Research Paper on the Key Components of a Successful Blog & the

On the Key Components of a Successful Blog & the â‚ ¬Ã…“Promotionâ‚ ¬Ã¯ ¿ ½ of a blog once it is developed - Research Paper Example However, as Sexton (336) suggests, the graphic design should not be a cause for the visitors’ distraction; and there should be something new with the blog regularly so that it would retain visitors. The voice of the blog also is an important factor because only a blog with authentic voice can retain the visitors for future sales (Webber and Webber L: 20). It means, if the blog does not have a personal feel, it will not succeed in building social networks. Furthermore, it is advisable to attach RSS feeds (Rich Site Summary) to the blog so that the visitors can know whenever a new post is published; and also the RSS feeds allow the blogger to post content from any website with RSS feed (Michie: 268). Another essential feature the blog should have is the guiding links to other sources and older posts of the same blog. The networking and the community building is the core component of a successful blog because it will open up new opportunities and relationships which will enable cross-promotion through guest blogging (Gunelius: 471). Guest blogging is an effective alternative to ease the tension on the paucity of ideas for further posts. Moreover, it would make the blog more attractive and effective as it maintains diverse posts from guest bloggers. As mentioned earlier, in order to maintain a blog reader friendly, it should be updated frequently with new posts and necessary ingredients. It is always better to avoid ghost writers for creating new posts for your blog; and in the same way if the blog allows user’s comments there should be provision to prune the unfavorable comments and spam messages (Webber and Webber L: 20). The success of a blog depends on the time and effort spent on its maintenance and promotion. It is not easy for a blog to obtain visitors since there are hundreds of sites and blogs which use the virtual space for

Quality Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Quality - Assignment Example Examples of such processes include product creation, system testing, code module measurement, project planning and experience packaging for use in other projects to be implemented in the future. They have also described some of the characteristics that identify software processes. Armbrust et al (2012) state that software processes are derived from the real world. The processes can be performed either by humans or machines or by both of them. Human performance is referred to as enactment while machine performance is referred to as execution. The processes can be refined or transformed into sub processes. The sub processes are capable of being refined. Finally, the processes consume further products so as to enable them transform input products into multiple output products. Acuna et al (2000) describe a software process as activities that are set in a partially orderly manner with the aim of managing, developing and maintaining software systems. The process is based on the process of construction and not the end product. Many organizations define their own means of producing software. Evaluation of software processes related to analysis of activities that an organization carries out in order to develop software or softwares as end products. The idea is that the quality of the final product, which is the software, is directly proportional to the quality of the development process. The aim of carrying out software process evaluation is to improve the production (cost and quality). The process of evaluation brings into knowledge standards for assessing the quality of software development (Acuna et al 2000). There are two methods that are popularly used to evaluated software process: software capability evaluation and ISO/IEC 15504. The SCE was developed by the software engineering institute with the purpose not just to evaluate for quality but for purposes of selecting suppliers, monitoring process and internal evaluation. The method focuses on analysis of the way certain key areas are implemented and institutionalized. The method analyses if the software processes adopted by a given organization are fully satisfying the requirements that are usually articulated in the yardstick (Armbrust 2012). The method comprises of three stages or phases: plan and preparation, conduct evaluation and reporting of results. Conduct evaluation involved visiting of the organization being evaluated by the evaluation team. The method incorporates CMM as referencing model. CMM describes various maturity levels that represent an ordinal scale used to rate the development process. The maturity levels are related to the evolution of the process to the end. The fist level is the initial level. This level represents the ad hoc stage, that is, stage that is not managed and unpredictable (Armbrust 2012). The second level is known as repeatable. The level is intuitive in nature. The processes are basically managed and there is the capability of repeating some projects. The third level is known as the defined stage. It is qualitative in nature. The processes are well defined and institutionalized. The fourth maturity level is known as the managed stage. The level is marked by quantitative analysis that amounts to measures and

Influence of culture on emotions and communication styles

Influence of culture on emotions and communication styles This paper explores the possibility and the extent of cultures influence on the communication process and styles. Communication is the process through which individuals share ideas and information. Its effectiveness is gauged on the level of understanding by the receiver. Such sharing of ideas and information may be explicit/precise or requiring the receiver to infer/deduce the meaning from the not conclusive message that is passed. The parties communicating, in this case, are human beings with diverse cultural and emotions orientations which act to influence the perceived outcome in the message exchange between such parties. The co-existing factor leads to more complex element of culture (Kapoor, 2003). Culture is simply the way of life of a given people. It will refer to the values, norms and basically the foundation on which a group of people base their reasoning and pluralism on. Cultural values have varying extents of meaning across the various cultural divides. Some divides hav e much emphasis on the values as presented by culture than others. Longitudinally, individuals, within a cultural divide, value their cultural aspects with varying degrees. In considering the possible influence on communication it is important to also consider the constituents of and individual. Emotions can be defined as the textual expressions representing the writes mood and the facial expression. Emotions can alter or improve an interpretation of a plain text. The development of various sets of emotions may vary across cultures and individuals. The evoking of the emotions is largely dependent on a persons personality , which is the sets of characteristic that differentiate a person from the other .An individual will emotionally respond to similar information differently depending on the sender of such information. Emotions being internal can be regulated by an individual in determining the extent that they will be released. Abstract Researches indicate that culture has an influence on the way individuals exchange information and ideas and indeed the way such ideas are interpreted. The definition of communication by including more than one individual depicts a cultural aspect. The involvement of an individual as an entity capable of making an inference from what information has been relayed can as well not be overlooked. There is also a possibility of prior determination of what is to be understood by the hearer. Communication can as well be either direct or indirect, from the second dimension. There is a general idea that Asians are collectivists with the Europeans and Americans being individualists. Researches indicate that people with values at individual-level close to the norms in the culture are happier than those with values less normative. Discussion and Literature review A culture is constituted by, among other elements, individuals. In dissecting the culture, it is indispensable to first consider the individuals and then look at them in the cultural context. Culture entails of those patterns, implicit and explicit, for and of behavior usually acquired and then transmitted by symbols, encompassing the distinctive attainment of human groups, comprising human artifacts, ideas, values and norms that bides (Brown Singelis, 1995). Psychology presents a human being as an entity that can influence and be influenced by the environment. The environment, for purposes of this paper, will be composed of people in the societal setup. As individuals co-exist, they influence each other and develop a boundary that guides them in their relationships. In relating, each individual will first display the self and will probably be influenced by the environment to have a collective representation in the said relationships. Two concepts come into the limelight here; the individualism and the collectivism. Individualism is the expression of someones self. An individuals self will attempts to protect itself from societal intrusion. Individualists reason as entities and explicitly express their ideas to others as well as insist that such ideas be taken as truth. Collectivism is the group context that an individual associates with. A collectivist will, before passing/inferring any information consider the societal values/say in suc h a matter. Such a person will communicate ideas guided by the cultural setting. In both cases, emotions will still exist. The concept of self across cultures Self concept is an essential mediator in cultural behavior patterns. This notion gives room for a more specific role of self in regulation of preference for conversational styles. The self might be linked to some communication styles such as collectivism and individualism that has previously been associated to culture. Subsequent to this, the broad terms of individualism and collectiveness may be used for cultural description while idiocentric and allocentric characterize individuals. The two images describing the self emphasize the connectedness referred to as interdependence relationship and the uniqueness and separateness of individuals referred to as independence of self. This draws the conclusion that the more individualistic a culture is, the higher the probability of sampling the independent self. Similarly, in collectivistic culture, there is a likelihood of people sampling a more interdependent self. Dependence and interdependence of the self determines the behavior characte ristics of an individual (Neumann, Steinhà ¤user Roeder, 2009). It is important to note that culture is a composition of similarities in individuals behavior and as such, a collection of individuals affecting communication style in a similar way indicates a cultural influence on communication. The definition of culture and that of individuals is related in the sense that an individual is a subset of a culture. An individuals characteristics can only be defined in the context of the culture. It is the sum total of a cultures characteristics that creates boundaries within which the concepts of good and bad can be outlined. For example, a culture may have a regard for openness in communication. Individuals who exert silence in conversations appear to exhibit vices in such cultural context. Emotions in the individualistic and collectivist contexts Culture has direct influence towards emotional predictions based on the meanings as well as practices that contexts their occurrence (Mesquita, 2001). His sample included individualists and collectivist in Netherlands. Among the collectivists, emotions were characterized as relational and also contextualized in the phenomena whereas among the individualists, it was characterized as intrapersonal and subjective. His co-relational and procedural study identified some major differences including the interpretation that emotions signals a change of reality among the collectivists as compared to internal, subjective feeling and indeed a little or no implication for belief among the individualists. The findings of the study revealed a concurrence with the hypothesis, that collectivists emotions related to the phenomenon and could only be explained within the contextual relationships and were also a reflection of the said relationships. On the contrary, individualists emotions referred less to their contextual social environment. The research findings further revealed that among the collectivists emotions are shaped in a style similar to ideas as well as practices of the cultural settings of occurrence but underlining the disparity of oneself and others/society among the individualists. Furthermore, the boundaries that exist between subjectivity of emotional experiences and the social reality were found to be thinner in collectivism than in individualism cultures. In communicating with individuals, it becomes necessary to first identify what kind of orientation, whether individualism or collectivism, that they hold. As drawn from the articles findings, this indeed seems to limit the sender of the information to the kind of information that can be received. The idea of collectivism builds a wall inhibiting communication in two ways. First, the sender of information is guided entirely by what has been inculcated by the culture. The assumption in such a person is that the contextual culture is ideally good. There will however be the limitation of the social coverage that the said culture be good or perhaps acceptable. As such, the question of what in the information may be compromised to fit in that particular cultural orientation. Subsequently, collectivism dictates that the two parties involved in a meaningful conversation be culturally related. Second, the receiver of the information is not at an individual liberty to interpret the information so received (Neumann et al, 2009). One has to go back to the cultural files so as to infer the meaning. In both the cases, culture dictates the emotions that individuals develop from information stimuli. It is important to appreciate that though culture is a valuable asset in the global society and indeed the diversity that brings in beauty and indeed minimize global competition; the world is increasingly becoming a global village. Individuals will no longer be restricted to their original interpretation of signs and ideas. Emotions should not be expressed in the cultural contexts only but also on an individual basis. Indeed the possibility of inhibiting both elements in emotional expression should be every persons efforts. Once information is relayed, an individual should try to have and individual interpretation as well as be informed of the collective interpretation depending on the sender of the information. Either way, the need for a background on the sender and the receiver should be availed to the respective parties. Expression of a set of emotional elements once information or idea has been received is a critical issue in understanding an individual whether from the individua lism or collectivism orientation. Almost all emotions are extremely meaningful for purposes of capturing the global thematic features in a situation. These features commonly referred to as appraisals assist in simplification of the complex social situations by reconstituting that complexity into a single strain intrinsically meaningful in the context of the person experiencing them. For example, emotions like pride, anger, guilt and friendly feeling all reflect a significant theme that goes beyond the mere positive or negative evaluations. The themes give a description of individuals perception to their relationship with the surrounding environment. As such, friendly feelings and pride that are positive might be associated with social harmony and personal achievement which are definitely different themes. Findings and Discussion Influence of culture on emotion suppression As aforementioned, individuals exist in societal setups that have capabilities of influencing the way such individuals express or fail to express emotional signs. The concept of emotional suppression is the failure to display ones interpretational responses of information received or limiting the extent of the expression done. According to Butler et al, (2007), Americans of European values orientation would report less emotion suppression than would Americans who held Asian values and that those holding European values would only suppress their emotions for identity protection. The later would associate emotional suppression with high levels of emotional negativity. As such, European values seemed to hold that an individual could only give up the self expression of emotions unhappily. They identified two major barriers in understanding emotional responses in social interactions as self regulating efforts and the culture. Self regulating efforts can be interpreted to mean that an indi vidual applied personal efforts to fail to or limit the emotional expression. Such would be a false expression of the reality within an individual though it would propagate communication flow. The positive that could be associated with the self regulating efforts is that there is liberty of an individual to distinguish which issues to apply emotional suppression. Whether this is ideally acceptable or not, the effectiveness of communication which is between the two parties can be evaluated. This research further narrowed down to two specific issues namely emotion suppression and two groups of participant who were Americans whose cultural orientation was either Asian or European. Existing literature suggested that emotional suppression may be less linked to negative emotion among the Asian cultures in comparison to European culture, whose emotional suppression, also displayed as a safeguarding of the self and an assertion of ones will (Kapoor, 2003). The findings of this research showed that cultural orientations tend predict the differences in frequency and the function of emotional suppression as well as the negative emotion related to it. As drawn the findings, emotional suppression was also found to be a reduction of emotional disclosure. The generalization of these findings may pose a challenge since the sample taken had a similar foundation of culture. Nevertheless, some sectional components of the findings were varied. While communicating, the expression of the receivers emotional expression is dependent on the societal values that the individual holds (Nezlek, Kafetsios Smith, 2008). Much as an individual would want to express the emotional expressions as experienced during a communication, there will always be the element of what the relationship existing between the parties communicating entails. For example, in the smallest element of culture that can either exist between immediate family, members must carefully consider their emotional expressions in efforts to maintain harmony. It is possible that a message passed is not delivered yet there is harmony between people but is ultimately not possible to relay a negative, as perceived by the group, emotional expression and maintain cohesiveness. The ability to balance between regulations of emotional responses and maintain the need for the real self in responding to information relayed would be an ideal venture for every individual. Such a balance would ensure that communication is made effective without losing ones self. Furthermore, emotional responses must be duly regarded useful in the process of communication since they offer the required feedback. Effects of individualism and collectivism on conversational styles Individualism and collectivism dimensions of culture are founded on some varying fundamental issues that may affect the way people communicate. A research conducted sought to come up with a mediation model in attempting to spell out the manner in which culture do influence the communication style from a sample of nine hundred and seventy two individuals across four cultural backgrounds of America, Japan, Korea and Hawaii. According to Park. Kim (2008), that individuals can differ with both independent and the interdependent distinctiveness. The intention was to establish if self-construals were aspects of culture that accounted for the alleged usefulness of conversational constraints. In so doing, its easier to trace possibilities of a linkage between culture and the individual values of either independence or interdependence construals of the self. These conversational constraints are the wide-ranging as well as overarching criteria for selecting a conversational strategy and which influence the construction of a message. In their research they identified a gap where culture is broadly expressed into individualism and collectivism as two contrasting aspects and never as a dimension for explaining why people vary. The research revealed that there is extensive use of interaction strategies intended to provide a protection from the societies influence of the selfs autonomy. Individuals across cultural divides seem to have a thirst for a certain level of independence. Though the degree of independence may also vary, this demonstrates the diminishing trend of culture in communication. The selfs autonomy could only be hindered by the harmonization element that is required in the society. With the continued social civilization, a time may come when individuals will co-exist without necessarily agreeing. This does not at all eliminate the need for communication but emphasizes on the diminishing level of concurrence, between the sender and the receiver in communication, which is usually deemed to be necessary for cultural coexistence. According to Brown Singelis (1995), cultural collectivism compared to individualism tends to be positively associated with the apparent interdependence, but usually unconstructively related to independence. Consistency of culture and the self -concept: Asian Americans and European Americans Contexts According to Chen English (2007), consistency in cultural differences within and across different contexts demonstrates robustness as well as boundaries that exist in cultural differences in the consistency of self-concept, and also the need for examining several forms of stability in self-concept. The hypothesis was that the cultural variances in consistency of self-concept extended to importance of self-view and the self-enhancement. The researches proposed that a low consistence, as aforementioned, do not necessarily indicate insufficient enduring and meaningful self-view but instead a possibility of it coexisting with the firm. Of the two categories of participants, temporal stability among the Asian Americans ratings of self enhancement within the specific relationships was found to be as high as that of the European Americans. The researchers yielded to other researches suggesting that human beings display a certain degree of manipulability and irregularity in their self conce pt across contexts but Asians hold more flexible self concepts (Kitayama Mesquita, 2006). The conclusion was that Asians particularly from the East has a relatively low consistence in their self concept globally which reduces abstractness. In fact, referring to the multifaceted research carried out by Brown Singelis (1995), its clear that development of self-construal is greatly influenced by complex cultures. As drawn from findings, individual dimensions do not necessarily match with the perceived cultural levels. Self-contractual and cultural collectivism is affected by the prevailing socialization norms, practices and institutions where individual separateness is accounted for. During socialization of a child, collectivist mothers tend to encourage empathy and listening in their kids, while under individualists mothers, kids are taught keys words and self-expression skills crucial in promoting cognitive development, problem solving capacity and the perceived autonomy in building friendships. High and low contextualization in communication High contextualization in communication refers to a scenario where much of the information is thought to be internalized in a person or in the physical context. Message is inferred from the context. The parties communicating are thought to be familiar with each others physical context as well as the internal perception of ideas and information being passed. Low context communication refers to the explicit, explanatory and clear use of the accepted codes to pass information. Park and Kim had interest in studying relationships that existed between adherence to European as well as the American cultural backgrounds to communication in Asia. They had the notion that Asian cultures utilize a high context communication as advanced in the 2001s Gudykunt concept of both high and low contexts in communication. A high context communication among the Asians is associated with Confucianism that emphasizes on communication as a tool towards developing harmony as well as maintaining it in interpers onal relationships. Asian values seemed to mediate the identified relationships between collectiveness, which is the solidarity sense in a society, and communication behavior. On the other hand, individualistic values were said to be related to low communication that focuses on uniqueness of an individual and hence use of explicit codes in passing a message (Kapoor, 2003). Indeed, Asians were found to harbor more recognition to collectiveness, emotional self control and conformity to norms as well as humility. The researchers examined three hypotheses, among two hundred, and ten Asian America and hundred and thirty six European America, as follows. First, for both Asian and European Americans, the open and explicit styles of communication were to fit with the low context style of communication. Second, the Asian Americas were to display less use of low context style of communication and instead use high context than the European Americans (Chua et al, 2005). Finally, for both samples taken, and with the element of sex and race, the hypothesis was that high level adherence to Confucius would positively relate to high context while negatively relating to low context styles of communication. The findings were that contrary to the hypothesis, collectiveness was found among the European Americans and the conclusion was that perhaps European Americans belong ed to in-groups that valued assertiveness and self expression. Intentionality in communication Intentionality is the indication of aims, plans, goals and urgency guiding the actions intended to be followed by an individual. Cultural variations may be founded on the societal structure. Such structures may require that individuals actions closely coordinates with those of the other members of society as well as reducing social conflict. Others may motivate setting of ones plans and goals. In contrast, the first structure calls for individuals sensitivity to the environment while the later expects that the environment is sensitive to the individuals. Intentionality is determined by the different perceptions of primary and the secondary controls inhibited within individuals. Primary control provides for the individuals exercise of freedom and control over a persons psychology (Kapoor, 2003). Secondary control implies the inability to separate an object or idea from the field in context. Subsequent to this issue, motivation is in independence to autonomy in thinking for those under influence of primary control whilst guiding those under secondary control. The emphasis of emotions is more on those in secondary controls as such; these groups of individuals associate the tone in the voice during conversation in inferring the meaning. Self determinism in communication Self determinism is the theory asserting that individuals have an entire control of their destiny. Personal responsibility is therefore the key to influencing what is and would happen in the future. The process of communication involves inferring of information whether sent or received. As such, an individual has a responsibility in determining the meaning. Culture must not be taken to cover-up a persons irresponsibility in making sound inferences in the conversations. The influence of culture in communication must be subjected to individuals efforts to control meaning. The search for the reality is a personal responsibility and which is dependent on a persons need to not only coexist with others but also to develop as an individual. Furthermore, the amount of time available in corporate world equates with money. In corporate world, individuals communicating disrespectful of their cultural background are likely to use a more direct, explicit and a clear style of communication. This i s meant to improve time efficiency and save energy. Clear evidence that the world is tending towards direct style of communication is indicated by the use of interpreters when communicating to various parties with diverse cross-cultural backgrounds (Chen English, 2007). In order to effectively identify with such parties culture there is need to hold cultural harmonization forums first. Social status of the communicating parties Power relationship between the communicating parties is also a variable that influences communication. When conducting supervisory roles, communication is usually more direct especially in conflict management than it is among subordinates. The later would use non-confrontational / indirect communication. These two aspects of communication indicate that individuals consider the context within which they are communicating. Whether among the individualists or collectivists, the said aspects appeared to prevail. Though there is no direct relationship between power and culture, the two interacts in the real word. Relationships usually exist between two people who are not at per. Two subordinates though at the same social level are at different levels in terms of who knows more in particular issue concerning the organization. The subordinate who knows more of issue A assumes the role of the more powerful in that issue (Yoon et al, 1996). Respect which is associated with culture since it is an element/value geared towards bringing harmony also exists between people of different power levels. There is also some degree of respect that is shown by an individual who is depending on the other. All these scenarios depict a resultant communication style which is culturally based (Butler et al, 2007). Convergence and divergence in communication Divergence in communication is the disagreement that arises from the receiver of a message between the actual message as per his/her interpretation and the reported interpretation. In conflicting situations, expatriates and their host nations diverge in communication, not only because of the obvious typecast cultures but also by alterations of responses accordingly though the motives vary. Power -distance perspective is the most valid explanation in this phenomenon. Convergence element is strongly displayed by the superior condition of the East whereby direct-indirect peculiarity is diluted by the expatriates who alter their approach to conflict (Brown Singelis, 1995). This is, in both groups, a reaction to urgency. The clarity of communication and the diminished sensitivity to the face needs as compared to the obtuse communication, and the honoring face needs has increasingly acquired more value in situations where time is essence. On the other hand, the abstractness of direct comm unication is assuming a more diplomatic path which serves the needs of a global workplace especially in dealing with a collectivist Asian (Nezlek et al, 2008). Moreover, agreeing to norms does serve and indeed promote a harmonious and mutually respectful workplace. General comments on methodologies and samples Culture as a variable influencing communication cannot be numerically expressed. In general, the methodologies used captured data from the participants and were later generalized to be a representation of a non definite issue. The studies therefore were more of measures of intent behavior instead of the actual behavior patterns. Approximately eighty percent of the sampled participants did not have the Asians collectivism cultural orientation. The participants were tested whether they believed in such an orientation. This definitely affected the consistency of the idea flow from the participants. It appears that the participants were aware of the data that they were supposed to generate. Moreover the samples were too small to correctly constitute a generalization. In a culture based study, the sample should be big and wide in terms of occupation and age composition. As such, the data would be collected not only from the students, as it is the case, but from the wider population. Cultu ral differences are likely to be less pronounced amongst students than it is in other groups (Chua et al, 2005). How negatively or positively skew the data did not get the desired attention that such a data should have. Deductions on such non-vector subjects should be majorly based on the Skewedness and not on mere cross-correlations. The overreliance on previous researches in coming up with deductions is also evident in determining the relationship of emotions and culture on communication. The propagation element increases the error that is supposed to be as minimal as possible. The errors accumulated are loaded onto a new study meaning that from the onset, the study is adversely affected by previous errors. The ideal scenario would have been to carry out the coincidental researches at a reasonably close interval of not more than a year to increase the validity. However the researchers attempts hold a substantial validity which provides a basis for future research and which are currently useful with low error prevalence. Synopsis In conclusion, the aforementioned discussion displays a relationship between emotions, culture and the communication style adopted by individuals. The general consensus is that human beings exhibit, from theories of creation, a common origin. They are also social beings that cannot escape the influence of others in their social life. Although there is evidence of strains of individuals whose energy protect them from influence from others, there is a limit that such a characteristic can endure. For example, individuals against some national ideas will however concur with the wishes of their families or their closest friends. According to Brown Singelis (1995), when relevant intermediate values are considered whilst analyzing communication and culture, the diversity across culture and be justified. These two authors consider the direct effect that culture has on an individual behavior and resulting communication patterns. In fact, culture is seen to influence the psychological make-up of an individual thus affecting the communication behavior exhibited by the person. Even if the said friends are supporting the negation of the national idea, it still remains that those close friends constitute a society and as such a culture. Moreover, when construction of both the society and individual correspond, individuals are more likely to have a more involvement in the society and hence be more affectively involved (Chua et al, 2005). It is important to note that due to the dynamic nature of the communication interactions, intercultural communication standards can be achieved only if the communicating parties mindfully adjust their behavior in communication. As drawn from findings, individual dimensions do not necessarily match with the perceived cultural levels. Self-contractual and cultural collectivism is affected by the prevailing socialization norms, practices and institutions where individual separateness is accounted for. During socialization of a child, collectivist mothers tend to encourage empathy and listening in their kids, while under individualists mothers, kids are taught keys words and self-expression skills crucial in promoting cognitive development, problem solving capacity and the perceived autonomy in building friendships. Prior research which basically encouraged on orthogonal tests on groups in deriving cultural comparisons, tend to effectively open a wider scope in culture study by perhaps encouraging potential researchers in contributing to the elaboration on the correlation that cultural. Recommendations In efforts to achieving better deductions, any cultural and self reacted studies ought to be carried in the very cultural context of the participants. When dealing with the collectivist individuals, it will be better to determine their strength in their cultural orientation. This will perhaps facilitate relations and effective workplace culture which act to boots performance level from team levels tickling down to the entire organization. When conducting such cultural tests or cross-sectional research, attention ought to be laid on the perceived impact that preceding findings would have on the conclusion derived. The as

SIP Security Essay -- Information Technology

Abstract The session initiation protocol (SIP) is emerging as standard protocol for session control in Next generation voice over internet protocol (VoIP) As it is based on IP it is vulnerable to all IP related threats . Among all the attacks, flood-based denial of service DoS attack is one of the main threats to SIP. Several solutions regarding prevention of DoS are discussed. Efficient Security scheme is proposed for batter performance. I. INTRODUCTION Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) [1] is signaling protocol given by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for IP telephony. Moreover, the 3rd generation partnership program (3GPP) has chosen SIP as a signaling protocol in IP multimedia subsystem (IMS). With more and more multimedia applications and the digital audio/video transport over IP-based networks, SIP is becoming the de-facto signaling protocol. In fact, SIP is a session control protocol that can establish, modify, and terminate multimedia sessions such as Internet telephone calls (VoIP). SIP users are indicated by Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI), consisting of a pair of user name and domain name, e.g. sip:ali@abc.co.uk , which is similar to the email format. SIP signaling between multiple users consists of requests and responses .A call is set up in SIP by the three-way handshake composed of INVITE, 200 OK and ACK messages. The INVITE request asks the cal lee to join or establish a call. If the cal lee’s response indicates that he/she accepts the call by sending the 200 OK response message, the caller confirms that it has received the response by sending the ACK message. When the caller or cal lee wishes to terminate a call, they send a BYE request. ... ... June 2001. [8] T. Peng, C. Leckie, and K. Ramamohanarao, â€Å"Protection from distributed denial of service attacks using history-based IP 108 filtering,† Communications, 2003. ICC'03. IEEE International Conference on, vol. 1, 2003 [9] S. D. D'Souza, and D. Vinokurov, â€Å"Queuing methods for mitigation of packet spoofing†, US Patent App, 2004 [10] M.A. Akbar, M.Farooq, â€Å"Application of Evolutionary Algorithms in Detection of SIP based Flooding Attacks†GECCO’09, July 8–12,2009, Montrà ©al Quà ©bec, Canada.ACM. [11] M.A. Akbar, Z.Tariq and M.Farooq, â€Å"A Comparative Study of Anomaly Detection Algorithms for Detection of SIP Flooding in IMS†, Next Generation Intelligent Networks Research Center (nexGIN RC), 2009.

A Son of the Forest and Other Writings by William Apess, a Pequot

A Son of the Forest and Other Writings is writings of William Apess, a 19th century Native American.   He was the first Native American to write extensively in the English language.Aside from culling from his first published autobiography, A Son of the Forest (1829),   Ã‚  Ã‚  this volume also contains other autobiographical works like â€Å"The Experiences of Five Christian Indians of the Pequot Tribe† (1832) and his â€Å"Eulogy on King Philip† (1836).In A Son of the Forest he narrates about being born in a tent in the woods of Colrain, Massachussetts, to a Pequot mother and a mixed blood (white and Pequot) father who later separated.   He describes his participation in the War of 1812 between the United States and Britain (after he ran away from indenture servitude) and his conversion to Methodism.He also talks about how his grandfather was a white man who married the granddaughter of King Philip.   He shares how he was abused by his alcoholic grandparents an d eventually sold as an indenture slave while he was very young. His master introduced him to Christianity and allowed him to go to school.   This part was the most influential phase of his life.   He became a preacher in 1833 and moved to Mashpee, the last Indian town in Massachusetts.Here he was able to experience first hand the incompatibility of his Christian faith and the racial prejudice and injustice the whites have done towards the natives. These became the recurring themes of his writings.   In his famous Eulogy on King Philip in Boston in 1836 he strongly forwarded the idea that Indians wanted what the Pilgrims wanted: justice and Christian fellowship.This gripping volume is a subtle political work of Apess of the Pequot Indian people. He articulated Native American consciousness and sentiments through his fiery Christian evangelism.   His topics range from poverty, child abuse, alcoholism (which he himself became one later in life), ethnic identity and religious c onversion.This volume is historically significant because it speaks and argues about racism during the early period of the republic.   Apess chronicled the abuses and injustices suffered by the Indians in the hands of the whites and those acting in God’s name.   Methodism appealed to Native Americans then because of its enthusiastic style and its emphasis on equality.   The work gives an alternative view of the often-written Native American marginalization and rationalization of Indian extinction.The work describes the character of the Native Americans first-hand by one of their own. His most powerful polemic is Eulogy on King Philip where Apess compared the seventeenth-century Wampanoag leader, Metacomet or â€Å"King Philip† to the English, to the republic’s early national hero and founding father, George Washington.He lectures about the relations of Native Americans with the whites in New England. Apess further argues that the Native American cause shou ld not be isolated from American history because Indian history and culture is part thereof.   Their cause is likened to the American Revolution.Published in 1830, A Son of the Forest implicitly challenges the national controversy of the times over the Indian Removal Bill which legalized the federal government’s decision to force Native Americans off their traditional homelands east of the Mississippi River.   Here he promotes the Indians’ humanity, worth, and potential with his life as an example.ReferencesO’Conell, B. (Ed.) (1997). A Son of the Forest and Other Writings by William Apess, a Pequot. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.  

ICT and Society Essay

My mobile phone is a Nokia 6020. I got it a year ago, for my birthday. It is on a pay as you go tariff, and I have to pay it all my self. I have had to get myself a paper-round to contribute towards some of the costs. I use it to make phone calls, but mainly to text, and take pictures, with the camera. I often use the video camera to make low quality videos. I quite like the look of my phone but it is getting slightly old now. It is still a very good, basic phone however I think that the memory is much too small. It can acess the internet; but I don’t use that mainly because of the cost. Describe how you use the ICT technology. My phone is mostly used in the social category because I use it most to communicate with others. However, it can also come under the personal category because I use it to entertain myself by playing games on it among other things. Because I have to pay for it myself I tend not to spend as much as my friends, who’s parents pay for it. I am probably more conscious about the cost than them too. I am not someone who relies on it completely, I have lost it for a whole week before, without even realising. Saying this I do tend to text friends who don’t live near me. This way I can keep in touch with them. I would like to text them more but a phone is quite expensive to run and I would rather spread out my remaining money on other things. I also use my mobile to arrange outings with my school friends during the holidays or weekends. I like to text them because it is quick and easy. I don’t really use any kind of predictive text when I write text messages. This is becaus e I don’t really like it that much. The avantages of it is that it writes texts quicker with less movement of fingers. However it doesn’t have text talk words in the program, like â€Å"2moro† so therefore the text is longer and you can’t fit so much in the text. I find having a camera on the phone very useful too. Like most people I can take a picture any time, any where. This means I can caputure really cool pictures. I can send the good pictures to people via multimedia messages. If I’m on holiday they can see what I’m doing and generally keep in touch. Another thing which makes my phone more personal is the fact that I can change the background and the order of the lists in menu. I like to do this but it is quite complicated to do. I also use my phone for entertainment, I play games when I am bored like on the train. Although the games are not that advanced, they keep me entertained. I use the calculator appliance a bit but I can’t use it in school because the school has banned mobile’s. I often use the calander. The calander, if set, will remind me of people’s birthdays a week or so before. However it does take a while to set and add information. My phone also has an alarm, which I use when I am camping or sleeping in a hotel. I use most of the things that are on my phone and usually they work well. What are the advantages of using the ICT technology. One of the things which I find most useful about having a mobile phone, is having so many things on one device. It has endless uses all in one tiny object. It saves people carrying around lots of different devices each with one use. The other thing which I find most useful about having a mobile is that it gives me freedom. This is so important. My parents will let me go out and know that I can phone them at any time. They’ll say â€Å"well, as long as you have got your mobile with you†. For my parents, it gives them a slight chance to relax. My parents also know that they can log onto a website and track my phone, this is an advantage for them. Say, should the worst happen, I was hurt and got rushed to hospital. The paramedics could look at my phone and find ‘mum’ in my contacts and immediately let her know. Another reason for having a phone with lots of things on it, is money. It could actually save money, not having to buy a digital camera, ect. What are the disadvantages, if any, of the ICT technology. There were several studies recently that warned of a possible health risk to teens who use their phone a lot. It was worried about the waves that a phone uses damaging heavy users. Now I don’t use my phone that much but I don’t exactly like the thought. Nothing has been proved yet but, then again, nothing has been not proved. So at the moment I am just cautious. For me, the fact that my parents can track my phone is generally a bad thing. I don’t want my parents to know exactly where I am all the time, they’ve got to learn to let go a little. But if I got into trouble I think that I would be really glad so as long as they only use it when they are really worried it’s OK. The fact that it costs quite a lot to run a phone also is a bad thing. Handsets cost a lot to buy, the better and more features it has, the more expensive the price. Packages where users are lured into by the promise of â€Å"free weekend texts† or â€Å"100 free picture mes sages† are often not right for the customers. Most people end up paying a set amount per month, say à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½20. That’s fine if they would use à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½20 credit on pay as you go tariff but most won’t. They don’t realise that they’d get a better deal if they went onto another tariff. I think this is how phone companies make all their money. Bullying is another major problem. More and more, younger and younger children possess phones for all the reasons I have listed above. Bullying via text messages is becoming a substantial problem, big enough for many schools to start to ban mobile phones. This leads us onto the next disadvantage. Many schools have banned phones completely. My school still allows us to have phones in school however we’re not allowed to use them or get them out during the day. We can turn them on at the end of the school but not otherwise. If a teacher sees them they confiscate them. This is a real pain because a parent needs to come in and collect it. A wider problem is security. If you have a phone apparently some hackers can hack onto phones, steal personal information and stuff. Also having a phone makes you a target to thieves and muggers. They will just whip your phone anytime. It has now been made harder for thieves as you can block the SIM card and make it un-useable. However if you take out the blocked SIM, and put in another the handset will still work perfectly. This still makes stealing a phone worth it. What companies need to develop is a way of blocking the handset too. If I lived and the mobile phone wasn’t around today I wouldn’t be able to keep in touch with my friends as easily or arrange to meet up with them. My parents would feel less comfortable with me going out so I would have less freedom and if I got into trouble I couldn’t ring for help. The mobile is so convienient that many people would have to change too. So although there seem to be more disadvantages than advantages I still find a mobile the most useful piece of IT I use, secondary only to the computer. This is simply because it gives me the freedom I want in more than one way. The freedom to go out without my parents worrying and the freedom to walk around with one little device in my pocket.