Higher education in the USA Essay Example for Free

Higher education in the USA Essay Faktorami, opredelyayuschimi yavlyaetsya li uchrezhdenie odnim iz luchshih, ili odnim iz menee prestizhnyh, yavlyayutsya: kachestvo obucheniya fakultetov, kachestvo oborudovaniya dlya issledovanij, uroven finansirovaniya bibliotek, specialnyh programm, i t. d. , a takzhe kompetentnost i chislo pretendentov na priem, to est naskolko dannoe uchrezhdenie svobodno v vybore studentov. Vse `eti faktory dopolnyayut drug druga. Voobsche v Soedinennyh SHtatah priznano, chto est bolee i menee predpochtitelnye uchrezhdeniya dlya obucheniya i polucheniya vysshego obrazovaniya. Bolee predpochtitelnye uchrezhdeniya obychno, no ne vsegda, yavlyayutsya bolee dorogostoyaschimi, i okonchanie odnogo iz nih mozhet prinesti znachitelnye preimuschestva, poskolku kazhdyj chelovek ischet vozmozhnost zanyatosti i socialnuyu podvizhnost v predelah obschestva. Konkurs na postuplenie v takoj kolledzh pobuzhdaet milliony starsheklassnikov sdavat SAT kazhdyj god. No nedavno akcent na vstupitelnyh `ekzamenah shiroko kritikovalsya v Soedinennyh SHtatah, potomu chto `ekzameny pozvolyayut opredelit kompetentnost v matematike i anglijskom yazyke. V zaschituispolzovaniya   `ekzamenov kak kriteriev pri postuplenii, rukovoditeli mnogih universitetov govoryat, chto ispolzovanie SAT pozvolyaet spravedlivo reshit, kogo prinyat, kogda imeetsya 10 ili 12 pretendentov na odno mesto. Mogut li kolledzhi i universitety Ameriki osnovyvatsya na ih rezultatah? Priblizitelno 12 millionov studentov v nastoyaschee vremya poseschayut shkoly vysshego obrazovaniya v Amerike. Oni studenty v obschestve, kotoroe verit v svyaz mezhdu obrazovaniem i demokratiej. Odnako, mnozhestvo amerikancev ne udovletvoreny sostoyaniem vysshego obrazovaniya v ih strane. Vozmozhno, naibolee shiroko rasprostranennoe nedovolstvo vyzyvaet uchebnyj plan kolledzha v celom i shirokij diapazon dopolnitelnyh zanyatij v chastnosti. V seredine 80-yh godov proshlogo veka Associaciya Amerikanskih Kolledzhej (AAC) vypustila doklad, v kotorom prizyvala k prepodavaniyu bazovoj chasti obschih znanij vsem studentam kolledzha. Nacionalnyj Institut Obrazovaniya (NIE) vypustil podobnyj zhe doklad- Uchastie v obuchenii. V svoem doklade NIE zaklyuchil, chto uchebnyj plan kolledzha stal chrezmerno professionalno-tehnicheskim i svyazannym s rabotoj. V nem takzhe preduprezhdaetsya, chto obrazovanie kolledzha bolshe ne mozhet razvivat v studentah razdelennye cennosti i znaniya, chto tradicionno svyazyvayut Amerikancev vmeste. Sereznoe obvinenie. Dejstvitelno li `eto tak? V nekotoroj stepeni na dannyj moment `eto vozmozhno. Konechno, nekotorye studenty zakanchivayut svoe obuchenie bez kursa po Zapadnoj Civilizacii, ne upominaya drugie mirovye kultury. Drugie ostavlyayut kolledzh, ne izuchiv nauku ili pravitelstvo. V otvet, mnogie kolledzhi nachali peresmatrivat osnovnoj uchebnyj plan, s kotorym vse studenty dolzhny spravlyatsya. `Eti problemy priznak togo, chto vysshee obrazovanie v Amerike menyaetsya, kak `eto imelo mesto vsegda v ego istorii. I, kak v proshlom, `eto izmenenie mozhet idti v neozhidannyh napravleniyah. Puritane osnovyvali kolledzhi, chtoby obuchat ministrov. No ih studenty proyavili sebya kak osnovopolozhniki pervoj v mire konstitucionnoj demokratii. Kolledzhi predostavleniya zemli byli osnovany, chtoby prepodavat selskoe hozyajstvo i proektirovanie stroitelyam Amerikanskogo Zapada. Segodnya, mnogie iz `etih kolledzhej yavlyayutsya veduschimi shkolami v nauchno-issledovatelskom mire. Amerikancy vsegda delali stavku na sozdanie sistemnoj raboty. Oni imeyut osobo veskie prichiny dlya vypolneniya `etogo v oblasti obrazovaniya. Lyudi v Soedinennyh SHtatah segodnya stalkivayutsya s vazhnymi voprosami: CHto yavlyaetsya nadlezhaschej rolyu Ameriki kak strany s samoj staroj v mire konstitucionnoj demokratiej; s samoj bolshoj `ekonomikoj; yavlyayuschejsya pervoj yadernoj derzhavoj? Amerikancy uvazhayut svoe pravo vyrazit mnenie po vsem `etim problemam. No lyudi Soedinennyh SHtatov takzhe gluboko osoznayut, chto takie problemy dolzhny rassmatrivatsya v komplekse. CHtoby prinimat uchastie v novyh voznikayuschih problemah, bolshinstvo amerikancev chuvstvuet, chto oni nuzhdayutsya vo vsej informacii, kotoruyu oni mogut poluchit. Kolledzhi i universitety naibolee vazhnye centry takogo izucheniya. I nezavisimo ot togo, chto mogut trebovatsya usovershenstvovaniya, ih buduschee polnostyu garantiruetsya amerikanskoj zhazhdoj progressa i horoshej informirovannosti. Fakticheski, sleduyuschej zadachej amerikanskogo obrazovaniya mozhet stat tendenciya dlya lyudej prodolzhit ih obrazovanie v kolledzhe dlya dalnejshej zhizni. Slovar. A Accept Prinimat Achieves Dostigat Accomplishment Vypolnenie Account Schet Adequate Adekvatnyj Admission Dopusk Admitted Dopuschennyj Advantage Preimuschestvo Agriculture Selskoe hozyajstvo. Amount Kolichestvo Applicant Pretendent Application Zayavlenie Association of American Colleges(AAC) Associaciya Amerikanskih Kolledzhej Available Dostupnyj Aware Znaya B Bachelors degree Stepen Bakalavra Be either Byt takzhe Beyond Vne Bond Obyazatelstvo C Certainly Konechno Community Soobschestvo Competition Sorevnovanie Competence Kompetentnost Complete Polnyj Comprise Vklyuchit Condition Uslovie(sostoyanie) Contain Soderzhat Conversely Naoborot Costly Dorogostoyaschij Criticized Kritikuemyj Currently V nastoyaschee vremya Curriculum Uchebnyj plan D. Demand Trebovanie Democracy Demokratiya Desirable ZHelatelnyj Determining Opredelenie Distinction Razlichie Duration Prodolzhitelnost E Elective Izbiratelnyj Emphasis Akcent Employment Zanyatost Equal prestige Ravnyj prestizh Excessively vocational and work-related CHrezmerno professionalno- tehnicheskij i svyazannyj s rabotoj Exist Suschestvovat G Graduate Diplomirovannyj specialist Government Pravitelstvo H Higher education Vysshee obrazovanie I Impression Vpechatlenie Independent Nezavisimyj Interviews Intervyu Issued Vypuschennyj L Lead Liderstvo. Majority Bolshinstvo Masters degree Stepen mastera Measure Mera Mention Upominanie Merely Prosto Might Mog by N National Institute of Education(NIE) Nacionalnyj Institut Obrazovaniya Nuclear power YAdernaya derzhava O Offer Predlozhenie Obtain Poluchit Opinions Mneniya Opportunities Vozmozhnosti Outstanding Vydayuschijsya P Painfully Gluboko Particular Specificheskij(osobennyj) Percent Procent Perhaps Vozmozhno Proper Nadlezhaschij Provide Obespechit Public Gosudarstvennyj(obschestvennyj) Puritans Puritane Private CHastnyj R Receive Poluchit. Recently Nedavno Recognized Priznannyj Recommendations Rekomendacii Regard Otnoshenie Reinforce Ukrepit Respect Uvazhenie S Satisfactory Udovletvoritelnyj Satisfied Udovletvorennyj Seek Iskat Similar Podobnyj Simply Prosto Scholars Uchenye Scientific research Nauchnoe issledovanie Social mobility Socialnaya mobilnost Success Uspeh T Traditional bind Tradicionno svyazyvayut The shared values and knowledge Razdelennye cennosti i znanie Q Quality of research facilities Kachestvo sredstv obsluzhivaniya issledovaniya W Whether Li Widespread SHiroko rasprostranennyj.

Research The Interpretivism Philosophy Management Essay

Research The Interpretivism Philosophy Management Essay Firstly, it is the research philosophy. There are two main types of philosophy and they are positivism and interpretivism. In this research the interpretivism philosophy will be applied to adopt the nature of theories on the factors influencing the project management performance. Secondly, it is the research approach that includes deduction and induction. In this research, the induction approach is considered the appropriate approach for the project management when the researcher examines three factors influencing the project management performance at BORDA Vietnam. Thirdly, it is the research strategy. There are three categories of research strategy such as exploratory, descriptive and explanatory. To pursue the purpose of this research is to explore the understanding of the concepts of project management and the impacts of factors on the project management performance at BORDA Vietnam, the exploratory strategy is selected to use. Fourthly, it is research methodology. There are two methods when conducting the research generally. They are quantitative and qualitative. With each method there are advantages and disadvantages duing application. In this research, the qualitative method is chosen to apply due to its appropriateness for the topic of factors influencing the project management performance at BORDA Vietnam. Fifthly, it is the data collection and data processing that describes how the primary and secondary data will be collected and how the collected data will be analysed to have findings for the next chapters. Last but not least, it is ethical issues of the research. 3.1 Research philosophy Sauders at al. (2009) emphasises that the research philosophy relates to the development of knowledge and its nature. It will reflect the researchers view of the world and underpin the research strategy. There are different philosophies of the research such as positivism, realism, interpretivism and pragmatism and these belong to the research philosophy which is the first layer of the research onion (Sauder et al., 2009). Depending on the type of research topic which philosophy will be adopted in the research? 3.1.1 Positivism Positivism reflects the philosophical stance of the nature scientist (Sauder et al., 2009). The positivism philosophy is applied to the research for generating the existing theories to develop the hypotheses and these hypotheses will be tested with highly structured and large samples relating to the observation and numeric data. However, when observing the social reality (Sauder et al., 2009), the researcher is independent from which is observed. 3.1.2 Interpretivism In the management research, the interpretivism refers to the understanding difference between the human as social actors (Sauder at al., 2009:16) and the objects. It focuses on the subjective meanings and the interpretation of the meanings behind the social phenomena. By applying the interpretivism philosophy for the research, the qualitative methodology is more appropriate to help the researcher conduct the small sample with in-depth interview and focus group interview. Project management performance plays an important role in the success of the project. However, there are many factors but the research focusing on three key factors influencing the project management performance. The factors are leadership style, teamwork and staff motivation. For conducting the research, the interpretivism philosophy is selected to help the researcher interpret the meanings of contextual observations and collected information from interview. 3.2 Research approach Research approach relates to the theory of the research. It explicit the concerned questionnaires for survey or guidelines for interview. There are two different kinds of research approaches, deduction and induction. Sauder et al. (2009) pointed out that the deductive approach is when to develop the theory and hypotheses and the research strategy is designed to test those hypotheses. The deductive approach is believed to be more appropriate with the positivist philosophy. Other way round, it is inductive approach in which the data is collected and theory is developed as the results of data analysis. The inductive approach is considered more appropriate with the interpretivist philosophy. 3.2.1 Deductive approach Deductive approach involves in the development of theory and hypothesis. The data or findings from questionnaire survey, guideline interview and secondary sources are the results to be tested to confirm or reject the hypotheses (Gill and Johnson, 2010). This approach is suitable with large sample from the quantitative method. 3.2.2 Inductive approach Inductive approach allows the researcher to develop the theory base on analysis of the phenomena. The theory is developed based on the result of data analysis. Sauder et al (2009) suggested that the small sample conducted for the research is suitable with the inductive approach. The research on factors that influence the project management at BORDA is to pursue the purpose of identifying and analysing three burning factors really affecting the performance of project management at BORDA Vietnam. The small sample of interview with the managers and staffs of BORDA office and involved partners will be conducted. Therefore, the inductive approach is considered more appropriate to conduct this research. 3.3 Research strategy Research strategy plays an important role during conducting the research. According to Sauders at al. (2009:141) the research strategy helps to guide the research questions, objectives, the extent of existing knowledge, the amount of time, other available resources and to underpin the research philosophy. There are three categories of research strategy such as (1) exploratory, (2) descriptive and (3) explanatory (Yin, 2003, cited in Sauderset al.2009:141). Each category is valuable with different research purposes. However, it is pointed out that the purpose of enquiry may change over time (Robson, 2002, cited in Sauders et al, 2009:139). 3.3.1 Exploratory The exploratory strategy is useful to clarify the understanding of the phenomena by finding out what is happening, to seek new insights, to ask questions and to assess phenomena in a new light (Robson, 2002: 59, cited in Sauders et al., 2009:139). There are three principal ways of conducting the exploratory research: A research of the literature Interviewing experts in the subject Conducting focus group interviews (Sauders et al. 2009:140) 3.3.2 Descriptive The object of descriptive research is to portray an accurate profile of persons, events or situations (Robson, 2002:59, cited in Sauderset al.2009:140). It means that before the data is collected, it should be a clear picture of which data should be collected. However, the descriptive research is as one piece of exploratory research and also the explanatory research. 3.3.3 Explanatory Explanatory research focuses on explaining the relationship between variables (Sauderset al.2009:140) of a situation or a phenomena. This strategy is more quantitative in the research methodology. In addition, it can be a combination between the quantitative and qualitative methods in the research methodology by collecting the qualitative data for explanation of the reason to the phenomena or problem. The purpose of the research is to gain the understanding about the concept of project management and impacts of factors influencing the project management performance in BORDA Vietnam. In view of the foreging, the exploratory strategy is chosen to use in this research that helps the researcher to interpret the findings to the meanings of this research. 3.4 Research methodology There are two main types of research methods: (1) qualitative and (2) quantitative. Each method will be selected to use depending on specific research topic and analysis sample. 3.4.1 Qualitative method According to Sauders et al.,(2009:480) the qualitative data refers to all non-numeric data or data that have not been quantified and can be a product of all research strategies. There are many things in human life which may not be quantitative. They are no worse for that. If they are of non-quantitative nature, they can be investigated in terms of their own categories and such investigation is no less scientific than measurement (Michell, 1999:14, cited in Giorgi A, 2005:80). When conducting the qualitative research, the purpose is to understand the meanings expressed through words (Sauderset al.2009:482) of the problem or phenomena from real world settings (Golafshani N, 2003:600). The qualitative research means such methods like interviews and observations are dominant in the naturalist (interpretive) paradigm and supplementary in the positive paradigm ((Golafshani N, 2003:600). The qualitative data after being collected is inputed into the analysis process through three main types: Summarising (consideration) of meanings; Categorisation (grouping) of meanings; Structuring (ordering) of meanings using narrative. (Sauderset al.2009:490). 3.4.2 Quantitative method According to Ponterotto J.(2005:128), the quantitative method focuses on the strict quantification of observations (data) and on careful control of empirical variables. This method needs the large sample and uses of statistical procedures to examine the meanings and variables (Ponterotto and Grieger, 1999, cited in Ponterotto, 2005:128). The quantitative research helps the researcher familiarize with the problem or phenomena to be studied and develop the hypotheses to be tested through the quantitative techniques. The categories of quantitative method include (1) the emphasis is on facts and causes of behaviour (Bogdan and Biklen, 1998, cited in Golafshani N, 2003:597); (2) the information is in the form of numbers that can be quantified and summarised; (3) the mathematical process is the norm for analysing the numeric data and (4) the final result is expressed in statistical terminologies (Charles, 1995, cited in Golafshani N, 2005:598). From the different above definitions and concepts of research methods, the researcher select the qualitative method that is considered the most suitable and conceptual analysis shall be applied via observation of daily management work at BORDA Vietnam and the in depth interview to all staffs and managers of BORDA office and partners involving in the project. It is small sample. The qualitative method will help the researcher find out the key crucial factors affecting the performance of the project management. The qualitative method will be described through the research process in the figure below: Research objectives Theories relating to the project management Qualitative method, data collection: + Primary data: in-depth and group focus interview, daily observations + Secondary data: desk research Discussion and analysis of findings Identification of weaknesses corresponding causes in PM Recommendations solutions for improving PM performance Figure 3.1: Research process (Source: Authors design) 3.5 Data collection The data used for this research comes from both primary and secondary sources. 3.5.1 Secondary source Secondary data collection: the data will be collected from the books, articles, journals publication, reports, annual working plans, desk research, evaluations. These resources provide the information and data on the activities and project implementation at BORDA Vietnam. 3.5.2 Primary data In-depth interview: the in-depth interviews will be conducted with 15 staffs of BORDA office and involved partners, 2 focus group interviews for staffs and managers to collect their opinions, comments and assessments on current project management performance and the factors influencing the project management performance at BORDA Vietnam. The contents of the in-depth interview guideline shall be flexible and subject to the persons interviewed to be able to get the best results for analysis, summarising and consolidation. The tentative duration for the interviews shall last from 15 October to 31 October 2012. The primary data collected through the interviews is used to give insights into the main factors influencing the project management performance within the implementation progress. Observation from daily management work: The researcher is a part of this team, so that the daily management work at BORDA Vietnam will be observed. 3.6 Data processing The information and data from the interviews shall be collected, summarised, consolidated and analysed to see the problems of project management and examined whether the factors such as leadership style, team work and staff motivation have an effect on the performance of the project management at BORDA Vietnam or not. The feedback from the interviewees is also considered the useful inputs for the recommendations and solutions of the researcher. 3.7 Research ethics In the scope of this research, the researcher focus on examining the practices of financial and human resource management to the project management performance at BORDA Vietnam in the period of 2011 2013. Because of time limits, the research cannot be conducted for other factors such as the role of management of quality, information system, knowledge, relationship, etc. to the project management performance. The research will use both the secondary and primary data, especially the in-depth interview questions for information collection. Before interviewing, the researcher will ask the potential interviewees directly or through emails and telephones for their convenience and agreement of spending time and providing the information, opinions. Without agreement, the researcher will not provide the name of interviewees in the research or any sensitive information will be kept confidentially for the researcher only. Moreover, this is an independent study from the point of view of the researcher. The findings and recommendations will be proposed to the high management level of BORDA to help improve the project management performance of project implementation in Vietnam. Chapter summary Through this chapter, the researcher describes the picture of how the research will be conducted and how data is collected and analysed. After studying about the different types of research philosophy, approach, strategy, method the researcher select: Research philosophy: interpretivism Research approach: inductive Research strategy: exploratory Research method: qualitative The findings from the in depth interviews with individuals of 15 interviewees and two focus group interviews for staffs and managers of BORDA Vietnam and involved partner VAWR/ CTIC and from the daily observation of the management work as well as from the desk research of the secondary data, the meanings shall be summarised, categorised ans structured (Sauders et al., 2009:490) The research ethics are mentioned at the end of this chapter. The researcher will ask for acceptance of using the personal information from the interviewees. Without the agreement, it will be considered the confidential information and will not be displayed in the research.

Database Management System

Database Management System Database for more Complex Information data Aim To review Why OODBMS is the DBMS of Choice for Complex data. Introduction: The aim of this research is to review why Object oriented database system (OODBMS) is the database management system of choice for complex data application OODBMS is a database management system that supports the modelling and creation of data as objects, includes supports for classes of objects, inheritance of class properties, methods by subclasses and their objects. Some Client Server application uses RDBMS for data storage and Object oriented programming language for development. This type of scenario would have performance issues because objects must be mapped to the database tables this is referred to as impedance mismatch. To avoid this object-relational impedance mismatch problems caused by having to map object, it became necessary to have an alterative method of storing and mapping data. Client server application using RDBMS as described above is not a good choice for complex data as such OODBMS provides a better alternative. Origin and History of OODBMS Database Management System (DBMS) is software designed for managing and controlling access to databases. DBMS is â€Å"a shared collection of logically related data (and a description of this data) designed to meet the information needs of an organisation† (Connolly Begg). The first DBMS was introduced in the ‘60s and before this time, data handling was done using file based method. File based method stored data in individual data files with interface between programmes and files. Mapping happens between physical and logical file, where one file correspond to one or more several other programs. Extensive programming in third generation language like Cobol, were used in creating, manipulating and accessing data. There are so many problems with this method of storing data e.g. increased programme maintenance and development time, redundant data, weak security, separation and isolation which means each program maintains its own set of data, users of one program may not be aware of holding or blocking by other programs. As a result of the limitations in File based method a better way of data handling was required which led to the creation of DBMS to address these problems. The need to organise and share data on large sized projects also contributed to the creation of DBMS. DBMS control the organisation and structure of the data storage and is independent of the program that is being used to access the data. Early DBMS systems represent the first generation of DBMS and theses are: Hierarchical design by IBM Information Management System IMS.IMS is still the main hierarchical DBMS used by most large mainframe installations. Network design by General Electric Integrated Data Store (IDS) -CODASYL (Conference on Data Systems Languages) or DBTG Systems The main problems with the Hierarchical and Network designs are that the Systems lack structural independence and are very complex The distinguishing feature of storing data in files and databases is that multiple programs and types of users are able to use the databases. Relational database management system (RDBMS) The term Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) was introduced by Edgar Frank Codd in his paper, â€Å"A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks† which was published in 1970. This paper formalized the basis for a RDBMS. RDBMSs are referred to as the second-generation Database Management systems, and the definition of what constitutes a relational database system with the guideline for the development of RDBMS is in Codds 12 Rules for relational systems published in 1985. RDBMS has three main characteristics which are: Information are held in form of a table, where data are described using values. Data in the table columns should not be repeated. Use of Standard Query Language (SQL). Relational model is the main data model and the foundation for many leading database products that include DB2 from IBM, Informix, Oracle, Sybase, Microsofts Access and SQL Server, and Ingres. The market for RDBMS represent close to a multibillion-dollar. No need for the use of predefined keys to input information in RDBMS which make it more flexible than the first generation DBMS. Also SQL is easy to learn making RDBMS more productive. the main advantage of RDBMSs is the ease with which users can easily create, access and manipulate data if need be. Other benefits of RDBMS are: Multi-threading for users. Asynchronous Input/Output for performance issues. Data Partitioning. Parallel database queries for processing complex query. Scalable architecture. Advanced management tools and security with automatic data logging and recovery Referential Integrity for Data consistency. Transactional management features for database consistency Though RDBMSs has served effectively for number of years, it has certain limitations that were exposed by increasingly demands for complex data types and high performance applications. RDBMS limitations include but not limited to the following: Relational databases are unable to handle complex multimedia data such as images, video and audio clips due to lack of storage capacity. RDBMS support only few simple datatypes, e.g. integer, floating point, character string and date/time. These user-defined datatypes are useful just for defining value domains. Some RDBMS support binary large objects (BLOBs, image, text) which are used as pointers to external storage, these objects are difficult to manage and exchange. Standard SQL is limiting, which made vendor to create specific extensions such as, Sybase Transact-SQL, Oracle SQL*Plus. Also RDBMS do not work efficiently with languages such as Java scripts and C++ which emerged after the RDBMS original development Impedance mismatch: The data type in the database systems is mismatching with the complex data structure created by application. RDBMS also uses mixed different programming paradigms, in which data with different types and locations are handled at the same time. Information in RDBMS are in tables where relationships between the entities are defined by values. Data in RDBMS cannot represent Real World Entities; normalization leads to relations that do not correspond to object in the real world Because of the above limitations and the challenges of Complex data applications, Internet and the Web usage, Object-oriented databases management system (OODBMS) was introduced in the 1980s. OODBMS offer extensible and controlled data management services, consistency, data independent and secure environment, to object-oriented model. OODBMS handle big and complex information systems that RDBMS was unable to handle. RDBMS has been very successful with huge investments in its development by many big database vendors. RDBMS has many loyal customer base in the corporate relational databases community and a large Industry based on RDBMS applications and systems development. Because of this, major RDBMS vendors (Oracle, IBM, and Informix) came up with another DBMS called Object Related Database Management System (ORDBMS) to allow organisations to run legacy systems and new Object Oriented based systems in parallel, and gradually migrates to the new ORDBMS technology as its benefits become more apparent Thus RDBMS vendors developed ORDBMS as a way to meet the challenges of the traditional RDBMSs and as a future proof for corporate investment. However ORDBMS still fail to hide the inherent mismatch between relational and object oriented database models. Object oriented database system (OODBMS) have their origin in Object Oriented Programming Languages (OOPL). OODBMS started as a research in the mid ‘70s, the research is based on having a real database management support for graph-structured objects. Around this time also, several shortcomings of RDBMS were highlighted within the database community and It was also acknowledge that OOPL had very strong advantages over the non-OOPL for many programming applications. Some of the advantages are: Strong encapsulations which make it easier to program large and complex applications Inheritance features, which enable code reuse. Application programmers also want to make object persistent that is object lifespan should extend beyond single program execution One of the early researches project on OODBMS was the ORION Research Project in the early 1980, which was conducted by Won Kim at the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC). Two products were developed from the research, the ITASCA that is no longer in existence and the Versant OODBMS. Some other OODBMS commercial products are Gemstone that was known before as Servio Logic, Gbase (Graphael) and Vbase (Ontologic) In the early ‘90s addition products entered the market, some of these are: Objectivity/DB (Objectivity, Inc) ObjectStore (Progress Software, as acquisition from excelon which was originally Object Design) O2 snd Versant Object database (Versant Corporation) ONTOS (Ontos Inc formally Ontologic) ITASCA Jasmine (Fujitsu, marketed by Computer Associates) Some of these products are still available in the market with the introduction of new commercial Open source products in early 2004 e.g InterSystems , Ozone, Zope , FramerD and XL2. The open source products are gaining high recognition in the markets. The concepts of persistence to object programming language have been added to OODBMS. Early commercial products were integrated with programming languages e.g. Gemstone uses Smalltalk, Gbase uses LSIP and Vbase uses COP. C++ is the dominant language during the early 90s for OODBMS markets. Java and C# were introduce by vendors in the late 90s. The open source object databases are entirely written in Object Oriented Programme languages like Java or C#, e.g. db4objects (db4o) and Perst (McObject). Chris Muller has also recently created another open source Object database called Magma (Written in Squeak). Open Source products are reasonably affordable and easy to use and this opes the second growth period for Object database. Manifestos â€Å"The Object Oriented Database Manifesto† by Atkinson et al, 1989 listed the mandatory features that a system needs before it can be known as an OODBMS. Object oriented database manifesto abandons the relational model design by determining the basic rules of object database systems. The characteristics of the object DBMS is grouped into three by the Manifesto. Mandatory: Encapsulation, Object identity, types/classes, complex objects, overriding combined with late binding, inheritance, extensibility, persistence, computational completeness, concurrency, ad hoc query , secondary storage management and recovery facilities.. Open: this is decided on by the designer and include the representation of system, uniformity of type system and the programming paradigm Optional: includes multiple inheritance, type checking, inferring, distributions, versions and design transactions The OODBMS manifesto was unacceptable by some relational database professional, so another competitive manifestos was introduced â€Å"The Third-generation System Manifesto† by Stonebraker et al 1990.This manifesto retain all features of relational Database System that are practically proven (e.g. SQL) and augment the old features with new ones, e.g. the object-oriented concepts. â€Å"The Third Manifesto† which is written by Darwen and Date 1995 rejected both the object-oriented ideas and SQL which according to them defeat the relational models ideas, and to return to the genuine relational model and Codds 12 rule. The document produced for this manifesto is very controversial, from the current way software engineering and query/programming languages are done now. The arguments presented in this manifesto are more ideological rather than technical and this make the manifesto very difficult to be accepted by many databases professional. The newest version of the manifesto (2006) still retains these ideological assertions. Object-Oriented Database Management System Development review OODBMS stores Objects rather than data such as Integers, strings and real numbers, Objects consists of Attributes and Methods Attributes: They are data that defines the characteristics of an object. This data may be integers, strings and real number, or the data may be a reference to a complex object. Methods: This defines the behaviour of an object and methods are procedures or functions. The introduction of OODBMS was to reduce impedance mismatch between programming languages and database management system, to offer performance advantages and to provide clear support for complex user defined type including the ability to call, store and query complex object directly The developments of OODBMS support the modelling and creation of data as objects, extends programming languages with capabilities like data recovery, concurrency control, persistent and other relational capabilities. OODBMS are used when there is a need for good performance processing on complex applications because it takes a revolutionary approach to database management. OODBMS do not use table to store data, data are stored in objects and it handles concurrent access and provides a persistent store for objects in a multi-user client/server environment. OODBMS uses class definitions and traditional Object Oriented languages such as, C++ and Smalltalk for defining and accessing data instead of using separate language like SQL in defining, manipulating and retrieving data. OODBMS can be viewed as an extension of the OO language, providing direct integration to database capabilities. Object-Oriented database development initially focuses only on application that manages complex information like the Computer Aided Software Engineering, Aided Manufacturing (CAM) and Computer Aided design (CAD) applications. Other applications where object-oriented database technologies are now being used include: Telecommunications applications Hospital applications Finance institutions Multimedia applications Document/quality management OODBMS development enforces object oriented programming concepts such as data encapsulation, polymorphism, object Identity, inheritance as well as database transaction management concepts e.g the ACID PROPERTIES (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation and Durability) which improve the integrity of the system.. OODBMS also support secondary storage management systems with ad hoc query languages , these permits the management of very large data. The inclusion of data definition within operations definitions in Object Oriented Database Management System has the following advantages: The defined operations are not dependent on the database application running at the moment and they apply ubiquitously. Inheritance allows the development of solutions for complex problems incrementally, and this is achieved by defining new objects in terms of the previously defined objects. Extension of Datatypes to support complex data such as multi-media, this is done by defining new object classes which have operations to support the new kinds of information. Object identity (OID) enables objects to be independent of each other in the database. Data encapsulation, this allows the internal state of the object to be hidden. Objects that are encapsulated are the ones that can only be assessed by their methods instead of their internal states. There are three types of encapsulated objects: Full encapsulation, here all the operations on objects are performed through message sending and by the execution of method. Write encapsulation, here the internal state of the object is allowed for reading operations only. Partial encapsulations, this allows direct access to reading and writing to some part of the internal state Another distinguishing characteristic of objects is that they have an identity that is independent of the state of the object. For example, if one has a car object and we remodel the car and change its appearance, the brake and the tires so that it looks entirely different, it would still be recognized as the same object we had originally before the changes were applied. Object-identity allows objects to be related as well as shared within a distributed computing network. All of these advantages come together to provide significant help to database application developers making development easier. The advantages also allow object-oriented databases development to solve information management problems that are characterized by the need to manage: A large number of different data types, A large number of relationships between the objects, and Objects with complex behaviours. An application development where this kind of complexity exists includes engineering, manufacturing, simulations, office automation and large information systems. Currently there is no widely agreed standard for what constitutes an OODBMS and no standard query language for OODBMS that is equivalent to what SQL is to the RDBMS. The Object Data Management Group (ODMG) a consortium of Object-Oriented Database Management System (ODBMS) vendors and interested parties working on standards to allow the portability of customer software across ODBMS products and to create a standardized Object Query Language (OQL) and object definition language (ODL). The work of ODMG on object data management standards completed in 2001 and the group was disbanded. The final release of the ODMG standard is: Object Database Standard (ODMG-3.0). Because the ODMG group was dissolved in 2001and this made the standardization of Object database languished. Another group was formed in 2005 called the OMG,s Object Database Technology Working group (ODBTWG) which is now working on a new standard to reflect recent changes in OODBMS technology. The main features of an OODBMS development is the way in which object is access in a transparent way such that interaction with persistent objects is the same as interacting with in memory objects. RDBMSs require the use of interaction through a query sub-language like SQL and the use of ODBC, ADO or JDBC. All this is unnecessary with OODBMS. In OODBMS when a request is made for an object in the database, the object is transferred into the applications cache where it is either used as a temporary value that is detached from the main version in the database so any updates to the cached object will not affect the object in the database. Object can also be used as the exact copy of the version in the database, so here any updates to the object are shown in the database and any changes to object in the database means the object has to be retrieved again from the OODBMS. There are a number of implementation of OODBMS with both research and commercial application. Each implementation is different based on the Object oriented languages, which form their origin. Some of these developments are discussed below: Gemstone: This was mainly based on smalltalk and its data definition and manipulation language is called opal. Gemstone do not provide all of most of the object-oriented features, it does not provide multiple inheritance. Iris: This is a research prototype, with the purpose if meeting the needs of applications like CASE tools, CAD etc. (Fisman et al (1987). It is designed to be accessible from any number of programming languages VBase: This is commercially available and is built with a schema definition language concept when objects are defined as data types. The main purposed of Vbase is to combine the procedural language with persistent object support, it also has the strong typing inherent in object systems for both language and database. O2: This is based on the framework of a set and tuple data model. It is designed with the purposed of integrating database technology with the object- oriented approach, for an all in one system. (Lecluse , et al 1988) Most of the OODBMS development discussed, tried to meet object orientation approach in someway, they do this by implementing various OODBMS features. There are major differences in the physical implementation of each model as well as the number of features implemented. Two Examples of companies using OODBMS are: British Telecominication uses Versant Mclaren develop the Formula one racing car uses Jasmine OODBMS Comparison criteria between RDBMS and OODBMS including the pros and cons. RDBMS and OODBMS differ in many ways example is in application domain, performance, usage, current market demand and support from vendors. RDBMS and OODBMS comparisons are done to get a better understanding for how the two databases differ and why OODBMS is better for large complex applications. A significant difference between object-oriented databases and relational databases is that object-oriented databases represent relationships explicitly, supporting both navigational and associative access to information data. As the complexity of the interrelation between database information increases, so is the advantage of representing relationships explicitly increase too. Explicit relationships usage also improves data access performance over relational value-based applications. Support for Object Oriented Programming Language (OOPL): Object Oriented Programming is not ideal for RDBMS, programmers spend most of the of coding time mapping the program object to the database In OODBMS, programming is direct and extensive, OOPL are designed to allow an application developer to create a complex sequence of instructions with less difficulty Standards: The defined standard for RDBMS is SQL, with main elements being DDL, DML DCL. The current version of the standard is SQL 3, SQL 3 defines the new features used in ORDBMS. ODMG is the group that maintains the standards for OODBMS the main components of standard being ODL and OQL. Most recent version of this standard is ODMG-3.0 and there are no new standard yet to reflect the advances in OODBMS technology. Product Maturity: RDBMS is a second generation and in a much matured stage. RDBMSs have good implementation with many support services such as the tool support for reporting, data transformations, OLAP tools etc. RDBMS is available from many vendors; this made it an obvious choice for most of the users. OODBMS is the 3rd generation DBMS making it relatively new, it emerged after the RDBMS, new ODMG standard still not in the final stage. Some implementations are available but still do not fully support all the features. Simplicity of use: The table structure in RDBMS is very easy to understand by user and also RDBMS has many end-user tools. OODBMS is mainly for developers, not many end user tools are available for object database products but this is hopefully expected to improve over time. Versioning of Data: Versioning of data is not supported by RDBMS but the user using multiple records with some of the attributes describing the versioning information can implement this feature. Versioning are defined by the user Versioning is supported naturally by OODBMS this is to maintain multiple versions of the data objects Complex data relationships: RDBMS provides basic relational tables, user-defined sets of records with system-defined domains, in addition to more high-level types defined in application. OODBMS has the same type system for system-defined and user-defined types. It is open-ended. Performance: OODBMS performed better than RDBMS based on the Object Operations version OO1 benchmark that was done on the OODBMS software (GemStone, Objectivit0079/DB, Ontos, Objectstore) and RDBMSs (Ingres and Sybase) in 1989 and 1990. Object in OODBMS is a better model of the real world entity than the relational rows in regards to complex applications. OODBMS outperform RDBMS when it comes to handling complex and interrelated data. Also the lack of impedance mismatch in OODBMS means they provide significantly better performance than RDBMS. Impedance mismatch require the mapping of one data structure i.e. tables to another data structure i.e. objects and this slows down performance on in RDBMs. Also the client catching features in OODBMS improve performance and also no joins are required in OODBMS Application Domain: RDBMS is used for large administrative systems, with many instances of simple data types; it can only handle short transactions and few data at a time. OODBMS is for design applications, with many and complex object oriented data types, handles long transactions and large client data. Semantic Gap (DDL/DML Vs. PL): RDBMS offers relational tables in some DDL and a standardized DML with client/server support and with embedded SQL in many Programming languages(PL). SQL is not computationally complete. Applications may have further, often high-level types and special storage structures expressed in some PL. In OODBMS, same OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES like C++ and small talk is used for both client and server. It does accommodate only object-oriented languages and does not accommodate cobol. The database PL is computationally complete. Query Optimization: This is very strong in RDBMS because of the restricted set of data type. OODBMS has poor query optimization because of the complex data structure Primary Keys: In RDBMS rows are uniquely identifying based on the value and also no two records can have the same primary key values this is to avoid error conditions. In an OODBMS, Object Identifiers (OID) which are system generated are used to uniquely identify an object and this is done behind the scenes and this is completely invisible to the user. With this feature in OODBMS there is no limitation on the value that can be stored in an object, thus increasing the efficiency of the database. Vendors Support : RDBMS is highly successful because of the large market size but most of the vendors of RDBMS are adding the capabilities of Object oriented to their applications so they are moving towards ORDBMS. OODBMS are targeting niche market because they lack of support from Vendors. This is due to the fact that the market for RDBMS is very large and it is difficult for vendors to move away from legacy systems that are mostly based on RDBMS. OODBMS Functionality and performance review: Complex process integration among companies is the driving force for adopting OODBMS. The capabilities of Objected-oriented programming language are integrated to the technology of DBMS in OODBMS. Designs of Object database are quite different because object database design is the essential part of the overall application design process. In OODBMS the Object classes used is the same as the classes used by the programming language. Data are stored in tables with columns and rows in relational databases i.e. data are represented in two-dimensional view. This is effective for applications that are simple, straightforward system, possessing low volume. RDBMS is good for application with simple relationships between data. Relational database technology failed to handle the needs of complex information systems because it requires the developer to force an information model into tables where relationships between entities are defined by values and, Relational database requires translation of sub-language like SQL and call interface like JDBC/ODBC. All these slows down the RDBMS data performance Support of abstract object interfaces is actively provided by OODBMS. It manages types, classes and methods, including the execution of methods. Data can be represented in more than two-dimensional view and relationships between data are represented explicitly which improve data access performance The basic functionality of relational database management systems is combined with new functionality of Object oriented in OODBMS. The basic functionalities are: Persistence Transaction Management and Concurrency control Security Recovery Data Access performance Query. Persistence: This is the ability of an object to be stored on a permanent medium and can survive program termination or shutdown. i.e. it can survive the duration of the OS process in which it resides. Persistence data to survive transaction updates they have to be stored outside transaction context. The addition of persistent to objects is essential to making OODBMS applications useful in practice this because most applications need to handle persistent data. Persistence is dealt with in OODBMS by the addition of persistence to object programming language like C++, Smalltalk and Java. OODBMS support persistent objects from data distribution, programming languages, transaction model, versions, schema evolution and generation of new types. Another way OODBMS offer persistence is through Inheriting from a common class. Transaction Management and Concurrency control: The use some form of versioning systems is the means of managing updates to multiple data at the same time in OODBMS, without any interference from one another. OODBMS products allow the objects to remain in the client cache after committing a transaction this is done so that the application is able to reference it again soon. This feature increase performance with the way data are stored and retrieved from the database. Concurrency control enables users to see the same view of object data in OODBMS. This allows a lot of reads and writes operations to go on in parallel while ensuring that the data is in consistent and good state. Security: Secure OODBMSs have certain characteristics that make them unique. The concepts of encapsulation, inheritance, information hiding, methods, and the ability to model real-world entities in object oriented environment provide security model in OODBMS. OODBMS may encapsulate a series of basic access commands into a method and make it public for users, while keeping basic commands themselves away from users. Little work has been done in OODBMS application to add security mechanism against malicious misuse of data. Recovery: Recovery features in OODBMS allow a consistent state of the database to be reinstated after a system crash or failure. This is done by either by rolling back the uncommitted transaction or rolling forward of transactions that has been committed but not completely flushed to disk. Data Access performance

The Impact of Opium Use in Nineteenth-Century England :: European Europe History

The Impact of Opium Use in Nineteenth-Century England Introduction Evidence from contemporary newspapers and other sources suggest that by the mid nineteenth-century England was beginning to realize the depth of its opium problem. Opium had been introduced by the Arabs around the sixteenth-century, England began to seriously trade it around the late seventeenth- century. English citizens, by this time, through its exploits, were using the drug for medical reasons. However, most of these new cures all used opium in some form. No matter in which, form it was used, opium had only one effect. It gave a feeling of euphoria. From the opium pill to the plaster or its alkaloids it was a highly addictive drug, a new drug free from government constrains and open to public sale. In the early years opium was merely another piece of cargo to be traded. Â   The Beginnings of The Problem Opium had first arrived in London as a new medicinal trade product. It was new, compact, easily transported, and non-perishable. Trade with China proved very profitable and flourished for more than twenty years uninterrupted, until in 1835 China passed its first laws prohibiting the importation of opium (1). In the years following this prohibition, England responded simply by shifting the drop off points to other ports in China. China resisted these efforts, by England, to continue trade and began attacking their ships. These acts were seen as aggressive in the eyes of the English and the first opium war resulted. The war ended with the treaty of Nanking, which ceded China to Britain. The second opium war between 1856 and 1858 ended with the treaty of Tientsin (2). These two wars were prime examples of commercial imperialism, not only through the opening of treaty ports but through British control of Chinese customs which the 1842 treaty established, and continuing opium trade withou t restraint (3). All these acts on the part of British and the Chinese prove that there was real awareness of the depth of the opium problem. Â   Medicinal Uses During the years between and after both opium wars, England was developing more uses for opium. There were opium plasters, pills, cough drops, lozenges, troches, and scores of other the applications. Opium could be bought alongside food and spirits. Usually the opium was originally bought for some kind of ailment, and consequently the addiction would begin. One physician noted that he prescribed an opium plaster to a young girl, and discovered that three weeks later she was still using it (4).

ABC Electric Company :: GCSE Business Marketing Coursework

ABC Electric Company Introduction ABC Electric has been in business since 1970. The company makes hand-held arc welders its primary customers are construction firms, shipbuilders, auto-repair shops, and â€Å"self-help† amateurs. The company has 30% of the current market share along with four other competitors it has an annual sales of $800 million. The company has a satisfied customer-base. Although, their products are priced above the competitors, customers prefer ABC’s welders due to their superior finish, reliability, and durability. Recently, demand for hand-held welders in the U.S. was steadily growing at a rate of 7% rate annually but has currently drop. However, demands are growing in the West European market, which is currently value at $1 billion. Recently, ABC Electric found its market share and profitability decreasing. Due to the fact that the company has made some gain in its customer base by improving product quality and service while maintaining price. Moreover, a component supplier of ABC has raised its price by almost 10%. In addition, industry wide competition has generated excessive price reduction, which help in the fluctuation of the company profitability. Strategic Issues Facing ABC Electric ABC Electric is facing several issues that needs to be address in order to stabilize their competitors growth as well as increasing their market share and profitability. These issues are closely related to their external competitive strategy, which seems to be non-existence on a whole. Base on my brief discussion above, I believe that ABC Electric has in-voluntarily allows, one of its competitors to make advancement by improving its quality and service of their product without increasing price. Due to the fact that, ABC perceived its customers to be immune to price thereby remaining loyal to its product because of the quality and reliability that comes with the product image. As a result, this perceived brand loyalty created a threat to the company. The second issue facing the company is, a supplier of whom ABC purchases its electric motors from for its welder has raised the price by almost 10%. In looking at this, the bargaining power of the supplier is very strong bec ause the switching cost might be very high. Moreover, it will become damaging to the company based on the current reduction in price within the industry if the problem is not solved.

Accommodating Differences

Multicultural education seeks to create equal educational opportunities for all students, including those from different racial, ethnic and social-class groups. Multicultural education tries to create equal educational opportunities for all students by changing the total school environment so that it will reflect the diverse cultures and groups within a society and within the nation’s classrooms. We will look at three different diverse groups, some common characteristics, challenges an educator may have to accommodate these groups and what special learning opportunities can be offered by such a group represented in a class. The three groups we will focus on by culture are Haitians, East Asians, and Hispanics. Some common characteristics they share are all these groups’ value learning and education for their children, but they all face discrimination as well, from one time or another in and out of school. They value family as the center of the social structure and consider the father as the lead, the decision maker, the authoritative figure. When these immigrants are mainstreamed into Western American schools, we cannot automatically assume they will merge into our culture, but look into the culture from whence they came in order to understand certain ways and behaviors they may exhibit. â€Å"Special challenges educators have for many, diverse immigrant families, the right to a formal education and all the trappings of school life for their children are very new concepts. It is common for the children to quickly assimilate their peers â€Å"norms† about socializing, homework, growing sense of independence and other activities surrounding school. † (Kramer, 2000) These are just a few of these difference of challenges a teacher will have to overcome to accommodate these groups. For instance, Americans, Haitians, and Hispanics upon meeting, shake hands, opposed to East Asians. East Asians bow, or nod their heads. When the other groups refer to themselves, they point to their chest. East Asians refer to themselves by pointing to their nose. While some groups look at you when you talk, and this is considered respect, but the Asians look at it as being rude. Consider this, if you were at a table and someone blew their nose, you would consider that as being disrespectful or rude. Not the Asians. Here you can see how important it is to understand one’s culture. What special learning opportunities can be offered by such a group represented in class? By teaching your students to value their differences, you are creating a truly global classroom and an appreciation of each other; you are showing them how to appreciate the rest of the world. Expose the students to this variety of cultures throughout the term, which will enable them to be more tolerable of each other’s differences. Make discussing the differences in cultures in you classroom an important part of what you and your students do together. Accept the concerns of parents or guardians who are not part of your culture, may be different from the concerns you may have. If you are sensitive to the potential differences when you speak with parents, you will find yourself asking questions that will help you determine what their goals for their children are before you attempt to impose your own beliefs. Stress the importance of an open-minded attitude about people whose beliefs or lifestyles are different from those of your students, and make sure you model that acceptance as well. Have activities and manipulative as a resource to explain the multi-culture of the diverse student(s) in your classroom. This way, everyone learns about each other. Even if you have lived in your community all your life, take time to learn about its various cultural groups. Understanding how these groups are represented in the school system will help you understand your students better. Although teaching students from many cultures can be challenging, one of the most successes of the public school system in America is the variety of cultures that meet in the classrooms each day. At a time when school systems are scrutinized and criticized from many sides, classroom diversity is one of our nation’s greatest assets. Although some people try to define culture in ethnic or racial terms, a broader definition is more accurate, â€Å"every person belongs to a variety of culture groups delineated by such features as geography, age, economics, gender, religion, interest, or educational evel. † (Diversity in the Community, 1999) Below is an outline of how Social Studies can be used to accommodate diverse students of grades Kindergarten – 12. General Classroom Tips for Meeting Diverse Learning Needs * Relate class to personal real life skills and experiences * Limit expectations to two or three concepts per unit * Evaluate projects rather than doing tradit ional testing * Concentrate on student strengths and bring those strengths into the lesson * Use concise written and oral directions (spoken, written, and oral). Use short answers rather than long essays * Create small group activities * Provide lecture outlines. Pre-teach concept vocabulary, draw pictures, use concept mapping, webbing, organizers, simplify vocabulary * Be aware of academic levels so that reading, vocabulary, and problems can be addressed * Model assignment expectations, show an example of the product * Use multiple intelligences approaches to teaching the same lessons * Use peer tutoring * Use taped materials (text or study guides) (Teaching Strategies for Students with Diverse Learning Needs, 2011) If you ignore the cultural differences among your students, you will create strife and tension. Conversely, if you choose to accept and celebrate those differences, you will find those differences to be a rich resource for your class. By incorporating strategies in the classroom to meet the needs of all the students, and having an environment showing the diverse cultures, every student will learn about each other and every studen t will receive an equal educational opportunity.

A Comparison between Eastern and Western Philosophy Essay

Have you thought about the question—â€Å"Is the world around us knowable?† For most Westerners, the answer is positive. But if you ask a Chinese the same question, you would get the reply like: â€Å"I don’t know.† or â€Å"Does it matter?† The reason behind it is the difference between Eastern and Western philosophy. A variety of philosophy schools around the world have pondered these kinds of philosophical problems for thousands years and some of them are highly representative (like Confucianism for Eastern and Platonism for Western). Though they are confronted with the same questions, the focal points are usually different from each other, which is caused by the disparity of their opinions toward the importance of philosophical problems. Western philosophy can be divided into Ancient Greek philosophy, medieval philosophy, modern philosophy and contemporary philosophy, while Eastern philosophy includes Chinese philosophy, Indian philosophy, Japan ese philosophy etc. There is no doubt that the similarities between them are obvious, yet the focus of Eastern philosophy is in society whereas Western’s is in universe. Because the understanding from a single side is always partial, the purpose of this paper is to illustrate the major differences between the focus and methodology of Eastern and Western philosophy traditions and explain the possible causes behind it. When it comes to philosophy, Eastern philosophers take an individual inner world as starting point and put the principles of social life at the first place while Westerners will speculate on it from a universal perspective and try to figure out the principles behind the world. As Fung (1984) states that from a philosophical perspective, the highest achievement a man could realize is to be a sage and the daily task of dealing with social affairs in human relations is a part of the process of being a sage. However, for Western philosophers, they are inclined to put the origin of all things in the universe at first place, and then analyze how the world works. As Windelband (1956) illustrates, the history of Western philosophy is â€Å"an i nsight into the origin of European science in general†, which shows the reason behind Western philosophers’ preference. This difference also appears in Eastern and Western philosophy’s attitudes toward politics. In the ancient period, both Eastern and Western philosophers played the role of policy maker. Dong Zhongshu, who is one of the most successful Confucian in political area in  Chinese history (as his theories had been taken as the general embodiment of the policy of running the country), put forward the â€Å"Three cardinal guides (ruler guides subject, father guides son and husband guides wife)† and â€Å"Five constant virtues (benevolence righteousness, propriety, wisdom and fidelity)† to help emperor Wu to strengthen his domination (Queen, 1996). All of these principles are highly related to social life since Dong believes the core of philosophy is humanity and the society needs to be ordered by regulating people’s social life. Similarly, Plato, who is a representative figure of ancient Greek philosophy, also offered his political opinions, which is highly relat ed to his theory of forms. As for Plato, the structure of a state is similar to a human body. The workers represent the abdomen; the warriors represent the chest and the philosopher kings represent the head, which are corresponding to productive, protective and governing respectively (Gaarder, 1996). It is noticeable to point out that while the Confucians’ political view is based on human nature since they take individual citizen as the basic unit of society, Platonism tries to analyze the structure of a state from a general perspective, which is focus on a general perspective. The difference between the methodology of Eastern and Western philosophy is also a big concern. As Spirkin concluded that â€Å"Methodology is a system of principles and general ways of organizing and structuring theoretical and practical activity, and also the theory of this system.† Nonetheless, there is no concept like methodology that appears in most Eastern philosophy classics. There are famous Chinese philosophical classics like the Analects of Confucius and Tao Te Ching, which are not monumental masterpieces but express their ideas through a philosopher’s sayings and behaviors. Does that mean there is no methodology in Eastern philosophy? The fact is the methodology of Eastern a nd Western philosophy is extremely different from each other and we cannot use the definition of Western philosophy to judge Eastern philosophy. As Easterners do not have a system of principles and methods to solve problems, they take the principles of social life as methodology, which can be summarized as doctrine of the mean. In contras, Western philosophy has a set of theories of reasoning (like syllogism and deductive reasoning), which can form people’s decisive mind habit. As Hamilton and Webster (2009) states in their book about culture difference â€Å"Difference in approach can also be seen in negotiations.Ð ¸Westerners expect to focus on contentious issues and try to achieve the most beneficial outcomes for themselves. In contrast, the Japanese prefer to discuss areas of agreement, with the expectation that harmony will lead to the resolution of details.† In other words, as a result of putting high value on social relationship, the methodology of Eastern philosophy comes from predecessors’ experiences and people chronically take other’s feeling into consideration, whereas Westerners usual ly take themselves as starting points, advocate independent and rational thoughts as well. For another instance, both Eastern and Western world had experienced a lot of reforms, but the leader of the reform would take totally different approaches. During the period of hundred day’s reform, which happened in China in 1898, Kang YouWei, who is the leader of this reform, spread his ideas of reform by annotating Confucius classics (Karl and Zarrow, 2002). Likewise, there is also a famous reform that happened in France in 1800s—the Age of enlightenment. The leaders of this reform set up their own theories of society and pointed their arrows toward feudal class directly (Dora, 1979), which is extremely different from Kang’s approach. One of the greatest reasons for the difference between Eastern and Western philosophy is geography. As Windelband (1956) notes, the history of the philosophy of the Greeks, like the history of their political development, requires a larger conception of its political relations would imply. This shows that geography plays a significantly important role in the development of philosophy. Generally speaking, the two main sources of Eastern philosophy—China and India—are ag riculture countries. â€Å"There are two expressions in the Chinese language which can both be translated as the world. One is ‘all beneath the sky’ and the other is ‘all within the four seas’.† (Fung, 1948). As agriculture activities are regular and predicable, Easterners prefer to believe past experience rather than abstract principles. That’s why the sayings and behaviors of a sage can be the best philosophy lesson for Easterners—because they are specific and comprehendible. And yet, Western countries are very close to ocean. As Windelband (1956) cites homer â€Å"The natural link of the three great continents was this sea, with its islands and coasts occupied by the most gifted of people, which from the earliest historical times had settled all its coasts.† As a result, most Western countries are highly commercialized and industrialized. Innovation and  breakthrough are always greatly required, which means only the theories based on logic and reasoning can be valued. As Confucius once said, â€Å"The wise move; the good stay still. The wise are happy; the good endure† (Confucius and James, 2010). Though it is not his original meaning, this saying shows th e difference between the personality of the ancient Chinese and Greeks from a geographical perspective. Let’s move back to the question at the beginning—â€Å"Is the world around us knowable?† The different answers toward it imply the real reasons behind the differences between Eastern and Western philosophy and that is the ways they look the world. While Easterners pay attention to the balance of the inner world, Westerners are trying to conquer the outside world. This is why Westerners will say â€Å"Yes† to this question because they have achieved a lot of accomplishments in discovering the secrets of the world already. But for most Easterners they pay more attention to their daily life and relationships with others, which make them cannot respond to this question with a certain answer. Both the differences of emphasis and methodology can be explained from this perspective. To a great extent, geographical factors contributed enormously to this process and sometimes make the gap grow. Eastern and Western philosophy need to learn from each other, as it is t he only way to recognize the advantages and disadvantages of themselves. We all have a belief that he different philosophy will melt with each other rather than against in the future.