Epekto Ng

————————————————- History of Computer A computer is basically an electronic device which is used to input, output, process, and store data but there are some definitions which will include devices such as digital calculators and digital watches in the category of a computer. Software is also considered when looking at the history of computers, not only the physical hardware and the capabilities of the hardware available at the particular time. Operating systems with the features they carry and videogames with their utilization of the available technology are sometimes also used as markers in computer history.The earlier computers were much larger in comparison to the computers available today, sometimes filling entire rooms or sections of buildings. Some persons may be familiar with the term â€Å"mainframe† which is a large computer which can do many different tasks simultaneously. Modern mainframes and older mainframes were not much different in their function which is to provide a centralized point for all data to be processed and sometimes stored but older mainframes did not have the benefit of the newer technologies available today.As computers evolved and got smaller and smaller, the use of mainframes to handle workloads decreased as standalone computers became more popular. The difference with standalones versus those attached to the mainframe – which were called workstations, is the fact that standalones could run applications by themselves while workstations depended on the mainframe being online in order to function. Much older mainframes would run different programs based on a schedule and persons were assigned to feed or load the scheduled application at the appointed time.When the appointed program was scheduled to be run a person would have to load either punch cards or tape spools into the mainframe in order for it to run the specified application and the workstations would then load the application to the mainframe. In more recent times servers have generally replaced mainframes but in some companies there are still those who use modern mainframes as an alternative to having hundreds of servers in different locations. The size of the computer is the greatest measure of how far technology has come.We have moved from computers filling entire buildings to laptops that have as much functionality as a desktop and portable enough to tote around everyday. A quick timeline of how computers have evolved include the movement from punch card program input to magnetic tape program input, the moving of storage devices to magnetic drum media, moving from vacuum tube electronic components to transistor electronic components and ultimately the reduction in the size of transistors which is the primary reason for computers having reached where they are.An interesting concept to examine in computing would be Mooreâ₠¬â„¢s Law which outlines a trend in computing and the ‘block’, which will be the farthest point that computing will reach. As components keep getting smaller and smaller allowing for more features to be crammed into a single circuit, Moore’s Law dictates that once transistors reach atomic particle sizes the improvement of computers will have to stop.

Reflection Week Essay

Apply ratio, vertical, and horizontal analyses to financial statements Ratio analyses are used by companies to gather information in a company’s financial statement. Ratios and numbers from a company’s current year are compared to previous years and sometimes even the economy to judge the company’s performance. There are several ratios such as profitability ratios, liquidity ratios, activity ratios, leverage ratios and market ratios that can be used to calculate financial information. In vertical analyses, each entry of the assets, liabilities and equities in a balance sheet is represented as a proportion of the total account of the financial statement. In horizontal analysis a company’s ratios are compared in the financial statements over a period of time. Horizontal analysis can be used from revenues to earnings per share. Prepare a statement of cash flows using both direct and indirect methods. When preparing a statement of cash flows, there are two different methods that can be used; there is the direct method, and there is also the indirect method. The direct method shows operating cash receipts and payments, making it more consistent with the objective of a statement of cash flow, while the indirect method adjusts net income for items that do not affect cash. The FASB allows both methods to be used because in the end the results of the total amount for net cash provided by operating activities arrive in the same way. Companies use numerous adjustments when preparing such statements so following a proper guide such as the direct method or indirect method will help to ensure that everything is properly in order the way it should be. Prepare journal entries associated with the issuance of preferred and common stocks and the declaration and payment of dividends The issuance of common stock affects only paid-in-capital accounts. Always record common stock at its par or stated value. Debit Cash and credit Common Stock. Preferred stock has preference over common stock. However, preferred stockholders do not have voting rights. The entry is debit to Cash and credit to Preferred Stock. For a corporation to issue cash dividends there must be: retained earnings, adequate cash, and a declaration of dividends. A company does not pay dividends unless its board of directors decides to do so, then it is deemed declared. When it is declared then it becomes a liability. Three important dates are observed with dividends: declaration date, record date, and the payment date. Declaration commits a corporation to legal obligations.

Voice of america Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Voice of america - Essay Example VOA is amongst the five international broadcasters of the US that are civilian are function directly under the supervision of Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). The programs by VOA are offered in some 44 languages on all sorts of mediums including Internet, TV and radio. Number of languages broadcast in TV out of these 44 languages is 26. There are distinct websites for the different language services of VOA and they make use of a whole range of social media websites including Youtube, Facebook and Orkut to approach the audience and share views with them. Contents of the programs broadcast include but are not limited to culture, news, education, live calls and discussions. Every week, 1500 hours of news are produced by VOA that cater for the concerns of some 123 million people all over the world. Facilities of VOA include 33 studios for recording and production, 20 studios for the broadcast of radio, 32 suites for the editing of videos and 4 television studios. President Gerald Ford signed a law in 1976 according to which VOA should play the role of a consistently authoritative and reliable news channel. The news-center of VOA is spread over an area of 30000 sq. ft. Every day, as many as 150 news reports are generated by the news-center about different programs and in different languages. In addition to about 90 part-time reporters, VOA has 13 overseas and 48 domestic reporters. VOA’s system of integrated digital audio is the greatest of all across the globe. There are about 1180 employees of VOA. Many of them are quite aged and are likely to expire within the next decade. Most of them will be replaced by federal employees or contractors. The annual budget of VOA amounts to $207 million. Since the start of the 21st century, there has occurred a tenfold increase in the TV audience of VOA, of which 1/6th are English people. About 10 per cent of the total budget of VIA is spent upon the internet. Number of visits made in

FACTORS AFFECTING VEHICLE FUEL ECONOMY Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

FACTORS AFFECTING VEHICLE FUEL ECONOMY - Essay Example The result of this study will be valuable to the government in developing polices that apply to vehicle manufacturers and which will be effective in promoting vehicle fuel economy. Different factors that relate to vehicles have a significant impact on fuel economy. Therefore, identifying the most significant of such vehicle factors might help in future designing of vehicles to ensure that they have high gas mileage, thus promoting fuel economy. This way, there will be a reduction in the level of fuel consumption as well as pollution from gas emissions by vehicles. There are different studies have shown that there are different factors that affect fuel economy. These are categorised into three groups including vehicle factors such as cruise control, infrastructure factors such as condition of roads and road user factors such as training of driver (Haworth & Symmons, 2001). This research will however, focus only on vehicle factors, from which the variables are drawn. These include weight, engine size, seating capacity, size of the vehicle (e.g. compact, sub-compact, SUV), vehicle model and speed. The research will control for the variables of weather, price of fuel, driver and road condition. This is because the study is interested in vehicle factors only, thus the other variables must be kept constant, as they might affect the overall results if not controlled for. Due to unavailability of ready data on fuel economy, the researcher will collect primary data from the field. This will provide data on fuel economy (MPG), model of vehicle, weight of vehicle, engine of vehicle, seating capacity of vehicle, size of vehicle, speed, size of engine, road condition, fuel price, and driver training. Because of time constraints and resource limitation on the side of the researcher, the sample size will be 200. The researcher will be sure to include vehicles of different

Country Focus Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Country Focus - Research Paper Example The report includes extensive analysis of the automotive as well as the steel sectors. These sectors are the spearhead for further economic transformation (The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 5-6). The report also considered the extensive up gradation in transport facilities and secure modes of power supply. The country is now focused on handling the challenge of rising demand. The mining industry of the country is under the spotlight as new markets are emerging which posits the opportunity to trade. The emerging markets promises further growth in iron ore. The country recovered fairly well after e contraction in the year 2009 and such kind of recovery can be matched by very few economies. The focus now has diverted to the sectors that provide multiplier effects and initiatives have been taken to increase the output of the productivity sectors. Unemployment has been a subject of concern for the country but fails to posit serious impact on the economy. The count ry is following the policy of maintaining political stability and is on the way of providing good business environment along with rich natural resources (SAinfo reporter and BuaNews). Cultural Aspects The central unit of the society is formed by families. The nuclear families are paramount to the existence of individual. The family serves the purpose to support the community both financially and emotionally. The concept of time differs between the black and white Africans. The white Africans try to keep the pace according to time while the black Africans are usually believed to complete the work at slower pace. The cultural ancestry impacts on the differences in communication styles. The Africans who have the potential to speak English generally maintains a reserve and conservative mannerism with the objective to avoid conflict. The Africans from other backgrounds usually maintains a direct and explicit approach of communication. The objective of them is to be honest and forthright. This implicates that they will not hesitate to refuse anything in public. In order to initiate the business deals successfully, it is important to be aware of the styles of the different communities. The abundant availability of natural resources has paved the way for the country to become the largest developed economy among the countries of Africa (Willumsen, Moene and Hoyland, 1-2). The per capita GDP has made the country as one of the top 50 wealthiest nations of the world. The country has got immense potential from the investment point of view with one of the emerging market economies around the globe. The greeting styles generally tend to vary depending on the ethnic heritage of the country. The Africans who can speak English generally follows a formal and polite mannerism to address someone. The black Africans generally follow an informal approach to greet someone who is unknown to them. The initial gesture that is most common in this part of the world is a formal handshake. However for the female associates, the trend is to wait for the female to offer a shake of hands first. For long term business success it is important to build relationship and networking. The residents generally prefer a win-win situation where both the associated parties tend to gain something for the business negotiations. So it is advised to avoid confrontation and aggressive bartering over prices.

Self management can enhance life long learning Essay

Self management can enhance life long learning - Essay Example Self management can enhance life long learning The ability for one to be able to manage both social and health matters in an effective way is a necessary thing for development. This essay will discuss how proper management of oneself gives one lifelong lessons. Own current skills and competencies Knowledge is attainable through observation, keen listening, and even different experiences in the day-to-day running. Group work also helps reveal one’s strengths and weaknesses. My skill and competence in management has been enhanced through adequate learning and consultations. The learning process takes time and involves one’s readiness to the activities involved. As such, there is a need for one to research and identify the main aspects they may want to get in management of different factors in the society to use in the life-long run. These aspects give one competence in the times and in their field of management. One acquires the relevant skills and knowledge and therefore their performance gets commendable. To be an e ffective manager, I need to have relevant education skills to make them more competent and professional on the duties they perform. Personal attribute in realizing their capabilities, attributes, and values help determine their effectiveness in handling different issues. This shows that there are different levels that describe how competitive and successful one is.Moreover, how ones competence is applicable in different issues is determined by the skills. Some of the roles interrelate and therefore involve the use of similar values in management. One’s personal behavior and attitudes affect their ability to gain competence and effectively apply it. Learning, a continuous process in life, as we grow old it never stops and helps in advancements of our values and quality of our ability to handle issues. Therefore, since learning is infinite I need to limitlessly learn to perfectly master skills though they keep changing with time (Phillips and Gully, 2012:234). To maintain my pr ofessional standard and organizational objectives, I learn from others despite the profiles or even social status. In learning, one needs to humble and understand that they always have something to learn from anyone no matter how minor they may seem. Humility is also a necessary aspect that they should possess to help them gain an understanding of whatever issue is at hand, and this gives them an advantage to handle most of the challenges in life (Ingleby & Clive, 2012:537). Through lessons acquired, I have significantly advanced in my career and for use in the life long run. Adult education should not be taken lightly; it does not involve so much effort for one to acquire it. In clubs, churches, cinemas, concerts, political societies and even at homes through books, gardens, friends, music, and workshops are some of the ways it is acquired (Lokanadha, 1997: 47). Through self-directing, I am able to acquire lifelong education. People instilling the knowledge and conducting the learn ing activity should be reflective and give relevant examples to enable the learner use the knowledge attained in their daily lives. To acquire the necessary information, I first think on my own learning is made to improve on one's thinking and reasoning ability. Learning strategies and motivations are necessary to give me the morale of

The Relationship Between Business Ethics and Organizational Culture Essay

The Relationship Between Business Ethics and Organizational Culture - Essay Example Research into cultural variables has been carried out and the outcome reveals that the ethical perception of an organization is dependent on its organizational behavior. Other researchers have also revealed that employees’ behavior is hugely influenced by value system organizational culture. It has been discovered that unethical and illegal conduct by corporate agents has a huge capability of creating adverse effects on the immediate stakeholders. Culture is perceived to be just one of the variables that influence an organization as a whole but with very significant effects. The leadership and members of an organization have a big role to play in constructing, enforcing and retaining the culture within their organization since culture can easily be manipulated by these very same people. Organizational culture can be viewed from various approaches. The first approach involves a traditional perspective; this involves objectives matter such as: rituals, symbolism and tales. Secon dly, it can be viewed from an interpretive perspective; this involves the study of how members of a given organization could be having a common subjective meaning towards the organization. Lastly, organizational culture can be viewed from a critical-interpretive perspective; this involves the study of the common subjective meanings within an organization and the possible struggles for power that could be brought about by the competition among the subjective meaning. Although there are a few commonalities, organizational culture widely varies from one organization to another. Enron Corporation was once one of the most successful corporations with almost everything handled in the correct manner. It was known for its comprehensive management control and a proper system of governance which led the corporation to winning several awards in acknowledgement of the same. However things started getting out of hand in the company when unethical organizational culture found its way into the fir m. The poor organizational culture involved emergence of irregularities in the financial statements of the firm and embezzlement of funds in the form of using company working capital for personal purposes that are not included in the company budget. The case of Enron provides a firsthand example of how inadequate attention to alteration in cultural practices and leadership of a firm can results to its downfall despite there being a proper management system in place. This is a clear indication that the effectives of variables such as proper management system control heavily rely on an organization’s leadership and culture. Under the tenure of Richard Kinder as the company chief executive officer, the company incurred bad losses which led to some of the investors withdrawing their investments from the company. However, Richard Kinder was well known for his high levels in discipline in handling matters involving both employees and figures. He kept the business unit leaders on to es with numerous challenges. He also kept a close look on matters pertaining to expenses, cash flows and employee levels. But all this did not yield any positive results in preventing the company from incurring losses. However, things changed drastically with the appointment of Jeffrey Skilling as the new chief executive officer to replace Richard Kinder. The organizational culture of the company was also set to change widely with the introduction of a new chief executi

ART5 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

ART5 - Essay Example â€Å"In the nineteenth century â€Å"Oriental Studies" was an area of academic study. But the West had to create the East in order for this study to take place.†(Orientalism, para.24) According to Occidentals, Orientalism is an indicative of the power that West has over Orient, as its colony. In a way, Occidentals were creating the image of Orient as it was suitable to them. Edward Said disagrees with this opinion, and this fact is the basis of discussion between Said and other scholars. As an example of Eastern culture I have considered the country of Turkey. There are countless tours to this country, since it is still one of the most attractive places to visit by westerners. Turkey is rich in historical places and places of interest. Searching through the sites offering tours to this country I have chosen a few most popular sights to see there. St. Nicholas church in Myra is one of the first places tourists are offered to visit. According to the legend, St. Nicolas was a bishop there in the 4th century; he was famous for his miracles and known for his kindness. One of the main attractions of Myra is the amphitheatre and the plethora of rock-cut tombs carved in the cliff above the theatre. One of the places that every tourist should visit in traditional Turkish bath called Hamam. Going to Hamam is traditional among Turkish men and women; if one would like to feel a real spirit of this country visiting Hamam is essential. Instanbul is the city full of places of interest and historical monuments. Among them is Hagia Sofia, the Church of the Holy Wisdom. Nothing remains of the original Hagia Sofia built in the 4th century by Constantine the Great, it was destroyed twice and was rebuilt in its present form between 532 and 537. Hagia Sofia is one of the greatest examples of Byzantine architecture, rich with mosaic and marble

The Ed Sullivan Show Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

The Ed Sullivan Show - Assignment Example Bob Dylan’s song ‘Talkin’ John Birch Society Blues’ was viewed as potentially controversial and unacceptable song to the John Birch Society therefore it was pulled out by CBS Television. Dylan’s motivations to appear on the show could be seen as political and playing this song was considered to mock the extreme right wing that was viewed as anti-Communist organization and its policies were compared to those of Hitler. Mike Jagger’s insistence that he said â€Å"mmmmm† instead of â€Å"time† in his song that was subject to censorship in Ed Sullivan’s show suggests that performers surely felt subdued to the pressures of censorship but at the same time they wanted to maintain a status quo amongst their followers who appreciated and accepted their songs. Despite of CBS’s attempt to censor some of the lyrics of The Door’s the band went on including them in their song assisted them in affirming the provoking nature of their music and their band. This helped the band build reputation of being a notorious band who later achieved greater success. Inglis states that context and consequences in terms of individual acts of censorship are related to each other. The relation between context and consequences with regards to censorship is based upon the evaluation of context in which the censorship occurs that is out of blasphemy, sexual contents etc. Moreover, this relation is also established within the prospect of censorship of on the basis of consequences that would be noted as a result of imposition of censorship. By calling controversial groups to perform in the show, Sullivan considered controversies as a motivation to make his show successful. Rolling stones and other popular groups greatly marked their mixed impressions on public and therefore audiences wanted to know every update of such groups. This was an ultimate motivation or Ed Sullivan show for allowing

Critique a research article Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Critique a research article - Essay Example pecially amongst physicians and concerns about how to alleviate the situation are in order (Mauer, 2011: 34).The antipsychotics are closely associated to an apparent yet predictable increase in weight that is more proclaimed during the first period of medication of the second generation antipsychotics. After the first period however, the weight gain is considerably low though it still persists. An analysis done on a sample of 101 serious mentally ill patients was set up over a two year period to help analyze the likely changes that could be effected through medically proven procedures. These procedures include disciplined healthy eating habits, education and exercises. Significantly, the test was done to mainly establish other. The weight to be examined was mainly associated with abdominal obesity. Interventions have been initiated in an attempt to control the weight gain associated with these medications, including lifestyle, education, weight loss medications, and exercise have all been tried and evaluated. Currently, the research indicates significantly greater weight reduction in lifestyle intervention groups or standard care groups. (Sheldon, 2007: 32). The article aims to critically analyze the credibility of these procedures, analyze the findings as well as recommend for any probable interventions that could be used instead. A study research involving seriously ill mental patients is arguably one of the hardest studies one is likely to perform. It is prone to so much inaccuracy as the subjects under investigation are not likely to be relied upon to comprehensively provide satisfying information. Therefore, the mere use of the subjects is more likely to be considered full of bias as compared to stable subjects. However, the use of even numbers of both male and female subjects is more likely to provide more accurate results in a particular study unless the two are compared separately. The study in this case is not gender sensitive in terms of providing the

Going to College Essay Example for Free

Going to College Essay Going to college really does open a new chapter in everyone life, the beginning of new friendships, opportunities and growth. As a college student, a new student will be introduced to new areas of interest, broaden his vision of possibilities, establish and accomplish goals, develop lifelong friendships and define him or her in ways that he can imagine. Anyone on Earth already asked, or will ask himself where he would be in 10, 20 or even 30 years down the road. It is hard enough imagining what his life is going to be like in a year or two. Questions like â€Å"Where do you want to be today, tomorrow and in the future? † might be hard ones for young teenagers, who just graduated from high school. Attending college will help anyone answer those questions, develop a realistic plan for accomplishing his goals, and equip him with the knowledge and skills he will needs to see his goals through to the end. We usually assume that a college degree is necessary when it is not actually. We can also noticed that, because we place so much emphasis on degrees, people who have not attended college think of themselves badly, and this lack of self-confidence can really impede their success. There are some people for whom the college is actually not the best way to learn. However, a college education is an opportunity for everyone to learn what he loves. A new student can actually take the time to enjoy learning what he is truly passionate about. If he is interested in a variety of things and he is not sure where to focus, he can take his time to try them all. Nobody should look at college as a long-term contract that he is not going to be able to get out of once he starts. Anyone should feel like he needs to decide on a major area of study before starting college. College is a time for everyone to test himself, explore his interests, see what the possibilities are, and to see what he can achieve. Most other students attending college are going to be in the exact same boat. There are also a variety of resources, provided by most universities, to help anyone through college, including academic advisors, professors accessible on campus, tutoring academic support, full-time counseling staff and more. While the prospect of attending college may seem a bit daunting and even suffocating, a graduated high school teenager should not forget that he will still get to live his life. He will be able to participate in a variety of extracurricular activities, social groups, maintain a job, or even pursue a career while completing his studies. He may even find that college ends up being much more enjoyable and fulfilling than he ever expected. There are additional reasons as to why it is important to go to college. When students experience a post-secondary education, they have the opportunity to read books and listen to the lectures of top experts in their fields. This stimulation encourages students to think, ask questions, and explore new ideas. So, â€Å"why should you go to college? † The reasoning does not begin and end with the job aspect. A good education is beneficial from many different viewpoints. If any teenager is still asking himself why he should go to college, it is important to remember the significant amount of opportunity available for college graduates. The global economy is becoming increasingly more competitive, and in order to give him the best chance for a well-paying job, he must first understand the importance of college education. Attending college provides students with the knowledge and experience they are unable to receive from a secondary education, and finding a way to fund a higher education now can pay off in a huge way in the years to come.

The Notion Of Machine Translation English Language Essay

The Notion Of Machine Translation English Language Essay The translation process was mentioned as being one of the most effective that is a means of communication especially among cultures of different languages. Translation as a concept has existed hundred years ago, but it is only during the second half of the twentieth century that it emerged as an independent academic. A terrible need for translation has prompted specialized and theorists in the field to seek for more sophisticated methods and techniques for quick, cheap and effective translation. Thus, a new type of translation has appeared to compete with Human Translation which is called Machine translation or the automatic translation. Nowadays the use of machine translation is very important than we may think, because different aspects of modern life have direct for more efficient methods of translation, thus the demand for translation is not satisfied, because there are not enough human translators, or because individuals and organizations do not recognize translation as a complex activity requiring a high level of skill, and therefore they are not prepared to pay what it is worth. This research attempts to compare the most important linguistic aspects of machine translation and to analyze its main problems. The purpose of the given research is to analyze the difficulties of machine translation. The hypothesis that we postulate for this research is that the interlingua approach display the greatest degree of difficulty in the process of translation. The specific objectives of the research are: to define the notion of Machine Translation; to identify and compare different machine translation approaches; to analyze the main problems of machine translation; The research methods employed in the work are analysis, which was used for the study of machine translation and determining its essential features; diachronic analysis, that focuses on historical development of machine translation; the classification method was used for classifying the strategies of machine translation and their problems of ambiguity. We chose this topic, because the machine translation is a tool that allows people to have information about a variety of things in different languages and to understand it without knowing the language. Furthermore it permits us to have the meaning of a word or expressions in a rapid and effective way. As well Machine Translation provides translators useful tools that help them to make their job more efficiently and faster. The most important sources that have been used are: Concise History of the Language Sciences: from the Sumerians to the cognitivists by Koemer E.F., An Introduction to Machine Translation by W. J. Hutchins and Harold L. Somers, Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications by Munday J., Machine Translation by Maegaard B., and Machine Translation: An Introductury Guide by Arnold D. J, Language is the major method for people communicating with each other, but people can only communicate each other with language they both know. Unfortunately there are around 7000 different kinds of languages in the world, and these languages may have different writing systems, grammar and pronunciation. On the other hand, the fast grows of international communication (such as international businesses, national diplomacy, and international conferences) making the demand of translation (such as business document translation, legal document translation and scientific and technical documents translation) is also growing rapidly, cheap and fast translations are required. In this case machine translation becomes a solution. Identifying different definitions of Machine Translation Machine translation of natural languages, commonly known as MT, has multiple personalities. Sergei Nirenburg and Yorick Wilks, in their book Machine Translation claim that,first of all, machine translation is a venerable scientific enterprise, a component of the larger area of studies concerned with the studies of human language understanding capacity. They write that MT is also a technological challenge of the first order. It offers an opportunity to test the understanding of the syntax and semantics of a variety of languages by encoding this vast, though rarely comprehensive, knowledge into a form suitable for processing by computer programs. Also in this book Machine Translation they state that MT has a strong connection with the needs of modern societies. It can be understood as an economic necessity, considering that the growth of international communication keeps intensifying both at government, for instance, European Union, NAFTA, GATT and business and commerce levels, for instance, the exporters need product documentation in the languages of the countries where their products are marketed [12]. In the article Brief History of Machine Translation Research Leon Dostert mentions that the story of the genesis of machine translation was traced with care in the first compendium of essays on the subject entitled Machine Translation of Languages, edited by William Lock and A. Donald Booth. In which they write that the transference of meaning from one patterned set of signs occurring in a given culture into another set of patterned signs occurring in another related culture by means of an electronic computer [7]. In the report Language and Machines Computers in Translation and Linguistics is stated that machine translation means that it should go by algorithm from machine- readable source text to useful target text, without recourse to human translation or editing [1]. In An Introduction to Machine Translation W. John Hutchins and Harold L. Somers explain that the term Machine Translation is the traditional and standard name for computerized systems responsible for the production of translations from one natural language into another, with or without human assistance. Machine translation can be named as mechanical translation and automatic translation. These terms are now rarely used in English, but their equivalents in other languages are used, for example in French traduction automatique, or in Russian à Ã‚ °Ãƒ Ã‚ ²Ãƒâ€˜Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒ Ã‚ ¾Ãƒ Ã‚ ¼Ãƒ Ã‚ °Ãƒâ€˜Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒ Ã‚ ¸Ãƒâ€˜Ã¢â‚¬ ¡Ãƒ Ã‚ µÃƒâ€˜Ã‚ Ãƒ Ã‚ ºÃƒ Ã‚ ¸Ãƒ Ã‚ ¹ à Ã‚ ¿Ãƒ Ã‚ µÃƒâ€˜Ã¢â€š ¬Ãƒ Ã‚ µÃƒ Ã‚ ²Ãƒ Ã‚ ¾Ãƒ Ã‚ ´. Also in this book is written that the term does not include computer-based translation tools which support translators by providing access to dictionaries and remote terminology databases, facilitating the transmission and reception of machine-readable texts, or i nteracting with word processing, text editing or printing equipment, but, however, it includes systems in which translators or other users assist computers in the production of translations, including various combinations of text preparation, on-line interactions and subsequent revisions of output [16]. M.Kay and Xerox Parc in their article Machines and People in Translation write that we should distinguish a narrower and a wider use for the term machine translation. In the narrow sense, the term refers to a batch process in which a text is given over to a machine from which a result is collected which is the output of the machine translation process. When we use the term in the wider sense, it includes all the process required to obtain final translation output on paper [8]. In the article Machine Translation Workstation is stated that the MT is a general tree-manipulation system with several built-in inference strategies. They demonstrate the process of machine translation through the following scheme: And they say that when a user applies the machine he/she writes a rule base to control the execution of the machine and chooses the appropriate inference strategy. The machine takes well-defined linguistic trees as input and produces as output trees which represent meaning-preserving transformations of the input trees. Furthermore the MT is language independent, because it impose restrictions on what kinds of transformations are possible [4]. In conclusion we can say that machine translation is an automatic linguistic translation, namely, a word-by-word translation and it refers to the utilization of software to translate text from one language to another language. Machine Translation Strategies In the article Machine Translation and Computer-Assisted Translation Craciunescu states that Machine translation is an autonomous operating system with strategies and approaches that can be classified as follows: the direct strategy the transfer strategy the pivot language strategy She says that the direct strategy is based on a predefined source language-target language binomial in which each word of the source language syntagm is directly linked to a corresponding unit in the target language with a unidirectional correlation, for example from English to Spanish but not the other way round. But the transfer strategy  is based on the level of representation and involves three stages. The analysis stage describes the source document linguistically and uses a source language dictionary. The transfer stage transforms the results of the analysis stage and establishes the linguistic and structural equivalents between the two languages. It uses a bilingual dictionary from source language to target language. The generation stage produces a document in the target language on the basis of the linguistic data of the source language by means of a target language dictionary. The pivot language strategy  is based on the idea of creating a representation of the text independent of any particular language. This representation functions as a neutral that is distinct from both the source language and the target language. This method reduces the machine translation process to only two stages: analysis and generation. The analysis of the source text leads to a conceptual representation, the diverse components of which are matched by the generation module to their equivalents in the target language [5]. Another characterization of strategies of MT we find at W.J. Hutchins and Jonathan Sloculn in their articles Machine Translation: A Brief History and Its History, Current Status, and Future Prospects distinguish three basic strategies. The first strategy is referred to the direct translation approach. Direct translation is characteristic of a system designed from the start to translate out of one specific language and into another. For example, Russian is the language of the original texts-the source language, and English is the language of the translated texts-the target language. Translation is direct from the source language (SL) text to the target language (TL) text [14]. Arnold in his book Machine Translation represents the direct approach through the following scheme[3]: Text SL Direct Translation Text TL The second basic design strategy is the Interlingua approach, which assumes that it is possible to convert SL texts into representations common to more than one language. Furthermore the Interlingua approach is characteristic of a system in which the representation of the meaning of the source language input is intended to be independent of any language, and this representation is used to synthesize the target language output [14]. In his book Machine Translation Arnold represents the Interlingua approach through the following scheme [3]: IL Analysis Synthesis Direct Translation Text SL Text TL The third basic strategy is the less ambitious transfer approach. The transfer approach is characteristic of a system in which the underlying representation of the meaning of a grammatical unit (e.g., sentence) differs depending on the language from which it was derived or into which it is to be generated; this implies the existence of a third translation stage which maps one language-specific meaning representation into another: this stage is called Transfer. The transfer approach operates through three stages involving underlying (abstract) representations for both SL and TL texts. The first stage converts SL texts into abstract SL-oriented representations; the second stage converts these into equivalent TL-oriented representations; and the third generates the final TL texts. Whereas the Interlingua approach necessarily requires complete resolution of all ambiguities in the SL text so that translation into any other language is possible, in the transfer approach only those ambiguit ies inherent in the language in question are tackled; problems of lexical differences between languages are dealt with in the second stage (transfer proper) [14]. Arnold also represents the third approach, the transfer approach, through a scheme as follow [3]: Analysis IS SL Transfer ISTL Synthesis TEXT SL Text TL Direct Translation In brief, the interlingual machine translation  is one of the classic approaches to  machine translation. In this approach, the source language the text to be translated is transformed into an interlingua an abstract language-independent representation. The target language is then generated from the interlingua. Furthermore, the interlingual approach is an alternative to the direct approach  and the  transfer approach. Main problems of machine translation The major problems of all MT systems concern the resolution of lexical and structural ambiguities, both within languages (monolingual ambiguity) and between languages (bilingual ambiguity). The lexical ambiguity is when a word has more than one meaning, but when a phrase or sentence can have more than one structure it is called structural ambiguity [3]. Hutchins in his article Machine Translation: History and General Principles mentions that any monolingual ambiguity is a potential difficulty in translation since there will be more than one possible equivalent. For instance, homographs and polysemes (English cry, French voler) must be resolved before translation (French pleurer or crier, English fly or steal); ambiguities of grammatical category (English light as noun, adjective or verb, face as noun or verb) must likewise be resolved for choice between lumià ¨re, clair or allumer, etc. He states that the examples of monolingual structural ambiguities occur when a word or phrase can potentially modify more than one element of a sentence. And he explains this through the following example, old men and women, the adjective old may refer only to men or to both men and women [15]. Prepositional phrases can modify almost any preceding verb or noun phrase, e.g. (a) The car was driven by the teacher with great skill. (b) The car was driven by the teacher with defective tyres. (c) The car was driven by the teacher with red hair. Lexical and structural ambiguities may and often combine: He saw her shaking hands, where shaking can be either an adjectiveÆ’Â   hands which were shaking or a verb component Æ’Â  that she was shaking hands [15]. Bilingual lexical ambiguities occur primarily when the TL makes distinctions absent in the SL: E.g. English river can be rivià ¨re or fleuve (Fluss or Strom); English eat can be German essen or fressen; English wall can be French mur or paroi, German Wand, Mauer or Wall. Hutchins implies that an example which can inllustrate this is the translation of wear from English to Japanese. Although there is a generic verb kiru it is normal to use the verb appropriate to the type of item worn: haoru (coat or jacket), haku (shoes or trousers), kaburu (hat), hameru (ring or gloves), shimeru (belt, tie or scarf), tsukeru (brooch or clip), kakeru (glasses or necklace), hayasu (moustache) [15]. Also in this article is pointed out that the bilingual structural differences cover both general facts, for instance, in English the adjectives generally precede nouns but that they usually follow them in French, and differences conditioned by specific lexical differences. A familiar example occurs when translating the English verb likeÆ’Â   She likes to play tennis, as a German adverb gern Æ’Â  Sie spielt gern Tennis [15]. Other examples are: simple verbs (trust) rendered by circumlocutions (avoir confiance à  ); single clauses Æ’Â  He pushed open the door restructured as a subordinate clause Æ’Â  Il a ouvert la porte en la poussant [14]. The structural differences combine with lexical differences, for instance the translation of know into French or German, where choice of connaà ®tre (kennen) or savoir (wissen) affects both structure Æ’Â  Je connais lhomme. (Ich kenne den Mann); Je sais ce quil sappelle. (Ich weiss wie er heisst) and the translation of other lexical items (what as ce que and wie) [14]. The morphological analysis is concerned with the identification of base forms from infected forms of nouns, verbs and adjectives (irregular forms being entered as units in dictionaries), with the recognition of derivational forms (e.g. English -ly as an adverb derived from an adjective, German -heit as a noun from an adjective), and with the segmentation of compound forms in languages like German (Dampfschiff, Dampfhammer) [14]. In the An Introduction to Machine Translation Hutchins reveals that all MT systems have problems with unknown words, especially with the neologisms and new combinations. He says that if derivational elements and components can be correctly identified then can be translated with the international equivalences of many elements, for instance, French demi- and English semi-, French -ique and English -ic) [16]. However, segmentation can be problematic, e.g. extradition analysed as both extradit+ion and ex+tradition, cooperate as both co+operate and cooper+ate. He suggests that these would be resolved by dictionary consultation, but sometimes alternative segmentations are equally valid (German Wachtraum could be guard room (Wacht+Raum) or day dream (Wach+Traum), until one is eliminated at a later stage [16]. In his article Machine Translation: A Brief History Hutchins writes that in MT there are three basic approaches to syntactic structure analysis. The first aim is to identify legitimate sequences of grammatical categories, for instance, in English article + adjective + noun. This approach is based on predictive analysis, which is a sequence of categories predicted that the following category would be one of a relatively limited set. The second aim to recognize groups of categories, for instance, as noun phrases, verb phrases, clauses, and ultimately sentences. These are based on phrase structure or constituency grammar. The third aim to identify dependencies among categories, for example, reflecting the fact that prepositions determine the case forms of German and Russian nouns, that the form of a French adjective is determined by the noun it modifies. The basis is dependency grammar [14]. He also claims that SL structures are transformed into equivalent TL structures by conversion rules, in the case of phrase structure or dependency trees by tree transducers, which may apply either unconditionally, for example, English adjective+noun to French noun+adjective or conditionally, followed by specific lexical items, for example, English like to German gern [15]. Another problem which identifies Arnold is the multiword units like idioms and collocations. The real problem with idioms is that they are not generally fixed in their form [3]. Hutchins in his article Machine Translation: History and General principles points out that MT systems can fail for many practical reasons, for instance, unknown words Æ’Â  neologisms or new compounds, misspellings Æ’Â  supercede, persue, British orthography instead of expected American Æ’Â  traveller for traveler, typographical errors Æ’Â  from instead of form, wrong usages Æ’Â  principle as an adjective, ungrammaticalness Æ’Â  none of them were present. Even if full disambiguation cannot be achieved, a crude translation may be obtained with basic phrase structure identification. It is now common for systems to retain information from all levels of analysis; thus transfer (or interlingual) representations will combine morphological, syntactic, semantic and thematic information [15]. Historically, MT systems have progressively introduced deeper levels of analysis and transfer. Early word-for-word systems were restricted to bilingual dictionaries and simple morphology. Later direct systems introduced syntactic analysis and synthesis. Phrase structure and dependency analyses provided the basis for simple transfer systems with little semantic analysis. Conclusion The use of machine translation is more important than we may think. It could be claimed that the resources available to the translator through information technology imply a change in the relationship between the translator and the text, that is to say, a new way of translating. However, there is the development of new capabilities, which leads us to point out a number of essential aspects of the current situation. Translating with the help of the computer is definitely not the same as working exclusively on paper and with paper products such as conventional dictionaries, because computer tools provide us with a relationship to the text which is much more flexible than a purely lineal reading. Furthermore, the Internet with its universal access to information and instant communication between users has created a physical and geographical freedom for translators that were inconceivable in the past. Translators need to accept the new technologies and learn how to use them to their maxi mum potential as a means to increased productivity and quality improvement. As we mentioned there are problems of ambiguity when working with MT, and those problems are also common for us. A clear example would be translations from Spanish to Basque.  In those translations, apart from ambiguity problems, there would be structural problems, because structurally Spanish and Basque are completely different. Having analyzed some theoretical sources we came to the following conclusions: Machine translations enable people to have information in many languages, helping to understand it without knowing the language; MT provides translators useful tools that help them to make their job more efficiently and faster; It can output much larger volumes of translation than any team of translators; Machine translation rarely reaches accuracy levels above 70%; Machine translation is a venerable scientific enterprise, a technological challenge of the first order and it can be understood as an economic necessity; Machine translation is an automatic linguistic translation, namely, a word-by-word translation; Machine translation refers to the utilization of software to translate text from one language to another language; In the process of translation Machine Translations encounter some problems of ambiguity that make that their use to be hard. This research could be a good basis for a further development of this topic, namely, a profound analysis of different machine translation and their accuracy in translating. We consider that the given study might be of great use to researchers in the field of translation and linguistics. It may serve as a reference point for the elaboration of year and graduation papers. Finally, we should point out that machine translation has an important role in the process of translation and is very helpful for translators.

Current and future strategies

Current and future strategies 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Purpose: The purpose of this report is to understand and analyse the current and future strategies of NEXT in terms of its market in the United Kingdom. This report also considers the tactics to reach potential markets and expand into newer market segments. Approach: In order to conduct a comprehensive study of the company, the factors taken into account are an internal and external analysis, the generic strategies used by NEXT and a thorough understanding of the 4 Ps, PLC, BGM and Ansoffs Matrix has been done in correlation with the future and currents strategies. Findings: Next is the second largest clothing retailer in the UK operating through 500 NEXT retail stores within UK and Eire with over two million active customers. Next aims to provide high quality and beautifully designed products to their customers. From the internal and external analysis of the market strategy of Next, results conclude that next has been a mid market retailer for nearly two decades. It has achieved huge amount of success in the internet and online shopping environment and have been able to cope to with the recent recession within UK and globally. Limitations: Next has suffered sales in the last year due to the recession in the UK and has been moving from a low price retailer to a design and quality product provider. In achieving this aim of providing high quality and designed products it has suffered loss in the UK in sales and growth. It also needs to be aware of the risks of increasing their shop sizes, as the store space to sales growth ratio is very poor. New out of town stores has not been great success and has only added additional costs. 2. INTRODUCTION The only way to attain the successes the company has experienced in the past few years in terms of growth of sales and profits is to see what opportunities lay on the horizon. The Marketing Department of Next Plc has performed a series of internal and external scans throughout the company in order to identify these opportunities. This report contains an analysis performed on the structure, culture, and the micro and macro environment of NEXT PLC. The outcomes are presented in the form of a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis of the company. A PEST analysis focuses on the environment that the company now is in (Political, Economic, Social and Technological) and a scan based on the Five Forces Model of Michael Porter. Furthermore, there is the presentation of mix map model, which analysis the 4 Ps (Product, Price, Promotion and Place) and product life cycle, Boston Group Matrix, Ansoffs Matrix of NEXT. An executive summary has been constructed to provide the company vision and a sense of direction with the help of data gathered by the Marketing Department. The above mentioned activities are performed In order to discuss and evaluate the current marketing strategy of NEXT PLC and to recommend an appropriate strategy for the near future to expedite further growth. 2.1 MISSION ANALYSIS NEXT is a retailer of clothing, footwear, accessories and home products. Next clothes are designed by in-house design team to offer consistency of style, quality and value for money with a contemporary fashion edge. The company operates through five reportable business segments namely: Next retail, Next directory, Ventura, Next sourcing and other. NEXT PLC aim to provide â€Å"Exciting, Beautifully designed, Excellent quality clothing and home ware that reflects the aspirations and means of our customers† (Nextplc, 2009) and keep providing quality products for their target markets. In lay-mans terms, a mission statement describes what business the firm is in (Thompson and Martin, 2005). Objectives describe the kind of results the business seeks to achieve while the strategies simplify the way to achieve the desired objectives. Market can be defined as location where the buying and selling of merchandise takes place and marketing can be defined as the process of identifying a target market and developing appropriate strategies for product development, pricing, promotion and distribution (Burns, 2002). NEXT also aims to respond to the particular needs of their customers through the package of measures, which they believe support all customers including those with additional needs. NEXT PLC operates through 500 NEXT retail stores within UK and Eire, Next directory, a direct catalogue and transactional website with over two million active customers and NEXT franchise which includes around 170 stores worldwide. Online shopping was introduced in 1999 and was first in home shopping in the UK. Like other retailers, NEXT has also suffered sales decline due to the recession but aim to carefully manage costs, whilst maintaining and retaining the talent and skills to ensure a positive position within market and emerge stronger than before. NEXT PLC also believes in the importance of maintaining healthy relationship with communities in which they operate and also work with charities to ensure their part in public welfare. NEXT is positioned firmly in the middle mainstream fashion market, targeting 25-45 year olds (upper, middle and lower middle class consumers) who are fashion followers. Easey (2009) maintained that fashion marketing is the application of a range of techniques and a business philosophy that centres upon the customer and potential customer clothing and clothing-related products and services in order to meet the long-term goals of the organisation. In recent years NEXT has been criticised about their marketing methods and has not been seen as a retail business wi th up to date marketing strategy. The word ‘strategy is used frequently and loosely, and is often no more than management jargon. There is obviously a deeper and more practical meaning to it. Strategy is about how an organization sets about getting to where it wants to get it is about setting, pursuing and achieving its mission and objectives (Thompson and Martin, 2005). Knowles (1996) maintains that applying the concept of strategy to an organization implies that the organizations managers try to allocate resources, establish policies and procedures, assign responsibilities and give direction to the organization. Strategic planning is a precise discipline and a process designed to fully utilize the collective expertise of the decision makers through a facilitated process which results in a strategic plan. In the following paragraphs, current in depth marketing strategy of NEXT PLC will be thoroughly discussed. 3.SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS As discussed earlier, success of an organisation in todays competitive world depends on to a large extent on strategy formulation and implementation. An analysis of the internal and external environments provides a look in towards building and developing current and future strategies. Situational analysis is a planning step which helps us examines the current situation of our organization and its external environment so that we can identify and agree on major issues which affect how we plan for the future. SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning method used to evaluate a firms strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats involved in a project or business venture. Strengths and weaknesses are considered to be internal factors of the organisation while opportunities and threats are considered to be external factors as opportunities or threats lie in the external environment. This analysis is called as SWOT analysis (Stahl and Grisby, 1997). In order for a firm to carry out SWOT analy sis it needs careful and critical examination of these various internal and external factors which are often unique to an organisation depending on the type of business. After a SWOT analysis has been performed the managers are able to formulate a strategic plan which comprises of objectives and subsequent strategies. Next always seeks to give the price, value and quality products and services, the upper hand when turning towards customers. Next aims to provide an inclusive high level of service to all customers, whether they shop in high street, shopping centre or retail park stores, the Next Directory, or online through our website. This can also be seen in the way the company sees the importance of its personnel in relation to its customers. NEXT PLC needs to look into the future for improving the customer care by streamlining activities. It also wants to continue the same success pathway it has had in the last 5 years which is demonstrated by (Verdict, 2009). 3.1 INTERNAL ANALYSIS Internal factors are those factors which influence the strengths and weaknesses of an organisation. These strengths are internal to the organisation, its strategies and its position in relation with their competitors (Mercer, 1999). Given below is an internal analysis of Next plc. 3.1.1 Structure In terms of structure, Next plc operate on a centralised system. Their target market is 25-45 year olds (Next, 2009). The company logo ‘next in lower case signifies a different approach, more trendy. There are3 main channels of distribution used by next to ensure their products reach the desired customers: Next has around 500 stores in the UK which acts as its main point of sale. (Next plc, 2009). Next directory which is an online web portal which allows customers to buy products through the web site. There are almost 2 million active next directory customers (Verdict, 2009). Around 170 international stores make up the third channel of distribution. 3.1.2Culture Jackson and Shaw (2009) define culture as the attitudes, values, standards and behaviours of a group that are often defined by nationality. According to Vignali et al, (2008) culture is made up of both abstract elements such as values and ethics, and material components such as cars and foods, which allow us to describe, evaluate and differentiate cultures. Approximately 30% of the clothing bought in the UK is from MS, Arcadia and Next (Jackson and Shaw, 2009). They further state that during 2006 Next lost their market dominance. This means the culture affects consumer behaviour to a great deal. However Next plc, was one of the first to develop and adopt an internet based shopping branch as a high street retailer (Next plc, 2009). Next operates on a role culture concept with which they have a principal board committee which includes the audit committee, remuneration committee and a nomination committee which work on their own in the company (Next plc, 2009). 3.1.2.1Cultural Web Stories: These are the past events and what people talked about inside and outside the company (Mindtool, 2009). Rituals Routines: The daily behaviour and actions of people that signal acceptable behaviour (Mindtool, 2009). Symbols: These are the visual representations of the company (Mindtool, 2009). Organizational Structure: This includes both the structure defined by the organization chart, and the unwritten lines of power and influence (Mindtool, 2009). Control Systems: The ways that the organization is controlled (Mindtool, 2009). Power Structures: The pockets of real power in the company (Mindtool, 2009). 3.1.3Value Chain core competencies Value chain is a framework for identifying where value is added and costs are incurred within a company. It embraces the key functions and activities within a company or organisation such as NEXT (Thompson and Martin, 2005). Core competencies: NEXT make use of an Internet based home shopping and has also established a good brand posture with individual style, beautiful design, excellent quality and affordable price (Next, 2009). NEXT stores are specious and they also make use of standalone lime stores. 3.2 EXTERNAL ANALYSIS The external factors may be threats to one organisation while offering opportunities to another such as technological change, legislation, socio-cultural changes, etc. It can also include changes in the market place or competitive position (Mercer, 1999). 3.2.1 Forces Influencing the Market Porters five forces is a model that helps marketers to analyse the competitive environment by identifying five major forces that continually impacts on organisations. These forces are: Bargaining power of suppliers Bargaining power of consumers Threat of entry into the market by new entrants Threat of substitutes into the market Level of competitive rivalry amongst existing firms (Porter, 1980 cited by Jackson and Shaw, 2009) The bargaining power of our suppliers is very low and the prime problem exists in achieving the quality we ask from our suppliers. Most suppliers only deliver into this market, yet can also change to other markets (professional clothing) that are less profitable and the level of competition is great. With the availability of many suppliers, this force acts positively but can affect the quality aspect of NEXT brand name if suppliers are changed on regular basis. For the consumer bargaining power, there is not much leverage from their account: their money spent on clothing per person is not substantial enough when compared with, our total sales and their total spending budget (Next annual report, 2008). As, per person spending power is not huge it does not provide customers any bargaining power. NEXT can also consider this force as positive but needs to be aware of the customer demands in order to maintain this positive nature of the force. The threat of new entrants is rather low, yet, as said before, the German ESPRIT company is trying to enter the market. This is an exemption, because ESPRIT has a lot of resources that make this possible as well as a lot of experience. In words of product differentiation they are in the league of Levis and others (Verdict, 2009). These brands have extra benefits: Image and superior quality. This force acts as a positive force, as the threat of new entrants is low for NEXT plc but caution needs to be taken in order to maintain this force as positive. The products that can reduce our sales in the form of substitute products or services are not there, however a ‘threat of Internet portals and other forms of home shopping does exist. This is not a severe threat for the company as it already is active in this channel of selling. The discount retailing of A-brands e.g. Levis in outlets through parallel imports can be a problem. New internet portals and other home shopping forms are the only form of substitution threat to NEXT, but as they have been achieving a huge amount of success with NEXT directory and Ventura (Nextplc, 2009), this force does prove to be positive for them. There is some rivalry in the ranks of the market, for there are declining sales due to a decreasing market. In order to attain customer base, companies have increased their discounts and that leads to the destruction of the market. The main cause for this is the fact that people do not want to pay the full price amount of the products and companies have to suffice with lower profit margins. NEXT is the second largest clothing retailer in UK but has also suffered a decrease in sales. While most of its competitors struggled from the declining market Next manage to increase its market share and during the present recession they maintain their stand in the market (scribd, 2009) 3.2.2 Political, Economic, Social and Technological (PEST) analysis: All organisations operate in market places that are affected by forces outside their control ( Jackson and Shaw, 2009, pp 300).Factors considered within the macro environment affect not only the company but all the other members of its micro environment, namely its suppliers, consumers, etc ( Easey, 1995). An analysis of the external factors that influence the firm is known as the PEST analysis i.e. Political, Economic, Social and Technological. Political Politics will affect both the producer and the consumer in various ways (Bohdanowicz and Clamp, 1994). A stable political surrounding is the basis for long-term decisions. The United Kingdom, as a Member State of the European Union, fulfils this prerequisite. The government has to act within a definite political framework to achieve the conditions of the European Union and this guarantees NEXT PLC a higher scope of economic actions. Another advantage of the European Union is the open transfer of goods. This makes it easier for NEXT to sell their products in the different European countries. There are no trade barriers that aggravate sales and it also provides as a means of direct form of participation within the foreign markets (Hines and Bruce, 2001). Economic Vignali et. al, (2008), express that economic trends are extremely important for the business and that they depend to a great extent on the governments politics. Investments in Europe for NEXT PLC are very interesting. The British currency nowadays is exceedingly strong (ex., 2009). This is due to the independence of the British pound to the Euro and has several effects. First, foreign investments for NEXT are relatively inexpensive, and second, it is costly for outside firms to establish in the United Kingdom. The effects of exchange rates also need to be monitored closely. The devaluation of the sterling in 1992 led to a rise in the cost of imports to UK while making manufactured items more competitive. However, many countries are reluctant to engage in trade because of these reasons. In the face of a truly difficult trading environment it is a case of survival of the fittest. Being good is not good enough, retailers have to be exceptional and stand out from the crowd. (Verdict 200 8). Chief executive of Next states â€Å"The outlook for the consumer economy remains challenging and as we have said before, the first half will be particularly tough (Wilson, 2009) Social Changes in lifestyle and opinions influence the demand and the way of selling products (Vignali et. al, 2008, pp. 364). Key Note (2009) estimates that in the year 2036 more than 64.9 million people will be living there. This statement would mean two possibilities. This means a lot of new customers for NEXT PLC but the age of the population is increasing. On the other hand, the social structure has changed dramatically. The progress in medical service and the self-awareness of living leads to increasing life expectancy. Following development of sex education and rising numbers of career women, the birth rate has dropped. These reasons are responsible for declining figures in the NEXT 20 to 40 year old target group. Bohdanowicz and Clamp, (1994) analyse that young people no longer feel the pressure to be married or have children, and therefore many are living a single life or are cohabiting. Technological As in all areas of industry new technology is making great inroads to improve quality of life and increase speed and quality of manufacture (Easey, 1995).The age of Internet and the reception of new media reveal a lot of potential opportunities for NEXT to boost profit. Some companies in the United States already offer online-orders where the customer can exactly define his wishes and measurements, and send it to the place of production. 48 hours later he receives his package. Using this method the companies can react instantly to changes in behaviors. Social networking site facebook also provides as a means of information and education and also helps in advertising for NEXT PLC (Facebook, 2009). Some new entrants in UK market such as Zara use latest technology body scanners and follows fast fashion which is contrasting to NEXT. 4. SWOT Strength: 1. Performance in recent years. (Verdict, 2009) 2. Next Directory sales. (Verdict, 2009) 3. Good promotion. 4. Powerful design philosophy. Weakness: 1. Overpriced. (Verdict, 2009) 2. Profit margin declined than previous years. (Verdict, 2009) 3. No celebrity brand ambassador. (Verdict, 2009) 4. More formal wear than average. Little underwear.(Verdict, 2009) Opportunities 1. Optimize store space. (Verdict, 2009) 2. Consolidate internet marketing and buying. (Verdict, 2009) 3. Expansion into new markets. (Verdict, 2009) Threats: 1. Marks and Spencers biggest competition. (Verdict, 2009) 2. Arcadia and Primark trying to overtake. (Verdict, 2009) 3. Target market reduced. 5. GENERIC STRATEGIES According to Kotler 2004, strategy is the roadmap for achieving the envisaged goals. The strategic decision made by a commercial organisation is concerned with establishing the basis upon which it intends to compete, develop and sustain a competitive advantage and outperform competitors. Porter defined strategy as creation of a unique and valuable position involving different set of activities. Strategy can be formulated into 3 generic types Overall cost leadership Here a business aims at delivering its products at the lowest prices in the market and win a large market share. Such businesses require being good at engineering, purchasing, manufacturing and distribution. A disadvantage of this strategy is that some other company will eventually emerge with still lower costs. Brands may be able to achieve cost leadership at category level if they have sufficient market share (Jackson and Shaw, 2009). Focus- Here a firm concentrates on one or more narrow market segments. It first identifies such a segment and then pursues either cost leadership or differentiation in them. Differentiation- Here a business aims at achieving superior performance in an important customer area valued by a large chunk of the market. It could strive to be the service leader, the quality leader, the style leader or technology leader. Differentiation of one company from another is extremely important due to the ever changing customer demands (Oelkars, 2004).It is also considered as strategy based upon being different from the competition through a range of factors such as design, style, image, trend, product quality etc (Jackson and Shaw, 2009). NEXT prides in offering consistency of style, quality and value for money with a contemporary fashion edge for their target market. NEXT marketing departments have been taking a differentiation approach which has helped them achieve superiority above their competitors. NEXT has differentiated their products from their competitors on the basis of above qualities such as style, design, quality and value for money. However, in this ever changing fashion industry nothing can be permanent. On the basis of porters five forces discussed above NEXT have all the forces in their favour but there are few issues which they need to consider in keeping these forces on the positive side. NEXT needs to be aware of the risks of changing suppliers in case of conflict as new suppliers may provide good products with change in quality which can easily damage the brand name. Due to global recession, textile firms in Mauritius that supply Europes biggest high-street stores are looking forward to tough 2009 . With 10% decrease in sales, these stores fight among themselves to achieve better prices, which results in middle market stores to suffer like NEXT (Scribd, 2009). Only a small amount of internet portals threat has emerged for NEXT but their Directory has been a success and continues to do so (Verdict, 2009). 6. MIX MAP MODEL 6.1 MARKETING 4 PS The marketing mix consists of 4 Ps that are product, price, promotion and place. Product and Price are the product related elements where, price can also be consider as an element of its own. The other two are parts of the delivery system which is about delivering the physical product and the sales message (Mercer, 1999). Product: What business offers customers to satisfy their needs e.g. Quality. According to the mission statement of NEXT, their focus is providing high quality and beautifully designed product for their customers. For this reason maintaining and improving their quality and design of their products is very important for NEXT (nextplc, 2009). Price: Amount customers are ready to pay for products e.g. discounts. NEXT has been one of the known retailers to provide huge discounts on festive occasions, with discounts upto 70% on many products. It also provides special discounts for taller and plus-size customers (next, 2009). Being a mid-market retailer, in order to maintain its competitiveness it is very important for NEXT to provide special discounts schemes and offers during the festive seasons. NEXT also relies on linked selling, one of the biggest areas of sales. For example, it recommends fashion accessories to customers buying clothing online (next, 2009). Place: involves getting the product to the customers e.g. warehouse. Location of retail stores and shops has always been considered as the prime method to increase sales and growth. NEXT has always been one of the high street retail stores. It also has many different store types, eg flagship sores, factory outlets (nextplc, 2009). For this reason it is really important to have different location for customers to choose from. Promotion: It includes ways that encourage customers to buy a product e.g. magazines (Oelkers, 2004). NEXT hugely promotes a great deal of its products through magazines e.g Vogue and also produce great deal of discounts in store and on online shopping. It recently plans to introduce extra 16 billion pounds in advertising its products and online sales records 530 million pounds (Mintel, 2009). 6.2PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE According to Jackson and Shaw 2009, as with all types of product, fashion follows cycles and products follow the Product Life Cycle. In a broader sense, no product can go on selling forever. Once a product has been introduced into the market and accepted by consumers, it goes through a phase of growth, maturity and decline until it becomes obsolete. Stages of a product life cycle: Design Development Stage: This stage is undertaken ahead of the product launch. Design development costs create negative profitability as the sales at this stage are zero (Jackson and Shaw, 2009). Introduction: Introduction is a period of slow sales growth as the product is introduced in the market. Profits are non existent at this stage because of the heavy expenses done for the product introduction (Kotler, 2004). Growth: This is a period of rapid market acceptance and substantial profit improvement. Maturity: This is the period of slowdown in the sales growth because the product has achieved acceptance by most potential buyers. Profits decline or stabilize. Decline: Sales show a downward drift and profits erode. Although the PLC is an accepted underpinning of all marketing theory and practice, Jackson and Shaw 2009, cite the major problem for the fashion marketer to grapple with is the fact that the actual position of a fashion product on the cycle at any point in time is hard to define accurately. Hence an accurate mathematical model of the PLC is impossible. PLC is an important issue for NEXT as it provides growth for the company and has highest operating profit margin amongst its competitors (Verdict, 2009). It also has a increase in store size by 50% from 2004-2008 (Verdict, 2009). Therefore Next is positioned in growth stage of PLC with signs of improvement. 6.3BOSTON GROUP MATRIX As a visual tool for managing portfolios, the Boston Consultancy Group has developed a matrix known as BGM. The BGM offers a very useful map of the organisations products strength or weakness (Mercer, 1999). A typical BGM is given below. The matrix is in a four box quadrant layout. The horizontal axis is expressed as the market share of the business compared to that of the market leader, whilst the vertical axis shows the average annual growths rate of the market that the business is operating in. The four quadrants are called stars, question marks, cash cows and dogs, which explain how the business stands relative to the market leader. Stars are market leaders in high growth markets. They are generally expensive in terms of promotional expenditure (Jackson and Shaw 2009). Generally businesses start off in the quadrant of question marks. Cash cows operate in a market where the growth rate is less than 10 percent. Dogs are a decline stage where a small share of limited and stagnant market. Growth of NEXT has been an important issue for the company with a higher amount of concentration going towards increasing store size. Since 1997 the average store size has increase from 3500 sq. feet to 10,500 sq. feet (Verdict, 2009). In their mission statement Next aims to provide excellent quality and design for its customers and target younger market. Next chief executive admits 2009 being a tough year for NEXT. (nextplc, 2009). NEXT appears to be existing in between the dogs and question mark stage and needs to concentrate to achieve position to the other end of the BCG Matrix. 6.4 ANSOFFS MATRIX Ansoffs Matrix provides four different growth strategies by considering ways to grow via existing products and new products, and in existing markets and new markets. As seen in the diagram above; The Market Penetration strategy seeks to achieve growth with existing products in the current market segment, aiming to increase market share. Market Development strategy seeks to achieve growth by targeting existing products to new market segments. The Product Development strategy develops new products targeted to its existing market and the Diversification strategy helps the firm to diversify into new businesses by developing new products in new markets. With increasing number of new retailers entering the market NEXT has achieved a great level of success in maintaining their market share and has also grown their business in new products such as directory and online shopping (Verdict, 2009). NEXT has always been an innovative retailer, as it was the first retailer to introduce internet shopping in 1999 (nextplc, 2009). Since then it has introduced many new products and Next Directory has been a great success. 7. RECOMMENDATION On the above data analysis it is proven that NEXT has been one of the successful retailers in UK. It has grown immensely in the last decade both in regionally and internationally. Being the first clothing retailer to introduced online shopping; it has improved

Computer Security And The Law :: essays research papers

I. Introduction You are a computer administrator for a large manufacturing company. In the middle of a production run, all the mainframes on a crucial network grind to a halt. Production is delayed costing your company millions of dollars. Upon investigating, you find that a virus was released into the network through a specific account. When you confront the owner of the account, he claims he neither wrote nor released the virus, but he admits that he has distributed his password to "friends" who need ready access to his data files. Is he liable for the loss suffered by your company? In whole or in part? And if in part, for how much? These and related questions are the subject of computer law. The answers may very depending in which state the crime was committed and the judge who presides at the trial. Computer security law is new field, and the legal establishment has yet to reach broad agreement on may key issues. Advances in computer security law have been impeded by the reluctance on the part of lawyers and judges to grapple with the technical side of computer security issues[1]. This problem could be mitigated by involving technical computer security professional in the development of computer security law and public policy. This paper is meant to help bridge to gap between technical and legal computer security communities. II. THE TECHNOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE A. The Objectives of Computer Security The principal objective of computer security is to protect and assure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of automated information systems and the data they contain. Each of these terms has a precise meaning which is grounded in basic technical ideas about the flow of information in automated information systems. B. Basic Concepts There is a broad, top-level consensus regarding the meaning of most technical computer security concepts. This is partly because of government involvement in proposing, coordinating, and publishing the definitions of basic terms[2]. The meanings of the terms used in government directives and regulations are generally made to be consistent with past usage. This is not to say that there is no disagreement over the definitions in the technical community. Rather, the range of such disagreement is much narrower than in the legal community. For example there is presently no legal consensus on exactly what constitutes a computer[3]. The term used to establish the scope of computer security is "automated information system," often abbreviated "AIS." An Ais is an assembly of electronic equipment, hardware, software, and firmware configured to collect, create, communicate, disseminate, process, store and control data or information. This includes numerous items beyond the central processing unit and associated

Significance of the Number 3 in Fairy Tales Essay -- Exploratory Essay

Significance of the Number 3 in Fairy Tales Numbers do not exist. They are creations of the mind, existing only in the realm of understanding. No one has ever touched a number, nor would it be possible to do so. You may sketch a symbol on a paper that represents a number, but that symbol is not the number itself. A number is just understood. Nevertheless, numbers hold symbolic meaning. Have you ever asked yourself serious questions about the significance, implications, and roles of numbers? For example, â€Å"Why does the number ten denote a change to double digits?† â€Å"Is zero a number or a non-number?† Or, the matter this paper will address: â€Å"Why does the number three hold an understood and symbolic importance?† My interest in this topic began by observing the common usage of the number three in fairy tales. Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Three Little Pigs, and the three sisters in Cinderella are classic and well-known examples in which the number three is used. This paper seeks to uncover the mystery of the number three by analyzing the possible reasons the authors use â€Å"three† in fairy tales. Explanations for an author’s use of the number in question can be grouped into three categories (pardon the irony). First, what I call the Cultural Approach assumes a smooth transition for â€Å"three† from culture and history into the works of the author. It explains the use of â€Å"three† by referring to social conditioning, an idea that society can influence a person to follow a certain pattern or belief even though there is no intrinsic reason to do so. Second, the Psychoanalytical Approach assumes that â€Å"three† weighs on the writer’s mind not because of society, but rather due to ways that are a part of the uncontrollab... .... 1998: 98. Lane, Marcia. Picturing the Rose: A Way of Looking at Fairy Tales. H.W. Wilson, 1994. Louis, Anthony. The Numerological Significance of the Tarot. 1998. Access New Age. 03 Mar. 2004 . McElrow, Tori. Spinning Three by Three†¦ 1999. Metista Home Page. 24 Feb. 2004 . Symbolism and Spiritual Significance of the Number 3. 23 Feb. 2004. . Traditional Folk Tales for Children: The Three Suitors and their Magic Gifts. Republic of Turkey Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 31 March 2004. . Von Franz, Marie Louise. An Introduction to the Psychology of Fairy Tales. New York: Spring, 1975. Von Franz, Marie-Louise. Individuation in Fairy Tales. Zurich: Spring, 1977.

Definition :: essays research papers

Science/Religion Definition of religion and defense Definition of Religion: Religion is norms,values, or a way of life to an individual or community. A spiritual guide that governs the way a person lives from day to day by giving that person hope, belief, and reason to exist in this world. Religion can be whatever that person makes of it. Religion can be a persons assets, family, or other individuals or possessions, it can be many things besides worship to a "God" or "Deity". It can be whatever a person deems holy or sacred. Defense: "Religion is norms, values, or a way of life to an individual or community". This can be defended by taking a look at they way most religious people live. Many people live accordingly to there religions rules and regulations. This includes Buddhists, Muslims, Mennonites, and Amish just to point out a few. Not only in dress and in possessions but people who respect their religions live by their religion's rules. "A spiritual guide that governs the way a person lives from day to day by giving that person hope, belief, and a reason to exist in this world." Religion can give an individual codes to live. It can give a person hope, belief, and a reason to exist by making the individual feel loved or cared about by their religion or their religious deities. It can also give them hope and belief by feeling included within a group of individuals that share their same views. By giving them a reason to exist religions give an individual something to look forward to after death and purpose for being on earth. "Religion can be whatever a person makes of it. Religion can be a persons assets, family, or other individuals and possessions, it can be many things besides worship to a "God" or "Deity"." Religion can mean different things for different people. It can be a rich mans money, poor mans shelter, a mad mans weapons. Many people or cultures worships numerous "gods" for different occasions. Some people worship the earth or animals while many other individuals worship other "people" or

Organizational Controls

The Lincoln Company follows a decentralized approach to management. The decentralized approach is when employees participate in setting goals, determining standards of performance, governing quality, and designing control systems. The decision making is not confined to top executives but throughout the organization. The lowest level managers and employees are empowered to make decisions. The employees have added responsibility and they are involved in decision making which results in increased job satisfaction. The responsibility and the authority that goes with it make the job more interesting and provide greater incentive for people to put out their best efforts. The employees of Lincoln Electric Company tasks are precisely defined, and individual employees must exceed strict performance goals to achieve top pay. The Lincoln employee’s organization culture is based on trust, shared control, and an egalitarian spirit. The Lincoln Company has an open door policy. The company has cross functional teams and they are empowered to make decisions, take responsibility for product planning, developing, and marketing. The company openly shares information with the workers throughout the organization about the company’s operations and finances. The Lincoln system was so successful in the United States mainly because of a diverse control approach. Within this company the organizational culture is based on openness, trust, and shared control. As opposed to the hierarchical approach which involves monitoring and influencing employee behavior through extensive use of rules, policies, and written documentation, and the employees communicate with their immediate superior and with their immediate subordinates. The Lincoln Company use of this system gained trust with the workers. The employees can purchase stock, and they owned more than 60% of the stock. The incentive and control system was powerful with incentives that the company offered to employees. This included a no lay off policy, the employees are eligible for annual bonuses, the production workers are paid on a piece rate basis, plus merit pay based on performance. The company had an open door policy and the workers can openly disagree with the manager about pay and other issues. The problem with transporting Lincoln’s control systems to other national cultures because managers in some other countries have more trouble running an open book company because of prevailing attitudes and standards encourage confidentiality and even secrecy concerning financial results. The executives when deciding to expand to different countries may have just concentrated on technology, products, marketing, and control systems, but failed to recognize that the culture of countries may have widely different beliefs, values, and practices. These differences can create stress and anxiety for employees, and these negative emotions affect future performance. Cultural differences should be evaluated during the acquisition process, and Organization Development can be used to smooth the integration of this company to another country. Another helpful tool to make future international manufacturing plants more successful that is being used more often is total quality management. It is a way to implement the decentralized approach to another county. Total quality management uses quality circles and benchmarking as ways to introduce this approach to employees. The organization development will help the company with a culture change which is a major shift in the norms, values, attitudes, and mind set of an organization. It focuses on the human and social aspects of the organization and works to change attitudes and relationships among employees and helps strengthen the organization’s capacity for adaption and renewal. Lincoln Company should not borrow money and pay bonuses to the United States Workers. I think employees would rather have a job, than the company going bankrupt.

The Nursing Shortage

Melisa A. Smith Dr. Kathryn Skulley Eng 122-500 22 November 2011 Crisis in America Back in the late 1930’s, American men were drafted to go off and fight in World War II while women at home had to learn a new way of life to support their families and support the soldiers. A woman named Florence Nightingale who was recognized as one of the first nurses to care for the wounded soldiers during the Crimean war helped to influence other women to learn how to become nurses and care for the sick and wounded.After the war ended in the mid 1940’s, thousands of soldiers returned home to begin the next chapter in their lives by starting a family while women returned to homemaking. In fact, due to the major population shift after the war, thousands and thousands of babies were born in which it would be named the Baby-Boomer generation. Now fast forward to the year 2010, several decades later, the baby-boomer generation is aging and approaching there sixties and beyond at a time whe n healthcare is beginning to be used more frequently by many others.Now that America is beginning a new era of healthcare with the creation of healthcare reform that soon will create access for the uninsured and underinsured to gain access to healthcare treatments. On March 23, 2010, â€Å"The Affordable Care Act† was signed into law by President Obama that would create healthcare access for millions of Americans. This is turn would create a huge strain on the American healthcare system at a time when concerns are rising due to the increased need of services for the baby-boomer generation and the current nursing population to care for them. You can read also Coronary Artery Disease Nursing Care PlanIf Americans already planned on facing a nursing shortage with the baby-boomer generation, then how would the shortage affect everyone else when healthcare reform becomes active in the year two-thousand-fourteen? This paper will discuss some individual points more in detail and evaluate the nursing shortage situation from the beginning of nursing history to present day that could affect all healthcare workers now and in the future. The nursing shortage topic in America has always been a debatable question where it will be analyzed further in detail starting with some statistical data.Looking at the national level for current nursing employment, the U. S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics stated that, â€Å"2,655,020 registered nurses were currently employed as of May two-thousand and ten† (U. S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics: Occupation section). The information presented here did not account for self-employed nurses or one’s that currently work multiple jobs. Now on a smaller scale looking at the State of Colorado’s population and registered â€Å"nurses per 1000 rate is 7. 98 as compared with a national average of 8. 6 with an additional need of 1,780 nurses to meet the national average† (The Demographic Challenges Facing Colorado's Health Care Workforce 15). The information noted here did not account for rural areas and small towns where the population is considerably lower. Next, the discussion will continue on about nursing school factors affecting the nursing shortage. Additionally when someone is attracted by the potential for a nursing career and advancement, they must look at all avenues first before deciding and making a commitment to nursing school.However, when someone has made the decision to enroll they must take several prerequisite classes and take a nursing entrance exam before being accepted into a nursing program. Furthermore, after students have taken the re quired prerequisites, they may not easily be accepted into a nursing program because of limited number of slots available and teaching constraints. In fact, it has been well observed by many schools that the major factor in the nursing shortage is due to the lack of qualified nursing instructors.In the United States, â€Å"nursing schools turned away 67,583 qualified applicants from baccalaureate and graduate programs in 2010 due to insufficient number of faculty, clinical sites, classroom space, clinical preceptors and budget constraints† (2010-2011 Enrollment and Graduations in Baccalaureate and Graduate Programs in Nursing 2). Another factor that contributes to the nursing shortage is that nursing faculty members and educators are being lured away from colleges by higher compensation, which in turn reduces the number of potential educators to meet the demands needed.Consequently, most educators are generally older with a limited number of years of teaching left before reti rement which in turn could also leave more potential nurses waiting on a list that could reduce the national shortage. Furthermore, the United States started facing some major healthcare challenges with the baby-boomer generation beginning to impact the healthcare system in two-thousand ten. Now that this generation is in their sixties many of them will be facing increased health problems due to aging thus putting a greater demand on the healthcare system for treatment and prevention.Consequently, this generation will begin turning sixty-five at a rate of approximately ten thousand baby-boomers per day for the next nineteen years starting in the year two-thousand eleven. This in turn will create a huge stressor to the already problematic nursing shortage. In addition to the baby-boomer generation, America will soon be forced to provide healthcare to millions of individuals who previously did not have insurance starting in two-thousand fourteen when the Affordable Care Act goes into full force.Furthermore, â€Å"healthcare reform will soon provide subsidies for thirty-two million citizens to more fully utilize the healthcare system† (Joint Statement from the Tri-Council for Nursing on Recent Registered Nurse Supply and Demand Projections 2). This in turn will create a huge stress on the medical profession especially the nursing sector, as the healthcare system is grappling in the shortage of nurses to care for the baby-boomers. Emergency rooms and physicians’ offices will soon be faced with a massive influx of patients to provide care for, which would cause an increased demand for more medical staff including nurses and physicians.Patients then would be going to local hospitals for elective surgeries and diagnostic testing which would cause a surge and a need for more hospital beds to accommodate the needs of patients. When the demand exceeds the amount of resources available people could be facing other challenges such as emergencies or disasters of magnitude. With the introduction of the healthcare reform and the baby-boomer generation, the healthcare system could also be facing emergency preparedness scenarios that have not been attempted before with the combination of emergency disaster plans currently available.Some may remember the hundreds killed and injured from the two-thousand eleven tornado outbreak or the terrorist attacks on the twin towers that caused mass casualties and injured numerous people on September 11, 2001. This is just to name a few disasters that America was impacted by with the need for emergent healthcare services. Additionally in the United States, â€Å"there is little flexibility for unanticipated fluctuations in patient acuity and demand on a daily basis, and an absence of standby capacity for large-scale emergencies† (McHugh 442).Consequently, if the United States doesn’t come up with a large scale disaster plan that has been attempted before, then many will be faced with total destruction and demise. Nurses have gone through the grueling process to begin and succeed in their careers from the dedication of going to school to meet entry level standards, as well as taking the national licensure examination prior to practicing. Some nurses graduate with the expectation that the wages and demands of the job will be satisfying to keep them in their current role.But some people may know very little about the profession until they are faced with the reality of the job demands versus the salary. A new graduate nurse just beginning his/her career maybe making less than the more experienced nurses, but still held to the standard of providing the same type of care to all patients. According to the U. S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the national median wage for registered nurses as of May two-thousand ten was â€Å"$67,720 annually† (U. S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wages).However this statistic did not report the level of ed ucation held other than the title of registered nurse. Furthermore, nurses are held to a high standard to uphold to their duties and continue to give accurate, compassionate and safe care to all patients. Nevertheless, nurses play many roles other than a care-taker or pill pusher, they are expected to know about possible medication interactions that could harm a patient since they are the last line of protection for patient. Nurses have also been trained to think critically in times of crisis and to intervene with life-saving interventions without the supervision of a physician.Many of the â€Å"hazards on the job, include blood and body fluid exposure as well as musculoskeletal injuries related to ergonomic hazard from lifting and repetitive tasks† (Stone et al. 1984). During times of busy patient demands, nurses may also run the risk of harm to themselves, especially during the administration of an injection that could cause a needle puncture that may potentially be from an infected needle, or come in contact with the splashing of body fluids on exposed skin.However, many hospitals have currently up-graded equipment to help prevent unwanted needle stick exposures through the use of needle free systems, but there is still work to be done to keep nurses and patients safe. Furthermore, nurses may also be exposed to occupational injuries while lifting a patient in bed, or when a patient falls on a staff member and injures them in the same turn as well. Obviously some hospitals have improved the safety for staff, and patients with the use of lifts or ssistive devices, but time maybe of essence. With this in mind, the physical and mental demands of the nursing profession may take a toll on a person’s body, or it may potentially provoke thoughts of a career change from the risks involved. However, since nurses are also held accountable for mistakes made even when times are proven difficult, in hind sight turn this could potentially create a stressful environment full of expectations without satisfaction.Furthermore, â€Å"nurses’ working conditions have been associated with medication errors and falls, increased deaths, and spread of infection, but nurses report making more errors when working shifts greater than twelve hours, working overtime, or working more than forty hours per week† (Stone et al. 1984). In some hospitals nurses are given an assigned number of patients to care for, but patients are coming into the hospitals’ sicker than in previous years which can create a dilemma when assigning patient care.Some hospitals’ have been designated as a Magnet hospital where the maximum ratio is one nurse to five patients which could help ease some demands to be able to provide better care to patients, but this trend is still new to some healthcare systems. On a typical working shift nurses are responsible for medication administration, physical assessments and general care of the patient, but during t imes of staffing shortage nurses may have to provide all the care for all assigned patients.Generally speaking, nurses care for four to eight patients per shift while â€Å"an additional patient within this range was associated with a seven percent increase in the odds of dying within thirty days of admission and a seven percent increase in the odds of death following complications such as shock or pneumonia† (Keenen 1). In addition patients have a greater risk of infection due to lack of adequate infection control from proper hand washing by healthcare staff when staffing shortages occur.When nurses are held accountable for a certain number of patients, and one person falls out of bed down the hall while they were getting another patient up to the bathroom can create an unsafe and unsatisfactory environment for all involved parties that in turn can cause higher morbidity in patients. With a stressful environment and combined fear of making a mistake which would result in pun itive action against them, â€Å"the U. S. healthcare system contains a safety climate which blames individuals for errors instead of the system or organizational failures that may really be at fault† (Fox and Abrahamson 235).With that said, more nurses feel pressured to not make any mistakes instead of being human. However, when hospitals’ are dealing with staffing issues and nurses are not able to give proper attention to their patients this in turn could create a dangerous situation for patients that have an increased mortality risk due to complications or co morbidities. Studies have shown that staffing insufficiencies increase the mortality risk in patients due to the inability to adequately care and educate patients on complications such as pneumonia or bloods clots which can be proven fatal.Nurses are also expected to perform many tasks that include life saving techniques in critical situations, but in order to keep these individuals with these skills employed b y a specific facility it takes a clever approach to nursing retention. However, â€Å"research shows that nurses contribute heavily to the quality of patient care, reimbursement based upon performance outcomes would likely increase the economic value of nurses, thus improving wages, work environment and recruitment and retention† (Fox and Abrahamson 235).In the past, when hospitals were dealing with nursing shortages some would offer a sign-on bonus or a contract to pay for a portion of education expenses as an incentive to attract employees for difficult to recruit positions such as night shifts. Due to cost constraints some facilities were beginning to do away with sign-on bonuses and offer other assistance after a specific time period of employment. On the contrary, most facilities do not recognize nurses with compensation based on performance other than an increase in cost of living wages, but could benefit further through increased recognition programs.Since World War II the nursing profession had always been a female dominant profession until now, with the addition and encouragement of male nurses in the profession. Most patients saw nursing as a female dominant profession due the delicate nature of caring for sick patients and the need for gentle interactions and nurturing. Furthermore, working conditions were often poorer in nursing with a predominately female occupation.During times of economic recession more nurses were choosing to work, or continue employment to help meet the financial expectations of their households especially in times when other family members are facing a layoff or furlough. Although when the economy improves the shift of nurses actively working may change and create an even bigger nursing shortage while some may change careers or retire all together. Furthermore, with the introduction of men in nursing things have begun to change and more and more men were joining the nursing profession for career stability and advanceme nt opportunities in an already female dominant profession.A man named James Derham â€Å"in 1783 who was a slave earned money to buy his freedom by working as a nurse† making him the first male nurse (Bonair and Philipsen 19). Nursing schools began offering scholarships to male nursing students as a way to attract more people to the nursing profession. With men in a female dominant profession they were making up â€Å"five to ten percent of the workforce in the UK, USA and Canada† while in the nursing profession they were more likely to be promoted into leadership roles (Brown 120).Male nurses generally started a nursing career at a younger age compared to their female counter parts. As working nurses were getting older many of them were planning for retirement at a time when a majority of people were retiring with the baby-boomer generation. More and more people began to choose a nursing career later in life, so consequently most nurses ended up retiring earlier due t o the strains of the job or age factors. Consequently, the average age of nursing students graduating was thirty-one, while the average age of the working nurse is forty-six years old.Due to the popularity of nursing for some it is becoming a second career for individuals after many years of employment in other fields such as business, or computer industries that have had many changes and layoffs that contributed to the employment shift. With this new employment shift new nurses that began a nursing career as older adults are not working in the field as long and retiring sooner. Furthermore with the short periods of nursing employment, this again creates problems with fixing the nursing shortage across the country.Now that the factors of the nursing shortage have been described in detail, the next discussion will be about ways to fix the nursing shortage problem in America from the faculty shortage to loan forgiveness programs. If America is going to get out of the nursing shortage crisis the first step is to address the shortage of educators, and nursing faculty that teach and train the future nursing students. In order to create an interest in teaching there needs to be some changes with regards to income levels, and more education assistance to give nurses the ability to increase their knowledge. Some hospitals ffer opportunities to take a leave of absence from their jobs to pursue further education options without the fear of job loss. However, this in turn would not only be an asset to the individual but the facility as well that encouraged their employees to seek more education. Another factor in the nursing shortage is the number of clinical sites needed to give adequate clinical experiences for nurses to learn in. In hospitals today nursing schools generally have clinical experiences five days a week instead of an additional two days on the weekend to meet more needs of clinical experience time.By offering the additional two days per week, nursing stud ents would meet their clinical expectations ahead of schedule therefore they could graduate earlier and begin nursing practice sooner. This in turn would help to ease the shortage of trained nurses sooner and decrease the waitlist time for entrance into nursing school. In order to attract more nurses to continue advancing their education there needs to be more monetary compensation to pay for the cost of education in order to encourage more nurses to advance into teaching.Furthermore in order for the healthcare system and colleges to meet the recruitment demands and the shortage requirements there needs to be some collaboration between facilities for education and tuition assistance. Consequently to address the aging of the nursing faculty, more people need to be encouraged to continue their education without any lapse of time after graduation. Nevertheless, since most nurses cannot afford to pay for the higher expenses of college and continue to work then only a selected few would advance their education.However, some nurses may choose not to continue their education due to conflicts with work schedules and family, unless there was some loan assistance or forgiveness program widely used. The United States currently has loan forgiveness programs that pay the entire amount of the loan after requirements are met. Furthermore, after a nurse has completed two years of service in a hospital then they can apply for the loan forgiveness program that may take up to six months before a decision is made, and only a limited number of individuals are selected.In addition, if the United States invested in more healthcare facilities and offered more loan assistance and scholarships then people would be more attracted to the nursing profession and possibly reduce the nursing shortage. In conclusion, after discussing the many challenges that the nursing profession faces, it is still considered a highly respected field by many but may not be the choice for everyone. However, u ntil the United States aggressively pursues a solution to the nursing shortage, better wages, and working conditions, then healthcare reform will define the critical needs of nurses that may end up costing more lives than money.In the end, if the nursing shortage continues, it could be catastrophic to American society at a time when healthcare has made so many advances to increase the life expectancy rate. Works Cited â€Å"2010-2011 Enrollment and Graduations in Baccalaureate and Graduate Programs in Nursing. † Fact Sheet-Nursing Shortage (2011). . Bonair, Jennifer, and Nayna Philipsen. â€Å"Men in Nursing: Addressing the Nursing Workforce Shortage and Our History. † Maryland Nurse.CINAHL Plus with Full Text. EBSCO, 10. 3 (May-July 2009): 19. Web. 29 Oct. 2011. Brown, Brian. â€Å"Men in nursing: Re-evaluating masculinities, re-evaluation gender. † Contemporary Nurse: A Journal for the Australian Nursing Profession. CINAHL Plus with Full Text. EBSCO, 33. 2 (20 09): 129. Web. 29 Oct. 2011 Fox, Rebekah L. , and Kathleen Abrahamson. â€Å"A Critical Examination of the U. S. Nursing Shortage: Contributing Factors, Public Policy Implications. † Nursing Forum. CINAHL Plus with Full Text. EBSCO, 44. 4 (Oct-Dec. 2009): 244. Web. Sept. 2011.Joint Statement from the Tri-Council for Nursing on Recent Registered Nurse Supply and Demand Projections. AACC, n. d. Web. 4 Sept. 2011. . Keenen, Patricia. â€Å"The Nursing Workforce Shortage: Causes, Consequences, Proposed Solutions. † Issue Brief. CINHL Plus with Full Text. EBSCO, (2003): 6. Web. 31 Oct. 2011. McHugh, Matthew D. â€Å"Hospital Nurse Staffing and Public Health Emergency Preparedness: Implications for Policy. † Public Health Nursing. 27. 5 (Sept/Oct 2010): 449.CINAHL Plus with Full Text. EBSCO. Web. 29 Oct. 2011. Stone, Patricia w. , et al. â€Å"Nurses' Working Conditions: Implications for Infectious Disease. † Emerging Infectious Diseases 10. 11 (2004): 1989. We b. 28 Sept. 2011. . The Demographic Challenges Facing Colorado's Health Care Workforce. Colorado Center for Nursing Excellence, n. d. Web. 4 Sept. 2011. . U. S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Occupation: Registered Nurses. http://data. bls. gov, May 2010. Web. 1 Nov. 2011.