Hih Accounting Strategy free essay sample

I am going to talk about HIH insurance’s Corporate accounting scandals. Background: HIH insurance was formed as a small insurance company in 1968. Its main business was to underwrite workers compensation insurance in Australia. The company expanded its operations into property, commercial and professional liability from the mid 1980s. During this period, it also moved into the UK and the US insurance markets. In the US, the focus was on workers compensation insurance. Public liability and professional indemnity insurance were its main specialisations in the UK. Corporate governance The HIH Royal Commission Report attributed the failure of the company to two key factors. First, claims arising from insured events in previous years were much greater than the company had provided for in its accounts, thus leading to an overstatement of reported profits. This is known as ‘under-reserving’ or ‘under-provisioning’. The second factor concerns the further mismanagement of HIH through poorly conceived and badly executed acquisitions. We will write a custom essay sample on Hih Accounting Strategy or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The insurance risks were not properly identified and managed. There was an environment where unpleasant information was hidden from the Board or filtered or sanitised to reduce discomfort or undue questioning from the Board. And there was a lack of sceptical questioning and analysis by senior management, by the board and, arguably, by the auditors Accounting issues: Provisions for expected future claims Evidence presented before the HIH Royal Commission indicates that the prudential margin approach is common industry practice due to the inherent uncertainties in predicting claims. Yet HIH almost always employed the central estimate and did not apply a prudential margin. The consequence was not only to take an overly optimistic view of claims provisions but to continually overstate reported earnings. Accordingly, if one assumes a lower amount of claims is likely to be made on outstanding policies this will generally make profits look more substantial than otherwise would be the case, given an inverse relationship between profits and provisions for future claims (that is, liabilities). According to Main (2003, p. 107) and Westfield (2003, pp. 38 and 43) the approach to profit determination at FAI and HIH was to chose a targeted profit number and to alter the provisions to effectively arrive at that arbitrary figure. Not only did this approach appear to violate the spirit of the accounting standard but it would eventually result in large losses being reported should actual claims exceed the amounts that were previously provisioned. Earnings management using reinsurance contracts HIH appears to have obscured its optimistic provisioning by entering into so-called financial reinsurance arrangements with other parties. Reinsurance is a process â€Å"whereby a second insurer, in return for a premium, agrees to indemnify a first insurer against a risk insured by the first insurer in favour of an insured† According to AASB1023, for a transaction to be accounted for as insurance or reinsurance, there must be a transfer of risk to the reinsurer. The standard does not describe, either in qualitative or quantitative terms, what degree of risk transfer is required. Without examining the intricate details of the actual transactions entered into by HIH, these contracts, in effect, â€Å"promised that no claim would be made on a specific reinsurance policy† (Main, 2003, p. 115). The overall objective was to use reinsurance to offset any likely increase in claims liabilities on the balance sheet with a corresponding recovery under a reinsurance contract. Accounting for goodwill In acquiring the shares of FAI, HIH gave consideration which, in total, amounted to $300. 5 million. This acquisition was initially recorded in 1999 in the consolidated financial statements of HIH as comprising $25 million of net tangible assets and $275 million of purchased goodwill. Subsequently, another $163 million of FAI-related goodwill was added to this intangible asset account so that by the year 2000 this goodwill account had a balance of $438 million (HIH Royal Commission Report, 2003, Section 7. 1. 4). Justice Owen contended that the goodwill adjustments (and reinsurance transactions referred to earlier) became techniques for concealing under-reserving problems inherent in FAI’s insurance portfolio. Conclusion: In conclusion, HIH insurance has several factors lead the company collapses- 2 corporate governance problem and 3 accounting issues. ‘under-provisioning’ and mismanagement are two factors of corporate governance. Provisions for expected future claims; Earnings management using reinsurance contracts and Accounting for goodwill are 3 factors of accounting governance.

Napoleon as an Enlightened Despot essays

Napoleon as an Enlightened Despot essays Enlightened despotism is defined as the theory that a ruler should rule in such a way as to efficiently better the lives of the people and the state. This theory comes from the enlightenment itself, and was a social revolution in terms of government. Rulers such as Maria Theresa of Austria, and Catherine the Great all worked toward the betterment of society, at times using their absolute rule to enforce this system of improvement. Napoleon is a classic example of such a ruler and clearly throughout his rule, exhibits the characteristics of an enlightened despot. The first example of Napoleons despotism is seen in the multitude of military conflicts in which France was involved during his rule. Using the absolute rule which an enlightened despot possesses, he successfully defeated Prussia, Russia and Austria. A democratic or republican government would have required votes and debate as to involvement in these numerous wars, however, under Napoleons rule, simply his desire to expand the French empire led to these campaigns, which resulted in the French continental empire stretching from southern Spain all the way to the Polish frontier. Furthermore, evidence of the totalitarian and despotic nature of Napoleons rule can be seen in his coronation ceremony. At this point in the development of the monarchical structure of European society, it was common, if not necessary, for the monarch to receive endorsement from a religious power. In the case of France, a predominantly Roman Catholic country, the Pope granted religious investigure by coronation. It was a symbol that the monarchs power was derived from God. However, Napoleon chose to alter this trend when he wrested the crown from the hands of the pope and placed it on his own head. Subsequently, he crowned his wife queen. This indicates that Napoleon is not indebted to a higher power, that he is the ultimate authority, a classic sign of a despot. ...

Production and Growth Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Production and Growth - Essay Example On the other hand, explaining differences relating to growth and productivity among countries around the world required significant understanding of their determinants. It also important to note that, growth rates among different countries around the world are not constant; in fact, they are highly dynamic (Zhihua and Kai, 4). Moreover, countries that are considered poor are not destined to a state of poverty; for instance, countries such as Singapore had low incomes during 1960, but currently her incomes have significantly increased. Therefore, economic stability of a country is not taken for granted since; there are increased chances of being overtaken by other poorer countries that are growing more rapidly. FACTORS AFFECTING PRODUCTIVITY AND GROWTH GDP and income in a country increases due to workers’ productivity, thereby leading to increased living standards for the citizens. Productivity and growth rate in a given country is also facilitated by technological knowledge si nce it enhances the production process. Furthermore, in order to understand productivity and growth in a country, human capital is understood based on perspective through which people contribute to expansion of knowledge acquired in the field of production. Furthermore, there is need to understand policies, which influence determinants of growth in a country. Some of these growth determinants include international trade, health, nutrition, health, property rights and political instability and others; In fact, it is also vital to understand investment, savings and the policies that affect them. Output per unit labor is also one of the major determinants of living standards among citizens in a country. Therefore, the discussion in this paper focuses on comparing productivity in different countries depending on physical and human capital per worker, and natural resources. Moreover, evaluation of growth among different countries is based in technological advancement, which improves livi ng standards. INCOMES AND GROWTH AROUND THE WORLD Rates of growth among countries across the world are highly dynamic due to numerous underlying factors. Therefore, numerous changes occur over a period of time, whereby poor countries acquire chances of improving their productivity and growth to an extent of surpassing other countries. On the other hand, decisions made by various political actors in a given country can affect their growth negatively or positively; thus, leading to decline or increase of productivity. The graphs below show GDP per captial during 2009 and growth rate from 1970 up to 2009 for different countries in order to compare their growth and productivity rates. DETERMINANTS OF PRODUCTIVITY Physical Capital per worker (K/L) In any country, the physical capital refers to the tools and machinery used for production and infrastructure such as roads and ports, which facilitates mobilization of factors of production. In fact, physical capital is an attribute of growth and productivity in a given country since it is applied in production of output. However, there is a profound difference between physical capital and technology since it constrained, thereby being used by particular workers. In this case, productivity and growth is caused by substantial difference in physical capital between developed and developing countries. For instance, a survey conducted in 2000

The Bio-Oil Over the Catalysts of Ni-CNTs Research Paper - 183

The Bio-Oil Over the Catalysts of Ni-CNTs - Research Paper Example The focus of this research is the high catalytic activity of Ni catalyst supported by CNTs and prepared with the help of precipitation method using the homogeneous deposition. The purpose of its use was the achievement of low temperature during organic compounds’ reformation to bio-oil. The optimal percentage of the content of Ni-loading was 15 wt%. At 550 C, the authors reached nearly 92.5% of theH2 yield upon the Ni-CNTs catalyst of 15 wt %. Upon the process of reformation of the bio-oil over the catalysts of Ni-CNTs, the authors studied the reforming temperature (T) influences, the molar ratio between the steam and carbon fed (S/C), as well as the current (I) conducted by the catalyst with the help of the carrier gas of stream inside the reforming reactor. The aim of this research was to advocate bio-oils reformation through the current used in the Ni-CNTs catalyst’s high-dispersion. This indicated that bio-oils reformation is helpful in increasing hydrogen’s yield by the reformation of bio-oils organic compounds at low temperature. The authors used H2-TPD, XRD, TEM, XPS, ICP/AES, along with the isotherms of N2 adsorption-desorption to investigate the Ni-CNTs’ catalysts’ features with Ni loading contents. The research led the authors to the conclusion that the narrow and uniform distribution achieved through higher dispersion of Ni and smaller particle size of Ni was achieved for the Ni catalyst supported by CNTs. The benefits of the technology included the reformation of the oxygenated organic compounds found in the bio-oil at substantially low temperature. Other pros of the technology included low cost and high efficiency.

Public policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Public policy - Essay Example have been important issues that were addressed by American government in response to massive public outcry. The public policy undergoes several stages before it is established and enacted by the government through proper laws. They are: agenda building; formulation and adoption of agenda; implementation; evaluation and termination. The first step to the development of public policy is to set agenda by identifying the problem that influences the lives of people. In recent times, the outsourcing of jobs to foreign agencies was a major issue in America as it had serious implications on the employment of the people which had gone down drastically. The issues are identified when it is raised by various interest groups who represent people who are affected by them. The citizen associations, business bodies and voluntary agencies often start the movement at local and state levels and thereby generate greater support nationally. These interest groups have not only the support of the public but also of eminent people like politician, social worker, Congress members etc. which lends credibility to the issue. Paul Sabatier (2007) says that advocacy coalition framework for policies in different areas of public interests are very strong tools for enacting public policies. They take into considerations the interests of wide range of stakeholders whose lives are impacted by the problems. The coalition comprises of people from different areas media; interest groups; local and state council, researchers and analysts etc. Their feedbacks and opinions become critical part of government mechanism to develop proper agenda for the issue so that it can be taken up by the Congress for discussion. Formulation and adoption of agenda module takes place after the issue is researched and analyzed. The policy formation goes to Congress as a bill rules are drafted. When the draft is adopted, Congress passes the legislation to make

Saint Anthony Of Padua Patron Saint Of Lost Things Religion Essay

Saint Anthony Of Padua Patron Saint Of Lost Things Religion Essay Saint Anthony was a 13th century Franciscan Monk, Preacher and miracle worker. His birth name was Franciscan Thaumaturgust. When Franciscan Thaumaturgust became a Franciscan monk he was given the name of Anthony. Saint Anthony was born nearly 800 years ago in 1195 in Lisbon, Portugal. Saint Anthony was loyal to his church and deeply in love with God. His knowledge of the scripture and insight was incredible. According to Nugent, he was called in his day The Hammer of Heretics and The Ark of the Testament. (Nugent XIV). According to Steinbrock, Saint Anthony became a Franciscan monk because of the death in 1220 of five Franciscan monks (St. Bernard, St. Peter, St. Otho, St. Accursius, and St. Adjutus) who had been completely faithful to the Catholic Church. They were decapitated and their bodies were mutilated in Morocco, North Africa. Saint Anthony, wanting to follow in their footsteps of martyrdom, became a Franciscan monk. After the joining the Franciscan order, he only lived for ten more years (Steinbrock). Saint Anthony believed that a preachers goal must be to bring listeners to repentance and a total and genuine desire to turn away from sin, not just major sins, but all sins. Saint Anthony practiced sincere sorrow, through confession and designed all of his sermons around penance, with the intention of amendment and sorrow when confessing sin. (Nugent XIV) According to Saunders, St. Anthony was credited with many miracles during his lifetime. One miracle happened in Limoges, France while he was preaching on Holy Thursday at St. Pierre du Queriox Church. During his sermon he remembered that he was supposed to sing a lesson in the Divine Office, back where he lived at his monastery. It was then reported that he appeared simultaneously preaching in the church and singing the lesson at the monastery (Saunders). Another miracle attributed to St. Anthony is that he received an apparition of Baby Jesus. One night before Saint Anthony went to bed he decided to read the Bible. All of a sudden while reading, he saw Baby Jesus lying on the Bible and in his arms. Baby Jesus began touching and loving St. Anthonys face. This is why most photos of Saint Anthony are of him holding the Baby Jesus (Saunders). On October 3, 1226 Anthony traveled through La Provence, and returned to Italy. During this expedition another miracle happened to him. St. Anthony was burnt out by the long journey. He and his accomplice entered the house of a poor woman and she offered them wine and bread. In her haste to serve them the women forgot to cap the wine-barrel. St. Anthonys accomplice then broke his wine glass. Anthony immediately began to pray. Suddenly the glass was magically put back together in front of their eyes, and the empty barrel went from no wine to full with wine (Knight). Saint Anthony was elected Minister Provincial of Emilia after his return from Italy. But on May 30th, 1230 he decided to spend more time preaching so he resigned the office at the General Chapter of Assisi, and retired to the Convent of Padua. The last Lent he preached was in 1231. Over 30,000 people came from all parts of the world to see and hear him speak. The last sermons for Saint Anthony spoke of the wrongness of hatred and enmity. (Knight) Saint Anthony became very ill in 1231 and went to the woodland retreat, Camposampiero with two other monks for relaxation. Anthony lived in a cell built for him under the branches of a walnut tree. After his stay on the way back to Padua, Saint Anthony died at age 35. On the 13th of June in 1231, at the Poor Clare convent at Arcella, the great speaker was announced dead (Nugent 79). According to Saunders, right after his death the children in the streets started crying, The holy Father is dead. St. Anthony is dead. Thirty years upon his burial, people opened his vault and found his body had vanished in thin air, except for his tongue. St. Bonaventure grabbed the tongue and kissed it. According to Saunders, Saint Bonaventure then exclaimed, O Blessed tongue that had always praised the Lord, and made others bless Him, now it is evident what great merit thou hast before God. To this day, many people have received miracles at the tomb of St. Anthony in Padua (Saunders). According to Saunders, Pope Pius XII declared St. Anthony a Doctor of the Church on January 16, 1946. Many people around the world continue to pray to St. Anthony for strength and sorrowful repentance, as well as for help in finding lost items (Saunders).

Dial-Up Scripting Command Language :: essays research papers

Table of Contents 1.0 Overview 2.0 Basic Structure of a Script 3.0 Variables 3.1 System Variables 4.0 String Literals 5.0 Expressions 6.0 Comments 7.0 Keywords 8.0 Commands 9.0 Reserved Words 1.0 Overview Many Internet service providers and online services require you to manually enter information, such as your user name and password, to establish a connection. With Scripting support for Dial-Up Networking, you can write a script to automate this process. A script is a text file that contains a series of commands, parameters, and expressions required by your Internet service provider or online service to establish the connection and use the service. You can use any text editor, such as Microsoft Notepad, to create a script file. Once you've created your script file, you can then assign it to a specific Dial-Up Networking connection by running the Dial-Up Scripting Tool. 2.0 Basic Structure of a Script A command is the basic instruction that a script file contains. Some commands require parameters that further define what the command should do. An expression is a combination of operators and arguments that create a result. Expressions can be used as values in any command. Examples of expressions include arithmetic, relational comparisons, and string concatenations. The basic form of a script for Dial-Up Networking follows: ; ; A comment begins with a semi-colon and extends to ; the end of the line. ; proc main ; A script can have any number of variables ; and commands variable declarations command block endproc A script must have a main procedure, specified by the proc keyword, and a matching endproc keyword, indicating the end of the procedure. You must declare variables before you add commands. The first command in the main procedure is executed, and then any subsequent commands are executed in the order they appear in the script. The script ends when the end of the main procedure is reached. 3.0 Variables Scripts may contain variables. Variable names must begin with a letter or an underscore ('_'), and may contain any sequence of upper- or lower-case letters, digits, and underscores. You cannot use a reserved word as a variable name. For more information, see the list of reserved words at the end of this document. You must declare variables before you use them. When you declare a variable, you must also define its type. A variable of a certain type may only contain values of that same type. The following three types of variables are supported: Type Description integer A negative or positive number, such as 7, -12, or 5698. string A series of characters enclosed in double-quotes; for example, "Hello world!" or "Enter password:". Dial-Up Scripting Command Language :: essays research papers Table of Contents 1.0 Overview 2.0 Basic Structure of a Script 3.0 Variables 3.1 System Variables 4.0 String Literals 5.0 Expressions 6.0 Comments 7.0 Keywords 8.0 Commands 9.0 Reserved Words 1.0 Overview Many Internet service providers and online services require you to manually enter information, such as your user name and password, to establish a connection. With Scripting support for Dial-Up Networking, you can write a script to automate this process. A script is a text file that contains a series of commands, parameters, and expressions required by your Internet service provider or online service to establish the connection and use the service. You can use any text editor, such as Microsoft Notepad, to create a script file. Once you've created your script file, you can then assign it to a specific Dial-Up Networking connection by running the Dial-Up Scripting Tool. 2.0 Basic Structure of a Script A command is the basic instruction that a script file contains. Some commands require parameters that further define what the command should do. An expression is a combination of operators and arguments that create a result. Expressions can be used as values in any command. Examples of expressions include arithmetic, relational comparisons, and string concatenations. The basic form of a script for Dial-Up Networking follows: ; ; A comment begins with a semi-colon and extends to ; the end of the line. ; proc main ; A script can have any number of variables ; and commands variable declarations command block endproc A script must have a main procedure, specified by the proc keyword, and a matching endproc keyword, indicating the end of the procedure. You must declare variables before you add commands. The first command in the main procedure is executed, and then any subsequent commands are executed in the order they appear in the script. The script ends when the end of the main procedure is reached. 3.0 Variables Scripts may contain variables. Variable names must begin with a letter or an underscore ('_'), and may contain any sequence of upper- or lower-case letters, digits, and underscores. You cannot use a reserved word as a variable name. For more information, see the list of reserved words at the end of this document. You must declare variables before you use them. When you declare a variable, you must also define its type. A variable of a certain type may only contain values of that same type. The following three types of variables are supported: Type Description integer A negative or positive number, such as 7, -12, or 5698. string A series of characters enclosed in double-quotes; for example, "Hello world!" or "Enter password:".

Assignments and Lab Reports Essay

Assessment By now you should have a good understanding of the scientific method and its importance in contributing to scientific knowledge. Grab your lab coat and get ready to design your own experiment. In this assignment, you will be doing two things: Evaluate an experiment. Designing your own experiment using the scientific method. Part I: Evaluate An Experiment Review each scenario below and choose ONE to complete for part I of your assignment. Read the scenario, and answer the questions using concepts learned in the lesson. Be sure to respond to each question in complete sentences and with supporting detail. Choose only ONE of the four scenarios below. Part I is worth 10 points. Scenarios (only select one): Scenario 1: Scenario 2: Scenario 3: Scenario 4: Part II: Designing an Experiment For the second part of your assignment, you get to apply the scientific method to a real life situation. Just as you saw within the lesson, the steps of the scientific method can be used to address the problem of finding the best directions to the movie theater, figuring out how to get grass to grow in your lawn, determining what color light helps plants grow fastest,  or answering a variety of other questions. Think about a scenario or problem that could occur in your life in which you can apply the scientific method to answer the question or solve the problem. Explain how you would follow each step of the scientific method and design an experiment. Please note that you are only describing what you would do at each step, you will not actually conduct the experiment. Part II is worth 20 points. Please be sure to write in complete sentences and use the â€Å"steps you need to include† and the rubric below to ensure you include sufficient detail.

Avoiding Prompt Dependency

Avoiding Prompt Dependency A serious problem for special educators can be to create prompt dependence. In the effort to teach new skills we can create new barriers to success and independence by creating prompt dependence, where a student is unable to work without the application of prompting. The Continuum of Prompting Prompting lies on a continuum from Most to Least, or Least to Most. Most prompts are those which are the most invasive, the full physical prompt. From a full physical prompt, prompting progresses to partial physical prompts (tapping an elbow) and then through verbal prompting and gestural prompting. Professionals make decisions about how best to employ prompting, usually judging the ability of the student. Some students, who are able to imitate, should probably be taught a new activity by modeling with a minimum of prompting. Prompts are intended to be faded, or removed, so that the child can perform the new skill independently. Thats why verbal is in the middle of the continuum, since they can often be harder to fade than gestural prompts. In fact, all too often prompt dependence begins with constant verbal directions teachers give children. The opposite problem can happen as well, as children get tired of constant verbal nagging from significant adults. Plan Your Prompting If students have receptive language and have a history of responding to verbal directions, you will want to plan a least to most prompting protocol. You want to teach or model the activity, give the spoken directive, and then attempt a gestural prompt, such as pointing. If that does not elicit the response/behavior that you wanted, you would progress to the next level, which would be gestural and verbal, Pick up the ball (while pointing to the ball.) At the same time, your teaching may be part of a forward or backward chain, depending on the skill and the skill level of your student. Whether you forward chain ​or backward chain will depend as well on whether you anticipate that your student will succeed best at the first or last step. If you are teaching a child to make pancakes in an electric skillet, you may want to backward chain, and make removing the pancake from the pan the first step you teach, since the reinforcement (eating the pancake) is close at hand. In the same way, planning your task analysis and chaining strategy to guarantee success is a great way to avoid prompt dependency. Children with poor or not receptive language, who dont respond, will need to be prompted most to least starting with full physical prompting, such as hand over hand prompting. There is greater danger of creating prompt dependency when you start at this level. It would probably be good to vary activities, so the student does tasks he or she has mastered interspersed with activities that they are learning. In this way, they are completing unprompted activities while at the same time working on new skills. Fading Fading is planned withdrawal of prompting in order to avoid prompt dependency. Once you have seen the child provide a decent approximation of the behavior or activity you want, you should start withdrawing the prompt . . . perhaps moving to a partial physical prompt (touching the childs hand, rather than a full physical, hand over hand prompt) or to a verbal prompt, paired with re-modeling the activity. Quickly pulling back from the most invasive prompting as quickly as possible is probably one of the most important strategies in avoiding prompt dependency. It means accepting an approximation and moving on, rather than spending too much tie on a single repeated activity. The key, then, is to: Plan your prompting.Mix mastered skills with new skills,Accept approximations of the behavior and start withdrawing prompting andFade as soon as you can.

Data Provenance in E-Learning Essays

Data Provenance in E-Learning Essays Data Provenance in E-Learning Essay Data Provenance in E-Learning Essay We live in an information age, where the volume of data processed by humans and organizations increases exponentially by grid middleware and availability of huge storage capacity. So, Data management comprises all the disciplines related to managing data as a valuable resource. The openness of the Web and the ease to combine linked data from different sources creates new challenges. Systems that consume linked data must evaluate quality and trustworthiness of the data.A common approach for data quality assessment is the analysis of provenance information. [1] Data provenance, one kind of Meta data, relate to the transformational workflows of a data products (files, tables and virtual collections) starting from its original sources. Meta Data refers to â€Å"Data about Data†. The workflows can generate huge amount of data with rich Meta data in order to understand and reuse the data. Data provenance techniques used in e for Different provenance Consumers In this they used an example scenario to express different provenance consuming type of users. They took power consumption forecast workflows as their example scenario.In this scenario there are three kind of consuming users: the software architect, the data analyst, and the campus facility operator. So they need different provenance model for each of them. The word â€Å"quality impact†, which indicates how the quality of a process affects the output quality, is then used to guide users on what processes and data objects they need to exercise more quality control upon. 3. 2. 2 An Apropos Presentation view Generally we use two kind classifications of approaches for determine suitable presentation view of the provenance: decomposition approach and clustering approach.Decomposition method is well suited for presence of granularities clearly defined in the provenance model. In each individual activity in the workflow, we identify the most appropriate presentation granularity to satisfy the usage requirement and to meet the user’s interest. When granular levels are not specified clear, clustering approach will be used. This approach incrementally clusters the initial fines for source data are the content of a document used for machine learning, the entries in a database used to answer a query, and the statements in a knowledge base used to entail a new statement. Other artifacts that may be used in a data creation are the creation guidelines, it is used for guiding the execution of the data creation. Examples for creation guidelines are mapping definitions, transformation rules, database queries and entailment rules. The data access centers on data access executions.Data accessors perform data access executions to retrieve data items contained in documents from a provider on the Web. To enable a detailed representation of providers the model describe in paper[12] distinguishes data providing services that process data access requests and send the do cuments over the Web, data publishers who use data providing services to publish their data, and service providers who operate data providing services. Furthermore, the model represents the execution of integrity verifications of artifacts and the results.A system that uses Web data must access this data from a provider on the Web. Information about this process and about the providers is important for a representation of provenance that aims to support the assessment of data qualities. Data published on the Web is embedded in a host artifact, usually a document. Following the terminology of the W3C Technical Architecture Group we call this artifact an information resource. Each information resource has a type, e. g. , it is an RDF document or an HTML document. The data accessor, retrieves information resources from a provider.Their provenance model allows a detailed representation of providers by distinguishing data providing services, data publishers, and service providers. [1] In paper [12] a provenance graph has represented as a tuple (PE; R; type; attr) where, ? PE denotes the set of provenance elements in the graph, ? R [pic] PE X PE X RN denotes the labeled edges in the graph where RN is the set of relationship names as introduced by our provenance model, ? type : PE ; ? (T) is a mapping that associates each provenance element with its types where T is the set of element types as introduced by our provenance model attr : PE ; ? (A X V ) is a mapping that associates each provenance element with additional properties represented by attribute-value pairs where A is a set of available attributes and V is a set of values They didn’t specify the sets A and V any further because the available possible values,attributes, and the meaning of these depend on the use case. However, they introduced an abbreviated notation to refer to the target of an edge in a provenance graph: if (p? 1; p? 2; rn) [pic] R we write p? 1 [pic] = p? 2. 3. 4 Using Data Provenance for Quality AssessmentFor assessment of the quality of data, we need to find out the information types that can be used for evaluating and a methodology for calculating quality attributes. In this research paper they have introduce a provenance model custom-made to the needs for tracing and tracking provenance information about Web data. This model describes about the creation of a data item and the provenance information about who made the data to be accessed through the Web. Most of the existing approaches for information quality assessment are based on the information provided by users.Quantitative approach described in the research paper [12] follows three steps: ? Collecting the quality attributes which are needed for provenance information ? Making decision on the influence of these attributes on the assessment ? Application of a function to compute the quality In this paper author has described information quality as a combined value of multiple quality attributes, such as a ccuracy, completeness, believability, and timeliness. The assessment method described in the paper [12] follows three steps. Those are, 1. Generate a provenance graph for the data item; . Annotate the provenance graph with impact values; 3. Calculate an IQ-score for the data item from the annotated provenance graph. The main idea behind these approach is automatically determining the quality measure for a data item, from impact values, which represent the influence of the elements in a provenance graph on the particular quality of the assessed data item. In order to design a actual assessment method for the above mention general assessment approach we have to make some design decisions. We have to answer few design related question to take design decision.Questions for Step 1: What types of provenance elements are necessary to determine the considered information quality and what level of detail (i. e. granularity) is necessary to describe the provenance elements in the application scenario? and Where and how do we get the provenance information to generate the provenance graph for a data item?. For Step 2: How might each type of provenance element influence the quality of interest? and what kind of impact values are necessary for the application scenario? For Step 3: How do we determine the impact values or where do we get them from? nd How can we represent the considered information quality by a value and what function do we use to calculate such a value from the annotated provenance graph? 3. 5 Using Data Provenance for Measuring the Information Assurance Data Provenance is multidimensional metadata that specifies Information Assurance attributes like Integrity, Confidentiality, Authenticity, Non-Repudiation etc. Each Information Assurance attribute may contain sub-components within like objective and subjective values or application security versus transport security within them.In the paper [11] authors have mentioned about a framework which is based on s ubjective Logic that includes uncertainty by representing values as a triple of . The model discussed in the paper [11] is an information flow model based on complex and simple messages about which objective information assurance attribute values are collected. This model incorporates the capability to roll up data provenance information over a multi-step information flow and/or over a complex message. These aggregation is called as Figures of Merit.Next goal after having the figure of merit and information assurance attribute values is to summarize these information in a simple visual icon which helps those who must act on information quickly to understand how confidential, authentic, and unmodified the data is, therefore it helps to make more clear decision when dealing with the data. 3. 5. 1 Framework for capture data provenance record A single Data Provenance (DP) record is created, each time a message was transmitted between agents, systems or processes. This record can be stor ed or it can be send along in parallel with the message.There are two parts of DP record, one is sender part and the other one is receiver part. Each part has a variant and an invariant section. Routing information to forward the message to the final destination is contained within the variant section, and it may change during the routing process. The invariant section of the DP record remains unchanged, the sender’s invariant section may include the following components: Identity of the Author of the message, Message ID, Timestamp, Message contents and type, References to other message IDs, e. g. attachments, Destination, Security label or classification, Outgoing Information Assurance values, and Hash value of the message contents. The receiver appends his own values to the record, adding Identity of the Receiver of the message, Timestamp, Incoming Information Assurance values, and Hash of the message body as seen by the receiver. The receiver may append a signature or an e ncrypted hash based on both the sender and receiver’s records. 3. 5. 2 Subjective Logic Josang’s Subjective Logic is used for modeling a flexible mechanism to calculate the confidentiality and this mechanism also helps to deal with uncertainty.Josang’s Subjective Logic uses three values b, d, and u, where b = belief, or the belief that the proposition is true d = disbelief, or the belief the proposition is false u = uncertainty, or the amount of uncommitted belief These components satisfy b + d + u =1, and b, d, u [pic] [0,1] 3. 5. 3 Implementation The models of information flow and of the data provenance at each point along that flow is captured in a semantic model. The target representation was the Web Ontology Language (OWL) with a rules layer above to capture domain inferences not implied by the formal models.Controlled English representation called the Semantic Application Design Language (SADL) is used as the authoring environment. SADL is a language that maps directly and unambiguously into OWL and Jena Rules or SWRL. An Eclipse-based SADL-IDE supports the authoring, testing, and version control of the models. Snapshots of the data provenance state of the Message are captured as instances of DPInfo. When a Message is sent by an Agent, a SenderDPInfo (subclass of DPInfo) captures relevant data provenance information.When a Message is received by an Agent, a ReceiverDPInfo (also a sub class of DPInfo) captures the data provenance state at receipt. In this model they have decided to calculate each of IA attributes individually. They have created a visual summary of the IA values, to support in the decision process. The IA values they used are Integrity, Confidentiality, Authenticity, Availability, and Non-repudiation. 3. 6 Issues in Data Provenance There are some open problems exist with data provenance. Those are Information management infrastructure, Provenance analytics and visualization, Interoperability, Connecting database and wo rkflow provenance. 6] Information management infrastructure. With the growing volume of raw data, workflows and provenance information, there is a need for efficient and effective techniques to manage these data. Besides the need to handle large volumes of heterogeneous and distributed data, an important challenge that needs to be addressed is usability: Information management systems are notoriously hard to use. As the need for these systems grows in a wide range of applications, notably in the scientific domain, usability is of paramount importance. The growth in the volume of provenance data also calls for techniques that deal with information overload.Provenance analytics and visualization. The problem of mining and extracting knowledge from provenance data has been largely unexplored. By analyzing and creating insightful visualizations of provenance data, scientists can debug their tasks and obtain a better understanding of their results. Mining this data may also lead to the d iscovery of patterns that can potentially simplify the notoriously hard, time-consuming process of designing and refining scientific workflows. Interoperability. Complex data products may result from long processing chains that require multiples tools (e. . , scientific workflows and visualization tools). In order to provide detailed provenance for such data products, it becomes necessary to integrate provenance derived from different systems and represented using different models. This was the goal of the Second Provenance Challenge, which brought together several research groups with the goal of integrating provenance across their independently developed workflow systems. Although the preliminary results are promising and indicate that such an integration is possible, there needs to be more principled approaches to this problem.One direction currently being investigated is the creation of a standard for representing provenance Connecting database and workflow provenance. In many s cientific applications, database manipulations co-exist with the execution of workflow modules: Data is selected from a database, potentially joined with data from other databases, reformatted, and used in an analysis. The results of the analysis may then be put into a database and potentially used in other analyses. To understand the provenance of a result, it is therefore important to be able to connect provenance information across databases and workflows.Combining these disparate forms of provenance information will require a framework in which database operators and workflow modules can be treated uniformly, and a model in which the interaction between the structure of data and the structure of workflows can be captured. Another issue which in data provenance is Data Citation, Data citation is about citing a component in a digital library that consists of documents and databases. More generally there is no specified way citing. In databases they use key for citing tuples. Docum ent can be cited using Url, universal locator of the document.Most major problem of provenance is invalidated citing due to update of the cited documents. To overcome this problem there are many solution but each with a problem. One way of solution is release successive version of database separately. But it needs large storage. Another way of solution is kept history of database to trace history of the components of database. But it is complex. As a solution of whole, by giving a date to url, at least the person who follows the citation will know whether to question the validity of the citation. 7] 3. 6. 1 DATA PROVENANCE AND FINANCIAL SYSTEMIC RISK Data Provenance is not only important in E-Learning environment but also play vital part in large-scale analytic environment to support financial systemic risk analysis. In financial Sector, Data should be managed as a strategic, enterprise asset. This requires active management of data quality, so that managers or CEOs of the organizat ion understand the quality of the information on which they base their decisions. So Data provenance is needed for make a financial based decision. rovenance information enables analysts to better understand the data and assumptions used for potentially vast numbers of simulation runs. Even though, it is not enough to provide data structures, query mechanisms, and graph renderings for provenance; one also needs a scalable strategy for collecting provenance. 4. Data Provenance and E-Learning Rather than thinking like â€Å"E-Learning is a new education method which uses Internet† , actual norm can be expressed as collaborating different pieces of technologies/products to make learning happens.This gradually leads to the idea of virtual learning environment. In E-Learning most of the resources which are related to the studies are gathered from web. So it is important to make sure that the information gathered from web is trustworthy. Some of the information provided in internet is not considered as proper reference. For example wikipedia. org, wikipedia is an online encyclopedia, for most of the google search result wikipedia will appear in the top of the search result, still it is considered as untrusted source because of the openness of it.There is another problem, some of the information would be truthful but the information is outdated, so referring to that information is incorrect. This is where the data provenance come into play. Data provenance can be used to get information about data creation, and the modification happened to the information. Using these information we can come to a conclusion about trustworthiness of the resource gathered from the web. Most of the researches in data provenance are done under the field of E-Science, but it can be adapted into the E-Learning environment.

Aviation Security Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Aviation Security - Research Paper Example This brings out the need to tighten the global security mostly within the airports that forms the target of terrorism attacks. This paper will focus in details on the issue of terrorism, its impact on aviation sector, and efforts that have been made to curb terrorism. According to the United States department of defense, terrorism is systematic use of prohibited violence, or threat of violence to instill fear, with the aim of coercing or intimidating government and societies in pursuing political, economic or ideological goals. It is a criminal act that usually influences an audience beyond the immediate victim. The terrorist, the victim and the public in general are the three perspective of terrorism. In most cases, he terrorist view themselves as not being evil but have the belief that they are combatants who are legitimate, fighting by whatever means at their disposal for what they believe in. On the other hand, the victim of a terrorism act views the terrorist as a criminal who has no regard for human life at all. The terrorist is meant to believe that in whatever he does he will get the backing of the general public for this cause (Adweek, 2003). Terrorism has been used in the past as a strategy by a number of people while other perpetrators consider it a holy war and thus obligated to take part in it. In spite of this a lot still has to be considered based on the different school of thought. When looked at critically, it is a weapon used by the stronger in the society to suppress the weaker ones. Terrorism uses power which is coercive in nature and military tactics are employed in terror acts. It is difficult to ascertain the magnitude of terror attacks because the attacker’s organization is not easy to understand and do something about it in short period of time (Adweek, 2003). That is the reason why such preemption

Analysis of the Strategy Options for British Airways Term Paper

Analysis of the Strategy Options for British Airways - Term Paper Example Presently, aviation customers search for those airlines which provide quality service, on-time arrival and departure, and reasonable rate altogether. Thus, aviation organizations do not have any other alternative but to defy traditional business strategies and develop new strategies (Dostaler & Flouris, n.d.). Several tools help to analyze the strategic choices available for British Airways in order to stay competitive in the market. ...Among the three strategic alternatives, British Airways has implemented a differentiation strategy in terms of quality. British Airways provides quality services to the customers for generating a valuable traveling experience. It provides healthy food options, quick track change network, superior sleeper facilities, and in-flight shower system among others. These differentiating services help British Airways to develop a unique brand image for the company (Office Application Development, 2010). Ansoff Matrix Ansoff matrix is a popular marketing manage ment tool which helps to recognize potential alternative strategies British Airways can consider. British Airways needs to refine the ideas by identifying appropriate methods for accomplishing the strategic options. Growth can be accomplished by internal improvement or else it can be achieved by acquisition and progression of market/services (Bowhill, 2008). The following table will illustrate the Ansoff Matrix and different strategic options: Products Present New Market Present Market Penetration Product Development New Market Development Diversification The major strategic elements of British Airways for differentiating the services are: Improving interactions with employees and developing them towards high performance Provide outstanding traveling experience to the customers Increase financial performance Maintain superiority in business operations Maintain good relationship with suppliers, communities and other elements of the aviation industry (British Airways, 2010).