Documentary Film Analysis Worksheet Essay

Instructions: You will find the list of films you can choose from in the Assignment tab. Go to the list and pick your film. You must view the entire film. If you can’t access films because of deployment, geographic location, or other reasons, please let your instructor know so they can give you an alternate assignment. Please type you answers into this sheet. You must submit the worksheet by uploading the worksheet as a Word document You must answer in complete sentences, using a short answer/paragraph format. Please do not answer in one or two sentences be specific. 2 paragraph minimum (except for #1) 1. What is the title of the film you picked? I chose the film, â€Å"Slavery and the Making of America.† 2. Why did you pick this film over the others offered? I chose this film documentary over the others because I have always wanted to learn more about slavery and how it shaped and effected America. Often we are just told what we read in books or stories that have been passed down about what really went on in this country. Slavery is a big subject and one of if not the biggest tragedies in the history of this country. I wanted to watch this documentary to uncover more truth and facts about the shape of this country during that time. I also liked the descriptions that are specified about the video and what it talks about and will cover. It states that the four part documentary will cover the beginning of slavery from the British colonies which then migrates down south to the north and how it ends. I have always been intrigued by the history of slavery and how it came about and how it was for Africans and African Americans during that time. 3. What is/are the central message(s) of this documentary/fictional film? Be specific. Use examples from the film to support your choice. There are many central messages regarding this documentary. The main messages conveyed in this documentary were resistance amongst the slaves, struggle to maintain dignity, their life styles and culture, their status as workers, knowing their value as a slave, the change of racism, slaves were underestimated about their knowledge and understanding, family was essential and helped them survive and powerful political figures along with American beliefs were major hypocrites. In 1624 the first eleven Africans known as the Atlantic Creole’s were brought via ships by the Dutch West India Company to New Amsterdam (New York today), at this time there were two kinds of workers; slaves and indentured workers(white and black laborers who served for a servant amount of years to get money and become free). Their statuses were confusing and complex however, they were both treated equal and would often retreat to taverns to bond and talk about their masters. The Atlantic Creole’s made the system work for them. They knew how to bargain with their masters to get what they needed and still maintain a fair working lifestyle. The turn of fair treatment towards both races changed in 1640 when three men (two white and one black) decided to flee from their master. They were caught two days later. In court the two whites were to serve a few more years as indentured workers while the black man was sentenced to life as an indentured worker. Slaves maintained their dignity by using the bible, their culture as Africans and family value to get them through. When times got hard they prayed and came together as a community. The treatment of slaves was inhumane, they were beaten, and tortured (branded, men castrated, ears cut off or severed, women raped and exploited) if they were misbehaving. Eventually slaves were beginning to be resistant. They would harm cattle, run away, commit suicide and sometimes revolt towards their masters to receive better treatment. President Thomas Jefferson was considered to be a huge hypocrite along with political powers in America. They wrote documents and petitions stating that all men were created equal. Jefferson claimed he was not big about slavery yet, he owned over 250 slaves and did not free a single one even as President. Slaves were treated like animals and property rather than human beings (3/5th constitution stated that slaves were only 3/5th human and therefore were to be treated as such.) 4. Consider the effectiveness of the film for this history class. What are its strengths and weaknesses of this film in documenting history? This film is strong and very effective with many strengths. It gives a detailed account of slavery and the lives of significant people who helped to abolish slavery. It talks about David Walker and his appeal and what the Appeal did for all blacks and whites fighting for the cause. Later it talks about Maria Stewart (Walker’s prodigy) and how she was the first black women to speak to a mixed audience those of men and women and how the lawsuit she won later would bring about the Emancipation. Other significant role players were Harriet Jacobs who was the first women to write a slave narrative. Her life consisted in the attempts to be free of her master who wanted her for sexual purposes. She fell in love with another white man and produced two children for him. In order for her children to be free she fled to her grandmother’s home who was free and she lived in an enclosed space for the next seven years. Although, her children were free it would be a few more years before she would ever see them again. The only weakness to this documentary I found was that it skipped times periods and went back and forth. It said very little about the Declaration of Independence and what it meant to African Americans. During this time it also does not mention the impact that the Quakers had on blacks. It just mentions that they were there and what they fought for.2 5. How do you think the filmmakers want the audience to respond? Is there a social justice message? If so, what is it? I would say filmmakers would want the audience to have a better appreciation for blacks and what they went through and those that helped fight for racism and anti-slavery movements. I think initially anyone who watches this film would first be ashamed to call the U.S their country but, then after a while realizing that was the country’s way of living and way of life at the time. To think that people were treated like animals and had no rights is an injustice and definitely a contradiction to the American beliefs. The audience may want to re-read the Declaration of Independence and see if its principals are practiced to this day. There is definitely a social justice  message. In the documentary it talks about the first eleven slaves from Africa known as the Atlantic Creole. As time passes they negotiate with their masters to get land, get paid for their labor and even have their children become free after a certain amount of time. The slaves knew their worth and at the time they were able to negotiate because there were no harsh laws at this time. A couple of the men even sued their masters and won for loss of wages. Other examples include resistance and revolts. A big indicator was the Walker Appeal. In the Appeal Walker motivates black slaves to stand up for themselves and roles out argument over the history of slavery. He criticizes Thomas Jefferson and America’s political party for being a contradiction stating they want all men to be treated equally and free except many of them stilled owned slaves and were not freeing them. 6. Did the documentary leave you with any unanswered questions? If so, what were they? The documentary was very informative and very detailed oriented. I would have like to know more about Thomas Jefferson and President Washington. The documentary does not cover President Washington’s role in slavery or how he felt about it and what actions he took. Of course he owned slaves but, did he feel the same as Jefferson? What was he doing at this time for the country in regards to slavery? I also wanted to know what Thomas Jefferson’s role was after the Declaration of Independence took effect. He owned over 250 slaves. I wonder what he was like toward his slaves and how he treated them. If he was against slavery then why did he not free his slaves or why did he wait so long? Why did he not play a bigger role in helping the slaves? 7. How did this film change any misconceptions or stereotypes you had about the subject matter? If so, what were they? Since, I already knew basic facts about slavery I did not have any stereotypes. I will say that I had lack of knowledge with the real life situations that many individuals experienced. For example, the film states the punishments for any slave that runs away. The first punishment they were  whipped. The second punishment they were branded with an R on their right cheek. The third punishment their ear was severed and another R on the left cheek for runaway, and the fourth punishment males were castrated. I had misconceptions about the Presidents. I used to respect the Presidents Jefferson and Lincoln. History says they are some of our founding fathers. To me they were prejudice cowards who had no intention of freeing slaves although, they say they did not believe in slavery. America builds these prominent figures up as if they are heroes. Sure, they developed great causes and did great things (Jefferson with the Declaration of Independence, and Lincoln with the Emancipation Proclama tion) but again this did nothing for slaves. 8. What did you enjoy most about the film? Dislike the most? Be specific. I like that the film was very detailed in the lives of those people who made a difference. The film also stresses how important slavery was and how blacks were portrayed and treated. I was constantly being fed about facts that I definitely did not learn in school history books. Significant unknown people such as a slave called Titus who was very skilled and a smart slave and owned by a short tempered Quaker who would not release him although, a lot of Quakers were freeing their slaves. Titus eventually runs away and comes back years later as a sophisticated colonel of a small army of whites and blacks to fight in various wars and help free his people. Another unknown significant slave was Emanuel Dregas. He was owned by Captain Pot and later Pot owned his family. Once Pot became stricken by poverty he sold Dregas’ family. After Captain Pot died, Dregas later became free but, his family remained enslaved and for the rest of his life he fought to get them freedom. I can honestly there was nothing that I did not like about the film. 9. What is the most important thing you learned from watching the film? The most important thing I learned about this film was the value of African Americans verses slavery and how the first Africans were able to be more free with their decisions and able to negotiate their wages. Again the first  eleven Africans known as the Atlantic Creole in 1624 came by way of ship purchased by the Dutch West Indian Company. As they built the Dutch Colony in New Amsterdam (New York today) there were no laws about slavery and they had no structure. They were just required to work hard for their masters. These slaves began to recognize their worth and realized they were not being paid their value. A few of them sued their slave owners for higher wages. They also began to negotiate with their masters. They made the system work for them. The masters wanted to appease them so that they would continue to work. In turn masters gave their slaves half freedom. This meant men who married could live with their wives on the free Negro land. They could grow their own crops, cattle and they could farm there. Slaves were very valuable. The more slaves that were owned the more land the slave owner received. For example, one slave equaled five acres of land. Cotton was the biggest product since tobacco and was in high demand throughout the world specifically Europe. Thousands of slaves were requested and then shipped from West Africa to complete these slave picking tasks. It was a nonstop twenty-four seven job. Slaves worked from sunrise till sundown. If it was a full moon they worked through the night as well. 10. Why is this film important to understanding contemporary African American History? This film is important to understanding contemporary African American History, because of the details it covers of slavery, the people and a nation it effected and how these people survived such a harsh, cruel and demanding life style. Africans and African Americans struggled yet their religious beliefs, love for family and will to live and eventually fighting back got them through. This is seen in the attempted Nat Turner revolt, Walker Appeal pamphlet, the slave narrative by Harriet Jacobs and Maria Stewart. Each of these individuals fought for a cause that they did not see or experience in their lifetime but, knew that it would come in the following generations. These individuals had guts and wanted to tell the truth. David Walker exploits American beliefs in his Appeal when he talks President Thomas Jefferson being a hypocrite and how he wants all men to be created equally yet he owns slaves and would not free them. America was turned upside down due to the attitude of slavery. The nation was becoming a separate society. It was the North and West vs the South. While the North and West had abolished slavery the South was nowhere near that or wanted anything to do with it. Economic power became political power. Those that had prospered or came from money were running for the senate, government and even for presidency. Based upon this alone Africans, African Americans and various indentured workers built this country and assisted the country in making it an economic powerhouse.

Arthropod pests Essay

The concern that human society will be inevitably obsessed with death is a valid one. Although there may be people today who escape depressing thoughts of death, all will be distraught after reading only a few lines of the Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias. This essay will analyze parts of the work by Federico Lorca and provide some basic interpretations and thoughts on the subject. Beginning with the first line of the lament, the reader is struck with an overwhelming sense of time—five in the afternoon. It fills the mind as the words continue. â€Å"It was exactly five in the afternoon. † Ignacio has obviously died. The time of day is noted, and the question arises immediately: why repeat the time â€Å"five in the afternoon† after every line (up to five times)! I think the point of repeating the time excessively is to pound a feeling of monotony that accompanies utter grief into the mind of the reader. Also, it provides a broad scope to help the reader understand how many hopelessly depressing things are going on at once. A possible answer, then, is that the lament needs synchronization in order to deliver the correct emotions that Lorca felt. For example, leaving out the repeated time, the first stanza becomes, â€Å"A boy brought the white sheet, A frail of lime ready prepared, The rest was death, and death alone. † In this version, the reader feels like three mundane, somewhat depressing things are happening in sequence as opposed to feeling a horrifying realization of the simultaneous events surrounding the loss of a close friend. Without the repetition it may still seem sad, but nowhere near as powerful as the original. Adding the repetition back in, one feels as though time has been stopped during a metaphorical symphony of pain from grief. As the horrible moment continues, Lorca adds additional imagery: â€Å"Groups of silence in the corners†¦ A coffin on wheels is his bed†¦ The room was iridescent with agony†¦ In the distance the gangrene now comes†¦ The wounds were burning like suns†¦ at five in the afternoon. At five in the afternoon. Ah, that fatal five in the afternoon! It was five by all the clocks! It was five in the shade of the afternoon! † It is no accident that we read of the time of day five times at the end of this section. Also, both of the first two stanzas contain five references to the time as well, almost suffocating us with the existence of the terrible hour. Lorca perfectly displays the effect of death on the human mind. Cluttered with the details most ignored in regular life, our brains (perhaps as a self-defense to keep us alive) go through an almost physical withdrawal when those near to us die. In conclusion, It is obvious that our lives revolve around death whether we like it or not. Death is the nemesis of survival, and survival is our primary goal in life as humans. Reproduction, social reform, religion, or anything else we live for (even hedonism) must manifest itself through survival of ourselves or others. Thus, as long as we survive, humans will always be obsessed with death.

Capital Budgeting and Investment Analysis

As per our calculations based above we recommend the company, Equator Ltd to accept plan A. this is so because Plan a offers higher net present value than plan B (Au and Au, 1992). as already mentioned plan a is a highly automated project which involved use of more machinery and use of less physical labour. Though using automated techniques of production has its own advantages, it also carries a lot of disadvantages (Bierman and Smidt, 1975). Therefore, before accepting the plan A based on its high Net present value, the company should also consider the following points: Therefore, before acceptance of proposal A the company should consider all monetary and non-monetary factors. (Jordan, 2014) Efficient capital market refers to the market structure where the share prices of an entity reflect the latest information. This statement implies that any event or action or information which may affect the financial position of the company (Seitz and Ellison, 1999), be it directly related to it or indirectly, gets incorporated in the share price as soon as the information is received. The intrinsic value of a financial security represents a claim on cash flows of company which are expected to be earned in future. This intrinsic value is the present value of the future cash flows. Therefore, if the future cash flows are affected in any manner by any information, then it should be reflected in the price of the security, this is the whole concept of efficient capital market. (Warren, 2017) Equator Limited in the given case plans to invest ina new line of product which will require huge investments (Shapiro, 2005). If the company decides to raise capital by way of Equity shares then efficient capital markets would be highly productive and beneficial for the company. This can be understood buy the following discussion. The above analysis of the plan of the company represents high returns. If the capital markets are efficient then the investors will also read the same information and would want to invest to invest in the shares of Equator seeing its high expected return and growth. The capital markets being efficient will incorporate the same information in the share price and in turn will help increase the value of the company. (WARREN, 2017) Therefore, the capital market efficiency will help Equator Limited to raise capital since the company has a high growth and return projected. Aldridge, A. (2005). The market. 1st ed. Cambridge: Polity. Au, T. and Au, T. (1992). Engineering economics for capital investment analysis. 1st ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall. Bernstein, P. (2007). Capital ideas evolving. 1st ed. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons. Bierman, H. and Smidt, S. (1975). The capital budgeting decision. 1st ed. New York: Macmillan. Capital Budgeting Valuation. (2013). 1st ed. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley. Chernobai, A., Rachev, S. and Fabozzi, F. (2007). Operational risk. 1st ed. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley. Danthine, J. and Donaldson, J. (n.d.). Intermediate financial theory. 1st ed. Dayanada, D. (2002). Capital budgeting. 1st ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Fabozzi, F. (n.d.). Capital markets. 1st ed. Fleming, D. and Chamberlin, S. (n.d.). Surviving the future. 1st ed. Hitt, M., Ireland, R. and Hoskisson, R. (n.d.). Strategic management. 1st ed. Jordan, B. (2014). Fundamentals of investments. 1st ed. [S.l.]: Irwin Mcgraw-Hill. Seitz, N. and Ellison, M. (1999). Capital budgeting and long-term financing decisions. 1st ed. Fort Worth: Dryden Press/Harcourt Brace College Publishers. Shapiro, A. (2005). Capital budgeting and investment analysis. 1st ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall. Warren, C. (2017). Financial & managerial accounting. 1st ed. [Place of publication not identified]: Cengage Learning. WARREN, C. (2017). ACCOUNTING. 1st ed. [Place of publication not identified]: SOUTH-WESTERN.

The Culture of Samurai Warriors Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

The Culture of Samurai Warriors - Research Paper Example In addition, how did the institution of Samurai warriors affect the political system of the Japanese society? The military nobles of ancient Japan are referred to as Samurai. The term was associated with the top and the middle ranks of the Japanese society, a warrior class.1 This class of skilled warriors developed after the Taika reforms which introduced heavy taxes and the redistribution of land. This, in turn, resulted in many small farmers selling their lands and engaging in tenant farmers, since the reforms favored the owners of large tracts of land1. This system served to create a social system where there were a few wealthy farmers wielding immense power and a large population of those who had low income, namely, peasants and tenant farmers who barely had enough for themselves. Consequently, wealthy and powerful landowners and farmers required to protect their interests against the large groups of Japan citizenry who had fewer resources. This saw the birth of the Samurai warri ors tasked to protect the interest of the mighty, wealthy and powerful landowners1. While some of these Samurai warriors were hired individuals, others were the relatives of the wealthy farmers. There was a fundamental principle that guided the institution of Samurai warrior, loyalty to the master. ...The wealthy landowners have organized themselves in clans that amassed wealth by influencing the laws of the land to impose higher taxes on the peasants and the tenant farmers, to make them lose more lands to them. These organized clans eventually established protective agreements that, in turn, allowed them to wield more powers than the traditional ruling aristocracy2. These clans, some of which were made by a formation of alliances of landowners to guard themselves against the collection of taxes by the authorities, established armies to fight for them against the authorities. Such alliances and eventual establishments of armies and weaponry by the farmers’ clans finally creat ed a tradition of Japanese armor that was the basis of the foundation of the Samurai warrior institution. The Samurai grew stronger and started to collect certain taxes but eventually emerged as the political ruling power in Japan1. By 1100, the Samurai had already moved in to fill the vacant position that was left by the loss of control of the traditional Japanese aristocracy. Consequently, they wielded both political and military power over Japan6. The further factor that promoted the rise of the Samurai to power was the death of emperor Toba in 1156 without appointing an heir. His two sons struggled to rise to emperorship and ended up in a civil war in which both lost. The civil war led to the fight between two Samurai clans, the Minamoto and Taira Samurai clans, for power in which the Taira clan won. Consequently, Taira clan established the first Samurai government, and the Minamoto clan was expelled from Kyoto3.

Accounting software Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Accounting software - Essay Example An Accounting Information System (AIS) is an organized framework which is used to keep the business accounting records and information by an organization (Wikipedia.org, 2006). The system can be a manual system or a software based application. This report covers the essential user requirements for the development of an Accounting Information System application, fully equipped to cater all the requirements of internal and external stakeholders.After conducting a formal and organized users' needs assessment survey, that included interviewing key users and process owners and studying the business processes, the analyst team has identified the major requirements of the proposed accounting information system (Accounting Software Research, 2002).The software should include ABC's chart of accounts. If this is not set up properly so that revenues and costs are captured and segregated into the best suited categories, the financial reports will be useless and misleading.All transactions need t o be recorded by AIS. No transaction, once entered, will be allowed to be deleted. Transactions may, however, be reversed if incorrectly recorded in the AIS. The AIS should provide facility for transaction processing and activities like real time transactions entries, validation and verification checks, posting and reconciling, balancing totals etc. The AIS should maintain and produce financial statements for the company based on the transactions that are entered into the software. The system should be able to group various items as per the rules already provided in the system and should be able to develop all relevant financial statements of the company like Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Cash Flow Statement, Statement of changes in equity, etc. Accounts Payable Vendor Master File All related information about vendors and suppliers should be stored in the application appropriately and should be accessible to authorized personnel only. Purchasing Controls The procurement process of the company should be automated. There should be features for request for proposal, purchase orders printing and control, vendor and order details, invoice, etc. Check Writing Checks should be automatically printed from the system upon request. The procedure should take into account proper authorizations and verification features. Accounts Receivable Customer Master File All related information about customers is kept in the system and is accessible to authorized personnel only. Invoicing The customer invoice process that is followed by business should be automated; hence invoices will be produced by the system when necessary information is entered by the operator. Cash Receipts and Debt Collection Rules should be defined in the system for the process of cash receiving from customers using cash, bank checks and other means. Similarly, the system should be able to track debts and loans, should be programmed so that the loans are properly aged, and the collection procedures that is being applied to recover the debt, should be recorded in the system. Payroll Employee Files All related information about employees of the company is kept in the system and is accessible to authorized personnel only. Human Resource Management Payroll benefits, skills classification, applications for recruitment, selection procedures, screened candidates' information, training records, employee health and safety records. Vacation records etc. will be maintained in this sub-module. Payroll Check Writing Payroll checks will be produced automatically by the system at due date. The necessary monitoring controls should be applied to ensure proper treatment of rewards, bonuses, stop payments etc

SLP4 Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

SLP4 - Coursework Example The Coca Cola Company can resolve this problem by using the pre-emptive strategy that allows it to provide top-notch products that cannot be substituted. As a result, the customers will continue to stick with the company and continue purchasing its products regardless of the availability of the substitutes. The Coca-Cola Company faces highest competitive rivalry particularly from Pepsi Co. Furthermore, the increased number of new entrants have also created high level of threat for the company to survive. In order to minimize these threats, Coca-Cola company has to make the most of its economies of scale in order to lower its consumer price per bottle. Eventually, the lowest possible price will be difficult for its competitors to reach. Consequently, providing competitive advantage to the Coca Cola Company. Through differentiation strategy, the Coca-Cola Company should invest more on innovation to develop unique and different bottle designs, concepts, processes, marketing campaigns, public messages, brand names, slogans, corporate social responsibility activities that are unique in their own way and address the sensitive issues of the societies. As a result, a brand image will develop that is unparalleled and cannot be matched by any of its competitors. Furthermore, the customers will become loyal to the brand due to the fact that the company is able to demonstrate higher level of concern for the health and wellness of its customers instead of its profits. Through the focus strategy, the Coca Cola company will be able to enter into the bottled water market and other booming industries like food items to maintain its competitive edge over its competitors. Most significantly, Coca Cola company has to enter into a niche market in which the competitors either are not willing to enter or do not have the required knowledge, infrastructure and expertise to sustain in that particular industry. As a

A Critique of a source of evidence related to an aspect of practice Essay

A Critique of a source of evidence related to an aspect of practice - Essay Example isease which have yielded greater life expectancy, the situation has become more complicated due to the dearth of time and over reliance on technology for healthcare delivery. In the process, the humane angle is sometimes neglected which can have serious consequences on patient compliance as well as the quality of life post treatment. The situation in case of older people is worse. With growing number of their population in society and the fact that most of the older people are either single or have nobody to care for them, it becomes imperative to address the issues pertaining to their dignity in the hospital environment as well as in the social setting. The idea of evidence based clinical diagnosis and practice has emerged and achieved a prominent place in the last few decades to address many of the problems encountered in the hospital setting (Knottnerus & Buntinx, 2009). Past experiences, clinical trials and the surmounting medical literature has churned out stupendous amount of knowledge about diagnosis and the most appropriate treatment modalities for various diseases which are impossible to store within the confines of the human brain. However, the recent advances in information and communication technology have placed a means to access the most pertinent information in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. Making a decision about the most appropriate diagnostic procedure and treatment modality to be adopted should therefore be backed by thorough research and investigation providing a strong basis for the approach to be used in the peculiar situations confronting one in a clinical setting. This allows for the right decision to be taken at the right moment with full justification and forms the basis for evidence based practice. Health care organizations all over the world are making endeavours to facilitate information transfer from literature to practice in order to ensure evidence based practice (Pipe et al, 2005). The issues of handling patients and

Human Resource Management. Toyota Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Human Resource Management. Toyota - Essay Example Further the Personnel Management functions of the concern also focus on enhancing the dimensions of awareness and development of existing operating methods for people relating to the administrative and engineering department. In that the individuals are encouraged to enhance their operation knowledge through the use of self study programs. The personnel managers at Toyota also incorporate the system of flexibility at work to reduce the element of work stress. Moreover the people at different levels along with the management staff of the company are continually empowered to take decisions on their own while incorporating the elements of creativity and innovation to transform or revolutionize the existing organisational environment (Hino, 2006, p.152). Human Resource Management at Toyota Human Resources Management initiatives of the company firstly focus on integrating the employees both at the individual and at the group level with the organisation in total. Thus welfare and development of the individual people in the concern are taken as an integral part in meeting the large organisational goals of the concern. Further the human resource managers also focus on enhancing the commitment level of the people in meeting the objectives of the concern. Moreover the human resources management practices in Toyota also render enhanced focus on the system of adaptability through the process of job rotations wherein an individual is required to perform different roles in the organisational setting. Management at Toyota also introduces several benchmarks to evaluate and appraise the performances of the individuals in terms of processes followed and achievements gained. Initiatives like conducting employee appraisals depending on benchmarks and thereby augmenting their pay scale s based on such along with development of communication activities through the mode of briefings and cross-departmental trainings contribute in the total development of the people involved in the operations of the concern (Toyota, 2003). Human Resource Management and Organisational Objectives of Toyota The Human Resources Management processes in Toyota focus more on training the organizational people to develop their potencies to render effective servicing and in enhancing the quality aspects in terms of the services and products generated and produced. To fulfil the goals of

Project management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 2

Project management - Essay Example It is fundamentally due to this particular reason that organizations need to build both effective as well as efficient teams as well as individuals so that organizational goals can be accomplished with ease. However, assigning proper roles and responsibilities to the employees at the individual level as well as team level is also important so that they can contribute towards the accomplishments of the organisation. These aspects are further argued to be highly crucial in the field of sales and marketing which act as the major constituent and driving force of organisational productivity. It has been apparently observed in this context that the roles of employees in this section of business are different from other organisational dimension. The primary roles of the employees in this area are to follow and accomplish the goals and targets of the organization. He/she should be clear about what the organization expects from them and deliver accordingly. Furthermore, the employees should b e more involved towards the operations of the organization in accordance with the set standards and organisational vision. Alongside, the employees must be essentially motivated to strive for better performance continuously. Moreover, the employees of the organization should also need to be innovative in implementing new sales and marketing systems being adequately aware of the determined objectives so that the chances of any sort of error can be minimised efficiently (Griffin & Moorehead, 2009). Additionally, at the team level, the employees need to understand their roles and responsibilities for the organization and deliver their performance accordingly. All the employees in the team should work with equal dedication for the overall accomplishment of organisational goals and should provide topmost priority to the organizational targets rather than individual’s own interests. This aspect can be determined as a vital contribution for the team, towards the marketing and sales department of the organization (Griffin & Moorehead, 2009). 1.2. Project Scope & Process Type Required It has been noted that the implementation of a new sales and marketing system will be vital and advantageous to facilitate the performance of the company in terms of increasing revenue and brand value. In this context, it can be affirmed that implementation of a new sales and marketing system is quite likely to standardize the entire process of sales and marketing of the company. As sales and marketing acts as the backbone of any organization, this aspect is considered to be highly crucial. Furthermore, it has been noted that with the incorporation of a new sales system in organization, there is every probability of increase in sales as well as enhancement of the brand value. Furthermore, the implementation of the new system shall also enable the organization to have a more comprehensive prediction about the further demand fluctuations in the market building better coordination wit hin the two end of the supply chain, i.e. the manufacturing or marketing units and the ultimate customers. Apart from this, the new sales and management system will also enable the company to automatically record the sales and marketing activities of the employees and hence diminish errors in the weekly sales reporting activities, thus making the entire process

Unregistered Designs Rights Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Unregistered Designs Rights - Essay Example Unregistered Designs Rights Unregistered design right are rights that are used to prevent unauthorized copying of original designs. There are two types of such rights that is, the one that deals with English rule4s while the other deals Community unregistered design that covers European Community. These rights co-exist but sometimes differ from each other where some designs can be protected by the two rights depending on the issues at hand. Fisher defines a design as a product according to its shape or either ornamentation. Definition of a design varies among different types of legal protection. It relates to technical principles of its operation and construction UK UDR stipulates that the owner of the right be given the right against unauthorized copying of their design. The owner also has the right to prevent unauthorized dealing by importation, sale, and possession. It does not involve any formal registration since it comes into existence automatically when it has been created. Design rights usually protect the appearance of a product but not how it works or its construction .However if products are visible in normal use of the said product they can be protected. Unregistered design rights protects against copying of the original design. The EU part of the right expires in three years from first disclosure that is done publicly. The UK protection however lasts longer than this.

The New Rave Generation Essay Example for Free

The New Rave Generation Essay Electronic Dance Music, better known as EDM, has the potential to be the largest genre of music in the near future. From the start this music has acted as a spiritual and emotional release for anyone who listens, this being one of, if not the most innovative forms of music in the history of entertainment. Throughout the existence of this genre there were many struggles amongst the industry. After nearly 40 years of efforts, EDM has revealed itself to the mainstream of music entertainment. â€Å"For an industry increasingly reliant on aging headliners like Bruce Springsteen, Madonna and the Rolling Stones the appeal of a genre with fresh stars and a huge young audience is undeniable.†(The New York Times) In other words, the older generations of music are fading out for a new wave to come in. Without this new generation, the rise of EDM may not have occurred. The origin of this music varies depending upon the specific type of EDM. The United States progression from traditional acoustic music to Electronic Music started in the 1970’s and now grows larger than ever expected. The true origin of this genre was in the 1960’s in Jamaica. Artists would overlay multiple tracks (normally instrumentals of existing tracks) on reel to reel tape players, which were commonplace at the time, to create their own unique tracks. They’d hook the reel to reel tape player up to an amp, along with an MC, and then throw large parties. Disco being one of the original forms of EDM was heard during the mid to late 1970’s among a very diverse but specific crowd which included the black, Latino, gay, and psychedelic communities. Donna Summer’s 1977 hit â€Å"I Feel Love† took the recent birth of this music put a slight twist on it which in turn expanded the electronic music culture. Although Donna Summer experimented with many genres, her impact on electronic dance music was substantial. Pairing with producer Giorgio Moroder was a defining moment for not just the sub-genre disco but for all of EDM. Disco’s combination of beats, strings, horns, and synths significantly impacted, whether directly or indirectly, every electronic artist from burgeoning house music DJs and New Order in the ‘80s to modern producers, like Calvin Harris and Avicii, revisiting those same sounds. Donna Summer’s career and more specifically her hit song â€Å"I Feel Love† is in some way responsible for every mainstream genre of EDM due to the explorative diversity of her music. Upon entering the 1980’s disco’s short lived popularity diminished. From the ashes of disco arose many new genres of EDM featuring electro, freestyle, techno and house. The musical aspect of the Jamaican culture, dub music was soon carried over to the US where artists such as Frankie Knuckles, known as the â€Å"Godfather of House†, began to introduce this magical genre. Due to the low demand for this electronically crafted music concerts were non-existent. In place of concerts, fans heard this music at warehouse parties and nightclubs. Using RB records, Frankie Knuckles and other artists used a mixer and two turntables. These records were not just left to play, the DJs reconstructed their sounds by mixing two records together at the same time, adjusting their tempos, and layering percussive beats over the top. This was the start of mainstream House Music. Night clubs and discos such as Paradise Garage and Studio 54 in New York City, or The Wharehouse in Chicago started employ DJs for every night they were open with the demand for EDM rising. These venues would have their sound system prepared more for DJs rather than the traditional live acts. At this point the interest for the DJs themselves had surpassed any expectation. In other words, fans began to appreciate the talent and dedication these artists possessed. With sudden interest in the DJs, they began to produce more of their own music. The increase in production led to the making of remixes. Remixing music proceeded to increase the popularity of this music and the individual DJs. By the 90s there was enough content and a large enough response to EDM where large concerts would be held indoors or outdoors casually known as raves. Raves feature loud, live music with breathtaking light shows which will put almost any person in awe. â€Å"Happy people, dancing happily without a hint of cynicism.†(Huffington Post) describes the atmosphere of any rave, perfectly. Raves gave off a sense of happiness among the whole crowd which is an indescribable feeling. Over years raves varied in styles to broaden the appeal, the venues started adding additional interactive entertainment including paint, glow sticks, foam and other stimulating accessories. Although the rave scene should have boosted the fan base substantially, EDM had reached the boundaries of its popularity for many years. Recently the electronic dance music scene has expanded past any expectations. Currently EDM is one of the most popular genres among all cultures. â€Å"If you’re 15 to 25 years old now, this is your rock ‘n’ roll,† said Michael Rapino, the chief executive of Live Nation Entertainment, the world’s largest concert promoter. This young audience is known as the new rave generation and they are nearly growing in numbers and variety. There are more performers, better technology and larger events every year. This scene is expanding with no intentions of slowing down. Electric dance music festivals are the hosts of the craziest events in the United States. These festivals took the average rave and super-sized it in every way possible. Most festivals are held over multiple days some providing overnight accommodations. Fans will spend thousands of dollars in preparation for these unforgettable couple days. The Electric Daisy Carnival in 2011 had over 200,000 guests at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. These fans gathered from all around the world to hear the top DJs of the industry give the crowd everything they had. As the crowd roars across the many stages thousands of people share something they will take with them forever. This remarkable experience gives out a vibe like no other and greatly impacts the lives of everyone attending. Electric Dance Music has not only impacted the music entertainment industry forever but also the lives of millions of people. With roots from all over the world EDM has collectively created something nobody could have ever had predicted. Bringing thousands of enthusiasts from around the world together for a spiritual journey creates a surreal experience nobody can dislike. EDM is a genre that is here to stay and will continuously influence generations to come.

Improving Job Quality in the UK Labour Market

Improving Job Quality in the UK Labour Market The prospects for improving job quality at the lower end of the labour market in the UK pay Introduction Frederick Engels once wrote that labour is the prime basic condition for all human existence, and this to such an extent that, in a sense, we have to say that labour created man himself (1934). A person’s job helps define who they are. The level of income, time spent working, and the quality of the job, highly influence a person’s life. As Sweet and Meiksins say: â€Å"work occupies most of our waking hours; it is a crucial part of identities and influences life chances.† (2008, p. 1) As it has always been, employers are mostly looking for hardworking, well-educated people with particular sets of skills. These days education has become the Alpha and Omega of employment as Daniel Bell puts it: â€Å"If capital and labour are the major structural features of industrial society, information and knowledge are those of post-industrial society.† (1973, p. 211) With the rise in the number of people with higher education, one would expect a rise in higher, well-paid jobs. But in the UK, the situation is quite different. Not only is there a lot of low skilled service sector jobs with low wages, which result in poverty, but there is also growing pay inequality. The worst off are those on the lower end of the labour market who receive a pay of the bottom 20-25% and hold low-skilled jobs which are routine and semi-routine, and require no qualification. The most common job among these is that of the sales assistant. The number of these kind of low-wage workers in the UK is a staggering 20.6% (OECD 2011). This kind of inequality brings health and social problems. Studies show that more unequal countries have worse health and social problems such as lower life expectancy, higher mental illness and obesity, more teenage births and infant mortality, more homicides, etc. (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009). This is quite a logical deduction to make, since a big part of an individual’s life is his/her job, and dissatisfaction with one’s job – which is directly linked to the dissatisfaction with one’s income – greatly influences the physical and psychological health of the said individual. Changes in the new economy In recent years, there has been a shift from the old economy to the new. These terms were thought up and are used by Sweet and Meiksins in their work – Changing countours of work. There they state that the old economy represents the various ways of assigning and structuring work that developed in the wake of the Industrial Revolution through to the mid-20th century. It included systems which were built around mass production, gendered divisions of labour, unionized labour, etc. The new economy brought about changes. For one, good jobs that require a limited education are disappearing, which forces a big group of people to take on menial, low-paid jobs with little prospects for future advancement. This system partially stems from Frederick Winslow Taylor who introduced his philosophy at the beginning of the 20th century. He argued for the separation of ‘thought’ from ‘execution’, which resulted in the creation of legions of deskilled jobs and the decli ne in the individual worker’s ability to control the conditions and rewards of work. (2008, p. 10). This fit perfectly into the abiding cultural belief that some should be owners and others workers. This popularized the idea that inequality in the workplace is actually desirable in a capitalistic system. (Sweet and Meiksins, 2008, p. 11) The belief that workers are indolent and cannot be trusted is directly responsible for the creation of the so-called McJobs – a.k.a. jobs on the very low end of the labour market. Wikipedia defines a McJob as a low-paying, low-prestige dead-end job that requires few skills and offers very little chance of intercompany advancement. The quality of these types of jobs is extremely low. The deliberations of the European Commission show that there is a propensity for the representatives of governments to assert that all parties would gain from job quality improvements. Francis Green states that wage rate is a key indication of a job’s quality, and claims that for the pay to be fair, it should be related to a worker’s contribution to the performance of the organization. (2006, p. 111) Green claims that there are no specifically economic reasons to look forward to long-term improvements or any other trend in the perceived fairness of material rewards. In the mid-20th century countries in transition would experience rising inequality, followed by a later equalizing trend. A lot of countries experienced declining income inequality for most of the 20th century, which started to rise again after the 1970s. (2006, pp. 119-20). This could be construed as a realistic standpoint, but it could also be called unnecessarily pessimistic. Although trends are not promising, this issue is one yet to be tackled. Concerns over wage inequality Public debates and policy discussions are brimming with concerns over inequality of wages. Despite the increased importance of tax credits as a source of household income growth over the past decade, pay still remains central to maintaining adequate living standards for most low to middle income households. (Pennycook and Whittaker; 2012, p. 4) It has widely been agreed that by far the best single measure of income inequality is the Gini coefficient of concentration. (Chen, Tsaur and Rhai; 1982, p. 473). With the Gini coefficient, 0 marks that everyone has the same income, and 1 that the richest person has all the income. In the UK this number is 4 which is well below what one would hope for. OECD shows that the gap between the rich and the poor has widened in the past decades. The incomes of top earners in the UK have risen much faster than for everyone else. The richest people have an income of about 10 times that of the poorest. Since the 1990s there has been a rise in people reporting high incomes, and also, high income taxes dropped. (2014) Groups that are most likely to hold low paid jobs are women, part-time or temporary workers, young workers, and workers in relatively low-skilled occupational groups such as Elementary Occupations (cleaners, security guards, catering assistants, leisure workers) and Sales Customer services (Pennycook and Whittaker; 2012, p. 5) What causes wage disparities? Over the past few decades, the UK, as well as other countries, has gone through significant changes. It underwent rapid technological progress and was more closely integrated into the global economy. When talking about the issue of income inequality, a lot of people tend to recognize globalization and technological advancement as the main culprits. They affected the job market by bringing high skilled workers greater rewards than the low-skilled ones, thus widening the gap between their respective earnings. Technological progress also penalized those who did not have the necessary skills to adapt and use technology effectively. (OECD; 2011, p. 28). This tended to have the worst effect on the people in low social positions which caused the gap between the well-off, who could afford the time and money to tackle the changing demands, and those who got stuck doing work that was becoming less and less appreciated. Alongside these changes, minimum wage also declined across many countries, as did the share of union members among workers. A lot of policies and institutions also made significant changes which contributed to higher employment, but also wage disparities. (OECD; 2011, p. 30). A lot of people found employment in factories, the service department and other low-skilled jobs which were in abundance, but had low wages and no prospects for the future. Some other things that encourage inequality are: privatization, subcontracting, deregulation, welfare to work policies, and neo-liberal policies. Possible solutions Britain’s reliance on an extensive pool of low-skilled, low-paid labour is not predetermined. The particular incidence and composition of low-paid work in any given country is the result of unique patterns of production and employment and these patterns are influenced, in part, by policy choices. Reducing the share of workers who are low paid is not a political objective that can be easily addressed by legislative levers. It is therefore not surprising that many policymakers have been justifiably reluctant to intervene in the market, preferring instead to correct market inequities through remedial redistribution (Pennycook and Whittaker; 2012, p. 39). But the redistribution systems in reality did little to reduce inequality. (OEDC; 2011, p. 92) Reforming tax and benefit policies would help soften the problem of inequality, by getting more people into the labour force, while making sure they stay in jobs paying good wages is essential. (OEDC; 2014). Government help and transfers also have an important role of making sure that low-level income households don’t fall further down into poverty. The reform of the tax policies for high-income individuals, whose job and income is generally more stable, would also help the redistribution of wealth and social mobility. However, these reforms would have to be thoroughly examined, and well thought up. The key would be ensuring that the poorly represented groups, such as young people, women and immigrants, have access to jobs with prospects for advancement. Another key point would be to allow low-paid individuals additional job-related education and skill-acquirement by incentivising companies to invest in their ‘human capital’. Due to the high demand for high-skilled individuals, especially in the newer fields of technology, marketing, and such, in the long haul, one of the possible solutions would be better government-supported education in these deficit fields for children of low-income families. This would create better social mobility, and at least a small boost in economy. The Welfare Reform Act 2012 introduced a wide range of reforms to the benefit and tax credit system (Universal Credit). Under the current system a working-age individual with low earnings and no disabilities may be entitled to receive payments from one or more of three main benefit groups; unemployment benefits and social assistance; the Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit and Tax Credits. Different benefits within each of these three groups are internally coordinated and roughly based on the same framework, while there is close to no coordination across the three benefit groups, leading to a rather erratic incentive structure. Under Universal Credit, the main means-tested benefits, except the Council Tax Benefit will be pooled into one single benefit with generous earnings disregards and one single rate of benefit withdrawal against income (taper rate). At the same time, support for childcare through the benefit system is made accessible for parents regardless of how many hours a week they work. Stated goals of the Universal Credit reform include giving people incentives to work, diminishing complexity, reducing relative poverty and containing the rising cost of welfare dependency (Andrà ©, C.et al. 2013). This act is important for this discussion because, what is hoped to be achieved in the long run is giving people incentives to work. Combined with some of the measures mentioned before, this would also allow people, who are now in a vicious circle of not having enough money for up-skilling, and not enough skills to make money, to break free and start climbing the proverbial social ladder – better jobs and better pays. Some say that the greatest priority is bound to be employment security. Macroeconomic and financial stability is the prime job quality policy at the moment. It is the job of government to try to ensure stable macroeconomic conditions, which, despite efforts, has not worked out recently. This recession has hit the lower end of the working class the hardest, but recessions have in the past always ended and, despite climate change we can expect a renewal of growth over the next few years, which will gradually reduce job insecurity again. Francis Green’s analysis of recent trends in Britain implies that the three urgent ongoing issues for policymakers to address are skills, autonomy and effort. (2009. pp. 28-29.) Conclusion Jobs are a very important part of who a person is. It is one of the ways we define ourselves. Job satisfaction is one of the principal issues in the overall life satisfaction of an individual. The quality of a job is directly linked to wages. In recent decades, due to various reasons which include globalisation and technological advancement, there has emerged a trend of rising disparity of wages in the UK. The incomes of top earners in the UK have risen much faster than for those receiving low wages. The demand for high-skilled workers is rising, but 20% of people still work in low-paid jobs with no intercompany prospects. This wage inequality is the object of much public and political debate. Although every part of the government asserts that solving this inequality and improving job quality would be better for everyone, this is not a political objective that can be easily tackled by legislature. This is why many policymakers have been justifiably reluctant to intervene in the marke t, preferring instead to correct market inequities through remedial redistribution. Some of the ways in which the inequality could be softened are the reformation of tax policies for high-income individuals and households, benefit policies for low-income households, better education and skill acquiring opportunities, ensuring employment security and stabilizing macroeconomics and finances. These changes will have to be made gradually and carefully, but nothing in the economic research suggests that this wage disparity is necessary and cannot be avoided. References Andrà ©, C.et al. 2013. Labour Market, Welfare Reform and Inequality in the United Kingdom. OECD Economics, Department Working Papers, No. 1034, OECD Publishing Bell, D. 1973. The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. New York: Basic Books. Chen, C.N., Tsaur, T.W. and Rhai, T.S. 1982. The Gini Coefficient and Negative Income; Oxford Economic Papers, New Series, (34/3) pp. 473-492. New York: Oxford University Press Engels, F. 1934. The Part played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Green F. 2006. Demanding work: The Paradox of Job Quality and Affluent Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Green, F. 2009. Job Quality in Britain. Praxis, issue 1, November, London: UK Commission for Employment and Skills. OECD, Jan. 2013, Income Distribution and Poverty at the OECD [Online] Available at: http://www.oecd.org/social/inequality.htm [Accessed: 18 January 2014] OECD. 2011. Divided we stand: Why inequality Keeps Rising, OECD Publishing. Pennycook M., Whittaker M. 2012. Low Pay Britain. London: Resolution Foundation. Sweet S. and Meiksins P. 2008. Changing countours of work. Newbury Park: Pine Forge Press. Wilkinson, R.G. and Pickett K. 2009. The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. London: Allen Lane

Literature Review About Cryptography And Steganography Computer Science Essay

Literature Review About Cryptography And Steganography Computer Science Essay The initial forms of data hiding can truly be considered to be extremely simple forms of private key cryptography, the key in this case being the information of the scheme being implemented. Steganography books are overflowing with examples of such schemes used all through history. Greek messengers had messages written into their shaved heads, hiding the message when their hair grew back. With the passage of time these old cryptographic techniques improved in context of optimization and security of the transmitted message. Nowadays, crypto-graphical methods have reached to a level of classiness such that appropriate encrypted interactions can be assumed secure well beyond the practical life of the information communicated. In reality, it is expected that the most powerful algorithms using multi KB key capacity could not be covered through strength, even if all the computing resources worldwide for the next 20 years were dedicated on the attack. Obviously the chances are there that weaknesses could be found or computing power advancement could occur, but existing cryptographic schemes are usually adequate for most of the users of different applications. So why to chase the area of information hiding? A number of good reasons are there, the first is that security through obscurity is not basically a bad thing, provided that it isnt the only security mechanism employed. Steganography for instance permits us to conceal encrypted data in mediums less likely to draw attention. A garble of arbitrary characters being communicated between two clients may give a clue to an observant third party that sensitive data is being transmitted whereas kid images with some extra noise present may not. Added information in the images is in encrypted form, but draws much lesser interest being allocated in the images then it would otherwise. This becomes mainly significant as the technological discrepancy between individuals and institutions grows. Governments and businesses usually have access to more powerful systems and better encryption algorithms then individuals. Hence, the possibility of individuals messages being broken increases with each passing year. Decreasing the quantity of messages intercepted by the associations as suspect will definitely facilitate to progress privacy. An additional benefit is that information hiding can basically alter the way that we consider about information security. Cryptographic schemes usually depend on the metaphor of a portion of information being placed in a protected box and locked with a key. Anyone can get access with the proper key as information itself is not disturbed. All of the information security is gone, once the box is open. Compare it with information hiding schemes in which the key is inserted into the information itself. This contrast can be demonstrated in a better way by current DVD encryption methods. Digitally encoded videos are encapsulated into an encrypted container by CSS algorithm. The video is decrypted and played when the DVD player supplies the proper key. It is easy to trans-code the contents and distribute it without any mark of the author present, once the video has been decoded. On the other hand the approach of an ideal watermark is a totally different, where regardless of encryption the watermark remains with the video even if various alteration and trans-coding efforts are made. So it is clarifies the need for a combination of the two schemes. Beginning with a swift tour on cryptography and steganography, which structure the foundation for a large number of digital watermarking ideas then moving on to a description that what are the prerequisites a watermarking system must meet, as well as techniques for estimating the strengths of different algorithms. Last of all we will spotlight on various watermarking schemes and the pros and cons of each. Even though most of the focus is solely on the watermarking of digital images, still most of these same concepts can straightforwardly be applied to the watermarking of digital audio and video. Background First of all we begin with some definitions. Cryptography can be described as the processing of information into an unintelligible (encrypted) form for the purposes of secure transmission. Through the use of a key the receiver can decode the encrypted message (decrypting) to retrieve the original message. Stenography gets better on this by concealing the reality that a communication even took place. Hidden Information message m is embedded into a harm less message c which is defined as the cover-obect. With the help of key k which is called as stego-key the hidden message m is embedded into c. The resulting message that is produced from hidden message m, the key k and the cover object c is defined as stego-object s. In an ideal world the stego-object is not distinguishable from the original message c, seems to be as if no additional data has been embedded. Figure 1 illustrates the same. Figure 1- Illustration of a Stegographic System We use cover object just to create the stego object and after that it is disposed. The concept of system is that stego-object will almost be same in look and data to the original such that the existence of hidden message will be imperceptible. As stated earlier, we will suppose the stego object as a digital image, making it clear that ideas may be expanded to further cover objects as well. In a number of aspects watermarking is matching to steganography. Each of them looks for embedding information into a cover object message with almost no effect to the quality of the cover-object. On the other hand watermarking includes the extra requirement of robustness. A perfect steganographic system would tend to embed a huge quantity of information, ideally securely with no perceptible degradation to cover image. A watermarking system is considered to be n ideal which would inject information that cannot be eliminated/modified except the cover object is made completely unusable. After these different requirements there is a reaction, a watermarking scheme will frequently deal capacity and perhaps even a little security for extra robustness. Then a question arises that what prerequisites might a perfect watermarking system should have? The primary constraint would obviously be that of perceptibility. A watermarking system is useless if it degrades the cover object to the extent of being of no use, or even extremely disturbing. In an ideal scenario the water marked image should give the impression of being identical from the original even if it is viewed on the best class device. A watermark, considered to be ideal, must be highly robust, exclusively resistant to distortion when introduced to unintended attack while normal usage, or a intentional efforts to immobilize or eliminate the embedded watermark ( planned or malicious attack ). Unpremeditated attacks include alterations that are usually implemented to images while usual usage, such as scaling, contrast enhancement, resizing, cropping à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦etc. The most interesting form of unintended attack is image compression. Lossy compression and watermarking are naturally at contrasts, watermarking try to encode hidden data in spare bits that compression tends to eliminate. So perfect watermarking and compression schemes are likely naturally restricted. In malicious attacks, an attacker intentionally attempts to remove the watermark, frequently via geometric alterations or by embedding of noise. A last thing to keep in mind is that robustness can consist of either flexibility to attack, or complete delicateness. It is the case in which various watermarking schemes may have need of the watermark to entirely demolish the cover object if any tampering is made. One more characteristics of ideal watermarking scheme is that it apply the implementation of keys to guarantee that the technique is not rendered ineffective the instant that the algorithm turns out to be recognized. Also it should be an aim that the method makes use of an asymmetric key scheme such as in public / private key cryptographic systems. Even though private key techniques are quite simple to apply in watermarking not like asymmetric key pairs which are normally not quite simple. The possibility here is that inserted watermarking scheme might have their private key found out, tarnishing protection of the whole system. It was just the scenario when a particular DVD decoder application left its secret key unencrypted, violating the whole DVD copy security system. A bit less essential necessities of a perfect watermarking scheme might be capacity, and speed. A watermarking scheme must permit for a helpful quantity of information to be inserted into the image. It can vary from one single bit to several paragraphs of text. Additionally, in watermarking schemes destined for embedded implementations, the watermark embedding (or detection) shouldnt be computationally severe as to prevent its use on low cost micro controllers. The final probable constraint of a perfect watermarking scheme is that of statistical imperceptibility. Watermarking algo must adjust the bits of cover in an approach that information of the image are not altered in any telltale style that may deceive the existence of the watermark. So it is not relatively lesser essential constraint in watermarking as compared to steganography but few applications might need it. Then how to provide metrics for the assessment of watermarking methods? Capacity and pace can be simply estimated using the # of bits / cover size, and calculational complications, respectively. Use of keys by systems is more or less by characterization, and the informational indistinguishable by association among original images and watermarked equivalent. The other complicated assignment is making metrics for perceptibility and robustness available. Standards proposed for the estimation of perceptibility are shown as in Table. Level of Assurance Criteria Low Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) Slightly perceptible but not annoying Moderate Metric Based on perceptual model Not perceptible using mass market equipment Moderate High Not perceptible in comparison with original under studio conditions High Survives evaluation by large panel of persons under the strictest of conditions. Table Possible assurance stages of Perceptibility Watermark must meet exposed minimum requirements the Low level in order to be considered handy. Watermarks at this stage should be opposing to general alterations that non-malicious clients with economical tools might do to images. As the robustness enhances more specific and expensive tools turn out to be needed, in addition to extra intimate information of the watermarking scheme being used. At the very top of the scale is verifiable dependability in which it is also computationally or mathematically unfeasible to eliminate or immobilize the mark. In this chapter a brief introduction of the background information, prerequisites and assessment methods needed for the accomplishment and estimation of watermarking schemes. In the next chapter a variety of watermarking techniques will be narrated and will be considered in terms of their potential strengths and weaknesses. Selection of Watermark-Object The most basic query that is required to think about is that in any watermark and stenographic scheme what sort of form will the implanted message will have? The most simple and easy consideration would be to insert text string into the image, permitting the image to straightly hold information such as writer, subject, timeà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦and so on. On the other hand the negative aspect of this technique is that Ascii wording in a way can be well thought-out to be a appearance of LZW compression technique in which every character being characterized with a definite model of bits. Robustness of the watermark object suffers if compression is done prior to insertion. As the structure of Ascii systems if a single bit fault is occurred due to an attack can completely alter the semantics of a certain letter and thus the hidden message is also changed or damaged. It would be fairly trouble-free for even a simple assignment such as JPEG compressing technique to trim down a copy right string to a random set of typescript. Instead of characters, why not embed the information in an already highly redundant form, such as a raster image? Figure 2 Ideal Watermark-Object vs. Object with Additive Gaussian Noise Note that in spite of the huge quantity of faults made in watermark discovery, the extracted watermark is still extremely identifiable. Least Significant Bit Modification The most uncomplicated technique of watermark insertion, is considered to be to embed the watermark into the least-significant-bits (LSB) of the cover object .Provided the surprisingly elevated channel capacity of using the whole cover for communication in this process, a smaller object may be embedded several times. Even if many of them are vanished due to attacks, only a one existing watermark is considered to be a success. LSB replacement though in spite of its straightforwardness brings a crowd of weaknesses. Even though it may continue to exist if alterations such as cropping, noise addition or compression is probable to overcome the watermark. And an enhanced tamper attack will be basically to replace the lsb of every pixel by 1, completely overcoming the watermark with minor effect on the original image. In addition, if the algorithm is found out, the inserted watermark could be simply altered by an intermediary party. An enhancement on fundamental LSB substitution will be to apply a pseudo-random digit initiator to decide the pixels to be utilized for insertion supported on a provided seed . Protection of the watermark will be enhanced as the watermark could not be simply observed by middle parties. The scheme still would be defenseless to the replacement of the LSBs with a constant. Also if those pixels are used that are not utilized for watermarking bits, the effect of the replacement on the image will be insignificant. LSB alteration seems to be an easy and reasonably potent instrument for stenography, but is deficient of the fundamental robustness that watermarking implementations require. Correlation-Based Techniques An additional procedure for watermark insertion is to make use of the correlation characteristics of additive pseudo random noise patterns as applied to an image. A pseudorandom noise (P) pattern is embedded to the image R(i, j), as mentioned in the formula shown below. Rw (i, j) = P (i, j) + k * Q(i, j) Insertion of Pseudorandom Noise k represents a gain factor Rw is the watermarked image. Amplifying k amplifies the robustness of the watermark at the cost of the excellence of the watermarked image. To retrieve the watermark, the same pseudo-random noise generator algorithm is seeded with the same key, and the correlation between the noise pattern and possibly watermarked image computed. If the correlation exceeds a certain threshold T, the watermark is detected, and a single bit is set. This method can easily be extended to a multiple-bit watermark by dividing the image up into blocks, and performing the above procedure independently on each block. In different of ways this fundamental scheme can be enhanced. 1st, the concept of a threshold being utilized for defining a binary 1 or 0 can be removed with the utilization of two different pseudorandom noise sequences. One sequence is allocated a binary 1 and the second a 0. The scheme which is mentioned previously is then carried out one time for every sequence, and the sequence with the superior resulting correlation is exercised. It amplifies the possibility of a accurate discovery, still after the image has been considered to attack . We can additionally enhance the technique by prefiltering image previous to implementing the watermark. If we can decrease the correlation among the cover image and the PN pattern, we can amplify the resistance of the watermark to extra noise. By implementing the edge improvement filter as given below, the robustness of the watermark can be enhanced with no loss of capability and with a very less lessening of image features. Edge Enhancement Pre-Filter Instead of defining the watermark values from blocks in the spatial domain, we can make use of CDMA spread spectrum Schemes to spread every of the bits arbitrarily all over the original image, amplifying capability and enhancing immunity to cropping. The watermark is initially converted into a string instead of a 2 dimensional image. For every single pixel value of the watermark, a PN pattern is produced by making use of an self-sufficient key or seed. These keys or seeds could be stocked or created by itself via PN techniques. The addition of every one of the PN sequences stands for the watermark, which is then up sized and embedded to the original image . To discover/extract the watermark, every seed/key is utilized to produce its PN pattern, which is after that correlated with the whole image. If it results with high correlation, then a bit of a watermark is assigned as 1, else 0. The same procedure is done again and again for each and every value of the watermark. CDMA enhances on the robustness of the watermark considerably, but needs quite a few sequences further of calculation. Frequency Domain Techniques A benefit of the spatial domain methods has been talked about previously is that it can be simply implemented to any image, in spite of several type of intentional or unintentional attacks (though continuation to exist this alterations is totally a diverse issue). A probable drawback of spatial methods is that utilization of these subsequent alterations with the aim of amplifying the watermark robustness is not permitted by them. Besides to this, adaptive watermarking schemes are a little extra tricky in the spatial domain. If the characteristics of the original image could correspondingly be utilized both the robustness and quality of the watermark could be enhanced. For the moment, instead of detail areas it is usually favorable to conceal watermarking data in noisy areas and edges of images. The advantage is 2 fold; it is extra perceivable to the HVS if degradation is done in detail areas of an image, and turns out to be a primary objective for lossy compression rechniques. In view of these features, making use of a frequency domain turns out to be a bit more attractive. The traditional and yet well accepted domain for image processing is the Discrete-Cosine-Transform (DCT). The Discrete-Cosine-Transform permits an image to be divided into different frequency bands, which makes it simple and easy to embed watermarking message into the mid frequency bands of an image. The reason behind selecting the middle frequency bands is that they have reduced even they evade low frequencies (visual areas of the image) exclusive of over-rendering themselves to elimination via compression and noise attacks (high frequencies). One of the methodologies makes use of the relationship of middle frequency band of DCT variables to encrypt a bit into a DCT block. Following 88 block shows the division of frequencies in terms of low, middle and high bands. DCT Regions of Frequencies FL represents the low frequency section of the block, whereas FH represents the higher frequency section. FM is selected as the region where watermark is embedded so as to give extra immunity to lossy compression schemes, at the same time evading noteworthy amendment of the original image . Then two positions Ai(x1, y1) and Ai(x2, y2) are selected from the middle frequency band area FM for evaluation. Instead of selecting random positions, if our selection of coefficients is according to the suggestion of JPEG quantization we can attain additional toughness to compression as given in the chart below. We can think positive that some sort of scaling of a coefficient will increase the other by the equal aspect if two positions are selected such that they have similar quantization values, which helps in maintaining their comparative ratio of size. 16 11 10 16 24 40 51 61 12 12 14 19 26 58 60 55 14 13 16 24 40 57 69 56 14 17 22 29 51 87 80 62 18 22 37 56 68 109 103 77 24 35 55 64 81 104 113 92 49 64 78 87 103 121 120 101 72 92 95 98 112 100 103 99 JPEG compression scheme quantization values By observing the above chart we can see that coefficients (4,1) and (3,2) or (1,2) and (3,0) would formulate appropriate contenders for contrast as we can see that there quantization values are similar. The DCT block will set a 1 if Ai(x1, y1) > Ai(x2, y2), else it will set a 0. The coefficients are then exchanged if the associative size of every coefficient does not agree with the bit that is to be encoded . Because it is usually considered that DCT coefficients of middle frequencies contain analogous values so the exchange of such coefficients should not change the watermarked image considerably. If we set up a watermark strength constant k, in a way that Ai(x1, y1) Ai(x2, y2) > k then it can result in the enhancement of the robustness of the watermark. Coefficients that do not meet these criteria are altered even if the utilization of arbitrary noise then convinces the relation. Mounting k thus decreases the possibility of finding of errors at the cost of extra image degradation. An additional probable method is to insert a PN string Z into the middle frequencies of the DCT block. We can alter a provided DCT block p, q by making use of equation below. Embedding of Code Division multiple access watermark into DCT middle frequencies For every 88 block p,q of the image, the DCT for the block is initially computed. In that block, the middle frequency elements FM are incorporated to the PN string Z, multiply it by k the gain factor. Coefficients in the low and middle frequencies are copied over to the converted image without having any effect on. Every block is then contrary converted to provide us our concluding watermarked image OZ .

The Language of MIT :: Numbers School Education Communication Essays

The Language of MIT "I have 18.02 due at 4:00 P. M. on 11/14/00 in 16-135. Then I have to go to 8.01 in 26-100 at 5:00 P. M. and get at least a 65 on Exam 3. Do you remember the Athena cluster combination? Oh, yeah, it's 43169*." To an average person, this jargon sounds like a computer code or a series of misunderstandings. However, every MIT student has probably said and heard something like this to describe his or her schedule in a small part of the day. Numbers are the language at MIT, and they specify all sorts of places, classes, work, time, and even the students themselves. This powerful yet simple system of communication has completely engulfed this school and made organization much easier because of the clarity of numbers and the obscurity of language. Even before I considered applying to MIT, I thought of this school as a center of mathematics and science. Of course the name suggests this fact, but not until I visited the campus during the summer before my senior year of high school did I realize the truth of that statement. My visit began with directions to "Lobby 7" where I would meet with a tour guide. Coming from a high school where all the buildings were named and clearly labeled outside, I expected a giant number seven on the front edifice of a building to designate it from the others, but I had no such luck. Instead, I scanned the map of the campus several times before finding Building 7 on Massachusetts Avenue. I did not find this designation for the building anywhere outside until I went in and saw one of the doors inside surrounding the massive lobby. When my tour began, the guide led us through a myriad of identical halls and corridors until we finally went outside. She began to describe the numbering system across campus and explained that many of the buildings we walked through were distinguished on the outside only by numbers on the doors, which I had not understood quite yet. Then she listed some of the required freshman courses including multiple semesters of Calculus and the three main natural sciences. Following the tour was an information session for prospective students and their parents to ask questions about the admissions process.

William Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet Essay examples -- Papers Romeo

William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet In the love story about Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is an important character as all the events are based on his actions. Romeo the son of Montague falls in love with Juliet the daughter of lord and lady Capulet, this creates a grave problem as the Capulet's and Montague's have had a feud this has been festered for a long time. The impression I get of Romeo when he first comes on to the scene is that he sad and miserable he also shows emotion with his words it is as if he intends on keeping himself to himself. "Many a morning hath he there been seen, with tears augmenting the fresh morning's dew." Lord Montague also says that "Away from the light steels home from my heavy son." This shows that Romeo is secretive and keeps away from daylight. This also shows that Romeo is trying to hide away from people as he has been seen in the early morning looking sad and even crying. "So secret and so close" Romeo won't tell anyone what is wrong with him. Benvolio also makes his way to speak to him but even though he saw him he turned and walked off. "Towards him I made but he was ware of me and stole off into the convent of the wood." When Romeo appears he looks sad and miserable, he says to benvolio "Sad hours seem long." Romeos hours seem long because he is in love and the lady he loves doesn't love him back this makes him feel miserable as time is dragging on. Romeo also says that "Out of her favour where I am in love" This shows that Romeo is love sick for this girl but she doesn't want to give him anything in return, due to this he cannot forget his love ... ...on his enemy. Later on after the party had finished Romeo sneaked to see Juliet. When Romeo sees Juliet on the balcony talking to herself about Romeo how she loves him but how it impossible for them to be as both of their families are having a feud. Romeo decides to listen you her before replying "Call me but 'love' and I'm be new baptised henceforth I never be Romeo" When Romeo says this to Juliet he suggests to her that hew is prepared to deny his name and his family if she will love him. Romeo also tells Juliet how love overcomes all obstacles, he says that "With love's light wings did I o'eperch these walls for stony limits cannot hold love out" By saying this to Juliet Romeo also tells her that he is risking his life coming to her this shows that Romeo is brave and would do anything for love.

Justice and Morality in Platos Republic Essay examples -- justice as

Introduction This essay discusses and clarifies a concept that is central to Plato's argument in the Republic — an argument in favour of the transcendent value of justice as a human good; that justice informs and guides moral conduct. Plato's argument implies that justice and morality are intimately interconnected, because the excellence and goodness of human life — the best way for a person to live — is intimately dependent upon and closely interwoven with those 'things that we find desirable in themselves and for their consequences [1]. Hence, we acknowledge that Plato Is moral thesis cannot be interpreted either as a deontological or as a consequentialist argument — or as an act centred or agent centred moral concept. Plato's thesis is informative, in philosophical terms, precisely because it enables us to find new and more fruitful ways of looking at those basic questions concerning justice and morality, and the manner in which they are interrelated [2]. In the Republic Plato endeavours to answer complex questions about justice by introducing a unique account of what justice actually is, and how morally sensitive people are educated and informed about the real nature of justice and morality [3]. Our understanding of justice is more profound if we insist that what really matters is not merely the observance of external demands — normative and conventional moral rules — but the character of the truly just person [4]. Justice and goodness, based upon judgement as the virtue of a decent life, are seen as congruent in the context of a well ordered society. Plato's fundamental claim, in the Republic, is that justice is so great a good that anyone who completely embraces it is thereby better off, even in the face of the... ...4-225 [19] Rep. VI 573d & ibid., p.221-222) [20] ibid., p.327 [21] Nagel, 1986, pp. 195-196 [22] Rep VII, 540a-b [23] Rep. V, 46le-462e [24] Rep. IV, 419a-421c & Rep. VIII, 519d-521b [25] Annas, 1981, pp. 321-334 & White, 1979, pp.43-54 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BIBLIOGRAPHY Annas, Julia An Introduction to Plato's Republic Oxford 1981; Chapter 3, pp. 59-71; Chapter 6 pp. 53-169; Chapter 13, pp. 331-334 Irwin, Terence Plato's Ethics Oxford 1995; Chapter 12, pp. 181-202 Kraut, Richard (Ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Plato Cambridge 1992; Chapter 10, pp. 311-337 Nagel, Thomas The View from Nowhere Oxford 1986; Chapter X, pp. 189-207 Waterfield, Robin (Tr.) Plato's Republic Oxford 1993 White, Nicholas A Companion to Plato's Republic Indianapolis 1979 Justice and Morality in Plato's Republic Essay examples -- justice as Introduction This essay discusses and clarifies a concept that is central to Plato's argument in the Republic — an argument in favour of the transcendent value of justice as a human good; that justice informs and guides moral conduct. Plato's argument implies that justice and morality are intimately interconnected, because the excellence and goodness of human life — the best way for a person to live — is intimately dependent upon and closely interwoven with those 'things that we find desirable in themselves and for their consequences [1]. Hence, we acknowledge that Plato Is moral thesis cannot be interpreted either as a deontological or as a consequentialist argument — or as an act centred or agent centred moral concept. Plato's thesis is informative, in philosophical terms, precisely because it enables us to find new and more fruitful ways of looking at those basic questions concerning justice and morality, and the manner in which they are interrelated [2]. In the Republic Plato endeavours to answer complex questions about justice by introducing a unique account of what justice actually is, and how morally sensitive people are educated and informed about the real nature of justice and morality [3]. Our understanding of justice is more profound if we insist that what really matters is not merely the observance of external demands — normative and conventional moral rules — but the character of the truly just person [4]. Justice and goodness, based upon judgement as the virtue of a decent life, are seen as congruent in the context of a well ordered society. Plato's fundamental claim, in the Republic, is that justice is so great a good that anyone who completely embraces it is thereby better off, even in the face of the... ...4-225 [19] Rep. VI 573d & ibid., p.221-222) [20] ibid., p.327 [21] Nagel, 1986, pp. 195-196 [22] Rep VII, 540a-b [23] Rep. V, 46le-462e [24] Rep. IV, 419a-421c & Rep. VIII, 519d-521b [25] Annas, 1981, pp. 321-334 & White, 1979, pp.43-54 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BIBLIOGRAPHY Annas, Julia An Introduction to Plato's Republic Oxford 1981; Chapter 3, pp. 59-71; Chapter 6 pp. 53-169; Chapter 13, pp. 331-334 Irwin, Terence Plato's Ethics Oxford 1995; Chapter 12, pp. 181-202 Kraut, Richard (Ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Plato Cambridge 1992; Chapter 10, pp. 311-337 Nagel, Thomas The View from Nowhere Oxford 1986; Chapter X, pp. 189-207 Waterfield, Robin (Tr.) Plato's Republic Oxford 1993 White, Nicholas A Companion to Plato's Republic Indianapolis 1979

Netflix Case

Davor Ramesa k0956979 Netflix case Executive summary What is Netflix’s strategy in the on-line movie rental market? What are Netflix’s sources of competitive advantage? Identify the competences key to the success of Netflix’s strategy and explain why. Netflix was a late entrant to the movie rental market and it was a first mover in the on – line movie rental market. Netflix’s strategy in the movie rental market is differentiation from traditional movie rental stores. Instead of attracting customers to a retail location, Netflix offered home delivery of DVDs through the mail. Why only DVDs? In 1998, most available movies were in VHS cassette format but Netflix concentrated on using only DVDs because its marketing strategy was to develop cross promotional programs with the manufacturers and sellers of DVD players, providing a source of content for the customers. Also, there was no competition in that niche market and DVDs were small and light which made them perfect for mail delivery. Netflix had several sources of competitive advantage. For starters, Netflix’s website included a search engine that allowed customers to easily sort through its selection by title, actor, etc. Using these search engine customers could easily and quickly find a movie that they would like instead of looking on shelves of a retail store. Netflix was using the US Postal Service to deliver DVDs directly to a customer’s home. It was more convenient for customers. They used similar pricing to that offered by traditional video stores in the beginning but what gave them the competitive advantage was moving to a subscription prepaid service. And, soon afterwards they offered unlimited rentals to customers because they were targeting another group of customers – ones that wanted the convenience of watching a movie at any time and change them unlimited during a month. Netflix’s engineers developed a proprietary recommendation system. They have done so because mostly the new movies were being rented and they wanted to balance customers demand. How did this system work? Upon signing into a new account for the first time, customers took a survey to identify their favorite movie genres, as well as rate specific movie titles. This survey gave enough data to Netflix’s engineers to build a base and understand better customer’s preferences. Also, Netflix’s size and growth rate generated a positive †network effect† from its large customer – generated rating system. Because it had the largest collection of movie ratings in the world, customers recognized that they were more likely to have their tastes and preferences accurately reflected from Netflix’s site. The key to success in Netflix’s strategy was hiring Ted Sarandos as chief content office to manage content acquisition. He managed (due to his relationships) to negotiate direct revenue – sharing agreements with nearly all the majors studios. So Netflix was able to improve its relationships with its suppliers. The benefit was not just lower acquisition costs but the promotion of lesser known movies. So, customers had the benefit of large variety of movies. Also, using the proprietary recommendation system and the national inventory Netflix was able to replicate almost perfect inventory. This gave them a serious competitive advantage, since retail stores needed three or five times the copies of a movie to satisfy the same customer demand. Assess Netflix’s performance? Use multiple performance measures (strategic and financial). Table below shows (in 000$) Netflix’s performance using 2 financial ratios in year 1998 and 2006. (source : Netflix 2006 10-k) As we can see from the table, in year 1998 Netflix had poor performance. We can see that it was losing 16. 84 thousands of dollars to subscription (sales= revenue of subscription). Net profit margin was not any better a -18. 940$ . We can see that their operating profit margin was 0. 69 thousands of dollars and net profit margin was 0,04 thousand of dollars in 2006. Why was there such a change in profitability? Answer lies in the number of total subscribers which has grown from 107 000 in 1999 to 6 316 000 in 2006. (source: Netflix 2006 10-k). Number of subscribers was constantly growing since 1998 due to good strategy decisions like : proprietary recommendation system , hiring of Ted Sarandos and opening more distribution centers. All of these moves had one purpose: to add value to their product by increasing customer’s satisfaction. How does Netflix’s strategy compare to Blockbuster? Compare and contrast each’s value chain. Factors which determine the value of the product: Price – of the movie Delivery Time – how long do the customers wait for getting the movie Convenience – what actions do the customers have to do to get the movie Other factors(recommendation system, availability of new movies) Late fees Although prices of Netflix and Blockbuster for a single DVD rental are now the same (10$ per movie-source: http://reviews. cnet. com/4520-11445_7-6325775-1. html), Netflix had an additional value because it offered unlimited rental with the same pricing (an example: you pay monthly fee and you can exchange movies, so you can watch several different DVD†s for the price of one). If you want to rent a movie from a Blockbuster retail store, you can do it in a relatively short time (time you need to get to a retail store) as management proclaimed 10 minute drive for 70% of US population. Delivery time for Netflix is their disadvantage in comparison to Blockbuster, it takes a day or two. Convenience – Netflix has the advantage here since you can order movies from the comfort of your home by using the internet. Blockbuster doesn’t have a recommendation system like Netflix. It only has an employee that can recommend movies to a customer. Netflix has advantage here since it can recommend a movie accordingly to the taste of each customer. New movies are available pretty much the same for both companies. Late fees – in 2005. Blockubuster decided to abolish late fees which gave them an advantage over Netflix, increasing customer satisfaction but also gave them significant costs: 60 milion $ marketing + 600 million dollar of revenue loss. What challenges and opportunities does Netflix face? What are the major risks? Major challenge for Netflix’s online DVD rental business is VOD (video on demand). VOD offers additional value to the customer – no waiting period, since it uses streaming technology to provide customers a movie with no waiting period. This is also an opportunity for Netflix since it has the possibility to implement this new technology into its core business but there are several cons of doing so. First issue is that this feature would cannibalize the core business because Netflix would replace stream of positive cash flows with another. Also Netflix found no way to differentiate itself against competitors like MovieLink and Vongo. Another major risks or challenges for Netflix are cable and satellite providers which offer pay-per-view system, providing HD on demand. For now these services had two primary limitations: technology and content availability. Another major challenge is the entry of Blockbuster in the DVD online rental market. As a bigger company Blockbuster has the financial funds to attract more subscribers using heavy marketing. This entry directly enters Netflix’s niche market and now Netflix has to find a way to differentiate. For starters, what would be Netflix’s entry strategy to these new markets? It could ship the DVDs from USA but this option would have serious disadvantages like import tariffs, shipping costs, long delivery time which would lead to customer dissatisfaction and a very small market share with probably losses rather than profits. If Netflix would open a subsidiary in Europe it would not have problems like the latter but it would need investors since financing the whole subsidiary may present a problem for Netflix. Another issue is that Europe, as a difference to the US, is consisted of many small independent countries with their own laws and import tariffs so this could be a problem as well. Another problem is the customers preferences. If Netflix would try to ship movies from the US (which would also present shipping costs) the European customers might not like US movies that much. They might prefer European movies better. Another issue is that Netflix doesn’t have an established relationship with any European movie studio. So they would lose the competitive advantage that they have in the US. Another problem is the language barrier. In many countries like Germany, Italy, or Spain, movies are synchronized into their mother tongue. So customers might not be willing to rent these movies in the English language. Another issue is the competition in Europe which perhaps would be more competent than Netflix since they know better the customers needs, laws, and other issues mentioned already. Netflix as a company started with an emerging technology – DVD, then. Now the new technology is Blu- ray and as the VHS format was replaced by DVD there are good chances that Blu-ray will replace DVD format. Because Blu-ray technology gives a better resolution than a DVD customers might be willing to switch so Netflix should start to fill its inventory with blu-ray discs and maybe like they did in the past with VHS promote and rent only Blu-ray discs. The goal for Netflix’s is to find the best media (low cost, high quality) for watching a movie or even better – no media at all. Netflix’s, as I see it, biggest threat to DVD rental business is online video streaming. Why? With this technology customers have no waiting period and complete convenience. And these are very important factors when customers are making their decision about watching a movie. Decisive competence key for Netflix is the recommendation system and they should use it with online video streaming.