Big Cities or Small Towns Essay Example for Free

Big Cities or Small Towns Essay People try to live in cities because all necessary objects are situated nearly. In big cities you can find museums, theaters, clubs, cinemas, big shops and hospitals, comfortable modern flats. In big cities you can find all kinds of entertainment. Many people like to spend their free time there because it helps them to relax and bring them a lot of pleasure. It is really comfortable that everything you need is situated near you. One of the most important comforts of big cites is that you can quickly get everywhere by underground, bus, trolleybus. Also in big cities there is electricity so you can use electrical devices such as TV sets, computers, microwave oven and so on. One more thing, without our life is impossible is the telephone and Internet. The communication plays a big role in our life and we got used to it. Without it we feel uncomfortable and lonely. Yes, it is really comfortable, but nowadays in big cities there are a many cars and factories. Big cites suffer of polluted air. The streets became noisy. What about living in the small city. First of all, you are closer to nature and can enjoy more peace and quiet life. Life in the small city is slower and people are more open and friendly. The advantage is that there is less traffic, and it is safer place for children. There are several disadvantages of living in a small town. First of all, there are less job opportunities for people in small towns. Many people in small towns move to large cities and look for jobs. There are not many places such as restaurants and museums, there are only a few shops and markets in small towns. So, people dont have wide choice when they want to buy new things. Also it is hard to keep your personal life private in small towns. Everyone wants to know about you and your family.

Wedding planning in China

Wedding planning in China CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background Wedding is once-a-life event in peoples life. For most of families, they are willing to spend a considerable amount of money to ensure the wedding is organized as perfect as possible. According to Howard (2006), wedding today is a $70 billion business in U.S., and the average cost of wedding is $26,000 per couples. As a spinoff the larger discipline of event management, the business of wedding planning will provide business to a broad array of supporting industries, such as hotels, retails, and catering service. Comparing with the other personal events, such as birthday, anniversaries, wedding is more complicated, because it involves friends and families and a range of related service activities covering from catering to entertainments (Shone Parry, 2004). In order to make sure everything goes smoothly in the wedding day, most of the prospective couples would like to plan the wedding in sometimes year in advance. Both brides and grooms put much effort into the wedding preparation including the venue selection, honeymoon booking and dress design etc. However, not all of them have enough time and energy and knowledge in wedding planning to arrange everything themselves. They need someone to assist them in wedding planning, budget preparation, planning detail checklists, venue arrangement as well as onsite supervision and coordination on the wedding day. Wedding planners, the professional dealing with all the details of wedding, provide a one-stop service to potential couples by charging some considerable consultant fee (Wikipedia org, 2009). The role of the wedding planners is to save time, look after details, make couples dream come true, stay on the budget and save money. Wedding planners have become one of the outsourced labours in modern society (Blakely, 2007). With the rapid development of the society in the last decade, more and more couples prefer to go to college and start their own careers after graduation. Marriage is happening later in brides and grooms life (Mayling, 2002). This means couples have more disposable income to afford the wedding expenses; and they are more likely to look for some special unique wedding styles, such as theme wedding, green wedding etc., which probably involves different elements, such as ethic, religious custom, family tradition, class identity, regional practice and individual tastes and preference (Howard, 2006). As a result, wedding planners, who are providing professional advices and assistance to the couples from the moment of distributing the invitations, arranging the style of cake ceremony, table setting, and setting for banquet, are necessarily needed and developed dramatically (Markby, 2006). 1.2 Wedding in China In traditional Chinese culture, marriage was creating alliances between families. Therefore, it was strictly arranged by parents or elder people in families. Wedding should be planned strictly according to the customs. For example, people should choose a good year, a good month, a good day as well as a good time for wedding ceremony; and use red in the declaration for everything with the purpose of auspicious. Wedding is also one of the ways for Chinese families to present their social classes therefore the families are willing to spend a large mount of money on wedding, and much of which were supported by parents or relatives. Because of the reform and opening-up policy in the late 1970s, nowadays, the living standards in China have been dramatically increased. According to the China Statistic Yearbook 2008 (2009), the GDP per capita in Mainland China is increasing steadily and has reached 18,934 RMB in 2007. At the mean time, the social culture is becoming diversified. More and more Chinese people, especially the younger generation who have better education, began to accept the western culture. Most of the prospective couples would like to experience different types of weddings that can make their special day more measurable. For example, some people choose white wedding instead of traditional Chinese red wedding; some may prefer destination wedding instead of having wedding at home, which may require more time and professional planning and organizing throughout the wedding preparation. Therefore, wedding planners, as a new business in China, has developed rapidly during the last decade. According to the ministry of commerce of the PRC (2008), wedding service today has become a big business in China covering about 76 industries, such as matchmaking business, wedding planning as well as banquets, tourism industries etc. where the photographer has the highest profit that is above 30% while the wedding planner is 15%. The average expenditure for more than 3.7 million new Chinese couples in 2006 was about 126,600 RMB. Based on the statistics of Ministry of Civil Affairs of the PRC (2009), about 11 million couples got married in 2008 with the growth of 10.8% than 2007. All the statistics above show that wedding business in China has a huge market and potential. This research will focus on Pearl River Delta, the most economically dynamic region in southern part of China. PRD covers nine prefectures of Guangdong province including Guangzhou, Shenzhe, Zhuhai, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Foshan, Huizhou, Jiangmen and Zhaoqing; and has become one of the leading economic regions and a major manufacturing center of China, which accounted for 10.2% of Chinas GDP. People in PRD have more purchasing power than the other region. The per capita GDP in PRD ranges from 35,700 to 79,600 RMB which is much higher than the national per capita GDP (HKTDC, 2008). Because of the advantages of its location and open-door policy, PRD became the first region in China which allowed the foreign investments. Thus, apart from the economic strength, people in PRD were influenced by the western cultures earlier than the other places of China. 1.3 Research problem statements Due to the low entry cost in the wedding planning business, the number of wedding planners has increased rapidly in China in the last decade. Generally, two to three persons having relevant planning experience can establish a wedding planning company with around 100,000 RMB investments in China. They just need an office for meeting with clients and an official blog or website for promotion. Despite of the rapid development of the wedding business, the service/product offered by the wedding planners is similar. Comparing with the wedding photo service business, there is a lack of leading brand in the wedding planning business. With the growth of income level and education level, the couples in China are becoming more and more demanding towards the wedding service/products and face a problem that how to choose a suitable wedding planners who can provide excellent service/product. Thus, from the supply side, identifying and satisfying the important and unfulfilled needs of prospective c ouples is one of the ways for wedding planners to differentiate their products from the competitors, and make success in the competition. However, there is few studies indentifying prospective couples needs or attitudes toward products or service of wedding planner in Pearl River Delta even though in Chinese mainland, nor research about how well the wedding planners in China is meeting the needs of prospective couples. Therefore, this study will focus on the following questions to find out the needs of prospective couples (demand side) towards the wedding planners in PRD Whats the reason for couples hiring wedding planners? Whats the factors affecting the selection of wedding planners? Reputation? Price? Or other? Do the needs of prospective couples toward wedding planners in Pearl River Delta vary according to the different demographical characteristics? 1.4 Research objectives: To find out the needs of prospective couples when hiring the wedding planners in the Pearl River Delta; To investigate the relationship between the needs for prospective couples and the choice of product/service offered by wedding planners in Pearl River Delta Region; To investigate how the needs of potential couples are influenced by their demographic profiles; To make recommendations to the wedding planners in Pearl River Delta. CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW In this chapter, the previous studies related to wedding, wedding planners as well as the consumer purchase behavior will be reviewed. 2.1 Nature of wedding From the view of sociology, Edward (1987) defined that weddings are rites of passage, which belong to the class of rituals that everywhere mark the transition of a person or persons from one status to another. Wedding therefore becomes a private and highly-personalized event in peoples life. Event is held for a purpose that brings people together to share an experience and produce a measurable outcome no matter public or private, commercial or charitable, celebratory or commemorative (Silvers, 2003). Shone and Parry (2004) defined the wedding, together with the other personal events (e.g. birthday or anniversaries), as a type of special events. Their phenomenon arise from leisure, cultural, personal or organizational objectives which are set apart from the normal activity of daily life and their purpose is to enlighten, celebrate, entertain or challenge the experience of a group of people. The characteristics of special events include personal interactions, ritual or ceremony, intang ible, fixed timescale, labor intensive, ambience and service, perishability as well as uniqueness. Getz (2007) also defined wedding as a form of planned events because it is held in venues that cater to individual and small-group clients which may require professionals or be entirely arranged by the participants. From this point of view, Getz (2007) believed that the wedding is a multi-meaning experience in both personal and social aspects, and it is can be considered as celebrations in which a theme and emotional stimulation are essential. Although, wedding is usually defined as a type of small or personal events, it is still an area lack of study and research compared with meeting, exhibition, incentives or other events. There is quite a few academic book or journal devoted to the planning and design of weddings, parties or other private functions. 2.2 Wedding planners 2.21 The nature of wedding planner Arranging an event is complicated as it involves different elements such as the specialist sets, props, customers for participants or guests, and all the range of support requirements from special effects and lighting to music and entertainment. Event management companies are increasingly common in the events business in the last decades, which have specialized in providing of the complete event by careful planning and management. People can enjoy a number of benefits of having an EMC including the expertise, ideas and experience they can draw on (Shone Parry, 2004). Shone and Parry (2004) found that although there are some major companies in the event business, there are a wide range of smaller organizations and individuals that are willing to provide events-related service particular for the personal event market, which include the organization of parties, celebrations, weddings, anniversaries and many of similar events. Professional party planners or event organizers are those pr ofessional who deal with the nitty-gritty details of planning, organizing, operating and managing an event to ensure everything goes smoothly. According to Wikipedia (2009), wedding planners are the professionals who deal with all the details of the wedding, which includes planning, organizing, operating and management, to ensure everything goes smoothly and correctly. Ellis-Christensen (2008) defined that wedding planner as an event professional whose responsibility is not only to plan a memorable wedding, but also to give some professional advices to the couples including the venue selection, equipments preparation etc. They usually act as a wedding advisor, coordinator, supervisor, financial planner and mediator during the wedding (Brush Creek Weddings, 2008). Peters (2007) also stated that the range of service offered by wedding planner is widely. Some may prefer to offer consulting service only while some may prefer to provide comprehensive wedding package. At the meantime, Peters (2007) also pointed out that the global trend of the wedding business has been toward offering total coordination of the entire blessed even t from the beginning to the end, which includes identifying the needs of new couples, budget preparation, planning detailed checklist, venue arrangement, identifying the professionals (e.g. florists, photographers etc.) as well as on-site supervision and coordination on the wedding day. The consultant fee varies widely depending on different locations or different packages. The consultant fee may be higher in larger cities where disposable income of couples is higher than the other places. 2.22 The requirements of a wedding planner Having a strong organizational skills as well as an eye for details are necessary and basic requirements for a successful professional meeting planner because meeting process is both comprehensive and meticulous. Moreover, meeting planners must have the ability to work successful under pressure, to react calmly to constant change, and to make quick decisions (OBrien Shaw, 2002). Howard (2006) stressed that wedding planning is highly customer oriented as most of the couples are looking for special, unique and memorable wedding. Ethic and religious custom, family tradition, class identity, regional practice, and individual tastes and preferences certainly all played a role in shaping wedding consumption. Peters (2007) suggested that good communication skills, good organizational skills as well as good interpersonal skills are very essential for being a successful wedding planner, because wedding planners act as a middle person who deals with both clients and suppliers. The appearance of the professional wedding organization was an important benchmark in the rise of wedding planner business, indicating that wedding planning service today are more and more professional. These professional organizations help wedding planners naturalize particular customs and practices on a potentially national scale by sharing etiquette and customs. They provide some training course for wedding planners. Getting a certificate from professional organization has became one of the evidences for professional and made the customer confident with the service quality. Additionally, the organization also centralized and rationalized a consultants business, providing important resources and information regarding the markets as well as the trend (Howard, 2006). 2.23 Demand of wedding planners Wedding is an important event in peoples life that many people are willing to organize by themselves on the small and more intimate scale. However, not all of them have the time and wish to expend the effort on doing so and happier to pay a professional to come along and deal with all the details of planning, organizing, operating and managing to ensure everything goes smoothly (Shone Parry, 2006). According to Blakely (2007), the supply of commercial service increases dramatically along with the growth of demands for family jobs. Wedding planners are a form of outsourced labor in the modern society. These jobs which are transported from home to the public marketplace are responding to the time crunch produced by work-family conflict. From this point of view, Blakely defined wedding planners as commercial substitutes. Besides, Edwards (1987) conducted a research to examine the relationship between the weddings commercial development and its nature as a rite of passage. He found that the reason of the success of the wedding business was the convenience offered by the wedding planners and the demand from consumers for larger and more sumptuous celebrations. Consumers were looking for a wide range of wedding-related service (one-stop service) through a single organization. 2.4 The trend Firstly, the wedding today tends to be more customized than before. According to Hensdill (1996), because of the cultural exchange among the global village, traditional wedding customs are giving way to the trends of Western societies. Some new styles of wedding exist, such as theme wedding, destination wedding and green wedding, because more and more couples are looking for unique wedding. Destination wedding is a new wedding style that a couple decides to hold their wedding in a location where neither one of them resides (Daniels Loveless, 2007). There are several top destinations for wedding in the world, such as Caribbean, Las Vegas, Hawaii as well as Maldives. Generally, some special theme may be adopted into the destination wedding. For example, hotel in Las Vegas has organized Italian-style wedding for wedding couples (Stratton, 2001). Moreover, the destination wedding often merges into the honeymoon (Daniels Loveless, 2007). Secondly, the internet and e-commerce has shaped the modern wedding consumption and gave it a new immediacy and flexibility. As a result, the wedding planners can target different segments of the bridal markets through developing website that advertised their goods and services and allowed consumers to make agreement or shop directly through their online site (Howard, 2006). 2.2 Consumer purchase behaviors toward wedding Consumer behavior is defined as the behavior that consumers display in searching form, purchasing, using, evaluating, and disposing of products and services that they expect will satisfy their needs. It focuses on how individuals make decisions to spend their available resources (Schiffman Kanuk, 2007). 2.32 Factors affecting consumer purchases As people are willing to devote time and effort to the ritual occasions like Christmas and Thanksgiving, some researches regarding the types of purchases associated with ritual occasions have been conducted by researchers in consumer behavior (Lowery, 1994). According to some market analysis, consumer purchase behavior is strongly influenced by social, cultural and individual characteristics. a) Social factors According to Schiffman and Kanuk (2007), consumer behavior is influenced by two major groups, namely the reference group and families. A reference group that is perceived as credible, attractive, or powerful can induce consumer attitude and behavior change (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2007) Based on the traditional family life cycle, the prospective couples belong to the stage II, honeymooners, who have available a combined income that often permits a lifestyle that provides them with the opportunities of more indulgent purchasing of professions, which means that the honeymooners are happy to accept the professional products and service and willing to pay more money for them as they pursuit high quality of life. The reason hidden behind may be because they have more disposable income and more free time for themselves before the born of young children. Additionally, for the newlyweds, the advice and experience of other married couples (e.g. parents or friends) are likely to be important when they start-up their expenses to establish a new home (Schiffman Kanuk, 2007). For many consumers their family is their primary reference group for many attitudes and behaviors. The members of a family assume specific roles in their everyday functioning; such roles or tasks extend to the realm of consumer purchase decisions. Key consumer-related roles of family members include influencers, gatekeepers, deciders, buyers, preparers, users, maintainers, and disposers. A familys decision-making style is influenced by its lifestyle, roles, and cultural factors. (Schiffman Kanuk, 2007). Different social classes have different preferences in clothing, home decoration and leisure activities as well as saving, spending and credit habits. Based on the market study by Brides magazine, 20% of the buyers of the wedding products identified themselves as buyers of Brides magazine who were mainly middle class women employed in white-collar, professional and technical fields and had higher medium annual income, when combined with their future husbands. This means that the bride had more control over future consumer decisions that the couple would make (Howard, 2006). Another research about the division of wedding labor and its meaning for couples by Sniezek (2005) indicated that women complete the a disproportionate amount of wedding work just as women do more of kin-work, housework, childcare and managerial family work. He also pointed out that couples were not likely to label the unequal division of labor as unfair which may potentially put the relationship in a state of conflict. From this point of view, his statement highly support Blakelys study (2007) which stated that the wedding planning businesss targeted market is modern career women. Blakely also used the case study of wedding planning to confirm Hochschilds thesis (2003) that feminism plays and important ideological role in the expansion of the commodity frontier. However, after comparison of the emphases that brides and grooms place on artifacts selected for use in their weddings and reception, Lowery (1994) found out that the brides participating in the focus group had no difficulty describing artifacts that were important to them; while grooms had greater difficulty. They also suggest that the emergence of traditional or modern gender roles in wedding planning is partially determined by the attitudes of the bride and groom toward these roles. This is also proved by Schiffman Kanuk (2007) that wedding purchase is a joint-decision in the family where the couples may play different roles in the decision making procedure. b) Cultural factors Culture is the sum total of learned beliefs, values, and customs that serve to regulate the consumer behavior of member of a particular society. (Schiffman Kanuk, 2007) When explaining how culture affects the consumer behavior, Schiffman and Kanuk (2007) indicated that all phases of human problem solving are directed and guided by culture, which includes various ritualized experiences and behaviors. For instance, in practice, rituals accompany with people throughout the human life cycle form birth to death, including a host of intermediate events such as confirmation, graduations and marriage. Besides the culture, subculture also plays an important in consumers behavior which includes nationality, religion, geographic, location, race, age and sex. For example, when comparing the husband-wife decision making between United States and China, Schiffman and Kanuk (2007) found out that there were substantially fewer joint decisions and more husband-dominated decisions for many household purchases in China. Even in the same country, another research showed that in larger city like Beijing, couples were more likely than rural couples to share equally in pu rchase decisions. c) Individual factors Apart from the social and cultural factors which affecting the consumer behavior, individual factors play an important role when people make decision (Dholakia, 1979). Schiffman Kanuk (2005) explained the influences of the individual factors through several categories: motivation, personality, perception, learning as well as attitudes. As a driving force within individuals that force them to take actions, motivation is produced by a state of uncomfortable tension unsatisfied needs. Liking to our topic, hiring the wedding planner may be motivated by the needs of couples, such as lack of time for preparation, looking for professional service etc. Personality determines and reflects how a person responds to his or her environment. Generally, people are looking for the balance between the perceived self-image and their behavior including the purchasing products or service. Some may prefer innovative wedding style (e.g. destination wedding, green wedding) while the other may choose trad itional wedding. Moreover, each individual has its own process when he or she selects, organizes and interprets stimuli into a meaningful and coherent picture of the world. This process is highly subjective and is based on what the consumer expect to see. There are several factors that can influence the perception including physical appearance, stereotypes, halo effects, irrelevant cues, first impressions, and the tendency to jump to conclusions. 2.3 Theoretical foundation- Consumer decision making process This research is based on consumer decision making process, which is one of the theories of consumer behavior. Decisions are about the selection of an option from two or more alternative choices. According to Kotler, Bowen and Makens (2006), consumer decision process consists of five essential stages: 2.31 Need recognition From the moment that the consumer recognizes a problem or need, the consumer buying process starts. The consumers needs can be stimulated by both internal and external factors. Advertisements, word-of-mouth, social cues from families, friends and anyone within the families can influence the customers need recognition. In the case of wedding planner, potential couples, their internal stimuli probably is lacking of time for preparation, looking for some unique and special wedding while the external stimuli may be the advertisement in the internet, the promotional events held by wedding planners, especially by the friends or families who have previous experience. 2.32 Information search Searching information about their needs or problems is the second step of buying process. How much information a consumer looks for will depend on the strength of the drive, and the amount of initial information, the value placed on additional information. Linking to the wedding planners, couples will take some time for information searching. This is a stage that couples can decide if they would like to hire a wedding planners or if the products/service offered by wedding planner can satisfy their needs. 2.33 Evaluation of alternatives After searching the relevant information, customers will use the information to arrive at a set of final brand choices. At this stage, potential couples may set up a personal comparison system through different attributes such as reputation, price, theme etc., in order to identify which would be the most ideal brand. 2.34 Purchase decision Subsequently, consumer will buy the most preferred brand based on their evaluation in the previous stage. This is the stage that potential couples choose which brand, what kind of services and check if the product/service is available. This is also the stage that potential couples decide if they would like to hire a wedding planner or not. 2.35 Post-purchase behavior Based on the performance of the service/products, the final stage determines whether the consumer satisfy the service/products or not. 2.4 Summary After reviewing the previous studies related to wedding and wedding planners, we can find out that most of the studies were conducted in the developed countries such as U.S or United Kingdom, while there is a blank area regarding this field in China. Moreover, there is little study regarding the consumer purchase behavior towards the wedding planners conducted before. This research will based on the theories of consumer behavior to conduct three in-depth interviews to find out the reasons for potential couples hiring wedding planners; and the factors affecting their decision. Then, a quantitative research will be conducted to express the findings in statistical terms. CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY This research will be designed as an exploratory, quantitative, cross-sectional investigation of prospective couples needs towards the service/products offered by wedding planners in Pearl River Delta. 3.1 Research Design The advantage of semi-structure interviews is that it can allow issues to be explored deeply while questionnaire survey is that it can collect information from a large number of people and express the findings in statistical terms (Jennings, 2001). As limited study regarding the needs of potential couples towards the wedding service has been conduced in China so far, for this research, the important variables are not clear and still need to be defined. In order to develop a more reliable questionnaire to conduct quantitative research at the second stage, the first stage is to explore the important variables through a qualitative research. In-depth interviews with three potential couples will be conducted, which will facilitate the identifying the different requirements made by potential couples when selecting the wedding planners. These in-depth interviews are critical for the whole research because the finding of these interviews will be used to develop the questionnaire. 3.2 Questionnaire design There will be four main parts in the questionnaire. The first part will be the screening questions with the purpose of screening the invalid sample through some questions. Then, the second part will include some questions regarding the prospective couples attitudes towards the service/products offered by wedding planners in Pearl River Delta. Respondents are required to indicate their personal opinions on each statement on a five-point Likert type scale: 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. In the third part, open-end questions will be included in order to examine the personal experience and intention of hiring a wedding planner. Finally, there will be a set of questions regarding the demographic characteristics of the respondents, which will include gender, age, income level, marriage status, and education level. In order to explain the purpose of the research to the respondents, a covering letter will be attached to the questionnaire. The covering letter will include the information that how the sample was selected, the time will take to complete the survey, contact person for questions and assuring the response would be kept confidential and only used for statistical purposes. 3.3 Samp

Development of Singapores Economy

Development of Singapores Economy Introduction In the past three decades have witnessed Singapore’s economy has been developing at an extremely high speed. As the most important part of the economics, banking and finance services contribute a lot to the gross domestic product. The government document (Banking and finance, 2007) show that the Banking and Finance provides a description of the complex nature of the sector and an overview of the sector’s provision of products and services, which are: (1) deposit, consumer credit, and payment systems; (2) credit and liquidity products; (3) investment products; and (4) risk-transfer products (including insurance). Banking and finance services sectors play an important role in the Singapore economics, in 2013, the financial industry contributed around 12% to Singapore’s GDP (Singaporean- German Chamber of industry and commerce, 2014.). And Singapore isn’t an industrialized and agricultural country, it depends on the tourism and financial business, therefore t he Singapore cannot leave Banking and finance services sectors. Contribution GDP stands for gross domestic product, which is used to measure a country economics, it includes everything produced by all the people and companies that are in the country. Singapore has enjoyed robust economic growth with an average growth rate of 6.1% since 2000 and a GDP per capita of S$65,048 (US$52,051) in 2012, one of the highest in the world. This strong economic performance is driven by 4 key sectors, namely Manufacturing, Wholesale Retail Trade, Business Services and Finance Insurance. These 4 key sectors collectively contributed to more than 64% of Singapore’s GDP in 2012 (Meng Kit, 2014). Nowadays, Singapore has hundreds of banking and finance companies, and most of them are foreign. Because Singapore geographical condition and social status, more and more company set up a branch company in Singapore, for example, Huawei, HSBC and Citibank, etc. In the report (Anonymous, 2014) according to City think-tank Z/Yen’s Global Financial Services, both are challenging the leaders as the top global finance hubs, with Hong Kong in third place behind London and New York, and Singapore only eight points behind in fourth. When they set a company in Singapore, they need to recruit the best of the best employees to their company, in the other worlds; they create a lot of job opportunity. It solves the problem of employment, and that’s why Singapore’s unemployment rate so low. The Manpower Research Statistics Department (2015) shows that Singapore’s unemployment rates in 2012 to 2014 are 2.0%, 1.9% and 2.0%. Those represent Singapore job market are not too much unemployed people, it’s beneficial to maintain social stability and development. Challenges With the development of the economics, different issues and problems will emerge in the market such as 1997 Asian economics crisis and 2007 American Subprime mortgage crisis. People cannot predicate these economics crises, they just can try their best to decrease economics crises damage to the economy and revive the economics as soon as possible. The same as the banking and finance services sectors, these sectors will be the first industry affected. In that period of time, many people was fired by the company so that the company can save more money and especially, Singapore stock market also affected by the economics crises, many companies and investors loss money. Inmoderntimes, everyone get a smartphone and people use Internet to communicate, but it’s very dangerous when you use Internet to transfer document or money. They don’t need to go to rob the bank to get money or even know the details of the targets; they can get everything through the Internet. The hacker can hack the Internet and see all the information in your account, and after that they will steal or sell your information to the market. The report said that (Jones, 2013), the police conservatively estimate that the group of five men from Russia and Ukraine helped steal at least 160 million payment card numbers, resulting in losses in excess of $300 million. Therefore, it’s very risky to transfer through the Internet, but it’s the future of the banking and finance services sectors. When the foreign companies join the Singapore market, there must have more competitions to the local company. When the foreign banks come to Singapore, the costumer have more choices to choose which one to use and which one they will get more benefit. In the other word, the number of the customers will decrease. When Citibank, standard chartered bank and HSBC etc. come into Singapore, the POSB, DBS and OCBC etc. suffer some certain of impact and loss. This will be a big challenge that banking need to fact it, as well as the financial services. Strategic planning When banking and finance services sectors start their business, they need to have a scheme so that while the business encounter the risky, the company can loss lesser. First they need to study and analysis the high developed in each continent. Secondly, they can predicate the future trend so that can prepare the back-up plan in case of an emergency, it benefits these sectors run their company while the economics crises come, and prevent the company become chaos when it comes, the employee and top manager can run as they plan that they did in advanced. In the plan, if the company has to reduce a surplus, they can use following ways, downsizing, demotions, early retirement and demotions. These methods can reduce company’s expenditure and the company can use this money to other ways, it’s the best way to reduce the damage from the economics crises. When the banking and finance services sectors use the Internet to transaction, they need to ensure their Internet is safe and need to check the firewall is work so that kill the virus and stop the hacker hack in the system or not the company will loss millions of money. After the company releases the application for the services, they need to guarantee that the application is safe enough; otherwise the costumers will ask the company compensation for their loss. The company needs to fix the bug immediately when costumers’ feedback the problem to the company in case the criminal seizes the opportunity to steal the money and information. In the meantime, the company can work with cyber-police; it can avoid the cyber-crime effectively. When the cyber-crime happen, the company need to contract cyber-police immediately, tell each details to them so that cyber-police can trace criminal’s trace. The situation of the local company will become more and more difficult while the foreign company come to share the market together. When the company competes with local and foreign company, they need to release more and more convenience and cheaper services so that to attract more and more costumers use your service. In order to hoisting competitiveness, OCBC publish a card called ‘Plus! Visa Credit Card’, the owner of this kind of credit card can enjoy a lot of promotion in different places, for example the costumers pay by this credit card with 5% off everything at FairPrice and FairPrice Online, 18.3% fuel savings and earn Smiles Points at Esso, 3% off at Popular, etc. (OCBC, n.d.). Conclusion MAS stand for Monetary Authority of Singapore, which is a central bank of Singapore. MAS is the place that to promote sustainednon-inflationary economic growth,anda sound and progressive financial center, therefore from 1987 MAS started to enact different act so that Singapore market can develop healthily and rapidly. In these act, MAS manage the different kinds of statutes pertaining to money, banking, insurance, securities and the financial sector in general, as well ascurrency issuance. It leads a success road for those banking and finance services sectors, and also provide a platform to them, let them to discuss and determined the important movement to the Singapore market. Singapore’s successful cannot leave the MAS. Banking and finance services sectors is one of the major contribution to Singapore’s GDP, therefore it definitely has a great future. But in the meantime, these sectors should prevent the crisis from occurring in the first place. They need to learn from the pervious mistake and also learn from other country like America, China, Ireland, etc. so that these sectors will not make the same mistake that happened before. In the future, the government should publish a safe platform so that the commercial tenant can trade on it and no need to worried about the cyber-crime. And more and more company will come to Singapore to start their branch company, there will more competitive and contribute higher GDP to Singapore together.

We Must Work to Prevent Mass School Shootings Essay -- Mass Shootings,

There have been many horror stories in the news about mass shootings at schools. The public, and even the president of the United States, is asking if anything can be done to prevent these tragedies. There are many theories on why students kill their peers at schools; these range from increased violence in video games and movies to bullying troubles at school. Almost always, the perpetrator suffers from some form of mental illness (Khadaroo). Because of this, motives for these crimes are extremely difficult to discern. Although the theories for the causes of this dilemma are tenuous at best, the effects are very perceptible. Can anything be done to prevent these massacres? School shootings are a complex problem that cannot always be prevented, but there are a number of actions we can take to reduce the frequency and extent of the damage caused. These actions include placing more restrictions on firearms, creating detection programs for shooters, hiring more counselors for u nstable students, and placing guards or police in schools. School shootings are a serious problem, and a solution is needed in order to prevent these calamities. Although no one can be entirely sure what motivates teens to commit mass shootings, there are theories that must be examined to develop solutions. One theory states that there are ten factors that contribute to the likelihood of a teen committing murder. These factors include an unstable home life, being bullied at school, obsession with violent entertainment, being suicidal, involvement with drugs or alcohol, involvement with gangs or cults, and mental illness. Usually at least four of these qualities are present in homicidal teens (Khadaroo). While many of these causes stem from home lif... ... Works Sited "Arkansas District Arming More than 20 Teachers, Staff." Herald (Everett, WA): n.p. Jul 31, 2013. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 4 Oct. 2015. Khadaroo, Stacy Teicher. â€Å"Why Do Kids Kill? School Murders in Sparks, Danvers Revive Questions.† Christian Science Monitor. 25 Oct 2013: n.p. SIRS Issue Researcher. Web. 6 Oct. 2015. Ring, Ray. â€Å"Guns R Us.† High Country News (Paonia, Co) Vol. 39, No. 14 Aug. 6 2007:10-17. Sirs Issues Researcher. Web. 6 Oct. 2015. â€Å"School safety Timeline.† Leading Issues timelines, 2013. SIRS Issues researcher. Web. 4 Oct. 2015. â€Å"What Happened in Newtown, Connecticut? Eyewitness Accounts of Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting.† WXYZ. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2015. Zarembo, Alan. â€Å"Teens Plotting Attacks Tend to Tip Their hand.† Los Angeles Times. 24 Dec 2012: A.1. Sirs Issues Researcher. Web. 6 Oct. 2015.

On the Quantum Mechanics of the Human Intellect and the Stories It Crea

On the Quantum Mechanics of the Human Intellect and the Stories It Creates If human beings are to explore those distant and wished for lands, we must first come to grips with some of the perplexing conceptual issues that have dogged quantum physics since its inception. These riddles dance around the enigma of quantum observership. Its contemplation brings us back from the realm of the multiverse to the intimate confines of our own skin, where we ask what it means to say that â€Å"we† â€Å"observe† â€Å"nature.† - Timothy Ferris, The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe(s) Report During the crisis of modern science in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the postulates of early scientific discoveries had been refuted. In one of science’s most defining moments, an undisturbed photon of light was found to exhibit both wave-like and particulate qualities. The relationship between these two qualities would later be termed complementarity by Niels Bohr, one of the scientists at the forefront of this discovery. As Thomas S. Kuhn notes in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, â€Å"Before [the theory of quantum mechanics] was developed by Plank, Einstein, and others early in [the twentieth] century, physics texts taught that light was transverse wave motion† (12). So staggering was this discovery that in his autobiography, Albert Einstein recounts, â€Å"All my attempts to adapt the theoretical foundations of physics [to the new quantum knowns] failed completely. It was as if the ground had been pulled out from under one, with no firm foundation to be seen anywhere upon which one could have been built.† Not surprisingly, this arrest of the fundamental postulates of classical physics sparked a reevaluation of the â€Å"world view† by the ... ...e and the nature of things to help us to connect ourselves to stories of the past and present while trying to do exactly what Petrus Camper and the scholars of the eighteenth-century were so capable of—the same privilege the wave-particle theory gave to the pioneers of quantum mechanics: to understand the multiverse of intellectual disciplines together. Works Cited Ehrlich, Gretel. Islands, the Universe, Home.New York: Penguin, 1991. Ferris, Timothy. The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe(s) Report. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. Gould, Stephen Jay. Bully for Brontosaurus.New York: W.W. Norton, 1991. I Have Landed: The End of a Beginning in Natural History.New York: Harmony, 2002. Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Chicago:Chicago U, 1996. Tarnas, Richard. The Passion of the Western Mind.New York: Ballantine, 1991.

Vibration Analysis Procedure

VIBRATION ANALYSIS PROCEDURE A vibratory system is a dynamic one for which the variables such as the excitations (inputs) and responses (outputs) are time dependent. The response of a vibrating system generally depends on the initial conditions as well as the external excitations. Most practical vibrating systems are very complex, and it is impossible to consider all the details for a mathematical analysis. Only the most important features are considered in the analysis to predict the behavior of the system under specified input conditions.Often the overall behavior of the system can be determined by considering even a simple model of the complex physical system. Thus the analysis of a vibrating system usually involves mathematical modeling, derivation of the governing equations, solution of the equations, and interpretation of the results. †¢Mathematical Modeling. The purpose of mathematical modeling is to represent all the important features of the system for the purpose of de riving the mathematical (or analytical) equations governing the system s behavior.The mathematical model should include enough details to allow describing the system in terms of equations without making it too complex. The mathematical model may be linear or nonlinear, depending on the behavior of the system s components. Linear models permit quick solutions and are simple to handle; however, nonlinear models sometimes reveal certain characteristics of the system that cannot be predicted using linear models. Thus a great deal of engineering judgment is needed to come up with a suitable mathematical model of a vibrating system. Derivation of Governing Equations. Once the mathematical model is available, we use the principles of dynamics and derive the equations that describe the vibration of the system. The equations of motion can be derived conveniently by drawing the free-body diagrams of all the masses involved. The free-body diagram of a mass can be obtained by isolating the mass and indicating all externally applied forces, the reactive forces, and the inertia forces.The equations of motion of a vibrating system are usually in the form of a set of ordinary differential equations for a discrete system and partial differential equations for a continuous system. The equations may be linear or nonlinear, depending on the behavior of the components of the system. †¢Solution of the Governing Equations. The equations of motion must be solved to find the response of the vibrating system.Depending on the nature of the problem, we can use one of the following techniques for finding the solution: standard methods of solving differential equations, Laplace transform methods, matrix methods, and numerical methods. If the governing equations are nonlinear, they can seldom be solved in closed form. Furthermore, the solution of partial differential equations is far more involved than that of ordinary differential equations. Numerical methods involving computers can b e used to solve the equations.However, it will be difficult to draw general conclusions about the behavior of the system using computer results. †¢Interpretation of the Results. The solution of the governing equations gives the displacements, velocities, and accelerations of the various masses of the system. These results must be interpreted with a clear view of the purpose of the analysis and the possible design implications of the results. Reference link: http://classof1. com/homework-help/engineering-homework-help

Independence day

Good Morning Philippines, Respected teachers and my dear friends. I wish you a happy independence Day. INDEPENDENCE DAY means a day when we had got freedom from not only brute rulers but freedom from what from fulfillment of right needs†¦ Today on June 12,2014 Philippines is celebrating Its 16th Independence day and we are proud to say that we earned our freedom 116 year back, which was by an act passed by the American parliament and we were the first to get ourIndependence through the act which Is a mark of respect. Independence Day Is the day to commemorate all the works of certain people or Individuals who contributed much for the liberty of their country. More that celebrating the freedom of the country from slavery, dictatorship and tyrant rule, It Is also the day to acknowledge all the sufferings and hardships of these people we called heroes. We recognize their bravery and thank them for all the things they contributed for the freedom of their entry and countrymen.But let me remind you all that willing Independent was the end of our struggle, it was Just the beginning of our greatest challenge and that was to make us prosperous. As a Filipino citizen , we are proud of its golden past. We had one of the oldest and richest civilization of the world. Today we not only need to be proud of our glorious past but also work to make our present and future better than our past . We need to make our self so capable that we can praise its present ND this can be only done, when we work hard for it.And we can only work hard, if we have a feeling of patriotism & nationalism in our heart. Patriotism is a very deep and meaningful word, and its meaning changes according to the demand of time. During pre Independence time, Patriotism meant to get out of our houses and fight against foreign rule, whereas today a true patriot is that person who gives best of his services in the development, progress and fulfillment of his nation as the best human resource. Independence Day If we are to ask American citizens, â€Å"What is the most terrible crime of all? † would we be surprised if most of them immediately relate to the 9/11 tragedy and choose terrorism as the answer? Of course not. A different answer, however, might be given to us if we asked them several years ago, before the disaster happened. It is human nature, to underestimate the proportion of an issue, until they have experienced it, first hand. But the Americans have now experienced the bitterness of terrorism, they have lost husbands, wives, parents and siblings during the shocking tragedy, and certainly they have taken lessons from it as well.For decades, United States has been the most powerful nation on the surface of the earth. Is it logical to figure that an attack on this country was made without months, or even years of preparation? The attackers must have reliable information about the country’s defense before they start planning, where have they retrieved them? Should not these kinds of information be classified? These are necessary questions, and they will lead us to anticipate the next threat of terrorist actions. Information leaks about sensitive defense system are certainly important factors that made the 9/11 attack possible.Other leaks of information might cause another threats to America in the future. Here is where American Counterintelligence takes a vital role. American Counterintelligence has found that leaks of information have often happened in the United States governmental and intelligence environments. It turned out; the history of Americans sold out their country goes back a very long way. II. Is Espionage Treason? In its nature to jeopardize the life of hundreds or even thousands citizens, espionage should be consider an act of treason.But different of opinions still exist regarding actions that is classified as treason. Is espionage valued as low as defecting or a conspiracy against one’s country? A little trip in history w ill give us the solution. The crime treason has first found itself inside a constitutional foundation in 1350. It was a part of the Statute of Edward. Among the seven categories found in the statute of Edward, the words â€Å"adhering to enemies† and giving them â€Å"aid and comfort† has been classified as an act of treason. These words had also appeared in the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, on the year 1787.In its formulated Article III, section 3, the Constitutional Convention mentioned that treason consists of levying a war against the country, adhering to their enemies, and giving to them aid and comfort. After the Second World War, A review of eight convictions of treason has made the Supreme Court established four elements of treason, and providing â€Å"aid and comfort† to the enemy is still one of them (â€Å"Why Not Call It Treason? †) So it is obvious that espionage has and still considered as treason by US constitution, ancient and modern. Therefore, for the sake of many, sentences for espionage should not be made light.III. America’s First Counterintelligence Chief It was John Jay who’s first coordinated a national level of counterintelligence efforts. His job was leading a legislative committee to investigate a plot to sabotage defense and infrastructure targets in New York. In his investigations, Jay employ at least 10 agents, a few of the famous ones are Nathaniel Sackett, Elijah Hunter and Enoch Crosby. All of his agents were operating under enormous pressure. Some were undercover; being unmasked meant death to all of them (Rose P. K. ,1999). Enoch Crosby, is the best secret agent that John Jay have.He uses various names and identity to retrieve information about the pro-British’s activities. After he get â€Å"to famous† for his work in one place, he was assign to another area, joining another pro-British Colony (Rose, 1999). IV. Cases of Modern Espionage Although cases of tr eason by espionage are abundant since the Independence Day, we will elaborate new ones, in order to recognize an up to date espionage practices. Aldrich Ames’s treason was one of the most popular counterintelligence cases. How could it not be? Ames was the director of CIA Counterintelligence at the time.He was recruited by the Russian and has been supplying staggering amount of information for 10 years. A great number of US agents working undercover in Russia were arrested and killed because of Ames. Ames’s capture in 1994 didn’t come easy, especially after James J, Angleton (his predecessor) was falsely accused by his rivals as a Russian spy also (Hermon). Soon after Ames started to work for the Russian in 1983, suspicion about a spy in American Counterintelligence emerged. But in 1985, when John Pollard, a Jewish agent was arrested with spying for Israel, Aldrich Ames took the opportunity and put the blame to Pollard.In 1987, Pollard was sentenced to life in p rison in 1987. His other successful attempt to turn away the spotlight was by sacrificing another â€Å"more expendable† Russian Spy in the CIA. His name is Edward Lee Howard. But by the help of Ames, Howard managed to flee to Moscow which granted him Political Asylum. Finally, by the testimony of Raffi Eitan, Director of the Office of Scientific Liaison that activated Pollard, Aldrich Ames was uncovered as one of the highest ranking Russian Spy in US Intelligence Agency (Carmel, 1994). But this is already 8 years longer than it supposed to be.Robert Philip Hanssen, age 56, was a veteran counterintelligence agent who was captured selling highly classified national security information to Russia and the former Soviet Union. He was with his colleague â€Å"defending the country† while secretly stabbed them from the back also. He sold up to 6. 000 pages of valuable documentary material in over than 20 separate occasions. In one occasion, FBI agents found that he trade the information with diamonds and more than $ 600. 000 US. Along with the sold documents, Hanssen had compromised FBI counterintelligence investigative techniques, methods and operations.Hanssen has been charged with espionage and conspiracy to commit espionage which are violations with a possible sentence of life in prison or the death penalty (US Department of Justice, 2001). Katrina Leung, a businesswoman and a fundraiser for the Republicans, has successfully compromised 20 years of intelligence work on the People’s Republic of China. Katrina poses as an informant, paid by the Bureau to give information about Chinese Intelligence Operations in America. But at the same time, she was also seducing two senior FBI agents for information.That information regarding the American intelligence was then delivered to Beijing, ruin two decades of counterintelligence work (Marshall, 2003). V. Mistakes and Suggestions One of the factors making it hard for the FBI agents to perform their du ty is the organization’s structure. The bureau is apparently assigned on 2 similar missions which required the opposite skills and quality. The first mission is law enforcement and the second is Intelligence work. Although the two missions are similar, but sharing information, which is a necessity in law enforcement activities, would be disastrous for intelligence work.The double mission structure is making the work complicated and even impossible for FBI agents. Furthermore, the effort to change the structure is made difficult by the decision â€Å"not to change† of the newly arise Republicans (Marshall, 2003) The culture of working alone or in a small team has not make situations any easier. Once an agent is recruited, he/she is referred to as â€Å"special agents† and considered a part of a certain powerful group. This group is unlikely to have suspicion against its fellow agents unless there is no one else to be suspected. This is an obvious mistake.An intel ligence agency is an organization working on the basis of suspicion. None should be consider above suspicion, even ones with seniority. The cases of Aldrich Ames and Robert Philip Hanssen should teach the FBI a very important lesson. In the world of intelligence, it is rather difficult to keep guard on every single possibility of breach. One intelligence agency will always do their best to penetrate all the others. If we are an American agent, working undercover in Russia for instance, we will always worry about a mole in American Agency, exposing our identity to the Russians, and vice versa.So how will we ensure the safety of our agents? , or how would we make easy to discover a mole inside our agency? One way to do it is, by what is called â€Å"compartementation† â€Å"Compartementation† is a design or organization, where individuals are sealed apart from others as humanly possible and information is shared only on a need to know basis. Although the design will make information sharing a little difficult, without it, a mole in the crowd could operate long enough to cause immense destruction before getting caught.A very good example of this is the Aldrich Ames case that we have elaborated before (Marshall, 2003). VI. Conclusion Since the Independence Day, intelligence has always been a mandatory but dangerous work. But due to its role keeping sensitive and classified information regarding a nation’s system of defense, being a dangerous job, is not all that surprising. As an attack on a country has always started with their leak of information, counterintelligence is nothing to be taken lightly. Severe punishment over traitors must also be made to set an example for others, in order not to have it repeated.Experience has shown us that the US counterintelligence activities have not been maximized. Possible reformation to increase the efficiency of the organization hasn’t been conducted yet. Meanwhile, double agents have reached as f ar as the highest level of American Counterintelligence Organization, and have been compromising national security for years before being captured. It is imperative for the organizations to really work on the basis of suspicion, to increase compartementation for a more trustworthy system of investigation.Hopefully, tragedy of counterintelligence such as Ames’s and Hanssen’s would never again be repeated for the sake of the country. Bibliography Carmel, Chezi. 1994. â€Å"The Conspiracy Against Pollard†. Maariv Weekend Supplement (on-line). Available from http://www. jonathanpollard. org/1994/031894. htm Accessed March 29 2005 Freeh, Louis J. 2001. US Department of Justice (on-line). Available from http://www. fbi. gov/pressrel/pressrel01/hanssen. htm Accessed March 29 2005 Hermon, Haim. â€Å"Free Jonathan Pollard†. Available from http://hhermon. tripod.com/jpollard/ Accessed March 29 2005 Marshall, Joshua Micah. 2003. â€Å"Counterintelligent†. Wa shington Monthly (on-line). Available from http://www. washingtonmonthly. com/features/2003/0307. marshall. html Accessed March 29 2005 Rose, P. K. 1999. â€Å"The Founding Fathers of American Intelligence†. Central Intelligence Agency. (on-line) Available from http://www. odci. gov/csi/books/940299/art-1. html . Accessed March 29 2005 â€Å"Why Not Call It Treason? ; from Korea to Afghanistan†. Available from http://www. henrymarkholzer. com/articles_why_not_treason. shtml Accessed March 29 2005