Examine How Diet Can Affect Health

Diet means the kind of food a person customarily eats and this can affect someone positively or negatively, e.g. healthy eating can have a positive effect on someone. Healthy eating is consuming the right quantities of food from a range of foods. This is known as a balanced diet and this is essential to be healthy because if you don’t consume the right amount of foods, an excessive amount of sugar and salts, can result in being malnourished. It is important for us to eat healthy because it gives our body the nutrients it needs to perform physically and can strengthen our immune system. Healthy eating doesn’t only affect us physically, it can affect us emotionally, intellectually and socially. An example would be a person consuming an excessive amount of food or not eating the right proportion can make them feel insecure about their body, which would affect someone emotionally. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/153998.php (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://www.livestrong.com/article/342648-the-positive-effects-of-a-healthy-diet/ (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/enhance-your-wellbeing/health/diet-nutrition/how-does-diet-impact-health (accessed on 09/10/2015) Physical Health Read also Six Dimensions of Health Worksheet A person’s diet can have a positive impact on their physical health. I’ve already mentioned that eating the right proportion can strengthen the immune system and give us the nutrients we need to perform physically. This is important because strengthening the immune system would mean fighting foreign intruders, like pathogenic bacteria and viruses and would also destroy cells within the body that may become an illness. Eating high amounts of fruits and vegetables would decrease infections, which would fasten the healing of injuries and infections and would decrease vulnerability to symptoms and difficulties from immune system dysfunction. According to Live Science article on the ‘Good Diet, Exercise Keep the Brain Healthy’, eating a well-balanced diet would mean â€Å"protecting the brain from damage, and counteracting the effects of aging.† This is positive impact because the brain is delicate, so it would be essential to shield the brain because damaging the brain would affect a person mentally, physically, socially and emotionally. Counteracting age would be beneficial because it would enable someone in the life stage of late adulthood be physically healthy because they can do exercise and do sports since they are counteracting age. Carolyn Robbins article on The Positive Effect of Health also shows the importance of diet. The article states that â€Å"giving your body the correct fuel will give you more energy and an overall sense of well-being.† This links to what I mentioned about nutrients providing the fuel we need to perform physically, food provides energy. http://www.livescience.com/2675-good-diet-exercise-brain-healthy.html (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/sci_tech/features/health/healthyliving/dietrisk.shtml (accessed on 09/10/2015) However, diet can have a negative impact on a person’s physical health. Physical activities are a great way of maintaining a healthy body, but an excessive amount of exercise would cause health problems. The person can feel tired, catch illnesses easily, is regularly sore and may have lack of sleep. This would make the person’s physical health weaken and may lead to affecting the other PIES. An excessive amount of salt and sugar can lead to illnesses such as diabetes or coronary heart disease, these bad habits can be passed on to family members. Passing on bad eating habits would result on children becoming obese and vulnerable to diseases, such as type 2 diabetes. It is important to have a balance proportion of carbohydrates, fats, proteins, dairies, and fruits and vegetables. This is significant in diet because eating too much would result on the person becoming obese, this later can result on bigger health problems. Nursing Times article states malnourished occurs when a person â€Å"has a poor diet that provides them with an incorrect balance of the basic food groups.† This means that a person has consumed an imbalance amount of food from the food group. For example someone may eat more dairy product than fruits and vegetables. This would affect someone physically because it would result on slower immune system and reduce muscle and tissue mass. http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2012/12/28/7-hidden-signs-of-overtraining.aspx (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-information/mental-health-a-z/P/physical-health-mental-health/ (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://www.nursingtimes.net/whats-new-in-nursing/malnutrition/5001811.article (accessed on 09/10/2015) Intellectual Health Diet can affect people intellectually, eating a balanced diet can boost intelligence because a person is able to be more focused due to the nutrients being provided. Nutrients are important for growth. In taking the right amount of food would result on a person’s brain functioning properly. Oily fish is an example of food that boost a person’s intelligences. Disabled World article on â€Å"Why Fish Oil is Brain Fuel† states that the â€Å"long chain polyunsaturated Omega 3 fatty acids are the building blocks of the brain itself and are only found in any significant quantities in oily fish and of course fish oil.† These help strengthen the synapses in your brain related to memory. This is a positive impact on a person’s intellectual health because Omega-3 acid are beneficial for lowering blood pressure and Dr Madeleine Portwood have steadily found that fish oil expands behaviour, concentration levels and learning in the classroom. A high concentration level is essential for learning new information because if you are not focused than you would not process the information and therefore resulting in poor intellectual development. Good behaviour would improve a person’s contribution to learning and this would lead to improving the learning atmosphere in classrooms. http://www.topuniversities.com/blog/foods-fuel-brain (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/articles/intelligenceandmemory/omega_three.shtml (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/fishoilbrainfood.shtml (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/brain-food-why-the-government-wants-your-child-to-take-omega-3-the-fish-oil-supplement-481930.html (accessed on 09/10/2015) However, diet can have a negative impact on a person’s intellectual health because eating the wrong proportion of food can affect someone academically. For example; a student studying for exams should stay away from processed food because it can lead to them feeling drained due to the chemicals in the ingredients. This would decrease the performance of the student in the exam and therefore, the student would achieve a grade that is not their potential. Fossette Allane article on ‘How Does Healthy Eating Affect Physical, Mental & Social Health?’ states that â€Å"you may feel restless or distracted or develop a headache, all of which can impair intellectual performance.† This means that certain food can have a negative impact on our health because if we are restless, distracted or have a headache we are less likely to learn, thus have a negative impact on our intellectual health. http://www.livestrong.com/article/445701-how-does-eating-healthy-affect-your-physical-mental-social-health/ (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-information/mental-health-a-z/d/diet/ (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/eating-healthy-affect-physical-mental-social-health-6972.html (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://theconversation.com/you-are-what-you-eat-how-diet-affects-mental-well-being-27115 (accessed on 09/10/2015) Emotional Health What a person consumes can have a dramatic effect on them emotionally. The rapid increase on the number of people that are obese worldwide is related to disorders, such as depression. Children that are obese are often insecure about their body shape. This may be because of media influences and people views on beauty, more people see skinny people to be more appealing. An increase in appetite and not enough exercise can be viewed as a symptom of depression and people with depression are twice as more likely to eat more and less likely to exercise. Due to the lack of exercise and the excessive eating, the person would be more likely to be unhealthy because they are putting on body fat and not losing any. This may lead the person in viewing themselves as ‘worthless’ or ‘ugly’ because their body is putting on weight, so therefore there stomach would grow. This may cause them to be more insecure and feel like that people are making fun of them for the way they lo ok. Anorexia nervosa and bulimia are another eating disorder that has emotionally impacted someone’s life. Anorexia nervosa and bulimia is when someone that sees themselves in being imperfect and would go into extreme measures to become perfect. Similar to obesity, anorexia nervosa and bulimia can make someone feel ‘worthless’ and insecure and not see themselves as beautiful. Eating disorders would cause someone to be emotionally unstable and broken. Help Guide had stated that with anorexia nervosa â€Å"the desire to lose weight becomes more important than anything else.† This shows that with eating disorders the person can become emotionally unstable that they crave to lose or gain weight. http://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/enhance-your-wellbeing/health/diet-nutrition/how-does-diet-impact-health (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/eating-healthy-affect-physical-mental-social-health-6972.html (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://www.prevention.com/food/food-remedies/foods-proven-boost-mood-and-happiness (accessed on 09/10/2015) Nevertheless, diet can have a positive impact on our emotional health. Some people feel satisfied when eating processed food because the food can contain substances that lift self-esteem. Alex Korb says that â€Å"your brain releases dopamine in anticipation of eating good food, and that anticipation makes eating even more pleasurable.† This meaning that food can bring a good feeling when we are eating it. Food can play with our emotions; majority of people crave ice cream when they are overwhelmed and some eat chocolate when celebrating good news. Sara Tomm states that â€Å"when you look good, you feel good and you have self-confidence and fewer inhibitions.† This means that a person can have confidence can be increased through feeling good about your image. The way you view yourself can have an important role on your self-esteem. http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/emotional-effects-bad-diet-2711.html (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://www.everydayhealth.com/depression/depression-and-obesity.aspx (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://www.helpguide.org/articles/eating-disorders/anorexia-nervosa.htm (accessed on 09/10/2015) Social Health Diet can affect a person’s health positively because eating the right proportion can make someone more social. When a person feels happy, their self-esteem and confidence increase and therefore, they would be more willing to social with other people; the gathering could be a family dinner. Eating a healthy balanced diet would lower illnesses related to malnourishment and hence would make the person more social. Leah Hyslop article ‘Socially Awkward? Eat Sauerkraut and Pickles’ states that â€Å"fermented foods, such as sauerkraut and yogurt, may help alleviate the symptoms of chronic shyness.† This means that certain food that are fermented, which is the process in which food is visible to bacteria and yeasts, either through immunisation or naturally through the air, can play with our moods. Sauerkraut and Pickles can make people feel more social. In the article, it mentions that a research was conducted and had found that fermented food can help us not be socially awkward. I had researched more into the studies and discovered that certain food we eat can make us approachable to other people. This would make relationships with others stronger. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/11667407/Socially-awkward-Eat-sauerkraut-and-pickles.html (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://vitals.lifehacker.com/your-diet-foods-should-make-you-feel-full-not-just-b-1737682858?utm_expid=66866090-76.Xf7HV5ZSS3i8CtAkjmzQiA.0&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.uk%2F (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://www.webmd.com/20150618/social-anxiety-fermented-food (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://greatist.com/happiness/social-media-food-050813 (accessed on 09/10/2015) If a person doesn’t eat the right proportion of food or skips a meal, this would more likely result on the person becoming irritated and annoyed at the littlest things. This can make the person more likely to become outraged or annoying to others, therefore would put more strains on their friendship with others. Majority of people would not be relevant to someone that may experience mood changes because of hunger. David Benjamin article on Social Benefits of a Healthy Diet states that â€Å"few people want to spend much time with someone who is short tempered or shows unpredictable changes in mood or behaviour.† Hunger can cause a person to become grumpy or less active because of their body craving nutrients that would give them energy to perform physically. Due to being less active a person can feel socially excluded because they may not perform their potential. They may feel that their friends or family are different playing field than them. Consuming to much sugar an d processed food can also make someone easily angry. http://www.livestrong.com/article/199179-social-benefits-of-a-healthy-diet/ (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/eating-healthy-affect-physical-mental-social-health-6972.html (accessed on 09/10/2015) Factors that Effect Health: Employment Physical People with injuries, such as back pain, find it beneficial to go back to work after the healing process is completed. It would be better for the person to go back to work because they would be physically active and won’t prolong the injury in worsening. For example, a teacher arriving back to work from a leg injury would walk from classrooms to classrooms, which cause the muscles not to strain. Being out of work for a long period of time can worsen the recovery period of a person with injury. Employment can also help a person’s recovery because it provides an income for the employee. There could be a finical barrier preventing a person when it comes to recovery; if they are unemployed they may not be able to afford medications or gym membership. Therefore, employment can help someone recovery period and also make them physically active because they can afford to buy gym memberships or fitness equipment. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/214326/hwwb-is-work-good-for-you.pdf (accessed on 09/10/2015) Intellectual Employment can make a person wiser and experienced from working in a particular occupation for a long period of time. This would mean that the person’s intellectual health would be healthier since they have become more experienced in the occupation, thus knowledge had increased. This shows the benefits of employment has on a person’s intellectual health. Another example of how intellectual health can improve with employment is if a person is returning to work after a period of illness, which can include mental ill-health. Employment can help the recovery period because it can prevent intellectual skills from diminishing. People with mild or severe mental health problems can benefit from working because their minds would be busy with work load and less likely for them to have depression. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/212266/hwwb-mental-health-and-work.pdf (accessed on 09/10/2015) Emotional Having a steady job can make someone feel proud that they achieved or accomplished their goals. Thus increasing their confidents and self-esteem because they would view themselves more highly. Emotions in the workplace can play a huge role in how an entire functions in organisation. Positive emotions, such as happiness and joy, in the workplace can help the employees and employers work efficiently and have a more enjoyable atmosphere. Negative emotions, such as anger and stressed, can create a holistic atmosphere in the workplace. For example; an employee that feels that they are being used by their profession. This is more related to retail workers and teachers because they are often working overtime and are not paid for the overtime. http://www.employeebenefits.co.uk/how-employers-can-boost-employees-emotional-resilience/ (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://www.fastcompany.com/1311650/engaging-your-employees-emotional-benefits (accessed on 09/10/2015) Social Work meets important psychological needs in societies, where employment is the norm. Therefore, work becomes a key factor to individual identity, social roles and social status. A social benefit of employment would be that a person can have a friendship with their colleagues. This meaning that a bond would be established between colleagues, which would make the work environment more enjoyable. Getting paid can allow the person to go places, such as restaurants or concerts, with friends or family members. This would make the person socially more active. It offers a vibrant connection between the individual and society and allows people to contribute to society and attain personal accomplishments. Employment also offers a sense of independence to a person. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/231006/13-1135-economic-and-social-benefits-associated-with-further-education-and-skills-learning-for-those-not-in-employment.pdf (accessed on 09/10/2015) https://www.infoxchange.net.au/news/social-inclusion-through-meaningful-employment-benefits-social-firms-find-out-more-social-firms (accessed on 09/10/2015) Factors that Effect Health: Unemployment Physical Depression can lead to affecting a person’s physical health as well. They are less likely to exercise, which would make them physically unhealthy. Robert Leahy article on ‘Unemployment Is Bad for Your Health’ states that unemployment people are â€Å"more likely to have poor health habits, characterized by excess drinking, smoking, lack of exercise, and a sedentary lifestyle.† This means that unemployment can cause a person to adapt bad behaviour, which can affect a person’s physical health. Excessive drinking can occur because of depression. If a person fails to get a job, it can result on them judging and viewing themselves as worthless. Further making the person addicted to alcohol or smoking. This is a problem because an excessive amount of drinking and smoking can lead to diseases, such as cancer. Unemployment is a cause of early mortality. Studies show that unemployed people with no prior illness were more likely to die at a younger age than the general population. For example, one study displayed that unemployed people with no prior illness were 37% more likely to pass away over the following 10 years than the overall population. Long-term unemployment is related with socio-economic deficiency. People in poverty die younger, have fewer healthy lifestyles and live in less vigorous environments. The financial strain of unemployment also has direct health impacts, with people in debt being more prone to depression. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-leahy-phd/unemployment-health_b_2616430.html (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646287/ (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0811/the-cost-of-unemployment-to-the-economy.aspx (accessed on 09/10/2015) file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/http—www.aphref.aph.gov.au-house-committee-ewr-owk-report-chapter2.pdf (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://www.urban.org/research/publication/consequences-long-term-unemployment/view/full_report (accessed on 09/10/2015) Intellectual Unemployment can have a negative affect a person’s intellectual health because they would not have the motivation to rely on their academic achievement. This can be difficult for a person with mental health problems because unemployment can slow down recovery period and increase psychological distress, further worsening their intellectual health. Work is significant factor for everyone mental health because it gives a sense of purpose, income and can even promote independence. Unemployment increases the risk of developing mental health problems, such as depression. Unemployment can often result bad credit loans and people may become easily manipulated trying to earn something for a living. This have a negative effect on a person’s intellectual health because they might not be able to comprehend what they are doing due to desiring money. file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/iwh_briefing_mental_health_2009.pdf (accessed on 09/10/2015) Emotional The loss of organised time, social contact and status have negative effects on health. Unemployment can make someone depressed for not having a job. Majority of people struggle to find a job due to the job market being difficult. This can result on someone viewing themselves in a negative way, such as labelling themselves ‘worthless.’ Wyatt Myers article ‘The Effects of Long-Term Unemployment’ says that â€Å"long-term unemployment brings depression, anger, stress, and a lack of self-confidence.† A person who is unemployed once runs a greater risk of being unemployed again. This means that if a person was to be unemployed for a long period of time, such as a year or two; can lead to them blaming themselves. Unemployed people have lower levels of emotional wellbeing extending from symptoms of depression and anxiety to self-harm and suicide. This may lead to long-lasting job insecurity, an advanced than usual contact to deprived quality jobs and a lack of control over employed life. Depression, anger, stress and lacking self-confidence can prevent a person from applying for a job. This might be because they were unsuccessful in job interviews or applications previously, which would result on their confidence decreasing. The loss of ‘position’ or rank and the loss of self-esteem are related to depression. This can triggers stress mechanisms that increase risk of diseases such as coronary heart disease. http://www.everydayhealth.com/emotional-health/effects-of-long-term-unemployment.aspx (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/09/19/the-long-unemployed-emotional-effects-of-unemployment/ (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://edition.cnn.com/2012/06/14/health/mental-health/psychology-unemployment/ (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/emotional-responses-unemployment-12711.html (accessed on 09/10/2015) Social Unemployment can have a negative impact on a person’s social health. Not having enough money can result on someone being socially excluded in their friendship circle because they can’t afford meals or tickets. The person’s relationships with friends and family members may change more dramatically if they rely on them for financial support, which can result on strains forming in their relationship. An example would be if someone was living off their parents. This means that their parents are paying for their living arrangement, mobile phone, food and maybe even clothing. The parents may feel that their child is a failure because in western cultures it is seen as a norm for children to leave their family home when they reach a certain age. However, this is not the case for Asian and African culture because they tend to want to keep their children with them until they marry someone else and start their own family. Relying on someone finically can make relationships with others worst because it can make people feel like they are being used due to spending money, which is necessary to make a living. Unemployed person would not have the necessary amount of money to buy enough food or pay for their homes. Geoff Riley article ‘Revision: Consequences of Unemployment’ articulates that â€Å"unemployment is linked to social deprivation.† This means that unemployment can cause a loss of socialisation, which can make friendship circles decrease and can result on a person feeling depressed. http://www.tutor2u.net/economics/blog/revision-consequences-of-unemployment (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-adverse-effects-unemployment-391203 (accessed on 09/10/2015) http://www.bridgingeurope.net/consequences-of-high-youth-unemployment.html (accessed on 09/10/2015) https://www.spssi.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.viewpage&pageid=1457 (accessed on 09/10/2015)

Breaking bad behaviour

Breaking-Bad Behavior Habits are things that people do good or bad repeatedly. People start their own habits, and they are very hard to break. Whether it is good or bad habits, it is something that the person has to choose to change. Breaking bad habits is one of the hardest thing to do. The reason behind the bad habits are we begin as enjoyable activities, which we want to repeat. This encourages us to do things again, and the activity becomes a habit.This habit can be any type of habit like cheating, smoking, and plagiarism. Now a days, you can find everywhere duplicate things all over the world. People steal the formula of the original product and made the same product by different name. This is one kind of cheating. This habit is not good. To stop all that thing we have to buy original and brand name thing which we know. This is the best way to stop this cheating, so this way we can make the company realize that they did wrong.To stop this thing company owner should not have to s how the formula of the product. This happen in college campus also. If some author wrote a book then the instructor of the other college add or remove some topic and published it as his own book. When we attend his/her class he/she told to prefer her own book. We have to look for other author's book and compare it with college edition so we can use the original book. Smoking is a bad habit. It causes a cancer. First the student started smoking as fun but after sometimes they are habituated with it.They cannot live without it. If you don't do smoke and if your friend does and when he offer a cigarette to you, you refuse to smoke, but he forced Misery 2 you to smoke then you defiantly do it and after a few days you will start smoking. So this thing commonly you can see in the schools and colleges. To get rid of these habit start eating chocolates, chewing gum etcetera. So you can divert your mind and after sometimes you will break your this habit. In the college instructor will give a project to the students.Student have to register their name to instructor which project they going to make. So during the class some decided what they have to make, but other cannot get the idea what they have to do. So during the talk they tried to know what other student is going to make. If they know what that other student is going to do then he meet to instructor and register his name with project name, which is actually that student's project. We are responsible for this that we don't know that person very well to whom we are talking and what he is thinking.It's he best way not to tell everything about work to other person, so we can keep our idea safe. Thus, to stop all these incidents of academic misconduct we have to look out for the original source and follow the laws in colleges and schools to keep students away from the bad habits. If you are habituated with bad habit and you want to overcome of it, first commit to stopping the behavior by creating a plan, and develop s elf-discipline, and self-awareness so that you can stay on track. Also choose the right approach to dealing with it and involves others in your efforts.

Multimedia Basics Essay

Application of Multimedia: Multimedia finds its application in various areas including, advertisements, art, education, entertainment, engineering, medicine, mathematics, business, and scientific research applications. A few application areas of multimedia are listed below: Entertainment and Fine Arts: In addition, multimedia is heavily used in the entertainment industry, especially to develop special effects in movies and animations. Multimedia games are a popular pastime and are software programs available either as CD-ROMs or online. Some video games also use multimedia features. Multimedia applications that allow users to actively participate instead of just sitting by as passive recipients of information are called Interactive Multimedia. Education: In Education, multimedia is used to produce computer-based training courses (popularly called CBTs) and reference books like encyclopedia. A CBT lets the user go through a series of presentations, text about a particular topic, and associated illustrations in various information formats. Edutainment is an informal term used to describe combining education with entertainment, especially multimedia entertainment. Engineering: Software engineers may use multimedia in Computer Simulations for anything from entertainment to training such as military or industrial training. Multimedia for software interfaces are often done as collaboration between creative professionals and software engineers. Industry: In the Industrial sector, multimedia is used as a way to help present information to shareholders, superiors and coworkers. Multimedia is also helpful for providing employee training, advertising and selling products all over the world via virtually unlimited web-based technologies. Mathematical and Scientific Research: In Mathematical and Scientific Research, multimedia is mainly used for modeling and simulation. For example, a scientist can look at a molecular model of a particular substance and manipulate it to arrive at a new substance. Representative research can be found in journals such as the Journal of Multimedia. Medicine: In Medicine, doctors can get trained by looking at a virtual surgery or they can simulate how the human body is affected by diseases spread by viruses and bacteria and then develop techniques to prevent it. Multimedia System Architecture: Multimedia encompasses a large variety of technologies and integration of multiple architectures interacting in real time. All of these multimedia capabilities must integrate with the standard user interfaces such as Microsoft Windows. The following figure describes the architecture of a multimedia workstation environment. From the above figure: the left side is very similar to non-multimedia systems. Right side shows the architecture of multimedia supporting system. Multimedia Extensions is used to enhance the speed of process. The add-on multimedia devices and peripherals include scanner, video camera, VCR, and sound equipment along with their associated device controllers. For each of these special devices, a special software device driver is needed to provide the interface from the application to the device. The graphical user interface designed primarily for windows managed by applications at fixed resolution; require control to extensions to support applications such as full-motion video or remote desktop. Evolving Technologies for Multimedia Systems: Multimedia applications use a number of technologies generated for both commercial business application as well as the video game industry. Let us review some of these technologies in this section. Hypermedia Document: Hypermedia documents are documents which have text, embedded or linked multimedia objects such as image, audio, hologram, or full-motion video. Hypertext: Hypertext implements the organization of non-sequential of data by natural association of information. Hypertext systems allow authors to link information together; create information paths through a large volume of related text in documents. It also allows annotating existing text, and appending notes. It allows fast and easy searching and reading of selected excerpts. Hyperspeech Multimedia stimulated the development of general-purpose speech interfaces. Speech synthesis and speech recognition are fundamental requirement for hyperspeech systems. Speech recognition is nothing but converting the analog speech into a computer action and into ASCII text. Speech-recognition systems cannot segment a stream of sounds without breaks into meaningful units. The user must speak in a stilted fashion. He should make sure to interpose silence between each word. 3D and Holography: Three-dimensional technologies are concerned with two areas: pointing devices and displays. 3-D pointing devices are essential to manipulate object in a 3-D display system. 3-D displays are achieved using holography techniques. Digital Signal Processing: Digital Signal Processing is used in applications such as digital servos in hard disk drives, and fax/modems. DSP technology is used in Digital wireless communications, such as personal communication networks (pens), wireless local area networks and digital cordless phones. DSP Architectures and Applications: A typical DSP operating system architecture would contain the following subsystems: Memory Management: DSP architectures provide dynamic allocation of arrays from multiple segments, including RAM, SRAM and DRAM. Hardware-Interrupt handling: A DSP operating system must be designed to minimize hardware interrupt latency to ensure fast response to real time events for applications, such as servo systems. Multitasking: DSPs need  real-time kernels that provide pre-emptive multitasking and user-defined and dynamic task prioritization.

Marketing Communications in McDonalds Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Marketing Communications in McDonalds - Essay Example The company that is the subject of this research is McDonald’s as a global retailer in the food services category that operates based on 35,000 different retail outlets spanning across different international regions, A large number of outlets of the company contributes in serving the needs of around 70 million consumers spanning across 100 nations. The company aims at generating a place where consumers can effectively visit for eating and drinking activities. McDonald’s aims to entice the customers through the provision of quality foods and services such that the same help in meeting the parameters of quality, cleanliness and value addition to the customers. The meeting of the above parameters is taken to rightly contribute to generating effective customer experiences such that the same encourages in making the customers to gain frequent visits to the stores. McDonald’s aims to expand along different countries through the development of franchisees in that the s ame contribute to helping the company to effectively blend its corporate culture with the national culture of the region. The company operates based on serving the needs of both its internal and external stakeholders like employees and customers respectively through working based on needed integrity and ethics. It also works in the meeting of sustainable objectives pertaining to taking care of natural and social environment where it tends to conduct its business operations. Marketing Communication activities are conducted by the business organizations with its targeted customers, both existent and of potential nature along different stages relating to pre-sales, sales and finally relating to the post-sales stage. Marketing Communication activities are conducted by a company in an integrated fashion such that different types of promotional and communication tools are utilized to rightly communicate with targeted individuals, and other potential groups and interested communities. Diff erent types of marketing and promotional tools like the use of advertising through the use of print, broadcasting and online mediums, direct marketing activities, sales promotion, personal selling and also through the use of publicity campaigning can be effectively integrated to generate considerable awareness among the targeted consumers relating to the products and services marketed.

Management in organisation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Management in organisation - Essay Example To this end, the research would use the dominant theories and concepts of management and try to infuse it with the success of organisations Organizations & Businesses â€Å"Organisations are social entities that are goal oriented and are designed and deliberately structured to meet certain objectives† (Daft, 2009). An organisation involves people who come together to work together to attain certain results. An organisation revolves around the collection of various individuals and groups of people who work together to attain these stated ends. This means that the organisation has some social elements which culminate from the interaction of these different peoples who affect and are affected by the organisation. Also, an organisation works through the combination of various inputs for the attainment of specific results. This means that there is the need for some kind of person or groups of people to work and ensure that the organisation meets its stated and defined ends. â€Å" Organisations take inputs from the society and process them to outputs and offer it to the society† (Archer, 2012). This means that an organisation is more of a system that plays a role in the extraction of resources from the external environment, adding value to it and giving it to members of the society. It is therefore inevitable to have people within the organisation who have the duty of ensuring that the right things and the right proportions are met in attaining the end of the organisation. A business is formed when people pool their resources to form an organisation which has the primary aim of maximising returns on the investments of the owners or the people who pooled the resources (Hill, 2010). The owners or shareholders of such entities have the profit motive and they ensure that they have representatives who work hard to attain this profit motive for the organisation (Paddington, 2009). This group of people are known as the management. The management of an organisa tion or business have the right to use the resources of the organisation to the best interest of the owners (Millichamp, 2008). The fundamental role of management is to work hard to attain the objectives of the organisation that they work for. Management have to use various techniques and tools to combine the factors of production: land, labour and capital to attain optimal results for an organisation or entity (Ruda, 2008). In order to do this, there is the need for management to use a wide range of techniques and tools to come up with the best strategies and formulas for the attainment of organisational goals and objectives. This is done through the use of important management science and principles which provide the right combination for the various levels of management in an organisation. Strategy & Management Theory Management theories and principles define the roles of people who are tasked with management. The theories often refer to the established ideas and concepts that pr ovide the best framework for running a corporate entity (Jain, 2008). Management theories also helps an organisation to divide up work and break down its core tasks (Murugan, 2007). Management theories help managers to come up with the best ways of dividing up work and defining functions in a given business. From there, work is broken down and the span of control of each unit of the organisation is defined (Murugan, 2007). The division of work to the various

Quality Improvement Plan Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Quality Improvement Plan - Term Paper Example Quality improvement of a clinician should be present at every stage of his performance. Quality improvement strategy would contribute much to responsibility development among clinicians and their confidence. Goals/Objectives Quality improvement is very popular in America. It has been often claimed that professional improvement of clinicians and nurses is beneficial for the clients and hospital’s performance. Leadership, individual’s responsibility, activities engagement and many other facts are supported in American hospitals. Working in the direction of quality is a common strategy for American clinicians. Payers demand from hospitals improvements on internal and external levels and starting from 2003, when the voluntary Hospital Quality Initiative (HQI) was launched, hospitals inform their clients and stakeholders online about quality improvements. The main goals of quality improvement in American hospitals concern improvement of facilities reputation, excellent servi ce delivery of nurses and physicians and many other aspects. Scope/Description/QI Activities In order to report about quality improvements in hospitals, American hospitals discuss the results of educational programs involvement with their stake holders, clients. Florida Hospital located in Orlando, FL share its quality improvement activities and developments with the public in order to assess and measure reached goals. The improvement of quality patient care is one of crucial concerns for the American hospitals. Basing on mandatory and secondary data collection, the results of quality improvement processes can be considered by the public. In such a way, clients can self-manage their healthcare treatment, identify and indicate gaps in quality improvement process. Moreover, performance measure indicates quality improvements and specific data and criteria may be reached. This type of data is useful for further quality improvement process in any hospital. Another important indicator of quality is stakeholders’ feedback. It is helpful for current patient service improvement and future emergence of new services. Data Collection Tools Currently, a scope of data about quality improvements is presented online for the convenience of clients and stakeholders. There are secondary and mandatory data presented by hospitals. Stakeholders’ feedback is usually presented in a form of alternative suggestions concerning hospital activities improvement. A public response is also important for current and future improvement of client’s healthcare service. Written responses, comments, letters from clients can reflect a real situation concerning the necessity of quality improvement. It is more relevant to clients to express their opinion about changes they would like to introduce in the healthcare system. QI Processes and Methodology Currently, in accordance with quality management processes there are many options to perform quality improvement process. These are : control charts, lot sampling, process capability, and value analysis (Florida Hospital). Still, it is important to consider quality processes data collection in detail. Clients’ histories with medical information about them, details on their illnesses, family and personal background and other variety of data may indicate existent problems in the process of healthcare treatment. This approach shows quality improvem

Tourism in the Kingdom of Jordan Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Tourism in the Kingdom of Jordan - Case Study Example It is a small Arab country with not much supply of water and other natural resources like oil. Debt, poverty, and unemployment are fundamental problems, but since 1999, some broad economic reforms have been in place in a long-term effort to improve living standards. Under the leadership of King Abdullah, Jordan's government has taken some concrete steps towards encouraging foreign investment in the country. Key areas where maximum attention is being paid include tourisms and services. The country's economy largely depends on services, tourism and foreign aid. Tourism in general is being developed the world over as a revenue spinning industry Jordan too has an ambitious plan for inviting the attention of the world's touring community towards its vast historic treasures and nature's gifts to the country. Thourhg this study we'd like to analyse; Tourism being one of the key sectors for Jordanian economy, the government of Jordan has realized the potential of this rapidly growing sector, and the government is supporting the industry with aggressive marketing strategy with an aim to promote Jordan as a boutique destination. Despite being in the midst of disturbed surroundings the number of regional tourists is rising sharply. Now the government is paying more attention towards attracting the high-yield visitors from outside the Middle East. In this era of globalisation, tourism is said to drive transnational flows of people, commodities and capital. This flow results in circulation of globally coordinated production networks governed by Multi national corporations in the business of airlines, tour operators and hotel management (Hazbun, 313). As per the studies undertaken by organisation like CountryWatch (83) and Country Insight (3), the flow of tourists has been on an upward journey. The figure below takes a look at the num ber of tourists that arrived in the region for the period 1998-2004. Until the late 1990s Jordan's tourism sector remained hugely underdeveloped, with regional political instability doing most of the damage. Since there was no real effort on the part of the government of Jordan to come out of the shell and market the potentials of the country, the region remained largely un-explored. But with the concepts of globalisation have now made the government understand the benefits of being pro market. In fact Jordan realizes (EIU, 1) that it can't be a direct competitor for other popular Arab holiday destinations like Cairo or Beirut, but now Jordan has actually started selling its holiday proposition by way of offering quiet family holiday. This has materialized in earning revenues as well, which is reflected by some of the key points of tourism industry in Jordan like (Euromonitor, 2); Jordan received US$783 million in tourism receipts in 2004 and this is expected to rise to US$826 million in 2005. Tourism accounts for around 10% of the Kingdom's GDP. Tourism is the largest export sector, the second largest private sector employer and the second most important form of foreign exchange for the country. The

Samuel Adams Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Samuel Adams - Research Paper Example One of the significant individuals is Samuel Adams. Most people associated the name not with our liberty and freedom, but with the beer franchise by the same name. His contribution to this country goes far beyond malt liquor. In fact, Samuel Adams was more than just a Politian; he was one of the architects of the revolution and the face of independence. With his contributions with the Sons of Liberty, being a colonial leader, and more he was one of the most significant people in America’s pursuit to freedom and independence. Samuel Adams was born September 27, 1722 to Samuel and Mary Adams in Boston, Massachusetts. He had in total 11 siblings but only 2 of them would survive past the age of three. Politics were a part of Adam’s family. His father was a successful local politician and his cousin, John Adams, would one day be elected the second President of the United States (Biography Channel 2014). Samuel attended is initial education in a small schoolhouse, but he was taught both Greek and Latin. At the age of 14 he entered Harvard University and graduated in 1740. However, after college he was not entirely certain where he would focus his life. He was not interested in the brewery company options. His earliest attempts to establish his own businesses went poorly, mostly because Adams was not particularly good with finances. He would ultimately, begin working for his father and would marry his first wife, Elizabeth Checkley, in 1749. She brought six children into the world, but died shortly after the stillbirth of her youngest child in 1757 along with all but two of their children, a son Samuel and a daughter Hannah. Career issues continued to plague Adams. He became a tax collector from 1753-1765, however, his loss of approximately 8000 pounds due to sheer negligence he was relieved of his position. He ultimately repaid the monies lost from his own pocket. It was not until he married his second wife, Elizabeth Wells,

Training Design Proposal Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Training Design Proposal - Assignment Example The training course is based on conducting the performance review. The course is designed for managers and will take two days. The purpose of the training is to impart knowledge on how to use effective feedback skills when conducting performance reviews. As a system, training is an integrated part that measures performance against a criterion linked to strategic objectives (Blanchard 2013). The objective of this training is to improve feedback skills as lack of proper feedback skills results in poor performance within the organization. When managers fail to effectively deliver performance reviews to employees, then the result would be poor employee output and that would affect the overall performance of the organization. The training would entail variety, activity and participation. The learning outcomes for the programme is to identify the needs of the managers, develop a training programme that meets these needs, implement the developed programme and lastly, evaluate the effectiveness of the programme. The training is designed using the ADDIE model (Blanchard 2013). The model involves analysing the training programme, identifying the relevant design, developing the training programme, implementation of the design and evaluation. The content covered in the topic will be based on performance review. The training will cover the significance of performance review and effective systems for performance review. Also included in the programme are barriers and ethical issues governing performance review, solutions to the identified issues and feedback from the managers upon completion of the training. At this stage, the trainer should identify the needs of the learners, the existing knowledge that they have regarding the topic and the existing gap between what they know and what additional knowledge they need to know. In this case, the topic to be discussed during this

Daily Assignment 6 Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Daily 6 - Assignment Example 10. Itinerant merchants were stabilizers in the medieval society because they helped provide security and the things they bought helped towns grow. This made the prestige of the itinerant merchants to grow. 12. The crusaders initially viewed Venetians as part of them and this worked to their advantage. Byzantines were viewed as weak and non-military and this led to the loss of many of the Crusaders when they attacked them. The Crusaders triumphed but sustained many losses. 13. The wage labour stratified the feudal society because serfs could demand for better terms and move to places that paid higher wages. The manorial system led to the emergence of taxation that helped fund manorial courts. 14. The invisible hand refers to a natural phenomenon that regulates the way markets compete for scarce resources. The invisible hand eliminates the need for government intervention in business and leaves markets to adopt self-regulating measures. 15. Whereas Catholicism teaches that justification means righteousness, Calvinism teaches that justification means vindication and semblance of righteousness but not actual righteousness. Calvinism supported rational economic activity that led to maximum economic gain. 17. Today’s underdeveloped world needs governance that will stimulate their populations to appreciate the intensification of industrialization. The industrial revolution there is still low compared to the one that took place in

Selling own common stocks Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Selling own common stocks - Research Paper Example These methods are open market, fixed price tender, private negotiation, repurchase and Dutch auction. It was in the late 20th century that there was enormous increase in the share’s volume repurchase in American, which rose from $5 billion in the year 1980 to $349 billion in the year 2005 (Stock Buybacks). It has been noted that the reason behind the corporation’s enormous amount of repurchase and selling of their own common shares is subjected to some conflicting interpretations. However there is no satisfactory explanation to these changes that occurred in the repurchasing activity of these corporations over the last few decades. The dramatic increase in the repurchase of open market shares occurred in 1990’s and several factor led to its development. One of the factors is considered to be the improved regulatory environment which supported the repurchase of common stock which resulted from the adaption of rule 10b-18 introduced by the Security and Exchange Commission, or SEC in the year 1982. Another factor that contributed to the repurchase is considered to be economic conditions. This paper discusses the reasons why corporation sell and purchase their own stock. A study was conducted regarding the open market repurchases which concluded that it is the changes in the compensation policies that often led to the changes in the payout policy. The result also indicates that the firm usually announces repurchases when executives have several different options outstanding and when the employees too have several options present that are exercisable. Once the firm makes the decision of being engaged in a repurchase, the amount of stock repurchase can be positively related to the total number of options that were exercisable by the workers, independent of the option that the executives had. The result of this study remains consistent with the managers repurchasing both for funding

Discrimination and Human Rights Act Essay Example for Free

Discrimination and Human Rights Act Essay Introduction You have been asked by your Head Teacher to produce a document that promotes the importance of promoting equality and diversity in work with children and young people. This is aimed for new members of staff and volunteers. Legislation and codes of practice 2.4 – 1.1 Identify at least two current legislation and codes of practice relevant to the promotion of equality and valuing of diversity. You must include the correct title and date (where appropriate) and then provide a summary of each piece of legislation or code of practice that is identified. This could include: Equality Act, Human Rights Act, Inclusion policy. The Equalities Act (2010) This act is a combination of many old acts (race relations, sex discrimination and disability discrimination etc.) its two main purposes – to harmonise discrimination law and to strengthen the law to support the progress on equality. It is the most significant development in equality and discrimination for years. It sets out that everyone regardless of race, sex, religion or disability is entitled to fair treatment. The Human Rights Act (1998) This act sets out the rights and fundamental freedoms of each and every human being. All public bodies (courts, schools etc.) have to comply with the act. The act has a principal that everyone should have protection from discrimination; this has a wide range of grounds including sex, race, colour, language, religion and political or other opinions. Inclusion policy (our lady mother of the saviour catholic primary school 2011) This policy sets out that the school its self aims to be inclusive and remove barriers to learning and participation that could discriminate pupils or groups of pupils.it states in the policy that the achievements, attitudes and well-being of all children matter. Equal opportunities policy (our lady mother of the saviour catholic primary school 2011) This policy is set out in accordance with the Equalities Act 2010. It is there to promote anti-discrimination and the principle of fairness and justice for all through the education that is provided from the school. The policy also recognises that by doing this it may from time to time have to treat some pupils differently (a child with a disability will be treated as fair as possible but in situations cannot be treated the same as other pupils) 2.4 – 1.2, 1.3 Describe the importance of supporting the rights of all children and young people to participation and equality of access. Unfortunately studies have shown that children from poorer backgrounds attain less in school than children from higher professional families, this in its self supports the importance of supporting children in school to participation and equality of access. Ignoring these rights could lead to children having low self-esteem, a feeling of inferiority and lower levels at school. Supported in the right way children could all have a greater chance of attaining a higher level at school and a greater chance of becoming more â€Å"all rounded† as adults. Describe the importance and benefits of valuing and promoting cultural diversity in work with children and young people. By promoting cultural diversity and valuing any type of difference in work this will reflect on the children so that they themselves will pick up these attitudes and behaviours. The importance of this is that failure to promote diversity through your own actions could result in discrimination within the children and young people. The advantages of valuing and promoting diversity are that it opens the children up to learn about new things, such as cultures and improves their knowledge and understanding. By doing this it will lead to them being more tolerant and creative adults and therefore less likely to discriminate later in life.

The Strategic Group Mapping Model Marketing Essay

The Strategic Group Mapping Model Marketing Essay For the purpose of this report, the industry of choice was the cereal industry. The cereal industry is highly competitive with numerous businesses competing for an increased market share. The cereal industry is influenced by customer spending and customer lifestyle. In recent years, consumer behaviour has altered with customers becoming more health conscious. As a result of this, business within the cereal industry have introduced new products and modified existing products to appeal to health conscious customers. Based on research conduct, the following trends were identified within the cereal industry: Consumer behaviour changes Health conscious customers The main businesses within the cereal industry are Kelloggs, Nestlà ©, Weetabix, Flahavans and Odlums. Breakfast apart from being a necessity for breaking the fast, it is also seen as a social ritual amongst the majority of cultures around the world.  [1]   Three main trends emerge from an analysis of the industry: Acquisitions, Automation and Consolidation. The nature of the cereal industry is oligopoly as there are just a few firms dominating the industry. The key players were identified as Kelloggs, Origin Enterprises (Odlums), Nestle, Weetabix and Finegrove Holdings Ltd. (Flahavans).The breakfast cereal industry can be divided into two categories; hot breakfast cereals and Ready to Eat (RTE). The key drivers to operate in this industry were identified as: Reformulation of nutritional ingredient, Product differentiation, Contracts for raw materials, Economies of Scale and Creative advertising. The industry as a whole has an abundance external macro environment factors which are clearly seen in the PESTLE. Porters five forces identified medium barriers to entry, threat of substitutions and supplier power, but highlighted high buyer power and competitive rivalry. From using strategic mapping it was emphasised that players in the industry modernised /changed their strategies to respond to key trends in the industry. From analysing the five key players in the industry, it is clear that all have similar product diversification, product development (Ansoff growth matrix) Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats(SWOT Framework). Industry Landscape There were three key trends found from the players in the cereal industry. Kelloggs have consolidated 42 business websites into one website in order to give a clearer brand identity and to enhance the customer experience. In relation to automation, these players currently use technological advanced machinery to aid them in production and packaging. Finally in May 2012, 60% of shares from the Weetabix Food Company have been acquired by Chinas Bright Food Group while the remaining 40% is owned by Lion Capital. From these trends, there are issues that affect these players, in terms of market saturation and fluctuating prices for wheat and oats. These are potential threats for this industry as reported by Business Insights which states; cereal products have reached a level of saturation in many Western markets, so adding value and following consumer desires will be key to successful product lines. In order to combat this market saturation, businesses need to research, understand and acknowledge consumers requirements. The fluctuating prices of oats and wheat could affect each business within the cereal industry. The price fluctuations are a result of difficulties experienced during the growing seasonal period. Rising prices due to increasing costs for logistics and ingredients are primarily going to affect the breakfast cereal industry and its key players in the future. Cereal products could be sourced globally; however, there is a decline in international cereal production due to weather conditions  [2]  . If this continues, it could lead to cereal prices escalating and increases being passed down the distribution channel. There is increasing pressure for new product development amongst the industries key players. This could potentially increase market share and enhance revenue for the niche players such as Flahavans and Odlums, while allowing market leaders such as Kelloggs the opportunity to prevent smaller businesses from obtaining market growth. There is an increase in health conscious customers and in the future, this may define the product lines produced by the key players. From the acquisition of Weetabix, Bright Food Group has vowed to globally expand the Weetabix business by entering the growing breakfast cereal market within Asia. Changes to food consumption patterns within Asia have resulted in businesses entering Asian regions and selling food and beverages to consumers. Nationally, the cereal industry is worth à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬200 million per year with a profit between 40 45%. In relation to the current market position of these players, Kelloggs would be classed as the leader due to a 44% market share. With Nestle and Weetabix as the market followers, these businesses have a sizeable market share and remain competitive within this industry. The niche players, Flahavans and Odlums, are not as profitable as competitors, particularly Odlums who do not provide an extensive range of products. Competitive rivalries could arise between these industry players, as all competitors have similar products aiming at similar target markets. The threat of substitutes is also an issue for these players; as there is a rise in own brand products, such as Dunnes Stores and Tesco. These products are being introduced into the market due to the changing consumer spending habits. As this industry could be seen as oligopolistic, the power over suppliers and buyer could potentially increase, however for the niche players, the competition could intensify. Generally the cereal industry targets family oriented markets. In relation to Kelloggs and Nestle, they could be seen to target children, as these players introduce characters to their brands in order for the children to be attracted to these products. Weetabix, Flahavans and Odlums target mature audiences which can be seen to be under the family orientated market. For each key player, they must hold competitive advantage in order to sustain the market. The threshold resources that any player should have to operate within this industry include; finance, customer loyalty, brand awareness and a wide product range. Unique resources, such as Flahavans and Odlums, are particularly focused on the Irish aspects of the product. This involves the methods of producing the product and jobs that are created within the country. Irish consumers are value driven, however Irish products are important to these consumers. In previous years, Kelloggss held a very dominant position within the industry, however this has changed substantially as more competitors have entered the market and have impacted the profit obtained by Kelloggs. In 2010, there was a net income rise of Kelloggss, which has since fallen from $1.2 billion to $961 million and emphasises a dramatic decrease. In 2012, the share price of the business was volatile as it declined to $46.33 in July, however increased to an acceptable price of approximately $60 in December. The size of Kelloggs reduces the threat of a takeover occurring and exiting the market would not be foreseeable for Kelloggs. Kelloggs use of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is at the forefront when communicating with customers. This is highly evident in Give a child a breakfast campaign launched in October 2011 as this campaign highlighted the benefits of children eating breakfast. By highlighting this campaign, it improved the public perception of the company. Financial reports released for 2012, illustrated that the Nestle group as a whole had a successful financial year. It shows an increase in profit for the year by $1.8 billion. The cereal range of the business is represented in this figure which displays a positive financial performance for Nestle. Previously, Nestle has experienced a negative public image; Nestlà © attempts to divert criticism of its baby food marketing activities  [3]  . Nestle continuously attempt to improve their CSR identity within the eyes of the public. Bright Food Group generated revenues of approximately  £7.5 billion last year which indicates it has a large resource base to expand the Weetabix brand into more foreign markets. The acquisition of Weetabix would indicate that there is a high demand for cereal products globally as well as within its existing markets. The Weetabix brand has a long association with the British and Irish markets and has successfully reflected a positive brand image. However, the recent acquisition could have a positive and negative impact as it could be viewed as the loss of another indigenous company to a foreign multinational and may dilute the brand value. As Flahavans is a privately owned family operated business and similar to Weetabix, is not listed on any stock exchange. Flahavans is an established brand and retains the majority of the market share in relation to hot cereal breakfast in Ireland. This brand has a positive image among Irish customers and assisted the expansion into markets such as the UK and US. Flahavans is associated with Bord Bia and outlines the nutritional value of eating porridge as part of a healthy balanced diet. As the business is proud of its heritage and is a small player within the industry, the possibility of an acquisition may be unattractive to an established player. Odlums is part of the Origin Enterprise Group, which is listed on the Irish Stock Exchange and experienced an increased share price within the last year. The Odlums brand is well known within Ireland, primarily for their baking products. It could be perceived that the public have less recognition for the porridge range. The brand image is viewed positively and is also associated with Bord Bia. Within the cereal industry, there are certain aspects which could affect key players in the future. In terms of Kelloggs, they have primarily grown through merger and acquisitions. If all the key players follow this trend and grow like Kelloggs, they could possibly maintain market share growth. Further brand building of key players, could allow for growth in new divisions, for example Weetabix introducing a new range of biscuits. The majority of dominating businesses have a strong portfolio of products with great brand identity amongst its market share. If the key players continue to invest and grow their brand portfolio, it would be expected to have a positive long-term effect on those businesses. There is a possibility of a new pecking order in terms of the hot breakfast cereal market segment. At present, Flahavans is the market leader in this category. However, Kelloggs have developed a product, Kelloggs Corn Flake Porridge  [4]  , to compete against Flahavans porridge. This product has not been launched in Ireland, but could potentially dominate the market in the future. Currently, the key players are extending the life of their consumer recognisable products rather than removing them from the market place.  [5]  Customers would be willing to purchase familiar products and be more inclined to purchase new products launched by a trusted brand. The key players have adopted an extension strategy of their products. From analysis of the Ansoff Matrix  [6]  on the key players, it was evident that they had the same strategy which included the retention of existing customers and attraction of new customers by means of product development and product diversification. The key players are currently adopting marketing strategies to ensure that their brands are in the evoked set of their target markets while going through the decision making process and the customer chooses their product. HRM Strategies Nestles mergers and acquisitions provides the business with a wider selection of employees which can be used strategically to further develop the companys competitive advantage. However, this method may not be feasible as employees may feel their opinions to be underappreciated and lack participation with front line decisions. In the case of Weetabix, their use of motivational goals drives their use of HRM, which furthers their competitive advantage by providing a recognised and admirable work environment, which could be then used strategically to attract additional talented candidates. In comparison to its competitors, Flavaghans is a considerably smaller company, mainly because of its family ethos. These sorts of companies generally limit new additions of staffing in order to reduce costs. However with the utilisation of their flat hierarchy which enables all departments to work together closely, this allows for a competitive advantage, which does not directly affect necessary recruitment and selection. In a sense Flavaghans has used their limit of recruiting for a more quality staffing experience which then follows through to competitive advantage. Odlums have used their HRM strategies competitively in order to gain talented managerial staff in the company. This can be seen in their quality staff members, who have all had quality previous employment and education. This is a clear competitive advantage for odlums, and has formed them as an elite group of staff. Kelloggs, although they use extensive research and development which effectively provides solid results and provides a clear competitive advantage. It has been recognised that although management positions are favourable, their staff motivation and drives are low, therefore we can indicate that HRM strategies are not of concern to Kelloggs.  · Are the Strategic HRM policies of the key players in alignment with its overall strategy? In essence Nestles vision of good food, good life is very much in alligment with its strategic HRM policies. Through the use of mergers and acquistions, Nestle has managed to collect different types of talent, in order to provide quality behind its overall strategy of good life, good food in its product. External Environmental Analysis Strategic Group Mapping Model Strategic Group Mapping Analysis Nestle is identified with having a high variety of products coupled with a high average price of à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬3.53per 500g Kelloggs is on par with Nestle however Kelloggs have a larger variety of products and slightly higher average price of à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬ 3.54per 500g. Both breakfast cereal companies are positioned as having a large variety of products with a high retail price targeting the same market segments. Kelloggs target families with products such as cornflakes, rice crispies , frosties , all bran, crunchy nut and coco pops as well as the health conscious adult woman with their special k range  [7]  . Nestle target families with products such as nestle cornflakes, cheerios. Target kids and teens with nesquick, cookie crisp,cocoa puffs products and their adult with their fitness range.  [8]   Weetabix is more differentiated from Nestle and Kelloggs. Weetabix primarily targets the health conscience consumer market segment whereas Nestle and Kelloggs target a proportion of that segment. Weetabix is identified with having a low variety of products combined with a high average price à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬3.49per 500g. Weetabix is a market leader with a 12% market share  [9]  (just behind Kellogg which leads brand sales with a 42% value share)  [10]   Flahavans is a market leader in the hot breakfast market segment with a 65% share of the hot breakfast cereal market  [11]  and a 7 % share of the overall breakfast market  [12]  .they have undertaken a hybrid strategy since 2008 by extending their product range and making their product more convenient to the consumer i.e quick oats. flahavans is identified with having a low variety of products (i.e hot oats) coupled with a low average price à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬1.25 per 500g.flahavans solely targets the health conscience individual/families. Odlums holds a relatively small proportion of the hot breakfast cereal market and is identified with having a low variety of products combined with a low average price of à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬1.15 per 500g. Kelloggs and Nestle are the most expensive of the companies, their higher price is justified by their larger variety of product offered. Weetabix, Flahavans and Odlums are the least expensive of the companies with is due to their low product range however their prices may increase in the further due to the perceived customer benefits of their products. Internal Strategic Capability Analysis Kelloggs Company Background The Kelloggs Company was established in 1906 by W.K. Kellogg. By continuing to use the same technique in producing the product since this time, the Kelloggs brand has grown successfully over the last 100 years with products reaching 180 countries worldwide. Kelloggs primarily produce breakfast cereal products, along with toaster pastries and snacks, such as, cereal bars and winders. In 1922, the Kelloggs company arrived in Ireland with products being sold throughout the country. As Kelloggs now is the leading brand in the breakfast cereal industry in Ireland and the UK, the business was one of the first to introduce nutritional labelling on their packaging, back in the 1930s. With their successful launch in the 1950s of the cereal products Frosties and Special K, in the 1980s new products, such as Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes, was launched into the Irish market. The W.K. Kellogg Institute for Food and Nutrition Research was opened in 1997. This is where the engineers, nutritionists and food scientists would investigate the quality of the produce used. This facility also catered for the alternation in the reduction of salt used in breakfast cereals in 2010, along with vitamin D been added for children in 2011. The Kelloggs Company have various locations worldwide including North America, Europe Middle East, Asia, Africa, Oceania and Latin South America. The Headquarters for Kelloggs is located in Michigan. Kelloggs Cultural Web Model Kelloggs Ansoff Product / Market Growth Matrix Market Penetration By utilising this strategy, this would benefit Kelloggs in terms of continuing to remain competitive within the market and stabilising their position as a market leader within Ireland and UK. Over the years Kelloggs have dramatically increased their product range to cater for a wider customer base. Kelloggs provides cereals for children and adults to accommodate for their different lifestyle requirements. By continuing to penetration this market at a relatively low risk for the business, Kelloggs would need to implement a strategy in order to maintain their market share by using their existing products while retaining their current customers. This strategy would need to be developed by increasing brand awareness of their products, for example charity events or competitions, in order to remind customer their products. Product re-launch could be another penetration for Kelloggs in terms of retaining their existing customers. Through customer involvement and push marketing strategies, these methods could help Kelloggs to secure their market share or have the possibility of increasing their customer base. New Products and Services As the cereal industry is a competitive market and developing the ability to be distinctive from the existing competitors could be a challenge for Kelloggs. In order to increase the customer base, Kelloggs developed products in the areas if toaster pastries and snacks. These developments allowed the business to explore new products while retaining their existing customers. Market development Market development is an important aspect for Kelloggs to grow within the cereal market. Currently Kelloggs offer a porridge product which is available in South Africa however are not obtainable within Ireland and the UK. Gluten free products from the US are also not available within these countries. These products could have a dramatic effect if Kelloggs introduced these products into the Irish and UK market, as it could heighten the competition amongst competitors and attract new customers to their products. Conglomerate Diversification In order for Kelloggs to diversify into an unrelated market would be a difficult challenge for the business. A market that Kelloggs have diversified into is the snack food market. This is evident from the acquisition of Pringles in early 2012. This market could be seen to be difficult to operate as it does not relate to the cereal industry and the business may not have the necessary knowledge of the snack food industry. Nestle Nestle Company Background Nestle was founded in 1866. As the company began to grow, it merged with another established company, Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company in 1905. From this merger, Nestle acquired Rowntrees of York in 1988. Within Ireland and UK, Nestle is one of the key players in the food industry with 19 locations employing over 7000 staff. Nestle is also one of the key exporters for these two countries, with exporting products over  £300 million worth to 50 countries worldwide every year. With the mergers and acquisitions previously mentioned, this gave Nestle the ability to diversify their product portfolio to cater to a wider target audience. Nestle Ireland and UK expanded to sister companies such as Nestle Professional, Nestle Waters, Nestle Nutrition, Nestle Purina Petcare, Lactalis Nestle Chilled Dairy Company Ltd, Cereal Partners UK, Nespresso and Jenny Craig. With these sister companies, Nestle was able to produce popular brands such as, breakfast cereals Shreddies and Cheerios, Go Cat pet food, Nescafe, Kit Kat and beverages Nestle water and Nesquik. Nestle have Headquarters in Ireland and UK, with their factories primarily in the UK. Globally, Nestle are located in Africa, Oceania, Europe, and Asia and North and South America. Nestle Cultural Web Model Nestle Cultural Web Analysis Paradigm Nestles ethos Good food, good life is a clear indicator of where nestles drive originates. This can be clearly defined as Nestles collective experience which is applied to situations in order to make sense of strategy. For example nestles acquisition of Alcon Laboratories Inc. provided an increase of food technology competencies behind their foods thus confirming their initial ethos of good food, good life. Stories: Nestlà ©s is regarded as the largest food business company in the world; this has been experienced through the use of mergers and acquisitions and primary food nutrition values. Nestle acquired Crosse Blackwell in 1950 and Rowntree Mackintosh in 1988 to name a few. It operates in 86 countries and is the largest shareholder of LOreal. It has also been ranked at 1 in the fortune global 500. However, Nestle cereals received bad press in 2011, with the accusations of incorrect nutritional information on their cereal products. This apposed their believes of nutritional value in good food. Symbols: Nestle is a Swiss made multinational country which strives in power and direction. It is a professional company, which has used mergers and acquisitions to its advantage in its early years and continues in this fashion today. Nestle receives great admiration publicly. Power: Nestles power structure is very hierarchical, many field employees feel like progression is limited and not balanced for all employees. However when we consider their previous paths to this power (mergers and acquisitions) we can interpret their power drive as continuous and dedicated. Also another interesting fact is that Nestle is primarily a Male dominated organisation, which creates the concerns of the glass ceiling effect for women, which can be regarded as discouraging and an imbalance on gender equality. Organisational structure: Nestles Organisational structure is revolved around innovation and expansion. Innovation through their ethos of good food, good life, this can also be seen in their portfolio of innovating products such as baby formula and instant coffee. Their constant collaboration makes their company quiet segmented, however this approach has proven to be successful. In addition to this organisational structure, employees felt that quick decision making is not a competency of Nestles senior managers. This could potentially bring up the issue of potential lose in employee involvement, which can in most circumstances be valuable. Control systems: Nestle offer attractive pension plans in order to control employee systems. This is a lot more attractive for long term employees who are in the office. However, a majority of employees expressed that there is no work life balance plans to keep employees motivated and balanced in home and work activities. In contrast to their attractive pension plans, it can be assumed that Nestle is clearly monitory focused with employees. In addition we found that Nestle do not micro manage their employees, although this is more enjoyable for the employee, it can be interpreted that nestle need to grasp control systems in order to keep employee focus in activities. Routines Rituals: On a day to day basis, Nestle offer flexible working schedules for their staff. This communicates a laid back working environment, however due such hierarchical stances, strategy and direction is driven from headquarters. This tells us that on field employees are not driven on performance, as that type of belief is left to the senior managers in the company. It can be widely assumed of how advantageous it is for all employees to have access to Nestlà ©s international training centre in Switzerland. This can be seen as a prestigious opportunity for all Nestles employees to excel in. Creating Shared Value and meeting our commitments is Nestlà ©s view on expansion into different countries and reaching further customer segments globally. Nestle Ansoff Product / Market Growth Matrix Market Penetration: Like all cereal brands, Nestle is no different in wanting to expand further within markets such as the UK and Ireland. In order to do this they face a major obstacle in that they are the second largest behind Kelloggs who have a 45% market share of the breakfast cereal market. However, as revealed late last year, the company is looking to expand its brand further within the region of Northern Ireland and in order to help achieve its objectives they have enlisted the services of GM marketing to help expand the brand through the use of online technologies and refined marketing strategies. The first phase within the marketing strategy will see the core brands used to help identify the Nestle brand as well as using pre priced cereal boxes which may be cheaper or the same price as their competitors. Even though this is a low risk strategy the level of success of such a strategy can also be miniscule. If this strategy vastly increases the market share of Nestle it will have an impact on the market share of their competitors but at the same time it may not increase the market share of Nestle sufficiently to have a major impact on their competitors. It may take a considerable amount of time and may cause an impact within other areas that Nestle focus time and resources on. This strategy should be taken with a prudent approach in mind so as not to harm other categories that Nestle positions its brand. New Product Services: Research and development is an integral part within the Nestle company as they look to introduce product development within all of the categories that it positions its brand. This is clearly evident within the company as they employ 4,500 people globally within its RD departments as well as using external research provided by scientists, doctors who work within world renowned universities. This aspect of building bridges externally allows the company to further innovate within the area such of nutritional and healthy foods as well as numerous other categories. A core belief that exists within the Nestle group is to think global act local. When looking for new ways in which to introduce new products within existing markets they place the customer at the core of the product. This is recognisable in the way that they cater to various customer groups with breakfast cereal brands such as Nestle Multi Grain Cheerios focusing on all members of the family, Nesquik for teenagers and children and Nestle Fitness for people who place a high importance on keeping in shape. Nutrition is a vital element within the Nestle core beliefs and values but they also put a lot of effort into ensuring that good quality taste is never sacrificed in the cereals that they provide. Product development is a strategy that Nestle have continuously looked to improve upon since it identified that nutrition, health and wellness was to be the core strategy that it developed its products upon. Although it is a costly strategy the financial benefits on a global scale seem to outweigh the costs for Nestle. Market Development: Organisations would ideally like to operate as if the world were one large market, ignoring superficial regional and national differences but still making sure that marketing activities fit to the practices and cultural characteristics of genuinely different markets (Lee and Carter, 2008) The Nestle brand is recognised on a global scale and has a vast portfolio as it does not primarily focus on cereals which can be identified due to its large divergence into similar but also unrelated areas such as baby food, chocolate bars, beverages and many other various categories. However, they do not focus each of these categories on a global scale as not all of their products would be successful within each of the segmented markets. Even though each of the categories are not launched on a global scale it does not mean that they would not be successful within different markets as alterations could be made in relation to; How the product is packaged and designed The type of market

Trade openness and its impact on economic growth

Trade openness and its impact on economic growth The main objective of this chapter is to have an overview of what has been said in the literature regarding trade openness and its impacts, mainly on growth and exposure to external shocks. Infact, the benefits and costs of increased integration remain the subject of a hotly contested debate. Section 2.1 provides an overview of the theoretical perspective of different authors. Section 2.1.1 and 2.1.2 elaborate on the impact of trade on growth and exposure to external shocks respectively. Finally, section 2.2 reviews the empirical literature. 2.1 Theoretical review 2.1.1 Trade and Growth The net effect of trade openness on economic growth has been and remains a subject of much controversy. It is well known that periods of openness have generally been associated with prosperity while protectionism has been the companion of recessions. World international trade has experienced exponential growth over the past two decades. L. Fontagnà © and M. Mimouni (2000) have stated that since the end of the European recovery after World War II, tariff rates have been divided by 10 at the world level, international trade has been multiplied by 17, world income has quadrupled, and income per capita has doubled (p. 2). An economys openness is said to be one of the key determinants of its growth, along with human capital, the investment ratio and the rate of population growth (The Deutsch Bank Research, 2005). Countries that have successfully indulged in international trade, opened themselves to foreign direct investment and attracted foreign workers experienced much higher economic growth than countries that have failed to become integrated into the global economy. Explanations brought forward by The Deutsch Bank Research (2005) on how increased trade boosts growth are drawn from the neoclassical trade model, the technological transfer argument and the institutional improvements argument. In order to explain the neoclassical model of international trade, one should go back to Adam Smith (1776) and David Ricardo (1817). They showed that two countries with absolute and comparative cost advantages can benefit from trade given that each country specialises in producing the good that it can manufacture at a relatively lower cost. The total number of manufactured goods that both countries can consume thus increases and higher welfare follows. However, it is to be noted that economic growth is not an immediate consequence. Technology transfer occurs via the importing of high-tech capital goods, production facilities, patents and licences, as well as knowledge-intensive services. Furthermore, the importing of new technologies also stimulates the development of domestic technology via the imitation and enhancement of imported products. So trade accelerates technological progress, which in turn is the key source of long-term economic expansion according to growth theory. The institutional framework also plays a major role. It encompasses improving infrastructure, boosting capital market efficiency and safeguarding property rights. This process is facilitated by increasing international competition, which prompts domestic companies to continually optimise their production processes and develop new products; this also speeds up technological progress and thus boosts economic growth. In the same breath, Grossman and Helpman (1991) established that openness enhances economic growth through the following channels. Firstly, trade enlarges the available variety of intermediate goods and capital equipment, which can expand the productivity of the countrys other resources. Secondly, trade permits developing countries the access to improved technology in developed countries, in the form of embodied capital goods and thirdly, trade allows intensification of capacity utilization that increases products produced and consumed. To Fontagnà © and Guà ©rin (1998), openness is certainly a prerequisite, not the engine of growth. It simply fuels the engines of investment, reform and credibility. The trade performance of individual countries tends to be a good indicator of economic performance as well. Performing countries tend to record higher rates of GDP growth. The majority of developing countries have joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) and have taken initiatives aimed at opening their economies. Nevertheless, the outcome has not been systematically positive since export performance sometimes remains disappointing and these countries steadily follow contrasted development paths. Guà ©rin (1999) pointed out that there is no systematic gain in growth associated with the binding to the multilateral rules of international trade. Accordingly, Rodrik (2000) argues that integration into the world economy hardly substitutes for a development strategy. Nonetheless, some developing countries record high growth rates by specialising in niche markets and concentrating their export markets, while other developing countries record more moderate rates of growth with a well diversified array of products and partner countries. In other cases, successful performance is the result of a favorable product or market penetration since the beginning. Successful performance can also be gauged in terms of a countrys ability to adapt its export profile to changing patterns of world demand. The phenomenal differences among the growth rates of the East Asian, the Latin American, and Sub-Saharan African countries over the last several decades have stimulated a renewed interest in the effects of trade policies on growth. During most of the 20th century, import substitution industrialization (ISI) strategies dominated most developing countries development strategies. While developing countries in Latin America that followed ISI strategies experienced relatively lower growth rates, East Asian countries, that employed export-promotion policies, consistently outperformed other countries. This probably explains why a growing body of empirical and theoretical research has shifted towards examining the relationship between trade liberalization and the economic performance of countries since the late 1970s. 2.1.2 Trade and Exposure to External Shocks Trade provides countries with new growth opportunities but also exposes them to external shocks. Many economists believe that, though openness to trade increases average GDP growth rates, it also raises output volatility by exposing countries to terms-of- trade shocks. The term vulnerability is often brought up when referring to exposure to external shocks. Vulnerability refers to inherent characteristics which render countries prone to exogenous shocks Open economies are subject to external shocks and Rodrik (1998) has argued that more open economies have bigger governments, because government spending is used to smoothen those external shocks. The vulnerability of countries to some types of external shocks should be reduced when these countries exports are better diversified. More specifically, the effect of trade openness on growth volatility, might it be either negative or positive on average, is likely to be exacerbated when the country in question exports either a relatively small set of products, or sells its goods to a small number of destination markets. The argument is that a higher degree of concentration in exports would imply that any idiosyncratic price shock experienced is more likely to have a substantial impact on the countrys terms of trade, and this would then induce greater fluctuations in a countrys growth process. Furthermore, a higher degree of diversification would likely imply that a country is involved in a larger number of both implicit and explicit international insurance schemes, which would similarly serve as a cushion against such fluctuations. It has been argued that the structure of developing countries exports makes those countries particularly vulnerable to external shocks. Michaely (1958) showed five decades ago that countries with lower GDP per capita tend to be characterized by a higher commodity concentration of exports and argued that as a result, shocks affecting individual export products can have significant effects on overall export performance and potentially on economic performance in developing countries. However, it is to be noted that many small states manage to generate a relatively high GDP per capita when compared to other developing countries in spite of their high exposure to exogenous economic shocks. This would seem to suggest that there are factors which may offset the disadvantages associated with such vulnerability. This phenomenon was termed by Briguglio (2003) as the Singapore Paradox, referring to the reality that although Singapore is highly exposed to exogenous shocks, this small island state has managed to register high rates of economic growth and to attain high GDP per capita. This reality can be explained in terms of the ability of Singapore to build its resilience in the face of external shocks. Practitioners keep wondering whether being open, or in the process of opening up, can determine long-run negative effects linked to an increased exposure to external shocks or greater stress on certain actors. The open question is the following: does trade openness or the process of opening up magnify the risk exposure of the open economy and/or increase uncertainty towards the future, with negative consequences on its welfare? This question does not have a once-for-all answer. It concerns, in general terms, the issue of the balance between the advantages of trade openness and the drawbacks of a greater exposure to shocks and uncertainty. The simplest analysis of risk suggests that at low levels of trade (as typical in developing economies), further trade liberalisation would tend to reduce risk exposure, because (larger) world markets with many players are likely to be more stable than (smaller) domestic ones (Winters, 2002). The hypothesis of a likely long term negative welfare effect of exposure to external shocks and uncertainty a sort of vulnerability hazard induced by trade openness in developing countries (Montalbano et al., 2006 and 2008; Guillaumont, 2007a, 2007b; UNUWider 2008b) has been supported by a number of considerations: Dercon (2001) underlines the role of openness as a vehicle for an entirely new set of shocks and incentives able to put traditional mechanisms under pressure and hamper people standard management strategies; Calvo and Dercon (2003 and 2007) and Ligon and Schechter (2003 and 2004) highlight how risk averse households will have lower levels of welfare or a lower expected utility if they face greater variation in future consumption, as it is more likely in the case of trade openness; Winters (2002) and Winters et al. (2004) suggest that trade openness could alter households optimal portfolio leading to sub-optimal choices, especially for the poor, because of a poor ability to bear new risks and weak capabilities to insure themselves against adverse impacts or simply because their behaviour can be negatively affected by rising uncertainty. 2.2 Empirical Review Do open economies grow faster than closed economies? Almost all empirical growth studies have provided an affirmative answer to this question. The reason for this strong bias in favor of trade liberalization is partly based on the conclusions of a wide range of empirical studies, which claimed that outward-oriented economies consistently have higher growth rates than inward-oriented countries. It is also partly due to the tragic failures of import-substitution strategies, especially in the 1980s and overstated expectations from trade liberalization. Levine and Renelt (1992) show that trade openness may affect growth through investment. Continuous openness may lead to faster long-run growth since openness allows larger access to investment goods. Trade liberalization provides incentives for foreign direct investment; nevertheless, foreign investment may crowd-out domestic investment. Rodriguez and Rodrik [1999] also emphasize the indefinite sign of the effects of trade on growth. Net effects are positive if the resource allocation driven by trade policy promotes sectors that generate more long-run growth, but are negative otherwise. Economic volatility has been shown to reduce economic growth (Ramey and Ramey, 1995; Martin and Rogers, 2000; Imbs, 2007) and the positive growth impact of trade may therefore be attenuated if it leads to significant exposure to external shocks. Terms of trade volatility is probably the most widely used measure for external shocks. A number of studies have used quantitative, multi-sector equilibrium models to analyse the effect of terms of trade shocks on output volatility. Kose (2002) finds that world price shocks play an important role in driving business cycles in small open developing economies. His results confirm the results of earlier work by Mendoza (1995) or Kose and Riezman (2001). A number of recent studies have analysed the relationship between terms of trade shocks and changes in GDP growth in vector auto-regression (VAR) models. Ahmed (2003) uses a VAR model to study the sources of short-term fluctuations in the output of six Latin-American countries and finds that changes in the terms of trade and foreign output play a moderate role in driving output fluctuations. Using industry-level data, di Giovanni Levchenko (2009) investigate the channels through which trade openness might affect volatility. They find a strong positive correlation between the risk content of exports and the variance of terms of trade and also found that export specialization affect macroeconomic volatility. They find that trade openness appears to lead to countries becoming more specialised in their exports. This is problematic given that openness is likely to also expose a country to a greater number of shocks. Trade openness may expose economies to external shocks, but may also act as a buffer against domestic shocks. The overall impact of openness on volatility is therefore an empirical question. Easterly, Islam and Stiglitz (2001) and Calderon et al. (2005) find that higher trade openness leads to larger growth volatility. In contrast, Kose et al. (2002) do not find that trade openness have a robust effect on GDP volatility. Most studies on economic vulnerability provide empirical evidence that small states, particularly island ones, tend to be characterised by high degrees of economic openness and export concentration. These lead to exposure to exogenous shocks, that is, economic vulnerability, which could constitute a disadvantage to economic development by magnifying the element of risk in growth processes, without necessarily compromising the overall viability. Cordina (2004) shows that increased risk can adversely affect economic growth as the negative effects of downside shocks would be commensurately larger than those of positive shocks. The high degree of fluctuations in GDP and in export earnings registered by many small states is considered as one of the manifestations of exposure to exogenous shocks. In the analysis of the linkages between trade openness and volatility, for instance, an extensive use of panel data appears. Among the most recent exercises, Kose et al. (2003); Hnatkovska and Loayza (2004); Wolf (2004); Calderon et al. (2005) use panel data to measure the external exposure of a worldwide sample of countries by the sensitivity of first and second moments of economic growth (average rate and standard deviation) to openness and financial shocks. They also allow the possibilities of non-linearities by allowing growth and volatility effects to vary with the level of economic development. On the same wake, Loayza and Raddatz (2006) apply semi-structural VAR to a panel of 90 countries with annual observations for the period 1974-2000 in order to isolate and standardise the shocks; estimate their impact on GDP and examine whether and to what extent this impact depends on the domestic conditions.4 Using this technique, as mentioned, they show that trade openness magnifies th e output impact of external shocks. Santos-Paolino (2007) too, who applies the same Panel VAR approach for a selection of SIDS from the Caribbean, emphasises the negative impact of terms of trade shocks on current account and real output volatility. Malik and Temple (2006), in their effort to explain differences in output volatility across developing countries, use instead a Bayesian method to highlight explanatory variables that are robust across a wide range of specifications. They show the pervasive role of geography in determining aggregate volatility: since remoteness is associated with a lack of export diversification, a significant phenomenon of high volatility of terms-of-trade and output of the more remote countries is apparent. This result is not sensitive to the precise regression specification, nor it is driven by the contrasting geographies of low income and high income countries. Concerning the analysis of the linkages between trade openness and economic crises, Cavallo and Frankel (2007), following closely the definition of Calvo et al. (2003), Frankel and Rose (1996) and Frankel and Wei (2004), use a Probit model to measure the probability of a sudden reduction in the magnitude of net capital inflows; exchange market pressure and output loss for a set of 141 countries for the period 1970-2002. They find evidence that trade openness makes countries less vulnerable to sudden stops and currency crises. A special feature of this work is that they address the problem of endogeneity of trade, using gravity estimates to construct an instrumental variable for trade openness based on geographical determinants of bilateral trade which are supposed to be exogenous. In a slight different exercise, Glick and Rose (1999) explain regional contagion of crises, using a binary probit equation across countries via maximum likelihood. They use cross sectional data for 161 countries in five different episodes of widespread currency instability. Their conclusion complement that of Cavallo and Frankel (2007), arguing that no matter who is the first victim of the speculative attack and what factors are behind it there is a strong evidence that currency crises tend to spread regionally because of trade linkages. It emerges from the above how current analyses remain basically ex post assessments, mainly targeted to issues not directly linked to vulnerability. An additional effort is needed to build a sound methodology to assess vulnerability to trade openness. A. Federici and P. Montalbano in a paper entitled Assessing vulnerability to trade openness: a cross-country analysis offer a substantive contribution to current debate on the effects of trade openness on developing countries vulnerability. The main result of this cross countries empirical test is to highlight a robust and significative statistical relationship between consumption volatility linked to trade openness and a positive consumption gap, i.e. the presence of negative shocks on consumption growth. This phenomenon remains covered up by simple data analyses and largely overlooked by current empirical literature on openness and growth. This paper demonstrates that situations of vulnerability to trade can co-exist with a positive trade and growth relationship. Some countries keep higher probability to be worse off in case of negative external shocks, because of endogenous characteristics (resilience) and/or the use of inadequate coping strategies (responsiveness). Empirical work on the construction of an economic vulnerability index (Briguglio, 1995; Briguglio and Galea, 2003; Farrugia, 2004) is often based on the premise that a countrys proneness to exogenous shocks stems from a number of inherent economic features, including high degrees of economic openness (measured as the ratio of international trade to GDP), export concentration (measured by the UNCTAD index of merchandise trade) and dependence on strategic imports (measured as the ratio of the imports of energy, food or industrial supplies to GDP). All vulnerability indices using these or similar variables come to the conclusion that there is a tendency for small states to be more economically vulnerable than other groups of countries. L. Briguglio, G. Cordina, N. Farrugia and S. Vella (2008) provide an explanation as to why inherently vulnerable countries may register high levels of GDP per capita. It is argued that countries may be economically successful because they are inherently not vulnerable, or because they are resilient in the face of the vulnerability they face. The obverse is also true, in that countries may be unsuccessful because they are not sufficiently resilient. The paper has also shown that GDP per capita is positively related to economic resilience and negatively related to inherent economic vulnerability. Furthermore, per capita GDP is found to be more sensitive to resilience variables than to vulnerability variables. H. Yanikkaya (2002) showed that trade liberalization does not have a simple and straightforward relationship with growth using a large number of openness measures for a cross section of over 100 developed and developing countries observed from 1970 to 1997. The regression results for numerous trade intensity ratios are mostly consistent with the existing literature. However, contrary to the conventional view on the growth effects of trade barriers, our estimation results show that trade barriers are positively and, in most specifications, significantly associated with growth, especially for developing countries and they are consistent with the findings of theoretical growth and development literature. 2.3 Conclusion Much has been said in the literature regarding trade and growth. However, the more exposed to trade a country is, the more vulnerable it is to shocks coming from abroad. But nonetheless, economists believe that trade openness promotes economic growth. These have led some observers to identify an interrelationship between openness to trade, output volatility and growth.