New Visa Policy Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

New Visa Policy - Article Example In recent news articles regarding the visit of President Barak Obama in China, as part of his official trip to Asia, talks on new visa policy allegedly elicited diverse reactions from members of the CSSFA, as well as other Chinese citizens living in the United States. According to the reported written by Leavenworth, the new visa policy focused on extending the time frame of visits to the U.S. of Chinese businessmen and students and likewise, of U.S. businessmen and students in China. As explicitly noted: â€Å"The new visa policy announced Monday was lauded by business and other groups. For U.S. citizens residing in China, the current one-year visa for business in China would be extended for as much as 10 years. The education visa would be extended as long as five years. Chinese business investors and students would also benefit, enjoying longer visa extensions to reside in the United States, according to a White House statement. A senior administration official said Monday that it could lead to hundreds of thousands of jobs being created in the United States, many of them in tourism. Some 100 million Chinese traveled worldwide last year, but only 1.8 million came to the United States† (Leavenworth 1). From an approximate number of students enrolled in the Miami University, where â€Å"based on Fall 2013 enrollment, 15,460 undergraduates and 2,260 graduate students study on the Oxford campus† (Miami University 1), the Chinese students represent about 1% of the student population. As such, membership to the CSSFA is about 150 to date. The reactions to the new visa policy were relayed diverse. Most of the members of the CSSFA expressed optimism that the new visa policy would create increased benefits in terms of access to greater potentials to learn more about American culture, including its language, way of life, and possibly pursuing higher

Traditional learning styles adaptation Essay Example for Free

Traditional learning styles adaptation Essay In the last decade, many universities have started to adapt traditional learning styles to new technologies. They have done so because flexible learning allows the student to study at their own time and pace, which fits in with their lifestyle with the aid of technology. Technology has allowed the delivery of lectures to become more varied and imaginative and therefore more accessible to a wider student base. They have also done so because flexible learning allows students to access university courses without having to step foot within a lecture hall therefore it has become more widely available to students as it fits in with their lives and can be worked around their schedules, whether they are in the outback, different country, working etc. Technology has allowed the lectures to be accessible anywhere anytime as long as you have access to internet. Task 2 1.Reference Lodge, J 2010. ‘Communicating with first year students, so many channels but is anyone listening?’ A practice report’. The international Journal of the First Year in Higher Education, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 100-105. 2.Purpose and argument Communication with students is constantly changing with new technology, whilst many enjoy communicating through social networking and other online media sites, many also prefer a more traditional method of communication. Technology will continue to develop and getting important information over to students without it becoming lost within social networking sites will continue to become difficult. Therefore there needs to be options for getting messages across to students from all age groups. 3.Academic credibility Jason lodge is a psychological scientist and a well-known lecturer at Griffith University. He is also a researcher at the University of Queensland as well as other well-known Universities in Australia. His paper ‘Communicating with first year students: so many channels but is anyone listening: a practice report’ was published in 2010 making it fairly recent and not out dated. Most of his referencing is also fairly recent within the last ten years making it more academically credible. The other 12 end text references that Lodge uses are also based on factual information and published in journals and well known publishers such as Emerald Group Publishing Limited. 4.Headings and their main ideas Abstract In today’s modern world, universities have to keep up with the quick changing world of technology in order to communicate students. As technology changes frequently, it is difficult to find out what the students prefer for these communications. Social networking and other new online deliveries were generally met with a positive feedback from students. Background New technologies Higher education has radically changed with the modernisation of new information. Adopting new technology too eagerly has led to a situation where communication between and organisations and students are being lost. It is difficult to find which hi-tech channel is efficient and successful in getting messages across to students without getting lost and what is best for studying. The issues surrounding communication with first year students Various groups of students are entering higher education which presents complications in making sure communication needs of all students are met. The younger generations seems to be thriving on modern technology whilst the older generation prefers the more established lines of communications. However what is better for some students may not necessarily be good for others therefore finding something that works for everyone is fairly difficult. The current research Introduction Understanding students’ needs and preferences for communication channels within university life needs to be closely monitored and met. This needs to take into consideration, the wide age range within the first year of University life. Which communication method also needs to be observed as the more popular means of communication? Methods Social networking sites seem to be the most popular form of communications. With this in mind a group of students in their first year of studying were asked to complete a survey about which communication methods they preferred to receive messages from regarding administrative and educational issues. Results and discussions The result of this research showed that social networking sites were amongst the highest preferred methods of communications amongst university students for unofficial teamwork between students. However concerns were raised about the privacy of social networking sites when it came to communications with the university. On the other hand, when it came to communication about administrative or academic issues, students preferred to have contact either via email, in person or by phone. Recommendations The recommendations were that official messages from the Universities were best left to more recognized methods of communications but that the universities could use the social media outlets for more informal communications as long as they kept the messages short and to the point. The recommendation also suggested that it didn’t really matter what the generation gap was amongst the first year students as they were all catching up with the know-how of modern technology. Outcomes of discussion and reflections The problems of communicating necessary information to students seem to be across the board throughout other learning institutions. Students are continually inundated with information from the establishments therefore institutions need to make it simply for students to use and access, they need to present it in such a way that it is interesting, eye catching and encourages the student to participate with the organization as well as making it cost effective for the establishment. It was also established that social networking sites are probably best left for the students to communicate informally amongst one another rather than universities trying to communicate with students through these mean as their messages were largely overlooked and went unnoticed. As technology continues to grow and more forward, this will always present a communication problem for universities with first year students as they themselves are often also trying to not only cope with life as a first year student but also with the many new technical forms of communication that are constantly flooding the market. 5.Relevance or usefulness This reading will be very useful in doing my assignment because Lodge covers all aspects of flexible learning. He has looked at the problems that modern technology brings and how the different generations within the first year of learning will cope with it. How the delivery of the materials will be received from first year students and the problems that first year students face in accessing the materials as technology continues to grow and improve. Lodge has also tried to establish in what way is the best method for establishments to get their communications across to students.

XY Chromosome in a Female With Secondary Amenorrhea

XY Chromosome in a Female With Secondary Amenorrhea Dania Al-Jaroudi, M.D Capsule A 17-year-old girl presented to our gynecology clinic with secondary amenorrhea. She had been diagnosed with ALL at the age of 5 years, she received chemotherapy and radiotherapy over the following years. Her chromosomal analysis showed a karyotype of 46, XY. Introduction Primary ovarian insufficiency is a disorder that is emotionally traumatic and bears lifelong consequences on fertility, bone and cardiovascular health (1,2), making it more challenging is its occurrence in adolescents. Previously the term premature menopause had been used and found to be incorrect; as about 50 % of women have intermittent ovarian function and may ovulate and conceive after this diagnosis (1,2,3). The diagnosis is made when women younger than 40 years, have four or more months of amenorrhea and two serum FSH levels taken one month apart in the menopausal range (2). Causes of primary ovarian insufficiency in adolescents include chromosomal abnormalities, premutation in the FMR1 gene for fragile X, or iatrogenic from chemotherapy or radiation therapy (1). Infiltrative, infectious processes and pelvic surgery are less common causes (1). Autoimmune disease is another cause, as around 4% of women will have adrenal or ovarian antibodies. Still the etiology remains unknown in many cases (3). Although advances in oncology treatments have improved survival of childhood cancer, this came at the expense of ovarian function, increasing the risk of ovarian insufficiency and infertility (4). Morse et. al showed in a prospective observational study of ovarian function during cancer treatment of females aged 0 to 18 years that ovarian insufficiency occurred in chemotherapy treated prepubertal and pubertal patients regardless of menarche, age, diagnosis or chemotherapy given (5). Furthermore, females receiving radiotherapy below the diaphragm and/or stem cell transplant (SCT) had no recovery in their ovarian function followed for one and a half years from the end of their treatment (5). Clinicians need to be sensitive in delivering the diagnosis of primary ovarian insufficiency to their patients (6). This diagnosis can be emotionally traumatic and emotional needs of the patient need to be addressed as should further support be available (6). Adequate information regarding the diagnosis should be given as according to Groff AA et al (6); most patients feel that inadequate information decreased their sense of control (6). Case Report Our patient is a17-year old single girl who presented to our clinic with secondary amenorrhea. She had been diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) in 2002 at 5 years of age. Therapy began with hyperfractionated chemotherapy with two courses; course A: cyclophosphamide, vincristine, doxorubicin, and dexamethasone and Course B: methotrexate and cytarabine (HCVAD). She relapsed in 2007 and 2012 and was treated with methotrexate (MTX), dexamethasone (DEXA), vincristine, and L-asparagine. She then had total body radiation in 2012. In July 2012, patient was referred to King AbdulAziz medical city at 15 years of age with pancytopenia, she was again given hyperfractionated chemotherapy with two courses; course A: cyclophosphamide, vincristine, doxorubicin, and dexamethasone and Course B: methotrexate and cytarabine (HCVAD). After remission she was given busulfan/cyclophosphamide then she had stem cell transplant (SCT) from her full HLA matched sibling. Patient had menarche at 11 years, after which she had regular menstruations for 4 years before she developed secondary amenorrhea. Progesterone challenge test was done with no response. Hormonal profile showed hypergonadotropic hypogonadism, normal thyroid function test and prolactin levels. Pelvic ultrasound showed normal, but small sized uterus and ovaries. Chromosomal analysis showed 46, XY, this confused her primary physician was unsure about the best plan of management. On further review of her previous investigations, her chromosomal analysis one-year back had been a normal female genotype. So with the stem cell transplant (SCT) from her HLA matched sibling her genotype and her whole cell line had changed. With the impression of premature ovarian insufficiency as her primary diagnosis, patient was started on cyclical hormonal therapy; estradiol valerate 2 mg, norgestrel 500 mcg (progyluton ®, Bayer Health, Germany) for 6 months. On follow up after 2 months, she didn’t start progyluton because she thought she needs to start 5th day of cycle; proper counseling was done and patient was seen 2 months afterwards on hormonal therapy, calcium and vitamin D with withdrawal bleeds. Objective: To report a case of primary ovarian insufficiency in 17 year old, single girl, who had ALL and was treated with chemo and radiotherapy, followed by bone marrow transplant. Design: Case report. Setting: King Abdulaziz Medical City Patient(s): A patient diagnosed with primary ovarian insufficiency, after receiving chemo and radiotherapy for ALL. She later received bone marrow transplant from her HLA matched brother. Intervention(s): Hormone replacement therapy. Main Outcome Measure(s): After ruling out other causes, counseling and emotional support where given to the patient. She was then started on hormonal replacement therapy, calcium and vitamin D. Result(s): Patient started hormonal therapy and was followed in the clinic. Conclusion(s): This case describes a primary ovarian insufficiency in a girl post chemo and radiotherapy; it also describes a change in cell line following bone marrow transplant from her HLA matched brother. Key Words: Secondary amenorrhea, primary ovarian insufficiency, Hormonal replacement therapy, stem cell transplant. Acknowledgments: We would like to express our thanks to Dr. Hanan Dahlawi for providing care to the patient. Discussion: Conditioning with chemotherapy and radiotherapy prior to stem cell transplant (SCT) particularly with cyclophosphamide and total body irradiation will inevitably lead to primary ovarian insufficiency and infertility (7). The risk of primary ovarian insufficiency when patients receive busulfan and cyclophosphamide is about 100%, similar to what our patient has received (7). We report this case as this patient’s karyotype changed to a male karyotype following stem cell transplant (SCT) from her full HLA matched sibling. This led to a diagnostic confusion at first, and was later understood after her karyotype one year earlier was reviewed and genetist was consulted. There was no similar cases reported in the literature, although numerous cases where reported on primary ovarian insufficiency in adolescents, and successful pregnancy thereafter. Therefore, we recommend to educate physician on changes occurring after stem cell transplant. Unfortunately, this patient was not offered fertility preservation options prior to her treatment; this again is another area of awareness that needs to be raised in physicians. Nonetheless, this patient was offered counseling and hormonal therapy after she was referred to our out patient clinics. The aim of hormonal therapy in adolescents with primary ovarian insufficiency includes the relief of hypoestrogenic symptoms in addition to bone support, cardiovascular, and sexual health (8). Adolescents may need higher doses of estrogen than menopausal women to ensure adequate replacement and optimal bone health (8).

Invent Your Own Technology :: Process Essays

Invent Your Own Technology â€Å"The first writing technology was writing itself (39 Baron).† -Dennis Baron, From Pencils to Pixels Re-introducing myself to a task that I have taken advantage of my entire life proved both frustrating and time consuming. Writing has always been done with at least a pencil hasn’t it? Apparently not, and I realized that as I set out to â€Å"create† a non-technological way to write. The new way of writing I created, although effective, took quite a bit longer than I had anticipated. Thinking of an idea for this project was easy; it was putting that abstract thought into concrete form that proved difficult. Armed with the best of intentions I set out to create a project equivalent to Egyptian hieroglyphics carved on the tops of pyramids. I soon realized that I set my goals a bit to high so I began scratching a few words into a piece of tree bark with a rock. When that proved not as interesting as I wanted, and certainly not as aesthetically pleasing, I moved to plan B: creating my own ink by boiling grape peals. The ink was a deep shade of purple (and smelled like w ine); I was sure it would write just like ink from a pen and I would have a beautiful project. However my ego got the better of me. As it turned out the fermented ink would not write on my bark surface. Instead it absorbed into the bark never to be seen again. I moved to plan C. Creating a smoother surface for my wonderful ink by mixing flour and water and spreading it over the bark-again unsuccessful. Plan D: stick with the flour and water mixture but carve into the surface, like clay, before it hardens completely. (I had utterly given up on the ink.) Success! I had finally created a new way to write. In just over three hours I had a ten-word document. It wasn’t profound; it wasn’t beautiful; but it was certainly permanent. My creation came to life. Through this inventing process I was not only able to make a new writing technology, but I also learned something very valuable about myself-I have surprisingly little patients.

Business Process Reengineering

Describe each of the four kinds of organizational change that can be promoted with information technology. What is business process reengineering? What steps are required to make it effective? How does it differ from business process management? Explain with example. In an organization, there are major risks and uncertainties in systems development that need to be addressed by the management. Determining when new systems and business processes can have the greatest impact is involved in these challenges.This may be the reasons why organizational change and development is becoming a common scenario to talk about involving management, organizations, business, and leadership. With the fast-changing environment, business conditions bring consequences in management both in inner and outer factors. That is why in most cases, most of the managerial activities revolve around decision – making. Knowledge plays a major role in organizational development.Organizational changes are also u sually described, including management and employee training requirements, recruiting efforts, changes in business processes and changes in authority, structure or management practices. Information technology can promote various degrees of organizational change, ranging from incremental to far-reaching. There are actually four types of organizational change enabled by information technology: automation, rationalization, reengineering, and paradigm shifts. [pic] This figure shows the four degrees of organizational change.Automation is the easiest and the most common form of change. Being the most common form of IT-enabled change, the using of computer to speed up the performance of existing tasks is an example of automation. This involves assisting employees perform their tasks more efficiently and effectively. AUTOMATION Automation is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services. In the scope of ind ustrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization.Although automation speeds up performance of tasks, it does not guarantee a very high effectivity in business success. It is just the same as repeating the old manual way of disorders but in a faster way. However, this type of change, although common, is slow – moving, thus producing slow returns. Organizations using automation produce the same products and services as before but changes the way the organization functions. Example of automation in business are calculating paychecks and payroll registers, automated checkout and inventory system employed by many supermarkets. nd giving bank tellers instant access to customers deposit records. RATIONALIZATION Rationalization of procedures causes the organization to examine its standard operating procedures, eliminate those no longer needed, and make the organization more efficient. It is the streamlining of existing operating procedures, eliminating obvious bottlenecks so that automation makes operating procedures more efficient. Rationalization follows quickly from automation. Both types of change cause some disruption, but it's usually manageable and relatively accepted by the people.BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING A more powerful type of organizational change is business process reengineering, in which business processes are analyzed, simplified and redesigned. Using information technology, organizations can rethink and streamline their business processes to improve speed, service and quality. Business reengineering reorganizes work flows, combining steps to cut waste and eliminating repetitive, paper intensive tasks. It is usually much more ambitious than rationalization of procedures, requiring a new vision of how the process is to be organized.Business process reengineering in simpler words is Radical redesign of processes to improve cost, quality, and service, to maximize the benefits of technology. Process reengineering have been used by many companies to deal with a wide variety of problem. For example, the EMI Records Group was having difficulty filling orders for its most popular CDs. Retailers and recording stars were rebelling–it took the company as much as 20 days to deliver a big order for a hit CD, and then nearly 20% of the order would be missing. Small, incremental improvements would not have been adequate, so the company reengineered its entire istribution process with dramatic effects on on-time delivery and order fill rates. In business process reengineering, the organization can develop the business vision and process objective. It can identify the processes to be redesigned (core and highest payback) and understand and measure the performance of existing processes. It can also identify the opportunities for applying information technology and build a prototype of the new process. PARADIGM SHIFT It is about changing the very nature of the business and the structure of the organization itself, whole new products or services that didn't even exist before.In other words, paradigm shifts deals with major disruption and extreme change. Paradigm is a complete mental model of how a complex system works or functions. In other words, a paradigm shift involves rethinking the nature of the business and the organization. It is a complete re-conception of how the systems should function. For example, higher education is undergoing a major paradigm shift in the online delivery of education. Classes are now offered through the Internet so that students don't even go to classrooms. Many tried-and-true teaching methodologies are being radically altered to accommodate this shift in how education is offered.Paradigm shift is a radical re-conceptualization of the nature of the business and the nature of the organization. Deciding which business process to get right is half the challenge to the management. It is said that seventy percent of time programmatic reengineering efforts fail. But still o rganizations change. The reason is because the rewards are high. Paradigm shift involves great risks, but great returns too. The Internet is causing all kinds of industries and businesses to alter their products, their services, and their processes in radical ways.Entire organizations are being created to handle the paradigm shifts involved in e-commerce. Look at the automobile industry as an example of this type of change: Traditional dealerships are being disrupted by auto malls and online buying opportunities. BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING In today’s ever-changing world, the only thing that doesn’t change is ‘change’ itself. In a world increasingly driven by the three Cs: Customer, Competition and Change, companies are on the lookout for new solutions for their business problems.Recently, some of the more successful business corporations in the world seem to have hit upon an incredible solution: BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING (BPR). Business Process Re engineering (BPR) involves the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical contemporary measures of performance such as cost, quality, service and speed. A reengineered organization is process oriented, where: 1) Processes are identified and named, 2) Everyone is aware of the processes they are involved in, 3) Process measurement, i. e. onitoring and control, is performed BPR advocates that enterprises go back to the basics and reexamine their very roots. It doesn’t believe in small improvements. Rather it aims at total reinvention. As for results: BPR is clearly not for companies who want a 10% improvement. It is for the ones that need a ten-fold increase. BPR focuses on processes and not on tasks, jobs or people. It endeavors to redesign the strategic and value added processes that transcend organizational boundaries. According to many in the BPR field reengineering should focus on processes and not be limit ed to thinking about the organizations.After all the organization is only as effective as its processes. Processes are currently invisible and unnamed because people think about the individual departments more often than the process with which all of them are involved. So companies that are currently used to talking in terms of departments such as marketing and manufacturing must switch to giving names to the processes that they do such that they express the beginning and end states. These names should imply all the work that gets done between the start and finish. For example, order fulfillment can be called order to payment process. Steps to an effective BPR are as follows – . Prepare for reengineering – Planning and Preparation are vital factors for any activity or event to be successful, and reengineering is no exception. Before attempting reengineering, the question ‘Is BPR necessary? ’ should be asked. There should be a significant need for the proce ss to be reengineered. Preparation activity begins with the development of executive consensus on the importance of reengineering and the link between breakthrough business goals and reengineering projects. A mandate for change is produced and a cross-functional team is established with a game plan for the process of reengineering.While forming the cross functional team, steps should be taken to ensure that the organization continues to function in the absence of several key players. As typical BPR projects involve cross-functional cooperation and significant changes to the status quo, the planning for organizational changes is difficult to conduct without strategic direction from the top. The impact of the environmental changes that serve as the impetus for the reengineering effort must also be considered in establishing guidelines for the reengineering project.Another important factor to be considered while establishing the strategic goals for the reengineering effort, is to make it your first priority to understand the expectations of your customers and where your existing process falls short of meeting those requirements. Having identified the customer driven objectives, the mission or vision statement is formulated. The vision is what a company believes it wants to achieve when it is done, and a well-defined vision will sustain a company’s resolve through the stress of the reengineering process. 2.Map and Analyze As-Is Process – Before the reengineering team can proceed to redesign the process, they should understand the existing process. Although some BPR proponents argue against analyzing the current enterprise, saying that it inhibits the creative process, that might not always hold true. It varies from case to case. While some organizations which are in dire straits might attempt a new process design while totally ignoring the existing processes, most organizations need to map the existing processes first, analyze and improve on it to de sign new processes.The important aspect of BPR is that the improvement should provide dramatic results. Many people do not understand the value of an As-Is analysis and rather prefer to spend a larger chunk of their valuable time on designing the To-Be model directly. The main objective of this phase is to identify disconnects (anything that prevents the process from achieving desired results and in particular information transfer between organizations or people) and value adding processes. This is initiated by first creation and documentation of Activity and Process models making use of the various modeling methods available.Then, the amount of time that each activity takes and the cost that each activity requires in terms of resources is calculated through simulation and activity based costing (ABC). All the groundwork required having been completed, the processes that need to be reengineered are identified. 3. Design To-Be process – The objective of this phase is to produc e one or more alternatives to the current situation, which satisfy the strategic goals of the enterprise. The first step in this phase is benchmarking.The peer organizations need not be competitors or even from the same industry. Innovative practices can be adopted from anywhere, no matter what their source. Having identified the potential improvements to the existing processes, the development of the To-Be models is done using the various modeling methods available, bearing in mind the principles of process design. Then, similar to the As-Is model, we perform simulation and ABC to analyze factors like the time and cost involved. It should be noted that this activity is an iterative process and cannot be done overnight.The several To-Be models that are finally arrived at are validated. By performing Trade off Analysis the best possible To-Be scenarios are selected for implementation. 4. Implement Reengineered Process- The implementation stage is where reengineering efforts meet the most resistance and hence it is by far the most difficult one. When so much time and effort is spent on analyzing the current processes, redesigning them and planning the migration, it would indeed be prudent to run a culture change program simultaneously with all the planning and preparation.This would enable the organization to undergo a much more facile transition. But whatever may be the juncture in time that the culture change program may be initiated, it should be rooted in our minds that ‘winning the hearts and minds of everyone involved in the BPR effort is most vital for the success of the effort. Once this has been done, the next step is to develop a transition plan from the As-Is to the redesigned process. This plan must align the organizational structure, information systems, and the business policies and procedures with the redesigned processes. 5.Improve Process Continously- A very vital part in the success of every reengineering effort lies in improving the reen gineered process continuously. The first step in this activity is monitoring. Two things have to be monitored – the progress of action and the results. The progress of action is measured by seeing how much more informed the people feel, how much more commitment the management shows and how well the change teams are accepted in the broader perspective of the organization. This can be achieved by conducting attitude surveys and discrete ‘fireside chats’ with those initially not directly involved with the change.Communication is strengthened throughout the organization, ongoing measurement is initiated, team reviewing of performance against clearly defined targets is done and a feedback loop is set up wherein the process is remapped, reanalyzed and redesigned. Thereby continuous improvement of performance is ensured through a performance tracking system and application of problem solving skills. An intense customer focus, superior process design and a strong and mot ivated leadership are vital ingredients to the recipe for the success of any business corporation.Reengineering is the key that every organization should possess to attain these prerequisites to success. BPR doesn’t offer a miracle cure on a platter. Nor does it provide a painless quick fix. Rather it advocates strenuous hard work and instigates the people involved to not only to change what they do but targets at altering their basic way of thinking itself. BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT Business process management (BPM) is a systematic approach to improving an organization's business processes.BPM activities seek to make business processes more effective, more efficient, and more capable of adapting to an ever-changing environment. BPM is a subset of infrastructure management, the administrative area of concern dealing with maintenance and optimization of an organization's equipment and core operations. BPM Vs. BPR If BPM is a system software, then BPR is a method. BPR re-eval uates the processes used by the enterprise from the very basics and thoroughly redesigns them, enabling enterprises to have significant breakthroughs in cost, service, and speed.BPR can enable enterprises to reform from deep within, and create a new organization structure. Therefore, BPR is for the whole enterprise and may even include basic organization structures in its large modifications. BPM is a concept built internally in an enterprise that continuous to manage business processes. In an environment that stores internal and external events, BPM starts from a group of dependent processes, that describes, understands, indicates, and manages the whole process.BPM can integrate internal resources in an enterprise, automatically linking each department, enabling the enterprise to become a single united special forces team. As well, establishing standardized business processes through a single portal, the system can automatically make decisions based on rules and processes of the en terprise to satisfy the management needs of the enterprise, creating comprehensive core competitive force. Key aspects on which BPM differs from BPR are as follows: – Marked difference between BPR and BPM | |Aspect |BPR |BPM | |Level of change |Radical, one step change |Evolutionary & continuous | |Time taken for implementation |Long |Short time and smooth takeover | |Starting point |Drawing board |Current processes and automation levels | |Implementation |Huge effort required for the |Incremental | | |disruptive change | | |Expanse |One major process at a time |Flexible – simultaneously across one or more / | | | |small or major processes | |Methodology |Redesigning of business |Process and decision models | | |processes | | |Enabling technology |Primarily IT |Primarily process technology | |Involvement |Business and process experts |Process experts and all related people | |Risk |High |Low | |Outcome |Drastic |Incremental improvement | |Cultural issues |Major concern |Not much concern | |Implementation stress and concern|High |Low | BPM tools have taken the advantage of the BPR experience and conceptually are more flexible in terms of expanse and intensity.Unlike BPR which targets end-to-end process by radically redesigning it, BPM tools can be applied part by part to the whole enterprise at a time, by adopting much more manageable and smaller changes in the process. This way the investments, risks and amount of change are minimized but at the same time the tangible impact is much more modest than what was a possibility with BPR. Yet BPM tools for automating processes have their basis on the fundamental concepts that were emphasized by BPR, such as: †¢ Simple processes delivering on the metrics of quality, service, flexibility †¢ Focus on eliminating non-value adding activities †¢ Decisions becoming integral part of the processBPM unifies discrete tools through extension of technologies like BPR, EAI, Workflow automation and any other business application package in such a form where the implementation and upgradation is much easily handled and underlying business process are efficiently managed. In addition to the strength inherited from BPR that BPM is built around business processes and not business applications per se, yet another promising feature of BPM is that it is based on mathematical process models. For example: – BPM helps you improve predictability and repeatability. For example, it will help you identify and recruit 10 candidates for a specified position in 8 weeks. BPR helps you study this and reduce this 8 weeks to 6 weeks or 4 weeks , depending on the context. Once this is done, we need to again use BPM to stabilize this and get back to predictability. Business Process Reengineering Describe each of the four kinds of organizational change that can be promoted with information technology. What is business process reengineering? What steps are required to make it effective? How does it differ from business process management? Explain with example. In an organization, there are major risks and uncertainties in systems development that need to be addressed by the management. Determining when new systems and business processes can have the greatest impact is involved in these challenges.This may be the reasons why organizational change and development is becoming a common scenario to talk about involving management, organizations, business, and leadership. With the fast-changing environment, business conditions bring consequences in management both in inner and outer factors. That is why in most cases, most of the managerial activities revolve around decision – making. Knowledge plays a major role in organizational development.Organizational changes are also u sually described, including management and employee training requirements, recruiting efforts, changes in business processes and changes in authority, structure or management practices. Information technology can promote various degrees of organizational change, ranging from incremental to far-reaching. There are actually four types of organizational change enabled by information technology: automation, rationalization, reengineering, and paradigm shifts. [pic] This figure shows the four degrees of organizational change.Automation is the easiest and the most common form of change. Being the most common form of IT-enabled change, the using of computer to speed up the performance of existing tasks is an example of automation. This involves assisting employees perform their tasks more efficiently and effectively. AUTOMATION Automation is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services. In the scope of ind ustrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization.Although automation speeds up performance of tasks, it does not guarantee a very high effectivity in business success. It is just the same as repeating the old manual way of disorders but in a faster way. However, this type of change, although common, is slow – moving, thus producing slow returns. Organizations using automation produce the same products and services as before but changes the way the organization functions. Example of automation in business are calculating paychecks and payroll registers, automated checkout and inventory system employed by many supermarkets. nd giving bank tellers instant access to customers deposit records. RATIONALIZATION Rationalization of procedures causes the organization to examine its standard operating procedures, eliminate those no longer needed, and make the organization more efficient. It is the streamlining of existing operating procedures, eliminating obvious bottlenecks so that automation makes operating procedures more efficient. Rationalization follows quickly from automation. Both types of change cause some disruption, but it's usually manageable and relatively accepted by the people.BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING A more powerful type of organizational change is business process reengineering, in which business processes are analyzed, simplified and redesigned. Using information technology, organizations can rethink and streamline their business processes to improve speed, service and quality. Business reengineering reorganizes work flows, combining steps to cut waste and eliminating repetitive, paper intensive tasks. It is usually much more ambitious than rationalization of procedures, requiring a new vision of how the process is to be organized.Business process reengineering in simpler words is Radical redesign of processes to improve cost, quality, and service, to maximize the benefits of technology. Process reengineering have been used by many companies to deal with a wide variety of problem. For example, the EMI Records Group was having difficulty filling orders for its most popular CDs. Retailers and recording stars were rebelling–it took the company as much as 20 days to deliver a big order for a hit CD, and then nearly 20% of the order would be missing. Small, incremental improvements would not have been adequate, so the company reengineered its entire istribution process with dramatic effects on on-time delivery and order fill rates. In business process reengineering, the organization can develop the business vision and process objective. It can identify the processes to be redesigned (core and highest payback) and understand and measure the performance of existing processes. It can also identify the opportunities for applying information technology and build a prototype of the new process. PARADIGM SHIFT It is about changing the very nature of the business and the structure of the organization itself, whole new products or services that didn't even exist before.In other words, paradigm shifts deals with major disruption and extreme change. Paradigm is a complete mental model of how a complex system works or functions. In other words, a paradigm shift involves rethinking the nature of the business and the organization. It is a complete re-conception of how the systems should function. For example, higher education is undergoing a major paradigm shift in the online delivery of education. Classes are now offered through the Internet so that students don't even go to classrooms. Many tried-and-true teaching methodologies are being radically altered to accommodate this shift in how education is offered.Paradigm shift is a radical re-conceptualization of the nature of the business and the nature of the organization. Deciding which business process to get right is half the challenge to the management. It is said that seventy percent of time programmatic reengineering efforts fail. But still o rganizations change. The reason is because the rewards are high. Paradigm shift involves great risks, but great returns too. The Internet is causing all kinds of industries and businesses to alter their products, their services, and their processes in radical ways.Entire organizations are being created to handle the paradigm shifts involved in e-commerce. Look at the automobile industry as an example of this type of change: Traditional dealerships are being disrupted by auto malls and online buying opportunities. BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING In today’s ever-changing world, the only thing that doesn’t change is ‘change’ itself. In a world increasingly driven by the three Cs: Customer, Competition and Change, companies are on the lookout for new solutions for their business problems.Recently, some of the more successful business corporations in the world seem to have hit upon an incredible solution: BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING (BPR). Business Process Re engineering (BPR) involves the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical contemporary measures of performance such as cost, quality, service and speed. A reengineered organization is process oriented, where: 1) Processes are identified and named, 2) Everyone is aware of the processes they are involved in, 3) Process measurement, i. e. onitoring and control, is performed BPR advocates that enterprises go back to the basics and reexamine their very roots. It doesn’t believe in small improvements. Rather it aims at total reinvention. As for results: BPR is clearly not for companies who want a 10% improvement. It is for the ones that need a ten-fold increase. BPR focuses on processes and not on tasks, jobs or people. It endeavors to redesign the strategic and value added processes that transcend organizational boundaries. According to many in the BPR field reengineering should focus on processes and not be limit ed to thinking about the organizations.After all the organization is only as effective as its processes. Processes are currently invisible and unnamed because people think about the individual departments more often than the process with which all of them are involved. So companies that are currently used to talking in terms of departments such as marketing and manufacturing must switch to giving names to the processes that they do such that they express the beginning and end states. These names should imply all the work that gets done between the start and finish. For example, order fulfillment can be called order to payment process. Steps to an effective BPR are as follows – . Prepare for reengineering – Planning and Preparation are vital factors for any activity or event to be successful, and reengineering is no exception. Before attempting reengineering, the question ‘Is BPR necessary? ’ should be asked. There should be a significant need for the proce ss to be reengineered. Preparation activity begins with the development of executive consensus on the importance of reengineering and the link between breakthrough business goals and reengineering projects. A mandate for change is produced and a cross-functional team is established with a game plan for the process of reengineering.While forming the cross functional team, steps should be taken to ensure that the organization continues to function in the absence of several key players. As typical BPR projects involve cross-functional cooperation and significant changes to the status quo, the planning for organizational changes is difficult to conduct without strategic direction from the top. The impact of the environmental changes that serve as the impetus for the reengineering effort must also be considered in establishing guidelines for the reengineering project.Another important factor to be considered while establishing the strategic goals for the reengineering effort, is to make it your first priority to understand the expectations of your customers and where your existing process falls short of meeting those requirements. Having identified the customer driven objectives, the mission or vision statement is formulated. The vision is what a company believes it wants to achieve when it is done, and a well-defined vision will sustain a company’s resolve through the stress of the reengineering process. 2.Map and Analyze As-Is Process – Before the reengineering team can proceed to redesign the process, they should understand the existing process. Although some BPR proponents argue against analyzing the current enterprise, saying that it inhibits the creative process, that might not always hold true. It varies from case to case. While some organizations which are in dire straits might attempt a new process design while totally ignoring the existing processes, most organizations need to map the existing processes first, analyze and improve on it to de sign new processes.The important aspect of BPR is that the improvement should provide dramatic results. Many people do not understand the value of an As-Is analysis and rather prefer to spend a larger chunk of their valuable time on designing the To-Be model directly. The main objective of this phase is to identify disconnects (anything that prevents the process from achieving desired results and in particular information transfer between organizations or people) and value adding processes. This is initiated by first creation and documentation of Activity and Process models making use of the various modeling methods available.Then, the amount of time that each activity takes and the cost that each activity requires in terms of resources is calculated through simulation and activity based costing (ABC). All the groundwork required having been completed, the processes that need to be reengineered are identified. 3. Design To-Be process – The objective of this phase is to produc e one or more alternatives to the current situation, which satisfy the strategic goals of the enterprise. The first step in this phase is benchmarking.The peer organizations need not be competitors or even from the same industry. Innovative practices can be adopted from anywhere, no matter what their source. Having identified the potential improvements to the existing processes, the development of the To-Be models is done using the various modeling methods available, bearing in mind the principles of process design. Then, similar to the As-Is model, we perform simulation and ABC to analyze factors like the time and cost involved. It should be noted that this activity is an iterative process and cannot be done overnight.The several To-Be models that are finally arrived at are validated. By performing Trade off Analysis the best possible To-Be scenarios are selected for implementation. 4. Implement Reengineered Process- The implementation stage is where reengineering efforts meet the most resistance and hence it is by far the most difficult one. When so much time and effort is spent on analyzing the current processes, redesigning them and planning the migration, it would indeed be prudent to run a culture change program simultaneously with all the planning and preparation.This would enable the organization to undergo a much more facile transition. But whatever may be the juncture in time that the culture change program may be initiated, it should be rooted in our minds that ‘winning the hearts and minds of everyone involved in the BPR effort is most vital for the success of the effort. Once this has been done, the next step is to develop a transition plan from the As-Is to the redesigned process. This plan must align the organizational structure, information systems, and the business policies and procedures with the redesigned processes. 5.Improve Process Continously- A very vital part in the success of every reengineering effort lies in improving the reen gineered process continuously. The first step in this activity is monitoring. Two things have to be monitored – the progress of action and the results. The progress of action is measured by seeing how much more informed the people feel, how much more commitment the management shows and how well the change teams are accepted in the broader perspective of the organization. This can be achieved by conducting attitude surveys and discrete ‘fireside chats’ with those initially not directly involved with the change.Communication is strengthened throughout the organization, ongoing measurement is initiated, team reviewing of performance against clearly defined targets is done and a feedback loop is set up wherein the process is remapped, reanalyzed and redesigned. Thereby continuous improvement of performance is ensured through a performance tracking system and application of problem solving skills. An intense customer focus, superior process design and a strong and mot ivated leadership are vital ingredients to the recipe for the success of any business corporation.Reengineering is the key that every organization should possess to attain these prerequisites to success. BPR doesn’t offer a miracle cure on a platter. Nor does it provide a painless quick fix. Rather it advocates strenuous hard work and instigates the people involved to not only to change what they do but targets at altering their basic way of thinking itself. BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT Business process management (BPM) is a systematic approach to improving an organization's business processes.BPM activities seek to make business processes more effective, more efficient, and more capable of adapting to an ever-changing environment. BPM is a subset of infrastructure management, the administrative area of concern dealing with maintenance and optimization of an organization's equipment and core operations. BPM Vs. BPR If BPM is a system software, then BPR is a method. BPR re-eval uates the processes used by the enterprise from the very basics and thoroughly redesigns them, enabling enterprises to have significant breakthroughs in cost, service, and speed.BPR can enable enterprises to reform from deep within, and create a new organization structure. Therefore, BPR is for the whole enterprise and may even include basic organization structures in its large modifications. BPM is a concept built internally in an enterprise that continuous to manage business processes. In an environment that stores internal and external events, BPM starts from a group of dependent processes, that describes, understands, indicates, and manages the whole process.BPM can integrate internal resources in an enterprise, automatically linking each department, enabling the enterprise to become a single united special forces team. As well, establishing standardized business processes through a single portal, the system can automatically make decisions based on rules and processes of the en terprise to satisfy the management needs of the enterprise, creating comprehensive core competitive force. Key aspects on which BPM differs from BPR are as follows: – Marked difference between BPR and BPM | |Aspect |BPR |BPM | |Level of change |Radical, one step change |Evolutionary & continuous | |Time taken for implementation |Long |Short time and smooth takeover | |Starting point |Drawing board |Current processes and automation levels | |Implementation |Huge effort required for the |Incremental | | |disruptive change | | |Expanse |One major process at a time |Flexible – simultaneously across one or more / | | | |small or major processes | |Methodology |Redesigning of business |Process and decision models | | |processes | | |Enabling technology |Primarily IT |Primarily process technology | |Involvement |Business and process experts |Process experts and all related people | |Risk |High |Low | |Outcome |Drastic |Incremental improvement | |Cultural issues |Major concern |Not much concern | |Implementation stress and concern|High |Low | BPM tools have taken the advantage of the BPR experience and conceptually are more flexible in terms of expanse and intensity.Unlike BPR which targets end-to-end process by radically redesigning it, BPM tools can be applied part by part to the whole enterprise at a time, by adopting much more manageable and smaller changes in the process. This way the investments, risks and amount of change are minimized but at the same time the tangible impact is much more modest than what was a possibility with BPR. Yet BPM tools for automating processes have their basis on the fundamental concepts that were emphasized by BPR, such as: †¢ Simple processes delivering on the metrics of quality, service, flexibility †¢ Focus on eliminating non-value adding activities †¢ Decisions becoming integral part of the processBPM unifies discrete tools through extension of technologies like BPR, EAI, Workflow automation and any other business application package in such a form where the implementation and upgradation is much easily handled and underlying business process are efficiently managed. In addition to the strength inherited from BPR that BPM is built around business processes and not business applications per se, yet another promising feature of BPM is that it is based on mathematical process models. For example: – BPM helps you improve predictability and repeatability. For example, it will help you identify and recruit 10 candidates for a specified position in 8 weeks. BPR helps you study this and reduce this 8 weeks to 6 weeks or 4 weeks , depending on the context. Once this is done, we need to again use BPM to stabilize this and get back to predictability.

Beowulf vs. The Patriot essays

Beowulf vs. The Patriot essays When looking at the comparison of the stories Beowulf and the Patriot, there are some definite differences, but there are also some things very common to both of these heroes. Lets have a look at some of the major differences and common points between the two characters. Beowulf was originally from Geatland, and once he heard the news of Grendel attacking Hrothgars kingdom, he packed his bags and headed for Danish lands. In other words, he fought for a country beside his own. The Patriot is much different, actually the exact opposite. The Patriot is defending his home country, fighting against people coming from the other country (Britian). If the Patriot came to American shores to fight, it would have been to fight against the Americans instead of for them. Another noticeable difference in the styles of the two heroes is how much help each gets when fighting. Beowulf fights every single battle by himself, and never seems to request for help. It seems as if he would rather lose a battle alone that win with the help of a friend. On the other hand, the Patriot is always searching for teammates to aid with the battles. Which brings up another difference, dealing with numbers. Beowulf is consistently matched up against no more than 1 enemy at a time. The Patriot is always outnumbered, no matter what the circumstances are, because his battle is a war. In Beowulfs case, it seems that everyone in the community he is trying to help is very friendly and supportive of his actions to defend the people of the community. On the other hand is the Patriot, who continually tries to prevent his community from entering into the war, mainly because if they did take part in war, his son would also join. Since almost everyone in the community is for going to war, and the Patriot is not, no one in the community really agrees or backs his decision. Moving on to similarities between the two ch ...

American Settler Colonialism - Definition

American Settler Colonialism - Definition The term colonialism is possibly one of the most confusing, if not contested, concepts in American history and international relations theory. Most Americans would likely be hard-pressed to define it beyond the colonial period of US history when early European immigrants established their colonies in the New World. The assumption is that since the founding of the United States everybody who is born within the national boundaries is considered American citizens with equal rights, whether or not they consent to such citizenship. In this regard, the United States is normalized as the dominant power to which all its citizens, indigenous and non-indigenous alike, are subject. Although in theory a democracy of the people, by the people, and for the people, the nations actual history of imperialism betrays its democratic principles. This is the history of American colonialism. Two Kinds of Colonialism Colonialism as a concept has its roots in European expansionism and the founding of the so-called New World. The British, French, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, and other European powers established colonies in new places they discovered from which to facilitate trade and extract resources, in what can be thought of as the earliest stages of what we now call globalization. The mother country (known as the metropole) would come to dominate indigenous populations through their colonial governments, even when the indigenous population remained in the majority for the duration of colonial control. The most obvious examples are in Africa, such as the Dutch control over South Africa and French control over Algeria, and in Asia and the Pacific Rim, such as British control over India and Fiji and French domination over Tahiti. Beginning in the 1940s the world saw a wave of decolonization in many of Europes colonies as indigenous populations fought wars of resistance against colonial domination. Mahatma Gandhi would come to be recognized as one of the worlds greatest heroes for leading Indias fight against the British. Likewise, Nelson Mandela is today celebrated as a freedom fighter for South Africa where he was once considered a terrorist. In these instances European governments were forced to pack up and go home, relinquishing control to the indigenous population. But there were some places where colonial invasion decimated indigenous populations through foreign disease and military domination to the point where if the indigenous population survived at all, it became the minority while the settler population became the majority. The best examples of this are in North and South America, the Caribbean islands, New Zealand, Australia and even Israel. In these cases scholars have recently applied the term settler colonialism. Settler Colonialism Defined Settler colonialism has best been defined as more of an imposed structure than an historical event. This structure is characterized by relationships of domination and subjugation that become woven throughout the fabric of society, and even becomes disguised as paternalistic benevolence. The objective of settler colonialism is always the acquisition of indigenous territories and resources, which means the native must be eliminated. This can be accomplished in overt ways including biological warfare and military domination but also in more subtle ways; for example, through national policies of assimilation. As scholar Patrick Wolfe has argued, the logic of settler colonialism is that it destroys in order to replace. Assimilation involves the systematic stripping away of indigenous culture and replacing it with that of the dominant culture. One of the ways it does this in the United States is through racialization. Racialization is the process of measuring indigenous ethnicity in terms of blood degree; when indigenous people intermarry with non-indigenous people they are said to lower their indigenous (Indian or Native Hawaiian) blood quantum. According to this logic, when enough intermarriage has occurred there will be no more natives within a given lineage. It does not take into account personal identity based on cultural affiliation or other markers of cultural competence or involvement. Other ways United States carried out its assimilation policy included the allotment of Indian lands, forced enrollment in Indian boarding schools, termination and relocation programs, the bestowal of American citizenship, and Christianization. Narratives of Benevolence It can be said that a narrative based on the benevolence of the nation guides policy decisions once domination has been established in the settler colonial state. This is evident in many of the legal doctrines at the foundation of federal Indian law in the US. Primary among those doctrines is the doctrine of Christian discovery. The doctrine of discovery (a good example of benevolent paternalism) was first articulated by Supreme Court Justice John Marshall in Johnson v. McIntosh (1823), in which he opined that Indians had no right to title on their own lands in part because the new European immigrants bestow[ed] on them civilization and Christianity. Likewise, the trust doctrine presumes that the United States, as the trustee over Indian lands and resources, will always act with the best interests of Indians in mind. Two centuries of massive Indian land expropriations by the US and other abuses, however, betrays this idea. References Getches, David H., Charles F. Wilkinson and Robert A. Williams, Jr. Cases and Materials on Federal Indian Law, Fifth Edition. St. Paul: Thompson West Publishers, 2005.Wilkins, David and K. Tsianina Lomawaima. Uneven Ground: American Indian Sovereignty and Federal Indian Law. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001.Wolfe, Patrick. Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native. Journal of Genocide Research, December 2006, pp. 387-409.

Facts are More Important Than Being First

Facts are More Important Than Being First Facts are More Important Than Being First Facts are More Important Than Being First By Mark Nichol Thanks to technology, everyone who wants to be a writer and publisher can easily do so online. Unfortunately, this ease has resulted in a lot of unease about how information is disseminated. Early online information about the recent massacre of children and adults at a Connecticut school is a case in point. Initial reports identified the killer as a man named Ryan Lanza, though, as it turns out, Lanza’s younger brother, the real perpetrator of this horror, who killed himself, had apparently used his brother’s identification during the incident. But by the time this ruse was detected, the innocent brother had been harassed and threatened online by people who read or heard the inaccurate information, and he issued distraught denials on his Facebook page. Imagine the tragedy that would have occurred if some self-righteous vigilante, missing or ignoring his declaration of innocence, had stormed the elder Lanza’s home or office and killed him. In addition, reports varied about the number and type of guns the perpetrator used, prompting online debates about gun control based on the firepower and capacity of the weapons apparently used. Such careless argument before the facts are straight just confuses what is already an emotionally charged social issue. News media, including television and radio news programs and newspapers and magazines, sometimes make such mistakes, and when the information is significant, such sources retract it as soon as possible. Sometimes, it’s too late, and the damage is done. But usually, because of generally stringent standards for gathering facts for reporting, the erroneous information is never released in the first place. But now that virtually anyone, anywhere can post or otherwise disseminate mistaken â€Å"facts,† the risk of tragic consequences is multiplied. Even fairly innocuous information can be damaging, so take care when passing along a piece of news: 1. Before blogging or tweeting information, verify though reputable news sources or, better yet, directly from those involved that it is correct. (Two other ways of putting it: If something seems too good to be true, it probably is, and, more lightheartedly, if your mother tells you she loves you, check it out.) 2. Being correct is more important than being first. 3. Clearly distinguish fact from opinion in your own commentary, and be alert for your own biases. 4. If you do introduce or repeat misinformation, correct it as soon and as prominently as possible. 5. Most important, if you fail to heed any of these tips, learn from your failures so that next time, there is no next time. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Business Writing category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Grammar Test 111 Writing Exercises to Inspire You and Strengthen Your WritingOppose and Opposed To

Traditional Sports of Kuwait Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Traditional Sports of Kuwait - Essay Example This event comprises of training the birds to swoop down on their prey from a great height at a great speed and then return to their masters. This requires quite a skill but was practiced and mastered by the people in the ancient days. This sport is an integral part of the desert life but it helped to support the meager diet of dates, milk and bread (United World, 2006). Even though it started as a necessity, it eventually became a sport enjoyed equally by both the rich and the poor. The traditional sport has adopted certain changes. In the ancient days the hunting parties used to pursue their prey on a camel or a horse back but today this has been replaced by a four-wheeled vehicle. The UAE government spends about Dhm100 millions on falconry every year (UAEInteract, 2006). The purpose is two-fold – protection of the falcons and creating awareness of this endangered species. Horse racing is still pursued by the modern Kuwaitis. The exclusive Hunting and Equestrian Club is still active although the club’s original horses were stolen by Iraqi invaders (HotelTravel, 1999). The club has race tracks and riding and gymkhana facilities along with other sports and recreation facilities. Racing is still held every Monday at 3pm from October to April except during Ramadan (eKuwait, n.d.). Jockeys and horses from all over the world compete on the club’s attractive, tree-lined track and is open to public. Camel racing is a sport that has its roots in the desert culture. Camels commonly referred to as the ‘ships of the desert’ play a vital role in the daily life of the people in the region (Hezaz, 2002). Camels start receiving training when they are 13 months old and it continues up to the age of three when they begin racing. Care is taken of nutrition of the camels and it requires a very careful camel maintenance hierarchy. Nutritionists, feeders, jockeys, drivers, grooms, cleaners,

Critically evaluate equality of opportunity in (a) the teaching Essay

Critically evaluate equality of opportunity in (a) the teaching profession OR (b) the classroom - Essay Example It must be pointed out that the EO in teaching profession result to EO in education and hence any discussion for EO in the classroom must be taken to explain the effect of EO in the teaching profession. On the hand the inequality of opportunity (IEO) teaching profession result to IEO in education and hence, any discussion for IEO in the classroom must be taken to explain the effect of IEO in the teaching profession. The premise the teaching profession affects education is based on the premise that teachers bear great responsibility in moulding education of students who will become professionals and matured members of society. And hence good teachers produce good students in the classroom and good teachers and good students produce good education of UK citizens. "Let us stop tinkering with school structures, such as bringing back grammar schools, or promoting selection and the rest. Let us address the real problem, which is to recruit more teachers and better qualified teachers, with adequate resources for them to do the job of raising the general standard of basic education in our country." (Callaghan, 2001) Community Council of DevonïÆ'  (CCD) defines equal opportunities EO as that â€Å"about ensuring fair and equal treatment for everyone, and tackling discrimination wherever it exists in our society.† It says the fundamental principle is that employment opportunities and service provisions should be free from bias, and equally available to all. It posits as well that equal EO involves the breakdown and removal of discriminatory structures, biased policies and prejudicial practices in organisations and individuals. It further states that EO seeks to replace processes that perpetuate inequality with fairer and more effective ways of working. (Community Council of Devon, 2002, pages 1-4) (paraphrasing made) CCD summarized that EOP is about the elimination of discrimination, maximising potential, taking positive action, implementing change,

Adidas Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Adidas - Research Paper Example For instance in 2005, Adidas was the market leader in sports goods in Japan because of its strong brand image and diverse product launches in the region. Since the soccer world cup in Japan and South Korea, Adidas embarked on advertising campaigns with popular sports representatives and celebrities. The brand strengthens its image through different brand evaluation that focus on customer expectations (Berger, 2008). Adidas claim its employees are essential to the company’s success since achieving the goal of being a global leader in the sporting industry relies on the engagement and talents of its employees. As an employer, Adidas is liable to the health and safety of its employees; besides, revenue for the corporation in 2009 was about â‚ ¬10.38 billion compared to 2008 figure of â‚ ¬10.80 billion. The company targets leading positions in markets it competes and has 180 subsidiaries worldwide that are investment prioritised in accordance with the markets on the basis of best medium to long-term growth and profitable opportunities (Vicki, 2010). The Adidas group has been part of the sporting world by providing sportswear, apparel as well as accessories; thus, becoming a global leader in the sporting industry offering broad categories of products like bags, eyewear, watches and other assorted sporting and clothing goods.

Does the new 21st century transformational form of super leader simply Essay

Does the new 21st century transformational form of super leader simply represent the reemergence of traitbased theories of leadership - Essay Example Eventually concentrating on the three main ideas of leadership: Trait theory, Situational or behavioral theory, and Transformational theory, this essay will compare and contrast these ideas in order to discover whether modern ideas of super-leadership is really a 21st century innovation. The first part of this essay will look at the history of leadership, and consider how these theories changed over time, and how they were affected by the politics of the day - whether Weber's hero-based theories fall out of favor because of "charismatic" leaders such as Hitler and Stalin, for example. The essay will then consider the two prime theories of leadership prior to the 1970's; trait theory, and situational theory. Through analysis of all of these historical theories, it is hoped that common perspectives and behaviors might be more clearly seen. Having noted similar themes or behaviors within the historical theories, the next part of the essay will consider transformational leadership, and its development in the twentieth century. Notions of the Super-leader will also be examined. Leadership theories do not just describe leaders of countries, or empires; indeed, leadership theory in the 20th century has also focused upon business leaders; modern theorists consider teachers, football coaches, and even parents, as leaders. There are a great many books written about it also: so anyone who can buy a book from a store can learn the tricks and secrets to being a great leader. Therefore, in order to understand what theorists mean when they are discussing leadership, a definition seems necessary. For the purposes of this essay, leadership is "The effort to influence the behavior of individuals or members of a group in order to accomplish organizational, individual, or personal goals" (National Resources Management, 1997). The main focus of most pre-twentieth century theories of leadership was the monarch, or rulers of countries. Sun-Tzu's theories have already been described: clearly they relate to the idea of a war-lord, or leader with military capability, not the average equipment of the business leader. Rulers were also clearly the object of Machiavelli's work "The Prince"; in his theory, rulers are made great or weak through the popular perception of them: "Whenever men are discussed.they are noted for various qualities which earn them either praise or condemnation" (Machiavelli). In general, he believed

Steel building design Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Steel building design - Coursework Example At the same time, the design should also ensure and provide the necessary comfort, energy-efficiency and safety to the inhabitants. To attain the fundamental building requirements, it is then necessary to integrate adequate structural resistance to building designs. The primary purpose of this is to sustain the actions (i.e. loads, imposed displacements, thermal strains) and influences resistance so that the building will remain serviceable and durable (Brettle, 2009). Meanwhile, in order to secure the structural safety of the building during its intended life, it should be designed and executed with appropriate degrees of reliability. Further, it should also be built in an economic sustainable approach in order to meet its required serviceability structure or structural element standard. Meaning it should fit for the use or function it is required whilst providing comfort and physical aesthetic. Moreover, building designs also incorporated robustness to ensure that the built environ ment is resistant to damages cause by events such as explosion, impact and consequences of human errors (Brettle, 2009). Likewise, it is also important to consider the snow loads, wind actions, thermal actions, and other accidental actions in the building designs in order to integrate appropriate building resistant techniques and strategies. The snow load capacity of the built environment is very important to determine in order to integrate in the design the characteristic values applicable for ground snow load for the site and the imposed roof snow load and shape coefficient. The EN 1991-1-3 (Annex C) of the UK Eurocode provides the snow load map which would be used to deter snow loads for building construction. Meanwhile, the Annex B of the same Eurocode also provide the benchmarks applicable for present roof shape coefficients including other information for exceptional snow drifts, multi-span pitched roofs, roofs abutting and close to taller structures, roofs with projections, o bstructions and parapets. It is also important to note the applicable wind actions in building designs. The EN 1991-1-4 of the UK Eurocode served as guideline in order to determine the natural wind actions during the construction phase of the building. The code also included other information such values of wind actions, value of the basic wind velocity, wind speed, peak velocity pressure, and wind pressures and forces. Likewise, thermal actions should also be considered in the design in order to address the seasonal climatic changes. The characteristic values of thermal action are enclosed in the EN 1991-1-5 of the UK Eurocode. The code is also served as temperature reference especially when steel sub-grade materials are utilized in the building construction. However, it is recommended to further refer to the EN 1993-1-10 of the Eurocode to meet the required standard. Moreover, the UK Eurocode also provided general principles and rules especially during construction and execution o f the building works in order to avoid and prevent accidents in the work site. These guidelines are enclosed in the EN 1991-1-6 of the UK code which included temporary works i.e. cofferdams, falsework, scaffolding and propping system. It also noticeable that new building designs utilized structural materials that are fire resistant. Aside from this, building designers also integrated adequate built-in fire safety measures such as

Humannities Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Humannities - Research Paper Example Furthermore, the unique dynamics of Islamization, poverty, and the effects that 20 years of incessant civil war on the only truly failed state in the world has had on the way in which Somalia and the issue of â€Å"piracy† has developed will be discussed within the lens of media representation of the issue. Merriam Webster’s dictionary broadly defines piracy as â€Å"an act of violence or robbery at sea†. Such a broad definition leaves little room for prevarication concerning whether or not the actions taken by groups of Somalis over the past decade or so can be understood as piracy or not. However, a more important test of determination is of course the question of how tactics, objectives, and operational mechanisms differ when one compares current Somali piracy with that of the earlier more traditional understandings of the word. What is unique with regards to Somali piracy is the fact that the actual material goods that the ships which are arrested by them are often of secondary or tertiary importance. Of primal importance is the money which can be extracted from shipping companies, governments, or interested loved-ones of the crew members of the ships which have been captured. This serves as a fundamental deviation from traditional piracy in that this is the ultimate goal which the Somali pirates pursue as opposed to a secondary or tertiary goal that traditional piracy was engaged with. For the traditional definition of piracy on the high seas, the requisition of the goods was of primary importance with the lives and health of the crew being much lower on the list of interests that the pirates dealt with. Ultimately, in the traditional understanding of piracy, the lives of those which were captured were worth little unless it was believed that an added amount of money could be extracted by ransoming them off to interested governments, families, or trade representatives (Murphy, 2011). This shift in the dynamic that piracy has taken with in the modern world is a unique hallmark of the Somali understanding of the term. Instead of seeking to acquire and sell tens of millions of dollars worth of ships and goods, the Somali pirates are almost exclusively disinterested in such an operation; instead concerned with seeking to ransom the ship, its contents, and the crew itself to interested parties the world over. The media’s interpretation of piracy in Somalia has been one that has traditionally missed the point. Although the actual day to day occurrences of piracy and associated deaths are recounted within world media, little to no attention is paid to the preceding determinants with regards to the underlying reason why piracy is currently taking place to such a high degree within Somalia. There are a number of reasons for this media misrepresentation; however, it is the belief of this author that a large degree for the hesitancy with which Western media has sought to discuss and analyze the underlying reasons for Somali piracy is the level of culpability that the West continues to feel with regards to the situation that exists within the county. As a function of the failed UN intervention in Somalia in

Does the new 21st century transformational form of super leader simply Essay

Does the new 21st century transformational form of super leader simply represent the reemergence of traitbased theories of leadership - Essay Example Eventually concentrating on the three main ideas of leadership: Trait theory, Situational or behavioral theory, and Transformational theory, this essay will compare and contrast these ideas in order to discover whether modern ideas of super-leadership is really a 21st century innovation. The first part of this essay will look at the history of leadership, and consider how these theories changed over time, and how they were affected by the politics of the day - whether Weber's hero-based theories fall out of favor because of "charismatic" leaders such as Hitler and Stalin, for example. The essay will then consider the two prime theories of leadership prior to the 1970's; trait theory, and situational theory. Through analysis of all of these historical theories, it is hoped that common perspectives and behaviors might be more clearly seen. Having noted similar themes or behaviors within the historical theories, the next part of the essay will consider transformational leadership, and its development in the twentieth century. Notions of the Super-leader will also be examined. Leadership theories do not just describe leaders of countries, or empires; indeed, leadership theory in the 20th century has also focused upon business leaders; modern theorists consider teachers, football coaches, and even parents, as leaders. There are a great many books written about it also: so anyone who can buy a book from a store can learn the tricks and secrets to being a great leader. Therefore, in order to understand what theorists mean when they are discussing leadership, a definition seems necessary. For the purposes of this essay, leadership is "The effort to influence the behavior of individuals or members of a group in order to accomplish organizational, individual, or personal goals" (National Resources Management, 1997). The main focus of most pre-twentieth century theories of leadership was the monarch, or rulers of countries. Sun-Tzu's theories have already been described: clearly they relate to the idea of a war-lord, or leader with military capability, not the average equipment of the business leader. Rulers were also clearly the object of Machiavelli's work "The Prince"; in his theory, rulers are made great or weak through the popular perception of them: "Whenever men are discussed.they are noted for various qualities which earn them either praise or condemnation" (Machiavelli). In general, he believed

Humannities Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Humannities - Research Paper Example Furthermore, the unique dynamics of Islamization, poverty, and the effects that 20 years of incessant civil war on the only truly failed state in the world has had on the way in which Somalia and the issue of â€Å"piracy† has developed will be discussed within the lens of media representation of the issue. Merriam Webster’s dictionary broadly defines piracy as â€Å"an act of violence or robbery at sea†. Such a broad definition leaves little room for prevarication concerning whether or not the actions taken by groups of Somalis over the past decade or so can be understood as piracy or not. However, a more important test of determination is of course the question of how tactics, objectives, and operational mechanisms differ when one compares current Somali piracy with that of the earlier more traditional understandings of the word. What is unique with regards to Somali piracy is the fact that the actual material goods that the ships which are arrested by them are often of secondary or tertiary importance. Of primal importance is the money which can be extracted from shipping companies, governments, or interested loved-ones of the crew members of the ships which have been captured. This serves as a fundamental deviation from traditional piracy in that this is the ultimate goal which the Somali pirates pursue as opposed to a secondary or tertiary goal that traditional piracy was engaged with. For the traditional definition of piracy on the high seas, the requisition of the goods was of primary importance with the lives and health of the crew being much lower on the list of interests that the pirates dealt with. Ultimately, in the traditional understanding of piracy, the lives of those which were captured were worth little unless it was believed that an added amount of money could be extracted by ransoming them off to interested governments, families, or trade representatives (Murphy, 2011). This shift in the dynamic that piracy has taken with in the modern world is a unique hallmark of the Somali understanding of the term. Instead of seeking to acquire and sell tens of millions of dollars worth of ships and goods, the Somali pirates are almost exclusively disinterested in such an operation; instead concerned with seeking to ransom the ship, its contents, and the crew itself to interested parties the world over. The media’s interpretation of piracy in Somalia has been one that has traditionally missed the point. Although the actual day to day occurrences of piracy and associated deaths are recounted within world media, little to no attention is paid to the preceding determinants with regards to the underlying reason why piracy is currently taking place to such a high degree within Somalia. There are a number of reasons for this media misrepresentation; however, it is the belief of this author that a large degree for the hesitancy with which Western media has sought to discuss and analyze the underlying reasons for Somali piracy is the level of culpability that the West continues to feel with regards to the situation that exists within the county. As a function of the failed UN intervention in Somalia in

Qvc Case Analysis Essay Example for Free

Qvc Case Analysis Essay Case QVC Author: NA HG495 – Case Analysis Instructor: NA Abstract This case analysis will be focused on the company QVC (Quality, Value, and Convenience). We will perform an analysis review, which, will provide a comprehensive insight into the company’s historical and current business structures, strategies and efficiencies in their operations. It will include a detailed SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) (Humphrey) and the primary activities of the Value Chain Analysis (Porter), to provide greater insight into the firms’ competitive advantage. These key concepts will be used to analyze QVC’s business model, define potential challenges and initiate a plan of execution. We will then recommend solutions such as advocating products with higher profit margins, finding evolving technologies and untapped markets and streamlining logistics. These strategies would expand the customer base and create higher ROI (Return of Investment), positioning the company towards timely growth. Introduction: QVC is a multimedia retailer, specializing in televised home shopping, broadcasting in five countries (US, UK, Germany, Japan and, Italy), 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to over 90 million households in the United States and 160 million homes worldwide. They offer a wide range of products with over 1500 major brands and 50,000 products, including beauty, fashion and accessories, jewelry, craft and leisure, home electronics, garden, and do-it-yourself (DIY), and clearance goods. The company has store operations in the US, which includes Delaware and Pennsylvania. QVC also has a lucrative website called iQVC (www. qvc. com) that generates over 1 billion of sales on its Internet operations. Since it was launched in 1986; QVC has rapidly grown to become the largest television shopping network. By 2006, its reach had extended to over 95 percent of all U. S. cable homes, as well as, over 25 million satellite homes. It shipped over 140 million packages during 2006 to customers around the world, resulting in almost $7. 1 billion in sales and over 1 billion operating profit. Sales were made to over 10 million customers, who watched its shows across the US, UK, Germany, Japan and Italy. Problem: Doug Rose, QVC’s vice president of merchandising brand development, claims that the interactivity in all aspects of the firm’s business and operations, including its television shopping channel, will need to become more pronounced. Making it easier for customers to act on what they see. QVC believes that it still has a lot of room to grow, since only about 2% to 3% of its television viewers currently purchase at any given time. Bringing that percentage higher is the main problem that affects the major revenue stream and would require an internal/external analysis (balance scorecard) to bring in new viewers/customers to purchase their products. There are other challenges that can attribute to generating more revenue, such as, selling products with higher margins and offering shopping channels to customers outside North America. They could also add more interactive features that would allow more access.

Information Filtering System Based on Clustering Approach

Information Filtering System Based on Clustering Approach A PRIVATE NEIGHBOURHOOD BASED INFORMATION FILTERING SYSTEM BASED ON CLUSTERING APPROACH ABSTRACT The quantity of web information has been increased day by day due to fast development of internet. Now-a-days people make their decision based on the available information from the internet. But the problem is how the people successfully choose or filter the useful information from the enormous amount of information. This problem is referred as information overload. Recommendation System is a supportive tool to resolve the information overload problem. It is part of information filtering system used to recommend the user based on their own interest, neighborhood similarity and past history. Collaborative Filtering is one of the popular techniques widely used recommendation system. Every recommendation system should ensure privacy for both user’s neighbour and their data. To overcome the scalability and model reconstruction problem, a power graph based private neighborhood recommendation system is proposed to ensure the user’s privacy. First, the compressed network is constructed and then the feature set is extracted from the compressed network using transformed data. The data is transformed using hybrid transformation fuses principal component analysis and rotation transformation to protect users privacy with accurate recommendations. Finally the item to be recommended is predicted which achieve better performance than the existing technique. MovieLens Dataset is used to evaluate this method. INTRODUCTION Recommendation System is one of the information filtering system which provides valuable information to the users by filtering the information according to user’s interest. Traditional approaches of recommendation systems are collaborative filtering, content based filtering and hybrid Approach. Content Based Filtering (CBF) approach predicts the recommendation based on the rating given by the user for the similar items in past history. Collaborative Filtering (CF) recommends the user based on rating of that item by similar users. Hybrid approach combines both the approaches. All the approaches have their own advantage and disadvantage. CF mainly classified as memory based CF and model based CF. Memory based CF first calculate the similarities between the requested user and all other user to find the neighbors then calculate the prediction based on identified neighbors rating pattern. Model based method first built a model based on the preference of the user. Main aim of the recommender system is to minimize the prediction error. The main issues in CF recommender system are scalability, sparsity and privacy. Scalability: Large number of users and items in the network led to the increase in the computational complexity of the system. In E-commerce, scalability plays a important issue because it contain huge number of users. Sparsity: All the users dont show their interest to rate all the items they interact private, which will lead to data sparseness in the system. This will not give exact recommendation to the seekers. Cold Start: Lack of information for new items and users in recommendation system will leads to unpredictable items in the system. Privacy: Users may provide false information inorder to protect their personal information. This leads to inaccurate recommendation. The proposed work mainly focuses on two fundamental issues in CF namely scalability and privacy. The first challenge is how to improve the scalability of CF, because these systems should search the entire user for finding the neighbors. The second problem is how to protect the individual users privacy while prediction. Both an issues lead to poor performance of the system. So the important challenge is to handle both a situation properly for better performance. LITERATURE SURVEY Recommendation system helps the people to get exact information based on neighbors’ pattern. Remarkable growth in e-commerce site makes the online vendors to develop their sales and profits. They use this technique which suggests product to users’ by their neighbors’ preference about the item. Scalability issue in RS mainly due to enormous growth in users tends to decline in accuracy of prediction on recommendation. Clustering approach reduces scalability problem by grouping the similar users. Recommender System may demand the users’ to expose their ratings to recommendation server to give a proper recommendation. But exposing the rating may allow the recommenders to learn the private information about users. Revealing rating may also direct to do violent behavior by several competitive companies’. CLUSTERING IN RECOMMENDER SYSTEM Several different clustering methods are adapted to reduce the scalability problem in RS. A new cluster based matrix tri-factorization is proposed to cluster the user and item simultaneously to get a better recommendation in model based CF. But when the new user enter the system it is necessary to rebuilt the whole model again for other user [].In [0] a cluster based binary tree is built by splitting the dataset and the recommendation is predicted based on the average rating of cluster. Later [] a combined k-means bisecting clustering is performed to overcome the scalability problem while preprocessing and pseudo prediction is adapted. But performance is not much better. Community based clustering model based CF is proposed [] to predict the recommendation but it underperform on outliers. Multilevel clustering is adapted to extract the subgraph which is clustered and propagated to reduce scalability which improved the performance than existing approach. But it will be more complicate d when the aspect of the network increases. Therefore it is necessary to group the data in all the aspects to reduce the scalability. PRIVACY PRESERVING RECOMMENDER SYSTEM In CF, neighbors are identified by collecting the information for the entire user. Thus the server maintain user preference, purchase, usage data etc which may contain identifiable information may violate the privacy. There are several techniques to protect the user’s sensitive information []. Initial method to ensure the privacy protection in CF was proposed by canny (2002a, 2002b), mainly focus on aggregation. In this method sensitive data are aggregated with some common distribution. In cryptographic approach, Individual user data can be protected using homomorphic encryption to avoid exposing of individual data but it requires high computational cost [5]. In perturbation approach, users mask their data before storing it in a central server. The central server collects the disguised data instead of original data to provide predictions with decent accuracy [18]. In [2] a randomized response techniques (RRT) is proposed to preserve users’ privacy by generating naive Ba yesian classifier (NBC) based private recommendations. Another technique, data obfuscation was used to implement privacy preserving collaborative filtering algorithm [16]. In this technique, sensitive data are obfuscated through additive or multiplicative noise in order to protect individual privacy before allowing for analysis. The actual data can be revealed in this technique by applying reverse engineering process [7]. Sensitive information is either concealed or eliminated for the purpose of analyzing the data to extract the knowledge in anonymization technique. The major fault of this technique is some distinctive data may lead to the re-identification of data [1]. In proposed work, a scalable privacy preserving recommendation system is proposed. First the user to user network is constructed from the user preference then compressed network is formed based on the power graph approach. Then feature set extracted from the compressed network based on transformed rating to ensure the privacy during prediction. Finally the linear prediction model is adopted instead of similarity prediction to improve the accuracy besides reduces the complexity. OBJECTIVE To protect the individual’s neighbour information while prediction based on clustering approach this reduces complexity of model reconstruction. To protect the individual data using data transformation technique. PROBLEM FORMULATION A cluster based approach is proposed to protect the individual neighborhood privacy and hybrid data transformation technique is proposed to protect the individual data with accurate recommendation using feature extraction based linear regression prediction. MODULES Data Transformation Experiment is performed using MovieLens Public (MLP) dataset which is the standard dataset to show the better performance of the proposed method. MovieLens dataset is collected by the GroupLens Research Project at the University of Minnesota. This data set consists of three different files of three different sizes 10M, 1M and 10K which mainly contain ratings of different movies provided by the users. To evaluate the proposed method 1M size dataset is used which contains 6040 users, 1 million ratings and 3900 items. The rating values are on five star scales, with five stars being the best and one star being the least. Data collected consist of four attributes separated with double colon as the delimiter [userid :: itemid ::rating :: Timestamp]. To evaluate the proposed work userid, itemid, rating is extracted from the dataset and then extracted data is converted into user x item matrix with dimension (6040 x 3952).Unrated items are filled with value zero to overcome computation comple xity. Data Transformation A hybrid data transformation technique which fuses Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Rotation Transformation (RT) is proposed to transform the data in order to protect the user’s data. The input to the PCA technique is the rating matrix. This technique first finds the principal components and then rotates these components which cannot be reverted easily. Rotation transformation will be efficient by identifying the appropriate range of angle such that to satisfy the least privacy requirement. Optimum privacy threshold is determined from range of angle which leads to good privacy protection effect. To determine the range of angles, sequence rotation should be performed on vectors with successive angles. For each pair of attributes, pairwise optimum privacy threshold is assigned by multiplying the privacy threshold and the privacy angle which should be maximum. To determine the privacy angle, calculate the variance of each attribute. For each pair of attribute, minimum varia nce will be considered as privacy angle. After determining pairwise optimum privacy threshold, select the range of angles to transform the pair of attribute. While choosing the range of angle make sure that it satisfying the following constraint which is mentioned in Eqn(1) Var(Pi-Pi) ≠¥PoptEqn(1) An angle is randomly chosen from the interval to rotate each and every pair of principal component. After rotating the principal component, it is multiplied with normalized data in order to obtain the transformed data. The Transformed value of the original data for the data is shown in Table 2. Private Neighborhood Network Construction Original network is compressed using power graph analysis. Power graph analysis is a representation of complex network which represent the graph into power graph without loss of information. Graph can be clustered to construct a power graph using modular decomposition method in which modules represents the nodes with same neighbour. Power graph cluster both, the nodes and edges to obtain the most compressed network. Power graph analysis is widely used several biological networks such as protein-protein interactionnetworks, domain-peptide binding motifs,Gene regulatory network and Homology/Paralogy networks. Matrix R can be used to represent the social relationship between the users. If any two users rate the same item then there will be a relationship between them. Thus the user-user network is represented as where U is the set of users represented as nodes and is the set of relationship denoted as edges, and then a power graph is a graph defined on the power set of nodes which are connected by power edges. The concepts of power graphs are as follow: if there is a power edge between two power nodes, then nodes in one power nodes are connected to all the nodes in the second power node. In same way if all the nodes are connected to each other which is represented as power node with self loop. Based on power graph analysis this module involves two steps, power node identification and power edge search. Power nodes are recognized using hierarchical clustering based on jaccard index. The greedy search is performed to identify the power edge. Feature Set Extraction After construction of private network, feature set of each user is extracted by categorizing the users into cold start user, powerful user, and malicious user. Cold start is a user who rate exactly twenty items. Powerful user is user who rate more than thirty five items and malicious user who rate less than twenty five items but the difference between any ratings of a particular item and the standard deviation of that item is greater than one. For the constructed compressed network following features are extracted for each category of the users to predict the rating of unrated item. Feature set of particular user includes features of directly connected power node and Friend Of A Friend (FOAF) in the other power nodes. Each category is measured according to number of particular category of user present in the power node and their joint probability of that particular category. Bayes theorem is used to calculate the most probable rating each category of user. The following Table shows t he feature set measured for each user. Table 5.2 Feature Set of User X Linear Regression prediction From the above extracted features a linear predictive model is constructed which is user for predicting particular item. Then top predicted items are given as recommendation to user. The model takes the following form as in Equation. (5.6) (5.6) where ÃŽ ± represents the slope of the dependent variables, X represent the feature vectors and represents the error vector which is assumed to be zero. In linear regression, the value to be predicted is commonly computed from the best fitting line which reduces error in prediction. PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS: The proposed method is preserves both the individual neighbors privacy and data privacy. It also reduces the scalability issues and give accurate recommendation when compared to the previous work (privacy preserving information filtering system). MAE obtained is compared with the proposed method in previous Chapter TRPC as in Table 5.7. Figure shows that MAE is reduced to 0.62 because of coupling of clustering approach with data transformation to handle large volume of data. CONCLUSION The power graph analysis helps to overcome the scalability problem by compressing the original network and results better recommendation to users. The existing methods apply power graph analysis to various domains for analyzing complex networks in a simpler way. And at the same time it also preserves the communities’ information. Therefore, in proposed work this type of clustering approach is used to preserve the neighbours information which also results better prediction. The efficiency of the proposed methodology is evaluated with the experimental results using MovieLens dataset. It performs better compared data transformation and clustering approach. This type of cluster based collaborative filtering recommendation helps to reduce the edges in the original network without loss of any information.