Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Evaluation of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn in the Marketplace Essay

Evaluation of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn in the Marketplace - Essay Example The indexing of information provides an easy way of getting the information to the consumers on Twitter. Indexing of the information again provides the updates about the products to be got by the customers in real time. Again the method of indexing on twits can help consumers to search for more information about a particular product instantly. Twitter has improved its strategies for marketing in the business world. That is an indication of success in its development. Second, Twitter also provides new business ventures for its users. For instance, the speaker states that some users find Twitter convenient to follow states agency publications. Further, Conan indicates that there is no limitation on the number of persons to follow on twitter. In addition, it is not very necessary to follow an individual to get his or her twits. An individual can follow another user but do not follow the person and the person can read your twits. Twitter can, therefore, give one unlimited space to follow more and more Twitter accounts. In a case where one wants to explore the marketplace for business, and then the persons can understand the very diverse business area of interest. The advantages of the use Twitter, therefore, indicate the success of Twitter in the future in the marketplace. It will give a space for one to understand very diverse market area through twitter. That is an evidence of the success of Twitter in the marketplace. According to Lucy, the monthly traffic web traffic indicates that Facebook is posing much more threats to LinkedIn (1). In most of the blog posts, almost a half-dozen blogs show that Facebook is gaining dominance over Myspace in the made-up social media war. Twitter and Facebook have been integrated by their founders such that one can synchronize both Facebook and Twitter account as just update on one account, and the other account would automatically be updated.

Monday, October 28, 2019

Emily Dickinson Publication As Auction English Literature Essay

Emily Dickinson Publication As Auction English Literature Essay One question that confounds readers of Emily Dickinsons poetry is why she was so reluctant to have her work known in her lifetime. Not even her family knew, until after her death, the extent of Dickinsons writing, that she had left behind 1,775 poems. Publication-is the Auction, poem #709, provides some insight into Dickinsons thinking. She compares publication to an Auction / Of the Mind of Man (1-2), and not even poverty truly justifies it. To sell what has been given you and is only yours while you are on Earth is like reducing the Human Spirit / To Disgrace of Price (15-16). In this poem, Dickinson equates the publication of poems to the selling of her self. Not publishing, then, is a form of self-preservation. When Dickinson writes in #709-Publication-is the Auction that it is better to avoid so foul a thing (4) and instead go White-Unto the White Creator (7), she compares her writing to Snow (8). She lets the reader know that publication represents a sullying of the Snow, a disgrace to what is divine and God-given (from the White Creator, who is himself pure). It is not only divinity contained in the poems, she argues, but also the Human Spirit (15). Although these are compelling reasons to guard against any adulteration of her work, these are not the only reasons Dickinson gives for not pursuing publication and the fame that (she feared?) might follow. In #1659-Fame is a fickle food, she compares fame to an overly rich and ultimately unwholesome meal. Here, as often in Dickinsons poems, the birds are possessed of a knowledge that human beings do not have. The birds look at the crumbs of fame and Flap past it to the / Farmers Corn- / Men eat of it and die (8-10). Those birds are a stand-i n for the poet, their song and her song, even their ironic caw, much her own. But Fame is a fickle food also speaks to a fear that fame would be transitory if it came at all. In poem #1763, quoted immediately below in its entirety, she states succinctly: Fame is a bee. / It has a song- / It has a sting- / Ah, too, it has a wing. It seems her emotions here are moving somewhere between longing and fear. And so the pull between publication (and the fame she seemed to believe would come with it) and the realization of her work on her own terms remained a preoccupation. As she recounted to T. W. Higginson (Dickinsons friend and adviser, he was the editor of the Atlantic Monthly), there were the occasional calls from editors who wished to publish her work. She wrote and told him: Two editors of journals came to my fathers house this winter, and asked me for my mind, and when I asked them why they said I was penurious, and they would use it for the world (405). The world that the editors would use it for, however, was not the world that most concerned Dickinson. The ambition in her to go beyond the concerns of this world, to even, perhaps, achieve a fame beyond this world, is but one of the more fascinating aspects of her. The power of this woman, whose life appears so circumscribed, who could say, I feel the presence of that within me, unseen, yet indescribably mighty, that can comprehe nd worlds systems of worlds yet cannot comprehend itself (241), is to be wondered at. is why it is odd to find a critic who would imagine that Dickinson possessed power in abundance but she confined it to the speaker of her verse (Bennett 43), so clearly does her power exhibit itself in all she does. Her originality caused William Dean Howells to welcome Dickinson as a distinctive addition to the literature of the world (Benfey 40). Emily Dickinson would not sell the substance of herself, her words. To her, her gift was greater than gold. When the world was ready for Dickinson the poet, it found her.

Friday, October 25, 2019

The Enduring Significance of Pocahontas Essay -- Chief Powhatan

Pocahontas Pocahontas was the daughter of the American Indian Chief Powhatan. Pocahontas, a young Powhatan Indian princess, affected a remarkable and significant relationship first with a small group of English settlers at Jamestown and later with the English rulers of the New World. She worked to maintain good relations between the Indians and early English colonists in America. Pocahontas emerged from a culture of dark superstitions. A culture of easy cruelty and primitive social accomplishments. Her father was a remarkable and powerful leader- fierce and clever. By the seventeenth century he had made his people not less primitive but certainly stronger and more formidable than they had ever been before. He added ruthless organization and totalitarian methods to their lives. He was ready to deal in his own confident and often cruel way with anyone who might challenge his authority. It was into this world, into the household of Chief Powhatan and Powhatan culture, that Pocahontas was born, probably in 1596 or 1597. It is believed that Pocahontas birthplace was Werowocomoco, Powhatan's residence until 1609. Which of Powhatan many wives was Pocahontas mother is unknown. Pocahontas, like the other Powhatan's , had two names. Pocahontas given to her by her father means "Bright Stream Between Two Hills" but in Powhatan tongue might mean " Little Wanton." Her secret name, known only among her tribesmen was Matoax, "Little Snow Feather." Pocahontas had her public and her secret names. She had her place in the Powhatan tribe. She was a favorite daughter in her father's home. As a princess, she was as privileged within the Powhatan world as anyone besides her father could be. Pocahontas performe... ...on after she boarded, Pocahontas became very ill, probably pneumonia or perhaps tuberculosis. Pocahontas died at the age of twenty, far from home in a foreign land. Her body was prepared for burial, and on March 21 1616 buried at an ancient church standing near the waters edge. Her death at Gravesend marked the beginning of her immortality. Pocahontas has been made the heroine of numerous stories; plays and poems that have made her seem more a figure of legend than one of history. Yet it is her true story that took place many years ago, that gives her enduring significance. Bibliography: 1.) Fritz, Jean. The Double Life of Pocahontas. 1983. Harrisonburg, VA. R.R. Donnelley and Sons Company. 2.) Woodward, Grace Steele. Pocahontas. 1969. Norman, OK. Univ. of Oklahoma Press. 3.) The World Book Encyclopedia. 1998. #15. World Book Inc.

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” Essay

Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is a story based on the traditional beliefs and customs of the Ibo tribe. Achebe portrays a realistic view of Africans, particularly the Ibo tribe, which opposes the view that a reader may have formed after reading other works, such as Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Although Achebe describes the fact that the tribe does not primarily consist of savages, the reader still needs to keep an open mind about the ideas that are presented. The reader may at first be appalled at some of the beliefs, but it should be brought into consideration that they are lead chiefly by traditions and customs. Many of these traditions and customs derive from their ideas on certain events, being patriarchal, and religion. The Ibo culture involves a number of celebrated events. The Week of Peace comes at the end of the relaxed season and before the harvest and planting season. This is a time where all members of this society shall live in complete peace no matter what the circumstances. If this peace is broken, it is to be called a great evil and consequently will be punished. Achebe provides a case in point, which will be discussed later in the essay. Another Ibo occasion is the Feast of the New Yam, which resembles Thanksgiving in the American culture. This feast is to honor their earth goddess, Ani, as the American holiday is celebrated to give thanks and honor our God. â€Å"Men and Women, young and old, looked forward to the New Yam Festival because it began the season of plenty-the new year†(page 36). This excerpt from the introduction of chapter five shows the significance of the occasion. Following the New Yam Festival is the popular wrestling match. This event is more of a tradition as it occurs annually on the second day of the new year. â€Å"There was no festival in all the seasons of the year which gave [Ekwefi] as much pleasure as the wrestling match†(39). This supports Achbe’s effort to express the excitement for the friendly competition. By these examples, the reader may infer that the Ibo tribe can be described as somewhat mundane, but Achebe also goes into detail about the people of the tribe. The Ibo tribe can be depicted as profoundly patriarchal. This is where the reader may begin to feel repelled as Achebe describes man as being venerated as leader and describes women as gentle, weak and obedient to their men. The  women’s job was in the house cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children. The men’s job was out hunting, fighting, and raising difficult crops such as yam. The men were also allowed to beat their wives, who in return could not defend themselves. A prime example of this masculine dominance is the main character, Okonkwo. Okonkwo defies any sign of weakness, including the female race. The Ibo society defines a man who is weak or acts feminine as agbala, which means â€Å"woman†. â€Å"But [Okonkwo’s] wives and young children were not as strong, and so they suffered. But they dared not complain openly†(13). This quote reinforces Achebe’s idea of masculinity. Although the Ibo culture may express dominance in the male race, their power does not exceed that which is given to the many gods they worship. Religion in the Ibo culture can be illustrated as polytheistic. Their tradition has a God for every phenomenon. This society does not use kings or police to discipline its people, like many other societies, but instead they use spirits. Their highest spiritual and judicial authority is Egwugwu. There are not any written laws so the decisions on punishments rely on the gods. â€Å"Okonkwo broke the Week of Peace by beating his wife and was punished, as was the custom, by Ezeani, the priest of the earth goddess. Okonkwo was said to â€Å"have committed a great evil†(30). â€Å"The evil you have done can ruin the whole clan. The earth goddess whom you have insulted may refuse to give us her increase, and we shall all perish†(30). This shows how much the tribe respects and depends on their gods. The Ibo religion also comes with many superstitions. The largest of the superstitions is their personal chi, or Supreme Being. The chi is unique for each tribe member and allegedly determines his or her success and character. â€Å"Man could not rise beyond the destiny of his chi†(131). It would be of no value to challenge one’s chi. Other superstitions includes warning the children not to whistle on dark nights for fear of evil spirits. Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is about the specific culture of Africans, in this case the Ibo tribe. It portrays an accurate analysis for those who may have believed Africans as being savages. The Ibo society value an adherence to their cultural traditions, as do other cultures, which makes them greatly  civilized. Although some of the traditions practice may seem quite shocking to the reader, the society cannot be described as mindless or barbaric. The Ibo tribe is a very complex society with unique values and meaning. Achebe fulfills his purpose in disclaiming the stereotype of ferocious Africans.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

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LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY CAPSTONE PROJECT REPORT TOPIC- ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF HONEY. PROJECT GUIDE- SUBMITTED BY- DR. AKSHAY GARG MOHIT KUMAR DEPT. OF BIOTECHNOLOGY REG. NO. – 10800037 ROLL NO- RB1R07B02 B. TECH BIOTECH. (8th sem. ) DATED- . 17-05-2012 CERTIFICATECertified that this project entitled â€Å"anti microbial activity of different types of honey † submitted by MOHIT KUMAR , students of biotechnology Department, Lovely Professioal University, Phagwara Punjab in the partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of Bachelors of Technology (biotechnology) Degree of LPU, is a record of student’s own study carried under my supervision & guidance. This report has not been submitted to any other university or institution for the award of any degree.Date: 17/5/2012 Name of Project Guide Dr. Akshay Garg DECLARATION I, MOHIT KUMAR, student of B. Tech Biotechnology under Department of Biotechnology of Lovely Professional Unive rersity, Punjab, hereby declare that all the information furnished in this dissertation / capstone project report is based on my own intensive research and is genuine. This dissertation / report does not, to the best of my knowledge, contain part of my work which has been submitted for the award of my degree either of this niversity or any other university without proper citation. Date – 17/5/2012 Investigator- MOHIT KUMAR Regd. No. 10800037 Acknowledgement Any attempt at any level can't be satisfactorily completed without the support and guidance of learned people in my capstone projectâ€Å"Antimicrobial activity of different types of honey†.I would like to express my immense gratitude to my guide Dr. Akshay Garg for his constant support and motivation that has encouraged me to come up with this project. I also would like to thanks my group member who helped me in my project. MOHIT KUMAR ABSTRACT Honey is a traditional topical treatment for infected wounds. It can be effective on antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. Several local brands of honey(Dabur) collected from different sources is used in this study. Also the honey is collected from various apiaries from Pathankot(Punjab) and Saharanpur (Up).The bacterial culture were taken from the laboratory of the Lovely professional University and was revived in nutrient broth media and then sub-cultured in nutrient agar media. The method used to test this antibiotic sensitivity of honey was done with the help of Kirby Bauer method . Marked variations were observed in the antibacterial activity of these honey samples. Bacterial species used were Bacillus subtilis ,E. coli. , S. aureus and Burkholderia spp. The zone of inhibition produced against different bacteria using honey of different concentration are as follows: E. oli (pathankot sample): 100% = 2. 6cm, 75%= 1. 9cm, 50%= 1. 7cm,and 25%= 1. 2cm; E. coli (dabur sample): 100% = 2. 2cm, 75%= 1. 6cm, 50%= 1. 3cm, and 25%= 1. 1cm; E. coli (sahar anpur sample): 100% = 2. 8cm, 75%= 2. 4cm, 50%= 2. 2cm, and 25%= 1. 7cm; B. subtilis (pathankot): 100% = 3. 0cm, 75%= 2. 7cm, 50%= 2. 7cm, and 25%= 2. 5cm; B. subtilis (dabur): 100% = 2. 7cm, 75%= 2. 5cm, 50%= 2. 4cm, and 25%= 2. 2cm; B. subtilis (saharanpur):100% = 3. 2cm, 75%= 2. 7cm, 50%= 2. 3cm, and 25%= 1. 5cm; Burkholderia spp. (pathankot): 100% = 2. 1cm, 75%= 1. 9cm, 50%= 1. 6cm, and 25%= 1. 4cm; Burkholderia spp. dabur): 100% = 2. 4cm, 75%= 1. 7cm, 50%= 1. 5cm, and 25%=1. 2cm; Burkholderia spp. (saharanpur):100% = 2. 5cm, 75%= 1. 9cm, 50%= 1. 7cm, and 25%=1. 4cm; S. aureus (pathankot):100%=2. 1cm, 75%= 1. 7cm, 50%= 1. 4cm, and 25%=1. 2cm; S. aureus (dabur):100% =3. 0cm, 75%= 2. 7cm, 50%= 2. 2cm, and 25%=1. 8cm; S. aureus (saharanpur): 100% = 2. 9cm, 75%= 2. 5cm, 50%= 2. 0cm, and 25%=1. 6cm; Zones of inhibition of different treatment groups were measured by agar-well-diffusion assay and compared with control. The comparison of honey sample with distilled water control had pro ved it significant.CONTENTS PAGE 1. INTRODUCTION 7 1. 1) Honey as antibacterial agent 7 1. OBJECTIVE 9 2. LITERATURE REVIEWS 10 3. 1 TYPES OF HONEY 10 3. 2 COMPONENTS OF HONEY 11 3. MATERIALS AND METHODS 15 4. MATERIAL 15 4. 2 METHOD 16 4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 19 5. REFERENCES 32 1. ) INTRODUCTION Honey is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The Honey is a sweet, viscous fluid produced by bees from the collection of nectar, primarily from flowers. It is considered to be a natural syrup. The Nectar is gathered by the bees and is slowly transformed into honey, through a long rocess involving the addition of enzymes and the gradual reduction of moisture. Honey is a rich source of carbohydrates mainly Fructose and Glucose. The chemical composition of honey varies depending on the plant source, season and production methods. Therefore the Colour, Concentration and Compounds vary depending on the floral sources. Other compounds which can be found in Honey include Pr oteins and acids such as Gluconic Acid (C6H11O7, also known as 2,3,4,5,6- pentahydroxyhexanoic Acid), Minerals and Anti-Oxidants such as Hydrogen Peroxide (H202) and Vitamins (B6 and B12), (BD.Yates et. al. 1996). Honey has a low pH and a low moisture content, which is usually on average about 17 percent. The Gluconic Acid in honey is produced when bees secrete Glucose Oxidase, while processing the nectar, this give honey a low pH. There are many varieties of honey from around the world which come in three main types which are liquid, whipped and comb. Several local brands of honey(Dabur) collected from different sources is used in this study. Also the honey is collected from various apiaries from Pathankot(Punjab) and Saharanpur (Up) .Each of these honey’s were chosen because they are organic and readily available in health food stores 1. 1) The Antibacterial Effects of Honey The honeys are shown to have antibacterial properties, in particular Manuka honey. Manuka Honey has had extensive research done on it. It has been shown in many studies that Manuka Honey has antimicrobial effects (Barret J. , et. al, 2005; Coumbes A. L. , et. al. 2004; Mundo, M A. 2004). The Mechanism of Antibacterial Properties Honey has many natural properties which enable it to inhibit bacteria.These properties include, a low pH which is in the range of pH 3. 2 to 4. 5, approximately 3. 9 which is due to its content of acidic compounds mainly Gluconic acid as stated above. A low pH is inhibitory to most bacteria. Since most bacteria live in environments around pH 7, the pH of honey could inhibit the bacteria (Barrett, J et. al. al 2005). This is because pH affects the way large proteins such as enzymes work. Which causes the shape of enzymes to change, which then alters the overall charge, this causes the protein to denature.Honey contains small amounts of Hydrogen peroxide (H202) this varies depending on the honey, it is produced as a result of the enzyme glucose oxidase activ ity in producing Gluconic acid (Mundo, MA. et. al. 2004). C6H12O6 + H2O + O2 > C6H12O7 + H2O2 (glucose oxidase reaction) When honey is used topically (as, for example, a wound dressing), hydrogen peroxide is produced by dilution of the honey with body fluids. As a result, hydrogen peroxide is released slowly and acts as an antiseptic. Hydrogen peroxide is a powerful oxidising agent (Free Radical) which has the ability to damage cells.In an aqueous solution hydrogen peroxide acts like an acid and can oxidise a variety of compounds, by accepting free unpaired electrons. This allows the formation of other free radicals, which then causes a cascade effect. Therefore altering biological structures and therefore damaging cells. Honey is primarily a saturated mixture of two monosaccharide, with a low water activity; most of the water molecules are associated with the sugars and few remain available for microorganisms, so it is a poor environment for their growth.If water is mixed with hone y, it loses its low water activity, and therefore no longer possesses this antimicrobial property. Honey consists of various constituents such as water, carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, amino acid, energy and minerals. Besides the major ones, there must also be several minor constituents in honey, which may be playing a key role in determining the antimicrobial behaviour of honey. In the past, antimicrobial activity of honey had been reported only by using aqueous solution of honey.It is said that honey possesses antibacterial property but it is not clear whether it is the bulk honey or some fraction of it. The antibacterial properties of honey speed up the growth of new tissue to heal the wound. The bactericidal effect of honey is reported to be dependent on concentration of honey used and the nature of the bacteria Considering the fact that their might be some specific constituents which may be contributing to the antimicrobial behaviour, it was decided to carryout the studies u sing different solvents.The present study therefore deals with the constituents in the different solvents followed by evaluation of extract for their antimicrobial behaviour against certain species of bacteria. 2) OBJECTIVE Based on the above facts, the present study was defined with following objective: 1) To check the antibacterial effect of different honeys on. a. Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus, b. Gram-negative Escherichia coli, c. Gram-positive Bacillus subtilis, and d. Gram- negative Burkholderia capicium 2) To check the effect of honey on bacterial strains using different-different dilutions. . 100% honey sample b. 75% honey sample c. 50% honey sample d. 25% honey sample 3) To compare the effect of honey and control (Distilled water) on a. Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus, b. Gram-negative Escherichia coli, c. Gram-positive Bacillus subtilis, and d. Gram- negative Burkholderia capicium 3) LITERATURE REVIEWS Honey has been used with medicinal purposes since ancient tim es and there are reports of its topic use by Ayurvedic medicine, dating back to 2500 b. c. Hippocrates prescribed the use of honey for several indications, including treatment of wounds and gastritis.Its healing properties are mentioned in the Koran and in Bible. Honey is a part of traditional medicine for centuries. The antimicrobial activity of honey is due primarily to hydrogen peroxide produced enzymatically. However, in undiluted honey the acidity is also a significant antimicrobial factor. The pH, ranging from 3. 2 to 4. 5, is low enough to inhibit the development of pathogens, whose optimal pH range situates between 7. 2 and 7. 4. When applied to affected areas of tissue, acidity, osmotic effect and phytochemical factors decrease with dilution; however, the activity of hydrogen peroxide increases from 2. to 50 times. On these values, peroxide acts as an antiseptic, without causing cell damage. The composition of sugars in honeys, from different floral origins, inhibits the de velopment of various intestinal bacteria. All chemical and physical factors make the therapeutic properties of honey unique: fast decline of infections and healing of wounds, quick inflammation recovery, minimizing of wounds, stimulation of angiogenesis, as well as the development of epithelial and granular tissues. Honey to be used with topical medicinal purpose, certain requirements are needed, like being free f herbicides, pesticides, heavy metals and radioactive elements and sterilized to prevent secondary infections. 3. 1) TYPES OF HONEY – ON BASIS OF FLORAL SOURCE- Blended- Most commercially available honey is blended, meaning it is a mixture of two or more honeys differing in floral source, color, flavor, density or geographic origin. Polyfloral – Polyfloral honey, also known as wildflower honey, is derived from the nectar of many types of flowers. The taste may vary from year to year, and the aroma and the flavor can be more or less intense, depending on which bloomings are prevalent.Monofloral- Monofloral honey is made primarily from the nectar of one type of flower. Different monofloral honeys have a distinctive flavor and color because of differences between their principal nectar sources. To produce monofloral honey, beekeepers keep beehives in an area where the bees have access to only one type of flower. Honeydew honey- Instead of taking nectar, bees can take honeydew, the sweet secretions of aphids or other plant sap-sucking insects. Honeydew honey is very dark brown in color, with a rich fragrance of stewed fruit or fig jam, and is not sweet like nectar honeys. . 2) COMPOSITION OF HONEY Carbohydrates Unsurprisingly, these comprise the major portion of honey – about 82%. The carbohydrates present are the monosaccharide fructose (38. 2%) and glucose (31%); and disaccharides (~9%) sucrose, maltose, isomaltose, maltulose, turanose and kojibiose. There are also some oligosaccharides present (4. 2%), including erlose, theanderose and panose, formed from incomplete breakdown of the higher saccharides present in nectar and honeydew. Proteins and Amino Acids.Honey contains a number of enzymes, including invertase, which converts sucrose to glucose and fructose; amylase, which breaks starch down into smaller units; glucose oxidase, which converts glucose to gluconolactone, which in turn yields gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide; catalase, which breaks down the peroxide formed by glucose oxidase to water and oxygen; and acid phosphorylase, which removes inorganic phosphate from organic phosphates. Honey also contains eighteen free amino acids, of which the most abundant is proline. Vitamins, Minerals and AntioxidantsHoney contains trace amounts of the B vitamins riboflavin, niacin, folic acid, pantothenic acid and vitamin B6. It also contains ascorbic acid (vitamin C), and the minerals calcium, iron, zinc, potassium, phosphorous, magnesium, selenium, chromium and manganese. The main group of antioxidants in hon ey are the flavonoids, of which one, pinocembrin, is unique to honey and bee propolis. Ascorbic acid, catalase and selenium are also antioxidants. Generally speaking, the darker the honey, the greater its antioxidising properties. Other compoundsHoney also contains organic acids such as acetic, butanoic, formic, citric, succinic, lactic, malic, pyroglutamic and gluconic acids, and a number of aromatic acids. The main acid present is gluconic acid, formed in the breakdown of glucose by glucose oxidase. Honey also contains hydroxymethylfurfural, a natural product of the breakdown of simple sugars below pH 5. According to studies done by Patricia E. Lusby et al Twelve of the 13 bacteria were inhibited by all honeys used in this study with only Serratia marcescens and the yeast Candida albicans not inhibited by the honeys.Little or no antibacterial activity was seen at honey concentrations 1%, with minimal inhibition at 5%. No honey was able to produce complete inhibition of bacterial g rowth. Although Medi honey and manuka had the overall best activity, the locally produced honeys had equivalent inhibitory activity for some, but not all, bacteria. He then postulated that honeys other than those commercially available as antibacterial honeys can have equivalent antibacterial activity. These newly identified antibacterial honeys may prove to be a valuable source of future therapeutic honeys. According to Peter C.Molan (2001), honey may be the â€Å"natural cure† for most bacterial infections that could replace man-made antibiotics. Researchers say that an enzyme in the honey turns into a tiny  amount hydrogen peroxide when combined with bodily fluids killing nearby bacteria. Honey also causes an increase in lymphocyte and  phagocyte activity (Cooper et al. , 2011). The honeys are shown to have antibacterial properties, in particular Manuka honey. Manuka Honey has had extensive research done on it. It has been shown in many studies that Manuka Honey has an timicrobial effects (Barret J. , et. al, 2005; Coumbes A. L. , et. al. 2004; Mundo, MA. 2004).In this study the antibacterial activity of the five honeys were compared, the Manuka honey was used as a positive control. The nonperoxide antibiotic activity is due to methylglyoxal (MGO) and an unidentified synergistic component. Most honeys contain very low levels of MGO, but manuka honey contains very high levels. The presence of the synergist in manuka honey more than doubles MGO antibacterial activity. In vitro antibacterial activity of raw and commercially available honey was tested against Gram-positive bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus) and Gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Shigella spp. nd Salmonella spp. ). Both types of honey showed antibacterial activity against test organisms with the zone of inhibition ranging from 8. 13 to 30. 85 mm, while E. coli, S. aureus, and Shigella spp. showed sensibility towards both types of Honey. Both types of honey showed no effects on Salmonella spp. The potency of honey at 100%concentration was found to be higher than all other concentrations tested. However, no effect was observed at concentration of 6. 25% v/v honey in the case of both samples(Patricia E. Lusby 2004).To study the antimicrobial activity of honey, 60 samples of various botanical origin were evaluated antimicrobial activities against 16 clinical pathogens and their respective reference strains. The bioassay applied for determining the antimicrobial effect employs the well-agar diffusion method and the estimation of minimum active dilution which produces a 1 mm diameter inhibition zone. Streptococcus pyogenes,Bacillus cereus and Bacillus subtilis were proven to be up to 60% more resistant than their equal reference strains thus emphasizing the variability in the antibacterial effect of honey and the need for further research (C.Voidarou 2010). Natural products, either as pure compounds or as standardized plant extracts, provid e unlimited opportunities for new drugs because of the ready availability of chemical diversity (Cos et al. , 2006). Honey and lemon-honey are traditional remedies in the Middle East and China and for many centuries and have been used in the treatment and prevention of the common cold and various upper respiratory tract infections (Molan, 1992; Zulma ; Lulat, 1989). Antibacterial activity of the honeys was assayed using standard well diffusion methods. oncluded that the sandal wood from different sources and mixture of of – and -santanols were highly effective against gram negative bacteria including Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae and as well as yeast Candida albicans. The present work gives strong evidence of antibacterial activities of honey, sandal oil and black pepper (Sheikh Ahmad 2002). In general, all types of honey have high sugar content as well as low water content and acidity, which prevent microbial growth.Osmotic effect, effect of pH and hydrogen peroxide are represented as an â€Å"inhibition† factor in honey (Postmes et al. , 1993). Most types of honey generate hydrogen peroxide when diluted because of the activation of the enzyme glucose oxidase, which oxidizes glucose to gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide (Schepartz and Subers, 1964). Hydrogen peroxide is the major contributor to the antimicrobial activity of honey,and the different concentrations of this compound indifferent honeys result in their variable antimicrobial effects (Molan, 1992).Moreover, non peroxide factors also play critical role. The content of non peroxide factors are related to the floral source and sometimes account for the major part of the antibacterial activity in honey(Molan and Russell, 1988). Forty samples of different honey types (Acacia, Ziziphus , Brassica and Citrus) were collected from different areas of Pakistan and analyzed for moisture, pH, total acidity, ash, electrical conductivity, hydroxyl methyl furfural (HMF), sucrose, total sugars, invert sugar, protein, proline contents as well as macro and micro elements.The variation in composition of honey samples was observed due to different types of flora. Likewise, a significant level (P ; 0. 05) of ash, electric conductivity, sucrose, total sugar as well as macro and micro elements was also found in these honey types. Different formulations of honey has significantly inhibited growth of pathogenic microorganisms, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Candida albicans and Aspergillus niger when compared to control group, which is an evidence that honey is a therapeutic agent being used since ancient time throughout the world. Feng et. al. 1994) The discrepancy in the observed antibacterial activity can be due to several reasons. One possibility might be related to the differences in susceptibility of each species of microorganism to the antibacterial activity of honey used. Similar observations are reported by others (Nzeako and Hamdi 2000; Ceyhan and Ugur 2001; Taormina et al. 2001). As reported by others (Melissa et al. 2004) dilution of honey enhances hydrogen peroxide mediated antibacterial activity may explain some of the discrepancies of observed with the antibacterial activity of these honey.The presence of unstable putative agents and/or thermolabile antibacterial agent(s) could also be inactivated during the experimental procedure and thus may be considered as possible explanation of the observed insensitivity of some honey samples found in the preliminary study. 4. ) MATERIALS AND METHOD 4. 1) Materials Several local brands of honey and Dabur honey collected from different sources is used in this study. Also the honey is collected from various apiaries from- Pathankot(Punjab) and Saharanpur (Up). In the antibacterial study, several bacterial species known to be pathogenic to human such as E. oli. , S. aureus and Burkholderia capicium and Bacillus subtilis was used. These strains were obtained from biote chnology lab. in accordance to given requirement. Glass wares used:- Conical flask (500 milliliter), Conical flask (100 milliliter), Petri plates, glass rod, test tubes spreader, glass beakers, Glass slides and cover slip, Plastic wares used:- Beakers, Conical flask (500 milliliter), Conical flask (100 milliliter), dropper, appendrof tubes (2ml), auto pipette tips (10? l, 100? l, and 1000? l) Instruments used:- Hot air oven, Autoclave machine, Laminar air flow hood, Incubator, Microwave ovenOther material used:- Sprit lamp, cork borer,test tube stand, auto pipette (10? l, 100? l, and 1000? l), parafilm wax,,filter paper Chemicals used:- Nutrient agar, nutrient broth, Mueller Hinton agar, 70% Methanol, 100% methanol, ethyl alcohol ,sodium chloride. 4. 2) Methods Physicochemical study: Appearance of different honeys was observed. pH is determined using conventional procedure like using ph scale. Antibacterial study: Antibacterial study was carried out in steps. In the first step, an i n vitro screening will be carried out using either disc diffusion or well diffusion method.Well diffusion was carried out using plate diffusion, which I preferred. Preparation of test materials: Test materials will be prepared by diluting each honey at different dilutions, 25 ? l/100 ? l, 50 ? l/100 ? l, 75 ? l/100 ? l and one with no dilution. Moreover, net honey was also used as test material. All dilutions were carried out with double distilled and deionised sterilized water. 3. 2. 1) Source of bacterial strains The E. coli. , S. aureus, Burkholderia capicium and Bacillus subtilis were revived from the stock available in the various Biotechnology laboratories of Lovely Professional University, Phagwara (Punjab), India.Sub-culturing of bacterial strains in nutrient broth:- 100ml nutrient broth was prepared and ten test tubes were taken, autoclaved, and after this the Bacterial strains was inoculated in the nutrient broth in different test tubes and then incubated for 24 hours in i ncubator . Sub-culturing of the bacterial strains on solid media:- For All Bacterial strains:- 5. 6g of Nutrient agar was added to the 200ml of purified water. Then solution was heated and boiled for 1 minute to completely dissolve the powder. Then media was autoclaved.Then media(10-15 ml) was poured in Petri plates. Then Bacterial strains were added to media. Then Petri plate were kept in incubator for 18-48 hours at 37 degree C. Saline preparation : Take . 58g of Nacl and dissolve it to 10ml of distled water and make saline before 15 min of spreading and take the colonies from the nutrient agar plates and mix properly in the saline. Nutrient agar medium for antimicrobial testing: 7g of nutrient agar medium was added to the 250 ml of distilled water and heated for 1 minute to complete dissolve medium then autoclaved .After that pouring the petriplates and left it 20 minute for solidify medium and make wells , after solidify put the different Honeys in the wells and kept it to incub ate for 18-48 hours at 37C. Testing of antibacterial activity using agar well diffusion method: The bacterial strains were inoculated into 10 ml of sterile nutrient broth, and incubated at 37  °C for 18 h. Each culture was then spreaded on the surface of sterile nutrient agar plate and also pour-plated in nutrient agar media to perform the test in triplet, one with the control and the other two ith the test sample. Making the wells With the help of a cork borer make wells in the agar carefully without tearing the gel. In two agar plate of all four sets, four wells were prepared with the help of sterilized cork borer. Then with the hep of micropipette put 100 micro litre of honey sample into the wellIn the wells of two plates of each set, samples of following concentrations: (1) 100% sterile Honey(2) 75% sterile Honey(3) 50% sterile Honey and (4) 25% sterile Honey; were added by using micropipette. Also in the a well water was added as negative control.Then with the help of micropi pette put 100 micro litre of honey sample into the well Replace the lid of the plate between putting sample into wells to minimize exposure to air-borne contaminants. Cover the lid tightly with paraffin tape to avoid contamination. Incubation of the plates . A temperature range of 35 °C  ± 2 °C is required for 24-48 hours. Do not incubate plates in carbon dioxide  as this will decrease the pH of the agar and result in errors due to incorrect pH of the media. Measuring zone of inhibition 1.Following incubation, measure the zone sizes  to the nearest millimeter  using a ruler or caliper; include the diameter of the well in the measurement . 2. All measurements were made with the unaided eye while viewing the back of the petri dish. Hold the plate a few inches above a black, nonreflecting surface illuminated with reflected light . 3. Record the zone size on the recording sheet. Figure1: Testing of antibacterial activity using agar well diffusion method 4. )RESULTS Sub-cultu ring of bacterial strains in nutrient broth:- Figure2: Culture E. coli. , S. ureus and Burkholderia capicium and Bacillus subtilis in Nutrient broth media. Sub-culturing of the bacterial strains on solid media:- Fig. –3 E. coli subcultured on nutrient agar Fig. – 4 B. Subtilis subcultured on nutrient agar Testing of antibacterial activity using agar well diffusion method: Fig 5 : No antibacterial activity seen as no honey is poured (taken as negative control) in which E. coli is grown Fig 6 : No antibacterial activity seen as no honey is poured (taken as negative control) in which Bacillus subtilis is grown ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY OF VARIOUS HONEY’S AGAINST E. coliFIG. 7 – ZONES OF INHIBITION BY VARIOUS DILUTIONS OF HONEY(pathankot sample) IN E. coli: 100% = 2. 6cm, 75%= 1. 9cm, 50%= 1. 7cm,and 25%= 1. 2cm FIG. 8– ZONES OF INHIBITION BY VARIOUS DILUTIONS OF HONEY (dabur sample) IN E. coli : 100% = 2. 2cm, 75%= 1. 6cm, 50%= 1. 3cm, and 25%= 1. 1cm FI G. 9– ZONES OF INHIBITION BY VARIOUS DILUTIONS OF HONEY (saharanpur sample) IN E. coli: 100% = 2. 8cm, 75%= 2. 4cm, 50%= 2. 2cm, and 25%= 1. 7cm; ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY OF VARIOUS HONEY’S AGAINST B. subtilis FIG. 10– ZONES OF INHIBITION BY VARIOUS DILUTIONS OF HONEY IN B. subtilis (pathankot sample): 100% = 3. cm, 75%= 2. 7cm, 50%= 2. 7cm, and 25%= 2. 5cm FIG. 11– ZONES OF INHIBITION BY VARIOUS DILUTIONS OF HONEY in B. subtilis (dabur sample): 100% = 2. 7cm, 75%= 2. 5cm, 50%= 2. 4cm, and 25%= 2. 2cm; FIG. 12– ZONES OF INHIBITION BY VARIOUS DILUTIONS OF HONEY in B. subtilis (saharanpur):100% = 3. 2cm, 75%= 2. 7cm, 50%= 2. 3cm, and 25%= 1. 5cm ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY OF VARIOUS HONEY’S AGAINST Burkholderia capacium FIG. 13– ZONES OF INHIBITION BY VARIOUS DILUTIONS OF HONEY in Burkholderia capacium (pathankot sample): 100% = 2. 1cm, 75%= 1. 9cm, 50%= 1. 6cm, and 25%= 1. 4cm; FIG. 4– ZONES OF INHIBITION BY VARIOUS DILUTIONS OF HONEY Burkholderia capacium (dabur): 100% = 2. 4cm, 75%= 1. 7cm, 50%= 1. 5cm, and 25%=1. 2cm FIG. 15– ZONES OF INHIBITION BY VARIOUS DILUTIONS OF HONEY Burkholderia capacium (saharanpur):100% = 2. 5cm, 75%= 1. 9cm, 50%= 1. 7cm, and 25%=1. 4cm; ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY OF VARIOUS HONEY’S AGAINST S. Aureus FIG. 16– ZONES OF INHIBITION BY VARIOUS DILUTIONS OF HONEY S. aureus (pathankot):100%=2. 1cm, 75%= 1. 7cm, 50%= 1. 4cm, and 25%=1. 2cm FIG. 17– ZONES OF INHIBITION BY VARIOUS DILUTIONS OF HONEY S. aureus (dabur):100% =3. 0cm, 75%= 2. 7cm, 50%= 2. 2cm, and 25%=1. cm FIG. 18– ZONES OF INHIBITION BY VARIOUS DILUTIONS OF HONEY IN S. aureus (saharanpur): 100% = 2. 9cm, 75%= 2. 5cm, 50%= 2. 0cm, and 25%=1. 6cm Appearance Appearance of each of honey brand was examined and it was observed that honey were brown to dark brown in color, whereas other honey were golden yellow in color. Dabur honey- golden colour,transparent Pathankot sample – golden colour wit h sufficient transparency Saharanpur sample – dark yellow colour with zero transparency The transparency is due to processing of honey,while less transparent samples are unprocessed and taken directly from bee hive.Table 1- Diameter of the Zone of Inhibition by different concentration of Pathankot honey sample on different Bacterial strains. Bacterial strains| Zone of Inhibition (in cm)| | Control(sterile DistilledWater)| 100%Honey sample| 75%Honey sample| 50%Honey sample| 25%Honey sample| E. coli. | 0. 0| 2. 6| 1. 9| 1. 7| 1. 2| Bacillus subtilis| 0. 0| 3. 0| 2. 7| 2. 7| 2. 5| S. aureus| 0. 0| 2. 1| 1. 7| 1. 4| 1. 2| Burkholderia capicium| 0. 0| 2. 1| 1. 9| 1. 5| 1. 4| Table2- Diameter of the Zone of Inhibition by different concentration of dabur honey sample on different Bacterial strains.Bacterial strains| Zone of Inhibition (in cm) | | Control(sterile DistilledWater)| 100%Honey sample| 75%Honey sample| 50%Honey sample| 25%Honey sample| E. coli. | 0. 0| 2. 2| 1. 6| 1. 3| 1 . 1| Bacillus subtilis| 0. 0| 2. 7| 2. 5| 2. 4| 2. 2| S. aureus| 0. 0| 3. 0| 2. 7| 2. 2| 1. 8| Burkholderia capicium| 0. 0| 2. 4| 1. 7| 1. 5| 1. 2| Table 1- Diameter of the Zone of Inhibition by different concentration of Saharanpur honey sample on different Bacterial strains. Bacterial strains| Zone of Inhibition (in cm)| | Control(sterile DistilledWater)| 100%Honey sample| 75%Honey sample| 50%Honey sample| 25%Honey sample| E. oli. | 0. 0| 2. 8| 2. 4| 2. 3| 1. 7| Bacillus subtilis| 0. 0| 3. 2| 2. 7| 2. 3| 1. 5| S. aureus| 0. 0| 2. 9| 2. 5| 2. 0| 1. 6| Burkholderia capicium| 0. 0| 2. 5| 1. 9| 1. 7| 1. 4| In the preliminary screening process was observed that some honey brands have more while some other have less antibacterial activity. Some honey showed antibacterial effect against E. Coli and some showed strongest activity against Bacillus subtilis ,S. aureus and Burkholderia capicium. Clear zones of inhibition were produced by concentrated without dilution.Through the analysis of average values of the diameters of each honey, it is possible to infer a possible pattern in which commercial honeys, such as DABUR honey, have a greater average diameter while the homemade honeys from different regions, have a lower average diameter even at less concentrations, but the best antimicrobial activity was shown by Saharanpur honey sample with was collected directly from the apiary without any processing and it showed clear and large inhibition zones for all bacterial strains which were used for this test.Though after the dilutions were made, the low concentrated samples of Saharanpur honey resulted in rather poor antimicrobial activity. The wells in which water was loaded shoed absolutely no antimicrobial activity which was used as negative control. The results also showed that lower concentration of honey made through dilution shows less antimicrobial activity than concentrated ones. Thus honey are definitely effective against the bacterial strains at all concentration s. 6) REFERENCES Bibi S, Husain SZ, Malik RN (2008). Pollen analysis and heavy metals detection in honey samples from seven selected countries. Pak. J. Bot. 40(2): 507-516 * Cooper R. A. , Molan P. C. , Harding K. G. (1999) Antibacterial activity of honey against strains of Staphylococcus aureus from infected wounds, J. R. Soc. Med. 92, 283–285. * Cooper R. How does honey heal wounds? In: Munn P, Jones R,editors. Honey and Healing. UK: International Bee Research Association; 2001. * de Jong H. J. 1999) The Land of Corn and Honey:The keeping of stingless bees (meliponiculture) in the ethno-ecological environment of Yucatan (Mexico) and El Salvador, Utrecht UniversityPress, Netherlands, 423 p. * Kamal A, Raza A, Rashid N, Hammed TG, Lami M, Gureshin MA,Nasim K (2002). Comparative study of Honey collected from flora of Pakistan. On Line J. Biol. Sci. 23(9): 626-627. * Khalil MI, Shahjahan M, Absar N (2006). Glycemic Response and Lycemic Index of Bangladeshi Honey in Type 2 Diabe tic Patients. Malaysian. J. Pharm. Sci. 4(1): 13–19. * Lusby PE, Coombes AL, Wilkinson JM.Bactericidal activity of different honeys against pathogenic bacteria. Arch Med Res 2005; 36: 464-467 * Molan P. C. (1997) The antibacterial activity of honey. The nature of the antibacterial activity,Bee World 73, 5–28. * Mundo MA, Padilla-Zakour OI, Worobo RW. Growth inhibition of foodborne pathogens and food spoilage organisms by select raw honeys. Int J Food Microbiol 2004; 97: 1-8. * Tumin N, Halim NA, Shahjahan M, Noor Izani NJ, Sattar MA,Khan AH, et al. Antibacterial activity of local Malaysian honey. Malaysian J Pharma Sci 2005; 3: 1-10.

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Russian Mafia essays

Russian Mafia essays The Russian Mafia: Protectionism in the New Capitalist Russia The Russian Mafia has always exercised an important role in the Russian economy. The contemporary mafiosi are descendents of the seventeenth Century highwaymen and Cossack robbers. These men occasionally murdered families prior to raids preventing them from being captured. The Russia mafiosi made a point to remain aloof from the state. Mob men were actually spurned when returning home from fighting in the Great Patriotic War. The gangs begin to dominate markets such as car sales, spare parts, cigarettes, food distribution, and other markets that the Communist Party failed to provide under the Bolsheviks (Remnick196). Since the collapse of Communism and the dawn of Capitalism, the Russian people have been troubled with innumerable obstacles. There are more than 3,000 gangs known generally as the Russian Mafia. They have proven to be a significant force in delaying the reform process (Goldman 58). The new Russian Mafia has involved themselves in every imaginable kind of criminal activity from drug trafficking and money laundering to protectionism, which penetrates into every area of society. Under the laws of the Soviet Union, the regulations were strong and external. Now the external regulators have disappeared allowing the Russian Mafia to exceedingly enlarge its strength and influence especially with the accelerated speed of privatization without legal safeguards. The Russian Mafias effect on the Russian economy through protectionism can be viewed through the different scopes of academia, the United States Press, and the Russian Press. Protectionism is a preferred activity of the Russian Mafia. When a new private business opens, the mafia ensures that it will get a share of the profits. The mob offers the new operation protection. If the business refuses to purchase protection, the mafia uses violence against them or their property (Gustatson 1...

Monday, October 21, 2019

Reservation Blues By Sherman Alexie essays

Reservation Blues By Sherman Alexie essays Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie represents to its audience the tale of how the Native Americans had to abdicate their belief, Religion and ways of life after the coming of the White Men. Until the coming of the White Men, the Native Americans were divided into a number of tribes, each preaching their own religion and living according to their own culture and tradition. After defeating the Indians on the battlefield and conquering their lands, the White Men forced them to give up their traditional ways, convert to the faith of Christianity and adopt modernity. In the novel, the author illustrates many contradictions of the Indian life through the representation of the present day Indian Scene with the hurting accuracy of praetorian tribal politicians, ruffians who are at the higher authority then these politicians, drunken parents, inedible commodity food, 7-11 stores, Catholicism, Christianity, ancient Indian knowledge and prudence and the maniacal world of softball and basketball. This is where Michael White Hawk comes in. He is a precarious and an unsteady man who spends his days walking on the grounds of the parochial Softball field and it is through his character that these anomalies of the Indian ways of life, despite the frequent crossing over into burlesque, are expressed through the poetic candor. According to Philip J. Deloria, Early American development of a revolutionary identity, created an Native Americans to help shape American culture. Whites had their own notions of Indianness, but even with such (mis)representations, real to stay present at the margins, insinuating their way into Euro- often attempting to nudge notions of Indianness in directions they (Douglas Ford, Sherman Alexie's Indigenous Blues). ...

Sunday, October 20, 2019

SAT Cost, ACT Cost, and How to Save Money

SAT Cost, ACT Cost, and How to Save Money SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips If you're deciding between taking the SAT and the ACT and you have a tight budget, this guide will help. We'll cover the registration costs, reporting costs, and how you can save money no matter what test you choose. All Registration Costs for the SAT and ACT (Updated for 2019-2020) Let's first look at the cost of registering for the test, and extra fees. Fee Type What is this? SAT Cost ACT Cost Registration Fee The normal fee for each administration of the test you register for $64.50 ($49.50 without essay) $67($50.50 without essay) Late Fee Charged if you register after the regular deadline but before the final late deadline $30 $30 Waitlist Fee Charged if you register after the late registration deadline and are seated on test day. $53 $53 (standby testing) Change Fee Charged if you change the test center, test date, or test type $30 $30 Question and Answers An optional service that sends you the test questions and correct answers (useful for seeing what mistakes you made) $18 $20 International Fees Charged additionally if you're taking the test outside of the United States $43 to $53 $99.50 Sources: College Board and ACT, Inc The costs between the SAT and ACT are similar for registrations for U.S. students. If your schools require the essay section, taking the SAT saves you $1 per test. Clearly both tests charge through the nose for extra fees, punishing lack of planning ahead. As we'll cover below, planning early can represent a huge cost savings to you. All Reporting Costs for the SAT and ACT Once you take the test, you'll have to send your test scores to colleges. Each college you apply to will require its own SAT or ACT score report. If you apply to 12 colleges, you'll need to send 12 score reports. This is where the policies for the SAT and ACT really differ. Fee Type What is this? SAT ACT Free Score Reports The number of free reports you get when registering for the test 4 free reports, within 9 days after test 4 free reports, by the Thursday after the test Cost per School Charged for each report you send to a school outside of your free reports. $12 per school $13.00 per test per school Rush reporting Expedited sending of score reports $31 per school $16.50 per test per school Sources: College Board and ACT, Inc. Here's an elaboration. When you take the SAT or ACT, both tests allow you to send your scores to four schools for free. You will specify these four schools when registering for the test. The SAT gives you nine days after the test to decide those four schools, while the ACT only gives you six days. Outside of the free reports, both tests will charge you for sending score reports. This can happen if you're too late in specifying your free reports, or if you exceed the four free reports per test. The SAT and the ACT differ here in a significant way. The SAT can send all your College Board test scores to a school in a single report. This includes all SAT and SAT Subject Test administrations. The ACT, however, requires $13.00 per test per school. For example, if your school uses 'Superscoring', you might want to send two or three tests to combine the highest score.This can really rack up the cost really quickly.For example, if you're applying to ten colleges and you want to send three test scores, this will mean $13 x 10 x 3 = $390, just to send your scores to schools. All this money starts adding up. It pays to be proactive and to plan ahead. Here are four strategies to save as much money as possible on the SAT and ACT. 5 Tips to Save Money on the SAT and ACT If you're on a budget, you can save a lot of money by planning ahead. Here are important ways to get money back. #1: Apply for a Fee Waiver If You Qualify Both the College Board and the ACT know that low-income families find it difficult to pay for these expensive tests. Applying for a fee waiver can save you hundreds of dollars. With a fee waiver, both tests give you free registration for tests and free score reports. How do you qualify for a fee waiver? You qualify if any of the below is true: You're enrolled in or eligible for the federal Free and Reduced Price Lunch program You're enrolled in a federal, state, or local program that aids students from low-income families (like Upward Bound) Your family receives public assistance You live in public housing, a foster home, or are homeless. Your household income level falls below USDA levels for Reduced Price lunches To get a fee waiver, you MUST go through your school counselor. You cannot apply directly through the College Board or ACT, Inc. This takes time, so make sure you do this well before you plan to register for the test. Contact your school counselor as soon as possible if you qualify for a fee waiver. #2: Register Early The late fee for registration is around half the test of the cost itself, causing a 50% increase in the test cost if you're late to register. If you have a test date set in mind, register months in advance so you don't forget. Make sure you get a confirmation by e-mail so you have no surprises come test day. Even worse than paying the late fee is missing the test date registration altogether. If you've been prepping for a specific date, this will cause you to lose momentum from your test prep and lower your score. #3: Use the FREEScore Reports Both the SAT and ACT give you free score reports to send to schools of your choosing. Make sure you specify schools before registration so you don't forget. Once the ACT test date passes, you won't be able to specify any more colleges to receive your test scores. The only reason you may want to not specify a college for the free score report is if you're not sure you're going to do better, and you want to make sure the college receives only your top scores. For all other cases, send it to colleges that are on your application list. #4: Self-Report Scores When Possible In an attempt to lower the barrier to applying even further, some of the top schools in the country now allow students to self-report their SAT and ACT scores on their applications; you'll only have to submit official SAT/ACT score reports if you're accepted. Prestigious national universities that allow self-reporting of SAT/ACT scores include Stanford, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Caltech, Rice, WashU in St. Louis, and Emory. Most of the top liberal arts colleges also have adopted this policy, including Williams, Amherst, Wellesley, Swarthmore, Middlebury, and Pomona. For all schools allowing self-reported SAT/ACT scores, make sure to check their policy on superscoring/score choice so that you're maximizing your standardized testing profile. Also, while this should go without saying, don't lie when self-reporting your SAT/ACT scores on your application. Don't write a score you plan to get on the February ACT or March SAT before admissions decisions go out (unless the school you're applying to accepts February ACT scores) and don't lie about doing better than you did. This will most likely result in your admission being rescinded not just because you didn't do as well as you said you did, but because you lied; institutions of higher learning generally aren't super keen to welcome academically dishonest students into their community. #5: Use Your SAT/ACT Score to Qualify for Scholarships Many states and schools have scholarships where the major qualification is your SAT/ACT score. By doing well on the test, you can make back well more than it cost to take the test. Take the time to research these scholarships and apply for them if you qualify. What's Next? Now that you know how much the SAT and ACT cost, let's read more resources to learn more about these tests. Want a super high SAT score or ACT score? I teach you how to get a perfect SAT/ACT score, based on my own experiences. What are good ACT scores or good SAT scoresfor college? Is the SAT or ACT easier? Find out which you should take. Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points?We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

Saturday, October 19, 2019

Internal controls and weaknesses report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Internal controls and weaknesses report - Essay Example The paper "Internal controls and weaknesses report" aims to analyze purchase and payment and the receipt and sales functions of a business enterprise. Audit and assurance are important accounting functions which seek to check the completeness of financial records. These two functions are mandatory for businesses that operate as public limited companies. However, other business establishments, including sole proprietorship, can opt to conduct an audit of their business processes so as to ensure that their businesses are operating optimally. This voluntary action will go a long way in ensuring that the interest of the owner of the business is safeguarded. The purchase and sales functions of this business happens to have some weaknesses which can be remedied by the implementation of the recommendations that have been tabulated. The purchase and the sales function of a business are very important to a business. These functions ensure that the assets of the business are well taken care of . It is very important to ensure that these functions are operating optimally to ensure that the business operations run smoothly. Audit and assurance is the business function that maintains control on this processes. This function ensures that the correct books have been kept and the right transactions have been recorded. It also ensures that proper authority has been obtained for any business transaction to occur. An accounts payable clerk (AP) and purchasing officer (PO) are employed in addition.

Friday, October 18, 2019

Entrepreneurial Behavior and Learning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Entrepreneurial Behavior and Learning - Essay Example The process of entrepreneurship is complicated with the existence of various other factors such as risk, chaos, information asymmetries, resource scarcity, uncertainties, paradoxes and confusion. Successful entrepreneurship can be developed only when all the three components are arranged in a proper fit. An entrepreneur has to face the challenge of manipulating and influencing the factors affecting the process of entrepreneurship so that he can improve the chances of success of the venture. Since opportunities seldom wait, right timing of the recognition of the opportunity becomes critically important for any entrepreneur. Literature has identified a number of factors influencing the process of entrepreneurship, which include creativity, optimism, information search, alertness, social networking and prior knowledge. Based upon the presence of some of these personal traits and by adapting to the circumstances, entrepreneurs are able to work their ways to recognizing profitable ventures and convert them into operable business ventures. However, the question remains as to which are the ones out of these factors that affect the learning behavior of entrepreneurs. This report based on the interview with a young entrepreneur who has successfully ventured his business in the information technology sector examines the entrepreneurial behavior and learning in practice. Psychological Base of Entrepreneurial Behavior The first question was a general one asking the entrepreneur to elucidate his personal opinion on the psychological base of entrepreneurial behavior. From the answer given by the interviewee, the following points emerge. The personality characteristics of entrepreneurs will share some common features. There are different such features like the need for achievement risk taking propensity, locus of control and work values which shape the entrepreneurial intentions of individuals. There is another dimension to the psychological base of entrepreneurship behavior, which deals with other psychological characteristics of entrepreneurs such as the problem solving style, innovativeness in approach, following role models, acquiring work experience, educational background and perceptions of individuals (Liang & Dunn, 2004). In this context, it is to be recognized that behavior is influenced by the way the external world is represented in the mind of an individual. It is also influenced by the exercise of different choices by the individual in pursuit of his different occupational intentions. It is important to have a look at the term entrepreneur, which is defined differently from entrepreneurship. Some researchers have defined entrepreneur as one who recognizes an opportunity and gathers the resources necessary for acting on the opportunity identified by him. Another definition brings together the innovative behavior and the strategic management practices of an entrepreneur and it identifies different strategic actions of an entrepreneur. They are: (i) introduction of new products and services, (ii) introduction of new production processes, (iii) exploring new markets or expanding the existing markets, (iv) identifying new supply sources, and (v) reorganization of industrial enterprises (Gartner, 1989; Sexton & Smilor,

TERRORISM AND POLITICAL VIOLENC Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

TERRORISM AND POLITICAL VIOLENC - Essay Example The challenge therefore is about getting a clear distinction between terrorism and crime. Acts of terrorism has risen tremendously in the world and they are normally carried out by those with extreme goals. United States Department of Defense sees terrorism as an act of unlawful violence intended to create fear and used to intimidate governments or societies either for political, religious or ideological reasons. Terrorism is so much linked to political violence Historical Aspect of Terrorism Acts of terrorism has been in existence for millennia and so it is not something that just began the other day. The question one asks is, can an Unabomber doing a campaign for terrorism be termed as criminal, terrorist or a revolutionist? The French revolutionary state got into the same state of confusion when it instituted systematic state terror around 1970s leading to death of many people. Concept of moral equivalency broadens definition of what constitutes terrorism and that which is not. Cr itics argue that what matters is the outcome of the act and not the intent. If a military force with uniform cause damage to a population is categorized as the same as directing a bomb to the civilians deliberately. Anyone is termed as a terrorist as long as that person has caused harm to innocent civilians only that military action is a form of terrorism with a different name (Fridell,2001). Terrorism flexible and adaptable and therefore these characteristics have led to confusion all over the world. Tactics of committing acts of terrorism have been changing significantly over the recent past and more importantly increase in the number of causes and social context for terrorism. Nowadays most terrorist continue to perform their acts in the name of revolution and fulfillment of religious duties. The change of tactics makes it difficult for government and the security agencies and to fight this vice in the society. The elected leaders who are charged with the responsibility of fighti ng for people’s rights are the main culprits and most of them do these things to maintain their political positions. Terrorism traces its roots to so many years back and it has been going through series of revolution. The very first kind of terrorism of 1st and 14th century AD that exhibits the same acts as one’s being experienced today was Zealots of Judea, who Romans refer to as dagger-men campaigned for assassination of the Roman forces and those Jews who collaborated with them. Their aim was to express their belief that they were not ready anymore to remain subjects to Roman rule while being dictated by Judaism. Another group was the Assassins a group that broke from Shia Islam adopting a tactic of assassinating enemy leaders because the cult prevented open combat owing to limited manpower (Han,2010). This secretive killing of enemy leaders sends a fearful awe in their enemies and so they are forerunners of the current terrorism in terms of motivation, organization , and goals and indeed they made a psychological impact. Between 14th and 18th century, terror was applied extensively in warfare as well as in resolving conflicts. There was an uninterrupted communication and this led to open warfare. Kingdoms and principalities broke up to form nations and by then these nations had enough strength authority to curb the terrorism menace. The use of the word â€Å"Terrorism† was first initiated by French revolution following a

Demonstrate how people draw on social representations in making sense Essay

Demonstrate how people draw on social representations in making sense of their career trajectories. Draw on theoretical and empirical work in your response - Essay Example tremendous impact from these social representations, such as the need to conform and identify with similar groups of people, to act within the context of rule systems, and to be shaped by human relationships in our decisions. Occupational pursuits structure a large part of people’s daily social relations. How, then, does one come to choose the path of one’s career? In this paper, we will explore this very question, using the concepts of social representation and examples drawn specifically from an interview conducted with Bryony, a 19-year-old second year university student (see Appendix for interview transcript). systems of values, ideas and practices with a two-fold function; first, to establish an order which will enable individuals to orientate themselves in their material and social world and to master it; secondly, to enable communication to take place amongst members of a community by providing them with a code for social exchange and a code for naming and classifying unambiguously the various aspects of their world and their individual and group history. (Foreword) A social representation, then, is a kind of social knowledge which is shared by individuals through communication. It is practical in the sense that it is aimed at mastering real problems and issues, and is situated within unmistakable contexts faced by different groups of people in different positions. The manner in which one happens to be living ultimately directs the extent along which identities and relations unfold, and essentially defines social representation. Moscovici argues that there is a connection between the self-directed individual’s choices and his notions of the family, institutions, and professional categories, which determines possibilities for action, and eventually the destiny of each individual as well as society as a whole (International Balzan Foundation, 2006). Individuals essentially organize their experiences in the social realm, in situational dynamics

Thursday, October 17, 2019

Why the need for a Nurse Practitioner Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Why the need for a Nurse Practitioner - Essay Example They are required by patients to carry out the tasks of daily administration of medicines and also to be looked after during the time they are in hospital. The nurse practitioner has also become necessary on private basis for those recuperating at home. Nurses have to attend to people of all age groups. The lives of patients depend on the way the nurse administers to their requirements. Normally, doctors diagnose and prescribe medicines. It is the nurses who attend to the actual requirements of administering medicines and looking after the patients. Nurses are also involved in the field of research and help in augmenting new medical treatments for various diseases. They are often involved in collaborating with physicians and other health professionals as required. They counsel and educate patients on health behavior and self-care. They prescribe physical therapy and other rehabilitative treatments. And they carry out numerous other tasks involving medical care. The nature and scope of nurse practitioners is dependent on the context in which she is authorized to practice. They are general nurses and specialized nurses. The role of each is unique and confers knowledge and legitimate recognition in clinical practice. The role of a nurse is developed through access to service and his/her outcome of the patients' treatment.

Which is bigger Feel the Fear or The Giant Speech Presentation

Which is bigger Feel the Fear The Giant - Speech or Presentation Example Mathematics is used in numerous ways including description of real world research important real world situations, idea test and give predictions of the real world situations among others (Berry et.al 1995 pp24). Generally, in mathematics, modelling of mathematics gives a procedure or a method that can be used for solving certain situations and problems in mathematics. In this report, the process of mathematical modelling was intended to be used effectively in solving the problems and the situations in the report (Berry et.al 1995 pp24). The report also will use the model to analyze the data given and mathematically give solutions to the research question. The analysis section of this report involved some mathematical calculations of numerous problems whose solutions were found through differentiation. The first problem tackled focused on determining the difference in the altitude of each coasters. The determination was performed through manual mathematical calculations, all the steps used in conducting this calculation are highlighted and explained appropriately in the report. The following are the solutions including all the steps used to solve the three mathematics problem during the research: In conclusion, the report analysis used the modelling of mathematics to solve and evaluate the questions asked in the report. Mathematical modelling such as differentiation of first derivatives is used in the report to find the accurate answers. In order to approach different problems in the correct form, the modelling process of mathematics was used. Just from prediction which was tested to give the data to be formulated. Formulation gives the model which is analyzed to give the conclusion as well as the answers to the problems. The methods used to analyze the report were accurately and appropriately

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Why the need for a Nurse Practitioner Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Why the need for a Nurse Practitioner - Essay Example They are required by patients to carry out the tasks of daily administration of medicines and also to be looked after during the time they are in hospital. The nurse practitioner has also become necessary on private basis for those recuperating at home. Nurses have to attend to people of all age groups. The lives of patients depend on the way the nurse administers to their requirements. Normally, doctors diagnose and prescribe medicines. It is the nurses who attend to the actual requirements of administering medicines and looking after the patients. Nurses are also involved in the field of research and help in augmenting new medical treatments for various diseases. They are often involved in collaborating with physicians and other health professionals as required. They counsel and educate patients on health behavior and self-care. They prescribe physical therapy and other rehabilitative treatments. And they carry out numerous other tasks involving medical care. The nature and scope of nurse practitioners is dependent on the context in which she is authorized to practice. They are general nurses and specialized nurses. The role of each is unique and confers knowledge and legitimate recognition in clinical practice. The role of a nurse is developed through access to service and his/her outcome of the patients' treatment.

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Majority Opinion Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Majority Opinion - Case Study Example Since there was no evidence to the effect that students were required to profess the religious views presented in the books, then the plaintiffs, in this case, had no good basis of claiming that the requirement to read from the books amounted to the violation of the constitutional rights of the students and their parents. The basis that would well serve to make the requirement unconstitutional is if the students were compelled to do something that is against their religious belief, such as profess the religious views presented by the books (Shelly, 1994). The students were not required by any means to affirm the religious views presented or even practice such views. There was an assumption on the sides of the plaintiff that having the religious vies which was in contrast to their own belief presented in the form of poetry or fiction, entitled the children to believe in them. To indicate lack of consistency in the arguments presented by the plaintiff, one of them, Mrs. Frost held that it was all right to have their children taught other religions and philosophies, as long as such teachings did not undermine her religious beliefs, or the children had to be instructed on the error of the other religion (Fish, 1999). This serves to show that the plaintiffs believed their religion was the only one acceptable and thus, could be taught without the indication of its errors, while the other religions and philosophies had to underline this fact. This is an erroneous view of the intentions of the education system, in that it seeks to create wider knowledge, and thus cannot be limited to one religion. Another major aspect that offers support for the majority opinion by chief judge Lively is the fact that there appears an observed tendency of the plaintiff to interpret virtually everything theologically (Suber, 1987). Mrs. Frost holds that everything has to be interpreted in the Biblical perspective, arguing that there is no possible way, in which issues such as evolution a nd telepathy could be taught, without violating her religious beliefs.  

Monday, October 14, 2019

Agile Project Management

Agile Project Management Agile project management has been in use in software projects over the last number of years, but lately it has been incorporated into many different types of projects such as the military, telecommunications and retail. (Scrum Alliance). This paper focuses on using agile project management techniques in the telecoms industry. Jim Highsmith and Gary Chin are two advocates of agile project management, Highsmith (2004) claimed that the agile project management framework which consists of five phases, each with supporting practices. The five phases are Envision, Speculate, Explore, Adapt, and Close. Each of these phases has to be implemented in order otherwise the project will not strictly follow the agile process. Agile proposes to deal with a project in small development cycles; self managed teams, customer collaboration and iterations. It also proposes to have an end product for testing at the end of each iteration, so the customer or end user can see what direction the project is goi ng. Scrum is a project management framework and is ideally suited for projects with high uncertainty. It is used on some of the worlds largest telecommunications development projects such as British Telecom and Siemens because of its high productivity with distributed and outsourced development teams. 2 What is agile project management? Agile project management has been defined as short cycles of product development that deliver incremental updates of the product rapidly based on the changing needs of the customer. This methodology is the opposite of waterfall project management, which values extensive planning and pre-production. (Labine, 2010) The agile approach consists of a number of stages including rapid iterative planning and development cycles allowing a project team to constantly evaluate the project and obtain immediate feedback from users or stakeholders allowing the team to learn from their experiences after each cycle. After the streamlined planning requirements, definition and solution design phase is completed to get the project underway iterations or more detailed planning requirements are created. This allows for immediate modifications of the product as customer views change. Agile project management requires a dedicated full time team including a customer or end users. (Haas, 2007). Agile project management differs to traditional project management in the approach; agile promotes self managed teams with the project manager taking more of a leaders role rather than a managers role. The main priorities of an agile project manager are to gather all the information from stakeholders and integrate a plan, advise the team of estimates, make decisions, build and sustain a teams culture and ensure teams stick to the process, customer relationship, check progress and plans and to communicate the teams progress. (Thomas, 2008) With agile project management both the project team and the stakeholders actively work together to understand and prioritise functionality. The agile project management life cycle can be seen in figure 1. This identifies how the plan, develop, learn and evaluate phases all fit together. Agile management uses an approach with short iterative cycles, they are based on the theory of plan, do, check and act. These cycles happen at different levels, each day, each time box, each release and each project. Agile demands team look at how fast they are progressing and adjust accordingly. Agile management methods are used when the project value is clear and the customer actively participates throughout project. (Thomas, 2008) Figure 1. Agile project management life cycle model Agile management concepts Haas (2007) identified the key elements that provide the basis for agile project management as visual control, co located high performing teams, test driven development, adaptive control, collaborative development, feature driven development, leadership and collaboration, a move from cost to revenue focus and lessons learned. Vision control assists teams in organising work in projects. Publishing time plans and progress charts allow the team to view the projects the same way and to clearly see where the project is at. Co located high performing teams greatly increases the quality of coordination and communication. Project managers need to have everyone working together in a collaborative manner. Agile teams develop test plans and at the same time they define requirements. If a requirement isnt testable then it is not fully developed. Adaptive Control tries to have everyone on the team adapting to different situations. The project manager acts a leader not a task manager, they work with the team establishing working relations and setting the team ground rules. Agile team members have to be able to continuously adapt to improve their methods as lessons learned from previous cycles are incorporated into the next iteration. Collaboration is needed among all team members to get the best results from the team, they also need to document feedback and implement learnings on the next iteration. Feature driven development greatly reduces complexity and allows teams to focus on one feature at a time. Leadership and collaboration rather than command and control facilitate leadership in a team rather than traditional management. The project manager aims to remove and resolve any problems the agile team encounters. The business analysts manage the business benefits of the project and continuously focus the agile team on the business needs. The move from cost to revenue focus features prioritise based on value such as increased revenue to market share. The lessons learned program is completed after each cycle here the teams hold a lessons learned session to determine where improvements can be made for the next iteration. The team adapts to how members work together to improve the team performance. (Haas, 2007) 2.2 Five stages of agile project management With agile project management the focus is on continuous innovation to deliver project requirements. The product should also be adaptable to facilitate future customer requirements. Agile also strives to have both people and process adaptability to respond rapidly to product and business change. It focuses more on revenue than cost so that that the project supports business growth and profitability. Highsmith (2009) one of the founders of the agile alliance published, Agile project management: creating innovative products, in this he identified five stages of agile project management. Highsmith defined the five stages of agile project management as: 1. Envision: How to determine the product vision, the project objectives and constraints, the project community and how the team work together. 2. Speculate: Developing a capability and or feature based release plan to deliver on all aspects of the vision 3. Explore: To plan and deliver project running tested stories in a short iteration, constantly seek to reduce the risk and uncertainty of the project. 4. Adapt: Review the delivered results, the situation and the teams performance and adapt as necessary. 5. Close: Conclude the project, pass on the key learnings and celebrate. Envision: This phase creates a vision for the project team that covers what, who and how. If theres no vision phase, this means that the rest of the properties of agile project management are a wasted effort. The envision phase is a critical success factor early in any project. Team members need a vision to determine who will be involved, customers, members, management, stake holders and envision how to work together as a group. The purpose of the envisioning phase is to clearly identify what is to be done and how work is to be accomplished. The envision stage has four practices, product vision, project objectives and constraints, project community and approach. Product vision allows member of the team to fully understand their project. Teams should have a clear product vision and the product vision should be revisited regularly. Project objectives include a project data sheet, this is a single-page summary of key business and quality objectives, product capabilities, and project management in formation. A project data sheet contains clients, customers, project leader, product manager, executive sponsor and the project objective statement. The project objective statement includes the capabilities, quality objectives and risks that can impact on the project. The project community includes getting the right people for the job. In Agile project management the team members need to have an appropriate technical ability, be team players and be self disciplined. The final step in the product vision stage is how the team will deliver the product, between working as a team with developers and major stakeholders in the project. For large projects a meeting is usually needed to discuss the product vision. After the envision phase the team has reviews to ensure they fully understand the vision. (Highsmith, 2009) Speculate: The speculate phase consists of gathering initial based requirements for a product and defining a workload as a backlog of product features. In the speculative phase, the team design their iterations. Iterations are the planned stages of work in the project and each iteration has a timeline and a plan. The agile plan is to have a product at the end of each iteration. This would involve the stories, tests, and documentation being packaged to be deployed. Iterations are used to concentrate on small pieces of work that depend on the type of project being completed. Estimating project costs and generating administrative and financial information are also done in this phase. Within the speculate phase plans have to be able to adapt to change as customers understanding of their requirements change, work efforts vary and people can leave or join teams. This phase establishes a target and a direction for the team. During this phase the team should have an understanding of the prod uct structure, and the release plan. Agile project speculating helps the project team to answer some of the following questions. Determine how the product and its features will evolve in the current release Balance anticipation with adaptation as the project unfolds Focus on the highest-value features early in the project Think about the business goals, project objectives, and customer expectations Provide necessary cost and schedule information to management Coordinate interrelated activities and features across teams Consider alternatives and adaptive actions Provide a baseline for analyzing events that occur during the project Explore: Agile project management focuses on agile leaders tasks of creating self organising, self disciplined teams that deliver products. Iteration management covers planning and management during iteration cycles. The main explore activities are iteration planning and monitoring, technical practices and project community. Iteration planning and monitoring consists of three main activities: iteration planning, workload management, and monitoring iteration progress. The primary responsibility for managing this work lies with the iteration manager. The iteration manager may also facilitate meetings such as retrospectives held at the end of each iteration, several practices can be applied generically to many types of products-both hardware and software. These generic technical practices are driven by the desire to keep quality high and the cost of change low. The four most common technical practices are simple design, continuous integration, ruthless automated testing, and refactoring . (Highsmith, 2009) Adapt: In the adapt phase the results are reviewed from customer, technical, people and process performance, and project status perspectives. The analysis looks at the actual versus planned project. The results of adaptation are fed into a re-planning effort to begin the next iteration. After the envision phase, the loop will be speculate, explore and adapt with each iteration successively refining the product. Control and correction are common terms applied to this phase. Plans are made, results are monitored and corrections are made implying what plans were right and the actual results. Adapt implies modification or change rather than success or failure. In agile project management responding to change is more important than following a plan. (Highsmith, 2009) Close: Projects are partially defined by the presence of both a beginning and an end. The key purpose of the close phase is the learning and the incorporation that learning into the work of the next iteration or passing it on to the next project team. This phase is the final step in the project, and is often overlooked. Finalising documentation, support material release notes and financial material all have to be tidied up before a project can close. In software projects the project is usually archived for safe keeping. In agile project management when closing a project it is important to have a project retrospective. This helps the team learn about its dynamics and intra team learning activities. It also allows the team to talk about what went well in the project and where it hit obstacles. (Highsmith, 2009) 3 Scrum project management Scrum project management approach embraces the agile iterative and incremental practices. Scrum can be used on projects of any size. It can manage XP projects, where XP projects uses customer on site with this the project team can be sure they are creating what the customer wants. SCRUM is revolved around simplicity, resulting in the delivery of a product that moves the project forward. It works on small pieces of the project at a time, these are known as iterations. Each iteration consists of some requirements gathering, analysis, design, development and testing combining to create an iterative release cycle. (Murphy, 2004) Scrum has three defined roles, the product owner, scrum master and the project team. The product owner is generally the product manager. The scrum master is the project manager or team leader. They enact scrum values and practices. They are responsible for issues that may hold up the project. The project team should consist of between 5-10 members. The team should include cross-functional team members, involving individuals from a multitude of disciplines including designers and developers. The scrum product backlog records the project requirements that are defined by the product owner. The project team creates a sprint backlog that comprises of product backlog items that they believe can be completed in a thirty day period. After thirty days the team should have a shippable product. (Murphy, 2004) The product owner, scrum master and the project team make rough estimates of how long each item will take. This SCRUM process can be seen in figure 2. Figure 2 The Scrum Process Scrum daily meetings are time limited, the daily Scrum meeting is typically confined to 15 minutes. Only extraordinary projects should require more than 15 minutes. The purpose of the Daily Scrum meeting is to answer Scrums three questions: What did you do yesterday? What will you do today? What obstacles are in your way? At the end of each sprint, a sprint review meeting is held. Again this meeting is time boxed. The team presents what they have developed during the sprint to the product owner. after the sprint review and prior to the next sprint planning meeting the scrum master holds a sprint retrospective meeting with the team. The scrum master encourages the team to revise within the scrum process framework and practices, its development process to make it more effective for the next sprint. (Murphy, 2004) 4 Agile project management in the telecommunications industry Agile methods like Scrum can be applied to any project to help deliver improved results. (Mac Iver, 2009). Many telecommunications companies utilise scrum techniques. This can be seen in the case study at TechCore. (Schwaber, 2004). Previous to the implementation of scrum the company could not see its priorities. By creating a product backlog this allowed the company to see that revenue could be made by focusing attention on product development. Within four months of implementing Scrum, the company had achieved its goals and the company prospects had improved. Before the implementation of scrum, TechCore had day log review meetings where the manager would impart his knowledge and direction to the development engineers. These meeting often went off track taking up the full teams day. With scrum the manager got involved in daily scrum meetings, with this they identified that teams werent taking and individual problems were holding up the project. As each engineer reported his or her st atus, Michel the project manager saw that if he focused his attention on product development, he could expedite design decisions, ensure that the correct path was taken, and actually get involved in the critical business of his company. He focused his efforts on helping the team with its short-term problems, which were all related to preparing the subsystem for the show. The daily scrum meetings also highlighted supply chain problems where engineers were waiting for component deliveries. Once this problem was identified the project manager employed two junior engineers to work with supply chain to identify and source components as quick as possible so there was no delay to the project and it freed up senior engineers time from dealing with these smaller matters. (Schwaber, 2004). The scrum project management technique has also been used in a nationwide WAN upgrade project as seen in Appendix 1, this project involved upgrading up to four hundred sites all over Ireland, each site need ed new network equipment installed including routers and switches and all sites had to be visited individually. All network equipment had to be configured before the site visit. This was one of the biggest projects undertaken by the project manager interviewed in Appendix A. By implementing Scrum the team of six people, the scrum master and the project manager all had a clear and concise understanding of what was happening at any given time. The teams were split up into three groups of two pairs. With this the project manager hoped that the pairs would work together in both configuring and installing the network equipment. The map of Ireland was divided into geographical sections, these sections were each going to represent a sprint, which would take approximately five weeks to complete. Each area was then assigned to a team. The first week of the sprint all staff were office based, configuring network equipment, for the remaining four weeks of the sprint the three teams were on sit e. Daily sprint meetings were held in the office which was ideal, as all members shared an office, these meeting were quick, clear and concise, covering what has been done today, what the plan for the rest of the day was and if there were any problems holding up the project. Once the teams were on site, a quick conference call between the teams and the scrum master covered the daily sprint meeting. With this the teams were always in contact and could share problems, solutions and new ideas. The main problem the teams ran into was if a team member was off work due to holidays or sick leave, where this happened, the scrum master could easily fit into any of the three teams, and carry out the work of the scrum master and the technician on the ground so that the project could stay on target for the specific dates that were outlined in the scrum backlog at the beginning. He identified that this may not be ideal in other SCRUM projects, but it works in this situation. At the end of the five week cycle the team and mangers would have a sprint review meeting, in this they identified where they were seeing recurring problems, what extra equipment or tools were required and how the process could run more smoothly. After the first sprint review meeting all three teams had small problems but improvised to complete what they had planned to do. During the sprint retrospective each team had different problems including faulty network equipment, lack of tools and no access to the communications room in buildings, once these were identified the scrum master found solutions to them and the same problems didnt reoccur. 5 Conclusion After researching this topic, there is not a lot of documentation of agile project management in the telecoms industry. Companies such as BT and Siemens have successfully implemented agile techniques into their software development teams, but they have not documented using agile in implementing their telecoms projects. One case study completed at Techcore an American telecommunications company (Schwaber, 2004) that has successfully implemented agile project management; from this case study before the implementation of agile the CEO of the company was trying to run all aspects of the company but was failing miserably. Once agile methodologies were implemented it became evident where and why their projects were failing as the CEO was trying to run all aspects of the company at the same time, and no are was given priority over any other. The development of the product backlog and the implementation of daily SCRUM meetings proved to be beneficial from day one. SCRUM also identified where time was being lost in the procurement of components as engineers were often left waiting for equipment resulting in the project being held up. The interview with the project manager from Appendix A also identifies how implementing SCRUM in a telecoms project was a success and the results were obvious very early on in the project. In this WAN upgrade project, the project managers implemented SCRUM, split the team of six into pairs, designed a product backlog, separated the project into sprints, held daily meetings as well as sprint review and sprint retrospective meetings. The project is still ongoing but as of this moment both project managers and senior managers have identified this project as a success. If agile is implemented in stages covering the envision, speculate, explore, adapt and close phases identified by Highsmith, the project proves to be successful, but if any of the five processes are missed the project may not prove to be as successful.