How To Create Edits

DATA†, when the edit is loaded onto the machine, he edit will appear With the title â€Å"Liverwurst†. The second method involves using Symphony which allows you convert a Stephanie simile (. Sir file) into the DATA format generated by Kinsman's online Step Editor. Stephanie is generally seen as having a better user interface and testing environment for creating edit data than Kinsman's online editor. Symphony also allows you to convert songs that the Sonoma Step Editor does not support, including older songs from past mixes and DIR XX songs. First, you must download the latest version of Symphony at http://sites. Goose. Mom/site/dairymaid/Symphony. Zip . Extract the files into a folder on your computer. Launch the program. You may receive an error that an Internet connection is needed to use Symphony. Symphony works by simulating the Sonoma Step Editor by sending the website the step data needed to generate an edit file, but it will replace the appropriate music id so t hat the file generated works for the song you choose. Because of the is, an internet connection is needed. The first step is to find the simile of the song you want to convert. Typically, Stephanie songs are found in If electroplatesSongs or Files(ex.)StephanieSongs (for Vista/7).Select the . SMS file and the title of the song will be displayed in the textbook below it. Below this is a list of songs from the master id list that might possibly represent the song you chose. Sometimes the title of your . SMS file may not match what is found in the master id list. Try editing the title of the song so that the list of songs eventually shows you the song you are converting. An example is when you edit â€Å"Healing Vision(Angelic Mix)†, the master id list has it titled â€Å"Healing Vision -Angelic Mix-â€Å". Modifying the textbook to â€Å"Healing Vision† will show several songs with the name, including â€Å"HealingVision -Angelic Mix-â€Å". Select that song as the o ne you are converting. Once you have selected the song, select the style of play you are converting (single, double or couple). The difficulty below it indicates which chart from the . SMS file you are converting over. This might be a â€Å"Challenge† chart or â€Å"Edit† chart. If there are multiple Edit charts in your . SMS file, only the first one can be read. On the right Of Symphony's screen are options for the edit data produced. The region is for the region your playing in (North America or Europe). The Difficulty indicates what the chart will show up as in DIR X/XX.Remember, some songs in XX will play a Chinese version if the Challenge chart is selected, so if your edit indicates it is a Challenge chart and the song has a Chinese version, the Chinese version will play for your edit. The rating is the number of â€Å"feet† the song is rated. The comments are generic comments you can give your edit that show up in the game. The edits name is the name of yo ur edit (limited to 8 characters). Finally, the Measure offset is used for cases where your . SMS file's first beat isn't on the same measure as the official data's first beat. An example is the song Red Zone.In the official data, the first beat is found on the 5th measure, but in the . Sir file found on genius-I-banisher's website, the first beat starts on the 6th measure. Because of this, the offset must be set to -1 , which indicates the first beat will be moved backwards one measure. For songs in which a known offset is needed, Symphony will have the offset already programmed in. As more songs are discovered to need an offset, Symphony will be updated to reflect what those offsets are. When you have set all of your options, click â€Å"Generate . DATA†. After several seconds, a Save File Dialog should display, allowing you to save your enervated .DATA file to your computer. After you have generated all of your edits, you must combine the edits into a â€Å"zip† fil e. Windows has a built in Zip program, but other alternatives are zip and Winner. You can include up to 30 edits in one zip file. Once you have done this, you must visit Kinsman's library manager at http://direct. Contamination. Com/address/library_manager/ index. PH. Here you will select what region you are in and select the zip file you just created and click â€Å"Save†. A file will be returned to you titled DIR EDIT U. DATA. The . DATA generated this time MUST be named or (for Europe).This file must be saved to a folder â€Å"DIR_EDIT' at the root level of your USB drive. Once this is done, you may use the thumb drive to play your edits on a DIR X or XX machine! Troubleshooting put the -SMS files onto my thumb drive and the game didn't recognize them. DIR X/XX does not recognize the . SMS format, this is why the program Symphony is needed. Symphony converts the . SMS format to a format readable by DIR X/ put the -DATA files in DIR EDIT and the game did not recognize them . This is because the game does not recognized individual . DATA file. The game requires that all edits are compiled into a single .DATA file called for Europe). This is what the Library Manager found on Kinsman's website (see above) is used for. 3. My edit seems off, how do I sync it? Edits do not contain any syncing data, only step placement and note types. If the step data seems to be a measure or more early or late, use the Measure offset feature to adjust the data so that it lines up with the game's music. If the song's official data is off sync, your edit data will be off sync as well. 4. My edit has blank measures, what gives? Edit data only supports 4th, 8th, 1 oh and 12th notes. This, 32nd and this are not supported.Also, because of the limited format, 12th notes can only exist inside a single quarter note range. Any quarter note section that contains this and any other note (ethos, this, etc) will be blank. 5. What about hands? The game supports hands if they are part of a freeze, but hands as a set of notes pressed on the same beat are not supported by the game. 6. Some of my freezes are being combined into a long freeze, what gives? If freeze arrows of the same direction are only separated by a 16th note, the game will combine these into a single freeze arrow. This is a bug that's present in edit mode in all DIR versions.

Child Observation Essay

For this assignment, I observed my six year old niece, Faustine Bui who was born on August 16, 2007, at the park where I was babysitting her with her mom for approximately thirty minutes. The park I observed her at is packed with children and dogs are allowed. There is a large play area with jungle-jims and slide and it includes a sandy area which has a variety of playing equipment as well. I first observed Faustine’s biosocial development such as physical growth, gross motor and fine motor skills. Faustine is 3 feet tall and she weighs 41 pounds according to my Aunt. She is a little shorter than a lot of the six year old that she hangs out with and the ones in the park but I think that her height is in the normal range for kids her age and considering that her parents are already short to begin with, I am not surprised that she is a little shorter than all the other kids. Faustine used to look like a very chubby baby with a large head and stubby limbs but she’s grown u p now to be very lean. She is not chubby nor way too skinny. According to our textbook, â€Å"The Developing Person Through the Lifespan†, Faustine’s physical growth is normal. By the age of six, the average child weighs between forty and fifty pounds and is at least 3  ½ feet tall. They have adult like body proportions which means that their legs constitute about half their total height and they are usually lean considering children around ages five and six have the lowest body fat compared to all the other ages. I believe that Faustine’s lean figure isn’t just due to the normal growth pattern around her age but that shes lean because of her eating habits at home. Fat isn’t really common in her diet at home and vegetables and fruits are mandatory for three meals a day, everyday. I can also tell she eats healthy because for our trip to the park today, my aunt brought a container of fruits and a couple bottles of homemade fruit juice. Faustine’s gross and motor skills are up to par with the skills of children her age. I observed her running across the park many times with the other children and even beating them in the race that they were holding. She had a hard time conquering the jugle-jim though. She kept waddling back and forth every time she tried to get her feet up on the next bar and she eventually gave up and refused to return to the jungle jim again. She threw a few balls here and there but she was unable to throw it very far or accurate. By the age of three, children can already kick, throw, jump and climb things such as ladder. By the age of six, children can skip, climb trees and over  things, and catch a ball (uofmchildrenshospital.org). I was unable to observe a lot of fine motor skills from Faustine but she did pick up a stick from the ground, hold it like a normal adult would hold a pencil, and started drawing in the sand. By the age of 2, children can scribble, fold paper, draw vertical lines and manage semi-large object with their hands. By the age of six, children can copy letters, grasp pencils like a grown adult, and copy complex shapes (kamloopschildrenstherapy.org). I then observed her cognitive skills which included her language, memory, and perception. When observing Faustine, I realized that she is one extremely talkative child. She would talk about everything and anything sometimes she’d just sit in fro nt of us and talk to us and to herself while playing in the sand. According to Lev Vygotsky and his social learning theory, children use private speech (â€Å"The internal dialogue that occurs when people talk to themselves, either silently or out loud† (The Developing Person Through the Lifespan)) to review, decidem and explain events to themselves. Lev Vygotsky’s theories â€Å"stress the fundamental role of social interaction in the development of cognition, as he believed strongly that community plays a central role in the process of ‘making meaning’† (simplypsychology.org). A lot of the things she would say to us would be question like â€Å"why this† and â€Å"why that†. Other times she would run up to us just to blabber out a very nonsensical sentences and run off and other times she would just run up to the other children and make conversation with them. Her vocabulary has almost fully developed and all her sentences made sense even though what she was say were so silly and wild. She is a balanced bilingual and can speak Vietnamese and English fluently. All of this is normal for a child her age. A the age of 3 children can babble and pretend to read, by the age of five, children begin to read, talk, and write and by the age of six, a child has almost developed their language skills full (ed.gov). I was unable to observe Faustine’s memory during my day at the park with her but according to Baddeley’s model of working memory, children ages 4 and up have gained skills in working memory. Memory of children under age 7 is very weak but over seven, children memory have improved to the point where they can remember not only what happened, but where and when these things happened (sciencedaily.com). Faustine was very aware of her surrounding. She liked to dig in the sand to find pebbles and other small objects. She was very  curious about things around the park and would go exploring with the other children. I then observed Faustine’s psychosocial skills. Faustine is not a shy girl. She ran through the park making friends with everyone she bumped into and she even went up to an extremely shy little girl and talked to her as if they have been best friends forever. She hardly came up to ask us to play with her and sometimes acted like we weren’t even there. According to our textbook, children â€Å"prefer to play with peers rather than alone or with parents†. It also states that young children like to play with kids their age and of same social status. In the case of Faustine, she just liked to befriend any kid that was there at the park and willing to play with her. Faustine and the other children did a lot of sociodramatic playing where they would stand on top of the play equipment and pretend to be pirate by scoping out the â€Å"sea† and using the slide when they want other children to â€Å"walk the plank†. She was very friendly to everybody and didn’t cause any trouble with the other children. She was eager to get back to the playground to play with the other children every time we called her back to adjust her clothes or have her eat her snacks. According to Erik Erikson and his stages of psychosocial development, which are eight â€Å" stages through which a healthily developing human should pass from infancy to late adulthood† (simplypsychology.org), Faustine is in the Competence Stage (Industry vs. Inferiority). The age range for this stage is five to twelve years and this is the stage where Children become more aware of themselves as individuals.They work hard at being responsible, being good and doing it right (http://psychology.about.com). I saw this in Faustine because she rarely needed us for anything while she was at the park and she liked to explore and learn things on her own like how to work the equipment. I think that Faustine still need to learn about the f eeling of other people. She loved to make friends and talk to all the children at the park but she did not realise that some of the children just wanted to be left alone of didn’t like and but she kept persisting on making friends with them anyways. She also needs to be more aware of her surrounding. Although Faustine loved to explore the park and things around her, she didn’t realize what was going on around her with the other children. For example, she kept jumping from kids to kids not realizing that they were in the middle of play with her. She would jump from one area to the next and forget where she had previously  left her toys, and on some occasions, she even forgot that we were still watching her because she was to entranced in her own activities. During my observation. I observed that Faustine is a very healthy and fit child. Her biosocial, cognitive, and psychosocial development is up to par compared to children of the same age as her. She is very athletic and her social skills are very strong.

Causes and Correlates of Adolescent Drug

Experimentation with illicit drugs and substance use is common among youth population. This is the most common reason for early onset of drugs which exposes youth to developmental harm and risk of developing mental health problems. Early onset of drug is also associated with depression, anxiety, psychosis and educational under achievement among youth population. Due to such harm and health risk to youth population, it is necessary to evaluate how far policies and programs implemented for preventing early drug onset among youths have mitigated different   risk factors of drug abuse (Modesto-Lowe et al. 2008). The essay particularly evaluates the effectives of this program and preventive strategies to identify strength and weakness in approach. Based on this evaluation, it recommends possible steps to improve current strategies to delay the onset of drugs. As there is emphasis on early intervention to reduce the cost and harm associated with early drug onset among youths, it is necessary to evaluate education programs implemented for youths in Australia. The review of such school based educational programs for preventing alcohol and other drugs revealed that the school-based program has harm minimization goal and it mainly employed the principle of social influence approach or cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT). By this approach, youth were taught to resist external pressure and strengthen their coping skills. CBT helped to analyse and modify the negative thinking pattern and behavior of school children. The CLIMATE program for alcohol and cannabis and other programs like SHAHRP, Life Education, Greenhouse project and Resilient Family Intervention gave mixed results. While CLIMATE, SHAHRP and greenhouse projects have significant effect in reducing risk, the other two programs gave no significant results. The main strength of these inter ventions was that the program was implemented by means of a computer-delivery method. This minimized the cost involved in recruiting and training the staffs for education and guaranteed flexible and consistent delivery of information. However, minimum efficacy was found for those schools which had minimum resource for internet based delivery of prevention and where teachers failed to adapt the program according to the needs of particular school (Teesson et al. 2012). Hence, in the future, it is necessary that resource of the school is developed to deliver internet-based educational program to promote efficacy. The key teachings of the educational program should also be supported by evidence (Bonomo and Bowes 2001). As the above evaluation suggested lack of resource regarding computer based program behind the reason for poor outcome of the program, this section particularly evaluates the effectiveness of the universal computer-based Climate School psycho-stimulants and cannabis module. In the randomized controlled study with secondary school children in Australia, students were randomized to computer-based Climate schools program and the usual health classes group. The Climate program was based on social influence approach to harm minimisation. The impact of the Climate Schools program on school children was that they decreased pro-drug attitude due to better awareness about the ill-effects of cannabis and psychostimulants. The frequency of experimentation use of drugs among children significantly reduced which resulted in subdued uptake. In comparison with children who received usual drug education, climate school group children had better used cannabis less often. The advantaged of computer-ba sed delivery was that use of cartoon story raised interest among children and they could recall the information very well. However, one limitation of the Climate School program is that although it reduced children’s intention to use meth/amphetamine among youths, it could not sustain these intention for longer time (Vogl et al. 2014). Hence, to sustain the long-term knowledge and preventive behavior related to early drug onset, it is necessary to continue ongoing intervention in a sequential and regular pattern. The feasibility of the program can be further increased by encouraging children to bring their own laptop to schools. Among all the alcohol education programs implemented in schools, the Climate Schools, All Stars and Project ALERT   was most effective in yielding positive results for children. Many other programs lacked efficacy because of poor quality of research and inconsistency in approach. The programs which gave evidence of good effect included revealed use of multiple peer-reviewed publications as the reason for good outcome in such programs (Roche et al. 2014). Similarly, the study regarding primary school drug education in UK indicated that impact cannot be measure as understanding of true effects requires long timescale. Therefore, the study suggested that those programs are successful that are long-term and intensive on their goals and employ interacting teaching styles and wider community to mitigate the early drug use (Lloyd et al. 2000). Hence, the review suggest that most effective alcohol education program is dependent on availability of effective resource such as managing accessi bility issues and training staffs in efficiently adapting the program in school setting. Furthermore, extension of supportive network is also essential to guarantee the success of the program such as collaboration with families and local community to bring a cultural change and reinforce preventive message not just in schools but at family and community level too. The National Drug Strategy (NDS) is one of the policies regarding the prevention of substance use, risk and harm in Australia. This was a supply reduction and harm reduction strategy to disrupt supply of illicit drugs, prevent uptake of harmful drugs and reduce drug related to harm to people. The National Drug Strategic Framework was implemented in Australia in 2004 which provided a balanced approach to reducing the supply and demand of drugs. Apart from training, monitoring and evaluation, the policy also focussed on research and other measures to prevent the harm associated with drug use (National Drug Strategy - National Drug Strategic Framework 2017). The goal of the national policy was to set an evidence based prevention agenda by means of strategic mapping of system and pathways that are interconnected with risk factors and outcome.   The strategy was effective as it dependent on extensive review of scientific literature to implement corrective actions for the community. Exte nsive research was done in all areas related to efficacy of different risk and protection model, cost-effectiveness of alcohol and drug interventions, legal status of drugs, patterns of use in early years and impact on individual and families (Butler 2005). There is strong implication of the efficacy of this policy. The developments and actions mentioned in this policy can guide public level action reducing the harm of drug use among youths. In future, there is a need to invest in early childhood development and maximize human potential to take full advantage of the protection and risk reduction approach to prevention of drugs. Cannabis is one of the drugs highly used by adolescent children and young adults. They intermittently use this drug till the age of 20 for experimentation purpose and very few of them proceed to long-term regular use. Considering the high prevalence of lifetime use among females in between 1995 to 2000, a vigorous campaign was launched to take action against this practice. To distinguish harm reduction as a policy goal, the main criteria was to include harm reduction as a primary goal and to plan strategies that can bring net-reduction in drug-related harm. Some of the issues found in the strategy of harm reduction is that lack of longitudinal research on adverse health effects delayed making causal inferences. Secondly, the irrational policy and drug law reform acted as an obstacle in evaluation of action for explicit harm reduction. This issue is widely found in raising awareness regarding harm reduction for cannabis. The most probable chronic harm of regular use include cannabis d ependence syndrome, cognitive impairment, respiratory distress and the harm related to acute use include psychological impact such as dysphoria, panic attacks and paranoia. As adolescents particularly belong to high-risk group for adverse effect of cannabis, there is a need to consider legal harm of preventive cannabis use among youths (Swift et al. 2000). There is a need to develop a balance between harm reduction approach and acceptable public message so that other issues are not exacerbated. A realistic and flexible approach will help to yield positive results. Recent research findings should also be included in the strategy to reduce the harm related to enhance health and well-being of society. There is great argument regarding the implementation of the harm reduction approach into an adolescent context. This debate exists due to the views on zero tolerance and legalization of certain drugs. Zero tolerance approach is also not ethically correct because abrupt ban or disruption may also harm addicted individual or youths. Zero tolerance promotes complete prohibition of any form of drug use. On the other hand, legalization and decriminalization of drugs involves removing criminal sanction for possession and sale of drugs. Many oppose these two steps as by this means drug use will further increase among youths (Bonomo and Bowes 2001). Harm reduction approach can balance these two extreme issues by means of implementing two forms of strategies. The first may focus on reducing harms among drug users and other may focus on those vulnerable to initiating drug use. For example, educational campaigns related to safely injecting drugs can reduce blood borne infection and educational strategies on social context can educate young children about the risk of this drugs in their development stage. This would be a rational and relevant approach to achieve better response and prevent drug-related harm. The review and evaluation of current program and strategies to delay the age of drug onset presents weakness in approach resulting in poor response or wide issues at public level. Although some programs were found to be highly effective in integrating right resource to reduce the use of drugs, other programs failed due to lack of adequate infrastructure and training in staff regarding implementing the program. This problem was mainly seen in educational program implemented at school level. For instance, Climate school program was highly efficacious in reducing drug related in harm in school children, however poor outcome was seen due to limitations in infrastructure and design of the program. To improve the performance of school-based educational program in reducing risk of drug use, there is a need to specifically target high-risk group adolescents. The advantage of focusing on high-risk group is that it will maximize preventive outcome for high-risk students as well as lead to positive health behaviour in other youths (Teesson et al. 2012). Secondly limitation found from the evaluation of approach was that educational programs and modules were prepared without integration of peer-reviewed intervention strategies to prevent drug use. This resulted in poor quality of prevention programs resulting in poor or moderate outcome. Hence, extensive research is required while preparing educational modules so that evidence based public intervention is delivered and the program has the potential to improve health behaviour in long-term too (Jenson and Fraser 2015). Improvement in primary prevention strategies for drug prevention is also necessary so and it should be based on theoretical foundation for prevention. For example, while designing educational programs, social determinants, risk and protective factors of health should be adequately covered (Munro and Ramsden, 2017). There are various public health system model available and selecting of these models should depend on the setting, context and severity of drug use issue in target group. Community based approach is necessary so that not just youths, but teachers, parents and local community groups are involved in curbing the menace of high drug use among children. To promote success of intervention, infrastructure and program should be tailored to the needs of the local community and keys actions should be consistent with overall program objectives (Spooner 2009). The essay focused on the public health issue of high prevalence and early onset of drug use among youths. Youths engage in this practice to experiment or gain the ecstasy of drugs. As many of them shift to lifetime consumption of drugs, it leads to many health related consequences such as drug dependency, psychological problem and paranoia. Hence, the evaluation of current educational program and policies was necessary to analyse the extent to which they are effective in delaying in early onset of drugs. This evaluation helped in the identification of limitations in the approach and proposed possible recommendation to yield better results and sustain them for long-term too. Bonomo, Y.A. and Bowes, G., 2001. Putting harm reduction into an adolescent context.  Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health,  37(1), pp.5-8. Butler, S., 2005. The prevention of substance use, risk and harm in Australia: a review of the evidence.  Drugs: education, prevention and policy,  12(3), pp.247-248. Jenson, J.M. and Fraser, M.W. eds., 2015.  Social policy for children and families: A risk and resilience perspective. Sage Publications. Lloyd, Ruth Joyce, Jane Hurry, Mike Ashton, C., 2000. The effectiveness of primary school drug education.  Drugs: education, prevention and policy,  7(2), pp.109-126. Modesto-Lowe, V., Petry, N.M. and McCartney, M., 2008. Intervening early to reduce developmentally harmful substance use among youth populations.  The Medical journal of Australia,  188(8), p.494. Munro, G. and Ramsden, R. 2017.  Primary prevention: preventing uptake of drugs. [online] Available at: https://file:///C:/Users/SONY/Desktop/Shopify/Shopify/1315953_80810843_DrugUseinAustralianSociety.pdf [Accessed 15 Apr. 2017]. National Drug Strategy - National Drug Strategic Framework. 2017.   Nationaldrugstrategy.gov.au.   [online] Available at: https://www.nationaldrugstrategy.gov.au/internet/drugstrategy/publishing.nsf/Content/national-drug-strategic-framework-lp [Accessed 15 Apr. 2017]. Roche, A., Battams, S., Cameron, J. and Lee, N., 2014.  Alcohol education for Australian schools: What are the most effective programs?. [online] Available at: https://nceta.flinders.edu.au/files/7914/1534/0597/EN556.pdf [Accessed 15 Apr. 2017]. Spooner, C. 2009.  Causes and correlates of adolescent drug abuse and implications for treatment. [online] Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09595239996329 [Accessed 15 Apr. 2017]. Swift, Jan Copeland, Simon Lenton, W., 2000. Cannabis and harm reduction.  Drug and Alcohol Review,  19(1), pp.101-112. Teesson, M., Newton, N.C. and Barrett, E.L., 2012. Australian school?based prevention programs for alcohol and other drugs: A systematic review.  Drug and Alcohol Review,  31(6), pp.731-736. Vogl, L. E., Newton, N. C., Champion, K. E., & Teesson, M. (2014). A universal harm-minimisation approach to preventing psychostimulant and cannabis use in adolescents: a cluster randomised controlled trial.  Substance abuse treatment, prevention, and policy,  9(1), 24.

UNITED STATES V. MONTGOMERY Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

UNITED STATES V. MONTGOMERY - Essay Example These buys ranged from one to seven ounces of crack cocaine, which was significant under existing Texas statute. After a Grand Jury indictment, Montgomery was tried and convicted of several of the charges levied against him and sentenced to 160 months imprisonment. The appeal that was lodged was based on the following five premises: Sufficiency of evidence, Jencks Act, Evidentiary Matters, the Batson Challenge, and prosecutorial misconduct. In the end, all of the facts pertaining to the case lead to the Appellate court upholding the conviction. In the case of prosecutorial misconduct, for example, the defense contended that several remarked were made the prosecutor that were improper. One of these occasions had the prosecutor issuing an opinion that alleged guilt on the part of the defendant. In the end, however, the court found that Montgomery failed to adequately demonstrate that the closing arguments issued by the prosecutorial team did not violate his substantive rights and that nothing improper was

Water Safety and Its Guidelines Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Water Safety and Its Guidelines - Essay Example According to the recent statistical information of the United States of America, it has come under observation that there are several reasons and grounds for the accidental and unintentional deaths in the U.S. and amongst them drowning or submerging in water is one of the crucial, major, and substantial causes. The contemporary data also presents the evidence that the proportion of human life loss and injury due to drowning comes in the ranking chart as a principal and leading cause. This trend has come under surveillance particularly amongst the young children of less than fifteen years in age (Barraclough, 2007). Therefore, it becomes an important factor and aspect to educate the visitors and the general populace about water safety. One of the most effective ways of spreading and promoting the theme and moral of water safety is the commencement of projects and programs on the community level. The community-based programs come under functioning and demonstration in parks, health fai rs, classrooms, and many other places (Pancella, 2005). These projects and community programs are even in alliance and joint ventures with companies on a district or provincial level. Such programs play a vital and imperative role in creating awareness, familiarity, learning, and education on water safety for the entire community. It not only benefits the denizens of the community, rather, it also facilitates the local businesses, as well as they, do get the opportunity to market them and create their brand name (Barraclough, 2007). As the programs and projects are held in association and affiliation with the local coast guard companies, it helps in better understanding the local culture, customs, way of living and their perceptions about the residents of that place, and alleviates and eradicates the cultural barriers (Pancella, 2005). The projects and programs involve activities and online games for the children and the people that include ‘life jacket loaner program’, ‘floatation citations’, ‘demonstration of water safety practices’, ‘safe boating’, ‘water safety adventures’ and many more (Pancella, 2005). Other means of fun, entertainment and educational activities that emphasize and highlight the significance of water safety incorporate contests and endow with rewards or gifts, posters, coloring books, t-shirts, coupons and discounts, and many others (Barraclough, 2007). Programs and projects commenced at health fairs prove and authenticate to be an influential, dominant, and persuading factor in the learning of water safety tips and guidelines. As people are always concerned about their health, therefore the ratio of people visiting the health fairs tends to be relatively high. In addition, the health-fairs underline and focus on entertainment activities and promote the learning process with real-life examples, rather than just providing the written piece of information in the form of long h andouts; therefore, they attract and motivate the young people to be a part of it (Pancella, 2005).  

Images Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Images - Essay Example e image and clarity of the image have been presented very well as the viewer does not take much time to visualize on the content and the composition of the image. In fact, the artist in his painting techniques had designed the image to create a sense of humor to any viewer that could be viewing the image for his work or any study purposes o any other purpose. Most of the images made by using different kind of color as this artist has used are mostly appealing to the viewers as they are simple to understand and interpret. There is less time involving in visualizing their composition. Contents and the forms of such particular images also present a cool temperature nature of the conditions they were taken. 2. The image below is that of altostratus clouds. These clouds are usually characterized by dense, gray layer cloud that is often evenly and opaquely to enable any form of a little sunshine to penetrate. In this image, the background is very dim and thereby portraying that the atmospheric perspective point from where the photograph was captured. It could have been at the very far distance or from an aerial point of view. Observers can articulate from the image that that the art of calligraphy was of low representation as it its hue is much dim. The photo seems to be from an area that had very bright light hence interfering with the color strength of the background of the product. From the look of the image, observer can represent its temperature to be that of a cool scenario due to its dimness. The artist, therefore, could have used any of the complimentary colors; that is either red and yellow or yellow and blue or yellow and violates to give the image the strongest contrast it could have. People can also see the use of pointillism when viewed from a very close range since there are some small dots that could be seen at the background of the image. The small dots that the artist used during his painting work could also create an impression on the image as of

Marketing Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Marketing - Assignment Example The market share of iPad is also high because Apple is a pioneer in the technology. Though other companies such as Samsung have launched similar prototypes, these companies do not have the first mover advantage. Thus the most relevant strategy for iPad given its position is a good amount of promotion. Apple should invest in promoting this product to improve on the sales of the product. Find 2 examples of mission statements. Do you think these statements reflect the companies? Mission Statement of Coca Cola: To refresh the world; to inspire moments of optimism and happiness; and to create value and make a difference (Coca-Cola). This statement reflects the new image of Coca-Cola that has been developed through the most recent campaign. TV advertisements promoting the product show happy people being refreshed. This mission statement portrays the company as an organization brining optimism and warmth for its customers. It however, misses one big element and that is taste. Mission Statem ent of Facebook:   ‘Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected’ (Facebook). This mission statement reflects a company centered on the people and how to improve on their sharing experience. Facebook’s mission shows that the company values its users and is build around improving their experience. It talks about connectedness and openness and thus works for the company like this. 2:Peapod, the nation’s leading internet grocer, understanding growing demographic and social cultural macro environmental trends,  allows non-traditional households, such as single working parent households to order more than 8,000 grocery items online and have them delivered to home. Can you think of an example of how beverage marketers might alter an existing product or service, or create something new to satisfy the unique needs of the non-traditional single working parent households? One way in which beverage mark eters may alter existing products is by offering smaller packs for non-traditional single working parents. Such parents are not interested in buying economy packs since most of the product is wasted as they do not have large families to consume the product. Also within single working parent households, there is a greater need for getting food ready quickly. The beverage industry needs to focus on providing quick solutions such as easy to make coffee or 5 minute coffee. The single parent household is also willing to offer more price for premium products as they can afford product because they do not have to cater to a large family. Here beverage industries can offer new varieties and flavors to such households. When we purchase products or services we go through a decision process: Step 1 – Need recognition; Step 2 – Information search; Step 3 - Evaluation of alternatives: Step 4 - Purchase Decision; Step 5 Post-purchase Behavior.  Identify a recent purchase made by y ou and describe what role the product’s marketer played, if any, in getting you through the process.  Comment on the effectiveness of the marketer in someone else’s discussion post vs. your product’s marketer. Recently I brought a new android phone by HTC. Before making the purchase, I went online and searched for android phones with good reviews. I also kept my price range in mind. The marketer in this case helped me to a limited extent. He provided the platform where I would be able to easily gather information. The marketer by

Evidences Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Evidences - Essay Example 79). The principle also posits that the more violent the contact, the higher the possibility of the transfer and that a person’s body, including his clothing, is a rich source of trace materials that he accumulated from contact with things, persons and places. The main advantage of trace evidence is that their microscopic nature allows their transfer from one surface to another without detection by the naked eyes. However, trace evidence are not treated with equal weight when presented as evidence in courts but their value are considered on a case to case basis. Trace evidence include, among others, fingerprints, DNA, hair, lint from clothes, scratched paint, broken glass and dirt in shoes (Mozayani & Noziglia 2006 p 265). Trace evidence are processed in the laboratory by a trace evidence analyst, also known as a forensic scientist, and these microscopic evidence are characterized, identified and compared with other trace evidence in other cases, and introduced in court to comprise the evidence of a party (Houck 2003 p 1). Before they are processed however, they need to be collected carefully from the scene of the crime. It was Locard who recommended that trace evidence that can be seen by a magnifier should be collected using tweezers or needles and placed in folded paper packets. On the other hand, garments or clothing can be scraped, brushed or shaken for trace evidence over clean paper. When trace evidence are completely invisible to the naked eye, Dr. Max Frei-Sulzer of the Zurich Police Department Crime Laboratory recommended using tr ansparent tape over the suspected area as a means of lifting the trace material. The same method of tape lift, albeit of a different type, can be used on gunshot residue (GSR) particles. GSR are examined under a scanning electron microscopy (SEM) which are collected from the hands or clothing of the suspect, particularly in areas where the gun made contact after it was fired (Mozayani & Noziglia 2006 p 266). The

Market Research on Foreclosure Markets Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Market Research on Foreclosure Markets - Essay Example The number of annual foreclosure filings rose from 1.3 million in 2006 to 2.2 million in 2007, to 3.3 million in 2008, and to almost 4.0 million in 2009 (RealtyTrac). In order to determine whether foreclosure will continue, it is first necessary to determine the causes of these higher foreclosure rates and then to determine whether those causes are continuing. Foreclosures occur because an individual with a mortgage cannot afford the mortgage any longer and because the individual will not recover the amount of the mortgage from the sale of the home. So it is necessary to figure out what might cause individuals to have difficulty affording a mortgage and for the house values to decline below mortgage values. What might cause a decline in mortgage affordability would be closely related to all macroeconomic measures that affect income. So GDP and the unemployment rate will certainly affect incomes and thus home affordability, since less GDP means less economic activity, which in turn means declining profits and more unemployment. Obviously, lower profits and more unemployment translates into less money for people and thus more people unable to afford their mortgages. In fact there has been an extremely close correlation between unemployment rate and mortgage delinquency. One analysis has found a correlation of 98% between unemployment rate and delinquency rate between 2004 and the middle of 2009 (Calculated Risk). This close relationship is a contrast to what has been evidenced in the past, as the correlation between foreclosure rates and unemployment rates were found to be weak before this latest housing boom/bust cycle. In 1998 two economists examined the relationship between unemployme nt and mortgage foreclosure rates from 1950 to 1998, and concluded that there was very little correlation between unemployment changes and mortgage foreclosures (Elmer and Seelig). Yet because of the changing nature of mortgages beginning in the 1990s, the association between foreclosures and unemployment has become quite significant. Traditionally 20% downpayments had been the minimum requirement for most borrowers, but this requirement was increasingly weakened over the last 10-15 years (Calculated Risk). Therefore suddenly unemployed or underemployed homeowners who must sell may find themselves with mortgages worth more than the value of the home, due to the lack of equity and the declining home values, and will therefore have to foreclose.So as long as there is high unemployment and declining home values, more foreclosures are likely to occur. The decline in the house value below the mortgage value would occur if housing prices have fallen from the original time the mortgage was issued. Home prices began their decline in the middle of 2006 and have fallen to 2003 levels, and have shown modest increases since the beginning of 2009 (Case-Shiller). So homes that were purchased after 2003 are the most vulnerable to foreclosure. Home purchases before 2003 will be vulnerable to foreclosure if there was refinancing. The closer in time the home purchase or refinance was to the peak of mid-2006, the more vulnerable that loan will be to foreclosure, since those loans will have the highest mortgage/home value ratios. During the 1990s, mortgage loan originations (both purchase and refinance) were around 200 billion per quarter. This number began to rise in the late 1990s, fell back briefly, and started to rise again

Business Psychology on Leadership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Business Psychology on Leadership - Essay Example The trait approach to leadership focuses on the leader, not the followers.   This approach â€Å"emphasizes that having a leader with a certain set of traits is crucial to having effective leadership† (Adam & Eves, n.d).   In this approach, society sees qualities in individuals that they deem worthy characteristics in their leaders, and consequently they install them as their leaders.   The trait approach relies on qualities of a person ranging from the superficial to the intellectual and even to the spiritual.   Physical qualities in a leader could be in the person’s height, general appearance, and grooming.   Less superficial traits such as intelligence, honesty, integrity, and expertise are also qualities that people expect in their leader.   Ã¢â‚¬Å"In the trait approach, effective leadership is defined in terms of the traits of leaders thought to exemplify good leadership†   (Vasu, et.al., 1998, p.98).   This approach equates good leadership wi th desirable traits and qualities (such as those previously mentioned).      The trait approach to leadership focuses on the leader, not the followers.   This approach â€Å"emphasizes that having a leader with a certain set of traits is crucial to having effective leadership† (Adam & Eves, n.d).   In this approach, society sees qualities in individuals that they deem worthy characteristics in their leaders, and consequently they install them as their leaders.   The trait approach relies on qualities of a person ranging from the superficial to the intellectual and even to the spiritual.   Physical qualities in a leader could be in the person’s height, general appearance, and grooming.   Less superficial traits such as intelligence, honesty, integrity, and expertise are also qualities that people expect in their leader.   Ã¢â‚¬Å"In the trait approach, effective leadership is defined in terms of the traits of leaders thought to exemplify good leadershipâ €    (Vasu, et.al., 1998, p.98).   This approach equates good leadership with desirable traits and qualities (such as those previously mentioned).      Behavioural Approach The behavioral approach came about as a response and as an alternative to the trait approach to leadership.   The focus of this approach is the behavior of the leader, not his qualities or traits.   Ã¢â‚¬Å"Effective leadership became transformed into what leaders do as opposed to what they are† (Great Visionaries, n.d.).   As a result of this approach, there was a greater emphasis on training leaders to be better in their craft.   In this approach, the leader’s behavior is easier to describe because they are observable actions, as opposed to traits that may be generally characterized and reduced to single word adjectives which are difficult to measure or quantify.   Transformational The transformational approach to leadership makes use of â€Å"’transactions’ as a means of motivating employees to achieve business results† (Gmelin, 2005).

Hamlet cigar Essay Example for Free

Hamlet cigar Essay The well known brand for cigars Hamlet is produced by Japanese Company. It was initially launched in the year 1964 in United Kingdoms. Their tagline spread a little happiness is well described in their art work. Art Work for Hamlet Cigar Art work for Hamlet Miniature Cigar’s urinal advertisement is very interesting. It has the background of a men’s washroom. A tall man’s back is placed on the extreme left who is urinating, while in the 80% of the remaining art work three vertically challenged people are standing. Being short heighten they can’t reach up to pee in the urinal. One standing in the right has his knees bent and the one standing in left has his knees crossed. They both have flinching expressions on their faces and they holding their stomach. Where as the third vertically challenged person standing in the middle looks content and is smoking and offering Hamlet Cigar from the packet to the person standing left to him. Though his legs are a little bent too which mean he also wants to take a leak but his expression are very cool and calm. The moral of the advertisement is Hamlet Miniatures Cigar can satisfy you even in the dire of situations. Top right of the green tiled bathroom wall has cigar’s cover pasted. Their tagline ‘Spread a little happiness’ is placed right next to hamlet miniature cigar cover. The fonts are big and in white making it prominent on green background due to the color contrast. This advertisement received 19 complaints. It was considered offensive and vulgar. It was more of a mockery to short people. The company in its defense claimed that it was portray of problems these people face in their daily lives (BBC, 2002). Never the less, the art work conveys the message very clearly to its target audiences.

Zara For Just In Time Management Commerce Essay

Zara For Just In Time Management Commerce Essay Profitability of the company depends upon the companys effective management. Effective management includes productive resources of the company which generally are raw material, resource planning, human resources, equipments and goods manufacturing facilities or services delivered by the company. This effectiveness in Operations gives competitive advantage to the company. In todays world of competition, lack in operations management could lead to failure in companys productivity. What is Fashion? Fashion is a way of acting differently from the rest community. If community likes it then they start acting in the same way and we say its a new fashion trend. But in the mean while if community comes across the new fashion then they start following them as everybody wants to be different than the others. Fashion expires, much the same way yogurt does, The Inditex Chief executive Jose Maria Catellano comments. (Wall street Journal, 2001). Zara has picked up the fashion trend in a smarter way creating a supply chain reacting to the trend in a faster way. This made Zara to be successful in many countries like Europe, Asia etc. The distinctive supply chain management gives competitive advantages to Zara and this was the inspiration to me to take the case study of Zara. 1.2 COMPANY PROFILE: Zara is a subsidiary of famous and biggest fashion distributor Inditex. It became the worlds biggest retailer over taking Gap in August 2008 (The Guardian, 2008). Zara contributes to 2/3 of sales of Inditex Group. According the Data obtained from Company website, we can see the Origin and Evolution of Zara as follow, Amancio Ortega Gaona formed Inditex in 1963 as textile manufacturer. It started with several manufacturing centers distributing products to various European countries in the next decade of 1963 1974. The first Zara store is opened in 1975 on a central street in A Coruà ±a (Spain). From 1976 till 1984, Zara grown his business and captured the Spanish market with attracting major public. In December 1988, Zara went outside the Spain and opened his first international store in Oporto (Portugal). In 1989, Zara took next step on internalization opening its first store in New York (USA) and his second in worldwide market. Also it came up with a store in Paris (France) in 1990. In 1991, Inditex opened new subsidiary called Pull and Bear chain Acquiring 65% of capital from Massimo Dutti. Inditex keep on going ahead and ahead in International market opening its stores in Mexico (1992), Greece (1993), and Belgium Sweden (1994). In 1995, Massimo Duttis entire share capital acquired by Inditex opening the groups first store in Malta and in Cyprus on the consecutive year. After 1996 till 2008 Zara captured 73 countries opening 1292 store on prime locations on major cities proving national borders cannot stop sharing of single fashion culture. But there were some important dates for Zara and its parent company Inditex. These are 23rd May 2001, when Inditex listed on Spanish stock market also in 2002, construction work of new Zara logistics centre were started in Zaragoza (Spain). Inditex opened Zara home store in Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Malaysia (2003) also in the same year Zaras second distribution centre opened in Zaragoza (Spain) contributing in the wo rk of Zaras first distribution centre in Arteixo (A Coruà ±a, Spain). Zaras 1000th store opened in Florence (Italy) in 2007. Till 2008, Inditex opened 4000 stores of Zara and other sister concerns in almost 73 countries. 2.0 PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION AND FISHBONE DIAGRAM. Most of the organizations face some or the other kind of problem to run their system efficiently. They can affect production and quality of the product in the company. This is the reason for company to have close look on the problem and get it resolved as soon as possible. 2.1 PROBLEMS Zara has a different business model than the traditional retailers which is quite successful as well but this can affect the sustained growth of the company. Zaras weaknesses also differs from the traditional retailers. Zara holds around 86% of Inditex total international sales (Craig et al, 2004, Page 3). This is the reason why Inditex is concentrating on Zara more than their other products and also invest most of their capital in Zara. Failure of Zara can make Inditex rethink about their firms strategies and cause an internal meltdown. Zara is facing inability to penetrate the American market due to different tastes of Americans and Europeans. Also they dont have strongly developed strategy to capture U.S. market. The major threat of Zara for their sales in U.S. is lack of distribution facility in America. Although they are running 1000 retail stores efficiently their Centralized logistics model may not be able to supply more stores in U.S. Vertical integration reduces the possibilities of producing large quantity of goods in economic rate (Craig et al, 2004). There is also increase in cost due to speedy recurrent introduction of new products. Also they have higher research development cost. Creation of different apparel lines causes constant changeover of production techniques resulting in higher elevated cost and also increase in the employee training cost to enable them in order to use new manufacturing techniques. Zara has a bigger threat from the competitors when they try to enter the new market. Almost every retailer is competition for Zara as they have wide range of products. But their main competitors are Gap and HM as they have similar kind of product range with them. Also the HM products are less costly than Zara. HM opens a distribution centre in the country they enter to respond the demand quickly. Zara is also facing the problem due to cannibalization (Craig et al, 2004). All the Zara stores in one city will have the same product range. This means Zara is selling same product range to the customers in same city. This can affect them resulting in loss of sales. 2.2 FISHBONE DIAGRAM According to the current business industry the apparel manufacturer can face the problems which are shown in the fishbone diagram and these can be the main area of concern for the organization. 3.0 OPERATIONAL MODEL IN ZARA Shifting from mass standardisation to customisation on a global scale is the most interesting aspect of the Zaras model. The founder highlighted Zaras approach to fashion which is unique, like food, must be consumed immediately rather than rot in a cupboard. Thus the production of fresh new clothes is in response to the consumers preference (Dutta, 2002). Zaras business model (see appendix 3) enables their operations to be more successful and achieving the goal of customers satisfaction. Its operational model generally encompasses many elements like Vertical Integration, Company structure, Just in Time, etc. which finally contributes to Total Quality Management (TQM) of the Company. 3.1 COMPANY STRUCTURE: In which there is Chairman and followed by the other directors below him. The directors or managers will act as Cell leader for the cells below them. Each cell be reporting to its cell leader and finally cell leader will report to the head. Inditex has Flat organization structure (see appendix 1). In which Amancio Ortega as a Chairman is a head of all cell leaders and there are different directors who acts as a cell leaders e.g. Deputy Chairman and CEO will be the cell leader for tax advisory, finance and management control etc. This helps to keep track of the processes going in the company easily. With this structure Inditex can actually keep a close watch on the processes and quality in the company. 3.2 VERTICAL INTEGRATION: Vertical integration means merging of two businesses that are on different stages of production (Hindle, T., 2009). This leads the business closer to the customers. It controls access to input and to control the costs, quality and delivery times of inputs. It is usually very hard to vertically integrate the organization because this process being expensive and hard to reverse. It is generally found that many companies integrate with distributors to secure market of their output. Lack of existing channels to Spanish consumer in 1980s caused Zara being forced into control of production, distribution and sales. Zaras success lies in its vertically integrated system (see appendix 5). This highly synchronized system gives extraordinary speed and design litheness. This is the reason behind success of Zaras strategy. Zaras Strategy is to give mid-market pricing, niche fashion and rapidly changing product range to the customers. This has also helped Zara to reduce Bullwhip effect (Ghemawat, P., 2003). Further Ghemawat (2003) has described the bullwhip effect as the tendency to fluctuation in final demand to get amplified as they were transmitted back up the supply chain. As a vertically integrated company, Zara always able to keep close look on the quality and delivery of the product to its retail store. Zara has developed such a strategy that they will manufacture 40% of the fabric in house and 60% they will get it from external supplier. Zara will then manufacture the designed the fabric in the house and send out to the external supplier for sewing and then again it comes to Zara where it is checked for its quality and then labeling will be done. Then the product goes to the central warehouse of Zara from where it is distributed to the stores. Disadvantage of this vertically integrated system to Zara is elevated costs for manufacturing in Europe, deficiency in moving plant to different location. 3.3 PUSH AND PULL SYSTEM: When a new designs being pushed in the market based on fashion market trend is referred as PUSH system and when design changes has been done on the customers feedback, but at a lightning fast speed, which emphasizes on customer satisfaction then its referred as PULL system(Urugray, M., 2005). In the push system generally the new design is created by the designer team of the manufacturer and then it will be produced in mass which will be promoted in the stores and market. This increases the demand in the market and customers will be attracted to the store to get the stuff. Zaras designer team generally launches there seasonal collection late in the market (see appendix 4) which enables them to get know about the designs being launched by manufacturers and their demand accordingly as well as they attend fashion shows for readymade clothing where they get the idea of the designs being launched in the market and accordingly they launch their design in the market (Ghemawat, P., 2001). Som etimes Zara also launches the new collection forecasting the demand of the product e.g. when Madonna visited Spain for the stage show, Zara launched the new collection of design which was replicating the design used by Madonna in the past which distinctively increased the demand of the product. Pull system generally works on customers demand, this demand is generally transmitted to the design team which will then create the design and send back to the market to satisfy their demand. There is another approach manufacturers can take in which they advertise the product on mass level which will increase the demand for the product resulting in the increase of the sales (Anon, 2007). 3.4 JUST IN TIME (JIT): Just in time is invented in Japan. Japanese ship builder introduced this concept by lowering their steel inventory from one month stock to three days stock. The first writing on JIT is done by Toyotas Vice president Taiichi Ohno. But this writing was in Japanese so it was difficult to understand so it has been converted in English. Excessive inventory storage is wasteful in the current manufacturing scenario causes JIT philosophy (Mejabi, O. et al, 2001). Further it says JIT encourages the adaption of methodologies to generate the order of material and intermediate products only when required. The transformation to JIT is not instantaneous, but rather it occurs in steps over the time (Schroer et al, 1985). In the current manufacturing scenario removing of waste is important. JIT helps to make small batch production and is also helps to keep commitment towards continual process product improvement. In the current market scenario, deliver the high quality and low cost product to captu re most of the market share is main concern for many organization. JIT helps to solve this concern for most of the companies. JIT helps to reduce the cost for the companies because it saves the cost of storing the inventory and maintenance of the inventory. Generally in Pull management JIT is used which helps to keep supply in time when there is high demand. Zaras Design process is more focused on the public who uses Zaras product. This information is generally collected by store manager or the store staff which is stored at the collection counter of each store and in the evening the collection details the information stored is transmitted to the distribution centre (Gallaugher, J., 2008). This information transmitted to the Zaras designing professional daily. Using this information the designer figures out what are customers needs and what are their main concerns which helps them to design the product carefully and reduce the customers concern. From design to the shelves it takes 6 weeks for Zara to introduce new design in market it is more effective than the normal 6 months cycle for any other organization (see appendix 2). According to Ghemawat, P. (2001), the short time cycle reduces working capital intensity and facilitates continuous manufacturing of new merchandise. In 2008, it was observed that From design to the shelves it take s 15 days to Zara to bring the product in the market (Gattorna, J., 2007). Also Zara purchase about one-half fabric in Grey colour which gives them the maximum flexibility. The internal manufacturing plants of Zara are located in or around Zaras headquarters. This makes designing and approval of the product very fast ultimately resulting in the faster production. These products then goes to the central distribution centre of Zara which further distributes the product to the stores twice in a week. This helps Zara to inventory and concentrate on customers requirement. 3.5 KAIZEN: It means continuous improvement. Kaizen is Japanese concept and its a whole business philosophy. Kaizen is important for everyone in the organization and requires the same kind of participation from each employee (Imai, M., 1986). Customer always has some requirement, needs expectation from the supplier and the output from the supplier has some characteristics relevant to the customer expectation, these characteristics are called as Quality characteristics (Rao et al, 1996). There is always a gap between customers need and quality characteristics. Implementation of Kaizen helps to reduce that gap and meeting customers expectation to the closest. Key elements of Kaizen are as follows: Customer focus, Just in time, Kanban, Flexible workplace practices, Empowerment, Quality assurance, Leadership, Future thinking, High quality, Low cost, Reduction in wastage, Punctuality. Zara as organization has almost all the elements of Kaizen. As we have seen, Zara has efficient Just in time running also they are more customer focused as there most of the designs are made according to the customers demand. With the efficient JIT system Zara has reduced the wastage in the company. Most of the Zaras products are lower in cost with good quality. Zara always follows flexible workplace practices. 4.0 CONCLUSION: Competitive advantage and ability to face new challenges in fashion clothing industry gives Zara the potential growth. Zara has the key elements like just in time, its structure and Kaizen which enables them for having Total Quality Management (TQM) in the company. They also have the strong and unique business model which helps them to keep operating income elevated and gives the opportunity for growth in retail industry. They are known for their trendy and well priced new apparels every week. In the America they are seen as growing fashion retailers. The Inditex research and development team is continuously working on methods of expansion as well as keep themselves fresh in the fashion apparel industry and also quality improvement. Many fashion retailer industries trying to follow Zaras business model. 5.0 RECOMMENDATION: Zara has to look for new expansion opportunity to maintain its growth. There is growth opportunity for Zara in the U.S. market with the constant change in behavior of the customers as a result of the globalization. Zara should think about opening the distribution centre in U.S. which can give them the opportunity to be the trendiest and low price retailer in U.S. Also this distribution centre will be the expansion of Zaras centralized distribution centre. This can give them added income which Zara can use for other purpose like advertisement to capture the market. To attract the U.S. market, Zara can take the online selling approach which will enable them to reach to the customers very efficiently. Although they wont be able to whole product range available on internet but they can keep some trendy cloths with some basic cloths. For the cannibalization Zara can offer different product range for the different geographical location. In this case each store will have some different range of product which can attract the customers to visit the different Zara stores in the same city. Appendix 1: Inditex Management Structure Source: Inditex Appendix 2: Cycle Time Compression through quick response. Source: Inditex Appendix 3: Zaras Business Model. Source: Case writer. Appendix 4: Product Precommitments: Zara vs. Traditional Industry. Source: Inditex Appendix 5: Zaras Supply chain Trend spotters search for new fashion trends and ideas for new designs. Inputs from the sales personnel about customers demands. Delivered to stores. Fabric is cut and dyed, marked for sewing (outsourced) and marketed. More than two hundred designers and production managers work on the new line. Headquarter consolidates the information and decide on design, fabric, etc. Garment production in Northern Portugal and Spain. Sourced from: fashionnet.org

Leadership And Teamwork Skills In Caterpillar Management Essay

Leadership And Teamwork Skills In Caterpillar Management Essay The report which I have prepared tells about the ways by which leadership qualities and team success can be improved in an organization. Now days organizations are spending a lot of resources on training the employee to be a good industry leader for coming future. In addition to this organizations are also grooming employees by introducing training and development programs, so that employee can adapt themselves to work in a team. This will help the organization to achieve the optimized output and economic benefits. Introduction Every organization effectiveness and profitability depends on its leadership quality and teamwork. Better they are, better will be the productivity. Organizations goals and commitments can only be achieved, if there is a self regulatory teamwork. Teamwork not only develops the public relation skill in an employee but at the same time develops timely execution of work with accuracy and efficiency. An organization can still be successful if it has an efficient leader but inefficient team. If there is an efficient team and inefficient leader, the company will never be able to compete or be successful in a market. At the current time of recession, leaders visualize the changes need to bring in an organization and consider this periods as an opportunity to diversify them. In practical life it is been observed that leadership and teamwork goes hand to hand. They both are two sides of a coin; they both are mostly use in place of one another. It is very difficult to differentiate them. Leadership Discussion on leadership is not a new area of topic. It is been discussed and criticized from the ancient times. Leadership is very complex and it is applied universally but still there is no general definition of leadership as it is studied and practiced in number of ways, which require different definition of each. Kotter believes that leadership is not a trait with which a person is born with, it can be developed; it can be made perfect by exposing to the working environment of an industry or can be learned as life is an ongoing learning process at each single step (Kotter J. P, 1999). According to Stogdill, leadership is a process which involves social phenomena in which an employee exercises power and influences group or an entity behavior to achieve desired goals (Stogdill, 1974). Useem defines leadership as a Subject of making a difference in which an organization chooses reasonable alternatives to get a particular work done by mobilizing and motivating employee (Mullins L. J, 2009). Teamwork In todays world, time is a luxury. This in future will be very less so organizations give priority to the teamwork, as its speeds up the process. It is experienced that, when an employee of an organization work in a team. It makes an organization move ahead in a precise direction. This also make easy for them to implement changes (Kotter J. P, 1996). Katzenbach and Smith define teamwork as a small number of people with complementary skills, who are committed to a common purpose, performance and goal, and approach for which they are mutually accountable (Katzenbach and Smith, 1999). From a long time its been observed and debated that group work and teamwork are both different entity in an organization. They both distinct each other on the basis of the mutual responsibility for a common goal, In addition to this leadership style also differ in both of them. For example in teamwork there is a shared or a rotating leadership. Where as in a group there is a solo leadership (Robbins, 2005). As a consultant for Caterpillar, I will be going through their leadership and teamwork programme and will be giving them recommendation on ways of increasing leadership and teamwork success. C:Documents and SettingsadMy DocumentsMy Picturescaterpillar_logo.gif Leadership and teamwork qualities in Caterpillar Caterpillar is a multinational company with a turnover of 22.7 billion pounds and with its operation in more than fifty countries with manpower of 100,000. Caterpillar is not a manufacturer of a single product; it has a wide range of portfolio from Cat logistic, Cat financial, Cat rental to Cat cranes. Their success and increase in market share to large extent goes to its leadership qualities and teamwork success. In Caterpillar there are around 8500 leader and 6500 supervisors (Caterpillar Inc. annual report, 2003). Mr. Benjamin Holt is an owner of a Caterpillar, which come in fortune 500 companies and they are ranked 44. Mr. Benjamin Holt has the following leadership qualities: Diversity and safety: diversification in terms of race, customs or comprehensive knowledge or variety of different other thing which will lead to the new ideas. This at last will be beneficial for the development of a new product. For example, for this they recruited people from minorities group and females in there groups. He also believed, if there is less injury to his employees. Then number of days without work will be less. This will ultimately result in minimization of cost. So he always emphasis on safety of his employees (Kirkpatrick. D. L, Kirkpatrick J. D, 2006). Integrity: Mr. Benjamin believes that his company foundation is based on the honesty and the commitments which he makes with his employees, customers and business associates. Risk taker: after creating an impact on the American, South American and European countries. Now caterpillar is trying to invade Indian and china market with huge investments, as these markets are not catered with the services provided by them. (Caterpillar Inc. annual report, 2003). A leader in a caterpillar has the following role to play: Leader ensures the safety and the sustainability- Caterpillar believes that their success totally depends upon the safety and sustainability of their employee. So leader should encourage its counter employee that they apply these measures in daily life. Leader should also help the peer employ learn to do so (Orlemann. Eric. C, 2000). Transfer of knowledge- leader let it peer employ know about the various things going in the caterpillar by carrying out the meetings. Recoginisition of the employee-leader in caterpillar should find an employee who contributes a lot in the leadership of a company. Recruitment of a new talent-leader in a caterpillar recruits the new talent and makes them know about the goals and value caterpillar believes in so that they can be a future caterpillar leader (Leffingwell. Randy, 1994). Advocate and share success: leader in caterpillar shares success and accomplishments with its peer employees and advocate their rights in behalf of them in front of the top level of management Caterpillar believe that there leaders have following qualities which differ them from the rest of the industry leaders. These are urge for leadership, good command on language as well as they are self starter of in what so ever task they do. Leadership programme in Caterpillar Caterpillar gives training to its supervisors by placing them in the Caterpillar University College of leadership, so that they can understand and develop themselves for the different leader levels (Caterpillar, 2009). Caterpillar evaluates and tries to fill the gap between the existing leadership potential of a leader with the capability of leadership which caterpillar need to execute in its strategic vision (Caterpillar, 2009). Caterpillar recently introduced a course for its mid level and frontline leaders, which is known as six sigma course. This is basically employed to increase the efficiency and to reduce the time spent away from the job by leaders. In this leader were given class rooms lessons, proficiency and expertise practice. They were also taught about the caterpillar values and priorities. Caterpillar uses very distinct style to increase leadership among its leader. They call leaders from the different departments of company and make them debate on the specific problem, which they are facing currently. This kind of a debate leads to a solution. As a result leaders from different departments get knowledge, that how to tackle a problem. It also helps them in generating new idea, which is not only beneficial for their department but for other departments of company as well (Caterpillar, 2009). Caterpillar do not hire third party for training there leaders or supervisors (who will be future leader). They are been guided and taught by the high level management people, for example vice president or chief executive officer of a Caterpillar. As they believe that they are most respected people in the industry and they are the world class in their specific field (Development Dimension International, 2008). Team work in caterpillar Caterpillar believes that by working in the team they can achieve good results instead of working individually. They believe its good to share talent and knowledge with the employees we work with and live with. This will ultimately result in high productivity. Caterpillar believes that in teamwork there are number of members with different values and discipline, which will create a new idea. This can be helpful for company (Haddock. K Orlemann. E.C, 2001). As per S.P Robbins teamwork not only depends on the individual technical knowledge but it solely depends, how well they gel with one another (Robbins, 2005). Caterpillar applies teamwork, when they are manufacturing a same kind of a product or dealing with the other business entities then their own business. For example vendor development. As caterpillar is a multinational company with offices in so many countries, so they have to deal with various government regulations and economic policies this makes them form a team which provides flexibility to its manufacturing programme. Drawbacks in leadership and teamwork skills in Caterpillar as per me: Caterpillar still uses the taylorist model, in which the work is divided between the people. Which is of the same form of a work, they are been doing from the past many years. This does not upgrade their knowledge and innovation skills. Which s very important at the current situation, where there is uncertainty in market and lot of competition. As the employees need to perform repetitive work in a team, they will not be having the power of judgment and the skill of communicating socially. By making leaders debate on a problem, this can lead to a conflict between them. As all of them might be having different opinions and views. Caterpillar do not hire third party for the training of their leaders, they are trained by their seniors only. This kind of training is not successful as the leaders will not be able to know the various different ways, different leader think and tackle problems. Ways of increasing leadership skill in caterpillar Caterpillar needs to identify and recruit charismatic leaders. Who develops and visualizes the core vision. Who are willing to take the personal risk to achieve the pre determined vision, which they have set. At the same time, they are willing to react for its members need. For example John F Kennedy and Steve Jobs, they were the leaders who had these qualities and made their organization best among the best (Robbins S. P, Judge T. A, and Sanghi S, 2009). Caterpillar needs to customize the training and development program for its leader as per their needs and the requirement of organization. By seminars and speeches, leaders just get motivated. There is no effect on their performance. So there should be a customized training program. Caterpillar can apply a new technique to improve the quality of leadership among its leaders. In which they can pair highly skilled leaders with the newly elected leader and make them work for six to seven months. This will help the new leader to align his speed and skills with the highly skilled leader. This will ultimately increase the efficiency (Jared L. Bleak, 2007). Ways of increasing teamwork in Caterpillar Efficiency of teamwork can be increase if there are right people in a right team, with a right attitude. This can be judged by a job analysts appointed by an organizations (Harrington M. D, 1994). By making goal understand to each and every member of a team with the help of a flowchart or with Parteo chart, will result in a successful teamwork (Kattzenback. J and Smith. D, 1993). Caterpillar can increase the efficiency of teamwork by making members of each team, write goals and motive on their shirts. This will help them to create a positive environment and team spirit. For example General Electric practiced this and it resulted in a positive outcome (Harrington M. D, 1994). To increase the efficiency of teamwork, caterpillar needs to allow team members to make their own plan, inspect quality of work, of their own and plan their budget. This will make them committed to the Caterpillar (Larson. C and Lafasto. F, 1989). In teamwork, there are number of people from different backgrounds and culture. To minimize the chances of conflicts and individualism in a team. Caterpillar should organize get together events, where these members can socialize and build a strong relation. Caterpillar should start giving team incentives, as it will be beneficial in two ways. First it will induce team members to work hard to achieve the team goals. Secondly, there will be same incentive for each team member. So there will be no competition, there will be a atmosphere of cooperation and harmony (Cascio, 1995).

The Victim :: Essays Papers

The Victim As a victim Lester Ballard, the main character in Child of God by Cormac McCarthy, never thought that victimizing and murdering others was unjust. If justification is law according to the theory of an eye for an eye, then in many ways Ballard had justification for his actions. Ballard lived by the golden rule, which is to treat others as you wish to be treated. In the following paragraphs I will explain how Lester is a victim and why he is justified to victimize others. GRAPH Lester Ballard did not have the happy, normal childhood we all expect or imagine everyone to have. He never had any brothers or sisters to play with when he was little. When he was a boy his mother ran off with another man and never returned to Lester again. Just shortly after his mother ran off, when he was nine or ten years old, Lester’s father hung himself in their barn. He was left dangling dead for Lester to find later that day. From that day forth Lester was alone in this world. He had no family to share love and happiness with. Lester was not an ignorant child when his father killed himself; he was old enough to understand what had happened and what death was. These situations can have severe mental impact on a child. One member of the community makes a comment about Lester, â€Å"They say he was never right again after his daddy killed himself.† Here Lester is displayed as a victim of his parents. The two people he loved the most and was cl osest to abandoned him. He became a victim of isolation, loneliness, and a broken heart. He could never show love toward people the same way again. Another major impact the loss of Lester’s parents had on him was the loss of role models.

God Chosen Essay -- essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  God’s chosen examples. When God calls you must answer, my Baptist preacher bellows from his pulpit. Everyone has a purpose on this earth, but God has chosen a special few to help him carry out his divine plan, he continues. Countless Sunday mornings I spent listening to my pastor preaching about man’s encounters with God. He explains the significance of the encounters to the people of antiquity and he even relates the encounters to our every day lives. If one has met with God and seen His glory he is truly blessed. My pastor is correct no man has walked away from an encounter with God without being blessed, or the experience altering his life. Each divine experience occurs under very different circumstances, but all of them end with man having a better understanding of his purpose on this earth. The character could wrestle with the Lord and demand a blessing, like Jacob, or like Moses he could have been drawn to God by his own curiosity. The Lord came to Elijah when he was at the lowest point of his life and he wanted nothing more than to die, and He blessed him. Isaiah volunteered to help God to teach to the people of Israel, and the Lord blessed Isaiah for his enthusiasm. Job’s encounter with God is a combination of each of the above experiences. His experience exemplifies the individual relationship with God. The encounters with God may appear to be similar and indeed they do have common elements, but there is an important difference in the way God selects each character to fulfill his mission. In the early encounters, God selects the individuals. He calls and they answer. Towards the end the accounts however, the characters go in search for God’s blessing, unlike their early counterparts they demand or challenge God and their enthusiasm is rewarded. The different episodes show the gradual change between God and humanity. Throughout the accounts in the Bible God has loses favor with man, and this loss of favor is due chiefly to man’s failure to obey God ’s laws. God’s selection of His chosen people reflects clearly God’s love for the early patriarchs. God did love the later characters, but towards the end of the accounts God loses a tremendous amount of faith in humanity. Nonetheless the God does bless all whom He encounters, and His presence to each character help... ...ion of how an individual could find favor in God. The answer was even if one has nothing and can not stand on your own have faith in God and He will prevail. Job’s story gave individuals hope, because even if God was angry with the group one might be saved if he lived right and had faith. The story summed up the tenacious attitude of Jacob, the curiosity of Moses, the downtrodden sprit of Elijah and the humility of Isaiah. The story of Job was an every man story, because it combined tenants, which all men could relate to their lives. God blesses all everyone who recognizes and accepts His power. From Job’s story humanity is given guidelines to follow in order to be blessed by God. Jacob and Moses’ stories demonstrate God’s earlier position on the condition of humanity, and later character’s stories depict how the relationship disappears over time. After the story of Isaiah, man feels abandoned and all hope seems lost. However, the prophecy of the Messiah by of Isaiah and Job rejuvenates the hope of continuity for humanity. A promise, which was given to man a long time ago, but due to his disobedience over time man, has lost the essential tenants to uphold his end of the bargain.

Progress And Movement In America Essay -- essays research papers

Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines progress as â€Å"to develop to a higher, better, or more advanced stage.† In today’s society, there are many views on the educational and economic progress of African Americans. They have encountered many stages during the civil rights movement such as Jim Crow Laws; and are now entrepreneurs; middle-class Americans, and some attend college. Despite this, presently, African American achievement has not been as significant since. The question at hand is that in modern times, is it â€Å"progress or just purely movement†? (Morrison) The Civil Rights Movement was a political, legal, and social struggle to gain full citizenship rights for black Americans and to achieve racial equality. The civil rights movement was first and foremost a challenge to segregation, the system of laws and customs separating blacks and whites that whites used to control blacks after slavery was abolished in the 1860s. During the civil rights movement, individuals and civil rights organizations challenged segregation and discrimination with a variety of activities, including protest marches, boycotts, and refusal to abide by segregation laws. Many believe that the movement began with the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and ended with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, though there is debate about when it began and whether it has ended yet. The civil rights movement has also been called the Black Freedom Movement, the Negro Revolution, and the Second Reconstruction. (Encarta) ...

Effects of corruption Essay

1. Introduction in philosophical, theological, or moral discussions, corruption is spiritual or moral impurity or deviation from an ideal. Corruption may include many activities including bribery and embezzlement. Government, or ‘political’, corruption occurs when an office-holder or other governmental employee acts in an official capacity for personal gain. Corruption has been a major problem in our country Kenya, affecting individuals all over the country. Most problems facing the country can be associated with corruption, starting with unemployment; which has seen the rate of jobless Kenyans go up each and every year, tribal wars which saw the country almost to flames in the year 2007, crimes, which are as a result of the increased rate of unemployment, national debts e.g. the Anglo-leasing which has seen the government spend billions trying to repay the debt. 2. Objectives The study has two objectives; First, it aims to review the essential elements of the various approaches that have been used to analyse the causes and effects of corruption. Second, it aims to explore how research has been applied in developing countries. This is a question of what policy recommendations have been made, and what might be learned from the anti-corruption campaigns and policies applied in specific countries. 3. Research questions 1. To what extent has corruption penetrated into our society today 2. How has  corruption affected our way of lives today 3. Which population (the youth or the old) are mostly affected by corruption 4. Which characters in our society influence corruption 5. What is the major contributor to high levels of corruption in Kenya today 6. What role can the government play to bring an end or reduction to corruption 7. How can Kenyans ensure that corruption is eradicated from our system 8. What are the benefits of living in a corruption-free country 4. /Literature review Corruption has recently become a major issue in foreign aid policies. However, behind the screens it has always been there, referred to as the â€Å"c-word†. The major concern for international aid policy through the last five decades is to improve the living conditions for the poor in the poorest countries of the world. This endeavour requires a close co-operation with the national governments in poor countries. Generally speaking, however, the governments in poor countries are also the most corrupt. This is one of the few clear empirical results of recent research on corruption. The level of GDP per capita holds most of the explanatory power of the various corruption indicators. Consequently, if donors want to minimise the risk of foreign aid being contaminated by corruption, the poorest countries should be avoided. This would, however, make aid policy rather pointless. This is the basic dilemma corruption raises for aid policy. Unlike international business most development aid organisations and international finance institutions have the lion’s share of their activities located in highly corrupt countries. The international community in general and some donor countries in particular are, however, increasingly willing to fight corruption. Within the â€Å"good governance† strategies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund initiatives to curb corruption are given priority. OECD and the UNDP have also developed particular anti-corruption programmes to assist governments in tackling the problem. Furthermore, several bilateral development agencies have placed anti-corruption efforts high on their development agenda. Whether this is a desirable change in focus of aid policy, and, hence, whether it is possible to find workable policy instruments to fight corruption, remains to be explored. Corruption is a problem that mainly arises in the interaction between government and the  market economy where the government itself must be considered endogenous. Therefore it is complex to handle from a theoretical point of view. This difficulty is underlined by the fact that data are difficult to gather, and, if available, data are often â€Å"soft†, unreliable and masked. Moreover, from an aid organisation’s point of view the issue of anti-corruption may become diplomatically delicate since at least some of the 7 stakeholders who are handling the aid instruments in the partner countries, are likely to be part of the problem. 5. Research methodology The methods employed were the use of observation questionnaire and interview. Observation involved watching and listening to what people are doing in groups and also what they are watching when in cyber cafes or at home using televisions and also observing what the reaction is when the topic of corruption is introduced. The questionnaire involved a series of questions directed to parents or guardians and another directed to youths and children. They were aimed at finding out how parents and youth view the aspect of corruption The parents or guardians questionnaire consisted of sections which were; Closed ended questions (which required a YES or NO answer) Open ended questions (respondent free to answer in his/her own words) The youths and children’s questionnaire consisted of Closed ended questions (which required a YES or NO answer) The other method used was interviewing where there was a one on one with the respondent and the questions to be asked would revolve the topic of corruption that is the accessibility moral social and health effects. 6. Data collection Ideally the data applied in research on corruption should be based on direct and first-hand observations of corrupt transactions made by unbiased observers who are familiar with the rules and routines in the sector under scrutiny. More aggregate numbers should then be constructed on the basis of such observations. This kind of empirical studies hardly exist, however, and for obvious reasons we cannot expect many more in the near future. Most of  the time we are dealing with complex transactions taking place in large hierarchies to which independent researchers normally have no access, nor the appropriate social networks for picking up and checking data. The information is indirect and, until recently, rather unsystematic. One of the major difficulties in corruption research has consequently been the lack of a solid empirical basis. The observational basis of corruption research In countries with honest judiciaries, the most reliable information about corruption is court cases. Courts are spending huge resources on establishing which transactions have in fact taken place, and to judge whether they have actually been corrupt. The problem with court cases is that they are few, compared to the underlying number of corrupt acts, that they cannot be used neither as an indicator of sector occurrences nor of general frequency. For the same reasons court data are difficult to use for cross-country comparisons. They are likely to tell more about political priorities or the efficiency of judiciaries and police than about the underlying problem of corruption. Such data on corruption has nevertheless been collected on an international basis and some efforts have been made to make them comparable across countries, for instance by the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Division of the United Nations Office in Vienna (United Nations 1999). However, the fact that Singapore and Hong Kong have exceptionally high conviction rates confirms the suspicion that data from courts cases on corruption, when aggregated, are telling more about judiciary efficiency than about corruption frequencies12. They do, nevertheless, bring interesting and often very detailed descriptions of the social mechanisms involved. In addition to the court cases, the police and other investigation units are producing considerable information about instances of corrupt transactions, also when the information may not be precise enough to win court cases or to fire employees. The quality of this information is highly variable, ranging from cases almost ready to bring to court, to mere rumours.13 In some cases this information may be sufficiently extensive to construct risk patterns for entire sectors, but in most cases it will be biased in the sense that active, strongly motivated police units will tend to exaggerate the number and the danger of the crooks they are  hunting. Investigative journalists are in many ways in a better position to collect data than social scientists. The public exposure of journalists gives them a larger supply of informants. They will often have to handle the data carefully, since good stories demand the naming of actors with the obvious possibility of harming innocent individuals. The risk of being sued necessitates caution. Like the police, journalists possess much surplus information that they cannot use. This means that stories from the media are important sources of information also for social science research on corruption when it comes to establishing facts14. Media are also important subjects of research on corruption, mainly for political scientists. Some forms of corruption may be considered as a kind of political scandals, and the political effects may often be quite similar to the publication of private misbehaviour of politicians or their families. Media are not only important in bringing forward facts about corruption, but also for forming public and scientific perceptions of corruption. Moreover, the media are to a large extent setting the stage for determining the likely political consequences of revealed corruption scandals. Like court decisions, media sources have their evident biases when comparing corrupt transactions across countries and across time. Firstly, the media will tend to give priority to the more spectacular stories, making the less dramatic but more common practices of corruption less attention. Secondly, and more important, the number of stories on corruption that are reaching the public are not likely to be determined only by how many stories that exist out there, but is also a question of press freedom, of the market for corruption stories, the journalistic professionalism and resources available, and various kinds of journalistic bandwagon effects. The bias created is likely to be serious also when it comes to empirical research because of the need to rely on second hand information. This makes it almost impossible to determine whether the perception of increasing corruption levels worldwide is based on facts or not, because the main sources used are likely to be strongly influenced by shifts in media attention and public opinion. As far as we know, unlike the case of criminal convictions for corruption, no international counting of media stories has been attempted. It is clear that the actual occurrences of discovered and provable corrupt acts discovered through courts, media and the few instances of participatory research are  too few in most countries to constitute a representative sample of the underlying corrupt transactions. To create patterns and analyses, researchers have to bring in information that is relatively unreliable, and then try to process it and make explicit the large and hardly determinable margins of err or in the field. Or alternatively, researchers can decide to let the uncertain and imprecise information about patterns pass, and consider it as not amenable to serious research. Until recently, the last strategy has been the dominant one, but since the mid-1990s a number of quantitative studies have been published based upon quite subjective and commercial indexes of aggregate country levels of corruption. The first and most influential one was Mauro (1995) who brought corruption into the renewed field of economic growth studies among economists. It was an econometric study of the effects of country corruption level on the growth rate, and the results indicated, as discussed in chapter 7.4, that there was indeed a significant negative impact. The study was based on data on general country corruption levels. What kind of data had Mauro been able to find? Corruption measured: The construction of corruption indicators Mauro (1995) used mainly data from a commercial organisation, Business International (BI), which in 1980 made an extensive survey of a large number of commercial and political risk factors, including corruption, for 52 countries, among these several developing countries. Business International had an international network of correspondents (journalists, country specialists, and international businesspeople) who were asked about whether and to what extent business transactions in the country in question involved corruption or questionable payments. The perceived degree of corruption involved in these transactions was ranked on a scale from 0 to 10. BI also made efforts to make the rankings across correspondents consistent. In fact, Business International was not the only organisation that tried to monitor where international businesses have to expect the most extensive or frequent bribe demands. Quite a number of both profit and non-profit organisations constructed similar indexes. Today it is Transparency International’s â€Å"Corruption Perception Index† (CPI) that is the most well known and most used both in research and in the public debate. The Corruption Perception Index (CPI) The CPI is the most comprehensive quantitative indicator of cross-country corruption available, where each single country is recognisable. It is compiled by a team of researchers at Gà ¶ttingen University, headed by Johann Lambsdorff. The CPI assesses the degree to which public officials and politicians are believed to accept bribes, take illicit payment in public procurement, embezzle public funds, and commit similar offences. The index ranks countries on a scale from 10 to zero, according to the perceived level of corruption. A score of 10 represents a reputedly totally honest country, while a zero indicates that the country is perceived as completely corrupt15. The 1999 corruption perception index includes 99 countries. It is based on 17 different polls and surveys conducted by 10 independent organisations, not by TI itself16. None of these surveys are dealing with corruption only, but they cover a number of issues of relevance for development and business confidence. TI, however, is using only the data on corruption. Hence, the Transparency International index is not based upon information from the organisation’s own experts but is constructed as a weighted average of (for 1999) 17 different indexes from 10 different organisations. The majority of these indexes are based on fairly vague and general questions about the level or frequency of corruption perceived either by experts or business managers. About half are based upon expert opinions within built checks to ensure cross-country consistency. The other half is mainly based on questionnaires sent to middle and high-level management to either international or local firms. Only one organisation (i.e., International Working Group, developing the International Crime Victim Survey) asks the respondents directly about their own experience of corruption. Thus, the CPI is mainly a â€Å"poll of polls†, reflecting the impressions of business people and risk analysts who have been surveyed in a variety of ways17. According to TI, none of these sources combines a sufficiently large sampling frame with a convincing methodology to produce reliable comparative assessments. Hence, TI has opted for a composite index as the most statistically robust means of measuring perceptions of corruption. Each of the other surveys uses different sampling frames and varying methodologies. The definition of the concept corruption also varies between the surveys. Thus, we may question whether the surveys cover the  same phenomenon (see Lambdsorff, 1999b). Furthermore, all the surveys ask for the extent the phenomenon, although the meaning of â€Å"extent† is not obvious. Is it the frequency of corrupt transactions or the amount of bribes paid or money embezzled? 7. references Hamilton , Alexander (2013), Small is beautiful, at least in high-income democracies: the distribution of policy-making responsibility, electoral accountability, and incentives for rent extraction Morris, S.D. (1991), Corruption and Politics in Contemporary Mexico. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa Senior, I. (2006), Corruption – The World’s Big C., Institute of Economic Affairs, London â€Å"Glossary†. U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre. Retrieved 26 June 2011. Lorena Alcazar, Raul Andrade (2001). Diagnosis corruption. pp. 135–136. ISBN 978-1-931003-11-7 Znoj, Heinzpeter (2009). â€Å"Deep Corruption in Indonesia: Discourses, Practices, Histories†. In Monique Nuijten, Gerhard Anders. Corruption and the secret of law: a legal anthropological perspective.