The Balance of Dorian Grays Structure of Personality in...

THE BALANCE OF DORIAN GRAY’S STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY IN OSCAR WILDE’S NOVEL THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY: A STUDY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS Background of the study Human lives with their desire though some of their desire are failed to deliver because of the norms border. As a human, we live in a community and it is impossible to do as we please. Norms play the role as law where it limits our behavior and make the standard law points about what we can do or what we cannot do. This law usually opposes our desire. When we choose to follow our desire rather than the norms, our society will see us as a bad person. It is because they belive that life has to be bordered by norms and people cannot do as they please without considering their social†¦show more content†¦There are unconsciousness, dreams and symbols, the meaning of sexuality, and the meaning of death. In this study, the writers use tenet stucture of personality, especially id, ego, and super ego. According to Sigmund Freuds psychoanalytic theory of personality, personality is divided into three elements. There are known as the id, the ego and the superego which work together to create human behaviors. Id is completely unconscious part of personality that keep our desires, wishes, and fears. Every people have their id at the time they were born. Ego which is a conscious part of the personality processes experiences and operates as a mediator between the id and superego. Ego is built when people are two to three years old. Superego is a part of personality which act as a moral judgments. Usually, people will build their superego at five years old. If one of these aspects is higher than others, it will lead to an unhealthy personality. The key to a healthy personality is a balance between the id, the ego, and the superego. The superego is in direct opposition to the id, the psychological reservoir of our instincts, and our libido, or sexual energy. The id is devoted solely to the gratification of prohibited desires of all kinds—desire for power, for sex, for amusement, for food—without an eye to consequences. In other words, the id consists largely of those desires regulated or forbidden by social convention. Thus, the

Domesticated Animals In The Elizabethan Era - 1395 Words

Ever since humans began to domesticate animals, their lives have altered drastically. Daily life and activities became easier with the use of the trained animals and the relationship between humans and other animals grew into something more than just to beings coexisting with one another. Today, domesticated animals became beloved family members of humans who adopted them and they live peacefully. Some train their pets for sport and entertainment and others just keep their pets for company. In the Elizabethan era, daily life was fairly similar. Animals such as horses and dogs proved to be quite significant in the 16th century. They assisted humans, brought joy to humans’ lives, and became entertainment to the once boring lives of humans†¦show more content†¦In a hunt such as this, their prey was wild boar. The hunters and their dogs would chase the prey to exhaustion and at that point, go in for the kill. This target was rather dangerous, but nonetheless, the sport wa s enjoyed. The other form of hunting, Bow and Stable hunting, was considered less strenuous and both men and women participated in the activity. The main weapons used was a bow and arrow or a spear. Riding on horseback, the huntsmen and huntswomen accompanied by several dogs, would drive their prey into and enclosed area. Then, the hunters killed the prey in close range. The dogs and horses participating in these activities prove to be very critical in the procedure of chasing, capturing, and killing the prey. They are even acknowledged by the people of this time for their vigorous work. To show their appreciation, the dogs are rewarded with a few chunks of meat. In each hunt, there are a variety of different dog breeds that are used in the hunt. Before the hunt is planned, a huntsman and his lymer, go out in the morning to search for tracks of the prey or fewments (droppings), to predict where the prey may be scavenging and living. Common breeds of lymers include Bloodhounds and St Hubert’s. Other types of dogs used are sight hounds or otherwise known as gazehounds. As the name suggest, these dogs are prized and adored for their acute vision and immense speed. Breeds such as Greyhounds andShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Shylock : The Vulture1063 Words   |  5 PagesShylock was certainly dehumanized and diminished. The adjectives that other characters use to refer about him creates the setting for his trial. For example, Gratiano addresses Shylock as an animal, he says, O, be thou damned, inexecrable dog (4.1.130). During the Elizabethan time, before dogs were mostly domesticated, they would eat carrion and excrement. This is clearly a d erogatory term where Gratiano is trying to hurt Shylock and hopes he dies. Calling someone a dog is technically insinuating thatRead MoreThe Taming Of The Shrew By William Shakespeare1382 Words   |  6 Pagesoppress women, but the underlying prejudice of a patriarchal society. Though the play is introduced depicting a strong-willed, bold female character, this is ultimately undermined by the finale, in which Kate seemingly submits to the role of the domesticated wife, â€Å"Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,† in doing so, going against the values she had previously held. Petruchio reforms Kate, in doing so supposedly destroying her spirit. The notion of ‘taming’ her is revealed to be that Kate must

Role of Women in the American Revolution Free Essays

Role of Women in the American Revolution The role of women played in any given war is quite often severely underestimated. This sentiment especially goes for the American Revolutionary War, where women actually played an absolutely essential role in our victory against the British. Not only where there different types of women who had helped, but there were many different ways each of them helped–particularly as nurses to help save lives and tend to injured soldiers. We will write a custom essay sample on Role of Women in the American Revolution or any similar topic only for you Order Now Without women helping in the war, we would have most certainly lost (National History Education Clearinghouse). One way that women helped out in the war was that they went directly to the source–by dressing up as men and going to fight in the front lines, women (e. g. Deborah Samson) were able to help America emerge victorious (â€Å"People of the Revolution†). Some women fought in a more subtle manner, by keeping house back home and tending to their husband’s businesses while they were at war (Zitek). They boycotted British products by participating in the Homespun Movement, where they wove their own clothing rather than wearing British-imported dresses, which served as a major act of bold defiance. Other women even acted as spies (e. g. Lydia Darragh in 1777, who eavesdropped on quartered British soldiers and relayed their plans of attack to the American patriots) during the war, helping the patriots win. (â€Å"www. revolutionary-war. net†). Different types of women also participated in the Revolutionary War. Patriotic women boycotted against British products, helped care for their husband’s property on the home front, and had even spied on British soldiers (â€Å"www. revolutionary-war. net†). However, loyalist women also played a role in counteracting these efforts. Loyalists as well as patriots acted as spies (e. g. Ann Bates, Miss Jenny) and in general posed as an obstacle for the patriotic women (Buesche). As for Native-Americans, Native-American women supported the British, as they knew that a patriotic win would result in further westward expansion and further destruction of their homes. African-American women were pushed into the workforce as blacks in general were recognized as a powerful labor-intensive force (Zitek). In addition to all the roles patriotic women played in helping America emerge victorious, one of the biggest methods was nursing. Battle nurses were organized into army ranks, the highest rank having been ‘matron’. Their necessity was so that the ratio for wounded soldiers to nurses was 10:1. Even George Washington himself had found female nurses indispensable–he demanded they be present to help nurse soldiers back to health on and off the battlefield (National History Education Clearinghouse). Overall, women were an integral and vital part of the Revolutionary War. While few fought on the front lines, others helped in more subtle ways that showed rebellion and helped edge the USA towards long-awaited victory. Men thought women were incapable of understanding the intricacies of war and were proven incorrect time and time again. Whether through spying, healing, or fighting, without women, Britain most certainly would’ve overpowered America in the Revolutionary War. Citations Buesche, John. â€Å"Spy in a Petticoat. † Teaching History. National History Organization Clearinghouse, n. d. Web. 24 May 2012. Buesche) National History Education Clearinghouse, Browse tech for teachers. N. p. , n. d. Web. 24 May 2012. . (National History Education Clearinghouse) People of the revolution, P.. â€Å"Voices of the American Revolution. † Deborah Sampson. N. p. , n. d. Web. 24 May 2012. . (â€Å"People of the Revolution†) â€Å"Revolutionary War Spies. † www. revolutionary-war. net. Rose Creek Village, 2010. Web. 24 May 2012. . (â€Å"www. revolutionary-war. net†) Zitek, C.. â€Å"Women in the American Revolution. † . N. p. , n. d. Web. 24 May 2012. . (Zitek) How to cite Role of Women in the American Revolution, Papers

Essential Skills for Software Architects

Question: Discuss about the Essential Skills for Software Architects. Answer: Introduction Innovation can be defined as the improving of a product or a service to make it more valuable to a consumer.Innovation also occurs when we break down components and find better ways of testing or using them differently so as to come up with something new or better (Degraff, 2014). There are four types if innovation. Product innovation is when an organization comes up with a new product or service or enhances the already existing ones. Product innovation assists a company to get a competitive advantage due to differentiation (Voehl, 2015). It is a necessity for companies to keep innovating. Consumer behavior keeps changing rapidly, and companies must keep up with coming up with new solutions for products or improvement of existing ones so as to drive growth (Cuellar, 2015). Process Innovation is the process by which an organization adds value to its supply processes hence improving its effectiveness and efficiency. This leads to lower costs within the company (Voehl, 2015).The company can introduce a new sequence to its production line that speeds it up by a huge percentage thereby saving time and money. It requires a longer planning period and high support as it is quite risky. It can create value to both internal and external customers as the company will highly gain from the quality of the product and also levels of service (Rouse, 2015). Technological Innovation is the adoption of new technology into an organization. It also identifies new trends that are aligned with a businesss goals and also takes a look at where the organizations technology and industry are heading. A company should get time to survey new technologies and also trends. Successful companies enable employees to have innovation-time so as to research on any new areas (Hendricksen, 2014). Service Innovation occurs in different ways and through different inputs like training of staff, marketing, knowledge and research, and development. They are hard to protect and can be imitated quite easily. Theres a great need for talent in service innovation hence the company must invest heavily in its human resources. It can also be achieved by improving service delivery, locating businesses strategically or innovations on how to handle the sales area (Morrar, 2014). Process Innovation-Six Sigma The process innovations are Lean Manufacturing, Kaizen, and Six Sigma. Six-Sigma is how organizations focus on improving a business process statistically. It focuses on qualitative measures to measure qualitative markers in a process to improve business functions. The company first defines a process that has faults, and this is decided by analyzing the company goals or requirements. The company then measures how the process is currently performing by looking at inputs and benchmarking performance. The next step is isolating each of the inputs and doing tests to determine the root of the problem. The system performance is then improved, and controls are added to the processes so that they do not become ineffective again (Pedersen, 2014).Toyota is a very successful implementer of the Six Sigma methods. This has enabled it to be the worlds top three companies due to its lean manufacturing implementation, which has been replicated worldwide (Sixsigma 2015). There are two main methodologies within Six-Sigma. The first is DMAIC, which is used to improve the already existing business processes. These letters stand for Defining the problem and project goals, Measuring aspects of the already existing process, analyzing data so as to find root causes of defects, improving the process and controlling how to do the project in future. Another method is DMADV, which is used to create new processes or new products and services. These letters stand for Defining goals for the project, Measuring process components and capabilities of the product, Analyzing data and development of designs to choose the best, designing and testing the process and verification of the design through piloting and simulating before handing over to a client (Sixsigma 2015). Six Sigma also contains management tools.The first tool is Five Whys which questions the root causes of an issue. The company should look at the final problem and then ask themselves why it occurred. This process was first implemented at Toyota. Another management tool is CTQ tree,' which is critical to quality tree diagram. It breaks down what composes a process to come up with a final product that will satisfy customers. The final management tool is root cause analysis. Here, the business attempts to identify a root cause and correct it to the core. All these tools have a purpose of streamlining business processes to come up with the best products and services with the least defects. The fact that many companies around the world have adopted it means it is a huge success (Sixsigma 2015). Milestones for Six-Sigma Innovation The six-sigma concept has achieved many milestones since its invention. There is a concept known as DFSS, which is design for six sigma. This is a method used to design a new product or to re-design an already existing product so that it can meet customer requirements and also meet the expected six-sigma quality level. DFSS is about getting everything right initially instead of later improvements. Another milestone has been DFLSS which is Design for Lean Six Sigma. In this concept, lean is added to the whole process. This aims at combining tools and techniques and minimizing processes (Sixsigma 2015). There is also six-sigma certification that has been adopted by many organizations. A belt signifies the experience that someone has in six-sigma. A black belt has skills and knowledge related to DMAIC, the leadership of teams and implementation of lean methods. They are able to lead any team in executing six-sigma. A green belt expert does not have any experience in statistical tools, but he is trained on DMAIC methodology. A yellow belt has expertise in the general lean six sigma tools and concepts. They can act as the project team leaders. Champions are top managers who work with black belts to make sure that any barriers to the project success are removed. A white belt has awareness training and knows basic improvement of processes (Sixsigma 2015). Effect of Six Sigma process on organizations Organizations that make Six sigma innovation their key focus position themselves to be outstanding and profitable. Six Sigma has led to the success of many organizations. Organizations that adopt Six Sigma have benefited from creativity. An example of such a company is the Kimberely-Clark Corporation. The company had subjected its staff to long shifts which led to the increase in the rate of absenteeism by 10%.The company outsourced its logistics to Unipart, and this enabled the company to spend more on staff development and engagement, resulting in improved efficiency (ManufucturingGlobal,2014). Organizations that focus on Six Sigma also benefit from Leadership. Such companies are leaders in process innovations, and other companies follow and try to piggyback on their achievement. An example is Intel, which is the worlds largest computer chip maker. The company now introduces new chips into its factory within 10 days as compared to 14 weeks previously (ManufucturingGlobal,2014). Organizations that focus on six-sigma process innovation are advantaged as they have experience. This ability to constantly repeat a process sets them a distance apart from other companies. John Deere is an example of such a company. They were the worlds largest manufacturer of agricultural machinery, and they adopted lean manufacturing which totally transformed their engineering mindset. Organizations that focus on Six-Sigma Methods do not need to over-advertise as their names are already known brands in the industry and customers wait for them to launch new products continually. An example is cosmetics company LOreal (FC, 2015). It was established in 1909 and currently has over 30 brands and has grown worldwide. The company manages to stay at the top of its game by ensuring there are active researches and continuous process development. The company also implemented Six Sigma through their ISIS project (Loreal, 2015). Future Developments in Six-Sigma Innovation As companies continue to use six sigma to evolve, so do the processes that will be involved. In the future, it seems that most companies will focus more on Key Performance Indicators (KPI) which is a six sigma component. This is a type of measurement for how a department is performing. Some of the Key performance Indicators that a company can use for process innovation is looking at the percentage of product that has defects. The higher the number of defects, the more the company will have to look at its processes (Jackson, 2015). 3D Printing is a technical development that will have a major impact on the future of six sigma. The technology will ultimately change the whole face of manufacturing. Complex objects will be created within a short period of time without the aid of manpower (Sixsigma 2016). Another future development in six-sigma is the internet of things (IOT). This is a technology that allows electronic devices to be connected together and they can communicate without human intervention. This will be very useful in manufacturing processes as once there is a defect the machines will communicate with each other and send a notification hence reduced downtimes, less waste and improved quality (Robinson,2015). Conclusion Innovation is key for any organization that wants to remain relevant in its respective industry. Companies must, therefore, invest heavily in research and development to continually improve processes. The Six sigma approach has ensured the success of many companies around the world and more organizations are taking it up. References Cuellar, J.2015. What Are the Advantages of Risks of Product Innovation-And how Can Digital Innovation Consultant Help? https://blog.innocellence.com/2015/11/19/what-are-the-advantages-and-risks-of-product-innovation-and-how-can-a-digital-innovation-consultant-help/. Viewed 2 April 2017. Degraff,J.2014. What is Innovation? https://www.inc.com/jeff-degraff/what-is-innovation.html. Viewed 2 April 2017. FC,2015.The Worlds Most Innovative Companies-IKEA.https://www.fastcompany.com/company/ikea. Viewed 2 April 2017. FC,2015.The Worlds Most Innovative Companies-LOREALhttps://www.fastcompany.com/company/loreal Viewed 2 April 2017. https://manufacturing.gppcpa.com/enewsletters/article/reasons_why_your_factory_should_adopt_lean_manufacturing_practices/. Viewed 2 April 2017. Jackson,T.2015. 18 Key Performance Indicator Examples Designed for Managers. https://www.clearpointstrategy.com/18-key-performance-indicators/ Viewed 2 April 2017. Loreal,2015.Our Innovation Model. https://www.loreal.com/research-and-innovation/our-innovation-model Viewed 2 April 2017. Lewis,J.2015.Advantages of Innovation Companies.https://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-innovation-companies-30771.html. Viewed 2 April 2017. ManufucturingGlobal,2014. Top 10 Lean-Manufacturing Companies.https://www.manufacturingglobal.com/top10/38/Top-10:-Lean-manufacturing-companies-in-the-world Viewed 4 April 2017 Morrar, R. 2014. Innovation in Services: A Literature Review. Technology Innovation Management Review, 4(4): 6-14. https://timreview.ca/article/780. Viewed 2 April 2017. Mulligan,T.2014.Ideas for Cost-Reduction in Manufacturing. https://smallbusiness.chron.com/ideas-costreduction-manufacturing-59401.html. Viewed 2 April 2017. PA N.d. Manufacturing Process Innovation.https://www.paconsulting.com/services/technology-innovation/manufacturing-process-innovation/. Viewed 2 April 2017. Pedersen,MC.2014.Six-Sigma.What Is It? https://www.pmi.co.uk/about-six-sigma/. Viewed 2 April 2017. Rice, J.2014. How Many Supply Chain Innovations Are Truly Revolutionary? https://www.supplychain247.com/article/how_many_supply_chain_innovations_are_truly_revolutionary. Viewed 2 April 2017 Rouse,M.2015.Process Innovation. https://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/process-innovation. Viewed 2 April 2017. Six sigma,2015.The Future of The Six Sigma Method. https://www.sixsigmaonline.org/six-sigma-training-certification-information/ .Viewed 4 April 2017. Voehl,F.2015. The Four Types of Innovation. https://www.strategyassociates.cc/the-four-types-of-innovation/. Viewed 2 April 2017. Walters,A.2015.Reasons Why Your Factory Should Adopt Lean Manufacturing Practices. Indiana, Addison-Wesley Professional.

TRADE Benchmarking Model

Acronym vs. Initialism

Acronym vs. Initialism Acronym vs. Initialism Acronym vs. Initialism By Maeve Maddox Every so often I’m taken to task for referring to an unpronounceable string of letters as an acronym instead of an initialism. I’m sure there must be contexts in which the distinction is important, but I’ve never felt the need to distinguish between acronyms and initialisms in writing for a general audience. For one thing, the word initialism in its modern sense is even newer than the word acronym. There is no entry for initialism in either of my pre-digital dictionaries: Websters New Collegiate Dictionary (1960). The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (1971). The presumably more up-to-date Word spell checker puts a red line under the word initialism as I type this article. Note: The word initialism illustrated by OED citations dated 1899 and 1928 was not being used in the modern sense of initials used to identify an entity like the FBI. It refers to the once-popular practice of signing a published work with initials in order to conceal the identity of the author. Most readers probably know that an acronym is an invented word made up of the initial letters or syllables of other words, like NASA or NATO. Fewer probably know that an initialism is a type of acronym that cannot be pronounced as a word, but must be read letter-by-letter, like FBI or UCLA. German had the word Akronym as early as 1921, meaning â€Å"a new word made up of initials.† Americans adopted the word with the English spelling acronym in the 1940s. These dated citations from the OED show that from 1940 to the 21st century, what some speakers now prefer to call initialisms have been called acronyms since the word was adopted into English: 1947 The acronym DDTtrips pleasantly on the tongue and is already a household byword. 1975 The puns on the acronym, ‘CIA’, were spawned by recent disclosures about the intelligence agency. 1985 Called by the acronym SCSD (Schools Construction System Development). 2008 The acronym TSS- Tout Sauf Sarkozy (‘Anything But Sarkozy’). If it is important to you to distinguish between acronyms (NATO, NASA) and initialisms (FBI, TGIF) then by all means, do so. But if you are speaking to or writing for a general audience, it’s not an error to generalize all words and labels created from initials or parts of words under the broad term acronym. Related post: Initialisms and Acronyms Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:7 Types of Narrative Conflict26 Feel-Good WordsHow Do You Determine Whether to Use Who or Whom?

S4 W8 Second WA Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

S4 W8 Second WA - Assignment Example They do not believe on aiding people solely but they also seek ways to empower and educate people to become self-sufficient. They work on two approaches which they believe will help the developing world. 1- Jeffery Sachs established the foundation of The Millennium Village model. The basic aim behind the establishment of such village is to being improvement and empowerment in the community (Sachs, 2005). This improvement revolves around crop production, education, creating health awareness, better infrastructure and many more. 2- They are committed to facilitate people on the concept of microcredit introduced by Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh (Yunus, 2003). Through this concept, AVPA lends small loans to skilled women in village. This approach helps them to become successful entrepreneurs and improve their living standards. APVA is different from other NGOs because they are committed to improve the living standards of the people in African villages. They do not believe on aiding the people but they also believe on making the most through their skills. Their microcredit program has helped them to attain their goals in alleviating poverty, hunger, improved healthcare facilities, and education and in other spheres of

Gender, Crime and Criminal Justice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Gender, Crime and Criminal Justice - Essay Example However this is not necessary, as research shows certain cases where women are convicted to such acts just in order to gain internal satisfaction, which indicates psychological disorders. Prostitution, which is considered to be a common societal dilemma today, was not, always, a criminal offence in England. In eighteenth century; the prostitution offences were specifically soliciting, living off immoral earnings, and running 'houses of ill fame', but these were enforced selectively. Manifestly neither the proprietors, nor the women who catered for gentlemen in these establishments, were perceived as members of a criminal class or professional criminals; and at this end the profits were handsome. The less salubrious 'houses of ill fame' were more vulnerable, though even in some of the poorest districts the police did not interfere with them. (Chesney, 1970) Women could be violent. Some beat, or otherwise ill-treated, servants and apprentices; on occasions such violence went too far and landed them in court. (Crime and Punishment in Eighteenth-Century England, 1989) Women fought each other; less commonly they fought with men and, like Jane Smith, a few fought with the police. Like their men folk Irish women had a particular reputation in this respect. (The Unwritten Law: Criminal Justice in Victorian Kent, 1991) Today a chivalry perspective holds the view that male officers are reluctant to arrest females, thus reducing the number of female offenders counted. Also it is observed that most women offenders are never caught because of the types of crimes they commit. (Otto, 1950) Finally, some observers claim 'paternalism' toward female offenders in the juvenile and criminal justice systems that effectively operates as a filtering-out mechanism. Official accounts, which are largely based upon arrest and court data, are the basis for the compilation of most crime and delinquency statistics. Court data introduce the potential problems of diversion, paternalism, or chivalry, which may distort the number of female offenders. The number of female arrests presents the 'danger of using the terms arrest and crimes committed interchangeably, and arrest statistics may not be the most reliable source of data for determining actual crime rates.' (Rita James Simon, 1975, p. 36) Three different aspects can examine the dilemma of female crime; first, all the specific offenses which are historically associated with female offenders. (Carol Smart, 1976, p. 6-8). The second area of focus includes those offenses for which women and girls are more frequently arrested as indicated in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reports (1978). Third, a number of offenses that are generally considered unusual from female characteristics. Violent Crimes Most crimes of violence by females take place in the family setting where the victims are usually the

A comparative analysis between Franklins Caf and Caffe Nero Assignment

A comparative analysis between Franklins Caf and Caffe Nero - Assignment Example The analysis is done mainly with respect to the two important topics relevant in the organizations. The topics discussed are done mainly on the basis of the case study that helps to answer question like which one of the two organizations would one prefer to be a customer and an employee. This essay paper not only states which organization one would want to be an employee and a customer, but also states the reasons behind the decision one makes. In order to make a decision it is very important to study the topics relevant to the organizations like the organizational communication, cultures prevalent, power and control, design and structure, politics and resistance, conflict etc. The topics here are discussed according to the various organizational and management theories. Organization analysis and behavior is a very important topic of study in the context of management. Organizational analysis is a process which is used to study the performance and the efficiency of an organization by studying the systems and the functionality that is existent in the organization. Organizational analysis leads to the understanding of the organizational behavior which involves the study of the organizational design and culture that is prevalent in the organization. ... The cafe has a very strong employee base and has around 3000 employees in the firm. The main intention and philosophy behind the establishment of the cafe is to provide a cozy and warm atmosphere towards its customers. The firm considers its linchpin of the brand as its coffee and also states that its highly committed employees are another great strength. One of the main reasons behind the committed employees is that they make the best choice of employees from world over. Similarly, the management of the Caffe takes an interest in the recreational activities of their employees. The Caffe is conscious about the health of its customers and provides the nutritional chart which allows the customer to weight the coffee options available to them. The cafe is also environment conscious which is understood through its efforts to recycle wastes in the cafe. Franklin’s Cafe: Franklin’s Cafe was started in 2006 by Fiona and Henry Owen as a small coffee shop but very soon it was se gregated into two business groups with one on the Franklin street and the other on the College street. Fiona and Henry along with the management and leadership skills of their son Ed initiated new, less expensive steps to manage both the cafes. At the present, they serve not only the customers with coffee but under the Franklin brand they also sell to their customers tasty foods like Ciabattas, salt beef, soups, cakes, ice creams etc. Their main tagline is the food, which have the authentic Franklin taste and are affordable by most of the customers. Another main strength of the Franklin’ brand is that they provide both drinks as well as snacks under the single name of Franklin. There are separate staffs, who take care about the food that needs to be supplied and in

Amazons Strategic Positioning

Amazons Strategic Positioning Executive Summary This report reviews Amazons strategic positioning in the E-commerce segment in the recent period and how it (the company) has been able to maintain competitive advantage by constantly evolving itself in the dynamic market. It also reflects how Amazon can continue to grow in constant endeavour to achieve its mission and vision of being earths most customer centric company (Analysis of this statement would help the board understand how Amazon measures up and h they as a board see the progress of the company. The recent financial crisis has weakened the retail sector but Amazon has succeeded in maintaining growth in its 3rd quarter of 2009. The result of the financial analysis indicates that Amazon is in a good financial position, though these strong figures are partly based on the good credit terms obtained from Amazons suppliers (so a risk? How great etc). We further suggest strategies for the short, medium and long term which focuses on consolidating operations, market research analysis (for what?) and foray (drive/push/entre/test) into the emerging markets to evolve as global leader in its niche business area respectively (explain more [emailprotected] niche). The report concludes by exploring Amazons future plans in terms of products, markets and strategy. Directors Reports Finance Amazon has recorded total revenue of $15billion in first three quarters of 2009, which is 20% higher than total revenue during the same period in 2008. In 2009 (why, with consumer demand down has the company opened up new markets, taken market share from competitors, increased its penetration of the existing markets etc?, the gross profit has increased from 22.6% in 2008 to 23.7%. Our increased sales and operational efficiency have helped us to maintain the profit margin (so savings of sale or margin contribution?) although there is an increase in operational costs (margins then were higher, diluted by increased operating costs.? Our operating margin has been stable at 4.4% over the past years showing a consistency in operations. (So the increased sales did not lead to improved operating income?) Based on our previous years performance and experience, we project total revenue of $8.5billion in the last quarter of 2009. This will lead to total revenue of $23.5 billion for 2009, which will be an increase of 22.6% from year 2008. The steady increase in yearly revenue primarily reflects our market competitiveness. Our projection in the increase of sales by 22.6% in 2009 is based on the global economic slowdown and changes in customer purchasing preferences. Meanwhile, the basis of our estimate for the current quarter is based on our previous trend wherein sales increased during the Christmas season and low price offering. Based on our previous sales records, our last quarter sales were 35% to 37% of total revenue. The inventory turnover has improved (explain 11.5 from 13 is a decrease?) by 12% in trailing twelve months of September 2009 to 11.5 from 13.0 in 2006 and 2007. The asset turnover has increased slightly in trailing twelve months of September 2009 to 2.79 from 2.31 and 2.29 in 2008 and 2007. This reflects our improved efficiency in inventory and asset management. Our current ratio and acid test ratio have improved marginally to 1.40 and 1.05 from 1.30 and 1.00 respectively in 2008.These ratios augment confidence of our investors and suppliers on us in this global credit crunch where cash or liquidity is considered vital for continuing operation. We have been able to lower our debts through regular repayments. As at 30th September 2009, our debt to equity ratio is 0.03. This is a considerable improvement from debt to equity ratio of 0.18 and 1.09 in 2008 and 2007 respectively. Our account payable days were 62 and 57 for 2008 and 2007 respectively. Our account receivables day of 17 days is low because quick settlement of customer payments made through credit/debit cards. Our principal source of fund is generated from operations and cash/cash equivalent received from customers, suppliers and sellers. The cash/cash equivalent and marketable securities were $3.7billion and $3.1billion in 2008 and 2007. In terms of market performance, our share price drop to $43.20 in October 2009 and subsequently went up steadily to $134.03 as at 25th November 2009. The share value has increased by more than $90 after the announcement of our 3rd quarter results. The appreciation of share prices reflects share holders trust on Amazon, and it will further help us in Zappos.com acquisition. Sales and Marketing Sales Amazons sales are generated from media, electronics, other general merchandise and non-retail activities such as other seller sites, co-branded credit card agreements and miscellaneous marketing and promotional activities. Marketing We direct customers to our websites through a number of targeted online marketing channels such as our Associates program, sponsored search, portal advertising, e-mail campaigns and other initiatives. The marketing expenses are largely variable based on growth and changes in ex. rates. Our marketing expenses increased from $344 million to $482million in 2007 and 2008 respectively due to increased spending in variable online marketing channels, such as our Associates program and sponsored search programs. By September 2009, we had incurred $406million on marketing, a 30% increase from $313million in September 2008. (Is the 40% year of year run rate slowing?) The recent launch of Amazon Mobile Payment in October 2009 has increased the choices of mode of payment for the customers and it will be the stepping stone for the company to enter markets where mobile penetration is high but banking infrastructure is developing. (How reliable is the method?) In order to boost sales, the company strategy needs to be aligned with the growth prospects in E Commerce in emerging markets. Tapping booming market segments in on line gaming and Travel sector in India and on line gaming in China seems a viable option in this direction. (What research statistics/data do we have to support this market entre?) We will continue to rely on customer loyalty and innovative advertising as well as other platforms available to us. (To do what?) Operations We create value for our customers by offering satisfactory (or superior) services. This is done by managing retail operations with efficient use of technology. Operational efficiency is a basis of strength for Amazon and supports the management to maintain our competitive advantage and enhance corporate performance. (Will we become more efficient?) Our principal sources of liquidity are cash flows generated from operations. In that regard, one way of reducing operational and performance variation, is to implement a uniform production platform increasing process efficiency. (Is this part of our planned strategy?) As can be gleaned from our third quarter report for fiscal 2009, compared to the same period in the prior year, operating expenses have increased. This is due in part to a settlement to Toysrus LLC for $51million and increase in other costs. There are a number of pending lawsuits against Amazon that must be factored in our decisions. (Is operation efficiencies are to be improved then reducing law suites is a way forward?) As our operations are segmented between North America and International, there are a number of issues we are uncertain about, but actual results could differ. These concerns are: fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, (do we hedge as a practice?) changes in global economic conditions and consumer spending, world events, the rate of growth of the Internet and online commerce. Information Systems Future Development Amazon will continue to improve the IT services related the e-commerce and supply chain management. The areas of future development include: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers. Amazon S3 Storage Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers. Amazon Cloud Front Amazon Cloud Front is a web service for content delivery. It integrates with other Amazon Web Services to give developers and businesses an easy way to distribute content to end users with low latency, high data transfer speeds, and no commitments. Amazon Fulfilment Web Service Amazon Fulfilment Web Service (Amazon FWS) allows merchants to access Amazons world-class fulfilment capabilities through a simple web services interface. Merchants can programmatically send order information to Amazon with instructions to physically fulfil customer orders on their behalf. Amazon continues to develop the IT systems related to the support of the Kindle e-book reader. In particular the online Kindle Book Store and the related Whisper net' wireless distribution network. Kindle issues An Overview Amazon Kindle is a software and hardware platform developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 for rendering and displaying e-books and other digital media. Three hardware devices, known as Kindle, Kindle 2, and Kindle DX (Figure 1) support this platform, as does an iPhone application called Kindle for iPhone. The Kindle hardware devices use E Ink brand electronic paper displays, and are able to download content over Amazon Whispernet using the Sprint EVDO in the USA or, for newer Kindle 2 devices, ATTs network internationally. Kindle Sales and Earnings We are yet to make profit on Kindle. The Kindle hardware is based on a cut-down Linux/PC configuration. As you can see from Figure 2.4 the teardown cost for the Kindle 2 have been estimated to be $185 per unit. This represents approximately 50% of the present sale cost of $400. Therefore, the margin per Kindle must be slim once development, manufacture, shipping and promotions costs have been factored into the unit price. The Future of E-Book Readers: The Potential Market A number of analysts have predicted a large market for e-book readers. Forrester research has predicted the potential market (Figure 2.5) based on the sales of similar products, such as IPods and mobile phones. If Forresters predictions are correct then there is a large potential market. Threats to Kindle The main factor in determining if Kindle will be a successful is content. There are number of free books that have elapsed copyrights, which are available for the Kindle and other e-book readers. However, the main source of revenue for the e-book market is predicted not to be books but newspapers, magazines and journals. These limited life documents would be transmitted directly to the reader via the mobile phone network: the Kindle DX, Sonys e-reader and Barns Nobles Nook have this functionality. (Googles recent announcement on e-books? Do newspapers and similar already offer some for of e-news through their web portals?) Sony has been creating alliances with a number of publishers to produce content for its e-reader. The highest profile publisher is Rupert Murdochs News Corp that prints large number of leading newspapers and magazines. This is the main threat to the success of Kindle. This situation has similarities to the format battle between HD DVD and Blue Ray DVD formats. Sony won this format battle by forming alliances with the Hollywood studios. These studios agreed to produce content solely for the Blue Ray format. Human Resources and Administration For 2008 fiscal year, our payroll and administration expenses were $279million compared to $235 million in 2007 and the increase was primarily due to increase in staff recruitments, payroll related expenses and professional services fees. In reference to our employees, staff complement increased by 22%, from 17,000 in 2007 to 20,700 in 2008. At present, there have been no redundancy exercises made in the company and we are focusing on retaining employees in order for them to remain engaged and loyal to the business in the long-term. (Have we increased manning in 9m to 30/09/09, over and above seasonal increases?) As the companys main revenue comes from the 4th quarter, we expect to increase the volume of temporary employees in order to meet customers orders. We will continue to supplement all our teams with additional staffing and will continue to add some capacity particularly in the international region to prepare ourselves to serve our customers during our busiest time of the year. In 2008, Amazon UK was accused of treating staff harshly. However, this has been hyped by the media and till date there is no accusation of breaching the law. (There is a difference between breaching the law and treating staff harshly are we sure of our position?) We greatly appreciate and reward our employees with a basic wage complemented by performance related pay. Meanwhile, employees are represented by a democratically elected employee forum who meets regularly with senior management of which any matters will be discussed accordingly. (Is this window dressing or does the method work, how is it implemented globally?) Business Development We recently acquired the online shoe retail shop, Zappos.com for the sum of $928million and $40million during the year for acquisition of Yieldex, Lexcycle Inc., Booktour, Foodista, Talk Market Inc, and Snap Tell Inc. These acquisitions will help us maintain the sales growth rate in this current crisis. (Has there been analysis to support these statements about growth rates?) Our international activities are significant to our revenues and profits, and we plan to further expand internationally in the long term due to the recent economic situation. Our international expansion will be focused on the BRIC countries specifically China and India as the markets are still untapped and will be good for us. Based on the little experience in the future market segments, proper research and risk analysis have to be done to enhance our? Legal Amazon has always ensured that we comply with government and other regulatory authority policies in the different countries that we operate in. We are involved in claims, proceedings and litigation dating back from 2001 to date. We currently have fifteen patent infringement cases against us pending in various courts with ten claims filed in 2009. We were acquitted in our lawsuits with Actus and Cordance in September 2009. (Is the board worried about this level of litigation?) In order to reduce the volume of lawsuits against us, we have decided to: Conduct a proper research of existing technological platforms before embarking on the usage and deployment of the platform. Where the already platform already exists, we will seek permission or leave of the rights and pay fees for the usage. We will also embark on developing our own technological platforms. We are also involved in the issues relating to the avoidance of sales tax in some states in the country. These states include New York, North Carolina and Hawaii. New York Legislative has passed a bill compelling Amazon to pay sales tax and other states are hoping to follow soon. Financial impact analysis of this legislation? Are disputed sales taxes reserved for in the B/S? Supply Chain Management In Amazon, the inventory policies drive the operating expenses and working capital requirements. Items are shipped as and when customer orders are received through the central servers. Our ability to meet customers demands with precision timing and accuracy has been a source of competitive advantage and customer loyalty. We currently have fulfilment centres (how many and located where?) for stocking the merchandise. We aim to improve our delivery time to gain more advantage, loyalty and long term alliances by introducing the cross docking concept where we identify suppliers who can readily agree to facilitate unique packaging facility at their locations. The financial burden of this arrangement will be borne by Amazon but the cost of packaging will be offset by the savings generated from reducing the inventory. What is the model for this? Is there an upside supplier cost, now or at some time in future? Section 4.1.1 bullet 1 lists $20m saving or 1.5% We hope to use this to reduce the inventory holding costs, shipping costs, operational costs as well the working capital requirement for the supply chain function. Strategic Analysis Internal and External Analysis Amazons brand has established high levels of recognition around the world, making it the first port-of-call for much of the rapidly expanding internet retailing consumer base, with the reputation of offering a wide choice of products and services. To this end, detailed analysis of the following will be undertaken: Amazons internal capabilities and resources (see appendix SWOT Analysis and VRINE Analysis) Weighing our competitive advantage (see appendix External Analysis (Porters Five Forces). To expand in China (see appendix E-Commerce in China and PESTLE Analysis) Strategic Position Amazon has been able to maintain sustainable competitive advantage based on three operational strategies. These are low cost-leadership, customer differentiation and focus strategies. Low cost-leadership is pursued by Amazon by differentiating itself primarily on the basis of price. We believe that offering low prices to our customers is fundamental to our future success. We seek to partially mitigate the costs of lowering prices over time through achieving higher sales volumes, negotiating better terms with our suppliers, and achieving better operating efficiencies. Amazon makes sure that it offers the same quality products as other companies at a considerably cheaper price. Analysis of competitors? Are there services we (can/could) offer using our infrastructure that could command a premium price? With our customer differentiation strategy, Amazon provides current and prospective customers with differentiation through design, quality or convenience by selecting a strategy that is different among the competitors. The focus strategy takes one of the two other strategies and applies it to a niche within the market Based on this, Amazon focuses on outstanding customer service as a niche but not the whole market because each niche has its own demand and requirement. Expand? Recommended Strategies Survival through Operational Efficiency The recent financial crisis and Amazons financial performance in recent years has shown that we have to optimally utilize organisational resources hence to be in better position to handle crisis situation and hence we propose the following: Reduce Operational Costs Sales are high but the costs associated with the sales have ranged between 75% -80% of sales in recent years. In order to be more efficient in our operations, we propose to cut the expenditure by 2 % in the following: Reducing cost in inventory by usage of cross docking by which we project to save $20million i.e. 1.5 % of the fulfilment? cost by the next fiscal. Research Development cost projected to be cut by $50million which 5 % of the present budget. How? Marketing budget projected to be slashed by $10 million. Impact? Put a hold on diversification and acquisitions. A review of existing alliances, diversifications and acquisitions should be done to determine the non-profitable business and decisions should be made about the appropriate strategy to be considered. The review has not been done before? Legal Dispute Settlement The sum of $500million has been set aside to settle the lawsuits pending the court judgements. Analysis needed why we have so many law suites, is this now part of our culture and that we ignore risks in the belief we are smart etc? Improve Kindle Sales It is clear that the e-reader market is embryonic and has great potential. For the Kindle to survive, Amazon has to adopt a similar strategy to that of Sony, which is to develop alliances with content providers. Googles recent announcement? We can consider cutting Kindle prices based on increase in sales in the future leading to economies of scale which can help boost our profit margin. (What is the model for this?) If this can not be achieved, in the long-term, should consider selling the Kindle design and patents rights to a third party who has a greater expertise in hardware development. F/A? Short Term (1-3 years) Expansion to China Objectives To attain a market share of 20-30% of Chinese internet retailing sector. How? Target Company for acquisitions Sohu.com Inc Sohu is a China based internet media company providing a network of web-properties and community based web 2.0 products which offer an array of choices regarding information, entertainment and communication to the Sohu user community. Sohus products and services are advertising, aggregated content, e-commerce, communication and community tools, internet access and services, search engines, sponsored search, web-properties, wireless communication, on-line games. (Might this company be in the process of dressing up their performance to attract a buyer?) Price of Acquisitions The ultimate purchase price will depend on a number of specific factors, including the targets current market value, its intrinsic value, and the value to be gained from any potential synergies between the target and buyer. Approximate costs of acquisitions can vary from $700million. To what? Potential Obstacles and Challenges Small number of credit card users 75 million credit cards in circulation by 2007. Payment systems are now safer no longer a technical problem, but a problem of customer confidence. E-commerce logistics: Size and vast distances in China delivery for most companies limited to major metropolitan areas using couriers Cost as a % of sale price compare with other locations? High delivery cost due to the small scale of some logistics enterprises Over 70% of all purchases in the B2C market are paid cash-on-delivery. Over 70% of all purchases in the B2C market are paid cash-on-delivery Duplication of point 4? Buying online is a dramatic change from conventional shopping practices: Consumers in China still prefer to look over the goods, determine their quality, and then, if satisfied, pay in cash. Probably a model which existed in west in earlier years when discretionary spending was limited? On-line commerce, in comparison, is an alien experience that only increases risk. Kindle clone $190. Define more clearly? Risk Factors Intense competition. Expansion into new products, services, technologies and geographic regions are subjects to additional business, legal, financial and competitive risks. Unsuccessful in efforts to expand into international market segments. Foreign exchange risk. Hedge? Payments related risks. Credit cards? SWOT Analysis STRENGTHS Largest e-retailer with lions share of the e-commerce market. Strong brand position and brand associations. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Information Technology (IT) support Amazons business strategy. Amazon is a huge global brand. It is recognisable for two main reasons. It was one of the original dotcoms, and over the last decade it has developed a customer base of around 30 million people. Highly effective advertising and marketing. Effective use of technology and partnerships. Recent positive cash flow. WEAKNESSES Loss of focus on core products. Weak economy which could lead to low sales. High advertising and marketing costs due to no brick-and-mortar presence. OPPORTUNITIES Selling of developed technologies. Extension of brands into new areas. International expansion specifically India and China and other emerging markets. Opportunities with non-competitive businesses for mutual benefit. THREATS Unexpected changes in regulatory requirements both in the U.S. and abroad. Legal Issues in patent infringement: 15 court cases. International issues export and import restrictions, tariffs and other trade barriers, fluctuations in currency rates, political instability, longer payment cycles, adverse tax consequences External Analysis Porters Five Forces Threat of new entrant High The cost involved in setting up an online bookstore is low and this poses a threat. With the right resources and knowledge, a new entrant could set up a similar website to compete with Amazon. Low Amazons technology platform and knowledge might make it difficult for entrants to come in and compete as the costs and experience involved might be high. Brand Recognition and customer loyalty may also make it difficult for a new entrant to compete Bargaining power of supplier High Bargaining power of supplier is relatively high in their electronic business sector. Amazons Low Cost strategy has made it difficult for it to buy electronic product directly from the main distributors such as Sony, Panasonic and Pioneer. Medium However, bargaining power of supplier in Amazons online book sector is relatively medium. Their power is medium as Amazon.com is dependent on Publishers for its supply. Threat of product substitute High Threat of product substitute is very high in Amazon.com online business. Physical bookstores have an established brand name in their brick-and-mortar business and customers might not be comfortable buying books online. A competitor that might be able to offer better services and prices might be able to substitute Amazons products. However, Amazons One-click shopping might be able to reduce the threat. Industry rivalry High As the result of huge and wide presence of competitors for the book business, Amazon.com faces high industry rivalry in their online book business. Established bookstores have the advantage of a larger and well established customer base, brand recognition, awareness and a wider selection of books. The entry of established bookstore into the online arena has further increase industry rivalry in this sector. Amazon.com also faces intense rivalry from their online music sector. For example, Amazons entry into the online music market has caused CD-Now to take steps in reduce Amazons threat in the sector. CD-Now has more advantage because they are well established and has more brand recognition in comparison to Amazon.com. E-Commerce In China Reason for expansion One of the fastest developing countries in the world. Leading and most reliable emerging market. World largest foreign direct investment (FDI) destination country since 2002. Market realization from potentiality due to recent well-ordered economy development, personnel disposable income increasing, infrastructure and transportation investment, rural economy development, speeding-up of foreign invested retailers in China. Market overview Transaction volumes of online retail in the country reached $18.8 billion in 2008, up 129% from 2007 according to iResearch, a Chinese internet research company. The market is predicted to reach almost $35 billion by the end of 2009 and offers huge potential. The number of online shoppers rose against the economic crisis by nearly 14 million from 74 million to 87.88 million. One out of four Chinese Internet users shops online, while two out of three Internet users in countries with high Internet Penetration like Europe, America and Korea are online shoppers. Chinas potential of online shopping is yet to be released. Additionally, the government has attached great importance to e-commerces stimulus to the economy, and has released a series of policies to regularize and guide e-commerce development. Industry e-commerce also grew vigorously, with more e-commerce platforms emerging and more and more farsighted traditional enterprises setting out for e-commerce. Against the general background, e-commerce is expected to maintain fast growth in the coming years. PESTEL Analysis for China Political Single party leadership with consistent policies. Unique socio economic political model centrally planned economy to a more market-oriented version with a rapidly growing private sector. Good relations with the US, Free Trade agreement with ASEAN (by 2010). Has been able to maintain a stable growth rate of 7-8% in the last few years. Inflation is between 4-5 %. Government focus on equitable growth thru liberalization policies by building good relationship with other countries which lead to a growth in its trade. Have good road, railway, air and shipping links to support the business activities. Economic Maintained strong economic growth over the years, 2003-2008, average GDP growth of 10.3% due to capital inflows, low real-interest rates and free market economy. Unemployment rate is high due to rural-urban shift. Transition shift from agricultural to industrialized country of which the service sector provides secure wages. The reformed IT and telecom policies and focused initiatives for the development of core technologies showcase Chinese plans to build its domestic prowess. By 2020, China will invest around 2.5% of its GDP in RD. China also wants to raise the contribution of technology to economic growth and limit its dependence on imported technologies. The country has also emerged as one of the main hubs for investments in RD, IT and ICT services. Socio Cultural Rising population with increase life expectancy and education level. Reduced poverty level by increasing per capital income. In 2008, Chinas per capita income was $2,770, which is one of the highest in Asia. Social richness prefers to inspect products before purchasing and haggle pr

The Multicultural Education Essay -- essays papers

The Multicultural Education John Searle addresses the â€Å"major debate†¦ going on at present concerning†¦ a crisis in the teaching of the humanities.† [Searle, 106] He goes on to defend the canon of works by dead white males that has traditionally made up the curriculum of liberal arts education. I disagree with many of his arguments, and believe that multiculturalism should be taught in the university, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Openmindedness will take much more than just minimal changes in curriculum. In order for works by different races and women to be judged and studied alongside works by white men, they have to be seen as equal to works by white men. They have to be studied for their literary content, not for the statement they make about feminism or race. We don’t just need to evaluate them by the same standards, we need to change the standards. The standards set by the traditional liberal arts education have been set by white males and are inherently biased. Ne w standards need to be set that are as openminded as we want students to be. This is a trend that needs to be started way before college. A diverse curriculum should be taught throughout a person’s education, because that is what will produce well rounded, openminded individuals that will change the tradition of oppression in society. Searle says, â€Å"We should not be embarrassed by the fact that a disproportionately large percentage of the major cultural achievements in our society have been made by white males.† [Searle, 118] To this, I say yes we should! We should be embarrassed that there are people who don’t see that this â€Å"disproportionately large percentage† is not due to the overwhelming intelligence of the white male, but to centuries of oppression. Our culture hasn’t nurtured the intellectual efforts of women or minorities, their ideas and pursuits have been repressed, probably out of fear. We have a society dominated by white males, it shouldn’t be surprising that literature is too. We need to change the way our society view women and minorities. Trying to do this by changing the curriculum of college students is pointless. We need to start from the beginning, with the children. Children need to be taught that they exist as a part of the world, rather than just as a part of America. If worldliness is encouraged at a young age, it will replace the â€Å"us† and â€Å"them† mentali... ...be expanded to new ideas and cultures. University education should be an extension of, not a replacement for, grade and high school education. I think that, in general, we are on the road to a more openminded society. Children and young adults are more accepting than their parents and their grandparents, and I think if we encourage and appreciate this trend, it will continue on to their children. But, it is not the case in all families, and even if it were, family is only one of the influences in a child’s life. As they get older, they are increasingly influenced by outside factors, such as school, the media and culture. We need to encourage children and open their minds with all the tools we have available to us as a society. Children are the ones that will make up the bulk of the influential population in twenty years. Broadening their horizons is broadening the future’s horizons as well. As we change the way our society views women and minorities, as they are embraced as equals, we will start to see literary works of the same caliber, if not better than the works encompassed by the traditional canon. Then , we will be on the road to having a more diverse university education.

A Modified 2-D Logarithmic Search Technique for Video Coding

A Modified 2-D Logarithmic Search Technique for Video Coding With Reduced Search Points Tahmina Akhtar† , Rahima Akter† , Chhalma Sultana Chhaya † , Ashfaqur Rahman †¡ †  Military Institute of Science and Technology/Dept of CSE, Dhaka, Bangladesh, †¡ Central Queensland University/Centre for Intelligent and Networked Systems, QLD, Australia [email  protected] com, [email  protected] com, [email  protected] com, a. [email  protected] edu. au Abstract Video coding is a process for representing video sequences in a compact manner.A significant step in video coding is searching for similar segments in previous frames and use only the difference information for reconstruction thus reducing space requirement. Different search techniques including Full search and 2-D logarithmic search etc. are used in the current literature. Full search restricts its application because of its computational load. 2D logarithmic search is computationally less expensive a lthough there are some spaces for improvement. In this paper we propose a new search technique by modifying the 2-D logarithmic search that requires less search points with insignificant loss in visual quality.Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique. Keywords: video coding, 2-D logarithmic search. i. INTRODUCTION Video is a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion. A video is created by capturing a numbers of still images in a short time interval. When these still images are displayed very quickly, it represents the motion of the object in the images. Video represent the huge amount of data. In order to transfer video data from one place to another efficiently it is required to compress the size of video data.One way to compress the size of video data is video coding [ [1] ] [ [2] ]. The principal goal in the design of a video-coding system is to reduce the transmission rate subject to some picture quality constraint. In transmissio n side, the first frame (normally called the reference frame) is transmitted as it is and the remaining frames are sent as a function of the reference frame. The frame to be sent is divided into a number of blocks and the best match for the block is looked for in the search window of the reference frame. This processing is called the search technique in video coding literature.There exist a number of video coding techniques including MPEG-1/2/4 [ [2] ] [ [7] ], H. 26X [ [8] ] etc. uses search techniques like Full search [ [1] ], 2-D logarithmic search [ [3] ], Coarse-Fine-Three-Step search [ [4] ], Conjugate Direction search [ [5] ], and Pyramid search [ [6] ]. Each of these search techniques has merits and demerits in their favor. Full search finds the best match for a block as it searches all the candidate positions in the search window. Full search however is computationally expensive and renders difficulty for real time implementation.Some variants exist that applies some heuris tics to reduce the candidate search points and reduce the computational complexity although compromising the image quality a bit. 2-D logarithmic search is one such search technique that reduces the search points to a subset of the search window (to be detailed in literature review) and finds the near-optimal best match with reduced computational complexity. Although computationally inexpensive it contains some redundancy in the search space. We aim to reduce this redundancy and aim to find a modified 2-D logarithmic search technique with even reduced computational load.Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed technique reduces the number of search points and thus reduces search time with insignificant sacrifice of image quality. The paper is organized as follows. In Section II we elaborate some related works. In Section III we present our proposed search approach. Some experimental results to demonstrate the effective of the proposed approach is presented in Section IV. F inally Section V concludes the paper. II. Related works In this section we present full search technique and the logarithmic search technique.In both cases the frame to be coded is divided into a number of non-overlapping equal size blocks of size p? q. The best match is looked for in a search window of size (2d+1)? (2d+1) in the reference frame . Fig 1: Block matching process in video coding that uses search techniques. * A. Full Search In Full search [ [1] ] finds the best match by inspecting all the (2d+1)? (2d+1) candidate positions within the search window. Full search procedure is brute force in nature. The advantage of Full Search is that it delivers good accuracy in searching for the best match.The disadvantage is that it involves a large amount of computation. * B. 2-D Logarithmic Search Jain and Jain [ [3] ] developed a 2-D logarithmic search technique that successively reduces the search area, thus reducing the computational burden. The first step computes the similarity for five points in the search window. These five points are as follows: the central point of the search window and the four points surrounding it, with each being a midpoint between the central point and one of the four boundaries of the window. Among these five points, the one corresponding to the minimum dissimilarity is picked as the winner.In the next step, surrounding this winner, another set of five points are selected in a similar fashion to that in the first step, with the distances between the five points remaining unchanged. The exception takes place when either a central point of a set of five points or a boundary point of the search window gives a minimum dissimilarity. In these circumstances, the distances between the five points need to be reduced. The procedure continues until the final step, in which a set of candidate points are located in a 3Ãâ€"3 2-D grid.The steps in a 2-D logarithmic search technique are presented in Fig 2. Fig 2: The 2-D logarithmic search tec hnique. The circle numbered n is searched at the n-th step. The arrows indicate the points selected as the center of the search for the next pass. The 2-D logarithmic search hits a maximum of 18 points and a minimum of 13 search points. The advantage of this technique is that it successively reduces the search area, thus reducing the computational burden. One of the disadvantages is that some points are searched more than once thus leave some space for improvement.Moreover, it follows a greedy approach by selecting the minimum dissimilar point at each step thus posing a threat to follow a local minimum trend. Considering these facts we propose to modify the 2-D logarithmic search to overcome the local minimum problem and also eliminate the redundant computing as described in the following section. iii. proposed search technique We mainly modified the 2-D logarithmic search technique to eliminate the redundancy and local minimum problem associated with it. The search technique is ela borated next under the light of 2-D logarithmic search technique.Our proposed search technique starts with the five points in the search window where the one is at the center and other four surrounds center point (Fig 3(a)). Unlike 2-D logarithmic search, our proposed technique selects two points min1 and min2 (Fig 3(b)) that has dissimilarity scores lower than the other three points. We then select a point as the center of search for the next pass that lies on the line in between min1 and min2. This selection reduces the local minimum effect as it simply does not follow the minimum point.Moreover, the five points selected in the next pass does not match with any of the previous points thus eliminates the redundancy that exists in 2-D logarithmic search. Centered at the point selected at the next pass the search continues (Fig 3(d)-Fig 3(f)). The steps of the search are portrayed in Fig 3. Following are some of the merits of our proposed technique: * Successively reduces the search area with no point searched twice * Maximum search points are 12 and minimum search points are 5 – an improvement over 2-D logarithmic search. iv. Results and DiscussionWe have conducted a comparative analysis of Full Search, 2-D logarithmic Search and our proposed search technique as presented next. All the experiments were conducted on MPEG sequences using MATLAB. We used sequences like garden, Akiyo, Table Tennis, Car, and coastguard. Full search, 2-D logarithmic search and our proposed technique applied in these standard MPEG file and we computed the ASNR (Average Signal to Noise Ratio) and Computational load (i. e. number of search points). The results on different sequences are presented next. Akiyo Sequence: Each frame of the Akiyo sequence is of 352? 88 pixels, recorded at 25 frames per second and there are a total of 398 video frames. Fig 4 shows the reconstructed 20th frame of Akiyo sequence coded using Full search, 2D-logarithmic search and proposed search techniqu e. In this video only face portion is moving. Search point comparison for these three search techniques is presented in Fig 5 and ASNR is reported in Fig 6. ASNR achieved using the proposed search technique is almost equal 2D logarithmic search but at reduced number of search points (Fig 5). Number of search points remains almost similar over the different frames.ASNR value shown in Table 1. (a)| (b)| (c)| (d)| (e)| (f)| Fig 3: The different steps of our proposed 2-D logarithmic search technique. (a) five points of search window, (b) the direction of the search in between the direction offered by the two points min1 and min2. (c) Search at step 2, (d) min1 and min2 at step 2, (e) Search points at step 3, and (f) Search ends at the blue point. (a)| (b)| (c)| Fig 4: Reconstructed 20th frame of the Akiyo sequence using (a) Full search, (b) 2-D logarithmic search, and (c) Our proposed search technique.Fig 5: Comparison of # of search points for Akiyo sequence. Fig 6: Comparison of ASNR for Akiyo sequence. Table 1: ASNR value of different search for Akiyo sequence Frame No| Full Search| 2D logarithmic Search| Proposed Search| 1st| 25. 86188| 25. 55678| 25. 46245375| 5th| 24. 84504| 23. 77938883| 23. 57562323| 10th| 24. 37532| 23. 01043038| 22. 67351877| 15th| 24. 38495| 22. 98908004| 22. 5831958| 20th| 24. 4424| 22. 90227928| 22. 56886825| 25th| 24. 44956| 23. 03416597| 22. 51615637| Car Sequence: Each frame of the Car sequence is of 320? 240 pixels and ecorded at 25 frames per second and there are a total of 398 video frames. The reconstructed 20th frame of Car sequence using the three search techniques is presented in Fig 7. In this video sequence the car moves but background is still. Here each repeated two times. Average no of search point is almost 10. 46 for repeated frames and 11. 50 for new frames. Here number of search points vary significantly compared to Akiyo sequence. Overall the proposed technique has reduced search points (Fig 8) although the ASNR is bit low (Fig 9). ASNR value of some frames shown in Table 2. a)| (b)| (c)| Fig 7: Reconstructed 20th frame of the Car sequence using (a) Full search, (b) 2-D logarithmic search, and (c) Our proposed search technique. Fig 8: Comparison of # of search points for Car sequence. Fig 9: Comparison of ASNR for Car sequence. Table 2: ASNR value of different search for Car sequence Frame No| Full Search| 2D logarithmic Search| Proposed Search| 1st| 27. 13312| 26. 5682| 26. 08265| 5th| 26. 68718| 25. 75123| 25. 16904| 10th| 26. 10589| 25. 12647| 24. 27394| 15th| 26. 31185| 25. 16266| 24. 54981| 20th| 26. 28613| 25. 1915| 24. 61234| 25th| 25. 86261| 25. 02255| 24. 12599| Garden Sequence: Each frame of the Garden sequence is of 352? 240 pixels and recorded at 30 frames per second and there are a total of 59 video frames. Fig 10 represents the reconstructed 20th frame of this sequence coded using the three search techniques. In this video the motion is due to camera movement. Fig 11 and Fig 12 reveals that the new search technique reduces the number of search points with minor loss in ASNR. ASNR value of some frames shown in Table 3. Here Average no of search point for each frames required almost same.In frame 20th average no of search point is 11. 6053 and ASNR is 18. 22931. (a)| (b)| (c)| Fig 10: Reconstructed 20th frame of the Garden sequence using (a) Full search, (b) 2-D logarithmic search, and (c) Our proposed search technique. Fig 11: Comparison of # of search points for Garden sequence. Fig 12: Comparison of ASNR for Garden sequence. Table 3: ASNR value of different search for Garden sequence Frame No| Full Search| 2Dlogarithmic Search| Proposed Search| 1st| 24. 27663| 24. 27663| 23. 5971| 5th| 21. 6078| 21. 6078| 20. 49847| 0th| 20. 71779| 20. 71779| 19. 34323| 15th| 19. 9641| 19. 9641| 18. 69269| 20th| 19. 6754| 19. 6754| 18. 22931| 25th| 19. 39791| 19. 39791| 18. 05226| Coastguard Sequence: Each frame of the Coastguard sequence is of 320? 240 pixels and recorde d at 25 frames per second and there are a total of 378 video frames. Here the boat and the camera are moving. Fig 13 represents a reconstructed frame of this sequence coded using the three search techniques. Fig 14 represents the search point required by the three techniques. Our proposed technique shows periodic nature in terms of search points.This is due to the repetitive nature of motion in the video. Fig 15 represents a comparison of ASNR obtained using different techniques. Table 4 shown ASNR of some frames. (a)| (b)| (c)| Fig 13: Reconstructed frame of the Coastguard sequence using (a) Full search, (b) 2-D logarithmic search, and (c) Our proposed search technique. Fig 14: Comparison of # of search points for Coastguard seq. Fig 15: Comparison of ASNR for Coastguard sequence. Table 4: ASNR value of different search for Coastguard seq. Frame No| Full Search| 2D logarithmic Search| Proposed Search| 1st| 24. 8771| 24. 33338| 23. 61801| 5th| 24. 31753| 23. 35416| 22. 54516| 10th| 23. 90367| 23. 03317| 22. 07546| 15th| 24. 36529| 23. 44171| 22. 66604| 20th| 24. 38658| 23. 26823| 22. 50994| 25th| 24. 54524| 23. 91583| 22. 91885| Table tennis Sequence: Each frame of the Table tennis sequence is of 352? 240 pixels and recorded at 30 frames per second and there are a total of 9 video frames. Here ball is moving fast. The reconstructed frames, number of search points, and ASNR of the three search techniques are presented in Fie 16, Fig 17, and Fig 18. Some ASNR of Table tennis sequence shown in table 5. a)| (b)| (c)| Fig 16: Reconstructed frame of the Table tennis sequence using (a) Full search, (b) 2-D logarithmic search, and (c) Our proposed search technique. Fig 17: Comparison of # of search points for Table tennis sequence. Overall the result of ASNR for Full Search is best in all cases but number of search point is so high. The result of ASNR for 2-D logarithmic and our proposed search is almost same but the number of search point of our proposed search is sm aller than the 2-D logarithmic search and thus an improvement over the existing technique.Fig 18: Comparison of ASNR for Table tennis sequence. Table 5: ASNR value of different search for Table tennis seq Frame No| Full Search| 2D logarithmicSearch| ProposedSearch| 1st| 25. 2698| 24. 56416| 23. 90544| 3rd| 23. 60795| 22. 69326| 21. 81273| 5th| 23. 43996| 22. 35007| 21. 29301| 7th| 23. 71878| 22. 71607| 21. 58383| v. Conclusion In this paper we have presented a new search technique for video coding that is a modification of the existing 2-D logarithmic search. The proposed technique reduces the search time of 2-D logarithmic search by reducing the redundant search points.Although ASNR is sacrificed to some extent it had insignificant visual impact as observed from the experimental results. References [1] Shi and H. Sun, â€Å"Image and Video Compression for Multimedia Engineering†, Fundamentals, Algorithms and Standards, 2nd Edition. [2] P. N. Tudor, â€Å"MPEG-2 Video Compre ssion†, IEEE J Langham Thomson Prize, Electronics and Communication Engineering journal, December 1995. [3] J. R. Jain and A. K. Jain, â€Å"Displacement Measurement and Its Application in Interframe Image Coding†, IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. com-29, no. 12, December 1981. [4] T. Koga, K. Linuma, A. Hirano, Y. Iijima, and T.Ishiguro, â€Å"Motion-compensated interframe coding for video conferencing,† Proc. NTC’81, G5. 3. 1-G5. 3. 5, New Orleans, LA, Dec. 1981. [5] R. Srinivasan and K. R. Rao, â€Å"Predictive coding based on efficient motion estimation,† Proc. of ICC, 521-526, May 1984. [6] D. Tzovaras, M. G. Strintzis, and H. Sahinolou, â€Å"Evaluation of multiresolution block matching techniques for motion and disparity estimation,† Signal Process. Image Commun. , 6, 56-67, 1994. [7] MPEG-4, http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/MPEG-4, last accessed in December 2008. [8] H. 264, http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/H. 264, last accessed in December 2008. *

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The eNotes Blog Searching for Symbols A Young WritersQuest

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