Cell Phone Addiction Essay

Wireless communication has emerged as one of the fastest diffusing mediums on the planet, fueling an emergent â€Å"mobile youth culture that speaks as much with thumbs as it does with tongues. At one of our focus groups a teen boy gushed, â€Å"I have unlimited texts . . . which is like the greatest invention of mankind. † His enthusiasm was hardly unique. Cell phone use and, in particular, the rise of texting has become a central part of teens’ lives. They are using their phones to stay in touch with friends and parents. They are using them to share stories and photos. They are using them to entertain themselves when they are bored. They are using them to micro-coordinate their schedules and face-to-face gatherings. And some are using their phones to go online to browse, to participate in social networks, and check their emails. This is the sunny side of the story. Teens are also using mobile phones to cheat on tests and to skirt rules at school and with their parents. Some are using their phones to send sexts, others are sleeping with buzzing phones under their pillows, and some are using their phones to place calls and text while driving. While a small number of children get a cell phone in elementary school, the real tipping point for ownership is in middle school. About six in ten (66%) of all children in our sample had a cell phone before they turned 14. Slightly less than 75% of all high school students had a cell phone. This report particularly highlights the rapid rise of text messaging in recent months. Some 72% of all US teens are now text message users, up from 51% in 2006. Among them, the typical texter sends and receives 50 texts a day, or 1500 per month. By way of comparison a Korean, Danish or a Norwegian teen might send 15 – 20 a day and receives as many. Changes in subscription packages have encouraged widespread texting among US teens and has made them into world class texters. As a result, teens in America have integrated texting into their everyday routines. It is a way to keep in touch with peers even while they are engaged in other social activities. Often this is done discreetly and with little fuss. In other cases, it interrupts in-person encounters or can cause dangerous situations. To understand the role that cell phones play in teens’ lives, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and Michigan’s Department of Communication Studies conducted a survey and focus groups in the latter part of 2009. The phone survey was conducted on landline and cell phones and included 800 youth ages 12-17 and one of their parents. It was administered from June 26-September 24, 2009. The overall survey has a margin of error of 4 percentage points; the portion dealing with teen cell owners involved 625 teens in the sample and has a margin of error of 4 percentage points; the portion dealing with teen texters involved 552 teens in the sample and has a margin of error of 5 percentage points. The idea for cellular telephony originated in the US. The first cellular call and the first call from a hand held cellular device also were placed in the US. The cell phone merges the landline telephony system with wireless communication. The landline telephone was first patented in 1876. Mobile radio systems have been used since the early 1900’s in the form of ship to shore radio, and were installed in some police cars in Detroit starting in 1921. The blending of landline telephone and radio communication came after the Second World War. The first commercially available â€Å"mobile radiophone service† that allowed calls from fixed to mobile telephones was offered in St. Louis in 1946. By 1964 there were 1. 5 million mobile phone users in the US. This was a non-cellular system that made relatively inefficient use of the radio bandwidth. In addition, the telephones were large, energy intensive car-mounted devices. According to communications scholar Thomas Farley, the headlights of a car would noticeably dim when the user was transmitting a call. In the drive to produce a more efficient mobile telephone system, researchers W.  Rae Young and Douglas Ring of Bell Labs developed the idea of cellular telephony, in which geographical areas are divided into a mesh of cells, each with its own cell tower. This allowed a far more efficient use of the radio spectrum and the â€Å"cell† phones needed less power to send and receive a signal. The first installation was in 1969 on the Amtrak Metroliner that traveled between New York City and Washington. Four years later Martin Cooper of Motorola made the first cellular call from a prototype handheld cell phone. After the inauguration of mobile phone service in the US, a regulatory environment that allowed multiple mobile-calling standards stifled mobile communication development and expansion in the US for several years. Indeed, the growth of the GSM standard in Europe and the rise of DoCoMo in Japan meant that the dramatic developments in the cell phone industry were taking place abroad. In the US, small license areas for mobile phone companies meant that users were constantly roaming outside their core area. A user in Denver would have to pay roaming charges if he or she made or received a call in Ft.  Collins, Colorado Springs or Vail. To the degree that texting was available, users could only text to users in their home network. In the late 1980’s industry consolidation eliminated the small local areas and by the turn of the millennium, interoperability between operators became standard, and the cost of calling plans and the price of handsets fell. Rather than being a yuppie accessory, the cell phone became widely-used by everyone from the captains of industry and finance to the people who shined their shoes and walked their dogs. As cell phones have become more available, they are increasingly owned and used by children and teens. Further, as handsets become more loaded with capabilities ranging from video recording and sharing, to music playing and internet access, teens and young adults have an ever-increasing repertoire of use. Indeed, we are moving into an era when mobile devices are not just for talking and texting, but can also access the internet and all it has to offer. This connectivity with others and with content has directed the regulator’s lens onto mobile safety practices. It has also prompted the beginning of a cultural conversation about how to ensure that parents have the tools to regulate their child’s mobile use, should they choose to. Understanding how youth use mobile phones is vital to creating effective policy based on the reality of how the technology is used. It is also important to understand how telecommunications company policies and pricing affect how teens and parents use their phones. This report tries to expand a tradition of cell phone research that extends into the early 1990s, and work on landline telephony as far back as the 1970s. The first studies to examine the social consequences of the mobile phone came in the early 1990s when researchers examined its impact on residential markets. One of the earliest papers on cell phones examined it through the lens of gender; in 1993, Lana Rakow and Vija Navarro wrote about the cell phone and what they called â€Å"remote mothering. † Starting in the mid 1990s in Europe there was the beginning of more extended scholarship on cellular communication, and by 2000 work was being done in the US that evolved from a small number of articles to edited books and eventually to both popular and more scholarly books on mobile communication. Several themes have been central in these analyses. One is the use of cell phones in the â€Å"micro-coordination† of daily interaction. As the name implies, this line of research examines how the cell phone allows for a more nuanced form of coordination. Instead of having to agree on a time and place beforehand, individuals can negotiate the location and the timing of meetings as a situation clarifies itself. Micro-coordination can be used to organize get-togethers and it can be used to sort out the logistics of daily life (e. . sending reminders to one another or exchanging information on the fly). Extending this concept further, the cell phone can be used to coordinate so called â€Å"flash mobs† as well as different kinds of protests. While micro-coordination describes an instrumental type of interaction, another line of research has examined how the cell phone can be used for expressive interaction. Since the device provides us direct access to one another, it allo ws us to maintain ongoing interaction with family and friends. This, in turn provides the basis for the enhancement of social cohesion. In this vein, some researchers have examined how the cell phone affects our sense of safety and security. The cell phone can be used to summon help when accidents have happened and they can be seen as a type of insurance in case something bad occurs. Others have examined how teens, as well as others, see the mobile phone as a form of self-expression. Having a cell phone is a status symbol and having a particularly sought after model can enhance our standing among peers. Finally, focusing directly on teens, there has been considerable research on the role of the cell phone as part of the emancipation process. Up to this point, however, there has been little quantitative analysis of teens in the US on this topic. Indeed this is one of the main questions considered in this report. Before the cell phone, there were often discussions in the home as to whether a teen could have a landline extension in her room. Teens’ push to have their own landline phone underscored their drive to control contact with their peers. The rise of the cell phone has changed the dimensions of this discussion. The cell phone has provided teens with their own communication channel. This access can be used to plan and to organize daily life and it can be used to exchange jokes and endearments. It can also be used to plan mischief of varying caliber, and it can be used to exchange photos that are – literally – the picture of innocence or of depravity.

Psychological Effects of Technology Addiction Essay

Technology is taking over all aspects of life. Education, work and leisure are all becoming increasingly dependent on being able to interact with technology. But what of the academic or career prospects of those who do not want to interact with this technology? Before taking this English 305 class, I tried to avoid computers as much as possible. I didnt have any interest in cyberspace such as chatting, email, and gender swapping. Through this class, I had a chance to contact others through cyberspace. However, I still have a fear of computers. I decided that I want to know more about computers and cyberspace. I will first discuss cyberspace, then I will discuss about technophobia. Its well known that people say and do things in cyberspace that they wouldnt ordinarily say or do in the face-to-face world. The virtual world is quite different from the real world. People cant see a person in cyberspace. People cant see a persons facial expressions and body language. The sensory experience of encountering others in cyberspace-seeing, hearing, and combining seeing and hearing is limited. For the most part, people communicate through typed language. In cyberspace, people will probably never be able to physically interact with each other. There are no handshakes, pats on the back, hugs, or kisses. The limited sensory experiences of cyberspace have some significant disadvantages- as well as some unique advantages – as compared to in-person encounters. Since communicating only with typed text, people have the option of being themselves, expressing only parts of their identity, assuming imaginative identities, or remaining completely anonymous. Anonymity has a disinhibiting effect that cuts two ways. Sometimes people use it to act out some unpleasant need or emotion, often by abusing other people. Anonymity also allows them to be honest and open about some personal issue that they could not discuss in a face-to-face encounter. Sitting quiet and staring at the computer monitor can bring a person to an altered state of consciousness. Some people experience a blending of their mind with that of the other person. Some people experience a state of consciousness that resembles dreams. These altered and dream-like states of consciousness in cyberspace may account for why the Internet is so attractive for some people. It might also help explain some forms of computer and cyberspace addiction. In cyberspace, birds of a feather easily can flock together. Support groups  devoted to helping people with their problems can be a very beneficial feature of cyberspace. For people with antisocial motivations, thats a very negative feature of cyberspace. In most cases, everyone in cyberspace has an equal opportunity to voice his or her opinion. Everyone, regardless of status, wealth, race, gender, etc. starts off on a level playing field. Some people call this the net democracy. Although ones status in the outside world ultimately will have some impact on ones life in cyberspace, there is some truth to this net democracy ideal. Now, I want to write about technophobia, which is a resistance to talking about computers or even thinking about computers. Although technology is taking over all aspects of life, there are up to half of the population is technophobic, possessing negative opinions about, or having anxiety towards, information technology such as personal computers. I found a study the book, Technophobia (Mark J. Brosnan). Thirty-seven per cent of the general public report regularly using a personal computer, a far higher percentage than mobile phones, electronic organizers, pagers, modems, etc. (MORI, 1996). When the factors of anxiety and attitude, or, more specially, of computer anxiety and computer attitude, are combined, the concept of computer phobia indeed begins to emerge. Since I was a technophobic person, I want to know how this psychologically impact peoples life. There was an original assumption that technophobia would be a transitory phenomenon, common amongst older adults who had missed out upon technology in their education. Raubs (1981) early study reported that older people were more anxious than younger people. Other research indicates that the over fifties are less anxious than the under thirties, suggesting that far from reducing anxiety, computer experience can increase anxiety levels (Brosnan pg. 11). However, Anderson (1981), Elder et al. (1987) and Igbaria and Parasuraman (1989) have all found that age has a positive effect upon computer anxiety. As the diffusion of technology throughout many aspects of life has exposed virtually everyone to computerization, the relationship between anxiety, age and experience has become less clear. The only clear relationship between age and computer anxiety would therefore appear to be with respect to ones age when first interacting with a computer. I found a very interesting study, which shows the difference of psychological impact between male and female. Just as technophobia has been reported as affecting more females than males, computer addiction has been   found to be almost exclusively a male phenomenon (Shotton, 1989). Brosnan (1995) identified that in a student population, male students first interaction with computers occurred significantly earlier than female students first interaction with computers. This is significant as Todman and Monaghan (1994) report that early use of computers is associated with more favourable quality of initial experience, which leads to lower anxiety and greater readiness to use computers. A large number of studies found that females report higher levels of computer anxiety than males (it is maybe not true because of my English teacher!). A smaller number of studies report no sex differences in computer anxiety. For example, Anderson (1981) found that males and females did not differ in their levels of anxiety, either before or after a computer literacy course. Temple and Lips (1989) found male students to have taken more computer science course and to be more likely to want to choose it as their major than female students. In conclusion, the findings regarding gender differences in technophobia have not been consistent. Conclusion Whether we refer to the second industrial revolution or the digital revolution there can be little doubt that computer tech nology will play an ever-increasing role within our domestic, leisure and work environments. For the technophobe, this can only mean an increase in the potential sources of anxiety. Through this research, I could find a few things. First, by studying technophobia the full extent of the phenomenon has become apparent. With surveys revealing technophobia in up to 50 per cent of many populations, feelings of computer-related anxiety cannot be dismissed or marginalized. Indeed the sheer numbers of technophobes provide the commercial motivation for continued user-friendliness in hardware and software design. The huge preponderance of technophobia can in itself be empowering, such that an individual does not have to internalize feelings to personal inadequacies. Second, I found that much research has highlighted that feelings are transitory and that sex differences in computer-related attainment can be eradicated when recasting the computer-based task as appropriate for females. The literature on sex differences has been used to emphasize the role of these influences. Technophobia is a legitimate response to technology. Technology is taking over all aspects of life. Education, work and leisure are all becoming increasingly dependent on being able to interact with technology. But what  of the academic or career prospects of those who do not want to interact with this technology? Before taking this English 305 class, I tried to avoid computers as much as possible. I didnt have any interest in cyberspace such as chatting, email, and gender swapping. Through this class, I had a chance to contact others through cyberspace. However, I still have a fear of computers. I decided that I want to know more about computers and cyberspace. I will first discuss cyberspace, then I will discuss about technophobia. Its well known that people say and do things in cyberspace that they wouldnt ordinarily say or do in the face-to-face world. The virtual world is quite different from the real world. People cant see a person in cyberspace. People cant see a persons facial expressions and body language. The sensory experi ence of encountering others in cyberspace-seeing, hearing, and combining seeing and hearing is limited. For the most part, people communicate through typed language. In cyberspace, people will probably never be able to physically interact with each other. There are no handshakes, pats on the back, hugs, or kisses. The limited sensory experiences of cyberspace have some significant disadvantages- as well as some unique advantages – as compared to in-person encounters. Since communicating only with typed text, people have the option of being themselves, expressing only parts of their identity, assuming imaginative identities, or remaining completely anonymous. Anonymity has a disinhibiting effect that cuts two ways. Sometimes people use it to act out some unpleasant need or emotion, often by abusing other people. Anonymity also allows them to be honest and open about some personal issue that they could not discuss in a face-to-face encounter. Sitting quiet and staring at the computer monitor can bring a person to an altered state of consciousness. Some people experience a blending of their mind with that of the other person. Some people experience a state of consciousness that resembles dreams. These altered and dream-like states of consciousness in cyberspace may account for why the Internet is so attractive for some people. It might also help explain some forms of computer and cyberspace addiction. In cyberspace, birds of a feather easily can flock together. Support groups devoted to helping people with their problems can be a very beneficial feature of cyberspace. For people with antisocial motivations, thats a very negative feature of cyberspace. In most cases, everyone in cyberspace has  an equal opportunity to voice his or her opinion. Everyone, regardless of status, wealth, race, gender, etc. starts off on a level playing field. Some people call this the net democracy. Although ones status in the outside world ultimately will have some impact on ones life in cyberspace, there is some truth to this net democracy ideal. Now, I want to write about technophobia, which is a resistance to talking about computers or even thinking about computers. Although technology is taking over all aspects of life, there are up to half of the population is technophobic, possessing negative opinions about, or having anxiety towards, information technology such as personal computers. I found a study the book, Technophobia (Mark J. Brosnan). Thirty-seven per cent of the general public report regularly using a personal computer, a far higher percentage than mobile phones, electronic organizers, pagers, modems, etc. (MORI, 1996). When the factors of anxiety and attitude, or, more specially, of computer anxiety and computer attitude, are combined, the concept of computer phobia indeed begins to emerge. Since I was a technophobic person, I want to know how this psychologically impact peoples life. There was an original assumption that technophobia would be a transitory phenomenon, common amongst older adults who had missed out upon technology in their education. Raubs (1981) early study reported that older people were more anxious than younger people. Other research indicates that the over fifties are less anxious than the under thirties, suggesting that far from reducing anxiety, computer experience can increase anxiety levels (Brosnan pg. 11). However, Anderson (1981), Elder et al. (1987) and Igbaria and Parasuraman (1989) have all found that age has a positive effect upon computer anxiety. As the diffusion of technology throughout many aspects of life has exposed virtually everyone to computerization, the relationship between anxiety, age and experience has become less clear. The only clear relationship between age and computer anxiety would therefore appear to be with respect to ones age when first interacting with a computer. I found a very interesting study, which shows the difference of psychological impact between male and female. Just as technophobia has been reported as affecting more females than males, computer addiction has been found to be almost exclusively a male phenomenon (Shotton, 1989). Brosnan (1995) identified that in a student population, male students first interaction with computers occurred significantly earlier than female  students first interaction with computers. This is significant as Todman and Monaghan (1994) report that early use of computers is associated with more favourable quality of initial experience, which leads to lower anxiety and greater readiness to use computers. A large number of studies found that females report higher levels of computer anxiety than males (it is maybe not true because of my English teacher!). A smaller number of studies report no sex differences in computer anxiety. For example, Anderson (1981) found that males and females did not differ in their levels of anxiety, either before or after a computer literacy course. Temple and Lips (1989) found male students to have taken more computer science course and to be more likely to want to choose it as their major than female students. In conclusion, the findings regarding gender differences in technophobia have not been consistent. Conclusion Whether we refer to the second industrial revolution or the digital revolution there can be little doubt that computer technology will play an ever-increasing role within our domestic, leisure and work environments. For the technophobe, this can only mean an increase in the potential sources of anxiety. Through this research, I could find a few things. First, by studying technophobia the full extent of the phenomenon has become apparent. With surveys revealing technophobia in up to 50 per cent of many populations, feelings of computer-related anxiety cannot be dismissed or marginalized. Indeed the sheer numbers of technophobes provide the commercial motivation for continued user-friendliness in hardware and software design. The huge preponderance of technophobia can in itself be empowering, such that an individual does not have to internalize feelings to personal inadequacies. Second, I found that much research has highlighted that feelings are transitory and that sex differences in computer-related attainment can be eradicated when recasting the computer-based task as appropriate for females. The literature on sex differences has been used to emphasize the role of these influences. Technophobia is a legitimate response to technology.

Project Management Ethical Issues

Melwin Fernandes 200083225 Ethics and Other Management Issues (CIS 485) Duncan Jeffries Project Management Issues What is Project Management? Project management  is the  discipline  of  planning,  organizing, and  managing  resources  to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives. It is often closely related to program management (Wikipedia). A  project  is a temporary endeavour, undertaken to meet particular goals and objectives, having a defined beginning and end, usually to bring about beneficial change or added value.The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast to, which are repetitive, permanent or semi-permanent functional work to produce products or services. In practice, the  management  of these two systems is often found to be quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and the adoption of separate management. The primary challenge of project management is to achieve al l of the project goals  and objectives while honouring the preconceived project constraints. Typical constraints are  scope, time, and  budget.The secondary challenge is to  optimize  the  allocation  and integration of inputs necessary to meet pre-defined objectives. Project Management Approach There are a number of approaches to managing project activities: 1. The Traditional Approach: A traditional phased approach identifies a sequence of steps to be completed. 2. Critical Chain Project Management  (CCPM): It is a method of planning and managing projects that puts more emphasis on the resources (physical and human) needed in order to execute project tasks. . Extreme Programming: It is used in combination with the process modeling  and management principles of  human interaction management. 4. Event chain methodology: It  is another method that complements  critical path method  and  critical chain  project management methodologies. 5. PRINCE2: It   is a structured approach to project management 6. Agile Project Management: It is based on the principles of  human interaction management  are founded on a process view of human collaboration. Project Management Development StageProject development includes a number of elements: five stages and a control system. Regardless of the methodology used, the project development process will have the same major stages. Major stages generally include: ? Initiation ? Planning or development ? Production or execution ? Monitoring and controlling ? Closing The Use and Misuse of Security Technology The misuse of security Technology is one of the main issues in project management. There are a large number of people over the world with very little or no knowledge of security technology which is why certain projects fail.It is a subject which is under discussed but in today's world with relatively low cost, trusted, security technology is readily available and easy to use. It has become a cult ure among people who are not sufficiently educated with the tools of security technology as it is easy to use and has somewhat become a fashionable trend. Some consider technology to be bad for the society. People have to understand that this is only because of its misuse. Technology does not threaten the society, instead it is humans who are the users who use technology to threaten society.So technology itself is not at fault. In the field of information, technology has increased the speed, quantity and communication with co-workers and clients. Advancements in technology have also contributed to work being completed at home which imbalances their work and life. Lost revenue and productivity has become a reason for an increased need and demand for surveillance techniques to monitor employees. Employers have resorted to creating separate computer security departments or divisions to deal with both the internal and external threats.All companies weather large or small have the pressu re to maintain access to critical information in order to run the business and remain competitive. A corporation with hundreds of offices and thousands of employees would have the same pressure of holding critical information as any other small enterprise. A comprehensive data protection solution is going to involve a lot of consideration and contingencies. There are many things can go wrong with your data and you need to be able to respond to them.There are many companies that have opted to purchase solutions from different vendors to fully address these challenges but can be an extremely expensive approach in terms of acquisition, integration and ongoing management costs. There have also been companies who decided the cost is too high and taken their chances, which is an approach that has often resulted in disaster. In the business world today, the loss of important data can cause significant damage and lead to the demise of your business.The same complex and expensive solutions a s the major players in your industry can be cost-prohibitive and unnecessary. Software and People in Project Management The most comprehensive software solution for assessing security of web application, network systems, end point systems and email users is CORE IMPACT Pro. It allows you to take security testing to the next level by safely replicating a broad range of threats to your organization’s sensitive data and critical infrastructure. You gain extensive visibility into the ause, effect and prevention of data breaches, enabling you to drive effective risk mitigation enterprise-wise. Impact enables you to safely assess an organization's security posture against the attack methods that jeopardize data today. Exploitation of network defenses in operating systems and services, client applications that run on desktop systems, attacks on employees, contractors and other end users via social engineering, manipulation of web applications to access backend data via cross-site sc ripting (XSS), SQL injection and remote file inclusion techniques only.It allows you to utilize penetration testing to assess your information security in such an integrated, comprehensive, in-depth andseamless fashion. CORE IMPACT Pro gives confidence in your security infrastructure by enabling you to validate network vulnerability, end-user threat response and web application exposure on a regular basis. You not only identify but also distinguish critical network vulnerabilities from false positives, identify where your organization is at risk from social engineering threats such as spam, validate security exposure in web applications.With all this you can intelligently plan, prioritize and execute policy adjustments, ensuring cost-effective use of security and development resources while improving overall security posture. Next-generation data protection, or NGDP, is a term that describes a large number of disk-based backup and recovery technologies, including disk-to-disk (D2D), virtual tape library (VTL), snapshots, continuous data protection (CDP), remote office backup consolidation (ROBC), bare machine recovery (BMR), disaster recovery (DR), wide area file services (WAFS) and others.The Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack It integrates to provide organizations with a complete data protection, archive, and retention and recovery solution. It also extends disk-based, block-level incremental data capture to a repository in another location, sending changed blocks of data over a WAN or Internet connection. Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack was designed to be bandwidth efficient to help minimize the impact on other applications that rely on WAN and Internet links.It can be set individually for each location to meet specific needs of the business while avoiding unnecessary costs in bandwidth and storage.. The features also include data differencing (sending only the changes from the previous job run), compression, bundling of small files to help reduce TCP/IP overh ead, bandwidth throttling and multi-threading. There have been a wide variety of industries who have taken Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack to improve backup and recovery performance across a diverse set of support tasks. It helps organizations: Reduce server backup times from hours or days to a few minutes. †¢ Reduce server volume restoration times from hours or days to a few minutes. †¢ Increase backup frequencies from once per week to multiple times per day, without disrupting operations. †¢ Enable rapid recovery of granular Exchange objects that are typically too difficult to recover. With next-generation data protection and recovery solution set at mid-market prices, these solutions can help companies reduce operational risk and costs, increase productivity and resiliency, and improve levels of service.It delivers a common foundation for managing both business and technology requirements and is designed to quickly address most pressing service management needs to changing business demands. The Tivoli portfolio is backed by world-class IBM Services, IBM Support and an active ecosystem of IBM Business Partners. Project Management Software It is a key tool in your effort to consistently finish projects on time and within budget. It allows you to do the critical steps Project Managers must do efficiently.There are a number of benefits that Project Management Software can provide such as spotting problems before it’s too late to fix them, optimizing the use of resources so you can finish early, updating the plan each week so you know where you are and updating everyone’s schedule when things change. These are the basic tools that every Project manager should have. Ideally Project Management Software provides managers with time-saving scheduling and analysis tools as well as archive data for use on future projects.Unfortunately Project Management trainings do not include practical skills in using Project Management Software nor the v alue that comes from archiving data on every project. Tasks like scheduling skills to optimize the use of resources to finish as early as possible and project software to identify problems early are best done with Project Management Software which otherwise can waste a considerable amount of time if done manually. With the appropriate Project Management Software, tracking actual performance in terms of hours of work and completion dates builds a database for estimating on the next project.Practically, there are far too many Project Managers who do not have the training or the tools to optimize their schedule or make efficient use of their resources resulting in projects that are guided by guesses. Project Management Software does not make the managers more effective, it just makes them more efficient. Project Management Software does not teach you how to define scope, communicate to the Project sponsor but just lets you accomplish these tasks more efficiently. There are three genera l classes of software available: Statistical Software: To blend in one direction with relational database software such as Oracle or Sybase. †¢ Mathematical Software: MATLAB in the other direction exhibits not only statistical capabilities flowing from code for matrix manipulation, but also optimization and symbolic manipulation useful for statistical purposes. †¢ Visualization Software: Overlaps to some extent with software intended for exploratory data analysis. The user interfaces common range from command line to graphical user interfaces (GUI) to hybrid drag and drop system interfaces.The Statistical Analysis System is available on PC and UNIX based platforms, as well as on mainframe computers. This modern database technique with queries is very easy to use and also accomplished easily. System for Statistical Analysis among the products are for management of large data bases, time series and most classical statistical problems including multivariate analysis, linear m odels (as well as generalized linear models), and clustering; data visualization and plotting.Users with a need to write an applications program using a matrix language, the product SAS/IML provides the ability to program using matrices as objects. SAS is to a large extent an industry standard statistical software package. The demand for students with SAS skills is greater than with skills other than statistical packages. Other statistical of the same general vintage as SAS are MINITAB, BMDP and SPSS. All of these systems began as mainframe systems, but have evolved to smaller scale systems as computing have evolved.MINITAB Inc was formed more than 20 years ago around its flagship product, MINITAB statistical software. MINITAB Statistical Software provides tools to analyze data across a variety of disciplines, and is targeted for users at every level i. e. Scientists, business and industrial users, faculty, and students. It has broadened the scope of its products to include quality control, designed experiments, chemo metrics and an array of general statistics from the original software that helped faculty to teach basic statistics.MINITAB is available on the most widely-used computer platforms, including Windows, DOS, Macintosh, OpenVMS, and UNIX. BMDP features a comprehensive library of over forty statistical routines and has set the standard for high-end statistical analysis software. It has its roots as a bio-medical analysis package from the late 1960’s and each statistical routine has been thoroughly time-tested based on the most advanced algorithms available. Current versions come in several flavors including the BMDP New System Personal Edition.The Professional Edition combines the full suite of BMDP Classic for PCs Release 7 statistics with the powerful data management and front-end data exploration features of the BMDP New System Personal Edition. SPSS Software products run on most models of all major computers and statistical analysis can now be done on the desktop. It is a multinational software company that provides statistical product and service solution for survey research, marketing and sales analysis, quality scientific research, government reporting and education. e SPSS products are a modular system and includes SPSS Professional Statistics, SPSS Advanced Statistics, SPSS Tables, SPSS Trends, SPSS Categories, SPSS CHAID, SPSS LISREL 7, SPSS Developer's Kit, Exact Tests, Teleform, and MapInfo. S-PLUS is a supported extension of the statistical analysis language. It was originally developed at AT;T Bell labs manufactured and supported by the Statistical Sciences Corporation, now a division of Mathsoft. Some of the code has been contributed by prominent individuals from the academic and industrial communities.MATLAB is an interactive computing environment used for scientific and statistical data analysis and visualization. The basic data object in MATLAB is the matrix with functions for basic data analysis and gra phics which are text files that the user can read and adapt for other uses, giving the ability to create their own M-files functions and script files, thus making MATLAB a programming language. The most useful capability is the tool available for visualizing data. It also provides Handle Graphic and there is a considerable amount of contributed MATLAB code available on the internet.The above descriptions of statistical software cover the most well-established commercially available software packages and among them the most extensively used mathematical packages is MATLAB. MINITAB is used in the educational community for introductory courses. BMDP and SPSS find users among communities in which they originated respectively the biomedical and social sciences community. Mainstream applied statisticians tend to use SAS more extensively whereas on the other hand S-plus seems to be a package that is highly regarded among the more research oriented particularly those interested in computati onal statistics.JAVA is a programming language which represents an extension of the World Wide Web capabilities. Basic documents on the web are constructed using HTML, in the sense that once the server delivers the HTML text to the browser, the server has done its job and the static text is interpreted and displayed by the client’s browser. It is a fully distributed, object oriented programming language which allows for creation of a fully interactive web-based system. The data and tools can be sent to the clients’ browser and allows attributes and methods to be linked together.In particular, JAVA allows applets, small applications or subroutines, to be created and transmitted across the web just as static HTML documents are now transmitted. JAVA is intended to be a secure system although security problems do exist with present implementation. However, access to local data is restricted and the JAVA is a secure environment. JAVA has been declared as is related to stati stical data analysis software of the future because it is a practical implementation of a new paradigm in distributed computing.It allows not only the distribution of text and multimedia but also of computing applications and data. It is a response to the enormous popularity of the World Wide Web and under this framework, new statistical, data analytic and other methodologies could be made available and tried out by practitioners in other research fields on their own data and their own computer. Considering the possibility of extending the web in a natural way to acquire data in the same way we acquire human-consumable information, new mechanisms must be sought to provide for the distribution of that data.Best Practices in Project Planning Project managers deal with sponsors who are organizational levels above them and sign their paychecks so Project Managers can’t really argue about the best way to do the project. Having data to quantify the impact of changes and model alter native ways of solving problems gives them much more credibility to give their executives a solid data on which to make their Project decisions rather than having due dates and budgets plucked out of the air.The ethical issue and its consequences, its resolution and its effect on Management In project management, timing is everything. Justifying, Planning, Activating, Controlling and Ending it the right way is the key to a successful Project. It is a disciplined process and a full circle project management that holds every development project together. The project plan, schedule, budget, resources, risk, scope, motivating the players and launching all project activities with communication play a very essential role in project management.It must be constructed in a way that reaches a busy, important audience with the right amount of the right information, a strategic marketing entity in a tight package that must be backed up with well-researched facts and figures that speak directly to the needs, goals, and problem-solving missions of the business. Present them with the business case report and explain it via a well-crafted, well-rehearsed presentation, accompanied by the sponsors. Starting off with a strong solid foundation of research and a creative solution to a business need do the utmost to obtain approval and present justification for the project.Plan Project produces the detailed project plan, project schedule, project organization, and resources. The approved project plan includes understanding the potential risks and the actions that are necessary to manage them. The goal of every project is to drive it to a successful and appropriate conclusion. Controlling a project is imposed not to create a bureaucratic layer, but to ensure that the project proceeds to its planned and scheduled ending. The activity of the project rests with the Project Manager. He controls, monitors, makes decisions ensuring that the project proceeds as planned taking corrective ac tions when necessary.End Project tasks archive the project materials and release the project resources for use on other projects. Conclusion Project management and project planning processes can contribute to an organization's survival and success, while the absence of project management and project planning processes can lead to an organization's demise. This helps in developing the concept for the project, which in turn is used to secure approvals to proceed to the execution phase of a project. Collectively these five steps form the life-cycle phases of project management, and all steps require adequate attention to ensure that a project is adequately managed.Costs, time-frames, quality targets, and other relevant factors are very essential while considering the planning process. Project management ensures that organizations are able to achieve strategic initiatives that extend beyond normal operations through a recognized process, thus aiding organizations in fulfilling strategic objectives such as new product development, process re-engineering, organizational change or financial growth. In conclusion, project management is needed within organizations to support temporary endeavors that create unique products or services.

Chapter #9 Summary: New Directions in Planning Theory Essay

Chapter #9 Summary: New Directions in Planning Theory Susan S. Fainstein Susan S. is professor of urban planning and acting program director in Columbia University. In this article she discusses and critiques contemporary planning theory in terms of its usefulness in addressing what I believe to be its defining question: what is the possibility of consciously achieving widespread improvement in the quality of human life within the context of a global capitalist political economy. She examines the three approaches referred to above under the rubrics of: -(1) the communicative model; sometimes called the collaborative model, emphasizes the planner’s role in mediating among â€Å"stakeholders† within the planning situation -(2) the new urbanism; frequently labeled neo-traditionalism, paints a physical picture of a desirable city to be obtained through planning; -(3) and the just city, which derives from the political economy tradition, while also outcome oriented, is more abstract than the new urbanism, presenting a model of spatial relations based on equity. The Communicative Model The communicative model draws on two philosophical approaches— American pragmatism as developed in the thought of John Dewey and Richard Rorty and the theory of communicative rationality as worked out by Jurgen Habermas.5 The two strands differ somewhat in their methodologies. Neo-pragmatism tends toward empiricism. Theoretical and Practical Deficiencies In its effort to save planning from elitist tendencies, communicative planning theory runs into difficulties. The communicative model should not be faulted for its ideals of openness and diversity. Its vulnerability rather lies in a tendency to substitute moral exhortation for analysis. Although their roots, via Habermas, are in critical theory, once the communicative theorists move away from critique and present a manual for action, their thought loses its edge. THE NEW URBANISM â€Å"The new urbanism† refers to a design-oriented approach to planned urban development. Developed primarily by architects and journalists, it is  perhaps more ideology than theory, and its message is carried not just by academics but by planning practitioners and a popular movement. New urbanists have received considerable attention in the United States and, to a lesser extent, in Great Britain.Their orientation resembles that of the early planning theorists–Ebenezer Howard, Frederic Law Olmsted, Patrick Geddes–in their aim of using spatial relations to create a close-knit social community that allows diverse elements to interact. The new urbanists call for an urban design that includes a variety of building types, mixed uses, intermingling of housing for different income groups, and a strong privileging of the â€Å"public realm† Critique The new urbanism is vulnerable to the accusation that its proponents oversell their product, promoting an unrealistic environmental determinism that has threaded its way throughout the history of physical planning THE JUST CITY In Socialism: Utopian and Scientific Friedrich Engels (1935, p. 54) presents the Marxian critique of utopianism: The final causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men’s brains, not in man’s better insight into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and exchange. . . . For Marx and Engels, social transformation could occur only when the times were ripe, when circumstances enabled the forces for social amelioration to attain their objectives. In their view utopian thinkers like Robert Owen and Fourier could not succeed because they developed a social ideal that did not coincide with a material reality still dominated by capitalist interests. Only smashing the structure of class domination could create the conditions for achieving a just society. CONCLUSION In Her conclusion she defends the continued use of the just city mode and a modified form of the political-economy mode of analysis that underlies it, described below The three types of planning theory described in this essay all embrace a social reformist outlook. They represent a move from the purely critical perspective that characterized much theory in the seventies and eighties to one that once again offers a promise of a better life. Whereas reaction to technocracy and positivism shaped planning theory of that period, more recent planning thought has responded to the challenge of post-modernism.

Argument for Google's position in Author's Guild lawsuit against Essay

Argument for Google's position in Author's Guild lawsuit against Google - Essay Example There are plenty of resources from where different stock quotes can be had, addresses can be found, phone numbers could be tracked, maps could be found out and news headlines can be checked upon. More than anything else, Google offers a Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) platform when the user is away from his computer and this links him easily with the Google services and different domains of which he is very fond of. The best thing about Google is that it is very easy to use and there are no manuals to understand what it is all about. Google’s utility has made it very common amongst teenagers, men and women. The best part about its expanding business is that word of mouth has played a huge role in its success and the advertising is literally negligible when word of mouth is compared with the same. This speaks of the affection and praise that the people, no matter how old they are or where they belong from, have for Google as a company. When it comes to Authors Guild, we find that their opinion is somewhat unsubstantiated and not backed up with the help of supporting facts and evidences. They have tried their hardest to keep Google away from the shores of book scanning and digitizing to millions of readers worldwide. What their point of view does is to present a gloomy picture of the thinking that the Authors Guild have and how they want to earn from each and every opportunity that comes their way. The basic objection to the digitizing and book scanning aspect is that Google makes use of these excerpts on its web pages which are filled with advertisements thus accounting to huge returns on the part of Google in the form of advertising revenues and marketing shares. There seems to be no other way than to adopt the advertising bandwagon since Google is a public domain in the present times more than anything else and any and everybody can copy, view and scan whatsoever he or she wants for their reading pleasure. The s earch engine does its best to make the

Leadership and the future Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Leadership and the future - Assignment Example Grossman is concerned with the quality of medical care in nursing homes and those of elderly residents in their homes (Grossman, 37). Nurses are usually in charge for the delivery of such care in the centers or the patients’ home. Nevertheless, the number of aged patients existing in the nursing homes rose considerably in the 1990s and late 1980s. This has resulted in a rise in the workload of the nurses who are sometimes forced by circumstances to take care of more than one patient. Patients with a disability and high morbidity have also increased pressure on the available human resource, (Wick, 46). I have personally, played a significant role in the development of the nursing field. I came up with the generation of value indicators. This system is used to measure the explicit process criteria. In this strategy, the care given to patients is measured against the explicit quality indicators or standards that result from the care. The indicators are selected on the foundation of their significance to the nursing industry. In addition, information is to de delivered to the registered nurses to support each of the quality indicators. The American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) is the worlds leading training organization for the nurses. This organization validates nurses’ skills, abilities, and knowledge. The ANCC board recognition and certification empowers qualified nurses within their specialized spheres to active contribute to the delivery of quality medical care to patients’. The ANCC is an auxiliary organization to the American Nurses Association (ANA). It provides financial support to organizations and individuals to help them further their skills and competence, (Marx, 87). One is expected to gain the relevant work experience after graduation over the years as he or she sharpens the skills acquired in class. My strategy to improve the quality of nursing health care for the next decade is based upon three basic

World philosophy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

World philosophy - Essay Example My beliefs were supported with my experiences with the cognitive world, and with the aid of a rich imagination, I was able to attach the like elements to those that I do not personally experience. Just as it is with the Indians who believe in the truth that the sun lives in the earth, their culture caters to the idea that all things in the Indian world are connected to each other, in â€Å"profound unity,† may it be inanimate or animate, life is believed to exist in the essence of these things (Momaday, 190). With the sun, the Indians have attached to it a nature that can almost be human by virtue for its behavior in the heavens with which they can somehow relate to. As Momaday writes, â€Å"the sun-watcher among the Rio Grande Pueblos, whose sacred task it is to observe, each day, the very point of the sun’s emergence on the skyline, knows in the depths of his being that the sun is alive and that it is indivisible with the earth, and he refers to the farthest eastern mesa as â€Å"the sun’s house† (190), the sun-watcher courts the sun which is like a maiden being wooed, and the sun being that character is expected to go homeward. They see this oc currence as a fact because the sun undergoes changes just as a person would, and appears to move across the heavens as would a traveler, and these the Indians bear witness. They take into account what they perceive as simply as what their sight would lead them to understand. For what could be more factual than to actually experience first hand through their own senses the mechanism of that was around them. Alongside the Indians’ reverence to a â€Å"living† sun is their different perception of a timeframe. And this diverse concept of time, which is quite departed from our Western Industrialized concept of time, retains an element of preservation of moments. And perhaps this is much better, speaking about respecting