Enabling Learning and Assessment Essay

1. The purposes of assessment Assessment is the process of evaluating an individual’s learning. It involves generating and collecting evidence of a learner’s attainment of knowledge and skills and judging that evidence against defined standards. Tummons suggested that: ‘With assessment we can: * Find out if learning has taken place; * Diagnose learners needs; * Provide public acknowledgment and certification of learning * Allow processes of selection to be carried out; * Provide way to evaluate learning programmes; * Motivate and encourage learners.’ Tummons (2009:5) Written justification of assessment methods I have chosen to do Holding and aiming in the prone position, I would do this by getting the SUT in the tramline formation. This is where they will number off in pairs, so all the No.1’s on one side of the room whilst all the No.2’s are on the other side of the room. I will get the No.1’s to conduct the drill when I give the word of command. The No.1’s will be ensuring they adopt the prone position correctly, going through the 9 key point check list and taking aim on the target. Whilst this is happening the No.2’s will be observing throughout looking for any mistakes. Once the No.1’s have completed the drill I will go down the line asking the No.2’s if they observed any mistakes. By doing this I am getting the SUT to give out peer assessment on the progress of his/hers drill on the weapon system as this can develop and motivate student. The student will also have their own self assessment; this is where the students are assessing their own progress  throughout the lesson. These methods encourage the SUT to make decisions about what has been learnt so far, and to reflect on aspects for further development. Once the No.1’s have completed the drill, the same process will happen with the No.2’s and the No.1’s looking and observing for any mistakes. Whilst all this is going on I will be looking for any mistakes as I watch from one end of the tramline formation, this is called tutor assessment and can help give feedback to the student to guide them on their strength and areas of development. This is also known as formative assessment so it can provide for me a continuous source of information about the students’ progress, improvement and problems encountered in the learning process, so I together we can develop their confidence and competence on the weapon system. 2. Practical assessment a) Aim The aim of a practical assessment in a classroom environment is to ensure that when handling a weapon system that the necessary measures and safety precaution is carried out correctly and sufficiently. It is my aim to make sure that the SUT carry out the drills correctly, if however people are struggling to adapt to the new drills then it’s up to me the instructor to change my approach to the individual learning style. b) Reason for selecting practical learning assessment We use practical assessment in the army especially when teaching a particular subject like Skill at Arms to help us as a teacher to confirm that the SUT have understood the correct handling of the weapon. It’s not only a confirmation for the teacher but a confirmation for the individual that he/she has took on board the new skill and knowledge they have been taught in the lesson. During the lesson, when I have demonstrated a new drill, the SUT are required to imitate the drill whilst I explain and demonstrate it, taking it step by step. Once I am happy that the SUT have grasped the new drill, a confirmation is done to ensure that the SUT understands the new  weapon drill. This will be done when I give the word of command and the SUT carrying out the drill without any help or guidance as I watch and observes for any mistakes that the SUT may do. In order for the SUT to use blank or live ammunition on exercise or on the ranges, they are required to pass a Weapon Handling Test (WHT) which is a critical practical assessment as it is part of their summative test and needs to be done twice a year. I will give a number of instructions which the SUT must complete correctly and confidently in order to pass. There is no time limit and they are allowed one mistake on each stage of the test. This assessment is to show that he/she has the knowledge and skill to handle the weapon with blank or live ammunition with confidence. For assessment of practical activities, the potential barriers should be considered and reasonable adjustments developed that meet the needs of the individual learner. Many of the adjustments for a practical assessment are similar to those of a written assessment. We must however be aware of the learners/individual learning styles as this will vary across each lesson we teach. If we look at Fleming understanding of learning styles which he used the terminology of VARK, he stated that people can be grouped into four styles of learning: * Visual – Seeing. * Aural – Listening and talking. * Read/Write – Reading and writing. * Kinaesthetic – Doing. (Gravells 2012:40) The SUT will come under one or more of these learning styles and as I have seen it in the past whilst teaching, I have to adapt as a teacher to accommodate to their preferred learning style which means I have to plan and break down my lesson to ensure all SUT get the full benefit of what is being taught to them. Sue Crowley of the IFL stated: Often new teachers teach as they were taught, then perhaps as they would like  to have been taught, and finally they realise different ways and a wider spectrum of teaching and learning approaches are needed and available. (Gravells 2012:40) A statement in which I agree upon as my thought process was similar but when teaching SUT it’s taught me to adapt my teaching skills to benefit the individuals so they can get the best outcome during the lesson. c) Conduct of the practical assessment The SUT will be assessed throughout the lesson and this can be done in many ways as it is classroom based, this will be an informal assessment. As the SUT reacts to the word of command for example; ‘For inspection port arms’ they are to carry out the necessary drill in which I will observe for mistakes. Observation is a good way to assess the skills, knowledge and attitudes of the SUT. When observing, it enables me to see how well the SUT are doing, letting them make mistakes as long as it is safe, especially when dealing with a weapon so they can learn from their own mistakes. Once the drill is complete I can ask each individual if they made any mistakes and give them self assessment, otherwise I can give negative or positive feedback to the SUT. Observation is good within our training establishment as it assess the SUT competence, skills and attitudes when dealing with a weapon and the observation can follow on with a question to check the knowledge and understanding. SUT training can be assessed in two other ways and they are called peer assessment and self assessment. For the instructor to see this happen, the students will pair up and work as a team. Whilst one SUT does the drill on the weapon whilst the other partner watches for mistakes, this is called peer assessment, but at the same time SUT who is carrying out the drill can self assess as he/she goes along. If the student was to carry out the Load, Ready, Unload drill, their partner can look in for any mistakes and as the instructor asks the observer from each team if there were any mistakes, this can be useful to develop and motivate the SUT. Peer assessments can be affective as SUT feedback is given skilfully, but other students may think more about what their peers have said than about what the instructor have said. 3. Question assessment a) Aim The aim of a question assessment is for the instructor to see if the SUT can demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the subject being taught to them. It also helps when asking a question to the SUT that they have to think about their answer. b) Conduct of a Question assessment During each lesson throughout the army, as an instructor we will always ask the SUT questions of the particular topic that we have been learning about before moving on to the next topic or next stage of the lesson. This is formal or informal assessment and is used to assess cognitive ability which can be used whenever the instructor wants to assess the knowledge and understanding of SUT. When giving a lesson on Skill at Arms, ‘Different combat position.’ The instructor will always give an explanation of why we do it and when to incorporate the positions for example, on the ranges or when we are on operational tour, followed by a demonstration. As the instructor has given the explanation and demonstration, we will go through the demonstration again whilst the SUT imitate you as you take them through step by step. Whilst doing this process we normally ask the SUT questions on the next stage of the movement, pausing for a second and then state the name of the learner who can answer. This way, all SUT is thinking about the answer as soon as you have posed the question, and is ready to speak if their name is asked. This assessment not only help the instructor to confirm that the individual or group know the answer but helps their peers to understand it as well. We also do oral written assessment, as this is part  of the minimum core, for example before I start the lesson I would ask the SUT to take out their note books and pens. I will ask them a number of questions in which they will write their answers in their note books which will be marked before the lesson take place. If for some reason some of the SUT get a few questions wrong I will ensure that I make a plan in the evening to go through the questions or drill in which they got incorrect so that they are at the same stage as all the other SUT. Asking questions to the SUT and for them responding in giving the answers back to the instructor is self assessment and peers assessment so that the SUT know what areas they are good at and what areas they need to work on. However it’s good for the tutor assessment to understand how the SUT progress is going by conducting these assessments. C)  Advantages| Disadvantages| Problems can be solved| SUT don’t know the answer| Question being answered| SUT can be put on the spot| Understanding people’s views and opinions| | Gives people a voice| | 4. Reflecting on how feedback has informed your learners’ progress and achievement Feedback is a vital part of the learners’ training at the army foundation college as it informs the SUT on their progress and achievement. To make sure it is effective it is important that we develop rapport, mutual respect and trust between the instructor and the SUT. During a Skill at Arms lesson it is important to give effective feedback as this informs the SUT on how well they are doing or on what areas they might need to work on. I try to give out the best feedback as I can to the SUT or the individual as I know this will help reassure, boost confidence, encourage, motivate and develop their knowledge, skills. It can help the SUT to maximize their potential and professional development at different stages of training, raise their awareness of strengths and areas for improvement, and identify actions to be  taken to improve their performance. 5. Reflecting on how feedback from others has informed your own professional practice On the 1st November 2012, I conducted a lesson on pain relief (Morphine) which was observed by an assessor. I felt that the lesson was well structured, planned and I got the key learning points across to the SUT. Once the lesson ended I sat down with my assessor and was given feedback on my lesson. The written feedback said this: The session had a clear and important content to communicate. This was achieved and checked by the test. A stronger introduction would set the scene and provide guidance to learners of what they had to do during the lesson. Focus on the test/know the purpose of the test. The conclusion could tell learners what to do with the test papers and how this will be an aide memoire. Test was very well created, covering all key learning and checking recall, understanding and application. It could be improved with clear guidance i.e. working individually without referring to their notes. As this was ‘assessment for learning’ as well as ‘assessment of learning’ learners could work individually, with a partner and finally as a whole group to get the answers/self assessment and check learning. You could get feedback on results from the test by asking those who got 100% to stand up – an energiser, positive motivation and a simple measure for you. This feedback has opened my eyes a lot clearer as I was more channelled to delivering a simple but constructed lesson. Just by delivering a stronger introduction can make the learner motivated to learn, which I didn’t realise until someone made it aware to me. It was a good motivation and energiser to hear from the assessor that the test paper was well created which gave me that sense of pride. However when it came to handing out the test paper, giving the SUT a certain amount of time to do it in and once they had completed it they would mark their own paper as I went along with the answers. Just from what the assessor has written in the feedback it can give  the learner self assessment and check their learning, so in future I will take more time on how I construct the test and how to mark it as this will give me a feedback on the progress of the SUT. 6. Reference List: * http://www.open.ac.uk/inclusiveteaching/pages/inclusive-teaching/barriers-to-learning.php Date accessed 8.11.12 * Tummons J – (2009) Assessing learning in the lifelong learning sector. Exeter: Learning Matters * Gravells A (2012) Preparing to teach in the lifelong learning sector. London: Learning Matters * www.faculty.londondeanery.ac.uk

Case Study Analysis of Lajolla Software, Inc.

Case Study Analysis of LaJolla Software, Inc. Bus 600: Management Communications with Technology Tools Instructor: Sara Garski January 31, 2011 With the rapidly growing state of todays start-ups, fostering good overseas partnerships are essential in any business seeking to expand their company internationally. With such expansions, come becoming inter-culturally involved with those partnerships so that both party’s implicated can expand exponentially, building off one another. In the Case Study of LaJolla Software, Inc. ; overseas expansion was laid out in their companies plans for months. Their intent? To deliver a new product launch that could potentially prove to be very profitable. But to achieve such aspirations they needed a business partner that knew the market in which they wished to serve. When the opportunity presented itself to make such a merger they knew it would take more than their companies most brilliant programers to take on the challenge. And after constant visits to Japan, correspondence via fax, and many meetings with the interested shareholders and business partners of Ichi Ban Heavy Industries, the alliance was formed. Now all that was needed for the deal to be complete was for LaJolla to meet with Ichi Ban’s organizational management team where they were to learn more about their new partnership on the foreign territories of the United States. The problem, nevertheless, was communication; getting the Japanese to understand American culture and more importantly how LaJolla Software, Inc. unctioned in it. And being that their first partnership was with the Japanese they needed Ichi Ban to understand their purpose so that the two could unite as one solid entity of ingenuity for all of Asia to see. More specifically, here you have one company attempting to expand their products overseas. But in order for them to do so they need to first partner up with a company that is more knowledgeable of the territory in w hich they plan to expand. And after successfully attaining the partnership the problem that then arises is a cultural break down. In order for the partnership to work they must overcome the communication barrier, and they’re relying on one Marketing Manager to make it all possible. The key issue with this company and their partnership is learning enough about their newly gained partners so that they can in turn impart knowledge of American culture in a way they can understand and interpret it. And so, for them to successfully maintain their business, as well as their new partnership, they’re going to have to figure out innovative ways to teach their counterparts American culture. According to a Finance Discussion Forum (where questions are asked and answers are given by people either familiar with the topic or just sharing their opinion) five steps to successfully fostering a good overseas partnership are posted and listed below: learning the language learning the culture respecting the people and the country in which you plan to do business having eagerness to learn about the respective country and enjoying and making the most of the partnership Although this posting is really just an opinion it does raise good points about establishing good business connections when branching out to partners over seas. In this list, some of the suggestions may be a little hard to committee to accomplishing so it is imperative to outline key points to accomplish in overseas relations. For LaJolla, some of those key points could be to focus on learning and having the eagerness to learn about Japanese culture all while making the most of their partnership with Ichi Ban. For the marketing manager that is left with the single task of coming up with activities to engage their visitors he should first familiarize himself with Japanese culture, and asian culture in general. He should learn the signs of respect according to their culture as well as how they conduct business. Once he understands they’re key principles he’ll be able to get them to understand American culture. By being proactive and taking the initiative to learn their culture they’ll see that as a sign of respect and hey’ll want to learn more about the culture in which their company will be merging. In his quest to learn more about his foreign business counterparts he should also research Japanese business styles. And in an article entitled Japanese Business Styles it states, â€Å"Japanese communications are epitomized by subtlety and nuance†¦ (their) body language is very minimal, making it difficult for the untrained observer to read. The(y) also seem to be very still in meetings, sitting in a formal upright posture†¦ nd it is rare for any reaction or emotion to be visible. † So taking this into account, knowing this tidbit of information could drastically help gauge what activities the marketing manager should plan for the visitors. After some investigation has been done, the planning of activities for the visiting Japanese organizational management team should begin. Starting with a dinner; taking them to a Japanese inspired restaurant absorbed in their culture would be a good way to break the ice and start discussions about the business venture. This should then be followed up by a tour of some of the most important places near or boarding LaJolla, California. Such site-seeing could commence with visiting other similar software businesses (if permitted) and concluding their touristic trip with a tour of LaJolla Software, Inc. Now it may seem a little odd to see everything else first and the company they plan to work with directly last but doing it this way can help the visitors get a well rounded understanding of American business practice. So when they do finally meet LaJolla Software, Inc. they’ll have an appreciation for what they do, what they have already accomplished, and what they wish to accomplish with the help of their new partners. Another thing that LaJolla could do as a whole, is have a staff meeting where the marketing manager would go about making the rest of the staff culturally aware of the new business partners as well. This is yet another thing the Japanese will take notice to and seeing the eagerness of the Americans could make for an easier transition. In a PDF, entitled How to do it: Manage Overseas Business Relationships, it discusses the importance for the staff to â€Å"think carefully about what (their) foreigners might mean when they are using English† (pg. 5) With these key recommendations, these two very different businesses may actually be able to accomplish the goal they set out to do. Important facts to remember, however, is that the entire process will not be an over night success. In order for a bond to be forged and a good partnership fostered each party will have to work diligently in helping one another understand each other. Works Citied Anonymous. Japanese Communication Styles. worldbusinessculture. com http://www. worldbusinessculture. com/Japanese-Business-Communication-Style. html Business Link. Manage Overseas Business Relationships. HOW TO DO IT: International Trade. Last updated: 01. 08. 10. http://www. businessandpatents. org/content/files/IT8 (1). pdf CoastalCutie. What are the essentials to working with overseas business partners? Finance Discussion Forum http://www. financialcrisis2009. org/forum1/Business-Finance/ What-are-the-essentials-to-working-with-overseas-business-partners-7. htm

Mixed Marriages

Relationships of every type are faced with a wide variety of problems and challenges in any given situation. Whether it involves our coworkers, neighbors, friends or family – the dynamics are relatively similar and predictable within a common cultural framework. These dynamics become more complex where marriage is concerned and differences in personalities come to the forefront. While these issues can be challenging enough for any married couple, there are additional difficulties specific to couples in a mixed marriage.For the purpose of this paper, mixed marriage is defined as a marriage of two people from different races, religions or cultures. Different customs and cultural backgrounds can directly impact your marriage and family life, as they tend to teach different values and priorities. This is particularly true in cases where a husband and wife were raised in different parts of the world. SPECIFIC POINTS Acceptance of the mix-marriage — is a major obstacle as oft en times the families of both partners do not approve of their marriage.Mixed-marriage couples deal with unique challenges compared to traditional couples. The challenge with interracial couples is respecting each other’s race and culture. If not, this can have a ripple effect to the extended family. Social attitude and prejudices For instance, one partner’s prevalent social attitudes and common prejudices may begin to show more openly one day. â€Å"When this happens, all you can do is to maintain a good-natured attitude and have lots of patience,† Hans adds. But potential obstacles need to be clearly identified and frankly addressed before moving ahead.Nationalistic, ethnic, or social pride can also drive a wedge between otherwise loving spouses. One partner may (subconsciously) feel superior because he or she grew up in a â€Å"higher† socio-economic class than the other. Or a spouse may feel owed something for having legalized the other’s citiz enship through matrimony. Pride also raises its head when one spouse believes that the other’s culture or beliefs are inferior or strange, thereby discounting the other person’s importance in the relationship.Racial offenses – You want to avoid making any remarks including those in a joking manner. You can also simply make this clear to those around you by telling them that you will avoid interactions with someone who continues to be negative regarding your marriage. Firmly tell the person you will not spend time with anyone who expresses racist views. Interracial couples sometimes experience rejection or stress from their own families. This may occur because of traditional beliefs that people should marry of the same cultural background.Regardless of whether this is an issue in your marriage, it's still important to remember to respect the beliefs and traditions of your partner's family. Interracial relationships are much more common today. However, they can st ill bring unique challenges. Along with being aware of these four areas but also having sensitive and open communication, an interracial marriage can overcome the additional challenges. Yet it also offers plenty of opportunities for couples to learn from each other and to gain new perspectives on their lives and marriage.Communication is a key issue — The nonverbal stimuli in a communication, like body language, can also lead to wrong expression and misunderstanding by different cultures. In addition, factor for space between people, certain actions, even a sense of taste needs to be taken to consideration. Communication of symbol is also important and can represent a group’s identity — speech like what’s up, and ‘yo’ are popular in Malaysia. Non verbal communication, High context and low context communication.Communication can be one of the biggest difficulties facing interracial or intercultural couples. This can include the challenge of li terally speaking different languages. At first, couples tend to enjoy hearing another language spoken, but this can also become a point of contention when misunderstandings occur or when the â€Å"foreign† language is spoken at family gatherings. Communication also becomes an issue when it affects the way a couple solves problems. Family Structure — issues such as male dominated societies (marriage culture), differing concepts of raising children.It always makes sense to find out as much as possible about your partner’s family but it makes special sense to do so in mixed marriages – especially concerning the culture and its traditional family structures. Mixed marriages often face additional struggles and challenges in the field of parenting. Raising a child always leads to conflicts if the parents are not on the same page. We weren’t sure how to raise our kid. Whose traditions do we pass on? † â€Å"My friends here do not struggle as much a s we do.But then again, they don’t have to synchronize two different sets of cultural and religious backgrounds,† Hans concedes. The involvement of extended family members in the child-rearing process, behavioral expectations, and the question of what is considered appropriate frequently cause heated discussions between Hans and Ruba. â€Å"Interestingly enough, we have always found a compromise so far. Despite our different outlooks, it helps us to know that we both want the best for our child.It’s not easy, but we have some common ground in that. For example, I agreed that Eman should be raised as a Muslim because her faith is very important to my wife. But I didn’t want her grandparents to have too much of a say. For me, child-rearing is the parents’ responsibility – and only theirs. † Different cultural attitudes towards the respective roles of men and women in the home can play havoc with this area of the relationship unless husba nds and wives can find ways to turn conflicts into opportunities for learning and growth.Religion and Politics — Partners in mixed marriages may be supportive of each other’s religious beliefs but still often run into unexpected issues. Differences in the way people in these marriages celebrate certain holidays or have dietary restrictions are to be expected. Politics can be problematic if world view is highly polarized – ie. Convervative/Liberal/Socialist/Communist Food Culture — We often clash over specific issues, like food. It drives me crazy that she doesn’t even let me cook pork. I think our arguments have gotten worse since the birth of our daughter.As in any relationship or marriage, both partners have to be flexible and open-minded when facing unexpected arguments and issues. INFORMATION TO DRAW FROM FOR SUMMARY OR WHATEVER In the first place, it’s important to acknowledge and understand how contrasting customs and cultural backgrou nds are likely to impact your marriage and family life. The way you’re brought up is the way you’ll live unless you make a conscious choice to embrace another option. Different customs and cultures teach different values and priorities.Normally, this means that interracial or multicultural couples have a unique need to bend, flex, compromise, and accommodate to one another’s contrasting ways of looking at life. This is especially true if a husband and wife grew up in different parts of the world. â€Å"In mixed marriages, arguments may come up more often because of the different cultural backgrounds,† Ruba says. â€Å"It’s just a lot more challenging. † Clashing values – When you come from different families of origin, you will make different assumptions about how a family works. These assumptions won’t always be compatible.However, this is the case in most marriages. In an interracial relationship, there’s a good chance that at least some of these challenges will be accented, especially if you choose to have children. Comparisons – You and your partner bring unique differences to the marriage. These differences should be embraced and may likely be some of the most enriching parts of your lives. You want to discuss with your partner what you each consider most important in any traditions or cultural beliefs. 1. You both come from ends of the world, where the way of life is totally different.Yours will be a major leap of adjustments. The difference in practices about religion as well as political beliefs may have to result to one acquiescing to the other’s belief just to have a harmonious relationship. 2. Prejudice on social practices, such as sex-selective abortion, often cause early breakup of the marriage as one may not be ready to fully embrace this new-found culture you are bound to live due to marriage. 3. The language barrier often results to miscommunication and misunderstandin g that sadly leads to divorce or separation.

The legend of Zelda Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

The legend of Zelda - Research Paper Example The Nintendo game The Legend of Zelda and its main character, a boy named Link, are so well-known and recognized in the video game community as to be nearly iconic. The original title spawned a series of sequels, prequels, spin-offs, and derivative works. The main series alone, without counting the remakes on various systems, consists of over fourteen games. For many, the instrumental background music, character sprites, and especially the unique gold game cartridge for the original Legend of Zelda can still conjure up happy images from their childhoods. The game Legend of Zelda is so important to both the company of Nintendo and to video game development as a whole because it was such a revolution in video game design. The game allowed players to move around on the main map between screens in a non-linear fashion, forcing the player to determine where they should go next instead of clearly showing them. In addition, the game was filled with puzzles and traps that made the game â€Å"more puzzle than plaything†. The game also ended up establishing the now-popular game genre of â€Å"action-adventure†, a combination of the speed and reaction time skill sets required in action games with the longer story lines and plot development of adventure games. (Nintendo, 2010). Despite its success now, the development of Zelda was never a sure thing, and in fact was following a long and sometimes rocky history for the company Nintendo (Paumgarten, n.d.). Having established the importance of the game itself, the need for further un derstanding of the game's history becomes clear. This history is in three parts: the history of the gaming company Nintendo, the careers of game developer Shigeru Miyamoto and his team, and finally the specific game development for The Legend of Zelda. Through this analysis, we will see that it took this series of events to produce the revolutionary Zelda game. History of Nintendo The original Nintendo company was founded in 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi. Obviously, at that point they were not producing video games of any kind. Instead, the company was known for its intricate, hand-painted playing cards and other table game accessories. Well into the twentieth century, Nintendo also produced Japanese hanafuda, a word which literally translates to â€Å"flower cards†. These colorfully painted hanafuda were used as gambling chips, replacing an older tradition of using painted seashells to keep score in playing card games. Around the year 1949, when Fusajiro Yamauchi's grandson Hiro shi Yamauchi took over the company, Nintendo began producing electronic games and gadgets, in an attempt to diversify their product line. One of the more famous products they produced during this period is the infamous â€Å"Love Tester†, which supposedly shows if there is an attraction between two individuals squeezing the machines levers. Another product in this line from Nintendo was the Beam Gun, which was used in converted bowling alleys to shoot simulations of clay pigeons and was quite popular in Japan (Paumgarten, n.d.). It was not until the 1970s that Nintendo actually entered the video game market. Contrary to what some fans seem to believe, Nintendo did not produce the earliest video games. Those were designed by California-based Atari, the company behind the memorable games Pong and Space Invaders. These arcade games, and later the home console versions, quickly became a worldwide craze. Seeing an opportunity despite having no personal interest in video gaming, Hi roshi Yamauchi decided that his company would enter this potentially lucrative new market (Paumgarten, n.d.). The result was a stream of arcade cabinets for the commercial market. At current count, Nintendo has produced over ninety arcade titles. These included such classics as Duck Hunt and Mario Bros., but had other failed games that are significantly less well-known, such as Battle Shark and the arcade version of Radar

Describe and analyze Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Describe and analyze - Essay Example Being the biggest democratic country and the second most heavily populated country in the world, India’s progress is watched with curiosity by scholars and economists. Many people believe that India may become another superpower in the world in near future itself. It should be noted that the recent recession has caused less problems to India’s economy even though it caused many problems in America and Europe. Prominent companies are targeting India as a manufacturing destination because of the availability of cheap labor in India. Distance is no more a problem for overseas companies in targeting India because of the development of internet related business strategies. Offshoring and outsourcing like new business principles and the development of internet related business technologies helped India immensely in changing its destiny from a poor country to a prosperous country. Neither technology nor the dimensions of distance are a problem for India as far as development i s concerned. This paper analyses India’s dimensions of distance, institutions, industrial clusters, and diffusion of technology. â€Å"Distance between two countries can manifest itself along four basic dimensions: cultural, administrative, geographic, and economic† (Ghemawat, Distance Still, p.138). ... For Indians, Pakistan is a different country culturally, politically and economically whereas China is a different country in terms of politics and culture. So these countries are not in good relations with India even though they are geographically close to India. On the other hand, geographically distant countries such as America and Europe are good trade partners of India. â€Å"Economists often rely on the so-called gravity theory of trade flows, which says there is a positive relationship between economic size and trade and a negative relationship between distance and trade† (Ghemawat, Distance Still, p.138). Traditional economic principles says that it is easy to increase global trade between countries of proximity. However, India is a country, which has trade relations with even distant countries. It should be noted that Europe and America are some of the distant regions from India; yet India has strong economic relationships with these countries. In fact, India is a pro minent member country of the Group of 20 (G-20) developing nations, even though majority of the members of this group are from Europe and America. â€Å"The largest IT services markets are the most advanced economies, whose per capita incomes make them distant economically from India† (Ghemawat, The Cosmopolitan, p.95). For example, America and majority of the European countries are much more developed than India. These regions or countries are the largest IT services market in the world. The per capita income these countries are much higher than that of the Indians. However, it should not be forgotten that India is one of the largest service IT provider and the second largest country in terms

The New Deal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

The New Deal - Essay Example The governments before Roosevelt believed that the people should stick with and support the state through tough and bad times. In that context Franklin D Roosevelt set a new precedent by holding that it is the state that should come to the rescue of the masses in times marred by economic downturn and the subsequent issues and difficulties, supported by his â€Å"conception of government power as a force to be utilized aggressively.†1 It goes without saying that Franklin D Roosevelt was not alone in determining the broader framework of the New Deal, but rather he was advised and supported by an array of academic scholars and liberal experts, who were referred to as the ‘brain trust’. The purpose of coming out with the New Deal was to chart out the best course of action for the nation struggling with widespread economic downturn. Hence, the first hundred days of Franklin D Roosevelt’s ascendency saw the initiation of an array of bills aimed at resuscitating t he economy by reducing poverty, curtailing the rate of unemployment and to assure a speedy recovery of the economy that was down and sick. In that context it is totally true to claim that the New Deal did a lot in putting the American economy back on the track by correcting the systemic problems marring the economy and by curing the attendant flaws and anomalies. Before delving on the beneficial impacts of the New Deal on the American economy, it is utterly relevant to consider the ailments that were imminent on the American economy before the New Deal came into existence. Before the New Deal was initiated, people all across America were under the sway of a depression ridden economy and were facing a range of issues and problems. By 1929, the American economy was suffering from a state of Depression that was marked by a dearth of money in the economy and a very high rate of unemployment. The fall of the stock markets helped this state of economic downturn graduate to what is popular ly known as the Great Depression. The citizens who had invested in the stock markets not only lost their investments, but also ended up being in a state of dearth and unemployment. With the loss of their investments, people found it totally impossible to pay their personal bills and bank loans. Moreover, the Great Depression also badly influenced the nation’s banks and financial institutions. With the banks closing their doors, people lost most of their savings. With the inability of the masses to invest in the economy and not being in a position to purchase goods and services, the businesses also got sick and consequently many businesses had to shut down owing to a dearth of revenue and capital. Thereby, President Franklin D Roosevelt was quiet aware of the fact that he was being elected in an economic scenario that was bleak and depressing and that the people expected him to come out with measures that could resuscitate the economy and bring the things back on the track. He nce, the New Deal contrived by the Roosevelt government was a direct response to the expectations and aspirations of the masses and it did a lot to rescue the depression ridden national economy because, â€Å"during the campaign he had preached that the Federal government would have to assume an unprecedented role in delivering relief to the destitute and stern discipline to the business community†¦. â€Å" 2 It is a fact that during the Great Depression, the citizens had not only lost the

Discuss Whether Justified True Belief Can Be Considered Knowledge Essay

Discuss Whether Justified True Belief Can Be Considered Knowledge - Essay Example Nonetheless, such engagement can also bring one to learn more about knowledge – a term ordinarily thought synonymous with the word ‘know’, when not everything we know constitutes knowledge, not even a JTB? JTB is composed of three concepts – belief, truth and justifiedness. Most basic of which is the understanding of belief, as the question of knowledge here is actually related with belief. To rephrase the main question, if JTB can be considered knowledge, would be: Can belief be qualified as knowledge if it is proven justifiably true? From this question, it can be inferred that not all beliefs can be considered knowledge and that even JTB can be doubted as knowledge. Essentially so, the main question centres on understanding what knowledge is. But since the question of knowledge here is limited only in qualifying JTB as knowledge or not, the discussion would only be limited in understanding philosophical views that either affirm or negate JTB as knowledge. So the discussion shall focus only on understanding when a belief is justifiably true; when JTB cannot be considered knowledge; and when JTB can be considered knowledge. Justified True Belief Belief is something we accept to be real or true. ... Of these, perceptual belief is most common, because we easily believe on the existence of things that are perceivable – these are called sense data. These sense data make us believe on the existence of things. For example, we believe in flowers because we see, smell and touch them. In fact, the first and immediate way for us in knowing about the things around us is making use of our five senses (Huemer 2002, p. 27). We come to know first about flowers not through books but through seeing one; we come to differentiate between sweet and bitter not through others testimony but through our sense of taste; we come to know pain and relief because we felt it; we come to know about odours because we smell them; and we come to know about sounds because we hear them – these perceptual experiences we have everyday made us believe on their existence. But not everything we perceive necessarily constitutes what we believe. There are some things we perceive that we may not believe nor care to believe. For example, we see a horse in a painting. Although we know what a horse look like, we do not believe that the horse in the painting is a real horse knowing that works of art, like painting, are basically imitations of the real world or representations of the painter’s perception, feelings or thought (Sheppard 1987, p. 4). On the other hand, not everything we believe may be true, because we are imperfect not only in our perceptions but also in what we remember, on how we reason out, and in other things that we do; so, it is most probable that we can be deceived by our own senses (Audi 2003, p. 8), which under various circumstances can perform differently. For example, if you are colour-blind, you are

Dawes Severalty Act 1887 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Dawes Severalty Act 1887 - Essay Example Those who lived in reservations were also acknowledged as Indians (Tripathy, 2006, pp.318-319). The colonial state provided rules to assess the â€Å"Indianness† of an individual for the purposes of giving grants or land allotments (Tripathy, 2006, p.318). In 1887, the government passed the Dawes Severalty Act 1887 (hereinafter called the Act), which aimed to divide Indian lands into individual or family-owned parcels of lands and this involved identifying who the Indians were, so that they could be entitled to land allotment. This essay aims to describe and to assess the Act, with respect to its impact on American Indians, specifically the Cherokees. The Dawes Severalty Act 1887, also known as the General Allotment Act, outlined procedures that aimed to divide communal Native American territories into individual or family-owned properties (Native Americas, 1997, p.20). Government agents were in charge of these allotments. This approach opened around 90% of Indian land to non- Indian settlement (Native Americas, 1997, p.20). In numerous instances, the government paid Indians a per-capita share of these lands' sales price (Native Americas, 1997, p.20). ... The Cherokees had not been greatly affected by the Act at first, although far-reaching negative results shaped their social and political organizations too. The positive effects of the policy are that it prepared families and children to think of themselves as farmers and landowners, and it also allowed proper land titling. Reformers wanted Indians to live as farmers and landowners, so that they could fit into the agricultural industry of that time (Native Americas, 1997, p.20). Unfortunately, the idea of â€Å"the Jeffersonian yeoman image† became â€Å"outdated† during the late nineteenth century, when America swiftly industrialized (Native Americas, 1997, p.20). Another positive effect of the Act is that it allowed proper land titling (Native Americas, 1997, p.20). It was easier for the government to allot lands to private owners, instead of treating large parcels of land as communal Indian territories. The Act, however, had more negative than positive effects. The A ct broke tribal governments and family relations and resulted to reduction of Indian territories. First, the Act broke traditional extended family relations, because families had to live far away from each other. Tribal leaders had to part with some of their wives and children, since their lands were divided among their children and wives (Native Americas, 1997, p.20). Second, the Act also reduced the role and power of tribal governments (Native Americas, 1997, p.20). The Bureau of Indian Affairs' publications underscored that policies like the Dawes Act aimed to curtail the functions of tribal leaders and to enhance the political power of the state over Indians. Third, the Act only opened many lands to be owned by the

Is overpopulation a global crisis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Is overpopulation a global crisis - Essay Example Another definition of overpopulation is that it is â€Å"the condition of having a population as dense as to cause environmental deterioration and impaired quality of life or a population crash† (Gonzalez 117). These two definitions of overpopulation seem to have some differences as well as some commonalities. First of all, both definitions are based on the fact that overpopulation is based on the fact that there might be too many people as opposed to resources in a given area. This implies that overpopulation occurs when there are more people in relation to the resources available to them for their survival and livelihoods. On the other hand, the two writers are not in agreement about the scope of globalization. Whilst Pitzl defines globalization in terms of countries or geographical regions, Gonzalez views it as a global matter which has an impact on the natural environment. This means that the first definition localizes the idea of overpopulation whilst the second generatio n looks at it as a global problem or issue. Reasons why Overpopulation is a Global Issue In this world, resources and the natural environment are shared. Instead of having a limited access to natural resources, most resources in the natural environment transcend natural borders. ... This often results in pressure over natural resources, pollution, congestion, unorganized development amongst others. Nagel and Guinness identify that overpopulation can be defined in terms of having a population that is above the normal level that a nation or community can hold (111). The standard level of population that a community's resources can support is known as the optimum population (Nagel and Guinness 111). However, when the population goes above the optimum population, there is an increasing pressure on resources and the living standards of the community would begin to decline. Hence, there would be the non-sustainable use of natural resources, and the over-use of elements of the natural environment. This leads to pressure not only on local resources but on the global ecological balance. This is because when natural resources are put to a use that is beyond the normal, there would be some implications for other resources outside the nation or community. Over population ca uses nations around the world to get concerns. This is because population leads to migration. And if there is migration, nations with optimal populations are also affected and they would have to find ways and means of reducing the flow of migrants into their countries. For example, in the case of China which shares a long border with Russia, there is a major threat to the Russian economy and Russian natural resources if the population of China moves further up. This is because when China's population grows, the pressure on Chinese resources would be so high that a section of the Chinese community would have to leave the country in order to find other resources to survive on. This means that Russia would be

A Horrid Memory Essay Example for Free

A Horrid Memory Essay My sweaty palms ran through-out the thin strands of my hair as I tried to comfort myself for just a single moment. I felt scared, almost terrified as the screams of my nightmare echoed in my ears and made my head throb. Almost never did I have such vivid dreams, and when I did, I never remembered them the next day. Nevertheless, I dont think that Ill ever be able to make amends with my darkest memories and reliving situations that scarred my childhood and eventually my life, can never be forgotten. All I can do is go back and ask what this version of myself could have done to avoid or even confront the situations and events. Around me, there were four chairs, each one with a primary colors: blue, red, green and yellow, around the circular, light wooden table, and of course, I was in one of them. In front of me, was my mother, who had a slim and petite figure, dark brown hair, as well as matching brown eyes and tanned skin; she was feeding the birthday girl, who was a 1 year toddler. Next to me was my six year old sister, and she had pale skin with orange colored freckles, almond shaped eyes and chestnut hair. On the right side of the table, was my stepfather, who was visibly, a few drinks from drunk, and you could notice it by the scent coming out of his mouth and his blood shot eyes. He was also pale, freckles everywhere and bold eyes that made little statement thanks to his glasses. I was about thirteen years old, and I can still recall the smell of a hot and cheesy plate of macaroni, and each bite that I took of it was better than the one before. But I was so focused in my delicious food, that I hadnt realized the silence that crept over the entire table. Feeling like there was an absence of a healthy family conversation, I tried to create a conversation â€Å"So.. What did you guys do today? † I said, feeling my eyes were full of excitement and content, food always had that effect on me. Four pairs of eyes were staring at me, and I began to drop my fork as I saw my stepfather placing a knife against his five-o-clock shadow. Everyone in the table stared at him, and I immediately started to feel uncomfortable. â€Å"Is it true what Isabel told me? † His voice was cold, dark and had a sense of hidden humor, it felt like a horror movie. Our eyes then shifted towards Isabel, my little sister, and she looked like she had just fallen into a hole and had no idea how to get out of it. â€Å"She told me that you guys didnt love me, you guys didnt want me. † He spoke once again with the same tone, and at first, I thought he was joking, so I laughed but then I was rewarded with a deadly glare, which let me know that he wasnt joking. The air around the room got thin, and I could feel the walls trying to suffocate me. My mom, knowing he was drunk, had an annoyed expression planted on her face. â€Å"No, we never said that, now finish up your plate. I think its time for you to go to bed. † She usually had pretty low tolerance with drunk people, and her husband was no exception. I think that the only one that wasnt in tension, was my 1 year old sister, Dianelle because she couldnt understand dialogue, what we were saying. He shoved the plate from the edge of the table, and soon after, I heard it smash against the ground. After being well aware about what was going to happen next, I took Dianelle into my arms and let my mother handle the situation before I said anything that would make him angrier. Nelson, my stepfather, got up from his chair and went to the kitchen cabinets to get something and when he turned around, he had a jalapeno mixed with DonQ spice in his hand. â€Å"You know what happens when you lie to me? You get jalapeno in your mouth. † He must have been mentally sick, because he was actually laughing. As a result of the emitted screams, yells and pleading for him to stop, the police came and took him away, right after he took out the butcher knife. In those three months that he wasnt around, it had probably been the most peaceful moments that my mother and my sisters spent together, we were even closer. The house was calm, the flowers smelled better and I didnt feel in danger or threatened while he was gone. But he eventually came back, and my mom accepted him, with the excuse of a face that he always made, opening his eyes widely and puckering his lips, trying to make a puppy dog face and he always got everyone to laugh. Ive learned that no matter how much you love someone, theyre never worth hurting the rest of the people around you, that love you.

Liquidity Problem Is An Important Strategic Issue To Run Business Enterprises Economics Essay

Liquidity Problem Is An Important Strategic Issue To Run Business Enterprises Economics Essay Liquidity problem is an important strategic issue to run business enterprises. Small enterprises are realising the importance of such problems to reduce losses arises from this. Liquidity problems arise from shortage of working capital that require to maintain daily operations of the enterprise. If this problem persists for long-time, entrepreneurs are bound to stop their business. But it is difficult for small enterprises to get right support at the right time from banks and insurance companies due to certain terms and conditions imposed by them. So a study in this field will be helpful for both entrepreneurs and financial institutions to know current scenario of enterprise level management of liquidity problems and the role of financial institutions to solve this problem. Intelligent forecasting of the future trend in market conditions is a preventive measure to solve liquidity problem whereas, bank support through different financial products is a curative measure in management of liquidity problem. This study has been initiated to identify and analyse entrepreneurs view towards liquidity problems of small enterprises and role of bank to solve this problem. Categorically the major objectives of the present study are: To identify various reasons of liquidity problems of small enterprises; To uncover the views of entrepreneurs regarding the research topic in light of their age, education, invested amount of capital, enterprise life, location and nature of business; To assess the risks identified by the entrepreneurs arises from liquidity problems of their enterprises; To identify and analyze the role of bank in terms of available financial products to manage liquidity problems; To suggest probable solutions to solve liquidity problems of small enterprises. Hypothesis: H 1: There is no impact of small enterprises length of life on the size of liquidity problems. H 2: Amount of investment has no influence on liquidity problems. H 3: Nature of business has no impact on liquidity problems. H 4: Banks facilities are enough to solve liquidity problems of small enterprises. 7. Sources: Broad Subject Area: Business Finance Books and Journals: Alsbury, A. (2001), Quick Answers to Small Business Questions, Series Editor Jay, Prentice Hall, London. Allen, F. and Gale, D. (2007) Understanding Financial Crisis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bygrave, W. D. (1994), The entrepreneurship paradigm 1: a philosophical look at its research methodologies, Entrepreneurship theory and practice, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp 1- 26.   Bhaduri, R., G. Meissner and J. Youn (2007). Hedging Liquidity Risk. Journal of Alternative Investments, Winter 2007.   Cecchetti, S. (2008), Monetary Policy and the Financial Crisis of 2007 2008. Available at: http://fmwww.bc.edu/ec-j/sems2008/Cecchetti.pdf [Accessed: 11 November 2008]. Cohen, W. (2005), The entrepreneur and small business problem solver, 3rd edition, Published by John Wiley and Sons. Dawson, J., Findlay, A. and Sparks, L. (2006) The Retailing Reader. London: Routledge. John L. Knight, Stephen Satchell (2003). Forecasting Volatility in the Financial Markets. Butterworth-Heinemann. Dorfman, Mark S. (2007). Introduction to Risk Management and Insurance (9th Edition). Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall. Douglas Hubbard (2009) The Failure of Risk Management: Why Its Broken and How to Fix It John Wiley Sons. Hisrich D. R. Peters P. M., (2002) Entrepreneurship, 5th edition, Pub., Tata McGraw-Hill. Hawkins, M. (2008) How to Benefit From Consumer Behaviour During a Financial Crisis. EzineArticles. Available at: http://ezinearticles.com/How-to-Benefit-From. Hannon, P.D. and Atherton, A. (1998), Small firm success and the art of orienteering: the value of plans, planning and strategic awareness in the competitive small firm, Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Vol. 5 No. 2, pp. 102-19. Islam N. Mamun Z. M., (2002) Entrepreneurship Development, An Operational Approach, Pub., The University Press Limited,. Leaf, W. and Sykes, E. (2009), Banking, 3rd edition, T butterworth Ltd. McConnell I. (2009), Economic output posts biggest quarterly decline since 1980, The Herald (Glasgow), January 24th Issue, Final Edition, p. 26. Simpson, M et al. (2006), marketing in small and medium size enterprises, International Journal of entrepreneurial behaviour and research, Vol. 12, Issue-6, pp 361-387. Available at:www.emeraldinsight.com [Accessed: 15 November 2009] Stoltz A, Viljoen M (2007) Financial Management: Fresh Perspectives, Published by Pearson South Africa. Websites: Small business banking, (2009) available at http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/banking/banking-guides/business-banking-the-basics.shtml, [Accessed: 15 th November 2009] Office for National Statistics (2008), Unemployment rates rises to 5,7%.. Available at: www.statistics.gov.uk [Accessed 14th November 2009]. Number of enterprises, employment and turnover by number of employees and industry division, UK, start 2004, Available at www.statistics.gov.uk [Accessed: 14th November 2009] HSBC and Barclays news, , 10th November 2009, Available at: www.news.bbc.co.uk, [Accessed 12th November 2009] SME Academy London [online] Available at: http://www.smeacademy.co.uk/, [Accessed 13 November 2009] Banks Websites: www.barclays.co.uk www.hsbc.co.uk www.natwest.com www.lloydstsbbusiness.com 8. Literature Review: The economic recession that hit the UK in the second half of 2008 caused the retail industry to experience certain difficulties (McConnell, 2009; Kollewe, 2009). The credit crunch and growing unemployment reduced consumer income and spending levels and causes uncertain flow of cash for business enterprises. In such conditions, small enterprises are experiencing irregular cash flows, look at the cost cutting strategy, excessive burden of debt, reduction of buyers and uncertain profit margins or losses. As a result shortage of short term capital creates liquidity problems to small enterprises. In business, liquidity refers to the financial ability of an enterprise to meet its short term obligations to bear day to day expenditures. The liquidity of retail sector specially small enterprises are greatly affected by macroeconomic factors. These factors are divided into two: direct and indirect factors. The direct factors can be recognised as the decreasing disposable income, job insecurity and credit financing hurdles (Office for National Statistics, 2008). The indirect factors are challenges of credit financing and investment capability which commercial organisations face and which make these organisations unable to continue with producing high quality products and customer service (The Economist, 2008). Other macroeconomic factors that are related with small enterprises financial crisis are house price, house rent, and employment rate, and inflation rate, availability of bank loan, interest rates and changes of consumers behaviour. Storey [1994] notes that small firms, however they are defined, constitute the bulk of enterprises in all economies in the world. In the latter half of the last century the increasing important roles of small firms and entrepreneurship cannot be in any way understated [Bygrave 1994; Timmons 1994;]. Small firms are now a complex subject matter of research because of its huge number of limitations. These features of small enterprises are supported by Robinson and Pearce [1984] who focused on the issue of resource limitations of small firms. These limitations are best summarised by Carson and Cromie [1989] who suggest that small firm is actually characterised by three types of limitations, those of: their impact on markets; finance; physical resources; It is obvious that among these three limitations, finance is one of the most important one what is equally important for promoting products and services of small enterprises in the markets and acquiring physical resources. But undoubtedly these three limitations are in a cycle and interdependent. Liquidity problem is not only the result of shortage of fund, this problem is the consequences of other two limitations too. Definition of small enterprises of European Commission Enterprise and Industry [europa.eu] refers to maximum number of employees are 49 and maximum annual turnover is 7million Euro for small enterprises. As per EU definition, there are 4,267,555 small enterprises in UK where 11,441,000 employments exist [UK Bureau of Statistics: Start 2004]. It is undoubtedly important to find out immediately the problems of such a large sector and solutions of the problems. As noted by Hill and McGowan (1999), there is no agreed definition or clear understanding, in view of the large literature that exists, of who the entrepreneur is or what it is they do. Entrepreneurship is probably best understood as a process, the constituents of which are the entrepreneur, their persistent search of opportunities, usually grounded in the market place, and efforts to marshal the resources needed to exploit these opportunities; hence the concept of the entrepreneurial SME (Hill and Wright, 2001). How entrepreneurship is vital and important for small enterprises? Hill and McGowan (1999) answer this question by adding that, without entrepreneurial commitment, determination, vision, energy, tolerance of risk, and ambition, the entrepreneurial process in small and medium enterprises would not happen. Entrepreneurs making decision in various circumstances must be sure to learn as much as possible about the situation, and approach the decision from a logical and rational p erspectives (Ricky W. Griffin, 2002). The financial crisis, which transmitted internationally and caused disturbances in a wide range of powerful economies, many countries are seen to be on the brink of recession if not already plunged into it (Deutche Welle, 2008). Todays financial crisis what causes liquidity problems of business enterprises could be recognised as a major challenge for the survival of millions of small enterprises. The wide scope of the crisis caused a downturn in many industries, the bankruptcy of leading organisations and overall economic recession to countries like the UK, Germany and France (Deutche Welle, 2008; Hopkins, 2008; Office for National Statistics, 2008). Many EU countries including UK experienced the shock in their banking sectors as the provision of credit financing became a great challenge. Banks were suffering from lack of liquidity, which caused both business and non-business consumers financial hardships (The Economist, 2008). Though few banks like HSBC and Barclays [BBC, November 2 009] claimed that they are now in profit with enough liquidity to lend, most of the banks are in problem. Bank has short term and long term loan facilities, mortgage facilities, interest free bank overdraft facilities for small business enterprises [Small business banking, 2009]. There is a well-known idea that such facilities for small enterprises are very limited and process is very complex. Though various researchers carried out so many research to find out various factors that have direct and indirect impact on operations of small enterprises, relationship between entrepreneurship and small enterprises, buyers behaviour, marketing strategies, family and non-family business trends in this sector, there is still gap in research regarding liquidity problems and role of bank to solve this problem in terms of entrepreneurs perspective. Specially at the time of current economic down town there is a necessity of new research in the mentioned field. 9. Intended Methods of Data Collection: Assumptions of the study: Small enterprise: This study considers EU [maximum employee: 49] definition to select small enterprises. Scope and limitations of the Study: The study will focus on randomly selected 40 small enterprises of different sectors like hospitality, grocery, fashion and stationary from UK (London Area: Zone 1-4). Since the study will cover only the mentioned area, it will not reflect the exact UK scenario as a whole about the research. Data Collection Procedures: The proposed study is an empirical one. Both primary and secondary data will be used during the study. For collection of primary data self completed questionnaire will be used to collect information from entrepreneurs and executives of business enterprises. Observations and interview will be conducted in several cases to confirm more authentic information from the entrepreneurs. Secondary data will be collected from available literatures in form of books, journal, magazines, published materials, research articles, and online materials. To identify available financial products of banks to solve liquidity problems of small enterprises, banks websites will be used as a source of data and information. The researcher will also call the respondent to ensure timely feedback about questionnaire. In case of necessity, personal contacts will be used to support the research process. Methods of Data Analysis: Some parametric and non-parametric tools and techniques of statistics (like average, percentage, test of hypothesis, sampling distribution, etc); will be used to analyze data and information related with the study.

New Zealands Monetary and Fiscal policies

New Zealands Monetary and Fiscal policies (a) (i) Inflation Targeting An inflation targeting is a monetary approach used by government as a strategy to maintain the interest rate at a certain level. This normally involve up to two parties which are a government and a central bank that are responsible in keeping the price within a specific range. They would alter the interest rate in order to achieve favourable level of interest rate to keep away inflation in an economy. In New Zealand, the targeted inflation rate was 1 per cent to 3 per cent as desirable range (Reserved Bank of New Zealand, 2007). However, this policy able to protect the business sectors in New Zealand especially the University education sector. Education was as crucial contributor to increase living standard of New Zealander. The University education sector was not much differ from other sector because it is like a business to offer employment and increase production growth. The goal of Reserved Bank of New Zealand set an inflation rate range of 1 per cent to 3 per cent is to maintain the equilibrium of price and avoid fluctuation (Parliamentary Library, 2002). As the price is stable, it will attract more foreign student to study in New Zealand and the demand of the New Zealand dollars would be increasing since the education system is comparable to world leading education. (a) (ii) Policy Target Agreement Policy Target Agreement is the mutual agreement between the Governor of the Reserved Bank of New Zealand and New Zealand Government. This agreement goal is to keep economy from minimum inflation and maintain the price stability. The Reserved Bank of New Zealand was also responsible in monitoring and measuring the level of prices. There is various way of measuring the inflation and Consumers Price Index (CPI) was one of the measuring tools used in the Policy Targets Agreement (Reserved Bank of New Zealand, 2007). This tool will record the transaction of prices change from buying goods and services by New Zealand household and the percentage of the change will be the CPI inflation. Using this tool, the price of the currency would be under control and services price from University education sector is under supervision of the Reserved Bank of New Zealand. Reserved bank would maintain the inflation rates of 1 per cent to 2 per cent to avoid any inflation occur. The qualities of the New Zealand Education system itself are already famous among education system among the world, if the prices of the education services are low, it will attract more and more foreign student. Such agreement not even beneficial to education system itself but also bringing advantages to economy whereby the education system in New Zealand is comparable and competitive to other countries in term of services price. (a) (iii) Official Cash Rate Official Cash Rate was first introduced by New Zealand government in year 1999, it is the monetary policy used by Reserved Bank to control the inflation rate. Through Official Cash Rate method, the Reserved Bank able to control the short and long term of interest rate as well as the foreign exchange rate. As in Policy Target Agreement (PTA), both government and the Reserved Bank have obligated to meet the 2 per cent of inflation in future. However, the range defines in Policy Target Agreement which was signed during September 2012, should be achieve the price stability between 1 and 3 per cent average per midterm (Reserved Bank of New Zealand, 2007). In future, the Reserved Bank will increase Official Cash Rate if necessary aiming for 2 per cent rate of inflation in future. (a) (iv) The overall impact on the economy and consequently to University education sector In a nutshell, government and the Reserved Bank adopted the monetary policies to control the supply of money, it can be also saying that to manipulate the fluctuation of the interest rate and in the same time balancing the market price. In context of University Education sector, by set up a targeting inflation method through Policy Target Agreement could be beneficial. The University education sector in New Zealand is moving toward to contribute more in growth of economy. As the University education sector growth is mainly depends on the quality of the education and also the attractive fees rate offered to student. When the Reserved Bank of New Zealand applying the monetary method, the interest rate will be maintaining in a stable range of 1 per cent to 2 per cent to avoid inflation occur (Reserved Bank of New Zealand, 2007). As these price of education is low, it attract foreign student from other countries to enroll into the local university of New Zealand. Such price make the universities of New Zealand a target country for foreign student that providing an A class education system in the same time offering affordable rate of fees. It will influence the demand of New Zealand dollar to be increase in the same time raising the value of the currency. (b) (i) Explain the objectives of government Basically, fiscal policy involves the choice made by government either spending the revenue or collecting the revenue through the tax imposed. It is mainly about how the government and manage its budget in order to stabilize the economy growth. The main concern of fiscal policy is the price stability. In order to maintain the economic growth, a desirable level of price in New Zealand should be achieved because expensive good or services will not be affordable by consumers where this encourages in decrease of the demand level. The price should be remained in a reasonable level of acceptance by consumers to avoid any fall in demand where it discourage business to generate goods and services. High rate of employment is also the main objective of fiscal policy. The high unemployment rate will lower the rate of production and it will influence the level of economic growth to drop. Hence, the government of New Zealand tends to increase the spending such as allocating budget invests in University education sector. The government is rooting for the universities to further expanding New Zealand economic by allocating budget invest in the tertiary education to increase number of graduates with skills required and rate of employment to boost the economy. About $42 million invested for the next 4 years to increase the tuition subsidy to selected courses (Tertiary Education Commission, 2012). Indirectly, it generates more employment by expanding the University education sector because it requires large number of workforce to run the sector. In the other hand, fiscal policy encourage in foreign exchange earnings through exportation of goods or services such as tertiary education. The New Zealand government is enhancing the tertiary education system through Budget 2012 by focusing to improve the educational performance in order to expand this sector (Tertiary Education Commission, 2012). Through the focus given by government, the level of New Zealand education is increased and it attracts quite a number of foreign students from China for approximate 25,345 students and an increase of 2% from last year (New Zealand Education, 2014). These numbers prove that the higher number of foreign student the higher income could earns from foreign countries. (b) (ii) Fiscal policy fine-tuning and its limitations Through fiscal policy approach, government able utilizes this tool to adjust the interest rate and control the spending rate in order to boost the economy (Chirantan, 2014). This policy had its own limitation even though using fiscal policies could stabilize the economy. Inflexibility of fiscal policy can be seen during changes in taxes or spending by government. The objective of fine tuning is to minimize the negative implication by apply the right policy at the right time depending on the state of economy during the different level of economy such as contraction or expansion (Pavlina R. Tcherneva, August 2013). A period of lengthy time could be taken when both political and moral reason to be taken as consideration. By boosting the aggregated demand would lower the rate of unemployment may contribute to inflation as the right shift of aggregate demand would cause rise in price. In the other hand, by shifting the aggregate demand to left would contribute to the increase of unemployment when there is inflation would rather cause dilemmas too. The time lag in applying the approach could be one of the limitations of fiscal policy. It may take up a considerable amount of time to implement unlike monetary policy able to influence economy growth rate easily and time saving by adjusting the interest level. Besides, the fiscal policy implementation involves a comprehensive research to make sure of the economy conditions. The state of the economy might be not the same anymore when the policy is finally ready to be implemented. Government might be gathering the wrong and inaccurate information in such a short period of time and hence economy would suffer from deficit or inflation when the prediction went wrong. (c) (i) Budget deficit Budget deficit in an economy is an situation whereby the federal government spends more than it earn in revenues and causes a budget deficit. The reverse situation will generates a budget surplus as the government earns more revenue than spending. Both fiscal and monetary policies share the same goal which is maintaining the economy rate and achieve a steady economy growth. In fiscal policy, government will increase the tax to decrease the spending because when the goods are expensive, the aggregate demand shifted left and would cause the country to run a deficit. Monetary policy would use to control inflation as well as deflation by manipulating the interest rate. Unlike fiscal policy, the monetary policy will not enlarging the national debt by applying the approach to tune the interest rate to stabilize the economy (Expansionary Monetary Policy Does Not Raise the Budget Deficit, 2013). (c) (ii) A Fully Funded Deficit A fully funded deficit occurs when government expenses is fully funded by tax revenue. This is applicable in theory when there market is perfectly healthy in which the economy is in stabilize state. There are few options, government will either issuing bond or security for a time being to fund the economy. Such options will reduce the spending and boosting the economy. However, during deficit period government will adopt an expansionary fiscal policy to influence the aggregate demand such as supplying money to the economy to lower the currency value. Such move might result in inflation when the demand is higher than supply. (c) (iii) Monetized deficit Monetizing deficit approach is to finance the economy when there is a fiscal deficit in the economy. The government would sell bonds or security by financing the fiscal deficit. Implication from such approach will increase the debt of government. In monetized deficit scenario, the bank would be financing the government debt by producing extra banknotes. Inflation will be happen when the supply of the money is increase in the market and the value of the money will fall. This will help bank to keep targeted inflation rate in ideal range. (a) Trading internationally could of benefit and/or a disadvantage to the business sector. The objective of the international trade is to maximize profits between the interchange of goods and services internationally. The international trade is not only involving the exchanging goods and services across the border, it also creates opportunities for the market to the whole new level. The supply and demand of the goods and services will be created along the international trade occur. In this fast growing economy, the University education sector is no doubt developing an important qualities and criteria on next generation in order to raise the economy level. To ensure producing more competitive and high quality next generation, New Zealand is one of the countries moving towards to achieve the top class of education among the world. The more foreign investments the higher opportunities to stimulates the economy through foreign direct investment. Attracting more foreign investment opportunities will increase the number of universities by expanding the classes and branches worldwide. The government of New Zealand made an effort to attract foreign students such as offering US$2,000 to fund their flight to New Zealand through Education New Zealand Study Abroad Travel Awards (ENZTA) program (New Zealand Education, 2014). Thus, expanding the tertiary education sector will produce much more employment to meet the demands in the market. Higher number of lecturers and administration personnel will be needed to operate the sector. By the times, it could help government to achieve full employment goal. Current balance of payment figures for New Zealand and evaluate the implications of the figures As we can refer from chart 1 and chart 2 from the Appendix A, Statistic New Zealand published the latest seasonally adjusted current account balance of $2 billion deficit in the quarter of June 2014. The amount of deficit is increase for further $1.4 billion since quarter of March 2014. The export of goods and services shown a fell for amount of $1.1 billion and was the main reason contributed to the total deficit value. Referred to chart 2, the balance of goods remains a surplus of $1,250 million in quarter of June 2014. For the year ended of June 2014, the current account shown deficit of $5.8 billion which is 2.5 per cent of the total GDP causes by the fall of export of goods and services. This is can be comparable to 2.7 per cent of GDP from the quarter of March which shown an recovery. New Zealand’s net international liability was recorded at $149.7 billion which equivalent to 65.3 per cent of GDP during 30 June 2014. There is slightly reduction of $1.4 billion from last quarter of March 2014. The external debt shown from the chart was increased by $2.0 billion to total of $142.3 billion to the latest quarter. The high interest rate in New Zealand suspected contributed to the fall in exports of goods and services. This might explain that the fall in export is causes by the low demand of currency. When the currency is expensive, it tends to lower the demand and hence affected the currency value to shoot up. When this applies to New Zealand University education sector, the tuition fees would be relatively expensive than other country. However, the budget 2012 supports Government’s effort on improving the educational performance of students in tertiary education. Through the effort in budget 2012, they invested approximately $42 million to subsidy selected engineering courses for over 4 years (Tertiary Education Commission, 2012). Even though the falls in balance of payment are mainly contributed from the export of goods and services, the effort from government such as allocating the budget to subsidies the tertiary education sector will prove that the sector will continue to benefit t o the economy. (i) ) The impact of exchange rate on the demand and supply of New Zealand dollars The demand and supply was the variables to determine the exchange rates of currency. Shifting the aggregate demand to right will affect the price to rise and shifting supply to right will lower the price. Thus, higher demand of currency will contribute to high price of currency while excessive of supply contributed in low price of currency. It is applicable to University Education sector and can be seen through budget 2012, government provides subsidies and incentive to enhance the education system and bring opportunities to attract foreign students. When there is certain reputation of New Zealand education system among the foreign market, it attracts more foreign to study in this country and the demand for New Zealand dollar will be increase. Since studying in New Zealand requires its currency as fees, it definitely attracts higher investment from the other country. Consequently, the demand of education in New Zealand market from foreign countries will raise the demand of New Zealand currency. The higher of the demand of education, the higher value of the currency (ii) ) The impact of exchange rate on the exports and imports The aggregate demand of the exchange rates is influence by the effect if export and imports. If the exchange rate undergoes a rise, the exports will be cheaper and imports will be more expensive in other currencies. This could be inflationary situation in an economy if the price of import experience rises and make export is cheaper. This effect would increase demand of currency from overseas since the New Zealand dollars is relatively cheaper than other currency because they will find beneficial to their business. The demand is mainly depends on the price elasticity of demand for exports and hence influencing the exchange rate of currency. (iii) The impact of exchange rate on the balance of payments All the payments receipt or pay from other countries is recorded as the balance of payments in a financial account. The financial account records all the transaction either from an individual to a size of business internationally. It involves the inflows and outflows of money for foreign investment in an economy. Generally, the currency value in a balance economy will be more attract more demand for it and hence leading an increase value of currency. When the balance of payment was in negative state, the economy accountability of the balance payment will decrease and it will influence the exchange rate to experience a falls. The scenario happens when there the supply of currency is higher than demand in the market. (iv)The impact of exchange rate on the monetary policy In generally, monetary policy is used to maintain the economy level by manipulating the supplies of money and altering the interest rate. When facing inflation, the approach is used by central bank to increase the interest rate. Such attractive interest rate will attract foreign investor when the return is high and profitable. Hence, it increases the demand of the currency and boosting the level of exchange rate simultaneously. In short, the monetary policy influences the price of money by altering the interest rate to increase the demand. Such exchange rate is simply a reflection of foreign demand for a country currency. References Expansionary Monetary Policy Does Not Raise the Budget Deficit. (2013, October 15). Retrieved September 23, 2014, from Monetary Vs. Fiscal Policy: http://blog.supplysideliberal.com/post/64090184528/monetary-vs-fiscal-policy-expansionary-monetary. Chirantan Basu. (2014, August 31). Business Society. Retrieved September 24, 2014, from What Are the Four Most Important Limitations of Fiscal Policy: http://www.ehow.com/info_8512661_four-important-limitations-fiscal-policy.html New Zealand Education. (2014, September 17). New Zealand Education. Retrieved September 22, 2014, from Market Research : China: http://www.enz.govt.nz/markets-research/china Pavlina R. Tcherneva. (August 2013). Reorienting Fiscal Policy. A Critical Assessment of Fiscal Fine, 1-27. Reserved Bank of New Zealand. (2007, July). Monetary Policy. Retrieved September 23, 2014, from Reserved Bank of New Zealand: http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/monetary_policy/ Tertiary Education Commission. (2012, May 24). Tertiary Education Commission. Retrieved September 22, 2014, from Budget 2012 : Universities: http://www.tec.govt.nz/Funding/Budget/Budget-2012/Universities/ Appendix A Chart 1 Source : Statistic New Zealand Chart 2 Appendix B ; Source : Statistic New Zealand

The Red Shoes :: English Literature Essays

The Red Shoes ‘The Red Shoes’ is an imaginary and unreal story related by Hans Christian Anderson. Anderson makes effective use of fantasy to teach a moral lesson. He builds up the story in such a way that the reader does not care for the validity of the incidents. The moral lesson is that the proud and the disobedient must suffer. Disobedience is a sin, and according to the Christian belief it is what started the demise in the heavens above, so anybody who commits it must suffer. Whatever sins man commits in his lifetime he is punished for them. If only he repents for his sins can he be forgiven and at least he can die in peace. God forgives them only when they repent for their sins. The story also presents another facts of the Christian belief about sin and punishment, which is based on the strict principles of repentance and forgiveness. In the story Karen is a poor but beautiful girl. At the death of her mother, a rich old lady takes her to her home and brings her up. The widow of the cobbler gave Karen a pair of red shoes, which she wore for the first time on her mother’s funeral. The old lady who adopted Karen disliked, the red shoes greatly because of Karen’s obsession for them and so she burnt them. Then once Karen saw the princess wearing beautiful red shoes. Her love for these shoes got re-ignited; she liked them a lot indeed. Karen grew up to be a beautiful damsel. She was to be made the member of the church. Her foster mother, the rich old lady bought her a lovely pair of shoes incidentally those shoes were also red in color. This fact has escaped the old lady’s notice, but Karen found them to be exactly what she yearned for. She went to church in those red shoes. She thought that everyone in the church was looking at her shoes. She wore them at the time of confirmation, which was not the proper occasion to wear them. Karen felt very proud of them. She even forgot to pray in the church when the old lady came to know about it she told Karen not to wear those shoes in future but once again she went to the church wearing those shoes. This accounted for the sin of disobedience she committed.

The Different Types of Memory Essay -- Brain Neurology Psychology Essa

The Different Types of Memory Memory is one of the most puzzling parts of the brain. How can our brain store more information and thoughts than an encyclopedia and weigh less then three pounds? The brain gives us the ability to act on our own. To think, say, and do things we want to do all occur because of our brain. The brain controls our movement, our thoughts, and our memory. Memory, the process of storing and retrieving information in the brain, consists of three main types, short-term, long-term, and ancestral all which can be comparred between genders. Memory is the process of storing and retrieving information in the brain. It has three main functions: recording, storing, and recalling. One records information in the brain by permanently putting it into memory for later retrieval. Most people decide what is important to record and what is not. Storing information in the brain is conducted so information can be retrieved and compacted for later use. Recalling is remembering the stored information. Memory adapts to peoples needs and is a necessary for our way of life (Yesavag 21). Memory decides how long to store something depending on the event. The information it stores is called traces or chunks and is stored in the deep temporal lobe, mid-brain, medial temporal lobe and other various places. Later these traces or chunks are remembered. There are four types of remembering. Recall, recollection, recognition, and relearning. Recall is remembering something from the past. Recollection involves reconstruction of events based on cues that serve as reminders. Recognition is remembering that refers to the ability to correctly identify previous encountered stimuli as familar. And relearning is material learned a second time. Relearning is the best evidence of memory because when something is learned again it is familiar and seems like it was known before. Relearning is having the information retaught to you a second time. A type of memory that doesn’t have recall, recollection, recognition, or relearning is Short-term memory. Short-term memory is memory that is â€Å"in use† and â€Å"active† and located in the deep temporal lobe. Short-term memory is the ability to retain a limited amount of information called chunks for seconds to a minute and to remember it for up to an hour. Short-term memory has a limited amount of room to store chunks an... ...ckslaps, hugs and the way we open doors. Since memory is a puzzling part in the brain, it has been studied over the years. Cyril Burt did a test between males and females seeing which gender had a better short-term memory and long-term. After the testing, the results showed that the males had a better short-term memory. For the test on long-term, the females ended up having a better one. He only tested fifty males and fifty females. Burt also didn’t take notes on how he did the experiment. He died in 1970. W.H. is the initials of a man who had brain surgery in the 1980’s. He was having constant seizures that were located in his temporal lobe. To stop the seizures, surgeons removed his temporal lobe. After the surgery, he couldn’t remember any thing he had done after it. Often forgetting where he was. But he could remember events that happened before the surgery. This all happened because the temporal lobe controls short-term memory. And since its removed he would never have any memories of what happened after the surgery since he cant transfer any thing to his long-term memory. This surgery proves that short-term memory is real and is located in the temporal lobe.

Eco Friendly Constructions

WHAT IS ECO FRIENDLY CONST Eco-friendly, or ecological, construction is building a structure that is beneficial or non-harmful to the environment, and resource efficient. Otherwise known as green building, this type of construction is efficient in its use of local and renewable materials, and in the energy required to build it, and the energy generated while being within it. Eco-friendly construction has developed in response to the knowledge that buildings have an often negative impact upon our environment and our natural resources.This includes transporting materials hundreds or thousands of miles, which has a negative impact in the energy required to transport them, and also in emissions of hazardous chemicals from a poorly designed building that creates, and traps them. INTRODUCTION Green building (also known as green construction or sustainable building) refers to a structure and using process that is environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's lif e-cycle: from siting to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation, and demolition.This requires close cooperation of the design team, the architects, the engineers, and the client at all project stages. [1] The Green Building practice expands and complements the classical building design concerns of economy, utility, durability, and comfort. [2]Although new technologies are constantly being developed to complement current practices in creating greener structures, the common objective is that green buildings are designed to reduce the overall impact of the built environment on human health and the natural environment by: Efficiently using energy, water, and other resourcesProtecting occupant health and improving employee productivity Reducing waste, pollution and environmental degradation[2] A similar concept is natural building, which is usually on a smaller scale and tends to focus on the use of natural materials that are available locally. [3] Other related topics i nclude sustainable design and green architecture. Sustainability may be defined as meeting the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. [4] Green building does not specifically address the issue of the retrofitting existing homes.Reducing environmental impact Green building practices aim to reduce the environmental impact of buildings, so the very first rule is: the greenest building is the building that doesn't get built. New construction almost always degrades a building site, so not building is preferable to building. The second rule is: every building should be as small as possible. The third rule is: do not contribute to sprawl (the tendency for cities to spread out in a disordered fashion). No matter how much grass you put on your roof, no matter how many energy-efficient windows, etc. you use, if you contribute to sprawl, you've just defeated your purpose. Urban infill sites are preferable to suburban â€Å"gree nfield† sites. Buildings account for a large amount of land. According to the National Resources Inventory, approximately 107 million acres (430,000 km2) of land in the United States are developed. The International Energy Agency released a publication that estimated that existing buildings are responsible for more than 40% of the world’s total primary energy consumption and for 24% of global carbon dioxide emissions. [6] Goals of green buildingThe concept of sustainable development can be traced to the energy (especially fossil oil) crisis and the environment pollution concern in the 1970s. [7] The green building movement in the U. S. originated from the need and desire for more energy efficient and environmentally friendly construction practices. There are a number of motives for building green, including environmental, economic, and social benefits. However, modern sustainability initiatives call for an integrated and synergistic design to both new construction and i n the retrofitting of existing structures.Also known as sustainable design, this approach integrates the building life-cycle with each green practice employed with a design-purpose to create a synergy among the practices used. Green building brings together a vast array of practices, techniques, and skills to reduce and ultimately eliminate the impacts of buildings on the environment and human health. It often emphasizes taking advantage of renewable resources, e. g. , using sunlight through passive solar, active solar, and photovoltaic techniques and using plants and trees through green roofs, rain gardens, and reduction of rainwater run-off.Many other techniques are used, such as using wood as a building material, or using packed gravel or permeable concrete instead of conventional concrete or asphalt to enhance replenishment of ground water. While the practices, or technologies, employed in green building are constantly evolving and may differ from region to region, fundamental p rinciples persist from which the method is derived: Siting and Structure Design Efficiency, Energy Efficiency, Water Efficiency, Materials Efficiency, Indoor Environmental Quality Enhancement, Operations and Maintenance Optimization, and Waste and Toxics Reduction. 8][9] The essence of green building is an optimization of one or more of these principles. Also, with the proper synergistic design, individual green building technologies may work together to produce a greater cumulative effect. On the aesthetic side of green architecture or sustainable design is the philosophy of designing a building that is in harmony with the natural features and resources surrounding the site. There are several key steps in designing sustainable buildings: specify ‘green' building materials from local sources, reduce loads, optimize systems, and generate on-site renewable energy.Life cycle assessment (LCA) A life cycle assessment (LCA) can help avoid a narrow outlook on environmental, social an d economic concerns[10] by assessing a full range of impacts associated with all cradle-to-grave stages of a process: from extraction of raw materials through materials processing, manufacture, distribution, use, repair and maintenance, and disposal or recycling. Impacts taken into account include (among others) embodied energy, global warming potential, resource use, air pollution, water pollution, and waste.In terms of green building, the last few years have seen a shift away from a prescriptive approach, which assumes that certain prescribed practices are better for the environment, toward the scientific evaluation of actual performance through LCA. Although LCA is widely recognized as the best way to evaluate the environmental impacts of buildings (ISO 14040 provides a recognized LCA methodology), it is not yet a consistent requirement of green building rating systems and codes, despite the fact that embodied energy and other life cycle impacts are critical to the design of envi ronmentally responsible buildings.The foundation of any construction project is rooted in the concept and design stages. The concept stage, in fact, is one of the major steps in a project life cycle, as it has the largest impact on cost and performance. [12] In designing environmentally optimal buildings, the objective is to minimize the total environmental impact associated with all life-cycle stages of the building project. However, building as a process is not as streamlined as an industrial process, and varies from one building to the other, never repeating itself identically.In addition, buildings are much more complex products, composed of a multitude of materials and components each constituting various design variables to be decided at the design stage. A variation of every design variable may affect the environment during all the building's relevant life-cycle stages. [13] *Energy efficiency Green buildings often include measures to reduce energy consumption – both t he embodied energy required to extract, process, transport and install building materials and operating energy to provide services such as heating and power for equipment.As high-performance buildings use less operating energy, embodied energy has assumed much greater importance – and may make up as much as 30% of the overall life cycle energy consumption. Studies such as the U. S. LCI Database Project [14] show buildings built primarily with wood will have a lower embodied energy than those built primarily with brick, concrete or steel. [15]To reduce operating energy use, designers use details that reduce air leakage through the building envelope (the barrier between conditioned and unconditioned space).They also specify high-performance windows and extra insulation in walls, ceilings, and floors. Another strategy, passive solar building design, is often implemented in low-energy homes. Designers orient windows and walls and place awnings, porches, and trees[16] to shade win dows and roofs during the summer while maximizing solar gain in the winter. In addition, effective window placement (daylighting) can provide more natural light and lessen the need for electric lighting during the day. Solar water heating further reduces energy costs.Onsite generation of renewable energy through solar power, wind power, hydro power, or biomass can significantly reduce the environmental impact of the building. Power generation is generally the most expensive feature to add to a building. Water efficiency Reducing water consumption and protecting water quality are key objectives in sustainable building. One critical issue of water consumption is that in many areas, the demands on the supplying aquifer exceed its ability to replenish itself. To the maximum extent feasible, facilities should increase their dependence on water that is collected, used, purified, and reused on-site.The protection and conservation of water throughout the life of a building may be accomplish ed by designing for dual plumbing that recycles water in toilet flushing. Waste-water may be minimized by utilizing water conserving fixtures such as ultra-low flush toilets and low-flow shower heads. Bidets help eliminate the use of toilet paper, reducing sewer traffic and increasing possibilities of re-using water on-site. Point of use water treatment and heating improves both water quality and energy efficiency while reducing the amount of water in circulation.The use of non-sewage and greywater for on-site use such as site-irrigation will minimize demands on the local aquifer. [17] Materials efficiency Building materials typically considered to be ‘green' include lumber from forests that have been certified to a third-party forest standard, rapidly renewable plant materials like bamboo and straw, dimension stone, recycled stone, recycled metal (see: copper sustainability and recyclability), and other products that are non-toxic, reusable, renewable, and/or recyclable (e. . , Trass, Linoleum, sheep wool, panels made from paper flakes, compressed earth block, adobe, baked earth, rammed earth, clay, vermiculite, flax linen, sisal, seagrass, cork, expanded clay grains, coconut, wood fibre plates, calcium sand stone, concrete (high and ultra high performance, roman self-healing concrete[18]), etc. 19][20]) The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) also suggests using recycled industrial goods, such as coal combustion products, foundry sand, and demolition debris in construction projects [21] Building materials should be extracted and manufactured locally to the building site to minimize the energy embedded in their transportation. Where possible, building elements should be manufactured off-site and delivered to site, to maximise benefits of off-site manufacture including minimising waste, maximising recycling (because manufacture is in one location), high quality elements, better OHS management, less noise and ust. Waste reduction Green architecture also seeks to reduce waste of energy, water and materials used during construction. For example, in California nearly 60% of the state's waste comes from commercial buildings[32] During the construction phase, one goal should be to reduce the amount of material going to landfills. Well-designed buildings also help reduce the amount of waste generated by the occupants as well, by providing on-site solutions such as compost bins to reduce matter going to landfills.To reduce the amount of wood that goes to landfill, Neutral Alliance (a coalition of government, NGOs and the forest industry) created the website dontwastewood. com. The site includes a variety of resources for regulators, municipalities, developers, contractors, owner/operators and individuals/homeowners looking for information on wood recycling. When buildings reach the end of their useful life, they are typically demolished and hauled to landfills. Deconstruction is a method of harvesting what is commonly considered â€Å"w aste† and reclaiming it into useful building material. 33] Extending the useful life of a structure also reduces waste – building materials such as wood that are light and easy to work with make renovations easier. [34]To reduce the impact on wells or water treatment plants, several options exist. â€Å"Greywater†, wastewater from sources such as dishwashing or washing machines, can be used for subsurface irrigation, or if treated, for non-potable purposes, e. g. , to flush toilets and wash cars. Rainwater collectors are used for similar purposes. Centralized wastewater treatment systems can be costly and use a lot of energy.An alternative to this process is converting waste and wastewater into fertilizer, which avoids these costs and shows other benefits. By collecting human waste at the source and running it to a semi-centralized biogas plant with other biological waste, liquid fertilizer can be produced. This concept was demonstrated by a settlement in Lubeck Germany in the late 1990s. Practices like these provide soil with organic nutrients and create carbon sinks that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, offsetting greenhouse gas emission. Producing artificial fertilizer is also more costly in energy than this process. [35]