Monday, September 30, 2019

Types of Economic Systems

The 3 Types of Economic Systems– Centrally planned economy – Mixed economy – Market economyCentrally planned economySystem in which a nation’s resources are owned by the government. Came from the ideology that the welfare of the group is more important than individual well being, the idea came from Karl Marx. The decline of Centrally planned economies was in the 1980’s nations began to dismantle communist central planning in favor of market based economy. Mixed economyEconomic system in which resources are more equally divide between private and government ownership. It came from the idea that a successful system must be not only efficient and innovative but should also protect society. Most economies around the world are mixed economies but most mixed economies are trying to convert more of a market economy. This is called â€Å"Privatization† or â€Å"Privatizing†. Market EconomyThe majority of nations resources are privately owned. Economic decisions are determined by supply and demand. Based on the belief that individual concerns should be placed above group concerns. The best features are free choice, free enterprise and price flexibility. The governments role is enforcing antitrust laws, preserving property rights, providing a stable fiscal and monetary environment and preserving political stability. Personally I would prefer to live in a mixed economy. I say this because it is the best kind of economic system in my eyes. A mixed economy lies between a free market economy and a centrally planned economy. A mixed economy combines elements from free market and centrally planned to create a more favorable economy. Most nations operate mixed economies with varying combinations of capitalist and socialist features. Some benefits of a mixed economy are free enterprise, private ownership, a â€Å"safety net† and the ability for the government to step in if needed. This is very appealing because the benefits are unmatched from the other two main economic systems. I like the idea of private ownership and the government being able to step in during times of need, these two examples are the main reasons I prefer to live in a mixed economy.

Sunday, September 29, 2019

Sponsorship Proposal

Executive Summary In an effort to promote the h. h. gregg brand, we are becoming the official sponsors of two minor league baseball leagues. The two leagues are the Eastern League and the South Atlantic league. In becoming the sponsors of these two leagues, we will be able to raise awareness, expand our customer database, drive customers into our retail stores, and increase sales. Our wide range of promotions will ensure the success of this marketing partnership. These promotions include h. h. regg fireworks night, scoreboard signage, raffles for TV giveaway, and advertising on social media networks as well as on the team and league websites. There will also be in-game promotions that will include a free t-shirt giveaway, an h. h. gregg kiosk located at every stadium, in-game announcements on the PA system, and our â€Å"h. h. says† game. With powerhouse competitors such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart, this partnership will increase exposure of our brand over a large geographic loca tion. Partnership Description Minor Leagues General Information Baseball is known as â€Å"America’s Favorite Pastime. However, there is a vast difference between Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball. As a result of inconsistent product quality at the Minor League level, minor league franchises are forced to explore other strategies to attract spectators to the game. Minor league games are known to be a â€Å"Family Friendly† environment, which is suitable for our â€Å"target market. † The season starts in the beginning of April and runs to the middle of September with a 4-team playoff following the regular season. The South Atlantic League and Eastern League brought in a combined attendance of over 7 million spectators in 2012.There are 26 teams between the two leagues and each has a total of 68 home games. With the promise of lengthy brand exposure over a wide array of cities, partnering with these respective minor leagues will prove to be a valua ble marketing decision and help achieve our objectives. Eastern League The Eastern League is a Double-A minor league affiliate that was founded in 1923. There are a total of 12 teams that are all located along the east coast. Their attendance throughout the whole season totaled 3. 8 million people in 2012. South Atlantic League The South Atlantic League is a Single-A minor league affiliate that was founded in 1980.There are a total of 14 teams that are located in the Southeast region. Their attendance throughout the whole season was 3. 2 million people in 2012. Proposal Objective There are several objectives that we believe can be achieved through this sponsorship and will greatly benefit our organization. The primary objectives that we want to focus on are raising awareness of h. h. gregg, expanding our customer database, driving customers into our retail stores, and increasing sales. We believe these objectives can be fulfilled through the promotions we have developed. Most people have heard of our competitors such as Best Buy and Sears.Not everyone has the same knowledge about h. h. gregg, which is why one of our main goals is to increase brand awareness. H. h. gregg fireworks night is one of our promotions that will increase awareness of our brand and also bring people into the stadiums where we will have other in-game promotions. We will also have advertisements on social media networks such as â€Å"Facebook† and the league and team websites. Another promotion in our sponsorship is scoreboard signage. This will ensure exposure of our brand to anyone who attends a game. Expanding our customer database is another objective we can accomplish through this sponsorship.With our h. h. gregg kiosk that will be located in each of the 26 stadiums, it will give our employees a chance to interact 1-on-1 with adults in the stadium and give them the opportunity to sign up for coupons and giveaways by providing their personal information. Driving customers to th e store and increasing sales go hand in hand. Our free t-shirt giveaway is one of our promotions that will get customers to the store and buying our products. With a gift card to h. h. gregg found in some of the t-shirts given to the fans, this will encourage customers to buy a product using their gift card.Also, with our 60’ TV raffle, it will get customers into our retail stores knowing they will have a chance to win a 60’ television. Who influences parents more than their children? With our â€Å"H. H. says† game, it will give the children a chance to compete for a coupon that will give them $10 off any video game. If a child wins the coupon, they will push for their parents to take them to the store and possibly buy a product. Perfect Match We feel the sponsorship of the Eastern League and South Atlantic League are great matches for h. h. gregg and will successfully help to achieve our most important objective, which is to increase sales.The main reason why we feel this sponsorship is appealing to h. h. gregg is because of the geographic location of the leagues. H. h. gregg retail stores are mainly located along the east coast and the Mideast region. The reason why we chose these particular leagues is due to the fact that every team is located near an h. h. gregg retail store. With h. h. gregg retail stores being located nearby, it will encourage the fans that attend the games and receive coupons and giveaways through our promotions to come to our retail store and buy our products.Also, with the sponsorship of 26 teams in 26 different cities, it helps increase awareness and exposure all throughout the east coast and Mideast region. Promotions Throughout h. h. gregg’s promotional campaign with the Southern and Atlantic league, we will have multiple promotions which optimize the chance of creating awareness for our appliances and electronics. Our goal is to have the maximum impact on a large sample size of people. Our promotions w ill be spread out across 26 different stadiums with a $2 million budget. Fireworks In order to draw customers to the stadium, we had to look at the motivation from an h. . gregg consumer point-of-view, which are families. So to accommodate the likability of children we decided to sponsor a fireworks night for all teams within the league on Friday night home games. There should be approximately 12 home Friday night games per team within the league. This means that with 26 teams amongst two leagues, our fireworks will attract families to the stadium 288 times more per season. With an average stadium attendance of 1,300 people, the purpose of our fireworks night is mainly to have an element of the baseball game to market to families who are most likely susceptible to buying h. . gregg products. Once we have families visiting the game, they will be introduced to other promotions inside the stadium to make them more familiar with h. h. gregg. T-shirt toss during Fireworks On firework nig hts, employees of the stadium will be throwing 30 t-shirts into the crowd during the fireworks. These T-shirts will have a variable amount of gift cards in the center. Some t-shirts will possess a gift card in the middle of the folded shirt, while others will not, but the total amount of money given out in the form of gift cards will be $200 per firework night.The $200 total gift card giveaway amount will be divided up in increments of $5-$25. The design of the T-shirts themselves will include the specific team’s logo of which the stadium belongs to (home team). Also, on the back of the T-shirt, we will include the classic h. h. gregg logo which will be proportionate in size to the team’s logo on the front. The main purpose of this promotion is to increase awareness of h. h. gregg by encouraging patrons to seek out the kiosk for more details and inevitably stop at the h. h. gregg stores to spend the gift card as a fraction of a larger sum to be spent. Scoreboard signag eSignage on the scoreboard at each stadium is a key component to raising awareness. Since the scoreboard is often looked at during the game, having our 8Ãâ€"30† sign, which will be the largest sign in the stadium, will distinguish itself from other ads and show our scale of contribution to the spectators. Given that everyone who attends the game glances at the scoreboard, this promotion will ensure brand awareness to the spectators. Kiosk Within 30 ft of the turnstiles entering the minor league stadiums, we plan to set up a technology and appliance sampling center for families to observe and become familiar with the unique pricing h. . gregg has to offer. This appliance and technology kiosk will be backed with game consoles for children to sample with the newest games and software available. This will allow time for our associates of h. h. gregg to fully educate the parents on the deals and value they can expect from h. h. gregg. Social networking Minor league baseball games have a following from families looking to maximize their experience for the average â€Å"Friday night out† with the kids. To embrace the already strong following of the minor league teams, we plan to parallel h. h. gregg with the minor league baseball experience.To do this, h. h. gregg will advertise all schedules for teams within the South Atlantic League and Eastern League on their Facebook page. â€Å"Liking† a particular team or league will keep people up-to-date with their team’s wins and losses and allow h. hgregg to target advertising efforts directly towards fans. Most importantly, the â€Å"likes† generated from fans liking their favorite team will ultimately go toward the h. h. gregg corporation to help advertising exposure on Facebook. The Facebook algorithm allows for businesses that have a high number of likes to be more easily searchable and have a higher presence onFacebook as well. The most important concept of posting team schedules and activities on h. h. gregg’s Facebook pages is to create traffic to the page, as well as â€Å"likes,† promote further promotions like fireworks and tech sampling, and lastly, make h. h. gregg in these regions synonymous with minor league baseball to create awareness. Website Advertisement & Commercials H. h. gregg will have advertisements and commercials on the Eastern League and South Atlantic Leagues Websites as well as on all 26 team websites. The advertisements will allow consumers who are interested in h. . gregg's products click directly to there web site, which is www. hhgregg. com. The purpose of these advertisements is to increase awareness of h. h. gregg's products. Having direct links to h. h. gregg's website will also help increase the number of times the site is viewed. This should get more potential customers interested in h. h. gregg's products and increase online sales. As h. h. gregg's Marketing Team, we want to create a commercial for the Eastern Leag ue and a separate commercial for the South Atlantic League.This will allow the fans visiting the website recognize the players from there local leagues and teams. We will not show our commercial on TV because minor league baseball games are typically not shown on television. Instead, we are choosing to show our commercial over the Internet where the minor league teams are advertised. This is also a cheaper rout and allows us to reach more Eastern League and South Atlantic League Fans. h. h. Says h. h. Says is an in-game promotion that is similar to the kids game â€Å"Simon Says†. The marketing team will select 5 kids out of the crowd to play â€Å"h. . Says† on the field near the home teams dugout after the 5th inning is complete. The winner will receive a $10. 00 gift certificate toward any video game. The winner can use gift certificate at any h. h. gregg store. The gift certificate will expire in 14 days which will give kids and parents enough time to get to there local h. h. gregg store. The purpose of this promotion is for fans to become more aware of h. h. gregg. The winner of â€Å"h. h. Says† will be excited about their gift certificate and urging parents to take them to a store so they can use there gift certificate.This will help get more potential buyers into the stores, as well as buying our products, even if it is partially paid with a gift certificate. 60† TV Raffle Two 60-inch TVs will be raffled off per team. Since there are 26 teams total, we will be raffling off a total of 52 60-inch TVs. Any fan who attends a minor league game in the Eastern League or the South Atlantic League can enter to win. On the back of there ticket stub will be a information sheet asking the fans name, address, email, and phone number. The first TV per team will be given out on July 1st, 2013 which is about the midseason point.The second TV per team will be given out on September 20th, 2013 which is at the end of the season. Everyone who en ters the raffle will be put in our customer database to receive coupons and sale papers. The purpose of the 60-inch TV raffle promotion is to get potential customers to h. h. gregg stores. Once they are in the store, there is a possibility they might stay, look around, and purchase items. This promotion also helps us expand and build our customer database so we can keep more people informed about our products as well as offer them special coupons.Announcements Announcements about h. h. greggs products and promotions in the stadium will be made before and various times throughout the game. Information about our h. h. gregg Kiosk will be announced before each game and after the 1st inning. Information about h. h. gregg fireworks night will be announced before each game and after the 2nd inning is complete. This is one of our most heavily advertised promotions; therefore, we want to announce it early so that we can make sure the fans who are late hear it as well as the fans who want to leave early.Information about the 60-inch TV raffle will be announced before the game and again after the 3rd inning. The â€Å"h. h. Says† game will be announced as it is being performed on the field after the 5th inning. Information about how to get to the teams social media page and website will also be announced. We want people to visit these websites because this is where our commercial will be located. The purpose of these advertisements is to build awareness of h. h. gregg’s promotions with the Eastern League and the South Atlantic League. Measuring Return on Investment: Fireworks NightFriday Night Fireworks’ success as a promotion will be measured in terms of the number of fans that are exposed to our brand through its association with the event. More specifically, the number of tickets sold for a given fireworks night represents the number of fans made aware of h. h. gregg, increasing brand exposure. Comparisons drawn between attendance numbers on Frid ay night games that do not feature fireworks and those that do will help determine how many fans are more likely to attend games featuring the post-game show, and as a result are exposed to our brand. Free T-ShirtThe lucky fans that catch one of our free T-shirts with attached gift certificates will be more inclined to come to one of our stores than if they had not received such giveaways. Therefore, the total redeemed coupons will tell us how many customers were brought into h. h. gregg as a result of this specific promotional activity. Furthermore, the number of sales garnered as a result of the promotion can also be quantified by the amount of redeemed coupons. Scoreboard Signs Similar to fireworks night, measuring ROI for our on field signage will be done in terms of increased awareness, more specifically attendance numbers.The amount of paid attendants for a given game (or the average for a season) can also be used to display the amount of people that will be exposed to our bra nd through the scoreboard signage. Because of its strategic placement, the chance that the vast majority of attendants will see our sign is much greater (since the scoreboard is often an area that fans turn their attention to throughout the course of a game). Social Media Placing our advertisement on social media sites, more specifically team and league Facebook pages, gives us the opportunity to run our ad 24/7, as opposed to traditional TV run ads.To measure such exposure we can use the amount of â€Å"likes† that our ads receive on the team/league Facebook page(s). In addition, because our ad will be viewed by all those that visit the page, the number of hits a page containing our ad(s) receives is also indicative of the approximate number of views for said ad(s). These measurements also are specific to increasing awareness for our brand. Team/League Website Ads Similar to social media, the implementation of our ads on team and league websites will allow the commercial to be more likely to reach a greater amount of potential consumers.The exposure to our brand through our ads can also be measured by totaling the number of hits the websites we are advertising on receive. In addition to such info, we will also recognize the amount of people that are drawn to h. h. gregg’s website by our ads with the number of â€Å"clicks† our ad(s) receive. In-Game Kiosks The h. h. gregg informational kiosk is aimed at serving more than one objective, the first being the increase in awareness. Although a ticket sales count may tell how many people could possibly visit our kiosk, such a statistic cannot be proven or verified easily.Therefore, we decided to use the e-mail sign up sheet provided at each kiosk as an indication of how many people definitely came to our kiosk, and as a result realized an increase in awareness for h. h. gregg and our offerings. The sign up sheet will be an exact measure of the kiosk’s success in adding to our existing ma rketing database, which will be done by counting the number of e-mails collected from any given game (or season total). â€Å"h. h. says† The family-friendly â€Å"hh says† promotion serves all of our objectives in different ways that can be explained through fan attendance and recorded sales information.Just as with many of the prior promotions that increased awareness, the â€Å"h. h. Says† event’s ability to do so can be measured through the amount of tickets sold to games featuring said event. The children that are lucky enough to receive the video game discount prize will more than likely use the discounts when they make a purchase; the total sales recorded as involving the discount coupon(s) received from this promotion gives us an idea of the increase in sales resulting from this promotion.This number also gives us a rough estimate of the amount of consumers that set foot in our store because of the â€Å"h. h. Says† contest. 60’ Tele vision Giveaway The television giveaway promotion is supposed to get more people into our actual store and simultaneously contribute to our database marketing system. To explain further, each ticket representing a raffle ticket will include an area for personal information of the respective ticket buyer to be submitted with the â€Å"raffle† ticket in-store.By making it necessary for the raffle tickets to be dropped in one of our locations rather than allowing online submission will force consumers to visit our store, the total being measured by the amount of tickets that were submitted for our drawing. In-Game Announcements The announcement of our affiliation with the Eastern League, along with the promotional announcements, will serve the purpose of increasing fans’ awareness of not only our brand itself but our offerings at the stadium as well.Evaluation of success in doing-so will be on the basis of total fan attendance, and more specifically fan attendance for giv en promotions on their designated night(s). For example, if attendance is usually higher on fireworks night than a night that does not offer the post-game show, then exposure benefits will also change in accordance since we are measuring success through attendance. Pricing (See Exhibit A for a more detailed budget) Establishing h. h. gregg’s new partnership with the Eastern League and South Atlantic League is allotted a $2 million budget.The following shows the cost of each component associated with this new partnership: Budget Per Team * h. h. gregg Fireworks Night: $40,000 * Scoreboard Sign: $8,000 * h. h. gregg Kiosk: $8,800 * Social Media, Website ; Commercial: $7,000 * h. h. Says: $680 * 60† TV Raffle: $2,000 * T-Shirt Shooting: $6,000 * Announcements: $2,000 Total: $74,480 Total Portion of Budget: $1,936,480 Budget For Everyone * Social Media and Website- $8,000 * Playoff and Extra Fund- $55,520 Total Portion of Budget: $63,520 Exhibit A

Saturday, September 28, 2019

Research Methods (new research methods and paradigms) Essay

Research Methods (new research methods and paradigms) - Essay Example econometrics), laboratory experiments and several numerical methods (e.g. mathematical modelling) (Myers, 1997). Quantitative stance offers a variety of tools including standardized questionnaires and survey, experiments, etc (Wainer and Braun, 1998). The concepts of reliability and validity have traditionally been considered the cornerstones of quantitative approach. On the other hand, poor applicability to examination of poorly quantifiable issues is a serious shortcoming of quantitative methods and techniques. This effect is known as 'decontextualization' of study results: models built on the basis of quantitative results fail to cover certain essential variables that come into play in the real world context (Patton, 2002). By contrast, qualitative methodology seeks to explore phenomena in the "real world setting [where] the researcher does not attempt to manipulate the phenomenon of interest" (Patton, 2002: 39). Qualitative stance can be defined as follows: "any kind of research that produces findings not arrived at by means of statistical procedures or other means of quantification" (Strauss and Corbin, 1990: 17). Qualitative research reveals findings observed in the real world context where the phenomena being studied unfold naturally (Patton, 2002). As a result, qualitative perspective incorporates a different set of validation criteria than quantitative stance does (Kirk and Miller, 1986). For example, the replicability criterion can not be used to evaluate validity and legitimacy of a qualitative study. Instead, credibility, transferability and precision play very important role in determining validity of qualitative findings (Hoepfl, 1997). Some researchers argue that the concept of validity as it is defined within the quantitative paradigm is also not applicable to qualitative research (Creswell and Miller, 2000). Instead, they tend to develop their own concepts of validity or adopt other assessment criteria that depend upon each particular case. The examples of such criteria are quality, trustworthiness, rigor and some others (Dingwall et al, 1998). The distinctions between quantitative and qualitative research methodologies are determined by the underlying philosophical principles. The choice of epistemology, which guides the research, is admittedly the most important of these principles (Hirschheim, 1992). Epistemology Over the last years many experts have expressed concerns regarding the use of positivist paradigm and methods associated with it in the area of business and organisational research. The underlying assumption of positivist perspective, which is existence of an objective world that can be measured and quantified through the use of traditional scientific methods of inquiry - has been vigorously attacked. A number of organisational theorists started to claim that the positivist approach "strips contexts from meanings in the process of developing quantified measures of phenomena" (Guba and Lincoln, 1994: 106). Other concerns about the applicability of quantitative methodologies to in-dept examination of complex social phenomena include taking the collected data out of the real-world setting, poor representativeness and generalisation of data, exclusion of discovery from the realm of scientific inquiry, etc The positivist perspe

Friday, September 27, 2019

McBride Financial Services Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

McBride Financial Services - Essay Example Market Research is a process of systemically collecting, recording and analyzing information concerning a specific marketing problem. Undertaking a research plays a very important role, especially to new businesses. In fact, 70% of all new products fail within a year because of poor marketing1. McBride Financial services should collect facts and figures from the primary as well as the secondary data. Primary data are information collected from original sources, while secondary data are facts and figures collected by some other person or organization. Examples of the primary data are: questionnaire data collection, which includes interviews, focus groups, surveys and questionnaires; observational data collection, either through a personal or mechanical observation and the experimental data collection by conducting laboratory and field tests2. Since the company offers financial services, hence it should obtain information through the questionnaire data collection. With this information , the business is able to identify the customer’s wants as well as their opinions. Hence McBride financial services is better able to be more responsive to its target market and thus risk of market failure decreases while sales and profits will increase. Conducting this action will also establish a closer business-customer relationship and hence customers would feel more satisfied and valued. Satisfied customers may lead to repeating sales and may also lead to a word-of-mouth advertising, which is more effective and also cheaper. In fact, a research showed that 1 dissatisfied customer tells 11 others who then tell 5 others3. Secondary data are cheaper and faster to obtain but may not be as responsive to the marketing problem as the primary data collection. Examples include: Statistics, magazines, government and industry reports, sales figures, financial statements, etc2. After conducting the market research, the company should undertake a statistical comparative

Thursday, September 26, 2019

Marketing Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 5

Marketing - Term Paper Example After Abraham Lincoln making Thanksgiving an official national holiday, 70 years later, Franklin D. Roosevelt changed the date (which had been set to be the last Thursday of November) because of the complaints that the Christmas shopping season was short. Since then a lot of changes have taken place (MONEY CRASHERS). Between 1993 and 2001, the Black Friday ranked either fifth or sixth busiest shopping day. However, since 2002, it has taken and maintained the lead. Inasmuch as Black Friday may be the most publicized commercial day of the year, it does not make good business sense. It increases retailers’ civil liability as a lot of injuries are encountered and even some shoppers succumb to death due stampede that normally ensues. The Black Friday websites keeps track and compiles the statistics on the injuries and death that occur on this day. According to this websites, the first death, resulting from this fanaticism, was in 2008 at Walmart in Valley Stream. Other such case has continued to be observed over the years (BACK FRIDAY). The expenses of these injuries and deaths have to be met by the shop owners. Besides increasing retailers’ liability due losses and injuries to shoppers, the very retailers stand at a risk of being injured. Over the years, reports of retailers killed by shoppers due to stampede have been reported. Additionally, Black Friday presents retailers as unethical and not concerned with consumers’ welfa re (BACK FRIDAY). By the fact that they keep on advertising this day to encourage consumers to shop, even after observing the negative implications of the same, it seems they are only interested in profits but not the wellbeing of the consumers. This damages retailers’ image thus killing public relations between consumers and retailers. Black Friday mainly makes use of price promotion. Great discount offers are allowed on products hence increasing high demand on commodities. However, unlike

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Creative workplace - Is the 'studio' still important in the world of Essay

Creative workplace - Is the 'studio' still important in the world of Design - Essay Example Then, along came the virtual revolution and now designers of all kinds, hobbyists and housewives, students and retirees, the wealthy and the poor can harness the tremendous resources of online studio space and creative software to accomplish what used to require a warehouse or loft flat hybrid. This paper will review relevant literature to explore the question of how important the studio is, given the availability of virtual resources; under what conditions the non-virtual studio is or is not required, how the present-day shift to online creative space will likely effect the industry, and more importantly for me, personally, whether I yearn for a future (real) studio of my own? The first point it seems wise to make, in this paper, is that not all design studios are or should be alike. Actually, Dorgan differentiates between â€Å"space† and â€Å"place†, saying that space is uninhabited, abstract and open to all potentiality, while place is negotiated within space, and is defined in a specific way by the communication and action meanings that take place (Dorgan 2). A design studio is the inhabitation and negotiation of space into place (3). A studio is social and densely interactive; political and functionally negotiating (4) and is activist, transforming circumstances with intention (5). The studio is where we begin to shape our imagination toward transformation (15). I see that each of these characteristics can happen both in physical space and in virtual space, suggesting that studio place can be successfully negotiated in either one. The collage below, Figure 1, shows a sampling of various design studios. The collage below that one, Figure 2, shows a sampling of graphic design studios. Even a casual glance immediately registers an impression that, while many design studios attend to material storage and the mood induced by artistic physical environments, graphic design studios rely primarily on computer

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Engineers create artefacts and processes through design Essay - 1

Engineers create artefacts and processes through design - Essay Example From the definition, artifacts are designed systems or objects, with inclusion of all the results of the process The design process is a sequence of linear events that start at one point and end at one point. An engineer uses design process steps to identify a problem, create or formulate models that will solve or give a solution to the problem, and in a manner meet the need of the situation. Design process, it is normal for the engineer to jump back and forth the design steps in a process called iteration. In design models, decision making is the key to construction of processes and paths (CK-12 Foundation, 2010). During this phase a lot of basic mathematical, scientific, and engineering science theories and concepts are applied to convert optimally available resources to meet a stated objective (Philip G. Kosky, 2012). In engineering, to come up with a stable process, one has to pass through these fundamental elements; establish the criteria and objectives, synthesize and analyze the concepts available, construct models, and lastly evaluate and test the process. Engineers formulate and create engineering artifacts through the complete and integrated multi-step processes (Pahl, 2007). These steps include field research, idea conceptualization, a feasibility study and assessment, establishing design requirements, perform preliminary design, create a detailed design, production tool and planning design, then finally the artifact or product (Yousef Haik, 2010). Engineering design therefore is the gradual refinement of requirements and specification. This also can be defined as creative, and systematic application of mathematical and scientific principles to practical ends such as manufacture, design itself, operation of economical and efficient processes, structures, systems, and machines. The whole idea brings out the fact that engineering

Monday, September 23, 2019

Reaction to Crisis questions Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Reaction to Crisis questions - Research Paper Example First, I was reminded of the virtue of patience and seeking not to engage the individual under any circumstances, both light-hearted or involving maladjusted, juvenile behaviors. What this situation created was an opportunity for me to use more efficient planning and strategy development to determine the most appropriate and worthwhile course of action. This has many opportunities in the future, including better time management and also establishing appropriate obedience systems. â€Å"Adversity helps us put things in perspective† (Grohol, 2013, p.2). This has many implications for future management practice. Passive-aggressiveness is generally my most useful tactic to counter adversity, maintaining a thoughtful and tranquil posture while also using appropriate body language or sarcastic language to express shame or disgrace. I learned after examining many models of communication that the situation involving the maladjusted individual, as one example, that much of this was just noise that complicated the decoding process. Though not all researchers and sociological experts would agree that this is a positive strategy for countering adversity, it does prevent a violent response that is unwarranted in most circumstances. When appropriate, I also rely on public support to assist in countering adversity. Not all adversity comes through social conflict, but can also manifest itself in business, such as having subordinates performing negative practices that go against leader-established policies. In an organizational model, sometimes the ethical climate of culture will provide public assistance to combat those who can severely disrupt the lives or economics of important stakeholders. By providing meaningful feedback and precise evidence, public support (while also fulfilling needs for social belonging) can assist in rallying support against an improper entity or organization. When considering personal resilience, I believe myself superior in this

Sunday, September 22, 2019

Unit 7 Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Unit 7 - Coursework Example In order to look at prevalence and reduction of bribery, we look at the relative benefits and costs of engaging in such practice. If the benefits of engaging in such practices are huge for a party in contrast to the costs, then the firm will likely resort to it as a rational act in line with conducting its business. Otherwise, the behavior will be discouraged as the benefits are perceived to be not worth the trouble, or costs to engaging in it. The benefits to facilitate bribery are huge for both the giver and the receiver of the bribe. The giver or the firm gets favor, maybe from the government agencies or another firm from the private sector. The receiver, maybe the government agencies or other firms, receive a sum of money in return for this favor. The main reason why it is not reduced is because these benefits are greater than the costs to participate in such practice. There are not enough punishments in order to make the benefit seem not worth the price to be paid. Apart from lack of moral integrity in some countries, why should such a beneficial behavior to these parties be discouraged if there are not enough costs to punish them? Therefore, in order to discourage bribery, the cost to parties that participate in such practice should be increased. In what form should the cost come in? The cost should come in the form of fines, as what is included in the US laws for anti-bribery. But aside from it, these costs can come in the form of damage in reputation for the parties that involve in facilitating bribery. What multinational companies and the global community can do is to raise moral awareness on a global scale while condemning such practices. This is to increase the costs to parties who are doing it, the costs in the form of damage in reputation, if the fines are not enough, for being seen as firms who lack integrity in doing business in other countries. The effects to US firms

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Current And Future Use of Technology Essay Example for Free

Current And Future Use of Technology Essay Spotify has provided a way for people to access and share music with services such as exchange of selections and even mobile access. In the process of providing these services, the users’ data is acquired through initial registration and this helps categorize the market. The main target for Spotify is not registration of premium accounts without adverts but the free use by the public where adverts can be played in between songs. There are many issues handled by Spotify in the business including competition from existing online music selling companies like Sony and Apple, and challenges on fair artists’ royalties with restrictions by copyrights in some regions. The e business strategy is well established for Spotify as the company deals with music producing companies and companies who look for a way to advertise brands. The peer to peer technology used and the feature of listening to music even when offline together with a simple user interface are all technological advantages of Spotify that make it popular in the market. The future of Spotify is based on integration of the software into hand held processing devices like modern phones, and having a good relation with the sources of music. E-Business background Spotify’s business idea was to create a medium through which to provide advertisers with a way of reaching a traceable and response predictable market. By creating a digital library of a wide variety of music and an interface through which listeners can register and listen to music free, Spotify was able do just that. There are adverts pushed in between songs and last for between 15 and 30 seconds. The users that don’t want to get interference from the audio adverts can pay a monthly fee to stop them. The portion of listeners who pay this fee is so small compared to the free users, who form the main market idea for Spotify. The company has arrangement with the world’s major labels to provide their music and in return claim an 18% stake in the company. The integration of the music producing companies, the listeners and the advertisers forms the e-business model for Spotify. There is competition from similar companies like Last. fm, Amazon (which sells music online), my space and facebook; with the direct rival being Last. fm. Spotify and Last. fm have integrated their systems though and this form a way to create an entry hardship in an effort to protect high profit business and raise competition advantage for both companies to realize. Porters Five Forces model Spotify’s business faces the five forces from threats of substitute, barriers to entry, supply power, buyers power and rivalry (Porter 1985). There are various ways that it has put up strategies to deal with this. First, there is the presence of substitute firms like Last. com; Spotify has planned to sing a deal in merged operations with the company in order to increase the business opportunities for both sides. It was proposed that the advertisers/brands could then be able to buy advertising services across the platforms of the two companies (McCormick 2009). According to the nature of the platform on which the adverts are run, Spotify has created a medium where the message is streamline with the music being listened to. Apart from the major rival with whom Spotify agrees to merge business with, the brands will face a hard time looking for an alternative service of the kind. Thus the buyer’s power is low, considering that there are also many scattered brands to advertise through the electronic platform. Furthermore, the platform provides a way of major record labels availing their music to the users, making sure that brands can get the largest number of music fans at Spotify, which they cannot get from online music shops. On the suppliers’ power towards Spotify’s business, there are many music producing labels that offer a variety of music. Also, the fact that the buyers of the service are somewhat weak, the suppliers are also put in the same line; because advertisers has no much power over Spotify, they cannot demand of specific record labels. Since the entry of Spotify into the e-business, the key issue is to keep the prices offered virtually low in order to provide a barrier of entry of new competition. One strategy applied by firms to this effect is merging their markets and operations so that they can enjoy economies of scale and protect the high profit market from other entrants while keeping the quality of services high. This was a case possible from the Spotify’s deal with Last. fm. There is rivalry in the industry of e-business and marketing through electronic means has been applied by many companies. The industry is disciplined though, from previous competition, the methods of enticing the music fans and through ease of use of platforms by the market forming population. The application streams music with no buffering times and provides a very wide variety of ready to listen categories of songs; from major record labels. The fact that the market for Spotify seems to be exponentially growing means that soon the buyers will be so many and so their power will go down, providing a business advantage for the company ( ). E-Marketing The internet is a unique marketing medium in that it provides a global market with instant response dynamism. The fact that when a product is advertised through the internet can reach millions of users within a short while is enough to make it a rich market. Spotify has its marketing strategy based on online access of adverts by the users in their endeavor to listen to music. Data and Market Analysis The strongest part of Spotify registration of users is that it takes the demographic data so that the company is in a position to provide marketing strategies to advertisers based on age, location and music taste. The ability to analyze and classify a market is important to advertisers, especially when it involves technical goods and services. Promotion and mobile services The introduction of the mobile version of Spotify software has helped in a far reaching marketing strategy. The whole issue has been in news for sometime and major discussion blogs and websites like BBC NEWS, leading to less costly promotion effect in Europe. The market in Spotify is really the online internet resource as well as the users PC’s and portable mobile Activities Spotify engages in various activities that are geared towards having a wide base of users so that it can reach more people when targeting an audience for an advert. These activities include; invite scheme, tell a friend and viral advertising. The â€Å"invite scheme† is where the newly registered and the existing members are given an opportunity to invite friends and family to experience Spotify while still promoting the premium membership. The â€Å"tell a friend† activity involves a Spotify inbuilt tool to spread word of mouth. This is a strategy to use the existing users to get the message to their friends using the already existing internet framework. The other one is viral advertising where the medium mainly used is social networking frameworks like facebook. The most visited WebPages are targeted and a multimedia message displayed. Web-design Spotify has created a peer to peer application that streams music between the listeners computer, whether online or offline. Spotify has a service to which clients connect and have the contents of the cache summarized in an index which is then sent to Spotify’s stream hub. The data in the index is usually used to alert other users of the additional peers they can connect to, to fetch streamed data for specific songs being played. This arrangement is enabled and tolerated by each upon start up. Each client listen to incoming connections from other Spotify clients like a server and connects to other users to exchange cached data. The users are actually not in apposition to configure the connections or alter the bandwidth of transmission of data. These settings are hard coded in the system. The design of the entire architecture may be complicated but the interface used by the listeners is so simple and effective. There are just few controls of play, rewind and forward. The Spotify application offers the following features to the users; Catalogue: Spotify offers users access to millions of music tracks including songs from major music labels. Some specific music from some artists may not be available due to boundary regulations in the copyright. Playlists: it allows users to create collections of favorite music and lets them share them. The users can also edit the playlists with other users together through collaborating software. For this purpose, the playlists can be shared through an email or instant messaging window. On accessing the link, the data gets downloaded into Spotify. Integration with Last. fm: the specific feature from last. fm is the ability to collect the users’ preference in music and store it into Last. fm’s database. This has been integrated into Spotify without requiring external plug-ins (Spotify Archives 2010). Radio feature: this creates random playlists of songs related to the music of the currently selected artist. Spotify has a simple to use interface that allows the user to search for music by artist, album or title. It displays the user chosen playlist and some advert image, which on clicking, one can explore the promotion (Spotify Forums 2010). Business-to-Business (B2B) Spotify has introduced the music service to the listeners and charge a certain rate for ad free music. However, it does not rely on this for its source of revenue. It largely relies on the free service where the listeners will have to bear with the adverts. At this point, it does business with other firms that want to advertise their brands to the listeners. The main target for business is therefore dealing with other companies that want to reach the audience. On the same platform, there is collaboration with major record labels where they claim a certain percentage stake in the company and in turn provide their music libraries to Spotify (Nylander 2009). Spotify focuses on doing business with other businesses in its plans. It has tailored it product for mobile phones and approached the mobile phone making companies like apple in an effort to do business with them (Emerald). This is a direct challenge to Apple’s iTunes though and touches on the competition end. Mobile Commerce Spotify has produced a mobile version of the application that can allow users with premium accounts to access and listen to music wherever they go. It also allows the users to download a certain number of songs on to the phone for listening while out of network range. Mobile business seems to be the future of IT marketing, especially with the progress and expectations of pervasive mobile programming. By considering the mobile version of the application to target the users on the move and virtually at all instances of life, Spotify has provided a wider more reaching market for its business. Given that all the mobile users will have to be premium users, the focus of mobile versions will be to create a customer base where the services will be like a contract between Spotify and the user (Ionescu 2009). This eliminates the advertisers from the picture and allows Spotify to compete with earlier established businesses on the same line like Apple, while still spreading the risk. Instead of relying on the advertising source alone, the company can now create a one to one relation with the music fans through their premium accounts. Conclusions It is a good business plan for Spotify to create such a huge market base by having so many users registered, both free and premium categories. The plan of pushing adverts into streamed music provides an excellent way of gaining the revenue from brands. On the mobile world, it provides a good way of reaching a wider market and a premium account for the mobile is a plus on the revenue. This was a wise decision considering the processing power of phones cannot be compared to that of PC’s. The strategy of extending into the mobile world was a good way of preparing for the future of IT with the trends in pervasive mobile programming. Mobile marketing will form an even wider market considering the more frequent use and an extension of the PC use after work hours. Recommendations The competition in the market is high and Spotify will have to deal with some issues, especially with the application interface and specifically the technology on the size of bandwidth among other resource utilized on users machines. Criticism is usually on the fact that the interface does not give a user the access to control the amount of resources like bandwidth that Spotify uses against other systems on the same machine. The issue of coming up with a way of establishing the classification of music sources with their effect on the market using the users data to determine the ratings would be an important thing to indulge in, in order to establishing a fair royalties to the artists in order to keep everyone happy and the future of Spotify bright (BBC News 2010). More concentration on helping the production teams with useful demographic and ratings information will give the company a strong relationship with the source of music, the medium they use to make money. References BBC News, (2010) ‘Spotify boss Daniel Ek sets out future plans’, [Online], Available: http://news. bbc. co. uk/2/hi/8478599. stm Porter M. (1998) ‘Competitive strategy: techniques for analyzing industries and competitors’, Free Press, ISBN 0684005778, 9780684005775. McCormick, A. (2009) ‘Spotify and Last. fm moot partnership’, Britannica article; Revolution (14605953) [Online], Available: http://www. britannica. com/bps/additionalcontent/18/38216709/Spotify-and-Lastfm-moot-partnership Ionescu D. , Nov 23, 2009, Spotify Lands App for Symbian Phones, [emailprotected], [Online], Available: http://www. pcworld. com/article/182833/spotify_lands_app_for_symbian_phones. html Robert Andrews, 2009, Apple Approves Spotify’s iPhone App, web article on Paid Content: UK, [Online], Available: http://paidcontent. co. uk/article/419-spotify-says-apple-still-testing-iphone-app-spotify-vanishes-from-app-s/ Emerald, Current CITE-ings from the popular and trade computing press, Library Hi Tech News, Volume 26, Issue 9, [Online], Available: http://www. emeraldinsight. com. ezproxy. cqu. edu. au/Insight/ViewContentServlet? contentType=NonArticleFilename=Published/NonArticle/Articles/23926iae. 001. html Spotify Archives (2010) ‘Spotify for iPhone v0. 4 now available’, [Online], Available: http://www. spotify. com/int/blog/archives/2010/03/31/iphone-v4/ Johan Nylander, Record labels part owner of Spotify, from The Swedish Wire, Published Friday, 07 August 2009, [Online], Available: http://www. swedishwire. com/business/680-record-labels-part-owner-of-spotify Spotify Forums, What is Spotify? Why choose Spotify? How much advertising? [Online], Available: http://www. spotify-forum. com/what_is_spotify. php

Friday, September 20, 2019

Review of Optimal PMU Placement Methods

Review of Optimal PMU Placement Methods Abstract-The Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) is very important tool for monitoring and control of the power system. PMUs give real time, synchronized measurements of voltages at the buses and also current phase values which are incident to those buses where these PMUs are located. It is unnecessary and impossible to place PMU at each bus to estimate the states because the PMUs and communication facilities are very costly. It is necessary to determine the minimum number of PMUs for entire observability of the power network. The optimal placement of PMUs (OPP) problem solved by various techniques such as mathematical programming, metaheuristic techniques. A literature review on these technologies to solve OPP problem is proposed in this paper. I. INTRODUCTION At present due to increased power demand, fast growth of generation, transmission, and development in power systems congested the existing networks and therefore stability margin of these networks are decreased. In this situation to make sure proper and stable operation of the power system, an accurate measurement and system states monitoring is required. This was normally done by Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system, where system states estimation depends on unsynchronized measurement[1]. These measurements have errors such as measurement and telemetry bias. To overcome these limitations in the SCADA, Wide Area Monitoring Protection and Control (WAMPAC) system is used[2]. This system consist Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) as fundamental components which give synchronized and real-time voltages and currents phasor measurement[3]. Global Positioning System Satellite (GPS) provides reference timing signals to achieve synchronization of sampling voltage and current w aveform with respect to this reference time. A PMU directly measures the voltage Phase of the bus where these PMUs are placed and also measure the current phases of a few or all the branches connected to that bus. In recent years to improve monitoring use of PMUs are rapidly increases, so it needs to place these PMUs on all of the buses for full observability of the network. It is also impossible to place these units on entire system buses because PMUs and communication services are very costly[4]. Thus determination of the optimal number of PMUs and its location for overall observability of the system is very important. A proper methodology is required to find the optimum number of the PMUs which will fully observe the power network. To solve the Optimal PMUs Placement (OPP) problem a number of methods have been employed[5]. These methods usually classified into conventional methods and advanced heuristic and modern metaheuristic methods[6] : Linear Programming, Nonlinear Programming, Dynamic Programming are the common optimization methodologies are proposed to solve this problem. Problems such as difficulties of obtaining local minima and handling constraints in conventional techniques are overcome by advanced heuristic and modern metaheuristic optimization methodology. These methodologies are Depth First Search, Minimum Spanning Tree, Simulated Annealing, Tabu Search, Genetic Algorithms, Differential Evaluation, Immune Algorithms, Partical Swarm Optimization or Ant Colony Optimization [7]. This paper reviews the research work and studies that have been done in the area of optimal placement of phas or measurement units (PMUs). Mainly the conventional and recent advanced heuristic and metaheuristic optimization techniques are presented in this paper to solve the typical optimal placement of PMUs problem. The formulation of this problem is described in Section II.The new methods to solve the OPP problem are discussed in Sections III and IV. Section V concludes this paper. II. OPTIMAL PMU PLACEMENT (OPP) PROBLEM FORMULATION PMU is an intelligent device which measures the phase value of voltage and current of bus which are connected to it. Figure 1 shows PMUs which purely isolated form a Wide Area Monitoring System (WAMS).GPS time stamped measurement signals are fed to a Phasor Data Concentrator (PDC) by using PMUs. The PDC collects and sorts the phasor measurements and signal processor converts data of PMUs into useful information which is visible on Human Machine Interface (HMI).The operator can easily access the critical information of the power system state. Some rules can be used for the placement of PMUs which are given in [8] like, assigning one voltage measurement at the bus where PMU is located, one branch current measurement, one voltage and current pseudo measurement. Figure 1.Layout of PMU along with GPS time stamped signals The PMUs can be placed at planned buses to completely observe the total network. These located PMUs are measuring the voltage phase value of that bus and current phase values of the lines which are connected to the same bus. The aim is to completely observe the network with an optimum number of PMUs. The problem for n-bus system is formulated and solved by Integer Programming method [6]as given below: Min Subject to f(x) Where x = binary decision variable vector, . The nonlinear constraint expressions are created considering the placement and types of available measurements. Assume the phasor value of voltage at the bus where PMU located and values of current phasors along the branches which connected to that bus will be easily accessible. The other adjacent bus voltages will also be accessible. Determine the solution vector which is a set of minimum and satisfy above equation. The constraint function can be defined with the help of Binary Connectivity Matrix A which gives the information about bus connectivity of power network. The elements of matrix A is defined as, = 0 otherwise. The constraint equations are considered for the three cases: (1) PMU measurements only, (2) PMU measurements and injections (i.e. zero injections) and (3) PMU measurements, injections, and flows. Different formulations of the PMU placement problem with additional constraints have been presented in the literature, Effects of Zero Injection Buses[9], Effect of conventional measurements[10], single or multiple PMU loss contingency[11], single branch outage[12], contingency of single line outage or single PMU loss[13], effect of PMU channel limit[14]. III. MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING METHODS Integer Programming (IP) is a numerical programming method it also known as mathematical programing. It solves an optimization problem which has integer design variables. According to reference [15], whether they are linear, nonlinear or quadratic, an integer programming is divided into Integer Linear Programming (ILP), Integer Nonlinear Programming (INLP) and Integer Quadratic Programming (IQP) respectively. This paper gives the implementation of Integer Linear Programming (ILP) for optimal PMU placement for full power system observability. Modeling of zero injection constraints in ILP frame work has given. A method has been proposed to the systems having zero injection busses in which we use binary connectivity matrix modification and the modified matrix can be used in Integer Linear programming (ILP) for optimal PMU placement. ILP approach has also been given for the systems considering single PMU outage. The results specify that: 1) optimal PMU placement for full power system observability can be computed effectively; 2) connectivity matrix modification based approach for systems having zero injection buses is computationally efficient and easy to execute; 3) number of PMUs has to increase for systems considering single PMU outage. The proposed algorithms have been tested for IEEE 9 bus, IEEE 14 bus, IEEE 24 bus test systems on MATLAB environment [16]. This paper presents a unified binary semidefinite programming (BSDP) model with binary decision variables, for optimal placement of phasor measurement units, considering the impact of pre-existing conventional and synchronized phasor measurements as well as the limited channel capacity of phasor measurement units. A linear objective function is minimized subject to linear matrix inequality observability constraints. The developed method is solved with an outer approximation scheme based on binary integer linear programming. The proposed method is illustrated using the IEEE 14-bus test system. Simulations are conducted on the IEEE 57-bus and 118-bus test systems to prove the validity of the proposed method [17]. For the observability of system, an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) method is used. It also reduces the number of PMUs and maximizes the measurement redundancy in the power system buses. This paper utilizes two approaches, Newton Raphson method and Weight Least Squares (WLS) state estimation method for estimating voltage magnitude and phase angles at each bus. The true value obtained from NR method is compared with the estimated values obtained from WLS with and without the inclusion of PMU measurements. The employed techniques are tested on IEEE- 14 and 30 bus system for determining the optimal points of placement of PMUs to measure the accurate voltage magnitude and phase angle at each bus [18]. We define the desired solution as the PMU placement that also achieves best overall state estimation performance. Accordingly, we derive the state estimator of all buses in a three-phase network and propose a) greedy algorithm and b) integer programming optimization method to determine the optimal solution. The comparative performance of these two methods is presented via evaluation of transmission and distribution test networks [19]. This paper aims to optimize the PMU (Phasor Measurement Unit) placement for a full observation of the power network and the minimum number of PMUs. In this paper competition of Mixed Integer Non-Linear Programming and heuristically algorithms such as Bacterial Foraging Algorithm was presented. The results are demonstrated with PMU placement optimization simulation and a redundancy measurement analysis by using IEEE14-bus and Tehran Regional electric company 41-bus networks [20]. This paper presents a method for the use of synchronized measurements for complete observability of a power system. The placement of phasor measurement units (PMUs), utilizing time-synchronized measurements of voltage and current phasors, is studied in this paper. An integer quadratic programming approach is used to minimize the total number of PMUs required, and to maximize the measurement redundancy at the power system buses. Existing conventional measurements can also be accommodated in the proposed PMU placement method. Complete observability of the system is ensured under normal operating conditions as well as under the outage of a single transmission line or a single PMU. Simulation results on the IEEE 14-bus, 30-bus, 57-bus, and 118-bus test systems as well as on a 298-bus test system are presented in this paper [21]. B. Exhaustive Search Exhaustive search is a general optimization technique that systematically enumerates all possible candidates for the solution and selects the candidate that satisà ¯Ã‚ ¬Ã‚ es the constraints at the optimum value of the objective function. Its main advantage is that it guarantees the à ¯Ã‚ ¬Ã‚ nding of the global optimum. However, it is not suitable for large-scale systems with huge search space. Observability of bulk power transmission network by means of a minimum number of phasor measurement units (PMUs), with the aid of the network topology, is a great challenge. This paper presents a novel equivalent integer linear programming method (EILPM) for the exhaustive search-based PMU placement. The state estimation implemented based on such a placement is completely linear, thereby eliminating drawbacks of the conventional SCADA-based state estimation. Additional constraints for observability preservation following single PMU or line outages can easily be implemented in the proposed EILPM. Furthermore, the limitation of communication channels is dealt with by translation of nonlinear terms into linear ones. Optimal PMU placement is carried out on the IEEE 118-bus test system in different scenarios. The comparison between obtained results of EILPM and those of other methods reveals optimality of the solutions. Moreover, the proposed method is successfully applied on the Iranian National Grid, which demonstrates it can effectively be employed for practical power networks [22]. This paper gives Exhaustive Search (ES) algorithms for optimal PMU placement for full power system observability. The results specify that: 1) optimal PMU placement for full power system observability can be computed effectively; 2) connectivity matrix modification based approach for systems having zero injection buses is computationally efficient and easy to execute; 3) number of PMUs has to increase for systems considering single PMU outage. The proposed algorithms have been tested for IEEE 9 bus, IEEE 14 bus, IEEE 24 bus test systems onMATLAB environment [16]. This paper presents a unified binary semidefinite programming (BSDP) model with binary decision variables, for optimal placement of phasor measurement units, considering the impact of pre-existing conventional and synchronized phasor measurements as well as the limited channel capacity of phasor measurement units. A linear objective function is minimized subject to linear matrix inequality observability constraints. The developed method is solved with an outer approximation scheme based on binary integer linear programming. The proposed method is illustrated using the IEEE 14-bus test system. Simulations are conducted on the IEEE 57-bus and 118-bus test systems to prove the validity of the proposed method [17]. IV. HEURISTIC ALGORITHMS A. Genetic Algorithm (GA) Genetic algorithm (GA) is adaptive heuristic search algorithm that repeats the process of natural evolution. This process is used to generate solutions to optimization and also search problem, The utilization of Genetic Algorithms (GA) in tackling engineering problems has been a major issue arousing the curiosity of researchers and practitioners in the area of systems and engineering research, operations research and management sciences in the past decades are described in [23]. This paper models genetic algorithm into the Map Reduce model, so the MapReduce genetic algorithm (MRGA) possesses some parallel computing performance, such as scalability, better fitness convergence and so on. MRGA is implemented on computing clusters of Hadoop to search the optimal configuration of PMU. Meanwhile, this feasibility and the computing performance of MRGA is verified by the IEEE14-node system, IEEE118-node system, and Wp2383-node system. This method has significant advantages in the installed PMU number, the diversity of solution, the astringency and the practicability [24]. B. Tabu Search (TS) This paper introduces a recursive Tabu search (RTS) method to solve the OPP problem. More specifically, the traditional Tabu search (TS) metaheuristic algorithm is executed multiple times, while in the initialisation of each TS the best solution found from all previous executions is used. The proposed RTS is found to be the best among three alternative TS initialisation schemes, in regard to the impact on the success rate of the algorithm. A numerical method is proposed for checking network observability, unlike most existing metaheuristic OPP methods, which are based on topological observability methods. The proposed RTS method is tested on the IEEE 14, 30, 57 and 118-bus test systems, on the New England 39-bus test system and on the 2383-bus power system. The obtained results are compared with other reported PMU placement methods. The simulation results show that the proposed RTS method finds the minimum number of PMUs, unlike earlier methods which may find either the same or even higher number of PMUs [25]. The contribution of this paper is as follows: at first, analyze the measurement placement design of the electric power system using the software PSAT. Second, the heuristic approach, Tabu search (TS), based on topological analysis is proposed to solve the problem. The heuristic algorithm uses augmented incidence matrix to focus on the power system state estimator model then an Optimal PMU Placement (OPP) problem is formulated for the configuration with the minimum number of measurements that satisfies the observability constraints. Tests on the IEEE 14-Bus system and the TN are used to demonstrate the validity, flexibility, and efficiency of the proposed approach [26]. C. Simulated Annealing (SA) This paper proposes a two-step optimization approach for optimal placement of phasor measurement unit (PMU) to obtain complete observability of power system in the case of preinstalled PMUs. The complete observability of the system in the case of normal operation and pre-installed PMUs is formulated and then, different contingency conditions in the system are considered, i.e. single line outage and single bus outage. At the first step of the proposed two-step optimization approach, a minimization model is applied to convex programing (cvx) to achieve the minimum number of PMUs which guarantees the complete observability of the system. At the second step, simulated annealing (SA) is applied to maximize the measurement redundancy. Additionally, to further reduce the number of required PMUs the zero-injection bus effect is considered. At last, the proposed approach is tested on several IEEE standard systems, i.e. IEEE 14-bus, 30-bus, 39-bus, IEEE 16-machine 68-bus and 118-bus, to demons trate the effectiveness of the proposed approach [13]. This paper presents a novel Multi-Stage Simulated Annealing algorithm for the joint placement of PMUs along with the existing conventional measurement units in the power grid network. The proposed multi-stage optimization method enables Simulated Annealing to reach the optimal point faster than conventional Simulated Annealing methods. The controlled uphill movements during various stages facilitate to obtain best possible solution [27]. D. Differential Evolution (DE) In this paper, differential evolution (DE) algorithm has been proposed to solve an optimal joint placement problem of phasor measurement units (PMUs) and conventional measurements which enable to determine the state variables of the power system. The problem is to minimize the number of PMUs required for network observability and to maximize the PMU measurements redundancy. This is achieved by selecting a solution with maximum System Observability Redundancy Index (SORI) if multiple optimal solutions exist. The resulting nonlinear integer programming (NLIP) problem is solved by the proposed DE method for the optimal solution by considering different power system problems viz. a 7-bus test and IEEE 14-bus systems with and without the consideration of zero injection buses. Results thus obtained have also been validated with existing solution techniques [28]. E. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) An exponential binary particle swarm optimization (EBPSO) algorithm is proposed to solve the OPP problem for a completely observable network. Various practical contingencies such as zero injection, single PMU outage are considered in the proposed algorithm along with the normal operating condition. Multiple solutions for OPP problem can improve the feasibility of the placement methodology in a practical environment. Even though any bus is selected as candidate location but it may not be possible to install a PMU on that bus due to the lack of necessary infrastructure. On the contrary, few buses in practical systems which require close and precise monitoring should be directly observed by PMU. Placing some extra PMUs can solve this problem but economically it is not preferable. Hence, having alternative solutions can be very effective. To ensure multiple solutions and improve the performances, an adaptive exponentially decaying inertia weight coefficient is developed. A sigmoid functi on is introduced to update the position of the particles in binary form. Both inter connected (IEEE 14-bus and 30-bus) and radial (IEEE 39-bus) system are tested to check the feasibility and effectiveness of the algorithm [29]. This paper proposes a Particle Swarm Optimization based method to find the optimal PMU locations in a given grid topology. This method was tested successfully with the IEEE 14-bus, 30-bus, and 68-bus systems as well as with a large portion of the Brazilian power system [30]. This paper presents an Improved PSO Algorithm (IPSO) to solve the problem of optimal Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) placement. The aim of Optimal PMU Placement problem is to guarantee both full observabilities of the power grid and minimal number of PMU. In the Improved PSO Algorithm, the point of genetic algorithm and the simulated annealing process is involved into basic particle swarm optimization. To deal with the constraints, an improved Algorithm is developed and it can avoid costing much time and trapping local optimal solution. IEEE systems are tested to show the feasibility and effectiveness of the algorithm [31]. F. Immune Algorithm (IA) G. Iterated Local Search (ILS) The objective of the paper is to minimise the size of the PMU configuration while allowing full observability of the network. The method proposed initially suggests a PMU distribution which makes the network observable. The Iterated Local Search (ILS) metaheuristic is then used to minimise the size of the PMU configuration needed to observe the network. The algorithm is tested on IEEE test networks with 14, 57 and 118 nodes and compared to the results obtained in previous publications [32]. H. Spanning Tree Search The objective is to use the spanning tree approach and tree search technique for optimal placement of multichannel and minimum channel synchronized phasor measurement units (PMUs) in order to have full observability of Power System. The novel concept of depth of observability is used and its impact on the number of PMU placements is explained. The spanning tree approach is used for the power system graphs and a tree search technique is used for finding the optimal location of PMUs. This is tested on IEEE-14 and IEEE-30 bus system. The same technique is modified to optimally place minimum channel PMUs on the same IEEE-14 and IEEE-30 bus systems. Matlab tool has been used for fulfilling the objective [33]. I. Greedy Algorithm Paper [34] propose a greedy PMU placement algorithm and show that it achieves an approximation ratio of (1-1/e) for any PMU placement budget. We further show that the performance is the best that one can achieve, in the sense that it is NP-hard to achieve any approximation ratio beyond (1-1/e). Such performance guarantee makes the greedy algorithm very attractive in the practical scenario of multi-stage installations for utilities with limited budgets. Finally, simulation results demonstrate the near-optimal performance of the proposed PMU placement algorithm. This paper studies the placement problem of PMUs in distribution system considering the system reconfiguration. System reconfiguration is achieved using the ant colony optimization method to solve the minimum power losses problem. A Greedy algorithm is used as an optimization tool to determine the minimal number of PMUs and their locations. The 33-bus distribution system is studied for optimal installation of PMUs with different distribution network topologies [35]. J. Recursive Security Algorithm The recursive security algorithm is a spanning tree search of multiple solutions, with a different starting point. Recursive spanning tree algorithm of PSAT is applied to find out the minimal placement locations for observability of all buses. The Thevenins equivalent parameters have been obtained from the measured and estimated voltages at the load buses and impedance matrix Zbus. The parameters obtained are used to find the voltage stability boundary. Results on the IEEE-14 bus system and IEEE-30 bus system are presented to illustrate the proposed approach [36]. K. Teaching-Learning-Based optimization Algorithm In this paper, Teaching-Learning-Based optimization Algorithm (TLBO) is presented for solving the problem of placement of PMU optimally in a power system network for complete observability. The TLBO algorithm enables optimal PMU placement by zero injection measurements and also by not including zero injection measurements. The algorithm has been tested on standard test systems such as IEEE 14-bus, IEEE 30-bus, IEEE 57-bus and the results are contrasted with other optimization algorithms like Genetic Algorithm and Binary PSO [37]. L. Improved binary particle swarm This paper presents the improved binary particle swarm (IBPSO) method that converges faster and also manage to maximize the measurement redundancy compared to the existing BPSO method. This method is applied to IEEE-30 bus system for the case of considering zero-injection bus and its effectiveness is verified by the simulation results done by using MATLAB software [38]. M. Best first search (BFS) algorithm This paper utilizes best first search (BFS) algorithm to determine the optimal placement of PMUs for complete observability of a power system under normal operating conditions. The additional redundancy offered by this method has been removed by applying a pruning technique to further minimize the number of PMUs determined by BFS algorithm. The proposed method has been used to determine the optimal PMU placement solutions for the standard IEEE 14-bus system, IEEE 30-bus system and a practical 246-bus Indian system. The results obtained with the proposed method have been compared with the existing methods such as integer linear programming. It has been found that the proposed method is able to achieve the complete system observability with the minimum number of PMUs required [39]. N. Mixed heuristic/matheuristic method This paper presents a new method for the optimal allocation of PMUs in substations with a focus on the two-level state estimation process that was recently proposed in the specialized literature. A mixed heuristic/matheuristic method is proposed to determine the number and location of those units in such a way to provide robust observability characteristics. Its reliable, robust, and precise results are shown for small and large substation layouts [40]. O. Measurement sensitivity analysis This article presents a novel algorithm to find optimal sets of Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) in power systems using measurement sensitivity analysis aiming for fault detection without multi-estimation. The algorithm generalizes the impedance method in fault detection through optimizing PMU utilization in order to detect a fault with desired precision in interconnected power systems. By deriving bus voltage and currents sensitivity indices to the fault location and impedance, possible deviations of the estimated fault location and/or impedance due to measurement noise, accuracy, precision limits, or simply the inability of a measurement point to sense a fault is evaluated. Therefore, the algorithm can solve Optimal PMU Placement (OPP) for desired fault detection precision based on these indices for various points of measurement observing faults in the system. Finally, avoiding multi-estimation guarantees the unique mapping between measurements of the selected PMU sets and faults th roughout the system. The proposed algorithm is performed on the IEEE 7-bus and 14-bus benchmark systems and the fault location capability is evaluated through neural networks [41]. P. Modified binary cuckoo optimization algorithm In this study, a new evolutionary algorithm named as modified binary cuckoo optimization algorithm (MBCOA) is presented to solve optimal PMU placement (OPP) problem. The proposed method is classified as topological approaches. The basis of the method is in the lifestyle of the brood parasite bird named cuckoo that immigrates to the best habitat to obtain sufficient food and suitable nests for egg laying. The proposed binary structure is not introduced and applied to OPP problem up to now. OPP is tested on different networks consist of IEEE 14, 30, 57 and 118 bus test systems during normal operation and single event contingencies, i.e. single PMU failure and single line outage. The proposed MBCOA is also applied to 2383 and 2746 bus test systems to show its ability to handle large scale power networks. It is shown that MBCOA can obtain the best result from the search region with a minimum number of iterations [42]. References: [1]M. A. Rahman, A. H. M. Jakaria, and E. Al-shaer, Formal Analysis for Dependable Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition in Smart Grids, in 2016 46th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN), 2016, pp. 263-274. [2]Jiaping Liao and Cheng He, Wide-area monitoring protection and control of future power system networks, in 2014 IEEE Workshop on Advanced Research and Technology in Industry Applications (WARTIA), 2014, pp. 903-905. [3]M. Wache, Application of phasor measurement units in distribution networks, in 22nd International Conference and Exhibition on Electricity Distribution (CIRED 2013), 2013, pp. 0498-0498. [4]A. Pal, A. K. S. Vullikanti, and S. S. Ravi, A PMU Placement Scheme Considering Realistic Costs and Modern Trends in Relaying, IEEE Trans. Power Syst., pp. 1-1, 2016. [5]J. Paudel, Xufeng Xu, and E. B. Makram, PMU deployment approach for maximum observability considering its potential loss, in 2016 IEEE/PES Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exposition (TD), 2016, pp. 1-5. [6]K. K. More and H. T. Jadhav, A literature review on optimal placement of phasor measurement units, 2013 Int. Conf. Power, Energy Control, pp. 220-224, Feb. 2013. [7]N. M. Manousakis, G. N. Korres, and P. S. Georgilakis, Optimal placement of phasor measurement units: A literature review, in 2011 16th International Conference on Intelligent System Applications to Power Systems, 2011, pp. 1-6. [8]V. V. R. Raju and S. V. J. Kumar, An optimal PMU placement method for power system observability, in 2016 IEEE Power and Energy Conference at Illinois (PECI), 2016, pp. 1-5. [9]K. Gharani Khajeh, E. Bashar, A. Mahboub Rad, and G. B. Gharehpetian, Integ

Thursday, September 19, 2019

The Painting Essay -- Observation Essay

The Painting "A picture can paint a thousand words." I found the one picture in my mind that does paint a thousand words and more. It was a couple of weeks ago when I saw this picture in the writing center; the writing center is part of State College. The beautiful colors caught my eye. I was so enchanted by the painting, I lost the group I was with. When I heard about the observation essay, where we have to write about a person or thing in the city that catches your eye. I knew right away that I wanted to write about the painting. I don’t know why, but I felt that the painting was describing the way I felt at that moment. When I first looked at the picture, it looked like there were only two colors green and blue. When I got closer to the picture I noticed there were many other colors used. I loved the way the colors were mixed into each other where you have to really look at the picture to see the colors. The other colors, other then green and blue, were pink, white, orange, red, and yellow. There were also different shades of green and blue. There was only one solid color in the picture; it was black. The painting was of a river flowing from a lake, surrounded by very tall grass. On each side of the river there are people standing. What was interesting is they were painted all black. They looked like shaded figures. They were all shaped differently but you can tell they were all men. On the top left side of the river there were five men. On the right bottom side of the river there were four men. On each side it looked as though the men were trying to cross over to the other side. They looked tired and scared. It looked as though they were hiding, and getting across the river was the only way to get to that safe haven. ... ...at I get from the painting is that the men are getting a mirror image of them self’s, that makes them see what they are afraid of. In turn when I see the painting it allows me to see my fears. I felt that my fears changed with in two days of being in the program. I loved meeting new people and having new teachers. To me the painting is a way of showing you what everyone else is seeing. That the painter had the men looking right at each other so they can see themselves running away. In turn I got to see myself doing the same thing and was able to change because of it. When other people look at the painting they probably see something else. That is why I choose to do the painting, it gives you the choice too interpret it any way you see fit. Or it can just be a beautiful painting to look at, but the painting was so much more to me. It painted a thousand words for me. The Painting Essay -- Observation Essay The Painting "A picture can paint a thousand words." I found the one picture in my mind that does paint a thousand words and more. It was a couple of weeks ago when I saw this picture in the writing center; the writing center is part of State College. The beautiful colors caught my eye. I was so enchanted by the painting, I lost the group I was with. When I heard about the observation essay, where we have to write about a person or thing in the city that catches your eye. I knew right away that I wanted to write about the painting. I don’t know why, but I felt that the painting was describing the way I felt at that moment. When I first looked at the picture, it looked like there were only two colors green and blue. When I got closer to the picture I noticed there were many other colors used. I loved the way the colors were mixed into each other where you have to really look at the picture to see the colors. The other colors, other then green and blue, were pink, white, orange, red, and yellow. There were also different shades of green and blue. There was only one solid color in the picture; it was black. The painting was of a river flowing from a lake, surrounded by very tall grass. On each side of the river there are people standing. What was interesting is they were painted all black. They looked like shaded figures. They were all shaped differently but you can tell they were all men. On the top left side of the river there were five men. On the right bottom side of the river there were four men. On each side it looked as though the men were trying to cross over to the other side. They looked tired and scared. It looked as though they were hiding, and getting across the river was the only way to get to that safe haven. ... ...at I get from the painting is that the men are getting a mirror image of them self’s, that makes them see what they are afraid of. In turn when I see the painting it allows me to see my fears. I felt that my fears changed with in two days of being in the program. I loved meeting new people and having new teachers. To me the painting is a way of showing you what everyone else is seeing. That the painter had the men looking right at each other so they can see themselves running away. In turn I got to see myself doing the same thing and was able to change because of it. When other people look at the painting they probably see something else. That is why I choose to do the painting, it gives you the choice too interpret it any way you see fit. Or it can just be a beautiful painting to look at, but the painting was so much more to me. It painted a thousand words for me.

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Everything Must Change :: essays research papers fc

Stephen Crane was born on November 1, 1871. He was born into the Central Methodist Church in Newark. Crane was the fourteenth child of Mary Helen Peck and Reverend Dr. Jonathan Townley Crane Crane attended school in Ashbury Park, New Jersey, where one of his brothers operated a news agency. Crane attempted to spend his college years at Lafayette College. However, he flunked out and transferred to Syracuse University. There, he wrote on of his most prominent stories, "Maggie: A Girl Of the Streets" in 1891. Four years later, he finished writing his most well-known piece of work, The Red Badge of Courage. He then traveled to Europe to report the Greco-Turkish War for the New York Journal. Travel sent him spiraling into debt. While in Badenweiler, Germany, Crane came down with tuberculosis compounded with a recurring malaria fever he caught from previous travels. Crane died on June 5, 1900. His bodied lied in a horse stall in London before it was returned to New York for services. Today, many recognize Crane as one of the greatest writers in American history In the story "The Bride Comes To Yellow Sky", the Crane places the reader on a train with Jack Potter and his new bride. The train ride back from San Antonio was a long and droning one. While Jack returns home, a group of men have a drink at the local Gentleman's Saloon. The men either chat with the "all-knowing" bartender, or keep quiet. Suddenly, a man runs in to the bar and announces that Scratchy Wilson is drunk again. The Barkeeper locks the doors and the men inside start to worry. They worry because Jack, the town marshal, lacks a presence. As the Town Marshal, everyone knows Jack as the "guy that takes care of Scratchy Wilson". So, Scratchy starts walking around the streets of Yellow Sky, drunk, and carrying a pistol. He then pays a little visit to Jack's house and tries to start a fight. However, when Scratchy discovers that Jack is not home, he turns and starts to walk away. As he walks, he stumbles into Jack and his wife. He then gets upse t and tells Jack to try to shoot him. Jack, not carrying a weapon, informs Scratchy of his marriage and that he does not want to fight him. Scratchy, in disbelief, attempts to provoke him again. Jack again informs him that he is a newlywed and he does not have a gun.

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Joseph L. Badaracco Jr.s Defining Moments: When Managers Must Choose B

Overview of main goals of the book Joseph L. Badaracco, Jr.’s book, â€Å"Defining Moments†, focuses on the ethical decision making process of â€Å"right versus right† from a management standing point. In reality, ethical decision making has two types of conflicts:†right versus wrong† and â€Å"right versus right†. â€Å"Right versus right† decisions are considered as the â€Å"grey† areas of ethical decision making. Badaracco saw the need to focus on it as â€Å"right versus right† decisions play a large role in ethical decision making for managers in real –life. To do so, he written â€Å"Defining Moments† as a way of showing the significance of â€Å"right versus right† decisions, their effect on decision making, and methods on resolve the dilemma posed by â€Å"right versus right†. Badaracco mention that â€Å"right versus right problems typically involve choices between two or more courses of action, each of which is a comp licated bundle of ethical responsibilities, personal commitments, moral hazards, and practical pressures and constraints† (Badaracco, 6). It is considered a distressful and difficult moment for managers as they have to juggle between their personal values and the expectations of others. It is also what Badaracco interprets as â€Å"defining moments†. Badaracco’s book follows the accounts of Steve Lewis, Peter Adario, and Edouard Sakiz, three different managers, as they encountered their â€Å"right versus right† dilemmas. He uses those scenarios as examples to guide the process of resolving right versus right dilemmas. With the insights and knowledge gained from moral philosophers, Badaracco constructed a realistic framework focusing on the method of knowing one’s own values and questioning how big of a role the values play in one’s life as the fundamental ste... ...hem get bearings, stay their courses, and bind their daily work to larger ends and purposes"(Badaracco, 130). I believe that the concept has practical relevance personally and professionally. The imagined best life" concept basically incorporates the "value of looking up from the urgent tasks of the moment and placing them in the larger context of the life" (Badaracco, 129) with considering what is at stake. It allows us to look at the goal we set and think of the things that would lead us there. By doing so, we could understand the values and stakes that we needed to be achieved. It is significant for people as they sometimes get bogged down by what is occurring at the present and neglecting the impact it has in the future. Works Cited Badaracco, J. . Defining moments, when managers must choose between right and right. Harvard Business Press, print.

Monday, September 16, 2019

Managing Change in a workplace

IntroductionManaging change in a workplace is usually instigated by any business organization so as to enhance its production purposes as well as service delivery. Therefore, change by the management necessitates a systematic planning and receptive implementation and consultation need to be carried out comprising the persons who are going to be involved by such anticipated changes. However, it should be noted change should not be forced since it may not bring the desired results to the organization.It is therefore important to initiate change measures which have to be realistic, achievable and quantifiable; such factors are significant particularly when bearing in mind individual change in management practices. Research indicates that individuals alter their ways particularly when they are persuaded to do so; therefore, for effective change to be achieved charismatic leaders should be encouraged to take up the roles of change agents in an organization. (Barbara and Jocelyne, 2006)Dis cussionFirms operate in highly uncertain environment and therefore change is inevitable in order to remain focus and prosper in there business undertakings. In the current business environment it has turn out to be more and more essential for different industries to embrace the concept of change and in particular its technology, innovation and marketing strategies so as   to sustain competitive advantage in order to prosper.Rivalry and demand in high quality goods and services has resulted to business environments to be incredibly dynamic in that it necessitates active businesses and systems to present successful reactions to such uncertain business environments by incorporating changes in such organizations in order to cope with such uncertain environments.Change is any business organization is something definite so that the industry in question can cope with new technologies and challenges that crop up with time. For instance, over the past International Business machines (IBM) was faced with high rivalry from its competitors which resulted to decrease of its market shares and thus low profitability margins.Despite the fact that, change concept is a risky business venture for any industry, research reveals that approximately 70% of new changes carried out by different industries succeed and it has proved to be vital to the success of such industries over the long run. IBM had to undergo organization changes despite the fact that it is a risky venture. IBM changed it managerial operations because of the exterior demands and forces; IBM therefore had to appraise its strategic choices so as to generate new and viable objectives that could ultimately increase the industry’s productivity levels. (Palmer and Akin, 2006)To carry out such new changes, IBM management selected the â€Å"Director image† of change to guide the firm in implementing such changes. The director was selected because the image allows the managers to go through the projected al terations by following required procedures through the cycles of suggested changes jointly with the human resources that are concerned for instance analysis of such changes, unfreezing and executing the changes.Furthermore such image of change offers the managers high control in planning the procedure of changes and also on implementing them. This ensures that the managers are in responsible of the activities and are able to ensure that the process is well followed and maintained. This ensures that the proposed changes are effectively implemented. The other advantage of this image of change is that it views results from the proposed changes as certainly achievable and thus does not leave room for doubts.In order to remain international and aggressive on the marketplace IBM had to put into practice some business improvement changes in the industry.   IBM therefore considered quality when it embarked on making changes in the business development section. IBM in the process identifie d certain new business improvement objective and then had to create a business strategy that incorporated the following approaches of development; sales improvement procedures, new product development processes, exploring new markets and structural changes.IBM also initiated improvement changes such as utilization of the concepts of e-commerce, building new and strong strategic alliances and fostered the expansion of distributions channels as well as instigating worldwide development business operations. Another aspect that IBM concentrated on in the past is that of acquiring both small and medium sized companies. IBM implemented all such internal changes in order to improve its market share as well as become a market leader in its industry and thus increase its profitability through increment in sales. (Dyer, 1984)Therefore, the business improvement changes executed by IBM Company to an enhancement in proceeds collections as its sales augmented because of improved market share. IBM Company by introducing such changes was also able to better the quality of its products to global standards as well as producing new products that met the growing needs of consumers.Procter and Gamble is another company that has embraced the concept of change and it is typical pharmaceutical business company which has profound know-how, expertise and established competences in the pharmaceutical industry. The company has effectively produced and sold a broad array of quality and new products e.g. Ziac, Enablex, Macrodantin and Asacol among other prescription products for the last twenty five years in the market.The company has consolidated or strengthen its market by gaining advantage over it’s main rivals in the market through meeting the needs of its customers, offering quality prescription products, employing competent employees, excellent management practices and through employing viable marketing strategies for example diversification thus expanding its market share.Pro cter and Gamble management have formulated business strategies that have in the process aided the company in increasing its sales. For example, the company has opted to market its products in particular segments in which it perceives to have competitive edge among its rivals rather than competing across the entire pharmaceutical market which was there initial strategy. This strategy has been enhanced by vigorous advertising campaigns by the company and the management have been able to monitor its products in the market thus they have concentrated more on those products which the customers buy frequently. (Clark and McKenny, 1995)Another change of business strategy that the company has utilized is that of utilizing the concept of technological changes brought about as a result of globalization. Since globalization has become a contemporary form of carrying out business, the concept of e-commerce has enabled the company market its products in its various markets without getting involv ed in tedious activities like traveling.For example through the internet, the company has been able to track and monitor the performance of its products in various countries and thus enabling them to make viable decisions on which markets to be done away with and which to retain. The company is also accredited with using advance marketing techniques for example over-the-counter method enhanced by the concept of internet marketing.Procter and Gamble Company have also focused on pricing strategies that have attracted many consumers of its products unlike in the past they used to focus only on quality of the products. In essence, the company’s change is that of trying to be a low cost producer in the pharmaceutical industry. Human resource being the most important asset in any organization, the employees of Procter and Gamble have also experienced new changes for instance the company has built a new motivation systemThe company has focused too on improving the welfare of its emp loyees in order to achieve good results from them. The company is also accredited with good and effective forecasting techniques for example they have utilized time series technique of extrapolating the future sales of the company’s products. Procter and Gamble too have transformed its revenues to free cash stream in front of intentions and thus they have outpaced its rivals in the market. (Maund, 2001)Despite the intense market rivalry, Procter and Gamble as a result of such changes in its operations it have diversified its products to many nations globally and in the process the management of the company has developed the best contemporary association accredited with unsurpassed competence in logical or scientific expansion and selling of its products. We can therefore deduce that the company has been successful and will continue to strive in the long-term by maintaining its overall growth regardless of the increasing outlay and the ever challenging competitive setting in t he pharmaceutical industry because of the changes they have effected. (Clark and McKenny, 1995)ConclusionHuman resource management plays a big part in achieving organizational change in order to guarantee effectiveness and efficiency in production purposes. Theoretical approaches should be applied in organizational learning in order to provide potential managers with adequate knowledge and skills on managing change. Organizational change has to be incorporated in all organizations and such changes can either be planned or unplanned depending on the state of affairs facing the organization.In this respect therefore, there is a greater requirement for this concept of organizational change because it forms the basis of success if it is put into practice well in any organization. This can be done by external or the internal change agents who are modernization agencies. These change agents have got various roles and challenges in the initiation of change in organizations. (Murray and Sch oonover, 1988)There are psychological and social psychological factors of individuals within the organization which affect individual responses to organizational change. All these have to be analyzed and managed in case they are affecting the change negatively. When they are affecting positively then they have to be enhanced. There are group and inter-group processes that are carried out in organizational change. All these issues if implemented excellently will result to the accomplishment of goals in organizations’ day to day operations. For any change to be successful the parties involved have to liaise together in order to form the whole part of anticipated changes. Therefore, change processes should be steady and ought to be sustained by facts, and statistics to support the desired change. (Timothy, 1996)ReferenceBarbara, S and Jocelyne, F. (2006): Organizational Change. 3rd Edition; Prentice HallClark, T. and McKenny, J. (1995):   Procter and Gamble- Improving consumer value through process redesign, Harvard Business School, Boston.Dyer, W, (1984): Strategies for Managing Change. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison Wesley Publishing Company, IncMaund, L. (2001): An Introduction to Human Resource Management: Theory and Practice: Macmillan, PalgraveMurray, D. and Schoonover, S. (1988): Changing Ways: A Practical Tool For Implementing Change Within Organizations. New York, New York: AMACOM, A Division of American Management Association.Timothy, G. (1996): The Human Side of Change. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers.Palmer, I. and Akin, G. (2006): Managing organizational change; a multiple perspectives approach, McGraw- Hill Irwin