Monday, September 30, 2019

Describe The Effects Of The Blitz On Everyday Life

In the attempt to describe the effects of the Blitz on everyday life, I will explain what people did before the war began and the actions took to get Britain through the Blitz. Before the Blitz there were many precautions people took incase war was declared on Britain. One of these was gas masks. A gas mask was issued to men, women and children incase gas bombs were dropped. Most homed were equipped with either an Anderson shelter, which was a home built shelter in the garden, or a Morrison shelter, a shelter built underneath the kitchen table. The blackouts began two days before the war began. Under blackout rules, everyone had to cover up their windows at night with black material. This was to make it difficult for German bombers to find their target in the dark. The street lamps were turned off and often people bumped into one another. Traffic accidents were more common because car headlights had to be blacked out, and deaths from drowning increased as people fell off bridges or walked into ponds. The evacuation begun on Friday 1 February, the day German troops invaded Poland. Most children were evacuated in school groups with their teachers. Children and their teachers would meet in the school grounds, where they would get name tags and told to keep their gas masks in the cardboard boxes. Many children were sometimes sent to farms and made to work. Some were sent to big country houses or stately homes. Many of these children had never been out into the country before. Lots of them from the slums were surprised to find themselves staying in houses with inside toilets and carpets. For some children, their parents decided to keep them at home in the city instead of being evacuated. Rationing was introduced due to the shortage of food and the fact that no food could come by ship from over-seas. You were only allowed a certain amount of clothes, food and other household goods. You also still had to pay for them. Ration books were full of coupons which could be cut out and used to buy a fixed amount of rationed foods each week or month. Every time a housewife bought something she had to give a coupon. When she had used up a particular coupon for one week she had to wait until the following week before she could buy any more. Food was very hard to get a hold of, so people were encouraged to grow vegetables in order to feed their family. Cartoon characters called Potato Pete and Dr. Carrot appeared on leaflets, telling people to eat plenty of these foods. The slogan â€Å"Dig for Victory† appeared on posters and banners to encourage people to grow their own food. Meat was hard to get hold of so the government advised people to eat rabbits. In total 1. 4 million homes – one third of London's housing stock – were damaged or destroyed in the Blitz. Electricity, gas and water supplies were disrupted. The impact on civilian morale in London was severe. Some Londoners later recalled that things were close to breaking point: the daily bombings and sleepless nights took their toll. Looting from bombed shops and empty houses was rife. However, the general mood of perseverance became known as the Blitz Spirit. In all, 18,000 tons of high explosives had been dropped on England during eight months of the Blitz. A total of 18,629 men, 16,201 women, and 5,028 children were killed along with 695 unidentified charred bodies. The role of women during the Blitz was very important for helping on the home front. The Women's Voluntary Service provided fire fighters with tea and refreshments when the clear-up took place after a bombing raid during the blitz. They also provided tea and refreshment for the people sheltering in the underground. At first, only single women aged 20-30 were called up, but by mid-1943, almost 90 per cent of single women and 80 per cent of married women were working in factories, on the land or in the armed forces. In all 640,000 women were in the armed force, 5,000 serving with guns and providing essential air defence, 80,000 thousand in the Land Army plus many more who flew unarmed aircraft, drove ambulances, worked as nurses and worked behind enemy lines in the European resistance. Overall, there were many different effects of the Blitz on everyday life from the evacuation of children to the rationing of food and other household goods.

Sunday, September 29, 2019

Lord of the flies by Willam Golding

Lord of the flies refers to the story of a group of English boys marooned on a tropical island after their plane was shot down during a war. But the book’s exploration of the idea of human evil is to some extent based on Golding’s experience with the violence and savagery of human beings during World War II. Lord of the flies dramatizes a fundamental human struggle: the conflict between the impulse to obey rules, behave morally, and act lawfully and impulse to seek brute power   over others, act selfishly, behave in a way that will gratify one’s own desires, scorn moral rules, and indulge in violence. The first set of impulses might be thought of as the â€Å"civilizing instinct†, which encourages people to work together toward common goal and behave peacefully; the second set of impulse might be thought of as the â€Å"barbarizing instinct†, or the instinct toward savagery, which urges people to rebel against civilization and instead seek anarchy, chaos, despotism, and violence. The Lord of the flies shows the great struggle of the boys to rescue from the horizon. The children made a group and started doing work to attract the attention of the passing ships. They elected their own leader and started finding their way to rescue from that place and chose Ralph as their leader. Ralph elected Jack as the leader of the hunters. Ralph, Jack and Simon set off on an expedition to explore the island. When they returned from hunting, Ralph declared that they must light a signal fire to attract the attention of passing ships. The boys began to do so; they started using the lens from Piggy’s eyeglasses to ignite dead wood. They were very innocent and do not know the importance of the work and were interested in playing more than igniting fire. So because of their insincerity towards work the fire quickly ignites the forest. And the fire becomes out of control. One of the youngest boys disappears from the group and they think that he has presumably burned to death. All the boys started enjoying themselves without grownups except Jack and Ralph. After some time Ralph and Piggy see the ship passing by the horizon. But when ship passes signal fire burned out; it had been a hunter’s responsibility to maintain it. After that Ralph accosts Jack, but the hunter has just returned to his first hunt, and all the boys were uncontrolled and excited and start dancing. When Piggy criticizes Jack because of his insincere deed, Jack hits him. It was really a problem to keep the single fire lit so the boys become afraid. Ralph and Jack both do not liked each other, they wanted a separate group. Jack was violent in nature so he declared himself the leader of new tribe and the group of the boys divided in two parts. They all had lost their innocence and civilization. Ralph was civilized and wanted every one to live in civilized manner but most of the other boys went into bloodlust and barbarism. The sight of hunters chanting and dancing was baffling and distasteful to him. The first hand knowledge of the evil that existed with in all human beings was tragic for Ralph. But this knowledge also enabled him to cast down the Lord of the Flies at the end of the novel. His story ends semi-tragically although he was rescued and returned to civilization, when he saw the naval officer, he wept with the burden of his knowledge about humanity. All the children adopted barbarism and lost innocence and civilization. They took care of the small children. Children of Lord of the Flies did a great effort to rescue from the horizon and tackled the situation very tactfully.   In the novel children tried to free themselves from the power of others by doing different kind of deeds and Jack tried to snatch away the powers of the Ralph. Reference Sir, Golding, William. (1997). Lord of the flies. New York: RIVERHEAD.

Saturday, September 28, 2019

Conference week Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Conference week - Essay Example He believes that globalisation is wrong because it solely serves the interests of the ruling elites by controlling everything, including the government, the media, and now, even those who are supposed to be critical of and against them. I agree that globalisation has its weaknesses and negative consequences to the poor and marginalised sectors; however, I also believe that with the right vision, mission, goals, leaders, advocacy, and activities, disempowered sectors can use globalisation to develop a more humane, environmentally-friendly, and socially balanced form of global capitalism. The rich and powerful has been using the WTO and other international and national institutes to promote their economic goals, which includes political and cultural dimensions too, but the poor can use the same platform to improve the quality of their lives. I understand what Chossudovsky means when he criticises the hi-jacking of the people’s movements through international organisations that fund anti-globalisation movements. Nevertheless, the same system can be used to benefit the disempowered through using current technologies and marketing strategies to let the world know social injustice and to help society change itself. Instead of stopping globalisation, the disenfranchised because of it should also use it to advocate and support fair and benevolent capitalism. Hence, Chossudovsky is wrong to think that globalisation itself is wrong because people can use it to do great noble things that will empower the poor and minority

Friday, September 27, 2019

Mellow Assignment #2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Mellow Assignment #2 - Essay Example One such example can be given by the popularized total white prison gang founded after the state prisons started to become desegregated, The Brand. According to the article in The New Yorker, The Brand became the most lethal prison gang in the history of America, starting from California and spreading in other state prisons around the country. They brutally stabbed, strangulated and poisoned their inmates, rival gang members, blacks and homosexuals, child molesters, prison guards and anyone that annoyed them. Apart from the killings, the Brand leaders ordered contracted hits extorted the victims, robbed from them and were involved deeply into drug trafficking inside the prison wall. Also popularly known as the Aryan Brotherhood, they had the motto of Blood In/Blood Out meaning a person had to take a life to become a member and losing ones own life was how the membership ended. Another example in time is the incident that took in the California Institution for Men, which serves as a Level I, II and III prison where the designed capacity is overshadowed with present number of inmates. On January 10, 2005 the correctional officer Manuel A. Gonzalez, Jr. was stabbed by an inmate Jon Christopher Blaylock, who was transferred six months before from a Level IV maximum security prison. The inquiry in the matter found out that the inmate was inappropriately housed in a minimum security Level I area, was long awaiting transfer, had easy access to weapons and security was lax among several findings. According to the article in the Prison Journal, prisons in California are facing an increasing threat of overcrowding and high service costs. The goal to classify the inmates was to protect the public and help prisoner rehabilitation, was left in the dark when the budget constraints hit. Prisoners are either uselessly held in expensive facilities to maintain the ‘public safety’ while others are kept in minimum security zones. In California only 11%

Thursday, September 26, 2019

Exploring parents views on their roles in their childrens creativity Dissertation

Exploring parents views on their roles in their childrens creativity development - Dissertation Example In today’s world,creativity is a quality that is becoming of great demand.In response to this, the NACCCE has advocated the incorporation of creativity in the curriculum of schools,knowing its significance in children’s growth and development and its value in helping them develop the necessary skills for their future. NACCCE claims that when children are exposed to environments where teachers’ creative abilities are engaged, these children are likely to develop creative abilities themselves (Jeffrey & Craft, 2001). In view of this, provision of environments or opportunities for creativity development also extends to the home setting. This paper intends to explore parental views on their children’s creativity development in both school and home settings. Literature Review Malaguzzi (1998), prominent educator and founder of the Reggio Emilia Approach in education, most appropriately expressed: Creativity seems to emerge from multiple experiences, coupled wit h a well-supported development of personal resources, including a sense of freedom to venture beyond the known. Creativity seems to express itself though cognitive, affective and imaginative processes (p. 76). Some other accepted definitions of Creativity are as follows: the ability to see things in new ways; boundary breaking and going beyond the information given; thinking unconventionally; making something unique or original; and combining unrelated things into something new (Schirrmacher, 1988). Torrance (1965), a proponent in creativity research, defines creativity as the â€Å"process of sensing problems or gaps in information, forming ideas or hypotheses and communicating the results.† Schirrmacher (1988) explains that creativity may be explained in terms of product, process, skill set of personality traits or set of environmental conditions. As a product, it is viewed as a new invention, creation or thought, like the works of creative geniuses such as Mozart, Plato, G alileo, Newton and Einstein, among others. In this explanation, creativity seems to be elitist difficult to achieve for ordinary people (Schirrmacher, 1988). As a process, creativity is more inclusive, as coming up with a product is not a requirement and everyone can do creative processing that includes â€Å"thinking, speaking, playing, writing, dancing, singing, playing a musical instrument, experimenting with objects, transforming materials and manipulating ideas and objects.† (Schirrmacher, 1988). Engaging in the creative process brings a feeling of fulfillment to the person even if the creative expression does not result in a product. Creative individuals are identified by a set of personality traits. Researchers on creativity have come up with their own lists basing from their own research. Torrance (1962) has identified seven indicators of creativity as follows: curiosity, flexibility, sensitivity to problems, redefinition, self-feeling, originality and insight. Origin ally, these indicators were given to identify highly creative children. However, upon further analysis, such indicators likewise describe highly creative adults. Johnson (1972) has compiled a number of research in the field of creativity, and has come up with the main dimensions of creative achievement as intellectual leadership; sensitivity to problems; originality, ingenuity, unusualness; usefulness, appropriateness; and breadth. In terms of explaining creativity developing from a set of environmental conditions, it may be concluded that the greater one’s background of experiences with people, places, objects and life, in general, the greater the scope of possibilities to draw from in the expression of creativity. On the other hand, if one is naive and is not exposed to a variety of life experiences, his creative thinking may be limited to the small environment

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Kindly refer to the instruction Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Kindly refer to the instruction - Research Paper Example The primary focus is when Mangan is called by her sister for tea. One of the boys spots her in the lighted doorway where she stands and falls for her. The story develops with this boy perusing his love, Mangan (Joyce 17). After close analysis of this short story, it is clear that the narrator uses Mangans sister to portray that love could be misleading and hurting given some circumstances. The narrator describes a boy developing a serious crush on his friends older sister since the time he spots her calling his friend. The boys love for Mangans sister can be viewed as poisonous. The boy is seen to fall for Mangans sister because she is not only charming but also good-looking. He notices every detail of her from her tender hair to the feel of her palm. The narrator explains that the boy even follows the girl to school but is continuously unable to express how he feels for the girl. He is too shy to do it. At some point, the narrator terms the boys crush on Mangans sister as no longer a crush. This is because the boy even cries alone due to the pain he experiences perusing this girl in vain. Even harder, it is until later in the story that he can express his feelings in a dramatic manner. This is when he holds Mangans sisters hand to a point that she starts trembling. The boy cant even speak up but only murmurs the words "O love! O love!" severally (Joyce 103). Later on in the narrative, the boy finally gathers courage and decides to talk to the girl. The conversation is, however, not as impressive as expected. Here, the boy lets the girl know of his feelings with the promise of buying her a present from the town’s bazaar. The girl is not impressed by the attempts to lure her. From this description, Mangans sister is used to bring out the hurting aspect of love. She remains as a silent character all through the story. The focus lies on Mangans friend who suffers a great deal due to his feelings for Mangan’s sister.

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

New Kind of e-Business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

New Kind of e-Business - Essay Example 2 Nature and Purpose of Business The nature of this business will be to go beyond dog training. Many people have dog trainers or have experience them and they teach everything from traditional training to Cesar Mellan techniques. However, there are no DVDs that go beyond this typical training to doing creative calisthenics with the dogs. The purpose of the business would be to keep dogs fit without having to walk them everyday or run them everyday. Just as humans become bored with routine, the DVDs would insure that dogs not only were exercised, but they would be exercised in a creative way. The individual pet owner could do these simple calisthenics with their jobs or they could hire a certified trainer in this method to come to their home and give the dog a workout. Many people hire dog trainers and they expect their dogs’ behavior to improve through training. Often this helps, but there are dogs with so much energy that they need to have more than one way to expend this ene rgy. According to Liz Palika, author, there are many benefits of training your dog. Some of these benefits include: a better behaved dog, bonding between human and dog, it can be fun for both the human and the dog (especially if the dog learns how to do tricks). Although Palika talks about traditional dog training, these same benefits can be used to help people understand how to do doggie calisthenics. 2.1 Why Doggie Calisthenics The word calisthenics means to do small exercises that are geared to develop muscle tone and overall physical well-being. When this definition is applied to dogs, it means creating interesting small exercises that will help to increase the dog’s overall health. Obviously many people use running and walking their pets as the way to keep them healthy, but dogs need other types of exercise to insure they are keeping muscle tone and not turning into those pudgy animals that begin to have health problems. Doggie callisthenic DVDs would be perfect for high energy dogs and small toy breeds that have lots of energy. Some examples of these exercises are playing fetch, cycling with your dog (although the dog must be well trained as well), gym workouts (with treadmill or obstacle courses in a gym), or stair climbing. All of these are examples of calisthenics that are easy to do and that can be done with anyone. Of course, all pet owners should have their dog checked at the vet before starting any exercise program. Doggie calisthenics would not be done to take the place of walking or running, but they would be used in addition to these other methods of training. They would be used as a warm up exercise or they could be used when the individual pet owner was not able to get their dog outside for a walk or a run. The DVDs would promote a 10-15 minute workout which could be done along with the pet owner’s workout. The DVDs would show step-by-step how to get the dog interested in the exercise, how to monitor their heart and pulse and it would provide safety tips to show how easy it is to keep a dog healthy and make sure they are fit. There would also be a list of dog breeds that came with the package that would tell which dogs were more prone to need more exercise. 3 Competitive Advantage There are several competitive advantages that this business would have as an e-business. The pet owner would be able to either purchase DVDs or the various programs or they would be able to

Monday, September 23, 2019

Creation Myths Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Creation Myths - Essay Example God then created a beautiful garden Eden so that Adam could live in it. God then brought animals into the garden so that Adam can name them. So it was Adam, who was the first human being, responsible for naming the animals. Since Adam was the sole human being on earth he was given the power to dominate the animals. However, seeing his loneliness and lack of company God created the first woman and named him Eve. Adam and Eve were given the power to control everything on earth that was created from dirt. There was a tree in the center of the garden. Adam and Eve were forbidden by God to touch it. One day a snake entered the garden and tempted Eve to eat a fruit from the tree. The tree was known as the knowledge tree and provided knowledge to distinguish between the good and the evil. By eating the fruit Adam and Eve committed the first sin of disobedience. They failed to obey the order of God and this instilled in their minds a sense of guilt. When God asked Adam if he has eaten the fr uit he put the blame on Eve. â€Å"And the man said, The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate†. (Troyer, 2007, p.105) Similarly Eve blamed the snake for her own act of disobedience. â€Å"And the woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate†. ... The first living creature appeared when Ra who was the Egyptian sun god was born out of an egg. He had many names and they symbolize different positions of the sun. He was â€Å"Aten (sun disk), Khepri (the rising sun), Ra (supreme god of Heliopolis), and Atum (the setting sun)†. (The Egyptian Religion and Creation Myth, n.d., p.35) Egypt is a land of â€Å"eternal sunshine† and so it was natural for them to symbolize the sun god as the creator of the universe. The human beings were created from the eye of Ra. The eye got lost and Ra could not find it. His son Shu and daughter Tefnut went to fetch it but failed. There was a struggle between them which caused the eye to shed tears. Human beings were born from the tears. Therefore the eye of Ra symbolizes life. â€Å"The act of bringing the eye back to the creator was equivalent to healing the earth – the restoration of right and order†. (The Egyptian Religion and Creation Myth, n.d., p.33) Ra’s son S hu represented dry air while daughter Tefnut represented moisture. Together they are symbolized in the Egyptian culture as life and justice. In both the mythologies it was the male who first created. Adam and Ra were both representatives of the male. In both cases there is the event of sibling murder. In Egyptian mythology Set killed his brother Osiris while in the Genesis Cain killed his brother and in both cases the reason was jealousy. What role does sex play? After God created Adam and placed him in the Garden of Eden, God brought all the animals into the garden and authorized Adam to name them. So it was Adam who named the animals and not Eve. This authority was given to man by God and so it is more a man’s duty than a woman to fulfill the command of God. Since Adam was created before Eve and so

Sunday, September 22, 2019

Stop All the Clocks Essay Example for Free

Stop All the Clocks Essay In contrast to this poem is Stop All the Clocks by W.H. Auden. This poem uses no language that is out of the ordinary, and is in no way controversial. Though it is deep and sorrowful it isnt as aggressive as Havisham. Auden uses an AABBCCDDEE scheme which is a very organised rhyming scheme known as rhyming couplets. Very regular grammar and all of the verses are separated as you normally would do. He wants the language to do more for the poem than the grammar. The poem is about the death of a man (perhaps a friend or lover) referring to W.H. Audens sexual preferences and his feelings afterwards. He does not use any metaphors but some of the rhyming couplets he uses could be seen as unusual, cut off the telephonegive the dog a juicy bone shows that he has paid high detail to everything that he wants to take notice, nothing in the world is to be left untold of the awful tragedy that he has suffered. A different angle on separation was taken up by John Donne when he wrote Valediction: Forbidden Mourning for his wife when he had to leave on a business trip. Although it was different considering the fact that the two of them knew they were going to reunite. Donne wrote about their love and he compared it to massive events that were far more important than their romance to anyone else, but to John his romance was bigger than the universe, but at times as simple as a compass as it comes together. He says that As virtuous men pass mildly away let us melt comparing their parting to the death of a good man, he did this because, when he wrote the poem, good men died with no fear of death, because they knew they were going to go to heaven. Symbolising that they will have nothing to fear from being apart from one another. He also compares his love to the Universe, Trepidation of the spheresthough greater, still is innocent meaning that their parting is like the movement of the spheres, an ancient belief that the universe was divided into spheres. This symbolises that their love is greater than earth quakes, but their parting will not harm them. The grammar in this poem is standard, and there is no rhyming scheme. He shows that great feelings can be achieved through just writing from the heart. The form relates to the subject of the poem, because in separation, nothing unexpected will happen to them. Conclusion I think that although Havisham is the shortest and most controversial of the three poems it is the best. It is so surreal and unusual. The way Duffy turns Havisham into a monster bent on revenge then turns her back into an innocent girl who has been abandoned by the only person she ever loved is sheer genius. Although Valediction is very deep and thoughtful it just does not compare to the outrageousness of Havisham and Stop all the clocks is just boring compared to this. I think Havisham has to be one of the best poems I have ever read. I think that what makes Havisham my favourite though is the fact that is so fresh. I dont know how Duffy came up with such an awe inspiring poem but if I had to pick a poem to read for the rest of my life, Havisham would be unquestionably it.

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Free

Free education Essay Nearly every country in the developed world, and more and more in the developing world, provide free primary and secondary education. Such education is generally uncontroversial and accepted as necessary around the world. In the case of secondary education, however, there is a great deal of disparity between countries education policies. In many states students must pay fees to access a school. Often states offer financial assistance to individuals who cannot afford to pay fees and lack other methods of payment. In other states, education is completely free and considered a citizens right to attend. Debates center on the issues of whether there is in fact a right to education, and on whether states can feasibly afford to finance such education. POINT It is a fundamental right of individuals to experience primary and secondary school and to have access to the knowledge. Primary and secondary school offers a huge opportunity. It is a treasure of knowledge to be gained and experiences to be had. Primary and secondary school provides an opportunity that exists at no other time in n individuals life. It is a time of personal, intellectual, and often spiritual, exploration. In secondary school, no such opportunities exist, as they are about instruction and following orders, not about questioning norms and conventions in the same way primary and secondary school so often. Primary and secondary school serves as a valuable space for different views, which everyone has a right to experience should they wish. A life without thinking tools provided by primary and secondary school is less full because those without it lack the facility by which to nlock all the doors of perception and knowledge. Primary and secondary school experience serves also individuals views of education and society, helping to give form to the relationship between citizen and state. The state has a duty to facilitate this development, as its responsibility includes providing citizens with the wherewithal to take meaningful part in the democratic process. A state can only truly be considered legitimate when an educated electorate approves it. Without a proper education, individuals cannot be effective citizens. A primary and secondary school education in the modern world is essential to the development of such informed citizens. For this reason, free primary and secondary school is a great benefit to a citizen as an exploration for his own development on a personal level, and with his relation to society as a whole. Counterpoint There is no right to secondary school experience. Secondary school life is a piss-up. Students rarely take their time in secondary school some would suggest. Rather, secondary school life is about community first, education second. Such education can provide valuable knowledge, but it is not the responsibility of the citizens. Self- knowledge and genuine wisdom come from study and reflection. This can be done anywhere, not Just in a secondary school. There is no fundamental right of individuals to be allowed to learn new skills that will benefit them or how to be better citizens. The states duty is to provide a baseline of care, which in the case of education secondary school more than provides. If individuals want more they should pay for it themselves.

Friday, September 20, 2019

Importance of Using the ACARS System

Importance of Using the ACARS System Abbreviations ACARS: Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System ADS-B: Automatic dependent surveillance broadcast CMU: Communication Management Unit CDU: Control Display Unit FMS: Flight Management System ATC: Air Traffic Control AOC: Aeronautical Operational Control AAC: Airline Administrative Control NOTAM: Notice to Airmen VHF: Very High Frequency VDL: VHF Data Link MAC: Message Authentication Code AES: Advance Encryption Standard SHA: Secure Hash Algorithm CA: Certificate Authority ICAO: International Civil Aviation Organisation IPsec: Internet Protocol Security In this report the importance of using the ACARS system in the communication between the aircrafts and the ground units such as Air traffic control (ATC), aeronautical operational control (AOC) and airline administrative Control (AAC). (2) Also, the need of securing the communication channel against passive and active attackers will be identified and analysed. The ACARS system is used to transmit data both from aircraft to ground and from ground to aircraft. The data transmitted from the aircraft to the ATC will communicate requests and receipts for clearances and instructions when the aircraft is on the ground, during the phases of take-off and landing and finally during the time the aircraft is in the air. The ACARS is system is also used for communication between the aircrafts and the AOC and AAC ground units. The data transmitted between these three entities is about various aspects of the aircraft, weather information and observations, NOTAMS, flight plan and any diversion from the flight plan, technical performance, possible system failures and any special information regarding the flight and its passengers. ACARS system to transmit data to the ground receivers, the FMC hardware is used on newer aircrafts or the CDU on older ones. The communication is accomplished by using the FMS unit and a small printer in the aircrafts and similar hardware on the ground. The FMS transmits the data to either a satellite or a ground antennas, regarding the altitude of the aircraft. After either the satellite or the antenna will transmit the data through the communication network to the appropriate ground unit using a private network. Due to the reason that these data are crucial and must not be altered or even sometimes monitored by unauthorised users the security of the communication channel and the data should be the top priority of the airlines. To achieve that the data transmitted should always maintain the three major aspects of information security which are: Confidentiality Integrity Availability During the early years of the aviation industry communication channels were only needed between the ATC and the pilots. There were no ways to transmit data regarding the aircrafts avionic systems, engines and integrity, mainly due to the reason that there was not such advanced technology, on both the communication channels and on the aircrafts. The only communication channel available was the VHF channels that in our days is the least trusted protocol. As the aircrafts developed, the boundaries were extended, and led to a rapid increase in air traffic. In order to co-op with this, the aircrafts manufacturers decided to improve the quality and quantity of the systems aboard the aircrafts in order to protect them from mid-air collisions and also help the ATCs to manage the traffic easier. From the moment that the aviation instruments on board the aircraft changed from analogue to digital, a breakthrough was achieved, leading many companies to develop software and hardware that allowed the improvement of the communication and data transmission between the aircrafts and the ground. Along with these improvements, the aircrafts critical systems were able to continuously provide the data recorder information regarding their condition. During this phase the CPDLC was developed in order to minimize the acoustic misunderstandings (6) provided accountability and made the communication easier, more efficient and safer to transmit and receive l ong messages (6). Although in my opinion this system would make the communication between the pilots and the ATC easier and safer, it wasnt widely used because of security threats like message manipulation or injection (6) that were not possible to be detected. Also, a major backdoor to the system in my opinion was that there was no authentication leading to eavesdropping or spoof clearances (6). For the improvement of safety and to be able to improve the accident investigations, the authorities decided that it would be helpful, that these data should be transmitted to the ground and in order to improve the communications between the aircrafts and the ATCs, a new system was developed, which is called ACARS. Along with it new techniques of communication and data transmission were introduced that allowed the aircraft, ATCs and airlines headquarters to communicate with each other by sending short texts. ACARS was introduced during the 80s and as the years passed it became very popular among the airlines. It allowed direct communication between aircrafts and ATCs for requesting and receiving instructions and clearances. The ability of communicating between the aircraft and the AOC and AAC was introduced, that allowed the exchange of information about the weather, possible issues with the aircrafts systems, NOTAMs, passenger information, etc. In the early years of aviation, the computers were not very capable in intercepting or manipulating a message that was transmitted and therefore there was little need for that system to be secure. As the years pass and computers became stronger, together with the knowledge of people, possible unauthorised monitoring of message transmission or even manipulating the messages transmitted between the aircrafts and the ground was a threat to aviation. In order to solve this issues, security mechanisms were placed in order to protect the communication channels and the data transmitted. The security mechanisms placed, are updated regularly in order to maintain the information secure against new threats and attackers. The difficulty of maintaining a secure communication channel is becoming greater, due to the reason that the cost of hardware that allow you to monitor the information transmitted by aircrafts are very cheap and easily accessible. This together with the increasing knowledge of people on how to use them the wrong way and with the intention to cause harm for various reasons, makes the work of the ones trying to protect these systems, very difficult and crucial for the safety of the passengers and aircraft crew lives. As the workload for the pilots in command increased greatly due to the increased traffic, reduction of the crew members in aircrafts and the need to maximize profit without undermining safety and in order to protect the pilots from making mistakes or forget to complete the necessary steps for the safe conduct of a flight, researchers were working on a new way of communication between the aircraft and the ground operations. That software was ACARS and was developed in the 1980s. ACARS is a digital datalink system (3) that allows the pilots, ATC and the airlines headquarters to exchange short messages no matter of the location of the aircraft around the world. In order to achieve that the aircraft is equipped with an avionics computer which is called Communications Management Unit (CMU), a control display unit (CDU) and a printer. The CMU was designed to be able to send and receive digital messages (3) regarding aspects of the flight, instructions and clearances from the ATC, weather forecasts, NOTAMs and information to and from the companys headquarters regarding the aircrafts performance and special needs about the passengers. In order to achieve the level of communication needed, the ACARS system is using different types of communication media. The two media used to communicate between the aircraft and the ground by using satellites when the aircrafts are at higher altitudes and radio antennas at lower altitudes. Before the first implementations of the ACARS system, the communication between the aircrafts and the ground was performed by VHF voice channels. As the technology advanced, new way of communication were developed. During the first periods of implementation of the ACARS system the ARINC organisation, developed a service that a allowed for the VHF communication service to be upgraded by a new service that allowed the use of digital telex formats (3) to the VHF communication channel. During the 90s this led to the standardization of a VHF Digital Link. As the implementation of the ACARS software by airliners became widespread, new services were developed in order to make the communication channels more efficient. SITA company, during this phase had developed a large ground communication network that was connecting places around the world. In order to further enhance the abilities of ACARS, SITA integrated their ground communication network to be able and cooperate with ACARS already existing communication channels between aircraft and ground. In my opinion the ACARS system was designed very cleverly because it was able to cooperate with many types of aircraft communications equipment such as VHF, Inmarsat, sitcom, iridium satellite, VDL and high frequency data link (6). More detailed, SITA managed to merge both VHF and VDL air to ground communication channel together with the ground network it had already developed and to provide an end to end communication channel between aircrafts and ground operations no matter the type of flights. Both short haul and long haul routes were supported. Figure .1 ACARS Setup (9) ACARS security is very important for the safe conduct of flights. Two different types of security were implemented. The first one was called DSP-based architecture and is only capable to protect ACARS messages during transmission from the aircraft to the ground, leaving the ground network unprotected and risking attacks from hackers open. For that reason, there is an end to end security architecture was proposed and developed. In order for the security of the ACARS system to be complete it will have to maintain confidentiality, integrity and availability to the information transmitted at all times, both in the communication channel between the aircraft and the ground and also in the ground network. On the end to end solution proposed in the article The Approach of ACARS Data Encryption and Authentication (5), The proposed security will be using symmetric and asymmetric cryptography, a hybrid system that could solve the problems of using just one of the methods of cryptography, along with digital signatures to provide adequate privacy and integrity (5) to the messages. The issues that came up with the symmetric cryptography were that in order to communicate with each other, a key had to be exchanged between the sender and the recipients of the message. This unique key was designed to be known just by the sender and the recipient of the message in order to protect it from unauthorized users. This proved to be very difficult to maintain secure due to the large number of users that are using ACARS to communicate. On the other hand, asymmetric cryptography was able to solve this problem but it required the use of a large size keys that led to a rather large amount of bandwidth requi red just for the exchange of the keys that kept secure the communication, which was a problem due to the limited amount of bandwidth the ACARS system was designed to require. This hybrid system that was proposed, made use of a key derivation algorithm called Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman which is using an elliptic curve and certain points in order to find the private key. By using the elliptic curve along with the private key, it was able to generate the public key of both the aircraft and the ground station (sender and recipient). By using this technique, the communication channel was secure because it was very difficult for the attacker to find the private key even though the exchange of public key is intercepted (5). For the receiver to be able to decrypt and use the private key a key derivation function is needed which in this case is the MAC. In order to provide encryption to the data transmitted the AES algorithm is used in combination with the SHA 256 algorithm. The number 256 after the SHA acronym means the length of the random binary sequence that is used as the key for the AES (5) algorithm. Due to the reason of the limited bandwidth that ACARS is designed to be using, the message data transmitted and the necessary data transmitted to provide security should be compressed as much as possible. In order to do so every letter, number or symbol will have to be encoded to a 6bit stream during the encryption phase. In order for the recipient to be able to decode it and read the correct message, the MAC of the encrypted data will have to be read and be decrypted to an ACARS readable character. Also, the correct MAC value will have to be calculated in order for the message to be authenticated. During the testing phase of the above end to end security mechanism, eavesdropping was possible to be done but no actual data were able to be read, due to the AES that was used in the encryption of the message, so confidentiality was achieved. Privacy was also achieved because if the message was manipulated, the MAC value would have been changed and the recipient would have detected the change in value. Finally for the digital signature to be correct, the assumptions that the CA was trustworthy had to be made. Wireless Communication Security Due to the reason that the main communication channel between the aircraft and the ground stations will always be wireless, some necessary aspects of security will always have to exist in order to able to say that the channel is secure. According to the authors of the article (7), in order for a security protocol be acceptable, it must meet some requirements. The first one is the mutual entity authentication which is able to provide security by identifying the sender and the receiver. Also, the Asymmetric algorithms are very critical according to my opinion, regarding the key distribution that will allow the sender and the receiver authenticate each other messages. Next in order to prevent unauthorised people to access the communication channel, the two parties must agree to the keys used and to be able to confirm them when needed along with being able to control them, maintain the key freshness (7) so no replay attacks could be performed and also to protect secrets of old communications in the case that an unauthorised person gains access to a session key. All the above aspects, in my opinion are critical in order to maintain privacy in the communication channel. According to the article (7) which I agree with, some compromises should be taken in order to have the security options tailored to the needs of your systems. In our case the ACARS system was designed to have a small amount of load in transmitting data and therefore and IPsec with fixed pre-shared keys (7) would be very helpful because it has limited data exchanged in order to provide security. On the other hand, protocols based on asymmetric cryptosystems (7) are able to provide better security but in a higher data load cost. Wireless Communication Threat Model In order to be able to provide better solutions in the wireless communication channel, we must be able to identify the threat that are possible to be faced during the transfer of data. In order to do so we must have a threat model that is tailored to our needs. In order to create a threat model, we must also know the adversaries capabilities. In the case of wireless networks according to the article (8) authors, which are the one that ACARS uses, the adversary usually has the ability to receive and transmit data (8), should be able to monitor the network and in order to do the previous two, he must have knowledge on how the network was setup. Commonly, if the attacker is able to eavesdrop a wireless, he will be able to inject traffic (8) into the network. All of the above capabilities in my opinion are depended to the knowledge he has and to the money he is willing to spend in order to be able to perform such tasks. The main attacks he can perform to a wireless network has to do with spoofing attacks (8), replay attacks (8) which I believe is easily solved by the freshness aspect of security, eavesdropping (8) compromise or introduction of nodes, wireless jamming (8) and finally a denial of service (8) attack by increasing extremely the load of the network. ACARS Security per Honeywell Per Honeywell, ACARS is using a message security system that is able to provide message authentication, confidentiality and data integrity, which are the basic aspects that need to be protected. Based on an ICAO document regarding the security plan a public key infrastructure and other cryptographic algorithms are used in order to protect the data transmitted. More specifically, according to the ARINC specification 823 (4) the security of the messages is split in two different parts. The first part was published on 2007 and contains everything regarding the framework of the security, such as algorithms, protocols and message formats. The second parts are about the key management of this security mechanism and was published 1 year later and contains information regarding the key life cycle and the how a certificate is managed. Furthermore, two different security provisions were developed and each of them had different characteristics regarding the mechanisms used in order to protect the data transmitted. The first one is called ATN/OSI Security and it was described in the ICAO document 9880. This kind of security foresight used digital signatures which uses the Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman cryptographic algorithm combined with a SHA256 in order to generate and verify the signatures. As for Message authentication, it uses hashed MAC with a 32bit MAC length. A key agreement is used in order to share the public key that will then be used in order for the recipient to be able to derive the secret key and be able to decode the message sent. The second one is called ACARS Security ARINC 823. This one also uses the digital signatures in order to sign the message and the specifications of the digitals signatures are similar to the first security foresight, making use of the elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman algorithm combined with a SHA256 for the signature generation and verification. Again, for the message authentication a hashed MAC is being used but in this case the length of the MAC is not standard. It could be 32 bit, 64 bit or even 128 bit, with the default one to be the 32 bit. The main difference between the two security foresights is that the previous didnt require a confidentiality mechanism to be in place. On the other hand, this one uses for encryption and AES128 cipher algorithm that is mainly used to encrypt and decrypt the messages. Finally, the key establishment mechanism is similar on both security foresights, meaning that both of them use an elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman with SHA256 algorithm to provide the communication channel with a secret key agreement, shared public key and the derivation of the secret key. Threats As the technology is improved, the computers become more powerful, leading in the implementation of better security mechanisms but also in increasing amount of computing power that possible attackers have in their hands. This along with the ability given to the public to be able to track the flights using the ADS-B can have possible backdoors that can threaten the safety of the flights. The main use of this surveillance technology is for the improvement of the safety and efficiency of the flights. This technology also lead to the creation of a web application and smartphone application, that gave the ability to anyone to be able to track any aircraft in the world that had this technology active. Anyone with a cheap hardware setup could receive the information sent to the ground by the aircrafts. If an attacker is able to intercept these signals, he is able to perform passive attacks like eavesdropping the communications or furthermore, block the response from the ATC (jamming) and finally send his response back (message injection), could result in the attacker to be able to perform an active attack and penetrate the aircrafts navigation system. Another possible attack according the article (6) this attacks could result in the virtually modifying the trajectory of an aircraft (6). After the attacker, has gained access to the aircraft systems, he can receive information via the ACARS system. If the ACARS system is not protected correctly, the attacker will be able to exploit the systems and either insert false information to the avionics or just attach a virus or malware and have a constant access to the aircrafts avionics and information. Furthermore, the attacker could gain access to the FMS he will be able to mess with the navigation and flight planning such as waypoints, altitudes, speeds, alternate the destination airport of the flight etc. This will result to the attacker being in complete control of the aircraft, with the pilots not being able to do much in order to gain back the control of the aircraft. Although the ACARS system was updated regularly and the ACARS AMS was developed in order to provide end to end security, many airlines decided to not use it and instead provide some security by obscurity (6), which according to my opinion could lead in more risks and better security because no one has tested the security algorithms that are used and therefore if there is any vulnerability in the security algorithm, the company will never be aware of it, leaving the communication channel open to zero day attacks. The cost of the hardware needed to complete such an attack is not high. Using online shopping web applications or other sellers, the possible attacker will be able to buy the necessary hardware such as FMS hardware, air to ground transmitters, ACARS manager hardware and other hardware, in order to perform such an attack. By using one of the most known flight simulator software, combined with the necessary hardware and finally by exploiting any vulnerabilities in the security of ACARS and FMS systems, they can manage to gain control of the aircraft with low cost. There are many ways the attacker could gain access or perform attacks against the aircrafts. These ways may include attacks via the internet by exploiting bugs in web applications, vulnerabilities against software, SQL injections to databases or other vulnerabilities that are not fixed in mobile applications. There are two different threat models according to the authors of the article On perception and reality in the wireless air traffic communication security (6). The two different threat models are the traditional aviation threat model (6) and the Modern threat model (6). The main difference between these two according the article are that the software-defined radios are widely available to the public and along with them to possible attackers and the change between analogue instruments and digital instruments, with the second ones to give the ability to the users to transmit more data in electronic form. These could lead to an increase in the abilities hackers to eavesdrop, modify and inject data on the communications channel. The traditional threat model is used from when the first forms of communication were implemented in aviation. As years passed the communication channels were improved and the amount of data that was transmitted increased rapidly. The authors of the article characterize the article as naÃÆ'Â ¯ve (6) of the reasons of inferior technological capabilities and financial capabilities, requirement of inside knowledge and the use of analog communication. (6). I can agree with their opinion because I believe that indeed the threat model is very old and due to the new technologies, along with the low cost of a setup that could allow to interfere with the communications of an aircraft, the risk will be much higher. The second threat model is the modern threat model. It has major changes from the first one due to the increased digitalisation and automation (6) of the aircrafts communication channels. Also, the increased technological capabilities (6) such as cheap hardware could lead to possible attacks that could not be performed when the first threat model was developed. Finally, people could easily gain aviation knowledge (6) from the internet, flight simulator software, which could increase the seriousness of the attacks that could be performed. For the above reasons and from my own experience with aviation knowledge and flight simulator software, I would agree that this model is more up to date and more tailored to identify the threats that todays aircraft face. Concluding on the above-mentioned information, the aviation world and more specifically the security of the aircrafts, crews and passengers are far from safe. This is because even with the security measures that are already researched, the airlines do not always implement them. Also, the technology required and the cost of acquiring such technology makes it easier for attackers to perform either passive or active attacks against aircrafts. The above when combined with the knowledge of an attacker can lead to great threats against the aircrafts. In order to maintain the aviation world safe, the need to reassess the risk of attacks under realistic system models and the development of appropriate countermeasures (6) should be identified and embraced along with new end to end security implementations are proposed and if approved implemented by airlines. Such security mechanisms must be tested in order to be totally sure that all vulnerabilities are patched and that it will never have a backdoor that could allow an attacker to perform an attack. In my opinion in order to be able to be sure that a security mechanisms that will be placed is totally secure, we must first learn our adversaries, understand their capabilities, intentions, motive and upon all knowledge and financial state. Next, we must understand what passive and active attacks an adversary can perform. If we manage to understand the above aspects of our adversaries, then we must understand what has to be done in order to prevent them from launching an attack against the aircraft- ground communications channel and ground network. By having the necessary information about the adversaries and the protection mechanisms that we can implement, then we must evaluate those already implemented and find ways to enhance them. References Smith, M., M. Strohmeier, V. Lenders, and I. Martinovic. On the security and privacy of ACARS. (016 Integrated Communications Navigation and Surveillance (ICNS)): 1-27. Web. 15 Feb. 2017. Aircraft Communications, Addressing and Reporting System. Aircraft Communications, Addressing and Reporting System SKYbrary Aviation Safety. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2017. Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS). Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS). N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2017. Olive, Michael . ACARS Message Security (AMS) as a Vehicle for Validation of ICAO Doc. 9880 Part IV-B Security Requirements. Proc. of ICAO ACP WG-M Meeting, Belgium, Brussels. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 1-12. Print. Yue, M., and X. Wu. The Approach of ACARS Data Encryption and Authentication. 2010 International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Security (2010): 556-60. Web. 10 Feb. 2017. Strohmeier, Martin, Matthias Schafer, Rui Pinheiro, Vincent Lenders, and Ivan Martinovic. On Perception and Reality in Wireless Air Traffic Communication Security. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems (2016): 1-20. Web. Akram, Raja Naeem, Konstantinos Markantonakis, Keith Mayes, Pierre-Francois Bonnefoi, Damien Sauveron, and Serge Chaumette. Security and performance comparison of different secure channel protocols for Avionics Wireless Networks. 2016 IEEE/AIAA 35th Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC) (2016): n. pag. Web. Akram, Raja Naeem, Konstantinos Markantonakis, Royal Holloway, Sharadha Kariyawasam, Shahid Ayub, Amar Seeam, and Robert Atkinson. Challenges of security and trust in Avionics Wireless Networks. 2015 IEEE/AIAA 34th Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC) (2015): n. pag. Web. Network Graphic. Digital image. ATC Data Link News. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2017.

Thursday, September 19, 2019

the origin of electoral college Essay -- essays research papers fc

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the United States of America, the presidential election takes place every four years, on the first Tuesday of November [1]. Most people believe they are directly voting for the presidential candidate, and the person with the most popular votes will win the election. However, instead of voting for the presidential candidate, people are voting for the electors, individuals who vote in the Electoral College. Moreover, the total electoral vote, not the popular vote, actually determines the winner of the United States presidential election. The election of the year 2000 is a perfect example of the Electoral College. President George W. Bush won the presidential election of the year 2000 with more electoral votes, not popular votes. Before the presidential election of year 2000, most people pay no or little attention to the electoral votes, because most people do not understand the concept of the Electoral College, or even did not know there the different between po pular votes and Electoral College.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Before continue to discuss about the Electoral College, we must first understand the history of Electoral College and the concept of how does it work. The Electoral College system was established in Article II, section I, of the U.S. Constitution.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Electoral College was established by the founding fathers as a compromise between election of the president by Congress and election by popular v... the origin of electoral college Essay -- essays research papers fc   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the United States of America, the presidential election takes place every four years, on the first Tuesday of November [1]. Most people believe they are directly voting for the presidential candidate, and the person with the most popular votes will win the election. However, instead of voting for the presidential candidate, people are voting for the electors, individuals who vote in the Electoral College. Moreover, the total electoral vote, not the popular vote, actually determines the winner of the United States presidential election. The election of the year 2000 is a perfect example of the Electoral College. President George W. Bush won the presidential election of the year 2000 with more electoral votes, not popular votes. Before the presidential election of year 2000, most people pay no or little attention to the electoral votes, because most people do not understand the concept of the Electoral College, or even did not know there the different between po pular votes and Electoral College.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Before continue to discuss about the Electoral College, we must first understand the history of Electoral College and the concept of how does it work. The Electoral College system was established in Article II, section I, of the U.S. Constitution.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Electoral College was established by the founding fathers as a compromise between election of the president by Congress and election by popular v...

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Early American Rule of Puerto Rico :: Puerto Rican History Historical Essays

Early American Rule of Puerto Rico Ideally Puerto Rico was to mold itself into the perfect American product. Politically Puerto Rico was to remain inferior by following American rules and regulations that restricted the liberties of the people. Economically it was expected to provide capitol growth for the United States while neglecting the popular masses. Through the process of Americanization, the hope was to create a second America on the island. Here the people would look to the mainland for inspiration and more importantly guidance. The general intentions and plans for the island, however, backfired in that the actual goals and feelings of the people were never taken into account. Upon the arrival of the Americans, Puerto Ricans, for the most part, rejoiced in hopes of new liberties not found under Spanish colonial rule. Puerto Ricans expected â€Å"under American sovereignty that the wrongs of centuries† would â€Å"be righted.† (Trias-Monge 36) The United States would surely extend its democratic policies to Puerto Rico, as it should to any of its other parts. The U.S., however, did not consider Puerto Rico as part of the mainland. Joseph Foraker, senate member, captured the American sentiment: â€Å"Puerto Rico belongs to the United States, but is not the United States, nor a part of the United States.† (Fernandez 2) The basic assumption that the U.S. would create legislation equal to that of the mainland lasted only a brief period. Puerto Ricans were made clear on the American position. The ultimate authority belonged to the U.S. Government as only they were seen fit to govern the affairs of the island. The American government was open ly adamant in declaring the people inferior and incapable of ruling themselves due to their race as the genetic successors of the Spanish. â€Å"Puerto Ricans were an inferior offspring of an already middle-level race.† (Fernandez 13) More importantly the inhabitants of Puerto Rico were dismissed on the basis on their skin color. As non-white they were compared to small children. â€Å"The Latino was presented as a ‘black child’†. (Fernandez 13), who at that time was at the bottom of the racial hierarchy. With this image in mind the United States continued its fatherly role and created several policies that would have destructive effects on the island. Through the organic acts mainly the Foraker and Jones acts, the liberties of the Puerto Ricans were curtailed. â€Å"Within the legal channels provided by the Foraker act.

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Contribution of Community Development Programs Essay

DESCRIPTION The main target of this research is to determine the contribution of Community Development Programs of Multi-Purpose Cooperatives through defining the assets which people needs for the means of living in terms of six capitals namely: human, natural, financial, physical, social and political. Furthermore, to measure the efficiency of Community Development Programs of Multi-Purpose cooperatives in the way of life of its members. OBJECTIVES * To determine the contributions of Community Development Program that the MPC implemented to its members and community. * To discuss the different determinants used in implementing community development programs of MPC in selected Barangays of San Miguel Bulacan. * To find out how does community development program affects the development and daily transaction of cooperatives with the members. * To measure the impact of community development programs of Multi-Purpose Cooperatives in selected barangays of San Miguel, Bulacan. * To determine the impact of Community Development Programs of Multi-Purpose Cooperative to the socio economic development of its communities. * To discover the uniqueness of cooperative existence that put them on the top of success in the near future. * To contribute techniques, skills and knowledge for Cooperative development. QUESTIONS * What are the contributions of community development program of Multi-Purpose Cooperative in developing the livelihood of its members and the communities engage to it? * How do the community development programs contribute to the development of Cooperatives? * What are the determinants used in the process of implementing the community development program of Multi-Purpose Cooperatives in selected barangays of San Miguel Bulacan? * How effective do the Community Development Program of Multi-purpose Cooperatives to the way of life of its members in terms of six capital asset, namely: human capital, financial, social, physical, political and  natural? * What is the impact of community development program of multi-purpose cooperatives in the socio economic development of its communities that is engage to it? * How effective do the Community Development Programs for the stability of Cooperative to the industry? * What is the uniqueness of the Community Development Programs of Multi-Purpose cooperative among other Cooperatives and other business entities that makes them successful? Mechanics of Program Implementation of Farmer’s Cooperative in San Miguel, Bulacan Brief Description The research focuses on the mechanics on how programs are being implemented. Cooperators are widely aware about the programs, its rules and regulations, and people involved. But how are those programs are formed? The main target of this research is to sustain quality information in doing keen mechanics. Furthermore, the group will give emphasis in identifying and explaining the process, factors, agenda, decision making and coverage of the program implementation. OBJECTIVES * To define the meaning of Farmer’s Cooperative.  * To give the possible issues that gave birth to a certain program. * To indicate the factors affecting the program planning. * To determine how the coop starts the program planning. * To identify who are the decision makers of the program that will be implemented. * To examine how are those mechanics being systematized by the coop. * To understand their perception why they think a certain program should undergo a systematized process before being approved. * To enumerate the problems they encountered in doing the mechanics. * To know when the program proper should be implemented. QUESTIONS * What is farmer’s cooperative? * What are the possible issues who gave birth to a certain program? * What are the factors affecting the program planning? * How the coop starts the planning of such program? * Who are the decision makers of the program that will be implemented? * How long are those mechanics systematized by the coop? * Why they think a certain program should undergo a systematized process before being approved? * What are the problems they encountered in doing the mechanics? * When should be the program proper implemented? Does it require a certain period? EFFECTIVENESS OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING PROGRAMS IN COOPERATIVES IN SELECTED AREAS BRIEF DESCRIPTION The research is appertained with the Effectiveness of Education and Training Programs provided by the selected cooperatives in San Miguel, Bulacan. Education, Training and Information is the fifth of the Rochdale Principles, it states that co-operative societies must provide education and training to their members and the public. The researchers focus on the promotion of the empowerment of the members. Thus, will be able to express the importance and its impact to them. Other questions to ask include: if and how the does the training of co-operatives provide increase members’ skill, how and does this help individuals, did the members’ financial literacy increase; and did members’ use new skills in other areas of their life. It aims to strengthen the individuality so they can contribute effectively to the development of their co-operatives and to uplift the economic status of their lives. OBJECTIVES * To identify the roles of Education & Training Programs * To determine the importance and impact of Education & Training Programs to cooperatives and to its members * To know the different Education & Training Programs offered by the cooperatives and to be able to enhance the cooperative members’ knowledge. * To enumerate the requirements of CDA in implementing the Education & Training Programs. * To understand the nature of its procedures of Education & Training Programs being implemented by the Cooperative. * To know the profiles and assess if the selected cooperatives meet the requirements of the CDA effectively and efficiently. QUESTIONS This research has the following statement of the problems: * What roles do Education & Training programs in cooperative? * What are the importance of Education & Training Programs of Cooperatives? * What are the Education & Training Programs offered by the selected cooperatives in San Miguel, Bulacan? * What are the requirements of CDA in providing the Education & Training Programs of the Cooperatives? * What are the process/procedures of Education & Training Programs implemented by the selected cooperatives?

Monday, September 16, 2019

Eastern Religious Philosopher Quotations

CheckPoint: Eastern Religious Philosopher Quotations Siddhartha Gautama Buddha – â€Å"Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship. † oI chose this quote because Siddhartha devoted his life to find balance and clarification. He grew up with wealth and being shielded from human suffering, and wanted to search for something deeper. This quote shows that he found something deeper from the materialistic life he led early on (s9. com, 2009). Lao Tzu – â€Å"To know that you do not know is the best. To pretend to know when you do not know is a disease. o Tzu believed that even the wisest of humans is still ignorant, and this quote reflects that thought process. He was very interested in how we should live and different ways that a good society is governed. This quote reminds us that we can always be open to learning and discovering even when we think we have mastered something (Axia College, 2008). Chuang Tzu â€⠀œÃ¢â‚¬ Do the clouds make rain? Or is it the rain that makes the clouds? What makes it descend so copiously? oTzu believed that life was temporary and that pursuing wealth was acting in vein and foolish. He felt that this pursuit distracted a person from truly seeing the world and its meaning. Tzu wanted to look at nature from a different perspective, and by asking the questions in his quote enabled a deeper look into this idea (Chebucto, n. d. ). Confucious – â€Å"What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others† oConfucious taught that to establish one’s own humane character was important and could be done by following positive role models from the past. People can always better themselves through learning and servicing others. It makes sense that a man who believes these principles would quote such a simplistic, yet profound statement (Axia College, 2008). Mencius -â€Å"With proper nourishment and care, everything grows, whereas without proper nourishment and care, everything decay† oI chose this quote for Mencius because he felt that if people wanted to become a better person, they would have to make the choice to transform their life. He thought that anything can thrive if given the proper care, and was optimistic about humans and their potential (Axia College, 2008). Hsun Tzu – â€Å"If there is no dull and determined effort, there will be no brilliant achievement. oTzu took portions of Taoism with Confucianism and added his own beliefs which are known to be a bit more pessimistic. Tzu founded a school and some of his students were philosophers and the future prime minister of Ch’in. It is no wonder that he would emphasize that effort is needed to attain achievements (Bookrags, 20 05-2006). Hui Neng – â€Å"If we are treading on the path of enlightenment we need not be worried by stumbling blocks. Provided we keep a constant eye on our own faults we cannot go astray from the right path† oHui Neng’s quote reminds me of the underdog winning a game. Considering he was illiterate and yet can have impressed his patriarch to be his successor is unbelievable. This quote exemplifies that although there will be difficulties in our lives we should continue to improve ourselves and recognize our faults (Bookrags, 2005-2006). Dugan Kigen – â€Å"Rejoice in your birth in the world. † oI like this quote from Dogen because he believed in practicing to achieve a â€Å"joyful life†. Even though there will be pain and suffering in the world, if you are to live life according to the Tao, life can still be joyful (Axia College, 2008). Murasaki Shikibu – â€Å"To be pleasant, gentle, calm and self-possessed: this is the basis of good taste and charm in a woman† oMurasaki was a female author that inspired many with her writings. This quote best represents her ideas feelings that although women were looked upon as non-equals to men, they can still pursue philosophical enlightenment (Axia College, 2008). Yamaoto Tsunetomo – â€Å"There is nothing so painful as regret† oYamaoto followed a Samurai tradition and believed we live in a world with change that is unpredictable and constant. Being prepared for these changes and anticipate problems will help to lessen pain and regret. References Axia College. (2008). Eastern Influences. Retrieved from Axia College, PHI105 – Introduction to Philosophy website. Bookrags. (2005-2006). Hsun-tzu Biography. Retrieved from http://www. bookrags. com/biography/hsun-tzu/ Chebucto. (n. d. ). Chuang Tzu: The Next Voice. Retrieved from http://www. chebucto. ns. ca/Philosophy/Taichi/chuang. html s9. com. (2009). Siddhartha Gautama. Retrieved from http://www. s9. com/Biography/Buddha

Sunday, September 15, 2019

The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance

THE ROLE OF DELIBERATE PRACTICE IN THE ACQUISITION OF EXPERT PERFORMANCE Motivational Constraint A premise of our theoretical framework is that deliberate practice is not inherently enjoyable and that individuals are motivated to engage in it by its instrumental value in improving performance. Hence, interested individuals need to be engaging in the activity and motivated to improve performance before they begin deliberate practice. Bloom (1985b) found evidence supporting this implication.His interviews with international-level performers showed that parents typically initiated deliberate practice after allowing their children several months of playful engagement in the domain and after noticing that their children expressed interest and showed signs of promise. The social reactions of parents and other individuals in the immediate environment must be very important in establishing this original motivation. At the start of deliberate practice, parents help their child keep a regular daily practice schedule and point out the instrumental value of practice for improved performance (Bloom, 1985b).With increased experience and the aid of teachers and coaches, the developing individual is able to internalize methods for assessing improvement and can thus concurrently monitor the effects of practice. As individuals get more involved in the activities of a domain, competitions and public performances provide short-term goals for specific improvements. At this point the motivation to practice becomes so closely connected to the goal of becoming an expert performer and so integrated with the individual's daily life that motivation to practice, per se, cannot be easily assessed.Certain naturally occurring events and changes illuminate the relation between practice and performance. Activities in many domains, especially sports, are seasonal because most scheduled competitions occur during a single season of the year. If individuals enjoyed deliberate practice, they ought to practice at a uniformly high level all year. Instead, athletes train much harder during the preseason period and during the season itself; during the off season they often reduce the level of training dramatically (Reilly, 1990a; Reilly ; Secher, 1990).Many individuals who have practiced for a long period of time give up their aspirations to compete and excel in an activity. Without the goal of improving performance, the motivation to engage in practice vanishes. Kaminski, Mayer, and Ruoff (1984) found that many elite adolescents who decided to stop competing remained active in the domain but virtually stopped engaging in practice. Some individuals have had to terminate their professional careers for reasons unrelated to their ability to perform.In a longitudinal study of visual artists, Getzels and Csikszentmihalyi (1976) found that most artists were drawn to painting because it allowed social isolation. However, aspiring painters have to promote social relations with art dealer s, art critics, and buyers to gain notoriety, increase the demand for their art, and generate sufficient sales for full-time artistic activity. Failure to do so forced many of the best artists to take another job unrelated to painting.Once these artists could no longer commit sufficient time and energy to maintain and improve their performance they stopped painting completely because they could not accept performing at a lower level. This finding shows that the activity of painting as such is not inherently motivating but rather the act of producing art that satisfies the artists' subjective criteria for quality. DANCE Abstracts 1. Fink, A. & Woschnjak, S. (2011). Creativity and personality in professional dancers. Personality and Individual Differences, 51 (6), 754-758. AbstractIn this study three different groups of professional dancers (ballet, modern/contemporary and jazz/musical), which considerably vary with respect to the creativity-related demands involved in the respective dancing style, are compared with respect to psychometrically determined creativity, general mental ability and different facets of personality. Results indicate that modern/contemporary dancers, who are often required to freely improvise on stage, exhibited relatively high levels of verbal and figural creativity (as it was measured by means of psychometric creativity tests), followed by jazz/musical and finally by ballet dancers.With respect to personality, modern/contemporary dancers can be characterized as being less conscientious, higher on psychoticism and more open to experiences than the remaining experimental groups. In line with relevant research in this field, this study reveals some central personality characteristics of highly creative individuals which may be considered as important ingredients in the acquisition or actualization of exceptional creative potential. Highlights: > Dancers of different professions differ with respect to creativity and personality. > Modern d ancers score high on openness and psychoticism. Modern dancers show high levels of psychometrically determined creativity. Keywords: Creativity, Personality, Psychoticism, Openness, Dance 2. Martyn-Stevens, B. E. , Brown, L. E. , Beam, W. C. & Wiersma, L. D. (2012). Effects of a dance season on the physiological profile of collegiate female modern dancers. Med Sport, 16 (1), 1-5. Abstract Introduction: A collegiate modern dancer is a unique athlete because in addition to the physical demands of dance, she also has the artistic demands of creating and performing for a season of showcases, or in some cases, multiple showcases.In preparing for her dance season in addition to her academic schedule, a collegiate modern dancer’s training includes rigorous daily technique classes and rehearsals which may alter her fitness level across time. Objective: To determine the effects of a dance season on the physiological profile of collegiate female modern dancers. Methods: Eighteen colleg iate female modern dancers were measured for relative anaerobic power, fatigue index, upper body and lower body strength, aerobic capacity and body composition at both pre and post dance season.Results: At post season, there were significant improvements in relative anaerobic power (pre 7. 43 + 1. 01 W/kg, post 8. 00 + 0. 78 W/kg), body weight (pre 57. 80 + 5. 10, post 58. 72 + 5. 08), and body composition (pre 18. 60 + 2. 03%, post 17. 78 + 2. 49%), and a significant increase in fatigue index (pre 33. 38 + 9. 72%, post 38. 91 + 7. 49%). There were no significant changes in relative upper and lower body strength or aerobic capacity. Conclusions: The demands of a collegiate dance season resulted in improved power and lean mass but greater anaerobic fatigue in these female modern dancers

Saturday, September 14, 2019

Mckinsey Mind Paper

| The McKinsey Mind| Personal Paper 1| ENTR 668| Philip Thoms| 4/13/2012| Executive Overview The summary of The McKinsey Mind: Understanding and Implementing the Problem Solving Tools and Management Techniques of the World’s Top Strategic Consulting Firm by Rasiel and Friga does exactly what the title indicates. As stated in the summary it will show one how to: 1. Follow McKinsey’s MECE line of attack 2. Frame business problems to make them susceptible to rigorous, fact-based analysis 3. Use that same fact-based analysis, along with gut instinct, to make strategic decisions. 4. Conduct meaningful interviews. . Analyze the data to find the â€Å"So what. † 6. Clearly communicate fact-based solutions to decision-makers Key Insights and Implications 1. Insight: MECE (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive) is separating problems into distinct, non-overlapping issues while making sure that no relevant issues have been overlooked. Implication: Recently, there wer e failures with the Code Blue team arriving to one of our clinics, I believe currently the team I am working with to strengthen up the process is not dividing up the issues distinctively enough and that some relevant issues are being overlooked. . Insight: Issue tree which is a type of logic tree in which each branch is an issue or question. Implication: While working with our client, I believe we would have been in a better place if we would have written down all the issues and formed them into an issue tree in order to better attack and solve the issues that arose instead of going rouge on each issue. 3. Insight: Develop a rapid response culture in that all employees must quickly respond to data request from fellow employees and all phone calls are returned within 24 hours (unwritten rule). Implication:Our consulting engagement has (had) a very tight timeline in that certain aspects needed to be completed in a very short time period. Also, with work if my institution had this cult ure, questions would be able to be answered sooner allowing for more productivity. Recently, I had a simple question that when through 3 departments which took a little under 2 months. Personal Strengths 1. Personable: Being personable is a valuable resource which would directly benefit in managing a team and client. People like to work and do business with people they like. . Altruistic: A consultant cannot be wholly concerned with their own personal welfare, but it is important that they are looking out for others on their team, their project, and the company as a whole (both their firm and the company they are consulting with). 3. Not a Cowboy: I do not enjoy reinventing the wheel. My opinion is if someone else has an answer for a problem, I do not have to come up with the solution myself. I will search the web or whatever database is available for information on a particular problem.Developmental Opportunities 1. Presenting Your Ideas: I need to become more articulate at present ing my ideas. Practice and preparation are the two primary ways that will help me to be better in this aspect. I naturally wait till the last minute to complete tasks that I know must be completed by a certain deadline which inhibits me from practicing the actual presentation part of the task/project. In order to do better, I need to create schedules of when certain aspects of a task need to be completed by and hold myself accountable.I typically have always been able to â€Å"swing it†, but due to this mindset the work that I presented/completed has not been up to the level that I could deliver on. Improving in this area would help me with as an individual with personal projects that I want to complete and it would benefit my organization(work) in my deliverables would be of a higher quality. 2. Forget about absolute precision: I am a finance guy a number guy therefore when I think about business I think about the bottom line and typically I am fixated on worse case scenario ’s based upon numbers only and not the x factor.I need to remember that business is not math or physics and remember sometimes there is more than just the numbers and if Instagram can sell for a billion dollars, anything can happen. 3. Team Selection: I feel that I am not the greatest at team selection. Perhaps, I typically am but I feel that this time during this class our team did not ever quite mesh. We did good work but I don’t feel that we ever great work. Though, it is different in the business world.I definitely think it is something I need to improve on. Final Comments The McKinsey Mind makes it look like if you follow the systems outlined the consulting will go smoothly and it the project will be successful. But from talking to my good friend who is a consultant for Accenture more often than not the customer is very hard to work with. It seems that the bulk of the issue is the customer not listening to the consulting firm which is odd since it was the customer who brought in the consultant firm in to begin.

Friday, September 13, 2019

A Balanced Scorecard Model For Project Management Information Technology Essay

A Balanced Scorecard Model For Project Management Information Technology Essay For a long time organizations are have been trying to use performance measurement methods in their system due to the fact that most time of managers is consumed by gathering, controlling, analyzing or reporting out data. Over time, it has been recognized that a valid performance measurement system can help organization to define its expectations and priorities, set strategies with goals and finally planning and decision making. Project Management Office, managers, program managers and project managers, as well as other organizations can use performance measurement benefits to evaluate project team performance, process effectiveness, client perception, resource management and leveling in a single or multiple project organization. By adding performance measurement to the project managers’ skills, they can accurately evaluate project performance against the mission and vision of organizations. Moreover, it helps project managers to find and assess risks and determine the value l evel creating for stakeholders. These papers will focus the issues of the performance of a project, and integrity of performance measurement and project management. The research objectives for this research study are identifying performance metrics for project management integrated to balances scorecard system; development of a balanced scorecard system with perspectives of project management; studying of use of created balanced scorecard system to evaluate projects. Any previous work in the area of project and project management, and performance measurement will be illustrated in literature review. The approach of how the balanced scorecard and project management methodologies will be integrated is shown in methodology section. Literature Review Project and Project Management Project A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service with a definite start time and end (PMBOK @ 2004). This uniqueness is a consequence of the difference in some way from the â€Å"normal† product delivered by an organization. Furthermore, every project is constrained in different ways by scope, time and cost and is defined by discrete activities which are related to each other and linked together over the project lifecycle. Figure 1 shows the constraints of a typical project. Moreover, a project consumes limited resources such as human, time, money, machines, facilities, and materials and requires specific skills to manage and execute and finally produces tangible deliverables according to stakeholder’s requirements. Figure 1 – Project Constrains Source: James Norrie,  Ã‚  Derek H T Walker., â€Å"A Balanced Scorecard Approach to Project Management Leadership†,  Ã‚  Project Management Journal.   Sylva: Dec 2004.   Vol. 35,   Iss. 4,   p.  47-56  (10  pp.) Project Stakeholders The project stakeholders are the parties who have positive or negative impacts on project performance and outcomes. The major sta keholders have direct authority to change the elements of the triple constraint. The Figure 2 illustrates the major stakeholders of a typical project. The figure also shows that, an internal part of an organization can recognized as stakeholders. Figure 2 – Project Main Stakeholders Source: Adopted from: PMI, (2004), PMBOK @ 2004 Project Management Keeping projects on-time, within budget and achieving a high level of quality of scope is difficult. Problems are due to poorly conducted analysis and design, but many also suffer from poor leadership and management. Project management is the planning, execution and controlling of project activities to achieve project objectives. Objectives include time, cost and scope or managing the triple constraints. Based on PMBOK @ 2004 definition, project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities in order to meet or exceed stakeholder needs or expectations from a project.

This is a n Accounting principle subject. The assessment and case Study

This is a n Accounting principle subject. The assessment and will be send by file .pdf - Case Study Example Professional Competence and Due Care A professional accountant is expected to demonstrate diligence when executing his duties and should abide by professional standards when executing his professional duties. Considering whether it is within the mandate of the accountant to counter-sign checks and ensuring that the hotel receives professional services in line with the underlying regulations of the accounting profession would translate to the observation of professional competence and due care. Confidentiality A professional accountant must observe confidentiality of information under his care and should not in any way disclose such information to unauthorized third party. Not disclosing the findings about the whole scenario to any third party and not taking advantage of the findings for personal gain would amount to maintaining the principle of confidentiality. Professional Behavior A professional accountant should act within applicable laws and regulations and shun any act that like ly to discredit professionalism. Ensuring that services remain within the law and avoiding any action that would put the profession into questions amount to professional behavior. Q2. a. The parties involved in the case include the company’s directors (husband and wife), the staff of the boutique hotel, the financial institution that mortgaged the hotel, and the community as a whole. For the company’s directors, especially that wife, the transactions are happening in her absence. Therefore, there is a possibility that taking no action would result into huge financial losses on her side through continuous check withdrawals of the recently acquired mortgage for the hotel. For the mortgaging firm, there is a likelihood that the hotel will not be able to pay back its mortgage leading to a huge financial loss. However, if the loan is secured, the mortgaging firm would recover the amount through seizure of the company’s principal asset, a boutique hotel. All the staff of the company would lose their job in the near future because the company would not be in a position to pay them. Moreover, there is likelihood that the company may be declared bankrupt. The closure of the company would have negative impact on the community where it is located because it would cut down job opportunities and disengage those who are currently employed courtesy of the company. b. If I decided to take action, I would consult the audit committee of the company, if there is any and summon the board of directors to shed light on the harmful effects of such fraudulent dealings. I would give my stand to the company’s directors by stating pointblank that I am not ready to be party to the fraudulent deal. First, I would ensure that I act within the fundamental principles of the accounting profession. I would then identify specific factors relevant to the conflict resolution process, which in this case is the unauthorized check withdrawals made by one of the directors of the company. I would then decide the best course of action by weighing the likely consequence of each alternative course action. I would then document the discussions held and decisions arrived at during my discussion with the directors and the audit committee. If the practice persists, I would then contact relevant professional body and legal advisors. A professional

Thursday, September 12, 2019

The Marketing Strategies of Mall of America Coursework

The Marketing Strategies of Mall of America - Coursework Example It is evidently clear from the discussion that the target markets for the Mall of America comprised of locals and visitors. Different marketing strategies will be used so as to reach these target markets. The locals include the local families and population residing near the Mall of America. The local target market can be placing the product in strategic positions where the people can easily access. Close range marketing can be used using technologies, such as Wifi and Bluetooth for the customers at close proximity. About promotion, the enterprise can use advertising as its core source of increasing local consumer awareness. Mainly, it can post numerous advertisements both in print and electronic media. Price is the main competing factor in business. The business can use discount and allowance pricing. The firm can provide allowances and discounts on their basic price so as to reward the consumers’ specific response. On the other hand, the visitors include tourists from the Up per Midwest, across the nation, and from other nations. The products and services being offered at the Mall of America can be posted on the internet so as to reach a wider global audience. The other strategy which the Mall of America can use to reach the visitors include telemarketing. The clients can be convinced via mobile phones to come and visit Mall of America. The venture may also use promotional pricing as a strategy to attract national and international visitors. The promotional pricing will assist the Mall of America to attract more customers in a very short time. The other strategy which the firm can use is diversity marketing since visitors come from diverse backgrounds.

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Business in Bangladesh Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Business in Bangladesh - Research Paper Example Businessmen may also be faced with the problem of looking for employees who are skilled enough to do the work needed. These are just examples of what businessmen should take into consideration before even attempting to tap into a developing country. I have chosen Bangladesh as the subject developing country for this research paper. As a developing country, it may seem, on its face, that Bangladesh is not usually considered as a profitable country to do business in. However, if we were to omit the financial condition of the Bangladeshis and focus instead on the resources of the country, the situation would be different. Bangladesh is home to an abundant source of agricultural products, particularly coal and gas, as well as other raw materials such as â€Å"lime stone, silicone sand and hard rock,† all of which are used in a variety of industries. At the moment, the country is focused on the garments and textile industry, particularly in the export of cotton materials. Other ind ustries that Bangladesh is involved in include the â€Å"tea processing, paper newsprint, cement, chemical fertilizers, sugar and light engineering† (Bangladesh.com). ... The country is, at the moment, already heavily competing with other garments producers such as China, because aside from the cheap labor available, the production of garments do not require the worker to be literate, let alone with an academic degree (Bajaj). Findings In the previous paragraph, pointed out that Bangladesh is already engaged in quite a number of business industries and the country is also rich in natural and agricultural resources. What with all their resource wealth, the country would have been a developed country by now. However, this is obviously not the case because the Bangladeshis fail to utilize what they have properly. Because of the lack of technology and communication systems available, utilization of resources is indeed a challenge. This fact also triggers in an investment drought, where businessmen are afraid to invest in such a country, because they may end up spending more than what they get in return. Before embarking on a business project, businessmen have to first determine the â€Å"core competencies and strengths† of the area where they plan to do business in. To do this, there is a need for companies to seek help from government agencies and other organizations or groups in their target area so they can learn more about the people who live in the same (Engel). Indeed, a smart business move would be to first conduct a thorough study of the business location, the people who are expected to work in the company and the target consumers. In the following sections, I shall point out the factors that contribute to the business environment of a place, and how these factors affect the success of a business. Culture