Vocelli Pizza Franchise Plan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Vocelli Pizza Franchise Plan - Essay Example Vocelli Pizza has a franchise program that it intends to introduce in United Kingdom. Vocelli Pizza provides assistance to successful franchisees to identify business location for our products. Through the assistance of company executives, Vocelli Pizza offer market information, product entry behavior, and innovative approaches to be adopted by the franchisees. a. Strengths of Vocelli Pizza Vocelli Pizza has success record of over 22 years in the food industry. Vocelli Pizza owes its success to unique food selection that it offers to its clientele. Vocelli Pizza offer products, which are tasty and healthier. The company offers alternative to usual fast food fries which do not consider health standards. The customer experience in our restaurants is superb. The physical evidence of our restaurants attracts and provides the cool serene that many customers require. Vocelli Pizza serves its products according to needs of its customers an attribute that has promoted the success of the company. Franchise locations receive our products, which bear the same taste. Our staffs offer quality and timely services to our esteemed clients. b. Vocelli Pizza Weaknesses Transportation of our products is a great challenge that the company is facing. Sometimes our franchise outlets may register delay in product delivery. Another notable weakness of the company is poor market share command due high competition in the food industry. Some customers are reluctant to visit our restaurants because of trendy and classy looks.

Effect of Supplier Management Procurement on Public Sectors

Effect of Supplier Management Procurement on Public Sectors One: Introduction Best Value (BV) was introduced into the public sector in 1998, announced through the government’s white paper Modern Local Government in Touch with the People. This paper introduced extensive reform to local government, including the new initiative of BV. Within this BV is the e-Government, Community Planning, Strategic Partnerships and new political management structures (White Paper 1998). BV replaced the system of Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) (Local Government Act 1999). The aim of BV is to influence the efficient expenditure of public money; estimated to total  £455.2 billion for 2004, forecasted to grow by 3-5% for the period 2005-9 (www.statistics.gov.uk/). The 2001 review of local government procurement in England (Delivering Better Services for Citizens) was published as a consultation paper. The report included the following recommendation; there should be clear political responsibility for procurement, with elected members taking a strategic role in secur ing outcomes. Best Value is about breaking down the boundaries between the public and private sectors in local service delivery (The Byatt Report 2001). Supplier relationship management within the public sector has to an extent been dictated by the central government initiatives evolving the CCT era into the Best Value regime. Best Value has led to distinctively different approaches within the public sector to consultation, competition, performance reviews, and to partnership working. Since the abolition of CCT, evidence is emerging of a new maturity in localgovernments relationships with the private sector. In some authorities, this is evidenced by the fact that they are now recognisingthe inevitability of the mixed economy of provision,and are prepared to work within it (Bovaird, 2000). Procurement, and best value procurement, is a complicated subject to examine, largely because getting the best value for a product or service does not necessarily mean choosing the lowest bidder. Indeed, modern procurement strategies need to consider several interrelated factors, of which costs is just one, when determining and implementing the best value procurement process. This implies a significant increase in the number of issues encountered by many public sector agencies, for who best value procurement and competitive tendering concerns have replaced the simpler days of low bid auctions for services. As a result of these changes, best value procurement has now developed into a significant strategic option, which can provide many advantages to the public sector procurement professionals. However, along with the potential benefits, best value procurement also brings significant related risk factors, especially in the public sector where policy and political considerations can lea d to significantly different interpretations of best value both across public sector organisations and across individual projects within the same organisation. Indeed, when efficiently written and executed, best value contracts can both save money and increase service levels, however by its very nature best value involves a great deal of evaluation and comparison, which can complicate the process to the point where the potential gains are lost. Equally, distortions caused by interpretations and political factors may enter into play when gauging the many factors in addition to price, often leading to debates around different perceptions of what constitutes value for a given product or service. Each best value procurement example is subjective and entirely unique, especially in the public sector, and because of this, communication between end users, procurement professionals, policy makers, and suppliers is of utmost importance. In procurement, as in other fields, people with the right knowledge about the product or service being supplied, and the project for which it is required, will be able to make better decisions than those without the necessary information. As such, when choices must be made, project sponsors, buyers, contract administrators, technical authorities, advisors, bidders, and contractors must be kept in the know. This leads to the hypothesis that supplier relationship management in the public sector will, by virtue of increasing the spread of knowledge along the procurement chain, better help the public sector to achieve best value in its procurement activities. This work intends to test this hypothesis through a detailed search of the existing literature on procurement in the public sector, and the various aspects of procurement which underlie the provision of best value for public sector organisations. This will be achieved using the positivist paradigm and phenomenological hermeneutics to identify, contextualise and analyse the various research on best value, and also to determine how supplier relationship management will impact on this for public sector organisations. Two: Methodology Due to the wide scope of the subject matter of this dissertation, and the specialised nature of procurement within the public sector, the work will be solely based on existing secondary research. As there is no primary research to interpret, the research process will be different from conventional dissertations. As such, the interpretation of the existing research will form the cornerstone of the analysis and also drive any conclusions. This means that the dissertation will not only need to analyse the content of these articles, but also the motive of the authors for writing them, the context and any inherent bias. A research method is needed that will identify any contextual factors or bias and exclude them from the overall results. The chosen method is phenomenological hermeneutics, because this methodology states that literature can only be fully interpreted through an analysis of its contextual basis. The method further argues that, instead of being based on historical or cultura l contexts, each text reflects the mental frame of the writer or writers. As such, phenomenological hermeneutics will be used as the research methodology and philosophy because it allows one to take a text and methodically isolate it from all extraneous things including the subjects biases and allow it to communicate its meaning to the subject (Demeterio, 2001). In order to effectively achieve this goal, the research method shall focus on eliminating any sources of inherent bias in order to draw out its key messages and fit them into a coherent discussion and analysis; however, as Lye (1996) states, In order to understand one must fore understand, have a stance, an anticipation and a contextualization. This is what is known as the hermeneutic circle: one can only know what one is prepared to know, in the terms that one is prepared to know. As such, this work will need to examine the various articles of literature in the context of each other; to enable the construction of a hermeneutic circle and to truly understand the points each author is trying to make. As such, the interaction of the text with the contextual frame of reference given by the literature as a whole will lead to an interpretive paradigm being formed (Lye, 1996), through which it will be possible to draw out the common themes and the salient points from the literature. To appropriately construct this paradigm, it is necessary to understand that each article will be an embodiment of the ideas, beliefs, knowledge and experiences of the author, and that the interpretation of the text will also be an embodiment of the ideas, beliefs, knowledge and experience of the reader; as such, it will be necessary for the author of this work to be aware of the impact that this will have on the interpretation of the articles. This work will embody the style of the author (Lye, 1996), and will likely reveal some significant aspects of the authors views on politics and asset allocation, both conscious and unconscious. This will potentially add a further contextual bias to the interpretation, and one which may be significantly harder to identify, isolate and remove. This potential contextual bias will also make it difficult to effectively apply the logical positivist paradigm, which is strongly based on taking an objective view of reality, rather than a subjective view. The view of positivism that knowledge can only be obtained by the use of data that can be verified by an independent observer (Schrag, 1992) implies that someone attempting to use the positivist paradigm for research purposes must be as objective and unbiased as possible. Indeed, as all phenomena are subject to natural laws that coexist with each other in a logical manner, humans can only discover these laws through the use of inductive and deductive hypotheses and empirical testing of social and scientific theories. As such, the positivist paradigm will have to be carefully applied to all research and interpretation in this work, taking into account the phenomenological hermeneutic interpretation to provide a well rounded argument and conclusion. Regarding the research and data collection methods used, an inductive approach has been taken, which is appropriate as it involves interpretation of the research and data during the gathering, as well as the analysis phase. This has been extended through the use of a standard horizontal and vertical analysis of the existing literature and the initial sources found. The horizontal aspect of the research has involved using the terminology, key words and arguments underlying historical public sector procurement processes and strategies to uncover other related works which discuss the same concepts but with different arguments and in different contexts. The vertical aspect has involved examining the sources cited in the initial sources used to move back up the chain of argument and see how different arguments and theories have been formed and influenced over time. Online searches have also been used to facilitate looking for sources which cite the identified articles and examining how th ese sources have further developed the article. The research and data gathered for this dissertation is composed entirely of secondary research. Initially, the author considered gathering and analysis primary data, however this was deemed to be unfeasible for two reasons. The first reason is that the majority of people working within public sector procurement are busy professionals, working full time to ensure that their procurement goals are met. As such, they would be unlikely to have the time available to assist in the research process, and their responses would be limited by the commercial and confidentiality considerations that underlie most procurement projects. Secondly, as was discussed above, this topic is highly specialised, with practitioners, advisors and academics having significant levels of knowledge and experience. As a result, it is more appropriate, and probably more accurate, to use the results of experienced academics and practitioners, who have carried out significant amounts of in depth, and often independent , research on this subject, as a contextual basis of the positivist paradigm being used; however, research gaps should be discussed when identified. Another important consideration when collecting the data was the time horizon because, as stated above, the UK public sector procurement industry is now in a fundamentally different state than at any time in its prior history following the longest consecutive period under Labour rule. As such, examining research data and literature from too far in the past will likely be of limited use when discussing public sector procurement in the modern economic and political environment. Therefore it has been decided that data will only be used from the period 1997 to 2007, which is the period for which the Labour government has been in power, and within which most of the major reforms underlying the current processes, strategies, and improvements have been drawn up and implemented. This research methodology has produced analyses of about fifty major articles on which the work will be based; together with some other articles defining the research methodology itself, and some sources providing general public sector procurement context and supplementary information. The major articles have been analysed and reviewed in the Structured Literature Review, under each of the main themes identified. This is the most logical method of analysis for this work, as the majority of the articles and surveys carried out around best value in the UK public sectors have been focused on specific areas such as the Public Private Partnership initiatives and the work of the Audit Commission. As such, a longitudinal method of analysis is also useful for the phenomenological hermeneutic approach taken by this work, as it will enable progressive clarity of understanding of the contextual factors underling the literature reviewed. Considering the chosen methodology for this work, this dissertation will have a Structured Literature Review instead of a conventional literature review. This is because the research used is solely secondary; therefore there is no need to conduct a standard literature review, which is usually done to contextualise and direct any primary research and to help explain its results. As this work is not based on primary research, there is no need for a standard literature review, and hence the structured literature review is more appropriate, because it can serve as the findings, results and analysis for the work, which shall be interpreted within the ‘findings’. Because the research philosophy and methodology is phenomenological hermeneutics, an interpretive, positivist method of analysis is required, which is facilitated by a structured approach to the analysis. Finally, as the literature review is being conducted along various themes, it is vital that it is correctly struct ured to ensure that it is analytical rather than just descriptive, and that it maintains some criticality. As such, the structured literature review will involve a thematic/structured review of all the salient articles in the work, analysing the arguments and themes within each article and linking the various articles and themes to each other. The last part of the literature review will be an interpretation of all the articles discussed in the review, identifying common themes, disagreements and any potential implications or conflicts. This analysis will need to consider the various biases, backgrounds and any knowledge of the authors. Many of the major disagreements may not be based on the subject of best value itself, but rather the authors views on the ultimate aims of ‘procurement’ and the importance of the process and methodology underling it. This scrutiny will enable analysis of the validity and reliability of the articles by means of triangulation with the other articles reviewed and analysed. This will further assist in the phenomenological hermeneutic approach taken by this work, and it will facilitate the identification of any bias or conflicts that were not obvious in the initial review of the literature. The methodology will also attempt to identify existing gaps within the literature, and highlight areas where further research could be beneficial to the work. Because most of the literature is written from academic perspectives, there are likely to be gaps around the various objectives and contextual factors of the various public sector organisations; and the various procurement frameworks the have in place; and potentially a lack of in depth research around issues such as political pressure and policy directives. As such, this work will attempt to identify where the existing literature has failed to focus on areas such as these, and how these omissions can be addressed by future studies and research. Three: Literature Best Value Procurement in the UK Public Sector There is a large volume of research focusing on procurement strategies and measures of value for private sector organisations, and recently literature (Male et al, 2007; Lian and Laing, 2004) has begun to focus on the different procurement practices needed by the public sector. Indeed, Lian and Laing (2004) focused on the transactional and relationship based nature of procurement strategies to determine to what extent procurement is different between the public and the private sector. They focused on health services, as public health services are often seen as one of the most complex services provided by the public sector (Male et al, 2007), and their research demonstrated how the differing environmental factors, such as politics and resource allocation in the public sector, impacted on procurement, whilst many service specific factors, such as the need for medicines and temporary staff, were constant across the public and private spheres Indeed, their research demonstrated that poli tics and policy drivers have a major impact on the procurement strategies used by public sector organisations, and that these strategies, and the methods used to engage suppliers, were significantly different from that of private sector organisations. This research ties in with that of Dixon et al (2005) which showed that, whilst the private sector tended to build relationships with suppliers, and leverage these to obtain better value, public sector organisations often based their procurement strategies on the costs of individual transactions. As such, the literature concludes that the private sector’s relationship based procurement strategies offer better value than those of the public sector. However, Lian and Laing (2004) also commented that public policy decisions often restrict public sector organisations from building relationships with their suppliers, and thus the very nature of public sector organisations often hinders or prevents them from achieving best value from their procurement activities. Palaneeswaran et al (2003) criticise this political dimension, claiming that procuring best value should be one of the key objectives (for the) public sector. Their argument is that best value depends upon the use of sound selection strategies, intended to ensure that all the procurement objectives are met, which includes the client and end user demands. As such, best value initiatives should all be geared towards the final state of business, rather than to serve public policy decisions. They conclude that, whilst the overall goal of any public sector organisation should be determined by public policy, best value procurement efforts should all be directed towards that goal and be free from political interference. Unfortunately, as Lian and Ling commented, whilst this may be desirable it is not always possible. Current successes and failures of procurement strategies within central and local government Walker (2006) notes that UK public sector organisations often make their main procurement decisions, for assets and services, at the local level, reflected in the fact that the NHS trusts and local government authorities all have their own procurement departments. Whilst this policy allows individual bodies to select the procurement strategy that best suits their needs, the lack of coordination of the procurement process can lead to inefficient supply markets, with either too few or too many suppliers, which reduces the efficiency of individual suppliers and thus increased the cost to the purchasers. These local procurement decisions are also often superseded or influence by central government guidelines and policies, for example Builders Merchants Journal (2006) detailed a new central government policy on public sector timber procurement. This policy specified that, whilst organisations are still responsible for their own procurement decisions, they must ensure that any timber they procure comes from a legal source, which increases the administrative burden for the local organisations. Furthermore, the government has also specified that organisations should supply sustainable timber wherever possible, however this is not compulsory. Such vague policy guidelines also make it difficult for organisations trying to balance budgets against policy. Equally, such fragmented policies make it hard for public sector organisations to plan long term procurement strategies to respond to market uncertainty. For example, Loveday (2005) reported that the UK public sector was forced to cut back service provision as a result of significant energy price rises which they had not planned for. Whilst this failing is shared with the private sector, which Loveday (2005) stated as having lost over  £1 billion due to a lack of energy procurement strategies and poor energy risk management, the fragmented nature of local procurement means that the public sector is often as much as risk from utility price rises as small businesses, some of which have been almost bankrupted due to rising energy bills in recent years (Loveday, 2005). Perhaps in response to these drawbacks, the literature highlights one of the main strategies used in recent years by the public sector to improve its procurement strategies: the rise of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) and the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), which form long term partnerships with private sector organisations to share the provision of public services. Smyth and Edkins (2007) examined the management of these projects, the relationships between the primary public and private sector partners and the use of the Special Purpose Vehicles (SPUs) to facilitate the partnerships. They found that the management of these relationships had two main dynamics: the contract, transactional, approach of the public sector, and the relationship management approach of the private sector. The combination of these two approaches, and how they influenced the project management discipline within the partnership, showed that they led to greater strategic and tactical consideration being giv en to functions such as procurement, leading to greater value generation. This consideration led to greater collaboration, both between and within the organisations, as they adjusted to new procurement conditions, demonstrating improved proactive and strategic relationship management versus individual public sector organisations (Smyth and Edkins, 2007). Dixon et al (2005) also examined the several case studies of the success of the Private Finance Initiative schemes, focusing on projects related to the construction of infrastructure and other facilities. These studies highlighted several examples of best practice and best value procurement, together with the key critical factors for success in PFI projects, whilst also pointing out some drawbacks and lessons for future projects. Indeed, the literature demonstrated that the key value benefits of the PFI are that the public sector obtains increased value for money, whilst also transferring risk to the private sector partner. However, this transfer is offset by higher procurement and transaction costs, relative to the private sector’s standard costs; partly due to the cultural differences between the public and private sector, and partly due to large-scale nature of PFI projects, which frequently acts as a barrier to entry for some financing partners and suppliers. This highligh ts the need to develop competitive public sector supplier markets, and also to develop the appropriate procurement and project management skills within the public sector to ensure that they can work with private sector partners to ensure best value (Dixon et al, 2005). These show two contrasting views of the PFI/PPP, with Smyth and Edkins (2007) seeing the initiatives as an excellent way to bring private sector efficiency to public sector procurement, but with Dixon et al (2005) claiming that the wide differences in skill sets mean that a lot of the benefits from the private sector methodologies are lost. In response to contrasting views such as these, Li et al (2005) conducted research into the various perceptions of what makes the PFI attractive or unattractive to potential partners as a procurement system for projects. The research was based on a questionnaire / survey of stakeholders in the various projects, with the various potential issues and factors for the survey identified from the existing literature. This research showed that PPP and PFI procurement efficiency can have wide ranging benefits and drawbacks across different areas of a project. In particular, Li et al (2005) found the public / private sector partnerships were perceived as g iving better access to the technology required for projects, and thus leading to better project economy. This in turn drove greater public benefit, helped the public sector avoid transactional costs, and also helped manage or avoid some regulatory and financial constraints, such as the public sector timber procurement policy (Builders Merchants Journal, 2006). However, they also found that participants inexperienced is public / private sector co-operation, the high costs of setting up and participating in the initiatives, the length of time they took, and the tendency to over-commercialise some projects could lead to PPP / PFI procurement being less attractive for both parties. These various factors will impact differently on different projects, thus showing why there are such wide disparities between articles in the literature on the relative merits of PPP and PFI. For example, Weston and Cassidy (2006) claim that the procurement of public facilities and services under the PPP and PFI arrangements provides a wide variety of significant benefits to the public sector, and to the private sector partners. In contrast, Chapman (2006) highlights claims that private sector participation harms services and efficiency, whilst purely focusing on guaranteeing the private sector partners their profits. As a result, the literature concludes that the difference between the success and failure of PFI and PPP schemes depends on a clear and common understanding of the positive and negative factors surrounding PPP / PFI procurement (Li et al, 2005). Another development in procurement is that direct competition between providers, via invitations to tender, is now widely used as the means of choosing suppliers or outsourcers for many public services in the UK. Smyth (1997) describes how competitive tendering can ensure local accessibility and accountability for users, innovation, from providers and help purchasers to reduce procurement and transaction costs. However, in common with many other writers, Smyth (1997) discusses co-operation and collaboration and the interference of policy decisions and the political process, which has led to the emergence of monopolies and inefficient integrated delivery systems, often to the detriment of value in the procurement process (Smyth, 1997). Another effort made by the public sector, specifically the UK NHS, to improve purchasing efficiency is in the use of the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency, PaSA, to negotiate National Framework Agreements through which individual NHS trusts can procure goods and services at bulk negotiated rates. However, as each NHS trust is a separate legal and managerial entity, responsible only to the Department of Health, a significant number of NHS trusts have resisted the move towards this centralised procurement approach in favour of their own relationships with suppliers. As a result, Cox et al (2005) discussed how PaSA, and the NHS senior management as a whole, have created regional procurement hubs and confederations in order to overcome this inability to enforce the Agreements within individual NHS Trusts. Whilst this was a sensible approach to resolving the lack of effective consolidation of demand at the individual Trust level, the individual procurement practices of regionally based NHS Trusts is still strongly driven by their own supply and demand considerations, and this has created a number of internal demand problems that the regionalised procurement approach has failed to overcome. These include the failure by the Trusts individually, and by the NHS centrally, to control and manage the NHS design and specification process effectively and, in many cases, an inability to measure or collect information on the clinical and cost effectiveness of medical interventions (Cox et al, 2005). As such, whilst these new reforms can be seen as a significant improvement on past collaborative procurement efforts, it is likely that they are still destined to fail, due to the fundamental nature of procurement in the NHS, and the lack of understanding around effectively aligning supply and demand at all levels of the NHS. One final area, in which the public sector is often accused of being inefficient by the Audit Commission, and failing to secure best value procurement, is in the employing of management consultants for project management and other support roles. Corcoran and McLean (1998) investigated the purchase of management consultants in the public sector context, specifically the appointment of consultants to work with government departments, focusing specifically on the particular selection decisions. They found that, in accordance with government policy, many public sector decision makers focus mainly on securing best value for money when procuring consultants, however the criteria and information sources used to make the procurement decisions were often inconsistent. Similar to Cox et al (2005), Corcoran and McLean (1998) found that whilst the government’s public sector procurement principle was well known and relatively well understood, public sector decision makers seemed to be unab le to connect this principle to the procurement process, often claiming that they did not have access to sufficient information to make an informed choice. Paradoxically, the majority of government departments tend to hire management consultants in an attempt to understand the procurement process that has hired the management consultants in the first place. One significant outcome of this is that the decision makers in many government organisations stated that they didn’t believe the selection process and decision around hiring management consultants was difficult, and would be straightforward if sufficient information was made available (Corcoran and McLean, 1998). Future developments in procurement and threats to movement The public sector is increasing beginning to rely on private sector organisations to form supplier consortia for major projects, especially those where the scale is such that individual suppliers are unable to cope with the demand. As the number of projects, especially the major PPP / PFI projects, increases; the demand for these consortia is likely to rise, and Jost (2005) believes that this may become the dominant model for public sector procurement in future. However, in order for this to occur, greater attention must be paid to building successful relationships, both between the consortium and the public sector organisation, and between the members of the consortium itself. Jost (2005) conducted a qualitative study of the existing consortia, and claimed that building trust, engaging staff and reconciling the differing objectives of the partners will be the main factors critical to this development, and a lack of trust among the private sector partners will be the biggest threat t o progress. Indeed, Swan and Khalfan (2007) claim that partnering will continue to grow significantly throughout the UK public sector. They focus on the UK public sector construction industry, and identified that, in future, factors such relationship management with external stakeholders, the general public in the case of public sector projects, will be important to the growth in partnership based projects. Indeed, whilst issues such as cost, quality, timeliness and safety will remain crucial to successful delivery, objectives such as sustainable and environmental development will grow in importance, and failure to acknowledge and address these issues will again pose threats to movement. Swan and Khalfan’s research showed that the industry is already moving forward, with a su Effect of Supplier Management Procurement on Public Sectors Effect of Supplier Management Procurement on Public Sectors One: Introduction Best Value (BV) was introduced into the public sector in 1998, announced through the government’s white paper Modern Local Government in Touch with the People. This paper introduced extensive reform to local government, including the new initiative of BV. Within this BV is the e-Government, Community Planning, Strategic Partnerships and new political management structures (White Paper 1998). BV replaced the system of Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) (Local Government Act 1999). The aim of BV is to influence the efficient expenditure of public money; estimated to total  £455.2 billion for 2004, forecasted to grow by 3-5% for the period 2005-9 (www.statistics.gov.uk/). The 2001 review of local government procurement in England (Delivering Better Services for Citizens) was published as a consultation paper. The report included the following recommendation; there should be clear political responsibility for procurement, with elected members taking a strategic role in secur ing outcomes. Best Value is about breaking down the boundaries between the public and private sectors in local service delivery (The Byatt Report 2001). Supplier relationship management within the public sector has to an extent been dictated by the central government initiatives evolving the CCT era into the Best Value regime. Best Value has led to distinctively different approaches within the public sector to consultation, competition, performance reviews, and to partnership working. Since the abolition of CCT, evidence is emerging of a new maturity in localgovernments relationships with the private sector. In some authorities, this is evidenced by the fact that they are now recognisingthe inevitability of the mixed economy of provision,and are prepared to work within it (Bovaird, 2000). Procurement, and best value procurement, is a complicated subject to examine, largely because getting the best value for a product or service does not necessarily mean choosing the lowest bidder. Indeed, modern procurement strategies need to consider several interrelated factors, of which costs is just one, when determining and implementing the best value procurement process. This implies a significant increase in the number of issues encountered by many public sector agencies, for who best value procurement and competitive tendering concerns have replaced the simpler days of low bid auctions for services. As a result of these changes, best value procurement has now developed into a significant strategic option, which can provide many advantages to the public sector procurement professionals. However, along with the potential benefits, best value procurement also brings significant related risk factors, especially in the public sector where policy and political considerations can lea d to significantly different interpretations of best value both across public sector organisations and across individual projects within the same organisation. Indeed, when efficiently written and executed, best value contracts can both save money and increase service levels, however by its very nature best value involves a great deal of evaluation and comparison, which can complicate the process to the point where the potential gains are lost. Equally, distortions caused by interpretations and political factors may enter into play when gauging the many factors in addition to price, often leading to debates around different perceptions of what constitutes value for a given product or service. Each best value procurement example is subjective and entirely unique, especially in the public sector, and because of this, communication between end users, procurement professionals, policy makers, and suppliers is of utmost importance. In procurement, as in other fields, people with the right knowledge about the product or service being supplied, and the project for which it is required, will be able to make better decisions than those without the necessary information. As such, when choices must be made, project sponsors, buyers, contract administrators, technical authorities, advisors, bidders, and contractors must be kept in the know. This leads to the hypothesis that supplier relationship management in the public sector will, by virtue of increasing the spread of knowledge along the procurement chain, better help the public sector to achieve best value in its procurement activities. This work intends to test this hypothesis through a detailed search of the existing literature on procurement in the public sector, and the various aspects of procurement which underlie the provision of best value for public sector organisations. This will be achieved using the positivist paradigm and phenomenological hermeneutics to identify, contextualise and analyse the various research on best value, and also to determine how supplier relationship management will impact on this for public sector organisations. Two: Methodology Due to the wide scope of the subject matter of this dissertation, and the specialised nature of procurement within the public sector, the work will be solely based on existing secondary research. As there is no primary research to interpret, the research process will be different from conventional dissertations. As such, the interpretation of the existing research will form the cornerstone of the analysis and also drive any conclusions. This means that the dissertation will not only need to analyse the content of these articles, but also the motive of the authors for writing them, the context and any inherent bias. A research method is needed that will identify any contextual factors or bias and exclude them from the overall results. The chosen method is phenomenological hermeneutics, because this methodology states that literature can only be fully interpreted through an analysis of its contextual basis. The method further argues that, instead of being based on historical or cultura l contexts, each text reflects the mental frame of the writer or writers. As such, phenomenological hermeneutics will be used as the research methodology and philosophy because it allows one to take a text and methodically isolate it from all extraneous things including the subjects biases and allow it to communicate its meaning to the subject (Demeterio, 2001). In order to effectively achieve this goal, the research method shall focus on eliminating any sources of inherent bias in order to draw out its key messages and fit them into a coherent discussion and analysis; however, as Lye (1996) states, In order to understand one must fore understand, have a stance, an anticipation and a contextualization. This is what is known as the hermeneutic circle: one can only know what one is prepared to know, in the terms that one is prepared to know. As such, this work will need to examine the various articles of literature in the context of each other; to enable the construction of a hermeneutic circle and to truly understand the points each author is trying to make. As such, the interaction of the text with the contextual frame of reference given by the literature as a whole will lead to an interpretive paradigm being formed (Lye, 1996), through which it will be possible to draw out the common themes and the salient points from the literature. To appropriately construct this paradigm, it is necessary to understand that each article will be an embodiment of the ideas, beliefs, knowledge and experiences of the author, and that the interpretation of the text will also be an embodiment of the ideas, beliefs, knowledge and experience of the reader; as such, it will be necessary for the author of this work to be aware of the impact that this will have on the interpretation of the articles. This work will embody the style of the author (Lye, 1996), and will likely reveal some significant aspects of the authors views on politics and asset allocation, both conscious and unconscious. This will potentially add a further contextual bias to the interpretation, and one which may be significantly harder to identify, isolate and remove. This potential contextual bias will also make it difficult to effectively apply the logical positivist paradigm, which is strongly based on taking an objective view of reality, rather than a subjective view. The view of positivism that knowledge can only be obtained by the use of data that can be verified by an independent observer (Schrag, 1992) implies that someone attempting to use the positivist paradigm for research purposes must be as objective and unbiased as possible. Indeed, as all phenomena are subject to natural laws that coexist with each other in a logical manner, humans can only discover these laws through the use of inductive and deductive hypotheses and empirical testing of social and scientific theories. As such, the positivist paradigm will have to be carefully applied to all research and interpretation in this work, taking into account the phenomenological hermeneutic interpretation to provide a well rounded argument and conclusion. Regarding the research and data collection methods used, an inductive approach has been taken, which is appropriate as it involves interpretation of the research and data during the gathering, as well as the analysis phase. This has been extended through the use of a standard horizontal and vertical analysis of the existing literature and the initial sources found. The horizontal aspect of the research has involved using the terminology, key words and arguments underlying historical public sector procurement processes and strategies to uncover other related works which discuss the same concepts but with different arguments and in different contexts. The vertical aspect has involved examining the sources cited in the initial sources used to move back up the chain of argument and see how different arguments and theories have been formed and influenced over time. Online searches have also been used to facilitate looking for sources which cite the identified articles and examining how th ese sources have further developed the article. The research and data gathered for this dissertation is composed entirely of secondary research. Initially, the author considered gathering and analysis primary data, however this was deemed to be unfeasible for two reasons. The first reason is that the majority of people working within public sector procurement are busy professionals, working full time to ensure that their procurement goals are met. As such, they would be unlikely to have the time available to assist in the research process, and their responses would be limited by the commercial and confidentiality considerations that underlie most procurement projects. Secondly, as was discussed above, this topic is highly specialised, with practitioners, advisors and academics having significant levels of knowledge and experience. As a result, it is more appropriate, and probably more accurate, to use the results of experienced academics and practitioners, who have carried out significant amounts of in depth, and often independent , research on this subject, as a contextual basis of the positivist paradigm being used; however, research gaps should be discussed when identified. Another important consideration when collecting the data was the time horizon because, as stated above, the UK public sector procurement industry is now in a fundamentally different state than at any time in its prior history following the longest consecutive period under Labour rule. As such, examining research data and literature from too far in the past will likely be of limited use when discussing public sector procurement in the modern economic and political environment. Therefore it has been decided that data will only be used from the period 1997 to 2007, which is the period for which the Labour government has been in power, and within which most of the major reforms underlying the current processes, strategies, and improvements have been drawn up and implemented. This research methodology has produced analyses of about fifty major articles on which the work will be based; together with some other articles defining the research methodology itself, and some sources providing general public sector procurement context and supplementary information. The major articles have been analysed and reviewed in the Structured Literature Review, under each of the main themes identified. This is the most logical method of analysis for this work, as the majority of the articles and surveys carried out around best value in the UK public sectors have been focused on specific areas such as the Public Private Partnership initiatives and the work of the Audit Commission. As such, a longitudinal method of analysis is also useful for the phenomenological hermeneutic approach taken by this work, as it will enable progressive clarity of understanding of the contextual factors underling the literature reviewed. Considering the chosen methodology for this work, this dissertation will have a Structured Literature Review instead of a conventional literature review. This is because the research used is solely secondary; therefore there is no need to conduct a standard literature review, which is usually done to contextualise and direct any primary research and to help explain its results. As this work is not based on primary research, there is no need for a standard literature review, and hence the structured literature review is more appropriate, because it can serve as the findings, results and analysis for the work, which shall be interpreted within the ‘findings’. Because the research philosophy and methodology is phenomenological hermeneutics, an interpretive, positivist method of analysis is required, which is facilitated by a structured approach to the analysis. Finally, as the literature review is being conducted along various themes, it is vital that it is correctly struct ured to ensure that it is analytical rather than just descriptive, and that it maintains some criticality. As such, the structured literature review will involve a thematic/structured review of all the salient articles in the work, analysing the arguments and themes within each article and linking the various articles and themes to each other. The last part of the literature review will be an interpretation of all the articles discussed in the review, identifying common themes, disagreements and any potential implications or conflicts. This analysis will need to consider the various biases, backgrounds and any knowledge of the authors. Many of the major disagreements may not be based on the subject of best value itself, but rather the authors views on the ultimate aims of ‘procurement’ and the importance of the process and methodology underling it. This scrutiny will enable analysis of the validity and reliability of the articles by means of triangulation with the other articles reviewed and analysed. This will further assist in the phenomenological hermeneutic approach taken by this work, and it will facilitate the identification of any bias or conflicts that were not obvious in the initial review of the literature. The methodology will also attempt to identify existing gaps within the literature, and highlight areas where further research could be beneficial to the work. Because most of the literature is written from academic perspectives, there are likely to be gaps around the various objectives and contextual factors of the various public sector organisations; and the various procurement frameworks the have in place; and potentially a lack of in depth research around issues such as political pressure and policy directives. As such, this work will attempt to identify where the existing literature has failed to focus on areas such as these, and how these omissions can be addressed by future studies and research. Three: Literature Best Value Procurement in the UK Public Sector There is a large volume of research focusing on procurement strategies and measures of value for private sector organisations, and recently literature (Male et al, 2007; Lian and Laing, 2004) has begun to focus on the different procurement practices needed by the public sector. Indeed, Lian and Laing (2004) focused on the transactional and relationship based nature of procurement strategies to determine to what extent procurement is different between the public and the private sector. They focused on health services, as public health services are often seen as one of the most complex services provided by the public sector (Male et al, 2007), and their research demonstrated how the differing environmental factors, such as politics and resource allocation in the public sector, impacted on procurement, whilst many service specific factors, such as the need for medicines and temporary staff, were constant across the public and private spheres Indeed, their research demonstrated that poli tics and policy drivers have a major impact on the procurement strategies used by public sector organisations, and that these strategies, and the methods used to engage suppliers, were significantly different from that of private sector organisations. This research ties in with that of Dixon et al (2005) which showed that, whilst the private sector tended to build relationships with suppliers, and leverage these to obtain better value, public sector organisations often based their procurement strategies on the costs of individual transactions. As such, the literature concludes that the private sector’s relationship based procurement strategies offer better value than those of the public sector. However, Lian and Laing (2004) also commented that public policy decisions often restrict public sector organisations from building relationships with their suppliers, and thus the very nature of public sector organisations often hinders or prevents them from achieving best value from their procurement activities. Palaneeswaran et al (2003) criticise this political dimension, claiming that procuring best value should be one of the key objectives (for the) public sector. Their argument is that best value depends upon the use of sound selection strategies, intended to ensure that all the procurement objectives are met, which includes the client and end user demands. As such, best value initiatives should all be geared towards the final state of business, rather than to serve public policy decisions. They conclude that, whilst the overall goal of any public sector organisation should be determined by public policy, best value procurement efforts should all be directed towards that goal and be free from political interference. Unfortunately, as Lian and Ling commented, whilst this may be desirable it is not always possible. Current successes and failures of procurement strategies within central and local government Walker (2006) notes that UK public sector organisations often make their main procurement decisions, for assets and services, at the local level, reflected in the fact that the NHS trusts and local government authorities all have their own procurement departments. Whilst this policy allows individual bodies to select the procurement strategy that best suits their needs, the lack of coordination of the procurement process can lead to inefficient supply markets, with either too few or too many suppliers, which reduces the efficiency of individual suppliers and thus increased the cost to the purchasers. These local procurement decisions are also often superseded or influence by central government guidelines and policies, for example Builders Merchants Journal (2006) detailed a new central government policy on public sector timber procurement. This policy specified that, whilst organisations are still responsible for their own procurement decisions, they must ensure that any timber they procure comes from a legal source, which increases the administrative burden for the local organisations. Furthermore, the government has also specified that organisations should supply sustainable timber wherever possible, however this is not compulsory. Such vague policy guidelines also make it difficult for organisations trying to balance budgets against policy. Equally, such fragmented policies make it hard for public sector organisations to plan long term procurement strategies to respond to market uncertainty. For example, Loveday (2005) reported that the UK public sector was forced to cut back service provision as a result of significant energy price rises which they had not planned for. Whilst this failing is shared with the private sector, which Loveday (2005) stated as having lost over  £1 billion due to a lack of energy procurement strategies and poor energy risk management, the fragmented nature of local procurement means that the public sector is often as much as risk from utility price rises as small businesses, some of which have been almost bankrupted due to rising energy bills in recent years (Loveday, 2005). Perhaps in response to these drawbacks, the literature highlights one of the main strategies used in recent years by the public sector to improve its procurement strategies: the rise of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) and the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), which form long term partnerships with private sector organisations to share the provision of public services. Smyth and Edkins (2007) examined the management of these projects, the relationships between the primary public and private sector partners and the use of the Special Purpose Vehicles (SPUs) to facilitate the partnerships. They found that the management of these relationships had two main dynamics: the contract, transactional, approach of the public sector, and the relationship management approach of the private sector. The combination of these two approaches, and how they influenced the project management discipline within the partnership, showed that they led to greater strategic and tactical consideration being giv en to functions such as procurement, leading to greater value generation. This consideration led to greater collaboration, both between and within the organisations, as they adjusted to new procurement conditions, demonstrating improved proactive and strategic relationship management versus individual public sector organisations (Smyth and Edkins, 2007). Dixon et al (2005) also examined the several case studies of the success of the Private Finance Initiative schemes, focusing on projects related to the construction of infrastructure and other facilities. These studies highlighted several examples of best practice and best value procurement, together with the key critical factors for success in PFI projects, whilst also pointing out some drawbacks and lessons for future projects. Indeed, the literature demonstrated that the key value benefits of the PFI are that the public sector obtains increased value for money, whilst also transferring risk to the private sector partner. However, this transfer is offset by higher procurement and transaction costs, relative to the private sector’s standard costs; partly due to the cultural differences between the public and private sector, and partly due to large-scale nature of PFI projects, which frequently acts as a barrier to entry for some financing partners and suppliers. This highligh ts the need to develop competitive public sector supplier markets, and also to develop the appropriate procurement and project management skills within the public sector to ensure that they can work with private sector partners to ensure best value (Dixon et al, 2005). These show two contrasting views of the PFI/PPP, with Smyth and Edkins (2007) seeing the initiatives as an excellent way to bring private sector efficiency to public sector procurement, but with Dixon et al (2005) claiming that the wide differences in skill sets mean that a lot of the benefits from the private sector methodologies are lost. In response to contrasting views such as these, Li et al (2005) conducted research into the various perceptions of what makes the PFI attractive or unattractive to potential partners as a procurement system for projects. The research was based on a questionnaire / survey of stakeholders in the various projects, with the various potential issues and factors for the survey identified from the existing literature. This research showed that PPP and PFI procurement efficiency can have wide ranging benefits and drawbacks across different areas of a project. In particular, Li et al (2005) found the public / private sector partnerships were perceived as g iving better access to the technology required for projects, and thus leading to better project economy. This in turn drove greater public benefit, helped the public sector avoid transactional costs, and also helped manage or avoid some regulatory and financial constraints, such as the public sector timber procurement policy (Builders Merchants Journal, 2006). However, they also found that participants inexperienced is public / private sector co-operation, the high costs of setting up and participating in the initiatives, the length of time they took, and the tendency to over-commercialise some projects could lead to PPP / PFI procurement being less attractive for both parties. These various factors will impact differently on different projects, thus showing why there are such wide disparities between articles in the literature on the relative merits of PPP and PFI. For example, Weston and Cassidy (2006) claim that the procurement of public facilities and services under the PPP and PFI arrangements provides a wide variety of significant benefits to the public sector, and to the private sector partners. In contrast, Chapman (2006) highlights claims that private sector participation harms services and efficiency, whilst purely focusing on guaranteeing the private sector partners their profits. As a result, the literature concludes that the difference between the success and failure of PFI and PPP schemes depends on a clear and common understanding of the positive and negative factors surrounding PPP / PFI procurement (Li et al, 2005). Another development in procurement is that direct competition between providers, via invitations to tender, is now widely used as the means of choosing suppliers or outsourcers for many public services in the UK. Smyth (1997) describes how competitive tendering can ensure local accessibility and accountability for users, innovation, from providers and help purchasers to reduce procurement and transaction costs. However, in common with many other writers, Smyth (1997) discusses co-operation and collaboration and the interference of policy decisions and the political process, which has led to the emergence of monopolies and inefficient integrated delivery systems, often to the detriment of value in the procurement process (Smyth, 1997). Another effort made by the public sector, specifically the UK NHS, to improve purchasing efficiency is in the use of the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency, PaSA, to negotiate National Framework Agreements through which individual NHS trusts can procure goods and services at bulk negotiated rates. However, as each NHS trust is a separate legal and managerial entity, responsible only to the Department of Health, a significant number of NHS trusts have resisted the move towards this centralised procurement approach in favour of their own relationships with suppliers. As a result, Cox et al (2005) discussed how PaSA, and the NHS senior management as a whole, have created regional procurement hubs and confederations in order to overcome this inability to enforce the Agreements within individual NHS Trusts. Whilst this was a sensible approach to resolving the lack of effective consolidation of demand at the individual Trust level, the individual procurement practices of regionally based NHS Trusts is still strongly driven by their own supply and demand considerations, and this has created a number of internal demand problems that the regionalised procurement approach has failed to overcome. These include the failure by the Trusts individually, and by the NHS centrally, to control and manage the NHS design and specification process effectively and, in many cases, an inability to measure or collect information on the clinical and cost effectiveness of medical interventions (Cox et al, 2005). As such, whilst these new reforms can be seen as a significant improvement on past collaborative procurement efforts, it is likely that they are still destined to fail, due to the fundamental nature of procurement in the NHS, and the lack of understanding around effectively aligning supply and demand at all levels of the NHS. One final area, in which the public sector is often accused of being inefficient by the Audit Commission, and failing to secure best value procurement, is in the employing of management consultants for project management and other support roles. Corcoran and McLean (1998) investigated the purchase of management consultants in the public sector context, specifically the appointment of consultants to work with government departments, focusing specifically on the particular selection decisions. They found that, in accordance with government policy, many public sector decision makers focus mainly on securing best value for money when procuring consultants, however the criteria and information sources used to make the procurement decisions were often inconsistent. Similar to Cox et al (2005), Corcoran and McLean (1998) found that whilst the government’s public sector procurement principle was well known and relatively well understood, public sector decision makers seemed to be unab le to connect this principle to the procurement process, often claiming that they did not have access to sufficient information to make an informed choice. Paradoxically, the majority of government departments tend to hire management consultants in an attempt to understand the procurement process that has hired the management consultants in the first place. One significant outcome of this is that the decision makers in many government organisations stated that they didn’t believe the selection process and decision around hiring management consultants was difficult, and would be straightforward if sufficient information was made available (Corcoran and McLean, 1998). Future developments in procurement and threats to movement The public sector is increasing beginning to rely on private sector organisations to form supplier consortia for major projects, especially those where the scale is such that individual suppliers are unable to cope with the demand. As the number of projects, especially the major PPP / PFI projects, increases; the demand for these consortia is likely to rise, and Jost (2005) believes that this may become the dominant model for public sector procurement in future. However, in order for this to occur, greater attention must be paid to building successful relationships, both between the consortium and the public sector organisation, and between the members of the consortium itself. Jost (2005) conducted a qualitative study of the existing consortia, and claimed that building trust, engaging staff and reconciling the differing objectives of the partners will be the main factors critical to this development, and a lack of trust among the private sector partners will be the biggest threat t o progress. Indeed, Swan and Khalfan (2007) claim that partnering will continue to grow significantly throughout the UK public sector. They focus on the UK public sector construction industry, and identified that, in future, factors such relationship management with external stakeholders, the general public in the case of public sector projects, will be important to the growth in partnership based projects. Indeed, whilst issues such as cost, quality, timeliness and safety will remain crucial to successful delivery, objectives such as sustainable and environmental development will grow in importance, and failure to acknowledge and address these issues will again pose threats to movement. Swan and Khalfan’s research showed that the industry is already moving forward, with a su

Paintballing :: essays research papers

paintballing   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Paintballing is a fairly new sport that takes a combination of good equipment, athleticism, and skill. This sport was invented when â€Å" A friend of ours found this gun in a agricultural catolouge that was used by cattlemen to mark cows. It wasn’t long afterwords that we bought two of these things and had ourselves a little duel. After it was over we knew that we had stumbled apon something great† –Hayes Noel. Paintballing is a fairly easy concept to explain, One team essentially hunt the other team. Players are armed with paint filled marble sized balls that when shot, travel at about 60 mph.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There are many different forms of this game that can be played. There is the most popular game which is single elimination, or if you are hit once (and the paintball breaks), then you must remove yourself from the game. Another game is capture the flag, two armed teams both have flags at an assigned station. You have to capture the other teams flag and bring it to your teams station without getting eliminated. The last game that i will tell you about was also the first game. Two armed players stand back to back, with only one shot, a third person tells the two players to take ten paces and after the players have gone the required distance, they turn and shoot. If one person hits the other, they win.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The euqipment of paintballing is very advanced, in the begining, no saftey gear was required. Now, it is mandatory. Each player MUST wear a mask. The average player will be armed with a gun, a co2 or nitrogen tank, and about 200-400 stored paintballs that are kept in pods. A mid quality semi automatic gun can be purchased for about $100. But prices can range up to $1000.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The question that most people ask when purchasing a gun ask â€Å"What kind of gun do I want? Well, it depends what you want. If you are a new paintballer and want a gun to play around with, then you might look into buying a Wal-Mart pump action gun. If you want a quality gun that will perform in a game, then you want a semi- automatic gun that costs from 100-200 dollars.

Artificial Intelligence, Are the Machines Taking over Essay

While a machine is just a machine made of metal, plastic, silicone and computer chips, it is only as smart as the human that programmed it right? The strides made thus far are only be the beginning of the huge impact and achievements of the computer revolution , and technological advances are creating machines, usually computers that are able to make seemingly intelligent decisions, or act as if possessing intelligence of a human scale. It is only a matter of time before we live in a world of robots that serve humans as portrayed in the 20th Century Fox movie â€Å"I Robot†, because researchers are creating systems which can mimic human thought, understand speech and even play games with us. As our minds evolve, so does our imagination and the creations we come up with. Artificial intelligence may have been first imagined as an attempt at replicating our own intelligence, but the possibilities of achieving true artificial intelligence is closer than any of us have imagined. Computers, when first invented were fast at computing data, but now they communicate and calculate data much faster than most human beings, but still have difficult fulfilling certain functions such as pattern recognition. Today, research in artificial intelligence is advancing rapidly, and many people feel threatened by the possibility of a robot taking over their job, leaving human beings without work. When computers were first developed in the 1950’s, the hype about how machines could think like human beings took the scientific world by storm, but the truth of the matter was that computers were very slow, and not capable of what inventors thought they could be. A few years later, an IBM computer defeated world chess champion Gary Kasparov at a game of chess and the hype was reborn. People immediately believed that computers would take over the world and robots would be here to stay. When thinking of Artificial  Intelligence (AI), we have to look at what is considered both strong AI and weak AI. Strong AI makes the bold claim that computers can be made to think on a level at least equal to humans; that they are capable of cognitive mental states. This is the kind of AI that is portrayed in movies like â€Å"I Robot†. What this means is that the computer thinks and reasons like a human being. This then becomes the human-like AI. Also a form of strong AI is the non-human like AI in which computer program develops a totally non-human sentience, and a non-human way of thinking and reasoning. Weak AI simply states that some â€Å"thinking-like† features can be added to computers to make them more useful tools; that machines can simulate human cognition, in other words act as if they are intelligent. This has already started to happen, for example, speech recognition software. Much of the focus during the development of AI research draws from an experimental approach to psychology, looking at things such as mood and personality and emphasizes what may be called linguistic intelligence. In an article from the University of Zurich titled â€Å"Experimental Standards in Research on AI and Humor when Considering Psychology† Laughter is a significant feature of human communication, and machines acting in roles like companions or tutors should not be blind to it. So far, the progress has been limited that allows computer-based applications to deal with laughter and its recognition in the human user. In consequence, only few interactive multimodal systems exist that utilizes laughter in interaction† (Platt et Al 2012). Laughter is partly a contribution to moods in human beings and in research this is just one element that is being attempted to be recreated in AI. â€Å"Understanding the psychological impact of the interface between computer and human allows for the evaluation of the AI’s success† (Platt et Al 2012). Linguistic intelligence is best explained or shown in the Turing test. Named for Alan Turing who in 1937, being one of the â€Å"first people to consider the philosophical implications of intelligent machines† (Bowles 2010), the Turning test was designed to â€Å"prove whether or not a computer was intelligent† (Bowles 2010). The test consisted of a judge having a conversation with both a person and a computer, both hidden behind curtains to determine the difference between the person and the computer. If the determination could not be made then the computer was considered to be intelligent. â€Å"The Turing Test became a founding concept in the philosophy of artificial intelligence â€Å"(Bowles 2010). AI development also draws information and theories from animal studies, specifically with insects. By studying insects, it has been shown that insect movements are easier to emulate with robots that those movements of humans. It has also been argued that animals, also simpler than humans should be easy to mimic as well, however insect study has proven to be more productive. Practical applications of such computers with artificial intelligence could really be endless in the world. One such application was presented in 1997 with the creation of Deep Blue a chess playing computer by IBM. In that same year, â€Å"Deep Blue was able to beat Garry Kasparov, the world’s highest ranking chess player, in a series of six matches† (Bowles 2010). Deep Blue was a highly powerful computer that was programmed to solve the complex, strategic game of chess. But IBM’s goal behind Deep Blue was a much grander challenge. Other applications include optical character recognition such as that in a license plate reader that is used on police cars. License Plate Reading (LPR) Technology uses specialized cameras and computers to quickly capture large numbers of photographs of license plates, convert them to text and compare them quickly to a large list of plates of interest. LPR systems can identify a target plate within seconds of contact with it, allowing law enforcement to identify target vehicles that might otherwise be overlooked. This technology is not only used for locating violators of registration and licensing laws but also for the use of Amber Alerts when children are abducted and the vehicle plate that the perpetrator is operating is known. Another widely known practical application that many people of the world know and use is speech recognition such as â€Å"siri† of the Apple IPhone fame. This type of software is designed to learn how the operator speaks and from listening to a sample of the operator’s voice can determine whether to call â€Å"home† or â€Å"work† just by saying the command. Despite the conflicting opinions on the whether human beings will be successful in creating an artificial intelligence, the possibility is very real and must be considered from both ethical and philosophical perspectives. Substantial thought must be given not only to if human beings can create an AI, but if they should create an AI. Certainly we have crossed over the question of â€Å"if we should create AI† and in some forms it does exist today. Isaac Asimov wrote, in his book â€Å"I Robot† in 1923 the â€Å"Three Rules of Robotics† which are as follows: â€Å"1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; 2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws† (Bowles 2010). The legal and ethical dimensions of AI are strongly linked. Scientists and researchers argue that ethical considerations, such as making sure AI is programmed to act in an ethical way, making sure the ethics of people who design and use AI technology are sound, and ensuring people treat AI agents (robots) in an ethical manner are increasingly being seen in terms of legal responsibilities. If self-aware AI agents do indeed become more ubiquitous in the future, legal theory provides the framework for considering responsibility and agency. There are those who argue that these agents will need to have legal rights, the more they become advanced. Questions are being asked such as, should AI agents be given partial responsibility for their actions? Another consideration is how responsibility is transferred between humans and AI agents. This thought process consists of us considering how to prevent humans from unjustly attributing responsibility for their actions onto AI agents or deciding whether to charge an AI agent’s programmer or owner with negligence if an AI agent causes damage or breaks the law. Most of us have seen the movie, â€Å"I Robot† from 20th Century Fox. The lead robot in the movie â€Å"Sonny† was designed to look and move like a human. Will Smith’s character even asks then question â€Å"why do you give them faces†. There have already been great strides in producing a computer that is faster than the human brain and for that matter much more accurate as well. There are robots that exist today, not that they could walk down the street and not be noticed or pointed out as a robot because of their movements, but they do exist and they do function based on their programming. In conclusion, we are seeing more and more technology that is making our lives easier. From our cell phone assistants such as â€Å"Siri†, to our Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (UAV’s) that are not only saving pilots but also saving the need to put boots on the ground. These machines or agents are just that, machines right? They are made of metal, plastic, silicone and computer chips. If I tell a UAV to turn left it will listen, right? I don’t believe that the machines are taking over just yet, but with computers such as â€Å"Deep Blue† being the founding father of AI, and human curiosity to see if true AI can be created the possibility exists.

CHEM Lab

Another source of error is that possibly the ice and salt did not get to a low enough temperature, but again I would think this would alter the results giving a higher temperature instead of a lower one. Something that would give too low a temperature is if the thermometer bulb was directly on the test tube, and the temperature decreased because of the ice/salt mixture instead of the alcohol/water mixture. This is what probably happened in my experiment. Another thing that would cause the temperature to be too low is contamination in the alcohol, contributing more solute to the solution than expected. Using table salt and road salt, how would you design an experiment to determine which of these affected the boiling point of water the most? Which substance do you expect will affect it the most and why? Procedure: Weight out 1 g of salt and put it in ml of water in a test tube. Put a thermometer in and put the test tube over a Bunsen burner, recording the temperature till it boils. Ass uming equal masses (1 g each) of salt, the table salt should affect it more because sodium is smaller than calcium and there would be more moles of table salt in g than there would be of road salt.Conclusion: Freezing point depression occurs when a solute is dissolved in a solvent. The solute makes the freezing point of the solvent decrease. How much the freezing point decreases depends on the immolate of the solute. The higher the immolate, the more the freezing point will decrease. The solute molecules interfere with the solvent freezing, and so the solution will have to get colder to freeze than the pure substance would. There was a large percent error in this experiment. There were a number of things the test tube and got too cold from the ice/salt mixture on the outside of the test be.Some other sources of error are measuring the alcohol or the water incorrectly. The graduated cylinder is not very accurate when measuring small amounts such as 2 ml. Some of the alcohol could hav e evaporated during the experiment since it is so volatile. There could have been some contamination in the alcohol, such as other solutes, that would contribute to the decrease in freezing point. I used 91% spoilsport alcohol instead of 70%, and this may be a cause of error as well. The formula holds only for relatively small amounts of solute, and maybe the 91% was too much.This experiment did not turn out as well as I had hoped. Perhaps if there were a way to keep the thermometer off of the test tube itself so that it doesn't get so cold, that would be a better procedure. Perhaps if you could cork the test tube (if it were a large enough one to fit a cork in it) with a hole for the thermometer, then the cork would hold the thermometer in the solution instead of having it touch the sides of the test tube. No matter the numerical results of the experiment, I did learn a lot more about freezing point depression than I had known previously. That aspect of the experiment was successfu l.

Biomedical and Biopsychosocial models of care Essays

Biomedical and Biopsychosocial models of care Essays Biomedical and Biopsychosocial models of care Paper Biomedical and Biopsychosocial models of care Paper Competing positions of the human organic structure as either a biological phenomena or a complex microcosm borne of its environment. hold provided the footing for the development of two different theoretical accounts of attention: the biomedical theoretical account. and the recovery-based psychosocial theoretical account. The theoretical account of attention adopted by attention suppliers to a great extent influences the nature of the intervention given. and the flight of a patient’s journey through unwellness. to wellness. Historically. the biomedical theoretical account of attention has been the foundation of Western medical specialty. and has remained mostly undisputed as the dominant theoretical account of attention used in the bringing of psychiatric intervention. It is practiced with a focal point on disease. pathology. and cure’ . The outgrowth of the biopsychosocial theoretical account ( Engel. 1977 ) and psychosocial rehabilitation has provided the mental wellness sphere with an effectual option to the biomedical theoretical account. With an attack that is person-centred and recovery focused. it aligns with modern-day attitudes about mental upsets holding their beginnings and impacts in a societal context. This paper will critically analyze and compare the benefits and restrictions of both theoretical accounts of attention. through an geographic expedition of three cardinal countries: ( I ) empowerment/disempowerment of the patient. ( two ) deductions for nursing pattern. and ( three ) outcomes. In psychopathology. the biomedical theoretical account emphasises a pharmacological attack to intervention. and supposes that mental upsets are encephalon diseases caused entirely. or by a combination of chemical instabilities. familial anomalousnesss. defects in encephalon construction. or neurotransmitter dysregulation ( Deacon. 2013 ) . This guess makes up one side of a Descartian divide that exists between biological psychopathology and a biopsychosocial attack to mental wellness attention. Engel ( 1977 ) viewed the biomedical theoretical account as reductionist’ . and posited that it neglected the societal. psychological and behavioral dimensions of unwellness. He proposed a biopsychosocial theoretical account that takes into history the patient. the societal context in which he lives. and the complementary system devised by society to cover with the riotous effects of illness’ ( p. 131 ) . It is within this biopsychosocial model. that recovery-focused psychosocial rehabilitation takes topographic point ( Cnaan. Blankertz. Messinger A ; Gardner. 1988 ; King. Lloyd A ; Meehan. 2007 ) . Less nonsubjective than the biomedical theoretical account. psychosocial rehabilitation focuses on the subjective experience of recovery and health. that is. the presence of marks and symptoms may non needfully aline with the individual’s sense of ego and health. ( I ) Empowerment/disempowerment of the patient A relentless unfavorable judgment of the biomedical theoretical account is the averment that the patient is disempowered. First. the nature of the doctor-patient relationship suggests that the patient is a inactive receiver of intervention ; the patient is reduced to a diagnosing. and offered diagnosis-specific intervention options. The function of personal pick exists. nevertheless in a limited capacity. Second. the political orientation underpinning the biomedical theoretical account assumes disease to be a divergence from the biological norm. with illness understood in footings of causing and redress ( Deacon. 2013 ; Shah A ; Mountain. 2007 ; Engel. 1977 ) . This perspective assumes the being of some implicit in pathological cause for symptoms and behavior. and focuses on nonsubjective indexs of recovery ( King et al. . 2007 ) . The deductions of this position are that the patient can non. from his ain resources. make anything to better his unwellness. and to impact any alteratio n in his behavior. he must adhere to diagnosis-specific intervention set out by the head-shrinker. It is argued that the ways in which a patient can be disempowered by a psychiatric diagnosing ( stigma. forced hospitalization. long-run pharmacotherapy etc. ) far outweigh any benefits they might have ( Callard. Bracken. David A ; Sartorius. 2013 ) . Relatively. recovery within the model of psychosocial rehabilitation is widely considered to be authorising for consumers of mental wellness services ( Shah A ; Mountain. 2007 ; Callard et Al. . 2013 ) . Two cardinal rules of psychosocial rehabilitation are an accent on a societal instead than medical theoretical account of attention. and on the patient’s strengths instead than pathologies ( King et al. . 2007 ) . Similar to the doctor-patient relationship of the biomedical theoretical account. there exists a relationship between patients. health professionals and clinicians in the psychosocial model. The accent nevertheless is on the formation of a curative confederation ( King et al. . 2007 ) in which recovery is owned by the patient. with professionals and services easing this ownership ( Mountain A ; Shah. 2008 ) . The purpose of psychosocial rehabilitation is for the patient to hold self-government over their unwellness and wellness. and a fulfilled sense of ego despite the possible continuance of symptoms ( Barber. 2012 ) . This is in blunt contrast to the biomedical theoretical account in which unwellness is managed by the practician. and wellness is hallmarked by the absence of symptoms and disease ( Wade A ; Halligan. 2004 ) . The psychosocial position must besides be considered in footings of its possible restrictions. By puting an accent on self-government and self-management of mental unwellness and well-being. there runs a parallel hazard of transfusing a sense of duty or incrimination within the patient when less than desirable wellness results occur. This is of peculiar relevancy in mental wellness scenes. where hapless wellness results are unluckily. likely ( Deacon. 2013 ) . In the biomedical theoretical account. the head-shrinker would offer some little solace to the patient in the signifier of shouldering the majority of the duty. With respect to authorization of the patient. this impression of care’ versus cure’ suggests that the biomedical theoretical account of attention and psychosocial rehabilitation are two viing theoretical accounts of attention that are divorced from one another. They are non. nevertheless. reciprocally sole. and it is deserving observing that modern-day definitions of the biomedical theoretical account at least effort to see the incorporation of recovery-based intervention attacks ( Barber. 2012 ; Mountain A ; Shah. 2008 ; Wade A ; Halligan. 2004 ) . It has been suggested that modern twenty-four hours doctor-patient relationships are far more aligned with the nature of the psychosocial curative confederation. founded on battle and the acknowledgment of accomplishments and cognition of each spouse ( Mountain A ; Shah. 2008 ) . Specifically in a mental wellness scene. it might be argued that the biomedical theoretical account parts ways with psychosocial rehabilitation by usage of irresistible impulse ( Mountain A ; Shah. 2008 ) . The purpose behind much of today’s mental wellness statute law is guided by the political orientations of the biomedical theoretical account. This consequences in patients with a psychiatric diagnosing being often disempowered. by holding their right to self-government overridden by legal powers of irresistible impulse ( Thomas. Bracken A ; Timimi. 2012 ) . Despite a displacement towards self-government by the biomedical theoretical account. mental wellness patients may be forced to accept intervention against their wants. In resistance to this. the psychosocial model favours a community-based. case-managed’ manner of attention ( King et al. . 2007 ) . which seeks to authorise the patient and maintain independency. ( I ) Deductions for nursing pattern The medical theoretical account is a utile model to help the head-shrinker in the designation of upsets and diseases. However. scientists have identified neither a biological cause nor a dependable biomarker for any mental upset ( Deacon. 2013 ) . and arguably. most mental upsets have their beginning and impact in a societal context ( McAllister A ; Moyle. 2008 ) . Therefore. the cogency of the biomedical theoretical account as a nursing theoretical account of attention in mental wellness scenes must be questioned. The across-the-board nature of the attention bringing required by a psychosocial model may. at times. look to be at odds with more traditional’ constructs of nursing. It is understood that the biomedical theoretical account is the theoretical account on which many nurses base their pattern. It is besides the theoretical account that has long dominated the field of psychopathology ( Stickley A ; Timmons. 2007 ) . despite a overplus of literature adopting the importance of the interpersonal sphere and psychosocial factors. Findingss from a survey by Carlyle. Crowe A ; Deering ( 2012 ) showed that mental wellness nurses working in an inpatient scene described the function of mental wellness services. the function of the nurse and nursing intercessions in footings of back uping a medical theoretical account of attention. This was despite acknowledgment amongst the nurses that they used a psychodynamic model for understanding the aetiology of mental hurt. as being a consequence o f interpersonal factors. The jobs with the usage of the biomedical theoretical account in mental wellness nursing are varied. The overruling end of the biomedical theoretical account is cure. and hence nurses that base their pattern on it must besides take for this result. This is evidently troublesome for a forte that treats upsets that may non hold a definable cause. and typically have hapless results ( Deacon. 2013 ) . Sing care’ versus cure’ . the challenge for nurses working in mental wellness scenes where their pattern is underpinned by the medical theoretical account. is the inability to accomplish the result of attention that they believe to be appropriate. that is. a remedy ( Pearson. Vaughan A ; FitzGerald. 2005 ) . In footings of the proviso of nursing attention. the biomedical model’s focal point on disease and the nonsubjective classification of people by disease can function to depersonalize patients and so excessively. the nursing attention provided to them ( Pearson et al. . 2005 ) . It may good be argued that the biomedical theoretical account devalues the function of the nurse. because the humanistic side to attention is diminished in favor of a medical diagnosing and remedy. Overall. the ideals of mental wellness nursing pattern are constrained by the biomedical theoretical account ( McAllister A ; Moyle. 2008 ) . nevertheless. nurses feel comfy utilizing this theoretical account to explicate their pattern. in the absence of a defined option. Psychosocial rehabilitation as an option to the biomedical theoretical account non merely has positive deductions for consumers of mental wellness services but besides to the nurses who provide their attention ( Stickley A ; Timmons. 2007 ) . Indeed. a wealth of literature supports a displacement from the medical theoretical account to a recovery-based. psychosocial attack ( Engel. 1977 ; Barber. 2012 ; Caldwell. Sclafani. Swarbrick A ; Piren. 2010 ; Mountain A ; Shah. 2008 ) . In contrast to the biomedical theoretical account. the nurse-patient curative confederation is at the nucleus of the psychosocial model ( King et al. . 2007 ) . In this manner. the function of the nurse moves off from being task-focused. to actively developing. coordinating and implementing schemes to ease the recovery procedure ( Caldwell et al. . 2010 ) . Additionally. this theoretical account of attention strongly aligns with nursing perceptual experiences of their function as attention suppliers. their beliefs sing the aetiology of mental upsets. and their attitudes towards best pattern ( McAllister A ; Moyle. 2008 ; Carlyle et Al. . 2012 ) . ( I ) Outcomes By and large. the biomedical theoretical account has been associated with huge betterments in medical attention throughout the twentieth century. Despite its relentless laterality of both policy and pattern. the biomedical theoretical account in respects to the bringing of mental wellness attention is characterised by a deficiency of clinical invention and hapless results ( Deacon. 2013 ) . It does. nevertheless. hold its redeeming qualities. The primary strength of the biomedical theoretical account is its nucleus cognition base derived from nonsubjective scientific experiment. its intuitive entreaty. and relevancy to many disease-based unwellnesss ( Pearson et al. . 2005 ; Wade A ; Halligan. 2004 ) . Evidence-based medical specialty allows the head-shrinker to entree nonsubjective grounds about the safety and effectivity of their intercessions ( Thomas et al. . 2012 ) . Shah A ; Mountain ( 2007 ) argue that the model’s strict methods used to garner grounds that have result ed in legion effectual psychopharmacological interventions. can non be translated in assisting to place which specific elements of psychosocial interventions are effectual. This averment is evidenced by a survey documenting the efficaciousness of a psychosocial rehabilitation programme ( Chowdur. Dhariti. Kalyanasundaram. A ; Suryanarayana. 2011 ) in patients with terrible and dogging mental unwellness. The survey showed important betterment for all participants across a scope of parametric quantities used to step degrees of operation. However. the consequences did non uncover the specific effects of assorted constituents of the rehabilitation programme. doing it hard to insulate each constituent and to analyze its consequence. Regardless. the overall benefits of psychosocial rehabilitation should non be ignored merely due to analyze restrictions. Despite the biomedical model’s strict survey methods and evidence-based nucleus. touchable marks of advancement are few and far between. Indeed. the biomedical attack has failed to clarify the really biological footing of mental upset. and besides failed to cut down stigma ( Deacon. 2013 ; Schomerus et Al. . 2012 ) . Kvaale. Haslam A ; Gottdiener ( 2013 ) determined that biogenetic accounts for psychological unwellnesss increase prognostic pessimism’ and perceptual experiences of dangerousness. and make little to cut down stigma. This decision has obvious deductions in a society where the layperson’s. and in fact. nursing student’s apprehension of mental unwellness is a biogenetic. medicalised’ one ( Kvaale et Al. . 2013 ; Stickley A ; Timmons. 2007 ) . In contrast. psychosocial rehabilitation programmes may hold the consequence of cut downing stigma. As antecedently discussed. psychosocial rehabilitation is underpinned by an political orientation that seeks to authorise the patient. Research has shown that authorization and self-stigma are opposite poles on a continuum ( Rusch. Angermeyer A ; Corrigan. 2005 ) . By heightening the patient’s sense of ego. penetration. social functions. and basic self-care maps ( King et al. . 2007 ) . psychosocial rehabilitation programmes have the ability to cut down the negative effects of stigma. In a survey peculiar to patients with schizophrenic disorder ( Koukia A ; Madianos. 2005 ) . health professionals and relations reported lower degrees of aim and subjective load when the patient was engaged in a psychosocial rehabilitation programme. In their geographic expedition into the cogency of evidence-based medical specialty in psychopathology. Thomas et Al. ( 2012 ) differentiate between specific factors ( e. g. pharmacological intercessions aiming specific neurotransmitter instabilities ) . and non-specific factors ( e. g. contexts. values. significances and relationships ) . They determined that non-specific factors are far more of import in relation to positive results. which would back up a psychosocial attack. In recent old ages. public sentiment and policy has become more aligned with the recovery theoretical account. evidenced by the wealth of literature repeating Engel’s ( 1977 ) proposition of a new medical model’ founded on a biopsychosocial attack. Recently. the Australian Government Department of Health acknowledged the positive results associated with a recovery-based theoretical account. and released the National model for recovery-oriented mental wellness services ( 2013 ) . Despite their ideological differences. psychosocial rehabilitation need non be viewed as the antithesis to the biomedical theoretical account. with literature proposing a grade of compatibility between the two that is going more evident in the modern bringing of mental wellness attention ( Barber. 2012 ; Mountain A ; Shah. 2008 ; Shah A ; Mountain. 2007 ) . Decision Recent old ages have seen important alterations in the perceptual experiences of mental unwellness. and the proviso of mental wellness services that are available. The move towards community-based attention. psychosocial rehabilitation programmes. and authorization of the patient through self-government has been accompanied by a growing in research. and positive results for mental wellness consumers. Despite this advancement. modern mental wellness attention is still mostly dominated by the biomedical theoretical account. Whilst modern-day readings of the psychiatric biomedical theoretical account recognize the value of societal and psychological factors. they appear to make so in a manner that relegates those factors to an order below that of biological factors. This occurs in the absence of any definable biological causes for mental upsets ( Deacon. 2013 ) . A modern-day theoretical account is required in modern mental wellness services. Indeed. Barber ( 2012 ) suggests that recovery should be thought of as the new medical theoretical account for psychopathology. 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