Part of Speech Recognizer

Improving Identi?er Informativeness using Part of Speech Information Dave Binkley Matthew Hearn Dawn Lawrie Loyola University Maryland Baltimore MD 21210-2699, USA {binkley, lawrie}@cs. loyola. edu, [email  protected] edu Keywords: source code analysis tools, natural language processing, program comprehension, identi?er analysis Abstract Recent software development tools have exploited the mining of natural language information found within software and its supporting documentation. To make the most of this information, researchers have drawn upon the work of the natural language processing community for tools and techniques.One such tool provides part-of-speech information, which ?nds application in improving the searching of software repositories and extracting domain information found in identi?ers. Unfortunately, the natural language found is software differs from that found in standard prose. This difference potentially limits the effectiveness of off-the-shelf tools. The pres ented empirical investigation ?nds that this limitation can be partially overcome, resulting in a tagger that is up to 88% accurate when applied to source code identi?ers.The investigation then uses the improved part-of-speech information to tag a large corpus of over 145,000 ?eld names. From patterns in the tags several rules emerge that seek to improve structure-?eld naming. Source Part of Extract Split Apply Source ? Code ? Field ? Field ? ? Speech Template Code Mark-up Tagging Names Names Figure 1. Process for POS tagging of ?eld names. The text available in source-code artifacts, in particular a program’s identi?ers, has a very different structure. For example the words of an identi?er rarely form a grammatically correct sentence.This raises an interesting question: can an existing POS tagger be made to work well on the natural language found in source code? Better POS information would aid existing techniques that have used limited POS information to successfully improv e retrieval results from software repositories [1, 11] and have also investigated the comprehensibility of source code identi?ers [4, 6]. Fortunately, machine learning techniques are robust and, as reported in Section 2, good results are obtained using several sentence forming templates.This initial investigation also suggest rules speci?c for software that would improve tagging. For example the type of a declared variable can be factored into its tags. As an example application of POS tagging for source code, the tagger is then used to tag over 145,000 structure?eld names. Equivalence classes of tags are then examined to produce rules for the automatic identi?cation of poor names (as described in Section 3) and suggest improved names, which is left to future work. 1 IntroductionSoftware engineering can bene?t from leveraging tools and techniques of other disciplines. Traditionally, natural language processing (NLP) tools solve problems by processing the natural language found in do cuments such as news articles and web pages. One such NLP tool is a partof-speech (POS) tagger. Tagging is, for example, crucial to the Named-Entity Recognition [3], which enables information about a person to be tracked within and across documents. Many POS taggers are built using machine learning based on newswire training data.Conventional wisdom is that these taggers work well on the newswire and similar artifacts; however, their effectiveness degrades as the input moves further away from the highly structured sentences found in traditional newswire articles. 1 2 Part-of-Speech Tagging Before a POS tagger’s output can be used as input to down stream SE tools, the POS tagger itself needs to be vetted. This section describes an experiment performed to test the accuracy of POS tagging on ?eld names mined from source code. The process used for mining and tagging the ?elds is ?rst described, followed by the empirical results from the experiment.Figure 1 shows the pipeline used for the POS tagging of ?eld names. On the left, the input to the pipeline is mode=â€Å"space†/> (683 came from C++ ?les and 817 from Java ?les). A human accessor (and university student majoring in English) tagged the 1500 ?eld names with POS information producing the oracle set. This oracle set is used to evaluate the accuracy of automatic tagging techniques when applied to the test set. Preliminary study of the Stanford tagger indicates that it needed guidance when tagging ?eld names.Following the work of Abebe and Tonella [1], four templates were used to provide this guidance. Each template includes a slot into which the split ?eld name is inserted. Their accuracy is then evaluated using the oracle set. †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ Sentence Template: List Item Template: Verb Template: Noun Template: . – Please, . is a thing . Figure 2. XML queries for extracting C++ and Java ?elds from srcML. source code. This is then marked up using XML tags by srcML [5] to id entify various syntactic categories. Third, ?eld names are extracted from the marked-up source using XPath queries.Figure 2 shows the queries for C++ and Java. The fourth stage splits ?eld names by replacing underscores with spaces and inserting a space where the case changes from lowercase to uppercase. For example, the names spongeBob and sponge bob become sponge bob. After splitting, all characters are shifted to lowercase. This stage also ?lters names so that only those that consist entirely of dictionary words are retained. Filtering uses Debian’s American (6-2) dictionary package, which consists of the 98,569 words from Kevin Atkinson’s SCOWL word lists that have size 10 through 50 [2].This dictionary includes some common abbreviations, which are thus included in the ?nal data set. Future work will obviate the need for ?ltering through vocabulary normalization in which non-words are split into their abbreviations and then expanded to their natural language equiva lents [9]. The ?fth stage applies a set of templates (described below) to each separated ?eld name. Each template effectively wraps the words of the ?eld name in an attempt to improve the performance of the POS tagger. Finally, POS tagging is performed by Version 1. 6 of the Stanford Log-linear POS Tagger [12].The default options are used including the pretrained bidirectional model [10]. The remainder of this section considers empirical results concerning the effectiveness of the tagging pipeline. A total of 145,163 ?eld names were mined from 10,985 C++ ?les and 9,614 Java ?les found in 171 programs. From this full data set, 1500 names were randomly chosen as a test set 2 The Sentence Template, the simplest of the four, considers the identi?er itself to be a â€Å"sentence† by appending a period to the split ?eld. The List Item Template exploits the tagger having learned about POS information found in the sentence fragments used in lists.The Verb Template tries to encourage the tagger to treat the ?eld name as a verb or a verb phrase by pre?xing it with â€Å"Please,† since usually a command follows. Finally, the Noun Template tries to encourage the tagger to treat the ?eld as a noun by post?xing it with â€Å"is a thing† as was done by Abebe and Tonella [1]. Table 1 shows the accuracy of using each template applied to the test set with the output compared to the oracle. The major diagonal represents each technique in isolation while the remaining entries require two techniques to agree and thus lowering the percentage.The similarity of the percentages in a column gives an indication of how similar the set of correctly tagged names is for two techniques. For example, considering Sentence Template, Verb Template has the lowest overlap of the remaining three as indicated by it’s joint percentage of 71. 7%. Overall, the List Item Template performs the best, and the Sentence Template and Noun Template produce essentially identical resu lts getting the correct tagging on nearly all the same ?elds. Perhaps unsurprising, the Verb Template performs the worst.Nonetheless, it is interesting that this template does produce the correct output on 3. 2% of the ?elds where no other template succeeds. As shown in Table 2 overall at least one template correctly tagged 88% of the test set. This suggests that it may be possible to combine these results, perhaps using machine learning, to produce higher accuracy than achieved using the individual templates. Although 88% is lower than the 97% achieved by natural language taggers on the newswire data, the performance is still quite high considering the lack of context provided by the words of a single structure ?eld.Sentence List Item Verb Noun Sentence 79. 1% 76. 5& 71. 7% 77. 0% List Item 76. 5% 81. 7% 71. 0% 76. 0% Verb 71. 7% 71. 0% 76. 0% 70. 8% Noun 77. 0% 76. 0% 70. 8% 78. 7% this context is used to represent a current state, and is therefore not confusing. Rule 1 Non-boolea n ?eld names should never contain a present tense verb * * ? * * Table 1. Each percentage is the percent of correctly tagged ?eld names using both the row and column technique; thus the major diagonal represent each technique independently. Correct in all templates Correct in at least one template 68. 9% 88. 0% Table 2.Correctly tagged identi?ers As illustrated in the next section, the identi?cation is suf?ciently accurate for use by downstream consumer applications. 3 Rules for Improving Field Names As an example application of POS tagging for source code, the 145,163 ?eld names of the full data set were tagged using the List Item Template, which showed the best performance in Table 1. The resulting tags were then used to form equivalence classes of ?eld names. Analysis of these classes led to four rules for improving the names of structure ?elds. Rule violations can be automatically identi?ed using POS tagging.Further, as illustrated in the examples, by mining the source code it i s possible to suggest potential replacements. The assumption behind each rule is that high quality ?eld names will provide better conceptual information, which aids an engineer in the task of forming a mental understanding of the code. Correct part-of-speech information can help inform the naming of identi?ers, a process that is essential in communicating intent to future programmers. Each rule is ?rst informally introduced and then formalized. After each rule, the percentage of ?elds that violate the rule is given.Finally, some rules are followed by a discussion of rule exceptions or related notions. The ?rst rule observes that ?eld names represent objects not actions; thus they should avoid present-tense verbs. For example, the ?eld name create mp4, clearly implies an action, which is unlikely the intent (unless perhaps the ?eld represent a function pointer). Inspection of the source code reveals that this ?eld holds the desired mp4 video stream container type. Based on the contex t of its use, a better, less ambiguous name for this identi?er is created mp4 container type, which includes the past-tense verb created.A notable exception to this is ?elds of type boolean, like, for example, is logged in where the present tense of the verb â€Å"to be† is used. A present tense verb in 3 Violations detected: 27,743 (19. 1% of ?eld names) Looking at the violations of Rule 1 one pattern that emerges suggests an improvement to the POS tagger that would better specialize it to source code. A pattern that frequently occurs in GUI programming ?nds verbs used as adjectives when describing GUI elements such as buttons. Recognizing such ?elds based on their type should improve tagger accuracy. Consider the ?elds delete button and to a lesser extent continue box.In isolation these appears to represent actions. However they actually represent GUI elements. Thus, a special context-sensitive case in the POS tagger would tag such verbs as adjectives. The second rule consi ders ?eld names that contain only a verb. For example the ?eld name recycle. This name communicates little to a programmer unfamiliar with the code. Examination of the source code reveals that this variable is an integer and, based on the comments, it counts the â€Å"number of things recycled. †While this meaning can be inferred from the declaration and the comments surrounding it, ?eld name uses often occur far from their eclaration, reducing the value of the declared type and supporting comments. A potential ?x in this case is to change the name to recycled count or things recycled. Both alternatives improve the clarity of the name. Rule 2 Field names should never be only a verb ? ? or ? ? Violations detected: 4,661 (3. 2% ?eld names identi?ers) The third rule considers ?eld names that contain only an adjective. While adjectives are useful when used with a noun, an adjective alone relies too much on the type of the variable to fully explain its use.For example, consider th e identi?er interesting. In this case, the declared type of â€Å"list† provides the insight that this ?eld holds a list of â€Å"interesting† items. Replacing this ?eld with interesting list or interesting items should improve code understanding. Rule 3 Field names should never be only an adjective ? Violations detected: 5,487 (3. 8% ?eld names identi?ers) An interesting exception to this rule occurs with data structures where the ?eld name has an established conventional meaning. For example, when naming the next node in a linked list, next is commonly accepted.Other similar common names include â€Å"previous† and â€Å"current. † The ?nal rule deals with ?eld names for booleans. Boolean variables represent a state that is or is not and this notion needs to be obvious in the name. The identi?er deleted offers a good example. By itself there is no way to know for sure what is being represented. Is this a pointer to a deleted thing? Is it a count of dele ted things? Source code inspection reveals that such boolean variables tend to represent whether or not something is deleted. Thus a potential improved names include is deleted or was deleted.Rule 4 Boolean ?eld names should contain third person forms of the verb â€Å"to be† or the auxiliary verb â€Å"should† * ? is | was | should * 5 Summary This paper presents the results on an experiment into the accuracy of the Stanford Log-linear POS Tagger applied to ?eld names. The best template, List Item, has an accuracy of 81. 7%. If an optimal combination of the four templates were used the accuracy rises to 88%. These POS tags were then used to develop ?eld name formation rules that 28. 9% of the identi?ers violated. Thus the tagging can be used to support improved naming.Looking forward, two avenues of future work include automating this improvement and enhancing POS tagging for source code. For the ?rst, the source code would be mined for related terms to be used in sug gested improved names. The second would explore training a POS tagger using, for example, the machine learning technique domain adaptation [8], which emphasize the text in the training that is most similar to identi?ers to produce a POS tagger for identi?ers. 6 Acknowledgments Special thanks to Mike Collard for his help with srcML and the XPath queries and Phil Hearn for his help with creating the oracle set.Support for this work was provided by NSF grant CCF 0916081. Violations detected: 5,487 (3. 8% ?eld names identi?ers) Simply adding â€Å"is† or â€Å"was† to booleans does not guarantee a ?x to the problem. For example, take a boolean variable that indicates whether something should be allocated in a program. In this case, the boolean captures whether some event should take place in the future. In this example an appropriate temporal sense is missing from the name. A name like allocated does not provide enough information and naming it is allocated does not make l ogical sense in the context of the program.A solution to this naming problem is to change the identi?er to should be allocated, which includes the necessary temporal sense communicating that this boolean is a ?ag for something expected to happen in the future. References [1] S. L. Abebe and P. Tonella. Natural language parsing of program element names for concept extraction. In 18th IEEE International Conference on Program Comprehension. IEEE, 2010. [2] K. Atkinson. Spell checking oriented word lists (scowl). [3] E. Boschee, R. Weischedel, and A. Zamanian. Automatic information extraction.In Proceedings of the International Conference on Intelligence Analysis, 2005. [4] B. Caprile and P. Tonella. Restructuring program identi?er names. In ICSM, 2000. [5] ML Collard, HH Kagdi, and JI Maletic. An XML-based lightweight C++ fact extractor. Program Comprehension, 2003. 11th IEEE International Workshop on, pages 134–143, 2003. [6] E. Hà ¸st and B. Østvold. The programmer’ s lexicon, volume i: The verbs. In International Working Conference on Source Code Analysis and Manipulation, Beijing, China, September 2008. [7] E. W. Hà ¸st and B. M. Østvold. Debugging method names.In ECOOP 09. Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, 2009. [8] J. Jiang and C. Zhai. Instance weighting for domain adaptation in nlp. In ACL 2007, 2007. [9] D. Lawrie, D. Binkley, and C. Morrell. Normalizing source code vocabulary. In Proceedings of the 17th Working Conference on Reverse Engineering, 2010. [10] L. Shen, G. Satta, and A. K. Joshi. Guided learning for bidirectional sequence classi?cation. In ACL 07. ACL, June 2007. [11] D. Shepherd, Z. P. Fry, E. Hill, L. Pollock, and K. Vijay-Shanker. Using natural language program analysis to locate and understand action-oriented conerns.In AOSD 07. ACM, March 2007. [12] K. Toutanova, D. Klein, C. Manning, and Y. Singer. Feature-rich part-of-speech tagging with a cyclic dependency network. In HLTNAACL 2003, 2003. 4 Related Work This section brie?y reviews three projects that use POS information. Each uses an off-the-shelf POS tagger or lookup table. First, Host et al. study naming of Java methods using a lookup table to assign POS tags [7]. Their aim is to ?nd what they call â€Å"naming bugs† by checking to see if the method’s implementation is properly indicated with the name of the method.Second, Abebe and Tonella study class, method, and attribute names using a POS tagger based on a modi?cation of minipar to formulate domain concepts [1]. Nouns in the identi?ers are examined to form ontological relations between concepts. Based on a case study, their approach improved concept searching. Finally, Shepherd et al. considered ?nding concepts in code using natural language information [11]. The resulting Find-Concept tool locates action-oriented concerns more effectively than the other tools and with less user effort. This is made possible by POS information applied to source code. 4

Corruption in India

Corruption in India is a major issue and adversely affects its economy. [1] A 2005 study conducted by Transparency International in India found that more than 62% of Indians had firsthand experience of paying bribes or influence peddling to get jobs done in public offices successfully. [2][3] In its 2008 study, Transparency International reports about 40% of Indians had firsthand experience of paying bribes or using a contact to get a job done in public office. 4] In 2012 India has ranked 94th out of 176 countries in Transparency International'sCorruption Perceptions Index, tied with Benin, Colombia, Djibouti, Greece, Moldova, Mongolia, and Senegal. [5] Most of the largest sources of corruption in India are entitlement programmes and social spending schemes enacted by the Indian government. Examples include Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and National Rural Health Mission. [6][7] Other daily sources of corruption include India's trucking industry which is forced to pay billions in bribes annually to numerous regulatory and police stops on its interstate highways. 8] Indian media has widely published allegations of corrupt Indian citizens stashing trillions of dollars in Swiss banks. Swiss authorities, however, deny these allegations. [9][10] The causes of corruption in India include excessive regulations, complicated taxes and licensing systems, numerous government departments each with opaque bureaucracy and discretionary powers, monopoly by government controlled institutions on certain goods and services delivery, and the lack of transparent laws and processes. 11][12] There are significant variations in level of corruption as well as in state government efforts to reduce corruption across India. The economy of India was under socialist-inspired policies for an entire generation from the 1950s until the late 1980s. The economy was characterised by extensive regulation,protectionism, and public ownership, policies vulnerable to pervasive corruption and slow growth. [13][14][15][16] In 1960s, Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari suggested License Raj was often at the core of corruption. 17] The Vohra Report, submitted by the former Indian Union Home Secretary, N. N. Vohra, in October 1993, studied the problem of the criminalisation of politics and of the nexus among criminals, politicians and bureaucrats in India. [18] The report contained several observations made by official agencies on the criminal network which was virtually running a parallel government. It also discussed criminal gangs who enjoyed the patronage of politicians — of all political parties — and the protection of government functionaries. 19] According to Jitendra Singh, â€Å"in the bad old days, particularly pre-1991, when the License Raj held sway, and by design, all kinds of free market mechanisms were hobbled or stymied, and corruption emerged almost as an illegitimate price mechanism, a shadowy quasi-market, such that scarce resources could still be allocated within the economy, and decisions could get made. †¦ These were largely distortions created by the politico-economic regime. While a sea change has occurred in the years following 1991, some of the distorted cultural norms that took hold during the earlier period are slowly being repaired by the sheer forces of competition. The process will be long and slow, however. It will not change overnight. â€Å"[20] One of the major problems and obstacles to development in India has been endemic corruption and political inertia to change. [21] As of December 2008, 120 of India's 523 parliament members were accused of crimes, under India's First Information Report procedure wherein anyone can allege another of committing a crime. 22] Many of the biggest scandals since 2010 have involved very high levels of government, including Cabinet Ministers and Chief Ministers, such as in the 2G spectrum scam, the 2010 Commonwealth Games scam and the Adarsh Housing Society scam, Coal Mining Scam, mining scandal in Karnataka and cash for vote scam. A variety of organisations have been created in India to actively fight against corrupt government and business practices. Notable organisations include: * Bharat Swabhiman Trust established by well known Yog Guru Swami Ramdev running a large campaign against black money and corruption since last 10 years. 5th Pillar is most known for the creation of the zero rupee note, a valueless note designed to be given to corrupt officials when they request bribes. * India Against Corruption is a movement created by a citizens from a variety of professions and statuses to work against corruption in India. It is currently headed by Anna Hazare. [67] * Jaago Re! One Billion Votes is an organisation originally founded by Tata Tea and Janaagraha to increase youth voter registration. [68] They have since expanded their work to include other social issues, including corruption. 69] * Association for Social Transparency, Rights and Action (ASTRA) is an NGO focused on grass-roots work to fight corruption in Karnataka. One organisation, the Lok Satta Movement, has transformed itself from a civil organisation to a full-fledged political party, the Lok Satta Party. The party has fielded candidates in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Bangalore. In 2009, it obtained its first elected post, whenJayaprakash Narayan won the election for the Kukatpally Assembly Constituency in Andhra Pradesh. Corruption in India Corruption in India is a major issue and adversely affects its economy. [1] A 2005 study conducted by Transparency International in India found that more than 62% of Indians had firsthand experience of paying bribes or influence peddling to get jobs done in public offices successfully. [2][3] In its 2008 study, Transparency International reports about 40% of Indians had firsthand experience of paying bribes or using a contact to get a job done in public office. 4] In 2012 India has ranked 94th out of 176 countries in Transparency International'sCorruption Perceptions Index, tied with Benin, Colombia, Djibouti, Greece, Moldova, Mongolia, and Senegal. [5] Most of the largest sources of corruption in India are entitlement programmes and social spending schemes enacted by the Indian government. Examples include Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and National Rural Health Mission. [6][7] Other daily sources of corruption include India's trucking industry which is forced to pay billions in bribes annually to numerous regulatory and police stops on its interstate highways. 8] Indian media has widely published allegations of corrupt Indian citizens stashing trillions of dollars in Swiss banks. Swiss authorities, however, deny these allegations. [9][10] The causes of corruption in India include excessive regulations, complicated taxes and licensing systems, numerous government departments each with opaque bureaucracy and discretionary powers, monopoly by government controlled institutions on certain goods and services delivery, and the lack of transparent laws and processes. 11][12] There are significant variations in level of corruption as well as in state government efforts to reduce corruption across India. The economy of India was under socialist-inspired policies for an entire generation from the 1950s until the late 1980s. The economy was characterised by extensive regulation,protectionism, and public ownership, policies vulnerable to pervasive corruption and slow growth. [13][14][15][16] In 1960s, Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari suggested License Raj was often at the core of corruption. 17] The Vohra Report, submitted by the former Indian Union Home Secretary, N. N. Vohra, in October 1993, studied the problem of the criminalisation of politics and of the nexus among criminals, politicians and bureaucrats in India. [18] The report contained several observations made by official agencies on the criminal network which was virtually running a parallel government. It also discussed criminal gangs who enjoyed the patronage of politicians — of all political parties — and the protection of government functionaries. 19] According to Jitendra Singh, â€Å"in the bad old days, particularly pre-1991, when the License Raj held sway, and by design, all kinds of free market mechanisms were hobbled or stymied, and corruption emerged almost as an illegitimate price mechanism, a shadowy quasi-market, such that scarce resources could still be allocated within the economy, and decisions could get made. †¦ These were largely distortions created by the politico-economic regime. While a sea change has occurred in the years following 1991, some of the distorted cultural norms that took hold during the earlier period are slowly being repaired by the sheer forces of competition. The process will be long and slow, however. It will not change overnight. â€Å"[20] One of the major problems and obstacles to development in India has been endemic corruption and political inertia to change. [21] As of December 2008, 120 of India's 523 parliament members were accused of crimes, under India's First Information Report procedure wherein anyone can allege another of committing a crime. 22] Many of the biggest scandals since 2010 have involved very high levels of government, including Cabinet Ministers and Chief Ministers, such as in the 2G spectrum scam, the 2010 Commonwealth Games scam and the Adarsh Housing Society scam, Coal Mining Scam, mining scandal in Karnataka and cash for vote scam. A variety of organisations have been created in India to actively fight against corrupt government and business practices. Notable organisations include: * Bharat Swabhiman Trust established by well known Yog Guru Swami Ramdev running a large campaign against black money and corruption since last 10 years. 5th Pillar is most known for the creation of the zero rupee note, a valueless note designed to be given to corrupt officials when they request bribes. * India Against Corruption is a movement created by a citizens from a variety of professions and statuses to work against corruption in India. It is currently headed by Anna Hazare. [67] * Jaago Re! One Billion Votes is an organisation originally founded by Tata Tea and Janaagraha to increase youth voter registration. [68] They have since expanded their work to include other social issues, including corruption. 69] * Association for Social Transparency, Rights and Action (ASTRA) is an NGO focused on grass-roots work to fight corruption in Karnataka. One organisation, the Lok Satta Movement, has transformed itself from a civil organisation to a full-fledged political party, the Lok Satta Party. The party has fielded candidates in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Bangalore. In 2009, it obtained its first elected post, whenJayaprakash Narayan won the election for the Kukatpally Assembly Constituency in Andhra Pradesh.

Moral Attitueds Toward the Thousand and One Night

The entire basis for The Thousand and One Knights is Shahrayar has become exhausted by the infidelity of his wife and that of his brother's. Scheherazade's purpose for the tales is to show the king that not all women are bad and that men can be evil sometimes too. There are many women in the tales who act virtuously (the she-demon in the second merchant's tale, the farmer's daughter in the third merchant's tale, etc. ). Of course, the societal perception of women is very different from today. In the tale of the farmer who understands animals, he eventually beats the wife black and blue, she learns obedience, and â€Å"everyone was happy. While this aspect of society is shown, the morality of women is not attacked or praised: it is shown as being variable, just like any person's. I have not noticed any overt racial discrimination in the tales. Of course, people from different lands or regions are portrayed as strange or downright evil, but there isn't any racism the way we would consider it. The Blackamoors are simply the Arabian people from the area farther west than the setting for the tales (the name for the Moors- an Arab/Berber people comes from this). The tales of the ox and the donkey The vizier fears that his daughter will merely suffer. True to his character and to his role, he does not say so directly, but instead tells her a story of a donkey who, proud of his intelligence, schemes to trick the master of the farm into excusing the sweet, simple ox from labor. The scheme works, but not as the donkey expected. The wealthy farmer orders the donkey driven into the field to work in the ox's place. In using a story to warn Shahrazad, the vizier engages in narrative imagining, a form of thinking before acting. In trying to change her mind through story, he unwittingly endorses the very strategy he asks her to reject–to try to change the king's mind through stories. Narrative imagining–story–is the fundamental instrument of thought. Rational capacities depend upon it. It is our chief means of looking into the future, of predicting, of planning, and of explaining. It is a literary capacity indispensable to human cognition generally. This is the first way in which the mind is essentially literary. The vizier asks Shahrazad to think before acting by imagining a story and then evaluating it. He traces the consequence of her action forward to disaster, implying that Shahrazad should abandon her plan. In doing so, he puts to domestic use a fundamental cognitive activity: story.

Marketing to the Bottom of the pyramid Case Study

Marketing to the Bottom of the pyramid - Case Study Example In accordance with the issues discussed in the paper thinking about the â€Å"bottom of the pyramid† can lead us to create an impossibly low-cost yet a high-quality new and robust business model. A sound marketing strategy directed towards the people at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) can help the company to provide cheaper products and enhanced access to technology thereby providing the necessitous people with an opportunity to become entrepreneurs and educate them. This can be viewed as a mutual benefit process, given that it will provide the company with a huge market as a source of revenue stream. Alongside giving the company a top-line revenue growth, cost saving and innovations will also influence the existing business models and management practices of the company. But one thing that the management needs to be well aware of is the fact that selling into BOP markets is difficult and the hardest part is to continue the work responsibly and consistently. Being a highly une xplored market, the strategy has to be formulated in such a way that it brings real benefit to the impacted communities as well as the company. However, in order to ensure that, the company should follow important guidelines and lessons from leaders in the industry known to have set examples of successful expansion in the BOP market. Prahalad had coined the term BOP, referring to a population which is largely ignored by the private sector in terms of providing services. As such, the author had identified the market as prospective and it had become the next segment of increased attractiveness for firms. The author highlighted the huge size of the market in terms of its population cover and its elevated purchasing power and thus, many companies identified a prospective opportunity to serve this market and become profitable. Different market segments require different approaches and so does the BOP market as it is a largely unexplored area. Consumers in this category are becoming deman ding and sophisticated. Thus, the management has to understand that although producing low cost product is a significant factor which is essential for marketing in this segment, it is not the only expectation that consumers have (Barki and Parente 11–23). Market development approach The primary task that the company needs to initiate is converting of the BOP consumers from unorganized and inefficient to just the opposite. This is a crucial strategy as it will help the company to elate the benefits for the market if the company is allowed to do business with them. The primary requirement is for the consumers and the company to be on the same pathway. Both the consumers and the company need to have a common belief in order to completely align their requirements and objectives. The approach should include a broader perspective ensuring a long term development and sustainability of the concerned parties. In order to convert the BOP consumers into organized and efficient, the mana gement has to ensure the development of a robust infrastructure as the inadequacy of the same leads to inefficiency. Besides that, in order to thrive in the lower income market, the company has to formulate strategies that enhance the buying power of the end consumers (Mardh and Correia â€Å"Marketing Mix Strategies towards the Bottom of the Pyramid: a study of the Brazilian market†). This will help the company to convert the purchasing power of the consumers into their profit. In return, they can eradicate poverty by bringing prosperity to the poor. Product innovation and consumer education have to be effectively carried out in order to foster aspiration in the minds of the consumers. Better

Legislator Letter & Outline Summary (2 parts to assignment) Coursework

Legislator Letter & Outline Summary (2 parts to assignment) - Coursework Example For instance, when there are more health personnel to handle the patients’ issues, it means more people will access the vital health care service and reduce time wasted waiting to for services. My intent to write to you is because I know you have a significant influence toward the amendment of this bill; thus, I urge you to support the bill and bolster healthcare service delivery. The residents of Boston will for sure benefit from improved services due to an addition of more APRNs and physicians. For example, section 3401 of the H. R. 1907 bill suggests that there shall be a minimum number of nurses required regarding hospital staffing (NARA, 2014). The case will ensure that all hospitals will have a minimum number of healthcare personnel that serve patients. Therefore, I am requesting you to support Bill H. R. 1907 to enable more healthcare professionals into the healthcare system to strengthen delivery of the services.I will appreciate your support of this bill since it will permit a considerable access to quick, quality, and safeservices Thank you for taking your precious time to read my letter and I hope you will support this H. R. 1907 bill to enhance healthcare service delivery in our state. I am looking forward to your response regarding the bill. Thank you once again. There was no response to my letter. Assumedly, this happened because the letter failed to detail on a planned visit to the local or Austin. For future contact with the legislator, I prefer planning and writing the letter in time to allow for a prompt reply. Besides, it is important to prepare for a physical visit and interact on a personal basis with the policy maker. My reaction towards the issue of writing letters to the legislators is to know why some letters go unanswered yet they may be having excellent suggestions that can help to enhance healthcare system within the country. Assuredly, it was exciting to compose a letter that would establish imperative

Research, Evidence and Nursing Practice Assignment

Research, Evidence and Nursing Practice - Assignment Example Conditions used to make comparisons included untapped, therapeutic taping protocol and neutral taping protocol. (3) Authors utilized within-subjects study design, which entailed subjecting 18 participants to the three conditions at random coupled with assessing pain and observed disability. (4) Research’s scope encompassed assessing the extent of pain in each case and disability whereby the latter comprised of hindrance to the necessary knee mobility. Knee’s mobility tests used were walking speed, stepping ability, rising time and go tests. (5) Research’s content avails adequate information helpful in managing Maude’s predicament, which in this case entails reducing pain. Therefore, therapeutic taping will be of great help to her not only through reducing pain but also in preventing knee’s swelling. (6) Limitations in this study embrace â€Å"carryover effects†, use of small cohort and inadequate interval period between the tests. (7) The stu dy concluded therapeutic taping was inexpensive strategy compared to numerous approaches used in managing of knee OA. Justification (8) The study offers adequate information regarding managing of knee pain and disability (Hinman, Bennell, Crossley & McConnell, 2003). ... es its remedies with other approaches used in treating and managing knee OA whereby the researchers conclude both Therapeutic knee tape and neutral tape are cheaper. The other reason considered in selecting this article was its inexpensive remedy strategy aimed at reducing pain, whereby the people irrespective of their status can adequately afford. Therefore, its contribution in the medical field will encompass equipping medical personnel with adequate knowledge concerning varied and cheaper ways, which they will advise their patients to embrace. This is especially in managing Knee OA among the victims whereby with necessary training ailing people can adequately execute therapeutic taping in their homes. This will reduce high chances of disability commonly associated with Knee OA especially among the old people who in most cases tend to prefer sedentary life like in Maude’s case. Therefore, practitioners after advocating therapeutic taping to the people with Knee OA will compe l them to be active through their relatives, hence reduce numerous chances of disability observed among people taking medicinal approaches. This is an essential intervention, which practitioners can combine with medicinal approaches in reducing pain experienced by Maude. In addition, despite the authors in this article citing certain limitations that may hinder effective testing under each condition, its analysis is meticulous. This is evident in the already analyzed tests and clear presentation of statistical data in form of tables and graphs bearing evidences of diverse remedies’ outcomes under study. (1) Roddy, E., Zhang, W. & Doharty, M. (2005). Aerobic walking or strengthening exercise for osteoarthritis of the knee? A systematic Review. Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, 64. 544- 548.

Changing Water Cycle Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Changing Water Cycle - Essay Example According to the argument on reducing water levels, the regions indicated will suffer profusely in the agricultural and energy aspects. The consequential outcome of the challenges will further affect the society’s welfare at the advent of insufficient commercial production of specialty crops, recreation, and the general amenities. The figure shows that the southwest states’ water levels reduced by 14% from the beginning of the millennium to the present period, and the anomaly will remain at 84% until 2035. Further, the states’ water resources will dwindle to 66% and 43% between the ranges of 2041-2070 and 2070-2099 respectively. Therefore, it is certain that the south and west states along the US-Mexico border would be vulnerable to the consequences borne from the drastic climatic changes. The figure indicates that the water levels reduction process is imminent to the current societal practices. The region’s dependence in hydroelectric energy should cease as continuation of the practice risks the society’s welfare with the current prospects, which indicate a rapid rate of population increase in the agriculture-dependent area. Therefore, the concerned authorities should invest in geothermal, wind, and solar energy production projects as the alternative and eco-friendly sources to adapt to the changes. Secondly, the economic dependence on irrigation-based agricultural practices would flourish after the region’s reconsideration of constructing alternative water reservoirs and boreholes for use in the projects over the stream water sources. Apparently, the practice is a sustainable measure to ascertaining growth in the farming industry in the absence of water scarcity. The municipal water supply systems should conform to the measures of sustainability by reviewing the water distribution systems’ to match the environmental changes. Lastly, the