Options for implementing a leadership change Essay Example for Free

Options for implementing a leadership change Essay Gene One is a biotech company that has seen steady growth since entering the biotech industry in 1996. It was founded by the late Don Ruiz and four other directors. During the last eight years, Gene One has grown to become a $400 million dollar company. Gene One wants to continue this growth, and has decided to gain additional growth and funds by issuing an Initial Public Offering (IPO). This is in order to remain competitive in the market, since it needs more capital for new development, advertisement, and marketing if it is to remain successful.   In order for the IPO to be successful, Gene One needs a solid foundation to build upon. Gene One can take an in-depth look at key concepts such as effective teamwork through cooperation, trust, and cohesiveness, sources of conflict in organizations, knowledge management, elements of organizational structure, and assess the influence of organizational structure on power and politics (Scenario, 2006). Gene One is a growing company with many opportunities for further growth in the future. With this change, Gene One needs to revaluate all areas of the company and find solutions to problems within the organization. The company has many opportunities for changes, which will enable them to reach the goals needed. The key project is to find the best solution that will enable Gene One to reach their goals, and become better than its competitors. It will need to review the solutions that they have come up with, and the additional alternative solutions that have not even been reviewed (Holmstrom, 1994). Team analysis After the death of Don Ruiz, there is a big leadership gap left in the management of Gene One. The team is therefore incomplete without him, which is undesirable for effective management. Team building is both challenging and rewarding. Effective teams achieve results far beyond what individuals could accomplish on their own. However, team building is much more than putting a group of people together and hoping for the best. Teambuilding is an art that overcomes differences in style, personality, and other potential areas of conflict, but even when a team functions in total harmony, it may not achieve its goals (Brickley, 1987). As Don’s siblings, we have found ourselves having to take part in leadership at Gene One. Each family member was assigned one member of the remaining four members of the executive. In order to assess the remaining team’s likelihood of success, I gathered information about one team member and did an analysis on it. During my analysis, I found my subject to have the following desirable attributes:   He can take charge, is assertive and can take control of a situation. He is   outgoing, people-oriented and extroverted He is concerned with accuracy, details and exactness He is competitive, has   a great   desire to win and is aggressive He is   easy going and casual, and   takes things as they come He likes identifying and analyzing problems He is concerned with timely results and is quick to take action He is good team player who works well with others he is concerned with standards and high quality work Attributes not well represented Despite all the good attributes, I found my subject with a few negative attributes. They include: he has a negative attitude regarding people and outcomes He is highly emotional and easily loses his temper He gets impatient with the subordinate staff Recommendation With a few changes to the leadership structure of Gene One, I recommend my subject for a further role in management of Gene One. His attributes are impressive and can steer the company to great heights. However, he should help take the company through a transition to usher in a structure that separates ownership from management. Leadership style Gene One needs to develop a leadership style that involves the leader including one or more employees in the decision making process.   However, the leader maintains the final decision making authority. Using this style is not a sign of weakness; rather it is a sign of strength that your employees will respect. This is normally used when you have part of the information, and your employees have other parts. Note that a leader is not expected to know everything-this is why you employ knowledgeable and skillful employees. Using this style is of mutual benefit it allows them to become part of the team and allows you to make better decisions (Tannenbaum Schmidt, 1958). Leadership structure The leadership structure at Gene One should change such that the titles of CEO and chairman of the board are separate entities. This will help separate management from leadership.   This is the best leadership structure for large corporations or others hoping to enter that league. Most large corporations are not managed by their owners or shareholders. Instead, they are managed by a leader-CEO or President- and a team of officers. The CEO or president is usually a professional trained in a particular field with the necessary experience. The CEO is accountable to the stockholders through their elected representative, the board of directors. Gene One should not have a dual CEO where the CEO functions simultaneously as the chair of the board. A non-dual CEO would be the best option for Gene One. Research has shown that CEO duality threatens Board independence, and can erode the essential oversight responsibilities of the Board (Daily and Dalton, 1994). Negative leadership should be avoided at all costs. Negative leaders act domineering and superior with people. They believe the only way to get things done is through penalties, such as loss of job, days off without pay, reprimand employees in front of others, etc. They believe their authority is increased by frightening everyone into higher lever of productivity. Yet what always happens when this approach is used wrongly is that morale falls; which of course leads to lower productivity.

Design Of Wifi Based Tdma Protocol Information Technology Essay

Design Of Wifi Based Tdma Protocol Information Technology Essay Time division multiple access is a multiple access method for shared the channel by dividing the signal into different time slots. TDMA is successful works in cellular mobile communication for several years ago. Recently has been combined with OFDM to introduce OFDMA. TDMA also ensure fairness between nodes in the network. In vehicular scenario, we proposed TDMA protocol to work with CSMA/CA to mitigate and cope with some of the challenges in vehicular communications. In this chapter we will discuss the design of the protocol, connection messages, protocol flow and cross intercommunication between the new TDMA sublayer with CSMA/CA and PHY layers. In section 3.2 a general explanation of proposed TDMA protocol, the design of Wi-Fi-based 802.11p is discussed in Section 3.3. In Section 3.4, implementations of TDMA protocol in the simulation environment is presented. Simulation problems and implementation improvements is discussed in Section 3.5. The chapter summarization is given in Sec tion 3.6. 4.2. EXPLANATIONS OF TDMA PROTOCOL The TDMA protocol is representing as a provider client protocol, which means the protocol is centralized. The other possibility is to define a distributed or an ad hoc protocol as it is done in (Fan Yu, 2007) and (Katrin, 2009). We mean by centralized that the provider will be the only one handles the information that has given in both channels. This does not mean that all communication is going to be only unidirectional (from the provider to the client), but sometimes is going to be bidirectional communication. The provider in our case here is the RSU (Road Side Unit) and the client/station is OBUs (Onboard Units). Form now we may always use the term RSU to provider or centralized node and the OBU to client or mobile station. Here we need to implement frame of 10 ms, those frame consist of two main time slots, one of them for the control and the second one for the service or data channel, and both are using different duration. Why we chose value of 10 ms because this is currently used in many TDMA implementations i.e. WIMAX. 4.3. DESIGN OF WI-FI BASED TDMA PROTOCOL IEEE802.11 has two modes DCF and PCF. Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) relies on CSMA/CA distributed algorithm and an optional virtual carrier sense using RTS and CTS control frames (IEEE Std 802.11, 1999). If the channel is busy during the DIFS (DCF Interframe Space) interval, the station defers its transmission. Point Coordination Function (PCF) is used for infrastructure mode, which provides contention-free frame transfer for processing time-critical information transfers (W. Wang, 2003). PCF is optional in the standard and only few vendors implemented it in their adapters. Two different periods defined at PCF mode: contention-free period (CFP) and contention Period (CP). CFP uses contention free-poll frames to give stations the permission to transmit. However, PCF has many drawbacks and limitations in long distance applications (i.e. up to tens of kilometers) this due to sensitivity of the acknowledgement (ACK) messages to propagation delay which is designed for contention -free local area networks purposes. Also, once a station reserves the access to the medium, it may occupy the medium for long time without any station can interrupt its transmissions even in the high priority traffics case; i.e. if the remote station has lower data rate due to the distance, then it will take long time to release the channel (Pravin, 2003). Consequently, it has been shown that (S. Sharma, 2002) (Sridhar, 2006) TDMA based MAC is suitable for long distance propagation delay. Most of the implemented solution for long distance Wi-Fi-based network was used WiMAX like TDMA frame for conducting the PMP scenario. However, using WiMAX/TDMA above Wi-Fi is increasing the system complexity and overhead since the WiMAX/TDMA has been built for the licensed-based and Wi-Fi is built with unlicensed environment. In this research a design of TDMA over the 802.11 is presented. The function of the proposed TDMA is to disable the contention behavior of 802.11 (CSMA/CA) for contention-less MAC. In this research a new cross layer design is introduced between CSMA/CA and new logical TDMA layer, which the Wi-Fi MAC frame is encapsulated in a logical TDMA header before forwarded to IP layer. The proposed protocol stack is shown in Figure4.1. The CSMA/CA peer-to-peer protocol is disabled and replaced with TDMA peer-to-peer protocol as shown with the dot-lines. Figure.4.1. Protocol flow of the TDMA-based PMP The logical TDMA header is added between IP header and MAC header. The function of the new header is to disable the random access feature of the CSMA/CA in 802.11 and replace it by logical TDMA function, which is maintains the synchronization of the local timers in the stations and delivers protocol related parameters. The frame is shown in Figure 4.2. The proposed TDMA header contains BCCH (broadcast control channel), FCCH (frame control channel) and RA (random access). BCCH: contains general information i.e. timestamp through time_stamp_update(), SSID, BS-node capabilities and random access time interval ra_interval(). All this parameters (except the RA time interval) is prepared and copied from the beacon frame (using beacon_content()) from the Wi-Fi MAC device driver. The BCCH information helps the APs in the sleep, wakeup, transmitting and receiving times. Figure.4.2. Additional TDMA header is added to Wi-Fi frame FCCH: carries the information about the structure and format of the ongoing frame i.e. scheduler () and time_slot_builder(); containing the exact position of all slots and Tx/Rx times and guard time between them and scheduling. RACH: contains a number of random access channels (RCH). This field is uses when no schedule has been assigned to the APs in the UL fields. Non-associated APs use RA for the first contact with an AP using slot_time_request(). The flow diagram of logical control and data channels is shown in Figure 4.3. Figure 4.3: the flow of the virtual channels for the TDMA frame, First, the RACH frame is receiving if there any connection request from APs to BS. Then, BCCH, FCCH and AGCH broadcast their information, then transmit and receive users payload. Timer is controlling all the transmitted and received signals. Although, the new TDMA header is introduced at the cost of the performance due to the overhead, however, in the long distance applications with point-to-multiple-point infrastructure scenarios usually the numbers of stations are not too high compared with end-user part. In our scenario we consider 4 remote access points and one central access point (BS-node). By implementing TDMA_module() each APs would assigned with time slot within the TDMA frame. TDMA also saves power because each STA only needs to wake-up during these time slots in each frame. If new node (AP) wants to join the network it listens to the BCCH frame to get the initial parameters from the BS-node. Then it uses the RA period to send time_slot_request() request to the BS-node to r equest for time slot. The BS-node uses the FCCH field to update the new scheduling table in scheduler(). The TDMA_module() assigns time slots for APs by taking copy of the NAV (network allocation vector) information (NAV_update()) from the Wi-Fi MAC layer and modifying it according to the schedule scheme. NAV is considered as virtual carrier sensing which is limits the need for contention-based physical carrier sensing. This is done by setting new back_off_counter() and NAV_new() in the TDMA_module() which indicates the amount of time that medium will be reserved for each time slots. The BS-node set the NAV value to the frame length time plus any other necessary messages to complete the current operation to make sure that no station (AP) will access the channel during the frame transmission. Other stations count down from the NAV to 0. When the NAV has nonzero value, the scheduler () send back to the Wi-Fi MAC that indication that the medium is busy; before the NAV reaches 0, the ba ck_off() and NAV_new() update the Wi-Fi MAC with the new NAV. The destination address (DA) and source address (SA) in the MAC frame header and in the SSID is modified according to the new NAV and RR scheduling information. Figure4.4 shows illustrate the flow of the process in cross-layer concept, which is consisting of three layers: TDMA source code, wireless driver and hardware abstraction layer (HAL). The cross layer is performed between wireless driver and the source code. HAL is different for each hardware platform. The procedure of this approach is also below: Core Module: Repoint the WiFi_MAC_SAP to TDMA_MAC Point the MAC-TDMA_SAP to IP TDMA_module() { //modify the NAV vector for virtual (fake) busy network busy If NAV() not_equal_to_zero then { //copy the NAV value to new place to use it for new AP Network_entry Copy CSMA/CA/NAV() to CSMA/CA/NAV_old() Copy TDMA()/NAV_new() to CSMA/CA/NAV() } If NAV()=0 then { // call NAV_update() TDMA/NAV_update() Set back-off counter() Send the NAV_new() to scheduler() } Scheduler(){ //using round robin queue scheme Round_robin() } //time_slot_builderà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Time_slot_builder(){ random_access(){ // See if there are any time slot request If time_slot_request(){ Time_slot()++ } else traffic(); } } //add the new TDMA header // send the broadcast control channel (BCCH) bcch(){timestamp(); ra_interval; SSID;BS-node capability}; //for the RA using the same etiquettes used by contention period (CP) at the MAC level fcch() { slots_time_builder() Set frame_format(){ Slot_time_interval; } 4.3.1 TDMA Protocol Flowchart In Vehicular Environment The RSU sends the beacon frame periodically with the free slots available in the TDMA frame. The OBU scans for the RSU beacon. If more than one RSU respond, comparisons are made on their (received signal strength indicator) RSSIs and the best one is selected after which the order of merits are applied on the other RSUs as first, second, etc candidates according to their RSSI signal strength. The OBU uses the beacon to synchronize its frame with the RSU after which the OBU sends the data in the free slots (in the coming uplink frame). A check is performed to find if the RSSI Figure.4.4. Implementation and incorporating TDMA in 802.11p protocol stack. OBU scan for the RSUs Beacon frame More than one Beacon frame Are received No Compare the different RSSIs and select the best and > threshold Yes Synchronization and clock Exchange with RSU Send data in the free slots In the UL sub-frame RSSI No Yes Figure4.5 TDMA Protocol Flowchart The TDMA frame structure is shown in Figure4. 3. The TDMA frame encapsulates the 802.11 frames in the payload subsection. The frame is repeated periodically for every 20msec (which is the length of the frame). Each frame contains the beacon filed, i.e. the broadcast control channel (BCCH) which comprises timestamp, SSID, and BS-node capabilities. The frame also contains the frame control channels which carries information on the structure and format of the ongoing frame, i.e. the slots scheduler which contains the exact position of all the slots and the Tx/Rx times and guard times. The GACH and the RACH are used for random access channel when the OBU needs to join the WBSS. The RACH is the channel that the OBUs use for association request. The GACH is the grant access channel that contains all the OBUs accepted for transmission in the next frame. The TDMA is using transmission opportunities (TXOPs) mechanism originally provided by the IEEE 802.11e to calculate the DL and UL time slots duration. The TXOP is a predefined start time and a maximum duration for the station to access the medium. A RSU will set its own NAV to prevent its transmission during a TXOP that has been granted through the OBU (Figure4. 6). Rather than categorizing the data traffic based on the voice, the data and the video as in the 802.11e, the data traffic priority categories are based on the OBUs channel quality. The RSU gives high priority to vehicles with high speed to send more frames before it leaves the WBSS. The vehicle with the high channel fading will get more number of slots. Of course, this mechanism will introduce performance anomaly, however, we can use any of the solutions available in the literature for the performance anomaly (Tavanti, 2007) (IEEE P802.11p/D3.0,2007). DCD feedback TDMA DCF EDCA PMD and PLCP Figure4.6 Channel fading parameters feedback for vehicles transmission priority and TXOP setting. 4.4. IMPLEMENTATIONS OF TDMA PROTOCOL IN THE SIMULATION ENVIRONMENT In the previous section, we theoretically describe the main characteristics of the protocol which we want to design. This section explains how we implemented the ideas of this thesis by the modification Code of C++ in the Network Simulation. Although the protocol that we want to design is basically a protocol of MAC, we have to put in mind that is not only changes to be made in the MAC layer will be done. We will also have to deal with the physical and application layer. From the point of view of the provider of MAC layer is the one which is responsible to handle the various types of packages (from service and control channel). In fact, the MAC layer in the side of the provider is the one which carries the multiplexing of TDMA between the two channels (and also between various services to the interior of the channel of the service). The application, in this case, will produce the packages which will be presented in each channel. From the point of view of the client layers, MAC and application are simple. The MAC layer basically responsible; to send to application the packages which the client wants to receive (packages which belong to the channel or from desire service) or throwing the packages that not requested by the client (packets from a broadcast or unicast service the client is not interested in). The application layer will be the one that which produces the packages of the request from clients to send to the provider when they are interested by a service unicast. Well as we described in detail the characteristics of the MAC protocol designed earlier, we may carry out this idea described theirs corresponds to the last version of our protocol, to reach this execution that we programmed and examined before simple versions, the changes of the force and improvements made between the versions are related to the definition of the various services offered in the section of channel service: The first version only considered a unidirectional communication between provider and client. The reason was that we only define broadcast services in the service channel. A second version consisted in defining unicast services and hence introducing a bidirectional communication between provider and client. This new version was more complex than the previous one so we decided to divide the application we had until now (called pbc3) into two sides: the application in the provider side (pbc3) and the application in the client side (pbc3Sink). This idea of defining two sides of an application or protocol layer (to simplify its implementation) is already used in other applications or protocol layers included in the simulator as TCP. The third and last version consisted in implementing the algorithm which handles the access of more than one client to the same unicast service. This was not considered in version two. When we are programming our MAC protocol, several problems raised, which are not only in our side, but also of the limitations or the restrictions of the Network Simulation. Well, in the next section4.5 we describe and explained all, it is worth to mention a principal limitation in so much it deeply influenced the execution of our protocol. The limitation comes like more parallel flow of the data in the same node started to appear (the node can be client or provider). In our case we decided to have only one provider, this provider will produce the data of both services. This means that the provider will have more application to the function in parallel and more file test in the MAC layer (see Figure 3.2), each one associated to a different data flow. That is the reason why we are interested in parallelizing. The problem is, in so far as we know, installing parallel flows in same node; is not a task easy to make in the simulator. The most common solution is composed to use nodes as parallel flows as much of an idea used when a protocol stack is defined on the two aircraft or more (like the plan of the data and management represented on Figure 2.3). This is Explained in (GMPLS, 2006), or when we wish to have a node of multi-interface, in (NS2 Notebook). The idea is: if we cannot have more than one application function in parallel in the same node, what would be the possible solution? The answer to that, like also accentuated in section4.5, is to have only one application to function in the provider, which produces various types of packages according to the time execution. This approximation also solves the problem to have more than one queue (in parallel) in the MAC layer. We will not need various queues to store various packages due to these packages arrive at the MAC layer already in the order; they must be sent. This solution simplifies the definition of the MAC layer but made the definition of the application layer to be more complex. Although the solution taken could seem rudimentary; the fact is that the difference between the theoretical solution and rectifies is not also large particularly when to think that what we want with once examine with the protocol is implemented. After the mention and explanation of this problem we can now specify how the protocol was made. We will start to explain how application is defined in all both, client and provider. Both sides application have two principal functions: one is responsible for creation and sending of the packages to the lower layers and the other is responsible to receive the packages of the lower layer. The application in the side of the provider calls the pbc3 and has two principal functions: one for send and other for receive frame. While sending the frame we basically have to create a package (by defining its title) and send it. The provider will send various types of packages according to the execution time. Basically we will have two types of packages: the packages of management in the control channel of inspection mark and the packages of the data in the excavation of service of the channel timeslot. These packages will have various headers. In case of the packages of the zones information of the header are as in Figure 4.7: Type Service_id Time_slot seqNum lastPacket node_id Send_time Payload Figure 4.7: Fields of the application header for data frames. Service_id: Field used by the provider to indicate the service whose payload is included in the frame. Time_slot: Field that shows the subtime slot when the service is offered. SeqNum: Sequence number of the packet sent. Nowadays is only used in data packets which belong to unicast services, it is used by the provider when more than one client want to receive the same private information. LastPacket: This field is related to seqNum. It is used to indicate that the packet sent is the last one. In case of management frames the header is defined by the following fields in Figure 4.8. Type Services_ Num_services node_id Send_time Payload Information Figure4.8. Fields of the application header for management frames. services_information: It is only used in management frames. It is a vector which contains the basic information about the services offered by the provider. This basic information is defined by three fields: the first field is the identifier of the service, the second field is the subtimeslot identifier and the third field is the type of the service (as we said already before the type of the service means if the service is broadcast or if it is unicast). These three fields must be defined for each service available in the provider, the Figure 4.9 shows that. Service 1 Time Slot where Type of Service 1 Service 2 Time Slot when Type of service 2 Identifier Service 1 is offered Identifier Service 2 is offered Figure 4.9: Example of the services_information buffer when two services offered. Although in our implementation the identifier of the service and the identifier of the timeslot is the same (which means the service whose identifier is the number one will be offered in the subtime slot number one), we decided to define two variables because they would have different values in future versions of the protocol. Num_services: Value used to indicate the total number of services which are going to be offered by the provider during the service channel timeslot. Once we have explained how our application works in both sides (provider and client) we must explain the main changes done in the MAC layer. When we download the NS2.33 version there was already included an implementation of IEEE802.11a protocol. We didnt want to make use of this code because it was totally oriented to guaranty the CSMA/CA with virtual carries sense mechanism, we are not interested in. there was also simple TDMA implementation included. We decided to adapt into our requirements. We basically had to change the definition of the TDMA frame and to set up both data and management MAC headers. In contrast to the application layer there are no variables defended to make use of the MAC layer through the Tcl script. If we concentrate on the physical layer, we will see that in our version of Network Simulation NS2, there were already two physical layers for wireless communications applied: the first one called the wirelessPHY and the second one called WirelessPhyExt. We are interested to use this last version of the physical channel basically it presented an important concept for us: it supports multiple arrangements of the modulation. WirelessPhyExt leaves the function with BPSK, QPSK, QAM16 and QAM64 as it is described in (Qi Chen, 2008). The modulation influences certain important characteristics such as the rate of header information and minimum sensitivity of the receiver, according to the indications the Figure 3.3 of, and consequently the period of the data of transmission and SINR necessary to receive it and to decode it. The only problem is that this new version of the wireless channel must be used together with an extension of the MAC layer called Mac802_11Ext. We were not interested in using that one for the same reason we were not interested in using the Mac802_11 version; and for that we decided to introduce the multiple modulation schemes in the WirelessPhy layer. Another important point when working low layers of the WAVE protocol stack is to think about how the channel is modelled in NS2. There are four different types of channel propagation defined and include in NS2.33, The free space model, the Two-Ray Ground reflection model, the Shadowing model and the Nakagami model. The first three models are well described in (The NS manual, 2008). 4.5 SIMULATION PROBLEMS AND IMPLIMENTATION IMPROVEMENTS Here we explained the reason for which we are interested to study the technology of TDMA in the V2I communications and the process followed to define and apply our protocol. By creating a new protocol, sometimes it is not possible to design the theoretical idea that we had because of some limitations presented by the simulator. It is also possible that our execution could be improved at the points given. We must realize that although the protocol seems to be complex sometimes, many improvements could be made to obtain the best and more specific results. The idea of this section is just to explain the main problems found when elaborating our protocol and to suggest some future improvements. If we refer first to the problems found when we were working we must clarify that most of them are not really problems (in the sense of bugs found when executing the protocol) but limitations the simulator has which do not allow us to define the protocol as we wanted to. There are three main limitations we want to point out: The first is already mentioned in the previous section. The problem is related to the parallel data flows in a node. We were interested by this fact of being able not only to have more application to the function in parallel in the same node (as explained in the section 4.4) but to also define the two planes of protocol, data and planes of management, in the same node (that we can see Figure 2.3) although this last idea was thrown it required of much work to make. In section 4.4 we adopted easy and the fast solution which does not have affected the results obtained. But there is other solutions, simplest is composed to define nodes as many, in the code of TCL, as data flows we need and link these nodes through a router. To explain it easily: we will have one node per each data queue (see Figure 3.3) and one router that handle the information from each node. This solution is based in the actual implementation of the Diffserv queues in the NS (Definition of physical queues) where virtual and physical queues are used (Implementing multiqueue). In our case we will need at least two nodes: one for the data of the control channel and the other for the data of the service channel, in case only one service is offered. We must realize this solution involves changes in the Tcl code which leads to a simple C++ implementation. Another solution, which could be considered as an improvement is to have only one application running on the provider that generates different types of packets but instead of doing it as a function of the execution time, it could generate them randomly and give the work of organize them to the link layer. In this case we will need to define an algorithm in charge of finding the desired packets in the unique queue that exists in the link layer and sending them in the correct order to the MAC layer. There is a third solution which allows having an implementation closer to the one specified in the standards ((IEEE 802.11, 2007) and (Implementing multiqueue)). The idea consists of adapting the definition of the queue done nowadays in the implementation 802.11e standard which is included in the simulator. As we can see in (Design and verification, 2003) this implementation requires changes in the definition of the class queue which allows having multiples queues by creating them in an array (Evaluation of IEEE 802.11e). The source code of this new type of queue can be found in (Evaluation of IEEE 802.11e). The second limitation is related to the synchronization of the nodes. Those nodes can be an OBU or a RSU. The NS is a simulator based in events controlled by timers. The fact is, as it is pointed out in IEEE 1609.4 standard in (Yunpeng, 2007) all the nodes require to be synchronized before communication. The synchronization is especially important when using TDMA technology and it is a process which will be carried on when any OBU enters in the communication area of a new RSU in a centralized system. The fact is that in the NS tool all the nodes implemented (in the Tcl code) have the same time basis which means they do not need any synchronization because they are already synchronized. If we are interested in defining the synchronization process we should first desynchronize the nodes by manipulating their timers. In our case we will consider the RSU time basis to be the one the other nodes must to synchronize on. Each OBU will have to follow a synchronization process before receiving data frames from the RSU. The idea could be the following: the first time an OBU receives frames from a new RSU it gets the timestamp of the RSU and, after adding the delay produced by the propagation of the frame to this timestamp, adjusts its timers. Calculate the delay or time difference between the RSU and the OBU is not complicated. The only idea which does not seem clear is how to set up different time basis in the nodes. The third and last limitation is related to the anti-collisions mechanism used in the MAC layer mainly based in CSMA/CA algorithm. We detected the problem when executing our code: we found there were collisions between request frames when a considered number of OBUs were interested in receiving information about the same unicast service. Those collisions should not take place if we keep in mind each node is supposed to be able of sense the medium to see whether it is busy before sending any kind of frame. Why this type of collisions is produced? As we explained earlier, it is necessary to present intervals of guard to the end of each time slit to avoid collisions between the reinforcements produced by various devices (OBUs and RSU in our case) but in this case the collisions due are produced to different OBUs send braces of request really narrowly in time and, because of them cannot detect if the medium is with vacuum or not, a collision is produced and detected by the RSU. When working with the NS tool we are not able to do all the things we want to, not only because of some restrictions or limitations the tool has (as we explained before) but also because of time we did not implement all the ideas which came to our mind and we must simplify and focus our work. Because of this lack of time there exist a lot of points in our protocol which could be improved. Some of these points are explained in the following paragraphs. If we focus in the implementation of the control channel the most important improvement which could be done is to introduce critical frames and implement the process each node has to follow when receiving those frames. Introducing those types of frames will be really interesting because we can see how to handle both types of information (critical and no critical) and we would make a better use of the control channel than we do in our actual implementation. If we pay attention to the service channel there are some things which could be improved, the ideas are summarized in the following points: In the actual implementation there is not any prioritization between nodes, which means when two or more nodes want to receive the same information (which is unicast) the first who ask for it is the first which receives the data. One possibility is to define the priority as a function of the position of each OBU with respect to the RSU. It sounds coherent to give higher priority to the nodes that are closer to the RSU because of their small latency (time necessary to consume a service). Basically the latency is smaller because the propagation time (one of the terms

Leadership in Tata Group

Leadership in Tata Group Introduction: Leadership is integrated part of our life. According to corporate chief and former US presidential candidate Ross Perot, the principles of leadership are timeless because, in a rapidly changing world, human nature remains a constant. We all experience leadership in our life from early childhood in our families, through friendships, social, recreational and sports activities, school and higher education, to politics and government, and, of course, in our work, we all recognize leadership in other people and often in ourselves. In government, global corporations and small businesses alike, the leadership role is becoming more demanding, more open to scrutiny and more difficult [Roger Gill]. The development of leadership theory also parallels the development of organizational theory. The bureaucratic form of organization is characterized by laissez-faire leadership whereby so-called leaders tend to avoid taking a stand, ignore problems, not follow up, and refrain from intervening or transactional leadership, in which leaders practise management by exception, focusing only on deviations from what is required, and contingent reward, rewarding people (either materially or psychologically) for achieving what is required. The emergence of the post-bureaucratic form of organization in the late nineteenth century reflects the development of the concept of transformational leadership. Theory Approaches to Leadership: Number of Leadership theories and approaches has been evolved on the basis of Style, Trait, Behavioural, Transformational, Situational and Charisma. Many researchers made efforts linking some of the theories across these leadership approaches. But each model has its own pros, cons, assumptions and limitations. Latest researches are conducted on Situational Transformational leadership styles. Leadership gurus presented new models as variations to the already existing models. Max Weber, MacGregor, Bernard Bass, Warren Bennis Nanus are few important researchers in the area of transformational leadership. Understanding the difference between transactional and transformational leadership is vital in getting the whole concept of transformational leadership theory. In general, a relationship between two people is based on the level of exchange they have. Exchange need not be money or material; it can be anything. The more exchange they have the more stronger the relation. Managers expects more productivity from employee in order to give good rewards. In this way, if something is done to anyone based on the return then that relation is called as Transactional type. In business, leaders announces rewards in turn to the productivity. These relations are all about requirements, conditions and rewards. In life, at one point of time, things happen without expectation from other side. Say, moms dedicated service to her kid. Mom doesnt expect anything from the child and the service she provides in raising the child is  unconditional, dedicated, committed. Mom plays a major role in shaping up the kids future life. This type of relation is called as Transformational. Leaders do exist in this world with these behaviours. Transformational Leaders wo rk toward a common goal with followers; put followers in front and develop them; take followers to next level; inspire followers to transcend their own self-interests in achieving superior results. Leadership Approach in TATA Group: TATA Group founded in 1868, is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in the Mumbai, India. The Group has 500,000 employees spread over six continents (more than 80 countries). TATA Group current market capitalization is worth $80bn and is the largest private corporate group in India. TATA Group is biggest employer in UK, employing more than 50,000 people. TATA Group has interests in communications, IT, engineering, materials, services, energy, consumer products and chemicals. Its chairman, Ratan Tata is one of Indias and the worlds most influential person right now. The Tata Group is known for its good business ethics and corporate governance. TATA Groups leadership development programme aims at grooming the managers of today into the leaders of tomorrow. The leadership development programme conceived by JRD Tata, the late chairman of TATA group in 1950s. The idea behind the leadership programme known as Tata Administrative Services (TAS) was to select and groom young managers, provide them opportunity for professional growth, and make them leaders of tomorrow. This is TATAs in-house programme and has goal is to provide training to high performers, act as a cradle of change and develop the leadership qualities. Most of the TATA Group companies are traditionally led by these groomed leaders. The Group leadership style has been quite consistent from its existence since 1868. The Group has incorporated some more leadership changes which are essential in current century to drive towards more competitive. In terms of leadership style, TATA Group has adopted a team-led culture. With Ratan as a leader, the management style of the entire TATA Group has changed; trust became a huge facet and theme of the group. Ratan Tata has put a complete organisational restructuring when he took over by taking a more matrix-style approach building teams. These changes would have obviously transformed a lot in the business, senior managers would have had to be on their toes and flexibility and adaptability became essential qualities to have. The leadership changed from a centralised, command centre to a much more distributed form with employees and all managers enjoying greater responsibility and knowledge about the Group, which would have in turn; motivated them to work harder and as a group. From distinctive leadership models available such as the McGregor Theory X and Y; where a theory X manager believes workers dislike work, are not creative and avoid all responsibility while a theory Y manager believes that workers get as much enjoyment from work as they can derive with leisure, accept responsibility and are creative; it can be seen from this, that Ratan wanted all his managers to be modelled as closely to Theory Y and he himself could be called a Theory Y manager. He encouraged managers to be innovative and share all their ideas, consulting actively with them and giving them more responsibility and importantly encouraged team-working. Five Factor Model (Big Five): Emotional Stability: Ratan Tata has very low anxiety within him and has great sense of security with his future leadership. Extraversion: Even being a bachelor Ratan Tata is very sociable. He has produced very positive affect on future leadership of TATA Group. Openness: He believes in originality and versatility. By making  £1200/- car he has shown his great interest with and innovation seeking personality. Agreeableness: Within his management team Ratan Tata is well trusted and very friendly. Conscientiousness: He is very dutifulness. He spent most of his life working for TATA Group without any self-interest. He is very well organised as well. Style (Behaviour) Theory in TATA Group: As per style theory, there are three types of leadership models are evident in leadership. These are as follows. Autocratic Democratic Laissez-faire Ratan Tata is a leader who engages more democratic style of leadership approach. However at previous occasion has used other two kind of style as well. He is more democratic because he always encourages his group leadership to be creating good communication and participation. Future leadership are well informed about future strategy and they are very well engaged in decision making process. Most of the group long-term and short-term strategies are formulated by the lower rank of the leadership. They are treated as stake holders. Until now TATA Group has got leadership within them. Ratan Tata has occasionally shown some form of autocratic style of leadership. Sometimes when needed especially when quick and informed decisions have to be taken, but he is never too commanding in his nature, being a man of few words and being more of a man of action, this is evident from the manner he aggressively pushes for bold international deals, such as during the global acquisitions of business powe rhouses such as Corus, Jaguar and Land Rover, and Tetley Tea. One of his senior leadership team member, Muthuraman( Executive Director) refers him Ratan was the chief architect of the Corus deal. I was worried about the magnitude and the amount of money. But he instilled confidence. In daily routine matters and in developing the leadership, Ratan Tata also uses facets of the Laissez-Faire model such as the delegation of important duties and decision-making, he also does not in any way interfere with any managers functioning, he might make a broad strategic assessment but he does not interfere in operational issues and details, this shows that he has complete trust and faith in his managers and believes in their ability, this quote from Gopalakrishnan, an executive director of the company, shows how much value Ratan Tata places on his trust, this can be highly motivating for managers and workers alike, I remember what Ratan told us at a meeting. He said that he will continue to trust all his managers, but once they lose that trust, he will go after them. I think that is a very fair deal. Max Webers Leadership Model in TATA Group: Looking at Max Webers Transactional and Transformational Leadership models, where a leader is classed in three forms which are Bureaucratic, Charismatic and Traditional, where a bureaucratic leader is one who is always bound by the set rule and does not want to go beyond them; a Traditional leader is one who does and follows everything from a long past or history and always loyally obeys these traditions; a Charismatic leader is one who uses his own laurels or abilities to inspire and is one who can be described as radically opposed to administrative rules and legal principles. From these models, Ratan Tata falls into the Charismatic form because he is one who leads by example, coming up with highly innovative ideas such as  £1200 (Rs. One Lakh) car the Nano, budget hotels or low-end watches, he brought radical change to the Tata Group as a whole, changing it from its Traditional mindset to new more flexible and adaptive cultural mindset. Bennis Nanus Transformational Leadership Model in TATA Group: We can see from Bennis and Nanuss Transformational Leadership model that the transformational leaders groom their followers into self-empowered leaders and their main focus is to articulate vision and values clearly so the newly self-empowered leaders know where to go. Their traits include logical thinking, persistence, empowerment and self-control. Benniss and Nanus has evolved the model which emphasis on the four Is of Transformational leadership, which are Idealised Influence (being a role model) Inspirational Motivation (creating a team spirit, motivating and provide a challenge) Intellectual Stimulation (innovation and creativity) Individual Consideration (mentoring and providing support for followers) Ratan Tata, Chairman of the TATA Group has been proved a true transformational leader. We can see all Is built-in in Ratan Tata. He is the leader with great vision hence he knows right approach to groom future leadership. He has implemented the team spirit in whole group at every level. He empowers all his managers and executives and has complete faith in them, he is extremely innovative and is credited for much of the Groups new products, he places a great deal of importance to his RD department and he definitely cares deeply about the welfare of all his employees and managers. During the Mumbais terrorist attack in Taj Hotel, he took front line in leading at the time of crises. In his vision statement he articulated One hundred years from now, I expect TATA Group to be much bigger, of course, than it is now. More importantly, I hope the Group comes to be regarded as being the best in India. Best in the Manner in which we operate, best in the products we deliver and best in our valu e system and ethics. Having said that, I hope that a hundred years from now we will spread our wings far beyond India, that we become a global group, operating in many countries, as Indian business conglomerate that is at home in the world, carrying the same set of trust as we do today. As a leader of a global business group, Ratan Tata knows the fierce competition experienced by his business empire. He makes all effort to make his business competitive at global level. Through transformational leadership process TATA Group has made their processes and technology up to date. Once Ratan Tata said to his managers in his vision speech A company or business which remains static is a business that will die; a company that constantly changes and accepts that there are better ways to do things than the way they are done today, is a company that will survive in the global market that we face. From this statement we can infer that he knows the importance of developing a good leadership within group to take TATA Group to new heights. Ratan Tata involves strategy in leadership. He is a deep thinker and a brilliant strategist as is described by one of his Executive Directors, Alan Rosling, He is a deep thinker and extremely strategic. He is always 2-3 steps ahead. Ratan Tata is a man of strong integrity, ethics and valued principles. He cultivated the same across the TATA Group companies. One of his companies CEO said Tata has shown that there is no other way he will do business other than do it ethically. He believes in strong value based leadership approach in doing business. Ratan Tata has led the TATA Group to transforming from local business group to become a global leader. Conclusions: Ratan Tata of the Tata Group is a more kind of transformational leader. He made Tata Group as global brand. He has provided inspiration to leaders within his own company. In Tata Group leaders are engaged in decision making at every level. Ratan Tata has successfully lead and motivated its CEO/MD of the group companies to be ambitious. He has always adopted a ethical approach in group business. Appendix: Reference List Roger Gill, Theory and Practice of Leadership, Sage Publication, 2006 http://leadershipchamps.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/transactional-leadership-vs-transformational-leadership/ John P. Kotter, A Force For Change: How Leadership Differs From Management (New York: The Free Press, 1990). OTool, James.  Leadership from A to Z: A Guide for the Appropriately Ambitious, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999.   Visionary Leadership: Creating a Compelling Sense of Direction for Your Organization (Jossey Bass Business and Management Series): Burt Nanus Tata Steel Group Annual Reports (2005-06, 2006-07, 2007-08, 2008-09, 2009-10) Sometimes referred to as the chairmens chairman, JRD adopted a management by consensus style: When a number of persons are involved I am definitely a consensus man, he once said, adding: but that does not mean that I do not disagree or that I do not express my views. Basically it is a question of having to deal with individual men heading different enterprises. You have to adapt yourself to their ways and deal accordingly and draw out the best in each man. If I have any merit it is getting on with individuals according to their ways and characteristics. In fifty years I have dealt with a hundred top directors and I have got on with all of them. At times it involves suppressing yourself. It is painful but necessary. To be a leader you have got to lead human beings with affection. Be that as it may, Tata spotted talent easily. And once he was confident that a manager would perform, he gave him (alas, no women) a long rope. If they wanted to be on their own, like Sumant Moolgaokar, he left them to it. If they occasionally wanted a shoulder to cry on, like Darbari Seth, JRD was there.

commercial art :: essays papers

commercial art The contemporary commercial art and design of today has no doubt been created through the heavy influences of 20th century art. Most corporations who advertise on a large scale look back to the most influential art of the past century when creating their ads. It's almost impossible to walk the city streets without being bombarded by billboards with crafty designs and catchy phrases. With a little research though, it's fairly easy to find that the basis of this commercial art can be found in the art of the last one hundred years. Cartoons come first to mind when thinking about the different ways 20th century art have impacted modern day art and design. Long before I saw the original "American Gothic" by Grant Wood, I laughed at a portrait of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck standing together in front of a farm house with pitch fork in hand. Most cartoons seem to have an underlying humor meant to be understood by even the most articulate and intellectual adult, while at the same time being simplistic enough to entertain a small child. Cartoonists successfully accomplish this by being well read and educated in myth, history and art. Advertising agencies must be just as well educated in order to create influential advertisements that will impact consumers. "De Stijl" created by Peit Mondrian has without a doubt been one of the most popular designs incorporated into today's commercial art. On almost every bottled hair care product from Loreal is a composed set of lines complete with red, yellow and blue squares, expressing striking similarities to "De Stijl." Tommy Hilfiger uses clean lines and the three primary colors in all of his advertisements as well as on his signature label which also mimic the style of Peit Mondrian. While visiting a museum and studying a Mondrian, most of the general public repeatedly remarks to how his paintings look as if "anyone could do them." However, using the same artistic logic and redesigning his work on a bottle of hairspray or a t-shirt, the public becomes awe-stricken and then rushes out in a mad fury to purchase this stylish product which is actually based on the same s tyle of art which if hung in a museum looks to them like something "anyone could make." Advertisers look also to the photography of the past century when designing ads for magazines.

international terrorism :: essays research papers

After reading Martha Crenshaw’s essay on The Causes of Terrorism, thoughts were provoked that allowed me to look at the causes of terrorism from an entirely new perspective. It took my preconceived notions and feelings towards terrorism out of the picture and really let me look at the subject from a balanced point of view. I found this appealing because I have never been able to comprehend how there could be rational justifications to such a harsh reality. It really motivated me to try and understand more about such a complex subject.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   This essay explained settings for terrorism, reasons for terrorism, and individual motivation and participation. All three of which made me think of the America before the constitution, before equal rights were assured to all individuals. These privileges did not come for free; we had to fight for them.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In settings for terrorism, the author talked about subgroups of larger populations that may be discriminated against, or suppressed and not given equal opportunity for political participation. These particular situations may be conducive to terrorist organization and activity. These were some of the same settings for the causes of wars in America’s history, from the American Revolution, to the Civil War. During the American Revolution fighters for their cause were not looked at as terrorist although they did participate in, what was considered at that time to be, unconventional warfare which most consider today to be a personality of terrorism.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Reasons for terrorism are more complex. One intention of a terrorist organization may be to provoke a counter reaction from the government, to increase publicity for the terrorists’ cause, and to demonstrate that criticism of the regime is well founded. The terrorists mean to force the state to show its true repressive face, thereby driving the people into the arms of the challengers. September 11, 2001 was an excellent example of this. After the attacks, Americans were outraged and emotional. Action had to be taken to revenge the lives lost and to ensure our national security. Everyone seemed vulnerable now, more than ever. America’s fight against terrorism led to the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and at the same time America tried to spread democracy in, previously, undemocratic countries. The intention of the Al Qaeda to strike fear in their target population was only the beginning of what they were able to accomplish. Al Qaeda showed the world that their criticism of America’s attempt to force democracy throughout the world was true. international terrorism :: essays research papers After reading Martha Crenshaw’s essay on The Causes of Terrorism, thoughts were provoked that allowed me to look at the causes of terrorism from an entirely new perspective. It took my preconceived notions and feelings towards terrorism out of the picture and really let me look at the subject from a balanced point of view. I found this appealing because I have never been able to comprehend how there could be rational justifications to such a harsh reality. It really motivated me to try and understand more about such a complex subject.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   This essay explained settings for terrorism, reasons for terrorism, and individual motivation and participation. All three of which made me think of the America before the constitution, before equal rights were assured to all individuals. These privileges did not come for free; we had to fight for them.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In settings for terrorism, the author talked about subgroups of larger populations that may be discriminated against, or suppressed and not given equal opportunity for political participation. These particular situations may be conducive to terrorist organization and activity. These were some of the same settings for the causes of wars in America’s history, from the American Revolution, to the Civil War. During the American Revolution fighters for their cause were not looked at as terrorist although they did participate in, what was considered at that time to be, unconventional warfare which most consider today to be a personality of terrorism.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Reasons for terrorism are more complex. One intention of a terrorist organization may be to provoke a counter reaction from the government, to increase publicity for the terrorists’ cause, and to demonstrate that criticism of the regime is well founded. The terrorists mean to force the state to show its true repressive face, thereby driving the people into the arms of the challengers. September 11, 2001 was an excellent example of this. After the attacks, Americans were outraged and emotional. Action had to be taken to revenge the lives lost and to ensure our national security. Everyone seemed vulnerable now, more than ever. America’s fight against terrorism led to the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and at the same time America tried to spread democracy in, previously, undemocratic countries. The intention of the Al Qaeda to strike fear in their target population was only the beginning of what they were able to accomplish. Al Qaeda showed the world that their criticism of America’s attempt to force democracy throughout the world was true.

Children, Media, and Violence Essay -- Media Violence and Aggression

"The evidence is overwhelming. To argue against it, the link between media violence and teen violence is like arguing against gravity," said Jeffrey McIntyre, legislative and federal affairs officer for the American Psychological Association. As children are exposed to acts of violence in the media through television, video games, music, movies, etc. alarming results are occurring. The main negative effect being an increase in aggression among youth who are regularly exposed to the media and an increase in violent patterns as they mature into adulthood. If not resolved this problem of violence in the media will continue to push children, youth and adults to acts of aggression such as verbal and physical abuse and other more serious crimes. On average an American child will see 16,000 murders and 200,000 acts of violence by the age of 18 through the television. Thousands of studies from the 1950s to the present day have all suggested that viewing violent acts will increase violent behavior while only less than 20 have suggested otherwise (Boyse). As our children are exposed to these 16,000 murders and 200,000 violent acts one can only conclude that aggression, crime and violence can only increase in our younger generations from being exposed to the current media. One study, done by a panel of experts, showed that when youth are exposed short term to violent movies, television and video games that there is an increase in aggressive thinking and behavior. Their studies also show a long term effect into adulthood when individuals are continually exposed to violent media growing up, with spouse abuse and other aggressive acts (Huesmann). I personally remember growing up playing violent video games such as Halo and hearing, ... ...Mathis Grayson, Charlotte. â€Å"Media Violence May Affect Children's Minds.† WebMD. June 2005. Web. March 2012 Palo Alto Medical Foundation. 2012. Sutter Health. 3 March 2012 Park, Alice. â€Å"How Playing Violent Video Games May Change the Brain.† Healthland: Time Mag., 2 Dec. 2011. Web. March 2012. Wang, Yang. â€Å"Violent Video Games Alter Brain Function in Young Men.† Medical School News 1 Dec. 2011. Indiana U. Web. March 2012.

Lies the Media Tells Us Chapter 3 Big Pharma

Going to the doctor’s office is never a fun experience. Probing, poking, and trying to decipher what the doc writes on your prescription can be confusing, however, the most upsetting part is what goes on behind closed doors. Big Pharma, chapter 3 of Lies the Media Tells Us, explains the PR tactics of drug companies. James Winter explains these tactics used to persuade doctors to use their brand. In some cases these doctors can get free vacations, cars, front row seating for a basketball game, and a stack of cash. The doctors that respond to these tactics are completely unethical. Doctors have the responsibility to prescribe the best drugs for their patients. Although many Doctors pick what gives the best gift package. Doctors have also been known to push drugs onto patients that may not really need it. This is due to the continual widening of guidelines. This widening is increasing proportions of the population so there are more candidates that fit into the category. This is when a condition gets called a disease. The best case scenario of this is Viagra. Viagra is for male sexual deficiency that has been shoved down America’s throat. There were many discrete commercials about it during day time air and more explicit commercials at night. There were also several celebrity endorsements, Hugh Hefner was glorified for being a user. What drug companies aim for are life-long medication users. These candidates are a gold mine for companies because they have created a dependency for the drug. Another highly publicized â€Å"disease† is high cholesterol. The Pfizer drug company has pushed their cholesterol pills for a decade now and all the marketing has worked. However, what they don’t tell you is that these pills run the risk of having more side effects than lowering cholesterol. By law these commercials need to state the side effects but when your being prescribed most doctors don’t dwell on these facts. This is wrong when there are better natural forms available. Although Doctors rarely discuss this with patients because these natural forms are very cheap or in some cases completely free. A healthy diet, naps, and some exercise are all examples of ways to lower cholesterol without taking prescribed pills. The push to take pills to help medical problems has completely consumed our country. In my opinion I feel that this correlates with the rise of plastic surgery. The easy way out is very popular among all ages because the time and effort that exercise or healthy diets needs is not necessary when pills and plastic surgery are in reach. These pharmaceutical companies adore patients that take their medicine and don’t ask questions. But what happens to the people that do? Not all doctors are shady and unethical. Nancy Olivieri and Dr. David Healy are true whistleblowers. Both have tried to get the medias attention to worn the public about unsafe drugs. Unfortunately, their good deed put them through heavy backlash and court cases. Olivieri and Healy saw their colleagues turn their backs on them and were fired. This is a tough price to pay when they were trying to do the right thing. Pharmaceutical companies can get away with all of this because they have the money. They pay off whistleblowers, they perform under the table deals with doctors, have multi-million dollar campaign ads for their drugs, and have celebrity endorsers. Although these tactics are very unethical there is one more that upset me the most. This is ghostwriting. Ghostwriting is a doctor that works for the drug company and writes an article for a drug that gets published in a medical journal. Lots of doctors write for medical journals but what separates them is their lack of honesty. These ghostwriters don’t say their affiliated with the pharmaceutical and praise the drug that the company wants to endorse. When these companies get articles published about their drug its free advertising. So when other doctors read the article their actually looking at an advertisement but they don’t know it. These medical journals are supposed to be unbiased and legitimate. This is undermining why these medical journals are published and taken so seriously. In my opinion this is the worst thing a pharmaceutical company can do. PR is a huge branch within the pharmaceutical company and they all have about the same strategies when a drug scandal breaks. I feel that this is crucial to why these companies have gotten away with so much. Their first tactic is denial. Like a child they deny everything and have accused the media of sensationalism and attack their accuracy of reporting. If the scandal doesn’t dissipate after they have three different options. First they could shutdown, this consists of claiming their is a conspiracy. Second option is an extrication which is hiring high priced lawyers to find an escape route or third which is purging. Purging is very interesting because they basically pick an employee in their own company, pay them to take the rap, and then tell everyone it was the employees fault. Most of the time they try to get someone that is going to retire; I guess everyone has a price. The last option of the pharm co. is the most used. This is the compensation tactic. The drug company offers the plaintiff a large settlement as long as the plaintiff agrees there was no malpractice. This corrupt business isn’t that big of a shock. Where ever their is a lot of money there is usually some unethical practices. However, I feel that their money has way too much control. Their funds are practically endless and they will come up with any lie to make more money. After reading this chapter I thought about Obama’s healthcare reform. I think the reason why their is so much backlash is because the pharmaceutical companies are scared about the future and if they will be able to keep these shenanigans going. I like the idea of Obama’s healthcare but I know that these companies will weasel their unethical views into it. Honestly, I don’t think there is anyway to stop this unless everyone working for these companies is fired and it is started back up from scratch.