Outline and evaluate the working memory model Essay Example for Free

Outline and evaluate the working memory model Essay Baddeley and Hitch (1974) developed an alternative model of short-term memory which they called the working memory model. The working memory model consists of four components. The central executive which controls and co-ordinates the operation of two subsystems, the phonological loop and the visuo-spatial sketchpad. The central executive controls attention and coordinates the actions of the other components, it can briefly store information, but has a limited capacity. The phonological loop consists of two parts, the articulatory control system and the phonological store. The articulatory control system (the inner voice) where information is rehearsed sub vocally and has a capacity of about 2 seconds. The phonological store (the inner ear) stores information in speech-based form, the speech input is held for a brief duration. The third component, the visuo-spatial sketchpad, mentally manipulates images and space, for example it is used when a person imagines the encodes visual information in terms of separate objects as well as the arrangement of these objects in ones visual field. The final component, episodic buffer, receives input from many sources, temporarily stores this information, and then puts them together in order to construct a mental episode of what is being experienced right now. The evidence of the existence of the working memory model offers a better account than the STM component of the multi-store memory model. This is because it moves from describing immediate memory as a unitary store to one with a number of components. The working memory model does not over emphasize the importance of rehearsal for STM retention, in contrast to the multi-store model. It is an optional process rather than the only means by which information is kept in immediate memory. The working memory model also explains many psychological observations. The KF case study supports the Working Memory Model. KF suffered brain damage from a motorcycle accident that damaged his short-term memory. KFs impairment was mainly for verbal information his memory for visual information was largely unaffected. This shows that there are separate STM components for visual information (visuo-spatial sketchpad) and verbal information (phonological loop). However, there are also arguments to suggest weaknesses of the working memory model. The main limitation is the lack of evidence for the central executive, some psychologists believe it is too vague. Critics also feel that the notion of a single central executive is wrong and that there are probably several components. This could make the working memory model appear reductionist because it has only been described as being unitary and over simplified. From this, it could be suggested that it is lacking in detail and is not fully reliable. Finally, much of the supporting evidence for this model comes from the study of brain-damaged individuals, where it is impossible to make before and after comparisons, so it is not clear whether changes in behaviour is caused by the damage. Finally, the process of brain injury is traumatic, which may in itself change behaviour. These factors limit the validity of any conclusions drawn.

Health Issues in the Philippines Essay Example for Free

Health Issues in the Philippines Essay Like any other third-world country, the Philippines have been struggling in some health issues and one of it is illegal drug use. A lot of Filipinos are addicted to prohibited drugs. However, the Philippine government has dealt with this issue and although there are still some recorded incidents of drug abuse, the number of drug dependents in the Philippines has gradually decreased. One major health issue in the Philippines, is malnutrition. There have been studies conducted and accordingly, most of the Filipinos that suffer from malnutrition are the poor ones. The Philippine government, thru the Department of Social Welfare and Developments along with the Department of Health has provided projects to help poor Filipinos from starvation. Other health issues in the Philippines are dengue cases, but then, these health concerns are only happening in the rural area of the country. Most of these cases are properly attended to by the Philippine government Health issues in the Philippines The Philippines have been struggling with some healthcare issues, one of the most noticeable being illegal drug use.There are a number of Filipinos who are said to be addicted to prohibited drugs. However, the Philippine governmenthas concentrated on this issue and although there are still some recorded incidents of drug abuse, the number of drug dependents has gradually decreased.Another serious health issue is malnutrition. Unsurprisingly, the poorer citizens are the ones who suffer from thiscondition. The Philippine government, through the Department of Social Welfare and Development and in conjunction with the Department of Health, has initiated projects to help its poorer citizens who suffer from starvation.Cases of dengue are also notable. However, most of these cases are properly attended to by the Philippine government.

Annotated Bibliography: Automated Brain Tumor Detection

Annotated Bibliography: Automated Brain Tumor Detection V. Zeljkovic et al.(2014)[1]] proposed computer aided way of automated brain tumor detection with MRI images. This technique enables the particular segmentation of tumor tissues by with the correctness and also reproducibility just like physical segmentation. The outcomes display 93. 33% precision with irregular images and also total accuracy with healthy brain MR images. This technique for tumor detection with MR images also gives information relating to it's specific location and also documents it's design. As a result, this particular assistive technique enhances investigative effectiveness and also lowers the opportunity of human mistake and misdiagnosis. S. Ghanavati et al. (2012) [2] delveloped a multi-modality framework for automated tumor discovering is actually recent, fusing unlike magnetic Resonance Imaging strategies which includes T1-weighted, T2-weighted, as well as T1 along with gadolinium comparison agent. The intensity, shape deformation, symmetry, as well as consistency capabilities have been produced from each image. H. Yang et al. (2013). [3] experimented many segmentation strategies, no approach can easily segment all the b rain tumor information sets. Clustering as well as classification approach are very vulnerable with the 1st parameters. A few clustering strategies certainly are a stage operations and donot maintain the connectivity among regions. Training data and the appearance of the tumor strongly affect the results of the atlas-based segmentation. Edge-based deformable contour model is experienced the initialization with the evaluating curve as well as noise. H. Kaur et al. (2014) [4]has dedicated to the brain tumor detection strategies. The brain tumor detection is is definitely an essential vision application inside the medical field. This specific work offers firstly displayed an evaluation about a variety of well-known strategies for automated segmentation of heterogeneous image information that can require an actions towards bridging the gap in between bottom-up affinity-based segmentation techniques as well as top-down generative model based structured strategies. The key purpose of the work is usually to find out a variety of ways to detect brain tumor in a effective methods. The way to unearthed which the absolute almost all of active techniques has ignored the quality images likes including images along with noise or bad brightness. Also many techniques target tumor detection has neglected the use of object based segmentation. To overcome the limits of previously work a new strategy has been offered in this research work. I.Maiti et al. (2012) [5] offered a new way for brain tumor detection is developed. For this purpose watershed method may be used in combination with edge detection operation. It is a colour based brain tumor detection method using colour brain MRI graphics in HSV colour space. The RGBimage is changed into HSV coloring image by which the image is split in several regions hue, saturation, as well as intensity. After contrast enhancement watershed algorithm is applied on this image for every region. Canny edge detector is put on this result image. after combining the three images final brain tumor segmented image is obtained. M.S R et al.(2014)[6] proposed a segmentation and k-means clustering is combined for the improvementt evaluation regarding MR images. The results that translate the actual unsupervised segmentation techniques better than supervised segmentation techniques. The pre-processing is needed to display images from the supervised segmentation methods. The image training and testing data which significantly complicates the process though the picture analysis regarding known K-means clustering process is straightforward in comparison with used fuzzy clustering techniques. H.AejazAslam et al.(2013)[7] have suggested a new way of image segmentation applying Pillar K-means criteria. The system can be applied this k-means criteria optimized after Pillar. Pillar algorithm takes this keeping pillars should be located as far from each other to be able to avoid this force distribution of a upper limit, because just like the number of centroids between data distribution. This algorithm can optimize this K-means clustering with image segmentation in the issues with precision along with calculation time. A. Al. Badarneh et 's. (2012)[8] suggested a an automatic classification method for tumor of MRI images avoiding this Automatic classification of MRI images involves extreme accuracy, considering that the non-accurate examination along with postponing supply of the accurate inspection would produce raise the prevalence of more serious conditions. This work demonstrates the effects of neural network (NN) along with K-Nearest Neighbour (K-NN) algorithms upon brain tumor.. the results demonstrate that technique accomplishes 100% classification precision applying KNN along with 98. 92% applying NN. K.Sharma et al.(2014)[9] discussed magnetic resonance imaging is important imaging strategy used in the detection of brain tumor. brain tumor is one of the most harmful diseases occurring among several people. brain MRI performs an essential role for radiologists to detect and treat brain tumor patients. Research of the medical image by the of the radiologist is a difficult process along with the accuracy is determined by his or her experience. Thus, the actual computer aided techniques becomes really important as they overcome these limitations. Many automated methods are offered , but automating this method is extremely challenging because of various appearance of the tumor among the different patients. There are many feature extraction and classification methods which are used for detection associated with brain tumor from MRI pictures. S.Royet al.(2013)[10] reviewed the several recent brain tumor segmentation along with diagnosis methodology for MRI of brain image. MRI is an advanced medical imaging method providing prosperous information about the human soft-tissue structure. there are different brain tumor diagnosis and segmentation methods to find the segment a brain tumor from MR Images. These detection iand segmentation strategies are evaluated with signifiance placed on Informative advantages and drawbacks of such methods for brain tumor diagnosis and segmentation. The usage of MRI image detection and segmentation in different techniques are defined. Natarajan et 's. (2012) [11] proposed brain tumor recognition method for MRI human brain images. The MRI human brain images are generally firsty pre-processed using median filtration, then segmentation of image is performed using threshold segmentation and also morphological functions are used to obtain the tumor region. This method provides accurate shape of tumor within MRI human brain image. Manoj et .al. (2012) [12] explained the information of size of tumor plays critical role with the the treatment of malicious tumors. Manual segmentation of human brain tumors as of magnet Resonance images is a challenging and also time cousuming task. This method for the discovering of tumor in human brain by segmentation and histogram thresholding. The prepared process can be efficiently useful to identify contour of the tumor and it is geometrical description. It can be helpful application for the experts especially the doctors entertained in this particular field. Roopali et.al.. (2014)[13] disscused the segmentation strategy, which was carried out using a method based on threshold segmentation, watershed segmentation along with morphological operators. This proposed segmentation method seemed to be experimented with MRI scanned images associated with human brains: hence finding tumor in the images. Samples of human brains were taken, scanned applying MRI process and were prepared through segmentation methods this provides the efficient end results. Nisha et.al.(2014)[14] described the method aims the automatic detection along with classification| of human brain tumors while benign as well as malignant. The performance proposed by the system is usually 96%. This proposed method concentrate on this segmentation associated with MRI and helps in the automatic detection of human brain tumor through the assistance of level set method with the classification of tumor as benign or malignant using artificial neural syatem. Kanimozhi and Dhanalakshmi et.al. (2013) [15] described the basic algorithm for detecting the actual variety and outline of tumor in brain MR images is described. Usually, CT scan as well as MRI that could possibly in intracranial hole produces a entire image of brain. This image is visually|examined by the overall specialist for identification and examination of brain tumor. To stay away that , it uses computer aided technique for segmentation (detection) of brain tumor on the basis of two algorithms. This allows the actual segmentation of tumor tissues along with correctness and reproducibility comparable to physical segmentation. In including, it also reduces the full time for examination. At the ending of treatment the actual tumor is extracted from MR image and its exact location and also the outline identified . Any time degree of tumor is shown based on amount of region determined on the cluster. Njeh, Ines et al. (2014)[16] researched at an instant distribution-matching, data-driven algorithm for 3d multimodal MRI brain glioma tumor and edema segmentation in several strategies. They learned non-parametric model distributions which in turn characterize the typical areas in present information. then they explained his or her segmentation problems since optimisation of various expense features of the similar type, each that contain two terms distribution matching earlier, which in turn examines an international similarity among distributions, and a smoothness before prevent the occurrence of small, isolated areas in the solution. Obtained using recent bound-relaxation results, the actual optima in the value features provide the actual complement in the tumor region as well as edema region in almost real-time. According to global instead of pixel wise data, the proposed algorithm doesn't need the learning on the sizable, manually-segmented training set , as may be the situa tion involving modern day methods. Thus, the results are independent to the choice of a an exercise set. Quantitative evaluations in the publicly available training and assessment information fixed from the MICCAI multimodal brain tumor segmentation challenge (BraTS 2012) Obtained using recent bound-relaxation results, the actual optima in the value features provide the actual complement in the tumor region as well as edema region in almost real-time. According to global instead of pixel wise data, the proposed algorithm doesn't need the learning on the sizable, manually-segmented training set , as may be the situation involving modern day methods. Thus, the results are independent to the choice of a an exercise set. Quantitative evaluations in the publicly available training and assessment information fixed from the MICCAI multimodal brain tumor segmentation challenge (BraTS 2012) shown that their algorithm assure an incredibly competing effectiveness for complete edema and tu mor segmentation, among nine existing methods, obtaining a desirable calculating execution time (less than 0.5 s per image). Njeh, Ines et al. (2014)[16] looked at an immediate distribution-matching, data-driven formula intended for 3d multimodal MRI brain glioma growth and edema segmentation in several strategies. These people learned non-parametric model distributions which in turn characterize the typical areas in today's information. After that, many people stated his or her segmentation complications since optimisation involving various expense features in the similar kind, every single made up of a pair of phrases some sort of submitting matching earlier, which in turn examines an international likeness among distributions, and ( some sort of smoothness previous to avoid the incident involving tiny, isolated areas in the remedy. Obtained using recent bound-relaxation final results, the actual optima in the selling price features provide the actual complement in the growth spot as well as edema spot in almost real-time. According to global instead of pixel clever data, the actual proposed formula doesn't need yet another learning on the large, manually-segmented training fixed, as may be the situation involving modern day methods. Thus, the actual coming answers are in addition to the selection of a workout fixed. Quantitative opinions inside the openly available training and assessment information fixed on the MICCAI multimodal brain growth segmentation obstacle (BraTS 2012) shown that will his or her formula assure an incredibly competing effectiveness intended for comprehensive edema and growth segmentation, between nine current competing methods, obtaining a desirable calculating execution occasion (less as compared to 0. 5 utes every image). Roy, Sudipta et al. (2013) [17] mentioned tumor segmentation from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) information is an essential but difficult manual task performed by medical professionals. Automating this procedure is a challenging job due to higher diversity in the visual of tumor tissues between various affected individuals and oftentimes similarity with the common tissues. MRI is definitely an improved professional medical imaging technique providing abundant information about the human tissue anatomy. There are various human brain tumor detection with segmentation techniques to detect and segment a human brain tumor from MRI images. These detection and segmentation methods are usually evaluated having a significance added to enlightening the advantages and drawbacks of human brain tumors detection and segmentation. Using MRI image detection and segmentation in several methods can also be explained. In this article a quick overview of various segmentation for detection of human br ain tumor MRI of human brain have been discussed. Sapra, Pankaj et al. [18] described and compared the particular technique of automated detection of brain tumor by magnetic Resonance image (MRI) used in various stages of computer Aided Detection Process (CAD). Brain Image classification approaches are usually studied. Existing strategies are simply divided into region based and contour based strategies. These are usally focused on complete improved tumors or specific kinds of tumors. The quantity of sources needed to spell out there large number of| information is selected for tissues segmentation. In this paper, modified image segmentation approaches were applied on MRI scan images to be able to detect human brain tumors. Also in this paper, a modified Probabilistic neural Network Circle (PNN) model that is created on learning vector quantization (LVQ) together with image and data analysis and treatment approaches proposed to transport out a automated human brain tumor classification using MRI-scans. The evaluation from the modifi ed PNN classifier functionality is measured with working out functionality, classification accuracies and computational time. The simulation results discovered how the modified PNN provide fast and accurate classification in contrast to the particular image processing and published conventional PNN approaches. Simulation results also discovered how the proposed method outer forms the corresponding PNN process offered and successfully handle the technique of human brain tumor classification inside MRI image together with 100% reliability. Harati, Vida et al. 2011) [19] offered a much better fuzzy connectedness (FC) algorithm based on a variety for the reason that the seed point is selected automatically. This algorithm is actually independent of the tumour type when it comes to their pixels intensity. Tumour segmentation evaluation results based on similarity criteria show a better effectiveness from the proposed approach set along with the common methods, specially with MR images, with tumour areas with low contrast . Thus, the recommended technique is ideal for improving the the ability with automated estimation of tumour size and also position of brain tissues, which supplies more accurate study of necessary surgery, chemotherapy, and also radiotherapy techniques. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK The brain tumor detection is a critical application of medical image processing. The literature survey has shown that probably the most of existing methods has ignored poor quality images like noisy images or poor brightness. Also the a lot of the presented work on tumor detection has ignored the usage of object based segmentation. The general goal of the research work would be to efficiently detect the brain tumor using the object detection and roundness metric. The brain tumor detection is a critical application of medical image processing. This work has firstly presented an evaluation on various well-known approaches for automatic segmentation of various image data that has a step toward bridging the distance between bottom-up affinity- based segmentation approaches and top-down generative model based techniques. The key contribution of the job would be to discover various approaches to detect brain tumor within an efficient way. The literature survey has shown that probably the m ost of existing methods has ignored poor people quality images like noisy images or poor brightness. Also the a lot of the traditional techniques of tumor detection has ignored the usage of object based segmentation. This work has proposed a fresh object based brain tumor detection using combined with the decision based median filtering. The method has shown relatively efficient results than neural based tumor detection technique. The design and execution of the proposed algorithm is done in MATLAB using image processing toolbox. The evaluation has shown that the proposed method has achieved around 94 % accuracy that has been 78 % in neural based technique. Also for high corrupted noisy images the proposed method has shown relatively effective results compared to the neural based tumor detection. Even using cases neural based tumor detection fails for highly corrupted noisy images. In near future we shall propose a fresh improved brain tumor detection approach that'll improve t he accuracy of tumor detection techniques further using fuzzy-neuron based image segmentation. Further the usage of the proposed algorithm will also be extended by utilizing theproposed technique for the breast cancer and also for skin detection. Why Do Babies Bite? Why Do Babies Bite? Baby Biting Imagine that you are out with your child in the park or somewhere where your child interacts with others of the same age and then suddenly you see something strange in your child. Your child has turned into a little vampire! The first action that every responsible parent will think is to discipline their child. Which is normal but there is a better way of handling the situation. Biting is always a normal habit for any growing child. This should be a shock to any parent especially the first time parents. Your child will always bite for different reasons. Children are very curious and hence they bite to see what will happen next. The phase of biting is mainly between the ages of 1-3 years in children. They will always bite anything that is somehow attractive. Something encouraging is that after this age they will outgrow it. Biting is something that you really want to discourage your child from practicing. Don’t be stressed, there are some of the ways that you can apply to stop your young vampire from biting. Why Does A Baby Bite? Teething Some babies just don’t bite for the sake. Your baby might be teething and hence he will go for biting so as to soothe the irritating gums. Don’t always mistake your baby but understand him first. To prevent him from doing it then provide him with an alternative like a frozen bagel or a teething ring to chew. Sometimes you might find out that your child is not teething yet he is biting. He might also no be anxious about anything which is another cause of biting. When you notice this kind of behavior early, and then try to stop it at the early stages before it becomes your child’s habit because it may be dangerous. Biting should not always be considered as a game of any sort. Your child’s relation with his siblings can be sometimes very dangerous because they might treat biting as a game ending up giving the baby a love bite at some point. Always make sure that when your child bites no is there laughing at him and this is mainly the older siblings. What you should take care of and never try to entertain is using your child’s biting as an excuse to give in to his demands. Always ensure that your child’s daycare understand your approach and are ready to follow them. Other Reasons There are many reasons why children bite and when they do so it is not always with a bad intension. The first reason is that your child can be biting because he undergoes a lot of pain. Teething is part of your child’s growth process but it is somehow painful to them. Your child will try to relieve the pain by biting on any object that they see. This is because of their swollen gums that are kind of itchy. Secondly, children are naturally explorers. Most children can do anything so as to explore their surrounding. The children mostly use their hands to explore their environment but similarly they use their teeth very well. Anything that they always touch will automatically end up in their mouth. At this age, the kids are not able to prevent themselves from doing that because they are still very innocent. Most children always bite so as to see the reaction that will follow the action. They do it on their age mates or even their older siblings not knowing the amount of pain they are inflicting on them. This is the part of their exploration and curiosity. The sound of pain or exclamation will surprise the kids and they would want to do it more. Attention seeking is also one of the major reasons for biting in kids. The kid can see that his parents are ignoring him in different ways and this will make him bite. This one is one of the bad behaviors but the kids will rather go for it even if the attention is negative. Children also get frustrated like the grown ups. The only problem is that it is hard for them to show their frustrations through words. They will go for biting so as to alert you on something, for example if he is hungry or wants his toy back. The kinds can also use biting as a means of communications to the other kinds telling them that thy do not enjoy their presence. Part 2: What to Do When Your Baby Bites? If it’s about not having the language skills then always try to translate them into words, for example your child might be angry with you. This is important because you are helping your child express his feelings in the appropriate ways. Always try and reinforce your child hen he uses feelings in any way and then always ensure you give your child age appropriate choices because this will reduce their biting. Your child can be disturbed by things such as the TV or lights or even certain activities. The moment you notice this turn off the source of his disturbance. Ensure you take your baby out at the most appropriate time like when he is full. Always inform other cares about the situation of your child and again provide your child with the most suitable environment. Don’t forget to comfort your child when you see the problem. For example give her a hug. If your child is experimenting on biting then you can take a very firm action on your child, for example explain to him unemotionally that biting is bad and then turn to the victim and comfort him. Always try and explain to your baby the dangers of biting showing him what he has done has led to crying of another person. If your child needs more play then you should set aside some time every day for that, for example after meals. Ensure that you tell the other care takers about it so that it can be a continuous process. You can also go an extra step and include activities into the child’s daily routine for example some jumping before bed. Sometimes your child can be over tied and will require some extra rest, take an action by increasing the amount of rest b some minutes for a few weeks. Part 2: What to Do When Your Baby Bites? If your baby is teething then make sure you have a cool teething ring to prevent him from biting others Make sure you provide your child with things that can make them bite if they miss. When your child grows old enough encourage him to use words instead of biting. Give your child a lot of your time so that he does not bite so as to get attention Always praise your child when you see that he is doing a lot of good things. For example if he is not biting his friends or his siblings. Be generous with your praise and make sure that you are specific like â€Å"good boy† More tips on stopping a baby from biting Ensure that you stick to the plan. For any good plan to work, you need attention, energy, consistency and support from the other family members. Always give clear commands and they should be simple and positive. Children cannot understand if you tell the negatives and so always try to encourage them to leave the practice positively. When you need any help, don’t rush to the extreme that is the doctors. Instead get advice from the friends and other parents. For more information, watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ3My9EBC60 Part 4: When to See a Doctor Biting is normal but sometimes it can to a worrying stage. At this worrying stage you need to see specialists who will advice you accordingly. Summary Every child must bite in his stage of development and it is a normal action. It is now the responsibility of the parent to control the action and advice her child accordingly.

Physics of Whales Swimming :: physics whale swim

Animals can't rotate like wheels on a car. They must move by oscillatory motion. The resulting flow of fluids are complex and create agonizing studies for biofluid students. These students often find themselves at the forefront on research in fluid dynamics of unsteady, complex viscous flows. Often men have marveled at the dolphins and whale and at how gracefully they moved through the water. Jim Rohr, a fluid dynamicist working for the US Navy was on an evening cruise in the waters near San Diego when he saw nature doing what scientists had failed to do in the lab: reveal water motion to the naked eye. Watching the plankton bioluminesce as the boat moved by he realized that if he could measure that luminescing he could measure fuid dynamics, turbulence and laminar flow. But how do the plakton know that the water is moving? And what forces act on animals as they swim? The answer is mechanical strain of relative motion. Fluids flow around walls slower than they flow in the middle. As the fast molecules tug on the slow ones this creates shear stress. Since velocity is always zero, the faster the liquid, or the animal moving through it, the greater the sheer stress. This is laminar flow. But at some point laminar flow turns to turbulence. Turbulence decreases speed because it increases drag. The plakton were feeling the pull of the drag gainst their cells and luminescing. Whales create spectacular sights as they cruise through the ocean. We have observed them as they thrust with powerful tails and direct themselves with stiff pectoral flukes. To move forward they swing their tail in vertical motions. This powerful motion can push them for hundreds of miles during migration or jettison them out of the water in amazing aerial displays. Below is an animation of an orca as it moves its tail to go forward. Notice that the front of the body is fairly rigid as a planning surface. Other whales, like the Grey Whale, are more streamline for longer journeys. The gray whale migrates from Alaska to Baja twice a year in the spring and fall. Rohr believed that bioluminescence could solve a very large question: do whales and dolphins have frictionless skin and can we imitate it? Laminar flow creates much less shear stress than turbulent flow at the same velocity because there is no swirling or random motion.

Decision-Making Models Essay -- Responsible Decision-Making Model

Decision-Making Models   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There are several decision-making models to choose from in any given situation. Some of these models available on the Internet are the Responsible Decision-Making Model, the Ethical Decision-Making Model, the Ethics Toolkit PLUS Model, the Vigilant Decision-Maker Process, and some basic ones as well. In general, all decision-making models are the processes we use to make well-thought out decisions. There are three major elements of all decision-making models. These three elements are: how are criteria determined, how are alternatives generated, and how are alternatives evaluated against criteria (Scholl, p. 1). In this paper, we will use the Responsible Decision-Making Model to explain how the process works to help us make better decisions. The Responsible Decision-Making Model   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Responsible Decision-Making Model is a Power Point presentation that was on the Internet (Scarbo, slides 1-18). There are six steps to this decision-making model. The first step is to clearly describe the situation either in writing or aloud. The second step is to list any possible solutions to the situation. The third step is to share the list of possible solutions with another responsible person because he or she may have other solutions to add to the list. The fourth step is to carefully evaluate each possible solution using the six criteria. We will look at these six criteria in the next paragraph. The fifth step is to make a final decision on which sol...

The Fascinating Town of San Rafael Essay -- Descriptive Essay About A

The Fascinating Town of San Rafael As a young child, I would visit my grandparents in Marin County often. My parents would pack my sister and me up in the car, and we would head north from San Francisco to the small town of Novato. The road to Novato took us through San Rafael, where I would always marvel at the one mile stretch of shopping mall that Highway 101 traversed. However, once we were into the hills of wine country and the shopping mall was a distant memory, so too became San Rafael. It wasn’t until I met Paul, my partner, that I learned the full story behind this fascinating town. San Rafael is located on the wedge of land that divides the San Francisco Bay and the mighty Pacific Ocean. Lying just 10 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Rafael serves as a major shopping destination and is the gateway to Wine Country. Despite its apparent peacefulness, closer examination reveals some interesting contrasts in this suburb of San Francisco, both in the surrounding environment and in the actual inhabitants themselves. Hills dominate much of San Rafael’s geographical profile. Partially located on a large rock quarry, San Rafael’s jagged edges provide stark contrast with its smooth, rolling hills and the nearby China Camp State Park, an almost unknown escape filled with lush greenery and forests. 10 years ago, both the state park and the surrounding hills were covered with oak trees. Recently however, the disease Sudden Oak Death has posed a serious threat to every oak tree in the area. Forestry officials have been forced to burn out any trees that have been infected with the disease, leaving the skeletons of these once mighty trees to dot the landscape. These reminders of nature’s tr... ..., many use drugs as an escape from the expectations of their parents and the intense atmosphere at San Rafael’s several private college preparatory high schools. These schools have a long expectation of both academic and sporting excellence, and those unable to cope with these expectations sometimes see drugs as their only way out. As illustrated here, San Rafael can be seen as a study in contrasts, within its environment, the political beliefs of its citizens, and in the racial and economic breakdown of these citizens. I learned from Paul that San Rafael was much more than I had originally thought. I quickly discovered that it was not, in fact, the pretty little town that existed solely to feed the two large malls it contained, but in fact has its own charms and dirty little secrets. Just like every town across America, it is not exactly what it seems. The Fascinating Town of San Rafael Essay -- Descriptive Essay About A The Fascinating Town of San Rafael As a young child, I would visit my grandparents in Marin County often. My parents would pack my sister and me up in the car, and we would head north from San Francisco to the small town of Novato. The road to Novato took us through San Rafael, where I would always marvel at the one mile stretch of shopping mall that Highway 101 traversed. However, once we were into the hills of wine country and the shopping mall was a distant memory, so too became San Rafael. It wasn’t until I met Paul, my partner, that I learned the full story behind this fascinating town. San Rafael is located on the wedge of land that divides the San Francisco Bay and the mighty Pacific Ocean. Lying just 10 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Rafael serves as a major shopping destination and is the gateway to Wine Country. Despite its apparent peacefulness, closer examination reveals some interesting contrasts in this suburb of San Francisco, both in the surrounding environment and in the actual inhabitants themselves. Hills dominate much of San Rafael’s geographical profile. Partially located on a large rock quarry, San Rafael’s jagged edges provide stark contrast with its smooth, rolling hills and the nearby China Camp State Park, an almost unknown escape filled with lush greenery and forests. 10 years ago, both the state park and the surrounding hills were covered with oak trees. Recently however, the disease Sudden Oak Death has posed a serious threat to every oak tree in the area. Forestry officials have been forced to burn out any trees that have been infected with the disease, leaving the skeletons of these once mighty trees to dot the landscape. These reminders of nature’s tr... ..., many use drugs as an escape from the expectations of their parents and the intense atmosphere at San Rafael’s several private college preparatory high schools. These schools have a long expectation of both academic and sporting excellence, and those unable to cope with these expectations sometimes see drugs as their only way out. As illustrated here, San Rafael can be seen as a study in contrasts, within its environment, the political beliefs of its citizens, and in the racial and economic breakdown of these citizens. I learned from Paul that San Rafael was much more than I had originally thought. I quickly discovered that it was not, in fact, the pretty little town that existed solely to feed the two large malls it contained, but in fact has its own charms and dirty little secrets. Just like every town across America, it is not exactly what it seems.

Narayan Murthy’s Retirement Speech Essay

Different people run out of endurance and intellectual horsepower at different points of time. Some people drop out of the marathon since they do not see any value in an organization when their own time under the arc light is over. A leader’s responsibility is to recognize this, provide them opportunities outside the organization, and usher in suitable replacements. Infosys’ journey is replete with many such examples. The Essence of Leadership : Many intelligent people possess a high ego and low patience to deal with people less capable than themselves. Leaders have to manage this anomaly very carefully; counsel these errant people from time to time, and allow them to operate as long as they do not become dysfunctional and start harming the organization. If they do cross the threshold it takes courage to inform the individuals that their time in the organization is over and that they have to leave. However, one aspect that marks out a truly superior organization is the ability of its employees at all levels to be driven by values and to ensure adherence and compliance under any circumstance. No individual is high or important enough for an organization to put up with non compliance. Leadership by example is what creates trust in people to follow a leader. As long as a leader is able to show his or her sacrifice and commitment to a cause others will follow him or her I am glad we decided on respect from our stakeholders (customers, employees, investors, vendor, partners, government of the land and the society) as the primary objective of the company. I have seen hundreds of instances of such leadership-by-example at Infosys. A sense of ownership among employees is extremely important to build a long term future for a corporation. Such ownership comes from fair merit based and generous sharing of wealth and perquisites among each member of the company. This is my answer to many of my friends who wonder why when Infosys was founded I took a small percentage of my earlier salary while every other cofounder’s salary was increased by at least 10 per cent. The same friends tell me that they do not know of any other instance where as much as 10 to 15 per cent of the company equity was given to co-founders who had just 12 to 18 months of work experience. I do not know of any Indian company that has given away as much as Rs 50,000 crore (at current stock prices) of stock options to employees. Today; every Indian employee at every level who joined us on or before March 2010 is a stockholder of Infosys. The point I would like to make is that such acts demonstrate that our leaders walked the talk in sacrifice and commitment. Strategy is about ensuring sustained differentiation m a changing environment for better net income margins Differentiation without better net income margins is meaningless. In my opinion operating margins and earnings before taxes depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) are not appropriate measures. In fact the best measure of differentiation is the per capita free cash flow generated. Such cash flows bring cash to invest in better people research and development infrastructure training and better customer and employee confidence The famous Harvard historian Niall Ferguson says in his book Civilization: The West and the Rest that the six attributes that have made Western civilization dominant during the last five hundred years are ompetition, science, property rights, medicine, consumption and a good work ethic. I have been saying for many years now that the factors that differentiate a corporation from its competitors are an enduring value system open mindedness, pluralistic and meritocratic approach and practicing speed, imagination and excellence in execution. Leaders have to focus on creating such an environment. The Essence of Leadership : Leadershi p is about taking bold and firm decisions with incomplete information in an environment of uncertainty: Leaders who waffle do not inspire confidence in their people. It is important to use as much data and modeling as possible to eliminate clearly bad decisions. My decision to walk away from a Fortune 10 company when they contributed 25 % of our revenue was one such example of decision making under uncertainty. It was a tough decision that was taken so firmly and calmly that the head of sales at Infosys at that time thought I was not bothered about the future of the company! I had to explain to him that I did indeed agonize over it but that as a leader I could not be driven by panic since such an important decision required a calm and composed mind. Every leader must have a mental model of his or her business with at best five to seven parameters that determine sensitivity to revenue and net income. It is important to update that model suitably as the business landscape changes. Any leader who cannot quickly do such sensitivity calculation would not be able to take quick and bold decisions. Even today I carry and update the mental model of our business in my mind. Generosity is an essential part of a leader. It is the foundation on which teamwork is built. The ability to share the limelight with ones colleagues, the ability to step aside and give opportunity to younger people when they want that fame, power and glory: and the ability to provide a safety net of advice for them is an important aspect of strengthening the future of an organization. It is not easy to give up power, particularly when you have been the object of so much adulation. I must say that Infosys has done a good job in bringing two such transitions before I leave the portals of this company. What Makes an Organization Worldclass : Scalability is the true test of the endurance of an organization. The ability to grow successfully without losing quality productivity employee investor and customer satisfaction and the spirit of a small company is what makes Infosys a great company. We have grown from 50 customers to 620 customers from 10 projects to 6,500 projects from 100 employees to 130,820 employees from 100 sq ft to 28 million sq ft of built up space and from 100 investors to over 450,000 investors. Such a scalability exercise has been successful thanks to our PSPD model of operation. PSPD stands for Predictability of revenues, Sustainability of such predictability, Profitability of such realized revenues and Derisking. Predictability happens because of a good forecasting system that derives realistic data from the trenches and tempers it with the wisdom of senior business leaders. Sustainability refers to the systems that help the efforts of sales people beating the pavement and meeting customers to make the prediction true, the efforts of our delivery people to deliver quality products on time within budgets, and to the efforts of our finance people raising the invoice on time and collecting money on time. Profitability refers to the systems that help our people make value-based sales, follow rigorous budgeting exercises, control costs, get best value for money and ensure the agreed-upon profitability. Derisking refers to systems that identify risks in various dimensions of our operations – people, geographies, technologies, application areas and services – collect periodic data, review the risk levels and mitigate them. Innovation is the best instrument for creating sustained differentiation. However it must be accepted that revenues for a corporation come from well understood ideas and business models. For example, most of a bank’s revenues will come from borrowing money at a certain rate and lending it at a higher rate. Part of the profits from such models will be used for research and development to generate new ideas. A few of these ideas will be seeded and some of them will become mainstream revenue earners. Therefore, it is very important for a leader to focus on innovation particularly when the times are good. Customers put food on our table. Therefore, we have to have a laser focus on exceeding their expectations, being open and honest with them, and ensuring that they look good in front of their customers. Employees are the only instruments we have to make our customers and investors succeed. Therefore, we have to create an environment of openness, meritocracy; fairness, transparency, honesty and accountability amongst our employees. Our investors understand that businesses will have their share of up and downs. They want us, the management, to level with them at all times. Therefore, â€Å"when in doubt, please disclose† is a good policy for a corporation. Society provides customers, employees, investors, bureaucrats and politicians. Therefore, earning the goodwill of every society that we operate in is extremely important for us. Global benchmarking is a powerful instrument that helps us to improve our self-confidence, compete with the best global competitors and serve our customers better. Success and Failure – We are our best friend and We are our Worst Enemies : We Indians must recognize as we have done at Infosys that we are our main enemies. There is no external enemy. Our failures are because of our lack of commitment to our cause, our inability to accept meritocracy and our indifference to honesty and want of a good work ethic amongst our leaders. Performance alone is the key differentiator. This stems from my belief that performance leads to recognition brings respect and respect brings power. Therefore if India wants to be a superpower as we keep hoping the only instrument we have is performance. We have demonstrated that businesses can be run legally and ethically that it is possible for an Indian company to benchmark with the global best and that any set of youngsters with values hard work team work and a little bit of smartness can indeed be successful entrepreneurs. This way we have enthused millions of young men and women in India. This in my opinion is Infosys’ greatest contribution. I have realized that humility grace and courtesy are genuine only when you have power and glory. That is why the leaders at Infosys have practiced this time and again. Humility provides us the strength of mind to learn from people better than us. Grace and courtesy make us worthy competitors. They also remind us that such glory and power are ephemeral and give us the strength to handle the days when we too could lose our shine. The crucial things we have to do in the future are to recognize our weaknesses; be open-minded about learning from people better than us; learn from our mistakes and not repeat them; be humble, honest and courteous; benchmark with the best in every dimension; use innovation to perform at global levels; and create a worthwhile vision and improve every day. This is how our mantra of focusing on speed imagination and excellence in execution will take this company very far. I have absolutely no doubt about it. I wish Kris and my fellow Infoscions the best in their journey forward. The board has been kind enough to name me the Chairman Emeritus. Therefore, I will always be there to add value if asked. Thanks, Narayana Murthy