Big Data: Map Reduce Based Outlier Identification for Fraud

Big Data: Map Reduce Based Outlier Identification for Fraud Big Data: Fast, Parallel Map Reduce based outlier identification for Fraud and Intrusion Detection Pooja Vijay Pawar Ann Marie Joy Abstract One of the most challenging aspect of Big Data analytics is real time monitoring of data. Larger and larger amount of data is being collected and stored on a daily basis, thus increasing the need for quick, effective and efficient way of analysing the data in determining potential malicious data. Also network security threats are increasing at an alarming rate and are becoming increasingly sophisticated and difficult to detect. Web traffic generated by non-human activities such as botnets or worms consume network resources, delude people and affect network security. Most of the existing work in Fraud Detection/Intrusion Detection regard being an outlier as a binary property. In this paper we use a relative density based approach implemented as a MapReduce job, which gives a sense of degree of a data point being an outlier; this is more meaningful and also better immune to false positives. Keywords Big Data, Fraud detection, Intrusion Detection, Hadoop, Outlier, Cluster, Security, Relative Density, LOF 1. Introduction We are currently living in a world where we are surrounded and ruled by data. Continuously, exponentially huge amounts of data is collected, stored, processed and made available in a variety of forms every day. Recently, Network Intrusion and Fraud detection has received increased attention with regard to network security, mainly due to this. Big Data is drastically changing the way in which we detect fraud and intrusion in real time using advanced analytic solutions that are very powerful, complex and fast. In this paper, we propose a methodology to detect Fraudulent Web traffic and Intrusion in a network using MapReduce-based outlier detection. These features help in filtering out clients that generate abnormal traffic and specifically show different levels of potential anomalous traffic for each suspicious client. The detected abnormal web traffic can be visualized easily and this method can be implemented for large networks and can be scaled accordingly. Outlier can be defined as a data which is very distinct from the other data of the same dataset, based on some distance measure. Outlier detection, being a significant data mining problem has engendered a lot of research interest in the recent past. As a result, various methods for outlier detection have been developed particularly for dealing with numerical data. However, outlier detection for categorical data still remains an unexplored field. Addressing this requirement, we propose a two-phase algorithm for detecting outliers in categorical data based on a novel definition of outliers. This algorithm initially explores a clustering of the given data which is followed by the ranking phase for determining the set of most likely outliers. The proposed methodology is expected to show better results as it can identify different types of outliers, using independent ranking scheme based on the inherent clustering structure of the given data. Hadoop is a very popular open source Apache project, which is used for storing and processing huge volume of data on commodity hardware. Hadoop package mainly consists of MapReduce Engine and Hadoop File system. Many Frameworks have been built on top of Hadoop. Using the distributed architecture of Hadoop in this paper we discuss how we can exploit it for identifying outliers in captured network data. 2. Related Work There has been lot of research and number of techniques which have been developed in the past two decades with respect to fraud detection and Intrusion Detection. Lot of machine learning techniques such as Neural Networks, Markov model, K Nearest Neighbour have drawn special attention. In this paper we use unsupervised Machine Learning techniques to identify fraudulent transactions using Hadoop. Most current practices to the process of detecting intrusions exploit some form of rule-based study. Rule-based analysis depend on sets of predefined rules that are configured by an administrator and are automatically created by the system. The use of automated system techniques in intrusion detection mechanisms was a significant milestone in the development of effective and practical detection based information security systems. Rule-based systems suffer from an incompetence to detect attacks situations that may occur over an extended duration of time. However most significant benefit of neural networks in intrusion detection is the capability of the neural network to learn the characteristics of abnormal attacks and recognize instances that are unlike any which have been detected before by the network. Majority of studies that proposed Hidden Markov Model to implement IDS are related to host-based systems, i.e., IDS that analyses the actions performed on a single host to detect attempts of intrusion. 3. Outlier Detection Algorithms Outliers can be detected using various different techniques. Some of the techniques are discussed below 3.1 Distance-based and Clustering Approaches Distance-based methods do not make conventions for the data since they basically compute the distance between each point. For example, Knorr et al. Proposed a k-NN technique where, if m of the k nearest neighbours of a point are within a specific distance d, then the point can be classified as normal. Knorr et al. points as an outlier if at least p% of the points in the dataset lie more than distance 10 d from it. These methods show high computational complexity (e.g. nearest neighbour based methods have quadratic complexity with respect to the number of data points) which renders them impractical for really large datasets. Several approaches may be engaged to make the k-NN queries faster (to achieve linear or logarithmic time), such as an indexing structure (e.g. KD-tree, or X-tree); however these structures have been shown to break down as the dimensionality grows. Clustering can be defined as the task of grouping a set of objects in such a way that objects in the same group share some feature similarity among each other than to those in other groups. Clustering is one of the very popular techniques currently being used in outlier detection. Any object that has weak membership to the cluster it belongs to is a potential outlier. If there are any small clusters from other clusters, then the smaller cluster could potentially be an outlier. For instance there could be many different kinds of fraudulent transactions which might have high similarity among themselves and form a cluster. There are additional problems with clustering. Clustering algorithms are optimized to find clusters rather than outliers. Hence, sometimes it may be hard to tell whether a cluster belongs to fraudulent transactions or some new emergent buying behaviour of a legitimate user. Hence before making a final call we must perform additional analysis. 3.2 Statistical distribution Statistical outlier detection was one of the most basic approaches dating back to the 19th century. Multivariate statistical methods have been proposed, together with use of robust outlier’s estimates of the multidimensional distribution parameters, e.g. minimum covariance 9 determinant (MCD) and minimum volume ellipsoid (MVE). One critical problem of statistical-based methods is the suitable model for each dataset and application. Also, as data rises in dimensionality, it becomes ever more perplexing to estimate the multidimensional distribution. As the data increases in dimensionality, data ranges through a larger volume and becomes sparse. In addition to the reduction this has on performance, it also spreads the convex hull, thus altering the data distribution. This can be improved by pre selecting the most noteworthy features to work, projecting to a lower-dimensional subspace, or applying Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Another methodology to deal with higher dimensio nalities is to organize data points in convex hull layers according to their peeling depth, based on the idea that outliers are data objects with a shallow depth value. Fig 1 In this approach one main assumption is that data objects follows a certain distribution (E.g. Gaussian) and normal data objects occur in a high probability region of this model. Fig.1 shows an example where there is high concentration of data points lying in the normal region which associates to normal data points; the mini distributions on both sides of the normal distributions are possible outliers. As shown in Fig.1 outliers will deviate strongly from this distribution. There are lot of issues with this technique too, main being the curse of dimensionality, other being lack of robustness. This is because Mean and standard deviation are very sensitive to outliers. 3.3 Density Based approach In this technique we compare the density around a data point with the density around its local neighbours. The computed density is called an outlier score. The main assumption here is that the density around a normal data point is almost similar to the density around its local neighbours. Here Density/Outlier score means that some clusters are densely packed and some others are not. Mathematically, it is defined as the inverse of the average distance to the k nearest neighbours. Lower density of a data point signifies that the probability of it being an outlier is very high. There have been many variants of Density based approaches suggested in the past few decades, majority of which deal with decreasing the computational time complexity. In Fig.2 the points which are densely packed, appearing yellow indicate normal data points, the ones which are away from the cluster are outliers, possible candidates for malicious data. In this paper, we use this technique to determine possible candidates for outliers. 4. Experiment For our experiment we used KDD Cup 1999: Computer network intrusion detection dataset for testing and evaluating our approach. We used Relative Density [3] based approach for our system. Which involved 4 Map Reduce Tasks. The Algorithms works as follows: Computing K-NN [3] We begin with the notion of K-Nearest Neighbour of object p. Definition: K-Nearest Neighbour of object p For any positive integer k, the k-distance of object p, denoted as k-distance (p), is defined as the distance d(p,o) between p and an object o ∈ D such that: (i) For at least k objects o’∈D{p} it holds that d(p,o’) ≠¤ d(p,o), and (ii) For at most k-1 objects o’∈D{p} it holds that d(p,o’) . Given the k-distance of p, the k-distance neighbourhood of p contains every object whose distance from p is not greater than the k-distance, i.e. Nk-distance (p) (p) = { q ∈ D{p} | d(p, q) ≠¤ k- distance(p) } These objects q are called the k-nearest neighbours of p. We use 2 MapReduce tasks, one to compute the pairwise distance between data points as explained above and other to compute the density of the data point. The density of a data point is simply the inverse of the average distance to the k nearest neighbours. Finding all the neighbourhood group the data points are associated with and also give them unique id We define one more term reachability distance of an object p w.r.t the data point o to determine the neighbourhood. Definition: Reachability distance of an object p w.r.t. object or Let k be a natural number. The reachability distance of object p with respect to object o is defined as reach-distk(p, o) = max { k-distance(o), d(p, o) }. The higher the value of k, the more similar the reachability distances for objects within the same neighbourhood. We use the same MapReduce class as before with slightly different configuration to identify the neighbourhood. Once neighbourhood are identified they are given a unique ID. Using previous results, create a mapping between data point and its density. In a typical density-based clustering algorithm, there are two parameters that define the notion of density: (i) a parameter MinPts specifying a minimum number of objects; (ii) a parameter specifying a volume. These two parameters determine a density threshold for the clustering algorithms to operate. That is, objects or regions are connected if their neighbourhood densities exceed the given density threshold. To detect density based outliers, however, it is necessary to compare the densities of different sets of objects, which means that we have to determine the density of sets of objects dynamically. Therefore, we keep MinPts as the only parameter and use the values reach-distMinPts(p, o), for o ∈ NMinPts(p), as a measure of the volume to determine the density in the neighbourhood of an object p. Definition: Density of an object p lrdMinPts(p) = 1/ Intuitively, the local reachability density of an object p is the inverse of the average reachability distance based on the MinPts- nearest neighbours of p. Note that the local density can be ∞ if all the reachability distances in the summation are 0. This may occur for an object p if there are at least MinPts objects, different from p, but sharing the same spatial coordinates, i.e. if there are at least MinPts duplicates of p in the dataset. For simplicity, we will not handle this case explicitly but simply assume that there are no duplicates. Hence in our MapReduce implementation, first we sort the data points based on density data and the neighbourhood, such that in the input for the reducer, we get first value as density, and the subsequent values are the neighbourhood ids. Determining the Relative Density or LOF (Local Outlier Factor) Results from the previous step is then used in another MapReduce task to compute the relative density or also called as Local Outlier Factor (LOF). Definition: LOFMinPts(p) = The outlier factor of object p captures the degree to which we call p an outlier. It is the average of the ratio of the local reachability density of p and those of p’s MinPts-nearest neighbours. It is easy to see that the lower ps local reachability density is, and the higher the local reachability densities of ps MinPts-nearest neighbours are, the higher is the LOF value of p. In the following section, the formal properties of LOF are made precise. To simplify notation, we drop the subscript MinPts from reach-dist, lrd and LOF, if no confusion arises. Finally, Data Points which have low relative Density or LOF are determined as possible candidates for outliers. 5. Conclusion Existing Intrusion detection system are in nascent stage in handling extremely large traffic and the data transfers in large Networks. MapReduce Framework can handle large amount of data quickly and efficiently. Thus our proposed methodology for Outlier detection using Relative Density based approach not only can handle large amount of data but also scales easily. In near future full of MapReduce based IDS needs to developed and evaluated. We also plan to explore multiple classifier system compared to single classifier to get improved results. 6. Acknowledgement This work is supported by CSE Department, PES Institute of Technology. 7. References [1] Barnett, V., Lewis, T. (1995). Outliers in Statistical Data. Wiley, 3rd Edition. [2] Davide Ariu, Giorgio Giacinto, and Roberto Perdisci, Sensing attacks in Computers Networks with Hidden Markov Models. [3] Ng, Jorg Sander, Hans-Peter Kriegel, Raymond T, Markus M. Breunig. 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Conf. on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, New York, NY, AAAI Press, 1998, pp. 189-193. 1 Onida Electronics: New Product Launch Onida Electronics: New Product Launch LAUNCHING OF A NEW PRODUCT ONIDA LAPTOPS COMPANY DESCRIPTION ONIDA is one of the largest television manufacturing companies in INDIA. It is one of the largest and rapid growing companies in the same field. Onida as a company was founded in 1981 as a public company. Its head quarter is in MUMBAI, MAHARASHTRA, INDIA. Onida deals in a type of industry known as electronic industry. Onida Company started their business with electronics and then expanded their business with various products as LCD TVS, PLASMA TVS, TELEVISIONS, DVD AND HOME THREATER SYSTEM, AIR CONDITIONERS, WASHING MACHINES, MICROWAVES, PRODUCTS RELATED TO PRESENTATION, and INVERTERS AND ALSO MOBILE PHONES. Onida Company is a most popular brand now. It has got his network as 33 branch offices and 208 customer relation centers. Also the company is having 41 depots spread all over the country. Onida is also having a market capitalization of 400 crore approx. also onida electronics won an award as AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN ELECTRONICS in 1999 from MINISTRY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Onida is one of the largest rapid growing companies. It is one of the most successful companies in term of professionalism. The main objective is to prove quality of competitive prices and customer satisfaction. It is one of the objective is to provide NOTEBOOK PC as ensured quality, availability and customer satisfaction. This following marketing plan forms the basis for the launching of ONIDA LAPTOPS by ONIDA COMPANY one of the famous company in India. The analysis will allow us to follow for the achievement of the companys strategic goals. ONIDA LAPTOPS will be marketed to reinforce the companys status as leader in innovation and successful product launching. This new product launching will enable us to add RS.100 crores to companys turnover with a forecasted sales growth prospect of 10-15% over the next 5 years. And while satisfying the need and designing the product to match individuals lifestyle. Success will be reflected by a sizeable capture of market shares within this market, while strategically carrying the company up to the top spot as the market leader in laptop segment. Export potentials in the market will be considered in all the western countries as USA, Russia, France, and Iraq. Nigeria, Yemen and even further expansion can be planed. The main aim of the company is to attract a sizeable market share of the laptop segment. Also the number of customers depending upon laptops rather than personal computers is taken care off. The main aim is to sell one lakh units of laptops in the first year considering as this brand as a new brand and being expertise in the related field having manufactured the product for several brands and having also sold its own televisions. EXPECTED TURNOVER Above chart shows the expected turnovers in crores over the coming years in turnover of onida laptops in various countries. In 2009 as the product is being launching in 2009 only so started expected turnover will be near about 90 lakhs. With the continuous supply of good quality and good work with good customer service expected turnover will start increasing. Company is planning to use new technology and other servicer beneficial for customers and company in terms of turnover which will help in increase the expected turnover to 150 lakhs in 2012. This proves that launching of onida laptops will be beneficial for the organization. SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS ONIDA NOTEBOOK PC is a new expansion line of onida. Onida television portfolio has been well received and now ONIDA NOTEBOOK PC is going to be launched for onidas continues success and future profitability. Onida as a company is famous for quality products at reasonable prices and it offer best facilities. It will offer NOTEBOOK PC or LAPTOPS in various configuration as well as prices to satisfy every kind of customer. One important key to success or for the development of the product is to create product awareness and growth of customer base. MARKETING SUMMARY Marketing summary of onida laptops possess sufficient information about the market needs and customer needs, wants, desires and demands. It will also help to give right offer to right customer so that company can achieve customer satisfaction and can communicate with them in a better way. Also this lead to have some important information about customer which will help to make customer a delightful customer. TARGET MARKET The target market of ONIDA LAPTOPS or NOTEBOOK PC is shown below: Above shows that there is a target market of onida laptops as CORPORATE USERS END USERS OTHERS Environmental analysis Macro environmental factors Growing disposable income and low penetration levels would ensure greater share of wallet for the consumer industry and would help in achieving the predetermined targets. The inventions and innovations would help in shaping the industrys future. It would be necessary to catch the changing trends in consumer lifestyles and offer the right product at right time to facilitate further growth and achievement of targets. There is a need to launch a product which will give maximum customer satisfaction and satisfy there needs. Micro environmental factors The cost would further come down with enhanced possibilities of better and easy cross border talks with suppliers worldwide and the range of offerings Would go up. With the increase in number of players, there would be more action and the industry would feel the buzz around it and would need constant high pitch communication with the customers. Network has a strong influence on the buying decision and the organization that would manage the channel better, would have a substantial edge over the others. Competitive Strategy Onida will try to offer more valuable offerings to the customers and would try to manage customer relationships. Onida as a company in order to be effective and ahead of competition would try to maximize benefits to the consumers. They will also react strongly to price changes made by the competitors and organizations would look at integration on backend as well as the front ends. MARKET DEMOGRAPHICS The profile of ONDA NOTEBOOK PC or LAPTOPS customer consists of the following GEOGRAPHIES, DEMOGRAPHICS, and BEHAVIOR FACTOR: GEOGRAPHICAL FACTORS Geographical factors have been classified as: ONIDA NOTEBOOK will have specific domestic geographic target area. They will serve the product to domestic market. Onida will try to cover the Metropolitan area through their own distribution channel. DEMOGRAPHICAL FACTORS Demographical factors have been classified on the basis of the following attributes: There will be almost same featured notebook pc or laptop for the corporate, end users and other users. University teachers and other researchers can use it for their research work and analyzing the environment. High, Middle, Upper middle and middle class use it and reasonable pricing strategy will help to purchase of these notebook pc by every potential users. BEHAVIOUR FACTORS Its a general behavior of every human that NOTEBOOK PC or LAPTOP increases the status and prestige of the user. In todays busy world there is need of a product which is available with consumer anywhere or any time and at every period of time. Customer feel that they have a separate image and prestige by using ONIDA LAPTOPS. MARKET NEED FOR ONIDA LAPTOPS ONDA LAPTOPS will provides its customers the opportunity to choose NOTEBOOKs with different configuration and varieties.These laptops will also fulfill the requirements of customers and also provide benefit as:- Reasonable pricing Consumer needs a high quality product at reasonable price, for that reason ONIDA try to provide high quality product at a reasonable price. So that more and more customer can be attracted towards onida notebook pc. High quality Consumer want high quality product, which is must be high in regard to performance. ONIDA tried to meet this need of consumer at its level best. Quality was the main point to be taken care of by the company as this the main motto of company. Different varieties Choices of customer vary from person to person .So ONIDA provides different laptop with different features. And provide laptops with different configuration. Product availability One of the important things to be taken care of is Customer and customer seeking availability of product so that they can buy the product at any time they need. MARKET TRENDS ONIDA will produce different type of laptop which not only fulfill quality demand of customer but also reasonable price. So that more and more customer will purchase these laptops. Now a days NOTEBOOK PC production company is growing and more competitors are coming in the market. Now even customer are more aware about the product for that reason they want different types of product with different features and different styling features. The market for LAPTOPS with new and new technologies is growing faster, competition are increasing in these markets. Thus, ONIDA made segments for their product. They divided their customer in to three groups, and give emphasis on each of the group. So that company can capture all kind of customers in market. MARKET GROWTH Gradually total ONIDA Company is going upward with a strong competition. With the increase in domestic market, our international market growth statistics is increasing day by day. Now with the launch of new laptops with newer technology the market share of our company is going to increase further. COMPETITIVE STRATEGIES Onida will try to offer more value offerings to the customers and would try to manage CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP. The firms in order to be effective and ahead of competition would try to maximize benefits to the consumers. Firms would react strongly to price changes made by the COMPETITORS and organizations would look at INTEGRATION on BACKEND as well as the FRONTENDS. CURRENT MARKET SITUATION OF LAPTOP MARKET Market Overview Luxury goods are now being perceived as necessities as now customers are having higher disposable incomes being spent on lifestyle products. There is a discernible shift in the consumers preference in favor of higher-end, technologically superior branded products, the demand being spurred by increasing consumer awareness and preference for new models now the modern educated customer is not confined to old technologies and old products. Now customers want to try newer products with newer technologies. Quality products with superior technology and technology up gradation have helped the industry to achieve higher growth in terms of volume and also higher realization in value terms. Rate of growth in production has been more in terms of quantity or in volume growth rather than the growth in value terms for a number of products. This has happened because of constantly falling prices over the years due to competition among the MAJOR PLAYERS, AGGRESSIVE MARKETING STRATEGIES AND DECLINING IMPORT TARIFFS. Competition has forced companies to offer efficient AFTER SALE SERVICE and support and this, in turn, has swayed customer preference for good brands. There are positive growth trends in Technological goods segments white goods and consumer electronics during and points to sustained growth because of emerging opportunities and strong fundamentals of the economy. Because of growth in production in the organized segment and domestic availability of branded products due to lowering of import duties and other liberal measures, the share of unorganized segment has come down sharply to only 8 to 10 per cent from 40 to 50 percent. The price difference between branded and unbranded goods has narrowed down and with branded players providing good after sales services and support consumer prefers to buy branded products. The industry related to technology appears to have two clearly differentiated segments. The MNCs have an edge over their Indian counterparts in terms of technology combined with a steady flow of capital. The domestic companies compete on the basis of their well-acknowledged brands, an extensive distribution network and an insight into local market conditions. Competitive strategies revolve around strong brand differentiation and prices. Bargaining power of customers is high due to availability of many brands. Demand is Cyclical and seasonal. Demand is high generally on the basis of requirement of customers as corporate customer or end user. Demand for technology is present throughout the year. There is no preference on the basis of any special month when demand for technology is more in one month than other month. Rural India which accounts for nearly 70% of the total number of households, offers plenty of scope and opportunities for the white goods industry. Increasing consumer awareness and preference for new models have added to the demand in rural areas also. And evolution of education had made more and more people rely on technology. Attractive consumer loan schemes with reduced interest rates over the years by the financial institutions and commercial banks and the hire-purchase schemes have added to the surge in demand. Besides, the consumer goods companies are themselves coming out with attractive financing schemes to consumers through their extensive dealer network. The usage of internet by the market functionaries has lead to intelligence sales of the products. It has helped sustain the demand boom witnessed recently in this sector. SWOT ANALYSIS (STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES, OPPORTUNITIES, THREATS) STRENGTHS Quality product and services. Popular brand name. Continuous research and development Strong existing distribution channel. Increased share of organized sector as compare to unorganized sector. Attractive design. Body made of silver and plastic and available in many colors. Most of the buyers are satisfied. Presence of established distribution networks in both urban and rural areas. WEAKNESSES Poor government spending in infrastructure and other related things. Lack of promotional activities by companies. Low purchasing power of consumers Insufficient capital. Legal and political barrier regarding import, tax and shipment and other difficulties. Difficulties due to competitors. Old technologies. OPPURTUNITIES Low penetration levels Demand of NOTEBOOK PC is increasing. Improved market portfolio. Greater demand due to changing lifestyles Increasing sales throughout the country and internationally. Availability of easy finance. Promotional activities to increase brand image. Growing disposable income of consumers Increasing demand in rural sector. THREATS Strong competitors Legal political difficulties regarding import duty, tax etc. Entrance of new competitors in the market. The price of NOTEBOOK or laptops is decreasing continuously. Cheap Imports from Singapore, China and other Asian countries Higher import duties on raw materials imposed in the Budget 2008-09. COMPETITORS Onida has established its own market. But still they have to face the competitors. Some of the major competitors of onida laptops are: HP: HPs NOTEBOOK is having maximum market share in capturing the market of NOTEBOOK PC in India as well as internationally. HPS notebooks are produced in China. They are holding a leading position for long time in NOTEBOOK PC in our country. ACER: Acer is the Chinese producer of NOTEBOOK or laptops. ACER has its maximum market share of NOTEBOOK PC in Bangladesh. They have fewer shares in Indian market as compare to acre. COMPAQ: Mitsubishi is Taiwan Company. COMPAQ was an automobile company initially. Now it is producing NOTEBOOK PC also. It is now giving a strong competition to notebook or laptop market. DELL: Firstly they produce televisions. But now they have enhances its business by producing NOTEBOOK PC. And DELL is now giving a strong competition in laptop market as well as technological market. MARKET SHARE OF ONIDA PRODUCT OFFERING ONIDA will offers different type of configuration at different price to our consumer for chooses their expected product. Following are the items:- POINTS OF SUCESS Strong quality Better customer relationship management Better service Operational efficiency and integration Effective channel management Constant product change and product mix management Image of brand and product Distribution channel Retention of customer MARKETING STRATEGIES Marketing strategies are helpful in creating awareness, interest and appeal from our target market. So that more and more market can be capture. Basically marketing strategy is based on superior performance of the following areas: Different configuration. Product quality. Delight user. MISSION The main mission is to provide quality and product at a competitive price. Growth in diversity and continuous contribute to the growth is being the main market challenger. Also To benefit society at large through Innovation, Quality, Productivity, Human Development and Growth, and to generate sustained surpluses, always striving for excellence, within the framework of law, and in nothing but the truth in which we base every action 3.2 Marketing Objective Capture the market as a market leader. To attain quantitative and qualitative leadership in the technological sector. Maintaining positive and increased sales growth than the competitor. Increase the market share by market development and services. To increase product awareness and sales by persuasive promotional activities. Becoming a globally recognized and prestigious company through synergistic business investment. Differentiation through innovation and passion through empowerment. Also cost through economies of scale and world class systems and procedures that bring in delight of stakeholders. FINANCIAL OBJECTIVE The company aims to sell one lakh units of NOTEBOOKS in first year of its launching and is expecting a target turnover of Rs.100 Crores from laptop market in first year. It expects to grow at 10-15% in next five years by satisfying customer needs through its offerings. They aim to make considerable profits and achieve economies through backend and front end integration. And maintaining double digit each year. STP (SEGMENTATION, TARGETING, POSITIONING) SEGMENTATION OF MARKET The company has segmented its target market on the basis of incomes and lifestyles. People who are well educated, have lifestyle as an important element and have high income can buy laptop. TARGET MARKET The potential consumers are separated into various segments- Corporate User End User and others. The primary marketing opportunity is sell laptops to these well defined, accessible target market segments. Corporate User: Corporate users are the users who buy the laptops for their official purpose only. The MD, GM, DGM, CEO and other. Levels in offices are the main corporate users. End User: End users are the users who buy the laptops for their personal use. Teachers, Students of private University, businessman etc are mainly consider as the End users. Others: other then as mention above. POSITIONING IN MARKET Onida is trying to maintain its position as a NOTEBOOK company. The position will be achieved by providing quality product, competitive price, and according to consumers demand and by delighting consumers. There should be experienced managers to make awareness about the product to customer. Company is also promising to offer quality offerings and better services and make a satisfied consumer as its brand ambassador. The companys will advertise its product as the synonym of truth and providing it at a reasonable price. STRATEGIES ONIDAS main primary marketing strategy is to seek and firstly create customer awareness regarding the products as well as availability of product. Other marketing strategy are- Providing Total Quality Management (TQM) Customer Orientation Providing international standard products To increase the product line as well as length as per the expectations of the consumers Competitive prices of product. MARKETING MIX ONIDAS marketing mix is comprised of the following approaches to product, price, promotion, and place or customer service. PRODUCT o BRAND NAME The name of the brand is ONIDA NOTEBOOKS. o PPRDUCT CLASSIFICATION ONIDA NOTEBOOK has five types of product. These are-W125U-T3000, W3001U-T4150, W4200-T4500, W4510U, W5520U o QUALITY OF PRODUCT ONIDA is mainly popular for the maintaining of high quality of its products. Total Quality Management (TQM) is purely practiced here. o DESIGN Attractive Design, Color, configuration, Comfortable weight. o PACKING ONIDA supply the notebooks to the users with attractive packaging. It provides special cartoon with strong handling of the NOTEBOOKs to its dealers. o Size The products size vary from to one product series to other product series o Service ONIDA provides best after sales service and take feedback for its products. PROMOTION o SALES PROMOTION ONIDA provide initially shot-term incentives to encourage and purchase or sale of its products. Occasionally company has decided to give special discounted price for its products. Company also decided to give T-shirts, caps, bags etc. to lure the customers. o ADVERTISEMENT Company decided to gives advertisement for ONIDA NOTEBOOK through newspaper, billboard, popular magazine, leaflets, sponsoring on game competition, internet etc. o PERSONAL SELLING ONIDA company is also deciding to sell laptops through personal selling but till now we havent arrange any kind personal selling. PRICE o LIST PRICING Pricing of the product are being made on the basis of technology used in the product and depending upon the various series of onida. The various pricing of various varieties of laptops are: o DISCOUNT Company has decided to allow discount facilities to all the retailers and dealers. o Payment period ONIDA will sell NOTEBOOK on credit to its distributor and retailers and after the sale e period of 2 months can be given for making payment. PLACE CHANNELS ONIDA has its own distribution channel for the distribution of their products. DISTRIBUTOR ONIDA have own distribution channel for distributing their products. Location ONIDA covers district areas of our country to capture the market for their products. TRANSPORTION FACILITIES ONIDA has its own transportation facility for its distributors. Distributors are themselves responsible for taking the products to their showrooms. MARKETING RESEARCH One of the important things is research work. Research is very vital for any company to know about current market position and also to predict future needs. Information is collected through the dealer and retailer. o Question How did you hear about our ONIDA NOTEBOOK product? note the answer and this answer can be use for the promotional activities. o Customer suggestion New feedback service and customers suggestions system to gain additional information. They want to know from the customers about- à ¼ What suggestion do you want to give to company to improve our product? à ¼ Why do you need a laptop and why onida laptop only? FINANCIALS It is very important while the launching of a product to take care of the financial overview of ONIDA NOTEBOOK related to marketing activities. ONIDA address brake even analysis (BEA), sales forecast, expense forecast, and showed how this activity are link to the marketing activity. BREAK EVEN ANALYSIS Break even is a point where cost is equals to sales. The break-even analysis below shows the number of single sales, or units, that we must realize to break-even. Analysis of breakeven point is based on the cost and the sales of a company. SALES FORECAST: Sales forecast means planning or estimation of sales so that future sales can be assessed. ONIDA thinks that the sales forecast will be achieve into the five main streams; W1250U-T3000, W3001U-T4150, W4200U-T4500, W4510U and W5520U. This will steadily increase the sales. As the advertising budget allows the target market forecast, the listed of all the potential customers get divided into separate groups. The forecasted customers group divided into various categories: Corporate Users, End Users and others. EXPENSE FORECAST Every company has to make a prior forecast of expenses. It is important to mark such forecast to limit the expenses made in future. These expenses are to be budgeted at approximately 5% of total sales for 2007-08 and 6% for 2008-09. Mainly expenses are to be tracked in the major marketing categories as:-NEWSPAPER ADVERTISEMENT, PROMOTIONAL EVENTS, BILLBOARDS, PRINTED LEAFLETS, and ADVERTISEMENT IN TELEVISIONS ETC. CONTROLING FACTORS The main purpose of ONIDA NOTEBOOKs marketing plan is to serve as a guide for the organization while launching of the laptops successfully. This plan is all about implementation and changing the business and also to make it better. In this marketing plan we look at specific implementation programs, and the details that it takes to make it happen. The following are the areas which will be specially monitored to enhance the performance of company and launching of laptops. Contingency Planning Contingencies likely to arise: Price War New Technologies in the market More Competitors Companys Strategy to counter the same: Creating value preposition Continuous innovation and product development Creating distinct brand identity

Historical Particularism Essay

Historical particularism is a school of thought that developed in the United States during the first half of the 20th century under the leadership of Franz Boas. This school of thought evolved at a time when in history, anthropologists were busy studying the Native American cultures which were rapidly disappearing. The main reason behind the tireless efforts by the anthropologists in the studies was because they were committed to preserving their unique cultures from the integration that threatened them. On another perspective and in view of the historical context in which this school of thought involved, it is said that Historical particularism come into existence as an effort to reject the evolutionism school of thought which was earlier held by anthropologists. It is indeed a paradigm in anthropology that is widely marked by a desire to move away from theories of evolution or diffusion. This school of thought criticizes them of being non scientific in their methods of cultural analysis. The main idea behind the Historical particularism school of thought was that it maintained a strong focus on cultures themselves. It calls for a holistic approach to understanding culture in their terms. This meant that detailed studies had to be done on cultures in their own terms. This was in consideration of certain aspects that were specific to the culture and community under study especially in considering their unique histories. It calls on anthropologists to avoid theorizing but instead get down to studying seriously and carefully the way culture is formed in respect to the environment or history. This is the holistic approach that seeks to fully understand culture as opposed to any form of evaluating one culture against the other. According to Boas, the main proponent of this school of thought, he argues that each society’s culture is a collective representation of its unique historical past that shows a lot of connection with the present culture. As such he was opposed to the use of assumptions in addressing the development of the kin system and religion in society over history as presented by the evolutionist perspective. The earlier ideas held that since it was a progressive move from one state to another, some societies were well ahead of others in their systems. But it was held that each would have to pass through the same stages as they progressed from primitive stages to the most civilized stages. Although there is the existence of general laws of human behavior in societies, these behaviors can well be understood from proper studies conducted on a specific society. He held that cultures of different societies can have similar traits due to a variety of reasons and not specifically due to the general laws of human behavior, some of the reasons could be as a result of invention, adoption from others through interrelationship in trade or cultural contacts while others could be results of historical accidents. Therefore it would not be right to argue on the basis of similarities in traits in different cultures but it calls for proper study and understanding of culture in its full context. The movement of historical particularists is seen to put more value on field work and history as the critical methods of cultural analysis. As such they collect vast amount of first hand cultural data upon which they gain information to base their descriptions of particular cultures as opposed to general theories that are given to apply to all societies (www. mnsu. ed) Ideas of major contributors in historical particularism Franz Boas (1858-1942) is the major proponent of this school of thought and the main contributor alongside other scholars most of whom were his students. They contributed to the advancement of this school of thought either by supporting him or at time by criticizing him on his work. These major figures include: Alfred Kroeber, Ruth Benedict, Robert Lowie, Margaret Mead, Edward Sapir and Paul Radin. The major idea presented by Boas was that the ordering of societies by the evolutionism was not valid. He criticized this method as being based on assumptions since it did not have any historic evidence. Concerning the method of gathering and organizing data he said that it was not based on first hand experiences concerning the societies which they were describing. This is because they mostly used secondary data and did not visit the societies they were studying. Instead of the use of secondary data to describe a society, Boas advocated for the use of first hand information which the researcher/anthropologist obtains from the society. This was to be collected during fieldworks in the community. He said that the researcher should act as a participant observer. In addition he should also learn the language of the society and think like its people so as to collect the information that will help to describe the people’s interrelationship. This is usually done by recording life histories and folklore and then connecting them with the historical data of the society. He held individuals to be very important as they formed the basic component of the society. He therefore gathered data from them and used such data for cultural analysis. Alfred Louis Kroeber (1876-1960) He was a student to Franz Boas and it was under his influence that he developed interest in ethnology and linguistics. He is mostly noted and recognized for his use and development of the idea of culture as a superorganic entity. He went ahead to suggest that culture had to be analyzed through methods that were specific to the super organic nature. It is on this issue that he differed with Boas on the importance of the individual. While Boas held that the individual is the basic component of a society and therefore used data and information gathered from individuals to analyze the culture, Kroeber on the other hand did not find the individual to be an important element of the society. Instead he said that the society evolved in line with internal laws that did not originate from its individuals. Therefore one would not analyze the individual since the two were entirely different phenomena and needed to be treated as such. In spite of the fact that he was mentored by Boas, Kroeber disagreed with him in that while Boas emphasized much on the gathering and organizing of data showing much concern on the causal process and their description (abstract phenomena), on the other hand Kroeber was concerned with concrete phenomena and their development over time something that his mentor did not put much emphasis on (www. as. au. edu) The other notable figure in the historical particularism school of thought is Ruth Benedict (1887-1948). She was Boas’ student who took most of her time to conduct the extensive fieldwork in gathering data on different groups in United States. She is most noted for developing concepts like culture configuration and personality. She used the concept of culture configuration to refer to the sum of all the individual personalities of a society. She said that differences in cultural configurations were not in any way representing higher or lower capacity for cultural development. Instead they were just but alternative means by which society and experience could be organized. Robert H. Lowie (1883-1957) is another notable figure in this school of thought. He studied under Boas. He was greatly influenced by Boas on the issue of the need to collect and analyze as much data as possible. The main sources that he advocated for were the historical documents that he used to gather data with during his studies on societies. The other figures we will consider are Edward Sapir (1884-1939) and Paul Radin (1883-1959). Each of them made a significant contribution to this school of thought. Sapir’s most notable point is the disagreement on the issue of the place of the individual in the society. He disagreed with the proposition by Kroeber that culture was separate with the individual. Paul Radin’s criticism of Boas methods and the concept of culture are the most notable point and contribution to this school of thought. Radin argued that it was the individual who introduced change in religion, technology and innovation into a culture. This is the position that he held and supported that it was the individual who shaped culture and not culture shaping the individual as earlier held. Almost all the major figures mentioned in the historical particularism approach disagreed on the definition of culture. Franz Boaz viewed culture as a set of customs, social institutions and beliefs that characterized any particular society and were defined by the environmental conditions and other historical events. In his view which was different from Boas’, Kroeber viewed culture as a separate entity from the individual that followed its own laws (super organic). When we consider Benedict’s view, culture was described as the basic ways of living by a group of people. Sapir on the other hand argued that culture was not contained in the society itself but consisted of many interactions between the individuals and the society. It is Radin who stressed on the role of the individual as an agent of cultural change. In his argument he said the culture is molded by the individual through innovations. As such it was dependent on the individual for progress and change. Historical particularism and relationship to other schools of thought Historical particularism developed as an alternative approach to the socio-cultural theories that were proposed by both evolutionists and diffusionists and were judged by this school as being unprovable. The evolutionists held that human beings shared some set of characteristics and modes of thinking which transcended individual cultures. This meant that cultural development of individual societies would move through similar series of development. This led to comparison between societies on their development levels which were based on their mental development. In order to explain what happened over history diffusion was used as an approach to accomplish this. This thought argued that all culture and civilization developed only once and spread out to the other places in the world through people’s migration. In simpler terms, this school held that cultures were tied together in form of common origin. This idea was not fully convincing especially in explaining own inventions and other forms of cultures that were in different places in the world. It was in view of these different schools of thought and their inability to explain and prove all that happened over history pertaining to cultural change that historical particularism was developed. According to this school of thought, detailed regional studies of culture had to be done in order to discover the distribution of culture traits and also the processes of cultural change. It mostly seeks a reconstruction of their histories. Data is collected on all aspects of different human societies so as to be able to make accurate generalization about cultural development. According to the historical particularists, racial implications in defining cultural development in line with mental development were to show the European society as the end of the sequence in development. This was not in order since it would be hard for one to interpret cultural change unless observations are first done. These observations should be based on the perspective of the society they are describing. This made the major stand for historical particularists that it was necessary for the investigation to examine all available evidence for a society before beginning of an investigation. There are so many different stimuli that contribute to the development of culture and as such development can only be understood by first examining the specific culture in order to identify the sources of stimuli. It is only after doing this, as advocated by the historical particularists that theories of cultural development can be constructed. An important fact is that these theories should be based on studies that have been carried out over a period of time. Historical facts are also very important and should be considered in the studies. Lasting contributions of historical particularists According to the historical particularists each society has its own unique historical development and should be understood based on its own specific cultural context. A major emphasis is placed on the historical process which is a major determinant of a society’s culture and level of development. Therefore, any attempts to understand a society based on the idea that all cultures and societies follow the same trend in their development process is misguided. As such, particularists contributed so much on the basis upon which societies were evaluated. This school of thought hold that each society should be looked at individually based on proper studies and enough information if any judgment is to be made. It advocated for ethnographic fieldwork in order to collect first hand cultural data from which information is gained to help describe particular cultures. This has gone a long way in changing theory formulation about culture and society. This school of thought helped to abolish the use of established general theories for all societies since it takes fieldwork and history as methods of cultural analysis. It also called for an end to ethnocentrism in the field of anthropology and instead advocated for the anthropologists to use ethnological fieldwork to gather sound evidence that can be used when analyzing culture. This has helped in understanding of culture in its full context and in their terms. This is because this school of thought has not favored the evaluation of one culture against another. This school of thought has also succeeded in excluding racism from anthropology and issues that have to do with judgment of cultures and societies as regards development issues. This is because it has advocated for the full understanding of the culture under judgment including its language and way of thought. Once this is done by the anthropologists, then racist judgments and use of pre-conceived ideas will not influence the judgments made. It was also as a result of the work of the influence of this school of thought that research began to focus on differences rather than on similarities between societies( Moore 2004) a turn that remained in the field of study for a long time.

Ged Essay Topics - the Story

Ged Essay Topics - the Story The 30-Second Trick for Ged Essay Topics Be certain each paragraph is related to the general subject of the essay. Add whatever definitions, explanations or examples you should add substance to every paragraph. Read both passages carefully. Therefore, before writing a GED essay your task is going to be to choose the subject of your research paper. When sitting down to work to compose an essay, it's really important to get an outline. You are able to prepare your essay by employing the erasable notepad provided. As you should definitely construct some complete essays from start to complete, it's also wise to prepare, generally, by becoming acquainted with each particular section of the essay and the total organizational course of action. Make certain your essay topic isn't broad, as it'll not be possible that you reveal the principal points. Read plenty of instructional information regarding how to compose an essay and on what each component of the essay should consist of. If you realize that you are stuck in regards to writing an essay, request a person's assistance that will help you proceed through writing an essay. From the outline, you may now begin writing your essay. For organization, an excellent resource for you is most likely the five-paragraph essay. Therefore, many students and employees decide to get cheap essay rather than writing it themselves. If you have issues with finding great GED essay ideas, seek advice from your professor or a teacher who can assist you. The Ultimate Ged Essay Topics Trick It's important to see which one that you should write in order to be successful. Although you might have covered some or even all of the chief points, you might not have necessarily covered them in enough detail. There are a lot of GED-specific study guides that you could buy to further help you study and get ready for the essay section, along with the remainder of the test. Besides regular essay instructions, a sample response is supplied for review. Add a few middle paragraphs, where you speak about specific points in your principal idea. If you observe the particular example through, it's simpler for the reader to determine what yo u mean. A standard way of writing this kind of essay is the five-paragraph strategy. You may wish to choose a person to read the practice essays and supply feedback. Ged Essay Topics Secrets That No One Else Knows About Evidently, you haven't been involved in any academic activity for quite a while. When it's challenging to compose an essay in 45 minutes, start with taking more time. Then take a couple of minutes to brainstorm what you would like to say about that topic. Then lessen your time until you're able to write faster. It is possible to also become many discounts on our site which will help you to save some more money for future orders or anything you want to spend them on. We specializing in providing you with the customized essay that you require. It is recommended to look for the one which has a fantastic reputation and offers high-quality papers at inexpensive rates. Instead, concentrate on the standard of your essay. Hearsay, Deception and Ged Essay Topics In the end, it will help to find an outside perspective. As a rule you know possible selection of topics beforehand, so I don't understand what things to write situation is extremely improbable. Actually, very frequently you can pick any topic you prefer and, for instance, write about your future expectations and career aspirations. Practicing the elements of high-quality essay writing is helpful regardless of what topic you concentrate on. Try to remember, you are going to want to support your primary idea with examples from the reading. You might not be able to pin point the specific topic that you will discuss, but frequent writing can enhance your abilities.

Personal Note On Success And Success - 845 Words

Everyone want to be successful, however everyone is different and has a different version of success. To be successful to me would mean, standing right with God, having no more worries and also seeing all my loved ones happy (God and family). Although throughout life there is pretty much a guarantee of obstacles to keep one from being successful. For example a job, having no money, negativity, getting off track, envying of others, no confidence or perseverance, this list could go on forever, however I have a few strategies to keep me successful and not stuck in devilish obstacles. One strategy to stay successful, is maintaining a proper balance in life, time management is key for my success. A second strategy is the having the right people surrounding me, there are some people that can drag me down and keep me from staying on track on my positive path to success. Another strategy is having perseverance and staying determined on my goals because my goals will lead me to my success. For reaching success I need to realistically time manage my to do list, which means taking the time to write everything out that needs to be done and think how long all those things will take me. Writing things down and giving me a time limit helps me successful with work and school ant those two are key pieces for me to reach my goal. Having my time balanced for my to-do list at work allows me to successfully finish my duties that my boss leaves me. For examples I am a beauty advisor and if IShow MoreRelatedIncreasing Student Success And Retention1557 Words   |  7 PagesGeneral topic: Increasing Student Success and Retention Title of article: Increasing Student Success and Retention: A Multidimensional Approach Fowler, P. R. Boylan H. R. (2010). Increasing Student Success and Retention: A Multidimensional Approach. Journal of Developmental Education, 34 (2), 2-10. 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Drug Usage And Its Effect On Today s Youth - 987 Words

â€Å"I’m in love with the coco† (a song depicting a love for cocaine song by O.T. Genasis), just one of the most recent songs to have explicit usage of drugs. Referring to drug usage and sales is a popular trend in today s hip-hop and rap lyrics. As a society where do we draw the line with censorship of this material? Not only are the lyrics being said, but the drug usage is also being portrayed in the music videos; all the way from marijuana usage to cocaine and popping pills. There s no doubt that this type of music has a negative effect on today s youth, but by censoring, this variety of music are we in effect censoring the culture and reality that sings it. No matter the drug, no matter the era, they ve always played a major role for better or worse. The rap lifestyle has always gone hand in hand with drugs. The use of drugs other than weed seemed to be something that was not largely accepted until the 2000s. 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This is one of the many things that makes AmericaRead MoreVideo Games Have Become Part Of The Social Norm For Kids Now Days1688 Words   |  7 Pageslow bit games like Pong anymore, but rather games that look and feel like real life. When you pick up the controller now, you’re entering a completely different world. Today, children are growing up in a media saturated world. There was a national survey in the US that found children aged 8 to 10 years had and average media usage time of 7 hours and 38 minutes every day (Agarwal, 2012). While some people play for a sense of reward, others play to connect with friends. Everyone plays different games

War Effect on the Economy Free Essays

Shomoi Francis Mr. Joseph English 12 26 November 2012 War: Effect on Economy War has influenced economic history profoundly across time and space. Winners of wars have shaped economic institutions and trade patterns. We will write a custom essay sample on War: Effect on the Economy or any similar topic only for you Order Now Wars have influenced technological developments. Above all, recurring war has drained wealth, disrupted markets, and depressed economical growth. Wars are expensive (in money and other resources), destructive (of capital and human capital), and disruptive (of trade, resource availability, labor management). Large wars make up severe shocks to the economies of participating countries. Despite some positive aspects of short-term stimulation and long-term destruction and rebuilding, war generally impedes economic development and undermines wealth. Several specific economic effects of war recur across historical eras and locales. Next inflation, the most consistent short-term economic effect of war is to push up prices, and consequently to reduce living standards. This war-induced inflation was described in ancient China by the strategist Sun Tzu: â€Å"Where the army is, prices are high; when prices raise the wealth of the people is exhausted† (Tzu Sun, c. 00 BCE) His advice was to keep wars short and have the money in hand before assembling an army. Paying for wars is a central problem for states (see War Finance). This was especially true in early modern Europe (fifteenth to eighteenth centuries), when war relied heavily on mercenary forces. The king of Spain was advised that waging war required three things – money, money, and more money. Spain and Portugal imported silver and gold from America to pay for armies, but in such large quantities that the value of these metals eventually eroded. One way governments pay for war is to raise taxes (which in turn reduces civilian spending and investment). U. S. revolutionary Thomas Paine warned in 1787 that â€Å"war †¦ has but one thing certain, and that is to increase taxes. † Another way to pay for war is to borrow money, which increases government debt, but war-related debts can drive states into bankruptcy as they did to Spain in 1557 and 1596. A third way to fund war is to print more currency, which fuels inflation. Inflation thus often acts as an indirect ax on a national economy to finance war. Industrial warfare, and especially the two World Wars, created inflationary pressures across large economies. Increasingly, governments mobilized entire societies for war – conscripting labor, bidding up prices in markets for natural resources and industrial goods, and diverting capital and technology from civilian to military applications. World War I caused ruinous inflation as participants broke from the gold standard and issued currency freely. Inflation also accompanied the U. S. Civil War, World War II, and the Vietnam War, among others. War-induced inflation, although strongest in war zones, extends to distant belligerents, such as the United States in the World Wars, and, in major wars, even to neutral countries, owing to trade disruption and scarcities. Present-day wars continue to fuel inflation and drive currencies towards worthlessness. In Angola’s civil war (1975-2002), for example, the government currency became so useless that an alternative â€Å"hard† currency – bottles of beer – came to replace it in many daily transactions. In addition to draining money and resources from participants’ economies, most wars create zones of intense destruction of capital such as farms, factories, and cities. These effects severely depress economic output. The famine and plague that accompanied the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48) killed as much as one-third of Germany’s population, as mercenaries plundered civilians and civilians became mercenaries to try to survive. World War I reduced French production by nearly half, starved hundreds of thousands of Germans to death, and led to more than a decade of lower Soviet output. One estimate put World War I’s total cost at $400 billion – five times the value of everything in France and Belgium at the time. Battle casualties, war-induced epidemics, and other demographic disruptions have far-reaching effects. World War I contributed to the 1918 influenza epidemic that killed millions. Military forces in East Africa may have sparked the outbreak of what became a global AIDS epidemic. Quincy Wright estimates that â€Å"at least 10 percent of deaths in modern civilization can be attributed directly or indirectly to war† (Wright, 1942). The U. S. â€Å"baby boom† after World War II continues decades later to shape economic policy debates ranging from school budgets to social security. Wars also temporarily shake up gender relations (among other demographic variables), as when men leave home and women take war jobs to replenish the labor force, as in the Soviet Union, Britain, and the United States during World War II. Countries that can fight wars beyond their borders avoid the most costly destruction (though not the other costs of war). For example, the Dutch towards the end of the Thirty Years’ War, the British during the Napoleonic Wars, the Japanese in World War I, and the Americans in both World Wars enjoyed this relative insulation from war’s destruction, which meanwhile weakened their economic rivals. Also, just as wars’ costs and outcomes affect economic conditions and evolution, so too do economic conditions and evolution affect war. Causality runs in both directions. For example, Dutch economic strengths in the early 17th century allowed fast and cheap production of ships, including warships. The resulting naval military advantage in turn supported Dutch long-distance trade. The wealth derived from that trade, in turn, let the Netherlands pay and train a professional standing army, which successfully sheltered the Netherlands from the ruinous Thirty Years’ War. This protection in turn let the Dutch expand their share of world trade at the expense of war-scarred rivals. Thus the evolutions of warfare and of world economic history are intertwined. War is the proximal cause of the recurring inflationary spikes that demarcate 50-year â€Å"Kondratieff waves† in the world economy. Those waves themselves continue to be controversial. However, they may have some predictive value to the extent they clarify the historical relationships between war and military spending on the one hand, and inflation and economic growth on the other. The 1990s mainly followed a predicted long-wave phase of sustained low inflation, renewed growth, and reduced great-power military conflict. If this pattern were to continue, the coming decade would see continued strong growth but new upward pressures on military spending and conflict, eventually leading to a new bout of inflation in the great-power economies. Since scholars do not agree on the mechanism or even the existence of long economic waves, however, such projections are of more academic than practical interest. The relationship between military spending and economic growth has also generated controversy. Despite its pump-priming potential in specific circumstances, as during the 1930s, military spending generally acts to slow economic growth, since it diverts capital and labor from more productive investment (such as in roads, schools, or basic research). During the Cold War, high ilitary spending contributed (among other causes) to the economic stagnation of the Soviet Union and the collapse of North Korea, whereas low military spending relative to GDP contributed to Japan’s growth and innovation. During the 1990s, as real military spending worldwide fell by about one-third, the United States and others reaped a â€Å"peace dividend† in sustained expansion. However, effects of military spending are long-term, and sh arp reductions do not bring quick relief, as Russia’s experience since 1991 demonstrates. The global North-South divide – a stark feature of the world economy – is exacerbated by war. The dozens of wars currently in progress worldwide form an arc from the Andes through Africa to the Middle East and Caucasus, to South and Southeast Asia. In some of the world’s poorest countries, such as Sudan and Afghanistan, endemic warfare impedes economic development and produces grinding poverty, which in turn intensifies conflicts and fuels warfare. To conclude, you have read about the good and bad things of war effects on the economy. War has drained wealth, disrupted markets, and depressed economical growth. But, the winners of these wars often were rewarded from these wars. War is bad overall; I feel that war should be the last option for any country. Works Cited Washigntonsblog. â€Å"Proof that war is bad for the economy. † 24 Feb. 2012. http://www. washingtonsblog. com/2012/02/debunking-the-myth-that-war-is-good-for-the-economy-once-and-for-all. html. Symonds, Peter. â€Å"US wages over war†. 7 Oct. 2012. http://www. globalresearch. ca/us-wages-economic-war-on-iran/5307485. http://www. joshuagoldstein. com/jgeconhi. htm. upsky2. triod. com/science/economics/waraffectseconomy. html. Www, joshuagoldstein. com/igeconhi. htm. How to cite War: Effect on the Economy, Essay examples

Reproductive Health Bill free essay sample

After 14 years of struggle, the Reproductive Health Bill has finally been passed into law! Philippine President Benigno Simeon Aquino III quietly signed the bill into law last December 21, 2012, four days away before Christmas – for me the best Christmas gift for Filipino women and youth especially us RH advocates who were tireless in our efforts to lobby, dialogue, march on the streets and campaign for the passage of the RH Bill into a law. The new law will now be called as Republic Act 10354 or the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health of 2012. Owing to the controversy of the law, the Office of the President only confirmed it today after persistent rumors were circulated widely in the internet. The road for passing the RH Law was not easy. Strong opposition coming from the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines has long delayed the passage of the law. Way back then, legislators from Congress and Senate under the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo were dominated by conservative Anti-RH representatives. We will write a custom essay sample on Reproductive Health Bill or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page A few like Representatives Edcel Lagman and Janette Loreto-Garin in Congress and Senators Pia Cayetano and Miriam Defensor-Santiago have continued the fight despite of the overwhelming hostility of their peers to the RH Bill. Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo herself promoted an abstinence-only program during her 9-year tenure as president. Ever since I was involved with RH advocacy back in 2009, I have observed that our movement has grown bigger and stronger. Young people have become more involved and have since been in the forefront of the movement. Women especially mothers have aired out their concerns of having a limited options for them in status quo. The deaths of 11 Filipino women a day due to pregnancy and child birth complications according to UNFPA makes the bill a necessity if not urgent. Celebrities like Tony Award winning actress Lea Salonga, singer songwriter Jim Paredes, Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral, reality-show actors Tom Rodriguez and Princess Lieza Manzon, and even enlightened Catholic priest like Fr. Joaquin Bernas have lent their name and prestige in promoting awareness and discourse on the issues of the RH Bill. The administration of President Aquino bolstered our hopes that the bill will become a law when at the very start of his election campaign; he promised that he will support the RH Bill. Although there were times when he seems to be bowing to the pressure of the Catholic Church, his determination to deliver his election promises equaled with our vigilance to hold him accountable to his promises triumphed at the end of the day. It would be the second time in Philippine history that the government defied the Catholic Church since the Rizal Law which makes me feel happy that a government like President Aquino can stand up for the general good and welfare of the Filipino people. Not talking about the Anti-RH does not give justice to the struggles and the gain we had right now. I admire their equal eagerness for the RH Bill NOT to become a law. They have their own reasons to oppose the bill and I respect it. Some of it may sound absurd just like how Senator Sotto reasoned out that â€Å"since we ban plastics, why are we legalizing condoms†. In a controversial measure like RH Bill, we have expected a lot of opposition to it. Although opposition to the bill can be a major obstacle, we welcome them because it sparks discourse and intellectual discussion which benefits the people at the end of the day for it guides them in making their own informed decision. Women willpower: RH sponsors Rep Janette Garin (1D, Iloilo) and Sen Pia Cayetano hold a copy of the reconciled version of the RH BILL following the latter’s adoption by the bicameral conference committee on the last day of session last week. Photo taken on December 19, 2012 at the Senate plenary. Courtesy of Senator Pia Cayetano’s Facebook Page. At the end of the day, an inevitable showdown of numbers happened. Last December 12-13, the members of the House of Representatives having reached a quorum decided to vote on whether or not to terminate the Period of Amendments for the bill and pass it for the Second Reading. Pro-RH gained the needed 109 votes to pass the bill for second reading during the first round of voting. A close fight ensued as the second round of voting was declared. With 113 votes for the RH, 104 against, and 4 abstain the bill was passed for Second Reading. Finally, on December 17, both Senate and House of Representatives voted in their respective chambers with 13-8 in the Senate in favor of the bill and 133-79-7 in the House of Representatives in favor also of the bill. Then a Bicameral Conference Committee convened to reconcile the RH Bill versions of the two chambers of Congress. After its ratification, it was presented to the President for his signature. At this point, even if Mr. Aquino does not sign it, it will become law after 15 days. By the way, it may not be the perfect RH Law that one aspires about because of some compromises that it had to give such as teaching Comprehensive Sexuality Education not compulsory in private schools among others but hey, it is still an achievement. Priority is given to teaching it to public schools where the bulk of students go to get their education. We can remedy that. What is more important right now is to be involve in crafting the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the RH Law which will serve as guide on how the law will be implemented and of course, the full implementation of the law when it take effect. After celebrating our RH Law victory, let’s move forward and act for the passage of the Anti-Discrimination Bill and the Freedom of Information Act in the Philippines! Belmonte to SC: Voiding RH law a veto on peoples will APPEAL. Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr warns the SC against declaring the RH law as unconstitutional. File photo by Rappler MANILA, Philippines – Declaring the reproductive health (RH) law as unconstitutional would be a veto against the will of majority of our people. Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr issued this statement on Tuesday, February 11, amid reports that the Supreme Court law is likely to declare the RH law unconstitutional. The SC decision on the case â€Å"would have deep and far-reaching implications for the country, Belmonte warned. â€Å"Remember that we have 289 House members who are individuals representing a broad spectrum of society,† the Speaker said. â€Å"They are representatives directly elected to articulate what majority of their constituents want. Therefore, the resulting law is a product of this painstaking process and is a democratic compromise. The controversial measure took over 13 years to pass. After rigorous debates that lasted until the late hours of the evening, Congress finally approved the historic bill in 2012 despite lobbying from the Catholic Church. Soon after President Benigno Aquino III signed it into law, a total of 15 petitions questioning its constitutionality was lodged before the Supreme Court by mostly Catholic groups. Justices ended oral arguments for the RH law in August 2013, but Belmonte said the arguments raised during the SC debates had already been addressed in the debates in Congress. â€Å"Each of these views have already been openly taken up numerous times before enactment and yet [the measure] has now become a law. Therefore, the anti-RH argument is now a minority view. We must therefore respect the desire of the majority which is to exercise their freedom of choice, Belmonte said. (READ: SC ends RH law arguments; what happens now? ) The two biggest debates in the Supreme Court over the RH law revolved around two questions: Are contraceptives abortifacients? And, is there a need for the law? Belmonte said the law clearly states that having an abortion is illegal, noting that the final decision on the issue must be based on legality and not on morality. â€Å"We must remember that Congress is tasked not with being judges of morality, but with safeguarding the legal rights of our people,† he said. Hontiveros to SC: Dont let families wait IMPLEMENT RH LAW. Raquel Villanueva, one of the mothers who supported the passage of RH law, said the SC should not stop its implementation. MANILA, Philippines A senatorial candidate asked the Supreme Court on Monday, March 25 to lift the status quo ante order it issued stopping the implementation of the controversial reproductive health law. Former Akbayan Rep. Risa Hontiveros who is part of the senatorial slate of the Liberal Party filed a motion for reconsideration on the status quo ante order, which would take effect for 120 days, or 4 months. The SC voted 10-5 on March 19 to stop the government from implementing the RH law, which funds the distribution and promotion of contraceptives. Hontiveros filed the motion days before the derailed RH law was supposed to take effect on March 31, or on Easter Sunday. Lawyer Ibarra Gutierrez III, Akbayan nominee for partylist representative in the 2013 midterm elections, said the RH law should still be implemented even as the SC has yet to rule on its legality. He said Republic Act 10354 or the RH law like any other law passed by Congress enjoys the presumption of constitutionality. DONT LET US WAIT. Risa Hontiveros (center) asks SC to lift status quo ante order on the RH law implementation. He stressed that in the case of the RH law, it took 15 years before Congress passed it in 2012. Hontiveros said that the implementing rules and regulations of the law were also crafted in consultation with different civil society groups and stakeholders. It is respectfully submitted that these Implementing Rules and Regulations must be taken into account by this Honorable Supreme Court in determining whether the Status Quo Ante Order is appropriate at this time, Hontiveros said in the motion. Gutierrez added they are ready to face the SC when it conducts the oral arguments on the case on June 18. Hontiveros said that contrary to the arguments of the anti-RH petitioners, RA 10354 does not limit the free exercise of religion. Stopping the implementation of the RH law based on religious beliefs alone would in fact lead to the imposition of the same beliefs on everyone else, she said. (READ: SC stops RH law implementation) She added that the RH law also does not undermine the Filipino family. In fact, by giving Filipino families, whatever their circumstances and economic status, the ability to make informed choices about their family life as well as the ability to act on those choices, RA 10354 strengthens the family as a basic, autonomous, social institution, she said in her motion. She said the petitioners also ignored the fact the RH law does not legalize abortion. The text of the law even expressly prohibits it. The motion also noted that the SC only acts on actual controversies. Hontiveros said the petitioners have yet to show that they were adversely affected by the law. (READ: Spiritually pro-RH) On the contrary, she said the suspension of the law will cause a permanent and lasting harm to mothers and children. The suspension can cause irreparable harm to a vulnerable section of our population. As reported by the Department of Health, lack of access to reproductive health services is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality. This harm cannot be reversed, she said. Supreme Court: Order vs RH law stays IMPLEMENT RH LAW. Raquel Villanueva, one of the mothers who supported the passage of RH law, said the SC should not stop its implementation. MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED) The Supreme Court on Tuesday, April 2, junked a motion that sought to have the controversial reproductive health law implemented despite unresolved legal questions over its constitutionality. The SC, voting 10-4, denied for lack of merit a motion filed by former Akbayan Rep. Risa Hontiveros which asked for the lifting of the status quo ante order issued by the High Court on March 19 against the law. (Read: Hontiveros to SC: Dont let families wait). The 10 justices who voted to dismiss Hontiveros motion are: Presbitero Velasco Jr, Teresita Leonardo De Castro, Arturo Brion, Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, Roberto Abad, Martin Villarama Jr. , Jose Perez, Jose Mendoza, and Bienvenido Reyes. Those who agreed with Hontiveros are Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, and Justices Antonio Carpio, Marvic Leonen and Mariano del Castillo. On leave is Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe. The SC voted 10-5 to stop the government from implementing the RH law, which funds the distribution and promotion of contraceptives. Its a landmark law that took more than a decade of congressional debates to pass. The order will take effect for 120 days. The SC is set to hold oral arguments on the case in June. Hontiveros who is part of the senatorial slate of the Aquino government said the RH law should be implemented already, however, as every legislative measure passed by Congress enjoys the presumption of constitutionality. Hontiveros told the Court that contrary to the arguments of the anti-RH petitioners, RA 10354 does not limit the free exercise of religion. Stopping the implementation of the RH law based on religious beliefs alone would in fact lead to the imposition of the same beliefs on everyone else, she said. Reacting to the Courts latest decision, Hontiveros said: â€Å"It is disappointing. I still maintain that the immediate implementation of the law does not pose any concrete damage to the constitutional rights of any individual. The suspension, however, reinforces a status quo where 11 women die everyday due to lack of access to reproductive health services. She added: â€Å"The RH law is a tool against ignorance, one that causes death and exposes our youth to various risks. We could have stopped this climate of ignorance that has imperiled our youth for several generations now. The law is staunchly opposed by the Catholic Church, which is leading a campaign against lawmakers who support the law and are running for senatorial and local posts in the May mid-term elections. Reproductive Health Law Enacted in the Philippines It is with great pride that we at the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD) shares with you the newly enacted Reproductive Health Law in the Philippines, REPUBLIC ACT NO. 10354, AN ACT PROVIDING FOR A NATIONAL POLICY ON RESPONSIBLE PARENTHOOD AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH. As we celebrate the passage of the RH Bill into law, we would like to congratulate Hon. Cong. Edcel Lagman, principal author of the bill, Deputy Secretary General of AFPPD and Chairman of the Philippine Legislators Committee on Population and Development. The AFPPDs National Committee in the Philippines, PLCPD with its active member legislators, untiringly championed the passage of the RH bill in the last 14 years. On behalf of the regional network of National Committees on population and development, AFPPD warmly commends PLCPD for this milestone. We also recognize the invaluable contribution of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) whose support to parliamentarian advocacy has strengthened and empowered Parliamentarian champions in the Philippine Congress. And lastly, our sincere gratitude to all the Members of Parliament in the Asia-Pacific region, partners, CSOs and other stakeholders who have been with us in this quest. The enactment of the RH Law is a huge leap of the Philippines towards achieving its commitment to the International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action (ICPD PoA). Many families, women and children in the country will now have a better quality of life. Philippines’ reproductive health law here now what? MANILA, 20 mars 2013 (IRIN) After a publicly contentious 14-year battle, legislators quietly signed the Philippines’ first reproductive health law in late December. It was expected to take effect by the end of March, but on 21 March the Supreme Court halted its implementation, issuing a 120-day status quo ante to review court challenges. â€Å"We were already expecting these petitions, but not the status quo ante which is equivalent to a TRO [temporary restraining order],† Edcel Lagman, a parliamentarian and one of the chief authors of the law, told IRIN, echoing activists’ realization of just how difficult it will be to roll out reproductive health services. On 8 March in the capital at the signing of the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the Reproductive Health Law (IRR-RH), 16-year-old Michelle Custodio said she had suffered two miscarriages in the last two years. If it were not for the free birth control pills she received from a local women’s centre, she would â€Å"surely have gotten pregnant again† she said. In Manila, the country’s largest city with nearly two million residents, a local ordinance banning condoms, birth control pills and other forms of contraception was passed in 2000. Since then public health clinics have promoted only what is known as â€Å"natural† family planning, which calls for abstinence during a woman’s peak days of fertility, and for avoiding any drugs or sterilization to prevent pregnancy. â€Å"If I can enjoy this [reproductive health] service for free, then all women should be able to. Now that the RH [reproductive health] law has been passed, RH will be the right of every Filipino, especially those who are poor,† Custodio said. The promise of the hard-fought law is free access to reproductive health services including contraception for all, but the reality, Custodio and other activists fear, is that honouring that pledge will take more time than women and their families can afford. Youth provision questioned During recent public consultations convened by the Department of Health, RH advocates’ sense of accomplishment was overshadowed by what they saw as the law’s imperfections, and continued resistance to the law. Youth leaders questioned a provision that requires minors to present written parental consent before receiving public RH services. â€Å"What teen would ask their parents’ permission to get RH services? That would be tantamount to admitting they are sexually active,† said Alexis Sarza, founder of BALUTI, a local NGO that provides RH counselling and services to mostly abandoned street children. â€Å"These are the kids who are prostituted or are sexually active. What do we do then for them? † he asked. But Junice Melgar, executive director of Likhaan Women’s Health Care and a member of the IRR drafting committee composed of both governmental and non-governmental members, said access will be unhampered. â€Å"The provision does not apply to RH information, which can be freely given [and applies] just to services in public healthcare clinics. Patients can be referred [by public healthcare officials] to private institutions and NGOs,† said Melgar. Other groups expressed concern that the search for discreet care will slow efforts to lower the country’s teen pregnancy rate, which increased by 65 percent from 2000-2010, according to the government’s most recent Family Health Survey. The survey attributed the increase to the lack of adolescent-friendly RH services and information. Unmet contraceptive need As early as 2009, local health experts predicted the country’s Millennium Development Goal of lowering the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) to 53-55 per 100,000 live births was unachievable. With a reproductive law now in place though stalled Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Enrique Ona is more optimistic. â€Å"We should see an impact on MMR already by end of the year. By 2016, we are targeting that MMR will be lowered to 53 per 100,000,† Ona told IRIN. However, family planning funds are â€Å"meagre† and only a fraction of what is needed, said NGO director Melgar and IRR drafting committee member. The DOH 2012 budget for family planning supplies was about US$13. 4 million. â€Å"If you compare it to the unmet need for contraception, we need a budget of $75 million to provide for the contraceptive needs of 10 million women,† said Melgar, referring to a 2009 estimate from the US-based reproductive health centre, Guttmacher Institute, of the number of Filipinas who need contraception, but cannot get it. Tangle of local laws With the country’s decentralization of governance, implementation of national laws is the responsibility of the village level under the supervision of autonomous local government units (LGU). When the RH law had yet to be passed, LGUs such as Manila drafted their own local RH ordinances, which promoted only natural family planning. While the new national RH law, when enacted, will repeal such local ordinances, women’s groups are uncertain how long it will take to phase out restrictive, contradictory local laws. â€Å"I think the first step is to go back to the communities and really educate the women about the RH law. They need to know what their rights are under this law,† said Beth Angsioco, chairperson of the Democratic Socialist Women of the Philippines (DSWP). One of those rights is to report any violations of the RH law which may be penalized by imprisonment of one to six months and a fine of up to $2,500. Catholic Church And, then there is the Catholic Church, which has long opposed the RH law and continues to do so. In Cebu, the second largest city after Manila, churchgoers are being asked to sign an anti-RH pledge as part of a voter education campaign for the upcoming May local elections. Photo: Ana Santons/IRIN Signed, sealed just not delivered In the southern province of Bacolod, the local diocese has hung tarpaulins outside their churches pitting anti-RH against pro-RH legislators, calling the former â€Å"Team Life† and the latter â€Å"Team Dead†. Lagman, the law’s co-author, said he will file a petition for intervention so he may defend the law’s constitutionality before the court. The Supreme Court will hear arguments on a dozen petitions filed by religious and faith-based groups questioning the law’s constitutionality, arguing that it undermined the family as the fundamental social unit (as described in the constitution) and that public funds should not be used to buy contraceptives. â€Å"I’m very firm that the RH Law is constitutional. We won this battle in both the senate and congress. The four-month wait is temporary. Advocates waited 14 years for this law to be passed. We will get through another four months,† Lagman said. Oral arguments are scheduled to begin on 18 June three months too late for Pia Cayetano, a senator and sponsor of the law. How many lives will be lost during this period? How many more mothers will die of birth complications? While we wait, it is the poor who will suffer,† said Cayetano. Reproductive Health Law in the Philippines: A Conclusion to a Decade-long Crusade Finally in 2012, the controversial Reproductive Health Bill (RH Bill) has been resurrected and made into a law after ten to fourteen years of being stuck in legislation. The crusade has thrust like a sword in the heart of Philippine society. Naturally, opinions were divided as binary opposites again: on the one side, conservatives mostly coming from the Christian society; and on the other, liberals and leftists. It was the first time in more than a decade that the RH Bill legislation has re-gained its infamous limelight. Hospitable, happy-go-lucky and conservative – these adjectives are the stereotypical descriptions to refer to Filipinos. When the RH Bill legislation was again revitalized last 2012 in congress, it was like the bomb that has paralyzed Manila during the Second World War. Philippine society, as the world knows it, is the home to extreme conservatives of the Roman Catholic orientation. The periods of colonization that slaughtered yet strengthened the country has imbibed the need for a religion that will manifest material salvation. Of course, the advanced capitalist stage has allowed cultural changes in the country – and by that younger generation has adapted popular culture from capitalist countries such as the United States, Great Britain, and Italy with their Asian counterparts such as Japan and South Korea. But religious fanaticism is an indispensable framework that cannot be eliminated as of the current politico-economic stage. By that, the revitalization of the RH Bill has divided opinions around the country. It is out of the question that conservatives deny the provision, as Judas has denied Jesus in the Bible, because of the threat that abortion may become legal. The pro-RH Bill defenders claim that the provision is only pro-choice in child-bearing, especially from the point of view of women. The RH Bill has been made into a law, as signed by President Benigno Aquino III last December 21, 2012: â€Å"The Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012† or the Republic Act No. 10354. The essential gist of the provision aims to provide a legitimate venue or a Rule of Law in which a typical Filipino family may access basic social services, choices in child-rearing and information. In a feminist point of view, this law is passed to protect and promote the rights and welfare of women on family-rearing. The essence of the RH Law is pro-choice, pro-family, pro-poor and pro-women’s rights. Unlike the claim of the conservatives, the RH Law is not made to legitimize abortion. Ironically, it prevents the situation when abortion may be possible. It is the lack of a pro-choice law that creates the series of abortions in the country, coupled with the loosely-conservative thinking in child-bearing. Notwithstanding the advantages of the RH Law, there are cautionary measures in this rookie of a law – one in which is the danger of contraceptive commercialization that may occur had the current administration not provide public spending for the concrete implementation of this law. For instance, because of the Public-Private Partnership paradigm that the current administration adapts, there is a danger that capitalists may invest on the contraceptives, thereby limiting public access especially for the poor. This would defeat the objectives of the RH Law altogether. In other words, the real challenge is the actuality of the RH Law. The twists and turns of its implementation is only child’s play. The rougher road has only begun.