Literary Criticism Quotes and Explanation Essay

â€Å"Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead. † -Gene Fowler Fowler conveys that writing is a difficult, exacting task. The purpose of writing is to put our thoughts into words, and to make our words move our readers. Many writers are frustrated by their inability to put their thoughts onto paper. I have always had a difficult time writing. I find that I have good ideas, but that putting my thoughts into words is challenging. I find this problem in all kinds of writing, even projects I enjoyed like a short story we wrote in the 7th grade. I enjoy reading science fiction; it is the most interesting to me. I have always had a hard time picturing what I am reading in my head, but science fiction is easier to visualize. I dislike non-fiction the most because I find it uninteresting. â€Å"Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars. † -G. Flaubert Flaubert’s message is that human speech is imperfect and inelegant. Many people strive to speak fluently but aspects of their speech like word choice and grammar are imprecise. One way to express yourself when words do not work is body language. For example, if somebody doesn’t understand that you are trying to be sarcastic you can use body language to convey your message. You can also express yourself through art, like paintings or music. Some people also try to express themselves through the way that they dress. One advantage to using these methods is that you do not have to say anything but people can simply interpret your message. This can also act as a disadvantage because they might interpret it the wrong way.

Marginal Revenue and Profit

?In order for a company to be able to reach its full potential financial management must be in place. This management needs to be aware of at least the basics of financial plans which are revenue, cost and profit. These three things can make or break a company. Each of these things must be understood and considered before plans can be laid to create or better a company. Revenue is the amount a company receives (Marginal Revenue, 2009). If a company is in the business of sales, revenue is the amount of money the company receives per unit sold. Marginal revenue is the amount of money a company receives for the last unit sold. This is found by dividing the change in revenue by the change in quantity sold. For companies that compete with one another marginal revenue is not very important. This is because in a competitive environment most products are sold at a set price so that marginal revenue is equal to the set sales price of the product. For a monopoly on the other hand, marginal revenue is very important. Monopolies have a decreasing marginal revenue curve (marginal Revenue, 2009); for a monopoly the marginal revenue is less than the sales price. This is because a monopoly must have a lower sales price in order to increase the amount of product sold. Total cost is the amount of money it costs to operate at a particular rate of production (Baker, 2000). There are two types of cost: variable and fixed. Fixed costs are those that remain the same regardless of production and variable costs are those that change with production. Marginal cost is the addition either to total cost or total variable cost resulting from one more unit of output (McConnall & Brue, 2008). Usually this is found by dividing the change in total cost by the change in quantity. Profit is the positive gain from an investment or business operation after subtracting expenses (Profit, 2009). Profit maximization is the idea that people will try to create as high a profit as possible given the circumstances. Since marginal revenue is the amount of revenue an additional unit will bring in and marginal cost is the amount the additional unit will cost to produce, then profit maximization is the point where marginal cost and marginal revenue are equal (Profit Maximization, 2009). So as long as marginal cost is lower than marginal revenue there is profit, but if marginal cost ever exceeds marginal revenue the last unit should not be produced. If the marginal revenue is higher than the marginal cost, the company can produce more units. Business owners and managers need to be able to make a profit. Whenever people think of profit, they are aware that profit is the amount of money left after the expenses are paid and most people know the greater the profit the better off they will be. Most people do not know that profit maximization requires the knowledge of marginal cost and marginal revenue. In order to determine when a company is no longer profiting from production of extra units, one must know that profit maximization is the point where marginal revenue equals marginal cost. Refernces (2009). Marginal revenue: Fundamental finance. Retrieved July 16, 2009, from fundamentalfinance. com Web site: http://economics. fundamentalfinance. com/micro_revenue. php Baker, S. (2000). Cost concepts. Retrieved July 16, 2009, from Economics interactive tutorial Web site: http://hspm. sph. sc. edu/COURSES/ECON/Cost/Cost. html (2009). Profit. Retrieved July 16, 2009, from investorwords. com Web site: http://www. investorwords. com/3880/profit. html Profit Maximization. Retrieved July 16, 2009, Web site: http://www. econ. ilstu. edu/ntskaggs/eco105/readings/profit-max. htm McConnell, C. , & Brue, S. (2008). Microeconomics 17th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Professional Dancing

March 6, 2012 Professional Dancing â€Å"There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good. † Edwin Denby. Dance has not left behind identifiable artifacts that prove when dance was created. It is not possible to place a date on when it became part of human culture. For billions of years people have expressed emotions and feelings through movements.Over the years dance has transformed into an art of great proportion in our daily life. Everyone dances for a different reason. Some because dance is a stress reliever and others, it’s a way for them to express themselves, but for professionals it’s because they cannot live without it. To become a professional dancer it takes hours of practice in a studio and the acceptance of not becoming a huge star with a lot of money.To embark on the journey to become a professional dancer the first decision to make is what style of dance, after the decision is made the next step is to find a dance stud io, during the training in the studio cross training will be needed to become stronger and more flexible, the finance, competitions and injuries are all ideas to consider before committing to a vigorous but rewarding schedule. Even though becoming a professional dancer has a high risk of failure and very low pay, the career can be very rewarding and enjoyable.Finding a dance studio that will push the dancer to become a professional is hard. Usually after finding a studio around where the aspiring dancer lives, research is done to make sure the studio is going to push them to be their best. Many dancers train in multiple studios and possibly even a dance school before becoming a professional. To receive a bachelor’s in dance it costs about $25,000 per year. Most aspiring dancers attempt to get scholarships and sponsors. After graduating the jobs offered for dancers are back-up for videos and concerts, teachers and, theater performances.An audition for these jobs is usually man datory. Almost all professional dancers start out at a young age in ballet classes. By the age of 18 the dancer starts to audition for jobs and begin their career. Ballet is known as the foundation of all dance styles. Ballet provides structure of almost all dance moves and control of the body to continue on in the dance style preferable. To continue on in dance the style has to be chosen by the dancer. The number of styles of dance are uncountable but the most popular are ballet, hip hop, contemporary, and ballroom.Usually those four are the styles that become a profession. Most dancers have a preferable dance style they like because of watching others dance on television or in the studio but to choose the style of dance the best way is to experiment with many. Usually after a few years of learning the foundations of dance the dancer starts to train in the style of dance they have chosen but training in the studio is not the only training a professional has to do. To become a profe ssional dancer cross training is needed to build muscle and endurance.Most advise pilates, upper body work, interval training, yoga, and tai-chi. These work outs help the dancer’s flexibility and strength to jump higher and carry out harder more complicated dance moves. With all this pressure to become a better dancer problems start to occur. An estimated amount of almost 100% of dancers has struggled with an eating disorder (Ballet Dancers). â€Å"Almost everyone credits George Balanchine, the renowned dancer, teacher, and choreographer, with the current aesthetic of ballet in the West, referred to by most as the â€Å"Balanchine body,† or the â€Å"anorexic look† (Gordon, 1983).This is one of the many down sides of aspiring dancers. If given help the dancer can usually start eating correctly and continue on in the hope to become a professional. The cost of the dancers training in the studio may cost up to $200. 00 per month. If the dancer decides to enter com petitions the cost to enter train extra and buy the attire can range around $300. 00. The profession of dancing becomes very expensive. Unless the dancer is getting paid to dance the dancer usually has another job on the outside creating the income to pay for the extra necessities of dance. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that dancers and choreographers earned a mean hourly wage of $16. 55 as of May 2010† (Dancing Care†¦). The career in dance is very risky and unpredictable. As an individual dancing everyone has their opinion of what they like and do not like. Because of this it makes the career very hard to get into and successfully have without the struggle of not having enough money. To become a known new aspiring dancer in the fierce profession entering competitions are a must.Usually a solo in a competition costs $90. 00 to enter. Before learning the routine created by a teacher reading the regulations is a smart idea to know what is allowed in the routine and what is not. If the routine was created before the regulations the dance might have to be tweaked so the dancer is not disqualified. A competition can last just a day or over a weekend. The judging is fierce and the competition makes the dancer want to strive even harder to become an amazing artist. Dance is strenuous. In fact, dancers have one of the highest rates of non-fatal on the-job injury. † The causes of most dance injuries are pushing for perfection so hard that muscles are strained, shin splints occur, plantar fasciitis happens, and stress fractures are created. When dancers have this the best way to cure it is stretching before and after dancing. If any serious injury occurs like breaking bones landing a move wrong it could ruin the dancer’s career.Most dancers retire around the age of 30 if an injury happens early the dancers career they will usually retire a teacher. Recovering could take a few weeks to years. A lot of dancers have permanent damage to their body after a vigorous career of muscles being strained and the body being pushed to its limit. Becoming a professional dancer is risky but rewarding. To become a professional dancer it takes hours of practice in a studio and the acceptance of not becoming a huge star with a lot of money.To embark on the journey to become a professional dancer the first decision to make is what style of dance, after the decision is made the next step is to find a dance studio, during the training in the studio cross training will be needed to become stronger and more flexible, the finance, competitions and injuries are all ideas to consider before committing to a vigorous but rewarding schedule. Every dancer has a different opinion of this profession but the ones who love to dance and have the passion that no one could ever take away from them are the ones who are happy and loving every second of it.

The Reform Program of John Calvin in the City of Geneva Comparing it Research Paper

The Reform Program of John Calvin in the City of Geneva Comparing it with either the Enlish or the Catholic Reformation - Research Paper Example When the Religious tension raised up and took a dangerous course Calvin fled to Basel in Switzerland where he published his first book â€Å"The Institute of the Christian Religion† in 1936. In the following year, he was hired to help reform the Church in Geneva. He was expelled from his duty but he continued his efforts for reform and soon he was called to take over his duties back and lead the church. On his return to his duties, he made several prominent changes in church government and Liturgy regardless of some influential families who were against his policies. Calvin suffered harassment and criticism but remained focused on his mission of improving and bringing in new reforms. In his way, he was supported by the refugees during the election of city council. Calvin tried hard and did his best to promote new reforms both in Geneva and Europe. Calvin’s reforms and ideology is known as Calvinism. CALVINISM: Calvinism is all about doctrine of Predestination and absolu te sovereignty of God which is greatly influenced by Augustinian. (Thomas, 1963) The theology of Calvinism was infused in Europe in 16th century, which is based on five basic reforms, which is recalled by an acrostic TULIP: T: Total Depravity explains that mankind has no power to choose right or wrong paths as people are all helplessly sinners and only God can choose them for the right path. Catholics preaches that this mankind has free will and can choose between right and wrong path, God has given a liberty to people to choose the way they want and will be rewarded accordingly (Steele, 1963). U: Unconditional Election states that People who go to heaven is not because of their good deeds or faith but they were unconditionally chosen by God to be sent to heaven and the rest are lost forever. Catholics says that it is the faith that lived and exists and people will be rewarded in regard of their deeds. L: Limited Atonement says that Jesus gave his life for specific sins of selected people, who will ultimately go to heaven and the God has already chosen people for heaven. Catholicism teaches that Jesus sacrificed his life for all mankind regardless of any favor to specific people and people have to believe it without any doubt. I: Irresistible Grace explains that whoever is selected by God will get the virtue of knowledge of God and the elected person cannot resist the call. Catholicism says that Grace is a divine gift for all mankind but people can resist the call. P: Perseverance of the Saints states that the one who received the call of communion will remain in that state until reach heaven, it is impossible for any person to lose his Salvation. Catholicism says that as human we are all sinful and somehow make mistakes but God is there to forgive and deliver us in heaven. All these five points were strongly condemned by the Roman Catholic Church and they present different view or interpretation of the verses of Gospel from which Calvin supported and spread h is own perceptions. There are different theologies over same verses but the interpretation completely differs to what Calvin tried to prove. ARMINIANSM: (Stanglin, 2009) Armenian theology also has some conflicts with what Calvin’s reforms say. Armenians rejects the idea of predestination and it says that a person is not

Reflection paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 22

Reflection paper - Essay Example It really felt like college and I pondered those great alumni that this university has produced must have stood to where I stood and felt what I felt. Suddenly, I felt like I am part of a bigger community, of the university’s rich history and to some extent, kinship to its alumni. I was also excited because this would be the first time that I will be away for a long time from the shelter and comfort of my family. In a way, I am venturing into the unfamiliar which gave me a sense of independence to have the freedom to do what I really like. That sense of freedom that I felt when I first got here felt so good and liberating. There were some less than ideal thoughts that entered my mind like partying all night since I will be away from the watchful eyes of my parents but I also cautioned myself that I came here to study and not to party. The class started and I felt that vastness of university that in a way represented the vastness of our world. There were a lot of different kinds of people with different kinds of background and ethnicity, different kind of accents that it could be overwhelming the first time. But I felt excited. It was like being in the real world for the first time. School work begun and then reality set in. The excitement abated because I now have to focus with reports, researches, exams and all sort of school work. But I thought to myself that this is what I came for in the university, to study. The adjustment was not exactly that easy because school work in college can be tough and very demanding. Well, I just said to myself that this is college and it should be this way. It may not be that easy but I think I am doing just fine because I am still here. I already have some friends. Really interesting people who I go out with, have fun and do some crazy things just like what a normal teenager would do in their teenage years. Right now, I am still in the process of discovering the university life. School works

Business enviroment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Business enviroment - Essay Example The micro level or the task environment consist of the competitive forces and the environmental uncertainty and external stakeholders of a business. The relationship of a company with its external environment is difficult. As such, it is important for all types of companies to have an understanding of the way in which the external environment functions and changes. The external environment of any company is an essential driver of the success or failure of the company because they support the five main objectives of any company which are survival, growth, profitability, efficiency and stability. The constraints and opportunities in the external environment of a business are significant factors that can impact a business. Also, the external environment is a multifaceted and dynamic environment which undergoes continuous change. So, in order to remain in competition and sustain, a company has to essentially analyse the external business environment in a regular manner. PEST analysis is an important strategic management tool used by companies to analyse the external business environment. The PEST analysis includes an analysis of the political, economic, social and technological factors in the external environment that may directly or indirectly impact the survival, growth and profitability of a company. Bianchi will uses the PEST analysis tool to understand the political, economic, social and technological environment prevailing in the United Kingdom. The company can also use the tool to calculate the opportunities and threats in the external business environment of the United Kingdom bicycle industry. PEST analysis is a necessary analysis to conduct by any business when it plans to enter into a new market. Therefore, it is also necessary for Bianchi to uses the tool before taking decisions for expanding its business into the United Kingdom market. The existing situations in the external business environment can

Discussion Questions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 5

Discussion Questions - Essay Example Money Eddie is a great performer in the team and is not required to be pushed or made to sit for performance review meetings often. A bonus pay- check in the middle of the month and an incentive plan in addition to tickets to watch a racing sport when he achieves something way above his team mates will go a long way in keeping Money Eddie motivated. Always Andrea - Her personality type according to 'Six Degrees' is a Careerist and a Lifestyler. Mainly because her personality reflects reliability and loyalty which are traits of an employee looking to get ahead in the corporate ladder. She is also a Lifestyler as she keeps to herself may be due to her commitment to family and wanting to spend more time personally or for herself. A good rating at the performance appraisal and a promotion that she can look at, down the line in the company along with an incentive pay structure can be a powerful way of motivating her. She is profile who can be counted upon and can rise to the occasion to help the team in crisis. Lovely Lupita - This employee conforms to the type of a 'Collegiality Seeker' her characteristics of being social and talking about her family.

Not sure Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

Not sure - Essay Example This is based on the fact that it is the responsibility of leaders to protect and care for their subjects, failure to do so, they desist from becoming leaders. Laozi on the other hand believes on a cautious approach, insisting on taking a spiritual approach in problems of governance within a state (Raz, 91). Looking at these different approaches in their philosophical views, this paper analyzes their differences, similarities, and concludes by taking a position on which is the best form of Daoism. Laozi believes that it is impossible to see, hear, feel or name the Dao. He believes that Dao existed before the earth and heaven ever became, and it is the foundation of all laws operating under the sky, on earth, and amongst human beings. According to Laozi, Dao is impartial, and everyone is equal under it. It is the source of everything, and it can be found anywhere under the earth, on earth, at the sky, even in the heaven (Raz, 31). On this basis therefore, Dao is beyond word, descripti on or any form. This argument advocated by Lao, is similar to the argument advocated by Mencius. Mencius equates Dao, with destiny. According to Mencius, destiny is unseen, and natural, and no one can rebel against it, and succeed. To him, destiny shapes the life of mankind, and it is different from fate (Palmer, 31). Analyzing these sentiments closely, one would denote that destiny, according to Mencius existed before life, and it is a factor that shapes the life of mankind. These are similar arguments taken by Laozi, and on this note, there philosophical arguments are similar. Laozi and Mencius take a different approach in identifying the characteristics of human lives. They have different definitions of the aspect. For instance, Laozi denotes that human beings who identify with Dao are not selfish, because they put their self-interests as the last option. They are ignorant and non-attached to the conditions of their lives (Palmer, 29). This people do not discriminate any situatio n in their lives, and welcome anybody who wants to associate with them, without prejudicing or discriminating them. According to Laozi, an individual has so much, but he doesn’t need excess (Palmer, 63). He just needs what he can use for the moment. Laozi denotes that all human beings are ordinary; despite this they are still important and precious. On this note, they must endeavor to seek the Dao with passion and diligently. On this basis therefore, human beings who identify with Dao will manage to live in peace, in health, and in happiness. Mencius on the other hand believes in the class system, and categorizes people into gentlemen, and ordinary people (Raz, 93). He denotes that ordinary people can be influenced by material things, while gentlemen cannot be influenced by material things. Mencius believes that for leaders to rule, they must look for ways of satisfying the material needs of people. By doing this, they won’t live in fear of wars, or assassinations. Men cius believes that an individual does not need to be spiritual in order to achieve peace, happiness, harmony and health. To him it is a matter of good governance, and stable leadership that is centered on serving the people, and founded on a strong family values and backgrounds. For instance, Mencius believes that the family is a unit that measures the prosperity and stability of a state (Palmer, 28). To him, if a family is materially and physical successful, then the state will

Impacts of migration on labour market Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Impacts of migration on labour market - Essay Example The best design depends on the research question as well as the orientation of the researcher. The UK National Statistics will provide the much needed secondary information through the UK Labour Forces Survey data. This method is most appropriate for collecting information about the impacts of migration in the UK labour markets. Only the secondary data is used in this study. The design is also suitable because it gives an in-depth description of the phenomena in their existing setting. This fits well when describing how migration has affected the labor market in terms of employment and other sectors of the economy. Descriptive survey is also preferred because it is economical in collecting data from over a large sample with high data turn over. The study have both qualitative and quantitative approaches since the research will need to survey the respondents in various variables such as ethnicity, nationality, country of origin and many others. This will be an appropriate variable in collecting and summarizing data that will be used in analyzing the impacts of migration in the UK labour market. This research strategy has been considered necessary because of its ability to view comprehensively and in detail the major questions raised during the LFS survey. Data sources The study will lie mainly on secondary data sources. The main data source that will be used in the analysis is the UK Labour Forces Survey (LFS). The United Kingdom Labour Forces Survey is a sample of households living at private addresses in the Unite Kingdom. The main objective of LFS is the provision of vital information regarding United Kingdom labour market that can be then utilized in developing, managing, evaluation, and reporting important facts about the labour market policies. Office of the National Statistics is responsible for conducting LFS. Apart from census, Labour Forces Survey is the only comprehensive sources of information about all aspects of the labour market. Since the first L abour Forces Survey that was conducted in 1992, the sample size has been maintained at about 60,000 households in the United Kingdom in each quarter. This sample size represents about 0.2% of the total UK population. While conducting the Labour Forces Survey, the respondents are asked questions regarding personal circumstances such as: ethnicity, country of birth, nationality, and year of arrival in the United Kingdom; and their labour market status during a certain period normally 1-4 weeks before the survey. The Labour Forces Survey is a rotating panel dataset. That is, respondents are interviewed for five consecutive quarters and then leave the sample. In every quarter, one fifth of the sample is interviewed for the first time, one for the second time, and so on. Individuals are asked about their wage in their first and fifth interview only (Dustman, Glitz & Frattini 2008, p.11). The LFS was preferred for this study because it allows for intertemporal comparison of data. In addit ion, the LFS comprises of population weights, which allows for production of tables which give population estimates. It is worth noting that, the construction of population weights does not consider the concept of country of birth or nationality. The researcher has utilized the LFS for the years 1994-2010. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS Figure 1 shows employment rate in the UK between 1994 and 2010. The employment rate is also divided into four main categories (UK

Screening America in Hollywood Film Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Screening America in Hollywood Film - Essay Example Besides, post-war cultural changes affected the society as a whole and this is evident in the portrayal of male and female protagonists in general. Similarly, anxieties around gender identity resulted in the change in traditional gender roles, and it ended up in the formation of realistic role model for the working woman. Within this scenario, it is evident that post-war cultural changes and anxieties around gender identity forced the directors to portray the images of gender in post-war Hollywood cinema with difference. Thesis statement: The close examination of the images of gender in post-war Hollywood cinema, considering the ways in which films of this period illustrate both post-war cultural changes and anxieties around gender identity proves that post –war cultural changes resulted in the ideal image of professional male and suburban housewife, change in traditional gender roles, the image of working-class masculinity, the desire for sexual passivity, portrayal of weak male sexuality, female dissatisfaction, anxiety over changing nature of masculinity, unacceptability towards war-time masculinity, and the portrayal of gender roles as social constructions, and anxieties around gender identity resulted in the change in traditional gender identity, portrayal of tensions between male and fem ale members, changing female role (sexual freedom), conflict with disrupted gender roles, change in gender roles related to free education and loans for loans for homes and businesses, portrayal of the influence of consumerism over female gender role, the general urge to link femininity to domesticity, disrupting home life, and emergence of realistic role model for the working woman (special references to the post-WWII films related to post-war cultural changes and anxieties around gender identity). One can see that the WWII resulted in the mass migration from urban areas to suburban areas within the different states in US. To be specific, this can be

Our Beliefs Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 63

Our Beliefs - Essay Example According to the paper defying the norms of philosophical side of a person has been aided by the predicating idea about nihilism. Fathers and Sons is a whole new act of silenced revolution against various political dilemmas that blighted Russia in the past. This particular study shall be focused on Yevgeny Vassilyich Bazarov, a character in the story who presented strong defiance and negations against presumably futile facets of human life. Such things he tried to flout are those relating to abstractive features of life like love, attraction and hatred which presented haziness. From this study it is clear that Albeit, Bazarov was very arrogant and stubborn on his beliefs, he has presented an inspirational significance to the motive of the story. We have initially caught a glimpse of him owing to Arkady’s eyes. Further, we shortly realized that Arkady is among his followers. When the two of them parted and lived their own separate lives, we commence to notice the objectivity of Bazarov. He possesses the qualities of a frontrunner. He holds an authoritative disposition as well as a gist of prominence. The essence of his imposing personality resonated through his unassailable statements just like when he establishes his points on some philosophical views, he said to Pavel â€Å"In these days the most useful thing we can do is to repudiate – and so we repudiate†.Regardless of whether Bazarov appeals to be someone loathsome or endearing, he retains a definite allure that is conspicuous and indisputable.

Panera Bread Business Strategies Essay Example for Free

Panera Bread Business Strategies Essay â€Å"Thirty years ago, Ron Shaich set out to change the world by changing the way America eats. He’s done that with not one, but two successful restaurant brands. By co-founding Au Bon Pain, Co. Inc. and founding Pan-era Bread, Shaich shook up the industry by offering an antithesis to fast food – hand made, artisan food served in warm and welcoming environments by people you can trust. †(KANAI, 2012) This quote describes how Shaich and colleagues started to create their cafe bakery and change the way Americans eat. Pan-era was the first to come out with the calories on the menu board to ensure that Americans were aware of how healthy Pan-era was and the intention to re maim forthcoming about what was in the food we eat. Shaich and his colleagues did not follow the six step process they focused on the four areas food, setting, customers, and the workforce which made sense for capitalism. Shaich also thrived to make sure the customers and employees were well taken care of because they also played a big role in the success of Pan-era and lets not forget to acknowledge the community and their involvement in the success. Conscious Capitalism is an expression of how Shaich has found success in the restaurant industry if the whole society and corporate society would think of themselves as a corporation things would be better for everyone. Shaich is able to offer a word of advice if you were to get involved with conscious capitalism â€Å"Believe in yourself and why you got into it. Believe in those things that attracted you to the industry which makes a big difference in the lives of our guests. (ROMEO, 2012) For many years Pan-era has focused on the principal of conscious capitalism or what they like to call â€Å" enlightened -self interest† in two ways by delivering value to customers, vendors , employees, investors, and the community and to focus on a higher purpose above and beyond short term results. Meaning providing our customers with the artisan bread , delicious and nutritional food on a daily basis. Then Shaich and all his colleagues wanted to know how to challenge conscious capitalism and they figured out somethings that they are already doing like donating the day old bread to homeless.

Key Challenges And Risks Of Erp Systems Information Technology Essay

Key Challenges And Risks Of Erp Systems Information Technology Essay Historically ERP systems evolved form system integration. It is a system which is designed to mange production, inventory, and finance and order facility.ERP system integrate inventory data with finance, sells and hr data to give it a seamless integration (Stephen Harwood,2003). It allows the organization to price their products, manage the resources, people, material and money(Jatinder N. D. Gupta, Sushil K. Sharma, Mohammad Abdur Rashid Computers 2008 ). Implementation of ERP system is quite straightforward when it is implemented in a small size company which not diverse geographically and physically, but the real challenge of ERP systems come when it is being implemented in global basis where the company is spread in different part of the globe with different time business process, regulations and different business interests ( M. lyne Markus,Cornelis Tanis,Paul C .van Fenma april,2000).According to oKane (2004) attention of ERP researchers should shift from hard elements to sof t elements. Soft elements mean addressing the organizational and the cultural problem. More over an appropriate ERP implementation requires good management intervention as part of the implementation process. Key challenges and risks: With success full implementation of ERP an organization can reap many benefits. But first we are going to analyse what are the potential challenges involved in a global implementation of ERP. As many IS research explanation tells that the Go live or roll out of the project does not mean that the project is successfully implemented. We have to think beyond this part and also take into account the part of Post implementation risks. A risk can be defined as the occurrence of an event that has consequences for, or impacts on a particular project (Kleim and Ludin, 2000, p. 3). risk: Owing to the size and complexity of an ERP system, identification of risk in ERP post-adoption is a very time-consuming and complicated task. There are four kind or post implementation risk as defined by (Guo Chao Peng and Miguel Baptista Nunes,2009). (1) Operational risk (OR). Operational staffs are daily users of ERP systems. OR refer to risks that may occur from operational staffs. (2) Analytical risk (AR). Front-line managers use ERP systems to generate plans and forecasts (e.g. production plan, sales forecast, etc.) to predict and better manage the uncertain future. ARs refer to risks that may occur as managers use ERPs to carry out analytical tasks. (3) Organisation-wide risk (OWR). When using and maintaining ERPs in the post-implementation stage, companies may encounter a set of risk events in relation to various internal (e.g. system users and in-house IT experts) and external factors (e.g. system vendor and system consultants). Such risks may have impacts on the entire company and therefore are referred to as OWRs. (4) Technical risk (TR). A set of system and technical factors may result in risk events that can hinder the ERP system from meeting its intended functions and performance requirements. These risk events are identified as TRs. To elaborate it further if operational staffs are reluctant to use the new ERP system then that causes a major risks towards the success factor of the implementation.ERP system are mainly used to automate the transactional process. As a result the operational staffs are the most frequent user of the system as a result their involvement and adoption of the project are important in terms of the success of the project (Scapens and Jazayeri, 2003). This risks can be multiplied by many other actors like psychological anxiety of the staffs (e.g. unwilling to change and fear of loss of job), initial failures in system implementation (e.g. insufficient training), system pitfalls (e.g. poor user interface and system design) and lack of confidence in the system.ERP system is involved with the transaction of high volume of data and most of the time the data that is been put into the database of the system should be very accurate. All preliminary data of ERP is inputted by operational staff. It is observed that the integrated data flowed so quickly through the system that there was little opportunity to track down mistakes before they showed up on everybodys screens (Scapens and Jazayeri, 2003). To elaborate further if one input is been given wrong by any operational staffs they impact on the system can so huge that it may disturb the correct functioning of the whole organization. This happens due to insufficient training given to the staffs, lack of experience, demotivation or tiredness. Analytical Risks:Apart for the operational staffs front line managers are also key users of the ERP systems (Shang and Seddon, 2002) therefore are crucial factor for ERP success. This can happen due to insufficient training, reluctance to change .As a result managers cannot take appropriate decisions regarding foresting and taking analytical decision thus under utilizing the full potential of ERP system. Managers needs different kind of data to suit their needs .When the laid system is a part of a global implementation it becomes even more difficult for the managers to get the actual data that they want ,as it is sometimes very hard to customize the system according to the need of the manager. (Sage, 2005). Organization wide risk: Top managers are neither IT experts nor they use IT system very much. Therefore they lack the operational expertise and technical knowledge to take important decision regarding IT implementation. Hence, decision being made by top managers without the involvement of users and IT managers is a risk that may occur in IT projects (Lientz and Larssen, 2006, p. 116).This risks occurs for global implementation as top management are not very enthusiastic about the post implementation maintenance and up gradation. Top management support is therefore frequently regarded as a crucial factor affecting the success of ERP implementation (Gargeya and Brady, 2005; Loh and Koh, 2004). High skilled labours are very important for the system maintenance and enhancement. (Ifinedo and Nahar, 2009). It is very important for the company to hold their key resources. As ERP professionals are in high demand it is very important for the organization to hold their key knowledge workers. However, as widely acknowledged, due to high market demand for this type of professional, Companies sometimes may find it difficult to retain their highly qualified ERP experts (Sumner, 2000). Confidential data of company must be stored in secure place carefully, if important and confidential data is accessed by unauthorised users that my cause potential lead to information leakage and business crisis. (Yosha, 1995). Technical risk:-Different modules of ERP systems are to be seamlessly integrated. It becomes particularly a very challenging thing when the implementation is very huge and there are different legacy systems required for different country or different sister concerns. Therefore, it is not uncommon for modern companies to procure suitable software modules from different system vendors to form their own unique ERP system (Currie, 2003). System is not properly modified to meet the business system needs. The business environment and business needs change according to situation and as a result the ERP site should be constantly modified .The implemented system should be constantly reviewed in post implementation state After looking into the potential challenges of ERP implementation we are going analyse the challenges with a theoretical lenses and view the issues with a proper example and contextual background. Critical success factor framework: We are going to analyse the issues with the theoretical framework and address the risk factors. As potential risks and challenges are already explained we are going to see a risk mitigation frame work and analyse how to set the frame work to maximise the performance of the company. According to Scott and Walker performance in general can be determined by three factors ability, motivation and working environment. Further it can be derived with the equation Performance=ability ÃÆ'- motivation ÃÆ'- environment Uden, 2005 demonstrated that there are nine identifying factors which influence any organization in achieving high performance. They are leadership, people, policy and strategy, partnership and resource, Process, People Result, and Customer result, Society Result, Key performance result. It is the people who are main factors ,so it is necessary that the working environment are congenial and the people who are being managed give their best in the environment (Mintzberg,2004),thus improving the morale and commitment while encouraging them to manage the organization s process I a way will increase the level of performance and achievement. According to (Castka, 2001) the precondition of high performance depends on the creativity, decision making, interpersonal skills, participation, decision making. Arnett et al (2002) says that emotion and pride goes for high performance it goes beyond the barrier and makes the employee work for the organization to achieve high performance. To address the soft factors there are numerous cited in the literature. These soft factors are often referred as critical successes factors (CSF) are as Rockhart (1979) explained are areas of activity that should receive constant and careful attention from the management .These is classified in to three management grouping. Soft Factor (strategy) Top management Commitment, ERP strategy, Clear goal focus and scope, Legacy systems management. Soft Factors (People) Training and education, Employee attitude, Empowerment, Project Team, User involvement and satisfaction. Soft Factors (Organizational ) Organizational Culture, Effective Communication ,Computer Culture, Effective Project Management, Change Management strategy, Process management. Example and implementation of framework: Now we are going to look into a famous The FoxMeyer Drugs Bankruptcy case of ERP Implementation.( Judy E. Scott, 2009). FoxMeyer Drugs was a $5 billion company and the nations fourth largest distributor of pharmaceuticals before the fiasco. FoxMeyer conducted market research and product evaluation and purchased an ERP package in December of that year. FoxMeyer also purchased warehouse-automation from a vendor, and chose a Consulting company to integrate and implement the two systems Implementation of the project took place during 1994 and 1995. The project at FoxMeyer Drugs was at risk for several reasons. Using a framework developed for identifying software project risks (Keil, Cule, Lyytinen and Schmidt 1998),(1) customer mandate, (2) scope and requirements, (3) execution and (4) environment. Customer mandate relies on the commitment of the manager and the end user. At FoxMeyer though the management was committed towards the project the end users were not very confident about the project. In fact due to warehouse automation there was a definite moral problem among the workers as due to the automation there were a fear of job security. This we can relate to the Operational risk (OR risk) as explained above. As for OR as the end users were the most extensive user of the ERP application this was a crucial factor towards the success and failure of the project. According to Scott Walker performance equation as the moral were down the performance of the organization also was not up to the mark. Secondly the scope of the project was risky as the FoxMeyer signed with new deals with the University Health System Consortium (UHC) after the announced the project as a result the data transaction that was pre estimated changed rapidly. Thirdly the execution of the project was in trouble as there were not enough knowledge workers. The individual expertise of the organization was very and they were dependent on the expertise of the consulting organization as a result there were greater dependency. Although FoxMeyer must have realized the project was in trouble, its perceived dependence on consultants and vendors prevented it from seeing how it could gain control. We are going to analyze how we are going to analyse the soft organizational factor played its part in the implementation. The change management and process management were not in place as .The consulting company that were hired by the FoxMeyer were not putting enough expertise in project. The vendor company were also treating the entire process as a experimental background. There were no mutual trust among the entire stakeholders involved in the project as a result the project management team were not confident .As there were no trust in the process the indi vidual stake holders were working like silo as a result there not proper communication .As explained earlier critical successes factors (CSF) (Rockhart, 1979) in terms of soft organizational factors were in trouble .As a result the project ran into trouble. FoxMeyer CIO Robert Brown felt a high degree of personal responsibility saying, We are betting our company on this. (Cafasso 1994) Moreover, he expressed his emotional attachment to the project when he boasted about how an integrated multi million computer systems built on ERP would radically improve the companys critical operations. However FoxMeyer were over budget for the project. In spite of running over budget FoxMeyer CIO was too much confident about the consultancy company and he was over whelmed about the success story of the particular system. As a result the project ran in to problem. To conclude about the fact that there are high risks involved when adopting new technologies, especially in a unique situation where the vendor cannot identify the exact organizational culture. FoxMeyer should have realized the risk in adopting new ERP system in its early years and negotiated with the consultants to share the project risks by tying their compensation to project results. They should have gone for more knowledge workers and expertise. The top management thought that just by applying sophisticated software system into the organization will solve their problem, which was not right. As ERP projects are not for business process reengineering, it is neither only to enhance the business process nor to change it. The company should have gone for business process change before applying the software into the organization. As explained by Rockhardt the failure was due to the soft factor starting from strategy, people to organization. ERP in present situation and future:-ERP in future is going to change with the new technology like virtualization, cloud computing, SOA service oriented architecture, SA AS software as a service. Some expects web services to to play a prominent role in future ERP (OBrien,2002,ACW TEAM 2004 ,Abbound and vera ,2007).The capability of web services in integrating data ,application and processes across the internet (OBrien 2002) may result in ERP systems heavily on Service oriented architecture (SOA) .However as the open source community gains more strength the popularity of open source ERP system like sugar CRM will increase more and more. This may not happen in one or two years or in a decade but as and when the service ine managers will understand the need of new technology and enhancement the ERP as it is today will change .Cloud concept and software as a service will evolve to take the place of ERP system. Conclusions: The study has led to several important conclusions. Specifically, the results confirmed that successful implementation of the system is not an on step solution . In truth, a wide range of risks may occur in diverse business and system-related areas during ERP post-adoption. More importantly, the findings also show that an ERP risk may often be the cause or consequence of other risks. Because these identified risk events seem to be interwoven and related with each other, they may be very difficult to manage, mitigate and contain. As a consequence, in order to ensure long-term ERP success, IS managers must become aware of these risks and take proper risk mitigation actions as early as possible. If ERP implementation is not done with soft factors and organization keeping in to mind then it may cause drift. Particularly in organization which is diverse and located in various part of the globe, successful ERP implementation has many risk and success factors to take into account. Acknowledgement:- There are several references in the study which is left unexplored fully. Future research will see the full exploration and will also explore the practitioners view on this.

Uganda and Australia Economic Comparison

Uganda and Australia Economic Comparison Miranda Cogdell Audra Harris INTRODUCTION This essay will reflect a comparison between the poor nation of Uganda and the wealthy nation of Australia. Differences between a poor nation and wealthy one both depend on on the same factors which include: Infrastructure, exports, imports, education, GDP, population, and etc. These factors is what basically makes or breaks a country. Aspects like nutrition and health depend on these factors because it’s what makes available resources and funds to be able to afford the necessary equipment and supplies to sustain a healthy nation. What makes a nation wealthy doesn’t solely depend on the money aspect, but the benefits of being provided opportunity to allow a country to grow and have economic stability. Throughout this essay I will describes current events that Uganda is facing compared to Australia whose information provided is more general. The difference is significant because of lack of opportunity that Uganda has been provided. GDP Gross Domestic Product of a country depends on several things. All of which can be at different levels within the country. GDP depends on education status, exports, imports, infrastructure, government spending, and investment. According to the World Bank source, Uganda’s GDP in 2012 was 19.88 billion USD. Australia’s GDP is 1.521 trillion USD according to the World Bank. It is quite clear to see the difference between these two countries GDPs. Australia is more advanced than Uganda in many aspects. Uganda is labeled one of the poorest countries because it hasn’t been able to come above the poverty line. In order to make money there must be money that has to be spent. There isn’t much income within the country of Uganda, so the steps that this country takes to try to create stability are very careful steps. INFRASTRUCTURE Infrastructure can be a road, building, or substantial physical supplies that help in the improvement and advancement of a society, community, or country. Uganda is quite a poor nation and several years ago a program was established to produce a number of roads to better the transportation in Uganda communities. One of their biggest problems were the lack of access to transportation to improve the agricultural aspect of Uganda. ‘..the lack of access roads in many rural communities made it extremely difficult for farmers to market their produce. This limited farmers’ productivity, contributed to their apathy about technical innovations, and burdened traders in rural areas with high transaction costs. Farmers received lower prices as a result. In addition, farmers lacked reliable, up to-date information on market prices, and were largely unaware of potentially profitable market opportunities.† (Uganda: Community Agricultural Infrastructure Improvement Programme, pg. 6) The above statement states the problems that those in Uganda were having. For a country to have a better GDP, problems like this should be fixed. Uganda’s infrastructure is low and needs to be improved. Electricity is also beginning to become a sufficient problem within Uganda. The school systems are starting to struggle more. Students in primary and secondary schools need the necessary technology to advance their educ ation, but that will not happen without an electrical resource. Programs such a the Agricultural Infrastructure Improvement Program is one of the first to show improvements, which can lead to the opening of other infrastructure programs that help build the country. It’s just one of the many steps to improve the country’s GDP and put them on a higher scale in the world. Australia is a well rounded country whose GDP is not lacking in any sense. They are in a place where they are able to produce roads and buildings to further their prospering country. They are currently going through a tax loss and they now make list three times out of the year of infrastructure priorities that should take place. EXPORTS AND IMPORTS Uganda is one of the poorest countries because of its economic instability, but the past years have consisted of statistics that shows the growth of the country due to the help of it’s natural resources. Since Uganda is rich in agriculture, so they mainly focus their exports on crops and such. Their main exports consist of coffee, tea, cotton, and tobacco. Their imports is what really shows the struggle the nation faces. They import things such as equipment, medical supplies, and transportation. Becoming a wealthy nation isn’t the easiest thing to do, but right now the best growth that Uganda will see is through it’s exports. Agriculture is their best chance at gaining somewhat of a fair economic stability compared to other countries. Australia has surprisingly shown up and down battles when it comes to exports and imports. Australia has similar top trading partners for exports and imports which would include: Japan, United States, Republic of Korea, China, India, and etc. Australia’s best exports have been beginning to decline in the past three years. Commodities such as coal, aluminum, and copper have all declined in the past years. It hasn’t reached a point where the country has to worry, but investigating the situation may be helpful. There could many possibilities on why countries Australia normally trades with aren’t wanting the usual amount of commodities. Other countries could be facing financial problems of their own or have found a cheaper price from a different country. Exports and imports are very important parts in balancing the equation in calculating the GDP of a country. When variables begin to be adjusted, in this case, the variables are being adjusted in a negative slope. EDUCATION Education is seen as one of the most important aspects of developing a wealthy nation. In recent articles there has been many debates on what is really holding back an advancement in education in Uganda. Sean Coughlan, a BBC News correspondent, recently published an article about why exactly Uganda isn’t experiencing any improvements in education. The answers seem to be clear and it is because of the lack of teachers and infrastructure in Uganda. Many teachers are still waiting to receive their payment for the previous month. Money is a serious problem in the school system. There isn’t enough money to fund the teachers. Coughlan suggest that since many of the teachers in Uganda have to find multiple jobs to pay their bills they don’t put all of their focus on the children and the schools. This is when it becomes even more of a problem. Promoting Equality in African Schools (PEAS) is a program that helps sustain and improve the quality and standard of schools in A frica. PEAS came up with a solution that may help with some of the financial problems. The parents are required to pay a small fee to schools. This will allow future income to fund the teachers, but this isn’t the last of the schooling problems. Infrastructure has become an issue. There is a great lack of electricity that Uganda is available to, and the schools need computers and textbooks. Compared to other well functioning countries, not having new technology in schools is out of the question. If infrastructure improves, then that could be the breakthrough that schools need to provide a better education for the students. Australian educational system is very diverse and growing rapidly. Compared to any other stables country, Australia has a number of primary and secondary schools, song with universities that are government funded. They do not lack any funds within their school systems, but that doesn’t mean that students are always focused and have the best test scores. Recently, there have been studies that have shown that Australian teenage students are showing fallen math and reading scores compared to ten years prior. These students are provided with new computers and other new technology advancement to encourage the students, but it doesn’t seem to be having the effect that was hoped for. This proves that new technology will not give the necessary encouragement students in wealthy nations need to be successful and driven. POPULATION Uganda was making great strides in decreasing poverty within the country, but the increase in population is making it hard to continue on that path. The increase in population is only making things quite difficult on rural areas. This just means that there are going to be more people who fall beneath the poverty line. Population increase can cause more harm than good in poor countries. It starts to affect the health and nutrition of the people and only adds to already many problems. Many are farmers in these rural areas and they aren’t able to have access to the things they need to establish regular income. These farmers typically live in the remote rural areas where there are not sufficient and able roads. These farmers are also oblivious to new technology that would increase their crops and keep the pest away. Currently, Australia is going through a boom in their population due to a lag in previous generations. Research shows that the impact the population has an area depends on their practices and daily intake. Although, Australia is able to provide double the exports and imports which would be enough for their country , but also any country outside of theirs. But there is debate on rather or not the population should increase abundantly. People are assuming that if the population begins to increase, then everyone will have to start to cut back on their intake of items. CONCLUSION Parts of Uganda are starting to develop at a sufficient pace, but there are other problems in different areas that are causing setbacks for the developing parts. While researching the two countries I could tell by the GDP which country would be considered the poor one and which the wealthy. Uganda main struggling points is education and infrastructure. They have the natural resources to strive in agricultural, but their rural areas are not witnessing the same economic growth because they are in remote parts of the country. Both farmers and students cannot be helped until the roads and newer technology is introduced to them. My personal belief is that these people should be removed from these areas and brought to more developing parts of the country. As population increases it becomes a greater problem because now there are more people in these remote areas who are not getting the proper care and resources they need. I believe to be a wealthy nation one must be awarded the opportunity to be wealthy. I find it odd that countries like Australia could thrive, but Uganda is not. I’m not saying that Uganda will never thrive, but why aren’t they at the same level as Australia. Why are there still remote parts of Uganda that people are a part of. I believe countries are giving opportunities to become better and Uganda was not one of them along with other poor nations. How come our ways aren’t moving towards the poor nations and trying to help improve them. Many wealthy nations have the resources and funding to help poor nations rise and stand on their own feet. Uganda being rich in agriculture could be a benefit to other countries. They export to great countries, but those exports could double if farmers in remote parts weren’t so isolated and so uninvolved in the economic growth and decisions of more developing parts. I have yet to find any real true answer to why these coun tries are so different in mass ways. Yes, it’s clear that with no resources there is nothing to come from, but resources can be shared and provided in great demand from other wealthy countries. Something should be done outside the poor nations to fix the economic problems. Poverty shouldn’t come in such large numbers. One country shouldn’t worry about not having clean fresh water while the other could care less because they see it as it will always be there. Something must be done. Citations African Development Bank Building today, a better Africa tomorrow. African Development Bank Building today, a better Africa tomorrow. 25 Mar. 2014 http://www.afdb.org/>. Australias trade in goods and services Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and  Trade. Australias trade in goods and services Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. 18 Feb. 2014. http://dfat.gov.au/publications/tgs/index.html. Beder, Sharon. The Nature of Sustainable Development. 2nd ed. Scribe, Newham, 1996, pp. 159-61. Coughlan, Sean. Tackling Ugandas lack of school places. BBC News. 08 Jan. 2014. 21 Feb. 2014.  http://www.bbc.com/news/business-25304848. Economy Watch Follow The Money. Uganda Trade, Import, Export. 02 Mar. 2014 http://www.economywatch.com/world_economy/uganda/export-import.html. Home Rural Poverty Portal. Rural Poverty Portal. 22 Feb. 2014 http://www.ruralpovertyportal.org/country/home/tags/uganda. Infrastructure Priority List Submissions. Infrastructure Priority List Submissions. 15 Feb. 2014  http://www.infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/priority_list/submissions.aspx.

Millard Fillmore :: essays research papers

Fillmore, Millard (1800-1874), 13th president of the United States (1850-1853) and the second vice president to finish the term of a deceased president. He succeeded Zachary Taylor at a critical moment in United States history. The Mexican War (1846-1848) had renewed the conflict between the Northern and Southern states over slavery, since it had added new territories to the United States. The debate over whether these territories should be admitted as free or slave states precipitated a crisis that threatened civil war. Much to the relief of Northern and Southern politicians, Fillmore pursued a moderate and conciliatory policy. He signed into law the Compromise of 1850, which admitted one territory as a free state and allowed slave owners to settle in the others. This compromise did not solve the basic problem of slavery but did preserve peace for nearly eleven years. During that time the North gained the industrial power that enabled it to defeat the South when civil war eventuall y came. Fillmore was born in upstate New York in 1800. He was the second child and eldest son in a family of nine. His parents, Nathaniel and Phoebe Millard Fillmore, had moved from Vermont to New York several years before his birth. Young Fillmore did chores on his father's farm, worked as an apprentice in the clothier's trade, and attended local schools irregularly until he was 17. Although the only books in his home were the Bible, an almanac, and a hymnbook, Fillmore managed to educate himself with the help of a village schoolteacher, Abigail Powers. When he was 19, Fillmore began to study law with Judge Walter Wood of Cayuga County. He supported himself by teaching school. When his family moved to East Aurora, near Buffalo, New York, Fillmore continued his study of law and his teaching. In 1823 he opened a law office in East Aurora. Three years later he married Abigail Powers. The couple had two children, Mary Abigail and Millard Powers. In the early years of their marriage, Mrs. Fillmore continued to teach school and to help her husband with his law studies. In 1826, the year Fillmore was married, an incident in western New York set him on the road to the presidency. When William Morgan, a former member of the Masonic fraternal order who had written a book that claimed to expose the order's secrets, disappeared, the rumor spread that he had been murdered by avenging Masons.

Greed, Paranoia, and Love Destroying a Real Man :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Many things can destroy a man, but only three things that can destroy a real man, greed, paranoia and love†. I have no idea why I just wrote that last quote, I just thought it would be nice to start my book with something that sounds halfway smart. Anyway, my name is Ammar Barakat, born on the sixth of July 1980. I am not famous, gifted, smart, good-looking or powerful, as a matter of fact, I am not special in anyway. Nevertheless I have decided to write this book to tell my story to the world (hopefully), because believe it or not, I think I have lead an interesting and unique life. Before I go any further I guess I should start telling u about my first few years of life, or what I can remember from it.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  My first memory was when I was three years old; I remember it was me, my brother and my parents sitting in the car and stopping at a mini-market to pick up some chips on our way to the swimming pool. I have no idea why this memory is plastered in my head because there was nothing special about that day; we used to always stop at the mini-market with my brother and parents to pick up some chips on our way to the swimming pool. Although I was born in Syria, I spent the first four years of my life in the United Arab Emirates. My father had a good job, and we lived in a nice house and had a normal life, actually it was ironic since me and my family seemed to be living the American dream in an Arabic country. Since I don’t remember much of the UAE days I cant tell u much about it, all could tell u is that any parent would wish to raise their children in the environment that I was raised in. My father went to work, my mother took care of me and my brother, and al l me and my brother had to worry about was the amount of French- fries we were going to eat at the swimming pool that day.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Then, everything changed. The day that I have always feared has come, it was my brothers first day of school. Don’t get me wrong, me and Tareq were never the best of friends, and I wasn’t upset that he was leaving me, oh no, I was jealous of him.

Verbal and Nonverbal Communication

Verbal and Nonverbal Communication DeShawn R. Swanson SOC/110 March 16, 2010 Professor Yvonne Moore Verbal and Nonverbal Communication Communication is very important, especially in small groups. In small groups, people use verbal and nonverbal communication techniques as a way to help the group run smoother. This paper will explain how people communicate, what challenges may arise in communicating between both genders, what challenges may come when communicating with people from other cultures, and how might we be able to communicate more effectively in diverse environments. People communicate in different ways. Verbal communication is one way for us to communicate with one another face to face. Sound, words, speaking, and language are just some of the key components of verbal communication. When we are born, many of us have vocal cords that produce sound. As we get older and grow, we begin to learn how to make these sounds into words. Some words may sound like natural sounds, but other words come from expressions of emotion, such as laughter or crying. Nonverbal communication is another way for us to communicate with one another. A large portion of our communication is nonverbal. Every day, we respond to thousands of nonverbal cues and behaviors that may include postures, facial expression, eye gaze, gestures, and tone of voice. One way we communicate nonverbally is through facial expression. Facial expressions are responsible for a big proportion of nonverbal communication. Even though nonverbal communication and behavior can be different between cultures, facial expressions for being happy, sad, angry, and fearful are similar throughout the world. Another way to communicate is by using gestures. An important way to communicate without words is the use of diverse movements and signals. Hand-waving, pointing, and using fingers to show number amounts are some of the gestures used in nonverbal communication. Other gestures are uninformed and related to culture. Posture and movement can also convey a great deal on information. Since the 1970’s, there have been a huge amount of research done on body language. Over-interpretation of defensive postures, arm crossing, and leg-crossing are the focus of the popular media. While these nonverbal behaviors can indicate feelings and attitudes, research suggests that body language is far more subtle and less definitive that previously believed. There are many differences between verbal and nonverbal communication. For instance, verbal communication includes rate, volume, pitch as well as articulation and pronunciation, while nonverbal communication deals with important but unspoken signals that individuals exhibit. Some of these signals and gestures can be how we carry ourselves, appearance, how we listen to one another, eye contact, hand gestures and expressions on our face when someone makes a comment. References This is a hanging indent. To keep the hanging indent format, simply delete this line of text using the backspace key, and replace the information with your reference entry. Verbal and Nonverbal Communication How do we communicate as humans today? Today we have smart phones, computers, Pads, and other such devices can we even answer the question, how do people communicate? If you surveyed the American people they would likely answer the question with the previous answers. As humans we all know the first type of communication which Is verbal or vocal but the second type of communication Is non-verbal or non-vocal. We could plead that non-verbal Is all of the emails and messages we send on those smart devices but that is where society gets confused about what is the difference.First we have to understand the basic, what is communication? Communication is a transfer of meaning from one person or group to another. It focuses on the nature of meaning and ways to maintain the integrity of meaning through the process of dissemination and reception of the message. † (Unknown, n. D. ) Communication is not Just how well you give a message but also how well you can receive a message. A great e xample is the activity telephone. It is where you have a group of people in a row and you try to pass a message down the line to see If to can make it through the line.If down correctly the message should be sent and received correctly to where It Is the same message from start to finish. If you have ever done this activity In a group setting It more than never makes It to the end with the same message. Where along the line does our communication breakdown in the process. I think first humans need to understand the difference between verbal and non-verbal communication, the two types of communication we see daily. Verbal communication is vocal category, the spoken language. This is where you are directly talking with someone vocally.Most communication done by humans is verbal communication, it is done by phone, testing, Keep, etc. Examples of verbal communication include but not limited to meetings, lectures, team building, ND playing on sports teams. What is non-verbal communicatio n and why is it more important than verbal communication? Do you know that research shows that It takes about four minutes to make a first Impression? According to studies by UCLA professor Albert Memorable â€Å"Body language accounts for 58% of a first Impression; 38% comes from tone of voice; 7% comes from our actual words† (Memorable A. Non-verbal communication is aspects of communication that do not involve verbal, like gestures or facial expressions. If you are standing with a person having a conversation and your verbal and non-verbal communication cues are not congruent, hey are going to look at your non-verbal over what you are vocally saying. Think has this happened to you before. An example is when you are in a group discussing a group assignment and you are saying you are fine with the part you got but your body language is saying the opposite.We also have to remember that non-verbal communication is how we receive information. Non-verbal communication can help wi th your communication but first let's look at some key Issues when it comes to non- verbal communication. Some of these Issues are body language, space, hands/arms, feet, expressiveness, and handshakes. The mall Issue we as humans have Is with our body language, we give clusters of signals and postures. For example crossed arms can indicate anger or being cold. A major obstacle with body language is that one that is the peace symbol.The other issues are Just simple things like body language that show anxiety, stress, confidence, attitude, and dominant. Now with the knowledge of non-verbal communication how can that knowledge help you with communication with others? When you are communicating with others you need to focus on the above issues and work on those in the positive way. To work on you on-verbal communication you can do the following use a mirror, videotape yourself, release stress by scrunching your toes (something new I learned), and mirror the person with whom you are spe aking (the more you are like them, the more you will connect).Practice makes you better at anything but no one is perfect so you need to work on communication for the rest of your life. Everyone has room to improve, even the best speakers in the world. When taking a look at my own personal listening inventory it was interesting to see what I do well and some of the things that I need work on as an active listener. Completing the assignment open my eyes to behaviors that I would never see as behaviors of active listeners. First let's start with the items that I need to work own.I rated myself low in the areas of; I do not always concentrate on a speaker's main ideas rather than specific details. I can improve in this area by taking notes during the speaking arrangements. This will help me keep the main ideas together with the more details that go with the main ideas. Those fine details is what is going to help you do projects or learn new ideas. Everything we do as humans we have tha t area that we are in between, some days you do it and mom days you might not.The areas in listening that I said that fall into that category include; I am sometimes uncomfortable asking questions when I do not understand, I avoid tuning out speakers when I disagree with their message, I avoid tuning out message that are too complex, and I try to understand other person's point of view when it is different from mine. When it comes these areas I need to Just do them more constantly when I am listening during speaking engagements. These are the areas are why I perceive myself as a good listener in the classroom, but I could still improve on my listening skills. Verbal and Nonverbal Communication Verbal and Nonverbal Communication DeShawn R. Swanson SOC/110 March 16, 2010 Professor Yvonne Moore Verbal and Nonverbal Communication Communication is very important, especially in small groups. In small groups, people use verbal and nonverbal communication techniques as a way to help the group run smoother. This paper will explain how people communicate, what challenges may arise in communicating between both genders, what challenges may come when communicating with people from other cultures, and how might we be able to communicate more effectively in diverse environments. People communicate in different ways. Verbal communication is one way for us to communicate with one another face to face. Sound, words, speaking, and language are just some of the key components of verbal communication. When we are born, many of us have vocal cords that produce sound. As we get older and grow, we begin to learn how to make these sounds into words. Some words may sound like natural sounds, but other words come from expressions of emotion, such as laughter or crying. Nonverbal communication is another way for us to communicate with one another. A large portion of our communication is nonverbal. Every day, we respond to thousands of nonverbal cues and behaviors that may include postures, facial expression, eye gaze, gestures, and tone of voice. One way we communicate nonverbally is through facial expression. Facial expressions are responsible for a big proportion of nonverbal communication. Even though nonverbal communication and behavior can be different between cultures, facial expressions for being happy, sad, angry, and fearful are similar throughout the world. Another way to communicate is by using gestures. An important way to communicate without words is the use of diverse movements and signals. Hand-waving, pointing, and using fingers to show number amounts are some of the gestures used in nonverbal communication. Other gestures are uninformed and related to culture. Posture and movement can also convey a great deal on information. Since the 1970’s, there have been a huge amount of research done on body language. Over-interpretation of defensive postures, arm crossing, and leg-crossing are the focus of the popular media. While these nonverbal behaviors can indicate feelings and attitudes, research suggests that body language is far more subtle and less definitive that previously believed. There are many differences between verbal and nonverbal communication. For instance, verbal communication includes rate, volume, pitch as well as articulation and pronunciation, while nonverbal communication deals with important but unspoken signals that individuals exhibit. Some of these signals and gestures can be how we carry ourselves, appearance, how we listen to one another, eye contact, hand gestures and expressions on our face when someone makes a comment. References This is a hanging indent. To keep the hanging indent format, simply delete this line of text using the backspace key, and replace the information with your reference entry.

Motivation in Hospitality

E XECUTIVE WHITE PA P E R A new study on employee motivation and performance lays the groundwork for creation of the SITE Foundation Motivation Index . MOTIVATION In The Hospitality Industry Introduction About the Research The CANE Model Implications for Employers About the Researchers Where to Get the Study INTRODUCTION E mployee turnover within the U. S. fast-food and hotel industries costs those industries in the neighborhood of $140 billion annually. In more bite-sized terms, it will cost roughly 100% to 200% of an employee’s base salar y to recruit and train a replacement. Although the turnover rate for these ndustries hovers between 78. 3 percent and 95. 4 percent on a national basis, some fast-food restaurants and hotels experience much lower rates, and have significantly greater success retaining employees. Overall, higher levels of motivation and motivated performance translate into a 53 percent reduction in worker turnover. It is generally understood that employment in these industries is often considered to be temporar y, or stop-gap employment, with workers leaving eventually for what they will consider â€Å"greener pastures. † And certainly, different economics are at work depending on the region, the type of establishment, etc.However, turnover rates also vary within the same economies, the same chains, the same cities, and the same regions. All things being equal, then, what accounts for the differences in turnover rates? And more importantly, what can managers do to reduce turnover at their properties? The Site Foundation is seeking to answer those questions by studying employee motivation and performance in the fast- food and hotel industries. The study – Motivation in the Hospitality Industry – measures key indices of motivated behavior using the widely recognized CANE (Commitment And Necessary Effort) Model of Motivation.The following describes key findings from research to date and offers methods managers can use to reduce turnover in their fast-food or hotel operations. About The Research Hotel and fast-food employees from twenty-two job sites located in the Orlando, Florida area were surveyed in October Published by: T he SITE Foundation Copyright 2004. All Rights Reser ved. This paper is an edited version of a full report by the same name written by Steven J. Condly, Ph. D. , Educational Studies Dept. , College of Education, University of Central Florida, and Robin DiPietro, Ph. D. , Rosen School of Hospitality Management,University of Central Florida. EXECUTIVE WHITE PA P E R Employment in these industries is often considered to be temporary, or stop-gap employment, with workers leaving eventually. 2003. All told, 545 responses were received. Mid-scale hotels contributed 14. 9 percent of the responses; fast-food restaurants contributed 85. 1 percent. A follow-up phase conducted in February 2004 surveyed the same job sites. The survey instrument was modeled after the CANE Model (Richard Clark, 1998). The CANE Model helps us to understand the various aspects of why people are motivated to perform a specific task. The CANE ModelThe following chart illustrates the dynamics at work in the CANE Model. It is followed by an explanation of the ten predictor variables and questions in which the employee might express the effect of the variable on his or her behavior. (Commitment And Necessary Effort) Perceptions of Capability Self-Efficacy Agency Self-Efficacy 2 Effort Affect x Emotion Mood Task Value x Goal Commitment Importance Interest Utility Choice Persistence IMPLICATIONS FOR EMPLOYERS Simply put, the study demonstrates that certain behaviors have various impacts on turnover in various ways, and these differences suggest strategies employers ight use to reduce turnover. These include: T urnover is less when employees have a high level of value for their work. These employees persist more than colleagues who report low levels of value. Employers can help employees valu e their work through consistent praise, recognition, and special incentives. T urnover is less at work sites where employees feel supported by the organization. Organizations can increase the level of support their employees feel by listening more, understanding employee issues, and taking action accordingly. Employees who feel better about their jobs persist more, exert more ffort, and are less likely to leave. EXECUTIVE WHITE PA P E R THE CANE MODEL Ten predictor variables identified by the CANE Model guided the investigation of the hospitality industry. These included: self-efficacy, agency, emotion, mood, importance, interest, utility, choice, persistence, and effort. Self-Efficacy The belief that one can organize and execute courses of action to obtain desired goals (Bandura, 1997). Can I Do This? Do I Have What It Takes? Agency The belief that you will be supported in doing a task or allowed to perform the task in accordance with your goals. W ill I Be Permitted To Do This and Be Supported?Can I Do This Under These Circumstances/Conditions? Emotion Negative emotions produce avoidance behaviors (tardiness, inattentiveness, job abandonment); positive emotions energize (choosing a task, staying longer on a task, etc. ) How Do I Feel About This Task Or Job? Mood Moods bias people’s thoughts, not their actions. How Am I Feeling In General? Importance People tend to commit to tasks when they identify with the task. Is This Task â€Å"Me†? Interest People can commit themselves to tasks even when the only thing they get out of it is pleasure from doing the task. Do I Like This? Utility Willingness to perform A to secure B.Task utility is often the most powerful motivator. If the answer to the question at the right is â€Å"nothing,† people are unlikely to commit to the task. What’s In It For Me? Choice Buy-in or the first step. This is that actual goal that people have selected; it differs from intention in that it involves some sort of action or response and not mere thought or words (Kuhl, 1986). Do I Agree With This? Persistence Continued choice in the face of obstacles. When people persist, they generally succeed. Can I Continue To Do This? Effort An energy-based behavior involving actual thinking rather than rote performance.When people exert effort, they increase the likelihood of succeeding in a task. Is It Worth The Effort? Older employees tend to be more motivated, persistent, exert a greater effort, and are less likely to leave in the face of difficulties. Salaried employees are more motivated than hourly employees. Women are more likely to say their work is more interesting, more important, and more useful; however, turnover for women is higher than men. When employees feel they cannot perform certain tasks, managers should reduce the size of complexity of the task into smaller â€Å"chunks. † This helps the employee to build self-efficacy.Employees who perceive their work conditions to be unfa ir and/or unreliable need evidence that the system is there to help them be effective. If negative perceptions are cor rect, management should rectify them. Conclusion: When tasks are being avoided or devalued, a carefully targeted incentive system can solve the problem in both the short- and long-terms. About the Researchers This summary of a SITE study is an edited version of a full report by the same name written by Steven J. Condly, Ph. D. , Educational Studies Dept. , College of Education, University of Central Florida, and Robin DiPietro, Ph. D. Rosen School of Hospitality Management, University of Central Florida. WHERE TO GET THE STUDY For copies, contact The SITE Foundation: Frank J. Katusak, Executive Director 304 Park Avenue South 11th Floor New York, NY 10010 212-590-2518 f. [email  protected] org; www. sitefoundation. org 3 WE’VE COME A LONG WAY SINCE THE CARROT Give Sales Force Motivation the Attention it Deserves Improve sales representa- Improve team field f orce per- tive performance an average of formance by up to 45% with a 22% with a carefully designed, properly structured incentive implemented and monitored program incentive programNinety-two percent of sales Q uota-based incentive pro- representatives surveyed indi- grams are proven to yield the cated they achieved their goals greatest results because of incentive programs Your Program Costs Can Be Based on Results and Payable Upon Success Research Shows Why Certain Incentive Programs Work While Others Don’t Get a free summary of the research, â€Å"Incentives, Motivation and Workplace Performance: Research & Best Practices,† conducted by the International Society of Performance Improvement, 2002. Contact Frank Katusak at 212-590-2518 or f. [email  protected] org. The complete study is available for $50.

Perceptual Map Marketing Essay

The purpose of this document is to illustrate the information contained within the Perceptual Map Marketing simulation and relate to it’s information as practical and important. Contained in the simulation were three phases, each of significant importance. We will include in this document the situation, the recommended solutions and the results. We will discuss the multiple marketing aspects that were revealed within the simulation and we will attempt to create satisfactory responses to the various questions which arise out of the relationships between differentiation and positioning of products or services and what the impact of the product life cycle on marketing is. It is the hope that after reading this document there will be a clear concept of what the results of this simulation were and how they are applicable to the paper’s mission. All good things have a story and Cruiser Thorr was no exception. We learned about the meaning behind the bike. The simulation showed how to create and use a perceptual map using the bike as a primary example. When using the Perceptual Map it then became clearly more evident which direction the marketing goals should take to carry on it’s back the heart and soul of the Morotcycle brand. In selling thousands of motorcycles a year the Thorr Motocycle company has created a client base capable of supporting their imense variety of choice that is given to the consumer. Everything from the type of engine to how many people can ride the bike. They sell accessories such as protective gear, clothing and even little models for children. The services they offer to their customers are that you would expect from a first rate bike shop. Our task is to set up a positioning strategy, a perceptual map and create the parameters that will become vital to the product as it will be the customers only information before making a major purchase. For decades now the industry of motorized bikes have been on the ries. Even with this evident truth backed by consumer research the top selling item that Thorr Motorcycles is creating seems to be dwindeling. The logical conclusion that we are coming to to is that their target customers are in the decades of their 30s till almost 60s and through the proccess of life seem to have lost interests in what Thorr stands for. No longer are these men rebels or out to â€Å"be wild† as Steppenwolf would say. Any consumers who are younger are simply not capable of affording the high price tag associated with a Thorr bike which ranges in the high 20 to low 30 thousand dollar range. Younger riders are more apt to buy less expensive, quicker riding bikes that are the exact opposite of the image that Thorr stands for. We are going to solidify Cruiser thorr’s postion in the market by creating it’s Perceptual map. There are four basic parameters that are relevant to the entire scheme of biking industry which reflect the highest chances for Cruiser Thorr’s survival. These are the four parameters: lifestyle image, product design and styling, service offerings, and price. The selection of lifestyle image is almost a no brainer as it is the backbone of the Cruiser Thorr’s previous success. The entire bike’s thriving record is built upon a reputation that having their bike is a status symbol. The same reason that people buy Starbucks instead of simply brewing their own coffee at home. Unlike other industries, transportation specfically speaks to the identity of the person who has the item. They will spend much of their time utilizing their vehicle. In no vehicle type is this more relevant than in bikes where people will see the bike and there will be no windows, walls, or doors hiding the rider from the world. Everyone will see who the rder is and that is why Product Design nd Styling are so vital to it’s success. The bike and the rider are one. Man and machine moving along the pavement together. The service offerings are probably the most second important aspect to a vehicle other than the price. Maintanence and such can get very expensive very quickly. Assuring that you are taking care of you customers and looking out for their well being is primary in the grand scheme of all things. At the end of the thought of course is always the most important aspect. Cost and price. The price is affected by many, many things. Among these things is engineering, construction, materials, labor, transport of the bike itself. The whole purpose for this bike’s creation is ot make money. To make money you must have a clear marketing plan. Due to this obvious fact we have restructured Cruiser Thorr and decided to not create a new bike. It is imperative to keep the Cruiser Thorr in production if Thorr is going to keep making motorcycles. It is the bike that has built their empire. It would be as if Levi’s stopped selling 501 Jeans. We instead create a financing option that gives the consumers with less money an opportunity to own a Cruiser Thorr. With increased service options will be able to make rational sense of the high price that we will be able to keep at the same price. For advertising it would probably be a good idea to put some endorsements in race tracks, hook up with a popular drink brand like MONSTER and maybe make a â€Å"Monster Bike† that can ride around. We can also take a page out of the GM book and put our bikes into movies and on television for product placement. The current straegy is based on price, product, location, current pomotions and services offered. With the goal of repositioning the product in an attempt to remove the competions hold on the market because we will move the parameters into concurrent thought forms and proccesses making us and our strategies the same as the competition. We know that there are four key factors that are represented by stages in a products life cycle that are important for the marketing officer to know and understand. The four stages: introduction, growth, maturity and decline. Once a product reaches the stage of it’s full maturity it is time to revisit it with the hope of making improvements. If this is not done the product will very quickly enter the declining stages of it’s life cycle. This is the reason that Cruiser Thorr started to drop it’s sales figure. Their product had reached it’s maturity. Their current customers were old and any knew ones had no idea what Cruiser Thorr, the brand, stood for. For this reason we had to reinven and improve their bikes. It was necessary to compete. It is the hope that we have together reached and addressed the various key points necessary to form a graps of the information that was provided. We have described the three major phases in the simulation. The situation and the recommended solutions have been addressed along with what our results were. We have talked about the different marketing aspects and answered the different question sthat were arisen between the relationships of differentiation and positioning for each of the products and services and it’s impact. It was the desire of I to create a solid understanding of the purpose and use of Perceptual Maps in Marketing. References All information was taken from the Perceptual Map Marketing Simulation provided on the University of Phoenix website.

History of Digital Computer

The History of Digital Computers B. RANDELL Computing Laboratory, University of Newcastle upon Tyne This account describes the history of the development of digital computers, from the work of Charles Babbage to the earliest electronic stored program computers, It has been prepared for Volume 3 of â€Å"l’Histoire Generale des Techniques,† and is in the main based on the introductory text written by the author for the book â€Å"The Origins of Digital Computers: Selected Papers† (Springer Verlag, 1973). . Charles Babbage THE first electronic digital computers were completed in the late 1940’s. In most cases their developers were unaware that nearly all the important functional characteristics of these computers had been invented over a hundred years earlier by Charles Babbage. It was in 1821 that the English mathematician Charles Babbage became interested in the possibility of mechanising the computation and printing of mathematical tables.He successfully constructed a small machine, which he called a â€Å"difference engine,† capable of automatically generating successive values of simple algebraic functions by means of the method of finite differences. This encouraged him to plan a full-scale machine, and to seek financial backing from the British government. During the next 12 years both Babbage and the government poured considerable sums of money into the attempt at building his Difference Engine.However the project, which called for the construction of six interlinked adding mechanisms, each capable of adding two multiple-digit decimal numbers, together with an automatic printing mechanism, was considerably beyond the technological capabilities of the era – indeed it has been claimed that the efforts expended on the Difference Engine were more than justified simply by the improvements they generated in mechanical engineering equipment and practice.Although Babbage’s plans for a Difference Engine were somewha t premature, the basic scheme was vindicated when in 1843, inspired by their knowledge of his work, George and Edvard Scheutz successfully demonstrated a working prototype difference engine. A final version of this model was completed 10 years later, with financial assistance from the Swedish government. Several other difference engines ere constructed in the decades that followed, but such machines never achieved the importance of more conventional calculating machines, and when multi-register accounting machines became available in the 1920’s it was found that these could be used essentially as difference engines. However Babbage’s ideas soon progressed far beyond that of a special-purpose calculating machine – in fact almost as soon as he started work on his Difference Engine he became dissatisfied with its limitations.In particular he wished to avoid the need to have the highest order of difference constant, in order to be able to use the machine directly fo r transcendental as well as algebraic functions. In 1834 Babbage started active work on these matters, and on problems such as division and the need to speed up the part of the addition mechanism which dealt with the assimilation of carry digits. He developed several very ingenious methods of carry assimilation, but the time savings so obtainable would have been at the cost of a considerable amount of complex machinery.This led Babbage to realise the advantages of having a single centralised arithmetic mechanism, the â€Å"mill,† separate from the â€Å"figure axes,† i. e. , columns of discs which acted merely as storage locations rather than accumulators. Babbage’s first idea for controlling the sequencing of the various component mechanisms of the engine was to use â€Å"barrels,† i. e. , rotating pegged cylinders of the sort used in musical automata. He first planned to use a set of subsidiary barrels, with over-all control of the machine being specifi ed by a large central barrel with exchangeable pegs.However in June 1836 he took the major step of adopting a punched card mechanism, of the kind found in Jacquard looms, in place of the rather limited and cumbersome central barrel. He did so in the realisation that the â€Å"formulae† which specified the computation that the machine was to perform could therefore be of almost unbounded extent, and that it would be a simple matter to change from the use of one formula to another.Normally formula cards, each specifying an arithmetic operation to be performed, were to be read by the Jacquard mechanism in sequence, but Babbage also envisaged means whereby this sequence could be broken and then recommenced at an earlier or later card in the sequence. Moreover he allowed the choice of the next card which was to be used to be influenced by the partial results that the machine had obtained.These provisions allowed him to claim that computations of indefinite complexity could be perf ormed under the control of comparatively small sets of formula cards. Babbage talked at one time of having a store consisting of no less than 1000 figure axes, each capable of holding a signed 40-digit decimal number, and planned to provide for reading numbers from cards into the store, and for punching or printing the values of numbers held in the store.The movement of numbers between the mill and the store was to be controlled by a sequence of â€Å"variable cards,† each specifying which particular figure axis was involved. Therefore an arithmetic operation whose operands were to be obtained from the store and whose result was to be returned to the store would be specified by an operation card and several variable cards. He apparently intended these different kinds of control cards to be in separate sequences, read by separate Jacquard mechanisms.Thus in the space of perhaps 3 years Babbage had arrived at the concept of a general purpose digital computer consisting of a sto re, arithmetic unit, punched card input and output, and a card-controlled sequencing mechanism that provided iteration and conditional branching. Moreover although he continued to regard the machine, which he later came to call the Analytical Engine, as being principally for the construction of mathematical tables, he had a very clear grasp of the conceptual advances he had made.Basing his claim on the unbounded number of operation and variable cards that could be used to control the machine, the ease with which complicated conditional branches could be built from a sequence of simple ones, and the fact that automatic input and output, and multiple precision arithmetic, were provided, he stated that â€Å". . . it appears that the whole of the conditions which enable a finite machine to make calculations of unlimited extent are fulfilled in the Analytical Engine . . . . I have converted the infinity of space, which was required by the conditions of the problem, into the infinity of time. Because separate, but associated, sequences of cards were needed to control the Analytical Engine the concept of a program as we know it now does not appear very c1early in contemporary descriptions of the machine. However there is evidence that Babbage had realised the fact that the information punched on the cards which controlled the engine could itself have been manipulated by an automatic machine-for example he suggested the possibility of the Analytical Engine itself being used to assist in the preparation of lengthy sequences of control cards.Indeed in the description of the use of the Analytical Engine written by Lady Lovelace, in collaboration with Babbage, there are passages which would appear to indicate that it had been realised that an Analytical Engine was fully capable of manipulating symbolic as well as arithmetical quantities. Probably Babbage himself realised that the complete Analytical Engine was impractical to build, but he spent much of the rest of his l ife designing and redesigning mechanisms for the machine.The realisation of his dream had to await the development of a totally new technology, and an era when the considerable finances and facilities required for an automatic computer would be made available, the need at last being widely enough appreciated. He was a century ahead of his time, for as one of the pioneers of the modern electronic digital computer has written: â€Å"Babbage was moving in a world of logical design and system architecture, and was familiar with and had solutions for problems that were not to be discussed in the literature for another 100 years. †He died in 1871, leaving an immense collection of engineering drawings and documents, but merely a small portion of the Analytical Engine, consisting of an addition and a printing mechanism, whose assembly was completed by his son, Henry Babbage. This machine and Babbage’s engineering drawings are now in the Science Museum, London. 2. Babbageâ€⠄¢s direct successors Some years’ after Babbage’s death his son Henry Babbage recommenced work on the construction of a mechanical calculating machine, basing his efforts on the designs his father had made for the Mill of the Analytical Engine.This work was started in 1888 and carried on very intermittently. It was completed only in about 1910 when the Mill, which incorporated a printing mechanism, was demonstrated at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society. By this date however the work of a little-known successor to Charles Babbage, an Irish accountant named Percy Ludgate, was already well advanced. Ludgate started work in 1903 at the age of 20 on an entirely novel scheme for performing arithmetic on decimal numbers.Decimal digits were to be represented by the lateral position of a sliding metal rod, rather than the angular position of a geared disc. The basic operation provided was multiplication, which used a complicated mechanism for calculating the two-digit products resulting from multiplying pairs of decimal digits. together. The scheme involved first transforming the digits into a form of logarithm, adding the logarithms together, and then converting the result back into a two-digit sum.This scheme is quite unlike any known to have been used in earlier mechanical calculators, or for that matter since, although there had been several calculating machines constructed that used built-in multiplication tables to obtain two-digit products – the earliest known of these was that invented by Bollee in 1887. It is in fact difficult to see any advantages to Ludgate’s logarithmic scheme, although his form of number representation is reminiscent of that used in various mechanical calculating devices in the following decades.So striking are the differences between Ludgate’s and Babbage’s ideas for mechanical arithmetic that there is no reason to dispute Ludgate’s statement that he did not learn of Babbageâ€℠¢s prior work until the later stages of his own. It seems likely that Babbage was the eventual inspiration for Ludgate to investigate the provision of a sequence control mechanism. Here he made an advance over the rather awkward system that Babbage had planned, involving separate sets of operation and variable cards.Instead his machine was to have been controlled by a single perforated paper tape, each row of which represented an instruction consisting of an operation code and four address fields. Control transfers simply involved moving the tape the appropriate number of rows forwards or backwards. Moreover he also envisaged the provision of what we would now call subroutines, represented by sequences of perforations around the circumference of special cylinders-one such cylinder was to be provided The Institute of Mathematics and its Applications 2 for division.The machine was also to be controllable from a keyboard, a byproduct of whose operation would be a perforated tape which could then be used to enable the sequence of manually controlled operations to be repeated automatically. Ludgate estimated that his Analytical Machine would be capable of multiplying two twenty-digit numbers in about 10 seconds, and that, in considerable contrast to Babbage’s Analytical Engine, it would be portable. However there is no evidence that he ever tried to construct the machine, which he apparently worked on alone, in his spare time.He died in 1922, and even if at this time his plans for the Analytical Machine still existed there is now no trace of them, and our knowledge of the machine depends almost entirely on the one description of it that he published. The next person who is known to have followed in the footsteps of Babbage and to have worked on the problems of designing an analytical engine was Leonardo Torres y Quevedo. Torres was born in the province of Santander in Spain in 1852.Although qualified as a civil engineer he devoted his career to scientific re search, and in particular to the design and construction of an astonishing variety of calculating devices and automata. He gained great renown, particularly in France and in Spain, where he became President of the Academy of Sciences of Madrid, and where following his death in 1936 an institute for scientific research was named after him. Torres first worked on analog calculating devices, including equation solvers and integrators.In the early 1900’s he built various radio-controlled devices, including a torpedo and a boat which, according to the number of pulses it received, could select between various rudder positions and speeds, and cause a flag to be run up and down a mast. In 1911 he made and successfully demonstrated the first of two chess-playing automata for the end game of king and rook against king. The machine was fully automatic, with electrical sensing of the positions of the pieces on the board and a mechanical arm to move its own pieces. The second machine was built in 1922, and used magnets underneath the board to move the pieces. ) In all this work, he was deliberately exploiting the new facilities that electromechanical techniques offered, and challenging accepted ideas as to the limitations of machines. He picked on Babbage’s Analytical Engine as an important and interesting technical challenge, and in 1914 published a paper incorporating detailed schematic designs for a suitable set of electro-mechanical components.These included devices for storing, comparing and multiplying numbers, and were accompanied by a discussion of what is now called floating point number representation. He demonstrated the use of the devices in a design for a special-purpose program-controlled calculator. The program was to be represented by areas of conductive material placed on the surface of a rotating drum, and incorporated a means for specifying conditional branching. Torres clearly never intended to construct a machine to his design, but 6 yea rs later he built, and successfully demonstrated, a typewriter-controlled calculating machine primarily to demonstrate that an electromechanical analytical engine was completely feasible. He in fact never did build an analytical engine, although he designed, and in many cases built, various other digital devices including two more calculating machines, an automatic weighing machine, and a machine for playing a game somewhat like the game of Nim. However there seems little reason to doubt that, should the need have been sufficiently pressing, Torres would indeed have built a complete analytical engine.In the event, it was not until the 1939-1945 war that the desirability of largescale fully automatic calculating machines became so clear that the necessary environment was created for Babbage’s concept to become a reality. Before this occurred there is known to have been at least one further effort at designing an analytical engine. This was by a Frenchman, Louis Couffignal, who was motivated mainly by a desire to reduce the incidence of errors in numerical computations.He was familiar with the work of Babbage and Torres y Quevedo but, in contrast to their designs, proposed to use binary number representation. The binary digits of stored numbers were to be represented by the lateral position of a set of parallel bars controlled by electro-magnets. The various arithmetic operations were to be performed by relay networks, the whole machine being controlled by perforated tapes. Couffignal apparently had every intention of building this machine, in association with the Logabax Company, but presumably because of the war never did so.However after the war he was in charge of an electronic computer project for the Institut Blaise Pascal, the design study and construction of the machine being in the hands of the Logabax Company. With Couffignal’s pre-war plans, the line of direct succession to Babbage’s Analytical Engine seems to have come to an end. Most of the wartime computer projects were apparently carried out in ignorance of the extent to which many of the problems that had to be dealt with had been tackled by Babbage over a century earlier. However in some cases there is clear evidence that nowledge of Babbage’s work was an influence on the wartime pioneers, in particular Howard Aiken, originator of the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, and William Phillips, an early proponent of binary calculation, and various other influential people, including Vannevar Bush and L. J. Comrie, were also well aware of his dream. 3. The contribution of the punched card industry An initially quite separate thread of activity leading to the development of the modern computer originated with the invention of the punched card tabulating system.The capabilities of Herman Hollerith’s equipment, first used on a large scale for the 1890 US National Census, were soon extended considerably. The original equipment allowed cards to hold binary information representing the answers to a Census questionnaire. These cards could be tabulated, one by one, using a machine which sensed the presence of holes in the card electrically and could be wired to count the number of cards processed in which particular holes or combinations of holes had been punched. A device could be attached to such a tabulator which assisted the manual sorting of cards into a number of separate sequences.Within 10 years automatic card handling mechanisms, which greatly increased the speed of machine operation, and addition units, which enabled card tabulators to sum decimal numbers punched on cards, had been provided. The system soon came into widespread use in the accounting departments of various commercial organisations, as well as being used for statistical tabulations in many countries of the world. After the 1900 US Census relations between Hollerith and the Census Bureau deteriorated, and the Bureau began to manufacture its own equ ipment for use in the 1910 Census.The person in charge of this work was James Powers who circumvented Hollerith’s patents by producing a mechanical card reading apparatus. He retained the patent rights to his inventions and formed his own company which eventually merged with Remington Rand in 1927. In 1911 Hollerith sold his own company, the Tabulating Machine Company, which he had formed in 1896, and it was shortly afterwards merged with two other companies to form the Computing-TabulatingRecording Company. This company which was under the direction of Thomas J.Watson from 1914 became the International Business Machines Corporation in 1924. During the 1920’s and 1930’s punched card systems developed steadily, aided no doubt by the stimulus of competition, not only in the USA but also in Britain, where the Hollerith and Powers-based systems continued to be marketed under the names of their original inventors, while in France a third manufacturer, Compagnie Machi nes Bull, was also active. Unfortunately the people involved in this work did not in general publish technical papers and their work has received little public recognition.Thus full appreciation of the contribution of IBM development engineers, such as J. W. Bryce, one of the most prolific inventors of his era, will probably have to await an analysis of the patent literature. One inventor whose work has, however, been documented is Gustav Tauschek, a self-taught Viennese engineer, with more than 200 patents in the computing field to his credit. While working for Rheinische Metallund Maschinenfabrik he designed and built a punched card electromechanical accounting machine.His other patents, many of which were filed whilst he was under contract to IBM during the 1930’s, also included a â€Å"reading-writing-calculating machine† which used photocells to compare printed input characters with templates held on photographic film, a number storage device using magnetised stee l plates, and an electromechanical accounting machine designed for use in small banks capable of storing the records of up to 10 000 accounts. By the 1930’s printing tabulators were available which worked at approximately 100 cards per minute, and there were sorters which worked at 400 cards per minute.The machines were controlled by fairly intricate plugboards, but arithmetic and logical computations involving sequences of operations of any great complexity were carried out by repeated processing of sets of cards, under the direction of operators. Various attempts were made to supplement the functional capabilities of punched card systems by linking together otherwise independent machines. One such system, the Synchro-Madas machine, incorporated a typewriter/accounting machine, an automatic calculating machine and an automatic card punch.These were linked together so that a single action by the operator sitting at the typewriter/accounting machine would control several opera tions on the different machines. One other system involving a set of inter-linked card machines, although very different in concept and scale from the Synchro-Madas machine, is worth mentioning. This is the Remote-control Accounting system which was experimented with in a Pittsburgh department store, also in the mid-1930’s. The system involved 250 terminals connected by telephone lines to 20 Powers card punch/tabulators and 15 on-line typewriters.The terminals transmitted data from punched merchandise tags which were used to produce punched sales record cards, later used for customer billing. The typewriter terminals were used for credit authorisation purposes. The intended peak transaction rate was 9000 per hour. Even during the 1920’s punched card systems were used not only for accounting and the compilation of statistics, but also for complex statistical calculations. However the first important scientific application of punched card systems was made by L.J. Comrie in 1929. Comrie was Superintendent of HM Nautical Almanac Office until 1936, and then founded the Scientific Computing Service. He made a speciality of putting commercial computing machinery to scientific use, and introduced Hollerith equipment to the Nautical Almanac Office. His calculations of the future positions of the Moon, which involved the punching of half a million cards, stimulated many other scientists to exploit the possibilities of punched card systems. One such scientist was Wallace J.Eckert, an astronomer at Columbia University, which already had been donated machines for a Statistical Laboratory by IBM in 1929, including the â€Å"Statistical Calculator,† a specially developed tabulator which was the forerunner of the IBM Type 600 series of multiplying punches, and of the mechanisms used in the Harvard Mark I machine. With assistance from IBM in 1934 Eckert set up a scientific computing laboratory in the Columbia Astronomy Department, a laboratory which was la ter to become the Thomas J.Watson Astronomical Computing Bureau. In order to facilitate the use of his punched card equipment Eckert developed a centralised control mechanism, linked to a numerical tabulator, a summary punch and a multiplying punch, so that a short cycle of different operations could be performed at high speed. The control mechanism which was based on a stepping switch enabled many calculations, even some solutions 4 The Institute of Mathematics and its Applications of differential equations, to be performed completely automatically.The potential of a system of inter-connected punched card machines, controlled by a fully general-purpose sequencing mechanism, and the essential similarity of such a system to Babbage’s plans for an Analytical Engine, were discussed in an article published by Vannevar Bush in 1936. Bush was at this time already renowned for his work on the first differential analyser, and during the war held the influential position of Director o f the US Office of Scientific Research and Development.In fact an attempt was made to build such a system of inter-connected punched card machines at the Institut fur Praktische Mathematik of the Technische Hochschule, Darmstadt, in Germany during the war. The plans called for the inter-connection of a standard Hollerith multiplier and tabulators, and specially constructed divider and function generators, using a punched tape sequence control mechanism. Work was abandoned on the project following a destructive air raid in September 1944. However, by this stage, in the United States much more ambitious efforts were being made to apply the expertise of punched card equipment designers.The efforts originated in 1937 with a proposal by Howard Aiken of Harvard University that a large-scale scientific calculator be constructed by inter-connecting a set of punched card machines via a master control panel. This would be plugged so as to govern the transmission of numerical operands and the sequencing of arithmetic operations. Through Dr. Shapley, director of the Harvard College Observatory, Aiken became acquainted with Wallace Eckert’s punched card installation at Columbia University.These contacts helped Aiken to persuade IBM to undertake the task of developing and building a machine to his basic design. For IBM, J. W. Bryce assigned C. D. Lake, F. E. Hamilton and B. M. Durfee to the task. Aiken later acknowledged these three engineers as co-inventors of the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, or Harvard Mark I as it became known. The machine was built at the IBM development laboratories at Endicott and was demonstrated there in January 1943 before being shipped to Harvard, where it became operational in May 1944.In August of that year IBM, in the person of Thomas J. Watson, donated the machine to Harvard where it was used initially for classified work for the US Navy. The design of the Harvard Mark I followed the original proposals by Aiken fairly close ly, but it was built using a large number of the major components used in the various types of punched card machines then manufactured, rather than from a set of complete machines themselves. It incorporated 72 â€Å"storage counters† each of which served as both a storage location, and as a complete adding and subtracting machine.Each counter consisted of 24 electromechanical counter wheels and could store a signed 23digit decimal number. A special multiply/divide unit, and units for obtaining the value of previously computed functions held on perforated tape, and for performing interpolation, were provided together with input/output equipment such as card readers and punches, and typewriters. The various mechanisms and counter wheels were all driven and synchronised by a single gearconnected mechanical system extending along nearly the entire length of the calculator.A main sequence control mechanism incorporating a punched tape reader governed the operation of the machine. Each horizontal row on the tape had space for three groups of eight holes, known as the A, B and C groups. Together these specified a single instruction of the form â€Å"Take the number out of unit A, deliver it to unit B, and start operation C. † Somewhat surprisingly, in view of Aiken’s knowledge of Babbage’s work and writings, no provision was made originally for conditional branching.As it was, such provision was only made later when a subsidiary sequence control mechanism was built at Harvard and incorporated into the machine. The Harvard Mark I was a massive machine over 50 feet long, built on a lavish scale. Being largely mechanical its speed was somewhat limited – for example multiplication took 6 seconds – but it continued in active use at Harvard until 1959. It has an important place in the history of computers although the long-held belief that it was the world’s first operational programcontrolled computer was proved to be fals e, once the details of Zuse’s wartime work in Germany became known.It marked a major step by IBM towards full involvement in the design of general-purpose computers and, with ENIAC and the Bell Telephone Laboratories Series, represents the starting point of American computer developments. After completion of the Mark I, Aiken and IBM pursued independent paths. Aiken, still distrustful of the reliability of electronic components, moved to electromagnetic relays for the construction of the Harvard Mark II, another paper-tape-sequenced calculator.This machine had an internal store which could hold about 100 dccimal floating point numbers. One of the most interesting aspects of the machine was that it could be operated either as a single computer or as two separate ones. The complete system incorporated four of each type of input/output device, namely sequence tape readers, data tape readers and punches, numerical function tape readers and output printers. It also had multiple ar ithmetic facilities, including two adders and four multipliers (taking 0. 7 second) which could all be used simultaneously.Detailed design of the machine, which was intended for the US Naval Proving Ground, Dahlgren, Virginia, began at Harvard early in 1945, and the machine was completed in 1947. Afterwards Aiken and his colleagues went on to design the Mark III, an electronic computer with magnetic drum storage, completed in 1950, and the Mark IV, which incorporated 200 magnetic core shift registers, completed in 1952. The designers of IBM’s next machine, the Pluggable Sequence Relay Calculator, included two of the Harvard Mark I’s design team, namely C. D. Lake and B. M.Durfee, but the machine in fact had more in common with IBM’s earlier calculating punches than with the Mark I; like the punches it was controlled using plugboard-specified sequencing, rather than by a sequence control tape of essentially unlimited length. Its relay construction resulted in its basic operation speed being considerably faster than the Mark I, although it lacked the Mark I’s ease and flexibility of programming, demanding instead the kind of detailed design of parallel subsequencing that one sees nowadays at the microprogramming level of some computers.Great stress was raid by the designers on the efficient use of punched card input/output, and it was claimed that in many cases, where other machines’ internal storage capacity proved inadequate, the IBM relay calculators could outperform even the contemporary electronic computers. Several machines were built, the first of which was delivered in December 1944 to the Aberdeen Proving Ground, and two were installed at the Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory that IBM had set up at Columbia University under the directorship of Wallace Eckert.The Relay Calculator was followed by the giant IBM Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator, a machine which was very much in the tradition of the Mark I. Wal lace Eckert was responsible for the logical organisation of the machine, with Frank Hamilton being the chief engineer on the project. The design was a compromise between Eckert’s wish, for performance reasons, to use electronic components to the full, and Hamilton’s preference for electro-mechanical relays, on grounds of reliability. As a result vacuum tubes were used for the arithmetic unit, the control circuitry, and the 8 word high-speed store, relays being used elsewhere.In addition to the 8 word store there was a 150 word random access electro-magnetic store and storage for 20000 numbers in the form of punched tapes. Numbers would be read from the electro-magnetic store, or in sequence from the punched tape store, at the speed of the multiplier, i. e. , every 20 milliseconds. The design was started in 1945, and the machine was built in great secrecy at Endicott, before being moved to New York City, where it was publicly unveiled at an elaborate dedication ceremony in January 1948. The most important aspect of the SSEC, credited to R. R.Seeber, was that it could perform arithmetic on, and then execute, stored instructions – it was almost certainly the first operational machine with these capabilities. This led to IBM obtaining some very important patents, but the machine as a whole was soon regarded as somewhat anachronistic and was dismantled in 1952. It had however provided IBM with some valuable experience – for example, Hamilton and some of his engineering colleagues went on to design the highly successful IBM 650, and many of the SSEC programmers later became members of the IBM 701 programming group.Finally, mention should be made of one other machine manufactured by IBM which can be classed as a precursor to the modern electronic digital computer. This was the Card Programmed Calculator, a machine which along with its predecessors now tends to be overshadowed by the SSEC. Like the Pluggable Sequence Relay Calculator, the C PC can trace its origins to the IBM 600 series of multiplying punches. In 1946 IBM announced the Type 603, the first production electronic calculator. The IBM 603, which incorporated 300 valves, was developed from an experimental multiplier designed at Endicott under the direction of R.L. Palmer in 1942. One hundred machines were sold, and then IBM replaced it with the Type 604, a plugboardcontrolled electronic calculator, which provided conditional branching but, lacking backward jumps, no means of constructing program loops. Deliveries of the 604, which incorporated over 1400 valves, started in 1948 and within the next 10 years over 5000 were installed. In 1948 a 604 was coupled to a type 402 accounting machine by Northrop Aircraft Company, in order to provide the 604 with increased capacity and with printing facilities. This idea was taken up by IBM, and formed the basis of the CPC.Nearly 700 CPC’s were built, and this machine played a vital role in providing computing pow er to many installations in the USA until stored program electronic computers became commercially available on a reasonable scale. In the years that followed the introduction of the CPC, IBM continued to develop its range of electronic calculators and, starting in 1952 with the IBM 701, an electronic computer in the tradition of von Neumann’s IAS machine, took its first steps towards achieving its present dominant position amongst electronic computer manufacturers. . Konrad Zuse Konrad Zuse started to work on the development of mechanical aids to calculation as early as 1934, at the age of 24. He was studying civil engineering at the Technische Hochschule, Berlin-Charlottenburg, and sought some means of relief from the tedious calculations that had to be performed. His first idea had been to design special forms to facilitate ordinary manual calculation, but then he decided to try to mechanise the operation.Continuing to use the special layouts that he had designed for his fo rms, he investigated representing numerical data by means of perforations, and the use of a hand-held sensing device which could communicate the data over an electrical cable to an automatic calculating machine. The idea then arose of using a mechanical register rather than perforated cards, and, realising that the layout was irrelevant, Zuse started to develop a general purpose mechanical store, whose locations were addressed numerically.By 1936 he had the basic design of a floating point binary computer, controlled by a program tape consisting of a sequence of instructions, each of which specified an operation code, two operand addresses and a result address. Thus, apparently quite independently of earlier work by Babbage and his successors on analytical engines, Zuse had very quickly reached the point of having a design for a general-purpose program-controlled computer, although the idea of conditional branching was lacking.More importantly, even though the various basic The Inst itute of Mathematics and its Applications 6 ideas that his design incorporated had, it now turns out, been thought of earlier (i. e. , binary mechanical arithmetic (Leibniz), program control (Babbage), instruction formats with numerical storage addresses (Ludgate) and floating point number representations (Torres y Quevedo)), Zuse’s great achievement was to turn these ideas into reality. Zuse had considerable trouble finding sponsors willing to finance the building of his machine.Despite his financial difficulties his first machine, the Z1, which was of entirely mechanical construction was completed in 1938, but it proved unreliable in operation. He then started to construct a second, fixed-point binary, machine which incorporated the 16 word mechanical binary store of the Z1, but was otherwise built from second-hand telephone relays. Although the Z2 computer was completed it was inadequate for any practical use. However by this time a colleague, Helmut Schreyer, was already working with Zuse on the problem of producing an electronic version of the Z1.This led to the construction of a small 10 place binary arithmetic unit, with approximately 100 valves, but proposals that Schreyer and Zuse made to the German government for a 1500 valve electronic computer were rejected and the work was discontinued in 1942. Earlier, in 1939, Zuse was called up for military service, but managed to get released after about a year, and for the first time received significant government backing for his plans. This enabled him to build the Z3 computer, a binary machine with a 64 word store, all built out of telephone relays.This computer, since it was operational in 1941, is believed to have been the world’s first general-purpose program-controlled computer. It incorporated units for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and square root, using a floating point number representation with a sign bit, a 7-bit exponent and a 14-bit mantissa. Input was via a manu al keyboard and output via a set of lights, in each case with automatic binary/decimal conversion, and the machine was controlled by a perforated tape carrying single address instructions, i. . , instructions specifying one operand, and an operation. In addition to his series of general-purpose computers, Zuse built two special-purpose computers, both used for calculations concerning aircraft wing profiles. The first of these was in use for 2 years at the Henschel Aircraft Works, before being destroyed through war damage. Both computers had fixed programs, wired on to rotary switches, and performed calculations involving addition, subtraction and multiplication by constant factors.Soon after completion of the Z3, the design of an improved version, the Z4, was started. This was mainly electro-mechanical but incorporated a purely mechanical binary store similar to that which had been used for the Zl and Z2 machines. The partially completed Z4 was the only one of Zuse’s machines to survive the war – indeed it eventually was completed and gave years of successful service at the Technische Hochschule, Zurich. The Z4 was inspected shortly after the war by R. C. Lyndon, whose report on the machine for the US Office f Naval Research was published in 1947. At this stage the Z4 had only manual input and output, and no means of conditional branching, although it was planned to add four tape readers and two tape punches, and facilities for repeating programs and for choosing between alternate subprograms. The machine was housed in the cellar of a farmhouse in the little village of Hopferau in Bavaria, and was not fully operational, but the mechanical store and various arithmetic operations and their automatic sequencing were successfully demonstrated to Lyndon.His report, although it gives a fairly full description of the Z4 (with the exception of the mechanical store, which he was not allowed to examine in detail), made virtually no mention of Zuse’s earlier work. Indeed it was many years before any other English language accounts of Zuse’s work were published, and Zuse’s rightful place in the chronology of computer development became at all widely appreciated. 5. Bell Telephone Laboratories The potentialities of telephone equipment for the construction of digital calculation devices were not realised for many years.The first automatic telephone exchange, which used the step-by-step or Strowger switch, was installed in 1892. As early as 1906 Molina devised a system for translating the pulses representing the dialled decimal digits into a more convenient number system. Exchanges based mainly on the use of electromechanical relays started to come into use at the turn of the century, the earliest successful centralised automatic exchanges dating from about 1914. However, from the late 1920’s various different calculating devices were developed using telephone equipment.Perhaps the most spectacular of these was the automatic totalisator. Totalisator, or â€Å"pari-mutuel,† betting became legal on British race courses in July 1929. Development of fully automatic totalisators consisting of ticket-issuing machines situated in various parts of the race course, a central calculating apparatus, and display boards which indicated the number and total value of bets made on each horse, and on the race as a whole, was already well under way.There were several rival systems. The Hamilton Totalisator and the totalisator produced by the British Automatic Totalisator Company were fully electrical, both as regards the calculations performed and the operation of the display boards, whereas the Lightning Totalisator used electrical impulses from remote ticket machines only to release steel balls which fell through tubes and actuated a mechanical adding apparatus.In January 1930 the Racecourse Betting Control Board demonstrated at Thirsk Racecourse a new standard electric totalisator supplied by Bri tish Thompson Houston, built from Strowger switches. This machine which was transportable from racecourse to racecourse could accumulate bets on up to six horses at a maximum rate of 12 000 per minute. The machine had in fact been designed in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1928 but the first complete machine to be used in the USA was installed by the American Totalisator Company at Arlington Park nly in 1933. In succeeding years much more sophisticated totalisators, involving hundreds of remote ticket-issuing machines, were used at racecourses all over USA, and it was not until many years after the advent of the electronic computer that one was used as a replacement for the central calculating apparatus of the totalisator. One early little-known design for a calculating machine to be built from telephone relays was that of Bernard Weiner in Czechoslovakia in 1923.Weiner, in association with the Vitkovice Iron Works, went on during the 1930’s to design a more powerful automatic calcu lator. He did not survive the war, and nothing is known about the results of this work. Other early work was done by Nicoladze who in 1928 designed a multiplier based on the principle of Genaille’s rods. (These were a non-mechanical aid to multiplication which enabled a person to read off the product of a multidigit number by a single digit number. Four years later Hamann described not only various different styles of relay-based multiplier, but also a device for solving sets of simultaneous linear equations, and shortly afterwards Weygandt demonstrated a prototype determinant evaluator, capable of dealing with 3 x 3 determinants. Undoubtedly in the years that followed many other digital calculating devices were developed based on telephone relay equipment, particularly during the war for such military applications as ballistics calculations and cryptanalysis – indeed, as mentioned earlier, some of Zuse’s machines made extensive use of telephone relays.It is per haps a little surprising that it was not until 1937 that Bell Telephone Laboratories investigated the design of calculating devices, although from about 1925 the possibility of using relay circuit techniques for such purposes was well accepted there. However, in 1937 George Stibitz started to experiment with relays, and drew up circuit designs for addition, multiplication and division. At first he concentrated on binary arithmetic, together with automatic decimal-binary and binarydecimal conversion, but later turned his attention to a binary-coded decimal number representation.The project became an official one when, prompted by T. C. Fry, Stibitz started to design a calculator capable of multiplying and dividing complex numbers, which was intended to fill a very practical need, namely to facilitate the solution of problems in the design of filter networks, and so started the very important Bell Telephone Laboratories Series of Relay Computers. In November 1938, S. B. Williams took over responsibility for the machine’s development and together with Stibitz refined the design of the calculator, whose construction was started in April and completed in October of 1939.The calculator, which became known as the â€Å"Complex Number Computer† (often shortened to â€Å"Complex Computer,† and as other calculators were built, the â€Å"Model I†), began routine operation in January 1940. Within a short time it was modified so as to provide facilities for the addition and subtraction of complex numbers, and was provided with a second, and then a third, teletype control, situated in remote locations. It remained in daily use at Bell Laboratories until 1949.The Complex Computer was publicly demonstrated for the first time in September 1940 by being operated in its New York City location from a teletypewriter installed in Hanover, New Hampshire, on the occasion of a meeting of the American Mathematical Society, a demonstration that both John Mauc hly and Norbert Wiener attended. During 1939 and 1940 Stibitz started work on the idea of automatic sequencing and on the use of error-detecting codes. These ideas were not pursued actively until, a year or so later, the onset of the war rovided a strong stimulus and the necessary financial climate. They then formed the basis of the second of the Bell Laboratories relay calculators, the â€Å"Relay Interpolator. † This was a special-purpose tape-controlled device, with selfchecking arithmetic, designed to solve fire control problems, and was built for the National Defense Research Council, to which Stibitz had been lent by Bell Laboratories. Although mainly used for interpolation it was also used for a few problems in harmonic analysis, calculation of roots of polynomials and solution of differential equations.It became operational in September 1943, and after the war it was handed over to the US Naval Research Laboratory, where it was in use until 1961. The Model III relay c alculator, the â€Å"Ballistic Computer,† work on which started in 1942, was a much more complete realisation of Stibitz’s early plans for an automatic computer, and although once again intended for fire control problems was much more versatile than the Model II. It was tape-controlled, and had a tenregister store, a built-in multiplier (designed by E. L.Vibbard), and devices for performing automatic look-up of tables held on perforated paper tape. Perhaps most impressive was the fact that the machine was 100 per cent. self-checked. The machine was completed in June 1944, and remained in use until 1958. The Model IV relay calculator was little different from the Model III, and the series culminated in the Model V, a truly general-purpose program-controlled computer, complete with convenient conditional branching facilities. (The final member of the series, Model VI, was essentially just a simplified version of the Model V. Two copies of the Model V were built, the firs t being delivered in 1946 to the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics at Langley Field, Virginia, and the second in 1947 to the Ballistics Research Laboratory at Aberdeen, Maryland. With its multiple computing units, the Model V, which used floating point arithmetic, was what we would now call a multiprocessing system, and its â€Å"problem tapes† were the forerunners of the early simple batch-processing operating systems. Each of the two computing units comprising a complete system contained 15 storage registers.A single register could hold a floating point number consisting of a sign, a seven-decimal digit mantissa and a two-digit exponent. Decimal digits were stored in a bi-quinary form, using seven relays, and each register used a total of 62 relays. Each unit had independent provision for the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and for 8 The Institute of Mathematics and its Applications taking the square root of floating point numbers, and for printi ng or punching its results.In addition a large set of tape readers, intended for tapes of input data, tabulated functions and programs, and for the problem tapes which controlled the running of series of separate programs, were shared by the two computer units. These units normally functioned as independent computers, but for large problems would be arranged to work cooperatively. Although somewhat slow in execution, the Model V set new standards for reliability, versatility and ease of switching from one task to another, and in so doing must surely have had an important influence on the designers of the earliest round of general-purpose electronic computers.In later years, quite a number of relay calculators were constructed, in both the USA and Europe, even after the first stored program electronic computers became operational, but the importance of their role in the history of computers hardly matches that of the Bell Laboratories Model V and its contemporaries. 6. The advent of electronic computers The earliest known electronic digital circuit, a â€Å"trigger relay,† which involved a pair of valves in a circuit with two stable states and was an early form of flip-flop, was described by Eccles and Jordan in 1919.The next development that we know of was the use by WynnWilliams at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, of thyratrons in counting circuits including, in 1932, a â€Å"scale-of-two† (binary) counter. By the end of the decade quite a few papers had been published on electronic counters intended for counting impulses from GeigerMuller tubes used in nuclear physics experiments. WynnWilliams’ work had a direct influence on the ideas of William Phillips, who apparently in 1935 attempted to patent a binary electronic computing machine.He built a mechanical model, which still exists, of the intended electronic multiplication unit but no other details are presently known of his planned machine. The first known attempt to build an elect ronic digital calculating machine was begun by John V. Atanasoff in the mid-1930’s at Iowa State College where there had been an active interest in statistical applications using punched card equipment since the early 1920’s. As an applied mathematician Atanasoff had many problems requiring generalisations of existing methods of approximating solutions of linear operational equations.He first explored the use of analog techniques and with Lynn Hannum, one of his graduate students, developed the â€Å"Laplaciometer,† a device for solving Laplace’s equation in two dimensions with various boundary conditions. By 1935 the realisation of the sharp limitations of analog computing forced Atanasoff to digital methods. The disadvantages of mechanical techniques and his knowledge of electronics and of the work of Eccles and Jordan then led him to consider an electronic approach.He soon found that in these circumstances a base two number system would have great adva ntages. In 19361937 Atanasoff abandoned the Eccles-Jordan approach and conceived a system employing memory and logic circuits, whose details were worked out in 1938. He received a grant from Iowa State in 1939, and was joined by Clifford E. Berry. With Berry’s assistance a prototype computing element was built and operating by the autumn of that year. They then undertook the design and construction of a large machine intended for the solution of up to 30 simultaneous linear equations.At the heart of the machine there was a pair of rotating cylinders around the surface of which a set of small electrical condensers was placed. Each condenser could, by the direction of its charge, represent a binary digit; although the charge would leak away slowly, it was arranged that as the cylinders rotated the charge on each condenser was detected and reinforced at 1 second time intervals so that information could be stored for as long as required.The condensers were arranged so as to provi de two sets of 30 binary words, each consisting of 50 bits, the condensers corresponding to a single word being arranged in a plane perpendicular to the axis of the cylinders. The results of intermediate steps of a computation were to be punched in binary form on cards, for later re-input to the machine. In order that card punching and reading should be fast enough to keep pace with the computation, special devices were designed that made and detected holes in cards by means of electrical sparks.Ordinary input and output was to be via conventional punched cards, with the machine providing automatic binary/decimal conversions. The machine, with binary addition, subtraction and shifting as its basic arithmetic facilities, was designed to solve sets of simultaneous linear equations by the method of successive elimination of unknowns. The electronic part of the computer was operational but the binary card reader was still unreliable when in 1942 Atanasoff and Bcrry left Iowa State for w artime jobs, so that the machine was abandoned, never having seen actual use.In the late 1930’s and early 1940’s several groups started to investigate the use of digital electronic circuits as replacements for mechanical or electro-mechanical calculating devices, including several of the American business machine manufacturers such as IBM, whose work was described briefly above. The earliest known efforts at applying electronics to a general-purpose program-controlled computer were those undertaken by Schreyer and Zuse, also mentioned earlier.The next development which should be mentioned is the still classified series of electronic cryptanalytic machines that were designed and built in Britain during the war. The machines that are of particular interest, with respect to the development of electronic computers are the Colossi, the first of which was operational in late 1943, while by the end of the war ten had been installed. Each Colossus incorporated approximately 20 00 valves, and processed a punched data tape that was read at a speed of 5000 characters per second.Preset patterns that were to be compared against the input data were generated from stored component patterns. These components were stored in ring registers made of thyratrons and could be manually set by plug-in pins. The Colossi were developed by a team led by M. H. A. Newman. Alan Turing, who had been one of the main people involved in the design of an electro-mechanical predecessor to the Colossi, was apparently not directly associated with the new design, but with others provided the requirements that the machines were to satisfy.The comparative lack of technical details about the design of these machines makes it unreasonable to attempt more than a preliminary, and somewhat hesitant, assessment of the Colossi with respect to the modern digital computer. It would appear that the arithmetical, as opposed to logical, capabilities were minimal, involving only counting rather than g eneral addition or other operations. They did, however, have a certain amount of electronic storage. Although fully automatic, even to the extent of producing printed output, they were very much special-purpose machines, but ithin their field of specialisation the facilities provided by plug-boards and banks of switches afforded a considerable degree of flexibility; in fact several of the people involved in the project have since characterised the machines as being â€Å"program-controlled. † Their importance as cryptanalytic machines, which must have been immense, can only be inferred from the number of machines that were made and the honours bestowed on various members of the team after the end of the war; however, their importance with respect to the development of computers was twofold.They demonstrated the practicality of largescale electronic digital equipment, just as ENIAC did, on an even grander scale, approximately 2 years later. Furthermore, they were also a major source of the designers of some of the first post-war British computers, namely the Manchester machine, the MOSAIC, and the ACE at the National Physical Laboratory. Fascinating though they are, none of the efforts described so far comes near to matching the importance of the work at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, which led to the design of first the ENIAC and then the EDVAC computers.By 1942 the Moore School had, because of pressures of war, become closely associated with the Ballistic Research Laboratory of the US Army Ordnance Department, and the Moore School’s differential analyser was being used to supplement the work of the one at the Ballistic Research Laboratory on the production of ballistic tables. (The two analysers were identical and had been patterned on the original differential analyser invented by Vannevar Bush in 1930. ) One of the people who had worked with the analyser was John Mauchly, then an assistant professor at the Moore School.Mauchly was by this time well aware of what could be done with desk calculating machines and punched card equipment, although he was apparently unaware of the work Aiken was then doing on what became the Harvard Mark I, or of Babbage’s efforts 100 years earlier. He did however know of the work of Stibitz and had visited Iowa State in June 1941 in order to see Atanasoff’s special-purpose computer. Another person who worked on the Moore School differential analyser, and in fact made important improvements to it by replacing its mechanical amplifiers by partially electronic devices, was J. Presper Eckert, a research associate at the School.Eckert had met Mauchly in 1941, and it was their discussions about the possibility of surmounting the reliability problems of complex electronic devices that laid the groundwork for a memorandum that Mauchly wrote in August 1942. This proposed that an electronic digital computer be constructed for the purpose of solving numerical difference equations of the sort encountered in ballistics problems. Also at the Moore School, acting as a liaison officer for Colonel Paul N. Gillon of the office of the Chief of Ordnance, was Herman H. Goldstine, who before the war had been assistant professor of mathematics at the University of Michigan.In early 1943 Goldstine and Gillon became interested in the possibility of using an electronic calculating machine for the preparation of firing and bombing tables. By this time Mauchly’s 1942 memorandum had been mislaid, and it had to be recreated from his secretary’s notes. The second version of the memorandum, together with more detailed plans drawn up by Mauchly and Eckert, was included in a report dated April 1943 which formed the basis for a contract between the University of Pennsylvania and the US Government to develop an electronic computer.A large team was assembled at the Moore School in order to design and build the computer under the supervisi on of J. G. Brainerd, with Eckert as chief engineer and Mauchly as principal consultant. As the project progressed its aims broadened, so that the ENIAC, as it became known, turned out to be much more a general-purpose device than had been originally contemplated, and although programs were represented by plugged interconnecting wires, it provided full conditional branching facilities.It was an incredibly ambitious machine incorporating over 19 000 valves and consuming approximately 200 kilowatts of electric power! (The number of valves largely resulted from the use of them for high speed storage, and the choice of number representation, which can best be described as â€Å"unary-coded decimal. â€Å") The ENIAC incorporated 20 10-digit accumulators, which could be used for addition and subtraction, and for the temporary storage of numbers, a multiplier and a combination divider and square rooter.Addition took 200 microseconds, and multiplication of two 10-digit numbers approximat ely 3 milliseconds. Storage was provided for approximately 300 numerical constants in function tables, which could be set up by manual switches prior to commencing a computation. Input and output was via punched cards, using standard IBM devices. Early in its career the method of programming the machine was modified so that the program was represented by settings of the function tables without the need for changing the interconnecting cables.