7 Grammatical Errors That Arent

7 Grammatical Errors That Arent 7 Grammatical Errors That Aren’t 7 Grammatical Errors That Aren’t By Mark Nichol There are two types of grammar: Descriptive, which describes what is customary, and prescriptive grammar, which prescribes what should be. A tension between the two systems is inevitable and healthy; it keeps us thinking about what we’re saying and writing. Allowing mob rule at the expense of some governing of composition is madness, but a diction dictatorship is dangerous, too. As with any prescription, an overdose is contraindicated. Here are some hard pills to swallow for language mavens who require a strict adherence to rigid syntactical patterns at the expense of, well, language: 1. Never split an infinitive. It isn’t wise to always ignore this fallacious rule against dividing the elements of the verb phrase â€Å"to (verb)† with an adverb, but to blindly follow it is to prohibit pleasing turns of phrase one of the best known of which is from the introductory voice-over from all the Star Trek television series: â€Å"to boldly go where no one has gone before.† (The original series, produced before the more recent sensitivity to gender bias, put it â€Å"no man.†) 2. Never end a sentence with a preposition. This rule is ridiculous, to start with. If you believe it, please tell me what planet you are from. What are you striving for? Give it up. Am I getting my point across? The stricture against closing sentences with words that describe position stems from an eighteen-century fetish for the supposed perfection of classical Latin, which allowed no split infinitives for the excellent reason that Latin infinitives consist of single words. English, however, being a distant relative of that language, should be allowed to form its own customs. 3. Never begin a sentence with a conjunction. And why not? For an honorable tradition of doing just that exists. But some people persist in prohibiting this technique. Yet we defy them. Or we simply ignore them or laugh at them, neither of which they appreciate. Nor do they understand our attitude, though we try to convince them, and will continue to do so. So there. The words beginning each of these sentences are conjunctions, easily recalled with the mnemonic FANBOYS. Every one is perfectly acceptable at the head of a sentence. As is obvious from the previous paragraph, however, a little goes a long way. 4. Distinguish between while and though. Petty prescriptivists would have you reserve while for temporal usage only: â€Å"While I agree, I resist,† they say, should be revised to â€Å"Though I agree, I resist.† I freely admit that I often change while to though, and while I understand I’m sorry, I can’t stop myself and though I understand that it may seem pedantic, I think though reads better. 5. Distinguish between since and because. Ditto. And ditto. I concur that indiscriminate replacement of since with because may seem persnickety, but since ahem because I find the latter word more pleasing, I will reserve the right to prefer it. 6. Use data only in the plural sense. Where did they get this data? The alternative is to use datum in the singular sense, which makes you sound like a propellerhead. (Look it up, kids.) People who say â€Å"datum† get data, but they don’t get dates. 7. Use none only in the singular sense. None of these rules, followed strictly, allow for a vernacular ease with language. Did that sentence hurt? Did the waves stop crashing to shore? Did Earth stop spinning? If you wish to replace none with â€Å"not one† or â€Å"no one† (â€Å"Not one person admitted guilt†; â€Å"No one saw that coming†), by all means, do so, but fear not none in a plural sense. 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 Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:The Royal Order of Adjectives How to spell "in lieu of"50 Words with Alternative Spellings

Battle of Monmouth in the American Revolution

Battle of Monmouth in the American Revolution The Battle of Monmouth was fought on June 28, 1778, during the American Revolution (1775 to 1783). Major General Charles Lee  commanded 12,000 men of the Continental Army under the leadership of General George Washington. For the British,  General Sir Henry Clinton  commanded 11,000 men under the leadership of  Lieutenant General Lord Charles Cornwallis. The weather was extremely hot during the battle,  and almost as many soldiers died from heatstroke as from battle. Background With the French entry into the American Revolution in February 1778, British strategy in America began to shift as the war became increasingly global in nature. As a result, the newly appointed commander of the British Army in America, General Sir Henry Clinton, received orders to dispatch part of his forces to the West Indies and Florida. Though the British had captured the rebel capital of Philadelphia in 1777, Clinton, soon to be short on men, decided to abandon the city the following spring to focus on protecting his base at New York City. Assessing the situation, he originally wanted to withdraw his army by sea, but a shortage of transports compelled him to plan a march north. On June 18, 1778, Clinton began evacuating the city, with his troops crossing Delaware at Coopers Ferry. Moving northeast, Clinton initially intended to march overland to New York, but later opted to move toward  Sandy Hook and take boats to the city. Washingtons Plan While the British commenced planning their departure from Philadelphia, General George Washingtons army was still at its winter quarters encampment at Valley Forge, where it had been tirelessly drilled and trained by Baron von Steuben.  Learning of Clintons intentions, Washington sought to engage the British before they could reach the safety of New York. While many of Washingtons officers favored this aggressive approach, Major General Charles Lee strenuously objected. A recently released prisoner of war and an adversary of Washingtons, Lee argued that the French alliance meant victory in the long run and that it was foolish to commit the army to battle unless they had overwhelming superiority over the enemy. Weighing the arguments, Washington elected to pursue Clinton. In New Jersey, Clintons march was moving slowly due to an extensive baggage train. Arriving at Hopewell, NJ, on June 23, Washington held a council of war. Lee once again argued against a major attack, and this time managed to sway his commander. Encouraged in part by suggestions made by Brigadier General Anthony Wayne, Washington decided instead to send a force of 4,000 men to harass Clintons rearguard. Due to his seniority in the army, Lee was offered command of this force by Washington. Lacking confidence in the plan, Lee declined this offer and it was given to the Marquis de Lafayette. Later in the day, Washington enlarged the force to 5,000. Upon hearing this, Lee changed his mind and demanded that he be given command, which he received with strict orders that he was to hold a meeting of his officers to determine the plan of attack. Lees Attack and Retreat On June 28, Washington received word from the New Jersey militia that the British were on the move. Directing Lee forward, he instructed him to strike the flank of the British as they marched up Middletown Road. This would halt the enemy and allow Washington to bring up the main body of the army. Lee obeyed Washingtons earlier order and held a conference with his commanders. Rather than devising a plan, he told them to be alert for orders during the battle. Around 8 p.m. on June 28, Lees column encountered the British rear guard under Lieutenant General Lord Charles Cornwallis just north of Monmouth Court House. Rather than launch a coordinated attack, Lee committed his troops piecemeal and quickly lost control of the situation. After a few hours of fighting, the British moved to flank Lees line. Seeing this movement, Lee ordered a general retreat up the Freehold Meeting House-Monmouth Court House Road after offering little resistance. Washington to the Rescue While Lees force was engaging Cornwallis, Washington was bringing up the main army. Riding forward, he encountered the fleeing soldiers from Lees command. Appalled by the situation, he located Lee and demanded to know what had happened. After receiving no satisfactory answer, Washington rebuked Lee in one of the few instances in which he swore publicly. Dismissing his subordinate, Washington set to rallying Lees men. Ordering Wayne to establish a line north of the road to slow the British advance, he worked to establish a defensive line along a hedgerow. These efforts held off the British long enough to allow the army to take up positions to the west, behind the West Ravine. Moving into place, the line saw Major General William Alexanders men on the left and Major General Nathanael Greenes troops to the right. The line was supported to the south by artillery on Combs Hill. Falling back to the main army, the remnants of Lees forces, now led by Lafayette, re-formed to the rear of the new American line with the British in pursuit. The training and discipline instilled by von Steuben at Valley Forge paid dividends, and the Continental troops were able to fight the British regulars to a standstill. Late in the afternoon, with both sides bloodied and exhausted  from the summer heat, the British broke off the battle and withdrew toward New York. Washington wished to continue the pursuit, but his men were too exhausted and Clinton had reached the safety of Sandy Hook. The Legend of Molly Pitcher While many of the details regarding the involvement of a Molly Pitcher in the fighting at Monmouth have been embellished or are in dispute, it seems there was indeed a woman who brought water to American artillerymen during the battle. This would have been no small feat, as it was desperately needed not only to alleviate the mens suffering in the intense heat but also to swab the guns during the reloading process. In one version of the story, Molly Pitcher even took over from her husband on a gun crew when he fell, either wounded or from heatstroke. It is believed that Mollys real name was  Mary Hayes McCauly, but, again, the exact details and extent of her assistance during the battle is unknown. Aftermath Casualties for the Battle of Monmouth, as reported by each commander, were 69 killed in battle, 37 dead from heatstroke, 160 wounded, and 95 missing for the Continental Army. British casualties included 65 killed in battle, 59 dead from heatstroke, 170 wounded, 50 captured, and 14 missing. In both cases, these numbers are conservative and losses were more likely 500 to 600 for Washington and over 1,100 for Clinton. The battle was the last major engagement fought in the northern theater of the war. Thereafter, the British holed up in New York and shifted their attention to the southern colonies. Following the battle, Lee requested a court-martial to prove that he was innocent of any wrongdoing. Washington obliged and filed formal charges. Six weeks later, Lee was found guilty and suspended from the service.

Qualititive Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Qualititive - Assignment Example The data in this case was gathered through interviews conducted at a local organization. The main intension is to re-engineer both the Business Take On and client billing process. The organization from which the data was gathered is within a situation in which the clients are under-billed and sometimes being billed incorrectly (Heath, 2014). This aspect has created a major problem within the organization. The problem is not only faced by the organization but also by the clients especially after being billed incorrectly (Heath, 2014; Kelly, 2014; Vincent, 2014). The data collected was solely qualitative. Qualitative data refers to statistical data that is non-quantifiable. Usually, the data collection techniques are those based on qualitative data collection (Cant, 1997; Creswell, 2003; Higgs, 1997; Loseke & Cahil, 2007). In this case, interviews were used to gather the data at the organization. The interview process was conducted with various individual and specifically the organization’s key personnel. These personnel involved the people representing various sub-units within the client organisation. The interview process was initiated with personnel like Lea Kelly who is the business development manager, Heath, and Vincent from the sales department of the organization. Six interviews were conducted with Vincent taking part in four of the interviews (Vincent, 2014). The interviews were conducted separately because different information was required for capturing. Recording the interviews was the primary was of obtaining the response s from the interviewees. For easy analysis, the recorded information was converted into interview transcripts. The interview transcripts allowed for easy coding (Mason, 2002). In this case, coding is critical for the analysis of the data (McRoy, 2014). The result of the interview process produced a number of themes, which need to be addressed if the organization has to solve the current problems. From the interview,

International human resource and organizational behavior Coursework

International human resource and organizational behavior - Coursework Example Organizations should consider the complexity of HR when they form business mergers or alliance and decide to extend their operations globally (Briscoe, Schuler and Tarique 2012, p. 67). Amazon.com is among the leading Internet retailers along with Google, eBay, and Yahoo. Jeff Bezos, the CEO, started the company in 1994 by selling books and other products online. However, Amazon was officially launched in 1995 marking the birth of e-commerce practice in the retail industry. In the late 1990’s there was a boom in the â€Å"dot.com† industry and Amazon helped to grow the so-called online retailing or â€Å"e-tailing.† By then, Jeff Bezos was recruiting workers through a series of interviews other than hiring employees whom he believed that they would not sustain the fast growing e-tailing business. He recruited many employees who worked in the warehouses and offices that resembled the garage workplace, which was the original working place for Amazon. By 2000, amazon had moved its operations to other countries such as United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Italy and others (Chakrabarti and Scholnik 2002, p. 90). In 2000, many companies in the e-tailing industry such as Barnes & Noble, eBay, Wal-Mart and Borders indicated huge losses due to decreasing prices of commodities sold online. The 1999 financial crisis lead to a huge fall in the stock value owned by Amazon. The Amazon stock lost value by forty per cent in January 2000. The fall of 2001 was associated with a loss of $1.411 billion, which resulted in the dismissal of around 1,300 workers. Due to the change, Bezos set aside stock enough compensate the laid off workers. It is evident that Amazon.com had frozen its operations in international shipping. The booming e-tailing business had crashed with most of the company’s activities being terminated. For example, the

Discrete and Episodic Violence among Families in Need Literature review

Discrete and Episodic Violence among Families in Need - Literature review Example â€Å"Domestic violence is a common complaint encountered by counseling psychologists and other mental health professionals. Common psychological treatment practices separate perpetrators and victims into individual intervention modalities. However, there is some research that has been emerging that suggests in some cases a couples treatment approach may be a useful adjunct to existing treatments† (Harris, 2008).   Stith et al. provide the framework for their study of domestic violence by writing an introduction which gets the point of the research across cogently.   Smith et al. provide an articulate and literate introduction that gives a good background to the research.An informative introduction is assumedly a way of classifying the introduction, and Stith et al.’s article meets this classification.   It is important for all research study introductions to be informative because they basically can tell one what the whole research is about.   An introduction c an tell the reader in a short amount of time what the basic framework of a study seeks to identify.   An indicative introduction like that used by Stith et al. does not give away the results of the study.   It suggests the research questions and gives everything else an introduction should give in terms of information to the reader, except for the results of the research.   An indicative introduction such as this is more like a set of clues about the research than an explanation that goes into very much detail about the results.   A good introduction should set up and give a good amount of background information about the research, which is something that Stith et al. achieve to great effect.   Their introduction shows the major trends in the areas of domestic violence and group counseling.  

Strengthening Community Resilience Through Disaster Risk Management Environmental Sciences Essay

Strengthening Community Resilience Through Disaster Risk Management Environmental Sciences Essay Disasters pose serious threats to development as it holds back countrys progress and its achievement towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) while highlighting, particularly among poor countries, the prevailing poverty situation. Despite billions of budget spent by the government and assistance from the international development organizations for development programs and projects, interference of disasters could put these efforts into nothing; as disasters could result to enormous physical, economic and psycho-social damages and decades of development could be wiped out in a minute. Disasters destroy infrastructures, such as roads, bridges, communication satellites, buildings, schools and houses. It can also damage livelihood and agriculture; from pest infestations to droughts, extreme rains and floods, which could wreak havoc on the entire community livelihood. Moreover, as disaster happens, it displaces people and exposes them to diseases and injuries which could further lead them to hardship, starvation and deprivation. In general disaster can lead to loss of public and private resources and investments, disruption on the production of goods and provision of services, loss of employment for formal and non- formal economy, interruption of development programs and switching of crucial resources to other short-term needs such as recovery and emergency response programs, and health concerns (UNDP-DMTP, 1994). These problems on natural disasters are further compounded by the issues of climate change. Disaster risks and climate change are threats to human well-being and adversely reinforce each other. Disaster risk is an intrinsic characteristic of human society, arising from the combination of natural and human factors and subject to exacerbation or reduction by human agency (OBrien, 2008:7). The effects of climate change can increase disaster risks, by changing the magnitude and frequency of extreme events. The changes in the average climatic conditions and climate variability, affect the underlying risk factors, and generate new threats, which could create more serious consequences to human and the environment (Tearfund, 2008). The increasing global average temperature, occurrence of extreme weather events, changes in precipitation and sea level rises would, likewise, adversely affect human health, agriculture, forests, water resources, and coastal areas. Direct impacts are: less food pr oduction, increase range of infectious diseases including vector-borne and water-related diseases, decline in fresh water resources; and indirect impacts such as increase in prices of goods and services. These ultimately increase poverty. The poor, vulnerable and at risk communities are mostly affected for they have few options (DAP, 2010). Disaster is indeed a development concern; however despite this recognition, we argue that many disasters are rooted mainly from many development failures (UN-ISDR, 2010). The lack of appropriate development planning where disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation are loosely or weakly integrated into the local and national agenda is seen as a weakness to development. And the inadequateness of top-down and one-way approach in dealing with disaster management, is considered ineffective stance in providing rightful and productive solutions among problems encountered at the community level, frequently, resulting to failure in addressing local needs, untapped potential local resources and capacities, consequently, increasing peoples vulnerabilities (Victoria, 2003). Nevertheless, with the shifting paradigm from emergency management to disaster risk management, and the growing recognition on community participation, this shed another area where parallel effort from the national, local and community levels can be harmonized and replicated. And in line with community participation, the Community Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM) emerged to address the needs of vulnerable communities and to improve their disaster resiliency. It is an approach that emphasizes active involvement of communities; while strongly locates people at the heart of the decision making and implementation of disaster risk management activities (ADPC-CBDRM-11, 2003). Purpose and Objectives The paper aims to determine how Community-Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM) increases community resiliencies and contributes towards climate change adaptation. The objectives of this study are to explain the features, processes and actors of the CBDRM and how it contributes to community resiliency; identify the strengths and weaknesses of the approach within the frame of community participation and participatory development; to cite best practices of CBDRM applications, and to provide recommendations for future policy and research studies. Methodology and Limitations The paper explores the effectiveness and potential of CBDRM to address impact of climate change variability. The arguments rendered are mainly based on deskwork and cursory research that is limited to literature review from available case studies, articles and publications from various local, national and international sources. The paper is divided into four parts. First, we link disaster risk management with climate change adaptation by identifying their commonalities and differences. Second, we closely examine what CBDRM is, its feature, processes and actors involved. Third, we determine what would be the possible limitations or challenges in applying community participation in disaster management. Fourth, we give practical examples by listing down several good practices of CBDRM being implemented in different countries. And fifth, we provide conclusions and recommendations. Linking Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation As noted, disasters have enormous impact on human development while changes in climate will further extend the challenges brought by disasters. With the increasing concerns on its impact, this has emphasized the urgent move from disaster response to preventive measures mainly aimed at reducing the likelihood that a natural hazard translates into a disaster. The shift to disaster risk management (DRM) from emergency management, implies addressing underlying social, economic and environmental vulnerabilities to reduce the probability of a disaster occurring. Moreover, DRM tries to address hazard risks as an integral part of development. DRM is based on a continuous assessment of vulnerabilities and risks and involves many actors and stakeholders, such as governments, technical experts and local communities. (Sperling, F., et.al., 2005: 11). According to ISDR, policy responses concerned with disaster risk management and adaptation to climate change have developed along different tracks (Sperling, F., et.al., 2005: 12). The DRM, on one hand, is based on humanitarian assistance efforts; the specific response measures are based from accumulated experiences of exposure to disasters. The responses are localized with broader preventive measures with the aim of addressing vulnerabilities. On the other hand, response to climate change, being a global issue, has been mostly top-down process through advances in scientific research leading to international policy responses through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Responses to climate change are categorized under mitigation and adaptation which are both interdependent; mitigation tackling the cause of climate change, while adaptation tackling the effects. (Sperling, F., et.al., 2005). DRM and adaptation to climate change have commonalities and differences. On their commonalities, the policies and measures for both areas are concerned with risk management approach with the aim of addressing the underlying vulnerabilities. While both acknowledge that the degree of vulnerability is a function of the magnitude of physical exposure and prevalent environmental and socioeconomic conditions; thus both depend on evaluating risks, vulnerabilities and possible remedial measures characterized as being continuous process and forward looking perspective. Additionally on dealing climate change risks, the adaptation measures is based on the existing vulnerability to climate variability and extremes; hence improving the capacity of communities, governments or regions to deal with current climate vulnerabilities is likely to improve their capacity to deal with future climatic changes (Sperling, 2005:16). On their differences, the time horizons for DRM is concerned more of the present or near term trends, that is 5-10 years, while climate change projections are usually 20 or even hundred more years. Another is on physical exposure; mitigating disaster is different from climate change mitigation. The former is focused on limiting the adverse impact of a particular hazard; while the latter is a function within the capacity of humans to influence their exposure to change, concluding that climate change is largely driven by anthropogenic activities. Lastly, on the scope of disaster, DRM includes not only climate related disasters such as hydro-meteorological (torrential rain, floods, droughts, storms) but also geo-morphological (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions) hazards (Sperling, 2005). Supporting the claim of Sperling (2005:17), DRM and adaptation to climate change have converging agendas; this therefore offers an opportunity to build a comprehensive risk management framework which recognizes current and future vulnerabilities as well as the compound effects of multiple disasters within a given region. This brings us next to a specific DRM approach where its aim is to increase community resiliency through the active participation of community members. The Community-Based Disaster Risk Management Approach Mainstreaming disaster risk reduction (DRR), as part of the DRM framework, into national and local development agenda is among the crucial concerns for many international organizations, national governments, civil society organizations, research groups, and local development actors. The recognition on its importance stemmed out from understanding the link between development and disaster, and disaster intensity and climate change. Under DRR lens, disasters are seen as complex problems that demand collective actions from different sectors; hence, this locates community at the forefront of disaster management. As defined by Abarquez (2004), communities are group of people that may share one or more things in common such as living in the same environment and similar disaster risk exposure. Their differentiation in terms of socio-economic aspects, linkages and dynamics are several factors that contribute to their vulnerabilities. By and large, it is the communities who are directly affected by both development and disasters, for being either beneficiaries or victims of the two circumstances. They are the front liners. They understand their local opportunities and constraints and they are the most interested in understanding local affairs where survival and well-being is at stake. Hence, integrating them within disaster risk management framework entails a promising outcome. Whereas, a growing consensus asserts that most top-down disaster risk management and response programs fail to address specific local needs of vulnerable communities, ignore the potential of local resources and capacities, and may in some cases even increase peoples vulnerability (Abarquez, 2004:12). Community participation provides opportunities for the poor to air their concerns, and allowing the poor to have more control over development assistance. This ensures that allocation of development funds is responsive to the needs of the poor, better targeting of poverty programs, more responsive government and better delivery of public goods and services, better maintained community assets, and a more informed and involved citizenry that is capable of undertaking self-initiated development activity (Mansuri, 2003: 2). According to World Bank, in general, community driven development aims to (i) enhance sustainability; (ii) improve efficiency and effectiveness; (iii) allow poverty reduction efforts to be taken to scale; (iv) make development more inclusive; (v) empower poor people, build social capital, and strengthen governance; and (vi) complement market and public sector activities. (Mansuri, 2003: 2) The CBDRM provides opportunities for the local community to evaluate their situations based on their own experiences and promotes participation and partnership. They take responsibility for all stages of the program including both planning and implementation, and in partnership with local, provincial, and national entities. As defined, CBDRM is a process of disaster risk management in which at risk communities are actively engaged in the identification, analysis, treatment, monitoring and evaluation of disaster risks in order to reduce their vulnerabilities and enhance their capacities. This means that the people are at the heart of decision making and implementation of disaster risk management activities. (Abarquez, 2004:9). Given the existing natural hazards and vulnerabilities of a community, the CBDRM process should lead to progressive improvements in public safety and community disaster resilience. And it should contribute to equitable and sustainable community development in the long term (Abarquez, 2004:20) As shown in the conceptual framework below, natural hazards such as hydro-meteorological, geo-morphological and climate change induced hazards can interplay with existing community vulnerabilities which in turn could pose high risks to the affected community. As a consequence of a disastrous event, people are helpless victims who rely heavily on external assistance for aid. The cost and damage assessment is done by external experts, and recommendations are usually mainly focus on material or physical aid and technical solutions. Due to lack of community plan, outside donors decide on what the needs are. The aim of existing disaster management is to reduce the immediate suffering and meet emergency needs and bring back the situation into normal. With the application of CBDRM approach, people participate in disaster management, where people are involved in planning, decision-making, damage, needs and capacity assessment. The people perceived as active actors in rebuilding their lives and livelihood. The focus is community preparedness and strengthening the organization with the aim of reducing vulnerabilities and increase peoples capacity to better cope with disasters. With the result of safe, disaster-resilient and developed community, this ultimately contributes towards poverty reduction. Figure : Conceptual Framework The CBDRM Features In summary the CBDRM features as according to Abarquez (2004) are: Role of community is central in disaster risk management. That is, local people are capable of initiating and sustaining their own development and they are the prime movers in reducing disaster risks in their community. Community is the key resource in disaster risk management. The communities are the main beneficiaries, the same way that they are the key resource and frontline actor in the CBDRM implementation. The aim is disaster risk reduction. The main strategy is to enhance capacities and resources of most vulnerable groups and to reduce their vulnerability in order to avoid the occurrence of disasters in future. Recognition of the link between disaster risk management and the development process. CBDRM should lead to general improvement in peoples quality of life and the natural environment. The approach assumes that addressing the root causes of disasters, e.g. poverty, discrimination and marginalization, poor governance and bad political and economic management, would contribute towards the overall improvement in the quality of life and environment. Application of multi-sectoral and multi-disciplinary approaches. CBDRM brings together local community and even national stakeholders for disaster risk management to expand its resource base. CBDRM recognizes that different people have different perceptions of risk, different vulnerabilities and capacities. The CBDRM Process The CBDRM process entails a thorough assessment of the communitys hazard exposure and analysis of their vulnerabilities as well as capacities. The gathered information serves as the basis for activities, projects and programs to reduce disaster risks. Community involvement is required in the process of assessment, planning, and implementation to ensure that all needs and concerns felt at the local level are considered and appropriately tackled. Using the NGO CBDRM implementation perspective, according to Luna (2007) and Abarquez (2004), generally the processes include: Community/site selection and partnership building. Communities that are very vulnerable are selected, based on previous experiences in disaster and current threats. Other criteria include the poverty situation, interest and cooperation of the LGU officials, accessibility of the area, the peace and order situation, and the presence of local workers in the community. Formation and training of Community Disaster Action Teams and Volunteers. Training of the local government officials and community leaders are done to enhance their capacity for disaster prevention, mitigation and response. The training is done in participatory manner in such a way that after the series of training, the participants would be able to come out with community assessment, hazards maps, and plan for disaster mitigation projects. The participatory rural appraisal techniques are used for community assessment. Hazard mapping. Actual on-site mapping of the community is done by the volunteers using ocular survey and global positioning system. This is a diagnostic process to identify the risks that the community faces and how people overcome those risks. The process involves hazard assessment, vulnerability assessment and capacity assessment. In doing the assessments, peoples perception of risk is considered. People themselves identify risk reduction measures that will reduce vulnerabilities and enhance capacities. These risk reduction measures are then translated into a community disaster risk management plan. Formulation of the Local Disaster Action Plans. The community assessments and the hazard map became the basis for formulating a local disaster action plan. Plan Integration and Implementation. The plan formulated by the Disaster Action Team is forwarded to the local council for integration in comprehensive development plan. The Community Disaster Action Teams and Volunteers should lead to the implementation of the community plan and motivate the other members of the community to support the activities in the plan. Project monitoring and evaluation by the community, local government and outside evaluators. The CBDRM Actors Under CBDRM local community serves as the main actor together with the participation and support from other stakeholders. The actors in the CBDRM are composed of two layers, the insiders and the outsiders. Actors in the inner layer are the individuals, family, organizations and other stakeholders who are located within the community. The multiple stakeholders such as farmers, fishers, women, laborers, youth and other members of the community that has special concerns and needs, with their differing perceptions, and interests are important to be considered in arriving in a broad consensus on targets, strategies and methodologies in the community. The outsiders refer to those sectors and agencies which are located outside of the community. These are external NGOs, national government agencies and other international organizations (Abarquez, 2004). This brings us to a consideration of the shortcomings and limitations of participatory development. Limitations and Challenges of Community Participation in Disaster Management Though we have argued that community participation in the context of disaster management is imperative, there are still several debates under the context of participatory development that could somehow influence its successful implementation, hence, should be taken into account especially during the planning phase of the CBDRM First, the complexity of individual motivations. It is difficult to move a community towards certain direction, particularly if its members have different interests and motivations. As noted earlier, community is a complex social structure comprised of different perspectives, opinions and motivations. Conversely, motivation and willingness to participate is dictated by individual thinking and determined by own underlying interests. Their experiences on disasters could influence their behavior; however for community members who have not experienced extreme natural disaster, raising their interest in prevention and capacity building becomes more difficult as it seems abstract for them, unlike physical measures or infrastructure such as installing early warning devices and others. Similarly, exposure to external aids could influence communitys interest to participate; this is in particular to urban areas, who have become accustomed to receiving external assistance thus their reluctance to undertake risk management on their own (Solo, n.d.). Another area under this is the personal-driven motivations with vested interests that could influence, hamper or even deviate the result of the participatory development process. And politicians or soon to be politicians find this kind of activity personally beneficial for them. Second, participation requires effort and time. The CBDRM implementation is comprised of various activities, such as planning and capacity buildings, that require active and continuous participation from various stakeholders. While these activities involved a considerable time and effort, some community members perceive these series of participation as waste of time and/or economically unproductive activity, thus opt to focus more on their work and earn money, instead. While for the part of the organizer, participatory process such as public consultation is also time consuming. Organizing requires proper and detailed planning for scheduling of activities, identifying stakeholders, sending out invitation and confirming attendance. The quality and productivity of the activity is affected by the possible low turn-out of attendance among target participants. Second, restricted women participation and cultural boundaries. The CBDRM puts emphasis on the different risks and vulnerabilities faced by members of the communities, such that, male perceived risks differently as compared to female, and similar with adult to children. However, some culture restricts participation and voluntarism; concrete example is on women participation. There are some cultures that confine womens role within the boundaries of domestic activities. Despite the current effort to gender mainstream disaster reduction, with the consequent enormous household tasks directly or indirectly imposed to them, these offer women less time to interact in social activities and participate in community development actions. Third, local power relation within the community. The dynamics that exists within the community is clearly manifested on the relationship between the rich and poor, elite and commoners, and literate and illiterate. These relationships bring us to the questions on who can really participate, who can talk and verbalize their opinions during public consultations or workshops. Often times, those who are well-informed and have time to participate dominate the discussion, while leaving behind the poor and the illiterate who has the greater degree of vulnerability. To put stress further, the UNDP states that the communities who are most vulnerable to natural events are frequently those who have a disproportionately high number of illiterate members (Solo, n.d.). Fourth, local knowledge influenced by local power relations. CBDRM builds on the existing local knowledge to assess community risks, and serve as basis in developing plans. However, local knowledge can be influenced by local power relations, authority and gender (Mosse, 2002). Other personalities or stakeholders may impute their own interests to or influence the local knowledge which would not necessarily resolve the issues of disaster risks or lead for the greater and common interests of improving community resiliency. Fifth, creating development fatigue among stakeholders. Since participatory development is among the most popular approaches in development, many development initiatives have embraced and integrated it within their programs and projects. Consultations and/or collaboration among stakeholders has been repeatedly being undertaken along different stages of one or more different programs and projects, this repeated process could eventually create fatigue among stakeholders, especially when despite of continuing consultations no advancement or progress is achieved. These are some of the limitations and challenges that may be faced by project implementers of CBDRM. And to understand more what CBDRM is as applied to real world, the next part gives us practical examples illustrating how CBDRM could potentially increase community resiliency. CBDRM Good Practices Globally, CBDRM has been promoted as an approach to improve community resiliency. International development organizations and non-government organizations strongly lobby CBDRM for policy adoption and mainstreaming in the disaster management framework of national and local governments. Currently, most CBDRM projects are led by local and international NGOs, either in partnership with other civil society organizations, NGOs, international development organizations or local government. The United Nation International Strategy for Disaster Reduction compiled the good practices in CBDRM that illustrates how communities have worked together towards a common goal and benefitted from their undertaking. Below are some of the examples that are considered CBDRM good practices and linked with climate change adaptation being implemented in different countries. Involving community members in increasing public awareness and capacity building through creating information campaigns to enhance the safety of the population at risk. The project stimulates creativeness and innovativeness from the local actors and similarly optimizes local knowledge and local resources in a way easily understandable to the local community members. This is a project implemented in Haiti in 22 settlements in coordination with their Local Civil Protection Committees (LCPCs) through the assistance from Oxfam GB. Another is creating access among low income groups to disaster micro-insurance scheme. Taking into account that risk transfer supports sustainable economic recovery, micro-insurance could serve as a cushion to lessen impact of disaster, particularly among the poor victims whom majority have little or no access to risk transfer schemes. Micro-insurance represents an innovative approach to risk identification, pooling and transfer; wherein risk is transferred from the individual level to the community or inter-community levels. With the implementation of micro-insurance, this elicit positive feedbacks from the communities claiming that insurance in times of crisis is essential, the affordability of the scheme makes it accessible for the poor households, and which consequently result to reduced dependence from outside relief. This is the approach of the Afat Vimo scheme, a project implemented in India, which is part of the Regional Risk Transfer Initiative (RRTI), an action learning pro ject (ALP) of the Gujaratbased All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI). With the long drought being experienced, crop failures and the consequent food shortage, this has led a community in Indonesia to identify a mechanism to prevent food shortage. The community established a monitoring system for food security and livelihood and community early warning system largely based from their indigenous knowledge in combination with modern science. The project has three components: community awareness and indicator development to monitor food security and livelihood; community early warning system; and advocacy on appropriate agricultural system such as promotion of crops suitable for drought-prone land. The project is in partnership with local NGO aiming to increase community resilience from drought in Southeastern Indonesia. Another project where it illustrates that local context of communities can be a dynamic force in reducing risks, is on creating flood and typhoon-resilient homes through employing a cost-effective retrofitting. The program central theme is to make families and the community active players in the process of reducing the vulnerability through the integration of storm resistant techniques in existing and future houses and buildings. It involves local and grassroots consultation and preventive action planning. The project is Development Workshop France (DWF), a program initiated in Vietnam through Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and European Commission Humanitarian aid Office (ECHO) In order to understand local environmental situation, develop awareness and capacity to deal with, and to contribute to relevant policy formulation, one of the communities in Namibia established an inter-community platform and local-level monitoring as support for local decision making. The plat-form serves as medium for community organization and communication. Moreover, the approach strengthens capacity among the community to coordinate their own activities and preparing their development plans. The local-level monitoring, on the other hand, is used to support information exchange and decision making designed by the communities. The communities identify relevant indicators to monitor their livelihoods including key environmental elements. They discuss the results, analyze them and use them where appropriate for decision making. This provides a tool for identification of environmental changes affecting livelihoods that may be based on management actions, climate variability, policy changes or other factors. The project contributes to capacity building and institutional development among communities so they can enhance their own resource management and livelihoods and thereby enhance their capacity to manage and reduce risks related to drought and desertification and other potential disasters. This is a project implemented in Namibia, where several policy instruments have been influenced by the project and a number of derivative projects are ongoing. The convergence of a community-level approach and city governments participation strengthens sustainability and ownership; this is the underlying assumption in one of the CBDRM projects in the Philippines. Wherein, it mainstream community-based mitigation in the city governance through partnering with the local government in the implementation of the project. The project has five (5) components, these are: (i) CBDRM participatory risk assessment training of trainers (ToT) for the city officials, who in turn provide training to communities; reactivation of the City Disaster Coordinating Council and Barangay Disaster Coordinating Council; institutionalization of a school Disaster Safety Day; celebration of the Disaster Safety Day in all schools; developing and implementing a City Disaster Risk Reduction Plan. This is a CBDRM project implemented in the P

SIP Security Essay -- Information Technology

Abstract The session initiation protocol (SIP) is emerging as standard protocol for session control in Next generation voice over internet protocol (VoIP) As it is based on IP it is vulnerable to all IP related threats . Among all the attacks, flood-based denial of service DoS attack is one of the main threats to SIP. Several solutions regarding prevention of DoS are discussed. Efficient Security scheme is proposed for batter performance. I. INTRODUCTION Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) [1] is signaling protocol given by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for IP telephony. Moreover, the 3rd generation partnership program (3GPP) has chosen SIP as a signaling protocol in IP multimedia subsystem (IMS). With more and more multimedia applications and the digital audio/video transport over IP-based networks, SIP is becoming the de-facto signaling protocol. In fact, SIP is a session control protocol that can establish, modify, and terminate multimedia sessions such as Internet telephone calls (VoIP). SIP users are indicated by Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI), consisting of a pair of user name and domain name, e.g. sip:ali@abc.co.uk , which is similar to the email format. SIP signaling between multiple users consists of requests and responses .A call is set up in SIP by the three-way handshake composed of INVITE, 200 OK and ACK messages. The INVITE request asks the cal lee to join or establish a call. If the cal lee’s response indicates that he/she accepts the call by sending the 200 OK response message, the caller confirms that it has received the response by sending the ACK message. When the caller or cal lee wishes to terminate a call, they send a BYE request. ... ... June 2001. [8] T. Peng, C. Leckie, and K. Ramamohanarao, â€Å"Protection from distributed denial of service attacks using history-based IP 108 filtering,† Communications, 2003. ICC'03. IEEE International Conference on, vol. 1, 2003 [9] S. D. D'Souza, and D. Vinokurov, â€Å"Queuing methods for mitigation of packet spoofing†, US Patent App, 2004 [10] M.A. Akbar, M.Farooq, â€Å"Application of Evolutionary Algorithms in Detection of SIP based Flooding Attacks†GECCO’09, July 8–12,2009, Montrà ©al Quà ©bec, Canada.ACM. [11] M.A. Akbar, Z.Tariq and M.Farooq, â€Å"A Comparative Study of Anomaly Detection Algorithms for Detection of SIP Flooding in IMS†, Next Generation Intelligent Networks Research Center (nexGIN RC), 2009.

Silver linings playbook

Pat comes home after being at a mental facility into the care of his mother Dolores and his father Pat Sr. after eight months of treatment for bipolar disorder. He returns home with a hard set goal in mind. He will do whatever it takes in order to win his wife Nikki back, who currently has a restraining order against him. While visiting at a friends house Pat meets Tiffany, a recent widow and fellow neurosis sufferer. Tiffany is the key to Pat learning to move forward and away from his past, but Tiffany herself as many issues to work through.When we first meet Tittany it is clear that while sne is still troubled and broken, sne is determined to move forward in life and forgive her own mistakes. She has learned to accept herself at this point, flaws and all, even if she doesn't necessarily have a great opinion of herself. Tiffany is an extremely strong woman though. She has accepted herself and therefore refuses to apologize or make excuses for her sadness and what actions manifest fr om it. Tiffany has sunken into a deep depression following the death of her husband.The movie gave a detailed look into Tiffanys illness, and yet never outright names what can be deduced as depression. The movie alludes that there is something besides depression that plagues her. It tells of the side effect, which with Tiffany suffers the most from. The disorder instigates her sex drive to turn on and off. Just before her husbands passing this was negatively affecting her marriage. Following his death, Tiffany misguides her guilt into a self-absorbed lifestyle of promiscuity. Preceding the movie, Tiffany is fired from her Job for having ex with everyone she works with.It is shown in the movie how men still show up at her parent's front door in attempts to â€Å"get-together† with her. Her family suffers from the shame as the town garners glaring repugnance towards Tiffanys actions. We are shown the pained and humiliated looks on her parent's faces as her â€Å"suitors† come knocking at their door looking for her. Tiffany still goes about her business in a completely unabashed way which emphasizes the chronic emptiness that has been consuming her. It is when Pat witnesses what these men are there for that something s done about it.This scene depicts Pats reaction, in which he sends them away and is outraged that these men could seek to use this nice girl for their own gratification. As Tiffany eavesdrops she observes Pats high opinion of her, which is something she hasn't had for awhile and his regard for her advances her own for herself. As mentioned earlier Tiffany shows apparent symptoms of depression. Even before the death of her husband she was suffering from the DSM-IV TR symptoms of depressed mood and a decreased interest and pleasure, which had greatly affected her marriage.But it is her subsequent actions that make us seek another diagnosis. As Tiffany opens up to Pat we learn that she has a history of extreme emotional reactions, unstabl e interpersonal relationships, difficulty controlling anger, and impulsive sexual activity. These are DSM-IV criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder. Depression and Borderline Personality Disorder do work hand and hand, so the comorbidity of these disorders is not surprising. There is a scene between Pat and Tiffany where Tiffany plainly demonstrates the act of â€Å"splitting†.Splitting is also alled black and white thinking, which is when a person with Borderline Personality Disorder can only see things as an ideal or the epitome of wrong with no leeway in- between. Identity Disturbance is one of the nine criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder in the DSM-IV and is apparent in Tiffany. The way that she reacts after hearing Pats opinion of her, allows a look in to the distorted and bleak self-view that she has of herself. She becomes close to Pat and the movie depicts how she avoids any possibility that Pat could get back with his ex wife.She doesn't want to risk h im bandoning her. This frantic effort to avoid abandonment is yet another criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder. She is open with Pat about how she has been on medication and how she is in therapy, but right up to the end of the movie we are still lett witn a sense that Tittany still needs a lot ot work to get to a healthy place. Long-term Psychotherapy is generally the clearest route to take when it comes to Borderline Personality Disorder.Medications also help with these disorders by tackling comorbid depression with antidepressants, the paranoia with antianxiety edications and the use of mood stabilizers to help with impulsions and anger. It is said that the medications should be directed at the comorbid symptoms rather than at the borderline personality disorder and its own symptoms, as it is unnecessary to treat the disorder with medication on its own. So in the case of Tiffany I believe it is prudent to medicate her but have the medication be directed at her depression in hopes to stabilize her moods.I agree with the fact that she has been on medication, but I do believe that intense psychotherapy for her Borderline Personality Disorder is eeded. The movie may have ended happy but she still needs a lot of work in terms of how she processes and regulates her emotions. Dialectal Behavioral Therapy is a form of Psychotherapy that focuses in on regulation of emotions through Cognitive Behavioral techniques. The therapy combines the Cognitive Behavior Techniques which help emotions regulation and Reality Testing which focuses on distress tolerance, acceptance and mindful awareness. It is a therapy derived from Buddhist meditation.I believe that the two components of this therapy, individual and group, ill benefit Tiffany in the way of her becoming mindful of others and accepting of herself. It is the most effective form of treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder today and therefore is what I would suggest in regards to long-term therapy for Tiffa ny. The movie leaves us with open eyes toward the idiosyncrasies in people. It highlights how common mental illness is in the eccentrics of its entire cast. The movie brings awareness to mental health issues and portrays Just how frequent and wide-ranging disorders are.

Cold in the earth is a poem about Brontes struggle to remember or forget her lover, and her attempts to achieve self-understanding Essay Example

Cold in the earth is a poem about Brontes struggle to remember or forget her lover, and her attempts to achieve self Cold in the earth is a poem about Brontes struggle to remember or forget her lover, and her attempts to achieve self-understanding Essay Cold in the earth is a poem about Brontes struggle to remember or forget her lover, and her attempts to achieve self-understanding Essay Essay Topic: The art Of Love Bronte believes that love is abstract by portraying it as something to be felt, experienced and shared between her and her lover by the heart; thus it is abstract in the sense that it cannot be seen, touched nor forgotten. To illustrate her love as felt by her heart, she makes use of terms involving our physical senses to depict her heartfelt love to her lover, establishing the idea that love is felt but not seen. This can be seen in the title Cold in the earth the feeling of coldness is not only in line with her descriptions of the bleak and cold winter, her lover also lies literally in the cold and dreary grave. More importantly, this is actually an accurate description of her heart and her overall emotional state; she has buried her own love and her lifes bliss cold in the earth, along with her lovers death. Brontes poem is not a recount of past events or experience but a portrayal of her deeply-tormented psychological state when in face of her lovers death: she is torn between overwhelming grief and indifference of remembering her lover or not. Therefore this is basically about the feelings of her own heart, felt but not seen. Through the use of abstract diction and concepts, e.g. despair, existen ce spirit, soul, she brings forth the idea that love unable to be seen but only felt. There are also contradictions of the element of cold and warm in her poem to symbolize her conflicting thoughts of whether to remember or forget her lover, e.g. burning desire and cold in the dreary grave. Most of the graphic descriptions in the poem, e.g. deep snow piled above and no light has lightened up my heaven are used to convey her feelings in her heart. They are graphic symbolisms of her feelings. For example, in deep snow piled, Brontes heart is numbed by her lovers death and her love, all her feelings and joy is frozen like the snow upon her lovers grave. The idea of love being experienced but not touched is similar to the idea of love being felt, not seen, because we inevitably use our hearts to feel Brontes experience. What Brontes feelings towards her lover are an obsessive love experienced by her and she is unable to seek the empty world again, which means moving on with her life. The poem illustrates her attempts in moving on and forgetting about her love from check tears of useless passion to weaned my young soul this shows Bronte suppressing her own emotions deliberately in order to stop herself from committing suicide. Therefore this poem is actually illustrating her experience to learn about how existence can be cherished without the aid of joy, and her psychological experience as she struggled between conflicting thoughts. Also, through the poem, Bronte illustrates her concept of love as an obsessive, confusing experience in her life Bronte displays love being shared and never forgotten by emphasing on her bond with her lover, and her everlasting love to him. This is evident in I dare not let it languish and Dare not indulge in Memorys rapturous pain- Although Bronte constantly brings forth the necessity of forgetting her lover (forgive if I forget thee), as reminiscing her lover pains her very deeply, she uses dares not to show her underlying reluctance to let go of her memories, because these memories are the only sources for Bronte to remember their golden dreams the memories they shared, which is the only thing that she has got of her lover now. These memories bring her happiness and consolation, so they are rapturous pain which means pain which brings her pleasure or delight. Although Bronte can see her lover no more, she still feels his presence when she replays these memories, and they are never forgotten. In line 19 and 20 (All my lifes bliss from thy dear life was given all my lifes bliss is in the gra ve with thee), Bronte links her lover and her spirits together. Their memories are shared. This displays how the days of golden dreams, indicating their shared experiences, and their mutual bliss link between them. An intangible, untouchable bond with each other was created, which also corresponds to her portrayal of love as something experienced and not touched. This shows Brontes emotional dependence on her lover. The death of her lover robs her of all the pleasures and happiness in Brontes life. In for ever, ever more, the word ever is placed on an emphasis as it is repeated. This is used to emphasize Brontes everlasting love with her lover. The rhetorical question in the last couplet How could I seek the empty world again? implies that her cycle is never-ending, and the rhyming words pain and again at the last stanza are illustrative of memorys rapturous pain. She also uses progressives and continuous tense, e.g. could, drinking to refer to the future, which she still expects her love to stay in her heart in the future. She also uses juxtapo sition between the changing nature of seasons to her unchanging feelings, e.g. fifteen wild Decembers to spring shows seasonal changes. The idea of her love as frozen snow in line 1 has figuratively melted into wave (l. 4) and turned to streams running among brown hills, into spring, then returning to oceans tides, then finally as Tears of useless passion as her final show of her ongoing grief. Her love and grief are in-motion, non-stopping they run through the whole poem in different forms. Love is also never forgotten as fifteen wild December has passed, and she still thinks of her lover all the time. Cold in the earth is a poem about Brontes struggle to remember or forget her lover, and her attempts to achieve self-understanding (although she seems to be unsuccessful in making a decision in the end). Bronte believes that love is abstract because it is experienced, not touched. Her lover is in the grave yet she is alive, and she her love for her lover is still overwhelming. Through this notion, their love transcends from a physical dimension to a spiritual one, where their love still exists even without any physical contact and being separated by mortality.

The Difference Between a City and a Town

The Difference Between a City and a Town Do you live in a city or a town? Depending on where you live, the definition of these two terms may vary, as will the official designation that is given to a certain community. In general, though, cities are larger than towns. Whether any given town is officially designated with the term town, however, will vary based on the country and state it is located in. The Difference Between a City and a Town In the United States, an incorporated  city  is a legally defined government entity. It has powers delegated by the state and county and the local laws, regulations, and policies are created and approved by the voters of the city and their representatives. A city can provide local government services to its citizens. In many places in the U.S., a town, village, community, or neighborhood is simply an unincorporated community with no governmental powers. County governments typically provide services to these unincorporated communities.Some states do have official designations of towns that include limited powers. Generally, in the urban hierarchy, villages are smaller than towns and towns are smaller than cities, though this is not always the case.   How Urban Areas are Defined Throughout the World It is difficult to compare countries based on the percentage of urban population. Many countries have different definitions of the  population size necessary to make a community urban. For example, in Sweden and Denmark, a village of 200 residents is considered to be an urban population, but it takes 30,000 residents to make a city in Japan. Most other countries fall somewhere in between. Australian and Canadian cities have a minimum of 1,000 citizens.Israel and France have a minimum of 2,000 citizens.The United States and Mexico have a minimum of 2,500 citizens. Due to these differences, we have a problem with comparisons. Let us assume that in Japan and in Denmark there are 100 villages of 250 people each. In Denmark, all of these 25,000 people are counted as urban residents but in Japan, the residents of these 100 villages are all rural populations. Similarly, a single city with a population of 25,000 would be an urban area in Denmark but not in Japan. Japan is 78 percent  and Denmark is 85 percent  urbanized. Unless we are aware of what size of a population makes an area urban we cannot simply compare the two percentages and say Denmark is more urbanized than Japan. The following table includes the  minimum population that is considered urban in a sampling of countries throughout the world. It also lists the percent of the countrys residents which are urbanized. Not surprisingly, some countries with a higher minimum population have a lower percentage of ​urbanized population. In addition, the  urban population in almost every country is rising, some more significantly than others. This is a modern trend that has been noted over the last few decades and is most often attributed to  people moving to cities to pursue work. Country Min. Pop. 1997 Urban Pop. 2015 Urban Pop. Sweden 200 83% 86% Denmark 200 85% 88% South Africa 500 57% 65% Australia 1,000 85% 89% Canada 1,000 77% 82% Israel 2,000 90% 92% France 2,000 74% 80% United States 2,500 75% 82% Mexico 2,500 71% 79% Belgium 5,000 97% 98% Iran 5,000 58% 73% Nigeria 5,000 16% 48% Spain 10,000 64% 80% Turkey 10,000 63% 73% Japan 30,000 78% 93% Sources Hartshorn, Truman A.  Interpreting the City: An Urban Geography. 1992.Famighetti, Robert (ed.).  The World Almanac and Book of Facts. 1997.World Bank Group. Urban Population (% of total). 2016.

Yonyous Business Operations in the Software Industry Case Study

Yonyous Business Operations in the Software Industry - Case Study Example The recession led all the software companies to change their business strategies. Likewise, Yonyou also developed its own strategies to sustain in the changing market environment. The investment in the R&D to promote product development eventually worked in company’s favor towards its expansion. Yonyou collaborated with companies like IBM and Atos to develop the cloud computing, which proved to be a step towards the future of IT. Yonyou Software Co. Ltd., headquartered in Beijing, China, is an accounting and ERP software company. It operates in mainland China, Japan, Hong Kong and Thailand. Founded in 1988, Yonyou has been ranked as no. 1 management software provider in China. The company excelled in Chinese markets as it could understand the Chinese management culture closely. In order to streamline its business, the company also outsourced its consulting and implementing services. The information technology industry went through several changes in last five years and all the companies had faced severe downturn or even ceased to exist. However, Yonyou has managed to adapt to the changing environment and sustained in the competitive industry. The growth of management software had slowed down after the great recession and economic crisis in 2008. The management software market in Asia had a much higher growth rate in 2011, although being a small portion of the global market. The manpower and materials cost had increased within the last decade in China, as a result, the companies were bound to adopt the management software system in order to avoid inefficient operations and management. Although, as compared to other developed countries, China still stands behind when it comes to investment in management software. China mentioned in the 18th national congress, that it will follow its own way to implementation of information technology on a national strategic level.

The impact of culture on international marketing Essay

The impact of culture on international marketing - Essay Example However it is observed that the new emerging markets have socio-cultural contexts much different from the parallel contexts in western countries. Such cultural differences present themselves both as an opportunity and threat to those organizations expecting to find niche in these markets. If properly researched and read into the cultural dimensions of the foreign market can be woven into the international marketing mix and help establish the global supplier as a trustworthy supplier who understands the local realities. Inadequate research into these aspects and thereby deficient weaving of cultural dimensions in the international marketing mix can prove to be an expensive marketing mistake. This paper takes up a substantive literature review of the impact of cultural dimensions in international marketing mix before taking up a library based approach to examine major arguments in respect of culture, its dimensions, international marketing mix and the impact of cultural dimensions on i nternational marketing mix. A hypothesis that international marketing mix was made more effective by conscious in building within such mix cultural dimensions and their implications was tested through the analysis of major arguments presented in the researched library material. The analysis also found support in some case studies examined from the library resources.