Managing Employee Motivation and Performance Free Essays

INTERNATIONAL BURCH UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT MANAGING EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION AND PERFORMANCE RESEARCH PAPER by Nedzad ISAKOVIC Project Supervisor M. A. Edin SMAJIC SARAJEVO April, 2012 Contents 1. We will write a custom essay sample on Managing Employee Motivation and Performance or any similar topic only for you Order Now Introduction2 1. 1. The Motivation Process2 1. 2. Wath Managers Do In Practice2 2. Motivating by Structuring Jobs to Make Them Interesting3 2. 1. Job Design3 2. 2. Job Enrichment and Job Enlargement3 2. 3. The Job Characteristics Model4 3. Conclusion5 4. References7 1. Introduction Motivation is defined as the process that initiates, guides and maintains goal-oriented behaviors. Motivation is what causes us to act, whether it is getting a glass of water to reduce thirst, reading a book to gain knowledge or performing some specific job assignment to get pay. Why is the motivation of employees so important at the workplace? It is important for managers because it determines individual performance of the workers along with ability of the workers and work environment. The most challenging factor for manager to control of these three is motivation. Individual behavior is a complex phenomenon, and the manager needs to enter the core of the problem if he is going to solve it. 1. 1. The Motivation Process The motivation process progresses through a series of discrete steps. Content, process, and reinforcement perspectives on motivation address different parts of this process (Griffin, 2008). Content perspective tries to find what factor or factors motivate people. The most popular content theories are Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the ERG theory and Herzberg’s two-factor theory. Process perspectives on motivation explore how the motivation process works and how it occurs. They try to find out why people certain behavior options to fulfill their needs and how workers evaluate their satisfactions after their decisions. Theories of process perspectives are expectancy theory, equity theory and the newer attribution theory. The reinforcement perspective tries to find out which factors force employees to continue being motivated. It tells us that employees will repeat the behavior for which they are rewarded, and they won’t repeat behavior for which they are punished. Reinforcement perspective uses positive reinforcement, avoidance, punishment and extinction as tools to keep employees motivated. These are just theories which help managers to determine what to do in practice. 1. 2. What Managers Do In Practice The most shared thought and strategy among managers in practice is that money motivates. Because of that managers use large variety of reward systems such as merit reward systems, incentive reward systems and team reward systems to improve motivation and performance of their employees. Their assumption is correct and employees do actually perform better when they know that they will receive more money for their improved performance. But another question arises: How long will the improved performance last if money is key motivator? The answer is that it won’t last long. The studies have shown that individuals have difficulty recalling the bonus they receive and it does not seem to have the same impact it did within the first few weeks or months of receiving it. That’s because money, in and of itself, will not continuously motivate individuals. Employees are motivated much more if money rewards are combined with recognition and with improved job design. Another problem that arises from using the money as a key factor of motivation is that it costs. The companies need to give large amounts of money to employees as bonuses and there were several cases where bonuses are actually larger than annual salaries of some employees. This becomes a real problem if company wants to decrease the amount of bonuses employees receive. Employees become more dissatisfied and unmotivated because they are used to have large bonuses, so their performance falls quite a lot. My opinion is that the best way to motivate employees to perform better is to design jobs by making them more appealing to people. 1. Motivating by Structuring Jobs to Make Them Interesting 2. 3. Job Design This approach of motivation is directed at improving the essential nature of the work performed by changing the design of the job. Job design is concerned with structuring jobs in order to improve organization efficiency and employee job satisfaction (Snell/Bohlander, 2007). Employees today engage in repetitive movements, which they find highly routine and monotonous. Not surprisingly, people became bored with such jobs and their performance falls with time. Fortunately, today’s organizational scientists have found several ways of designing jobs that aren’t just efficient, but are also pleasant and motivating. Job enlargement and job enrichment are two approaches that improve motivation by changing job design. 2. 4. Job Enlargement and Job Enrichment One of the first modern approaches to redesigning jobs suggested that boredom of employees by engaging in highly repetitive jobs could be minimized by having people perform an increased number of different tasks all at the same level. This approach is known as job enlargement (Greenberg/Baron, 2008). Because of this approach employees don’t need higher skills or have higher responsibility, but perform more different actions at the same level. Changing job in this way is an increase in the horizontal job loading. Several studies showed that job enlargement is very useful way to increase employee job satisfaction and employee boredom at the workplace. A more effective approach, job enrichment, gives employees not only more jobs to do, but more tasks to perform at a higher level of skill and responsibility (Greenberg/Baron, 2008). The main idea of job enrichment is making jobs more interesting to people so that they will be more highly motivated to perform them. Job enrichment gives employees the opportunity to take greater control over how to do their jobs. Because people performing enriched jobs work at higher levels than others, this approach increases a job’s vertical job loading. Even the job enrichment is successful it has some problems in implementation. First one is difficulty of implementation because it is expensive to redesign existing facilities. Second problem is lack of employee acceptance because not all employees are ready to accept the changes in their job accomplishment and higher obligations for the work they perform. 2. 5. The Job Characteristics Model In previous text I stated that employers should enrich the jobs, but I failed to specify precise what elements of a job need to be enriched for it to be effective. Job characteristics model answers this question. It assumes that jobs can be designed so as to help people get enjoyment out of their jobs and care about the work they do (Greenberg/Baron, 2008). It tells us how jobs can be redesigned to help employees feel that they are doing meaningful and valuable work. The model specifies that enriching certain elements of jobs influences employee’s psychological states in a manner that increases their work effectiveness. It identifies five core job dimensions that help create three critical psychological states, leading to several beneficial personal and work outcomes. The five critical job dimensions are skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback. Skill variety shows us how many different tasks the employee performs using several of his skills and talents. Task identity shows us how much is employee involved in one piece of work, from beginning to end. Task significance shows us how much impact employee’s work has on others. Autonomy shows us how much freedom employees have in planning and performing jobs as they wish. Feedback shows us how much the job allows employees to know is their performance efficient enough. The model tells that these various job dimensions have important effects on many critical psychological states. Combination of these job dimensions have effect on experienced meaningfulness of the job performed, which is then experienced as highly important, valuable and worthwhile. Job dimensions also determine how much employees are personally responsible and accountable for their work. When they are free to decide what to do and how to do it they feel more responsible for their work. Finally, these job dimensions impact employee’s knowledge of the results of their work. When a job is designed to provide employees with information about the effects of their actions, they better understand how effective they are – and such knowledge improves their effectiveness. These critical psychological states affect personal and work outcomes such as: feelings of motivation, the quality of work performed, satisfaction with work, absenteeism and turnover. The higher these psychological states are, the more positive the personal and work benefits and outcomes will be. The job characteristics model is highly applicable and it has high and positive results. The employees that respond best to this model are the ones which have high need for personal growth and development. The model has been focus of many empirical tests, most of which are supportive of many aspects of the model. One study conducted among a group of South African clerical workers found particularly strong support for the job characteristic model (Greenberg/Baron, 2008). . Conclusion In my opinion altering employee motivation by changing job design is much more productive and better than improving motivation by incentive reward systems. It is true that inducing motivation by changing job design has several problems, such as difficulty of implementation and lack of employee acceptance, but these problems are easier to overcome than problems that occur when companies use mon ey to motivate their employees. Incentive reward systems have problems beside the incredibly high costs to organization. These systems may lead to lower job satisfaction as the employees work until they reach their limit and then they become unhappy. They can also create competition within the organization and destroy cooperation among employees. Employees cannot be treated just as machines and the money they receive for their work just isn’t enough to satisfy them. They need recognition for their work and they need to see that the work they do is meaningful and worthwhile, and this is the thing that job design allows them to have. They feel respected and fulfilled and, at the end, motivated to perform the best they know. . References Ricky W. Griffin (2008). Management (9th Edition ed. ). Houghton Mifflin Company. Jerald Greenberg ; Robert A. Baron (2008). Behavior in Organizations (9th Edition ed. ). Pearson Prentice Hall. Luis R. Gomez-Mejia ; David B. Balkin ; Robert L. Cardy (2007). Managing Human Resources (5th Edition ed. ). Pearson Prentice Hall . Scott Snell ; George Bohlander (2007). H uman Resorce Management. Thomson. http://psychology. about. com/od/mindex/g/motivation-definition. htm , http://www. entrepreneur. com/article/202352 How to cite Managing Employee Motivation and Performance, Papers

Strategic Information System Of ANZ Bank †Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Strategic Information System Of ANZ Bank? Answer: Introduction As pointed out by Akman and Mishra (2015), the strategic information system is helpful for easing the flow of operations and deploying effective and improved services for the organization. The following report deals with the analysis of the ANZ bank case study. ANZ bank is one of the most renowned occurrences. The report analyzes the Australian and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank. The business management process of ANZ Bank is explained in this report. This report also deals with the software requirements of the ANZ Bank and the selection of software and the vendor that is needed by the ANZ Bank. This report states three different ways of technologies that are needed by the ANZ Bank and their related potential risks. The issue depicted in this scenario is the data breach. The data breach occurred at ANZ bank and the possible solutions for avoiding the occurrence of the security issue has been given in the following report. Background of ANZ Bank The ANZ bank holds an integral position in the financial market sector of Australia and New Zealand. It is analyzed that the overall capital of ANZ bank is about 93.4 billion AU$. However, in their annual report of 31st March, 2013, the company has an overall asset of over 896.5 billion AUD. The market coverage of the ANZ bank is stretched to regions of New Zealand, America, Europe and Middle East. The work of the ANZ Bank is to give service to the retail customers, commercial customers and also the institutional customers. The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank works with 46000 staffs working in the bank. The corporate and customer offerings in the banking sector are being offered throughout the regions of market expansion of ANZ Bank. There are near about 550,000 shareholders that are associated with the bank among which about 72.5 percent of the total shareholders are domestic and the rest are retail. The target of the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank is making the world to shine with all its communities and the people living in the world. A balanced as well as a sustainable economy is created by the ANZ bank to make life to lead properly. The main focus that ANZ Bank focuses to is not only on financing sector or the facilitating sector, but also focuses to provide opportunities which relates to families, businesses, families and also individuals. Many difficulties are looked by the ANZ Bank with the evolving advancements, evolving globalization, statistic diagrams and furthermore environmental change. The Bank also provides opportunities that encourage the sustainable growth of the economy and also economic participation. The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank inspires businesses to grow and also helps the individuals by providing services and network in the banking sector of Asia. The funds that are finished by the people in venture, to manu factured private companies to huge organizations and to take all the little endeavors to global level is crafted by ANZ Bank. The bank helps to rebuild the old enterprises and helps them to evolve. The ANZ Bank provides ideas and helps to change those ideas and provide hard work and ambition to reality. Business Processes Numerous systems are trailed by the ANZ Banking Group Limited Bank during the time spent business forms. The business processes that are used in the ANZ Bank have many strategies. Making use of strong foundation is the strategy that is used by the ANZ Bank. A strong foundation is created between Australia and also New Zealand (Ravichandran, Taylor and Waterhouse 2016). The strategies make to lead the market and also provide geographic footprints which are distinctive. The customers need and also to meet the need of customer are observed in the strategy of ANZ Bank. To capture all the opportunities which links the regional trade as well the capital flow are maintained in the strategy. A unique type of mixed access is given to the partners who are related with the ANZ Bank which has high returning introduction in the Asian area are trailed by the techniques. The technique that is trailed by the ANZ Banking Group Limited Bank has basically four components. They are as follows: The principal strategy is to make a bank that serves their subjects as best in the nation of Australia and furthermore New Zealand for clients who has independent ventures. The second strategy is to make the bank the best bank in the world for all customers who drive their capital flow and also the regional trade. Third strategy builds up the foundation which is principally in the advanced division and furthermore the bank manages control and the scale, understanding of the client in wide range. The last strategy that is followed by the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank is that it should be able to mitigate all the risk that comes in the organization and has principles of risk management must be implemented in the bank so that the customer data are saved. The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited follows some strategic properties. The property of strategic that is followed by business process is to create a simple and a bank that is balanced bitterly to reduce the cost of operation and reduces the risk that comes from the management complexity. The strategy property that also selects some particular areas where there is a chance of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank to flourish in the market. The strategy is to focus on small organizations that are situated in Australia and New Zealand by providing them capital as a loan. The property of strategy that is followed by ANZ Bank is to make banking solutions that are more convenient which helps to simplify the life of all the customers so that a digital life can be started. Business Requirements The ANZ Banking Group Limited Bank requires some business necessities that are utilized as a part of their business forms. Business requirement is firstly to know the need of the bank in a particular region where the owner decides to open the bank. After deciding the need to open the bank, all the board of directors that are needed to make the strategic plan of the business are appointed and the work of board of directors is also to keep a look on the all the employees to see that they follows policies and the concerned rule of the organization (Moradi-Motlagh and Babacan 2015). The most important business requirement of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank is to have a good amount of money which is invested in the operations. The Board of Directors investigate on all these processes and then decides to approve the plan to start a business after which a summary plan is made with all the policies and the procedures made for coming five years. A legal team for supportin g all these works is hired and starts with the business that is just starting up. The frameworks of hazard administration are to be remembered with the goal that the representatives and also the client don't confront any hazard. A specialist team is hired to reinvestigate the plan that is made and to set up all required plan and also contribute the community. The last period of necessity is the business prerequisite is to apply state lawful sanctions and government legitimate contracts of the state. System Requirements ANZ Banking Group Limited Bank requires numerous frameworks for working up business process. Internet Banking is one of the most important systems that are required in the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank (Minervini and Napier 2013). The application of the internet banking of the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank works efficiently if the OS that is the operating system has Safari Browser, Opera, Google Chrome, Firefox and many such browsers that are installed on the Operating System. Google Chrome works best with Windows 7, 8 and 10 and also Mac OSX. The browser Internet Explores works with Windows 10, Windows 7 and 8. Safari Browser only works with Mac OSX and the Browser Firefox works with all operating systems. Opera works only with windows 7 and Windows 10. The mobile and tablets software are also used to access the internet banking facility of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank. To access the Internet Banking of the ANZ Bank, a separate website is available. The website of the bank works with all those browsers and also works smoothly so that the customers do not come across any problem while browsing with the site of the bank. The application of the ANZ Banking Group Limited Bank does not function admirably with more seasoned program rendition. In the event that the clients have more established variant of program, they won't have the capacity to login. They must always keep their system updated to have access on the site of the bank. Beta variants of the programs are not in the least upheld by the ANZ Banking Group Limited Bank. The site of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank also do not support other open sources that are manufactured by beta version as well. Software and Vendor Selection Selecting a proper vendor for the Enterprise Resource Planning of an organization is a very crucial work. It is one of the most basic process that all the business and organization are to deal with (Krajewski, Ritzman and Malhotra 2013). The product procedure that the ANZ Banking Group Limited Bank includes are the Enterprise Resource Planning known as ERP, Customer Relationship Management known as CRM, finance and HR, protection, purpose of offer, venture administration, utility charging, and group advancement. Many vendors and software systems are available in the market which can be followed by the business processes. There are certain criteria on which the Vendor selection process depends on. The processes that the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank looks on while selecting a vendor are: definition requirements, business processes review, script development, software demonstration of facilitation, calling facilities, interview requirement and evaluation of RFP o r the software response. All these processes should be related to headquarters related facilities of all the software visitors, user interference, analysis and the facilities and also for the board presentation. To keep up the system that is territorial in ANZ Banking Group Limited Bank, the bank has chosen the Misys Loan IQ as its product merchant so they can lead all their operation all around. The Misys Loan IQ helps the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank to deliver a managing system that is used in its basic commercial loan so that the bank can meet the needs that are related to corporate and the institutional banking and commercial banking sectors (Klettner, Clarke and Boersma 2014). Their selected vendor provider helps them to give an experience that is stable to all the customers and also manages all the revenues in much better way. A standardized group of process is also provided by Misys so that all the risk factors and the factors to manage the risks can be regulated along with compliance. The solutions which the Misys vendor provides are rich in feature and also give workflows in a robust way. The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank can take operational processes from their Misys vendor so that they can consolidate the lending business of institution and commercial region. Automatic process and standardization of taking loans are provided by the Misys vendor for their future growth. All procedures that the ANZ Banking Group Limited Bank needs are for the most part safely gave by the Misys Loan IQ programming merchant. The ANZ Bank has selected its vendor only after verifying all its functionality that the vendor can provide. Three types of technologies to Improve Business Efficiency of ANZ Bank Customers journey digitally monitored The fulfillment of the client is checked by the ANZ Banking Group Limited Bank by a procedure known as digitization. In the event that the client faces any troubles in digitization process, the nearby staffs are educated promptly about the issue. This provides a positive feedback among the customers of the bank (Cummings and Durrani 2016). The needs of all the customers are well understand by the bank and improve the issues which results the satisfaction of all the customers and a hike on revenue growth is also viewed up to a level of 15 percent. The digitization process also helps to reduce the cost of service to their customers. Some branches of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank make use of ipads that helps the employees to get access on the customers experience from any place they want. To get service from the bank any time the customer wants makes the customers very happy. Digitization process which done end to end is needed The back office mainly creates dissatisfaction for the customers. The customer feedback that comes is mostly because of the works from the end office. Digitization process must be involved in all the function of the bank to do all the works automatically (Coles-Kemp and Hall 2016). Digitization of end to end is to be maintained so that all the functions of the bank from middle to end office. The cost of substantiality is also reduced and creates a value and a scale for the business. To increase the digital strategies of the customers, mainly mobile devices are used to communicate between bank and the customers. Go Global The fundamental test that is looked by the digitization is exploring the socio-economics of the clients and furthermore the controls are various. The complexity of the market also plays problem to the business to extend globally. Digital strategy is localized by the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank so that they can give their customers a better service. The needs of all the customers are well understand by the bank and improve the issues which results the satisfaction of all the customers. The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank builds up a business that is agile and gives efficiency and also collaboration to ANZ Bank customers. Level of Efficiency for Implementing Technology There are numerous issues that the ANZ Banking Group Limited Bank faces and was under weight with the goal that they needed to diminish their effectiveness and also the efficiency. The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Banks technology department purchases applications that helps the bank to reduce such problems and also starts the integration process among all the application of the enterprise (Chuang and Hu 2015). This helps to increase the demand among the customers. The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank realized that only by adding tools and required processes for the increase of the automation of the company and efficiency. The methods that the company uses can be much improved. To get a testing of six weeks, the team of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank will have to involve two week getting the actual environment that is required. The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank needed good traceability so that they ar e able to demonstrate all the processes and regulations. The management and testing environment is improved by the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank by its cohesive initiative. They have used 26 solutions to improve the testing environment. Potential Security Risks and Data Breaches Distinctive sorts of security dangers and hazard appraisal advances are utilized by the ANZ Banking Group Limited Bank. The bank must have a string protection against the data breach that can take place in their system. The bank prone to security risks in the areas of Trojans, viruses and phishing and spyware. The type of security risk that phishing deals with is that where the cyber space attackers gets the personal data of all the customers via internet. The phishing is done mainly by hoax emails that come as legal institutions. This hacking process is done online (Bowman et al. 2017). There is software known as spyware that attacks the system by converting all the data of the user in internet that are not even downloaded. This is one of the hazardous dangers that the ANZ Banking Group Limited Bank faces. Another software known as virus attacks the system of ANZ Bank. It is software that gets attached itself to programs that are mainly in word or spreadsheet. There are also emails virus programs that attack the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank. Trojans are set of codes or programs that attack the system in as a harmless application. Trojans are mainly self dependent. The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank faced a data breach which leads the security of the bank at risk. The virus that attacked the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank hide itself and does not allow the ban to know that it has affected any of the programs. All the controls are taken against the files and the usernames and ids are all captured which are personal details of the customers. Ways to Mitigate Risks The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank imposes a number of policies and risk control that are maintained in the organization. The bank has a framework to mitigate and maintain the risk that comes to them so that they are able to manage the social risks, environmental risks and also the reputation risks. The policies that are given by the government help to mitigate the risks that come to the organization (Akman and Mishra 2015). The primary management of the ANZ Banking Group Limited Bank is to feature every one of the choices that are essential in notoriety of the bank which incorporates loaning cash, endorse the items which help to loan cash to every one of the clients and furthermore looks to the planning part. Policies are implemented by the reputation risk support team of the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Bank so that employees are able to mitigate the complex as well as controversial issues. Conclusion The main focus that ANZ Bank focuses to is not only on financing sector or the facilitating sector, but also focuses to provide opportunities which relates to families, businesses, families and also individuals. Many difficulties are looked by the ANZ Bank with the evolving advances, evolving globalization, statistic charts and furthermore environmental change. Business requirement is firstly to know the need of the bank in a particular region where the owner decides to open the bank. After deciding the need to open the bank, all the board of directors that are needed to make the strategic plan of the business are appointed and the work of board of directors is also to keep a look on the all the employees to see that they follows policies and the concerned rule of the organization. The bank must have a string protection against the data breach that can take place in their system. The bank prone to security risks in the areas of Trojans, viruses and phishing and spyware. In this report the contextual investigation that is managed is the ANZ Banking Group Limited Bank. The business process of ANZ Bank is explained in this report. This report also deals with the software requirements of the ANZ Bank and the selection of software and the vendor that is needed by the ANZ Bank. This report states three different ways of technologies that are needed by the ANZ Bank and their related potential risks. Data breach additionally occurred in the ANZ Bank which is portrayed obviously and all the hazard rules to moderate hazard in the ANZ Banking Group Limited Bank are depicted quickly. References Akman, I. and Mishra, A., 2015. Sector diversity in green information technology practices: technology acceptance model perspective.Computers in human behavior,49, pp.477-486. Bowman, D., Banks, M., Fela, G., Russell, R. and de Silva, A., 2017. Understanding financial wellbeing in times of insecurity. Chuang, C.C. and Hu, F.L., 2015. Technology Strategy-Innovating for Growth of ANZ Bank.International Review of Management and Business Research,4(3), p.682. Coles-Kemp, L. and Hall, P., 2016. TREsPASS Book 2: Summer School. Cummings, J.R. and Durrani, K.J., 2016. Effect of the Basel Accord capital requirements on the loan-loss provisioning practices of Australian banks.Journal of Banking Finance,67, pp.23-36. Klettner, A., Clarke, T. and Boersma, M., 2014. The governance of corporate sustainability: Empirical insights into the development, leadership and implementation of responsible business strategy.Journal of Business Ethics,122(1), pp.145-165. Krajewski, L.J., Ritzman, L.P. and Malhotra, M.K., 2013.Operations management: processes and supply chains(Vol. 1). New York, NY: Pearson. Minervini, J. and Napier, C., 2013. Next generation MDM-the new 360 view. Moradi-Motlagh, A. and Babacan, A., 2015. The impact of the global financial crisis on the efficiency of Australian banks. Economic Modelling,46, pp.397-406. Ravichandran, A., Taylor, K. and Waterhouse, P., 2016. Manage. InDevOps for Digital Leaders(pp. 105-122). Apress.

Hypernova Essays - Stellar Evolution, Space Observatories

Hypernova Mysterious Blast, Hypernova Gamma-ray bursts (GRB) have left astronomers scratching their heads since the late 1960s when they were discovered by U.S. military satellites. Part of the mystery began to unlock when astronomers at Northwestern University detected the first observational evidence for the remnants of hypernovae, explosions hundreds of times more powerful than supernovae, last year. Hypernovae may be the possible source of GRBs, making them the most energetic events known in the Universe besides the Big Bang. Northwestern astronomer Daniel Wang identified two hypernova remnants in galaxy M101, also known as the Pinwheel galaxy some 25 million light years away, in April 1999. The remnants were previously thought to be supernovae remnants, but Wang detected strong X-ray emission from them which led him to believe it was an explosion much more powerful than a supernova. One nebula, MF83, has a radius of over 430 light years and is one of the largest remnants known. The other nebula, NGC5471B, is expanding very fast at a velocity of 100 miles per second. The X-ray light from these nebulae is brighter than the brightest supernova remnants known. After Wang calculated the energy needed to produce these remnants, he concluded they were most likely a result from a hypernova. ?These are two of the most unusual remnants known,? Wang said. ?We see that they are bright in X-ray even at a distance of 25 million light years away. They must be from spectacular explosions.? Bohdan Paczynski, of Princeton University, first introduced the concept of a hypernova in 1998 as a why to explain GRBs. Gamma-ray bursts are brief but intense blasts of high-energy radiation. They only last for about 3 seconds, but in that brief time they can release enough energy to be more luminous than the rest of the universe. Paczynski theorized that a hypernova is most likely related to the formation of black holes. The collapse of a massive star and/or its merger with a neutron star could generate more energy than an average star explosion. This is a very possible theory because they have found evidence that GRBs appear close to massive star-forming regions. The Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) instrument aboard NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory satellite has recorded more than 2,000 bursts, about one a day, since its launch in 1991. It also plotted their positions all around the sky and found that GRBs don't concentrate in the plane of the Milky Way, where most of the Milky Way stars are located. Until then, astronomers didn't know if the GRBs are coming from objects on the outskirts of our galaxy or from distant galaxies. These findings pointed to an origin from distant galaxies. In 1997, the Italian-Dutch BeppoSAX satellite pinpointed bursts with enough accuracy to allow optical and radio telescopes to view the burst's sources for the first time. On April 25, 1998, The galaxy ESO 184-G82 was host to a combined GRB and supernova explosion. Using Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, astronomers obtained the first detailed images of a galaxy in which a GRB occurred. This burst, GRB 980425, is the closest ever detected at 125 million light years away and thus must have been 1000 to 1,000,000 times fainter than normal bursts. Also, an unusually bright supernova, SN 1998bw, was seen in exactly the same location merely a day after the burst. Several groups of astronomers have followed the development of this event closely over the last two years. On June 12, 2000, a group of European astronomers obtained very detailed observations of the galaxy ESO 184-G82, the first time such a galaxy has been observed in such fine detail. The new observations allow astronomers to investigate the GRB phenomenon in much greater detail. Most astronomers today believe that GRB 980425 and SN 1998bw (less than 24 hours apart) did come from the same source and has made connection between the two most energetic events in the Universe highly possible. Astronomers, with these new discoveries, are coming closer to unlocking the mystery of the GRB phenomenon. They still know very little about the true nature of GRBs and hypernovae. ?I suspect GRBs may well be just a tip of an iceberg, as we have no clue why some explosions generate so

Examples of Images in Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction

Examples of Images in Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction An image is a representation in words of a sensory experience or of a person, place, or object that can be known by one or more of the senses.   In his book The Verbal Icon (1954), critic W.K. Wimsatt, Jr., observes that the verbal image which most fully realizes its verbal capacities is that which is not merely a bright picture (in the usual modern meaning of the term image) but also an interpretation of reality in its metaphoric and symbolic dimensions. Examples Far beyond her, a door standing ajar gave on what appeared to be a moonlit gallery but was really an abandoned, half-demolished, vast reception room with a broken outer wall, zigzag fissures in the floor, and a vast ghost of a gaping grand piano emitting, as if all by itself, spooky glissando twangs in the middle of the night.(Vladimir Nabokov, Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle, 1969)In the shallows, the dark, water-soaked sticks and twigs, smooth and old, were undulating in clusters on the bottom against the clean ribbed sand, and the track of the mussel was plain. A school of minnows swam by, each minnow with its small individual shadow, doubling the attendance, so clear and sharp in the sunlight.(E.B. White, Once More to the Lake. One Mans Meat, 1942)Mr. Jaffe, the salesman from McKesson Robbins, arrives, trailing two mists: winter steaminess and the animal fog of his cigar, which melts into the coffee smell, the tarpaper smell, the eerie honeyed tangled drugstore smell.(Cynthia Ozick, A Drugstore in Winter. Art Ardor, 1983) That woman sitting on the stoop of an old brownstone house, her fat white knees spread apart- the man pushing the white brocade of his stomach out of a cab in front of a great hotel- the little man sipping root beer at a drugstore counter- the woman leaning over a stained mattress on the sill of a tenement window- the taxi driver parked on a corner- the lady with orchids, drunk at the table of a sidewalk cafe- the toothless woman selling chewing gum- the man in shirt sleeves, leaning against the door of a poolroom- they are my masters.(Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead. Bobbs Merrill, 1943)I should have been a pair of ragged clawsScuttling across the floors of silent seas.(T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, 1917)The train moved away so slowly butterflies blew in and out of the windows. (Truman Capote, A Ride Through Spain. The Dogs Bark. Random House, 1973)It is time for the babys birthday party: a white cake, strawberry-marshmallow ice cream, a bottle of champagne saved from another party. In the evening, after she has gone to sleep, I kneel beside the crib and touch her face, where it is pressed against the slats, with mine.(Joan Didion, Going Home. Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1968 He clasps the crag with crooked hands;Close to the sun in lonely lands.Ringed with the azure world, he stands.The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;He watches from his mountain walls,And like a thunderbolt he falls.(Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The EagleAmong the strangest illusions which have passed like a haze before my eyes, the strangest one of all is the following: a shaggy mug of a lion looms before me, as the howling hour strikes. I see before me yellow mouths of sand, from which a rough woolen coat is calmly looking at me. And then I see a face, and a shout is heard: Lion is coming.(Andrei Bely, The LionThe apparition of these faces in the crowd;Petals on a wet, black bough.(Ezra Pound, In a Station of the Metro)[Eva] rolled up to the window and it was then she saw Hannah burning. The flames from the yard fire were licking the blue cotton dress, making her dance. Eva knew there was time for nothing in this world other than the time it took to get there and cover her daughters body wi th her own. She lifted her heavy frame up on her good leg, and with fists and arms smashed the windowpane. Using her stump as a support on the window sill, her good leg as a lever, she threw herself out of the window. Cut and bleeding she clawed the air trying to aim her body toward the flaming, dancing figure. She missed and came crashing down some twelve feet from Hannahs smoke. Stunned but still conscious, Eva dragged herself toward her firstborn, but Hannah, her senses lost, went flying out of the yard gesturing and bobbing like a sprung jack-in-the- box.(Toni Morrison, Sula. Knopf, 1973 [In] summer the granite curbs starred with mica and the row houses differentiated by speckled bastard sidings and the hopeful small porches with their jigsaw brackets and gray milk-bottle boxes and the sooty ginkgo trees and the banking curbside cars wince beneath a brilliance like a frozen explosion.(John Updike, Rabbit Redux, 1971) Observations Images are not arguments, rarely even lead to proof, but the mind craves them, and, of late more than ever.(Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, 1907)In general, emotional words, to be effective, must not be solely emotional. What expresses or stimulates emotions directly, without the intervention of an image or concept, expresses or stimulates it feebly.(C.S. Lewis, Studies in Words, 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 1967) Images in Nonfiction ​Instinctively, we go to our store of private images and associations for our authority to speak of these weighty issues. We find, in our details and broken and obscured images, the language of symbol. Here memory impulsively reaches out its arms and embraces imagination. That is the resort to invention. It isnt a lie, but an act of necessity, as the innate urge to locate personal truth always is. (Patricia Hampl, Memory and Imagination. I Could Tell You Stories: Sojourns in the Land of Memory. W.W. Norton, 1999)In creative nonfiction you almost always have the choice of writing the summary (narrative) form, the dramatic (scenic) form, or some combination of the two. Because the dramatic method of writing provides the reader with a closer imitation of life than summary ever could, creative nonfiction writers frequently choose to write scenically. The writer wants vivid images to transfer into the mind of the reader after all, the strength of scenic writing lies in its ability to evoke sensual images. A scene is not some anonymous narrators report about what happened some time in the past; instead, it gives the feeling that the action is unfolding before the reader. (Theodore A. Rees Cheney, Writing Creative Nonfiction: Fiction Techniques for Crafting Great Nonfiction. Ten Speed Press, 2001)

Why dose the united states have an inconsistent policy in the middle Essay

Why dose the united states have an inconsistent policy in the middle east - Essay Example The long standing conflict between Israel and Palestine has been one of the defining factors of how the US relates with the other countries in the Middle East. The close relationship between the US and Israel started back even before the State of Israel was created in 1948. From the very beginning the US was in support of the Jews returning to their Biblical ancestral Land. From relationship led to many missionaries from the US flocking into the Middle East, with their main objective to convert the Muslim population to Christianity. However, it was not very easy converting the die-hard Muslims, and the policy of the western missionaries turned to the creation of educational programs. As a result numerous American colleges were set up in Arabic cities such as Cairo, Istanbul and Beirut. The missionaries in these countries did manage to make lasting impressions on modernization, education and healthcare in the countries where they had operations. The institutions were used a means of p reaching western democracy to what the US viewed as aristocratic systems (Covarrubias and Lansford 178). However, the US was also ready to go against its democracy teachings by imposing its interests on the people, and when they defied they were labeled anti-reformist and dictatorial. The US policies on terrorism are also quite inconsistent. The country has been very vocal in demonizing the terrorist activities of extremist groups based in the Arab world. Its official policy on terrorism is to denounce it with as much force and valor as possible. However, there are times when the country has gone against its own anti-terrorism policies by carrying out terrorist attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US waged a War against the two countries in a bid to stamp out terrorism and secure the freedom of the oppressed Muslims on these countries. However, instead of

Personal Perspectives Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Personal Perspectives - Essay Example I find myself more confident while dealing with customers and am able to detach myself while taking business decisions. The clients somehow sense my confidence and seem to be able to trust me much more. I can see my communication with my clients and mentors will improve drastically. I already have the necessary job skills for my business, and consider myself reasonably intelligent. This improvement in communication will polish my personality and equip me with the right attitude which is indispensable for closing deals. I will be able to assess the customers' needs and emotional state through their body language and I see lot of repeat customers because they like my work style and management, word of mouth publicity for our business from satisfied clients. My bonding with my husband will be much more as I will be able to assess and control my emotions without suppressing them. I will not be prone to sudden outbursts of anger, instead I will be able to communicate my areas of concern and feelings of anxiety precisely and coolly. I hope to be able to share what I have learnt in this course with my husband so that his emotional intelligence also improves.

Managing Intelligence in National Security

Managing Intelligence in National Security At which stage of the intelligence cycle is failure most likely to occur, and why? The most common, traditional paradigm for managing intelligence ‘flow’ is a cycle of four components: direction, collection, processing, and dissemination. Direction comes from policymakers: heads of government agencies, heads of state, senior government officials tasked with overseeing intelligence, and the like, who provide both specific and general roadmaps to intelligence agencies as to how they should apply their resources to defend national interests both at home and abroad. Collection is the process by which intelligence is gathered in a variety of fashions: via HUMINT – intelligence data collected by personal, human effort ‘on the ground’; electronically, e.g. SIGINT (interception of signals), IMINT (satellite, photographic imagining intelligence), etc. Processing is the analysis of the data obtained in the collection component, the means by which the nature, relevance and relative importance of the collected intelligence is ascertained by mea ns both scientific and intuitive. (Arguably, processing is the most important component of the cycle, but the least amount of money is often budgeted to this component of the cycle.) Dissemination refers to the process by which the relevant information is channeled to the appropriate decision-making party within a timetable commensurate with the importance of the information collected and the results of the processing/analysis. Each of the four components of the cycle is fraught with peril for failure and failure in any one component can be catastrophic. The two arenas where failure is most likely to occur, however, are collection and analysis. Failures in collection are often due to lack of applied resources, whether technological or human. The debate has raged for decades over whether HUMINT is superior to intelligence data gathered by increasingly advancing technological wizardry. Most likely, a healthy application of and symbiosis between the two is critical. There is no substitute for the personal presence of agents, operatives, and contacts on the ground, substantially integrated with useful components of whichever society in which they are placed. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was woefully lacking in human collection efforts in Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and in Iraq during the same time period (though to a lesser extent). Compounding matters was the dearth of CIA field operatives or domestically-based personnel who spoke the common languages of the Middle East – Arabic, Farsi, Pashtun, etc. However, rapid advances in computer technology have enabled the collection of vast quantities o f raw intelligence data – telephone calls, e-mails, radio transmissions, etc., and intelligence agencies who lack such technology will invariably be at a massive disadvantage. Failures in processing/analysis can occur when the collection apparatus has delivered all of the puzzle pieces, usually due to either a collective/institutional, or individual inability to connect the proverbial dots and turn raw data into actionable intelligence conclusions. The 9/11 attacks are a regrettably perfect example of failures in analysis. Discrete entities in the U.S. intelligence community – the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and CIA, as well as other government agencies (the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Federal Aviation Administration) – all possessed nuggets of raw data which if analyzed properly, would clearly have indicated (in fact, some say did definitively indicate) that an Al-Qaida attack on the U.S. using airplanes was imminent. However, these entities failed to share this data and collaborate cooperatively to analyze it. Turf warfare, egos, bureaucratic inertia, and competing political agendas can easily cause fatal paralysis in intelligence processing. The costs of covert action tend to outweigh its benefits. Discuss. The question of whether the costs of covert action outweigh its benefits depend greatly on the context of the covert action; is it an ongoing, multi-year low-intensity campaign involving numerous agendas, or is it an urgent, high-priority single mission designed to achieve a massive single strategic goal? Also, the notion of costs must be defined in relative terms – monetary costs, human costs, opportunity costs; indirect costs (unintended consequences); other abstract and intangible costs such as ethics, legal ramifications, etc. The CIA has long been involved in low-intensity covert actions in a variety of nations, with varying degrees of success. The Iran-Contra affair, in which Reagan administration officials diverted proceeds from the sale of arms to Iran to anti-Marxist Nicaraguan rebels in the mid-1980s, was costly in both monetary terms (hundreds of millions of pounds) and legal terms – a number of Reagan administration officials were subjected to criminal charg es for their roles in facilitating both the operation itself and the cover-up of the operation (the American Congress had passed a law forbidding U.S. government direct aid to the Contras). However, in the wake of 9/11, when the U.S. government concluded that decisive force was required to respond to Al-Qaida’s attack on U.S. soil, the CIA and DoD (Department of Defense) were authorized by President Bush to spend whatever was necessary to execute some of the most bold covert actions – particularly in HUMINT undertaken by American intelligence agencies in decades. HUMINT capacity at the CIA eroded as, ironically, the moral excesses of covert activities of the 1960s-1970s caused a backlash that choked off HUMINT funding priority; also, the end of the Cold War led many policymakers to conclude that the CIA’s resources were better spent on electronic means of collection, as covert action can be prohibitively expensive in both time and money. However, the CIA was authorized and ordered to act boldly and within a matter of weeks, had substantial HUMINT on the ground in Afghanistan both collecting data and coordinating with DoD military planners to levera ge intelligence into actionable military plans. The goal: to defeat the Taliban, who had hosted Al-Qaida in a darkly symbiotic relationship which held the country in a repressive stranglehold and provided safe haven for the training of thousands of would-be terrorists. Mindful of the failure of the Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, CIA realized that only an asymmetrical application of covert power (mirroring Al-Qaida’s approach to the 9/11 attacks, ironically) would be effective, as a conventional ground war could be too costly in both manpower and lives on both sides. A shrewd application of HUMINT, technology, and good old-fashioned money engineered the relatively rapid American triumph in Afghanistan in 2001. CIA operatives on the ground descended into Afghanistan with little support, made contact with sympathetic Afghan warlords, dispensed hundreds of millions of dollars to other warlords and tribal leaders, in some cases simply to bribe them into switching sides and fight against the Taliban and Al-Qaida. These same operatives also used hand-held laser GPS equipment to target enemy strongholds and transmit this location data directly to U.S. aircraft, who in turn dropped laser-guided bombs with deadly efficiency. The cost was in the billions, but the victory was swift, decisive, and – given the ramifications of the triumph – extremely inexpensive, relatively speaking. As such, not all covert operations are too costly to make them worthwhile. Discuss the importance of open sources collection in comparison to clandestine collection. Is clandestine collection indeed more valuable? Open-source(s) collection refers to the collection of actionable or otherwise valuable/relevant intelligence data from publicly available sources. Prior to the advent of the Internet, this methodology was not without value, but in many cases prohibitively time-intensive, and less prone to yield results. Though the type of information available to the public at a local library might surprise a layperson, it is dwarfed by what is now available on the Internet to anyone with a personal computer. In some cases, an intelligence analyst sitting at a desk in London can gather valuable, reliable information about conditions on the ground in a city halfway across the globe – weather conditions, local news, political and business developments, cultural idiosyncracies. Other sources of OSINT, as it is termed, include diverse sources as consultations with experts in various fields within academia or the business world, professional associations, professional conventions, to simple thought ful Google searches and reading of blogs. The trend globally is towards an ever-increasing amount of openness of information exchange thanks to the Internet. Increasingly sophisticated ‘sweeper’ data-mining software technology, which is often used to collect and in some cases process large volumes of conventional communication traffic, are being utilized by the CIA to scan millions of websites, searching for key terms, phrases, contexts, which might indicate that human review would be advantageous or essential. Instructions to make improvised explosive devices can easily be posted on websites, and 21st century intelligence collection must conform to this new reality. In comparison, the best use of clandestine intelligence vis-à  -vis OSINT efforts is to obtain highly specialized or esoteric intelligence information that is either intentionally kept confidential (classified government secrets, for example). OISINT processing and analysis can help frame and answer a number of general questions and/or analyze larger patterns and trends, whereas clandestine intelligence can help answer targeted, specific questions that cannot be ascertained by either human or computer OSINT efforts. For example, in response to the intelligence reforms demanded in the wake of the failure to anticipate and prevent the 9/11 attacks, the CIA formed an â€Å"Open Source Center† (OSC) to focus specifically on OSINT. In 2004, OSC used OSINT technology to discover that a new, powerful Chinese submarine had been constructed in an underground location heretofore unknown to the American military and intelligence community. The tip-off? Chinese military bloggers, one of whom posted a photograph of the impressive new Chinese submarine (the Yuan-class attack submarine) on a publicly viewable website. CIA in turn employed HUMINT and electronic surveillance to ascertain where the submarine had been constructed and what its operational abilities might be. In a less dramatic example, OSC searched Iraqi websites for postings related to the use of IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices), in some cases gathering actionable data which helped avert the use of these deadly terrorist tools. (The inad vertent destruction of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999 by NATO bombs might have been averted by some of the most rudimentary OSINT – having a human operative walk down the street to make sure the military target’s address was correct.) Clandestine collection activities, particularly HUMINT efforts, will always have their place, but in a world where information is available anywhere, anytime, at the click of a mouse, intelligence agencies must dedicate significant resources to OSINT.