Research Real Estate Data Set

Abstract In this paper the team analyzed three scholarly articles relating to our study. Furthermore, the team also analyzed additional data sets to include more variables like bedrooms and bathrooms in our investigation to test our hypothesis which shows that the results are consistent with the hypothesis. The population size, primary and secondary data, using unbiased information and applying ethics are also discussed in detail. Real Estate Data Set II As we begin the final stages of our project it is important to understand the process of applied research and how one or more variable have an impact on the dependable variable.It is important to understand why research is necessary and how we apply research to get answers to issues. The team analyzed thirty date sets to research homes with or without a pool, with or without a garage, and on the proximity of the house to the city, and how those factors affected the selling prices of homes. Furthermore, the team also analyzed more dat a sets to include more variables like bedrooms and bathrooms. Six bedrooms, three bath houses will sell for more than a one bedroom, one bath houses, regardless of whether it has a pool or garage.As we go forward with this assignment and analyze more data collection sets, it seems that the hypothesis that we proposed is the right one. Our hypothesis is based around the concept of human prioritization and its role in home selection. Additionally, the team researched three scholarly articles that are pertinent to our study to help us understand why the research is important and necessary. The first article uses analysis to discuss the connection between the selling price of a home and â€Å"Time on the Market† (TOM) (Sirmans, et al, 2010).It states that the longer the house is on the market the lower the selling price of the house. The study uses data sets to examine single family homes and whether the TOM co-efficient is susceptible to location, income of families, wealth and time. The results proved that the TOM co-efficient is sensitive to the variables and there is a significant relationship between TOM and the selling prices (Sirmans et al, 2010). It also states that selling prices and TOM is a very complicated because ellers / buyers want to maximize the price, while sellers want to sell at the top price buyers want to purchase at the lowest price. The second article discusses the study of how technology of real estate is changing and how important technology is key to gather important data from private and public sources for the real estate industry. Many studies have been published about the impact of the information on the real estate industry, on market size and efficiency, and market innovation. These studies have proven that email and the use of internet are used as a positive marketing tool.Survey questions were developed to gather information about real estate agents and their attitude about using information technology as marketing their se rvices. The results were positive and all that were surveyed viewed that information technology was key in some areas. Internet usage got a high score along with online research but personal webpage’s indicated a lower score (Acharya et al, 2010). The third article examined that in real estate development there is a need for risk assessment techniques to assess the impact of the project.The article is based on an exploratory survey which data was collected through interviews and a questionnaire. The study was conducted in the Thailand area using Thai real estate development companies. The study revealed that there are no systematic techniques to deal with the concerns of economic and political risks (Khumpaisal et al, 2010). All three articles focus on real estate research and how information is collected and used in different studies. All three article discuss how data, the collection of the data and the usage of the data play an important part while conducting research.When conducting research it is often difficult, or impractical to test the entire population. Many issues can arise, such as time consumption, cost, and redundant information. Often it is possible for researchers to draw conclusions based on population samples. This is when we test a small portion of the population and draw conclusions on the entire population based on the sample results. For our research the sample of thirty homes came from a larger sample of one hundred six homes. These homes were a sample of homes in one state, across five townships.For our research we decided to limit the sample to around thirty homes of similar qualities (outside of the variables we are testing). The reason we do this is to be sure there isn’t an outside, unknown variable affecting the experiment. Therefore we chose homes that are between two and three bedrooms, with two bathrooms. This gave us a sample of thirty-one homes. For this particular research, it is possible to see the affects of d ifferent variables on home prices. Also, with more than thirty samples it is also possible to eliminate outliers that may skew averages.For example, if we only tested three homes and two of them were priced outrageously, we wouldn’t be able to draw valid conclusions. However, by testing thirty-one homes, we can eliminate outliers. There are many possible sources of bias and error when testing a hypothesis with only sample of the population. In our case, we could simply omit homes that disprove our hypothesis. One reason for this is if we were working for a real estate company and they want to see which homes can make them the most money, and we know there are a lot of homes near the city center for sale.If we omit homes far away from the city that are selling for more, our bias has caused us to give false findings. Not all omissions are intentional. Sometimes errors are simply made in the research process. For example, with our research we could have included homes with any n umber of bedrooms. This would have resulted in data that may not have been practical for our research. For example, the complete data set included homes with up to eight bedrooms. If we were to compare that to a home with only two bedrooms the fact that either had a pool, or garage, or was close to the city would have been negligible.Again, we chose to only test similar homes in respect to number of bedrooms and bathrooms in order to prevent this error. It is necessary to collect primary data when a researcher cannot find the data needed in secondary sources. Some methods of primary research would include observation, postal surveys, telephone interviews, online surveys, face to face surveys, focus groups, and test marketing. Observation works well in retail markets. Observing consumer behavior provides many insights, although can sometimes leave unanswered questions.Postal surveys are great because they are relatively cheap with the ability to cover a wide geographical area. Howeve r, response rates are minimal and can take quite some time before any of the surveys are returned. Telephone interviews allow quicker feedback than a postal survey but any potential customers are usually hesitant on giving anything but short answers. Increasingly popular and at relatively low cost, surveys online are widely used by growing businesses as a way of gathering the views of potential and existing customers.Face to face surveys are sometimes costly, but a great way to get individual detailed insight, while focus groups are a good way of getting detailed information about customer preferences and tastes. Test marketing involves picking a small section of the market and selling a new product in order to assess customer reaction. This primary research can be a great predictor of how a new product or service will be received by the larger market. Primary research is the preferred research and conducted all of the time.National polls and surveys collect the population’s thoughts about proposals or particular political figures, journalists use it as their primary means of reporting events as well as news, and organizations collect data on their market trends and consumer base. When conducting research in professional or academic settings, the researcher needs to be aware of the ethics behind the research activity Ethical issues arise throughout any piece of all research. These issues often turn into political ones, and there are also close connections between issues around participation and ethical concerns.Ethical issues also have a tendency to turn into questions of trust. The researcher is the research instrument therefore the reader and/or user of qualitative research must be able to trust the researcher to have followed the proper procedures. There are quite a few key phrases which describe the system of ethical protections that medical research and the contemporary social establishments have created such as, voluntary participation, informed c onsent, confidentiality, anonymity, and rights to service, to better protect the research participant’s rights.When conducting research it is important to understand all stages of the research and apply good practices such as using unbiased sources and clear and ethical standards. Even when clear ethical standards and principles are in place, there will be times when the rights of potential participants runs up against the need to do accurate research. No set of standards can possibly anticipate every ethical circumstance. Furthermore, there needs to be a procedure that assures that researchers will consider all relevant ethical issues in formulating research plans (Trochim, 2006).References Acharya N, R. et al (2010). Influence of Email marketing on Real Estate Agent Performance: Journal of Real Estate Literature, 2010, v. 18, issue. 2. Retrieved from https://ehis. ebscohost. com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer? vid=4&hid=124&sid=20ac27d 8-422b-4f27-a523-f24b0ea694e2%40sessionmgr110 . Khumpaisal,S et al (2010). An Examination of Thai practitioners’ perceptions of risk assessment techniques in real estate development projects: Journal of Retail & Leisure Property.Retrieved from https://ehis. ebscohost. com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer? vid=5&hid=124&sid=20ac27d8-422b. Sirmans,G. S. et al (2010). A Meta Analysis of Selling Price and Time –on –the Market: Journal of Housing Research, 2010, Vol. 19 Issue 2. Retrieved from https://ehis. ebscohost. com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer? vid=4&hid=124&sid=20ac27d8-422b-4f27-a523-f24b0ea694e2%40sessionmgr110. Trochim, W. (2006). Research methods knowledge base. Retrieved from http://www. socialresearchmethods. net/kb/ethics. php

Bookbinders Book Club Essay

About 50,000 new titles, including new editions, are published in the United States each year, giving rise to a $20+ billion book publishing industry. About 10 percent of the books are sold through mail order. Book retailing in the 1970s was characterized by the growth of chain bookstore operations in concert with the development of shopping malls. Traffic in bookstores in the 1980s was enhanced by the spread of discounting. In the 1990s, the superstore concept of book retailing was responsible for the double-digit growth of the book industry. Generally situated near large shopping centers, superstores maintain large inventories of anywhere from 30,000 to 80,000 titles. Superstores are putting intense competitive pressure on book clubs, mail-order firms and retail outlets. Recently, online superstores, such as www. amazon. com, have emerged, carrying 1–2. 5 million titles and further intensifying the pressure on book clubs and mail-order firms. In response to these pressures, book clubs are starting to look at alternative business models that will make them more responsive to their customers’ preferences. Historically, book clubs offered their readers continuity and negative option programs that were based on an extended contractual relationship between the club and its subscribers. In a continuity program, popular in such genres as children’s books, a reader signs up for an offer of several books for a few dollars each (plus shipping and handling on each book) and agrees to receive Copyright  © 2008 by DecisionPro, Inc. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, go to www. decisionpro. biz. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without the permission of DecisionPro, Inc. a shipment of one or two books each month thereafter. In a negative option program, subscribers get to choose which and how many additional books they will receive, but the default option is that the club’s selection will be delivered to them each month. The club informs them of the monthly selection and they must mark â€Å"no† on their order forms if they do not want to receive it. Some firms are now beginning to offer books on a positive-option basis, but only to selected segments of their customer lists that they deem receptive to specific offers. Book clubs are also beginning to use database marketing techniques to work smarter rather than expand the coverage of their mailings. According to Doubleday president Marcus Willhelm, â€Å"The database is the key to what we are doing†¦. We have to understand what our customers want and be more flexible. I doubt book clubs can survive if they offer the same 16 offers, the same fulfillment to everybody. 2 Doubleday uses modeling techniques to look at more than 80 variables, including geography and the types of books customers purchase, and selects three to five variables that are the most influential predictors. The Bookbinders Book Club The BBB Club was established in 1986 for the purpose of selling specialty books through direct marketing. BBBC is strictly a distributor and does not publish any of the books it sells. In anticipation of using database marketing, BBBC made a strategic decision right from the start to build and maintain a detailed database about its members containing all the relevant information about them. Readers fill out an insert and return it to BBBC which then enters the data into the database. The company currently has a database of 500,000 readers and sends out a mailing about once a month. BBBC is exploring whether to use predictive modeling approaches to improve the efficacy of its direct mail program. For a recent mailing, the company selected 20,000 customers in Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio from its database and included with their regular mailing a specially produced brochure for the book The Art History of Florence. This resulted in a 9. 03 percent response rate (1806 orders) for the purchase of the book. BBBC then developed a database to calibrate a response model to identify the factors that influenced these purchases. For this case analysis, we will use a subset of the database available to BBBC. It consists of data for 400 customers who purchased the book, and 1,200 customers who did not, thereby over-representing the response group. The dependent variable for the analysis is Choice — purchase or no purchase of The Art History of Florence. BBBC also selected several independent variables that it thought might explain the observed choice behavior. Below is a description of the variables used for the analysis: Choice: Whether the customer purchased the The Art History of Florence. 1 corresponds to a purchase and 0 corresponds to a nonpurchase. Gender: 0 = Female and 1 = Male. Amount purchased: Total money spent on BBBC books. Frequency: Total number of purchases in the chosen period (used as a proxy for frequency. ) Last purchase (recency of purchase): Months since last purchase. First purchase: Months since first purchase.

Summary Analysis essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Summary Analysis - Essay Example The opening sections of the article in question consist of a reflection on the need to find a suitable metaphor to describe social computing. Taking the tone of a lecturer, McLeran explains how metaphors can break old patterns of thought by linking previously unconnected items or idea together. The main linguistic strategy for encouraging new thinking is the juxtaposition of normally unrelated concepts. Exploration of the connotations of these disparate concepts then brings to light features that the two items or ideas have in common or in contrast and the process of comparison can result in striking new kinds of understanding. The register of the article is a clever mix of formal and casual. The use of letters to denote concepts taken from the fields of mathematics, as in the example â€Å"This kind of association creates syllogistic metaphors: if A is a metaphor for B and B is a metaphor for C, is not A a metaphor for C?† (McLeran p. 1). The technical term syllogistic is tak en from the fields of philosophy and logic, and its Greek etymology as well as its application in these fields indicates that the author expects his readers to keep up with his intellectual level. A more casual tone is adopted later in the article with the use of lexis such as â€Å"a couple of interesting metaphorical mappings† (McLeran p. 1). There is a grammatical error in the phrase â€Å"limit an individuals ability to progress† which suggests that the author has not proofread his own work very effectively and incidentally that the work has not been subjected to editing. This marks the piece out as more towards the informal end of the academic discourse spectrum. In terms of structure, the article is quite unusual for an academic piece. There are no traditional academic headings such as â€Å"introduction†, â€Å"literature review†, â€Å"hypothesis† etc., and there is no clear statement of methodology. The piece has headings but these are mor e like journalistic key phrase headings than academic formal structure headings. The article ends on a section announcing some â€Å"questions which arise from the metaphor† (McLeran, p 1) and this is, however rather typical of a standard academic research article. Having proposed and defined his new idea, the author considers some objections, and concludes that the idea is good and then opens up the discussion to other academics who might be interested to formulate a reply. In a chain of reasoning McLeran likens metaphors to a springboard, and then a springboard to jazz music, and from there he makes a conceptual leap to jazz, which also involves courageous departures from safe and predictable tracks to something much more freely formed and exciting. He goes too far, perhaps in defining social computing as â€Å"a kind of abstract language† (McLeran, p. 1) because it is very difficult to imagine what an abstract language actually is. An abstract language suggests some thing incomprehensible and difficult, whereas both jazz and social computing are delightfully easy to follow, with some complex attributes but many more familiar aspects. In short, therefore, the author is somewhat carried away in his elaborate definitions of social computing but he settles down on the metaphor of jazz as the answer to the professor’

Planning Your Financial Future Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Planning Your Financial Future - Assignment Example Other skills that will be significant in my career include: project management, planning and organizing, technology, and dedication to continuous learning. After identifying the appropriate career which in my case is marketing, I will have to be prepared to face any career development and alteration in the future. For this to be possible, I will have to remain dynamic in career planning in the short term. In addition, for me to become an expert in the paths of career, I will have to conduct various researches on careers and to scan the environment on regular basis. By doing this I will be better equipped for my next decision. Your target timeframe for the purchase, including the funding of associated costs, taxes and deposit My target timeframe for my first house purchase is 5 years. An estimated budget for servicing your ideal lifestyle including contingency plans (insurances and emergency funding) The intended house to be purchased is a three bedroom house at a cost of ?180,000incl uding all other related expenses. It is located at Cole Close London SE28. It is near Thamesmead shopping Centre. It has a small garden, garage, and is three bed-roomed. Insight and opinion on renting versus buying- The purchase of first house is not mainly about the ownership of personal property. Owning a home involves several costs, risks and responsibilities. My insight and opinion on renting versus buying is that it is better to rent a house rather than to buy. In my view it is costly to buy a house. Renting is better because of: first, simplicity. It takes minimal time to find a house that fits ones needs and desires. Buying on the other hand involves obtaining adequate finance and conducting the necessary inspections hence, buying is time consuming. Secondly is the convenience in renting a house rather than buying. The landlord will be responsible for various tasks of maintenance and upkeep. Therefore, no expenses are incurred on maintenance of a home. Thirdly is flexibility. In a rented house, it is easier to move unlike when in ownership of a house. After buying house, one becomes less mobile. When changes arise for example, in the workplace and one is forced to move the procedure of selling and buying another house is expensive. Fourthly, is increased liquidity, when renting one has large inheritance or fat paycheck. However, one is stretched when buying the first home since it involves down payment and related costs hence, cleans up ones money. The related costs of buying a house include; mortgage payments, property taxes, and insurance, maintenance and repair expenses. On the other hand, while renting one can keep extra cash for one self and makes budgeting easier without upkeep-expenses that home owners are likely to incur. Such expenses involve sudden urge to replace a leaking roof or old furniture and fixtures. Fifth, renting has better diversification. Those with purchased houses have bulk wealth tied in their homes rather than on better altern atives such as stock, bonds, or even starting a small business. The sixth factor is lower cost. If one is living in an area where home prices sky rocketed faster than rentals, real estate may be overpriced and it will not be a wise idea to buy a house. Evidence of research in terms of career, ideal starter-home/location and mortgage (type/ rate/ term etc) As a professional

Organizational Behavior, Dr. Pavlov Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Organizational Behavior, Dr. Pavlov - Essay Example Reinforcement means repeating a set pattern of actions, considering them pleasurable when doing so and doing it enough times for the body to bypass conscious evaluation of action and respond immediately with the set pattern that is linked to a stimuli. Pavlov's father was reinforcing him for priesthood after his accident. Athletes use reinforcement to prepare themselves, repeating the motions of their particular sport, enjoying the process even when they seem to be in physical plan and use repetition till the execution of the desire motion becomes second nature, this is reinforcement. Extinction is best explained like this. Constant exposure to a stimulus lowers its perceptible threat, given a new element is not introduced. Dr. Pavlov's indifference towards the danger of offending Stalin, who uncharacteristically didn't respond, explains extinction. The feeling of being annihilated is intense when the stimulus is new, but with constant exposure, the threat reduces and we feel safer. This is how children evolve from the fear of the boogeyman. With constant exposure to darkness (provided no one is trying to scare them), boogeyman does not feel so threatening anymore. The Pavlovian concept of discrimination is based on how a stimulus is evaluated and responded to, the response can be conditioned based on past experiences or unconditioned due to uncertainty on evaluating a new stimuli that has been introduced. Dr. Pavlov reprimanding his assistant for being late to the laboratory despite pitched battles taking place on the streets shows how he discriminated the situa tion differently from those around him. The most common examples of discrimination can be seen among people who have different preferences in music genres. An individual who prefers classical music like that of Mozart and Beethoven, discriminates the current hip hop scene very differently from one who lives off on such kind of music. Discrimination is based upon past conditioning and acquired response, but it can and does change over a period of time. Generalization, as the name suggests, is the perceptual experience of an uncommon situation, expressed through evaluation with past experiences. Dr. Pavlov's indifference to practicalities like taking care of his finances or personal safety, irrespective of penury or losing his son or on becoming a Nobel Prize winner and writing angry letters to Stalin, display his generalization towards practical matters. Most prominent generalizations are seen on television networks covering natural disasters like hurricanes. Before a hurricane hits shore, certain patterns are detectable, based on this predictions are made. Whenever a similar pattern emerges, a call for cover against hurricanes is called for; sometimes it is a false alarm. But generalizations have been made based on past data, assuming that when A = C, the chances of C happening when A manifests itself is highly probable, this is generalizing, the media conglomerates have understood this concept well and use it periodically and effectively.

Sailor Jerry Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Sailor Jerry - Essay Example Other than modernizing the tattooing industry, Sailor Jerry had a colorful and diverse life and career, which he balanced along with his love for tattooing (Levy 46,47,48). Sailor Jerry had developed an interest in tattooing and started practicing it ever since he was a teenager. The technique of tattooing used by him at that time was the hand-pricking method. Later on, he was taught how to use a tattoo machine by a Chicago tattooist named Tatts Thomas. Under Thomas’s training, Sailor Jerry would usually rehearse tattooing with a machine on drunken people who were brought to him. He kicked off his official career years later in Hawaii, where he opened his first tattoo parlor. Other than tattooing, Sailor Jerry also pursued the occupation of a dockworker in Hawaii, therefore adding some diversity to his life (Demelo 74). Having enlisted in the navy during World War II, Sailor Jerry also served as a merchant marine and so traveled to many places. He often tattooed people, especi ally sailors, at his ports of call. Having been to the Far East, and being exposed to tattoos on other sailors, he developed an interest in Asian imagery. This interest made him incorporate many Asian designs, such as dragons, into his art of tattooing. Besides this, Sailor Jerry was very protective of tattooing, and had a strong concern in developing it as an art form. Moreover, he believed that majority of the American tattooists were ‘greedy, talentless copycats’. As a result, he looked up and kept in touch with tattooists like Paul Rogers and Brooklyn Joe Lieber, who shared his opinion in improving the art of tattooing. Simultaneously, he spoke out against those who he saw as tainting the field through their sly business practices and lack of talent (Demelo 74). Sailor Jerry, on the other hand, seemed to have an excess of talent. A typical Sailor Jerry tattoo was distinguished from other tattoos by its bold and steadfast lines, along with an amazing attention to det ail. For instance, the riggings contained by his clipper ship tattoos were nautically accurate. However, it was only after he opened his last tattoo shop Chinatown, Honolulu that his fascination with the â€Å"Oriental style† of tattooing really flourished. During this time, he started a trade relationship with two tattooists (one was from Japan, while the other from Hong Kong), wherein he would trade American tattoo machines and needles for their advice and designs. From them, he learnt a lot about the ways Japanese used colors, shaded, and made use of the entire body as a canvas (Demelo 74; Sailorjerry.com). However, even though he incorporated some of the Japanese style of tattooing, the style Sailor Jerry used was completely unique. His art of tattooing consisted of the Japanese finger waves, wind bars, and full body tattoos which reflected the history and pop culture of America; the Spirit of ’76, the Alamo, General Custer at Little Big Horn, Rock of Ages, big bus ted mermaids, and many similar designs motivated by North American thinking. These designs were also different from the traditional American style (of unrelated and separate tattoos spread out on the body) because they were larger, fused, and custom made. The incorporation of Japanese styles in Sailor Jerry’s tattoos was sometimes criticized by patriotic Americans. However, Sailor Jerry’s success at improving the tattooing industry made up for

Assessment of Oman Air Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Assessment of Oman Air - Essay Example In addition, Oman Air fleets are up to date and well-organised competent aircrafts with superior quality of designed interiors. The company also introduced ultra modern and innovative technology based equipments in order to retain and enhance the safety of the customers and overall standards of its products along with services. In addition, Oman Air has attained significant achievements while executing its business operations globally. One of the major achievements of Oman Air lies in expanding its business operations around the world and also in attaining authorisation for preservation from some of the renowned bodies such as the Shell Aircraft (UK) and the Airclaims (UK) (Oman Air, 2012). Along with this significant achievement, Oman Air’s ‘Supply Chain Management Operation System and Procedures’ was honoured with â€Å"ISO 9001† authorisation. This particular authorization is an internationally renowned standard for quality management ensuring that the o rganisations have proven their quality performances along with maintaining standards in order to comply with the different requirements of their customers (Oman Air, 2012). In the paper, the assessment of Oman Air has been made on the basis of various assessment tools that include McKinsey’s 7s framework, balanced scorecard system and SWOT analysis. Various recommended changes or modifications of certain aspects of Oman Air such as its organizational structure are proposed and also discussed in the paper. McKinsey’s 7s Framework According to McKinsey’s 7s framework, attempts are taken to create a kind of awareness of major factors that include staff, style, systems, structure, strategies, skills and finally shared values or goals, so that at the time of utilisation or execution of these factors will ultimately assist in the formation as well as help towards attaining the expected outcomes or objectives while executing business operations performed by a particula r business organisation (Witcher & Chau, 2010). In relation to McKinsey’s 7s framework, the structure factor is an important one that divides the assigned tasks and provides various activities for the maintenance of co-ordination among the employees. In order to maintain an adequate structure, Oman Air imparts training to its members or staffs in a well organised manner and thus by delivering proper and efficient training, the company maintains the co-ordination among their members or staffs. In relation to systems, the processes, procedures and methods ultimately make a business organisation to grow and expand. The systems of Oman Air include innovative aircraft manufacturing along with repairing services and also retain a high pattern of technical processes in the most effective as well as in professional manner (Oman Air, 2012). In context to style, the perception of top officials of the business eventually creates a brand image within the organisation. The ideas or the co ncepts that have been initialised by the board members and other senior management officials of Oman Air assisted the company to attain a brand image while executing its business operations globally. In regard to staffs, the activities or the performances of the members or the staffs plays a significant role in order to attain expected outcomes along with

Policy Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Policy Analysis - Essay Example The center sought to consolidate the country’s security resources such as personnel, databases, and infrastructure in the fight against terrorism. This way, the process of tracking, apprehending and litigating terrorists become easier and faster possibly creating a safer society for the American population. Rule Terrorism is the greatest threat to the American development and often jeopardizes the country’s ability to provide her citizens with the quality of life it espouses on its bill of rights. Terrorism is the worst international crime that seeks to instill fear on a country’s population thereby sparking revolt against the serving government. Terrorists operate on the principles of mass destruction and murder thereby instilling fear on the citizens owing to their government’s ability to protect them. Such are likely to stifle the government’s operations thus causing constitutional crises in the country. With an elaborate understanding of the abi lities of terrorism and the intent of terrorists, the country developed the Homeland directive in order to increase protection on the American president. The United States of America is the global super power with the best economy and the strongest military apparatus in the world. With such titles, the citizens of the country therefore feel entitled to several life provisions such as increased longevity owing to the government’s ability to provide a safe and secure environment. The president of the United States of America is an international figure of both power and authority. Should terrorists access and cause injury to such a figure, it would portray the country’s inability to protect its institutions of power thus imply that the citizens are most vulnerable. The country invest billions of dollars in guaranteeing the safety of her presidents in order to prevent the recurrence of the murder of serving presidents as witnessed with two historical figures. Application H omeland is the security outfit mandated with the internal protection. The security outfit has an unprecedented amount of resources to carry out extensive research on battering the state of security in the country. The homeland security presidential directive 6 provides the security outfit with the ability to monitor the activities of the citizens and every other person migrating into the country in order to determine the terrorists networks and their supporters. The directive provides for the establishment of a terrorist screening center administered by the Federal bureau of investigation, which is the country’s biggest security apparatus with access to the international security contraptions has the ability to keep the country safe from both internal and external threats. Several security bodies in the country approved the development of the terrorist center in order to integrate the operation of the previously segmented security apparatus that often resulted in confusion of jurisdiction in the country. After the 9/11 incident, the government determined the potential of the country’s enemies and therefore developed a number of security institutions to help create a safer nation. The 9/11 commission approved the development of the screening center since such would pool the country’

Fundamentals of Decision Support -linear programming (LP), integer Assignment

Fundamentals of Decision Support -linear programming (LP), integer linear programming (ILP), or transportation problem and problem - Assignment Example on, the manager is seeking an option that has the least amount of costs, as he banks on this cost efficiency of the option selected in maximizing the returns on investment. Each of the three shirts produced by the company requires a given set of material n specified quantities or amounts. For instance, an athletic shirt requires one yard of fabric comprising of sixty percent cotton, while the rest is rayon. The manger also has to consider the available number of contracts per shirt within a given period, say weekly, and then compare this with the market price of the finished product. As such, the manager should come up with the right quantities of each shirt that would bring the company the most profits without increasing its costs of production (Lussier 2010, p.382). The criteria for the manger to use in making this decision depend on the cost of raw materials, the available resources within the reach of the company, as well as, the demand and price of the finished product. Rayon goes at  £7 and only 3000 yards of it is available to the company on a weekly basis. On the other hand, cotton goes for  £5 and the company can only lay hands on 4000 yards of the material. The available market demand of each finished product, together with the number of possible contracts on a weekly basis for each product, assists the manager in drawing up the right objective to pursue in making decisions. This is because there is a budget limit that the manger has to adhere to while making such decisions. As such, a manager can only make a right decision if it is within the budgetary provisions of the company, as well as, assure the company of maximum proceeds at the closure of business (Pinheiro-Bohl 2007, p.75). The appropriate model to undertake in making such an important decision is the resource allocation model. This model enables the manager to make a decision on the right amount of resources to allocate to a given line of product or process of production. For instance, in

Ways Groups of People Are Identified Essay Example for Free

Ways Groups of People Are Identified Essay 1. What are some of the ways groups of people are identified? There are many ways that a group of people can be identified but the four criteria for classifying minority groups are race, ethnicity, religion, and gender. Race is mainly determined by the color of someone’s skin, hair (in some instances eyes), height, and bone structure of the human body: big head, narrow eyes, tall short. Ethnicity is determined by where you were born and raised and what cultural patterns. Religion and is determined by what your beliefs and religious group you are a part of. Gender is determined easily enough but it does matters if you are male or female for the fact that each is treated differently. Males seem to have it easy most of the time and woman are always treated as though they are weaker. These four criteria’s are the main ones but there are so many more such as age, disability status, physical appearance, and sexual orientation they all are used to group people. There is always another factor that is sometimes over looked and that is our appearance; skinny, fat and even what we wear are we well dressed and clean all of the time or are we in regular day to day clothes or are we dressed in rags torn, ripped and dirty clothing. Also there is the money factor how much does one have or don’t have to many people the money factor matters most people like to know that they know people with money. Are these people wealthy with more money than they will every need or do they just have enough or do they struggle or worse yet do they not have anything leaving them going from home to home or street to street or going to government and privet programs for help. 2. Why do people label and group other people? I have thought about this question and it made me realize that not only do people label and group other people but we also label ourselves putting ourselves in categories that please us. Plus it gives us our sense of belonging to something that most people â€Å"need† to feel. Getting back to the question; I think it is something that we all do whether we realize it or not. Labeling and grouping help people to determine who we should or who we should not interact with. It helps people and sometimes it does just the opposite and destroys people it’s like having a power a power to have some control over other people. I can almost see it in another time a man running through the streets with a label machine placing labels on everyone’s forehead yelling â€Å"You are who I say you are! † Scary thought! We constantly label people in a negative light due to difference of opinion due to religion, political view, sexual preference, parenting method you name it we do it, even children do this and it is not done intentionally they were not taught this, too me it almost seems like it is a defense mechanism keeping themselves even ourselves safe from what we may consider to be harmful. In the end people are just that â€Å"people† we are nothing more and nothing less. People label others either to feel empowered or to praise someone but in the end we are Human Beings and that is it. We may think and act differently but we are what we are and if people could just except that then the future might not ever have to deal with the positive and mainly the negative effects that come with being labeled and tossed into a group that was thought up by others. Resources Schaefer, R. T. (2012). (Ch. 1 2) Racial and ethnic groups (13th ed. ). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Definition Of Voting System Information Technology Essay

Definition Of Voting System Information Technology Essay Using an electronic voting system has become more and more popular worldwide and is replacing traditional paper voting methods. However, with wider adoption it has been increasingly criticized for not being secure enough and has had some controversy over the fact that the voters need to put their trust in a system they have no idea how works and is often closed black box device. However, although users demand a transparent and secure voting system, they also demand fast and reliable results, and that is something that only an electronic voting system can provide. In the last decade many organizations and governments have started electronic voting. Some companies have also specialized in electronic voting systems, and some of them have had a lot of criticism19 2 Definition of voting system a voting system is not just the equipment necessary to cast a vote. the voting system standards (VSS) has two definitions, addressing the physical and functional components of a voting system. the physical aspect defines a voting system as comprising all the hardware and software, procedures, manuals, and specifications . http://homepages.nyu.edu/~tsc223/ElectronicVoting.pdf Voting system means, a method of casting and processing votes that functions wholly or partly by use of electromechanical, or electronic apparatus or by use of paper ballots and includes, but is not limited to, the procedures for casting and processing votes and the programs, operating manuals, tabulating cards, printouts and other software necessary for the systems operation. A voting system consists of a configuration of specific hardware and software components, procedures and expendable supplies; configured into a system which allows votes to be cast and tabulated. No single component of a voting system, such as a precinct tabulation device, meets the definition of a voting system. Sufficient components must be assembled to create a configuration, which will allow the system as a whole to meet all the requirements described for a voting system in this publication. http://election.dos.state.fl.us/voting-systems/pdf/dsde101Form.pdf Properties of voting systems Researchers in the electronic voting field have already reached a consensus pack of four core properties that an electronic voting system should have (Cranor and Cytron 1997): Accuracy: (1) it is not possible for a vote to be altered, (2) it is not possible for a validated vote to be eliminated from the final tally, and (3) it is not possible for an invalid vote to be counted in the final tally. Democracy: (1) it permits only eligible voters to vote and, (2) it ensures that eligible voters vote only once. Privacy: (1) neither authorities nor anyone else can link any ballot to the voter who cast it and (2) no voter can prove that he voted in a particular way. Verifiability: anyone can independently verify that all votes have been counted correctly. Accuracy, democracy and verifiability are, in most cases of todays electoral systems, assured by the presence of representatives of opposite parties. The privacy property is currently assured by the existence of private voting booths, allowing voters to cast their votes in secrecy. 50 Voting system life cycle Many discussions of voting system security vulnerability fail to consider the entire voting system. In addition to the hardware and software that make up the voting equipment, the system includes election workers, voters, and is deployed in a variety of physical environments. Election workers are often volunteers whose skill with technology can vary widely. Similarly, voting technology that assumes a level of technological literacy on the part of the individual voter will potentially be susceptible to error. A security assessment of election equipment that only considers hardware and software without examining its use in real contexts may conclude that the equipment is satisfactory. Considering the larger system including election workers and voters will require analysis of procedures with a focus on fair voting criteria anonymity, confidentiality, integrity, and audit ability. http://www.ejeg.com/volume-2/volume2-issue3/v2-i3-art4-lauer.pdf Voting Places Voting at polling places [8] : The department can provide the reliable, no virus, and easy-handled voting machine in the polling places. The voters can be authenticated by the traditional protocol and the technological authentication of voters might not be necessary. It provides the highest security compared to other electronic voting place. Voting at home with voters computer [8]: Voters can cast their votes by using their own computers at home. It is hard to prevent the third partys advertisement appearing on the screen while voting. It is much more difficult to secure the voters computer from the attacks of hackers and virus. Voting at anyplace with mobile devices [8]: The voters can use their devices to get access to internet in any place and cast a vote through the electronic voting system. Not only can the laptop be used to vote, the PDA, cell phone, and any other mobile devices might also be used to vote in the future. But there are many harsh problems need to overcome. The security is the most serious problem. It is vital to make sure that the computer and network in which the voters get access is not monitored, intercepted, or tampered by any attackers. http://homepages.nyu.edu/~tsc223/ElectronicVoting.pdf Voting in Egypt Voting in Egypt is like any other country; most of countries still using the conventional voting technique in government election, but now Egyptian government think to electronic voting system rather that conventional voting to avoid the problems they faced on it. There is a lot of problem in conventional voting in Egypt: 1- There is no good relationship between the government and popular, popular cant trust the government and depend on it, voter here is like a blind person that must rely on the other person to vote for him. 2- Sometimes, government coerced and carries on the voters to vote for a particular candidate, and eliminate them from voting freely. 3- Some candidates trying to win by buy the votes from the voters. 4- Government can cheat by substitute the original ballot by derivative ones. So there must be another way to solve these problems or reduce it as possible, and give the voters the confidence to believe of the system, form this point we think to use a new technology to improve the election by building a new system that is convenience for environment of our country Egypt. A novel in e voting in Egypt http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=vq=cache:0tkjSklsJf0J:citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.96.19%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf+electronic+voting+system+diagramhl=engl=ukpid=blsrcid=ADGEESg4A60cHXQU91yKcqMtBvIK_QDFE30y-uM9olPWwuYpBHDS3k8QAmQIPJ_Nrm_aeGkQIaxMoxq3mTREZsaEZvCCdW3GsOQGS61G15RFdCai5s2KbqO728FXRmPkFgmGU_UwQWHbsig=AHIEtbSKAxn_DBTwcaIIcGPif-nYac-epA How voting works In the United States, voting is a local issue. The Federal government certainly has a lot of say about voting through the Federal Election Commission, but in the end, its state and local officials who administer elections. In most states, the secretary of states office runs an elections office that sets rules and administers statewide elections. The actual elections themselves are usually the purview of the county clerk. Moreover, counties and municipalities bear the majority of the cost of managing elections. In 2000, the total county election expenditures were estimated at over $1 billion, or about $10 per voter. Voting is more complicated than simply tallying votes. In fact, most of the work in an election occurs long before the voter ever steps into the booth. Voter registration requires large databases of voters, their addresses and geographic calculation of precinct and district information. Ballot preparation is a long process that is complicated by myriad rules and regulations. The election itself must be administered, usually with the help of a large, volunteer workforce that gets to practice about once per year. All of these activities, in addition to vote tallying, are part of a voting system. http://www.extremedemocracy.com/chapters/Chapter%2011-Windley.pdf Voting systems design criteria Authentication: Only authorized voters should be able to vote. Uniqueness: No voter should be able to vote more than once. Accuracy: Voting systems should record the votes correctly. Integrity: Votes should not be able to be modified without detection. Verifiability: Should be possible to verify that votes are correctly counted for in the final tally. Audit ability: There should be reliable and demonstrably authentic election records. Reliability: Systems should work robustly, even in the face of numerous failures. Secrecy: No one should be able to determine how any individual voted. Non- coercibility: Voters should not be able to prove how they voted. Flexibility: Equipment should allow for a variety of ballot question formats. Convenience: Voters should be able to cast votes with minimal equipment and skills. Certifiability: Systems should be testable against essential criteria. Transparency: Voters should be able to possess a general understanding of the whole process. Cost-effectiveness: Systems should be affordable and efficient. http://www.terena.org/activities/tf-csirt/meeting7/gritzalis-electronic-voting.pdf 3 Definition of e-voting system An electronic voting (e-voting) system is a voting system in which the election data is recorded, stored and processed primarily as digital information. Electronic voting is a means of having a paperless voting system. Electronic voting is a term used to describe any of several means of determining peoples collective intent electronically. Electronic voting includes voting by kiosk, internet, telephone, punch card, and optical scan ballot (a.k.a. mark-sense). Thefreedictionary.com 17 An electronic voting system (on-line voting, internet voting) is an election system which uses electronic ballot that would allow voters to transmit their secure and secret voted ballot to election officials over the internet [2]. With the prosperity of internet over the years, inventers start to make the use of electronic voting in order to make the voting process more convenient and raise the participation of the civic. From now on, engineers have repeatedly created new technology to improve the feasibility of electronic voting system. http://www.terena.org/activities/tf-csirt/meeting7/gritzalis-electronic-voting.pdf electronic voting refers to use of computer or computerized voting equipment to cast ballots in an election. this term, sometimes, is used more specifically to refer to voting that take place over the internet. electronic system can be used to register voters, tally ballots, and record votes. http://profsite.um.ac.ir/~kahani/doc/ejisdc05.pdf 3.1 Type of e voting system E-Voting is a type of voting that includes the use of a computer rather than the traditional use of ballot at polling centres or by postal mail. It encompasses various types of voting: kiosks, the Internet, telephones, punch cards, and marksense or optical scan ballots. http://jatit.org/volumes/research- papers/Vol2No1/4vol2no1.pdf there is two types of e-voting: polling place voting and Internet voting. Polling place voting. In a polling place, both the voting clients (voting machines) and the physical environment are supervised by authorized entities. Depending on the type of polling place (precinct or kiosk [6]), validation may be either physical (e.g. by election officials) or electronic (with some kind of digital identification). Casting and tallying are electronic: the voting clients may be Direct Recording Electronic. Internet voting. The vote is cast over the Internet and the voting client is unsupervised during voting (the voting client may be at home, at work, in a library, etc). Registration may be either physical (at the elections office) or electronic (with some form of digital identification). Validation, casting and tallying are electronic. I-voting requires a much greater level of security than e-commerce. While checking the eligibility of voters, and that no voter casts more than one vote, is no more difficult than meeting the security requirements of an e-commerce application, ensuring this and meeting other requirements such as privacy, a universally verifiable audit trail and uncoercibility, has been difficult to achieve in a practical and affordable way. http://euro.ecom.cmu.edu/program/courses/tcr17-803/Burmeister.pdf Advantage The advocate of electronic voting claims that the convenience, mobility, tally speed, less cost, and flexibility are the main advantages. Following are the descriptions of the advantages. Convenience: With the well-designed software and system, the voters can simply use his voting equipment with the minimal time and skill to finish the voting process [2]. Mobility: Voters can cast their votes at a specific polling place, home, or any place in which they can get access to the internet. People can even use the mobile device such as cell phone or PDA to vote. There is no restriction on the location [2]. Tally Speed: [3] Once the voting time is over, the computer can immediately calculate the result of the election. It is much faster than the traditional ballot counting method operated by people. Less Cost: [3] Compared to paper ballot voting, electronic voting saves money from reducing the personnel expense, expense for location management and administration fee, etc. In the beginning, the investment expense of building up the electronic voting system would be very high. But after the system is built up, the total expense would be reduced to be much lower than paper ballot voting. Flexibility: Electronic voting system can be designed to support a variety of ballot question formats [2]. It can be used to collect public opinions or election. Voter participation: With convenience and mobility of the system, it would motivate people who are not interested in voting or unable to vote originally. It would increase the participation of voters. http://homepages.nyu.edu/~tsc223/ElectronicVoting.pdf 2.5 Disadvantage Despite the particular advantages to electronic voting system, critics of electronic voting argue about the security issue and the unequal access chance to the internet are the main drawbacks to the system. Inequality problem: It is apparent that the people with low salary might not be able to afford the equipment for electronic voting. And some people who are not able to use the computer facility might lose their privilege in voting. Vulnerable to Security: The security issue is the main drawback of the electronic voting system. So far, there are still many kinds of attacks which are hard to prevent completely. The attacks might be happened from the webpage, network, to the extent of servers database. Denial of Service attack: A denial of service is characterized by that an attacker prevents legitimate users from using resources. An attacker may attempt to flood a network and thus reduce a legitimate users bandwidth, prevent access to a service, or disrupt service to a specific system or a user [4]. Now it is very hard to completely avoid this kind of attack. Nevertheless, people can adopt some methods such as Filtering Routers, Disabling IP Broadcast, Disabling Unused Services, and Performing intrusion Detection [4] to make the network more secure. Virus: Virus such as Trojan horse would do great damage to the system. The server can be easily protected from the attack of virus by using some specific kinds of operating system. But the client such as personal computers might not secure enough and are easily infected with virus. These viruses might attack computer from http://www.vvk.ee/public/dok/Yldkirjeldus-eng.pdf E-voting system concept The e-voting concept is similar to the envelope method used during advance polls today to allow voting outside of polling place of voters residence: * the voter identifies himself/herself to polling commission, * the voter fills the ballot and puts it in an inner envelope, * that envelope is put into another envelope on which the voters data is then written, * the envelope is transported to the voters polling station, the voters eligibility is verified, and if the voter is eligible, the outer envelope is opened and the anonymous inner envelope is put into the ballot box. The e-voting follows the same scheme. E-voter creates during the voter procedures an inner envelope (which is essentially an encrypted vote) and an outer envelope (which is essentially a digital signature). The following considerations speak in favour of the envelope method: * simplicity and understand ability of the scheme, possibility to draw a parallel with traditional elections; * simplicity of system architecture the number of components and parties is minimal; * full use of digital signature. http://www.vvk.ee/public/dok/Yldkirjeldus-eng.pdf 2. Votes cannot be known before the official ballot reading; 3. Only registered voters will be able to vote; 4. Each voter will have one and only one vote; 5. Vote secrecy is guaranteed; it never will be possible to link a voter to his/her vote; 6. The voting website will resist any denial of service attack 7. The voter will be protected against identity theft; 8. The number of cast votes will be equal to the number of received ballots; 9. It will be possible to prove that a given citizen has voted; 10. The system will not accept votes outside the ballot opening period; 11. The system will be audible. Character of e-voting system discusses the following characteristics of a good electronic voting system: accuracy, democracy, privacy, verifiability, convenience, flexibility, and mobility. Each account includes the characteristic of accuracy, but the authors define accuracy in different ways. For example, Schneier defines accuracy as direct mapping from intent to counted vote. Standard defines accuracy as the extent to which a given measurement agrees with an accepted standard for that measurement and includes significant discussion of acceptable error rates in the body of the document. For Cranor, A system is accurate if (1) it is not possible for a vote to be altered, (2) it is not possible for a validated vote to be eliminated from the final tally, and (3) it is not possible for an invalid vote to be counted in the final tally. Combining these definitions produces: An accurate voting system counts all valid votes with minimal processing error such that the intent of eligible voters is reflected in the final tally. Each account also discusses the requirement that voters be able to cast their vote in secret, without a link between the voter and the cast ballot. This characteristic is referred to as anonymity, confidentiality, or privacy. Both characteristics, accuracy and privacy, are essential in an ideal voting system. Yet, it is a non-trivial matter to achieve both simultaneously. For example, how do we insure that the intent of eligible voters is reflected in the final tally, without a back-channel to the voter after the vote has been counted but, wouldnt a back-channel to the voter compromise privacy. Each account also discusses the requirement that voters be able to cast their vote in secret, without a link. http://brahms.emu.edu.tr/rza/An%20Introduction%20to%20Electronic%20Voting.pdf characteristics, such as security, reliability, ease of use, and cost effectiveness http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07576t.pdf Basic Principles of E-voting The main principle of e-voting is that it must be as similar to regular voting as possible, compliant with election legislation and principles and be at least as secure as regular voting. Therefore e-voting must be uniform and secret, only eligible persons must be allowed to (e-)vote, every voter should be able to cast only one vote, a voter must not be able to prove in favour of whom he/she voted. In addition to this the collecting of votes must be secure, reliable and accountable. According to Estonian election legislation e-voting takes place from 6th to 4th day before Election Day and the following requirements are laid out: (1) On advance polling days, voters may vote electronically on the web page of the National Electoral Committee. A voter shall vote himself or herself. (2) A voter shall identify himself or herself using the certificate entered on his or her identity card which enables digital identification. (3) After identification of the voter, the consolidated list of candidates in the electoral district of the residence of the voter shall be displayed to the voter on the web page. (4) The voter shall indicate on the web page the candidate in the electoral district of his or her residence for whom he or she wishes to vote and shall confirm the vote by signing it digitally using the certificate entered on his or her identity card which enables digital signing. (5) A notice that the vote has been taken into account shall be displayed to the voter on the web page. (6) Voter may change his or her electronic vote during the advance voting period from 6th to 4th day before Election Day: 1) by voting electronically; 2) by voting in polling station. http://www.vvk.ee/public/dok/Yldkirjeldus-eng.pdf E-Voting Procedures In this section we will describe in greater detail the behaviour of the components present in the general architecture of the system during different stages of e-voting. 6.1. Key Management The key management procedures and the security scheme used are one of the most critical points of the system on which the fulfilment of the main requirements of the system (privacy and secrecy of voting) depends. What follows is not a final description of the measures and procedures, but we will outline the main concept, main risks and possible solutions. The main tool to guarantee the secrecy of voting in the system is asymmetric cryptography. A system key pair is generated, the public component of which is integrated into client software and is used to encrypt the vote. The private component of the key pair is used in the Vote Counting Application to decrypt the vote. It is of utmost importance that the use of private key is possible only for counting the votes in the VCA (at 19.00 on election day and, if necessary, during recount). When the period for filing complaints has expired, the private key will be destroyed The privacy and secrecy of an e-voter can be compromised by a simultaneous occurrence of two security hazards: a party appears in the system (or outside the system) who has access to both the private key of the system as well as the digitally signed votes. Even though this data is separated in the system, the risk remains. A one and only private key is probably a lot easier to protect than the digitally signed e-votes the latter pass through several system components (Voter, VFS, VSS) and data transfer channels, consequently, the danger of leaked e-votes is higher. Thus fo r ensuring the security the main focus should be on key management. The private key is subject to two dangers: * Compromise or becoming publicly available. The occurrence of this would enable the parties in possession of digitally signed e-votes to determine who cast a vote in favour of whom, thus compromising the privacy of the voter. * Corruption. The private key carrier may be destroyed, lost or be corrupted because of a technical error. When this occurs it becomes impossible to decrypt the e-votes and all the electronically cast e-votes are lost. This is a critical danger and therefore two key pairs should be used simultaneously in the system. The key pair is generated in a Hardware Security Module (HSM) in such a way that the private component never leaves the module. The generation of the key pair and use of private key is maintained by key managers, there should be several of them. A scheme N out of M is recommended, for National Electoral Committee four members out of seven should be present in order to perform security critical operations. Key managers have physical (for example a keycard) as well as knowledge-based (PIN-code) authentication devices for communicating with the HSM. The procedures of key management, meaning the generation of the key pair and PINs, delivery of the public component to the vendor of client application, preservation of the private component, its backup and delivery to the VCA must be subject to audit supervision and should be described in a separate document. http://www.vvk.ee/public/dok/Yldkirjeldus-eng.pdf Paper voting system Paper-based voting: The voter gets a blank ballot and use a pen or a marker to indicate he want to vote for which candidate. Hand-counted ballots is a time and labour consuming process, but it is easy to manufacture paper ballots and the ballots can be retained for verifying, this type is still the most common way to vote http://crypto.nknu.edu.tw/publications/200805ICIM_eVoting.pdf In paper voting, the conformation to these principles is achieved via voter identification, supervised voting and distributed counting procedures. People are admitted to the polling station only once, and they only get one opportunity to cast their vote. It is also hard to add invalid ballots to or remove valid ballots from the ballot box unseen. The paper system uses separate counting sessions in the different districts, and allows any citizen to attend the counting process, and thereby verify the result. Moreover, since voting is done under supervision of the election officials, you will be guaranteed a private voting environment. This is a warrant for the secrecy of your vote. Via these aspects, paper voting has acquired a large deal of trust in the experience of citizens. Still, the ease with which this system has been replaced in the Netherlands suggest that there are other factors involved as well. One may argue that the electronic voting machines currently in use have been accepted based on passivity rather than trust. When these machines were introduced in the Netherlands, there has not been much debate about the conformation to the aforementioned principles. Instead, their introduction has been more or less tacitly accepted in spite of decreased transparency which is typical of passivity. http://www.win.tue.nl/ipa/archive/falldays2005/Paper_Pieters.pdf Paper voting has earned a large amount of trust in the experience of citizens, partly due to the well organised social context. Progress in technology should not lead to problems with democratic progress in society, which may easily become the result of distrust in the election system. If voting technology mediates the relation between people and democracy in such a way that the experience of trust and stability is reduced, for whatever reason, the actions that are invited are political passivity on the one hand, and protest and obstruction on the other. http://www.win.tue.nl/ipa/archive/falldays2005/Paper_Pieters.pdf Voting by Paper Ballot In colonial America, early voters substituted beans, kernels of corn, seashells, or rocks for the multi-colored balls used in Greece, as well as using a show of hands and voice to conduct elections (Rusk 313). In 1629, the first vote credited with using paper ballots took place in a Salem, Massachusetts church and by the Civil War only Kentucky and Virginia were still voting by voice.6 In 1800, the Northwest Territory enacted a law stating that elections should be held by ballot. http://josephhall.org/arnold_ca_vs_hist.pdf Paper-based E-voting system In a paper based e-voting system, a touch screen is used in voting. After the voter has finished casting his votes, the unit prints out a hardcopy of the ballot which the voter has to pass to the election officer in charge so that it can be counted in a centralized location. The ballots will then be counted through optical-scan voting systems. This system has the advantage of a paper trail as every persons votes are recorded on a piece of paper. However, holes that are not properly aligned in a punch card or stray marks on an optical-scan card may lead to a vote not being counted by the machine. Moreover, physical ballots can still be lost during or after transit to the counting stations. http://www.topbits.com/e-voting.html Direct recording electronic systems A DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) voting system consists of a computer with a touch-screen monitor, a permanent storage medium such as a write-once memory card, software, and, in some systems, a ballot printer. The computer is much like a home computer. A touch-screen monitor allows the user to touch a marked spot on the monitor surface with his finger, thus entering data as if the screen were a keyboard; you have seen one if you have ever used an Automatic Teller Machine. The software consists of two parts: 1) An Operating System that supports the voting software and directly controls the monitor, the permanent storage, and any other device that forms part of the computer system. 2) The voting system itself, which runs as an application on the Operating System. It manages the user interface, guards against certain user errors e.g., it refuses to accept a vote if the user votes for more candidates than there are offices to be filled and records the vote of each user on the users command. The voting system also counts the votes and records the counts, or else cooperates with a central computer to produce these results. The ballot printer, if there is one, produces a document that may look like a ballot; it shows the choices made by the user. After the user has examined it, he may direct the system to record his vote or he may ask for another chance to vote. When the voter has made his choice, the system disposes of this document in one of a number of ways, which will be described later. Most of the DRE systems installed in the United States today do not have these printers. Direct Recording Electronic Voting Systems This is essentially voting through a comput

National Political Influence and the Catholic Church Essay -- Politics

Democratic transitions recently became a topic of great discussion among political scholars as a domino effect of democratization began in Latin America in the 1970s and continued through Eastern Europe in the late 1980s. In many of these transitions, the Catholic Church[1] played a crucial role as the protector of civil society during periods of communist and right-wing authoritarian rule, as well as taking an active role to promote the establishment of democracy (Bruneau 1994, Levine 1980, Stepan and Linz 1996, Perà ©z-Dà ­az 1993, Ramet 1987). While the Church’s political role in transition is important, significantly fewer scholars have explored how democracy affected the Catholic Church within the national context (Eberts 1998, Ramet 1999, Vilarino and Tizon 1998). Even fewer have attempted cross-national comparisons of the Church, thus permitting generalizations to be made about the political influence of the Church since the institution of democratic governance (Casan ova 1993, Gill et al.1998). With the establishment of democracy the Church was expected to flourish, due to its organizational and political advantage within new democracies. However, initial research suggests otherwise. Using the involvement of the Church in abortion policy as an indicator of political influence, it is clear the cases of Spain, Brazil and Poland vary extensively. The Polish Church maintained the most political influence, followed by the Brazilian and Spanish Churches (Neilsen 1991, Volenski and Gryzmala-Mosczynska 1997, Gautier 1998, Casanova 1993, Linz 1991, Morris 1993). In Brazil and Poland, the Church played an instrumental role in the democratic revolution, making a political decline in the Church almost inconceivable. While initially th... ...ee is regarded as a non-member state permanent observer allowing it to occasionally participate in General Assembly discussions and decisions and participate in UN International Conferences. Holy See, however, has no voting rights. [3] Secularization refers to the number of clergy that disaffiliated from the Church (i.e. transfer from ecclesiastical to civil). [4] Vatican II theology â€Å"stressed a very different notion of the Church as the people of God, assigned a more important role to the laity, redefined the authority of the Pope over the hole Church and the bishops over the diocese† (Mainwaring 1986). Vatican II theology stressed the need for social justice and vowed to help the less fortunate, this came to be known as the option for the poor. [5] The Roman Curia is the collection of ministries for governing the International Church (Della Cava 1993).

Managing Diversity in the Workplace Essay -- Diversity Management, Cul

"We need to give each other the space to grow, to be ourselves, to exercise our diversity. We need to give each other space so that we may both give and receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness, dignity, joy, healing, and inclusion." -- Max de Pree Workplaces today have become increasingly diverse with employees of different genders, races, cultures, ethnic origins, and lifestyles. Changes in the cultural make-up of organizations have been so vast that it has become imperative for leaders and supervisors to understand cultural diversity and how it can affect their organization. By understanding how this diversity can affect their organization, leaders are taking steps to assure a conflict-free environment and are helping promote positive outcomes for the business, as well as its employees. â€Å"Diversity today is being viewed as a key means to strengthen the human capital of an organization and improve overall performance† (Bowes, 2007/2008). Studies have shown that diverse workforces can positively affect and strengthen the organization, but what can organizations do to assure this type of environment? What programs or tools do leaders need to implement when looking to improve their ability to manage this diversit y? The main purpose of this research paper will be to explore what methods organizations and leaders can use to successfully manage increased cultural diversity within the workforce. This research will reflect not only why it is important for organizations to embrace the differences in a diverse workplace, but will discuss the consequences that may occur if they do not incorporate effective methods for addressing a multicultural population. A clear discussion of the educational tools used in this project ... ...y and its impact on the interaction level within the nursing workforce. Dissertation Abstracts, DAI-B 67/12, Jun 2007 (AAT 3246919), Abstract. Web. 15 May. 2015. http://proquest.umi.com/?did=1253511131&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=13118&RQ Hendricks, E. (2005, November 6). It’s Good for Business: Diversity: helps companies better serve customers. The Provience, p. A.42. Web. 21 May. 2015. http://proquest.umi.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/?did=923079241&sid=3&Fmt=3&clientId=13118&RQT=309&VName=PQD Spiers, C. (2008, Summer). The Business Benefits of Diversity. Management Services, 52(2), 26, 5pgs. Web. 18 May. 2015. http://proquest.umi.com/?did=1507581611&sid=1&Fmt=3&clientId=13118&RQT=309&Vname=PQD. Walton, S. J., M.A. (1993, May). Cultural Diversity: An asset, Not a Liability. R & D Innovator, 2(5), 37. Web. 27 May. 2015. http://www.au.af.mil/////c.pdf

Violence in Sports :: Sports Violence

Violence is defined as the use of excessive physical force, which causes or has obvious potential to cause harm or destruction to an individual. Violence in sports comes in many forms, and divides into social and cultural factors related to the sport ethic, gender ideology, the dynamics of social class and race, and the tactics used in sports. Violence in sports has gone too far because sports violence has become so severe in sports, that players are injured each years. However, in sports some violence has become entertaining for the fans and fans would begin their own violence around with other fans that support opposing teams to win. The violence in sports can cause severe casualties from collisions to concussions that may result in long-term mental or physical damage. There are many casualties of violence and collisions/concussions in professional sports. The first common type of violence is body contact. The brutal body contact includes physical practices common in certain sports and accepted by athletes as part of sport participation. Examples of brutal body contacts in sports are collisions, hits, tackles, blocks, body checks, and other forms of physical contact that can produce injuries. In the NHL a hockey player on the Vancouver Canucks named Todd Bertuzzi hit unexpectedly a player on the Colorado Avalanche named Steve Moore from behind and then fell on him and pushed his head into the ice. Steve Moore received a concussion and he was motionless for ten minutes, and also fractured three vertebrates and facial cuts on Steve Moore’s face. The commissioner suspended Todd Bertuzzi for giving a blind-side hit to Steve Moore. He was suspended for 20 games and forfeited his salary which was approximately $500,000. Steve’s injury was a career-ending injury which ruined his opportunity to play in the NHL with the Colorado Avalanche. Another type violence in sports which is the quasi-criminal violence this includes practices that violate the formal rules of the game, public laws, and even informal norm between players. Examples of quasi-criminal violence are cheap shots, blind-side hit, and flagrant fouls that endanger player body and reject the norm calling for dedication to the game above all else. In the NFL, a linebacker in Pittsburgh Steelers named Jerome Harrison; he made a tackle that is a great example of brutal body contact. His tackling towards other football players sometimes involves cheap hits like the head to head contact. The football players could be injured on the field and the result could lead to a concussion. Violence in Sports :: Sports Violence Violence is defined as the use of excessive physical force, which causes or has obvious potential to cause harm or destruction to an individual. Violence in sports comes in many forms, and divides into social and cultural factors related to the sport ethic, gender ideology, the dynamics of social class and race, and the tactics used in sports. Violence in sports has gone too far because sports violence has become so severe in sports, that players are injured each years. However, in sports some violence has become entertaining for the fans and fans would begin their own violence around with other fans that support opposing teams to win. The violence in sports can cause severe casualties from collisions to concussions that may result in long-term mental or physical damage. There are many casualties of violence and collisions/concussions in professional sports. The first common type of violence is body contact. The brutal body contact includes physical practices common in certain sports and accepted by athletes as part of sport participation. Examples of brutal body contacts in sports are collisions, hits, tackles, blocks, body checks, and other forms of physical contact that can produce injuries. In the NHL a hockey player on the Vancouver Canucks named Todd Bertuzzi hit unexpectedly a player on the Colorado Avalanche named Steve Moore from behind and then fell on him and pushed his head into the ice. Steve Moore received a concussion and he was motionless for ten minutes, and also fractured three vertebrates and facial cuts on Steve Moore’s face. The commissioner suspended Todd Bertuzzi for giving a blind-side hit to Steve Moore. He was suspended for 20 games and forfeited his salary which was approximately $500,000. Steve’s injury was a career-ending injury which ruined his opportunity to play in the NHL with the Colorado Avalanche. Another type violence in sports which is the quasi-criminal violence this includes practices that violate the formal rules of the game, public laws, and even informal norm between players. Examples of quasi-criminal violence are cheap shots, blind-side hit, and flagrant fouls that endanger player body and reject the norm calling for dedication to the game above all else. In the NFL, a linebacker in Pittsburgh Steelers named Jerome Harrison; he made a tackle that is a great example of brutal body contact. His tackling towards other football players sometimes involves cheap hits like the head to head contact. The football players could be injured on the field and the result could lead to a concussion.

Archetypes in Beowulf Essay

Archetypes stir profound emotions in the reader because they awaken images stored in the collective unconscious. In Seamus Haney’s translation of Beowulf this is used in the form of character types. Beowulf is a hero and encounters many triumphs with different types of people on his journey in this epic poem. There are three archetypal characters in Beowulf that are particularly effective and intriguing. These are The Creature of Nightmare Grendel, The Mentor Hrothgar, and The Loyal Retainer Wiglaf. The characters are common experiences in the human psyche. The Creature of Nightmare is a monster from the deepest darkest part of the human psyche. Throughout Beowulf, Grendel’s actions and description accurately fits the archetype. The vivid language used in the poem illustrates Grendel as a monster. â€Å"The God-cursed brute was creating havoc:/greedy and grim he grabbed thirty men/from their resting places†¦/ (121-123)†. He’s also depicted as â€Å"a fiend out of hell/ (100)†. This passage acts as an illustration of the archetype in the poem because a demon that steals lives at a peaceful hour is what would happen in a nightmare. Grendel shares similarities with another dark creature from literature, Poseidon. He is known through Greek mythology as an almighty god but also is a monster. In the myth of Medusa, Poseidon took medusa’s virginity forcefully in the temple of Athena, had the blame put on her, and she was terribly punished. The acts he committed were iniquitous. What makes this archetype particularly effective and intriguing is the fact that these monsters are real; except they aren’t in the form of a nightmare or make believe gods. In addition to the Creature of Nightmare there is the Mentor. This individual acts as a teacher or consoler to the initiate. The fit for this archetype is Hrothgar. For the duration of the novel, he acts as role model to Beowulf consoling him to achieve greatness. Hrothgar depicts this archetype when he talks to Beowulf about life and how to be a good king. He says â€Å"†¦understand true values. / I who tell you have wintered into wisdom. / (1724-1725)† and â€Å"Do not give way to pride. / for a brief while your strength is in bloom but it fades quickly†¦Ã¢â‚¬ . Being a mentor requires experience so that wisdom can be bestowed onto another and that something is learned. He undoubtedly does this for Beowulf. Hrothgar can be compared to another character in literature. This character is Hagrid from  Harry Potter. It’s easy to overlook him but Hagrid turns out to be Harry’s rescuer and first real friend. He’s the first person to take Harry’s side in anything, and he is the first real impression that Harry gets of the wizard world, aside from the letters. Harry makes use of relying on friendship throughout all of the books thanks to Hagrid. These details make him an exemplary example of a mentor. The Mentor archetype is effective and intriguing because people still have mentors by their side in the form of a mother, father, friend, teacher, or other guiding them through life. Lastly, there is The Loyal Retainers. These people are very important as they are usually a sidekick who has a duty to protect and reflect the nobility of the hero. Beowulf’s sidekick is Wiglaf. He comes at the end of Beowulf and is the only warrior who stays and helps Beowulf defeat the dragon, â€Å"No help or backing was to be had then/ f rom his high-born comrades; that hand-picked troop/ †¦ ran for their lives†¦/but within one heart sorrow welled up/ (2597-2600)†. He also stays with Beowulf when his last breath is taken. Wiglaf gets this archetype because he protected the hero, Beowulf. He shares very similar qualities with Ponyboy from The Outsiders. He is the main character but when his friend, Johnny, kills someone Ponyboy runs away with him staying by Johnny’s side till he died even though he could have let Johnny get in trouble by himself. Ponyboy protected Johnny and stood by his side. The archetype, Loyal Retainer, is effective and intriguing because there’s always somebody that is there for another person in life to protecting them and be loyal. Archetypes are persuasive in the epic poem Beowulf. The Creature of Nightmare, The Mentor, and The Loyal Retainer are common experiences in the human psyche. These archetypes can be connected to other literature. They can also be connected to life. The ideas in this essay matters to the world because as according to Carl Jung people from all over the world respond to certain myths or stories in the same way not because everyone knows the same story but because lying deep in our collective unconsciousness are the racial memories of humanity’s past. These memorie s exist in the form of archetypes.

American Unions in the Twenty First Century

The number of people joining labor unions in the United States today is declining. Scholars offer several reasons for this decline. Globalization happens to be one of the reasons, seeing as international outsourcing has become common especially in the area of manufacturing. The most important reason, however, appears to be that the organization has begun to view the employees’ interests as its own, thanks to the budding field of organizational behavior. Introduction In the United States, union membership had peaked in the year 1954 with at least 28.3% of all employed workers joining labor unions. In the year 2003, however, only 11. 5% of employees were known to be union members. The number of employed workers in the U. S. who had joined labor unions was at a peak in the year 1979. There were approximately 21 million union members all across the country at the time. In the year 2003, on the other hand, there were only 15. 8 million union members in the nation. Labor unions were essentially important because they allowed union members to collectively demand higher wages and better working conditions.The demand for higher wages had to be curtailed in the face of globalization, however. Faced by global competition, American organizations began to demand concessions during the late 1970s. They could no longer listen to labor unions’ demands for very high wages seeing that expensive American products and services – due to the high price of labor in the country – could not be efficiently sold in the foreign markets. In the 1980s, there were â€Å"widespread manufacturing layoffs and plant closings† in the country.Another important aspect of globalization had showed up – that of hiring cheap labor in countries where new manufacturing plants could be set up by the American organization in order to cut its costs. As an example, â€Å"toys can be produced more cheaply in China than in the United States or France. This makes it ge nerally unprofitable to have toy factories employing workers in these richer countries (except for upscale toys); it also means American and French workers can enjoy the benefits of lower price toys. †In the year 1981, former President Ronald Reagan announced that air traffic controllers on strike as members of a union had to be fired. After all, strikes are costly for the economy as a whole. More than a decade later in 1992, when the United Auto Workers went on strike, the Caterpillar Corporation threatened to replace them all permanently, following the example of Mr. Reagan. The company was successful through this tactic in breaking the strike. Even today, Wal-Mart and other big corporations are known to stifle union efforts.What is more, the government is said to encourage employers in failing to listen to the demands of union members. The Washington Post reports that the government is known to â€Å"allow employers to block union-certification elections and use stalling t actics and threats to discourage organizing drives. † The main reason for this appears to be the fact that the American organizations have now found a better way to deal with employee grievances, and to essentially satisfy all employees. Union memberships that have the potential to create difficulties for businesses as well as the economy as a whole are being discouraged.The union method of strike, for example, costs a great deal to businesses in addition to the economy. Organizations had to find a more convenient way to make their employees more productive and to satisfy them at the same time. Thus came into being the field of organizational behavior. Organizational Behavior Removes the Need for Union Membership The most important reason for the diminishing role of labor unions in the United States appears to be the direct opposite of a labor strike: the satisfaction of the labor force.According to a federal publication published in the year 2004, â€Å"employers may have be come more sensitive to employee concerns, resulting in greater job satisfaction among nonunion workers and reducing the demand for unionization. On the other hand, management may have become more sophisticated in opposing attempts by workers to unionize† Indeed, both of the above reasons for the diminishing role of union membership are true. Employers have really become more sensitive to the concerns of the employees, thanks to organizational behavior.Moreover, the management of American companies has been improved, also thanks to organizational behavior. The twenty first century began with a great deal of excitement especially as the innovatory technologies of the twentieth century started to appear commonplace and every organization had already been supplied with tools through academic research to deal with additional organizational changes in the offing. The discipline of organizational behavior had been through its trials and tests, finally emerging as an indispensable are a of learning for all twenty first century managers to have gone through.Arthur P. Brief and Howard M. Weiss describe this relatively new field of applied psychology thus: â€Å"The organizations in which people work affect their thoughts, feelings, and actions in the workplace and away from it. Likewise, people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions affect the organizations in which they work. Organizational behavior is an area of inquiry concerned with both sorts of influence: work organizations on people and people on work organizations. † Organizations act as the engine of the American economy in our day.So, for the first time in the latter half of the previous century, the psychology of workers in an American organization became a focal issue in studying organizations. Employee development, organizational cultures, organizational citizenship, work attitudes, organizational attachment, job design, leadership, turnover, absenteeism, and employee work motivation turned ou t to be the centers of attention with advances in psychological theory and changes in the workplace. There were developments in the understanding of cognition, personality, and emotion, and their respective influences on work choices as well as goal striving.The entire human resources departments of the United States were revolutionized at the same time as technological, economic and organizational changes encouraged further research on the influence of socio-cultural in addition environmental factors on employee motivation. The emergence of new paradigms, theories, and organizational concerns did not only provide a rich matrix for the exploration of organizational behavior, but also provided firms with a rather attractive theoretical framework for organizational behavior modification, and in general, the art of running a firm with special reference to its people.As a matter of fact, organizational behavior turned out to be at least as important as computer technology to an American organization. In order to compete in foreign as well as domestic markets, the American organization was required to produce high quality products at low costs. This mission was most likely to be accomplished through satisfied and productive labor, rather than union members on strike. What is more, in order to deal with the organizational changes brought about through the introduction of new technologies, organizations had to learn the principles of organizational change through organizational behavior theories.Indeed, these theories performed their job rather well by helping organizations to introduce technological change effectively. The employees were pleased with the organizational efforts using theories to predict and manage their behavior in the organization. According to Fred Luthans: We found that Organizational Behavior Modification had an average increase of 17% in employee performance. We think that is pretty impressive, especially when you consider many technological inn ovations or some of the better known human resource techniques suchas goal setting do not have evidence of that big an impact. In addition, we also found through†¦meta-analysis some significant theory driven moderators. Specifically, we found that the type of organization and the type of contingent reinforcement intervention moderates the relationship between Organizational Behavior Modification and employee performance. For example, we found that Organizational Behavior Modification had a bigger impact in manufacturing organizations, approximately 33% average improvement, than in serviceorganizations at about 10%. However, it must be remembered that this 10% is still highly significant and can make a big difference in the labor intensive service industry. Whereas the manufacturing industry had traditionally been filled with union members, organizational behavior modification made it possible for the American manufacturing organization to satisfy its employees without a union, especially toward the end of the twentieth century when union membership was falling dramatically.This, indeed, is a big achievement for the field of organizational behavior. Organizations had learned to satisfy their employees without the need for unions to voice the employees’ concerns. By the commencement of the twenty first century, a modern field close to the heart of organization behavior had also been introduced by the name of organizational development.For the present century, organizational development consultants have pointed out the following trends: (1) The range of organizational development techniques is expected to expand, spurred mainly by the information explosion; (2) The number of employees involved in organizational development would increase, which implies that all members of the organization would have to show interest in all phases of organizational operation; (3) It will be increasingly important to improve organizational communication; and (4) The imp lications for organizational behavior – including stress, responsibility, and learning – would be repeatedly addressed.The United States has led the global research into organizational behavior, and there is new information about the field expected in the future with further research. The second prediction of the organizational development experts is that the American organization of the near future would give greater importance to all employees by involving everybody in virtually everything. By increasing the importance of employees in the perspective of the organization, the American firm would continue to lower union membership, seeing as the satisfied employee who participates in virtually all organizational efforts would not need the support of unions.Organizational communication is already very efficient through the use of new technologies. The latest software and Internet-based applications help to bridge communication gaps between employers and employees in all states of America and across the globe. As a matter of fact, Information technology has gifted the organization with new communications tools that allow collaboration in addition to cooperation in the form of wireless communications, electronic mail, shared electronic databases, videoconferencing, and various other groupware technologies.Lastly, the organizational development consultants understand that the organization would continue to take increasing interest in the wellness of its employees. Factors like stress and learning would continue to be addressed. By addressing stress, the organization shows its employees that it cares about their wellbeing. By addressing learning, the organization cares for their essential intellectual and professional growth. In point of fact, progressive organizational behavior theories that stress the need for greater organizational learning are uniquely significant in the twenty first century.In the fast changing business environment, successful Am erican organizations promote learning by getting everyone focused on a common objective; allowing easy communications between and among all members; and then allowing the system to self-organize and to reconfigure itself so as to deal effectively with the emerging new environment. Before the widespread application of organizational behavior theories, it must have been quite stressful to introduce change among union members. Today, if an employee is unhappy at the job, he or she may communicate with the employer in the matter of a few minutes using electronic mail.Perhaps the most important achievement of organizational behavior theories in the United States is that these theories have made the employers realize the true significance of their employees. Consider the following examples of organizational leaders that have tapped their human resources potential: Take Bill Gates, the ultimate techie but a great leader. A reason he has done so well is because he believes in the people par t of his leadership role. In fact, one of his quotes that I like is â€Å"My inventory, the value of my company, walks out the door every night.† I think Gates appreciates the human side of enterprise. He has reward systems, he has teams, he has all the things we talk about in Human Resources; you can find not only the most sophisticated technology in the world, but also textbook examples of effective Organizational Behavior/Human Resources at Microsoft. Gates is obviously the ultimate techie, but he is also appreciative, and an effective leader of human resources. So is Jeff Bezos, the cyber architect of Amazon. com. All of his top people have become millionaires through his HumanResources policies of sharing the wealth through pay for performance and stock ownership in this amazing e-commerce firm. Conclusion Who needs union membership when employers equipped with the new theoretical tools of organizational behavior are wiling to go out of the way to satisfy their employees ? This question leads all researchers to expect that union membership would continue to diminish in the twenty first century. New research into employee satisfaction would continue to enlighten employers.Moreover, employees will be quick to notice the changes brought about through organizational behavior tools, given the advancement in technology that makes it possible for organizational communication to take place at all levels within moments. Although the research for this paper encompassed a variety of reasons suggested for the decline in union membership across the United States in recent decades, organizational behavior appeared to have played the most important role in the diminishing role of labor unions. This is because of the employee satisfaction factor in the organization today.If employees were merely being discouraged by the government or the organization taking actions against union membership, or if they were truly unsatisfied only on the basis of lower wages as a res ult of increased competition and globalization, America’s economy would not have achieved a high rate of growth because employees would have found a way to disturb the organization as well as the economy as whole. However, this did not happen. Rather, employees grew to be satisfied, their productivity increased, and the principal reason why this happened was because employers began to take greater interest in the wellbeing of their employees.By addressing stress, for example, employers ensured that their employees would be mentally and emotionally well in order to perform their job functions most efficiently. Furthermore, employers were made to realize that their employees might have to be involved in the entire organizational process in order to be more interested in their work. Finally, employers who were learned in organizational behavior theories, for example, Bill Gates, appeared to make employees feel that they truly are an integral part of the organization. No more did employees have to be concerned about monetary payments alone.Instead, the workplace was made a truly satisfying and stimulating experience, thanks to organizational behavior theories. Employees could feel that they were a part of the organizational culture. The value of organizational citizenship was additionally recognized. Hence, once again, who needs to join labor unions in order to find more work satisfaction? The American worker has responded to the application of organizational behavior theories and found group satisfaction in organizational teams. The application of organizational behavior theories has been the major reason for the diminishing role of labor unions in the U.S. , and will continue to be the main reason for a decline in union membership in the twenty first century. There is no reason to believe in another direction that union membership might take in the twenty first century. Works Cited 1. â€Å"21st Century Organizational Development Consulting. † Mana gement 2006 (2001). Retrieved from http://www. manage2001. com/index. htm. Accessed 28 October 2006. 2. Brief, Arthur P. , and Howard M. Weiss. â€Å"Organizational Behavior: Affect In The Workplace. † Annual Review of Psychology, 2002. 3. Edsall, Thomas B. â€Å"Labor's Divisions Widen As Membership Declines.† Washington Post (7 March 2005), p. A02. 4. Hodgetts, Richard M. â€Å"A Conversation On Fred Luthans Leadership In The 21st Century. † Journal of Leadership Studies, 1999. 5. Kanfer, Ruth. â€Å"Work Motivation In The 21st Century: Mapping New Directions For Theory And Research. † Society For Industrial And Organizational Psychology Inc (2006). Retrieved from http://www. siop. org/. Accessed 28 October 2006. 6. Compa, Lance. â€Å"Labor Rights and Labor Standards in International Trade. † Law and Policy in International Business, Volume 25, Issue 1, 1993. 7. Mayer, Gerald. â€Å"Union Membership Trends in the United States.† Congressi onal Research Service (2004). Retrieved from http://digitalcommons. ilr. cornell. edu/key workplace/174. Accessed 7 April 2007. 8. Mowday, Richard T. , and Robert I. Sutton. â€Å"Organizational Behavior: Linking Individuals And Groups To Organizational Contexts. † Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 44, 1993. 9. Peterson, John L. â€Å"Getting Ready For The 21st Century. † USA Today, Vol. 127, May 1999. 10. Walton, Michael. â€Å"Unions In A Global Labor Market. † The World Bank Group. Retrieved from http://www. worldbank. org/mdf/mdf1/index. htm. Accessed 7 April 2007.