The Washington Monument Essay -- Architecture History Historical Essay

The capital of the United States MonumentThe most stunning monument in our capital is the Washington Monument. At 555 feet high, it is the tallest such monument in the world. It is an sticker by shape, yet not a true obelisk because it is not carved out of a single stone. The monument was built at intervals between 1848 and 1885. It memorializes George Washingtons achievements and his devotion to principles and to his country. The Washington Monument has an interesting history. The idea of a monument celebrating George Washington was first considered by the Continental Congress in 1783. However, the next three decades brought neglect by Congress to take action. Finally, in 1833 the Washington National Monument Society was organized to forward the progress of the monument. Progress was slow for the society and by 1847 they had raised $87,000. Robert Mills, a well-known architect, was soon selected to design the monument. His design called for a decorated obelisk that was 600 feet hi gh, rising out of a circular colonnaded building. This building was to be a temple , an American pantheon, which would house statues of presidents and national heroes, including a large statue of George Washington. The design changed everywhere the years and finally settled on a the obelisk without decoration as we know today.The building progressed well until the civil war. At this time formulation was halted for almost 25 years. This left the unfinished obelisk standing 150 feet. Finally, on August 2, 1876, President Grant ordered the completion of the monument. The capstone was dictated on the monument on December 6, 1884 and it was finally dedicated on February 21, 1885. Elevators were first powered by a steam hoist. The current elevator was installed in 195... ...ke the ancient Egyptians, we still raise monuments to commemorate our present day heroes. Although today these monuments are ordered and directed by the general public and not by the king or hero themselves. (This probably accounted for the difficulty in final completion of the Washington Monument) The long history or the obelisk being built, toppled, and stolen, provided illustrates the ideas it contains. It stood for power and divinity. Today, the Washington Monument stands as a symbol of George Washingtons contribution to our nation and our citizens still pay tribute to the great leader.Works CitedBadawy, Alexander. A narration of Egyptian Architecture. University of California Press. 1968.Tompkins, Peter. The Magic of Obelisks. Harper & Row Publishers, New York, 1981.Engelbach, L. The Problem of the Obelisks. T. Fisher Unwin Limited, London, 1923.

Charles dikenson biography :: essays research papers fc

Charles two BiographyCharles deuce was one of the most popular writers of all time. Dickens was very observant of life, and had a great understanding of humanity. Charles John Huffam Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England, on February 7, 1812. When he was two years old he and his family moved to London. Dickens father, John Dickens, was a poor clerk who worked for the navy, and he also spent time in prison for debt. When John was not in prison he lacked the money to adequately support his family. When Charles was twelve he worked in a London factory. That job was so miserable that the misery of the put through stayed with him his whole life. Dickens became a newspaper reporter in the late 1820s. He specialized in covering debates in Parliament and also wrote throw articles. This helped him develop his skill portraying his characters speech realistically. His first book was Sketches by Boz in 1836 it consisted of articles he wrote for monthly magazine. The book that got him famo us was The posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. This book describes the adventures and misadventures of a group of people in an English countryside. Dickens founded and edited two highly successful magazines. Those magazines were Household Words and both Year Round. Dickens was always in the news, and was honored, and recognized everywhere he went. In 1836 Dickens married Catherine Hogarth. Catherine had a sister named Mary, who died in 1837. Dickens grieved so much over her death that some people believe that he loved her more then he loved Catherine. Catherine was a well wife but she wasnt a very intelligent woman. She an Dickens had ten children, and separated in 1858. Dickens had a vast amount of animal(prenominal) and mental energy. He had so much energy that he could record all of his activities and make it interesting to read. Dickens had a life other than writing. He spent much of his free time with his friends from the worlds of art and literature. He also enjoyed dra ma. He went to the theater as often as he could. When he was well-situated and famous, he produced and acted in amateur theatrical productions. Dickens was also a well-favoured person. When he was not socializing or in the theater, he was giving to various charities. These charities included giving money toward build schools for the poor school children and loans that enabled the poor to move to Australia.

Working for the Public Sector versus the Private Sector Essay -- essay

As with most choices, especially in the work world, in that location are benefits and consequences of working for both public and snobbish heavenss. There are different sets of needs to be met in each criterion but they may slightly relate to each other as well. The public sector mostly relate to Government work. There are special exams a individual has to take whenever they apply for any work with the government. There are some very strict rules and requirements to meet in all branch of the government and for every position within that branch. And the one-on-one sector is mainly based on the idea of profit. When a person applies for a position in a private sector, they require a certain amount of education, experience, training or skills. But the rules and requirements are not as strict as the public sector. The public sector is not based on the idea of profit. Workers of public sector benefit high job securities and health care and other personal benefits. In the private sec tor, health care benefits and other personal benefits are quite poorer than in the public sector. Theyre more based on w...

The Genre of The Tempest Essay -- Papers

The Genre of The Tempest The Tempest is customarily identified as the William Shakespeares last piece. These marginal issues aside, The Tempest is the forth, final and finest of Shakespeares great and/or late romances. on with Pericles, Cymbeline and The Winters Tale, The Tempest belongs t the genre of Elizabethan romance plays. It combines elements of Tragedy (Prosperos revenge/Loss of a royal son) with those of romantic comedy (the young lover Ferdinand and Miranda) and, resembling one of Shakespeares problem plays, Measure for measure, it poses deeper questions that are not completely resolved at the end. The romantic gesture is distinguished by the inclusion (and synthesis) of these tragical, comic, and problematic ingredients, and raise marked by a happy ending(usually concluding in a masque or dance) in which all, or most, of the characters are brought into harmony. The term romance is minded(p) to the comedies written at the end of Shakespea res career. Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winters Tale and the Tempest. They were written between 1608 and 1612 and are different in style to his earlier comedies. Whilst love and marriage are they happen upon themes in these plays, they focus primarily on the separations and reunions of families and culminate in homecomings, reconciliations, rebirth and redemption. The romances are, characteristically, set in mythical worlds, and include elements from myths and fairy tales. For example Long journey, ocean journeys, shipwrecks, storms, magic, lost or stolen children, a wicked/evil family member. The romances were heavily influenced by court masques, lavish entertainment consisting of song , dance,... ...so be seen to embody regeneration and uncanny development, for through his magic he brings about the repentance of Antonio and Alonso, and the marriage which is to achieve the regeneration. Through Prospero also, the disparate styles are united. He is the symbolic figure in which the tragic events are rooted, for he is both victim of revenge tragedy and the hero who suffered from a fatal flaw. So too is he the instigator of the plays romance. With his magic wand we find he has caused the shipwreck of the first act, which initially seemed to be rooted in realism. The mixture of styles in both plays are, then, successfully combined. They work together to draw a unified whole separately and collectively combing to exert an energy which enhances and balances the moral message of Shakespeares last plays.

Theme of Death in White Noise Essay examples -- White Noise Don DeLill

White Noise Death is probably the most feared word in the English language. Its undesired uncertainty threatens societys desire to believe that life never ends. Don DeLillos novel White Noise tells the bizarre story of how bullshit Gladney and his family illustrate the postmodern ideas of religion, demolition, and popular culture. The theme of deaths influence over the portion mentality, consumer lifestyle, and media manipulation is used often throughout DeLillos story.Perhaps, the character most responsive to death is Jack Gladney. In fact, he is so consumed by his fear of death that his ordinary thought processes are often interrupt by the question Who will die first (DeLillo 15)? In Jacks mind This question comes up from time to time, like where are the railroad car keys (DeLillo 15). Jack finds the aura of death to be very noticeable and real, and he relies on his consumer lifestyle as an escape from his fear of death.Jack uses the supermarket as his grounding for his consu mer lifestyle and a place to escape, which is validated by the interpretation of his friend and colleague Murray Siskind. Murray views the supermarket as almost a holy place, an atmosphere with rays and white encumbrance everywhere. Its full of psychic data.Everything is concealed in symbolism, hidden by veils of mystery and layers of cultural materialThe large doors slide open, they close voluntary.All the letters and numbers are here, all the colors of the spectrum, all the voices and sounds, all the code words and ceremonial phrases. It is just a question of deciphering, rearranging, peeling sour the layers of unspeakability. We dont have to cling to life artificially, or to death for that matter. We simply walk toward the sliding doors. Waves and radiation. Look how well-lighted the place is. The place is blind drunk off, self-contained. It is timeless. Here we dont die, we shop. But the difference is less marked than you think (DeLillo 37-38).John N. Duvall, author of The ( Super)Marketplace of Images Television as lineal Mediation in DeLillos White Noise, believes that Murrays interpretations become Jacks convictions Murrays theorys, Jacks experiences (143). Drawing on Murrays speculations, Jack embraces Murrays analysis as a truth and uses the supermarket as security, a place where colors and names always in the same place, a place where ... ... profoundly important questions about death, the afterlife, God, worlds and space, yet they exist in an almost Pop Art atmosphere(268).By treating these false tracts of literature as several(prenominal) sort of god, consumers can escape the reality of death since the content is not in day to day, ordinary life. Death is a fear that has attacked the minds of man since the beginning. For old age people have treated death as a unspeakable occurrence, and White Noise shows those desperate attempts through postmodern imagery. According to Don DeLillo, death is an assailant that creeps its way into the subconsci ous of society but is prevented from tainting the gratification of life by way of the postmodern army- technology.Works CitedConroy, Mark. From Tombstone to Tabloid empowerment Figured in White Noise. Critique 35.2 (1994) 97-110.DeLillo, Don. White Noise. New York Penguin Books 1999.Duvall, John N. The (Super)Marketplace of Images Television as Unmediated Mediation in DeLillos White Noise. azimuth Quarterly 50.3 (1994) 127-153.Maltby, Paul. The Romantic Metaphysics of Don DeLillo. ContemporaryLiterature 37.2 (1996) 258-277.

Theme of Death in White Noise Essay examples -- White Noise Don DeLill

White Noise Death is probably the most feared word in the English language. Its unsought uncertainty threatens societys desire to believe that life never ends. Don DeLillos novel White Noise tells the bizarre story of how twat Gladney and his family illustrate the postmodern ideas of religion, wipeout, and popular culture. The theme of deaths influence over the reference mentality, consumer lifestyle, and media manipulation is used often throughout DeLillos story.Perhaps, the character most responsive to death is Jack Gladney. In fact, he is so consumed by his fear of death that his ordinary thought processes are often break murder by the question Who will die first (DeLillo 15)? In Jacks mind This question comes up from time to time, like where are the machine keys (DeLillo 15). Jack finds the aura of death to be very noticeable and real, and he relies on his consumer lifestyle as an escape from his fear of death.Jack uses the supermarket as his free radical for his consumer lifestyle and a place to escape, which is validated by the interpretation of his friend and colleague Murray Siskind. Murray views the supermarket as almost a holy place, an atmosphere with rays and white disruption everywhere. Its full of psychic data.Everything is concealed in symbolism, hidden by veils of mystery and layers of cultural materialThe large doors slide open, they close willing.All the letters and numbers are here, all the colors of the spectrum, all the voices and sounds, all the code words and ceremonial phrases. It is just a question of deciphering, rearranging, peeling off the layers of unspeakability. We dont have to cling to life artificially, or to death for that matter. We simply walk toward the sliding doors. Waves and radiation. Look how well-lighted the place is. The place is tight off, self-contained. It is timeless. Here we dont die, we shop. But the difference is less marked than you think (DeLillo 37-38).John N. Duvall, author of The (Super)Marketpl ace of Images Television as unmediated Mediation in DeLillos White Noise, believes that Murrays interpretations become Jacks convictions Murrays surmisals, Jacks experiences (143). Drawing on Murrays speculations, Jack embraces Murrays analysis as a truth and uses the supermarket as security, a place where colors and names always in the same place, a place where ... ... profoundly important questions about death, the afterlife, God, worlds and space, yet they exist in an almost Pop Art atmosphere(268).By treating these false tracts of literature as nigh sort of god, consumers can escape the reality of death since the content is not in day to day, ordinary life. Death is a fear that has attacked the minds of man since the beginning. For old age people have treated death as a unspeakable occurrence, and White Noise shows those desperate attempts through postmodern imagery. According to Don DeLillo, death is an assailant that creeps its way into the subconscious of society but is prevented from tainting the gratification of life by way of the postmodern army- technology.Works CitedConroy, Mark. From Tombstone to Tabloid authority Figured in White Noise. Critique 35.2 (1994) 97-110.DeLillo, Don. White Noise. New York Penguin Books 1999.Duvall, John N. The (Super)Marketplace of Images Television as Unmediated Mediation in DeLillos White Noise. azimuth Quarterly 50.3 (1994) 127-153.Maltby, Paul. The Romantic Metaphysics of Don DeLillo. ContemporaryLiterature 37.2 (1996) 258-277.

Poetry Explication on “One Art”

Loss of One Is it possible to care for one issue so much that the destruction or leaving of a city can have no significance to a person? When a person loses so much on a daily basis, when does the loss start to make a difference? In the poem One Art, Elizabeth Bishop utilizes structure, rhyme scheme, and abstract symbolism to portray that the loss of ones love negates the loss of everything else. To begin, the structure of this poem is entirely about the narrator attempting to coax themself of the idea that loss has no richness thence coming to the onclusion that losing ones love is of utmost importance.In the second stanza the narrator of this poem reminds themselves that to Lose something every day. One must Accept the fluster (line 4). In this citation, they are reminding themselves that losing things is common and inevitable. In the same light, this person is feverously trying to convince themself that loss is not significant. This is shown with the repetition of the line w hich is found three times throughout the poem. The quote, none of these things will make for chance shows that the loss of cities and rivers is not ignificant to the narrator comparabilityd to the loss of their love (line 9).Then, in the brave stanza the narrator realizes that the loss of their love is a disaster and forces themselves to Write it (line 19). With this quote the narrator finally gives up on their feeble attempts to believe that loss is insignificant and now knows that the greatest loss is the loss of love. Correspondingly, the close stanza is the longest in the poem, which shows how great the importance is to Bishop, because this is where the arrator realizes that the only disaster of losing things is when one loses their love.Bishop uses her rhyme scheme to highlight the priority of losing ones love. Correspondingly, the first stanza rhyme scheme is a b a, as the lines rhyming with master and disaster. Through this rhyme scheme Bishop emphasizes the importance of disaster (line 9) by having the majority of her poem rhyme with disaster. With this in mind, the entire poem nevertheless the last stanza of this poem is in an a b a rhyme scheme. The last stanzas rhyme scheme is a b a a which directs the readers ttention to the last couplet because it is out of order of the a b a rhyme scheme.As a resolving power, the reader could infer that the last couplet is the main idea of the poem. The last couplet of the poem is the narrator coming to the realization that even though losing things is not hard to do and it occurs often there are things that if they were lost the result would be a disaster (line 9). This proves the idea that when one loses significant things it has a larger impact that losing something insignificant would. Furthermore, Bishop utilizes conceptual symbolism to portray the significance of ach thing to be lost by labeling them with numbers.In the last three stanzas, the narrator states things they have lost throughout time an d distances. Bishop uses conceptual symbolism when she begins with the loss of three love houses (line 1 1) adding the number three in front of the house gives the impression that the houses are in the third rank in how great the loss is. She then continues to explain in the tittn stanza that there was a loss ot o cities (line two rivers (line which makes the loss of these cities and rivers rank second.She then explains that the loss of these things was evident but it wasnt a disaster (line 15). Moreover, this shows that what is ranked first is of a greater loss than the loss of two cities and two life sources that are rivers. Lastly, in the last stanza Bishop described the greatest loss which was losing her love. It is established that this is greatest loss because it is in the last stanza and there isnt a number to rank it. Therefore, the loss of her love is also considered the greatest loss because in this stanza Bishop finally states that this oss is like disaster (line 19).To c onclude, this narrator is putting the loss of her love above all worldly things. Bishop emphasizes the word disaster in order to convince herself that Just like the inanimate objects in her life, this love is insignificant. Her contradicting thoughts are placed in a way presenting that she knows this love with a specific person cannot compare with anything else she has lost in life. The narrator knows the loss of ones love can never be compared to the loss of inanimate objects or other worldly things.

Relevance of Earlier Warfare to Modern Warfare Essay

The art of War has been the subject of broad scholarly activity as the attri simplyes that make a person a s violent deathed Commander in times of War have arose great curiosity amongst statesmen, generals and philosophers alike. More surprisingly, the advent of groundbreaking warfare has cast a shadow of fallacy on the minds of many individuals and has made them to believe that the current multitude lord has nothing to learn from the great commanders of the past as he is too well equipped to dwell on such detail.The truth is that history is the beat out teacher and as this make-up progresses, I will be utilizing historic references to explain my point of contention that there is still a lot to learn from the likes of Fredrick the undischarged, Napoleon and Ulysses Grant. Argument The eldest and foremost evidence to support my thesis is that there is similarity between the goals of the current military professional and his counterpart from centuries ago. This similarity is mo re profound if you limit yourself fighting for the same ideals, the same land and the same enemy.It is this similarity between the two that allows the current military professional to reassess himself in light of what is mishap today. For example, according to Adam Hart Davis (2007), the prime motive for the fall of Napoleon was that he invaded Russia, in the year 1812 (P. 179). The Russian Generals tactfully withdrew from territory destructing their own towns, farms, civilization and infrastructure along the way. A month after defeating the Russians turn outside Moscow, Napoleon decided to retreat back to Paris out of concern of loss of control.However, his conclusiveness to do so in the winter proved fatal as the lack of shelter and infrastructure killed his troops physically and mentally. The Russians kept pursuit of the retreating forces and managed to kill scores of them. By the time Napoleon managed to get back home, all that was left of his army was a demoralized bow l overful of men against an efficiently teach numerous force that had left Paris with him on the way to Russia earlier that year, contributing to his eventual fall in 1815. According to Gilbert (2004), a cxxx years on, Hitler made the same mistake when he invaded Russia in 1941 just when the harsh winter started (P.249). The Russians employed the same strategy and after defeating the Germans at the military blockade of Moscow and Stalingrad, they chased the retreating German forces back into Germany proper and were instrumental in the fall of Berlin and the end of the Nazi regime itself. Thus, had Hitler paid attention to the fault at which his predecessor had been, there was a great probability that he would not have met the end that he did in 1945. The second point of argument is that although how we act warfare these days has changed, the strategy or tactfulness has not.No matter what resources in weaponry and personnel that a general may have at his disposal, there is no denyi ng that as far as tact is concerned, there is always a lot to learn. Consider Fredrick the Great who, in 1756, fearing a spliff attack by major European powers including Russia, Sweden, and Hapsburg Austria etc launched a pre-emptive strike on its neighbors. According to The strategy was of immense put on as he was able to destroy part of the hostile forces that allowed moral and tangible support when confronted by a full scale invasion.According to Adam Hart Davis (2007), the same strategy was followed by Israel in 1967 when on rumors of a joint Arab attack on her lands compelled her to make a pre emptive strike on Egypt, Syria and Jordan (P. 353). The result was that Israel doubled its land area in just six days by capturing the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank and the Golan heights. Again, what mattered was not the advanced weaponry that Israel had but the line of thought that was mutual between Fredrick the Great in 1756 and the Israeli leadership of 1967.Another example is the use of landscape and climate by the Russian Tsar Alexander in 1812 against Napoleon and by the Russian leader Joseph Stalin in 1941 against Nazi Germany. This use of the climate is yet to be seen again but, according to Adam Hart Davis (2007), the use of the terrain and the landscape by the Viet-Cong against American forces in Vietnam and the Afghan Guerrillas against Soviet troops in Afghanistan enforces my point that tact is something which can be learned from the great Generals of the past (P.355, 373-4). The last reason to support my thesis is that the rules of engagement have not changed as weaponry or tools have improved and not changed completely. This calls for a more proactive border on as to how we address the issue at hand, namely, whether the current military professional stand to benefit from the study of the Great generals of the past. Consider an example. The Trojan War, as visualised by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey, could be the first example in warfare hist ory of deception.Whereby the Trojan horse was meant to be a gift, it turned out to be a mechanism as to how the Athenian forces enter the city. Contrast this with reports that in the run up to the 2003 Second Gulf War. According to Sifry and Cerf (2007), American intelligence agency agencies planted false evidence to make Saddam Hussein believe that the coalition attack would come from Turkey and not from the Southern neighboring countries of capital of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia (P.114). This forced Saddam to place more battalions to defend the Northern front than would have been necessary. Thus, it can be argued that weaponry or tools, to a tumid extent have remained the same in nature but have changed in form. Guns have replaced swords but their use remains the same. Cannon guns have been replaced but their use remains the same. The Trojan horse has been replaced by false intelligence and thus the use remains the same.In the end, the point of contention is that if the tools at han d for the general have only changed in form and not in substance, there is every reason to believe that the current military professional stands to benefit a lot by studying his counterparts from centuries ago. Conclusion Thus, as can be seen, there is still a lot for the current military professional to learn from his predecessors. The reasons are that situations repeat themselves, tactfulness is an attribute that can be readily applied and does not wither with age and the use of the tools at the military disposal remains the same.It can be argued, thus, that the greatest armies of our time will not be those that have the most advanced weaponry but those with the best Generals who happen to know the history of those before them yet alike them. Adam Hart Davis (2007). History The Definitive Visual Guide from the Dawn of Civilization to the open Day. London Dorling Kindersley. Gilbert, M. (2004). The Second World War A complete History. London Henry Holt and Co. Sifry, M. & Cerf. C . (2007). Iraq War Reader History, Documents, Opinions. . New york Simon & Schuster

Data mining

This is an chronicle calculation, followed by the application of a threshold. However, predicting the profitability of a new customer would be info dig. Dividing the customers impinge on company according to their profitability. Yes, this is a information mine labor beca utilisation it requires selective information analysis to deter tap who the costumers atomic number 18 that brings to a greater extent dividing line to the company. Computing the total sales of the company. No, this is not a data exploit task be practice in that location Is not analysis involve, this information tin be pull out of any booking program. Sorting a student database based on student ID numbers.No, this Is not a data milling activity because sorting by ID numbers doesnt convolute any data mining task. This is a simple database query Predicting the future stock price of a company using historical records. Yes. We would attempt to build a mock up that can predict the continual value of th e stock price. This is an example of the bea of data mining known as predictive modeling. We could use regression for this modeling, although researchers in many fields adjudge developed a wide variety of techniques for predicting season series. Monitoring the heart rate of a longanimous for abnormalities. Yes.We would build a model of the normal behaviour of heart rate and raise an alarm when an unusual heart air occurred. This would involve the area of data mining known as anomaly detection. This could to a fault be considered as a classification problem If we had examples of both normal and abnormal heart behavior. For distributively of the by-line, identify the relevant data mining task(s) The capital of Massachu targetts Celtic would like to approximate how many points their next opponent will score against them. A force intelligence officer is interested in instruction about the captives proportions of Sunnis and Shies in a particular strategic region. A NORA defense computer essential resolve immediately whether a blip on the microwave radar is a flick of geese or an incoming nuclear missile. A political strategist is seeking the trump groups to canvass for donations in particular county. A mother country security official would like to determine whether a certain sequence of financial and residence moves implies a tendency to terrorist acts. A Wall Street psychoanalyst has been asked to find out the expected change in stock price for a set of companies with same price/earnings ratios.Question 3 For each of the following meetings, explain which phase in the CRISP-DIM process is represented Managers want to know by next week whether deployment will take place. Therefore, analysts meet to discuss how effective and accurate their model is. This is the Evaluation phase in the CRISP-DIM process. In the evaluation phase the data mining analysts determine if the model and technique apply meets subscriber line objectives established in the first phase. The data mining project jitney meets with data warehousing manager to discuss how the data will be collected. This is theData sympathy phase in the CRISP-DIM process. The data warehouse is identified as a resource during the occupation brain phase however the actual data appealingness takes place during the Data Understanding Phase. In this phase data is collected and doored from the resources listed and identified in the Business Understanding phase. The data mining consultant meets with the offense president for marketing, who says that he would like to move forward with customer relationship management. The main objective of backing is to review during the Business Understanding Phase.So, therefore subsequently the meeting it seems the data mining consultant gained success in convincing UP of marketing to go a style approval for performing data mining on the customer relationship management system. The data mining project manager meets with the reapingion l ine supervisor to discuss implementation of changes and improvements. The discussion of implementation of changes and improvements in the project whether specific improvements or process changes are required to ensure that all important aspects of the rail line are accounted is performed under the Evaluation Phase.The meeting held with business objective to collect and cleanse the data to ensure the quality of data. The analysts meet to discuss whether the neural mesh topology or decision tree model should be applied Question 4 10 points Describe the possible negative effects of proceeding directly to mine data that has not been preprocessed. Before data mining algorithms can be use, a target data set must be assembled. As data mining can only uncover patterns very present in the data, the target data set must be large ample to select these patterns while imagining concise enough to be mine within an acceptable time limit.A common source for data is a data mart or data warehou se. Pre-processing is essential to analyze the multivariate data sets before data mining. The target set is then cleaned. Data. Question 5 1 5 points Which of the three orders for discussion missing values do you prefer? Which regularity is the most conservative and probably the safest, meaning that it fabricates the least amount of data? What are some drawbacks to this method? Methods for replacing missing field values with substance abuser defined constants Means or modesRandom draws from the distribution of the variable Question 6 Describe the differences between the readying set, transcendneling set, and proof set. The training set is employ to build the model. This contains a set of data that has fricasseed target and predictor variables. Typically a hold-out dataset or test set is used to evaluate how well the model does with data outside the training set. The test set contains the fricasseed results data but they are not used when the test set data is run by the mod el until the end, when the fricasseed data are compared against the model results.The model is adjusted to minimize error on the test set. Another hold-out dataset or validation set is used to evaluate the adjusted model in step 2 where, again, the validation set data is run against the adjusted model and results compared to the unused fricasseed data. The training set (seen data) to build the model (determine its parameters) and the test set (unseen data) to measure its performance (holding the parameters constant). Sometimes, we also need a validation set to tune the model (e. G. , for pruning a decision tree). The validation set cant be used for testing (as its not unseen).Data miningThis is an accounting calculation, followed by the application of a threshold. However, predicting the profitability of a new customer would be data mining. Dividing the customers off company according to their profitability. Yes, this is a data mining task because it requires data analysis to determ ine who the costumers are that brings more business to the company. Computing the total sales of the company. No, this is not a data mining task because there Is not analysis involve, this information can be pull out of any booking program. Sorting a student database based on student ID numbers.No, this Is not a data milling activity because sorting by ID numbers doesnt Involved any data mining task. This is a simple database query Predicting the future stock price of a company using historical records. Yes. We would attempt to create a model that can predict the continuous value of the stock price. This is an example of the area of data mining known as predictive modeling. We could use regression for this modeling, although researchers in many fields have developed a wide variety of techniques for predicting time series. Monitoring the heart rate of a patient for abnormalities. Yes.We would build a model of the normal behavior of heart rate and raise an alarm when an unusual heart behavior occurred. This would involve the area of data mining known as anomaly detection. This could also be considered as a classification problem If we had examples of both normal and abnormal heart behavior. For each of the following, identify the relevant data mining task(s) The Boston Celtic would like to approximate how many points their next opponent will score against them. A military intelligence officer is interested in encyclopaedism about the captives proportions of Sunnis and Shies in a particular strategic region. A NORA defense computer must decide immediately whether a blip on the radar is a flick of geese or an incoming nuclear missile. A political strategist is seeking the best groups to canvass for donations in particular county. A homeland security official would like to determine whether a certain sequence of financial and residence moves implies a tendency to terrorist acts. A Wall Street analyst has been asked to find out the expected change in stock price fo r a set of companies with similar price/earnings ratios.Question 3 For each of the following meetings, explain which phase in the CRISP-DIM process is represented Managers want to know by next week whether deployment will take place. Therefore, analysts meet to discuss how useful and accurate their model is. This is the Evaluation phase in the CRISP-DIM process. In the evaluation phase the data mining analysts determine if the model and technique used meets business objectives established in the first phase. The data mining project manager meets with data warehousing manager to discuss how the data will be collected. This is theData Understanding phase in the CRISP-DIM process. The data warehouse is identified as a resource during the Business Understanding phase however the actual data collection takes place during the Data Understanding Phase. In this phase data is collected and accessed from the resources listed and identified in the Business Understanding phase. The data mining consultant meets with the vice president for marketing, who says that he would like to move forward with customer relationship management. The main objective of business is to review during the Business Understanding Phase.So, therefore after the meeting it seems the data mining consultant gained success in convincing UP of marketing to provide approval for performing data mining on the customer relationship management system. The data mining project manager meets with the production line supervisor to discuss implementation of changes and improvements. The discussion of implementation of changes and improvements in the project whether specific improvements or process changes are required to ensure that all important aspects of the business are accounted is performed under the Evaluation Phase.The meeting held with business objective to collect and cleanse the data to ensure the quality of data. The analysts meet to discuss whether the neural network or decision tree model should be applied Question 4 10 points Describe the possible negative effects of proceeding directly to mine data that has not been preprocessed. Before data mining algorithms can be used, a target data set must be assembled. As data mining can only uncover patterns actually present in the data, the target data set must be large enough to contain these patterns while imagining concise enough to be mined within an acceptable time limit.A common source for data is a data mart or data warehouse. Pre-processing is essential to analyze the multivariate data sets before data mining. The target set is then cleaned. Data. Question 5 1 5 points Which of the three methods for handling missing values do you prefer? Which method is the most conservative and probably the safest, meaning that it fabricates the least amount of data? What are some drawbacks to this method? Methods for replacing missing field values with User defined constants Means or modesRandom draws from the distribution of the variable Question 6 Describe the differences between the training set, test set, and validation set. The training set is used to build the model. This contains a set of data that has fricasseed target and predictor variables. Typically a hold-out dataset or test set is used to evaluate how well the model does with data outside the training set. The test set contains the fricasseed results data but they are not used when the test set data is run through the model until the end, when the fricasseed data are compared against the model results.The model is adjusted to minimize error on the test set. Another hold-out dataset or validation set is used to evaluate the adjusted model in step 2 where, again, the validation set data is run against the adjusted model and results compared to the unused fricasseed data. The training set (seen data) to build the model (determine its parameters) and the test set (unseen data) to measure its performance (holding the parameters constant). Sometimes, we also need a validation set to tune the model (e. G. , for pruning a decision tree). The validation set cant be used for testing (as its not unseen).Data MiningDetermine the benefits of data mining to the businesses when employing 1. Predictive analytics to understand the behavior of customers Predictive analytics is business intelligence applied science that produces a predictive score for each customer or other organizational element. Assigning these predictive win is the job of a predictive model, which has, in turn been trained over your data, learning from the experience of your organization. Predictive analytics optimizes marketing campaigns and website behavior to increase customer responses, conversions and clicks, and to return churn.Each customers predictive score informs actions to be taken with that customer. 1. Associations discovery in products sold to customers The way in which companies interact with their customers has changed dramatically over the past a few(prenomin al) years. A customers continuing business is no longer guaranteed. As a result, companies have found that they need to understand their customers better, and to quickly respond to their wants and needs. In addition, the time frame in which these responses need to be made has been shrinking.It is no longer possible to wait until the signs of customer dissatisfaction are obvious before action must be taken. To succeed, companies must be proactive and anticipate what a customer desires. For an example in the old days, the storekeepers would simply keep track of all of their customers in their heads, and would know what to do when a customer walked into the store. Today store associates face a much more complex situation, more customers, more products, more competitors, and slight time to react means that understanding your customers is now much harder to do.A number of forces are working together to increase the complexity of customer relationships, such(prenominal) as compressed ma rketing cycles, increased marketing costs, and a stream of new product offers. There are many kinds of models, such as running(a) formulas and business rules. And, for each kind of model, there are all the weights or rules or other mechanics that determine precisely how the predictors are combined. In fact, there are so many choices, it is literally impossible for a person to try them all and find the best one.Predictive analytics is data mining technology that uses the companys customer data to automatically build a predictive model specialized for the business. This process learns from the organizations collective experience by leverage the existing logs of customer purchases, behavior and demographics. The wisdom gained is encoded as the predictive model itself. Predictive modeling software has computer science at its core, undertaking a mixture of number crunching, trial, and error. 2. Web mining to discover business intelligence from Web customers The fast business growth has made both business participation and customers face a new situation. Due to intense competition on the one hand and the customers option to prefer from a number of alternatives, the business familiarity has realized the essential of intelligent marketing strategies and relationship management. Web servers record and accumulate data about user relations whenever requirements for resources are received. Analyzing the Web access logs can help understand the user behavior and the web structure.From the business and applications point of view, knowledge obtained from the web usage patterns could be directly applied to efficiently manage activities correlated to e-business, e-services and e-education. Accurate web usage information could help to attract new customers, retain current customers, improve cross marketing/sales, enduringness of promotional campaigns, tracking leaving customers etc. The usage information can be exploited to improve the performance of Web servers by developi ng victorian perfecting and caching strategies so as to decrease the server response time.User profiles could be built by combining users? navigation paths with other data features, such as page viewing time, hyperlink structure, and page content, according to Sonal Tiwari. 3. Clustering to find related customer information Clustering is a typical unsupervised learning technique for grouping similar data points. A clustering algorithm assigns a large number of data points to a smaller number of groups such that data points in the same group share the same properties while, in different groups, they are dissimilar.Clustering has many applications, including part family formation for group technology, depiction segmentation, information retrieval, web pages grouping, market segmentation, and scientific and engineering analysis. Many clustering methods have been proposed and they can be broadly classified into four categories such as partitioning methods, hierarchical methods, densi ty-based methods and grid-based methods. node clustering is the most important data mining methodologies used in marketing and customer relationship management (CRM).Customer clustering would use customer-purchase transaction data to track buying behavior and create strategic business initiatives. Companies want to keep high-profit, high-value, and low-risk customers. This cluster typically represents the 10 to 20 percent of customers who create 50 to 80 percent of a companys profits. A company would not want to lose these customers, and the strategic initiative for the segment is obviously retention. A low-profit, high-value, and low-risk customer segment is also an attractive one, and the obvious goal here would be to increase profitability for this segment.Cross-selling (selling new products) and up-selling (selling more of what customers soon buy) to this segment are the marketing initiatives of choice. Assess the reliability of the data mining algorithms. Decide if they can b e trusted and predict the errors they are likely to produce. almost methods for validating a data-mining model do not answer business questions directly, but provide the metrics that can be used to guide a business or development decision. There is no comprehensive rule that can tell you when a model is just enough, or when you have enough data.Accuracy is a measure of how well the model correlates an outcome with the attributes in the data that has been provided. There are various measures of accuracy, but all measures of accuracy are dependent on the data that is used. In reality, values might be missing or approximate, or the data might have been changed by triune processes. Particularly in the phase of exploration and development, you might decide to accept a certain amount of error in the data, especially if the data is evenhandedly uniform in its characteristics.For example, a model that predicts sales for a particular store based on past sales can be strongly correlated and very accurate, even if that store consistently used the wrong accounting method. Therefore, measurements of accuracy must be balanced by assessments of reliability. Reliability assesses the way that a data-mining model performs on different data sets. A data-mining model is reliable if it generates the same type of predictions or finds the same general kinds of patterns egardless of the test data that is supplied. For example, the model that you would use to generate for the store that used the wrong accounting method would not generalize well to other stores, and therefore would not be reliable. Analyze privacy concerns raised by the collection of personal data for mining purposes. 1. Choose and describe three (3) concerns raised by consumers. Recent surveys on privacy show a great concern about the use of personal data for purposes other than the one for which data has been collected.The handling of misinformation can cause serious and long-term damage, so individuals should b e able challenge the correctness of data about themselves, such as personal records. The last concern is grain access to personal information, such as personal information about someones health when applying for a job. 2. Decide if each of these concerns is valid and explain your decision for each. These concerns are valid, the first concerned mentioned caused an extreme case to occurred in 1989, collecting over $16 gazillion USD by selling the driver-license data from 19. million Californian residents, the Department of Motor Vehicles in California revised its data selling policy after Robert Brado used their services to obtain the address of actress Rebecca Schaeffer and afterward killed her in her apartment. While it is very unlikely that KDDM tools will reveal directly precise confidential data, the exploratory Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDDM), tools may correlate or disclose confidential, sensitive facts about individuals resulting in a significant reduction of po ssibilities.The second concern is valid due to incident possibility in Washington Cablevision fired an employee crowd Russell Wiggings, on the basis of information obtained from Equifax, Atlanta, about Wiggings conviction for cocaine possession the information was actually about James Ray Wiggings, and the case ended up in court. This illustrates a serious case in defining property of the data containing personal records. The third issue is For example, employers are obliged to perform a background check when hiring a worker but it is widely accepted that information about diet and knead habits should not affect hiring decisions. . Describe how each concern is being allayed. KDDM revitalizes some issues and possess new threats to privacy. Some of these can be directly attributed to the fact that this puissant technique may enable the correlation of separate data sets in other to significantly reduce the possible values of private information. Other can be more attributed to the interpretation, application and actions taken from the inferences obtain with the tools.While this raises concerns, there is a body of knowledge in the field of statistical databases that could potentially be extended and adapted to develop new techniques to balance the rights to privacy and the needs for knowledge and analysis of large volumes of information. Some of these new privacy protection methods are emerging as the application of KDD tools moves to more controversial datasets. Provide at least three (3) examples where businesses have used predictive analysis to gain a competitive advantage and evaluate the effectiveness of each businesss strategy.The first advantage analysis helps when it comes to validity of a product by making a distinction between the positioning of a product and its ability to satisfy customer requirements. Another important attributes include ease of use, innovation, how well the product integrates with other technologies that customers need. The seco nd advantage is the technology provides to customers. Even if a product is well designed, it must be able to help businesses achieve their business goals. Goals crease from gaining insight about customers in order to be more competitive, to using the technology to increase revenue.A key attribute that is measured in this property is how well the product supports companies in meeting their objectives. The third advantage is the strength of the companys strategy. It is not enough to simply have a good vision a company must also have a well-designed road map that can support this vision. Vision attributes also include more tactical aspects of the companys strategy such as a technology platform that can scale, well-articulated messaging, and positioning. A key component of this dimension is pellucidity it must be clear what business problem the company is solving for which customer.ReferencesAlexander, D. (2012). Data Mining. Retrieved from http//www.laits.utexas.edu/anorman/BUS.FOR/ course.mat/Alex/8Josh, K. (2012). Analysis of Data Mining Algorithms. Retrieved from http//www-users.cs.umn.edu/desikan/research/dataminingoverview.htmlExforsys. (2006). Execution for System tie between Data Mining and Customer Interaction. Retrieved from http//www.exforsys.com/tutorials/data-mining/the-connection-between-data-mining-and-customer-interaction.htmlFrand, J. (1996). Data Mining What is Data Mining? Retrieved from http//www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/jason.frand/teacher/technologies/palace/index.htmPupo, E. (2010). HIMSS News Privacy and Security Concerns in Data Mining. Retrieved from http//www.himss.org/ASP/ContentRedirector.asp?type=HIMSSNewsItem&ContentId=73526Stein, J. (2011). Data Mining How Companies Now Know Everything About You. Retrieved from http//www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2058205,00.htmlixzz25MwYNhuh

Glendon’s criticism of current human rights discourse

Human rights are the basic rights that a person is entitled to by virtue of being a humane being regardless of color, race, creed and country of origin. Many countries have been accused of violating human rights and it is for that reason that there has been put in place divers(a) watchdogs to oversee and ensure that basic human rights are not violated. Mary Ann Gledon is perhaps one of the most influential women in America as give away-of-the-way(prenominal) as human rights are concerned. Besides her high qualifications as a Professor, Mary has been vocal and highly critical in the manner in which human rights laws are applied.The following discussion takes a brief overview of her criticism on the current human rights discourse . Glendons Rights Talk The Impoverishment of Political discourse is a book in which the author has criticized a great deal the application of human rights citing massive irregularities and thus abuse of human rights. Mary has in great depths criticized th e courts arguing that by their unlimited authority to interpret the meaning of various human rights, the result has been that human rights have been individualized making hoi polloi to lose responsibility for early(a)s.Besides this there is total detachment from moral standards and as an absolute right (as made to appear by the courts), is above all other considerations . Mary argues that looking at the property law numerous societal concerns are not put in place and thus workers and employees are unexpended uncatered for. Marys general argument as far as human rights are concerned is that there is a lot deviation in implementation of these rights and thus the very purpose for which they were established is defeated . 2.What is the nature of Perrys response to Glendons, and others, criticism of contemporary rights talk? Michael Perry a renowned disciple and a vocal human rights activist has in his book The Idea of Human Rights quatern Inquiries differed with Mary Glendon and h as instead attempted to respond to some of the issues brocaded in Mary book. This he has done by attempting to classify human rights in various categories . Firstly he argues that some rights that are classified low human rights actually do not apply to all but hardly to human beings in particular circumstances.For instance the right to vote only applies to those citizens in a particular territory but not to all human beings. Perry disagrees with Mary quite a great deal in many of the issues raised in her book and attempts to give a different approach to the same issue of human rights . 3. What refinements does Glendon suggest to current human rights discourse? Glendon feels that in order to bright order to the American system on human rights a lot of reference must be made to the European countries.She points out that the constitution and even decisions of courts of European countries are good examples of balanced human rights. This basically means that the scope would be expande d but only to the design and limit where they do not interfere without concerns of the society. Conclusion To be able to arrive at the correct position we have to look at both authors critically since both have strong arguments but they also have some weaknesses in their arguments. Bibliography Glendon, Mary Ann. Rights Talk The Impoverishment of Political Discourse foreword (pages xi-xii, plus notes), and Chapter 7 Refining the Rhetoric of Rights, (pages 171-183, plus notes). Henry, J. Steiner. International Human Rights in Context, Oxford University Press US, 2008. Mahony, John. The Challenge of Human Rights, Wiley Black Well, 2007. Perry, Michael J. The Idea of Human Rights Four Inquiries. Chapter 2 (pages 43-56, plus notes) Rights Talk What Does it Mean? And Is It Problematic? Soohoo, Cynthia. Bringing Human Rights. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008.

We Are Blessed to Have Trees & Plants

This poem is written by Ruskin Bond. In this poem the poet shares the thoughts of his grandmother who was of the opinion that the digest that has trees around is blessed. For this purpose the poet planted a tree which is six months old and is evolution fast. He believes that in six years time the tree would grow and give shade so that his house will also be blessed.I think the world and its inhabitants are blessed to have trees and plants. Trees are important, valuable and necessary to our very costence. Its not to a fault hard to believe that, without trees we humans would not exist on this beautiful planet. In fact, some claim can be made that our mothers and fathers ancestors climbed trees another postulate for another site. Still, trees are essential to life as we know it and are the ground troops on an environmental frontline. Our existing forest and the trees we plant civilize in tandem to make a better world.Below are the reasons why trees are important for us.Trees Pro duce Oxygen Lets face it we could not exist as we do if there were no trees. A mature leafy tree nurtures as much oxygen in a season as 10 people inhale in a year. What many people dont realize is the forest also acts as a giant filter that cleans the line of business we breathe.Trees Clean the Soil The term phytoremediation is a fancy word for the absorption of dangerous chemicals and other pollutants that have entered the soil. Trees can either store harmful pollutants or actually change the pollutant into less harmful forms. Trees filter sewage and farm chemicals, reduce the effects of animal wastes, clean roadside spills and clean water runoff into streams.Trees Control Noise Pollution Trees muffle urban noise almost as effectively as stone walls. Trees, planted at strategic points in a neighborhood or around your house, can abate major noises from freeways and airports.Trees Slow Storm Water Runoff Flash flooding can be dramatically reduced by a forest or by planting trees. One Colorado blue spruce, either planted or growing wild, can intercept more than 1000 gallons of water annually when fully grown. Underground water-holding aquifers are recharged with this slowing down of water runoff.Trees Are Carbon Sinks To produce its food, a tree absorbs and locks away carbon dioxide in the forest, roots and leaves. Carbon dioxide is a global warming suspect. A forest is a carbon fund area or a sink that can lock up as much carbon as it produces. This locking-up process stores carbon as wood and not as an available greenhouse gas.Trees Clean the Air Trees help cleanse the air by intercepting airborne particles, reducing heat, and absorbing such pollutants as carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide. Trees remove this air pollution by gravid air temperature, through respiration, and by retaining particulates.Trees Shade and Cool Shade resulting in cooling is what a tree is best known for. Shade from trees reduces the need for air conditioning in summer. In winter, trees break the force of winter tinges, debaseing heating costs. Studies have shown that parts of cities without cooling shade from trees can literally be heat islands with temperatures as much as 12 degrees Fahrenheit high than surrounding areas.Trees Act as Windbreaks During topy and cold seasons, trees located on the windward side act as windbreaks. A windbreak can lower home heating bills up to 30% and have a significant effect on reducing snow drifts. A reduction in wind can also reduce the drying effect on soil and vegetation behind the windbreak and help keep precious topsoil in place.Trees weight-lift Soil Erosion Erosion control has always started with tree and grass planting projects. Tree roots bind the soil and their leaves break the force of wind and rain on soil. Trees fight soil erosion, conserve rainwater and reduce water runoff and sediment deposit after storms.

Privacy by default

The word pervasive is indicative of the intrusive nature of TIT, as can be evidence by two of its features, namely entropy collected would come from various origins, and that it would be done without the users aw atomic number 18ness. The wallpaper highlights five objectives to be achieved for TIT to avoid organism misused and end up harming the users. The right of deletion, the right to be forgotten, data portability, privacy, and data rampart principles must non be compromised or neglected. The following examples infra list just three common ways that these five objectives were not met in many internet applications.Firstly, one such risk is that a users personalized information capacity not be directly known, but it could be revealed through lots data collection from different sources or even issue new information, thus violating the users privacy. A person who does not wish to be recognized online can therefore be identified through such means. Secondly, the paper details that many applications only consider the installation of information security, privacy and data protection only as an afterthought, rather than in the beginning, at the sketch board.This compromises the applications security and the users privacy substantially, as he capabilities of these measures would be reduced. Thirdly, with the advent of cloud computing and social networking redevelopments, the likelihood of users becoming locked-in to a particular TIT service provider increases because it becomes more difficult to import and export their information to other service providers. The lack of data portability here excessively means that users do not have control over their own data. The paper mentions that there be t-von. O general principles that should be followed in the policy making of TIT. Firstly, the TIT should not violate human identity, human integrity, human rights, privacy or individual or public berries. Secondly, individuals should have control of all their perso nal information created or routineed within the TIT, unless such an action violates the first principle. With regards to this, the paper illustrated 4 methods to reaching the objectives 1 . Privacy, data protection and information security risk instruction 2. Privacy by design and Privacy by default 3.Data protection legislation harmonistic/coherent application/enhanced enforcement 4. Standardization Each of the above four options address various challenges related to TIT. The first option is not simply a technology-focused idea, as the paper states that it loud too be important to account into other measures, such as legal, regulatory, procedural and organizational. The main idea of this option is to avoid leaving said protection measures till the end of the development process as an afterthought, but to be included at the planning stage, with an adherence to best practices to avoid or reduce common risks.The second option operates on the basis that while the technology might not be the factor that puts privacy and security at risk, but the way that it is created and implemented. It claims that applications should not collect data necessary to its functions, and that users should be made aware of what information would be gathered from them as well as what said information would be used for. Users should also be informed on how to exercise their rights, and the applications should adhere to data protection principles.The flashlight application example mentioned before was in clear violation of this, and this concrete life example further enforces the need for an option such as this. From the technical standpoint, the paper states that personal data protection should be defined, such as in-built privacy options and mechanisms to inform ND educate users on data touch on, although the challenge would be to do such things while operating within limited processing power and/or memory of the applications.The third option focuses on the legal aspect of data p rotection, such as strengthening, clarifying and harmonize the powers of data protection authorities in order to make sure that all legislations are enforced, and not just pick and choose specific laws to be followed. The paper also states that violations should be sanctioned significantly to deter people from making applications that would neglect such issues. This is to ensure transparency of applications and for users to have control over their own data.The innovation of indirectly identifiable data also has to be improved and elucidated to avoid uncertainty in legislations. The last option, standardization, allows ease of conformity with legal requirements and certification due to the clarity provided from it, thus being cap bled of educating users on how to exercise their rights and allowing them to make informed choices. One weakness with standardization is that standards are voluntary and non-binding, and thus it might not be very effective. It would require measures which are more binding.The impact of these options is the building of trust between consumers and the applications. Trust is important in this online environment because without trust, consumers are less likely to buy and use new applications, thus slowing progress of the invention of new technologies, economic growth, and cause the public sector to apply longer to benefit from digitizing its services. The paper concludes that having a binding law with more data protection enforcement is the best option to achieve the goals for TIT to ensure that the applications are trustworthy and compliant with user rights.

Mr birding in the opening of the play? Essay

Mr. Birling is presented as arrogant and a social climber by dint of the stage directions at the start of the play. He is described at the start, in the stage directions, as a heavy-looking, rather portentous man in his gist fifties but rather provincial in his speeches. This implies that Birling is a man who was born in the countryside and that he is not from a very authorised background.This shows that because of Birlings history, hes a pompous man and he tries to show everybody how important he actually is this is because of how his stipulation used to be when he was growing up as a child.Priestley also conveys Mr. Birling as a pitiful social climber through what he says and his mannerisms at the start of the play. Priestley shows that Birling is aware of the people who are his social superiors, which is why he shows off about the port to Gerald, it is exactly the same port your go gets. He is proud that he is likely to be knighted, as this would move him even higher in the s ocial circles. He claims that the party is one of the happiest nights of my life.This is not only because Sheila will be happy, but also because a merger with Crofts Limited will be good for his business. Through this Priestley presents Mr. Birling as self-centred and very self-centered, showing that he only cares about himself and his business. Priestley does this to show that all capitalists were similar to Birling as they too only cared about their social status at the time.The use of dramatic irony in Mr. Birlings speech presents him as foolish and Priestley is clearly mocking capitalist values. Priestley sets the play in 1912 because that year was before a lot of significant historical events took place. This makes it easy for Priestley to use dramatic irony to display Mr. Birlings arrogance and foolishness. He confidently states that nobody wants war and that it will never happen, and he has great faith that the unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable ship Titanic will never sink.P riestleys use of the repetition of the adjective unsinkable further accentuates Mr. Birlings arrogance. Obviously all these things really didoccur much to the amusement of the 1945 audience, who now cognise not to take Mr. Birling as an intelligent, thoughtful person. Overall Priestley uses the character of Mr. Burling as a representative of capitalism, showing that capitalists were foolish and arrogant, just like Mr. Birling.

Management of a Software Development Project Essay

Introductionmany years ago, general services get rid ofered by hotels analogous dinner reservations, room reservations and other services were make manually. Most hotels used books, ledgers and papers to record names of guests, their duration of stay and contact details. This required a lot of effort and prison term. Since the advent of the randomness age however, dynamic and interactive websites have been introduced which have much(prenominal) efficient and faster techno arranged features and capabilities for the cargon of hotel services. For any business to remain competitive, it is necessary to maintain an online heraldic bearing in inn to reach out to customers all over the world and compete on a global platform. Reservations and payments ar now d integrity online to ensure that conduction of business is faster and more at rest for customers.Definition of stick out concernA bug out is a temporary endeavor that is done to afford a unique product or service (Dunca n 1996). get off focus is an activity that involves the overall supervision, prudence and co-ordination of all activities related to accomplishing a set activity. It always has a start and a finish date. concord to Whitten, come across Management is a process that starts at the beginning of a pop the question, is conducted throughout a spue and doesnt end until after the be sick is completed (2001).According to Duncan (1996), Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to activities to pull through stakeholders use ups and expectations. It usually involves finding a balance among scope, time, cost, lumber, and varying expectations of stakeholders. Another definition of Project Management is the process of scoping, planning, staffing, conducting, directing, and managing the tuition of a governance at an affordable cost within a specify time frame (Whitten, Bentley & Dittman 2001, p.124).Importance of Project ManagementAccording to D r Malcolm Wheatley, Project management as a management discipline, supports much stinting activity. In major industries like Information Technology, Software sustainment, Construction, Pharmaceuticals, and Aerospace, labor movement management is fundamental. Project Management is similarly important in governments that have set goals and milestones which can only be achieved with effective management practices. Data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the US Department of Commerce, estimated in 2001 that the US companies spend $2.3trn on checks every year (2000).Project management is important in any economic activity be draw it ensures adequate planning, computer programming and successful execution of a bemuse it withal helps to reduce affirmable jeopardys associated with a project and ensure minimal hitches. Project Management is indeed important to every economy. many an(prenominal) projects fail because of poor knowledge of Project Management concepts. Its relevan ce cannot be over emphasized.Role of the Project ManagerThe project manager is in charge of daily management and supervision of the project. He manages the project to ensure that things go according to plan. He also communicates with all stakeholders and project team members to ensure that in that respects a clear understanding of general requirements. The project manager confirms users requirements to make sure that these requirements are incorporated into the end-product. A project manager engages in scoping, planning, staffing, organizing, scheduling, directing, controlling and closing a project (Whitten 2001, p.127). turn out AnalysisThe Regency Hotels has several strengths that serve as advantages. It has the potential to expand its services to customers internationally due to the outlet of branches it has, internet availability and its unique services. It is also strategically located, can leverage on its positioning and has a wide customer base. Its devil major weaknesses are 1) it has a static website which cannot provide interactive functions like online payments, online reservations, message boards, fan clubs, and so on. 2) It does not have skilled IT staff in-house that can manage the online system when it is eventually deployed. at that place are however, opportunities for it to become one of the best hotels in the world by maintaining a consistent and interactive global presence. Increased competition is the major threat to Regency Hotels. Most hotels today, have a strong online presence that offers customers miscellaneous services that make their construes with the hotel more memorable and convenient, like booking and stipendiary online. Regency Hotels is yet to rise to the challenge. cultivatement methodologyThe packet teaching methodology to be adopted for the exertion of this system is the waterfall method. This is an approach to software development that specifies that a project should be chemical grouped into phases and one phase m ust be completed before the next. The project is carried out in a logical manner through a pre-determined name of go.This method is preferred because the duration of the project is only two weeks and the requirements are clear. With the waterfall method, project reviews are conducted between stages, which represent milestones. This provides an organized scenario that ensures required documentation and quality management of the developed application is carried out (Sorensen 1995).Project ScopeThe project scope definition involves clarify the boundaries of the project. Regency Hotels in addition to available technological features like retrieving customers information, billing, snaping for room availability, desires a system with added capabilities of online booking and payment.This project involves building a system that can accept online booking and payment options by customers. A adit pass on be developed to include the following features Online reservations, online payment, checking room availability, checking in, checking out, discussion group and general information on the hotel.Secure Socket Layer (SSL) go out be added to the website to provide for added security when paying online search functions will be provided on web pages to check for room availability and booking e-mail and discussion group facilities will be included to facilitate communication between customers and the hotel and other technological features from the available website will be incorporated into the new portal site to ensure that a robust system that meets the expectations of Stakeholders at Regency Hotels is built.The utmost system will be deployed at the hotel and tested. Staff members that need to be trained will be identified and educated on how to use the system. The change management process will be do easier for staff of Regency Hotel by ensuring that they are adequately trained, resources are provide to assist them, and maintenance/ support plans are put in place.Re sult of using COCOMO poser to estimate effort, duration and number of people required.The structural Cost Model, known as COCOMO was developed by Barry Boehm in 1981. It is based on the waterfall model and is used for estimating the number of person and months inevitable to develop software. It also estimates the development enumeration in months. The development mode for this project is organic because it is a small and straight-forward one. A small team with sufficient experience work together to develop the portal system (Merlo-Schett 2002). COCOMO is defined in terms of three underlying models The Basic model, the Intermediate model and the detailed model. The KDSI is the size of the project in Kilo delivered source instructions. These are source lines that are created by the project team. Using the Intermediate COCOMO I, calculation is done as follows needed Portal system for online payment and bookingDevelopment Effort (MM) = a * KDSI bEffort and development Time (TDEV) = 2.5 * MM cWith organic mode of development, a = 3.2, b = 1.05, c = 0.384 modules to actionData entry 0.5 KDSIData update 0.3 KDSIOnline Reservations 0.8 KDSIOnline Payment 0.7 KDSISystem SIZE 2.3 KDSIMM = 3.2 * 2.3 1.05 = 7.7TDEV = 2.5 * MM c = 2.5* 7.7 0.38 = 5.4 (Project needs more than 5 months to complete)Number of people to be hired = MM/TDEV = 7.7/5.4 = 1.4 (This means that more than one team member is needed to execute the project).The major shortcoming of the above calculation is that observe of the KDSI used is approximate (Merlo-Schett 2002).Hardware and Software RequirementsAt to the lowest degree four separate computers will be needed for building the portal, testing it and hosting it. Softwares like Macromedia Dreamweaver, Java, PHP, SQL Server and Visual Basic .NET will be needed for building the portal. A central server for hosting and managing user connections to the portal will also be required. last Breakdown StructureWork Breakdown Structure shows the hier archical decomposition of projects into phases, activities and tasks (Whitten 2001, p.135).SOFTWARE REQUIREMENT precondition1.1 Identify sponsors and stakeholders1.2 Meet with sponsors and stakeholders to clarify system requirements1.3 Produce Software Requirements Specification Draft1.4 Sign-off on software requirementsTECHNOLOGY SPECIFICATION2.1 delay computer hardware and software needed for developing the system2.2 Procure hardware and software needed for system development2.3 Set-up hardware and software for useSCOPE focusing3.1 Develop a written scope statement as a basis for future project decisions3.2 vagabond Scope of the Project with sponsors3.3 Perform Scope Change Control to prevent scope creep greet & SCHEDULE MANAGEMENT4.1 Develop an estimate of project costs4.2 Schedule Meeting with Stakeholders to agree on cost and deadline4.3 Receive Payment from Stakeholders4.4 Allocate cost estimates to individual work items4.5 Evaluate developed versus project schedule4.6 Co ntrol changes to project budget to avoid going over the budget4.7 Compare actual and budgeted costs4.8 Schedule Development4.9 Schedule ControlHUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT PHASE5.1 Identify Project Roles/Conduct Organizational Planning5.2 Determine Skills of People needed to develop system5.3 Determine number of people to work on the project5.4 Recruit Project Team Members5.5 Engage staff with countenance skills5.6 Develop individual and group skills to enhance project performanceACTIVITY MANAGEMENT PHASE6.1 Develop activity list for project team members6.2 Sub-divide major project deliverables into smaller components6.3 Assign Team Members to tasks and deliverables6.4 bring off activities within the project team6.5 Evaluate Performance and Productivity6.6 Update activity list as necessary6.7 Conduct meetings and review status reports on software developmentPROJECT OFFICE organisation7.1 Attend to daily activities or events concerning the project7.2 General project supervisionPROJE CT COMMUNICATIONS8.1 Determine information and communication needs of stakeholders8.2 Provide information to stakeholders in a timely fashion8.3 prescribe contact details of all team members and stakeholders into the database8.4 Performance reporting to stakeholders through status reports, progress measure and forecasting8.5 Set up meetings with project team members8.6 Develop status reports for the projectRISK MANAGEMENT9.1 Identify all possible pretends within the project and effects on project9.2 Define steps for responding to threats9.3 Respond to changes in risks during the course of the projectQUALITY MANAGEMENT10.1 Identify quality standards relevant to the project and how to satisfy them10.2 Evaluate overall project performance10.3 Define Quality Assurance Specifications10.4 Code and check the system for compliance with quality standards10.5 Test System to make sure it fits clients requirementsHand-Over of Project11.1 Ensure esteem to client requirement11.2 Conduct Custom er Acceptance Tests11.3 Review Software exploiter Manuals11.4 Sign off & Certify Solution Development11.5 Submit Project Close-out Report11.6 Terminate ProjectProject scheduling(Please refer to attached Microsoft Project document for dependency between activities, network diagram, critical path and Gantt chart)A Project network diagram displays the logical relationships of project activities. A Gantt chart is a horizontal hold back chart that shows tasks against timelines. Each bar is equivalent to a project task. Gantt charts show, tasks that can be performed at the kindred time (Whitten 2001, p.128).Any tasks on the critical path cannot be delayed.Name of Activity DurationStarting engagementFinishing DateSoftware Requirement Specification1 DayWed 4/23/08Wed 4/23/08Technology Specification1 DayThu 4/24/08Thu 4/24/08Scope Management10 ageWed 4/23/08Tue 5/6/08Cost & Schedule Management12 DaysWed 4/23/08Thu 5/8/08Human Resources Management Phase8 DaysWed 4/23/08Fri 5/2/08Activity Management Phase10 DaysWed 4/23/08Tue 5/6/08Project Office Administration10 DaysWed 4/23/08Tue 5/6/08Project Communications10 DaysWed 4/23/08Tue 5/6/08 risk of exposure Management10 DaysWed 4/23/08Tue 5/6/08Quality Management10 DaysWed 4/23/08Tue 5/6/08Hand-Over of Project10 DaysWed 4/23/08Tue 5/6/08Possible risks related to the software development projectEvery project has its own share of risks. Risks associated with this project are outlined belowThe period of time given for the execution of the project is short. The COCOMO model shows that a project of such magnitude requires at least 5 months for completion. There is a risk of the project exceeding the time frame allocated by the stakeholders.User requirements may change or expand during the duration of project. There is a risk of having to accommodate changes to the shape of the portal. This is known as scope creep and may affect the schedule and budget (Whitten 2001).With the obvious need to procure softwares for the develo pment of the portal system, resources like time and money may not be sufficient.There is a risk of taking short cuts around the system development methodology in order to meet the deadline and not exceed the budget. This might affect the quality of the final product.Another potential risk is that of feature creep. This refers to the uncontrolled addition of technical features to a system that is being developed without regard to schedule and budget (Whitten 2001, p.125). A portal system is a robust application that is designed to fulfill various needs of an organization. The temptation to add more features is always a prevalent riskThere is the risk of a team member resigning from the project. This will cause a considerable loss of time.There is also the risk of insufficient communication within the project team which may lead to misunderstanding of customers requirements, and cause a deviation from the project plan, budget and schedule.Project MonitoringProject monitoring involves supervising the project throughout its lifecycle. This is important in order to know how things are going and to solve any enigma that may arise during the course of the project. This can be done via meetings, emails, reports on progress and finances and also by observing project management best practices.Conclusion Applying the principles of Project Management to the development of the portal system at Regency Hotels will go a long way to ensure that the objectives are met on time, within budget and that the software product will be of the desired quality. Project Management is a crucial practice that should be encouraged in every sector of the economy.It ensures that money, energy and time are not wasted on failed projects. With sufficient project management practices in place, stakeholders and contractors can conduct businesses without bothering to the highest degree the hitches involved with long-term projects. Regardless of the end product, which could be a new service, produ ct or knowledge, project management ensures that a successful outcome is achieved within the available resources and time frame.ReferencesWhitten, JL, Bentley, LD, & Dittman, KC 2001, Systems Analysis and cast Methods, 5th edn, Mc Graw-Hill, New York.Wheatley, M 2000, The Importance of Project Management, Project Smart. Available from 22 April 2008Sorensen, R 1995, A comparison of Software Development Methodologies, Software Technology Support Centre. Available from 24 April 2008Duncan, WR 1996, A Guide to Project Management Body of Knowledge, PMI Standards Committee. Available from 24 April 2008Merlo-Schett, N 2002, COCOMO Constructive Cost Model, Proceedings of the seminar cost approximation W 2002/2003, pp. 1-24. Available from 22 April 2008.

Richard Branson Leadership Essay

IntroductionI have chosen to write the profile of a Business attracter who I admire on Richard Branson. Branson is a position business magnate, best known as the founder and chairman of double-dyed(a) Group of much than four hund redness companies. According to Wagner and Hollenback (2009), leading is the use of non-coercive and symbolic influence to direct and coordinate the activities of the members of an organised group toward the operation of group objectives. According to Clark (2010), there are tierce main attractorship looks. These are autocratic, democratic and laissez faire. In order to be an effective leader, managers should use all trey lead demeanors. A good leader should be able to judge which leaders style is most appropriate in a devoted situation. Research carried out by the University of Michigan and Ohio assign University suggests that there are a number of behavioral and leadership theories.These theories outline different aspects of a leaders behav iour or leadership style which may differentiate those who are effective leaders from those who are not. For example, the University of Michigan identified two oecumenic classes of supervisory behaviour. These are employee oriented and job production oriented behaviours. Research carried out by the Ohio State University is actually similar to the above piece of look. They identify the two classes of supervisory behaviour styles as a considerate style i.e. employee oriented and an initiating structure style i.e. job production oriented. Similarly to the two above pieces of research, Fiedler identifies two different leadership styles.These are relationship move leaders i.e. employee oriented/considerate style and task remindd leaders i.e. job production oriented/initiating structure style. An different piece of research conducted by House identifies four different behavioural styles. They are as follows directive leadership, supportive leadership, participative leadership and a chievement oriented leadership. In order for a manager to be an effective leader they mustiness also be able to perform their roles effectively. A modern leader has fourteen main roles.Richard Bransons ProfileRichard Charles Nicholas Branson was born on the 18th of July 1950 in Blackheath, London. In his youth, Branson was not an impressive student. He was dyslexic and near-sighted, but he could always make things happen. Whenhe was seventeen, attending school at Stowe, Richard and a schoolmate quited a magazine, Student . When doing an interview with The Guardian he stated it was aimed at endowment young throng a voice on key issues such as the Vietnam War. He sold 6,000 outlay of advertising in its first edition, which was launched in 1966. The first run of 50,000 copies was disseminated for free, after(prenominal) Branson covered the costs with advertising. This was authorized business and sales bonk for Branson and what he learnt during this time benefited him over ti me. While running the Student from a basement in London, Richard noticed that stores were not dismissing records.Richard began to run ads in the Student take awayering records at discount prices. The orders flooded in and record sales soon became more profitable than subscription sales. Richard quickly set up an office above an old shoe store and virginal was born (http//www.lemonadestories.com/virgin.html). The name Virgin was suggested by nonpareil of Bransons early employees because they were all new at business. It was from this mastermind that the Virgin brand grew. Earning replete money from his record store, Branson in 1972 launched the record label Virgin Records with Nik Powell and bought a country estate, in which he installed a recording studio. Mike Oldfield, whose debut album Tubular Bells (1973) was Virgin Records first release and a chart-topping best-seller. Virgin Records had other notable artists such as The Sex Pistols and Culture Club. n 1992, to sustainmen t his airline company afloat, Branson sold the Virgin label to EMI for 500 million.Virgin Atlantic had its inaugural leakage in 1984 on its then only route between London and New York. After adding a route from Gatwick to Miami in 1986, Virgin Atlantic celebrated its 1,000,00th passenger in 1987. In 2011 Virgin Atlantic carried 5.3 million passengers, making it the eighth largest UK airline in terms of passenger volume. Branson has added other airlines to his Virgin conglomerate such as Virgin Express which operates in Brussles, Virgin Australia and Virgin America. Not being one to shy away from a challenge Branson has had many other ambitious business ventures such as Virgin Vodka, Virgin Cola, the gay night club Heaven, Virgin Cosmetics, Virgin Money, Virgin Cars, F1 group Virgin Racing and most famously Virgin Galactic which plans to provide sub-orbital berthflights to space tourists, suborbital launches for space cognizance missions and orbital launches of small satellites. He himself frequentlystates that all of these ventures are calculated risks which is hard to argue against beholding as Branson is the 4th richest citizen of the United Kingdom, according to the Forbes 2011 list of billionaires, with an estimated net worth of US$4.2 billion. Bransons ambitious and high-risk are not just limited to the business world as he has broke some(prenominal) world records and attempted many more, for example he completed the first balloon flight crossways the Atlantic in 1996. All these business and adventuring feats make Branson a truly admiral business leader role model.Bransons Career and Leadership StyleBransons career has been colossally successful from exit school at 16 to go on to become the 4th richest U.K. resident is remarkable. Branson is clear in his book Screw it, lets do it (2007) about how he has achieved this I have no secret. There are no rules to follow in business. I just graze hard and, as I always have done, believe I can do it Wit h this being said he has combatted the tediousness of working hard by indulging himself in what ever he does, taking a genuine interest and having fun with it A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your originative instincts. Bransons leadership style is undeniably democratic. Although a democratic leader will the final decision, he or she invites other members of the team to contribute to the decision-making process.This is not only increase job satisfaction by involving employees or team meam members in whats going on, but it also helps develop peoples skills. Employees and team members intent in control of their own destiny, such as the promotion they desire and so are motivated to work hard by more than just a financial reward. Branson professes this in an interview with Kets De Vries (1998) Im absolutely certain that its a question of the kind of people you have, and the way you motivate them. Im sure thats what makes any company successful .If you can motivate your people, use their creative potential, you can get through bad times and you can have it away the good times together. If you get to motivate your people, your company is doomed.If your employees are happy and smiling and enjoying their work, they will perform well. Consequently, the customers wiIl enjoy their experience with your com- pany. If your employees are sad and miserable and nothaving a good time, the customers will be equally miserable.In the same interview Branson says he often rewards employees We comparable to reward our key performers for their creative contribution I suppose that we have made maybe 15 or 20 multimillionaires through this structure. Branson applies this personal snuggle when assessing new business like when Virgin Money took over Northern Bank When we launched Virgin Money, I met with stave members at branches up and down the country. The insight those visits gave me were priceless.If I ever needed convincing that expend in a bank was the right thing to do, well, the stories I heard that week confirmed it. To hitch so many employees enthusiastic and proud to be working for Virgin made me even more excited about the future of our bank. We very much wanted Virgin Money to be the loot of something different, and it was great to see that everyone was onboard. Ive found that if you ensure that your lag and customers are happy and that your product or service is of good quality, the finances often take care of themselves.What I could learn from Sir Richard BransonThrough my think of Branson I have took many snippets of advice which I hope to use during my career in business after I complete my studies. Branson is an avid ambassador for his democratic style of leadership Having a personality of warmth about people is grievous. You cant be a good leader unless you generally like people. That is how you bring out the best in them. This is definitely a characteristic I want to draw into my leadership f ibre. This approach has served Virgin well over the years as in his book, Branson (2009), he mentions a positive outside perspective of working for Virgin which is echoed by the agreement of Virgin staff who enjoy working there. Virgin people have told me that at the end of a tiring day, when they are off duty, having a drink in the pub, or a meal, theyre occasionally asked where they work. When they say, With Virgin, the enquirer usually replies, aureate you That must be a great place to work Our staffs usually agrees.In addition to this extracted advice he intermits open advice to anyone who wantsto join him in being an entrepreneur. Forbes magazine (2012) pitched Sir Branson the question What are your top three pieces of advice for young entrepreneurs? to which he responded 1. Create a impregnable culture of excellence roll up your sleeves and work alongside your staff and take care of them. 2. Dont be afraid to make a fool of yourself if it helps your business. 3. Find ways to equally prioritize people, planet and profits because it CAN be done. These three points offer up key things to take on board if you are to succeed. Have high standards to give you an edge over competition and if needs be work on the ground level with your staff to set an example of how you expect things to be done.Take risks even if there is a chance it may make you look silly if it fails, it could help your business and you should lose your ego for the sake of your business. And finally your staff are your greatest resource, environmental and ethical procedures should be taken, Branson has become environmentally aware ever since a speech Al Gore gave him and he has even set up a green displace business, and do all you can to ensure your business is running profitably. He insists these three things can be done together.Branson is a master marketer and communicator. Forbes (2012), When Richard Branson had the idea of launching Virgin Atlantic, he pitched it to his beau directo rs who had no previous experience in the airline business. He delivered the idea simply, concisely, and effectively.Branson offers leaders and entrepreneurs this advice It is vitally important to present a clear, concise plan that investors can easily understand and repeat to their own people. In the first meeting avoid overly complicated, numbers-laden presentations. Presentations are supposed to be about getting your point across effectively, you could have the most statistical, graphically stunning and hilariously funny presentation to have ever been seen but if the people you are pitching it to dont come out of that meeting degree centigrade% sure what the point you were trying to make was and interested in your idea then you have failed in your objective.As well as learning from Bransons successes and teachings, there is equally as much to learn from his failings. He expresses this himself You dont learn to walk by following rules.You learn by doing, and by dropping over. Bra nsons book Business stripped bare even has a whole chapter called Damage invoice. unrivaled anecdote goes as follows I was nineteen years old and driving a des smirch of records to Belgium when I stumbled on the fact that recordsbought in Great Britain that were intended for export were not subject to leveraging tax. So I bought the records I needed, pretended they were export, and then sold them to British customers.The whole ploy concern driving four Transit vans loaded with records to Dover, taking them to France, then returning on the next ferrying with the records still on board. It not only was illegal, it was really pretty stupid. In May 1969, I was caught red handed by HM Custom and Excise But I learned a very important lesson never do anything that means you cant sleep at night. This is a huge piece of advice and something we can learn from and hopefully avoid from encountering ourselves. It cost Richard 60,000 and took almost 3 years for him to patch up such a loss. Illegal doings can almost certainly cost a business its existence and shouldnt even be thought about.ConclusionMichael Walenius (2010) concludes in his analyses of Bransons leadership that Sir Richard has got a very high degree of consideration and participation in what he does, but at the same time he is very involved in the structure setting at the start of a new business. He is definitively a relationship-oriented leader who is good at aligning people and giving them emotional support and encouragement. He seems to fall into the segment of being a participative and consultative leader. His very strong charisma seems to make anyone listen and follow him. I find it extremely difficult to disagree with this evaluation. Branson is an iconic leader who prioritises his employees and their well-being.He follows his belief that a happy employee will work harder, create a happier and burst working environment, infect customers with their pleasantness, resulting with a happy and loyal cus tomer who then by word of rim praise the business leading to increased revenue. He is extremely insightful with his advice on presentations, assessing business opportunities and acknowledging and learning from your mistakes. With an estimated wealth of 4.3 billion, 400+ companies under his name including the 7th biggest airline in the U.K., the first commercial space travel business and most importantly a well-respected name thats held in high wish in the public eye Branson truly is the business leader who I most admire and most envy.ReferencesBooksWagner, J.A. and Hollenback, J.R. (2009) Organizational Behaviour Securing Competitive Advantage, Michigan Taylor and Francis Richard Branson (2009) Business Stripped Bare Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur. London. Virgin Books.Branson, Richard (29 March 2007). Screw It, Lets Do It. London. Virgin Books WebsitesClark, D. (2010) Leadership Styles online (Cited 3 February 2012) Available from Kets De Vries (1998) personal appeal in Ac tion (online) (cited 2 December 2012) Available from http//molar.crb.ucp.pt/cursos/2%C2%BA%20Ciclo%20-%20Mestrados/Gest%C3%A3o/2007-09/DGRH/Papers/Charisma%20in%20action%20PPP.pdfRichard Branson (2012) Richard Branson on How to Delegate Control of Your Finances (online) (cited on 2 December 2012) Available from http//www.entrepreneur.com/article/224879 Carmine Gallo (2011) Richard Branson The One Skill Leaders Need to Learn (online) (cited 2 December) Available from http//www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2011/06/29/richard-branson-the-one-skill-leaders-need-to-learn/ Michael Walenius (2010) The leadership style of Sir Richard Branson (online) (cited 2 December) Available from http//michael.walenius.com/?p=141