Insight
Essays

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers report entitled "Volcanic Ash: To Fly or Not to Fly? reports that the prediction of "ash movement and dispersal has become more sophisticated over the years. In the UK, the Met Office uses Numerical Atmospheric-dispersion Modeling Environment (NAME), computer model, developed after the Chernobyl accident in 1986." (2010, p.3) This model is reported to have tracked various atmospheric dispersion events and to have as its purpose the prediction of "how far and how concentrated, emitted particles will be dispersed, using a number of factors, such as wind, rainfall and particle size…" (Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 2010, p.3) On June 24, 1982 British Airways 747-200, Flight 9 near Jakarta Indonesia ran into trouble when the crew accidentally flew into a volcanic ash cloud from Mount Galunggung in west Java, Indonesia. The ash caused severe damage to all four engines and the aircraft lost its flying power briefly. The crew was however able to restart the engines once the plane glided out of the dust cloud. The crew was able to make an uneventful landing in Jakarta with none of the 15-crew members or 247 passengers being injured.

Using Nike's relationship with Federer as an example, the paper analyzes the use of celebrity endorsement strategy of the brands beginning from choosing the right celebrity figures until the final results of the strategy. Many industries promote their products by hiring the services of influential celebrities who advertise the products in question. The celebrity has to have various characteristics in order to be seriously considered as endorser. The company also has to take various steps to protect itself. The whole process of considering, finding, and finally hiring a celebrity is one that is done incrementally and thoughtfully with the whole, actually, occurring in four stages. Celebrity and brand are closely intertwined. Just as celebrity may profit the brand, the brand also effects the reputation of the celebrity. The company-endorser relationship, in other words, can provide potential benefits to both with both brand and endorser receiving increased attention and both benefitting from deal in various other ways. On the other hand, potential hazards include the fact that the endorser may overshadow the brand, may become involved in public controversy hence tarnishing the brand, and may be too expensive. Ultimately, research shows that the product has to be good to begin with and that The trend seems to be that celebrities are losing the appeal in marketing. A worthwhile product and ad will always attract notice regardless of endorsement. A poor one will fail for the same reason. Nonetheless, given the appeal of celebrities, it is likely that celebrity endorsement will always be around with their accompanying benefits and risks.

The care of patients with brain injury and diseases has improved substantially over the last thirty years. Nonetheless, the acute cognitive effects caused by brain injury are still a problem for the survivors. Such impairments are substantial contributors to functional disability after brain injury and reduce quality of life for affected persons and their families (Schultza, Cifub, McNameea, Nicholsb; Carneb, 2011). Accordingly, it is important for clinicians providing care to persons with brain injury to be familiar with the cognitive squeal of such injuries, their neuropathophysiologic bases, the treatment options that may alleviate such problems, and their effects on functional ability and quality of life.

The paper is an annotated bibliography. The subject of the articles is Information Technology, and specifically, Cloud Computing. Most of the articles reviewed are concerned with digital security and data protection. The articles were composed within the last three years, so the information is extremely current. There are several articles that attempt to predict the future of cloud computing and what it reflects on a larger scale with respect to shift in culture.

This is a five page paper analyzing the key points in Understanding the War on Terror by Patrick Coaty. The paper has a premise stated in the introduction, followed by evidence and support, with a conclusion at the end. The various types of terrorism are discussed. The focus of the paper is on the evolution of the war on terror, which hinges on an understanding of what terrorism itself is.

This paper discusses Buddhism and the importance of meditation. Those who practice meditation do so in order to achieve enlightenment, nirvana. There are various reasons why Buddhists meditate. It is done to achieve a better understanding of the self and also to understand the world better. Buddhists invite other people to meditate to better their lives.

In this paper, I have discussed that happiness as well as morality (meaningful purpose) are actually the ultimate goals and the true sign of a life well-lived. I have tried to explain how morality must be considered as the most important factor to signify a well-lived life. I have also given the ideas of Aristotle and Plato regarding morality and happiness and have tried to assess the literature on my chosen factor.

Change management in the short-term is a substantive challenge of any organization. When change management extends far into the future, the challenges increase exponentially. To establish and field a mission-ready…

Amazon's remarkable ascent as one of the top online global retailers can be attributed to the foresight they had in creating a comprehensive distributed order management, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and e-commerce series of systems. The many other e-commerce sites that rose quickly with massive infusions of venture capital just as quick exited the market, flaming out due to a lack of system and process scalability, lack of understanding of customer dynamics, and a complete loss of focus on scalable business models. All of these factors are what caused competitors to Amazon to exit the e-commerce market either through acquisition, merger or complete exist from the market. When starting Amazon, Jeff Bezos invested heavily in the distributed order management, ERP, SCM and e-commerce integration points to book distributors initially, and then expanded into a broader product mix. This allowed the enterprise to quickly scale as volumes increased during the first five years of the company's existence. Having creating this reliable, scalable and secure platform, Mr. Bezos and the Amazon founders concentrated on creating an analytics layer throughout their architecture that could quantify customer, distributor, dealer and even competitor activity on the site (Amazon Investor Relations, 2012). This reliance on analytics also gave Amazon executives and technical staff the insight they needed to launch quickly into entirely new product categories, get the complex and often confusing task of localization right, and also create a highly popular and profitable Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing platform and hosting platform for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications (Mitchell, 2012). From a technology standpoint the performance of Amazon today can be directly attributed to the insightful decisions made in 1994 and 1995 when the company founders prioritized the development of enterprise-wide platforms and a strong focus on analytics over spending all their time on the front-end website and its façade (Lindic, Bavdaz, Kovacic, 2012). As Jeff Bezos would later remark in interviews, by investing to create a truly world-class enterprise back-end system first, his company was freed up to fast track the actual user interface of the e-commerce sites globally at a pace that left comp[editors far behind in terms of functionality and product breadth (Amazon Investor Relations, 2012). Mr. Bezos chose in 2007 to also institute a culture of metrics that also capitalized on the nearly two decades of investment in their infrastructure (Amazon Investor Relations, 2012). Combining the global e-commerce, enterprise-tested infrastructure and the most robust set of analytics that any e-commerce provider had, Amazon was ready to begin expanding their product strategies, start offering greater options in their Amazon Web Services initiative which today is expected to be a $1B by 2015, even by conservative forecasts (Amazon Investor Relations, 2012) and also invest heavily in their state-of-the-art recommendation engine technology that seeks out products and services customers may be interested in and present them during shop[ping sessions in real-time (Sun, 2012). It's important to appreciate just how vast of an e-commerce infrastructure Amazon has in completing this analysis of their e-strategy. They have greater agility, flexibility and capability to execute than any other online retailer globally today. How they choose to use these technologies to attract new customers and keep existing ones loyal, a point the case study makes in greater detail, is predicated on the ability to get the most value from this infrastructure while still staying focused on delivering a world-class customer experience in each transaction. Based on the analysis undertaken for this case analysis, it is abundantly clear that Jeff Bezos and the executive management team are passionate about keeping the company as customer-focused as possible, including the continual selective use of technology to accentuate and strengthen the user experience online and off (Murphy, Narkiewicz, 2010). With these foundational aspects of Amazon defined, the seven areas of focus in this analysis are next presented. The overarching objective of this analysis is to understand the value of e-strategies in organizations, with Amazon being the organization of interest in the analysis. Specifically concentrating on the benefits of having an e-strategy at Amazon, defining how e-strategies contribute to Amazon's broader accomplishments, and an analysis of how Amazon aligns their e-strategy to the overarching organizational strategy as well., The analysis continues with an analysis of the key business factors that are the catalysts of the e-strategy at Amazon, followed by a suggested strategic plan for ensuring e-strategy initiatives at the company continue to lead to profitable growth. The final section of this analysis provides an assessment of the technical infrastructure needed to accomplish the proposed strategic plan. As Amazon has continually evolved its position as a global force in online retailing, its command of supply chains globally has also evolved very quickly. In the latest rankings of the highest-performing supply chains completed by Gartner, a leading research consultancy, Amazon has ranking within the top twenty five for five years running (Amazon Investor Relations, 2012). What this signals is that Amazon has progressed from relying on enterprise-wide infrastructure to compete and is now on the growth trajectory of making supply chain processes their competitive advantage.

People are influenced by leaders. Leaders cannot affect people without understanding why people behave the way they do. Successful and effective leaders are, therefore, learners of human behavior. Good leader not only try to understand the personalities and psychology of their subordinates but they also consistently evaluate and assess themselves in order to be productive (Clawson 2001). Till date, no studies have produced a clear profile of an ideal leader; his authoritative styles, distinctive characteristics or personality traits. This makes it crystal clear that authentic leaders know who they are. They don't imitate or become replicas of others. On the other hand, they "demonstrate a passion for their purpose, practice their values consistently, and lead with their hearts as well as their heads" (George, Sims, McLean & Mayer 2007).