Organizational Culture and Readiness Assessment for Evidence-base Research Paper

Organizational Culture and Readiness Assessment for Evidence-base Practice - Research Paper Example Interestingly the scored rated from mid-range to high. Such scores are important in implementations aimed at integrating clinical inquiry into initiatives aimed at achieving organizational efficiency. It is important to mention that clinical inquiry requires sequential and sophisticated approach and hence the findings of the study are critical to successful implementation. Physician commitments to EBP score and the extent to which a critical mass of nurses with strong EPB and skills scored were relatively high. This does not fall short of expectations given that physicians receive more specialized training and the same can be said about nurses with strong EBP and skills. On the other hand, administration commitment to EBP, although indirectly impacts on EBP and hence, organizational culture and efficiency is crucial to successful implementation (White, 2010). The score recorded is relatively high although not maximal. This can be attributed to training as well as adequate commitment towards implementation of the same. Similarly, nursing staff commitment to EBP and the extent to which staff nurses staff nurses bear proficiency in computer skills scored relatively low at 3. This can mainly be linked to nurse’s attitude towards implementation of the same as well as their disinterest in gaining computer skills (Wright, Brown, & Slowman, 1996). Training therefore tops list of approaches that can help in incorporation of clinical inquiry into day to day operations. Additionally, day to day conferences can help keep the staff at par with changes in medical

Is The Us A Hegemon Essay Example for Free

Is The Us A Hegemon Essay A hegemon can be defined as a paramount power or state that can influence the course of events globally (free dictionary, 2008). By this very definition, America qualifies to be referred to as a hegemon. Since the collapse of the Cold War, the US has emerged as the most powerful nation on earth. Its influence is felt in the political, economic and military realms where its hegemony remains largely unchallenged. US administrations have not shied away from flexing their power and this has been increasing experienced in political matters where the US has pushed its agenda for new world order based on democratic ideals. No country is above the law. However, because of their position globally, powerful nations do at times take actions that are in direct contravention of laid down rules and procedures. In its attempt to democratize the world, the US has acted as though it was above international law. The invasion of Iraq is a case in point. Despite the Security Council’s condemnation of the planned invasion, the US and Britain went ahead to wage war and eventually topple Sadamm. President Chirac of France spoke out strongly against the trend by the US in taking unilateral decisions that contravened international law as it could set off a bad precedent (Litchfield, 2003). The detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay is a blatant disregard of the Geneva Convention that stipulates how prisoners of war are to be treated (UNHCR, 2008). By torturing the detainees and denying them their rights, the US has chosen to ignore international laws set up by the Commonwealth of Nations (Leonnig and Mintz, 2004) In summary, the US has taken advantage of its hegemonic status to carry out illegal acts as per international law. These actions do not augur well for international cooperation and peace as other nations will be tempted to act unilaterally and in direct contravention of the same laws that are meant to ensure world stability

How To Writing A Research Essay :: essays research papers

How To Writing A Research Essay The toughest part of the essay, for me, was taking all the information I had gained and reduce it to a mere few pages essay. After all, quality is better than quantity. I feel that if I shortened my essay, it would be weaker because I couldn't include everything that I had researched. This would mean that much of the time I spent and the information I had gathered in my research was going to waste. Reviewing the finished product, I realized that my shortened essay did in by half the pages did what my old one could not do in a few hundred -- it made a concise, focused argument. By focusing my essay, I was able to include only the best and most important points from my research, while discarding more extraneous ones. I learned that a research writer is like a funnel; he or she must take in a wide range of information at the beginning, and turn it into a narrow argument in the end. An essay is more than just uniting facts from your research, it is an opportunity for you to voice your own opinion. An essay with just facts is informative, but not very interesting and get boring. It tends to lose your audience.. A strong essay is one that uses facts to support an argument based on the writer's analysis of the topic. Even though this is easier said then done. Always keep the essay question in mind during your research. Ask yourself: "What do I need to know in order to answer the question?" Have a system of how you are going to answer that question. Find plenty of information to support your argument. Throughout your research you will surely find challenges.

Community Service Essay

Before actually partaking in community service, I always thought of it as a means of overworking students for the employers to save money, but after actually getting myself involved in it†¦I realized that doing community service is actually a privilege for us the volunteers. It gives us an opportunity to gain experience, widen our skills and get a better understanding of the hard labour and it is a process that essentially goes into the outcome of a product or service. Community service has literally made me realized how little I contribute to my country, how little I know about my country and has brought to my attention and conscience that I should try my best to assist more—free of wage—in the continuous growth of my economy. Doing my service at St. Rose Nursery, has opened my eyes to the not so easy process of growing flowers, plants and trees; for example how important fertilizers are and what a big difference the right fertilisers make—and also the diff erent types of fertilizers and their functions . Before I never really understood the beauty of them nor did I realize how much work went into nurturing and harvesting them, but now I am more aware and more concerned about the health of trees and how they are treated and even situated in a pot or the ground. On my first day at St. Rose Nursery, I was given a tour of the compound and while getting the tour, I could not help but feel relaxed and free. The ambience of the nursery changed my mood and thought completely; it had me wondering why do we stress out ourselves? Also it made me realize that I should take time to get in touch with nature and myself. After being introduced to the employees, I felt intimidated because I was the only female surrounded by five males so I saw that as a challenge in terms of them underestimating me and my abilities but after talking to them for a little I felt right at home and was able to be myself and even challenge myself by learning to pot plants, fertilize them and water them all in one day. They were all so helpful and very explanatory and took the time to show me exactly what to do before I did it, at the end of the day I excelled and  accomplished far more than they expected; the good energy at the nursery led me to spend longer hours there than I actually expected to spend per day. Throughout my time at St. Rose nursery, I would like to believe that I have brought a youthful and eager emotion to the compound; despite the fact that we worked in separate areas. I believe that I have shown them that a woman can be productive in the nursery field and can also keep up with their speed and even surpass them; I stared of potting only 1 plant per 2 minutes and by the end of the day, I was able to plant 2 plants per minute—it was fun and we turned it into a game—I observed the workers fertilizing the plants and heard the headman tell him that he was applying too much so I made an attempt to fertilize the next batch of plants and was told that I had done a good job! Not too much and not too little; I felt pleased and proud of myself—I had done better than someone who had much more experience in that field than me. It is funny how one can assume that plant nurturing to be a simple and senseless skill, well I learned the hard yet interesting way that it is far from simple and a lot of thought and precision goes into the whole process, from the pot the plant goes into, the climate & atmosphere and type of soil that it is planted in. I have learned from this experience that it is possible to push myself a bit further when trying to accomplish a certain task in a given amount of time, I have learned that I am far more patient than I thought and most importantly I have learned that I personally stress myself over minor issues instead of taking time to breathe, relax and find a solution for it; through this I have come to the conclusion that I should find more time to clear my mind and possibly do something that I find interesting, productive and selfless to release my stresses of life. I have learned that even though I am an introvert, working with people is not that bad after all it just takes gett ing used to them and knowing how to work to suit all their different personalities. I also learned that working with other people really helps to get more work done faster. I honestly can say that I enjoyed the interaction with people who were not of my norm; I enjoyed the whole learning about new trees and their fruits,  smells, blooming and reproduction time. I enjoyed planting and reposting plants and most importantly I enjoyed the view of the surroundings. This endeavour was a challenging one in terms of patience and precision but in the end it all paid off, because I was blessed with the opportunity to enhance my gardening skills and was given the opportunity to be social with people who I would normally be afraid to talk to or even be around. Before transposing myself into the real life community service equation, I thought to myself and made an oath to myself that my main aim was to simple complete my thirty hours of community service as fast and as soon as possible, but after starting and observing the nursery, I realized that it would provide me with far more knowledge and far more fun and experience than I expected and I realized that it would be in my best interest to use it to my advantage to gain a greater skill. I believe that service to others is important because it is a good way to give back to the community and also to increase one’s level of experience and variation. I believe in my distant future I would once again volunteer my time to another estate to expand my comprehension and also to help improve my community and help improve myself as a person. The people at the St. Rose Nursery are very hospital and down to earth, to the point where I can honestly say that there is nothing I would change about their mannerism. To potential volunteers, I would like to advice them to go into the experience open minded and willing to learn. I would also suggest that they find something that is within their comfort zone or something at that they at least have a strong interest in learning or have a passion for, simply because if one does something that they do not like or will not like, then they will not enjoy the experience to the fullest and similarly if one does something that seemed interesting to them before they actually partook in it, then they would draw from that experience that it is simply not something they would like to do in the future and would have learned a valuable lesson.

How Does John Steinbeck Present the Character of Crooks Essay

Crooks (named for his crooked back) is the stable buck who works with the ranch horses. He lives in the harness room by himself because of the segregation law set by Jim Crow; he is also the only black man on the ranch. Crooks likes to read books this shows he is cleverer than the other men on the ranch and likes to keep his room neat, but he has been so beaten down by loneliness and prejudicial treatment of that he is also starting to treat people with hatred. His Physical disability is one of the many ways that he suffers on the ranch. John Steinbeck tries to make the novel realistic by showing how black people were treated and isolated in 1930s America. Crooks may not be the main character in the novel, he is important because he fitted in the society at the time of the novel in 1930s America. Steinbeck uses Crooks to show how life was for black people in 1930s America. The Character is firstly introduced when candy was showing George and Lennie around and when he was talking abou t how angry the boss was when George and Lennie were late to work. Candy tells them that the boss takes his anger on crooks,† Ya see the stable bucks a nigger†, â€Å"the boss gives him hell when he is mad†. White People in 1930s America had no discomfort in using derogatory language, this was normal for people it was the local language in 1930s. Candy says â€Å"nice fella too† and â€Å"he reads a lot† Proving he is intelligent and nice guy. People show hatred towards him because of the colour of his skin. He and many coloured people were separated from the whites in 1930, because of the Jim Crow laws. George asks Candy ‘‘what kind of man is the boss’’ he quickly brings up that the boss had brought whisky for them at Christmas, he also explains what happened when they let crooks in, Crooks got into a fight one Christmas with a white man. Steinbeck presents the character of Crooks in a detailed description; John Steinbeck t ells us that Crooks’ room is in the harness where all the horses sleep, this shows that he is segregated from all the other men on the ranch.

How Im Discovering Myself essays

How I'm Discovering Myself essays I never knew what the true meaning of "discovering yourself" meant until I had taken this class. I have found out a lot of what my strengths, weaknesses, and learning styles were just by doing some very simple exercises. The assignment that I enjoyed doing while covering this topic was the "Discovery Wheel" In our textbook the meaning of the discovery wheel is an opportunity, to tell the truth about what kind of student you want to become, and it can also be used as a picture to how you see yourself "From Master Student To Master Employee" (Ellis 2011). Although the discovery wheel is not meant to be used as a negative judgment or a permanent picture of who I am it does make me aware of what kind of student I can be or could be for the duration of my education. When I did this exercise, I did it with an open mind. When I had finished the discovery wheel and looked at the outcome, I wasn't very shocked with some of the results however it did make me sit back and think about what I have done that has changed in my life? The answer was very simple for me maturity in general, seven years of being out of school, family, and work. I found that I am a lot more focused this time around. I've come to realize how many things that I once viewed as major things have changed. What I learned from the discovery wheel was what decisions I need to make to be successful in school so that I can complete my degree program. I believe if you have a goal set and you have the tools required to succeed you will be able to reach your goals and go beyond what you have set for yourself. Part of this class highlighted the point of setting and completing goals. I feel that I benefited from this exercise because I was able to fine tune some of my learning styles. By doing a self-evaluation of myself, I was able to see a picture of what will happen if I don't work on approving the areas that I am weak in. When I completed the exercise, my strong points we...

Narrative Essays - WWE Hall Of Fame, Masked Wrestlers, Bob Pratt

Narrative Essays - WWE Hall Of Fame, Masked Wrestlers, Bob Pratt Narrative The entire gymnasium was silent. Every single person in the gym was standing at this moment, with his or her eyes fixated on the small, skinny girl, whose figure duplicated that of the microphone she was holding. Hearing her voice reminded me the birds that chirped and sang ever so delightfully to awaken me each and every morning. As I stood on the end line with my team, my eyes scanned the horizon. Seeing the bleachers filled to capacity made me realize how lucky I really was. I had tingles going through my body, like it was Christmas morning or something, as everyone anxiously awaited the game to begin. This is what high school dreams are made of. As the crowd sat silently, the players slowly huddled around. This is the moment that the team had dreaded all season long, and it has happened only two plays into the match. An aerial view would show the circle of players gathered around a fallen man, number nine. This would be a long match if this superstar did not return to the game, he had worked himself into becoming the heart and soul of this team, in that he was main driving force of inspiration each match. Just by watching him you could see that everyday he was giving 110% and nothing less. He was a prime example of someone who loves the game they play. As he lay there screaming in pain and grabbing his ankle as if he had a healing touch, nobody knew what to do but stand there and watch. The entire arena was completely silent, even the opposing teams fans didnt know what to do. The kid that everyone called miller- time, who was wearing a cut volleyball on his head and had his extremely large gut painted red and white, the teams school colors, paused in midst of his wild behavior. See this was an unfortunate tragedy that you think only happens in movies. But the reality of the matter was that this was real, maybe even a little too real. It seemed as though time had stopped as if a higher being took the remote control and hit the pause button so they could get another beer and go relieve themselves in the bathroom. At this time everyone was watching carefully, as if there lottery numbers were being read and they were only one number away from the jackpot, to the simple tests that the trainer on duty was performing on the fallen comrade. But each movement only brought about more pain. See let me explain why this was such a bad thing that number nine had gone down to an ankle injury. This was the 1999 State Volleyball Championship. The match had only just begun. In volleyball there are matches, each match consists of a set of games. Each game is up to fifteen points. The first team to win the best out of five games is the winner. Number nine who was only a junior had in fact become the most dominant player in the state as a junior on a team, whose roster was completely dominated by older, bigger senior. The team also has a very impressive history for winning; they had won the championship the last two years, and had won it eight times in the last eleven years. Also the team had gone undefeated for the past two seasons prior to this one. But this season was already different, in that the team had already lost a game this season. But what makes the story even more unbelievable is that the team who had beaten them in the season, Minnachaug Regional High School of west ern Massachusetts, was the team who they were playing in this state championship match. But during the regular season match, number nine didnt even get off the bench, he hadnt developed or proved himself as a capable player yet, so the coach went with one of the senior members who had done their sitting the prior season during that state championship run. The crowd began to clap politely as his coach and a fellow teammate carried off number nine. You could tell he was in excruciating pain by the

The Story of Sake

The Story of Sake The Story of Sake The Story of Sake By Mark Nichol Sake is one of those nebulous yet specific words that are employed in a limited number of circumstances. This post discusses its origin and uses. Sake (from the Old English term sacu, meaning â€Å"guilt†), which primarily means â€Å"end† or â€Å"purpose,† is used most transparently in phrases beginning â€Å"for the sake of†: â€Å"For the sake of appearances† pertains to something done solely to result in positive perception rather than sincere, practical benefit, while â€Å"for the sake of argument† introduces a hypothetical proposition that involves a contrary viewpoint, as in, â€Å"For the sake of argument, let’s say that what appears to be murder was an accident.† Meanwhile, â€Å"for the sake of it† is an idiomatic phrase meaning â€Å"for no particular reason†; hell, as a meaningless intensifier, often substitutes sake in this usage. Conversely, â€Å"for old time’s sake† pertains to something done as a nod to nostalgia. Also, one can write â€Å"for (one’s) sake,† as in â€Å"For John’s sake, we didn’t tell him about the incriminating letter,† where sake means â€Å"benefit† or â€Å"welfare.† But â€Å"for God’s sake†/â€Å"for Christ’s sake† (the latter sometimes styled â€Å"for chrissake†) is an expression without meaning except to express some heated emotion, such as exasperation. For the sake of euphemism, such a phrase is often bowdlerized to something like â€Å"for Pete’s sake,† inspired perhaps by St. Peter’s name or by the expression â€Å"for pity’s sake† as part of a plea for mercy. Variations include â€Å"for heaven’s sake† and â€Å"for goodness’ sake†; note the apostrophe indicating the genitive state of goodness, signaling that the sake â€Å"belongs† to goodness. (Even in content in which the style is for an s to follow an apostrophe in possessive case, this idiomatic style prevails.) Conversely, the phrase is sometimes rendered more forceful by replacing the middle word with a word equivalent to brandishing one’s middle finger. The compound namesake originally meant, literally, â€Å"one named for the sake of another,† referring to a child named after a parent or another adult to honor that person; now, its meaning extends to â€Å"anyone sharing one’s name.† On that model was keepsake coined; it refers to something originally belonging to, or otherwise associated with a deceased or departed person that is kept by another to honor the first person’s memory. The word forsake (past tense forsook, and forsaken as a past participle and an adjective), meaning â€Å"abandon† or â€Å"renounce,† stems from the Old English intensifying prefix for-, meaning â€Å"completely,† and sake in its original sense of â€Å"accuse† or â€Å"dispute.† The adjective godforsaken- literally, â€Å"abandoned by God†- refers to someplace or something neglected or remote. Sake is also seen in the expression â€Å"Art for art’s sake,† referring to the sentiment that art exists on its own merits and requires no justification. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Bare or Bear With Me?The Four Sounds of the Spelling OUKn- Words in English

SLP2 THE FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS Essay

SLP2 THE FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS - Essay Example Therefore, it is pivotal for the company to ensure operations run smoothly amidst the political instability and economic problems afflicting the region. More often than not, peaceful protests and rallies lobbying for political reforms turn violent and destructive, as protestors adopt more extremist ideologies. For example, Venezuela has experienced 6,369 protests in the first six months of 2014, which were triggered by the escalating anti-government sentiments supported by the growing opposition faction (Shackman, 2014). Both public and private infrastructures get damaged during clashes between protestors and the police. Besides political instability, DirectTV faces other challenges while operating in Latin America, which include the imposition of price controls and the planned strategy by Latin American governments to update foreign exchange rules. Price controls adversely affect business operations, as they undercut fair competitiveness, a prime feature of the free market. For example, in Venezuela, price controls facilitate expropriations with a 30 percent cap on profits acquired (Avadhani, 2010). Foreign investors operating in hostile markets defined by unwarranted price controls shy away from committing to more investment opportunities. Conversely, Latin American governments are prone to updating foreign tax rules to further their personal interests. Therefore, foreign investors in the region are always wary of the foreign policies, as they might translate into adverse consequences for their businesses. In the case of Argentina, which ended the previous year with major challenges, as exemplifie d by long lasting blackouts in various major cities, the government struggled to contain social dissatisfaction on public security and prices of basic goods. This was likely to lead to heightened political and social polarization, with a high probability of industrial unrest. In order to safeguard itself against these

International business in the globalization process Essay

International business in the globalization process - Essay Example This means that these global giants are ready to look after the societal aspects since they have understood how things work within their own respective areas. An example of such a global giant is Shell which has earmarked corporate social responsibility campaigns within the fields of education and empowerment to the small business owners all over the world (Daniels, Radebaugh, Sullivan, 2011). The less than responsible businesses could be given food for thought since these global giants are playing big within the corporate social responsibility realms and ask for encouragement within their own ranks. They could find new ways and means to go out there and bring about a significant difference within the lives of the people, just like the global giants that have invested heavily within the corporate social responsibility undertakings. In essence, the role played by the major businesses in this day and age is of tremendous influence and should be treated as such because this embodies the basis of a significant change in the times to follow. References Daniels, Radebaugh, Sullivan., 2011. International Business Environments and Operations, Prentice Hall.

Industrial Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Industrial - Assignment Example Over 40 persons were injured, businesses and homes were destroyed and the explosion detected as far as in the Netherlands on seismograph stations. There were investigation into the cause of the accident and the extent of the damage and this attracted legal action in which five companies were found guilty. This research paper will examine the incident at the Buncefield Oil Storage Depot and describe the events that led to the accident, its main causes and the preventive steps that should have been taken. It will further highlight the culture and management at the site in terms of safety systems and procedures implementation as well as the environmental impact and subsequent prosecutions. Design and maintenance shortcomings can be seen to be the aspects that sparked off a sequence of events that led to poor monitoring of this filling process and consequent explosions and fire. In 2005, located within the Buncefield Oil Storage Depot, a tank belonging to the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Ltd (HOSL) was filling with unleaded petrol on the night of 10th December. At around midnight of 11 December, tankers were barred from the terminal during which time stock checks were conducted for one and a half hours, without any reports of abnormalities (Nicholas & Whitfield 2013, p. 460). However, another hour and a half later, tank 912 did not register any changes on its level gauge even though it was still filling up. Initial approximations had indicated that the tank would have filled up and started overflowing by five in the morning, which it did. CCTV footage started showing vapour at 05.38 coming from the fuel that was escaping. Eight minutes later, the cloud of vapour is seen t hickening and spreading in all directions. At 05.50 the cloud was already flowing away from the facility and following the topography of the ground, spreading

Online Newspaper Industry in Hong Kong Research Paper

Online Newspaper Industry in Hong Kong - Research Paper Example With the advancement of internet, electronic businesses have boomed in the recent years. Online newspaper has been beneficial not only by proving news and information for the internet users, rather providing the same for the overseas readers (SooperArticles, n.d.). Electronic press has the ability to attract the readership from both the domestic and the overseas readers leading to no geographical limitation for the online newspapers. With the increased internet usage, the newspaper has also become online to attract the customers by getting involved with some popular technical ground such as internet. This reports aims to offer an insight into the online newspaper industry of Hong Kong. Research Question and Objectives The research aims is an effort to look into the online newspaper industry in Hong Kong. The following are certain research questions which are required to be investigated in this paper. 1. What is the present status of newspaper industry in Hong Kong? 2. Has online news paper emerged as an opportunity for the newspaper industry? 3. What would be an effective and successful marketing strategy for the online newspapers? To investigate the above questions, one would require setting his or her research objectives which are related and linked with the above research questions. While framing up the objectives care has been taken to frame up the objectives to be either measurable or observable and at the same time, these must be limited to the scope of the research arena. The research objectives are realistic and viable to offer effective recommendations for successful marketing strategy framework for the online newspaper industry in Hong Kong. The objective... To investigate the questions, one would require setting his or her research objectives which are related and linked with the above research questions. While framing up the objectives care has been taken to frame up the objectives to be either measurable or observable and at the same time, these must be limited to the scope of the research arena. The research objectives are realistic and viable to offer effective recommendations for successful marketing strategy framework for the online newspaper industry in Hong Kong. The objective of this research paper is to offer an effective marketing strategy for the Hong Kong online newspaper industry with an appropriate analysis of the industry, the customers and the prevailing marketing strategies. This report makes a conclusion that this project will analyse the online newspaper industry in Hong Kong and on the basis of this analysis, some recommendations for the marketing strategy will be formulated. Before conducting the research, a literature review has been done to gather some basic information regarding media industry in Hong Kong, different types of online marketing models suggested by the researchers and its advantages as well as limitations. In the later part of the literature review, some of the strategic models will also be discussed as these will be used in later part of the project while analysing the data. The newspapers can arrange some portion of the papers dedicated to these kinds of news. This would enable the companies to increase their customer base. In the recent years, the youth may be interested in some fashion related news or news from the campuses.

Inquiry into Media Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Inquiry into Media - Essay Example It is also imperative to take some time to go and watch the affiliated film and make use of a graphic organizer to make comparative studies between the book and the film. After all these activities, the learner makes a discussion, sighting important scenes within the movie that paid attribute to improving the book and also giving examples of scenarios that were a bad idea. In the end, the involved parties select various scenes where their personal opinion is that it was not appropriately represented in the film, and this makes it easy for the leaner to present it as a theatre performance. The use of films in class has a lot of educative value, especially when one considers the examples of critical thinking in relation to the stories that are in the movies. When we add films to the curriculum, this provides an extension and expansion to learning experiences and openings for making intellectual connections for all interested parties. Therefore, this paper takes a looks into the prelimi nary part of the film Titanic produced in 1997 by James Cameron based on a book written in 1953. The primary focus of this essay is the Titanic and here it is the role of the student to explore ways that one may change some of the scenes to other forms of media such as articles, books, short stories or other films (Hockfield 13). The Titanic is a very good film that had the intention to capitulate and become one of the best photographic winning films of all times. The film cost an estimated $200 million plus that resulted in the blinding the critics and audiences, where they were overcome with delight that it was possible to direct and produce a smart action-packed movie. As a result, the movie turned out interestingly and surprisingly great, and Titanic t-shirt wear, posters, calendars, soundtracks, documentaries, and interviews became the order of the day. As one decides to go and watch the film, it is important to distance oneself from these opinions and come to a conclusion afte r a close encounter with the characters and the ideas that the director was critically attempting to reveal. Many people refer to it as the best film they have ever seen. The ship sails through the Atlantic Ocean, and the tragic end started when the machine hit the tip of an iceberg and started sinking. The most remarkable characters that stand out are a poor chap named Jack and a very rich lady named Rose. The wealthy Rose came to America to get hitched after the death of her father, who left her penniless. The two young people met and defy all odds of the social classes and ultimately fall in love. There is a catch; they have to do it in the shadows because, apparently, the rich and the poor have a stigma that occurs in their existence. It is an emotional depiction of love and romance that takes place on a doomed ship that is 46,000 tons of pure steel that seemed undoubtedly unsinkable. One of the characters survived, and one is always wishing that there are two survivors who leav e the audience in awe at the love and romance that sparks between them. It is not a new thing to find an individual crying in these types of films. Jack and Rose are the most breathe-taking leading characters that have a love that is in disguise as they are of different social classes and who are even on different classes onboard the ship.

Online Newspaper Industry in Hong Kong Research Paper

Online Newspaper Industry in Hong Kong - Research Paper Example With the advancement of internet, electronic businesses have boomed in the recent years. Online newspaper has been beneficial not only by proving news and information for the internet users, rather providing the same for the overseas readers (SooperArticles, n.d.). Electronic press has the ability to attract the readership from both the domestic and the overseas readers leading to no geographical limitation for the online newspapers. With the increased internet usage, the newspaper has also become online to attract the customers by getting involved with some popular technical ground such as internet. This reports aims to offer an insight into the online newspaper industry of Hong Kong. Research Question and Objectives The research aims is an effort to look into the online newspaper industry in Hong Kong. The following are certain research questions which are required to be investigated in this paper. 1. What is the present status of newspaper industry in Hong Kong? 2. Has online news paper emerged as an opportunity for the newspaper industry? 3. What would be an effective and successful marketing strategy for the online newspapers? To investigate the above questions, one would require setting his or her research objectives which are related and linked with the above research questions. While framing up the objectives care has been taken to frame up the objectives to be either measurable or observable and at the same time, these must be limited to the scope of the research arena. The research objectives are realistic and viable to offer effective recommendations for successful marketing strategy framework for the online newspaper industry in Hong Kong. The objective... To investigate the questions, one would require setting his or her research objectives which are related and linked with the above research questions. While framing up the objectives care has been taken to frame up the objectives to be either measurable or observable and at the same time, these must be limited to the scope of the research arena. The research objectives are realistic and viable to offer effective recommendations for successful marketing strategy framework for the online newspaper industry in Hong Kong. The objective of this research paper is to offer an effective marketing strategy for the Hong Kong online newspaper industry with an appropriate analysis of the industry, the customers and the prevailing marketing strategies. This report makes a conclusion that this project will analyse the online newspaper industry in Hong Kong and on the basis of this analysis, some recommendations for the marketing strategy will be formulated. Before conducting the research, a literature review has been done to gather some basic information regarding media industry in Hong Kong, different types of online marketing models suggested by the researchers and its advantages as well as limitations. In the later part of the literature review, some of the strategic models will also be discussed as these will be used in later part of the project while analysing the data. The newspapers can arrange some portion of the papers dedicated to these kinds of news. This would enable the companies to increase their customer base. In the recent years, the youth may be interested in some fashion related news or news from the campuses.

Human Resources & Diversity Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Human Resources & Diversity - Research Paper Example Diversity is not only a problem but also an opportunity for the human resource management. Diversity has a broader definition than that generally accepted; it is not only related to race, ethnicity and gender. Devoe (34) defined diversity as: â€Å"otherness or those human qualities that are different from our own and outside the groups to which we belong to, yet present in other individuals and groups.† Diversity has multiple dimensions, which include race, ethnicity, gender, ancestry, age, sexual preferences, physical qualities or abilities, demography, education, marital status, income, religious beliefs, military experience, work experience, parental status, etc. These dimensions of diversity influence behaviour, interactions, motivation, performance and success of the workforce. The human resource management teams have the challenge to examine the effects of these dimensions of diversity and exploit them to improve the performance of the organization. Introduction The bus iness world is changing fast to meet the challenges posed by increasing competition and the organizations are searching for the best talents to gain a competitive edge in the market. They are recruiting the best talents from all across the world and this practice is increasing the diversity in the workplace continuously. The talent – hunt of the organizations are met by the universities like Saint Leo University and the core value of integrity of Saint Leo University states, â€Å"Animated in the spirit of Jesus Christ, we value all individuals' unique talents, respect their dignity, and strive to foster their commitment to excellence in our work. Our community's strength depends on the unity and diversity of our people, on the free exchange of ideas.† The core value of Saint Leo University has helped in the development of talents in the campus. The human resource management of organizations needs to understand, acknowledge, accept, value and celebrate the differences among the workforce in order to manage diversity in the workforce.

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon Essay Example for Free

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon Essay It is an unquestionable fact that the world of communication has immeasurable changed since Kenneth Burke first developed his theories and philosophies on this topic in the first half of the 20th century. Nevertheless, Burke’s views and thoughts can still be integrated with the theory of cinema as well as face-to-face communication and other forms of literature and art. Thus, as one critic once said, perhaps Burke will not be remembered so much for what he said but how others took his ideas and brought them forward into other realms of communication. In the 1920s, Burke began writing for the literary magazine The Dial, which included renderings of modernist art and his debates with individuals such as Malcolm Cowley on Dadaism and the Surrealists. His work the Symbolic marks an important time in his thinking when he advocated â€Å"art for arts sake† or the doctrine that aesthetic values are completely separate from political, religious, or economic ones. Burke’s earliest essays dealt with the formal aspects of imagery and the rhythms of language. He believed that reality was a construction of our interpretation of the symbols around us. Much of what we mean by reality has been built up for us through nothing but our symbol systems . . . Take away our books and what little do we know about history, biography, even something so â€Å"down to earth† as the relative position of the seas and continents. What is our â€Å"reality† for today†¦ but all this clutter of symbols about the past combined with whatever things we know mainly through maps, magazine, newspapers and the like about the present†¦And however important to us is the tiny sliver of reality each of us has experienced firsthand, the whole overall picture is but a construct of our symbol systems. (1966, p. 5) Thus, words are symbols, or utterances, produced by humans, alone, to signify those things that they represent. Despite the fact if they are written or verbal, words are a deliberate act for the expressed purpose of expression. A house can be described word-by-word without showing what the house actually looks like. However, because words are symbols, they can never be what they represent. The word â€Å"house† will not be a house. Words are heuristic and can be identified and understood by the person’s own mind and meaning. When a word is identifiable it becomes a representation of what it depicts. Dictionaries can help, but they alter meaning with those who read them. According to Burke, words have an unusual power. As for the relation between ‘identification’ and ‘persuasion’: we might well keep it in mind that a speaker persuades an audience by the use of stylistic identifications; his act of persuasion may be for the purpose of causing the audience to identify itself with the speaker’s interests; and the draws on identification of interests to establish a rapport between himself and his audience. (1966, p. 301-302) Burke was thus instrumental in advancing the whole understanding of rhetoric, with such aspects of his analysis as the pentad of drama, the role of identification, and the ratios or relationships among critical components. His pentad was comprised of the act (what occurs by the delivery of the rhetorical piece), the scene (the situational setup or the context of the discourse), the agent (the person being asked to complete the action), the agency (the tools used to complete the action), and the purpose (the goal of the action). If one analyzes the components of the pentad and their relationships to each other, Burke believed, one would be able to discern the motives underpinning that rhetorical act But we must acknowledge that photographs and, even more so, film are much more complex. When someone sees a visual representation, it can mean myriad of ideas, emotions at once. This visual representation mimics, in fact the viewer’s own perception of life and allows them a greater depth of understanding, or at the very least a sense of understanding, into the subject. In the 1940s, Burke expanded his interest in the visual culture and the function of art, film and television. He often used visual metaphors to explain key concepts, such as identification, representative anecdotes, the pentad, and terministic screens. In his introduction to A Grammar of Motives, Burke covered his theory of the pentad in relationship to a Museum of Modern Art in New York photographic exhibit with photos of war ships and an: aerial photograph of two launches, proceeding side by side on a tranquil sea. Their wakes crossed and recrossed each other in an almost infinite variety of lines. Yet despite the intricateness of the tracery, the picture gave an impression of great simplicity, because one could quickly perceive the generating principle of its design. Such, ideally, is the case with our pentad of terms, used as generating principle. It should provide us with a kind of simplicity that can be developed into considerable complexity, and yet can be discovered beneath its elaborations. (1945, xvi) As noted in â€Å"War and Cultural Life† (1942), he was emotionally impacted by the photos and affirmed that â€Å"one gets a very strong feeling that the war, vast as it is, is part of a still vaster configuration. † (p. 409). Burke felt that the photos â€Å"call(ed) forth a certain philosophic or ‘meditative’ attitude toward the war quite as it also gives nourishment to a strong sense of our national power† (p. 408). He was so taken, in fact, by the photos that he noted â€Å"it would be a very good service both to the strength of our patriotism and to its quality if this exhibit could be shown throughout the United States. † (p. 408) In the Therministic Screen: Rhetorical Perspectives on Film (2001), David Blakesely relied on Burke’s communication theory to look at cinema and the concept of the theory of film. Given all the theories that exist about film, Blakesely notes that there need not be one theory â€Å"to be elevated to disciplinary reverence,† but rather the question is â€Å"how best to use the terministic resources theory make available† (pg. 2). The title of the book comes from Burke’s phrase â€Å"terministic screen† in Language and Symbolic Action (1966), where his main assertion is that â€Å"not only does the nature of our terms affect the nature of our observations, in the sense that the terms direct the attention to one field rather than to another. Also, many of the ‘observations’ are but implications of the particular terminology in terms of which the observations are made† (pg. 46). In other words, as extrapolated from Burke, film rhetoric, or the visual and verbal symbols that weave film experience, directs the viewers’ attention in unlimited ways, but always towards the goal of fostering identification and the complexity that involves. Similarly, film theory, says Blakesley, which is the lens through which and with which one generates perspective on film as art and rhetoric, acts as a terministic screen that filters what does and does not constitute and legitimize interpretation and, thus, meaning (pg. 3). In his essay about Burke (2001), Andrew King emphasizes that Burke’s theories and assertions were not about ideology or political systems but about the over-rhetoricized world. He insists that according to Burke, even with the invention of writing, humans entered the world of virtual reality and building symbol systems. And, ever since, mankind has been piling symbol upon symbol and setting system over and against system. Simultaneously, with this ever-advanced technology, humans are cutting themselves off further and further from nature and the consequences of their actions. â€Å"Technology delays the consequences of our assaults on our nature and symbolic systems mask our failures until it is too late. Nature is recalcitrant and it will have its revenge, but not until it is too late for us to repair the results. † (para. 17)

Antivirus Research And Development Techniques

Antivirus Research And Development Techniques Antivirus software is the most booming product which has constant developments to be most up to date defensive detecting product competing with all other antivirus software products available in the commercial market. This thesis covers few techniques used by the antivirus products, a general background information about viruses and antivirus products, some research made on antivirus overheads which shows what overheads are introduced to the computer on using an antivirus products, a research made on one of the most important and common technique used by the antivirus software products to detect viruses which is signature based detection, also covers how antivirus software is updated and how new virus signatures are updated to the virus database. There is some research also on selected algorithms used by the techniques, here in this thesis it is explained how each selected algorithm works to detect the code or a file as an infected file or uninfected. In the experimentation, the expe riment is done to detect a virus using three selected popularly known antivirus software products, where reports shown by the three products are compared and concluded. Chapter 1: Introduction A life without computers cannot be imagined in the present life style where it plays a very important role though it might be any field one chooses from the millions. Computer is vulnerable to attacks which are most dangerous and hard to handle with. Just like humans even computers are attacked by viruses. A virus can be in a form of worm, malware or Trojan horses anything that infects the computer. The common source of these viruses is World Wide Web where a malicious person can spread the malware very easily. Many researchers found many methods or procedures to stop the attacks of virus that came up with many techniques or software to remove the viruses which are called Anti-Virus software. A computer virus spreads into the computer through emails, floppy disks, internet and many other sources. The spreading mechanism is usually from one computer to another where it corrupts data or deletes the data from the computer. The viruses mostly spread through internet or through emails which may have some hidden illicit software where the user unknowingly downloads the material into the computer. A virus can attack or cause damage to boot sector, system files, data files, software and also on system bios. There are many newer viruses which attack on many other parts of the computer. Viruses can spread by booting the computer using the infected file, executing or installing the infected file, or by opening the infected data or file. The main hardware sources can be floppy disks, compact disks, USB or external hard drives or a connection with other computer on an unsafe medium. This rapid growth of viruses is challenging the antivirus software in different fields like prevention of viruses, preparation, detection, recovery and control of viruses. Nowadays there are so many antivirus software tools that remove viruses from the PC and helps protect from future attacks. Antivirus raises privacy and security issues of our computers we work on which is a major issue. However, after taking so many safety measures the growth of viruses is rapidly increasing which are most dangerous and wider. In this thesis, a history on viruses and evolution of antivirus software is shown where I will explain about how viruses came into existence and what type of viruses evolved and antivirus software discovery. This general criteria of this thesis is mainly targeted on three selected techniques and is mostly concentrated one technique out of the selected three techniques and scanning methods of antivirus products and also gives a basic scenario of how an antivirus product adopts a framework to update the virus database and also gives some information about how a general computer gets an information to update the product to make it ready to defend against the zero-day viruses. A brief comparison of viruses based on types where the definitions and related threats of viruses will be explained and the working effects of each type of viruses are explained. The working of antivirus software on different types of viruses is explained. Analysis of the current antivirus techniques, showing both advantages and disadvantages. In chapter 2 gives you the general outline of the thesis in which you can know a general history of the viruses, evolution of the antivirus software. A definition to the virus, types of viruses, the most common methods or techniques used. In chapter 3 Literature Review, shows the research and review of some selected papers or literature that I found interesting about w antivirus software. In this chapter, there is research in which some antivirus products, techniques and algorithms compared according to the developments in the recent times. Chapter 4 Experimentation part of the thesis where the comparison of different commercial antivirus products based on their efficiency to detect a virus is shown and also the results are based on false positives, false negatives and hit ratios shown by each antivirus product. Chapter 5 Conclusion concludes the thesis summarizing research and experimentation done on antivirus products. Appendix holds relevant information about the undefined key words or frameworks used in this thesis. Chapter 2 Overview This chapter gives general information about the viruses and antivirus giving some basic information about the virus history and when the antivirus software evolved. There different types of viruses and are classified according to the attacking features. This chapter will lead to better understanding of the techniques used by the antivirus products and also gives you basic knowledge about different antivirus products. 2.1 History of Viruses The computer virus is a program that copies itself to the computer without user permission and infects the system (Vinod et al. 2009). Virus basically means an infection which can be of many types of malware which include worms, trojan horses, rootkits, spyware and adware. The first work on computer programs was done by John Von Neumann in 1949 (wiki 2010). In his work he suggested that a computer program (the term virus was still not invented) can self-reproduce. The first virus was discovered in early 1990s which is Creeper virus. Creeper copies itself to other computers over a network and shows messages on the infected machine: IM THE CREEPER: CATCH ME IF YOU CAN. It was harmless but to catch the Creeper and stop it the Reaper was released. In 1974 Rabbit a program that spreads and multiples itself quickly and crashes the infected system after it reaches a certain limit or number of copies. In 1980s the virus named Elk Cloner has infected many PCs. The Apple II computer which was released in 1977 loads its operating system from the floppy disks, using these characteristics the Elk Cloner installed itself to the boot sector of the floppy disk and was loaded already before the operating system. Â ©Brain was the first stealth IBM-compatible virus. This stealth virus hides itself from being known and when detected it attempts to read the infected boot sector and displays the original, uninfected data. In 1987 the most dangerous virus got into news was Vienna virus which was first to infect the .COM files. Whenever the infected file was called it infects the other .COM files in the same directory. It was the first virus that was successfully neutralized by Bernd Fix and which leads to the idea of antivirus software. Then there were many viruses which were Cascade virus the first self-encrypting virus, Suriv Family virus which was a memory resident DOS file virus. Extremely dangerous virus was Datacrime virus which destructs FAT tables and cause loss of data. In 1990s there was Chameleon Virus, Concept virus and then CIH virus and in 2000s there were ILOVEYOU virus, My Doom Sasser. (Loebenberegr 2007) Vinod et al. 2009 defines computer virus as A program that infects other program by modifying them and their location such that a call to an infected program is a call to a possibly evolved, functional similar, copy of virus. To protect from the attacks, the antivirus software companies include many different methodologies for protecting against the virus attacks. 2.2 Virus Detectors The virus detector scans the file or a program to check whether file/program is malicious or benign. In this research there will be usage of some technical terms and detection methods which are defined below. The main goal for testing the file/program is to find for false positives, false negatives and hit ratio.(Vinod et. al. 2009) False Positive: This takes place when the scanner detects a non-infected file as a virus by error. They can be a waste of time and resources. False Negatives: This occurs when the scanners fail to detect the virus in an infected files. Hit Ratio: This happens when the virus scanner scans the virus. Detections are based on 3 types of malware which are: Basic In basic type the malware attacks the program at the entry point as shown in the figure 2.2.1. The control is transferred to virus payload as the entry point itself is infected. Infected Code Main Code Entry Infected by virus Figure 2.2.1 Attacking system by basic malware. (Vinod et al 2009) Polymorphic Polymorphic viruses are viruses which mutates by hiding the original code the virus consists of encrypted malware code along with decrypted unit. They create new mutants very time it is executed. The figure 2.2.2 shows how the main code or original code is encrypted by infected file to produce a decrypted virus code. Virus Code Decrypted Code Main Code Entry Encrypted by infected file Figure 2.2.2 Attacking system by polymorphic viruses. (Vinod et al 2009) Metamorphic Metamorphic viruses can reprogram themselves using some obfuscation techniques so that the new variants are not same as the original. It sees that the signatures of the subsets are not same as the main set. Form B Virus A Form A S1 S2 S3 Figure 2.2.3 Attacking system by metamorphic viruses. (Vinod et al 2009) The above figure 2.2.3 shows that the original virus and form of that virus have different signatures where s1, s2 s3 are different signatures. 2.3 Detection Methods 2.3.1 Signature based detection Here the scanners search for signatures which are sequence of bytes within the virus code and shows that the programs scanned are malicious. The signatures are developed easy if the network behavior is identified. Signature based detection is based on pattern matching. The pattern matching techniques evolved from times when the operating system was DOS. The viruses then were parasitic in nature and used to attack the host files and most common executable files. (Daniel, Sanok 2005) 2.3.2 Heuristic based detection Heuristics describe a method of scanning a virus by evaluating the patterns of behaviors. It takes the possibility of the file or program being a virus by testing the uniqueness and behavior matching them to the database of the antivirus heuristic which contains number of indicators. It is helpful to discover those viruses which does not have signatures or hides their signatures. It is also helpful to detect the metamorphic viruses (Daniel, Sanok 2005) 2.3.3 Obfuscation Technique This technique is used by the viruses to transform an original program into virus program using some transformation functions which makes the virus program irreversible, performs comparably with original program and has the functions of the original program. This technique is used mainly by metamorphic and polymorphic viruses. (Daniel, Sanok 2005) Antivirus Products There are many antivirus products available in the commercial market. Some of the most commonly used antivirus products are: McAfee G Data Symantec Avast Kaspersky Trend Micro AVG Bit Defender Norton ESET Nod32 Chapter 3: Literature Review 3.1 Antivirus workload characterization A research done by (Derek, Mischa, David 2005) shows an antivirus software package takes many ranges of techniques to check whether the file is infected or not. But from the observations of (Derek, Mischa, David 2005) to best difference between some antivirus software packages compare the overheads introduced by the respective antivirus software during on-access execution. When running antivirus software there is usage of two main models which are: on-demand. on-access. On-demand involves the scanning of the user specified files where as on-access can be a process that checks the system-level and the user-level operations and scans when an event occurs. The paper discusses the behavior of four different anti-virus software packages which run on a Intel Pentium IV being installed with Windows XP Professional. Considering three different test scenarios: A small executable file is copied from the CDROM to the hard disk. Executing a calc.exe And also executing wordpad.exe. All these executable files are running on the Windows XP Professional operating system. The antivirus packages used in this experiment were Cillin, F-Port, McAfee and Norton. The execution of the files are done using the before mentioned antivirus packages. Figure 3.1.1 shows the usage of these packages introduces some overheads during the execution which increases the time of execution. Fig 3.1.1 Performance degradation of antivirus packages (Derek, Mischa, David 2005) Then a test was made to know about the extra instructions executed when the file system operations is performed and also when loading and executing a binary. Taking the both scenarios a small binary of very less size is involved. It is found that the execution is dominated by some hot basic blocks in each antivirus package. A basic block is considered hot if it is visited more than fifty thousand times. To detect the behavior of antivirus software packages the (Derek, Mischa, David 2005) used the platform which was majorly targeted by the virus attacks and also must have the existence of some of the commercial antivirus software. A framework of simulator is introduced here called Virustech Simics this has architectural structure as shown in table 3.1.1. Virustech Simics is a simulator that includes a cycle-accurate micro-architectural model and used to get cycle-accurate performance numbers. Table 3.1.1 Virustech Simics architectural structures (Derek, Mischa, David 2005) Processor Model Processor Operating Frequency L1 Trace Cache L1 Data Cache L2 Cache Main Memory Intel Pentium 4 2.0A 2GHz 12K entry 8KB 512KB 256MB The goal behind the model is to confine the execution of antivirus software on a system. To achieve metrics the stream executed is passed to the simulator. To simulate the micro-processor, simics are configured. The host (simulator) executes the operating system loaded via simulated hard drive. On top of the operating system the researchers have installed and run the antivirus software and also the test scenarios are taken (see figure 3.1.2). After this the comparison is done between the baseline configuration execution (without the antivirus software installed) and the systems that are installed with four different antivirus packages. L2 Cache Copy/execute process Antivirus Process L1 Inst Cache L1 data Cache Operating System (Windows XP) Inst Stream Simulate micro-architecture Simulated Architecture HOST Fig 3.1.2 Multi Level architectural Micro Architectural simulation environment (Derek, Mischa, and David 2005) The table 3.1.2 shows the summary of five configurations. For each experiment an image file is created and loaded as a CDROM in the machine. The execution of the utility (contains special instructions) at the start and end of each collection was done in order to assist accurate profile collection. Table 3.1.2: Five environments evaluated: Base has no antivirus software running (Derek, Mischa, David 2005) Configuration Anti-Virus edition Version Base NAV PC-Cillin McAfee F-Port Norton Anti-Virus Professional 2004 Trend Micro Internet Security McAfee Virus scan professional F-Port Antivirus for windows 10.0.0.109 11.0.0.1253 8.0.20 3.14b The three different operations invoke anti-virus scanning. In first, a file from the CDROM to the hard drive was copied, and then the operating system accessories: calculator and wordpad are run accessing through a shortcut. After experimentation it is found that there is less than one percent difference in the work load parameters throughout the profile runs. Then on doing the antivirus characterization it is seen that there is a gradual increase in the cache activity which shows that the overheads released is smallest for F-Port and highest for Norton. The impact on memory while running the antivirus software shows that Norton and McAfee have larger footprints that the Base case, F-Port Cillin. 3.2 Development techniques a framework showing malware detection using combination of techniques There are several developments in techniques used by antivirus software. These techniques must be able to detect viruses which were not detected by previous techniques and this is what we say a development in technique. Antivirus software not only does detect a virus but also worms, Trojan horses, spyware and other malicious codes which constitute malware. Malware is a code or a program which intents to damage the computer with its malicious code. We can filter malware by use of specific antivirus software that installs detection techniques and algorithms. Several commercial antivirus programs uses a common technique called signature-based matching; this technique must be often updated to store new malware signatures in virus dictionary. As the technology advances plenty of malware writers aim to employ better hiding techniques, importantly rootkits became a security issue because of its higher hiding ability. There is a development of many new detection methods which are used to detect malware, machine learning technique and data mining technique. In this research Zolkipli, M.F.; Jantan, A.,2010 have proposed a new framework to detect malware for which there is a combination of two techniques signature based technique and machine learning technique. This framework has three main sections which are signature-based detection, genetic algorithm based detection signature generator. Zolkipli, M.F.; Jantan, A., 2010 defines malware as the software that performs actions intended by an attacker without consent of the owner when executed. Every malware has precise individuality, goal attack and transmission method. According to Zolkipli, M.F.; Jantan, A., 2010 virus is that malware, which when executed tries to replicate itself into other executable code within a host. What so ever, as technology advances creating malware became sophisticated and extensively improved since early days. Signature-based matching technique is most common approach to detect malware, this technique works by contrasting file content with the signature by using an approach called string scan that search for pre-defined bit patterns. There are some limitations which needs to be solved to this technique though it is popular and very reliable for host-based security tool. The problem with signature-based matching technique I it fails to detect zero-day virus attack or zero-day malware attack. Zero-day malware attack are also called new launch malware. To store and capture a new virus pattern for upcoming use, some number of computers needs to be infected. Figure 3.2.1 shows an automatic malware removal and system repair was developed by F.Hsu et al. 2006 which has three important parts such as monitor, a logger, and a recovery agent. The framework solves two problems: Determines the un-trusted program that breaks the system integrity. Removal of un-trusted program Untrusted Process Trusted Process Logger Recovery agent Monitor Operating System Figure 3.2.1: Framework for monitoring, logging recovery by F.Hsu et al. 2006 The framework is used to monitor and enter logs of the un-trusted program. This framework is capable of defending known and unknown malware, though it does not need any prior information of the un-trusted programs. And from the user side there is no need of modifying any current programs and need not observe that the program is running in the framework as the framework is invisible to both known and unknown malware. A sample of this framework was used on the windows environment and shows that all the malware changes can be detected compared to the commercial tools which use the signature based technique. Machine learning algorithm was tested and applied on the malware detection technique. In order to classify the signature-based technique limitations that particular technique was using an adaptive data compression. The two restrictions of signature-based technique according to Zolkipli, M.F.; Jantan, A., 2010 are: It is not compulsory that all malicious programs have bit patterns which are proof of their malicious nature and are also not recorded in virus dictionaries. Many forms of bit patterns are taken by obfuscated malware that will not work on signature-based technique. Genetic Algorithm (GA) takes the full advantage of system limitations that are used to detect zero day malware or the day malware was launched. The algorithm was used to develop a detection technique called IMAD that analyzes the new malware. To oppose the restrictions of signature-based detection technique this technique has been developed. Data mining is another technique which was applied on malware detection much before. The standard data mining algorithm classifies every block file content as normal or used to categorize potentially the malware. To defeat the limitations of signature-based antivirus programs an Intelligent Malware Detection System known as IMDS was developed. This system used Object Oriented Association which adapts OOA_Fast_FPGrowth algorithm. A complete experimentation on windows API file sequence was done which re called PE files. The huge gathering of PE files was taken from the King Soft Corporation antivirus laboratory which is used to compare many malware detection approaches. The results show that IMDS system shows the best results than Norton and McAfee. The proposed framework has two techniques combined which are signature-based technique and GA technique. It was designed to resolve two challenges of malware detections. How to detect newly launched malware (Zolkipli, M.F.; Jantan, A., 2010) How to generate signature from infected file (Zolkipli, M.F.; Jantan, A., 2010) Signature Generator S-Based Detection GA Detection Figure 3.2.2: Framework for malware detection technique (Zolkipli, M.F.; Jantan, A., 2010) The main components are s-based detection, s-based generator and GA detection(see figure 3.2.2). The s-based detection acts first in defending the malware, then GA detection is the second layer which is another defense layer that is used to detect newly launched malware. After creating the new signature from zero-day malware these signatures are used by signature based detection technique. Signature based detection is a fixed examining method used on every antivirus product. This is also called a static analysis method. This decides whether the code is malicious or not by using its malware characterization. This technique is sometimes also called scan strings. In general every malware has one or more patterns of signature which has unique characters. Antivirus software searches through data stream bytes, when a program is executed. Database of antivirus software has thousands of signatures it scans through each signature comparing it with the program code which is executed. For comparing purposes searching algorithm is used, the comparison is usually between program code content with the signature database. The Zolkipli, M.F.; Jantan, A., 2010 chooses this technique at the beginning of the framework because of its effective detection of well known viruses. This technique was used in this framework in order to develop the competence of computer operation. G.A detection technique is one of the most popular technique that is used to detect newly launched malware. This is used to learn approaches to resolve algebraic or statistical research problems. This is a machine learning technique which applies genetic programming that learns a evolving population. Chromosomes are used for data representation which is used in this algorithm, chromosomes are bit string values, new chromosomes are developed from a bit string combinations from existing chromosomes. Basing the nature of the problem the solution for the problem is given. Crossover and mutation are 2 types of basic operations in GA, to solve the issues concerned with polymorphic viruses and new types of malware this technique was introduced in this framework. By using this technique codes of malware using hidden technique can also be detected which only because of its learning and filtering aspects of virus behavior.( Zolkipli, M.F.; Jantan, A., 2010) S-based generator generate string patterns are used by signatures which are used to characterize and identify the viruses. Forensic experts started creating signatures once a new virus sample is found, based on the virus behavior these signatures are created. All the antivirus products creates their own signatures and accessing records they are encrypted in case there are more than one antivirus software installed on the computer. As soon as a signature is created the signature database is updated with it. Every computer user requires updating the antivirus product with the database in order to defense against the new viruses. Signature pattern is 16 bytes and to detect 16 bit virus 16 bytes is more than enough.( Zolkipli, M.F.; Jantan, A., 2010) This generator takes the behavior of virus which identified by the GA detection. The signature pattern of the virus is generated and is added to virus database as a new signature for the signature based detection. To replace the forensic experts task this framework was proposed. This creation of framework was lot useful in detecting the new virus signature, and to improve the efficiency and performance of the computer. 3.3 Improving speed of signature scanners using BMH algorithm. This paper discusses about the problem of detecting viruses using signature scanning method that relies on fast pattern matching algorithm So basically in this technique the pattern is a virus signature which is searched for anywhere in the file. This algorithm is an expensive task which affects the performance frequently. Many users may find it impatient if the pattern matching algorithm does not work fast and consumes lot of time. So to avoid this faster pattern matching algorithm is used to the scanner which is Boyer-Moore Horspool algorithm when compare d to Boyer-Moore algorithm and Turbo Boyer Moore algorithm proved to be the fastest pattern matching algorithm. In technical terms, a virus has three parts which are trigger, infection mechanism and payload. The main mechanism which is infection mechanism part actually looks for fatalities and frequently avoids multiple infections. After looking for fatalities it might overwrite the fatalities or can attach itself at the beginning of the file or at the end of the fle. Trigger is actually a event which specifies when the payload has to be executed. The payload is the foundation of malicious behavior which actually can be corruption of boot sector or manipulating files. To detect a virus and to disinfect the infected file are two most important tasks of algorithms used by antivirus software. So defense system code of the algorithm must have a part that is able to detect any type of virus code. There are four types of basic detection techniques. Integrity Checking Signature Scanning Activity Monitoring Heuristic Method. Integrity checking technique: This program gives checker codes that can be checksums, CRCs or hashes of files that are used to check viruses. Regularly the checksum are re-computed and is compared against the previous checksums. In case the two checksums does not match it is indicated that the file is infected since the file is modified. This technique detects the virus presence by detecting the change in files and also is capable to detect new or unknown viruses. But this technique has several drawbacks. Firstly, the primary checksum calculation has to be performed on a virus less clean system so the technique can never detect viruses if system is infected. Secondly there are lots of false positives if the system is modified during execution. (Sunitha Kanaujiya, et., al 2010) Signature scanning technique: This technique is used on large scale to detect virus. This reads data from a system and to that it applies pattern matching algorithm to list of existing virus patterns in case it matches with the existing patterns it is a virus. This scanning technique is effective but the pattern database needs frequent updating which is very easy. There are several advantages of this scanner one of it is the scanning speed for this technique can be increased, it can also be used to detect other types of malicious programs like Trojan horses, worms, logic bombs, etc. So mainly for the virus it is only signature of the virus which is needed and update it to the database. This technique is used on many viruses due to this reason. Activity monitoring technique: This technique is used to monitor the behavior of programs executed by some other programs these monitoring programs are known as behavior monitor and they stay in main memory. The behavior monitors alarms or do some action to prevent the program when it tries to do some unusual activities like interrupting tables, partition tables or boot sectors. The database maintains every virus behavior that is supposed to be. The main disadvantage is when the new virus uses another infecting method that is not in the database and in this scenario finding virus is helpless. Secondly viruses avoid defense by activating earlier in the boot sequence prior to the behavior monitors. And also viruses modify the monitors

The Life and Work of Chaim Potok :: essays research papers

The Life and Work of Chaim Potok Chaim Potok lives a very full life he has served his country, peoples, and religion very well and with great impact. First, to be discussed is his life birth through the present. He was born at a very early age on February 17, 1929, in New York, New York to Benjamin and Mollie Potok. The first university he went to was Yeshiva University where he graduated in 1950 with a B.A., summa cum laude, in English Literature. He also went to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America where he left with an M.H.L. and a rabbinic ordination in 1954. Finally, he graduated the University of Pennsylvania with a doctorate in philosophy in 1965. Mr. Potok is married now since June 8, 1958, to Adena Sara Mosevitzsky. They have 3 children Rena, Chaim worked for the better of his people and religion with both his occupations and his writings. He worked as an instructor at the University of Judaism 1957 to 1959. He was on the faculty of the Teachers Institute, Jewish Theological Seminary from 1964 to 1965. He was also editor-in-chief of the Jewish Publication Society of America 1965 to 1974. He is currently the chairman of the Publication Committee at The Jewish Publications Society. Chaim Potok also served his people and religion through all of his writings which are all in some way related to or involve Judaism. Now, to go in-depth into his writings. First, his novels. The first novel Potok wrote was The Chosen, which won him the Edward Lewis Wallant award, in 1969, here is a quotation about that book: "So why did Potok's book make such a heavy impression on me?... he takes a meager story, told in plain words, about two Jewish boys who are radically unlike me and turns it into something so universal I couldn't help getting pulled in by it. " -Lea Davis The next novel he wrote was the sequel to The Chosen, The Promise, in 1969, which also won him an award, The Athenaeum Prize. After that, he wrote My Name is Asher Lev in 1972. His next novel In the Beginning was written in 1975. Then he wrote The Book of Lights in 1981. In 1985 he wrote Davita's Harp. In 1990 he wrote The Gift of Asher Lev which won him The National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. Which brings us to his most recent novel I Am the Clay from 1992. Chaim Potok also wrote a couple of children's books The Tree of Here and The Sky of Now in 1993 and 1995 respectively. The Life and Work of Chaim Potok :: essays research papers The Life and Work of Chaim Potok Chaim Potok lives a very full life he has served his country, peoples, and religion very well and with great impact. First, to be discussed is his life birth through the present. He was born at a very early age on February 17, 1929, in New York, New York to Benjamin and Mollie Potok. The first university he went to was Yeshiva University where he graduated in 1950 with a B.A., summa cum laude, in English Literature. He also went to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America where he left with an M.H.L. and a rabbinic ordination in 1954. Finally, he graduated the University of Pennsylvania with a doctorate in philosophy in 1965. Mr. Potok is married now since June 8, 1958, to Adena Sara Mosevitzsky. They have 3 children Rena, Chaim worked for the better of his people and religion with both his occupations and his writings. He worked as an instructor at the University of Judaism 1957 to 1959. He was on the faculty of the Teachers Institute, Jewish Theological Seminary from 1964 to 1965. He was also editor-in-chief of the Jewish Publication Society of America 1965 to 1974. He is currently the chairman of the Publication Committee at The Jewish Publications Society. Chaim Potok also served his people and religion through all of his writings which are all in some way related to or involve Judaism. Now, to go in-depth into his writings. First, his novels. The first novel Potok wrote was The Chosen, which won him the Edward Lewis Wallant award, in 1969, here is a quotation about that book: "So why did Potok's book make such a heavy impression on me?... he takes a meager story, told in plain words, about two Jewish boys who are radically unlike me and turns it into something so universal I couldn't help getting pulled in by it. " -Lea Davis The next novel he wrote was the sequel to The Chosen, The Promise, in 1969, which also won him an award, The Athenaeum Prize. After that, he wrote My Name is Asher Lev in 1972. His next novel In the Beginning was written in 1975. Then he wrote The Book of Lights in 1981. In 1985 he wrote Davita's Harp. In 1990 he wrote The Gift of Asher Lev which won him The National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. Which brings us to his most recent novel I Am the Clay from 1992. Chaim Potok also wrote a couple of children's books The Tree of Here and The Sky of Now in 1993 and 1995 respectively.

Predictive Analytics: the Future of Business Intelligence

The market is witnessing an unprecedented shift in business intelligence (BI), largely because of technological innovation and increasing business needs. The latest shift in the BI market is the move from traditional analytics to predictive analytics. Although predictive analytics belongs to the BI family, it is emerging as a distinct new software sector. Analytical tools enable greater transparency, and can find and analyze past and present trends, as well as the hidden nature of data. However, past and present insight and trend information are not enough to be competitive in business. Business organizations need to know more about the future, and in particular, about future trends, patterns, and customer behavior in order to understand the market better. To meet this demand, many BI vendors developed predictive analytics to forecast future trends in customer behavior, buying patterns, and who is coming into and leaving the market and why. Traditional analytical tools claim to have a real 360 ° view of the enterprise or business, but they analyze only historical data—data about what has already happened. Traditional analytics help gain insight for what was right and what went wrong in decision-making. Today’s tools merely provide rear view analysis. However, one cannot change the past, but one can prepare better for the future and decision makers want to see the predictable future, control it, and take actions today to attain tomorrow’s goals. What is Predictive Analytics? Predictive analytics are used to determine the probable future outcome of an event or the likelihood of a situation occurring. It is the branch of data mining concerned with the prediction of future probabilities and trends. Predictive analytics is used to automatically analyze large amounts of data with different variables; it includes clustering, decision trees, market basket analysis, regression modeling, neural nets, genetic algorithms, text mining, hypothesis testing, decision analytics, and more. The core element of predictive analytics is the predictor, a variable that can be measured for an individual or entity to predict future behavior. For example, a credit card company could consider age, income, credit history, other demographics as predictors when issuing a credit card to determine an applicant’s risk factor. Multiple predictors are combined into a predictive model, which, when subjected to analysis, can be used to forecast future probabilities with an acceptable level of reliability. In predictive modeling, data is collected, a statistical model is formulated, predictions are made, and the model is validated (or revised) as additional data become available. Predictive analytics combine business knowledge and statistical analytical techniques to apply with business data to achieve insights. These insights help organizations understand how people behave as customers, buyers, sellers, distributors, etc. Multiple related predictive models can produce good insights to make strategic company decisions, like where to explore new markets, acquisitions, and retentions; find up-selling and cross-selling opportunities; and discovering areas that can improve security and fraud detection. Predictive analytics indicates not only what to do, but also how and when to do it, and to explain what-if scenarios. A Microscopic and Telescopic View of Your Data Predictive analytics employs both a microscopic and telescopic view of data allowing organizations to see and analyze the minute details of a business, and to peer into the future. Traditional BI tools cannot accomplish this functionality. Traditional BI tools work with the assumptions one creates, and then will find if the statistical patterns match those assumptions. Predictive analytics go beyond those assumptions to discover previously unknown data; it then looks for patterns and associations anywhere and everywhere between seemingly disparate information. Let’s use the example of a credit card company operating a customer loyalty program to describe the application of predictive analytics. Credit card companies try to retain their existing customers through loyalty programs. The challenge is predicting the loss of customer. In an ideal world, a company can look into the future and take appropriate action before customers switch to competitor companies. In this case, one can build a predictive model employing three predictors: frequency of use, personal financial situations, and lower annual percentage rate (APR) offered by competitors. The combination of these predictors creates a predictive model, which works to find patterns and associations. This predictive model can be applied to customers who are start using their cards less frequently. Predictive analytics would classify these less frequent users differently than the regular users. It would then find the pattern of card usage for this group and predict a probable outcome. The predictive model could identify patterns between card usage; changes in one’s personal financial situation; and the lower APR offered by competitors. In this situation, the predictive analytics model can help the company to identify who are those unsatisfied customers. As a result, company’s can respond in a timely manner to keep those clients loyal by offering them attractive promotional services to sway them away from switching to a competitor. Predictive analytics could also help organizations, such as government agencies, banks, immigration departments, video clubs etc. , achieve their business aims by using internal and external data. On-line books and music stores also take advantage of predictive analytics. Many sites provide additional consumer information based on the type of book one purchased. These additional details are generated by predictive analytics to potentially up-sell customers to other related products and services. Predictive Analytics and Data Mining The future of data mining lies in predictive analytics. However, the terms data mining and data extraction are often confused with each other in the market. Data mining is more than data extraction It is the extraction of hidden predictive information from large databases or data warehouses. Data mining, also known as knowledge-discovery in databases, is the practice of automatically searching large stores of data for patterns. To do this, data mining uses computational techniques from statistics and pattern recognition. On the other hand, data extraction is the process of pulling data from one data source and loading them into a targeted database; for example, it pulls data from source or legacy system and loading data into standard database or data warehouse. Thus the critical difference between the two is data mining looks for patterns in data. A predictive analytical model is built by data mining tools and techniques. Data mining tools extract data by accessing massive databases and then they process the data with advance algorithms to find hidden patterns and predictive information. Though there is an obvious connection between statistics and data mining, because methodologies used in data mining have originated in fields other than statistics. Data mining sits at the common borders of several domains, including data base management, artificial intelligence, machine learning, pattern recognition, and data visualization. Common data mining techniques include artificial neural networks, decision trees, genetic algorithms, nearest neighbor method, and rule induction. Major Predictive Analytics Vendors Some vendors have been in the predictive analytical tools sector for decades; others have recently emerged. This section will briefly discuss the capabilities of key vendors in predictive analytics. SAS SAS is one of the leaders in predictive analytics. Though it is a latecomer to BI, SAS started making tools for statistical analysis at least thirty years prior, which has helped it to move into data mining and create predictive analytic tools. Its application, SAS Enterprise Miner, streamlines the entire data mining process from data access to model deployment by supporting all necessary tasks within a single, integrated solution. Delivered as a distributed client-server system, it is well suited for data mining in large organizations. SAS provides financial, forecasting, and statistical analysis tools critical for problem-solving and competitive agility. SAS is geared towards power users, and is difficult to learn. Additionally, in terms of real-time analytics, building dashboards and scorecards, SAS is a laggard compared to competitors like Cognos, Business Objects, and Hyperion; however, its niche product in data mining and predictive analytics has made it stand out of the crowd. SPSS SPSS Inc. is another leader in providing predictive analytics software and solutions. Founded in 1968, SPSS has a long history of creating programs for statistical analysis in social sciences. SPSS today is known more as a predictive analytics software developer than statistical analysis software. SPSS has played a thought-leadership role in the emergence of predictive analytics, showcasing predictive analytics as an important, distinct segment within the broader business intelligence software sector. SPSS performs almost all general statistical analyses (regression, logistic regression, survival analysis, analysis of variance, factor analysis, and multivariate nalysis) and now has a full set of data mining and predictive analytical tools. Though the program comes in modules, it is necessary to have the SPSS Base System in order to fully benefit from the product. SPSS focuses on ease; thus beginners enjoy it, while power users may quickly outgrow it. SPSS is strong in the area of graphics, and weak in more cutting edge statistical procedures and lacks robust methods a nd survey methods. The latest SPSS 14. 0 release has improved links to third-party data sources and programming languages. Insightful Along similar lines is Insightful Corporation, a supplier of software and services for statistical data analysis, data mining of numeric, and text data. It delivers software and solutions for predictive analytics and provides enterprises with scalable data analysis solutions that drive better decisions by revealing patterns, trends, and relationships. Insightful’s S-PLUS 7, is a standard software platform for statistical data analysis and predictive analytics. Designed with an open architecture and flexible interfaces, S-PLUS 7 is an ideal platform for integrating advanced statistical techniques into existing business processes. Another tool offered by Insightful is Insightful Miner, a data mining tool. Its ability to scale to large data sets in an accessible manner in one of its strengths. Insightful Miner is also a good tool for data import/export, data exploration, and data cleansing tasks, and its reduces dimensionality prior to modeling. While it has powerful reporting and modeling capabilities, it has relatively low levels of automation StatSoft Inc. StatSoft, Inc. is a global provider of analytic software. Its flagship product is Statistica, a suite of analytics software products. Statistica provides comprehensive array of data analysis, data management, data visualization and data mining procedures. Its features include the wide selection of predictive modeling, clustering, classification and exploratory techniques made available in one software platform. Because of its open architecture, it is highly customizable and can be tailored to meet very specific and demanding analysis requirements. Statistica has a relatively easy to use graphical programming user interface, and provides tools for all common data mining tasks; however, its charts are not easily available for the evaluation of neural net models. Statistica Data Miner another solution that offers a collection comprehensive data mining solutions. It is one of two suites that provides a support vector machine (SVM), which provides the framework for modeling learning algorithms. Knowledge Extractions Engines (KXEN) Knowledge Extraction Engines (KXEN) is the other vendor that provides a suite that includes SVM. KXEN is a global provider of business analytics software. Its self-named tool, KXEN provides (SVM) and merges the fields of machine learning and statistics. KXEN Analytic Framework is a suite of predictive and descriptive modeling engines that create analytic models. It places the latest data mining technology within reach of business decision makers and data mining professionals. The key components of KXEN are robust regression, smart segmenter, time series, association rules, support vector machine, consistent coder, sequence coder, model export, and event log. One can embed the KXEN data mining tool into existing enterprise applications and business processes. No advanced technical knowledge is required to create and deploy models and KXEN is highly accurate data mining tool and it is almost fully automatic. However, one record must be submitted for every entity that must be modeled, and this record must contain a clean data set. Unica Affinium Model is Unica’s data mining tool. It is used for response modeling to understand and anticipate customer behavior. Unica is enterprise marketing management (EMM) software vendor and Affinium Model is a core component of the market-leading Affinium EMM software suite. The software empowers marketing professionals to recognize and predict customer behaviors and preferences—and use that information to develop relevant, profitable, and customer-focused marketing strategies and interactions. The automatic operation of the modeling engine shields the user from many data mining operations that must be manually performed by users of other packages, including a choice of algorithms. Affinium is an easy to use response modeling product on the market and is suitable for the non-data miner or statistician, who lacks statistical and graphical knowledge. New variables can be derived in the spreadsheet with a rich set of macro functions; however, the solution lacks data exploration tools and data preparation functions. Angoss Software Corporation Another leading provider of data mining and predictive analytics tools is Angoss Software Corporation. Its products provide information on customer behavior and marketing initiatives to help in the development of business strategies. Main products include KnowledgeSTUDIO and KnowledgeSEEKER, which are data mining and predictive analytics tools. The company also offers customized training to its clients, who are primarily in the financial services industry. Angoss developed industry specific predictive analytics software like Angoss Expands FundGuard, Angoss Telecom Marketing Analytics, and Angoss Claims & Payments Analytics. Apart from financial industry Angoss software is used by telecom, life sciences, and retail organizations. Fair Isaac Corporation Along similar lines, Fair Isaac Corporation is the leading provider of credit scoring systems. The firm offers statistics-based predictive tools for the consumer credit industry. Model Builder 2. 1 addresses predictive analytics, and is an advanced modeling platform specifically designed to jump-start the predictive modeling process, enabling rapid development, and deployment of predictive models into enterprise-class decision applications. Fair Isaac's analytic and decision-management products and services are used around the world, and include applicant scoring for insurers, and financial risk and database management products for financial concerns. IBM Not to be left out, the world’s largest information and technology company, IBM also offers predictive analytics tools. DB2 Intelligent Miner for Data is a predictive analytical tool and can be used to gain new business insights and to harvest valuable business intelligence from enterprise data. Intelligent Miner for Data mines high-volume transaction data generated by point-of-sale, automatic transfer machine (ATM), credit card, call center, or e-commerce activities. It better equips an organization to make insightful decisions, whether the problem is how to develop more precisely targeted marketing campaigns, reduce customer attrition, or increase revenue generated by Internet shopping. The Intelligent Miner Scoring is built as an extension to the DB2 tool and works directly from the relational database. It accelerates the data mining process, resulting in the ability to make quicker decisions from a host of culled data. Additionally, because D2B Intelligent Miner Scoring is compatible with Oracle databases, companies no longer have to wait for Oracle to incorporate business intelligence capabilities into their database product. User Recommendations Depending on an organization’s needs, some predictive analytics tools will be more relevant than others. Each has its strengths and weakness and can be highly industry-and model-specific—the algorithms and models built for one industry are not applicable to other industries. Financial industries, for example, have different models than what are used in manufacturing and research industries. Selecting the appropriate predictive analytics tools is not a simple task. The following capabilities must be taken into consideration: algorithm richness, degree of automation, scalability, model portability, web enablement, ease of use, and the capability to access large data sets. The more diversified the business, the more functions and unique models are required. Model portability is important even within different business units in the same company. The scalability of the solution and its ability to handle expanded functionality should also be verified and based on a business’ growth. The tools also have to be tested by the right experts. To understand and interpret predictive analytics results, one has to be knowledgeable about statistical modeling. One should look for the main functions and features of the tool and try to match them with their main requirements, as well as measure the trade off between functionality and cost. For example, some functionalities might be more important for some companies and less important for others. Buyers should also beware. Although marketing campaigns for predictive analytics solutions claim †ease of use†, these tools are not for beginners. Users require extensive training and expertise to use the core functionalities of the predictive analytics solutions, such as identifying data, building the predictive model with right predictors, data mining knowledge to align with business strategy etc. Furthermore, predictive analytics automates model building, but does not automate the integration of business processes and knowledge. Thus expertise and training are required to evaluate the best software relevant to an organization’s unique business model. Nonetheless, if a company has or is willing to attain the expertise required to use predictive analytics it can definitely benefit from the tool. Although most large enterprises use some sort of traditional BI tool or platform, their tools do not provide predictive analytics functionality. Incorporating predictive analytics into an existing BI infrastructure can provide organizations’ a competitive advantage in their industry. Consequently, the integration of BI tools is a key consideration when selecting a predictive analytical tool, as is its integration with key applications such as enterprise resource planning, (ERP), customer resource management (CRM), and supply chain management (SCM) etc. Ultimately, since predictive analytics is currently the only way to analyze and monitor the business trends of the past, present, and future, selecting the right tool can be a key success factor in your BI strategy. About the author Mukhles Zaman has more than twenty five years experience in the IT industry specializing in business intelligence (BI), customer relationship management (CRM), project management, database design, and reporting software. He is a leading BI expert and has worked as a senior project manager on IT projects for Fortune 1000 companies in India, the Middle East, US, and Canada. He has also developed call center systems, software architecture, and portfolio management systems. He holds an MA in Economics, and a BA in Economics and Statistics from the University of Dhaka and is an Oracle Certified Professional. He can be reached at [email  protected] com.