Huffman Trucking Database Essay - 752 Words

Huffman Trucking Database The driving log was broken up into 11 tables. The database is in the third normal form or Boyce Codd Normal Form (BCNF) (Pratt Adamski, 2005, p. 153). This level of normalization ensures no repeating groups, no key column is dependent on only a portion of the primary key, and the only determinants that are contained are candidate keys. The company has four locations in the United States and services 925 drivers. Normalization to the third normal form is sufficient due to the relatively small database, the number of daily updates and the nature of the information. The database is searchable, and due to the naming methodology, is platform independent. Care was taken to omit reserved words from the major†¦show more content†¦Name, phone, and addresses of each contact are the fiends for this table. The driver table contains fields concerning the driver only and has their home address, home state (linked with the state field), license number, home telephone and mobile telephone. The berth table contains fields concerning the times and dates when the driver was in the berth and not driving. The driver can enter multiple times in or out of the berth. A comments field was added to allow the driver to provide detailed information about the stop such as when the co driver drove while the driver was in the berth or slept overnight. The event number is linked with the driving log table. The driving table contains the co driver, event number (linked with berth log and duty cycle log), tractor (linked to the tractor table), trailer (linked to the trailer log) and comments to be entered by the driver concerning the trip fields. The duty cycle table has the event number (linked with the driving log) on duty and off duty times. The table allows the driver to enter multiple events for each trip indexed by the event number. The table also has a comments field that can be used by the driver to document events that occurred either while on or off-duty. The tractor table contains information about each tractor owned by Huffman trucking. The log contains information about the service date, when the truck was operational or non operational andShow MoreRelatedHuffman Trucking1019 Words   |  5 PagesHuffman Trucking Infrastructure Assessment Huffman Trucking is first major freight carrier that has managed to grow tremendously over the past few years (Huffman Trucking, 2008). The company has 925 drivers, 425 support personnel, 800 road tractors, and 2100 trailers. The organization offers various customers base and distribution capacity. The mission of Huffman Trucking is to increase the profit and become a growing, and adaptable company. Huffman Trucking plans to leverage the automated informationRead MoreFleet Truck Maintainenace Database Paper914 Words   |  4 PagesMaintainenace Database Paper Its mind numbing to reflect the amount of technical change that has taken place in only a short period of time. In this current age, innovation has opened doors to a wide capacity for data collection and management. An example is the amount of business use with Microsoft Access. Businesses have gained from Access’s technical capabilities by using it to offer a wide range of ways to add value and efficient to any facility. Today we use Access databases to organize theRead MoreHuffman Trucking Benefits Election System Risks1200 Words   |  5 PagesHuffman Trucking: Benefits Election System Security Lisa M. 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Regardless of the storage method, security measures needRead MoreSecurity Requirements Possible Risks1342 Words   |  6 PagesNelson CMGT/442 February, 25, 2013 James Summerlin Security Requirements and Possible Risks: Benefits Elections System Huffman Trucking, an established trucking company since 1936, has recently requested the implementation of a new Benefits Elections System to assist management in tracking and reporting the benefits of both union and non-union employees. A database system will be utilized to store critical data such as employee information, along with the benefit package of their choosingRead MoreHuffman Trucking Service Request Sr-Ht-003805 Words   |  4 Pagesdesign for a fleet truck maintenance database, located on the Huffman Trucking IT Service Requests site. This paper will talk about how our team completed the Change Request that was on the Huffman Trucking Service Request. First our team will talk about how Microsoft Access was used to create these tables by Huffman Trucking Database. Then how we used the tables with made up information to be tested on. Then on how we used forms in the maintenance database system. While the creation of relationshipsRead MoreProposal: Sr-Ht-003 for Huffman Trucking3227 Words   |  13 PagesProposal: SR-ht-003 for Huffman Trucking Proposal: SR-ht-003 for Huffman Trucking Huffman Trucking s central maintenance facility in Cleveland, Ohio and presently has hubs in Los Angeles, California, St. Louis, Missouri, and Bayonne, New Jersey. To effectively manage their business, it is critical that Huffman Trucking can share information regarding vehicles maintenance with each of its hubs, including parts inventory and vendor data. Huffman Trucking needs a solution that would allow themRead MoreVirtual Organization Staffing Strategies Case Study - Huffman Trucking941 Words   |  4 Pagesorganizational growth combined with a higher than industry turnover rate approaching 20% have necessitated the need to increase recruiting, consider internal transfers, and creation of a talent strategy succession plan. The first strategy for Huffman Trucking is review and implementation of internal candidates for newly created positions. The employee intranet should contain a listing of all internal positions open within the organizations three offices. Internal postings should be very detailed inRead MoreHuffman Trucking Initial Risk Assessment1366 Words   |  6 PagesHuffman Trucking Initial Risk Assessment Introduction Huffman Trucking is a national transportation company based in Cleveland, Ohio. (UOP, 2009) The organization has 1,400 employees and 800 trucks on the road, with logistical hubs in California, New Jersey and Missouri. The company’s mission reads: â€Å"our mission is to be a profitable, growing, adaptive company in an intensively competitive logistical services benefit environment.† The focus of Huffman’s mission is on stockholders, customers, regulatoryRead MoreHuffman Trucking Essay1830 Words   |  8 PagesFounded in 1936 with a single tractor-trailer, Huffman Trucking (Huffman), a national transportation company, is located in Cleveland OH. Today, Huffman has over 1,400 employees, 800 tractors, expected revenue to surpass $600,000,000 and is still privately held. Huffman has hubs located in Los Angeles, CA, St. Louis, MO, Bayonne, NJ with the central maintenance facility located in Cleveland OH. Their working contracts are primarily with the US Government, a utomotive parts industry, electronic consumer

Analysis Of Denis Friske s Narrative Approach Essay

Question 1 Denis-Friske’s narrative approach states sanctions people as experts in their own life which effectively empowers them in their self-perspective and counseling relationship (2014). Through storytelling, clients impacted by traumatic are allowed the opportunity to narrate their own experiences as a process of emotional and psychological catharsis. In enabling people as experts over their own life, child and youth care counselors do not dictate what they ought to do in their process of overcoming traumatic or crisis experiences but act as guidance figures in client’s lives towards their healing (Denis-Friske, 2014). As victims of abuse, giving people the time and space to create their own meanings in narrative making and focus on their inner character’s strength and resiliency, people are made experts of their own lives by authoring their own stories and taking into control how they want to perceive their situation – in spite of adversity, strength can be re covered from deep within. It is important that counselors empower clients as experts of their own lives because it gives them autonomy and this will be beneficial when the counseling relationship eventually comes to a close. When clients recount their own stories from their individual perspectives, agendas, and beliefs, this is powerful and significant because no one else can testify about their own life better than they can. Storytelling reweaves people’s perspective to see their potential for strength, renewal

Components of Police Report Free Essays

There are several components of a typical police report that need to be completed when filled in. First you will need to summarize and make sure to communicate in a clear and succinct manner. Second you will need to describe the scene and the state the alleged crime in occurring in. We will write a custom essay sample on Components of Police Report or any similar topic only for you Order Now Also who was involved in the crime, as long as when and where did the crime take place with specific details. While filling out a police report, make sure you use simple language, because it might seem strange but if you state information using big words there are going to be people who will not understand what you are saying. Make sure you include all statements from any victims or witnesses, and have to be word for word from what they said. They will need to state the statement just to verify what we have them saying is accurate and they can’t change their story when it comes time to a trial or any other time. When gathering this information make sure you obtain all information regarding to witnesses or victims, regarding address, phone numbers, drivers license numbers, etc so we are able to contact them for any reason. Police Report for Scenario First I would summarize what happened, as well as describing the scene. I will entail that it happened in the parking lot of the shopping center. While my partner and I are on surveillance at a local office supply store we received a tip that a store might have been robbed after closing. Next we received a sketch of two Asian men who might have been involved in the other robberies in the surrounding counties. After receiving the sketch the dispatcher notifies us of a lady supposedly hearing a gunshot, so we head on over. When we arrive the lady informs us that she heard a gunshot and it was supposedly an Asian man who carried the gun. With having the sketch of an Asian man with some robberies we immediately took action with the one we saw coming out of the building. While taking action the Asian female is yelling at my partner and I concerned about her husband. We order to back to her car and she doesn’t obey our orders and becomes hysterical so we are required to restrain her and that requires the man to place in handcuffs. In contrast with my summarized report I will be including the female who heard the gunshots and saw the Asian man with the gun in his back pocket. I will also have to include any witnesses who saw the gunshot take place or the ituation outside in the parking lot. I will have to make sure to get statements from all the victims, which are the male and female Asian as well as the witnesses and have them sign it. I will need to make sure all information if accurate with each person in order to proceed with the report and turn it in. Sufficient Cause Yes, my partner and I had sufficient cause to be on a stake out at the office supply, because there was a call into for a robbery during the afterhours. When a call is called in to certain police officers than they have the right to go and check out what happened there and see if they can find anything out at the sight. They can stay there for a while to make sure no one is hiding from the police, so they can have a possible chance to catch the person. Violation of Rights In my opinion we did not violate the man’s civil rights. When a police officer has a sketch of a suspect for a robbery and they see someone coming out of the building where a call was made then they have the right to pursue in finding out if he was the suspect. A police officer wouldn’t be violating your rights just by asking you to get down on the ground with your hands on your head. How would the officers know for sure who the suspect would be, even if five Asian men came out of the building? They actually wouldn’t so they would be asking all of them to get down on the ground with their hands behind their heads. The police officers were only doing their job, by using the tip with sketch from the dispatcher as well as the call from the woman who heard the call. If the man’s rights were violated then I would take action with the police officers by writing them up if this was the first time offense or suspend them for second offense. As the chief I would know that my police officers wouldn’t just go up to any Asian man and suspect them of any actions without having probable cause to think they are the suspect. Collect Damages The wife shouldn’t be able to collect any damages, because she didn’t have to get out of her car and start yelling at the police officers and become hysterical. When she started yelling at us we ordered her back to her car and she wouldn’t listen, which then enables the police to take action, because she can become a threat to us. Anyone who is imposed as a threat to a police officer, we are allowed to restrain in order to get them under control. Racial Profiling I don’t believe we engaged in any racial profiling with this man. We received a sketch regarding an Asian man who is suspected to be involved in robbing some office stores. It could be considered racial profiling if we were suspecting him as a suspect and we had a tip with a Caucasian or African American male. I just don’t see how racial profiling could be involved with the scenario since we were taking action with an Asian man and that the same race we received the sketch with. Citizen Review Board I would not support the creation of such board, since we have nothing for the citizens to review about our department. We took actions regarding the tip and sketch we received as well as the call from the lady who heard a gunshot and saw an Asian man carrying one in his back pocket. Now, if we have no control over this board then go ahead and do it, but just to let you know we have nothing to hide and we do our jobs to the books. The type of civilian review board (CRB) that I would use has complaints investigated and reported to its board members within 60 days of having received a signed complaint. Within 120 days of having received the complaint, a hearing is held (usually before three board members), a decision on the complaint is rendered, sanctions are determined, and both the complainant and respondent are informed as to the disposition of the complaint. Due to special circumstances, the entire process can be permitted to extend to 180 days. The CRB will investigate and hear all complaints that concern the use of force, including shootings; deaths in custody; harassment; abuse of authority; and improper searches or detention. The CRB has the authority to broaden its reach to decide other types of complaints as well. For discourtesy complaints (including offensive language, derogatory remarks, and slurs) and procedural complaints (when the citizen cannot understand why the officer took a particular action), it is recommended that mediation be used. Such complaints are notoriously hard to prove and have an effect of resulting in a backlog of more serious complaints. And I would actually be reaching out to the community during the entire process, since I will need heir comments or complaints. In my opinion the advantage of this system would be that we could actually learn from what the citizens have to say. Not every comment is necessarily going to be a bad comment, it could be one that will catch our attention and open our eyes. Now the disadvantage of this system is that people could take advantage of it and comment on everything possible and make us seem like we aren’t doing our jobs the right way. There are some citizens who like to make others look bad and this could happen in our situation. References http://www.ehow.com/how_4441251_write-police-report.html How to cite Components of Police Report, Essay examples

Use Multi Model DBMS Technology-Free-Samples-Myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about the Use Multi Model DBMS Technology. Answer: Introduction Information is considered as a primary asset for any of the enterprises in the present scenario. An enterprise manages and handles information that is of varied type and also varies in terms of the volume. It becomes necessary for the organizations to manage the variety and volume of the information. Enterprise Data Management is a discipline that includes and involves a number of different technologies for the efficient and adequate management of information. Hype cycle that is presented by Gartner explains the EDM technologies in the form of a curve that shows the technologies that are trending, emerging and the ones that are less likely to be used and applied in the present times. Data quality is one of the most important properties and parameters that can be achieved using the technologies that are listed in the Gartners Hype cycle (Ronthal and Simoni, 2015). The report has been written on Multi-Model DBMS Systems as the technology. Improving Data Quality in Large and Small Enterprises Quality of data shall be maintained and managed in the enterprises irrespective of their size. For the large scale enterprises there are several employees that are associated with the organization that can be 10,000 or more in numbers. These employees are spread over different office units and the non-human resources are also installed in various locations as per the office units. Enterprise data is transmitted in various human and non-human entities that are present at different locations and it therefore becomes necessary to ensure that proper standards are followed so that there is no compromise on the quality and consistency of the data. If the quality of the data is not managed and maintained then there may be various issues that may emerge such as redundancy and duplicity of the data. The same applies to the small scale enterprises as well. There are lesser resources engaged with the small scale enterprises but the need to make sure that the data quality is maintained is high. Absence of the adequate quality of data can lead to several issues in terms of inefficiencies i n the business activities and likewise. With the emergence of these needs and requirements of the enterprises, there are various automated technologies and processes that have been created for the adequate management of the quality of data. These technologies are applicable in large as well as small scale enterprises. About Multi-Model Database Technology Multi-Model Databases are defined as the databases that support more than one data models simultaneously. It is a data processing platform that allows the organization to store and arrange the data that is associated with the enterprise with the aid of multiple data models. There are several advantages that are provided by the multi-model database technology as it allows the enterprises to meet several different requirements instead of making use of multiple database systems (Ciosummits, 2017). There are various types of database systems such as relational databases, hierarchical databases and many more. In case of multi-model database systems, all of these database types come together as a single unit. There are a number of NoSQL databases that follow multi-model database technology as its base technology. There are various enterprises and organizations that are now making use of multi-model database technology in their architecture (Lu, 2017). Features of Multi-Model Database Technology Multi-model databases support platforms for different types of use cases and have the ability to consolidate all of them together on a single platform. It provides a great degree of flexibility in terms of the query language and provides good storage capability as well. There are scenarios wherein the database requirements of an enterprise may increase or decrease as per the project specifications and needs. Multi-model databases can be easily used to provide the quality of performance scaling to the enterprises as these databases can be easily scaled up and down (Oliveira Cura, 2016). When there are more than one database systems and types present in the organization then the reliability of the database systems may reduce. In case of multi-model databases, the reliability of the data and information that is present in the databases is not compromised at all. There is lesser time that is spent in the coordination and processing of the data and information in the multi-model database technology (Bocquet, 2008). It is often observed that data consistency is compromised at some level due to the presence of huge clusters of data and multiple data systems in the enterprises. Database transactions are required to maintain ACID properties as atomicity, consistency, isolation and durability. These properties are not adhered and there are severe impacts of the same. However, consistency is easier to maintain in multi-model database systems as it has a single platform for all the database types. The cost of the multi-model database systems is much lesser than the individual database systems that are deployed in the enterprises. Cost of installation along with the cost of maintenance is much lesser in case of multi-model database systems. There are also more bugs that come up in the database systems if installed separately and there is a lot of cost that is spent in the resolution of these bugs. In case of multi-model database systems, this share of cost is also easily avoided. Multi-model database systems have higher fault tolerance as compared to the individual database systems. Multi-Model Database Technology - EDM Essentials Enterprise Data Management is a vast discipline and there are several activities that come under the same. It is necessary to make sure that some of the essential requirements are met and Multi-Model DBMS technology has the capability to fulfil all of such requirements and necessities. Data Migration In case of the application of a new technology in the enterprise or any set-up, the existing elements need to be migrated as per the new technology that is implemented. Multi-Model database systems have the capabilities that can ensure the smooth and easy migration of the existing data elements as per the new technology. Data Integration A strong integration of the data sets and the information contents that are present in the organization is necessary so that the business activities can be adequately carried out. Data integration shall therefore be present in the technologies that are implemented and capability is ensured in case of multi-model database technology. Data Maintenance Maintenance of the data is essential in association with the enterprises and multi-model database technology has the measures to carry out easy and smooth maintenance of the data (Faircom, 2015). Data Quality Assurance If the quality of the data is not managed and maintained then there may be various issues that may emerge such as redundancy and duplicity of the data in large scale enterprises. The same applies to the small scale enterprises as well. There are lesser resources engaged with the small scale enterprises but the need to make sure that the data quality is maintained is high. Absence of the adequate quality of data can lead to several issues in terms of inefficiencies in the business activities and likewise. Multi-model database technology ensures that quality of the data is assured at all times (Datafloq, 2017). Data Retention Certain data sets lose their requirement over the passage of time and these sets are then required to be removed. Multi-model database technology has the mechanisms to identify and carry out such procedures. Multi-Model Database Technology Benefits Improvement of Data Quality (Large Organisations) Multi-model database technology provides a number of benefits for the large enterprises. There is a lot of data that these large enterprises are required to manage and handle. With the use and installation of multi-model database systems, the management of the data along with the execution of a number of data related operations become easy. Data redundancy is one of the most common problems that have been observed in association with the large scale organizations. It is because of the reason that there are a lot many data sets that are present in the organizations and the monitoring of the same is not done adequately. Multi-model database technology makes sure that the problem of data redundancy is not present (Krebs, 2016). Multi-model database technology also makes sure that the data analysts and data experts can easily carry out master data edits on the data sets. With the aid of these master data edits, it becomes possible to ensure that integrity of the data is maintained and there are is no violation in terms of the data integrity on any of the data sets that are present in the enterprise. Security and access control are two of the most significant benefits that can be achieved with the implementation of multi-model database technology. It allow the access to only the authorized entities. Data analysis is required and is essential for every enterprise and its necessity increases for large scale enterprises. It is because of the involvement of huge data sets which makes it necessary to carry out data analysis so that significant patterns and trends can be understood after the process of data analysis. Quality of the data is maintained and ensured by multi-model database technology which in turn leads to the achievement of business activities and business operations as per the business requirements and specifications. Multi-model database technology also makes sure that the employees that are present in different geographical locations can securely access the data that is associated with the enterprise. Multi-Model Database Technology Benefits Improvement of Data Quality (Small Scale Organisations) There is a great degree of uncertainty that is associated with the small scale organizations in terms of the data usage, data volumes, and data specifications and likewise. It leads to the requirement of the technology that is scalable and flexible in nature. Multi-model database technology provides the same ability to the enterprises. Security of the small scale organizations is not advanced and there are certain security loopholes that are observed in these organizations. These can have impact on the data that is associated with the enterprises as there may be a number of security risks and attacks that may take place. Multi-model database technology makes sure that the security of the data sets is enhanced and is improved (Lam and Taylor, 2016). Data quality along with the usability of the data is improved with the implementation of multi-model database technology in the small scale organizations. This leads to the maximization of the customer base that is associated with these enterprises. The business operations and processes are not very advanced and mature in the small scale organizations. Multi-model database technology makes sure that a proper standard is followed in terms of the maintenance and management of the data sets that are associated with the enterprises (Backaitis, 2016). Conclusion The most important asset that is present and is associated with the enterprises in the current scenario is the information and data sets that are present with these enterprises. These data sets have varied properties and attributes related with them in terms of volumes, types, specifications etc. There are technologies that have been developed so that the enterprise data can be efficiently managed and handled. Multi-Model Database is one such technology that has allowed small scale and large scale enterprises to efficiently manage the data that is associated with them. There are several benefits that are provided by this technology to these enterprises in terms of removal of data redundancy along with strengthening of data quality and flexibility. Also, integration of the business activities and IT processes is also easily carried out with the implementation of multi-model databases in the enterprises. There are certain requirements that shall be met with any of the technology that i s defined under EDM such as migration of the data sets, assurance of the data quality, enhancement of data security along with retention of data sets. All of these requirements are easily met by multi-model databases which make it a preferred technology by the large and small scale enterprises References Backaitis, V. (2016). DataStax Gets Multimodel Database Powers. [online] CMSWire.com. Available at: https://www.cmswire.com/big-data/datastax-gets-multimodel-database-powers/ [Accessed 22 Jun. 2017]. Bocquet, A. (2008). Benefits of multi-model architecture-based development for railway applications. [online] Available at: https://uic.org/cdrom/2008/11_wcrr2008/pdf/PS.2.15.pdf [Accessed 22 Jun. 2017]. Ciosummits (2017). The Multi-Model Database Cloud Applications in a Complex World. [online] Available at: https://www.ciosummits.com/Online_Assets_DataStax_Whitepaper_-_The_Multi-Model_Database.pdf [Accessed 22 Jun. 2017]. Datafloq (2017). Multimodel Databases. [online] Datafloq.com. Available at: https://datafloq.com/big-data-open-source-tools/os-multimodel/ [Accessed 22 Jun. 2017]. Faircom (2015). A True NoSQL MultiModel Database. [online] Available at: https://www.faircom.com/wp-content/uploads/1603ShowFlyer2.pdf [Accessed 22 Jun. 2017]. Krebs, A. (2016). VistAs Multi-model Database | OSEHRA. [online] Osehra.org. Available at: https://www.osehra.org/post/vista%E2%80%99s-multi-model-database [Accessed 22 Jun. 2017]. Lam, V. and Taylor, J. (2016). Enterprise Information Management (EIM): The Hidden Secret to Peak Business Performance. [online] Available at: https://www.umsl.edu/~sauterv/DSS4BI/links/EIM_Final.pdf [Accessed 22 Jun. 2017]. Lu, J. (2017). Multi-model Data Management: Whats New and Whats Next?. [online] Available at: https://udbms.cs.helsinki.fi/assets/tutorials/edbt2017-multi-model-data.pdf [Accessed 22 Jun. 2017]. Oliveira, F. and Cura, L. (2016). Performance Evaluation of NoSQL Multi-Model Data Stores in Polyglot Persistence Applications. [online] Available at: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2938518 [Accessed 22 Jun. 2017]. Ronthal, A. and Simoni, G. (2015). Hype Cycle for Enterprise Information Management, 2015. [online] Gartner.com. Available at: https://www.gartner.com/doc/3096424/hype-cycle-enterprise-information-management [Accessed 22 Jun. 2017].

Macedonia The Critical Five Years 1945-1950 Essays -

Macedonia: The Critical Five Years: 1945-1950 The critical five years: 1945-1950 Nonetheless the Slavo-Macedonians, with the backing of the newlyformed Tito regime in Yugoslavia, kept up their efforts. Just a few days after the Varkiza agreement, Slavo-Macedonian emigres from Greece formed, in Skopje, an Organisation named NOF (National Liberation Front) and sent armed guerrilla bands back to the border areas of Greek Macedonia. The activities of these bands attracted the criticism of the KKE, since it was in conflict with the terms of the Varkiza agreement and gave the government forces an excuse for applying severe measures to suppress them. However, when the Civil War began in 1946, the Slavo-Macedonians, returned to Greek Macedonia in great numbers and joined the Greek Communist movement, while still retaining their own Organisation, the NOF. To judge from the various collections of documents and memoirs which have been published in Skopje, the Slavo-Macedonians -that is, the part of the Slav-speaking population whose national consciousness was Slav-were fighting what they saw at this time as a national liberation struggle for the Macedonians of the Aegean in order to win their national rights. These rights were none other than the policy which Yugoslavia was officially pursuing at this time and which was intended to incorporate the Macedonian territories of both Greek and Bulgarian Macedonia into the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. In the meantime, and while the outcome of the civil war in Greece still hung in the balance, the Yugoslavs exerted unbearable pressure on their Bulgarian comrades in order to blackmail them into ceding Bulgarian Macedonia to Yugoslavia. In the end, by the Bled accords of 1947 Dimitrov agreed, in return for minor concessions, to acknowledge the inhabitants of Bulgarian Macedonia (Pirin) as Macedonians and to pave the way for the incorporation of the province of Pirin into the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. The incorporation of Greek Macedonia would await the outcome of the civil war. The split between Stalin and Tito, which occurred suddently in the summer of 1948, upset all the Yugoslavian calculations about playing a leading role in the Balkans using the Macedonian question as the central lever. Bulgaria seized the opportunity to release itself from the concessions it had made over the Macedonian question. It repudiated the theory of the 'Macedonian nation' and drove the commissars from Skopje off its territory. It then attempted to exploit the difficulties which the Yugoslavs were facing in order to advance once more the pre-war slogan of an Independent and united Macedonia. This slogan also served to increase the more general political pressure which the Soviet Union was at that time exerting on Tito. The Moscow-Belgrade split, however, also had dramatic repercussions for Greek Macedonia. The leadership of the KKE judged it to be expendient to fall into line with the Soviet Union in attacking Tito and at the same time adopt its new policy towards Macedonia. Thus, by decision of the 5th Plenum of the Central Committee, in January 1949, the KKE revived the old pro-Bulgarian slogan of the independent and united Macedonia in the framework of a future Balkan Communist Federation. This shift of policy had grave consequences for the course of military operations, since the Yugoslavs, in order to protect their own rear, closed the border with Greece, which until that time had been the main channel through which supplies had flowed to the Communist forces in Greece. Some of the NOF supporters fled to Yugoslavian Macedonia, where they settled. Later, when the armed conflict ended in August 1949, the remaining masses of NOF supporters followed the other Greek political refugees into exile in the countries of Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union. The final outcome of those five tragic years was that all the Slavo-Macedonians left Greece. Yugoslavia, faced with the nightmarish prospect of a Soviet invasion, sought support in the West, which opened up the way for the normalisation of relations with Greece and the signing, in 1954, of a tripartite Balkan Pact of defensive alliance, to which Turkey also was a member. The new circumstances led Yugoslavia to drop the territorial demands it had been putting forward and to restrict itself to formal claims for the recognition of 'Macedonian' minorities. These claims

30+ Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin Terms

30+ Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin Terms 30+ Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin Terms 30+ Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin Terms By Daniel Scocco Most of us heard or read stories about cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, blockchain and so on over the past few years. Few of us, however, understand what those terms mean. Given that those technologies are probably here to stay, writers and readers alike would benefit from a basic understanding of the terminology involved. Below you will find an initial list with 32 terms. We plan to update it as new ones appear. 1. Bitcoin Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency. It is the first and most famous cryptocurrency, having being launched in 2009 by an unknown person or organization under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. The main goal of Bitcoin is to create a currency that doesnt rely on a central authority or government, as this feature should give it many benefits, including lower transaction costs. When it was launched the cost of one Bitcoin was only a couple of cents, and late in 2017 the price of one Bitcoin skyrocketed to almost $20,000, crashing after a couple of months to around $7,000. This meteoric rise and fall contributed to increasing the interest in this cryptocurrency around the world. 2. BTC Each cryptocurrency has a 3-letter symbol that is used to designate it on trading platforms. This is similar to the symbols used on stock exchanges to designate specific companies and stock. BTC is the symbol of Bitcoin. 3. Blockchain This is the core technology behind Bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies. Some people argue that this innovation has more value than Bitcoin itself, because it can be used on countless future projects. The basic idea is to organize all the transactions of a system (i.e. Bitcoin payments) into blocks, and then to connect those blocks in a chain using cryptography. The cryptographic functions ensure that all the transactions on the blockchain are valid, and anyone can check this information, as it is public. On top of that it is impossible to remove or change past transactions, making the system secure. An alternative way of seeing the blockchain is as an open, distributed digital ledger. 4. Cryptocurrency A digital currency which relies on cryptography to validate transactions, removing the need to have a trusted central authority reporting which transaction is valid and which is not. Bitcoin is the most popular one but today we have over 1000 cryptocurrency projects on the market. 5. Altcoin A nickname given to all cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin, derived from â€Å"alternative coin.† Bitcoin was the only cryptocurrency on the market for many years, and that is why when new ones appeared they received this nickname. 6. ICO Acronym for Initial Coin Offering. This event happens when a crypto project launches its currency or tokens in the market, allowing the first investors to purchase them. The process is similar to an IPO, where a company offers its shares to the public for the first time. Notice that when you invest in an ICO, however, you are not buying equity from that project. Instead, you are buying the coins or tokens of such project, and investors do so hoping that such coins will increase in value over time. 7. Ethereum Currently Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. The goal of this project is to allow programmers to easily create smart contracts (see below) as if they were writing a simple computer software. 8. Cryptography The study of strategies and technical implementations to guarantee the privacy and integrity of information exchanged between two or more parties. For example, if you want to send a message to a friend and want to make sure that only him will be able to read it you could substitute each letter on your message with a specific number or symbol. Only the person in possession of the substitution table (i.e. your friend) will be able to revert the list of numbers or symbols into the original message. Cryptography appeared thousands of years ago due to the need of private communications in military contexts and during wars. 9. Decentralization This is perhaps the most important characteristic of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency projects. By not having a central authority (i.e. by being decentralized) cryptocurrencies have advantages over fiat currencies and other payment methods. Those advantages include a limited monetary supply (which can make the value of the cryptocurrency increase over time) and, in theory, lower transaction costs. 10. Wallet Software that allows you to store cryptocurrency, and to send and receive payments. 11. Hot wallet A cryptocurrency wallet that is connected to the Internet. It can be a web application or a mobile application. A hot wallet gives you more convenience, because you can instantly send and receive payments using it. That being said they are less secure because hackers can try to gain access through the Internet. 12. Cold wallet A wallet that is not connected to the Internet. You can install such software on a USB drive, for instance. Cold wallets are not convenient to use but they are much more secure because the hacker would need physical access to try compromising the wallet. 13. Private key A private key (i.e. a sequence of randomly generated characters) is what allows you to spend the cryptocurrency funds in your wallet. It is like a password that you need to make payments and send funds from your wallet. If you lose it you will not be able to access your funds, and theres no way to recover it. 14. Network confirmation Remember that Bitcoin (like other cryptocurrencies) is a decentralized digital currency, so there is no company or central authority confirming if a given transaction is valid or not. The Bitcoin network itself will confirm each transaction. Each node (see below) will check each transaction and confirm or deny its validity. The larger the number of confirmations a transaction has, the higher the probability that it is valid. Currently, with six confirmations you have 99.9% of certainty that the transaction is valid. 15. Node A computer which is connected to the Internet and runs the software of a given cryptocurrency. Nodes are responsible for validating transactions and packaging those transactions inside new blocks on the blockchain. In other words, it is the network of nodes that keeps a cryptocurrency running. 16. Light node It represents a computer running a light version of the cryptocurrency software which offers a limited amount of features, usually including payment verification. Some cryptocurrency projects allow light nodes to exist with the goal of increasing the total number of nodes available, possibly increasing the efficiency of the network and reducing the time to validate transactions. 17. Full node A computer running the full software of a cryptocurrency project, which includes all the transactions (and therefore all blocks) ever registered for this particular cryptocurrency. Running a full node is the only possible way to verify a transactions without relying on a third party. 18. Consensus Since cryptocurrencies don’t have a central authority determining which transactions are valid and which are not and in which order they took place, the network of nodes, relying purely on software and algorithms, needs to reach an agreement regarding those factors. Such an agreement is called network consensus. 19. Token Cryptocurrencies were originally developed to be used as electronic cash. Over time, however, people realized that the same technology (i.e. blockchain) could be used for other purposes, most notably smart contracts (see below). Units of those crypto projects that aim to have functionality beyond those of a digital currency are usually called tokens. 20. Security token This is a subcategory of tokens which usually represent real-life assets like company shares, real estate and so on. Security tokens are expected to make buying, selling and trading those assets much more efficient, even though they are subject to more regulation than other crypto projects. 21. Smart contract A digital contract that gets automatically executed by software upon its completion. Suppose you want to make a bet with a friend about whether or not it will rain tomorrow. You could use a smart contract for such a bet. Both you and your friend would deposit the money into a temporary Bitcoin wallet, and the software itself would verify whether or not there was rain on that specific day. The software would then transfer the money to the winning party. As you can see, using a smart contract has some advantages, as it can give more security to both sides as well as impartiality when evaluating the results. 22. Mining As explained above, network nodes are responsible for validating individual transactions. Once there are enough outstanding transactions a node can create a new block on the blockchain by solving a cryptographic challenge. The node that first solves such challenge will get rewarded a certain amount of units of that cryptocurrency (e.g. on the Bitcoin network nodes get rewarded Bitcoins for adding new blocks). The process of validating transactions and adding new blocks to the blockchain is called mining. This nickname was created because it is through this process that the amount of Bitcoin in circulation increases, similar to what happens with precious metals like gold. 23. Miner A person, group of people or company involved with mining a specific cryptocurrency. 24. CPU Acronym for Central Processing Unit. This electronic component is the brain of the computer, being responsible for carrying out logic and mathematical operations. If you are a miner, the more CPU power you have available the higher the chances that you will be able to solve the cryptographic challenges when mining Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. 25. GPU Acronym for Graphical Processing Unit. This is a special purpose component in computers which is responsible for processing graphics. Some cryptocurrency projects have algorithms that allow for GPUs to be used in the mining process more efficiently than CPUs. 26. Satoshi Satoshi Nakamoto is the name of the person or entity that originally released the Bitcoin paper and software. Satoshi is also the name of the smallest unit of Bitcoin, representing one hundred millionth of a single Bitcoin. 27. Fork This is a software development term that also applies to cryptocurrency projects. When a fork happens, the current source code of the software is copied and used to start a new, independent version of the software. Usually a different team of programmers is responsible for the new version, and they carry out the fork because they want to have the autonomy to make modifications and/or improvements that the previous development team didn’t agree with. In the cryptocurrency world the most famous case is Bitcoin Cash, which was forked from the original Bitcoin in 2017. The developers behind Bitcoin Cash wanted to increase the size of the blocks on the Bitcoin blockchain, so that they could contain a larger number of transactions and thus be more efficient. Since the Bitcoin development team didn’t agree with this modification, the fork took place, practically creating a rival to Bitcoin. 28. Exchange An online platform where users can exchange one cryptocurrency for another. Some exchanges also allow users to exchange crypto currencies for fiat currencies and vice versa. 29. Stable coin A cryptocurrency which is backed by a fiat currency (e.g. the US dollar) or a commodity (e.g. gold). The idea behind stable coins is to provide liquidity and security for users who wish to temporarily sell their cryptocurrencies without removing their funds from the exchange. 30. Tether The largest stable coin in the market with a market cap of around $2 billion. 31. Double spending A type of financial fraud or attack. It involves spending the same amount of money twice, hoping that the second entity receiving the payment will not realize or not be able to verify that the money has already been spent on a previous transaction. This type of attack has happened with smaller cryptocurrency projects, however there is no confirmation of this attack happening with larger projects like Bitcoin or Ethereum. 32. 51% attack Since cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin do not have a central authority, it is the consensus of the network nodes that determine which transactions are valid and which are not. If a malicious user controls 51% of the network nodes he might be able to validate his own fraudulent transactions. The larger the number of nodes in the network, the harder it is to make this attack, and so far none of the popular crypto projects has suffered from it. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! 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EU Membership Criteria Evaluation Dissertation

EU Membership Criteria Evaluation Dissertation Abstract The purpose of this thesis is establishing a new membership mechanism for the European Union (EU). As the EU struggles with different kind of issues those showed up lately due to its membership mechanism, the demand for a new membership system arises. The thesis follows five steps to come up with a new solution. First step covers information of the current membership system. Second step refers particular problems closely related with membership system. In third phase the framework of the recommended system is built up considering the problems. Within the fourth step, the new system applied on mentioned problems to see how it effects current situation in theory. Finally, the self-criticism on the recommended system and the comparison between recommended and current membership mechanism is done in the fifth part. To understand the necessity of a new membership system at least the existent structure with its historical background shall be known. As much as knowing well the source of problems, analyzing problems separately is also required to create a solution. In the same way to come up with a solution, the establishment of the system shall be based on arguments those pointed out during the examination of the current membership system. While settling the new system, required elements were inspired from different disciplines of the social science. To check the functionality of the new system, it is applied to related problems. More specific explanations about the system are held during this checking process. Even if it sounds well functioning in theory, there might be some points to criticize in the new system since the perfection of a system is hard to achieve in social topics. The last thing to decide about whether choosing the recommended system or not is comparing the system with the curren t one according to their advantages and disadvantages. All in all, the thesis claims that the European Union is going to have a dynamic membership mechanism which provides more efficiency in membership activities. As a result, the EU can solve its problems and increase its structural solidity. In other words, the unification of member states may process faster than before. INTRODUCTION The Assumption â€Å"The European Union is NOT a religiously formed structure; unlike it is suspected and conspired as a Christianity Union by some political scientists.† 1.2 The EU and necessity of a new membership system Europe has achieved a very stunning progress in unification so far. However the mind bending question â€Å"Does the unification make anything better for all of the EU countries?† still doesn`t have a clear answer. From 1952 Paris Treaty until 2007 the last enlargement, the European Union (EU) enlarged fifth times and each enlargement separately came with some pros and cons. It has been arguing that how come a positive and beneficial action could create drawbacks and be harmful rather than helpful. Even though the ideology behind the establishment of the European Union is basically covers mutual beneficial agreement, somehow enlargements make some members` current social and economic situation worse. Besides, there are also some debates on whether enlargements should continue or not. After considering long-term cost-benefit analysis of enlargement attempts some doubts justifiably aroused about necessity of enlargement. The answer of these kinds of questions and results of thes e arguments will be also provided if the dilemma of enlargement is solved. It is easy to point out the problems and backwards of enlargement observing the social and economic fluctuation in the EU countries. However, marking the first cause and fundamental reason of these problems and to find exact solutions, as much as the source of problems are different and varied and cannot be solved without major regulations, the enlargement structure should be examined per se. Thus, to see the main stream of enlargement problems, essentially focusing on the enlargement progress is necessary. As the question aroused about the enlargement progress, the membership process that the skeleton of enlargement is so important to analyze and observe the basic reason of problems in the EU with cost-benefit perspective. It can be said that the membership process may actually the origin of the problems which can be monitored in the EU. To see how membership process affects the Union badly, a comparison of social and economic indicators between current and previous situations is truly required. In other words, analyzing from â€Å"the big bang† of the EU till current situation by looking at enlargement results gives some clues to understand how problematic the membership process is. Additionally, the current social and economic situation of the EU members and the EU`s relations with other states are also helpful indicators to recognize the problem in membership process. Furthermore, during the analysis it can be observed that in some cases the legal and written rules of the EU come short to cover the legal loophole at the current membership process. After reaching the conclusion of analysis about the membership process, the system can be regulated and may be renewed according to the results those show us whether the system should be changed. Although if the results objectively refer the moderate performance of membership process, a new prospectively designed system will still be suggested to optimize the system and increase efficiency. Because by having a flashback to the establishment of the ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community) it can be seen that the main scheme of the EU was created to improve and support efficiency among countries. Thus if there is a more efficient and beneficial system which helps the EU to get rid of its problems particularly, it should be preferred to current membership process due to ideological background of the EU, even though the current system works with difficulties. Besides, the recommended system will compromise with the current system by adapting most of its features. Mostly, membership systems are thought so strictly binding with members and rules of membership are not dynamic to adopt with a new unknown situation. But the recommended membership system which will be designed and tested can bring dynamism into the EU structure. The structure of membership process is bases on the framework of dynamic systems. As the ideology and motto of the new system, it can be said the whole world changes and differs every second to form adaptation with each items in it, systems also should be so dynamic that adopt with every sort of situation. In other words, the life is dynamic by itself. Therefore, a dynamic system for the EU membership mechanism is more realistic than a static membership model. Even in social sciences such as economics a dynamic analysis of economy is more explanatory than a static analysis and it also has more correct results. This thesis follows on five steps those will give us an understanding of change and the difference of new membership system. First of all, the current membership system and enlargement activities will be mentioned to observe the current situation. Secondly, the international, social and economical problems caused by current membership system will be mentioned particularly. The current problems and the lack of solution method against them will be shown in this part. Thirdly, the difference and requirements of new recommended membership system will be introduced. Furthermore, the application of the new membership system will be tried out with problems which would have been mentioned on the second step. Lastly, the conclusion to make an overall analysis and self-criticism of nominated membership system emphasizing advantages and disadvantages of both membership systems will be pointed out. At the beginning of the thesis, the assumption is placed in the middle of the first page without a ny additional script to emphasize it very strongly. Because the whole thesis is bases on the assumption that the European Union is just a union tries to increase common benefits of all countries in Europe without any discrimination. Otherwise, if it was not said so and the European Union was a religiously established union, there would be no need to improve efficiency of the membership process because the only one membership criterion that would have been looked for would be the Christianity of the applicant countries. Hence, the thesis would be meaningless, the current application of non-Christian countries as well. The assumption also helps to set the border of this thesis. During the thesis, the focus will just be on objective materials without referring any speculative comments. The dynamic system will be recommended for the EU can also be used as a conflict resolution method on the other unions` problem. With beliefs of the EU wants to have a more efficient and beneficial system, and also the EU defends that the unification of economic system and the harmonization of social structures shall be carried forward, a dynamic system will solve most of the problems in the union without getting in any other political debates such as religion. As an introduction for drawbacks of the current system, slowdown in economic indicators, rising of nationalist ideology and parties, rejection of the EU constitution, domestic moral problems in member states such as in Italy, Budget deficit problems in member states like Greece and Spain, lack of common foreign and security policy, and loosing beliefs of candidate states on the EU can be referred among dozens of problems. Nowadays, the EU is not in a comparable position with its former strength but the comparison of situations after and before enlargement activities will show that how the current system affects the strength of the union negatively. Thus, it will also explain how a membership system can diminish the power of a union. As simple as in the metaphor about flywheels of a machine, if there is any flywheel that works reversely, it should be gotten out from the mechanism before it blocks the working system. Even if a member state doesn`t work simultaneously with the union, the Union may be able to ban the state or hold its membership for a while. Otherwise the whole legal structure doesn`t help the system to work properly, this illustrates that the membership mechanism needs to be restored with an efficient one. PART I THE CURRENT MEMBERSHIP SYSTEM AND ENLARGEMENT ACTIVITIES 2.1 The current membership System The current membership system bases on three different documents which are The 1992 Treaty of Maastricht (Article 49),The declaration of the June 1993 European Council in Copenhagen, i.e. Copenhagen criteria, and a document is decided after negotiations about adaptation to acquis communautaire between European Union and candidate state. Lately, all of the membership requirements and its legal structure were combined into the Treaty of Lisbon. This means that all of those three documents are included into the treaty of Lisbon with a couple of updates. Especially, the Copenhagen Criteria are the rules that decide whether a country is eligible to join the European Union and they are also known as the main detailed source for the membership prerequisites. Firstly, the idea of preparing a legal content for membership carried out with the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht (Article O). In Article 49 (formerly Article O), the geographical criteria and slightly general policy criteria were settled do wn. Then, with the 1993 Copenhagen Criteria, the general policy criteria of membership were described in more details considering three aspects; Political, Economic and Legislative. After all those criteria, as a homestretch, measures and regulations decided by negotiations between the European Union and candidate states fulfill the scheme of membership requirement for the EU. Most of these criteria have been confirmed over the last decade by legislation of the European Council, the European Commission and the European Parliament, as well as by the case law of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights. The mentioned documents provide all requisites to become a member state of the EU. Thus, criteria can be sorted with sub-categories to understand what the EU demands from candidates particularly regarding to the general policy, geographic, political, economic, and legislative criteria. As a main frame the general policy criteria can be summarized as in the Article O (Maastricht Treaty): â€Å"Any European State may apply to become a Member of the Union. It shall address its application to the Council, which shall act unanimously after consulting the Commission and after receiving the assent of the European Parliament, which shall act by an absolute majority of its component members. The conditions of admission and the adjustments to the Treaties on which the Union is founded which such admission entails shall be the subject of an agreement between the 16 Member States and the applicant state. This agreement shall be submitted for ratification by all the contracting States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements.† (European Commission, 1992a) In addition to the article it can be extensively illustrated by an excerpt from the Copenhagen Presidency conclusions: â€Å"Membership requires that candidate country has achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, respect for and protection of minorities, the existence of a functioning market economy as well as the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union. Membership presupposes the candidates ability to take on the obligations of membership including adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union. †(Copenhagen European Council, 1993: 1) Regarding its acquis and actions, the EU doesn`t have certain steady geographic criteria for candidates. The EU refused Morocco`s applications a couple of decades ago, in 1987 due to territorial and geographical difference. Besides, even though Turkey has small part of its territory on the European continent and Turkey is on â€Å"negotiation† phase of membership process now, the membership of Turkey is still a huge debate. On the other hand, the speculations about the membership of Israel is considerably spread because of close economic and politic relations between Israel and the EU (Europa, 2007) and recently some Prime Ministers of member states individually declared that they would be happy to see Israel as a member state of the EU soon (Rettman, 2010). Hence, in the legal documents, the geographic criteria briefly demands that the candidate country shall have territory on the European continent and economical, cultural, historical and political ties with other European s tates as well. On the other hand, in practice, it can be seen so questionable. There is no clear answer for this dilemma. It can be easily illustrated by the fact that, before the rejection of Morocco, the EU accepted French Guiana to join the union despite the reality that it is in South Africa. Both countries mentioned in this case have similar background within France. The only difference is unlike French Guiana, Morocco is independent right now. However, instead of both countries, only French Guiana is in the EU. As a result, it can be claimed that the geographical criteria are not necessarily applicable within the current membership mechanism. Until 1993 the decision-making process of membership doesn`t have clear references. The clear expression of prerequisites is declared with the Copenhagen Criteria. However, when member states agreed on criteria in 1993, there was no mechanism for ensuring that any member state was in compliance with these criteria. Nevertheless some legal arrangements and sanctions have been imposed to monitor compliance with these criteria. The first victim of this action was the Austrian government of Wolfgang Schà ¼ssel in early 2000. They have been come across with sanctions of the other 14 Member States governments because of not compensating the membership requisites. These legal arrangements came into effect under the provisions of the Treaty of Nice on the first of February 2003. With Copenhagen Criteria three more aspects were added into membership mechanism; Political, Legislative and Economic criteria. These criteria are going to be explained particularly as follows; As a crucial part of political criteria the EU ask for a consolidated democracy from candidate states. According to most political science scholars, the definition of consolidated democracy contains these three steps; Competitive elections, Liberties such as freedom of expression, freedom of press and freedom of association, and Consolidation of democracy in society. Consolidated democratic governance requires that all citizens of the country shall be able to participate equally in the political decision making process at every single governing level. Consolidated democracy also means free and fair elections with a secret ballot, freedom of press, the right to establish political parties without any obstacle from the state rulers, freedom of association, freedom of expression, rule of laws and freedom of standing trial through unbiased free judges. The second political criteria for candidate states is the rule of law which expresses government authority may only be exercised in accor dance with documented and written laws. They should be adopted through an established procedure. In case of arbitrary rulings towards individuals, the principle is supposed to be a safeguard. The third political criterion to join the European Union is respecting the Human rights in every kind of situation. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is considered the most authoritative formulation of human rights and the EU is also admitted its legitimacy. According to the declaration human rights which every person holds because of their quality as a human being should be protected against all threats. Besides, those rights are inalienable and belonging to all humans. Briefly, if a right is inalienable, that means it cannot be limited, granted, bestowed, bartered away, or sold away. These include the right to life, the right to be prosecuted only according to the rule of laws, the right to be free from slavery, and the right to be free from torture.(Wikipedia, 2010a) T he last but not the least political criteria for EU membership are respect for minorities and protecting their rights. At the beginning there was no clarity in definition of minorities in member states. But in 1995 with the Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (COE) the EU declared minorities in member states and defined their rights with consensus. However, minorities in member states are defined by a consensus commission which was formed by member states therefore not all minorities could be regarded and defined within the concept. The consensus commission (the Venice Commission) reached the conclusion of the Convention for the Protection of National Minorities which protects minorities by defining them as â€Å"a group which is smaller in number than the rest of the population of a State, whose members, who are nationals of that State, have ethnical, religious or linguistic features different from those of the rest of the population, and are guided by the will to safeguard their culture, traditions, religion or language† (Venice Commision, 2004: 1). According to the definition of national minorities, unlike others, recent minorities such as immigrant populations have not been listed by signatory countries in the convention. This can be seen by checking the list of national minorities published by Council of Europe (Council of Europe, 2007). Another issue of the EU membership mechanism which can also be considered as a membership requirement is the economic criteria. As it is obviously known that the free market economy is the main characteristic of the EU. Speaking generally about free market economy, candidate countries shall have a functioning free market economy and the system should not be interfered by government as little as it is possible. Besides, their producers shall have the capability to deal with competitive pressure of free market and market forces within the Union. Nowadays, all economic requirements for membership are carried out with The European Exchange Rate Mechanism to take candidates into the Eurozone. While debating economic criteria for EU membership, one of the most popular misbelieves is the acceptance of economic criteria which were defined by the Maastricht Treaty as prerequisites for membership. Because the way it is interpreted in the Maastricht Treaty concerns about member states. They men tion about neither the necessity of abiding by the treaty for candidates nor obligations on candidate states. However, in practice, fulfilling those criteria is also expected from candidate states. The economic criteria defined by the Maastricht Treaty became more concrete with the Protocol on the excessive deficit procedure and the Protocol on the Convergence Criteria Referred to in Article 109j annexed to this Treaty. In the Protocols the desired ratios and rate were announced to member states, regarding to the practical aspect of the Treaty, it is binding for candidate states as well. The economic requisites for membership are sorted with articles in the protocol as follows; â€Å"The reference values referred to in Article 104c(2) of this Treaty are: 3% for the ratio of the planned or actual government deficit to gross domestic product at market prices; 60% for the ratio of government debt to gross domestic product at market prices.†(European Commission, 1992c) â€Å"The criterion on price stability referred to in the first indent of Article 109j (l) of this Treaty shall mean that a Member State has a price performance that is sustainable and an average rate of inflation, observed over a period of one year before the examination, that does not exceed by more than 1 ½ percentage points that of, at most, the three best performing Member States in terms of price stability. Inflation shall be measured by 30 means of the consumer price index on a comparable basis, taking into account differences in national definitions.†(European Commission, 1992b) Lastly, all candidates should regulate and enact their constitutions and judicial systems to consolidate them according to European law which built up over the history of the Union and also known as the acquis communautaire. After all criteria, the negotiations phase is the last step towards membership. During the negotiations with each candidate country, progress towards meeting the Copenhagen criteria is regularly monitored. On the basis of this, decisions are made as to whether and when a particular country should join, or what actions need to be taken before its access become possible. However, even though a country successfully fulfilled the whole bunch of criteria, it is declared that the new member cannot take its place in the Union until it is considered that the EU per se shall have enough absorption capacity for this enlargement. This situation were announced with the excepts in Presidency Conclusions (Copenhagen European Council, 1993) as follows; â€Å"The Unions capacity to absorb new members, while maintaining the momentum of European integration, is also an important consideration in the general interest of both the Union and the candidate countries.†(Copenhagen European Council, 1993: 1) To see the officially declared requirements and explanations it can be better to quote some excerpts from official web-sites of the European Union, thus the criteria can be compared and understood with and without interpretation; Accession criteria In 1993, at the Copenhagen European Council, the Union took a decisive step towards the fifth enlargement, agreeing that â€Å"the associated countries in Central and Eastern Europe that so desire shall become members of the European Union.† Thus, enlargement was no longer a question of ‘if, but ‘when. Concerning the timing, the European Council states: â€Å"Accession will take place as soon as an associated country is able to assume the obligations of membership by satisfying the economic and political conditions required.† At the same time, it defined the membership criteria, which are often referred to as the ‘Copenhagen criteria. Copenhagen European Council Membership criteria require that the candidate country must have achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities; the existence of a functioning market economy as well as the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union; the ability to take on the obligations of membership including adherence to the aims of political, economic monetary union. Madrid European Council Membership criteria also require that the candidate country must have created the conditions for its integration through the adjustment of its administrative structures, as underlined by the Madrid European Council in December 1995. While it is important that European Community legislation is transposed into national legislation, it is even more important that the legislation is implemented effectively through appropriate administrative and judicial structures. This is a prerequisite of the mutual trust required by EU membership.† (European Commision, 2010) As opposed to the membership criteria and the EU`s Acquis Communautaire, general criticisms are the lack of certainty and elaboration in membership criteria, not mentioning in Acquis Communautaire about cancelling membership in the case of refusing to carry out sanctions and penalties opted by the EU and the slightly existence of flexibility towards extreme case such as a desire of a member state to quit from the Union. In other words, there are sometimes conflicting interpretations in current member states about membership criteria and cancelling membership of an idle member state. On the other hand, the right of quitting form the union is recently added to the EU acquis with the Treaty of Lisbon. â€Å"Before the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force on 1 December 2009 no provision in the treaties or law of the European Union outlined the ability of a state to voluntary withdraw from EU. The European Constitution did propose such a provision and, after the failure to ratify the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, that provision was then included in the Lisbon Treaty. The treaty introduces an exit clause for members who wish to withdraw from the Union. This formalizes the procedure by stating that a member state may notify the European Council that it wishes to withdraw, upon which withdrawal negotiations begin; if no other agreement is reached the treaty ceases to apply to the withdrawing state two years after such notification.†(Wikipedia, 2010b) â€Å"Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.†(European Comission, 2007: Article 50) 2.2 Enlargement Activities The European Union enlarged fifth times so far and enlargements with greater amount of candidates mostly occurred through eastern European countries after the definition of the criteria mentioned above. This enlargement process started in 1952 when the European Union was still called as the European Coal and Steel Community. Since then, the EU has achieved to have twenty-seven member states with the most recent expansion to Bulgaria and Romania in 2007. Table 1. The EU`s enlargements and its approved members Accession Applicant Issued Enlargements 23 July 1952 France N/A Founding Members 23 July 1952 (West) Germany N/A 23 July 1952 Belgium N/A 23 July 1952 Italy N/A 23 July 1952 Netherlands N/A 23 July 1952 Luxembourg N/A 1 January 1973 United Kingdom 10 August 1961 First Enlargement 10 May 1967 1 January 1973 Denmark 10 August 1961 11 May 1967 1 January 1973 Ireland 10 August 1961 11 May 1967 1 January 1981 Greece 12 June 1975 Second Enlargement 1 January 1986 Spain 28 June 1977 Third Enlargement 1 January 1986 Portugal 28 March 1977 1 January 1995 Austria 17 July 1989 Fourth Enlargement 1 January 1995 Sweden 1 July 1991 1 January 1995 Finland 18 March 1992 1 May 2004 Cyprus 3 July 1990 Fifth Enlargement 1 May 2004 Malta 3 July 1990 1 May 2004 Hungary 31 March 1994 1 May 2004 Poland 5 April 1994 1 May 2004 Slovakia 27 June 1995 1 May 2004 Latvia 13 September 1995 1 May 2004 Estonia 24 November 1995 1 May 2004 Lithuania 8 December 1995 1 May 2004 Czech Republic 17 January 1996 1 May 2004 Slovenia 10 June 1996 1 January 2007 Romania 22 June 1995 1 January 2007 Bulgaria 14 December 1995 Within the table above the enlargements and candidate countries are sorted according to historical antecedence. On the other side, there are also countries which could not join the EU because of particular reasons. The United Kingdom is vetoed by the French Government in 1961 and Denmark and Ireland

Origin of Judaism :: essays research papers fc

The origins of Judaism are written in the book of Genesis, the first book of the Pentateuch. Genesis is divided into several major parts. The creation of the world (first part) and the story of Abraham (second part) are respectively the parts that are dedicated mostly to the origins of Judaism.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  God created heaven and Earth. Then he created man. Man disobeyed God, building a partition between them, and went on his own. God promised redemption on man for being tempted and corrupted by Satan.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Later, God chose Abraham as the father of a long line of people that he would deal with throughout time in order to keep his promise of redemption, and to define a certain people as his. Abraham had two sons: Ishmael and Isaac. God chose Isaac to receive the birthright promises. As a result, the line of God’s people came through Isaac. After what happened the first time with man’s betrayal, God put Abraham and Isaac to a test. God ordered Abraham to sacrifice Isaac to him. Abraham was confused and hurt by this command, but both he and Isaac agreed. As he was about to kill his son, God stopped him. God informed Abraham that this was a test to see how loyal he was to him.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Generations later God made a pact with the chosen people. They agreed to live a life of strict obedience to the law that he gave them, and in return, they would have the promised messiah come as one of them, who would deliver them from evil to God. He provided them prophets to make his presence and desires known to them and to predict future events so they would know what to expect from God in future times, and how to recognize the Messiah when he arrived.

Healthcare Finance in The United States of America

In United States the Congress had passed the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 or MMA and with this imposed a stoppage for 18 months on the starting of new physician owned specialty hospitals. At the same time, they also wanted to know the position regarding certain matters of physician owned heart, orthopedic and surgical specialty hospitals through MedPAC. The team visited sites, made legal analysis and met the share owners in these hospitals and finally presented a report to the Congress. It had also gone through the cost reports received from Medicare and inpatient claims of 2002, which was the most recent at that time. This will naturally form the basis of such hospitals being permitted or not. (Physician-owned specialty hospitals) The findings of this committee showed that:- Physician owned hospitals generally treated patients who had less severe problems and concentrated on specific diagnosis related groups and the reason for both of this was that these were expected to be more profitable than other patients. These hospitals do not treat as many Medicaid patients as community hospitals. Regarding the costs of patients in these hospitals for the patients, the Medicare patients did not get benefits of lower costs though the inpatients had shorter periods of stay. There was no appreciable impact of physician owned specialty hospitals on the community hospitals as seen in 2002, and there was also no impact on the financial performance of the community hospitals. Most of the differences in profitability can be rectified by improving the prospective patient system for inpatients that are made by Medicare. Thus according to the findings there are not major differences between the community hospitals and physician owned specialty hospitals in terms of costs or capability for services. (Physician-owned specialty hospitals) Differences among types of hospitals: We shall make comparison of the hospitals in India and USA. In India, apart from the government hospitals, there are a number of large hospitals run by trusts or large corporations. In the city of Bombay or Mumbai, the hospitals named Jaslok or Hinduja are run by trusts and Wockhardt Heart Hospital is run by a major pharmaceutical company. Even when the hospital has been promoted by a physician, still the hospital is run like a corporation as is seen in the case of Apollo Hospitals. There is now a new hospital named as Asian Heart Hospital in Bombay which has been promoted by a physician team and they have a large stake in the hospital. The team of physician is led by one Mr. Panda who is now the CEO of the hospital. These physicians have all invested their own funds, and to get more funds, they have even asked for more contributions from other physicians who are now not resident in India. The hospital is the result of a plan by these physicians in 1993-94. The hospital took about 10 years to complete. Thus one should realize that a hospital takes a long time to take shape up. (Doctors in arms) The biggest problems in the management of hospitals come from physicians and renowned physicians are sought for empanelment by hospitals. The physicians then continually force the hospitals to upgrade their infrastructure and also charge heavy fees from the patients. At the end of the services by the physicians, it is they who get the biggest returns. It is also difficult to retain the physicians as they leave at the earliest opportunity, and this statement is from one of the promoters of the hospital, GW Capital. They are now investing money in the concept of physician managed private hospitals. This resulted in its investment of Rs 150 million or about 3 million dollars in buying a 26 percent stake in another hospital group in Hyderabad, in 2000 called the Care Group. That group has expanded very fast and now has over a 1000 beds in its operations in six centers. (Doctors in arms) Thus the costs of the hospitals will require about 12 million dollars for a 1000 bed operation. At the same time, not all hospitals are made with money in mind and there are hospitals in Chennai or Madras in India which have 150 physicians, 500 nurses and 371 Para-medical staff. The entire team works within a budget of Rs 120 million or 2.4 million dollars. (Healing Ministry of the Madras Diocesan Medical Board) This hospital is run by a religious mission and its objective is to provide service to the people and this hospital does not want to make money, but run at break even costs. In United States, during 2002 there were 48 hospitals found to be physician owned hospitals. Of them 12 were heart hospitals, 25 were orthopedic hospitals and 11 were surgical hospitals. These hospitals are generally very small with average capacities of orthopedic hospitals being 16 beds, the surgical specialty hospitals being 14 beds and heart hospitals are the largest with average capacity being 52 beds. The general conditions of these hospitals are not full fledged as they do not have emergency departments, whereas 93 percent of the community hospitals have emergency departments. The reason for existence of these hospitals is the physician control over the hospitals. (Physician-owned specialty hospitals) At the same time, one of these hospitals has been named as one of country's top 100 heart hospitals. (Parkwest Medical Center) Financial position of private hospitals: According to available reports, the private hospitals are in a position to take on patients who are capable of paying for them, and not take on patients who have to depend on managed care organizations. This increases the incomes of the hospitals by 20 to 50 percent. This reduces the cost of a bypass surgery at one of the hospitals in India, Care to about Rs 80,000 or $1,700. The cost in India is higher by about 30 to 40 percent in corporate hospitals. Even the new hospital, Asian Heart has predicted a cash break even during the second year of operations, and by the end of the second year it expects to pay a 15 percent dividend to the investor. Thus on an investment of $50 million, the returns would be $7.5 million from the second year. (Doctors in arms) The position in United States is the same, and in spite of some private specialty hospitals not having made any distributions to stockholders, the study showed that the margin in these hospitals was about 13 percent in 2002 as compared to 3 to 6 percent that was seen for community hospitals. (Physician-owned specialty hospitals) The advantages of physician owned specialty hospitals: To find this aspect out, there were discussions with the physicians who were investing in these hospitals. The cardiologists and surgeons want to admit their patients, perform the required procedures and have the patients recover with minimum disturbance. They believe that community hospitals cannot match their services as those hospitals have a variety of services and missions that they have to undertake. The direct control by the physicians help to increase productivity through less disturbances to the schedules in operating room which come from the emergency cases that come about, decreasing the down time between operations between two different surgeries and this is due to cleaning the operating room more efficiently, increased ability to work between two operating rooms even when the operating rooms are blocked due to some other work and better efficiencies through direct control of operating room staff. As mentioned earlier, they also like to form specialty hospitals as they have increases in income. There is some increase due to productivity, but they are able to collect a share of the profits from the facility for themselves and other associated physicians. They concentrate on providing services that are profitable, on treating patients who are less sick and thus more profitable. (Physician-owned specialty hospitals) Even in India the same situation exists and most of the physicians who have now started developing hospitals have been working together earlier, and one of the main aims is to remove the pressure from managed health care systems that they have to face otherwise. There is now a distinct change in the formation of hospitals and new hospitals are being formed by physicians. The total costs have been discussed to some extent, but without the participation of physicians, the hospitals are unlikely to be successful.

Balance Theory Essay

Introduction Good Evening ladies and gentlemen my name is xxxxx and today I shall enlighten you about a very interesting theory concerning consumer behaviour and Marketing. As practicing marketers, we are well aware of the impact that a celebrities endorsement can have on consumer behaviour but I am pretty sure most of you wouldn’t know the reasoning behind such a phenomenon. What is the Balance Theory? Ever wondered why firms use celebrities to endorse their products? Well wonder no further because Fritz Heider proposed with his Balance theory that people attempt to maintain a psychological balance and form relationships that balance out their likes and dislikes. For example if Person A likes a celebrity and the celebrity likes a product but Person A originally disliked the product, then Person A is likely to end up increasing his enjoyment of the product or decreasing his liking of the celebrity or both. All these options create equilibrium. As marketers, it is our goal to achieve market the product successfully to the target audience. For example if we were to use Michael Jordan to market golfing products, then the target consumer would most likely end up disliking the product. However, if we were to use Tiger Woods to market the golfing products, then consumers of golfing products would most likely end up liking the products. The Balance Theory Explained So the Balance Theory is made up of a Triangle that consists of 3 elements. The relationship between these 3 elements is known as sentiment relations. So the first element is PO, the second element is PX and the third element is OX. If the results of the multiplication of the positive or negative signs of any 2 elements yields a positive result, then the consistency in the triad is maintained and vice versa. This model may seem complicated but it is in essence very basic. So let me simplify this for you with an example. Positive Example Let us assume P is John a basketball fan, O is Michael Jordan a celebrity Basketball player and X is the product being marketed and in this case let’s assume it is a limited edition basketball. So if John is a fan of Michael Jordan, then the sentimental relation PO will be positive. Since Michael Jordan is approves of the product he endorsed, the relationship OX is positive too. Therefore, by default, PX would be positive too. Negative Example However, say if P were to remain John, O were to become Tiger Woods and X were to become a golf set, then PO would become negative since Tiger Woods is a golfer and hence John would not be able to relate to him, OX would remain positive since Tiger Woods loves the product he is endorsing and the eventual result of this would be a negative PX which would mean consistency in the Triad is not maintained and that the celebrity endorsement has not been successful in promoting this product to the consumer. Importance of this theory to us This theory is of interest to us as future marketers as it helps us understand consumer behaviour and psychology with regards to mascots used to endorse/market a product. It also educates us on the 3 way relationship that transpires between product, celebrity and consumer and in turn, we would be able to market our products using the correct celebrities for the correct product. The End And that ladies and gentlemen concludes my presentation on Fritz Heider’s Balance Theory. Thank you all for your kind attention. Bibliography 1. http://www.investorwords.com/15193/balance_theory.html 2. http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/balance_theory.htm 3. Roy, Subhadip, Gammoh, Bashar S., Koh Anthony C. (2012). Predicting the effectiveness of celebrity endorsements using the balance theory..Journal of Customer Behaviour. 11 (1), p33-52.

battle Ship Potemkin essays

battle Ship Potemkin essays The silent film Battleship Potemkin started off on a high, the sailors refusing to eat the meat and soup they were served because it was covered with maggots, for some reasoned really captured my attention. The setting was on a large ship that showed us many areas, so it was not focused on one area, they showed the galley where the sailors eat, and they showed the sleeping quarters and the main deck. The also went off land which added a special touch to the film for there was actual When the oppression began it was strange, for it went from the sailors who didnt eat, getting there soup stolen to having towns people getting killed babies falling down stairs and solders shooting everything in It was interesting to see the towns people walk by the coffin of the dead sailor and pay their respects to a person they do The casting was well done as said in the notes, some of the actors were picked to look the part but a lot were just regular sailors and that added a special touch to it, you saw strong body instead of little It was nice to see tricks being done, meaning stunts. I enjoyed seeing the sailors jump off the ship to go rescue the other I must say that he movie was a little strange but in general I would recommend it for it technique, different settings and ...

The Arts and Royalty; Philosophers Debate Politics Case Study

The Arts and Royalty; Philosophers Debate Politics - Case Study Example This is a very clever way of personifying France, considering that a viewer who knows about French royalty would know that the lady is being welcomed to France, even without prior knowledge of the history of Marie de’ Medici. Ruben is also ingenious in the way he distorts the images of the goddesses to create movement and add theatrics to the painting. One of Nicolas Poussin’s most recognized paintings is â€Å"The Shepherds of Arcadia.† According to Sayre, the painting depicts three shepherds and a woman reading the inscriptions on a tomb (737).Poussin uses a unique sense of style to lure the viewer into what is happening in the painting. For example, one of the shepherds appears to be painting his own shadow while he is, in fact, touching the inscription on the tomb. The figures in the painting also appear to be in a melancholic mood and seem to be meditating on the meaning of life, as written on the inscription which according to Sayre means â€Å"I too once dwelled in Arcadia† (737). Poussin creates a sense of balance in the painting by depicting the figures in such a way that symmetry is attained in the painting. Personally, I find Ruben’s painting to be better than Poussin’s in that Ruben puts in a lot of work in order to make the viewer understand the context of the painting. For example, the magnificent house in the background, the expensive regalia worn by the women, and the vast ship all educate the viewer on the extravagance of the early French society. In contrast, it is not so easy for a viewer to understand the context of Poussin’s painting just by looking at