAGEMENT STORAGE IBM, DB2, Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase COMPUTER HARDWAREPLATFORMS Dell, HP IT INFRASTRUCTURE CONSULTANT SYSTEM INTEGRATOR IBM, EDS, Accenture ECOSYSTEM OPERATING SYSTEM PLATFORMS Microsoft Window NETWORKING TELECOM-MUNICATION Microsoft Window Server, Linux ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE PLATFORMS Oracle, Microsoft CIMB CORPORATE NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE: Issues and Challenges Securing Information System CIMB MSF are faced with challenges of data and information security. We need to have a more specific users security procedures guidelines. At the moment, CIMB MSF rely on CIMB Group rules for business conduct and Code of Ethics BNM GP7. As MSF is a firm providing financial services, MSF must comply with the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, better known as the Gramm-Leach Billey Act (Laudon, KC Laudon, JP 2010, pg 337) However, in Malaysia all financial institutions is govern by central bank or more known as Bank Negara Malaysia. Malicious Software Malware (Laudon, KC Laudon, JP 2010, pg 328) will be another hurdle for implementation of cloud computing as there is no IT department within MSF. All IT issues and problems will have to be refer to CIMB Group IT. This will cause time delaying as the problem cannot be solve in-house and need to wait for IT department action. MSF will have no control as to when CIMB Group IT will react to the reported problem. Absent of Transaction Processing Systems MSF did not have TPS a systems that keep track of the elementary activities of the organisation such as sales for all products such as personal and enterprise mortgages, personal loans and credit cards, customers information like age, annual income, employee, and credit decisions like common rejection reason and best customer profile. (Laudon, KC Laudon, JP 2010, pg 75) Decision Support Systems (DCS) Executive Support Systems (ESS) Due to absent of transaction processing system (TPS) no proper management information systems (MIS) to enable DCS ESS. DCS is useful in providing support non-routine decision making for middle management and ESS for senior management (Laudon, KC Laudon, JP 2010, pg 78 81) Database management Systems (DBMS) As MSF have multiple products, all data given will be in different formats and all users will have their own preferred format of reporting thus creating double work when each product user need to extract and reformat the data into meaningful information. (Laudon, KC Laudon, JP 2010, pg 240) Establishing an information policy Although there are numerous CIMB Banking Acts like, Banking Financial Institute Act1989 (BAFIA) section 97 secrecy, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) GP7 confidentiality, CIMB Group Code of Ethics governing the information policy, it is still a good practise to draft information policy for MSF sales division. More specific guidelines, rules and penalties in controlling MSF information policy for sharing, disseminating, acquiring, standardising, classifying and inventorying information systems. (Laudon, KC Laudon, JP 2010, pg 259) Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is widely implemented strategy for managing a firm interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. Most banks will have their own CRM. CRM is only possible if there is enough data captured which can be transfer into information and CRM uses the information formed by the data to enable the user better forecast the needs and wants of the customers. At this moment, CRM is not available in MSF. 3. CLOUD COMPUTING AND ITS BUSINESS BENEFITS AND COSTS National Institute Of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines Cloud computing as a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. The benefit of early adoption of cloud computing in Global 2000 enterprises enables organization on cost savings on maintaining its IT infrastructure. Therefore organization started to invest in cloud computing to take advantage on better infrastructure utilization by way of automation and charge back over virtualized infrastructure to help to improve its over-all utilization. 3.1 Type of Cloud Computing General there are 4 basic type of cloud computing and it is depend on organization on which type is suitable for its application delivery and business services. Type Description Private Cloud Cloud service that are merely for the use of the organization and provided by third party and it services may be free or offered on a pay-per-usage-model. Community Cloud Cloud service that are share among several department in the organization and managed by third party or service provider Public Cloud Cloud service available to public use over the internet and managed by third party by offering free services or pay-per-usage model. Hybrid Cloud A environment in which organization provides and manages some of its resources in-house for storage of operational data and has others provided externally by third party. This advantages the organization of the scalability and cost effectives without exposing its important applications and data to the third-party vulnerabilities. 3.2 Cloud Services and Capability The CIMB MSF division can adopt three basic types of cloud services, defined by NSIT and it is also accepted by the business industry. Cloud Services Description Software as a Services Software applications like ERP, collaboration that runs on the service provider IT infrastructure and delivers to the organization through the internet by way renting the software applications Platform as a Service The user organization can access the hardware platform and operating system over the internet on a pay-per-use basis. Infrastructure as a Service It is cloud computing platform which allow user organization to storage, process and networking through the service provided IT infrastructure by way of on a pay-per-use model. 3.3 Benefits of Cloud Computing Reduced cost Cloud technology is paid incrementally, saving organizations money. The organization is able to plan the needed expenses more wisely. By cloud computing the cost is proportion to the requirement. Increased Storage Organizations can store more data than on private computer systems. Highly Automated No longer do IT personnel need to worry about keeping software up date and backup. Cloud computing will automatically do the update and backup the system giving the organization more time to do business than fixing the problems on its own. Flexibility Cloud computing offers much more flexibility than past computing methods. More Mobility Employees can access information wherever they are, rather than having to remain at their desks from morning till evening which is tiring and sometimes a boring job. The cloud made the business go mobile. Allows IT to Shift Focus No longer having to worry about constant server updates and other computing issues, organizations will be free to concentrate on innovation and research and development. This help business and product growth in the long run. 3.4 Cost of Cloud Computing Today, many large firms are burden with redundant, incompatible hardware and software because departments and divisions have been allowed to order and purchase their own technology. This make the cost of owning technology assets are relatively high. The cloud concept is paying what you use and no minimum fee required. The users are paying either on a monthly subscription fees or per transaction basis which are composed of the following mandatory components:. Management Interface at $6.25 per month Platform creation cost Application template Release Low usage (one time fee) Average Usage (one time fee) Frequent Usage (one time fee) SAP ERP 6.0 Eh P4 $29 $179 $679 SAP Enterprise Portal 7.0 Eh P1 $19 $169 $669 SAP Solution Manager 7.0 Eh P1 $49 $199 $699 SAP Business Intelligence 7.0 (BI Cont 7.05) $39 $189 $689 SAP Ides CRM 7.0 $39 $189 $689 Computing infrastructure cost This cost will only be charged when you operate your platform. Operational support and the used computing infrastructure as cpu, memory, a static network address and network traffic are included. Configuration Set CPU Memory Low Usage (per hour) Average Usage (per hour) Frequent Usage (per hour) 1-5 users 4 core 8 GB $1.99 $1.68 $1.49 6-10 users 4 core 12 GB $2.68 $2.37 $2.18 11-15 users 4 core 16 GB $3.37 $3.06 $2.87 16-25 users 8 core 18 Gb $3.98 $3.67 $3.48 4. RECOMMENDATIONS OF CLOUD COMPUTING 1 Market Demand for Your Firms Customer Services, Supplier Services Enterprise Services 2 CIMB / MSF Business Stratefy 6 Competitor Firms IT Infratructure Investments CIMB / MSF IT Services Infrastructure 4 Information Technology 5 Competitor Firms IT services 3 CIMB / MSF IT Strategy, Infrastructure Cost 4.1 Market Demand for CIMB / MSF Services Transaction processing system (TPS) A system that store, modify and retrieve the transactions of MSF. However, all TPS must pass through atomicity, consistency, isolation and durability, otherwise known as the ACID test. Decision support system (DSS) executive support system (ESS) DSS is a decision support system for middle level management and executive support system is for higher management. DSS and ESS not only provide better judgement, the system also enable what if analysis, which we can create several scenario to get the best desired result. Below is a diagram of DSS which consist of MIS. In order for a DSS or ESS to be created MSF must first have MIS, TPS and DBMS as all these systems are interrelated. An example of such software can be found at Vanguard Software corporation (www.vanguardsw.com) However, not all managerial roles are supportive using either DSS or ESS such as interpersonal role as a leader, decisional roles in a conflict between staff. Management information system (MIS) Report exceptional conditions, such as when the sales quota for a specific territory fall below an anticipated level or high staff turn-over for a certain department. MSF do not have MIS as report generated only upon request of individual. Database management system (DBMS)- is a software package with computer programs that control the creation, maintenance and the use of a database. DBMS will allow MSF conveniently develope databases for various applications by database administrators (DBAs). A DBMS also provides facilities for controlling data access, enforcing data intergrity, managing concurrency control, recovering the database after failures and restoring it from backup files as well as maintaining database security. Opportunity in internet banking can be explore as there is no sales link or contact us link uploaded in CIMB Bank website, CIMB internet banking more known as CIMB Clicks does not provide any leads to MSF nor does it provide contact details of MSF. MSF should explore the business opportunity in internet banking by creating a website for MSF. There is also demand for detail breakdown of incentive paid to sales staff. At this moment, no detail breakdown of incentive paid even in CIMB intranet and extranet, Human Resource Information System HRIS https://hris.cimb.com 4.2 CIMB / MSF Business Strategy MSF five year vision is to be the best in class sales organisation with a passion for exceeding expectations. Best in class sales organisation means number one mobile sales force in Malaysia and in sales productivity among our region peers. In order to achieve this long term five years plan, MSF will need to improve it present information system and possibility of setting up its own IT department. 4.3 CIMB / MSF Information Technology (IT) Strategy, Infrastructure Cost MSF does not have an IT strategy but are using 400 desktops and 200 laptops. Giving an example of setting up a MSF office will easily cost more than MYR100,000. Below are the example of the breakdown costs: Hardware acquisition Each brand new desktop cost about MYR3,000. Software acquisition License software for Microsoft windows and office cost about MYR2,000 each desktop. Installation Installing an office of 5 desktop cost about MYR10,000. Training Training cost can be diversified as senior staff of MSF can train new recruits. Support Support cost had been diversified as all IT technical support are provided by CIMB IT department, GIOD. Maintenance Infrastructure Downtime Space and energy 4.4 Information Technology Assessment CIMB Group spent MYR108 million last year for IT which is the highest among all other banking peers. Despite the large number, CIMB MSF still using some computer unit with windows XP instead of window Vista or 7, Intel pentium4 processor instead of Intel core processor and monitor screen instead of liquid crystal display (LCD). Most of CIMB group IT spending is on developing of a new CRM known as 1 View. However, the 1 View CRM is not provided to MSF. 4.5 Competitor firm services Banks Special IT Features Availability in CIMB HSBC Bank Online application tracker No Online file upload services for credit card No Public Bank E-mall for online shopping within PB website No Maybank Green calculator for online banking environmental cost savings calculation No UOB Office locator for mobile team, providing contact person and office address No 4.6 Competitor firm IT infrastructure investments Competitor Banks 2010 IT Spending Comparison with CIMB Group IT spending Maybank Group 61,000,000 56% of CIMB Group IT spending RHB Bank Group 72,000,000 66% of CIMB Group IT spending Public Bank Group 41,000,000 38% of CIMB Group IT spending HSBC Bank Group 15,000,000 14% of CIMB Group IT spending UOB Bank Group 90,000,000 83% of CIMB Group IT spending * all data are based on individual banks 2010 annual report 5. CONCLUSIONS The following summarises the findings and recommendations as outlined below. 5.1 Summary of key findings The study leads to the conclusion that cloud computing has the potential to transform IT, not necessarily through its impact on an agencys core business systems, but through commoditizing routine services such as e-mail, web servers, and data storage. Cloud computing can also easily deliver services that are common across government, such as accounting, procurement, and collaboration tools. If CIOs can increase their reliance on commodity computing, they will then have more time and resources to focus on the strategic management of IT and provide leadership and value for their agencies. We hope that this timely and informative report will be useful to profes ­sionals and executives across government who are seeking innovative approaches in order to leverage the new technology of cloud computing in their effort to reform and improve ITprograms and the delivery of services to both government itself and to citizens. 5.2 Recommendations 5.3. Limitation of Studies LIST OF REFERENCES Department of Finance and Deregulation 2011,  Cloud computing strategic direction paper: opportunities and applicability for use by the Australian Government  , viewed 5 April 2011, and 22 May 2011 . Mell P Grance T 2011, The NIST definition of cloud computing (draft) , viewed 19 March 2011, . Wyld, DC 2009, Moving to the cloud: an introduction to cloud computing in government , viewed 19 March 2011, . Laudon, KC Laudon, JP 2010, Management information systems: managing the digital firm, 11th edition. Cirrus cloud computing : Price list, viewed on 30 April 2011 CIMB Statement on Internal Control 2007 and Annual Report 2010 http://www.cimb.com/annual_reports/CIMB_Bank/2007/pdf/SOIC.pdf http://announcements.bursamalaysia.com/EDMS/subweb.nsf/7f04516f8098680348256c6f0017a6bf/65487497790102fe482578640016d4a2/$FILE/CIMB-AnnualReport2010%20(3.2MB).pdf http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/search/query?start=0filter=1q=SAAS, IAAS PAAS, APPENDICES Appendix 1: Journal Appendix 2: Cost and Benefits Appendix 3: Cloud Computing Benefits Appendix 4: Problems With Data Centre Power Consumption Appendix 5 : Power Consumption For Each Computer Appendix 1: Journal (390 words) Thomas 24 March, 2011 Thursday: Conducted informal interview (9:30am) with Sim, Customer Service Engineer. Obtained basic information of MSF IT infratructure Thomas 03 April, 2011 Sunday: Visited report writing presentation by Adrian Stagg Lindy Kimmins (11:00pm) Thomas 03 April, 2011 Sunday: Seek permission from MSF Head (10:30pm), Mr. Daniel Cheong on selecting MSF Department for assignment 4 Thomas 04 April, Monday: Approval obtained by Mr. Daniel Cheong at 12:06am Thomas Janet 04 April, 2011 Monday: Both of us arranged to communicate through phone and email as we are from different parts of the country after office hours at 7.30pm. We discussed briefly on which of the organization intended to work on to our assignment report. In the end, after much discussion we decided to select either one of our company which we are currently employed for our assignment report after which we have discussed with our relevant IT department in our next meeting. Thomas Janet 04 April, 2011 Monday: We communicate again at 8.30pm. After much exchange informations of our survey on our IT department, we decided to select company, CIMB Bank Bhd as the organization to work on for our assignment report due to the good support from his company IT personnel. Next we discussed about the plan on how to complete our assignment through allocation of jobs. As we have selected my company to work on for our assignment report, Thomas 05 April, 2011 Tuesday: I log into CIMB Group website www.cimb.com/index.php?tpt=cimb_group and started my introduction part of my report (11:00am) Janet 06th April, 2011 Wednesday: I visited a few website : www.finance.gov.au/e-government/strategy-and-governance/cloud-computing.htm,    www.isaca.org/Knowledge-Center/Research/Documents/Cloud-Computing-28Oct09-Research.pdf  and www.startupbizhub.com/business-benefits-of-cloud-computing.htm which give me some information on opportunities of adoption by the Australia Government Thomas 08 April, 2011 Saturday: Sent email (8:30pm) to MSF Head personal assistance, requesting for MSF organisation chart, MSF IT infrastructure Eco system Janet 11 April, 2011 Monday: Visited the Australia Department of Finance and Deregulation 2011 again and started to complete the Executive Summary for our assignment. Thomas 16 April, 2011 Saturday: Visited USQ study desk for assignment 4 resources (9:00pm) http://usqstudydesk.usq.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?inpopup=trueid=391393 Visited Wikipedia for pseudonym http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonym (9:20pm) Reading assignment 4 mock up report (10:00pm) Reading CIMB Group Rules for Business Conduct (11:00pm) Janet 25 April, 2011 Monday: Compute the company IT Infrastructure Ecosystem diagram provided by Loudon Loudon 11e (page 203) and visited http://www.intek.net/a/images/netdesign.gif for fictitious diagram on corporate network infrastructure Janet 30 April, 2011 Saturday: Compute the cloud computing benefits and it cost Thomas 09 May, 2011 Monday: Checking and resizing fonts size for assignment paper (12:00pm) Browse CIMB Group website http://www.cimb.com/index.php?ch=g2_aupg=g2_au_leadercat=bodtpt=cimb_group for CIMB Group CEO profile. Browese USQ website