SOCIAL MEDIA AS AN EFFECTIVE MARKETING CHANNEL Essay

SOCIAL MEDIA AS AN EFFECTIVE MARKETING CHANNEL - Essay Example 53). It is also playing a key role in the overall community building. There are many types of social media that help people communicate with each other and develop business relationships. However, social media mainly refers to the social networking websites that play a dynamic role in the personal and professional lives of people. Some of the main business benefits of using social media include provision of an effective marketing platform, ability to reach large audiences, and improved customer service. In this paper, we will discuss the value of social networking websites for advertising, customer service, and as a community building tool. The paper will also include a discussion on the value of social media as an effective marketing tool. 2. Social Media as an Effective Marketing Channel Social networking websites are playing a valuable role as effective marketing channels for all types of companies whether large, small, or medium-sized (Kelly 2013). With the advent of the social m edia as an effective network for marketing and advertising, companies started using social networking websites for achieving better response, as well as to provide customer service through enhanced level of interaction with the customers of the company (Richardson, Gosnay and Carroll 2010, p. 58). â€Å"The main goal of social media marketing is to ensure high participation of target audience in campaigns and content shared by the company† (Rajarammohan 2012). It is imperative for a company y to know the needs and demands of the customers for the provision of best products and services. Managers use a range of tools to gather required information because without the information of customers’ requirements, it is not possible for a company to deliver customer value properly. Social media marketing helps managers and concerned employees in contacting the customers of the company directly to know their requirements and preferences. Today, many small and large companies for m manufacturing and retail industries are focusing of the use social media marketing to customize their products in accordance with the customers’ preferences, as well as to deliver their message in a more effective and conventional way to the target audience. Social media marketing refers to marketing using social networking websites and other forms of social media (Weinberg 2009, p. 4). Gone are the days when people used to visit products’ dealers and companies personally to know the functionalities and specifications of their required products. Today, most of the people use internet and related media to get all information about the products that they want to buy. For example, the number of people using online portals and websites for shopping is increasing with every passing day. The reason is that they do not need to waste their precious time going to markets and collecting information about different products. Today, internet has become the biggest and the most c onvenient marketplace where trading occurs in the same way as it occurs traditionally. The role of internet in this regard is evident from the fact that some popular social media websites, such as, Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook receive millions of clicks every day regarding product information (Rajarammohan 2012). The role of Youtube seems to be on the top in this regard as millions of people use this website to gather information about different products and services. For example, if a person aims to buy a new mobile phone of a particular company, he/she is most likely to open Youtube and see different videos related to that mobile phone. This is the reason why almost all major brands

Body Sensor Network: A Modern Survey Performance Study

Body Sensor Network: A Modern Survey Performance Study ABSTRACT As because of modern emerging technologies, low power integrated circuits and wireless communication has enabled a new generation of sensors network. The incorporation of these sensors networks in Health care is very popular and plays a vital role in breath breaking situations. The deployment of monitoring hardware incorporated with various wireless standards plays a key role in regard to interoperability, invasion privacy, sensors validation data consistency and interference related issues. The goal of our paper is to make a comparative study in realm of modern wireless trends such as Bluetooth, Wi-fi, Zigbee and Wibree and related facets. Index Terms- Wireless Body area network, Zigbee, Wi-fi, Bluetoooth INTRODUCTION Now a days, Wireless Sensors Network (WSN) has becomes a assured technology in the realm of advanced applications. The one of its latent position is in the form of unguided biomedical sensor network to determine physiological sign. Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is a unguided network utilized for interaction among sensor nodes in or about the human body in order to supervise critical body parameters and activities. These supervising signs are collected by a personal server, e.g. PDC or Smart phones which acts as a sink for the information of the sensors and send them to caregivers for proper health supervising. The personal server have some memory in which some results are arranged which it gives to the patient at the time of emergency it acts like a feedback, if the situation is not handle by the PDC then it transfers the signal to caregivers by unguided media. There are different issues highlighted in the employment of WBAN technology. This survey executes a atomistic review on pronominal investigations that emphasis in procured related facts in WBAN as well as WLAN. This paper is arranged into the different parts which provides a short introduction of WBAN and WLAN and look out attributes of pronominal differences between them and fetch attributes of WBAN and pulls general architecture and handle postulates in WBAN and also intercommunicating much on security issues, we shall also see the features of short range wireless techniques and compare them according to their performance. And at last gear up related investigations in security bare for WBAN. ATTRIBUTES OF WBAN WBAN is a communication network between human and computers through wearable devices. To establish a interaction between these devices, unguided sensor network and ad hoc network techniques may be used. The tiny sensor senses the signals from the body and send it to the processor through unguided media[1]. But due to some emblematic features of WBAN current protocols create for these network are not always feasible to favour WBAN. To favour this level, TABLE 1 modifies the general differences between WSN and WBAN[2][3]. WBAN was introduced from real WSN (WPAN) technologies[4]. WPAN is a personal area network using unguided acquaintance consistently within a short range ( Basic requirement of WBAN include the requirements of WPAN, such as low power, low data rate unguided sensors network standard Zigbee. Despite the fact that Zigbee does not fetch majority of core technical requirements of WBAN features and the for a standard specifically designed for WBAN. Diagnosticate the great market potential and rapid technological enlargement in this field. The IEEE is ongoing an 802.15.6 standard optimized for low power WBAN favouring at a data rate from 10Kbps to 10 Mbps[1]. The exclusive endowment compared to majority of core WPAN are as follows: WBAN is a small scale network rather than WPAN is a relatively short range communication technique inclusive the communication in or on a human body with the maximum range of ( A star topology is basically used WBAN where communication is organised in the heart of sensor nodes and is directly linked to a master node. Despite, it cannot always meet the desired authenticity requirement. Thus a star-mesh hybrid topology extends the fashionable approach and creates mesh networking among central coordinates in multiple star networks. Gadgets incorporating WBAN are firmly limited in their computational capabilities and required scalable completion; data rate upto10Mbps, and power consumption upto40MW. Data that are detected, collected and transmitted in WBAN is comparatively sensitive; highly secure and confidential. Gadgets of WBAN closely surround the human body to consist of its transportation system are highly safety requirements. ACCUSTOMED ARCHITECTURE The proposed wireless area body network for health monitoring integrated into a border multitier medicine system in this architecture ,WBAN is compared to other wireless network. In fig 1 a WBAN compared with other types of wireless network[2]. Each type of network has a typical enabling technology, defined by IEEE. A WPAN used IEEE 802.15.1 (Bluetooth) or 802.15.4 (zigbee) , a WLAN uses IEEE 802.11 (Wi-fi) WMAN IEEE 802.16 .The communication in a WAN can be established via satellite links. As declared before , admitting challenges faces by WBAN are in many ways similar to WSN, there are elemental differences between the two requiring special attention. Network and Complex Systemswww.iiste.org ISSN 2224-61 OX (Paper) ISSN 2225-0603 (Online)pn Vol.3, No. 1, 2013-Selected from Inter national Conference on Recent Trends in Applied Sciences with Engineering Applications IISTe In TABLE 2, a schematic overview of differences between WSN and WBAN is given [2][3][4]. TABLE 2:SCHEMATIC ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WSN AND WBAN IS GIVEN: CHALLENGES WSN WBAN Scale Monitored environment (m/km) Human body (cm/m) Node number Many redundant nodes for wide area coverage Fewer, limited in space Result accuracy Through node redundancy Through node accuracy and robustness Node tasks Node performs a dedicated task Node performs multiple task Node size Small is preferred, but not important Small is essential Network topology Very likely to be fixed and static More variable due to body movement Data rates Homogeneous Heterogeneous Node replacement Performed easily, nodes even disposable Replacement of implanted nodes difficult Node lifetime Several years/months Several years/months, smaller battery capacity Power supply Accessible and likely to be replaced more easily and frequently Inaccessible and difficult to replace in an implantable setting Power demand Likely to be large, energy supply easier Likely to be lower, energy supply more difficult Energy scavenging source Most likely solar and wind power Most likely motion(vibration) and thermal (body heat) Biocompatibility Not a consideration in most applications A must for implants and some external sensors Securitylevel Lower Lower Higher, to protect patient information Impact of data loss Likely to be compensated by redundant nodes More significant, may require additional measures to ensure QoS and real-time data delivery Wireless Technology Bluetooth, Zigbee, GPRS, WLAN, Low power technology required Impact of data loss Likely to be compensated by redundant nodes More significant, may require additional measures to ensure QoS and real-time data ENGROSSSMENT OF WBAN We classify demand of WBAN into two categories i.e. system and security. Further detail is described in the following subsection. A.System exigency This subsection provides brief description of system requirements that viewed in three different aspects such as type of devices, data rate and energy. Types of devices. Sensor node: A device that responds to and gathers data on physical catalyst processes the data if necessary and reports this information wirelessly. It consists of several components which are sensor hardware, a power unit, a processor, memory and a transmitter or transceiver. Gateway: It gathers all the information acquired by the sensor nodes and informs the users. The components area power unit, memory and transreciever. This device is also called a body control unit(BCU),body gateway or a sink. Monitoring Server: It is consists of database for data storage and processing and analyzing software for delivering system intended services. Data rates The reliability of the data transmission is provided in terms of the necessary bit error rate (BER) which is used as a measure for the number of packets lost. For a medical device, the reliability depends on the data rate. Low data rate devices can cope with a high BER while devices with a higher data rate require a lower BER. The required BER is also dependent on the criticalness of the data. Energy Energy consumption can be divided into three domains: sensing, communication and data processing[2][5]. Despite, the energy consumption for communication is more than computation in WBAN. Further, higher security requirements usually correspond to more energy consumption for cryptographic operations. B. Security Requirements The security and privacy of patient-related data are two indispensable components for the system security of the WBAN. By data security, it means the protection of information from unauthorized users while data being stored and transferred and data privacy means right of individuals to control the collection and use of personal information about themselves. Security and privacy issues are raised automatically when the data is created, transferred, stored and processed in information systems[8]. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) mandates that, as the sensors in WBAN collect the wearers health data (which is regarded as personal information), care needs to be taken to protect it from unauthorized access and tampering[9][11]. Because WBAN systems and their supporting infrastructure are operated with extremely stringent constraints, they present a greater challenge in the areas of throughput, data integrity and data security when compared to traditional clin ical systems. The security mechanisms employed in WBAN for the later need specific features that should be taken into account when designing the security architecture. Thus, the system needs to comply with the following major security requirements as in TABLE 3 [4][8][10]. TABLE 3: MAJOR SECURITY REQUIREMENTS IN WBAN Major security requirement Description Data storage security requirements Confidentially Patient-related data should be kept confidential during storage periods. Especially, its confidentially should be robust against node compromise and user collusion. Encryption and Access Control List are main methods providing data confidentiality. Integrity assurance Patient-related data must not be modified illegally during storage periods Dependability Patient-related data must be readily retrievable when node failure or data erasure happens. Data access security requirements Access control (privacy A fine-grained data access policy shall be enforced to prevent unauthorized access to patient- related data generated by the WBAN. Accountability When a user of the WBAN abuses his/her privilege to carry out unauthorized actions on patient-related data, he/she should be identified and held accountable Revocability The privileges of WBAN users or nodes should be deprived in time if they are identified as compromised or behave maliciously. Non repudiation The origin of a piece of patient-related data cannot be denied by the source that generated it. Other security requirements Authentication The sender of the patient-related data must be authenticated, and injection of data from outside the WBAN should be prevented Availability The patient-related data should be accessible even under denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. WBAN APPLICATIONS The WBAN application targeted IEEE 802.15.6 standard are divided into medical and non medical application as given in fig.2. Medical application include collecting vital information of a patient continuously and forward it a remote monitoring station for further analysis[6]. The huge amount can be used to prevent the occurrence of myocardial infarction and treat various diseases such as gastrointestinal tract, cancer, asthma neurological disorder. WBAN can also be used to help people with disabilities. For ex retina prosthesis, chips can be planted in human eye to see at an adequate level. Non medical application include monitoring forgetting things, data file transfer, gaming and social networking application. In [7] gaming, sensor in WBAN can collect coordinate movements of character in the same, ex- moving cricket player or capturing the intensity of ball in tennis. The use of WBAN in social networking allows people to exchange digital profile or business allows people to exchang e digital profile or business card only by shaking hands. Fig. 2. WBAN applications RELATED RESEARCH Several research groups have been developing the implantable or wearable devices for health monitoring in WBAN communications. However, these researches mainly focus on building system architecture and in lesser extent on developing networking protocols. Besides, it is difficult to discover solutions providing security for WBAN and security has generally been covered separately. Extending the scope of technology, there are several security protocols in general sensor networks. Security Protocols for Sensor Networks (SPINS) is a set of protocols for achieving security requirements like confidentiality, integrity and authenticity in sensor networks and uses several symmetric keys to encrypt the data as well as compute the Message Authentication Code (MAC)[4][11]. However, SPINS is only considered in general sensor networks, so that it is inadequate to apply in WBAN as it has environmental features like the human body and limited computing resources. Some researches show the security for sensor nodes in or on the human body in WBAN. They show that the sensors have to make use of cryptographic algorithms to encrypt the data they send to control node and the random number which is used in security protocols can be generated by biometrics[12]. Biometrics approach uses an intrinsic characteristic of the human body as the authentication identity or the means of securing the distribution of a cipher key to secure inter-WBAN communications. At initial stage, several security schemes of WBAN are established by the symmetric cryptosystem due to limited resources, but have problems like delaying the disclosure of the symmetric keys and providing weak security relatively since it is not resilient against physical compromise[13]. Furthermore, the complexity of sensor nodes key managements in WBAN gives each component overload. On the contrary, some researches utilizing the asymmetric cryptosystem in mobile and ad hoc networks also have been proposed, and tried to examine the unique characteristics of WBAN[8][14]. One concern about the asymmetric cryptosystem is a resource constraint problem but recent work has shown that performing ECC consumes a lot less of memory and computing power[12][14]. These researches dealt with a scope of limited WBAN but they exclude the implanted sensor networks. The objective of WBAN is also the implementation of body area network that can contact with everywhere in, on, and out the human body. By comparison, each approach has several issues to be considered in terms of the security services in WBAN. Further, there is a trade-off between performance and security. Related to these, another research group has implemented these two heterogeneous cryptosystems in their research which provides security and privacy to WBAN. In [4], they believe that these two cryptosystems can be applied in the authentication of WBAN depleting each weak point of them at once. They primarily focus on the authentication in the overall coverage of WBAN including in-, on- and out body to provide the strong and adequate security for WBAN. CONCLUSION WBAN is an emerging and promising technology that will change peoples healthcare experiences revolutionarily. It brings out a new set of challenges in terms of scalability, sensor deployment and density, energy efficiency, security and privacy and wireless technology. In this survey, we have reviewed the current development on Wireless Body Area Network and we focused in security issues faced by this technology. In particular, this work presents an overview of the differences between Wireless Body Area Network and Wireless Sensor Network. We presented differences of architecture in WBAN and other type of Wireless sensor network. Several key applications will benefit from the advanced integration of WBAN and emerging wireless technologies. They include remote health monitoring, military, sports training and many others. It is also important to highlight here that WBAN poses with various type of security problems. Thus, we believe that WBAN requires a strong security system and part of it is authentication. A secured authentication system is extremely needed in various applications WBAN technology particularly in medical and military. The proposed protocol is potentially useful to be utilize in WBAN by satisfying their technical requirements keeping pace with the standardization of IEEE 802.15.6[4]. Our next step is to discover hybrid authentication protocol in providing a strong security system for WBAN. ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work is supported by National Institute of Technology, Patna as a part of partial fulfilment of Post Graduate degree in Communication systems for the academic year of 2011-2013. REFERENCES Selimis, Georgios et al. A Lightweight Security Scheme for Wireless Body Area Networks: Design, Energy Evaluation and Proposed Microprocessor Design, Journal of Medical Systems, 2011, pp. 1-10-10, doi: 10.1007/s10916-011-9669-2. Latre, Benoit, Bart Braem, Ingrid Moerman, Chris Blondia, and Piet Demeester. A survey on wireless body area networks, Wireless Networks, vol. 17, 2010, pp. 1 18, doi: 10.1007/s11276-010-0252-4. Chen, M., Gonzalez, S., Vasilakos, A., Cao, H., Leung, V. C. M. Body Area Networks: A survey, Mobile Networks and Applications, vol. 16, 2011, pp. 171-193, doi:10.1007/s11036-010- 0260-8. Jang, C. S., Lee, D. G., Han, J.-W., Park, J. H Hybrid security protocol for wireless body area networks, Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, vol. 11, 2011, pp. 277-288, doi: 10.1002/wcm.884. Jingwei Liu and Kyung Sup Kwak. Hybrid security mechanisms for wireless body area networks, Ubiquitous and Future Networks (ICUFN), 2010 Second International Conference on , 2010, pp. 98- 103, doi: 10.1109/ICUFN. 2010.5547221. IEEE P802.15.6/D01,Wireless Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications for Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs) used in or around a body, May 2010. S. Saleem, S. Ullah, and K.S. Kwak, A Study of IEEE 802.15.4 Security Framework for Wireless Body Area Networks, Sensors, vol.11, No.2, pp. 1383-1395, 2011. Lim, S., Oh, T. H., Choi, Y. B., Lakshman, T.. Security Issues on Wireless Body Area Network for Remote Healthcare Monitoring, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Sensor Networks Ubiquitous and Trustworthy Computing, 2010, pp. 327-332, doi: 10.1109/STUC.2010.61. Venkatasubramanian, K. K., Banerjee, A., Gupta, S. K. S.. PSKA: usable and secure key agreement scheme for body area networks, IEEE transactions on information technology in biomedicine a publication of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, vol. 14, 2010, pp. 60-68. Mana, M., Feham, M., Bensaber, B. A.. SEKEBAN (Secure and Efficient Key Exchange for wireless Body Area Network), Science And Technology, vol. 12, 2009, pp. 45-60. Liu, J., Kwak, K. S.. Towards Security Issues and Solutions in Wireless Body Area Networks, 6th International Conference on Networked Computing (INC 2010),2010, pp. 1-4, doi: 10.1109/ICUFN.2010.5547221. Poon, C. C. Y., Zhang, Y. T., Bao, S.-D.. A novel biometrics method to secure wireless body area sensor networks for telemedicine and m-health, Communications Magazine IEEE, IEEE, vol. 44, 2006, pp. 73-81, doi: 10.1109/MCOM.2006.1632652. William, C., Tan, C. C., Wang, H.. Body Sensor Network Security : An Identity-Based Cryptography Approach, Proc. ACM Conference on Wireless Network Security (WiSec 08), ACM Press, 2008, pp. 148Â ­153, doi: 10.1145/1352533.1352557. Sharmilee, K. M., Mukesh, R., Damodaram, A., Subbiah Bharathi, V.. Secure WBAN Using Rule- Based IDS With Biometrics And MAC Authentication, 2008 10th IEEE International Conference On EHealth Networking Applications and Services, IEEE, 2008, pp.102-107, doi: 10.1109/HEALTH.2008.4600119.

Franz Kafkas The Metamorphosis :: Metamorphosis essays

The Metamorphosis The Metamorphosis is the story of a commercial traveler, Gregor Samsa, that one morning awoke turned into a gigantic insect. It is no dream but, simply and plainly, a real metamorphosis with no rhetoric in between. Facing this incredible fact, Kafka does not do any realistic concessions and keeps the new condition of the character to the end. That makes of The metamorphosis a hard work of fiction, in the way of Odyssey (with which, besides, it is closely related) or in the way of the Medieval fairy tales, specially those in which the wicked witch turns The Prince Charming into a hideous animal. >From the other side, the work, that belongs to a trilogy about marriage in relation to the individual, the family and the so-ciety written by Kafka, has a highly autobiographical contain. In The Judgment the subject is the engagement assumed as a treason to the literary calling; in The metamorphosis there is a view of marriage and family relations from a masochistic and incestuous perspective; in The Trial, it is the settlement of accounts, related with the incapacity of accomplishing the acquired compro-mises, according to an unwritten law, he must pay. In the three cases, the story ends with the protagonist's death. The Metamorphosis is built on a fiction level with two faces, Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky and Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, superposed in a way they get in contact with a real level with two faces too, the family relations and his dreams of Felice. By the merging of theses two levels, Kafka gets a fantastic reality which allows him to express his deepest dreams and desires in relation with marriage and sex in a poetic language that turns The Metamorphosis into a classic of erotism, aspect not considered until now. (Such a pleiad, Kafka, Sacher- Masoch and Dostoesky, met in The Metamorphosis turns into a height of masochism this work). PART ONE The Metamorphosis has three parts: the first one describes both the transformation of Gregory and his family's reaction to this respect; the second part shows the new cotidianity of the fami-liar group whose fragile estability crush with Gregory and sis-ter's bringing face to face; and the last part, where we attend Gregory's frustrated attemp of reconquering his sister, ends with his death. The foreground onto which Kafka builds his work is Dostoevsky's novel. This one brings to him a textual base that he lightly, mainly through substitutions, varies for adapting it to the intentions of his own story. For the first part of The Meta-morphosis, Kafka takes three

Privatizing Philippine Public Service Delivery

Privatization may seem like a perfect solution for deficit-plagued governments, but the morning after can bring some unpleasant surprises. As a city or country drowned in deficits and faced multiple lawsuits, city leaders saw outsourcing as a light at the end of a collapsing tunnel. But it was only a mirage. The search for financial salvation is sweeping the country as local governments grapple with waning sales and property tax revenues. The economic recession has strangled budgets, forcing layoffs and the disbanding of departments. Feeling pushed to the brink of bankruptcy, cities are trying to find effective ways to make do with less. Over the year, more public officials have turned to outside sources for help in providing services at a lower cost to the country’s provinces or cities. In theory, the idea of contracting public services to private companies to cut costs makes sense. If someone is willing to fix streets or put out fires for less money, that should be a plus for a government’s bottom line. Many provinces and local governments have identified hundreds of millions of pesos in savings by hiring outside contractors — or a neighbouring city’s services — to handle tasks like trash collection, electricity repair, and water and wastewater treatment. For me, privatization of public services is by no means a perfect solution. Some agencies don’t have the metrics in place to prove in advance that outsourcing a service will save money. Problems from poorly conceived contracts can create cost increases that surpass the costs of in-house services, and if there’s shoddy contract oversight, a government is vulnerable to corruption and profiteering. The privatization of public services can erode accountability and transparency, and drive governments deeper into debt. Governments at all levels are just desperate to balance their budgets, and they’re grasping at privatization as a panacea. But there’s evidence that it often is a very bad deal with hidden costs and consequences when you turn over public service to a for-profit company. Various governments — from small towns all the way up to provinces– have been sending public services to the private sector since the 1980s. The trend stems from the common belief that private companies can help governments save or make money by doing jobs faster and cheaper, or managing a public asset more efficiently. Sterile philosophical debates bout ‘public versus private’ are often detached from the day-to-day world of public management. Over the last several decades, in governments at all levels throughout the world, the public sector’s role has increasingly evolved from direct service provider to that of an indirect provider or broker of services; governments are relying far more on networks of public, private and non-profit organizations to deliver services. Like most countries, the Philippines telecommunications industry was once a monopoly of the Philippines Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) overseen by the Philippines government. In 1995, the government decided to privatize the industry and created the Public Telecommunications Policy Act of 1995 (RA 7925) in the hopes of creating a more level playing ground for all companies. The Act was defined as the new legal, policy, and regulatory framework in the promotion and governance of Philippine telecommunications development. The country was divided up into eleven regions, opening up the market to various competing telecommunication companies. The Act covers all telecommunications entities, protects users' rights, increases the roll-out period from five to three years, enforces the deregulation of value-added services and the complete privatization of all government telecommunications facilities by 1998. The dismantling of the monopoly and opening of the country to other telecom companies has resulted in a drastic improvement in teledensity. Local telephone service is provided by 78 private telephone companies and 4 government units. PLDT, the largest of the local telephone service providers, accounts for 67. 4% of the telephone service in the country. All the other telephone service providers combined account for 32. 76%. The government’s most successful in privatization created a permanent, centralized entity to manage and oversee the operation, from project analysis and vendor selection to contracting and procurement. For governments that forgo due diligence, choose ill-equipped contractors and fail to monitor pr ogress, however, outsourcing deals can turn into costly disasters. The problem is that outsourcing deals are really about risk. We are taking the risk of the unknown and dumping that on your supplier. We are outsourcing a problem to a company that has limited control over the root cause of the problem. The only way for a public-private partnership to work, is to drive transformation from within the agency, and that’s the hard part. Red tape usually prevents governments from making significant modifications, and private companies lack the authority to enforce real changes. When such a public-private stalemate stunts a project, it helps to have an exit strategy. Before governments hire outside contractors, it’s important to examine the cost-effectiveness. More times than not, it’s less expensive to use public workers instead of outside contractors. Take what happened in Metro Manila, the privatization of MWSS was initially welcomed by residents. Between 1997 and 2001, the two companies granted concessions for the eastern and western zones of the metropolitan area installed 238,000 new water connections, 128,000 of which were in urban poor communities. New service connections, which averaged only 17,040 per year from 1991-1995 tripled to 53,921 after privatization in 1997. Communities that used to have only limited water services found that they had water coming in 24 hours a day. Manila Water was allowed to raise its tariff six times higher than its original bid and Maynilad, which had a higher rate to begin with, was allowed to raise its rate four-fold. Even these rate increases, however, were insufficient to stabilize the situation and in March 2004, Benpres Holdings, the company in charge of Maynilad indicated it wanted to return its concession to MWSS as it was unable to pay its concession fees to the water agency. Under the original contract, Benpres had put up a performance bond of $120 million in favor of MWSS. As a compromise, Benpres forfeited $50 million of that bond but it did not have to pay its arrears in concession fees amounting to Pesos 8 billion. Moreover, Benpres was allowed to continue managing the company although its stake in its capitalization had been reduced to 2 per cent from an original 60 per cent. The Pesos 800 million that Benpres invested in Maynilad were wiped out. All in all, therefore, Benpres was losing P3. 2 billion in the fiasco. Interestingly, Manila Water, which got the eastern zone concession, has not suffered the same kinds of problems encountered by Maynilad. The main reason for this is the fact that Manila Water got a smaller zone of the metropolitan area, a relatively new area where the water infrastructure was not as badly dilapidated. Manila Water also assumed only $80 million of the debt of MWSS. When it was hit by the foreign exchange crisis, the government allowed it to raise its water rates six-fold because it had a much lower initial rate. A good outsourcing deal starts with a thorough cost-benefit analysis to see if a third party can effectively deliver services better and more cheaply than public employees. Government should hire an outsourcing consultant who can provide an independent assessment. But even with a consultant, conflicts of interest can tarnish a golden opportunity. After all, private companies may want to provide a service efficiently and well — and often do — but governments must ride herd on implementation of the contract. A company’s motivation is not the common good; it’s profit. If they can cut corners in any way, they often do. In that regard, the provider that offers the lowest bid might not be the best option. But with our country’s experience in several large-scale government outsourcing deals, we have seen first-hand that in a bidding war, the company that has a liberal interpretation for the lowest price wins, which inevitably leads to strife when high expectations meet underachievement. Anyone can bid any outsourcing deal 5 percent cheaper, but the problem is you don’t know what they cut out. When price reductions appear unrealistic, there’s no magic. They are unrealistic. Even with the proper oversight channels, policies won’t work if departments don’t participate. The laws were created to promote transparency and to ensure that agencies complete an effective cost-benefit analysis prior to procurements. But compliance has been low over the years. With these, I have come up with a generalization that the pros and cons of privatization of Philippines service delivery are as follows: PROS: 1. Government can raise funds to pay off other debts fast because of relieve from financial burden of the public sector enterprises being privatized; 2. It removes government’s monopolistic status and inability to be responsive to citizens' needs, resulting in inefficient, one-size-fits-all services. Like the above-cited case of PLDT. 3. In practice, all levels of government, seeking to reduce costs, have begun turning to the private sector to provide some of the services that are ordinarily provided by government. The spread of the privatization movement is grounded in the fundamental belief that market competition in the private sector is a more efficient way to provide these services and allows for greater citizen choice. Similar to the goal of the above-cited case of MWSS. 4. With privatization solidly on ground, costs will be reduced at the long run. 5. Public sector workers are not harmed by privatization. Displaced workers can be hired by contractors or transferred to other government positions. 6. It stops loss-making public sector enterprises from adding to government debts; 7. It gives new businesses access to investment capital that government cannot provide; CONS: 1. One of the disadvantages is that the privatized company will no longer operate in the public interest. While a state-owned company primarily serves the citizens of the state, the primary goal of a privately operated company is to make profit. It may make these profits at the expense of its customers without serving them properly. For example, it may choose the market which is most profitable to operate in and leave less wealthy customers without a service. 2. Prices may actually rise if the service was previously subsidized by the government like what happened to MWSS.. This is a common experience after a successful privatization process. This becomes imperative in a bid to provide qualitative service, improve efficiency and profitability. 3. Privatization alone may not lead to better quality or cost reduction in public service delivery. 4. Government no longer receives profits (if it was previously profitable), therefore, the revenue accruing to the government from public sector enterprises becomes shortened as a result of privatization. 5. The standard economic measures used to make privatization decisions fail to accurately assess the real costs and benefits of care. With all of the foregoing, I therefore conclude that privatization, when done right, works well. Privatization of public services is by no means a perfect solution. Privatization is not a blanket solution for the problems of poorly performing public sector enterprises. It cannot in and of itself make up totally for lack of competition, for weak capital markets, or for the absence of an appropriate regulatory framework. But where the market is basically competitive, or when a modicum of regulatory capacity is present, private ownership yields substantial benefits. A good outsourcing deal starts with a thorough cost-benefit analysis to see if a third party can effectively deliver services better and more cheaply than public employees. The success of any privatization arrangement, whichever technique is adopted, will be dependent on the sincerity of government to pursue it with unblemished policy implementation, support, co-operation and understanding of the citizenry. At the onset, privatization bites very hard, but at the long run, the benefits are multifarious and immeasurable.

Assertion of Indian Values and Ethos Essay

â€Å"Certainly we should take care not to make intellect our God. Intellect has, of course, powerful muscles but no personality. It cannot lead. It can only serve. It is not fastidious about its choice of leaders (Mind or Soul). The intellect has a sharp eye for tools and methods but is blind to Ends and Values†. – Albert Einstein This paper endeavors to present systematically the essential components of human values andEthos and their evolution. The first part of the paper examines the principal values that represent the Indian ethical system. Tyaga (renunciation), Dana (liberal giving), nishtha (Dedication), satya (truth), ahimsa (non-violence) and upeksha (forbearance) are examined as the keynotes of the Indian values system. The second part looks briefly at the historical context of the evolution of this values system. Enumerating the broad gamut of ideas which emanated In the Upanishad age and underlining the contributions made to the sustenance of human Values in India by the various reform movements in the five thousand years of Indian history, the paper unearths the richness and resilience of Indian ethos. India’s socio-cultural heritage includes the principles and values of plurality, respect for Diversity, tolerance and compromise, which are highly relevant to the global community as a Whole while being largely shared by other Asian peoples . The paper concludes that for the perpetuation of the Indian values system, the Indian concept of dharma has acted as a Sustaining principle through the ages. Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines Ethos as â€Å"the set of beliefs, ideas, etc about social behaviors and relationship of a person or group † while Oxford AdvancedLearner’s Dictionary defines it as â€Å"the moral ideas and attitudes that belong to a Particular group or society†. Indian Ethos is al l about what can be termed as â€Å"National Ethos†. A man without morals is worse than a monkey. Darwin attributed to the monkey the claim â€Å"Without me you man would not exist. † Whatever may be the truth (about the evolution of man from the ape), the monkey does utter a challenge to man in these terms: â€Å"I am present in the human mind and form. I involve you in the affairs of the world. I make you forget the divine. That is why man’s mind is described as a monkey mind. I am indeed greater than you. I rendered service to Sri Rama. You are serving Kama (the demon of desire). Because I became a servant of Rama, Kama became my servant. Rama is God. Kama is a demon. † It is only when man cultivates moral values and manifests, the divinity within him that his true personality as a human being will be revealed. This means that man should strive constantly to cherish good thoughts and act righteously. One is called a Purusha (Person). Only a man with a personality can be called a person. This paurushyam (personality) is a term applicable only to a person who leads a model and truthful life, filled with good deeds. The Latin word â€Å"Persona† means one who is a spark of the Divine. Only by recognizing the inherent divinity in him can man become truly human Avoid imitating practices of other countries There is no meaning in one country simply imitating or copying the management practices of another. Such imitation often leads to waste of resources and many undesirable results. This is what is happening in many countries, including India. What is good or suitable for one Country need not necessarily be good for another. We should have regard to the circumstances, The individual attainments and the specific requirements of our country. Our culture and values are different from those of others. These different situations cannot be treated alike. The attempt to combine different sets of values may result in the loss of values of the less developed country . There is a story which illustrates how by listening to the views of all and sundry one makes himself a laughing stock and a loser in bargain. A fruit vendor put up a board over his stall to the effect: â€Å"Fruits are sold here. † A passerby told the shopkeeper the word â€Å"here† in the sign board was superfluous. The vendor arranged to get the word erased. Another man came along to say that there was no need to announce that fruits were being â€Å"sold† as that was obvious to anyone. And so, the word â€Å"sold† was erased. A third man said that there was no need to mention that â€Å"fruits† were being sold , as it was patent to any one what was being sold in the shop. Ultimately, all that remained was a blank board, while the sign painter presented his bill for painting the board and then erasing the words. The fruit vendor realized the folly of acting on the opinions of every passerby without relying on his own judgment. In the sphere of business management, a similar situation has developed in India. By following the advice of one country or other India has made a hash of its economy and finances. In ancient times, India served as an example to other countries. There is much talk these days of â€Å"the family† and the importance of teaching values and morals to our children. It is not a thing they can learn at school or from a textbook, but rather they must see it in action. Children are always watching. They aren’t going to pick up on â€Å"the golden rule† if they see mom and dad treating the neighbors in a way that is totally against the golden rule. They watch, and they take it all in. A good way to be able to discuss these things with children is to set aside a certain night for â€Å"family time. † Play games, watch a movie, bake cookies, but do it together. That is the secret. Complaining about not having family time isn’t going to work. Find some family time. It doesn’t need to be three or four hours. A much shorter time could do wonders. Use the time to talk about values. Let the children SEE what family values are about. Allow them to choose some of the activities for your special night. One activity might be to have the children take a few minutes to tell what they like most about the siblings. It will be a great self-esteem boost to the others to hear good about themselves, but also a reminder to each as they’re voicing good in their siblings, that brother or sister really isn’t so bad after all. Parents can certainly get in on the action, too, by naming things they’re extremely proud of for each child. Although values and morals seem to intertwine often, it is often more difficult to let children â€Å"see† morals at work. It is more of an inner thing, so what you wish to pass onto the children about morals will need to be discussed, perhaps more in depth than letting them see you practice these things. Oh, they’ll still watch, but they’ll also have a firm knowledge of what you feel is right and wrong. You can’t teach, for instance, the evils of smoking, while puffing on a cigarette. The term â€Å"family values† to many is practiced by the loving and caring of those we call â€Å"family. † We love them, we protect them, and we that they would do the same for us. That is what children need to see and at that point, a value system is born. reathe easy in the comfort of knowing As moral standards in society have come under attack, there has been a predictable two-pronged reaction. First, those who believe that morality has no fixed basis of validity rejoice as barriers and social taboos are broken down. Second, those who believe that society without clear moral underpinnings will disintegrate are alarmed by discernable trends in this direction. One group sees â€Å"progress† while the other sees society in a downhill slide. Voice, a union for education professionals in the United Kingdom, is decrying the absence of parental training in the children they are called upon to teach. They say that children are no longer learning moral values at home, and that the lack of discipline is making the classroom an unruly place where teaching anything is becoming more difficult. I’m making no judgment on this, but the focus on the primacy of the individual, rather than community; the changing pattern of family structures; the shortening of the length of many relationships; the creation of many more step families; the emphasis on parents going out to work and the consequent perception of the reduced value and worth of the full-time parent have all changed the way we behave. Are we now in a time when those children who have been reared in the moral relativity of the educational system are now producing offspring who are taking moral relativity to new levels? Are we seeing cause and effect? It cannot be denied that moral values are not being taught in many homes as they used to be, but is this not the result of previous conditioning? Maybe it is time to rethink who has the primary responsibility to teach moral values.