PEST analysis for banks Essay

The sustainability of DCB Bank agenda has expanded rapidly. It reflects the company’s increasing focus on the wider nature of business and made the stakeholders growing interests in competitive world of business. There is now a great awareness about the global challenges such as climate changes, poverty, scarcity of resources, and demographic shifting. The responses came from the government and from different businesses, as well as the non-profit organization helped DCB Bank made it possible for the sustainability. Economic Analysis The approach to the sustainability program is useful and encourages DCB to be open and transparent to the issues such as the initiatives in further research and development, dialogue with the government and various organizations, and their priorities. DCB Bank enable to broaden their focus on corporate responsibility to prove that they play an essential role in establishing an economic advantage in the country where they operate. Social Analysis The sustainability strategy focuses in their objective to improve the value of the business and their stakeholders. They give importance on the customers and clients such as maintaining the understanding of their needs and promoting the company by measuring satisfaction. It can be only possible by focusing of their global performance by their assurance to develop an innovative solution and enhancing performance. On the other hand, the people working with DCB Bank make a great advantage in the performance of the business. In addition, they attract employees to collect the talent, develop them according to the competent world, and retaining them as much as possible. Technological Analysis DCB uses the means of technology for their business especially in the areas of Agri and Inclusive banking. Their aim to help the people in fight against poverty is possible through their financial system. The technology makes it possible to empower the system and establish a competitive advantage. Pioneering the new ideas, adding the skills and operational excellence are part of the guiding principle of the organization.

Tax Evasion & the Black Economy

TAX EVASION It is the general term for efforts by individuals, corporations, trusts and other entities to evade taxes by illegal means. Tax evasion usually entails taxpayers deliberately misrepresenting or concealing the true state of their affairs to the tax authorities to reduce their tax liability and includes in particular dishonest tax reporting, such as declaring less income, profits or gains than actually earned or overstating deductions.Tax evasion is an activity commonly associated with the informal economy and one measure of the extent of tax evasion is the amount of unreported income, namely the difference between the amount of income that should legally be reported to the tax authorities and the actual amount reported, which is also sometimes referred to as the tax gap. Tax avoidance, on the other hand, is the legal utilization of the tax regime to one's own advantage to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law.Both tax evasion and avoidan ce can be viewed as forms of tax noncompliance, as they describe a range of activities that are unfavorable to a state's tax system, though such characterization of tax avoidance is suspect, given that avoidance operates lawfully, within self-creating systems Smuggling Smuggling is importation or exportation of foreign products by unauthorized means. Smuggling is resorted to for total evasion of customs duties, as well as for the importation of contraband items.A smuggler does not have to pay any customs duty since the products are not routed through an authorized customs port, and therefore are not subjected to declaration and payment of duties and taxes. Ten countries with the largest absolute levels of tax evasion per year. It is estimated that global tax evasion amounts to 5 percent of the global economy. During the latter half of the twentieth century, value added tax (VAT) has emerged as a modern form of consumption tax through the world, with the notable exception of the Unit ed States.Producers who collect VAT from the consumers may evade tax by under-reporting the amount of sales. The US has no broad-based consumption tax at the federal level, and no state currently collects VAT; the overwhelming majority of states instead collect sales taxes. Canada uses both a VAT at the federal level (the Goods and Services Tax) and sales taxes at the provincial level; some provinces have a single tax combining both forms. In addition, most jurisdictions which levy a VAT or sales tax also legally require their residents to report and pay the tax on items purchased in another jurisdiction.This means that those consumers who purchase something in a lower-taxed or untaxed jurisdiction with the intention of avoiding VAT or sales tax in their home jurisdiction are in fact breaking the law in most cases. Such evasion is, especially, prevalent in federal states like the Nigeria, US and Canada where sub-national jurisdictions have the constitutional power to charge varying rates of VAT or sales tax. In Nigeria for example, some local states enforce VAT on each goods sold by trader. The price must be clearly stated and the VAT distinct from the price of the good purchased.Any act by the trader contrary to this (like including VAT in the price of the goods) is punishable as attempting to syphoning the VAT. Borders between tax districts in the same nation usually lack the resources to enforce tax collection on goods carried in private vehicles from one district to another, so states only pursue sales and use tax collection on high-value items such as cars. Government response The level of evasion depends on a number of factors, one of them being fiscal equation.People's tendency to evade income tax declines when the return for due payment of taxes is not obvious. Evasion also depends on the efficiency of the tax administration. Corruption by the tax officials often render control of evasion difficult. Tax administrations resort to various means for plugg ing in scope of evasion and increasing the level of enforcement. Corruption by tax officials Corrupt tax officials cooperate with the tax payers who intend to evade taxes. When they detect an instance of evasion, they refrain from reporting in return for illegal gratification or bribe.Corruption by tax officials is a serious problem for the tax administration in a huge number of underdeveloped and southern European countries. Level of evasion and punishment Tax evasion is a crime in almost all developed countries and subjects the guilty party to fines and/or imprisonment. In Switzerland, many acts that would amount to criminal tax evasion in other countries are treated as civil matters. Dishonestly misreporting income in a tax return is not necessarily considered a crime. Such matters are handled in the Swiss tax courts, not the criminal courts. In Switzerland, however, some tax misconduct is criminal, for example, deliberate falsification of records. Moreover, civil tax transgressi ons may give rise to penalties. It is often considered that extent of evasion depends on the severity of punishment for evasion. Normally, the higher the evaded amount, the higher the degree of punishment. BLACK ECONOMY / BLACK MARKET Is the economy in which illegal goods are traded. Due to the nature of the goods traded, the economy itself is forced to operate outside the formal economy, supported by the established state power.Typically the totality of such activity is referred to with the definite article as a complement to the official economies, by market for such goods and services, e. g. â€Å"the black market in bush meat†. The black market is distinct from the grey market, in which commodities are distributed through channels which, while legal, are unofficial, unauthorized, or unintended by the original manufacturer, and the white market, the legal market for goods and services. Worldwide, the underground economy is estimated to have provided 1. 8 billion jobs. Back groundThe literature on the black market has avoided a common usage and has instead offered a plethora of appellations including: subterranean; hidden; grey; shadow; informal; clandestine; illegal; unobserved; unreported; unrecorded; second; parallel and black. This profusion of vague labels attests to the confusion of a literature attempting to explore a largely uncharted area of economic activity. There is no single black economy; there are many. These black economies are omnipresent, existing in market oriented as well as in centrally planned nations, be they developed or developing.Those engaged in underground activities circumvent, escape or are excluded from the institutional system of rules, rights, regulations and enforcement penalties that govern formal agents engaged in production and exchange. Different types of underground activities are distinguished according to the particular institutional rules that they violate. Five specific underground economies can be identified: 1. Illegal Economy 2. Unreported Economy 3. Unrecorded Economy 4. Informal Economy 5. Criminal Acts 1. ILLEGAL ECONOMYThe â€Å"illegal economy† consists of the income produced by those economic activities pursued in violation of legal statutes defining the scope of legitimate forms of commerce. Illegal economy participants engage in the production and distribution of prohibited goods and services, such as drug trafficking, arms trafficking, and prostitution. 2. UNREPORTED ECONOMY The â€Å"unreported economy† consists of those economic activities that circumvent or evade the institutionally established fiscal rules as codified in the tax code.A summary measure of the unreported economy is the amount of income that should be reported to the tax authority but is not so reported. A complementary measure of the unreported economy is the â€Å"tax gap†, namely the difference between the amount of tax revenues due the fiscal authority and the amount of tax revenue a ctually collected. 3. UNRECORDED ECONOMY The â€Å"unrecorded economy† consists of those economic activities that circumvent the institutional rules that define the reporting requirements of government statistical agencies.A summary measure of the unrecorded economy is the amount of unrecorded income, namely the amount of income that should (under existing rules and conventions) be recorded in national accounting systems (e. g. National Income and Product Accounts) but is not. Unrecorded income is a particular problem in transition countries that switched from a socialist accounting system to UN standard national accounting. New methods have been proposed for estimating the size of the unrecorded (non-observed) economy. But there is still little consensus concerning the size of the unreported economies of transition countries. 4.INFORMAL ECONOMY The â€Å"informal economy† comprises those economic activities that circumvent the costs and are excluded from the benefits and rights incorporated in the laws and administrative rules covering property relationships, commercial licensing, labor contracts, torts, financial credit and social security systems. A summary measure of the informal economy is the income generated by economic agents that operate informally. The informal sector is defined as the part of an economy that is not taxed, monitored by any form of government, or included in any gross national product (GNP), unlike the formal economy.In developed countries the informal sector is characterized by unreported employment. This is hidden from the state for tax, social security or labor law purposes but is legal in all other aspects. On the other hand, the term black market can be used in reference to a specific part of the economy in which contraband is traded. Pricing Goods acquired illegally take one of two price levels: They may be cheaper than legal market prices. The supplier does not have to pay for production costs or taxes. This is us ually the case in the black economy.Criminals steal goods and sell them below the legal market price, but there is no receipt, guarantee, and so forth. They may be more expensive than legal market prices. The product is difficult to acquire or produce, dangerous to handle or not easily available legally, if at all. If goods are illegal, such as some drugs, their prices can be vastly inflated over the costs of production. Black market can form part of border trade near the borders of neighboring jurisdictions with little or no border control if there are substantially different tax rates, or where goods are legal on one side of the border but not on the other.Products that are commonly smuggled like this include alcohol and tobacco. However, not all border trade is illegal. Prostitution Prostitution is illegal or highly regulated in most countries across the world. These places form a classic study of the black economy, because of consistent high demand from customers, relatively hig h pay, but labor intensive and low skilled work, which attracts a continual supply of workers. While prostitution exists in every country, studies show that it tends to flourish more in poorer countries, and in areas with large numbers of unattached men, such as around military bases.Prostitutes in the black market generally operate with some degree of secrecy, sometimes negotiating prices and activities through codewords and subtle gestures. In countries such as the Netherlands, where prostitution is legal but regulated, illegal prostitutes exist whose services are offered cheaper without regard for the legal requirements or procedures— health checks, standards of accommodation, and so on. In other countries such as Nicaragua where legal prostitution is regulated, hotels may require both parties to identify themselves, to prevent the rise of child prostitution. WeaponsFire Arms trafficking The legislatures of many countries forbid or restrict the personal ownership of weapon s. These restrictions can range from small knives to firearms, either altogether or by classification (e. g. caliber, automation, etc. ), and explosives. The black market supplies the demands for weaponry that cannot be obtained legally, or may only be obtained legally after obtaining permits and paying fees. This may be by smuggling the arms from countries where they were bought legally or stolen, or by stealing from arms manufacturers within the country itself, using insiders.In cases where the underground economy is unable to smuggle firearms, they can also satisfy requests by gunsmithing their own firearms. Those who may buy this way include criminals to use for illegal activities, gun collectors, and otherwise law abiding citizens interested in protecting their dwellings, families or businesses. Illegally logged timber Illegally logged timber is a huge problem. According to interpol, the illegal logging industry is worth almost as much as drug production industry, in some count ries. Animals and animal productsIvory trade / Wildlife trade In many developing countries, living animals are captured in the wild and sold as pets. Wild animals are also hunted and killed for their meat, hide, organs, †¦ Organs and other animal parts are sold for use in traditional medicine. Alcohol / Tobacco It has been reported that smuggling one truckload of cigarettes from a low-tax US state to a high-tax state can lead to a profit of up to $2 million. The low-tax states are generally the major tobacco producers, and have come under enormous criticism for their reluctance to increase taxes.Biological Organs Trade Organ trade is the trade involving inner organs (heart, liver, kidneys, etc. ) of a human for transplantation. There is a worldwide shortage of organs available for transplantation, yet trade in human organs is illegal in all countries except Iran. The problem of organ trafficking is widespread, although data on the exact scale of the organ market is difficult to obtain. Whether or not to legalize the organ trade, and the appropriate way to combat illegal trafficking, is a subject of much debate. Software piracyStreet vendors in countries where there is scant enforcement of copyright law, particularly in Asia and Latin America, often sell deeply discounted copies of films, music CDs, and computer software such as video games, sometimes even before the official release of the title. A determined counterfeiter with a few hundred dollars can make copies that are digitally identical to an original and suffer no loss in quality; innovations in consumer DVD and CD writers and the widespread availability of cracks on the Internet for most forms of copy protection technology make this cheap and easy to do.

Analysis of Family Guy Essay

Back in the eighth grade at the Pierce elementary school, a few of my friends and I sat around the circular lunch room tables, the same ones where we sat every day of the year. Our discussion shifted to our favorite TV. shows. At the time, I was a big Simpsons fan and I didn’t really watch too many other shows regularly. We would go around blurting out funny lines and quotes from our favorite episodes or recall hilarious incidents. This was when two of my friends were talking about this show Family Guy. Even though I had never seen it, I could tell from their impersonations that it was a funny show. It had the same general theme as The Simpson, but had even crazier and funnier plots and adventures. When I finally saw my first episode in ninth grade, it was an instant classic in my list of favorite shows. From then on I would watch it as mush as it was on and I even got a collection of DVD’s which I watch regularly. This show goes into the life of an average family in Rhode Island. The characters include a mother and father, three children including two awkward and socially challenged teenagers and a talking baby, as well as the talking family dog. It makes fun of things we do every day that may not seem stupid, but really they are unnecessary and pointless. This show is filled with hilarious flash backs to past events, and includes lots of sarcasm as well as some dumb comments and actions by the unintelligent father, Peter. One of my favorite episodes is â€Å"Pre-Retarded†, where Peter finds out he’s retarded and goes around doing stupid, but hilarious things. He wins a game of Trivial Pursuit because his wife gave him ridiculously easy questions from the children’s version including â€Å"What color are fire trucks?† Peter struggles, but eventually gets it right and wins the game, convincing himself that he’s a genius. When he takes the test, he finds out that not only is he not a genius, he’s actually mentally retarded so he bulldozes the house in celebration. This episode is similar, but better than the rest of the episodes, because the plot is typical, but it is filled with more funny comments and random instances. Although this show may seem just like a basic comedy, meant to entertain children, it is really targeted at teens and young adults. The comedy makes fun of other stereotypes and gets away with things that may be considered racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, and homophobic. It portrays these groups of people in the way they are supposed to be seen in society, but shows that the stereotypes aren’t true, by making the stereotypes seem stupid and exaggerated. In another episode when they are trying to get away from a bunch of southerners, the dog, Brian screams â€Å"Look, it’s a newly-married, interracial, gay couple burning the American flag†. It shows how ridiculous they look when they all scream, â€Å"Oh let’s get’em!†, and this way it makes fun of the stereotypes against southerners, and the group of people described in his remark, because the people would never actually do this. The reason I like Family Guy is because it is really one of the funniest, and most genius shows on television. The writers of the show are very intelligent, and smart about what they write. Although this show is hilariously funny, that is just one of its good qualities. It also sends an important ideas about how people are supposed to be seen, and tells us that stereotypes aren’t always true. It makes fun of average things and has long awkward pauses to show how funny our daily routines can be. Although this show may be offensive to some, I believe it is all in good humor. I am Jewish and in some episodes they do make fun of Jews reinforcing the stereotypes, that all Jews are rich accountants, lawyers, or doctors. This is just to make a point, and the writers do not really believe the things they show, because they exaggerate the stereotypes to make them look silly. In a way, this show is a lot like me. On the outside I really enjoy comedies, and basic entertainment that I can laugh about. There are also real issues that are important to me, and other things in my life that I care about besides just humor. This show is very provocative, but I believe it to be very funny as well as important, even if others may not share these same views. This program shows that I am a caring person and I am aware of the realities in life. Like Family Guy, I may be funny and joking on the outside, but we both go deeper on the inside.

A critical analysis of the role of ICTs for the strategic development Essay - 1

A critical analysis of the role of ICTs for the strategic development and an assessment of the electronic presence of British Airways - Essay Example Moreover, ICTs has assisted the British Airline to strategize and continuously assess of all external elements as well as competition posed by other airlines and customer needs. ICTs have helped the British Airways to adapt themselves in order to enhance the competitiveness (Zong 149). This model involves business transactions between business organizations and consumers. The organization sells and advertises its product through the internet. It provides consumers with online catalogue to choose a variety of their goods. One of the services offered include travel services. British Airways offer travel services to its customer who purchases goods through the internet (online shopping). This model involves consumers selling directly to other consumers. For example is an auction web site that allows consumers to advertise and sell their products online to other consumers. When a consumer purchases the auctioned goods, they need the transport service in order to have their goods at their premises. Therefore, through the ICTs mechanism, British Airways is able to satisfy the urgent need of transportation needed by the consumers. Mobile commerce refers to the use of internet to sell or purchase products online then availing the products into consumer’s hands using wireless technology. Lastly, British Airways has used several tactics to ensure improvement in its services to the customers. Such tactics include arranging sales settlements between airlines and travel agencies to enhance accessibility by the customers and empower often flyer programs that serve domestically to primarily serve the national market (Paul

Provide relevant detailed analysis of sony in its global context Essay

Provide relevant detailed analysis of sony in its global context - Essay Example Today, the Sony brand exemplifies a unique combination of popularity, strong identity, recognition, and excellent communication of the brand values and mission to the consumers. In the meantime, the company should be more attentive to the cultural aspects of its brand development in the global contexts. That Sony is one of the strongest and most popular global brands cannot be denied. Throughout the years of successful performance, Sony was able to move its brand onto the new level of consumer recognition and turn the Sony brand into an indispensable component of its organizational and marketing culture. The importance of the Sony brand to the future of the company is difficult to underestimate. Every year, in April, new employees join Sony to become its members and contribute to the development of the future successful trends. â€Å"And what I always say to them is that we have many marvelous assets here. The most valuable asset are the four letters, S, O, N, Y† (Sony). The company does everything possible not only to raise brand recognition among consumers but to ensure that employees in all company divisions worldwide have a clear understanding of the company’s brand messages and values. Some executives feel a strong need to communicate and re-articulate the interr elationship between the brand and the culture, in which it works (Sony). Others are confident that it is high time Sony leveraged its brand beyond products and created a customer-centered brand identity, which would serve an effective driver of consumer recognition and satisfaction with Sony products. Today, however, it is important to reconsider the relevance and efficiency of the Sony brand through the prism of the principal theoretical concepts. The significance of the global brand organization, the construction of brand equity, brand measurement, and the importance of culture for the development of global brand identity will create on objective

Hedge Funds Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Hedge Funds - Coursework Example Trend forecast signal is used and will generate up and down signals when buying or selling pressure builds up in a stock, currency, index or future. The forecasts are only a signal to watch for further strength above or below signal bars. The forecasts can mean buying or selling pressure has built up so much a new high or low price will happen soon forming a continuation of the trend OR the price is overdone, and a close of a bar moving in the opposite direction to the last forecast bar could signal a trend failure or reversal point. A hedge fund that can take both long and short positions, buy and sell undervalued securities, trade options or bonds and invest in almost any opportunity in any market where it foresees impressive rates at reduced risks (Friedland, 2011). These features results to hedge fund being able to offer exposure to risk factors those traditional long-only strategies cannot (Agarwal and Narayan, 2002). Exposure to systemic factors, example, small-cap, value companies and emerging markets normally entails higher returns but also higher risks. Norges Bank Investment Management (2011) further emphasizes the importance of continuously measuring the fund’s exposure to such factors and the importance to gain a static and dynamic overview to manage systematic exposure to one or more risk factors. This ability of hedge fund to take both long and short positions, makes it difficult to evaluate its performance, example, in the case where the manager can invest in any asset class, trade in deriv atives and follow a myriad of dynamic trading strategies (Agarwal and Narayan, 2000). Despite this, investors who have moved into active investment from passive strategies start their own hedge fund and its interest is gathering pace (Amenc, Susan and Lionel, 2004). For instance if there has been 2 up forecast bars in a row but the price is failing to break onto a new high, then also watch for a reversal in the price to break below the

Sport England Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Sport England - Essay Example The Sports Council was later renamed the English Sports Council in 1997, which was later branded as Sport England. The transformation just described was in line with shifts in strategies towards modernisation and better service delivery. The agency is currently under the chairmanship of Richard Lewis who has overseen the 2008-2011 strategic shifts towards influential sports development in the future (SportEngland.org, 2011). Guided by the mission statement that Sport England seeks to create a world leading community sports environment, the agency pursues a vibrant culture in sporting through partnering with several stakeholders including national governing bodies, local governments, county sport partnerships and community organisations. The agency currently invests  £480 million directly to 46 national sport governing bodies, protects playing fields, advocates for community sports and provides consultancy in sport matters. Sports England’s driving aims are centred on three philosophies. First is growth, here it targets one million more individuals engaging in sport. Sustenance is the second which involves satisfaction of more people from sport and reduction of the proportion of 16-18 year old teenagers dropping out of sporting activities to less than 25%. Lastly is the improvement through the development of talent in at least different 25 sports (SportEngland.org, 2011). In the pursuit of its mission, Sport England faces several challenges. According to Houlihan and Green (2009), Sport England and its fellow sports agency, UK Sports are burdened by the fact that they generate too many and much often short term initiatives. Overlapping mandates and responsibilities also inhibit their operations just as complexity and lack of clear strategies do. The problem of changes in government policy is also a challenge, with O’Dowd (2011) reporting that the coalition government has reversed on its predecessor’s pledge to

Culture and communications Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Culture and communications - Essay Example People meeting these two Asian groups get confused because their outlook is also remarkably similar to differentiate them (Howe 1996, p. 222). It is necessary to have a look at elements in each of the country as it will give a clear picture of similarities and differences present. This will also help in understanding the differences and similarities between Chinese and Japanese cultural elements. The first similarity evident in the culture of the two Asian countries is on how they do their naming. The culture of the two countries dictates that a person’s first name should be that of the family and the preferred name should be the last. The family name should resemble the community and this simply indicates that these two cultures do not take their interests first but focus on communal interest first. The norm of using family names has also been extended in Chinese and Japanese businesses, and they name their companies after family names. Employees view their businesses as an extended family where people working in their companies are considered as members of the extended family. This is indicated as one reason why Japan is growing at a high rate in its corporations and can withstand the financial crisis that sweeps economies of most world powers (Howe 1996, p. 225). The other similarity is in their language. Japan’s written language is mostly borrowed from Chinese culture. The Japanese did not have a written language, and they only got it when they started interacting with the Chinese. Japan’s written language, referred to as Kanji, is created from characters that originated from the Chinese symbol language. People from the countries who cannot communicate effectively verbally rely on the symbol language for their communication. Japanese students who studied in China impacted the development of the Kanji language in Japan once they returned back. In addition, Japan is credited for coming up with new words, which refer to similar things and

Production and Operations Management Assignment - 2

Production and Operations Management - Assignment Example This assignment describes the corporation, that has developed its network in their most important inter-related activities, that include crude oil imports, refining, marketing and transportation to terminals. Eventually, Marathon Oil Corporation started to develop their own convenience stores and gas stations. This assignment focuses on answering 4 questions on production and operations managment. The first answer given contains information on analyzing Marathon’s Oil Corporation product process and determining which phase is open to the greatest number of efficiency improvements, that could be done. Second answers focuses on discussing the relationship between the retail price of gasoline and the world demand for crude oil. Third answer explains what Marathon Oil Corporation could do to keep the price at the pump. The last answer given in the assignment researches and describes an impact of a continued moratorium on deep-water drilling for retail gas prices in the U.S, that was established in June 2010 by President Obama. The most important function of production and operations management are also discussed in this assignment. These are managing the production process in way that reduces the lead time, minimizing the wastage of resources and ensuring continuity of operations. The assignmnet also researches chain management of US oil and gas industry, transportation terms and issues, transfering the finished products and ways to accelerate the process of crude oil transportation through pipelines.

Data Requirements Strategic Supply Chain Management Essay

Data Requirements Strategic Supply Chain Management - Essay Example With these essential elements of the production process in the manufacturing of goods, the parts should be recorded in terms of the descriptions, brand and any other associated data. For instance, the term "bill of materials" may be used by various parts of the enterprise such as engineering, manufacturing, service and sales; although they may all have different definitions of what the bill of materials actually means. Even the basic terms "product" and "parts" may have several definitions within an enterprise. Since a manufacturing company makes use of numerous parts, inventory will help them with communicating clearly with other departments as to which parts are still needed or which have defects and have to be replaced, etc. An effective manufacturing product data model can lead to more integrated and comprehensive product data and information by clearly showing the information requirements of the products, parts and items throughout their life cycle from engineering to manufacturing to the deployment of products at customer locations. Relevant data which may be included in the record are the part identification number, name, and classification which may range from raw material, subassembly or finished good. Raw material is a piece used in making the product and does not need further enhancements for it to be usable. Subassembly means that the part is still composed of other parts. Finished good means that the part is completely done and processed and is ready for shipping. Product information need to indicate the product identification number, name, description, introduction date, sales discontinuation date, support discontinuation date and comments. Bills of materials and marketing packages are also part of the data required for manufacturing process. Manufacturers frequently use the term "bill of materials" to refer to how various parts are assembled into other parts and eventually into products. An enterprise may have a need to store parts used in a MARKETING PACKAGE that are never sold as individual products. Bills of materials consist of parent product identification number, child product identification number, from date, thru date, reason, quantity used, instructions and comments. Part composition has the same information with the bills of materials except for the classification which are engineering composition and manufacturing composition. Types of marketing offerings and types of parts that make up the marketing offerings are important and aside fro this inventory and deployment data should complete the data requirements for manufacturing process. Of course, there are actual physical items that may exist within the enterprise's inventory or that may be deployed at customer locations. Customer service data requirements deals with customer personal data which ranges from financial information, demographics, contact information professional and educational; background. These customer data are confidential and restricted access is provided with the creation and update of these records. While such "point deployments" bring immediate process and data efficiencies to the particular

Has the No Child Left Behind Act Severely Impacted Special Needs Research Paper

Has the No Child Left Behind Act Severely Impacted Special Needs Students by Expecting them to do Things That Normal Kids - Research Paper Example Introduction. The No Child Left Behind Program enhances the education of the special needs students. The research centers on the effect of the No Child Left Behind Program on the special needs learners. The research focuses on the test taking environment of the special needs test takers. The No Child Left Behind Act had not severely impacted special needs students by expecting them to do things that â€Å"Normal† Kids do. Related Literature. The No Child Left Behind Program states that the progress of all special education students should be monitored (PBS, 2008). Likewise, the program states the scores of the special Needs students will be included in getting the average scores of the students within a stat by 2014. Specifically, 95 percent of the learning disabled students’ scores in the English and Math subjects will in included in the overall state’s student tests’ statistical results. To level the playing field in the area of test taking, some leeway is legally given to the disabled learners. One such leeway, giving the disabled students tests incorporating large print questionnaires. Next, the special needs test takers are given more time to take the tests. Third, the special needs students allowed to take the tests in small groups, compared to the normal test groups. Fourth, the special needs students can be allowed to take the tests on a one on one basis. Fifth, some of the test watchers or teachers are allowed to aid the students on how to fill up the answer sheets. Sixth, the blind students are allowed to take the tests using the Braille method. Seventh, some special needs students are allowed to use sign language and other communication help to finish the tests. Eight, some of the special needs students are allowed to use computers to finish the tests. Lastly, many of the special needs students are allowed to use bilingual test booklets to solve math problems (English and Spanish version or English and another language ver sion). Further, the No Child Left Behind Program requires all schools that fail the state’s Adequate Yearly Progress goals in math and reading are classified as â€Å"in need of improvement†. Consequently, the school is required to put into place an educational program to improve the school’s ratings in the next Adequate Yearly Progress results in the areas of reading and mathematics. On the other hand, Alice Hammel (2011) insists the No Child Left Behind Act has severely impacted on the schools for the failure of the Special Needs Students by expecting them to do things that normal kids do, not the special needs children. The schools will receive complaints if the rights of the special needs children are not addressed. For example, students with emotional needs must be educated and tested in a special way, different from the normal learning kids. The students with behavioral needs, including ADHD students, should be taught in a special way to ensure the student will not be bored and reduce interest in the subject. In addition, the special needs children’s learning environment includes parental intervention. The procedural due process includes giving leeway to students with special learning needs to cope with the learning levels of the normal

Overcoming Fear And Bias As A Clinician Essay Example for Free

Overcoming Fear And Bias As A Clinician Essay A special challenge that mental health personnel in prison facilities deal with is the setting of their profession. Exposure to convicted felons, being subject to security sanctions and dealing with individuals under constant stress creates tests an individual’s professional and personal integrity and capability. The fears and biases associated with prisons and inmates stems from the very nature of crime and punishment. The reservation felt is indicative and at the same reinforces the social consequence of violating laws. According to the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health (2007) it is important to develop an understanding of the fears, attitudes, or biases related to prison interventions and how it affects the interactions between the therapist, the intervention program and the client. This is supported by Ward and Stewart (2003): they emphasize the need to develop models and insights to the to therapeutic intervention to better facilitate not only rehabilitation but also crinimogenic, social and individual needs of mental health personnel and clients in prison settings. The attitude of mental health personnel to the circumstance of their practice, both on a personal and professional level, is critical element in the success of therapy and interventions. The professional training of mental health personnel aims to crate attitudes to alleviate the stigma because of the basic objective of therapy to create a means of transcending the motivation or conditions that contributed to acts leading to clients’ convictions (Belenko et al, 2003). Thus, the mental health professional should be able to assess his personal fears, attitudes or biases, outline its mode of impact to his practice and determine the level of control he has over these elements. This requires not only self-examination but may also require consultation with other professionals and studies dealing with similar scenarios.

Contemporary Issues in Leadership

Contemporary Issues in Leadership Leadership is the process of influencing the behavior of others to work willingly and enthusiastically for achieving predetermined goals. It may be seen in terms of relationship between a leader and his followers (individuals / groups) which arises out of their functioning for common goals. The followers work willingly to achieve goal, thus there is no coercive force which induces the followers to work. LEADERS AS Shapers of Meaning Framing Issues. Framing is a way to use language to manage meaning. Its a way for leaders to influence how events are seen and understood. Contemporary roles relating to lead team as managing the conflicts; coaching to improve team member performance; used to serve as troubleshooters. It seems to respond in a group in which they have to participate with the leader. It involves mentor who is a senior employee who sponsors and supports a less experienced employee. Leadership can be taught online as it builds trust in the working environment of the organization. Challenges facing to leadership can be on the basis of qualities attributed as leaders are intelligent, ongoing, have strong verbal skills, understanding, are aggressive and industrious. Actually they perceive or project the appearance of being a leader. Many people today are seeking to understand and many people are writing about the concept and practices of leadership.. The concept of leadership is relevant to any aspect of ensuring effectiveness in organizations and in managing change. There has been an explosion of literature about leadership lately. Leading is a very human activity were all human so there are many people who consider themselves experts on leadership. There are a great many reasons for the popularity of the topic, including that organizations are faced with changes like never before. Understanding the concept of leadership requires more than reading a few articles or fantasizing about what great leaders should be. Contemporary issues includes [1] out of the box thinking; [2]leading by example; [3]globalization;[ 4]changing group dynamics; [5]technology; [6]quick decision making; [7]dealing with change and uncertainty; [8]mentoring; [9]ethical behavior; [10] recruiting and retaining quality workers. Now, managerial and leadership effectiveness depends on the ability to gain the trust of the followers. A recent survey in U.S. employees found that only half trusted their senior manager. Also the bad practices of corporations in the U.S. like the leaders of ENRON, WORLDCOM, etc that were accused of engaging in activities like secret loans, insider trading, manipulating profit figures, evading taxes all these has lost the confidence and trust of employees and investors, supplier, customers in senior executives. Unfortunately, many people make strong assertions about leadership without ever really understanding a great deal about leadership. Leaders need basic intelligence and job related knowledge but this is not enough. They are necessary but not sufficient. It is emotional intelligence that makes him a star performer. These are: Self-awareness exhibited by self confidence, realistic self assessment and a sense of humor. Self management. Exhibited by trustworthiness, integrity, and comfort with ambiguity, openness to change. Self motivation: exhibited by strong drive to achieve, optimism, and high organizational commitment. Empathy cross cultural sensitivity, expertise in building talents. ABSTRACT: However, subsequent scientific studies find that leaders are not exceptionally brilliant, splendid speakers or highly energetic. Instead, leaders know how to forge relationships and accomplish tasks. In fact, analysts find that leaders ability to accomplish tasks is even more important than their interpersonal skills. Leadership Personalities Academic studies achieve varied results when they try to isolate the characteristics of effective leaders. In work done in 1948 that is still well-regarded, scholar Ralph Stogdill proposed that leaders have five clusters of characteristics that make them good at leading. The five are: capacity (intelligence, judgment); achievement (knowledge, scholarship); responsibility (dependability, aggressiveness, self control, and desire to excel); participation (activity, sociability, cooperation, adaptability) and status (position, popularity). In 1990, subsequent research identified five more factors that leaders have in common: they are reliable, agreeable, extroverted, and emotionally stable and open to new experiences. Current theory proposes that anyone can become a leader to some degree if he or she can: Be confident about taking action, and controlling his or her life. Use power in pro-social ways that extend beyond personal gain or narcissism. Develop personal vision by seeing the future impact of todays actions. Leaders must have vision, a future view of events. Good leaders have the ability to convey their visions and make the future unfold as they hope it will. This generally begins with writing a vision statement, a process that often goes badly. Commonly, vision statements are confusing. They tend to cite goals that are really associated with strategies and objectives, not vision. To craft an effective vision statement, write a brief, memorable declaration. Then share your vision; make it more tangible by telling stories and using metaphors. Good leaders consistently align their actions with their verbal messages. They see their followers in a positive light, and care about their well being. Strong leaders provide the proper support to help their followers accept new challenges. Leaders assist others in finding meaning in their work and in their lives. Emotional Intelligence Leaders forge relationships with groups or individuals. The individual relationships tend to be more intellectual but, in both cases, good leaders exhibit highly developed emotional or social intelligence. They are self-aware, socially skilled, disciplined and able to deal capably with other people. People with emotional intelligence think before they act, focus on their goals, understand other peoples emotions and have the skill to establish common grounds for discussion. In this instance, scholars concluded that even the most talented executive cannot succeed without emotional intelligence. Some major corporations that wanted to encourage future leaders in their ranks hired psychologists to sort out leadership characteristics. The psychologists found that leaders are smart and have solid, long-term vision, but that their emotional intelligence is twice as important as either intellect or vision. One study shows that companies where the employees have high emotional intelligence earn higher profits. The reverse is also demonstrably true. A workforce marked by a lack of emotional intelligence can mean lower profits. Leaders can learn emotional intelligence. People who know their limitations can plan to avoid stressful situations or to work around events that tug at their weaknesses. One-on-one training is the best way to learn how to improve your emotional intelligence. Such training focuses on correcting undesirable social habits, such as acting impulsively or being a bad listener. Because this process requires people to correct brain-based emotional drives, it is time-consuming. Theory of Leadership Leadership has been described as the process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task. Definitions more inclusive of followers have also emerged. Alan Keith of Genentech states that, Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen. According to Ken Ogbonnia effective leadership is the ability to successfully integrate and maximize available resources within the internal and external environment for the attainment of organizational or societal goals. Leadership remains one of the most relevant aspects of the organizational context. However, defining leadership has been challenging and definitions can vary depending on the situation. According to Ann Marie E. McSwain, Assistant Professor at Lincoln University, leadership is about capacity: the capacity of leaders to listen and observe, to use their expertise as a starting point to encourage dialogue between all levels of decision-making, to establish processes and transparency in decision-making, to articulate their own values and visions clearly but not impose them. Leadership is about setting and not just reacting to agendas, identifying problems, and initiating change that makes for substantive improvement rather than managing change. The following sections discuss several important aspects of leadership including a description of what leadership is and a description of several popular theories and styles of leadership. This article also discusses topics such as the role of emotions and vision, as well as leadership effectiveness and performance, leadership in different contexts, how it may differ from related concepts (i.e., management), and some critiques of leadership as generally conceived. Trait Theory Trait theory tries to describe the types of behavior and personality tendencies associated with effective leadership. In modern times, Thomas Carlyle (1841) can be considered one of the forerunners of trait theory, seeking to identify the talents, skills and physical characteristics of men who rose to power Although trait theory has an intuitive appeal, difficulties may arise in proving its tenets, and opponents frequently challenge this approach. The strongest versions of trait theory see these leadership characteristics as innate, and accordingly label some people as born leaders due to their psychological makeup. On this reading of the theory, leadership development involves identifying and measuring leadership qualities, screening potential leaders from non-leaders, then training those with potential. In response to criticisms of the trait approach, researchers have begun to assess leader attributes using the leadership attribute pattern approach. Behavioral and style Theories In response to the criticism of the trait approach, theorists began to research leadership as a set of behaviors, evaluating the behavior of successful leaders, determining behavior taxonomy and identifying broad leadership styles. David McClelland, for example, saw leadership skills, not so much as a set of traits, but as a pattern of motives. He claimed that successful leaders will tend to have a high need for power, a low need for affiliation, and a high level of what he called activity inhibition (one might call it self-control The researchers evaluated the performance of groups of eleven-year-old boys under different types of work climate. In each, the leader exercised his influence regarding the type of group decision making, praise and criticism (feedback), and the management of the group tasks (project management) Situational and contingency Theories Situational theory also appeared as a reaction to the trait theory of leadership. This theory assumes that different situations call for different characteristics; according to this group of theories, no single optimal psychographic profile of a leader exists. According to the theory, what an individual actually does when acting as a leader is in large part dependent upon characteristics of the situation in which he functions. Some theorists started to synthesize the trait and situational approaches. The descriptive models of leadership climates, defining three leadership styles and identifying in which situations each style works better. The authoritarian leadership style, for example, is approved in periods of crisis but fails to win the hearts and minds of their followers in the day-to-day management; the democratic leadership style is more adequate in situations that require consensus building; finally, the laissez faire leadership style is appreciated by the degree of freedom it provides, but as the leader does not take charge, he can be perceived as a failure in protracted or thorny organizational problems. Thus, theorists defined the style of leadership as contingent to the situation, which is sometimes classified as contingency theory. Four contingency leadership theories appear more prominently in the recent years: Fiedler contingency model, Vroom-Yetton decision model, the path-goal theory, and t he Hersey-Blanchard situational theory. Functional Theory Functional leadership theory is a particularly useful theory for addressing specific leader behaviors expected to contribute to organizational or unit effectiveness. This theory argues that the leaders main job is to see that whatever is necessary to group needs is taken care of; thus, a leader can be said to have done their job well when they have contributed to group effectiveness and cohesion (Fleishman et al., 1991; Hackman Wageman, 2005; Hackman Walton, 1986). While functional leadership theory has most often been applied to team leadership (Zaccaro, Rittman, Marks, 2001), it has also been effectively applied to broader organizational leadership as well (Zaccaro, 2001). In summarizing literature on functional leadership (see Kozlowski et al. (1996), Zaccaro et al. (2001), Hackman and Walton (1986), Hackman Wageman (2005), Morgeson (2005)), Klein, Zeigert, Knight, and Xiao (2006) observed five broad functions a leader performs when promoting organisations effectiveness. These functions include: (1) environmental monitoring, (2) organizing subordinate activities, (3) teaching and coaching subordinates, (4) motivating others, and (5) intervening actively in the groups work. Leader as a communicator the framing Framing is a way of communicating to shape meaning. Its a way for leaders to influence how others see and understand events. Selecting and highlighting one or more events while excluding others. It is the ability of the leader to influence others to act beyond their self interests Two contemporary theories of leadership with a common theme. Charismatic leadership Transformational leadership Charismatic Leadership The Charismatic Leader gathers followers through dint of personality and charm, rather than any form of external power or authority. The searchlight of attention It is interesting to watch a Charismatic Leader working the room as they move from person to person. They pay much attention to the person they are talking to at any one moment, making that person feel like they are, for that time, the most important person in the world. Charismatic Leaders pay a great deal of attention in scanning and reading their environment, and are good at picking up the moods and concerns of both individuals and larger audiences. They then will hone their actions and words to suit the situation. Pulling all of the strings Charismatic Leaders use a wide range of methods to manage their image and, if they are not naturally charismatic, may practice assiduously at developing their skills. They may engender trust through visible self-sacrifice and taking personal risks in the name of their beliefs. They will show great confidence in their followers. They are very persuasive and make very effective use of body language as well as verbal language. Deliberate charisma is played out in a theatrical sense, where the leader is playing to the house to create a desired effect. They also make effective use of storytelling, including the use of symbolism and metaphor. Many politicians use a charismatic style, as they need to gather a large number of followers. If you want to increase your charisma, studying videos of their speeches and the way they interact with others is a great source of learning. Religious leaders, too, may well use charisma, as do cult leaders. Leading the team Charismatic Leaders, who are building a group, whether it is a political party, a cult or a business team, will often focus strongly on making the group very clear and distinct, separating it from other groups. They will then build the image of the group, in particular in the minds of their followers, as being far superior to all others. The Charismatic Leader will typically attach themselves firmly to the identify of the group, such that to join the group is to become one with the leader. In doing so, they create an unchallengeable position for themselves. Key characteristics of charismatic leadership Vision and articulation; Sensitivity to the environment; Sensitivity to member needs; Personal risk taking; Performing unconventional behavior Vision and articulations Has a vision Expressed as an idealized goal The goal proposes a future better than the status quo Is able to clarify the importance of the vision in terms that are understandable to others. Personal risk Willing to take on high personal risk Incur high costs Engage in self sacrifice to achieve the vision Sensitivity to followers needs Perspective of others abilities Responsive to others needs and feelings. Unconventional behavior Engages in behaviors in behaviors that are novel and counter to norms. Personality of charismatic leaders Extraverted Self confident Achievement oriented Articulate an over arching goal Communicate high performance expectations Empathize the needs of their followers Project a powerful confident and dynamic presence Captivating and engaging voice tone Three step process of becoming a charismatic leader An individual needs to develop an aura of charisma by maintaining an optimistic view, using passion as a catalyst for generating enthusiasm and communicating with the whole body, not just with words. .An individual draws others in by creating a bond that inspires others to follows. . An individual brings out the potential in followers by tapping into their emotions. Charismatic Leadership Issues People following these leaders will be exerting extra effort, express greater satisfaction. Charismatic effectiveness and situation Charisma works best when: The followers task has an ideological component There is a lot of stress and uncertainty in the environment The leader is at the upper level of the organization Followers have low self-esteem and self-worth Dark Side of Charisma Ego-driven charismatic allow their self-interest and personal goals to override the organizations goals Very effective leaders who possess the four typical leadership traits: Individual competency Team skills Managerial competence Ability to stimulate others to high performance Plus one critical new trait A blend of personal humility and professional will Personal ego-needs are focused toward building a great company Take responsibility for failures and give credit to others for successes Prided them on developing strong leaders inside the firm who could direct the company to greater heights after they were gone. Transactional and transformational Theories The transactional leader (Burns, 1978) is given power to perform certain tasks and reward or punish for the teams performance. It gives the opportunity to the manager to lead the group and the group agrees to follow his lead to accomplish a predetermined goal in exchange for something else. Power is given to the leader to evaluate, correct and train subordinates when productivity is not up to the desired level and reward effectiveness when expected outcome is reached. The transformational leader (Burns, 1978) motivates its team to be effective and efficient. Communication is the base for goal achievement focusing the group on the final desired outcome or goal attainment. This leader is highly visible and uses chain of command to get the job done. Transformational leaders focus on the big picture, needing to be surrounded by people who take care of the details. The leader is always looking for ideas that move the organization to reach the companys vision. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: Ten Lessons for Leaders and Leadership Developers In the early 1980s we set upon a quest to discover what it took to become a leader. We wanted to know the common practices of ordinary men and women when they were at their leadership bestwhen they were able to take people to places they had never been before. Strategies, tactics, skills, and practices are empty (or worse yet, manipulative and exploitative) unless we understand the fundamental human aspirations that connect leaders and constituents. Leadership is certainly not conveyed in a gene, and its most definitely not a secret code that cant be understood by ordinary folks. Our analysis of thousands of cases and surveys from over a dozen years of research has revealed a consistent pattern of exemplary leader- ship practices and fundamental constituent expectations. But knowing that the portrait emerging from the study of personal-best leadership experiences was only a partial picture, we also explored the expectations that the constituents have of people they would be willing to follow. What weve learned from studies specifically with college student leaders over the past five years has only strengthened our fundamental appreciation that Leadership is not a mysterious, mystical, or ethereal conceptone that is somehow beyond the scope and imagination of the vast majority of people. Our research has shown us that leadership is an observable, learnable set of practices. Indeed, the belief that leadership cant be learned is a far more powerful deterrent to development than is the nature of the leadership. Where Are Our Future Leaders? Who will lead us into the twenty-first century? It is time for us to decide. A generation ago the objective of African-American activists was to destroy racial segregation and integrate mainstream political and economic institutions. Instead we must recognize that one of the root causes of our divisions and social unrest is an absence of creative, dynamic leadership. Oppressed people need leaders to liberate them. Many of us accomplished these goals. But despite examples of individual success, there remains a simmering leadership crisis that can split our community apart. This common experience of racial oppression gave us a sense of solidarity and interdependence. Black physicians depended on Black patients; Black lawyers and accountants served Black clients. With desegregation, many affluent African-Americans moved from the ghetto into integrated suburbs. Graduates of Howard and Spelman now end their children to Harvard and Swarthmore. In the cities, our sense of community has gradually deteriorated. Millions of our young people are trapped in a destructive web of inferior schools, violence, drugs, and unemployment. Historically the social classes in the Black community were bound together by Jim Crow segregation laws. Blacks on welfare and Black Ph.D.s alike were ordered to the back of the bus or denied work because of their race. We cant depend on the political systemthe Democrats or Republicansor the corporate world to solve our problems; all too often their policies have contributed to them. These leaders must be women and men with vision who have the capacity to articulate the common grievances and goals of the community. How Women Can Find Mentors in a World with Few Role Models Do women have a tougher time finding mentors than men? Thats what women managers tell me, time and again. The rest must find their own mentors. Heres some advice. (Minorities and others who have trouble finding role models in upper management can learn about creative ways to build mentoring relationships, as well.) Few women hold positions of power, the story goes. Meanwhile, members of the predominant mentoring classwhite malesare too busy seeking clones of themselves. And this serves as an effective barrier to top-level jobs. So whats to be done? A number of local and even national programs are increasing mentoring opportunities for women, but they only reach a handful of those needing guidance. Wanted: Company Change Agents The most sought-after person in todays workplace is someone known as a change leader, a new breed of middle manager whos in short supply. Very different from your run-of-the-mill general managers, these mavericks get big results when you need them. They are focused, determined, willing to break rules, and great at motivating their troops. But how do you identify these people in your organization? How do you build a cadre of such quirky but essential agents of change? McKinsey Co. director Jon R. Katzenbach has some answers. For the past three years he and a team of six McKinsey partners have been studying middle-manager change agents at organizations from Compaq Computer to Mobil to the New York City Transit. The fruit of this research is the forthcoming book Real Change Leaders. Katzenbach recently sat down with Stratford Sherman, a member of Fortunes board of editors, to discuss what he learned. Why are midlevel change leaders so important to todays organizations? For some time now companies have wanted to change the behaviors and skills of large numbers of their employees. Theyre not, however, very good at that yet. I dont see many victories; I dont think even GE would claim complete victory. You can create a good program-like [former CEO] John Akerss plan in the early 1990s to transform IBMbut it doesnt work. Something goes wrong in the middle ranks of the company, and all the admonitions from the top dont get through. For large-scale transformations, you need a critical mass of change leaders in the middle of the organization. DATA TOOLS: Leadership and emotions Leadership can be perceived as a particularly emotion-laden process, with emotions entwined with the social influence process. In an organization, the leaders mood has some effects on his/her group. These effects can be described in following method: The mood of individual group members. The leaders transmit their moods to other group members through the mechanism of emotional contagion. Mood contagion may be one of the psychological mechanisms by which charismatic leaders influence followers. Group members with leaders in a positive mood experience more positive mood than do group members with leaders in a negative mood. The affective tone of the group. Group affective tone is an aggregate of the moods of the individual members of the group and refers to mood at the group level of analysis. Groups with leaders in a positive mood have a more positive affective tone than do groups with leaders in a negative mood. Group affective tone represents the consistent or homogeneous affective reactions within a group. Group processes like coordination, effort expenditure, and task strategy. Public expressions of mood impact how group members think and act. For example, expressions of positive moods by leaders signal that leaders deem progress toward goals to be good. The group members respond to those signals cognitively and behaviorally in ways that are reflected in the group processes. When people experience and express mood, they send signals to others. Leaders signal their goals, intentions, and attitudes through their expressions of moods. In research about client service, it was found that expressions of positive mood by the leader improve the performance of the group, although in other sectors there were other findings. Beyond the leaders mood, his behavior is a source for employee positive and negative emotions at work. Examples feedback giving, allocating tasks, resource distribution. Since employee behavior and productivity are directly affected by their emotional states, it is imperative to consider employee emotional responses to organizational leaders Emotional intelligence, the ability to understand and manage moods and emotions in the self and others, contributes to effective leadership in organizations. Leadership is about being responsible. The leader creates situations and events that lead to emotional response. Certain leader behaviors displayed during interactions with their employees are the sources of these affective events. Leaders shape workplace affective events. Leadership styles Leadership styles refer to a leaders behavior. It is the result of the philosophy, personality and experience of the leader. Dictator Autocratic Participative Laissez Fair Dictator Leaders A leader who uses fear and threats to get the jobs done. As similar with a leader who uses an autocratic style of leadership, this style of leader also makes all the decisions. Autocratic or Authoritarian Leaders Under the autocratic leadership styles, all decision-making powers are centralized in the leader as shown such leaders are dictators. They do not entertain any suggestions or initiative from subordinates. The autocratic management has been successful as it provides strong motivation to the manger. It permits quick decision-making as only one person decides for the whole group, and keeps it to them until they feel it is needed by the rest of the group. An autocratic leader does not trust anybody. Participative or Democratic Leaders The democratic leadership style favors decision-making by the group as shown, such as leader gives instruction after consulting the group. He can win the cooperation of his group and can motivate them effectively and positively. The decisions of the democratic leader are not unilateral as with the autocrat because they arise from consultation with the group members and participation by them. Laissez Faire or Free Rein Leaders A free rein leader does not lead, but leaves the group entirely to itself as shown; such a leader allows maximum freedom to subordinates. They are given a freehand in deciding their own policies and methods. Free rein leadership style is considered better than the authoritarian style. But it is not as effective as the democratic style. Transactional and Transformational Leadership Transactional Leaders Leaders who guide or motivate their followers in the direction of established goals by clarifying role and task requirements Transformational Leaders Inspire followers to transcend their own self-interests for the good of the organization; they can have a profound and extraordinary effect on followers Not opposing, but complementary, approaches to leadership Great transformational leaders must also be transactional; only one type is not enough for success Characteristics of the Two Types of Leaders Transactional Contingent Reward: Contracts exchange of rewards for effort, promises rewards for good performance, recognizes accomplishments Management by Exception: Active: Watches and searches for deviations from rules and standards, takes corrective action Passive: Intervenes only if standards are not met Laissez-Faire: Abdi

Intrusion detection system for internet

Intrusion detection system for internet ABSTRACT The visibility to detect the rapid growth of Internet attacks becomes an important issue in network security. Intrusion detection system (IDS) acts as necessary complement to firewall for monitoring packets on the computer network, performing analysis and incident-responses to the suspicious traffic. This report presents the design, implementation and experimentation of Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS), which aims at providing effective network and anomaly based intrusion detection using ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) statistic. A generic system modelling approach and architecture are design for building the NIDS with useful functionalities. Solving the shortcomings of current statistical methods in anomaly based network intrusion detection system is one of the design objectives in this project as all of them reflect the necessary improvements in the network-based IDS industry. Throughout the system development of NIDS, several aspects for building an affective network-based IDS are emphasized, such as the statistical method implementation, packet analysis and detection capabilities. A step by step anomaly detection using ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) test has been calculated in the report. Chapter 1 Introduction This chapter is introduction to the whole project. This chapter introduce the project, its motivation, main objective and advance objectives. The chapter also give brief methodology of the research. Introduction The Though with the rapid growth of computer networks make life faster and easier, while on the other side it makes life insecure as well. Internet banking, on line buying, selling, on internet, is now part of our daily life, along with that, if we look at growing incidents of cyber attacks, security become a problem of great significance. Firewalls are no longer considered sufficient for reliable security, especially against zero error attacks. The security concern companies are now moving towards an additional layer of protection in the form of Intrusion Detection System. D.Yang, A.Usynin W.Hines (2006) explain intrusion and intrusion detection as: Any action that is not legally allowed for a user to take towards an information system is called intrusion and intrusion detection is a process of detecting and tracing inappropriate, and incorrect, or anomalous activity targeted at computing and networking resources [16]. Idea of intrusion detection was first introduced in 1980 (J.P Anderson) and first intrusion detection model was suggested in 1987 (D.E.Denning). Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) is considered as first line of defence and Intrusion Detection Systems are considered as second line defence [16]. IDS are useful once an intrusion has occurred to contain the resulting damage. Snot is best example of working Intrusion Detection System and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IDS/IPS) developed by Sourcefire. Which combine the benefits of signature, protocol and anomaly based inspection. IDS can be classified in to misuse detection and anomaly detection. Misuse detection or signature based IDS can detect intrusion based on known attack patterns or known system vulnerabilities or known intrusive scenarios where as anomaly intrusion detection or not-use detection systems are useful against zero -day attacks, pseudo zero-day attack. Anomaly based IDS based on assumption that behaviour of intruder is different from normal user. Anomaly detection systems can be divided into static and dynamic, S.Chebrolu, et al A.Abraham J.P.Thomas (2004). Static anomaly detectors assume that the portion of system being monitored will not change and they mostly address the software area of the system [17]. Protocol anomaly detection could be the best example of static anomaly detection [17]. Dynamic anomaly detection systems operate on network traffic data or audit records and that will be the main area of my interest in research. Anomaly IDS has become a popular research area due to strength of tracing zero-day threats, B.Schneier (2002). It examines user profiles and audit records etc, and targets the intruder by identifying the deviation from normal user behaviour and alert from potential unseen attacks [18]. Active attacks have more tendencies to be traced as compared to passive attacks, but in ideal IDS we try to traces both. Anomaly based Intrusion detection system are the next generation IDS and in system defence they are considered as second line of defence. In that research my main concentration will be Denial of service attacks their types and how to trace them. Motivations Though Internet is the well knowing technology of the day but still there are security concerns such as internet security and availability. The big threat to information security and availability is intrusion and denial-of-service attacks. Since the existing internet was developed about 40 year ago, at that time the priorities were different. Then unexpected growth of internet result exhaustion IPV4 address along with that it brings lots of security issues as well. According to the CERT statistical data 44,074 vulnerabilities had been reported till 2008. Intrusion is the main issue in computer networks. There are too many signature based intrusion detection are used within information systems. But these intrusion detection systems can only detect known intrusion. Another approach called anomaly based intrusion detection is the dominant technology now. Many organizations are working on anomaly based intrusion detection systems. Many organizations such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology are providing data set for this purpose. Motivated by the observation that there is lots of work is done using the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) data sets. Another aspect of the anomaly based intrusion detection system is statistical method. There are too many good multivariate statistical techniques e,g Multivariate Cumulative Sum (MCUSUM) and Multivariate Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (MEWMA) are used for anomaly detection in the wild of manufacturing systems [3]. Theoretically, these multivariate statistical methods can be used to intrusion detection for examining and detecting anomaly of a subject in the wild of information science. Practically it is not possible because of the computationally intensive procedures of these statistical techniques cannot meet the requirements of intrusion detection systems for several reasons. First, intrusion detection systems deal with huge amount of high-dimensional process data because of large number of behaviours and a high frequency of events occurrence [3]. Second, intrusion detection systems demand a minimum delay of processing of each event in computer systems to make sure an early d etection and signals of intrusions. Therefore, a method which study the variation is called ANOVA statistic would be used in this research. But there is no research available that have implemented ANOVA and F statistic on data sets collected by The Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA). The data sets provided by CAIDA are unique in their nature as it does not contain any session flow, any traffic between the attacker and the attack victim. It contains only reflections from the attack victim that went back to other real or spoof IP addresses. It creates trouble in estimating the attack. I will take that trouble as challenge. Research Question In this section I will explore the core objective of the research and a road map to achieve those objectives. During that research I will study data sets called backscatter-2008, collected by CAIDA for denial of services attacks. I will use statistical technique ANOVA to detect anomaly activities in computer networks. My research is guided by five questions. What is an intrusion and intrusion detection system? How can we classify intrusion detection system? What are different methodologies proposed for intrusion detection systems? How to analyse the CAIDA Backscatter-2008 data sets and make them ready for future study and analysis. How to figure out the different types of DOS attacks. How to implement ANOVA statistical techniques to detect anomaly in networks traffics Aims and Objectives Dos attacks are too many in numbers and it is not possible to discuss all the dos attacks in one paper. In this paper I will look to detect anomaly in network traffic using number of packets. Main/Core objectives of the research Review literature of recent intrusion detection approaches and techniques. Discuss current intrusion detection system used in computer networks Obtaining a data set from CAIDA organization for analysis and future study. Pre-process the trace collected by CAIDA, make it ready for future analysis. Recognizing the normal and anomaly network traffic in CAIDA dataset called backscatter-2008. Investigate Analyse deviated network traffic using MATLAB for different variants of denial of services attacks. Review of existing statistical techniques for anomaly detection Evaluation of the proposed system model Advance Objectives of the research Extend the system model to detect new security attacks. Investigating and analysing the ANOVA statistical techniques over other statistics for anomaly detection in computer networks. Nature and Methodology The area of research is related with detecting anomaly traffic in computer networks. The revolution in processing and storage capabilities in the computing made it possible to capture, store computer network traffic and then different kind of data patterns are derived from the captured data traffic. These data patterns are analysed to build profile for the network traffic. Deviations from these normal profiles will be considered anomaly in the computer network traffic. This research presents a study of vulnerability in TCP/IP and attacks that can be initiated. Also the purpose of research is to study TCP flags, find distribution for the network traffic and then apply ANOVA statistical techniques to identify potential anomaly traffic on the network. Report Structure Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter is about the general overview of the project .First of all introduction about the topic is given then motivation of the research is discussed. Core objectives and general road map of the project is discussed under the heading of research question. Aims and objectives are described to enable readers to understand the code and advance objectives of the research and general overview of the research. Nature and Methodology includes the nature of research and what methods will be used during that research to answer the research question and to achieve core and advance objectives. Lastly at the end all chapters in the report are introduced. Chapter 2: Research Background The main focus of this chapter to explain what is Intrusion and Detection why we need Intrusion Detection Systems, types and techniques being used for Intrusion Detection Systems, Challenges and problems of Intrusion Detection System. Chapter 3: Security Vulnerabilities and Threats in Computer Networks This area of report is dedicated to the Network Security in general and issues with computer networks. Then types of Denial of services attacks are described in general. This chapter also include Types of DOS attacks and brief description of each attack. Chapter 4: Data Source Data sets collected and uploaded by CAIDA on their web site are not in a format to be processed straight away. This chapter described in detail how to obtain those data sets. Then all the necessary steps that are carried out on the data sets to convert that trace into format that is understood by MATLAB for final analysis. It also includes the problems faced during the pre-processing of data sets as there not enough material available on internet for pre-processing of datasets and the application used during that phase. Chapter 5: System Model As the research is based on TCP/IP protocol So it is vital to discuss the TCP and the weak points that allow that attacker to take advantage and use them for malicious purpose. What measures could be taken to recognize the attacks well before they happen and how to stop them. In this chapter I will discuss the Intrusion detection Model and features of proposed IDS and finally the steps in proposed model. Chapter 6: ANOVA Statistic and Test Results Implementation in Proposed Model This chapter is the core chapter of this project. This chapter all about focus on statistical test in intrusion detection systems particularly on ANOVA statistics. In this chapter first, the existing statistical techniques are analysed for intrusion detection. ANOVA calculation, deployment in intrusion detection system, backscatter-2008 data set distribution and other categories wise distribution will be explained in this chapter. Finally in the chapter, includes the graphs of the data sets and ANOVA and F statistic graphs are shown. Chapter 7: Discussion and conclusion Finally I will sum up my project in this chapter. It will include conclusion of research. Personal improvements of during that project because during that project I been through my experiences that later I found in the project that is helpful in other areas. Finally the goals that are achieved through entire project. Summary This chapter will enable reader to understand the general overview of the research. First of all the different research questions are identified. Then the objectives of the research are described which includes both core and advanced objectives. What is the nature of the research and which method will be used in it are in picture. The topic provides overall background information. Furthermore explanation of the report structure and brief description of all the chapters are also included in this chapter. Chapter 2 Research Background Introduction The focus of this chapter is to explain, what is intrusion and intrusion detection system. Why we need Intrusion Detection System. This chapter also discuss types and techniques used for Intrusion Detection Systems. Goals, challenges and problems are the main parts of the Intrusion Detection System are also explained in this chapter. Intrusion Detection System (IDS) A computer intrusion is the number of events that breaches the security of a system. Such number of events must be detected in proactive manner in order to guarantee the confidentiality, integrity and availability of resources of a computer system. An intrusion into an information system is a malicious activity that compromises its security (e.g. integrity, confidentiality, and availability) through a series of events in the information system. For example intrusion may compromise the integrity and confidentiality of an information system by gaining root level access and then modifying and stealing information. Another type of intrusion is denial-of-service intrusion that compromises the availability of an information system by flooding a server with an overwhelming number of service requests to the server over short period of time and thus makes services unavailable to legitimate users. According to D. Yang, A. Usynin W. Hines, they describe intrusion and intrusion detection as: An y action that is not legally allowed for a user to take towards an information system is called intrusion and intrusion detection is a process of detecting and tracing inappropriate, and incorrect, or anomalous activity targeted at computing and networking resources. Why we need Intrusion Detection System To provide guarantee of integrity, confidentiality and availability of the computer system resources, we need a system that supervise events, processes and actions within an information system [1]. The limitations of current traditional methods, misconfigured control access policies and also the misconfigured firewalls policies in computer systems and computer network security systems (Basic motivation to prevent security failures), along with increasing number of exploitable bugs in computer network software, have made it very obvious to design security oriented monitoring systems to supervise system events in context of security violations [1]. These traditional systems do not notify the system administrator about the misuses or anomaly events in the system. So we need a system which provides proactive decision about misuse or anomaly events, so therefore from last two decades the intrusion detection systems importance is growing day by day. Now a days intrusion detection system plays vital role in an organization computers security infrastructure. Types of Intrusion Detection System Intrusion detection system is a technique that supervises computers or networks for unauthorized login, events, activity, or file deletion or modifications [1]. Intrusion detection system can also be designed to monitor network traffic, so it can detect denial of service attacks, such as SYN, RST, ICMP attacks. Typically intrusion detection system can be classified into two types [1]. Host-Based Intrusion Detection System (HIDS) Network-Based Intrusion Detection System (NIDS) Each of the above two types of intrusion detection system has their own different approach to supervise, monitor and secure data, and each has distinct merits and demerits. In short words, host based intrusion detection system analyse activity occurrence on individual computers, while on the other hand network based IDSs examine traffic of the whole computer network. Host-Based Intrusion Detection System Host based intrusion detection gather and analyse audit records from a computer that provide services such as Password services, DHCP services, web services etc [1]. The host based intrusion detection systems (HIDS) are mostly platform dependent because each platform has different audit record from other platforms. It includes an agent on a host which detect intrusion by examining system audit records, for example audit record may be system calls, application logs, file-system modification (access control list data base modification, password file modification) and other system or users events or actions on the system. Intrusion detection system were first developed and implemented as a host based [1]. In host based intrusion detection systems once the audit records is aggregated for a specific computer, it can be sent to a central machine for analysis, or it can be examined for analysis on the local machine as well. These types of intrusion detection systems are highly effective for detecting inside intrusion events. An unauthorized modification, accesses, and retrieval of files can detect effectively by host based intrusion detection system. Issues involve in host based intrusion detection systems is the collection of audit records for thousands of computer may insufficient or ineffective. Windows NT/2000 security events logs, RDMS audit sources, UNIX Syslog, and Enterprises Management systems audit data (such as Tivoli) are the possible implementations of the host based intrusion detection system. Network-Based Intrusion Detection System Network-based intrusion detection system (NIDS) is completely platform independent intrusion detection system which predicts intrusion in network traffic by analysing network traffic such as frames , packets and TCP segments (network address, port number, protocols TCP headers, TCP flags etc) and network bandwidth as well. The NIDS examines and compared the captured packets with already analysed data to recognize their nature for anomaly or malicious activity. NIDS is supervising the whole network, so it should be more distributed than HIDS. NIDS does not examine information that originate from a computer but uses specials techniques like packet sniffing to take out data from TCP/IP or other protocols travelling along the computer network [1]. HIDS and NIDS can also be used as combination. My project focus on network based intrusion detection systems, in this project we analyse TCP flags for detecting intrusions. Techniques Used in Existing IDS In the above section we discussed about the general existing type of the intrusion detection system. Now the question arises that how these intrusion detection system detect the intrusion. There are two major techniques are used for above each intrusion detection system to detect intruder. Signature Detection or Misuse Detection Anomaly Detection Signature Detection or Misuse Detection This technique commonly called signature detection, this technique first derives a pattern for each known intrusive scenarios and then it is stored in a data base [3]. These patterns are called signatures. A signature can be as simple as a three failed login or a pattern that matches a specific portion of network traffic or it may be a sequence of string or bits [1]. Then this technique tests the current behaviour of the subject with store signature data base and signals an intrusion when there is a same pattern match. The main limitation in this technique, that it cannot detect new attacks whose signatures are unknown. Anomaly Detection In this technique the IDS develop a profile of the subjects normal behaviour (norm profile) or baseline of normal usage patterns. Subject of interest may be a host system, user, privileged program, file, computer network etc. Then this technique compare the observed behaviour of the subject with its normal profile and alarm an intrusion when the subjects observe activity departs from its normal profile [3]. For comparison, anomaly detection method use statistical techniques e,g ANOVA K-mean, Standard Deviations, Linear regressions, etc [2]. In my project, I am using ANOVA statistic for anomaly detection. Anomaly detection technique can detect both known and new intrusion in the information system if and only if, there is departure between norm and observed profile [3]. For example, in denial of service attack, intrusion occurs through flooding a server, the ratio of the events to the server is much higher than the events ratio of the norm operation condition [3]. Issues and Challenges in the IDS An intrusion detection system should recognize a substantial percentage of intrusion while maintain the false alarm rate at acceptable level [4]. The major challenge for IDS is the base rate fallacy. The base rate fallacy can be explained in false positive false negative. False positive means when there is no intrusion and the IDS detect intrusion in the event. False negative when there is an intrusion in the events and the IDS does not detect it. Unfortunately, the nature of the probability includes, and the overlapping area between the observed and training data, it is very difficult to keep the standard of the high rate of detections with low rate of false alarms [4]. According study held on the current intrusion detection systems depicted that the existing intrusion detection systems have not solved the problem of base rate fallacy [4]. Summary An intrusion into information system compromises security of the information system. A system, called intrusion detection is used to detect intrusion into information system. The two major types of IDS are HIDS and NIDS. The host based intrusion detection system monitor mostly the events on the host computer, while the NIDS monitor the activity of the computer network system. There are two approaches implemented for intrusion detection in IDS, anomaly and signature. Anomaly use statistical methods for detecting anomaly in the observed behaviour while signature check patterns in it. Base rate fallacy is the major challenge for IDS. Chapter 3 Security Vulnerabilities and threats in Networks Introduction In this chapter we are going to discuss the computer and network security. For computer security, there are some other terminologies like vulnerability, exploitability and threats are discussed as well in the chapter. Then chapter focus on Denial of Service attack, which is the most dominant attack in the wild of computer science. The chapter also concentrate the all aspects of the denial of service attack. Computer Security In the early days of the internet, network attacks have been a difficult problem. As the economy, business, banks and organization and society becomes more dependent on the internet, network attacks put a problem of huge significance. Computer security preclude attacker from getting the objectives through unauthorized use of computers and networks [5]. According to the Robert C. Searcord Security has developmental and operational elements [5]. Developmental security means, developing secure software with secure design and flawless implementation [5]. Operational Security means, securing the implemented system and networks from attacks. In computer security the following terminologies are used most commonly [5]. Security Policy: A set of rules and rehearses that are typically implemented by the network or system administrator to their system or network to protect it from attacks are called security policies. Security Flaw: A software fault that offers a potential security risk is called security flaw. Vulnerability: the term vulnerability is a set of conditions through malicious user implicitly or explicitly violates security policy. Exploit: a set of tools, software, or techniques that get benefit of security vulnerability to breach implicit or explicit security policy [5]. The term information security and network security are often used interchangeably. However, this project focus intrusion in computer networks, so we are going to discuss network security. The term network security is the techniques that are used to protect data from the hacker travelling on computer networks. Network security Issues There are many issued involved in the network security but the following are the most common. Known vulnerabilities are too many and new vulnerabilities are being discovered every day. In denial of service attack when the malicious user, attack on the resources of the remote server, so there is no typical way to distinguish bad and good requests. Vulnerability in TCP/IP protocols. Denial of service Attacks A denial of service attacks or distributed denial of service attack is an attempt to make computer resources exhausts or disable or unavailable to its legitimate users. These resources may be network bandwidth, computing power, computer services, or operating system data structure. When this attack is launched from a single machine, or network node then it is called denial of service attack. But now days in the computer wild the most serious threat is distributed denial of service attack [4]. In distributed denial of service attack, the attacker first gain access to the number of host throughout the internet, then the attacker uses these victims as launch pad simultaneously or in a coordinated fashion to launch the attack upon the targets. There are two basic classes of DoS attacks: logic attacks and resource attacks. Ping-of-Death, exploits current software flaws to degrade or crash the remote server is an example of the logic attacks. While on the other hand in resource attacks, the victims CPU, memory, or network resources are overwhelmed by sending large amount of wrong requests. Because the remote server, does not differentiate the bad and good request, so to defend attack on resources is not possible. Various denials of service attacks have some special characteristics Oleksii ignatenko explain the characteristics of the denial of service attacks as in the figure 1. Your browser may not support display of this image. Figure 1 Denial of service attack characteristics Attack type: a denial of service can be a distributed (when it comes from many sources) or non-distributed (when it comes from only one source). Attack Direction: attack direction may be network or system resources. Attack Scheme: Attack Scheme can be direct from malicious users source or it can be reflections form other victims systems, or it can be hidden. Attack Method: Method means that vulnerability that allows attack. Targeted attack utilizes vulnerability in protocols, software and services, while consumption method consumes all possible resources. Exploitive attacks take advantages of defects in operating system. operating system Methods for Implementing Denial of Service Attacks A denial of service attack can be implemented in many ways; the following are the most common implantation techniques Attempt to flood a network, thereby stopping legitimate network traffic Attempt to interrupt connections between two systems, thereby preclude access to a service Attempt to prevent a specific user from accessing a service The flood method can be deployed in many ways but the following are well known in the wild of networks system. TCP-SYN Flood ICMP Flood RST attack TCP-SYN Flood: In order to achieve the TCP-SYN flood the attacker tries to establish the connection to the server. Normally a client establishes a connection to the server through three way handshake. In three way handshake, The client or any sender sends the TCP packet with the SYN flag set. The server or receiver receives the TCP packet, it sends TCP packet with both SYN and ACK bits are set. The client receives SYN-ACK packet and send ACK packet to the server. The three way handshake can easily be understood in the figure 2: Client Server Your browser may not support display of this image.Your browser may not support display of this image.Your browser may not support display of this image. Your browser may not support display of this image. Your browser may not support display of this image. Figure 2 Three way Handshake This is called three way handshake of TCP connection establishment. So in SYN flood what the attacker does, he sends SYN packet to the server and the server responds with SYN-ACK packets but the attacker does not sends the ACK packet. If the server does not receive the ACK packet from the client it will resends a SYN-ACK packet again after waiting for 3 seconds. If SYN-ACK still does not arrive, the server will send another SYN-ACK after 6 seconds. This doubling in time continuous for a total of 4 or 6 attempts (the exact number depends upon the implementation of the TCP protocol on the server side) [8]. So in SYN flood the attacker install Zombies on Internet hosts and sends huge amount of SYN request from spoof IP to the server or any host on the internet and utilize all the server or host memory and data structure. In this way the server get busy and is not able to accept request or respond to