Solar Photovoltaic (PV)

Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Solar photovoltaic (PV) uses solar cells to capture energy from sunlight and converts it to electricity by photovoltaic effect through assembling solar cells. Transmitted through solar modules and solar panels, sunlight is easily converted to solar power that can be supplied to off-grid areas as alternative to power solutions in remote and dispersed communities.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Solar Photovoltaic (PV) specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Solar photovoltaic (PV) project is a predominant technology that consists of 10-100 Wp of solar PV panel that attract solar radiations through daylight and stores the energy in the automobile battery which is then transmitted through cabling and low-wattage Dc lamps (Energy and Mining Sector Board, 2007). Practical application of photovoltaic cells producing electricity from sunlight is applied by connecting a series of modules, interconnected in parallels or series creating an array of an additive voltage. Photons in sunlight hit solar panels and absorbed by silicon (semiconducting materials) (Shive, 1959). Electrons being charged are knocked loose from their atoms, allowing them to flow through the silicon in a single direction to produce electricity (silicon) (Lorenzo et al, 1994, p.78; Smee, 1849). Arrays of solar cells are convert the solar energy into usable amount of direct current (DC) electricity which could be applied to development activities such as water pumping, small cottage industry, poultry rearing, fish farming among others (Lorenzo et al, 1994, p.78; Anderson 2001). Introduction Science and technology has defined desired service outcome for end users. Use of solar photovoltaic technology has amplified and transformed the rural poor population who can not afford electricity (Wolf, 1976). It requires active participation of community members, who are the end users beneficiaries and the government, should actively participate to foresee the project completion. This essay demonstrates how technology sector, for this instance, Solar photovoltaic (PV), a solar energy that is currently processed by World Bank in Bangladesh has incredibly transformed the living standards of the rural poor population.Advertising Looking for essay on other technology? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Data obtained for this analysis is culmination research efforts gathered between World Bank projects and extensive assessment performed by a group of industry practitioners in Bangladesh in pursue of project management and Information technology programs. Developing countries have over the years been striving to provide energy solutions to the poor marginalized areas. Despite many projects that have been implemented for years, more than 1.5 billion people in developing countries mostly in the Sub- Saharan African region and South Asia remain without access to electricity services today. In this regard, World Bank continue to implement projects to meet Bangladesh lightening and other basic energy needs since majority of the households in the rural areas depend on expensive fuel based energy power such as kerosene, which are indeed inefficient and polluting. World Bank’s project uses renewable energy-based technologies ranging from solar photovoltaic (PV) systems to micro hydropower to off-grid areas as alternative to power solutions in remote and dispersed communities (Lorenzo, 1994). This projected has also been accelerated due to the recent increment of fuel prices. Among the financiers, World Bank is the leading sponsor of the off-grid electrification benefiting more than 1 million households including both small and medium size enterprises. Solar Thermal Power Plant in Bangladesh enabled sustainment of community development activities such as water pumping, small cottage industry, poultry rearing, fish farming among others. The study starts by mentioning impacts of solar photovoltaic (PV) on Bangladesh society, problems inherent within the project application of solar photovoltaic (PV) in Bangladesh rural development, national subsidiaries and the government working to meet the basic energy needs. The analysis did however conclude that PV improved living standards and the livelihood of the rural poor population.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Solar Photovoltaic (PV) specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More This therefore brings us to the conclusion that technology is indeed a practice that requires testing regimes to arrive at best practices. In this regard, understanding both internal and external processes rather than relying on the prescribed best practices within information technology industry is very important. Overview of Bangladesh Community Many rural communities in Bangladesh require energy solutions to sustain their economic a ctivities. Many of their projects are usually constrained by lack of modern supply of energy and jeopardized their ability to live above poverty levels. Economic activities related to water pumping, small cottage industry, poultry rearing, fish farming among others are very important in sustaining community development. Many of these projects require small amount of power as low as 100w to 3kW, which could be provided by PV. In this case, the government should initiate and enhance productive activities for long-term project sustainability. This brought us to the conclusion that the major ingredients to providing off-grid require technical assistance and adequate financing from the government, private subsidiaries and international donors. Therefore the costs of PV built to serve the off-grid community need to be justified in its productive loads especially in daytime when the sunshine is out enough to supply nighttime household loads, otherwise the wall project would not be cost eff ective (Cabraal et al, 2008, p.15). Bangladeshi government should ensure that regulatory requirements designed for off-grid markets are appropriate, devise reporting and service quality standards in rural areas and set lower costs that can be redistributed over an extended period (Reiche et al, 2006). For PV services for instance, Reiche et al (2006) argues that the only regulatory body that would foresee the completion of the project would be the government that provides subsidies for system purchase and installation.Advertising Looking for essay on other technology? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Reiche and his colleagues (2006) add that regulatory actions involve accreditation of participating companies, settings and enforcing standards (preferably adopting internationally accepted standards), verification of installation, and random monitoring of system performance-actions that World Bank-supported projects usually require of counterpart government agencies (p.7). Impacts of solar photovoltaic (PV) on Bangladesh society Solar photovoltaic (PV) and SHS technical options enhance affordability and provide smaller, lower-power solar systems that offer lower quantity of service without compromising its quality (Cabraal et al, 1996). For example, Cabraal and his colleagues (1996) analysis demonstrate that a solar panel costing $ 50 to $75 would provide 3-4hours of lighting on a daily basis. Also, the SHS costing $ 600 can operate up to 3-4 hours of lighting and radio daily. LED technology advances are also cost efficient and can also be adopted into the most marginalized and ret ail infrastructure. Overall, adequate attention to SHS products and services are needed lead to reduced costs and replacements less expensive (Cabraal et al, 2008, p.19). World Bank investment projects have over the years made impressive gains in improving electricity access specifically in developing countries. It’s estimated that majority of Bangladesh population both in rural and marginalized areas has no access to electricity. Poor household here are defined as people living in off-grid areas with low-income levels. Government programs in Bangladesh should in this case prioritize allocation of scarce resources. This is because unprivileged populations are found to be concentrated in the rural communities. However, the costs required to electrify this places vary significantly. Marginal areas have been without electricity for sometime since private organizations are unwilling to connect customers because if the inherent high costs installation and with lower tariffs. In re ality, private sectors prefer to concentrate on grid intensification due to lower cost per connection and easier to implement. Government projects are rarely off-grid decisions and its time they supported energy initiatives that would stimulate the growth of micro-enterprises that would benefit the economy. For these reasons, some off-grid projects have been neglected hence the need for World Bank sponsorship. The spatial-analysis of power line being plotted in Bangladesh is one of such example (Cabraal et al, 2008, p.4). Rural renewable electrification programs such as solar photovoltaic (PV) are increasingly becoming popular in developing countries as a means of providing alternative energy sources to rural poor population. PV technology varies significantly in design and implementation as well as its degree of success. Lorenzo and his colleagues (1994) argue that sustainability of this programs are widely successful with collective participation from the local government, donor f unding and the community. Solar photovoltaic tends to be a technical demonstration project and relies totally on funding from donor organizations and local governments. In this regard, World Bank projects aimed at mainstreaming sustainable development principles into development aspects, is projected as a primary donor for community sustainment. It mobilizes efforts from community, the government and private-sectors to improve coordination among environmental institutions both internationally and locally. World Bank projects have over the years been accredited with increasing the capacity of environmental issues and awareness of community on environmental issues by encouraging their active participation to monitor environmental quality. According to Yongxoue et al (2003), World Bank’s main objective is to â€Å"integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources† (p.10). It’s quit e clear that access to energy solutions would incredibly improve Bangladesh’s welfare. According to Cabraal et al (2008) research, there are about 260 million rural household without access to electricity. It is evidenced that majority of these households reside in either dispersed or small villages far form the city centers. World Bank is therefore trying to bridge this gap by implementing projects that provide electricity to such neglected areas using technology options approaches such as solar photovoltaic that have attained commercial maturity over the past 15-20 years. Based on practical knowledge gathered from various literatures and international experience accumulated through the past and on going World Bank operations, World Bank’s unique projects offer basic design principles of project management and sound practices and prescribe solutions for success (Cabraal et al, 2008). Solar photovoltaic projects aimed at improving lives and livelihood opportunities hav e helped those who can not afford personal house connections. From the perspective of data gathered from various literatures, such technological applications increase the economic attractiveness of the community. Issues surrounding solar photovoltaic (PV) It’s evidenced that a station with 2kw capacity charged battery can serve up to 50 households. The only disadvantage is that the solar powered batteries can only serve people living near the station since the battery must be transported to and from the charging station once a week. On the other hand however, Barkat (2003) argues that â€Å"in some projects, quality systems were installed without providing for longer-term maintenance, which harmed the reputation of the project and technology† (p.6). Also,lack of donor funding and the inability to reach the off-grid areas due to poor infrastructure has always been a major obstacle in realizing rural solar electrification objective. Bangladesh management team on the othe r hand lacked awareness in decision making level. The country had not prioritized solar development plan and poor coordination among line agencies at local levels to foresee the project completion were evident. There were so many undergoing projects, but locals lacked understanding of the project activities and how it would benefit them. Locals assumed that the project only targeted long term impacts which made them less motivated and more concerned about short term direct impacts. This brought us to the conclusion that complex issues in developing countries require more practical solutions to solve the problem in the community in a short-term basis. Even though, solar energy projects have been stated as one of the Bangladesh’s national development plan priority, in fact, it’s shocking to realize that the country has given the project less priority since its implementation (Yongxoue et al, 2003, p.3). Sibanda and Mahbub (2003) states that World Bank acted as an adminis trator for the Global Partnership on Output-Based Aid (GPOBA) with grants of a total of $8.3 million to sponsor part of the costs for installation of Solar Home Systems (PV) and renewable energy mini-grids for poor households located in Bangladesh rural areas (p.2). The projects benefited more than 14,000 households and over 5000 small to medium enterprises. Some of the projects included irrigation pumps, poultry farms and as well as timber mills in the rural areas. The ongoing project is expected to enable majority of poor rural population and dispersed areas have access to affordable energy through the PV and mini-grid projects. Zafrul Islam as quoted in Sibanda and Mahbub (2003) states that the GPOBA projects will support the Government of Bangladesh’s goal to ensure that the entire country has access to electricity by 2021. 80% of Bangladesh’s population live in rural areas and are also the group most affected by a lack of sufficient electricity generation. These p rojects will help 140,000 more households gain access to affordable electricity (p.1). Sibanda and Mahbub (2003) continue that the proposed PV project will reduce PV installation costs benefiting off-grid areas. Mr. Islam Sharrif as quoted in Sibanda and Mahbub (2003) adds that our mission at IDCOL is to encourage private sector investment in energy and infrastructure projects,† said Mr. Islam Sharif, CEO of IDCOL. The output-based aid approach has an impressive track record to date because it helps low income households gain access to electricity and makes it attractive for the private sector to offer services to the poor (p.2). In his statement Mr. Islam Sharrif concluded that the amount paid by GPOBA was seen as an incentive for business in the country to offer services to the poor people and the World Bank out-put based approach will ensure that payments made go directly to the qualifying household access to PV installation (Sibanda and Mahbub, 2003, p.2). Since its establ ishment in 2003, GPOBA has sponsored various projects including education, infrastructure and health designed to create incentives for efficiency and long-term development projects. Bangladeshi government should play an active role by funding and inviting proposals from private sectors, rural energy fund and support such investments on qualifying bidders. In either case, the governments sound practice to subsidize a portion of the capital costs while the community and private sectors balances the investment costs and full cost of the operation and maintenance. The third approach calls for active participation of government-contracted projects or public utilities operating in marginalized areas. Here, the government takes full charge by regulating tariffs which is an equivalent to the lifeline tariff of rural grid customers. In other words, utility operator is provided a subsidy from a public source as part of capital operations and maintenance costs. This model is also evident in th e Philippines where the government funds its micro-operation projects. For Bangladesh case, World Bank project centered on off-grid SHS has enabled rural electrification. With regard to World Bank projects, the dealer aspect often incorporates micro-finance assistance, which deals with the initial high upfront costs (Cabraal et al, 2008, p.20). In this case, mobilization of both government and sponsoring agencies is required since off-grid electrification is difficult to implement. Persistence and efforts from the government in support of World Bank projects are very important in ensuring completion of the projects. Government commitment to revive subsidiary slack when external financing ends to ensure the completion of the project is also required. Alternative Views After extensive research, I realized that long-term sustainability of the project will depend on many factors either than just technology. First of all, Cabraal and his colleagues (2008) argue that Bangladesh will requi re effective prioritization and adequate planning to ensure implementation of technological solutions, infrastructure and financial are provided for long-term purposes. Drawing on World Bank’s experience in design and implementing off-grid electrification projects, rural electrification solar projects guidance and insights into fundamental design principles for sustainability and sound practices for effective decision-making in Bangladesh will an effective solution (Cabraal et al, 2008). Secondly, active participation of government-contracted projects or public utilities operating in marginalized areas. World Bank projects should incorporate micro-finance assistance to deal with the initial high upfront costs. It has often been argued that reduced capital costs subsequently improve affordability of capital-intensive off-grid technologies. Some countries oppose the off-grid technologies, encouraging further consumption of high fuel. The implementation of solar PV have simplifi ed energy solutions and enabled Bangladesh to build long-term relationship with its donors and subsidiaries hence reducing the share of costs attributed to management and overhead costs (Cabraal et al, 2008, p.20). To ensure the likelihood of sustainability of the projects, Cabraal and his colleagues (2008) argue that Bangladesh government should play a role of off-grid options by simplifying regulations, appointing competent and dedicated project management staff to foresee the completion of the project. Since the project is technology driven, the project should include cost effective analysis to determine the least-cost solutions and our technology choice will be based practical considerations. Deliverance mechanisms and consumer service for off-grid projects specifically rely on private sector participation in line with local realities which enable access to quality and affordable products and services in the long-term. In order to increase affordability, Sibanda and Mahbub (2003 ) argue that off-grid electrification project in the rural Bangladesh must include subsidiaries, low-cost energy options like PV for this instance, consumer financing and finally polices and business practice. Role of subsidiaries in this case would be to foresee the completion of grid-based rural electrification to off-grid areas that have poor and dispersed population. It has also been argued that technologies for decentralized service have the ability to configure individual units that have higher investment costs to low fuel and operating costs compared to fuel-based supply systems. In some cases, the resulting energy costs may be higher that what a potential customer is willing to pay and subsidiaries in this case help off-grid consumers afford the upfront costs of access (Sibanda and Mahbub, 2003, p.17). Subsidiaries provided by PV in World Bank projects in Bangladesh reflects wide variations of systems costs, government attitudes towards subsidiary support and willingness to pay levels. For example, the PV subsidiary projects known as the RERED include PV system size of 20-70 WP with approximately 12 % cost in subsidiary range. Subsidiary financing can be gained from micro-financial institutions, banks and leasing companies. Such arrangements can increase affordability by spreading first costs over several years. Therefore strong partnership between microfinance institutions and energy companies would facilitate fast off-grid lending programs (Cabraal et al, 2008, p.19). Implications on Education The main objective of PV electrification is to ensure potential productive applications are likely to be fruitful once the PV is built. For effective implementation, early identification of local participant for the PV project, assisting individuals in developing business plan and identifying financial modalities. Sometimes over optimisms evaluation of potential productive application may be impractical to implement since they do not indicate significant potent ial for utilization. Institutional and community application are also important to ensuring off-grid electrification come to its full potential. For example, community centers around at the projects areas such as hospitals and schools can voluntary give assistance by financing the projects. In a business model perspective, World Bank or donor-funded institutions that have offered critical mass of assistance for PV market packages are offered bidding where the highest bidder is given the right to sell the PV to local households at subsidized rates and even a contract to install the PV systems to selected institutions. An important feature of this model is that the project enables long term maintenance and services that meet specific service standards (Cabraal et al, 2008, p.16). Bangladesh government should be actively involved in decision making, planning and implementation of the program and in selection of the program objectives. Raising community awareness by offering education o n reasons to which the programs are being implemented, the actual benefits of the program and causes of any factors that contribute to their apparent success or lack of success should be highly prioritized. Comprehensive set of success criteria and a road map followed by program planners and implementers should be provided to ensure success of the PV program. Since off-grid projects that rely on private sector participation, Bangladeshi government should employ simplest technological solutions that commensurate with local realities and support donor initiatives to foresee the project success. Lack of education threatens the progress achieved by any development and jeopardizes the main objective of community development. Community members who are not acculturated to technology use must be provided with adequate training and encouraged to participate in development initiatives with the aim of increasing awareness. Community involvement in development initiatives should be incorporated right from the planning phase of development projects, to ensure that their positive impacts can be sustained in the long term. With this regard, Information on ongoing operations, maintenance and replacement costs, alongside national recycling programs must be made and education arrangements made to ensure safe disposal of hazardous waste. Subsidiaries for off-grid populations are often justified on social equity grounds, what Barnes and Halpern (2000) defines as their ability to help rural dwellers to attain a level of parity by extending infrastructure costs and lifelines tariffs. In market imperfection aspect, Barnes and Halpern (2000) states that â€Å"lack of adequate information regarding specific opportunities, true cost of service and unavailable long-term financing often slow down the already economic off-grid projects or those that are close to completion† (p.5). Therefore appropriate designed subsidiaries for off-grid electrification enables the completion of phy sical interventions to occur by providing the otherwise uninterested investors with financial incentives and support. Barnes and Halpern (2000) add that project management mechanisms that mostly target the economic projects of the needy societies are usually effective if they incorporate implementation program that work. For example, it’s considered more effective to subsidize the upfront costs to consumers or business costs in dispersed areas than operating costs (Cabraal et al, 2008, p.18). Conclusion Off-grid projects that rely on private sector participation should employ simplest delivery mechanisms that commensurate with local realities. Here, Bangladeshi government should seek assistance from service providers, assess risks involved, provide technical assistance and provide technical assistance where appropriate. Before project implementation, choice of technologies must be tested for practical considerations like availability of adequate resources, ease of operations and maintenance and access to spare parts. Also, data should be collected across various sectors that would be willing to use the services which would be factored into technology selection process. For PV for example, the govenement should cooperate with World Bank in providing data on energy consumption and income levels’ while the choice on appropriate technologies should be left to service provider with investment parameters to consider. The conception and implementation of the PV project must always be consistence with the overall rural lighting plan for Bangladeshi. In this regard, the project should steer clear of ad-hoc factors that may kill the come to completion. Within early its early assessment phase, the Bangladeshi government should pay highest priority to raising community awareness, involve and support donor initiatives to foresee the project success. Promotion programs and community meeting alongside national recycling programs must be made and education arran gements to ensure safe disposal of hazardous waste. References Anderson, D. (2001). Clean electricity from photovoltaic’s. London: Imperial College Press. Barkat, A. (2003). Rural Electrification and Poverty Reduction: Case of Bangladesh. Paper presented at Sustainable Rural Electrification in Developing Countries: Is It Possible?, International conference of NRECA International, 6, 1-3 Barnes, D. F., and Halpern, J. (2000).Subsidies and Sustainable Rural Energy  Services: Can We Create Incentives Without Distorting Markets? Washington, DC: World Bank Cabraal, A., Cosgrove, M., Schaeffer, L. (1996). Best Practices for Photovoltaic Household Electrification Programs. Asia Technical Department Series, 324, 1 Cabraal, A., Terrado, E., Mukherjee, I. (2008). Designing Sustainable Off-Grid Rural Electrification Projects: Principles and Practice. The Energy and Mining Sector Board, 2, 1-34 Energy and Mining Sector Board. (2007). Catalyzing Private Investment for a Low  Ã‚  Carb on Economy: WorldBank Group Progress on Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency in Fiscal 2007. Washington, DC: World Bank. Lorenzo, E., Araujo, G., Zilles, R. (1994). Solar electricity: engineering of  photovoltaic systems. Spain: Barnes Noble. Lorenzo, E. (1994). Solar electricity: Engineering of photovoltaic systems. Prongesa. Reiche, K., Tenenbaum, B., Torres, C. (2006). Electrification and Regulation:  Principles and a Model Law. Energy and Mining Sector Board DiscussionPaper No. 18. Washington, DC: World Bank. Shive, J. N. (1959). Semiconductor devices. Van Nostrand Sibanda, J., Mahbub, M. (2003). World Bank-administered GPOBA and IDCOL help low-income households in Bangladesh access electricity. News Release, 10, 1-2 Smee, A. (1849). Electro-Biology: The Voltaic mechanism of man. London: Longman Press Wolf, M. (1976). Historical development of solar cells :25th power sources  symposium. C.E Backuss: IEEE Press Yongxue, C., Sunny, G., Giannelia, M., Hughes, A., Johnso n, A., Khoo, T. (2003). Identifying Best Practices in Information Technology Project Management. Organizational Development, 30, 1-22. This essay on Solar Photovoltaic (PV) was written and submitted by user Dario Snow to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. 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English Literature Essay essays

English Literature Essay essays How does Dickens Satire Utilitarianism in Hard times? I will Begin this essay with a brief introduction to the word UTILITARIANISM. Utilitarianism is a system of ethics (morals) that judges human conduct in relation to the extent to which it conduces to the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people. Utilitarianism faces a number of key issues during the course of the novel, one of which is that its discards feeling and emotion. The problem is that morals and emotions cant be quantified statistically quite as easily as burglary rates or profits accounts. Im Hard Times, Dickens is attacking the ways of thinking and acting that became associated with utilitarianism thought. Dickens attacks the extremes of mechanisation, statistical analysis and rationality. This novel is not a work of social criticism but a moral satire. Evidence of Dickens satire to utilitarianism is in the first chapter of Book the first-sowing. The chapter begins with a short introduction. Inside a classroom, the speaker repeats the exclamation now, what I want is facts. Dickens presents the argument that the formation of a childs mind must be rooted in the study of fact. The school room is as hard and plain as the teachers teaching style. The description of the classroom is the first satire upon utilitarianism, a critique of utilitarianism, and similar philosophies that suggested the absolute reliance upon calculations and facts in opposition to emotion, artistic inspiration and leisure. In this novel, Utilitarianism underlies pedagogy of Gradgrind and his MChoakumchild school; and Louisa, Gradgrinds daughter and one of him pupils, has learned her lesson all too well. Her decision to marry Bounderby is a Utilitarian one. There is a constant attack on the consequences in education, as is made clear in the ...

Mapping Your Ancestry With Google Maps

Mapping Your Ancestry With Google Maps Google Maps is a free web map server application that offers street maps for Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the United States and much of western Europe, plus satellite map images for the entire world. Google Maps is just one of many free mapping services on the web, but its ease of use and options for customization through the Google API makes it a popular mapping option. There are three map types offered within Google Maps - street maps, satellite maps, and a hybrid map that combines satellite imagery with an overlay of streets, city names, and landmarks. Some parts of the world offer much more detail than others. For Genealogists Google Maps makes it easy to locate places, including small towns, libraries, cemeteries, and churches. It is important to note that these are not historic listings, however. Google Maps draws its locations from current map and business listings, so the cemetery listings, for example, will generally be larger cemeteries that are in current use. To create a Google Map, you begin by selecting a location. You can do this through search, or by dragging and clicking. Once youve found the location you want, then switch to the find businesses tab to pinpoint churches, cemeteries, historical societies, or other points of interest. My Google Maps In April 2007, Google introduced My Maps which allows you to plot multiple locations on a map; add text, photos, and videos; and draw lines and shapes. You can then share these maps with others via email or on the Web with a special link. You can also choose to include your map in public Google search results or keep it private - accessible only through your special URL. Just click on the My Maps tab to create your own custom Google maps. Mashups Mashups are programs that use the free Google Maps API to find new and creative ways of using Google Maps. If youre into coding, you can use the Google Maps API yourself to create your own Google Maps to share on your Web site or email to friends. This is a bit more than most of us want to dig into, however, which is where these Google Maps mashups (tools) come in. Tools All mapping tools built on Google Maps require that you request your own free Google Maps API key from Google. This unique key is required to allow you to display the maps you create on your own Web site. Once you have your Google Maps API key, check out the following: Community Walk: This tool is easy to use and allows plenty of room for pictures and comments for each location. You can customize your markers and colors, so you could use one color marker for paternal lines and another for maternal. Or you could use one color for cemeteries and another for churches.TripperMap: Designed to work seamlessly with the free Flickr photo service, this one is especially fun for documenting family history travels and vacations. Just upload your photos to Flickr, tag them with location information, and TripperMap will generate a flash-based map for you to use on your Web site. The free version of TripperMap is limited to 50 locations, but that is enough for most genealogy applications.MapBuilder: MapBuilder was one of the first applications to let you build your own Google map with multiple location markers. Its not as user-friendly as Community Walk, in my opinion, but offers many of the same features. Includes the ability to generate Google Map source code for your map which can be used to display the map on your own webpage.

Aloha Airlines Flight 243 Aircraft Accident Report Essay

Aloha Airlines Flight 243 Aircraft Accident Report - Essay Example The main cause being the failure of an epoxy adhesive which is used to bond aluminum sheets of the fuselage together. Two sheets, not bond properly creates a gap through which water seeps in and corrosion begins, as the corrosive parts have a greater volume than the underlying metal, the two sheets are forced apart resulting in the increase of stress on the rivets (which are also used) for holding them together. Taking into account that the aircraft was 19 years old at the time of the accident it had already surpassed its takeoff-landing cycles , it should have been subjected to a full uninterrupted inspection rather than the longer and extensive â€Å"D Check† which was performed in morning installments, furthermore â€Å"eddy-current testing’ inspection on the fuselage skin was lacking. A crack was noticed by a passenger who didn’t notify anyone, as the aircraft had already surpassed its takeoff-landing cycles (compression and decompression cycles), this crack s inevitably due to metal fatigue. Matt Austin came up with another reason for the accident after studying the disintegration of the fuselage of the aircraft. This states that at first, the fuselage failed to open a 10-inch vent through which the cabin air escaped at 700mph, flight attendant C.B.Lansing got sucked into the vent instead of being thrown off the aircraft. This blockage instantly caused an increase in pressure which inadvertently acted as a fluid hammer and tore the jet apart. The structural failure of the 19year old Boeing 737 stressed on creating awareness of aging aircraft throughout the aviation industry. The multiple site fatigue was the cause of the structural damage which primarily was due to the failure and negligence of the operator maintenance program which is supposed to track and detect corrosion damage.

Given the dynamism of today's market and the ever increasing degree of Assignment

Given the dynamism of today's market and the ever increasing degree of competition globally, produce a critical assessment of - Assignment Example In regard specifically to the business sector, the involvement of certain business tools and frameworks in the promotion of globalization seems to be extended. Reference can be made, for example, to the information systems, in all their forms. Information systems are highly related to globalization. Moreover, these systems are likely to be used by business worldwide as a tool for acquiring competitive advantage. The above role of information systems is presented in this paper. The Porter Five Forces model is used for explaining the involvement of information systems in the increase of business competitiveness, both locally and globally. Table of contents Executive Summary 2 1. Introduction 4 2. IT and competitive advantage 4 2.1 Effects of globalization on business – information systems and their relationship to globalization 4 2.2 Business processes and their relationship to information systems 7 2.3 Evaluation of the use of information systems as tools for increasing busines s competitiveness – Porter’s Five Forces model 10 3. Conclusion 12 References 14 Appendix 15 1. Introduction Aligning business processes with organizational objects is one of the most critical challenges that organizational leaders worldwide have to face. On the other hand, business processes are not standardized. Rather, they have to be changed continuously so that they can keep the organizational competitiveness high. Information systems can be considered as a tool that help business processes to achieve the above target. In practice, the use of information systems in organizations has been related to globalization. This view can be considered as justified if taking into consideration the following fact: information systems have been expanded across business activities of all sectors mostly because certain businesses have emphasized on the particular systems. Since the role of information systems in enhancing organizational profits and improving businesses processes has been made clear, the popularity of these systems worldwide has been increased. The relationship between information systems and globalization is examined in this paper. Particular emphasis is given on the potential use of information systems for achieving competitive advantage. It is proved that, indeed, information systems can play such role. However, it is necessary for the involvement of these systems in organizational activities to be carefully planned and monitored, otherwise the relevant plan will be led to a failure, either in the short or the long term. 2. IT and competitive advantage 2.1 Effects of globalization on business – information systems and their relationship to globalization. The high value of information systems for the development of business activities cannot be ignored. In order to understand the involvement of information systems in modern organizations it would be necessary to refer primarily to the effects of globalization on businesses; then, th e role of information systems in supporting business activities could be understood. Modern market is characterized by a ‘global integration’ (Walker 2004, p.171). This means that a firm can survive in the global market only if it is able to strengthen its processes so that they can secure the firm’s competitiveness towards its rivals (Walker 2004, p.171). At the same time, Doole and Lowe (2005) that globalization has set a new challenge for all businesses: instead of trying to keep their existing market position,

Survey Of Data Mining Techniques On Crime Data Criminology Essay

Survey Of Data Mining Techniques On Crime Data Criminology Essay Data mining is a process of extracting knowledge from huge amount of data stored in databases, data warehouse and data repositories. Crime is an interesting application where data mining plays an important role in terms of crime prediction and analysis. This paper presents detailed study on clustering techniques and its role on crime applications. This also helps the law enforcers in better investigation and crime prediction. Key words: Crime data mining, crime data analysis, clustering. Introduction In recent years, volume of crimes lead to serious problems throughout the world. Now-a- days criminals have maximum use of modern technologies and hi-tech methods which serve up criminals to commit crimes at an immense measure. The law enforcers have to effectively meet out challenges of crime control and maintain public law and order. Hence, creation of a data base for crimes and criminals is required. Data mining techniques have higher influence in the fields such as law-and-enforcement, narcotics, cyber crime, human trafficking and high-tech crimes. Crime data mining has been applied in the law and enforcement to retrieve the criminal details and useful information automatically, using named entity-extraction method. In this method, each word is compared with the noun phrases and the binary value either zero or one will be generated which indicates the match or mismatch of the name. Intelligence agencies and university of Arizona collaborated COPLINK project and applied crime data mining in two-dimensions as crime types and security concerns to analyses crime and criminals and face challenges of law-enforcement problems of massive data bases from police narrative records [9]. Suspects give details to police investigations in order to confuse and spoil the proceedings of the investigation. During the time of investigation, comparison is needed to find the differences between real entities and deceptive entities. One of the distance measurement methods is Euclidean distance method which is applied to calculate the distance between pairs of the real and deceptive entity and this distance gives the deceptions accurately at the time of detection [10]. Hence, data mining techniques and clustering algorithms have been developed for better crime analysis which leads to the prediction of crimes in future. The organization of the paper is as follows. Section II discusses some researches and applications on crime data analysis. Section III defines the role of data preprocessing in crime data mining. Section IV presents various clustering methods on crime domain and Section V discusses the conclusion and future work. II Related work Recent developments in crime control applications aim at adopting data mining techniques to aid the process of crime investigation. One of the earlier projects COPLINK, was teamed with Artificial Intelligence Lab of Arizona University, the police departments of Tuscon , Phonix solving crime and criminal network analysis [8]. Brown et al. proposed a framework for regional crime analysis (ReCAP), which was built to provide crime analysis with both data fusion and data mining techniques[2]. Data mining steps involved in crime investigations are: collection of crime data from multiple data sources such as police narrative records, criminal background information which consists of previous investigation files and police arrest records are used to diagnose whether a suspect was involved in any earlier cases. If it so, verdict clues from past annals featuring the suspect and it avails the investigators to preside in the case. Using crime data mining techniques, most required information has been extracted from the vast crime databases which are maintained by NCRB (National Crime Record Bureau) for locating à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“crime hot-spotsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . This helps the law enforcers to predict the crimes and to prevent in the near-future. Nath et al. has proposed k-means clustering technique with some enhancements to aid the process of identification of crime patterns. Semi-supervised learning technique for knowledge discovery has also been further developed which helps to increase the predictive accuracy [6]. J.S. de Bruin, K.Cocx and Kosters et al. have applied clustering techniques for the analysis of crimes and criminal carriers based on four salient factors such as crime nature, frequency, duration and severity of crime[3]. Binary (BCS) and transformed (TCS) categorical methods are similarity based methods used to find the similarity of corresponding attributes between real and deceptive entities from the crime records[13]. Ozgul et al. recently suggested a crime prediction model on crime details like location, date of the incident and mode-of-operandi of events against terrorists which have not been solved[20]. An enhanced Ak-mode algorithm called a weighted clustering algorithm which consists of two-phases to extract similar case subsets from large number of crime datasets[16]. III. Role of data preprocessing in crime data mining Data preprocessing techniques are mainly used for producing high-quality mining results. Raw data are being preprocessed before mining because data are in different format, collected from various sources and stored in the data base and data warehouses. Major steps involved in crime data mining are data cleaning, data integration, data transformation and data reduction. Data Cleaning Fill in missing crime data value. Smoothing crime data Removing outliers of crime data. Resolve inconsistent crime data. Data integration Merging of crime data from multiple data storages. Data Transformation Crime data normalization. Attribute construction Data Reduction Crime Attribute subset selection. Dimensionality reduction of crime attributes Data mining process Raw data Analysis Mining results Fig. Data Preprocessing steps in crime data mining Crime data have been collected from different sources such as police narrative records, criminal profiles, case histories and log files. In the data cleaning step, missing values are filled, noisy data are smoothened ,outliers data are removed and inconsistent data are resolved. Data integration step undergoes merging of crime data. Data normalization and attribution construction are done in the data transformation for standardizing data. When standardization of crime data, the data range falls under 0.0 to 1.0. Attribute subsets are selected from crime dataset and dimensionality has reduced. After preprocessing, finally standard data underwent the process of mining and hence better results are obtained. IV. Application of clustering methods in Crime The Clustering methods play an important role on crime applications. Some of the clustering techniques highlighted are k-means clustering, Ak-mode algorithm and other similarity methods. After preprocessing, the operational crime data are undergoing the clustering techniques for grouping the nature of crimes as different clusters. In this process, lots of unsolved crimes are also grouped together. The next step of clustering is to identify the significant or decisive attribute. This may from case to case.ie. one of the cases may need the age group of victim as decisive attribute and it is very important in a murder cases. The k-means clustering is one of the basic partition clustering techniques. The objects of similar crime cases are grouped together and are very dissimilar when compare to other groups. This algorithm mainly used to partition the clusters based on their means. Initially number of crime cases are grouped and specified as k clusters. The mean value is calculated as the mean distance between the objects. Then number of iteration are done until the convergence occur. The iterative process of weighing attributes and crime types, future crime patterns can be detected by the detectives or analysts. Unsolved crimes are clustered based on decisive attribute and the results are given to the investigators to proceed the case further. This k-mean is applicable only for numerical attributes and it is not applicable to categorical attributes. Ak- mode clustering technique is used for categorical attributes. In this technique there are two steps such as attribute weighting phase and clustering phase. Weights of the attributes are computed using Information Gain Ratio (IGR) value for each attribute. The greatest value of weight is taken as decisive attribute. The distance between two categorical attributes are computed by finding the differences between two cases give the similarity measures. The analyst has set the threshold value ÃŽÂ ± with the help of the computation result of similarity measures. Finally binary and transformed categorical similarity methods are discussed for finding similarity measures. In the data bases, attribute values are either numerical or categorical i.e. either quantitative or qualitative. In the quantitative (numerical), the difference between two attributes are calculated as the direct difference between those two values of attributes. In the case of qualitative(categorical), the difference between two attributes are calculated as binary values as 0 or 1. If there is a match than attribute value will be 1 or 0 if it is not. This method is named as binary categorical method (BCS). In the transformed categorical similarly (TCS) method, the similarity table has created for all the attributes and the differences between those attributes value will be calculated. This difference gives the similarity measures. Hence various clustering techniques are used to identify the crime patterns which helps the crime analysts to proceed the cases further. V. Conclusion and future work Crime data were under various data preparing steps i.e cleaned the data, resolved inconsistent data and outliers are removed. Grouping crime data objects of clustering was needed to identify crime patterns which support crime analysts and law-enforcers to proceed the case in the investigation and help solving unsolved crimes faster. Similarity measures is an important factor which helps to find unsolved crimes in crime pattern. K-means, Ak-mode and other similarity methods such as binary categorical and transformed categorical methods were used to find the similarity measures of attributes which are very much needed to the crime analysts and police enforcers to solve unsolved crimes. In future, some of the enhancements should be done in the existing algorithms to get an accurate results. There should be some improvement in finding similar case subsets that will be a good direction for solving crimes easily. Finally, challenge of setting threshold value without crime analyst may be an important task in future.

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