BayState Realty Case Study Essay

1. Use a table to identify the software products sited above that fall within the following categories of software: System Software General Purpose Software Application Specific Software An operating system built to control and operate the hardware system Protect the firm’s hardware platforms from intrusion, malware, and computer viruses Dell laptops and desktop computers running Microsoft’s Windows operating system Allows users to accomplish simple computer related tasks Standardizes and minimizes implementation costs Facilitates staff training Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Outlook, and Microsoft SharePoint For an end user Document and management system The CRM system, an Accounting System, a Human Resource Management System, a Real Estate Sales Documentation and Management System, and a Rental Property Management System 2. Use a second table to identify and explain the various elements in the total cost of software ownership and then list the steps taken by the CIO to limit the firm’s software TCO expenditures. Elements in the Total Cost of Software Ownership Steps Taken by the CIO to Limit the Firm’s Software TCO Expenditures Software and hardware upgrades Time to renew hardware and software Training for new and current employees Hiring MIS or IT personnel Sale Price Licensing 1. Focus on the procurement and deployment of a limited set of well-established, off-the-shelf products 2. Negotiate favorable licensing terms with Microsoft for the initial acquisition of products, to standardize and minimize implementation costs, and to limit firm investments in ongoing staff training and product documentation and support 3. Work closely with their line-of-business colleagues to select best-in-breed application specific software 4. Adapt their business processes to make the best use of the software and by doing so, better control the TCO for that software 5. Implement Linux (an open source software product) as the operating system of choice for servers running shared applications 3. List the reasons why BayState Realty chose to go with off-the-shelf software instead of developing their own software packages in house. BayState is mainly focused on their real estate agencies, so by doing so they can continue to focus on their business which means it is preferable for them to go with off-the-shelf software The software has already been tested by the company. Besides the test, the software company also provides warranty service It is available for computer shops, so there are lots of computer shops solving Window software problems It can easily find the same users so they can share their experiences easily and answer any questions about the system 4. List the reasons why it makes sense to go with Linux. Be sure to include how this particular use of open source software mitigates the risks typically associated with the choice of an open source software product. Linux is free or cheaper so it is beneficial for users that it is not owned by the company The software is unlikely to get computer viruses or other malware Hardware independent – operating system in advance and advantage Community relationship – Instead of establishing customer relationships, Linux shares with lots of vendors and is part of the community not a single user. Interoperability – able to connect to networks and communities easily You can select the best tools you need 5. Compare the advantages and the disadvantages associated with outsourcing the hosting of the firm’s three web sites. Advantages: Hosts the firm’s three Web sites Saves time – Do not have to spend time to manage the website Better equipped – Proficiency in creation, innovation, and design Low cost – helps customers manage their money wisely Use the correct Internet strategy, like formulating marketing programs Disadvantages: Hidden cost – it has a low cost for website outsourcing, but there are several costs behind the price, such as signing a contract Exposing data – BayState Company is sharing their information with a third party Lack of focusing on their customers – instead of customizing, vendor may be creating an expertise-need

Infancy and Childhood Development Essays

Infancy and Childhood Development Essays Infancy and Childhood Development Essay Infancy and Childhood Development Essay Infancy and Early Childhood Development An infant is completely dependent, and the trust an infant develops is based on how dependable and reliable the caregiver is. Erik Erikson theory states that between birth and one year of age is the most important stage in psychosocial life development. Although it may not seem a significant amount of time, newborns and infants go through a lot of development compared to the rest of their average 75 years of life expectancy. This paper will explain how families affect the development of infants and young children. Evaluate different parenting styles and their influence on development during infancy and early childhood. It will also discuss early childhood education and its influence on cognitive development. How Families Affect Development Parents and cultures are pivotal to this process, which makes it biosocial not merely biological development (Berger, Ch. 5, 2007). Families greatly affect and infants developmental stages more than just socially, brain development is also affected. Parents and caregivers behaviors influence schedule and expectations of sleep patterns. Starting from birth is important to setting a pattern because sleep becomes regular and distinct sleep-wake patterns develop by age 1 (Berger, Ch. 5, 2007). Sleep deprivation is detrimental to brain development. The child gains its patterns from how structured the caregiver makes the scheduled. A mother who takes their child out constantly and has inconsistent hours may find it hard for their child to develop a sleep pattern as they get older. Mother who set a strict schedule in the early stages finds their children able to settle in to a consistent sleep pattern. Although giving a balance to what the infant is exposed to is just as important. Every gesture, move, sound and sight is a new experience for the infant. Early experiences help with the development of the parts of the cortex that are dedicated to senses and motor skills. The experiences are vital to synapses link to neurons. If the neurons go unused the brain will redirect that region to other sensations causing a lack of development in certain areas. Caregivers and parents need to constantly expose the infant to new experiences especially during the first year. Because each culture is different experience-dependant brain growth is different in each infant, but all well developed infants have the same potential in capabilities of emotion, linguistics, and sensory. Some emotions began at birth but other develop over time anger emerges with restriction and frustration, between 4 and 8 months of age, and becomes stronger by age 1 (Berger, p. 201, 2007). Fear develops at the end of age 1 as well but behaviorist believe that babies learn many things from their parents including fear. What to fear and what brings joy can come from learned actions of the parent or caregiver. The first 2 years are considered extremely important in all theories, caregivers and parents highly influence the child’s behaviors. In the epigenetic theory it is expressed that the influence even affects genetic traits such as temperament. Temperament is genetic but how the child inhibits it is influenced by the parent’s behaviors. Since human development in general is directly related to its cultural environment the caregiver-infant relationship has a huge impact on the infant’s development. The interaction the parent or caregiver has with the infant shapes the behavior. Influence from Parenting Styles Early years of a child are very important in developing emotional, social, physical, language, and even think skills. Parents are ongoing role models through the child life but the aspects of parenting that are linked with development of young children are social and emotional development. Parenting styles can be defined along two important dimensions: 1. Responsiveness: how well the parent is attuned to the child and able to respond to the child’s needs and interests, and 2. Control: how much the parent supervises and disciplines the child and requires obedience and self-control. (Canadian Council on Learning, p. 2, 2007) The style of parenting my parents used would be a combination of both responsiveness and control. However my mother was more controlling and less responsive compared to my father. I believe the affect that my parents parenting style had on me was somewhat positive although I do lack an emotional closeness to my family. I look for more of a friendship with my family versus a loving emotional connection. Socially I am not as strong as I think I could have been because I had trouble gaining friends in my early childhood. My interests were driven by what my parents wanted and what I believed would make them happy versus my own deep desires. Early Childhood Education and Cognitive Development Piaget and Vygotsky had quit a few differences but there bases where very similar. In general both theories state cognitive development happen throughout time. The differences however are between stages and zones, and interaction with more knowledgeable beings. Vygotskys theory emphasized the need of a MKO or More Knowledgeable Other. Piagets theory doesnt need any outside influence learning is internally stimulated. Piaget believed during early childhood maturity is achieved through stimilizing the cognitive ability. The maturing of the mind and thought process occurs from an education rich in hands on learning and sensory driven activities. During the child’s life span the child’s imagination and creativity become the main source that drives the learning process. Around this stage, 2-7 years old, education depends on maturing the cognitive schemes and developing new ones. Vygotsky and Piaget theories also differentiate by the use of Zone of Proximal Development, ZPD, and Stages. I believed Vygotsky to be more accurate. I think his learning theory of scaffolding and using different levels of assistance from a MKO is important to cognitive development. Also language has a very important role in learning development. Yes both Piagets and Vygotskys theories both put and emphasis on the environment playing a significant part in the cognitive development process but Vygotsky provided a very influential theory which provided a meaningful social context in the development of learning (Eddy, n. d. ). Conclusion Society, parents or caregivers, and environment are major influence in infant and early childhood development. Behaviors and personalities are molded beginning earlier than age 1. Education during the early childhood not only promotes growth intellectually but develops social maturity. The parent must find the balance and guide the infant not force them through their experience in order to obtain a beneficial development process. I believe the saying is true, â€Å"it takes a village to raise a child†. Reference Berger, Kathleen Stassen. (2007). The Developing Person Trough the Lifespan seventh edition. Canadian Council on Learning. (2007). Lessons in Learning. p2. Retrieved July 22, 2011 From ccl-cca. ca/pdfs/LessonsInLearning/Dec-13-07-Parenting-styles. pdf Eddy, Samuel. Psycho Hawks Making Psychology Simple for Everyone. . Retrieved July 24, 2011. From http://psychohawks. wordpress. com/about-the-blog/

Experience Psychology, 3rd edition Essays - Nervous System

Experience Psychology, 3rd edition Essays - Nervous System Experience Psychology, 3rd edition Chapter 3, Sensation and Perception Vocabulary, Key Terms Absolute threshold: The minimum amount of stimulus energy that a person can detect. Apparent movement: The perception that a stationary object is moving. Auditory nerve: The nerve structure that receives information about sound from the hair cells of the inner ear and carries these neural impulses to the brain's auditory areas. Binding: In the sense of vision, the bringing together and integration of what is processed by different neural pathways or cells. Binocular cues: Depth cues that depend on the combination of the images in the left and right eyes and on the way the two eyes work together. Bottom-up processing: The operation in sensation and perception in which sensory receptors register information about the external environment and send it up to the brain for interpretation. Cones: The receptor cells in the retina that allow for color perception. Convergence: A binocular cue to depth and distance in which the muscle movements in an individual's two eyes provide information about how deep and/or far away something is. Depth perception: The ability to perceive objects three-dimensionally. Difference threshold: The degree of difference that must exist between two stimuli before the difference is detected. Executive attention: The ability to plan action, allocate attention to goals, detect errors and compensate for them, monitor progress on tasks, and deal with novel or difficult circumstances. Feature detectors: Neurons in the brain's visual system that respond to particular features of a stimulus. Figure-group relationship: The principle by which we organize the perceptual field into stimuli that stand out (figure) and those that are left over (ground). Frequency theory: Theory of how the inner ear registers the frequency of sound stating that the perception of a sound's frequency depends on how often the auditory nerve fires. Gestalt psychology: A school of thought interested in how people naturally organize their perceptions according to certain patterns. Inner ear: The part of the ear that includes the oval window, cochlea, and basilar membrane and whose function is to convert sound waves into neural impulses and send them to the brain. Kinesthetic senses: Senses that provide information about movement, posture, and orientation. Middle ear: The part of the ear that channels and amplifies sound through the eardrum, hammer, anvil, and stirrup to the inner ear. Monocular cues: Powerful depth cues available from the image in one eye, either the right or the left. Noise: Irrelevant and competing stimuli; not only sounds but also any distracting stimuli for the senses. Olfactory epithelium: The lining of the roof of the nasal cavity, containing a sheet of receptor cells for smell. Opponent-process theory: Theory stating that cells in the visual system respond to complementary pairs of red-green and blue-yellow colors; a given cell might be excited by red and inhibited by green, whereas another cell might be excited by yellow and inhibited by blue. Optic nerve: The structure at the back of the eye made up of axons of the ganglion cells that carries visual information to the brain for further processing. Outer ear: The outermost part of the ear, consisting of the pinna and the external auditory canal. Papillae: Rounded bumps above the tongue's surface that contain the taste buds, the receptors for taste. Parallel processing: The simultaneous distribution of information across different neural pathways. Perception: The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information so that it makes sense. Perceptual constancy: The recognition that objects are constant and unchanging even though sensory input about them is changing. Perceptual set: A predisposition or readiness to perceive something in a particular way. Place theory: Theory on how the inner ear registers the frequency of sound, stating that each frequency produces vibrations at a particular spot on the basilar membrane. Retina: The multilayered light-sensitive surface in the eye that records electromagnetic energy and converts it to neural impulses for processing in the brain. Rods: The receptor cells in the retina that are sensitive to light but not very useful for color vision. Selective attention: The act of focusing on a specific aspect of experience while ignoring others. Semicircular canals: Three fluid-filled circular tubes in the inner ear contain the sensory receptors that detect head motion caused

Participants in Policy Process Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Participants in Policy Process - Essay Example (Dye, 2001, p. 4 to 7) In this context, the participants in the public policy process may be segregated into two categories. The first are the official participants comprising of government officials, authorities as well as political players. On the other hand are the non governmental or unofficial participants who come in the form of social workers, individuals lobbying for the interests of certain pressure groups, and even the average citizen. In the course of this paper we will try and differentiate between these two groups of participants in the policy process. To do so, we will start by delving into the various aspects of the policy process. When embodied in a person's life as a profession, the policy process becomes a matter of drawing on statistical information and basing decisions on various kinds of analysis before arriving at the factors that will influence the elements to be included in a certain policy. Considering the fact that this will greatly influence a normal citizen's life in various ways, the policy maker has to be doubly sure of the facts as he is responsible for a lot of people.

The new 4Ps for Dasani water Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The new 4Ps for Dasani water - Research Paper Example This paper illustrates that Coca-Cola Company has increased the number of people taking part in the marketing ecosystem of dasani water as the market continues to become more complicated. For instance, its marketing involves the incorporation of Coca-Cola contact center, customers, and field marketing. Workers and other participants in different departments including finance and market research come together to assess marketing solutions for dasani water. Â  Participants are responsible for establishing how to appropriately align individuals and support teamwork across its marketing environment. Additionally, dasani marketers have to deeply understand the lives of consumers before determining their preferences. Â  After aligning people for teamwork and information sharing, the company documents and automates the processes thereby creating an effective coalition. As the market becomes more complicated, process becomes essential in aligning the correct individuals with the appropriat e marketing activities. This would assist in performing close-loop marketing speedily while penetrating new markets. When marketing dasani water, the company employs state-of-the–art marketing ideas by establishment the correct set of processes to control the activities involved. Some of the processes used in marketing the product include execution, operational and analytical processes. During the execution phase, Coca-Cola Company uses both outbound marketing and inbound marketing to introduce this brand into new markets. Â  Dasani is also being marketed digitally through social media.

Two news Reading response about supply chain management strategy Assignment

Two news Reading response about supply chain management strategy - Assignment Example This company focuses on the preferences of their customers and tries to make a product by adopting these preferences. This process is known as Quality Function Deployment. The Fashion world is quite uncertain and keeps on changing day to day due to the changing trends across the globe. Zara is one of the most renowned companies in the fashion industry and the reason behind its success is its exceptional supply management strategies. The supply chain strategies of this company make it successful in the stock market. One of the reasons behind its efficient supply chain management is that it uses information technology to achieve its supply chain. Zara uses its own railway track that helps in the speedy distribution of goods to other developing countries. Also, Zara create its products in small qualities and in this way they figure out which product is successful and which won’t work in the market (Loeb). Loeb, W. (2013, October 14). Zaras Secret To Success: The New Science Of Retailing. Retrieved January 20, 2015, from Forbes :

Globalization and the Environment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Globalization and the Environment - Essay Example There is also an element of double standards because most of the global corporations operating in developing countries belong to the west (Kwong 21). The author recognizes the positive impact of globalization as far as environmental development is concerned. Globalization promotes free trade. In an environment of free trade, a country is free to choose a trading partner and the best ways of exploiting her resources. Globalization promotes development of institutions that advocate efficiency in production. Such institutions design laws that protect environment in a business world. Globalization promotes competition amongst global firms, which invest in innovation and efficiency in production. Efficient technology promotes environmental conservation and sustainable growth. The curve is U-shaped and shows a positive affiliation between economic expansion and environmental dilapidation, for example, pollution, before the curve’s turning point. From the turning point, there is a negative relationship between pollution and economic growth and development. The curve is important because it shows the important of globalization as far as environmental development is concerned. I support the author’s arguments. This is because they explain the real situation in the global economy. For example, in the developing countries, economic growth increases with the increase in pollution. On the other hand, pollution within developed countries decreases as the level of development increases. This is because companies adopt innovative technology in production, which enhances environmental