XNapster Essay Research Paper XNapsterThe infamous Napster free essay sample

X-Napster Essay, Research Paper X-Napster The ill-famed Napster under onslaught for it s pirating of music from celebrated musician s demands to be shut down. Piracy is a major issue of moral criterions, right, and incorrect in the amusement universe. Napster is good known for it s sharing of MP3 files through the Internet ; taking, receiving, and bootlegging. Over 70 % of college pupils said they use Napster at least one time a month. The bulk of its users are cognizant that Napster is an illegal bootlegging web site, the federal authorities says. The U.S. Copyright Office says Napster # 8217 ; s operations are clearly illegal under the really jurisprudence Napster hopes will do its senior executives and comfortable investors filthy rich which was written in 1992 stating that if a individual wants to roll up music to a personal Cadmium for ego so its Oklahoma. But in that jurisprudence there was neer any reference of legal airing to obtain the music. We will write a custom essay sample on XNapster Essay Research Paper XNapsterThe infamous Napster or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page I oppose Napster because they have no coherent or feasible program to counterbalance creative persons. If Napster makes money off the airing of an creative persons copyrighted stuff so the creative person should take part in those net incomes. ( Presently Napster does non do a net income, nevertheless the fact that they raised at something like $ 40,000,000 in capital to finance their operation suggests that their investors evidently intend to do a net income one twenty-four hours ) . But the million dollar inquiry is ; should Napster be shut down because of it s illegal sharing of files? ? The reply is YES. BURNED CD s are a major issue in the U.S. To download from a web site, and salvage it to a Cadmium, or your computing machine. Personal music a individual has made up, or created by himself is legal to salvage. But copyrighted music on the other manus is illegal. Commercial wireless Stationss generate gross off of the usage of copyrighted stuff. Through longstanding agreements with BMI and ASCAP a part of that money ( nevertheless little ) is shared with the songsters. Why doesn # 8217 ; t Napster try to do a similar agreement with creative persons? The fact that Napster ( now a multi-million dollar corporation ) has refused to make so and fells behind the fiction that they merely put music fans in touch with one another who so portion files. If you turned off the Napster waiters, the Napster plan would be useless. No 1 could # 8220 ; portion # 8221 ; files. Conversely without the chance of illicitly downloading music, picture and package for free no 1 would utilize this service. Napster lawyers have stated that the company is # 8220 ; non responsible for illegal use # 8221 ; of its service. Napster as a company has dramatically shirked any and all duty for the usage of its plan. Peoples should truly believe twice approximately enriching such an irresponsible corporation. Many Napster users complain that Cadmiums are excessively expensive. That sometimes they merely want to purchase one vocal and non a who lupus erythematosus album, and that singles are seldom available or excessively expensive. I agree. There should be an alternate cheaper manner of purchasing a vocal that does non affect this really inefficient system of Cadmium makers, distribution companies, and retail record shops. I besides believe that such an surrogate system based upon downloading, and uploading vocals off the Internet is really executable. Resistance by the major record labels, and tribunals has been a important obstruction. Artists should be given a pick as to whether they want to hold their vocals be a portion of such a system. If Fred Durst and Courtney Love ( instrumentalists ) want their vocals to be a portion of such a system that # 8217 ; s mulct. But what if an creative person does non desire their vocals # 8220 ; shared # 8221 ; ? With simple package filters Napster could at least bound and deter the sharing of vocals by creative persons who opted out of the system. The fact that Napster makes no attempt to make so uncover the true nature of this corporation. Artists like Metalica, 112, and Dr. Dre have all requested that their music be banned from Napster s waiters. Napster has the ability to take down the demand for CD # 8217 ; s. The plan makes any song of all time made available for free. It disregards copyright Torahs and enables a individual to download one # 8217 ; s favourite music into a format that takes up small room on a hardrive. If you merely go to any university in the state you ll understand the issue. Students do non purchase CD # 8217 ; s. Recent surveies have shown music shops around college campuses have had their gross revenues cut after the oncoming of Napster. Students do necessitate experience the demand to tweak down 15 dollars for a Cadmium, when they can acquire all the vocals they want for free. The high-velocity college webs enable pupils to download vocals in merely seconds. Cadmium burners have besides helped Napster. Peoples can download the vocals from Napster, so they can set the burnt vocals onto any CD # 8217 ; s of their pick. They end up with mixes of their favourite vocals and everybody appears happy-except for the sets whose music is copied, and the record labels whose net incomes are diminishing Napster has caught the attending of the major music industries and several cases have been filed to halt Napster # 8217 ; s forum from giving off free music. Until a declaration the job can merely acquire worse. The popularity of overseas telegram and DSL modems will do computing machines who are non based on college webs still able to download music rapidly. The phone modem still takes about 20 proceedingss to download vocals ; nevertheless the overseas telegram modem takes about 15 seconds. Once the office and place users have the ability to to the full take advantage of Napster # 8217 ; s characteristics, the music industry will truly get down to lose net incomes. Napster presents a job to the record industry and with the popularity of high-velocity connexions, it appears the job can merely turn.

The Extinction of Dinosaurs - Asteroid Theory essays

The Extinction of Dinosaurs - Asteroid Theory essays There have been many different theories of how the dinosaurs went extinct. These theories were the asteroid theory, the volcanic theory, and the marine regression theory. The marine regression theory does not exclude the existence of an asteroid impact, but the impact is determined to be extinction to an already decreasing ecosystem. The volcanic theory suggests that the iridium surplus found in the Yucatan Peninsula might have come from the intense volcanic activity. This theory believes that the dinosaurs went extinct from the volcanic activity because iridium is more frequently found in the earth's mantle. The asteroid theory states that sixty-five million years ago an asteroid hit the Earth and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. This theory is believed because of the huge amounts of iridium found in the Yucatan Peninsula were from within the asteroid, and when it crashed into the Earth. In recent years, the evidence suggests that the theory of dinosaurs becoming extin ct by an asteroid collision seems to be the most accurate theory. Many dinosaurs became extinct before the mass extinction, towards the end of the Cretaceous period. During the end of the Cretaceous period, it was the time of continental drift and volcanic activity. Pangaea was separating into the continents we see today, and many mountain ranges were formed, from this movement. During the middle of this period, sea levels also rose and covered about one-third of the land area. Toward the end of this period, the sea levels dropped, which exposed many of the continents, and the Earth was becoming colder. Luis and Walter Alverez made a study of the rocks around the K-T boundary in Gubbio, Italy. While researching, they found an unusual layer of clay. The clay showed high levels of iridium, which was thirty times more than the normal level in this area of the K-T layer. There are only two sources of iridium, which are from outer space, and the Ear...

Adam And Eve The Duality Of Humanity Religion Essay

Adam And Eve The Duality Of Humanity Religion Essay Paradise Lost’s Adam is a rational, clever and trustworthy character who has an amazing rapport with the highest power, God. It can even be argued that before he fell, his was the epitome of humanity, as perfect a human as ever existed. He shares this trait with Eve who is the most perfect and complete woman. This view has been reciprocated by many religious denominations but each has interpreted it in their own unique ways; from Calvinists to puritans to Milton each has interpreted the story of Genesis in their own unique way. Like Adam who was perfect, to the belief that eve was flawed, each has built their own mythos around the story of the genesis of mankind. The Adam represented in Milton’s Paradise Lost is an exceedingly rational being, and can understand greatly sophisticated and complex ideas nearly instantaneously. However this perfection hides several deep and critical flaws present within his character. His character and insight is demonstrated when after ob serving Raphael’s descent into Eden, Adam orders eve to, â€Å"go with speed, / And what thy stores contain, bring forth and pour / Abundance, fit to honor and receive / Our Heav’nly stranger† (V, 313-316). To which Eve answers, â€Å"Adam, earth’s hallowed mould, / Of God inspir’d, small store will serve, where store, / All seasons, ripe for use hangs on the stalk† (V, 321-323). These word which at first seem stiff and of an overly formal method, nonetheless helps reveal the relationship of Adam and Eve. Adam is in charge, but his request for Eve to prepare a meal is not in any way dismissive. She understands that and her response, is in accord with that message. This transitory conversation is not that of a master and servant but of two people who hold themselves in equal regard. His relationship with Eve is not the only conversation between equals, as he also talks with Raphael as an equal. He converses with the archangel Raphael as an eq ual both, socially in his standing, and intellectually in his ability to clearly understand the meanings behind the Raphael’s words. However this ends after Adam’s fall from the grace of god. After his fall Adam loses his pure intellect and his rationality leading him to brash and increasingly non-rational actions, stripping him of his ability to converse with the angels as an equal. Adam’s greatest flaw is his unequivocal love for his wife Eve. He falls I love merely upon seeing her for the first, and even confesses to the archangel Raphael that his attraction is nigh overwhelming. Though warned by Raphael to keep his dangerous emotions in check he completely disregards Raphael’s earnest urgings. After Eve eats from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil, quickly devours a fruit from the same tree in order to prevent him from being separated from her even momentarily. Eve has become an indispensable companion in his life and he will do anything in order to prevent himself from being separated from his only love. His other major weakness is his insatiable curiosity. He manipulates the angel Raphael to extract more information from him,

Analyze one of the book themes at play in John Demos's The Unredeemed Essay

Analyze one of the book themes at play in John Demos's The Unredeemed Captive - Essay Example The story starts with a reason that further leads to the cultural integration suitable to the situation. It’s a story of abduction and adoption by Indians of the American settlers (Sweeney 32). The Mohawk Indians are assisted by the French in Canada. They together attempt to attack a small village with name of Deerfield located in Massachusetts. They had targeted revered John Williams, the than Minister from Deerfield because they intended they get their man, with the name of Jean Baptist Gayen rescued in return, who had been held from Boston. Two of John William’s kids were murdered the night of the kidnap and the rest of the family was moved to Canada along with a number of other captives who were also taken up from Deerfield for the same cause of personal gain. John Williams’s family saw this event highly distressful and damaging. They kept very little hope of getting to see each other ever again. John William manages to break through the hostage couple of yea rs later. He remarries another lady after back home and recollects his shattered life to give it a new start. His rest of the children were also set free, leaving behind his daughter, Eunice Williams in their custody. The story majorly revolves around her and the way she chooses to built her life with the Native Americans willingly, once she experiences growing up amongst them. John Williams, the famous Revered of Deerfield is illustrated by John Demos to get stunned and spell bound by the choices his daughter, Eunice is shown to make for herself. After being left alone to live amongst them she has no other option rather than to settle herself with their norms and culture. She was at the age seven when she got taken up the Native Americans. In the early years of her captivity, as a young kid she feared the Native Americans when left to live alone with them. She begged her father to manage for her rescue from their custody (The Archive Organization 33). John Williams did nothing prac tically to get her rescued. He met her on regular basis and tried to get the process carried out on the official basis. Her desire to get out of the culture subsided along with the time and alongside developed into a revenge against her father and other protestants who had not dared to get her rescued from the alien culture where as a child she had frequently felt she did not belong to (Sweeney 12). She, along with the time instilled the culture to her roots and felt as a member of the Native Indian culture. She carried her physical appearances in the same way as they did and adopted their norms in her daily life. She also made religious shifts and got converted to Catholicism (The Archive Organization 57). In wider scenario, it’s the description of a girl, who uses a culture she had been abandoned into, to revenge against her own people, who had left her years earlier as young girl- it’s the Indian Culture’s insight through a young girl’s life (Meorial H all Mueseum 11). Cronon’s Changes in the Land William Cronon, the author of another famous book â€Å"Changes in the land† has also investigated the ecological changes from Indian to European dominance during the time period of 1620 to 1800 (William Coron Net 16). Demo’s book in my opinion is not reflective of the true way Cronon has

The Impact of 19th Century European Colonialism on the Third World Essay

The Impact of 19th Century European Colonialism on the Third World - Essay Example While this has been the case, it is a fact that very little has been done or is being done to curb this menace, and this has been mainly because of the continued dominance of the former colonial powers over the world economy. The colonial policies were adopted by many of the European governments that led to the deprivation of the natives of the land that they colonized while at the same time ensuring that the colonizers became the biggest beneficiaries. This can be considered to be the origin of the inequalities that have come to exist between the developed world and the Third World, as the gap between them continues to widen. The governments of these countries have caused the prevalence of poverty in the third world a very common state that can be found in most of the states that are categorized as poor, with the most common belief being that this situation. It has been suggested that it is either the governments of the poor countries, which are to blame because they are corrupt or that they make poor decisions. Furthermore, these governments are also blamed for pursuing policies that actually harmful to the successful development of their people. There are, however, deeper, colonial causes of poverty which are rarely discussed because their effects are mostly indirect. Among the factors, which have led to the prevalence of poverty in the third world, is that the colonial governments rarely set up industries in their colonies, instead using them only as sources of raw material. There were behind those decisions, which mainly dealt with economic policies and practices, which are typically influenced or formulated, by the rich and powerful on the European states who wanted to have absolute control over the markets and this required that the colonies do not manufacture their own products (Haynes, 2008). This practice continued long after most of the countries in the third world gained independence and this was because of the fact that while they gained political independence, their economic development tended to rely heavily on the former colonizers for support. It has been found that the former European colonizers often continued to emphasize the raw material producing role of their former colonies, and in the face of such great external pressure. The governments of the third world countries and their people have remained powerless, as a result, the few developed countries continue to become wealthy while the majority, most in the third world struggle with or fall further into poverty (Allen & Thomas, 2004). The former colonizers have played a role in ensuring that these countries remain poor so that they can accumulate more wealth through having a ready market for their products as well as having less competition in the market. The former colonial powers have been behind the introduction of reductions in the expenditure for health, education and other vital social services in countries from the third world as conditions for any form of ec onomic assistance from them. Most of these conditions have come because of the structural adjustment policies prescribed by the major international financial institutions, which are mostly dominated by the former European colonial powers. When most of the European powers left their former colonies, these countries were in dire need of financial assistance in order to develop themselves to the level of their former colonizers. The leaving colonial powers often left their colonies in dire financial situations and this forced the newly independent states to take loans in order to ensure the

Terrorism and Ordinary People Essay Example for Free

Terrorism and Ordinary People Essay How to Defeat Terrorism Terrorism is a tactic used by a small set of extremists to fight against an overwhelmingly powerful opponent while surrounded by a large population that mostly just wants peace and quiet. Terrorism can be defeated. To do this, ï ¬ rst we need to understand how terrorists are kept away in the best case, then how terrorists can ï ¬ ght against this mechanism, and ï ¬ nally what works and what doesn’t work to foil those aims. The Thin Blue Line Although terrorists are not merely criminals, it is helpful to think about what keeps criminals under control in our society. Ask any police ofï ¬ cer: it is not the police and the courts who keep criminals at bay. It is the society as a whole. It is the ordinary people who call the police when they hear a problem starting. It is the ordinary people who trust the police and cooperate with them to bring criminals to justice. The â€Å"thin blue line† only works when it is backed up by the vast majority of ordinary people. This, by the way, is why police brutality is so damaging to law and order in our society. If ordinary people lose trust in the police, they won’t call and they won’t cooperate. If they fear that calling the police to quiet down a loud party could result in their neighbors’ kids being shot dead, they won’t call. And they also won’t cooperate in more serious cases. Without community backup, the â€Å"thin blue line† starts to feel very thin indeed. And criminals become bolder. Law Enforcement Executive Forum †¢ 2006 †¢ 6(5) 189 Likewise with terrorists. Terrorists are defeated when the large majority of the community feels that they can trust the local authorities to maintain law and order and work for the common good. Then, ordinary people will turn the terrorists in to the authorities when, or even before, they strike. The Unabomber was an insane but highly intelligent man living alone in the woods, writing a manifesto, and killing and maiming people with mail bombs. After his manifesto was published, he was turned in to the FBI by his brother, who recognized the writing and made the correct but agonizing decision to be loyal to society over blood. We can only wish that a relative or neighbor of Timothy McVeigh had been in a position to make a similar decision before he struck in Oklahoma City. In even the best, most civilized, law-abiding society one can imagine, there will be small numbers of extremists tempted by terrorist tactics. Ideally, the vast majority of people will see them as marginal nut-cases and will report them to trusted authorities if they show signs of turning extreme ideas into dangerous action. Terrorist acts can never be totally eliminated, but a cohesive community that trusts its authorities can defeat a continuing terrorist movement. One Man’s Terrorist Is Another Man’s Freedom-Fighter But what if the society is not civilized? What if the authorities are hated and feared rather than trusted? Then, the true terrorist can always ï ¬ nd support and hiding places among sympathizers who are not willing to become terrorists themselves but are not willing to support the authorities either. The terrorists’ best strategy is to drive a wedge between the people and the authorities. Then, the â€Å"thin blue line† becomes thinner and weaker. The ordinary people, or at least some of them, protect and support those they see as ï ¬ ghting for freedom, religious faith, patri otism, or some other deep value, against overwhelming odds. The biggest danger to the terrorist is the trust the people have in the authorities. As that trust is weakened or destroyed, the terrorists gain strength and freedom of action. Their primary goal must be to eliminate the trust between the people and the authorities. How can they act most effectively to eliminate that trust? Here is where the meaning of terrorist violence is often misunderstood. The classic terrorist act is to blow up some innocent victims, but the actual destruction is not the goal, in a military sense. There is a symbolic goal of showing that the more-powerful enemy can be touched and deeply harmed, but even that is not the real goal. The real goal is to provoke massive retaliation. The tiny group of terrorists who actually committed the act may escape entirely, may take casualties, or may even be entirely destroyed, but the larger terrorist movement feeds on the retaliation. The important thing (from the terrorists’ perspective) is for the massive retaliation to harm many people in the general population, even among their own supporters. The point is to incite the authorities to act in a way that erodes the people’s trust in them. The people lose trust; the terrorists are seen as freedom-ï ¬ ghters; and they gain support, cover, strength, and freedom of action. From the terrorists’ perspective, the more horrible the original strike, the better, since it will provoke a more drastic retaliation. And the more horrible the retaliation, the better, since it will destroy the people’s trust in the authorities and strengthen the terrorists. From the terrorists’ perspective, the actual damage to their own people is a beneï ¬ t, not a cost, of terrorist action. Those Who Do Not Learn from History Are Condemned to Repeat It Sadly, case studies of this strange dynamic are easy to come by, once you realize what to look for. Israel-Palestine The Israeli-Palestinian conï ¬â€šict is a textbook case. There is no military beneï ¬ t to a suicide bomber killing people at a cafe, a wedding, or on a bus. The beneï ¬ t to Hamas comes from the massive retaliation, killing the innocent along with the guilty, bulldozing homes and farms, and creating major economic hardship for the large masses of Palestinians who would gladly live in pea ce with Israel. Israel pegs the price of peace to stopping the terrorists, which ordinary Palestinians have no way of doing. And the immediate impact of the retaliation is to solidify hatred against the Israelis. (We’re long past the point of talking about â€Å"trust† here.) So, Hamas has reached the successful point of being able to provoke the Israeli Army to act to build up its strength among the Palestinians. The vicious cycle in that region is that hardliners in Israel use precisely the same method. When Israeli extremists create new settlements in Palestinian territory or commit terrorist acts against ordinary Palestinians, they provoke the strongest retaliation the Palestinians are capable of, which is more suicide bombers to slaughter innocents among the ordinary people of Israel. This eliminates any trust in the Palestinian authorities (small a) and solidiï ¬ es hatred against Palestine. This elegant pair of mutually reinforcing feedback cycles strengthens terrorism on both sides and makes the chances for peace remote. Iraq Now let’s think about Iraq. Terrorists strike U.S. troops, provoking retaliation. The retaliation almost certainly involves collateral damage, eroding trust in Americans and inï ¬â€šaming hatred. By now, this cycle should look familiar. The terrorists’ goal is the erosion of trust in the U.S. authorities and our attempt to rebuild Iraq, even more than physical destruction. It’s hard to imagine Al Qaeda coming up with something more effective than the pictures from Abu Ghraib prison for destroying the trust of the ordinary Iraqi people in the civil authority of the U.S. troops. Because this abuse does such direct strategic damage to our mission in Iraq, the soldiers directly involved must be punished, of course, but so should the entire chain of command. Since our overall mission explicitly requires winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, it is military professional malpractice to fail to anticipate the pressures on the front-line troops and put discipline in place to prevent such abuse. This abuse is due to more than â€Å"a few bad apples,† but even if it were only that, a military commander is responsible for knowing that a few soldiers may be â€Å"bad apples† and having controls in place to prevent them from acting out. The decapitation of Nick Berg was a miscalculation on the terrorists’ part. (They aren’t all geniuses either, of course!) Ordinary Iraqis were revolted and offended by having this crime done in their name. Furthermore, the decapitation took attention away from the Abu Ghraib pictures, which were doing real damage to the U.S. cause. We could still save their cookies by some sort of massive retaliation, but the responsible authorities seem to be handling this in a more controlled way. Finding and prosecuting the speciï ¬ c individuals involved and their accomplices would strengthen the U.S. position signiï ¬ cantly. There are signs that not all the news from Iraq is bad. First, there is measurable progress in restoring the Iraqi infrastructure and providing water, sewers, electricity, oil pipelines, local government, and eventually jobs. [This is where the real war is fought. The soldiers are mostly there to keep the bad guys from interfering with the engineers and t heir work.] Second, the ordinary people of Najf have demonstrated against the religious extremists and in favor of the moderates and of course in favor of peace and quiet. 9/11 This view of terrorists, retaliation, and trust also helps us understand the terrible events of 9/11 and who has proï ¬ ted from the aftermath. The destruction of the World Trade Center and the murder of 3,000 people was a horrifying act that devastated the victims’ families and shook the economy for a while. The symbolic impact on the United States and its effect on our national confidence was massive, but from a military perspective, the blow was not signiï ¬ cant. Compare it with the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, which crippled the Paciï ¬ c ï ¬â€šeet as we entered a war with Japan. Osama bin Laden’s purpose for the 9/11 attack was (and is) to provoke massive retaliation from the United States against Islam. He hoped that our retaliation would ï ¬ nally unite Islam against the United States as a common enemy and that his vision for a fundamentalist pan-Islamic state would sweep away all the more moderate governments in the region, as well as movements toward a pluralistic culture. In the ï ¬ nal chapter of his book Against All Enemies, Richard Clarke gives an excellent description of the conï ¬â€šict we should have pursued after 9/11 and contrasts it with the wars we actually did pursue. The invasion of Iraq is not only a distraction from more important goals but a provocation that is making Osama bin Laden’s dream come true. The purpose of the original attack was to provoke our retaliation, which would affect primarily the ordinary Islamic people, destroying what trust they had for the United States, and making them more willing to give aid and comfort to the terrorists among them. To a surprising extent, we have fallen right into Osama bin Laden’s trap. The future of the world depends on ï ¬ nding our way out. How to Win the War on Terrorism When terrorists are isolated criminals, viewed with suspicion by the vast majority of the general public, and reported to the authorities when they turn violent, then the war on terrorism has been won. What weapons will it take to win this war? Just as the Maginot Line in France was impotent against Nazi blitzkrieg at the beginning of World War II, purely military tactics and strategy will fail against the terrorists and will even be exploited to their advantage. It appears to me that our current professional military leaders generally understand this point, while our hawkish civilian leaders without military experience generally do not. It’s tempting to think that a war against terrorism can be won by killing all the terrorists. In the real world, this naive plan doesn’t work. A serious attempt to ï ¬ nd and kill all the terrorists also sweeps up many ordinary people, and some of them and their relatives become new terrorists, creating more terrorists than were destroyed. The harder the authorities pursue this strategy, the more it looks like genocide, and the more effectively they recruit new terrorists. The â€Å"weapon† we need is the trust and cooperation of the general population of the country where the terrorists are based. As we have seen, terrorists understand this and use ï ¬ endishly clever strategies for eroding this trust and fomenting resentment and hatred. (Incidentally, most terrorists are not clever enough to invent this. But they read about strategy and tactics in the writings of Mao Tze Tung and Ho Chi Minh, who were. Fortunately, these same sources are required reading for our professional military leaders.) The â€Å"simple† strategy for defeating terrorism is as follows: †¢ Avoid getting killed by them; make clear that overwhelming power is available, but avoid using it. †¢ Gain the trust and cooperation of the general population. †¢ Refute the terrorists’ lies; demonstrate truth and openness to criticism. †¢ Create, publicize, enforce, and obey a simple â€Å"Bill of Rights†; demonstrate evenhandedness in local disputes. †¢ Demonstrate justice, even when treated unjustly; avoid massive retaliation, even when taking casualties. †¢ Visibly work for economic justice for the oppressed. The people will turn the terrorists in for trial and prosecution. Obviously, implementing this strategy is far from simple. There are trade-offs between the actions required to avoid getting killed and the ones needed to gain trust. Since gaining trust is building the â€Å"weapon† that wins the war, however, it takes priority, and one can’t be absolutely safe. Whether you call it nation-building or peace-making, it’s a dangerous line of work, actively opposed by unfriendly people. Avoid Getting Killed Aside from the obvious personal motivation to stay alive, the strategic reason to prevent terrorist attacks is to foil their attempt to provoke massive retaliation. Impotence is the worst-case outcome for a terrorist, not death. We need good enough intelligence to detect and prevent terrorist acts, but this cannot take absolute priority since it trades off against being a free and trustworthy society. Therefore, some attacks will occur, and there will be casualties. It is important for both the terrorists and the general population to understand clearly that terrorist acts cannot possibly defeat our forces militarily. Failing to attend to this point led to disastrous errors by Reagan in Beirut and Clinton in Somalia. Currently in Iraq, terrorists can reasonably conclude that the United States will leave under sufï ¬ cient pressure. They may or may not be correct, but their ability to draw that conclusion is dangerous to us in itself. The hardest part about a war on terrorism comes when a terrorist attack succeeds. The whole point of the attack is to do something horriï ¬ c to provoke massive retaliation. The right response must be measured, deliberate, and appropriate. President Bush’s speech on September 20, 2001, was a brilliant example of the correct response to a successful terrorist attack. (Sadly, he did not stay that particular course, as he and his administration demonstrated their obsession with Iraq.) Gain Trust and Cooperation A measured, deliberate, and appropriate response gains the trust and the cooperation of the people. To do this, we must be trustworthy. It also means that the training of our troops for this kind of war must be very different from past wars. Our soldiers must be more than warriors who kill people and destroy things. They must also serve as community police, and even as social workers and political advisors. News reports from Iraq make it clear that our soldiers are vividly aware of this dual role, and they are vividly aware of the fact that they are well-trained and equipped as warriors but not as community police. Above, I’ve outlined some of the speciï ¬ c methods for building trust and cooperation from the people. †¢ Refute the terrorists’ lies; demonstrate truth and openness to criticism. †¢ Create, publicize, enforce, and obey a simple â€Å"Bill of Rights†; demonstrate evenhandedness in local disputes. †¢ Demonstrate justice, even when treated unjustly; avoid massive retaliation, even when taking casualties. †¢ Visibly work for economic justice for the oppressed. There are surely many other effective methods to be identiï ¬ ed, improved, evaluated, and applied. The People Will Turn in the Terrorists If the people trust the authorities and respect the efforts taken to make their lives secure and safe, they will turn in suspected terrorists, knowing that they will receive fair trials. The Unabomber’s brother turned him in because he was willing to trust the government’s pledge not to seek the death penalty. Terrorists are not merely criminals. Their extremist ideological motivation makes them far more dangerous than even large organized criminal gangs. Even so, to win against terrorism, in the end they must be treated as ordinary criminals. They must be tried and punished, with full legal rights and protections, not for their extremist beliefs, but for their terrorist actions that disrupt the safe conduct of society for ordinary citizens. The Unabomber sits in federal prison for his bombs that killed and maimed. Timothy McVeigh was executed for murder many times over. Their public trials and the public safeguarding of their rights were not out of soft-heartedness or compassion for criminals. They are public ceremonies, reafï ¬ rming the value of law and order in our society. They both represent and cultivate the trust that the people have in their government. That trust is the weapon that defeats terrorism. They cannot stand against it. We must not throw it away. What Should We Do? If we understand which weapons actually work against terrorists and if we understand how terrorists try to destroy our weapons, we can see what we need to do and what we need to avoid doing. We can see why the Abu Ghraib prison photos are so damaging to us. Traditional war is not easy or certain. And the new ways are not easy or certain either. The â€Å"simple† strategy above for defeating terrorism requires great knowledge, cleverness, and wisdom to put into action. War requires discipline. War requires sacriï ¬ ce. War requires restraint at certain times and carefully planned action at others. A war against terrorism is unlike the major wars of the past. If we try to ï ¬ ght like we fought wars in the past, we will lose, and we won’t understand how or why. We need to learn how to ï ¬ ght with new weapons. The alternative is a world of perpetual conï ¬â€šict between opposing groups of extremists, locked in a deadly embrace in which each side conï ¬ rms the beliefs of the other and helps in recruiting more extremists. The ordinary people in the middle, who just want peace and law and order, are repeatedly savaged to cultivate more recruits for one side or the other. This is indeed a â€Å"clash of civilizations† but not between Islam and the West. The clash is between extremists of all kinds on the one side and the forces of pluralism, tolerance, peace, and law and order on the other. Identifying Terrorists as a Diagnosis Problem Consider the problem of identifying terrorists as a problem in diagnosis. Out of a large population, you want to diagnose the very few cases of a rare disease called â€Å"terrorism.† Your diagnostic tests are automated data-mining methods, supervised and checked by humans. (The analogy is sending blood or tissue samples to a laboratory.) This type of diagnostic problem, screening a large population to look for a rare disease, has some very counter-intuitive properties. Suppose the tests are highly accurate and speciï ¬ c: †¢ 99.9% of the time, examining a terrorist, the test says â€Å"terrorist.† †¢ 99.9% of the time, examining an innocent civilian, the test says â€Å"innocent.† Terrorists are rare: let’s say, 250 out of 250 million people in the United States. †¢ When the tests are applied to the terrorists, they will be detected 99.9% of the time, which means that almost certainly 249 will be detected, and with only a 25% chance of missing the last one. Great! †¢ However, out of the remaining 249,999,750 innocent civilians, 99.9% accuracy means 0.1% error, which means that 250,000 of them will be incorrectly labeled â€Å"terrorist.† Uh, oh! (These are called â€Å"false positives.†) The law enforcement problem is now that we have 250,250 people who have been labeled as â€Å"terrorist† by our diagnostic tests. Only about 1 in 1,000 of them is actually a terrorist. If we were mini ng for gold, we would say that the ore has been considerably enriched, since 1 in 1,000 is better than 1 in 1,000,000. There’s still a long way to go, though, before ï ¬ nding a nugget. But we are talking about people’s lives, freedom, and livelihoods here. The consequences to an innocent person of being incorrectly labeled a â€Å"terrorist† (or even â€Å"suspected terrorist†) can be very large. Suppose, out of the innocent people incorrectly labeled â€Å"terrorist,† 1 in 1,000 is sufï ¬ ciently traumatized by the experience so that they, or a relative, actually becomes a terrorist. (This is analogous to catching polio from the polio vaccine: extremely rare, and impossible with killed-virus vaccine, but a real phenomenon.) In this case, even after catching all 250 original terrorists, 250 new ones have been created by the screening process! The numbers I’ve used give a break-even scenario, but 99.9% accuracy and speciï ¬ city is unrealistically high. More realistic numbers make the problem worse. Nobody knows what fraction of people traumatized as innocent victims of a government process are seriously radicalized. One in 1,000 is an uninformed guess, but the number could be signiï ¬ cantly higher. A mass screening process like this is very likely to have costs that are much higher than the beneï ¬ ts, even restricting the costs to â€Å"number of free terrorists† as I have done here. Adding costs in dollars and the suffering of innocents just makes it harder to reach the break-even level. Ask your neighborhood epidemiologist to conï ¬ rm this analysis. It is applied routinely to public health policy and applies no less to seeking out terrorists. There are alternative ways to detect and defend against terrorists. Mass screening for something very rare is seriously questionable in terms of costs and beneï ¬ ts, exactly because the true positives can be completely swamped by the false positives. The Seeds of War (A Parable) I offer a parable to illustrate the seeds of war. The point of this is not to say that the West is somehow responsible for terrorism. Obviously, the terrorists are responsible, and they must be brought to justice; however, we need to understand the mechanisms in place that feed terrorism and that would be invoked by certain types of retaliation. It makes no sense to act without understanding the context. The purpose of this parable is to provide intuition about one such mechanism. Written 10/2/2001 in the aftermath of September 11. Think about the aftermaths of Afghanistan and Iraq, too. To ï ¬ ght terrorism, you must know where it comes from. Imagine that you and your family live in a really bad neighborhood. You struggle every day to make ends meet. You try to keep your children safe from the criminals who live in your area. You work hard to teach your children to be good people, and to live right, even though they are surrounded by examples of people who get rich through immoral ity and crime. You go to church with your neighbors and try to support each other in the same struggle, since the odds against each of you are overwhelming, but together you may have a slightly better chance. You watch TV, and you see rich people in the suburbs who have everything you ever wanted, who worry about crabgrass in the lawn instead of gunï ¬ re in the street. You work two jobs at minimum wage, hating the fact that your children are home alone, while the people on TV complain about the high cost of gas for the SUV to take the kids to soccer games. You and the members of your church tell each other and try to believe that different people have different lots in life, and each follows his or her own path to salvation. Meanwhile, on TV, you hear the people in the suburbs complaining about how all the people in your neighborhood are criminals and lazy and should be run out of town. You try hard to remember that they don’t understand and to forgive them. Then, one day, a really terrible crime is committed by a gang from your neighborhood. A bomb goes off in the suburbs, and many innocent people are killed. You are shocked, and your heart goes out to the families who are suffering. A few of your meaner-hearted neighbors say that they are glad that the suburbs now know what it’s like. You shut them up, telling them to have compassion for anyone who suffers. A few particularly foolish kids dance in the street and show up on the evening news. Your church holds a prayer service for the victims of the bomb. The police barricade the streets around your neighborhood and won’t let any of you out, though a few sneak past. On TV, you hear some of the rich people in the suburbs say they want to bomb your entire neighborhood to kill the whole gang. If that also kills innocent people like you and your family, well, that’s too bad, they say. How do you feel? What do you do? Now, suppose the police actually do bomb your neighborhood. The bombs kill your parents, your wife, your daughters, and your sons. In your family, the only survivors are you and your youngest son. How do you feel? What do you do? Benjamin Kuipers, PhD, holds an endowed professorship in computer sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. He investigates the representation of commonsense and expert knowledge with particular emphasis on the effective use of incomplete knowledge. He received his BA from Swarthmore College, and his PhD from MIT. He is a fellow of AAAI and IEEE and has served as department chairman.

Sex Education: A Necessity in Public Schools :: Sex Education Essays

Sex Education: A Necessity in Public Schools Today Alice was a normal sixteen year old; she loved school, her family and her boyfriend. She was having a blast during her Junior year, until the day she found out about the "accident". Alice and her boyfriend ,Brad, had been together for over two years, and they planned to get married. Both of them felt they were ready to have sex. However, neither of them knew anything about birth control or the dangers of having unprotected sex. What they knew about sex they had learned from watching television and from what their friends had told them. So one night they decided to go ahead and try it. Then about six weeks later, Alice noticed that she wasn't feeling well and that she hadn't gotten her period for a long time. Of course, Alice had no idea what was wrong with her, so she told her mother how she didn't feel well and she hadn't had her period. Alice's mother asked Alice if she and Brad had slept together, and Alice had to tell her the truth. Right away her mother knew exactly what was wrong. Alice was pregnant. Alice's mother, Gertrude, immediately called Brad's parents. The teenagers and their parents met and discussed the "accident". Later that year Alice dropped out of school and gave birth to twin girls. By this time, Brad had graduated and found a job, where he could work enough to support Alice and the twins. This one "accident" changed Alice and Brad's lives forever. Alice never made it to her sex education class her senior year. Alice got pregnant during a time when most teenagers weren't having sex. However, recently a survey done by Health Initiatives for Youth , showed that more than two-thirds of high school students in the U.S. have had sex by the time they are Seniors ("Sex Education. . ."). The history of sex education goes back to the late nineteenth century. Sex education then consisted of medical and biological information about venereal disease and reproduction. Later, when the Second World War was over, mass media played a large role in making information on sex available to kids. Many people felt this caused a need for sex education in public school ("Sex Eduation," Encarta.). Halfheartedly public schools began teaching minimal sex education, until the late 1960's, when educational and governmental organizations created more developed programs for sex education in schools.

Race and Ethnicity Essay

Stereotypes have existed in a very long time, and almost everyone has stereotyped a person or has been considered as belonging to a particular group of stereotypes. But what is a stereotype actually? Stereotyping is a way to group races or individuals together and make a judgment about them, without even knowing them. It’s a belief about a certain social group or type of individuals. Stereotypes can be positive, however stereotypes are most often associated with negativity. Stereotypes often exist about cultures and countries as a whole, and it makes it easier to define a country or race, if you put them in specific groups. Almost every country or race has a stereotype. There exist infinitely many different stereotypes. As said before, they exist based groups and race, but also on gender and age. There are common stereotypes, which is about and between the cultures. Some common stereotype examples are, that all Asians have high IQs or black people are always connected to crime and violence. It’s grouping the race together saying that every Asian person is smart and every black person is criminal. Another type of stereotyping is the individual, which is about skaters, emos, gangsters and so on. Emos are stereotyped as being depressed people, who listen to sad music and cut themselves. Individual stereotypes are most between teenagers and in the schools, because younger people want to make one group or person superior and above another group or person. Stereotypes are not just about different races and backgrounds however. Gender and ago stereotypes also exist in our society. For example, if you say that men are better than women, you’re stereotyping all men and all women. The invention of stereotypes has come naturally though time. When we see persons we don’t know, we automatically begin to put them in different groups in our head. It makes us believe we actually know them better or know what type of persons they are. An example can be a person from the Middle East, because many people often connect them with only troubles and thefts. In that way we personally feel more safety, because then we might say to ourselves that we have to take care and be more careful about what to say so there won’t be any problems. On the other hand our thoughts about stereotypes aren’t always negative. We say that Italian are great cooks and make delicious food, which is a positive stereotype about Italy. ThereforeIda Jessen og Rikke Hemmingsen HH1C Silkeborg Handelsgymnasiet aren’t stereotypes the same as prejudices. Stereotypes are often exaggerated and funny and prejudices are only negative opinions about people and things. Stereotypes always appear negative in the medias. Again we’re comparing with the people from the Middle East. When there has been a crime and they’re talking about it in the medias, it has always been told loud and clear if it’s immigrates who had make a crime. On the other hand when it’s a local person, it has never been told. Therefore we actually compare stereotypes with only bad things, because that’s how it has been appeared in the medias and it affects us, but stereotypes are often fun.

MBA Corporate Governance And Responsibility Essay

Why did it take 10 years to bring Harshad Mehta to justice? What weaknesses in the financial markets allowed such abuse to succeed? Harshad Mehta’s scam was one which involved huge magnitudes, which is why it probably came into light in the first place.[1] Scams of smaller magnitude are happening almost everyday at the Bombay Stock Exchange but not coming to light. There are many reasons for this. Some of the major reasons are briefly discussed below. The Indian businesses have traditionally being family owned. Owing to concentration of money in a few hands, most people have concentrated on survival and security due to which the risking loving entrepreneurial skill has not developed much. Being family owned businesses, a lot of insider and sensitive information is often available to the owners and their relatives even though the company is technically a separate legal entity. Given this insider information and the relatively weak legal machinery, it is easy for the insiders to manipulate prices of stocks by large buying or selling. The reason outlined above also gives rise to the herd mentality i.e. if bulk activity is seen on a stock on a particular day in a particular reaction; people seem to trust it quickly believing that some one with insider and reliable information is acting upon it. This is what helped Harshad Mehta in pulling off the scam. Further, there are hardly any checks and balances on the end use of loans given by banks and other financial institutions. They seem to be satisfied by the reputation of the borrower and once they are convinced that he can return the money, the end use of the same whether for speculation or any other activity is hardly looked into. It took as long as ten years to bring Harshad Mehta to justice due to the combination of many systemic failures and procedural lacuna. Firstly, it is difficult to pin point in such a huge market as to where the first default or breach of law took place. Further, there are many procedural approvals that must be taken before the regulator can take any concrete action. The country’s civil procedure process is quite slow too, with many appeals available before an offender is finally convicted. Therefore, even high profile cases such as these often take several years before finally being disposed off. How can ethics in the boardroom be monitored and controlled? Ethics, in the first place, is a rather complicated and complex issue. There is no straightjacket formula as different situations would demand different measures. In the boardroom, where money is at stake, and everyone has their own business to mind, it is probably even more difficult. This has been a subject of considerable debate, and there are certain measures which companies should generally apply, with specific variations in accordance with the particular situation at hand. Some of these general principles are briefly discussed below.[2]   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Firstly, there has to be strict avoidance of concentration of important powers and functions in a few hands. As can be seen from the Maxwell Affair of 1991, too many responsibilities in different areas of management are likely to be fatal to the company. Further, the delegation of power must not be absolute. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. There should be checks and balances right upto the top level. At the top most level, where it is difficult to have checks and balances in a vertical hierarchy, the same should be had using a horizontal structure.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Strong ethical base and principles must come in from the top and trickle down to the bottom. It is important that these principles are insisted upon, no matter how bad a situation a company is in. They should be introduced as non-negotiable to every new employee who joins, so that when he climbs the ranks in the corporate ladder, he is equally insistent about such principles. Gradually, a strong ethical culture is built. Is there a discernible difference between Enron’s fraud and Madoff’s appeal to elite investors? There is quite a discernible difference between Enron’s fraud and Madoff’s appeal to elite investors.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Enron’s fraud was a clear case of lack of watchful auditing and poor accounting practices. The profits were terribly overstated and the accounts were shown to pose a rosy picture of the state of affairs of the company. The true state of affairs was not revealed to the shareholders and other stakeholders in the company. The auditors were cleverly deceived, and they too didn’t do any follow up action.[3]   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Madoff’s case is a much more complex one than Enron. Madoff’s case has largely been seen as one which could never be expected, and therefore no laws are in place to remedy such a situation. Unlike Enron’s case, which can be foreseen, Madoff’s case was completely unique and innovative. Enron’s case has been foreseen by the law makers, due to which many laws are in place to keep in check of the same. Firstly, there are accounting standards and conventions which must be adhered to by all companies. Second, all companies are statutorily required to get their accounts audited so as to doubly ensure that they reflect a true and fair view of the affairs of the company. Although it has been said in a landmark decision, that an auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound, it can be said that the auditors failed to do an upto-the mark job in Enron and hence the scandal.[4]   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   However, in complete contrast, Madoff’s case is so unexpected that there are no laws which effectively deal with such a situation. He used his reputation of being an expert at the Wall Street and a continued promise to offer secured and steady returns to swindle many high net worth individuals of millions of dollars. Such an exercise of personal confidence is difficult for the law to stop. Now, in retrospect, of course there are laws which mandate certain disclosures in case of any broker or person dealing on another’s behalf in the stock market. Further, there are investor awareness and know-your-rights campaigns by the regulator.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Thus, another importance difference between the two scandals which essentially flows from the main difference is the solutions that they demand are very different from each other. What steps would you take as an independent director on the board of a company where you had reason to believe that fraudulent or unethical activities were being carried out by the high-profile company leader? First of all, being an independent director, there is a great amount of responsibility on my shoulder to ensure that such policies are pushed for, which make it near to impossible for fraudulent or unethical activities to be carried out by any individual in the company. However, if this was to happen, there would be a series of measures I would attempt to take. Firstly, it would be important to get the whole Board of Directors, or as far as it may be practicable, into confidence so as to ensure that the top level management is not divided on such an important issue. Once this is done, it is important to have an internal conference with the suspected offender about his objectionable activities. It is important at this stage to consider all possible solutions to the problem, as open action against such a person should be the last resort, given that such information is particularly sensitive, and it would adversely affect the reputation of the company, if it were to get leaked. Therefore, it is also important that only so many people are made aware of such a situation as are required. It is essential that the matter not be lingered, and damage control be the top most priority.   Again, every possible option should be explored including plea bargaining and settlement through mediation or negotiation.[5] The suspected offender should also be taken into confidence that full disclosure would be in his best interests too. No threat or action should be immediately taken against him, as then he might attempt to conceal the substance of the matter, which would be eventually then take a long time to be fathomed. Any severe action contemplated should be taken only once the issue has been fully resolved. Finally, once the issue has been resolved, there should be a fall back to see why such an event happened, and what can the company do in future to prevent it. The offender should not be let off lightly, as this may go on to set a bad example. At the same time, the best interests of the company in the long run must be kept in mind. REFERENCES Anonymous, â€Å"Harshad Mehta: A Scandal to Remember† f. www.casestudy.co.in (Last Visited 25 July, 2010). Anonymous, â€Å"Key Biscayne Connection in Madoff Scandal†, Key Biscayne Times, 23 July, 2010. Cathy Thomas, â€Å"Behind the Enron Scandal†, TIME Magazine, June 2002. Kevin MacDonald, â€Å"Is the Madoff Scandal Problematic?†, Occidental Quarterly Online, July 2010. Stephanie Maier, â€Å"How global is good corporate governance?†, EIRIS Report, Aug 2005. [1] Anonymous, â€Å"Harshad Mehta: A Scandal to Remember† c.f. www.casestudy.co.in (Last Visited 25 July, 2010). [2] Stephanie Maier, â€Å"How global is good corporate governance?†, EIRIS Report, Aug 2005. [3] Cathy Thomas, â€Å"Behind the Enron Scandal†, TIME Magazine, June 2002. [4] Kevin MacDonald, â€Å"Is the Madoff Scandal Problematic?†, Occidental Quarterly Online, July 2010. [5] Anonymous, â€Å"Key Biscayne Connection in Madoff Scandal†, Key Biscayne Times, 23 July, 2010.

Earning an Online Business Degree Without the Chaos Essays

Earning an Online Business Degree Without the Chaos Essays Earning an Online Business Degree Without the Chaos Essay Earning an Online Business Degree Without the Chaos Essay Two years ago I decided to go back to school to earn my business degree. This was a huge decision for me as I had been gone from the classroom for twenty years. I had just reached a point in my career that I had hit a ceiling and really needed a degree to continue my professional pursuits. I had also reached a point in my life where I was ready to feel better about myself. I had a habit of starting projects and not finishing them. I needed to do this for myself. Unfortunately, however, my journey back to school didn’t work out as expected. With two small children and a full-time job I had difficulty balancing all of my responsibilities. I had to drop my kids at daycare after school and then race to campus to get to class on time. By the time I got home my husband had picked up the children, they had had dinner without me, and the kids were in bed. The schedule was chaotic and I was exhausted. In the end, I lost my drive because I was simply too tired to commit myself to this crazy schedule even to get the degree for which I longed. The journey was far from over, however. This year I discovered online learning which, from what I could tell, could solve all my problems. I could earn an online business degree online and still manage my work schedule and family’s crazy schedule as well. The online business degree was the perfect solution. I could go to work during the day, have the evening with the kids and hit my schoolwork when they went to bed or on the weekends when I had more time. The online business degree program was the best thing that could have happened to me. And it’s worked out so well thus far that my husband is even considering going after an online IT degree!

Managerial Economics Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Managerial Economics - Research Paper Example (Heakal, n. d). As each company or country will have both advantages as well as risks regarding many aspects of its functioning, it is very important for the investors to have insight about those investment opportunities. As it will not be practically feasible for the investors to analyze and understand each and every aspect of the companies or countries and their advantages and risks, they will elicit the help of external agencies. Also, even if they do analysis on their own, they will consult or refer external agencies to give them some guidelines or ideas about the investment opportunities. This is where the role of credit rating companies or agencies comes into the picture. â€Å"Measuring the ability and willingness of an entity - which could be a person, a corporation, a security or a country - to keep its financial commitments or its debt, credit ratings are essential tools for helping you make some investment decisions.† (Heakal, n. d). Do changes in credit ratings affect equity valuation? If so how? And to what extent? This is an important topic that has interested many professionals in the field of economics and business, although it is often overlooked. As pointed out in the introduction, credit rating companies play an extremely vital role in any economy, local or foreign. The information provided by these agencies is used by all kind of parties starting from business organizations, independent investors, financial institutions, even countries’ governments, charity organizations, etc. â€Å"Only because of the availability of clear, internationally accepted indicators of the risk of default were investors willing to invest in international securities—whether corporate or government bonds—whose credit quality they would have been virtually unable to assess on their own.† (Utzig, 2010). The objectives of this research paper are: firstly, to show how credit rating companies’ rati ngs or changes have

Project Progress Report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Project Progress Report - Essay Example At present moment, reservation of a book is done manually. For this, the library users have to complete a reservation card and hand it to the librarian for reserving book and have to check regularly or have to wait for postcard, which is sent to their home address to confirm that the book is arrived and they can collect it. The library for which this database is being created is Wood Green Central Library and is located at 187-197A Wood Green High Road, London N22 6XD. The library has approximately 50 employees, has a turnover of 3 million, and is the main library for the borough of Haringey. Government grants helped to provide the library with a Learning Centre, a number of computers for public use, additionally several reading groups operate from this library, and there is space to host art exhibitions. The purpose of this reservation system is so that students, teachers and the housebound can gain a better service of the library and can take their time to search for a particular book that they want, whether it is for coursework or for teaching purposes. This system will be useful, efficient and user-friendly. In this reservation system, the user has an option either to search by title, author, publication or class (subject). This will be achieved by creating a simple reservation system for the local library by using Microsoft Access to produce a database. This work will be useful to other students who might be creating a database on a particular subject, as they will be able to gain ideas from the database that will be created. This paper is a project progress report (PPR) for a database reservation system for the library. This PPR will cover different topics, such as the scope and objectives of the project, database design and information analysis, methodology and approach, software/tools and modelling languages, schedule of the planned work, progress against the planned work, evidence for the progress claimed, current and