Rene Descartes and a discription Essay Example for Free

Rene Descartes and a discription Essay Rene Descartes (1596-1650) was not only a philosopher but also a mathematician and scientist. As a philosopher, he used skepticism as a means of finding the truth of all. His idea was to doubt everything, and in doubting everything, anything that couldnt be doubted was definite. I will doubt everything that can possibly be doubted, he reasons, and if anything is left, then it will be absolutely certain. (Moore/Bruder 93) This, Descartes felt was the only way to obtain truth and knowledge. This method was to take away all the confidence in everything that was taught to us, what we sense and believe, and the things we take as being obvious. To truly determine if we know anything is for certain we must doubt it all disregarding all we knew about it before. So everything we currently believe is open to discussion and can be questioned. Descartes Method of Doubt incorporated two well-known conjectures, a dream conjecture and the evil demon conjecture. What the dream conjecture is, is the notion that everything that is reality might just be a dream. Adding to the dream conjecture, is the evil demon conjecture. This evil demon conjecture, in essence, is the concept that if this all [reality], is just a dream, then perhaps there is an evil demon that is deceiving our minds with these false images of reality. So, we cant assume that our bodies or that anything of our experience exists and can be trusted to be true. For everything we know could be just a dream and not real at all and controlled by a deceiver. No, Descartes was not out of his mind. He was aware that these two conjecture he composed sounded far-fetched. However, that was the whole point. Descartes was on a quest to find certainty in an any-case-possibility. What Descartes came up with after going through and doubting everything was the cogito, ergo sum or I think, therefore I am. What this meant was if you are thinking, you are existing. The self that doubts its own existence must surely exist to be able to doubt in the first place. (Moore/Bruder 93) Subsequently, this was the only true thing we can know to be real. We know that we exist at least in a form of a mind. So we can doubt our physical existence but not our mental existence because you can think. To take this a step further he developed the clear and distinct test. The clear and distinct test was a test to find out what was true with clarity and distinctness. Meaning, anything that is clear and distinct is true. Using this clear and distinct test, Descartes came to the conclusion that God, in fact, exists. Descartes believed he viewed God clearly and distinctively, and further, God would not let an evil demon toy with his mind, if such a thing did exist. Descartes also thought that there were two distinct substances beyond God, and these two substances were material substance and mind substance. The material substance was all that exists and occupies space and the mind substance is that of thought. Because a substance, according to Descartes, requires nothing other than itself to exist, it follows that mind and matter are totally independent of each other. (Moore/Bruder 95) The result to these two substances being independent of each other is called parallelism. The mind, they argued, does not really cause the body to move. When I will that my hand should move, my act of willing only appears to cause my hand to move. (Moore/Bruder 97)Descartes felt that God was the one who was involved in the mental things that happened and the sequence of material actions. He believed God was the reason those two things happened to happen together. This idea was called occasionalism. Descartes was first to make this systematic account of the mind and body relationship, and also the souls contact with the body. (Rorty). Descartes essentially through everything, approached all metaphysical issues by going back and trying to pick apart everything about the basic things. Descartes tried to discover metaphysical truth about what is through epistemological inquiry about what can be know. (Moore/Bruder 97) The profit of Descartes ideas is that in the dismissal of everything makes you question and look at elements that may be overlooked because it is human to draw on experience. So, to clear oneself of all former beliefs leaves everything wide open for exploration and opens up a wider scope. The problem I find in his distinct and clear theory is Descartes proof of Gods existence. In proving the existence of God he uses circular reasoning. This circular reasoning is called the Cartesian Circle. The Cartesian Circle is the circular reasoning that, on one hand, we can only know that God exists because we clearly and distinctively perceive it, and on the other hand, we can only know that our clear and distinct perceptions are true because God exits. (Loeb 200-235) This type of reasoning doesnt make any concrete conclusions on the existence of God. It just keeps going around in a circle, one right after the other. Descartes believe that only his perceptions could be deceived not his mind. So since God was good and perfect, he wouldnt allow him to be deceived, therefore God exists. To explain his ideas on the existence of God, Descartes states that if one can have an idea of a perfect being, which is God, then a perfect being must exist if we can think it in our minds. All of this to me, doesnt show any solid proof. Even though you can think something in your mind, doesnt mean it must exits. I can think lots of things in my mind personally, that doesnt necessary mean that somewhere, maybe not in the physical world I experience, truly exists. Also, if God did exists, and if God is perfect, as Descartes claims, then why does Atheism and such religious beliefs exist? Wouldnt perfection be if God could exist and not be questionable? Because what Descartes believes is all that we can perceive clearly and distinctively exists, and he had not given any way that explains how you can perceive God clearly and distinctively, other than stating he can perceive in his mind. Also, another thing that is a problem in Descartes method is his goal of proving the existence of the outside world was not valid by any substantial means. There is no proof that any physical object exists aside from a near universal belief that the external world exists. What Descartes says, is that since God makes us believe that there is an external world, then there must be one. However, there are lots of mistakes in his proof of God and it isnt truly valid. So, therefore we cannot say anything in this external world does exist or either God, based on the knowledge I have obtained on the subject matter on Descartes. From what I have read on Descartes and his philosophical ideas, there are many holes and things to argued; as Im sure is in most theories. Nonetheless, even though his ideas arent entirely credible to myself, I feel that his contributions to the field of philosophy are eminent. Descartes had brought lots of old questions of past philosophers and tried to rationalize them, he failed in my opinion to come up with any competent answers for what he was trying to prove. However, he did prompt other philosophers in his progression to come up later with some better answers to some of these ideas.

Cooperative Movement in India | Development

Cooperative Movement in India | Development Introduction In the todays growing world Co-operatives do activities for the development of agriculture, small industry marketingandprocessing, distribution and supplies. The progress report of co-operatives in the State is very good and contribution to agricultural progress has particularly been significant. For the purpose of Green Revolution, these Co-operatives introduced various schemes for the conversion of villages into towns and also the construction of go downs. The Co-operative Movement was introduced into India by the Government to overcome the burden of debt of farmers and they can sell their products easily and can get the maximum profit. The Co-operative Credit Societies Act, 1904 was passed by the Governmentof India and rural credit societies were formed. Through the appointment of registrars and through vigorous propaganda, the Government attempted to popularize the Movement in the rural areas. Within a short period, the Government realized some of the shortcomings of the 1904 Act and, therefore, passed a more comprehensive Act, known as theCo-operative Societies Act of 1912. This Act recognized non-credit societies also. But the rural credit societies have continued to be predominant till now. Agricultural Credit/Service Societies The structure of Agricultural Co-operative credit in the Punjab State is divided into two sectors i.e. Dealing with the short-terms and medium-terms finance and the other with the long-term credit. The short-term and medium-term credit structure is based on a three-tier system i.e. the Apex Co-operative Bank at the State level, the Central Co-operative Bank at the district level and the Primary Agricultural Credit Societies at the village level. The major role of these services which is provided to the farmers is to make the funds available to the farmers for their agriculture production, for the purchase of machinery, fertilizers etc. Type of societies Co-operative Weavers society Co-operative Consumers Societies Co-operative Housing Societies Co-operative Womens Societies Co-operative Milk-Societies Problems for Co-operatives Lack of supervision leads to the misuse of the financial resources. Lack of inspection by Registrar Government is hesitating to entrust any important government work since it does not have any participation. The Co-operative Banks and other important institutions are located far away from the reach of the farmers. NABARD and RBI are not agreeing for conversion of Central and Urban Co-operative Banks. R.B.I. has also objection about the use of word Co-operative since Banking Regulation Act uses the word Co-operative Society. Wrong persons may take advantage of the situation to cheat the general public. When the Government are exploring the possibility of regulating the Non-governmental organizations having vast experience, it is doubtful as to whether the mutually aided Co-operatives in various field can give desired result. Introduction to NABARD NABARD is set up by the Government of India as a development bank for facilitating credit flow for promotion and development of agriculture and integrated rural development. It also helps in all other economic activities in rural areas, promoting sustainable rural development and for the prosperity of the rural areas. With a capital base of Rs 2,000 crore provided by the Government of India and Reserve Bank of India, it operates through its head office at Mumbai, 28 regional offices situated in state capitals and 391 district offices at districts. Present Scenario Initiates measures toward institution-building for improving absorptive capacity of the credit delivery system, including monitoring, formulation of rehabilitation schemes, restructuring of credit institutions, training of personnel, etc. Coordinates the rural financing activities of all the institutions engaged in developmental work at the field level and maintains liaison with the government of India , State governments, the Reserve Bank of India and other national level institutions concerned with policy formulation Prepares, on annual basis, rural credit plans for all the districts in the country. These plans form the base for annual credit plans of all rural financial institutions Undertakes monitoring and evaluation of projects refinanced by it Promotes research in the fields of rural banking, agriculture and rural development Functions as a regulatory authority, supervising, monitoring and guiding cooperative banks and regional rural banks Role and Functions COOPERATIVE DEVELOPMENT FUND (CDF) In pursuance with the recommendations of the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture, Cooperative Development Fund was constituted by NABARD in the year 1992-93 under the provisions of Section 45 of NABARD Act, 1981 with a view to strengthening and providing assistance to Co-operative Credit Institutions for improving their infrastructural facilities. The initial Corpus of the Fund was Rs.10 crore which was subsequently raised to Rs.75 crore. The cumulative assistance sanctioned to cooperative institutions from the Fund for various purposes unto 31 March 2007 amounted to Rs.76.35 crore against which Rs.67.66 crore has been disbursed. National Conference of Urban Credit Cooperative Societies Saturday, 22 April, 2006, Pune (Talking Points) Dignitaries on the dais, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Cooperative Movement in India has contributed to the rural development of the country. Though the movement has developed in different States of the country not in the uniform manner, some of the States like Maharashtra, Gujrath, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh have shown tremendous growth of the Cooperative Movement in these States. The cooperatives were considered as the balancing force between the private sector and the public sector. The advantages of the private sector and the public sector could be very well achieved through the cooperative sector and the disadvantages associated with the private sector and the public sector could be eliminated in the cooperative sector. The societies, which were promoted by the leadership having vision and who managed these cooperatives well, have become successful; whereas the cooperative societies, which suffered from the lack of dynamic leadership were mismanaged and these cooperative societies became failure. Maharashtra State is one of those States in our country, which can boast of claiming that the cooperatives in the State are managed by the elected representatives by the members and the elections do take place regularly except in few cases where there are problems of mismanagement. Out of the total number of 1.75 lakhs cooperative societies in Maharashtra there are hardly few hundred cooperative societies, where the administrators are functioning. This shows the Cooperative Movement in Maharashtra is functioning purely on democratic principles. The Cooperative Movement in Maharashtra has made tremendous progress during the last 45 years. The number of societies in 1960 was hardly 30,000 in 1960, which has gone upto 1.75 lakhs in 2005. The number of membership of all these societies increased from 42 lakhs in 1960 to almost nearing 5 crores in 2005, whereas the members capital was only 53 crores in 1960, which has increased to around 13,000 crores in 2005. Though the figures indicate that the cooperatives have made tremendous progress in Maharashtra some of the sectors in cooperatives have been highly successful, whereas some of the sectors could not make any success. The examples of successful societies are found in large number in the areas of Cooperative Sugar Factories, Dairy Cooperatives, Urban Banking, whereas almost 50% of the Primary Agricultural Credit Coop. Societies and 50% of the District Central Cooperative Banks are in a very bad financial position. The Agro Processing Cooperatives also could not make any progress, though there is a tremendous potential for these cooperatives, considering the huge production of the fruits and vegetables (production of fruits is about 100 lakh tonnes and that of vegetables is around 50 lakhs tonnes, which is likely to be doubled in the next 5 years) as well as other agricultural produce in Maharashtra. The Government of Maharashtra has recently passed various amendments in the Maharashtra Agricultural Produce Marketing (Regulation) Act, 1963, on the lines of Model Act prepared by the Govt. of India and has introduced the provisions for establishment of Private Markets, Farmer Consumers Markets, Direct Marketing, Single Licence for the Traders and the Contract Farming. These amendments will have very good effect on the growth of agro-processing sector, exports of fruits and vegetables and value added produce from agriculture and the development of retail chain management, as these sectors will be able to source the requirement of their produce directly from the farmers. This will also have good impact on large private investment coming in to agricultural sector, development of infrastructure like pre-cooling units, cold storages, cold chain for transportation of perishable produce, putting up of the processing industries etc. The employment generation in agriculture and allied sectors will also be improved. It is envisaged that because of these changes the overall economy will grow and the farmers will get better returns for their produce. This will also have the positive effect on quality and productivity improvement in agriculture. Besides 20,000 Primary Agricultural Credit Coop. Societies, 34 District Central Cooperative Banks and the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank, there are about 25,000 Urban Cooperative Credit Societies in Maharashtra. While the Primary Agricultural Credit Cooperative Societies give loans to the farmers for agriculture and for crop production, the urban credit societies cater to the needs of the urban population, particularly to meet their requirements of credit for consumer articles. The total membership of these societies is around 1.10 crores. The share capital of these societies is around Rs.3,500 crore and their own funds amounting to Rs.5700 crore. The deposits of these societies are around Rs.10,000 crore and they have given loans of about Rs.15,000 crore. The working capital of these societies is around Rs.25,000 crore. The cooperative credit sector is operating in both Urban and Rural areas. The Urban credit societies cater to the needs, primarily, of the urban population. It also caters to the household needs of the rural population. Recently the urban cooperative credit societies in rural areas have started financing the agricultural needs of farmers. This effort was initiated and promoted by the Government by issuing the Govt. Resolution on 22.12.2005. The loans to the tune of about Rs.15,000 crore to 1.12 crore member itself speaks of volume of work of these cooperative credit societies, who necessarily reach the urban and rural masses. The presence of credit societies in the vicinity provides confidence of easy availability of funds, to both urban and rural masses. The credit societies are now intending to diversify by extending their  services such as cash transfers and other permitted banking operations. The credit societies Federation is trying to play a prominent role to have joint venture operations along with the similar international organisations. The State Federation of Urban Credit Societies in Maharashtra has decided to extend the insurance to the Depositors of Urban Credit Societies, by forming their own Deposit Insurance Scheme. This is a unique revolutionary decision and it will go a long way in building confidence of the depositors in these societies. There are 2,106 Urban cooperative Banks in the country having deposits of Rs.1.10 lakh crore. Out of these, there are nearly 650 Urban Cooperative Banks in Maharashtra, having the total deposits of Rs. 65,000 crore. The Urban cooperative Banks are also catering to both the rural and urban population. The huge membership base available for both the urban cooperative banks and cooperative credit societies must be utilized for the ultimate upliftment of both the members and the organizations. This base can be utilized as channels both forward and backward in respect of different managerial aspects such as marketing, distribution, services etc. For achieving this, both these organizations should have integrated approach in functioning and their policy framing like Rates of Interest on deposits, Rates of Interest on loans etc. It is necessary that borrowers get loans at reasonable rate of interest so that any business becomes viable and borrower is able to repay loans. The financial involvement of both the urban and rural masses in the  cooperative credit societies by way of deposits always demanded its safety. The involvement of Insurance Agencies was well solicited. However, the effort in this direction was uniquely made by the Maharashtra State Cooperative Deposit Guarantee Corporation which happens to be a cooperative society. It has to go a long way but a good start has been made to cover up 70 credit societies guarantying their deposits up to the limit of Rs.50,000/-. The consolidated effort to qualitatively strengthen the organisation and increase its scope is the need of this hour. The cooperative credit societies are facing innumerable problems some of them can be listed as follows. Accepting deposits at higher rate from depositors Huge expenses on administration. Lack of management skill Lack of training and education to the employees and Board of Directors Poor performance in recovery Loans are sanctioned without proper scrutiny These problems needs to be addressed by all the concerned with the focus on the overall quality to be maintained by these cooperative organizations. The cooperatives including the urban credit cooperative societies should function in such a manner that they have the highest operational efficiency and professional management so that they can deliver the desired results to the members and the common man. Unfortunately the professional management and operational efficiency is lacking in many societies. As I have already mentioned earlier the societies, which have been managed efficiently and have been able to serve their members and public in a most desirable manner the example of the cooperative sugar factories in Maharashtra is an eye opener to a person who looks at these societies very closely. Out of 200 cooperative sugar factories in Maharashtra almost 50% have excellent results whereas 50% of these factories are in problems. Some of the cooperative sugar factories, which are excellently managed could pay almost Rs. 1100 to 1200 per tonne as a sugarcane price, whereas many of the badly managed Cooperative Sugar Factories could not pay even statutory minimum price. For paying the statutory minimum price, these factories are required to borrow from banks by creating short margin and with the Govt. guarantee. The Govt. of India is helping these factories with the package for rehabilitation. Though this is required in the larger interest of the farmers, the sugar factories, which are performing well should also be given incentives by the Govt. of India. Same policy should be applied to the other successful cooperative societies also. The urban cooperative credit societies in the State and in the country must remember that they have to face competition with big Multi-National Banks and the Commercial Banks. These societies should therefore, be vigilant in advancing loans and in no case loans, which cannot be recovered should ever be sanctioned. These societies must adopt the modern management practices including computerization in their working, professional training to their employees and to their members of the Board and should keep their level of functioning very competitive. This only can bring success to these societies. Thank you. Jai Hind .!!! Jai Maharashtra ..!!!! Interpretation: In the above article, the man stress is on using the modern techniques of working, professional training should be given so that they can handle each and every single problem and most important all work should be done thorough computers so that the commitment of errors should be minimum. Whatever the loans provided to the farmers, the record of that and the documents should be maintained properly so that it will be easy for the working of the employees as well as for the farmers to know every single point. With this proper documentation recovery department can easily comes to know about the person from they have to collect the particular amount. Proper education training should be given so that the employees can give their 100% to the work and they should no charge higher rate for accepting the deposits. The loans which will be given to the farmers should be given after the enquiry of that particular person that whether the person really need the loan and the information he is provid ing is true or not. AGRO-INPUTS DISTRIBUTION IN AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES R.C.Gupta Agricultural Cooperatives in India are very actively and intimately involved in several agriculture related activities. The most important activities are the disbursement of production credit and distribution of fertilisers and other inputs viz seeds, pesticides and agricultural implements. Agricultural Cooperatives are also involved in procurement of farm produce, processing and marketing of oilseeds, Cotton, sugar, milk and milk products, distribution of essential commodities, clothes, kerosene oil and merchandise etc. Coop. movement in India started way back in 1905. Till 1939, Agricultural Cooperatives in India were distributing only the credit to the farmers. Its activities got diversified to consumer articles and also some agricultural inputs in the rural areas over a period of time. Subsequently, based on the suggestions made by different committees and commissions, the cooperatives were given a significant role in distribution of fertilisers. Currently, cooperatives are playi ng a significant role both in production and marketing of fertilisers. Cooperatives Role in Agricultural Credit Disbursement Cooperatives play a very important role in disbursement of agricultural credit. Credit is needed both by the distribution channel as well as by the farmers. The distribution channel needs it to finance the fertiliser business and farmers need it for meeting various needs for agricultural production including purchasing fertilisers. The credit needed by the farmers for purchase of fertilisers and other inputs is called ‘short term credit or ‘production credit whereas credit needed by the distribution channel is called ‘Distribution Credit. Cooperatives also play a very important role in disbursement of ‘Medium Term and ‘Long Term credit needed by the farmers for purchasing agricultural equipments viz tractors, installation of tubewells and land development  works etc. ‘ Joint General Manager(Marketing), IFFCO, 53-54, Nehru Place, New Delhi -110019 Paper presented at 13th ICA-Japan Training Course on â€Å"Strengthening Management of Agricultural Cooperatives in Asia† 1988-99 at FMDI, Gurgaon, Haryana, India, on Jan 21, 1999 In India, 78 per cent of the farmers belong to the category of small and marginal farmers. They depend heavily on credit for their agricultural operations. These farmers will not be able to adopt the modern agricultural practices unless they are supported by a system which ensures adequate and timely availability of credit on reasonable terms and conditions. Credit in India is made available to the farmers through a multi-agency network consisting of cooperatives, commercial banks and Regional Rural Banks (RRBs). However, cooperatives accounts for a large proportion of the agricultural credit made available to the farmers. National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) was established in the year 1982 by an Act of Parliament and was entrusted will all matters concerning policy, planning and operation in the field of credit for agriculture and other economic activities in the rural areas. Before that, this job was being done by Reserve Bank of India itself. NABARD works for progressive institutionalization of the rural credit and ensures that the demands for credit from agriculture including the new and upcoming areas like floriculture, tissue culture, bio-fertilisers, sprinkler irrigation, drip irrigation etc. are met. The medium and long term of loans are disbursed to the farmers through Primary Land Develo pment Banks (757) who draw their finances from Central Land Development Banks (20) who in turn draw their finances from NABARD. As for the short term credit, this is disbursed to the farmers through Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS-66,200) who draw their finances from Central Cooperative Banks (363) who in turn draw their finances from the State Cooperative Banks (29). The State Cooperative Banks draw their finances from NABARD. Cooperatives Role in Fertiliser Distribution: Introduction Agriculture continues to be the mainstay of Indias national economy. Its contribution to Indias Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is about 30 per cent. Nearly two thirds of the population still depends on this sector directly or indirectly. Self-sufficiency in foodgrains has been the basic objective of Indias policy on agriculture. Foodgrain production has increased from the level of 52 thousand tonnes in 1951-52 to 199 million tonnes in 1996-97. However, the foodgrain production declined to 193 million tonnes in 1997-98. The present population of the country is about 960 million and is likely to touch 1000 million by the turn of this century. To feed this level of population, India has to produce 208 million tonnes of foodgrains from the present level of 193 million tonnes which is, no doubt, a gigantic task The vital role of fertilisers in increasing agricultural production is well recognised. Since, the land man ratio is declining due to increasing population, the additional foodgrain production has to come by increasing the productivity of land under cultivation. Adoption of modern agricultural practices is the only way for increasing agricultural productivity. This calls for application of inputs like chemical fertilisers, high yielding seeds and pesticides besides use of mechanical equipments like seed-cum-fertilizer drills, sprayers, pump sets etc. Chemical fertilisers are very costly, particularly the phosphatic and potassic ones which have been decontrolled w.e.f 25th August, 1992. Urea, of course, is relatively low priced due to grant of subsidy by GOI. However, unless balanced nutrients are applied, the productivity cannot be sustained. Fertilizer Distribution Channels Fertilizers are produced/ imported at about 200 locations in the country and distributed to the farmers scattered through the length and breadth of the country in about 600,000 villages through a network comprising of private and institutional channels. Some quantities are also made available through manufacturers own outlets. Private trade accounts for about 60 per cent of the total fertilisers distributed in the country followed by institutional agencies at 35 per cent and remaining 5 percent through the manufacturers own outlets. Among the institutional agencies, cooperatives are the main agency which alone account for nearly 30% of the total fertiliser business. The total number of fertiliser salepoints in the country is 262,000; out of which about 71,000 (27%) are institutional agencies salepoints (mainly cooperatives) and the remaining 1,91,000 (73 %) are controlled by the private trade. Cooperative Channels Cooperatives are the main institutional agency in the country handling fertilizers. Cooperative network, at present, comprises of 29 state level marketing federations, 171 district level marketing societies and about 66,200 village level cooperative societies. These village level cooperative societies are generally called Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS). These societies are the backbone of the cooperative marketing system. These societies are well spread in the entire country covering 97 % of the 0.6 million villages and 95 % of the farming families. The other main institutional agencies engaged in the distribution of fertilizers are State Agro-Industries Development Corporations, Commodity Federations and State Departments of Agriculture etc. They operate both through their own sale depots as well as through the private dealers network. However, their share is only marginal. The cooperative structure differs from state to state and societies at different levels (distric t/taluka/village) perform different functions in different states. Generally, the cooperative network operates through a 3 tier system. However, in some states such as Haryana, the cooperative marketing system operates on 2 tier basis, while in some others like Gujarat a 4 tier system exists. At the state level, Apex Cooperative Marketing Federations act as wholesalers; marketing societies at district/taluka level as sub-wholesalers while PACS, PAMS (Primary Agricultural Marketing Societies) at grass root level act as retailers. The function of State level Apex Cooperative Marketing Federations differ from state to state. In some states, the Federations are actively involved in fertiliser business like Gujarat, Haryana, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh etc. and they act as the wholesalers for the entire State. In some States like Uttar Pradesh (U.P.), they are not directly involved in the fertiliser business and do the job of liaison and coordination only for which they are getting servi ce charges from the fertiliser suppliers. In U.P. , the State Federation is also doing warehousing as well as transportation job both for IFFCO and KRIBHCO (The only manufacturers in the cooperative sector). In the States where Federation is not involved in fertiliser business, the manufacturers are supplying fertilizers directly to the lower societies at the district/village level and the societies are getting full or near full distribution margin which has improved the financial health of these societies. Current Cooperative Fertilizer Distribution Status Presently, in Gujarat, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, J K, H.P. and Assam, in the cooperative sector, fertiliser supplies are made to the Apex Coop. Marketing Federations only and they act as wholesalers. Direct supplies are not there at all. Only small quantities under the special scheme like IFFCO-NCDC scheme in Haryana and IFFCO societies adoption programme in M.P. are supplied directly to the societies. In these states district level societies operate as sub-wholesalers. In the states like Punjab, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa A.P. and Kerala, both the systems i.e. supply through federation as well as direct supply to the societies are prevalent. As a result, some of the societies at the lower levels are getting supplies directly from the manufacturers while others are getting from the Federations. However, in the states of U.P. and Bihar, supplies of fertilisers are made to the village level societies directly by the manufacturers. In states where state level federations act as wholesalers, the manufacturer has to deal with only one agency. Consequently, the job of sales planning, movement and stocks planning, realisation of sales proceeds etc. becomes very easy. In states where manufacturer deals with the lower tier cooperatives directly, the volume of work increases many fold and it becomes much more complex. The material has to be released to individual societies and the sales proceeds realisation has also to be done at that level only. This requires deployment of larger field force. Decentralised release system leads to establishing larger number of warehouses and correspondingly larger inventory. This all increases the operating cost. Manufacturers Own Outlets Some manufacturers viz. IFFCO, KRIBHCO, GSFC, GNFC and NFL have their own retail outlets called Farmers Service Centres or Service Centres or Farm Information Centres etc. In these outlets, agricultural inputs like fertilisers, seeds, agro-chemicals and agricultural implements etc. are made available to the farmers under one roof along with agricultural production technology literature. The main motto of these service centres is not only to provide all quality agro-inputs to the farmers but also educating them on scientific agricultural by providing technical know how in the field of agriculture. This help the farmers in increasing their agricultural p roductivity and profitability. Promotion activities are also carried out in the villages located around these centres ( within radius of 8-10 kms) which includes demonstrations, farmers meetings, soil test campaigns, crop seminars etc. In addition, social campaigns like tree plantations, medical check-up, veterinary check up etc. are also organized. They also serve the purpose additional/alternative distribution channel for the organization. A graphical presentation of fertilizer distribution channels in India the cooperatives and the private trade is given at Annexure- I. Linkage in disbursement of Production Credit and Agro-Input Distribution As already mentioned elsewhere in this paper a large number of farmers in India particularly the small and marginal farmers depend upon credit for purchase of fertilizers and other inputs. A very strong point with the cooperative is that the Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) which are involved in disbursement of agro-inputs Interpretation: Agricultural Cooperatives in India are the backbone of the cooperative system and involved in variety of function and serving the rural masses by providing credit, fertilizers, seeds, Agro-Chemicals, Agriculture Implements etc. Their role has been commendable and helped in making essential inputs availability to the rural masses. These need to be further strengthened. Conclusion: In the end we can say that these Co-operative societies plays a vital role in the growth of the rural areas as well as the growth of the Economy of the Country. These societies helps in the development of the farmers by providing funds to them for the irrigation purpose and also provide new machines for the farming so that they can produce maximum in the minimum time period and of the best quality and also they helps them in earning the good value of their produced products. Bibliography Websites: http://agriculture.indiabizclub.com/info/agriculture_cooperatives http://www.nabard.org/nabardrolefunct/nabardrolefunctions.asp http://www.nabard.org/nabardrolefunct/cooperativedevelopmentfund.asp http://www.nabard.org/developmentpromotional/developmentalinitiatives.asp http://www.maharashtra.gov.in/english/chiefminister/ccs.pdf http://www.iffco.nic.in/applications/Brihaspat.nsf/d111b7bb8d3d76bbe525656f00324885/ca039309da93bec0e5256778003cf811/$FILE/rcgica.pdf

Development of Hospital Management System

Development of Hospital Management System Introduction Hospital Management is a web based application to manage the activities related to doctor and patient. Hospital Management is based on distributed architecture. This involves the web services which receives request from the web based application and service processes the request and sends the response back to the application. Web services performs the database operations like insert, delete and update the information about the patients, doctors etc. This kind of distributed architecture is called as Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). This application contains login form, patient registration, doctor registration. Hospital Management application allow patients to edit their information like patient name, contact number, address, disease from which he is suffering from etc. The concept of hospital management is very big. The scope of hospital management involves different modules like login module, patient info, doctor info, billing module, registration module and administration module. Login module will include the operation related to login, forgot password, password change, sending confirmations or alerts etc. Patient info module will include the details about the patient like patient history about his treatment and doctors involved in the treatment, details of medicines suggested by doctors. Billing Module will include the details of fees, mode of payment used by the patient to pay the fees. Registration module will allow the users to register their profiles. Administration module allows performing operations like creating the new users, performing password change operations, loading the information of doctors for the first time. Hospital Management uses sql server 2005 as the backend. The database is maintained on the remote server, this database h olds all the information related to the hospital. Abstract: Before SOA architecture, DCOM or (ORBs) object request brokers based on CORBA specifications were used to develop the distributed applications. DCOM is known was distributed component object model. DCOM is an extension of COM (component object model), DCOM was released in 1996. It works primarily with Microsoft windows. It will work with Java Applets and ActiveX components through its use of COM. Service Oriented Architecture is nothing but collection of services. These services are deployed at different servers at different locations. These services communicate with each other to perform required operations. The communication can be simple data passing. Service Provider: The provider will create the service using any technology like .net or java and publishes its information for accessing the outside world. The provider decides which service to be published and one service can provide multiple operations, how to price the services or without charge like free services. Provider also decides the category of the services. The most common broker service is UDDI (Universal Description Discovery and Integration) provides a way publish and discover the information about the services. Service Requester: The requester identifies the services using UDDI or any other service broker. The services provide the required operations then the requester should take it to the service provider for contract. Then requester can bind the services to the application and execute to get the required information. The principles used for development, maintenance and usage of SOA are Reuse, comparability, granularity and interoperability. Identifying the services and categorizing them. Monitoring and tracking. The specific architectural principles of SOA design are Service loose coupling Service encapsulation Service contract Service abstraction Service reusability Service discoverability PROJECT SCOPE AND OBJECTIVE: SCOPE Development of a computerized Hospital management system with the provision of flexible, accurate and secured access to data thus bringing in the highly useful end product for the users as well as for the management. OBJECTIVE To develop a system that maintains a sophisticated Hospital management details bringing out the flexibility and the ease with which the users can use it. To track and improve internal performance of the financial corporation thereby allowing the flexible and secured transactions to happen. FEATURES OF THE CURRENT SYSTEM In the existing system the data required for the Hospital management is maintained in records. These are to be updated according to the requirements of the customer. It takes time to search for the required data. All the details regarding the hospitals and its timings are hard to maintain. The work will be more so the systems need more number of crew to fulfill the requirements. There may be a chance of failure since it is manual. A simple fault of the system may lead to inconvenience and also cause a vast destruction. So these faults make the system less effective and performance of the system is very slow. Hence, there should be a system to overcome all these defects and provide the users with more facilities. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE INTENDED SYSTEM In the proposed system everything is computerized. The system provides all the details regarding the hospitals, its details, and soon. The users can search the required data easily within no time. A very less number of people are required to handle the system. The patients need not wait for long time to fulfill his requirement. There is no chance of any failure in the system, which improves the performance of the system and also increases the efficiency of the system. Though this system is very beneficial a minor failure in the server or else the computer leads to a major loss of data. PROJECT OVERVIEW The project performs the following functions In 1997, a team of Medical Professionals has set up the first hospital, it signaled the dawn of a new era in medical care. At the heart of this movement was a burning desire to practice medicine with Compassion, Concern and Care, with a single-minded objective the recovery of the patient. Today, with Multi-Specialty HOSPITAL across the state, and a reputation for humanitarian and selfless service of the highest order, Hospital enjoys an unbelievable amount of goodwill. A million smiles will bear testimony to that. At hospital, we operate on a physician driven model. This means that all the main constituents of the CARE movement the promoters, administrators and service providers are physicians. At the centre of the CARE model is the patient and the over-riding motive of all of Cares activities is to provide quality medical care at an affordable cost. Technology, Training and Teamwork form the very core of the CARE model. We emphasize on a comprehensive and continuous education and training of every individual involved in patient care. Every effort will be taken to ensure that our growth is one decided by the patients needs, and not one decided by our corporate requirements. Our hospital believes at: A patient is the most important person in our hospital. He is not an interruption to our work; he is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our hospital. He is a part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity to do so. NEED FOR COMPUTERIZATION: The use of computerized hospital is to provide effective facilities to the people, which are suffering from any problems. The advantages are: Less cost No mediators Excellent services The main goal of this hospital management system is to achieve the people satisfaction. Hospital management system provides effective facilities to the people from any place in the world. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Software Requirement Specifications: Operating Systems : Windows 2000 Prof Database server : Sql Srver 2005 Programming Language : C# Hardware Requirement Specifications: Application Server Configuration: Computer Processor : Pentium IV Clock Speed : 700MHZ Processor Hard Disk : 40GB RAM : 256/512 MB Modem : 56KBPS Database Server Configuration: Computer Processor : Pentium IV Clock Speed : 700MHZ Processor Hard Disk : 40GB RAM : 256/512 MB SYSTEM ANALYSIS Existing System: In the current system the data required is maintained in records. They are to be updated according to the requirements of the users. It takes time to search for the required query. All the details regarding the hospital and its patients are hard to maintain. The work will be more, so the system needs more number of crew to fulfill the requirements. There may be a chance of failure since it is manual. A one fault of the system may lead to inconvenience and also causes a vast destruction. So these faults make the system less efficient and performance of the system is very slow. Hence, there should be a system to overcome all these defaults and provide the users with more facilities. In the current system if the user was suffering from any pain or etc heshe has no idea how to control the pain and suffering. Just they will be no idea for them and they become sicker and died more sooner And to know the availability for the treatment they have to go to hospital but mostly the government hospital doesnt give more facilities to the patient as the patients want from the doctors. But in the case of the private hospital the patients has to pay more fares for the treatment and they do more delays in the case of the treatment they will be more formalities to be fulfil by the patients which take lot of time waste. Proposed System: In the proposed system everything is computerized. The system provides all the details regarding the Hospital, doctors, patients, bed numbers, and fares also and so on. The user can search required data easily with no time. A very less number of staff is required to handle the system. The patients need not wait for a long time to fulfil his requirement. There is no chance of any failure in the system, which improves the performance of the system and also increases the efficiency of the system. Though this system is very beneficial a minor failures in the server or else the computer leads a major loss of data. FEASIBILITY STUDY In preliminary investigation we got the result that the computerized Hospital management system is feasible. This includes following aspects. Technical Feasibility: Technical feasibility is nothing but implementing the project with existing technology. Computerized Hospital management System is feasible. Economical Feasibility: Economic feasibility means the cost of under taking project should be less than existing system Hospital management system is economically feasible, because it reduces the expenses in the manual system. TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW .NET Framework The .NET Framework is a new computing platform that simplifies application development in the highly distributed environment of the Internet. The .NET Framework is designed to fulfill the following objectives: To provide a consistent object-oriented programming environment whether object code is stored and executed locally, executed locally but Internet-distributed, or executed remotely. To provide a code-execution environment that minimizes software deployment and versioning conflicts. To provide a code-execution environment that guarantees safe execution of code, including code created by an unknown or semi-trusted third party. To provide a code-execution environment that eliminates the performance problems of scripted or interpreted environments. To make the developer experience consistent across widely varying types of applications, such as Windows-based applications and Web-based applications. To build all communication on industry standards to ensure that code based on the .NET Framework can integrate with any other code. .NET FRAMEWORK HAS TWO MAIN COMPONENTS: The Common Language Runtime and the .NET Framework Class Library: The common language runtime is the foundation of the .NET Framework. You can think of the runtime as an agent that manages code at execution time, providing core services such as memory management, thread management, and remoting, while also enforcing strict type safety and other forms of code accuracy that ensure security and robustness. In fact, the concept of code management is a fundamental principle of the runtime. Code that targets the runtime is known as managed code, while code that does not target the runtime is known as unmanaged code. The class library, the other main component of the .NET Framework, is a comprehensive, object-oriented collection of reusable types that you can use to develop applications ranging from traditional command-line or graphical user interface (GUI) applications to applications based on the latest innovations provided by ASP.NET, such as Web Forms and XML Web services. The .NET Framework can be hosted by unmanaged components that load the common language runtime into their processes and initiate the execution of managed code, thereby creating a software environment that can exploit both managed and unmanaged features. The .NET Framework not only provides several runtime hosts, but also supports the development of third-party runtime hosts. For example, ASP.NET hosts the runtime to provide a scalable, server-side environment for managed code. ASP.NET works directly with the runtime to enable Web Forms applications and XML Web services, both of which are discussed later in this topic. Internet Explorer is an example of an unmanaged application that hosts the runtime (in the form of a MIME type extension). Using Internet Explorer to host the runtime enables you to embed managed components or Windows Forms controls in HTML documents. Hosting the runtime in this way makes managed mobile code (similar to Microsoft ® ActiveX ® controls) possible, but with significant improvements that only managed code can offer, such as semi-trusted execution and secure isolated file storage. The following illustration shows the relationship of the common language runtime and the class library to your applications and to the overall system. The illustration also shows how managed code operates within a larger architecture. .NET COMPONENTS AND FEATURES: .NET Architecture: Features of the Common Language Runtime: The common language runtime manages memory, thread execution, code execution, code safety verification, compilation, and other system services. These features are intrinsic to the managed code that runs on the common language runtime. With regards to security, managed components are awarded varying degrees of trust, depending on a number of factors that include their origin (such as the Internet, enterprise network, or local computer). This means that a managed component might or might not be able to perform file-access operations, registry-access operations, or other sensitive functions, even if it is being used in the same active application. The runtime enforces code access security. For example, users can trust that an executable embedded in a Web page can play an animation on screen or sing a song, but cannot access their personal data, file system, or network. The security features of the runtime thus enable legitimate Internet-deployed software to be exceptionally featuring rich. The runtime also enforces code robustness by implementing a strict type- and code-verification infrastructure called the common type system (CTS). The CTS ensures that all managed code is self-describing. The various Microsoft and third-party language compilers generate managed code that conforms to the CTS. This means that managed code can consume other managed types and instances, while strictly enforcing type fidelity and type safety. In addition, the managed environment of the runtime eliminates many common software issues. For example, the runtime automatically handles object layout and manages references to objects, releasing them when they are no longer being used. This automatic memory management resolves the two most common application errors, memory leaks and invalid memory references. The runtime also accelerates developer productivity. For example, programmers can write applications in their development language of choice, yet take full advantage of the runtime, the class library, and components written in other languages by other developers. Any compiler vendor who chooses to target the runtime can do so. Language compilers that target the .NET Framework make the features of the .NET Framework available to existing code written in that language, greatly easing the migration process for existing applications. While the runtime is designed for the software of the future, it also supports software of today and yesterday. Interoperability between managed and unmanaged code enables developers to continue to use necessary COM components and DLLs. The runtime is designed to enhance performance. Although the common language runtime provides many standard runtime services, managed code is never interpreted. A feature called just-in-time (JIT) compiling enables all managed code to run in the native machine language of the system on which it is executing. Meanwhile, the memory manager removes the possibilities of fragmented memory and increases memory locality-of-reference to further increase performance. Finally, the runtime can be hosted by high-performance, server-side applications, such as Microsoft ® SQL Serverâ„ ¢ and Internet Information Services (IIS). This infrastructure enables you to use managed code to write your business logic, while still enjoying the superior performance of the industrys best enterprise servers that support runtime hosting. .NET Framework Class Library: The .NET Framework class library is a collection of reusable types that tightly integrate with the common language runtime. The class library is object oriented, providing types from which your own managed code can derive functionality. This not only makes the .NET Framework types easy to use, but also reduces the time associated with learning new features of the .NET Framework. In addition, third-party components can integrate seamlessly with classes in the .NET Framework. For example, the .NET Framework collection classes implement a set of interfaces that you can use to develop your own collection classes. Your collection classes will blend seamlessly with the classes in the .NET Framework. As you would expect from an object-oriented class library, the .NET Framework types enable you to accomplish a range of common programming tasks, including tasks such as string management, data collection, database connectivity, and file access. In addition to these common tasks, the class library includes types that support a variety specialized development scenarios. ADO.NET ADO.NET IN CONNECTED MODE: ADO.NET provides consistent access to data sources such as Microsoft SQL Server, as well as data sources exposed via OLE DB and XML. Data-sharing consumer applications can use ADO.NET to connect to these data sources and retrieve, manipulate, and update data. ADO.NET cleanly factors data access from data manipulation into discrete components that can be used separately or in tandem. ADO.NET includes .NET data providers for connecting to a database, executing commands, and retrieving results. Those results are either processed directly, or placed in an ADO.NET Dataset object in order to be exposed to the user in an ad-hoc manner, combined with data from multiple sources, or remotes between tiers. The ADO.NET Dataset object can also be used independently of a .NET data provider to manage data local to the application or sourced from XML. The ADO.NET classes are found in System.Data.dll, and are integrated with the XML classes found in System.Xml.dll. When compiling code that uses the System.Data namespace, reference both System.Data.dll and System.Xml.dll. ADO.NET provides functionality to developers writing managed code similar to the functionality provided to native COM developers by ADO. The most important change from classic ADO is that ADO.NET doesnt reply on OLE DB providers and uses .NET managed providers instead. A .NET provider works as a bridge between your application and the data source. ADO .NET and .NET managed data providers dont use COM at all, so a .NET application can access data without undergoing any performance penalty deriving the switch between managed and unmanaged code. The most important difference between ADO and ADO.NET is that dynamic and Key set server -side cursors are no longer supported. ADO.NET supports only forward-only read-only result sets and disconnected result sets. .NET Data Providers: .NET data providers play the same role that OLE DB providers play under ADO, they enable your application to read and write data stored in a data source. Microsoft Currently supplies five ADO.NET providers: OLE DB .NET Data Provider: This provider lets you access a data source for which an OLE DB provider exists, although at the expense of a switch from managed to unmanaged code and the performance degradation that ensues. SQL Server .NET Data Provider: This provider has been specifically written to access SQL Server version 7.0 or later using Tabular Data Stream (TDS) as the communication medium. TDS is SQL Servers native protocol, so you can expect this provider to give you better performance than the OLE DB Data Provider. Additionally, the SQL Server, .NET Data Provider exposes SQL Server specific features, such as named transactions and support for the FOR XML clause in SELECT queries. ODBC .NET Data Provider: This provider works as a bridge toward an ODBC source, so in theory you can use it to access any source for which an ODBC driver exists. As of this writing, this provider officially supports only the Access, SQL Server, and Oracle ODBC drivers, so theres no clear advantage in using it instead of the OLE DB .NET Data Provider. The convenience of this provider will be more evident when more ODBC drivers are added to the list of those officially supported. .NET Data Provider for Oracle: This provider can access an Oracle data source version 8.1.7 or later. It automatically uses connection pooling to increase performance if possible, and supports most of the features of the Microsoft OLEDB Provider for Oracle, even though these two accessing techniques can differ in a few details—for example, the .NET Data Provider for Oracle doesnt support the TABLE data type and ODBC escape sequences. SQLXML Library: This DLL, which you can download from the Microsoft Web site, includes a few managed types that let you query and update a Microsoft SQL Server 2000 data source over HTTP. It supports XML templates, XPath queries, and can expose stored procedures and XML templates as Web services. The ODBC and Oracle providers are included in .NET Framework 1.1 but were missing in the first version of the .NET Framework. If you work with .NET Framework 1.0, you can download these providers from the Microsoft Web site. The downloadable versions of these providers differ from the versions that come with .NET Framework 1.1, mainly in the namespaces they use: Microsoft.Data.Odbc and Microsoft.Data.Oracle instead of System.Data.Odbc and System.Data.Oracle. ADO.NET Object Model: Its time to have a closer look at the individual objects that make up the ADO.NET architecture illustrated in Figure 21-1. Youll see that objects are divided into two groups, the objects included in the .NET Data Provider, and those that belong to the ADO.NET disconnected architecture. (In practice, the second group includes only the Dataset and its secondary objects.) Dataset (Disconnected data) .NET Data Provider Connection DataAdapter Command Data Reader ADO.NET Objects at a Glance The Connection object has the same function it has under ADO: establishing a connection to the data source. Like its ADO counterpart, it has the Connection String property, the Open and Close methods, and the ability to begin a transaction using the Begin transaction method. The ADO Execute method isnt supported, and the ADO.NET Connection object lacks the ability to send a command to the database. The Command object lets you query the database, send a command to it, or invoke one of its stored procedures. You can perform these actions by using one of the objects Executexxxx methods. More specifically, you use the ExecuteNonQuery method to send an action query to the database—for example, an INSERT or DELETE SQL statement—an Execute Reader method to perform a SELECT query that returns a result set, or an Execute Scalar method to perform a SELECT query that returns a single value. Other properties let you set the command timeout and prepare the parameters for a call to a stored procedure. You must manually associate a Command object with the Connection object previously connected to the data source. The Data Reader object is the object returned by the Execute Reader method of the command object and represents a forward-only, read-only result set. A new row of results becomes available each time you invoke the Data Readers Read method, after which you can query each individual field using the Get Value method or one of the strongly typed Getxxxx methods, such as Get String or Get Float. Remember that you cant update the database by means of a Data Reader object. The Dataset object is the main object in the ADO.NET disconnected architecture. It works as a sort of small relational database that resides on the client and is completely unrelated to any specific database. It consists of a collection of DataTable objects, with each DataTable object holding a distinct result set (typically the result of a query to a different database table). A DataTable object contains a collection of Data Row objects, each one holding data coming from a different row in the result. A Dataset also contains a collection of Data Relation objects, in which each item corresponds to a relationship between different Data Table objects, much like the relationships you have between the tables of a relational database. These relations let your code navigate among tables in the same DataSet using a simple and effective syntax. The DataAdapter object works as a bridge between the Connection object and the DataSet object. Its Fill method moves data from the database to the client-side DataSet, whereas its Update method moves data in the opposite direction and updates the database with the rows that your application has added, modified, or deleted from the DataSet. Connection Object: Whether you work in connected or in disconnected mode, the first action you need to perform when working with a data source is to open a connection to it.InADO.NET terms, this means that you create a Connection object that connects to the specific database. The Connection object is similar to the ADO object of the same name, so youll feel immediately at ease with the new ADO.NET object if you have any experience with ADO programming. Setting the Connection String Property the key property of the Connection class is Connection String, a string that defines the type of the database youre connecting to, its location, and other semicolon-delimited attributes. When you work with the OleDbConnection object, the connection string matches the connection string that you use with the ADO Connection object. Such a string typically contains the following information, The Provider attribute, which specifies the name of the underlying OLE DB Provider, used to connect to the data. The only values that Microsoft guarantees as valid are SQLOLEDB (the OLE DB provider for Microsoft SQL Server), Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0 (the OLE DB provider for Microsoft Access), and MSDAORA (the OLE DB provider for Oracle). The Data Source attributes, which specifies where the database is. It can be the path to an Access database or the name of the machine on which the SQL Server or the Oracle database is located. The User ID and Password attributes, which specify the user name and the password of a valid account for the database. The Initial Catalog attributes, which specifies the name of the database when youre connecting to a SQL Server or an Oracle data source. Once youve set the Connection String property correctly, you can open the connection by invoking the Open method: ADO.NET in Disconnected Model: In the preceding chapter, you saw how to work with ADO.NET in connected mode, processing data coming from an active connection and sending SQL commands to one.ADO.NET in connected mode behaves much like classic ADO, even though the names of the involved properties and methods (and their syntax) are often different. Youll see how ADO.NET differs from its predecessor when you start working in disconnected mode. ADO 2.x permits you to work in disconnected mode using client-side static record sets opened in optimistic batch update mode. This was one of the great new features of ADO that proved to be a winner in client/server applications of any size. As a matter of fact, working in disconnected mode is the most scalable technique you can adopt because it takes resources on the client (instead of on the server) and, above all, it doesnt enforce any locks on database tables (except for the short-lived locks that are created during the update operation). The following Imports statements are used at the file or project level: Imports System. Data Imports System.Data.Common Imports System.Data.OleDb Imports System.Data.SqlClient Imports System.Data.Odbc Imports System.IO Imports System.Text.RegularExpressions The DataSet Object Because ADO.NET (and .NET in general) is all about scalability and performance, the disconnected mode is the preferred way to code client/server applications. Instead of a simple disconnected recordset, ADO.NET gives you the DataSet object, which is much like a small relational database held in memory on the client. As such, it provides you with the ability to create multiple tables, fill them with data coming from different sources, enforce relationships between pairs of tables, and more. Data Set: The DataSet object is central to supporting disconnected, distributed data scenarios with ADO.NET. The DataSet is a memory-resident representation of data that provides a consistent relational programming model regardless of the data source. It can be used with multiple and differing data sources, used with XML data, or used to manage data local to the application. The DataSet represents a complete set of data including related tables, constraints, and relationships among the tables. The DataAdapter object, which works as a connector between the DataSet and the actual data source. The DataAdapter is in charge of filling one or more DataTable objects with data taken from the database so that the application can then close the connection and work in a completely disconnected mode. After the end user has performed all his or her editing chores, the application can reopen the connection and reuse the same DataAdapter object to send changes to the database. Admittedly, the disconnected nature of the DataSet complicates matters for developer

Organizational Strategy and Structure of Unilever Essay -- Business St

Organizational Strategy and Structure of Unilever Introduction Unilever is one of the largest packaged consumer goods companies specializing in hundreds of different brands. Unilever is based in Holland and the UK and is jointly owned by Unilever N.V and Unilever PLC. Both companies have the same board of directors but operate as a single entity and list there stock separately. In 2000, Unilever restructured their board of directors by electing new faces to the board and seeing other key members retire, like Jan Peelen and Robert Philips. Miles and Snow stated that there are four types of organizational strategies pursued by companies; Defenders, Prospectors, Analyzers and Reactors. Unilever are a company that uses the â€Å"Prospectors† organization type. Prospectors are organizations which almost continually search for market opportunities, and they regularly experiment with potential responses to emerging environmental trends, in particular when Vis was appointed to the Food Executive committee and began to emphasize more on environmental and sustainable development in response to changing trends and demands by consumers giving these consumers greater confidence. (Miles & Snow; pp29) In my discussion, the main types of organizational strategies and structures will be listed and how they have impacted on Unilever’s improved performance and growth in recent years. Organizational strategies and structures, and there impact on Unilever’s performance †¢ Restructured Approach: 1. Identifying market opportunities: A key part of an organizational strategy is to identify market opportunities by finding a niche or a gap in the marketplace that they can pursue to take their company ahead of all their competitors. An organiz... ...ification as we move towards our destination IT architecture, and further strengthen our global market presence† said Neil Cameron, chief information officer at Unilever. Unilever’s steady underlying improvement in Europe has continued, with 2.8% growth in the year. The fourth quarter was particularly strong, at 5.5%, against a weaker comparator. The Americas were up by 4.1% in the year, with Brazil and Mexico improving through the year, while the US grew solidly at 3.2%. Asia Africa has shown consistent, broad-based growth across countries and categories throughout the year, up by 11.1%. This demonstrates that merging with globalised technologically advanced companies such as SAS, and using their expertise, is paying dividends for Unilever. (Unilever’s Annual Report, 2007) (Drinks Business Review, â€Å"Unilever selects SAP as standard for global IT Strategy†, May 2007)

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight :: Sir Gawain Green Knight Essays

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a Middle English romance poem written by an anonymous West Midlands poet also credited with a lot of other poems written during that time. The protagonist, Sir Gawain, survives two tests: a challenge, which he alone without the assistance of King Arthur's knights accepts, to behead the fearsome Green Knight and to let him retaliate a year later at the distant Green Chapel; and the temptation to commit adultery with the wife of Lord Bercilak--in reality the Green Knight--in whose castle he stays in en route to the chapel. This story is emblematic of life; how it issues tests and challenges and the consequences rendered as a result of failing or succeeding these challenges. Sir Gawain is a very symbolic character; symbolic in the sense that he represents innocence in life. He was not afraid to accept a challenge because it meant saving the kingdom from the affects of anarchy as a result of not having a king. Sir Gawain accepting the challenge from the Green Knight instantly represented one of the things that knighthood represented, fearlessness. People accept those kind of challenges everyday. This could possibly be where the term "sticking your neck out" could have come from. When people accept challenges, most do not want to accept the consequences as a result of being unsuccessful. Gawain was not like this. When the year passed he gallantly mounted his horse and set off for the Green Chapel. This showed that Gawain was brave. This was preceded by the warning "Beware, Gawain, that you not end a betrayer of your bargain through fear." Along this journey Gawain faces peril and self-reluctance in the form of the elements and the never-ending search for the chapel respectively. These feeling can be characterized as the inner turmoil suffered as a result of dealing with one's conscience. The journey also tested his faith in the sense that he was constantly in prayer during his journey, and not once did he curse or renounce the name of God. It seems as if the prayers were what kept Gawain sane and focused on the purpose of his journey. Gawain's prayers were answered when he rode along and finally came upon a place that he could petition for possible rest.

Cooperating and Communicating Across Cultures Essay

Case Study: Cooperating and Communicating Across Cultures The article â€Å"Cooperation and communication between cultures†, points out the key components in this case study. In the scenario each one of the team members had their own preconceived notions of the â€Å"right† way they should interact with the team in order for the team to move forward. The viewpoints of the team members, in my opinion, were influenced in part by their own cultures in addition to their own corporate backgrounds. Jim upon entering the team considered himself well prepared. He had knowledge of German culture and language, due to the fact that his wife was German and he visited Germany often, however, he was amazed at the detail in which the planning session went. Jim soon lost patience and interest, and the respect of his fellow team members because he was â€Å"hardly paying attention† anymore to the process. The German team used a three-day planning session as a way to lay the foundation for the structure of the entire product launch. Jim never really understands the importance of the initial meetings in the process because he unes out most of what was being said. Because of this, Jim never really understands the way the team is working in that the first analyze the problem, all possible eventualities, and addressing issues, then dividing the work and moving forward, with the team leader checking and controlling the outcome. The German team leader demonstrates that the team had worked together for at several years and so each knew the procedures very well but Jim clearly did not. An important organizational issue Jim exhibited is not showing respect for the Germans’ methods nd failing to align himself with the culture more rather than removing himself from the process and complaining. Fundamentally, Jim wanted to outline the problem, jump in, adjust and confer during the process but the Germans had different ideas, and a different culture for doing things. Each side saw the others’ method of operating as wrong, rather than as a possible new and different way to address a product launch. In the scenario concerning Klaus, Klaus had the same issues arriving in America and learning that the project would be put together as a work in progress rather than carefully thought out prior to execution of a plan. This is a cultural difference both sides experienced that could have been addressed by an introduction to work methods before Jim/Klaus started with their new team, which could have avoided the sense of frustration all on the project felt. Outlining the process and the roles each person would play would help the visitor better learn the corporate/national culture.

Single Parent Households

Raising children is a major job that takes time and patience. But imagine being a single parent, raising a child on your own. According to, Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support: 2007, released by the U. S. Census Bureau in November 2009, there are approximately 13. 7 million single parents in the United States today ( that’s not including the individuals who didn’t participate). Those parents are responsible for raising 21. 8 million children (approximately 26% of children under 21 in the U.S. today). Generally, I will illustrate the picture of the single-family and their corresponding struggles with daily life. Approximately 84% of custodial parents are mothers and 16% of custodial parents are fathers. Economic burdens are greater in the women household which results from the fact that the average single mother does not earn the same income as a single man. This economic struggle is not experienced in the single father household due to the balance of w ork and family duties women face.You find most women working overtime to make up for the fact they have low salaries which takes time away from their children and daily chores to meet the needs of their kids. This results in either the child being left home alone without proper supervision, or placed in childcare eight to ten hours a day. Having trusted friends and family that can assist with childcare or transportation is a great asset when it comes to being a single parent.It is also the terrible price that parents pay to provide for their children when they have to work during those memorable moments of childhood. In addition, single parents struggle with time not only for their children but for themselves. In two parent households they struggle with managing time, so when the all the responsibility is solely on a single parent, the struggle can be suffocating. When you are working, going to school and caring for your child, you can find the task a little bit exhausting.While eac h task seem just as important as the next, a child needs can’t be negotiated, which from experience I know it may get the best of your emotions. Losing sleep to make financial needs meet or studying may bring your mental and physical tolerance to a minimum. Stress, malnutrition, physical abuse and sleep deprivation sound like torture, but it’s the situation that most single parent face every day. Last but not least, the average single parent pushes forward to achieve their personal goals or careers because that’s all they have to call their own.When achieving the balance of sacrifice and success that provides the best outcome for that child and its parent, can be a difficult path for anyone. This path challenges one decision and pushes the single parent to and emotional breakdown, which causes them to question, what may be best for not only them but the child. It’s a barrier that single parents face every day because their goals and careers take a back se at to the birth of their child. When that child is born, that child life is beginning and all your goals may be pushed off which makes them at times less important as before.In conclusion, single parent households have overcoming barriers that make all the struggles and sacrifices worth it at the end. Despite the challenges and emotional highs and lows, the creation of a responsible human being is always worth the trouble. At the end, the bond between that parent and child will be inseparable because that child will never forget all the sacrifices and hard work you have put forth to make their life that much easier. I don’t think society see the struggles many single parent households face daily.If we would help these parents out more than our society wouldn’t have to continuously point the finger to the boy who murdered and raped a young girl because he was a part of the single parent household statistic. So you wonder am I for or against the single parent household a nd my response to that is I have no choice, I live it every day. Everything I wrote was my lifestyle since I had my two year old son but never in a million years will I change it. Single Parent Households Raising children is a major job that takes time and patience. But imagine being a single parent, raising a child on your own. According to, Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support: 2007, released by the U. S. Census Bureau in November 2009, there are approximately 13. 7 million single parents in the United States today ( that’s not including the individuals who didn’t participate). Those parents are responsible for raising 21. 8 million children (approximately 26% of children under 21 in the U.S. today). Generally, I will illustrate the picture of the single-family and their corresponding struggles with daily life. Approximately 84% of custodial parents are mothers and 16% of custodial parents are fathers. Economic burdens are greater in the women household which results from the fact that the average single mother does not earn the same income as a single man. This economic struggle is not experienced in the single father household due to the balance of w ork and family duties women face.You find most women working overtime to make up for the fact they have low salaries which takes time away from their children and daily chores to meet the needs of their kids. This results in either the child being left home alone without proper supervision, or placed in childcare eight to ten hours a day. Having trusted friends and family that can assist with childcare or transportation is a great asset when it comes to being a single parent.It is also the terrible price that parents pay to provide for their children when they have to work during those memorable moments of childhood. In addition, single parents struggle with time not only for their children but for themselves. In two parent households they struggle with managing time, so when the all the responsibility is solely on a single parent, the struggle can be suffocating. When you are working, going to school and caring for your child, you can find the task a little bit exhausting.While eac h task seem just as important as the next, a child needs can’t be negotiated, which from experience I know it may get the best of your emotions. Losing sleep to make financial needs meet or studying may bring your mental and physical tolerance to a minimum. Stress, malnutrition, physical abuse and sleep deprivation sound like torture, but it’s the situation that most single parent face every day. Last but not least, the average single parent pushes forward to achieve their personal goals or careers because that’s all they have to call their own.When achieving the balance of sacrifice and success that provides the best outcome for that child and its parent, can be a difficult path for anyone. This path challenges one decision and pushes the single parent to and emotional breakdown, which causes them to question, what may be best for not only them but the child. It’s a barrier that single parents face every day because their goals and careers take a back se at to the birth of their child. When that child is born, that child life is beginning and all your goals may be pushed off which makes them at times less important as before.In conclusion, single parent households have overcoming barriers that make all the struggles and sacrifices worth it at the end. Despite the challenges and emotional highs and lows, the creation of a responsible human being is always worth the trouble. At the end, the bond between that parent and child will be inseparable because that child will never forget all the sacrifices and hard work you have put forth to make their life that much easier. I don’t think society see the struggles many single parent households face daily.If we would help these parents out more than our society wouldn’t have to continuously point the finger to the boy who murdered and raped a young girl because he was a part of the single parent household statistic. So you wonder am I for or against the single parent household a nd my response to that is I have no choice, I live it every day. Everything I wrote was my lifestyle since I had my two year old son but never in a million years will I change it.