Harrah’s Database Gamble Essay

Harrah’s is the world largest provider of branded casino entertainment; it has around 25 million customers (2001) 25 casino with 40,000 gambling machines in 12 states. For years it had been a fairly small gambling company but, by 2001, had emerged as the second largest in the industry. By the mid-1990s, the gambling Business was flourishing and it was difficult for Harrah’s to survive in the markets due to intense competition, so they came up with a strategy of introducing a customer relationship management (CRM) software which helps to know their customers exceptionally well. A CRM system coordinates all business processes for dealing with customers, which in Harrah’s case includes both gambling and hotel customers. .The overall system Harrah’s developed has been named WINet (Winner’s Information Network) . The heart of CRM strategy was customer loyalty program called total rewards . Harrah’s CRM-based strategy appears to be a great success. Harrah’s say it keeps the customer information confidential and that it is not out to exploit gamblers. However, opponents of the gambling industry have criticized Harrah’s use of customer data. Harrah’s claims the Total Rewards program actually gives these people rewards instead of encouraging them to gamble more. He Further clarified that All we used to know was how much money we made on each machine, but we couldn’t connect what kind of customer used them , but with the help of technology he could get all the data of the customers. 1. Analyze Harrah’s using the competitive forces and value chain models. Harrah’s is facing intense competition. This competition is coming from established competitors as well new players Customers have many options in terms of how, when, and where they gamble. Harrah’s is using its new business strategy to create a new service, and catch its customers. Harrah’s new information system is having a strategic impact on its operations, sales and marketing, and service activities. 2. Describe Harrah’s business model and business strategy. How do they differ From those other gambling companies? Harrah’s business strategy is a customer relationship management strategy. (CRM). CRM system coordinates all business process for dealing with customers. Harrah’s uses its CRM software to identify and track its profitable customers. Harrah’s Total Rewards program allows gathering information about its customer’s gender, age, location, games they like to play as well as reward its customers for the amount of time that they spend gambling at Harrah’s casinos. Harrah’s competition relies on fancy reward schemes, due to which Harrah’s is getting to know its customers by studying and analyzing their behavior. 3. What role has database technology played in Harrah’s strategy? How Critical is it to the success of the company? Database technology is the heart of Harrah’s strategy. Harrah’s database Record information about Harrah’s customers, including gender, age, home location, Favorite games, length of playing time, size of bet, number of bets, average size of the bet, and total points. Harrah’s uses information for its business Processes to create marketing programs for its customers and also retaining in its customers each time a customer makes a transaction his record is updated. Harrah’s all casinos have access to the centralized database because of which Harrah’s employees are able to view each customer’s record and offer that customer same treatment regardless of which casino the customer visit. Database technology helped them to gain a 13% profit in the first year itself. 4. How did Harrah’s use CRM software and modeling tools to address the Company’s problem? Harrah’s uses CRM software to organize business processes that deal with Customers. After combining its gambling and hotel reservations data, Harrah’s uses its CRM software to build gambling profiles for each of its customers, analyze the customer data, and create different marketing programs. Harrah’s WINet system enables the company to estimate how much money the company can earn from a customer over a period of time. 5. Are there any ethical problems raised by Harrah’s use of customer data? Explain your answer. There is an opportunity to gain more money by selling the customer data but Harrah’s has said that it will not sell customer data to any organization. Some competitors criticized that Harrah’s is exploiting gamblers, If this argument is true, then encouraging a person with a gambling addiction to spend more of his money, is obviously wrong. He Justify by saying that the Total Rewards program actually gives these people rewards instead of encouraging them to gamble More. 6. What problems can database technology and customer relationship Management software solve for Harrah’s? What problems can’t they address? The database Technology and customer relationship management software enable Harrah’s to Maintain sharp customer profiles, analyze its data to identify the most profitable customers, improve its customer service, and offer consistent customer service. The database technology and customer relationship management software help Harrah’s achieve a competitive gain in the gambling industry. The database technology and customer relationship management software cannot address organizational issues, such as the switch from a casino-focus to a Customer focus, loss of privacy fears, and gambler exploitation criticisms.

Greek Contributions to Modern Western Civilization Essay

Ancient Greek culture has influenced modern western civilization from their discoveries and traditions during their Golden Age. Their philosophies, politics and values have helped shape our every day life. Some of the most prominently displayed leaders of all time lived in Greece during the time. Their math, art science politics, architecture, drama, medicine, philosophy and values have inspired today’s everyday way of life. If it weren’t for their constant strides towards a better tomorrow, civilization today might be less advanced. A lot of their academic achievement math and science has trickled down from the generations and into western civilization today. Euclid, a mathematician, is now viewed as the most prominent mathematician of all time. He wrote a book called â€Å"The Elements† and put all of his discoveries and theories into it. A lot of the math and science that we use today was influenced by his theories and discoveries. A man named Hippocrates also solely influenced today’s medical practices. His discoveries in medicine made a long lasting imprint on today’s doctors and practices. He was an extremely trustworthy doctor. He made an oath stating that he would never give bad medicine and always strive to cure a patient, not just get paid. Today when becoming a doctor, you must take the Hippocratic oath, which was the oath that Hippocrates created. Whenever you go to see a performance now, whether you know it or not, Greek influence is involved. Greek drama and auditoriums are big influences. The three types of theaters that the Greeks had were Proscenium (like in today’s Gershwin Theater), Thrust (like in many of the concert halls seen today) and Arena (like today’s sports arenas). The architecture of these stages and of a lot of other structures are direct influences of the Greek civilization. Playwrights such as Socrates, Aeschylus and Euripides wrote plays that entertained people in Greece and all around the world still today. Playwrights wrote tragedies in which there is a main character with either a  special ability or tragic flaw. As the story progresses, the tragic flaw ruins the character (just like in today’s drama). One of the most tragic of plays are the stories of Oedipus, the King. In this, the main character’s tragic flaw is unknown even to him. It is his tragic past and how it influenced his present day life. Tragedies such as Oedipus the King have contributed to the making of today’s theater. Greece’s system of democracy was a new ideal for the time. Today, countries around the world use it. During the time of the first democracy, philosophers started to teach their thoughts and voice their opinions. This is because it was a time of turmoil. Corrupt leaders were leading Greece and people did not have much faith in democracy. At this time, philosophers gave the people things to ponder and believe in. The greatest three Greek philosophers were Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Even today, people live by some of the teachings of these philosophers and they are widely studied. Overall, many of today’s traditions, beliefs and values have been passed down from Greek civilizations. Their discoveries, traditions and strides toward perfection inspired later generations to act as they did. The individuals that invented and discovered new aspects of life and their surroundings gave way to brand new lifestyles that are used today.

Project Management and Monitoring

Monitoring is the regular observation and recording of activities taking place in a project or programme. It is a process of routinely gathering information on all aspects of the project. To monitor is to check on how project activities are progressing. It is observation; – systematic and purposeful observation. Monitoring also involves giving feedback about the progress of the project to the donors, implementers and beneficiaries of the project. Reporting enables the gathered information to be used in making decisions for improving project performance.Monitoring is the systematic collection and analysis of information as a project progresses. It is aimed at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of a project or organisation. It is based on targets set and activities planned during the planning phases of work. It helps to keep the work on track, and can let management know when things are going wrong. If done properly, it is an invaluable tool for good management, and it p rovides a useful base for evaluation.It enables you to determine whether the resources you have available are sufficient and are being well used, whether the capacity you have is sufficient and appropriate, and whether you are doing what you planned to do Purpose of Monitoring: Monitoring is very important in project planning and implementation. It is like watching where you are going while riding a bicycle; you can adjust as you go along and ensure that you are on the right track. Monitoring provides information that will be useful in: Analyzing the situation in the community and its project; †¢ Determining whether the inputs in the project are well utilized; †¢ Identifying problems facing the community or project and finding solutions; †¢ Ensuring all activities are carried out properly by the right people and in time;†¢ Using lessons from one project experience on to another; and †¢ Determining whether the way the project was planned is the most appropria te way of solving the problem at hand. Planning, Monitoring and Controlling Cycle: [pic] Importance of Monitoring: Monitoring is important because: it provides the only consolidated source of information showcasing project progress; †¢ it allows actors to learn from each other’s experiences, building on expertise and knowledge; †¢ it often generates (written) reports that contribute to transparency and accountability, and allows for lessons to be shared more easily; †¢ it reveals mistakes and offers paths for learning and improvements; †¢ it provides a basis for questioning and testing assumptions;†¢ it provides a means for agencies seeking to learn from their experiences and to incorporate them into policy and practice; †¢ it provides a way to assess the crucial link between implementers and beneficiaries on the ground and decision-makers; †¢ it adds to the retention and development of institutional memory; †¢ it provides a more robust basis for raising funds and influencing policy. WHY DO MONITORING? Monitoring enable you to check the â€Å"bottom line† (see Glossary of Terms) of development work: Not â€Å"are we making a profit? † but â€Å"are we making a difference? † Through monitoring and evaluation, you can: _ Review progress; _ Identify problems in planning and/or implementation; _ Make adjustments so that you are more likely to â€Å"make a difference†.In many organisations, â€Å"monitoring and evaluation† is something that that is seen as a donor requirement rather than a management tool. Donors are certainly entitled to know whether their money is being properly spent, and whether it is being well spent. But the primary (most important) use of monitoring and evaluation should be for the organisation or project itself to see how it is doing against objectives, whether it is having an impact, whether it is working efficiently, and to learn how to do it better. Plans a re essential but they are not set in concrete (totally fixed). If they are not working, or if the circumstances change, then plans need to change too.Monitoring and evaluation are both tools which help a project or organisation know when plans are not working, and when circumstances have changed. They give management the information it needs to make decisions about the project or organisation, about changes that are necessary in strategy or plans. Through this, the constants remain the pillars of the strategic framework: the problem analysis, the vision, and the values of the project or organisation. Everything else is negotiable. (See also the toolkit on strategic planning) Getting something wrong is not a crime. Failing to learn from past mistakes because you are not monitoring and evaluating, is.The effect of monitoring and evaluation can be seen in the following cycle. Note that you will monitor and adjust several times before you are ready to evaluate and replan. Monitoring inv olves: _ Establishing indicators (See Glossary of Terms) of efficiency, effectiveness and impact; _ Setting up systems to collect information relating to these indicators; _ Collecting and recording the information; _ Analysing the information; _ Using the information to inform day-to-day management. Monitoring is an internal function in any project or organisation. WHAT DO WE WANT TO KNOW? What we want to know is linked to what we think is important. In development work, what we think is important is linked to our values.Most work in civil society organisations is underpinned by a value framework. It is this framework that determines the standards of acceptability in the work we do. The central values on which most development work is built are: _ Serving the disadvantaged; _ Empowering the disadvantaged; _ Changing society, not just helping individuals; _ Sustainability; _ Efficient use of resources. So, the first thing we need to know is: Is what we are doing and how we are doing it meeting the requirements of these values? In order to answer this question, our monitoring and evaluation system must give us information about: _ Who is benefiting from what we do? How much are they benefiting? Are beneficiaries passive recipients or does the process enable them to have some control over their lives?_ Are there lessons in what we are doing that have a broader impact than just what is happening on our project? _ Can what we are doing be sustained in some way for the long-term, or will the impact of our work cease when we leave? _ Are we getting optimum outputs for the least possible amount of inputs? MONITORING When you design a monitoring system, you are taking a formative view point and establishing a system that will provide useful information on an ongoing basis so that you can improve what you do and how you do it. On the next page, you will find a suggested process for designing a monitoring system.For a case study of how an organisation went about designi ng a monitoring system, go to the section with examples, and the example given of designing a monitoring system. Monitoring DESIGNING A MONITORING SYSTEM Below is a step-by-step process you could use in order to design a monitoring system for your organisation or project. For a case study of how an organisation went about designing a monitoring system, go to examples. Step 1: At a workshop with appropriate staff and/or volunteers, and run by you or a consultant:_ Introduce the concepts of efficiency, effectiveness and impact (see Glossary of Terms). _ Explain that a monitoring system needs to cover all three. Generate a list of indicators for each of the three aspects. _ Clarify what variables (see Glossary of Terms) need to be linked. So, for example, do you want to be able to link the age of a teacher with his/her qualifications in order to answer the question: Are older teachers more or less likely to have higher qualifications? _ Clarify what information the project or organisat ion is already collecting. Step 2: Turn the input from the workshop into a brief for the questions your monitoring system must be able to answer. Depending on how complex your requirements are, and what your capacity is, you may decide to go for a computerised data base or a manual one.If you want to be able to link many variables across many cases (e. g. participants, schools, parent involvement, resources, urban/rural etc), you may need to go the computer route. If you have a few variables, you can probably do it manually. The important thing is to begin by knowing what variables you are interested in and to keep data on these variables. Linking and analysis can take place later. (These concepts are complicated. It will help you to read the case study in the examples section of the toolkit. ) From the workshop you will know what you want to monitor. You will have the indicators of efficiency, effectiveness and impact that have been prioritised.You will then choose the variables th at will help you answer the questions you think are important. So, for example, you might have an indicator of impact which is that â€Å"safer sex options are chosen† as an indicator that â€Å"young people are now making informed and mature lifestyle choices†. The variables that might affect the indicator include: _ Age _ Gender _ Religion _ Urban/rural _ Economic category _ Family environment _ Length of exposure to your project’s initiative _ Number of workshops attended. By keeping the right information you will be able to answer questions such as: _ Does age make a difference to the way our message is received? _ Does economic category i. e. o young people in richer areas respond better or worse to the message or does it make no difference?_ Does the number of workshops attended make a difference to the impact? Answers to these kinds of questions enable a project or organisation to make decisions about what they do and how they do it, to make informed chan ges to programmes, and to measure their impact and effectiveness. Answers to questions such as: _ Do more people attend sessions that are organised well in advance? _ Do more schools participate when there is no charge? _ Do more young people attend when sessions are over weekends or in the evenings? _ Does it cost less to run a workshop in the community, or to bring people to our training centre to run the workshop? nable the project or organisation to measure and improve their efficiency.Step 3: Decide how you will collect the information you need (see collecting information) and where it will be kept (on computer, in manual files). Step 4: Decide how often you will analyse the information – this means putting it together and trying to answer the questions you think are important. Step 5: Collect, analyse, report. PURPOSE OF MONITORING AND EVALUATION What development interventions make a difference? Is the project having the intended results? What can be done differently to better meet goals and objectives? These are the questions that monitoring and evaluation allow organizations to answer.Monitoring and evaluation are important management tools to track your progress and facilitate decision making. While some funders require some type of evaluative process, the greatest beneficiaries of an evaluation can be the community of people with whom your organization works. By closely examining your work, your organization can design programs and activities that are effective, efficient, and yield powerful results for the community. Definitions are as follows: Monitoring can be defined as a continuing function that aims primarily to provide the management and main stakeholders of an ongoing intervention with early indications of progress, or lack thereof, in the achievement of results.An ongoing intervention might be a project, program or other kind of support to an outcome. Monitoring helps organizations track achievements by a regular collection of informa tion to assist timely decision making, ensure accountability, and provide the basis for evaluation and learning. STRATEGIC QUESTIONS In conducting monitoring and evaluation efforts, the specific areas to consider will depend on the actual intervention, and its stated outcomes. Areas and examples of questions include: †¢ Relevance: Do the objectives and goals match the problems or needs that are being addressed?†¢ Efficiency: Is the project delivered in a timely and cost-effective manner? Effectiveness: To what extent does the intervention achieve its objectives? What are the supportive factors and obstacles encountered during the implementation? †¢ Impact: What happened as a result of the project? This may include intended and unintended positive and negative effects. †¢ Sustainability: Are there lasting benefits after the intervention is completed? COMMON TERMS Monitoring and evaluation take place at different levels. The following box defines the common terms w ith examples. INPUTS The financial, human, and material resources used for the development intervention. Technical Expertise Equipment Funds ACTIVITIES Actions taken or work performed.Training workshops conducted OUTPUTS The products, capital goods, and services that result from a development intervention. Number of people trained Number of workshops conducted OUTCOMES The likely or achieved short-term and medium-term effects or changes of an intervention’s outputs. Increased skills New employment opportunities IMPACTS The long-term consequences of the program, may be positive and negative effects. Improved standard of living STEP-BY-STEP: Planning for Monitoring and Evaluation Steps for designing a monitoring and evaluation system depend on what you are trying to monitor and evaluate. The following is an outline of some general steps you may ake in thinking through at the time of planning your activities:1. Identify who will be involved in the design, implementation, and rep orting. Engaging stakeholders helps ensure their perspectives are understood and feedback is incorporated. 2. Clarify scope, purpose, intended use, audience, and budget for evaluation. 3. Develop the questions to answer what you want to learn as a result of your work. 4. Select indicators. Indicators are meant to provide a clear means of measuring achievement, to help assess the performance, or to reflect changes. They can be either quantitative and/or qualitative. A process indicator is information that focuses on how a program is implemented. 5.Determine the data collection methods. Examples of methods are: document reviews, questionnaires, surveys, and interviews. 6. Analyze and synthesize the information you obtain. Review the information obtained to see if there are patterns or trends that emerge from the process. 7. Interpret these findings, provide feedback, and make recommendations. The process of analyzing data and understanding findings should provide you with recommendati ons about how to strengthen your work, as well as any mid-term adjustments you may need to make. 8. Communicate your findings and insights to stakeholders and decide how to use the results to strengthen your organization’s efforts.Monitoring and evaluation not only help organizations reflect and understand past performance, but serve as a guide for constructive changes during the period of implementation. Why have a detailed toolkit on monitoring and evaluation? If you don’t care about how well you are doing or about what impact you are having, why bother to do it at all? Monitoring and evaluation enable you to assess the quality and impact of your work, against your action plans and your strategic plan. In order for monitoring and evaluation to be really valuable, you do need to have planned well. Planning is dealt with in detail in other toolkits on this website. Who should use this toolkit?This toolkit should be useful to anyone working in an organisation or project who is concerned about the efficiency, effectiveness and impact of the work of the project or organisation. When will this toolkit be useful? This toolkit will be useful when: _ You are setting up systems for data collection during the planning phases of a project or organisation; _ You want to analyse data collected through the monitoring process; _ You are concerned about how efficiently and how effectively you are working; _ You reach a stage in your project, or in the life of your organisation, when you think it would be useful to evaluate what impact the work is having; _ Donors ask for an external evaluation of your organisation and or work. DESIGNING A MONITORING SYSTEM – CASE STUDYWhat follows is a description of a process that a South African organisation called Puppets against AIDS went through in order to develop a monitoring system which would feed into monitoring and evaluation processes. The main work of the organisation is presenting workshopped plays and/or p uppet shows related to lifeskill issues, especially those lifeskills to do with sexuality, at schools, across the country. The organisation works with a range of age groups, with different â€Å"products† (scripts) being appropriate at different levels. Puppets against AIDS wanted to develop a monitoring and evaluation system that provided useful information on the efficiency, effectiveness and impact of its operations. To this end, it wanted to develop a data base that:Provided all the basic information the organisation needed about clients and services given; _ Produced reports that enabled the organisation to inform itself and other stakeholders, including donors, partners and even schools, about the impact of the work, and what affected the impact of the work. The organisation made a decision to go for a computerised monitoring system. Much of the day-to-day information needed by the organisation was already on a computerised data base (e. g. schools, regions, services pr ovided and so on), but the monitoring system would require a substantial upgrading and the development of data base software specific to the organisation’s needs.The organisation also made the decision to develop a system initially for a pilot project, but with the intention of extending it to all the work over time. This pilot project would work with about 60 schools, using different scripts each year, over a period of three years. In order to raise the money needed for this process, Puppets against AIDS needed some kind of a brief for what was required so that it could be costed. At an initial workshop with staff, facilitated by consultants, the staff generated a list of indicators for efficiency, effectiveness and impact, in relation to their work. These were the things staff wanted to know from the system about what they did, how they did it, and what difference it made. The terms were defined as follows:Efficiency Here what needed to be assessed was how quickly, how corr ectly, how cost effectively and with what use of resources the services of the organisation were offered. Much of this information was already collected and was contained in reports which reflected planning against achievement. It needed to be made â€Å"computer friendly†. Effectiveness Here what needed to be assessed was getting results in terms of the strategy and shorter-term impact. For example, were the puppet shows an effective means of communicating messages about sexuality? Again, this information was already being collected and just needed to be adapted to fit the computerised system.Impact Here what needed to be assessed was whether the strategy worked in that it had an impact on changing behaviour in individuals (in this case the students) and that that change in behaviour impacted positively on Monitoring and Evaluation Monitoring and Evaluation by Janet Shapiro (email: [email  protected] co. za that happens when a donor insists on it, in fact, monitoring and e valuation are invaluable internal management tools. If you don’t assess how well you are doing against targets and indicators, you may go on using resources to no useful end, without changing the situation you have identified as a problem at all. Monitoring and evaluation enable you to make that assessment.

Formation of Creative Personality Traits Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Formation of Creative Personality Traits - Essay Example The factors which stimulate facilitate or hinder its development (Magno,2008, p.2.)The two main perspectives, upon which all the theories of formation of creative personality are based: mental and social. Secondly, as the name indicates, human is the centre and focus of this theory. Personality (chapter 10) writes that, "Ultimate value is placed on dignity of person." The main theories discussed in this chapter, regarding the formation of creative personality are: psychoanalysis, mental illness, psychotism, addiction and humanistic theories. I believe psychotism, addiction and mental illness theories are very narrow and constricted. Psychoanalytical viewpoint focuses more "importance to art in the expression of the unconscious mind" (Magno, 2008, p.4) and "view a person as fairly passive, as a reactor to his or her life circumstances rather than an active agent" (Dacey & Lennon,1998, p.137.) The major contrast of the theories is differing themes of self, health, development and consciousness gives much smaller role to the unconscious drives. I consider individual as an active agent, who has all the control over his life and decisions and he deliberately, consciously and cognitively engages himself to be creative to meet the daily errands. So, I decide that Humanistic approach to the formation of creative personality convinces me more than other theories. ... Carl Jung gave birth to this link of mental health and creativity. Magno (2008) also touched this point and quoted Rollo May and Diamond, who believed that "creativity had an important role in healing and establishing genuine meaning in life." (p. 6.) The idea has evolved immensely and now creativity is linked with the healthy status of mind and "emotional well being" of a person. (Simonton, 2000, p.151.) Simonton (2008) also argued that the "psychological weakness can sometimes be converted into a form of optimal functioning" (p. 153.) In humanistic psychology, "to create is associated with human nature" wrote Magno (2008, p.3) and I utterly agree to this viewpoint. Dacey & Lennon (1998) explained this view point at its best by writing that," people are able to make active choices as they construct their lives" and they have the control and right to choose. (p.137) Creativity is essential to living and that is why each of us, at some point, is creative. Magno (2008) wrote, "All events of life can involve creativity." (p.13.) To stimulate creativity, we need to full fill its demands. Maslow's needs of hierarchy, puts "self-actualization and aesthetic needs" as the basis of creativity. (p.137.) I believe, while agreeing with humanistic approach that creativity is an on going process and develops through out the life span. The humanists see this development of creativity as occurring throughout life (Dacey & Lennon, 1998, p.147.) On the contrary, Psychoanalytical school of thought believed that the initial years of life are critical, "at the end of which creative ability becomes fixed" (Dacey & Lennon, 1998, p.151.) This view opposes the psychoanalytic view and

Syrian Civil War and the UN Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Syrian Civil War and the UN - Term Paper Example Syria is being used as a background for 2 proxy wars. One is between Russia-China and the US. Russia is trying to regain its lost influence in the Mediterranean. Russia also has a number of economic interests in Syria which includes arms sale and infrastructure projects. Libya is a real thorn for Russia and China-they believe that they were tricked in supporting a UN resolution which was then used as a cover for airstrikes against Gaddafi. Due to this mistrust; Russia and China started off by blocking a resolution which asked Assad to hand over power to his deputy. In October 2011 they vetoed another resolution condemning Assad. In February 2012, Russia and China blocked another draft security council resolution and agreed to the Kofi Anan sponsored non-binding peace plan only when the tougher draft is modified. Thus the UN Security Council has been effectively unable to function due to this proxy war. In the absence of Security Council resolution, a UN General Assembly resolution is passed in August 2012 condemning Assad and asking him to resign. (Saad) The second proxy war is against Iran. It is intriguing that the US lifted the ban on military aid to Uzbekistan dictator and turned a blind eye to crushing of popular demonstrations by Bahrain at the same time it wanted Assad to resign. The US is so deeply interested in Syria because of Iran; not because it is a champion of freedom and democracy. Israel and the USA would like nothing better than changing the regime in Iran. However, that seems far-fetched now; so they are contended with breaking the Tehran-Damascus axis. (Tehri) The proxy wars are being fuelled further by the bogey of chemical weapons being raised in the western media these days. It sounds familiar; doesn’t it? First, the media will shout over the top that Assad like Saddam is about to launch weapons of mass destruction any day now. (Hart) Then a concerned President will warn Basher Al Assad of severe consequences.  

Little bee Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Little bee - Essay Example No matter what journey you take it not where you end and what you achieve but what is more important is how you have been able to succeed it; if you have succeed it and if not then it also makes you realize that what have you done to fail it. The path of the journey is more important than the meaning of the journey. It takes minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and even years to reach to the destination but the end it only for a moment; in which you discover the purpose and outcome of the journey; but what is remembered most is how it was conducted; what strategies where made; what personal and professional factors were kept in mind to ensure that we reach to the best outcome. All journey’s taken have a purpose and an aim to achieve; some want to prove that they are strong; some wants to prove that they need help; some wants a break and other are just travelling. All these purposes add up to the different aspect of a human life and personality. Adventurous trips are a reflection of loud nature; where people would put the purpose of the journey above all; even their lives. They are well aware of the fact that how dangerous it can be and no matter how amount of preventive measures are taken they might face the wrath of God. On the other side religious trips is the reflection of subtle nature; where people would want to explore peace and patience and would want to find a way where they can eliminate the world’s pleasure and sacrifice their wishes to achieve the happiness and acceptance of God. People travel miles from the corner of the world to be at the house of God. There are few journey that you take and you know that you are going to take them; you are well prepared all things are in place; everyone around are also involved in making it a better experience; but there are some journey that are not expected like the journey of LIFE. One is never prepared for the unexpected events and the turns that it will take during the course; what moment are

Topic Critique Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Topic Critique - Essay Example t "to the extent that an individual can learn to perform some mental skills without conscious attention, the conscious part of the brain is freed to attend to other mental activities, thus enlarging its cognitive scope (Dickinson). For example, a person who is interested in music will learn the lyrics and tunes of a song easily without giving much conscious attention to learn it. On the other hand, same person may struggle to learn mathematics in the absence of interest, even if he performs some conscious efforts. From the above examples it is clear that certain brain activities are controlling the learning capabilities of a person unknowingly. Herman Epstein suggested that periods of rapid brain growth are the times for intellectually challenging curriculum, and that plateau periods, such as in adolescence, are the times for more concrete, experiential learning rather than pushing students too soon into abstract thinking (Dickinson) The analysing powers of a person varies differently during his life span. Alcohol or drug usages may not be considered as a sin by some youths. But the same youths may regret for their activities after ten or fifteen years. In other words, same thing may be perceived differently by the same person during different stages of his life because of differences in brain activities at different periods. Music is an entity which can control and comfort the brain activities. Even distressed persons will get a soothing effect when they hear music. A calm and peaceful mind is essential for proper learning. A learner’s mind will always be under tension because of some external parameters which may have nothing to do with learning. Music can eliminate all such negative parameters of learning and can keep the learner’s mind fully focussed on the learning activity alone. All the people hate noise, but most of them like music because of its smooth rhythm and feeling it create. â€Å"The intentional use of music in the classroom will set the scene

School Finance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

School Finance - Essay Example In fact, a 1993 circuit court of Cole County opined that "The existing school finance system does not provide an 'equal ... opportunity' for all school age children as is required by ... the Missouri Constitution" (Committee for Educational Equity v. Missouri, 1993, p. 29). As described in the decision, "various statistical measures confirm the degree and extent of these wide inequalities" (p. 13) and "All relevant standard measures of equity ... clearly and consistently indicate that Missouri funding for its public schools is highly disequalized and is getting worse" (p. 15)"(Wan Ko, 2006).This court decision instructs that the school must revise its financing policies. The court wants that school finances should be EQUALLY allocated to all children irregardless of race, religion, sex, etc. This new financing policy introduces a new hold harmless provision. Hold harmless schools clearly receive more than the normal monetary help than other schools receive. As a result, these hold ha rmless school districts give more accurate equity analysis for evaluating the state's policy impact. this study of the Missouri school finance system shows that there was an improvement in the Missouri school's finance equity under the new funding formula. However, there were times when financial help did not arrive as schedule or came only in trickles. One reason is that the monetary help had come from other sources and not from the newly approved funding schemes. Evidently, this article shows that schools need money in order to deliver high quality education to the students(Wan Ko, 2006). II. A Helping Hand: A Federal Grant Program Gives School Districts the Financial Support The Need to Develop Updated, Comprehensive Disaster Plans. The article mentions how tornadoes ravaged several towns in Missouri. The tornadoes literally scattered some elementary school buildings in the community. In Caulfied, MO, a tornado killed a seven year old girl named Elizabeth Croney. Likewise, a school in Derby, KS had to close down to allow police officers to corner and arrest an armed criminal in front the the school's premises. Many of the schools are not accustomed to confronting increasing threats from many quarters. The dangers include natural disasters, street gangs and terrorists. Many of the schools' administrators and responsible personnel underwent emergency disaster training to counter the effects of any emergency. The Department of Education's office of safe and drug -free schools spearheaded this campaign to help schools be more prepared to alleviate any emergency. In turn, the schools would be given REMS funds that would be used for the schools' disaster awareness and readiness program. The United States government has focused on school disaster preparedness programs in response to the infamous September eleven twin tower airline hijacking incidents as well as the ramming of a commandeered passenger plane onto the Pentagon. For, "If you think back to 9/11, there were a lot of lessons learned from that incident," according to Sara Strizzi, who is a program analyst for the DoE in Washington, DC. One of those lessons was the vulnerability of K-12 campuses. "We realized that within the ground zero vicinity, there were a lot of schools close by."(Bowles, 2007). Here, the government of

Changes Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Changes - Essay Example However, the question on which of these factors will have the greatest influence remains unanswered. This paper outlines three of the changes expected in criminal justice in the next fifty years. Like any other system or discipline, criminal justice is expected to evolve. This evolution will be apparent in both crime and justice. In fact, as criminal evolve; their potential victims will also evolve in the preventive strategies they will use against the perpetrators. For instance, criminals are expected to use devices that would counter or unlock the more advanced devices and technologies such as alarm systems and locks that potential victims are expected to use to protect themselves (Ritter, 2006). As is currently the case, crime fighting strategies will however continue to focus on the reduction of crime opportunities, removing criminal-motivators, and altering peoples’ basic values by nurturing positive values, more so in the youth so that their propensity to commit crimes is reduced (Ritter, 2006). Population experts believe that in the next three to five decades there is a likely increase in the percentage of the over-30 population, particularly those over 65 year s of age. The implication of these demographic changes on criminal justice is that more people will be highly likely to become victims and criminals. The other change expected in the next fifty years in criminal justice is the increased use of technological advances in fighting crimes. In this regard, there is an expected increase in the development and use of more sophisticated biometric devices, surveillance equipment, identification microchips, and DNA analysis in preventing, detecting and reducing crime (Ritter, 2006). These technological devices will be quite effective in enhancing crime prevention and crime solving in the future. Technologically, more complex and effective intelligence databases for policing and analysis of crime trends by experts and the public will be exploited

Guyana-Land of Many Waters Essay Example for Free

Guyana-Land of Many Waters Essay Guyana (guy-anna),[6] officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana,[1] is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America. Culturally Guyana is part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana is one of the few Caribbean countries that is not an island. The Caribbean Community (CARICOM), of which Guyana is a member, has its secretariats headquarters in Guyanas capital, Georgetown. Guyana was originally colonized by the Netherlands. Later, it became a British colony and remained so for over 200 years until it achieved independence on 26 May 1966 from the United Kingdom. On 23 February 1970, Guyana officially became a republic. In 2008, the country joined the Union of South American Nations as a founding member. Guyana, a member state of the Commonwealth of Nations, is the only South American nation whose official language is English. Historically, the region known as Guiana or Guyana comprised the large shield landmass north of the Amazon River and east of the Orinoco River known as the Land of many waters. Historical Guyana consists of three Dutch colonies: Essequibo, Demerara, and Berbice. Modern Guyana is bordered by Suriname to the east; by Brazil to the south and southwest; by Venezuela to the west; and by the Atlantic Ocean to the north. At 215,000 square kilometres (83,000 sq mi), Guyana is the third-smallest independent state on the mainland of South America after Uruguay and Suriname. Its population is approximately 770,000. The name Guyana is derived from Guiana, the original name for the region that now includes Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, and parts of Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the name comes from an Amerindian word meaning land of many waters. here are nine Native American tribes residing in Guyana: the Wai Wai, Machushi, Patamona, Arawak, Carib, Wapishana, Arecuna, Akawaio, and Warrau. Historically the Arawak and Carib tribes dominated Guyana. Although Christopher Columbus sighted Guyana during his third voyage (in 1498), the Dutch were the first to establish colonies: Essequibo (1616), Berbice (1627), and Demerara (1752). After the British assumed control in the late 18th century, the Dutch formally ceded the area in 1814. In 1831 the three separate colonies became a single British colony known as British Guiana. A map of Dutch Guiana 1667–1814. Since Independence in 1824, Venezuela has claimed the area of land to the west of the Essequibo River. Simon Bolivar wrote to the British government warning against the Berbice and Demerara settlers settling on land which the Venezuelans claimed was theirs. In 1899 an international tribunal ruled the land belonged to Great Britain. Map of British Guiana. Guyana achieved independence from the United Kingdom on 26 May 1966 and became a republic on 23 February 1970, remaining a member of the Commonwealth. The US State Department and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), along with the British government, played a strong role in influencing political control in Guyana during this time. The American government supported Forbes Burnham during the early years of independence because Cheddi Jagan was identified as a Marxist. They provided secret financial support and political campaign advice to Burnhams Peoples National Congress, to the detriment of the Jagan-led Peoples Progressive Party, which was mostly supported by Native American Guyanese. In 1978, Guyana received international notice when 918 members of the American cult, Peoples Temple, died in a mass murder/suicide. Most of the suicides were American and more than 300 children were killed; the people were members of a group led by Jim Jones in Jonestown, the settlement which they had created. Jim Jones bodyguards had earlier attacked people landing at a small remote airstrip close to Jonestown, killing five people, including Leo Ryan, the only congressman ever murdered in the line of duty in US history. In May 2008, President Bharrat Jagdeo was a signatory to the UNASUR Constitutive Treaty of the Union of South American Nations. Guyana has ratified the treaty.

Data warehousing and data mining

Data warehousing and data mining Abstract This paper aims to discuss about data warehousing and data mining, the tools and techniques of data mining and data warehousing as well as the benefits of practicing the concept to the organisations. It also includes the trends and application in data warehouse and data mining in current business communities. Keywords Database, data warehouse, data mining, database management. Introduction Organisation uses information systems to record and retrieve data from daily transactions. The information systems via the database that link to it provides valuable data for making important and strategic decisions in regards to the well-being of a company. An organisation can predict the expectation that is yet to come from the data that they possessed. The data can also be used to provide possible solutions to overcome the problems that they faced, and even, they can use the data to obtain competitive advantage in their business environment. Database has reduces, if not in some place, vanish the old method of storing and keeping the information, that is, through the usage of the traditional filing system. The change towards digitization of data and the establishment of data repository has created a new term in the field of information systems, new position in the organisation, and a new way of doing business and daily transactions in human life. This paper will discuss further about the two terminologies which is data warehouse and data mining from the perspective of database management in the organisation. At the same time, this paper will also include some cases and issues about data warehouse in the organisation according to real situation based on the literatures. According to William H. Inmon, data warehouse is a set of integrated, subject oriented databases designed to support Decision Support Systems (DSS) functions, where each series of data is precise to some period of time. It is said that data warehouse contains atomic data and lightly conclude the data. On the other hand, data mining is the search for valuable information in large volumes of data (Weiss Indurkhya, 1998). It is the process of nontrivial extraction of implicit, previously unknown and potentially useful information such as knowledge rules, constraints, and regularities from data stored in repositories using pattern recognition technologies as well as statistical and mathematical techniques (Technology Forecast, 1997; Piatetsky-Shapiro and Frawley, 1991). As mentioned earlier, many organisations nowadays use computers especially through the usage of information system to collect particulars of business transactions such as records of banking operations, sales of retails, productions of factory, telecommunications and other transactions. Consequently the data mining tools are used to expose positive potentials and association from the data collected. Background of data warehousing and data mining The following part point up the historical evolution of the database and directly discuss about data warehouse and data mining. A brief history of data warehousing and data mining are included. Furthermore is the issues faced in the early years of implementing the concept of data warehousing and data mining and where both concepts are useful. Data warehousing started in the late 1980s from the IBM lab and the responsible researchers are Barry Devlin and Paul Murphy. They started by the development of business data warehouse for decision support surroundings. In the early 1990s, it became a trend for organisations to meet the growing demand for organising information. However Haisten (1999), a columnist for Information Management Website, mentioned that the concept of data warehouse take shape in early 1970s through a study that started out at MIT with the aim to provide optimal technical architecture. And now, the next generation of data warehousing called Trend in Data Warehouse (TDWI) is mushrooming and become popular in many organisations that use information as their vital capitals. The emergence of data mining began in the late of 1980s and it flourished by 1990s. There are three roots that can be traced back along three family lines on the origin of data mining, which are the classical statistics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. In order to automate the process of extracting the data which are increased every single time, human has increased the power of computer and data storage. For that reason, the amount of data becomes huge and more complex. Primarily, Bayes theorem (1997) and Regression analysis has identify patterns in data. The data mining is actually the process or method by using greater discovering in computer science engineering such as neural networks, clustering process, genetic algorithm and decision trees. Data mining can be said as a method to help with the collection of observation of behaviour. Ayre (2006) stated in his paper that todays data mining techniques is due to the work of mathematician, logicians, and computer scientist join together to create Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning dated back from the 1950s. That was a very basic spark for data mining ideology. As mention earlier, in the 1960s, AI and statistic practitioners created new algorithm such as regression analysis, maximum likelihood estimates, neural networks, bias reduction, and linear model. Also in 1960s, the field of information retrieval (IR) made its contribution in the form of clustering techniques and similarity measures. At these time techniques were applied to text document, but they would later be utilized when mining data in databases and other large, distributed data sets (Dunham, 2003). In 1997, Connecticut-based Gartner Group report has mentioned about data mining and artificial intelligence are at the top five ranking of major technology areas that will clearly have a main crash transversely the whole scope of business unit within the incoming three to five years. Presently, data mining techniques and tools are being prolonged to the variety of areas. For instance, the data mining tools like intelligent text-mining system will extract the text waste pertinent to user queries. The above is the process of how the data is transport to database and data warehouse and selection process by using data mining techniques and technology. And then it show us how the information form by the translating the data to be deploy in business. Approaches of data warehousing and data mining in various industries The industry of finance, sales and marketing, administration and others should see information as corporate source but the many local narrow systems that held that information simply did not give way the incorporated commercial viewpoint that was required. (Inmon, 2007) Even though operational data is a greater asset to the organisation, it seemed data is usually not making use to its full capable. Therefore, data warehouse basically is to enable users appropriate access to breaking apart and complete view of the organisation, supporting forecasting and decision-making process at the managerial stage. Additionally, data warehouse can achieve information consistency by carry data from dissimilar data foundations into centre of database. Users from different department for instances, can view the data from consistent single one place repository. The layer of data in data warehouse makes the information consistent by enable data around the data warehouse to be describe in business terms as against to using database terminology. The establishment of data that enforce how business terms are declared or calculated are also defined in the metadata layer and then served to the users. Because of the data in the data warehouse is non-volatile but it must be d esign to adapt the changes periodically. It is because terminologies use in business cannot run from changes. Mannino and Walter (2004) in their study about the refreshment of data warehouse stated that data warehouse refreshment is a complex process comprising many tasks, such as extraction, transformation, integration, cleaning, key management, history management, and loading. This study is base on interviewed of 13 organisations and the author conclude that daily refresh during nonbusiness hours were the most common policy. Sometimes data warehouse is not fully utilized by organisation or it being used by company but not all departments. In a case studied by Payton (2005) conclude that there are three factors why data warehouse is disappointed them. It is because; marketings lack of trust in the data in CDW (Corporate data warehouse); marketings low perceived quality of the data; and marketings perceived lack of incorporation of their needs in the design of the data warehouse and data warehouse interface. Data mining in the industries like information provider as library involved in digital libraries gain benefits from it as they found the method to classify information automatically and apply new way to clustering the subject called MetaCombined the project. Besides database, data mining can be useful in a variety data types like text, spatial data, temporal data, images, and other complex data. Data warehousing and data mining in telecommunication The telecommunication industry is fast fitting the main user of high quantity information system. The problem faced by telecommunication industry is the generation of information which is too fast and in tremendous condition. The difficulties occur when a user, either a manager or high executive, needs access to stored information. If the time is not the issue to search what they want in that kind of stored data where they put in different places, it will not be an issue at all but time limitation is consuming. For instance, in order to produce a report regarding subscriber, an executive need to extract the data, do some analysis, and some other step to make it presentable to their officer. What else can enhance all this besides technology? The exact question to ask is; what is the technology that can be very helpful in this situation? The answer is through the application of data warehousing and data mining. In real case studied by Papaiacovous, Bramblet, and Burgess (n.d) in a paper titled Data Warehouse: A telecommunication Business Solution; they described about the difficulties to produce report. They then design personalized systems which exceed the traditional borders of data warehousing systems by assembling and keeping only important data, analyzing and transforming the data, and then summarizing and rearranging it in according to the demands of the user. Another interesting article by Gomez (1998), expressed the hope that cellular companies and other communications firms to strongly consider data warehousing as a way to achieve competitive advantage. The author also reviews new way to data warehousing that have established successful in compliant concrete business benefits. Service providers realize due to the competition in the marketplace, they need to provide the best for their customer or risk to lose them. It is because customer can simply change their telecommunication service provider if they are not satisfied with their current provider. So the provider must get the knowledge in customers hand about what they want actually. After all the data about the customer are collected via online and phone survey, a data warehouse can enhance the executive to analyze and segments customer into groups by their product usage patterns, demographic characteristics, etc. Telecommunications companies produce tremendous quantity of data. These data consist of call detail data, which describes the calls that cross the telecommunication networks; network data, which explain the position of the hardware and software components in the network, and customer data. Data mining can be used to uncover useful information buried within these data sets. Telecommunication companies might counter fraud from customer that intends to use the service without paying for it. It happens when the users register and manipulate the registration information. The most regular way for identifying fraud is to construct a profile of customers calling behaviour and compare recent activity against this behaviour. Thus, this data mining application relies on deviation detection. The calling behaviour is captured by summarizing the call detail records for a customer. Here is the issue on data mining. In the customer case study by the company ECtel n order to sell their data mining product for fraud detection called FraudView noted that selling data mining product to a telecommunication provider has been traditionally difficult because they dont have data mining experts on staff who can work conventional data mining tools. Additionally, there are many ways to run away from paying for telecommunication services, from stealing phone card to bypassing phone circuitry. ECtel created FraudView, the solution that uses SPSS Inc.s advanced data mining workbench, which enable the detection of telecommunications fraud in real time. Data mining in telecommunication industries is not limited to detect fraud only but it also can be used as network fault isolation, marketing or customer profiling, etc. This is owing to the three main sources of telecommunication data which are call detail, network, and customer data. Data warehouse and data mining in financial services How a retail bank can truly understand and predict its customers needs to the point where it can design product and services that suit those needs? One way of looking at customers can be from the standpoint of channel usage. In the UKs Llyods Bank/TSB merger, data were sourced from both their data warehouse, and then used to segment the customer base by service channel usage. Customers were allocated to segment on their usage of the following channels: ATMs, automated (direct debits/standing orders), cards (credit card and debit) and telephone (Peppard, 2000). Financial institutions struggle with the large amount of data on every transaction deal. Data warehouse helps financial service organisations to analyse large, complex, and rapidly growing data volumes in a quicker way for better decision making and faster speed back to the market. Fundamentals of data mining in finance are coming from the need to forecast multidimensional time series with high level of noise, accommodate specific efficiency criteria, make coordinated multiresolution forecast, and also incorporate a stream of text signals as input data for forecasting models (Kovalerchuck Vityaev, 2002 ). As noted by Kovalerchuck Vitayaev, four main reason why data mining need to be implemented in finance is because the emergence of high volume databases such as commercial data warehouse and computer automated data recording; advances in computer technology such as faster and bigger computer engines and parallel architectures; fast access to vast amounts of data, and the ability to apply computationally intensive statistically methodology to these data. Data mining is used to forecast the target variable, performing the contribution varies in percent within todays closing price and the price five days later, along with next days prediction. Data warehouse and data mining in health service In healthcare there is not much transaction as business environment. The data is about outpatient, visits to doctor office, procedure and so forth. Instead of numerical data, healthcare has textual description if the different medical counters. And there is a little bit problems here, where the technology that own a old method of data warehouse is created to manage process of transacting data that is very conquered by arithmetical information. When textual, non-transactional information is come across, the old method data warehouse technology nowadays is simply at a defeat to handle healthcare information. (Inmon, 2007). Then, if the data is not a number but a textual; it must be kept with different understanding of phrase. It just likes a different language. In order to be standardized, there has to be creation of same vocabulary for instance, with the purpose to gain understanding for all. Then it can be kept in the data warehouse. In a case study written by Kumar and Raval (n.d), they traced a large global pharmaceutical, which has a huge data of clinical trials for a number of drugs projects. Due to data collection and analyses operations that are broadening across the world, it is harder to implement data standards. Even harder to enforce was the programming and validation standards that are required of pharmaceutical companies. Primarily, a data warehouse is an operational middle ground and disparate and incompatible to a big quantity of systems put together to diverse collection from end user platform. In another case, Whiting (2001) reported a healthcare name Intermountain Health that used data warehouse to make an analysis handling provided to its cardiovascular patients for five years. From the result, it improves service provided after the patients return home. These are the data mining in healthcare and insurance where it can give beneficial such as providing claims analysis, it means determine which medical procedure are claimed together. It helps in predicting which customer will buy new policies and can identify behaviour pattern or risky customer and also prevent fraud. Data warehouse and data mining in retail industry The challenge in retailer business actually is inundate of data, the battle of data and expired data. To cope with these challenges, many retailers are building unified repositories of data known as data warehouse. In the early implementation of data warehousing technology in 1990s, the retail business has gained benefits of practical data warehouse. From the daily historical sales reporting database created over past few years ago, retailer can expanded the use of analytical systems to support and produce vital decision. The retail industry is going through a transformation. Data warehouse enable retailers to carry out on their major products, including activities such as inventory replacement, purchasing, and vendor management across multiple other multiple. Financial planning, adjusting for stock outs to seed a top-down financial plan provides all of the data necessary to support well-organized process for the confirmation of invoice accuracy to strategy-based pricing solution. Simple application that can implement the concept of data mining for retail industries are SQL server 2008 and Microsoft Office Excel 2007. To stay competitive, retailer must understand not only current consumer behaviour but must also be able to predict future consumer behaviour. Accurate prediction and an understanding of customer behaviour can help retailers keep customers, improve sales, and extend the relationship with their customers. SQL server 2008 provide predictive analysis through data mining and Microsoft Excel 2007 offer data mining capabilities that can help retailers make better decision. The application that is common for business retail in data mining such as market basket analysis, fraud detection, database marketing, sales forecasting, and also merchandise planning and allocation. Data mining is so beneficial in retailer industries! Recommendations In the business world a transaction is repeated again and again and many of them deal with data in numerical. The same activity repeats with different customers and different figures. To release from this mess, data warehouse and data mining provide solution. Even though data warehouse and data mining is a strategic investment to the business world but it can be risky without a proper understanding of the concept. Governance or control is important to support the implementation of data warehouse and data mining. There must be a proper standard to ensure compatibility in processing the data especially for textual data used in the health industry. There should also be a policy and to manage the data warehouse. It is highly recommended that to be successful in the implementation of data warehouse or/and data mining, an organisations are required to have extensive or comprehensive knowledge about the data in their company. This is to guarantee that a well structured data warehouse can be constructed. A well structured data warehouse consequently will help organisation to exploit via data mining the data that they have. Organisation should also know what exactly they want to implement in their organisation so that the right tools for data mining can be used. And finally, a strong support from top management is important to deploy data warehouse and data mining because the investment on these is not cheap. Conclusion Insufficient of data is no longer a trouble but lack of ability to breed valuable information from data is the issue today. The answer for those issues is through the implementation of data warehouse and the power to use data mining techniques and tools. Nevertheless, the realisation and the awareness of data warehouse and data mining in the organisation should take into consideration many aspects regardless of what industries. The aspects include support of the top management, understanding of the data needed by the organisation, governance and policy, the right design of the data warehouse, and the right tools or techniques for data mining. Bibliography Dunham, M.H. (2003). Data mining introductory and advanced topics. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc. Kovalerchuk, B., Vityaec, E. (2002). Data mining in finance advances in relational hybrid methods. USA: Kluwer Academic Publisher. Wang, J. (2003). Data mining opportunities and challenges. USA : Idea Group Publishing. Keng Siau. (2003). Advanced Topics in database research. USA : Idea Group Publishing. M. Kumar Sagar., Raval, H. (n.d). Data warehousing in pharmaceutical and healthcare: an industry perspective. Retrieved January 10, 2010 from: http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/sugi24/Dataware/p115-24.pdf Mannino, V. M., Walter, Z. (2006). A framework for a data warehouse refresh policies. Decision Support System, 42, 121-143. Retrieved January 10, 2010 from: www.sciencedirect.com Syncort Inc. (2010). Business drivers and enabling technologies for clickstream data warehouse initiatives [White Paper]. Retrieved from www.syncsort.com/clickstream Balog, K. (2004). An intelligent support system for developing text classifies. Retrieved January 10, 2010 from: http://balog.hu/itm/thesis.pdf Sang Jun Lee , Keng Siau. (2001). A review of data mining techniques. Industrial Management and Data System. 101/1, 41-46. Retrieved January 10, 2010 from: http://www.emerald-library.com/ft Karthik Jayashankar. (2007). Data mining tools for analytics application in retail. Information Management Online. Retrieved January 10, 2010 from: http://www.information-management.com/white_papers/10000547-1.html Hackney, D. (1999). A data warehouse is subject-oriented. Are they any rules to go about defining the subjects? Information Management Online. Retrieved January 25, 2010 from: http://www.information-management.com/news/1331-1.html Adelman, S., Moss, L, (1999). Data warehouse goals and objectives. Part 3: Long term objectives. Information Mangement Online. Retrieved January 25, 2010 from: http://www.information-management.com/issues/19991101/1564-1.html Bertman, J. (2005). Dispelling myth and creating legends for your e-biz intelligence warehouse. [Power Point Slides]. Retrieved from www.dgigusa.com Luja ´n-Mora, S., Trujillo, J., Il-Yeol Song. (2006). A UML profile for multidimensional modeling in data warehouse. Data Knowledge Engineering, 59, 725-769. Retrieved January 25, 2010 from: http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezaccess.library.uitm.edu.my/science?_ob=MImg_imagekey=B6TYX-4HWXJXG-1-2R_cdi=5630_user=6533825_pii=S0169023X0500176X_orig=search_coverDate=12%2F31%2F2006_sk=999409996view=cwchp=dGLbVtz-zSkWAmd5=35d7b25297f3ee013bded90b43ecf5bbie=/sdarticle.pdf Shin-Yuan Hung, Yen, D., C., Hsiu-Yu Wang. (2006). Applying data mining to telecom churn management. Expert System with Application, 31, 515-524. Retrieved February 12, 2010 from: www.elsevier.com/locate/eswa Weiss, G., M. (n.d). Data mining in telecommunications. Retrieved February 12, 2010 from: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.60.955rep=rep1type=pdf Lamont, J. (2000). Datawarehousing in the telecommunications industry. KMworld Magazine. Retrieved February 12, 2010 from: http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/Editorial/Feature/Data-warehousing-in-the-telecommunications-industry-9153.aspx Gomez, J. (1998). Data warehousing for the telecom industry. Information Management Online. Retrieved February 12, 2010 from: http://www.information-management.com/issues/19981201/260-1.html Papaiacovou, D., Bramblett, L., D., Burgess, J. (n.d). Data warehouse: A telecommunicaitons Business Solution. Retrieved February 12, 2010 from: http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/sugi22/DATAWARE/PAPER135.PDF Thompson, B. (2005). Information and communications technology and industrial property. Journal of Property and Investment Finance, 23 (6), 506-5015. Peppard, J. (2000). Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in financial service. European Management Journal, 18 (3), 312-327. Rogers, G., Joyner, E. (n.d). Mining your data for health care quality improvement. Retrieved February 12, 2010 from: http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/sugi22/DATAWARE/PAPER135.PDF Silver, M., Hua-Ching Su., Dolins, S. B. (n.d). Case study: how to apply data mining techniques in a healthcare data warehouse. Retrieved February 12, 2010 from: http://www.himss.org/content/files/jhim/15-2/him15208.pdf Bach, M., P., Cosic, D. (2008). Data mining usage in health care management: literature survey and decision tree application. Med Glas, 5 (1), 57-64. Retrieved February 12, 2010 from: http://www.ljkzedo.com.ba/M8_10.pdf Inmon, B. (2007). Data warehousing in a healthcare environment. Administration Newsletter. Retrieved February 12, 2010 from: http://www.tdan.com/view-articles/4584 McEachern, C., Stern, L, Bell, L. (1998). Data warehousing in the health care industry Three perspective. Information Management Online. Retrieved February 12, 2010 from: http://www.information-management.com/issues/19980301/696-1.html Whiting, R. (2001). Data analysis to health cares rescue. IT helps health-care group identify best clinical practices. Infrormation Week. Retrieved February 12, 2010 from: http://www.information-management.com/issues/19980301/696-1.html Haisten, M. (1999). The next stage in data warehouse evolution, part 1. Information Management Online. Retrieved February 12, 2010 from: http://www.information-management.com/news/946-1.html Ayre, L., B. (2006). Data mining for information professionals. Retrieved February 12, 2010 from: http://techessence.info/files/Ayre_DataMiningForInformationProfessionals_June2006.pdf Ross, D. (2005). Retail data warehousing the-state-of-the-art. BeyeNetwork. Retrived February 12, 2010 from: http://www.b-eye-network.com/view/769 Adams, M. (2008). Microsoft SQL server predictive analytics for the retail industry. Retrieved February 12, 2010 from: http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:kCA9HUfe0VcJ:download.microsoft.com/download/6/9/d/69d1fea7-5b42-437a-b3ba-a4ad13e34ef6/PredAnalyticsRetail.docx+Predictive+Analytics+for+the+Retail+Industry+SQL+Server+Technical+Articlecd=1hl=enct=clnkgl=my Russom, P. (2009). Next generation data warehouse platforms. 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Qualitative Research in Geography: An Overview

Qualitative Research in Geography: An Overview Geography seems to be one of those disciplines that shifts its interest from one perspective to another without necessarily changing its central research questions. Qualitative methods have long been used within the discipline of human geography. However, it was not until recently that they have become sufficiently established that some consider them to have gone too far (Marshall, 2001), as the last decade has undoubtedly seen an expansion in qualitative work in both terms of the types of work and the topics addressed. This essay will address the fact that we have moved from a period when papers were prefaced with legitimisations of qualitative work to a time when we are seeing debates within qualitative methods over establishing orthodox approaches and standards. This will be done thorough a reflection on current re-evaluations of the most common methods – mainly interviewing and ethnography –and where they are developing. Qualitative approaches have long had a strong association with cultural, social and radical geographies, in part as a reaction to quantified social geography. For example, in terms of the geographies of gender, feminist critiques of masculinist approaches were picked up and an argument about empathy amplified the concern with qualitative methods. This also could be reversed, labelling qualitative work with a feminist `softness as opposed to hard science. This debate though, has matured, from quick over-assumptions that qualitative work was generally `soft, to considering its weaknesses and strengths in a more balanced fashion (Raju et al., 2000). Qualitative research has also had to wrestle with the argument that simply listening to, giving voice to and representing the silenced is not enough. There is now a maturity about qualitative methods in geography, but also that there comes with this a certain conventionality of approaches. In delving deeper into this discussion it is important to consider the continued debates about the framing of qualitative, and especially ethnographic, work, after the so-called ‘crisis of representation’ and work in the performative vein, as qualitative research is often torn between a constructivist approach and a longing to convey a ‘real’ sense of the field. Geography has followed anthropology through these debates on ethnography and representation, responding to the question ‘how is unruly experience transformed into an authoritive written account?’ (Besio and Butz, 2004: 433). There has been a backlash against what are described as ‘excesses’ of reflexivity in some responses to this question. For instance, Bourdieu (2003) called for a renewed ‘objectivity’ via structural reflexivity in a participant observation. He argues for a personal understanding of reflexivity, to address the academic and social structures that drive research agendas, which for geography in non-western settings would show how ‘academic research practices †¦ have relied extensively on remnant colonial discourses and structures of domination for access to research subjects, efficacy of data collection and legitmation’ (Bourdieu, 2003: 288). Katz points out that ‘in the field and in their private readings, ethnographers share a culture of evaluation which is masked by the fractious, even righteously indignant commentary that characterises rhetoric about ethnographic writing’ (2002: 64). Katz argues that ‘as ethnographers, we must do more than claim: we need to show’ (2002: 68). However, Besio and Butz (2004) offer an alternate reflexivity, taking Marie Louse Pratt’s definition of autoethnography. Where rather than being about reflecting on one’s own practice it refers to the subject or dominated people’s self-representation to colonisers’ terms while remaining faithful to their own self-understandings. This tradition is not just framing local knowledges; Gold (2002) looks to a globalised religious movement that is using its self-representations and indeed academic work in its self-constitution. This makes the important point of not separating ethnography from writing – not privileging oral research over written material but rather seeing productions of various representations as moments for situated reading and interpretations by all actors. If we thus move to models of representation as intervention rather than corresponding to prior reality, we might look for new ways of producing and judging truth. Besio and Butz (2004) provide their own critique of transcultural representation. They point out that this is not an automatic process but something that has to be worked at and may only be achieved in specific circumstances. The apocalyptic tones of this debate seem particular to anthropology with its habitual [re-] definition of fieldwork as residential participant observation – as opposed to the more plural practices of qualitative methods in geography. These reflexive studies raise questions about how the usual methods fit these new topics. Meth (2003) suggests that reflective, discursive diaries first offer a ‘discontinuous writing’, allowing people to change their minds and priorities, meaning that they are not dominated by what happened in the morning before an interview. Moreover, they offer different and possibly easier routes for respondents to express themselves, especially their emotions, and reflect upon their own world-views. Alternately, Harper (2002) provides a history of the ‘photo-elicitation’ interview where pictures push people’s normal frames of reference to form the basis for deep discussions of values. The use of pictures in presenting material raises the issue of how visual and verbal relate to each other, whether they could speak to different ways of knowing rather than just being treated as different kinds of evidence (Rose, 2003). As Basio and Butz (2004: 444) note, the ‘visual in ethnographic has generally not been used intrinsically for interpreting and representing ethnographic data and culture’ but either as just more data or subordinated to a textualising metaphor. Whatmore (2003: 89) notes ‘the spoken and written word constitute the primary form of ‘data’’, whereas the world speaks in many voices through many different types of things that ‘refuse to be reinvented as univocal witnesses’. This comes back to the heart of a new kind of programmatic writing which is ‘suggestive of nothing less than a drive towards a new methodological avant garde that will radically refigure what it is to do research’ (Latham, 2 003: 2000). It is normally at this point, as we engage artistic approaches, that policy-orientated researchers voice concerns about a turn away from commitments to engaging ordinary people and offering them a voice. This seems to me to be a false opposition of committed, ‘real world’ versus ‘inaccessible’, theoretical research. It might be a good idea to end this report by returning our attention to the rich yet ambiguous and messy world of doing qualitative research. As Thrift notes: ‘Through fieldwork is often portrayed as a classical colonial encounter in which the fieldworker lords it over her/his respondents, the fact of the matter is that it usually does not feel much like that at all. More often it is a curious mixture of humiliations and intimidations mixed with moments of insight and even enjoyment’ Thrift, 2003: 106), where knowledge is coproduced ‘by building fragile and temporary commonplaces’ (2003: 108, see also Tillman-Healy, 2003). This seems to be a good summary of the qualitative work currently being done in human geography. It remains inspired by ethical and political concerns, and practitioners are deeply concerned by the moral and political implications of their work. Some of the old taken-for-granteds about fieldwork have been replaced, but it is instructive to wonder what questions have not been asked. While researchers have struggled to populate their work with real subjects rather than research objects, there have never been fewer attempts to talk about materialities in practice if not in topic. However, it does not seem that this entails a rejection of work that has been, is being and will be done, nor a turn from engaged and practical work; but that it does raise issues about the investment in specific notions of what ‘research’ is, what evidence is and how the two relate to each other. References Basio, K. Butz, D. (2004) Autoethnography: a limited endorsement. Professional Geographer, 56, 432 – 438. Bourdieu, P. (2003) Participant observation. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, NS9, 281 – 294. Gold, L. (2002) Positionality, worldview and geographical research: a personal account of a research journey. Ethics, Place and Environment, 5, 223 – 237. Harper, D. (2002) Talking about pictures: a case for photo-elicitation. Visual Studies, 17, 13 – 26. Katz, J. (2001) From how to why: on luminous description and casual reference in ethnography (part 2). Ethnography, 3, 63 – 90. Latham, A. (2003) Research, performance, and doing human geography: some reflections on the diary-photograph, diary-interview method. Environment and Planning A, 35, 1993 – 2018. Marshall, G. (2001) Addressing a problem of capacity. Social Sciences, 47, 1 2. Meth, P. (2003) Entries and omissions: using solicited diaries in geographical research. Area, 35, 195 – 205. Raju, S., Atkins, P., Townsend, J. Kumar, N. (2000) Atlas of women and men in India, London, International Books. Rose, G. (2003) On the need to ask how, exactly, is geography visual? Antipode, 35, 212 – 221. Thrift, N. (2003) Practising ethics, in Whatmore, S. Using social theory, London, Sage, 105 – 121. Tillman-Healy, L. (2003) Friendship as method. Qualitative Inquiry, 9, 729 – 749.

Contaminated Motives Essay -- essays research papers fc

Contaminated Motives The very essence of money creates an urge of human nature to obtain it, and have an excess of it. Fame and money go hand in hand; if you have one, you have the other. One also must understand that money equals power; people aspire to money. When people come into wealth and begin rising to the top of the social ladder, history dictates they usually become corrupted, and sometimes compromise their personal values. Do they believe this is for the common good, or merely for personal benefit? In the novels Great Expectations and The Great Gatsby, the protagonists, Pip and Jay Gatsby respectively, believe their prospers are used for the common good, but in reality many values are being compromised. The clichà ©, “Money cannot buy happiness'; exemplifies the opposite of what Pip and Gatsby believe, in that both utilize their money in what they believe to be a valiant attempt to bring the women they love into their lives. Along the way to achieving this “goal';, they violated et hics, which in turn changed them as people. Although money serves as a driving force for individuals, it does not counter the negative effects that are induced during the process. Therefore, money is the root of all evil.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Despite the two novels possessing slight differences, they coincide in many aspects. When Pip acquires the money from the unknown benefactor, he moves away under Jaggers guidance and barely ever returns to his hometown. In the beginning, his reasons for coming back were to visit Joe, Biddy, and Miss Havisham, but eventually he changes and seeing the people previously so important to him appears to become a chore. This is ironic because not even a year ago he looked up to Joe, and regarded him as a father, now he refuses to see him on account of Joe being a common blacksmith. This is one of the first changes that we see in Pip after his knowledge that he will have “great expectations'; and become educated. Pip’s entire reason for becoming a gentleman is to attract Estella, and make her return the feelings of love that he holds for her. Ultimately, it appears that Pip is willing to cast away his old life and friends, to become a gentleman and, in essence , obtain Estella. This perfectly illustrates an immense change in Pip when he compromises his beliefs to... ...scholarships from all over the country. Today, we see his persistent acts to be different via tattoos, hair dyes, and many antics. The point is that Dennis Rodman strived to be uncommon just like Pip. The only difference is, they achieved their goals in vastly different ways and the results were extremely different.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In both cases, money appeared to be a catalyst in order to achieve public stature. Pip and Gatsby utilized money and prestige as a means of obtaining the women they desired. Everybody wishes to be rich and famous at one point in life, but few actually achieve it. History imparts us with evidence that money cannot buy happiness, but rather can corrupt peoples morals, and ethics. In conclusion, happiness that lies within is far greater than any superficial, temporary happiness that money can purchase. 1228 words Works Cited Dickens, Charles. “Great Expectations'; Penguin Classics, 1996 Fitzgerald, F. Scott. “The Great Gatsby'; Matthew J. Brucolli and Samuel J. Lanahan, 1991 Downey Jr., Robert. http://mrshowbiz.go.com/people/robertdowneyjr/index.html Rodman, Dennis. http://mrshowbiz.go.com/people/dennisrodman/index.html

Jacques Coustean :: Biography People Coustean Essays

Jacques Coustean The country of France has contributed many brilliant cultural figures over their nation’s history. There is a long and complicated history of rulers, musicians, artists, and philosophers. But what name was the first to come to mind when I began to search for an artist from my ancestor’s country of origin? None other than Jacques Cousteau, the red-knit-cap-wearing, fishy-loving filmmaker who pioneered underwater photography. Through the use of documentary, Cousteau brought up from the deep whole new worlds unseen by the public until he entered the scene. Jacques-Yves Cousteau had a life-long affinity for water, even since childhood. Born on 1910, young Jacques always enjoyed swimming, and when he decided to go into the French armed forces at the age of 20, the Navy was the obvious choice (Cousteau Society). Great artists and scientists alike often speak of a moment of inspiration, one specific instance where an idea strikes the brain with such force that it must be carried out. Cousteau speaks of how fortunate he was to have just such a moment, as a young naval officer. He was swimming in the Mediterranean using goggles, when he became mesmerized by his new found ability to look with equal ease at the structures both above and below the water’s surface (Tebbe). If he could combine his love of the aquatic with his affinity for film, he could provide the whole world with goggles to view the sea. Eight years later, Jacques Cousteau made his first underwater film, â€Å"10 Fathoms Down.† Incredibly, the movie was shot entirely with breath-hold diving. Naturally, this greatly limited the scope of the project. Because of his desire to explore the depths with more ease and for longer periods of time, Cousteau and Emile Gagnan developed the Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, or scuba, as it is commonly known (Cousteau Society). This invention revolutionized sea research and exploration, and opened up a world of possibilities in the realm of underwater filming/photography that Cousteau would come to master. Over the course of his lifetime, Jacques Cousteau was instrumental in the creation of 144 theatrical and television films and authored 50 books. The pivotal film that launched Cousteau into the public sphere and first introduced an international audience to the wonders of the deep was â€Å"The Silent World.† Based on the critically acclaimed book Cousteau had written three years earlier, the film was released in 1956. It was the first color film using underwater footage, and the global response was tremendous.

The Two Fridas

Below is a free essay on â€Å"Frida Kahlo's The Two Fridas† from Anti Essays, your source for free research papers, essays, and term paper examples. Frida Kahlo was one of the most influential and well-known Mexican artists during her time. Her popularity was probably so large due to her ability to instill intense and bold emotions into her paintings. People responded to her style very well, and her work spread throughout Mexico, America, and the world. Kahlo’s bold style came from her strong personality and her interactions in the world.She often included her own life struggles or emotions in her artwork. The Two Fridas, or Las Dos Fridas, shows Frida Kahlo’s bold style and her use of it to communicate intense personal emotions. The first step in any art criticism is to observe and analyze the visual facts. The visual facts, in this particular case, are in the actual painting The Two Fridas. The painting is a self-portrait containing two women that are symbolic of Frida Kahlo. The women have completely different appearances, but are linked in this picture.The women are sitting side-by-side in identical sitting formation. The two are also physically connected through the connected vein. The surroundings and accessories of the women look to be that of separation and each respective woman’s (or physiological side’s) style. The sky behind the women displays a dark and eerie sky. The woman on the left is wearing a formal white European-style dress. The dress is very proper and has the characteristics of sophisticated attire. The dress is very frilly and has an eloquent pattern on the upper portion of the dress.The dress covers the majority of her body and the woman’s skin is paler than that of the second woman. Both attributes listed above point in the direction of a high-class individual. Another high-class and proper property shown by the woman on the left is her hair and make-up. She has very neat and tied down hair. He r make-up is very accurately and crisply put on. Overall, the woman on the left is very presentable in high-class society. The woman on the right has a very different appearance. This woman†¦

Examine what is meant by situation ethics Essay

Joseph Fletcher an Anglican theologian was the main person to challenge the view that ethics and morality have to be based around laws and rules. He developed three ways of making moral decisions, these were: 1. The antinomian way 2.The legalistic way 3. The situational way The antinomian way was a way of making decisions without any laws or principles. It is what feels right at that particular time and on no bases whatsoever, only on how it feels to you. This was also where existentialism arose. Existentialism being a principle developed by a 19th century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. His theory was that the best way to make decisions was for each individual to find their own unique bases for morality; the foundation for his argument was that no objective or rational bases could be grounded in moral decisions. So the antinomian approach is therefore that in every existential moment or unique situation the situation itself provides the ethical solution. The legalistic approach being at the other end of the scale. This is a way of making decisions with regard to laws or rules. The legalist will live their life in accordance with a set of guidelines or rules. For example Jews will abide by the rules of the Torah and make their decisions primarily from this source. Joseph Fletcher suggested a third way of making moral decisions and this was called the situational way, which consists of a compromise between antinomianism and legalism. In the situational approach every decision is made on one universal principle and that is love. In situation ethics his view was to look at each situation individually. His main line of argument was that the only moral principle that could be applied to all situations is that of love, or: ‘To do whatever is the most loving thing.’ (Fletcher quoted by Jenkins, Ethics and religion p47). Whereas Natural law theorists ask what the law states, Fletcher asks what is the best possible decision to help others and provide love in doing so. Therefore in his view this is not a law in itself, and its not dictating what should be done in any particular situation but rather an approach that informs moral choice. In other words you should always have someone’s best interest at heart. Another one of Fletchers arguments was that Christians are meant to love and care for each other and God is also portrayed to be all-loving. As this is the case for Christians shouldn’t morality also be based around this theory ‘to do the most loving thing’? The Christian perspective like many other religions is based around the idea of natural law. The natural law ethic arose in the 4th century BCE by Aristotle. The Christian theologian and philosopher Thomas Aquinas further developed the ideas first put forward by Aristotle. He argued that the natural purpose of the world is found in God. He outlined natural law in the following way by suggesting that all people should follow the law of God. He also believed that ‘Human purpose’ was to ‘reproduce, to learn, to live harmoniously in society and to worship God.’ (Jenkins p26, quoted by www.faithnet.freeserve.co.uk/situation_ethics.htm). His ultimate belief was that Natural law describes not only how things are, but also how they ought to be furthermore this happens when things fulfil their natural purpose. Natural law is only concerned with what seems to be the ‘natural’ course of action for humans to take and this is where the conflict arises with situation ethics. There are many circumstances where what appears to be ‘natural’ doesn’t appear to be ‘loving’. This is why theologians such as Joseph Fletcher don’t agree with the natural law ethic as it causes much controversy. For example the Catholic Church undertook the natural law approach to guide them in terms of their sexual behaviour. They saw the natural purpose for sexual intercourse to be procreation, so therefore anything that proves to be a barrier to this end result is not allowed i.e. contraception. When developing an approach to Situation ethics Fletcher suggested 4 working principles and 6 fundamental principles to outline his ideas. The 4 working principles are: 1.Pragmatism- being ideas and theories that have to work in practice, to be right of good it has to produce a desirable outcome that satisfies love’s demand. The main emphasis is that the practical course of the action should be motivated by love. 2.Relativism- To be relative, on has to be relative to something, as situation ethics maintains it has to relate to love and should always respond to love in each situation. Fletcher says it ‘relativises the absolute; it does not absolutise the relative’ (Fletcher quoted from Vardy; Puzzle of ethics p126). Meaning each absolute can be made relative to love but relativism cannot be applied to a concrete situation as love acts differently in different situations, it depends on how its applied and this varies with each circumstance. 3.Positivism- this is accepting to act in love by faith rather than by reason, once faith is declared it is supported by logic. In situation ethics positing a belief in God as love or a higher good and then reasoning what is required in any situation to support that belief. 4.Personalism- This is the desire to put people not laws first. It is always what is the best to help a person that makes a decision a good one. As God is meant to be personal therefore morality should also be person-centred. However It is the main framework of situation ethics that is outlined by the 6 fundamental principles. These are: 1. There is only one thing that is intrinsically good- love. Actions are good if they are fulfilling love by helping them but reversibly they are bad if they hurt people. No single act in itself is right or wrong it always depends on the situation the circumstance occurs in. Love always decides the actions that are good or bad. 2. The ruling principle of Christian love is agape love. Agape love is self-giving love and this doesn’t require anything in return. The overriding principle of decision-making is love. 3. Love and justice are the same. In Fletchers words ‘love and justice are the same thing, for justice is love distributed.’ (Fletcher quoted by William Bailay p73). He also claims that ‘justice is love at work in the community in which human beings live.’ (Vardy, Puzzle of ethics p128). 4. ‘Thout shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’ (William Temple quoted by Vardy, puzzle of ethics p123). As the neighbour is a member of the human family therefore love wills the neighbours good. Love is practical and not selective. Christian love is said to be unconditional so we should show love to everyone and that includes are enemies. 5. Only the end result justifies the means, love is the end- never a means to something else. Love can justify anything in situation ethics as long as the end result satisfies love. 6. Love’s decisions are made in the circumstance of each situation and not prescriptively. Humans have a responsibility of freedom. No one is bound by laws, so with this responsibility comes the notion ‘to do the most loving thing’ and to apply this to every situation. ‘Fletcher claims that it is a mistake to generalise. You can’t say ‘Is it ever right to lie to your family?’ The answer must be, ‘I don’t know, give me an example.’ A concrete situation is needed, not a generalisation. ‘It all depends’ may well be the watchword of the Situationist.’ (Puzzle of ethics, Vardy p.130) There are many moral dilemmas when given certain situations, and taking the situational view we are faced with the duty to do the most loving thing possible, and to serve agape love. Taking an example from William Bailay, on a wilderness trial to Kentucky many people lost their lives to Indians who hunted them down. In one case there was a woman who carried her child with her and her child was crying. The baby’s crying was betraying the rest of the camp as the cries were leading the Indians to them. The mother clung to her child and as a result the whole camp was found and they were all killed. In another case a Negro woman and her party found themselves in the same situation, their lives were in danger, as they too would be found out if the baby continued to cry. However the Negro woman strangled her child to stop its cries, and as a result the whole party escaped. How can we tell which action was love? The Mother who kept her baby and brought death all, or that of the mother who killed her own child to save the lives of her family and friends? This is a perfect example of the type of decisions that situation ethics confronts us with. In situation ethics there is no definite right or wrong, it has to be applied by each circumstance. Likewise there is no intrinsic value, no goodness or badness held purely in an action itself. Situation ethics says it all depends on the situation and whether or not it fulfils love. Goodness and badness are not properties of moral actions they are predicates. This demonstrates one of the key aspects and an advantage for situation ethics. Sometimes morality can be somewhat restricted however in taking the situational approach there are no moral rules. If someone with morals can only abide to duty they cant go outside their own boundaries. This is the case in many orthodox religions. Whereas situation ethics maintains that there are no absolutes, you are allowed to go outside certain boundaries if in doing so you are providing the most loving result. Take the Islamic faith for example. Muslims follow the laws of the Koran; one law is ‘do not steel’, which is an absolute. But say if there were a single mother living in the poorer regions of the country who had no money and was struggling to feed her starving children. Would it be right for the mother to let her children starve? Or would it be better for the woman to go against the law and perhaps steel some food in order for them to survive? If the woman followed her religion seriously then it would not be morally right for her to steel and as a result her children lives would be at stake. This is the advantage of situation ethics, it says that words like ‘never’ and ‘absolute’ can’t be used because their will always be exceptions. Another advantage of situation ethics is that people are always put first, it is a personal matter. People are made more important than principles. This goes against the legalistic approach. Where legalism put laws in first place conversely situation ethics makes people the main emphasis. Furthermore we often find that the outside world is constantly changing. As we live in the modern day and age we are on a constant roller coaster of changing situation. As a result of this many religions find it extremely difficult to apply their laws to the modern world. Take the Torah being applied to the modern age or orthodox Jews attempts to conserve laws against modern relativism to be an example. Because situation ethics can change with time this gives it a huge advantage. Situation ethics also makes the important link between love and justice, which is another key aspect and this is shown as the third of the six fundamental principles. To Fletcher justice is love distributed and Justice is love working out its problems. (William Bailay p73) However there have also been many criticisms of Situation Ethics. When referring to the meaning of love, this is sometimes seen to be too general. As love has no definite meaning, it changes according to the situation, it becomes relative, and so it cannot be said that there is only one moral absolute. As there are no specific guidelines for agape love it could be said that it is possible to justify any action. These are dangerous boundaries. The question ‘What might happen if I allow euthanasia once?’ could be asked. It may be hard to know where to draw the line; people all over the place might start killing their grandparents because they are too old†¦in the name of love! Situation ethics sometimes relies on spontaneity, however spontaneity can sometimes be misguided. It may turn out to be irrational and foolish. The abandonment of rules may in turn reduce situation ethics to antinomianism. It may lead to a state of moral flux as rules play an important part in sociological maintenance. It is also been decided that there are certain examples of absolutes. Take rape, child abuse and genocide, these are all examples of absolutes that are wrong and under no circumstance would they be right. You would not be able to justify this with love. It is often quite hard to understand exactly what is meant by the meaning of love. It can be hard to know what they most loving thing to do is. It is also hard to know what the most loving thing is in terms of the consequence. How can we predict all the consequences of an action? This can be shown by euthanasia. Say their was a man who had aids and had only a 5% chance of getting better again, he approached his friend and asked him if he would end his life for him. What happens if he got better? Even if there is only a very tiny chance there is still a chance. The man might suddenly make a recovery and go on to lead a long and prosperous life. How can we predict the consequences? It is also hard when attempting to share love out fairly in a particular situation. This can also be shown by this example of euthanasia; it is hard to know what is the best for the person, friends and family. It might be best for the man but what might be best for him might not necessarily be the most loving thing for the family or their friends. It is also quite hard to view a situation from a totally unbiased perspective. There is a possibility that a decision could be made selfishly with or without realising it but as it’s in the name of love it is justifiable. This again makes the boundary for love very hard to distinguish. It is also questionable as to whether it is possible for all members of society to judge each situations by its merits. A lot of time and energy has to go into the decision this isn’t always accessible to everyone. How practical is situation ethics? Finally on what basis is it possible for the situationist to make moral decisions? What happens when there are no ultimate ethical principles? The situationist is making prejudiced decisions based potentially on personal whims. An example of a danger caused by this can be seen in the actions of Adolf Hitler and his attitude towards the Jews in the Second World War. For those who felt that situation ethics went to far in attempting to set itself free from any conception of law, there is an approach that combines both theories of natural law and of situation ethics. This approach is known as proportionalsim. Proportionalists hold the belief that there are particular situations where moral rules should be abided to unless there is a proportionate reason for not contending with them. This reason would be grounded in the situation itself. In this way the primary precepts of natural law could be accepted (e.g. killing, stealing, lying etc) as the ground rules unless there was a sufficient reason for not doing so. Proportionalists hold a clear distinction between moral and non-moral acts. For example proportionalists would say abortion is wrong, but it may be morally right in the circumstances of that situation. However unlike situationalists they say that love does not then make a wrong action right. Furthermore they still incur the same problems that situationalists face in trying to determine what bests serves love in a situation, and on making decisions by selfish means.