A Supposedly Fun Thing ill Never Do Again

A Supposedly Fun Thing ill Never Do Again 39†² NarIna-Karapetyan For most people even the idea Of being able to relax and finally go on a vacation is exciting but for David Wallace being pampered seems unpleasant and he feels uncomfortable getting too comfortable. He receives ‘Stress from pampering† and a â€Å"weird kind Of pampering-paranoia†. Throughout the Whole essay Wallace iS very critical and judgmental not only Of the cruise, but Of its staff, and passengers as well. TO express himself in his writing, he uses a lot Of repetition and metaphors to get his point across to the readers. ile this descriptive essay is humorous and an easy read due to the language, it is also very detailed and a little too verbose for my liking. on one side this creates Imagery and makes the readers feel like they are on the cruise with David, but its this same thing Tat also makes It exhausting to read. There is a lot going and most of the time the extensive details of littl e things like the deck chairs or the Inside of his bathroom are trivial to his overall experience. What seems like his pointless rambling, makes the reader doze off and become disinterested. And just in case we didnt know nough already.Wallace includes lengthy footnotes that elaborate even further. Wallace never actually states that he isnt enjoying the cruise. but through his language we can make this implication. have seen a lot of really big white ships†¦.. l have seen camcorders that practically required a dolly†¦ l have seen a toupee on a thirteen year old boy. † (257). He goes on like this for almost a whole page, describing what would seem like interesting experiences but by saying â€Å"Is this enough? ‘ he shows us that he is annoyed with everything he has encountered,He compares the hip to many things. ut one that found to be most shocking is his comparison to the holocaust, â€Å"†¦ its unwitting echo of the Auschwitz-embarkation scene in Schi ndler's In spite of all this, he is still able to see the natural beauty of his surroundings compared to the artificial beauty of the cruise ship. One Of the themes in this essay iS being an Outsider, in many David Wallace doesn't belong on this cruise ship and iS on the outside looking in. He iS one Of two people Who iS alone on the ship, the only one Without a camera, and unlike most eople relaxing isnt the purpose Of his trip.He describes himself as an agoraphobe and spends most of the time in his cabin. believe Wallace's fear is keeping him from truly letting go and enjoying himself and that is the main reason to why his opinion of his experience can sound contradicting at times. By Narina-Karapetyan For most people even the idea of being able to relax and finally go on a vacation is uncomfortable getting too comfortable. He receives â€Å"stress from pampering† and a â€Å"weird kind of pampering-paranoia†. Throughout the whole essay Wallace is very ritical and Ju dgmental not only of the cruise, but of its staff, and passengers as well.To express himself in his writing, he uses a lot of repetition and metaphors to get his While this descriptive essay is humorous and an easy read due to the language, it is also very detailed and a little too verbose for my liking. On one side this creates imagery and makes the readers feel like they are on the cruise with David, but its this same thing that also makes it exhausting to read. There is a lot going and most of the time the extensive details of little things like the deck chairs or the inside of his akes the reader doze off and become disinterested.And Just in case we didn't know enough already, Wallace includes lengthy footnotes that elaborate even further. Wallace never actually states that he isn't enjoying the cruise, but through his language we can make this implication. â€Å"l have seen a lot of really big white ships.. I have seen camcorders that practically required a dolly†¦ Ã¢â‚¬Ë œ have seen a toupee on a what would seem like interesting experiences but by saying â€Å"Is this enough? † he shows us that he is annoyed with everything he has encountered.He compares the hip to many things, but one that I found to be most shocking is his comparison to Schindler's List†(270). In spite of all this, he is still able to see the natural beauty of his One of the themes in this essay is being an outsider, in many ways David Wallace doesn't belong on this cruise ship and is on the outside looking in. He is one of two people who is alone on the ship, the only one without a camera, and unlike most people relaxing isn't the purpose of his trip. He describes himself as an agoraphobe and spends most of the time in his cabin. I believe Wallace's fear is keeping him from

New Advertising Tools and Their Advantages

Introduction Technology is carrying new advertising tools a step forward from traditional advertising tools. With the improvements in technology and telecommunication, new advertising tools become the most effective way to find and reach target consumers. Brands become more Interactive and transparent. Like any tool, new advertising used correctly, it lowers investments and responds investments with quick increase in sales. Customization and advertisement-tailoring are another trend in today's society, therefore making new advertising tools more personal for target customers has great effect on sales.According to today's advertising and marketing conditions, it is a necessity to provide. Communication management is one of the most crucial requirements in today's marketing field. If the communication management process does not apply accurately, brand image is influenced negatively. Nowadays, besides the fact that target consumers are exposed to advertising communication, they are bec oming a part of the process as well. Another advantage which is brought by new advertising tools is measurement. Measuring the effects of their advertisements is every company's greatest desire.With online technology and new advertising tools, agreement becomes easier and unbiased. Moreover, measurable advertisements which are provided by new advertising tools enable the observation of return of investment in advertising. Social media channels and e-mail services provide customers easy and interactive communication with companies. Interaction between companies and customers improves quality of products and/or services. In addition to interaction, companies have opportunity to consider customer needs, wants and demands at first hand and answer them in real time.Even usage of social media and the internet advertisements are increasing dramatically; TV commercials and printed ads still reach more people than ever. In this regard, classic TV commercials and printed ads are still more us eful and effective for increasing brand recognition. Another consideration about advertising tools is memorabilia of advertisements. Generally some excellent examples of viral videos stick in customer's mind and the rest is forgotten quickly. II. New Advertising Tools a.Social Media Social media refers to interaction among people in which they create, share, and/or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. Andrea Kaplan and Michael Heinlein define social media as â€Å"a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2. 0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content†. Furthermore, social media depend on mobile and web-based technologies to create highly interactive platforms through which individuals and communities share, co-create, discuss, and modify user-generated content.They introduce substantial and pervasive changes to communication between organizations, communit ies, and individuals. Diffusion of innovations is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures such as social media. Everett Rogers, a professor of communication studies, popularized the theory in his book â€Å"Diffusion of Innovations† (2003). The book says that diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system. The origins of the diffusion of innovations theory are varied and span multiple disciplines.The book explains the theory that there are four main elements that influence the spread of a new idea: the innovation, communication channels, time, and a social system. This process relies heavily on human capital. The innovation must be widely adopted in order to self-sustain. Mass. The categories of adopters are: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards (Rogers 1962, p. 150). Diffusion of Innovat ions manifests itself in different ways in various cultures and fields and is highly subject to the type of adopters and innovation-decision process.According to diffusion of innovations, social media research has three different viewpoints. First, from the perspective of methodology, they design a grand new framework comprehensively considering the components of user preference, social influence, and propagation tendency to covers users with strong diffusion power. Second, from the empirical perspective, they use microbiology as the data source rather than traditional web sites. Third, from the perspective of application context, they apply this recommendation mechanism to online social advertising so as to deliver advertisements effectively.Nowadays, social media is used for sharing personal information, and giving ability of affecting millions of people with advertisements. Now, 87% of companies are using social media effectively to gather customer data, even they can access to c onsumers directly in real time. Advertising campaigns are established based on personal databases and relationships between individuals in social media. Consumers are good advisors on the social platforms which increases brand recognition and trust. For example, on the Twitter, customers are tweeting and firms reply their customers immediately.Also, companies can measure the effectiveness of these tweets. Social media is related with business traffic rise and business exposure. Social media marketing has different effects on individual's social life. While social media sector is improving rapidly, more and more social media companies are being established and that is lawful for the future business partnerships. B. ID Advertising A ID, 3-D (three-dimensional) film or SAD (stereoscopic ID) film is a motion picture that enhances the illusion of depth perception. ID technology is one of the most popular entertainment technologies in digital age.Glasses-on and non-glasses are the types o f ID technology. ID technology is also a new development for advertisement sector. Nowadays, popularity of ID advertisements is increasing, because it is more effective than normal ID advertisements. ID advertisements allow customers to explore products in every aspect. A higher sense of presence will result n greater enjoyment and an increase in level of product knowledge. Rising in perceived product knowledge and greater enjoyment will result in more favorable attitudes toward advertising.The effect of SAD advertising in creating presence will be moderated by the novelty of the advertising content and design. To sum up, ID and SAD advertising is a new tool and it increases the effectiveness of advertising. C. Online Advertisement Nowadays, advertisements are in consumers' mobile devices, on computers, in online games, etc. On the other hand, even if online platforms are popular, they are not used really effectively. Customers are trying to keep away from online advertisements and positive reactions to online advertisements are decreasing.To prevent these decreasing, billions of online advertisements can be developed differently from traditional ones, because many of them include too much visual and audio property which cannot be ignored and will be an advantage compared to traditional ones. The other way is non-search display advertisements like â€Å"Deceased† by Google. Ads can be given on the convenient sites which are appropriate for the company's content. Some campaigns, called obtrusive (visibility) campaigns, with videos or pop- as are differentiated with their contents.While visible online advertising and context-based online advertising are working so well separately, they are not successful when they are used as a combination. Consumers accepted context-based online advertisements, because they think they can learn something, but they do not like obtrusive online advertising. Also, context-based advertising can help to show the unexpected ac hievement of products like â€Å"Deceased† by Google. To conclude, there are some regulations directed by government about privacy of customers and constraints about gathering information from customers. D.Online Advertisement Tools Pop-Up: Opens a new window above current one. Pop-under: Opens a new window under current one. In-Stream Video & Audio: Part of videos on internet. Takeover: This kind of ad resizes the screen. Nonuser-Initiated Video & Audio: Videos and audios are played themselves as advertisements. Interstitial: When an individual visits a web-site, it appears by itself, while web page is loading. Nonuser-Initiated Background Music: Background music is played automatically. Full-Page Banner Ad: The advertisements appear in size of the computer screen. Interactive: Mutual communication is requested by the ad from its seers.Floating Ad: The users do not run this ad, they exist anywhere on the page for a while (generally 5-30 seconds). E. E-mail Advertisement Emai l advertisement is also an online advertisement tool which has been used for a long time by marketers to reach customers. When used effectively, e-mails are a good way to reach customers. Emails with catchy information are successful. However, considering the fact that consumers are facing so many mails, they can ignore advertisement e-mails from a single company, which comes daily. In this case, company should measure its e-mail effects and it should provide choices between Kelly and daily e-mails.There are disadvantages in e-mail advertising. Spam e- mails and e- mails without subscribe or non-subscribe options. For example, if a company sends e-mails to an unsatisfying customer and the customer cannot non- subscribe it, it will create a bad impact. In conclusion, companies should use e-mail advertisements effectively and they should make e-mails more personal and informative to be successful. F. Billboards Billboard is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typi cally found in high-traffic areas. Billboards present large advertisements to passing pedestrians ND drivers.Typically showing large, ostensibly witty slogans, and distinctive visuals, billboards are highly visible in the top designated market areas. Billboards are highly popular in outdoor advertising. There are three types of displays for outdoor advertising; posters, bulletins, and permanent bulletins. Billboards are changing very fast in recent years. Marketers are creating unique outdoor ads including ID advertisements, unique billboard advertisements apart from searching for efficient outdoor areas to reach their target market. It is claimed that billboards are causing visual pollution.In order to calculate the market value of billboards, marketers must regulation and zoning, traffic and visibility, and market demand. To conclude, valuation of the billboard has three different methods; the cost approach, the sale comparison approach and income capitalization approach. G. CRY C odes CRY code (abbreviated from Quick Response Code) is the trademark for a type of matrix barded (or two-dimensional barded) first designed for the automotive industry in Japan. A barded is an optically machine-readable label that is attached to an item and that records information related to that item.The information encoded by a CRY code may be made up of four standardized types of data (numeric, alphanumeric, byte / binary, kanji) or, through supported extensions, virtually any type of data. CRY code can be read by cameras of mobile phones or other devices which have an application and can access to internet. CRY code delivers related URL to users and provides more advertisement. It reduces cost of advertising and is actually more effective than traditional ones. Some brands use CRY code in their printed advertisements.For example, people access to Coca-Cola's music website by its CRY code for free. For making successful CRY code advertisement and promotion, arresters create a h armless URL and code, so that customers find it safe. CRY codes are examined by marketers in three principal variables; privacy concerns and trust risk. H. Product Placement Product placement, or embedded marketing, is according to the European Union â€Å"any form of audiovisual commercial communication consisting of the inclusion of or reference to a product, a service or the trade mark thereof so that it is featured within a program†.Product placement stands out as a marketing strategy because it is imperative to attach the utmost importance to â€Å"the context and environment within which the product is displayed or used†. This technique of advertising was made to create reality and awareness for the customers. Nowadays, firms invest large amounts for product placements. Visual-only, audio-only and audio-visual combined are three main strategies which are used for product placement. Visual-only strategy consists of product's image, motto, logo or other visual bran d without any sound.At the audio-only product placement, products cannot be seen in the video but brand names are mentioned in dialogues. The final type of product placement is made by combination of visual and audio. This combination must be made carefully in order to to interrupt the normal flow of the media. Product placement provides positive customer reactions, if they do not have negative ideas about products, for instance alcohol or cigarettes in movies. In conclusion, while exposing to media, consumers are positively affected by product placement, if they enjoy experiencing the media.Ill. Company Research a. Y ¶Rasa Y ¶Rasa is the first company which implemented pastured milk cheese production, also known as cultured cheese production, as industrial investment in Turkey. Varieties of cheese, yoghurt, milk, buttermilk, butter and fruit nectar are produced by Y ¶Rasa in factory which is located in Surplus, Balkiest. It has the largest market share among manufacturers of cheese product in Turkey. Y ¶Aras's factory in Surplus the traditional cheese at hygienic and modern facilities, ensuring its continuity have become policy and mission of company.Y ¶Rasa states its motto as â€Å"the haunting flavor†. It has been continuing to produce in European standards and is on the way of being a world brand, since 1908. When they first started, the percentage reserved for new advertising tools from Research & Development budget was 1%. However, they eave increased it to 5% and they aim to increase more within the years ahead. Y ¶Rasa uses 7% of their total sales for advertising budget and 15% of this advertising budget is reserved for online advertising. Faceable, Twitter and Youth accounts and their own web page are used for online advertising.They prefer to use outsourcing for advertising and work with several advertising agencies. They provide to their customer the real-time returns on social media accounts. This is an implementation which make s dissolve customer's doubts away and increase the existing customers' commitment. With efficient usage of social media, they have an advantage in terms of marketing among their competitor. Therefore brand recognition of Y ¶Rasa and their sales increase by time. They also use television, newspapers and magazines to reach their potential customer mass and they assert these are the most powerful channels they use.As it is mentioned before, they prefer to use a lot of advertising tools, several of which have combination of informative, persuasive and reminder characteristics. They aim to inform people about their product and production techniques, persuade and stick in exist and potential customers' mind by their Jingles and motto. They prefer the ads to be minder and persuasive while they are introduce new products to customer. They also want to ensure that the ads are completely honest and suitable brand's mission and principles.Y ¶Rasa uses five approaches. They use â€Å"music al† approach to make advertisements more reminder than traditional advertisements. They use â€Å"slice of life† approach to make their existing and potential customers feel themselves closer to the company. â€Å"Lifestyle† approach is supplementary to the slice of life approach. They are trying to implement â€Å"scientific evidence† approach and the â€Å"technical expertise† approach to advertisements as a combination. When implementing the combination, they take into consideration all certificates, company principles.One of the most important questions which asked by most of the companies is possibility of calculating return of social media investment. So many studies are being done about this topic but it is not very easy to value a â€Å"like† or a â€Å"follower† exactly. But it can be said that Y ¶Rasa is not only achieved their targets about usage of social media but also their recognition of brand has increased with usage of social media. They decide how long ads will stay on TV or any other advertising channels by taking into inconsideration watching frequency and researches about ads effectiveness.Generally advertisements display for month on TV but there is no time limit for social media ads. According to Y ¶Rasa, range of their advertisements is set by customer; frequency of advertisements is set by Y ¶Rasa and agency by taken into consideration research results and advertising budget. They prefer minimization of positive impact of advertisements. B. Coca-Cola As one of the most highly recognized soft drink brands in the world today, many people love Coca-Cola because of its sweet fine taste and refreshingly nice flavor. Today, it comes in different enticing varieties including Coca-Cola Vanilla, Coca-Cola Zero and Diet Coke.In order to know more about this great product, it is good to learn its history including information on the person who invented Coca-Cola. The consumer world is changing . Consumers do not want brands to communicate one- way. A story should be told. Coca-Cola is one of corporations have brand story. If it is a good story, it is spreading spontaneous. In all of their campaigns, it is wanted to create such stories because they believe and tell each other so that their communication occurs in this way. Otherwise, they do not want to be limited to certain periods of the messages.So, if it is said â€Å"Coca-Cola yammerer iii giddier. † (Coca-Cola goes well with food. ), they do not want to say only three months. After television ad, later on, all year in stores and digital area they continue same communication. For such communication, the necessary approach is used. Generally, musical and lifestyle, more music, are come to the fore. Music makes people happy and â€Å"mutual kappa as (open happiness) is their slogan. Coca-Cola is one of the best example of â€Å"Think global act local† motto. Coca Cola is a global firm but it acts as local company.Especially, Coca-Cola Ramadan ads are examples of this strategy. If the firm is perceived as member of an idea, it can lose some of target group and sales can decrease. Ramadan ad strategy transformed the threat into an opportunity. So, is it developed different strategies for different locations. Sometimes the ad can be informative, sometimes persuasive. Generally, the ad includes the mix of those. Decision depends on target group and products will be introduced. After interviews with the advertisement agency, the advertising tool which they should use is planned.Most of time, music helps advertisements to become informative, persuasive or reminder. Therefore, they care about the music festivals to reach people. The most known of the festivals are â€Å"Rock Coke† and â€Å"Fantasy Genii Festivals† (Fantasy Youth Festivals) in Turkey. The messages can be changed by the time. For example, during Ramadan, the ads are related in family themes, especially big fam ilies. On the other hand, in festive times, the messages are sending to young people, ads are about youth, entertainment and dance. In recent days, the new post is about Christmas.However, generally, it can be said the message must include happiness. As it is seen end of most ads, it is concluded with â€Å"mutual kappa as (open happiness) sentence. The ad time depends on the ad kind. This situation is changeable. Sometimes outdoor advertising need to people, area and legal permits, and it may take a week, maybe one day. When it is used billboards, the ad can be presented during one month. On the other hand, television ads are standardized. According to the ad, it has different time. Christmas ads are on view one or two weeks. The situation is more stable for the internet ads.In the process of advertising using the method, Cola products in general, young, care about healthy vying and vivacious people who have adopted as the main theme discussed are used of advertisements. On the ot her hand, when the main competitor Pepsi is investigated, it is observed its ad strategies generally are interested in famous stars have a reputation across the globe. Finally, Pepsi has been forced to change its strategy because most of time, Pepsi products are perceived as if for rich people. So, Coca-Cola is more effective in the field of traditional advertising.As mentioned above, Pepsi preferred famous people and it brought millions of dollars cost. This strategy did not work, because famous people do not convince as before. Coca-Cola is affecting simple but effective people ads. It interests the culture of societies and accordingly, it acts. In recent times, as a new advertising tool, new product placement system is emerged, popular TV series are used and feedback shows that it is successful tool to reach customers. The other new ad tool is digital media. Digital media supplies to understand what consumer think say and do.Clicks such as like clicks, comment clicks or dislike o nes are not a certain feedback. Click feedbacks cannot be measured as outcome of ad investments. But, absolutely they bring to rise o sales and revenues. At least, digital media helps to take the right steps. Ads contribute the company to recognize, traditional or digital. In the carbonated beverage industry, there should always be ad. Although digital media supplies less cost, it is Just focus of consumers who use more tech. Target group of Coca-Cola is wider, it covers online customers. So, the target group includes people of variety generations.The company uses mix advertising tools such as traditional, digital and outdoor advertising. All of them bring about different benefits. Digital media brings about some benefits to ad world. Every day, evolving network model and social networks help to make users happy. Thanks to profit at zero cost, competition and productivity are rising between businesses. New products and services are tested by online consumers with zero cost, it is di rectly seen problems, suggestions and requests of customers, increasing of brand awareness. These benefits make digital media become attractive.Nevertheless, traditional media is more used to get more consumers. Thanks to traditional media, Coca-Cola Company is leader and it has prestige in its industry when compared to its rivals. Digital area is interesting for the sat two years, for Coca-Cola. After the ideal agencies are determined, they have established a strong infrastructure. For example, this year they invited to official Faceable page for announcing the list of Rock Coke. Then, they announced that the list is not declared until gathering 10 thousand members of camping. It Just took a week to collect 10 thousand members.And then, the list is declared. World revenue of Coca Cola is $95 million. 8% of this revenue is used for advertisement and marketing expenditures. For thirty years, as an outsourcing, Coca-Cola & Pars McCann Erickson have worked together. For expenditures, t hey spend production costs of print, radio, internet and television advertisements as of the first date the advertisements take place. The following amounts reflect the total worldwide amounts spent on print, radio, internet, and television advertising. While choosing outsourcing agency for the ads, success of the agency is important for the first step.Then, the agency must understand what they aim. Innovative and forward-looking characteristics are more significant, because Coca-Cola is leader firm in the carbonated beverage industry. In Turkey, Coca-Cola Company is in a good relation tit McCann Erickson for 33 years. The advertisement's reach, frequency, impact and the other details are arranged by Pars McCann Erickson Agency. The internet ads have shorter time, the other ads on television are more often presented and they usually take time between half a minute and a minute. In accordance with the given instructions, the ad is emerged for the planned aim. . Move Turkey. It produc es fresh dairy products. Whether their employees or their customers, their priority is always â€Å"human†. Big or small, near or far, every one of their clients has the same meaning and same value for the company. Their understanding of quality and performance that constitute their group philosophy leads them to work hard, develop continuously and sustain their preciseness in production and services. Nova's motto and mission are suitable to the â€Å"innocent milk† principle and they are providing completely honest advertisements for their consumers and customers.In this regard, they are trying to be extremely careful. EX. and ITS approved certificates and awards can be seen all of their products to state Nova's principles. Moreover, they are trying to show their products' quality which is top quality, even by EX. standards. It is also named as the highest â€Å"premium quality'. Approximately 10% of their total sales are allocated for the advertising budget. About 2 5% of the advertising budget is allocated for the online advertising budget. When they first started, it was 1. 5%. However, they have increased it to 3% and they aim to make it 5% within the next five years.They prefer to use outsourcing for advertising. The outsourcing company is Refiner Advertising Agency. In the field of advertising characteristics, they are trying to inform consumers about their products and production techniques. Also, they are trying to convince consumers with the artifices and awards they have uniquely in the industry. With their â€Å"mottos and jingles†, they are trying to take a place in their existing and potential customers' minds. These techniques created serious positive impacts on company's sales.When introducing new products to the customers, they prefer to make advertisements more persuasive and reminder than previous advertisements. Move uses five approaches. They use â€Å"musical† approach to make advertisements more reminder than traditional advertisements. They apply â€Å"slice of life† approach to make their existing and potential customers feel themselves closer to the company and products. Lifestyle† approach is complementary to the previous approach. They are trying to apply â€Å"scientific evidence† approach and the â€Å"technical expertise† approach to advertisements as a combination.When applying this combination, they consider all certificates, company policies and customers to choose optimum advertising arrangements. Move is using a website, three main social media tools, including Faceable, Twitter and Youth, and also newspapers, magazines and television advertising. According to Move, they are using their website and social media really effectively than their rivals. For example, Move Faceable page has â€Å"Marimba† (Hello) application. This application provides Move to reassure customers that has doubts and to increase the loyalty of existing customers. It i ncreases Nova's brand recognition.Furthermore, every comment made on social media, every question asked by customers and every tweet is responded by company experts in real-time. They are also developing small add-ones and applications for social media. As a result of these application and developments, sales increased dramatically. In this way, it is an important advantage in terms of marketing. Move generally prepares advertisements in the form of video and presents them to their customers with TV ND social media. Even if their TV commercials remain nearly one month on-the-air, there is no time limit for their social media advertisements.This comparison is the asked by each company is return on social media investment is whether it is possible or impossible to calculate. Too many attempts are made in this regard, but the value of a â€Å"like† or the value of a â€Å"follower† is not possible to calculate. In fact, social media is a marketing tool for the vast majori ty. Moreover, return on advertising investment is the most important criterion. If the targets, which they set before the advertising, re exceeded after advertising and advertising investment pays for itself, they succeed in advertising investment.However they do not use Just this method, they have also other criteria. (Other criteria are classified. ) Also, the return of the low cost digital media is appropriate for their budget and the main feature of digital media is it can be presented to their existing and potential customers in a short time. They try to measure the benefits with advertising investment return and brand value change. Currently, they are not planning to enter to international markets within five years. However, Move has serious plans to enter European markets. While establishing and certifying their company, they prioritize that aim.Therefore, the quality of products which Move produce is at the highest level, the â€Å"premium level† according to ITS and also EX. standards. Like every modern company, Nova's main goal is to attain new generation customers with the help of developing digital media and ensuring the long term sustainability. However, in doing so, they are very careful about two points. First, they try not to disrupt the media channels which are necessary to reach their existing customer base. Second, while maintaining their existing customer base without compromising quality and understanding, they try to impress potential customers.Move sets the new target customer base firstly. While determining new base, they try to preserve their existing customer base. Then, they are doing marketing research. They select random samples to test their demo advertisements. Finally they publish their advertisements depending on the positive results which they obtain at tests. The target customer base determines their range. According to the results of their advertising research and their advertising budget, they decide the frequency wi th their advertising agency. They prefer minimization of positive effects, while setting the impact of their advertisements. . Ã'Å¡liker International Ã'Å¡liker, whose history goes back to 1944, is one of the best loved brand names in Turkey. Founded and built in the 20th century, the Ã'Å¡liker brand, riding on its phenomenal momentum, was carried into the 21st century, seemingly unlimited by time and space. With its roots in tradition but reaching toward the future, Ã'Å¡liker is a name that continues to focus on the sociological and economic wellbeing of the community, but in parallel with that side of its existence, the organization is gaining new meaning. For the timeless Ã'Å¡liker brand, there seems to be no end in sight.The name Ã'Å¡liker became synonymous with happy memories and the intrinsic values of trust, honesty and affinity. Ã'Å¡liker became part of the daily lives of many Turkish families and slowly but surely became entwined in the lives of consumers. Since 1944, the c ompany's industrial, managerial, marketing and sales; advertising and customer relations activities have been based on the corporate culture established by the Ã'Å¡liker name. This is what makes Ã'Å¡liker more than Just a brand name. Ã'Å¡liker International uses 10% of their advertising budget for online advertising. For these

Response paper for art Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Response paper for art - Essay Example The floor lines being â€Å"tilted up† as well as the â€Å"bold contours† accentuate focus on the frontal plane, where various constituents of the piece, such as â€Å"words, performers, spectators, and lights† appear parallel (Kiehl & Cate, 1988). Another element that can be seen in this work, is the Japanese influence Lautrec has in his art, such as shedding partial view on La Goulue, the sensual female dancer depicted in the image. In this poster, Lautrec uses the technique of brush and spatter lithography, and on a closer inspection, it can be seen that the poster is a print comprising of four colors on three sheets. The poster is made out of the primary colors â€Å"red, blue and yellow† and makes use of thick audacious lines at places. Lautrec has deftly captured not only the setting, that is, the Moulin Rogue, but also the various people and the actions they perform, and this characterization makes the work a

European Union and Ukraine. Eastern Partnership Essay

European Union and Ukraine. Eastern Partnership - Essay Example According to the paper the main factor driving the EU’s interests in Ukraine is energy. The EU Commissioner for external relations and ENP Benita Ferrero-Waldner stated that: â€Å"Energy and energy security have been at the heart of the European integration, energy is a perfect example of common sense driving ENP†. To sum up this perspective, it is clear that rationalism emphasizes that Ukraine’s democratic transformation are not of primary interest for the EU while economic. EU’s interest on energy resources is more important. The paper describes what for Ukraine needs EU and EU needs Ukraine. It shows all pluses and minuses accordig to this. Basically, the discourse used in Eastern Partnership reveals that the promotion of common values and democratic transformation as a first priority. As a framework, EaP is based on a reciprocal commitment between the EU and its neighbors that share common values. Under the Eastern dimension initiative EaP aims to diminish the barriers between a partner country and the EU by building of civil society and a closer co-operation based on common values. Basically, the discourse used in Eastern Partnership reveals that the promotion of common values and democratic transformation as a first priority. Ukraine is expected to gain some privileges out of maintaining bilateral relations as defined under the New Enhanced Agreement. However, Ukraine would remain outside of the enlargement policy. The paper describes a very interesting subject for research.

The Role of Islamic Law in the Management of Formal and Informal Research Paper

The Role of Islamic Law in the Management of Formal and Informal Organizations in Saudi Arabia - Research Paper Example As the paper declares Saudi Arabia is ran as an Islamic Theocracy and the Quran is the basis of the countrys constitution. The country is governed by stringent Islamic law which defines every aspect of the lives of people in the Kingdom. Since Saudi Arabia was meant to be Islamic from the onset, it has rules that strictly bind both the Muslims and non-Muslims of the country. Commentators like the Human Rights Watch have criticized Saudi Arabia for using Islamic Law in a compulsory manner that sometimes causes some degree of discrimination to non-Muslims in the Kingdom. This essay outlines that although proponents like Fouad argue that the universal application of Sharia in Saudi Arabia supports to bring benefits and stability to the country, there are some human rights issues that can be raised. First of all, the law focuses more on the Muslims since they are designed with the practicing Muslim in mind (Jones). Hence, there is a limitation on the individual rights of non-Muslims. The research will include an assessment of the different frameworks and concepts that regulate the conduct of business. The study will be conducted by the critical review of secondary sources. These sources will include books, journals and other relevant materials that define

Information Security Management Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Information Security Management - Research Paper Example With this concern, the research paper intends to investigate software tools, certifications, techniques and methods that are currently considered as best practices in the context of managing the business continuity constituents of corporate data. In the modern day context, organisations are required to adopt effective software tools and techniques along with methods for managing and storing enormous data effectively. Presently, one of the best practices for the continuity of a business is viewed to be the technique of BCM, which can be used by the organisation (Campbell, 2012; FFIEC, 2003). Based on the above discussion, the varied constituents of the appraisal have been discussed in the following: Presently, different technological devices are used with the aim of managing information or data within a particular organisation. It will be vital to mention in this similar context that large corporations with the use of different technologies are able to ensure that valuable data is stored and disseminated appropriately (Campbell, 2012; FFIEC, 2003). Notably, management of data comprises different activities that include documentation, handling, storage and planning along with analysis that help in preserving high quality and reliable data. Subsequently, organisations managing data with the incorporation of the above discussed activities will be facilitated with the opportunity of ensuring that operations can be conducted in accordance with organisational objectives (IJC, n.d.). In this rapidly changing business environment, organisations are often viewed to face the challenge of managing huge figure of data in an effectual manner. Ineffective management of data might lead to the loss of relevant information, which in turn can affect the overall performance of an organisation (Protiviti Inc, 2013; Sikich, 2003). In this context, organisations implementing the above discussed data management techniques and tools are recognised to make

Unit 1 Lab Assignemnt Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Unit 1 Lab Assignemnt - Coursework Example Creating a scope sets a range of IP addresses that the DCHP leases to the clients (Bender 27). Creating an exclusion range of IP addresses, on the other hand, sets a range of IP addresses that one would not like to be offered to the DCHP clients. To enable a DHCP client to use an address permanently, one creates client reservations. Knowledge of the above concepts helps a networker prevent errors that may develop from improper configuration. DHCP uses options to pass additional IP setting to DHCP clients on a network. These options include DNS server, Domain name or the wins server. Configure server options applies the options to all scopes while configure scope options applies the options to a single scope (IT Essentials: Pc Hardware and Software Companion Guide 53). The design of DHCP options involves definition of parameters and settings to establish the boundaries of a given DHCP configuration. The options can be applied in a single scope or applied to all scopes defined in the server. Understanding the above concepts helps a networker efficiently make changes and debug errors to either one scope or all the scopes defined in the server. In addition to the DHCP configuration, there exist advanced settings for DHCP. One can enable the pool configuration, specify additional service availability settings and set up HA synchronization. Configuring a DHCP relay agent involves configuring the relay agent program on a computer (It Essentials: Pc Hardware and Software Companion Guide 76). Messages can be sent through different subnets only if a networker understands the concept of setting up a relay agent and sets up one. Setting up a relay agent on a computer on each subnet allows message traffic to be relayed to computers on different subnets (Bender 67). This knowledge helps a network developer a lot in minimizing the cost that would have been incurred in purchasing another DHCP server. Configuration Protocol for IPv6 can also be configured for DHCP.

Strengths Weaknesses And Changes Required At Ucell Essay

Strengths Weaknesses And Changes Required At Ucell - Essay Example One of the things that need to be done is affecting of changes in Ucell’s organizational structure in a manner that best serves the organization. Organization structure is the manner in which an organization arranges jobs and people in order for its work to be performed, as well as for its goals to be accomplished (Stonehouse & Houston, 2012: p34). In cases where the working group is small with frequent face-to-face communication that is frequent and where the formal structure is not necessary. However, in cases where the organization is larger, such as in Ucell’s case, decisions in the organization will have to be made concerning the delegation of tasks. Therefore, procedures are established to assign responsibility for the organization’s functions (Stonehouse & Houston, 2012: p35). These decisions are the ones that will determine the changes in the organizations’ structure.  One way to change the organizational structure would be through departmentaliz ation. Functional departmentalization involves the grouping of services that use similar resources, skills, and knowledge. The organization is based in most parts of the country and geographical departmentalization would aid in the restructuring of the company (Stonehouse & Houston, 2012: p37). In this case, would reap advantages by organizing their operations along geographic lines such that all activities that are performed in one region can be managed together. It would also be advantageous to carry out service departmentalization where activities, which are necessary for the production and marketing of similar services or single services, are grouped together. This would allow for considerable autonomy over the company’s operations, as CEO. In this case, the employees in the group are able to focus on needs of their line of services and become experts in distribution, development, and production. Departmentalization would also be done according to clients and markets.

Stress and Anger Management and Communication Styles Essay Example for Free

Stress and Anger Management and Communication Styles Essay College Education is the end of uphill battle for students. These vital and rigorous educations provide greater opportunities in life. A lot of hardships are faced by college students and stress is one major factor that contributes to it. Mismanagement of stress causes burnouts. Common factors of stress are time management, financial problems, sleep deprivation, social activities, health, etc. Hatcher and Prus (1991) named these stress factors as academic situational constraints. Their study accounts these factors that decrease academic performances. Being in a new environment may be a cause for students to encounter different problems while going through their college life. These problems may involve the inability to fit in or to mingle with the people around them, difficulties in managing time or their schedules easily, coping up with the new knowledge that is being given to them. Experiences such as the ones mentioned may cause stress to the students. Stress, which may affect their dealing with other people and their ability to manage the things around them. Even in the midst of facing these  problems, students are still able to adapt or think of ways to cope up with them. It takes time to be comfortable around new people or environment but once someone gets the hang of it, eventually, they will find it easier. Skills with time management may be develop through the days or weeks that students have to go through. Learning, though different in styles in all individuals, could eventually adapt. These problems that they encounter and their adaptability to them are natural to humans. The behavior toward others falls somewhere on a spectrum between toxic effect and nourishing effect. Toxic behavior makes people feel devalued, angry, frustrated, guilty or otherwise inadequate. Nourishing behavior makes people feel valued, respected, affirmed, encouraged or competent (Albrecht, 2000). It is an ability that is termed as social intelligence. Such ability â€Å"includes an awareness of situations and the social dynamics that govern them and a knowledge of interaction styles and strategies that can help a person achieve his or her objectives in dealing with others†. Stress and anger possess threats that may put our health in danger. Today, there are increasing level of stress in both men and women. The mishandled anger of teenagers may result from further problems like being involved in scandalous acts, declining of mental health, deviant behavior, etc. The researchers believe that individuals possess the unique blend of intelligences. The researchers want to find out how our intelligence with intrapersonal and interpersonal affects the control of stress and anger. The study may provide enlightenment with the ability to understand ourselves and the ability to interact with other people. Other studies focus only on communication styles, stress management or anger management individually. Some correlates the communication styles to the stress management while some focus on the correlation of stress to the anger management. Studies of anger management are rarely focused on. This study focuses on the accumulation of communication styles and the stress and anger management and their correlation to each other. It relates to other studies in a way that the results are already combined and compared to one another. Statement of the Problem The main purpose of the study is to compare the difference of the interpersonal and intrapersonal ability scores and determine if it affects  the stress and anger management of PLM Freshmen Psychology students. Specifically, the researchers aim to answer the following questions: 1. What is the level of stress management of the students under? 1.1Intrapersonal 1.2Interpersonal 2. What is the level of anger management of the students under? 2.1Intrapersonal 3. Is there a significant difference in the level of stress management of the students under. 3.1Intrapersonal 3.2Interpersonal 4. Is there a significant difference in the level of anger management of the students? 4.1Intrapersonal 4.2Interpersonal Hypotheses The study was designed to test the hypotheses: 1) There is no significant difference in the level of stress and anger management of respondents under the communication styles, intrapersonal and interpersonal. Significance of the Study Students, teachers, guidance counselors and other researchers interested in the field of social science may find this study useful for their own work. The results of this study can provide students with information regarding the ideal communication styles in order to manage their stress. This study can also provide teachers and counselors with the background to help their students with their relation to their studies and other researchers with literature for their related research undertaking. The study is predicted to provide information that can be used in understanding and improving the stress management of students. Scope and Limitations The study was focused on determining the difference of interpersonal ability  and intrapersonal ability of Bachelor of Science in Psychology freshmen student this School Year 2012-2013 in dealing with stress and anger management. The study area was limited only at Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, Intramuros, Manila. The researchers decided to choose freshmen, since first year students are new in college and are more prone to stress and feel difficult to handle situations because of the new environment, responsibilities and friends to adhere in college years. In gathering the data needed, three sets of questionnaire were used. The test for stress management, anger management and multiple intelligence tests but only the social intelligence where the interpersonal and intrapersonal ability are considered. Though different, the concepts however of each questionnaire are related and useful to combine all the supported data for the study. Also the researchers did not include and emphasi ze the relationship of intrapersonal ability and interpersonal ability. CHAPTER TWO THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Review of Related Literature and Studies Interpersonal and Stress In a new environment, people will learn to adapt eventually. But while in the process of adaptation, these people will experience stress, anxiety, and anger from their surroundings. Even in an academic setting, instances about adapting also happen especially when it is the start of a school year or when someone has reached a new or high grade level. This study focuses on the ability of the students to adapt in a new environment in the college level. The CS Translator (2000) mentioned that college life is full of new experiences and anxieties. It can be the best of times and the worst of times. Meeting new people, learning, and being on their own are the best. Falling behind in class, pulling an â€Å"all-nighters† and final exams can be the worst; sometimes the best of times leads to the worst of times. Students who spend too much time meeting new people and â€Å"socializing† find themselves skipping class, falling behind on assignments and â€Å"bombing† exams. Orino (2011) added that College life is also a time of enormous stress – a time of confusion,  loneliness and uncertainty and never to be experienced again from the vantage point of a young adult whose perspective is clouded by inexperience, insecurity and the struggles of discovering a separate identity. Being in the adolescent stage, the college freshman’s adjustment to college highly depends on the personal quality he possess in order to cope up with the various demands of college life. This is where stress plays a big role. It affects an individual in many ways – even in the little things. Stress is something that is never to be missed in college life. It is defined as the nonspecific response of the body to any pressures made by it. In other words, any reaction or response your body makes to a new situation is stress (Barcase, 2007). Socializing with the people in the surroundings and getting to know them can be a source of stress. There are cases when people who don’t have high interpersonal ability get stressed when interacting with others. Merely meeting and talking to a stranger, an acquaintance, or even a friend can be stressful if we don’t know what to say or how to act (Barcarse, 2007). When stress gets in the way of interacting, the interpersonal aspect of the life of a student affects their academic performance and therefore be stressed when they struggle to cope with new lessons or when they are loaded with lessons to be reviewed before taking exams. Students are also very stressed and anxious when they are experiencing new educational settings. In college, many students are experiencing changes in grading standards, course load, teaching practices, peer group, and parental contact. Some have difficulty adapting to the changes of college transition and revealed that high school is very much different from college (Sison, 2008). It is during these times when students feel amotivation. Amotivation is a state in which individuals cannot perceive the relationship between their behaviour and that behaviour subsequent outcome. Amotivated individuals cannot predict the consequence of their behaviour nor can they see the motive behind it. They feel disintegrated or detached from their actions and will thus invest little effort or energy in its effectuation (Green-Demers, et. al, 2006). When these individuals are amotivated, there will be changes in their  behaviour, in their point of view or even the way they view things. Some noticeable changes whether sudden or gradual can include changes in mood, eating, and sleeping habits, substance use, increased isolation, peer pressure, identity crisis, and feeling helpless or hopeless. In the long run, such symptoms, as well as the pressure of life’s demands if not handled properly, can lead to poor adjustment to university and ultimately, to experiencing a crisis situation, low self-esteem, suicidal thoughts or severe anxiety or depression, to the point that everyday activities become difficult to accomplish and academic performance was affected (Sison, 2008). Patrick, Ryan and Kaplan (2007) examined perceptions of the classroom social environment as it relates with engagement in classroom. It was found that when students feel a sense of emotional support from teacher, academic support from peers and encouragement from teacher to discuss their work, students are more likely to use self-regulatory strategies and engaged in task-related interaction. This shows that social environment affect student’s academic and social beliefs about themselves, which in turn affects their behaviour and cognitive engagement in class and then their achievement. This shows that even when stress affects the students’ interaction with other students; they may still be able to handle it well if they have a good feel about their surrounding and the people around them. One way to resist stress is to have a good interpersonal relationship with the people around or to have a good feel about oneself. Learning how to handle or control the things around an individual makes him or herself more confident. Self-confidence and feeling in control of life are immensely valuable when it comes to fending off negative stress. Something as apparently flimsy as attitude and self-esteem has a very big impact. One of the strands found in the techniques is looking at building self-esteem (Clegg, 2000). Aside from the interpersonal aspect, students can also experience stress in the intrapersonal aspect. Stressing themselves or sometimes it’s when their emotions are flared up or when their angry. According to Remedios Alcazaren-Ureta (2011), anger management is simply an aspect of managing  stress, since anger is a symptom of stress. O’Neil (2006) emphasized that â€Å"It is widely assumed that anger occurs as a result of frustration, perceived threat or a belief that a personal injustice has occurred. Common triggers are social or interpersonal in nature†¦ The individual’s appraisal of a situation, including expectation of himself or herself and others†. Synthesis The researchers believe that each and every stated in this research is related in this study. The literature and studies supported each concept in the study by depicting actual and normal situations of a college student at home and in school. The literature and studies also emphasized the importance of stress and anger management to the improvement of the communication styles of students. The related literature and studies stated in this research did not entirely support the correlation in the difference of scores in the stress and anger management of students, it only shows that these justifies both side of the study. Theoretical Framework Freshmen students, as becoming new to the university they tend to have difficulties in coping with the new environment. Becoming friends with other students need skills in communicating their feelings and thoughts these pertains to their Intrapersonal and Interpersonal abilities. These pertain to the Social Intelligence theory which is the ability to get along well with others, and to get them to cooperate with you. Sometimes referred to simplistically as people skills, SI includes an awareness of situations and the social dynamics that govern them and knowledge of interaction styles and strategies that can help a person achieve his or her objectives in dealing with others. It also involves a certain amount of self-insight and a consciousness of ones own perceptions and reaction patterns. (Dr. Karl Abrecht, 2004) Handling stress and anger means controlling yourself in order to be in harmony with the environment. In students, stress can decline your mental  process, health and the relationship towards other people. Friends can be a stress towards you or your friends can be affected by your stress. Same as anger, it brings trouble to students when they cannot control their negative feelings to others. By being new to the environment, stress and anger mishandle may arise and that the â€Å"people skill† is needed for adaptation in the environment. It all comes to one’s self to overcome stress and anger. College life brings new experiences as well as frustrations. Freshmen college students are more prone to face these. A new freshman college student must learn to balance his social and emotional skills in order to cope up with the demands of college life. The stress and frustrations caused by the new adjustments made by the students may test their social or interpersonal abilities for they make new friendships and interact simultaneously with people not familiar to them. It is also assumed that these new companions have different personalities which can make interacting with them more stressful for students. Since they are also pressured and overwhelmed by the heavy loads of work, freshmen students become aggressive and frustrated when their efforts results to failure. With these instances given, the interpersonal abilities of the students can be correlated to their stress and anger management in school because students with high social skills can handle stress caused by the people around them. As Dr. Albrecht (2004) stated, that Social Intelligence (SI) is the ability to get along well with others, and to get them to cooperate with you. It is also referred to simplistically as people skills,† SI includes an awareness of situations and the social dynamics that govern them and knowledge of interaction styles and strategies that can help a person achieve his or her objectives in dealing with others. The frustrations brought by the pressure of school works and requirements may also trigger anger to students. The emotional intelligence of students is challenged in these situations and these can be correlated in their anger management. Students who are insightful can handle frustrations and they will not always resolve to aggression or anger. According to Salovey and Mayer’s (1990), emotional intelligence is the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use  this information to guide one’s thinking and actions. In a new environment, people will learn to adapt eventually. But while in the process of adaptation, these people will experience stress, anxiety, and anger from their surroundings. Even in an academic setting, instances on adapting also happen especially when it is the start of a school year or when someone has reached a new or higher grade level. This study focuses on the ability of the students to adapt in a new environment in the college level. The CS Translator (2000) mentioned that college life is full of new experiences and anxieties. It can be the best of times and the worst of times. Meeting new people, learning, and being on their own are the best. Falling behind in class, pulling an â€Å"all-nighters† and final exams can be the worst; sometimes the best of times lead to the worst of times. Students who spend too much time meeting new people and â€Å"socializing† find themselves skipping class, falling behind in assignments and â€Å"bombing† exams. Stress is inevitable part of daily life of every individual. Most especially in college students who are more prone with it. New places to acclimate, major subjects that will drive you crazy, sleepless nights due to exams, reports and assignments and lastly strangers who’ll you meet and eventually will become one of your friends or the reason of your stress. By this, stress can trigger our well-being inside and out. This may also lead to the point where we can’t restrain anymore and get a strong feeling of displeasured namely anger. By knowing and realizing the situation your own, we have this efficiency in dealing with our everyday problems. It may come to our inner strength where we have this certain control of our emotion or to the environment and people around us whom we get this urge to stay calm and be reserve. Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligence has a great influence in the research to be performed by the researchers in this thesis. Gardner’s MI (Multiple Intelligence) determines the intelligence of an individual including the Intrapersonal ability and Interpersonal ability. With this theory the researchers will determine the Social Intelligence of an individual (Interpersonal and Intrapersonal). This theory will be the  researcher’s basis to determine whether which kind of personality will be the greatest in case of handling stress and anger management. According to Gardner; Intrapersonal persons are the ones who are independent and happy spending time alone, they find it easier to learn by thinking and working quietly on their own. Intrapersonal has a determined character who might not be as at risk to peer pressure, they also has a good idea of their own strengths and weaknesses. On the other hand Interpersonal are considerate persons, they enjoy mixing and talking with lots of friends, they also enjoy playing team games and share thoughts and feelings to others. They also has a good ability to tell how others are feeling by their tone of voice or body language, people often come to this kind of persons for support and advice. Lastly they genuinely care about others and finds it easy to get on their own way. Social Intelligence is the ability to get along with others this includes the awareness of situations, knowledge of interaction styles and strategies that can help a person achieve his/her objectives in dealing with others. It also involves a certain amount of self-insight and a consciousness of one’s own perceptions and reaction patterns. SI (Social Intelligence) will serve as a way of determining a person’s interaction with others. A low level of SI may connote the inability to connect with people and influence them effectively. This happens to be a characteristic of a person with a high Intrapersonal Ability. Conversely, a high level of SI may connote the ability of a person being much more effective in dealing and interacting with others, this is a characteristic of a person with a high level of Interpersonal Ability. Freshmen Psychology Students Conceptual Paradigm Multiple Intelligence Test INTRAPERSONAL INTERPERSONAL Anger Management Stress Management Anger Management Stress Management To be able to accomplish the study, the researchers made an organizational chart or framework on how the study will flow. The respondents, will be given the Multiple Intelligence Test. The test will identify the ability to which an individual is greatest, either Interpersonal or Intrapersonal. After identifying the ability of the student, the researchers will administer the next test, the Burn out Test. This test will determine the Stress Management and likewise, the Anger Management Test will determine the level of anger management of an individual with of Interpersonal and Intrapersonal ability. Definition of Terms Stress Management it is the ability of BS Psychology freshmen to handle stress caused by external factors. Anger Management – it is the ability of BS Psychology freshmen to handle frustrations within oneself. Interpersonal ability – ability to communicate effectively with people around the individual. Intrapersonal ability – ability to handle emotions effectively, particularly anger. Correlation – refers to how communication styles related to stress and anger management Communication Style – refers to the intrapersonal and interpersonal ability of an individual Mismanagement – inability of the person to organize emotions or situations such as stress and anger Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Ability Scores- Data or result gathered from the social intelligence category under multiple intelligence test of the BS Psychology freshmen.

Marketing Plan Essay Example for Free

Marketing Plan Essay World Wide Wonderland is a theme and amusement park business offering world-class experience to families, students and foreign tourists around Negros Occidental. Being a theme park, we offer a variety of products. And since it is called â€Å"World Wide Wonderland†, the company will take you to the different parts of the globe. The organization’s major products would include the World Adventure Coaster, the European Castle Hotel and The Barangay Filipino Museum that can satisfy the customers’ recreational needs as they step into a whole new world of fun, information and adventure and that will serve as a fresh new way to enjoy the day with your families, friends and co-workers. World Wide Wonderland is renowned for their convenient and strategic location in Talisay City, Negros Occidental of which is a growing city in terms of economy in the tourism industry. Also synonymous are the services that provide high prices to go along with premium quality and the wide range of other offerings including restaurants, pools, zoos, information buildings, camping sites and many more that are available in the park’s enjoyable, stress-relieving and safeguarded settings. And through the company’s best efforts in promoting the products in print, radio, television, public relations and personal selling, this will increase the customers in large scales. Having those products, the company aims to provide a globally-renowned entertainment and bring delight to its valued customers especially families, students, and foreign tourists here in the Philippines. Other than that, the organization also wants satisfaction from its employees and, at the same time; focus on its environmental responsibilities. World Wide Wonderland has a World Adventure coaster targeting the youth (specifically students) to enjoy a tour like the customers are travelling to different countries around the globe. For its European Castle Hotel, the company targets families and unwinding professionals that wish to have an overnight stay in the said place. And lastly, the Barangay Filipino Museum that would mainly target foreign tourists so that these people can be informed about all of the facts of Negros and the rest of the Philippines. Differentiating the type of business service offered, from that of the competition, will assist not only in building the theme park as a whole, but will attract more customers, who require a higher level of quality service and recognition than they can receive from other tourist spots. This will provide World Wide Wonderland with an opportunity to step up as regards servicing families, students and tourists with a world-class experience. Satisfied guests are critical to the success of themed visitor attractions. The backbone to having satisfied guests is good management and this is what the company in doing. Unlike most companies, we introduce our customers with utmost care and support services. CURRENT MARKETING SITUATION (TRENDS) The theme and amusement park industry has been around for more than 50 years and, like any other industry, it has evolved through the years to help guests escape from real life, if not for a few hours, at least for a few moments on its attractions. The theme park market has reached maturity and as time passed by. There have been many trends over the years and as the decades went by, theme park operators began to realize that it was not just thrills that would keep bringing back their customers. Applying themes to their attractions would help as well. Sure, a person could build the fastest roller coaster, but if another person added a theme or story to it then you added a dimension to the attraction that made it unique. Putting a personality to a roller coaster ride thus became a trend that still holds today (Scopa, 2005). One of the trends that caught on was the acknowledgement that guests could easily become bored with an attraction or a theme park. To many people boredom is related to predictability. Many guests loved the anticipation of experiencing a favorite moment in an attraction, but there was always that need for adventure that would creep in as well. Nothing is more constant than change in attractions industry. The company is witnessing the transformation from theme parks into integrated resorts to cater to staycation trends wherein people would want to stay overnight in a certain place. Parks operators and manufacturers are also employing new strategies to focus on innovation and reinvestment in guest experience to serve increasingly discerning market. Moreover, theme parks take into consideration several parts of the society when making future plans like the socio-cultural aspects. The children, teenage subcultures and their families are increasingly powerful consumers so it is important that the company gives them world-class entertainment. On the contrary, people will grow older that is why we need attractions to encourage and entertain elderly people. Theme parks are an important part of the whole tourism and recreation industry. So they are connected to air, bus and car travel. These types of businesses must react environmentally friendly as far as possible. At least they will have to be involved in environmental organizations and conservation themes. All these parts which are decisive for the future of the business belong to the Macro environment of the company. Technology is getting more and more sophisticated. This is going to influence theme parks and their attractions in a crucial way. With the growing use of high technology products, theme parks will be constructed around virtual reality, simulations and spectacles creating conditions of hyper reality. Amusement park owners can have cost effective methods, reach hundreds more people, places photos of the park on their website and offer the ability to communicate with prospective customers in real-time, which consumers really like. Below is the summary of the main micro and macro environmental trends in Theme and Amusement parks. 1. Everything will be based on a scripted theme. The attractions reflect the theme and intensify it. 2. A diverse array of components assembled to produce a wide range of experiences. All the senses of the visitors should be attracted. With the help of lots of different attractions, they will make hundreds of various world-class experiences. 3. Theme parks will be converted into hotels, resorts, etc. 4. As the world changes, theme parks must act in an environmentally friendly way. 5. With the growing use of high technology products and online advertising, theme parks will be more exciting, sophisticated, vivid, and real. An amusement park usually has a wide variety of fun entertainment for the general public. Also called an amusement park, there are many thrilling rides and other activities for the whole family to enjoy. Most of these parks have rides available, small shops, animal attractions, arcades and lots of places for people to dine and drink. Generally, an amusement park will be at least 200 acres in size. Some of them offer hotel rooms and amenities so that people can stay indefinitely. There are usually fees for parking and admission. A theme park might be available all year long or it might open only during certain seasons. The main point of this business is to generate profits and the business will gain profits through its services offered. Fees from the entrance, food, establishments and sponsors who will be more than willing enough will make excellent profit so it can have good ROI. About 55% of the income brought in at an amusement park comes from the fees charged for admission. The rest of the profits are a result of the sale of food and products that people buy in the little shops. The profits for these parks depend primarily on how the economy is doing. Most of the rides at an amusement park are operated by computers now, so they are easier to take care of and do not need constant maintenance. This saves an amusement park owner a lot of money each year. Marketing for theme park owners, on the other hand, can cost a lot of money each year. A lot of these business owners use television marketing, direct mail marketing and radio ads for most of the marketing methods because these are the most effective advertising tools in promoting the business. Channel. The business involves both retail and wholesale but focuses more on wholesaling due to the fact that many other businesses revolve inside the theme park. The business focuses on wholesale to the fact that it sells goods or services to those buying for resale or business use. This would involve selling and promoting, buying and assortment building. Another is that many owners of amusement parks have switched channels on theme park marketing and have moved to Internet marketing. This kind marketing involves consumers that are now online; shopping, paying bills, buying products and looking for entertainment and vacation ideas. Profit The average profit margin for amusement and theme parks is at 5. 4 percent. The reason for such a low margin is the high cost of staffing, maintenance, and heavy capital outlay of operating such an attraction (Orlando Sentinel, 2010). The profit margin for these parks would be even lower if it werent for their seasonal hiring. With so many employees needed for administration, merchandise selling, ride operation, food and beverage and mechanical positions, the cost would be even higher if a full staff were kept year-round. That is why most of the theme parks offer prices that are expensive. Cost It is general knowledge that this would take a lot of effort, manpower, and most importantly money. From constructing the establishments and rides, to the food that the park will serve, and finally the people who will help the company bring joy to customers, they are all going to cost a lot of money. So, ultimately this theme park will need large amount of cash to use. SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE AND RESULTS (Interviewed 50 respondents including students and adults inside and outside the university. This is a basis of market segmentation).

Decision support systems

Decision support systems Abstract Nowadays, Decision Support Systems has a significant role in almost all areas of life. These systems go further and use new technologies like data mining and knowledge and data discovery (KDD) to improve and facilitate human decision making. First of all we provide some definitions about decision making, models and processes. Afterwards, we discuss about knowledge and data discovery and also, Intelligent decision support systems. At last, as an empirical survey, we compare two different cultures in using decision making support systems. One of them uses decision support system in clinical environment to improve the decision making and reduce crucial errors significantly; while the other uses the traditional system and relies on the human memory and experience rather than using decision support systems. Keywords: Decision Making, Decision Support, Knowledge and Data Discovery (KDD), Intelligent Decision Support Systems Introduction Information system has a significant role in supporting decision making, and in some special environments like business, health and education, gets the mandatory part. Moreover, such systems go further and use data mining and knowledge and data discovery (KDD) techniques to improve their abilities in supporting decision making. One of the environments that need information systems support for making crucial decisions and have direct effect on human life is clinical and health environment. We are going to look through the effect of decision support system in it. Decision Making Decisions and models Decision making is undeniably an essential and vital part of the human life. A decision problem may consist of numerous smaller decisions inter-related together, and the results of multiple decisions can be consolidated together; or one decision can influence another subsequent one. This influence can be fed as the input to a subsequent decision, or as a decisional choice for the users in determining which decision to make subsequently. This bigger decision, and its smaller decisions embedded within, must be represented in a simple manner for decision makers to read, understand, and communicate with. Each decision can be represented in the form of a model, to represent, describe and depict the decision problem and its interaction under consideration, whether it is simply an abstraction schema, insights to the decisions rather than mere numbers actual model instance, or executable computer program module. Each decision model can be a permanent modeling scenario which can be retrieved and included as part of a bigger scenario. Alternatively, it can be a temporary modeling scenario that is aggregated or pipelined within a bigger scenario. Such model integration treatments are subject to the discretion of users at the time of making such decisions. Even though each of these decisions may have a direct or indirect bearing on other subsequent decisions and can easily influence the overall decision and conclusion, many decision making processes and systems treat these decisions as independent and unrelated. This obscures the users from seeing and discovering the true effects and influen ce of the decision problem and its interaction under consideration, whether they are interrelated and/or interdependent. The element of interdependence may not be discovered until the full picture can be seen and assessed. Even though many decisions do occur in a sequential fashion, there are also many decisions that occur in parallel, evolve over time and converge to a concluding decision, or eventually combine or are interwoven into a final decision. Therefore, the decision making process should neither be fixed nor predetermined beforehand so that the execution order can be created as required. Hence, modeling is an important process in understanding, capturing, representing, and solving these decision models especially in terms of their interrelatedness across multiple models and their instances over a period of time. Furthermore such models should ideally be able to capture functional, behavioral, organizational, and informational perspectives. Decision systems are intended to assist users in making a decision. There are several types of users involved in using decision systems and these users progress as they develop more confidence: from inexperienced/na?ve decision makers, to average decision makers/ analysts, to experienced decision makers/modelers. Each type of user has different needs and should not be restricted by the constraints of any decision system that dictates the steps and techniques behind analyzing and solving a decision problem. Some users may need more decisional and/or system usage guidance while others may prefer to have minimal guidance. Some may wish the decision system will take care of the entire decision making process including prescribing the order in which each set of data is requested as well as the order in which each decision model is executed; while others may wish to intervene to a greater extent in designing the entire decision making process and the execution order to suit, or to a lesser extent in specifying a particular solution method. There are a variety of reasons as to why a human intervention is warranted and needed from the perspective of an experienced user. However, it is interesting to note that the type of guidance may have an adverse effect on decision model selection and ultimately the decision outcome. It is unreasonable and impractical to expect decision makers to operate a different decision making system for each decision and to comprehend the full effects of the consolidation and integration from these decisions. A decision making process is not necessarily about concentrating on the decision itself, but should emphasize the ways in which decisions are made. Therefore, users should be able to choose an optimizing approach and solution as well as a satisfying approach and solution, and not be limited to only one approach and solution that is traditionally incorporated in decision systems. Due to the frequency and complexity of interrelated decisions, some users may recall an existing scenario as input to another scenario, or recall several existing scenarios for comparative purposes. Decision systems need to be built in a flexible way so that decision models and components can be easily assembled and/or integrated together to create new scenarios and specific scenarios can be built and tailored to meet the needs of particular user groups. With all these issues in mind, the framework and architecture of an ideal decision system should have independent components that enable components to be easily assembled and integrated together to form a decision scenario. They should be flexible enough to serves various types of users and accommodate various types of decision making processes. They should also be sufficiently versatile to handle decision problems regardless of paradigms and/or domains under consideration. Good decision making frameworks must therefore be in place f or system framework and architecture to exhibit modeling flexibility, component independence, and versatility in domain and/or paradigm. To overcome the issues and fulfill the requirements discussed above, we first propose a converging decision analysis process, an optimizing?satisfying decision model, and a cyclical modeling lifecycle. Normative decision making processes Decisions can evolve and converge into a concluding decision over time. This can occur within re-evaluating a decision problem, or evaluating across multiple decision problems that are similar. This iterative decision making process is known as the convergence process. As decisions evolve and refine over time, decision makers are able to concentrate on essential factors and eliminate nonessential ones in order to narrow down the scope of the decision problem. Such attention-focused method provides a cut down version of the problem. A decision is subsequently made from these remaining factors of the reduced problem. Such decision-focused method provides an actionable result from the given problem. Since there can be many decisions within a decision problem, several iterations of attention-focused and decision-focused methods are applied while intermediate decisions within the decision problem are made and converged. Such revision and refinement occur irrespective of paradigms and doma ins. This notion of applying the attention focused and decision-focused methods within a convergence decision making process are depicted in Figure 1. Figure 1. Converging decision analysis, as in an 1D-CSP scenario One-Dimensional Cutting Stock Problem (1D-CSP) was used for illustrative purposes in order to design and implement the proposed framework and architecture. 1D-CSP is about cutting strips of raw material into desired sizes according to customer order widths. We often do not have unlimited supplies of raw materials and would therefore need to formulate and decide on which cutting patterns are used. 1D-CSP is a resource management problem with a traditional goal of minimizing wastage. Besides wastage, there may be other objectives that must be considered. For example, minimize machine setups through the changing of cutting knives, minimize machine setups through reducing the number of cutting patterns used, or minimize the number of disruption in the sequence of cutting patterns used. Even though 1D-CSP is considered to be a simple problem in pure mathematical terms, it becomes a reasonably complex decision problem once one considers all the real world constraints and objectives, and th e interrelated decisions involved within its decision making process. The 1D-CSP can be used as a decision problem to illustrate the converging decision analysis process, as depicted in Figure 1. The first decision is a pattern generation heuristic that generates combinations of cutting patterns. This decision concentrates only on generating those cutting patterns that are relevant to the decision problem under consideration (an attention-focused method). The second decision is determining which cutting patterns among the generated ones should be retained or discarded (a decision-focused method). This can be based on specific rules such as an allowable number of cutting knives per cutting pattern. It can also be based on the decision makers personal experience on whether certain cutting patterns should be discarded. The third decision is the creation of linear programming constraints that identifies the feasible area of the problem under consideration (an attention-focused method), while the fourth decision is finding an optimal point within the feasib le area (a decision-focused method). Neither of the focused methods has to produce an optimal or a satisfying solution necessarily. It is entirely up to the decision maker to decide on what sort of solution is desired at the time. Each decision and solution can be encompassed within a decision model that consists of both the optimizing model and satisfying model, as depicted in Figure 2. In a decision problem that consists of multiple interrelated decisions, the result from one model may be fed into another model continuously until an ultimate result is reached, and the result from a model can take on a different solution option. Each decision model may return to itself for refinement, or return to the previous model for additional processing, or feed to the next model for further processing. This return may be due to an infeasible solution, or a better understanding of the model which eventually leads to a change in the parameters of the model. The 1D-CSP can be used to illustrate the optimizing?satisfying decision model, as depicted in Figure 2. The first decision model pattern generation heuristic is a satisfying model that produces only those cutting patterns that are relevant and desirable to the decision problem under consideration. The second decision model is also a satisfying model in selecting or deselecting among the cutting patterns already produced. The third and fourth decision models are optimizing models that optimize using the linear programmings simplex method. Figure 2. Optimizing?satisfying decision model Decision modeling lifecycle The approach of Simon to the decision making process in terms of intelligence, design, and choice is very decision-oriented. However, as Glob has suggested it is about the way in which we model the decision. Therefore, we propose to integrate Simons proposal with MS/ORs modeling proposals that attempt to support every phase and aspects of decisions and modeling lifecycle. Such a design approach is crucial to support the modeling and decision environments and ensure that non-predetermined decision making processes and interrelated decisions characteristics can be modeled. This proposed modeling process is cyclical and iterative, and enables continuous adjustment and refinement especially in storing and retrieving decision problems as decision scenarios, as summarized in Figure 3. Despite the fact that the modeling lifecycle progresses step-by-step in a cycle, it can return to any earlier steps and not just the previous one, and can skip some steps in the later iteration if it has already gone through that particular step earlier on. It is however more difficult to represent these possible movements visually in the modelling lifecycle and is therefore not illustrated in Figure 3. The lifecycle is valuable not only from the point of view of modeling the decision itself but especially for highlighting the role of the system components of the decision, whether it is a data, model, solver, or scenario. Once a problem is understood it can be represented in the form of a model which is then instantiated with data and integrated with solvers so that it can be executed. Such a model is especially beneficial if it is storable and retrievable for later use and comparison. Once a model is represented, a solution can be derived through analyzing and investigating as well as comparing with various model instances. The derived solution is then reviewed and validated. If it is considered unsatisfactory such information can be used to modify and reformulate the decision model. Figure 3. Cyclical modeling lifecycle Even though the decision system will progress through the entire modeling lifecycle in producing the end result, it is important to note however that not all users will execute all the steps of the modeling lifecycle. Depending on the competencies of the decision makers and their permissions, they may interact with certain steps in the modeling lifecycle. For example, the inexperienced decision maker may interact with only step 2; the average decision maker may interact with steps 2, 3 and 4; whereas the experienced decision maker may interact with all 6 steps in the modeling lifecycle, as shown and contrasted in Figure 4. This decision modeling lifecycle provides a sound basis for the decision support and modeling framework and architecture. Figure 4. Interaction between 3 types of user groups and the modeling lifecycle Intelligent Decision Support Systems While IDSS (Intelligent Decision Support Systems) have been receiving increasing attention from the DSS research community by incorporating knowledge- based techniques to provide intelligent and active behavior, the state-of-the-art IDSS architecture provides little support for incorporating novel technologies that serve useful DSS information, such as the results from the knowledge and data discovery (KDD) community. Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery In recent years, the terms knowledge discovery and data mining (commonly referred to as KDD) have been used synonymously. They both refer to the area of research that draws upon data mining methods from pattern recognition (Tuzhilin, 1993), machine learning (Han et al., 1992) and database (Agrawal et al., 1993, 1994) techniques in the context of vast organizational databases. Conceptually, KDD refers to a multiple step process that can be highly interactive and iterative in the following (Fayyad Uthurusamy, 1995): the selection, cleaning, transformation and projection of data; mining the data to extract patterns and appropriate models; evaluating and interpreting the extracted patterns to decide what constitutes ?knowledge?; consolidating the knowledge, resolving conflicts with previously extracted knowledge; making the knowledge available for use by the interested elements within the system. A number of KDD systems are similar to IADSS data miner agents in spirit and in technique. Such work in designing and implementing practical KDD systems is crucial to our research in the sense that their results provide solid KDD pragmatic technologies ready to be integrated into our IADSS architecture. However, the current state of using KDD techniques for decision support remains in its infancy, as preliminary applications that use exclusively KDD techniques. It is our point of view that such isolated applications have limited scope and capabilities, while future KDD techniques will play an integral role in complex business systems that incorporate a wide range of technologies including intelligent agents, multimedia and hypermedia, distributed systems and computer networks such as the internet, and many others. From a DSS perspective, a simple DSS architecture that consists of a single decision maker with single information source knowledge discovery functionality lacks the ability to deal with complex situations in which multiple decision makers or multiple informatio n sources are involved. Most existing DSSs with data mining and knowledge discovery capability fall into this category. Intelligent Agents The concept of intelligent agents is rapidly becoming an important area of research (Bhargava Branley, 1995; Etzioni Weld, 1994; Khoong, 1995). Informally, intelligent agents can be seen as software agents with intelligent behavior, that is, they are a combination of software agents and intelligent systems. Formally, the term agent is used to denote a software-based computer system that enjoys the following properties (Wooldridge Jennings, 1995): Autonomy: Agents operate without the direct intervention of humans. Co-operatively: Agents co-operate with other agents towards the achievement of certain objectives. Reactivity: Agents perceive their environment and respond in a timely fashion to changes that occur. Pro-activity: Agents do not simply act in response to their environment; they are able to exhibit goal-directed behavior by taking the initiative. Mobility: Agents are able to travel through computer networks. An agent on one computer may create another agent on another computer for execution. Agents may also transport from computer to computer during execution and may carry accumulated knowledge and data with them. Furthermore, there has been a rapid growth in attention paid to developing and deploying intelligent agent-based systems to tackle real world problems by taking advantage of the intelligent, autonomous and active nature of this technology (Wang Wang, 1996). Intelligent Decision Support Systems Intelligent decision support systems (Chi Turban, 1995; Holtzman, 1989), incorporating knowledge-based methodology, are designed to aid the decision-making process through a set of recommendations reflecting domain expertise. Clearly, the knowledge-based methodology provides useful features for the application of domain knowledge in decision making. However, the knowledge stored in the knowledge bases is highly domain-oriented and relatively small changes in the problem domain require extensive intervention by the expert. Powerful information communication channels, such as the internet (information superhighway), are continuously changing the decision making process. When decision makers make decisions they not only rely on brittle domain knowledge but also on other relevant information from all over the world. As a result, the challenge of discovering and incorporating new knowledge with existing ones requires us to introduce new techniques (such as intelligent agents and knowledg e discovery) into DSSs. Research into IDSS includes the work by Rao et al. (1994), who presented an intelligent decision support system architecture, IDSS, that stresses active involvement of computer systems in decision making, on the other hand, the work by Sycara at CMU LEI (Laboratory for Enterprise Integration) proposed the PERSUADER (Sycara, 1993), which incorporates machine learning for intelligent support of conflict resolution and the work on NEST which incorporates distributed artificial intelligence (DAI) with group decision support systems by Fox and Shaw (Shaw Fox, 1993). The proposed IDSS architecture is similar in substance to our proposed IADSS, which incorporates distributed artificial intelligence and incorporates the principles of co-operative distributed problem solving in the decision-making process. However, as we have pointed out above, it is necessary for the incorporation of data mining technology which extracts important information from vast amounts of or ganizational data sources in order to provide additional information that may be crucial for the decision-making process. IADSS architectural configuration As we have pointed out in our introduction, there exist numerous obstacles that remain to be overcome in today?s DSSs to fully achieve the vision of IADSS. The integration of intelligent agents with DSSs will be able to address most, if not all, of the articulated issues. However, even within the application of an intelligent agent-based architecture, there exist two different forms (or configurations) of the decision-making process that the particular architecture will be able support: Single decision maker-multiple miners and multiple decision makers-multiple miners. Single Decision Maker-Multiple Miner DSS Processes We have argued in the previous section that a possible configuration of IADSS architecture, namely the single decision maker-single miner form, has severe limitations when it comes to extendibility and the ability to be integrated into an overall organizational decision support framework. However, in many real life cases, the single decision maker situation is still of importance. In today?s organization, there may exist a myriad of organizational information sources on which useful data relationships and patterns may be discovered to support the singular decision maker?s decision process. As a result, the IADSS configuration of a single decision maker with multiple data miners warrants attention and analysis. Under IADSS, the architecture of such a single decision maker, multiple knowledge miners assisted DSS is shown in Figure 5. Figure 5. Multi-Agent-based DSS Figure 6. A Multi-Agent-Based GDSS There are three classes of intelligent agents (we call them decision support agents or DS agents) contained within this architecture: Knowledge miners that discover hidden data relations in information sources, user assistants that act as the intelligent interface agents between the decision maker and the IADSS and a knowledge manager with repository support that provides system co-ordination and facilitates knowledge communication. Further details about the functionality and internal structure about each type of agent is elaborated in the next section. Multiple Decision Maker-Multiple Miner-Assisted GDSS Process The single decision maker configuration discussed above can be easily extended into a group decision support system (GDSS) architecture (as seen in Figure 6. by the introduction of additional user assistants for each additional decision maker). Compared to the single decision maker configuration in Figure 5, each user assistant agent is further augmented to provide support for group-based communication between different decision makers. It is important to observe that with the introduction of each additional DS agent; only an extra knowledge communication channel between the new DS agent and the knowledge manager is needed. This enables a manageable linear increase in the number of knowledge communication links corresponding to the increase in the number of agents in the IADSS system, rather than the quadratic increase in the number of direct communication links in a direct agent-to-agent fashion. Furthermore, our proposed IADSS is an open architecture with potential for the integration of future technologies by the incorporation of additional classes of intelligent agents. IADSS architecture at a glance Intelligent Decision Support Agents As described above, there are three types of intelligent agents in an IADSS system: Knowledge miners, user assistants and knowledge managers. This section will provide a more detailed description of such agents and their internal architectures. Knowledge Miners. The role of knowledge miners in IADSS is to actively discover patterns or models about a particular topic which provides support in the decision-making process. There are four components in a knowledge miner. The IADSS interface component manages the communication between the miner and the knowledge manager. When a knowledge miner receives messages that are represented in a common representation, the IADSS interface translates these messages into the local format based on the common vocabulary. On the other hand, when the knowledge miner sends messages out, the IADSS interface translates them into common format first, then sends them to the knowledge manager. In order to carry out the mining task, the necessary control knowledge as well as domain knowledge is kept in the knowledge base component, while the data interface component serves as a gateway to the external information sources. The knowledge discovery is usually done by discovering special patterns of the d ata, i.e. by clustering together data that share certain common properties. For instance, a knowledge miner may find that within this week, a number of stocks are going up. There are two different types of knowledge mining agents, event-driven knowledge miners and tusk-driven knowledge miners. The event-driven knowledge miners are agents that are invisible to the decision makers, and their results may contribute towards the decision-making process. Based on the specification of the IADSS, such event-driven knowledge miners start when the IADSS starts up. When a particular event comes, an agent will start its knowledge mining. Events may be temporal events, e.g. every day at 1 a.m., every hour, etc. Or, events may be constraint-triggered events, e.g. every 10,000 customers, when a certain type of customer reaches lo%, etc. Usually, such event-driven knowledge miners work periodically. They follow a sleep-work-sleep-work cycle and will be destroyed when the entire IADSS system termina tes. On the other hand, task-driven knowledge miners are created for particular data mining tasks based on requests originated by the decision makers. After a knowledge miner completes its task, it sends the mining results to the knowledge manager and is then terminated automatically. From the view point of decision support, knowledge miners play the role of information extractors which discover hidden relationships, dependencies and patterns within the database, whether the information is discovered by an event-driven knowledge miner or a task-driven knowledge miner, which may be utilized as evidence by decision makers within the GDM process. User Assistants. Interaction between a particular decision maker and the IADSS is accomplished through a user assistant agent. The architecture of a user assistant contains four components. The multimedia user interface component manages the interactions with the decision maker such as accepting requests for a task-driven knowledge miner, while the IADSS interface manages the knowledge communication with the knowledge manager. The necessary knowledge such as the common vocabulary, decision history and others are kept in a local knowledge base component. All three components are controlled by an operational component that provides the facility of differencing, multimedia presentation and collaboration. With regard to the role the user assistant plays in the decision process, it enables the decision maker to view the current state of the decision process and to convey his or her own opinions and arguments to the rest of the decision making group. It also enables the decision maker to i ssue requests for task-driven knowledge miners to attempt to discover some particular type of organizational knowledge from business data. The user assistant will then relay the request to the knowledge manager and interpret the mining result if it is deemed appropriate. Knowledge Manager: The knowledge manager provides management and co-ordination control functions over all the agents in the IADSS architecture. The internal component-wide architecture of the knowledge contains four Components: The decision maker interface, the operational facilities, the miner interface and the agent knowledge base that provides support for localized reasoning. From the functional standpoint, the knowledge manager provides the following functionality in the IADSS architecture: Makes decisions concerning the creation and termination of knowledge miners as provided by the miner interface component of the knowledge manager. Mediates requests from user assistants through the decision maker interface, analyzes these requests through the localized knowledge and inference engine and then initiates an appropriate group of task-driven knowledge miners to collaboratively perform the requested task through the miner interface. Mediates the discovered knowledge from knowledge miners (whether it is an event-driven or a task-driven miner), stores the knowledge into the repository for possible future usage and forwards the relevant knowledge to interested decision maker users through the decision-maker interface. Manages and co-ordinates the knowledge transactions with each individual decision support agent such as common vocabulary, available decision topics, existing mining results and strategic knowledge, as provided by the operational facilities component. Manages the synchronization between the collection of decision support agents such as the progress of the task-driven knowledge miners and the notification of the decision makers when crucial knowledge is discovered. Mediates all other types of communication among decision support agents including the communication among user assistants and supports the retrieval of appropriate evidence from the repository by user assistants. In terms of the decision support process, the knowledge manager plays the role of manager and mediator between two decision makers, between the decision maker and the corresponding task-driven miners and between all decision support agents and the repository to address the issue of knowledge sharing. Current prescription process at the hospital The prescription process is shown in Figure 7. This description is based on interviews (questions 1?3 in the interview guideline, Appendix A) and observations by the first author. Figure 7. Current prescription process in the Ekbatan and Boras Hospital (UML activity diagram) The process starts as the physician in charge takes the patients history, performs physical examinations, and reviews available medical documents, including progress notes, laboratory findings, and imaging. These data sources guide the physician(s) to a set of differential diagnoses or a definitive diagnosis, which help the prescriber(s) to select appropriate treatment for the patient. The prescriber will then register medical records