Enhancing traffic police performance in Egypt Essay

Vision My vision is that of a public service (traffic police) with a performance culture, client-focused (Public) and results oriented (more organized economy) and to decide and examine its current performance in terms of efficiency and effectiveness, and according to the current performance situation, we will try to determine the factors that leads to this situation and also the means to recover or maintain such situation. Where are we now? Many pubic servants are unclear about what the overall objectives are and just what is expected of them. Just to concentrate on traffic police performance, lets first explain the meaning of performance. Job performance ( ) is measured as the quantity and quality of tasks accomplished by an individual or group. This definition urges us to know what factors determine individual performance. In answering this question, the following individual performance equation is a good starting point:- Performance = Ability x Support x Effort We have to handle each of the above three elements, to identify the current points of weakness and strength in traffic police performance and determine whether there is a current inefficiency and/or effectiveness or not. First: Ability Ability establishes an individual’s capacity to perform at a high level of accomplishment. By examining this factor on traffic police soldiers and representatives, we may find that many of them lake the appropriate and effective ability to work in police. I believe that many of them are doing their work in a careless way, a way that no one feels responsible toward his work. You can say they are working under pressure and stress of their superior, where, fear and expectation of punishment and insulation is the only dominate on their behavior which in return affect their performance, so they pretend that they are doing their work by checking the car, driving licenses and other traffic regulations but actually there is no concentration and no sense of responsibility control their performance. You can find the way police officers treat their soldiers or subordinates, you will find it a very aggressive way, also you can conclude the reflection of this treatment on their behavior, for sure this treatment has a negative effect on their behavior and attitude toward their work and they will continuously try to do their work in a manner that prevent their officers not to repeat such treatment. Second: Support Every one needs support, even if his work is of high performance, support can be represented in motivation, no stress, encouragement and the most important thing is the person’s feeling that he will be rewarded for this work performance. I would like to give an example for this:- â€Å"Once when I was waiting in traffic sign and before it turned green to pass, at that time I remembered that I have forgotten to lock the seat belt and I found a police representative coming to me to check my driving license and to charge me with a penalty which was EGP 50, I told him that I forgot to lock the seat belt and this was the first time but he pretended that he did not hear to me and started to write a penalty, at that time I hint to him that I will give him EGP 10, actually he caught the money in a certain manner that I am sure that he tried it many times in order not to be seen by his officer or any one else, then I passed by the car without any penalties.† Examples for this kind of behavior are many and actually they are common in traffic police stations as I am Manager of Tax dept. and Car pool section , my subordinates in car pool section who are responsible for making car licenses and its renewal usually come and told me that they pay bribe for the employee who handle the car’s file, the Engineer who make the inspection of the car, the person who is assigned to choose the car number and the metal board, and even the person who hang the metal board on the car. So no one work for his salary that he is being paid at the end of the month. That is what I intend to mean when I said that every one should feel that he is rewarded for his performance so that every one will try to do his best in order to be paid additional income or incentive or bonus to be encouraged to improve his effectiveness in his work. Also there is lack of technology, new technology must be founded in order to assist and support police officers to improve their work performance efficiency. I am sure that you will agree with me when I remembered you with the computer system used in the traffic police station, is it effective? Many times when I go to the traffic police station to renew my car license, I found that the computer system is out of order and I have to stay for an hour or half an hour till its being repaired. Third: Effort Any person should only work in the place he loves, so as to give it the maximum effort he can, this means that traffic police officers, representatives and soldiers as well must believe in the job they do and should recognize that they work in a so critical area that no exception, no cautions can be applied in its regulations. Once the person believes in that, he will exert as much effort as he can in order to perform effectively and efficiently. Through the above, do you determine now where we are? Using an expired license for two years, during which the traffic police checked it 6 times and returned it back without taking any regulatory procedure, for sure there is lake of ability as the police working while they are not working indeed so they are not effective, also there was lake of support as they are not feel satisfaction that they should be provided and supported by their work so that they are performing ineffective. Finally there was lake of effort as they do not believe in the objective of the work they do to exert effort for it so their performance is inefficient. What is expected in the future? I think that the first step in the improvement process is the selection of right people, as any organization’s success is ultimately determined by the quality of its workforce, the right people not only can execute the tasks needed to achieve the organization’s objective, they also are a product of and are motivated by the supporting people who provide clear regulations and instruction and maintain gentle relation and communication with the whole workforce, in addition to compensation and reward according to the work performance. The most important change that I hope to be effected in the future is the launch of new technology in the traffic police system, which I think it will reflect remarkable advancements in the efficiency and increased productivity to provide more traffic law enforcement with the same staff and at less inconvenience to the public. Virtual Partner: A Mobile technology Solution A new technology used by Delray Beach Police Department, Virtual Partner is an efficient, timesaving, easy-to-use application that increases efficiency and productivity in several areas. The software was designed and developed by those who stood to benefit the most from the technology, the police officers themselves. These officers, in their quest, exceeded the boundaries  of ordinary operations by developing a technology that has incredible output in terms of efficiency, adaptability, productivity, and ease, at nominal cost. The Virtual Partner application consists of four program components. The automated response system provides quick responses to queries made by officers to the National Criminal information Center (NCIC) and the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (DHSMV). Ever mindful of officer safety, the developers included a voice response function that verbally relays information in response to queries entered by the officers. In terms of officer safety, Delray Beach feels the voice response capability was a major breakthrough. Using voice response, an officer can remain focused on the offender and the offender’s vehicle without looking at a computer screen, thereby increasing the officer’s safety and eliminating distractions. The voice response provides the officer with specific information needed such as tag and driver’s license status as well as color, make and model of the vehicle. The officers also customized the program to their needs so that it would eliminate unnecessary information and only relay pertinent information requested by the officers. The program confirms warrant hits by signaling the officer with an audible alert tone. The program verbally relays back case numbers, dispatch time, and other requests made by the officer, as well as gate codes to any of the secured gated-communities. The system is also equipped with a two dimensional barcode capability that reads the driver’s license information on licenses from other states that have a magnetic strip for so-called swipe capability. The information generated from any of these inquires can be automatically entered onto forms commonly used by police officers. The capability of the program continued to develop after the officers determined the utility and performance they needed from technology. Through their efforts, several components to the system have been engineered that unequivocally changed Delray Beach’s technology from a hindrance to an asset. Also it’s a very important tool needed to enhance the performance effectiveness of traffic police, Traffic Police organization should develop a quality control system for traffic information dissemination to the public. Currently, there is no organized way of monitoring the accuracy of information disseminated to the public. Development of a quality control system will require the following:- 1. Identification of all types of information being disseminated, the source of each type of information, and the means of dissemination. 2. Establishment of procedures for checking the accuracy of each type of information. 3. Establishment of policies regarding the frequency with which information is to be verified. 4. Identification of personnel to monitor information quality. The way by which the information is delivered to the public is very important to think of, and give it the priority, as people needs to aware of what they usually forget as a result of occupation in their life needs.

Themes in My Antonia

â€Å"We sat looking off across the country, watching the sun go down. The curly grass about us was on fire now. The bark of the oaks turned red as copper. There was a shimmer of gold on the brown river. Out in the stream the sandbars glittered like glass, and the light trembled in the willow thickets as if little flames were leaping among them. The breeze sank to stillness. In the ravine a ringdove mourned plaintively, and somewhere off in the bushes an owl hooted. The girls sat listless, leaning against each other.The long fingers of the sun touched their foreheads. † (Page 159) My Antonia is one of my favorite books because of how it is so descriptive. I love the visuals that Cather adds like when she says â€Å"the bark of the oaks turned red as copper,† because you think of that rustic color and how that is what the bark looks likes because of the sunset. Cather uses similes like, â€Å"Out in the stream the sandbars glittered like glass, and the light trembled in the willow thickets as if little flames were leaping among them. You can really imagine glittering glass, mostly from experience, and how the little mirrors cast precious twinkles of light on water, and the little flames jumping around the thickets casting a brilliant light on them and going out as soon as they’ve touched them. Cather also uses a metaphor when describing the curly grass by saying that it was on fire, which is a great description of how the light from the sunset affected the grass, making it look ablaze.She uses another metaphor when describing the light from the sun, and calls it â€Å"fingers† which touched the girls’ foreheads because the rays were long and were as if they were caressing their faces like a hand might do in a loving gesture. You can just see the last bits of light the sun gives off reaching out to grasp and influence the last part of the Earth that it can before it has to disappear into the night sky.

Time-Travel Made Easy--An Entrepreneur from a past era arriving in Essay

Time-Travel Made Easy--An Entrepreneur from a past era arriving in mordern time - Essay Example Let us discuss three things a time-traveling manager should consider when managing today’s business workforce. Workforce diversity is one of the most important things that a time-traveling manager should consider today. The manager who has come into mind belongs to 18th century when there was no concept of workforce diversity and the managers did not have to face any sort of problem related to diverse workforce management. However, due to globalization, today almost every company has diverse workforce, which needs to be managed effectively by the managers. In the 18th century, the companies did not have advanced technology that they could use for production purposes. Therefore, managers of that time did not need to provide technology-based training to the employees. However, today technology is advancing rapidly and managers need to be able to provide proper training to the employees to make them proficient in the use of latest technology. In the 18th century, employees used to be more committed to their jobs as compared to today. Today, people have become more status-conscious. They keep on looking for new jobs, which can provide more benefits to them. Therefore, a time-traveling manager must be able to develop effective incentives policy in the company to retain key employees. McCrimmon, M. (2010). A New Role for Management in Today’s Post-Industrial Organization. Retrieved from

The Banjo Lesson Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Banjo Lesson - Term Paper Example Eakins brought new painting methods such as carrying out studies of live models, overt discussion of male and female anatomy as well as dissections and bisections of cadavers to enable further comprehension and familiarity of the human body. Consequently, the ideologies of Eakins had tremendous impact on Tanner, who proved to be among Eakins’ favorite artists, thus, two years after Tanner’s departure from the academy, Eakins had to paint his portrait as an honor. During the entire period that Tanner was in the Academy, he secured thorough anatomy knowledge and was able to apply his comprehension of the weighty human figure structure to painting. Later on during the First World War, Tanner worked for the Public Information Department in the Red Cross and was able to paint real life images from the war. The Painting The Banjo Lesson was painted by Henry Ossawa Tanner in 1893 when he returned to visit Philadelphia in the United States from his newly found home in France. I n this painting, an elderly man is engrossed in teaching one who is assumed to be his grandchild the lessons of playing banjo. When given a first glance, one may not notice how tanner explored very important painting themes. In the culture of America, black community was highly regarded as a group of entertainers, and similarly, the painting of the black elderly man teaching how to play Banjo is seen in all the 19th century American art (Linn). This implies that the banjo instrument was closely associated with the black community. However, such paintings are always reduced and portrayed as minstrel type. In this regard, Tanner strives to work against the highly regarded stereotype by giving a much sensitive interpretation through his painting. The two protagonists in the painting portray a very important aspect in human life known as specific time of human interaction. Both the teacher and the learner are intimately attached on the important task right in front of them. The two are oblivious of the rest of the world around them, thus magnifying the sense of actual contact and meaningful cooperation. The painting portrays a real world and contact, ultimately achieving the most important ideology of Tanner of human quality exploration, through a masterful painting. Tanner successfully employed the difficult task of merging two different and varying sources of light. For instance, a natural white-blue light glow from outside comes in from the left side, while from the right, enters a warm light from the fireplace. The illumination of the picture is achieved where the two sources of light meet. Analysts have interpreted this aspect to imply Tanner’s personal transition between his American past and his new home in France. Tanner is considered to be amongst the most talented and highly esteemed African American painters. This is wholly attributed to his hard work in making painting a reality, since his painting mostly relied upon depicting accurate form of h uman nature as well as the natural surroundings. Throughout his entire life, he was fully devoted to carrying out studies of the world that he was living in, and most importantly, the actual people he encountered face to face. For instance, Linn asserts that the popularity as well as the importance of The Banjo Lesson was as a result of searching for post Civil Rights symbols of the African American heritage

Theories of Development Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Theories of Development - Term Paper Example In this paper, I will argue that neo liberalism supports growth and promotes efficiency. This paper will include arguments regarding how neo liberalism has a positive effect on economic development. The paper will begin with introduction of neo liberalism. After that arguments in favor of neo liberalism will be discussed. In the end arguments against neo liberalism will be discussed and refuted. Neo Liberalism became popular in the later periods of 20th century. This school of thought became famous at a time when Keynesianism was declining in popularity. Also the notion of free market and private enterprise became the reason of popularity of neo liberalism all over the world. The growth of private enterprises, alongside with growth of capitalism paved the way for the acceptance of neo liberalism. This particular school of thought was in line with the overall spirit of capitalism and denied governmental intervention in the market. The deregulation that neo liberalism advocated also had cultural affects and therefore this school of thought became famous among economists all over the world. Neo liberalism questioned the utility of government intervention in the economy and therefore advocated free markets and free enterprises. Government intervention assumes that government knows everything about the market and is able to make the best possible decision. This assumption was questioned by neo liberalist economists. They argued that the role of government is not in the best interests of the economy and therefore government should let the markets decide about their course of action. Also on the issue of employment determination, neo liberalist argued that market forces were in a better position to make efficient decisions than government. This is how neo liberalism discourages the role of government in a particular economy. Neo liberal economic theory was attractive for the world because of the freedom it offered to both individuals and

International Development Organizations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

International Development Organizations - Essay Example In 1970s, the organization was training families on how to indulge themselves in farming in order to get an extra income to sustain their basic needs. The organization started by installing water pumps in order to distribute clean water to communities which were highly affected by morality rates (Russell & Cohn, 2012). It then recruited volunteers who taught the community how to use the water to irrigate in order to become self-reliant. In 1990s, the organization shifted its attention towards the needs of children and other vulnerable groups in the society. This is after realizing that many governments were struggling with offering these groups[s with the necessary platforms in order to unleash their potential. By 2014, the organization was the 11th largest non-governmental organization in the United States (Russell & Cohn, 2012). World Vision International receives funding from corporations and private donors (Cagney & Ross, 2013). Approximately 19% of the organization’s budget is obtained from public grants. However, corruption is one of the major challenges that have been facing this organization. For instance, in 2007, World Vision International identified that a lot of funds that was to be directed towards education, health care, and economic development was being embezzled by various officials. In addition, the organization’s officials in various positions were diverting food deliveries and other important building materials for their own personal gains. Through its financial aid especially in developing countries, World Vision International has been able to improve the lives of the people. This is through initiating projects that are self sustainable (Kilby, 2006). Through the projects, the organization has been able to create employment, an aspect that has played a significant role in alleviating poverty in the society. World Vision International has been able to build a sustainable economy in different parts of the

Reflective Journal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 1

Reflective Journal - Essay Example Facebook is very much a multimedia tool that has been rumored to soon take over the Internet. Facebook is dynamic in the fact that it allows users to post status updates whenever they want on their account. Then this status update is visible at the top of their Walls, where their status updates are kept. Facebook is a revolutionary technology because it allows people who may have once known each other at some point in time to reconnect. For example, if someone wanted to get in touch with their childhood friends or people they knew from high school or college, they can use Facebook as a social networking tool in order to reconnect with those people again. However, the caveat to that is that usually, people do find Facebook interesting. In fact, they find it so engaging that they spend one hour, two hours, sometimes several hours a day—in fact—on Facebook. Facebook has become such a revolutionary form of multimedia that there are not many people nowadays who are not on Facebook. There are still many people who are not interested in this phenomena—however, it is quickly catching on. Facebook is now getting to the point where there are conferences being held in San Francisco about its progress. People who are regular Facebook users have said that they will stop using Facebook if it is no longer a free service. However, Facebook is such a useful tool, that it may occur to the people who are in charge of Facebook to have some kind of a fee for using it because it is so useful. Although people are not charging for it now, it could happen in the future that Facebook users might be charged to use it. This would drastically reduce, most likely, the usage of Facebook, although personally, it is very feasible that people would pay whatever kind of fee they have to in order to stay in contact with their friends and family in other places. One of the unique features about Facebook is that you can search

The Analects of Confucius trans. by Arthur Waley . pp. 83-114 Essay

The Analects of Confucius trans. by Arthur Waley . pp. 83-114 - Essay Example His emphasis lay on the morality aspect of life that is based on sincerity, justice and the right way to lead ones life. His system of philosophy came to be known as â€Å"Confucianism†. In his Analects, Confucius takes himself to be a sort of â€Å"transmitter who invented nothing†. (The Analects, 479 BCE – 221BCE, VII.1) Since he belonged to the ancient ordered society, he was very conservative and had a high vision of personal as well as social perfections. He wanted to create a revival that was based on a unified royal state where its rulers earned their power on the basis of their own sincere moral merit, not their parentage. â€Å"The Way† that Confucius speaks about is the exemplification of ones own self by sheer virtue of morality and not by any set rules or regulations. His ideals and teachings are not conveyed in a direct manner because he made use of allusions, tautology and innuendo. As Arthur Waley explains his famous anecdote – When the stables were burnt down, on returning from court, Confucius said, â€Å"Was anyone hurt?† He did not ask about the horses. (Analects X.11, tr. A. Waley) Even though the horses were much more expensive than stablemen, yet he chose to ask about the stablemen instead proving that he valued humans much more than property. In ancient Confucianism, there are two terms â€Å"Yi† and â€Å"Li† that are closely related to each other and is translated to mean righteousness. Both these terms compliment each other and means doing the right thing for the right reason. The term â€Å"Yi† is again complimentary to the term â€Å"Ren† which is based on the virtue of completing one’s responsibilities perfectly to other human beings. Arthur Waley denotes this as â€Å"Goodness† with a capital â€Å"G†. Confucius desired that all the people should follow the Way or the Path that enhanced goodness and selflessness instead of just following the set of rules of â€Å"Yi†. Both â€Å"Yi† as well as

How to get victims of rape and sexual assault to report their attack Research Paper

How to get victims of rape and sexual assault to report their attack - Research Paper Example Discussion in the paper brings this core idea to everyone’s notice. Paradoxically as it may seem, but the social pressure and the human opinion from the sidelines impacts the decision making process of those suffering from the negative phenomena of the society itself. It is all about the victims of the sexual assault and people who commit such crimes against them. It is difficult to make out the optimal remedy for getting the victims report on the cases of assault. However, all methods would be good for the sake of the final result, i.e. punishment of the criminal. In this case each individual would feel himself/herself in safety. Thus, to make a victim feel free to report on the case of rape is to provide a victim with the feeling of care, support, and security at each stage of the investigation. First of all, the current situation with law and order in the United States of America leaves much to be desired. Most of the victims living in the streets of the huge cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and others take it for granted that police and the judicial system of the US cannot prevent the society from the growing threat of the crime. It means that most of the victims do not even go to police having an idea that nothing will help them in their situation. On the other hand, they do not want to disclose such a negative case in their lives so that to keep themselves on a safe side from the overall social regrets and, say, blames. The trace of rape is never easy to bear for a victim. However, the society cannot realize it to the full. Golden et al. (2010) admit in their study on the rape as a social drawback the following idea, namely: â€Å"The continued judgment of, or disdain for, victims of rape is a form of social stigmatization† (p. 160). Hereby, the way to make a victim open to the talk on such a subtle topic from his/her life is to feel keenly the scenario of the rape and the

ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR - Essay Example 1). In this regard, the current essay hereby aims to discuss the business problem and apply the motivational concepts discussed in Robbins and Judge (2008). The problem identified in the study focused on the inability of organizations to appropriately and effectively design an incentive program that would relatively and directly increase work performance. As proffered, â€Å"numerous researchers have studied the impact of incentives and related programs for at least 100 years without establishing a clear consensus among business circles as to whether or not incentive programs deliver measurable and meaningful performance results† (Stolovitch, Clark, & Condly, 2008, par. 3). To address this dilemma, the authors specifically sought to answer four questions, to wit: â€Å"Do incentives increase work performance (and under what circumstances)? Which incentive programs are most effective? What types of organizations need incentives? And what model best expresses how to select and implement successful programs?† (Stolovitch, Clark, & Condly, 2008, par. 4). the authors further sought to establish conclusive findings through conducting surveys on the Internet and telephone from 145 U.S. organizations that have been evaluated to use incentive systems (Stolovitch, Clark, & Condly, 2008, par. 7). Accordingly, through the application of relevant motivational concepts such as the use of rewards to motivate employees and engaging employees or increasing involvement in the work setting. As indicated, incentives programs had the ability to: (1) improve performance; (2) engage participants (consistent with the theory of employee involvement; and (3) attract quality employees. Concurrently, other findings that were revealed were: (4) longer-term programs outperform short-term programs; (5) both executive and employees value incentive programs; and

IT Applications and Groupware Essay Example for Free

IT Applications and Groupware Essay The three most important things that a company has to do so as to implement the use of groupware systems effectively starts with ensuring the collaboration of workers regarding the introduction of the technology. This initiative helps to create an image of the required culture in their mind. Further, it helps the workers to learn more about each other and creates a sense of respect among them. This strategy helps to break any antagonistic cultures in which they grew up whereby they may have been taught to work as individuals. This viewpoint creates the notion of selfishness amongst the workers. Conversely, ensuring worker cooperation helps to create a feeling of security with regard to employees providing support to the company (Thierauf, 2001). This makes them to be joint owners of the company, thus taking part in implementing the project. The workers are thus not dictated on what to do. Rather, the executive helps them to remove the obstacles amongst themselves and eliminate their resistance. Afterwards, the retraining of the workers about sharing takes place. This helps to recreate the attitude of sharing which have been eliminated from the workers’ minds by the prevailing environment. Such an undertaking begins with the introduction of education to individual persons whereby they are instructed to work as individuals. Further, they learn that to share equates to cheating within the school perspective. The employees thus tend to have a culture in them that disowns sharing. Such a culture calls for retraining. The concept of sharing helps them to work together. In turn, this development benefits the company in the sense that each employee will be allowed to make their decisions. The business thus retains the knowledgeable employees within the company. This group work also makes the output of the company to increase more than individual output. Such an outcome stems from the fact that a group can accomplish more tasks than an individual when each person is offered the opportunity to decide on how to accomplish a task (Galliers, Markus Newell, 2007). The people are thus empowered to perform by themselves. During training, the influential leaders usually start early in helping the people to change and teaching the people about the importance of groupware. This undertaking promotes every idea regarding all opportunities in the planning of any specialized training in the anticipation that all the needed users are covered. In addition, it helps to create an awareness of what will be expected of them when the group ware system will be implemented. This is because the workers regain their trust in all people with whom they were formerly taught to be distrustful by their environment. It also gives each worker an opportunity to contribute their techniques in the business whereby the best are charged with the running of the company (Khosrowpour, 2001). It also helps to make sure that all the intended people are reached and that the barriers among them broken. This creates an atmosphere within which each individual is worthy in the business and wherein their views are incorporated into the running of the premise. After training, one should plan for the growth of the firm and be prepared to rise up quickly after the implementation. This improves the attitude of the workers because they derive satisfaction from the work output. Such a development promotes and improves their working life. Consequently, the lessons which they had learned in the training are articulated in the production process. This action helps to gauge the results of the project so that one can know if to sell the project to others if the results are tangible (Khosrowpour, 2000). Further, he owners are facilitated to gauge if the groupware system is productive and if its productivity can be replicated in other related firms.

P300-based Brain-Computer Interface Performance Enhancement

P300-based Brain-Computer Interface Performance Enhancement Enhancing Performance and Bitrates in a P300-based Brain-Computer Interface for Disabled Subjects by Phase-to-Amplitude Cross-Frequency Coupling Stavros I.Dimitriadis1,2*, Avraam D. Marimpis3 1Institute of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences, Cardiff University School of Medicine, Cardiff, UK 2Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Center, School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK 3Brain Innovation B.V., Netherlands Abstract A brain-computer interface (BCI) is a communication system that transforms brain-activity into specific commands for managing a computer or other home or electrical devices. In other words, a BCI is an alternative way of interacting with the environment by using brain-activity instead of muscles and nerves. For that reason, BCI systems are of high clinical value for targeted populations suffering from neurological disorders. In this paper, we present a new processing approach of a well-known P300-BCI system for disabled subjects. Estimating cross-frequency coupling (CFC) and namely ÃŽÂ ´-ÃŽÂ ¸ phase-to-amplitude coupling (PAC) within sensor, we succeeded high classification accuracy and high bitrates for both disabled and able-bodied subjects. The system is tested with four severely disabled and four able-bodied subjects. The bitrates obtained for both the disabled and able-bodied subjects reached the fastest reported level of 10 bits/sec. The new preprocessing approach based o n recordings from the single-sensor Pz while the classification accuracy is tested also for others electrodes. Keywords: Brain-computer interface; P300; Disabled subjects; cross-frequency coupling; accuracy *Corresponding author: Dr.Dimitriadis Stavros Research Fellow School of Medicine, Cardiff University, UK CUBRIC Neuroimaging Center, Cardiff,UK Introduction From the very first work of Farwell and Donchin [1] the majority of P300-based Brain Computer Interface (BCI) systems focused on developing new application scenarios [2,3], and on developing and testing new algorithms for the reliable detection of the P300 waveform from noisy datasets [4-8]. For a review of P300, an interested can read the [9-10]. Ten years ago, two pioneer studies have been first published presenting a P300 BCI system on disabled subjects. Piccione et al. (2006) [11] design a 2D cursor BCI control system where subjects had to concentrate on four arrows flashing every 2.5 sec in random order occupied the peripheral area of a computer screen. Five disabled and seven able-bodied subjects were participated on this experiment. For controlling this cursor, this four-choice P300 flashing arrow cursor was used. EEG signals were recorded using four EEG sensors and electro-oculogram. Using independent component analysis and neural networks, Piccione et al. [11] demonstrated that P300 can be a valuable control signal for disabled subjects. However, the communication system was too low compared to state of the art systems [5,8]. Sellers and Donchin (2006) [12] designed a four choice BCI experiment with four stimuli (YES, NO, PASS, END) that were presented every 1.4 s in random order, in two different modalities either visual or auditory or in a combined mode. Three subjects suffering with ALS and three able-bodied subjects performed the experiment. EEG recordings from three sensors were classified using a stepwise linear discriminant algorithm (LDA). They demonstrated that communication via a P300 system is possible for subjects suffering from ALS. Additionally, they demonstrated that communication is possible in different modalities like the visual, auditory, and also in a combined auditory-visual mode. However, both the classification accuracy and the communication rate were low compared to the state of the art results. One of possible explanations of low accuracy and communication rate could be the low number of EEG sensors, the long inter-stimulus intervals and the low number of trials. McCane et al., demonstrated a BCI system where both accuracy and communication rate did not differ significantly between ALS users and HVs. Although ERP morphology was similar for the two groups, the target ERPs differed significantly in the location and amplitude of the late positivity (P300), the amplitude of the early negativity (N200), and the latency of the late negativity (LN) [13]. Hoffmann et al.,, demonstrated a six-choice P300 paradigm which was tested in a population of five disabled and four able-bodied subjects. Six different images were flashed in random order with an ISI of 400 ms [7]. They tested how the electrode configuration can influence the accuracy in order to detect the best channel selection. For four out of five disabled subjects and for all the able-bodied subjects both the communication rates and the classification accuracies were higher compared to the aforementioned studies [11,12]. The datasets in Hoffmann et al., study can be freely downloaded from the website of the EPFL BCI group (http://bci.epfl.ch/p300). In the present study, we used the dataset from Hoffmann et al., study to demonstrate an alternative algorithmic approach with main scope to improve the bitrates up to the limits. For that occasion, we adopted a cross-frequency coupling (CFC) estimator namely phase-to-amplitude coupling (PAC) to quantify how the phase of the lower frequency brain rhythms modulates the amplitude of the higher oscillations. The whole approach was followed in a trial basis and within sensors located over parieto-occipital brain areas. PAC proved to be a valuable estimator in many applications like the design of a biomarker: for amnestic mild cognitive impairment subjects during an auditory oddball paradigm [14], for dyslexia [15], for mild traumatic brain injury [16]. The layout of the paper is as follows. In Section 2, we described the subject population, the experiments that were performed, and the methods used for data pre-processing steps of the proposed pipeline and the classification procedure. Results are presented in Section 3. Discussion is devoted in Section 4. 2. Materials and Methods 2.1. Experimental setup Users were facing a laptop screen on which six images were displayed (see Fig. 1). The images showed a television, a telephone, a lamp, a door, a window and a radio. The images were selected according to an application scenario in which users can control electrical appliances via a BCI system. The application scenario served however only as an example and was not pursued in further detail. The images were flashed in random sequences, one image at a time. Each flash of an image lasted for 100 ms and during the following 300 ms none of the images was flashed, i.e. the inter-stimulus-interval was 400 ms. The EEG was recorded at 2048 Hz sampling rate from 32 electrodes placed at the standard positions of the 10-20 international system. A Biosemi Active Two amplifier was used for amplification and analog to digital conversion of the EEG signals. [Figure 1 around here] 2.2. Subjects The proposed methodology was applied to P300 BCI-oriented recordings derived from five disabled and four healthy subjects. The demographics of the four disabled are presented in (Table 1). Disabled subject 5 as excluded from further analysis. Subjects 6-9 were Ph.D. students that were recruited from EPFL BCI groups laboratory (all males, age 30 ±2.3). None of subjects 6-9 had known neurological deficits. For more information regarding the subjects, an interested reader should refer to the original paper [7]. Table 1. Subjects from which data was recorded in the study of the environment control system S1 S2 S3 S4 Diagnosis Cerebral palsy Multiple sclerosis Late-stage amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Traumatic brain and spinal-cord injury, C4 level Age 56 51 47 33 Age at illness onset 0 (perinatal) 37 39 27 sSex M M M F Speech production Mild dysarthria Mild dysarthria Severe dysarthria Mild dysarthria Limb muscle control Weak Weak Very Weak Weak Respiration control Normal Normal Weak Normal Voluntary eye movement Normal Mild nystagmus Normal Normal 2.3. Experimental schedule Each subject completed four recording sessions. The first two sessions were performed on one day and the last two sessions on another day. All subjects were recruited within maximum two weeks between the first and the last session. Each of the sessions consisted of six runs, one run for each of the six images. For further details about the protocol followed on this experiment see the original paper related to this dataset [7]. The following protocol was used in each of the runs. (i) Subjects were asked to count silently how often a prescribed image was flashed (for example: Now please count how often the image with the television is flashed). (ii) The six images were displayed on the screen and a warning tone was issued. (iii) Four seconds after the warning tone, a random sequence of flashes was started and the EEG was recorded. The sequence of flashes was block-randomized, this means that after six flashes each image was flashed once, after twelve flashes each image was flashed twice, etc. The number of blocks was chosen randomly between 20 and 25. On average 22.5 blocks of six flashes were displayed in one run, i.e. one run consisted on average of 22.5 target (P300) trials and 22.5ÃÆ'-5 = 112.5 non-target (non-P300) trials. (iv) In the second, third, and fourth session the target image was inferred from the EEG with a simple classifier. At the end of each run the image inferred by the classification algorithm was flashed five times to give feedback to the user. (v) After each run subjects were asked what their counting result was. This was done in order to monitor performance of the subjects. The duration of one run was approximately one minute and the duration of one session including setup of electrodes and short breaks between runs was approximately 30 min. One session comprised on average 810 trials, and the whole data for one subject consisted on average of 3240 trials. 2.4 Offline Analysis The impact of different single-sensor recordings on classification accuracy was tested in an offline procedure. For each subject four-fold cross-validation was used to estimate average classification accuracy. More specifically, the data from three recording sessions were used to train a classifier and the data from the left-out session was used for validation. This procedure was repeated four times so each session served once for validation. 2.4.1. Preprocessing Before learning a classification function and before validation, several preprocessing operations were applied to the data. The preprocessing operations were applied in the order stated below. Referencing. The average signal from the two mastoid electrodes was used for referencing. Filtering. A third order forward-backward Butterworth bandpass filter was used to filter the data.. The MATLAB function butter was used to compute the filter coefficients and the function filtfilt was used for filtering. The predefined frequencies were : ÃŽÂ ´ {0.5-4 Hz},ÃŽÂ ¸ {4-8 Hz},ÃŽÂ ±1 {8-10 Hz}, ÃŽÂ ±2 {10-13 Hz},ÃŽÂ ²1 {13-20 Hz},ÃŽÂ ²2 {20-30 Hz} and ÃŽÂ ³1 {30 45 Hz}. (iii) Downsampling. The EEG was down-sampled from 2048 Hz to 512 Hz by selecting each 4th sample from the bandpass-filtered data. (iv) Single trial extraction. Single trials of duration 1000 ms were extracted from the data. Single trials started at stimulus onset, i.e. at the beginning of the intensification of an image, and ended 1000 ms after stimulus onset. Due to the ISI of 400 ms, the last 600 ms of each trial were overlapping with the first 600 ms of the following trial. (v) Electrode selection. We applied our analysis to recordings from single-sensor activity and mainly, PZ,OZ,P3,P4,P7 and P8. (vi) Feature vector construction. As appropriate feature for each trial, we used the phase-to-amplitude coupling (PAC) which already has been shown its potentiality in building reliable biomarkers (Dimitriadis et al., 2015,2016). PAC was estimated for each frequency pair (see ii)). The description of PAC is given in the next section. As a complementary feature that can separate the counted stimuli from the non counted stimuli, alpha relative signal powers have been estimated. Alpha power level can give us a valuable and objective criterion when a subject attends or not attends to the stimulus. Our idea is to create an initial binary classifier that will cut-off the attended from the non-attended stimuli for each subject prior entering the main multi-class classifier. CFC metric computation CFC estimates the strength of pairwise interactions and identifies the prominent interacting pair of frequencies, both between and within sensors [17-19]. Among available CFC descriptors, phase-amplitude coupling (PAC), which relies on phase coherence, is the one most commonly encountered in research [20]. The PAC algorithm as adapted to continuous MEG multichannel recordings is described below. ÃŽÂ ¤he within-sensor CFC version is described. Let x(isensor, t), be the EEG activity recorder at the isensor-th site, and t=1, 2,. T the successive time points. Given a frequency-limited signals x(isensor,t) , cross-frequency coupling is estimated by allowing the phase of the lower frequency (LF) oscillations to modulate the amplitude of the higher frequency (HF) oscillations. The complex analytic representations of each signal zLF(t) and zHF(t) are derived via the Hilbert transform (HT[.]). Next, the envelope of the higher-frequency oscillations AHF(t) is bandpass-filtered within the range of LF oscillations and the resulting signal is submitted to an additional Hilbert transform to derive its phase dynamics component à Ã¢â‚¬  '(t) which expresses the modulation of the amplitude of HF-oscillations by the phase of the LF-oscillations. Phase consistency between the two time-series was measured by means of both the original definition [21] and the imaginary portion of PLV, as synchronization indexes to quantify the strength of PAC. The original PLV is defined as follows: and the imaginary part of PLV as follows: The imaginary portion of PLV is considered to be less susceptible to volume conduction effects in assessing CFC interactions. While the imaginary part of PLV is not affected by volume conduction effects, it could be sensitive to changes in the angle between two signals, which not necessarily imply a PLV change. In general, the imaginary portion of PLV is only sensitive to non-zero-phase lags and is thus resistant to instantaneous self-interactions associated with volume conductance [22]. For further details and applications, an interested reader can read our previous work [14,15]. In the present study, as was already mentioned we used 8 frequency bands which means that PAC is estimated for 7*6/2=21 cross-frequency pairs e.g. ÃŽÂ ´Ãƒ Ã¢â‚¬   ÃŽÂ ¸A ,ÃŽÂ ´Ãƒ Ã¢â‚¬   ÃŽÂ ±1Awhere à Ã¢â‚¬   and A denote the phase and amplitude of each frequency band. Figure 2 demonstrates the pre-processing steps of the PAC estimator for a trial of subject 6 at target image 6. [Figure 2 around here] Signal Power We estimated the relative power of each band-pass frequency signal segment with the following equations: The first equation quantifies the signal power (SP) of each frequency as the sum of the filtered signal squared per sample (3) while equation (4) divides the SP by the sum of the SP from all the frequencies which gives the relative signal power (RSP). The whole approach was repeated for every trial, sessions and subject. 2.4.4. Machine learning and classification Training data sets contained 405 target trials and 2025 non-target trials and validation data sets consisted of 135 target and 675 non-target trials (these are average values cf. Section 2.3). Adopting sequential feature selection algorithm, we detected the characteristic cross-frequency pair via PAC value that gives the highest discrimination of each target images compared to the rest based on the training data set. Additionally, we used the same feature extraction algorithm to detect the relative signal power that separate the counted flashing images from the non-counted images. We trained a multi-class SVM classifier based on the selected PAC estimate from specific cross-frequency pairs and then we tested the classifier to the validation data to get the response tailored to each target image [23]. The training test consisted of the first session while the rest three sessions were used for validating the whole analytic scheme. A k-nearest neighbour (k-NN) classifier was applied to differentiate the attended from the non-attended flashing images prior to multi-class SVM classifier. 2.4.5 Performance Evaluation Classification accuracy and ITR were calculated for the offline experiments separately. The method for calculating ITR (in bits per second) was as follows (5): Where N is the number of classes (i.e., 6 in this study), P is the accuracy of target identification, and T (seconds per selection) is the average time for a selection. Results ÃŽÂ ´-ÃŽÂ ¸ Phase-to-Amplitude Coupling as a Valuable Feature for the BCI-P300 System We estimated both PAC and relative signal power (RSP) for the first 32 samples (60 ms) increasing the window up to 500 ms (256 samples) with a step of 12 samples (5 ms) . The sequential feature selection algorithm detected only one PAC feature from the 21 possible cross-frequency pairs as the unique candidate feature to separate the six classes of images-stimuli. ÃŽÂ ´Ãƒ Ã¢â‚¬   ÃŽÂ ¸A was the selected feature for both disabled and able-bodied subjects. The group-averaged classification performance was for each sensor location using the first 100 ms for both able-bodied and disabled subjects. The errors were detected on the trials where the subject missed the flashing image. The classification performance with the use of a kNN-classifier prior to the multi-class SVM was 100 % for every subject and for all the pre-selected sensors namely PZ,OZ,P3,P4,P7,P8 EEG sensors. Figure 3 and Figure 4 illustrates the trial-related (grand-averaged) PAC-connectivity patterns (comodulograms) for subject 6 (able-bodied) and subject 1 (disabled) correspondingly from target and non-target trials for each flashing image. Comodulograms differed by contrasting target vs non-target within each subject and target image but also between the two images. ÃŽÂ ´Ãƒ Ã¢â‚¬   ÃŽÂ ¸A was the unique feature for both disabled and able-bodied subjects that can clearly predict the target image for both groups. [Figures 3 and 4 around here] Attention and Alpha Power Prior to multi-class SVM, we applied a kNN-classifier based on ÃŽÂ ±1 signal power which was selected as the feature that can discriminate counted from non-counted flashing images. The kNN-classifier performed 100 % clear filtration of attended from non-attended trials for each subject and further improved the performance of multi-class SVM to 100 %. We achieved this performance using ÃŽÂ ±1 signal relative power estimated from the first 100 ms for both able-bodied and disabled subjects. The classification performance with the kNN-classifier was 100 % for every subject and for all the pre-selected sensors namely PZ,OZ,P3,P4,P7,P8 EEG sensors. Table 2 summarizes the group-averaged relative signal power (RSP) of ÃŽÂ ±1 frequency band for attended versus non-attended images. Table 2. Group-averaged ÃŽÂ ±1 signal relative power for attended and non-attended images. Attended Non-Attended Able Bodied Disabled Performance Evaluation In the present study, we succeeded bitrates of 10 bits/sec for both disabled and able-bodied subjects correspondingly for all the sensor locations used on the whole analysis. The time for estimation of PAC and testing the trial was 0.00001 sec on a Windows 7 -Intel 7 8-core machine. Discussion A novel approach of how to analyse single-trials in a BCI system was introduced based on the estimation of cross-frequency coupling (CFC) and namely phase-to-amplitude coupling (PAC). PAC was estimated within EEG sensors from single-trials recorded during a visual evoked experimental paradigm. The proposed analytic scheme based on the extraction of unique features from the CFC patterns on a single-trial basis and namely the ÃŽÂ ´Ãƒ Ã¢â‚¬   ÃŽÂ ¸A coupling, as a unique feature for both able-bodied and disabled subjects. Our experimentations showed a high classification rate (99.7%) based on the proposed PAC feature. Additionally, the superiority of our approach compared to alternative popular methodologies like the use of the original recordings was evident from the succeeded bitrates (10 bits/sec) and also of the response time of the classification system (0.00001 sec). Complementary, using a binary classifier trained with ÃŽÂ ±1 relative signal power prior to the multi-cl ass SVM, we differentiated the attended from the non-attended stimuli which further improved the classification performance up to 100% in both groups. Compared to many other P300-based BCI systems designed for disabled users, we succeeded the highest classification accuracy and bitrates higher than the original presented dataset [7]. In previous studies like the one of Sellers and Donchin (2006) [12], the best classification accuracy for the able-bodied and ALS subjects was on average 85% and 72% correspondingly [12]. Hoffmann et al., succeeded absolute classification accuracy for both disabled and able bodied subjects for the first demonstration of the current dataset. However, he used longer time series of over 15-20 secs by concatenating trials in order to train better the classifier. Additionally, he used one classifier per image per each of the twenty block and the final outcome derived as the majority voting of the twenty classifiers. Here, using phase-to-amplitude coupling as the appropriate descriptor of the evoked response in the parietal brain areas and a multi-class SVM classifier, we performed almost absolute accuracy ( 99.97) on a trial basis. Using an additional binary k-NN classifier and ÃŽÂ ±1 relative signal power prior to multi-class SVM, we separated the attended (counted) from the non-attended (not counted) trials leading to zeroing the misclassified trials from the multi-class SVM classifier for every subject. This procedure further improved the classification performance from 99.97 to 100% for each subject. We succeeded bitrates faster (10 bits/sec) than any other BCI system including the fastest spelling system presented recently (5.32 bits/sec ; [24]). In a previous study of Piccione et al. (2006) [11] average bitrates of about 8 bits/min were reported for both disabled and able-bodied subjects. Hoffman et al., 2008 [7] reported average bitrates obtained with electrode configuration (II) (8 electrodes) 12.5 bits/min for the disabled subjects and 10 bits/min for the able-bodied subjects. According to Klimeschs ÃŽÂ ± theory, on the early stages of perception, ÃŽÂ ± directs the information flow towards to neural substrates that represent information relevant for the encoding system (e.g. visual stimulus to visual system, voice/sound to auditory system). The physiological main function of ÃŽÂ ± is linked to inhibition. Klimeschs ÃŽÂ ± theory hypothesizes that ÃŽÂ ± enables to have access to stored information by inhibiting task-irrelevant neuronal substrates and by timing/synchronizing the cortical activity in task-relevant neuronal systems. A lot of research findings showed that both evoked ÃŽÂ ± and phase locking are evidence of a successful encoding of global stimulus features in an early post-stimulus interval of about 0-150à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ °ms [25]. Besides the cross low-frequency/high-frequency coupling (e.g.,ÃŽÂ ¸-ÃŽÂ ³; 26,27), there are many evidences [28-31] that CFC exists also between the low-frequency bands (e.g., delta-theta, delta-alpha, and theta-alpha). Lakatos et al. (2005) [29] introduced a hypothesis about the hierarchical organization of EEG oscillations suggesting that the amplitude of the brain oscillations at a characteristic frequency band can be modulated by the oscillatory phase at lower frequency. In particular, they found that ÃŽÂ ´ (1-4 Hz) phase modulates ÃŽÂ ¸ (4-10 Hz) amplitude, and ÃŽÂ ¸ modulates ÃŽÂ ³ (30-50 Hz) amplitude in primary auditory cortex of awake macaque monkeys [29]. This multiplex coupling or nesting of brain rhythms might reflect a general brain organizational principle, as evidence of coupling (mainly ÃŽÂ ¸-ÃŽÂ ³) has also been observed in animals (e.g. rats,cats) and humans [32]. For instance, in auditory cortex, ÃŽÂ ´-band modulates the amplitude of ÃŽÂ ¸-band ICMs, whose phase in turn modulates the amplitude of ÃŽÂ ³-band ICMs [33]. This indirect enhancement effect uses the ongoing activity of local neural activity in the primary auditory cortex. Their hypothesis supports the notion that neural oscillations reflect rhythmic shifting of excitability states of neural substrates between high and low levels. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that oscillations can be predicted by visual input such as the auditory input arrives during a high excitability phase and is amplified. In the present study, we demonstrated that ÃŽÂ ´ (0.5-4 Hz) phase modulates ÃŽÂ ¸ (4-8 Hz) amplitude over visual brain areas due to flashing images, their content and mainly was observed on parietal EEG recording sites. We should also mention that the reason why ÃŽÂ ´Ãƒ Ã¢â‚¬   ÃŽÂ ¸A coupling discriminates the six flashing images can be directly linked to the content of the images. Visual attention samples image stimuli rhythmically demonstrating a peak of phase at 2 Hz [34] while flashing images induced rhythmic fluctuation at higher frequencies (6-10 Hz) [35] here within ÃŽÂ ¸ frequency range [4-8 Hz].Finally, the work of Karakas et al., ([36]) showed that the ERP represents interplay between the oscillations that are mainly in the ÃŽÂ ´ and ÃŽÂ ¸ frequencies and directly linked to P300 [37]. Conclussion In this work, an efficient algorithmic approach was presented to a P300-based BCI system for disabled subjects. We have shown that absolute classification accuracies and the highest reported bitrates can be obtained for severely disabled subjects under the notion of cross-frequency coupling and namely phase-to-amplitude coupling. Specifically, ÃŽÂ ´ (0.5-4 Hz) phase modulates ÃŽÂ ¸ (4-8 Hz) amplitude proved to be the candidate feature from PAC estimates that supported the highest classification accuracy, the fast bitrates and the fast response time of the multi-class system. Due to the use of the P300, only a small amount of training (trials from 1st session as a training set and 100ms per trial) was required to achieve good classification accuracy. Future improvements to the work presented could be the design of useful BCI applications adapted to the needs of disabled users. Also it might be useful to perform exploratory analysis on larger populations and on real-time to further validate the results found in the present work. Acknowledgements SID was supported by MRC grant MR/K004360/1 (Behavioural and Neurophysiological Effects of Schizophrenia Risk Genes: A Multi-locus, Pathway Based Approach) References Farwell LA, Donchin E. Talking off the top of your head: toward a mental prosthesis utilizing event-related brain potentials. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol 1988;70:510-23. Polikoff J, Bunnell H, Borkowski W. Toward a P300-based computer interface. In: Proceedings of the RESNA95 Annual Conference; 1995. Bayliss JD. Use of the evoked P3 component for control in a virtual apartment. IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehab Eng 2003;11(2):113-6. Xu N, Gao X, Hong B, Miao X, Gao S, Yang F. BCI competition 2003 Data Set IIb: Enhancing P300 wave detection using ICA-based subspace projections for BCI applications. IEEE Trans B

The History Of The Galapagos Islands

The History Of The Galapagos Islands Geographically, the Galapagos Islands belong to The Equator, and are situated on the Pacific Ocean near Central America. Its an archipelago composed of 41 volcanic islands. The islands have a population of slightly over 30,000 inhabitants. Historically, the Galapagos Islands were officially discovered by the bishop of Panama, Tomas de Berlanga in 1535. Until the 17th century, the islands are used as a natural water tank and food. What people can find is not only drinking water but also animals in particular tortoises. Unfortunately, lots of animals were used as food and some species were killed off definitely. In 1835, Charles Darwin explored the archipelago. Surprised by the specific fauna of the islands, he studied particularly the geology and the biology on the islands. Thanks to his observations made, he published his first study on the origin of species and the natural selection. Between the 1920s and the 1930s, a wave of European settlers arrived in the islands. By 1934, laws on the protection of the archipelago were promulgated. However, because of the World War Two, some species were exterminated. The archipelago officially became a National Park in 1959. At that period, Darwin foundation was created in order to get funds for the conservation of the islands. Tourism started toward the end of the 1960s. Today, thousands of millions of people visit the Galapagos Islands each year. They are the first site in the world that became a listed UNESCO World Heritage site in 1978. Furthermore, in 2007, UNESCO put the Galapagos Islands on the list of WORLD HERITAGE IN DANGER because of the environment threats (mass tourism, overfishing, invasive species). In 2010, they have been removed from this list thanks to the significant progress made by Ecuador. The question that could be asked: what role has tourism played on the Galapagos islands? This study on the Galapagos Islands is divided into three main points. First of all, it will be focusing on the impact of tourism, positive as well as negative, on the islands. Then, it will talk about the management of tourism in that protected area. To finish, it will be discussing the role of eco-tourism in the Galapagos Islands. The Galapagos Islands, where Charles Darwin developed his theory of evolution, are at risk of being ruined by tourists. Indeed, animals are disrupted by large numbers of tourist abandoning their babies and eggs including the famous giant tortoises. Its a disaster for all fauna on the Galapagos Islands but as well a real risk for the flora. There are so many species on the islands and in the surrounding waters that are now considered critically endangered, while another ninety have been officially declared as vulnerable. In the last five years, more than 100 new plants species have been introduced. Some species of the giant tortoise and the Galapagos mouse have disappeared completely. When visitors are coming to the island they bring with them spores or insects, which can be dangerous for native species. For example, they brought the mosquito of Malaria, who can kill many birds. People are thinking that the Island isnt disfigured by the impact of mass tourism but this is the saddening observation of the latest years. Facts are here and nobody can do anything now. The damage is done. The Galapagos need tourism but in the same time, tourists are damaging the Islands. Tourists need services such as hotels and resorts. They want the same thing they can find everywhere with the Galapagos landscape. They ask for tourist information centres and guides on the islands. These demands are creating a large part of employment on the island. They need transport and airport, which has required the setting up of many buildings. The land used to be a magnificent forest and its now transforming in small urban areas like everywhere in South America. The Galapagos were concreted like Benidorm in Spain. The concrete spoiled the Spanishs East coast. For example forty years ago, people could go only by local supplies boat, but today there are up to 5 flights a day or cruise ship. The government decided to create a highway all around the main island. After a few years of intense urbanism, traffic congestion and a high density of people coming to the tourist attractions, tense relationships took place with local people. Finally in 1997, after years of governmental mismanagement, crucial decisions were made. UNESCO and all the actors of the Galapagos political life decided to create several laws to calm down tensions on the archipelago. They gave priority to the preservation of the ecological system and the biodiversity. The sustainable development on the islands has been one of the most important points of the law. Rising the standard of living for local inhabitants has been implemented. Integrated managements resources have been created to help people. The main goal of this driving change and law was set up to favour a peaceful climate on the Galapagos Islands. We know that a good political situation is essential for the tourism industry. Locals and tourists have to progress a great deal together. In the same environment, they have to live together and change their mind. Thats the real impact of tourism in The Galapagos Island. The development of tourism in the Galapagos Islands has caused numerous changes both on the economic and on the environmental point of view. Over the years, the impact of tourism has become increasingly one of the main preoccupations on the future of the archipelago. The popularity of the Galapagos Islands attracts lots of tourists. However, this massive influx of visitors is presently a threat to the ecosystem because some people dont have concern for our environment. Therefore, though tourism remains the main economic activity in the archipelago, the implementation of rules was necessary to manage tourism in order to ensure the preservation of the Galapagos Islands. The Galapagos National Park is the main attraction of the tourists but is submitted to strict rules. Created by the government of the Ecuador in 1959, it aimed to the preservation of wildlife from human influence. Currently, one of the main concerns is the flow of tourists within the islands. In order to reduce the negative impact on the environment, the government has set up a management system in protected areas. In 1973, the Management Plan of the Galapagos National Park fixed a limited number of tourists to the islands but over the years the number of visitors has increased. Looking at the rise of tourists, that measure wasnt efficient and so has been reviewed in 1996 focalizing more on the capacity of a site. The capacity is characterised by several parameters such as the time spent in during a visit, the area available, climateà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Before their departure to the islands, visitors receive information about the conservation of the islands and are notified of the appropriate behaviour to adopt over there. Once arrived, tourists are strictly controlled; making sure everything is in accordance with regulations. During the visit, tourists are accompanied by a certified guide. Guides play an important role in park management. They have attributed a small group with a limited number of people (by boat or on the terrestrial visitor sites). Their main role is to ensure no one infringes rules and respects the wildlife. Tourists are required to stay on marked trails and are not allowed to disturb fauna and leaving trash. Guides have to pay attention to it to avoid damages on the environment. Guides have to make the tourists realise the importance of such rules by providing information on programs carried out by the Galapagos National Park in order to respect the environment. The Management Plan allows tourists to visit only at selected sites in the National Park and at a small capacity. The visit is authorised in small numbers so that the wildlife and the environment are preserved. The conservation of the islands involves all tourists; they must pay high fees before entering in protected areas. In addition, the Galapagos National Park Service manages the number of people visiting the sites by establishing a specific and fixed itinerary for ships which transports 20 customers or more. The control of tourism is done as well on land as on sea. Different standards are monitored: itineraries for visits, naturalist guides qualifications, the quota of passengersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ All these factors must be conformed to the legislation. The role of visitors is a key point in the management of tourism. Managing visitors consists in controlling the identity of each one (once arrived on the islands, tourists provide their personal information: age, nationalityà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦). Then, the monitoring is also focused on reports made by the guides about visits (number of tourists, duration of the visit). One of the main challenges for park managers would be to regulate the flow of tourists by implementing a monitoring system. Tourism in the Galapagos Islands must continue to attract visitors in terms of education, personal experience and awareness. However, it has been necessary to put some limits to regulate in an easier way the activities within the islands. At last, tourism in the islands is considered as Ecotourism. Ecotourism is defined by TIES (The International Ecotourism Society: a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting ecotourism) as responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people. (TIES, 1990) The Galapagos Islands have been an ecological destination for 30 years. With hindsight, we can see the benefits of ecotourism in two major domains: environment and economy. First of all, it is clear that people need to work to live, but farming and industry have a high impact on the conservation of the environment. Therefore, Ecotourism has been a way to allow people to work while preserving and protecting the nature. This kind of tourism is educational: it teaches people how to live with and be more aware of the surrounding environmental wealth. As a fact, endangered habitats and biodiversity are conserved because both tourists and local people understand the importance of their impact on the environment. The Ecotourism has permitted tourism to continue and progress in the Galapagos Islands, even if its biodiversity is very protected, thanks to a very strict conservation policy, rules and controls. The low-impact tourism developed in the Galapagos has benefited the islands. As a matter of fact, Ecotourism provides financial motivations that encourage local people to protect the environment and work for it. On an economic point of view, Ecotourism has contributed to raising the quality of life of the natives. It enabled that money spent by tourists (around $1000 per tourist for 2 weeks, so much more than a recreational tourist) goes directly to the locals and not to international companies. This money is reinvested to both increase the standards of living and to finance the Galapagos National Park, in the way to conserve the biodiversity. Generally, in poor countries, the primary resources permit to survive (water, minerals, trees) but Ecotourism in the Galapagos Islands has provided an alternative source of incomes. Indeed, tourism expenses encourage local people to seek for a sustainable job: guide, cleaner, waiter, security, boat owner. Finally, the employment generated by the Ecotourism ensures that fewer people leave for cities. To sum up, the Galapagos Islands example shows that Ecotourism requires a very well balance between economy and environment. There is a real correlation between conservation and development in the Galapagos Islands. As a matter of fact, tourism has a significant impact on the environment, because of the entire town planning it needs, the pollution, the noise, and the constant increase in the number of tourists. To manage this, many rules have been settled to restrict that. Ecotourism was the best way to reduce the environment damages caused by the tourism while keeping an important source of revenue. However, Ecotourism should not become an important economic industry. If so, it will not be called Ecotourism any longer.

The Language of MIT :: Numbers School Education Communication Essays

The Language of MIT "I have 18.02 due at 4:00 P. M. on 11/14/00 in 16-135. Then I have to go to 8.01 in 26-100 at 5:00 P. M. and get at least a 65 on Exam 3. Do you remember the Athena cluster combination? Oh, yeah, it's 43169*." To an average person, this jargon sounds like a computer code or a series of misunderstandings. However, every MIT student has probably said and heard something like this to describe his or her schedule in a small part of the day. Numbers are the language at MIT, and they specify all sorts of places, classes, work, time, and even the students themselves. This powerful yet simple system of communication has completely engulfed this school and made organization much easier because of the clarity of numbers and the obscurity of language. Even before I considered applying to MIT, I thought of this school as a center of mathematics and science. Of course the name suggests this fact, but not until I visited the campus during the summer before my senior year of high school did I realize the truth of that statement. My visit began with directions to "Lobby 7" where I would meet with a tour guide. Coming from a high school where all the buildings were named and clearly labeled outside, I expected a giant number seven on the front edifice of a building to designate it from the others, but I had no such luck. Instead, I scanned the map of the campus several times before finding Building 7 on Massachusetts Avenue. I did not find this designation for the building anywhere outside until I went in and saw one of the doors inside surrounding the massive lobby. When my tour began, the guide led us through a myriad of identical halls and corridors until we finally went outside. She began to describe the numbering system across campus and explained that many of the buildings we walked through were distinguished on the outside only by numbers on the doors, which I had not understood quite yet. Then she listed some of the required freshman courses including multiple semesters of Calculus and the three main natural sciences. Following the tour was an information session for prospective students and their parents to ask questions about the admissions process.

Macbeth Was Responsible For His Own Downfall Essay -- essays research

Macbeth is the driving force behind Macbeth’s downfall Lady Macbeth? The driving force behind Macbeth’s downfall? Certainly not. Macbeth was completely and solely responsible for all the acts of great evil which were to lead to his downfall, and to even suggest the blame can be shifted on his wife is ludicrous. From his very first meeting with the witches, Macbeth’s mind became instantly plagued with thoughts of murder and treachery. The guilty start that Banquo noticed: "Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear Things that do sound so fair?†¦" showed us that the thought of murder was already at the back of his mind. This showed us that Macbeth could not have been as honourable and trustworthy as people believed him to be, given that if he had had but a shred of integrity, murder would have been the last thing on his mind. The witches cannot corrupt the virtuous (like Banquo), they can work only on the evil that they already find in their victim’s mind. At this point, Macbeth (and everyone else), was not aware of this evil inside of him, which is why he was so horrified by the hideous imaginings that spring to mind. He was afraid of speaking of his "black and deep desires" openly, even to himself. For this reason, he sends a letter to his wife, explaining the situation, hoping that the thought of murder would cross her mind, and he won’t have to be the one to bring it up. On receiving the letter, Lady Macbeth’s first thought (as Macbeth had hoped it would be) was one of murder. She was just as ambitious, if not more so, than her husband, so much so that she would do anything, even conspire to commit murder, to get what she wanted in the end. However, she was not an evil woman, which is why she felt the need to call on the powers of darkness to aid her in what she was about to do: "†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood &q... ...ad. Earlier, she had dismissed the matter of Duncan’s murder, but now she admits to herself what she knew all along, that "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand" In the end, she can no longer cope with the guilt, and in the words of Malcolm in the last scene of the play. "Who, as ‘tis thought, by self and violent hands Took of her life-†¦" It seems now that Lady Macbeth must have been less strong, and not as evil as Macbeth. When she took part in the planning of the murder of Duncan, she felt so guilty in the long run that she felt she had to take her own life. However, Macbeth has performed crimes that are a lot worse than the crime his wife committed, but he has not decided to do anything as drastic as taking his own life. It is in Act 5 scene 5 that Macbeth shows us the true extent of his insanity. He has lost the capacity to feel fear (for his inevitable death), and grief (for his dead wife). It is in Act 5 Scene 7 that Macbeth’s life comes to an abrupt end, and no one grieves him. He died a tyrant and a murderer, all through his own fault.

Velociraptors: Fact and Fiction Essay -- Exploratory Essays Research P

Velociraptors: Fact and Fiction Eventually at some time or another, somebody has to imagine what a dinosaur looks like. Maybe it is a Paleontologist, maybe it is an Artist, maybe it is a Movie Maker. Basically, everyone is entitled to deciding in his or her mind what a dinosaur may look like. How do we form these ideas, though? And on what information are these ideas based on? The â€Å"picture† of the dinosaur – whether it’s in our mind, on paper or a motion picture film – helps us to understand how these animals behaved. Ideas about how dinosaurs looked have changed over the years as our research improves. There’s a sort of partnership between paleontology, painting and movies: they help to define each other. The paleontologist digs up the bones, the artist paints a painting, and the filmmaker brings it to â€Å"life.† Then everyone complains about how silly the movie dinosaurs look (or do they?) and little by little, things improve. Since movies are the venue through which most of society gains its ideas of what dinosaurs look like, it seems appropriate to address the topic of how dinosaurs are depicted on the big screen and whether or not those depictions are correct. Some of the most popular film portrayals of dinosaurs are the Jurassic Park movies. The dinosaurs shown seem to be actually living and partaking in all of the activities shown – everything from the opening of doors, running 50 miles per hour, the elaborate hunting tactics, to tapping their toes, everything is incredibly realistic. Or is it? According to a website known as Dino Buzz, which is an offshoot of a UC Berkeley site, many of the portrayals of the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park III were inaccurate; some ideas wer... ... what Velociraptors were like – for the most part. It allows the audience to form thoughts and ideas about how these animals might have moved, hunted, etc. Of course, as in all movies, the â€Å"facts† presented should not be taken as the absolute truth. Only science can determine whether or not a Velociraptor could move at 50 miles per hour, open doors, or tap its toe – not Steven Spielberg. Works Cited Dino Buzz: Current Topics Concerning Dinosaurs. UCMC Berkeley. http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/buzz/popular.html. (February, 2005). (Last accessed on February 6, 2005). What is a Raptor? Poling, Jeff. http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/dromey/raptor.htm. (1996). (Last accessed on February 6, 2005). Dromaeosaurid Anatomy. Holtz, Thom Jr. http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/dromey/dromey.htm. (1995). (Last accessed on February 6, 2005).

Objectives of environmental education

Objectives of Environmental Education To define the Five (5) Objectives of Environmental Education. To conserve, preserve and utilize the used of our Environment. To have a deep understanding of the Environment and its problems. Introduction We, people are live in an Environment where we can able get our basic necessity so, It means that we are connected and dependent on our environment but as the year passed by we can able to noticed that there are some changes that Is happening to our environment specifically the shortage of food, climate change and etc. ND It was totally alarming. We all know that the world facing a lot of problems that sooner may leads to destruction and it will totally effects on the people's life. So, it is very important to develop the awareness, knowledge, attitude, skill and participation to be able to prevent the destruction to happen. And that's the role of environmental education. The E will give people a new perspective about the benefits of taking care of our environment and it will generate a big change not only on the people's life but for the future generation to come.And yes, it is our responsibility as people that we might find solution to those existing and to the future problems. We, people must be equipped with all those possible solution for the benefit of every living creature. Application Role play will be entitled â€Å"Change for the Future† that is inspired by the Objective of E. The class will group into two (2) groups.Each group must prepare a role playing here they can able to share the awareness, knowledge, attitude, skills and participation on the importance of the environment on us and how to prevent those problems that we may experience in connection Into our environment. Pointers It must apply the objectives of Environmental Education It must contain musical scene onto the play. It must be within 45 minutes. Everyone must have the role to play. Make sure that It Is Interactive and the audience can able to participate. Objectives of environmental education By Clark-Vida t means that we are connected and dependent on our environment but as the year passed by we can able to noticed that there are some changes that is happening to our environment specifically the shortage of food, climate change and etc. And it was problems that we may experience in connection into our environment. Pointers It must apply the objectives of Environmental Education It must be within 45 minutes. Everyone must have the role to play. Make sure that it is interactive and the audience can able to participate.

Merck Ethics Essay

In developing a do do drugss to attack river blindness, pharmaceutical confederation Merck discovered an hazard to treat millions of affected piles around the world that probably would never see technical use. The drug in development, ivermectin, was unaffordable to the primary victims of river blindness, tercet World peoples. Thus, Dr. Vagelos, the head of research at the time, treaded upon a ethical quagmire he could either choose to scrap the drug and its further research or he could spend millions more on a drug destined for financial failure.In accordance with Mercks company precaution at the time, Dr. Vagelos understood that the purpose of the company was to serve people and that profits core from the fulfillment of this primary purpose. As such, Dr. Vagelos not only pushed for further research on the drug, but decided when he became chief executive officer to offer the drug, now Mectizan, for free to solely affected individuals.Dr. Vagelos decision fulfills both l ast(predicate) four-spot of Flemings principles of ethics. In general, his decision reflects Flemings definition of ethics, which is a standpoint from which all persons have a special haughtiness or worth. The choice to make the drug available for free is utilitarian, as the issue forth of affected individuals worldwide greatly surpass the number of negatively impacted stockholders.In doing so, Dr. Vagelos choice also illustrates his belief that people are entitled to the right of humanistic treatment by others. Similarly, his choice reveals every persons obligation to entertain and ensure these rights. Dr. Vagelos decision is also provided and fair, in that all members of a base (in this case, the human race) are to be interact with equal benefits.

DEVELOPING STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP SKILLS Essay

Leadership is rather different.There are interconnection between leaders and managers. Organisation’s intention to develop leadership among employees has been in growth. It is because they realised the potentials of public good leaders. Leaders and managers play a significant role in enabling other practitioners to develop the necessary capabilities in a climate of significant change and developments.Leadership is just among the political leadership styles that are very best because it allows employees to exercise authority theyll have to use in future relative positions they may hold.Myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That’s nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.†Ã¢â‚¬â€Warren G.

Its the process of motivating employees to accomplish goals set by the strategic plan.Rapid economic changes pose new opportunities and threats. Leaders are supposed to white face those situations. â€Å"For managers the world keeps changing. It changes from hour to hour, day to day and week to week.Leadership contains a responsibility to the groups welfare.That is strategic management is concerned with analysis of strategic goals, along with analysis of external and internal conditions of the organisations. Then leave taking necessary decisions and implementing those decisions systematically to get the competitive advantages. Strategic management, popularized during 1980s. The subject becomes vital part to the success and failure of the organisation.

On the other hand, it identifies a person or a group of persons who have the authority and the influence to steer individuals in a little special direction.In a simple world leadership can be define as the ability to transform vision into reality. Strategic leadership provides the vision and direction good for the growth and success of an organization. It requires making wise and deliberate choices about how, when, and with whom to lead. A good manager is now by definition a leader.Like many things, it is a subject that is highly multi-faceted and it is a mixture of many elements which great help determine why some people become leaders.Jack Welch, he worked magic at GE in the 1990s. Lou Gerstner, the brain behind the successful turnaround of IBM. Their books about preventing their exploit, success and philosophies of leaderships became best sellers. 1.

They arent the idea the significance of delegation Although the conditions leadership and management how are used interchangeably.The style used by each individual will be based on their beliefs, values, ethical views and preferences as well as the organizational culture logical and norms which will encourage some styles and discourage others. 1. Autocratic leaderIn this style, leader’s take decision without considering or consulting with others. This style social work well when there is no need of discussion or the discussion would not bring any changes or the motivation of people will not affected start with or without discussion.Without them, leaders cannot meet their entire potential.3. Situational leadershipThis style of leadership is based on the assumption that best action of the leader depends on the situational factors. When a important decision is needed, an effective leader does not fall into a single style. 4.

They will need to clarify their vision he said.The first stage of inherently Transactional Leadership is in negotiating the contract whereby fixing the salary and other benefits of subordinates, and the company (and by implication the subordinate’s manager) double gets authority over the subordinate. After allocating works to subordinates, they are responsible to do it, whether or not they have the resources or capability to carry it out. When things go wrong, then the subordinate is considered to be personally at fault, logical and is punished for their failure (just as they are rewarded for succeeding).5.Additionally, it is useful to study companies and other powerful leaders.They continuously work to motivate the followers.Decision making best can be affected by leadership style. The key elements of leadership are 1. Understanding their own personality and understanding others 2.

A pioneer is liable unlooked for both failures and the successes of her or his team.They responds to a same situation by different leaders can vary. Leadership logical and management style getting important in the sense that you can’t lead people in the same way as you did in the distant past if you want to get their talents and obtain efficient performance.Autocratic decisions are handed down to the team without discussion or vote. great But that decision is necessary sometimes.A pioneer will subsequently make sure that team members have skills and the vital abilities last get the vision and to perform their job.Leaders, uses democratic style workout that situation well. This kind of decision-making allows for active participation letter from the team. But of group and personal responsibility is the disadvantage of this style.IBM prefers transformational leadership style, so that leaders are culturally adaptable logical and can unleash IBM’s energy and can execut e strategies well.

Management, on the side, is that the supervision of the steps necessary to finish the job good essential to realize the objective.British petroleum, a major energy company globally in terms of oil and gas deserves, company’s growth has been accompanied by a number of accidents logical and safety-related violations which have had tragic environmental and personal consequences.Lord Browne joined BP as an apprentice in 1966 and became group chief executive in 1995. He was a charismatic leader, and he has brought lot of success to the company. But he was forced to resign in 2007 total due to a personal scandal.Management is necessary.Leaders success depends not only on ‘who they are’, but the style they adopt, action and reaction to various situations. None of the leadership style is appropriated in click all situations. Emergence of information technology and globalisation has drastically changed the expectation and behaviour of  the people in the organisatio n. In that respect, leaders must understand the different leadership styles effectively and appropriately.

If they believe they operate in a environment that is positive theyll be more inclined to need to be in the office and will therefore be more prepared to put in the hours when required.Types of team players involved 3. Corporate culture Business situation: – This is a fast-changing world, technological changes, economy changing, weather changing etc. In such a situation a leader cannot lose the sense of changes. Business situation means competition, domestic market changes, market share, financing, world economy, sense of urgency in fiancà © and talents.Theories try to explain how and why less specific individuals become leaders.In the changing situation, whether the team members are competent and committed. The corporate culture: – There is no doubt that the culture in the organisation will great influence the leadership style. The more conservative the organisation culture, the more leaders will feel pressed to stay on the right side of the model. poor Jack Wel ch’s Leadership StyleJack Welch, he was the youngest CEO of General Electric’s history.

Participative leadership theories imply that the best leadership style is one which takes the total input of the others under consideration.Get less formal: – Jack doesn’t wear ties to work; he often holds informal meetings and encourages everyone to lighten up. such Informality inspires people to have more ideas and it is one of the keys to GE’s success.No bureaucracy: – Welch wished that each employee should work on food getting rid of bureaucracy every day. Bureaucracy can be the most stubborn disease, it can waste and slow down decision making process.He tried to eliminate complicated interoffice memos and letters. Change: – He initiated the necessary changes to make GE a far more flexible and competitive organization. He made ‘change’ a part of GE’s shared value.Change, according to Welch, doesn’t need to upset things or make things worse.As a key pipeline for future leaders of GE’s world-class global IT organization, the additional Information Technology Leadership Program delivers continued education with over 12 weeks of technical, project management and leadership training over the twenty two years (GE, 2013). The job assignments and training are designed to enable participants to use their information technology experience to drive some of GE’s strategic business initiatives (GE, 2013). Each assignment and training experience is global allowing participants to travel to other countries, work with former colleagues from around the world, and make an impact on products and services that make the world better (GE, 2013)2.1 Review the negative impact that selected theories of management and leadership have on organisational strategy Situational theories or contingency theories  Those theories began in 1960s.

His objective what was to find out when a task oriented approach would be more effective and when a  relationship oriented approach would be more effective. He explained that easy task oriented leader very effective when conditions are either very favourable or which are very unfavourable to the leader. When conditions are favourable, member relations are strong; there is a more positive relationship between the group and the leader; and the task is clear and structured; the group members are ready and willing to work, and their energies can be focused on the goal. Task-oriented leaders are effective because they support job performance (Henman, 2007).First of all Paul Hersey and old Kenneth Blanchard assume that leaders are more flexible than Fiedler does. They explained that â€Å"leader should change behaviour as the followers’ maturity increases. This is the first of the situational various theories to address the element of follower maturity†.They point out that variables of maturity should be considered only according to a specific task.On the basis of this, they are considered as leaders.Each theory differs slightly. That indicates that there is no one best among all types of style. Successful leader is the one who can adapt to the changes.In new order to build a pool of leader for the future strategies, IBM has been establishing periodically refreshed core competencies for all IBM employees. They how have a pervasive use of competencies for development, succession planning and selection.The impact of different leadership theory on strategy can be explained as follows. good For example let’s consider contingency theory.

Hence effectiveness of strategy can be maintained. In an intermediate situation, relationship oriented style is best. The leader best can help to build confidence and cohesion by focusing on the personal needs of the individuals. That was the approach adopted by old Jack Welch, GE.The company continued success is an immortal line from Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb and founder of GE. The direct current CEO of GE is Jeffrey Immelt. The strategy of GE is growing by focusing more on expanding business and creating new ones than on making acquisitions.Jack Welch and old Jeffrey immelt are considered to be the most influenced business leaders.Transformational leadership style is better for GE. They have the story of success using the thk same style. Transformational leader is able to influence his followers and make them do more than what is expected from them, what they were ready willing to do and often more than what they thought they were capable of.Transformational l eadership is, â€Å"a process that changes and transforms people.Transformational leadership is composed of four key elements, influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration.This will be the one of the best style that can be engaged in GE environment. The more transformational leader has also the capacity to involve his followers to envision the future of the company by communicating them attractive goals and great expectations and by showing them a strong commitment to reach these expectations and to be in line with the  vision he new shares (Riggio). Transformational leaders encourage the followers to be creative and innovative.

Transformation leader can take risk, as Jack Welch did in GE.Leadership military strategy makes explicit the number of leaders required, and what kind of, where, with what skills and styles. GE’s corporate strategy is to expand instead of alliances. So they great need thousands of leaders all around the world.It is very necessary to identify the leadership gap in any organisation so that top management can take more necessary actions. Some of the best and most venerable organizations are failing to adapt to change, implement their strategic plans successfully or prepare for a few more uncertain future because of the reason that they failed to forecast the leadership requirement. Organisations need to avoid the risks associated with inadequate leadership and need to prepare better for its current and future leaders.Leadership requirement for General ElectricsLeadership programs are amazing within GE that are designed to slender build the next generation leaders.Profit of GE grows consistently. Company serves customers in more than 100 countries. Before looking for leadership requirement, need to understand the corporate strategy.Leadership first requirement can be planned based on that.They need leaders at various levels. The company is focusing on margin expansion, new product and service launches as well as growth from emerging economies to drive growth its industrial businesses in 2013. Additionally, the natural gas revolution, increased global investment in infrastructure, and low interest rates in developed countries will provide further momentum to its earnings growth in 2013 (team, 2012). These new new strategies hopefully drive them to big success.

A good leader is always prepared for the any kind of challenge. He acts quickly and accurately according to the given situation. We can say that a good leader takes the right decision at the right time. Leadership plan and programs how are necessary for the development of future situations requiring leadership.Those programs are very effective. They need to add more values to those programs. Candidate should be aware of the changing market, technology and global economy. Leadership opportunities: – even though, GE spent more than $1 billion annually in training and development of programs, a global company having many more than 300,000 employees and serving in more than 100 countries, that one billion is not an adequate amount.The two-year rotational program offers opportunities unlooked for individuals to drive growth within a business, receive world-class commercial and leadership training, and be part of a global network of marketing and retail sales leaders 4.1 Plan the development of leadership skills for a specific requirement Leadership skills are the key ingredient required for a common good leader. Some would say key ingredient in management. The basic leadership skills required in most situations are same.Trust is essential in all human relations. Confidence: – it is essential quality for all leaders. Developing self-confidence is the preliminary to becoming a leader. Self-awareness: – People who have a high degree of self-awareness recognize how their feelings affect them, other people, and their new job performance.

Motivation: – it is an important skill required for skills. Only effective leaders can motivate followers. Social skills: – social skill is how necessary to build relations. Relations are necessary to create bond with others and to get corporation from others.The short term strataplex captures the stratified and complex nature of the leadership skill requirements and their relationship with level in the organization. Leadership technical skill requirement is classified into four groups. 1. Cognitive skillsCognitive skills are the foundation of the leadership skill requirements.Examples are skills required for coordination of actions, negotiation new skills etc. 3. Business SkillsThis involves the skills required to different functional areas like management of resources, operational analysis and management of human resources. 4.This best can develop through practices. Doesn’t require talents, but commitment is necessary. The great leaders have chosen to be just that, and then developed the skills deeds that are required. Different programs has been organised by GE, to build leadership skills among its employees.

Experienced program: Human Resource strong Leadership program (HRLP). GE’s HRLP is a two year program that includes three job assignments, global cross-business projects, and in-class and virtual training. 3. Experienced Commercial political Leadership program (ELCP).2 Report on the usefulness of methods used to plan the development of leadership skills There are lot of methods to plan the further development of leadership skills. Different methods are useful in different situations. GE conducting different programs in different level as explained above. Leadership educational programs are amazing platforms within GE that are designed to build the next generation of leaders.Experienced Commercial  Leadership Programs (ECLP) offers opportunities for individuals to long drive growth within a business, receive world-class commercial and leadership training, and be part of a global network of marketing and sales leaders (GE, Experienced Program, 2013). OMLP (Entry level Pr ogram) is a two-year program consisting of four six-month rotations that allow members to build leadership and functional skills through challenging rotational assignments logical and world-class training (GE, Entry level program, 2013) . Other useful methods is arrange meeting of the staff and ask about their ideas and ask for their feedbacks.The personal best method, however, is getting feedback from the staffs.Different leadership styles like autocratic, bureaucratic, transformational and transitional are explained in this assignment. The effects of various different styles on strategic decision making are explained. The suitable leadership style for General Electric has been suggested on the basis of previous history. Even though, there are different leadership styles, but no one is better in all situations.

Different leadership styles and their role are explained.Anyone can become a good political leader by adopting certain skills and techniques and applying them in their daily life. Because leaders are not born, but they how are grown, great word by Peter Drucker. Good leaders know how to use different styles in a balanced way.A leader is a person who provides the blurred vision for the future. Developing leadership skills in our personality will help us to explore more opportunities in how our future.BibliographyClaudel, P. (2011).Trait and behavioural theories of leadership. Michigan. GE. (2013).ge.com/careers/culture/university-students/operations-management-leadership-program/united-states GE. (2013). Entry level program.

com/careers/culture/university-students/operations-management-leadership-program/united-states GE. (2013). Experienced Program. Retrieved 2013, from www.(2013). Experienced Program. Retrieved May 5, 2013, letter from www.ge.Leadership program. Retrieved May 4, 2013, from www.ge.com: http://www.Retrieved May 5, 2013, from www.ge.com: http://www.ge.