Battle of the Beers Essay

Introduction This case is about the intense battle between beer rivals in the United States, particularly between Anheuser-Busch (A-B), the world’s largest brewer, and SABMiller, the world’s second largest brewer. It discusses about how the companies used advertising in their brand positioning in order to compete with each other and increase the sales. This case starts by describing the strategies used by the both company when the battle began since the South African Breweries (SAB) purchased Miller Brewing Company in 2002. The 2 leading beer brewing companies uses different strategies to fight with each other in order to communicate how its beer differ from competition to draw in more consumers. First, Miller emphasized on the light beer, taking advantage of the health conscious trend where consumers were looking for low-carb beer by using comparative advertising campaign claiming that the Miller Lite has half the carbs than Bud Light. This prompted counteroffensives from A-B that mock Miller Lite’s low-carbs claims and challenge beer drinkers to choose on taste. To counter that, Miller then attack back by emphasizing also on the taste of the light beer. Things become worse when Miller also launched a new offensive campaign which lampooned Budweiser for its self-proclaimed title as â€Å"King of Beers† and Budweiser lashed back by labelled Miller Lite as â€Å"Queen of Carbs†. Miller filed a lawsuit against Budweiser asserting the false and misleading claims by Budweiser to Miller Light which will definitely affect the image of SABMiller. Then, Miller used blind taste tests and shifted to emphasizing taste and flavour instead of stuck with a carb positioning. In 2004, the companies used comparative advertising, where Miller launched new advertising campaign attacking Budweiser, and A-B also launched direct counterattack, and this made the battle become even more intense that others are being pulled into the fray. Television networks were refusing commercials on both sides  because their unduly disparaging or appear to contain taste claims that are unsubstantiated and misleading. While Miller continue to press on the taste issue, A-B introduced a new product promoting as having no lingering aftertaste and also emphasizing the freshness of its beer. The battle between the 2 companies goes back and forth. Questions: 1. What attributes are most important in determining beer purchasing decisions? How does this vary by market segments? There are many important attributes that need to be considered in determining beer purchasing decisions. As described in the case, these includes taste, aroma, and appearance. (i) Taste/Flavour/Aroma Taste is the most important attribute in determining beer purchasing decisions as consumers buy beer for the taste. As evident in the case, Miller spent huge amounts on advertising the taste advantage they hold over Budweiser. They held blind taste tests where consumers were seen to choose Miller over Budweiser in the tests. Their success in providing good taste led to Miller recording a 2.6 % increase in sales volume in 2003 as consumers felt that Miller beers were better in taste. Aroma is extremely important to beer’s overall taste and it determines the purchase decision of a beer. The market segments that emphasize on aroma in their beer purchasing decision are mostly experienced beer drinkers. The repeat beer purchase will takes place when the taste of the beer suit the customers. Health-conscious consumers who are looking to reduce their carbohydrate intake might opt for beer which are less sugar. Consumers who give more preference to the aroma of beer might look for strong aroma beer or beer which suit his or her taste. Some market segments might prefer beer with no lingering aftertaste. (ii) Appearance The process of purchasing a beer begins with its visual appearance. Many people make hasty judgments of taste (food or beverage) based entirely on sight alone. In terms of beer appearance, what consumers looking for are colour, clarity, and head retention. Although one colour is not necessarily better than the others, and none indicates directly how the beer will taste, but many beer drinkers will just have their own preference and perception of beer colour. Also, if a beer can’t form a head, either it’s improperly carbonated or the vessel into which it’s poured is dirty. Many beer drinkers will most probably emphasize on the appearance of the beer and are obsessed with beer clarity; if the beer is not crystal clear, they would not drink it. Some markets segments might prefer darker beers like stouts whereas others might prefer lighter beers such as wheat beers. (iii) Price Many people judge or determine a product quality based on the price. This is also true for beer purchases, and is especially true for those non-experienced beer drinkers. Higher price could have one of two effects on consumer preference: it could cause the product to seem higher in quality, or it could make the product less desirable because of the extra expense. Although most of the time price may reflect the quality of the beer (higher quality, higher price, and vice versa), but this is not all the time. For those who are emphasize on the quality of the beer, they might probably prefer to buy the higher-priced beer. Higher-income beer drinkers also might choose the higher-priced beer which they perceived that the beer has higher quality. For those market segments who just drink beers for enjoyment for example peers gathering, they might just buy the cheaper beers. (iv) Brand name Brand is the most important non-sensory factors affecting consumers’ choice  decisions of products. It seen as a promise, a guarantee or contract with the manufacturer and a symbolic mean and sign of quality. Beer drinkers will choose their beers based on their own beer brand preferences too. Researchers had found that ultrapremium beer was rated higher than inexpensive beer when brand names were unknown, hence shows that brand name do affect beer purchasing decision. In the market segments which earned a higher-income might prefer branded (usually higher-priced) beers. Younger generation might also choose those cheaper but well-known brand due to the exposure of the advertisements and they tend to follow the trend. 2. How would you construct a valid taste to determine beer buyers’ preferences? The methods used to construct a valid taste to determine beer buyer preferences based on different attributes would be as follows: Based on taste/flavour/aroma: Conduct blind-taste tests by providing the participants the cups of different beers to be tested which labelled A through E. Participants will be asked to taste each of the beers, and then spit out the beer into an empty glass. Between each beer taste, participants will rinse out their mouths with water to avoid cross-contamination among trials. After tasting all the beers, participants will rank order the five beers on the basis of the quality of their taste. Based on appearance: Conduct tests by providing the participants different beers with differences colour and level of clarity. For example by providing the participants different cups of beers with different colour and clarity labelled with A, B, C, D, and so forth without the acknowledge the participants what type or brand of the beers are. Differences in preferences across the samples will demonstrate whether consumers prefer one colour (eg. darker colour) than the others. The preference of beer based on the label colour, design, logo, or  the shape of the packaging can be tested as well. Based on price: Conduct tests by providing the participants different selections of beer with different prices to assess whether consumers use price to disambiguate taste. For example, the beers selected varied in price, from $7.99 per six-pack to $2.69 per six-pack. The prices per six-pack were as follows: Brand A: $7.99; Brand B: $5.99; Brand C: $3.99; Brand D: $3.49; and Brand E: $2.69. Participants will rank the different beers according to their own preferences and on the basis of their prior knowledge about these beers. Based on brand name: Conduct tests by providing the participants different selections of beer with different brand names. For example, different beer brands such as Anchor Steam, Samuel Adams, Budweiser, Miller Genuine Draft, and Schlitz will be provided to participants. Participants will be asked to rank the different beers according to their own preferences and on the basis of their prior knowledge about these beers. Conclusion: Consumers’ attitudes, beliefs, and feelings play important role in deciding if they are going to purchase the Anheuser-Busch or SABMiller beer brand such as Budweiser or Miller respectively. The beer marketers need to be able to identify the target markets’ shopping, purchase, spending, and consumption patterns in order to predict what consumers want from such product. Consumer intention acts as a helpful indicator to the types of marketing activities to carry so that they are able to attract the right market segment, thus leading to high profits. In conclusion, understanding consumer behaviour is significant because marketers want to attract the right consumers to purchase their brand.

How to Write an Article Review Essay

Writing an article review, which is also sometimes referred to as an article critique, is a special type of writing that involves reading an article and then providing the reader with your personal take on its content. In general, article review essays should start with a heading that includes a citation of the sources that are being reviewed. The first paragraph, which is the introduction to the article review, should provide a summary of the article highlights. This summary should not provide every last detail about the article being reviewed. Rather, it should only discuss the most important details. If you find yourself carrying on or needing more than one paragraph to write your summary, you need to revisit the paragraph and find ways to trim down the length of your summary. Following the brief summary of your article, you will then need to explain why the article is significant. Questions you should ask yourself when writing these paragraphs include: Does the article fill a void within the literature that already exists on the topic? Does the article contain any information that would be considered â€Å"breakthrough† information? Will the information contained within this article cause other people in the field to change their ideas about the subject matter or does it simply revisit information that is already known in the field? In your final paragraphs, you will need to present your personal evaluation of the article. Some questions you should ask yourself in order to come up with your personal evaluation include whether or not the article is well written and clear. You should also consider whether or not any information was missing and if more research is needed on the topic. If you are writing the article review for a class, try to connect the article to organizational and industrial experience and try to connect the content of the article to information that you have been studying in your course. As you write your article review, keep in mind that you are doing more than just a book report. Rather than focus on telling what the article was about, your article review should reflect your personal opinions on the article as well as how it affects you or the field in which it was written. After you have finished writing your article review, be sure to go back and re-read it. This way, you will be able to look at it with a fresh set of eyes and you may notice errors that you had not previously noticed. Outline of the Article Review Please include the following categories in your article review. Full Bibliographic Reference Introduction: Objectives, Article Domain, Audience, Journal and Conceptual/Emprical Classification Very Brief Summary Results Contributions Foundation Synthesis with other materials Analysis & Additional Analysis General Critique) Further Critique of a Conceptual Article -or- Further Critique of an Empirical Article Issues (in your opinion). Questions Annotated Bibliography Citation Analysis Appendix 1. Full Bibliographic Reference State the full bibliographic reference for the article you are reviewing (authors, title, journal name, volume, issue, year, page numbers, etc. ) Important: this is not the bibliography listed at the end of the article, rather the citation of the article itself! 2. Introduction: Objectives, Article Domain, Audience, Journal and Conceptual/Emprical Classification Paragraph 1: State the objectives (goals or purpose) of the article. What is the article’s domain (topic area)? Paragraph 2: State whether the article is â€Å"conceptual† or â€Å"empirical†, and why you believe it is conceptual or empirical. Empirical articles and conceptual articles have a similar objective: to substantiate an argument proposed by the author. While a conceptual article supports such an argument based on logical and persuasive reasoning, an empirical article offers empirical evidence to support the argument. Empirical articles offer substantial, detailed evidence which the authors analyze using statistical methods. Empirical articles must include hypotheses (or propositions), detailed research results, and (statistical) analyses of this empirical evidence. Empirical research includes experiments, surveys, questionnaires, field studies, etc, and to limited degree, case studies. Conceptual articles may refer to such empirical evidence, but do not provide the detailed analysis of that evidence. 3. Brief Summary For an article review, do not spend much space summarizing the article. Instead focus on analysis of the article. Thus, in this section, summarize the article only very briefly. Paragraph 1: what is the problem or opportunity being addressed Paragraph 2: which solution is proposed (the solution could be a new model or a theory that explains the problem) Paragraph 3: what evidence is put forth that this solution is appropriate (If this is an empirical article, be sure to briefly describe what kind of empirical study was done as part of the evidence) 4. Results Very briefly summarize the important points (observations, conclusions, findings) in the article. Please do not repeat lists of items in the articles – just summarize the essence of these if you feel they are necessary to include. 5. Contributions. An article makes a â€Å"contribution† by adding to the knowledge of researchers in a research field. An article can make a contribution to the research field in many ways. Does it provide a new way to look at a problem? Does it bring together or â€Å"synthesize† several concepts (or frameworks, models, etc. ) together in an insightful way that has not been done before? Does it provide new solutions? Does it provide new results? Does it identify new issues? Does it provide a comprehensive survey or review of a domain? Does it provide new insights? Also, is it salient (relevant and current) to a particular scientific issue or managerial problem? Are the issues addressed introduced in a way that their relevance to practice is evident? Would answers to the questions raised in the article likely to be useful to researchers and managers? Note: Do not discuss the contributions of the technologies the article describes, but rather the contributions of the article itself! The article’s contributions should be original. Describe each contribution clearly in a separate paragraph or bullet point. Discuss why the contribution is important. Alternatively, if you believe the article makes no contributions, explain why clearly. 6. Foundation. Good research often is built upon theories and frameworks that other researchers have developed. Sometimes articles will be substantially based upon this prior work, and refer back to it in some detail. (Not all research articles will do this. ) Which theoretical foundations does this article and research build on, if any? In what ways? Include references/citations of the foundation work. (You can determine this in part from the works the article cites. )Note, however, that most works cited are not core foundational work, but rather just support certain aspects of the article. Similarly, do not confuse a general discussion of related topics as foundational work. If the article does not build upon key pieces of prior research, then write in your review â€Å"This article does not build upon any foundation research. † (If you do not state this explicitly, you will not receive credit for this section. ) 7. Synthesis with Class Materials Synthesis means analyzing a particular topic by comparing and contrasting it with, and thinking about it from the viewpoint of, the class materials from across the semester. These materials include the articles, models, frameworks, guidelines and other concepts we’ve covered. (Of course, only certain materials will be relevant for any given article. )Note: You have to do this synthesis! You need to relate this article to other things we have studied, so by definition you will not find this analysis in the article itself! You also could analyze the approach the author took to the article’s analysis and discussion. Discuss the article’s approach and results in terms of one or more of the frameworks, etc. , from the text or readings, or any you find elsewhere. As part of this analysis, reference other articles you’ve read, when appropriate. Compare the approach, results and contribution with all articles about similar topics or with a similar approach. For all of these, do your synthesis comparison in as much depth as you can! 8. Analysis Note: Many people assume this category is the same as â€Å"General Critique†. It is not. General Critique is a different category from this, and follows below. What has changed since the article was written? How do it’s lessons, ideas and theories still apply? To what extent has its issues been resolved? Additional Analysis Optionally, try applying the article’s models, frameworks and guidelines, etc. yourself. Do you find them useful? In addition, you may optionally add your own additional analysis in a separate subsection. (Do not repeat the author’s analysis in the paper – you could summarize this as part of the results section. ) 9. General Critique In this section you should state your opinions of how well (or poorly) the authors did their research and presented the research results in the article. Your critique can contain both positive and negative comments. Justify and explain in detail each of your critique points in a separate paragraph of at least 4-5 sentences. The following are suggestions only: Does it build upon the appropriate foundation (i. e. , upon appropriate prior research)? Did the authors choose the correct approach, and then execute it properly? How confident are you in the article’s results, and why? Are its ideas really new, or do the authors simply repackage old ideas and perhaps give them a new name? Do the authors discuss everything they promise in the article’s introduction and outline? What are the article’s shortcomings (faults) and limitations (boundaries)? Did it discuss all of the important aspects and issues in its domain (topic area)? In what way should the article have made a contribution, but then did not? Do the authors make appropriate comparisons to similar events, cases or occurrences? How complete and thorough a job did the authors do? Do the authors include an adequate discussion, analysis and conclusions? Did they justify everything adequately? Did they provide enough background information for the intended audience to understand it? For you to understand it? Were there adequate and appropriate examples and illustrations? Ask yourself these questions when justifying your critique points: why/why not? how? what distinguishes the differences/different approaches, and in what ways? 9. 1. Further Critique of a Conceptual Article (only for conceptual articles) A critique of a conceptual article examines the logic of the arguments made by the authors. Both strengths and weaknesses should be identified in a critique. Explain and justify each of your critique points in at least 3-4 sentences. Give examples whenever possible. To the best of your abilities, discuss each of the following categories in a separate paragraph: 1. LOGICAL CONSISTENCY: Do any parts of the article or research contradict or invalidate other parts? If so, have the authors acknowledged and explained this adequately? 2. COHERENCE: Does the article make sense? Did the authors approach this article (and this research) sensibly? Does the article develop an argument that follows a coherent line of reasoning? Are the boundaries of the argument reasonably well defined? Does the argument anticipate most, if not all, rival arguments? Does the article flow in a logical sequence? Do later parts build logically upon earlier parts? 3. SUBSTANCE: Does the article provide an argument or a line of reasoning that offers insight into important issues, or does it merely summarize previous studies in a shallow way that does not reflect depth of analysis? Does the article provide ways (a model, framework, guidelines, etc. ) to guide future thinking about the issue(s) the author is addressing? 4. FOCUS: Is there a clear audience that the authors address? Was the article written at the appropriate level for this audience? 9. 2. Further Critique of an Empirical Article (only for empirical articles) A critique of an empirical article examines the strength of the empirical evidence supporting the author’s argument. Both strengths and weaknesses should be identified in a critique. Explain and justify each of your critique points in at least 3-4 sentences. To the best of your abilities, discuss each of the following categories in a separate paragraph: 1. CLARITY: Is the article’s purpose and argument clear? Do the researchers clearly develop a major research question, proposition, or hypothesis that is to be evaluated in the empirical study and discussed in this article? If the study is exploratory (preliminary), is sufficient justification for an exploratory strategy given? 2. THEORETICAL GROUNDING: Is the researcher’s argument grounded in more basic theory? Is it clear whether the structure of the empirical study (i. e., what they do) was derived from theory, or just made up? In theory-building articles, is the need for new theory adequately established? 3. DESIGN OF RESEARCH INVESTIGATION: Is it clear exactly how the empirical study was carried out? Is the design of the research approach (field study, experiments, questionnaires, etc. – both contents and how they will be used) adequate to address the common threats to internal and external validity? Have appropriate controls been established, and is the selection of research sites justified? Are the hypotheses and experiments, etc., significant? 4. MEASUREMENT: Empirical studies can have quantitative measurements (i. e. , numeric results) and qualitative or subjective measurements. Are the measures used adequately described (i. e. , what is measured in the study and how)? Are data on the reliability and validity of these measures reported? Does the article feel anecdotal or solidly supported with evidence? For example, in case or field studies, are the results well documented? Is it clear who the subjects were, and with whom interviews were carried out? Were important results cross-checked, i. e., determined across a range of subjects or just gotten from one or two subjects? 5. ANALYSIS: Is the analysis of empirical data conducted properly? Do the data conform to the requirements of any statistical tests used? Are qualitative data adequately described and presented? 6. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: In discussing the results of the empirical study, do the authors remain true to the actual findings of the study? Are the claims made in the conclusion of the article actually supported by the empirical data? If the study is exploratory, do the authors offer research questions or hypotheses for future research? 7. BIASES: Do the biases of the authors affect the design of the research or the interpretation of the results? Are the authors aware of potential biases and the affect on the study? 10. Issues (listed by the author) What open questions or issues has the author stated remain unresolved? Discuss each in a separate paragraph of 5-10 sentences. Each issue’s paragraph should take the following format: what is the issue? why do you believe this is an important issue? in what way is it unresolved suggestions for resolving it – if you give your own suggestions (instead of or in addition to the authors’, then precede each with â€Å"I would propose †¦ † If it has been resolved since the article was written, then state how it was resolved. 11. Issues (in your opinion) List several open questions or issues which remain unresolved in your opinion? For example, what possible future research questions could arise from this article? Discuss each in a separate paragraph of 5-10 sentences. Each issue’s paragraph should take the following format: what is the issue? why do you believe this is an important issue? in what way is it unresolved suggestions for resolving it 12. Questions List three insightful questions of your own, arising from this article. Do not ask definitions, but rather questions that really make one think. 13. Annotated Bibliography For every item you have cited in your report, you need a full reference and an annotation explaining it. List the full bibliographic references (authors, title, journal name, volume, issue, year, page numbers, etc. ) for anything you have cited in your review. IMPORTANT: This is NOT the bibliography listed at the end of the article. It is the bibliographic references for any readings you yourself referred to inside your review. Write 2-4 sentences describing the article. Write 2-3 sentences describing why you cited it. 14. Citation Analysis Appendix If the article has no citations then write in that section â€Å"I found no citations in the [Science Citation Index or the Social Sciences Citation Index or on the Internet]. † Note, if your article has more than 20 citations, you only need to include a selection of them: State how many citations each index has and the Web search found List 1-2 citations for each year in which the article has been cited. Try to include citations from several different journals spread over your selection ? Include a citation analysis to see who has cited it and how.

Fdi- Boon or Bane

FDI IN INDIAN RETAIL SECTOR ABSTRACT: The research paper aims to understand whether the FDI policy introduced in the Retail sector in India is a Boon or a Bane. The paper gives an outlook of the Indian Retail Sector, its growth trajectories and its contribution to the national GDP. It also entails in detail the policy of FDI in this sector and its various clauses. The paper, in the end, talks about the benefits of implementing the FDI policy, and also what disadvantages it possess. 1. OVERVIEW OF INDIAN RETAIL SECTORIndian retail sector is the most booming sector in the Indian economy and largest sources of employment after agriculture. Trade or retailing is the single largest component of the services sector in terms of contribution to GDP. Its massive share of 14% is double the figure of the next largest broad economic activity in the sector. India is the second most attractive retail destination ‘globally from among thirty emergent markets. It has made India the cause of a g ood deal of excitement and the cynosure of many foreign eyes.With a contribution of 14% to the national GDP and employing 7% of the total workforce (only agriculture employs more) in the country, the retail industry is definitely one of the pillars of the Indian economy. It is undergoing a transitional phase to usher organized retail. The attitudinal shifts of the Indian consumers were in terms of â€Å"Choice Preference†, â€Å"Value for money’ and the emergence of organized retail format. The overall Indian retail sector is expected to rise to US $ 833 billion by 2013 and to US $ 1. 3 trillion by 2018.In line with the global developments in the retail industry, Indian retail is largely dominated by the unorganized retailers. It has witnessed a massive transition in the last decade. Of the total retail sales, the food and grocery segment constitute the major chunk. Growing in tandem with the economy is the Indian retail sector. The sector is on a high growth trajecto ry and is expected to grow by more than 27 per cent over the next 5 to 6 years. Initially it was predominately fragmented through the owner- run â€Å"Mom and PopOutlets†. The change in lifestyle, education, travel and disposable income has changed the pattern of consumption. Customers are aware of their surroundings and developments. The awareness was created through the advent of technology such as television, cable and satellite channels. They are accustomed to the organized retail format. Understanding the pulse or trend of the market the large corporate groups like ITC, Reliance, Tata, Rahejia and others are infusing staggering amounts of capital into organized retail sector.The Cardiovascular SystemSome of the leading Indian retailers who had tapped this market were Bata India Ltd, Big Bazaar, Crossword, Ebony Retail Holdings Ltd. , Food Bazaar, Globus Stores Pvt. Ltd. , Liberty shoes Ltd. , Music World Entertainment Ltd. , Pantaloon Retail India Ltd. , Shoppers Stop, S ubhiksha, Titan Industries, Trent, Benetton, Addidas, Reebok, Levis, Diary Farm, KFC, Metro, WalMart, Marks & Spencer’s etc are some of the popular global retail brands that have set up retail business in India.The organized retail sector comes with the concept of malls, supermarkets and department stores. Like Subhiksha, Marks & Spencer’s, Oberon etc it gives a different feeling and the environment of pick and choose from a variety of products. The modern retail formats are encouraging development of well-established and efficient supply chains in each segment ensuring efficient movement of goods from farms to kitchens, which will result in huge savings for the farmers as well as for the nation. The Government also stands to gain through more efficient collection of tax revenues.In the coming years it can be said that the hypermarket route will emerge as the most preferred format for international retailers stepping into the country. At present, there are 50 hypermark ets operated by four to five large retailers spread across 67 cities catering to a population of half-a-million or more. Estimates indicate that this sector will have the potential to absorb many more hypermarkets in the next four to five years. According to World Bank report, it is suggested to have an organized retail sector so that it is easy to have a direct control on the price mechanism and to control on the macro economic variables.Strengths 1. India attracted US$16. 9bn in foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in 2006, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development – a 153% year-on year increase. 2. A cheap, skilled, English-speaking workforce can do the jobs of Western workers for a fraction of the wages paid in North America or Europe. 3. Average annual GDP growth of 7. 7% is predicted by BMI through to 2016. With the population expected to increase from 1. 26bn in 2012 to 1. 32bn by 2016, GDP per capita is forecast to rise 77. % by the end of the forecas t period, reaching US$2,980. 4. The value of the retail segment is expected to grow from an estimated INR22. 53trn (US$489. 80bn) in 2012 to INR27. 73trn (US$739. 56bn) by 2016. Weaknesses 1. The competitiveness of local firms is undermined by official red tape, from foreign investment restrictions to inflexible labor laws. 2. Intellectual property rights are poorly protected in India, one of 12 countries on the 2009 priority watch list compiled by the US Trade Representative. 3.The rural population of India represents more than 70% of the total, while almost 37% is classified as not economically active by the UN. This is a major obstacle for retailers seeking to rapidly expand their customer base. Opportunities 1. India could enhance the competitiveness of the local industry through further liberalization and deregulation. 2. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is eager to reform the banking sector to increase the availability of long-term financing, particularly for large infrastructure projects. 3.The value of the OTC drug sector is forecast to grow by more than 94% by 2016, when it will be worth an estimated US$6. 58bn. Threats: 1. The arrival of Western players, including management consultancy Accenture and technology company IBM, is raising local wages in the outsourcing sector. 2. China remains a major competitor for FDI flows into India. India has excessive bureaucracy and poor infrastructure in comparison with China, which attracted US$60. 6bn of FDI in 2005. 3. International retailers are restricted by India’s strict FDI regulations.Single-brand retailers are able to own a 51% majority stake in a joint venture with a local partner, but multi-brand retailers must operate through a franchise or cash-and-carry wholesale model. 2. WHAT IS FDI Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) or foreign investment refers to the net inflows of investment to acquire a lasting management interest (10 percent or more or voting stock) in an enterprise operating in an economy other than that of the investor. It is the sum of equity capital of the long term capital, and short-term capital as shown in the balance of parameters.It usually involves participation in management joint-venture, transfer technology, and expertise. There are two types of FDI: inward foreign direct investment and outward foreign direct investment resulting in a net FDI inflow (positive or negative) and â€Å"stock of foreign direct investment† and outward foreign direct investment, which is the cumulative number for a given period. Direct investment excludes investment through purchase of shares. FDI is one example of international factor movement. 3. FDI IN RETAIL: IT ALL BEGAN IN 2006In 2006 the Indian government took the first step to promote organized retail in India by opening up single brand retailing to FDI. There are five entry routes through which the international players enter into the market, such as franchising, cash and carry wholesale trading, joint venture, m anufacturing and distribution. Government of India permitted 100 per cent FDI in cash and carry wholesale formats through automatic route and up to 51 per cent FDI in single brand retail through Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).This rule made the international brand much easier to enter into the Indian retail market. Through this agreement Reebok, Nokia and Adidas entered the Indian market. However the franchising is one of the way through which small retailers embrace organized retailing through brand association where there’s a scope for leveraging business operations. The 100 per cent FDI permits for cash and carry has paved the way for retail giants like German Based Metro and US based Wal-Mart to set up their shops in India.Reliance Retail had made a tie up with UK based Marks & Spencer to float an equal joint venture and this would scale up 1400 stores by the end of the next fiscal year. The benefits of FDI investment in the retail sector were: 1. It improves t he quality in products and services because of higher competition 2. Improved the lifestyle 3. Economies of scale would help lower consumer prices and increase the purchasing power of the consumer 4. The technology upgraded the system in terms of logistics, production and distribution channels. It adds as a driver in the Supply Chain Management. . The FDI investment will help in flourishing and developing the retail segment. 6. It not only promotes tourism and would develop skills and manpower. 4. FDI NOW IN RETAIL India's retailing industry is essentially owner manned small shops. In 2010, larger format convenience stores and supermarkets accounted for about 4 percent of the industry, and these were present only in large urban centers Until 2011, Indian central government denied foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail, forbidding foreign groups from any ownership in supermarkets, convenience stores or any retail outlets.Even single-brand retail was limited to 51% owne rship and a bureaucratic process. In November 2011, India's central government announced retail reforms for both multi-brand stores and single-brand stores. These market reforms paved the way for retail innovation and competition with multi-brand retailers such as  Walmart,  Carrefour  and  Tesco, as well single brand majors such as  IKEA, Nike, and  Apple.In January 2012, India approved reforms for single-brand stores welcoming anyone in the world to innovate in Indian retail market with 100% ownership, but imposed the requirement that the single brand retailer source 30 percent of its goods from India. Indian government continues the hold on retail reforms for multi-brand stores. On 14 September 2012, the government of India announced the opening of FDI in multi-brand retail, subject to approvals by individual states.This decision has been welcomed by economists and the markets, however has caused protests and an upheaval in India's central government's political coali tion structure. On 20 September 2012, the Government of India formally notified the FDI reforms for single and multi brand retail, thereby making it effective under Indian law. On 7 December 2012, the Federal Government of India allowed 51% FDI in multi-brand retail in India. The Feds managed to get the approval of multi-brand retail in the parliament despite heavy uproar from the opposition.The government of Manmohan Singh, prime minister, announced on 24 November 2011 the following: * India will allow foreign groups to own up to 51 per cent in â€Å"multi-brand retailers†, as supermarkets are known in India, in the most radical pro-liberalisation reform passed by an Indian cabinet in years; * Single brand retailers, such as Apple and IKEA, can own 100 percent of their Indian stores, up from the previous cap of 51 percent; * Both multi-brand and single brand stores in India will have to source nearly a third of their goods from small and medium-sized Indian suppliers; * All multi-brand and single brand stores in India must confine their operations to 53-odd cities with a population over one million, out of some 7935 towns and cities in India.It is expected that these stores will now have full access to over 200 million urban consumers in India; * Multi-brand retailers must have a minimum investment of US$100 million with at least half of the amount invested in back end infrastructure, including cold chains, refrigeration, transportation, packing, sorting and processing to considerably reduce the post harvest losses and bring remunerative prices to farmers; * The opening of retail competition will be within India's federal structure of government. In other words, the policy is an enabling legal framework for India. The states of India have the prerogative to accept it and implement it, or they can decide to not implement it if they so choose. Actual implementation of policy will be within the parameters of state laws and regulations. The opening of reta il industry to global competition is expected to spur a retail rush to India.It has the potential to transform not only the retailing landscape but also the nation's ailing infrastructure. A Wall Street Journal article claims that fresh investments in Indian organized retail will generate 10 million new jobs between 2012–2014, and about five to six million of them in logistics alone; even though the retail market is being opened to just 53 cities out of about 8000 towns and cities in India. It is expected to help tame stubbornly high inflation but is likely to be vehemently opposed by millions of small retailers, who see large foreign chains as a threat. The need to control food price inflation—averaging double-digit rises over several years—prompted the government to open the sector, analysts claim.Traders add huge mark-ups to farm prices, while offering little by way of technical support to help farmers boost their productivity, packaging technology, pushing u p retail prices significantly. Big foreign retailers would provide an impetus for them to set up modern supply chains, with refrigerated vans, cold storage and more efficient logistics. Foreign chains can also bring in humongous logistical benefits and capital; the biggest beneficiary would be the small farmers who will be able to improve their productivity by selling directly to large organized players. 5. ADVANTAGES 1. Huge Market Size and a Fast Developing Economy India is the second largest country in the world just behind China in terms of population. Currently the total population is about 1. 2 billion.This huge population base automatically makes a huge market for the business operators to capture and also a major part of it is still can be considered as un-served or not yet been penetrated. Therefore FDI investors automatically get a huge market to capture and also ample opportunity to generate cash inflows at relatively quicker times. The economy of India is also moving at faster pace than most of the economy of the world and inhabitants of the country also obtaining purchasing power at the same rate. 2. Availability of Diversified Resources and Cheap Labor Force The huge advantage every company gets by investing in India is the availability of diversified resources. It is a country where different kinds of materials and technological resources are available.India is a huge country and has forest as well as mining and oil reserve as well. These are also coupled with availability of very cheap labor forces at almost every parts of the country. From Mumbai which is in the west to Bengal which is in the east there is ample opportunity to set up business venture and location and most importantly labor is available at low cost. 3. Increasing Improvement of Infrastructure A lot of research study in India finds out that historically the country fails to attract a significant amount of FDI mainly because of problems in infrastructure. But the scenario is chan ging. The Indian government has taken huge projects in transportation and energy sectors to improve the case.The projects for developing road transport is worth of $90 billion, for rail it has undertaken several projects each worth of $20 million and for ports and airports the value of development projects is around $ 80 billion. In addition the investment in energy development is worth of $ 167 billion and investment in nuclear energy development is outside that calculation. These huge investments are changing the investment climate in the country and investors will benefit hugely by that (Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, 2005; Dua & Rasheed, 1998). 4. Public Private Partnerships Another significant advantage foreign investors experience in India today is the opportunities of PPP or Public private Partnership in different important sectors like energy, transportation, mining, oil industry etc.It is advantageous in several ways as it has eliminated the traditional tira de barriers and also joint venture with government is risk free up to the great extent (GOI, 2007; IMF, 2005; Nagaraj, 2003). 5. IT Revolution and English Literacy Today the modern India considered being one of the global leaders in IT. India has developed its IT sectors immensely in last few years and as of today many leading firms outsource their IT tasks in India. Because of IT advancement the firm which will invest in India will get cheap information access and IT capabilities as Indian firms are global leader. Along with that Indian youth are energetic and very capable in English language which is obligatory in modern business conduction.This capability gives India an edge over others. Foreign firms also find it profitable and worthy investment by recruiting Indian HR (GOI, 2006; GOI, 2007; IMF, 2005; Lall, 2002). 6. Openness towards FDI Recently the Government of India has liberalized their policies in certain sectors, like Increase in the FDI limits in different sectors and a lso made the approval system far easier and accessible. Unlike the historical tradition, today for investing in India government approval do not require in the special cases of investing in various important sectors like energy, transportation, telecommunications etc (Economic Department, 2005; GOI, 2007; Nagaraj, 2003). . Regulatory Framework and Investment Protection In the process of accelerating FDI in the country the government of India has make the regulatory framework lot more flexible. Now a day’s foreign investors get different advantages of tax holiday, tax exemptions, exemption of service and central taxes. The government also opened few special economic zones and investors of those zones also get a lot of befits by investing money. Apart from that there are number of laws has been passed and executed for making the investments safe and secure for the foreign investors (IMF, 2005; Nagaraj, 2003; Planning Commission of India, 2002; World Bank, 2004).FDI can be a pow erful catalyst to vigorous competition in the retail industry, due to the current scenario of low competition and poor productivity. FDI will help if farmers can bargain. Villages only know how to produce things. We have to tell them how to market their produce, how to do value addition. One of the things we have talked about a lot in the book is cooperative farming. In India, farmers have small holding but they form a cooperative, it becomes a large holding and then form a cooperative, it becomes a large holding and then the farmer has bargain power. FDI will accelerate retail market growth, providing more employment opportunities. It s a basic principle that creating competition in general is good for the market. But the doubt is that, since proper procurement and distribution system and the infrastructure is not fixed, how the rest will fall in place, when the giant retailers enter our market. Back-end procurement will still remain big problem. Sumita Kale, economist, in his stat ement says that â€Å"the debate that by-introducing 51 percent FDI, a lot of money will flow out of the country is an old school of thought. Lots of our Indian companies are operating abroad and have successfully contributed to our economy. The bigger issue is that with benefits we might end up paying a price hence we must work on a reasonable solution.As mentioned earlier the farmer will benefit from FDI as they will be able to get better prices for their produce. The elimination of the intermediate channels in that procurement process will lead to reduction of prices for consumers. Foreign brand will promote healthy completion in market. Every time the government brings up the subject of FDI, the domestic retailers with the support of some politician jump to lobby against the bill. As the government initializing the FDI, there is bound to be some problems, which can definitely be resolved. The government in near future can appoint a regulating body to monitor the retail sector j ust like other sectors.There will be lot of man power requirement when FDI starts, logistic demands will be more, and people to serve in these stores will get jobs. Managerial positions will open up. Technological requirements and software developments will increase based on the Indian market software needs will be changed. Infrastructure and building constructions will take place. The living conditions will change, good roads will come up. There will be good flow of money that flows these are major benefits of FDI. 6. DISADVANTAGES Customers feel that retail stores offer better deals, but they don’t realize that they end up paying and buying more than what is required.If 51 percent FDI is allowed in multi brand, it will teach the local retailers about real competition and help in ensuring that they give better service to Indian consumers. It is obviously good for local completion and there are no consequences of our local kirana shops disappearing. The Kirana stores operate in a different environment catering to certain set of customers and they will continue to find new ways to retain them. Kirana stores are convinced that stores all big stores will be set up far away from the city and the travel time in India will not help us to go often and buy things from these large stores. Large store buying will help only in bulk purchases. So there is no need to fear about the FDI investment in this context.Investing in India definitely has some negative sides as well. Most noticeably India considered as a huge market but a major portion of that is a lower and middle class person who still suffers from budget shortage. The infrastructure of the country also needs to be improved a lot and already it is under huge strain. There are also problems exists in the power demand shortfall, port traffic capacity mismatch, poor road conditions deal with an inefficient and sometimes still slow-moving bureaucracy. The huge market in India is an advantage but it is also very diverse in nature. India has 17 official languages, 6 major religions, and ethnic diversity as wide as all of Europe.This makes the tasks difficult for the companies to make appropriate product or service portfolio. India is not a member of the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes also not of the New York Convention of 1958. That make life bit difficult for the foreign investors. India still has a heavy regulation burden among other countries, for example the time taken to start business or to register a property is higher in India. Similarly, indirect taxes, entry-exit barriers and import duties have been major disadvantages (Nagaraj, 2003; Planning Commission of India, 2002; USITC, 2007; World Bank, 2004). KEYWORDS: Retail, FDI, SME, Multi-brand, Single-brand REFERENCES: 1) Amanpreet Kang. (2012).Evaluating Effects of FDI In Developing Economies: The Curious Case of Pharmaceutical Companies. ABS, Amity University Rajasthan (ISSN 2230 7230) 2) Anonymous. (11 Feb, 2008;). FDI reforms. Business Asia. 3) Anu Antony. (July – December 2009). The Transitional Shift Of Indian Market Space And FDI In Retail. Globsyn Management Journal. 4) Dr Surender Kumar Gupta. (Feb 2012). FDI and Indian Retail Sector-The Path Ahead. International Journal of Marketing and Technology (ISSN: 2249 1058). 5) Prof. G. V. Bhavani Prasad, E. Hari Prasad Sharma (June 2012). Impact Of FDI on Economic Development of India. International Journal of Marketing and Technology (ISSN: 2249 1058). 6) H. S. Yadav, Sangeeta Jauhari. (2011-2012).Foreign Direct Investment and Retail Trade in India (The Consequences under Globalization). Skyline Business Journal. 7) M. Chackochen and Pon Ramalingam. (April – June, 2012). FDI Investment: Retail Franchising. SCMS Journal of Indian Management.. 8) Tarun Kanti Bose. (1 May, 2012). Advantages and Disadvantages of FDI in China and India. International Business Research. 9) Anonymous. (2012). India Retail Report. Busine ss Monitor International. 10) Seth, Smriti. (29 Nov 2011). FDI in retail to make consumers king? 122 mn consumers set to gain [Retailing]. The Economic Times. 11) Arati R Jerath. (04 Dec 2011). FDI in retail: Is it another nuclear deal moment?. The Economic Times. 12) Rai, Manmohan. (16 Sep 2012).FDI in retail is anti-farmer and anti-small retailers, says UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. The Economic Times. 13) Sen, Amiti. (26 Mar 2012). FDI in retail: Local sourcing seems to work well in multi-brand retail, but not in single brands. The Economic Times. 14) Anonymous. (11 July 2012). FDI in single-brand retail: No policy change, DIPP to put IKEA's concerns in FIPB court. The Economic Times. 15) Accord Fintech. (28 Jan 2012). SME's support FDI in multi brand retail: CII Survey. The Economic Times. 16) Ghosal, Sutanuka; Srinivas, Nidhi Nath. (02 Dec 2011). FDI in India: Farmer bodies throw their weight behind retail FDI. The Economic Times. 17) www. ebsco. com 18) www. proquest. com

Research Project Reflection Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Research Project Reflection Paper - Essay Example If one was suspected of having been an associate of witchcraft, torments were started until the victim gave up and confessed of having participated in the witch-hunts. Secondly, we learn of the staged s of witchcraft decline: the accusatory and convictions decrease stage and the conclusion of the matter. The impact of political, intellectual, social and economic factors are also looked and expounded holistically, and the way they did contribute to witchcraft decline. Therefore, the witchcraft decline is looked like a process cultivated by many factors, all brought together and brewing up the declining heat (Bever, pg. 276). On conducting the research, I faced several research limitations, especially with reference to the availability of scholarly materials. Some of the materials that I grasped to conduct were sometimes not so reliable. Reliable resources were quite limited, and it did call for me to conduct a thorough search on the primary sources in the university databases. Additionally, very few scholars have conducted research on the same topic. It was quite hard to find a consistent and reliable relationship between the research I conducted and the one that conducted by previous researchers. The research did call for analyzing primary resources on works done around 15th to 17th century. Sometimes the different scholarly articles could communicate different information at a similar topic. The bias prevalence was hence was quite a concern. Another bias is the language used in the primary sources. Having been written around 15th to 17th century, the language used was quite hard and did call for one t o take quite a lot of time analyzing the content. Many interesting topics emerged during the process of my research conduction. I would like to conduct further research on them, should a chance erupt. First, I would conduct a thorough research on Matthew Hopkins, a witch hunter in England. His career did flourish in an environment

Planet Earth Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Planet Earth - Essay Example This process is called migration and this cycle can be amazing. The largest land migration of any animal happens in the spring in Northern Canada when three million caribou march across the tundra. The spring is also marked by melting sea ice that broadens the deciduous forest and fattens the many water ways that thread their way across the land. The movement of water during the year is another significant cycle taking place daily on our planet. All life is dependant on water and many species spend a most of their time searching for and following water, like elephants and buffalo. The distribution of water also shapes our landscape; where water is prevalent the land is lush and green and where it is sparse the land is dry and barely inhabited. When this is the case we have desert and, sadly, the amount of land that is covered with desert is growing yearly. The desert experiences a lack of rain and rain is the source of all fresh water, which is essential to the survival of all species, plant and animal. The rain fattens our rivers and streams as the melting of the polar ice does.

A world of whose making - Economic Interdependence and Political Order Essay

A world of whose making - Economic Interdependence and Political Order - Essay Example A world of whose making - Economic Interdependence and Political Order These advantages cannot be transferred from one economy to the other, and therefore countries aim to use the advantages they have for producing goods with relative competence. This provides an insight into the reasons for countries like Japan and U.S. to develop their technology with relative efficiencies. When countries produce a specific good with comparative efficiency, they may not focus on the production of other goods. As a result, they would have to trade their goods with other countries. This is the argument buttressed by the theory of comparative advantage (Madura 2008). The theory provides an insight into the dynamics of the international trade and helps to show how trade provides advantages to the trading parties (D'Anieri 2009). The theory of comparative advantage in economics refers to the concept of production of goods and services at a lesser cost than that produced by another country. The country has a margin of superiority in the goods produced; this pertains to the notion that the opportunity cost of the goods produced by one country is less than that in the other country. David Ricardo was the developer of the basic theory of comparative advantage. He was of the view that absolute advantage is a subset of the more general theory. After Ricardo, a number of theorists furthered and developed the theory of comparative advantage including Heckscher, Ohlin and Samuelson. The theory projected the facts that different countries have varying factor endowments of labor, land and capital input. Countries are going to prefer the production of those products which extensively use the factors of productions with the greatest endowment (Tutor2u 2011). This follows that if the countries gain advantage by specializing in these goods, there will be an increase in the total output and economic welfare. This holds credibility even when one nation may have an absolute advantage over the other country. One of the assumptions which constitute the theory of compara tive advantage is that there is perfect occupational mobility of the factors of production. This means that the resources of one industry can be transferred to another without significant loss of efficiency. The theory also assumes that there should be constant returns to scale; a proportionate increase in the inputs leads to an equal increase in the outputs. There are no externalities surfacing from production and consumption. Also transportation costs are not taken into consideration. Increased returns are a product of specialization and the idea was put forward by Paul Romer and Paul Ormerod. If businesses take advantage from increasing returns to scale, the gains from the trade are more. There is no transport costs associated with comparative advantage. Costs do not vary and economies of scale are not present. There are two economies producing and trading homogenous goods. Moreover the trade carried out between the two countries is not impeded by trade barriers. Also the buyers and sellers have perfect knowledge and the buyers are able to trace down the cheapest goods available in the market (AC Mulligan n.d.). Comparative advantage is not a static concept; rather it keeps changing. Businesses may have had comparative advantage in a market in one product for years in a row. However the gains made during this period may suddenly be at stake as new competitors enter the market. The contribution of Ricardo in the basic theory of

GREAT EVENTS IN HISTORY Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

GREAT EVENTS IN HISTORY - Essay Example My beliefs on matters of justice and injustice I developed a belief that the world is still divided on issues to do with religion on matters relating to justice and injustice. As a female Muslim student, studying in a Christian dominated country, I have severally passed through thorough scrutiny, as compared to the rest of my American counterparts, when it comes to security checks when I visit some shopping malls in the city. I realized that some people relate Islam to terror and violence, thus, treating Muslims with utmost keenness. It made me develop a belief that the world is not fair to Muslims on issues relating to segregation based on terrorism and violence. I feel that the world treats Islamic religion unfairly because not all Muslims are terrorists. There is injustice in the treatment of Muslims by Christians in other countries that are not Islam dominated. This leads to isolation as a course of the discrimination. Whenever such happens to me, I feel it is a religious injusti ce and maybe even racial because, it is easy to recognize a Muslim who is of Arabic descent, as I am, from other Muslims in the USA. Matters of justice and injustice The death penalty It is an injustice to deny someone the right to live simply because of committing a capital crime; this is from my school of thought as an individual. The Sharia law advocates for death as a punishment to a heinous crime committers, Islam as a religion does support it basing on Sharia laws. The punishment for a crime like murder in Saudi Arabia is death by beheading in public; therefore, I believe that the death penalty is an injustice since it goes against everyone’s right to life, despite the mistake he or she has done. This is because, the penalty deprives the victims a chance to learn from the previous crimes they committed, so to me it serves no meaning at all. My religion, Islam, condones death penalty for various crimes committed, but, as an individual, I totally disagree with the stand. In Saudi Arabia, which is my country, death penalty, also called capital punishment, bases on Islamic Sharia law and has a wide range of crimes. The offences leading to its use vary from rape, murder, armed robbery, adultery and purported witchcraft. I do not support any of these crimes but I feel it is not right for a human being to lose a life for having committed any of these crimes. Criminals can undergo punishment in various ways apart from facing the death penalty in various ways. I strongly disagree with the Sharia law for necessitating capital punishment as a punishment for a capital crime. Many countries across the world do not subscribe to the use of capital punishment/death penalty as a means of punishing criminals. This is because; it is an injustice to humanity and a deprivation of an individual’s right to life. Gay rights Secondly, the issuance of gay rights is an injustice to the moral virtues and a defilement of my beliefs as a Muslim. I do not subscribe to ho mosexuality, lesbianism or bisexuality because, all this go against the teachings of the Quran. The Quran prohibits homosexuality because it goes against the natural order, ruins marriages, and makes individuals disregard God in other spheres of life (Stein & Marc 57). I think gays should not have the right to practice this dirty act anywhere in the world. As a Muslim, I feel like it is absolute immorality and going against the societal values and expectations. Gay

Dreams Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Dreams - Essay Example Due to their authoritative influence for example in my case, parents may force their children to take up career courses that are not within their interests (Gysbers 2008 p 32). This essay will show that this may lead to poor job performance and conflicts in the work place. It also suggests the best approach that parents should take while discussing their children’s career choice which is to be supportive as well as less authoritative. This essay is a critical evaluation of the parent’s influence, using myself as an example, on the career dreams that their children may have as well as the consequences of such influence. Every parent would be proud to have successful children, in their careers as well as life in general. Similarly, there is no child who would be proud to be a failure in the society. It therefore becomes necessary for the two parties to join efforts to ensure that only the best comes from the children’s life. While in the process, it becomes possible to experience conflicts in ideologies which may either result to a wrong career choice or disappointment in life (Gysbers 2008 p 25). In many cases, parents misuse the opportunity to guide their children into choosing the right careers whereby they tend to force them into what they themselves see as the best for their children. By doing so, they forget that every individual has unique characteristics which determine their interests as well as their hobbies. It would therefore be wrong for anyone be it the parent or friend to try and force his interests in another person. However, I believe that it is always necessary to offer vari ous options to the child using an open minded approach whereby both parties would be willing to listen to the other person’s point of view. My career dream has always been to become a Chef but on the other hand my parents do not support this but instead, they want me to become a nurse. These are two very different careers and it may be

Bilateral Trade in the Economies of Various Countries Essay

Bilateral Trade in the Economies of Various Countries - Essay Example Trade flows from traditional partners is becoming complicated. This means that distance is also an important factor in the bilateral trade. Bilateral trade plays an important role in the economies of various countries. However, a country’s trade with another or others depends on a number of factors. Due to the developments in bilateral trade such as regional integration are major factors (Brun, Carrere and Guillaumont 99). These coupled with the distance between trading partners they impact on bilateral trade. These forces countries to find viable options that help attract trade flow. This study analyses USA’s situation with relation to its traditional trade partners from Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. The countries used in this study were selected on the basis of their GDP, exports volume and traditional trading activities with the USA. As a result, bilateral trade flows’ gravity model is estimated between the USA and its trading partners for the periods 1990 and 2011. The general hypothesis is: The gravity equation is considered probably the most applied empirical trade device for more than a decade now. Its main advantage is that when it is applied to extensive variety factors and goods moving across national and regional borders under varying circumstances, it always produces a good fit (Anderson and Eric 170). This makes it an ideal device for econometric methods of measuring trade. Nonetheless, with the emergence of new economic theory, advancement in international trade, and globalization, a unique empirical application of the model with respect to a country’s GDP and export capability in bilateral trade is required. The Gravity trade model helps in predicting the flows of the bilateral trade and these predictions are with the distance between units in their respective  economic directions as the basis of prediction. The model can be applied in various circumstances to provide an explanation in the flow of commodities on the international scale (Anderson 106).  

Bob Crachit Essay Example for Free

Bob Crachit Essay How does Dickens use imagery and language to present the character of Ebenezer Scrooge in Stave one of A Christmas Carol? Charles Dickens started writing A Christmas Carol in the 18th Century. Whilst writing the novel he was experiencing a world that had totally forgotten about Christmas and had no time for it. It was the industrial revolution, things were changing and with it the people were. They did not have time to enjoy Christmas they were more bothered about earning money. This is the kind of character Scrooge is which I will explain later on. Being in this kind of world affected Dickens novel; but it also influenced him to create a character called Scrooge. Who wouldnt care about Christmas; and only caring for business and money. Dickens knew that if he could get people into the Christmas spirit by attracting their attention to his novel. But little did he know he was about to re-inject the Christmas spirit into Britain. Dickens kicks off his extravagant novel by introducing a dead character with the name of Marley who he chose to create as a Ghost. By starting off his novel like this Dickens is directly addressing the reader by using the word You: You will therefore permit me to repeat emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail. By addressing the reader like this it automatically draws the reader into the story as though they are experiencing what Dickens is trying to make them experience by making them apart of the story by being addressed directly. It also makes the reader want to know more for example they might want to know why Marley is dead and therefore this makes them read on. The main character of the novel is named Scrooge. He is present by dickens as a: Squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! By doing this it makes the reader think that Scrooge is an old, mean, miserable man. Of which has no friends in existence excluding his past. Dickens mentions that Scrooge is: Squeezing Meaning that he would Squeeze every last drop out of anything he could, not only money but make people work over their limit. For example Bob Cratchit, his apprentice would work as hard as he could each day, and make Scrooge feel that Bob hasnt got away with easy money. Scrooge is described by Dickens in many different ways; for example Dickens compares him with other things:External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he. In this small paragraph dickens has used a good use of imagery weather imagery. He compares Scrooge with the weather and shows that he a cold person who could never be warm hearted. Dickens shows that Scrooge has no feeling, nothing can chill him, and nothing can warm him. Scrooge is immensely described as worse than the weather: No wind that blew was bitter than he This meaning nothing could be worse than Scrooge; Dickens insults his own character with no grief. Nothing could be worse than having Scrooge on your case he is bitterer than the wind. Dickens goes on to downgrade Scrooge to nothing by saying rain, show, hail and sleet could: Boast an advantage over him, they often came down handsomely and Scrooge never did. This meaning that the weather could come down gently and calmly but Scrooge is an old man who is not gentle or calm instead fierce and very uptight. Myself as a reader I would feel that Scrooge is an old hag who is most likely very lonely and despises everyone but himself; and that he is very selfish and would never spare a penny to anyone but himself. I would also feel that Dickens is trying to get across a strong description of Scrooge. When Dickens was describing Scrooge a key line is: The cold within him froze his old features. The line above has no meaning, for example it adds to his description and as a reader it could feel as though the cold within him has frozen his good side like an ice age. It exists inside him but he cant release it. Another example is: Hard and sharp as a flint This is a simile; it shows two sides of Scrooge. Flint is a rock; which was used by humans in the Stone Age. It was used for two things, which shows two sides of Scrooge. They used it for warmth which shows that Scrooge could have a good side in him, and they also used it for weapons, to harm things i. e. a tool could cut you. This shows the bad side of Scrooge he is two faced. Once the reader hears about Scrooges appearance, we think as if Scrooge was a ghost, or he was dead with his corpse still existing. Dickens uses adjectives like: Blue lips Red eyes These lines make us think as if Scrooge was dead because he has frozen lips and bloodshot eyes as if he doesnt sleep. It makes the reader feel aware of how dangerously scary Scrooge looks to go with his attitude and lifestyle. The place in which Scrooges house is situated also shows his personality. His house is away from other houses and is in the middle of a business district. Also, inside his house it is dark and gloomy he double locks the doors as if to lock himself away form the world. His house sets the scene for later in the novel. His house reminds the reader of a haunted house; linking Scrooge with his description of being like a ghost. Scrooge doesnt like Christmas. The word which he uses to sum up Christmas is: Humbug Meaning nonsense. Scrooge makes a speech about Christmas to his nephew, part of it is: Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! Whats Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer This sums up what he feels about Christmas. He doesnt see the fun side of it, or the religious side of celebrating a special time in the Christian faith. He just looks at the gloomy side, and thinks it is a waste of time. Also Scrooge talks bout money, saying you find yourself a year older, and not an hour richer, and also saying it is just a time where you have to pay the bills showing again he is thinking bout his money and nothing else. Scrooge also says that the poor dont have a right to be happy: What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? Youre poor enough. Hes saying that the poor should be unhappy, that they are not rich enough to be happy, and that they should be gloomy and sad and not have the right to have a good time. This shocks the reader. Before, the reader just feels that Scrooge is gloomy and lonely, but now they feel as though Scrooge is a cold-hearted, nasty, mean old man who doesnt care about anybody but himself. Later in the novel we find out more about why Scrooge may be like this. I think Scrooge thinks this way about Christmas because of how he was treated by his father when he was a child. His father used to leave him alone and not take him home from boarding school but leave him there in a dull little room reading books. Scrooge once fell in love with a woman called Bell. This brought the Christmas spirit into him but then they broke up and that made Scrooge go back to hating Christmas. When people saw Scrooge in the street nobody would stop him to talk, everyone would leave him alone and not dare speak to him. Even the blind mens dogs appeared to know him; and they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would their tails as thought they said, no eye at all is better than an evil eye This sentence shows what everyone thought of Scrooge.

Body Sensor Network: A Modern Survey Performance Study

Body Sensor Network: A Modern Survey Performance Study ABSTRACT As because of modern emerging technologies, low power integrated circuits and wireless communication has enabled a new generation of sensors network. The incorporation of these sensors networks in Health care is very popular and plays a vital role in breath breaking situations. The deployment of monitoring hardware incorporated with various wireless standards plays a key role in regard to interoperability, invasion privacy, sensors validation data consistency and interference related issues. The goal of our paper is to make a comparative study in realm of modern wireless trends such as Bluetooth, Wi-fi, Zigbee and Wibree and related facets. Index Terms- Wireless Body area network, Zigbee, Wi-fi, Bluetoooth INTRODUCTION Now a days, Wireless Sensors Network (WSN) has becomes a assured technology in the realm of advanced applications. The one of its latent position is in the form of unguided biomedical sensor network to determine physiological sign. Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is a unguided network utilized for interaction among sensor nodes in or about the human body in order to supervise critical body parameters and activities. These supervising signs are collected by a personal server, e.g. PDC or Smart phones which acts as a sink for the information of the sensors and send them to caregivers for proper health supervising. The personal server have some memory in which some results are arranged which it gives to the patient at the time of emergency it acts like a feedback, if the situation is not handle by the PDC then it transfers the signal to caregivers by unguided media. There are different issues highlighted in the employment of WBAN technology. This survey executes a atomistic review on pronominal investigations that emphasis in procured related facts in WBAN as well as WLAN. This paper is arranged into the different parts which provides a short introduction of WBAN and WLAN and look out attributes of pronominal differences between them and fetch attributes of WBAN and pulls general architecture and handle postulates in WBAN and also intercommunicating much on security issues, we shall also see the features of short range wireless techniques and compare them according to their performance. And at last gear up related investigations in security bare for WBAN. ATTRIBUTES OF WBAN WBAN is a communication network between human and computers through wearable devices. To establish a interaction between these devices, unguided sensor network and ad hoc network techniques may be used. The tiny sensor senses the signals from the body and send it to the processor through unguided media[1]. But due to some emblematic features of WBAN current protocols create for these network are not always feasible to favour WBAN. To favour this level, TABLE 1 modifies the general differences between WSN and WBAN[2][3]. WBAN was introduced from real WSN (WPAN) technologies[4]. WPAN is a personal area network using unguided acquaintance consistently within a short range ( Basic requirement of WBAN include the requirements of WPAN, such as low power, low data rate unguided sensors network standard Zigbee. Despite the fact that Zigbee does not fetch majority of core technical requirements of WBAN features and the for a standard specifically designed for WBAN. Diagnosticate the great market potential and rapid technological enlargement in this field. The IEEE is ongoing an 802.15.6 standard optimized for low power WBAN favouring at a data rate from 10Kbps to 10 Mbps[1]. The exclusive endowment compared to majority of core WPAN are as follows: WBAN is a small scale network rather than WPAN is a relatively short range communication technique inclusive the communication in or on a human body with the maximum range of ( A star topology is basically used WBAN where communication is organised in the heart of sensor nodes and is directly linked to a master node. Despite, it cannot always meet the desired authenticity requirement. Thus a star-mesh hybrid topology extends the fashionable approach and creates mesh networking among central coordinates in multiple star networks. Gadgets incorporating WBAN are firmly limited in their computational capabilities and required scalable completion; data rate upto10Mbps, and power consumption upto40MW. Data that are detected, collected and transmitted in WBAN is comparatively sensitive; highly secure and confidential. Gadgets of WBAN closely surround the human body to consist of its transportation system are highly safety requirements. ACCUSTOMED ARCHITECTURE The proposed wireless area body network for health monitoring integrated into a border multitier medicine system in this architecture ,WBAN is compared to other wireless network. In fig 1 a WBAN compared with other types of wireless network[2]. Each type of network has a typical enabling technology, defined by IEEE. A WPAN used IEEE 802.15.1 (Bluetooth) or 802.15.4 (zigbee) , a WLAN uses IEEE 802.11 (Wi-fi) WMAN IEEE 802.16 .The communication in a WAN can be established via satellite links. As declared before , admitting challenges faces by WBAN are in many ways similar to WSN, there are elemental differences between the two requiring special attention. Network and Complex Systemswww.iiste.org ISSN 2224-61 OX (Paper) ISSN 2225-0603 (Online)pn Vol.3, No. 1, 2013-Selected from Inter national Conference on Recent Trends in Applied Sciences with Engineering Applications IISTe In TABLE 2, a schematic overview of differences between WSN and WBAN is given [2][3][4]. TABLE 2:SCHEMATIC ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WSN AND WBAN IS GIVEN: CHALLENGES WSN WBAN Scale Monitored environment (m/km) Human body (cm/m) Node number Many redundant nodes for wide area coverage Fewer, limited in space Result accuracy Through node redundancy Through node accuracy and robustness Node tasks Node performs a dedicated task Node performs multiple task Node size Small is preferred, but not important Small is essential Network topology Very likely to be fixed and static More variable due to body movement Data rates Homogeneous Heterogeneous Node replacement Performed easily, nodes even disposable Replacement of implanted nodes difficult Node lifetime Several years/months Several years/months, smaller battery capacity Power supply Accessible and likely to be replaced more easily and frequently Inaccessible and difficult to replace in an implantable setting Power demand Likely to be large, energy supply easier Likely to be lower, energy supply more difficult Energy scavenging source Most likely solar and wind power Most likely motion(vibration) and thermal (body heat) Biocompatibility Not a consideration in most applications A must for implants and some external sensors Securitylevel Lower Lower Higher, to protect patient information Impact of data loss Likely to be compensated by redundant nodes More significant, may require additional measures to ensure QoS and real-time data delivery Wireless Technology Bluetooth, Zigbee, GPRS, WLAN, Low power technology required Impact of data loss Likely to be compensated by redundant nodes More significant, may require additional measures to ensure QoS and real-time data ENGROSSSMENT OF WBAN We classify demand of WBAN into two categories i.e. system and security. Further detail is described in the following subsection. A.System exigency This subsection provides brief description of system requirements that viewed in three different aspects such as type of devices, data rate and energy. Types of devices. Sensor node: A device that responds to and gathers data on physical catalyst processes the data if necessary and reports this information wirelessly. It consists of several components which are sensor hardware, a power unit, a processor, memory and a transmitter or transceiver. Gateway: It gathers all the information acquired by the sensor nodes and informs the users. The components area power unit, memory and transreciever. This device is also called a body control unit(BCU),body gateway or a sink. Monitoring Server: It is consists of database for data storage and processing and analyzing software for delivering system intended services. Data rates The reliability of the data transmission is provided in terms of the necessary bit error rate (BER) which is used as a measure for the number of packets lost. For a medical device, the reliability depends on the data rate. Low data rate devices can cope with a high BER while devices with a higher data rate require a lower BER. The required BER is also dependent on the criticalness of the data. Energy Energy consumption can be divided into three domains: sensing, communication and data processing[2][5]. Despite, the energy consumption for communication is more than computation in WBAN. Further, higher security requirements usually correspond to more energy consumption for cryptographic operations. B. Security Requirements The security and privacy of patient-related data are two indispensable components for the system security of the WBAN. By data security, it means the protection of information from unauthorized users while data being stored and transferred and data privacy means right of individuals to control the collection and use of personal information about themselves. Security and privacy issues are raised automatically when the data is created, transferred, stored and processed in information systems[8]. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) mandates that, as the sensors in WBAN collect the wearers health data (which is regarded as personal information), care needs to be taken to protect it from unauthorized access and tampering[9][11]. Because WBAN systems and their supporting infrastructure are operated with extremely stringent constraints, they present a greater challenge in the areas of throughput, data integrity and data security when compared to traditional clin ical systems. The security mechanisms employed in WBAN for the later need specific features that should be taken into account when designing the security architecture. Thus, the system needs to comply with the following major security requirements as in TABLE 3 [4][8][10]. TABLE 3: MAJOR SECURITY REQUIREMENTS IN WBAN Major security requirement Description Data storage security requirements Confidentially Patient-related data should be kept confidential during storage periods. Especially, its confidentially should be robust against node compromise and user collusion. Encryption and Access Control List are main methods providing data confidentiality. Integrity assurance Patient-related data must not be modified illegally during storage periods Dependability Patient-related data must be readily retrievable when node failure or data erasure happens. Data access security requirements Access control (privacy A fine-grained data access policy shall be enforced to prevent unauthorized access to patient- related data generated by the WBAN. Accountability When a user of the WBAN abuses his/her privilege to carry out unauthorized actions on patient-related data, he/she should be identified and held accountable Revocability The privileges of WBAN users or nodes should be deprived in time if they are identified as compromised or behave maliciously. Non repudiation The origin of a piece of patient-related data cannot be denied by the source that generated it. Other security requirements Authentication The sender of the patient-related data must be authenticated, and injection of data from outside the WBAN should be prevented Availability The patient-related data should be accessible even under denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. WBAN APPLICATIONS The WBAN application targeted IEEE 802.15.6 standard are divided into medical and non medical application as given in fig.2. Medical application include collecting vital information of a patient continuously and forward it a remote monitoring station for further analysis[6]. The huge amount can be used to prevent the occurrence of myocardial infarction and treat various diseases such as gastrointestinal tract, cancer, asthma neurological disorder. WBAN can also be used to help people with disabilities. For ex retina prosthesis, chips can be planted in human eye to see at an adequate level. Non medical application include monitoring forgetting things, data file transfer, gaming and social networking application. In [7] gaming, sensor in WBAN can collect coordinate movements of character in the same, ex- moving cricket player or capturing the intensity of ball in tennis. The use of WBAN in social networking allows people to exchange digital profile or business allows people to exchang e digital profile or business card only by shaking hands. Fig. 2. WBAN applications RELATED RESEARCH Several research groups have been developing the implantable or wearable devices for health monitoring in WBAN communications. However, these researches mainly focus on building system architecture and in lesser extent on developing networking protocols. Besides, it is difficult to discover solutions providing security for WBAN and security has generally been covered separately. Extending the scope of technology, there are several security protocols in general sensor networks. Security Protocols for Sensor Networks (SPINS) is a set of protocols for achieving security requirements like confidentiality, integrity and authenticity in sensor networks and uses several symmetric keys to encrypt the data as well as compute the Message Authentication Code (MAC)[4][11]. However, SPINS is only considered in general sensor networks, so that it is inadequate to apply in WBAN as it has environmental features like the human body and limited computing resources. Some researches show the security for sensor nodes in or on the human body in WBAN. They show that the sensors have to make use of cryptographic algorithms to encrypt the data they send to control node and the random number which is used in security protocols can be generated by biometrics[12]. Biometrics approach uses an intrinsic characteristic of the human body as the authentication identity or the means of securing the distribution of a cipher key to secure inter-WBAN communications. At initial stage, several security schemes of WBAN are established by the symmetric cryptosystem due to limited resources, but have problems like delaying the disclosure of the symmetric keys and providing weak security relatively since it is not resilient against physical compromise[13]. Furthermore, the complexity of sensor nodes key managements in WBAN gives each component overload. On the contrary, some researches utilizing the asymmetric cryptosystem in mobile and ad hoc networks also have been proposed, and tried to examine the unique characteristics of WBAN[8][14]. One concern about the asymmetric cryptosystem is a resource constraint problem but recent work has shown that performing ECC consumes a lot less of memory and computing power[12][14]. These researches dealt with a scope of limited WBAN but they exclude the implanted sensor networks. The objective of WBAN is also the implementation of body area network that can contact with everywhere in, on, and out the human body. By comparison, each approach has several issues to be considered in terms of the security services in WBAN. Further, there is a trade-off between performance and security. Related to these, another research group has implemented these two heterogeneous cryptosystems in their research which provides security and privacy to WBAN. In [4], they believe that these two cryptosystems can be applied in the authentication of WBAN depleting each weak point of them at once. They primarily focus on the authentication in the overall coverage of WBAN including in-, on- and out body to provide the strong and adequate security for WBAN. CONCLUSION WBAN is an emerging and promising technology that will change peoples healthcare experiences revolutionarily. It brings out a new set of challenges in terms of scalability, sensor deployment and density, energy efficiency, security and privacy and wireless technology. In this survey, we have reviewed the current development on Wireless Body Area Network and we focused in security issues faced by this technology. In particular, this work presents an overview of the differences between Wireless Body Area Network and Wireless Sensor Network. We presented differences of architecture in WBAN and other type of Wireless sensor network. Several key applications will benefit from the advanced integration of WBAN and emerging wireless technologies. They include remote health monitoring, military, sports training and many others. It is also important to highlight here that WBAN poses with various type of security problems. Thus, we believe that WBAN requires a strong security system and part of it is authentication. A secured authentication system is extremely needed in various applications WBAN technology particularly in medical and military. The proposed protocol is potentially useful to be utilize in WBAN by satisfying their technical requirements keeping pace with the standardization of IEEE 802.15.6[4]. Our next step is to discover hybrid authentication protocol in providing a strong security system for WBAN. ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work is supported by National Institute of Technology, Patna as a part of partial fulfilment of Post Graduate degree in Communication systems for the academic year of 2011-2013. REFERENCES Selimis, Georgios et al. A Lightweight Security Scheme for Wireless Body Area Networks: Design, Energy Evaluation and Proposed Microprocessor Design, Journal of Medical Systems, 2011, pp. 1-10-10, doi: 10.1007/s10916-011-9669-2. Latre, Benoit, Bart Braem, Ingrid Moerman, Chris Blondia, and Piet Demeester. A survey on wireless body area networks, Wireless Networks, vol. 17, 2010, pp. 1 18, doi: 10.1007/s11276-010-0252-4. Chen, M., Gonzalez, S., Vasilakos, A., Cao, H., Leung, V. C. M. Body Area Networks: A survey, Mobile Networks and Applications, vol. 16, 2011, pp. 171-193, doi:10.1007/s11036-010- 0260-8. Jang, C. S., Lee, D. G., Han, J.-W., Park, J. H Hybrid security protocol for wireless body area networks, Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, vol. 11, 2011, pp. 277-288, doi: 10.1002/wcm.884. Jingwei Liu and Kyung Sup Kwak. Hybrid security mechanisms for wireless body area networks, Ubiquitous and Future Networks (ICUFN), 2010 Second International Conference on , 2010, pp. 98- 103, doi: 10.1109/ICUFN. 2010.5547221. IEEE P802.15.6/D01,Wireless Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications for Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs) used in or around a body, May 2010. S. Saleem, S. Ullah, and K.S. Kwak, A Study of IEEE 802.15.4 Security Framework for Wireless Body Area Networks, Sensors, vol.11, No.2, pp. 1383-1395, 2011. Lim, S., Oh, T. H., Choi, Y. B., Lakshman, T.. Security Issues on Wireless Body Area Network for Remote Healthcare Monitoring, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Sensor Networks Ubiquitous and Trustworthy Computing, 2010, pp. 327-332, doi: 10.1109/STUC.2010.61. Venkatasubramanian, K. K., Banerjee, A., Gupta, S. K. S.. PSKA: usable and secure key agreement scheme for body area networks, IEEE transactions on information technology in biomedicine a publication of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, vol. 14, 2010, pp. 60-68. Mana, M., Feham, M., Bensaber, B. A.. SEKEBAN (Secure and Efficient Key Exchange for wireless Body Area Network), Science And Technology, vol. 12, 2009, pp. 45-60. Liu, J., Kwak, K. S.. Towards Security Issues and Solutions in Wireless Body Area Networks, 6th International Conference on Networked Computing (INC 2010),2010, pp. 1-4, doi: 10.1109/ICUFN.2010.5547221. Poon, C. C. Y., Zhang, Y. T., Bao, S.-D.. A novel biometrics method to secure wireless body area sensor networks for telemedicine and m-health, Communications Magazine IEEE, IEEE, vol. 44, 2006, pp. 73-81, doi: 10.1109/MCOM.2006.1632652. William, C., Tan, C. C., Wang, H.. Body Sensor Network Security : An Identity-Based Cryptography Approach, Proc. ACM Conference on Wireless Network Security (WiSec 08), ACM Press, 2008, pp. 148Â ­153, doi: 10.1145/1352533.1352557. Sharmilee, K. M., Mukesh, R., Damodaram, A., Subbiah Bharathi, V.. Secure WBAN Using Rule- Based IDS With Biometrics And MAC Authentication, 2008 10th IEEE International Conference On EHealth Networking Applications and Services, IEEE, 2008, pp.102-107, doi: 10.1109/HEALTH.2008.4600119.

Spiritual Beliefs Vs Human Reason Philosophy Essay

Spiritual Beliefs Vs Human Reason Philosophy Essay Philosophers and scientists have constantly attempted to explain concepts divine processes described initially. They always sought for a scientific or logical explanation for a phenomenon explained through religion, or not explained at all. Scientists believed natural laws govern universe. As a result, a quest for explanation of events, which seemed illogical, began. The first philosophers speculated that beneath the ever-changing natural world was an unchanging matter (Matthews Platt, 46). They also believed in rationality. Thus, any explanation of a natural concept seemingly unrealistic was questioned. This mindset progressed throughout Western history, and presently, there is the attempt to prove the role of God, and the existence of God through human reason. My opinion is human reason should not preclude the existence of God. Spiritual beliefs and logic should be separate spheres of human existence. Humans beings have two paths to knowledge During the time of the Greeks, there was a myth claiming Apollo drove his chariots across the sky, which was responsible for the rising and setting of the sun. This myth, though illogical, was held high and any opposition to this myth would have been called, in modern terms, blasphemy. The belief was held as firmly as the monotheistic religions believe in the existence of God through faith. Later science was able to prove false the reason for the rising and setting of the sun the Greeks believed in. Even in the case of Galileo Galilee, the churchs theory was that the sun revolved around the fixed Earth: Geocentrism. Galileos attempt to prove otherwise, scientifically, was vigorously fought-against. They forced him to recant his theory because it went against their theory. In their explanation for the cause of rain, Ancient Greeks believed Heras cries fell as rain whenever she found out Zeus, her husband, had gone after other women. These concepts, clearly unscientific, were assumed true. As history moved from the Greek civilization to the modern era, a number of myths were dogmatically believed. Later science and rational thought refuted most of these myths or concepts, while others,-especially those related to spiritual realm, such as the existence of God-are difficult to prove. The Greek civilization was perhaps the foremost place where the tension or dispute between faith, religious thought, spiritual belief; and science, natural philosophy and logical thought began. Philosophers such as Thales, Pythagoras and Heraclitus believed in rationality and the fact that the universe operated on natural laws. Such philosophers believed God or their religious deities had no effect on the natural order of things. The Greeks of the Archaic Age believed the muses were responsible for creative inspiration. Muses were the goddesses of artistic inspiration and claimed to stimulate every work. The monody, lyrical poetry, is based on the personal thoughts of the poet. Then how did the goddesses inspire a work that was based on the poets personal thoughts? In spite of the irrationality of the explanations, the Greeks believed in the explanation of concepts that involved the deities. Philosophers in later civilization asked questions, probing the credibility of the beliefs which resulted in several proofs that opposed myths and religious dogma. Philosophers, since the Hellenic Age have been inquisitive; they questioned divine or illogical explanations to concepts in the universe. Still in the Archaic Age, the idea of believing in concepts, despite the lack of logic behind them, was a key element in their religion. It carried over to later religions in the modern era where religious dogmas are still held. An example of such is the hypostatic union. It is the claim Jesus was both divine and human while in his physical form on earth. To me, the reason the search to understand the natural order of things started, was that everything in the Archaic Age was attributed to the deities. The deities determined the inspiration for works of art, the survival and prosperity of the Greeks, and their cultural accomplishments. Embedded in the Greeks was the belief that as long as they recognized the divinities power and did not challenge themà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦they would survive and often prosper. (Matthews Platt, 41). The initial philosophers were able to ignore the beliefs (or dogma), because they thought of a world that was controlled by natural causes and deities had no eff ect on the world. However, explaining concepts illogically, which actually are scientific, has been a part of religion, even from the Egyptians. This is not to say that religions knew the concepts were of natural causes, but scientific proofs that came later on would not cause the religions to waiver in their initial beliefs. An example is the tale of the beginning of the world. Scientists claim that the world was formed because of an explosion- The Big Bang. Scientists would then question the tale of Christianity: how did God create the whole world in seven days? Many have tried to answer this rationally or scientifically, but in my opinion, it is almost impossible to explain. Yet, Christians still hold on to this belief firmly. So many cultures, as well as science, have their own speculation about the beginning of the universe. The Hebrews belief of the beginning of the world then became the accepted Word of God thus making it seem as if other beliefs are wrong. This undermines the credibility of re ligious beliefs, but does not mean the Hebrews version is false. Take an instance where a murder is commited and three witnesses give entirely different accounts of the details. However, because the three of them gave separate accounts of the murder, does not mean that no version can be the correct one. In fact, the real version might be a combination of all three accounts. I disagree with the attempt to use reason or rational thought to predetermine if God has effect on the world or if He exists. A logical claim I could make is God creates the natural order philosophers try to understand. An example is the recent science discovery refuting the effects of God on the parting of the Red Sea. Scientists found out that the biblical account of the splitting of the Red Sea might have actually been due to natural causes. In the Bible (Exodus 14), God caused the Red Sea to split, allowing the Israelites to pass on dry ground and then the sea caved back in and drowned the Egyptians. However, according to science, the wind from the East (East Wind) could have been so strong as to push the water up several streams for a certain period (for the Israelites to cross) and then cease, to cause water to return to the sea (to drown the Egyptians). It could have been possible that God caused the East Wind to drive the Red Sea up the tributaries at the time the Israelites wanted it, and then caused the river to fall in when the Egyptians were passing through it. The desire to prove the role or existence of God has persisted through centuries. There is such a strong belief that human reasoning can prove the existence of God, if He exists. But if God cannot be proven, then He does not exist, and He is just a fiction of the imagination of monotheists. I disagree with this perspective because the existence of God has to do with the spiritual realm. The existence of God has for a long time, been questioned, and therefore has troubled philosophers and scientists who always seek to explain every concept, but these two theories (mention the name of the theories), in my opinion, should be completely separate spheres of human existence. To Ockham, faith and reason were both valid approaches to truth, but they should be kept apart so that each could achieve its respective end (Matthews Platt, 261). I agree with William of Ockham in this statement because the fact that the first philosophers believed there is regularity in the universe and that human reason can ultimately understand the natural order, does not imply the use of reason should preclude the existence of God. Just as Thales was wrong about the fundamental substance being water, so also could the Milesian school be wrong about using human reason to prove or try to verify the existence of God-that is if God falls under the natural order of things. William of Ockham lived from about 1300 to about 1349, during which many things in the physical world have been invented or discovered. Up until now, the spiritual realm remains a mystery. Apparently, there is a great disparity in achievement between the use of reason to explain things in the physical world and to explain things of the spiritual realm. William of Ockham accepts reason as a valid approach to truth, but he also includes faith as a valid approach to truth. He explicitly says reason alone cannot question the existence of God. Instead, he suggests the existence of God can only be accepted by faith and the divine mysteries can simply be understood by faith. John Duns Scotus concluded, The theologian and the philosopher have different intellectual tasks, [therefore] theology and science should be independent fields of inquiry (Matthews Platt, 261). To elaborate on John Duns Scotus conclusions, as a Christian, I tried to prove the concept of the Trinity to a Muslim, using only logic. No matter how logical my answers were, they still involved spiritual beliefs and faith. Scientists who have attempted to measure the efficacy of prayer have obtained rather conflicting results. How can one attempt to solve a physics problem by reading a literature book? How can scientists make an effort to verify the spiritual beliefs using human reason? According to Ockham, human reason cannot produce any meaningful knowledge about the spiritual realm (Matthews Platt, 261). Furthermore, there are several religious events recorded in the Bible or Quran that are unfounded; for instance, how Noah was able to get all types of animals into the ark and prevent them from eating one another. One cannot answer this question because it does not make sense logically, so humans have to use another form of inquiry, faith. Only faith can explain the divine mystery. William of Ockham asserted, Reason, senses and empirical evidence could enable human beings to discover and hence understand the natural world, stoicism-a philosophy in the Hellenistic Age-offered a seemingly contradictory point of view. The Stoics believed that reason and the senses could be used jointly to uncover the underlying moral law as well as Gods design [or effect] in the world. The Stoics accepted that a spiritual being had effect on the happenings of the universe. An issue is does God have any effect on the universe. The Stoics acknowledge the effect of a supernatural being, William of Ockham does not. The Greeks/Mesopotamians/Egyptians believed that the More importantly, the use of faith to explain spiritual beliefs or religious dogma caused tension between religious thought and rational thought. From the Hellenistic Age, philosophies and religion have offered conflicting answers to unpredictable events and those beyond human control. Concepts, which could not be explained initially, were attributed to God or religious deities like the myth of rain: Hera. The inclination to leave the happenings during their time to the hands of the deities had a strong impact began with the Mesopotamians, who believed they were created to serve the deities. They probably held an even stronger dogma than modern times, because they believed human destinies were in the hands of the gods, and there was nothing they could do about that. Whatever the gods did with their lives could not be questioned. Also, the Hellenistic world had a section of people who believed in Fate. Fate, in that era, meant there were non-physical beings that controlled the natural events. They felt human reason could not understand the natural order of things. The Greeks who began to put humans at the center of the universe fortunately altered this pessimistic approach to life. Their mindset led them to question divine explanations for natural events. The disagreement between materialists and idealists could represent the early dispute between rational thought and spiritual beliefs. Materialists in the Archaic Age believed that the world was made of some basic physical element whereas the idealists reasoned that the physical world was deceptive and that there was a spiritual force or metaphysical power being the physical world. Also in the Hellenistic Age, the clash between these two paths to knowledge has been so significant; they can be found in other works of art. Dramatists wrote plots that dealt with divine law versus human law. Evident in Age of Synthesis (1000 to1300 CE), the tension or dispute has been carried through civilizations. Thomas Aquinas in this Age, tried to resolve the dispute by stating that human beings have two divine paths to truth or knowledge: reason and faith. He refers to divine paths, which indirectly means that the paths are God-given-a spiritual being exists that determines the limit to what we know. However, perhaps the period when the gap between philosophy and theology became the widest was in the Baroque Age 2 (1600 to 1715CE). In this Age of Scientific Revolution, the scientists and philosophers questioned divine explanations; they countered faith with reason, dogma with skepticism, and divine intervention with natural law. Nonetheless, scientists and philosophers have the tendency to assume that if divine concepts or events cannot be explained scientifically or logically, then these concepts or events never happened, or do not exist. This supposed misconception probably came about as a result of the actions of ancient civilizations. These civilizations produced explanations for things beyond their comprehension, which led led religions in later civilizations to explain other concepts divinely. Science has proven some of these concepts false and as a result, this has fuelled the constant dispute between religious beliefs and logical thought. Nevertheless, because some accounts were wrong does not mean all other explanations are. For the reason that Thales was wrong about water being the fundamental substance, did not mean that his belief-there is regularity in the universe-was wrong. Consequently, the use of reason cannot and should not preclude the existence of God. Religious dogma started on earth in Egypt and has manifested in different religions in history. Religious dogma is a belief without proof. Starting from the Egyptians, they believed that the king as god on earth embodied the state. Likewise, there have been several civilizations, which have provided different explanations about the beginning of the universe or life after death. Religious people believe in one holy book or another. The Christian version of the history of the universe is the biblical account. However, just like every tribe has a different story of the creation, the Hebrews had their own, and their version then became the accepted version by Christians-the word of God. Another concept for which several civilizations provided different explanations is life after death. The Egyptians, according to their religion, believed that if they remained faithful to their gods, they would be rewarded with a new life after death. About a thousand years later, the Hellenistic world held similar beliefs. Mithraism followers believed immortality awaited them after death. This concept of immortality is similar to the Egyptians new life after death. Philosophies in the Hellenistic Age attempted to explain life after death. According to Epicureanism, the atoms that made up the soul simply separated from the bodys atoms and united with other particles to create new forms. This way of life made its followers believe that there was a happy life after death. Couples of centuries later, Christians are made to believe the same underlying perception of life after death as did the Egyptians and the Epicureans: if they remain faithful, there would be paradise awaiting them. All through Western history until this date, science has never been able to refute any of these beliefs. Rational thought, or human reason, has not been able to come up with a description of life after death, which would refute these beliefs. Only spiritual belief has helped in understanding life after death. This suggests human reasoning or science is has a limit to which it can understand certain concepts in the universe. Restating Ockams concept, no useful knowledge can be gained through reason or the senses about the spiritual realm. To further the achievement of the Greek genius, human reason, as well as spiritual beliefs can understand concepts of the universe CONCLUSION