William Shakespeare Essay Example for Free

William Shakespeare Essay William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was born in Startford-on-Avon, in the country of Warwick. The third child and first son, William was christened on 26th April, 1564 in the parish chruch. His father, John Shakespeare, was a prosperous businessman. William got his education in a good grammer school. His father’s business failed due to neglect so William could not attend the University. At the age of eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, the daughter of an old family friend and they had three children. The date of his arrival in London is not known but he was said to have been arrived there around 1592. A theatre company, ‘Lord Chamberlain’s Men’, refounded in 1594, developed into London’s leading company. Shakespeare became an important member in it and this group later got the name, ‘King’s Men’. From 1599, this occupied the Globe Theatre and later in 1608 took over the Blackfriar’s monestry. Shakespearean plays performed here show the change in the stage conditions, having more scenery and lighting effects. Shakespeare, by his Venus and Adonis and Rape of Lucerce, had earned considerable fame in 1594. The revival of classical drama brought about a change in the attitude of noblemen of that time. The theatre began to be attended by and the quality of the plays improved. In 1597, Shakespeare purchased ‘New Place’, an outstanding residential property. After acquiring a lot of property in Stratford, he retired to his house ih New Place. His career as a dramatist was over and The Tempest was his last play, written in 1611. On 23rd April, 1616, Shakespeare died and was buried in the altar of Stratford Church. As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the First Folio, 1623. The plays first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility. The play remains a favourite among audiences and has been adapted for radio, film, and musical theatre. Plot Development The plot of As You Like It is complex and comprises of a number of interweaving plots. The inter-linking of plots has been done beautifully by Shakespeare. The characters have been fashioned and fit into incidents. ‘ As You Like It’ follows its heroine Rosalind as she flees persecution in her uncles court, accompanied by her cousin Celia and Touchstone the court jester, to find safety and eventually, love, in the Forest of Arden. The play features one of Shakespeares most famous and oft-quoted speeches, All the worlds a stage, and is the origin of the phrase too much of a good thing. Themes Envy, Hatered,Jealousy,Conceit The theme of envy, hatred, jealousy and conceit has been brought by Shakespeare with the help of Oliver and Duke Frederick. Oliver is envoius of his brother Orlando because although he treats him like a rustic he has all the good qualties in him which eclipse the qualities of Oliver. It is because he is jealous of Orlando, he hates him and tries to kill him. In the same way Duke Frederick is jealous of the popularity of Duke Senior and Rosalind. When he comes to know that it is because of Rosalind that the qualities of Celia are hidden, he decides to banish her as well. He had only kept Rosalind back because Celia could not stay without her. Loyalty,Love,Devotion Adam is loyal to Orlando and loves him because he reminds him of Sir Rowland de Boys. He saves Orlando’s life by helping him escape from the trap laid by Oliver to take his life. Adam also offers Orlando his life savings and his service although he is very old. Duke Senior also has some followers who willingly follow the Duke to banishment. Love and devotion is also seen in Celia for Roslind as they ecape to the forest of Arden together. They are inseperable like the Juno’s swans. Rosalind is in love with Orlando when he bravely defeats Charles the prized wrestler of the Duke. She gives him her necklace. A shepard named Silivius has also fallen in love with Phebe. Another love-story of Touchstone and Audrey is also taking place. It is anti-romantic story and although Touchstone wants to marry Audrey, he does not want it to be a life-long bond. Background of the Poet Vikram Seth is an Indian novelist and poet. He has written several novel and poetry books. He has also received several awards including Padma Shri, Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, WH Smith Literary Award and Crossword Book Award. Seth was born on 20 June 1952 in a Punjabi family to Leila and Prem Seth in Calcutta (now Kolkata). Seth spent part of his youth in London but returned to his homeland in 1957. He received primary education at Welham Boys School and then moved to The Doon School. After commencing secondary education at The Doon School in India, Seth returned to England to Tonbridge School. Having lived in London for many years, Seth now maintains residences near Salisbury, England, where he is a participant in local literary and cultural events, having bought and renovated the house of the Anglican poet George Herbert in 1996 and in Delhi, where he lives with his parents and keeps his extensive library and papers. Structure of the Poem The Frog and the Nightingale is a fable in the form of a poem. A fable is narrative, not longer than a short story and has a moral. This poem has animals as its main characters. In this poem the poet has adapted features of modern poetry in following the pattern mixed metre and free verse. However to add the flavor of a ballad, a conscious effort has been made to keep it close to the common speech. The poem follows the iambic meter and regular rhyme immediately following the lines rhyming together. The last word of each line rhymes with the last word of the next line. Mostly the lines are hexasyllabic with variations of one syllable. Theme and Summary of the Poem The poem, The Frog and the Nightingale is a powerful example of how people are deceived by others because of the wrong self-image and the lack of moral courage. Generally, people build their self-image on what others think of them. They do not have the moral courage to see through their strengths and weaknesses, and thus they fall into traps of selfish people. There are many people who use other people to fullfil their selfish motives. The poet wants to convey the message that we need to realise our potential, have self-confidence and judgement of character so that we do not become victims of the crafty and hypocritical world. The poem begins with the frog croaking all day long at the Bingle Bog, under the sumac tree. Although the other creatures hated his singing, they had no choice because the frog was to determined to display his hearts elation. One night a nightingale arrived and enchanted everyone withher melodious voice. Everyone cheered the nightingale and she sang all night long. The following night when the nightingale was getting ready to sing the frog came to her and criticised the song as if he was a very good singer. The frog promised to train the nightingale but would charge a reasonable fee. He made nightingale sing continuously for six hours, not caring whether it is raining or not. He charged fee to everyone who came to sing the nightingale sing and thus she became very famous. The frog used to watch all the audience with joy both sweet and bitter. The frog used to scold her and she grew more morose. Her voice was losing its charm and thus people stopped to listen to her singing. Once, during a performance, the frog began to shout on her asked her to puff up and sing properly. Th nightingale puffed up ,burst a vein and died on the spot. The frog got back his position and continued to sing and display his hearta elation.

A Study About Data Warehouse Components Computer Science Essay

A Study About Data Warehouse Components Computer Science Essay A data warehouse is collection of resources that can be accessed to retrieve information of an organizations electronically stored data, designed to facilitate reporting and analysis. Definition of the data warehouse focuses on data storage. However, the means to retrieve and analyze data, to extract, transform and load data, and to manage the data dictionary are also considered essential components of a data warehousing system. Many references to data warehousing use this broader context. Thus, an expanded definition for data warehousing includes business intelligence tools, tools to extract, transform and load data into the repository, and tools to manage and retrieve metadata. Data warehousing arises in an organizations need for reliable, consolidated, unique and integrated analysis and reporting of its data, at different levels of aggregation. Data warehouse is an essential element of decision support. It aims at enabling the knowledge user to make better faster daily business decision. In order to supply a decisional database meta- data is need to enable communication between various function areas of the warehouse an ETL Tool is needed to define the warehousing process. Data Warehouse Components: The construction of a data warehouse is divided in to two stages Known as back room front room. The first ensures the building up of the warehouse database. The second provides the restitution of data from data mart in order to fulfill analystà ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢s demand. According to standard data warehouse architecture, the data warehouse systems are composed of : ETL or Warehousing tools Restitution Tools Meta Data ETL Tools (Extract-Transform-Load) Extract, transform, and load (ETL) is a process in database usage and especially in data warehousing that involves: Extracting data from outside sources Transforming it to fit operational needs (which can include quality levels) Loading it into the end target (database or data warehouse) Stocking the data warehouse with data is often the most time consuming task needed to make data warehousing and business intelligence a success. Extracting data for the data warehouse includes: Making ETL Architecture Choices Data Mapping Extracting data to staging area Applying data cleansing transformations Applying data consistency transformations Loading data The extract, transformation and loading process includes a number of steps: Extract The first part of an ETL process involves extracting the data from the source systems. Most data warehousing projects consolidate data from different source systems. Each separate system may also use a different data format. Common data source formats are relational databases and flat files. But sometime it includes non-relational database structures as an eg: Information Management System (IMS) Virtual Storage Access Method (VSAM) Indexed Sequential Access Method (ISAM) The streaming of extracted data source and load on-the-fly to the destination database is another way of performing ETL when no intermediate data storage is required. In general, the goal of the extraction phase is to convert the data into a single format which is appropriate for transformation processing. Transform The transform stage applies a series of rules or functions to the extracted data from the source to derive the data for loading into the end target. Some data sources will require very little or even no manipulation of data. In other cases, one or more of the following transformation types may be required to meet the business and technical needs of the target database: Load The load phase loads the data into the end target, usually the data warehouse (DW). Depending on the requirements of the organization. Some data warehouses may overwrite existing information with cumulative information. Most of time updating extract data is done on daily, weekly or monthly basis. Other data warehouse may add new data in a historicized form, for example, hourly. To understand this, consider a data warehouse that is required to maintain sales record of last one year. Then the data warehouse will overwrite any data that is older than a year. More complex systems can maintain a history and audit trail of all changes to the data loaded in the data warehouse. ETL Tool Functionalities While the selection of a database and a hardware platform is a must, the selection of an ETL tool is highly recommended, but its not a must. When you evaluate ETL tools, it pays to look for the following characteristics: Functional Capability Ability to read directly from your data source Metadata support Microsoft Office Performance Point Server One of the warehouse tools is Microsoft Office Performance Point Server. It is a software product from Microsoft for the business intelligence sector. Version 1.0 was released in November 2007. But this version 1.0 product was not officially released until November 2007. The acquisition has enabled Microsoft to add deep analytics for reports created by its Performance Point Monitoring Server. Planning component of Performance Point Server 2007 is to be discontinued in April 1, 2009. Microsoft will discontinue this product as an independent product. It is folding its Dashboard, Scorecard and Analytic Reporting capabilities in to SharePoint Server, signaling a significant change in the companys business intelligence software strategy. This Microsoft Office Performance Point Server stable release is 1.0SP2/2008 and the operating system is Microsoft Windows. This product license is proprietary EULA. Performance Point Server 2007 is fully integrated with other Microsoft Office products including Excel, Visio, SQL Server, and SharePoint Server. This server provides a planning and budgeting component which is directly integrated with Microsoft Excel and SQL Server Analysis Services. And this integration allows Performance point to join the dis-jointed systems companies use to in order to keep information accurate within all of their systems. Performance Point uses data cubes to manage the information. In 2007, Business intelligence (BI), also known as Business performance management (BPM) or corporate performance management (CPM) is a rapidly growing market owing to the ever-increasing amount of data collected by businesses about their customers. There are three types of components, Monitoring Server Operation Planning Sever Operation Management Reporter The Monitoring Server Operation has lot of the monitoring and analytical features. It includes Dashboards, Scorecards, LPIs, Strategy Maps, Filters Reports. Dashboard Designer saves content and security information to a SQL Server 2005. Database is managed through Monitoring Server. Data source connections are also made through Monitoring Server. The Planning Server is built on a SQL Server stack, with extensive use of Excel for line-of-business reporting and analysis. The Performance Point Planning Server supports a variety of management processes, which include the ability to define, modify, and maintain logical business models integrated with business rules, workflows, and enterprise data. This component is specifically designed to perform Financial Reporting. It can read the PPS Planning Financial Models directly. A development kit is also available to allow this component to report off other repositories. Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition Another type of warehouse tool is Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition. This is also known as OBI EE Plus. This product developer is Oracle Cooperation. Stable release is 10.1.3.4 and it release in 1st September 2009. Written language is C++ and Java. Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition used operating system are Windows, Linux, Solaris, HPUX, AIX and MACOSX. This Oracles set of business intelligence tools consisting two business intelligence. There are: Former Siebel business intelligence Hyperion business intelligence. The former Siebel products were initially marketed by Oracle as Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition. The Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition is used inter changeably with Oracle Business Intelligence Applications. Industry counter-part and main competitors of Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition are Microsoft BI, IBM Cognos, SAP Business Objects and SAS. The full deployment of OBIEE contains the following components: Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher Oracle Business Intelligence Scheduler Oracle Business Intelligence Systems Management Oracle Business Intelligence Cluster Controller Oracle Business Intelligence Presentation Services Oracle Business Intelligence Server Oracle Business Intelligence Presentation Services Oracle Business Intelligence ODBC Driver Oracle Business Intelligence Scheduler Oracle Business Intelligence Administration Tool Oracle Business Intelligence Client Oracle Business Intelligence JDBC Driver Oracle Business Intelligence Catalog Manager Oracle Business Intelligence Job Manager There are lots of components in this product. Some of major components are; Oracle Business Intelligence Admin Tool Oracle Business Intelligence Answers Oracle Business Intelligence Server Oracle Business Intelligence Marketing Oracle Business Intelligence Interactive Dashboards Hyperion Web Analysis In this project these major components describe in detail. According to that Oracle BI Admin Tool is an administrator tool used to construct repositories consisting of a Physical Layer, Business Model and Mapping Layer, and an abstracted end-user Presentation Layer subsequently visible in BI Answers. Oracle BI Answers are an ad-hoc query and analysis tool it processes the data from multiple data sources in a pure Web environment. Users can remote from data structure complexity and they view and work with a logical view of the information. An analysis server providing a calculation and aggregation engine that integrates data from multiple relational, unstructured, OLAP, and other sources are called as Oracle BI Server. Oracle BI Marketing is which marketing needs, formerly known as Segmentation Server. And the last major component is Hyperion Web Analysis. This mean is delivers out-of-the-box presentation and reporting for Oracle multi-dimensional sources and Essbase.

The Book Of Judges :: essays research papers

The book of Judges is the sequel to Joshua. It is the seventh book of the Old Testament. It recounts stories and events from the death of the hebrew leader and prophet Joshua to the birth of the hebrew Samuel. That is roughly, from the end of the Israelite conquest of Canan in the 13th Century B.C to the begining of the monarchy in the 11 th century B.C. It tells about the hebrews from Joshua’s Death to the time of Samuel. It was written in about 550 BC, on tablets named the Ras Shamra tablets. The Ras Shamra tablets where later discovered in the early 20th Century, even though the stories and acountings of the judges where already known and written. The book of Judges belongs to a specific historical tradition which is called the Deuteronomic history. The author of the book of Judges, was in exile in Babylonia. While in exile he was deeply concerned with foreign domination. So he wrote many of his stories on the migration of the tribe of Dan to the North and the sins of the B enjamites. The author emphasized that Israel was being influenced by foreign powers and the loss of freedom and prosperity. Recurring throughout the book is the stereotyped formula: "The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the lord." Then after each period or subjection the author introduces another formula: " But when the people of Israel cried the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the people. Through-out the book, the book of judges tells about prophets, rulers and influencial people such as: Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah, Gideon, Tilian and Samson. There are also many more minor people. The name of the book is very deceptive, because there weren’t any judges at all, nor any judges notified of this book been written. The word Judges was actually a translation for the hebrew word "Shofet" which signifies a ruler or a great military ruler, which through out the book, influencial people such as Samson and or even Joshua are described as the Judges. The book of judges is supprisingly part of the book of prophets, because many prophets are mentioned and reported apon.

Burden: The Name Says it All in Faulkners Light in August :: Light August Essays

Burden: The Name Says it All in Light in August  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚      Expecting parents put so much thought, time, and energy into the choosing of a name for their baby. They turn to family trees and dictionaries of names to help in their important decision. In many ways, a child's name can determine who they will become and what kind of person they will be. Then there is the last name. It's automatic; no one has a choice in it. The last name perhaps has more of an impact on determining who a person will become, because the last name carries generations of ideals, memories, and pride. William Faulkner chose very significant last names for the characters in the novel Light in August (1932). Light in August is a story about Joe Christmas, a man shunned from society because of his possible black heritage. The novel describes parts of his youth with a very strict and religious adopted family, his struggle with himself, and his life in Jefferson, Mississippi. There he becomes involved with and eventually murders Joanna Burden, a so-called "nigger lover." Jo anna is a very odd woman with a rather unusual past. Her last name represents generations of self-imposed struggle and despair. Faulkner gave her and her family the last name of Burden to further illustrate, explain, and characterize Joanna and her nature. Joanna is first mentioned in Chapter Two by a townsman-type narrator as, "a woman of middleage. She has lived in the house since she was born, yet she is still a stranger, a foreigner whose people moved in from the North during Reconstruction. A Yankee, a lover of negroes, about whom in the town there is still talk of queer relations with negroes in the town" (33). It is clearly evident that Joanna Burden has no sense of community with the townsmen, nor they with her. In fact, in regards to the fire at her home, one man says, "My pappy says he can remember how fifty years ago folks said it ought to be burned, and with a little human fat meat to start it good" (35). Furthermore, another character elaborates by saying, "They say she is still mixed up with niggers. Visits them when they are sick, like they was white. . . . Folks say she claims that niggers are the same as white folks. That's why folks dont never go out there" (38).

Sherman Alexie: What it means to be an Indian in America Essay

Sherman Alexie: What it means to be an Indian in America â€Å"Dr. Mather, if the Ghost Dance worked, there would be no exceptions. All you white people would disappear. All of you. If those dead Indians came back to life, they wouldn’t crawl into a sweathouse with you. They wouldn‘t smoke the pipe with you. They’d kill you. They’d gut you and eat your heart.† -Marie, Indian Killer, 314 The identity of the modern Native American is not found in simple language or description. Neither does a badge or collection of eagle feathers determine Native American identity. As Alexie demonstrates through the character of Dr. Mather and Wilson, pony-tails and store bought drums are mere materialistic symbols and stereotypes: they have no real value or respect for the history behind a person’s cultural heritage. Hanging out in Indian bars is insufficient. The identity of the Native American is formed in a context of opposition and resistance, of irreversible historical travesty, and of inescapable conflict. Given the complex and lengthy history of U.S. atrocities against the Indians, and the equally violent aggressions of Indians against whites, bloodshed and animosity were the basis original Indian- U.S. relations. The original brutality these relations cannot be underestimated; nor the intricate series of laws and Acts passed throughout the ninteeth and twentieth centur ies for the destruction of Indian culture and heritage. Yet, as Alexie argues, the forces of hatred cannot be exclusively emphasized in determining the identity of the Native American. Indian Killer by Sherman Alexie is a work of humor, an investigation of community identity and family love, as well as a discussion of race and hate. Marie’s speech to the hapless Dr. Mat... ...efers back to Marie’s hostile statement. Although not every Indian feels as Marie and Reggie do, certainly not John Smith in his dream, the ominous metaphor of the owls marks Alexie’s prediction for the future: unless hate can be reconciled, the spirit of murder and blood shed will continue to plague man kind. While the title of the work serves to encompass victims of both white and Indian cultural backgrounds and closes on the image of the ambiguous killer, (could it be Wilson dancing wildly with his store bought cassette tape? Or could it be Reggie living large in his bloody victories?), the content of the novel is a living account of human actions to historical contexts. Alexies’ work is exaggerated beyond reality, to be sure, yet his assessment of Native American identity is intriguing and universal in the story of recovery from human inflicted violence and hate.

Private Sector Approaches Essay

Since the advent of new public management reforms, private sector managerial approaches are fast gaining attention in various public sectors. This is due to the belief that on-going global economic constraints and fiscal crises are demanding for more organisational effectiveness with minimal cost, and private sector practices are believed to be more efficient than its public sector counterpart. It is within this context that human resource management practices are being transferred into the public sector for better performance. However, several literatures have debated the numerous differences between the public and private sector and often concluded that effectiveness of privately transferred human resource practices into the public sector are likely to be strained (Rainey et. al., 1976). One argument is that public sector goals as opposed to its private counterpart, are unclear and intangible and therefore, outcome becomes difficult to measure towards performance. Moreover it is also argued that public sector workers are inherently motivated and as such cannot be monetarily motivated towards performance. Also, managers in the public sectors are often argued to have limited autonomy posed by politicians leading to a strain on the performance process. And finally, the constant financial deficit in the public sector has also been argued to limit its performance and reward systems. The case of the NHS as a public sector in the UK will be used to answer the above question. It will first start with a brief description of the NHS, and then provide an overview of what human resource management means and what its practices are. The effects of these practices (performance management, appraisals, and rewards) would then be reviewed in specific NHS examples in relation to the contrasting public environmental differences. Overall, due to the overwhelming literature demonstrating the ineffectiveness of HRM practices in the NHS or rather the inability of HRM and supporting studies empirically demonstrating the link between HRM practices and performance, this essay holds the opinion that the private sector practices of HRM should not be directly transferred into the public sector or at least should be cautiously transferred in its adaptation into the public sector. THE NHS The UK NHS was created for a comprehensive (quality), universal (equity) and free health delivery at its point of use. The search for effective delivery of services in the UK NHS prompted the NHS marketisation via the 1990 NHS and community care act. Markets divided the purchasing power from the providing power of health services thereby making Trusts (self-governing hospital) accountable for their performances. Perhaps, this division occurred because the effective management of human resources out of many other organisational assets was widely viewed as a better tool to address financial crises via organisational performance improvement (Huselid, 1995). HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Due to the rapid rise of considerable interest in Human resource management over the last decade, there has been varying definition ascribed to its definition. This essay agrees with the Harvard definition in which Human resource management is viewed to encompass all managerial decisions that influences the relationship between the human resources of an organisation (it’s employees) and the organisation itself (Beer et. al., 1985, p. 1). Though, its practices have been grouped into various models, it is beyond the scope of this essay to discuss them. However, the general concept of its practices can be understood as the use of various strategies which includes amongst many others, performance management, appraisals and reward to effectively manage employee attitudes towards the organisation’s goal and performance (Armstrong, 2002, p. 3). PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT Performance management and appraisal as described by Bratton and Gold (2007, p. 274) is a process used to assess a team or individual’s abilities towards performance development and improvement. This process involves setting a goal towards an outcome, monitoring and evaluating via performance indicators, and rewards as well as penalties as the case may be. However, in the public sector, arguments have ensued that performance management often contradicts the blue print of public services or is rather strategically used by politicians to assert some form of control over the sectors and not to perform its intended purpose. Performance indicators albeit is fast becoming popular both in the public and private sectors, has a measurability often argued to be complex in the public sector as opposed to the private sector where only monetary values and profits are measured. Even though, the ultimate goal of this HR tool is to drive performance either in the private or public sector, the role of targets in the public sector is often debated as many studies have demonstrated their obscurity by questioning whether ratings or indicators can actually measure performance accurately. However, over the last decades, some studies have agreed that HRM tools have to a certain extent a drive on organisational performance both in the public and private sectors (Carter and Robinson, 2000, Boxall, 2003). In the NHS, the labour government has initiated performance management via the NHS STAR RATING as a tool to drive performance and accountability. A balanced score card which consist of both financial and non-financial measures of HRM measures is used as a multidimensional goal and target in assessing hospital performances. That is, the NHS star rating evaluates hospital performance across dimensions like patient satisfaction, clinical output, waiting times and deliver ing capacity of hospitals (Healthcare Commission , 2004). Hospitals are ascribed ratings of zero, one, two or three stars based on their performances in the score calculation. As a result, higher star rating hospitals acquire greater autonomy whilst managers in lower star rating hospitals are been threatened of their dismissal (Givan, 2005). Some researchers have tried to demonstrate its efficacy, however, other researchers have demonstrated that the associated indicators, targets, star ratings, rewards and punishment are unfair and unreal in the public sector and consequently destroy the blue print of NHS which is fairness, equity, quality and universality. Givan (2005, p. 636) argues that the supposed intention of the NHS star ratings to improve performance and to increase public awareness to quality of delivered health services is only rhetorical. She argues that, in practice, HR performance indicators have not been generated from fair, accurate and transparent data, and as such; the indicators have not fulfilled their primary goals as m any HR directors have expressed their lack of confidence in the quality of data used towards the ratings. She further notes that the public has used the rating as an opportunity to criticise hospitals instead of understanding and appropriately accessing the facilities. The ratings therefore affected how patients patronize hospitals. It was noticed that more patients patronize the highly rated hospitals whilst, the poorly rated ones were less visited with subsequent difficulty on how to restore their image. Another point, Givan (2005) highlighted, is the negative effect the media plays in the association of the public sector performance and the effect of HRM performance measurement. She explained how the NHS publication of hospital ratings has led to the demoralisation of hospital staffs resulting in poorer performance. She argues that the media took advantage of these publications by constantly publicising the negative aspect of health service delivery even though according to her the best rated hospitals are not necessarily the best performing as items measured are sometimes intangible and those not measured becomes insignificant. Bevan (2006) has also highlighted how HRM practices have led to the loss of one of NHS blue print, which is the quality of services provided to patients. He argued that, due to the fact that rewards and punishment have been perceived to be unfair as a result of unfair indicators and ratings, pretence and gaming has ensued amongst practitioners because measurement and ratings are perceived to be presently more weighted than quality of services being rendered. As a result, practitioners have devised means of being measured well as opposed to the focus on quality of service given. Indeed, waiting times have reduced just for hospital recurrences to increase. Moreover, the measurement of service quality within the NHS has been highlighted and argued to represent a form of professional distrust from the government and seen as a breach of professional idealism where a nurse or a doctor can be expected to perform maximally without supervision (Morgan & Potter, 1995). In the same vein, public service employees have been argued to have public service ethos where staffs perform maximally without strict supervision or even any form of incentives (Public Administration Select Committee, 2002). Indeed, to some extent, these researchers have believed that performance management via NHS star rating is a political gimmick for politicians to shift blames of underperformances on professionals who work in the public sector or at least to control the public sector which still perhaps, point to the fact that the public sector is different from the private sector within politicians’ control devices. This is also in line with the notion of Propper and Wilson (2003) who have noted that performance management and NPM are strategic methods used by politicians to assert control over the public and not for its intended purpose for performance improvement as in the private sector. However, although the NHS star rating and the balanced score card have met some form of resistance from professionals and hospitals in the public sector, Aidemark & Funck (2009) have been able to positively demonstrate their effect on practitioners and NHS services. In their study, they explained how competition for efficiency ensued amongst practitioners towards becoming best performing hospital and consequently seen to improve availability of health care services. The balanced score card which consist of most practices from HRM was able to help practitioners work more efficiently by helping them compare more numbers of patient parameters in one unit. For example, comparing patient need, treatment and feedback simultaneously facilitated cost efficiency and reducing waiting times. PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL Moving away from the view of government and NHS institutions, and looking at performance appraisals within organisations, that is, between organisational leaders and employees, HRM practices seem also not to be applauded. The argument is that due to the measurement of intangible goals within the public sector, many of the performance appraisals conducted by senior managers or supervisors would result into a low quality appraisal. Within this context, low quality appraisals are faults generated during performance management processes, which often lead to wrong evaluation/judgments of appraisal either from employee or supervisory perspectives. This notion follows Murphy and Cleveland (1995)’s argument that public sector performance appraisal is a complex process because services are unquantifiable and would most likely result into bias and subjective judgment by the management supervisor. They noticed that these biases often result from the way a supervisor perceives and judges the outcome of the management process. Moreover, the judgment of any managerial appraisal in the public sector can be influenced by so many factors such as emotion, government policy, structures or even the appearance of the person appraised. Treadway et al. (2007, pp. 48-55) further emphasised on the progressive increase in appraisal bias and subjectivity within the public sector. The argument is that supervisors are often noticed to exhibit negative attitudes towards appraisal processes, perhaps due to the reason that they feel uncomfortable giving negative feedbacks to staffs. Therefore, in the public sector, they conduct this process more for the purpose of accountability or just for the reason to be seen conducting it. In the NHS, various studies have been carried out to determine the effectiveness of appraisal systems. It appears that many have not supported their effectiveness. In the study of personnel functions within the NHS by Guest and Peccei (1992), the effectiveness of performance appraisal was ranked 14th out of 17 personnel practices in view. Wilson and Cole (1990) have blamed the lack of sustainability of appraisal system within the NHS to the highly and complex politicized nature of health care. Redman et al. (2000), in their study on the effectiveness of appraisal within an NHS hospital also concluded that the process has not been proven to be fair and effective, perhaps due to lack of time, resources and results ambiguity that makes the process difficult within the health system. REWARD The effectiveness of HRM reward systems in the public sector is another practice that is keenly contested. Bratton and Gold (2007, p. 358) define reward as, the financial and non-financial payment given to an employee by an organization for a successful work done. It is often in form of promotion, recognition, benefits or pay. This new approach of rewarding public sector employees seems more flexible as opposed to the old reward system in which rewards automatically comes after years of service or hierarchy. This new approach may be argued to motivate employees towards work performance since employees are not promoted or rewarded if they do not perform well at work. However, some researchers have viewed this approach to be unethical within the public sector since it goes against the public service ethos of equity, equality and fairness. Some also have demonstrated the paradox and tensions between the pay methods. That is, where an employee perceives the method to be dissatisfactory even though it may be fair, it may cause more harm than good. Some even argue whether public sector staffs that are often seen to be intrinsically motivated are extrinsically motivated. Extrinsic reward within this context is a pay, benefit or promotion rewarded from an equivalently rendered service whilst intrinsic reward is the satisfaction derived psychologically from doing a job without an equivalent pay. Crewson (1997), in his empirical study carried out on public employee to determine to what extent pay incentives will affect motivation to work found out that the majority of staffs were not motivated to do more than how they have often been used to perform. Some were even noticed to demonstrate a demotivation. In fact, the overall notion is that rewards have not been actually effective within the public sector, perhaps, due to the complex and unquantifiable service rendered in public sector, which are often difficult to measure as opposed to the private sector where financial outcome is the basis for performance measurement. The quality and outcome framework of the NHS is an example of an institution that provides financial incentives to its employees (clinical team). It awards points to levels of targeted achievements of care processes and indicators of clinical outcomes. Rewards are directly linked to the number of points achieved. Though Doran et al. (2008) noticed that the framework achieved some changes in employee behaviour and concluded that the process was costly. Campbell et al. (2009), also questioned the relationship between some of its performance targets and the health improvement of its population and concluded that the setting of standard for one aspect of health care have reduced health performance elsewhere. The overall notion is that even though incentives may have seemed to be beneficial, its costly nature within the NHS may not be able to justify its implementation and subsequently its sustainability may not be guaranteed. CONCLUSION The effectiveness of private practices including Human resource management practices in the public sector is still unclear; yet, these practices are continuously utilised in the public sector. Perhaps, this is due to the wide belief that private sector tools are better than its public counterpart in resolving the on-going financial and fiscal deficit. Tools used by the human resource management are performance management, appraisal and rewards. The NHS is no exception to public sectors that greatly depends on these human resource management tools presently in the UK. The NHS having its blue print in fairness, equity and quality has been widely criticised to lose its originality after the initiation of new public management and human resource management. To drive performance within the NHS, the government adopted the NHS star rating which paved the way for various studies to be carried out on its fairness and effectiveness. Many researchers as discussed above have demonstrated the process to be unfair and highly politicized especially whilst questioning the indicators and targets used during this process. Appraisals have also not been applauded by many studies as it is seen to lead to a low quality appraisal via supervisory subjectivity and bias. It has also been viewed as contradictory to public service ethos and has led to distrust between employees with subsequent underperformance of staffs. Rewards in the quality and outcome framework of the NHS have also not been perceived to be effective and where it is, it was described to be costly and lack sustainability within the public sector or at least in the NHS. Overall, this essay holds the opinion that the success in transferring private human resource management practices into the public sector is yet unclear at least in the NHS. 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Internet cafe Essay

One popular place where students and young professionals commonly hangout nowadays is a cyber cafe. Internet cafe or kiosks have been sprouting everywhere, and not just in the US, but all over the world. With the advent of the internet and its wide range of benefits getting more and more popular to everybody, the demand for more internet cafes keeps on increasing. Internet cafe owners are also keeping up with the market trend. If these cafes were previously known as just internet shops being just providers of internet services, they are now like coffee shops and cafes offering great food and coffee as well. This industry still has a lot more to offer to increase and widen its target market, and to keep its customers always satisfied. Services The main reason why there are internet cafes around is to provide internet services to people who do not have access from their own homes. Usually, there are a lot of computers available which are all connected to one computer that acts as a server. Most of the cyber cafes have at least 10 computers available for their customers. The specifications of these computers are usually of the mid-range category. One important thing is that these units should be running fast. Reliability is also as important because, as an owner, you would not want to lose money by having a computer down and, at the same time, spending a lot for its repair. The server computer, which is the one connected to the internet, usually has a high-end configuration – big storage capacity and fast performance. Most of the cyber cafes nowadays not only offer computer and internet access. There are also added services being offered such as printing, scanning, photocopying, CD/DVD burning, photo printing, faxing, and long-distance phone services. Cyber cafes now aim to be some sort of a one-stop-shop for their customers. These businesses want to keep their customers and not look for another shop for services that they may not be offering. This is a good strategy for businesses to increase their customer base and increase earnings as well. Internet gaming is one of the recent technology introduced by this industry. Existing internet cafes either added more computers or upgraded their existing units in order to be capable of handling different internet game software. This new offering of cyber cafes has been very popular among teens. Internet gaming is the modern version of video arcades and is more challenging and exciting because you are actually playing with humans, and not just computers. For a gaming setup, computers are connected to a local area network with one or more servers. Each of these computers has the highest hardware configuration possible as required by the game software. Depending on the game, the users or players can form teams and fight with other teams. These players and teams are all in the same room so it adds more fun to the game. Since the goal of cyber cafe owners is to keep the customers in their shops for a long time, they also started offering food and drinks. Some even had some space allotted for something like a coffee shop or an espresso bar. If that will be added to the shop, though, the owner should be knowledgeable in the coffee business, or at least hire someone who is. It would be not too easy to manage an internet gaming shop and coffee shop in one since they have are two entirely different industries. The owner or the manager should have the right skills and expertise for the business to be successful. It would be best if there would be one manager for the internet gaming business and another one for the food and drinks part. Having separate managers will give more focus on each group yet work together to compliment on each other’s services and offerings making the business succeed as a whole. Facilities Putting up an internet cafe not only requires business knowledge but technical expertise as well. The major equipments being used by these cafes are computers. These computers are required to have specific configuration for their specific purpose. If the computer is simply used for internet browsing, typing documents and email, a mid-range system may suffice. The common hardware specifications of this kind are as follows: Pentium 4 processor, 512MB memory, 40 or 80GB hard drive, integrated video, audio and network cards. On the other hand, if the computer is used primarily for gaming, the usual specifications are: Pentium 4 processor (preferably Core Duo), at least 1GB memory, 80 or 120GB hard drive, at least 128MB PCI-Express video card, PCI sound card, integrated network card. If the shop is also offering CD/DVD burning, a few units should also have CDRW and DVD ±RW drives. For video editing services, at least one unit should have a video card with video capture capabilities. Other equipments that can be found in an internet cafe are printers, faxes, scanners, and copiers. For efficiency and practicality, most owners would buy the all-in-one type. Networking equipments are also important in this business. Routers, hubs, switches, network cables and data cables are needed to connect each of the computers together. Gaming cafes should have very reliable networking equipments because having these units down is unacceptable for this business. Other shops that are always packed with customers would have TVs as well in their waiting area. Cyber cafes offering food and drinks should also have the necessary kitchen equipments. One thing that may be of a challenge in entering the cyber cafe business is the high maintenance requirement of the equipments. As an example, the owner of Howie’s Game Shack, Howie Makler (as cited in Cheung, 2006), said, â€Å"Every 18 months, I basically have to throw away everything and buy $700,000 in new computers. † That is essentially about $3,500 per computer. It may be expensive but is definitely worth it in the long run. It pays to have all the equipments well-maintained and always updated with the latest hardware and software. Talking about software, applications also form bulk of the investment the owner needs to make. Each application installed in each unit needs a license. But it is usually just a one-time fee unlike hardware that needs constant upgrading. Money Matters There is a very big potential of earning huge money in the internet cafe business. Other than the standard service of offering internet and email access, other options to earn are offering printing services, photocopying, faxing, scanning, even resume services and a whole lot more. If planning to put up an internet cafe, it is better to also have a lot of gaming units since this is the trend nowadays. Network gaming is what keeps kids and teens inside these cyber cafes. The common running rates for an hour of internet and gaming access range from $4 to $7. The best way to determine the right price to set for the hourly access is to know the prices being charged by competitors within the vicinity. If there is no close competitor, which is highly unlikely, market surveys and prices being charged by neighboring counties or states can be used as references. Other cyber cafes, like the Howie’s Game Shack, offer such a thing as a day pass wherein customers need not pay the hourly rate; they can buy a pass for $15 which is good for the whole day (Cheung, 2006). This is an example of a good marketing strategy in order to attract more customers, keep them playing for longer hours, and make them come back more frequently. Logistics and Marketing Although it is mentioned that the earning potential in the cyber cafe industry is quite attractive, it also depends on the location of the business and marketing strategies of the owner. Location is one important factor in any type of business. Cyber cafe’s target markets are mostly teens, students and young professionals. Thus, it is beneficial to choose a location where these people are commonly found such as malls, near the parks and schools perhaps. Having creative and innovative minds would also benefit this kind of business. The owners or managers of internet cafes should never run out of marketing strategies in mind to keep customers coming. The cyber cafe business is definitely one promising industry as more and more people are now appreciating the benefits of the cyber world. Although it may not be deemed as that lucrative a business yet, earning is definitely not a problem as long as it is backed by wise and strategic management. The country will most likely see more cyber cafes being established in the coming years. References Cheung, H. (2006). Gaming heaven for Southern California residents – Howie’s Game Shack. TG Daily. Retrieved February 13, 2007 from http://www. tgdaily. com/2006/05/26/howies_game_shack/ Palo Alto Software, Inc. (2007). Cafe – Internet Cafe Business Plan. Retrieved February 13, 2007 from http://www. bplans. com/spv/3142/