Saturday, August 31, 2019

Justice In Society Essay

In every society, most people desire for justice. Even most of our great political thinkers and philosophers used to ponder about this word and exerted some effort to seek and define it. For a long time, there was a debate whether justice is a man centered word. It means that justice is present if an action promotes the welfare of humans. American heritage dictionary defines justice as the quality of being just and fair. (batlevy.com) There are instances when the issue of justice is not only applicable for humans. What is justice becomes the issue of killing animals for food or damaging the Mother Nature for human welfare. Is it justice when it involves animals or physical things? In some cases, it becomes the issue of living a good life. But not at all times, living good means living a just life. A person can live good even virtuous life but still stepping on the rights of other people.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã¢â‚¬Å"Plato contended that justice is the quality of soul, in virtue of which men set aside the irrational desire to taste every pleasure and to get a selfish satisfaction out of every object and accommodated themselves to the discharge of a single function for the general benefit.† (Bhandari, www.bu.edu)   It means that justice is a responsibility of human beings regardless of their own pleasure and needs. Although an action deprives human being of their pleasure and welfare, it is still justice as long as it demonstrates fairness. One example is the execution of justice through penalties and punishments. It sounds not good for the criminals and law breakers. But it demonstrates fairness and is widely acceptable in our society. If justice is just for the welfare of human beings, it will be hard to execute justice because punishment will become a big issue. References American Heritage Dictionary. 2000. Retrieved February 22, 2008 from http://www.bartleby.com/61/76/J0087600.html Bhandari, D.R. Plato’s Concept of Justice: An Analysis. Retrieved February 22, 2008 from http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Anci/AnciBhan.htm      

Friday, August 30, 2019

Supply Chain Management for Manufacturing Industry

The main objective is to know about the SCM of manufacturing industry to know we have analyses several topic are: †¢Supply chain is a network of all firms relationships that gat a product to market, including the original acquisition of raw materials; production of the item at a manufacturing facility; distribution to a retailer; sale of he finished item to the customer, and any installation, repair, or service activities that follow the sale. †¢ How to effectively manage the supply chain is a central issue for all levels of management, regardless of industry. †¢This workshop has been designed and tailored by Mr. Ejazur Rahman amassing his over a decade experience in working and managing the Supply chain function of a reputed global manufacturing and marketing organization. To know Successful supply chain management requires decisions.To know scm, competitive, sales and marketing strategies. Who should attend the programmed? Inventory management system of scm. How to a chieve excellence in scm. Supply Chain Management for Manufacturing Industry Supply chain management (SCM) is the oversight of materials, information, and finances as they move in a process from supplier to manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer to consumer. Supply chain management involves coordinating and integrating these flows both within and among companies.It is said that the ultimate goal of any effective supply chain management system is to reduce inventory (with the assumption that products are available when needed). As a solution for successful supply chain management, sophisticated software systems with Web interfaces are competing with Web-based application service providers (ASP) who promise to provide part or all of the SCM service for companies who rent their service. Supply chain management flows can be divided into three main flows: †¢The product flow †¢The information flow The finances flow The product flow includes the movement of goods from a supplier to a customer, as well as any customer returns or service needs.The information flow involves transmitting orders and updating the status of delivery. The financial flow consists of credit terms, payment schedules, and consignment and title ownership arrangements. †¢1. Supply Chain Management – What and Why? †¢2. Objectives of a Supply Chain †¢3. Decision Phases in a Supply Chain †¢4. Process Views of a Supply Chain †¢5. Supply Chain Performance : Achieving Strategic Fit 6. Drivers of Supply Chain Performance †¢7. Designing the Supply Chain Network †¢8. Demand and Supply Planning in a Supply Chain †¢9. Planning and Managing Inventory †¢10. Designing and Planning Transportation Networks †¢11. Achieving Supply Chain Excellence in a manufacturing/service organization 1) Supply chain management what? Supply chain management (SCM) is the management of a network of interconnected businesses involved in the ultimate provision of prod uct and service packages required by end customers (Harland, 1996).Supply Chain Management spans all movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, and finished goods from point of origin to point of consumption (supply chain). – Supply chain management (SCM) is the oversight of materials, information, and finances as they move in a process from supplier to manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer to consumer. Supply chain management involves coordinating and integrating these flows both within and among companies.It is said that the ultimate goal of any effective supply chain management system is to reduce inventory (with the assumption that products are available when needed – Supply chain management (SCM) is the oversight of materials, information, and finances as they move in a process from supplier to manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer to consumer. Supply chain management involves coordinating and integrating these flows both within and among companies. It is said that the ultimate goal of any effective supply chain management system is to reduce inventory (with the assumption that products are available when needed).As a solution for successful supply chain management, sophisticated software systems with Web interfacervice for companies who rent their service. Why supply chain management The definition, put forward by an American professional association, is that Supply Chain Management encompasses the planning and management of all activities involved in sourcing, procurement, conversion, and logistics management activities. It also includes the crucial components of coordination and collaboration with channel partners, which can be suppliers, intermediaries, third-party service providers, and customers.In essence, Supply Chain Management integrates supply and demand management within and across companies. More recently, the loosely coupled, self-organizing network of businesses that cooperates to provide product and s ervice offerings has been called the Extended Enterprise. [1] Supply Chain Management can also refer to Supply chain management software which are tools or modules used in executing supply chain transactions, managing supplier relationships and controlling associated business processes.Supply chain event management (abbreviated as SCEM) is a consideration of all possible occurring events and factors that can cause a disruption in a supply chain. With SCEM possible scenarios can be created and solutions can be planned. functions Supply chain management is a cross-function approach to manage the movement of raw materials into an organization, certain aspects of the internal processing of materials into finished goods, and then the movement of finished goods out of the organization toward the end-consumer.As organizations strive to focus on core competencies and becoming more flexible, they have reduced their ownership of raw materials sources and distribution channels. These functions are increasingly being outsourced to other entities that can perform the activities better or more cost effectively. The effect is to increase the number of organizations involved in satisfying customer demand, while reducing management control of daily logistics operations. Less control and more supply chain partners led to the creation of supply chain management concepts.The purpose of supply chain management is to improve trust and collaboration among supply chain partners, thus improving inventory visibility and improving inventory velocity. Several models have been proposed for understanding the activities required to manage material movements across organizational and functional boundaries. SCOR is a supply chain management model promoted by the Supply Chain Council. Another model is the SCM Model proposed by the Global Supply Chain Forum (GSCF). Supply chain activities can be grouped into strategic, tactical, and operational levels of activities. Strategic Strategic network optimisation, including the number, location, and size of warehousing, distribution centers, and facilities †¢Strategic partnership with suppliers, distributors, and customers, creating communication channels for critical information and operational improvements such as cross docking, direct shipping, and third-party logistics †¢Product life cycle management, so that new and existing products can be optimally integrated into the supply chain and capacity management †¢Information Technology infrastructure, to support supply chain operations †¢Where-to-make and what-to-make-or-buy decisions Aligning overall organizational strategy with supply strategy Tactical †¢Sourcing contracts and other purchasing decisions. †¢Production decisions, including contracting, scheduling, and planning process definition. †¢Inventory decisions, including quantity, location, and quality of inventory. †¢Transportation strategy, including frequency, routes, and contra cting. †¢[Benchmarking] of all operations against competitors and implementation of best practices throughout the enterprise.†¢Milestone payments †¢Focus on customer demand. Operational Daily production and distribution planning, including all nodes in the supply chain. †¢Production scheduling for each manufacturing facility in the supply chain (minute by minute). †¢Demand planning and forecasting, coordinating the demand forecast of all customers and sharing the forecast with all suppliers. †¢Sourcing planning, including current inventory and forecast demand, in collaboration with all suppliers. †¢Inbound operations, including transportation from suppliers and receiving inventory. †¢Production operations, including the consumption of materials and flow of finished goods. Outbound operations, including all fulfillment activities, warehousing and transportation to customers. †¢Order promising, accounting for all constraints in the supply c hain, including all suppliers, manufacturing facilities, distribution centers, and other customers. 2)The Objective of a Supply Chain The objective of every supply chain is to maximize the overall value generated. The value a supply chain generates is the difference between what the final product is worth to the customer and the effort the supply chain expends in filling the customer’s request.For most commercial supply chains, value will be strongly correlated with supply chain profitability, the difference between the revenue generated from the customer and the overall cost across the supply chain. For example, a customer purchasing a computer from Dell pays $2,000, which represents the revenue the supply chain receives. Dell and other stages of the supply chain incur costs to convey information, produce components, store them, transport them, transfer funds, and so on.The difference between the $2,000 that the customer paid and the sum of all costs incurred by the supply c hain to produce and distribute the computer represents the supply chain profitability. Supply chain profitability is the total profit to be shared across all supply chain stages. The higher the supply chain profitability, the more successful the supply chain. Supply chain success should be measured in terms of supply chain profitability and not in terms of the profits at an individual stage. Having defined the success of a supply chain in terms of supply chain rofitability, the next logical step is to look for sources of revenue and cost. For any supply chain, there is only one source of revenue: the customer. At Wal-Mart, a customer purchasing detergent is the only one providing positive cash flow for the supply chain. All other cash flows are simply fund exchanges that occur within the supply chain given that different stages have different owners. When Wal-Mart pays its supplier, it is taking a portion of the funds the customer provides and passing that money on to the supplier. All flows of information, product, or funds generate costs within the supply chain.Thus, the appropriate management of these flows is a key to supply chain success. Supply chain management involves the management of flows between and among stage sin a supply chain to maximize total supply chain profitability. 3) Decision Phases In a Supply Chain Successful supply chain management requires many decisions relating to the flow of information, product, and funds. These decisions fall into three categories or phases, depending on the frequency of each decision and the time frame over which a decision phase has an impact. 1.Supply chain strategy or design: During this phase, a company decides how to structure the supply chain over the next several years. It decides what the chain’s configuration will be, how resources will be allocated, and what processes each stage will perform. Strategic decisions made by companies include the location and capacities of production and warehouse f acilities, the products to be manufactured or stored at various locations, the modes of transportation to be made available along different shipping legs, and the type of information system to be utilized.A firm must ensure that the supply chain configuration supports its strategic objectives during this phase. Dell’s decisions regarding the location and capacity of its manufacturing facilities, warehouses, and supply courses are all supply chain design or strategic decisions. Supply chain design decisions are typically made for the long term (a matter of years) and are very expensive to alter on short notice. Consequently, when companies make these decisions, they must take into account uncertainty in anticipated market conditions over the next few years. 2. Supply chain planning: For decisions made during his phase, the time frame considered is a quarter to a year. Therefore, the supply chain’s configuration determined in the strategic phase is fixed. The configurati on establishes constraints within which planning must be done. Companies start the planning phase with a forecast for the coming year (or a comparable time frame) of demand in different markets. Planning includes decisions regarding which markets will be supplied from which locations, the subcontracting of manufacturing, the inventory policies to be followed, and the timing and size of marketing promotions.Dell’s decisions regarding markets a given production facility will supply and target production quantities at different locations are classified as planning decisions. Planning establishes parameters within which a supply chain will function over a specified period of time. In the planning phase, companies must include uncertainty in demand, exchange rates, and competition over this time horizon in their decisions. Given a shorter time horizon and better forecasts than the design phase, companies in the planning phase try to incorporate any flexibility built into the suppl y chain in the design phase and exploit it to optimize performance.As a result of the planning phase, companies define a set of operating policies that govern short-term operations. 3. Supply chain operation: The time horizon here is weekly or daily, and during this phase companies make decisions regarding individual customer orders. At the operational level, supply chain configuration is considered fixed and planning policies are already defined. The goal of supply chain operations is to handle incoming customer orders in the best possible manner.During this phase, firms allocate inventory or production to individual orders, set a date that an order is to be filled, generate pick lists at a warehouse, allocate an order to a particular shipping mode and shipment, set delivery schedules of trucks, and place replenishment orders. Because operational decisions are being made in the short term (minutes, hours, or days), there is less uncertainty about demand information. Given the const raints established by the configuration and planning policies, the goal during the operation phase is to exploit the reduction of uncertainty and optimize performance.The design, planning, and operation of a supply chain have a strong impact on overall profitability and success. Continuing with our example, consider Dell Computer. In the early 1990s, Dell management began to focus on improving the improved performance. Both profitability and the stock price have soared and Dell stock has had outstanding returns over this period. 4)Supply Chain Process Platform The winners in fiercely competitive markets create agile and efficient business processes, supported by flexible, reliable and cost-effective technology.When your market position depends on your supply chain, you need processes and solutions that work together seamlessly to provide the information and automate the activities you need to operate most effectively. All of Manhattan Associates' solutions operate on a common Servic e Oriented Architecture (SOA) platform, to maximize the value of your technology investment. With Manhattan Associates' Supply Chain Process Platform, you can easily integrate any or all of our applications into your existing systems or add new solutions from our suite of products.That means dramatic reductions in complexity and faster implementation whenever you need new functionality. With shared master and transaction databases, data capture management (such as voice and RFID) and a real-time alert system that operates across all Manhattan Associates' solutions, the Supply Chain Process Platform provides a safeguard that flags any inconsistency in your data, ensuring a safe implementation and continued smooth operation. Our Supply Chain Process Platform offers flexibility, scalability and supportability to meet the requirements of the most complex supply chains for the most demanding companies.The Manhattan Supply Chain Process Platform: †¢Makes customizing your solutions to meet your business requirements easier than ever †¢Simplifies adding new functionalities or incorporating technical innovations †¢Provides a shared platform for collecting, managing, distributing and acting on information and events that flow through the supply chain †¢Ensures that solutions are robust, scalable, resilient and consistent across all components. Uniting the Platform Applications for Maximum ValueThe Supply Chain Process Platform provides a foundation for all Manhattan platform applications: †¢Supply Chain Intelligence: With easy-to-read reports presenting powerful analytics, you can monitor the performance of your suppliers, carriers, customers and employees from one intuitive dashboard. †¢Supply Chain Visibility: See a single, consistent, real-time view of your entire global supply chain. †¢Supply Chain Event Management: Receive notification of all supply chain events as they occur and respond immediately across your full supply chain. 5) Supply Chain Performance : Achieving Strategic Fit Competitive strategy: defines the set of customer needs a firm seeks to satisfy through its products and services ? Product development strategy: specifies the portfolio of new products that the company will try to develop ? Marketing and sales strategy: specifies how the market will be segmented and product positioned, priced, and promoted ? Supply chain strategy: – determines the nature of material procurement, transportation of materials, manufacture of product or creation of service, distribution of product –Consistency and support between supply chain strategy, competitive strategy, and other functional strategies is importantAchieving Strategic Fit(1/2) ? How is strategic fit achieved? ? Other issues affecting strategic fit How is Strategic Fit Achieved? ? Step 1: Understanding the customer and supply chain uncertainty ? Step 2: Understanding the supply chain ? Step 3: Achieving strategic fit Step 1: Understan ding the Customer and Supply Chain Uncertainty (1/3) ? Identify the needs of the customer segment being served ? Quantity of product needed in each lot ? Response time customers will tolerate ? Variety of products needed ? Service level required ? Price of the product ? Desired rate of innovation in the product Overall attribute of customer demand ? Demand uncertainty: uncertainty of customer demand for a product ? Implied demand uncertainty: resulting uncertainty for the supply chain given the portion of the demand the supply chain must handle and attributes the customer desires ? Implied demand uncertainty also related to customer needs and product attributes ? First step to strategic fit is to understand customers by mapping their demand on the implied uncertainty spectrum Step 2: Understanding the Supply Chain (1/2) ? How does the firm best meet demand? ? Dimension describing the supply chain is supply chain responsiveness Supply chain responsiveness — ability to – respond to wide ranges of quantities demanded –meet short lead times –handle a large variety of products –build highly innovative products –meet a very high service level ? There is a cost to achieving responsiveness ? Supply chain efficiency: cost of making and delivering the product to the customer ? Increasing responsiveness results in higher costs that lower efficiency ? Figure 2. 3: cost-responsiveness efficient frontier ? Figure 2. 4: supply chain responsiveness spectrum ? Second step to achieving strategic fit is to map the supply chain on the responsiveness spectrumStep 3: Achieving Strategic Fit ? Step is to ensure that what the supply chain does well is consistent with target customer’s needs Other Issues Affecting Strategic Fit ?Multiple products and customer segments ? Product life cycle ? Competitive changes over time 6)Drivers of Supply Chain Performance Supply chains are becoming increasingly global and ever more complex, as organiza tions try to support strategic management practices such as entering new markets, increasing the pace of new product introductions, improving the reliability and speed of order fulfillment . . . all the while trying to lower supply chain costs.For organizations to work closely with their suppliers, logistics providers, distributors and retailers, their supply chains must be streamlined and technology-enabled. However, organizations that want to streamline their supply chains must first understand what is working well, what is not and where the opportunities for improvement are. These companies need to have a way to measure the performance of their supply chain on an ongoing basis. Traditional approaches of measuring supply chain performance — scorecards, dashboards and reports showing supply chain metrics — suffer from three shortcomings: 1) They are not linked to strategy. ) They have a silo approach. 3) They have a flat hierarchy. Let's examine each of these shortcom ings more closely. They are not linked to strategy. It can be difficult to see how a supply chain metric affects your overall objectives. If the metric is trending in the wrong direction, which aspect of your supply chain strategy will be affected? Without a framework that links each metric to a certain element of strategy, the context behind a metric can get lost. When such context is missing, it becomes a challenge for organizations (large ones in particular) to get everyone to see the common vision.Next-generation Supply Chain Performance Management (SCPM) systems will need to be able to show the link between any metric and the element of strategy it impacts. They have a silo approach. Current supply chain analytics solutions do a good job of showing the performance of metrics for individual departments, such as cost per unit purchased, percentage of on-time supplier shipment for the procurement department, or set-up times, capacity utilization and percentage of scrap for the pla nt.However, this type of silo approach sacrifices the overall process and end goals in the interest of improving the performance of an individual department. As a result, functional silos are reinforced within the organization. The key is to measure the performance of overall business process in such a way that poor performance of a departmental metric could be overlooked in the interest of increasing the overall business process performance. To achieve this, next-generation Supply Chain Performance Management systems will need to do more than show departmental metrics – they need to have a process orientation. They have a flat hierarchy.The metrics that help you measure the overall performance of your supply chain are not standalone — they are related to each other, sometimes in a hierarchical fashion. Such relationships help you drill down and better understand root cause more effectively. For example, if a hierarchical relationship were developed between outbound sh ipment cost metric and those metrics that affect shipment costs, your system will tell you that outbound shipment costs are trending up despite the carrier rates trending down due to lower fuel costs, because your express freight shipments in a certain division are up significantly month over month.However, most current supply chain analytics have no way to define such relationships. Next-generation Supply Chain Performance Management systems of tomorrow will need to be able to define and show relationships between metrics. What supply chain performance management systems must include All these issues need to be addressed by next-generation Supply Chain Performance Management systems. Such systems should include three capabilities: an analytics framework; a process orientation; and linkages. Analytics framework.The ideal SCPM system should allow a user to define a complete framework for supply chain analytics. This framework should include: †¢overall supply chain objectives; â € ¢the top-line metrics that affect the objective; †¢the description, targets and acceptable range for each metric; and †¢a list of reports where the metric can be found. 7. Designing the Supply Chain Network Overview In today’s volatile business environment, many companies are expanding, merging, contracting, or otherwise redesigning their supply chain networks.Here learner applications of optimization models to the analysis of these network design problems. Modeling concepts are reviewed as well as practical methods for data gathering and validation, model implementation, and scenario construction. New applications will be presented including network design models to plan for new products, to manage production and inventories of products with short shelf lives, to select vendor contracts, and to control CO2 emissions. Several case studies will be presented along with discussions of network design problems faced by course attendees.Who Should Attend This program is intended for: †¢Managers and analysts responsible for network design decision-making †¢Managers and analysts responsible for acquiring or developing, and applying data-driven modeling systems to support network design decision-making †¢Consultants who direct or participate in network design studies †¢Academics who teach supply chain subjects to students in management and engineering Participants will not need advanced analytical skills to fully absorb material presented in the program. )DEMAND AND SUPPLY PLANNING IN SCM SCM facechallenges to people at manufacturing companies who need to gauge customer demand and respond to changes in demand, even when they take place at a moment's notice. Manufacturers' responsiveness and agility in the areas of sales and operations planning (S;OP) and demand management—the two major parts of supply chain planning—are still hampered by cumbersome, static processes. Common problems include: †¢Ã¢â‚¬ ¢Lack of r eal-time, robust, and actionable data. †¢Lack of integration among financial, operating, sales, and marketing plans. †¢Ã¢â‚¬ ¢Inability of people to share information and documents. †¢Ã¢â‚¬ ¢Poor analytical capabilities and collaborative planning environments. †¢Ã¢â‚¬ ¢Lack of alert and monitoring capabilities. Solutions Supply Chain Demand and Supply Planning solutions from Microsoft and its partner ecosystem help manufacturers change the way they manage their supply chains to become more demand-driven, adaptive, and responsive.By improving people's visibility into customer demand and supplier capabilities, these solutions create an environment that enables real-time decisions about manufacturing activity, which can lower inventory while improving customer service. Demand management solutions offer real-time demand management business processes, delivered with an integrated business intelligence and collaboration framework, to empower people with collaboration a nd analytic capabilities.Sales and operations planning (S&OP) solutions, which include connected systems, process workflows, event management, and live communication, offer collaboration, analysis, integration, workflow, and monitoring functionality throughout all phases of a manufacturer's S;OP workflow—beginning with the baseline forecast created by people in the manufacturer's sales and marketing departments, all the way through the forecast for a specific customer, the creation of a consensus forecast, supply planning, resolution and exception processes, approval and budgeting, sales allocations, order promising, and communication with the manufacturer's production facilities. Infor Supply Chain Management is a global solution with implementations at over 1,600 customer sites in 40 countries. Backed by domain experts who know supply chain management and the challenges you face, our supply chain planning and execution solutions comprise the following key components: Strate gic Network Design —modeling and optimization tools for determining the most effective number, location, size, and capacity of facilities to meet customer service goals; time-phased tactical planning for determining where and when to make, buy, store, and move product through the network.Demand Planning —forecasting tools, web-based collaboration interface, and sales and operations reporting and metrics that help companies predict and shape customer demand with greater accuracy. Distribution Planning —inventory analysis and time-variable stock target calculations for ensuring the optimal balance between service levels and inventory investment; synchronized replenishment plans for all network points right back to manufacturing and supplier sources for better visibility. Manufacturing Planning —constraint-based advanced planning system for engineering, assembly, and repetitive manufacturing environments; similar tools for process manufacturers. Production S cheduling —finite capacity scheduling for engineering, assembly, and repetitive environments, as well as batch-process production facilities.Transportation and Logistics Planning —transportation planning, transportation procurement, route planning, transportation management, small parcel shipping, and international trade logistics for global, multi-modal operations. Warehouse Management System —end-to-end fulfillment and distribution including inventory, labor, and work and task management, as well as cross-docking, value-added services, yard management, multiple inventory ownership and billing/invoicing, and voice-directed distribution. RFID —comprehensive RFID-enablement framework delivering business value through process optimization for manufacturers and other companies, as well as compliance solutions for retail, pharmaceuticals, the US Department of Defense, and others.Event Management —proactive, real-time exception management technology for detecting conditional change anywhere in the supply chain and communicating it instantly for resolution. 9)Planning and managing inventory By Curt Barry Inventory is most likely the largest balance sheet asset in your company. How well you plan, purchase, and manage your inventory largely determines your level of customer service and profits. But selling goods in multiple channels means dealing with channel-specific planning and inventory needs. Planning and inventory systems In most companies, the systems for merchandise planning and inventory control remain highly fragmented by channel.For promotional planning, many multichannel companies need to be more diligent and use a single promotional calendar rather than channel-specific schedules on which merchandise planning is based. These should include in-store promotions, catalogs, and e-mail campaigns. Internet inventory management philosophies are slowly evolving in most companies. Traditional catalogers now average more than 50% of sales from the Internet, although much of that business is generated by receipt of the catalog. Products may be active and available longer if there is stock. What sells online is heavily influenced by placement on landing pages and organization and ranking within category product searches.The online product assortment can be more extensive than that in a single catalog. Internet may have a total chain assortment different from any one store or region. The Website may have a clearance or liquidation aspect. These principles of planning and managing inventory are not industry established best practices, but are being hammered out in the trenches every day. From a purchasing perspective, companies are rolling multiple channel plans and forecasts together into a single purchase order management system to write Pos. When will there be true integrated systems for planning and inventory systems? For most companies, not any time soon. Retail and direct channels have different data needs and processes.It will probably be a few years before commercial software companies that cater to retail and direct have the most basic of systems in place. MICROS Retail, Direct Tech, and Manhattan Associates all have development projects to bring channels together in terms of planning and inventory systems. Channel Inventory – a distribution view With all the complexities of planning and inventory control, how are distribution centers accommodating the channels? When multichannel marketing was in its infancy more than a decade ago, the prevalent thinking was to have a single DC that would process both direct and retail replenishment orders. There would be one pooled inventory, one staff and one facility — end of discussion. But logistics thinking is changing.But to accomplish this, they have the additional overhead of multiple facilities and staffing, and their warehouse management and order management must be capable of managing multiple inventories and allocating a nd filling orders. As e-commerce in retail companies has grown substantially, logistics management has come to realize that picking, packing, and shipping of small orders is very different from full-carton replenishment to stores. With large volumes it may prove to be more efficient to have dedicated centers for direct. Another of the real drivers behind this shift is the realization that without having separate sales and stock plans, there is no accountability by business units to make their sales plans.So if the first unit to allocate inventory gets the stock, then there may not be inventory for later drops of a catalog, e-mail campaigns, initial stocks to open stores, etc. Other companies use a â€Å"virtual inventory† concept, not in the sense of drop-shipping, but of the inventory system being able to keep planned sales by product and SKU by channel, and being able to reserve inventory for the channel business unit. Importing’s effect Where we source product is al so changing how we can plan and manage it. Much of the multichannel world relies on imported product. Even if you buy from a domestic distributor, chances are that merchandise is imported.Additionally, companies may not be looking at a fully loaded product cost including agent's/broker's fees, demurrage, duty rate, product development costs, and buyer's travel. Couple that with warehouse storage space requirements for container size receipts and the inventory carrying costs. All of this leads to higher inventory and carrying costs and slower turnover. What to do about it? †¢Use mixed container loading, where appropriate. †¢Weigh the increase in per unit cost to take smaller quantities. †¢Move the entire merchandise and creative planning calendar for promotions back and do each season earlier (no easy task). †¢Challenge merchants to look Stateside to try to get the product with smaller quantities, or to develop product in the U. S. and later roll it out off-shore if it sells. †¢Tackle the issue of ccounting for all the product costs to be sure you have an accurate, fully loaded cost and sufficient initial markup without being overstocked. Liquidating overstocks Inventory that doesn't sell and liquidation are two dreaded aspects to merchandising. Because you have to take in larger imported orders and distribute to more channels, you need a cost effective strategy for in-season liquidation and clearance. In a cost-based system it's hard to determine how much gross margin is lost in marking down retail prices. Our experience is that it may represent 2% to 4% of net sales at least. What to do about it? †¢Develop a liquidation strategy. Options include clearance catalogs, Web specials, bind-in or package inserts, sales pages, and telephone offers. Develop a report showing candidates for liquidation based on rate of sale. †¢Develop an age of inventory report that will age products in time brackets (30 days, etc. ) to stay on top of inventory. transportation, importing, retail versus direct packaging, technology used in the supply chain and DCs, etc. All this necessitates setting standards with vendors so that you aren't working on an exception basis with every one. Vendor compliance and supply chain In most multichannel businesses the size of the product assortment and vendor base have grown dramatically. Supply chains have become increasingly complex with modes of vendor compliance is at the heart of efficient supply chain management.Routing inbound shipments to reduce costs and scheduling inbound appointments can help speed product flow through the DC, significantly helping in turn to reduce inventory levels. Automating the supply chain through advanced shipping notifications (ASNs), RFID, and cross-docking to stores can go a long way toward reducing costs, but these cannot be implemented without a comprehensive vendor compliance policy. Start small by communicating your company vision, the need for on-time delivery, routing guides, inbound dock standards like carton labeling, product specifications, accounting and paperwork requirements, contact list, and the costs of back orders. Begin a charge-back policy and implement it with your largest vendors.Later, you can add other items that are typically included, such as service level standards, packaging, labeling, case labeling, valued and value-added services, logistical requirements, scheduling appointments, cross-docking and direct-to-store requirements, charge back for non-compliance, etc. The trend is to push compliance back up the supply chain. This means as many value-added services as possible — packaging, marking, quality inspections — performed by vendors or merchant reps in factories. Catching errors at the source and using source-based services speeds inventory flow, and any such issues are cheaper to deal with in the vendor's environment. 10)ACHIEVING SCM EXCELLENCE A new survey reveals what separates manufactu ring industry leaders from laggards IT HAS BEEN several years since a comprehensive and independent survey of the state of supply chain management (SCM) in the paper manufacturing industry has been carried out.A lot has happened both in the industry and in the field of SCM during this time. Moderator Consulting carried out an extensive survey during July-October 2005 to see where we stand today. Altogether 11 European paper companies participated in the survey, which covered issues such as SCM strategy, process and management models, reporting systems, managing customer relationships, efficient operations, people and supporting systems and future plans. The respondents covered all the main product groups in nine European countries. The results of individual companies were obviously kept strictly confidential. Common terminology and definitions were used in the survey to ensure common understanding of the questions and issues.The results provide a good cross-section of the industry p erformance and challenges. Besides being a major cost and working capital factor, SCM can also be considered a source of significant competitive edge. Some of the findings are listed below. 1. Nearly half the respondents still need to develop more robust SCM strategies. While all companies said they have an SCM strategy, the content, communication and integration into overall business strategy in many cases leaves much to be desired. For instance, some companies had no logistics provider strategy or did not include development of cost factors. 2. The industry has clearly been moving toward a more integrated management structure.Most SCM-related decisions, such as strategy, demand planning and vendor and location management are nowadays made at corporate / business area levels, with sales companies and mills mostly in an execution role (Figure 1). However, even though management structures are more integrated, several companies have yet to adopt more of a process approach, with the p rocesses and their ownerships defined. Systems for monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) seem nowadays to be at a reasonably good level in nearly all the respondent companies. 3. The outsourcing process appears to be complete. The dominant logistics management mode is nowadays clearly â€Å"preferred partnerships† – on average 60%, and covering the whole infrastructure.Interestingly although â€Å"preferred partnerships† was stated as the dominant transport mode, respondents still had between 50 and 100 regular haulage â€Å"partners† in use on average. This may indicate room for some further consolidation. IT systems management is the exception to the outsourcing rule: very few companies have outsourced this aspect of their operations. 4. Many companies still need to segment their customers and define corresponding service levels for each customer or customer group. This may mean that these companies are offering the same service, such as dedicate d stocks or a 24 hr/ single pallet delivery – with corresponding costs – to all or most of their customers.This can hardly be optimal from a cost-to-serve viewpoint, unless price supplements are enforced. However, customers rarely accept such surcharges nowadays. 5. Surprisingly few customers participate in the demand planning processes (only five to 10 on average). Participation in this context means active involvement and, considering the industry's forecasting challenges this may offer an improvement in some industry segments. Transaction automation with customers and logistics providers also offers big potential: only 10-20% and 50% respectively said they currently transact electronically. More standardization is needed. 6. Most companies seem quite satisfied with their IT systems.On a scale of one (very dissatisfied) to five (very satisfied), a clear majority of the companies gave a mark of four for most of their systems, such as mill execution, sales and distribu tion and data warehousing. The substantial investments in IT systems over recent years appear to have paid off in a number of cases. 7. Most companies were satisfied with both the number and caliber of their SCM personnel. Main training requirements were focused on customer relations issues. 8. Future development needs to be carefully planned. As generic future goals, most respondents stated that their main focuses are on cost and inventory reductions, as well as on improving customer service. Improved internal integration and process management was also listed as a priority generic target.However, these may be conflicting targets, unless planned carefully. More specifically, the respondents were asked to prioritize a list of 14 specific SCM initiatives provided, based on their planned implementation in the next three years initiatives included issues such as RFID, vendor managed inventory (VMI), activity based costing, harmonization of IT infrastructure, e-commmerce with logistics providers and offering outsourcing capabilities to customers. The clear â€Å"winners† were VMI, e-commerce projects and collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment (CPFR) following close behind. These are huge undertakings with significant risks, resource and planning requirements.However, the companies that successfully implement them would take their supply chain to an entirely new level of sophistication, responsiveness, efficiency and transparency. Finally,The industry has been moving toward a more integrated and customer-centric management approach. Industry and customer consolidation are the most likely reasons for this. IT systems and performance monitoring finally appear to be in good shape in most companies. This is a good basis for future development, even though many companies revealed some worrying weaknesses in a number of critical areas and are clearly lagging behind the leaders. The leading companies – based on this survey – can best be characterized as having a clear, comprehensive and well-communicated SCM strategy.They also have an integrated management structure and KPI monitoring in place; processes are defined in detail; service/cost tradeoffs are optimized; logistics partners are managed efficiently; they have implemented wellfunctioning IT systems; and have competent and well trained people, all of which are reflected also in their costs and performance. Is this just good, basic management? Easy to say, much more difficult to accomplish in real life! Furthermore, the leaders have ambitious plans for the future – especially in areas involving their customers. These companies are clearly outperforming their peers and they are well positioned to increase their competitive edge by efficiently and intelligently serving their customers.

Thursday, August 29, 2019

Analysis of Low Visibility

When humans entered the twentieth century, a lot had changed since that mime, but the oppression was still there for every woman to feel – however, it was disappearing, slowly, but surely. In 191 5 women got the right to vote, and since that moment everything went uphill, for both women and society In general. Today men and woman are equal, to a certain degree, and our life standard has never been better – though it has to be said that macho men still exist. The short story, written by Margaret Murphy, â€Å"Low Visibility' is about one of these men and his animal-like crave for control.It Is also about the struggle of a woman, who Is trying to escape this The short story Is written In chronological order and starts In media oppression. Rest. The story begins with, the main character of the short story; Laura. She and her husband John are both sitting in the living room, watching a riot on television. The omniscient narrator guides us through the story, where a couple of abuse incidents, towards Laura, occur. A while later, we hear about an angry mob, who were robbing a shop under the couple's building. John decides to go down and teach them a lesson, but ends up bloodied and on the ground.Later on Laura follows him downstairs, and she finally triumphs over him and leaves him. Laura used to be a very passionate woman who could cheer up, almost, anybody with her sheer smile (L 19). This however, was in the past before she got married. The new Laura is an oppressed, prisoner-like, housewife who has no say in anything. After years of, physical and mental, abuse John managed to feast on her blood and ruin her life (L 60: † â€Å"Animals,† John mutters, feasting on her pain†). Before the couple got married, Laura fell for. She could always distinguish him from the others.She always felt that the spotlight was on him due to his personality and refusal to be a part of something. Another important factor, to this marriage, is that John was lacking the ability to fit in. She tried to make him a part of her group, and when she reached out one of her hands, he grabbed on her whole body. As the years went by, John had anguished all the passion and hope, inside of Laura, and she became an obedient slave, with no right to speak or express herself (L. L â€Å"One Han on the remote control, the other on her thigh. She keeps very still†). He knew hat if she struggled in any way, she would suffer an even greater pain (L. 43-44 â€Å"So she says nothing. It's safer – less painful†). At the end of the story we see, however, that even after all she has suffered, she is still a dynamic person, as she develops throughout the story. The riot, which was on television, symbolizes Laurel's rage, anger and hope. After taking all the abuse John threw at her, she was bound to eventually explode. The riot reminded her that there was a way out of her misery, but seen Ana to stand up Tort nearest Ana Talent I en angr y moo mace nerd Tortuous Walt resell – a fire lit inside her chest.The only problem now was that she did not know how to free herself from the prison she was locked in, did not know how to fight back (L . 15 â€Å"She wishes she could protest, but has forgotten how'). It would not be far from the truth to claim that the riot was happening in her head and not on the streets. The fact that John was beaten too helpless state by the marching mob makes it all the more convenient, that she managed to throw him off his throne, in one way or another. The ending was nothing short of poetic, as Laura, the once stupid and young RL, made a complete change in personality, and entered a new state of mind.Through all the pain and suffering, she had experienced, she attained a new perspective on life. She was not going to stand for any more insults or abuse and decided to follow her own will. She realizes that the best way to avoid having to face the same agony she experienced is to keep a low profile, a low visibility. The fact that she stood up for herself and left her husband was a victory for herself, however, the fact that she decided to become Just another person and keep a low profile was a defeat to all women.

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Kodak and fujifilm Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Kodak and fujifilm - Essay Example This did not last for long, as later in 1990s, the company started to experience financial strains as a result of decline in sales of photographic film (Garcia, 2004). This decline in Eastman photographic film sales was also enhanced by it slowness in shifting from the analogue to digital photography. Fuji Film Company was started in 1924, with a core purpose of becoming one of the first Japanese producers of photographic film (Hill & Jones, 2010). Ten years after its formation, Fujifilm started to produce x-ray films and motion picture films. Fujifilm is one of the main Japanese famous multinational photography firms with its headquarters in Tokyo, japan.The company deals with the production and sale of color photographic films, medical imaging equipment and materials. Both Kodak Company and Fujifilm Company have much in common. In their early stages the two companies enjoyed huge market share in their local markets, with Kodak almost dominating 90% of the American film market share (Garcia, 2004). Later in the late 90s, both companies saw their traditional business’s rendered obsolete with the changing technology. With Kodak company management failing to respond adequately to the changing technology, Fujifilm has rapidly transformed itself to be a prosperous company with its market capitalization policy. Both Kodak and Fujifilm companies saw the change coming in the Kodak industry. With both management bodies aware of the changing markets, they planned on how to adopt the new innovation in the market. The Fujifilm company management quickly responded to the changing technology by developing various pronged strategy. To adopt the new innovations in the market, the company decided to develop new business lines (Hill & Jones, 2010). On the other hand, in its attempts to perfectly embrace the new innovations in the photography markets, Eastman Kodak management allocated large sum of money on research (Garcia, 2004). But

Case study accounting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Case study accounting - Essay Example suitable methods for maintaining an efficient accounting system for better and accurate costing, financial and operating information, she has presented comprehensive accounting and non-accounting information regarding the business operations. The following is a brief analysis of the business information provided by Wadhha. Wadhha started the boatyard business with a small amount of her savings forming her initial investment into the business. This had a dual effect i.e., on one side it increased the company’s assets being cash while on the other aspect it increased the capital invested into the company. In her quest to get on doing some business, she purchased a running boatyard business at a fair negotiable price. This entitled her the benefits of acquiring an old business and saving her the hassle of forming and establishing an entirely new business. The need for additional funds to finance the business was met by borrowing funds from a friend. It further had double effects i.e., on one side it increased the company’s assets being cash and on the other side, it increased the company’s liabilities. The wharf and store were also of attraction to the customers who were mostly the holiday makers for boating purposes and the company made the most of this attraction by offering fishing tackle, sporting goods and other refreshments. The most of the expenses incurred by company would be on the maintenance of the land, building, store, petrol and diesel pumps, work shed etc, the labour wages expenses, any interest on the borrowings etc. The company possesses great future prospects if the assets are utilised efficiently and effectively towards the generation and maximisation of revenues, so that the expenses could easily be met and the liabilities be paid off on time. The Wadhha’s boatyard owns all the fixed assets needed to run the company, however not much information is provided regarding the current assets of the company most importantly, cash. Wadhha

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

The motivations of Chinese EFLs Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

The motivations of Chinese EFLs - Term Paper Example People who are fluent in English are given almost celebrity-like honor and value in countries where English is not the official language. The wide ranged usage of English throughout the world be it, mass media, education, Internet, business, tourism, technology and such other fields is what gives the language an authoritative appeal and command over the whole world. Acknowledging the importance of the English language, the government of every country needs to be capable of providing facilities for the children to learn this language. Thus, this is the reason why English is being taught in almost all countries. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the parents to get their children enrolled into schools that teach English. It also becomes the responsibility of these children to learn well and excel in their academics to make their parents feel proud and in turn, serve their nation by staying committed to their jobs, which obviously, would require English as the main language. Therefo re, for students to learn languages, other than their mother tongue, they need motivation. The paper at hand focuses on Chinese EFL students. These refer to the students who come from China and settle in America or other such countries where the official language is English, and study English as a foreign language. It also includes EFL students who reside in China itself. Studies show that China accounts for the â€Å"largest number of English language learners in the world† (Influence of Instrumental Motivation on EFL Learners in China and its Implication On TEFL Instructional Design 1). According to JUDY F. CHEN in his article called, Motivators That Do Not Motivate: the Case of Chinese EFL Learners and the Influence of Culture on Motivation, the Language learning theory has widely accepted the saying that language learners with superior levels of motivation will be superior achievers. Finding what composes motivation for those who learn the language in a variety of cultura l settings remains a significant and difficult task. Motivation study frequently centers on cultural circumstances that are not very different from European values and North American. Language learning motivation study outcomes have tended to support the supreme importance of integrative motivation, which was primarily described by Gardner and Lambert (1972) and the newer version by Shaaban and Ghaith. Integrative motivation is successful because language abilities are perceived as essential to participation in various social groups that employ the target language. Noels, Clement, Pelletier, and Vallerand (2000) make out the preeminent significance formerly granted to the orientation of integrative motivation, but also state that this can be the case only in particular socio-cultural circumstances. Integrative motivation is frequently contrasted by way of the more outwardly affected instrumental motivation (JUDY F. CHEN 2005). The students face a lot of problems in their everyday li fe in the educational institutions they attend. This is due to the fact that English is totally foreign to them until they go abroad. Thus, there arises a great need for these students to be motivated. This paper therefore addresses various problems that the Chinese EFL students face in learning English, the

Monday, August 26, 2019

The second language teaching Research Proposal Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words

The second language teaching - Research Proposal Example In this light, this paper discusses the design, use and aims of a set of integrated skills materials that have been designed to teach and reinforce the future tense to a group of six students, aged 16-17, who are preparing the Cambridge Certificate of Advanced English (CAE) examination for speakers of other languages (ESOL). The skills covered will range from listening to speaking, and from reading to writing in a ninety-minute session. The learning environment is a small English language institute for non-native speakers (NNS) of English with a modern language laboratory, equipped with a teacher's terminal and twelve individual student terminals. Each student terminal consists of a desk and an internet-enabled computer. The desk is wooden, on the face of which are call buttons to the teacher's terminal, adequate writing space and a mouse, as well as a glass screen giving visibility to the monitor beneath. To one side of the desk is the central processing unit (CPU), providing access to features such as a headset, CD and diskette-drives for individual practice. The teacher's terminal has the same features with additional buttons for her to monitor and assign tasks. In addition, the lab has a whiteboard, flip charts, large television, DVD-player and slide projector, and is next door to the document centre, which has subscriptions to many English language publications. These resources facilitate the employment of a v ariety of integrated materials in facilitating maximum and optimal language acquisition and practice (Levy, 1997). The laboratory offers the learners to opportunity to be immersed in English through a maximum of methods, and accounts in part for their relative ease with the language at their level. Hinkel and Fotos (2002) in their book, New Perspectives in Grammar Teaching in Second Language Classrooms, trace the change in attitudes to and perspectives about effective grammar pedagogy, showing how teachers have moved from textbook delivery and memorization of grammatical rules and structure, through audio-lingual, then functional, then cognitive, then to communicative language teaching (Allwright, 1979, 1990), particularly in L2 contexts (Hinkel and Fotos, 2002, pp. 2-4). The latter approach and its offshoot humanistic approach, developed to correct the problem of learners who "knew grammar rules but could not use the target language communicatively, and others [who] urgently needed immediate survival competency in English" (Hinkel and Fotos, 2002, p. 4). These approaches saw formal language teaching being superceded by "natural" acquisition through real communication, by means of exposure to a variety of language uses, namely listening, reading, speaking and writing.

Sunday, August 25, 2019

Business Ethics Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 7

Business Ethics - Article Example Over the last few months errors have been found in foreclosure documentations across the nation, indicating a rush to get the paperwork done. Signatures and notary confirmations have been found to be fake. Baum's firm has processed over 50,000 foreclosure cases since 2007 and he has faced accusations of improper paperwork. Moral questions raise here deal with issues of fairness and justice. 2. In defense of Bau would be the need of banks to recoup their losses from the mortgage crises in property assesses in any way they can. Another defense would be it is wrong for people to sign their names to mortgage contracts when they don't have the ability to pay. 3. It would be interesting in this case to apply, for instance, John Rawl's veil of ignorance to a community of people in a natural state of existence, for example, who have no other considerations but their own rational amount of self-interest. Each of these people have natural hopes and also recognize each others dignity and natura l liberties. These people would be morally violated if they did not have natural rights to such things as home and individual and social welfare.

Saturday, August 24, 2019

One of my life experiences Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

One of my life experiences - Essay Example I began to stutter from the age of six. My habit affected my daily routine activities and had drained me off all of my confidence. It affected my school performance and presentation skills. Once, I was chosen by my teacher to give a presentation on my report. I could not even finish half of my presentation when I was asked to come down from the platform because I was stuttering very much and was being unclear in my speech. Such kind of embarrassments started making me avoid conversations with people and even answering the phone. I had become very conscious about myself since I had to suffer humiliation very frequently due to my stutter. To avoid humiliation, I usually kept quiet in class discussions and different gatherings. These aspects were making me anti-social and isolated from the world. I had come to a point in life when I thought that I would never be able to live a normal and successful life. Around this time, something happened that changed my life forever. I went to an exh ibition in Dubai that displayed inventions from new researchers. The researchers and inventors had to present their ideas in front of hundreds of people. To my amazement, one of the presenters was stuttering while presenting his invention.

Friday, August 23, 2019

Research Methods in Clinical Sciences Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Research Methods in Clinical Sciences - Essay Example Depending on the requirements of the research, methodology can be given either qualitative or quantitative approach. Qualitative approach looks at why a certain trend is taking place (Minichiello, Aroni, Timewell, and Alexander, 1995). It explains reasons as to why a certain behavioural pattern is taking a certain shape, and the forces behind that particular trend. Quantitative research on the other hand looks at the magnitude of a specific phenomenon. It is a deductive process that estimates the quantities of the items involved in the study. It measures the extent to which the involved items in the research affect or are affected by other variables in the study. Most scientific research demands for both types of research methodologies as there may be the need to measure the extent to which the variables involved affect each other and the level of relevance for each (Mould, 1998). An investigation into decision making in health professional’s treating traumatically injured Jeh ovah’s Witnesses will demand for a qualitative approach to the investigation. This research involves explanation as to why a healthcare professional needs to take care of the patients’ interests in regard to their cultural and other beliefs. This may not be explained quantitatively as the data will be given a detailed explanation other than providing statistical overview. When a health professional is dealing with a patient, there are decisions that must be made, some of which may be against the beliefs of the patient. The main objective of this professional will be to ensure that the life of the patient is saved at all cost (Grbich, 1999). To have a full insight into the stages that are involved in this process of making decision during treatment, a qualitative method will be the most appropriate approach. French, Reynolds and Swain, (2001) assert that qualitative research into a topic provides a detailed knowledge into the subject matter, especially when it involves question of why a certain activity or action has taken place in a certain manner. 2.0 Annotated Bibliography Menezes MA., 2010. Life on the front line: exploring personal and professional Impacts on healthcare professionals working with fetal anomaly. Ph D Thesis, The University of Melbourne. Web. 9th January, 2012. In this article, the author explains that currently, health professionals are able to conduct both antenatal screening for pregnant women. This process may reveal certain anomalies in the foetus. In case such a professional detects such a case in a patient, then the professional must strive to rescue such a patient because such anomalies may be fatal if not treated in time. The concerned health professional must therefore make a quick decision on how to approach the issue in order to save the patients life. The main objective of the health expert is to save the life of the patient at all cost, irrespective of beliefs of either the health expert or the patient. Journal of Emergency Primary Healthcare: An International e-Journal of Prehospital Care Research, Education, Clinical Practice, Policy and Service Delivery. Web. 9th January, 2012. This article talks about the management of mass casualty events through adoption of grander scale. Most health experts are faced with very many cases of emergency that require urgent attention.

Thursday, August 22, 2019

Home video game industry Essay Example for Free

Home video game industry Essay In 1972 founders Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney scrounged $50,000 from family, friends and local banks, formed their own company. They hired Alan Alcorn who created Pong and put a sample unit in Andy Capps Tavern in suburban Sunnyvale to see if anyone would play it. Twenty-four hours later, the owner called Bushnell in a rage and demanded that he get over to the bar with his tool kit as soon as possiblethe prototype game had broken down because it was being flooded with money. Pong was more than a game of Ping-Pong on a video screen. This was the beginning of Atari, while Atari made millions off the game consoles, they sold the software to many other major companies, and in turn they came out with their own version of pong. Although Atari saw profits from software royalties they kicked themselves out of the video game markets as other companies were using the pong model to penetrate the market. At the time of the U. S. crash, there were numerous consoles on the market, including the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Bally Astrocade, ColecoVision, Emerson Arcadia 2001 Magnavox Odyssey 2,and the Vectrex. Home computers had more memory and faster processors than a console, they permitted more sophisticated games. They could also be used for tasks such as word processing and home accounting. Games were easier to duplicate, since they could be packaged as floppy disks or cassette tapes instead of ROM modules. This opened the field to third-party software developers. In 1986, Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi noted that Atari collapsed because they gave too much freedom to third-party developers and the market was swamped with rubbish games. In response, Nintendo limited the number of titles that third-party developers could release for their system each year, and promoted its Seal of Quality, which it allowed to be used on games and peripherals by publishers that met Nintendos quality standards]. The North American video game crash had two long-lasting results. The first result was that dominance in the home console market shifted from the United States to Japan. When the video game market recovered in the late 1980s, Nintendos NES was by far the dominant console, leaving only a fraction of the market to a resurgent Atari battling Segas Master System for the number-two spot soon after. By 1989, home video game sales in the United States had reached $5 billion, surpassing the 1982 peak of $3 billion during the previous generation. A large majority of the market was controlled by Nintendo, whose NES ultimately sold more than 35 million units in the United States, exceeding the sales of other consoles and personal computers by a considerable margin With the introduction of the Sega Genesis in America, Sega of America launched an anti-Nintendo campaign to carry the momentum to the new generation of games, with its slogan Genesis does what Nintendont. This was initially implemented by Sega of America President Michael Katz. When Nintendo launched its Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1991, Sega changed its slogan to Welcome to the next level. Sega re-branded itself with a new game and mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog. This shift led to a wider success for the Genesis and would eventually propel Sega to 65% of the market in North America for a brief time. On May 11, 1995, Sega released the Sega Saturn in the American market. Segas first CD console that was not an add on, utilized two 32-bit processors and preceded both the Sony PlayStation and the Nintendo 64 The lack of a strong Sonic and its high price in comparison to the PlayStation were among the reasons for the failure of the console. The 3DO Company lacked the resources to manufacture consoles themselves, and instead licensed the hardware to other companies for manufacturing. Trip Hawkins recounted that they approached every electronics manufacturer, but that their chief targets were Sony and Panasonic, the two largest consumer electronics companies in the world. Founder trip Hawkins thought by selling his software to the main markets he could penetrate the market with a high price brining in a high profit margin. The launch price of the Play Station in the American market was US$299, undercutting their competitors, but knew that they would sell more consoles and make profit in the long-term. Xbox entered the console market because of a direct threat from Sony. They thought that consoles would take over web-browsing and directly hurt their main network in home computer systems. With annual revenues of close to 20 billion dollars Microsoft decided to invest 4 billion to develop the Xbox. With already a huge brand name and high product value in the computer market, Xbox was a massive success in the gaming network knowing they had the capability to keep up with the technical aspects of the other competitors. While Nintendo’s Game Cube was a bust, Nintendo knew they needed to use knew software in order to compete with the dominating Xbox and Play Stations new motion sensitive technology was cheap to integrate in software and Nintendo took advantage of that market. The Nintendo Wii launched in 2007, used old game that branded the Nintendo name including The Mario Brothers, which appealed to both old and new generations. Technology is driving the new markets, but Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft control the gaming market of today because of their ability to create affordable gaming while still being innovating.

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Robotic Surgery Disposal Essay Example for Free

Robotic Surgery Disposal Essay What is the Environmental Collateral Effects of Minimally Robotic Surgery? Two small studies have looked specifically at differences in communication between laparoscopic and robotic surgery. Both studies found a significant increase in oral communication between the surgeon and the rest of the team in robotic surgery, particularly in relation to the orientation and localization of organs and the manipulation of instruments, with the effect found to be more pronounced in teams that have less experience in robotic surgery. If use of robotic surgery interferes with standard practices of coordination among the OT team, the achievement of seamless, efficient, and timely teamwork may be hampered. It is important to understand any change in communication patterns because of the well-documented relationship between communication and patient safety, with failures in communication and teamwork being identified as key factors in adverse events in the OT. Communication and teamwork around robotic surgery are likely to be influenced by processes associated with the introduction of robotic surgery, such as training and changes in team structure, but equally the integration of robotic surgery in surgical practice may be dependent on the extent to which it is consistent with existing practices for coordination. How is Robotic Surgery Disposal conducted? For robotic surgery to provide the most benefit for patients, it is first necessary to understand the organizational and social factors that support the successful integration of robotic surgery, by which we mean that it becomes embedded into surgical practice, being used routinely and successfully for surgical operations where it offers advantages to the patient. It is also necessary to understand the impacts of robotic surgery on communication, teamwork, and decision making in the OT and how OT teams manage those impacts. Robotic-assisted surgery has evolved over the past two decades with constantly improving technology, assisting surgeons in multiple subspecialty disciplines. Patient positioning requirements can cause significant physiologic effects and may result in many complications. Good communication among team members and knowledge of the nuances of robotic surgery have the potential to improve patient outcomes, increase efficiency,  and reduce surgical and anesthetic comp lications. Robotic surgeries of long duration are associated with both increased risks to patients as well as distinct challenges for care providers As robotic surgery is increasingly utilized, operations with long surgical times may become more common due to increased case complexity and surgeons overcoming the learning curve.

The Elements Of Hacktivist Computer Science Essay

The Elements Of Hacktivist Computer Science Essay Hacktivism a portmanteau of hack and activism is the nonviolent use of illegal or legally ambiguous digital tools in pursuit of political ends. These tools include web site defacements, redirects, denial-of-service attacks, information theft, web site parodies, virtual sit-ins, virtual sabotage, and software development.[1] It is often understood as the writing of code to promote political ideology promoting expressive politics, free speech, human rights, or information ethics. Acts of hacktivism are carried out in the belief that proper use of code will be able to produce similar results to those produced by regular activism or civil disobedience. Hacktivist activities span many political ideals and issues. Freenet is a prime example of translating political thought into code. Hacktivismo is an offshoot of Cult of the Dead Cow; its beliefs include access to information as a basic human right. The loose network of programmers, artists and radical militants 1984 network liberty alliance is more concerned with issues of free speech, surveillance and privacy in an era of increased technological surveillance. Hacktivism is a controversial term, and can often be misconstrued as cyberterrorism. What separates hacktivism from cyberterrorism is a distinctly political or social cause behind the haction. Some argue it was coined to describe how electronic direct action might work toward social change by combining programming skills with critical thinking. Others use it as practically synonymous with malicious, destructive acts that undermine the security of the Internet as a technical, economic, and political platform. Essentially, the controversy reflects two divergent philosophical strands within the hacktivist movement. One strand thinks that malicious cyber-attacks are an acceptable form of direct action. The other strand thinks that all protest should be peaceful, refraining from destruction. Controversy Some people describing themselves as hacktivists have taken to defacing websites for political reasons, such as attacking and defacing government websites as well as web sites of groups who oppose their ideology. Others, such as Oxblood Ruffin (the foreign affairs minister of Hacktivismo), have argued forcefully against definitions of hacktivism that include web defacements or denial-of-service attacks.[2] Critics suggest that DoS attacks are an attack on free speech; that they have unintended consequences; that they waste resources; and that they could lead to a DoS war which nobody will win. In 2006, Blue Security attempted to automate a DoS attack against spammers; this led to a massive DoS attack against Blue Security which knocked them, their old ISP and their DNS provider off the internet, destroying their business. Depending on who is using the term, hacktivism can be a politically constructive form of anarchist civil disobedience or an undefined anti-systemical gesture; it can signal anticapitalist or political protest; it can denote anti-spam activists, security experts, or open source advocates. Critics of hacktivism fear that the lack of a clear agenda makes it a politically immature gesture, while those given to conspiracy theory hope to see in hacktivism an attempt to precipitate a crisis situation online. Elements of Hacktivist Hactions A Haction usually has the following elements. Politically motivated Place a premium on humor, and often resembles a digital form of clowning Owns a moderate Outlaw Orientation as opposed to severe The result of aggressive policy circumvention rather than a gradual attempt to change a policy Always non-violent- a haction never places another in direct danger Capacity for solo activity while most forms of political activism require the strength of masses, hacktivism is most often the result of the power of one, or small group. Is most often carried out anonymously, and can take place over transnational borders. Forms of Hacktivism In order to carry out their operations, hacktivists use a variety of software tools readily availble on the internet. In many cases the software can be downloaded from a popular website, or launched from a website with click of a button. Some of the more well known hacktivist tools are below: 1. Defacing Web Pages Between 1995-1999 Attrition.org reported 5,000 website defacements. In such a scenario, the hacktivist will significantly alter the front page of a companys or governemental agencys website. 2. Web Sit-ins In this form of hacktivism,hackers attempt to send so much traffic to the site, that the overwhelmed site becomes inaccessible to other users. 3. E-mail Bombing Hacktivists send scores of e-mails with large file attachments to their targets e-mail address Notable hacktivist events The earliest known instance of hacktivism is documented by Julian Assange as follows:[4] Hacktivism is at least as old as October 1989 when DOE, HEPNET and SPAN (NASA) connected VMS machines world wide were penetrated by the anti-nuclear WANK worm. [] WANK penetrated machines had their login screens altered to: W O R M S A G A I N S T N U C L E A R K I L L E R S _______________________________________________________________ __ ____________ _____ ________ ____ ____ __ _____/ / / / / / | | | | | / / / / / / / /__ | | | | | |/ / / / / / / / ______ | | | | | | / _ /__ /____/ /______ ____| |__ | |____| |_ _/ ___________________________________________________/ / Your System Has Been Officially WANKed / _____________________________________________/ You talk of times of peace for all, and then prepare for war. One of the earliest documented hacktivist events was the Strano Network sit-in, a strike action directed against French government computers in 1995. The term itself was coined by techno-culture writer Jason Sack in a piece about media artist Shu Lea Cheang published in InfoNation in 1995. The hacking group milw0rm hacked into the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in 1998, replacing the centers website with an anti-nuclear message; the same message reappeared later that year in what was then an unprecedented mass hack by milw0rm of over 300 websites on the server of hosting company Easyspace.[5] In 1998, the Electronic Disturbance Theater conducted virtual sit-ins on the Web sites of the Pentagon and the Mexican government to bring the worlds attention to the plight of Indian rights in the Mexican state of Chiapas. A Mexican hacking group took over Mexicos finance department website in support of the same cause.[5] One of the more notorious examples of hacktivism was the modification of Indonesian web sites with appeals to Free East Timor in 1998 by Portuguese hackers.[6] On December 29, 1998, the Legions of the Underground (LoU) declared cyberwar on Iraq and China with the intention of disrupting and disabling internet infrastructure. On January 7, 1999, an international coalition of hackers (including Cult of the Dead Cow, 2600 s staff, Phracks staff, L0pht, and the Chaos Computer Club) issued a joint statement condemning the LoUs declaration of war.[7] The LoU responded by withdrawing its declaration. Hacktivists attempted to disrupt ECHELON (an international electronic communications surveillance network filtering any and all satellite, microwave, cellular, and fiber-optic traffic) by holding Jam Echelon Day (JED) on October 21, 1999. On the day, hacktivists attached large keyword lists to many messages, taking advantage of listservers and newsgroups to spread their keywords further. The idea was to give the Echelon computers so many hits they overloaded. It is not known whether JED was successful in actually jamming Echelon, although NSA computers were reported to have crashed inexplicably in early March, 2000. A second Jam Echelon Day (JEDII) was held in October 2000, however the idea never regained its initial popularity. JED was partly denial-of-service attack and partly agitprop. The Electronic Disturbance Theater and others staged a week of disruption during the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, conducting sit-ins against Republican web sites and flooding web sites and communication systems identified with conservative causes. This received mixed reviews from the hacktivist community.[citation needed] The Hackbloc collective started publishing Hack This Zine a hacktivist research journal Hacktivists managed to break into computer systems at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center in India to protest against nuclear weapons tests.[citation needed] Bronc Buster, later a member of Hacktivismo, disabled firewalls to allow Chinese Internet users uncensored access. The Crackers also defaced a Chinese website which explained what the people of China could access over the internet legally. Wired 01.01.98[citation needed] Hacktivists worked to slow, block, or reroute traffic for web servers associated with the World Trade Organization, the World Economic Forum, and the World Bank.[citation needed] Throughout 2006, Electronic Disturbance Theater joined the borderlands Hacklab for a number of virtual sit-ins, against the massacre in Atenco, in solidarity with striking french students and against the Minutemen and immigration laws.[8] On March 25, 2007, hacktivists organized the event freEtech in response to the OReilly Etech conference, and started a series of West coast hackmeetings. Electronic Disturbance Theater stages a virtual sit-in against the Michigan Legislature against cuts to Medicaid. On January 21, 2008, a message appeared on YouTube from a group calling itself Anonymous. The group declared Project Chanology, essentially a war on The Church of Scientology, and promised to systematically expel The Church from the internet. Over the following week, Scientology websites were intermittently knocked offline, and the Church of Scientology moved its website to a host that specializes in protection from Denial-of-service attacks. A computer hacker leaks the personal data of 6 million Chileans (including ID card numbers, addresses, telephone numbers and academic records) from government and military servers to the internet, to protest Chiles poor data protection.[9] Throughout early 2008, Chinese hackers have hacked the CNN website on numerous occasions in response to the protests during the 2008 Olympic Torch Relay and claims of biased reporting from western media. The majority of the DDoS attacks took place between March and August, at a time where Chinese nationalistic pride was at an all time high due to the 2008 Olympic Games.[10][11] Electronic Disturbance Theater and the Hacklab stage a virtual sit-in against the war on Iraq and biotech and nanotech war profiteers, on the 5 year anniversary of the war, in solidarity with widespread street actions. Intruders hacked the website of commentator Bill OReilly and posted personal details of more than 200 of its subscribers, in retaliation for remarks OReilly made on Fox News condemning the attack on Palins Yahoo email account [1]. In 2008 hacktivists developed a communications and monitoring system for the 2008 RNC protests called Tapatio. In early 2009, the Israeli invasion of Gaza motivated a number of website defacements, denial-of-service attacks, and domain name and account hijackings, from both sides[12]. These attacks are notable in being amongst the first ever politically-motivated domain name hijackings. During the 2009 Iranian election protests, Anonymous played a role in disseminating information to and from Iran by setting up the website Anonymous Iran[13]; they also released a video manifesto to the Iranian government. On August 1, 2009, the Melbourne International Film Festival was forced to shut down its website after DDoS attacks by Chinese vigilantes, in response to Rebiya Kadeers planned guest appearance, the screening of a film about her which is deemed anti-China by Chinese state media, and strong sentiments following the July 2009 ÃÆ'Å“rÃÆ'Â ¼mqi riots. The hackers booked out all film sessions on its website, and replaced festival information with the Chinese flag and anti-Kadeer slogans.[14][15] In November 2009, computers of the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia University were hacked, and email purporting to expose a conspiracy by scientists to suppress data that contradicted their conclusions regarding global warming was made available on a Russian FTP server.[16]

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Plethora of Fools in Twelfth Night Essay -- Twelfth Night essays

Plethora of Fools in Twelfth Night Folly is one of the main weaknesses in Twelfth Night with a number of characters portraying their own strange foolish ways. Feste is the professional fool; he is the most noticeable fool and is very quickly recognised by the audience as an intelligent man. Orsino and Olivia are really foolish because of the decisions they make but they are regarded as intelligent. The biggest fool of all is Olivia's steward, Malvolio. Â   Feste was obviously the most noticeable fool. He entertains Orsino and Olivia. He is not a fool by nature; he is a fool by profession. When he entertains Olivia he says the truth about her but she doesn't realise that he is talking about her. Â   FESTE Better a witty fool than a foolish wit' - God bless thee, lady. OLIVIA Take the fool away. FESTE Do you not hear, fellows? Take away the lady. OLIVIA Go to, y'are a dry fool: I'll no more of you; besides, you grow dishonest. Â   FESTE Two faults, Madonna, that a drink and good counsel will amend: for give the dry fool drink, then i...

Monday, August 19, 2019

Contraceptives and the Population Problem :: Environment Environmental Pollution Preservation

Contraceptives and the Population Problem The question of overpopulation's impact on the environment is multi-dimensional and far beyond the scope of a single essay. The issue has to do with considering the environment a normal good while at the same time understanding the impact of industrialization on increased pollution levels. Relationships between industrialization, overpopulation, global pollution, regional pollution, resource depletion, and numerous other environmental and social concerns form a multi-dimensional series of feedback loops, all of which feed back on the original system. Computer models developed by economic research institutions to predict environmental and developmental impacts of population growth (ex. The World Bank, The Economic Research Service) are n-dimensional, only to be accurately evaluated using advanced statistical regressions and matrix analysis. As such, this paper will assume that there is a direct correlation between population and natural resource depletion (environmental degradation by way of pollutants is an entirely different, and more complicated issue), and the most cost-effective way of amelioration would be to restrain population growth. Given that, what is the correct means for policy to approach the population problem? The options include contraceptive distribution, family planning, general economic development, and gender equality among others. Essentially, policy has to address whether population can be restrained with a "tech fix" such as contraceptives or only after a broad socioeconomic shift. In 1992, Professor Jay Forrester and his team at MIT developed a computer model designed to simulate likely future patterns of the global economy based on a technique known as system dynamics. The system dynamic technique relies on feedback loops to explain human behavior, and this particular model predicted an overshoot and collapse of the natural resource economic base. This Malthusian prediction reinforced Paul Ehrlich's contention articulated in The Population Bomb (1968) that unbridled population growth is the foremost factor in environmental degradation and natural resource depletion. However, these pessimistic models failed to take account of the substitutive and absorptive capacities of humanity and the environment. In fact, these key economic principals temper the adverse effects of overpopulation and may increase general human welfare as a result. But the fact (or widely acknowledged as such) still remains that population growth, particularly in undeveloped nations puts an increased strain on the environment and the population supported by the local ecosystem. The 2003 World Development Report which is published by The World Bank Group indicates that farmers in third world countries are being forced to farm on marginal lands due to the growing scarcity of arable lands.

Sunday, August 18, 2019

A Shattered Dream in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller Essay

A Shattered Dream in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller Death of a Salesman tells the story of a man confronting failure in the success-driven society of America and shows the tragic path, which eventually leads to Willy Loman's suicide. Death of a Salesman?is?a search for identity, [Willy?s] attempt to be a man according to the frontier tradition in which he was raised, and a failure to achieve that identity because in [1942] and in [Brooklyn] that identity cannot be achieved. (Gross 321) Willy is a symbolic icon of the failing American; he represents those that have striven for success in society, but, in struggling to do so, have instead achieved failure in the most bitter form. Perhaps what is wrong with the society is not that it has implanted the wrong values in [Willy], values which finally do not lead to success anyway, but that it has lost touch with values which should never be relegated only to the personal sphere or the family unit. (Lawrence 57) In Arthur Miller?s Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman, the protagonist, pursues a false perception of the American Dream. Arthur Miller establishes Willy Loman as a traveling salesman in his sixties, a dreamer of success, and a troubled man. Willy is not a successful man, but clings to his dreams and ideals. ?[Arthur Miller] did not realize either how few would be impressed by the fact that [Willy] is actually a very brave spirit who cannot settle for half but must pursue his dream of himself to the end? (Hayman 55-56). Willy reminisces about the neighborhood years ago. His past recurs through the play in vivid scenes. Each time he returns from an episode in the past, Willy discovers new information that throws light on his troubled past. Willy portra... ... of a Salesman. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1988. 25-38. Roudanà ©, Matthew C. ?Death of a Salesman and the Poetics of Arthur Miller.? The Cambridge Companion to Arthur Miller. Ed. Christopher Bigsby. New York: Cambridge UP, 1997. 60-85. Sister, M. Bettina. ?Willy Loman?s Brother Ben: Tragic Insight in Death of a Salesman.? Modern Drama. Feb. 1962: 409-412. Spillane, Margaret. ?Life of a Salesman.? Nation 8 Mar. 1999: 7. Steinberg, M. W. ?Arthur Miller and the Idea of Modern Tragedy.? Twentieth Century Views Arthur Miller. Ed. Robert W. Corrigan. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1969, 81-84. Weales, Gerald. ?Arthur Miller?s Shifting Image of Man.? Twentieth Century Views Arthur Miller. Ed. Robert W. Corrigan. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1969. 131-142. ?Why Willy Loman Lives.? The Economist 19 June 1999: 19-21.

Saturday, August 17, 2019

Comparing Judaism and Islam Essay

Judaism and Islam are two of the world’s oldest, and largest monotheistic religions. These religions share a variety of customs, beliefs, and even practices. But at the same time, there are enough differences to make the two religions and cultures oppose each other greatly. Even some similarities between the two have been the source of conflict for thousands of years. Both the Jewish and Muslim faith believe in one God. Being monotheistic means just that, the belief in one God. This is the most obvious similarity between the two religions. In fact a Muslim is defined as anyone who says â€Å"There is no God but God, and Mohammed is the messenger of God.† and the basic creed of Judaism says â€Å"Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one.† Judaism and Islam both have Holy Books from which religious teachings are taken. The Muslim Holy Book is called the Quran, it is spelled in English in many different ways Koran, Kuran, this is because Arabic is hard to translate. The Quran is the word of God as reveled by the prophet Mohammed. The Jewish Holy Book is referred to as the Hebrew Bible. The first five books of the Hebrew Bible is called the Torah. This is the part of the bible lays out a system of moral and religious conduct. The Hebrew Bible was put together in the 1st century A.D. by rabbis and teachers of the Jewish text. The Hebrew Bible and the Quran both set up a system of law for the followers of the Jewish and Muslim faiths. The Hebrew Bible, the book of the Jewish faith sets up more of a code of conduct, a system of moral and religious conduct that is called the halavhah. This addresses how families should be run, personal ethics and manners, social responsibilities, and what people of the Jewish faith should and should not eat. Dietary guidelines are very important in the Jewish religion, everything that is eaten must be Kosher, meaning it is prepared a certain way. The Quran goes one step farther in setting boundaries for it’s believers. This book of the Muslim faith sets the rules for an Islamic state. Also there are strict rules on women, families, and daily life that are addressed in deep detail in the Quran. Polygamy is accepted in the Quran, a man may have no more that four wives. And women are actually supposed to be mostly equal to men, yet modest.  Equality of women is not always practiced in some Middle Eastern and Islamic countries. As with most religions Islam and Judaism have a variety of holidays. Some are to commemorate an event of the the past, some to celebrate a new year, or maybe the passing of a certain number of years. Ramadan, a holiday celebrated mostly by Sunni Muslims, happens during the ninth month of the Muslim year. This was the month when the Quran was reveled for the guidance of mankind. During this holy month Muslims fast and abstain from sex during the daylight hours. It is a very holy time and is taken very seriously. In the Jewish faith there is a similar holiday called Passover. This holiday lasts for seven days and commerates the deliverance of Israel from slavery. Passover more specifically refers to the evening when the angel of death passed over the houses of all in Egypt killing the first born of each home that did not have lambs’s blood around the door. During this holiday Jews are permitted only to ear unleavened bread called matzo during the daylight hours, much like the Ramadan fasting. Jews also hold feasts during the first two nights of this holiday. A house of worship is an important component of most religions in our world today. Islam has the Mosque, a place of prayer and teaching. Judaism has the Synagogue, also a place of prayer and teaching. In both these places people gather to perform the customs that are laid out in their religious scriptures. Unlike some religions in the world today both Judaism and Islam require their believers to pray multiple times a day. Jews pray three times a day, once in the morning, once in the noontime and once in the evening. Though this practice is more of a personal choice than the strict guidelines of prayer set in the Muslim religion. In the Quran there are five pillars of the Muslim faith: The first is profession of faith which basically means a Muslims must constantly and openly profess their faith. The second is prayer, which happens five times a day. The third is giving alms to the needy. The fourth is fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. And the fifth is the pilgrimage to Mecca. The second pillar of faith is the  practice similar to the Jewish practice. Five times a day Muslims must pray facing the holy city of Mecca. This however is a very strict prayer, maybe a bit different from the Jewish tradition, but still the same basic concept. Judaism is the oldest of the three major monotheistic religions. The religion began in the time of Abraham which would have been about 1900 B.C, over 3,000 years ago. In many ways this has made the Jewish religion and it’s followers very strong in their beliefs. Islam, on the other hand, was not founded until 570 A.D., some 2,000 years after the beginning of Judaism. Many Jewish believers will use this difference as an argument. They are the older of the two religions, and so they were the first people in the Holy Land (Israel/Palestine) and so they should be entitled to it and no one else. However, Abraham had two sons, Issac the leader of the Hebrew people and Ishmael, the leader of the Arab people. Though not all Muslims are Arab, the majority of the Muslims in Israel are Arab. So Muslims will use this argument by saying that Ishmael was the first son of Abraham and God told Abraham that He would take care of his first born, so the Muslims have just as much right to the area as the Jews, no matter who was there first. Though there are many similarities between Islam and Judaism, the few differences however large or small seem to greatly outweigh the amazing likenesses for the thousands of followers of both beliefs. These differences as well as the continuing argument over the promised land of Israel/Palestine continue today to escalate the war in the sacred area and drive a wedge even further between the two groups. The truly frightening part of all this is that Holy Wars are extremely hard to resolve. When two groups are fighting over land that was promised to them by a divine entity that’s existence can’t even be proven, there aren’t a whole lot of options for peace. All the world can do is educate themselves and try to accept the different religions and continue to look for some sort of compromise.