NETWORK EFFECTS AND COMPETITION: :: essays research papers

In many industries, the network of consumers using compatible products or services influences the benefits of consumption. Positive network effects arise when the consumer utility of using a product or service increases with the number of users of that product or service. The telephone system is a widely used example since it seems clear that the value of being part of the network rises as the network sizes increases. Consumption benefits can also arise in markets where a large customer network leads to increases in complementary products and services, which in turn, leads to increased consumer utility (e.g., see Farrell and Saloner 1985; Katz and Shapiro 1985;1986). Prominent examples of industries thought to exhibit network effects include automated bank teller machines, computer hardware and software, videocassette recorders, video games, and Internet web browsers. Not surprisingly, network externalities and the implications of having a large installed customer base are receiving increased attention by strategy researchers (e.g., Garud and Kumaraswamy 1993; Hill 1995; Wade 1995). As noted by Majumdar and Venkataraman (1998), the literature related to network effects broadly tackles three categories of research questions: (1) technology adoption decisions (e.g., what factors are related to whether and when a new technology is adopted), (2) technology compatibility decisions (e.g., what factors influence a firm’s decision to seek compatibility), and (3) decisions among competing incompatible technologies (e.g., what factors are related to consumers’ choices among rival incompatible products within a single product category). While theoretical research has addressed all three of these categories, empirical research has been limited to the first and second categories of questions (e.g., see the reviews in David and Greenstein 1990; Liebowitz and Margolis 1994; Economides 2001). Empirical efforts supporting the existence of network effects for a single product technology show that a larger network size is related to higher minicomputer sales (Hartman and Teece 1990), higher likelihood of adopting a new telecommunications technology (Majumdar and Venkataraman 1998), and quicker adoption of a new banking technology (Saloner and Sheppard 1995). In addition, Gandal (1994; 1995) and Brynjolfsson and Kemerer (1996) use a hedonic price model to show that consumers are willing to pay higher prices for software products that are compatible with the dominant product standard, i.e., the product with the larger customer network. However, with the exception of a few industry case studies (e.g., Gabel 1991; Grindley 1995; Liebowitz and Margolis 1999), we are unaware of any published studies that empirically investigate the nature of network effects in an industry with multiple competing product technologies that are incompatible.

Native American Schooling Essay -- essays research papers

Native Schooling For many years Native American people have been discriminated against in the United States as well as in the Public School system. Beginning with the common-school movement of the 1830s and 1840s, which attempted to stop the flow toward a more diverse society, the school systems have continued to be geared exclusively toward WASPS (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants). Native Americans have been forced to abandon their culture and conform to our â€Å"American† ways (Rothenberg, 1998, pp. 258-259.)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Thomas L. McKenney focused on deculturalizing the children through public schooling (Spring, 1997, p. 16). McKenney served as superintendent of Indian trade for fourteen years. After that office was abolished in 1823, he was appointed as the first head of the Office of Indian affairs. His idea was that a person could â€Å"civilize† the Native American children in schools when they were away from their parents. He tried to force assimilation on these Native American children. He wanted them to convert to Christianity, and adopt the WASP’s beliefs and morals. In 1827 McKenney wrote to the Secretary of War, James Barbour stating that, â€Å"children, who only needed to be protected from evil . . . and under the conditions of isolation and education Indians could be civilized in one generation (Spring, 1997, p.18).†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Missionaries were sent to the tribes to spread the word of Christianity under the Civilization Act. Today the act of sending in missionaries would be viewed as a violation of the First Amendment. The amendment states that there shall be no governmental support of any religion. In that time though they were still beginning their school day with a reading from the Protestant Bible (Spring, 1997, p. 18). The Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches brought into existence the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in 1810. Their mission was worldwide and they sent missionaries abroad as well as the Native American tribes. According to Spring, the missionaries viewed the Native Americans as foreign â€Å"heathen.† A powerful example of the path to deculturalization was Reverend James Ramsey’s visit to a Choctaw school in 1846. As quoted in the Spring text, Ramsey stated, â€Å"`I showed them [on a map] that the people who speak t he English language, and who occupied so small a part of ... ... p. 103), which encouraged Indian involvement in the school systems. This required a separate local committee to represent the population if the majority of the school board was not Native American. This committee was given control over all Native American education programs affiliated with the United States Government. The ideals of this act were expanded upon in 1988 with the Tribally Controlled Schools Act. This act provided for grants to be given directly to tribes to fund the operation of their schools. With these positive modifications equality is in the possible, but distant future.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Native Americans have been oppressed for hundreds of years since the their land was taken from them. The United States Government simply expects the Native American’s to assimilate to our society. Their culture and tribal ways have been stolen without a second thought. The government should provide some sort of retribution for these people. Perhaps Native American culture should be taught in our schools as well as American culture. Hopefully, someday everything will be equal in the world as well as in the public school system no matter what the person’s heritage.

History of American Education

Every human infant comes into the world devoid of the faculties characteristic of fully developed human beings. The process of growing up is the process of the development of the child’s faculties. The overwhelmingly important aspect of the growing-up process is mental, the development of mental powers, or perception and reason. Margaret Szasz`s `Education and the American Indian: The Road to Self-Determination Since 1928Margaret Szasz traced the evolution of federal American Indian educational policy during a critical span of time beginning with the Meriam Report in 1928 through the Kennedy Report of 1969 and the consequent passage of the Indian Education Act. These reports which resulted from intensive government sponsored studies of conditions in American Indian life, provided the impetus for important changes in Indian Administration and ultimately influenced a federal policy shift away from the earlier assimilationist ideology toward a culturally pluralistic perspective w hich fostered the possibility of self determination for American Indian nations.In American Indian education from 1928 to 1973 there are two types of studies that have become popular. These are historical monographs on regional or tribal education and general accounts of contemporary Indian schooling. The Meriam report suggested that education should be the primary function of the Indian bureau. It advised that Indian education be geared for all age levels and that it be tied in closely with the community.It encouraged construction of day schools to serve as community centers and proposed extensive reform of boarding schools, including the introduction of Indian culture and revision of the curriculum so that it would be adaptable to local conditions. In addition, the report attacked the physical conditions of the boarding schools, the enrollment of preadolescent children, and the inadequacy of the personnel. It recommended that salaries and standards be raised and that a professiona l educator be appointed Director of Education.(Margaret Connell, 1999)Utilizing archival materials, congressional records, and interviews, Margaret Szasz focuses on those systems of Indian education directly impacted by the federal government and federal policy. The assimilation programs of the Dawes Act era, the reform movements of the New Deal with the accompanying positive attitude toward Indian cultures, the economic impact of World War II and the disastrous termination measures of the early 1950s are analyzed for their effects on education in day schools and the on- and off-reservation boarding schools directed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).She presents the emerging power of â€Å"Self-Determination† from the supportive legislation of the Kennedy/Johnson years and the setbacks of the Reagan era to the present administration, and the resulting growth of yet another genre of education for American Indian people – tribally controlled schools and colleges. Sza sz closes the most recent chapter in American Indian education policy with the story of the rise and expansion of tribally controlled colleges concluding that â€Å"their commitment to community, to students, and to future leadership among tribal peoples suggests that they serve as the hope for the future for American Indians.Szasz closes the most recent chapter in American Indian education policy with the story of the rise and expansion of tribally controlled colleges concluding that â€Å"their commitment to community, to students, and to future leadership among tribal peoples suggests that they serve as the hope for the future for American Indians. † In this work Szasz has shown herself again to be the consummate researcher, presenting a sensitive but objective, comprehensive account of federal American Indian educational policy. Education in United States was segregated upon race.For the most part, African Americans received very little to no education before the civil w ar. In the south where slavery was legal, many states enacted laws which made it a crime for blacks to even be able to read, much less attend school alongside white classmates. After the civil war and emancipation blacks still received little help from the states themselves. The federal government under the radical republications, set up the freedman’s bureau to help educate and protect former slaves and passed several civil rights bills, but neither survived the end of reconstruction in 1877.The idea of equality in America has owed much to its proven ability to get used to varied and often argumentative environments by meaning different things to different minds, and furnishing rival interests with equally satisfying terms of moral reference. All of which throws some doubt on the undeniable character claimed by the Republic's founders for human rights determined forever by the laws of nature. The idea of equality been able to stamp an unmistakable and lasting imprint on soci al institutions.The Great Awakening, within certain very marked restrictions and with correspondingly limited consequences, was probably the first such period after colonial institutions had taken a settled shape. Accordingly it is chronologically the first to appear in the pages that follow; and because it’s religious character merges with the theme of the attitude of the state towards the individual's moral identity, giving the subject an inherent unity which bears on all other aspects of equality, two separate chapters are dedicated to that dilemma.The American Revolution and its consequences composed another period of upheaval. For all the rhetoric and invocations of principle that accompanied the election of Thomas Jefferson in 1800, and the policies of Andrew Jackson from the early campaigns for his election through his veto of the Bank bill and other pronouncements to his retirement in 1837, the administrations of these publicly dedicated reformists did little to defle ct the advancing inequalities that characterized the distribution of wealth and all that followed from it.The Jacksonian affirmation could be described in terms of the comparatively new concept of equality of opportunity, an imperfectly digested notion which actually conflicted with other egalitarian precepts, held by some of Jackson's contemporaries to be of even more urgent importance.It was only with the tremendous upheaval wrought by the Civil War, and then after more moderate policies had failed for political reasons that the principle of the equal protection of the laws, with all that it could be held to require in making sure that the laws themselves were genuinely equal, was written into the Constitution and transformed from a common and weak ideal into a optimistic commitment of government. The language of equal protection, however, soon proved to be as flexible as the blurred idea of equal prospect.Soon after achieving the modest and, as it seemed, short-lived triumphs of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, egalitarians lost their grip on American development more completely than ever before. The idea of equality thus revealed over the two hundred years of the nation's independent survival a tenacity which afforded a strange kind of glamour to American claims and pretensions, and a kind of explanation to the offer or threat of social justice which America had always seemed to hold out to the common people in face of the empires, monarchies, priesthoods, and social hierarchies of the Old World.This tenacity of egalitarian principles owed a great deal to the historical structure of American institutions and to the formal and constitutional beginning of the American nation; and in the same way the idea owed much of its strength to the fact that equality had entered into the language of justice in a more explicit and more public manner than in most simultaneous political systems.The movement in this course, through which equality began to define the obligations of government to the people, had its deeper origins in the nineteenth-century America, gained power to affect the character of religious, legal, and political institutions in the middle of the nineteenth century, and emerged in the higher reaches of popular thought as a successor to the idea of the Great Chain of Being. (Pole, 1979) Development of common schools 1820 – 1890The motivation to provide a public school education for all children was twofold. First was the desire to indoctrinate them with religious teachings to assure the continued existence of a devotee and moral populace. A second motivation for providing public education was the need to educate for social, economic, democratic and national reasons. There was a common belief that the democratic representative government would fail unless the state took a real responsibility in educating the children of all people.Common schools at this point were in bad shape, they were poorly attended, and basically taught by whomever available. The direction of education at this time was influenced by the teaching methods of Prussian schools, as developed by Pestalozzi. These schools were opened through all over the state. The shift towards accountability, outcomes, and higher expectations in our schools is leading us in the right direction, although we recognize that schools face legitimate difficulties during this change process.But the response to these challenges should not be to back down on expectations for students with disabilities and those who have been perceived as unable to meet the standards. Policymakers and practitioners must remain committed to the goal of closing the achievement gap for all students. To lessen this commitment would be to return to the days and the mindset that only some students could and deserved to be taught to high standards.We now know that by setting high expectations, and helping students, teachers, administrators, and family members reach those high st andards, we can close the achievement gaps for all students. The educational landscape for students with disabilities is undergoing vast changes. Thanks to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and its push for increased access to education for students with disabilities, and the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), with its push for improved student outcomes, educators across the U. S.are reexamining their practices to find ways to close the achievement gaps between groups of students. Students with disabilities are a focus of this attention, as schools and states labor to improve their academic outcomes. The Progressive Era 1890 – 1950 The Progressive era has long been noted as an era of national administrative expansion combined with the growth of newer progressive and egalitarian idealism. One would expect this era to be one of great expansion of the central administrative capacity in the area of education as well.Curiously, this outcome is not what we find. To explain this puzzle, we must remind ourselves of what the Federal government had already given the states to promote education rich tracts of land that came to form the endowments that states built upon during this period. By the end of the 19th century and continuing into the early 20th, the development of secondary education for the masses was well underway. Between 1890 and 1920, the US secondary school population grew from 360,000 to over 2.5 million. Educational Equality and its future in America Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, and of the institutions which regulate schooling no less than others. Education policy, just like social policy more generally, should be guided principally by considerations of justice and only secondarily by pragmatic considerations such as what compromises must be made with existing social forces opposed to justice in order to optimize the justice of the existing institutions.The â€Å"equally good provision† for each ind ividual child is the meaning of equality in education. Different readers will interpret â€Å"equally good provision† differently depending on their conception of what constitutes a good education. The equality consists in ensuring that social class background and racial background have no impact at all on achievement and that inequalities of achievement that have a significantly unequal impact on the life prospects of individual children are unjust.Equality led reforms might deploy choice, but they do so only in the service of equality, either because choice will directly produce greater equality or because permitting choice will allow policymakers the political freedom to implement other measures that will produce greater equality. Reference: 1. J R Pole, The pursuit of Equality in American History, University of California Press, 1979 2. Matthew Hirschland, Sven Steinmo, The federal Government and American Education, University of Colorado, Boulder, 2001 3. Margaret Connel l Szasz, Education and the American Indian: The road to self-determination since 1928

How to Reduce Stress

1. In today's smaller Air Force, members are finding themselves doing more with less. This in-turn has caused numerous stressful situations on and off duty. It is incumbent for Air Force members to recognize, treat, and eliminate stress whenever practical to increase morale and mission accomplishment. This paper will cover the emotional, behavioral, and physical signs of stress as well as importance of job stress management in treating and/or eliminating stress. 2. Before we can begin to reduce stress, we must be able to recognize indicators that lead to or help identify stress. Air Force psychologist Capt. Neil S. Hibler has developed a list of early warning signs (2:19). For our purposes we will discuss only a couple from each category. First, from the emotional category, is apathy. Apathy is the doldrums. Things you normally enjoy are no longer pleasurable. Along with apathy is mental fatigue. Being unable to concentrate or staying focus are only a couple of examples of mental fatigue. Emotional signs are very important to recognize, because if they are not noticed early on and addressed, behavioral or even physical problems can surface. The behavioral category signs include: being late to work, poor appearance, and being accident prone are just a few examples of administrative problems. Legal problems are even more evident, such as, traffic tickets, indebtedness, and inability to control violent impulses. As you can see, these signs of stress become more serious the longer TSgt Adams/H-Flt/0805/pfa/19 Jul 97 they go untreated or reduced. Finally, is the physical category; possibly the most serious of all. Stress not only effects the psyche of an individual, but the physical side of ones' being can also be altered. Ailments such as: headaches, insomnia, nausea, changes in appetite, and sexual problems can persist during times of stress. The individual may seek relief from stress by self-medicating and develop a dependence on chemicals that are harmful to the body. These signs are just a few of the more recognizable. Other signs can be very subtle and even more dangerous to the individual and others. This is why it is paramount to detect stress early and if possible treat, reduce, or eliminate before damage is done. 3. Once signs of stress are identified, it is time to tackle them with a few job stress management techniques outlined in â€Å"The Relaxation & Stress Reduction Handbook† (2:211). A 1985 study conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics found that more than 50% of workers surveyed experienced moderate to heavy stress on the job. To effectively combat work-related stress, you first need to identify symptoms and sources of job related stress. This can be accomplished by taking and scoring the survey in the handbook. Next, you need to keep a log on how you respond to your specific job stressors. Label four columns: stressor, feelings, thoughts, and behavior. After you have completed these task, setting goals and motivation is next. Set goals to respond more effectively to your job stressors. Develop a plan to react to stress you can anticipate or even avoid altogether. The idea here is to gain more control of your work environment. Rewards are a very important part of motivation. Create a specific reward for every goal you establish and make sure to give yourself the time to enjoy your reward. The next area to consider is more difficult for most of us. Dealing with your boss, negotiating with co- workers, and changing your thinking can be used to your advantage to help reduce stress. Don't side step these ideas, use them! The last two strategies to consider in job stress management are; pace and balance yourself, and know when to quit. Pace at your own tempo. Don't burn yourself out. This is one of the leading causes of stress at work. To effectively integrate job stress management into your daily lifestyle could take months, in just a day you can identify your job stressors and your responses to them. Getting started is the key! 4. We have discussed identifying stress by looking for: emotional, behavioral, and physical signs of stress. Then, more importantly, we discussed ways to: treat, reduce, or eliminate stress by applying techniques used in job stress management. Job stress accounts for billions of dollars lost annually in productivity, wages, and medical bills. Americans now know that job stress management makes personal and financial sense.

Literary Merit in Bram Stoker’s Dracula Essay

Although it is rather a subjective concept, â€Å"literary merit† essentially means the worth, quality, or excellence of a writing relative to other well-renowned literary masterpieces. In a Constitutional framework, the absence or presence of literary merit would determine the government’s limits to freedom of expression. To possess literary merit would mean that the work is not obscene. The landmark case of Miller vs. California enumerates key guidelines to ascertain the literary merit of a particular text, to wit: 1) Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest†¦ 2)   Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law , and 3)   Whether the work, taken as a whole lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. (Miller vs. California, 37 L. Ed. 2nd 419, 431 (1973)) Fundamentally speaking, in any framework, to have literary merit is to have value. The popularity of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula has reached such endemic proportions that it has been claimed to be the most recognized book next to the Bible. A Victorian novel with the distinctive gothic appeal toward the macabre, Dracula has undeniably become a classic milestone in horror fiction. Establishing its literary merit however, is a different matter. A review from The Athenaeum, an influential periodical in Victorian England described the novel as â€Å"sensational.† The review further states: Dracula is highly sensational, but it is wanting in the constructive art as well as in the higher literary sense. It reads at times like a mere series of grotesquely incredible events; but there are better moments that show more power, though even these are never productive of the tremor such subjects evoke under the hand of a master. (The Athenaeum, 26 June 1897). Emphasis supplied. The unremitting succession of the bizarre, the gross and the fantastic, as explained in the review, would seem tantamount to a lack of refinement in the â€Å"higher literary sense.† This observation was supplemented by another review of the same sentiment: The plot is too complicated for reproduction, but it says no little for the author’s power that in spite of its absurdities the reader can follow the story with interest to the end. It is, however, an artistic mistake to fill a whole volume with horrors. A touch of the mysterious, the terrible, or the supernatural is infinitely more effective and credible. (Manchester Guardian, 15 June 1897). Emphasis supplied. As interpreted, instead of relying on the intelligence of the reader to grasp on their own the significance of subtle nuances and take in the various shifts and twists in the story as it evolves, Stoker instantly and unceasingly bombards the reader with an onslaught of palpable and shocking horrific scenes as if the reader is too untrustworthy and unsophisticated to deal with subtleties. If there seems to be little literary merit in the intellectual or scholarly sense, Dracula is still credited for its universal allure. The Pall Mall Gazette, in a commentary of Dracula states: †¦the story deals with the Vampire King, and it is horrid and creepy to the last degree. It is also excellent, and one of the best things in the supernatural line that we have been lucky enough to hit upon. (Pall Mall Gazette, 1 June 1897). Emphasis supplied. The universal allure of Dracula is probably in its resurrection of the vampire lore in a straightforward, practical and illustrative fashion. A vivid and uncomplicated quote from the novel confirms this:   â€Å"I shall cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic, and I shall drive a stake through her body† (Stoker, 261). The novel’s refreshing simplicity is also evidenced in the following review:   Here, for the latest example, is Mr. Bram Stoker taking in hand the old-world legend of the Were-wolf or vampire, with all its weird and exciting associations of blood-sucking and human flesh devouring, and interweaving it with the threads of a long story with an earnestness, a directness, and a simple good faith which ought to go far to induce readers of fiction to surrender their imaginations into the novelist’s hands. (The Daily News, 27 May 1897). Emphasis supplied. While Bram Stoker’s Dracula is deficient in literary refinement, it nonetheless is considered to have literary merit by virtue of the fact that it captures man’s imagination. It certainly has value for having the extraordinary capacity to fascinate multitudes across time. Ultimately, its worth, quality or excellence is confirmed by its ceaseless popularity. Works Cited Books Miller, Elizabeth. Bram Stoker’s Dracula: A Documentary Volume. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Stoker, Bram. Dracula. London: Penguin Books, 1994. Articles â€Å"Dracula.† The Athenaeum 26 June 1897: 235. â€Å"Dracula.† The Daily News 27 May 1897. â€Å"Dracula, by Bram Stoker.† Manchester Guardian 15 June 1897. â€Å"For Midnight Reading.† Pall Mall Gazette 1 June 1897. Jurisprudence Miller vs. California, 37 L. Ed. 2nd 419, 431 (1973).

Management Information Systems Essay

Information Systems Failure: The Case of Computer-Aided Dispatch (Cad) System at London Ambulance Service 1. Introduction The LAS covers a geographical area of just over 600 square miles and handles emergencies for a resident population of 6.8 million people. The CAD project is one of the most frequently quoted UK-based examples of information systems failure that took place in early 1990s. The prominence of this particular case is due to the ‘safety critical’ nature of this system and the claim that 20-30 people may have lost their lives as a result of CAD failure. 2. Description of the Manual Dispatch System The manual dispatch system consists of: a) call taking, b) resource identification, and c) resource mobilization. Call Taking: Emergency calls are received by ambulance control. Control assistants write down details of incidents on pre-printed forms. The location of each incident is identified and the reference co-ordinates are recorded on the forms. The forms are then placed on a conveyer belt which transports them to a central collection point. Resource Identification: Other members of ambulance control collect the forms, review the details on the forms and decide which resource allocator should deal with each incident. The resource allocator examines the forms for a particular sector, compares the details against information recorded for each vehicle and decides which resource should be mobilized. The status information on these forms is updated regularly from information received via the radio operator. The resource is recorded on the original form which is then passed on to a dispatcher. Resource mobilization: The dispatcher either telephones the nearest ambulance station or passes instructions to the radio operator if an ambulance is already mobile. A number of problems exist with the manual dispatch system. Most problems are related to the time-consuming and error-prone nature of activities such as: identification of the precise location of an incident, the physical movement of paper forms, and maintaining up-to-date vehicle status information. Therefore, a Computer- Aided Dispatch (CAD) system was considered as a solution to overcome these problems. 3. The Computer-Aided Dispatch System 3.1 Purpose The objective of the CAD system was to automate many of the human-intensive processes involved in the manual despatch system. 3.2 How the CAD system was intended to work The essential features of the CAD system are shown in Figure 1 which illustrates how the system was intended to work in practice. British Telecom (BT) operators would route all 999 calls concerning medical emergencies to LAS headquarters. A total of 18 ‘receivers’ were then expected to record on the system the name, telephone number and address of the caller, and the name, destination address and brief details of the patient. This information would then be transmitted over a LAN to an ‘allocator’. The system would pinpoint the patient’s location on a map. The system was also expected to monitor continuously the location of every ambulance via radio messages transmitted by each vehicle. The system would then determine the nearest ambulance to the patient. Figure 1: The structure of CAD system at LAS Experienced ambulance ‘dispatchers’ were organized into teams based on three zones (south, north-east, and north-west). Dispatchers would be offered details of the three nearest ambulances by the system and the estimated time each would need to reach the scene. The dispatcher would choose an ambulance and send patient details to a small terminal screen located on the dashboard of the ambulance. The ambulance crew would then be expected to confirm that it was on its way. If the selected ambulance was in an ambulance depot then the dispatch message would be received on the station computer. The ambulance crew would always be expected to acknowledge a message. The system would automatically alter HQ of any ambulance where no acknowledgement was made. A follow-up message would then be sent from HQ. The system would detect messages that would tell HQ when the ambulance crew had arrived, when it was on its way to a hospital and when it was free again. 3.3 How the CAD system was built The CAD system was built as an event-based system using a rule-based approach and was intended to interact with a geographical information system (GIS). The system was built by a small software house called Systems Options using their own GIS software (WINGS) running under Microsoft Windows. The GIS communicated with Datatrak’s automatic vehicle tracking system. The system ran on a series of network PCs and file servers supplied by Apricot. 4. Events that Identified the Flaws of the CAD System On the night of the 26th October 1992 (Monday), things started to go wrong at the HQ of LAS. A flood of 999 calls apparently swamped operators’ screens and many of those calls were being wiped off screens for unknown reasons. Claims were later made that 20 to 30 people may have died as a result of ambulance arriving late on the scene. Some ambulances took over three hours to answer a call while the government’s recommended maximum was 17 min utes. Mr. John Wilby, the chief executive officer of LAS resigned within a couple of days of this event. A number of Members of Parliament called for a public inquiry. The Health Secretary initiated an inquiry and the findings were eventually published in an 80-page report in February, 1993, which immediately became headline news in both the computing and the national press. 5. Findings of the Inquiry The inquiry found evidence of poor management practice, high technological complexities and unfavorable operating environment involved in the implementation of the CAD system in LAS. Systems Options, the company responsible for developing the major part of the CAD system had no previous experience of building similar type of systems. This company, which had won the  £1.1 million contract for the development of the CAD system in June 1991, was found to have substantially underbid an established supplier (McDonnellDouglas). Hence, Systems Options was under serious pressure to complete the system quickly. The managing director of a competing software house wrote various memoranda to LAS management in June and July 1991 describing the project as ‘totally and fatally flawed’. It appeared that Mr. Wilby ignored what amounted to an over-ambitious project timetable. Furthermore, an audit report by Anderson Consulting which called for more finance an d longer time scales for the CAD project was suppressed by the project managers. The board of management of LAS was even misled by the project team over the experience of Systems Options and the references supplied by Systems Options were not thoroughly investigated. Due to the extreme time pressure to develop the CAD system within the allocated timeframe, the project team responsible for developing the system practically did not follow any standard systems development approach. As a result, the resultant software was incomplete and unstable. In January 1992, phases one and two of the project began live trials. In March 1992, phase two of the trials was temporarily suspended due to the discovery of system errors. In October 1992, phase three was terminated after two days of reported chaos described above. Questions were raised about the complexity of the technical system. In the manual dispatch system, communication between HQ and ambulances is conducted via telephone or voice radio links. In the CAD system, links between communication, logging and dispatching vi a a GIS were meant to be automated. The automation was completed but no performance testing was thoroughly performed due to the rushed approach to meet the deadline. The system was lightly loaded at start-up on the 26th October, 1992. Any problems, caused by the communications systems (e.g. ambulance crews pressing wrong buttons, or ambulances being in radio black spots) could be effectively managed by staff. However, as the number of ambulance incidents increased, the amount of incorrect vehicle information recorded by the system also increased. This had a knock-on effect in that the system made incorrect allocations on the basis of the information that it had. For example, multiple vehicles were sent to the same incident, or the closet vehicle was not chosen for the dispatch. As a result, the system had fewer ambulance resources to allocate. At the receiving end, patients became frustrated with the delays to ambulances arriving at incidents. This led to an increase in the number of calls made back to the LAS HQ relating to already recorded incidents. The increased volume of calls, together with a slow system and an insufficient number of call-takers, contributed to significant delays in answering the telephones which, in turn, caused further delays to patients. At the ambulance end, crews became increasingly frustrated at incorrect allocations and this led to an increased number of instances where they failed to press the right status buttons. The system therefore appears to have been in a vicious circle of cause and effect. There was also an apparent mismatch of perspectives among LAS management, HQ staff, and ambulance staff. The system has been described as being introduced in an atmosphere of mistrust by staff. There was incomplete ownership of the system by the majority of LAS staff. The hardware and software suppliers involved in this project reported low staff morale and friction between LAS management and workforce. In other words, an atmosphere of hostility towards the computing systems was observed. One of the reasons for low staff morale was that control room staff lacked previous experience of using computer systems. 6. Conclusion In summary, no single element of the case can be regarded as the sole cause for the failure of the CAD system in LAS. The description demonstrates that failure of information systems projects tend to be multi-faceted in nature. Discuss Questions: a) Discuss the CAD system in terms of Interaction Failure. b) What lessons can be learned from the failure of the CAD project in LAS?

The Consequences for Women of the 1867 Reform Act Essay

The Consequences for Women of the 1867 Reform Act - Essay Example According to Paula Bartley, this could be compared to the slave trade, â€Å"Is one half of the human species, like the poor African slaves, to be subject to prejudices that brutalise them...only to sweeten the cup of men† (Bartley, 2007). The consequences for the suffrage movements The Great Reform Act of 1832 in the United Kingdom was started by Jeremy Bentham and William Thompson. During this time, United Kingdom had become so corrupt because the constituencies were represented by rich land owners. Elections were unfair because there were many cases of bribery and corruption. Also, by the year 1812, many women practiced prostitution highly in the United Kingdom. Prostitution was fueled by the social, literacy and cultural behaviors of the people living in England. This is the time when many associations were formed with an objective of bringing change and social purity (Bartley, 2007). A centre for home of friendless girls was introduced to educate the young girls on the ne ed for obedience and self control. This was due to the unhygienic nature of the practice since it led to contagious diseases. The reformers explained the causes of prostitution and came up with a strategy to educate the youth on positive change. Industrial capitalism also changed and minimized prostitution. â€Å"Surely, it will not be denied that woman have, and ought to have opinions of their own on subjects of public interest, and on the events which arise as the world goes its way† (Bartley, 2007).This led to the second reform act in 1867. . In 1819, Charles Woolsey won the elections and went to the House of Commons to initiate change as the legislative representative. Also, the committee of Manchester which consisted of twenty thousand to sixty thousand people appointed a representative attorney. In 1820s, parliament neglected new reforms. This was when John Russell disagreed with the corrupt activities of the parliamentary members. The Great Reform Act was proposed by J ohn Russell in the year 1830 after the death of King George. It was after the dissolution of the parliament, and the general elections were to be held. Birmingham political union started its campaigns under the leadership of Thomas Attwood. The campaigners put emphasis on the issue of reforms as this bill was pending in the previous parliamentary sittings. After the elections three reform bills passed to the parliament and through subsequent debates the bills were then amended to be the Great reform act in the year 1832. After this act, political education began whereby politics and social education were introduced to the local citizens. After the great reform, there was insufficient voter registration exercise and most people did not have the votes. Bribery and corruption remained to be a significant problem in the governance. During the ensuing years, corruption wars started up to the year 1854 when the corruption practices act passed into law by the parliament. Civil wars began w hich aimed at changing the structure of governance in England. There were outstanding family problems in the society. Divorce cases had increased. This act separated sex from reproduction. Same sex had become so prominent in the society. Sexual and social reforms in the society were the campaign strategies by the reform parties. In certain areas like New Jersey, the law allowed only