Anansi Boys essay Essay Example for Free

Anansi Boys essay Essay Spider (from Anansi Boys) was Fat Charlie’s brother, his father was a singer and always made fun and got in trouble. Loki (from Mythology) was not a god but the son of a giant, he always involved himself in many things. Spider and Loki seemed very similar in a couple of ways. One way that Loki and Spider compare is that wherever they are something bad happens. While describing Loki in the mythology book the author says, â€Å"Wherever he came trouble followed. † This shows that Loki can bring ill-luck. Spider came into Fat Charlie’s life and brought ill-luck to him. Another way that Loki and Spider compare is that they get involved in others lives. When Spider came into Fat Charlie’s life, Spider took his job, Fiancà ©e, he was always in Fat Charlie’s spot, but, Fat Charlie lived with it only because he was his brother. Loki always got involved in the gods difficulties and dangers, even when doing that he was still allowed to come freely to Asgard, he came because he had sworn brotherhood. The final way that they compare was the way that they were punished. In the mythology book Loki was taken to a deep cavern and had venom poured over him and he was in agony, and intense pain, his wife helped him. In Anansi Boys Spider was taken to another world where the tiger tied him up and kept him there. Spider’s tongue got cut off which also was the cause for agony and pain. Fat Charlie saved him from the tiger. Loki and Spider have many similarities and little differences. They tend to bring disturbance to the others around them, but they have people to care about them.

SWOT Analysis of E-Commerce Opportunity

SWOT Analysis of E-Commerce Opportunity Description and Market Potential Description Introduction: Describe what an e-commerce opportunity is. Cite sources. The current system was developed as part of an internal intranet define terms clearly with sources. This allows staff to set up alerts based on requests by existing clients or through new clients brought in by sales. This process could be automated into a website that allowed clients to review, purchase and setup their own alerts for their company without the need for manual processes by internal employees. This model favours a higher volume of sales at a lower cost with the potential to access new B2B what is this? sales outside of the current high value business clients. The single unit of sales for the site is an alert. A single alert covers: A number of twitter users to follow, these can be defined and grouped by the user for management convenience. A key area of the product will be pre-defined groups maintained by social360 that identify the influential journalists, bloggers and social media commentators from specific business sectors and geographical areas. Limitations are imposed on the user for numbers of â€Å"influencers†not yet defined per alert or group depending on the package selected and price The keywords the customer wants to follow. This requires an easy to understand process that defines the words to match or exclude and the logic that joins them together, either AND or OR. The people that the user sets up to alert, these can be managed as groups that can be shared across alerts or as individuals. Process requiring that the intended recipient is invited and accepts the receipt of alerts and can manage their subscription to alerts is required to avoid the sending of unsolicited email. SWOT Analysis (what are you analysing – Social 360? You have not yet identified your product or service for your proposed e-commerce activity – state your service idea clearly at the beginning – paragraph 2) Strengths Already tested as a concept. Good feedback from clients using the existing service. Few competitors offering similar services. Low running costs. No stock or inventory, a digital product. Weaknesses Reliant on suppliers of data services, rapidly changing marketplace. Requires proprietary software which could increase development time. Opportunities Potentially large market unlimited by import/export taxes. Possibility of licensing to agencies in the future. Good expansion possibilities, creation of new products/services. Application can be localised for international sales. Threats Competitors offer limited services for free, need to focus on our differences. Services require high-availability service interruption must be avoided. Time to market is key in fast moving sector. Cost reduction devalues product for high value clients. PESTEL Analysis Political Changes in State and European law could affect service providers and their ability to provide the basic services required for the product. Economic Scalability of costs what is this? from suppliers needs to be assessed. Internal limits on staffing requirements and costs. Social Modern social landscape online provides potential customers interested in marketing, brand analysis and monitoring. Trends towards greater public sharing of data and opinions. New Public Relations in corporations moving from print media towards social media. Technological Fast moving changes in licensing of data from social media platforms could disrupt data suppliers Reliability of product is key, technology must be selected to provide continuity in services as missed content is unlikely to be tolerated. Use of freely available APIs provided by social media platforms should be exploited to improve informational content behind core services. Environmental Low general environmental impact. Data centres are the most significant use of energy, possibility of researching most efficient providers. Legal Must adhere to the data protection act concerning customer information Must be aware of requirements outlined in the e-commerce regulations act of 2002 Must be aware Suppliers terms and conditions Strategy/Vision The primary e-commerce strategy is to exploit new markets that are not currently reachable through traditional sales methods. Designing a system that is configurable through a public facing website removes the need for company employees to configure and administer alerts. When combined with a package selection process and payment system this creates a product with a sales process that removes a significant portion of the cost. Reducing the cost and improving the scalability of a virtual package selling allows for smaller businesses in a larger marketplace to to become targets for the product. Another significant factor is being able to pay minimal costs to translate and localise the interface into regional versions that can reach markets that would traditionally need sales staff who potentially need to speak the language and reside within the timezone. Objectives Vision Create a product of value to anyone marketing a brand or product or requiring social media tracking of a subject relating to their organisation. Provide a satisfying and intuitive user experience throughout all aspects of the site. Achieve levels of reliability befitting of a service for use in times of organisational crisis and for sending critical information. Produce alerts of social media content matching the clients needs delivered in a timely and reliable way to the organisational members that need it. Maintain the privacy and security of users of the site. Goals Primary initial objective is to produce a working and testable â€Å"beta† version of the site within 4 months this entails: Research market potential of the product, assess competitors offerings. 1 week. Analysis of the current system used internally to identify its strengths and weaknesses, proposing areas for improvement specifically in usability. 1 week Research and planning; research available technology that can be used, specifically frameworks to assist with development and APIs relating to suppliers of data, email and payment services. 2 weeks Development of site to alpha version, unit, integration and component interface testing. 2 months System testing and deployment, acceptance testing. 1 month Market Research Applicable primary market research is based around feedback from existing clients using a similar product that fulfils the same function. Formulated questions and their responses can become part of account managers normal communication with clients communications departments. This allows for the gathering of data from questionnaire style responses conducted in a telephone interview style without the need to mail drop the client with what could possibly be off-putting marketing material. For existing clients the specifications for current alert configurations contain valuable data about the market. Clients can be separated into sectors showing their usage of the system based on the keywords, trends and influential people that they choose to follow. The marketing usage for these clients will allow for more targeted advertising to different business types. Possible selling points include: Brand management. Tracking social media conversation surrounding a brand or product. Product Launch. Analysing conversation on social media follow a product launch. Consumer Dissent. Providing data to help formulate response to criticism or protest. Political/Legislative. Tracking a core political issue or legislation change that affects the market place. Secondary research includes the use of publicly sourced data to understand the use of social media in the marketing and public relations departments of potential clients. This is a rapidly changing environment in marketing as companies realise the potential for using social media for marketing purposes and the need to monitor outlets that have influence. Social media marketing budgets will double over the next 5 years (Pam Dyer, 2013) From 2010 to 2012 the percentage of Americans following any brand on a social network increased from 16% to 33%. An increase of 106%. (Van Den Beld, B, 2012) Competitor analysis The closest competitor providing service of this nature is Yatterbox. Yatterbox provide a real time alert service limited by numbers of keywords and following fixed lists of influential accounts. SWOT analysis of yatterbox from the point of view of our product: Strengths Well maintained lists of influential social media commenters. Existing user base, current market leader. Good coverage of social media platforms. Graphical analysis of data history Weaknesses No provision for self maintained lists of influential sources. Limited number of search terms allowed on basic accounts. No real time alerts on basic accounts. Our Opportunities Provide greater control over lists of sources Allow user maintained lists Provide unlimited keyword search terms. Compete on price, offer limited free subscription to build user base. Offer real time and scheduled alerts Our Threats Not the first to market Comparison is inevitable, must compete on their strengths and highlight our own unique selling points. Competing on price doesnt allow us to set our own pricing. Yatterbox Pricing (Yatterbox, accessed 16 May 2014) 3.2 Systems Evaluation Service Providers A significant part of the product relies on services provided by third parties as a reliable platform for key functionality. The e-commerce part of the site also requires payment services to complete transactions. Data There are 2 main players in providing data streams from social media platforms who have licenses to provide social media data from a number of online platforms. Initially the main platform of concern is Twitter as this has been identified as the man driver of news within social media. Datasift and Gnip both provide APIs to allow for connection to streams of content based on rules to filter data. For our purposes we only require data from users accounts that are requested by users of our product. Streams can also be filtered by keywords but we intend to provide the setup for this within our own users accounts allowing them to decide what subjects are important to them. Main concerns affecting the choice are the ease of integration of the product, quality of documentation, reliability of the stream and cost. It may not be possible to completely asses these factors without trialling the services of both providers. Email The reliable delivery of email alerts is a critical factor in provision of the service. Usage of standard SMTP services within standard email accounts is unlikely to meet the requirements of sending large volumes of email due to concerns over spamming and unsolicited email. There are a number of services that are designed to provide a high volume email delivery platform. These also generally give better logging and information about delivery statuses and failures which we can transfer to the user to allow them to manage the recipients of their alerts. Providers include: Sendgrid Amazon SES Socketlabs Mailjet The relative advantages and disadvantages of each would have to be assessed using demo services and investigating the APIs in applicability to our own needs. At a first look Sengrid appears to be a good fit with clear documentation with examples of integration in a number of platforms, favourable independent reviews and a competitive pricing plan. Registrar/DNS services The main reason for the registrar is the registration of the required domain name for the website, but other concerns include the ability to manage DNS Explain meaning . This requires that the registrar used provides good online services for the administration of DNS records. Hosting For this type of project shared hosting (where servers are shared by a number of customers) is unlikely to provide the level of control and reliability required. Some of the processes we intend to setup on the server, such as the stream connections and management of email queues and processing, require a level of access that is generally limited or non-existent on shared servers. This leaves Cloud Computing service or Dedicated Servers as possible platforms for the services. For this project there are a number of unknowns that mean the usage of cloud computing is undesirable. Bandwidth, disk and memory usage and SQL storage costs are difficult to predict and can be expensive on cloud platforms. These are easier to assess as a known cost quantity on a dedicated system where it is possible to buy services with unlimited bandwidth and hardware more than capable of hosting the site for a reasonable length of time into its launch. The downside is reliability of a single point of failure in the hardware but this can be addresses by mirroring important services across colocated servers and using load balancing to route requests. SSL Certificate Most Service Providers who sell Secure Socket Layer certificates have a number of options ranging from basic encryption certificates that just offer the encryption required to secure data in transit to those offering users greater confidence through vetting processes to ensure the organisation using the certificate is who they say they are. The certificates offered are usually 1 one of four of 4 types: Simple SSL security, offering encryption services identified by the use of https protocol prefix in the browser address bar and the browser â€Å"padlock† symbol. Domain Validation SSL, same as the simple with added checks for the validity of the domain. Users can click on â€Å"Site Seal† icons to check the validity of the domain with the certificate issuer. Organisational Validation SSL, same checks as the domain with extra vetting process for more information on the organisation when clicking the â€Å"site seal† icon. Extended Validation SSL, the most stringent checks are carried out by the certificate issuing authority to validate legal, physical and operational existence of the organisation and that this information matches official records. This results in the browser displaying a highlighted green validation bar in the the address area with details of the verified company. (GlabalSign Ltd, accessed 19 May 2014) Whilst not all forms of payment integration described below strictly require the use of an SSL certificate any transfer of user information is best encrypted in this way and is essential if when hosting localised checkout pages. The use of encryption coupled with verification checks that can be performed by the user increases their confidence in the site, however I am unable to find any study or clear statistical evidence that there is an increase in user confidence or sales conversion rate through using Extended Valuation SSL over the simpler forms. Payment Gateway Considerations for payment gateways include: Charges imposed and how they scale with volume Applicability of the integration. Quality of the API and documentation Security Some payment gateways are linked to a merchant bank account and provide the possibility for a more seamless checkout experience with a greater level of customisation and control over the checkout experience. Sagepay, a popular UK payment provider has 4 possible levels of integration a serves as a good example of possible solutions: Form integration. No customer data is stored on site, entire checkout process handled by Sagepay. Simple and quick to integrate, shortest development time. No on-site security issues from storing customer data. Limited customisation, no control over checkout steps Limited opportunity for customer data recording. Server Integration. Customer transaction details can be stored locally, card details and payment pages handled by Sagepay. Card transactions simplified by sagepay. Advantages in storing customer transaction information, improve user experience on site. Limited customisation, no control over checkout steps. Increased security issues by handling customer data. Server inframe integration. Similar to the server integration but allows greater control through embedding the sagepay card payment step into and iframe in the checkout process. Card details handled by sagepay. Store customer transaction information locally. Full checkout customisation, only the card details step handled by sagepay. Greater opportunities for customer interaction during checkout. (help, chat, feedback etc) Increased development time, checkout steps need to be created and tested. Increased security issues through handling customer data. Direct integration. All aspects of the payment process are handled on site including customer card information, greatest level of control over the checkout and completely seamless as it only communicates with sagepay at the point of transaction processing from the local server. Greater control over customer checkout, data handling and checkout flow. No front-end considerations for integration, user experience entirely customisable. Longest development time, requires greatest consideration of implications. Greatest security risk. Requires PCI DSS certification (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) (Sagepay, accessed 15 May 2014) Other payment solutions do not require merchant accounts and can not be seamlessly integrated into the checkout flow. Systems such as PayPal offer solutions for easy integration that will always require that the user leaves the payment issuing site to go through the payment process (although PayPal does offer merchant account solutions as well), transaction reporting can be provided through call back systems such as PayPal Instant Payment Notification. There are advantages in using PayPal as it has a very large user base. This user base has become accustomed to the convenience of faster checkouts as there billing data and preferences are already stored and do not require re-entry during the checkout procedure helping to increase sales conversions for new customers. (PayPal, accessed 15 May 2014) Project Management/Version Control As with any software development version control is essential to manage the codebase. There are currently 2 main considerations for version control that are both open sourced and have online services to provide remote repositories for code. Git is a widely used Version Control System and can be hosted on github.com Mecurial provides similar functionality and can be hosted by bitbucket.org Other services go further than just version control by providing project management tools that fit in with software design methodologies such as Agile. These include: Assembla Basecamp

History of Mathematics

History of Mathematics 180 BC Hypsicles: Number Theory Hypsicles was born in 190 B.C. in Alexandria Egypt. He was a mathematician and astronomer. He wrote the â€Å"Anaphorikos† or â€Å"On the Ascension of Stars,† where he divided the Zodiac into 360 ° and used arithmetic progression, â€Å"a sequence in which each number increases by the same amount over the previous one† (O’Connor Robertson, 1999). He also wrote Book XIV of Euclid’s Elements, which was concerned with inscribing regular solids in a sphere (Hypsicles of Alexandria, 2008). Diophantus of Alexandria, writer of the Arithmetica, which was the most dominant number theoretic work of ancient times, explained properties of polygonal numbers and added a rule to get the nth m-agonal number, n [2 + (n 1) (m 2)]/2, which he credited to Hypsicles (Tattersall, 2005). The number theory, a branch of mathematics, is concerned with the study of the integers, and of the objects and structures that naturally arise from their study (Number Theory, 2004). References Hypsicles of Alexandria. (2008, January 1). Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved November 30, 2013, from http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Hypsicles_of_Alexandria.aspx OConnor, J. J., Robertson, E. F. (1999). Hypsicles of Alexandria. Hypsicles biography. Retrieved November 30, 2013, from http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Hypsicles.html Tattersall, J. J. (2005).Elementary number theory in nine chapters(2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Number Theory. (2004, February 1). number theory | planetmath.org. Retrieved November 29, 2013, from http://planetmath.org/numbertheory 60 BC Geminus: Parallel Postulate Geminus was a Greek mathematician and astronomer, who thrived in the 1st century B.C. Nothing is known about his personal life, but his works suggested the possibility that he lived or worked on Rhodes. The Theory of Mathematics, which discussed the logical subdivisions of the mathematical sciences, was attributed to Geminus (Geminus, 2008). Geminus examined the principles behind concepts such as ‘hypothesis’, ‘theorem’, ‘postulate’, ‘axiom’, etc. and gave historical accounts of the development of the ideas (O’Connor Robertson, 1999). In addition, The Theory of Mathematics included some relevant criticism of Euclid’s postulates, specifically the fifth, the parallel postulate, for which, he supposed, he found a proof (Geminus, 2008). â€Å"The parallel postulate is Euclids fifth postulate: equivalent to the idea that there is a unique parallel to any line through a point not on the line.† (O’Connor Robertson, 1999) References OConnor, J. J., Robertson, E. F. (1999). Geminus. Geminus biography. Retrieved December 1, 2013, from http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Geminus.html Geminus. (2008, January 1). Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved December 1, 2013, from http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2830901609.html Cultural 100 BC Birth of Julius Caesar Julius Caesar, one of the most influential and famous men in Ancient Rome, was born in July 12 or 13 100 BC in Rome and was killed during the Ides of March in 44 BC. He was a Roman general, a statesman, an orator, a lawgiver, and a historian, who transformed the Roman republic into the powerful Roman Empire (Julius Caesar biography, n.d.). The following are some of his achievements (Julius Caesar, n.d.): He never lost in war. He was the leader of the invasion of Britain in 55 B.C. He improved laws to benefit the people and made laws against the corrupt and unjust. He amended the Roman calendar, which is the one in use today He cleared up the system of the Roman republic and became the benchmark to future Roman emperors and European leaders References Julius Caesar biography. (n.d.). Bio.com. Retrieved November 30, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/julius-caesar-9192504 Julius Caesar. (n.d.). Julius Caesar. Retrieved November 30, 2013, from http://www.roman-empire.net/republic/caesar.html 20 BC Virgil: Aeneid Publius Vergulius Maro, Vergil or Virgil in English, was born in October 70 BC, near Mantua in northern Italy. Virgil, one of the best Roman poets, is known for his works the Ecologues, the Georgics and the epic Aeneid. The Aenid is considered as the Roman’s national epic. Virgil started to write the epic that will summarize his ideal Rome when Augustus became the ruler. The story is about Aeneus, a Trojan hero, whose mission is to establish a new Rome. The Aeneid shows the earliest days and destiny of Rome (Virgil, n.d.). Virgil worked on the Aeneid for the remaining years of his life, but he died because of a fever in 19 B.C., leaving the epic unfinished. He wished for Aeineid to be destroyed, but the current ruler, Augustus ordered for it to be finished and published. The Aeneid appeared in 17 B.C. (Virgil, 2004) References Virgil. (2004, January 1). Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved December 1, 2013, from http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404706635.html Virgil. (n.d.). PBS. Retrieved December 1, 2013, from http://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/empire/virgil.html 4 BC Birth of Christ Jesus Christ, also known as Jesus of Nazareth, was born in 4 B.C. He was the founder and center of Christianity, one of the most influential religions in the world. Only a little was known about the childhood of Jesus, but the four biblical gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John provide an account from his birth to his ministry (Jesus Christ biography, n.d.). References Jesus Christ biography. (n.d.). Bio.com. Retrieved December 2, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/jesus-christ-9354382 Jesus of Nazareth. (2004, January 1). Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved December 2, 2013, from http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404703308.html Jesus of Nazareth Biography. (n.d.). World Biography. Retrieved December 2, 2013, from http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ho-Jo/Jesus-of-Nazareth.html AD Mathematical AD 50 Negative numbers used in China Negative numbers are numbers that are less than zero. The concept of negative numbers started in China. Negative numbers were used in Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art of Jiuzhang Suanchu in solving systems of simultaneous equations. The suan chou (counting rods) method was done with the use of red rods for positive quantities and black rods for negative quantities (Negative Number, n.d.). The rules for signed numbers were also given. The Chinese contribution of negative numbers is very important since it completed the whole numbers and rational numbers. References Negative Number. (n.d.). Negative Number. Retrieved November 30, 2013, from http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_madeinchina/2005-08/18/content_71977.htm AD 75 Heron: measurements, roots, surveying Heron of Alexandria, sometimes called Hero, is a Greek Mathematician and Engineer born in 10 A.D. Almost nothing is known about Heron’s personal life. Heron’s brilliance was shown in his writings in mathematics and mechanics. He wrote at least 13 books in his life covering topics such as geometry and mathematics, surveying, mechanics, pneumatics, automatic machines, war machines, optics and many more (Shuttleworth, n.d.). Metrica, a series made up of three books, concentrates on calculations of areas and volumes of bodies such as cones, cylinders, pyramids etc. The Hero’s formula, which stated the area of a triangle with given sides, A = sqr[s(s-a)(s-b)(s-c)] where s = (a+b+c)/2, was found in the Book I of Metrica (O’Connor Robertson, 1999). Heron used arithmetic to solve complicated quadratic equations arithmetically, estimated the square roots of non-square numbers, and calculated cube roots (Hero of Alexandria, 2008). Mensurae consists of details of the different tools for measuring. Dioptra contains practical and mathematical methods for land surveying (Heron of Alexandria, n.d.). References Hero of Alexandria. (2008, January 1). Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved December 1, 2013, from http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404702942.html Heron Of Alexandria. (n.d.). Famous Mathematicians. Retrieved December 1, 2013, from http://www.famous-mathematicians.com/heron-of-alexandria/ OConnor, J. J., Robertson, E. F. (1999). Heron of Alexandria. Heron biography. Retrieved December 1, 2013, from http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Heron.html Shuttleworth, M. (n.d.). Heron of Alexandria A Beautiful Mind. Explorable. Retrieved December 1, 2013, from http://explorable.com/heron-of-alexandria

Internet - We Must Put an End to Virtual Rape :: Argumentative Persuasive Essays

We Must Put an End to Virtual Rape "Any unwanted sexual act is a crime of violence" (Victims Information, 1998). Do you believe that? When referring that quote to rape, it almost sounds like a broad definition of it. But what about virtual rape? Does an unwanted sexual encounter on computers also count for a crime of violence? This is an important question for our society today to address for the simple fact that technology is the wave of our future and as our world becomes increasingly intertwined with the virtual world, we need to be prepared for the problems that our new virtual world might present. For me, as for many others, rape is definitely a much more serious and dangerous encounter than virtual rape. But all the same, virtual rape should not be dismissed for the effects it has on the people involved. I am going to present to you three main points. First, I'm going to define virtual rape by taking you through one of the most well known cases that actually occurred in the virtual world. Second, I w ill define rape in our world. Third and finally, I will take you through some of the different issues that are brought up while discussing virtual rape versus real rape. We'll start off with my first point of what is virtual rape? "They say he raped them that night" (Vitanza, 448) is the beginning of an intriguing story, A Rape in Cyberspace, in which the author, Julian Dibbell, answers that very question. With the horrifying tale of Mr. Bungle and his victims, legba and Starsinger, Dibbell reiterates the events that took place on the LambdaMOO on that Monday night in March. The LambdaMOO is a MUD, which is short for "multi-user dungeons." According to a journal article in Maclean's, "MUDs are virtual communities, little universes that exist only on the Internet. Users from around the world can access the host program, which allows them to assume an identity and develop an alternative self" (Chidley, 51). With the LambdaMOO defined, let's look more closely at the virtual rape Mr. Bungle committed on legba and Starsinger that took place there. Mr. Bungle, Starsinger and legba are persona's of the people who created them for the use of virt ual portrayal while logged on at the LambdaMOO.

Sexism in Language Essay -- Language

Language refers to the method that humans use to communicate either through speech or written. It consists of the use of the word in a structured and conventional way. Language has been referred to as ‘our means of classifying and ordering the world; our means of manipulating reality. In structure and in its use we bring out the world into realisation and if it is inherently inaccurate, then we are misled. (Dale Spender, 1980).Language has power that allows us to make sense out of the reality we live in. Sexism is discrimination of a person based on their gender, especially on women. Sexism in language is the use of language which devalues members on one sex, almost always women, showing gender inequality. In the 1960/70’s there was a feminist campaign in Western Countries and a lot of research as conducted into gender inequality. The feminist campaign demanded that gender in equality should be eliminated from the educational system (Shi, 2001.) The existence of sexist l anguage is due to sexism in society and it is also related to social attitudes. There has been a movement amongst feminists to reduce sexual discrimination and it has led to a number of attempts to influence and change in language. Robert Hopper (2003) made a distinction between the terms ‘soft core’ and ‘hard core’ sexist language. He showed that ‘Soft core’ language was less obvious, subtle but still demeaning and patronizing to women. It was found to be more problematic because it was subtle and harder to spot. ‘Hard core’ sexism showed it to be easier to spot. Sexism in language takes many forms, though theses may be reduced to 3 types: language ignores, it defines and it deprecates women. Women and girls are hurt both physically and materially by it. Everyda... ... Language. Developmental Psychology. 20(4), 697-706. Lei, X. (2006). Sexism in Language. Journal of Language and Linguistics, 5 (1), 87-94. Mallett, R, Stangor, C, Swim, J.K. (2004). Understanding subtle sexism; Detection and Use of Sexist Language. Behavioural Science Sex Roles, 51(3/4) 117-128. Parks, J.B, Roberton, M.A. (2004). Attitudes Toward Women Mediate the Gender Effect on Attitudes Towards Sexist Language. Psychology of women Quarterly, 28(3), 233-239. Piercey, M. (2000), Sexism in the English Language. TESL Canada Journal, 17(2), 110-115. Turner-Bowker, M. (1996). Gender stereotyped descriptors in children's picture books: Does "Curious Jane" exist in the literature? Sex Roles, 35(7-8), 461-487. Ya-Lun, T. (2008). Child development (Research) Sex role (Portrayals) Children's literature (Educational aspects) Science & research, 45,(3), 310

Project Management Chapter Notes

These tools provide basic project management features and generally cost I than $200 per user. Smartened and tablet APS are available for much less, but the y often have Limited functionality. Low end tools are often recommended for small projects and single users. Most of these tools allow users to create Gaunt charts, which cannot be done easily us inning current productivity software. Midrange tools: A step up from low end tools, midrange tools are designed to handle larger rejects, multiple users, and multiple projects.All of these tools can produce Gaunt c harts and network diagrams, and can assist in critical path analysis, resource allocation, project tracking, and status reporting. Prices range from about $200 to $1,000 per user, or less per MO nth for online tools. Several tools require additional server software for using workup feat rues. Microsoft Project is still the most widely used project management software in this ca destroy, and t has an enterprise version, as desc ribed earlier and in Appendix A.Students and deed actors can purchase software like Microsoft Project at reduced prices from sites like www. Journey yet. Com ($139. 95 for Project Professional 2010 in 2012), and anyone can download a trial verse on from Microsoft's Web site. Many other suppliers also provide trial versions of their product Weighed tools: Another category of project management software is high end tools, sometimes referred to as enterprise project management software.These tools provide robust c abilities to handle very large projects and dispersed workups, and they have enterprise an d portfolio management functions that summarize and combine individual project information t o provide an enterprise view of all projects.

Boeing’s Strategy

The Capital Assets Price Model (CAPM), is a model for pricing an individual security or a portfolio. Its basic function is to describe the relationship between risk and expected return, which is often used to estimate a cost of equity (Wikipedia, 2009). It serves as a model for determining the discount rate which is used in calculating net present value. The CAPM says that the expected return of a security or a portfolio equals the rate on a risk-free security plus a risk premium. The formula is: R = Rf + *(E(Rm)-Rf) Rf = Risk free rate of return, usually U. S. treasury bonds ( ) ? = Beta for a company E(Rm) = Expected return of the market (commercial airlines market) E(Rm)-Rf = Sometimes referred to as the risk premium The beta and risk-free rate should be selected as required according to the Boeing 7E7 case study. For the CAPM the risk free rate of return for a given period is taken to be the return on government bonds over the period. The risk free rate of return at the time of this case was 4. 56% (Bruner, p. 239, 2007). At the time of the case, four main estimatesof equity market risk premiums (EMRP) were: 6. 4% = Geometric mean over T-bills 4. 7% = Geometric mean over T-bonds 8. 4% = Arithmetic mean over T-bills . 4% = Arithmetic mean over T-bonds For the purpose of analysis we will use 6. 4% EMRP, thus (E(Rm)-Rf) = 6. 4 %. () The cost of equity is determined by the company’s levered Beta (). This is calculated according to the ‘Hamada equation’: ? l = ? u (1+(1-T)(D/E)) ?l = company’s levered Beta ?u = company’s unlevered beta (It is a beta assuming the firm is completely equity financed, which reflects pure business risk) T = effective marginal tax rate D/E = market-value debt/equity ratios Exhibit 10 provided seven different betas that can be used for the capital assets price model and discount rate calculation. The project of building airplanes is a long-term venture with the life span more than five years. Boeing created a sales and cash flow forecast for the next 30 years, based on Exhibit 8. This is why for the calculation we use the Beta calculated over the longer period of time. Out of the three Betas calculated for the period of time 5 years, (1. 05, 0. 80, 1. 00), we take 0. 80, the figure calculated against the S&P 500 index. It uses the weighted market value, which can actually reflect the importance of company’s securities in the market shares and the boarder market changes (Wikipedia, 2009). 0. 8 = ? u (1+(1-0. 5)*0. 525) Beta Asset = 0. 6 (overall risk of airplane industry) Total beta for Boeing equals to weighted beta from commercial business plus weighted beta for defense business. Beta = (%commercial)* Beta Commercial + (%defense )* Beta Defense. The average unlevered Beta for defense business among Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon is 0. 28 = (0. 28+0. 24 +0. 31)/3. () Exhibit 1 shows commercial business generated $28,387 million in revenue and the defense systems segment generated $24,957 in revenue in 2002. Thus the weight of commercial business is 53% and the weight of defense systems business is 47%. In addition, commercial business generated $9,726 million in identifiable assets and the defense systems segment generated $12,753 in identifiable assets in 2002. Thus the weight of commercial business is 43% and the weight of defense systems business is 57%. 0. 6 = 53%*Beta Commercial +47%*0. 28 Beta Commercial = 0. 88 0. 6 = 43%*Beta Commercial +57%*0. 28 Beta Commercial = 1. 02 There are two betas (0. 88, 1. 02) calculated for the risk of this industry, we choose the larger figure 1. 02. This indicates the larger discount rate for the project evaluation thus it could provide the more pessimistic scenario. The larger the discount rate from the CAPM, the more inflation we assume in our projection. Calculation of CAMP: R = 4. 56 +6. 4*1. 02=11. 08% The appropriate required rate of the return for evaluation the 7E7 project is 11. 08%. In EHHIBIT 10, it shows market-value debt/equity ratios, so it assumes that this ratio reflects the Boeing’s capital structure and using only debt and equity as finance the 7E7 commercial aircraft project in this case. There are two formulas to calculate the weight of debt and equity as show below: Debt/Equity=0. 525 (D/E=0. 525) Debt+Equity=1 (D+E=1); D=1-E Using the second formula substituting back into the first equation and the result is 1-E/E=0. 525, so through calculating this equation, it can indicate that E is 0. 656 and D is 1-0. 656=0. 344. The Boeing’s capital structure is that the weight of debt is 34. 4% and the weight of equity is 65. 6%. From this case, it gives a well-known formula how to finance Boeing’s weighted-average cost of capital (WACC), it shows below: WACC= (percent Debt) (Pretax cost of debt capital) (1- Marginal effective corporate tax rate) + (percent Equity) (Cost of equity capital) In previous calculation, it already know the percent Debt is 34. %, percent Equity is 65. 6%, Cost of equity capital is 11. 088% and in this case gives Marginal effective corporate tax rate is 35%. So it only just to calculate cost of Debt. The cost debt is the interest rate or yield that a firm must pay on its bonds. In this case, it uses weighted average yield to maturity to calculate cost of debt. Through the for m of EXHIBIT 11 and using two column debt amount and yield to maturity to finance cost of debt is 5. 286%, however, the appropriate cost of debt is the after-tax cost of debt, so the final cost of debt is 5. 86%*(1-35%)=3. 436%. All of variables is known, so it can calculate WACC=34. 4%*3. 436+65. 6%*11. 088%=8. 46%. The IRR which is consistent with ‘base case’ assumption was 15. 7% in the EXHIBIT 9 of case study. In this case, it shows that IRR (15. 7) is greater than WACC (8. 46%), so the 7E7 commercial aircraft project is quite attractive for Boeing. In the ENHIBIT 9, it indicates that the unit volume for the first 20 years will only be 1500 with 0% price premium above expected minimum price, under this worse circumstance, IRR still have 10. % which is still greater than WACC (8. 46%). Obviously, developing of the 7E7 commercial aircraft project is acceptable. The IRR is expected to be 15. 7%, while WACC is estimated to be 8. 46%, leaving a difference of 7. 24%. This excess will add value to Boeing’s stock and the company will believe that developing of the 7E7 commercial aircraft project is a worthy investment. In the EXHIBIT 9, there is another factor development costs which influence on the IRR of the 7E7 commercial aircraft project. Developmental cost could make or break the IRR of the aircraft. Boeing company could consider how to control the cost of development, if the company cannot control the developmental costs, the result is that the delivery delays and the company will give discounts to consumers, this will lead to IRR goes down. The Boeing use of composite material could change the manufacturing process, the machinery and the labor skills, so Boeing should recognize that the 7E7 project maybe have the potential for product cost and price inaccuracies and Boeing’s managers should concern how to reduce the development costs. Under the worst condition, from the form of EXHIBIT 9, it shows that development costs is $10,000,000,000 with cost of goods sold as a percentage of sales is 84%, that is IRR is 8. 6% still higher than WACC (8. 46%). Therefore, developing the 7E7 commercial aircraft project is an attractive project. From WACC this perspective to consider whether the 7E7 project is economically attractive or not, the WACC calculates an overall return that a corporate exist assets and business in order to increase or maintain the current value of current stock. In this case, it knows that Boeing’s stock price closed at $36. 41 and from the definition of WACC, it can understand that the Boeing must earn at least 8. 46% return from this 7E7 project in order to maintain this stock price. It also indicate that discount rate for this company is 11. 088%, compare with WACC 8. 46%, it means that the company under the safety circumstance to calculate net present value. In the previous calculation, cost of equity is 11. 088% and it can compute NPV is $2546. 74. The NPV is greater than zero, so the 7E7 commercial aircraft project is a profitable investment.