Notes Receivables

NOTES RECEIVABLE * Represents claims for which formal instruments of credit are issued as evidence of debt, such as promissory note. The credit instrument normally requires the debtor to pay interest and extends for time periods of 30 days or longer. Notes receivables are considered current asset if they are to be paid within 1 year and non- current if they are expected to be paid after one year. NEGOTIABLE PROMISSORY NOTES * Unconditional promise in writing made by one person to another, signed by the maker, engaging to pay in demand or at the fixed determinable future time a sum certain in money to order or to bearer.An entity owned a tract of land costing P 800,000 and sold the land for P1,000,000. On January 1, 2011 the entity received a 1- year note for 1,000,000 plus interest of 12% compounded annually. Journal Entry: First year: Note receivable1,000,000 Land800,000 Gain on sale of land200,000 # DISHONORED NOTES * Promissory note matures and is not paid. * When the maker of a n ote fails to pay on the due date, the note receivable is considered to be dishonored. A dishonored note is no longer negotiable. Journal Entry: 2012 Jan. 1 Accounts receivable1,120,000 Notes receivable 1,000,000Interest income 120,000 # INITIAL MEASUREMENT * Conceptually, notes receivable shall be measured initially at PRESENT VALUE. * However, SHORT TERM NOTES are measured at FACE VALUE. * The initial measurements of LONG TERM NOTES will depend on whether the notes are INTEREST- BEARING or NONINTEREST- BEARING. INTEREST- BEARING LONG TERM NOTES are measured at FACE VALUE which is actually the present value upon issuance. NONINTEREST- BEARING LONG TERM NOTES are measured at PRESENT VALUE which is the discounted value of the future cash flow using the effective interest rate. SUBSEQUENT MEASUREMENTAmortized Cost * the amount at which the note receivable is measured initially minus principal repayment, plus or minus the cumulative amortization of any difference between the initial car rying amount and the principal maturity amount minus reduction for impairment or uncollectibility. For long-term noninterest-bearing notes: Amortized Cost = present value + amortization of the discount Or Amortized Cost = face value – unamortized unearned interest income Accordingly, only long-term notes receivable will be discussed in conjunction with the present value concept under the following situations: . interest-bearing note b. noninterest bearing note Problem 7-2 â€Å"FATHOM COMPANY† (INTEREST- BEARING NOTE) 2011 Jan. 1Cash1,000,000 Notes Receivable6,000,000 Land5,000,000 Gain on sale of land2,000,000 # Dec. 31 Accrued Interest Receivable720,000 Interest Income720,000 (6,000,000 x 12%) # 2012 Dec 31 Accrued Interest Receivable806,400 Interest Income806,400 # 6,000,000| +| 720,000| =| 6,720,000| | | | *| 12%| | | | | 806,400| 2013 Jan. 1Cash7,526,400 Notes Receivable6,000,000 Accrued Interest Receivable? 1,526,400 #Accrued interest receivable? 2011| | | 720,00 0| 2012| | | 806,400| | | | 1,526,400| Problem 7-3 â€Å"BUG COMPANY† (NONINTEREST- BEARING NOTE 1) 2010 Jan. 1Note receivable600,000 Sales540,000 Unearned interest income 60,000 # DATE| NOTES RECEIVABLE BALANCE| FRACTION| INTEREST INCOME| Dec. 31, 2010| 600,000| 1/2| 30,000| Dec. 31, 2011| 400,000| 1/3| 20,000| Dec. 31, 2012| 200,000| 1/6| 10,000| | 1,200,00| | | Dec. 31Cash200,000 Notes receivable200,000 # Unearned interest income30,000 Interest income30,000 # 2011 Dec. 31Cash200,000Notes receivable200,000 # Unearned interest income20,000 Interest income20,000 # 2012 Dec. 31Cash200,000 Note receivable200,000 # Unearned interest income10,000 Interest income10,000 # PROBLEM 7-4 â€Å"IMPRESS COMPANY† (NONINTEREST- BEARING NOTE 2) 2010 Jan. 1Cash100,000 Note receivable900,000 Sale? 820,540 Unearned interest income? 179,460 # Face value900,000 Present value (300,000*2. 4018)720540 Unearned interest income? 179,460 Present value720,540 Cash received100,000 Sales price? 82 0,540DATE| ANNUAL COLLECTION| INTEREST INCOME| PRINCIPAL| CARRYING AMOUNT| Jan. 1, 2010| | | | 720,540| Dec. 31,2010| 300,000| 86,465| 213,535| 507,005| Dec. 31,2011| 300,000| 60,841| 239,159| 267,846| Dec. 31,2012| 300,000| 32,154| 267,846| ? | Dec. 31Cash300,000 Unearned interest income 86,465 Note receivable300,000 Interest income 86,465 # 2011 Dec. 31Cash300,000 Unearned interest income 60,841 Note receivable300,000 Interest income 60,841 # 2012 Dec. 31Cash300,000 Unearned interest income 32,154 Note receivable300,000 Interest income 32,154 #

Definitions of Tourism Essay

Tourism is a booming industry and a driving force in positive economical, ecological, sustainable, social and cultural developments in several countries around the globe. Its complex nature requires sophisticated management in order to reach its full potential. Most people possess an intuitive and basic understanding of tourism, which focuses on an image of people travelling for recreational purposes, however, tourism, goes far beyond this simplistic view. According to Stear (2005), the area of studying tourism has an apparent lack of substance when it comes to defining the basic terms ‘tourism’ and ‘tourist’. Although the concept of tourism itself has been around for many centuries, the academic study of tourism in the tertiary educational sector is a recent development. There is no single definition of tourism to which everyone adheres. Many definitions have been used over the years, some of which are universal and can be applied to any situation, while others fulfil a specific purpose. This essay aims to define who exactly a ‘tourist’ is and what the term ‘tourism’ means through technical and heuristic definitions from articles written by Stear (2005), Dickman (1997), and McIntosh et al (1995). Throughout the essay definitions from organisations such as the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) will also be drawn upon. The ambiguity of two seemingly simple concepts in theory – who a tourist is and what tourism entails – will be discussed through a range of academic articles, which will address and highlight the strengths, weaknesses and differences between them. The foci and boundaries of each definition will be determined in order to assess their effectiveness. Whilst each definition is unique in their own right, there are also many similarities, which can be noted. Weaver (2010) states that â€Å"the definition of ‘tourism’ is dependent on the definition of the ‘tourist’ and when defining whom exactly is a ‘tourist’, individuals must simultaneously meet certain spatial, temporal and purposive criteria†, which will be discussed below. First and foremost, Stear (2005) defines tourism as â€Å"†¦Tourism is travel and temporary stay, involving at least one night away from the region of a person’s usual home that is undertaken with the major expectation of satisfying leisure needs that are perceived as being more njoyably able to be satisfied by being at places outside of, and qualitatively different to, the home region † (Stear 2005, pg. 8). Stear also has a clear definition of a tourist, which he refers to as â€Å"†¦ A tourist is a person engaging in activities directly associated with present or future travel and temporary stay that involves at least one night away from the region of their usual home that is undertaken with the major expectation of satisfying leisure needs that are perceived as being more enjoyably able to be satisfied by places outside of, and qualitatively different to, the home region. (Stear 2005, pg. 11) A clear fault of Stear’s heuristic definitions of ‘tourism’ and ‘tourist’ is the limitation or restriction of the time period of â€Å"at least one night away†, in which Stear fails to take into account the temporal element of tourism. The notion of how long, if any time at all, that must be spent away from one’s usual home is an aspect, which is not uniform amongst definitions of tourism. Another weakness of Stear’s definitions is the l imitation of â€Å"the region of a person’s usual home†, which implies that physically moving away from your home would make you a tourist. According to the UNWTO (cited in Weaver, 2010), for an individual to qualify as a tourist â€Å"travel must occur beyond the individual’s ‘usual environment’†. The spatial boundary of tourism as discussed by Weaver (2010) is unclear in this instance as an individual who lives in Sydney but stays in Canberra during the week for work would then be considered a tourist under this definition. Whilst Stear’s (2005) definition states a minimum stay requirement to be considered a tourist, it does not state a maximum timeframe, unlike that of other definitions, which clearly state a maximum period of time before someone loses the title of ‘tourist’. The UNWTO (1995) provides a more technical definition and defines tourism as an individual â€Å"travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes. † This definition is broader in scope compared to Stear’s (2005), which specifies that an individual who travels is only a tourist when their travel is â€Å"undertaken with the major expectation of satisfying leisure needs. † The UNWTO definition (cited in Weaver, 2010) is complemented by Dickman’s (1997, pg. 7) who identifies a tourist as â€Å"†¦a visitor who travels to a place utside his/her usual environment for at least one night but no more than six months (domestic) or one year (international) and whose main purpose of visit is other than the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited† and tourism as â€Å"†¦a non-essential activity, or one that is predominantly rela ted to leisure activities† (Dickman, 1997 pg. 7). Compared to Stear’s (2005) definition of tourism, Dickman’s (1997) heuristic definition is very brief and extremely vague as spatial relevance and time period are both not addressed. Furthermore, Dickman’s (1997) definition is limited as it only refers to the activity side of tourism whereas Leiper (2004) discusses a basic tourism system involving the tourist, the generating region, the transit route, the destination and the movement in between. Despite this limitation, a major strength of Dickman’s (1997) definition is that it defines and takes into consideration the differences between domestic and international tourists. This comparison has also been addressed by Weaver (2010) who declares that a domestic tourist is one that travels within their own country of residence, whilst an international tourist travels outside their usual country of residence. The third and final authors McIntosh et al. (1995) describes tourism as â€Å"†¦the entire world industry of travel, hotels, transportations, and all other components, including promotion, that serves the needs and wants of travellers. Tourism today has been given new meaning and is primary a term of economics referring to the industry†. On the other hand, ‘tourist’ is defined as â€Å"†¦a person who travels from place to place for non work reasons by U. N. definition, a tourist is someone who stays for more than one night and less than a year. Business and convention travel is included. This thinking is dominated by balance-of-trade concepts. Military personnel, diplomats, immigrants and resident students are not tourists† (McIntosh et al. , 1995). The heuristic definition above of ‘tourism’ incorporates the industry as a whole, which is a major strength in comparison to the other definitions, hich only take into account the physical act of travelling. The tourism industry is not identifiable as a standard industry but is rather an amalgamation of parts of other conventional industries such as retail, hospitality, accommodation, entertainment and transport (Weaver, 2010). The incorporation of ‘tourism’ as an industry takes on a different approach to defining tourism and makes finding a clarified and universal meaning for ‘tourism’ and ‘tourist’ even more complicated. McIntosh et al. 1995) refer to the tourist in a very specific manner including different types of tourists such as business tourists, which is a strong point, as a tourist can’t be just defined in one aspect. According to Weaver (2010), â€Å"a basic tourist criterion concerns travel purpose which is dominated by three major categories – leisure and recreation, visiting friends and relative and business. † Compared to Stear (2005) and Dickman’s (1997) narrow definitions, McIntosh et al. (1995) have a much broader, flexible view on defining tourism and the tourist. In both definitions of ‘tourist’ Dickman (1997) and McIntosh et al. 1995) describe an individual moving out of their ‘usual environment’, which is considered a key element in the definition. Weaver (2010) supports this definition in his discussion of fulfilling the spatial component in order to be considered a tourist. Whilst this is considered a highly subjective concept, many tourism bodies specify minimum distance thresholds, which â€Å"serve the useful purpose of [differentiating] those who bring outside revenue into the local area from those who circulate revenue internallyâ €  (Weaver, 2010, pg. 22-23). When reviewing the definition by McIntosh et al. 1995), a key downfall is the reference to ‘resident students’ not being considered tourists, which can be questioned. An international student may wish to travel overseas first to experience the culture of the country they plan on studying in, however under this definition, even if they wish to take part in and visit tourist attractions which are recreational and leisure based they aren’t considered tourists. Most people do not intuitively associate study or formal education with tourism however it is considered a qualifying criterion by the UNWTO. In Australia alone, in 2007-08 international students accounted for around 7% of all inbound arrivals (Weaver, 2010, pg. 29). In conclusion, the complicated task of defining two simple terms ‘tourism’ and ‘tourist’ has been made somewhat clearer through the definitions provided by Stear (2005), Dickman (1997) and McIntosh et al. (1995). Whilst all three authors have different perspectives on how to define these terms, they also have a few aspects that seem to cross over. Considering all the definitions by the three authors Stear (2005), Dickman (1997) and McIntosh et al. 1995) it is hard to argue which definition is more just and accurate than the other as they all have their strengths and weaknesses. From the research conducted, Stear’s (2005) definition of a ‘tourist’ is the most flexible and relevant in the context of today’s society however; Dickman’s (1997) definition of ‘tourism’ is most accurate as it incorporates the entire tourism industry and not just the physical act of traveling. Ultimately, ‘tourist’ and ‘tourism’ are indefinable as we all have our own personal views and perspectives on which definitions fit the context of the situation.

Poets and Pancakes Essay

Gemini Studios Gemini Studios was one of India’s pioneer movie factories. Situated in the present day Chennai, owned by S.S Vaasan and worked by over 600 staff, the GS made movies for Tamilnadu and other southern Indian states. Pancake[TM] was the makeup material used by the GS. Asokamitran Asokamitran was one of the staff whose job was to collect information such as news events from newspapers and magazines and to paste them in files. The other staff considered his job out of place and most of them thought so high of themselves. Here are some of the interesting staffs of GS. Office Boy Office Boy was a grown up man in the Makeup Department of the GS. He was in charge of the crowd makeup. He applied pancake on their faces with the help of a dipped paint brush. Though his job was quite an easy one, the office boy considered him to be a greatly skilled artist. Subbu Kothamangalam Subbu was another clerk. He was not as educated, as fortunate and as supported by as the Office Boy, yet he reached the top of the GS. He was a man of amazing genius. He was able to direct the directors. He suggested dozens of ways to shoot a certain scene when the director failed to find one. He acted better than the heroes. He wrote incredible poems. Though he was able to write more complicated ones that could raise him to the status of a great poet, Subbu preferred writing them in simple Tamil to enlighten the majority of Tamil people. Besides, he supported his far and near relatives. But he had only enemies everywhere because he was very much close to the boss, Vaasan. Legal Advisor The legal advisor worked in the Story Department. He was a lawyer and provided legal advices to the writers yet he was known as the illegal advisor. The following incident is one reason that gave him that name. Once a shooting was under progress. The heroine, a highly emotional girl, got  angry with the director and producer. While the whole set stood stunned at this, the legal advisor recorded her voice without her permission and made her listen to the playback, thus resulting the end of a rising actress. Poets and writers Gemini Studios had some great poets like Harindranath Chatopadhyaya and a few others. Most of the insignificant poets considered so great of themselves. They had no great talent, no great creativity, no political views yet they assumed the airs of the greatest poets, wasting Vaasan’s money and time. They believed Gandhiji to be the last word of politics and had developed an aversion to Communism. Communism and anti-communism Communism was a new political order that was spreading throughout the world, especially in Asian countries. Communism preached equality of people and abolition of poverty and class divisions while it discouraged private ownership. But Communism won a negative impression due the Capitalist countries such as America. MRA MRA or Moral Rearmament Army was an international team of actors and actresses that spread anti communist feelings throughout the world. The MRA came to Chennai and saw how influential was Gemini Studios in the south of India. The team got permission from Vaasan to stage their plays. Vaasan was only happy to give them permission because he hoped that his staff would get inspiration from the international team. But little did Vaasan know of their intentions. MRA staged their plays with hidden anticommunist messages and went away and it was yet after some time that Vaasan realized that he had been fooled. Stephen Spender Why should Vaasan be fooled if an organization spread anti communist messages in Chennai? It appears that Vaasan himself was a Communist! Or, he too had an experience of a disillusioned abandoning of Communism. The author has not given us a hint about this and therefore we have to different opinions: Crisis Vasan as a Communist: If so, Vasan felt terribly bad for being played into the hands of the MRA that left a deep anticommunist impression upon his staff. He therefore decided to bring back the Communist atmosphere in his studio and for this he invited a communist poet to deliver a speech on how great Communism was. Vasan as an anticommunist: If SS Vasan was an anticommunist, he was the one who invited the MRA to the Gemini Studios. Later, when he saw that MRA had successfully spread anticommunism among his staff, he wanted to strengthen the new notions in them by inviting another anticommunist and therefore he invited Spender. Spender’s Speech Anyway, Stephen Spender, who was once a prominent communist editor and poet from England, came to the studio and gave his speech. His lecture was about Communism on one side and about his struggles to establish as a poet on the other. Whatever he spoke was great, hot, exciting and inspiring, but what use, his accent was such terrible one that none of the Gemini staff could clearly understand what Spender had spoken. They fell into shame for not being able to understand the poet and wished not to meet him again. Asokamitran’s meeting Spender-1 The lesson ends with two incidents in which Asokamitran, our author, met Spender; not face to face, but in two different ways. While attempting to send his short story to England to participate in a contest, Asokamitran happened to read The Encounter, a magazine that had Stephen Soender as its editor. On another occasion he happened to read the book, the God that Failed, an article of which was written by Spender. Questions & Answers How was Gemini Studios connected to Robert Clive? The connection the GS had with Robert Clive was that its Make-up Department  was built on the upstairs of Clive’s stables. What was the fiery misery inside the make-up department of the Studios? The makeup room had a lot of hot bulbs always burning inside and a number of mirrors to reflect the heat. Madras, being a hot city and no cooling at that time at the studio, it was a real misery inside the makeup room. All this shows that there was a great deal of national integration long before A.I.R. and Doordarshan began broadcasting programs on national integration. Explain. The heads and the subordinates of the make-up department were from various parts of India. There was no preference to any state or language or religion. Anyone could be the head. Once there was a Bengali as the head of this department. He was succeeded by a Maharashtrian who was assisted by a Dharwar Kannadiga, an Andhra, a Madras Indian Christian, an Anglo-Burmese and the local Tamils. Who was the office boy? What was his duty in the make-up department? How did he appreciate himself and his profession? The office boy was a forty year old man who worked at the lowest rank among the makeup artists at the Gemini Studios. His duty was to apply makeup for the crowd-players for shooting. As his work required no skill and that he was not satisfied with his designation and the kind of work, the ‘Boy’ remained unsatisfied and criticized everyone he was jealous. How was the author’s job odd in the eyes of the other staff? How did they respond to this? Asokamitran’s job at the Gemini Studios was to collect information from newspapers and magazines and to paste the cuttings in files for reference. This was probably the only work odd in the Gemini Studios while every other staff was some sort of an artist. They therefore advised the author to do some better jobs other than wasting his time cutting papers in a department similar to a barber shop. Why did the author pray for crowd shooting? Like many of the other staff who believed that Asokamitran was doing next to nothing in the Gemini Studios the Office Boy too used to advise him for hours. When the author was tired of his unending epics, he used to pray for a crowd shooting to which the Office Boy assigned. Who was Kothamangalam Subbu? How did he make all the other staff hate him? Kothamangalam Subbu joined the Gemini Studios as a clerk and remained the same in the records. But in practice he soon acquired the status of the No.2 at the studios thanks to his amazing genius and multifaceted skills. He did any work for  his boss and ignored the rest above him. This made him envied and hated by the rest of the staff. Discuss Subbu’s identity as a poet. Why was he not known as a poet? Apart from being an amazing director of movies, Subbu had the identity as a poet. The world of his time and later never recognized Subbu as a poet yet he was a great unknown poet. He wrote poem in the simplest Tamil language and was able to recreate the classical poems in his own style. Subbu excelled as an actor too. Discuss. Subbu was a good actor. He was able to act better than the lead actors yet never wished to take any lead roles in any movie. In spite of all the good qualities and readiness to be a host any time, Subbu had only enemies. Why? Subbu was good to everyone he came by, spoke in his niceness, fed his relatives, excelled everyone in the Gemini Studios but was hated by most of them just because he was so close to the boss of the studios. Being a clerk in the attendance register he was above all and above all the departments. Those who bore designations above Subbu felt it intolerable to obey him. How did the legal advisor behave illegally in the instance of the actress. The legal advisor was, of course, an advocate, yet was known as an illegal advisor. Once he recorded the voice of an actress who shouted at the producer and director while in the shooting sets. The legal advisor’s behavior turned out to be illegal because he did it without the actress’ permission. In what context did Congress rule mean Prohibition and how was it for the staff of Gemini Studios meeting over a cup of coffee a rather satisfying entertainment? Congress being the ruling party, made the public’s life horrible by imposing curfew and emergency in the initial years of Independent India. Citizens were not allowed to gather and hold meetings. While the whole of the nations struggled under emergencies, the six hundred Gemini staff enjoyed freedom inside the studios as their freedom was not restricted. How did Subbu surpass the office boy despite his limitations? The office boy in the makeup department was always ahead of Subbu in the beginning, especially in education, having influential people to support. But he ended up where he began while Subbu ascended the steps to the maximum height and surpassed the Boy. The staff of the Gemini Studios attributed Subbu’s success to his being a Brahmin. Why? Most of the staff of the Gemini studios was unhappy with Subbu. His amazing influence on the Boss and the  consequent privileges he enjoyed made them feel jealous of him. So, instead of accepting his talents, they consoled themselves by attributing his fortunes to be a Brahmin. What is Communism? What ideas about the communism gathered popularity in India? Communism is a political order that believes in the equality of citizens and abolition of private ownership. The state or nation is the owner and caretaker of each citizen. Citizen’s welfare is nation’s prime concern. It sometimes resorts to armed revolution to establish social and political equality. What was MRA? Why did it tour the world? MRA, short for Moral Rearmament Army was an anti-Communist organization that toured the world informing the world of the evil side of Communism that was spreading throughout Asia and some parts of Europe. Headed by Frank Buchman, the MRA believed that Communism was evil and it would wipe out democracy in the world. How did the MRA spread its anti Communist ideas in South India? Moral Rearmament Army believed that Communism was evil and therefore wanted to wipe it out of the world. This group of 200 men and women from twenty different nations spread anti communist messages with the help of their stage performances such as dramas. How was Vasan played into the hands of the MRA? There is no clear indication that Vasan, the owner of the Gemini Studios, was a Communist or not yet there are very clear hints that he was a prominent Communist of Chennai. The MRA spread its anti-Communist messages through their stage programs and made the poets and writers of the South India hate Communism which was a great achievement. Vasan, who knew nothing of their intentions, was indeed fooled by MRA at his cost. Why was Stephen Spender invited to the Gemini Studios? Who wanted him there? Stephen Spender was a great poet with Communist inclinations. SS Vasan, the owner of the Gemini Studios, wanted Spender give a speech on the greatness of Communism to his staff. Spender’s Speech was a shock for him and a matter of utter shame for the literati of the Gemini Studios. Explain. Stephen Spender was specially invited to the Gemini Studios to enlighten the staff there with communist ideas. When Spender began his speech he was amazed to see the way he was being listened to. But soon, when he realized that his audience didn’t  follow him the least due to his accent, Spender’s amazement turned to utter shock and embarrassment and he stopped his speech in the middle. How are poets and prose writers different according to Asokamitran? What personal experience makes him say that? Asokamitran says poems can be written by any genius while prose writing is the true pursuit of a really determined person who has suffered a lot of rejections and is ready for any further disappointments with more perseverance to pursue his mission of writing a long prose. Spender’s Speech was a shock for him and a matter of utter shame for the literati of the Gemini Studios? Stephen Spender was called to the Gemini Studios to talk to the staff there about Communism but what he spoke was of his struggles as a poet. Whatever he spoke, his talk was not followed by practically an yone. When Spender realized that his audience didn’t follow his talk, he stopped in utter shame to have made a talk to a deaf audience while the Gemini staff got dispersed in great humiliation because Spender’s accent failed them. How are poets and prose writers different according to Asokamitran? What personal experience makes him say that? Asokamitran believes in the qualitative difference between prose writers and poem writers. A poem can be written in no time if the poet is a genius while prose such as a novel can be written by a person who has a lot of patience and perseverance. The prose writer’s mind should be so shrunken that no rejection can disappoint him but he will be encouraged from failures and rejections. How did the magazine ‘The Encounter’ become important in Asokamitran’s life? The Encounter was a British Communist magazine. When Stephen Spender was its editor, this magazine organized a short story competition for writers from all over the world. How does the book, ‘The God That Failed’ deserve its title? OR Justify the title, ‘The God That Failed.’ The ‘God That Failed’ was written by six eminent writers who were attracted to Communism and abandoned it because they hated it later on. Communism was in its beginning, a God because it stood for equality and removal of class systems and poverty. While the Gods or incarnations before it achieved their goals, Communism failed in attaining its goals as it was a failure in itself. What made Asokamitran hope Stephen Spender too would be singing the same song at the same time when he sealed the envelop of his manuscript? Asokamitran had been struggling to establish as a writer when he came across the magazine, The Encounter. When he saw that the editor of The Encounter  was Stephen Spender, the same poet who came to Gemini Studios and talked about his struggles to become a poet, Asokamitran felt as if he had found a long lost brother. ‘In a moment I felt a dark chamber of my mind lit up by a hazy illumination.’ What was the dark chamber? What did light up the darkness? Due to Spender’s British accent the normally educated staff like could not understand his speech and therefore his speech remained an unsolved mystery for the staff including Asokamitran. This mystery was the dark chamber of his mind. When Asokamitran saw that Spender was the editor of The Encounter, he understood that Spender’s speech was all about stories and poems and suddenly he related this to his speech he made years ago the Gemini Studios. The Boss of the Gemini Studios may not have much to do with Spender’s poetry. But not with his god that failed.’ Explain. Stephen Spender was invited to the Gemini Studios to enlighten the staff with great ideals of Communism but what Spender spoke was about his thrills and struggles to establish himself as a poet. The bosses of the studio like S. S. Vasan were interested in Spender as a Communist, not as a poet. How did MRA impress the staff of Gemini Studios and the Tamil drama community? Taking a careful reading, one sees the tremendous struggle that Asokamitran underwent to surface as a writer par excellence. Discuss. For Asokamitran training himself as a writer was passion. He had a nickname, barber, when he was working at Gemini Studios because he did a lot of cutting newspaper clips and magazine as he was a news record keeper. Even though he was laughed at by the rest of the staff and was advised by some to seek a profession that fitted him, Asokamitran had a drudge that nothing could weaken – he was determined to rise in the world of people of his kind: writers. Among those members of the Gemini staff who was embarrassed and confused at Stephen Spender’s lost speech was there none as embarrassed and confused as Asokamitran. It was all because of his literary ambitions that he was able to know more about Spender and his literary traits and political views as well as the unknown communist inclinations of the boss of one of India’s foremost movie factories. Asokamitran’s language that we read in the extract, Poets and Pancakes, is amazing as an India author is concerned and there is no doubt that he acquired it as part of his quest for perfection as a writer. He quite poignantly narrates his participating in a short story contest organized by the Encounter for which he spent considerable time and money. On reading the name of the editor, Stephen Spender, he feels like getting his lost brother back.

Organisational Transformation in Practice Essay - 1

Organisational Transformation in Practice - Essay Example In this specific instance, the store’s general manager refrained from interacting with employees except when absolutely necessary. Even as there was a limited amount of employees, cliques emerged that hindered workplace efficiency and productivity. The environment had a strong negative impact on my mental and emotional well-being. In investigating these personal factors I implemented Gibbs’ (1988) reflection cycle. Fig. 1 demonstrates Gibbs’ reflection cycle. This cycle begins with a description of the underlining cause of the events and then moves in a clockwise pattern through stages of analysis and reconciliation. These stages are advanced through in the articulation of a patchwork text. Fig. 1 Gibbs Reflection Cycle PATCH II Underlying Causes In analyzing this specific workplace experience of change, I consider that there were a number of underlying causes that contributed to the experience. This specific organizational environment is best considered in terms of psychic elements, as the negative feelings and thought patterns I tacitly accepted and that were distributed throughout the organization occurred at the level of unspoken or unconscious communication. One recognizes this consideration within Michael Diamond’s (2008) concept of the unthought known. ... The consideration of the toxicity I experienced I recognize then can be articulated within this hybrid structural and psychodynamic model. Diamond (2008, p. 357) notes, â€Å"Organizational culture is predominantly unconscious and ultimately located at the core of intersubjective relations that shape values and artifacts at the surface of organization.† In this specific organization, there were great challenges in terms of direct communication between individuals. The cliques that developed greatly hindered organizational communication. It seems in this way the cliques were implemented as an institutional defence, as employees chose to hide behind the group facade. Splitting became a prominent defence as individuals would view another, or a differing group in entirely negative terms. This effected communication through indirect methods. Passive aggressive behavior became prominent among employees. In my personal experience at the organization I recognize that I would frequentl y attempt to schedule my shifts as to avoid specific people. This suspicious and paranoid behavior grew larger the longer I worked at the company. When I did have to work with employees I had previously attempted to avoid a general toxic environment emerged. Rather than having a strong managerial leader to delineate job tasks, there were many arguments among employees as to who would participate in specific tasks such as shelving the aisles or running the cash register. In many degrees these arguments reflected group dynamics and fight or flight behavior. The arguments were simply a means of avoiding work responsibility, but instead reflected power relations within the group. While

The relations of Turkey with the European Union Essay

The relations of Turkey with the European Union - Essay Example The union had many requirements for the membership candidacy acceptance. In December 1999 however, the EU dropped its preconditions, the reasons of which were several. Associated through its Ottoman past to the Balkans, at the edge of Central Asia, and adjoining the Middle East oil fields, Turkey was deemed a very significant participant on the international stage with huge potential to play a stabilizing role in a turbulent region; it could not be ignored. The post 9-11 era poses critical implications in the world politics today. Any plotted course of such decision making is prone to have a long lasting impact, not only on the concerned countries, but also on every affected party. In this case, the Turkey-EU relations, as well as their future nature of this relationship, not only affect them, but also EU’s relations with its neighboring Muslim countries. It took 3 decades until Turkey became a legitimate candidate country for an absolute membership in the EU. This research pr oposal tends to closely examine if Turkey should join the EU, and comprehensively discusses the potential resulting implications arising from whether or not Turkey joins it. A comprehensive review of literature has been conducted to study different theories and perspectives from different directly concerned parties, stakeholders, and various analysts who have evaluated Turkey’s standing from different angles. Further on, the proposal outlines our research objectives for this paper, discusses the research methodology to be employed, as well as highlight the ethical issues and limitations we’re prone to come across. Research Questions: The primary objective of this section is to construct a succinct discussion, and with all the pros and cons of the resulting impact, be able to reach an answer to the following research questions: Should Turkey join the EU? What advantage would Turkey gain from attaining accession to the EU? What advantage would EU gain from Turkish access ion? What are the negative implications if Turkey joins EU? Literature Review/Background According to Van Herpen (2004) Turkey has been a significant geopolitical participant on the European stage for more than six centuries. Initially it was deemed as a threat, in response to which Luther inscribed his pamphlet ‘On War against the Turk’. But with due evolution, for the past 5 decades, Turkey has been a close ally to Europe in the NATO. Even though Turkey is an Islamic country, however, the Islam followed over there is not only identified as moderate and accepting, but is also barred from the public sphere. A decade ago, Rouleau (2000, p. 100) was of the view that Turkey stands at a crossroads; the ‘accession partnership document’ that it presented to the EU is a roadmap for the extensive political and economic reforms Turkey needs to endorse if it intends on joining the EU. However, according to the so-called Copenhagen regulations, certain guidelines were to be followed by all EU membership candidates including Turkey, which basically revolved around establishing ‘Western-style democratic institutions guaranteeing rule of law, individual rights, and minority rights’. Turkey, however, even after 10 months of the issuance of these norms,

Video Evaluation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Video Evaluation - Essay Example This is a very discouraging concept to believe (Molyneux 2013). Prior to watching this video, it was to my understanding that social programs helped the poor people. I thought that the job forecast was actually increasing. I knew that our government was in over its head with debt but I presumed it was due to our country’s intervention in the Middle East. I believed that the middle class actually were living paycheck to paycheck and I did believe many lived off of credit cards and loans. However, I did not really realize that what they had spent was money they did not have in the first place. At the rate that this economy is moving, there is little to no hope of changing. I had no idea that we were so much worse off economically than we were in the 1950s and while it is easy to blame the President, the majority of the issues are also to be blamed on Congress. I discovered by watching this video, I was quite wrong about many of my theories about our economy. There is much to be learned from this video. The statistics are extremely eye-opening. When looking at the graphs and charts that Molyneux had created, it is evident that many thing that the government are doing to try to help increase the recovery process are actually failing. Programs that were established over 40 years ago are haunting the country today as people who do not work and live off the government are making more than those who do work. The debt is increasing per household, per corporation and also federally. People are spending imaginary money that they simply do not have. The wages people are making are spent on their debts. Items are increasing in price while what they make per hour cannot cover the prices of goods that people need. Many people are living well below poverty level. Actually, it appears that the people who are on welfare are sitting better economically than the people who are actually working to

Planet of Mercury Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Planet of Mercury - Essay Example Notably, we can establish that unlike other planets, Mercury does not have an atmosphere, seasons, moons, satellites, or rings (â€Å"NASA† 1). As such, it is a very unique planet which is difficult but worth studying. There are only 58 million Kilometers separating the sun from Mercury (â€Å"NASA† 1) thus making the study of Mercury difficult for scholars. Nevertheless, a radar imaging from the Earth in the 1960s helped scientists to study Mercury. As such, scientists confirm that Mercury has a radius of 2,439.7 km, a volume of 60,827,208,742 km3, and a total mass of about 330,104,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg (â€Å"NASA† 1). Furthermore, with a density of 5.4 grams per cubic centimeter, Mercury is very dense compared to other planets in the solar system (â€Å"Space Facts† 1). Although Mercury revolves around the sun at the fastest speed, it seemingly rotates around its axis at a very slow speed where it takes about 1 Mercury day or 59 Earth days to make a complete spin (â€Å"NASA† 1). Indeed, mercury takes about 88 Earth days or 1 Mercury year to revolve around the sun (â€Å"NASA† 1).... More so, the thin exosphere ensures the prevention of wind erosion on the surface of Mercury and that friction does not cause the meteorites to burn (â€Å"National Geographic Society† 1). The composition of the thin exosphere entails different levels of potassium, oxygen, neon, argon, sodium, carbon dioxide, hydrogen (H2), nitrogen, helium (He), and krypton (â€Å"NASA† 1). The core of Mercury has the highest iron content higher iron content the Solar System (â€Å"National Geographic Society† 1) where its metallic core measures about 2200 to 2,400 miles in width, 42% of its volume (â€Å"Space Facts† 1), and about 75 percent of the its diameter. With a magnetic field in the solar wind, Mercury is very active and its charged particles normally stream from the sun and touch the planet’s magnetic field thereby creating a powerful magnetic tornado (â€Å"Science Daily† 1). The magnetic tornado transmits the hot plasma of the solar wind to the s urface of Mercury. Scientists established that the iron core of Mercury cools and contacts to wrinkle the surface of the planet. They further named the wrinkles as Lobate Scarps, which extend to hundreds of miles in length (â€Å"Space Facts† 1). Ideally, there have been various theories explaining how Mercury formed which relate to the physical removal of silicates or the differences in the composition material. One of the theories attributes the formation of Mercury to an impact that shrunk the size and mass of the planet. The shrinking occurred as the planet cooled (â€Å"National Geographic Society† 1) and led to the crumpling and formation of cliffs on the surface of Mercury. Indeed, scientists believe that the planetesimal reduced

CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY AND BUYING BEHAVIOR Research Paper

CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY AND BUYING BEHAVIOR - Research Paper Example Research shows that the congruity between product image and self-image affects the product preference of a consumer and their intentions to buy an item. This congruence with self-image could also facilitate positive attitudes and behaviour towards products. The study conducted in â€Å"Consumers and brands a study of the impact of self-image congruence on brand preference and satisfaction†, was seeking to understand the consequences of congruity of self-image on brand preference and the consumer satisfaction in the UK’s precious jewellery sector. Results indicated that congruity of self-image acted as a vitally powerful predictor of brand preferences of consumers as well as acting as a suitable predictor for satisfaction of the consumer. The respondents with above average self-image, congruity levels were found to be more likely to enjoy higher satisfaction levels, as well as increased likelihood to buy the brand. This was when compared to those who had below average se lf-image congruity levels (Gordon, 2006 p140). For this case study, the consumers were found to be dissonance-reducing buyers (Gordon, 2006 p141). They were highly involved in the jewellery purchase since the product was expensive. There was minimal difference between the brands of jewelry that existed. The consumers were also found to be complex buyers as they were buying highly valued products, and they looked for detailed information before making the purchase.

Case Study- Marks & Spencer Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Case Study- Marks & Spencer - Essay Example Case Study- Marks & Spencer Despite new policies being made and brand’s shares overtaking the UK general retail index since 2009, M&S still fails to be a hit around the globe. I think this is because save cost savings, little improvement is made in financial performance with majority of customers who approach M&S stores belonging to old age group. This is one of the main shortcomings of the company that it fails to attract younger people especially women to its stores and this is an area where more work needs to be done by M&S management in order to compensate for the fall in profits. A growing body of arguments attempts to find out what exactly M&S should do to combat falling fashion sales which despite different policies and many changes made within company, fail to reverse. People who ardently used to approach M&S stores for quality shopping experience now hesitate because apart from dwindling standard, there is also lack of innovation and flair in designs and patterns of clothes. This explains why M& S is currently relying more on food sales for annual profits as clothing sales continue to struggle. I think it would be a better future strategy if M&S decides to focus less on celebrity-laden advertising campaigns and invest more in bringing back the quality and originality in its clothing designs. It is reported that M&S CEO Bolland faces pressure from critics as the business reports consistent fall in clothing sales. (Thompson 2013). In contrast to cloth sales, M&S has made more progress as the most significant food retailer in the UK in terms of customer satisfaction. I think that same old arguments regarding performance and clothing sales will keep haunting M&S cloth stores in the coming years if the leaders do not make radical changes in the company. Employee empowerment is good but this is also true that M&S has suffered quite much as a result of deciding to distribute power to the lowest level possible. This decision started many of its store managers making many decisions on their own which were not very well-thought-out and negatively interfered with both fashion sales and customer loyalty. It is suggested that delivery of power to employees working on all levels is good but only if top management continues to heavily monitor all operations being performed. It is also recommended that people at top positions in the company who have power should establish a new healthy culture at M&S plc in an attempt to rid it of its constipated culture. This is the biggest challenge which should be analyzed in order to plummet down the rate of operation problems. Also, failure to meet profit targets is one of the primary issues encountered by the management. Several issues like poor relations with investors and suppliers, embarrassing boardroom arguments, failure to provide trendier clothes at lower prices, and more than necessary autonomy given to people working at low level are responsible for this. I think that as a way of

Analysis of the Promotion of Krijen Games New Product, Andromeda 99-XD Case Study - 1

Analysis of the Promotion of Krijen Games New Product, Andromeda 99-XD in the Indian Market - Case Study Example The aspect of globalization implies an enhanced level of competition in the global consumer markets. This has made it important for every organization to carefully undertake and formulate a policy that would help it to grab a market share in a chosen target market. The enhanced aspect of competitiveness in the market has also enhanced the level of competition as more players are resorting to this strategy, considering the saturation of the traditional markets of Western Europe and the USA. The present study would include a marketing plan for the launch of a new product in a new market. A fictitious company named Krijen Games has been chosen as the firm while the name of the product is ‘Andromeda ® 99-XD’. The product would be a technological marvel that would have features unmatched by any of the presently available product of its kind in the market. The market chosen for the study is the Indian consumer market which has been deliberately chosen considering the busines s potential of the nation on accounts of its strong economic growth in recent years. The marketing plan would consist of a situation analysis which would help in analyzing the internal and external environment of the organization. A SWOT analysis would help in the analysis of the firm. In addition, Porter’s model of five forces would be used to analyze the competitive framework for the organization in the chosen market. Finally, a primary study would be conducted with two separate sets of questionnaires. These would help in devising an appropriate segmentation and positioning strategy for the Indian market. Finally, a product mix for the new product would be created on the basis of the situation analysis and the primary study that would help the firm to gain long-term sustainable competitive advantage in the Indian consumer market. The global markets and business environments are changing rapidity.

Ethical Philosophies of Machiavelli and Subramanian Essay Example for Free

Ethical Philosophies of Machiavelli and Subramanian Essay One of the greatest comparisons of all time is to contrast Niccolo Machiavelli’s â€Å"The Prince† with V. K. Subramanian’s â€Å"The Chanakya: Kautilya. † Critically, a look can be taken into several different elements of each author’s work to best compare and contrast them. To that end, a look will be taken at the political, social, and ethical philosophies of Machiavelli and Subramanian to determine how they differ and in which ways the philosophies are similar. Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince† in the early 1500’s as a way of adding his insight from what he had seen of politics and hereditary principality—even though â€Å"it was plagiarized during Machiavelli’s lifetime†¦[and] was never published by him†¦[making] the text [itself as] still disputable† (Machiavelli 11). While current versions of â€Å"The Prince† are attributed to him, this fact of plagiarism and publishing fraud make the work even more intriguing, given the subject matter itself. Of the work itself, Machiavelli said that â€Å"I pour myself out as fully as I can in meditation on the subject, discussing what a principality is, what kinds there are, how they can be acquired, how they can be kept, why they are lost; and if any of the fancies ever pleased you, this ought not to displease you; and to a prince, especially to a new one, it should be welcome† (Machiavelli 11). Machiavelli dedicated the work itself to Lorenzo de’ Medici, even after he was put to torture by the family for treachery. Machiavelli’s methods are one of unique significance as he is writing, having been there, in the thick of things. Essentially, â€Å"The Prince† is meant as a guidebook on how to rule in all princely matters for Lorenzo de’ Medici. Machiavelli wrote about how hereditary principalities worked, how to keep that inheritance, and even how a prince could gain a new principality, and how a prince should rule his people and act, as a prince, and politically. While Machiavelli essentially confined his writings to obtaining fortune, keeping and obtaining power, and virtue as a leader, a look can be taken into his writings to discover the philosophies beneath his ideas. In comparison, V. K. Subramanian’s â€Å"The Chanakya: Kautilya† was published in 1980 about and are translated from are translated from three works known as the â€Å"Chankyasutras,† the â€Å"Chankyanitidarpan† and the â€Å"Arthshastra† and are based upon the time in history around 300 BC. The intro of Subramanian’s work notes that â€Å"Chanakya, also known as Kautilya and Vishnugupta was the famous Indian Machiavelli who was responsible for the overthrow of the last ruler of the Nada Dynasty and the enthronement of Chandragupta Maurya†¦there is an interesting story about Chanakya’s first encounter with Chandragupta, which ultimately ended in their collaboration and capture of power† (Subramanian 1). Subramanian’s work, then, is a direct reflection of Machiavelli’s own. What makes them similar, however, despite the men within the tales, is the philosophies shared between the two. Machiavelli’s political philosophy is perhaps the easiest to pinpoint as the very purpose of his work revolved around the necessity of a prince to reign successfully. Machiavelli, actually, mainly focused on the political aspects of maintaining and gaining principalities. He notes that â€Å"let any one now consider with what little difficulty the king could have maintained his position in Italy had he observed the rules above laid down, and kept all his friends secure and protected; for although they were numerous they were both weak and timid, some afraid of the Church†¦and thus they would always have been forced to stand in with him, and by their means he could easily have made himself secure against those who remained powerful† (30). Machiavelli is urging his prince to take note of the past and understand that had the king protected his weaker neighbors, he would have not only gained them as allies—but also could have gained them as part of his reign. And, at all costs, he should protect his allies as he would protect his own lands. Politically, being a stronger power, he would have been made into the â€Å"leader,† who they would be indebted to and would follow with more loyalty than any money could purchase. And, to Machiavelli, the art of gaining allies and principalities, even de facto ones, was the art to be achieved. Even more so, Subramanian’s fourth maxim entitled â€Å"Advisors, Aides, Counselors, Ministers,† notes that â€Å"after equipping oneself fully, one should seek an ally (aide), one without an advisor has no certainty of counsel, one wheel does not move (the vehicle), the true aide serves alike in prosperity and adversity, a self respecting ruler should appoint as counselor, one who is inferior to him, and respects him†¦deflection to the enemy takes place due to negligence† (22-25). In this, Subramanian agrees wholeheartedly with Machiavelli’s statements. To be a successful ruler, allies must be taken and protected, first and foremost, before true rule can begin. The reason being, that with allies, a force become much stronger, incrementally, with each ally added. Furthermore, each ally must be protected and cared for to ensure their cooperation—but with that cooperation comes an extended kingdom. Indeed, Machiavelli’s social philosophy can be found within his writings on obtaining fortune. Machiavelli writes that â€Å"principalities are either hereditary, in which the family has been long established; or they are new†¦. such dominions thus acquired are either accustomed to live under a prince, or to live in freedom; and are acquired either by the arms of the prince himself, or of others, or else by fortune or by ability† (21). Machiavelli is commenting, simply, that the way in which a prince gains land is two-fold: either he inherits it or he fights for it. The manner in which the prince gains and obtains his land, however, is what makes the prince either beloved by his people or hated. For Machiavelli, gaining the most principalities possible by virtuous means was the ideal result. And, as he instructed his prince, it was best to be good, socially, if any hopes of maintaining that principality are held. In fact, Machiavelli comments that, for example, â€Å"Louis the Twelfth, King of France, quickly occupied Milan, and as quickly lost it; and to turn him out the first time it only needed Lodovico’s own forces; because those who had opened the gates to him, finding themselves deceived in their hopes of future benefit, would not endure the ill-treatment of the new prince† (23). Moreover, â€Å"it is very true that, after acquiring rebellious provinces a second time, they are not so lightly lost afterwards, because the prince, with little reluctance, takes the opportunity of the rebellion to punish the delinquents, to clear out the suspects, and to strengthen himself in the weakest places† (24). Thus, not only is it important for a prince to be clear in his occupation in a land, to become most beloved, he must first get rid of the troublemakers—thus leaving the peaceable, and willing to be occupied. If a prince does not take this step, he is left in hostile territory with people willing to stage an overthrow. On contrast, Subramanian writes out a few of the maxims of Chanakya, citing that â€Å"economic prosperity creates prosperity for the people, if the people are prosperous, even a leaderless state can be governed, people’s fury is the greatest of furies†¦[and] to be without a master is better than having an arrogant master† (22). In this, the two authors cannot be more different from the other. Machiavelli believes that the first step of any prince should be to take a firm grasp upon his principalities, to conquer new ones, and to rout the dissenters by force before they can rally for an overthrow. Machiavelli believes that by getting rid of the rebellious people before they can act, a leader can sustain and mark his position within his land, taking charge before the people even really know that it has happened. Then, once all the rebellion has been stamped out, a leader can begin to make his land prosperous. However, Subramanian cites a very different kind of social philosophy, making note that a leader might as well not exist if he intends to be a tyrant to the people, that a people have more respect for a man intent on prosperity, first, and rebellion last. Because, in an attempt to rout the dissenters, a leader would make a dent on the value the people hold for him—and thus their fury would remain. To really be a true leader and be beloved by his land, a leader must intend on affluence and prosperity as his bottom line. Finally, Machiavelli’s ethical and moral philosophy requires the most interpretation to highlight significantly. As Machiavelli writes about virtue in a leader, instructing a prince on how to act and behave, an ethical philosophy is formed. On contrast, Subramanian’s ethical philosophy stems from his ethical roots maxim that states â€Å"righteousness is the root of happiness, wealth is the root of righteousness, the state of the root is wealth, victory over senses is the root of the state, humility is the root of sense control, worship of elders is the root of humility, wisdom results from the worship of elders, with wisdom one can prosper, the prosperous one becomes the victorious one†¦[and] the victorious one obtains all the riches† (21-22). Despite it’s cryptic fortune-cookie nature, Subramanian’s writings do indeed have a fine message on ethical philosophy, here. In explicating the words, Subramanian is saying that to be a good leader, on must first be righteous, but to be righteous, one must first have wealth, to have wealth, one must first have victory, to have victory, one must first have humility, to have humility, one must listen to their elders to obtain wisdom, and with that wisdom a leader can prosper and be victorious in all they seek to achieve. The value here, is that Subramanian notes the significance of wisdom in all things. Without wisdom and following and heeding the elders who have come before, a leader stands no chance of being successful. Morally, a leader is obligated to his people to be triumphant so that the land can prosper, but without wisdom, a leader is nothing to his people but a tyrant. Subramanian says what Machiavelli does not. To Machiavelli, leading a people, by first disposing of the bad ones, is the best way for a prince to prosper in his lands. While he encourages his prince to be sound and wise, he first sends out the encouragement that the prince must always guard his assets, for fear of being overthrown or taken down by a greater force. To Machiavelli, obtaining land and prospering was, essentially, about war. To win that war, a prince had to be wise, and indeed, listen to his elders as well, but not in the ethical sense. Machiavelli meant for the prince to watch out for himself, first and foremost, and then, once the land became prosperous, Machiavelli encouraged the prince to be good to his people so that they would love him and understand that they were prosperous because of him. To Machiavelli, the ethical philosophy came last, after conquering and protecting one’s principalities. Overall, one of the greatest comparisons of all time is to contrast Niccolo Machiavelli’s â€Å"The Prince† with V. K. Subramanian’s â€Å"The Chanakya: Kautilya. † Taking a look at several different elements of each author’s work critically revealed a great level of significance as to their philosophies on politics, socially, and even ethically. Politically, Machiavelli and Subramanian follow the same philosophy, which intends a leader to find and protect allies first and foremost. As to social philosophy, however, the two authors cannot be more different. Machiavelli intends his prince to take charge and stamp out rebellion, while Subramanian cites that prosperity and kindness should be shown towards the new land. And finally, ethically, the two authors also differ. Machiavelli is intent on a prince who focuses on war and conquering new lands, and in this way a leader can gain wisdom and insight—however, to Subramanian, wisdom only comes by following one’s elders. Morally, a leader is obligated to his people to be triumphant so that the land can prosper, but without wisdom, a leader is nothing to his people but a tyrant. Works Cited. Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince. Trns. W. K. Marriott. New York: Plain Label Books, 1910. Subramanian, V. K. Maxims of Chanakya: Kautilya. India: Abhinav Publications, 1980.

Choices Essay Example for Free

Choices Essay The lives of people have always been filled numerous dilemmas. The choices that we make sometime in our lives could either make or break an individual. As a child, I have always dreamt of making it big in the world that I live in. In order to fulfill my dreams, I decided to pursue a Masters Degree in Education from the Cambridge College. Being given such opportunity would allow me to hone my craft and share my knowledge with others. From the many experiences that I have encountered in my life, being given the chance to live my life for the second time around was the most important. Unknown to many, I am a cancer survivor. I was diagnosed with the said disease at the age of eighteen. Regardless of such trials, my determination to succeed in life was never tarnished. I wanted to prove something to myself that I had what it takes to be someone in society regardless of all the impediments that came my way. Learning is an essential part of my growth, both as an individual and as a professional. In order to be successful, I have to personify the different techniques taught in school. Furthermore, I may also incorporate my personal thoughts and experiences in trying to make things work. Such actions would not only focus on the theoretical aspects of learning, but also in the application process. Then I could definitely say that I am able fully comprehend everything that have been inculcated in me by the school and my personal experiences. Aside from acquiring a Master’s Degree, I still have numerous goals in mind. I want to experience working with young minority men, especially those who were in middle school. This was in support of my desire to work within the public school system. I wanted to be of assistance to students, especially those who were of low social and economic statuses. This drive may also be attributed to the fact that studies have been conducted showing that young black male students normally lose interest in going to school when they reach the sixth grade. Thus, the percentage of children dropping out from school increases each year. Furthermore, I have made advanced researches stating that the students of Richmond County are giving the teachers difficulty in keeping them in school. Motivation amongst teachers to the students was relatively difficult, for barriers have already been by the students. The situation is alarming for both the state and the educational system that the schools offer. This then leads to the difficulty of students in trying to overcome the challenges that come their way. They are emotionally battered, and are in search of people whom they can cling to, such as guidance counselors. Although difficult, I would like to be part of the lives of these children. Equipped with the necessary knowledge and training, I may impart to these students pertinent information that may inspire them to become successful in their lives. I hope that my little words of wisdom would also serve as tools that would help them survive their lifetime. I believe that I have what it takes to be accepted in your institution. My experiences were focused on the relationship of people with each other. The counseling experiences I had were very helpful, for I witnessed how it was to deal with pregnant teenagers. This stage of their lives was a very crucial one, for several ideas and emotions are heightened. Sometimes, they would pity themselves for what happened, or worse, attempt suicide. I may be able to utilize my social counseling experiences and adopt them to some of the techniques I can use in counseling students in the educational field. This may sound easy, but it would also entail hard work and determination from my end. My dreams do not end after acquiring my degree from your institution. I would utilize my degree in working within the school system in order to facilitate an outreach program for both the students and the parents. The school districts within our area are also in the initial stage of discussing the requirements deemed by the students, as mentioned earlier. School counselors would be required by the Superintendent for each school, and this would come to my advantage for I may have my degree by that time. Furthermore, I also intend to teach college level courses. Learning is a continuous process that also helps people to improve their craft. Having a Master’s Degree would not hinder me from moving forward. One of my goals is to obtain a Doctoral Degree in Counseling. The degree would be beneficial in my growth as a counselor, for my scope of knowledge would be enhanced further. In addition to this, the courses offered would allow me to learn new approaches that I may use towards students. Although my quest for knowledge is unstoppable, I believe that there are certain things that I should still care about. I am like any other applicant; the only difference seen was the fact that I am more inclined in fulfilling my goals in life. Working and being exposed to different kinds of people help me to decipher the different approaches that should be used on people. The knowledge acquired from the institution would come as an advantage, for the personalities of people have been studied and researched by people who specialize in the said field. I, too, am guilty of wanting to improve each action made, especially when it comes to counseling students. I know that being accepted in your institution requires a big deal of commitment from the students. The training would be demanding and challenging, yet ultimately rewarding. The little mistakes that are often committed would be given much importance, and improvements would definitely be visible. I aim to learn and grow, both as an individual and as a professional. I know that this institution would bring me a step closer to my dreams and aspirations. The choice I made was evident – your institution would help me be the best individual that I can be.

Support Vector Machine Based Model

Support Vector Machine Based Model Support Vector Machine based model for Host Overload Detection in Clouds Abstract. Recently increased demand in computational power resulted in establishing large-scale data centers. The developments in virtualization tech-nology have resulted in increased resources utilization across data centers, but energy efficient resource utilization becomes a challenge. It has been predicted that by 2015 data center facilities costs would contribute about 75%, whereas IT would contribute the remaining 25% to the overall operating cost of the data center. The Server consolidation concept has been evolved for improving the energy efficiency of the data centers. The paper focuses on support vector machine based novel approach to predict the overload and underload pattern of the servers for better data center reconfiguration. Keywords: Support vector machine, energy efficiency. 1 Introduction Virtualization plays an important role in cloud computing, since it permits appropriate degree of customization, security, isolation, and manageability that are fundamental for delivering IT services on demand. One of its striking features is the ability to utilize compute power more proficiently. Particularly, virtualization provides an opportunity to consolidate multiple virtual machine (VM) instances on fewer hosts depending on the host utilization, enabling many of computers to be turned-off, and thereby resulting in substantial energy savings. In fact, commercial products such as the VMware vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), and Citirix XenServer offer VM consolidation as their chief functionality[1]. But with the rapid growth in computing demand, the number of datacenters grows with the need which leads to more number of servers active at a time. The high active servers’ ratio leads to more energy emission and production of Carbon dioxide (CO2). According to data centers’ study, the data centers are not utilized up to their maximum utilization level which leads to more active servers, everyone utilized to less than their total capacity. With this in mind, it is worthwhile to attempt to minimize energy consumption through any means available. Various research agencies and universities have contributed into the research and design of heat dissipation and control in the data center. Virtualization is a technology that contributes to the maximum u tilization of the servers by virtual machine (VM) consolidation and VM Migration. The decision of reallocation of virtual machine for VM consolidation depends on the host utilization behavior. The VMs from the under-utilized and over-utilized hosts are relocated to other hosts by packing the VMs on minimum number of hosts. The hosts having no virtual machine are shifted to the passive mode so that the total energy consumption can be reduced. Statistical methods played a great role in predicting the behavior of the host in dynamic manner. The author [3] has proposed various statistical methods for host overload and underload behavior of the hosts in his thesis. These algorithms take input as the previous or current utilization of the hosts and predict the future based on the previous or current state of the system. He has proposed Local Regression, Median Absolute Deviation, Robust Local Regression and Markov Chain model for predicting the overloaded hosts [3]. All statistical models cannot be applied to all the environments. The choice of the statistical methods d epends on the input data, because every statistical model is based on some assumptions. Markov chain model assumes that the data will be stationary but complex and dynamic environment like cloud, experience highly variable non-stationary workload. The author [3] in his thesis modified his model by using multisize sliding window workload estimation method so that it can be suitable for the cloud environment. In this paper we have proposed a prediction based model i.e. Support Vector Machine (SVM) to predict the host utilization to forecast the host overload and underload behavior of the host. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 explains the basic concepts and modeling approaches of the Support Vector Machine. In section 3, the literature review related to Support Vector Machine is presented. In section 4 the model is applied to time series forecasting and its performance is compared with those of other forecasting models. Section 5 contains the concluding remarks. 2 Support Vector Machine Support vector machine is a novel technique based on neural network invented by Vapnik and his co-workers at AT T Bell Laboratories in 1995. The objective of SVM is to find a generalized decision rule through selecting some particular subset of training data, called support vectors. Training SVMs is equivalent to solving a linearly constrained quadratic programming problem. The quadratic equation is solved such that the solution of SVM is globally optimal and the quality complexity of the solution does not directly depend on the input space. Another key advantage of SVM is that SVMs tend to be resistant to over-fitting, even in cases where the number of attributes is greater than the number of observations. According to Vapnik there are three main problems in machine learning, e.g. Density Estimation Classification and Regression. In every case the main goal is to learn a function (or hypothesis) from the training data using a learning machine and then conclude general results base d on this knowledge. Time series is a series of data points S t à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ½ R usually ordered in time. Time series analysis comprises the methods for analyzing the time series data in order to extract meaningful statistics and other characteristics of the data. Time series forecasting models predicts future values based on the previously observed values. The main focus of this paper is to predict the overload and underload behavior of the hosts in cloud data centers based on the previous load pattern of the hosts in the datacenter. The time series prediction is affected by various factors like data is linearly separable or follows non-linear patterns, the learning is supervised learning or unsupervised learning and on support vector kernels. In Euclidean geometry linear separability is a geometric property of a pair of sets of points. The points are linearly separable or not are decided by visualizing the points in two dimensions plane by taking one set of points as being colored green and the other set of points as red. These two sets are linearly separable if there exists at least one line in the plane with all of the green points on one side of the line and all the red points on the other side. Usually in practical problems the data points are mapped to the high dimensional plane and the optimal separating hyper plane is constructed with the help of some special functions known as support vector Kernels in this new feature space. This method also resolves the problem where the training points are not separab le by a linear decision boundary. Because by using an appropriate transformation the training data points can be made linearly separable in the feature space. Figure1 (a) Linearly separable data1(b) non-linear patterns of data In supervisory learning, the training data is composed of input as well as the output vector (also called supervisory signals) whereas in un-supervisory learning the training data is composed of only input vectors. Supervisory learning produces better results because the output vector is already known and the predicted values by the SVM are compared with the output to learn better for the next step. In un-supervisory learning the output data points are not known and the training depends on the probability to drive better results out of it. SVM comes in the supervisory learning category and the kernel function makes the technique applicable for the linear as well as non-linear approximation. 3 Related Works In various practical domains time series modeling and forecasting has essential importance. A lot of research works is going on in this subject during several years. Many models have been proposed in literature for improving the accuracy and efficiency of time series modeling and forecasting. The author [1] has compared various time series prediction methods widely used these days. This paper investigated the application of SVM in financial forecasting. The autoregressive integrated moving average model(ARIMA), ANN, and SVM models were fitted to Al-Quds Index of the Palestinian Stock Exchange Market time series data and two-month future points were forecast. The results of applying SVM methods and the accuracy of forecasting were assessed and compared to those of the ARIMA and ANN methods through the minimum root-mean-square error of the natural logarithms of the data. Results proved that svm is better method of modeling and outperformed ARIMA and ANN. The author of [2] explains the time series concept and the various methods of predicting the future values based on ARIMA model, Seasonal ARIMA model, ANN model, time lagged ANN, seasonal ANN, SVM for regression, SVM for forecasting etc. they have also explained the forecast performance measure MFE (Mean Forecast Error), MAE (Mean Absolute error), MAPE (Mean absolute percentage error), MPE (Mean percentage error), MSE (Means squared error) etc. In paper [5], a model based on least squares support vector machine is proposed to forecast the daily peak loads of electricity in a month. In [5] the time series prediction was first used to forecast electricity load .In paper [4] the author has improved the method presented in [5] to derive more accurate results. The author has proposed dynamic least square support vector machine (DLS-SVM) to track the dynamics of nonlinear time-varying systems. The dynamic least square method works dynamically by replacing the first vector by the new input vector to obtain more accurate result.. The author in paper [9] has proposed the modified version on svm for time series forecasting. The algorithm performs the forecasting in phases. In the first phase, self-organizing map (SOM) is used to partition the whole input space into several disjointed regions. A tree-structured architecture is adopted in the partition to avoid the problem of predetermining the number of partitioned regions. Then, in the second phase, multiple SVMs, also called SVM experts, are constructed by finding the most appropriate kernel function and the optimal free parameters of SVMs. 4 Support Vector Machine Regression Formulations for Forecasting Host Overload Detection Host overload and underload detection is based on current utilization patterns of the host. The host utilization is a univariate time series. In univariate time series the future values are entirely based on past observations. The goal of the SVM regression is to find a function that presents the most deviation from the target values so the maximum allowed error is. The future values are predicted by splitting the time series data into training inputs and the training outputs. Given training data sets of N points, with input data and output data . Assume a non-linear function as given below: (1) w = weight vector, b=bias and is a non-linear mapping to a higher dimensional space. The optimization problem can be defined as: : (2) is a user defined maximum error allowed. The above equation (2) can be rewrite as: : (3) To solve the above equation slack variables needs to be introduced to handle the infeasible optimization problem. After introducing the slack variables the above equations takes the form as given below: : (4) The slack variables defines the size of the upper and the lower deviation as shown in the figure 2(a). Figure 2 (a) The Accurate points inside Tube 2(b) Slope decided by C For simplicity and for avoiding the case of infinite dimensionality of the weight vector w the optimization operation are performed in the dual space[4] the Lagrangian for the problem(a) is given by [2] (3) Here, where are the Lagrange multiples. Applying the conditions of the optimality, one can compute the partial derivatives of L with respect to equate them to zero and finally eliminating w and obtain the following linear system of equations (4) Here, and with is the kernel matrix. The LS-SVM decision function is thus given by [4] (5) The dynamic least square support vector machine is modified so that it is best suitable for the real world problems. The key feature of DLS-SVM is that it can track the dynamics of the non-linear time varying system by deleting one existing data point whenever a new observation is added, thus maintaining the constant window size. 4 Experiments We have used CloudSim for retrieving the utilization of the host based on the workload defined in the PlanetLab folder in CloudSim. It contains the daily virtual machine requirement and the utilization of the host is calculated based on the daily requirement of the virtual machines. After retrieving the utilization of the hosts LSSVMLabv1 toolbox is used for support vector regression and the results are compared with [10] and [5]. The comparison is based on MAPE (mean absolute percentage error) and Maximal error (ME). The chart shows that DLS-SVM produce better forecast for the load pattern of the hosts in the data centers. Figure2: Comparison of errors References Okasha, M. K.,Using Support Vector Machines in Financial Time Series Forecasting.International Journal of Statistics and Applications 2014, 4(1): 28-392. Adhikari, R., Agrawal, R. K. (2013). An Introductory Study on Time Series Modeling and Forecasting.arXiv preprint arXiv:1302.6613. Beloglazov, Anton. Energy-efficient management of virtual machines in data centers for cloud computing. (2013). Niu, D. X., Li, W., Cheng, L. M., Gu, X. H. (2008, July). Mid-term load forecasting based on dynamic least squares SVMs. InMachine Learning and Cybernetics, 2008 International Conference on(Vol. 2, pp. 800-804). IEEE. Bo-Jeun Chen, Ming-Wei Chang, and Chih-Jen LIN, â€Å"Load forecasting using support vector machines: A study on EUNITE competition 2001†, IEEE Trans. Power Syst., vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 1821-1830, Nov. 2004. Fan, Y., Li, P., Song, Z. (2006, June). Dynamic least squares support vector machine. InIntelligent Control and Automation, 2006. WCICA 2006. The Sixth World Congress on(Vol. 1, pp. 4886-4889). IEEE. Kim, K. J. (2003). Financial time series forecasting using support vector machines.Neurocomputing,55(1), 307-319. Gui, B., Wei, X., Shen, Q., Qi, J., Guo, L. (2014, November). Financial Time Series Forecasting Using Support Vector Machine. InComputational Intelligence and Security (CIS), 2014 Tenth International Conference on(pp. 39-43). IEEE. Cao, L. (2003). Support vector machines experts for time series forecasting.Neurocomputing,51, 321-339. Haishan Wu, Xiaoling Chang. â€Å"Power load forecasting with least square support vector machines and Chaos Theory†, Proceedings of the 6th World Congress on Intelligent Control and Automation, Dalian, China, June 21-23, 2006. Rà ¼ping, S. (2001).SVM kernels for time series analysis(No. 2001, 43). Technical Report, SFB 475: Komplexità ¤tsreduktion in Multivariaten Datenstrukturen, Università ¤t Dortmund.

Article Of Confederation Essay -- essays research papers

Government under the Articles of confederation could not deal effectively with many issues that arose during the 1780’s. Despite it’s many weaknesses, the new government accomplished a great deal. The western lands became the prize and treasure of the new government. Since the Articles of Confederation could only request financial support form the states instead of demanding taxes, these western lands replaced taxes. The so called “public domain'; or unsettled land were larger than all the established states put together. Therefore, by selling the land, the weak new government received money that it couldn’t find in any other way. Instead of using this vast area like the European did with the thirteen colonies we made an “Empire for Liberty.'; The Empire was built by adding new states. This was an extremely unique idea among people during the time. The charting of the vast western public domain was one way the government under the Articles of Confederati on was praiseworthy. It was the greatest single achievement in domestic policy for the Confederation   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Under the Articles of Confederation each state was given the power to regulate their own currency. Each state issued it’s own money. As a result nobody knew exactly how much a New York dollar was worth compared to a one from New Jersey or Virginia. The more money there was in circulation, the less a dollar was worth. Finally, there was j...

The Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God Essay example -- Th

The Cosmological Argument attempts to prove that God exists by showing that there cannot be an infinite number of regressions of causes to things that exist. It states that there must be a final uncaused-cause of all things. This uncaused-cause is asserted to be God. Arguments like this are thought up to recognize why we and the universe exist. The Cosmological Argument takes several forms but is basically represented below. Cosmological Argument Things exist It is possible for those things not to exist Whatever has the possibility of non-existence, yet exists, has been caused to exist. Something cannot bring itself into existence because it would have had to exist to do that. There cannot be an infinite number of causes to bring something into existence, because an infinite regression of causes has no original cause, which means there is no cause of existence. Since the universe exists, it must have a cause, therefore there must be an uncaused cause of all things. This uncaused cause must be God. Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) had a version of the Cosmological Argument called the Argument from Motion. He stated that things in motion could not have brought themselves into motion but must be caused to move. There cannot be an infinite regression of movers. Therefore, there must be an Unmoved Mover. This Unmoved Mover is God. Strengths of the argument The strengths of the Cosmological Argument consist of the simplicity and easily understandable concept that there cannot be an infinite number of causes to an event. Some arguments for God's existence require more thought and education in terms and concep... ...existence of things that are necessary does not require explanation; their non-existence is impossible. The existence of anything contingent, however, does require explanation. They might not have existed, and so there must be some reason that they do exist. The only adequate explanation of the existence of the contingent universe, the argument from contingency suggests, is that there exists a necessary being on which its existence it rests. For the existence of the contingent universe must rest on something, and if it rested on some contingent being then that contingent being too would require some explanation of its existence. The ultimate explanation of the existence of all things, therefore, must be the existence of some necessary being. Followers of the cosmological argument identify God as this necessary being.

Enders Game And Out Of The Silent Planet Essay :: essays research papers fc

In both novels, the characters represent certain kinds of individuals in today's society. They encounterjealousy, as well as many other conflicts within themselves, and human nature. Ultimately, these two novels deliver the inner conflicts of our society. Both, Ender's Game and Out of the Silent Planet are related in terms of the class structures of society, the qualities of the characters, and both characters' struggles with others in the stories. In Ender's Game class structure is strictly military based. The classes are comprised of Citizens, who are just common people, making up the basic population, but are separate from the other classes. "Thirds" are children who were allowed to be born. In this futuristic setting the novel takes place in. Families were only allowed to comprise of two children. However, in Ender Wiggen's case, the government believed that he was the missing link, the great commander who would lead Earth to victory against the dreaded "Buggers". Which Ender does achieve. Thirds, however, were shunned, picked on, and often left out because they were sought to be social out casts. "Launchies" were the newcomers to the Battle School. They were always about six years old, and were often the lackeys of the older children soldiers. Next came the platoon's. platoon's were the main fighting group, which was just the basic soldier, they had little respect from others as well as themselves. Platoon leaders however, were the more desired positions at the Battle School. They were the best of the soldiers, and were veterans. Chosen over a period of time, and flight reviewing were the Army Leaders. Each Army Leader was expected to act a certain way, hardened and wise, as well as strict. Those, who made it to Army Leader often graduated, and went to war against the Buggers. Above these classes were the political castes. They were often corrupt and misled individuals, who often made many important decisions. At others' expense they followed through with their decisions, such as with taking Ender away from his family to train in the military. Orson Scott Card is quoted saying about the government that "the followers are ignorant and stupid and easily fooled, and the leaders are exploitative and cynical, manipulating others' faith for their private benefit."(Card, pg. 2) Which the government in his novel was often portrayed doing to the general public. One instance of this was, when Ender was attacked by Bonzo and a few of the other boys.

Organization “in the News” Analysis Paper Essay

Company Overview Research in Motion, (RIM), is â€Å"a global leader in wireless innovation, (which) revolutionized the mobile industry with the introduction of the BlackBerry solution in 1999† [ (Research In Motion, 2011) ]. While RIM has no publically available mission statement [ (missionstudy, 2009) ], we can deduct the following: 1) From the aforementioned description, they are committed to innovation. 2) From the article we will discuss later on, they are seeking to strengthen relationships with developers 3) From past history, reputation, and numerous achieved certification; they wish to provide a highly secure means of communication through mobile devices While it is not possibly to quantify most of RIM’s operational goals we can try to establish what they may entail. A recent interview with new CEO Thorsten Heins points towards having their operative goals built around having an innovative culture that involves employees and develops them and having a top 3 market share globall y in the mobile market [ (BlackBerry, 2012) ]. Furthermore, they are also very focused on reducing their costs which is demonstrated by their announcement of a core optimization program and CORE on June 16, 2011. These programs were meant to analyze the companies’ procedures and cut out overhead and redundancy [ (Research In Motion, 2011) ]. RIM’s competitors have been highly publicized and are listed by Yahoo Finance to be Nokia, Google, and Apple [ (Yahoo! Inc., 2012) ]. With RIM being in the mobile market, their consumer base is very broad selling to the general market. With such an advanced device the list of suppliers is vast as they need to provide all the parts from glass to processing chips and these suppliers are located around the world. Lastly, their key partners  are mobile companies large and small such as Verizon, Sprint, Vodafone, and Orange. Having previously worked at RIM for a year I know these statements to be fact. Article Importance and Recap RIM is currently going through relatively tough times exemplified by, â€Å"collapsing market share† [ (Isaac, 2012) ] and their declining stock value. RIM’s shares were being traded mostly between the $14 and $17 range per share in the month of February to date compared to $144 a share in the summer of 2008 [ (Google, 2012) ]. As recently as 2009, RIM accounted for half of the US smartphone market share [ (Gardner, 2009) ], but latest reports have them only accounting for 6.5% of the US market [ (Miller, 2011) ]. This fall from grace from the once dominant organization of the mobile space creates interest from a wide range of stakeholders. Consumers are interested as many have used RIM products in the past and investors are interested as they have gained and lost many dollars from the organization. As the mobile space is a very broad market it means that there is going to be many opinionated individuals for very different reasons. Because of RIM’s high profile and past and present penetration in the general population, a new business strategy is very newsworthy and is something people will talk about. Mike Isaac’s article, â€Å"RIM Claws Back Against Apple and Google With Free Tablets,† covers RIM’s decision to give android app developers free playbook tablets so long as they make their app available on the Playbook ecosystem [ (Isaac, 2012) ]. The article starts with a quote from Nokia CEO Stephen Elop who describes the importance of a platform’s ecosystem or in layman’s terms the amount of apps built for a platform. It further describes the relative lack of apps RIM has compared to Android, the Google platform, and iOS, the Apple platform. After stating the previously mentioned new strategy being employed by RIM, the article describes the reason for such aggressive tactics. The article lists the sales of RIM’s Blackberry playbook tablet being very disappointing, calling it a flop, as the main reason. The article lastly lists the other strategies that RIM has been employing to encourage app development citing extreme price cuts and Playbook’s virtual android environment which allows android apps to be easily transferred over to the Playbook. This is only possible due to the Android platform being an open OS meaning anyone can develop on it including  competitors. With an organizational theory perspective, this article best articulates a manifestation of 2 important concepts in the mobile market: 1) A resource based approach of assessing organizational effectives with apps and app developers being the scarce resource of note 2) A description of the organizational ecosystem being that of ‘population ecology’. This is demonstrated by the possible compatibility of Android and RIM platforms and the selection process of the market that is still happening most notably with the abandonment of HP’s webOS Resource Based Approach of Organizational Effectiveness The resource based approach to measuring organizational effectiveness focuses solely on an organizations ability to obtain scarce or key resources. The key measures of this approach are: * Ability to perceive and interpret the external environment * Ability to respond to environmental change * Bargaining position While RIM’s ability to obtain manufacturing resources is not being questioned, its ability to lure app developers and garner app creation is being put to the test. The tablet market itself is still maturing only having 19% penetration rate in the US and it is growing rapidly [ (Kopp, 2012) ]. RIM entered the market much later then their competitors with apple having released 2 iterations of their iPad before playbook had their initial launch. Currently, the iPad accounts for 57% of the market much due to the early release dates it had over competitors [ (Warner, 2012) ]. The rather quick emergence of the market may have exploited RIM to have a relatively slow response rate to changes in the environment as even when they did launch, the common perception of the playbook was that it was an unfinished product [ (Stevens, 2011) ]. Such offers as cutting their prices dramatically, and giving away playbooks to developers also proves that RIM currently has very little bargaining posi tion with those developers and they have to go to extremes in order to get traction on their development. By all definitions, this means that RIM is proving to be an ineffective organization by a resource based approach of assessments. If these aggressive measures are effective, the need for them will shrink as time goes on. The tactics are geared towards both increasing consumer bases to  create higher earning potential for developers and to encourage more app development with one time offers. More app development will mean higher adoption rates for consumers and the cycle goes on like this. This is in essence what RIM is trying to create; a snowball to roll down a mountain hoping momentum will take over at one point to create an avalanche. Although RIM currently stands as ineffective at collecting these resources, it is clear that they are trying hard to overcome their current shortcoming in assembling an ecosystem. Although a resource based approach still has the weakness of assuming a stable environment, which is far from the truth in the technological markets, it is actually a much more relevant measure to this situation then it would be to others. Usually a resource based approach lacks the consideration of consumer needs; in this case the scarce resource is created because of consumer needs. The ecosystem of the device became as important as the device itself in the tablet market. As an ecosystem doesn’t directly reflect internal processes or goal oriented approaches of assessment, a resource based approach is very effective in evaluating the creation of a value proposition to consumers in the tablet market. As the article stated, â€Å"a tablet is only as good as the apps it runs† [ (Isaac, 2012) ]. The Organizational Ecosystem An organizational ecosystem can be described by the nature of the interactions between organizations with the environment and each other [ (Daft & Armstrong, 2009) ]. The ecosystem can be described by its interorganizational framework which is defined by how similar the organizations are to each other and whether they act competitively or cooperatively with each other [ (Daft & Armstrong, 2009) ]. Analyzing the current mobile market, it is apparent that the functions each of the platforms have are very similar some apps being available across all platforms and each having very similar functions. The only differentiation there is within the market is the platform they are on, and the form factor of the tablets. Because of the similarity in the tablets across the platforms, it can safely be assumed that the organizations are similar to each other. However, since the differentiation involves different platforms, it also means that they are acting competitively towards each other. While some platforms are very proprietary like iOS and Blackberry, Android is open  source allowing for anyone to develop on it. Certain apps are only available on one device or another and they do not generally share their apps with each other. This is much different if everyone was on one platform and they were being differentiated solely on the tablet hardware. In this circumstance they are pooling their scarce resources of app development and creation in the effort to create a much greater app library and stronger ecosystem. Currently they are each trying to produce their own ecosystems. Since this is the case, it can also be concluded that the companies are competitive towards each other. With both factors being determined, we can refer to the organizational framework know that the current tablet market is that of ‘population ecology’. ‘Population ecology’ market is defined by: * The emergence of new models to meet consumer needs * The process of ecological change including variation, the appearance of a new population of organization; selection, whether an organization can survive in the environment; and retention, the preservation and institutionalization of organizational forms * The choice of pursuing the general market or a niche within that market meaning being a generalist or specialist respectively The iPad was the first mainstream tablet to have emerged with a market launch date of April 3, 2010 [ (Apple, 2010) ]. This was the first emergence of a tablet business model which was very much an extension of the mobile model but with a new class of product. The tablet is a device that is small in design but has similar functionalities then a laptop. This more portable form factor was the identification of consumer needs. However, since this launch almost 2 years ago, 4 new OS’s of note have emerged being that of Blackberry OS, Android, WebOS and Windows OS. The key question to ask is how many OS’s can survive in the tablet market. If it is anything like the smartphone market, it is closer to 3 or 4 as demonstrated by market share [ (Smith, 2012) ]. With the emergence of 4 new OS’s and the original iOS this means that eventually one of these would have to default. On August 18th 2011 it was confirmed that WebOS would be the ill fated platform [ (Kumparak, 2011) ]. As WebOS was selected out by the market, it provided a little breathing room for RIM with the quickly expanding market and less competition. To avoid the same fate as WebOS, RIM is actively trying to work on creating their ecosystem as described in the  last section. The emergence of an open OS platform as Android also provided it opportunity to adapt their platform to try and include Android apps as well. Both of these tactics are described in the article. What’s Missing? While the article extensively covers a resource based approach of assessing an organizational effectiveness and describes the organizational ecosystem, it fails to well define the environmental uncertainty. It doesn’t consider the broader picture of the market and it could be made more in depth with the addition of an analysis of the environmental framework. Furthermore, it has a very micro approach focusing only on the struggles of RIM with app developers. The environment is a huge factor in technological companies and it could illustrate how important the right decisions are to future success and the wrong decisions to complete failure. To analyze the environmental framework we have to see two key factors: * The stability of the environment meaning the speed of change * The complexity of the environment As previously described, the tablet market is rapidly expanding and it is only 2 years old. Combine this with RIM’s dramatic change in market share over the past 3 years it strongly indicated that the environment is quick changing. The complexity of the environment can also be defined as complex one. This can be proven by RIM having to worry about not only manufacturing resources, and app development, but also the extensive testing they must complete in order for their devices to be compliant with regulations. With many different radio bands, Bluetooth compatibilities, wifi bands, java compliance, throughput testing, and active pursuit in both hardware and software, RIM has to deal with an endless amount of variables. The hardware alone would contain a list of suppliers that are wide but then they must further ensure that all the radio frequencies are properly calibrated and the software works seamlessly amidst the global demands of their products. The article called them a flop even though they had shipped in the hundreds of thousands of devices in 2011 [ (Isaac, 2012) ]. What this means to RIM is that even though they may be down on market share, the market can easily turn in their favor. However, this also means that the market can select them out. The high uncertainty described of the environment is the sword  that decides whether RIM will prosper or die. The article does briefly describe the release of BB10, which is RIM’s new OS to be released later this year. However, it doesn’t emphasize that it would be the newest OS on the market and it was able to create the OS in a year and a half years [ (BlackBerry, 2012) ]. With the unstable environment, this means that it could very well be the basis for which their future will be decided upon. The article has a gloomy outlook on RIM’s future but also concludes with â€Å"perhaps it can find its way back to a seat at the mobile ecosystem table.† Thi s last statement would be better reinforced with an environmental analysis. Bibliography Apple. (2010, March 5). iPad Available in US on April 3. Retrieved from Apple Press Info: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/03/05iPad-Available-in-US-on-April-3.html BlackBerry. (2012, January 22). Meet Thorsten Heins the New President and CEO of Research In Motion. Retrieved from Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUFwhpcrCTw Daft, R. L., & Armstrong, A. (2009). Organization Theory & Design. Toronto: Nelson Education Ltd. Gardner, W. D. (2009, August 19). RIM Owns Half Of U.S. Smartphone Market. Retrieved from InformationWeek: http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal-tech/smart-phones/219400707 Google. (2012, February 14). Research In Motion Limited (USA). Retrieved from Google Finance: https://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:RIMM Isaac, M. (2012, February 3). RIM Claws Back Against Apple and Google With Free Tablets. Retrieved from Wired: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/02/rim-ecosystems-blackberry-playbook/ Kopp, C. (2012, January 24). Tablets, E-Readers Double Market Penetration, Says Report. Retrieved from minyanville: http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/megaupload-anonymous-kim-dotcom-filesonic-tablets/1/24/2012/id/38996 Kumparak, G. (2011, August 18). It’s Official: HP Kills Off w