Computer - 2920 Words

COMPUTER HARDWARE AND COMPONENTS COMPUTER HARDWARE AND COMPONENTS Computer Basics Equipment (Hardware) COMPUTER | A machine that processes information and performs computations. | Tower or Desktop | The box or case that holds the parts that make up a computer: CPU, hard disk drive, floppy drive, memory chips, power supply, interface cards, etc. Click here to learn more. | | CPU | Central Processing Unit, or brains of the computer | Monitor | An output display device (looks similar to a TV) in a computer system. You see information on the monitors screen. | | Screen | The viewing area on a monitor or the information or image displayed. | | | | Disk Drive | A device that reads data from (input)†¦show more content†¦The printer on the left is an INK JET PRINTER, and the other is a LASER PRINTER. | . | . | Hub | | | ------------------------------------------------- Hubs are devices that have many ports into which network cables are plugged. A hub takes the signal from each computer and sends it to all of the other computers through the network. Hubs come in different sizes and colors. The hub must be plugged in and turned on for the network to work - be sure you see green lights | Modem | A device that allows computers to communicate with each other over telephone lines (Internet). At school we do not use modems, we have a direct connection to the Internet called a T-1 line. | Keyboard | Input device - choose letters, symbols, and actions by pressing keys | Key | Any of the buttons on a keyboard that the user presses to input data (information) or to type commands | Escape | Usually pressed while you are working in a software application to stop the current activity, back out of a menu (or screen), or return to a previous screen. | Enter | Used to move the cursor to the beginning of a new line. It may also be called the return key. In some applications, pressing Enter tells the computer to stop waiting for more input and begin processing. Notice the arrow symbol on the Enter key; it is sometimes used in instructions and means to press the enter key. | Backspace | Moves theShow MoreRelatedThe Computer Of Computer Technology901 Words   |  4 Pagesexponential. The introduction of the personal computer (PC) was the true catalyst for the growth in popularity of computer technology. With this introduction also came the growth in popularity of being a computer scientist. The code used to write the software for these personal computers was brand new and easy to use. What made it easy to use was the fact that the computer code for the PC was very similar to the English language; whereas, previous computers used punch cards as a way to program them.Read MoreComputers And Music : Computers1612 Words   |  7 Pages Computers and Music Computers and Music James C. 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EveryRead MoreThe Computer And The Computers1863 Words   |  8 PagesJaciya Wade Professor Kruse Senior Project 16 March 2016 The computer is one of the most used electronics in everyday life. The internet and the computer connects one place to another, Japan to Alaska, Canada to South America and so on. What is never thought of is the programs that go into the websites that are used on a regular basis, Facebook, twitter and Instagram. Without them there would be a complete disconnect between every continent, country, and city. No outside information would cycleRead MoreComputer1636 Words   |  7 Pagesâ€Å"Disadvantages and Advantages of Computer† A Research Paper Presented to Prof. Hans Uy In partial Fulfillment of the Requirements in English IV By: Junaira R. Jamal First Year College March 2013 ACKNOWLEGDMENT I express my deepest gratitude to my family especially my mother who helps me with the grammar, invaluable guidance and blessings. I am very grateful to my English teacher Sir Han Uy for providing us with an environment to complete this project. I  would  like  to  thank  myRead MoreHuman Computer Interaction : Computer Interface1250 Words   |  5 PagesHuman – Computer Interface The Human-Computer Interaction, as defined by Margret Rouse, â€Å"HCI (human-computer interaction) is the study of how people interact with computers and to what extent computers are or are not developed for successful interaction with human beings (Rouse. 2005).† As the need for computer interaction increased, better means of interacting with computer software became a necessity. 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Part Two Chapter X Free Essays

X Andrew left Yarvil at half-past three, to be sure of getting back to Hilltop House before five. Fats accompanied him to the bus stop and then, apparently on a whim, told Andrew that he thought he would stay in town for a bit, after all. Fats had made a loose arrangement to meet Krystal in the shopping centre. We will write a custom essay sample on Part Two Chapter X or any similar topic only for you Order Now He strolled back towards the shops, thinking about what Andrew had done in the internet cafe, and trying to disentangle his own reactions. He had to admit that he was impressed; in fact, he felt somewhat upstaged. Andrew had thought the business through, and kept it to himself, and executed it efficiently: all of this was admirable. Fats experienced a twinge of pique that Andrew had formulated the plan without saying a word to him, and this led Fats to wonder whether, perhaps, he ought not to deplore the undercover nature of Andrew’s attack on his father. Was there not something slippery and over-sophisticated about it; would it not have been more authentic to threaten Simon to his face or to take a swing at him? Yes, Simon was a shit, but he was undoubtedly an authentic shit; he did what he wanted, when he wanted, without submitting to societal constraints or conventional morality. Fats asked himself whether his sympathies ought not to lie with Simon, whom he liked entertaining with crude, crass humour focused mainly on people making tits of themselves or suffering slapstick injuries. Fats often told himself that he would rather have Simon, with his volatility, his unpredictable picking of fights – a worthy opponent, an engaged adversary – than Cubby. On the other hand, Fats had not forgotten the falling tin of creosote, Simon’s brutish face and fists, the terrifying noise he had made, the sensation of hot wet piss running down his own legs, and (perhaps most shameful of all) his whole-hearted, desperate yearning for Tessa to come and take him away to safety. Fats was not yet so invulnerable that he was unsympathetic to Andrew’s desire for retribution. So Fats came full circle: Andrew had done something daring, ingenious and potentially explosive in its consequences. Again Fats experienced a small pang of chagrin that it had not been he who had thought of it. He was trying to rid himself of his own acquired middle-class reliance on words, but it was difficult to forgo a sport at which he excelled, and as he trod the polished tiles of the shopping centre forecourt, he found himself turning phrases that would blow Cubby’s self-important pretensions apart and strip him naked before a jeering public †¦ He spotted Krystal among a small crowd of Fields kids, grouped around the benches in the middle of the thoroughfare between shops. Nikki, Leanne and Dane Tully were among them. Fats did not hesitate, nor appear to gather himself in the slightest, but continued to walk at the same speed, his hands in his pockets, into the battery of curious critical eyes, raking him from the top of his head to his trainers. ‘All righ’, Fatboy?’ called Leanne. ‘All right?’ responded Fats. Leanne muttered something to Nikki, who cackled. Krystal was chewing gum energetically, colour high in her cheeks, throwing back her hair so that her earrings danced, tugging up her tracksuit bottoms. ‘All right?’ Fats said to her, individually. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Duz yer mum know yer out, Fats?’ asked Nikki. ‘Yeah, she brought me,’ said Fats calmly, into the greedy silence. ‘She’s waiting outside in the car; she says I can have a quick shag before we go home for tea.’ They all burst out laughing except Krystal, who squealed, ‘Fuck off, you cheeky bastard!’ but looked gratified. ‘You smokin’ rollies?’ grunted Dane Tully, his eyes on Fats’ breast pocket. He had a large black scab on his lip. ‘Yeah,’ said Fats. ‘Me uncle smokes them,’ said Dane. ‘Knackered his fuckin’ lungs.’ He picked idly at the scab. ‘Where’re you two goin’?’ asked Leanne, squinting from Fats to Krystal. ‘Dunno,’ said Krystal, chewing her gum, glancing sideways at Fats. He did not enlighten either of them, but indicated the exit of the shopping centre with a jerk of his thumb. ‘Laters,’ Krystal said loudly to the rest. Fats gave them a careless half-raised hand in farewell and walked away, Krystal striding along beside him. He heard more laughter in their wake, but did not care. He knew that he had acquitted himself well. ‘Where’re we goin’?’ asked Krystal. ‘Dunno,’ said Fats. ‘Where d’you usually go?’ She shrugged, walking and chewing. They left the shopping centre and walked on down the high street. They were some distance from the recreation ground, where they had previously gone to find privacy. ‘Didjer mum really drop yeh?’ Krystal asked. ‘Course she bloody didn’t. I got the bus in, didn’t I?’ Krystal accepted the rebuke without rancour, glancing sideways into the shop windows at their paired reflections. Stringy and strange, Fats was a school celebrity. Even Dane thought he was funny. ‘He’s on’y usin’ yeh, yeh stupid bitch,’ Ashlee Mellor had spat at her, three days ago, on the corner of Foley Road, ‘because yer a fuckin’ whore, like yer mum.’ Ashlee had been a member of Krystal’s gang until the two of them had clashed over another boy. Ashlee was notoriously not quite right in the head; she was prone to outbursts of rage and tears, and divided most of her time between learning support and guidance when at Winterdown. If further proof were needed of her inability to think through consequences, she had challenged Krystal on her home turf, where Krystal had back-up and she had none. Nikki, Jemma and Leanne had helped corner and hold Ashlee, and Krystal had pummelled and slapped her everywhere she could reach, until her knuckles came away bloody from the other girl’s mouth. Krystal was not worried about repercussions. ‘Soft as shite an’ twice as runny,’ she said of Ashlee and her family. But Ashlee’s words had stung a tender, infected place in Krystal’s psyche, so it had been balm to her when Fats had sought her out at school the next day and asked her, for the first time, to meet him over the weekend. She had told Nikki and Leanne immediately that she was going out with Fats Wall on Saturday, and had been gratified by their looks of surprise. And to cap it all, he had turned up when he had said he would (or within half an hour of it) right in front of all her mates, and walked away with her. It was like they were properly going out. ‘So what’ve you been up to?’ Fats asked, after they had walked fifty yards in silence, back past the internet cafe. He knew a conventional need to keep some form of communication going, even while he wondered whether they would find a private place before the rec, a half-hour’s walk away. He wanted to screw her while they were both stoned; he was curious to know what that was like. ‘I bin ter see my Nana in hospital this mornin’, she’s ‘ad a stroke,’ said Krystal. Nana Cath had not tried to speak this time, but Krystal thought she had known that she was there. As Krystal had expected, Terri was refusing to visit, so Krystal had sat beside the bed on her own for an hour until it was time to leave for the precinct. Fats was curious about the minutiae of Krystal’s life; but only in so far as she was an entry point to the real life of the Fields. Particulars such as hospital visits were of no interest to him. ‘An’,’ Krystal added, with an irrepressible spurt of pride, ‘I’ve gave an interview to the paper.’ ‘What?’ said Fats, startled. ‘Why?’ ‘Jus’ about the Fields,’ said Krystal. ‘What it’s like growin’ up there.’ (The journalist had found her at home at last, and when Terri had given her grudging permission, taken her to a cafe to talk. She had kept asking her whether being at St Thomas’s had helped Krystal, whether it had changed her life in any way. She had seemed a little impatient and frustrated by Krystal’s answers. ‘How are your marks at school?’ she had said, and Krystal had been evasive and defensive. ‘Mr Fairbrother said that he thought it broadened your horizons.’ Krystal did not know what to say about horizons. When she thought of St Thomas’s, it was of her delight in the playing field with the big chestnut tree, which rained enormous glossy conkers on them every year; she had never seen conkers before she went to St Thomas’s. She had liked the uniform at first, liked looking the same as everybody else. She had been excited to see her great-grandfather’s name on the war memorial in the middle of the Square: Pte Samuel Weedon. Only one other boy had his surname on the war memorial, and that was a farmer’s son, who had been able to drive a tractor at nine, and who had once brought a lamb into class for Show and Tell. Krystal had never forgotten the sensation of the lamb’s fleece under her hand. When she told Nana Cath about it, Nana Cath had said that their family had been farm labourers once. Krystal had loved the river, green and lush, where they had gone for nature walks. Best of all had been rounders and athletics. She was always first to be picked for any kind of sporting team, and she had delighted in the groan that went up from the other team whenever she was chosen. And she thought sometimes of the special teachers she had been given, especially Miss Jameson, who had been young and trendy, with long blonde hair. Krystal had always imagined Anne-Marie to be a little bit like Miss Jameson. Then there were snippets of information that Krystal had retained in vivid, accurate detail. Volcanoes: they were made by plates shifting in the ground; they had made model ones and filled them with bicarbonate of soda and washing-up liquid, and they had erupted onto plastic trays. Krystal had loved that. She knew about Vikings too: they had longships and horned helmets, though she had forgotten when they arrived in Britain, or why. But other memories of St Thomas’s included the muttered comments made about her by little girls in her class, one or two of whom she had slapped. When Social Services had allowed her to go back to her mother, her uniform became so tight, short and grubby that letters were sent from school, and Nana Cath and Terri had a big row. The other girls at school had not wanted her in their groups, except for their rounders teams. She could still remember Lexie Mollison handing everyone in the class a little pink envelope containing a party invitation, and walking past Krystal with – as Krystal remembered it – her nose in the air. Only a couple of people had asked her to parties. She wondered whether Fats or his mother remembered that she had once attended a birthday party at their house. The whole class had been invited, and Nana Cath had bought Krystal a party dress. So she knew that Fats’ huge back garden had a pond and a swing and an apple tree. They had eaten jelly and had sack races. Tessa had told Krystal off because, trying desperately hard to win a plastic medal, she had pushed other children out of the way. One of them had had a nosebleed. ‘You enjoyed St Thomas’s, though, did you?’ the journalist had asked. ‘Yeah,’ said Krystal, but she knew that she had not conveyed what Mr Fairbrother had wanted her to convey, and wished he could have been there with her to help. ‘Yeah, I enjoyed it.’) ‘How come they wanted to talk to you about the Fields?’ asked Fats. ‘It were Mr Fairbrother’s idea,’ said Krystal. After another few minutes, Fats asked, ‘D’you smoke?’ ‘Wha’, like spliffs? Yeah, I dunnit with Dane.’ ‘I’ve got some on me,’ said Fats. ‘Get it off Skye Kirby, didja?’ asked Krystal. He wondered whether he imagined a trace of amusement in her voice; because Skye was the soft, safe option, the place the middle-class kids went. If so, Fats liked her authentic derision. ‘Where d’you get yours, then?’ he asked, interested now. ‘I dunno, it were Dane’s,’ she said. ‘From Obbo?’ suggested Fats. ‘Tha’ fuckin’ tosser.’ ‘What’s wrong with him?’ But Krystal had no words for what was wrong with Obbo; and even if she had, she would not have wanted to talk about him. Obbo made her flesh crawl; sometimes he came round and shot up with Terri; at other times he fucked her, and Krystal would meet him on the stairs, tugging up his filthy fly, smiling at her through his bottle-bottom glasses. Often Obbo had little jobs to offer Terri, like hiding the computers, or giving strangers a place to stay for a night, or agreeing to perform services of which Krystal did not know the nature, but which took her mother out of the house for hours. Krystal had had a nightmare, not long ago, in which her mother had become stretched, spread and tied on a kind of frame; she was mostly a vast, gaping hole, like a giant, raw, plucked chicken; and in the dream, Obbo was walking in and out of this cavernous interior, and fiddling with things in there, while Terri’s tiny head was frightened and grim. Krystal had woken up feeling sick and angry and disgusted. †E’s a fucker,’ said Krystal. ‘Is he a tall bloke with a shaved head and tattoos all up the back of his neck?’ asked Fats, who had truanted for a second time that week, and sat on a wall for an hour in the Fields, watching. The bald man had interested him, fiddling around in the back of an old white van. ‘Nah, tha’s Pikey Pritchard,’ said Krystal, ‘if yeh saw him down Tarpen Road.’ ‘What does he do?’ ‘I dunno,’ said Krystal. ‘Ask Dane, ‘e’s mates with Pikey’s brother.’ But she liked his genuine interest; he had never shown this much inclination to talk to her before. ‘Pikey’s on probation.’ ‘What for?’ ‘He glassed a bloke down the Cross Keys.’ ‘Why?’ †Ow the fuck do I know? I weren’t there,’ said Krystal. She was happy, which always made her cocky. Setting aside her worry about Nana Cath (who was, after all, still alive, so might yet recover), it had been a good couple of weeks. Terri was adhering to the Bellchapel regime again, and Krystal was making sure that Robbie went to nursery. His bottom had mostly healed over. The social worker seemed as pleased as her sort ever did. Krystal had been to school every day too, though she had not attended either her Monday or her Wednesday morning guidance sessions with Tessa. She did not know why. Sometimes you got out of the habit. She glanced sideways at Fats again. She had never once thought of fancying him; not until he had targeted her at the disco in the drama hall. Everyone knew Fats; some of his jokes were passed around like funny stuff that happened on the telly. (Krystal pretended to everyone that they had a television at home. She watched enough at friends’ houses, and at Nana Cath’s, to be able to bluff her way through. ‘Yeah, it were shit, weren’t it?’ ‘I know, I nearly pissed meself,’ she would say, when the others talked about programmes they had seen.) Fats was imagining how it would feel to be glassed, how the jagged shard would slice through the tender flesh on his face; he could feel the searing nerves and the sting of the air against his ripped skin; the warm wetness as blood gushed. He felt a tickly over-sensitivity in the skin around his mouth, as if it was already scarred. ‘Is he still carrying a blade, Dane?’ he asked. †Ow d’you know ‘e’s gotta blade?’ demanded Krystal. ‘He threatened Kevin Cooper with it.’ ‘Oh, yeah,’ Krystal conceded. ‘Cooper’s a twat, innee?’ ‘Yeah, he is,’ said Fats. ‘Dane’s on’y carryin’ ‘cos o’ the Riordon brothers,’ said Krystal. Fats liked the matter-of-factness of Krystal’s tone; her acceptance of the need for a knife, because there was a grudge and a likelihood of violence. This was the raw reality of life; these were things that actually mattered †¦ before Arf had arrived at the house that day, Cubby had been importuning Tessa to give him an opinion on whether his campaign leaflet should be printed on yellow or white paper †¦ ‘What about in there?’ suggested Fats, after a while. To their right was a long stone wall, its gates open to reveal a glimpse of green and stone. ‘Yeah, all righ’,’ said Krystal. She had been in the cemetery once before, with Nikki and Leanne; they had sat on a grave and split a couple of cans, a little self-conscious about what they were doing, until a woman had shouted at them and called them names. Leanne had lobbed an empty can back at the woman as they left. But it was too exposed, Fats thought, as he and Krystal walked up the broad concreted walkway between the graves: green and flat, the headstones offering virtually no cover. Then he saw barberry hedges along the wall on the far side. He cut a path right across the cemetery, and Krystal followed, hands in her pockets, as they picked their way between rectangular gravel beds, headstones cracked and illegible. It was a large cemetery, wide and well tended. Gradually they reached the newer graves of highly polished black marble with gold lettering, places where fresh flowers had been laid for the recently dead. To Lyndsey Kyle, September 15 1960-March 26 2008, Sleep Tight Mum. ‘Yeah, we’ll be all right in there,’ said Fats, eyeing the dark gap between the prickly, yellow-flowered bushes and the cemetery wall. They crawled into the damp shadows, onto the earth, their backs against the cold wall. The headstones marched away from them between the bushes’ trunks, but there were no human forms among them. Fats skinned up expertly, hoping that Krystal was watching, and was impressed. But she was gazing out under the canopy of glossy dark leaves, thinking about Anne-Marie, who (Aunt Cheryl had told her) had come to visit Nana Cath on Thursday. If only she had skipped school and gone at the same time, they could have met at last. She had fantasized, many times, about how she would meet Anne-Marie, and say to her, ‘I’m yer sister.’ Anne-Marie, in these fantasies, was always delighted, and they saw each other all the time after that, and eventually Anne-Marie suggested that Krystal move in. The imaginary Anne-Marie had a house like Nana Cath’s, neat and clean, except that it was much more modern. Lately, in her fantasies, Krystal had added a sweet little pink baby in a frilly crib. ‘There you go,’ said Fats, handing Krystal the joint. She inhaled, held the smoke in her lungs for a few seconds, and her expression softened into dreaminess as the cannabis worked its magic. ‘You ain’ got brothers an’ sisters,’ she asked, †ave yeh?’ ‘No,’ said Fats, checking his pocket for the condoms he had brought. Krystal handed back the joint, her head swimming pleasantly. Fats took an enormous drag and blew smoke rings. ‘I’m adopted,’ he said, after a while. Krystal goggled at Fats. ‘Are yeh adopted, are yeh?’ With the senses a little muffled and cushioned, confidences peeled easily away, everything became easy. ‘My sister wuz adopted,’ said Krystal, marvelling at the coincidence, delighted to talk about Anne-Marie. ‘Yeah, I probably come from a family like yours,’ said Fats. But Krystal was not listening; she wanted to talk. ‘I gottan older sister an’ an older brother, Liam, but they wuz taken away before I wuz born.’ ‘Why?’ asked Fats. He was suddenly paying close attention. ‘Me mum was with Ritchie Adams then,’ said Krystal. She took a deep drag on the joint and blew out the smoke in a long thin jet. ‘He’s a proper psycho. He’s doin’ life. He killed a bloke. Proper violent to Mum an’ the kids, an’ then John an’ Sue came an’ took ’em, and the social got involved an’ it ended up John an’ Sue kept ’em.’ She drew on the joint again, considering this period of her pre-life, which was doused in blood, fury and darkness. She had heard things about Ritchie Adams, mainly from her aunt Cheryl. He had stubbed out cigarettes on one-year-old Anne-Marie’s arms, and kicked her until her ribs cracked. He had broken Terri’s face; her left cheekbone was still receded, compared to the right. Terri’s addiction had spiralled catastrophically. Aunt Cheryl was matter of fact about the decision to remove the two brutalized, neglected children from their parents. ‘It ‘ad to ‘appen,’ said Cheryl. John and Sue were distant, childless relatives. Krystal had never known where or how they fitted in her complex family tree, or how they had effected what, to hear Terri tell it, sounded like kidnap. After much wrangling with the authorities, they had been allowed to adopt the children. Terri, who had remained with Ritchie until his arrest, never saw Anne-Marie or Liam, for reasons Krystal did not entirely understand; the whole story was clotted and festering with hatred and unforgivable things said and threatened, restraining orders, lots more social workers. ‘Who’s your dad, then?’ asked Fats. ‘Banger,’ said Krystal. She struggled to recall his real name. ‘Barry,’ she muttered, though she had a suspicion that was not right. ‘Barry Coates. O’ny I uses me mum’s name, Weedon.’ The memory of the dead young man who had overdosed in Terri’s bathroom floated back to her through the sweet, heavy smoke. She passed the joint back to Fats and leaned her head against the stone wall, looking up at the sliver of sky, mottled with dark leaves. Fats was thinking about Ritchie Adams, who had killed a man, and considering the possibility that his own biological father was in prison somewhere too; tattooed, like Pikey, spare and muscled. He mentally compared Cubby with this strong, hard authentic man. Fats knew that he had been parted from his biological mother as a very small baby, because there were pictures of Tessa holding him, frail and bird-like, with a woolly white cap on his head. He had been premature. Tessa had told him a few things, though he had never asked. His real mother had been very young when she had him, he knew that. Perhaps she had been like Krystal; the school bike †¦ He was properly stoned now. He put his hand behind Krystal’s neck and pulled her towards him, kissing her, sticking his tongue into her mouth. With his other hand, he groped for her breast. His brain was fuzzy and his limbs were heavy; even his sense of touch seemed affected. He fumbled a little to get his hand inside her T-shirt, to force it under her bra. Her mouth was hot and tasted of tobacco and dope; her lips were dry and chapped. His excitement was slightly blunted; he seemed to be receiving all sensory information through an invisible blanket. It took longer than the last time to prise her clothes loose from her body, and the condom was difficult, because his fingers had become stiff and slow; then he accidentally placed his elbow, with all his weight behind it, on her soft fleshy underarm and she shrieked in pain. She was drier than before; he forced his way inside her, determined to accomplish what he had come for. Time was glue-like and slow, but he could hear his own rapid breathing, and it made him edgy, because he imagined someone else, crouching in the dark space with them, watching, panting in his ear. Krystal moaned a little. With her head thrown back, her nose became broad and snout-like. He pushed up her T-shirt to look at the smooth white breasts, jiggling a little, beneath the loose constraint of the undone bra. He came without expecting it, and his own grunt of satisfaction seemed to belong to the crouching eavesdropper. He rolled off her, peeled off the condom and threw it aside, then zipped himself up, feeling jittery, looking around to check that they were definitely alone. Krystal was dragging her pants up with one hand, pulling down her T-shirt with the other, reaching behind herself to do up her bra. It had become cloudy and darker while they had sat behind the bushes. There was a distant buzzing in Fats’ ears; he was very hungry; his brain was working slowly, while his ears were hypersensitive. The fear that they had been watched, perhaps over the top of the wall behind them, would not leave him. He wanted to go. ‘Let’s †¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ he muttered, and without waiting for her, he crawled out between the bushes and got to his feet, brushing himself down. There was an elderly couple a hundred yards away, crouching at a graveside. He wanted to get right away from phantom eyes that might, or might not, have watched him screw Krystal Weedon; but at the same time, the process of finding the right bus stop and getting on the bus to Pagford seemed almost unbearably onerous. He wished he could simply be transported, this instant, to his attic bedroom. Krystal had staggered out behind him. She was pulling down the bottom of her T-shirt and staring down at the grassy ground at her feet. ‘Fuck,’ she mumbled. ‘What?’ said Fats. ‘C’mon, let’s go.’ †S Mr Fairbrother,’ she said, without moving. ‘What?’ She pointed at the mound in front of them. There was no headstone yet; but fresh flowers lay all along it. ‘See?’ she said, crouching over and indicating cards stapled to the cellophane. ‘Tha’ sez Fairbrother.’ She recognized the name easily from all those letters that had gone home from school, asking her mother to give permission for her to go away on the minibus. ‘†Ter Barry†,’ she read carefully, ‘an’ this sez, â€Å"Ter Dad†,’ she sounded out the words slowly, ‘†from †¦ â€Å"‘ But Niamh and Siobhan’s names defeated her. ‘So?’ demanded Fats; but in truth, the news gave him the creeps. That wickerwork coffin lay feet below them, and inside it the short body and cheery face of Cubby’s dearest friend, so often seen in their house, rotting away in the earth. The Ghost of Barry Fairbrother †¦ he was unnerved. It seemed like some kind of retribution. ‘C’mon,’ he said, but Krystal did not move. ‘What’s the matter?’ ‘I rowed for ‘im, di’n I?’ snapped Krystal. ‘Oh, yeah.’ Fats was fidgeting like a restive horse, edging backwards. Krystal stared down at the mound, hugging herself. She felt empty, sad and dirty. She wished they had not done it there, so close to Mr Fairbrother. She was cold. Unlike Fats, she had no jacket. ‘C’mon,’ said Fats again. She followed him out of the cemetery, and they did not speak to each other once. Krystal was thinking about Mr Fairbrother. He had always called her ‘Krys’, which nobody else had ever done. She had liked being Krys. He had been a good laugh. She wanted to cry. Fats was thinking about how he would be able to work this into a funny story for Andrew, about being stoned and fucking Krystal and getting paranoid and thinking they were being watched and crawling out almost onto old Barry Fairbrother’s grave. But it did not feel funny yet; not yet. How to cite Part Two Chapter X, Essay examples

Managing Employee Relation

Question: Describe about theManaging Employee Relation?. Answer: Introduction: There are different approaches to the employment from the side of the employers and the workers. These two parties come to an agreement when there is a union. Union has played a dialogue between the role of the worker and employer, but the business has changed a lot. If the changes in the business environment is considered then it is imperative to understand how the union fits into the present business scenario and the roles played by the union. Union is an organization that tends to negotiate with the businesses, corporation on behalf of the trade unions members (Blanpain et al. 2012). The effect of the labour union can have both the benefits and the negative aspects for the workers. This paper will show that despite the good aspects of the union there are many things, which do not appeal the labour union. Good aspects of Workers to Join the Trade Union: It has been found that the trade union in a nation helps the employees to get a premium wage. The employees or the workers both tend to enjoy a higher bargaining power. The bargaining power of the individual employee is little in relation to the employer. Once the employee is not satisfied, then they move on to another job, but such movement would not continue longer. This is the time when the role of the trade union is considered as important. The union can ask the management to design the personnel strategy for the based on equal treatment of all the employees. The employees feel that joining the union would help in getting the adequate amount of protection from the income security and the hazards like the unemployment, illness and much more. The trade union secures the retirement benefit of the employees, and they force the management to provide welfare services (Moore, McKay and Veale 2013). As a trade union member, the workers they would be able to participate in the matters of management. An employee might join the union, as there are co-workers also present in the union. There is an external pressure that the workers have to face when they do not join trade union or might have a difficult time is faced during the work. Despite the good aspect, the next section will analyse the reasons for the workers not to join the trade union. Reason for the Workers to be Reluctant to Join the Trade Union: The union is considered the best thing that can happen to people who works without it there would arise a dangerous condition. There are some reasons for which the people do not want to enter into trade unions and do not want the industry to be unionized. The relevance of the importance of the trade union is dying. In the 1940s, 35% of the European workers belonged to the trade union, but now the memberships in the private sector are less than that of 7% (Ledwith and Hansen 2012). The main reason for this is that in reality, the worker they lose their freedom when working in a trade union (Platzer, Mueller and Burgess 2012). Pay is Important: The negotiation with the employer for the compensation is not something that the employees like to do (Keune and Marginson 2012). This is done when there is a demand, which would include joyful agony so that the best offers are decided and what is the amount that needs to be paid. There is both pain and joy involved, as the pay would be dependent upon the work. This will also reflect the entire lifestyle pattern. The payment and the form of payment both is a problem. It might be that there is a demand for more cash by the employee, or there is a demand for more days off, employees may demand paid lunches rather than money, and many criteria that are more significant will be judged when pay is considered (Curran and Quinn 2012). The problem with the union is that the demand for the correct pay will be under their control. There is no way the employee will be able to negotiate. The union management takes all the powers away; the employees are only left with hope. Under the best scenari o as well, the union will be negotiating with the lowest common denominator. The union will try to fix a wage that is average but in the real world; nobody is average. In the case of a union, there is no doubt in a union there is a need to compromise with the employer and other workers as well. There is only average that is provided to the workers, and it is diluted by the benefits the corporate management and union management negotiate. Employees lose power, and there is no bargaining regarding the ideas, quality, efforts and the unique traits (Ravenhill-Johnson and James 2013). A worker may try to work hard so that they can earn more or might try to ensure job security (Goerke and Pannenberg 2012). There might be a motive for employees to work that he excels. The union is not concerned how well an employee performs in the work, but the concern is regarding the how many years that the employee services in an organization. This type of payment will be affecting the employees, and the customers of the organization as the quality will fall which could be bad for the company as the profit of the organization will be dependent upon the quality of the workers. Workers effort might also be treated as meaningless in this regard. Money can be earned more by the employees as long as they are stuck in their job for a longer period. (Fairbrother, Hennebert and Le vesque 2013) The effort big or small is irrespective from a lay off when there is a typical type of union contract. The efforts do not count. Worst Kind of Middleman: Three groups are harmed by the activities of the union i.e. the consumers, society, and companies. These groups are affected by the increase in the price, low quality, inefficiency, unemployment, reducing the pay of non-union workers, which is generated through the union. The employees or the workers, on the other hand, have to cover the dues of the union forcefully whether someone likes it or not. The employees they contribute to the pay for the government officials in the form of bribe and there is no way to object. There is a lingering tyranny of majority government on the employees in the form of the crony management of the union. Union tends to reduce the real household income. The employees or the workers they need to protect their rights as earn the pay as per their worth and not according to the seniority and provide with the meaningless compensation that takes away majority (Egger and Etzel 2012). There is an adversarial relation to the unions with the employers. This creates a less cooperative environment with employers and the unionized members. The supervisors they might treat the unionized workers less as partners and more as subordinate (Heywood and Jirjahn 2013). There might be a feeling by the workers that their employers do not trust them. Conclusion The willingness and the unwillingness of the workers to join the union depends on whom it is asked. The union have shown that they have been able to increase the rate of wage, improve the condition of work and creates an incentive for the employees who are in their training. The critics have countered saying that the productivity changes and the competitive labour market are the reason for the wage adjustment. There is a risk that the wage increase may come at the expense of the non-unionised workers who are not represented formally to the management. There is a greater degree of unwillingness towards joining the union, as the effort of a single worker is not recognized rather an average pay is given to the workers. This would also reduce the real income of the household. It is quite difficult to avoid the influence of trade union in shaping the political and the business environment. References: Blanpain, R., Klebe, T., Schmidt, M., Waas, B., Bellace, J. and Weiss, M. (2012).Trade union rights at the workplace. Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer Law International. Curran, D. and Quinn, M. (2012). Attitudes to employment law and the consequent impact of legislation on employment relations practice.Employee Relations, 34(5), pp.464-480. Egger, H. and Etzel, D. (2012).Union wage setting and international trade. Munich: CESifo. Fairbrother, P., Hennebert, M. and Le vesque, C. (2013).Transnational trade unionism. New York: Routledge. Goerke, L. and Pannenberg, M. (2012).Trade union membership and sickness absence. Munchen: CESifo. Heywood, J. and Jirjahn, U. (2013). Variable Pay, Industrial Relations and Foreign Ownership: Evidence from Germany.British Journal of Industrial Relations, 52(3), pp.521-552. Keune, M. and Marginson, P. (2012). Transnational Industrial Relations as Multi-Level Governance: Interdependencies in European Social Dialogue.British Journal of Industrial Relations, 51(3), pp.473-497. Ledwith, S. and Hansen, L. (2012).Gendering and Diversifying Trade Union Leadership. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. Moore, S., McKay, S. and Veale, S. (2013).Statutory regulation and employment relations. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Platzer, H., Mueller, T. and Burgess, P. (2012).Global and European Trade Union Federations. Oxford: Lang, Peter, AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften. Ravenhill-Johnson, A. and James, P. (2013).The art and ideology of the trade union emblem, 1850-1925. London: Anthem Press.

Physician Assisted Suicide Pros and Cons Essay Sample free essay sample

The inquiry is should incurable patients be able to perpetrate physician assisted self-destruction. and depending on which group you talk to the pros or cons they both have good developed statements as to which is right and which 1 is incorrect. Even though physician assisted self-destruction may assist patients with enfeebling conditions that medical specialty can non pull off. I am against it because self-destruction even for the terminally ailment is incorrect and with the appropriate attention like alleviative intervention it is an unneeded act. The theory that I believe to be the foundation of my beliefs is the deontological and the statement for the holiness of life. It is the simplest moral mentality on self-destruction. The holiness of life holds that it is incorrect because human life is sacred. Though this place is chiefly associated with the church or spiritual kingdom. Ronald Darrkin ( 1993 ) points out that atheists may besides happen entreaty to this claim every bit goo d. We will write a custom essay sample on Physician Assisted Suicide Pros and Cons Essay Sample or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Harmonizing to the â€Å"sanctity of life† the human life is really cherished and valuable and demanding regard from others and fear for oneself. Suicide is so incorrect because it violates our moral responsibility in honouring the value of life. The place of physician assisted self-destruction is a position of the deontological theory and the holiness of life. It would travel against the Hippocratic Oath that a physician takes when they receive their medical grade. This curse was created so that patients would be assured that their doctor is at that place for their best involvement and intend them no injury in any manner. It could even open up the door for noncritical patient self-destruction. One illustration would be patients that want to decease for emotional or psychological grounds. They may seek to convert their physicians to assist stop their life. The American Medical Association has been really vocal and influential on the subject of physician assisted self-destruction and has stated â€Å"that engagement is basically incompatible with a physician’s function as a healer† ( AMA. 1997. p. 290 ) . We need to maintain our values that we grew up with in cheque and retrieve there are things to populate for. We need to protect our morality and that of our physicians every bit good and maintain in head that there are other ways to decease with self-respect. Most faiths groups are against self-destruction and the Bible provinces that â€Å"Thou shall non kill† ( EXODUS 20:13 ) . so they would object to the construct of physician assisted self-destruction. Then there is the household and what they may or may non desire. In a short communicating. The sarcasm of back uping physician –assisted self-destruction: a personal history by Margaet Pabst Battin. In her sentiment it should be the pick of the person. She talks about the liberty statement and the clemency statement. Autonomy is a factor that has already been decided by our society in doing determinations on person stoping their life. The statement for clemency is that â€Å"no one should hold to endure from hurting or any other unbearable agony. where it can non be treated by agencies acceptable to the patient and is non embraced for the other grounds holding to make with values of import to that individual. even if this may intend stoping life† Battin. P. M. ( 2010 ) . As a society we have officially decided this when we let the authorities give the person the right to decline medical intervention. even for life prolonging interventions. With her hubby who had a bike accident November 2008 that paralyzed him had to be put on a vent ilator. Her idea was what if he wanted to decease. could she merely stand at that place while his ventilator was turned off. With her husband’s accident she said things changed and the issue of physician assisted self-destruction had become harder to believe about. It was non merely about terminally sick people any more. but it included her hubby now and she did non believe she could stand at that place and watch him be euthanized by his doctor. â€Å"A individual should be accorded the right to populate his or her life as they see fit ( provided. of class. that this does non significantly harm others ) . and that includes the really terminal of their life. † Battin. P. M. ( 2010 ) . There are a figure of complaints that result in slow agonising deceases such as certain types of malignant neoplastic disease. Doctors have old ages of preparation to hold adequate cognition and experience to cognize when a patient’s yearss are numbered. Just imagine months of purging and coughing losing control of organic structure maps and cramps of hurting. Would it non be more humanist to merely allow them take their ain life and do it the cardinal freedom of each single patient? Nowhere does it province in the fundamental law that the authorities has the right to maintain a individual from perpetrating self-destruction. If a patient or their household agrees with physician assisted suicide the authorities should remain out of it. The useful position of doctor assisted self-destruction would be whatever creates the greatest sum of good for the greatest figure of people is the moral thing to make. Physician aided self-destruction is one of Americas most profound ethical issues of our clip. If moral relativism was directing the quality of life moralss so physician assisted self-destruction would be advocated as a â€Å"light. † It has even been suggested that the lives of some people are non deserving life. and they should be encouraged. for the interest of themselves. household or society. to stop their lives. If person feels that they are traveling to be a load to their household or friend so they need to outline a life will saying what their wants are. They should compose out what they want every bit far as to their basic demands like nutrient. H2O. and pain medicine. They besides should hold a DNR ( do non revive ) papers to transport in their bag or billfold and one for their advocator to transport with them. They need an appointive advocator to be at that place in instance they can non show their demands. After so many deceases in my ain household I decided to do out mine and my husband’s life will. Our kids were non pleased with some of our determinations but I know that they love me adequate to honour our wants. Physician aided self-destruction is non a new issue but has been around for a really long clip and there are many options to physician aided self-destruction. The argument to stop a patient’s life still remains controversial. There are two rules on which all medical Fieldss agree is that physicians have an duty to alleviate their patient’s hurting and agony and to protect the self-respect of their death patient that is in their attention. There are concerns that our society will get down to see aided self-destruction as a legitimate manner of work outing all our hurting and agony. Merely one province in the United States has legalized physician assisted self-destruction. which is Organ and they have to follow certain regulations and makings before they can acquire aid from their doctor. There are many other states that do take part in physician assisted s elf-destruction and some doctors may make this without the patient even cognizing. that is why now citizens in the Netherlands carry a card that says Do Not Euthanize Me. Physician assisted self-destruction is non for everyone. but I think that we should esteem some 1s wants if they decide to stop their life. I am glad that I live in America and do non hold to worry about transporting a card that provinces do non kill me delight. My ma is from a big household and with this size of a household there will be decease. This twelvemonth we have had four deceases and the two that have affected me the most was my mas and a cousin that was about four old ages younger than me. My mom’s was a really emotional for my pa and us four childs and I will explicate it subsequently in this paper. The 1 that has truly made me halt and see my ain age and mortality is my cousin’s decease. Like my ma he fought for his life and in the terminal lost his conflict. He was burned on 80 nowadays of his organic structure when the gas oiler he was welding on blew up. He was medevac’d to Dallas Texas to the burn centre. The physician did non give the household any opportunity of him doing it through the dark and told them to believe about taking him off the life support. My uncle. aunt and his siblings said no to this but his married woman and two kids said yes because he was non reacting to anyone. The household came to a via media and waited boulder clay forenoon to do their determination. By forenoon he was antiphonal and cold keep his pollex up for yes and down for no. so the household left him on the life support. In the yearss to follow he was in a batch of hurting and after several skin bill of exchanges he got pneumonia. so his organic structure started to close down and the physician once more told them that it did non look good. And in the terminal his married woman and two kids decided to take him off of life support after he was unresponsive to any stimulation even though his parent were against the determination to convey some closing to a deceasing adult male. Even though I do non hold with physician assisted self-destruction it does non intend that there is a right or incorrect reply. Last April my female parent lost her conflict to populate and be with us. She fought till her organic structure was so hebdomad that when the physician went to set in a stretch to utilize to make dialyses on her she had a bosom onslaught. The physician put her on a ventilator because my male parent was non at that place. but in the waiting room where they had sent him. It was something he had promised my ma that he would non allow go on. We had a DNR in topographic point at the infirmary in our place town but non in the infirmary in Oklahoma City. It is something that merely fell through the cleft between place and the metropolis. When we eventually got to travel back in the room my pa cried and we had to watch as she laid there and pleaded with her eyes for us to make something. We had to wait for the physician to come in and speak to us before we could hold anything done. He explained that if we took her off the machine she would non last for more than 10 proceedingss but it was our pick to do. My pa set beside my ma and explained what the physician told us and asked her if she understood what he had said and she knotted her caput that she understood that if they took the ventilator off she would halt external respiration. We agreed with her determination and her last words to us were I Love you all. It is a difficult thing to hold to make so even though it is morally incorrect in most eyes and I do non believe anybody has a right to take a life there are merely some instances you can non be the justice and jury on. It may non hold been the moral thing to make but for our household it was the right thing to make for a married woman and female parent that had suffered through three bosom onslaughts and legion other surgeries. She said she was ready to travel place and that is where she is in Heaven. It has been hard on my pa but he is strong if non for his ego so for us childs. My parents would hold been married 50 old ages this month and we spent it with pa. So you can see that even though physician assisted self-destruction may be morally incorrect no 1 knows what they will make until they are faced with that sort of household state of affairs. The Godhead is our lone justice and I hope that he can see that she was ready to come place and that most patient’s in that state of affairs are merely looking for that all-time alleviation from hurting and heartache. I still think that doctor assisted self-destruction is incorrect and I am glad that it is non legal in our province. I think if the doctor has done everything that he can for his patient so he has done his occupation. In my mom’s instance he told us what would go on if he took away the external respiration machine and she did merely ha lt external respiration after about 10 proceedingss. As for my cousin I am glad that it was non my determination to do. I believe that the deontological theory is the 1 to utilize for my ideas about doctor assisted suicide. It states that the holiness of life is really cherished and valuable and demands respect from others and fear for oneself. That self-destruction is so incorrect because it violates our moral responsibility in honouring the value of life. So truly the inquiry should incurable patients be able to perpetrate physician assisted self-destruction. and with all the pros and cons of this argument possibly the determination should be up to the person. We and our Godhead are the lone 1s that know for certain how much each of us as persons can digest. So I say if you of all time find you self-faced with this issue delight take the clip and make a batch of praying before you decide to take some one’s life by aided self-destruction. Is it something you would desire for yourself? Mentions: Association. A. M. ( 1997 ) . AMA Council on Ethical and Judical Affairs. Codeof Medical Ethical motives: Current Opinions with Annotations. Chicago. Battin. M. P. ( 2010 ) . The sarcasm of back uping physician – assisted self-destruction: a personal history. Salt Lake City: Online. Coxon. A. ( 2001 ) . Ethical motives and Medicine. Highland Park: Bioethicss Press. Fieshein. J. ( 1997 ) . US Suprem Court regulations against physician – assisted self-destruction. The Lancet. 40. Mosser. K. ( 2010 ) . Ethical motives and Social Responsibility. Rogate. P. ( 2001 ) . The Virtues of Physician – Assisted Suicide.

Simple or Progressive Perfect Forms

Simple or Progressive Perfect Forms There are two types of perfect tenses; simple perfect tenses (present perfect, past perfect and future perfect) and progressive perfect tenses (present perfect progressive, past perfect progressive and future perfect progressive). The perfect forms are generally used to represent something that has happened up to another point in time. For example: Present Peter has visited Paris twice. (In his life, up until now)Jane has been playing tennis for two hours (until now) Past They had lived in New York for 3 years before they moved to Seattle. (up to the time they moved to Seattle)She had been studying for 4 hours when he arrived. (The four hours directly before he arrived) Future We will have finished the course by this time next year. (up to this time a year from now)I will have been working for 2 hours by the time he arrives tomorrow. (the two hours before he arrives tomorrow) So, what are the differences between the simple and progressive forms of the perfect? Well, first of all, remember to keep in mind the progressive is only used with ACTION verbs (see last weeks feature for examples of non-action or state verbs). Another important difference is that we use the simple perfect forms to express finished QUANTITIES and the progressive perfect forms when we are stressing the continuous duration of a specific action mentioned. Now, lets take a look at the specific differences between the two forms: Present Perfect Progressive Recent activity: to emphasize the recency of a past activity. we often use lately or recently : Shes been working hard recently Emphasis on the duration or length of an activity : Jack has been painting for 4 hours. Recently finished activity with a present result : Ive been working in the garden, thats why my hands are so dirty. No difference in meaning. Often the present perfect progressive and the present perfect can have the same meaning. This is often the case with verbs of living, occupation or vocation) : Ive been living in Leghorn for 3 years. OR Ive lived in Leghorn for 3 years. Present Perfect Indefinite time in the past (experience). Emphasis is on the completed action at an indefinite time in the past. : Susans written 3 books. Emphasis on QUANTITY : Ive read 300 pages of Tom Smiths latest book. Duration from past to present (see #4 of present perfect progressive) : Peter has worked for that company for 5 years. Here is an excellent example of the difference between the two forms when referring to duration of an activity as compared to quantity: Hes been driving for 6 hours. Hes driven 320 miles. Past Perfect Progressive Past perfect progressive is used to express CONTINUOUS activity up to a specific point of time in the past. Example: They had been waiting for 2 hours before their friends finally arrived. Past Perfect Past perfect is used to express FINISHED activity before a specific point of time in the past. Example: He had already eaten when his wife came home. Future  Perfect Progressive Future perfect progressive is used to emphasize the length of time or duration of an event occurring before and up to another event in the future. : By the time they arrive, we will have been waiting for 4 hours! To emphasize the duration of an activity. : John will have been studying for 6 years by the time he finishes his exam. Future Perfect Future perfect is used to refer to an event completed before another future event or time. : By the time Mary finishes this course, she will have taken 26 exams. To emphasize not how long something has taken, but that the action is completed. : By the time he retires, he will have worked for 36 years. Here is a little quiz to check your knowledge: They a) have been working b) have worked in the garage, thats why their clothes are greasy.She a) had met b) had been meeting John before he came to work here.By the time the letter arrives, a) I will have left b) I will have been leaving.When Karen telephoned, they a) had been studying b) had studied for two hours.Im tired. I a) have just finished b) have just been finishing my homework.Peter a) has been reading b) has read 3 books by Hemingway.By the time we finish, we a) will have painted b) will have been painting for 4 hours.I made sure that I a) had learned b) had been learning Italian well before I left for Rome.She a) has known b) has been knowing John for 10 years.They a) have thought of you b) have been thinking of you a lot recently. Answer Key aaaaabbaab

Laugh About Writing

Laugh About Writing Laugh About Writing Laugh About Writing By Sharon Writing doesnt always have to be a serious business. Though its wise to make sure that you write correctly, theres a lot of fun to be had when playing with words. Two emails that landed in my inbox the other day made me chuckle. The first was called Humor for Lexophiles. I wont reproduce the whole thing, but here are a few of my favorites: The butcher backed up into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work. To write with a broken pencil is pointless. A thief fell and broke his leg in wet cement. He became a hardened criminal. The professor discovered that her theory of earthquakes was on shaky ground. A dentist and a manicurist fought tooth and nail. You are stuck with your debt if you cant budge it. Acupuncture: a jab well done. The second source of amusement was an email featuring metaphors from student essays. Here are a few that caught my eye His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools. Obviously, Im not the only one who got these emails, so if you want to see more of these gems, look here and here. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the General category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Writing a Reference Letter (With Examples)How to spell "in lieu of"Apostrophe with Plural Possessive Nouns

Crime Theories Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Crime Theories - Essay Example They are involved in doing frauds, money laundering, cheating, stealing and trading private information and so on. According to the theory, people are pressurized to commit crime and moreover, an individual has his own requirements and expected opportunities that are formed on the basis of social structures and in case of unavailability of desired needs and opportunities, an individual is made to commit a crime (Siegel, 2011). Like street crimes, white collar crime can also be considered under strain theory. The people who are socially sound can perceive some blockage in their set goals and requirements related to their financial success and consider this as straining due to which, they can be equally involved in committing crime. In addition, they can also regard the provided opportunities as inadequate due to which, they can be pressurized to commit crime (Taylor, et al., 2005). The strain theory is the most relevant in terms of being a cause of digital crime as the criminals can be socially deprived as well as blessed and can regard the provision of opportunities as lacking. The digital crime involves people from such countries that are poor globally such as African countries as well as from wealthy countries such as USA. Mostly, the criminals of digital crime have ambition of getting richer by selling private and crucial information of one competitor to the other (Taylor, et al., 2005). People who are socially and economically stressed commit digital crime. People can be strained when they fail to accomplish their goals due to which, they are involved in digital crime. They are involved in hacking, selling personal information of their employers, leaking secrets, committing frauds, corporate espionage and so on (Siegel, 2011). Tunnell (2005) gives information about the criminal Dannie Martin who has a poor background and lack of any opportunity to get success and economic stability in life and all he

Quality and Problem Solving (global tourism management) Essay

Quality and Problem Solving (global tourism management) - Essay Example The organization has successfully captured a favorable contract from a tour operator in the United Arab Emirates and will be receiving a significant proportion of guests. The customers are Emirati guests who espouse a culture highly divergent from western orientations. The challenge is to determine how to successfully address the quality issues in such an arrangement. Before venturing into determining what is required in addressing the needs of the Emirati (citizens of United Arab Emirates) guests, the driving philosophy should first be identified. The staff of the Royal Edwardian Hotel should adopt a quality policy that stresses service quality as opposed to value for price paid or maximum profit. The relationship between service quality and business performance has long been established in hospitality (Hakes, 1991; Bowen and Shoemaker, 1998; Pizam and Ellis, 1999). Researchers such as Caruana (2002), Cronin and Taylor (1992) and Teas (1994) have shown that service quality is antecedent to customer satisfaction. Furthermore, customer satisfaction is antecedent to customer loyalty (Bloemer and Kasper, 1995; Caruana, 2002; McDougall and Levesque, 2000). In the hotel industry, service quality is considered as defined and the discerning customer will evaluate quality and develop satisfaction or dissatisfaction in each encounter (Bitner et al., 1990). As hotel experience is made up of individual discrete encounters, it is important to make sure that everything is perfect (Min et al, 2002). The quality management scheme should therefore emphasize gathering and interpreting correctly the traits and characteristics of the customer. It is important to survey the Arab customers to find what they are specifically looking for in a Royal Edwardian Hotel stay. The hotels should determine customer expectations regarding a British hotel experience. According to Clow & Vorhies (1993), the customer forms expectations through a

Would you expect an increase in a minimum wage to help or hurt Essay Example for Free

Would you expect an increase in a minimum wage to help or hurt Essay Increasing the minimum statutory wage has much far-reaching implications . Research indicate that this has a major impact on the business, employment and labor market. Studies done on its impact show that the increase very probably leads to reduction of employment more so for the young and unskilled who typically get engaged in lower income jobs. So if the increase in minimum wage is not beneficial to the general economy, is it helpful to the labor force it ought to benefit? On a positive note or rather short term the increase will mean that the workers will have an increased disposable income therefore they will be in a position to meet their needs more comfortably than they did before the increase. On the other hand the increase is just minimal therefore it adds very little to the income of the workers in general. This method has been found to be an ineffective tool for poverty reduction due to such negative impacts which mainly affect the people it ought to benefit. (Neumark, D and Wascher, W 1992) An increase in minimum wage forces the employers to respond in certain ways, studies indicate that when minimum wages increase the employers often tend to reduce the fringe benefits for the workers and at the same time reduce trainings for the employees. They embark on a cost cutting measures so as to fill the gap created by the funds which go towards the increment. Such a move will affect the worker as he or she will enjoy less benefits. In a matter of fact they might continue taking home the same amount of money or even less due to reduction or withdrawal of benefits. The cost cutting measures may deny a worker a chance to progress in a career when on job training as a benefit is done away with. On the same note to manage the business spending the employer may even end up reducing the hours of work further reducing the wage. (Neumark, D and Wascher, W 1992) An increase in the minimum statutory wage may be a good thing in the short term, but it has a negative impact to the worker since the employers will have to act in a certain way to ensure that they continue to enjoy the same profits margin as they did before. Reference Neumark, D and Wascher, W (1992) Employment effects of minimum and sub minimum wages: Panel Data on State Wage Laws, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, vol 46

Alternatives to Conventional Internal Combustion :: Expository Essays Research Papers

Alternatives to Conventional Internal Combustion Congress created the Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Technologies (EHV) Program in 1992 for reasons of national defense. The specific purpose of the program was to solve the issues of performance, stealth, and fuel efficiency demanded by the military. The EHV program was managed by the Department of Defense and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), as a side note DARPA developed the F-117 Stealth Fighter during the mid to late 1970’s and early 1980’s. DARPA and the Department of Defense created a consortium with 150 companies that were involved in 300 projects with a total investment of 250 million from 1993-1998 with half the funding provided by non-federal partners. They focused and developed on these areas of research â€Å"hybrid electric transmissions, auxiliary power units and motors, advanced battery and charger systems and controllers, flywheels to augment or replace batteries, and advanced materials to reduce vehicle weight (http://scitech. dot.gov/partners/nextsur/avp/avp.html)† The Advanced Vehicles Technologies Program represents the civilian version of the military EHV Program. EHV became AVP in 1999. The AVP budget was 50 million annually from 1999 to 2003. USCar, also began in 1992, it is a program made up by DaimlerChrsyler, Ford and General Motors â€Å"to further strengthen the technology base of the domestic auto industry through cooperative, pre-competitive research (http://www.uscar.org/)† and from this project came a new program called FreedomCar, which is a joint venture with the USCar members and the Department of Energy. The ultimate goal of FreedomCar is to make hydrogen and fuel cell based transportation system. This is the long-term goal, which will take some time to be realized. The project is also looking at advanced internal combustion engines, emissions control for diesel engines, light weight materials, hybrid electric vehicle systems, advanced batteries and alternative fuels (http://www.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/program_areas/freedomcar/index.shtml). The transportation sector obtains 95% of its fuel from petroleum and this sector accounts for 67% of American’s total petroleum use. The United States imports roughly 10 million barrels of oil per day (http://www.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/program_areas/freedomcar/index.shtml). The dependence on imported oil could potentially threaten the energy security of the U.S. Roughly 55 percent of oil we consume is imported and this is expected to go up to 65 percent by 2025.

Violent Video Games Cause Behavior Problems Essay

Video game violence is an increasing problem in today’s society with violence as one of the most popular themes. Games such as â€Å"Grand Theft Auto† and â€Å"Call of Duty† are among the most popular games and have been scientifically proven to have a major effect on teens. Many people try to argue that there is a difference in the effects between behaviors after engaging with video games. Video games have the same effects as other forms of entertainment, but other forms of entertainment do not get attacked like video games because the other forms are much larger and have a much wider audience. Playing violent video games can alter men’s brain function, cause teens to drive recklessly, and can contribute to aggression. Many people disagree that violent video games cause behavior problems. It seems doubtful to some people that such violence and aggression can be caused from watching flickering pixels on a nineteen-inch television screen. In the scale of t ime, television has existed for less than a wink, and if it is indeed undoing what oral and print cultures have so laboriously built, then those traditions may be far briefer than advertised (Smith). Throughout mankind’s history, each new means of expression has been castigated as the cause of evil in the world such as, books, art, and music (Smith). Some people even believe that violence is linked with aggressiveness and stress rather than with video game violence (Smith). Some may even say, â€Å"If society could just put limits on X, society would have fewer problems with Y.† That is not how life works. People who disagree that violent video games cause behavior problems believe that violence exist because people exist, but their logic is simply not enough (Smith). On the contrary, research on the troubling effects of video games is plentiful and persuasive. There is overwhelming evidence that witnessing and engaging in video game violence is predictive of increases in aggressive behavior. In fact, the research on the effects of exposure to video game violence is in keeping with research conducted over the last half century about the effects on people’s be havior of watching television violence (Wendling). As video games come more engaging, society spends ever-increasing amounts of time playing them (Wendling). In the popular video game â€Å"Grand Theft Auto,† people have the power to solicit prostitutes and then kill them to get their money back, drive down the sidewalk of a virtual city mowing down pedestrians, run around attacking  people at random, and all sorts of other demented activities that would be tragic in real life (Wendling). These types of video games make these specific crimes seem okay. A recent study provides parents, physicians, and scientists with data proving that differences in brain function exist in teens that play violent video games, compared with those who do not (Wendling). Dr. Matthews and his colleagues at Indiana University, Indianapolis, randomly assigned the adolescents to play either â€Å"Medal of Honor,† a violent video game, or â€Å"Need for Speed,† an equally exciting but nonviolent video game, for thirty minutes immediatel y before imaging (Wendling). The group that played the nonviolent game showed more activation in the frontal lobes, and the group that played the violent video game demonstrated less activation in the prefrontal lobes (Wendling). There have been numerous studies since the 1970s demonstrating that adolescents exposed to violent media demonstrate aggressive behavior, but because the adolescents in this study were randomized into two similar groups, the findings go more directly to the question of causation than did previous research (Wendling). Playing violent video games can alter men’s brain function, cause teens to drive recklessly, and can contribute to aggression. There have been multiple studies to prove that playing violent video games can alter men’s brain function. In one study, Dr. Matthews and his colleagues demonstrated the short-term effects of violent video games on brain functioning adolescents (Birk). Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) revealed decreased activity in areas of the brain involved in inhibition and attention after thirty minutes of game time (Birk). Dr. Matthews saw that there is a decrease in normal blood flow after a week of playing violent video games (Birk). Violent video games could also lead teens to drive recklessly. Some researchers conducted phone interviews with more than five-thousand teenagers over the course of four years (Correa). Ninety percent of the teenagers they interviewed responded that they were engaged in risky driving habits, including speeding, tai lgating, weaving through traffic, and running red lights (Correa). It is clear that the video game exposure preceded the risky driving because the study began when the participants were playing video games but were too young to drive (Correa). Numerous racing video  games make it look cool to drive recklessly, which can cause a great impact on teens to drive in this manner. Lastly, video games can contribute to aggression. School shootings, such as the infamous event at Columbine High School, have stimulated interested in research on the violence of boys and men (Levart). One focus, the effects of violent video games on aggression, has begun to yield some empirical results (Levart). Today, videogames are highly engaging and interactive, putting players in a first-person perspective where they must make a decision to perform a violent act prior to performing the act (Levart). Effects of long-term exposure of violent video games include personality change and beliefs that aggression is an acceptable way to handle a problem (Levart). This may have so mething to do with the obvious that the objective in most video games is to kill. Video game violence is an increasing problem in today’s society with violence as one of the most popular themes. Playing violent video games alters men’s brain function, could cause teens to drive recklessly, and can contribute to aggression. Many people try to argue that there is a difference in the effects between behaviors after engaging with video games. To some, it seems doubtful that such violence and aggression can be caused from playing video games on a nineteen-inch television screen. There are others who totally disagree with that logic. People do not just watch video games, but they interact with them. Works Cited Wendling, Patrice. â€Å"Violent Video Games After Brain Functioning in Imaging Study.† Clinical Psychiatry News Jan. 2007: 39. Psychology Collection. Web. 24 Apr. 2014. Birk, Susan. â€Å"Playing Violent Video Games Alters Men’s Brain Function: From the Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.† Clinical Psychiatry News Jan. 2012: 16. Psychology Collection. Web. 24 Apr. 2014. Correa Frances. â€Å"Games Inspire Reckless Driving.† Clinical Psychiatry News Oct. 2012: 28. Psychology Collection. Web. 24 Apr. 2014. Levart, Ronald F. and Kimberly D. Thomas. â€Å"Does the Endorsement of Traditional Masculinity Ideology Moderate the Relationship between Exposure to Violent Video Games and Aggression?† Clinical Psychiatry News Oct. 2012: 20.1. Psychology Collection. Web. 24 Apr. 2014. Smith, Mark. â€Å"Video game backlash?† Technology & Learning Nov. 2005: 6. Psychology Collection. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.

Ideo: the Organization and Management Innovation in a Design Firm and the Role of Alliances and Collaboration

Introduction Schumpeter (1949) wrote of the individual and collective embodiment of the â€Å"entrepreneurial spirit† – the â€Å"Unternehmergeist†. One company that channels this â€Å"geist† is the Sillicon Valley, California-based design and consultancy firm, IDEO. Founded in 1991, this self-styled innovation and design firm balances process and product innovations grounded in a human-centred design philosophy. Through this approach IDEO elided the pitfalls of the technology push versus demand-led innovation dichotomy to produce products and services that feel just as good as they work. In the latest rankings IDEO was listed at no. 10 on Fast Company's Top 25 Most Innovative Companies (2009) and no. 15 on Fortune's 100 most-favored employers by MBA students (Universum 2009). This paper attempts to analyse the principles and practices at IDEO using two frameworks namely: 1. the organisation and management of innovation and research and development (R&D) and 2. strategic alliances and collaboration. The discussion on organisation and management would be focused primarily on innovation since R&D as a portfolio at IDEO is still emergent. As a consequence also, its alliances and collaboration strategies and activities are described in the context of IDEO as a highly sought-after development partner. Analysis of the responses of senior business managers to what they considered to be the top three challenges of innovation management revealed that creating an innovative culture, attracting and maintaining diverse talents and finding the right balance of the incremental and the radical were uppermost (Tidd and Bessant 2009). Smith (2008) identified nine key factors that impact on an organisation’s ability to manage innovation: management style and leadership, resources, organisational structure, corporate strategy, technology, knowledge management, employees and the innovation process. The Oslo Manual defines †Innovation† as â€Å"the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method, or a new organisational method in business practices, workplace organisation or external relations. † (OECD 2007). This definition encompasses the common elements of innovation as proposed by arlier authors such as Schumpeter, Freeman, Rothwell and Gardiner, Drucker, Porter, Schumann, Merrifield etc. (Tidd and Bessant 2009; Innovation Zen 2006) Organisation and management of Innovation Since the introduction of ‘creative destruction' Schumpeter (1942), there has been a growing confidence that the basic elements of successful innova tion can be distilled through careful observation, and that they can be adopted and managed by firms to create and sustain competitive advantage. A number of authors (Abernathy and Utterback 1978; Teece 1986; Henderson and Clark 1990; Tushman and Anderson 1990; Christensen 1997 etc. have proposed various bivariate frameworks for assesing possible innovation types (incremental, radical, modular, architectural, product, process, market, organizational, complementary, disruptive etc). See Figure 1. Despite the variety, a basic conclusion however is that this mode of analysis can adequately inform strategic and organizational decisions and that different kinds of innovation require different kinds of organizational environments and managerial skills (Tushman and Anderson 1986). Figure 1: Component and architectural innovation (Henderson and Clark 1990) Source: Tidd and Bessant (2009) Models of the Innovation process and the dynamics of its articulating phases have been proposed by a number of authors (Myers and Marquis 1969; Von Hippel 1976; Tidd et al 2001 etc. ). Tidd and Bessant (2009) detailed a linear model with four phases (search, select, implement and capture). The authors made the distinction that innovation management is essentially about creating conditions within an organization to increase the likelihood of a successful resolution of multiple challenges under high levels of uncertainty (Ibid, p. 70). This view reinforces Tushman's (1977) assertion that organization and management of the process is characterized by different types of decisions, coordination challenges and patterns of communication. It is important to note here that though the innovation process is commonly depicted as a linear unidirectional sequence, in practice, the activities are inherently iterative and often occur in parallel (Rothwell 1992; Weiss 2002; and Brown 2008). Innovation and R at IDEO IDEO's approach to the organization and management of innovation and R&D can be summarized by the phrase: â€Å"design thinking†. Tim Brown (2008), CEO of IDEO, explained that it is centred on meeting people’s needs in a technologically feasible and commercially viable way. Design thinking is an example of the systemic and integrative approach to innovation highlighted in Hughes (1983) and Rothwell (1992). The model attempts to understand the innovation challenge as a dynamic interplay of human, business and technology factors. See Figure 2. Figure 2: Designing thinking at IDEO Source: adapted from Weiss 2002. IDEO's variation of the innovation process (cf. Tidd and Bessant 2009 etc. ) comprises five phases: Understand the market, the users, the technology, the constraints; observe people in reallife situations; visualize new-to-the-world concepts and the potential users; evaluate and refine the prototypes; and implement for commercialization (Kelley 2001). Empathetic research, brainstorming and rapid prototyping are core routines developed in the execution of the IDEO innovation process. Brainstorming is the idea engine of IDEO's culture. It is used to generate multiple and varied ideas about possible solutions to the innovation challenge. A session lasting no more than sixty minutes is conducted under the following rules: defer judgment; build on others' ideas; one conversation at a time; stay on topic; encourage wild ideas; go for quantity; be visual (Kelley 2001). Rapid Prototyping involves early development of a wide range of low-fidelity prototypes from which to learn. Teams evolve and refine ideas, answering multiple detailed questions through rounds of successively higher-fidelity prototypes. This routine permeates the company's design practices in all spheres (Coughlan et al 2007) and is universally codified in two IDEO mantras â€Å"build to learn,† and â€Å"fail forward† (Kelley 2001). The company organizes its R&D portfolio into 19 Focus Areas supported by 13 teams as shown in Table 1. Teamwork is an imperative at IDEO. For each project a number or relevant teams would be assembled from persons within the company, or externally from persons within their ‘talent ecosystem'. The teams meet regularly to exchange information on progress and to make sure each other's activities remain focused and complimentary (Hawthorne 2002). Table 2 summarizes some of the human-centred research work undertaken at IDEO. The popular Method Cards is result of this kind of research and development work at the company. The collection of 51 cards is used to evaluate and select the empathic research methods that best inform specific design initiatives. How and when the methods are best used are explained together with demonstration of how they have been applied to real design projects (www. ideo. com). Table 1: IDEO Focus Areas and Teams Source: Adapted from www. ideo. com Table 2: A sample of research at IDEO Source: Adapted from Venkatraman 2005 The ten personas shown in Table 3 were developed by Tom Kelley for enhancing innovation at IDEO. Consideration of these personas influences the company's policy of recruitment of T-shaped people †with at least one deep area of expertise and a broad reach of other skills and experiences. † (www. ideo. com). â€Å"We've found that adopting one or more of these roles can help teams express a different point of view and create a broader range of innovative solutions† (Kelley 2001, p. 7). Table 3: IDEO's innovation personas Source: Adapted from Kelley 2001 At IDEO the Ways to Grow tool (Figure 3) is a framework used to a) identify the type of growth intended, b) scope the challenge and deploy an appropriate innovation process, and c) assess the effectiveness of the portfolio of innovation efforts. It identifies four possibilities for growth and three basic archetypes of innovation outcomes: Incremental, evolutionary, revolutionary (Jacoby and Rodriguez 2007). Cf. Henderson and Clark 1990 etc. Figure 3: IDEO's Ways to Grow and Innovation Outcomes cf. Figure 1. Source: Jacoby and Rodriguez 2007 The model suggests that an incremental project requires execution-focused process and people while a revolutionary project would require exploration-focused processes and people (Jacoby and Rodriquez 2007). Ways to Grow is employed in this manner by IDEO to track, understand, and assess its in-progress portfolio of innovation projects using measures of innovation effectiveness. The projects can be mapped onto this tool creating a dashboard of initiatives that can be updated and referenced. All these organizational and management approaches mean little without a way of integrating them in a creative and sustainable organizational culture. Culture is difficult to define, but for IDEO it's probably: the not infrequent managers' informal chats with their carefully selected T-shaped employees (Brown 2007); the company-wide Monday morning meetings and Friday afternoons show and tell; the playful open layout of the workspaces decorated with personal eccentricities (Kelley 2001); the formal and informal reward systems where some compensation decisions are based largely on reputation among fellow designers and formal peer reviews (Hargadon and Sutton 1997); or just the personal satisfaction of the team members knowing that they are part of something big and exciting and creative. Strategic Alliances and Collaboration Gulati (1998) defines strategic alliances as voluntary arrangements between firms involving exchange, sharing, or co-development of products, technologies, or services. They can†¦ take a variety of forms, and occurring across vertical and horizontal boundaries. The fundamental imperative for strategic alliances and collaboration as suggested by authors like Teece (1986) is that it is extremely difficult for one company to possess all the requisite skills and competencies to implement all the phases of the innovation process. Among the motives for the formation of alliances and collaborations are reduction of cost, uncertainty, and time of R, response to changing customer and market need, lack of internal resources and knowledge transfer (Kogut 1988, Gulati 1998; Littler 1993 in Tidd and Bessant 2009). IDEO is not a R-intensive firm, its motivations for participation in strategic alliances and collaboration are not necessarily those of an active seeker. However, IDEO has benefited from its role as consultant and a highly ought-after collaborator. â€Å"What's unique about IDEO is that we straddle both sides of the innovation business, as both practitioners and advisers. † (Kelley 2001, p. 4). IDEO's 5000+ employees in more than 20 studios on three continents do work for clients in multiple industries across the globe. The company's website lists an astonishing diversity of products and services created in collaboration with some 300 clients in 28 different industries. Hargadon and Sutton (1997) aggregated qualitative data which indicate that IDEO's employees learn about potentially useful technologies through their extensive work and incorporate that knowledge into the creation of new products and services for industries where there is little or no prior knowledge of these technologies. This movement of technologies between industries is a form of technology transfer and diffusion (Rosenberg 1982; Hughes 1989). The company recognises the potential of its network position (Conway and Steward (1998) and instructs its employees in the Methodology Handbook to â€Å"Look for opportunities to expand network and/or industry knowledge. † (Hargadon and Sutton 1997). These integrative activities according to Hargadon and Sutton are an example of technology brokering. IDEO's brokers in effect act as technology ‘gatekeepers' as described in Allen (1977) and Rothwell (1992). IDEO is uniquely positioned to facilitate R&D-intensive firms in the completion of their innovation process through to commercialization. The company's positioning is validated not only by its rapidly expanding client portfolio but by industry outlook. Ferguson and Taylor (2004) affirmed that many innovation-focused organizations, including those with extensive R programs, are looking outside for assistance, especially in the early stages of searching for promising technologies and developing a vision based on working models. For established firms with strong technology-focused research, the services of design firms, with expertise in user knowledge, is useful in balancing exploration and exploitation of their technical knowledge (Venkatraman 2005). Eastman Chemical, HP, Intel, P and Samsung initially sought IDEO as an exploration alliance partner. P have extended the collaboration to joint product development with product ideas mainly generated by IDEO (Ventkatraman 2005). As IDEO continues to deliver award winning products and services to clients firms along the entire value chain it may soon have to think about if and how it should reposition itself for example mass production and marketing of high quality innovative consumer goods. Issues like these lead to considerations about the possible alternative opportunities available for leveraging a company's resources, position and linkages to create sustainable value. In the light of global challenges such as poverty, health, water, energy, and economic empowerment what is the role of innovation and research and their management and what sort of alliances and collaboration would be needed to deliver adequate responses? What is the future of social entrepreneurship? To deepen understanding of these challenging questions, Paul Bennett, chief creative officer at IDEO, visited Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank fame to get an immersive experience of this maturing entrepreneurial spirit. Reflecting on his encounter in the Financial Times Bennett (2009) asserted that sustainability and growth for the organisations of the future demands accepting responsibility for the †bank accounts† of purpose, people and learning. Bennett summarizes his own thinking with a quote from one of his clients: â€Å"The future isn't going to be designed on an Excel spreadsheet. † Whatever new tools emerge for future planning, its not hard to imagine that some of those would emerge from the studios of IDEO.

Managing growth at SportStuff.com

Managing growth at SportStuff.com Brief description of the company and its environment SportStuff.com began its operations in 1996. The mission of the company is to supply parents with sports equipment for their children at a lower cost than its competitors. The parents realized that they were discarding expensive clothes because as their children grew, the clothes became too small for them.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Managing growth at SportStuff.com specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Sanjay Gupta, the founder of SportStuff.com and his team decided to buy these clothes for re-sale. They also started buying surplus products from retailers and manufacturers, and selling them via the internet. They used the SportsStuff.com web site to market and sell these items, which increased their sales, profits, and revenues. Within a year, the sales rose by more than 80%, which increased their profits and revenues (â€Å"Supply chain optimization: managing gr owth at SportStuff.com† 3). In 2000, the management decided to evaluate the performance of the company over the previous years. The rapid increase in demand for the company’s products instrumented the decision made by the management. The management of which Sanjay was a part of saw the need to re-design the supply chain network in order to comply with the increasing demand for the company’s products (â€Å"Supply chain optimization: managing growth at SportStuff.com† 3). This is because the increase in demand also translated to an increase in costs, which would eventually surpass the revenues collected. SportStuff.com therefore required a large storage capacity. This would help it curb the challenges associated with the expected growth in demand for its items. The company needed an optimal model solution to cut down ware-housing and transportation costs and maximize on profits. In order to manage SportStuff.com efficiently, the company had two options. The company could either lease some ware-houses countrywide, or was to expand its ware-house space by leasing more space at the ware-house in St. Louis. The company had to weigh different variables in order to come up with sound managerial decision. These included the regional demands for sports clothes, fixed and variable ware-housing costs, inventory costs, transportation costs, and customer charges in every 4 units among others.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Summarize the problems and your recommendations One of the significant problems facing the company is that the demand for sports clothes is high for the current supply chain network. SportStuff.com does not have enough ware-house space for items demanded by customers across the country. It is recommended that this company should distribute its network across different cities within the country. This will assi st the company avail its products to the customers at the right time, place, quantity, and quality (Geunes and Pardalos 209). Customers will be able to access the products, and hence get satisfied. The SportStuff.com Company will be able to cut on transportation and ware-house costs, maximize on profits, and satisfy the needs of customers profitably. The company will also benefit because it will increase its market growth and market share. This will lead to increased sales, profits, and revenues; and hence gain a competitive advantage over its competitors. The other problem is that the company’s current methods are not efficient in relation to costs. It is recommended that the management of SportStuff.com should adopt and use the non-linear method. This is because the model is the most efficient strategy considering that it provides low costs for the company compared to the other methods. If the SportStuff.com Company adopts this method, it will be able to cut down on the cos ts and maximize on the profits. It will also have no problems in offering the items to customers at affordable prices, and hence the company will continue to gain a competitive edge. Geunes, Joseph, and P M. Pardalos. Supply Chain Optimization. New York: Springer, 2005. Print. Supply chain optimization: managing growth at SportStuff.com. n.d. PDF file. Web.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Managing growth at SportStuff.com specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More