Smartphone Operating Systems: Evaluation Enhancements

Smartphone Operating Systems: Evaluation Enhancements Muneer Ahmad Dar Javed Parvez Abstract—The increasing number of mobile operating systems that operates the small hand held devices called the Smartphone, has become integral part of our lives. The openness of these new environments has lead to new domain of apps and markets and has enabled greater integration with existing online services like e-banking etc. Smartphone makers are competing in turns to trump each other for storage, processor speed, platform compatibility and camera megapixels but it’s the largely software the mobile OS that makes the biggest difference to the popularity and market share of Smartphone. This paper evaluates the popular Smartphone Operating Systems with the purpose of understanding the user friendliness, popularity, user privacy and security and accessibility with the wide range of apps. Our research focused on the advantages and limitations of the Smartphone operating systems with the intension to find out if one of them has an edge on the other and finally we propos e the enhancements so as to make them more user friendly and secure. Keywords: mobile Operating Systems; Smartphone; Apps; Processor speed; Megapixels; Security; Accessibility. Introduction Smartphone have become indispensible part of our life and everyone who uses it is getting addicted. Smartphone provides a wide variety of apps ranging from social networking to GPS based location searching that are useful for everyone in their day today tasks. In a study of 1,600 people including managers and professionals [1], Leslie Perlow, found that: 70% people said they check their Smartphone within an hour of getting up. 56% check their phone within an hour of going to sleep. 48% check over the weekend, including on Friday and Saturday nights. 51% check continuously during vacation. 44% said they would experience a great deal of anxiety if they lost their phone and couldnt replace it for a week. With these many professionals becoming dependent on Smartphone, which has necessary components of the computing platform: an operating system, applications and hardware. The main component of a Smartphone on which its functionality depends is the operating system ASmartphone,tablet or any other digitalmobile device is operated by the Operating system called the mobile OS. Modern mobile operating systems includes all the features of apersonal computeroperating system and in addition to that includes the features like atouch screen,cellular,Bluetooth,Wi-Fi,speech recognition,voice recorder, GPS mobile navigation,camera,video camera,music player etc. The Smartphone operating system (OS) development has grown to include competitors such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Symbian, and Palm with each of them trying to make it more user friendly and secure. Although these operating system platforms are trying their best and have come achieved a lot since their inception, none of these Smartphone companies provide a mobile OS that is ideal and satisfies all the users in terms of user friendliness and privacy. They claim that their platforms perform the best in all situations and will certainly not advertise any weakness with their Operating systems. This makes it difficult for end users particularly to a novice user to know which platform is best suited for their need. In this paper, we perform a comprehensive analysis of each mobile operating system in order to identify the strengths of one Operating System over other operating system. Section II gives the overview of various Smartphone operating systems. In section III we identify the limitations of mobile operating systems. In section IV we propose the enhancements which could be implemented in the Smartphone Operating Systems and finally we draw our conclusions in section V. Smartphone Operating Systems ANDROID Andy Rubin, Google’s director of mobile platforms, commented â€Å"There should be nothing that users can access on their desktop that they can’t access on their cell phone.† [1]. with this vision the popularity of smart phones having Google’s Android Operating System is continuously on the rise in the 21st century. .Android is a comprehensive operating environment based on Linux kernel, it is also a layered system; the architecture of Android system is shown as in picture [3]. Applications layer is the site of all Android applications including an email client, SMS program, maps, browser, contacts, and others. All applications are written using the Java programming language. Application framework layer defined the Android application framework. All Android applications are based on the application framework. The Android application framework including: A rich and extensible set of Views that can be used to build an application with beautiful user interface, including lists, grids, text boxes, buttons, and even an embeddable web browser. A set of Content Providers that enable applications to access data from other applications (such as Contacts), or to share their own data. A Resource Manager that provides access to non code resources such as localized strings, graphics, and layout files A Notification Manager that enables all applications to display custom alerts in the status bar. An Activity Manager that manages the lifecycle of applications and provides a common navigation back stack.[1]. Figure 1: Android System Architecture [3] Some of the advantages of Android over other Smartphone operating systems is listed as under. The ability to run tens of thousands of apps just like the iPhone but with choice of phone models that you can choose from. The choice of with or without physical keyboard, shape, color, phone size, screen size, manufacturer, features, and phone carrier. No more monopoly by one company on one carrier. Android allow developers/programmers to develop apps (applications) in what is known as application without borders. Android is beginner friendly and supremely customizable the more you use Googles services, the more Android will shine Android has the majority of the market and the user experience is improving quickly. Google’s Android Now checks your location and calendar to automatically show you relevant info e.g. traffic to work, cafes, and flight details and lets you search with natural voice commands and replies with natural speech. Android is an open source service. This means that it’s free and anyone can use it. Anyone can modify and improve the software making it more effective and personalized. Applications are freely made and designed for Android by numerous app developers all over the world and these apps are offered for free on the Android market place. This feature of open source has also attracted mobile phone producers to manufacture phones using Android OS Android is not just an operating system designed for individuals but it also fulfills your business needs at the same time. Android market place offers numerous apps that are specially designed to manage your business. Now you can have a closer look at your business processes on the go with the help of these apps. IPHONE OS iOS is the mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc. It is the second most commonly used operating system behind Google’s Android. Unlike Android it can be installed only on Apple’s hardware. The iPhone OS has seen a rapid rise in popularity and garnered a large and dedicated user base. The iPhone OS has risen so far and so fast primarily due to the innovations on user interface and availability of 3rd party applications [11]. Unlike the Android security architecture, iOS security model provides different philosophy for achieving mobile device security and user’s protection. The iOS application platform empowers developers to create new applications and to contribute to the application store. However, each application submitted by a third party developer is sent to the revision process. During the revision process the application code is analyzed by professional developers who make sure that the application is safe before it is released the application store. However, such an application, when installed, gets all the permissions on a mobile device. Application might access local camera, 3G/4G, Wi-Fi or GPS module without users knowledge. While Android lets each user handle its own security on their own responsibility, the iOS platform makes developers to write safe code using iOS secure APIs and prevents malicious applications from getting into the app store. The iOS security APIs are located in the Core Services layer of the operating system and are based on services in the Core OS (kernel) layer of the operating system [14]. Application that needs to execute a network task, may use secure networking functions through the API called CFNetwork , located in the Core Services layer. The iOS security implementation includes a daemon called the Security Server that implements several security protocols. The Security Server has no API with public access. Instead, applications use the Keychain Services API, the Certificate, Key, and Trust services API, which in turn gets access with the Security Server. SYMBIAN The Symbian OS was designed specifically for mobile devices with its small memory footprint and consumes low power. It is an open OS, enabling third party developers to write and install applications independently from the device manufacturers. An extensive C++ API is provided which allows access to services such as telephony and messaging, in addition to basic OS functionality. The Symbian OS was designed so applications could run for years without losing the user data. Also the OS has the capability of being platform independent and can run on more than one hardware platform [6, 7, 8, 9]. WINDOWS MOBILE This platform is based on Windows CE (WinCE). WinCe is a compact OS specifically designed for pervasive devices. It is focused on providing a consistent interface for applications on various hardware platforms which emphasizes portability by providing the user with the Win32 API. The hardware platforms include Packet PCs, Smartphone, Portable Media Centers, and even onboard computers in automobiles. The Windows Mobile platform was designed for flexibility and with the developer in mind. For that reason it was designed to support lots of preemptive multitasking. It supports a whopping 256 priority levels for threads and up to 32 processes. It supports all of the standard mutual exclusion and synchronization methods you would expect from a desktop PC. This functionality makes it ideal for a Smartphone because the users typically demand multitasking and want to be as productive as possible [4, 7, 8, 9 ]. PALM OS Palm OS is a proprietary operating system originally developed by Palm Inc. In the early versions (preà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ Garnet), the Palm OS was primarily utilized in Palmà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ developed Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) mobile hardware units. At one point, Palm PDAs with the Palm OS held 85% of the market share in the mobile device market [12]. However, in recent years, Palms market share has been in decline, mostly due to the stagnant nature of the OS development and has yielded the leading position to Symbian [6, 7, 8, 12]. Limitations of Mobile Os As discussed in the previous sections, the mobile operating systems are competing for the major market share and are claiming to be the best for the users, yet they have number of limitations in their platforms which for obvious reasons they are not disclosing to their users. The malicious apps aimed at mobile devices have risen from about 14,000 to 40,000 in less than a year. This rise in the malicious apps requires the strong OS. The limitations of the Mobile operating systems are listed as under: All or No Permission: A user cannot grant single permissions, while rejecting others in order to install the app. Among the list of permissions an app might request a suspicious permission among the other legitimate permissions, will still be able to confirm the installation. Mobile devices may download malware which the mobile OS is not able to trace. The novice users may download apps that contain malware unknowingly because it can be disguised as a well known game, security patch by OS, utility, or other useful application. It is difficult for users to tell the difference between a legitimate app and one containing malware. Often, the users of the app cannot judge the appropriateness and legitimacy of permissions for the app in question. In some cases it may be well understood, for example when a chess game app requests the privilege to reboot the Smartphone or to send SMS messages. In many cases, however, users will simply not be able to understand the appropriateness of the permission. Functionality, which is supposed to be possible only given the appropriate permissions, can still be achieved with less number of permissions or even with none at all. In case of the iOS , the user is not at all informed about any of the permissions. The app can access any of the resources without the permission of the user. Resistance of Android and iOS against various attacks. Proposed OS Enhancements In order to enhance the security of the mobile operating systems we propose the following Enhancements: Need Based Permission System (NBS): The Need-Based Security (NBS) system designed to enhance the privacy of the user at run time. The main advantage of the proposed NBS system is that the user is informed about the authorized and unauthorized access of the resources at run time. The NBS system can be implemented in the operating system to provide the permissions at run time. Currently the Os is either including all the permissions without the information of the user as in case of iOS or it forces the user to accept all the permissions at install time as in case of the worlds popular OS Android. The most important file AndroidManifest.xml which lists the permissions of the app can be modified at run time by providing the need based permission system whenever the app is asking for the permission the user may be informed at that moment. For example, let us examine the Dial Kashmir app available on Google Play which gives all the details of Tourist places in Kashmir and contact details o f important places like universities, government offices etc. The main permission this app may require is the INTERNET. If it includes MANAGE_ACCOUNTS which is the permission that allows the app to retrieve the user account information from the phone, our operating system will get the permission from the user at run time to access the resource and if user allows then only the permission will be granted. The main advantage of our NBS system is that it gives freedom to the users and the programmers to write a code which does not result in usability issues. Need based permission system and getting permission approvals at run time is a relatively new but promising approach as it gives lot of freedom to the novice users. Security API: In order to deal with the malicious apps downloaded by the user, we propose a security API which can be integrated with the existing security framework of mobile operating system. The objective is to provide security against the Apps which are installed by the end user and is given all the permissions at the time of installation. This enhanced security has the desirable property of not disturbing a regular user in any noticeable way. In fact, the user need not even be aware that the Security API has been applied. We have to prevent the modification and access of data from mobile phones by other external malicious applications unknowingly. We propose an API which will enhance the security of existing Android Framework. The first step in our proposed security API is implemented by adapting an encryption technique utilizing Advanced Encryption Algorithm (AES) and applying it to all the personal files in the Smartphone. File operations offered by the proposed Security API should aid in the detection of potentially malicious Apps whose behavior matches that of Malware. Malware recognition is usually achieved by signature matching, heuristic analysis, or comparing hash-values Fig 4: Sequence Diagram of the System Conclusion The increasing trend of Smartphone usage by individuals of all ages has brought forward stiff competition between different Smartphone OS’s and Google’s Android OS. However, recent researches and reports revealed that the novice users are not secure on these platforms because of the limitations of these OS. We found different types of limitations in various mobile Os and particularly in Android and iOS which are the leading mobile Operating Systems. We found that there is a major need of modification in the permission based model of security system and we strongly recommended the implementation of Need based security system in the mobile operating systems so that the novice user can be informed at run time about the access to its various resources. References Perlow, L.A.: Sleeping with your smartphone:how to break the 24-7 habbit and change the way you work, Harvard Business review press, 2012. Kataria, A.; Anjali, T.; Venkat, R., Quantifying smartphone vulnerabilities,Signal Processing and Integrated Networks (SPIN), 2014 International Conference on, vol., no., pp.645,649, 20-21 Feb. 2014doi: 10.1109/SPIN.2014. Bornstein, Dan. 2008. â€Å"Dalvik VM Internals†. http://sites.google.com/site/io/dalvikà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ vmà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ internals> Delac, G.; Silic, M.; Krolo, J., Emerging security threats for mobile platforms,MIPRO, 2011 Proceedings of the 34th International Convention, vol., no., pp.1468,1473, 23-27 May 2011 Muneer Ahmad Dar and Javed Parvez.: â€Å"A Novel Strategy to Enhance the Android Security Framework†.International Journal of Computer Applications91(8):37-41, April 2014. Published by Foundation of Computer Science, New York, USA. Cleron, Mike. â€Å"Androidology à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  Part 2 of 3 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  Architecture Overview. 11 November, 2007. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL6gSd4ugSI> Cleron, Mike. â€Å"Androidology à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  Part 3 of 3 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  Architecture Overview. 11 November, 2007. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPukbH6Dà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ lY> . [8] DeviceForge.com. 2006. â€Å"Sun blesses Java phone†. http://www.deviceforge.com/news/NS6109398413.html> (accessed 14 April 2009). Dilger, Daniel E. iPhone 2.0 SDK: The No Multitasking Myth. 13 March 2008. Roughly Drafted Magazine. http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/03/13/iphoneà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ 20 sdkà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ theà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ noà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ multitaskingà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ myth/> (accessed 8 February 2009). Dilger, Daniel E. â€Å"iPhone OS X Architecture: the Mach Kernel and RAM.† 13 July 2007. Roughly Drafted Magazine. http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/07/13/iphoneà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ osà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ xà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ architectureà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ theà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ machà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ kernelà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ andram/> Faas, Ryan and David Haskin. â€Å"Review: Which smart phone OS works best?†. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasicarticleId=9117021 [14]. Apple inc., iOS Reference Library, Security Overview, http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/Security/Conceptual/Security_Overview/Introduction/Introduction.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000976-CH201-TPXREF101

Alcohol Television Commercials are Misleading Viewers Essay -- Media

Alcohol Television Commercials are Misleading Viewers At any given time a person can turn on their television and find a commercial of some sort. Their main purpose is for them to throw information about their product to anyone who will listen. It is also common for this form of advertisement to be promoting an alcoholic beverage. Whether it’s a catchy song with the chorus chanting â€Å"This Bud’s for you!† or three frogs belching â€Å"Bud-Wei-Ser!†, viewers learn the slogans and use them in their own lives. Needless to say, alcohol companies have mastered the art of grabbing the attention of their audience by imbedding their images and words through commercial advertising. Although clever, these advertisements can be misleading their viewers to think that drinking brings unattainable excitement and pleasure rather than the serious consequences that frequently arise. Statistics for drinking are alarming for any age group. However reports about adolescent drinking are possibly the most alarming, and are a large indicator that alcohol advertisements mislead their audiences. The National Institute on Media and the Family has reported many disturbing facts about the false portrayals of alcohol consumption. For example, the institute reports that â€Å"by the time teenagers reach driving age, they will have seen 75,000 alcohol ads† (Baran, 2004, p. 445). This means that adolescents are exposed to almost 13 alcohol advertisements a day. Whether it’s subtle or obvious, children still get the message that alcohol consumption leads to parties and happiness. In fact, statistics show that â€Å"56% of children in grades 5 through 12 say that alcohol advertising encourages them to drink† (Baran, 2004, p.445). By the use of image ad... ...d federal mandated warnings), research has shown that they hurt the cause as opposed to helping. The boomerang effect expresses just this: â€Å"drinkers perceive alcohol as having more benefits when the warning is present† (Lapin, McKinnon, 1998, p.3). Alcohol is almost like a forbidden fruit, which makes the idea even more exciting and its consumers to feel as though they are overcoming the infringement on their own rights. This research, as discomforting as it is, makes it almost impossible to find a solution to overcoming the misleading information handed out through alcohol commercials. As long as alcohol is sold, it will have to be advertised with the enthusiasm and appeal that it does now, in order to maintain the consumer’s attention. Sadly enough, this has to be done through false conditions which will steadily impact our society’s view of drinking.

Over Population In India

CIA World Fact book reported India as second in rank for the most populated country as of July 2003 survey. The country possesses 170 million hectares of land and has the ability to produce high quantity of crop yields. In 1999, India was reported as second to the highest producer of both rice and wheat. However, the government cannot sustain the biological needs of their countrymen due to their increasing population.In the same year, 53% of its population particularly children at the age of 5 years old was malnourished and 37% experienced lack of supply for fresh water. 5% of the population was reported below average in the poverty line. Almost 15 million people in Bombay consider sidewalks as their beds. The unstoppable increase in population made the problems worse because each day new babies were born and their needs are not being met. Both arguments must be addressed because no matter how good the government is, if the population is too large, shortage of basic needs will challe nge the country. Lowering the population is one attempt to solve the problem.It is by examining the birth rates to death rates. If the death rates exceed birth rates, the population is decreasing. Decrease in birthrates and increase in death rates is ways to lower the growth rates. Since the focus of their government is how to improve quality life, lowering the birth rates is a more acceptable option. But this solution brought discrimination for women. They prefer to have male babies because they considered women as producers of life.Deprivation in foods, health services, education and abortion of female fetuses ranged. Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi started forced vasectomies. The government recently considered the use of injection and birth control methods, which later on proved that have negative side effects. Financial and Political supports must need to happen. Help people feel that they can be agents of change and not source of dilemmas.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Essays

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Essays I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Essay I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Essay Essay Topic: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings BY Chiara_s In the novel I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, published in 1969, Maya Angelou wrote her autobiography full of emotions and surprises. The author, the protagonist, is a very interesting character that Im going to present you. Im going to present you this woman who had many hardships in her lifetime, and had the courage to write it. During her childhood, Maya Angelou suffers from her appearance, from her displacement which she qualifies as unnecessary insults, and also by the fact that she doesnt feel loved. She grows up as a Black Girl in Southern America and describes it as painful. She never feels pretty, she hopes shell wake up from a black ugly dream and reveal her true-self blond with blue eyes. Even when she sees her mother for the first time, the first thing that strikes her is her beauty. She thinks she is not as beautiful as her mother. She compares her mother to her brother, Bailey, and think they are both beautiful but not her. She is hard to herself. She thinks it is why she gets rid of her kids: l knew immediately why she had sent me away. She was too beautiful to have children. I had never seen a woman as pretty as she who was called Mother. (9. 1 5). When she is eight, Maya must quit Stamps to go living in an unknown city named St Louis with her mother. St Louis is a big city. Too big for her. She doesnt feel at home is St Louis. Mayas life in St Louis changes her from Stamps, which is a little town where nothing happens. She says l had decided that St Louis was a foreign country. Even her school is not great we were struck by the ignorance of our schoolmates and the rudeness of our teachers. In Stamps, teachers are friendly, but in St Louis eachers are more formal. She doesnt feel good either in St Louis than in her family. Mayas parents abandon her and Bailey when she was three; they wonder what they did wrong that their parents wouldnt want them anymore. She doesnt feel loved and need more physical affection. She looks for comfort in Mr. Freeman, her mothers boyfriend. He held me so softly that I wished he wouldnt ever let me go (1 1. 15). She thinks Mr. Freeman loves her but she is wrong, he molests and rapes her. Maya thought it was her fault because she was so young and ignorant, she never heard bout sexuality. The rape was non-sense to her. Mr. Freeman treated her like a woman and not like a child. Mr. Freeman acted like an animal and a beast on Maya. The rape the incident in St Louis as she says is a shame for her; she sees it as a shame. For example, she doesnt want to know if Uncle Willie is aware of the rape because if yes she would feel embarrass and ashamed. succeeds and became stronger. Even if she faced hard obstacles, she survived from it. For example, she survived from the rape, from the humiliation of the rape. Writing er autobiography, shows Maya overcomes difficulties about what happened to her. It is courageous to write her autobiography because it is a hard and tricky story. Many people could not write that because they could not confront their pain. But Maya did it and it is a part of her success. Writing allows her to overcome her pains. To conclude, Maya had to confront many hard moment in her childhood but finally she get over these obstacles and became stronger, and succeed (as she wrote this book). It proves she is an extraordinary person.

Dna history Essays

Dna history Essays Dna history Essay Dna history Essay The history of DNA structure discovery(sec. 4. 1): 1869- Johan miescher studies the nuclei of white blood cells(isolated th material using HCL and digestive proteins Named the substance nulclein and also found the material was rich in nitrogen and phosphorus. 919-Pheobus levene Discovered that DNA was made of chains of nucleotides *see nucleotide structure* 1920 DNAVSRNA * see chart Thought that 4 nucleotides were connected in the same repeated pattern protein gas 20 amino acids which could be combined in many combinations 1928- Frederick Griffith studied tho starins of pnuemococccus bacteria Rough strain-nonvirulent -Injection into mouse did not result in death smooth -injection caused death conclusion; some factor from the dead, virulent smooth strain transformed rthe living non-virulent rough strain. Non virulent rough strain picked up DNA becoming virulent. 1930-Joachim hammerling *see image in notebook* nucleus controls phenotypic properties of algae Avefry continued Griffiths w ork: purified chemicals from the heat-killed virulent bacteria, including DNA transformed non-virulent bacteria with each chemical into viruent only DNA resulted in death of the mouse Conclusion: transforming agent is DNA, thus DNA carries information to change living cell. 944-Avey, McCarty, and MacLeod Continued Griffiths work with pnemococcus see notebook* 1940s-Joshua Lederberg demonstrated bacterial conjugation -bacteria can exchange DNA Baccteria have no nucleus or chromosomes. 1940s- Edwin Chargaff For all organisms A=T and G=C (chargaffs rule) Organsisms with more Gs and Cs tend to be more complex (3 h-bonds) 1952-Hersey chase Conducted experiments to show definitive data to show DNA is the hereditary material. Bacteriophage used to infect bacteria. what they knew: -virus are composed of DNA and protein -virus infection reprograms a host cell to produce more virus. Question: which viral component is responsible for the reprogramming, DNA or protein. Bacteriophage/ Phage; Vir us that infects bacteria Radioactive sulfur which labels proteins Radioactive phosphorus which labels DNA virus injects DNA into host cell during infection, protein stays outside Dna provides info to reprogram host cells ti make more virus in virus, DNA is the hereditary material, not proteins. 1950-Mauric Wilkins and Rosalin franklin xray- crystallography: physics approach to examining biological molecules. ranklins xray photo indicated: 1. backbone of alternating phosphate and sugars 2. backbone is a helical structure 3. double helix structure(molecule is a uniform helix_ 4. Nitrogenous bases are in the middle of the molecuse 5. Bases are at right angels to the backbone they knew that each base could pair with partner, pyrimidine with purine. 1953-James Watson and francis crick Inspired by alpha-helix model of proteins discovered how A+T and G+C bonded together. Rosalin width of purine+pyrimidine bonds fit perfectly between the sugar-phosphate ackbone. the double helix model offer ed an easy method for replication. regular pattern typical of helical structure reminiscent of the alphahelix in proteins deterimingd rules of base pairing-size and hydrogen bonding Anti-parallel nature of strands. 1953- linus pauling proposed thr alpha helix seconday structure in proteins triple helix DNA model: 3 strands intertwined What was wrong: -phosphate groups were shown as neutral molecules -phosphates organized in the core for the helix-negative charges on oxygen would repel -Bases facing outwards.

MARKETING Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

MARKETING - Assignment Example In sum the fortunes of the firm are dependent on how well its management deals with business opportunities and threats, while using the strengths of the firm to take advantage of the opportunities and minimize the effect of the threats through clever planning and strategic implementation of its vision for the company. This is what is called strategic management- or the planning and implementation to achieve its desired plans in the marketplace in the face of these internal and external forces. The legal, political, sociological, economic and other environments may pose a number of challenges that must be overcome by the business if it is to survive and prosper in the marketplace. Barclays Bank PLC is one of the key players in the worldwide banking industry as well as in the UK and this paper will discuss how successfully it has managed to meet the challenges faced by the banking sector in the UK. The Banking Sector in the UK The banking sector in the UK is one that is full of intense competition. Lately the banking sector which had been hit by the 2007-2008 economic recession has been in recovery mode and efforts are still being made to put the sector back on track and increase regulation which would prevent greed and excessive remunerations from wreaking havoc on our lives once again. Efforts are being made so that banking executives’ salaries, perks and other remunerations like bonuses and stock options will be reviewed by the Governor of the Bank of England and the Finance Secretary prior to payout. The Bank of England had committed a sum of around ?7 billion to bail out the banking sector in the UK but thankfully Barclays Bank PLC did not ask for assistance, rather it managed to raise the required capital through a number of share offerings in the equity market. Banking today can be characterized by the different products that are being dealt with, such as investment banking, asset management or debt management, or by the type of customer dealing, su ch as Wealth Management for high net worth clients and Retail Banking for all types of customers (Harrison, 1994). There are also a number of channels for service delivery, like online banking and ATM transactions, cash deposits and withdrawals, wire transfers etc. But never mind what classification you choose, it all deals with saving, lending, spending, deposits and investments and withdrawals. These are the primary functions of banking which we cannot deny (Lee, 2002). A Brief History of Barclays Bank The origins of Barclays Bank date back to the days of the goldsmiths who were acting as the earliest English bankers on London’s Lombard Street. A partnership was established between John Freame and Thomas Gould in 1690. In 1736, James Barclay, the son in law of John Freame became a partner in the business. In 1738, the business moved to 54 Lombard Street and at this time also began using the black spread eagle as an identifiable logo that is still associated with the bank to day. In 1896 two more banking businesses united with this operation under the name of Barclays & Co, by then converted into a joint stock banking company. During 1905-1916, Barclays further extended its network by acquiring other small banking operations in the UK. Amalgamations with other banks in 1916 and 1919 saw the Barclays name expand ever further. After World War II, Barclays UK established a US affiliate by

Philadelphia (1993) Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Philadelphia (1993) - Research Paper Example Far right views also view the AIDS pandemic as a God sent weapon to destroy the homosexual population. According Friedman-Kien AE (1981), the views of the religious right on matters of HIV can be termed as â€Å"Dissident science†. This term comes from the fact that the theories put forward by the religious right have no scientific backing. It is unfortunate that for a long time the views of the religious right heavily impacted on policy discourses of the disease. This paper explores the responses AIDS activist media reacted to the dissident science on HIV/AIDS as constructed by the religious right. In particular, the paper explores the homosexual dimension of the HIV/AIDS debate as espoused by the Movie Philadelphia (1993). The causation debate Scientifically, it is known that HIV/AIDs is caused by the transfer of body fluids containing the viruses from one person to another’s bloodstream. The primary method of transmission of the disease is sexual intercourse. Male to male intercourse is not a HIV risk by itself. Instead, two other conditions must be met for transmission to occur. These conditions are: one of the partners has to be infected with the virus, and intercourse must result in introduction of the HIV virus into the blood stream of the uninfected partner (Duesberg, 1989). In the United States most transmissions occur between gay men. While globally most transmission occur in between heterosexual sexual partners. Since, the 1980 and 1990 the trend of higher infections in homosexual population has continued in the United States (Duesberg, 1989). It is worth noting that when the disease was first diagnosed in the United States it was recorded among Homosexual populations. This gave rise to strongly held prejudice among religious right activists that HIV/AIDS is a disease for Gay people (Marcus, 2002). The religious activist made it appear like the disease was caused by Gay men and then spread to the rest of the heterosexual population. Ini tially, HIV/AIDS was referred by names that closely tied with the gay sexual orientation. According to Andriote (1999), early reports of the disease referred to it as the gay plague, gay cancer or the Gay disease. Early researchers referred to it as the Gay-related immune deficiency (GRID). The homosexual community responded to this branding of the disease as homosexual disease by mobilizing demonstration. In 1986, Gay AIDs activists were called to action to deflect an editorial that linked HIV/AIDS with the group. William F. Buckley had published an article in March 1986 asserting â€Å"It is both a fact and the popular perception that AIDS is the special curse of the Homosexual† (Andriote, 1999). The article went further to propose the branding of gay men with AIDS at the rear and drug addicts on the arm. The Article led to the formation of the Swift and Terrible Retribution Committee. In concentration camp uniforms the retribution council picketed the headquarters of Buckl ey’s National Review in Manhattan (Afshar, n.d). The Gay and Lesbian Alliance against defamation started the media activism by organizing demonstration against homophobic and AIDS phobic coverage of HIV issues all over America (Vaid, 1995). Most of the demonstrations targeted the New York Times which was accused of being deliberately biased against