Literary genres

1. The body of written works of a language, period, or culture. 2. Imaginative or creative writing, especially of recognized artistic value:†Literature must be an analysis of experience and a synthesis of the findings into a unity† (Rebecca West). 3. The art or occupation of a literary writer. 4. The body of written work produced by scholars or researchers in a given field:medical literature. 5. Printed material: collected all the available literature on the subject. 6. Music All the compositions of a certain kind or for a specific instrument or ensemble: the symphonic literature. 1.written material such as poetry, novels, essays, etc. , esp works of imagination characterized by excellence of style and expression and by themes of general or enduring interest 2. the body of written work of a particular culture or people Scandinavian literature 3. written or printed matter of a particular type or on a particular subject scientific literature the literature of the violin 4. printed material giving a particular type of information sales literature 5. the art or profession of a writer 6. Obsolete learning 1. writing in prose or verse regarded as having permanent worth through its intrinsic excellence.2. the entire body of writings of a specific language, period, people, etc. 3. the writings dealing with a particular subject. 4. the profession of a writer or author. 5. literary work or production. 6. any kind of printed material, as circulars, leaflets, or handbills. 7. Archaic. literary culture; appreciation of letters and books. | literature – the humanistic study of a body of literature; â€Å"he took a course in Russian lit. literary study – the humanistic study of literatureliterature – creative writing of recognized artistic value| || literature – published writings in a particular style on a particular subject; â€Å"the technical literature†; â€Å"one aspect of Waterloo has not yet been treated in the literatu re†piece of writing, written material, writing – the work of a writer; anything expressed in letters of the alphabet (especially when considered from the point of view of style and effect); â€Å"the writing in her novels is excellent†; â€Å"that editorial was a fine piece of writing†literature – creative writing of recognized artistic valuehistoriography – a body of historical literature| | | literature – the profession or art of a writer; â€Å"her place in literature is secure†profession – an occupation requiring special education (especially in the liberal arts or sciences)literature – creative writing of recognized artistic valueTypes of Literature: Fictional Literature Drama: Drama is the theatrical dialog performed on stage, it consists of 5 acts. Tragedy, comedy and melodrama are the sub types of drama. e. g William Shakespeare, an Elizabethan dramatist composed the plays Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, King Lea r that are famous because of its combination of tragedy and comedy. Problem play, farce, fantasy, monologue and comedy of manners are some kinds of drama.Tragedy: It is a story of the major character who faces bad luck. Tragedy, elements of horrors and struggle usually concludes with the death of a person. The Illiad and The Odyssey by Homer are the two famous Greek tragedies. Comedy: The lead character overcomes the conflicts and overall look of the comedy is full of laughter and the issues are handled very lightly. The elements used in the comedy are romanticism, exaggeration, surprises and a comic view of life. Melodrama: Melodrama is a blend of two nouns – ‘melody' and ‘drama'. It is a musical play most popular by 1840. Uncle Tom's Cabin is one of the most popular plays describing cruelty of labor life.It has happy ending like comedy. Tragicomedy: The play that begins with serious mode but has a happy ending is tragicomedy. Prose Literature History, journalism , philosophy, fiction and fantasy writings, scientific writings, children's literature authors and writers are included in Prose Literature. Myth Myths are the fairy tales with lots of adventure, magic and it lacks scientific proof. Nursery rhymes, songs and lullabies are forms of myths that strike the interest of children. Creative and nature myth are stories of the stars and moon. Magic tales are wonderful tales of quests and fantasy. Hero myths are ideal heroes of adventure. Short storyThe small commercial fiction, true or imaginary, smaller than a novel is known as short story. Short stories are well-grouped that followed the sequence of easy and no complexity in beginning, concrete theme, some dialogs and ends with resolution. They are oral and short-lived which have gossip, joke, fable, myth, parable, hearsay and legend. Novel Novel can be based on comic, crime, detective, adventurous, romantic or political story divided into many parts. The major kinds of novels are: Allegory : The symbolic story revolves around two meanings. What the writer says directly is totally different from the conveyed meanings at the end. Political and Historical allegory are two forms of Allegory.Comedy: Satire is very common form in comedy novels and tries to focus on the facts of the society and their desires. Epistolary: The collection of letters or mails is the epistolary novels. Samuel Richardson's Pamela and Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrew are the few examples of Epistolary novels. Feminist: These types of novels are written by women writers around the world to describe the place of women in a male dominated society. E. g Virginia Woolf's â€Å"A Room of one's Own†. Gothic: Gothic fiction is the combination of both horror and romance. Melodrama and parody were grouped in the Gothic literature in its early stages. Ironic: Ironic novels are known for excessive use of narrative technique.It is satire on the contemporary society about cultural, social and political issu es. Realism: The realistic novels are based on the truths of ordinary society and their problems. It focuses on the plot, structure and the characters of the novel. Romance: Love and relationship topics are handled optimistically in the romantic novels. It originated in western countries; basically the story revolves around love affairs of main characters. Some popular sub categories of romantic novels are paranormal, erotic, suspense, multicultural and inspirational romance. Narration: In narrative style, writer becomes the third person who narrates whole story around the characters.Naturalism: Naturalism is based on the theory of Darwin. Picaresque: It is opposite to romance novels as it involves ideals, themes and principles that refuse the so-called prejudices of the society. Psychological: It's the psychological prospective of mind with a resolution. Satire: Satirical novels criticize the contemporary society. The most famous novels are Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726 ), Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim (1954), George Orwell's Animal Farm and Randell Jarrell's Pictures from an Institution (1954). Stream of Consciousness: James Joyce's stream of consciousness is all about the thought coming up in the minds of the readers.A novel also constitutes categories on social and political aspects like proletarian, psychological, protest novel, government, didactic, materialist novel, allegorical novel, novel of engagement, naturalistic novel, Marxist novel, radical novel, revolutionary novel, anti-war novel, utopian novel, futuristic novel, anarchist novel, problem novel, social philosophy novel, novel of ideas, problem play and speculative novel. Folk Tale Folk Tales are traditional stories that have been creating interest since ancient times. The children and old persons like religious story, magic and superstition as well. Fable, tall tales, cumulative, trickster and proverbs are the sub categories of folk tales. Mythology or legend is the ancient religious st ories of origin and human civilization such as story of Robin Hood. Types of poetryPoetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in the tranquility. Greek poetry is found in free verse and we have rhymes in the Persian poem. Are you wondering how to write a poem, here are the followings forms of poem? Sonnet: Sonnet is the short poem of 14 lines grouped into Shakespearean and Italian sonnets. Ballad: The poems that are on the subject matter of love and sung by the poet or group of singers as telling readers a story. Elegy: This type of poem is the lamenting of the death of a person or his near one. Elegy Written in Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray is one of the famous poems marked as sad poems of the ages. Ode: Ode is the formal and long poem serious in nature.Allegory: Allegory is the famous form of poetry and is loved by the readers because of its two symbolic meanings. One is the literal meaning and another is the deep meaning. Epic and Mock epic: Epics are the narrative poems that convey moral and culture of that period. The Odyssey and Iliad are one of the largest philosophical epics written by Samuel Butler. Rape of the Lock is the great mock epic focusing on the minor incident of cutting of a curl. Lyric: It has Greek origin that gives a melody of imagery. It is the direct appeal of a poet to the readers about any incident or historical events. Lyrics are most of the time similar to ode or sonnets in the form. Nonfiction Literature:Nonfiction Literature is opposite to fiction as it is informative and comprises the interesting facts with analysis and illustrations. Main types of Non- fiction literature Autobiography and Biography An autobiography is the story of the author's own life. ‘Family Life at the White House' by Bill Clinton is focused on his life and achievements. ‘Wings of fire' by Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, Mein kampf of Adolph Hitler are the autobiography books on real life. Essay Generally the authors' point of view about any particular topic in a detailed way is an essay. Essay has simple way of narrating the main subject; therefore they are descriptive, lengthy, subject oriented and comparative.Different types of essay: Personal essay, expository essay type, response essay, process essay, persuasive essay, argumentative essay, critical essay type, interview essay, reflective essay type, evaluation, observation essay, comparison type of essay, application essay, compare and contrast essay and narrative essay type. Literary criticism It is the critical study of a piece of literature. Here critics apply different theories, evaluation, discussion and explanation to the text or an essay to give total judgments. Plato, Aristotle, T. S. Eliot, Saussure and Frye are some of the famous critics. Travel literature It is the narration of any tour or foreign journey with the description of the events, dates, places, sights and author's views.Francis Bacon's natural philosophies in the middle of S eventeenth century is one famous example of travel literature. Diary Diaries are the incidents recorded by the author without any means of publishing them. It is the rough work of one's daily routine, happenings, memorable days or events in their life. E. g. Anne Frank's ‘Diary of a Young Girl' was published by her father in 1940s; it's a story of a girl trapped during German invade Amsterdam. Diaries consists of business letters, newsletters, weather listing. In today's world of Internet, writers write in blogs, forums, polls and social networking sites to convey their thoughts. This also is a form of diary writing.Some profound forms of diaries are online diary, travel, sleep, tagebuch, fictional, dream and death diaries. Journal Journal is one of types of diaries that records infinite information. They are of following types: Personal: It is for personal analysis. In this journal one can write his goal, daily thoughts, events and situations. Academic: It is for students who do research or dissertation on particular subjects. Creative journals: Creative journals are the imaginative writing of a story, poem or narrative. Trade: Trade journals are used by industrial purposes where they dictate practical information. Dialectical: This journal is use by students to write on double column notebook.They can write facts, experiments, and observation on the left side and right side can be a series of thoughts and response with an end. Newspaper It is a collection of daily or weekly news of politics, sports, leisure, fashion, movies and business. Magazine Magazines can be the current affairs or opinions well collected covering various content. Frame Narrative The psychoanalysis of human mind is present in a frame narrative. Here we find another story within the main story. Some of the popular narratives are Pegasus, Wuthering Heights, The Flying Horse, The Three Pigs, A Time to keep and the Tasha Tudor Book of Holidays. Outdoor literature Outdoor literature is the literature of adventure that gives whole exploration of an event.Exciting moments of life such as horse riding, fishing, trekking can be a part of literature. Some outdoor books are ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' by Mark Twain, ‘Treasure Island' by Robert Louis, ‘Voyages' by Richard Hakluyt and ‘A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush' by Eric Newby. Narrative form of Literature Today we find movies, audio and video CD's and Cassettes that present current literature in use. Digital poetry is an upcoming trend too. Comic books, cartoons, eBook and Internet games are the learning methods for children. Literature includes centuries, human nature, cultures and souls. Isn't it? Read more at Buzzle: http://www. buzzle. com/articles/types-of-literature. html|

Importance of Organic Foods Essay

The definition of organic agriculture is farming with the use of synthetic chemicals. After World War II, larger and increasingly automated farms, known as â€Å"factory farms,† put the synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides developed in the 1920s into widespread use. They found that more crops could be produced mass produced. What they did not realize were the dangers of using these chemicals and the effects they would have on the environment and human health. The USDA must approve all products claiming to be organic and there are many strict guidelines farmers must follow. Farmers must abstain from the use of prohibited materials (pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, and sewage sludge) for three years prior to being certified organic and then continue these practices throughout their organic license. They must employ positive soil burning, conservation, manure management and crop rotation. They must provide outdoor access and pastures for livestock and refrain from the use of antibiotics and hormones in their animals, while sustaining livestock on 100% organic feed. Farmers may not use genetically modified organisms or irradiation. Organic products are grown in healthier soil and contain higher levels of nutrients and non-organics. Many organic may even taste better. Food irradiation is worse than the radiation from a television or microwave. The ionizing radiation processes used on food break up molecules and deplete food of essential vitamins and enzymes. Many pesticides are linked to diseases. An example is glufosinate, which is commonly used on sugar beets and canola, has been shown to cause birth defects. Chemical companies influence the government to raise the acceptable levels of chemicals in foods so that they can make more money on their product without concern for the environment and the safety of people. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is encouraging the use of biosolids (human waste) to be used as fertilizers in order to solve the problem of there being too much waste than they know what to do with. They problem is that industrial waste and toxic chemicals get mixed in. Many toxins such as PCBs, DDT, asbestos, dioxins, and toxic heavy metals are being used in the cultivation of food. Yuck. Another problem we face is the use of hormones and antibiotics in our livestock. Bovine growth hormones end up in our dairy products, and those BGHs and linked to prostate and breast cancer. The ingestion of antibiotics can damage the balance of beneficial bacteria in our bodies and create drug-resistance, so that if we really get sick, antibiotics may not work anymore. Many people may try to eat healthier by cutting down on fast-foods and processed foods by eating more fruits and vegetables, but this can even defeat itself. For example, non-organic spinach contains for pesticide residue than any other fruit or vegetable. The twelve most contaminated crops are: strawberries, green and red bell peppers, spinach, cherries (US), peaches, cantaloupe (Mexico), celery, apples, apricots, green beans, grapes (Chile), and cucumbers. More than 90% of all pesticides used don’t even reach the desired plant they were used on! There are many reasons to buy organic foods. You will protect future generations- decrease the cancer causing pesticides in foods. You will prevent soil erosion- soil is the foundation of our food chain, and chemicals fertilizers deplete healthy soil. You will protect water quality- water makes of three-fourths of the planet, and the EPA has estimated that pesticides contaminate the ground water in over thirty-eight states. You will save energy- modern farming uses more petroleum than any other industry, but organic farming is based mainly on labor intensive practices and uses green manure to build up soil. You’ll keep chemicals off of your plate- the EPA considers 60% of herbicides, 90% of fungicides, and 30% of insecticides carcinogenic. You will protect farm worker health- over one million people are poisoned annually by pesticides, and farmers exposed to herbicides have a six times greater risk of contracting cancer. You’ll help small farmers- most organic farms are small and independently owned, and the US has lost more and 650, 000 family farms in the past decade. You’ll promote biodiversity- insects become genetically resistant to insecticides, and soil is left lacking natural minerals and nutrients if chemicals are used. And the number one reason to buy organic- your food will taste better and contain more essential vitamins and nutrients! Pittsburgh Organic and some helpful websites: East End Food Co-op 7516 Meade Street PGH, PA 15208 412-242-3598 E House Company 1511 East Carson Street PGH, PA 412-488-7455 www. eastendfood. coop www. nascigs. com -request a free carton of smokes! www. cleanvibes. com www. organicconsumers. org www. odemagazine. net www. organickitchen. com www. sare. org www. themeatrix. com.

The role and value of play Essay

All children and young people need to play. Children’s play is behavior which is freely chosen, self-motivated and personally directed, and the impulse to play is in all of us. Through play the child explores the world and its creative potential, discovering all the while, a flexible range of responses to the challenges, she or he encounters. By playing, the child learns and develops as an individual and as a member of the community – be it at home, the street and area they live in, their school or a holiday play scheme. As such, play is a right, recognised in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child – Article 31. Play is essential for children’s physical, emotional and psychological growth, as well as their intellectual, creative and educational development. When children play they build up a sense of identity, self-respect, confidence and their own self-worth. Through playing with others, children build a resource of behavioural techniques to help them navigate complex social worlds including younger children not to feel intimidated by older children. The contemporary environment in which many children grow up is not designed with them in mind, and at times and in some areas provides limited opportunities for safe and creative play. Increasing traffic due to continuous property development, parental fears of strangers and lack of open spaces all restrict children’s play outdoors, but by providing and protecting play-rich environments for children we can counteract these limitations. Much has been written on the subject of play and there is visibility in legislation and guidance for professionals: – Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play, has said that â€Å"play is anything that spontaneously is done for its own sake†¦appears purposeless, produces pleasure and joy, leads one to the next stage of mastery† (as cited in Tippett, July 2008; italics added). – Edward Miller and Joan Almon describe play as â€Å"activities that are freely chosen and directed by children and arise from intrinsic motivation† (2009, p15). – Jeannine Ouellette refers to play as â€Å"activity that is unencumbered by adult direction, and does not depend on manufactured items or rules imposed by someone other than the kids themselves† (Ouellette, 2007, para13). – â€Å"The main characteristic of play – child or adult – is not its content, but its mode. Play is an approach to  action, not a form of activity.† Jerome Bruner, quoted in Moyles (1989) – â€Å"From an early age, play is important to a child’s development and learning. It isn’t just physical. It can involve cognitive, imaginative, creative, emotional and social aspects. It is the main way most children express their impulse to explore, experiment and understand. Children of all ages play.† (Dobson, 2004, p8) In June 2010 the coalition government set up a Childhood and families taskforce, Nick Clegg, Deputy prime minister said in his opening speech, â€Å"For too many British children, childhood has become a time of stress, anxiety and insecurity, when it should be a time of discovery, learning and adventure. My purpose in politics – and the job of this coalition government – is to change that, to live up to our responsibility and lay the foundations for better lives for our children.† At the launch of the revised EYFS, published March 2012, following the Tickell review, we were once again reminded that â€Å"play is essential for children’s development.† When children play, they are actively engaged in activities they have freely chosen; that is, they are self-directed and motivated from within. â€Å"Best Play† starts with a definition of play and with a set of values and principles. Both the definition and the values and principles are well recognised within the play work profession, (though they can be expressed in slightly different ways, for instance they can be found in the National Occupational Standards for National Vocational Qualifications in Play work and in the New Charter for Children’s Play (Children’s Play Council 1998), though perhaps less so outside it. It then looks at evidence and arguments about the role of play in child development and the consequences of a lack of good play opportunities. â€Å"Play is freely chosen, personally directed, intrinsically motivated behavior that actively engages the child†. This definition draws closely on the work of Bob Hughes and Frank King. Children choosing what they want to do, why and how they want to do it then when to stop and try something else is the simplistic breakdown of the definition. Free play has no external goals set by adults and has no adult  imposed curriculum. Although adults usually provide the space and resources for free play and might be involved, the child takes the lead and the adults respond to cues from the child. When children can pursue play under their own impulse and initiative, they are able to: Practice decision-making skills Discover their own interests Engage fully in what they want to pursue Develop creative problem solving skills Practice skills in resolving conflicts Develop self-regulation Develop trust, empathy, and social skills Develop language and communication skills Use their creativity and imagination Develop skills for critical thinking and leadership Analyse and reflect on their experiences Reduce stress in their everyday lives However, there is a growing consensus about some of the possible implications of play deprivation, based on reasonable assumptions about the role of personal experience and self-directed activity in the development of a range of competences. Depending on the types of play opportunity that are lacking, children could be affected in the following ways: Poorer ability in motor tasks Lower levels of physical activity Poorer ability to deal with stressful or traumatic situations and events Poorer ability to assess and manage risk Poorer social skills, leading to difficulties in negotiating social situations such as dealing with conflict and cultural difference Every child is different and will play in their way. As an adult and the manager of the After School Club (ASC) I need to recognise the impact that myself and co workers have on a child’s play opportunities. Throughout the session I take time to observe, consult, plan, and participate in play knowing the great potential for learning that play offers – developing skills and abilities, providing opportunities to co-operate, developing  friendships, taking turns, resolving conflicts and solving problems, and developing knowledge and understanding of the world. While children will sometimes need support, it should be recognised that they will often benefit from opportunities to play without adult supervision. Therefore we, the play workers, must understand the impact we have, giving consideration to the differences of each child including behaviors. Bob Hughes (2006), a playworker and play theorist, has identified sixteen play types, including creative, dramatic, explorat ory, fantasy, locomotor, mastery, object , role, rough and tumble, social, socio-dramatic, symbolic, deep (extremely risky) and recapitulative (ritual) play. Their very description indicates a relevance to the social, physical, intellectual, creative and emotional development. Snapshots of play at ASC: Eddie and Eleanor are playing a new game – Mancala. Eleanor was pleased to discover the game in the cupboard and is teaching Eddie as she has the game at home, she told Eddie how she loves playing it with her Dad. Eleanor explains the rules and object of the game, they play repeatedly, both enjoying the competitiveness. George, Robert and Calum have built a play scene on the wooden piano using the play animals, a piece of camouflage material and wooden tree pieces. They have built dens for their animals at different levels and then use blocks and vehicles they have made from lego to destroy the animal’s dens. The tigers dens is last to be destroyed says Calum â€Å"they are the fiercest animals and will fight you really hard to protect their home† â€Å"Foxes are fierce, said Robert, they ate my rabbit.† Libby, Evie and Katie asked to share a dance they had learnt at school today. Mrs. Colucci found the CD player for them to use. They had fun performing their routine to an audience and added props and different costumes to wear as they repeated their performances. They add a new piece to the end and are going to show that to their teacher tomorrow. Dylan and Alfie are playing with the cars, lining them up to move around the mat to get to the garage. Toby, Sam and Ben are building a ramp over the garage for the cars to be able to loop the loop and fly through the air! In summary – Play can be fun, challenging and enjoyable for both adults and children. By helping children to take part in different types of play on  their own and with others, and by providing a well-resourced play environment inside and outside, adults can greatly enrich the learning opportunities that play provides. â€Å"Play is the answer to how anything new comes about.† Jean Piaget REFERENCES FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES EVERY CHILD MATTERS, THE 5 OUTCOMES AND THE UNCRC NATIONAL OCCUPATIONAL STANDARDS FOR PLAYWORK PLAY ENGLAND – MAKING IT HAPPEN, IMPLEMENTING THE CHARTER FOR CHILDRENS PLAY PLAY ENGLAND – PLAY, NATURALLY – A REVIEW OF CHILDRENS NATURAL PLAY PLAYWORK PRINCIPLES. SKILLS ACTIVE PLAYWORK SECTOR / EYFS BRIEFING DOCUMENT Play, naturally A review of children’s natural play Stuart Lester and Martin Whilst researching material for writing this essay I enjoyed reading the following publication. Their suggested reading list is one I will work my way through to continue to extend my knowledge on this subject. A guide to child-led play and its importance for thinking and learning Playing to learn A publication commissioned by ATL from Di Chilvers Recommended reading list from the publication Broadhead, P. (2004). Early Years Play and Learning – Developing Social Skills and Cooperation. RoutledgeFalmer. Broadhead, P. (ed.) (2010). Play and Learning in the Early Years. Sage. Bruce, T. (1987). Early Childhood Education. Hodder and Stoughton. Bruce, T. (1991). Time to Play in Early Childhood Education. Hodder and Stoughton. Bruce, T. (2001). Learning Through Play: Babies, Toddlers and the Foundation Years. Hodder and Stoughton. Bruce, T. (ed.) (2006). Early Childhood – A Guide for Students. Sage. Lindon, J. (2001). Understanding Children’s Play. Nelson Thornes. Manning, K. & Sharp. A. (1977). Structuring Play in the Early Years at School. Ward Lock Educational. Moyles, J. (1989). Just Playing? The Role and Status of Play in Early Childhood Education. Open University Press. Moyles, J. (ed.) 1994. The Excellence of Play. Open University Press. Project Zero. (2001). Making Learning Visible – Children as Individual and Group Learners. Reggio Children. Siraj-Blatchford, I. et al. (2002). Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years. Department for Education and Skills and the Institute of Education. Research Report 356.

Determinants of demand for airline tickets Term Paper

Determinants of demand for airline tickets - Term Paper Example Large carriers in the industry have quite dominated the market, but the tactics of small carriers have been expressed to develop, and be able to penetrate the difficult large carrier zones, by providing frequent services through low cost carrier. It also elaborates the yield management pricing strategy of airline industries to maximize their profits by providing similar services to their customers at different prices. Finally, other concerns that the customers and airlines should consider before respectively buying and selling their tickets, which may affect their satisfaction and benefits are discussed. Keywords: Airline Industry, Customers, Large Carriers, Small Carriers, Low Cost Carriers Pricing Strategy, Demand, Demand Elasticity, Tickets, Profits ,In Flight Amenities Air transportation is one of the fastest modes of travelling in the modern society that has embraced technology and is very concerned with time management. It is very flexible and timely, but not everyone has had t he opportunity to use it. The airfares are quite expensive and some societies may view air travelling as a luxury. However, airline customers are offered a variety of airline tickets to purchase according to their suitability. ... They include income, ticket price, competitor’s ticket price, economy state, customer’s income, availability of substitute mode of transport and substitute price, customer loyalty, fright frequency, and preference among other minor factors (2008). Airline Industry Oligopoly and Ticket Price Taking an example of U.S. market share of the airline industry, in the third quarter of 2009, the four largest carriers, Delta & North, American, United and Continental airlines held 21.8, 15.2, 13.0 and 10.1percents respectively, totaling up to 60.1 % while the others held the 39.9 %, which best refer to an oligopoly situation(â€Å"Airline competition,† 2011). In general Enz states that â€Å"air line in United States, European union and Asia are dominated by a few large carriers† (2010, 65). The Airline industry consists of numerous firms global wise, and at an individual nation level, that merge up at times to create competition in service production. An action by a ny firm carrier in the industry has an impact on the general market since they are interdependent on each other. An entry in the airline industry is often difficult, and the collusion of the few existing companies in the industry gives the merging group superior marketplace control. While providing similar products that at times may be having no variation, it is often associated with insignificant competition if not none preferring product differentiation for a firm uniqueness. If one firm decides to change the ticket price for its customers, then this action would adversely affect the demand of tickets and flow of customers in other firms. Stability of an airline firm in the industry becomes deeply connected to the action and reactions of every single airline firm. If one company

World war 1 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

World war 1 - Essay Example he abrupt cause of the war was entrenched in the conclusions reached by statesmen and generals during the July Crisis of 1914, which saw the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife by an irredentist Serb (Ferguson 1-11). The conflict came after a long and complicated series of diplomatic collision between the Great Powers including France, British Empire, Italy, Austria-Hungarian Empire, Germany and Russia over colonial and European concerns in the decade before 1914 that had precipitated a high tension. Consequently, these diplomatic collisions can be traced to amendments in the balance of power in Europe since 1867. The more abrupt cause for the war was tensions over territory in the Balkans. Russia and Serbia competed with Austria-Hungary for territory and power in the region and they pulled the rest of the Great Powers into the collisions through their various coalitions and treaties. In November 1912 Russia, mortified by its incapacity to support Serbia during the Bosnia crisis of 1908, announced a major reconstruction of its military (Harrison 30-45). The start of World War I has exceedingly been attributed to imperialism. Countries such as France and British Empire amassed great wealth in the late 19th century through direct control over foreign trade in foreign resources, territories, markets and people. Further empires, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Italy and Germany held high hopes of controlling foreign trade too. Their humiliated dreams and United Kingdom guidelines of strategic omission precipitated tensions. Furthermore, the limits to natural resources in many European nations began to gradually change trade balance, and made national industries hunt for new territories rich in natural resources. Profit-making interests contributed considerably to Anglo-German competition during the scuttle for tropical Africa. This was the landscape of the sharpest disagreement between particular German and British money-making interests.

LEAN MANAGEMENT FEASIBILITY FOR PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS Assignment

LEAN MANAGEMENT FEASIBILITY FOR PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS - Assignment Example Such factors as lack of profit motivation, political issues in the hierarchy, scepticism and doubts about willingness to support lean management by the leaders, and even legal impediments can cause failures in the implementation of lean management as it is often understood to mean reduction in personnel and jobs. Assuming there is no law preventing lay-offs for public sector workers, the leadership may consider the strategy. Another assumption would be the fact that a Collective Bargaining Agreement with a labor union can permit lay-offs. In situations wherein lean management is possible, careful study of the implications of that strategy would have to be done. Research findings have identified dangerous negative results like lower quality of public services and loss of capability to be more competitive given a change in requirements for more competitive services, and the long term problems for public workers who will be obliged to shoulder additional tasks due to manpower reductions . Lean management can work if there are no legal impediments and if the available workforce will have the skills and capabilities to takeover some jobs not frequently required. Thus, careful preparations, training, and knowledge dissemination to tap all other alternative means to improve performance in order to reduce cost and expenses thereby reducing budget requirement before resorting to job cuts – all these should be done. Cooperation of leaders and followers will be needed for the successful implementation of lean management strategy. The organization’s culture will have to be ready for changes. Table of Contents Executive Summary†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 1 Introduction†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â ‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 3 1. Scenario Description 2. Lean Management Defined 3. Objectives of the Business Research & Report Methods†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 3 Results†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 6 1. Limitations of Lean Management 1.1 Adequate Manpower Capacity to Perform with Good Performance 1.2 Must Consider Short Run & Long Run Impact 1.3 Manpower Knowledge & Awareness of Urgency for Change 2. Implementation Challenges in Public Organizations: Nine (9) Factors 3. Why Projects in Public Sectors Failed 4. Warnings Against Unprepared Implementations of Lean Management 5. Pre-requisites for Successful I mplementation 5.1 Adequate Knowledge for Proper Implementation 5.2 Adequate Capacity for Good Performance 5.3 Leadership Participation & Workforce Cooperation 5.4 Short-to-Long Term Consequences Foreseen to be Good Conclusions†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦10 Recommendations†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..11 Appendix†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦13 References†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..15 Introduction The CEO has requested for a careful study of the Lean Management process for a public organization in order to evaluate the impact and feasibility of implementing it as a way of initiating improvements to arrive at cost reduction while having better work performance. Lean Management is a comprehensive system of getting things done by learning from past experiences, eliminating unnecessary activities, costs, and expenses, and then continuously improving processes in order to do more with less

Qualitative Assesment Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Qualitative Assesment - Assignment Example Themes represent patterned responses from the data in relation to the research topic and mostly occur severally in the data set (Guest, 2012). This study aims at conducting a thematic analysis of qualitative data from in-depth interviews of passengers view on airport security of an international airline company and presents it for information generation and decision making by the management. All the passengers interviewed believed that the heightened security at the airports have increased delays at the airport. Passengers feel that the heightened measures aimed at augmenting security hamper their plans of boarding planes on time. This is despite three of the passengers blaming it on the security personnel and security measures done by the airports while one passenger blaming the passengers who lack cooperation and understanding of the security system at the airport for the delays experienced at the airports. It is evident that the main concern for all the passengers in relation to security measures at the airport is delays. Four of the five interviewees believe that there is excess security at the airports hindering and hampering the access to personal freedom rights and infringing on the passengers personal space. They feel that there is a need of the security personnel to reduce the chances of search of passengers luggage without permission and if his has to be done to be done in a humanly manner to ensure the passengers understand that the heightened security is for their personal good owing to high security concerns at the airport. Some of them believe that the full body scans could have excess radiation that may have a negative impact o their health raising the feeling of excessive security at airports. Three of the five passengers interviewed feel that there is an increase in the safety of the passengers due to the heightened security

War Dance response Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

War Dance response - Essay Example The ability of human beings to invent fire portrays one of their major uniqueness. Fire was able to change the lives of human beings in numerous aspects which are still witnessed today. Unlike other animals, human beings have unique body structure. For example, they have opposable thumbs and have ability to communicate more efficiently and effectively using different means such as languages, signs, body movements to mention just but a few. Moreover, human beings have strong socials connections and have highly developed brains as compared to other animals/species. This can be substantiated by the fact that they have been able to make the entire world a global village through their creativity and innovation of communication information technology (Zhu and Dasheng, pp.34-35). In addition to this, human beings are social animals; this argument may be substantiated by the fact that human beings like living together in social groups. They tend to live as community members rather than individuals human beings. For example, the emergence of cities is good evidence. Most people move from isolated places such as rural areas and move to cities to look for employment as well as socialize with other people. Based on the traditional human social structure, it can be observed that human beings are social animals. For example, they used to have families whereby, a man could decide to become a monogamous by marrying several wives and having numerous children’s. The family members stayed together in the same house (Zhu and Dasheng, pp.34-35). The poems and stories in War Dance by Sherman Alexie display characters and relationship of various people. The first character that helps to support the stated argument is the narrator of the poem in War Dance. The seats with his father in a lonely room in a hospital after his father had undergone surgery on his

An Analysis of the Impact of the Internet on Competition in the Essay

An Analysis of the Impact of the Internet on Competition in the Banking Industry, using Porters Five Forces Model - Essay Example It helps to reduce physical and high operating cost (Johns and Perrott, 2008). For example, Amazon.com use internet that reduces its operating costs, so, it provides books at low costs as compared to large conventional bookstores. Requirement of knowledge: For the banks, large capital is required, but in internet banking, no physical networks are required. Online banking deliver services more economically and speedily. Internet banking changes the rules of competition for small and large banks and minimizes the importance of physical distance and location (Siaw and Yu, 2004). Brand building: Brand building is necessary for products and banking services that are undifferentiated. The internet creates the high-level image of brand that helps to make more informed purchase decisions for customers because they found everything on the web. The internet is helpful to change the balance of power for the customer’s benefits. Customer segmentation: Financial institutions can increase profits through effective customer segmentation. Internet banking is an effective channel for reaching customers. With the help of this, banks can target same customers through internet services (Johns and Perrott, 2008). On the other hand, customers gain more profits from internet banking as compared to traditional banking. So, it is profitable for banks to develop the lucrative market segment, identify profitable internet banking customers and target them. Customer relationship management: In the banking industry, a firm develops new products and other banks copy them quickly, so, customers shift from one bank to another and internet makes it easy for customers. Thus, to differentiate, banks should manage the relationship with customers (Momparler, Climent and Ballester, 2012). Through the internet, bank can provide product information and other services to target customers and maintain relationships with them for long-term profitability. Global market: Internet has

Adidas competing with Nike in china Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Adidas competing with Nike in china - Essay Example bout combining the consumers to the product design and create solid plans and methods in building long-lasting relationship between the business and the customers. Marketing is seen not only in business but also in other aspects of life like arts, fashion, retailers, publishers, people, internet providers, tourism, education, government, non-profit organizations and even sports (Groucutt, Leadley and Forsyth, 2004). In the 20th century it is note-worthy to take note of the globalization of business which is affected by internal factors such as mission, systems, management and resource structures; external factors like customers, suppliers, labor force, shareholders, society, technology, governments, economy and competition (Lussier and Kimball, 2009). According to Heizer and Render, most companies that enter the global markets like Europe, South America and China expand their businesses especially supply chains with challenges. Proper and innovative strategic planning and careful research must be conducted to reduce the high political and currency risks in all countries around the world. Some key points for global supply chains are: to be able to adjust to quick changes like currency exchange fluctuations, distribution channels and parts availability; to be able to use the computer and internet technology to manage the system, schedule and distribution; to be able to seek help from teams made u p of specialists to handle all sorts of issues. A good example is Mc Donald’s, the fast food chain had planned six years ahead before expanding in Russia and had a supply chain there to lower the cost of distribution and to keep the quality of the food (Gaspar et. al, 2006). Nike and Adidas have been competing in the arena of shoe industry. Currently Nike get the most market share especially in East Asia which many sports fans are located. The technique done by Nike is subcontracting. The company harnessed the vast man power of China by subcontracting some Chinese shoe

Vectren Corporation Audit Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Vectren Corporation Audit - Assignment Example Based on reported results, the dividend payout ratio and the return on average shareholders’ equity for 2013 were 86% and 8.9%, respectively. Under the Vectren At-Risk compensation plan, the company may prefer to acquire more shares on the open market during the fiscal periods when there are no limitations on the internal transactions to fulfill these obligations. The effective January 1, in the year 2015, the Compensation and Benefits Committee of the solemn Board of Directors issued approximately 169030 performance-based units to the management. Moreover, the Vectren Company is expecting to grant an absolute additional 172,069 performance awards measured at the time of the three-year performance period that will end as at December 31, the year 2014, which do not vest with the inadequate exceptions up to December 31, 2015. Unfortunately, these facts are not included in the table structured with the issues on the fiscal year. The footnote generally plays various fundamental roles in documents that will be analyzed further to acquire some information or rather to guide in a particular research. A footnote is always a tool that is used for referencing in documents (Pierce, Sarah, and Julie, 88). Some of the major purposes of the footnote include the following: Provision of additional information on an element or subject that has been mentioned in the main text or document but the elaboration of the element or subject is a little bit shallow in the main text. The footnote will, therefore, create a broad explanation on the subject in order to facilitate proper understanding thus accurate interpretation for anyone who will access the document. Footnotes also provide references used in the text or document in order to enable the readers to acquire more information from the journals or books quoted in the document in order to avoid cases of plagiarism.

Metaphysics and Monism Essay Example for Free

Metaphysics and Monism Essay People are monists, dualists or pluralists depending on whether or not they believe that reality is composed of one, two or more substances. These positions may be represented as here indicated. Hindus, Buddhists and Animists are for the most part monists. They believe that reality is one and that everything that exists is a functioning part of that whole which is spirit. Western man for the most part may be called a monist also as he believes that God is dead and matter is the only substance to reality. Bible believing Christians would be pluralists. In philosophy of mind, monism is usually contrasted with the dualist position that mind and matter are deeply different. Thus, monism is the claim that mind and matter essentially the same. However, this sameness has come in a number of different and contradictory varieties. For example, Hobbes felt that the mental is merely and epiphenomena of the physical, thus the physical is the one real substance (Contemporary materialism is also a form of physicalistic monism (see Churchland, 1996). In direct contrast, Berkeley postulated that the physical is just a collection of ideas (hence, idealism) and thus the mental is the only thing that really exists. Finally, there are a number of positions similar to Spinozas property dualism, often referred to as dual-aspect theory. Spinoza held a position in which the mental and the physical are simply two modes of a more basic substance (it should be noted that strictly speaking, Spinoza was not a property dualist as he held that the mental and the physical were two of a possible infinite number of modes of the basic substance, nevertheless he is typically labeled as one). For Spinoza, this basic substance was God. Thus the only real thing is God, who is neither physical nor mental. Spinozas position is similar to that of Russells neutral monism, however the latter is not committed to the belief that a supreme being is the more basic substance. General Information Monism is any doctrine based on the assumption of a single underlying principle. Metaphysical monism allows that only one being or type of being exists. A substantial metaphysical monism asserts that the variety in our phenomenal experience is due to the different states of a single all-encompassing substance, for example, Parmenides Plenum or Baruch Spinozas God or Nature. An attributive monism admits many substances but asserts that they are all of the same kind, for example, atoms or G. W. von Leibnizs monads. Epistemological monism identifies that which is immediately present to the knowing mind with the real object known. Either the content of the mind is equated with the object known (epistemological realism), or the object known is equated with the knowing mind (epistemological idealism). Monism as a philosophical term was first used by Christian Wolff to designate philosophies that attempted to eliminate the mind-body dichotomy. Monism (Greek monos,single), in philosophy, is a doctrine that ultimate reality is entirely of one substance. Monism is thus opposed to both dualism and pluralism. Three basic types of monism are recognized: materialistic monism, idealistic monism, and the mind-stuff theory. According to the first doctrine, everything in the universe, including mental phenomena, is reduced to the one category of matter. In the second doctrine, matter is regarded as a form of manifestation of mind; and in the third doctrine, matter and mind are considered merely aspects of each other. Although monistic philosophies date from ancient Greece, the term monism is comparatively recent. It was first used by the 18th-century German philosopher Christian von Wolff to designate types of philosophical thought in which the attempt was made to eliminate the dichotomy of body and mind. Although he was not known by the term, the 17th-century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza was one of the most influential monists. He taught that both material and spiritual phenomena are attributes of one underlying substance. His doctrine strongly anticipated the mind-stuff theory. Advanced Information Although the term was first used by German philosopher Christian Wolff (1679-1754), monism is a philosophical position with a long history dating back to the pre-Socratic philosophers who appealed to a single unifying principle to explain all the diversity of observed experience. Notable among these thinkers is Parmenides, who maintained that reality is an undifferentiated oneness, or unity, and that consequently real change or individuality of things are there? Substantival monism (one thing) is the view that there is only one substance and that all diversity is ultimately unreal. This view was maintained by Spinoza, who claimed that there is only one substance, or independently existing thing, and that both God and the universe are aspects of this substance. In addition to having many eminent proponents in the Western philosophical tradition, substantival monism is a tenet of Hinduism and Buddhism. In Hinduism each element of reality is part of maya or prakriti, and in Buddhism all things ultimately comprise an interrelated network. Attributive monism (one category) holds that there is one kind of thing but many different individual things in this category. Materialism and idealism are different forms of attributive monism. The materialist holds that the one category of existence in which all real things are found is material, while the idealist says that this category is mental. All monisms oppose the dualistic view of the universe, which holds that both material and immaterial (mental and spiritual) realities exist. Attributive monism disagrees with substantival monism in asserting that reality is ultimately composed of many things rather than one thing. Many leading philosophers have been attributive monists, including Bertrand Russell and Thomas Hobbes on the materialistic side, and G. W. Leibniz and George Berkeley in the idealist camp. The Christian intellectual tradition has generally held that substantival monism fails to do justice to the distinction between God and creature, and that of attributive monisms only idealism is theologically acceptable.

Start An Online Business Plr Marketing Essay

Start An Online Business Plr Marketing Essay Building a business from scratch is not an easy feat. Competitions in the business arena is stiff and hence without careful planning, you might end up with a huge debt to battle. The most important thing in a business is to have that added advantage against your competitors and nowadays, that added advantage can be an online business. Everyone is into the borderless cyber world nowadays and are taking advantage of the vast network that internet provides But there is a dwindling question as to whether anyone would look at your website? Thirdly, is to create your own website, you need skills such as web designs, programming, accounting, and also law to monitor the legal aspect of the business. You do not have to do it alone; you can hire people with such expertise or through a joint partnership with someone. Fourthly, gaining a customer database and to attract buyers to come to your website. A new online business irregardless, of how attractive the product is and how dazzling the designs are, might not get the same attention as a respectable online business that has been around for quite a while. Online business if successful can expand to the far reaches of the world. Unfortunately, if the business never gains its momentum it is left with only a website and few passerby visitations. Another option you can look at is through PLR. Known as Private Label Rights it helps in starting your own online business by being the reseller or your product. Through PLR you can promote your business to an extended base of customers without worrying that you have release the copyright of your product. Customers who are avid internet buyers are familiar with the PLR website. This can help you as customer database is important in ensuring the survival of a business. There are however one thing that you have to take note. You might not be able to maintain the name of your service or product as originally planned. PLR will change the name of the product to make it as if it is their own without intruding your right as legal owner of the business. The intention of PLR is to help new online business owner to get their footing in the online arena. Once they are acknowledge, online business owners can venture into other ideas with a string of customers in their portfolio. (internet business models)Business Models Available in the Internet You may be an expert in a particular product and would like to start off your very own internet business. Its a great idea, but what kind of business do you want exactly? You might want to consider certain options first of all, probably an online product auction could be started, or you could gather your buddies to sell various products at one site. Those are just a few internet business models to be chosen. Every internet business model depicts on certain skills and involves a certain set of errands. Each business models have a different basis of revenue. The type of website functionality required for each business models need to be understood. You need to know which components provide the capability to estimate your associated costs. Internet business models are perchance the least understood and most discussed web aspect. A business model is a means of doing business by which a company is able to sustain itself by generating revenue. Internet business models explain in simple terms on how a company earns profit by stipulating where the company is positioned in the value chain. Certain business models are pretty simple. A particular company generates a service or product and sells it to the customers. The sales revenue exceeds the cost of operation and the company gains a good profit if it things turn out to be good. While on the other hand, other business models can be more complicatedly woven, for an example, broadcasting. The television and radio programming have been broadcasted absolutely free for anyone with a receiver over the past century. A complex network of advertising agencies, content creators, distributors, and viewers are part of the broadcasters. There are three most common internet business models which are information delivery, service sales, and product sales. Information delivery provides an informational website, service sales offers services, whereas product sales are for selling goods. Each models work differently, along with responsibilities, profits, and costs associated with it. There are several internet models for making profits by information delivery. Portals and online publications are the most common internet business models. Products, as well as services, could be sold through the internet. The service sales business models examples are such as online malls that provide services from various vendors from the same site, online brochures which depicts your service and provide the particular contact information, and also service sites which bring an automated version system of offline services to the internet. An internet business based on product sales is on the subject of selling shippable physical product via online. Three major ways to sell products in the internet are by online mall, auction, and storefront. Online mall is a site that provides products from various types of vendors. Internet business models have been categorized and defined in various ways. It is an attempt to present a comprehensive and convincing classification of the business models visible in the internet. The proposed classification is not meant to be thorough or ultimate. The internet business models continue to progress. Innovative and worthy of note variations can be expected in the future. Start an Online Business and Experience the Advantages Starting an online business is similar to operating any other kind of business. Good business ethics should be practiced, for example, budding long-term business dealings, offering services and products at a fair price, and also practising truthful advertising to build customers confidence. All these are applicable to any kind of businesses, and this includes when you start an online business. Online revolution continues to spread. Millions and millions of people across the globe will be able to access Internet as the years pass by. The World Wide Web has become a business tool and altered the way businesses are conducted. Drop the thought that you may get rich quick via the Internet. A great achievement truly depends on ones perseverance, patience, and capability of taking advantage of opportunities in the fast-moving environment. It is definitely a lot of hard work for a good pay off. There are many advantages in the online business as a home-based worker. You may have a very minimal start-up capital and since you will be using the internet, you will be able to operate your business in the comfort of your own home. You will never have to worry about an office space. You will be able to connect with the whole world right from where your location is with the existence of the Internet. If you dont own a computer yet, you would only need to purchase a good computer, a telephone line, get an Internet connection, and some notebooks. Other equipments can be purchased later, depending on the financial status. If you are a home-based business venture, a low budget is assumed. However, this is never a problem in the Internet. You may use a credit card for getting Internet services if you own one. The Internet gives you access beyond boundaries to you all over the world. All you have to do is to grab the opportunity to use it wisely. You are connected to all sorts of foreign contacts, investors, and consumers in a click of the computer mouse. The online business gives you a great growth potential if you do your things right. Your potential clients and customers could be doubled or tripled in no time. Your market grows faster than you think, as your presence get noticeable 24 hours a day worldwide. You will also be able to work on your own hours. Is it undeniable that the working hours may be more that you would have imagined. However, you will be able to experience the flexibility of working from home. You can always be casual on your dress code at home, have meals and snacks in between every now and then, while watching over your home and family. Starting an online business can be done without leaving your home. Adding to these advantages, you will also get to advertise your promotions inexpensively in the Internet. You may make use of every free advertising websites and links that are readily available for almost anybody. You would only have to know how to write as the Internet is a content market. You will have the edge as long as you are excellent in written communication. It all depends on your ability to present your service and product in writing. (Online Businesses)Free-time Online Businesses Suggestions A part time business could be really easy to start-off, requires minimal money and time and without technical expertise. It is very easy to maintain an online business. One is more likely to be successful and content when they do something that they find fun and exciting. Here are a few top ways to earn some extra cash on the Internet: 1. eBay eBay is known as one of the biggest online marketplaces available which makes you get your own business going like a piece of cake. An account can be opened anytime and you could start earning cash within hours. Have a glance at some of the biggest eBay Power Sellers and become aware of how they focus on every specific goods such as dog grooming kits, mobile phones, iPods, laptops, and etc. This gives them an opportunity to influence their efforts. Cash flows in over and over again with a single listing which is created only once. This online business requires the handling of physical products unlike information marketing. 2. Information Marketing The Internet offers you an ideal medium to exchange information for money. As you think about your interests or your career, virtually anything you could think of can be turned into extra income. It could be The secrets to a healthy lifestyle or A recipe for making a chocolaty cheese cake or even How to play a guitar in 2 weeks. Do not worry for being a beginner in it; as long as you are informative more than average regarding the informational topic, the information is counted valuable enough. Besides, if you are less confident regarding a particular topic of your interest, you could always browse through the Internet via search engines to read various articles written by others to get some ideas and information. This is probably the easiest way to obtain information and earn some cash out of it. 3. Blogging Blogging is most suitable for those who enjoy communicating and sharing ideas regarding a particular discussion topic. Blogs could be journals of various topics and writing on a particular topic on your blog may have a higher chance for monetary success. There is an endless range of topics available such as star gazing, automobiles, photography, parenting, teenagers, celebrity gossips, gadgets, or even travel destinations. There are blogs written just about almost anything you could think of. Competition is never to be worried about. Those who read a blog are most likely to read various blogs available regarding the topic that they are looking for, as long as the blog contains some interesting contents. Money could be made passively with things like the Google AdSense once your blog starts getting traffic. 4. Yahoo! Store Yahoo! Store is almost similar to eBay as both are very large marketplace and store. You could consider having a retail outlet without the hassles of employees, rent, utilities, and other expenses of a normal physical store. The best part is that it can be done hands-off or hands-on as drop-shippers will do most of the work on behalf of you. You would not even have to pay the register until you manage to make a sale. Do some research on the Internet and check out products that people love to shop for. Set a niche for your business. This business needs a little more upfront work, but it could be maintained with less regular input from you once the upfront work is done. (selling information products)Tips on Selling Information Products via Blogging More people are blogging nowadays and many are seeking opportunity to branch out their income streams. Some are just discovering blogging, and they are familiar right away that blogging is an ideal platform for selling information products. If you already own a blog without a product, you are still on the right track for this online business. Here are five tips for creating and selling information products via blogs. The first tip is on blogging for product ideas. It is important to have a great deal of enthusiasm and knowledge regarding any topic that you may want to develop into an information product for online sale. Knowledge is the key to make a product valuable. On the other hand, if you lack knowledge, but have great enthusiasm to learn about a certain subject matter, it would be great as the enthusiasm will open up your mind to learn. Start blogging once you have got the general topic. Blogging allows you to interact with your readers that will definitely give you a valuable market insight. Survey your readers but asking them what they want. Blogging that are done on a regular basis with a set schedule will be an excellent motivator to get the writing done on time. It also takes you in new and improved commands, thanks to the feedback, so that an improved end result can be obtained. The relationships that you develop within your niche are one of the most important reasons to blog. Contents that attracts readers should be created, and try networking with various blog owners that have complimentary viewers. This networking tactic gets you links that leads to traffic, ultimate buyers and also subscribers. However, it is the relationship you establish that has higher value than that. Those important people could also be a source for crucial pre-launching feedbacks, joint venture partners, and affiliates. It is an undeniable fact that recruiting quality people to join venture is hard, but it would be much easier when you have built up credibility with your blog. A couple of the introductory chapters in the book could be given free of charge in a PDF format to entice the prospects of selling your books. You could exchange it for an opt-in email address. Chapters can be delivered via email, which eventually allows you to follow up your readers with promotions, special offers, and reminders. Excerpts usually work because the first introductory chapters should make a natural excellent selling tool for the remaining content of the book. This is because a well thought-out e-book will give an impression to the reader about what they are going to read before they get into the actual content of the whole book. A tutorial or mini-course that explains the content of the book can also be done. This tell and sell technique highlights the benefits of obtaining access to the book. Information products do not always have to be in a writer format. They could be video presentations, screen captures, tele-seminars, or even audio recordings. Consequently, a complimentary tutorial hunts at what the learning experience will be like after the purchase of the e-book. PLR articles Do you have a writers block? Never seem to be able to get your ideas on that piece of paper? Or you are over your head with deadlines? You have a huge pile of website request to write its contents but have not time to sit down and research? There is a simpler way to solve your problem which is through PLR. What is PLR? PLR is known as Private Label Rights, a place where you can buy an article or a whole stack of articles from a third party. Basically, the concept is that a third party or PLR website owners buys the articles from freelance writers and sells it on their website. Who buys the articles? The articles are bought by companies to use in their websites, documents, blogs, or even ideas in their e-books. The new owners can adjust the content of the articles to their satisfaction. A lot of time on research can be saved through the PLR articles. Some of the freelance writers have experience and are familiar in the industry. Their research and notes will give a detail information on the topic chosen. This is very useful if you are board down with numerous blogs and website waiting to be launch and you have no time to do the research yourself. There is a possible glitch with PLR articles as they tend to be used by many persons. Since the articles are for sale and it is sold in a general website, a lot of people are using the articles. This can be overcomed this by adjusting the article and hence personalising the content ,making it your own. You may find it tedious to rewrite someone elses work instead of writing your own article. But imagine the time you can save from doing research if you purchase a PLR article. All of the ideas and information are provided and all you need to do is rectify and enhance the article as you see best. What are PLR articles used for? As mention earlier , aside from writing websites content these articles are used in blogs to give information and make it attractive to the readers. But what some people do not know is that it can also be used for audio and video product. The PLR articles can be used as scripts to convey messages or information. You can read out loud the article and make some changes to avoid plagiarism. It can also be used as a marketing campaign. It would be pretty dull to have the same leaflet as your competitor, make it your own, brush up on the articles and put some zen into it. You would have heard of E-books. You can use PLR articles to compile similar subjects , and by adding a few tweaks and it would be good enough to sell it to the online market. Many times in the articles we have mention a few words repetitively, words such as information, research and time are the key strategy in a PLR article selling. We can assure you that you would not waste your money nor time if you purchase the PLR articles as it may help you to get the promotion that you have been yearning to achieve all along. Selling products online. Interested in generating income? You have a product which you know will sell in the market but you have no idea how to sell it. More and more people are looking at the cyber world to sell their product. Granted, that this method has more advantage then the normal way of marketing. One thing is that it can reach a vast numbers of people. The downfall is that when you sell your product online it has to be easy to search for, user friendly for those people who are web illiterate or just have know time to search numerous websites for a product. You have to come up with a user friendly search engine. Simple the websites find the customer for you. Another thing you have to look at, is that people spend a lot of time and money in creating a very colorful webpage , unfortunately there are not many people that comes in to view your product. You might end up with just a pretty webpage and no business. One alternative that you can look at is to try out PLR website. Its main purpose is to help new online business such as yourself. PLR or also known as Private Label Rights is gaining popularity especially in the internet. PLR will help to sell your product through their own website with which has a constant string of customers that submit their request to buy products. One catch is that PLR can modify the name of your product to make it more appealing to the customers. PLR will also help on the marketing campaign and information content. PLR systems can help you on customers database branching throughout the world. You do not have to worry on creating a search engine, PLR has negotiate with a lot website domains to advertise their product, making it easier for customers to find you. PLR also can teach you on how to start an online business guiding you through to success. Internet Business Start Up. Not a Myth Anymore, by  PLR  (Private Label Rights)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Everyone is telling their own stories. Flooded with too much information in how to start an Internet business? Let  PLR, Internet Business Start Up  guides you through this ocean of information.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  First of all, what to sell? Well, you can choose to sell something you are familiar with, interested in or something in demand. You are likely to come up with something of higher quality than the rest by selling your interest as you place your heart and soul into it. However, it might not be in demand. Selling something which is already in high demand is alike grabbing a piece of hot selling cake, knowing you will earn some money for sure. However, in the long run, your credibility might be jeopardized as you have neither sufficient product nor background knowledge. So, please choose one. This is not a perfect world. Thus, there is no perfect choice with only pros and no cons.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Made up your mind already? Now, lets jam start your Internet business. Firstly, you need a domain. Select your domain name carefully as this is how your prospects are going to find you. In fact, there are people selling unique domain names out there, making their own business already. A tip, the shorter your domain name is, the better it is.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Next, start designing your website. Do not tell me content is more important than the mere design of your website and that you should not judge a book by its cover. How on earth are you going to sell your products when people get turn off at the very first sight of your page and just click the x button on the top right of your window? Packaging matters! Welcome to the harsh reality of the business world.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Third, host your website. The top 3 considerations in choosing your web hosting company are, guarantees, REAL live support and upgrade path. Make sure the company provides money back guarantee if you cancel your business with them earlier than expected. As for REAL life support, make sure the support is REAL! Many companies claim they can support you 24/7 but many are empty promises. Next, make sure your host is capable of providing you an upgrade path when your business eventually grows. No just additional space but marketing tools, Spam, Virus filtering etc.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Last but not least, set up your email. I am not talking about your personal email. You need a different email for your business and each hosting company has different protocols for email set ups. Please remember to include a signature line at the bottom of your mail.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Now that everything is in place, start promoting! There are many ways to drive traffic to your website. If you have the budget, try out Google AdWords. Google is the hottest search engine in the market at the moment. Thus, it would be a worthy investment.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Cannot remember all these? Worry not. You can always refer to  PLR, Internet Business Start Up  guide.  Ã‚   Starting a Home Business     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The starting a home business is the one depends on one hand that not depends on one in the advertisement or the one of your friend or relatives promoting.  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  By following the below six steps in starting a Home Business that will help you succeed in business.   Assess your talents Assessing ones talents that they are good is like a personality qualities for starting a home based business. Like in other business ones, in home based business also ones talent is base for the success of the business.   Examine your skills Skills are the things that one can do. The major difference between the ones skills and talents is that talents are the one born with it and skills are develop it over the time.   Generate the business ideas by putting ones talents and skills together The steps that highlighted here it can suit for any kind of business since we are focusing mainly in starting the home based business. The questions here is With my existing skills and talents, what type of home business could I do?   When one doing this exercise they may have more than one skills and the list of possible home based business is much longer.   Give your business ideas the home-based business test. In reality all businesses are not going to work well as home-based business. So go back to the list of business idea and cross that wont work as home based businesses.  Ã‚   Most of the people who wanted to start the home based businesses will stop here and come up with an idea for a home based business that they like and that they feel good.   If one who does like that will run an extremely risk   of investing months of ones time, energy and money in a business that may leads to fail.  Ã‚   Coming up with the business plan and finding out the profit angle are two important processes in starting a home based business. These are two things many people dont bother when starting a home based business.   Figuring out the Profit Angle This is the important test for anyone wanted to start the home based business. If the profit making potential of each your ideas is not satisfactory cross that idea off from the list. Most of the people run the home based business as a supplement to their main income.   Prepare a business plan to assess the viability of your new home based business The primary reason to do a business plan is to find out that ones business idea has a chance of becoming a successful business. Most of the people think that doing the business plan is just to help to get the business loan. Actually the research and planning on the business ideas which ensures that the home based business that ones start will succeed.   By following the above outlined six steps one will end up with an idea for a home based-business that truly has the potential to succeed.   No More Strives to Make Ends Meet! A Guide on  How to Make Money on the Internet  by  PLR (Private Label Rights)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Long, long time ago, making money on the Internet requires quite a lot, such as your own products, a domain or your own website. However, ever since dot-coms bloomed like no one cares, making money is much easier than you can ever imagine now. You need neither your own website nor your own goods. You do not even have to hard sell anything. So, what do you need? Just think smart. Any idea has the opportunity to turn into a golden idea nowadays. Below is a guide to  how to make money on the Internet  by  PLR.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  According to many resources, information products are the best sellers on the Internet. In fact, about 92 percent of people get online to look for information. We are in the information age after all. Not a specialist? Not an expert? Not a consultant? Worry not! Relax and think about your hobbies, your interests or maybe anything you know such as how to babysit, how to stay awake at night, a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g and give it a shot. Write and post it on the net. Who knows, your mail box might be flooded the next day with tons of requests for your articles, paying you big fat cash! Alright, if you really know nothing, do not be sad, you are neither sentenced to death nor it is the end of the world. Just take some time to talk to people who know-how. Tap into their brains and come up with a report yourself.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Information selling is not your cup of tea? Fine, there are tons of other ways to make money online. 1 of them is by taking online surveys. All you have to do is sit back and answer, answer, answer and you get paid! It is as simple as that. However, please be cautious on survey websites. Take only those which are established or you might get scammed. Examples of websites that are legitimate include GlobalTestMarket.com and AIP Online Surveys.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Bored with surveys? Play games to earn! It sounds too good to be true? Well, believe it. According to eHow, you are paid to play at  moola.com. It is believed that this website generates its income through ads posted there. Paying you to play their games is simply enticing you and many more to their website. The heavier the traffic, the more income they generate.     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Want to know more on  how to make money on the Internet  by  PLR? Here is another tip. Today, most of us are bloggers ourselves. Besides sharing thoughts, pictures, you can actually advertise other peoples products on your blog. However, it is advised that you choose products which you are either familiar with or interested in as this will help you out a lot. Include links to the products, create sales pages for them and you are ready to roll them out. This is called affiliate marketing.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Besides these, you can also make money by reviewing others  websites, reading complains and addressing them to the appropriate companies etc. In short, as the saying goes, where there is a will, there is a way. Check out PLRs website to know more about making online money. Sell Information Products  by  PLR  (Private Label Rights)! Start Earning like Nobodys Business!   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  First of all, what are information products? Well, these products include reports, books etc. With the blooming of the World Wide Web, information products are no longer limited to these hard copies products. Anything that is knowledge-based and can be sent / delivered electronically is considered as an information product, example, e-books, newsletters etc. Thus, information products are also known as digital goods.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Now, why are digital goods selling way faster and better than normal hard copies products? Simple, the costs to start off and reproduction are near zero! You only need your brains. Even if you do not have the talent to write, you can still  sell information products  provided by  PLR. You only need to sign up as their member and you will have access to a large pool of information products which you can sign off as your own and start selling. Besides these, you can even throw your worries about inventory keeping and shipping out of the window. Why on earth do you need a warehouse or whatever for your products when they are digital copies which you can just save in your computer? As for shipping, please enlighten me how to ship a piece of digital good. You only need to press the send button on your screen! It should be clear now that you can actually kick off your 1 man show, information products business anytime, anywhere.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Here is a guideline if you want to create your own information products. First of all, demand, demand, demand! Please do not just write anything according to your very own interest or your personal experience. Unless you are Justin Timberlake, Megan Fox or the President of America, I do not think anyone will be interested in your personal experience. Yes, this sounds harsh but reality IS harsh. Consumers demands rule! Get to know what people need and start writing on them.  You should not have to convince buyers that they need it. They should know that they need it.   Pandecta Magazine.If you are too lazy to do your market research, well, again, you can  sell information products  by  PLR. They have done your homework for you.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Secondly, please never let this go easily   quality! You should set your standards high. If possible, higher than your customers demands. Strive to not only meet up but exceed their expectations. This has always been the rule of the thumb to win customers be it online, offline, under the line, whatever line.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Besides quality, presentation aka packaging counts. Sad to say, if your logo and cover image look like a high school project, no one is going to

Intelligent Software Agent

Intelligent Software Agent Chapter 1 Intelligent Software Agent 1.1 Intelligent Agent An Agent can be defined as follows: â€Å"An Agent is a software thing that knows how to do things that you could probably do yourself if you had the time† (Ted Seller of IBM Almaden Research Centre). Another definition is: â€Å"A piece of software which performs a given task using information gleaned from its environment to act in a suitable manner so as to complete the task successfully. The software should be able to adapt itself based on changes occurring in its environment, so that a change in circumstances will still yield the intended results† (G.W.Lecky Thompson). [1] [2] [3] [4] An Intelligent Agent can be divided into weak and strong notations. Table 1.1 shows the properties for both the notations. Weak notation Strong notation Autonomy Mobility Social ability Benevolence Reactivity Proactivity Rationality Temporal continuity Adaptivity Goal oriented Collaboration Table 1.1 1.1.1 Intelligency Intelligence refers to the ability of the agent to capture and apply domain specific knowledge and processing to solve problems. An Intelligent Agent uses knowledge, information and reasoning to take reasonable actions in pursuit of a goal. It must be able to recognise events, determine the meaning of those events and then take actions on behalf of a user. One central element of intelligent behaviour is the ability to adopt or learn from experience. Any Agent that can learn has an advantage over one that cannot. Adding learning or adaptive behaviour to an intelligent agent elevates it to a higher level of ability. In order to construct an Intelligent Agent, we have to use the following topics of Artificial Intelligence: Knowledge Representation Reasoning Learning [5] 1.1.2 Operation The functionality of a mobile agent is illustrated in 1.1. Computer A and Computer B are connected via a network. In step 1 a mobile Agent is going to be dispatched from Computer A towards Computer B. In the mean time Computer A will suspend its execution. Step 2 shows this mobile Agent is now on network with its state and code. In step 3 this mobile Agent will reach to its destination, computer B, which will resume its execution. [7] 1.1.3 Strengths and Weaknesses Many researchers are now developing methods for improving the technology, with more standardisation and better programming environments that may allow mobile agents to be used in products. It is obvious that the more an application gets intelligent, the more it also gets unpredictable and uncontrollable. The main drawback of mobile agents is the security risk involved in using them. [8] [9] The following table shows the major strengths and weaknesses of Agent technology: Strengths Weakness Overcoming Network Latency Security Reducing Network traffic Performance Asynchronous Execution and Autonomy Lack of Applications Operating in Heterogeneous Environments Limited Exposure Robust and Fault-tolerant Behavior Standardization Table 1.2 1.2 Applications The followings are the major and most widely applicable areas of Mobile Agent: Distributed Computing: Mobile Agents can be applied in a network using free resources for their own computations. Collecting data: A mobile Agent travels around the net. On each computer it processes the data and sends the results back to the central server. Software Distribution and Maintenance: Mobile agents could be used to distribute software in a network environment or to do maintenance tasks. Mobile agents and Bluetooth: Bluetooth is a technology for short range radio communication. Originally, the companies Nokia and Ericsson came up with the idea. Bluetooth has a nominal range of 10 m and 100 m with increased power. [38] Mobile agents as Pets: Mobile agents are the ideal pets. Imagine something like creatures. What if you could have some pets wandering around the internet, choosing where they want to go, leaving you if you dont care about them or coming to you if you handle them nicely? People would buy such things wont they? [38] Mobile agents and offline tasks: 1. Mobile agents could be used for offline tasks in the following way: a- An Agent is sent out over the internet to do some task. b- The Agent performs its task while the home computer is offline. c- The Agent returns with its results. 2. Mobile agents could be used to simulate a factory: a- Machines in factory are agent driven. b- Agents provide realistic data for a simulation, e.g. uptimes and efficiencies. c- Simulation results are used to improve real performance or to plan better production lines. [10[ [11] [12] 1.3 Life Cycle An intelligent and autonomous Agent has properties like Perception, Reasoning  and Action which form the life cycle of an Agent as shown in 1.2. [6] The agent perceives the state of its environment, integrates the perception in its knowledge base that is used to derive the next action which is then executed. This generic cycle is a useful abstraction as it provides a black-box view on the Agent and encapsulates specific aspects. The first step is the Agent initialisation. The Agent will then start to operate and may stop and start again depending upon the environment and the tasks that it tried to accomplish. After the Agent finished all the tasks that are required, it will end at the completing state. [13] Table 1.3 shows these states. Name of Step Description Initialize Performs one-time setup activities. Start Start its job or task. Stop Stops jobs, save intermediate results, joins all threads and stops. Complete Performs one-time termination activities. Table 1.3 1.4 Agent Oriented Programming (AOP) It is a programming technique which deals with objects, which have independent thread of control and can be initiated. We will elaborate on the three main components of the AOP. a- Object: Grouping data and computation together in a single structural unit called an ‘Object. Every Agent looks like an object. b- Independent Thread of control: This means when this developed Agent which is an object, when will be implemented in Boga server, looks like an independent thread. This makes an Agent different from ordinary object. c- Initiation: This deals with the execution plan of an Agent, when implemented, that Agent can be initiated from the server for execution. [14] [15] [16] [17] 1.5 Network paradigms This section illustrates the traditional distributed computing paradigms like Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and Remote Procedure Call (RPC). 1.5.1 SNMP Simple Network Management Protocol is a standard for gathering statistical data about network traffic and the behavior of network components. It is an application layer protocol that sits above TCP/IP stack. It is a set of protocols for managing complex networks. It enables network administrators to manage network performance, find and solve network problems and plan for network growth. It is basically a request or response type of protocol, communicating management information between two types of SNMP entities: Manager (Applications) and Agents. [18] Agents: They are compliant devices; they store data about themselves in Management Information Base (MIB) (Each agent in SNMP maintain a local database of information relevant to network management is known as the Management Information Base) and return this data to the SNMP requesters. An agent has properties like: Implements full SNMP protocol, Stores and retrieves managed data as defined by the Management Information Base and can asynchronously signal an event to the manager. Manager (Application): It issues queries to get information about the status, configuration and performance of external network devices. A manager has the following properties: Implemented as a Network Management Station (the NMS), implements full SNMP Protocol, able to Query Agents, get responses from Agents, set variables in agents and acknowledge asynchronous events from Agents. [18] 1.3 illustrates an interaction between a manager and an Agent. The agent is software that enables a device to respond to manager requests to view or update MIB data and send traps reporting problems or significant events. It receives messages and sends a response back. An Agent does not have to wait for order to act, if a serious problem arises or a significant event occurs, it sends a TRAP (a message that reports a problem or a significant event) to the manager (software in a network management station that enables the station to send requests to view or update MIB variables, and to receive traps from an agent). The Manager software which is in the management station sends message to the Agent and receives a trap and responses. It uses User Data Protocol (UDP, a simple protocol enabling an application to send individual message to other applications. Delivery is not guaranteed, and messages need not be delivered in the same order as they were sent) to carry its messages. Finally, there is one application that enables end user to control the man ager software and view network information. [19] Table 1.4 comprises the Strengths and Weaknesses of SNMP. Strengths Weaknesses Its design and implementation are simple. It may not be suitable for the management of truly large networks because of the performance limitations of polling. Due to its simple design it can be expanded and also the protocol can be updated to meet future needs. It is not well suited for retrieving large volumes of data, such as an entire routing table. All major vendors of internetwork hardware, such as bridges and routers, design their products to support SNMP, making it very easy to implement. Its traps are unacknowledged and most probably not delivered. Not applicable It provides only trivial authentication. Not applicable It does not support explicit actions. Not applicable Its MIB model is limited (does not support management queries based on object types or values). Not applicable It does not support manager-to-manager communications. Not applicable The information it deals with neither detailed nor well-organized enough to deal with the expanding modern networking requirements. Not applicable It uses UDP as a transport protocol. The complex policy updates require a sequence of updates and a reliable transport protocol, such as TCP, allows the policy update to be conducted over a shared state between the managed device and the management station. Table 1.4 1.5.2 RPC A remote procedure call (RPC) is a protocol that allows a computer program running on one host to cause code to be executed on another host without the programmer needing to explicitly code for this. When the code in question is written using object-oriented principles, RPC is sometimes referred to as remote invocation or remote method invocation. It is a popular and powerful technique for constructing distributed, client-server based applications. An RPC is initiated by the caller (client) sending a request message to a remote system (the server) to execute a certain procedure using arguments supplied. A result message is returned to the caller. It is based on extending the notion of conventional or local procedure calling, so that the called procedure need not exist in the same address space as the calling procedure. The two processes may be on the same system, or they may be on different systems with a network connecting them. By using RPC, programmers of distributed applications avoid the details of the interface with the network. The transport independence of RPC isolates the application from the physical and logical elements of the data communications mechanism and allows the application to use a variety of transports. A distributed computing using RPC is illustrated in 1.4. Local procedures are executed on Machine A; the remote procedure is actually executed on Machine B. The program executing on Machine A will wait until Machine B has completed the operation of the remote procedure and then continue with its program logic. The remote procedure may have a return value that continuing program may use immediately. It intercepts calls to a procedure and the following happens: Packages the name of the procedure and arguments to the call and transmits them over network to the remote machine where the RPC server id running. It is called â€Å"Marshalling†. [20] RPC decodes the name of the procedure and the parameters. It makes actual procedure call on server (remote) machine. It packages returned value and output parameters and then transmits it over network back to the machine that made the call. It is called â€Å"Unmarshalling†. [20] 1.6 Comparison between Agent technology and network paradigms Conventional Network Management is based on SNMP and often run in a centralised manner. Although the centralised management approach gives network administrators a flexibility of managing the whole network from a single place, it is prone to information bottleneck and excessive processing load on the manager and heavy usage of network bandwidth. Intelligent Agents for network management tends to monitor and control networked devices on site and consequently save the manager capacity and network bandwidth. The use of Intelligent Agents is due to its major advantages e.g. asynchronous, autonomous and heterogeneous etc. while the other two contemporary technologies i.e. SNMP and RPC are lacking these advantages. The table below shows the comparison between the intelligent agent and its contemporary technologies: Property RPC SNMP Intelligent Agent Communication Synchronous Asynchronous Asynchronous Processing Power Less Autonomy More Autonomous but less than Agent More Autonomous Network support Distributed Centralised Heterogeneous Network Load Management Heavy usage of Network Bandwidth Load on Network traffic and heavy usage of bandwidth Reduce Network traffic and latency Transport Protocol TCP UDP TCP Packet size Network Only address can be sent for request and data on reply Only address can be sent for request and data on reply Code and execution state can be moved around network. (only code in case of weak mobility) Network Monitoring This is not for this purpose Network delays and information bottle neck at centralised management station It gives flexibility to analyse the managed nodes locally Table 1.5 Indeed, Agents, mobile or intelligent, by providing a new paradigm of computer interactions, give new options for developers to design application based on computer connectivity. 20 Chapter 2 Learning Paradigms 2.1 Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) and Information Retrieval (IR) KDD is defined as â€Å"the nontrivial process of identifying valid, novel, potentially useful and ultimately understandable patterns in data† (Fayyad, Piatetsky-Shapiro and Smith (1996)). A closely related process of IR is defined as â€Å"the methods and processes for searching relevant information out of information systems that contain extremely large numbers of documents† (Rocha (2001)). KDD and IR are, in fact, highly complex processes that are strongly affected by a wide range of factors. These factors include the needs and information seeking characteristics of system users as well as the tools and methods used to search and retrieve the structure and size of the data set or database and the nature of the data itself. The result, of course, was increasing numbers of organizations that possessed very large and continually growing databases but only elementary tools for KD and IR. [21] Two major research areas have been developed in response to this problem: * Data warehousing: It is defined as: â€Å"Collecting and ‘cleaning transactional data to make it available for online analysis and decision support†. (Fayyad 2001, p.30)  · Data Mining: It is defined as: â€Å"The application of specific algorithms to a data set for purpose of extracting data patterns†. (Fayyad p. 28) 2.2 Data Mining Data mining is a statistical term. In Information Technology it is defined as a discovery of useful summaries of data. 2.2.1 Applications of Data Mining The following are examples of the use of data mining technology: Pattern of traveller behavior mined: Manage the sale of discounted seats in planes, rooms in hotels. Diapers and beer: Observation those customers who buy diapers are more likely to buy beer than average allowed supermarkets to place beer and diapers nearby, knowing many customers would walk between them. Placing potato chips between increased sales of all three items. Skycat and Sloan Sky Survey: Clustering sky objects by their radiation levels in different bands allowed astronomers to distinguish between galaxies, nearby stars, and many other kinds of celestial objects. Comparison of genotype of people: With/without a condition allowed the discovery of a set of genes that together account for many case of diabetes. This sort of mining will become much more important as the human genome is constructed. [22] [23] [24] 2.2.2 Communities of Data Mining As data mining has become recognised as a powerful tool, several different communities have laid claim to the subject: Statistics Artificial Intelligence (AI) where it is called â€Å"Machine Learning† Researchers in clustering algorithms Visualisation researchers Databases: When data is large and the computations is very complex, in this context, data mining can be thought of as algorithms for executing very complex queries on non-main-memory data. 2.2.3 Stages of data mining process The following are the different stages of data mining process, sometimes called as a life cycle of data mining as shown in 2.1: Data gathering: Data warehousing, web crawling. Data cleansing: Eliminate errors and/or bogus data e.g. Patients fever = 125oC. 3- Feature extraction: Obtaining only the interesting attributes of the data e.g. â€Å"data acquired† is probably not useful for clustering celestial objects as in skycat. 4- Pattern extraction and discovery: This is the stage that is often thought of as â€Å"data mining† and is where we shall concentrate our efforts. 5- Visualisation of the data: 6- Evaluation of results: Not every discovered fact is useful, or even true! Judgment is necessary before following the softwares conclusions. [22] [23] [24] 2.3 Machine Learning There are five major techniques of machine learning in Artificial Intelligence (AI), which are discussed in the following sections. 2.3.1 Supervised Learning It relies on a teacher that provides the input data as well as the desired solution. The learning agent is trained by showing it examples of the problem state or attributes along with the desired output or action. The learning agent makes a prediction based on the inputs and if the output differs from the desired output, then the agent is adjusted or adapted to produce the correct output. This process is repeated over and over until the agent learns to make accurate classifications or predictions e.g. Historical data from databases, sensor logs or trace logs is often used as training or example data. The example of supervised learning algorithm is the ‘Decision Tree, where there is a pre-specified target variable. [25] [5] 2.3.2 Unsupervised Learning It depends on input data only and makes no demands on knowing the solution. It is used when learning agent needs to recognize similarities between inputs or to identify features in the input data. The data is presented to the Agent, and it adapts so that it partitions the data into groups. This process continues until the Agents place the same group on successive passes over the data. An unsupervised learning algorithm performs a type of feature detection where important common attributes in the data are extracted. The example of unsupervised learning algorithm is â€Å"the K-Means Clustering algorithm†. [25] [5] 2.3.3 Reinforcement Learning It is a kind of supervised learning, where the feedback is more general. On the other hand, there are two more techniques in the machine learning, and these are: on-line learning and off-line learning. [25] [5] 2.3.4 On-line and Off-line Learning On-line learning means that the agent is adapting while it is working. Off-line involves saving data while the agent is working and using the data later to train the agent. [25] [5] In an intelligent agent context, this means that the data will be gathered from situations that the agents have experienced. Then augment this data with information about the desired agent response to build a training data set. Once this database is ready it can be used to modify the behaviour of agents. These approaches can be combined with any two or more into one system. In order to develop Learning Intelligent Agent(LIAgent) we will combine unsupervised learning with supervised learning. We will test LIAgents on Iris dataset, Vote dataset about the polls in USA and two medical datasets namely Breast and Diabetes. [26] See Appendix A for all these four datasets. 2.4 Supervised Learning (Decision Tree ID3) Decision trees and decision rules are data mining methodologies applied in many real world applications as a powerful solution to classify the problems. The goal of supervised learning is to create a classification model, known as a classifier, which will predict, with the values of its available input attributes, the class for some entity (a given sample). In other words, classification is the process of assigning a discrete label value (class) to an unlabeled record, and a classifier is a model (a result of classification) that predicts one attribute-class of a sample-when the other attributes are given. [40] In doing so, samples are divided into pre-defined groups. For example, a simple classification might group customer billing records into two specific classes: those who pay their bills within thirty days and those who takes longer than thirty days to pay. Different classification methodologies are applied today in almost every discipline, where the task of classification, because of the large amount of data, requires automation of the process. Examples of classification methods used as a part of data-mining applications include classifying trends in financial market and identifying objects in large image databases. [40] A particularly efficient method for producing classifiers from data is to generate a decision tree. The decision-tree representation is the most widely used logic method. There is a large number of decision-tree induction algorithms described primarily in the machine-learning and applied-statistics literature. They are supervised learning methods that construct decision trees from a set of input-output samples. A typical decision-tree learning system adopts a top-down strategy that searches for a solution in a part of the search space. It guarantees that a simple, but not necessarily the simplest tree will be found. A decision tree consists of nodes, where attributes are tested. The outgoing branches of a node correspond to all the possible outcomes of the test at the node. [40] Decision trees are used in information theory to determine where to split data sets in order to build classifiers and regression trees. Decision trees perform induction on data sets, generating classifiers and prediction models. A decision tree examines the data set and uses information theory to determine which attribute contains the information on which to base a decision. This attribute is then used in a decision node to split the data set into two groups, based on the value of that attribute. At each subsequent decision node, the data set is split again. The result is a decision tree, a collection of nodes. The leaf nodes represent a final classification of the record. ID3 is an example of decision tree. It is kind of supervised learning. We used ID3 in order to print the decision rules as its output. [40] 2.4.1 Decision Tree Decision trees are powerful and popular tools for classification and prediction. The attractiveness of decision trees is due to the fact that, in contrast to neural networks, decision trees represent rules. Rules can readily be expressed so that humans can understand them or even directly used in a database access language like SQL so that records falling into a particular category may be retrieved. Decision tree is a classifier in the form of a tree structure, where each node is either: Leaf node indicates the value of the target attribute (class) of examples, or Decision node specifies some test to be carried out on a single attribute value, with one branch and sub-tree for each possible outcome of the test. Decision tree induction is a typical inductive approach to learn knowledge on classification. The key requirements to do mining with decision trees are:  · Attribute value description: Object or case must be expressible in terms of a fixed collection of properties or attributes. This means that we need to discretise continuous attributes, or this must have been provided in the algorithm.  · Predefined classes (target attribute values): The categories to which examples are to be assigned must have been established beforehand (supervised data).  · Discrete classes: A case does or does not belong to a particular class, and there must be more cases than classes. * Sufficient data: Usually hundreds or even thousands of training cases. A decision tree is constructed by looking for regularities in data. [27] [5] 2.4.2 ID3 Algorithm J. Ross Quinlan originally developed ID3 at the University of Sydney. He first presented ID3 in 1975 in a book, Machine Learning, vol. 1, no. 1. ID3 is based on the Concept Learning System (CLS) algorithm. [28] function ID3 Input: (R: a set of non-target attributes, C: the target attribute, 2.4.3 Functionality of ID3 ID3 searches through the attributes of the training instances and extracts the attribute that best separates the given examples. If the attribute perfectly classifies the training sets then ID3 stops; otherwise it recursively operates on the m (where m = number of possible values of an attribute) partitioned subsets to get their best attribute. The algorithm uses a greedy search, that is, it picks the best attribute and never looks back to reconsider earlier choices. If the dataset has no such attribute which will be used for the decision then the result will be the misclassification of data. Entropy a measure of homogeneity of the set of examples. [5] Entropy(S) = pplog2 pp pnlog2 pn (1) (2) 2.4.4 Decision Tree Representation A decision tree is an arrangement of tests that prescribes an appropriate test at every step in an analysis. It classifies instances by sorting them down the tree from the root node to some leaf node, which provides the classification of the instance. Each node in the tree specifies a test of some attribute of the instance, and each branch descending from that node corresponds to one of the possible values for this attribute. This is illustrated in 2.3. The decision rules can also be obtained from ID3 in the form of if-then-else, which can be use for the decision support systems and classification. Given m attributes, a decision tree may have a maximum height of m. [29][5] 2.4.5 Challenges in decision tree Following are the issues in learning decision trees: Determining how deeply to grow the decision tree. Handling continuous attributes. Choosing an appropriate attribute selection measure. Handling training data with missing attribute values. Handling attributes with differing costs and Improving computational efficiency. 2.4.6 Strengths and Weaknesses Following are the strengths and weaknesses in decision tree: Strengths Weaknesses It generates understandable rules. It is less appropriate for estimation tasks where the goal is to predict the value of a continuous attribute. It performs classification without requiring much computation. It is prone to errors in classification problems with many class and relatively small number of training examples. It is suitable to handle both continuous and categorical variables. It can be computationally expensive to train. The process of growing a decision tree is computationally expensive. At each node, each candidate splitting field must be sorted before its best split can be found. Pruning algorithms can also be expensive since many candidate sub-trees must be formed and compared. It provides a clear indication of which fields are most important for prediction or classification. It does not treat well non-rectangular regions. It only examines a single field at a time. This leads to rectangular classification boxes that may not correspond well with the actual distribution of records in the decision space. Table 2.1 2.4.7 Applications Decision tree is generally suited to problems with the following characteristics: a. Instances are described by a fixed set of attributes (e.g., temperature) and their values (e.g., hot). b. The easiest situation for decision tree learning occurs when each attribute takes on a small number of disjoint possible values (e.g., hot, mild, cold). c. Extensions to the basic algorithm allow handling real-valued attributes as well (e.g., a floating point temperature). d. A decision tree assigns a classification to each example. i- Simplest case exists when there are only two possible classes (Boolean classification). ii- Decision tree methods can also be easily extended to learning functions with more than two possible output values. e. A more substantial extension allows learning target functions with real-valued outputs, although the application of decision trees in this setting is less common. f. Decision tree methods can be used even when some training examples have unknown values (e.g., humidity is known for only a fraction of the examples). [30] Learned functions are either represented by a decision tree or re-represented as sets of if-then rules to improve readability. 2.5 Unsupervised Learning (K-Means Clustering) Cluster analysis is a set of methodologies for automatic classification of samples into a number of groups using a measure of association, so that the samples in one group are similar and samples belonging to different groups are not similar. The inpu