Competency through an academic preparation Essay - 3

Competency through an academic preparation - Essay Example I believe that my genuine interest for the profession and the proven program of Gannon University would enable me to successfully complete the program. I have completed a degree in Business Administration from Arab Open University. I also have an experience working in the industrial sector and this made me appreciate the necessity of pursuing a degree in Engineering Management to better the prospect of my career and become one of the organization leaders of Operation department in the industrial sector. I am always ready to take risk and work hard. I keep a dynamic mind and always want to update my knowledge on my area of interest. I believe these qualities would contribute much to pursue my degree without much difficulty. There are many reasons why I believe I can do well in my studies. I am systematic in addition to being a hard worker. I do not procrastinate tasks for the next day and I am not daunted by challenging tasks. In fact, the more challenging the task, the more enthusiastic I become to resolve it. My previous professional experience can prove it. This attitude of mine in dealing tasks and studies made Jubail United Petrochemicals Company (SABICs Affiliate: one of the largest Petrochemicals company in the world) to offer me a comprehensive experience when I was acting as team leader in the Department of Operation. I was involved in the project construction, commission, start up, shut down, trouble shouting, turn around and catalyst replacement of a huge Ethylene Oxide / Ethylene Glycol plant. This experience trained me to lead, analyze various situations and also to cope with emergency scenarios. I also gained knowledge in technical, safety and basic engineering knowledge which I believe are helpful in my studies. Â  

Outcasts united written by Warren St. John Essay

Outcasts united written by Warren St. John - Essay Example The book has been published in the United States of America by Spiegel & Grau in New York. Characters, Plot & Summary In his masterpiece, John talks about Clarkston, a remote place set aside for providing shelter to the refugees emerging from different corners of the world, from Iraq and Afghanistan to Liberia and Sudan, from Congo and Burundi to Bosnia and other nations. This downtown outside Atlanta, which was once white dominated region, is now a blend of different cultures, religions and colors. â€Å"The local high school in Clarkston, one all white, now had students from more than fifty different countries. Cultures were colliding in Clarkston, and the result was a raw and exceptionally charged experiment in getting along.† (John: 9) The UNHCR has chosen families from the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia for offering resettlement in Clarkston. Almost all of these families have landed here empty handed with the backup of government’s assistance for just three months post which they were expected to earn their own livelihood. Leaving one’s own native land and starting a life from scratch on a foreign land, amongst diverse cultures, hurdles were but obvious. But what is inspiring is that this very common state of the uncommon refugees brings them together to form a community of their own. The motto â€Å"Small town †¦. ... The story then progresses with the mentorship of this lady coach who makes these boys face the unpredictable challengers for themselves as well as their parents thereby wiping out all the differences amongst themselves. This Muslim lady in the Deep South had the will and courage to earn the small town and its new dwellers an identity. As one moves further, one can overtly get to know the impeccable efforts of the Middle Eastern lady who leaves no stone unturned to keep the boys away from the streets. The indomitable spirits of these refugees who call themselves â€Å"Fugees† is truly admirable. Their love for soccer accompanied with their bondness after a tight struggle of differences be it of color (black or white), religion (Muslim or Christianity) or language, reveals the strength of action and determination. Even without fancy cleats and embroidered soccer bags which their competitors possessed, this energetic team was dangerously tough for all other teams in the league. T he author nicely portrays the longing of the Fugees for the sense of belonging in their new homes. The discipline that Mufleh brings into the lives of her players might seem brutal at times, but is the bringer of positive results also. Her statement, â€Å"rules, my drills, my way† is something to learn from. (John: 267) Such is the popularity of the story that Outcasts United has been considered by Universal Studios. Conclusion Reading Outcasts United was good. By portraying the true story of the refugees and Mufleh, John has gracefully highlighted a new community which deserves to be treated as a significant part of the existing community. What I found most interesting in the entire book was the

The Home Front Letter Essay Example for Free

The Home Front Letter Essay How have you been? This War has everyone really going. The War will be over in a matter of months and our lives will back to normal. However, I am quite annoyed, just like most of my neighbours and colleagues, about the DORA. It has restricted the way we live. For example, we can no longer feed the dog. The news these days is just totally intolerable. Most of the news has to be censored, so how is one supposed to find out what is going on around the country. Those Germans are hated by every single Briton in this country. You should see some of the things they do. There are posters of Germans killing innocent babies and children for fun and raping women. It is just so inhuman. Recently, they have started sending in huge airships and bombing many of the large cities, including London. This has just got to end some time soon! My son, George, has also joined the army. My family and I are so proud of him. I feel that he will make a big difference to the war, just like the many other men that have joined. This whole war will blow over in the next few months. I dont think those Germans will last long at all. Take care of yourself. Yours sincerely, John.

Impact of Master Data Management

Impact of Master Data Management The impact of Master Data Management in an organization to improve decision making. Abstract This research deals with assessing the importance of Master Data Management in an organization and the impacts it has when making decisions. I will present the methodological framework which allows a centered master data to flow to different systems. This research will use the qualitative approach and interpretive paradigm. Master Data Management MDM Keywords: Master Data Management, Data Quality, Information Management, Data Governance Background of the study The focus to Master Data Management is to provide relevant information for decision making using the various systems in the organization. Based on the increasing number of expected benefits of systems that they will deliver a single version of key organizational entities. â€Å"MDM represents the set of policies, governance, standards, processes and tools that define and manage the master and reference data of a business organization to provide a single point of reference.â€Å"(Subotic, Jovanovic, Poscic, 2014) Years of using and retaining data in different data stores have led to conflicts in data descriptions, in the way data is structured, and the values of data, which makes it impossible or hard for an organization to understand and properly use its key data(Cleven Wortmann). Data are used in almost all the activities of companies and constitute the basis for decisions on operational and strategic levels. Poor quality data will have significantly negative effects on the competence of an organization, while high quality data are often crucial to a company’s success (Haug, Zachariassen van Liempd). Integrating those business definitions and data records across business lines and across subsidiaries is no simple task, demanding rearranging of data ownership and governance, however also requiring advanced technology for policies and business rules to be enforced(Scheidl 2011). The goal of MDM is to create and maintain consistent and complete business data for all stakeholders in a controlled and single-view capable manner across the whole organization which will help them figure out the improvement areas so they become more efficient and competitive. MDM is meant to provide organizations with the ability to integrate, analyze and exploit the value of their data assets, regardless of where that information was collected (Milanov Njengus 2012). Research Problem Organizations deal with different data which may be scatted across the whole organization where systems do not communicate with each other causing the organization to make decisions based on data that is not accurate. Research Objectives Master Data Management seeks to consolidate data that resides in various systems that do not communicate with each other, in such a way that accurate and up to date organizational data is available in a single place (Reichet, Otto, Ostele, 2013). This research will discuss on how Master Data Management can manage the organizations data and outline the benefits of using MDM which will permit the organization to understand their key data. Consequently, the lack of a suitable master data management may lead to severe problems like operational faults, inadequate decision making. The bigger the company, the bigger the issue of managing the data will be. If companies grow the data landscape gets more complicated and managing data becomes an issue that is hard to deal with (K Pietzka). Companies need to make decisions based on the data that they understand and has qualities of data quality dimensions – Timely, Consistent, Completeness, Integrity, Accuracy, Conformity. To be successful in business, you need to make decisions fast and based on the right information. (Thatipamula 2013) Preliminary Literature Review Master data form the basis for business processes. Master data represent a company’s essential basic data which remain unchanged over a specific period of time. Which include customer, material, employee and supplier data. Inconsistent master data cause process errors resulting in higher costs. With proper governance, the master data can be regarded as a unified set of data that all applications can rely on for consistent, high quality information (Hamilton G). Theoretical Framework This framework will allow master data to flow from the Master Data System to the applications, making sure that all applications use the same data. It ensures that the data used is always created the same way and is unique. Which will then allow all linked applications to use the centralized master data. By: C LOSER, Dr. C LEGNER, D GIZANIS showing Central Master Data System Research Questions Asking the right questions will enable the organization to better the way they make decision and the processes involved in their every day to day transactions (Cleven Wortmann). This research will use a qualitative research to answer the following research questions: How to maintain high data quality?   The impacts in business for not having high quality data What causes data redundancy in the organization Maintaining high data quality Achieving better insight into the performance of processes involved in the everyday running of the business, the customers they have and product profitability and market share is one of the goals. These reporting understandings are the base for key decision making, however, the quality of the reporting is directly impacted by the quality of the data. Data that is not of high quality leads to under-informed decisions. Also, the return on costly investments in business intelligence is partly diminished if the source data is corrupt (C Loser, Dr. C Legner and D Gizanis 2004) A major factor of any company’s day-to-day business is the data that is used in business processes and is available to the operational staff. If it happens that this data is not available, out of date or incorrect, the business may suffer delays or financial losses. â€Å"The implications of poor quality data carry negative effects to business users through: less customer satisfaction, increased running costs, inefficient decision-making processes, lower performance and lowered employee job satisfactionâ€Å"(Haug A, Zachariassen F, van Liempd D, 2011) Data in an organization needs to be controlled and managed. Without having specific rules in place or enforcing data governance, this will cause data to be redundant in different places/systems across the organization. Data governance specifies the framework for decision rights and accountabilities to encourage desirable behavior in the use of data (Otto B, 2009) When wrong data is identified in the system, some analysis would have to be performed to find out why it happened and how it can be prevented from happening again. The process of correcting the issues will take time and organizational resources. Benefits of Master Data Management The key benefit of Master Data Management is to integrate similar data management processes, consolidate the critical information that is scattered across the organization, improve the integrity of data which makes sure that the data available is complete and accurate and business will be able to make more effective business decisions from the data with integrity. (Al-Zhrani, 2010) Challenges of Master Data Management Master Data Management challenges consists of managing the data as there is continuously increasing amount of data which will come with unclear processes of how to collect and maintain that data. Because master data is often used by multiple applications and processes, an error in master data can have a huge effect on the business processes. (Gustafsson, Franke, Johnson, Lillieskà ¶ld) Hypothesis Having implemented MDM effectively, the following can be made from the evidence gathered. Hypothesis 1 (H1): Understanding the company’s customers will lead to increase in market share Hypothesis 2 (H1): Data inconsistencies are caused by the distribution of data ownership across different business and function areas and across IT systems. Hypothesis 3 (H0): Companies that explicitly create a master data stewardship program are significantly more successful in terms of data governance Research Methodology Research design For this research I will be using interpretive research design, as its main idea is to assist in understanding, recognizing and restructuring the subject meanings that already exist in the social world so we can use that understanding as steps into theorizing (Goldkuhl, 2012) Research approach and strategy Qualitative approach will be used for this research as it is suitable for discovering and gaining insight about a problem (Scheidl H, 2011) Data collection The data collection technique used for this research was one-on-one interview using a semi structured questionnaire. This technique is appropriate to this research as it allows elicitation of information that is not yet uncovered. Time kept for each interview is 45 min for each respondent. (Scheidl H, 2011) Sampling and population For this research I will use everyday decision makers so to get an understanding of how data influence the decisions that they make. Data analysis After having the interviews, I will then summaries the whole interview by making notes of the key points that were given by the respondents. This will assist in making sure that I familiarizes myself with my research. Knowledge gap In recent studies there have been increased focus on the importance of Master Data Management. This research contributes to the improvement of the scientific body of knowledge since it explores a part where only little previous study are available. Conclusion Poor data quality means there will be difficulties where decision makers have to build trust in the company data. Therefore, addressing and integrating MDM at the start should be part of an operational excellence initiative, in order to solve part of the process inefficiencies. References Milanov G Njengus A, (2012) Using scrum in master data management development projects. Journal of Emerging Trends in Computing and Information Sciences, VOL. 3, NO.11 Nov, 2012 Available from http://www.cisjournal.org [Accessed: 15 April 2015] Cleven A, Wortmann F (2010) Uncovering four strategies to approach master data management, Proceedings of the 43rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences – 2010 Available at www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/hicss/2010/3869/00/09-01-05.pdf [Accessed: 16 May 2015] Subotic D, Jovanovic V and Poscic P (2014), Data warehouse and master data management evolution –a meta-data-vault approach, Issues in Information Systems, Volume 15, Issue II, pp. 14-23, 2014 Cervo D, Allen M (2011) Master data management in practice: Achieving true customer MDM, John Wiley Sons Inc., New Jersey, ISBN 978-0-470-91055-9 Al-Zhrani S, (2010) Management Information Systems Role in Decision-Making during Crises: Case Study, Journal of Computer Science 6 (11): 1247-1251, 2010 [Accessed: 11 March 2015] Rahm E, Hai Do H Data Cleaning: Problems and Current Approaches, University of Leipzig, Germany Available at http://dbs.uni-leipzig.de [Accessed: 16 May 2015] Gustafsson P, Franke U, Johnson P, Lillieskà ¶ld J, Identifying IT impacts on organizational structure and business value, Proceedings of BUSITAL’08, Available at people.dsv.su.se/~pajo/busital2008/paper4.pdf [Accessed: 23 May 2015] Duff A 2015 Master data management roles – their part in data quality implementation. 10th International Conference on Information Quality, 2005 [Accessed: 25 March 2015] Reichert A, Otto B and Ãâ€"sterle H, 2013 A Reference Process Model for Master Data Management. 11th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik [Accessed: 2 April 2015] Jonker R, Kooistra F, Cepariu D, van Etten J and Swartjes S, Effective master data management Available at www.compact.nl/pdf/C-2011-0-Jonker.pdf [Accessed: 28 May 2015] Scheidl H (2011), Master data management maturity and technology assessment, Master’s Thesis, Turku school of Economics Kawulich B. (2005) Participant observation as a data collection method Volume 6, No. 2, Art. 43 – May 2005 Otto B, Schmidt A, ENTERPRISE MASTER DATA ARCHITECTURE: DESIGN DECISIONS AND OPTIONS Available at http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Boris_Otto/publication/50222231_Enterprise_Master_Data_Architecture_Design_Decisions_and_Options/links/0a85e53205fc23566a000000.pdf [Accessed: 25 March 2015] Weber K, Otto B and  ¨Osterle H 2009 One size does not fit all—a contingency approach to data governance. ACM J. Data Inform. Quality 1, 1, Article 4 (June 2009), Haug A, Zachariassen F and van Liempd D 2011, the costs of poor data quality, Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management. Available from doi:10.3926/jiem.2011.v4n2.p168-193 [Accessed: 18 May 2015] Kamel A, Lakhder D and Ammar Z 2012, The organizational impacts of information systems: Analysis and proposal of a methodological framework, British Journal of Arts and Social Sciences, ISSN: 2046-9578, Vol.9 No.II (2012), Available from http://www.bjournal.co.uk/BJASS.aspx [Accessed: 18 May 2015] Liang T, You J 2009, and Resource-based View in Information Systems Research: A Meta-Analysis, Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems Available from http://aisel.aisnet.org/pacis2009/72 [Accessed: 18 May 2015] Nowduri S, Management information systems and business decision making: review, analysis, and recommendations, Journal of Management and Marketing Research Available at www.aabri.com/manuscripts/10736.pdf [Accessed: 16 May 2015] Mishra M, Das T 2011, A Study on challenges and opportunities in master data management. International Journal of Database Management Systems ( IJDMS ), Vol.3, No.2, May 2011 C Loser, Dr. C Legner, D Gizanis 2004 Master Data Management for Collaborative Service Processes Available http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.454.7987rep=rep1type=pdf [Accessed: 03 June 2015] Goldkuhl G 2012, Pragmatism vs interpretivism in qualitative information systems research, European Journal of Information Systems, (21), 2, 135-146.Available at http://liu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:515141/FULLTEXT01.pdf [Accessed: 04 June 2015]

The Grandmother in A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery OConnor :: Papers

The Grandmother in A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor The grandmother is the central character in the story "A good man is hard to find," by Flannery O'Connor. The grandmother is a manipulative, deceitful, and self-serving woman who lives in the past. She doesn't value her life as it is, but glorifies what it was like long ago when she saw life through rose-colored glasses. She is pre-scented by O'Connor as being a prim and proper lady dressed in a suit, hat, and white cotton gloves. This woman will do whatever it takes to get what she wants and she doesn't let anyone else's feelings stand in her way. She tries to justify her demands by convincing herself and her family that her way is not only the best way, but the only way. The grandmother is determined to change her family's vacation destination as she tries to manipulate her son into going to Tennessee instead of Florida. The grandmother says that "she couldn't answer to her conscience if she took the children in a direction where there was a convict on the loose." The children, the y tell her "stay at home if you don't want to go." The grandmother then decides that she will have to go along after all, but she is already working on her own agenda. The grandmother is very deceitful, and she manages to sneak the cat in the car with her. She decides that she would like to visit an old plantation and begins her pursuit of convincing Bailey to agree to it. She describes the old house for the children adding mysterious details to pique their curiosity. "There was a secret panel in this house," she states cunningly knowing it is a lie. The grandmother always stretches the truth as much as possible. She not only lies to her family, but to herself as well. The grandmother doesn't live in the present, but in the past. She dresses in a suit to go on vacation. She states, "in case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady." She constantly tries to tell everyone what they should or should not do. She informs the children th at they do not have good manners and that "children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else." when she was a child.

The Effects Of War And Music Together Essay -- essays research papers

The Effects of War and Music Together How are music and war related? Music puts a voice in the people’s ears, and tells them whether or not we should be involved in that war. It helped out the troops when they were over seas to not be so home sick. Also, every war preceding the Vietnam War had music to help or support the war, but the Vietnam War is where music during wartime changed. The Vietnam War has been called "America's first rock-and-roll war" because of rock music that was played and listened to by all Americans. As the draft was raised and draft dodgers were being cracked down on, an overwhelming number of military personnel belonged to one generation: the average age of combat soldiers was 19 and 90 percent were under 23 years of age (Vietnam War Characteristics). Many of these soldiers did not want to be in Vietnam, and no one wanted to be away from his surroundings back home. Therefore, many soldiers took things that reminded them of home. Rock music was what most soldiers brought from home, along with beads and peace symbols. The beads and peace symbols were worn with the uniforms to remind the soldiers of the family at home (Abernathy interview). Between the military branches, there was no preference in what music was liked, however officers liked one thing and soldiers liked another. Most soldiers preferred hard rock or psychedelic music; 30 percent enjoyed rhythm and blues; 10 percent, country; 5 percent, classical; and 10 percent...

Trend in Transport: the Role of Intermodal Transport in the International Logistics

Globalization and the consequently expansion of the geographical firm’s borders led an increase of the international transport’s demand, promoting the develop of transport’s sector. In fact, the growth of the amount of freight being traded, as well as, a great variety of origins and destinations promotes the importance of international transportation as a fundamental element supporting the global economy. In particular, since the trading distances involved are often considerable, there has been an increase of demands on the maritime shipping industry and on port activities. In this process China had an important role, in fact, as its industrial and manufacturing activities developed, it started to import growing quantities of raw materials and energy and export growing quantities of manufactured goods, fostering a surge in demands for long distance international transportation. International transportation system have been under increasing pressures to support additional demands in freights volume and distance at which this freight is been carried. This couldn’t have occurred without considerable technical improvements permitting to transport larger quantities of goods, and this more quickly and more efficiently. Container played, of course, a crucial role, promoting, furthermore, the development of the intermodal transport. Intermodal transport modes recover an important role in international transportation, in fact, because of the involved geographical scale, most international freights movements involve several modes, especially when origins and destinations are far apart. Among the numerous transport modes, two are specifically concerned with international trade: ?Ports and maritime shipping ?Airports and air transports Maritime transportation is very important in international trades, in fact in terms of tonnage it handles about 90% of the global trade. Although in terms of tonnage air transportation carries an insignificant amount of freight(0. 2% of total tonnage) compared with maritime transportation, its importance in term of the total value is much more significant:15% of the value of global trade 70 times more valuable than its maritime counterpart) . This is due to the fact that air transportation, being more expansive, is used mostly to carry rich freights. Road and railway modes tend to occupy a more marginal portion of international transportation since they are above all modes for national or regional transport services. Their importance is focused on their role in the first and the last part of the door to door transportation chain. For this reason they result anyway an important factor that should be considered by a firm in the logistics planning of the distribution of freight to the customer. As said before the driver of intermodal transportation has been the container, which permits easy handling between modal systems, in fact it is designed to be moved with common handling equipment enabling high-speed intermodal transfers in economically large units between ships, railcars, truck chassis, and barges using a minimum labor. The container, therefore, serves as the load unit rather than the cargo contained therein, making it the foremost expression of intermodal transportation. The usage of containers shows the complementarity between freight transportation modes by offering a higher fluidity to movements and a standardization of loads. For logistics managers intermodal transportation offers significant advantages over single mode alternatives. First, intermodal transportation minimizes handling and total transit time, expediting the entire transportation process and thus shortening the customer’s order cycle time. Second intermodal transportation allows to take advantage of the best characteristics of all modes, permitting to offer the most efficient transport service at the lowest possible price to the customer. Third intermodal movement cuts down on theft, loss and transport costs in general by eliminating virtually all handling of individual goods. Another important factor is that intermodal transport uses container and this makes easier tracking the freight during all the transportation process. This is possible thanks to a new technology called RFID (radio frequency ID) a firm (but also a customer) is able to know what assets it has and where they are at every hour. In fact this relatively new technology, that promises to change the way inventories are managed, consists in an RFID device that transmits a signal when it is activated by an RFID receiver. Depending on the device, this signal can have a range as short as 6 feet or as great as 90 feet. The data transmitted can include various product identifiers of value to the manufacturer, shipper or purchaser. So the signal emitted by an RFID device can help company tracking the location and quantity of their inventory . The use of RFID in logistics application is one of the pre-eminent fields where the technology can shine. Products can be tracked from points of manufacturer (and even earlier if source components are tracked using RFID) all the way through the distribution chain, and down to the retail level. This new technology has helped many organization solve the main challenge at every node in their supply chains: the lack of visibility of logistics data. RFID technology is a powerful solution to improves asset visibility, data quality, inventory management, and interoperability in an end-to-end integrated supply chain. In addition the use of this technology allows to reduce costs as replacement costs as well as avoiding shrinkage. It also helps to reduce capital costs, increase customer satisfaction, as well as ensuring the assets are in the correct place at the right time, recovering an important function in the logistics process of a firm. An added advantage is the reusability of these tags, so company, which want greater control over assets and their management, have opted to use RFID and logistics management techniques . Using RFID and logistics management strategies will serve to improve capital utilization, lower the total operational costs as well as improve the availability of assets. The use of these asset management techniques has improved customer retention significantly. This technique will help improve visibility of assets in transit, availability management of much needed assets and transportation management The use of RFID and logistics management techniques are especially useful for manufacturers, where parts bins feed parts in an automated plant, since the placement of the right part in the right place is critical. The company can use these techniques in areas where they have expertise whereas professional help can be sought for areas where they lack control such as transportation, delivery, pick up etc. Companies should consider implementing RFID and logistics management techniques, as they will greatly benefit from it. It will reduce cost, increase control and availability, decrease chances of loss of assets due to various factors as well as prove to be very economical. In conclusion we can affirm that transport is one component of the logistic mix that is undergoing a great deal of change. Intermodal transport is a reflection of the changing nature of transport in general, signifying as it does the logistics managers ability to combine the advantages of two or more modes of transport into one seamless shipment that reaches the customer faster and with less damage than a mode-by-mode routing could providing. Therefore to better control the delivery process of the goods, being able to provide value added to the customer, could be useful for a firm develop a tracking system of the freight from the factory to the final customer. This could be seen as value added logistics service useful to satisfy the customer saving costs at the same time.