The Ride

The Ride The Ride is the story of the heinous and gruesome murder of ten year old, Jeffrey Curley, a case that is familiar to many in the Massachusetts area. The book works its way from the grisly crime to the years afterward. It focuses on the family of Jeffrey, heavily weighted on the life of Cambridge Firefighter Bob Curley, Jeffrey’s father. Charles Jaynes and Salvatore Sicari, both from Jeffrey’s neighborhood were convicted of the murder.Within this essay I will demonstrate from The Ride the relationship between reporting and suffering that may have been brought on for the crime victims of this case, the relationship between the victim profiles and the victim family profiles, the role in which the family may have played in the crime, relationships that developed between the victim and the victim’s families of this event and how the Restorative Justice Model would have better served the victims of this crime. The indirect victims, The Curley’s, as a re sult of this crime experienced a magnitude of media sensation from the very onset of the event.Some of it being in helpful, useful ways and some times in negative ways. Once it was reported that Jeffrey Curley was missing, the media went to great lengths to get his information publicized and to bring awareness to the Boston area of his disappearance. Hundreds of community members gathered and started conducting their own searches. Fliers were made depicting a young Little League player and posted in almost every business and on every street pole. Persons who were not familiar or an acquaintance of the Curley’s offered their help and services in the search for the missing boy.The innocence of the young boy portrayed in the fliers tore at the heartstrings of all Boston residents. Along with all the positive outpouring from the community and the media, also came negative aspects. Nearly every media outlet in the Boston area took up camp on the streets in and around the Curley ho me, often times confining the Curley’s to their home. If they were able to leave, they were bombarded with request for interviews, which I believe can lead to further victimization at such a tragic and terrifying time. The Curley’s grief was widely publicized and sensationalize after the crime occurred.In the book, the Curley’s were depicted as an average lower income, divorced family. Shortly after the disappearance and murder of Jeffrey Curley rumors also began spreading throughout the community about the Curley’s and their parenting tactics. It was mentioned in the book that people questioned why Jeffrey would be allowed to roam around the neighborhood unsupervised throughout the day. A lower income neighborhood, where often times young adults and teenagers were seen gathering at street corners, the sort of places where petty crimes and mischievous behavior took place.The Curley’s felt scrutinized by some of the comments that were being passed a round, thus leading to further victimizations of the family. It was mentioned that the Curley’s felt responsible in some way for Jeffery’s disappearance, rape and murder. They agonized over all the â€Å"what ifs† and if they could have made a difference. The abovementioned rumors only added more guilt to their already traumatized lives. As a result of this crime, many relationships were established between the victims and numerous agencies, social groups, special interest groups, and politicians, as well as the criminal justice system.Some of these relationships were positive and some were negative. Bob Curley and his family went to extreme measures to have the death penalty reinstated in the state of Massachusetts. The Curley’s began this journey by contacting Senators and Representatives to help spark a need for the reinstatement of the death penalty. The Boston area had been plagued with vicious and heinous crimes for years, and the Jeffrey Curley mur der put the wheels in motion for changes to be made in the criminal justice system.In a heated battle for the reinstatement, lawmakers who once opposed the death penalty were changing their stance, but in the end certain lawmakers that proposed it changed their stance too. In the end opponents were able to kill the death penalty bill with an 80-80 tie. The Curley’s were outraged at the decision, as they thought there was hope of getting this bill passed. They had lobbied, protested, gathered petitions, and worked day and night during this period, only to have it rejected. As proponents of the death penalty, they felt that Jeffrey’s murder was meaningless and unregarded to warrant such a penalty.Throughout the Curley’s journey of this crime, specifically for Bob Curley, relationships that he never thought he would have were emerging at every corner. A once advocate for the reinstatement of capital punishment was beginning to form relationships with persons who op posed such. Not the heated debate relationships he was accustomed to, but good open and honest communication. He connected with victims of other heinous crimes, such as the father of a victim of the Oklahoma City bombing event, which resulted in his daughter’s death.Although suffering the loss of his daughter he was still an opponent of capital punishment. Bob Curley slowly began to change his views on capital punishment and became more open to the idea of opposition. Over a year after his encounter with these victims, Bob Curley changed his stance on capital punishment and now opposed it. Despite backlash from his family, Bob Curley remained firm on his newfound decision and remains that way today. I believe that this change in stance and new friendships he made helped Bob Curley in the healing process.Charles Jaynes and Salvatore Sicari were tried separately and in separate courts. The book depicts Jaynes as the mastermind behind the crime and Sicari, the accomplice. Jaynes was known to have pedophile tendencies and often was outspoken about such. Jeffrey was a young, naive boy, who was easily persuaded by Jaynes. Sicari was tried first and received life in prison without the possibility of parole. Jaynes on the other hand was convicted of second-degree murder. Once again, the Curley’s were outraged with the latter verdict. Jaynes, who had been known to be the mastermind, received a lessor sentence than the accomplice.I believe any faith the Curley’s had in the criminal justice system was greatly diminished by the verdict. Again, the Curley’s continued to suffer further revictimization as a result. Bob Curley’s personal relationship with his significant other, Mimi, also became strained as a result of this crime. As one can imagine, Bob Curley suffered great depression after the murder of his son. He became withdrawn and distant from Mimi. He also turned to drinking alcohol on a daily basis as a coping mechanism. As a resul t, he became violent with Mimi, and was forced out of the home and was estranged from her.Serving as a wake up call, Bob Curley sought professional help and help from Alcoholic’s Anonymous. After a significant amount of time apart, Bob and Mimi were eventually able to mend their relationship. I believe that much of the above mentioned information, problems and conclusions could have been prevented with the newly emerging Restorative Justice Model. Bob Curley, as well as the rest of the Curley family carried an extreme amount of hatred, as one can only imagine. However, by doing so they suffered even deeper and were continually revictimized as a result.Bob Curley often times had courtroom outburst at the offenders, shouting obscenities. If the Curley’s had taken part in some type of reconciliation, peacemaking or mediation process much of their suffering and revictimization could have been prevented. Jeffrey’s mother, Barbara still has not been able to get closur e or peace as a result of this crime. She is no longer able to work a full-time job and lives with one of her sons. Had Restorative Justice been an option and had the Curley’s taken advantage of it, I believe much of their suffering and agony could have been avoided.The term victim is derived from the Latin term, to sacrifice, and the Curley’s, unfortunately, hold true to the definition. They have paid the ultimate price for the heinous crime committed against Jeffrey Curley in 1997. The journey they have been forced to travel on has brought suffering to them through numerous agencies, them to labeled and profiled, periods of guilt feelings, and numerous relationships to formed, both good and bad. References: Macquarrie, B. (2009) The Ride. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press.

Negotiation with chinese Essay

We wish to express sincere appreciation to Professor Shia Yun Chiang for his assistance in the preparation of this manuscript. In addition, special thanks to Yama (Yuehai shoe material Ltd) who’s familiarity with the needs and ideas of these team and was helpful during the early programming phase of this research. INTRODUCTION Continental Design is a company where excellence and customer satisfactory are priority. After ten years of being in business, continental now seeks to enter the Chinese market. On Thursday, June 13th 2013, some members were selected to visit the potential customers of our new shoe-soles designs to introduce and negotiate our terms. These members include Mr. Emmanuel Mlay (Financial Officer), Mr. Robin Sharma(Managing Director), Mr. Cliff Osoo (Contracting Officer), Ms. Bella Chan (General Overseer), Ms. Sandra O. K (Sales Manager). Upon arrival, we were taken in and around the factory to experience their works and then to the meeting room. In this report, we explain further our observation and findings in negotiating with the typical Chinese. This report emphasizes mainly on the observations which includes specifications, mode of conduct, styles and techniques also elaborating on how they work together as individualist or collectivism. Again the language used, what they felt at ease to say, their communication skills, relationships with clients, were also under study. However their reasoning and way of thinking was somehow fascinating and very interesting which this report enlightens ideally and strategically. A brief but very informative research was done to know our potential customers before reaching out to them. The one talked about in this report is â€Å"Yuehai shoes material†, a very renowned shoesole company in China. In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product and profits. Unless you’ve got a good team, you can’t do much with the other two. 1 1 By: Lee Iacocca 1 Chapter 1 THE CONTINENTAL DESIGN Continental design provides differentiated products that accelerate innovations in the global design market. With ten years of experience and commitment, Continental design has grown to be one of the strongest competitors in the field of designing. This company has also spent those ten years in developing its communication and negotiation skills. Its management capabilities have enabled it to technically handle the challenges and efficiently provide products that are best in the market. As Victor Papanek once said â€Å"Design is the conscious effort to impose a meaningful order. † Continental design was founded by a team of five engineers with one primary goal of working hard helping all small and big shoes companies to succeed through professionally enhanced designs. Today, Continental design is a full-service independent company with about 10 percent of the world market share. Our services cover the whole of Africa, South and North America, Middle East and few countries in Asia. Recently we have initiated our first staple toward China market. 2 BUYERS COMPANY PROFILE Yuehai Shoes Materials Yuehai shoe material has more than 20 years of manufacturing experience and large number of qualified senior employees who are devoted to settling problems and confronting challenges. It has adopted advanced equipment from Taiwan and main land China. The production technology is matured and reliable; at the same time it uses the original material that makes its products to be famous by their high qualities. Its domestic market ranges from Guangzhou and Dongguan where there is a stiff competition that helps them to develop new and up-to date designs that meet the market demands. It then covered the whole of China before capturing Europe and America as the first target in external market. Most recently, it has expanded its external market to Middle East and Africa as a whole, where it has entered into more than 10 different countries. Shoes are human daily life necessities. Shoes industries will never perish as long as human being still exists. With the use of imagination this company is committed to continue to develop shoe industries as part of making the life of entire society in the world better off. Address: No. 39 beicun road, huangqi, nanhai district, foshan city, Guangdong province, China. Tel: 8675785938525 Fax: 867578592981 Email: tailon@21cn. net Yuehaixe. com. cn 3 Chapter 2 NEGOTIATION PREPARATION In negotiation there are few things that have to be put in place before the negotiating team or person set off for the negotiation. The factors that are mostly considered before negotiation are: ? Length of contract This is the period that the contract will take before it’s renewed again. The seller always concentrate in this factor because it affect the profit the company will make and for how long. Mostly its 1 to 3 years. This factor is important because it also influence the price to be offered to the buyer. ? Volume to be ordered After a seller has agreed on the length of contract then the next thing to talk about is the Volume that will be bought. When few goods are bought, there is a high possibility that the price will be higher unlike when a large quantity is bought; therefore these first two factors influence the price of the item. ? Price The third factor to talk about after length of contract and volume is price at which the good will be sold. In every company, there is a price offered depending on the quantity to be bought, quality and other things needed for production. The larger the quantity, the lower the price will be and vice versa. 4 ? Payment Terms and Services. The most important thing for a company going for a negotiation is; length of contract, volume and price and other things like payment terms and services comes up later. The last two remaining factors are considered to make sure that the items agreed before is taken into account in a proper manner. Payment terms are important because even if you have a long contract with large volume but payment is not done in time, you will have to lose something. Services are offered to the buyer to make sure he/she is satisfied with the goods bought. 5 SELLER’S WISH LIST. Here we made our wish list before we went to the meeting. We had decided our lowest price and the contract length. Below you can see the result of our company board meeting before going to negotiate with Chinese company ITEM2 Length of contract Volume Price Payment terms Services WEIGHT 40% 25% 20% 10% 5% RANGE 2-1 Years 500-100units/month $200-$150 10-15days 5/5-8/5 In the following table you can see that we agreed to have at least 1 year contract with Chinese company. As they are old and experience company, we believe that it won’t be any problem even if we have 2 years long contract. In terms of volume we were ready to deliver any amount till up to 500 per months. Price was the main concern of our meeting. We know that they will try to spend more time on the price negotiating and knowing we have many competitors in the market, we needed to come up with a very good price range. We also had an agreement on payment terms which should meet within the short period. Lastly, we agreed to offer them a good customer service. 2 Professor Shia Yun Chiang Power point presentation-Estimating wish list ,Power point presentation slide no. 9 & 10 6 THE AGREEMENT ZONE In every negotiation, there are two possible outcomes. The parties can either reach an agreement or not. The first situation is where the seller and the buyer don’t reach an agreement at all, either, due to the buyer or seller not agreeing with the offer given. The second situation is where the two parties (Buyer and Seller) reach an agreement and signs a contract for the business to take place immediately. For the two parties to reach an agreement, they will have to consider their Consequence of No Agreement (CNA). CNA will either make the two parties to agree or disagree. BUYER’S WISH LIST ITEM3 Price Services Payment terms Length of contract Volume WEIGHT 45% 25% 20% 5% 5% RANGE $100-$150 8/5-5/5 Cash transfer 3-1Years 50-100units/month After a lengthy discussion with the buyer, following were the outcomes of negotiation; OUTCOME ITEM Price Length of Contract Volume Payment Terms Services DETAILS $150/Design 1 Year 100 Units/month Cash Transfer in 2 days 10 Days training Professor Shia Yun Chiang Power point presentation-Estimating wish list ,Power point presentation slide no. 9 & 10 7 Chapter 3 OBSERVATION VALUES AND THINKING IN NEGOTIATION. When going for a negotiation one has to learn the buyer’s values in thinking. These values differ from one country or one region to the other and it can cause a misunderstanding between the two parties. According to the research we did about Chinese negotiation, we found out that Chinese are more relationship oriented than Africans and even other nations. As soon as we entered into the Chinese office for the negotiation, they offered us Water. This proves that they are more relationship oriented; they use this to build a rapport between their clients even before negotiation. Another thing that the company we were negotiating with did is that, they invited us for supper. In these acts we can see how Chinese people are mostly towards relationship with their clients unlike other European countries or America and even Africa. Before us reaching a conclusion, the Chinese people asked a lot of personal questions even in the middle of our negotiation. Some of the questions they asked were; When will you go back to your country? Do you like china? Is your country very hot than china? These personal questions that are not related to business are a clear picture of Chinese values and thinking in a negotiation. â€Å"As a general rule, it’s always safer to adopt a formal posture and move to an informal stance, if the situation warrants it, than to assume an informal style too quickly†4 4 As Jeswald W. Salacuse- (Ivey Business journal) 8 . During our research, we were also able to notice some of the things that are not common in African countries and even other continents. The first thing that they did is to welcome us in a very encouraging manner that made us feel at home, and with such hospitality, we were able to do the negotiation having been convinced that Chinese are good business people. This kind of hospitality that Chinese people give to their clients make them win in the businesses they negotiate in because the other party will feel so cared for that they can trust the offers given. Another thing we noticed in the research is the way they asked us whether someone has introduced us to the company or we looked it up in the internet. At the beginning I didn’t see the reason why they should be concerned with how we got to know about the company, but after we finished the meeting I had to ask and what they told us is, in Chinese (Intermediary/ middleman). This is one of the things that make us to realize how important Chinese value relationship in the business arena. The other behavior that we observed in the process of visiting and doing the negotiation is that, immediately we arrived at the factory, we were received and taken around the factory to see how they do their production and even explaining every step of production line. This really made us feel honored and we started to see them as transparent and responsible people, something that needed in business so much. â€Å"Chinese negotiating style is people oriented and permeated with such Confucians notion as guanxi, renqing, face, family age, harmony, hierarchy, li (etiquette)†5. 5 As said by Tong Fang –Chinese Business Negotiating Styles 9 CIRCULAR REASONING & TALKING In our haste to market our designs for shoe soles. We came across various ways in which Chinese carry out their business negotiation. While most of the companies we approached exhibited the sequential kind of talking, the Chinese demonstrated the circular type. Interestingly, as we tried to obtain information and answer their questions regarding our products, we realized that Chinese, when not interested in your product would rather beat about the bush than going straight to the point. This is mostly demonstrated in the time of negotiating prices. This makes it hard to determine their stance in terms of buying the product. It is almost impossible at that moment to determine the level of consequence of no agreement on the buyer’s side. As much as you try explaining and convincing Chinese buyers who are less interested in a product, you will end up just like before. It is hard for them to say â€Å"no† point blank. This I believe is because of the long courting and relationship they build up with their business partners before negotiating. For instance, in one of our interviews, the interviewee mentioned after our refusal to take lunch with him that it is the culture of Chinese people to dine with their potential business partners irrespective of their interests. He explained that not only does this emphasize politeness; it also creates room for next or future cooperation. That is why in almost every meeting with a Chinese business man, you are served tea or water even before the talking starts. As pleasing as this might sound, it is also the reason behind the average Chinese would want to beat about the bush when not interested in the product for sale. Relationship and friendship are commonly used to obtain a better price and more concessions. 10 Herbig and Martin (1998), Stark, Fam, Waller and Tian (2005), and Zhu et al. (2007) all found that the Chinese do not rush into the negotiation, but rather, spend a lot of time in getting to know their counterparts as much as possible, even including personal information in order to build guanxi and trust from the beginning. Another finding is that they would want to end the meeting peacefully and friendly just as it had started without having to ruin the relationship or hurt anyone’s feelings, yet they have to decide whether or not to purchase the product. According to Faure (1999), the Chinese focus more on relationship building during this stage, as they need to know their counterparts for any business deal to occur. This negotiation practice might cause conflict with Westerners, as Westerners prefer to start negotiations straight away after basic greetings and introductions. Rule how to be successful in dealing with Chinese: â€Å"Be fair, reasonable and diplomatic: â€Å"If your Chinese counterpart believes that you are being unreasonable, they may not openly say so, but your negotiations are likely to stall and go nowhere. If you disagree with your counterpart, don’t simply reject their position out of hand, but carefully explain your reasoning†. 6 6 â€Å"Forbes† by Jack Perkowski (Negotiating in China; 10 rules for Success 11 QUESTIONING & INTERRUPTING We’ve had several encounters with many customers throughout the years, but what makes the Chinese customers outstanding is their mode of questioning. Unlike our African customers, they tend to interrupt and chip in their questions whiles you are talking. In some cultures, this might seem rude and impolite but this is not so for Chinese. They are very cooperative, assertive and defensive. This encourages and makes the one talking feel he’s being listened to. This normally generates positive feedback. During one of the interviews conducted, it came to our realization that, the typical or traditional Chinese interrupts more than the Chinese who has been open to Western culture. Customers who deal with Westerners or Africans have adjusted to some of their negotiation skill. This we believe will go a long way to influence most Chinese business partners. Their character or attitude of seeking and asking questions is different from other people in the sense that Chinese exhibits a character of â€Å"Xenophobia which is a distrust of all things foreign to one’s own culture. Xenophile is a lust to obtain all things new and or foreign. The Chinese have become inclined to distrust anything and everyone from foreign lands due to their history of violent revolutions and government seizures and changes. On the other hand, they have also seen the new technologies and high standard of living in the West, and many Chinese struggle with these mixed feelings as they pursue business opportunities with foreigners and seek to acquire western technologies â€Å"(Pye, 1992) 12 COLLECTIVISM Under collectivism, the means of production are owned and controlled by the state or the people as a whole. Also, it describes any outlook or philosophy that stresses the interactivity between people. It is often consider as opposite of individualism. There are two basic types of collectivism: horizontal and vertical. In the horizontal type, members are considered to be as equal as possible, and share resources and responsibilities. The vertical include a social hierarchy that society member work to maintain, and people submit to those above them in the hierarchy. Collectivism in China When Mao Ze Dong came into power; he strengthens the collectivism by eliminating landowners and individualists, sending nearly everyone to work in collectivist communities. Therefore, China has been more collectivist than individualist in both ancient and modern history. Many research states that, there are many leaders in China today who believe that the days of collectivism in China will soon be gone. There are several reasons for this. First is that the â€Å"one-child-policy,† especially in the cities, it gives us many younger citizens who have been raised to believe that they hold a special place in the world. This kind of upbringing leads to individualism over collectivism. In business point, there are still many examples of collectivist thinking. For example, When we(foreigner) and Chinese, began to work together, mainly the Chinese look towards the team as 13 the reason for the company success, but on the other hand, the foreigner(us) were trying to identify individual high performers. That’s one of the different between Chinese and foreign culture. Collectivism between our culture (as a foreigner) and Chinese Collectivism is a cultural pattern found especially in East Asia, Latin America, and Africa. But nowadays societies are not purely individualist or collectivist, but some of them are the mixture of the two. Western and Northern Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are individualist. Conclusion Although there are few countries fully apply in collectivism, like North Korea, most of the countries are applying the mixture of collectivism and individualism. Those countries practicing collectivism mainly have a low GDP level, because it affects trade with the other countries. 14 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SPECIFICATION OF TIME AND PRICE. The important aspects when we negotiate with Chinese: Patience is the most important qualification for successful negotiations with the Chinese. Negotiations in China often take time because of different departments within one organization tend to be involved in negotiation processes and decision-making within the Chinese bureaucracy often takes time. By Confucianism, Chinese will not rush into any serious meetings with someone whom they do not know; trust and a certain feeling of closeness. Here is the example of Chinese negotate style we found. It prove that, to negotiate a favourite price with Chinese, obviously we need time. 1. Don’t expose too much of your interest in a product you want to buy even though you’re really drawn to it. It is better to act like that it does not matter to you and you don’t have to have it. Sometimes the sales person would tell you if he or she can judge from your facial expression that you really want that item. 2. In the first time you will never get the exact item for the price. Usually the sales person would try to seduce you by offering an unfavorable price. For example, for a necklace placed at $100, if you ask the sales person for discount, perhaps for the first time she would give you a discount like $90. Don’t take it. Just think that it is too high and walk away. Sometimes the sales person would shout at your back and offer much more favorable discounts. 15 3. The second negotiation is to reach a middle point. Try to get 45-60% discount of the original price. If it is impossible, try to get somewhere around 70-85%. Try to negotiate in a friendly way. If the agreement cannot be reached, walk away again. 4. The final negotiation will be the last attempt. Be firm and try to get 40% off. Some might finally give you 40% off, while some can’t due to different price strategies involved and store renting fees, staff cost, etc. To compare with our culture(as a foreigner), in our country, all the goods had set their fixed selling price, and most of the company usually have their own rule for market selling, therefore the vacuum for price negotiate will be less. 16 LANGUAGE BARRIER Our group members come from Nepal, Ghana, Tanzania, and Hong Kong. We speak different languages. English is our second language. We often face with language barrier within and outside the group. . Language barrier often is a big problem. If this was an outsourcing job or transcription work, language would probably have a major role, as both require clear understanding of the accents, practice of speaking in a fluent way. Cause of language barrier: 1. Emails – written communication we should be able to clearly understand written instructions and reply with clear and also follow rules in a polite way. Sometimes we often wrote a business mail in a friendly tone, instead we should write in a formal way. 2. Phone Calls While working with an outsourcing partner, providing a phone number for emergencies may seem to be a good idea. However if this phone number happens to be attended by a non-English speaking person, it will serve nothing but a source of irritation. So we can think of giving the mobile number of a representative who can speak with clear and patience – even if the resolution is not attained on the call in itself. 17 Useful method between different language. Pictogram and simple image are useful method as icon or sign for almost every place. It means they are efficient to give information to people without any words. They have high possibility to support the communication between two people without spoken language. Conclusion We need to use English to communicate with each other, when we were going to Nanhai to take the video, sometimes we need to use Chinese to communicate with the local Chinese people. When people from different countries speak in different languages, we often face difficulties an understanding each other. We cannot express our meaning in a proper way. During our research, when we took the train, there was problem in translating Chinese characters. So it is quite hard for us to find the way to the shoe factory. In addition, the English level of a local Chinese are mainly still in low level, some of them even cannot understand what we are asking. I think it is what we are called language barriers. 18 Chapter 4 TIPS TO NEGOTIATE WITH CHINESE The intensive research negotiation we conducted at Yuehai Shoes Materials factory widened up our knowledge about Chinese negotiation. We believe through this report you have acquired some usefully tips on how to strategically negotiate with Chinese. Upon what you have learned here are our recommendations for you to conquer any negotiation: ? Be prepared†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ Make sure you are well prepared. ? Understand the cultural differences†¦. Get to know the other culture. ? Don’t be afraid of negotiation†¦ if you can talk you can negotiate. ? Show some emotions (share some burden)†¦remember, people value them. ? Be on time†¦.. time is money. ? Be careful†¦ use appropriate language. ? Be in control†¦ don’t allow other things to distract your focus. ? Give some room for the other party (compromise whenever necessary). ? Show some vivid example†¦ a picture is worth a thousand words. 19 CONCLUSION â€Å"Deal is always better that no deal. †7 As hard as negotiation may seem to be, its outcomes are almost always worth the endurance. In different cultures where there are different goals, different point of views, different interests, different values and beliefs, different needs and different decision making styles; it takes a considerably huge amount of effort for sellers and buyers to reach the agreement zone. Both parties must be willing to give up part of their wish or lower their requirements which do not happen easily. With better understanding of both cultures of the parties involved, the negotiation will yield more significance solutions. One should keep in mind that negotiation is the cornerstone of any successfully business in the world. Despite the difficulties involved in the strategic negotiation, lets us follow the words of one of our great fathers who once said, â€Å"Let’s never negotiate out of fear, but lets us never fear to negotiate. †8 7 Professor Shia Yun Chiang class PowerPoint presentation 8a.

Women Rule the World

History has ample evidence to show that quite a few women wielded the greatest power, leaving a legacy of their own and unleashing a revolution in their trail, but at the same time, they paid such a dear price for their power which is long believed to be the exclusive domain of male. Nerfititi, a co-regent of Egyptian pharaoh, could not escape the fate of death after removing the existence of the belief in priests and successfully starting to construct a new capital of Egypt together with her husband.Even days after her demise, her tomb was plundered and her body was smashed with the right hand holding the scepter, the symbol of utmost power in Egyptian kingdom, mutilated away from her corpse. Vo Tac Thien, the queen of China, in her reign, made an incredible record of contributions to her nation while standing up against waves of protests from traditionalists. It seems when it comes to holding the highest rank, women are biased, albeit their manifest talent and patriotism.Any cruel action they exercised, whether for their ends- as some believe- or the sake of the entire nation, was seen as unacceptable whereas such acts were easily forgotten if committed by men. Further evidence of this prejudice is well seen in the lives of Islamic women who are deprived of the right to have their own identity cards and inherit almost to none of the asset from the bequest of both their parents and spouses. They are born with masks and unveiling these â€Å"sacred amulets† is considered a sacrilege to their faith, rendering their lives in darkness, however.But despite all of this, Islamic women are found to be surprisingly enlighteners with an increasing number working as scientists, researchers and culturists. Such telling bodies of evidence hold the answer itself: when it comes to true power, women cannot be ignored. If given more freedom, why wouldn’t they rule the world as men? Let’s discuss, Seamap guys, to acknowledge the power of our WOMEN. Written by Pham Thi Le Na 1. What are key factors to become a good leader? 2. What are basic differences in the way men and women lead? What are their strengths and weaknesses? 3. Which are countries where women hold important positions in the overnment? Are these nations having any edge over others which exclude women from this opportunity? What’s about Vietnam? Is it a level-playing field for women nowadays? Why or why not? 4. What makes women have fewer chances to rise to power? As being a person of strong power, how can you make sure men and women have equal chance of being recruited to high positions? 5. Debate: What makes you believe women should rule the world? What makes you believe men should rule the world? Compare and contrast to defend you point. Envision the picture where women purely rule the world or men purely rule the world.

Nursing shortage in Canada Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Nursing shortage in Canada - Essay Example This paper is going to critical examine the nursing shortage facing Canada at present. Canada is going through a nursing crisis; this is an observation being expressed by many people across the country, by the public and the health managers. Where as, there are various perspectives to explain the situation, there is a general concurrence that the present shortage on nurses is worsening and should be addressed, before it leads to poor provision of health care in the country. There is every reason why the nursing profession should be an attractive profession of choice. McIntyre & Thomlinson (2003), states that the profession of nursing has the elements to being a fulfilling and exciting lifetime career of choice, providing challenging and different practice opportunities. Nursing profession allows for flexibility of job employment and gives a chance for a balanced work and family life. It provides endless opportunities in education, research, administration and a lot more. Yet in Canada, fewer students are enrolling for this profession contributing to the shortage. (McIntyre & Thomlinson, 2003) The barrier of solving the problem has been lack of proper health policies that can address the situation. Failure of stakeholders coming up with ways to address the problem and creating good attractive conditions to retain the nurses in the profession from moving have highly contributed to persistence of this problem Nature of the issue; what makes this issue a nursing issue Studies reveal that, some nurses in Canada are simply not taking up their jobs of nursing and opting to stay back home waiting for full time jobs. It has also been observed that the rate of absenteeism has increased reducing the number of nurses availing for patients. This has continued to contribute to the problem of shortage of nurses in the country. A related alarm is the rate of nurse graduates leaving the country to work else where after graduating, this also have contributed to the shortage of the nurses in the country. (Canadian Nurses Association, 2005) The healthcare is facing a nursing shortage that is as a result of workforce related issue. In Canada there is basically less nursing care funded hours yet there are too many nursing needs. This has resulted to those nurses available being overworked and stressed, this is the main problem. The current shortage of nurses is mainly also caused by the following factors; 1. A real present shortage of available nurses that is limited number of available seats for nurses in education programs and also a nursing workforce that is aging. 2. Human resources management aspects which, makes it difficult to exploit fully on the productivity of the available nurses. These aspects are high overtime, high level of part-time, high absenteeism increased number of tasks that are no-nursing and limited range of practice. 3. Limited funds allocated to hire the required number of nurses who are needed to deliver appropriate care services needed. (Canadian Nurses Association, 2005) Working in the concept of rising acuity, complexity and intensity of patient care surroundings and an corrosion of leadership in nursing themselves resulting from the effects of downsizing witnessed in the 1990s, the above three factors are the root cause of nursing shortage in Canada that is being

Success Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Success - Essay Example Success can either be a process or spontaneous although in most cases, success is considered as a process. Someone would be considered successful if they feel satisfied with the results of their work. Success may be prompted by hard work or smart work. In most cases, success is regarded as riches and accusation of vast wealth in the society. Anyone who possesses a lot of money and can command most of the things such as a country’s economy is considered to be a successful person regardless of other failures in life. There is however other forms of success which are not largely regarded in the society provided the man deemed successful is not rich. Success requires a lifelong journey of endurance and determination for it to become real and it is worth noting that it is not an easy journey. Unless one puts extraordinary pressure and decides to do above average activities without giving up, success cannot be inevitable. Passionate life may result into high level of success and the refore an individual should invest in passion as a way of spearheading success. Success requires a lot of strength and change of behavior into a positive way towards achieving greater heights. It is believed that success requires that an individual associates only with people and resources that can catapult them to the higher level.

Transport Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Transport - Assignment Example I also realised that transport enables us to move from one point to another and this increased my interest in this particular subject such that I decided to watch a video and read an article about the importance of transport. 2 What was it about? The video is about the Minister of Transport in India explaining the big project about upgrading the transport system that is currently underway. The Minister also explains the importance of transport in the growth and development of the economy as well as human welfare. The chosen article is also about the importance of transport and describes different modes of transport that are available in India. 3 Did you read or listen first? Why? Do you think the order you chose helped you or not? How many times did you need to read & listen before you felt confident about understanding the topic and vocabulary? How do you feel about this topic, e.g. positive or negative feelings? Do you agree/disagree with the ideas?† I listened and watched th e video once then read the article. After reading the article, I then listened to the video clip again. I repeated this process because I wanted to grasp the meaning of the article and what it was about. I realised that the vocabulary used in the article and the video was simple to understand since I did not discover any new word. After my second listening to the video and second reading of the article, I felt very confident about understanding the topic and the vocabulary as well. I developed positive feelings about this particular topic given that transport affects our daily lives in one way or the other. We need to move from different places to another and our daily needs such as food are delivered to us by transport so it is very important in our lives. I totally agree with the ideas raised in the article and the video clip. 4 Did you learn anything new from this reading & listening? What? I learnt that pipeline can also be classified as transport from the reading and listening activity to the video. Pipelines are used to transport petroleum and gas to different places and this is a convenient way of moving products in the form of liquid or gas. 5 Was this topic connected in any way to your future studies and if so, how do you think you can find out more about it? I do not think that the topic is connected to my future studies though it is very important in our daily lives. 6 What was easy/ difficult about it? The topic was very easy to understand because the author of the article used short and simple words which were very clear. The video was also clearly presented and I could understand all the ideas that were discussed by the presenters of this clip. I imagined seeing a well connected network of transport making it possible to move to any part of the country you can think of using different modes of transport. Since we use transport every day, there was nothing new in this article as well as the video. 7 Which was the more challenging aspect, the readi ng, or the listening? Why? Nothing was so challenging in reading the article as well as watching the video. Both were presented in simple and clear terms that were easy to understand. The article gave more details as well as explanations of different modes of transport as well as their advantages and disadvantages. The articles also outlined all the factors that make transport important

Concept Analysis of Consciousness Research Paper

Concept Analysis of Consciousness - Research Paper Example Concept Analysis: Pattern Recognition from Margaret A. Newman’s Theory of Health as Expanding Consciousness (HEC) Some people perceive health as the state or condition where there is the absence of a disease or disability, an assumption which triggered Newman into developing the theory of Health as Expanding Consciousness (HEC) (Newman, 2002). In most cases, these people who include those with health uncertainties, incapacitated, and eventual death; are usually associated or relate with nurses. Over the years, the concept has developed and it incorporates all people regardless of the presence or absence of a disease and/or a disability. The development of the HEC theory is attributed to Martha Roger’s theory of Unitary Human Beings, which holds that â€Å"patterning of persons in interaction with the environment is basic to the view that consciousness is a manifestation of an evolving pattern of person-environment interaction† (Newman, Gaines, and Snare, 2005). N ewman’s theory affirms that the universal process of expanding consciousness should encompass all types of people in every kind of situation regardless of their disabilities and hopelessness. Newman describes this process as that which makes one realize who they are and become one, helps a person to find some sense in living, and that which enables one to reach a new height of connectedness with the rest of the people and the world in general (Newman, 2008). Purpose of and Research Methodology Analysis of a concept is usually to provide the reader with a clear understanding and a detailed description of the concept in question, in this case, pattern recognition (Avant and Walker, 2005). This analysis can be done via implementation of a variety of analysis methodologies. However, this paper employs an analysis methodology developed and presented by Avant and Walker (2005). It identifies operational and theoretical definitions, definition of characteristics of the concepts, ide ntification of the antecedents and the consequences associated with the concept, examination or evaluation of cases in which the concept has been utilized and finally providing empirical referents to the concept. The Concept of Pattern Recognition According to Newman (2005), this concept makes a key component of the relational process of Health as Expanding Consciousness (HEC). In addition, Newman (2005) asserts that a series of visits unfolds the uniqueness of health patterning. Here, a special attention is paid to the development of whatever is required to be the outcome of the relationship that emerges between the nursing practitioner and the patient or client. Identification of patterns occurs in stages via the process of praxis rather than the whole process occurring once (Newman, 2005). Currently, the pattern of life of every person contains past information and probabilities of future occurrences. When a client decides to visit a nurse, it is obviously because things have sli ghtly or extremely changed from the usual and thus he or she requires an alternative regarding the client’s situation. The relating process of the clinician and the patient or client is a key facilitator to understanding of the patterns of a person. According to Newman (2005) the goals of pattern recognition include: Helping the client see and understand the current patterns Helping the client

What is strategic human resource management and what is HR's role in Essay

What is strategic human resource management and what is HR's role in strategic management planning process - Essay Example Strategic HRM even includes the process of making strategy related choices and the development of priorities of different strategies. In basic terms, Strategic HRM revolves around the amalgamation of the strategy of both the company and the human resources so that HR strategies result in the attainment and implementation of the company’s strategy. It is more commonly practiced that the human resources department plays a major role in the implementation of the strategic plan. On the other hand some organization do consider HR’s role as an important one in the development of the strategic plan. While devising a strategic plan an organization needs to perform an internal assessment in various areas of the organization including the human resource aspect of the organization. The organization even performs an external assessment in relation to human resource management. While performing an external assessment an organization needs to focus on whether there are opportunities and threats related to human resources (Bernardin 116). For example: an external analysis may reveal that there is a threat to the organization because of shortage of laborers who can work on process of manufacturing denim clothes. The external assessment may even help in identifying opportunities such as an increase in number employees being laid off an d these employees have the ability to handle denim manufacturing processes. After conducting the external assessment, the organization turns to conducting an internal assessment in the context of human resources. For example: a denim manufacturing organization identifies that there is an increase in demand for denim. In relation to that opportunity the organization may conduct an internal assessment regarding whether the organization has the required human resources who are capable of handling denim manufacturing processes such as sewing. If

INTB300 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

INTB300 - Essay Example The author believes that while education is major element that is able to promote these ideals, it can, at the same time become a tool for the vested interest to play havoc with the lives of the innocent people. The financial scams, terrorism, child abuse etc. are few instances of misuse of education at its worst. Globalization has become an intrinsic part of contemporary social structure which needs to be understood for its wider ramifications on various spheres of human life. Indeed, historical events have been great facilitators to understand the change. One therefore must make efforts to understand the complex nature of changing social values and adopt them in their lives so as to exploit them for one’s own personal and professional growth. The current recessive trend in American economy is often contributed to President Reagan’s market policies and liberalization. But it is important to note that deregulation of banks was the major factor that had promoted riskier business propositions. It was during President Clinton’s administration that banks’ deregulation bill was passed. Hence, sub-prime loans of banks for housing had ultimately resulted in the collapse of American economy. Thus, one can say that economic reforms must be accompanied by effective government control

Structural equation modelling Research Proposal

Structural equation modelling - Research Proposal Example Skill was not found to impact trust. In addition, trust has a significant positive impact on long-term orientation of the relationship among SMEs. The origins of the structural equation modelling (SEM) have its roots in three disciplines: sociology, psychology and economics. In marketing SEM starts its application in November 1982 in the issue published by the Journal of Marketing Research (Bollen 1989). SEM grows out of and serves purposes similar to multiple regression, but in a more powerful way which takes into account the modeling of interactions, nonlinearities, correlated independents, measurement error, correlated error terms, multiple latent independents each measured by multiple indicators, and one or more latent dependents also each with multiple indicators. SEM may be used as a more powerful alternative to multiple regression, path analysis, factor analysis, time series analysis, and analysis of covariance. That is, these procedures may be seen as special cases of SEM, or, to put it another way, SEM is an extension of the general linear model (GLM) of which multiple regression is a part. In this analysis we apply SEM to examine the influence of reputation, flexibility, information exchange, power and skill on trust and consequently on long-term orientation. ... ng-term orientation is a central theme in marketing currently, it is crucial to know what are the variables that help explain successful long-term relationship building. The analysis is structured as follows. First, we give a brief description of SEM and its importance for marketing research, then we provide the bases for the interrelationship between the variables used in the model; this is followed by description of the design of the analysis and finally, discussion of the result is provided. Description of structural equation modelling and its applicability to the field of marketing SEM is usually viewed as a confirmatory rather than exploratory procedure, using one of three approaches: 1. Strictly confirmatory approach: A model is tested using SEM goodness-of-fit tests to determine if the pattern of variances and covariances in the data is consistent with a structural (path) model specified by the researcher. However as other unexamined models may fit the data as well or better, an accepted model is only a not-disconfirmed model. 2. Alternative models approach: One may test two or more causal models to determine which has the best fit. There are many goodness-of-fit measures, reflecting different considerations, and usually three or four are reported by the researcher. Although desirable in principle, this AM approach runs into the real-world problem that in most specific research topic areas, the researcher does not find in the literature two well-developed alternative models to test. 3. Model development approach: In practice, much SEM research combines confirmatory and exploratory purposes: a model is tested using SEM procedures, found to be deficient, and an alternative model is then tested based on changes suggested by SEM modification indexes. This

Government Economic Policies and Business Essay Example for Free

Government Economic Policies and Business Essay (a) The government used fiscal policy to increase public spending. This implies that a rise in taxation also took place. The rise in taxes meant that people had less money to spend, i.e. less disposable income. As a result, they were unable to buy as much. This caused the demand of certain products to decline. As a result, the respective companies made less profit. This meant that they were unable to produce as much (also to avoid excess supply). This led to companies cutting jobs. The cut in jobs increased unemployment, which meant people had no job, so they had no income, therefore they were unable to spend, which makes the demand fall further, and so on. (b) The government had used fiscal policy to boost the economy. In Japan, the fiscal policy was used to fund the games industry, to create more jobs, in order to increase the income and therefore, increase spending by the people in those jobs. However, we can see from the graphs that retail sales in Japan in 1997 were dramatically falling. A cause for this was the GDP which also hit an all time low in Japan. This meant that people did not have the money to spend, therefore, from the evidence available we can say that Japans fiscal policy was unsuccessful. (c) The countrys budget provides an opportunity not only to take an overview of the macro-economy, but also to make changes to the incentive structures created by different taxes. The chancellor has many objectives to consider at budget time. One of these objectives may be to increase taxes on polluting fuels (e.g. petrol) so as to discourage their use. This can be controlled by the fiscal policy, which, in this case would involve increasing taxes on such fuels. This may come as a direct tax on the petrol, or more indirectly by increasing the road tax on bigger vehicles. Provided that such polluting fuels are used to the same extent, this would generate higher tax revenue for the government which can then be used to increase public spending, such as building hospitals, which would not only result in better healthcare, but it would also create jobs, which would mean that people would be earning, allowing them more disposable income, and thus influencing spending power, which may in fact be another objective of the government.

Essay On Political Parties In India Essay Example for Free

Essay On Political Parties In India Essay Posted in National Issues of India by Vijay Jaiswal On August 29, 2013. No comments In a modern democratic political system of India, with governments based on Parliamentary model, political parties are central to the working of the political system. Political parties in Indian Democracy grow up the as spokesman of organized interests. Thus a Political party system in India is an organization of like minded people based together either to preserve and promote group interests or to promote a particular ideology. Usually every party seeks to promote some particular interest and ideology. The political party constantly seeks to capture governmental powers to secure its ends. In a democracy, the party gets into power through elections. In a Parliamentary system such of India, the political party winning the majority of seats in the Lower House of the Parliament forms the Government, while the Party or Parties failing to get the majority constitutes the opposition. Thus the Parliamentary government is always a Party government. It may be the government of a single party or it may be the government of a coalition of parties. The nature of political party system in India was characterized by Morris Jhones as a dominant one party system. It means that India basically has a multi-party system but one among the many parties is dominant party and monopolizes governmental power. Since independence up to the 4th general election in 1947 this was precisely the picture. The Congress party was in power during all the twenty years from 1947-67 both at the centre and in the states with a brief exception in Kerala in 1958. The 1967 elections saw the fall of the Congress monopoly in several states where unstable coalitions were established. The sixth General Election in 1977 witnessed the fall of the Congress at the centre. The Janata Government was established. But the Janata experiment soon failed. For Janata was in reality an unstable coalition. The Congress gained back its power in 1980. Then there was a B.J.P. coalition government at the centre and in few states. On the basis of their influence and aspirations, parties in India fall into two categories: All India politicalparties and regional political parties. Thus the Congress (I) or the Jananta Dal or the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – are truly All India parties having some sort of influence throughout India and having All India aspirations. There are some other political parties which are professedly All India parties but their influence is limited to particular regions. They may be classed us regional parties with All India aspirations. The Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Communist Party of India, the Forward Block, the Revolutionary Socialist Party (R.S.P) etc. fall into this category. The influence of the C.P.I. (M) for example is concentrated in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. The regional political parties are those which are frankly regional in their aspirations emphasizing their ethnic or linguistic identities. The D.M.K. or the A.I.A.D.M.K. in Tamil Nadu, the Telugu Desham in Andhra, and the A.G.P. in Assam or the National Conference in Jammu and Kashmir fall into this category. There are also some frankly communal parties like the Shib Sena emphasizing their religious identity. On the basis of ideology, Indian parties may be classified into conservative, liberal democratic and revolutionary parties. The B.J.P. for example is a conservative party. The Janata Dal and the Congress are liberal democratic parties. The Communist Parties, the Revolutionary Socialist Party etc. are revolutionary parties seeking restructuring of the society along Marxian Lines, while the B.J.P. may be said to occupy the extreme right position in the political spectrum, the Congress, the Janata Dal stand at the centre while the Communist Parties and  the R.S.P. occupy the extreme left position.

Modelling of Moisture Adsorption for Sugar Palm

Modelling of Moisture Adsorption for Sugar Palm Modelling of Moisture Adsorption for Sugar Palm (Arenga pinnata) Starch Film Tri Hadi Jatmiko a) , Crescentiana D. Poeloengasih, Dwi Joko Prasetyo and Hernawan Research Unit for Natural Product Technology, Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Gunungkidul, Yogyakarta, Indonesia Abstract. Sorption characteristic of food products is important for design, optimization, storage and modelling. Sugar palm starch film with two different plasticizers (sorbitol and glycerol) with varied concentration studied for its adsorption isotherm characteristic. The data of adsorption isotherm fitted with GAB, Oswin, Smith and Peleg models. All models describe the experiment data well, but Peleg model is better than the other models on both sugar palm starch film plasticized with sorbitol and glycerol. Moisture sorption of sugar palm starch increased linearly with plasticizer concentration. A new model by taking account of plasticizer concentration describes the experiment data well with an average of coefficients of determination (R2) 0.9913 and 0.9939 for film plasticized with glycerol and sorbitol respectively. Keywords: Sugar palm starch; glycerol; sorbitol; model; moisture sorption isotherm Utilization of biopolymers for the film has attracted the interest of researchers to explore starch as a material for the film. Starch has attracted great attention because it is easily obtained, widely available, cheap, eco-friendly, renewable and film-forming properties [1,2]. The studies that have been conducted shows that the sugar palm starch has the potential to be used as raw material for the film [1,3-6]. The use of pure starch will produce the fragile film, which is usually overcome by the addition of plasticizers. The addition of plasticizer on the film made of starch will affect the characteristics of the film, one that has changed is the characteristic of moisture absorption of the film. Moisture sorption isotherm is the relationship between the amount of water content of foodstuffs with humidity at a constant temperature and displayed in graphical form [7]. Moisture sorption isotherm models are useful for predicting water sorption characteristics of foods, even though they furnish little insight into the interaction of water and food. Even though a number of mathematical models exist to explain moisture sorption isotherms of foods substances, none equation offers accurate outcome for the period of the entire variety of water activities, or for all types of foods material, it is because of water associated with a matrix of food with different mechanisms on different humidity [7]. Only a few studies have reported the content of the plasticizer into account in the determination of moisture sorption isotherm of a starch film. Coupland (2000) reported the effect of glycerol on the moisture sorption behavior of whey protein isolate film, that consider the content of plasticizer in moister sorption of the film [8]. Jatmiko (2016) reported that four parameter Peleg model could be used to give a good description of moisture sorption of sugar palm starch based film. In this study, we report sorption isotherms for sugar palm starch based films affected by plasticizer. Moisture sorption isotherm of sugar palm starch film from Jatmiko (2016) was used for this study. The data fitted with the following model: Oswin Oswin equation is one of the best model for describing the moisture sorption of starchy food and gave a good fit for vegetables and meat [7]. where M is the moisture content (g/g dry solid), aw is water activity, A and B are constant. Smith Smith has developed a water sorption isotherm equation based on the theory that water adsorbed on a dry surface composed of two fractions. The first fraction has a heat of condensation is higher than normal and the second fraction consisting of multilayers of water molecules, which can prevent the evaporation of the initial layer [9]. where M is the moisture content (g/g dry solid), A is the quantity of water in the first sorbed fraction, and B is the quantity of water in the multilayer moisture fraction, aw is water activity. GAB GAB equation is one of the most widely used equations in predicting water sorption isotherms [7]. where M is the moisture content (g/g dry solid), M0 is the monolayer moisture content; C and K are constants. Peleg Four parameters model proposed by Peleg [10] can be used for both sigmoid and non-sigmoid isotherm and some studies report that Peleg model better than GAB model. where M is the moisture content (g/g dry solid), K1, K2, n1 and n2 are constants. Moisture sorption of sugar palm starch film with sorbitol and glycerol shows sigmoidal shape as shown in Fig. 1. According to the classification of Al-Muhtaseb et. al [7] the moisture sorption of sugar palm starch film is type III. FIGURE 1. Moisture Sorption isotherm of sugar palm starch film plasticized with sorbitol (A) and glycerol (B) The data of moisture sorption of sugar palm starch film with glycerol and sorbitol plasticizer were fitted with models from previous studies. Generally, all models describe moisture sorption isotherm of sugar palm starch film plasticized with glycerol and sorbitol well. The model constants from previous studies present in Table 1 and Table 2. TABLE 1. Model constants for sugar palm starch film with glycerol Model constants Glycerol 30% 35% 40% 45% Oswin A 0.236 0.2775 0.3229 0.3855 B 0.3615 0.3494 0.3465 0.3222 R2 0.9976 0.9964 0.9936 0.9941 Smith A 0.086 0.1128 0.1365 0.1872 B 0.2047 0.2266 0.2588 0.2751 R2 0.9805 0.9789 0.9739 0.9797 GAB M0 0.116423 0.137712 0.159887 0.195346 C 978656.7 968661.7 998659.9 943564.8 K 0.884887 0.877535 0.876436 0.858216 R2 0.9859 0.9808 0.9763 0.9737 Peleg K1 0.3715 0.4346 0.4799 0.5378 K2 0.6842 0.7666 0.9006 0.933 n1 0.5756 0.5558 0.4751 0.4117 n2 12.39 13.04 12.49 11.28 R2 0.9998 0.9996 0.9998 0.9995 TABLE 2. Model constants for sugar palm starch film with sorbitol Model constants Sorbitol 35% 40% 45% Oswin A 0.09689 0.0946 0.1015 B 0.6194 0.6633 0.6632 R2 0.9984 0.998 0.9982 Smith A -0.09125 -0.1231 -0.1323 B 0.2449 0.2819 0.3026 R2 0.9345 0.9236 0.9242 GAB M0 0.04948 0.04986 0.05356 C 978656.7 968661.7 998659.9 K 0.969 0.977 0.976 R2 0.999 0.9992 0.9994 Peleg K1 1.001 1.201 1.276 K2 0.2379 0.2483 0.2547 n1 16.45 17.16 16.39 n2 1.058 1.102 1.042 R2 0.9991 0.9988 0.9992 GAB equation shows that the higher the concentration of plasticizer, the amount of water in the monolayer will be even greater. According to Mali [11], this happens because the more content of the plasticizer, the more active sites that bind water. The moisture content on a monolayer of sugar palm starch film plasticized with sorbitol was lower than sugar palm starch film plasticized with glycerol. Sorbitol structural molecule similar to glucose that cause strong interaction between sorbitol and polymer chain, as a result, there is a lower possibility for sorbitol to interact with water [12]. Meanwhile, glycerol could withstand water in their matrix because the hydroxyl group in glycerol had a strong affinity with water [13]. All of the above models can describe the moisture sorption isotherms by the film of sugar palm starch well, but none of them describe the effect of the concentration of plasticizer in moisture sorption isotherms by sugar palm starch film. So we proposed a new model that consider the concentration of plasticizer on moisture sorption of sugar palm starch film plasticized with glycerol and sorbitol. where M is the moisture content (g/g dry solid), a, b, c, d constant and x is plasticizer concentration. TABLE 3. Constants of new model for sugar palm starch film Plasticizer Concentration Model constants R2 a b c d Sorbitol 35% 1.01174 10.77467 0.628699 1.700724 0.9934 40% 1.193598 11.48727 0.601008 1.870756 0.9939 45% 1.279081 11.42559 0.57095 2.002083 0.9948 Glycerol 30 0.760819 7.644822 1.808462 1.724646 0.9908 35% 0.845172 7.780921 1.784906 1.79808 0.9897 40% 0.977611 8.132343 1.755913 1.856643 0.9918 45% 1.024442 7.656481 1.717197 1.9017 0.9931 Table 3. shows the model constants and coefficient of determination that describe the moisture sorption of sugar palm starch film plasticized with sorbitol and glycerol well. The moisture sorption isotherm of sugar palm starch film increase linearly with plasticizer concentration. A new model that consider the plasticizer content show the sorption isotherm sugar palm starch film well. The authors grateful to Indonesian Institute of Sciences for providing financial assistance through Riset Unggulan 2016 during this investigation. We also extent our appreciation to Deputy of Engineering Science, Indonesian Institute of Sciences for his encouragement and support during this work . C. D.Poeloengasih, Y. Pranoto, S. N. Hayati, Hernawan, V.T. Rosyida, D.J. Prasetyo, et al., A physicochemical study of sugar palm (Arenga Pinnata) starch films plasticized by glycerol and sorbitol, AIP Conference Proceedings 1711   (American Institute of Physics, Melville, NY, 2016),   p. 80003. T. H. Jatmiko, C. D Poeloengasih, D. J. Prasetyo, V.T. Rosyida, Effect of plasticizer on moisture sorption isotherm of sugar palm (Arenga Pinnata) starch film, AIP Conference Proceedings 1711, (American Institute of Physics, Melville, NY, 2016), p. 80004. W. Apriyana, C. D. Poeloengasih, Hernawan, S. N. Hayati, Y. Pranoto. Mechanical and microstructural properties of sugar palm (Arenga pinnata Merr.) starch film: Effect of aging. AIP Conference Proceedings 1755. (American Institute of Physics, Melville, NY, 2016), p. 150003. M. L. Sanyang, S. M. Sapuan, M. Jawaid, M.R. Ishak, J. Sahari. Effect of glycerol and sorbitol plasticizers on physical and thermal properties of sugar palm starch based films in Recent Advances in Environment, Ecosystems and Development, Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Environment, Ecosystems and Development (EED 15), edited by Aida Bulucea (WSEAS Press, 2015), p. 157-162. M. Sanyang, S. Sapuan, M. Jawaid , M. Ishak, J. Sahari, Polymers 7(6), 1106-24 (2015) M. R. Ishak, S. M. Sapuan, Z. Leman, M. Z. Rahman, U. M. K. Anwar, J. P. Siregar, Carbohydr Polym. 91(2), 699-710 (2013) H . Al-Muhtaseb, W. McMinn,   M, Magee TR,   Food Bioprod Process 80(2), 118-28. (2002) J.N. Coupland, N. B. Shaw, F. J. Monahan, Dolores ORiordan E, M . OSullivan, J Food Eng. 43(1), 25-30 (2000) Ricardo D. ANDRADE P. Roberto LEMUS M. CEPC, Vitae, Rev La Fac Quà ­mica Farm. 18(3), 325-334 (2011) M Peleg, J Food Process Eng; 16(1):21-37. (1993) S. Mali, M. V. E. Grossmann, M. A. Garcà ­a, M. N. Martino, N. E. Zaritzky, J Food Eng. 75(4), 453-460 (2006) M. Cerqueira, B. W. S. Souza, Teixeira J, A. Vicente, Food Hydrocoll. 27(1), 175-184 (2012) S. Mali , L. S. Sakanaka, F. Yamashita, M. V. E Grossmann, Carbohydr Polym. 60(3), 283-289 (2005)

The Handmaids Tale Essay -- The Handmaids Tale Essays

In Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaids Tale’, we hear a transcribed account of one womans posting ‘Offred’ in the Republic of Gilead. A society based around Biblical philosophies as a way to validate inhumane state practises. In a society of declining birth rates, fertile women are chosen to become Handmaids, walking incubators, whose role in life is to reproduce for barren wives of commanders. Older women, gay men, and barren Handmaids are sent to the colonies to clean toxic waste. Fear is power. Fear is ever-present in Gilead; it is implemented through violence and force. It is through fear that the regime controls the Gileadian society. There is no way Offred, or the other Handmaids can avoid it. The dead bodies hanging on the wall are a relentless reminder of what rebellion and conflict result in. The abuse of power is also present in chapter fifteen after Moira attempts to escape, she is taken to the old science lab and has her feet beaten with steel frayed wires and is then left on her bed, ‘’Moira lay on her bed as an example.’’ (pg. 102 ) She is an example of what rebellion results in. Therefore, creating fear in the other Handmaids to prevent them from rebelling. Handmaids are also branded like cattle, a numerical tattoo on their ankle consisting of an eye and four digits; similar to the tattoos on Nazi prisoners, prevents them from escaping. Offred refers to it as, ‘’ A passport in reverse.’’ (pg. 75 ) this reference implies that there is no escape or leaving her situation, as a passport would allow a person to leave a country. Atwood uses this tattoo to display the society’s exploitation of power, and has been related to that of the cruel regime of Nazi Germany. The Gilead regime uses language, particularly... ...t create a feeling of disorientation towards the reader. Atwood does this to enable us to understand just how disjointed life is in Gilead. Offred continuously involves the reader, she directly addresses us and anticipates our response and even feels she has to justify some of her actions, she is a self-conscious narrator. Atwood is also preparing us for the revelation in the Historical notes that Offred is recounting her story into a tape recorder. The story is open ended; we are not told what exactly happened to Offred, Atwood does this in order to have more of an impact on the reader. Works Cited Margaret Atwood, The Handmaids Tale, (first pub. 1986) Publish by Vintage London 1996. Sandra Langdon, The Handmaids Tale, Letts Explore for A level, (first pub.1998) http://www.novelguide.com/TheHandmaid'sTale/essayquestions.html (accessed 11/10/2014)

Home vs. The Exotic in Shakespeares The Tempest Essays -- Shakespeare

Home vs. The Exotic in Shakespeare's The Tempest Home. Just the word conjures up feelings of familiarity and comfort, a place that is welcoming and memorable. Does home necessarily have to represent a place? Rather, can it encompass a multitude of feelings and objects that represent comfort and ease? The post-colonial novel often strives to strike a balance, whether it be uneven, between what is considered foreign and exotic and that which is homely and familiar. Post-colonial literature frequently is representative of the interplay between characters' experiences in an exotic environment versus those at home. With this interplay between home and the exotic comes a dynamic complexity that explores themes such as fears and desires, freedom, gender roles, and sexuality. With an overarching comparison between home and a foreign environment, the many layers of the meaning of post-coloniality can be filtered out and explored in depth. Shakespeare's play, The Tempest, serves as an excellent example of the interaction between the ideas of home and the exotic. These ideas are not only displayed in setting, but also represented by many of the main characters in the play. The study of this play can be considered a re-interpretation of a canonical text in light of post-colonial themes. The story is one of intrigue that explores the personalities of individual characters and their role in relation to what they consider as home and foreign. The characters that are most important in explaining these ends include Prospero, his daughter Miranda and Prospero's two servants, Ariel and Caliban. Each one has a set of separate experiences on the island that shape their ability to determine what they find comforting and homely and what is exoti... ...sa. This somewhat simple observation has resounding qualities in this post-colonial text as it blurs the defining line between home and the exotic. It can be concluded from these observations that the ideas of homeliness and exoticness are not necessarily balanced in the post-colonial text, but rather blurred so the definitions are defined with each other instead of against each other. Apparent from this play, the post-colonial text ties in the features of home and the exotic while incorporating various post-colonial themes. The Tempest, being considered a canonical text, has undergone re-interpretations in a post-colonial light to display varied themes central to texts written and referring to time periods during and after colonization. Through the character's experiences, the ideas of home and the exotic are exposed, revealing post-colonial meanings and ideas.

The Depths of Fear: Peter Benchley Essay examples -- Authors

The world’s oceans, they cover a great majority of our planet. According to scientists, we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about what’s in the waters of our own planet. Even with advancing science we still don’t know very much about them. So imagine what it was like back around the 1970’s, it was already a time of great fear, and to some extent, paranoia in the United States with the threat of nuclear war and multiple other new threats emerging. Surprisingly, although it was known that there were dangerous things in the sea, nobody seemed to pay that much mind to it. All that changed when a man named Peter Benchley wrote a book called Jaws. This book, the resulting movie, and his literary works to follow opened up a new aspect that no one had ever thought of. It was a new breed of terror that came from the last place anyone ever had expected, the ocean itself. It is because of this book that Peter Benchley really became a household name. Born May 8th, 1940 in New York, NY he was raised in a family of writers. His father Nathaniel Benchley was a known writer of children’s books and his grandfather was a well-known humorist named Robert Benchley. He spent his childhood writing and even got paid in his teens to write during his vacations. He got a very formal writer’s education studying at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and attaining his major in English from Harvard. He wrote a sort of autobiography of himself as his very first published book entitled Time and a Ticket in 1964. Before he even got to the ideas for the books he’s now famous for, he spent time in several other writing positions including some for the Washington Post, Newsweek, and he even served as a speech writer for President Lyndon B. ... ... over the course of his life, Peter Benchley passed away in February 2006, the legacy ending of the man who made generations afraid to get in the water. Works Cited Swann, Christopher. "Peter Benchley: Overview." Contemporary Popular Writers. Ed. Dave Mote. Detroit: St. James Press, 1997. Literature Resource Center. Web. 29 Mar. 2012 The Wilson Quarterly. 30.2 (Spring 2006) p120. Word Count: 155. From Literature Resource Center. "Peter Benchley." (2007): n. page. Web. 4 Apr. 2012. http://www.notablebiographies.com/newsmakers2/2007-A-Co/Benchley-Peter.html Benchley, Peter. The Beast. Random House, 1991. Print. Benchley, Peter. Shark Trouble. Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2003. Print. Benchley, Peter. White Shark. Random House, 1994. Print. "Biography for Peter Benchley." n.pag. Web. 5 Apr 2012. .

Logical and Physical Network Design

Introduction This paper presents a brief overview of what goes into a Service Level Agreement (SLA) contract. It also presents an example of one. Contents This publication contains the following topics: Topic Why Have Service Level Agreements? Contract Areas to Consider Contract Components Example Of A Service Level Agreement Contract See Page 2 3 6 8 -1- Why Have Service Level Agreements? Rationale SLAs are critical towards formalizing expectations around services with end users and customers. Without these, customer expectations will assume that everything will be delivered and available at a 100% level all the time.Very little can be done about poor service when there is no definition what good service is. Objectives should be set that describe items such as response times, availability, turnaround and accuracy. Customers and IT should commit to a mutually acceptable means of verifying compliance with service objectives and agree on actions that must take place when exceptions occ ur. Key Goals Key goals of undertaking formalized service arrangements are as follows: †¢ Allow for IT to understand customer service requirements.†¢ Control customer expectations for levels of service to be delivered. Allow for clear understanding of priorities when handling service problems. -2- Contract Areas to Consider Overview The following section presents a number of key areas to consider when building SLA Contract documents. Level of Formalization Service levels may range from a formalized contract that is signed off by representative customer departments to informal â€Å"known† levels internal to IT functions. IT should be aware which level of formalization is appropriate. Ability to Meet Service Targets IT should ensure that documented levels of service can indeed be met.Targets should allow for a latitude contingency to cover occasional problems or slowdowns to occur without jeopardizing targets. Within ITIL, Availability Management should review planne d targets and provide guidance as to what levels may be appropriate given current IT capabilities. Requirements for new capabilities should be highlighted to management to determine whether to invest in them or not. Control of Customer Expectations Targets should be communicated to customers in terms that make them clearly understood from their perspective. This promotes a good level of understanding and cooperation when service problems do occur.Handling SLA Contract Changes Processes should be in place to handle changes in service requirements. Customers may wish to negotiate better service levels, add new functions that require new levels of service or periodically renew current levels. These should be negotiated through a Service Level Manager and processed via Change Management. Number of SLA Contracts Less is better, more greatly increases management overhead to report and manage. It may be determined to have a single contract for all departments versus multiple service contra cts for different departments.Another structure may be to have a base agreement that covers everyone as a default with a limited set of overriding contracts for unique needs. Continued on next page -3- Contract Areas to Consider, Continued Types of Service Targets to Be Included The types of service targets to be provided should be identified in the service level contract. Examples of types of service targets include items such as: †¢ Response Times †¢ Availability Windows †¢ Equipment Service And Repair Times †¢ Technical Support Response and Level †¢ Report Or Other Media Delivery †¢ Security Access †¢ Data Retention and Backup RequirementsDetermining Customer Services It will be necessary to identify what critical customer workloads are. From this a specific service level can be derived. Workloads can be defined as one or more customer functions that require service from IT. Examples of these might include items such as: †¢ Processing patie nt accounts in a hospital. †¢ Entering orders from customers on a phone. †¢ Accessing E-Mail. †¢ Retrieving and creating memos. Each of the above have an associated level of service that allows that function to be accomplished successfully.This level might include availability of service to that function. (i. ; E-Mail will be available from 8AM to 9PM on weekdays). It might also include a level of response. (i. e; Order Entry transactions on a terminal must provide a response time less than 5 seconds 85% of the time). Most organizations have found it helpful to implement an ITIL Service Catalog to better define what these services are. With this, the SLA contract would only need to reference those service descriptions. The Catalog can also serve to centralize all of these definitions in one place. Multiple Targets For Services It may desired to provide or negotiate multiple service levels for a single customer service.An example of this might be negotiating a lower re sponse time for peak hours of the day and a higher response time at other hours. Another example might be provision of high availability all the time but specific functions or files may be unavailable at certain times of the day. Continued on next page -4- Contract Areas to Consider, Continued Resolution of Service Disputes It may be desired to put a process in place that fairly identifies resolutions to problems or misunderstandings in service expectations. This may be a committee of representative Customer and IT personnel without a direct interest in the problems under discussion.Operational Level Agreements and Underpinning Contracts In an environment where the service to be delivered is provided by multiple departments, organizations or outside vendors, service boundaries must be clearly defined. This identifies where responsibilities lie and what kinds of services have to be delivered by each service delivery entity. An example of this might include a client/server architected application where end user response time service consists of both mainframe processing and server/front-end processing. If these two components are managed by ifferent organizations, then each organization should set up an operational level agreement.As an example of the above, mainframe response time targets will be under 5 seconds 85% of the time, server processing will be under 3 seconds 80% of the time. This would result in the actual service level to the customer of a response time less than 8 seconds 80% of the time. Service Targets Must Be Reportable Any service level that is set must be able to be adequately reported on. It would be useless to establish a service level for which monitoring data cannot be collected.The operational efforts and costs involved with monitoring and reporting on any given service level should be taken into account when that level is set. -5- Contract Components Overview A Service Level Contract is a key component of a formalized service level agre ement process. Key components of this document are described in this section. Contract Dates Starting and ending dates that the contract is to be in force. If ending dates are specified, new service level agreements may have to be created for projects or departments that function beyond the end dates. Contract NumbersThese may be necessary if negotiating multiple contracts. They simply identify specific contracts. Customer Identification Identifying information that describes the group of users who are included within the scope of the contract. Demand Periods It is helpful to identify periods of time in which types of use are likely to make the greatest service demands on processing resources. Some targets may differ depending on demand periods. For example, an E-Mail service may have a lesser target for response time during the start of work when most employees retrieve their messages.There may be a higher target for slower periods later in the day. Project or Departmental Descript ion A brief description of the department or project to be serviced. This may include its main purpose or business function and how processing supports the goals of that entity. Expected Service Requirements A description in clear concise terms of the service level targets to be delivered by IT to support the department(s) or project(s) covered by the service contract. These should be in business terms and from the customer perspective as much as possible. Continued on next page -6-Contract Components, Continued Service Assumptions If needed, this section can be included to describe any service assumptions used to support the service levels being delivered. Examples might include: †¢ A set number of customer users not to be exceeded †¢ Specific IT capacities that might incur additional costs if exceeded †¢ Allowances for special times of the day, week, month or year Target Calculations Methodologies or calculations used to determine service expectations should be docu mented. The purpose is to clearly state how service levels may be calculated, measured and reported on.IT Charging Costs Any assumptions or expected costs of delivering the service should also be documented. Determination of costs is aided by the Capacity Planning and Financial Management processes. In some cases, it may be necessary to include a sample charging bill. Contract Maintenance This section should describe the conditions under which the contract should be changed. It should identify who is responsible for reporting on the quality of service delivered and how service disputes may be resolved. Contract ResponsibilitiesThis section should identify organizations or personnel responsible for support activities related to Contract Maintenance, Service Level Reporting, Service Level Dispute Resolution and Renegotiation of Service Levels. Signature Block This section provides space for Customer and IT sign-off to the terms in the contract. -7- Example Of A Service Level Agreement Contract Introduction The following pages present one example of a comprehensive Service Level Agreement contract. This example is probably much more formalized than necessary but illustrates some of the concepts discussed in this paper. Continued on next page 8- Example Of A Service Level Agreement Contract, Continued SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENTContract Date: Agreement Number: Division: Location: Project: Peak Times: Expiration Date: This document with attachments specifies the agreement between the above named business unit and the Data Processing Center (DPC) for shared computing services. This agreement consists of the following sections: Section I: Section II: Section III: Section IV: Section V: Section VI: Services To Be Provided Expected Service Requirements Service Assumptions Costs Contract Maintenance DPC Responsibilities Section VI: Section VII:Customer Responsibilities Service Change Control Procedure Section VIII: Signatures -9- Continued on next page – 10 – Example Of A Service Level Agreement Contract, Continued SECTION I: SERVICES TO BE PROVIDED Business Unit Description, Business Unit Scope And Desired Services to be provided. May provide references to ITIL Service Catalog here†¦. SECTION II: EXPECTED SERVICE REQUIREMENTS Examples (May list for each service to be provided or reference ITIL Service Catalog): Response Time Requirements: Availability Requirements: Report/Media Delivery Requirements Data Retention and Back-Up Requirements:Technical Support Requirements: Job/Report Turnaround Requirements: Security Requirements: Continued on next page – 11 – Example Of A Service Level Agreement Contract, Continued SECTION III: SERVICE ASSUMPTIONS The services and costs within this agreement are based on the assumptions below. Any assumption found invalid could have an effect on ability to meet service targets and/or costs charged for services. Changes to assumptions will be handled in accordance with the Service Change Control Procedure described in this agreement. The service assumptions included with this agreement are: SECTION IV: COSTSCOST FACTOR RULE AND CHARGES APPLIED ——————————- Anticipated Costs Per Period —————————-Period 1 Period 2 Period 3 Period 4 Continued on next page – 12 – Example Of A Service Level Agreement Contract, Continued SECTION V: CONTRACT MAINTENANCE Terms for Renegotiation Penalties/Rewards Service Level Reporting Responsibilities Service Problem Resolution Responsibilities Continued on next page – 13 – Example Of A Service Level Agreement Contract, Continued SECTION VI: DPC RESPONSIBILITIES DPC will provide IT Service Management to control the services described in this agreement.DPC will appoint a Service Manager who will have responsibility for: Coordinating DPC activities and responsibilities to address any service issues that may arise. Interfacing with the customer Service Contact for service issues and requests for service changes. With the customer Service Contact, administer the Service Change Control Procedure described in this agreement. Delivering service reports to the customer Service Contact. Maintain service communications and reviewing any service improvement actions and progress with the customer Service Contact during execution of this agreement on a regular basis.Continued on next page – 14 – Example Of A Service Level Agreement Contract, Continued SECTION VI: CUSTOMER RESPONSIBILITIES This section identifies the customer responsibilities associated with this agreement. DPC’s performance is predicated upon the responsibilities identified below. Prior to the start of this agreement, customer will designate a person, called the Service Contact to whom all DPC communications will be addressed and who has the authority to act for customer in all aspect s of this agreement.The responsibilities of the Customer Contact include: Serve as the interface between DPC and all customer departments participating included in the scope of this contract. With the DPC Service Manager, administer the Service Change Control Procedure as described in Section VII of this agreement. Attend service status meetings. Obtain and provide information, data, decisions and approvals, within 3 working days of DPC's request unless DPC and the customer agree to an extended response time. Resolve deviations from service assumptions which may be caused by customer.Help resolve service issues and escalate issues within customer’s organization, as necessary. The following responsibilities by appropriate customer personnel involved in this project are as follows: Continued on next page – 15 – Example Of A Service Level Agreement Contract, Continued SECTION VII: SERVICE CHANGE CONTROL PROCEDURE The following provides a detailed process to follow if a change to this agreement is required: A Request For Change (RFC) will be the vehicle for communicating change.The RFC must describe the change, the rationale for the change and the effect the change will have on the services. The designated contact of the requesting party will review the proposed change and determine whether to submit the request to the other party. The receiving contact will review the proposed change and approve it for further investigation or reject it within three (3) working days. The investigation will determine the effect that the implementation of the RFC will have on service targets, service charges and service assumptions related to this agreement.

Invisalign Case Study Essay

Customer: The patient holds the beginning and end of the channel flow in the Invisalign process, looking for a service for malocclusion treatment from their orthodontist. Customers of Invisalign have the edge by having nearly invisible aligners, removable while eating, and hygiene of the aligners while eating and cleaning. Orthodontist: Orthodontists are the main source for the customer whether to suggest invisalign to them or not. If suitable, the orthodontist will go for photographs, X-rays, impressions of dental arches, a wax bite and an Invisalign prescription for the patient. This information is then sent to the next channel member in Santa Clara for processing. 3-D simulations were developed in Pakistan. The orthodontist will make adjustments and corrections to the proposal after getting from Pakistan. A program called â€Å"ClinCheck† is used to view the 3-D simulation, of the proposed treatment plan. Any changes made are sent back to Pakistan for correction. The orthodontist also works with the customer to maximize insurance coverage along with a payment plan to cover the cost of the treatment. Major motive why Invisalign are preferred over traditional braces include reduced labor and chair time, minimal training and potential to increase patient base. Invisalign: The Santa Clara headquarters serves as focal point between all channel members. Once Invisalign receives the patient’s information from the orthodontist, employees analyzes the data and constructs plaster and computer models of the current dentition. After completion, this model is forwarded to Pakistan for further analysis. Santa Clara is also responsible for approving the simulated treatment proposal created in Pakistan along with constructing a series of molds of the patient’s teeth for each of the 2 weeks before sending them to Mexico. Financially, Invisalign is responsible for providing monetary incentives to orthodontists that refer their business. This includes establishing pricing and discounts to provide the  service to the end customer. Software Development (Pakistan): The patient’s treatment plan is designed in Pakistan, which includes simulated tooth movements for each of the two weeks for the entire treatment process. Once approved by Invisalign and the orthodontist, these molds are then sent to the next channel in Mexico for production. Manufacturing (Mexico): Aligners are created from the molds received. They are trimmed, cleaned, polished and inspected before they are shipped directly to the orthodontist, which then forwards to the end customer. Traditional Braces Traditional braces flow channel comprises of: * Customer * Dentist * Orthodontist Customer: Similar to Invisalign, the patient starts and ends the channel flow in the traditional braces process. The patient may either inquire or be referred by their dentist to seek malocclusion treatment. The cost of traditional braces tends to be cheaper than Invisalign. Dentist: The patient visits their general dentist and if malocclusion is diagnosed, a referral is made to an orthodontist. Orthodontist: In the initial visit with the orthodontist, X-rays, photographs and dental moldings are collected from the patient. A treatment plan is created and in the next visit, brackets are cemented to each tooth and linked with an arch wire. The patient returns monthly for retightening and adjustments. At the end of treatment, the brackets are removed and replaced with plastic retainers. Some of the reasons why orthodontists choose traditional braces over Invisalign are credibility, cost and low level of patient compliance. 2. Invisalign Advertising Channel There are different functions performed by advertising channel. There are three different channels used by Invisalign for promotion, these are: 1. The sales force 2. Call centers 3. Media ads These channels are designed to increase the awareness in the customers regarding Invisalign and also to reach the customers through different ways. The target customers are the dentists, orthodontists and patients. These services are the part of marketing strategy of Invisalign to capture more and more customers through direct contact and through referrals. The sales force setup was used to target the orthodontists, who are the key focal point for the patients. Besides introducing Invisalign, sales force also used to train the orthodontists on case selection, pricing and how to use the Invisalign website and ClinCheck software. These types of trainings with orthodontists created a sense of security and care of Invisalign for its customers. Also it would help the orthodontists to get equip with the tools needed to recommend Invisalign to their patients. We can say that Invisalign uses push strategy to generate the sales. The second source was call centers. It is for those customers who are more curious in knowing about the Invisalign, these customers can call at toll free number, 1-800-INVISIBLLE. Customers will get the desired information regarding invisalign by calling this number. The third medium used was media ads. This includes direct mails, journals advertising and trade shows. In these activities customers are convinced to use Invisalign. As dentists are the main source of referrals to orthodontists, these ads also provide awareness to the dentists regarding any new development in invisalign, so that they could recommend it to their customers. We can say that Invisalign uses Pull strategy here to attract customers. Question # 3: Are there any gaps in the channel? Are channel members performing functions that invisalign intends them to do? If not, why not? Demand-Side Gaps: Capturing the Existing Market: The market of potential malocclusion customers is about 200 million individuals. Only 2 million actually elect orthodontic treatment (1 % of potential market); half of those customers (1 million) do not even go for the treatment, this is the first â€Å"gap† in the channel. This is due to the very nature of the product, since the orthodontist treatment requires dentition to be constantly observing the patient and to make corrections in advance. One of the important members of the process is the orthodontists. This member stands between the customer and Invisalign’s product, it is the responsibility of the orthodontist to recommend Invisalign to more and more customers but it found to push the product less enthusiastically than desired by Align. There might be conflict of objective here among the two members. Nominally, 25 percent of the nation’s orthodontists have not been trained on the new system. This detracts from the spatial convenience of the marketing channel. Capturing the potential market: Besides the 1 million qualifying patients in the existing market, the promise of the invisalign product is to expand into the population of non-children that have IV-treatable malocclusion (80 percent of people above the age 15), but do not seek orthodontic treatment. â€Å"Orthodontists (should) be eager to expand their patient base,† said Zia Chishti. Indeed, only a relatively small proportion of this potential population seeks treatment because of the drawbacks associated with conventional treatment, but Align’s process overcomes many of these shortcomings (as described in case study). This gap might be attributed to the orthodontists (described above) and the media advertisement, which is focused on raising awareness, and describes advantages over the conventional method (instead of brand benefits). Supply-Side Gaps: Delivery Incentives: A possible gap in the delivery of the offering may stem from the basic economic incentive for orthodontists. Profit margins were about the same for  both Invisalign and Traditional Braces ($3,600 vs. $3,500 gross, or 88% vs. 66%, respectively). So short of the orthodontists possessing very high brand loyalty or customers specifically requesting the Invisalign treatment, the promotion to customers breaks down here. In addition, the ClinCheck simulation takes 3-4 weeks to complete. This seems like a very long time. Invisalign may find a way to incentivize Pakistan to turn around the simulations faster to cut down on production time. Likewise, incentives for the sales force were designed for the objective of brand awareness (bonuses based on non-sales activities). The company is now looking for boosted sales, so it may its current plan may be affecting sales. Production Process Time: Invisalign has essentially inserted itself right in the middle of the traditional malocclusion treatment process. As, the procedures of invisalign is entirely customized (fitted) to each patient. These two facts combined create a longer supply chain this is why the entire supply chain works slowly as the order and product get routed through the various intermediaries. The Invisalign process includes three centers (Santa Clara, Pakistan and Juarez, Mexico). The entire process took up to six weeks, compared to an immediate treatment with traditional braces. As we know that Customers increasingly prefer faster delivery channels. Question # 4: Are channel power sources affecting Invisalign’s success? If so, how? Answer: yes, the channel power sources do affect the Invisalign’s success. Being the part of product flow and promotion channel, the channel members have the power to affect the Invisalign’s success. Orthodontists: The greatest power source affecting Invisalign’s success is the orthodontist. He stands in-between Align and the patient, and has the power of his expertise. The two customer segments (health conscious and beauty conscious) value their orthodontist’s opinion. Indeed, conversion seems to disappears at the stage were orthodontists are engaged: over 3,500 referrals to orthos every week from IV, but only 100 customers sign up (8,000 calls, 80% referred to ortho, 55 to 65 percent follow up, 3 percent convert to sales).  His expert power validates IV’s treatment to customers even though his impetus may lie in something non-expertise, such as his economic incentive (profit margin) or reception to change. Dentists Invisalign’s â€Å"exclusive† distribution to orthodontists prompted one general-practice dentist to file a legal complaint against Align, alleging anti-trust laws were violated. Aside from this legitimate power, dentists exercise a type of referent power. Since dentists are to refer qualifying customers to orthodontists, their choice could end up helping or hurting conversion rates for IV, depending on the referred orthodontist’s brand loyalty to IV. Invisalign Invisalign’s sales force uses a tiering structure which rewards orthodontists who are very proficient in the Invisalign process. IV commits more resources and potential business (through their call center and website) to these valued doctors. In this way, IV can extend extra benefits for performing in a manner consistent with its own objectives. Patients Patient compliance affects IV’s success because of the high degree of participation required for a success treatment (aligners were removeable at the patients discretion). Some orthodontists did not like being associated with a treatment that could fail from no doing of their own. Therefore, patients show a sort of anti-referent power–doctors did not want to be â€Å"associated† with them. Question # 5: What would you do to complete conversion? Our team proposes the IV offering is closer to the growth stage in the product life cycle than it is to the introduction stage. Marketing channels should change as the product moves along in its cycle. Our umbrella suggestion is to have dentists administer the IV treatment process. Specifics are outlined here. * Intensive distribution. There are 14 times more general dentists than orthodontists. IV should move from selective  distribution to intensive. The increased number of retailers (dentists and orthodontists) makes it easier and more likely for patients to receive treatment (enhance spatial convenience). The increased distribution should drive prices down as retailers compete for customers; dentists may be willing to accept lower margins than the orthodontists. * Better align incentives. â€Å"Being able to stimulate channel members to top performance starts with understanding their needs and wants† (pg 423, marketing textbook). Dentists are incentivized by volume of patients and perform non-specialized tasks that require less treatment, all opposite of the orthodontists. This matches brilliantly with the IV offering. In fact, some of the characteristics seen as unattractive from the orthodontists would be viewed as benefits for dentists. * Heterogeneous customers. The offering can be adjusted to match the needs/wants of the various segments of customers. This idea comes from the readings on CRM programs. Each patient segment (prior use, beauty and health conscious) has different preferences and a varied propensity to buy, as would the retailers (dentists and orthodontists). The other side to this is IV can â€Å"fire† bad orthodontists, which is another way of saying reward/coercive power can be exercised more exactly. * Brand benefits. Because brand awareness is achieved (80 percent), advertisement should shift focus from aesthetic advantages over the traditional system (the a $40 million media campaign) to brand benefits. The existing approach approach targets the existing market. We want to capture some of the potential market–the big table!