Factors Affecting the Loan Repayment of Rice Farmers in Ragay

As being observed in the Philippine situation the common problem and also not a new issue in agriculture sector is the low productivity and low income of farmers which can be attributed to their lack of capital. Many farmers have no enough savings or cash on hand to purchase new inputs including machineries, chemicals, pesticides and high yielding varieties of seeds which will help them to improve their earnings because these inputs are usually expensive. As an answer to this dilemma they rely on credit and the proliferation of different credit institutions is a great help to them. The credit need of the farmers were being experienced especially those who are engage in rice production because it needs a large amount of money for investment. These credit needs of the rice farmers were being provided by the two types of institutions namely the formal and informal lending institutions. The formal sources of credit include the banking and non-banking institutions. The mere examples of it are the rural bank, commercial bank, and cooperatives (Duran 2001) while the informal sources are the private moneylenders, relatives, friends, traders and millers. With the availability of the credit institutions in rural areas, it allows the farmers to maintain and sustain their productivity since income in this country is generally low (Cacho, 1995). Credit can be defined as a means of entrusting and believing from and since trust is an important ingredient in providing it, the lenders rely on a promise of the borrower to pay in the future (Guevarra, 1995). But it is a problem encountered by these formal and informal lending institutions that the farmer-borrowers were not able to pay their obligation at the expected time. Statement of the Problem With a total farm area of more or less 23,036 hectares almost 2,182 hectares in Ragay, Camarines Sur is being planted with rice and the need for credit can be observed in its production. It is therefore important that the credit institutions proliferate in this area to help and assist the rice farmers. The government intervenes through the promotion and development of the organization that will provide agricultural loan so as to improve the income of rice farmers, which include the development of the rural bank and cooperatives in the area. Together with the expansion of the formal institutions the informal lenders also expand and gave a significant role in alleviating the lack of capital by the rice farmers. With this expansion of credit sources the problem, which cannot be avoided by these institutions is the high percentage of loan delinquency by the borrowers. Though the high collection performance or high repayment rate would not necessarily mean the ultimate measure of successful operation of the institutions, a low repayment rate adversely affects the operation and stability of the different lending agencies. Also through loan default, credit institutions in Ragay were not able to improve and expand their services and sometimes lead to failure in providing efficient services. Significance of the Study Lack of capital or inadequate fund of the rice farmers in Ragay, Camarines Sur hinders their increase in production and income. They are not able to purchase production inputs and adopt new technologies to produce more output for sale and a credit as a source of capital is a big help to them but repayment of their loan is a pressing problem to the lending institutions in this area. This study will focus in increasing the repayment rate or increasing the non-repayment if not totally eliminating it to help the lending institutions in improving their services for the rice farmers. This study will also provide data that will help them to improve their loan collection and supervision for their sustainability though improving strict rules and regulation regarding borrowing. For the farmer borrowers, this study will help them to realize the factor which affect their repayment so as they will able to look for ways that will minimize their low or no-repayment of loans. It will also help them to understand that certain factor/factors of repayment decrease their capability of repaying the loan and therefore there is a need for them to do something to minimize those factors, which can be controlled. Objectives of the Study The general objective of the study is to analyze the factors affecting the loan repayment of rice farmers in Ragay, Camarines Sur. The specific objectives are the following: 1. o identify the common credit sources of rice farmers in Ragay, Camarines Sur; 2. to identify the factors affecting the rice farmers’ choice of credit source; 3. to determine the loan purpose of the rice farmer-borrowers; 4. to determine the relationship of the factors affecting the repayment performance of the rice farmer borrowers; 5. to determine the problems encountered by rice farmers in loan repayment; and 6. to compare the repayment performance of rice farmers by source of credit.

Marketing strategy of Teletalk Banladesh Essay

Executive Summary From the dawn of human civilization people use many ways to communicate with each other and those ways of communication were changed or updated time to time because of new innovation and demand. The power of telephony is a new enterprise culture, from banking to agriculture to healthcare. The opportunities that lie in the telecom industry seem endless and lucrative due to the continuous innovation and growing demand for mobile-telephony. Nowadays mobile phones have become an indispensable part of Bangladeshi’s everyday-life and we never want to leave this device at home while we head for our work. Teletalk Bangladesh Ltd. was formed to operate the network installed by BTTB and it has been successful in operating a standard network and give proper service to the people of Bangladesh. Teletalk has introduced many attractive packages and all of them have been welcomed by the market. From the very beginning of its launching, Teletalk got huge popularity as it triggered the true co mpetition in the market. People have high expectation from Teletalk. They expect continuous network coverage all over the country, prompt customer service, and more value added services, data services of high band-width etc. from Teletalk. Teletalk must honor its customers by improving its services day-by-day so that people can realize that even in a competitive scenario, the public sector organization can achieve remarkable development if they get opportunity.The target market of Teletalk is clearly defined: Elite group (above 25years of age), Up market professionals and entrepreneurs and, Women and senior citizens. The Company aims to increase the current market share of 10% to 25% by December 2015 by continuously expanding and widening its coverage to the remotest areas in Bangladesh and creating Customer Care Touch Points across the Country. 2.0Company Overview Teletalk Bangladesh Limited is a public limited company, registered under the Registrar of the Joint stock companies of Bangladesh. Total shares owned by  the Government of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh. Teletalk Bangladesh Limited (the â€Å"Company†) was incorporated on 26 December, 2004 as a public limited company under the Companies Act, 1994 with an authorized capital of Tk. 20,000,000,000 being the only government sponsored mobile telephone company in the country. On the same day the Company obtained Certificate of Commencement of Business. We continue to grow and engage our customers through our clear commitment to offering high quality products and services as well as leading customer retention and loyalty programmers. Teletalk continues to be a part of the revolution that’s connecting millions of Bangladeshi people and around the World. Teletalk Bangladesh limited was established keeping a specific role in mind. Teletalk has forged ahead and strengthened its path over the years and achieved some feats truly to be proud of, as the only Bangladeshi mobile operator and the only operator with 100% native technical and engineering human resource base, Teletalk thrives to become the true people’s phone – â€Å"Amader Phone†. Basic objectives for which the Company was formed are highlighted here under: 1. To provide mobile telephone service to the people from the public sector 2. To ensure fair competition between public and private sectors and thereby to safeguard public interest 3. To meet a portion of unmitigated high demand of mobile telephone 4. To create a new source of revenue for the government. Mission and Vision To innovate and constantly find new ways to enhance our services to our customer’s current needs and desires for the future. Our vision is to know our customers and meet their needs better than anyone else. To provide mobile telephone service to the people from the public sector To ensure fair competition between public and private sectors and thereby to safeguard Public interest To meet a portion of unmitigated high demand of mobile telephone. To create a new source of revenue for the government. 3.0 Current Market Situation Teletalk Bangladesh limited (TBL) have started their first operations in Bangladesh in 2004. The products have been well received and the marketing  is the key to the development of its brand image as well as the growth of the customer base. TBL now offering different packages for the customers. Bangladesh is the first South Asian country to adopt cellular technology back in 1993 by introducing Advanced Mobile Phone System. In fact, the liberalization of Bangladesh‘s telecommunications sector began back in 1989 but it took several years to launch the services. In 1996 the then government awarded three GSM licenses aimed at breaking the monopoly and making the cellular technology affordable to the general masses. There are six mobile phone operators in Bangladesh. These are Grameenphone (GP), Banglalink, Robi, Airtel, Citycell and Teletalk. Citycell is the first mobile phone operator in Bangladesh. Today GP is the market leader and Banglalink is the market challenger, in terms of number of subscribers they have, in Bangladesh mobile telecom industry. In Bangladesh, mobile phone subscribers are increasing very rapidly. In February 2009 total subscriber was 45.21 million which reached 76.43 million at the end of June 2011; at the end of December 2011 the figure reached 85.455 million and finally 92.120 million at the end of May 2012. Teletalk Bangladesh limited is entering its eight years of its operation. Its services have been well received and marketing will be key to the development of brand and product awareness as well as the growth of the customer base. To gain market share in this dynamic environment, Teletalk Bangladesh limited carefully target specific segment with features that deliver benefits valued by each customer. 4.0 Market Description Teletalk 2G posse’s good information about the market knows a great deal about the common attributes of the most valued customer. Before launching its experienced and prompt sell and marketing force observed the market carefully and better understood who is served, what are their specific needs and the way to communicate with the customers need and demand. Though the call rate tariff is reducing due to the heavy competition in the telecom market, the market is widening day by day as the number of mobile users are increasing and there is a lot of scope to develop this sector. Teletalk is the fastest growing telecom sector in Bangladesh. Teletalk is the part of  BTCL. At the time launching Teletalk the market was too competitive. Teletalk is the government own company operating in Bangladesh. Target market Customer can choose different packages based on several different service offer by the teletalk 2G. Specific segments are targeted by the teletalk. They different packages offer by teletalk for corporate people like teletalk executive, teletalk professional etc. From the teletalk product we can easily understand that teletalk targeting corporate people, business man and professional. Market Demographics The profile for the typical Teletalk customer consists of the following geographic, demographic factor: Geographies Teletalk has established their customer care point (CCP) only in the divisional cities and the big citied only. In their CCP’s they provides free services to their customer and also sells the mobile handsets, and mobile accessories. Demographics The teletalk Bangladesh limited targeted all group of people whose age is more than 18. Especially Teletalk 2G users are high income people who work in the different industry like bank, medical and different professional doctor, lawyers etc. 5.0 Product Review Teletalk offers an array of different packages. In addition to offering the fundamental pre-paid and post-paid mobile services, it offers a wide range of value added products and services such as, SMS, GPRS, mobile data services, infotainment services, SMS banking, Caller Ring Back Tone, Ringtones download, Picture Messaging, MMS, Voice Greetings. The pre-paid packages are- Standard Shapla (Pre-paid) Shadheen And the post-paid packages are- Standard (rajanigandha) Shapla (Post-paid) Corporate Packages Teletalk Executive (prepaid) Teletalk Executive (postpaid) Professional (prepaid) 6.0 Competitive Review At presents, there are around 6 companies that are now in the mobile phone business. They are – 1. Grameen phone 2. Banglalink 3. ROBI (Aktel) 4. Airlel (Warid Telecom) 5. City cell 6. Teletalk Those five mobile operators companies are the direct competitors of teletalk 2G. And there are also lots of indirect competitors of teletalk like Rangs telecom, Peoples telecom, etc. Citycell was the first to start telecommunication business in Bangladesh in 1989. GP and Aktel now ROBI started their business from 1997 & 1998. The service charge was great but the facilities was few. Banglalink made the history by inviting varity of services at a very cheaper rate. GrmeenPhone is the leader of the mobile market but banglalink is the second biggest company in Bangladesh. Grameen Phone Grmeen phone are the market leader in Bangladesh mobile phone operator. Grameen phone started its business in the year 1997. Grameenphone now provides voice, data and other value added services on prepaid and contract basis. Grameenphone has been a pioneer in bringing innovative mobile-based solutions to Bangladesh. Notable among these is the Healthline, a 24 hour medical call centre manned by licensed physicians. Other innovations include Studyline, a call centre-based service providing education related  information, Mobicash, for electronic purchase of train and lottery tickets, Billpay, for paying utility bills through mobile phones and over 500 community information centres across Bangladesh. These centres bring affordable Internet access and other information based services to people in rural areas. As at 31 March 2012, Grameenphone had 37.6 million subscriptions, while the estimated mobile penetration (SIM cards) and number of inhabitants in Bangladesh were 56% and 160 milli on, respectively. Grameenphone became stock listed in November 2009, with, as at the date of this Base Prospectus, the largest public offering in Bangladesh. It is listed on both the Dhaka and Chittagong Stock Exchanges. Banglalink GrmeenPhone is the leader of the mobile market but banglalink is the second biggest company in Bangladesh. banglalink made a revelation in the telecommunication sector. Banglalink provides different packages for different segments like Banglalink icon for corporate and high income group people and Banglalink DESH gives the best rate for their users. ROBI Robi Axiata Limited is a joint venture between Axiata Group Berhad, Malaysia and NTT DOCOMO INC, Japan. Robi Axiata, formerly known as Telekom Malaysia International (Bangladesh), commenced operations in Bangladesh in 1997 with the brand name AKTEL. On 28th March 2010, the service name was rebranded as ‘Robi’ and the company came to be known as Robi Axiata Limited.robi charges on-net and off-net .68tk/min robi to robi. Airtel Taking over warid telecomm airtel is running its operation as mobile phone operator in Bangladesh. They are the first choice young generation people. They give lots of bonus and gifts to their customer and they charge very low. City Cell City cell is the first mobile operator company and only one CDMA company in Bangladesh. Though city cell is the first company in the Bangladesh they did not stable the market as a first mover. 7.0 Channels and Logistics Review Teletalk has established their customer care point only in the divisional  cities and the big citied only. In their CCP’s they provides free services to their customer. Teletalk will be distributed through a network of retailers in the market. Among the most important channel partners being contacted are- Own outlet- Teletalk sells there product on their own customer service center. Mobile phone retail store- the mobile phone retail store and recharge centre carry teletalk 2G SIM. Electronics Specialty store- This kind of store also carry teletalk 2G SIM. SWOT Analysis The following SWOT analysis captures the key strengths and weaknesses within the teletalk 2G and describes the opportunities and threats facing teletalk. Strengths: The most and the important strength of the Teletalk is a government owned company and can easily use the government resources. Strong brand equity and recognition in Bangladesh Steadily growing customer base Alliances with industry leading corporations in mobile services & technologies The public organization uses the Teletalk as their official purpose, i.e. Desco and Desa loadsheding information. Weaknesses: The network facility all over the country is not satisfactory. The customer satisfaction is not available all over the country. Cannot offer the Value Added services other than other operators. Steady decline in average revenue per user (ARPU) No presence in key emerging markets Taxes imposes by the government Lack of experience Short of sales people Opportunities: Increasing network coverage in the Bangladesh First to introduce as T&T in coming. Mobile internet expansion New product Price competitiveness Large market Target new market segment Bankable project Availability of raw materials Free Move alliance Threats: Intensifying competition consolidation in the market Economic slowdown Bangladeshi regulation on cross-border cell phone usage by customers Political Unrest No promotional Activities Analysis of Strengths Subscriber inclination to Teletalk as a government owned organization: People have a deep inclination towards Teletalk . Because subscribers have more confidence in the government institution. They think that they might get some extra benefit from Teletalk like lower call rate, optical fiber facilities etc. rather than other providers. Teletalk’s all connections are ISD & EISD: It’s a big strength of Teletalk. It’s the only SIM which has such a versatility of connections having ISD, Economy ISD service along with both incoming and outgoing connectivity with any of the land phones. This is not seen to other providers. It gives a tremendous competitive advantage to the Teletalk Bangladesh ltd over its respective competitors. Teletalk is the only indigenous company using GSM service: Teletalk is the only local organization which is providing GSM technology in this country. The other local organization named pacific telecom is providing CDMA technology which is more expensive. So Teletalk can take this advantage over its competitors. It has also provided incoming facility up to 2015: Teletalk have a strong strength over its competitors in case of incoming facility. Teletalks present incoming duration is up to 20015. Which is 20 times more than other competitors? From the very beginning it is providing free TNT incoming: Teletalk is the only provider which is providing T&T incoming free from the very beginning. Whether other operators providers providing such kind of facility just now. Moreover its contribution to our economy can be notable: As a Govt. owned company Teletalk have a strong contribution in our national economy. Its one of the high profit generating Govt. organization  in Bangladesh. Low cost provider: The most remarkable success of Teletalk is the slump in tariff structure. It is the lowest cost provider in Bangladesh telecommunication market. Analysis of Weaknesses Premature entrance in mature market: The biggest weakness was a premature entrance in a mature market. As soon as anyone could catch hold of a Teletalk mobile, he started comparing it with the services of Grameen, Banglalink or Aktel. Lower number of human resource: The number of employee of Teletalk is too much lower regarding its requirement. As a result the service quality and customer satisfaction go down. Failed to identify difference between developed market and developing market: Teletalk failed to identify the difference between developed market and developing market. There strategy making is not match with the current situation. Lower promotional activities: The promotional campaign of Teletalk is not too much strong like other providers of Bangladesh as result consumers are less aware about Teletalk and its package. Weak management system: poor coordination among different functional department of Teletalk as result service efficiency goes down. Poor marketing: The overall marketing activities of Teletalk is not much rich like other competitors. Lower number of value added service: Teletalk Bangladesh Ltd. is providing a less number of value added service to its subscriber regarding its competitors. As a result subscribers are becoming dissatisfied on the Teletalk service. The comparison of value added services of different operators are mention below. Whereas Teletalk providing less number of value added service. Objectives and Issues OBJECTIVES Profitability Objectives-To achieve a 20% return on capital employed by August 2013. Market Share Objectives-To increase the current market share of 10% to 25% by December 2015 Promotional Objectives-To become the most admired telecom operator in the country by June 2015. Objectives for Survival-To survive the current double-dip recession. Objectives for  Branding-To make the teletalk brand the most preferred brand in the telecom industry across the Bangladesh by 2018. Issues Though teletalk started its operation 2005 but the company is not well established so our main issue is the ability to establish the teletalk as a one of the market leader and meaningful positioning. The teletalk will have to invest heavily in marketing to create a memorable and distinctive brand image projecting innovation, service and value. Teletalk have to measure awareness and response so they can adjust they are marketing efforts as necessary. Marketing Strategy Marketing strategy is a process that can allow an organization to concentrate its limited resources on the greatest opportunities to increase sales and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Teletalk as a market follower in the current Bangladesh telecom industry has to deploy various kinds of strategies in order to be able to stand the intense competition. Positioning Positioning is the heart of marketing strategy. It is the act of designing the companies offer and image so that it occupies a distinct and valued place in the target customer. After the company has decided which market segment to enter with which product, it must decide what positions it want to occupy a clear distinctive and desirable place relative to competing products in the mind of target customers. The company’s entire marketing program should support the chosen positioning strategy. Since if a product is perceived to be exactly like another product on the market, consumers would have no reason to buy it, Teletalk brings special features on the product as well as significant various services that positioned the products in the target segments. Products can be positioned with some positioning strategy. We find that Teletalk has taken has taken multi-various strategy to position its various product in the market. Teletalk position itself as own mobile phone company (Amade r phone). Teletalk is owned by Bangladesh government. It designed its products according to the usage occasion.  Consumers can use teletalk in specific occasions according to their need such as the international roaming gives the consumers an opportunity to use their cellular phone in abroad countries. The products of teletalk are available for certain classes of users. Marketing Mix 4p’s Products The basic product of Teletalk Bangladesh Ltd is its SIM. Connectivity is the Core Benefit of this product. The Expected Product is good connectivity and a large area of coverage which Teletalk struggles to maintain. Teletalk is now concentrating on its Augmented Product which is VAS (Value Added Services).It has launched some new VAS recently such as Internet SMS while previous ones such as Cricket Update or Load Shedding update continue to serve. And teletalk 2G can convert to teletalk 3G. Price The present pricing strategy for Teletalk prepaid connections is shown here- Package: Standard Call Directions Call Categories Peak [ 8am-12am ] Off Peak [ 12am-8am ] Out Going Calls Teletalk to Teletalk Tk. 1.40 Tk. 00.60 Teletalk to Others Tk. 1.90 Tk. 1.00 Teletalk to Overseas Tk. 1.90 + ISD & EISD Tk. 1.00 + ISD & EISD SMS and Voice SMS Tk. 1.00 and tk.2 GPRS Tk. 00.02/KB or Unlimited fee Tk. 800.00/Month FnF Tk. 00.75 [Teletalk] & Tk. 1.25 [Other] Package: Shadheen Call Directions Call Categories Peak [ 8am-12am ] Off Peak [ 12am-8am ] Out Going Calls Teletalk to Teletalk Tk. 0.99 TTk. 00.60 Teletalk to Others Tk. 1.90 Tk. 1.00 Teletalk to Overseas Tk. 1.90 + ISD & EISD Tk. 1.00 + ISD & EISD SMS and voice SMS Tk. 1.00 and Tk. 2 GPRS Tk. 00.02/KB or Unlimited fee Tk. 800.00/Month FnF Tk. 00.25 & Tk. 1.00 [Other] Teletalk will practice customer base pricing strategy, flexible pricing mechanisms and controlled by. In order achieve to strategic goal of cost leader we continue to maintain a pricing formula which is less than market leader by 20%. Promotion Advertising Teletalk will have to pursue an aggressive advertising campaign, as it will provide unsought services. Printing, electronic and some other Media will be used for this purpose. Print Media Electronic Media Others News Paper Magazines Television Radio Internet Outdoor Tri vision Print Media Newspaper- Teletalk should increase its advertisements in The Daily Star, TheDaily Prothom-Alo etc to communicate with the target groups. Magazines- Teletalk should advertise in magazines. Electronic Media Television- Television advertising is certainly the most effective communication strategy. Advertising for Teletalk can be done on ATN Bangla, â€Å"Channel i† etc. in their prime hours on a relatively regular basis. Radio- As the FM radios are emerging rapidly as a strong media, there will be some radio advertisement to cover the necessity based target group. This will also help to build the way when Teletalk will be gradually penetrating other areas of Bangladesh. Internet- Teletalk plans to develop a strong web page. Developing a web page and its maintenance would not be expensive. The page will contain attractive and at the same time important information about Teletalk. Transit- Recently Teletalk has advertised in BEVCO buses covering the whole bus with Teletalk themes and ads. It will publish some attractive ads and use it in some private and mass transits like Volvo and Premium bus service. This type of advertising will increase the visibility of Teletalk.. Billboard- Some billboards will be placed on busy and important roads in Dhanmondi, Gulshan, Banani, Uttara, and New Market areas. Place Teletalk sales its products through its customer care centers and the dealers. It has only 4 customer care centers which should be increased to give better service to its existing and potential subscribers. Its distribution should be made better by making SIMs available in small retail shops in every area. Teletalk participates in the trade fairs and that is also a good place to gain the attraction of the subscribers. Distribution Strategy Teletalk doesn’t sell its packages directly to its customer. Rather it maintains an indirect distribution channel for the customer. It appoints dealer for sell. Through the dealers the packages are distributed to the customers. Consumers can get the package through them. Teletalk always wants to sell its products as many as they can. As a result they try to make the packages available as many outlets and retailers as possible.The  distribution network of Teletalk is as follows Marketing Research Teletalk possesses good information about the market and knows a great deal about the common attributes of the most prized customer. This information will be leveraged to better understand who is served, what their specific needs are, and how Teletalk can better communicate with them. Using research, we are identifying the specific feature and benefits that our target market segments value. Feedback from market test, surveys, and focus group will help us develop the teletalk 2G. We are also measuring and analyzing customers attitudes towards competing company and product and services. Brand awareness research will help us determine the effectiveness and efficiency of our messages and media. Finally we will use customer satisfaction studies to improve our service and product feature. Marketing Organization Teletalk chief marketing and sales officer Mr. Habibur Rahaman holds overall responsibility of the company’s marketing activities and Unitrand ltd. advertisement firm the external marketing organization for teletalk. Implementation The following milestones identify the key marketing programs. It is important to accomplish each one on time and on budget Control and Evaluation of Performance Taletalk’s marketing plan is to serve as a guide for the organization. The following areas will be monitored to gauge performance: Revenue: monthly and annual Expenses: monthly and annual Customer satisfaction Market Share Subscriber base New product development Conclusion The biggest advantage of is that it’s a government company though teletalk did not established as a market leader. And teletalk can improve its product and service to retain in the market. GP is the leader in the market and banglalink is in the second position. Teletalk has got lot of aspect to improve the situation. To be the market leader teletalk must be very careful in the field of marketing plan and the success of the company is a matter of subject that how they are implementing the plan. References 1. www.google.com 2. www.teletalk.bd.com 3. Annual report 2009-2010 4. BTRC

Baptist Church Visit

Baptist visit I decided to go to Baptist church in Miami. I chose Coral Park Baptist Church because most of the Baptist churches I call in Miami provide Spanish language services, but the Coral Park Baptist Church also offers English services. I went to the service at 11 o'clock Sunday. The whole church is very big. In major temples there are regular Spanish services, and there are other complete buildings, separate classrooms, English services and other Sunday school type courses. Acceptable choices are Methodist Church and Baptist Church. Methodist Church made me indifferent. The Battle church bat is funny but the second Baptist church I visited was very warm and the people were friendly. Their beliefs are too modest to my taste, but they are accepted by my Republican husband. I like this service and people. I participated. I immediately received a revelation that I am no longer in Kansas. But I like these people again. So when I heard the ridiculous belief that I thought it was ab surd, I just smiled and told myself. I want the feelings of the community. Baptist visit I decided to go to Baptist church in Miami. I chose Coral Park Baptist Church because most of the Baptist churches I call in Miami provide Spanish language services, but the Coral Park Baptist Church also offers English services. I went to the service at 11 o'clock Sunday. The whole church is very big. In major temples there are regular Spanish services, and there are other complete buildings, separate classrooms, English services and other Sunday school type courses. There seem to be countless churches around Waco. Waco has more than 100 Baptist churches alone. Even if someone tries to visit two Baptist churches every week, there will still be a Baptist church to visit. There is no doubt that Waco is a religious city. David Koresh is said to be a child under the name of God. Some people in former David chapters said they did not say that he had sexually assaulted children. Kiri Jewell, one of W aco's children, said she tried to have sex with her when she was ten years old, David Koresh. Others say that David Koresh is clearly talking about sex with young girls.

Sustainable Marketing Plan Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Sustainable Marketing Plan - Assignment Example Target Market Samsung Electronics has strategized its market offerings through the defining of a new target base comprising of fashionable, trendy and high class consumers. Prior to such the company mainly focused on creation of value products that would help the consumer gain better quality at affordable prices. However the gaining of a new target base has enabled the company to focus on the production of fashionable and premium products in order to meet their enhanced desires. Samsung Electronics eyes the new consumer base as fashionable and filled with curiosity and a sense of adventure to try the new (Rowley & Paik, 2009, p.63). General Strategy The general strategy of Samsung Electronics and that of the Samsung Group in total mainly centres around three parameters. Firstly the company management focuses on rendering high class innovation in its products and thereby empowering the internal people to work on the same. Secondly the company also works to incorporate large scale dive rsification in regards to both its products and business sectors. Thirdly the company through empowering individuals helps them to identify and go for newer opportunities and thus to develop both professionally and personally (Samsung-a, 2010). Triple Bottom Line Goals Profits Today most of the companies are practising the sustainability measures to gain a competitive advantage. Samsung Electronics by making a mark in the sustainable factor can create a competitive advantage. Developing environmentally products and improve customer satisfaction would eventually lead to profit as consumers are also demanding products which are environmental friendly. The company can also maximise the corporate value by sound economic activities and enhance profit for the organisation. People The company needs to educate the consumers in regards to the production of premium gadgets incorporating high end technology. Awareness created amongst the people through print and visual advertisements helps in enhancing their desire to procure high end products. Samsung Electronics should also work to engage the supplier groups and employees to render products to the consumers that would be reliable and innovative to suit their quality needs. Samsung Electronics can also work in the development of electronic schools and training centres to help attract young and innovative minds in their operations. Planet Samsung Electronics in its endeavour to enhance the dimension of reliability and quality is also required to work on the dimension of carbon footprint. The carbon footprint would help the company track the amount of carbon usage in regards to the company’s and it’s supply chain groups’ operations. This method would help the company reduce the amount of carbon usage and emission and thus promote a greener environment. Further the company also needs to enhance the use of recyclable materials in its production of gadgets to help enhance its accountability to nature. St akeholder Analysis

Writing assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Writing assignment - Essay Example based on this statement, is in itself a complete thought delivered through that which is purely musical by being comprised of an animating principle or â€Å"rhythm† within an entire system of tones were adjustments in melody, harmony, and rhythmic patterns diversely vary throughout a composer’s material. Essentially, this implies that absolute music serves more than the purpose of having special circumstances drawn to recollection or of obtaining brief yet poignant residence in feelings for music, as perceived in the wholeness of power and beauty that fills it, satisfies such perception completely in full measure. â€Å"Der Ring des Nibelungen† by Richard Wagner is one such wonderful instance that attests to the objective of an idea or concept completely expressed via music in absolute form. As the cycle of Wagner’s four epic dramas is designed according to Norse sagas, the creation may then be proposed to have attained to the level of â€Å"auditory imagination† that is separate from the mere sense of pleased hearing. On this ground, one may argue as well that there exists a ‘musical language’ that not only speaks to feelings but even bears the capacity to communicate a story despite the absence of words or related elements of direct speech. To further support this argument, Hanslick exemplifies by considering parallels between pure music and â€Å"arabesque† – a branch of ornamentation in the visual arts by which he persuades to understanding how music, like the art that reflects after the â€Å"sounding shapes† or the â€Å"self-const ructing tones†, can naturally occur in continuous self-formation and thus generate into a language of its

Disaparity economics Who is the top 1% of the income and where do they Essay

Disaparity economics Who is the top 1% of the income and where do they live - Essay Example Disparity economics is influenced by many factors like globalization, political environment, and cultural changes. In America, it is claimed that globalization made â€Å"money go truly crazy† (Peterson, cited in Freeland). The lifestyle of the richest is a far cry from that of the poor. The richest are the globetrotters who never stay in the country for long. They know foreign places better than they do places in their own country. They spend more time with airline flight attendants than with their families. Most of these richest people are businessmen. A look into the lives and cultures of these people helps a common person to assess how differently they live their lives than a middle class person who has to deal with so many insecurities in life. For example, the employment market is so unpredictable because the economic condition of the country has made layoffs so common now everywhere in the US. All the capital gains keep rolling toward that 1 percent which already has enough of these gains. The result is that other classes, especially the middles class, is drastically robbed off of its gains. For example, Freeland in her very insightful book gives examples of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet to prove how staggeringly unequal the American society has become. It is claimed that both these men together have a tight grasp on as much wealth as the other 120 million Americans at the bottom of the wealth distribution. Gates and Buffet are two most important names of the top 1% of the US society. Buffet lives in Omaha in not a very luxurious home. Still, the structure of the house is very nice. He also just sold a luxurious vacation home located in Laguna Beach. It is safe to say that he lives a very comfortable lifestyle. Bill Gates lives in a very large mansion which took over 7 years and 63 million dollars to build alone. The mansion is located in Washington. There is every luxury imaginable

Tivo - Case Writeup Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Tivo - Case Writeup - Essay Example Before the launch of TiVo, television viewing was more of a passive activity, with top programs vying for the prime time slot, season premieres drawing in huge audiences and advertisers trying to gain advantage of such high viewership by grabbing prime time space. The presence of a large TV viewing audience, the habits of audiences, popularity of television as an integral part of entertainment as evident from the data showing trends in purchase of TV, and the added ease of watching one’s favorite shows, in itself presented the required business opportunity to launch the new concept in the market. During the initial execution phase of the product, several factors were observed that played a major role in assessing various elements of its business model. The product’s price was estimated to be quite high which was apparently more expensive than most TV sets. Besides, lack of awareness proved to be a setback in reaching the target markets which made marketing and sale of t he product even more challenging since unlike other products in that category, TiVo required extensive explanations for its various features. Moreover, the advertisers showed concern over one of its features that allowed the viewers to forward advertisements. These factors guided the company to frame better policies and terms that would be beneficial to both the parties concerned. TiVo had a huge subscriber base comprising of 42000 subscribers, just fourteen months after its launch, with a strong and impressive current rate of 14,000 new subscribers per quarter. It had strategic partnerships with superstar brands – Sony and Phillips and subsidized them to manufacture, distribute and promote the black box to the retailers. Apart from the revenues from advertisers and subscribers, the other major source of revenue was through the sale of hardware. In order to penetrate the 102 million TV viewing households market in the U.S.,

The Truman Doctrine and the Cold War Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

The Truman Doctrine and the Cold War - Essay Example 346). It was in this time that the United Nations was formed, because the world was even more conflict-weary than it had been after the Great War, when Woodrow Wilson sought to create a League of Nations that would stop major disputes before they ever again became worldwide wars. However, even as workers were still picking up the rubble from the damage in Europe and Asia, the seeds of a new war between the United States and the Soviet Union, two erstwhile allies, were being planted: the Cold War. This was not a war that could ever really begin on a battlefield, because both of the combatants possessed the tactical ability to destroy the planet with nuclear bombs. And so, in many instances, the Cold War became a game to see how much one side would put up with from the other. Perhaps the most volatile moments of the Cold War occurred during the Presidency of John F. Kennedy, when the Soviet Union installed missiles on the island of Cuba, mere miles away from United States soil. The fifteen days of that crisis were as close as the two sides ever came to actual nuclear holocaust. The beginnings of this Cold War, in some ways, may be said to lie at the feet of the United States government. Even during World War II, the United States and Great Britain refused to let the Soviets join the project to create atomic weapons, which led Stalin to mistrust the other two Allies. At the end of the war, the United States stopped sending lend-lease aid far earlier than the Soviets liked, and refused to lend the Soviet government $6 billion for reconstruction, while at the same time lending Great Britain $3.75 billion for similar costs (Pollard, p. 27). The two sides also differed on the postwar fate of Eastern Europe: the Soviet Union, having been invaded twice in thirty years by German armies, wanted to create a buffer zone protecting it from further western invasions, and so it quickly cemented control over most of Eastern Europe, including the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. The Americans, in contrast, supported the Wilsonian idea of an "open world" filled with auto nomous, democratic nations. The Soviet grab for Eastern Europe immediately after World War II ended deeply offended American sensibilities (Bailey and Kennedy, p. 822). Stalin was in no way innocent in the beginnings of the Cold War. In 1946, he broke an agreement to remove Soviet troops from northern Iran. In early 1947, when Great Britain told the United States it could no longer assist the Greek government in keeping stability, and when the Turkish government seemed vulnerable to internal agitation, President Truman decided that a containment policy toward the Soviet Union would be best. In a speech to Congress on March 12, 1947, he asked for $400 million in aid to Greece and Turkey, to help keep their governments from collapsing, and to keep Communist influence from overtaking those two countries. In this speech, Truman hearkened back to World War II for support: One of the primary objectives of the foreign policy of the United States is the creation of conditions in which we and other nations will be able to work out a way of life free from coercion. This was a

Cover letter (business letter format or block style) Essay - 1

Cover letter (business letter format or block style) - Essay Example Besides that, my tutor advised me to look for additional help through the reading and writing centers. Following this class, I can now review the overall effort that I have put throughout the learning period. I learnt the most from analyzing a friend’s essay entitled, â€Å"Food Stamp and Millions People Rely on† in several ways. Since it was my first time to encounter this type of an essay, I had to undertake significant research on the topic and post my work in the class forum. However, I made several mistakes such as providing personal opinion instead of analyzing the content. In addition, my mind opened up when we were learning about ethos, pathos and logos as I am now able to identify different types of appeals and understand an article’s deeper meaning. One of my easiest essays was â€Å"Forgiveness and Generosity†. The main reason why I found the essay easy was the fact that it was a reflective essay where I had the permission to give my experiences, which is one of the easiest things for me to do. This is because most of the information incorporated my own life events and it is considerably easy for me to remember it. In addition, I did not have to apply many writing skills. One of the essays that I struggled most to complete was titled, â€Å"Effects of Tsunami on Japan’s Economy†. I was not conversant with citations but my instructor showed me how to use a simplified website that generates automatic citations easily. I still made the mistake of not arranging the citations in alphabetical order. I had to read very many sources, which was tedious. I had difficulties when writing the outline and my essay had many grammatical mistakes. However, my tutor rendered her assistance on how to fix most mistakes and my final draft had improved substantially as there were fewer mistakes. Through reading many articles, I was able to learn many words that I can now apply easily in my essays. I also learnt several writing

Asserting Ethnic Identity and Power Through Language Essay Example for Free

Asserting Ethnic Identity and Power Through Language Essay Week-1 The linguistic ideology at work here is founded both on the concept of the ‘mother tongue’ as well as on the ‘one nation, one language’ principle. Communities on the western side of the border are not interested in learning the language of their eastern neighbors. Eastern communities, on the other hand, are strongly motivated to learn western languages. The importance attributed to English as the ‘language of globalization’ is common to both sides. We can actually say that ‘language’ is a very hot and recurrent issue for some communities: namely the German-speaking community in Bernstein (D), the Czech-speaking community in Vejprty (CS), the German-speaking and Slovenian-speaking communities in Eisenkappel/Z? elezna Kapla (A),etc. The term ‘mother tongue’ is often used – forms the ‘way of thinking’ of its speakers, and thus the different ‘mentalities’ and ‘national characters’ are connected with the use of different languages. Many informants are convinced that it is the ‘mother tongue’ which determines thought, social behavior, and exhibition or control of affection and emotions. Thus the confrontation between languages automatically becomes a clash of mentalities. For example, the German-speaking community in Ba? renstein finds there is a relation between the insurmountable difficulty in pronouncing and learning the Czech language and the incomprehensibility of the words Czech-speaking people produce. People in western communities explain this widespread knowledge by saying that ‘the Others’ need to know my language, because my language is the superior One. We can also find indices of implicit prestige in many interview quotes, like ‘my language is useful to find a job’, ‘my language is more international than theirs’, ‘it represents a symbol of upward social mobility’; ‘the importance of my language forces them to learn it, and in this way they show practical sense, intelligence and cleverness, because they well know that the knowledge of the languages spoken on both sides of the border offers more professional and economic opportunities’. People are not generally interested in learning the language of the ‘Other’, and the reason is, as we have already seen, its ‘uselessness’, or its low value on the ‘language market’. They only learn what they need in their commercial transactions. Europe is a multilingual continent in which the tension between linguistic pluralism and assimilation is quite evident at present. Week-2 The topic for this week was â€Å"Creation of a Sense of Belonging through Language†, which we found very much interesting as we have to present our own explanation, views and thoughts. The topic is about Finland, Iceland and Latvia. Firstly we discussed about Finland that Swedish-speaking people along the coastlines, spoke a non-Scandinavian language, namely Finnish. The Finnish language was to become the most effective medium in the nation-building process as well as the most important criterion in creating an awareness of a collective identity. Language became a defining characteristic towards the ‘outside’ and a communicative driving force on the ‘inside’ within the great diversity of local and regional cultures. We could say that for the process of nation-building in Finland during the 19th century two main deficits had to be overcome: sovereign state structures had to be developed and an individual Finnish national consciousness had to be formed. In the process of spreading a Finnish national consciousness – a development often associated with the term ‘awakening’ as in a religious experience – the main focus was directed towards the common people, their language and culture. Finland’s modest cultural life, Finnish had gained the status of a modern cultural and scientific language. The civil servants, scholars, and many artists, continued to use Swedish as their language of communication and publication. But Finnish steadily gained ground. Many people were already, or became, bilingual. The accusation that Finnish was ‘too primitive’ was defeated by generating new terms, which proved that the language was innovative and possessed the potential for development. In the discussion about Iceland by Halfdanarson. The text tells a story of Icelandic nationalism and the struggle for independence of Iceland under Danish rule. Halfdanarson points out the rare case of Icelandic nationalism, and its non-violent nature. In fact, according to the article, both Iceland’s struggle for independence and the Danish reactions to it were both surprisingly pacific in nature, partly because of the idea of shared past and cultural heritage between the two countries. There are certain elements in common with the case study of Iceland and Herders text, such as the idea of mystic, shared past of a nation, the role of the single language of a social group forming the nation and so on. I think especially in cases like Iceland, language and linguistic identity have essential role in formation of national identity. Iceland is isolated, both in geographical terms as an island in the middle of Atlantic ocean and in terms of language. Although Icelandic is a language related to scandinavian languages, it still differes from them quite a lot. And lastly There was a question that is it possible to have a single language in whole Europe? We think its not possible to have a single langage in the whole Europe as there are many different countries with their own languages from last hundreds of years. In Europe, People communicate with each other using the shared language of their group. The group might be as small as a couple (married or unmarried partners, twins, mother and daughter etc. who share a ‘private’ language where only they know the meaning of some words) or as large as a nation, where everyone understands the allusions in their shared language (often allusions to shared history, to contemporary events, to media people of fact or fiction etc). The ‘secret’ language of the smallest group and the ‘public’ language of the national group are two ‘varieties’ of the same language. Every social group, large or small, has its own language variety, (regional groups have varieties of the national language (as opposed to regional or minority languages) which are usually called ‘dialects’) and there is overlap among all the varieties. However there is a possibility to use English as a second language as use of English gives a considerable advantage to the 13 % of EU citizens who are native English speakers, and to speakers of closely related languages (German, Dutch, Danish and Swedish), over all other Europeans. Week-3 In the week 3, we learned about ‘Language and subjective identity’. The two articles were on Franz Kafka and Simone de Beauvoir. Franz Kafka was German though he never lived among the Germans. He was then living in Prague, Czech. Hence Kafka knew both Czech German languages. But, he preferred Czech Language as he was of the view that one could express his/her feeling in a better way in a particular language. In this case, he thought that Czech was a better language than German to express his feelings. Franz Kafka was in love with Czech translator Milena Jesenka. He used to demand Milena to write him letters in Czech language than German. He belived in a approach belongs to a language. When Milena replied his letters in Czech, he believed that Czech was much more affectionate, which removes all the uncertainties, he could see his lover more clearly, the movements of her body, her hands quickly which almost resembled as they both are meeting. This shows how Kafka prefered Czech more than German. Kafka encouraged his favourite sister Ottla in her marriage to Josef David, a Czech Catholic, against the opposition of parents and relatives, and wrote affectionately to his new brother-in-law in fluent Czech. For Prague Jews of Kafkas generation, language and identity could be painfully dissonant. In Kafkas case, this dissonance reached deep into his own family, conferring an alien quality on the most intimate of human relationships. Franz Kafka died of tuberculosis in 1924. He is buried beside his parents in the family plot in Pragues New Jewish Cemetery. Simone de Beauvoir is a French Women. She was French writer, political activist, feminist, and social theorist. She gave her whole life for feminine rights and equality with men in Society. Beauvoir was an outstanding student. She did her postgraduate work at the Ecole Normale Superieure, the top postgraduate program in France, where she met Jean Paul Sartre. When World War II broke out in September 1939, Sartre was called for military service. He became a prisoner of war when the French army surrendered, but he was released and both Beauvoir and Sartre participated in the resistance, and after the Vichy Regime dismissed Beauvoir from her teaching position, she began a novel about the resistance. When the war ended, Beauvoir and Sartre became part of a group of leading French intellectuals, who concerned themselves with the perceived failures of modern French society. they founded Les Temps modernes as a means to explain their social and cultural views. At the same time, Sartre suggested to Beauvoir that she undertake a book on the status of women, and she published, La deuxieme sexe (The Second Sex). This was her most famous, and influential book. It became a sourcebook of modern feminism, particularly in the United States for later feminist thinkers such as Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem. De Beauvoir used very specific and effective and powerful words to underline her matter. She is willing to deploy language and words towards others, because she knows about â€Å"a manner in which her body and her relation to the world are modified through the action of others than herself†.

Database security and encryption

Database security and encryption Introduction Organisations are increasingly relying on the distributed information systems to gain productivity and efficiency advantages, but at the same time are becoming more vulnerable to security threats. Database systems are an integral component of this distributed information system and hold all the data which enables the whole system to work. A database can be defined as a shared collection of logically related data and a description of this data, designed to meet the information needs of an organization. A database system is considered as a collection of related data, database management system (DBMS) a software that manages (define, create and maintain) and controls the access to the database, and a collection of database application(s) a program that interacts with the database at some point in its execution (typical example is a SQL statement) along with the DBMS and the database itself [1]. Organisations have adopted database systems as the key data management technology for decision-making and day-to-day operations. Databases are designed to hold large amounts of data and management of data involves both defining structures for storage of information and providing mechanisms for manipulation of information. As the data is to be shared among several users the system must avoid anomalous results and ensure the safety of the information stored despite system crashes and attempts at unauthorized access. The data involved here can be highly sensitive or confidential, thus making the security of the data managed by these systems even more crucial as any security breach does not affect only a single application or user but can have disastrous consequences on the entire organisation. A number of security techniques have been suggested over the period of time to tackle the security issues. These can be classified as access control, inference control, flow control, and encryptio n. 1.1 A Short History Starting from the day one when database applications were build using hierarchical and network systems to todays date when we have so many different database systems like relational databases (RDBMS), object-oriented databases (OODBMS), object-relational databases (ORDBMS), eXtended Query (XQUERY); one factor which was, is, and will be of the utmost importance is the security of the data involved. Data always has been a valuable asset for companies and must be protected. Organizations spend millions these days in order to achieve the best security standards for the DBMS. Most of an organizations sensitive and proprietary data resides in a DBMS, thus the security of the DBMS is a primary concern. When we talk of securing a DBMS, this is with respect to both the internal and the external users. The internal users are the organization employees like database administrators, application developers, and end users who just use the application interface, which fetch its data from one of the databases and the external users can be the employees who do not have access to the database or an outsider who has nothing to do with the organization. The other factors which has made data security more crucial is the recent rapid growth of the web based information systems and applications and the concept of mobile databases. Any intentional or accidental event that can adversely affect a database system is considered as a threat to database and database security can be defined as a mechanism that protects the database against such intentional or accidental threats. Security breaches can be classified as unauthorized data observation, incorrect data modification, and data unavailability, which can lead to loss of confidentiality, availability, integrity, privacy, and theft and fraud. Unauthorized data observation results in disclosure of information to users who might not be entitled to have access to such kind of information. Incorrect data modification intentional or unintentional leaves the database in an incorrect state. Data can hamper the functionality of an entire organization in a proper way if not available when needed. Thus the security in terms of databases can be broadly classified into access security and internal security. Access security refers to the mechanisms implemented to restrict any sort of unauthorized access to the database; examples can be authorization methods such as every user has a unique username and password to establish him as a legitimate user when trying to connect to the database. When the user tries to connect to the database the login credentials will be checked against a set of usernames and password combinations setup under a security rule by a security administrator. Internal security can be referred to as an extra level of security, which comes into picture if someone has already breached the access security such as getting hold of a valid username and password, which can help getting access to the database. So the security mechanism implemented within the database such as encrypting the data inside the database can be classed as internal security, which prevents the data to be compromised even if someone has got unauthorized access to the database. Every organization needs to identify the threats they might be subjected to and the subsequently appropriate security plans and countermeasures should be taken, taking into consideration their implementation costs and effects on performance. Addressing these threats helps the enterprise to meet the compliance and risk mitigation requirements of the most regulated industries in the world. 1.2 How Databases are Vulnerable According to David Knox [2], Securing the Database may be the single biggest action an organization can take, to protect its assets. Most commonly used database in an enterprise organization is relational database. Data is a valuable resource in an enterprise organization. Therefore they have a very strong need of strictly controlling and managing it. As discussed earlier it is the responsibility of the DBMS to make sure that the data is kept secure and confidential as it the element which controls the access to the database. Enterprise database infrastructure is subject to an overwhelming range of threats most of the times. The most common threats which an Enterprise Database is exposed to are: Excessive Privilege Abuse when a user or an application has been granted database access privileges which exceeds the requirements of their job functions. For example an academic institute employee whose job only requires only the ability to change the contact information for a student can also change the grades for the student. Legitimate Privilege Abuse legitimate database access privileges can also be abused for malicious purposes. We have two risks to consider in this situation. The first one is confidential/sensitive information can be copied using the legitimate database access privilege and then sold for money. The second one and perhaps the more common is retrieving and storing large amounts of information on client machine for no malicious reason, but when the data is available on an endpoint machine rather than the database itself, it is more susceptible to Trojans, laptop theft, etc. Privilege Elevation software vulnerabilities which can be found in stored procedures, built-in functions, protocol implementations or even SQL statements. For example, a software developer can gain the database administrative privileges by exploiting the vulnerabilities in a built-in function. Database Platform Vulnerabilities any additional services or the operating system installed on the database server can lead to an authorized access, data corruption, or denial of service. For example the Blaster Worm which took advantage of vulnerability in Windows 2000 to create denial of service. SQL Injection the most common attack technique. In a SQL injection attack, the attacker typically inserts unauthorized queries into the database using the vulnerable web application input forms and they get executed with the privileges of the application. This can be done in the internal applications or the stored procedures by internal users. Access to entire database can be gained using SQL injection Weak Audit a strong database audit is essential in an enterprise organization as it helps them to fulfill the government regulatory requirements, provides investigators with forensics link intruders to a crime deterring the attackers. Database Audit is considered as the last line of database defense. Audit data can identify the existence of a violation after the fact and can be used to link it to a particular user and repair the system in case corruption or a denial of service attack has occurred. The main reasons for a weak audit are: it degrades the performance by consuming the CPU and disk resources, administrators can turn off audit to hide an attack, organizations with mixed database environments cannot have a uniform, scalable audit process over the enterprise as the audit processes are unique to database server platform Denial of Service access to network applications or data is denied to the intended users. A simple example can be crashing a database server by exploiting vulnerability in the database platform. Other common denial of service techniques are data corruption, network flooding, server resource overload (common in database environments). Database Protocol Vulnerabilities SQL Slammer worm took advantage of a flaw in the Microsoft SQL Server protocol to force denial of service conditions. It affected 75,000 victims just over 30 minutes dramatically slowing down general internet traffic. [Analysis of BGP Update Surge during Slammer Worm Attack] Weak Authentication obtaining legitimate login credentials by improper way contributes to weak authentication schemes. The attackers can gain access to a legitimate users login details by various ways: by repeatedly entering the username/password combination until he finds the one which works (common or weak passwords can be guessed easily), by convincing someone to share their login credentials, by stealing the login credentials by copying the password files or notes. Backup Data Exposure there are several cases of security breaches involving theft of database backup tapes and hard disks as this media is thought of as least prone to attack and is often completely unprotected form attack [3]. All these security threats can be accounted for unauthorized data observation, incorrect data modification and data unavailability. A complete data security solution must take into consideration the secrecy/confidentiality, integrity and availability of data. Secrecy or confidentiality refers to the protection of data against unauthorized disclosure, integrity refers to prevention of incorrect data modification and availability refers to prevention of hardware/software errors and malicious data access denials making the database unavailable. 1.3 Security Techniques As organizations increase their adoption of database systems as the key data management technology for day-to-day operations and decision-making, the security of data managed by these systems has become crucial. Damage and misuse of data affect not only a single user or application, but may have disastrous consequences on the entire organization. There are four main control measures which can be used to provide security of data in databases. These are: Access Control Inference Control Flow Control Data Encryption Chapter 2 Literature Review Secure and secret means of communication has been always desired for in the field of database systems. There is always a possibility of interception by a party outside of the sender-receiver domain when data is transmitted. Modern digital-based encryption methods form the basis of todays world database security. Encryption in its earlier days was used by military and government organizations to facilitate secret information but in present times it is used for protecting information within many kinds of civilian systems. In 2007 the U.S. government reported that 71% of companies surveyed utilized encryption or some of their data in transit [4]. 2.1 Encryption Encryption is defined as the process of transforming information (plaintext) using an encryption algorithm (cipher) into unreadable form (encrypted information called as ciphertext) making it inaccessible to anyone without possessing special knowledge to decrypt the information. The encoding of the data by a special algorithm that renders the data unreadable by any program without the decryption key, is called encryption [1]. The code and cipher are the two methods of encrypting data. The encryption of data or a message is accomplished by one, or both, of the methods of encoding or enciphering. Each involves distinct methodologies and the two are differentiated by the level at which they are carried out. Encoding is performed at the word or block level and deals with the manipulation of groups of characters. Enciphering works at the character level. This includes scrambling individual characters in a message, referred to as transposition, and substitution, or replacing characters with others. Codes generally are designed to replace entire words or blocks of data in a message with other words or blocks of data. Languages can be considered codes, since words and phrases represent ideas, objects, and actions. There are codes that substitute entire phrases or groups of numbers or symbols with others. A single system may employ both levels of encoding. For example, consider a code encryption scheme as follows: the = jam, man = barn, is = fly, dangerous = rest. Then the message, the man is dangerous, would read in encrypted form, jam barn fly rest. Although overly-simplistic, this example illustrates the basis of codes. With the advent of electrical-based communications, codes became more sophisticated in answer to the needs of the systems. For example, the inventions of Morse code and the telegraph dictated a need for secure transmission that was more sophisticated. Codes are very susceptible to breaking and possess a large exposure surface with regard to interception and decryption via analysis. Also, there are no easily-implemented means by which to detect breaches in the system. The other method of encryption is the cipher. Instead of replacing words or blocks of numbers or symbols with others, as does the code, the cipher replaces individual or smaller sets of letters, numbers, or characters with others, based on a certain algorithm and key. Digital data and information, including vi deo, audio, and text, can be separated into groups, or blocks, of bits, and then manipulated for encryption by such methods as XOR (exclusive OR), encoding-decoding, and rotation. As an example, let us examine the basics of the XOR method. Here, a group of bits (e.g., a byte) of the data is compared to a digital key, and the exclusive-or operation is performed on the two to produce an encrypted result. Figure 2 illustrates the process. Figure 2: The XOR process for Encryption When the exclusive-or operation is performed on the plaintext and key, the ciphertext emerges and is sent. The receiver performs the exclusive-or operation on the ciphertext and the same key, and the original plaintext is reproduced [5]. Encryption can be reversible and irreversible. Irreversible techniques do not allow the encrypted data to be decrypted, but at the same time the encrypted data can be used to obtain valid statistical information. Irreversible techniques are rarely used as compared to the reversible ones. The whole process of transmitting data securely over an insecure network system is called as cryptosystem that includes à » An encryption key to encrypt the data (plaintext) à » An encryption algorithm that transforms the plaintext into encrypted information (ciphertext) with the encryption key à » A decryption key to decrypt the ciphertext à » A decryption algorithm that transforms the ciphertext back into plaintext using the decryption key [1]. 2.2 Encryption Techniques The goals in digital encryption are no different than those of historical encryption schemes. The difference is found in the methods, not the objectives. Secrecy of the message and keys are of paramount importance in any system, whether they are on parchment paper or in an electronic or optical format [5]. Various encryption techniques are available and broadly can be classified into two categories; asymmetric and symmetric encryption. In symmetric encryption the sender and receiver share the same algorithm and key for encryption and decryption and depends on safe communication network for encryption key exchange whereas in asymmetric encryption uses different keys for encryption and decryption. Asymmetric encryption gave birth to the concept of public and private keys and is preferred to symmetric encryption being more secure [1], [5]. 2.2.1 Symmetric Encryption Symmetric encryption also known as single-key encryption or conventional encryption was the only encryption and by far the most widely used of the two types before the concept of public-key encryption came into picture. The figure below illustrates the symmetric encryption process. The original message (plaintext) is converted into apparently random information (ciphertext) using an algorithm and a key. The key is a value independent of the plaintext. The algorithm produces different outputs for specific keys used at the time i.e. the output of the algorithm changes if the key is changed. The ciphertext produced is then transmitted and is transformed back to the original plaintext by using a decryption algorithm and the same key that was used for encryption. Figure: Simplified Model of Conventional Encryption [7 page 22] The model can be better understood by the following example. A source produces a message X = [X1, X2, X3 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦XM] in plaintext. The M elements of X are letters in some finite alphabet. The alphabet usually consisted of 26 capital letters traditionally but nowadays; binary alphabet {0,1} is used. An encryption key K = [K1, K2, K3 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.KJ] is generated and is shared between the sender and the receiver using a secure channel. Also a third party can generate the encryption key and securely deliver it to both the sender and the receiver. Using the plaintext X and the encryption key K as input, the encryption algorithm produces the ciphertext Y = [Y1, Y2, Y3 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.YN] as Y = EK(X) where E is the encryption algorithm and the ciphertext Y is produced as the function of the plaintext X using E. At the receivers end the ciphertext is converted back to the plaintext as X = DK(Y) where D is the decryption algorithm. Figure: Model of Conventional Cryptosystem [7 page 23] The common symmetric block ciphers are Data Encryption Standard (DES), Triple DES, and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 2.2.1.1 The Data Encryption Standard Data Encryption Standard has been used in the most widely used encryption schemes including Kerberos 4.0. The National Bureau of Standards adopted it as a standard in 1977 [7]. DES operates on 64-bit blocks using a 56-bit key. Like other encryption schemes, in DES there are two inputs to the encryption function, the plaintext to be encrypted and the key. The plaintext should be of 64 bits in length and the key length is 56 bits obtained by stripping off the 8 parity bits, ignoring every eighth bit from the given 64-bit key. The output from the algorithm after 16 rounds of identical operations is the 64-bit block of ciphertext. A suitable combination of permutations and combinations (16 times) on the plaintext is the basic building block of the DES. Same algorithm is used for both encryption and decryption except for processing the key schedule in the reverse order [6], [7]. The 64-bit plaintext is passed through an initial permutation (IP) that produces a permuted input by rearranging the bits. This is followed by16 rounds of the same function, which involves both permutation and substitution functions. The last round results in the output consisting of 64-bits that are a function of the input plaintext and the key. The left and the right halves of the output are swapped to produce the preoutput. The preoutput is passed through a final permutation (IP-1), an inverse of the initial permutation function to achieve the 64-bit ciphertext. The overall process for DES is explained in the diagram below Figure: General Depiction of DES Encryption Algorithm [7 page 67] The right hand side of the diagram explains how the 56-bit key is used during the process. The key is passed through a permutation function initially and then for each of the 16 rounds a subkey (Ki) is generated, by combining left circular shift and a permutation. For every round the permutation function is same, but the subkey is different because of the repeated iteration of the key bits. Since the adoption of DES as a standard, there have always been concerns about the level of security provided by it. The two areas of concern in DES are the key length and that the design criteria for the internal structure of the DES, the S-boxes, were classified. The issue with the key length was, it was reduced to 56 bits from 128 bits as in the LUCIFER algorithm [add a new reference], which was the base for DES and everyone suspected that this is an enormous decrease making it too short to withstand brute-force attacks. Also the user could not be made sure of any weak points in the internal structure of DES that would allow NSA to decipher the messages without the benefit of the key. The recent work on differential cryptanalysis and subsequent events indicated that the internal structure of DES is very strong. 2.2.1.2 Triple DES Triple DES was developed as an alternative to the potential vulnerability of the standard DES to a brute-force attack. It became very popular in Internet-based applications. Triple DES uses multiple encryptions with DES and multiple keys as shown in the figure [below]. Triple DES with two keys is relatively preferred to DES but Triple DES with three keys is preferred overall. The plaintext P is encrypted with the first key K1, then decrypted with the second key K2 and then finally encrypted again with the third key K3.According to the figure the ciphertext C is produced as C = EK3[DK2[EK1[P]]] These keys need to be applied in the reverse order while decrypting. The ciphertext c is decrypted with the third key K3 first, then encrypted with the second key K2, and then finally decrypted again with the first key K1; also called as Encrypt-Decrypt-Encrypt (EDE) mode, producing the plaintext P as P = DK1[EK2[DK3[C]]] Figure: Triple DES encryption/decryption [6 page 72] 2.2.1.3 Advanced Encryption Standard 2.3 Encryption in Database Security Organizations are increasingly relying on, possibly distributed, information systems for daily business; hence they become more vulnerable to security breaches even as they gain productivity and efficiency advantages. Database security has gained a substantial importance over the period of time. Database security has always been about protecting the data data in the form of customer information, intellectual property, financial assets, commercial transactions, and any number of other records that are retained, managed and used on the systems. The confidentiality and integrity of this data needs to be protected as it is converted into information and knowledge within the enterprise. Core enterprise data is stored in relational databases and then offered up via applications to users. These databases typically store the most valuable information assets of an enterprise and are under constant threat, not only from the external users but also from the legitimate users such as trusted ins iders, super users, consultants and partners or perhaps their unprotected user accounts that compromise the system and take or modify the data for some inappropriate purpose. To begin with, classifying the types of information in the database and the security needs associated with them is the first and important step. As databases are used in a multitude of ways, it is useful to have some of the primary functions characterized in order to understand the different security requirements. A number of security techniques have been developed and are being developed for database security, encryption being one of them. Encryption is defined as the process of transforming information (plaintext) using an encryption algorithm (cipher) into unreadable form (encrypted information called as ciphertext) making it inaccessible to anyone without possessing special knowledge to decrypt the information. The encoding of the data by a special algorithm that renders the data unreadable by any program without the decryption key, is called encryption [1]. 2.3.1 Access Encryption There are multiple reasons for access control to confidential information in enterprise computing environments being challenging. Few of them are: First, the number of information services in an enterprise computing environment is huge which makes the management of access rights essential. Second, a client might not know which access rights are necessary in order to be granted access to the requested information before requesting access. Third, flexible access rights including context-sensitive constraints must be supported by access control Access control schemes can be broadly classified in two types: proof-based and encryption-based access control schemes. In a proof-based scheme, a client needs to assemble some access rights in a proof of access, which demonstrates to a service that the client is authorized to access the requested information. Proof-based access control is preferred to be used for scenarios where client specific access rights required are flexible. It becomes easy to include support for constraints if the access rights are flexible. However, it is not the same case for covert access requirements. According to the existing designs, it is assumed that a service can inform a client of the nature of the required proof of access. The service does not need to locate the required access rights, which can be an expensive task, in proof-based access control scheme. [9] In an encryption-based access-control scheme, confidential information is provided to any client in an encrypted form by the service. Clients who are authorized to access the information have the corresponding decryption key. Encryption-based access-control scheme is attractive for scenarios where there are lots of queries to a service shielding the service from having to run client-specific access control. As compared to proof-based access control it is straightforward to add support for covert access requirements to existing encryption-based architectures. In particular, all the information is encrypted by the service as usual, but the client is not told about the corresponding decryption key to use. The client has a set of decryption keys, the client now needs to search this set for a matching key. On the other hand, considering that key management should remain simple, it is less straightforward to add support for constraints on access rights to the proposed architectures. [10] 2.3.1.1 Encryption-Based Access Control Encryption-based access control is attractive, in case there are lots of requests for the same information, as it is independent of the individual clients issuing these requests. For example, an information item can be encrypted once and the service can use the ciphertext for answering multiple requests. However, dealing with constraints on access rights and with granularity aware access rights becomes difficult with the uniform treatment of requests. Further challenges are presented in cases of covert access requirements and service-independent access rights. The main requirements for encryption based access control are: à » Any knowledge about the used encryption key or the required decryption key must not be revealed by the encrypted information. à » For decrypting encrypted information, each value of a constraint must require a separate key that should be accessible only under the given constraint/value combination and we want a scheme that supports hierarchical constraints to make key management simple. à » The decryption key for coarse-grained information should be derivable from the key for fine-grained information to further simplify key management. à » A single decryption key will be used to decrypt the same information offered by multiple services as implied by the service-independent access rights. Because of this, same information can be accessed by a service encrypting information offered by other services in a symmetric cryptosystem. This problem can be avoided by using asymmetric cryptosystem. [8] 2.3.1.2 Encryption-Based Access Control Techniques An access-control architecture will be an ideal one if the access rights are simple to manage; the system is constrainable and is aware of granularity. The architecture also has to be asymmetric, provide indistinguishability, and be personalizable in the case of proof-based access control. Some common encryption-based access control techniques are: Identity Based Encryption An identity-based encryption scheme is specified by four randomized algorithms: à » Setup: takes a security parameter k and returns system parameters and master-key. The system parameters include a description of a finite message space m and a description of a finite ciphertext space c. Intuitively, the system parameters will be publicly known, while the master-key will be known only to the Private Key Generator (PKG). à » Extract: takes as input system parameters, master-key, and an arbitrary ID à Ã‚ µ {0,1}*, and returns a private key d. ID is an arbitrary string which is then used as a public key, and d is the corresponding private decryption key. The Extract algorithm extracts a private key from the given public key. à » Encrypt: takes as input system parameters, ID, and M à Ã‚ µ m. It returns a ciphertext C à Ã‚ µ c. à » Decrypt: takes as input system parameters, C à Ã‚ µ c, and a private key d. It returns M à Ã‚ µ m. Standard consistency constraint must be satisfied by these algorithms, especially when d is the private key generated by algorithm Extract when it is given ID as the public key, then à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â€š ¬ M à Ã‚ µ m: Decrypt (params, d) = M where C = Encrypt (params, ID, M) [11] Hierarchical Identity-Based Encryption One of the first practical IBE schemes was presented by Boneh and Franklin. Gentry and Silverberg [7] introduced Hierarchical Identity-Based Encryption scheme based on Boneh and Franklins work. In HIBE, private keys are given out by a root PKG to the sub PKGs, which then in turn distribute private keys to individuals (sub PKGs) in their domains. There are IDs associated with the root PKG and the public key of an individual corresponds to these IDs, any sub PKGs on the path from the root PKG to the individual, and the individual. Public parameters are required only from the root PKG for encrypting messages. It has the advantage of reducing the amount o

Bluest Eye :: Essays Papers

Bluest Eye Pecola, an eleven-year-old black girl, is the protagonist of The Bluest Eye. Her family lives in grinding poverty in Lorain, Ohio. By 1941, her parents' marriage had turned bitter and violent. Cholly, her father, is an alcoholic and Pauline, her mother, prefers to retreat into the fantasy world of the movie theater. Surrounded by a culture that equates beauty with whiteness, Pecola becomes convinced that she is ugly because she has African features and dark skin. She prays to God every day for blue eyes, thinking that her family would suddenly become stable and loving if she were beautiful. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison’s first novel, examines racism, sexuality, and growing up in a hostile world. The novel focuses on three young girls: Pecola Breedlove and Claudia and Frieda McTeer. Claudia serves as the narrator of the book and summarizes the plot: Pecola was raped by her father, became pregnant with a child that died, and went insane. Cholly Breedlove is Pecola’s alcoholic father that spends time in jail, works on a chain gang, and kills three white men before meeting Pauline in Kentucky. Pauline Breedlove is Pecola's mother. A lonely woman, she is unable to face the pressures of the world; she often retreats to the fantasy world of the Movie Theater. She firmly subscribes to the notion that Caucasian features are the standard of beauty. Furthermore Pecola's parents, Cholly and Pauline, send their daughter to live with the McTeers because their own home has been destroyed in a fire Cholly started. Claudia and Frieda MacTeer are two poor young black girls from Lorain, Ohio. Claudia narrates parts of The Bluest Eye. Life is hard for the sisters, but their stern yet loving parents protects them. After Cholly burns down his family's house, Pecola comes to stay with the MacTeers. Frieda and Claudia quickly befriend her. Claudia resists the white ideal of beauty that entrances Pecola. The two sisters are loyal to Pecola, defending her against the taunts of their classmates and truly pitying her after the rape. They try to save Pecola's baby by planting the marigold seeds they had been selling to earn a new bicycle, but the flowers never bloom and Pecola's baby dies after being born prematurely. Bluest Eye :: Essays Papers Bluest Eye Pecola, an eleven-year-old black girl, is the protagonist of The Bluest Eye. Her family lives in grinding poverty in Lorain, Ohio. By 1941, her parents' marriage had turned bitter and violent. Cholly, her father, is an alcoholic and Pauline, her mother, prefers to retreat into the fantasy world of the movie theater. Surrounded by a culture that equates beauty with whiteness, Pecola becomes convinced that she is ugly because she has African features and dark skin. She prays to God every day for blue eyes, thinking that her family would suddenly become stable and loving if she were beautiful. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison’s first novel, examines racism, sexuality, and growing up in a hostile world. The novel focuses on three young girls: Pecola Breedlove and Claudia and Frieda McTeer. Claudia serves as the narrator of the book and summarizes the plot: Pecola was raped by her father, became pregnant with a child that died, and went insane. Cholly Breedlove is Pecola’s alcoholic father that spends time in jail, works on a chain gang, and kills three white men before meeting Pauline in Kentucky. Pauline Breedlove is Pecola's mother. A lonely woman, she is unable to face the pressures of the world; she often retreats to the fantasy world of the Movie Theater. She firmly subscribes to the notion that Caucasian features are the standard of beauty. Furthermore Pecola's parents, Cholly and Pauline, send their daughter to live with the McTeers because their own home has been destroyed in a fire Cholly started. Claudia and Frieda MacTeer are two poor young black girls from Lorain, Ohio. Claudia narrates parts of The Bluest Eye. Life is hard for the sisters, but their stern yet loving parents protects them. After Cholly burns down his family's house, Pecola comes to stay with the MacTeers. Frieda and Claudia quickly befriend her. Claudia resists the white ideal of beauty that entrances Pecola. The two sisters are loyal to Pecola, defending her against the taunts of their classmates and truly pitying her after the rape. They try to save Pecola's baby by planting the marigold seeds they had been selling to earn a new bicycle, but the flowers never bloom and Pecola's baby dies after being born prematurely.

Portrayal of Eve in John Miltons Paradise Lost Essay -- Milton Paradi

Milton's Portrayal of Eve in Paradise Lost      Ã‚  Ã‚   The seventeenth century poet, John Milton, takes the attitude common to the time period while portraying Eve in Paradise Lost.   This epic, telling of Adam and Eve's fall from Paradise and the story of creation, constantly describes Eve as a weak individual, while Adam is often compared with God.   The idea of women's inferiority has been fixed through time, making Milton's characterization of Eve not surprising, but rather expected and accepted.   However, Milton shows a suggestion of women's inner strength while describing the control Eve has over Adam.   Nevertheless, except for this instance, Eve is depicted as subordinate to Adam.   This is evident through Adam and Raphael's treatment of Eve, her own actions, and Milton's description of her.    The first weakness Eve shows is her vanity.   Following her creation, she finds herself staring into a stagnant pool.   She tells Adam, " There I had fixed Mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire" (IV 465-6).   From the beginning of Eve's life in Paradise, it was understood that she needed Adam to guide her.   During her first talk with him, she whimpers, "And from whom I was formed flesh of thy flesh, And without whom am to no end, my guide And head!" (IV 441-3).  Ã‚   Thus, she believes that only with Adam's guidance will she be able ... ...Elledge, Scott, ed. Paradise Lost: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism. New York: Norton, 1975. Fox, Robert C. "The Allegory of Sin and Death in Paradise Lost." Modern Language Quarterly 24 (1963): 354-64. Lewis, C. S. A Preface to Paradise Lost. Rpt. New York: Oxford UP, 1979. Milton, John. Paradise Lost. In John Milton: Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed. Merritt Y. Hughes. Indianapolis: 1980. O'Keeffe, Timothy J. "An Analogue to Milton's 'Sin' and More on the Tradition." Milton Quarterly 5 (1971): 74-77. Patrick, John M. "Milton, Phineas Fletcher, Spenser, and Ovid--Sin at Hell's Gates." Notes and Queries Sept. 1956: 384-86. Portrayal of Eve in John Milton's Paradise Lost Essay -- Milton Paradi Milton's Portrayal of Eve in Paradise Lost      Ã‚  Ã‚   The seventeenth century poet, John Milton, takes the attitude common to the time period while portraying Eve in Paradise Lost.   This epic, telling of Adam and Eve's fall from Paradise and the story of creation, constantly describes Eve as a weak individual, while Adam is often compared with God.   The idea of women's inferiority has been fixed through time, making Milton's characterization of Eve not surprising, but rather expected and accepted.   However, Milton shows a suggestion of women's inner strength while describing the control Eve has over Adam.   Nevertheless, except for this instance, Eve is depicted as subordinate to Adam.   This is evident through Adam and Raphael's treatment of Eve, her own actions, and Milton's description of her.    The first weakness Eve shows is her vanity.   Following her creation, she finds herself staring into a stagnant pool.   She tells Adam, " There I had fixed Mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire" (IV 465-6).   From the beginning of Eve's life in Paradise, it was understood that she needed Adam to guide her.   During her first talk with him, she whimpers, "And from whom I was formed flesh of thy flesh, And without whom am to no end, my guide And head!" (IV 441-3).  Ã‚   Thus, she believes that only with Adam's guidance will she be able ... ...Elledge, Scott, ed. Paradise Lost: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism. New York: Norton, 1975. Fox, Robert C. "The Allegory of Sin and Death in Paradise Lost." Modern Language Quarterly 24 (1963): 354-64. Lewis, C. S. A Preface to Paradise Lost. Rpt. New York: Oxford UP, 1979. Milton, John. Paradise Lost. In John Milton: Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed. Merritt Y. Hughes. Indianapolis: 1980. O'Keeffe, Timothy J. "An Analogue to Milton's 'Sin' and More on the Tradition." Milton Quarterly 5 (1971): 74-77. Patrick, John M. "Milton, Phineas Fletcher, Spenser, and Ovid--Sin at Hell's Gates." Notes and Queries Sept. 1956: 384-86.

Egyptian Jewerly and Makeup :: essays research papers

Egyptian Jewelry and Makeup   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Everyday in the Egyptian way of life, both men and women would adorn themselves with beautiful jewelry and makeup. Wearing these pieces of jewelry and makeup was part of their everyday life.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Everyone, man or woman, Egypt wore more type of jewelry. What kind of jewelry they wore was usually dependent on how wealthy they were. The rich wore fine jewelry made from gold, silver, or electrum inlaid with precious stones. The less wealthy wore jewelry that was made of copper or faience, which is made by heating powdered quartz.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ring and amulets were especially worn to ward off evil spirits and/or injury. Cowrie shells were worn to show the desire of the wearer to have children. They also wore jewelry with the god Heh, which means the god of ‘millions of years’, which symbolizes long life. Younger Egyptians wore charms that resembled beards or side locks of hair to symbolize youth and innocence. Perhaps the most interesting fact about jewelry was that many children wore fish amulets to prevent from downing and accidents in the Nile River.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Jewelry was also a reward to people for outstanding services to the community. The jewelry was hanged out by the king. The king would lean out of windows and drops bracelets or collars to the nobles waiting respectfully below.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The gold that was used to make jewelry in Egyptian times was not scarce like it is in present day. Mines between the Nile River and Red Sea coast yielded large quantities of this precious metal. They also imported precious stones from the Sinai Peninsula and even Afghanistan. The Egyptians, however, had no knowledge of the gemstones and jewels we have today, such as diamonds, emeralds, and rubies.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Egyptians were big lovers of all beauty and fashion. They were such lovers of beauty that some of their names were based on the word ‘nefer’, which means beautiful. Examples of such were Nefert, Nefertiti, and Nefertari. The goddess associated with adornment was â€Å"Hathor the Golden†, who is seen as the ideal of beauty in love and poetry of the time.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Both Egyptian men and women wore makeup, such as eye paint. For their eye paint and eye shadow they used a mineral called Kohl. Apart from making their eyes look brighter, and larger, Kohl was once believed to have the value as a protection against eye disease. Its blackness also controls the sun’s glare in the desert.