Business to business (marketing plan) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Business to business (marketing plan) - Essay Example In light of this, the company would have to put in a lot of effort in identifying where its major strengths are so as to take advantage of the potentials. In this regard, a comprehensive research and development program in the short to medium term is recommended. What is more, the company must be poised with the introduction of new strategies and competitive advantages that will not seem too familiar to end users. Once this happens, potential customers would have no justification to trade off their existing companies for the new entrant. 1 Comparison of B2B to B2C B2B has largely been used to stand for business to business marketing whiles B2C has also been used to represent business to customers marketing. A critical understanding of these forms of marketing is very importation in the creation of market of market segments for any identified setting. This is because with an understanding of which of the two works best for a given company, it becomes easier for the company to select o ne of the two principles in creating the segmentation (quote). Generally, B2C has larger and broader sales prospects than B2B (quote). To this extent, B2C assure larger markets than B2B. In terms of segmentation also, demographic segmentation is more favourable for B2B whiles demographic segmentation is favourable for B2C (quote). This is so because B2C deals directly with customers and so need specific characteristics of customers to undertake business. B2B, which on the other hand deal with businesses needs to target a larger geographic scope in order to achieve successful patronage. Best basis of segmentation for each NEW market As stated earlier, the B2B is more favourable with geographic segmentation whiles B2C is more suitable for demographic segmentation. For each of these new markets therefore, there is a level of basis for the selected segmentation. In the business to business marketing for instance, because the company deals directly with other businesses, it does not real ly have to have the specific demographic make up of the setting into consideration. Rather, it would rather have to look at the business prospect of the market and strength of competitors in the area. With the business to customer, because the customer is the direct focus, it is always virtually impossible to think of succeeding without knowing the specific demographic qualities of customers. In most instances, the demographic characteristics that are considered for the demographic segmentation include race, nationality, gender, family size, religion, education, occupation, and income. Identify target segment and its estimated value From the discussions so far, the most suitable target segment for LumiCore is the London market. This way, it is clear that business to business (B2B) has been selected over business to business (B2C). This is because business to business makes use of segments such as states, regions, nations, countries, cities and in some cases, zip codes and neighbourh oods. Judging from the fact that London in the United Kingdom is a city, it qualifies and comes under business to business marketing. With London selected as the target segment, there are several estimated values that the company can be assured of having. Because the remaining aspects of the report shall give a closer diagnosis of the London segment, not

Romeo and Juliet Annotated Biboliography Essay Example for Free

Romeo and Juliet Annotated Biboliography Essay This Shakespearean classic tells the tale of a young couple who fall deeply in love finding themselves separated from their happily ever after by their family’s century long conflict. Romeo and Juliet meet and immediately fall in love, their relationship progressing rapidly and living under fear of their family’s reactions they make panicky, over-stressed decisions and find themselves digging their grave deeper and deeper. Shakespeare’s inclusion of puns makes the play feel a bit lighter at times adding much needed humor to this tragedy while his use of metaphors makes amplifies the romance and tension of the play. Setting the play in sixteenth-century Verona, Italy added to the drama and exotic nature of the play, showing royalty, foreign laws and customs. This play will keep the reader interested while including characters you grow to love despite their ignorance and often terrible decisions. Although the story is well written and contains a good blend of humor all readers must be warned, it is not a â€Å"light read† but instead stays completely true to its devastating genre. The levels of depth in personality applied to all characters involved gave it the romantic story line modern classics like Stephanie Myer’s Twilight dream of achieving. Although this book is a practically mandatory read, because of the crude and somewhat gore-filled nature of the play I would suggest that it not be read to children under thirteen or so.

A New Age in Space Exploration? :: Space Exploration Essays

â€Å"A Renewed Spirit of Discovery† was the title of President Bush’s speech for his vision of new Space Exploration. Since the debate was given on January 14, 2004, it has produced viable concerns from those who support and oppose the initiative. Arguments for and against it have appeared in all types of media, and more importantly in the minds of Americans. This Literature Review will discuss many of these beliefs in order to achieve a well-rounded, objective analysis of the issue. But before any opinions are put forth, it is always important to talk about the relative facts. Why put forth a new vision? Over past 30 years, it is hard to say that we have â€Å"explored† space. It is more appropriate to say we have conquered manned flight in Earth’s lower orbit. Truly, the Apollo Missions to the moon, which ended in the mid 70’s, was also the end to Manned Space Exploration. We have continued to build satellites and space stations to orbit the earth, and robots and satellites to explore Mars and Deep Space. By proposing to put humans on the Moon and Mars, the President has not changed our manned space exploration policy; he has created one. President George W. Bush proposed a new age in Space Exploration on January 14, 2004. The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster was only part of his reasoning for announcing a new direction for NASA. A reason not as well known is the current lack of any direction for NASA. Other than sending probes and robots to Deep Space and Mars, NASA has continued to upgrade current projects like the Hubble Space Telescope. [3] Not since the design of the Space Shuttle around 1980 has a new and demanding project been given to NASA. It is essential that the brilliant minds at NASA be pushed to greatness. The President’s new plan for Moon and Mars landings will provide the direction and new energy needed for NASA [2]. NASA Director Sean O’ Keefe has fully agreed with the need to challenge NASA and push its abilities to another level. Space Exploration History Humans are constantly exploring new horizons, which in turn raise the bar for new ideas to conquer the next step in exploration. New goals force the development of new technologies, which in turn are used to design technologies that affect everyday Americans.

Article Rebuttal: Surveillance Essay

Since the 9/11 attack on America, surveillance has increased significantly. Surveillance has expanded to telephone calls, e-mails, internet browsing records, financial history, credit history, library records, and even political and religious activities. Government says these surveillance activities are to protect citizens. The author of the article I found states otherwise believing these activities are not solely intended for harmful criminals and suspected terrorists. â€Å"It is directed at all of us†, says the author. This writer feels the government and state surveillance efforts are warrantless and invade the privacy of innocent people. â€Å"Surveillance undermines the right to privacy and the freedoms of speech, association, and religion†, the writer proclaims. The government is accused of spying in the article with no real advantage to anyone. There is excessive exaggeration in this article as the writer references the negative use of surveillance efforts. Statistics have shown proven facts that crime and accident rates have decreased in areas that have adapted such spying techniques. This article also made mention that government is increasing technology uses to observe people’s actions and movements without obtaining a warrant and without valid reasons to do so. The author failed to provide any real evidence that society is not benefiting from surveillance efforts – only opinions, reducing the sources’ credibility. The writer failed to reason about the positive effects of modern technology and surveillance. â€Å"Overall, the cameras—when actively monitored—were effective at cutting down crime. And the savings and benefits of fewer crimes outweighed the cost of the surveillance system†, reports a Chicago city worker. Based on analysis, reports found surveillance cameras can deter crime and are effective in cost when monitored and installed properly. Surveillance cameras are useful law enforcement tools that can assist in preventing or reducing crime. For example, Chicago reported surveillance cameras proved to be highly effective in reducing crime in certain areas. Computerized cameras are modernized, new law enforcement tools. Cities use them to catch red light runners and speeders – I’ve been caught by a few myself in recent years. I’ve since been more conscious of my driving habits!

What is a societal problem you believe needs to be addressed?

Although there are numerous societal problems that needs immediate attention but one problem which I feel needs most of the attention is society morality conflict. I would further elaborate my statement by saying that the people living in the society have become immoral and they indulge themselves in those kinds of acts that are not only immoral but they are unethical as well. Abortion is one major part of the moral conflicts between the societies as there are some people who are against it while some think that it is a human right. However, I would say that killing the baby without any valid reason or justification is not ethical. Moreover, the people are getting more and more prone to drugs and drinking and this not only harms the health of the individuals who consume drugs but it also leaves a negative impact on the society. Prostitution is also seen on a rise as the men are unsatisfied with their life partners and this is one quick way for the women to make money despite of the fact that this is not a moral practice. One more conflict in the society is occurring between the people who believe in God and the people who follow atheism. Atheists are the people who do not believe in any gods and this gives a negative connotation because most of the people in the society worship gods. Due to the rise in unemployment and the people being unable to support their living, they are left with two options; either they tend to commit suicide or they indulge in unethical acts that affect the society in a negative way and these have become a major evil for the society and the people.

buy custom The History of Computer Music essay

buy custom The History of Computer Music essay Lannis Xenakis was born in May 1922 in Braila, Romania. His parents returned to Greece in 1932, where he studied engineering and architecture in Athens. He participated in wartime resistance during the World War II as a member of the students body in 1940s. He sustained serious face injuries during the war that resulted to loss of eyesight in one of his eyes. Xenakis was denounced as a communist after the war for his involvement and was sentenced to death. Fearing for his life, he fled to Greece in 1947 under a false passport and joined Le Corbusiers architectural team in Paris (Varga, 1997, pp 14-21). Xenakis later studied music composition in Paris with Olivier Messiaen, Darius Milhaud and Arthur Honegger. His greatest contribution to music was pioneering electronic and computer music, and his stochastic mathematical and architectural techniques in his music, such as probability, game theory, Boolean algebra and group theory. In 1962, Xenakis published Musique Formelles, which was later revised, expanded and translated in to formalized music. In 1966, he founded the Center for Automatic and Mathematical Music in Paris and also set up a similar center in Indiana University. In 1971, he composed Thought and Mathematics, a collection of essays on his ideas, music and composition techniques. He also delivered free public lectures at Gresham College in London from 1975 to 1978, where he was professor of music. Dr. Dre Andre Romelle Young was born in February 1965 in Compton, California and is mostly known by his stage name Dr. Dre. He is an American rap artist, record producer, entrepreneur and occasional actor. His academic performance was poor in high school, which made him shift his focus into music and entertainment. He began his DJ career in high school, and in 1982, he formed World Class Wreckin Cru. The crew first released its first independent album in 1982 (Beckman and Adler, 1991). He graduated from high school in 1983 and refused to work in another field. He left wreckin Cru in 1984 and later joined N.W.A. in 1985, where he released three albums. The group produced eight records for Ruthless records. Their group was surrounded by controversy, and they believed it only assisted them to sell. The controversy brought them a lot of attention and Dre left Ruthless later in 1991 (Kenyatta, 2001, pp 34-45). Dre co-founded Death Rows Records in 1991 with Suge Knight. His career as a rap artist continued to succeed, and he got into music video business behind the scenes. He got into serious trouble with police severally during this period and even got arrested on assault charges. In 1994, he got into serious trouble and since he had broken his 1993 probation, he received an eight-month jail term. Dre left Death Row after feeling distracted from his music due to the constant trouble the group got involved in occasionally (Kenyatta, 2001, p 78). Xenakis Music The musical materials of Iannis Xenakis draw their inspiration from ancient music and architecture and his landscape is emotionally shaded by his turbulent past experiences. According to him, Metastasis was inspired by the impressions gained during the Greek Nazi War, but not by music. He influenced music as a composer by using past times, as explained by his sentiments on living in the 20th century. He also demonstrated strong interest in mathematical and formal procedures in music. He embraced the technological and scientific advances of his times and introduced many related ideas in his works. His contribution in electro acoustic music was an important step towards a thorough investigation of various possibilities in the composition of music. According to Varga (1997, p 112), Xenakis wanted to create a new form of abstract art using light and sound spectacles in which the visual and the musical part would be organized with the application of common notions and techniques. Xenakis delivered his experience in the composition of music and mathematics in organizing and controlling the whole spectacle. According to Xenakis (1992, p 182), Composing with sounds for the ear leads us to compose with light for the eyes. The laser beam and the electronic flash are the equivalents of beautiful sounds. To make them gleam in space is to create music for the eyes The music for the eyes is created with concepts and procedures stemming from musical composition. Xenakis began interrelating issues he encountered in architecture to music composition, since his arrival in Paris when he was working in association with Le Corbusier. His common approach to architecture and music can be seen in the design of the Philips Pavilion in 1958. He used ideas and solutions he applied in the orchestral composition, Metastasis. The use of paraboloids and the form of the Pavilion originated from the surfaces that formed the string glissandi of Metastasis (Xenakis, 1992, p 10). He observed the similarities between the architectural and musical space, and saw the multidimensional character of music instead of the three-dimensional character of architecture. This attitude led him to organize the audio and visual part of the Plytopes, where he handled sound and light as architectural elements. Statistics Xenakis found many natural events attractive, such as the waves crashing on the cliffs. He observed that the sound consists of many individual sounds perceived as one unified sound. He sought to analyze these natural events and utilize them in the compositional process. Modern Physics Xenakis delivered new physics ideas in his musical composition. He introduced in his music concepts such s the theory of relativity by Lorenz- Fitzerald and the theory of quantum mechanics by Max Planck (Xenakis, 1992, pp 255-67). Stochastic Music Xenakis named his music Stochastic from utilizing statistical methods in his compositions. He felt a need to introduce scientific ideas and mathematics into composition. Xenakis first used mathematical processes in Pithoprakta (1955-56) for string orchestra, where certain passages contain particular linear glissandi with a distinct part for every player, with equal numbers of glissandi heading upwards in pitch as downwards at a given time instant, and the speeds of glissandi following a normal distribution. Pitches are treated as particles in this way, with the speed of the glissandi representing their temperature and their direction movement, and these demonstrations appeared in Metastasis. However, mathematics is only employed in isolation (Varga, 1997, p 98). According to Salbert (1997, 37), Xenakis seemed to have replaced the concept of rhythm with density. He then developed this idea in Achorripsis (1956-57), where musical sounds are arranged into various timbres and the frequency in which they occur and the density of sounds at a given instant are subjected to a Poisson distribution. The composition is into time bands of equal length in order to make the calculations possible, the outcome of which is to divide the music into cells. Xenakis then applied the working of Pithoprakta within each string of glissando cell, the sonic density being the square of the mean speed of glissandi. Griffiths (1978, pp 19-30) also shares this view, proposing that the composer was interested in the concept of minimal constraints in music. Stochastic procedures have the capacity to carry a lot of data as was the case of Xenakis cloud of sounds. Eletroacoustic Music Xenakis was influenced to get involved with the electronic medium by the work of the French composer Edgard Varese and the experiments on sound and philosophy of Italian futurism. He officially composed sixteen electro acoustic works between 1957 and 1994 (Salabert, 1997, p 29). His works can be classified into three categories that also define the three periods in his compositional career (Solomos Hoffman, 1998, pp 53-69). Between 1955 and 1977, Xenakis applied tape manipulation techniques to his electro acoustic music and used both concrete and synthesized sounds. In the second period, between 1978 and 1989, he utilized the UPIC system developed in CEMAMu. During this period, he composed four works with the UPIC system. The third period is defined by the utilization of the GENDY program, which he used to investigate stochastic waveform synthesis. He used this program to compose two works. Xenakis applied various techniques mainly tape-machine manipulations. The character of sound is altered by tape speed changes, raising or lowering pitch. Using a slider or a keyboard, he could experiment with controlling the tape speed. By making use of these equipment, he could control the tape play back in real-time by applying discrete, pre-adjusted speed changes similar to the keyboard or continuous speed changes just like in a slider. The composer could also alter the character of the sound by playing the tape backwards, where the sound could be heard in reverse. The composer used group theory in the passages to structure his materials, as is the case in Tetora, which he did in 1990 using the theory in conjunction with his sieve theory (Varga, 1997, p 42). In Duel and Linaia-Agon, game theory is used to play a set of textures. He employed set theory in Herma (1961) to generate musical material. Xenakis later proposed the use of computer in sound synthesis conceptually based on granular synthesis and the theories of quantum mechanics by Planck and Albert. Granular synthesis is based on the discontinuous nature of the hearing system. The UPIC System UPC is a computer based music composition and sound production system. The UPIC system is made up of a real-time unit, which handles sound synthesis and playback, a host computer and an optional digital graphic board. The various aspects of a composition are described using graphical notation. The graphical tablet or a computer mouse can help in describing music from its tiniest micro level detail to its whole structure (Solomos Hoffman, 1998, pp 19-23). Using this system, the user can graphically describe all the levels of the music with the aid of an electronic tablet and listen to the outcome in real-time. It was developed at CEMAMu, and has been used by many composers in their work. Xenakis used the system in composing four electro acoustic works, one4 being Xenakis Mycenae Alpha in 1978, a result of light and sound spectacle using the UPIC system at CEMAMu. The music was first performed in Mycenae, Greece. The system derived from his architectural background as well as from the needs of his compositions, its conceptual basis being transferring the graphical description of the music into sound. As a result of his dedicated work towards developing music, Xenakis has not only influenced different composers, but some have also declared a debt to his compositional innovations. Some continue to display an understanding of the various facets of his compositional theories and applications (Solomos Hoffman, 1998, p 75). These include Julio Estrada, Krzyszt of Penderecki and Toru Takemitsu. Though their styles differ widely as well as their master, their music continues to enrich the legacy of Xenakis. Similarities between Xenakis and Dres Music Styles Dr. Dre used sampling in his earlier years in music, whiich is achieved by taking a portion of one song and reusing it in a different song. Musicians working with musique concrete and electro acoustic music originally used it. They physically manipulated tape loops on a polygraph. Sampling was often used with the rise of electronic music in the music industry. It is very similar to the synthesizing technique used by Xenakis. Sampling is done with a sampler, more often a computer program. The use of computers was pioneered by Xenakis and has been used by musicians afterwards like Dre Dre (Schloss, 2004, p 66). Dr. Dres Successes in Music Dr. Dre received a Grammy Award for the best rap solo performance in 1994. By August the same year, the rap albums he had produced had sold close to 28 million copies. Dre joined Jimmy Iovine to form his own label, Aftermath Entertainment. The period between 1996 and 1999 was a drawback, mainly due to the record label differences. However, he strongly came back in 1999 when he joined Eminem in producing The Marshall Mathers LP and he garnered Grammy Awards for the Producer of the Year and Best Performance for the single Forgot About Dre (Kenyatta, 2001, p 36). Dr. Dre released his second solo album 2001 in 1999, which was considered as a great return to his gangsta rap roots. The album was featured in collaboration with many artists including snoop Dogg and Eminem. The album was considered very successful and charted at number two in Billboard 200 charts and has been certified platinum six times since then (Edwards, 2001, par). After the success of 2001, Dre focused on production work for other artists. The co-produced Marshall Mathers LP was landmark and won the Grammy Award for the best album, including the Grammy-winning lead single The Real Slim Shady. The album proved to be the best selling rap album of all time, selling 1.76 million pieces in its first week alone. He also produced several singles for several artists, including Family Affair by Mary Blige, Let Me Blow Ya Mind by Eve and No Doubt by Gwen Stefan. The Aftermath label continued the success trend on the release of Get Rich or Die Tryin, the 2003 major album by Queens, rapper 50 Cent based in New York. Dre co-produced four tracks on the album. He also became the executive producer of Eminems fourth album after joining Aftermath (Edwards, 2001, par). Film Industry Dre made his first appearance on screen in 1996 in the bank robbery movie, Set It Off where he acted as a weapon dealer. He also appeared in the movies Training Day and The Wash and his song Bad Intentions featured in The Wash soundtrack. Dr. Dre got into the film industry feeling that he had directed many music videos and he wanted to get into directing. Dre also produced his brand headphones Beats Dr. Dre in July 2008. Music Styles Dr. Dre uses the Akai MPC3000 as his primary studio, a drum machine and sampler that he uses four or five times to produce a single recording. He prefers to have studio musicians re-play music he verses wants to use, trying to avoid samples. This proves more flexible allowing him to change the pieces in rhythm and tempo (Scholls, 2004, p 49). The other instrument he uses is the E-MU SP-1200 drum machine and keyboards. He also gets other people to play instruments for him and he tells them what he wants, soloing them when he hears something, he particularly likes. Dre worked with producer Mel-Man as a co-producer after founding Aftermath Entertainment and his music became more synthesizer-based sound by using fewer vocal samples. Mel-Man was credited as the key architect of the signature Aftermath sound. Dr. Dre has managed to maintain his astounding performance because he is a perfectionist. Their attributes with Eminen have managed to keep Aftermath a success. He gives a lot of attention to delivery of vocals, and he is known to stop an MC if he doesnt like the output. However, he allows his MCs time to write their lyrics without much supervision unless he needs to offer a conceptual background. Co-Producers and Collaborators Dr. Dre has worked with other collaborators over the years of his work. During his stay at Death Rows, it is believed that he worked with his stepbrother and Daz, though most of their contributions were uncredited. Scott Storch, who is also a successful producer, has been credited severally as a songwriter on several tracks. Ghost Writers Though he retains overall control over his lyrics and the themes of his songs, others write Dr. Dres raps. In the songs he has produced, there is often contribution of many people, as it can be observed from his credits. While he is doing production work, others handle ghostwriting his lyrics. Eminem and Royce 5 9 are some of the artists who have ghostwritten his music. However, he maintained creative control over the content of his verse (Ira, 1991, p 78). He is fairly mainly a conductor rather than a fully fledged producer some of his times. His work has been achieved through team effort and the fact that he is humble to credits others has made him more successful. Dr. Dre earned about US$52 million after selling part of his share of Aftermath Entertainment to Interscope records and production of some of his hit songs such as Family Affair by Mary Blige. He was thus named the second highest paid artist of the year. Dr. Dre has continued to succeed from his music, both monetary and respect wise, especially after establishing Aftermath entertainment. He has gone on to win many awards and recognition and remains one of the most respected musicians in the modern music industry. Buy custom The History of Computer Music essay

Adaption vs. Adaptation

Adaption vs. Adaptation Adaption vs. Adaptation Adaption vs. Adaptation By Maeve Maddox A reader in the UK who grew up hearing the word adaption used in reference to radio and television programs based on books wonders, Where did adaptation come from, since there is no verb adaptate? The earliest OED documentation of the verb adapt is dated 1531. The noun adaptation comes along in 1597, 18 years earlier than adaption (1615). English has no verb â€Å"adaptate,† but the past participle stem of Latin adaptare (to fit, to adapt) is adaptat-. Adaptation came into English from French, with the extra syllable already in place. Adaption looks like a homegrown nominalization of the verb adapt. The Google Ngram Viewer, which tracks the incidence of words in printed sources from 1800 to 2000, shows adaption running a distant second to adaptation during the entire period. The OED has a brief entry for adaption, prefaced by the notation â€Å"Now nonstandard.† Clearly, adaptation is the standard form of the word meaning, â€Å"an altered or amended version of a text, musical composition, etc., especially one adapted for filming, broadcasting, or production on the stage from a novel or similar literary source.† But although adaptation is the preferred spelling, adaption is in use among English speakers in Canada, Australia, the UK, and the US: The Snow Queen: A Pop-Up Adaption of a Classic Fairytale  Hardcover  Ã¢â‚¬â€œPublication date: 2013. Movie Adaption > Popular Movie Adaption Books –categories on Goodreads Why book-to-film adaption soundtracks need to fit with the original book –headline, The Guardian Lake Bell to Direct Film Adaption of  The Emperor’s Children –headline, Time.com The Broadway musical  West Side Story  is an adaption of  Romeo and Juliet.  Ã¢â‚¬â€œarticle, The Globe and Mail (Canada) On a page at the BBC News site, adaption occurs in a header, but adaptation is used in the text below it. Bottom line: Some writers in the English-speaking world continue to use adaption as an alternative spelling of adaptation, but adaptation is the preferred standard form. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Misused Words category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:10 Rules for Writing Numbers and Numerals40 Synonyms for â€Å"Different†Appropriate vs. Apropos vs. Apt

5 Tips for Teachers to Help Disorganized Students

5 Tips for Teachers to Help Disorganized Students A students poor organizational skills can easily be improved by providing a routine and by clearly stating directions and expectations. Disorganized students often forget homework, have messy desks, cannot keep track of their materials and have poor time management skills. Teachers can help these students by providing a structured routine along with strategies to keep them organized. Use the following tips to help your disorganized student manage their responsibilities. 1. Set up a Routine By providing structure in the classroom the disorganized student will have no choice but to stay organized. Establishing a classroom schedule will allow students to be less frustrated and confused, and will provide them with a sense of where they are going and what materials they will need. To lessen their confusion, place a schedule in their folder or tape one to their desk. This way, the student can use it as a reference throughout the day. 2. Use a Checklist A checklist is a great tool for a disorganized student because it shows them the expectations that they need to accomplish for the day in a visual format. For younger students, have the list already prepared for them and go over it with the student each morning. For older students, provide strategies for prioritizing their own checklists.   3. Monitor Homework Encourage parenteral support by writing a letter to parents describing your homework policy. Require that each night after the homework is completed, it is signed by a parent and returned to school the following day. This process will ensure the student stays on task and encourages parents to be involved. 4. Organize Classroom Desks A disorganized student will not take the time to clean out their desk. Each week set aside time in your class schedule so students can complete this task. Brainstorm organizational ideas with the students on specific ways they can keep their desks tidy. Make the list visible in the classroom so each week they can have access to it. Suggest that they label materials for easy access and throw away items they no longer use. 5. Use Memory Aids Memory aids are a helpful way to remember tasks and materials. Have the student use tangible items such as  sticky notes, rubber bands, index cards, alarm clocks, and timers to remind them to complete their tasks for the day. Encourage them to use memory aids like this acronym: CATS. (CCarry, AAssignment, TTo, SSchool) Teaching these new strategies will help students complete their tasks efficiently and effectively. These tips give students the tools they need to manage their obligations and to be successful in school. With a little help and ​encouragement, disorganized children can easily get on a new path.   Additional Tips to Keep Students Organized Use the buddy system and assign a classmate to assist the student with their organizational skills.Use different color paper for different subjects so it is easier to locate papers.Require papers be put into binders.Have the student put important materials in their take-home folder or backpack as soon as they receive them.Use different color folders for different subjects so the students can locate them easily.Provide containers for small items so they will not be lost.Provide a monthly calendar and label when assignments are due.Have the student show you their completed checklist each day before they go home.

Renewable energy law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Renewable energy law - Essay Example There are several reasons why the government should insist on the usage of renewable energy sources. Renewable energy sources are no likely to cause pollution in the air and on water bodies.However,there are some sources of renewable energy that can cause environmental degradation if not carefully used; such sources include large hydro and some kinds of biomass. Renewable energy is also seen as a perfect example in fighting global warming. These sources of energy do not emit carbon monoxide into the air thus affecting the ozone layer. Further, renewable sources of energy are sustainable; they can be used for several years without being depleted. Renewable sources of energy such as hydro, solar, geothermal, wind, tidal and wave power have got no fuel costs: their production does not depend on the presence of fuel for their production. Their usage can prevent the ever rising prices of energy.The UK and Canada have got the powers to declare an executive economic zone (EEZ).Such a resolu tion means that they are able to establish any organization that will be mandated and concerned with the production of renewable energy. They will also be able to produce renewable energy through the water, current and winds. The UK has got no intention to declare an EEZ, however, the government will consider the move once it receives royal assent from the United Nations. Precedent to this policy is witnessed in the country’s commissioning of an Executive Fishing Zone and another zone for the conservation of the marine environment. These two policies progress the UK’s ability in respect to specific rights, those that exist outside its territorial waters (Roggenkamp and Hammer, 2004). Privileges established in the primary legislation will assist in the creation of boundaries to the production of renewable energy which is expected to operate under the Orders in Council. Regulation for this can be found in the secondary regulation under section 1 (7) of the continental sh elf act 1967 which is concerned with the mapping of the UK’s continental shelf. The government projects that the renewable energy zone will also work in the same way as the UK continental shelf. There are also some limits to these regulations, it is evident that they will challenged by other regulations from other coastal states, for example, at the west coast of Scotland, the limit may extend to over 200 mile limit (Roggenkamp and Hammer, 2004). The UK government has got plans to allocate resources necessary for the development of renewable energy zones, especially in the Crown state. To ensure that the offshore renewable energy installations meet the standards of the UK government, policy makers in the sector will have follow the similar approach followed in the Petroleum Act 1998 (Roggenkamp and Hammer, 2004). This will be achieved through the use of Orders in Council to ensure strict application of the necessary law of England, Wales and Scotland to the approach towards r enewable energy investments and any acts or omissions committed with the range of 500 meters. Further, the government plans to use the protection enjoyed in the Submarine Telegraph act 1885 in the submarine cable responsible for the installation of renewable energy devices, either in the territorial sea or in its internal waters. To this far, the work of the legal team in the provision of regulations within the renewable energy sector will be put to practice by using relevant provisions of the legislation which are already being used in its territorial waters. The government also holds the view that offshore renewable energy and their relation with the integrated transmission network should honor the same quality and safety as the onshore installations. Policy makers therefore plan to extend the legality of the sections 29 and 30 of the electricity act to the renewable energy zone. Further, due to the potentiality of disaster that offshore renewable energy may pose to the airplanes, they plan to also use the civil aviation authority so as to

Quality of Service (QoS) in Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Research Paper

Quality of Service (QoS) in Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Applications - Research Paper Example The current levels of available reliability and performance will be assessed for their application to real life business applications. Keywords – Quality of Service, Service Oriented Architecture, QoS, SOA, reliability, performance, mathematical model I. Introduction Service oriented architecture (SOA) environments have gained popularity in recent years given their inherent flexibility and reusability. The typical SOA is structured around methods that promote software creation as interoperable services [1]. The various services used to construct a SOA are well-defined business functions. These business functions are construed as various software building blocks that can be used repeatedly to promote decreased development time and debugging effort [2]. Currently the SOA model is finding great appeal for web application development as well as grid computing [3]. The current speed of SOA architecture development indicates that SOA applications will dominate the future avenues of development. II. Quality of Service (QoS) and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) The most important method of describing a SOA’s characteristics in general is the quality of service (QoS) it offers [4]. The current development of the QoS concept sees divergence and some commonality depending on the various fields that employ SOAs. Most web based application SOAs require real time transfer rates such as for fiscal information transfer or multimedia applications. In contrast, other areas such as mobile grid computing see SOA QoS as a set of non-functional outputs that guarantee reliability [5]. The existing disparity between QoS definitions for SOA implementations in networking, web applications and grid computing mean that QoS needs to be defined in a more comprehensive yet unambiguous fashion. Most previous definitions of QoS promote the idea that only the best possible service levels can be classified as QoS [6]. However, more modern definitions of QoS contend that any leve l of services that meet user requirements can be classified as QoS for that particular application [7]. QoS can also be compared to Service Level Agreements (SLAs) where the user and the service provider agree upon acceptable levels of performance parameters such as functionality, costs etc. QoS for SOAs can be classified in the form of â€Å"request, specification, provision and negotiation† of some particular network features [7]. A typical SOA application may require QoS for the latency, the error rate, bandwidth, availability as well as the network security [8]. However, these characteristics alone should not be seen as describing the entire umbrella for QoS for SOAs. Instead, these characteristics form some of the characteristics of QoS for SOAs. Moreover, the QoS agreements would tend to vary from application to application in SOA depending on user requirements, functional expectations and non-functional expectations of the user [9]. For example, users accessing multime dia content through SOA applications would emphasize more on bandwidth than users dealing with defense applications through SOA who would emphasize more on reliability and security [10]. The classification method provided above for QoS in SOA applications is limited in scope. The QoS may be broken down into smaller metrics for further QoS classification. For example, jitter in network connection could be treated through consecutive difference in jitter or through the average jitter. The results from these metrics would tend to differ

Christopher Columbus Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Christopher Columbus - Essay Example Some people held the proposition that Norse actually explored the northeastern North America and may be beyond that. Various documents from the Norroena collection support the view that the Norse reached the Georgia or South Carolina, though these views have often faced wide controversies all over. Recent beliefs and studies suggest that the first European to reach America was Leifur Eriksson who reached America as early as in the 11th Century. In spite of all this beliefs it is still widely believed that it was Christopher Columbus who discovered America in the year 1492 in his first voyage. Section B. 4. Puritans were a group of people who lived in the Churches of England and devoted their life’s towards religious, morals and the social views. They entered in America in order to escape the persecution from the leadership of the church. In the new world the puritans faced a wide range of problems. The biggest problem faced by them was that they faced persecution. Apart from t he persecution they faced shortage of food, hard living conditions. The puritans faced repeated life threats from the group of Indians and they were isolated, They did not received any sort of help from the civil society and lived their days in fear. They had to struggle with the nature also as they had to face harsh winters. Puritans wanted to maintain spirituality in every thing they do which was very difficult for the modern worked to accept. In an open environment, maintenance of such rituals was not possible and it was the problem they faced in America. Colonials view was abandoned in England and the idea was desolated because of the strictness and the rigidness mentioned. Section D The new American government faced an economic problem. The Federal Government faced a huge debt of $54 million. Foreign credit was unavailable and paper currency became useless. Alexander Hamilton was asked to look into this problem. The problem that Hamilton faced was a huge national debt. He asked the government to assume the entire debt of the federal government and the states. Certain states like Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Virginia, saw no logic as to why they should be taxed by the federal government to pay off the debts of other states like Massachusetts and South Carolina, especially when they had already paid off their own debts. Even then, Hamilton’s debt program was implemented, and it was a success. (Clark 2011, pp 233) Later, a political division started to take shape in the form of a conflict between Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton. Hamilton used the Bank of England as a role model for the Bank of United States. He favored a government by the rich, who would support the government and laid emphasis on commerce and industry. Jefferson on the other hand was a classical liberal. He believed in broad diffusion of wealth while Hamilton’s ideas concentrated wealth in the hands of few. Jefferson favored limited participation in the economy while Hamilton tried to put on heavy tariffs so that Americans could compete in the world market (Katz & Vencill; Hamiltons Fiscal Program). Hamilton’s idea of industrialization was opposed because it segregated from Jefferson’s conception of U.S. Jefferson saw it as a Utopian Agrarian society which would be ruined by industrialization. Hamilton

Mechanical Engineering- Mechanical Project Essay

Mechanical Engineering- Mechanical Project - Essay Example Other than strength and stiffness of materials, other properties like electrical conductivity could become essential when making material selection. The desired function of the intended structure remains the leading elements providing a guideline of material properties. When desired material properties cannot be achieved within any natural material, engineers must construct materials meeting the required structural properties. This includes combining different materials to produce a unique material having the desired chemical and physical properties. This combination of material could be attributed to the development of reinforcement technology utilised in changing properties of materials to meet structural requirements. In metallic materials, the combination of different materials, creating alloys continues to be utilised in enhancing strength of metallic elements. Steel, for example, remains a common utilised material for many engineering structures. The constituents of steel inclu de iron and carbon at different ratios, depending on the desired material strength. Iron remains a material prone to rusting and combination with carbon reduces the rusting property, attributed to iron. Composites could be described as materials made from a combination of materials having different physical and chemical properties, to produce a material with unique properties. The individual properties of the constituent materials become dissolved and the developed material exhibits independent properties (Waterman 2007). Different composites exist within the engineering industry,

Power electornic lab 4 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Power electornic lab 4 - Essay Example Two types of power inverters are used according to the applications; voltage source inverters (VSI) and current source inverters (CSI) (Sen, 1997). A voltage source inverter (VSI) converts a DC voltage into an AC voltage, which has a distinctive square wave formation. In the similar manner, a CSI converts the DC into AC with a distinctive square wave formation. In the experiment, a further discussion, calculation and results are discussed to evaluate the functional characteristics of the voltage source inverter. The waveform generated by the voltage source inverter in given below. UPS (Uninterruptible power supply) make utilization of the DC/AC inverter with batteries as the DC source. UPS is mostly utilized as the emergency backup power to maintain the data in computer data systems, maintain undisturbed communication channel, emergency power for homes and offices and selective machines at industries in case of primary power source loss. Ups are also used to correct the condition of under voltage and over voltage in electrical systems. The safety function is used in computer data systems, medical instruments and systems UPS is also referred to reduce harmonic distortion. In this experiment, UPS is tested with different kinds of resistive and inductive loads. UPS is evaluated according to the dissimilar load circumstances in the experiment. In this experiment, both simulation UPS investigation software as well as the real physical investigation in inverter systems is carried to evaluate the performance characteristics of the UPS. The two tests will then be compared to evaluate the operation of the UPS. It is quite clear from the above results that as the load increase the output voltage of the UPS drops. On the other hand, with similar inductive and resistive loads, the voltage drop is more with inductive load that is about 6.64

Mechanical Engineering- Mechanical Project Essay

Mechanical Engineering- Mechanical Project - Essay Example Other than strength and stiffness of materials, other properties like electrical conductivity could become essential when making material selection. The desired function of the intended structure remains the leading elements providing a guideline of material properties. When desired material properties cannot be achieved within any natural material, engineers must construct materials meeting the required structural properties. This includes combining different materials to produce a unique material having the desired chemical and physical properties. This combination of material could be attributed to the development of reinforcement technology utilised in changing properties of materials to meet structural requirements. In metallic materials, the combination of different materials, creating alloys continues to be utilised in enhancing strength of metallic elements. Steel, for example, remains a common utilised material for many engineering structures. The constituents of steel inclu de iron and carbon at different ratios, depending on the desired material strength. Iron remains a material prone to rusting and combination with carbon reduces the rusting property, attributed to iron. Composites could be described as materials made from a combination of materials having different physical and chemical properties, to produce a material with unique properties. The individual properties of the constituent materials become dissolved and the developed material exhibits independent properties (Waterman 2007). Different composites exist within the engineering industry,

Nursing paper Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Nursing paper - Assignment Example Based on a SWOT analysis, the strategic position of the healthcare centre can be established. A SWOT analysis looks at the company’s strengths and weaknesses, and opportunities and threats; the internal environment (the company’s strengths and weaknesses) in which the company operates and the external influence (the company’s opportunities and threats) are assessed (Bohm, 2009). In this case, a hospital will be analyzed using SWOT analysis. The strengths and the weaknesses are based on what the hospital can offer best and what it cannot offer best. The opportunities and threats for the hospital come from the external resources, the regulations and partnerships. Considering the strengths of the hospital, it is beyond doubt that patients receive a wide variety of quality services. This is seen in respect of the fact that the hospital staff is keen on complying with the code of ethics, maintains up-to-date records related to patient care and provides the option of applying Medicaid and Medicare to ease the cost of medical care. Maintaining accurate and up-to date records is important in ensuring that all aspects of patient care including billing are properly done. This in effect helps in the avoidance of medical malpractice with its accompanying negative effects, the worst being patient death. The hospital also flourishes in its endeavor to provide quality care in that it has a wide variety of facilities that are useful in screening diseases. The hospital’s emphasis on continuous education also implies that it is keen to ensure that the right treatments methods are applied in caring for patients. These combinations of positive factors have a compounded effect in attracting more patients to the hospital. The hospital needs to maintain and if possible improve on these strengths if it has to continue enjoying its position as a market leader in the provision of nursing care. As noted by many a human

Types Of Grants And Scholarships Essay Example for Free

Types Of Grants And Scholarships Essay The Pell Grant Program basically provides need-based grants to students belonging to low-income families.   This grant is primarily for undergraduate and certain postgraduate students who do not have adequate finances and access to graduate degree programs.   The current institutions that participate in this program approximate nearly 5,400.   The grants generally cover expenses such as allowances and basic education costs. The grant amount is determined by a number of factors such as the contribution from the family (EFC), the cost of basic education, whether the student is full-time or part-time and the entire attendance during the school year.    An eligible student may not receive more than one Pell Grant from more than a single academic institution at a time.   According to the FSA handbook, direct grants may be awarded with the aid of participating schools to students who fit the financial need qualifications and who have not received their bachelor’s degrees. The Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG) is a relatively new program that was granted during the 2006-2007 academic year.   The main purpose of this grant is to encourage students in the United States to enroll in more challenging high school courses and also to eventually pursue college degrees.   This grant is awarded to students who are first-year undergraduate students who were able to graduate from high-school in 2006, and to second-year students who graduated in January 1, 2005 from their high school. This can be awarded to a student over and above the Pell grant award that a deserving student receives.   There is currently over US $4.5 billion that has been earmarked for this program over the next five (5) years and this will continue on until the 2010-2011 academic calendars.   In order to be qualified to receive this grant, applicants must be full-time students (unlike the Pell Grant) and must be United States citizens. Works Cited: ACG Grant Information from http://www.acggrant.com/ last accessed on March 20, 2008 Federal Pell Grant Program from http://www.ed.gov/programs/fpg/index.html last accessed on March 20, 2008

The Advantages Of Using DFIG

The Advantages Of Using DFIG In addition to its stator, the DFIGs rotor is also connected to the grid using a power converter (Picture 3). This type is very common for wind turbines as it offers certain advantages compared to other types: It can operate like a synchronous generator and at variable speed, although its stator is directly connected to the grid. The converter can adequately control the voltage (phase and magnitude) that is applied to the rotor and as a consequence control the magnetic fields frequency or speed. It actually forms an AC excitation with a variable frequency, just like the DC excitation used in synchronous generators. This operation gives the DFIG the benefits of a synchronous generator. These benefits include the separate control of reactive and active power, or the control of the wind turbines power factor. The DFIG wind turbines are better than other designs in terms of grid compatibility. It can operate at variable speed, sub- or super synchronously. The optimum speed can be chosen by adjusting the frequency and phase of the voltage that is applied to the rotor, and is such that maximum power is obtained by the wind, in different wind speeds. Since it can operate as synchronous generator, a major advantage of large DFIG wind turbines is that they can contribute to the systems stability after a fault occurs. However, this relies heavily on the control options given by the power converter. Moreover, A DFIG wind turbine can generate reactive power even when the mechanical part is not operating and in not delivering active power. Relative to other variable speed generators, DFIGs power converter is rated at lower power (i.e. about 30% of the wind turbines rated power), since only part of the total power delivered by the wind turbine is transferred through the converter. This makes the wind turbine cheaper and lighter. The power mentioned above, can be either delivered by the rotor (when the turbine rotates with a higher than the synchronous speed), or absorbed (when its speed is below the sync speed). This double mode gives the DFIG the ability to operate at speeds below or above even by 50% of the sync speed, although actually lower variations are chosen. Compared to other generators with variable speed, which use external rotor resistances to allow variable speed, DFIG are more energy efficient, since there is little power dissipated in the converter. DFIG can be accurately controlled due to the fact that the power converter can adjust both the magnitude and phase of the voltage applied to the rotor. This attribute, combined with pitch-control in wind turbines offers the operator more accurate power control, especially in high winds where high power output can cause severe damage to the equipment. Finally DFIG shares the benefits of synchronous and inductive generators regarding its contribution to power systems stability. Appropriate control can improve the damping of power variations in the system, without compromising voltage control. +voltage control Picture 1 Active Management in the distribution network [4], [5], [6] The dispersed nature of renewable resources necessitates their connection at the distribution network, which was designed in order to convey power from high to low voltage. Now, with the introduction of renewable electricity sources, the power can follow any direction, affecting the power and voltage quality as well as the security of the system. Therefore considerable amounts of money should be spent for their upgrade, if the optimum renewable potential is to be achieved. Another, less expensive approach is the transition from the networks traditional passive operation to their active management. Under active management approach, new control and communication technologies are incorporated into the system and allow the operator to control in real time the voltage, the power flows and even the fault levels. The main options under active management are: Power flow management The risks regarding the network power flows must be sufficiently eliminated. The possibility of the distributed generators to deliver power above the systems ratings-capacity can significantly threat the systems operation. This is a serious issue, especially in case of a circuit outage. The power flow management protects the systems parts taking into account their nominal capacity. Voltage control The voltage at a bus is affected by the real and reactive power on that bus as well as the R and X values of the line. The voltage change at that bus is approximately equal to. The most significant issue accruing from the introduction of distributed generators at the distribution networks is the voltage rise at the connected bus. The operator can choose appropriate R and X values but this would require an expensive network upgrade. The control of P and Q is a less expensive option, and this is why it is preferred. The main actions usually taken are: On-load transformer tapping: The operator might reduce/increase the voltage at the primary substation reducing/increasing all the subsequent voltages. Nevertheless, in case of reducing the voltage, a possible generator disconnection might drive the voltage below its allowable limit. Power factor or/and voltage control: see question 4 Reactive power compensation: Appropriate devices (capacitor banks, STACOM etc) can be connected on critical buses, so that they deliver/absorb reactive power and fix the voltage profile. Generation curtailment: another way to mitigate a voltage rise, would be to curtail real power generation from the distributed generators. However, this sets a significant constraint in the renewable energy that can be exploited. Fault level management : see below Load management Reducing or shifting adjustable loads can alleviate the pressure on the networks operation, especially in case of very low renewable generation. Power quality management The operator exploits various capabilities at the generators, loads or other special devices to maintain the powers high quality in terms of harmonics, voltage disturbances etc. Power Factor vs Voltage Control [7], [8], [9] The dominant negative impact of connecting generators in the distribution network is the distortion of the voltage profile. The simplest, but at the same time the most expensive, solution for this problem is the upgrade of the local grid. However, there are more efficient ways, (borrowed by the operation of the transmission networks) that could allow for larger DG penetration without big distortions at the voltage profile. Two of them, concerning the generators operation, are: Power factor control: the generator operates at a constant power factor. The reactive follows the real power output so that their ratio remains constant. This kind of operation was required by the distribution network operator (DNO) in the context of the fit and forget rationale, with which all the low voltage networks were initially designed. The major advantage of this method is that it does not disrupt the operation of other regulation devices, such as OLTC. However, it may have a negative impact on the voltage at the connected bus, since it tends to contribute to the voltage variation which is influenced by the changes in power flows. As a consequence, this approach limits the total generation capacity that can be connected on the network. Voltage control: the generator adjusts its reactive power output so that the voltage at the connection bus remains within the allowable limits. This adjustment is done according to the real power output and the voltage drop or rise occurring at the bus. Obviously, the generators power factor is not constant anymore, although an upper and a lower limit would normally apply. The DNO are not very keen on allowing generators to operate in that way, since this operation could considerably affect the operation of other voltage regulation devices, such as OLTC transformers. Moreover, if a small generator tries to correct a high voltage change, it might need to set its reactive power output at a critical high or low level. This sort of dangerous operation close to the thermal or overcurrent limits entails a significant increase in the maintenance cost, or even worse, it can activate the protections and cause a sudden trip. A combination of the two approaches described above is considered the best solution regarding the optimum operation of a distributed generator. The main idea is that the generator operates with a constant power factor until the point where the voltage at the connected bus reaches the upper or lower allowable limit. At this point, the power factor control is deactivated, letting the generator to adjust its reactive power output and fix the voltage. Again, the power factor must be kept within its the allowable limits. When the voltage returns within its limits, the power factor control is reactivated. The consequences of new DG capacity on network fault levels and protection [4] The connection of distributed generation, using either synchronous or inductive generators, causes an increase in the systems fault levels, owing to the additional generation that could feed a potential fault current. This is especially the case at the very edges and weak parts of the distribution network, where the renewable generators are usually connected. The new fault levels might exceed the rating of the existing protections. Such an implication could cause significant damage to the protection equipment and set the systems security at high risk or ultimately incur supply interruptions. But most importantly could set personnels life in to severe danger. Therefore, every time a new distributed generator is connected, the fault levels must be re-examined and wherever is deemed necessary, protections must be upgraded. In some cases it might be necessary to upgrade the respective part of the network (reduce the R and X values new lines or/and transformers), which would usually requ ire significant amount of money. Nonetheless, in the context of the active management operation of the distribution network, the operator can take some alternative measures: Advanced converter technology: the use of advanced power inverters, makes a generators contribution to the fault current much lower. The more advanced a converter, the higher its cost. Network reconfiguration: changing the topology of the network could change the fault level at some buses. This operation is already available in most of the networks for maintenance purposes. Is Limiter: a device that can instantly increase the systems impedance (lower fault level) in case of an incident, but it needs replacement after each use. Sequential switching: the contribution at the fault current by one or a team of distributed generators can be isolated in case of a fault in a different section. The need for active power balancing in networks with high penetration of renewable energy resources In order for the frequency of a system to be maintained, the total real power generation must always be equal to the total real power load and losses. A distortion of this balance could cause a frequency deviation beyond the allowable limits and hence, damage the equipment and the loads. Therefore, it is of major importance that the system operator must always retain the active power balance. Most of the prevailing renewable energy resources, such as wind or solar, have an intermittent behaviour and their output relies on the weather/climate conditions and hence, cannot be controlled. Although there were significant advances in the weather forecasting, errors are still present. Moreover, any sudden incidents that could trip a big part of the total generation (not only renewable) could also contribute to a real power unbalance. Adding to this the fact that the demand can also vary, the large penetration of renewable resources increases considerably the risk for the systems stability. The main techniques that a system operator can use in order to maintain the power balance are: Storage: Large (compressed air, hydro-pump storage, flywheels etc) or smaller (EV etc) storage facilities can contribute to the real power balancing. They can store energy when the renewable generation exceeds the total load and deliver it back to the network when the total generation is not sufficient to meet the demand. Some storage technologies are better than others in terms of their performance, however all of them are quite capable of quickly adjusting their output to support the systems frequency. Nonetheless, most of the storage technologies are still very expensive. Pump storage, a cheaper option, is naturally constrained, while the massive introduction of EV is not feasible in the foreseeable future. Demand Side Management: The active power equation has two sides. Available for adjusting or shifting demand could adequately contribute to the systems stability when the renewable sources are lower than expected, if appropriate incentives are given to the consumers. Dispatchable units: The unbalances risk that might emerge by the large penetration of renewable energy resources could be offset by large and fast, in terms of start-up and output, generating units, such as hydro or gas plants. However, hydro plants are naturally constrained and gas power plants are still causing carbon emissions, albeit fewer than the coal generators. Interconnections: Interconnections between large electricity grids could significantly reduce the risk associated with the large penetration of renewable energy sources. Each system could either absorb or deliver real power from its counterpart depending on its total generation and demand. DC interconnections are more common, since they can transfer more real power and isolate the two systems in terms of frequency control, although they are more expensive than conventional AC interconnections.

Drug and Alcohol Abuse :: Substance Abuse Essays

In the book Understanding Drug Use, An Adult's Guide to Drugs and the Young, by Peter Marin and Allan Cohen, you find that education in our youth today is vital. In a few short years, drug taking by younger people has become a fact of life in America, and for hundreds of thousands of families this fact poses a profound problem with wrenching social, legal, and psychological implications. Faced with an upsetting and unfamiliar experience when they discover that their children are experimenting with drugs or alcohol, parents search frantically for solutions-often coming up with the wrong ones, thereby intensifying an already sensitive situation. This book seems to have been written with the parent or mentor in mind. It focuses on realistic approaches to dealing with substance abuse, and attempts to help parents and others understand why some people put themselves in these types of situations.The damage that could result from a parents lack of understanding in the meaning of their chil d's drug and/or alcohol abuse can often be worse than the results of the child actually taking the drugs! Marin and Cohen lay the groundwork for this understanding with a discussion of adolescence in America today that makes many parents realize they play an important role in helping their children react to situations. With sensitivity and genuine feeling, discussion can open up new areas of understanding, revealing some of the fundamental impulses that motivate our young people in today's society, and perhaps parents will be better equipped psychologically to relate to what really troubles their children. Most parents must assume that their children will attempt drugs and/or alcohol at least once in their adolescence, and attempts to suppress their use entirely "are doomed to fail, because children react to actions of parents and peers". The authors instead suggest ways to minimize drug misuse and teach specific ways in which parents, teachers, community leaders, and others can assist children in education on the negative results of abuse.Some of the suggestions are helpful and can bring understanding to the child as well. What to do if your child is arrested is one topic area, and in it the authors suggest you attempt to motivate your child to see how he or she came into the situation t hey are in now.

How Can Memory Be Improved by Using of Mental Images Essay

According to Cognitive Psychologists there are important points about our memories and some benefits in improving it, we need to look first at what part of the brain is involved and it’s brief functions. Our brain constantly recalls and forms new memories, and the part of the brain that deals with memories is the hippocampus, which is located near the centre of the brain. There are three different types of memory used to store different types of information. Semantic is factual knowledge such as remembering capital cities. Episodic is personal past experiences, what a person’s kind of game she used to play during childhood, and Procedural memory is how to do something such as frying an egg, for example. Organizing thinking using various methods can improve memory recall. According to a range of research studies including the work of Raugh and Atkinson (1975), Bousfield (1953) and Bransford and Johnson (1972), Spoors et al, (2011), we can apply the use of mental images, concepts and schemas to improve our memory in different ways. Firstly, is that mental images can help us not only to organize our thinking but also make us remember what we need when need it. In the Y163 course book (2011) Spoors gives an example in a picture of a bell that has an unpleasant smell which can remind us of the word ‘poobelle’ a word which means ‘bin’ in English and translating from French sounds like a bell full of pooh. And indicates a good way to learn another language too. Another Example in mental image is the experience carried out by Michael Raugh and Richard Atkinson (Spoors et al, 2011). Where two groups of participants were asked to remember a list of 60 Spanish words. In the first group they were manipulated and taught to use key words and the second did not. When tested later the group that used key words to make a mental image scored considerably higher than the group that did not. Proving that making a mental image of a keyword could improve memory recall. Another interesting strategy called mnemonics based on using mental images, developed in the year 500 BC by the poet Simonides, is the ‘method of loci’. The technique works by the person linking mental images of the items they are trying to remember with a sequence of locations that they already know. For example, take a shop list and imagine every item at different points around the house, replacing with items in the list. ‘Using mental images to organize our thoughts can make our thinking and remembering much more efficient. However, there are other organizing principles which can also be useful, such as sorting information into categories. ’ (Y183 2011). Secondly, ‘Concept formation is the process of making a mental representation of a group of objects or events that share similar properties. ’Y183 (2011). It is essential to our lives and helps us to organize into categories the complex world around us into simpler way to interact with another human beings, animals, and all sorts of other things. For example, we have created concepts of objects such as furniture, in the figure 19 Y183 (2011) there is a non-typical table, without legs and having lots of drawers, but in our concept we still can define it as a table. Most of the time we form concepts almost automatically and are rarely aware we are using them. Although, it is like a natural ability for us, it is not always so simple. i. e. ‘Children often make mistakes by overgeneralising a concept that they are trying to get grips with. They may have developed a concept for a dog as an animal with hair, four legs, and a tail, but then they may also apply this label to a cat or a sheep or even a horse’. Y183 (2011). On the other hand, in some George Mandler (1967) researches, he suggests when information is organized becomes easier for us to remember. An experiment in two different groups of participants, where both were given a pack of 100 cards marked with words, and both were told to sort the cards out into groups, despite how many times they tried. However, there was some differences between the two groups results, because the first group were told to memorize the words while sorting out, whilst, the second group were told only to sort out the cards. Later, when both group were tested the participants that were told only to sort out the cards, could remember as many words as the other group who were told to memorize the words during the process. Finally, is an organized abstract mental framework, psychologists call Schemas, a bit similar to concept formation but more extensive. It permits us to appropriately file all our knowledge’s of objects, situations, experiences, and groups of people and ourselves in a way that provides cues to our memory. For example, if you apply concept formation to the word dentist, you would probably categorise dentist as an occupation, however, if you list everything that you associate with the word dentist, this would give you your dentist schemas’. Y183 (2011). Jean Piaget, an influential Swiss psychologist was the first to introduce the term Schema (plural schemas, schematas). He spent over 50 years studying the ways in which children developed their thinking and cognitive skills, and in his proposals was that as they develops schemas it helps the understanding of their world experiences. For better understand, it is like our memory had huge filing cabinets and every file of the cabinet is a schema, where we keep information about sports, animals, people things etc, since our childhood. In conclusion, we can say that to improve our memory using mental images and concepts formation by creating pictures gives extra cues. And using Schemas to store the information properly make us able to access it much easier when we need it.

Birth Skin To Skin Contact Health And Social Care Essay

The first hr after birth is a clip of peculiar sensitiveness for the female parent. Close contact with her babe during this clip facilitates the attachment procedure. Mother-baby bonding is enhanced when the bare neonate is placed on the female parent ‘s bare thorax. The female parent begins her scrutiny of her babe by researching the appendages and caput with her fingertips. Thereafter, she caresses her babe ‘s organic structure with her full manus before garnering her babe in her weaponries frequently in the en face place where eye-to-eye contact can be established. She talks to her babe with great emotion, looking for positive support from her spouse and other birth attenders. This sensitive period of interaction between the female parent and babe should advance ideal subsequently development of the babe. Therefore, it is of import after a gestation period of nine months, non to divide the babe from his female parent instantly after birth unless otherwise contraindicated due to wellness grounds A turning volume of research supports skin-to-skin contact between the female parent and the neonate in the immediate post-delivery period. Skin to clamber contact is defined as puting the bare newborn babe, prone covered across the dorsum with a warm cover, on the female parent ‘s bare thorax outright following birth. A significant figure of surveies showed that early skin-to-skin contact between the female parent and the neonate is good to the neonate. Some of the benefits of skin-to-skin contact include stabilisation of the neonate ‘s organic structure temperature through thermoregulation, ordinance of bosom rate and ordinance of respiratory rate ( Wallace & A ; Marshal, 2001 ) . Additionally, early skin-to-skin contact facilitates the induction of breastfeeding, helps neonatal thermoregulation and promotes maternal-infant bonding ( Dabrowski, 2007 ; Wallace & A ; Marshal, 2001 ) . Skin to clamber contact may besides guarantee colonisation of the babe with the female parent ‘s ain tegument vegetation, for which the kid will hold some opposition ( Wallace & A ; Marshal, 2001 ) . Despite its aforesaid benefits and despite the UNICEF ‘s Baby Friendly best pattern run which calls for early tegument to clamber contact. Nowadays, separation of female parents from their newborn babes at bringing has become a usual pattern despite the intensifying grounds that this may hold negative effects on the neonate. This pattern is still non being implemented in the labour room in Bahrain. This can be due to miss of labour room nurses knowledge about the benefits of skin-to-skin contact.Study intent:To measure the perceptual experience of labour room nurses about skin-to-skin contact.Problem statement:What is the perceptual experience of labour room nurses towards skin-to-skin contact between female parent and the neonate?Research inquiries:( 1 ) what do labour room nurses know about tegument to clamber contact? , ( 2 ) what are the factors labour room nurses place as barriers to execution of tegument to clamber contact, ( 3 ) what are the factors labour room nurses pl ace as facilitators to execution of tegument to clamber contact?Aims:Identifying cognition degree of labour room nurses will assist in planing and implementing in-service instruction plans to educate nurses about the importance of skin-to-skin contact. Additionally, placing the barriers and facilitators of skin-to-skin contact will assist in planing intercessions to diminish the barriers and increase the factors that will ease skin-to-skin contact. This in bend will increase the execution of skin-to-skin contact in the labour suites in Bahrain.Conceptual definition:Skin to clamber contact: Puting the bare neonate on the female parent ‘s bare thorax instantly after birth. Knowledge: Information about tegument to clamber contact Barriers: Factors that decrease the likeliness of implementing tegument to clamber contact Facilitators: Factors that encourage the execution of tegument to clamber contactOperational definition:Skin to clamber contact: puting the bare newborn babe, on his/her tummy covered across the dorsum with a warm cover, on the female parent ‘s bare thorax for at least 15 proceedingss get downing instantly after birth. Cognition: the sum of information labour room nurses have about how to implement skin-to-skin contact and the benefits of skin-to-skin contact. Barriers: the factors that prevent labour room nurses from implementing skin-to-skin contact. Facilitators: the factors that help labour room nurses to implement skin-to-skin contact.Literature reappraisal:Skin-to-skin contact between the female parent and her neonate has been extensively researched and debated over the past 40 old ages. A thorough hunt of the literature revealed a big figure of surveies that focused on assorted facets of skin-to-skin contact including benefits to the female parent. However, the focal point of this reappraisal of the literature is on the benefits of skin-to-skin contact to the newborn and on the consequence of increasing nurse ‘s cognition on the rate of skin-to-skin execution in the labour room. Five relevant articles were selected for inclusion in this paper. These included one meta-analysis, one literature reappraisal and three research surveies.Benefits of skin-to skin contact:Two of import benefits of skin-to-skin contact to the neonates are thermoregulation and increased success of suckling. Jonas et al. , ( 2008 ) investigated the relationship between thermoregulation and breast-feeding two yearss after birth in a sample of 47 mother-infant braces. They besides wanted to larn if this relationship would be affected by the disposal of extradural analgesia ( EDA ) and oxytocin ( OT ) during labour. The sample was divided into three groups: OT group ( n=9 ) , OT plus EDA group ( n=20 ) and control group ( n=18 ) . The research workers monitored the temperature of the babes at 5, 10, 20 and 30 proceedingss after the neonate was placed skin-to-skin on the female parent ‘s thorax and covered with cover. They found that the babies whose female parents received EDA during labour their temperature increased foremost but remain same in comparing to OT and control group, which the tegument temperature increased significantly. Bystrova, et al. , ( 2007 ) investigated the effects of bringing ward patterns and early Suckling on maternal axillary and chest temperatures during the first 2 hours postpartum and related them to infant ‘s pes and alar temperatures. A sample of 176 mother-infant braces was randomized as follows: skin-to-skin contact group ( n=44 ) , which involved bare babies lying prone on their female parent ‘s bare thorax ; mother ‘s arm group ( n=44 ) , which involved appareled babies lying prone on their female parent ‘s thorax, and babies who were dressed and kept in the baby's room ( n=88 ) . Maternal alar and breast temperatures, babies ‘ axillary, and pes temperatures were measured at 15-minute intervals from 30-120 proceedingss after birth. The fluctuation in chest temperature was highest in female parents in the skin-to-skin group and lowest in female parents of babies who were placed in the baby's room. A positive relationship was found between the maternal alar temperature and the infant pes and alar temperature 90 proceedingss after the start of the experiment in the skin-to-skin and female parent ‘s weaponries group. No such relationship was established in nursery group. In add-on, foot temperature in babies from the skin-to-skin group was 2oC higher than those babies from the female parent ‘s weaponries group. Bergstrom et al. , ( 2006 ) investigated the immediate maternal thermal response to skin-to-skin attention of newborn. In a sample of 39 female parents, the research workers measured the maternal tegument and alar temperatures instantly before skin-to-skin contact, so every 2minutes for 20minutes and eventually 10minutes after taking the newborn. They besides, measured the newborn ‘s brow, alar temperatures instantly before skin-to-skin contact, and twice after originating skin-to-skin, followed by a measuring 10minutes after newborn has been removed. Researchers found a positive relationship between maternal tegument temperatures in response to skin-to-skin contact, as a rapid thermic response established in maternal chest tegument instantly after skin-to-skin contact. It rose by o.5Celcius grade on norm the first 2minutes after skin-to-skin contact and dropped by 0.5Celcius grade 10minutes after newborn has been removed. Maternal alar temperature besides, raised 2minutes afte r induction of skin-to-skin but stayed changeless 10minutes after removed of the newborn from skin-to-skin place. Anderson ( 2003 ) examined the relationship between early skin-to-skin contact and breast-feeding and found that skin-to-skin contact had positive effects on breast-feeding. In add-on, Anderson ( 2003 ) found that skin-to-skin contact improved infant-maternal bonding. Luclington ( 2004 ) discussed the positive physiological effects of kangaroo female parent attention ( KMC ) on babies ‘ temperature, weight, bosom rate and respiratory rate. The KMC is another nomenclature that describes skin-to-skin contact. Sloan ( 1994 ) found that babies who received KMC were less likely to develop pneumonia compared to the babies who did non have KMC. Tessier ( 2003 ) reported that the babies who received uninterrupted KMC had higher IQ degree compared to the other babies who did non have KMC. Johnston ( 2003 ) research showed that babies who received KMC demonstrated less hurting and Charpak ( 2005 ) showed that babies who receive KMC were discharged earlier than babies who did non have KMC . A Meta-analysis of 23 surveies was done by Mori, Khanna, Pledge and Nakayama ( 2009 ) to analyze the physiological effects of skin-to-skin contact on the newborn. Consequences of this analysis showed that skin-to-skin contact had positive effects on the neonate ‘s bosom rate and organic structure temperature. However, no relationship was found between skin-to-skin contact and the neonate ‘s O impregnations ( Mori et al. , 2009 ) . In drumhead, research on skin-to-skin contact indicates that this pattern has several benefits for both the female parent and the baby. Some of these benefits include ordinance of the baby ‘s organic structure temperature, increasing maternal-infant bonding, and bettering breast-feeding chances.Design:A descriptive, non-experimental design will be used to measure the perceptual experience of labour room nurses about skin-to-skin contact between the female parent and her neonate.Sample:The trying method that we will utilize in choosing our topics is convenience trying. The sample will include nurses who work in the labour suites of authorities infirmaries including Salmaniya Medical Complex and Jidhafs Maternity Hospital. The sample will dwell of 50 labour room nurses available on a indiscriminately selected twenty-four hours and displacement. The sample will be drawn from the two aforesaid infirmaries as follows: Jihafs Maternity Hospital ( n=20 ) , and Salmaniya Medical Comple x ( n=30 ) .Standards for inclusion of sample:The sample for this survey will dwell of labour room nurses working in authorities infirmaries in Bahrain. Nurses take parting in this survey must hold at least five old ages labour room experience. Bahraini and non-Bahraini nurses will be included. Nurses with Associate Degree or Bachelors of Science Degree will be included.Data bite instrument:A self-report questionnaire consisting of 12 inquiries on skin-to-skin contact and four demographic informations inquiries will be used to roll up informations from the sample.Pilot survey:A pilot survey will be conducted to prove the dependability and cogency of the questionnaire. The sample for the pilot survey will dwell of a convenience sample of 10 labour room nurses from Salmaniya Medical Center. The survey questionnaire will be modified as necessary based on the consequences of the pilot survey.Data aggregation processs:Permission to carry on the survey will be obtained from the head nursing services for infirmary. Following the blessing of the survey, the main nursing officer will administer an blessing missive to the nurses who are incharge of the labour suites in the three infirmaries. The questionnaires will be manus delivered in certain envelopes to the labour room incharges of the two infirmaries who will administer the questionnaire to their staff nurses. Each one of the research workers will be responsible for presenting the envelopes to one of the three infirmaries. The topics will be given two hebdomads to finish the questionnaires and return them to the office of the incharge individual of the labour room. The nurse incharge will be asked by the research worker to remind her staff to return the envelops with the completed questionnaires to her office. The envelops will so be collected by one of the research workers.Data analysis process:The statistical bundle for the societal scientific disciplines ( SPSS-version 17 ) will be used to analyse the information. Descriptive statistics will be used to depict the sample features. Inferential statistics including Chi square will be used to analyse informations sing cognition degree of labour room nurses of skin-to -skin contact.

Case Study †AES Corporation Essay

Dennis Bakke, the CEO of AES, a company that develops, builds and operates electric power plants, sat in his office late in 1996 and thought about the question that was perennially posed to him: could AES, soon to have some 25,000 people located literally all over the world following a recent purchase of power plants in Kazakhstan, continue to operate with virtually no staff functions and, specifically, without any human resource staff anywhere in the corporation? The absence of centralized staff — or, for that matter, much staff at all — had been one of the themes guiding the design and operation of the corporation since its founding. The company, in addition to having no personnel department, had no public relations, legal, environmental, or strategic planning departments. Its chief financial officer, Barry Sharp, saw his job not so much as running a centralized finance function but rather as helping all the AES employees as they made important decisions about financi ng and investments in a very capital intensive business. But the company was becoming much larger and increasingly geographically dispersed. Perhaps those early decisions needed to be rethought. Could what worked for so long continue to work as the corporation grew and operated increasingly on a global basis? Could the advantages of flexibility and having virtually every employee feel responsible for almost all aspects of the corporation’s operations continue to outweigh the costs of an absence of specialization and the need to have people always learning new tasks and new things? Was this continuous learning of new things really a disadvantage at all, or as Bakke thought, how one created a real â€Å"learning organization?† What Bakke recognized was that AES was different from most other corporations. How different should and could it remain? And if it remained different, how should it deal with the strains that growth and geographic differentiation would inevitably place on an organization that had always been managed by a strong set of values and a shared culture? This case was  prepared by Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer as a basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Support for this case was provided by the Human Resources Initiative of the Graduate School of Business. The author would also like to acknowledge Robert Waterman for his introduction to the company. BACKGROUND AND HISTORY AES (originally called Applied Energy Services) was founded in 1981 by Roger Sant and Dennis Bakke. Originally supplying consulting services to the energy industry, the company began operating its first power plant in Houston in 1986 and went public as AES in 1991. By the end of its 1995 fiscal year, AES was selling electricity to customers in the United States, England, Northern Ireland, Argentina, and China, and had plants under construction in Pakistan. A list of AES operating facilities, their size, and fuel source, is provided in Exhibit 1. The company saw itself as â€Å"the global power company† and had as its mission â€Å"supplying electricity to customers world-wide in a socially responsible way.†Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ The electric power generation business has always been very competitive and the competition was increasing. Many subsidiaries of large oil and gas companies, organizations with substantial financial resources, were entering the business. The business was also complex. Building or purchasing existing power plants was a process that was heavily influenced by governmental decisions and actions, and often took two to four years at least to complete. AES owned and operated its plants under a number of different financial arrangements. Some plants were whollyowned by AES. Others were owned under various joint venture arrangements. For instance, the Medway plant in England was joint venture between AES and two privatized British utilities, Southern Electric and SEE-BOARD. The plant in San Nicolas, Argentina was owned by a partnership in which AES held 70% interest and Community Energy Alternatives, Inc. and the people at the plant held the rest. AES’s operations in China were conducted by a separate subsidiary, AES  China Generating Company Ltd., that was capitalized in February, 1994 with funds from AES and an initial public offering. The company was traded on the over-the-counter market, but recently AES had announced plans to purchase the interest in the subsidiary it did not own. Thus, financing and ownership arrangements were varied and often required protracted negotiations and the ability to work with a number of different partners. Most of the growth in demand for electricity, as well as most of the privatization opportunities, were occurring in developing or emerging economies and three-quarters of AES’s development people and financial resources were focused on those markets in 1996. AES saw as its competitive advantage against larger and better financed competitors its agility or speed and its ability to commit corporate equity and to arrange complex financial transactions. It also had some â€Å"disadvantages,† particularly its emphasis on integrity that precluded the company from doing some things to obtain business that not all of its competitors were as reluctant to do. The company’s two founders both had extensive experience in government prior to founding AES, and to some extent this helped steel their determination to avoid creating a bureaucratic organization resembling the government. Bakke, a 1970 MBA graduate from Harvard Business School, had worked following graduation at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and then in the Office of Management and Budget before moving to the Mellon Institute’s Energy Productivity Center in Washington, D.C. There, he and Sant, another Harvard MBA who had headed the Ford administration’s energy conservation efforts, worked together and AES 1995 Annual Report, p. 1. wrote a book, Creating Abundance: America’s Least-Cost Energy Strategy. Out of the research for that book and their work on energy policy for the Ford and Carter administrations came the idea to start AES as a participant in the new independent power producer industry. Both Bakke and Sant are individuals with strong moral convictions and indeed both have a touch of the missionary in them. Bakke is very active in both charitable and  Christian church (Baptist) activities. This social conscience and sense of a higher purpose or calling has pervaded the operation and management of AES since its inception. For example, Bakke’s description of the purpose or mission of AES is â€Å"to steward resources to meet the needs of society.† 2 From the beginning, AES has had a strong set of core values and beliefs about people that it works hard to operationalize on a continuing basis. The four core values are: Integrity †¦ Integrity comes from the Latin word, `integra,’ which means `wholeness.’ By carefully weighing all factors–ethical concerns, stakeholder interests, and societal needs–AES strives to act with integrity in all of its activities. Fairness . . . the term `fairness’ means `justice.’ Often `fairness’ is confused with `sameness’ †¦ We don’t mean that. AES aspires to give everyone special treatment. Everyone is unique †¦ And the effects of treating people justly in corporate systems and organizations can be profound. Social responsibility. The most socially responsible thing a corporation can do is to do a superb job of meeting a need in society. Therefore, companies must carefully manage capital, employees and intellect to meet a societal need. For AES, the first step in this process is to ensure that every generating plant is operated in a clean, reliable, safe, and cost-effective manner. But we have chosen to go beyond these essentials †¦ That is why we plant millions of trees to offset carbon dioxide and build new schools and take numerous other steps to improve our environment and build communities. Fun †¦ For us, `fun’ means establishing an environment in which people can use their gifts and skills to make a difference in society without fear of being squelched. Creating a fun workplace environment requires a positive view of humanity that begins with the people who work in the corporation.3 AES also has a set. of core assumptions about people that it tries to use in design ing and managing its organization. These assumptions are that AES people: 1) Are creative, thinking individuals–capable of learning and making decisions, like to control their environment and can be trusted; 2) Are responsible–can be held accountable; An important element of AES is its commitment to four major â€Å"shared† values .. . AES believes that earning a fair profit is an important result of providing a quality product to its customers. However, if the Company perceives a conflict between these values and profits, the Company will try to adhere to its values–even though doing so might result in diminished profits or foregone opportunities. Moreover, the Company seeks to adhere to these values not as a means to achieve economic success, but because adherence is a worthwhile goal in and of itself The Company intends to continue these policies after this offering.s To AES, simply maximizing profits is not the primary objective of the corporation. Dennis Bakke has written: Where do profits fit? Profits . . . are not any corporation’s main goal. Profits are to a corporation much like breathing is to life. Breathing is not the goal of life, but without breath, life ends. Similarly, without turning a profit, a corporation, too, will cease to exist. . . . At AES we strive not to make profits the ultimate driver of the corporation (although I admit we slip from time to time in this regard). My desire is that the principles to which we strive would take preeminence.6 AES operationalizes its values and its commitment to them in myriad operating policies and practices. An example, drawn from a common stock offering prospectus in 1993, helps to illustrate how the company turns its values into actions: Most of the Company’s plants operate without shift supervisors. The project subsidiaries are responsible for all major facility-specific business functions, including financing and capital expenditures†¦. Every AES person has been encouraged to participate  in strategic planning and new plant design for the Company. The Company has generally organized itself into multi-skilled teams to develop projects, rather than forming `staff’ groups †¦ to carry out specialized functions. Two examples illustrate these principles of decentralization and empowerment in action. Most financial decisions at this financially-leveraged company are not made by the chief financial officer, Barry Sharp, but rather by AES project teams comprised largely of people with no formal training in finance. For instance, â€Å"hard as it is to imagine, CFO Sharp has raised less than $300 million of the approximately $3.5 billion of funding for AES’s 10 power plants. The multidisciplinary project team working on each new plant is charged with that task, even if the team has little finance experience. Bankers phone Sharp expecting him to call the shots, but he demurs and instead gives the bankers a list of the team members so the bankers can call them directly. At the AES plant in Thames, Connecticut, a task force including front-line people invest the plant’s debt reserves, negotiating directly with investment bankers and, in the process, learning a lot about finance and fi nancial markets. Pam Strunk, the financial superintendent at the plant, said that it was important that â€Å"they have the fun and novelty of doing something that’s different from what they do all day. If we lose 100 basis points for a few days, then that’s the price we pay.† 8 Another example comes from a description of how the corporation built a $404 million project in Cumberland, Maryland. The project took ten years to put together and was handled by a team of 10 people who â€Å"secured 36 separate permit approvals involving two dozen regulatory agencies and arranged financing that involved tax-exempt bonds and 10 lenders. Normally, such projects require hundreds of workers, each with small specific tasks to perform within large corporations.†9 What is particularly noteworthy is the composition of the team. With two exceptions, they were all under 40 years old and many had little or no previous experience doing what they did on the project. Paul Burdick, a mechanical engineer with no MBA or any formal training in finance, handled the complex financing of the project. Ann Murtlow, the team leader, was a thirty-five year old chemical engineer who also did not have an MBA degree. The composition and operation of the team illustrates a core AES concept of allowing people to try new things. Although eschewing the pursuit of profits or maximizing shareholder value as the primary objective of the company and, in fact, doing numerous things to operate according to the four core values, the company has nonetheless been very financially successful. As seen in Exhibit 2 using data drawn from its 1995 Annual Report, the firm enjoyed a 105% growth in revenues between 1991 and 1995 and during that period grew its earnings per share more than 113% while its total assets grew almost 70% and its shareholders’ equity grew 289%. The annual report also illustrates some other unique things about the company and how it views itself. The document lists by name each of the 1,258 people who work for the company on pages 49-53. The discussion of operations in the letter to the shareholders has, as its first section, one on Shared Values/Principles. That section reported on the results of the annual employee survey and discussed both improvements (â€Å"there is less concern this year about an imbalance between shareholder and other stakeholder interests. There is also less fear that our principles will erode as we create businesses in many nations†) as well as problems (â€Å"Some of our people at Thames . In eight years, the value of a share of AES stock went from $2 to $250, and $10,000 invested in AES in 1982 would now be worth $10 million. In late 1996, the company’s shares were near an alltime high and were selling at a multiple of about 30 times earnings, indicating that Wall Street appreciated — even if it did not always fully understand — at least the financial aspects of the AES story. THE THAMES, CONNECTICUT PLANT Although no plant at AES is exactly like any other, in part because of the value placed on decentralization, the operation in Connecticut is typical of AES. The Thames plant is located in Uncasville, Connecticut, near New London, and about 45 minutes from Providence, Rhode Island. The plant is located on only seven acres and is in close proximity to neighboring houses. The plant cost $260 million to construct and uses coal for fuel. It began commercial operations in March, 1990, supplying 181 megawatts of electricity to Connecticut Light and Power and up to 100,000 pounds of steam per hour to Stone Container’s paper recycling plant that is adjacent to AESThames. The plant has operated on average at over 95 percent of capacity since it opened, compared to 83 percent for the industry as a whole. Consistent with the AES value of social responsibility, the plant strives to be a â€Å"good neighbor† to those living nearby. A visitor to the plant is immediately struck by its cleanliness, and the people who work in the plant are proud of its appearance. The walls of the plant exterior are very light colored (off-white), so that any dirt would be immediately visible. The color of the walls was intentionally chosen to encourage respect for the physical environment and cleanliness. The place where the coal is unloaded from the barges that bring it up the Connecticut River is also immaculate. The coal handling system is covered to  avoid excess dust or debris getting into the surroundings and the unloading dock and surrounding area is swept by a mechanical sweeper after the once a week delivery. There is no smell of sulfur in the air, and in fact, no odor at all. The attitude of cleanliness extends inside the plant as well. For instance, there are two â€Å"lunch rooms,† although both have stoves, and one has a microwave oven, cooktops, refrigerator, and   dishwasher as well, which makes them more than a typical plant eating area. Quite elaborate meals are cooked there. Both lunch rooms are clean with no dirty dishes sitting around. The cabinetry is of excellent quality and appearance as are the appliances. The turbine rooms are also imma culate. In keeping with AES’s social responsibility and concern for the environment, the AES Thames plant has funded a project to plant 52 million trees in Guatemala, designed to reduce the greenhouse effect produced by the burning of coal to produce power. The number of trees was selected based on estimates of the number required to absorb the entire amount of carbon dioxide produced in the plant during its anticipated 40-year life span. In the fall of 1996, Thames employed a total of 59 people, including five in adininistration, seven area superintendents, nine in maintenance, five in material handling and processing, eight instrument and electrical repair technicians, and 20 operations technicians. The full staffing level for the plant is 63 positions, and hiring was occurring at the time. A number of the plant’s employees had previously worked either for the Navy or General Dynamics at the nearby Groton, Connecticut shipyard. About 20% of the people in the plant have college degrees, including Associate’s degrees. Recall, these are the people that are handling the investment of the plant’s debt reserves of several millions of dollars and essentially making all of the decisions in a collaborative environment. There is very little emphasis on  formal credentials in the hiring process. And this is true throughout AES. The company has about twenty to thirty MBAs, many of whom have been in the company a while. Most have come from their home (non-U.S.) countries. At AES, no one gets hired into the company at a senior level, and the company tends not to use headhunters for jobs at any level. The company also has tried not to hire directly into project director (new development) positions. AES-Thames has an extremely low turnover rate, as does AES generally. One of the reasons for the low turnover is that AES is a different and special place and people know it and value that fact. To be written about in the Wall Street Journal and other publications, to receive many visits, reinforces the pride and feeling of uniqueness that AES people share. People do often move within the company. Out of perhaps 70 people who were in the Thames plant when it began, only 4-5 people have left the company in seven or eight years. The low turnover is also because, as one person put it, â€Å"we all have the ability to expand what we do.† The plant organization has three levels — the plant manager, the seven area superintendents, and the front-line people. Because the facility operates continuously, there is some shift work. After some experimentation, people now work three twelve-hour shifts and then have three days off. They then rotate between the night and day shifts. The first shift is from 6:30 in the morning until 6:30 at night, and the second shift is from 6:30 P.M. to 6:30 A.M. Maintenance has a standard 40 hour week but the individuals have pagers, and they rotate responsibility for off-hours coverage.