The piano Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

The piano - Research Paper Example This followed the invention of other stringed as well as keyboard instruments leading to the development of the piano as it is today. Between 1790 and 1800, there were major improvements in piano technology and sound due to industrial revolution as suggested by Siepmann, (10). These improvements included the new and high quality steel referred to as the piano wire and also the ability to cast iron frames in a precise manner. There was also the increase of the tonal range of the piano from the initial five octaves to the seven and as it is found in the modern piano. The modern piano has 88 keys with the hammer mechanism which is used to bring out the sound of the strings and then the keys activate the sounding. The strings are held in a cast iron frame which is heavy enough and then they are passed over a kind of bridge to where the strings are tuned. The most crucial element in the sounding of the piano is the soundboard which is made of spruce. Due to the rise of pitch standard in t he modern piano there are few pianos which are left in the market today. In playing the piano, the greater the velocity of a pressed key, the greater the force of hitting the strings with the hammer hence a louder note is produced. The Impact of the Piano in Other Countries The piano has played a major part in the music industry in the many countries. For instance it importantly used in the western jazz, television, classical music and film production. These applications are also done in other parts of the world. Many countries have produced great pianists and composers. This is because the keyboard of the piano gives an easy way of handling complex as well as harmonic interplay, hence a good tool for composition of music. The piano has led to the establishment of piano manufacturing companies such as Yamaha which are situated in different countries thus creating employment. For instance the victory enterprise in Japan is the mostly known leading exporter of the used pianos in the w orld. The music industries in many countries has also grown and developed due to the use of the piano as a composer machine. The piano drama film was produced in New Zealand as it was acted by a pianist. Individuals from different countries have developed their career in music with the inspiration of the piano. The Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM), a music institute in China has a piano department which is a nation al centre facilitating the teaching, performance as well as research. Hundreds of pianists have been trained who are now teaching in other music schools, research institutes in china and have even won international prizes music competition. With the efforts of Chinese pianists combined with that of the foreign pianists from Russia the CCOM has been able to establish a system of piano teaching embracing the Chinese as well as the western philosophies. The piano industry in Japan has tremendously grown due to the world wide demand for the instrument. Thus companies such as Yamaha and Kawai from Japan are major piano producing companies in the world. Piano manufacturing companies have also been established in Korea for instance the Alex Steinbach pianos which is produced by Samick Musical Instruments Company. This has led to the increased involvement in music and piano training schools in Korea. With the increased development of the piano, German entered the field of

Orthodox Law Principles Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Orthodox Law Principles - Essay Example Disguising the employment status could be done in a number of ways. It happens even underwritten contracts where it is common knowledge to both the employee and the employer and could also happen if a worker is hired on a more or less informal basis to provide their labor, and simply assumes or is told that they are a contractor. Mostly there is an interposition of an entity that contracts with the business rather than the worker in his personal capacity. This allows drafting faulty contracts due to the absence of the contractor to review the terms therein provided for (Burne, 23)Businesses sometimes do not register their workers as employees. This benefits both the business and the workers who are treated as self-employed in terms of income tax and insurance remittals. However, the business stands to gain more since it can dismiss workers at will due to the ‘open’ contracts and the employees lack protection and rights. Most businesses will pass that their employees have been contracted for the provision of services and consultancy rather than employment. These are sham contracts. These contracts are chosen by immigrant workers in most countries who are desperate for jobs and do not have proper immigration papers or required skill to seek permanent employment. It is easier for them since they try to avoid the authorities.Many would not find the problem with sham self-employment but it favors the unfettered freedom to engage and dismiss workers as contractors when they are indeed employees.

Creative Web design & CMS Development Assignment

Creative Web design & CMS Development - Assignment Example Fries Deli also provides free delivery of packaged food items within the locality only if the requested items cost sum to a certain limit. At the outlet, the customers are handed the menu that contains the items with pricing. This menu is also displayed on top of the counter. But for the customer that request for home delivery the menu is informed to them over the phone from which the customer chooses. The purpose of this report is to review and convey the basic theoretical and implementation knowledge of web development through suggesting two enhancements to the existing setup of Fries Deli. The report presents an online static informational system for the Fries Deli and a dynamic feedback system for publishing user feedback regarding the various Fries Deli food services. It implicitly highlights how the technologies are picked from the available choices in view to the requirements of these two websites. 2. Theoretical Research and Evaluation Websites comprise of information coded i n a form which can easily travel over the internet. The informational needs of a person or company keep varying [1]. In accordance to these ever changing requirements, websites are of different types. Websites could be informational (static pages where content remains the same) [2], data-driven (dynamic pages where the updated data is displayed) [3], interactive (where some type of input is required from the user), closed access (private i.e. accessible only to authorized users), open websites (accessible to public) and website with frequently updated content. In order to handle this wide variety of websites, there are different methods of creating them. In the earlier ages of web development, the developers used to build websites from scratch. With the increase in web complexity [4] and advancement of web technology, web tools and editors [5] were developed that either assisted with the coding process, or made the web designing process entirely visual or both. And finally the conte nt management systems were introduced [6]. Whatever method was chosen, the websites created are required to be usable and accessible [7, 8]. The objective of the website is to share and access information. The website should be designed such that it is easy to use and learn them [9]. They must allow for both the abled and disabled users to be able to retrieve information. In order to access websites, they need to be assigned a domain name and be hosted onto some server wherefrom they can be accessed. The browser is a client application the runs on the user’s computer. It takes the request from user, transmits them onto the network and displays the server’s response to the request. Thus there are two areas where data can be manipulated; the client side and the server side. There are web standards that require to be followed by the websites created [10, 11]. XHTML, HTML is the standardized markup language used for presenting the content of a website i.e. the headings, co ntents, links, images, forms, etc. CSS is the standardized styling language used for defining the visual style of the website interface i.e. the colour of headings, text, links, etc. JavaScript, AJAX, JQuery, Flash are some of the language for programing the client side scripts. Php, Asp, .NET, etc. are some of the l

Development and use of explosives over the past century Essay

Development and use of explosives over the past century - Essay Example The first record of the usage of it exists dates back to around early 1600s in China (Tanner, 2014). During this time, the black powder was usually used in Hungary for blasting purposes. Mostly the quarries used the black powder for mining purpose blasting. The next mention of the uses of black powder is found in the context of tin mine blasting in the countries such as England after which the black powder was adopted by the Switzerland for road construction (Kelly, 2004, pp.198). The first documented form of mention of the use of black powder was in the year 1605 when Guy Fawkes put barrels of explosives in the British Parliament to blow up the building and assassinate the then king of England, King James I. This incident was named the â€Å"Gunpowder Plot†. It was one of the earliest conspiracies to involve the use of explosives and the black powder. This conspiracy of assassinating the King was not successful as the person plotting it was apprehended beforehand and caught. Another mention of the black gunpowder is prominent in the history is during the year 1773 when the people who went on with the demolition gathered 150 pounds of black gunpowder to demolish the Holy Trinity Cathedral which was 700 years old and one of the most oldest church in Waterford, Ireland. Later a report was published in the then famous newspaper named The Irish Times that the entire church was reduced to rubble within minutes and this incident was accompanied with a deafen ing loud boom that shook the entire area. This incident is important in the history of explosives as it marks as the first successful attempt in which the explosives blew down an entire structure and caused mass collateral damage. America adopted the use of explosives for the demolition purposes almost as early as 1850s. It was during this time that San Francisco was torn by a continuous series of many great fires. The use of the explosives in this case was because the city council members wanted to

Film Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 4

Film - Essay Example Therefore, Robert De Niro favored him by deploying other tactics and campaigns to portray him as the best. This was seen in his campaign slogans. Thirdly, Robert De Niro had a conflict of interest, which was unethical. He developed propaganda that favored the president leading to his re-election. However, the conflict of interest emanated when he felt jealous that the media did not recognize him as the person behind the president’s re-election. This made him want to call the press to tell the truth about the president re-election leading to his death. Fourthly, Robert De Niro did not strengthen the public trust, but instead fed them with lies in favor of the president. This is because he lied to the public that the president was a clean man, despite the sex scandal that was fresh in the people’s mind. When the people realized his lies, he changed the tune and fabricated information regarding the missing people in Albania. Lastly, Robert De Niro failed to foster informed decision through open communication. He was dancing to the tune of the president because he did all that the president wanted. He was not open to receive information from other people who were also interested in finding a solution to the problem. Wag the Dog may be interpreted to mean diverting the public attention from the truth or something important to a less significant issue. In the movie, the most important point, which was going to determine the outcome of the election, was the sex scandal that befell the president. It was in the public, and everyone knew it. However, Wag the Dog was realized when attention was diverted to the fake constructed was about Albanian terrorists. The aim was to divert the attention of the media to dwell on the false war and stop spending time on the sex scandal. However, this did not do much since the CIA detected the fake annotation and never wanted to fail the

The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet Essay Example for Free

The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet Essay Lord Capulet is partially at fault because he told Juliet to take her time and find someone she loves to get married. As well as Friar Laurence because he made hasty decisions about marrying behind the backs of their parents. Romeo and Juliet because they went behind everyone’s back at such a young age to marry one another. In the tragic love story Romeo and Juliet, written by Shakespeare, Friar Laurence, Romeo, Juliet, and Lord Capulet are all at fault for Romeo and Juliet killing themselves because the use of hasty decisions. Lord Capulet, Juliet’s father, was making hasty decisions by trying to over whelm all the sadness from Tybalt’s death with the ‘good’ news of Juliet’s wedding with Paris. He tells Juliet that she is going to marry Paris that Thursday and it will be a big celebration. Only a day later he changes the date from that Thursday to a day before, Wednesday. Capulet was not the only one to make hasty decisions, Friar Laurence did as well. He was the one that agreed to marry Romeo and Juliet behind their families back. In the intro to scene six it says â€Å"†¦the two confess their loves for each other and prepare to get married by the friar†. Friar Laurence also gave Juliet the potion that would make her seem like she was dead for â€Å"two and forty hours†. Romeo and Juliet were also to blame for their deaths though. They are the ones who made the hasty decision to marry behind their parents’ backs. They were only thirteen and about sixteen as well. If Romeo had been there to talk to Juliet he would have known what was going on and he wouldn’t have killed himself because he would have known that Juliet was still alive. If Romeo didn’t kill himself neither would have Juliet. So, there were many people to blame in the deaths of the very tragic yet romantic Romeo and Juliet; Lord Capulet, Friar Laurence, and of course, themselves Romeo and Juliet.

ERP implementation and significance in banking industry

ERP implementation and significance in banking industry The Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (i.e., simply ICICI bank of India) is Indias 2nd largest bank (first being State Bank of India SBI) currently with total assets of value more than 3,634 billion which approximately amounts to US $ 81 billion. For the financial year ended 31st March 2010; the Net Operable Profit After Tax was found to be 40.238 billion which is approximately US $ 898 million. To achieve such a financially high value, the bank needed to have a huge network. Today, its network is one of the biggest networks in the country having 2528 corporate branches and about 6000 ATM centers across the country. It is currently present in 19 countries. Besides India (where it originated); the bank has subsidiaries in USA, UK, Singapore, Bahrain, Hong Kong etc. and representative offices in UAE, China, South Africa, Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia etc. The company is focussing on more and more growth and further expecting to expand its market structure. The firm i.e., ICICI Bank in the current scenario; offers an enormous wide range of banking products and various financial services to a large number of corporate and retail customers through a variety of delivery channels and through its specialised subsidiaries in the areas of investment banking, venture capital and insurance sectors. The bank today had multiple number of rewards and its innovative solutions has conquered the minds of customers and managed to win over their hearts. The companys network is the biggest and it had more than 15 million customers by the current year. The growth achieved by the company in the recent few years is noteworthy. ORGANIZATIONAL OBJECTIVES As a firm grows, it has certain challenges to face and its profitability totally depends on how it uses various available resources to safeguard itself. The best way to avoid competitors and rivalry firms from sidelining you is to continuously upgrade yourself with latest technology and market trends. The main objective of ICICI bank was to have a universal bank which can provide required value to customers with financial solutions. High technology was required and at the same time, it was necessary to have a proper framework to avoid risks associated. Since, there were various applications involved; the level of vulnerabilities needed to be checked and minimized. Key Business drivers These factors govern the way the firm should manage its business. ICICI bank was established when the economic concepts of liberalizations and globalizations just started in India. Before the arrival of ICICI bank, the banking sector was under control of several state owned and foreign owned banks. But with the arrivals of economic trend like liberalization globalization; Reserve Bank of India (then, apex bank of the nation) had paved the way for private banks to come in. The state owned banks had huge network but no or little innovation involved (focus on service) while reverse was the case with foreign banks. State owned banks focussed on only poor people and gave only simple interface without provoding any special features while foreign banks targetted individuals or corporations with high net worth. So, the only opportunity possible for ICICI bank to grab market share was to target middle class on a larger scale and that too by innovations. Doing this analysis, ICICI Bank decided to position itself as a technology savvy customer friendly bank. Problems with the existing system The existing system had many applications running simultaneously to satisfy the requirements of the customers. But those applications had several vulnerabilities and their weaknesses needed to be addressed before it gets exploited by the customers and competitors. Pravin Vohra, Group CTO, ICICI bank was tensed by the speed of online transactions and he points out that the applications arent centralized enough that makes security testing of applications a highly time consuming task. He wanted to search for proper vendor to organize the given set of applications so that all the security tests can be covered as soon as possible. The main problem was that ICICI had poor risk management and they badly needed some framework to help them assess risk. Secondly the database used in the system wasnt centralized and hence the main task in front of the industry was to have centralized database so that data access becomes simple process. Expectations from the technology Now, the challenge in front of ICICI bank was to have proper framework so that all the weaknesses are corrected at the lowest possible costs. As per words of Chandra Kochar, executive director of ICICI bank; Our objective of creating a universal bank providing end to end financial services clearly required solutions which were based on new generation technology, offered end to end functionality and were highly flexible and scalable. The main problem in the existing system was risk associated with all the applications and most of the applications at that time; needed to be tested continuously so, the bank required a software to manage the testing of all applications autonomously so that the time is not wasted in manually searching for faults and available recovery solutions. To manage proper assessment of risk associated with applications, ICICI needed to have the technology which can test applications and correct problems if possible. In order to penetrate into the market, the bank needed to have the necessary technology to make system strong and to ensure smooth flow of information within the system. The other requirements from the software in India were to have open systems approach, future proof excellent technology and best of breed retail etc. ICICI wanted to achieve economies of scale. Further more, ICICI wanted to have a centralized database to support all applications going on and needed a solution which can boost up its infrastructure in friendly manner. IMPLEMENTING THE ERP TECHNOLOGY ICICI bank had positioned itself as a technology focussed industry. Most of its plants facilities were on the verge of automation and this was mandatory to achieve customer satisfaction and to rival the foreign firms. Selecting the vendor The company had some requirements in front of them and their job was to analyze which vendor would satisfy their requirements. So, they went through brochures of various Application developers and studied software requirements. After studying various features offered by different vendors they decided to shortlist 2 vendors Finacle Core Banking Solution by Infosys and SAP by IBM. ICICI then finalized Fiancle Core Banking solution because it was segmented for financial institutions only. They took Finacle because of its specificity made it suitable for banks, secondly Finacles future proof technology, and extensive corporate banking features, scalable architecture, best of breed retail made it a technology worth selecting. Some of the key technological features offered by Infosys Finacle were: Advizor Helps Banks to deliver services through a self service channel Alerts Provides banks with the capability to alert end users about updates and new services Consumer Relationship Management CRM is a modular, multi lingual application to help bank to have centralized database containing all the customer information want. Core Banking CBS addresses various strategic and key technological processes taking place in a bank. It checks faults associated and corrects them. Direct banking This marketing tool helps banks to directly acquire, track and service customers. E banking Provides high flexibility for customization and robust security features Mobile banking Empowers banking transactions on mobile channels like SMS or GPRS Wealth Management Modular and integrated investment management system for specific purpose Operational data store Data warehouse centralized and secured. Treasury Finacle is an integrated treasury solution covering the entire deal lifecycle for broad range of trading and capital markets products. The major advantage was that Finacle offered so many features at comparative lesser costs compared to other similar technolnogical products. Keeping these many wide and industrial applicable features in mind, the technological software solution used was Finacle and the vendor was Infosys. Problems faced during the beginning The implementation of any technology cannot be successful right from the beginning as risks are involved. The 1st step involved is to make this technological change understandable by humans and hence the challenge was in front of ICICI was to ensure proper training to their employees. For that purpose, special officials were employed. Training were given to employees right from the day when technology was deployed. This was a key step in maintaing vendor relationships. Integrating this technological change with the existing system is the major hurdle which is to be overcomed. The biggest challenge which Finacle had was to ensure Straight Through Processing (known as STP in corporate segment) of various financial transactions. With the ICICI group having many companies under its huge corporate umbrella. Finacle had to integrate with various corporate wide applications like Credit Card, M banking, mutual funds, brokerage, call center and other applications taking place simultaneously. ICICI bank went with a phase of organic and inorganic growth to expand market share. First it bought out Bank of Madurai and then had a reverse merger with parent firm i.e., ICICI limited. Therefore, managing with the technology change was a hurdle for the bank. To overcome this obstacle, ICICI decided to have a strategic partnership with the software vendor i.e., Infosys. That strategic partnership started in 1994 and that close collaboration in 1997 led to many innovations. Getting the benefits during the end Once the problems with the implementation are identifed and corrected via proper planning toolkits, the success and benefits are guaranteed. The major advantage with Finacle was that it was a scalable and open system architecture and this made it a successful implementation. In 2000 only 400, 000 transactions while this figure was more than 2 million in 2005 years so, popularity of the bank drastically increased in only 4 years. The risks associated with people, process and technology was managed and this made ICICI a profitable firm. In 1997, ICICI was the first bank to ensure electronic banking. This made ICICI establish itself as the leader in the e commerce segment. The main advantage of using Finacle was that only 25 % routine transaction take place through branches and remaining through various delivery channels. http://www.infosys.com/finacle/Images/icici_cs_img1.gif Fig: Finacle offering various services in ICICI. Thus, the use of Finacle has helped ICICI in cutting costs and time and managing automatically various transactions that take place on a day to day basis. As shown above, ICICI managed to penetrate into various market segments by the enormous features offered by Fiancle. Today, most of the transactions take place at the bank center by its various distribution channels and not at the branches. CONCLUSIONS After studying the given case, it can be understood that what role the technological advances play in growt A powerful of a bank. A highly scalable and flexible technology platform is essential for organizations to manage growth and compete successfully. Such a software is Finacle. Fiancle, a leading IT Core Banking Solution has helped ICICI achieving its objectives across the network. Though ICICI faced certain problems and challenges in the beginning, they managed to win in the end. Thus, investing in technology helped ICICI get rich dividends. The bank has successfully used the Finacle and has managed to successfully deploy the solution in the areas of core banking, consumer driven e-banking (Electronic B 2 C segment), direct banking, corporate e-banking (Electronic B 2 B segment) and Customer Relationship Management. Thus, Finacle guaranteed flexibility to achieve proper segmentation. This helped ICICI in growing its market and having some edge over the competition. because of its high trust on technology, ICICI Bank is recognized as a leader in the region and has won a large number of awards worldwide for its technology-driven initiatives. The bank has used core technology as a strategic differentiator, thus redefining the rules of banking in India and additionally also showing how technology can do some good in transforming a banks business.