I Stand Here Ironing Essay Example for Free

I Stand Here Ironing Essay When reading the short story ? I Stand Here Ironing? written by Tillie Olsen I analyzed the story by using both feminist criticism and the formalist strategy. The author uses a iron as a metaphor for how the woman in the story tells the life of her daughter and why her daughter is the way that she is. In a way the woman lays everything out on the table and irons it out straight. Many single mothers can relate to this story because it tells about the hardships that some unfortunate mothers? have to face. In this story Emily was born during the depression. Her mother had to work because she was a young single parent, as read in the story Emily?s father could ? no longer endure?. I believe that the mother cared for Emily she hated to leave her with her fathers relatives. Olsen wrote that the character did everything by the book she breast fed by the clock like they said. At that time ?they? were the male doctors who thought they knew all about motherhood. As a woman I would think Redmond2 that a woman would know what is best for both the mother and her child. By the end of the story the mother and daughter relationship grew a little closer Emily who lacked meaning found a talent . Emily also gained a sense a sense of responsibility by taking care of her siblings. Olsen uses the iron as a metaphor a number of times through out the story. In the first paragraph the mother says, ?and what you asked me moves back and forth with the iron?. I think that the mother is trying to sort out the good and the bad through out Emily?s life. She tells of what had to be done not what should have been done. The woman realizes that her daughter lacks meaning in life. The mother questions herself on the upbringing of her oldest daughter Emily compared to the other children. In the last sentence of the story it reads ?help make it so that there is cause for her to know that she she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron? What the mother is trying to say is Emily is like she is because that?s how she brought her up it could be un helped at the time the mother is also reassuring herself by thinking she could be worse don?t we all have our faults?

Review on Video Steganography Technique

Review on Video Steganography Technique Kamred Udham Singh Abstract In the era of information security, Steganography is a most secure method, used for concealing existence of secret data in any digital cover object such as image, audio, video and text files. In the last several decades broad research has been done on image steganography technique due to their easiness of data embedding and data extraction. Hide the existence of the embedded data in any digital object is the main objective of steganography. The main key factors of steganography are Undetectability, robustness and capacity of the concealed data that separate it from related techniques like cryptography and watermarking. Nowadays, video files are much more accepted because of large size and memory requirements. This paper intends to provide a survey on various video steganographic technique and covering its fundamental concepts. Keywords: Video steganography, data hiding, spatial domain, Transform domain, DWT, DCT. Introduction Today’s digital world it is very important for secret communication of any private information in safe and secure manner, it has created new challenge of information security. Here a most important question arise that which method we choose for containing its integrity and degree of security. Several methods have been proposed for addressing the issue of information security like cryptography, steganography and watermarking. In Cryptography information encrypted in such form that it becomes meaningless to eavesdroppers using any encryption algorithms such as DES but how strong is the encryption algorithm, it could be broken. Data can be easily replicated and distributed without owner’s consent due to lack of security. Watermarking modified the original data by embedding a watermark containing key information such as logo or copyright codes to protect the intellectual properties of digital content. Moreover, in some situation it was necessary to distribution of informati on without anyone detecting that the communication happened. So steganography comes arise in digital world to handle this case. Steganography technique is the art and science of invisible data communication. The word steganography originated from the Greek language and derived from two Greek words â€Å"stegos† which stands for â€Å"cover† and â€Å"grafia† which stands for â€Å"writing† [1]. Figure 1.The different disciplines of information hiding [21] Steganography developed driven by the necessity to conceal the existence of a secret data communication. Although steganography and cryptography both technique are try to protect data, but neither steganography nor cryptography alone is perfect. Consequently it is better to combine both technique together to increase the degree of security of the system [2]. Though steganography is technique for the communication being between two parties. So main concern of steganography is to conceal the existence of the data communication and protecting the hidden data against any alterations that may happen during communication such as format change or compression but integrity should be maintain. The major difference between Steganography and Cryptography is that the cryptography keeps the contents of information secret while steganography keeps the existence of information secret [3]. As video steganography is the focus of this review paper which can be viewed as an extension of image steganography. Really, video is a stream of a sequence of successive and equally time-spaced still images. So several image steganographic techniques are relevant to videos as well. Hu et al. [28],], Langelaar et al. [38], Shang [74], and Sherlyetal [76] extended various image data hiding techniques to video. Video steganographic techniques There are various applications such as intelligence agencies and military communications where video steganography can be employed [4]. Lie et al. [5], Yilmaz et al. [6] and Robie et al. [7] proposed another types of applications like video error correction during communication and for transmitting additional information without requiring more band-width [8]. Video steganography was used for hiding data in a video captured by a surveillance system was demonstrated by Zhang et al. [9]. There are various signal processing transform like DWT, FFT and DCT, any one of them can be used as video stenographic technique to hide data in the frequency domain of the cover object. Secret data can be hide either on per pixel basis or group of pixels called blocks [10]. Video steganographic techniques can classify in a number of ways. Sherly et al. [11] categorize them according to compression, compressed techniques [12, 13] and uncompressed video techniques [15]. Video steganographic techniques can also be classified on the basis of domain of embedding, these are transform domain techniques [14, 16] and spatial domain techniques [17]. Shirali-Shahreza [18] stated that video steganographic techniques can be also categorized on the basis of considering the video as a sequence of still images [17, 19]. Or utilizing the video saving format for data hiding [20]. Or finding new dimensions in the video which helps in the steganographic process [12, 15]. The fallowing figure depicts th ese possible classifications. Figure 2: Various Classification of video Steganography This paper will discuss classification based on embedded domain and cover-up all the literature related to video steganography. Bit Substitutions Methods Least Significant Bit (LSB) Bit Substitution-based steganography techniques replace the cover bit with the binary equivalent of secret data bit. The main advantages of bit substitution methods are the simple implementation and the high data hiding capacity in comparison to other techniques. Bit Substitution-based technique have many methods such as Least Significant Bit (LSB) method, Bit Plane Complexity Segmentation (BPCS) and Tri-way Pixel Value Differencing (TPVD) etc. Least significant bit (LSB) insertion is an oldest and most famous bit substitution-based approach for embedding data in a carrier file like video or image and it is capable of embedding huge secret data. Least significant bit technique operates by altering LSB bits of the cover file to conceal the secret data bit. Most of the bit substitution-based methods that exist are really inspired by the LSB technique. Data hiding technique developed to hide the secret data in definite frames of the video file and in definite position of the frame by LSB substitution using different polynomial equation. In this technique data will be hidden on the basis of stego key which is in the form of polynomial equations with different coefficients [22]. A. T. Thahab [23] proposed Digital Color Video Steganography Using YCbCr Color Space and Dynamic Least Significant Bit technique is apply to hide video data file inside the other video cover object .This techniques also found on the basis of least significant bit algorithm. Bit Plane Complexity Segmentation (BPCS) Normally the idea behind the LSB technique is to modify the least significant bits of the pixel with the binary equivalent of secret data. If more significant bits are used to hide the data then it deteriorating the quality of image. Due to this disadvantage of this technique leads to evolution of other technique which trying to overcome this disadvantage. Kawaguchi and Eason proposed Bit Plane Complexity Segmentation (BPCS) technique [24] and Chang et al. proposed Tri-Way Pixel-Value Differencing [25] .BPCS technique can be applied in the both spatial domain and transform domain [26,13] to address this problem. The basic idea of BPCS technique is to break down an image/frame into the bit planes and every bit plane treated as a slice of the image which is made up from all the bits of a definite significant location from each binary digit. Regions in the bit plane are categorized into informative and noise-like after that noise-like regions are substituted with the secret information and maintain the perceived quality. Jalab et al. [19] implemented the BPCS technique for hiding data in MPEG video format frames. This technique works in the YCbCr colour space instead of red, green and blue (RGB) components of a pixel for removing the correlation between the RGB and also decreasing the distortion produced by data embedding process. It is well-known that Human Visual System (HVS) are sensitive modifications in smooth parts than noise-like. Therefore, the BPCS method was applied for computing the complexity of every region in the cover frame. The complexity of every region of the bit plane is computed as the number of on edge transitions from 0 to 1 and 1 to 0, both vertically and horizontally. Tri-way Pixel-Value Differencing (TPVD) It is another bit substitution-based method is the Tri-way Pixel-Value Differencing (TPVD) [13] which is a modified form of the Pixel-Value Differencing method. To maintain the visual quality of cover object it is intuitive to think that data should be concealed in complex parts of the object. It hides the data in the difference of two neighbour pixels value which are classified into ranges, larger range index shows a sharp area where more secret data can be concealed and smaller range index shows a smooth area where less secret data can be concealed. In the data hiding process first partitioning the cover object image/frame into non-overlapping chunks of two neighbour pixels and its range are determined. After that number of secret data bits to be concealed is computed based on the range index. Lastly, the essential number of secret data bits is extracted from the secret data and corresponding their decimal value is used to generate a new difference and the pixel values are adjusted accordingly. This method provides high capacity and imperceptibility for human vision of the concealed secret data. Sherly et al. [11] implemented this technique to hide data in MPEG compressed videos and stated that secret data are hidden in the macro-blocks of the â€Å"I† frame with maximum scene modification and in macro-blocks of the P and B frames with maximum magnitude of motion vectors. Transform domain techniques Although Bit substitution-based methods are the simplest way for data hiding, but vulnerability is main disadvantage to any cover alteration like compression, format change, etc. This data embedding techniques can be easily cracked by an attacker. Transform domain methods are more complex than Bit substitution-based methods and try to improve the perceptual transparency and the robustness of the generated stego-objects. Any transform-domain technique contains of at least these phases, first transformed the cover object into the frequency domain, in second phase secret data is concealed in some or all of the transformed coefficients. In final phase modified coefficients are transformed back to the original form of the cover. Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) and Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) are types of transform domain. Raja et al. [27] Stated that DFT methods introduce round-off errors which do not make it ideal for data hiding applications. So du e to this reason Discrete Fourier Transform methods are not popular in steganography. But, few techniques in steganography used DFT based steganography like McKeon [28] used the 2D DFT for steganography in videos. Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) is a very popular transform and broadly used with image and video compression methods. Chae et al. [29] presented an algorithms in this field using texture masking and multidimensional lattice structure and used MPEG-2 compressed videos. Secret data and the cover video frames both are transformed using 88 Ãâ€"8 non-overlapping blocks. The secret data coefficients are quantized and then encoded by the multidimensional lattices, after that concealed into the cover frame DCT coefficients. Data hiding is adaptive to the local content of the video frame blocks. Steganographic techniques facing the challenge of improving the data embedding capacity without affecting visual quality. Large quantity of secret data can be embedding in the cover video is main objective of High bitrate techniques. A high bitrate algorithm is proposed by Yang et al. [16] which works on H.264/AVC Compressed videos. This method first convert the cover video frames to YUV colour spac e and then 1 data bit is embedded in each 4Ãâ€"4 DCT coefficient block . Strength points of this algorithm are large amount of data embedding capacity, robust to H.264 and MPEG-4 video compression techniques and also tamper resistant. Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) is popular in signal processing and video/ image compression. Wavelet transform fragmented a signal into a set of basic functions called wavelets. The DWT has many advantages over DCT like providing a multi-resolution description and permitting for better modelling of Human Visual System (HVS). DWT delivers a multi-resolution analysis which analyzes the signal at diverse frequencies produce different resolutions. Temporal resolution is main advantage of DWT. It captures frequency and frame location information. At each level of transformation, a frame which is transformed with Haar wavelet transform [30] is decomposed into four bands. One of them is approximation band which represents the input frame after implementing a low pass filter and compressing it to half. Other remaining three bands are high pass filter and called detail band. High-resolution sub-bands permit simple detection of features like edges or textured parts in transform domain. DWT d oes not need to decompose the input cover object into non-overlapping 2-D blocks, which reduce the blocking artifacts. Wavelet transform produces floating point coefficients which are used to perfectly rebuild the original signal. Some video steganography techniques trusted on the integer-to-integer wavelet transform. Xu et al. [15] proposed an approach on this technique. In proposed scheme data is embedded in the motion component of video due to these two reasons first is not more affected by compression and second is HVS are not more sensitive to catch the changes in motion areas of video. The methodology of this algorithm is that, in first step motion component of video is computed from frame-by-frame basis, after that computed motion component are decomposed in two-level wavelet decomposition. In last step secret data bit are concealed into low frequency coefficients which are based on the values of coefficients. This technique maintaining the quality of video after the data embedding process. Requires a cover video with large motion component because data hiding capacity is depend on motion comp onent is the disadvantage of this algorithm. Adaptive steganographic techniques Adaptive steganography technique is a special case of the two former techniques which is also known as ‘‘Statistics-aware embedding’’ [31], ‘‘Masking’’ [32]. An adaptive technique basically implemented by studying the statistical structures of the cover object before changing with the secret data which helps to identify the best regions to embedded data [33]. Sur et al. [34] proposed an algorithm on temporal redundancy which select macro-blocks with low inter frame velocity and high prediction error as their regions-of-interest (ROI). Furthermore, the number of DCT coefficients used for data hiding is adaptively computed based on the relative stability of the prediction error block. This algorithm offers a very low data hiding capacity. Mansouri et al. [12] proposed a technique which combined the features of both spatial and temporal of the video and utilized a spatial key property. The objective of this technique is maximizing both perceptual invisibility and robustness by choosing frame regions which are perceptually unimportant. High data hiding capacity as it uses both temporal and spatial features of the cover video stream is the main advantage of this algorithm. Conclusion This paper presents a short review on video steganographic techniques and the key algorithms of video steganography. Steganography, cryptography, and watermarking technique and their differences is also discussed. An overview of steganography is presented and mainly focus on video steganography and its applications. Various video steganography techniques and classification of the existing video techniques are explained which are based on spatial domain, transform domain and other techniques. Advantages and disadvantages of these techniques are focused. Steganography techniques are mainly struggling for achieving a high data embedding rate. It is a good substitute channel for hide data in video files because it have many outstanding features such as large capacity and good imperceptibility. This paper delivers effective review on the design of a video steganographic system.

Physics of Avalanches :: physics snow avalanche

Avalanches are just one of many natural disasters that kill people every year. The difference to Alaskans is that this disaster hits a little closer to home than most. The fear of hurricane and tornado are not existent in my region, and even earthquakes are seen more as a little shake then any threat. Physics plays a huge part in avalanches, thermodynamics, statics, and gravity are just a few elements of these disasters. The map above confirms that Alaska is at high risk for avalanche. As a result of this threat, learning about avalanches is a necessity when recreating or working in high avalanche areas. In order to better understand Avalanches, it makes sense to first learn about what avalanches are compose of, snow. Snow forms when atmospheric conditions cause water vapor to condense. However, it is obvious that all snow doesn't have the same structure. The density of fresh snowfall is dependent on both the kind of snow crystal and the air temperature. In cold, calm conditions the snowfall is the lightest. While in warmer climates, where graupel and needle crystals fall, the snowfall is the densest. When looking at a cross section of snowfall it is often evident what weather conditions formed the cross section. This is due to the different densities and structures of the snow layers. The bonds between snow layers are large factor in avalanches. If there is a weak bond between layers, the top layer can easily slide off the bottom layer. When this happens it is called a slab avalanche. Other layering characteristic will create other avalanches and hazards, such as ice avalanches and cornices. Whenever traveling in avalanche country it is important to be aware of your environment. Steep gullies and wide plains are perfect paths for avalanches. Ridges and unconformities in the terrain may help to slow down an avalanches speed. The severity of an avalanche is directly related to the terrain in which it happens. One of the most important factors to consider is the slope of the mountain or hill. Most avalanches occur between 20 and 50 degrees like the diagram above shows. However, the largest avalanches occur between 30 and 45 degrees, and the areas which have the greatest frequency of avalanches are between 35 and 40 degrees.

Ethics in International Security Essay -- Governmetn Politics Persuasi

Ethics in International Security Introduction: Since the attacks on the United States on September 11th 2001, governments, corporations, and individuals have been focused on the increasing problem of security. Countries all across the world are increasing security and intelligence gathering in order to protect against terrorism. Though the United States was the focus of the terrorist attack on September 11th, the entire world recognized the impending threat of international terrorism. Because terrorist organizations are decentralized, it is impossible to locate and quarantine an organization in order to disperse the threat. Typically when a country is seen as a threat, the country is occupied until the threat is removed. However, in this case it is not possible to take the same action. Therefore, it is important to combat this threat through a means that is effective against a decentralized enemy. This means is information. The world is currently in an era of technology where any information is almost immediately available. This includes information in areas such as stock exchanges, weapons, banking information, corporate transactions, and governmental secrets. Every industry is becoming so tightly coupled with the internet that the concept of being disconnected is almost unthinkable. However, increased connectivity means increased risk. All of this information is not only available for people to learn from and use positively, it has considerable potential to be used to harm. Terrorists have the ability to use these resources to their advantage in gaining strategic information about their targets and use it in an attack. However, these potential threats do not only come from outside forces. In the atte... ...nal Research Council. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1991. Cooper, Charles. Is Microsoft spying for the US government?. 4 October 2002. ZDNet Australia, accessed 10 June 2003. Critical Information Infrastructure Protection: The Threat Is Real. U.S. Government Printing Office: 1999, accessed 10 June 2003. HR 3162 RDS. 107th CONGRESS 1st Session. October 23, 2001, accessed 10 June 2003. Kalimtzis, Kostas. Aristotle on Political Enmity and Disease. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000. Schneier, Bruce. Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2000.

Homosexuality Essay -- Biology Essays Research Papers

Homosexuality For years scientists have been attempting to ascertain whether or not homosexual behavior can be linked to a biological catalyst. From Alfred Kinsey's revolutionary survey in 1947 to the current media upheaval about a prospective "gay gene," the desire to pinpoint a cause for the personalities and behaviors associated with homosexuality has reached new plateaux. The scientific community is constantly developing more and more evidence to suggest that there may well be a neurological explanation for homosexuality. Although historical studies and purposed treatments have ranged from group counseling to shock therapy, recent research suggests that exposure to an abnormally high or low amount of certain hormones could potentially affect sexual behavior. Just as there is no gene for heterosexuality, there can be no "gay gene." Genes are not responsible for an individual's actions; they simply guide the "sequence of a particular protein that may influence behavior" ( 1 ). However, it is possible that there is a genetic factor which is responsible for a protein synthesis resulting in particular sex hormone levels (namely testosterone and estrogen) which could augment certain sex-typical characteristics, and might explain sexual behavior ( 1 ). This paper will discuss various studies which examine the effects of male and female hormones in an attempt to develop a potential correlation between biological foundations and homosexual behavior. According to Fred Delcomyn (2), mammals naturally develop as females "in the absence of sex hormones." Without the intervention of androgens (testicular hormones, specifically testosterone), all mammals develop in utero as female. Not only are the genitals identical in early fe... ...r that personality and behavior are more than simple chemical reactions. While prenatal over-androgenization or estrogenization could potentially be one of the many underlying causes of homosexuality, this has only been shown in certain cases, largely those in which chemical abnormalities have caused effeminate or masculinizing behavioral (and in some cases physical) traits. The studies discussed herein cannot account for the physiological characteristics of every member of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community. It is also possible that the amounts of hormones studied are not abnormal, but fall somewhere in the spectrum of human sexuality. Internet Sources: 2. Delcomyn, Fred. Foundations of Neurobiology. New York: W.H. Freeman & Co. 1998 http://salmon.psy.plym.ac.uk/year1/Sexdiff.htm http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~sg7/eng105/students/Beth.htm

Erpsim Game Report for Distribution Game

Final analyze and Game report of ERPsim Distribution Game To: Dr. Shirley Stretch-Stephenson Group C H Members: Iris Huang Ankit Sethiya Ken Chen Yuankai Wang (GS) After 2 trial rounds of ERPsim distribution game, our group got rank 2 out of 4 groups (actually climbing from rank 3 to 2). So everyone in the group is fully confident about the real game running in the upcoming week. After several discussions, we settled down our objective as the first seller of products 1L&500ml ClearPure bottled water. But the result coming from real running game is really out of anyone’s expectation.And the truth that we got rank 3 on Net Income ranking is some kind of shock on everyone’s mind. From my point of view, though, it is a great opportunity for us to look into all the operations and strategies we used, analyze all the rights and errors we made, discuss all the situation each member got into, perfect our knowledge and experience background on SAP ERP system. It is a failure, at the same time, is also a givengift. In this report, we will analyze the whole market as well as our company’s performance throughout the game.By comparing ourselves to the market, to the competitors, the differences will unveil the reasons: which part we did right, which part we made errors. Following the market analyze is our initial group objectives and strategy. Then we use section â€Å"discrepancy† to show the differences between our results to the objectives. After that, we analyze the whole group performance during the game by integrating the reports from each member. For results analysis section, we conclude all the problems we were facing and all the errors we made.Last but not the least, is the summary summarize concluding the whole reportvaluable lessons we got from this ERPsim game. Market Analyze: For the whole market, we will use several charts below to show the market demands in different termsperspectives. By products: [pic] Chart 01: Total sales revenu e for each product after 3 quarters From the chart 01, we can clearly see that the 1L & 500mL ClearPure are the major products on the market. They totally took 79. 35% market share of bottled water, within this 79. 35%, 1L took 42. 46%, and leaves 500mL occupied 57. 54%.So the 500mL ClearPure is the best product in this distribution game and 1L ClearPure follows closely. It is the same story when you check the quantities of each product sold on market in chart 02. By Areas: [pic] Chart 02: Total sales revenue for each area after 3 quarters From chart 02, we can conclude that the area has highest demand for bottled water is North area due to its highest sales revenue of $796622. 67, followed by West and South areas. By Competitors: [pic] Chart 03: Sales performance of each group in every quarter From the chart, we discovered all the groups as internal competitors in the classroom only took 54. 5% market share of the whole market. The rest 45. 95% has gone to those external competitor s: bottled water importer companies. Due to we didn’t have the total sales revenue for each quarter of the whole market, it is impractical to draw any conclusion on the performance of us our company quarterlyfor each quarter. But from the chart, all the teams together here has a relatively steady contribution to the market throughout 3 quarters. And under this condition, we can start to compare the performance of each team in every quarter. Group Objectives and Game Roles ReviewPerformance Objective: Our goal is to be the No. 1 distributor on sales of the product ClearPure bottled water (including 1L and 500ml) in Germany. The operational objective is keeping the inventory turnover rate of ClearPure as fast as we can. That means we should keep adjusting our B-01 and B-04 products’ price according to plan and having a steady stock level on these two products. Financial goal is keeping the gross margin over all of our products exceeds 7% in last time we played. Game Role Set: Ankit: oversee the Reporting transactions; report the situation every five days.Iris: adjust price of products in the Decision transactions. Ken: track Accounting transactions and make purchase orders. GS: follow Operational transaction, calculate requirements and forecasting. Discrepancies From the results of each round, our group got rank 4th after round 1st, 3th after round 2nd, and stayed in that rank after round 3rd. The result is hardly anyone’s expectation on that point. So, what are the differences and how those differences showed up as results of our game performance? In this section, let us first figure out what are the differences between our results and the objectives.From our Professor Dr. Stretch’s final report, we got full financial information for each round of the game. [pic] [pic] [pic] Comparing the afterwards performance to our objectives and chart 03 in Market Analyze section, our group found out that: speaking of our main goal: No. 1 seller of 1L&500mL ClearPure products; we only achieved it during quarter 2 (without knowing how much importers sold in quarter 2), but failed on overall, and totally failed on the goal of financial objective to keep 7% gross margin after 3 quarters due to the negative net loss we have.So how and why we come to this situation, what kinds of mistakes we made affected our company’s performance? Are there any good methods leftimprovements we could make if there is another chance? Analyzing the Game In this section, we will analyze each group member’s performance throughout 3 quarters according to his/her role in the game. Some methods we were taking should stay as a good model for future reference; some methods should refer as a lesson we learnt. Planning: GS in our group is in charge of forecasting and planning purchase orders in the whole game.The basic rule of this player is to understand the reports data from member overseeing the market and calculate then predict the future market demand as well as plan the stock level. In Quarter 1 Our Goal: Earn enough profit and make sure we have enough stock level at the beginning of quarter 2 since no procurement could be done in quarter 1. From the start, each group has 1000 units on each product. As prepared, GS (me) set the stock level of products B-01, B-04 (ClearPure) to 1500 units, the rest got 500 units.Due to the inability to make procurement order (as we understand in that way at that time, here is our major and most lethal mistake), there is not much I can do in this quarter. By following up the market report, I helped Ankit calculate the average market price from the report. Our sales were very slow during that time even Iris constantly decrease the price bit by bit. Only after overhearing other groups started to make purchase orders for inventories, we started to realize the procurement system under menu round2&3 can be used to increase stock level in round 1.I directly made my plan into purchase orde rs and let Ken to process the first purchase order on day 17. In Quarter 2 Our Goal: Sell as many as BO1 and BO4 as we can and also clear the stocks of the rest 4 products (here is our second big mistake) at the same time. In this quarter, my role was trying to decide the reasonable stock level for each of the product. To decrease the accounts payable liability, I chose 1000 units instead of 1500 for our main products B-01, B-04, left 500 units as the target level for the rest products.The truth is except B-01 and B-04, there is no any other product will have a stock level even close to 500 in the first 10 days of round 2. After the dreadful sales revenue from quarter 1, Iris directly dropped the prices closing to the cost (this is the move we should apply in round 1), and the sales wheel broke loose. The sales were flying; I was so busy trying to figure out when I should make the purchase order standby. Fortunately, the tight work didn’t break me and Ken. We managed always k eeping our inventories for our main products over 300 units (This is a pretty wise move to keep it over 300 units. ).Due to the nature of procurement system, if we started the purchase after the inventory dropped down to 300, when sales order larger than 250 came in we would face a period of time running out of inventory. If we started the purchase before the inventory went below 500, we would have a larger account payable and inventory cost when round was finished. At the later 10 days of quarter 2, I changed the stock level to 800. Although this would increase the risk of running out of inventory, we could have relatively low cost on main products, which directly increase our net income (although it is trivial to the losses on the cost of other products).Near the end of quarter 2, Ken spotted the inventory of B-06 500mL Sprintz was close to under 200 units. Thus he noticed and urged me to make a purchase order on it. I made the stock level of 300 units for that product and finishe d the purchase order (Here is another direct hit on our net income performance. Without this purchase we will decrease our net loss by $3844. ). In Quarter 3 Our Goal: All products had to be sold out and make maximize profit from BO1 and BO4 (Our third major error to consider the initial inventory will not reflect on the balance sheet. ).During quarter 3, the role for play was the same as in quarter 2. But I set an even lower stock level of 500 units’ later 300 units to B-01, 04 in order to achieve a lowest ending inventory on them. This would dramatically increase the difficulty of predicting when I should proceed the purchase order. Meanwhile it can give us a hope when the time reaches day 20, our inventory would be precisely close to zero. The plan was working, little by little our inventory dropped to around 300 units. Then I adjusted the stock level to 150 units as the sale speed started slowing down.At the end, we had 9 units of B-01 and 30 units of B-04 left in invento ry. Procurement Ken is the man in charge of procurement. His role mainly needs him to follow the planned stock level and inventory level, and decide when is the best time to finish one purchase order is. In Quarter 1 During the first quarter of the Game, our group’s product inventory did not significantly fluctuate since we set a relative high price to them and hoped this strategy could save some inventory for next quarter.Nonetheless, from the sales report of quarter 1, our group failed to acquire any market demand in day 7, 8, 18, and 19. It is such a factor that contributes to us ranking the 4th in both sales and net income in the first quarter. Although we maintained a reasonable stock level in the first quarter, Ken suggested us to lower the product prices in day 8 since bottled water is a price-driven product that retailers tend to choose the lower price while purchasing, though we didn’t follow. In Quarter 2 Ken didn’t finish any purchase order in quarter 1.Our first procurement delivered on day 21 quarter 2. Since then, whenever B-01, B-04’s inventory dropped to below the stock level at a certain rate, Ken would finish one purchase order to stay us in the competition. Ken and I had a very good time working together. We managed to keep inventory level away from zero but also had enough stock to sale except the purchase of B-06 500mL Sprintz 300 units. From our point of view, procurement is more like a delicate job than a difficult one as long as you got right stock level to maintain, though this job requires lots of efforts on requiring information.During quarter 2, Ken finished dozens of purchase orders. The first one is the biggest one of them all, as time passed to later half, the purchase orders became smaller because it the number purchased is the difference between your planned stock level and present inventory level. In Quarter 3 In quarter 3, the main purpose of procurement was to closely follow the order from planner and together keep the inventory level gradually lower down to zero. Ken just did that. Each time when I adjust the stock level of the main products, Ken would know the best time to replenish.When we passed the midpoint of day 10, the inventory level was around 300 for each product. At day 15, still in a tight purchase schedule, Ken was doing a great job to reduce the inventory level by increasing purchase frequency. At day 17, Ken stopped purchasing any more orders, and we were sitting on a very healthy inventory of 150 units. There we come to the final inventory level as chart 04 is showing. [pic] Price Iris is in charge of all the price adjustments due to her experienced retail background. As our professor pointed out, bottled water is a commodity highly sensitive to its price strategy and adjustment.So, in this section, we analyzed all our adjustments as well as the market average price based on the information Iris recorded. In Quarter 1 Our Goal: Earn enough profit and make su re we have enough stock level at the beginning of quarter 2 since no procurement could be done in quarter 1. Pricing Strategy: Skim Premium Pricing Strategy, we set the prices higher in the beginning and reduce prices periodically, to maintain the inventory level for quarter 2. Price Setting: We set the high profit margins and try to keep the quantities we sell to make sure we would earn enough profit.Since every team have the same 1,000 Initial stock for each of the 6 products for the first 20 days, the orders can only be purchased in the beginning of the Quarter 2, and need 1-3 days to the stocks and the market demand for the bottle water is high, so we set the prices a little bit higher to make sure we have enough inventory to last 20 days. Then we reduce prices periodically, to attract more retailers. The prices for both sizes of the ClearPure are higher than the initial prices and the prices for all flavors and all sizes of Sprintz and Lemon Sprintz are lower than the initial p rices. Material |$$-B01 |$$-B02 |$$-B03 |$$-B04 |$$-B05 |$$-B06 | |Name |1L ClearPure |1L Spritz |1L Lemon Spritz |500mL ClearPure |500mL Spritz |500mL Lemon | | | | | | | |Spritz | |Cost |$11. 99 |$14. 99 |$16. 99 |$16. 99 |$19. 99 |$22. 99 | |Initial price |$14. 99 |$17. 99 |$19. 99 |$19. 99 |$22. 9 |$25. 99 | |Our price |$16. 59 |$16. 99 |$17. 99 |$22. 59 |$21. 99 |$23. 99 | Chart 05: The prices for the D1 of Q1 Price adjustment: The prices adjustment is based on the available stock, the market reaction and the market average price (Here is another mistake we made. ). 1. If the product sells too fast, we would increase the price a little bit, to make sure we have enough stock for 20 days. For example the bestselling item BO1, was marked up 58% from the cost, but sold out 55 units and brought us $385 net profit.But it was most profitable with the 38% mark-up. 2. If the inventory is static for more than 2 days, we would mark down the price, close to the cost or even lower the cost to create sales revenue. Especially for product BO2, BO5 and BO6, the market less favorable products, we marked down their price even lower than the cost, in order that we would not left lots of inventory in the Quarter 3. Product BO1 prices changes and relative factors in the Q1 [pic] Product BO2 prices changes and relative factors in the Q1 [pic] Product BO3 prices changes and relative factors in the Q1 [pic] Product BO4 prices changes and relative factors in the Q1 [pic]Product BO5 prices changes and relative factors in the Q1 [pic] Product BO6 prices changes and relative factors in the Q1 [pic] In Quarter 2 Our Goal: Sell as many as BO1 and BO4 as we can and also clear the stocks of the rest 4 products (here is our second biggest mistake) at the same time. Pricing Strategy: Penetration pricing strategy, achieve high volumes and ultimately earning profits from high sales volumes, but low profit margins. Price setting: We cut down the profit margin for BO1 and BO4. Lower all the o ther prices, since some of the prices were setting too high in the Q1.The prices set for the D1 of Q2 were as below, |Material |$$-B01 |$$-B02 |$$-B03 |$$-B04 |$$-B05 |$$-B06 | |Name |1L ClearPure |1L Spritz |1L Lemon Spritz |500mL ClearPure |500mL Spritz |500mL Lemon Spritz | |Cost |$11. 99 |$14. 99 |$16. 99 |$16. 99 |$19. 99 |$22. 99 | |Initial price |$14. 99 |$17. 99 |$19. 99 |$19. 99 |$22. 99 |$25. 99 | |Our price |$12. 00 |$145. 7 |$16. 99 |$17. 00 |$19. 89 |$22. 88 | Price adjustment: Adjust the prices for the products based on the available stock, the market reaction and the market average price. Product BO1 prices changes and relative factors in the Q2 [pic] Product BO2 prices changes and relative factors in the Q2 [pic] Product BO3 prices changes and relative factors in the Q2 [pic] Product BO4 prices changes and relative factors in the Q2 [pic] Product BO5 prices changes and relative factors in the Q2 [pic] Product BO6 prices changes and relative factors in the Q2 [pic] In Quarter 3Our Goal: All products had to be sold out and make maximize profit from BO1 and BO4 (Our third major error to consider the initial inventory will not reflect on the balance sheet. ). Pricing Strategy: Penetration pricing strategy Price setting: Kept the prices close or lower to the market average price. The prices for the D1 of Q3 were as below, |Material |$$-B01 |$$-B02 |$$-B03 |$$-B04 |$$-B05 |$$-B06 | |Name |1L ClearPure |1L Spritz |1L Lemon Spritz |500mL ClearPure |500mL Spritz |500mL Lemon Spritz | |Cost |$11. 9 |$14. 99 |$16. 99 |$16. 99 |$19. 99 |$22. 99 | |Initial price |$14. 99 |$17. 99 |$19. 99 |$19. 99 |$22. 99 |$25. 99 | |Our price |$12. 99 |$14. 99 |$17. 00 |$17. 99 |$20. 00 |$22. 89 | Price adjustment: Product BO1 prices changes and relative factors in the Q3 [pic] Product BO2 prices changes and relative factors in the Q3 [pic] Product BO3 prices changes and relative factors in the Q3 [pic]Product BO4 prices changes and relative factors in the Q3 [pic] Produc t BO5 prices changes and relative factors in the Q3 [pic] Product BO6 prices changes and relative factors in the Q3 [pic] Overseeing Ankit is our guy for overseeing the whole market report for each five days. After each market report announced, he will first quickly calculate out the average price for each product (There is a good move in our group), and pass them to Iris for price adjustment reference. But he hadn’t reported the quantity sold on each products during five days (Here is another mistake we made). In Quarter 1After the first report came out, Ankit readily passed his estimate of average market price to Iris. Then Iris and Ken could revise the price according to the available inventory and also the market price. We were so focusing on price change and inventory level, thus only the slow sales speed did we discover, we neglected the total sales for five days on the report. At that time, we didn’t know the relationship between our own sales to the overall sal es. In Quarter 2 Ankit still kept his amazing work about reporting the market average price, the average price collected from the reports were proved to be very helpful.Each time we changed our price to be a little bit lower than the market average, the retailers would response to that immediately. Finally, after all the efforts we put down, the sales volume and orders really shot up. Beside the regular activity, Ankit also suggested us to cut down price of B-02, B-05, B-06, which was undergoing at the same time. For the rest of the quarter 2, he started to look into the sales quantity of five day on each product and tried to compare the number with our own. But at that time, he didn’t report on this matter which should be done from quarter 1.In Quarter 3 Directly following up the strategy from last quarter, the overseeing activity didn’t change its role in quarter 3. Ankit still reported on the average market prices as reference. Later he noticed the number of sales i n quarter 3 was much less than that in quarter 2. He gave us his estimation about market demand for bottled water was dropping. In order to move all the inventory, after group discussion, Iris continued her marking down on prices which inflict more harm on our profitability. Results analysis Financial Statement for Quarter1 [pic] [pic]After the Quarter 1, from the performance chart above, we were facing 2 problems. BO1, BO3 and BO4 were profitable and moving at certain rate, and BO2, BO5 and BO6 were selling lower than cost and without too much sales. Our team sold the least quantities and had the least net income among the 4 teams. Whether should we start to put money on marketing expense to promote our low price B-01 and B-04? Errors we made about Quarter 1: 1. We misjudged the market demand for products B-01 and B-04. As we expected, the initial market will be so thirsty about ClearPure products even we set premium price on them.So we could assure our profit as well as average sa les on it. The truth is even the market is very thirsty, retailers will always have choices between domestic vendors or importers. The competition directly drive down the demand for higher priced goods as the basic economic principle: Quantity and Demand would show. This is our major and most lethal mistake leading to a very poor performance on profit in quarter 1 and no turning back whatever we do in next two quarters. 2. We thought we can only make the replenishment in the beginning of Quarter 2, but actually the purchased orders were available in Quarter 1.The MD61 planning menu and purchase order menu are both under folder round 2&3. So our assumption is no purchase for the inventory in quarter 1. We build our strategy based on this assumption. The decision leads to two consequences: overvalued price and small sales volume. 3. It was 20 days in one quarter, but I told them it was 30 days, and then we missed the selling momentum. I should take this the responsibility for this err or. 4. The average prices setting were too high since the profit margin was too high as we already explained in error 1 and 2. 5.The person responsible of overseeing the market failed to report the relationship between our sales volumes to the whole market sales volumes during five days. If we applied this control method, we would discover our sales volumes were too low at the beginning period of quarter 1. So we would have 10 to 15 days to correct the wrongs. Without this powerful control method, we were totally blind during the first 5 to 10 days regarding to our sales performance. This error undermined our performance during the first one and half quarters, until Ankit and GS started to report. 6. Negligence of foreign import competitors.The reason we dare to set a very premium price on B-01 and B-04 is we didn’t realize there are foreign import company competing. If we took that into consideration at first time, we won’t choose premium strategy to earn profit and s ave inventory. The Financial Statement for Quarter2 [pic] [pic] After Quarter 2, from the performance chart, we were facing 2 problems. 1. We were losing money. Only BO1 and BO4 had positive income, the rest four were all negative. And the profit could not cover the cost. 2. The Profit Margins of BO1 and BO4 were too low. They were much less profitable in Q2 than in Q1. |Material Description |Qty |Total Profit | |Q1 |BO1-1L ClearPure |1124 |$3224. 2 | | |BO4-500mL ClearPure |868 |$2801 | |Q2 |BO1-1L ClearPure |4642 |$213. 06 | | |BO4-500mL ClearPure |4781 |$379. 5 | 3. There were still so many available stocks of BO2, BO3, BO5 and BO6. Errors we made about Quarter 2: 1. In this quarter, our goal contains clearing out the inventory of products B-02, 03, 05, 06; this is another big mistake leading us to a net loss at the end. The cost of 1000 units’ initial inventory is actually NOT a sunk cost according to the final financial statement. If we just set the price at the cost lev el and never cared about their sales, we will have all the positive net income from B-01 and B-04 as results, which will added up to over $10000 net income.As long as you keeping the prices higher than cost, B-02, 03, 05, 06 will contribute to the net income in certain ways. 2. A wrong decision was made on order purchasing. 300 units of product B-O6, which is the highest cost and lowest yield, were purchased at the end of Quarter 2. 3. In order to clear the inventory of those products and pursuit our objective of sales, the prices were set too low. The Total Sales was high, actually ranked 1st in that round, but we were trading our profit with sales volume. This will help us got closer to our goal, but it is not a wise move because it doomed the whole profit margin.Financial Statement for Quarter 3 [pic] [pic] After Quarter 3, from the performance chart, we can conclude our errors in this quarter, Errors we made about Quarter 3: 1. We continued the strategy applied in round 2 which are setting average prices way lower than cost for BO2, BO3, BO5and BO6, so we were continuing losing money. 2. The purchasing behavior of retailer stores for BO2, BO3, BO5 and BO6 was misunderstood. According to the sales reports, those products were purchased periodically, and less price sensitive than BO1 and BO4. 3.The prices on those four products were changing too frequently. The market could not react to the change, and the market needs a longer period to consume those products before repeat purchasing. Improvements If we ever have another chance to perform in this distribution game, we will keep our goals and objectives, though several improvements will be carried out as follows. In Quarter 1: 1. Prepare the whole game plan only focused on 1L&500mL ClearPure products, for other products, prices should be set slightly higher than cost. 2. Set the prices of our main products close to the cost in order to reate huge sales volume to meet our goals and objectives. 3. Prepare the inventory purchase order in quarter 1, and proceed the first purchase when the unit number hit 500. 4. The whole period is only 20 days, meaning day 10 will be the checking point to control team’s performancedecide whether we should adjust our strategy. 5. Analyzing the sales volume in the market reports, compare to our summary sales report data as a controlling method of sales volumes. Using the same information, we could evaluate the performance of our direct competitors and also foreign importers’. 6.Put $25 to $50 on marketing expense per day on B-01 and B-04, so more retailers could be attracted and establish relation with us. In Quarter 2 1. Stay in the price battle for main products, but do not directly cut the price under cost. 2. Maintain the price on other products; do not use pricing penetration strategy to increase the sales. 3. Better management on stock level and inventory level following the same code applied in game before. 4. Keep relatively stable pri ce on B-02, 03, 05, 06. Allowing time taken by market to consume the products. Do not rush into price war.In Quarter 3 1. According to the performance in quarter 2, we will adjust slightly on our game plan to respond. Still we should stay in the price war of our main products and avoid price war of other products. Sometimes without losing money is also earning money from the market. Summary From this 3-quarters ERPsim distribution game, our group learnt a lot about price sensitive commodity market. For the market, we start to understand why healthy, competitive environment is so vital to it. Two extremes, whether monopoly or simply price war,will not do any good to the industry.The harm inflicts on the different sizes of firms will later affects the market, and ultimately reflects on the end user: normal customers. For each company in the market, careful thought plus preparation are a must to whatever the project is. Always think big, move slow, check twice will help one company sta ys in healthy growing mode. To achieve that, every company will need practical control method to implement. How to set those control methods will need our knowledge and experience from all the courses we learnt here. And if a company is selling commodity products, DO pay attention to price competitiveness.Try to make sure positive profitability and high sales volume, at the same time avoid price war. It is not a wise move as our group showed in quarter 2, after actively involved in the price contest, we successfully grab the No. 1 seat of sales for one round, but lose heavily on profit. For each member in Group C, we had fun, argument, discussion all through our participation in the ERPsim game. We learnt, evolved, and developed our skills and abilities of marketing throughout the whole process. It doesn’t matter what results or rank at last, only those knowledge and friendship matter and will last forever.

Response Paper on Black Elk Speaks

Nicholas Black Elk, Lakota visionary and healer communicates his painful conclusion to John G. Neihardt at the end of his interviews in the following way: â€Å"[†¦]The nation’s hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead†(207). After he narrates the unspeakable tragedy of his nation, the concluding lines mark the tragic end of a personal life and that of a national displacement. Black Elk Speaks reads as a mourning text, commemorating a cultural loss. Black Elk attributes the loss of cultural values to the symbolic loss of the circle, the location of the Power of the World. As in nature everything moves cyclically and repetitively, the life of Native Americans was also organized around this principle: they built their tepees on a circular frame and the community’s structure was also circular. â€Å"Our tepees were round like the nests of birds and these were always set in a circle, the nation’s hoop, a nest of many nests, where the Great Spirit meant for us to hatch our children (150-51)†. However, when they were moved to the grey, square houses of the reservation, this power was lost forever; despair, cultural displacement took the place of the older, happier days. What is to mourn the loss of identity? How to work through such a trauma? A form of individual and communal working-through can be found in the presence of dreams and in the decoding of their meanings. Native American dream-visions (also called prophetic dreams) were interpreted by the whole community, and functioned as healing, recuperating activities for the tribe. Freud in his Inhibitions, symptoms, and anxiety also emphasised that dreams can express and thereby help to deal with anxiety (77-172). In Black Elk Speaks the holy visionaries and medicine men serve as healers of the nation, but when they fail to interpret and fulfil their prophetic dreams, working-through becomes impossible for the community: â€Å"it is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those shadows men get lost† (Black Elk 192) and he also stresses while referring to the massacre at Wounded Knee that â€Å"a people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream† (Black Elk 207). Thus, the restoration of a cultural identity becomes impossible as Black Elk also fails to fulfill his mission he was given in his dream, that of healing, ameliorating individual and/or communal pains.