Me, Myself and I Essay

My Family, I admit I had a big family. My family is not perfect like others. Well, I just say that we are living well. Ate at least 3x a day, wear a normal dresses bond with them at least once a month. However, sometimes we did not expect some circumstances and trials that came into our lives. Although we are not complete, we did not lose hope instead, we kept holding each other’s hand, always pray unto God to support and never let go of us, and give us enough strength to face it. That is all I can tell about my family. I do not want to talk about some stuffs regarding about my family because it is kindda controversial. Ok I’ll get to introduce myself first. HAHA†¼ I am Kaye Osorio Bautista, 15 years of age. Likes? Well am not that kind of brat person if they do like me, I like them too. If they do not like me, I guess I do not like them too. That is my attitude always depends on person on how you are going to treat me. I had many of friends. Real friends I guess? Maybe because am just being so true for them. In my everyday’s lives I can’t control myself being prank with them †¦ even though am that kind of person, they still love me so I loved them back. My friends call me any kind of endearment they want or just my name. Humble, kind, silly, youthful, adorable, naughty, talkative, joyful, sometimes sweet, lovable, and bossy HAHA†¼ That’s all I can say about me and I’m very proud of being me. My future Plans. After being licensed Police of course, I used to get my stable work. Earn moneys, help my family and also I’m planning to take a short-term course which is Culinary Arts, because for me eating sweets are my stress relievers and I want to know about more pasturing . Example of essay about myself.

Consumer Decision Making Process for Purchasing Property in Spain Essay

This study has investigated the decision process of consumers purchasing property in Spain. The report focused on the underlying reasons for purchasing a property in Spain, the methods used by the purchaser to gather information and the overall satisfaction with the purchase process. The intention of the report was to link current theories on consumer purchasing behaviour to the purchase of property abroad. The methodology used was deductive research using a survey approach. The questionnaire was analysed by a means of Chi square and variable comparisons. The results were collected using a postal and an email questionnaire. The investigation revealed a clear link between the level of satisfaction of the purchase process and the level of information and advice sought. The report concluded that the majority of respondents from the questionnaire purchased their property abroad as a holiday home and purchased from an estate agent. The gathering of information and the seeking of advice was prevalent among most respondents; this was reflected in satisfaction levels and the overall purchase experience. The majority of consumers were overall, satisfied with their purchase. However, if given the opportunity to repeat the purchase, most stated they would change something about the process they followed. Many stated they would not use a Spanish agent again due to experiencing communication problems. This area gives scope for future research in order to establish why communication weaknesses are present in the supply of Spanish properties to British citizens.

Globalization of hospitality industry Essay

A service is an activity which has some element of intangibility associated with it, which involves some interaction with customer. The service is unique component in hospitality which is a universal component with the distinct requirements even in New York or New Delhi. The advent of globalization has created new destinations and opportunities to explore. The new business opportunities like outsourcing business to new regions will provide ample opportunities to the services. Every destination has its won distinct characteristics to deal with. The acceptance of your service depends upon the way the organisation responds in creating the native environment. The important aspects that a guest perceives in hospitality industry are the Ambience, the quality of service, the features on offer. An organisation to internationalize needs a series of factors to look into The custom made services, Location preference, the entry norms and the modes of entry. The more the people move to exploit the business opportunities world wide the more will be the need for services. The hotels and the others related leisure services are essentials for these businessmen moving far. The MNC’s has to know the regions where there is greater movement of population and where there is need to establish the hotel services in view of the international client. The establishment importantly should keep an eye on the local requirements without hurting the native custom. The organizations have to touch a right balance with international quality services with local touch to magnify the uniqueness of the service offered. The new regions will enhance the business proportions, increase the profitability, ease the competitive pressure on the group. The entry norms leverage the hotels group to enter a new destination with ease. The common entry norms are acquisition, jointventures, leasing, franchising and management contracts. The modes enable to retain the clientele base of the target company, helps in understanding the consumer base quickly. The above strategies decrease the settling time as it is more like taking forward the same brand with a new look. Thus the hotel groups should concentrate more on developing strong local brand with international standard. The more you adopt to the market the more will be the returns. Reference: Li Wei, Integration and globalization of hotel industry, viewed on Jan 26, 2007 available at http://fld. dlut. edu. cn/TeachAndReasch/TR_disp. asp? id=220

Legalizing marijuana Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Legalizing marijuana - Essay Example There is evidence that it can be effective in addressing the symptoms of cancer, Aids, and other multiple conditions. Studies show that, marijuana helps to reduce stress, and it can be used to numb the body during the simple surgeries (Gerber 46). Analysis of the marijuana plant reveals that it contains plant chemicals that have medicinal values. In addition, legalizing Marijuana can serve as a way of decreasing the crime rate and combating it as well. This will also help in the reduction of overcrowding in prisons. This is because statistics indicate that 750,000 arrests yearly are related to marijuana. Colorado is one of the states that legalized marijuana, and the studies showed that the crime rate decreased by 3.3%, after the first month of legalizing it. This serves to prove that the legalization of marijuana presents more benefits (57). On the other hand, the legalization of marijuana can have adverse effects on the society. The fact that marijuana can alter the brain functions may lead to increased mental disorders. This in turn can serve to increase the rate of crime in the society by registering more robberies, accidents, and murder (60). Notably, legalizing marijuana may promote its abuse by adolescents, destroying the future of the society. In conclusion, the legalization of marijuana is an ongoing debate among governments because while the drug is deemed harmful and illegal, it could save the governments billions of money. The pro side of the legalization claims that it is useful in the medical field, and it can contribute to the reduction of overcrowding in prisons. The benefits of legalizing marijuana would help the government to save money, which they can be used to fund other

The use of managerial accounting in any industry Essay

The use of managerial accounting in any industry - Essay Example This accounting branch embraces accounting systems, methods, and techniques that can help the organization maximize its profits or minimize losses. Scholars opine that management accounting is the presentation of accounting information in a way that would assist the top management to create potential policies for managing its daily operations. Management accounting is not confined to financial management information, but it is about comprehensive information about overall organizational activities. It is evident that financial management alone is not capable of providing necessary information for performing managerial functions effectively. In contrast, management accounting is able to provide key information about cost, profits, and factors which are useful for the management to discharge their functions effectively. Management accounting can be considered as an extension of the management aspects of the cost accounting, and it is based on the principles of both cost accounting and financial accounting. It seems that management accounting is relevant to fast growing sectors like automotive industry because those sectors need an uninterrupted flow of various information to ensure improved value chain efficiency. This paper will explore the uses of managerial accounting tools in the automotive industry with particular reference given to management accounting practices in Toyota Motor Corporation. ... ute of Management Accountants (IMA), â€Å"management accounting is a profession that involves partnering in management decision making, devising planning and performance management systems, and providing expertise in financial reporting and control to assist management in the formulation and implementation of an organization’ strategy† (â€Å"definition of..†). The management accounting information is different from financial accounting information in several aspects. The management accounting information is basically forward-looking whereas financial accounting information is primarily historical. In addition, managerial accounting information is model based and is particularly intended to support decision making. This type of information is generally intended for the use by business managers but not by stockholders, creditors, or the general public. Therefore, managerial accounting information is highly confidential in nature. According to the American Institu te of Certified Public Accountants, the practice of management accounting is spread to other three areas such as strategic management, performance management, and risk management. Strategic management is about promoting the management accountant’s role as a strategic partner in the organization whereas performance management deals with improving the performance efficiency of the organization constantly. The risk management is vital to identify and manage risks that constitute a potential obstacle to the achievement of the organization’s long term objectives. A management accountant uses his professional knowledge, experience, and expertise to assist the company management to frame strategic policies and to improve operational efficiency and thereby promote value creation. Therefore, management accountants

Community assigment Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Community assigment - Assignment Example Such drugs generally cause the victim to experience illusions and destabilize their mental capacities making them vulnerable to carry out acts that can be seen as immoral or even illegal. In most cases, the community and the family members of the drug addict are the ones most hit. Drug addict parents have been known to subject their children to verbal or even physical abuse. Furthermore, the children might not be able to have that parental connection to their parents that they so much need as they grow up (Cheperon, 2010). There is even a greater potential problem that is bound to happen; kids who grow up in families where parents or guardians abuse drugs are likely to take up substance abuse since they learn to see it as a normal thing to do. The community where such people with substance abuse issues live in will not develop. The development of the communities we live in depends on a number of aspects ranging from moral stands, education, and innovative skills (Cheperon, 2010). All these aspects need one to be able to be in the right mindset, which can be hard if they abuse drugs. Among the problems we face today globally, many of them can be traced back to substance abuse as their root causes. Unwanted teenage pregnancies, new HIV infections, domestic violence and abuse against children are just but a few of these problems. It all goes down to mental incapacitation that is brought about by psychoactive substances. When a teenager smokes marijuana, for instance, their perception of what is around them becomes disoriented; eventually they will lack a physical coordination and make unthoughtful judgments. All this makes them become easy targets for rape, or they might even engage in unprotected sexual interactions, which can lead to either unwanted pregnancies or infection of HIV, and in most cases both (Ann, 2012). Domestic violence and child abuse falls in a more parental level since it

Methods of research that warrant the use of qualitative research Essay

Methods of research that warrant the use of qualitative research methods in Criminal Justice - Essay Example Qualitative research is deemed as the more superior way with which to conduct important and meaningful research in the field of criminal justice/security management. Qualitative research methods provide several advantages which enhance the intensity of understanding with regard to the operations of justice system; criminals and crime as well as allowing for data processing that supersedes statistically oriented conclusions arrived at through the use of quantitative research methods. This mainly because of the difference in information due to the means of data collection applied, data analysis which generally provides a wealth of information on subjects being studied. Knowledge gained therein provides more information, is richer and allows for more concrete understanding. In this paper, I intend to discuss and analyze the types of research that warrant the use of qualitative methods in criminal justice/security management research.... myriad of intellectual techniques so as to effectively and efficiently facilitate for the organization, management, analysis and interpretation of data collected. Researchers in criminal justice/ security management use qualitative research which accords them the challenge to look for meaningful ways with which the acquired data can be produce workable trends and patterns required for meaningful research (Copes, Brown & Tewksbury, 2011). It is important to note that there are of course generally accepted guidelines in qualitative research which offer guidance as to how researchers can apply qualitative data information, actual tasks, and undertakings of data and information gathering, analysis as well as interpretation while ensuring an acceptable degree of innovativeness and creativity. Data collected and applied in qualitative research is sourced from a variety of data collection methods. These types include individual interviews, observing people, social interactions and place, an alysis of various forms of media, content guided conversations with regard to focus groups and personal engagements with respects to research sample settings in an effort to better understand how, where, when and what social interactions and social structures affect criminal justice/security management research studies (Copes, Brown & Tewksbury, 2011). Each and every one of these types of data collection differ, more so with the source and origin of data as well as in the means with which researchers carry out real time tasks towards the collection of raw data while also comparing these with similar and regularly realized events things and or situations. Interviews Interviews are in a nutshell structured conversations carried out by researchers with individual members of society in an

Malleus Maleficarum forum 12 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Malleus Maleficarum forum 12 - Essay Example The male chauvinistic society maligned women they considered influential. In the prosecution of witches, the society prosecuted a number of innocent women owing to their beliefs and attempts to defend such beliefs. In the 17th century, a number of women were drawn to witchcraft since the practice gained them some authority. The most common argument was that the evil spirit seduced women. The spirits of witchcraft and sorcery would always seek sexual gratification from women and would therefore entice the women into accepting them by peddling a number of pleasantries. Additionally, Women craved authority and influence at the time. The practice provided a degree of authority and was often beneficial since it offered ways of overcoming some common challenges such as health complications. However, the society limited the liberties for women. As such, some women married male witches thereby inheriting the practice from their old husbands. The practice of witchery thus became a major attraction since it made the women sources of authority; women became both powerful and invincible in the

The Critical Review EssayOn the Titanic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Critical Review EssayOn the Titanic - Essay Example This essay declares that the theme of trust is the underpinning them in the film is the theme of sacrifice presented as an evolving phenomenon that coils itself around romance. Cameron uses romance to bring the theme of sacrifice and he illustrates this by the relationship between Jack and Rose. These two very young people each other and starting having something common that developed into friendship. This friendship grows into trust. Trust is the lifeline to any romantic relationship, and this trust does not have to be based on anything, it can be just about people who trust each other, not because they know each other too well, but because they are yearning for love and companionship. This paper makes a conclusion that the best way to test trust is sacrifice; if you are trustworthy, you would do anything for me. This becomes more evident at the end of the film. Rose sacrifices her freedom and even endangers her life by going to the bottom of the ship where jack is shackled (which is dangerous considering that the ship was sinking and the last place anyone would like to be is at the bottom deck). The theme of sacrifice is further depicted when Jack chooses to sacrifice his life so as Rose would carry one. At this point, their love and romance is sealed, there is no doubt beyond this that they are on love, to the point of willing to die for each other.

Idolatry Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Idolatry - Essay Example The meaning of the term ‘idolatry’ seems to change depending upon the intentions of the individual employing it.   The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as â€Å"the worship of a physical object as a god† or â€Å"immoderate attachment or devotion to something† (â€Å"Idolatry†, 2007).   The actual employment of that term, though, differs greatly depending upon whether one is approaching it from the perspective of the Hebrew tradition, in which the form of God is unknowable and thus impossible to represent through any kind of image or object, and the Christian tradition, in which the term is applied to any object that is not associated with the true God.     These two viewpoints are explored here in greater detail.The meaning of the term ‘idolatry’ seems to change depending upon the intentions of the individual employing it.   The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as â€Å"the worship of a physical object as a god† or â€Å"immoderate attachment or devotion to something† (â€Å"Idolatry†, 2007).   The actual employment of that term, though, differs greatly depending upon whether one is approaching it from the perspective of the Hebrew tradition, in which the form of God is unknowable and thus impossible to represent through any kind of image or object, and the Christian tradition, in which the term is applied to any object that is not associated with the true God.     These two viewpoints are explored here in greater detail. According to the Hebrew conception of the term, the proper approach to the term ‘idolatry’ is one of strict definition and persistent vigilance.   God’s very shapelessness or indefinable nature thus makes it impossible for him to be represented by any shape or form that might be imagined.   Likewise, there are no shapes or forms that can take the place of God in the material world.   This approach definitely includes the Chr istian tradition of representing the image of Christ and the Catholic traditions regarding the form of the Virgin Mary.   â€Å"Worshipping G-d in the form of a man would constitute idolatry for a Jew; however, according to some sources, the Christian worship of Jesus does not constitute idolatry for non-Jews† (Rich, 2006).   It can be seen that the definition of idolatry used by the Hebrew people conforms strictly to the directives laid out in Exodus 20:3-4: â€Å"Thou shalt have no other gods before me.   Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thy self to them, nor serve them.†Ã‚   Under this definition, any actions that combine serving the idol, such as offering it gifts or sacrifices, that demonstrate love or devotion with any kind of ceremony or ritual can be considered an idolatrous action (Dolphin, 2004).  

Aircraft Crash Survival Analysis and Design Essay

Aircraft Crash Survival Analysis and Design - Essay Example While the paper dwells on the basics operation and construction of ejection seat, it also brings out new developments in the field. Emergency escape from a malfunctioning aircraft is of utmost importance for any Air Force. The cost of training a fighter pilot is prohibitive and time taken for him to become operational is significant. Therefore all efforts have to be made to save a fighter pilot from the malfunctioning aircraft. In the older era, the aircraft envelope was fairly limited. The speeds of the pre World War I fighters were low enough to permit manual bail out, where in, the pilot jumps out of the aircraft with parachutes on. However, the modern day fighter class of aircraft operates at speeds beyond Mach .2.0 and at altitudes from Ultra Low Levels (30m) to beyond 60,000’. The kind of maneuvers performed by the fighter pilots during operations leave little margin of error. Flying at such envelope, it would be impossible for a fighter pilot to bail out from the aircraft manually. Therefore ejection seats are a must for a safe escape from the malfunctioning aircraft. The ejection seats not only pr ovide a means of escape from the malfunctioning aircraft, but also house the Pilot Survival Pack which contains adequate reserve equipment for the pilot to survive for about 48 hours till rescue arrives. The type of survival pack would depend on the type of terrain over which the pilot is expected to operate namely jungle, snow or water. The first bungee assisted escape from an aircraft took place as early as 1910. Earliest example of ejection seat was a seat using compressed air, patented in 1916 by Everard Calthrop. The current design for ejection seat is attributable to Romanian inventor Anastase Dragomir. Dragomir patented his "catapult-able cockpit" at the French Patent Office (patent no. 678566, of April 2, 1930, Nouveau systà ¨me de montage des parachutes dans les appareils de locomotion aà ©rienne). This design was successfully tested on

Future of Rural Communities Essay Example for Free

Future of Rural Communities Essay Will today’s small rural towns be the ghost towns of tomorrow? Will what’s now a moderately busy main street be overtaken by grasses and tumbleweeds? According to the CEDS â€Å"Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy†, which was compiled in 2003 by the South Central Economic Development District, Franklin County ranks last in housing unit counts, wage and salary income, employer establishments. County population has declined over 34% from 5,449 in 1960 to 3,574 in 2000. Is the future of Franklin, Nebraska a steady decline with an end as a ghost town in the future? Franklin has a chance to reverse this trend with lots of community involvement, and by taking immediate action. There are many obstacles in the way of meeting the goal of making our small communities more livable and desirable. In the case of Franklin, there is a core group that has been in charge for many years and that is not easily convinced of the need to change. â€Å"Why change what has worked for many years? is only one of the questions that are heard many times. People don’t understand that in order to attract new families to move into our community, there has to be something to draw their attention to the area. Resistance to change is one of the greatest obstacles people that try to introduce change to small towns face (Gorman). Here in Franklin, ideas are often turned down, only because they may have come from an â€Å"outsider†. In this small town, everyone that has not been born in the community or in the next few towns up or down the river valley is an outsider. Unfortunately a distrust of strangers and their motives can be a great hindrance when making an effort to encourage growth. Massive change in a community often requires a great financial effort, and funds that are not readily available to communities. Often the city council votes against a project because of lack of money in the community. They are unaware that there may be grant money available for community improvement projects, or that someone in the community may feel strongly enough about a project to finance it with a donation. Problems must be dealt with honestly in order to find solutions that work. To turn ideas into concrete plans, a professional economic planner may be needed. There may be people within the community that are already equipped to do the necessary research and work with the many State-run and private organizations that are available to assist with rural development. Another option is to get together with other towns that may face the same problems, or have already taken forward steps to becoming a thriving community. Another secret to success lies in supporting existing businesses and encouraging entrepreneurs to follow their dreams (Brhel 1). A local bank that is open to working with new and existing businesses can be a great asset in keeping businesses in town and gaining new business ventures. Filling empty storefronts on main-street and keeping existing businesses open is a vital part of keeping downtown alive. Making a plan for business succession is another priority. There needs to be a plan for what happens when owners of existing businesses retire, in order to keep these businesses from permanently closing. Isolated counties may not be able to attract large businesses, due to a lack of skilled workers. It may be wise for small towns in these counties to attract families with an array of recreational opportunities. (Duggan, 12) Many workers are not tied to their office anymore; telecommuting and the internet give them the choice to live where they want to live. Making a community an interesting place with many recreational opportunities and marketing these opportunities can interest new families. The promise of affordable living with a great quality of life could act as a magnet to newcomers. There are many requirements that have to be met in order to turn a small rural town around. It takes people with a vision to see a potential in such a town. The community needs to pull together and find a group of volunteers that are also concerned with the community’s progression (Brhel, 2). It helps to find volunteers that are involved only in a limited amount of activities, since â€Å"professional volunteers† are often stretched so thin that they do not have the necessary time and energy that needs to be invested in community activism. A strong leader is needed to encourage volunteers but who is also able to deal with city and state officials. Franklin has found such a strong leader in Jim Gorman, who only moved to town about three years ago, after marrying Randee Emerson, a longtime Franklin resident. After living here in the community for a while he noticed that there are many individuals within our community that are quite willing to work hard for the community. He also noticed that there are many civic and other organizations in town that are basically idle or inactive. He founded the County Stimulation Initiative for Franklin County (CSI Franklin), an organization that is concerned with stimulating the growth, and improving the health and well being of our community on an economic and quality of life basis (Gorman). Jim Gorman is active in a number of organizations that have the economic growth of rural towns at heart. His activism in this town is strengthened by his being associated with the South Central Nebraska Economic Development District, a consortium of twelve rural Nebraska counties who see improving rural economies as a regional rather than purely local issue(SCEDD). CSI Franklin is what Gorman calls his group. They have already taken action in modernizing some signs at the local museum, and are now working on new museum exhibits and on the preservation of current artifacts. The Franklin Museum now also offers broadband internet access that was made possible with the help from Glenwood Communications. A new community website will help market the city of Franklin, and hopefully instill an interest in people to relocate to this area. Gorman states he hopes that by marketing our fantastic hunting opportunities, and our wonderful quality of life, marketing the modern workplace with broadband internet access for telecommuters and new businesses, people will be attracted to this area, and we will see an influx in people moving to this area. Possible future projects include restoration and renovation of the Dupre Music Hall, a historic building in the middle of the Franklin City Park and the Lincoln Hotel, a three story structure that was built in 1918 and is in dire need of repair. Both buildings are not usable at this time, but would make wonderful community centers. Making either one of them useable would be a great enrichment to this town. It would also instill a sense of pride in the people of this town, which might make them more likely to volunteer for community improvement projects. With a handful of dedicated volunteers, a good leader, and a solid plan, Franklin has a good chance of not only survival, but may even have the opportunity to flourish. There are many resources available to us and we need to make good use of them. Organizations like CSI, SCEDD, the University of Nebraska Rural Initiative are there to assist with these activities, and people like Jim Gorman are essential in reaching our goals.

Porosity Architecture in Public Spaces

Porosity Architecture in Public Spaces Introduction The connection between the built and the unbuilt / between the â€Å"indoor† and the â€Å"outdoor†/ between the mass and the void is a very sensitive and debatable topic. The experience of a space can be severely affected by the ways its edges are treated, i.e. by controlling how a person enters/exits the space. Transitional experience plays a vital role in overall feel and experience of spaces. Different types of spaces require different types of treatments on their edge conditions. A city needs to be imagined as a space occupied by diverse sets of people with diverse needs and aspirations. The quality of a city has to be judged by what it offers to its residents the right to live, move around and work with dignity and safety. Porosity is one of the many guiding factors in designing a space, specially public places, which are the key strategic spaces in providing the area/city its character. Not only does careful design of such spaces increase the aesthetic quality of the place, but also plays a major role in increasing the standards of functionality, safety, quality and many such factors under which a city can be categorised. Porosity, is one spatial quality that can definitely benefit the public spaces, specially in places like Delhi, where the individual is getting isolated from the community in his efforts to cope up with the pace of life that the city has to offer. Also, with the increasing gap between the two extreme income groups of the city, the spaces, which are meant to be ‘public’, cater only to a certain section of the society, neglecting those which fail to fulfil the ‘entrant requirements’ . Apart from giving spaces back to all the sections of the society, increasing porosity in community spaces can also act as a measure against increasing crime rates in the city, as it opens up the space to a larger section of the society. Topic: Porosity in public spaces Research Question: How can porosity in public spaces be increased to enhance their utility for the society in general ? Public Spaces Public spaces are an inevitable component of human settlements. Parks, plazas, roads, beaches, etc are typically considered public spaces. They are the common ground for people to interact with others, share knowledge or goods, or carry out their daily rituals, be it daily routine or occasional festivities. By definition, they are spaces that should be accessible to all the members of the society, irrespective of their economic strength. It was stated that: Regarding the criterion of access, public space is a place which is open to all. This means its resources, the activities that take place in it, and information about it are available to everybody. Concerning the criterion of agency, public space is a place controlled by public actors (i.e., agents or agencies that act on behalf of a community, city, commonwealth or state) and used by the public (i.e., the people in general). As for interest, public space is a place which serves the public interest (i.e., its benefits are controlled and received by all members of the society) (Akkar, Z 2005).   Ã‚   Of course, these definitions refer to an ideal public space, while the urban atmosphere is not entirely composed of rigidly public and private spaces; instead, it is an amalgamation of public and private spaces with different degrees of publicness. Accepting that the relation between public and private space is a continuum, it is possible to define public spaces as having various degrees of publicness. Regarding the dimensions of access, actor and interest, the extent of publicness will depend on three categories: the degree to which the public space and its resources, as well as the activities occurring in it and information about it, are available to all; the degree to which it is managed and controlled by public actors and used by the public; and the degree to which it serves the public interest. Life in public spaces, not only has a function in the society as a whole, but it is also a rich source of individual amusement, pleasure and play. One criticism of the prevailing socio-functional approach towards urban public space can be that the individuals perspective is often disregarded. To what extent do city dwellers like to meet other urbanites in public places? Hardly any planner, architect or urban administrator seems to be interested in that question. Planners and city councils are eager to speak about public spaces as meeting places. They find it an attractive idea to conceive of public spaces as a unifying element where all sectors of the urban population meet. With the help of that image they can present their cities as communities, despite all the contrasts and differences. Most social scientists dealing with urban public space also tend to regard processes that take place in the public realm as a contribution to the social organization, as a fulfilment of societal nee ds. This top-down-view, however, neglects the daily users perspective. Do city dwellers wish to get together with all their co-urbanites? Everybody who has ever been in a city knows the answer: no, certainly not with everyone. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that at least some individuals derive great pleasure from being in public. Whether a space will function well depends on a range of aspects that include scale, use, safety and comfort, density and links. In many cases it is the individuals experience of walking or dancing down a street, and the quality of environment, that is the most important element. Design then becomes about maximizing choice and trying to provide for different individuals goals. Mitchell, D (1995) adds another dimension to public space by putting forward the point that public spaces are also, and very importantly, spaces for representation. That is, public space is a place within which a political movement can stake out the space that allows it to be seen. In public space, political organizations can represent themselves to a larger population. By claiming space in public, by creating public spaces, social groups themselves become public. Only in public spaces can the homeless, for example, represent themselves as a legitimate part of the public† Public sphere is best imag- ined as the suite of institutions and activities that mediate the relations between society and the state (Howell 1993). Problems with public spaces Despite the resurgence of interest in public spaces, urban design and planning litera- ture has frequently hinted at the diminishing publicness of public spaces in modern cities. Some researchers have pointed out the threat of recent privatization policies, and claimed that public spaces, traditionally open to all segments of the population, are increasingly being developed and managed by private agencies to produce profit for the private sector and serve the interests of particular sections of the population (Punter, J 1990). Others have commented on the high degree of control now maintained over access and use of public spaces through surveillance cameras and other measures intended to improve their security (Reeve, A 1996). Still others have argued that contemporary public spaces increasingly serve a homogenous public and promote social filtering. These open-access public spaces are precious because they enable city residents to move about and engage in recreation and face-to-face communication. But, because an open-access space is one everyone can enter, public spaces are classic sites for tragedy, to invoke Garrett Hardins famous metaphor for a commons (H, Garrrett 1968, cited Ellickson, R 1996) A space that all can enter, however, is a space that each is tempted to abuse. Societies therefore impose rules-of-the-road for public spaces. While these rules are increasingly articulated in legal codes, most begin as informal norms of public etiquette (Taylor, R 1984, cited Ellickson, R 1996). Rules of proper street behaviour are not an impediment to freedom, but a foundation of it (Ellickson, R 1996) Oosterman, J (1992), in his journal Play and Entertainment in Urban Public Space: The Example of the Sidewalk Cafà ©, points out that since 1989, several cities and towns in the Netherlands have invested millions of guilders in the design and redesign of plazas, streets and parks. These designs are also meant to have a social impact. Many discussion sessions are held about the nature of social life in urban public space and its function in the greater urban society. This is the case in debates among policy-makers and planners as well as among social scientists and architects. Although the concepts used in these sessions do not always deserve a prize for clarity, some characteristics appear through the haze: urban public places should be accessible, or even democratic places. Other participants in the discussion about public space do not share this belief in the possibilities of changing urban society by changing its public spaces. Richard Sennett (1990, p.201) for example is rather pessimistic in his latest book The Conscience of the Eye. People no longer seem to be able to cope with the social and cultural differences of the modern city. They maintain their network of personal relations within physically and visibly segregated social worlds: sealed communities as he calls them. According to Sennett, urban public spaces cannot bridge the gap between those worlds, even though they are supposed to do so. Today one cannot open a book about public space design without coming across a picture of either the Piazza San Marco in Venice or the Campo in Siena: two beautifully designed plazas referring to the romantic ideal of free, accessible public space, where everybody meets anybody. Comparing their idealistic model of a real public space with the contemporary city makes authors like Habermas and Sennett rather pessimistic about contemporary urban culture. The citys urban territory is too privatized and inaccessible. This pessimism is not surprising. Over time, the scale of society grew, the mobility of the population increased and new means of communication developed and disseminated among the population. These and other conditions led to different claims on urban public spaces Solutions William H. Whyte argues that cities should exert no controls on undesirables, including beggars and aggressive eccentrics. In his words:The biggest single obstacle to the provision of better spaces is the undesirables problem. They are themselves not too much of a problem. It is the actions taken to combat them that is the problem. The people have the right freely to assemble together, to consult for the common good, to make known their opinions to their representatives and to petition for redress of grievances. In their study with the Jagori, Kalpana Viswanath and Surabhi Tandon Mehrotra concluded that Womens ability and right to access and use public spaces is dependent on the kinds of boundaries imposed upon them due to nature of the space and its usage. Thus having a mixed usage of space is more conducive to free and easy access. Very strict zoning leads to separation of spaces for living, commerce and leisure. This increases the likelihood of some spaces being closed to women and other vulnerable groups such as children. For example in Delhi, we ( Viswanath, K Mehrotra,S) found that vendors selling everyday items make a space safer, whether in the subway, residential areas or bus stops. The local bread and egg seller gave a sense of comfort to women who returned home at night. Similarly vendors provided light and a crowd around bus stops which tend to become increasingly empty and dark as it gets later. But this phenomenon of safety provided by the hawkers is not understood by all govt authorities. Anjaria, J (2006) tells the story of condition of street hawkers in Mumbai. They are frequently described by civic activists, municipal officials and journalists as a nuisance; and are seen to represent the chaos of the citys streets and the cause of the citys notorious congestion. On the other hand, to others they represent an undeserved claim of the poor on the citys public spaces. This despite the fact that even a cursory look at the citys streets and footpaths shows that parked, privately-owned cars are by far the citys greatest encroachers of public space, and the greatest obstruction to the movement of pedestrians. However. to the self-proclaimed defenders of public space, the civic activists and the NGOs bent on removing hawkers from the citys streets, these facts are irrelevant. Neighbourhood by neighbourhood, the citys footpaths must be reconfigured, disorderly footpaths must be made monofunctional. The crime of the hawker is to contradict this dream. And, thus they have become a public nuisance because, by working on the street, they are engaged in an activity that contradicts the supposed universal ideals of the modern public space. The question may be how do we bring the ethos of privatized space that we have become used to together with the return to more democratic values that many people aspire to for the Millennium? Kath Shonfield in her recent contribution to the Demos series on the Richness of Cities (Shonfield, 1998) focuses on public space and what she calls the new urbanity. She promotes the urban right to roam and suggests change to urban policy that would include urban rights to access, extending public access as a principle of new developments, and re visiting the idea of the arcade as an urban design model to be explored. (cited Jon, R 1999) In order to shape the design, size and form of public spaces in town centres, it is necessary to understand their roles and functions. Public spaces in town centres can be classified in two broad categories: links and nodes. Links are roads, pavements or pedestrianized areas which constitute routes allowing movement between land uses and attractions. Nodes are cross roads where a number of links meet in the form of public spaces such as market squares or plazas. There have been different models of gender conscious planning adopted by cities to respond to violence against women and womens fear of violence. The broken windows approach focuses on zero-tolerance to crime, closed circuit televisions (CCTV) and an exclusionary approach to creating safer spaces [Mitchell, D 2003]. This approach criminalises certain kinds of people and behaviour such as gay men. The safer communities model on the other hand, puts forth a vision of making public spaces safer through activities, land use, social mix and involving users in designing strategies and initiatives for safer public spaces. These are seen to be more conducive to building ownership rather than the top-down approach of the broken windows. The safer communities initiatives emphasise activity, land use and social mix (Whitzman, C 2006, cited Viswanath, K and Mehrotra, S 2007) Stavros Stavrides (2007) says: Instead of thinking of social identities as bounded regions one can consider them as interdependent and communicating areas. In an effort to describe urban space as a process rather than a series of physical entities, we can discover practices that oppose a dominant will to fix spatial meanings and uses. These practices mould space and create new spatial articulations since they tend to produce threshold spaces, those in-between areas that relate rather than separate. Urban porosity may be the result of such practices that perforate a secluding perimeter, providing us with an alternative model to the modern city of urban enclaves. A city of thresholds could thus represent the spatiality of a public culture of mutually aware, interdependent and involved identities. Walter Benjamin, in his essay entitled Naples, explored the idea of vitality and variety in the modern city. The porous rocks of Naples offered him an image for a city’s public life: â€Å"As porous as this stone is the architecture. Building and action interpenetrate in the courtyards, arcades and stairways† (Benjamin,W 1985). Porosity seems to describe, in this passage, the way in which urban space is performed in the process of being appropriated (Sennett 1995). It is not that action is contained in space. Rather, a rich network of practices transforms every available space into a potential theater of expressive acts of encounter. A â€Å"passion for improvisation† as Benjamin describes this public behavior, penetrates and articulates urban space, loosening socially programmed correspondences between function and place. Porosity is thus an essential characteristic of space in Naples because life in the city is full of acts that overflow into each other. Defyin g any clear demarcation, spaces are separated and simultaneously connected by porous boundaries, through which everyday life takes form in mutually dependant public performances. Thus, â€Å"just as the living room reappears on the street, with chairs, hearth and altar, so, only much more loudly, the street migrates into the living room† (Benjamin 1985). Porosity characterizes above all the relationship between private and public space, as well as the relationship between indoor and outdoor space. For Benjamin porosity is not limited to spatial experience. Urban life is not only located in spaces that communicate through passages (â€Å"pores†), but life is performed in a tempo that fails to completely separate acts or events. A temporal porosity is experienced while eating in the street, taking a nap in a shady corner, or drinking a quick espresso standing in a Neapolitan cafà ©. It is as if acts are both separated and connected through temporal passages that represe nt the precarious fleeting experience of occasion. Everyday occasions thus seem to shift and rearrange rhythms and itineraries of use (de Certeau 1984). only located in spaces that communicate through passages (â€Å"pores†), but life is performed in a tempo that fails to completely separate acts or events. A temporal porosity is experienced while eating in the street, taking a nap in a shady corner, or drinking a quick espresso. It is as if acts are both separated and connected through temporal passages that represent the precarious fleeting experience of occasion. Everyday occasions thus seem to shift and rearrange rhythms and itineraries of use (de Certeau 1984, cited Stavrides, S 2007) According to Starvides, Porosity may therefore be considered an experience of habitation, which articulates urban life while it also loosens the borders which are erected to preserve a strict spatial and temporal social order. Thresholds, thus play an important role in materialising the play of connection and sepration between spaces. A study of thresholds can help reveal the actual correspondence and interdependence between spatial identities. In post-colonial Asian cities like Hong Kong similar conditions of urban porosity exist. Hong Kongs urban environment is devoid of the cultural conditions that mark the traditional world cities of the West. There are no memorable public spaces, no refined residential fabric, and no exemplary monuments to religion, politics, art, knowledge or culture. â€Å"Urban life in Hong Kong is traditionally linear in form. The roles of parks, piazzas and gardens in Hong Kong take on functions that change with the time of the day. They are by nature multipurpose spaces, festival grounds, concert sites, and improvised sports arenas. While these open spaces are fully utilized in key times, they lack any identity and are usually barren and lifeless when not in use.† (Lu, L 2005)

Maya Angelou as a Caged Bird Essay -- Biography Biographies Essays

Maya Angelou as a Caged Bird    The graduation scene from I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings illustrates how, living in the midst of racism and unequal access to opportunity, Maya Angelou was able to surmount the obstacles that stood in her way of intellectual develop and find "higher ground."   One of the largest factors responsible for Angelou's academic success was her dedication to and capacity for hard work, "My work alone has awarded me a top place...No absences, no tardinesses, and my academic work was among the best of the year" (Angelou   13-14).   Angelou worked hard and read a great deal in order to be able to perform on such a level, in spite of the fact that she had much less access (or none) to the quality of teachers, school environment and other resources available to whites because of her color.   Another way Angelou surmounted the disadvantages of being black in a racist white controlled school district was to view her brother as a role model.   She is proud that she can recite the preamble to the Constitution faster than Bailey, she is proud he will see her graduate at the top of her class, and he provides her with literature which fuels her desire to read.   Maya also used other students in her class who were intelligent as role models and a measure stick of her own performance.   She admires the class valedictorian, Henry Reed, because he has been her most challenging academic competition among her peers.   However, another reason Angelou is able to overcome obstacles and reach higher ground is that she is not jealous or mean-spirited about academically competing with others.   Instead, she is happy that others are developing towards higher ground.   As she says about Henry, "I had admired him for years because e... ...race" (Angelou   21).   Angelou knows she would let down all those who have struggled and given her encouragement if she did not rise above the limitations of her own time and place. WORK   CITED Angelou, M.   I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.   In Eastman, A. M.   The Norton Anthology of Expository Prose.   (3rd edit.)   W.W. Norton & Co., NY:   1973. The student may wish to begin the paper with the following quote: I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life with such moving wonder, such a luminous dignity.   I have no words for this achievement, but I know that not since the days of my childhood, when the people in books were more real than the people one saw every day, have I found myself so moved.   Her portrait is a Biblical study of life in the midst of death.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   James Baldwin

The Devlopment of Reflexive Anthropology Essay -- Cultural Anthropolog

The Devlopment of Reflexive Anthropology Reflexive anthropology has pressured scholoars to recognize their own biases and look increasingly inwards when studying â€Å"other† cultures. Reflexive anthropology is a break away from the traditional study of a clearly defined â€Å"us† and â€Å"them,† that seeks to shift towards indentification rather than difference. It attempts to uncover the politics behind ethnography. Reflexivity shows how â€Å"we† are effected by â€Å"others†, and how â€Å"others† are effected by â€Å"us.† It holds anthropologists accountable for what they write, and how they represent culture. Anthropologists like Dorinne Kondo and Renato Rosaldo have greatly influenced the devlopment of reflexive anthropology through their enthnographies. When Kondo, a Japanese-American woman, went to Japan to for research, she was unprepared for how her own identity would complicate her study. Because she looked Japanese, and in some ways â€Å"felt Japanese,† but did not have the cultural knowledge and language skills of a true â€Å"native,† she was pressured by others to conform. They wanted her to be a â€Å"Japanese women,† and she (initially) readily complied. In doing so, the lines between â€Å"informant† and â€Å"ethnographer† became blurred, as she examined her own transition, and her own â€Å"dissolution and reconstitution of self.† It become increasingly impossible for Kondo to write an ethnography from a distanced, us/ them, point of view, as she was (outwardly) becoming more like â€Å"them.† Kondo states: I emphasize here the collusion between all parties involved, for it is important to recognize the ways in which informants are also actors and agents and that the negotiation of reality that takes place in the doing of ehtnography involves complex and ... ...after the death of his wife that Rosaldo felt the anger and grief that he believed was related to the Ilongots’ feelings. Through his own sad experience, Rosaldo thought that could understand the Ilongot’s deeper reason for headhunting. Rosaldo’s belief that people might truly be able to understand each other on all levels is quite problomatic. He even states that â€Å"the notion of position also refers to how life experiences both enable and inhibit particular kinds of insight† (19). Whereas he applies this comment to his own ablity to understand headhuntung because of his feelings about his wife’s death, he dismissed other cultural factors that differentiate the Ilongot people from himself. Although he is able to feel some sort of connection to his informants through his own pain, he is in no position to be able to state that he understands the culture’s ritual.

Palestinian Israeli Conflict Essay -- History, Jews and Arabs

Part I: Palestinian/ Israeli Conflict History Jews and Arabs had mutual tolerance for each other until Theodor Herzl started the modern Zionism movement ("History 10 Handout" page 1-5). Zionism is the belief that Jews should have their own homeland, and in 1917 the British decided to back Zionism with The Balfour Declaration (Mattar et al. 380-382). After the Balfour Declaration the Jewish people started massive immigration to Palestine and the Arabs living in Palestine strongly objected to this Jewish immigration. A big part of why the British decided to back the Jews were that all the Jewish people had to suffer through the years of terror that the Holocaust brought. They needed a place to go and their old Holy land seemed like the perfect place at the time ("History 10 Handout" page 1-5). The British backed out of Palestine because they were getting complaints from both the Jews and the Arabs. The United Nations made a plan to partition Palestine in 1947, it passed the UN with a two-thirds vote (Brooks, â€Å"British Mandate for Palestine: Arab-Israeli Wars† Web). However the Arabs refused to accept the compromise and on May 14, 1948 Israel declared itself a state with the US and the Soviets approval. On May 15, 1948 Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan invaded Israel because of its statehood ("History 10 Handout" page 1-5). This started Israel’s War for Independence which was overall a victory for Israel. The soldiers fighting for the invading countries were not experienced in battle and fell to Israel, instead of a clear cut victory they in placed an armistice ("History 10 Handout" page 1-5). The Israel War for Independence produced over 50,000 Arab refuges and forced most of them to live in rural farming villages kn... ...ack). Therefore, the Palestinians need to form a democratic political system where Hamas is no longer in charge. They also need to form a legitimate fighting force run under a government so the terrorist’s attacks will stop because the government will be in control. The attacks will come to a halt when a democratic government is in place because a real government would not put up with this behavior. These steps are not that difficult in anyway and can be taken immediately if wanted to. Overall the conflict in Israel will never be fixed if the two sides cannot cooperate with each other and see the other side. Although Israel may have the power in the relationship, Palestine can still take steps of their own to solving the conflict. Both sides are at fault for the problems they had and no side greater than the other, peace can be achieved if they want it.

Bluetooth based smart sensor network Essay

Currently, huge electronic data repositories are being maintained by banks and other financial institutions. Valuable bits of information are embedded in these data repositories. The huge size of these data sources make it impossible for a human analyst to come up with interesting information (or patterns) that will help in the decision making process. A number of commercial enterprises have been quick to recognize the value of this concept, as a consequence of which the software market itself for data mining is expected to be in excess of 10 billion USD. This paper is intended for those who would like to get aware of the possible applications of data mining to enhance the performance of some of their core business processes. In this paper discussion is about the broad areas of application, like risk management, portfolio management, trading, customer profiling and customer care, where data mining techniques can be used in banks and other financial institutions to enhance their busin ess performance. INTRODUCTION: As knowledge is becoming more and more synonymous to wealth creation and as a strategy plan for competing in the market place can be no better than the information on which it is based, the importance of knowledge and information in today’s business can never be seen as an exogenous factor to the business. Organizations and individuals having access to the right information at the right moment, have greater chances of being successful in the epoch of globalization and cut-throat competition. Business Intelligence focuses on discovering knowledge from various electronic data repositories, both internal and external, to support better decision making.  Data mining techniques become important for this knowledge discovery from databases. In recent years, business intelligence  systems have played pivotal roles in helping organizations to fine tune the business goals such as improving customer retention, market penetration, profitability and efficiency. In most cases, these ins ights are driven by analyses of historical data. Global competitions, dynamic markets, and rapidly decreasing cycles of technological innovation provide important challenges for the banking and finance industry. Worldwide just-in-time availability of information allows enterprises to improve their flexibility. In financial institutions considerable developments in information technology have led to huge demand for continuous analysis of resulting data. Data mining can contribute to solving business problems in banking and finance by finding patterns, causalities, and correlations in business information and market prices that are not immediately apparent to managers because the volume data is too large or is generated too quickly to screen by experts. The managers of the banks may go a step further to find the sequences, episodes and periodicity of the transaction behaviour of their customers which may help them in actually better segmenting, targeting, acquiring, retaining and maintaining a profitable customer base. Business Intelligence and data mining techniques can also help them in identifying various classes of customers and come up with a class based product and/or pricing approach that may garner better revenue management as well. The broad categories of application of Data Mining and Business Intelligence techniques in the banking and financial industry vertical may be viewed as follows: Risk Management Managing and measurement of risk is at the core of every financial institution. Today’s major challenge in the banking and insurance world is therefore the implementation of risk management systems in order to identify, measure, and control business exposure. Here credit and market risk present the central challenge, one can observe a major change in the area of how to measure and deal with them, based on the advent of advanced database and data mining technology.( Other types of risk is also available  in the banking and finance i.e., liquidity risk, operational risk, or concentration risk. ) Today, integrated measurement of different kinds of risk (i.e., market and credit risk) is moving into focus. These all are based on models representing single financial instruments or risk factors, their behaviour, and their interaction with overall market, making this field highly important topic of research. Financial Market Risk For single financial instruments, that is, stock indices, interest rates, or currencies, market risk measurement is based on models depending on a set of underlying risk factor, such as interest rates, stock indices, or economic development. One is interested in a functional form between instrument price or risk and underlying risk factors as well as in functional dependency of the risk factors itself. Today different market risk measurement approaches exist. All of them rely on models representing single instrument, their behaviour and interaction with overall market. Many of this can only be built by using various data mining techniques on the proprietary portfolio data, since data is not publicly available and needs consistent supervision. Credit Risk Credit risk assessment is key component in the process of commercial lending. Without it the lender would be unable to make an objective judgement of weather to lend to the prospective borrower, or if how much charge for the loan. Credit risk management can be classified into two basic groups: Credit scoring/credit rating: Assignment of a customer or a product to risk level. (i.e., credit approval) Behaviour scoring/credit rating migration analysis. Valuation of a customer‘s or product’s probability of a change in risk level within a given time. (i.e., default rate volatility) In commercial lending, risk assessment is usually an attempt to quantify the risk of loss to the lender when making a particular lending decision. Here credit risk can quantify by the changes of value of a credit product or of a whole credit customer portfolio, which is based on change in the instrument’s ranting, the default probability, and recovery rate of the instrument in case of default. Further diversification effects influence the result on a portfolio level. Thus a major part of implementation and care of credit risk management system will be a typical data mining problem: the modelling of the credit instrument’s value through the default probabilities, rating migrations, and recovery rates. Three major approaches exist to model credit risk on the transaction level: accounting analytic approaches, statistical prediction and option theoretic approaches. Since large amount of information about client exist in financial business, an adequate way to build such models is to use their own database and data mining techniques, fitting models to the business needs and the business current credit portfolio. Portfolio Management Risk measurement approaches on an aggregated portfolio level quantify the risk of a set of instrument or customer including diversification effects. On the other hand, forecasting models give an induction of the expected return or price of a financial instrument. Both make it possible to manage firm wide portfolio actively in a risk/return efficient manner. The application of modern risk theory is therefore within portfolio theory, an important part of portfolio management. With the data mining and optimization techniques investors are able to allocate capital across trading activities to maximise profit or minimise risk. This feature supports the ability to generate trade recommendations and portfolio structuring from user supplied profit and risk requirement. With data mining techniques it is possible to provide extensive scenario analysis capabilities concerning expected asset prices or returns and the risk involved. With this functionality, what if simulations of varying market c onditions e.g. interest rate and exchange rate changes) cab be run to assess impact on the value and/or risk associated with portfolio, business unit counterparty, or trading desk. Various scenario results can be regarded by considering actual market conditions. Profit and loss analyses allow users to access an asset class, region, counterparty, or custom sub portfolio can be benchmarked against common international benchmarks. Trading For the last few years a major topic of research has been the building of quantitative trading tools using data mining methods based on past data as  input to predict short-term movements of important currencies, interest rates, or equities. The goal of this technique is to spot times when markets are cheap or expensive by identifying the factor that are important in determining market returns. The trading system examines the relationship between relevant information and piece of financial assets, and gives you buy or sell recommendations when they suspect an under or overvaluation. Thus, even if some traders find the data mining approach too mechanical or too risky to be used systematically, they may want to use it selectively as further opinion. Trading is based on the idea of predicting short term movements in the price/value of a product (currency/equity/interest rate etc.). With a reasonable guesstimate in place one may trade the product if he/she thinks it is going to be over valued or undervalued in the coming future. Trading traditionally is done based on the instinct of the trader. If he/she thinks the product is not priced properly he/she may sell/buy it. This instinct is usually based on past experience and some analysis based on market conditions. However, the number of factors that even the most expert of traders can account for are limited. Hence, quite often these predictions fail. The price of a financial asset is influenced by a variety of factors which can be broadly classified as economic, political and market factors. Participants in a market observe the relation between these factors and the price of an asset, account for the current value of these factors and predict the future values to finally arrive at the future value of the asset and trade accordingly. Quite often by the time a trained eye detects these favourable factors, many others may have discovered the opportunity, decreasing the possible revenues otherwise. Also these factors in turn may be related to several other factors making prediction difficult. Data mining techniques are used to discover hidden knowledge, unknown patterns and new rules from large data sets, which may be useful for a variety of decision making activity. With the increasing economic globalization and improvements in information technology, large amounts of financial data are being generated and stored. subjected to data mining techniques to discover hidden patterns and obtain predictions for trends in the future and the behaviour of the financial markets. With the immediacy offered by data mining, latest data can be mined to obtain crucial information at the earliest. This in turn would result in an improved market place  responsiveness and awareness leading to reduced costs and increased revenue. Advancements made in technology have enabled to create faster and better prediction systems. These systems are based on a combination of data mining techniques and artificial intelligence methods like Case Based Reasoning (CBR) and Neural Networks (NN). A combination of such a forecasting system together with a good trading strategy offers tremendous opportunities for massive returns. The value of a financial asset is dependent on both ma croeconomic and microeconomic variables and this data is available in a variety of disparate formats. NN and CBR techniques can be applied extensively for predicting these financial variables. NN are characterized by learning capabilities and the ability to improve performance over time. Also NN can generalize i.e. recognize new objects which may be similar but not exactly identical to previous objects. NN with their ability to derive meaning from imprecise data can be used to detect patterns which are otherwise too complex to be detected by humans. NN act as experts in the area that they have been trained to work in. these can be used to provide predictions for new situations and work in real time. Thus, historic data available about financial markets and the various variables can be used to train NN to simulate the market. CBR methodology is based on reasoning from past performances. It uses a large repository of data stored as cases which would include all the market variables in this case. When a new case is fed in (in the form of a case containing the concerned variables), the CBR algorithm predicts the performance/result of this case based on the cases it has in its repository. Data mining techniques can be used to detect hidden patterns in these cases which may then be used for further decision making. CBR methods can be used in real time which makes analysis really quick and helps in real time decision making resulting in immediate profits. Thus data mining and business intelligence (CBR and NN) techniques may be used in conjunction in financial markets to predict market behaviour and obtain patterned behaviour to influence decision making. †¢ Customer Profiling and Customer Relationship Management Banks have many and huge databases containing transactional and other details of its customers. Valuable business information can be extracted from these data stores. But it is unfeasible to support analysis and decision making using traditional query languages; because human analysis breaks down with volume and dimensionality. Traditional statistical methods do not have the capacity and scale to analyse these data, and hence modern data mining methodologies and tools are increasingly being used for decision making process not only in banking and financial institutions, but across the industries. Customer profiling is a data mining process that builds customer profiles of different groups from the company’s existing customer database. The information obtained from this process can be used for different purposes, such as understanding business performance, making new marketing initiatives, market segmentation, risk analysis and revising company customer policies. The advantage of data mining is that it can handle large amounts of data and learn inherent structures and patterns in data. It can generate rules and models that are useful in enabling decisions that can be applied to future cases. Customer Behaviour Modeling (CBM) or customer profiling is a tool to predict the future value of an individual and the risk category to which he belongs to based on his demographic characteristics, life-style and previous behaviour. This helps to focus on customer retention. The two important facts that have important implication in selecting customer profiling methods are: – Profiling information can consist of many variables (or dozens of them). – Majority of them are categorical variables (or non-numeric variables or nominal variables). Customer profiling is to characterize features of special customer groups. Many data mining techniques search profiles of special customer groups systematically using Artificial Intelligence techniques. They generate accurate profiles based on beam search and incremental learning techniques. Customer profiling also uses many predictive modeling methods. Predictive modelling techniques applicable can be categorized into two broad approaches. They depend on the type of predicted information or variables, also called target variables. If the type of predicted values is categorical, classification techniques is preferred to be used. Classification Methods: In this approach, risk levels are organized into two categories based on past default history. For example, customers with past default history can be  classified into â€Å"risky† group, whereas the rest are placed as â€Å"safe† group. Using this categorization information as target of prediction, Decision Tree and Rule Induction techniques can be used to build models that can predict default risk levels of new loan applications. Value Prediction Methods: In this method, for example, instead of classifying new loan applications, it attempts to predict expected default amounts for new loan applications. The predicted values are numeric and thus it requires modelling techniques that can take numerical data as target (or predicted) variables. Neural Network and regression are used for this purpose. The most common data mining methods used for customer profiling are: – Clustering (descriptive) – Classification (predictive) and regression (predictive) – Association rule discovery (descriptive) and sequential pattern discovery (predictive) In CRM, data mining is frequently used to assign a score to a particular customer or prospect indicating the likelihood that the individual will behave in a particular way. For example, a score could measure the propensity to respond to a particular insurance or credit card offer or to switch to a competitor’s product. Data mining can be useful in all the three phases of a customer relationship-cycle: customer acquisition, increasing value of the customer and customer retention. For example, a typical banking firm let say sends 1 million direct mails for credit card customer acquisition. Past researches have shown that typically 6% of such target customers respond to these direct mails. Banks use their credit risk models to classify these respondents in good credit risk and bad credit risk classes. The proportion of good credit risk respondents is only 16% out of the total respondents. So, as net result, roughly only 1% of the total targeted customers are converted into the cr edit card customers through direct mailing. Seeing the huge cost and effort involved in such marketing process, data mining techniques can significantly improve the customer conversion rate by more focused marketing. Using a predictive test model using decision tree techniques like CHAID (Chi-squared Automatic Interaction Detection), CART (Classification And Regression Trees), Quest and C5.0; it can be analyzed which customers are more probable to respond. And using this with the risk model using techniques like neural network can help build a test model. The way data mining can actually be built into the CRM application is determined by the nature of customer interaction. The customer interaction could be inbound (when the customer contacts the firm) or outbound (when the firm contacts customers). The deployment requirements are quite different. Outbound interactions such as direct â€Å"Building Profitable Customer Relations with Data Mining†, Herb Edelstein mail campaign involve the firm selecting the people whom to be mailed by applying the test model to the customer database. In other outbound campaigns like advertising, the profile of good prospects shown by the test model needs to be matched to the profile of the people the advertisement would reach. For inbound transactions such as telephone or internet order, the application must respond in real time. Therefore the data mining model is embedded in the application and actively recommends an action. In either case, one of the key issues in applying a model to new data set is the transformations that are made in building the model. The ease with which these changes are embedded in the model determines the productivity of deploying these tools. †¢ Marketing and customer care Because high competitions in the finance industry, intelligent business decisions in marketing are more important than ever for better customer targeting, acquisition, retention and customer relationship. There is a need for customer care and marketing strategies to be in place for the success and survival of the business. It is possible with the help of data mining and predictive analytics to make such strategies. Financial institutions are finding it more difficult to locate new previously unsolicited buyers, and as a result they are implementing aggressive marketing program to acquire new customer from their competitors. The uncertainties of the buyer make planning of new services and media usage almost impossible. The classical solution is to apply subjective human expert knowledge as rules of thumb. Until recently, replacing the human expert by computer technology has been difficult. An interesting tool available in marketing and financial institution is analysis of client’s data. This allows analysis and calculation of key indicators that help bank to identify factors that affected customer’s demand in the past and customer’ need in the future. Information about the customer’s personal data can also give indications that affect future demand. In case of analysis of retail debtors and small corporations, marketing tasks will typically include factors about the customer himself, his credit record and rating made by external rating agencies. With the advent of data mining and business intelligence tools it has become possible for banks to strengthen their customer acquisition by direct marketing and establish multi- channel contacts, to improve customer development by cross selling and up selling of products, and to increase customer retention by behaviour management. It is possible for the banks to use the data available to retain its best customers and to identify opportunities to sell them additional services. The profiling of all the valuable accounts can be done and the top most say 5-10 % can be assigned to Relationship Managers, whose job will be to identify new selling opportunities with these customers. It is also possible to bundle various offers to meet the need of the valued customers. Data mining can also help the banks in customizing the various promotional offers. For example the direct mails can be customized as per the segment of the account holders in the bank. It is also possible for the banks to find out thepr oblem customers who can be defaulters in the future, from their past payment records and the profile and the data patterns that are available. This can also help the banks in adjusting the relationship with these customers so that the loss in future is kept to its minimum. Data mining can improve the response rates in the direct mail campaigns as the time required to classify the customers will be reduced, this in turn will increase the revenues, improve the sales force efficiency from the target group. Data mining helps the banks to optimize their portfolio of services, delivery channels. A record of past transactions can give useful insight to the bank and different locations /branches of same branch can also follow some patterns that when noticed can be used as past records to learn from and base the future actions upon. Data Mining techniques can be of immense help to the banks and financial institutions in this arena for better targeting and acquiring new customers, fraud detection in real time, providing segment based products for better targeting the customers, analysis of the customers’ purchase patterns over time for better retention and relationship, detection of emerging trends to take proactive stance in a highly competitive market adding a lot more value to existing products and services and launching of new product and service bundles. Reference:

Personal Theory Paper Essay

Abstract There are many ways is which we can build and create our own theories about child development but the way we do our own theories will significantly affect the way we guide and teach children. My unique personal theory about child development is that children should be guided and treated with respect and dignity. This essay will explain my own personal theory or theories that I would use to greatly guide and help children along the way, I believe that these that I am about to mention are the ones that I feel I would really use later on as I pursue my profession in the Child development Field. A positive approach to guidance makes children and others feel confident, happy, and pleasant. A positive approach does not include shaming, humiliation, ridicule, pressure to compete, nor is it punitive, impatient, mean, or bossy. Personal Theory 3 Personal Theory Paper Having your own personal theory means how you will guide children into success in their life’s later on. Making our own personal theory helps us understand, predict, explain and control that reality. Thy are mostly verbal but they can also be mathematical or illustrative. Having our own personal theories really helps learn how children will learn and develop. These several questions that I will discuss are questions that often children caregivers ask themselves: 1. How do you view the course of development is it Continuous or Discontinuous? 2. Is there one course or many courses of development that would characterize all children? 3. Do genetic or environmental factors play a greater role in development? Highlighting these major questions will give us an understanding as to how children develop and react to the changes around them. 1 Theory is a contemplative and rational type of abstract or generalized thinking. Depending on the context, the results might for example include generalized explanations on how nature works, or even how divine or metaphysical matters are thought to work. How do you view the course of development is Continuous or Discontinuous? To me how I view the course of development is it depends on the child’s physical and psychological development. On the Wikipedia article about Child Development in the Continuity section of the article I read this: â€Å"Many aspects of developmental change are continuous and do not display noticeable milestones of change. Continuous developmental changes, like growth in stature, involve fairly gradual and predictable progress toward adult characteristics.† (www.wikipedia.com). Although scientists and children caregivers have an interest in identification of developmental milestones, many aspects of developmental change are continuous. An example of a discontinuous development is Freud’s Psycho Sexual stages of development is theorized that children systematically move through oral, anal, phallic, and latency stages before reaching mature adult sexuality in the genital stage. The same is mentioned for Erikson’s theory of development and Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. Theorists who believe children grow continuously believe that kids constantly add new lessons and skills on top of old lessons and though parents cannot see it all the time with their own eyes, children are growing all the time right in front of them. Their bodies make new cells. Their minds learn new skills as they play and interact with other people everyday. On the other hand children who grow Discontinuously believe that children grow in stages as they seem to develop chunks of abilities and to experience events at certain times in life. Is there one course or many courses of development that would characterize all children? In my view I believe that both one or many courses in development exist. There is not only one course or just many course, in a preschool setting a teacher or caregiver is dealing with children from different backgrounds, culture, and developmental differences physically, emotional, and psychologically. Its important for a teacher or caregiver to really observe and understand if each child has only one course or many courses of development. â€Å"When a developmental theory has only one course then it is only said to follow one path, but when a developmental theory involves many courses then it has unique paths for particular individuals across popular contexts.† (www.wiki-answers.com/Q/Child_development_One_course_of_development_or_many). Do Genetic or Environmental factors play a greater role in Development? Genetics and the environment shape the development of a human. This fact is mostly known by the idea of nature versus nurture. Scientists have been questioning which of these factors influence upon the various aspects of personal growth. A person’s physical development is strongly affected by their genes inherited from their parents. Parents genes predetermine the limits of an individuals height and other characteristics. (www.teenink.com/opinion). Genetics can have a powerful influence on development, but experiences are also important. For example, while the genetic code contains the information a child is influenced by their surroundings. If a child grows up in a home Personal Theory 6 that is well off, they may not appreciate the hard work that goes into earning a dollar because everything was given to them. On the other hand if a child grows up in poverty he or she may not want things that have no significance in their life. Child’s growth starts right away and does not end until the child is ready. As a child grows up he or she will learn to think for herself, become aware of themselves, learn to reason, and master language. The environment plays mostly an important part in the child’s skill enhancement in so many ways. First there are hereditary traits that can affect a child. The way they talk, walk, their psyche, cognitive thinking, and more can be due to the environment. My Own two Major theories of Development Two major theories that I have experienced while interacting with children is self-direction in which it is the ability to control one’s own behavior, to think for oneself was a basic aim by Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget which have mostly to do with values of freedom and liberty. I have personally come across this because when interacting with children I like to teach them to be more independent with themselves, to be able to do the things by themselves and if they already tried several times and they still need help on doing something then they can rely on me for help. I have a younger sister who I have been helping my mom take care of ever since my sister was three years old (now she is eight years old) she does like to do things by herself independently but now that she is growing up, I have noticed that she is always wanting someone to do the things for her. Like there are times in the mornings when she feels lazy to do her own bed so she always tends to ask for my help only even though she also has other older sisters and an older brother she still only asks for my help, sometimes it is kind of annoying for me when she only asks for my help it almost seems like if I was her only sister. I am tend to loose my patience at times but that is when I Personal Theory 7 say to myself to calm down and realize that she likes to spend quality time with me, even if sometimes it is annoying. I want her to rely on me for help but what I want her to realize is that she also has to do her own things. When she is in a tight situation then that is when she can come to me for advice. My other theory is the imitation experience, when a child sees someone clapping then after seeing the grownup clap the child claps back just the same way the grownup did it. Helping a child read picture books can help develop schemas in child development. A schema can be defined as a set of linked mental representations of the world, which are used both to understand and respond to situations. The assumption is that we store these mental representations and apply them when needed. (www.simplypsychology.com/piaget.html). For example, a person might have a schema about buying a meal in a restaurant. The schema is a stored form of the pattern of behavior which includes looking at a menu, or during food, eating it and paying the bill. This is an example of a schema called ‘script’. Whenever they are in a restaurant, they retrieve this schema from memory and apply it to the situation. The schemas Piaget described tend to be simpler than this-especially those used by infants. He described how as a child gets older-his or her schemas become more numerous and elaborate. An example of an initial schema is when the teacher is showing the children how a dog looks from a picture book, therefore the children begin to develop an understanding of what a dog looks like just by looking at the picture book. Experience in practicing the skill can be provided by adults at strategic moments when the child shows readiness, thus enhancing development. Expert teachers are sensitive to children’s readiness in many learning domains. Children seek ways to gain experience when they find a new skill fascinating. (Hildebrand pg. 29) I would watch children climb up and down a mountain when they learning to climb. When observing I would also listen to the children’s conversations, to me it is Personal Theory 8 interesting listening to the way children use words to connect them into sentences that are filled with fantasy, imagination and curiousness all over listening to their conversations also makes me wonder sometimes if they are imitating a grown-up from their own family or if it comes from their own active imagination, it almost seems like they have an inner drive to excel. I would never like to hinder a child from saying anything they wish to say but I would also watch carefully that any child does not swear because a young children’s mind is always active and open; and when they are toddlers everything the grownups say or do they will want to do it also because they are at a period where they want to try everything you do also, so we as their caregivers have to be extra careful what we say or do because what we do or say will greatly affect the child in the present and lat er on in their life. Conclusion Even though I have never had professional early child development teaching experience I know that in the several years of taking care of my sister I have at least gained some basic experience and have seen some of the theories that I mentioned in this essay in action with my younger sister. To me the course of development is both continuous and discontinuous depending on how each child develops. Learning about these theories and finding out more information about the many courses or just one course of development made me see that there are many courses of development based on the many developmental theories and stages each child goes through in life. Lastly I discovered that both genetic and environmental factors can affect children greatly in the present as well as later on in life. As I said earlier if a child is brought up in a negative environment then that will definitely affect the children emotionally as well psychologically. References Continuity and Discontinuity in Development http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_development Oswald, Angela. Child Development Stages versus Continuous Development. Retrieved from: http://www.sevencounties.org/poc/view_doc.php? type=doc&id=7920.. Cabi816, Greenville, SC. Teen Ink. Genetic Versus the Environment and their Effects on the Development. Retrieved from: http://www.teenink.com/opinion/current_events_politics/article/155563/Geneti cs-V-The-Environment-And-Their-Effects-On-Development/ McLeod, Saul. (Published 2009, Updated 2012). Simply Psychology. Jean Piaget. Retrieved from: http://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html Hildebrand, Verna and Hearron, F. Patricia. Guiding Young Children. Sixth Edition. (1999). Merrill, an imprint of Prentice Hall. Upper Saddle, New Jersey and Columbus, Ohio. Chapter 2 Knowing Children as a Basis for Guidance. Speed of Development.

An Investigation Of Nigerian Consumer’s Online Shopping Behaviour

Abstract This research proposal deals with an investigation of the online shopping behaviour among Nigerians living abroad. It has been established from research that a few Nigerians embrace technology in doing business. The research paper starts with an introduction about the problem statement to be addressed in the research. The objective is to find out the factors that contribute to the unique online shopping behaviour among the Nigerians. The proposal highlights trends to be investigated that are online shopping in Nigeria. Data to be used in the research will be gathered through the use of a questionnaire given at random to 100 respondents. The obtained data will be analyzed based on the scaled factors given for each response by the participants. The representative sample gives the best results because it uses respondents of diverse fields who are in a position to use online shopping systems. The results can be used by any developing country because the online shopping trends for developing countries are the same. 1. Introduction The nature of how individuals do business has changed from time to time due to individual needs and the emerging business technologies. Electronic commerce is one of the recent forms of online shopping that has been adopted by many business individuals in the world. According to Ghosh (1997, p. 1), â€Å"E-commerce provides consumers the ability to bank, invest, purchase, distribute, communicate, explore, and research from virtually anywhere an Internet connection can be obtained.† Therefore, electronic commerce can be defined as doing business through the internet. This trend of doing business has gained momentum in the global business world because of the increased web advertising (Jackson et al. 2003). This research proposal aims at determining the effect of web advertising on the Nigerian consumer’s online shopping behaviour.1.1. E-commerce development in NigeriaThe basis of electronic commerce depends on the level of technology in a country. Nigeria is a developin g country that has experienced improvements in its technological aspect in the recent past with a total population of about 16 % embracing the use of the internet (Internet World Stats, 2009). However, most of the Nigerians have not exploited the full potential of using the internet fully. In addition, the recent advancement of technology has enabled many Nigerians to see the need to embrace technology in doing business. As such, internet usage has started gaining familiarity among the Nigerians. A research by Folorunso et al. (2006, p. 2226) shows that only 32% of Nigerians who had heard about electronic commerce had embraced the technology. This low number of Nigerians using the internet to do business may contribute to the Nigerian online shopping behaviour.1.2. Problem statementThe use of the internet in doing business in Nigeria is slower than other countries in the world. This is contrary to the vital importance provided by the use of the internet in advertising the product. M ost of the Nigerians are ignorant about online shopping, but those who embrace the internet do not prefer to do online shopping because they assume products advertised in the internet are either expensive or strange to their traditional culture. This consumer behaviour has reduced efforts of globalization into the Nigerian markets. The question, then, is what should be done about this online consumer behaviour to promote globalizationResearch objectivesThis research is carried out to find out the online shopping behaviour among the Nigerians. The objectives of the study will be: To Investigate the behaviour of online shopping among Nigerians Determine whether web advertising has an influence to the online shopping behaviour among Nigerians. To investigate the risks associated with online shopping.1.3. Research structureThis research will start by introducing the problem statement why it is an important study among the Nigerians. This will be followed by outlining the objectives of the study. The existing literature review sets to give the research the basis on which the factors being studied will be based. The methodology section will propose a how the factors can be investigated and why the chosen methods for study are preferred. Lastly the research will highlight the limitations that are likely to affect the results of the study and how they can be reduced to make the results more validated. The main chapters will be as follows; Introduction Literature Review Methodology Data Analysis and Findings Conclusions and Recommendations 2. Literature review Folorunso et al. (2006, p.2224) suggested that the factors that affect online shopping behaviour are: â€Å"establishing cost, accessibility, privacy and confidentiality, data security, network reliability, credit card threat, authenticity, citizens’ income and education.† The shopping behaviour of Nigerians living abroad is unique as it can be identified as unique among the rest. Among the factors suggested by Folorunso income levels and data security was established as the major factors contributing to the unique behaviour of the Nigerians. In another research by Ayo (2006, p.2), he argued that cyber-crime as the major factor behind the low rate of adopting the electronic commerce technology. Further, other important factors have been established as contributing to this unique behaviour among the Nigerians. These factors are inferior online payment methods, lack of trust in web retailers, poor technological infrastructures, and fear of insufficient security in online environments (Adeshina & Ayo, 2010). In contrast to the slow rate at which online shopping has been embraced by the Nigerians, they have increased use of electronic banking and payment systems as they regard these technology issues as more secure. The major use of electronic banking is to pay bills, money transfer activities and obtaining banking statements at any time they wish to have the statements for their daily activities. The major factors identified on the previous research do not point to the exact situation because even through the electronic banking services provided by this technology, users are also likely to be exposed cyber crimes (Egwali, 2009). Advertising is used as a marketing strategy to familiarise the consumers to the products in the market. In a global market, advertising through the internet gives the consumers an avenue to consider a varied field of products that will satisfy their specific demand. Although internet advertising comes with a lot of advantages to both the consumer and the advertising agency, it has not been fully embraced in the Nigerian market. This indicates that the consumers in the Nigerian market have varied perceptions about web advertising. According to Wohn and Korgaonkar (2003), â€Å"males exhibit more positive beliefs about web advertising and more positive attitudes toward web adverting than females. Additionally, male are more likely than females to purchase from the web and surf the web for functional and entertainment reasons, whereas females are more likely to surf the web for shopping reasons.† From these findings, it can be deduced that there are specific online shopping behav iour among Nigerians. The research will carry out a detailed review of the existing literature on the behaviour of online shopping among Nigerians. The researcher will critically analyse the literature both that are in support of the research and those that are not. 3.Methodology This research will use qualitative approach to establish an in-depth description of the problem of the study. This method will be the most appropriate because it does not apply any mathematical judgment of the results (Higgs & Cherry, 2009). According to Miles and Huberman (1994), qualitative approach is the best because it is concerned with meaningful characteristics, stories, visual renders, observations and words. This study will be based on the individual behaviour on online shopping. Consequently, the research sample will be identified among them Nigerian Diaspora students, professionals and business people. The research sample will be conducted to 100 Nigerians. The research sample gives a good study population because of the sample size. In addition, the use of this type of respondents will give basis to the research because these are people who have the know-how of technological matters. Additionally, since online shopping is based on the use of technology this type of respondents is the best research population because they are quite aware of the online shopping activities using the internet. Thus, the results of the findings will give a true reflection of the real behaviour of the Nigerians online shopping.3.1.Research approach and strategyThe research will be conducted for 100 Nigerian. The respondents will be selected at random both that live in UK and those that are in Nigeria. The respondents will be supplied with questionnaires to investigate their onli ne shopping behaviour. The data that will be used in this study will be sourced from both primary and secondary sources. The primary data will be collected by sending questionnaires to the respondents. The researcher will conceal the identity of all respondents for confidentiality purposes. All respondents will be given unique ID numbers like P1, P2, and P3 that will represent participant one, two and three respectively. Secondary data will be collected from existing literature that is in the public domain. This means that there will be no permission sought to access the materials or cost incurred to collect data.3.2.Data collectionThe data for this research will be collected through the use of questionnaires. The questionnaires will be subdivided into three sub-groups as follows: online shopping, electronic commerce and internet usage. Each of the sub-categories will be aiming to investigate the behaviour of online shopping among Nigerians. (See appendix 1)3.3.Data analysisQualitat ive study does not involve numerical values, and thus, an analysis tool will be used that will give correct interpretation and description while at the same time avoiding biases (Sewell, 2008). Therefore, the data will be analysed using case descriptions of the phenomenon. A detailed report will then be developed based on the analysis of the data collected through questionnaires. After, conclusions will be drawn from the analysis of the study, and more so the researcher will give recommendations that for future studies.3.4. Ethical issuesThe ethical issue in this research study will be to keep the anonymity of the respondents. Each of the involved respondent’s information will be treated with great privacy based on individual data protection policy.3.5.Research limitationsThe sample used to represent the Nigerians is comparably small. A bigger representative sample should be used to determine the real factors. The random sampling method is good, but is faced with the challe nge of some respondents failing to cooperate. The best approach would be to administer the questionnaire directly to the respondents to ensure that there is 100% response from the targeted representative sample. 4.Conclusion This research is an important finding that can be used to implement developmental changes in developing countries. Nigeria is one of the developing countries and the trends shown by its abroad citizens can be used as a model for other developing countries. Also, since technology implementation in the business environment is inevitable then it is important to identify these factors in order to make the required adjustments to make the developing countries able to embrace technology. The representative sample will give accurate results of the research study because it will use a study population that can embrace technology. References Adeshina, A & Ayo, C .2010. An Empirical Investigation of the Level of Users. Acceptance of E-Banking in Nigeria. Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce, 15 (1), 1-13. Egwali, A. 2009. Customers Perception of Security Indicators in Online Banking Sites in Nigeria. Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce, 14 (1), 1-15. Folorunso, O et al. 2006. Factors Affecting the Adoption of E-commerce: A Study in Nigeria. Journal of Applied Sciences, 6 (10), 2224-2230. Ghosh, A .1997. Securing E-Commerce: A Systematic Approach. Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce, 1-4. Internet World Stats, 2009. Nigeria Internet Usage and Telecommunications Reports. Retrieved from . Jackson, P. et al. 2003. e-Business Fundamentals. London: Dorset House Publishing Company. Miles, M.B. & Huberman, A.M. 1994. Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook, 2ndedn, Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Sewell, M., 2008. The Use of Qualitative Interviews in Evaluation, Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona. Sewell, M., 2008. The Use of Qualitative Interviews in Evaluation, Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona. Wohn, L & Korgaonkar, P 2003, Web advertising: gender differences, gender differences in belief, attitude and behavior. Florida: MCB UP. Appendix 1 The questionnaire Online shopping Have you been using online shopping in Nigeria? Do you use online shopping in the UK? If yes how many times did you shop online while in Nigeria per week? How many sites do you visit per week while in the UK or Nigeria? What products do you shop for with this service in Nigeria or the UK? What are the risks associated with online shopping? 2.0 Electronic commerce Have you been using electronic commerce while in Nigeria? Do you still use electronic shopping in the UK? If not, what are the reasons? What functions do you use the service for in Nigeria or the UK? 3.0 Internet usage Do you use internet regularly? What do you use the internet for? Do you think there are risks associated with internet usage? How often do you use the internet for online shopping?