Recently, several banks have started offering customers remote deposit capture. With this new service, customers do not have to physically go to banks or ATM machines to deposit checks anymore. Instead, they can send checks as a scanned image through an Internet portal provided by the bank. This technology can save banks and customers time and money making the transactions. Blue Bank is considering implementing this new service. To use it, customers need a remote capture account with Blue Bank and a special scanner to get the necessary images to make the electronic deposit. Once the account is established in the system, customers will be able to scan all of their checks anytime and anywhere by accessing the Blue Bank service through the Internet, logging in, and scanning the checks. The service should be as easy as sending an attachment in an email. Of course, this new application has to be very reliable, secure, and easy to use. It must be integrated into the current Blue Bank Web site, and the Web site must also provide the ability for customers to purchase the special scanner. Blue Bank will set up the scanner-purchasing ability with several appropriate hardware vendors and sell the devices at its physical banks as well. Blue Bank is not sure yet what to charge for the scanners or service. The Web site will also provide online technical support and instructions showing customers how to set up and use the new scanner and service. Support will be provided 24/7 via the Web site and telephone.
Tasks
1.Research information on remote deposit capture. Who is using it, and how does it work? Do you think its an important feature to provide for banking customers? Why or why not? How much do you think customers would be willing to pay for this service? Summarize your response in a two- page paper citing at least two references.
2.Several managers at Blue Bank are not sure that they should invest in remote deposit capture. The bank prides itself on being customer-oriented, having several large bank buildings, ATMs and remote bank sites in many grocery stores, primarily throughout the Midwest. Many of its customers have banked with Blue Bank their whole lives, but less than half of them use any of its current Internet banking services. The new VP of IT was hired to prepare Blue Bank for the future and to reduce the loss of younger customers who have moved to banks that are more progressive. Based on this information and research on the current banking industry, identify three potential strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that Blue Bank may be experiencing.
3.Prepare the financial section of a business case for the Remote Deposit Capture Project. Assume the project will take 6 months to complete and cost about $500,000 (year 0 costs). Annual operating costs would be about $150,000 per year for three years. Estimated benefits are about $400,000 per year for three years. An example of a Business case template can be downloaded from https://acc.dau.mil/CommunityBrowser.aspx?id=46512. Calculate the NPV, ROI, and year in which payback occurs. Assume a 6.5 percent discount rate.
4.Prepare a project charter for the Remote Deposit Capture Project. Assume the project will take 6 months to complete and cost about $500,000. Use the project charter template and examples of project charters in Chapters 3 and 4 as guidelines. Assume that the project sponsor will be the new VP of IT, Harold Johnson, you will be the project manager, and you will have people from marketing and IT supporting the project on a part-time basis. The VP of Marketing, Tricia Young, is also a key stakeholder in the project and head of a project steering committee formed to oversee this project.
5.You know that people will be requesting changes to the project and want to make sure you have a good integrated change control process in place. You also know that you want to address change requests as quickly as possible. A template for a change request form can be downloaded from http://www.consulting.ky/free_project_management_templates.php. Write a one- to two-page paper describing how you plan to manage changes on this project in a timely manner. Address who will be involved in making change control decisions, what paperwork/electronic systems will be used to collect and respond to changes, and other related issues.
Part 2: Project Scope Management
The project steering committee has asked you to put together your project team. They suggest that you have two people from IT, two from marketing, and one person from the purchasing department all working part-time on the project. As always, you will need the services from Code Corp., the software company that has developed the entire Blue Bank Web site. Code Corp. has people working in several different countries, mostly in a virtual environment. The main contact with that company is Christian Jones. Since this new remote capture service requires the use of a special scanner, you will ne
sorry i cant understand your question
Q .1New City Studio Records company has decided to store information about musicians who perform on its albums (as well as other company data) in a database. The company has wisely chosen to hire you as a database designer.
Each musician that records at the company has an SSN, a name, an address, and a phone number. Poorly paid musicians often share the same address, and no address has more than one phone.
Each instrument used in songs recorded at the studio has a unique identification number, a name(e.g., guitar, synthesizer,, flute) and a musical key (e.g., C, B-flat,E-flat).
Each album recorded on the Studio has a title, a copyright date, a format (e.g., CD or MC), and an album identifier.
Each song recorded at the Studio has a title and an author.
Each musician may play several instruments, and a given instrument may be played by several musicians.
Each album has a number of songs on it, but no song may appear on more than one album.
Each song is performed by one or more musicians, and a musician may perform a number of songs.
Each album has exactly one musician who acts as its producer. A musician may produce several albums, of course.
Q. 2 Consider the following Relations:
Student(rollno: integer, sname: string, major: string, level: string, age: integer)
Class(cname: siring, meets at: string, room: string, fid: integer)
Enrolled(rollno.- integer, cname: string)
Faculty(fid: integer, fname: string, deptid: integer)
The meaning of these relations is straightforward; for example, Enrolled has one record per student-class pair such that the student is enrolled in the class.
Write the following queries in SQL. No duplicates should be printed in any of the answers.
1.Find the names of all Juniors (level = JR) who are enrolled in a class taught by Mr.Kushal.
2.Find the age of the oldest student who is either a History major or enrolled in a course taught by Ms.Indira.
3.Find the names of all classes that either meet in room R128 or have five or more students enrolled.
4.Find the names of all students who are enrolled in two classes that meet at the
same time.
5.Find the names of faculty members who teach in every room in which some class is taught. (5 Marks)
Q. 3Produce an E-R diagram, which documents the entities and relationships involved in the Loan Management System module of any Nationalized Bank. Create a relational schema to hold the necessary information. Identify the tables, perform normalization to the tables and fully implement the code with necessary validations using MS-Access / FOXPRO / DBASE or any other similar package. Provide necessary documentation and coding for the project.
Q4 Design a multimedia package that helps in teaching: Control Statements in C Programming.
You must follow the standard methodology for development of multimedia. You must fill up various templates required for the development of Multimedia. (Refer Unit 4 of your CS-66 course material)
Present a prototype of your design using MS-Office tools. Your multimedia package should include at least 10 slides having suitable graphics, simple animation and few audio clips. (Audio clips need not be recorded professionally but can be recorded using built in microphone of simple multimedia computer. Make assumptions wherever necessary.
Q5 Construct an E-R diagram for attendance maintenance system for BCA. Create 1st Normal Form tables from the ER diagram. Identify all the functional dependencies and normalize your table design to 3rd Normal Form. Make and state suitable assumptions, if any.
Q5 Construct an E-R diagram for attendance maintenance system for BCA. Create 1st Normal Form tables from the ER diagram. Identify all the functional dependencies and normalize your table design to 3rd Normal Form. Make and state suitable assumptions, if any.Q6
Don’t post your homework. No body is interested to work on your behalf. Do it yourself.
______________________________
www.opensourcenuts.com
"Aliens Cause Global Warming"
A lecture by Michael Crichton
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA
January 17, 2003
My topic today sounds humorous but unfortunately I am serious. I am going to argue that extraterrestrials lie behind global warming. Or to speak more precisely, I will argue that a belief in extraterrestrials has paved the way, in a progression of steps, to a belief in global warming. Charting this progression of belief will be my task today.
Let me say at once that I have no desire to discourage anyone from believing in either extraterrestrials or global warming. That would be quite impossible to do. Rather, I want to discuss the history of several widely-publicized beliefs and to point to what I consider an emerging crisis in the whole enterprise of science-namely the increasingly uneasy relationship between hard science and public policy.
I have a special interest in this because of my own upbringing. I was born in the midst of World War II, and passed my formative years at the height of the Cold War. In school drills, I dutifully crawled under my desk in preparation for a nuclear attack.
It was a time of widespread fear and uncertainty, but even as a child I believed that science represented the best and greatest hope for mankind. Even to a child, the contrast was clear between the world of politics-a world of hate and danger, of irrational beliefs and fears, of mass manipulation and disgraceful blots on human history. In contrast, science held different values-international in scope, forging friendships and working relationships across national boundaries and political systems, encouraging a dispassionate habit of thought, and ultimately leading to fresh knowledge and technology that would benefit all mankind. The world might not be avery good place, but science would make it better. And it did. In my lifetime, science has largely fulfilled its promise. Science has been the great intellectual adventure of our age, and a great hope for our troubled and restless world.
But I did not expect science merely to extend lifespan, feed the hungry, cure disease, and shrink the world with jets and cell phones. I also expected science to banish the evils of human thought—prejudice and superstition, irrational beliefs and false fears. I expected science to be, in Carl Sagan’s memorable phrase, "a candle in a demon haunted world." And here, I am not so pleased with the impact of science. Rather than serving as a cleansing force, science has in some instances been seduced by the more ancient lures of politics and publicity. Some of the demons that haunt our world in recent years are invented by scientists. The world has not benefited from permitting these demons to escape free.
But let’s look at how it came to pass.
Cast your minds back to 1960. John F. Kennedy is president, commercial jet airplanes are just appearing, the biggest university mainframes have 12K of memory. And in Green Bank, West Virginia at the new National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a young astrophysicist named Frank Drake runs a two week project called Ozma, to search for extraterrestrial signals. A signal is received, to great excitement. It turns out to be false, but the excitement remains. In 1960, Drake organizes the first SETI conference, and came up with the now-famous Drake equation:
N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL
Where N is the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; fp is the fraction with planets; ne is the number of planets per star capable of supporting life; fl is the fraction of planets where life evolves; fi is the fraction where intelligent life evolves; and fc is the fraction that communicates; and fL is the fraction of the planet’s life during which the communicating civilizations live.
This serious-looking equation gave SETI an serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses-just so we’re clear-are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be "informed guesses." If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It’s simply prejudice.
As a result, the Drake equation can have any value from "billions and billions" to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science. I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion. Faith is defined as the firm belief in something for which there is no proof. The belief that the Koran is the word of God is a matter of faith. The belief that God created the universe in seven days is a matter of faith. The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms, and in forty years of searching, none has been discovered. There is absolutely no evidentiary reason to maintain this belief. SETI is a religion.
One way to chart the cooling of enthusiasm is to review popular works on the subject. In 1964, at the height of SETI enthusiasm, Walter Sullivan of the NY Times wrote an exciting book about life in the universe entitled WE ARE NOT ALONE. By 1995, when Paul Davis wrote a book on the same subject, he titled it ARE WE ALONE? ( Since 1981, there have in fact been four books titled ARE WE ALONE.) More recently we have seen the rise of the so-called "Rare Earth" theory which suggests that we may, in fact, be all alone. Again, there is no evidence either way.
Back in the sixties, SETI had its critics, although not among astrophysicists and astronomers. The biologists and paleontologists were harshest. George Gaylord Simpson of Harvard sneered that SETI was a "study without a subject," and it remains so to the present day.
But scientists in general have been indulgent toward SETI, viewing it either with bemused tolerance, or with indifference. After all, what’s the big deal? It’s kind of fun. If people want to look, let them. Only a curmudgeon would speak harshly of SETI. It wasn’t worth the bother.
And of course it is true that untestable theories may have heuristic value. Of course extraterrestrials are a good way to teach science to kids. But that does not relieve us of the obligation to see the Drake equation clearly for what it is-pure speculation in quasi-scientific trappings.
The fact that the Drake equation was not greeted with screams of outrage-similar to the screams of outrage that greet each Creationist new claim, for example-meant that now there was a crack in the door, a loosening of the definition of what constituted legitimate scientific procedure. And soon enough, pernicious garbage began to squeeze through the cracks.
Now let’s jump ahead a decade to the 1970s, and Nuclear Winter.
In 1975, the National Academy of Sciences reported on "Long-Term Worldwide Effects of Multiple Nuclear Weapons Detonations" but the report estimated the effect of dust from nuclear blasts to be relatively minor. In 1979, the Office of Technology Assessment issued a report on "The Effects of Nuclear War" and stated that nuclear war could perhaps produce irreversible adverse consequences on the environment. However, because the scientific processes involved were poorly understood, the report stated it was not possible to estimate the probable magnitude of such damage.
Three years later, in 1982, the Swedish Academy of Sciences commissioned a report entitled "The Atmosphere after a Nuclear War: Twilight at Noon," which attempted to quantify the effect of smoke from burning forests and cities. The authors speculated that there would be so much smoke that a large cloud over the northern hemisphere would reduce incoming sunlight below the level required for photosynthesis, and that this would last for weeks or even longer.
The following year, five scientists including Richard Turco and Carl Sagan published a paper in Science called "Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions." This was the so-called TTAPS report, which attempted to quantify more rigorously the atmospheric effects, with the added credibility to be gained from an actual computer model of climate.
At the heart of the TTAPS undertaking was another equation, never specifically expressed, but one that could be paraphrased as follows:
Ds = Wn Ws Wh Tf Tb Pt Pr Pe etc
(The amount of tropospheric dust=# warheads x size warheads x warhead detonation height x flammability of targets x Target burn duration x Particles entering the Troposphere x Particle reflectivity x Particle enduranceand so on.)
The similarity to the Drake equation is striking. As with the Drake equation, none of the variables can be determined. None at all. The TTAPS study addressed this problem in part by mapping out different wartime scenarios and assigning numbers to some of the variables, but even so, the remaining variables were-and are-simply unknowable. Nobody knows how much smoke will be generated when cities burn, creating particles of what kind, and for how long. No one knows the effect of local weather conditions on the amount of particles that will be injected into the troposphere. No one knows how long the particles will remain in the troposphere. And so on.
And remember, this is only four years after the OTA study concluded that the underlying scientific processes were so poorly known that no estimates could be reliably made. Nevertheless, the TTAPS study not only made those estimates, but concluded they were catastrophic.
According to Sagan and his coworkers, even a limited 5,000 megaton nuclear exchange would cause a global temperature drop of more than 35 degrees Centigrade, and this change would last for three months. The greatest volcanic eruptions that we know of changed world temperatures somewhere between .5 and 2 degrees Centigrade. Ice ages changed global temperatures by 10 degrees. Here we have an estimated change three times greater than any ice age. One might expect it to be the subject of some dispute.
But Sagan and his coworkers were prepared, for nuclear winter was from the outset the subject of a well-orchestrated media campaign. The first announcement of nuclear winter appeared in an article by Sagan in the Sunday supplement, Parade. The very next day, a highly-publicized, high-profile conference on the long-term consequences of nuclear war was held in Washington, chaired by Carl Sagan and Paul Ehrlich, the most famous and media-savvy scientists of their generation. Sagan appeared on the Johnny Carson show 40 times. Ehrlich was on 25 times. Following the conference, there were press conferences, meetings with congressmen, and so on. The formal papers in Science came months later.
This is not the way science is done, it is the way products are sold.
The real nature of the conference is indicated by these artists’ renderings of the the effect of nuclear winter.
I cannot help but quote the caption for figure 5: "Shown here is a tranquil scene in the north woods. A beaver has just completed its dam, two black bears forage for food, a swallow-tailed butterfly flutters in the foreground, a loon swims quietly by, and a kingfisher searches for a tasty fish." Hard science if ever there was.
At the conference in Washington, during the question period, Ehrlich was reminded that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, scientists were quoted as saying nothing would grow there for 75 years, but in fact melons were growing the next year. So, he was asked, how accurate were these findings now?
Ehrlich answered by saying "I think they are extremely robust. Scientists may have made statements like that, although I cannot imagine what their basis would have been, even with the state of science at that time, but scientists are always making absurd statements, individually, in various places. What we are doing here, however, is presenting a consensus of a very large group of scientists"
I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.
In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let’s review a few cases.
In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth . One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no. In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compellng evidence. The consensus said no. In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent "skeptics" around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women.
There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the "pellagra germ." The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory. Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called "Goldberger’s filth parties." Nobody contracted pellagra. The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light.
Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.
And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therap6ythe list of consensus errors goes on and on.
Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.
But back to our main subject.
What I have been suggesting to you is that nuclear winter was a meaningless formula, tricked out with bad science, for policy ends. It was political from the beginning, promoted in a well-orchestrated media campaign that had to be planned weeks or months in advance.
Further evidence of the political nature of the whole project can be found in the response to criticism. Although Richard Feynman was characteristically blunt, saying, "I really don’t think these guys know what they’re talking about," other prominent scientists were noticeably reticent. Freeman Dyson was quoted as saying "It’s an absolutely atrocious piece of science butwho wants to be accused of being in favor of nuclear war?" And Victor Weisskopf said, "The science is terrible but—perhaps the psychology is good." The nuclear winter team followed up the publication of such comments with letters to the editors denying that these statements were ever made, though the scientists since then have subsequently confirmed their views.
At the time, there was a concerted desire on the part of lots of people to avoid nuclear war. If nuclear winter looked awful, why investigate too closely? Who wanted to disagree? Only people like Edward Teller, the "father of the H bomb."
Teller said, "While it is generally recognized that details are still uncertain and deserve much more study, Dr. Sagan nevertheless has taken the position that the whole scenario is so robust that there can be little doubt about its main conclusions." Yet for most people, the fact that nuclear winter was a scenario riddled with uncertainties did not seem to be relevant.
I say it is hugely relevant. Once you abandon strict adherence to what science tells us, once you start arranging the truth in a press conference, then anything is possible. In one context, maybe you will get some mobilization against nuclear war. But in another context, you get Lysenkoism. In another, you get Nazi euthanasia. The danger is always there, if you subvert science to political ends.
That is why it is so important for the future of science that the line between what science can say with certainty, and what it cannot, be drawn clearly-and defended.
What happened to Nuclear Winter? As the media glare faded, its robust scenario appeared less persuasive; John Maddox, editor of Nature, repeatedly criticized its claims; within a year, Stephen Schneider, one of the leading figures in the climate model, began to speak of "nuclear autumn." It just didn’t have the same ring.
A final media embarrassment came in 1991, when Carl Sagan predicted on Nightline that Kuwaiti oil fires would produce a nuclear winter effect, causing a "year without a summer," and endangering crops around the world. Sagan stressed this outcome was so likely that "it should affect the war plans." None of it happened.
What, then, can we say were the lessons of Nuclear Winter? I believe the lesson was that with a catchy name, a strong policy position and an aggressive media campaign, nobody will dare to criticize the science, and in short order, a terminally weak thesis will be established as fact. After that, any criticism becomes beside the point. The war is already over without a shot being fired. That was the lesson, and we had a textbook application soon afterward, with second hand smoke.
In 1993, the EPA announced that second-hand smoke was "responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths each year in nonsmoking adults," and that it " impairs the respiratory health of hundreds of thousands of people." In a 1994 pamphlet the EPA said that the eleven studies it based its decision on were not by themselves conclusive, and that they collectively assigned second-hand smoke a risk factor of 1.19. (For reference, a risk factor below 3.0 is too small for action by the EPA. or for publication in the New England Journal of Medicine, for example.) Furthermore, since there was no statistical association at the 95% confidence limits, the EPA lowered the limit to 90%. They then classified second hand smoke as a Group A Carcinogen.
This was openly fraudulent science, but it formed the basis for bans on smoking in restaurants, offices, and airports. California banned public smoking in 1995. Soon, no claim was too extreme. By 1998, the Christian Science Monitor was saying that "Second-hand smoke is the nation’s third-leading preventable cause of death." The American Cancer Society announced that 53,000 people died each year of second-hand smoke. The evidence for this claim is nonexistent.
In 1998, a Federal judge held that the EPA had acted improperly, had "committed to a conclusion before research had begun", and had "disregarded information and made findings on selective information." The reaction of Carol Browner, head of the EPA was: "We stand by our science.there’s wide agreement. The American people certainly recognize that exposure to second hand smoke bringsa whole host of health problems." Again, note how the claim of consensus trumps science. In this case, it isn’t even a consensus of scientists that Browner evokes! It’s the consensus of the American people.
Meanwhile, ever-larger studies failed to confirm any association. A large, seven-country WHO study in 1998 found no association. Nor have well-controlled subsequent studies, to my knowledge. Yet we now read, for example, that second hand smoke is a cause of breast cancer. At this point you can say pretty much anything you want about second-hand smoke.
As with nuclear winter, bad science is used to promote what most people would consider good policy. I certainly think it is. I don’t want people smoking around me. So who will speak out against banning second-hand smoke? Nobody, and if you do, you’ll be branded a shill of RJ Reynolds. A big tobacco flunky. But the truth is that we now have a social policy supported by the grossest of superstitions. And we’ve given the EPA a bad lesson in how to behave in the future. We’ve told them that cheating is the way to succeed.
As the twentieth century drew to a close, the connection between hard scientific fact and public policy became increasingly elastic. In part this was possible because of the complacency of the scientific profession; in part because of the lack of good science education among the public; in part, because of the rise of specialized advocacy groups which have been enormously effective in getting publicity and shaping policy; and in great part because of the decline of the media as an independent assessor of fact. The deterioration of the American media is dire loss for our country. When distinguished institutions like the New York Times can no longer differentiate between factual content and editorial opinion, but rather mix both freely on their front page, then who will hold anyone to a higher standard?
And so, in this elastic anything-goes world where science-or non-science-is the hand maiden of questionable public policy, we arrive at last at global warming. It is not my purpose here to rehash the details of this most magnificent of the demons haunting the world. I would just remind you of the now-familiar pattern by which these things are established. Evidentiary uncertainties are glossed over in the unseemly rush for an overarching policy, and for grants to support the policy by delivering findings that are desired by the patron. Next, the isolation of those scientists who won’t get with the program, and the characterization of those scientists as outsiders and "skeptics" in quotation marks-suspect individuals with suspect motives, industry flunkies, reactionaries, or simply anti-environmental nutcases. In short order, debate ends, even though prominent scientists are uncomfortable about how things are being done.
When did "skeptic" become a dirty word in science? When did a skeptic require quotation marks around it?
To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. Back in the days of nuclear winter, computer models were invoked to add weight to a conclusion: "These results are derived with the help of a computer model." But now large-scale computer models are seen as generating data in themselves. No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world-increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting forward. There can be no observational data about the year 2100. There are only model runs.
This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right. Because only if you spend a lot of time looking at a computer screen can you arrive at the complex point where the global warming debate now stands.
Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we’re asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?
Stepping back, I have to say the arrogance of the modelmakers is breathtaking. There have been, in every century, scientists who say they know it all. Since climate may be a chaotic system-no one is sure-these predictions are inherently doubtful, to be polite. But more to the point, even if the models get the science spot-on, they can never get the sociology. To predict anything about the world a hundred years from now is simply absurd.
Look: If I was selling stock in a company that I told you would be profitable in 2100, would you buy it? Or would you think the idea was so crazy that it must be a scam?
Let’s think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horseshit? Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses?
But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for sport. And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900. Remember, people in 1900 didn’t know what an atom was. They didn’t know its structure. They also didn’t know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, internet. interferon, instant replay, remote sensing, remote control, speed dialing, gene therapy, gene splicing, genes, spot welding, heat-seeking, bipolar, prozac, leotards, lap dancing, email, tape recorder, CDs, airbags, plastic explosive, plastic, robots, cars, liposuction, transduction, superconduction, dish antennas, step aerobics, smoothies, twelve-step, ultrasound, nylon, rayon, teflon, fiber optics, carpal tunnel, laser surgery, laparoscopy, corneal transplant, kidney transplant, AIDS None of this would have meant anything to a person in the year 1900. They wouldn’t know what you are talking about.
Now. You tell me you can predict the world of 2100. Tell me it’s even worth thinking about. Our models just carry the present into the future. They’re bound to be wrong. Everybody who gives a moment’s thought knows it.
I remind you that in the lifetime of most scientists now living, we have already had an example of dire predictions set aside by new technology. I refer to the green revolution. In 1960, Paul Ehrlich said, "The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines-hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death." Ten years later, he predicted four billion people would die during the 1980s, including 65 million Americans. The mass starvation that was predicted never occurred, and it now seems it isn’t ever going to happen. Nor is the population explosion going to reach the numbers predicted even ten years ago. In 1990, climate modelers anticipated a world population of 11 billion by 2100. Today, some people think the correct number will be 7 billion and falling. But nobody knows for sure.
But it is impossible to ignore how closely the history of global warming fits on the previous template for nuclear winter. Just as the earliest studies of nuclear winter stated that the uncertainties were so great that probabilites could never be known, so, too the first pronouncements on global warming argued strong limits on what could be determined with certainty about climate change. The 1995 IPCC draft report said, "Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced." It also said, "No study to date has positively attributed all or part of observed climate changes to anthropogenic causes." Those statements were removed, and in their place appeared: "The balance of evidence suggests a discernable human influence on climate."
What is clear, however, is that on this issue, science and policy have become inextricably mixed to the point where it will be difficult, if not impossible, to separate them out. It is possible for an outside observer to ask serious questions about the conduct of investigations into global warming, such as whether we are taking appropriate steps to improve the quality of our observational data records, whether we are systematically obtaining the information that will clarify existing uncertainties, whether we have any organized disinterested mechanism to direct research in this contentious area.
The answer to all these questions is no. We don’t.
In trying to think about how these questions can be resolved, it occurs to me that in the progression from SETI to nuclear winter to second hand smoke to global warming, we have one clear message, and that is that we can expect more and more problems of public policy dealing with technical issues in the future-problems of ever greater seriousness, where people care passionately on all sides.
And at the moment we have no mechanism to get good answers. So I will propose one.
Just as we have established a tradition of double-blinded research to determine drug efficacy, we must institute double-blinded research in other policy areas as well. Certainly the increased use of computer models, such as GCMs, cries out for the separation of those who make the models from those who verify them. The fact is that the present structure of science is entrepeneurial, with individual investigative teams vying for funding from organizations which all too often have a clear stake in the outcome of the research-or appear to, which may be just as bad. This is not healthy for science.
Sooner or later, we must form an independent research institute in this country. It must be funded by industry, by government, and by private philanthropy, both individuals and trusts. The money must be pooled, so that investigators do not know who is paying them. The institute must fund more than one team to do research in a particular area, and the verification of results will be a foregone requirement: teams will know their results will be checked by other groups. In many cases, those who decide how to gather the data will not gather it, and those who gather the data will not analyze it. If we were to address the land temperature records with such rigor, we would be well on our way to an understanding of exactly how much faith we can place in global warming, and therefore what seriousness we must address this.
I believe that as we come to the end of this litany, some of you may be saying, well what is the big deal, really. So we made a few mistakes. So a few scientists have overstated their cases and have egg on their faces. So what.
Well, I’ll tell you.
In recent years, much has been said about the post modernist claims about science to the effect that science is just another form of raw power, tricked out in special claims for truth-seeking and objectivity that really have no basis in fact. Science, we are told, is no better than any other undertaking. These ideas anger many scientists, and they anger me. But recent events have made me wonder if they are correct. We can take as an example the scientific reception accorded a Danish statistician, Bjorn Lomborg, who wrote a book called The Skeptical Environmentalist.
The scientific community responded in a way that can only be described as disgraceful. In professional literature, it was complained he had no standing because he was not an earth scientist. His publisher, Cambridge University Press, was attacked with cries that the editor should be fired, and that all right-thinking scientists should shun the press. The past president of the AAAS wondered aloud how Cambridge could have ever "published a book that so clearly could never have passed peer review." )But of course the manuscript did pass peer review by three earth scientists on both sides of the Atlantic, and all recommended publication.) But what are scientists doing attacking a press? Is this the new McCarthyism-coming from scientists?
Worst of all was the behavior of the Scientific American, which seemed intent on proving the post-modernist point that it was all about power, not facts. The Scientific American attacked Lomborg for eleven pages, yet only came up with nine factual errors despite their assertion that the book was "rife with careless mistakes." It was a poor display featuring vicious ad hominem attacks, including comparing him to a Holocust denier. The issue was captioned: "Science defends itself against the Skeptical Environmentalist." Really. Science has to defend itself? Is this what we have come to?
When Lomborg asked for space to rebut his critics, he was given only a page and a half. When he said it wasn’t enough, he put the critics’ essays on his web page and answered them in detail. Scientific American threatened copyright infringement and made him take the pages down.
Further attacks since have made it clear what is going on. Lomborg is charged with heresy. That’s why none of his critics needs to substantiate their attacks in any detail. That’s why the facts don’t matter. That’s why they can attack him in the most vicious personal terms. He’s a heretic.
Of course, any scientist can be charged as Galileo was charged. I just never thought I’d see the Scientific American in the role of mother church.
Is this what science has become? I hope not. But it is what it will become, unless there is a concerted effort by leading scientists to aggressively separate science from policy. The late Philip Handler, former president of the National Academy of Sciences, said that "Scientists best serve public policy by living within the ethics of science, not those of politics. If the scientific community will not unfrock the charlatans, the public will not discern the difference-science and the nation will suffer." Personally, I don’t worry about the nation. But I do worry about science.
Thank you very much.
Nope!!!!!
My company is heading up a six sigma deployment,, what is a cost effective way to get good training and save money? Who have you used? I am interested mostly in Green belt trainig, thank you.
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I have been to bunches of Training classes and seminars. Of all that I have been to, these are the only ones I that I would recomend.
http://www.leansigmamart.com These people offer the most incredible package I have had a chance work with. Live Training with a real person right from your own computer. Knowledge is deep; class is very easy to learn from. 14 week class for ONLY $999.00 thats $72.00 per week. You will get a free software package worth $1475.00 that has six sigma templates, analysis mentoring, and DMAIC mentoring. WOW!
http://www.georgegroup.com/ These people are very well known and rank high in the six sigma world. They are a very good and reliable but a bit pricey. They offer a wide variety of products.
http://www.6sigma.us/six-sigma-training.php These people cover a lot of different Six Sigma related subjects and are a great place to find resources.
http://www.leancor.com/?trackcode=bizcom These people here cover lot process improvement areas but real good site to learn about the Lean principals. They cover some good manufacturing areas.
I’ve looked at so many, my brain is spinning. ModX, Expression Engine, Textpattern, Joomla, Drupal… too many to choose from. Basically as many things that are important to me that i can think of right now are listed here: (or a start anyway)
Ability to do it from my mac. I think most are mac compatible, but just in case. (i think dot net nuke isn’t?)
ABILITY TO USE OUR OWN TEMPLATES – I don’t want/ need to choose from any pre-existing templates. We build sites professionally using HTML and CSS — just looking for a CMS that’s easy to implement/use with our own html designs/templates.
MAKES SENSE – Stuff’s easy to organize, makes logical sense on how things are arranged — i don’t want to have to spend a whole month just finding things. 
ABILITY TO HAVE SECONDARY PAGES/NAVIGATION — and sometimes even a third "level" of pages. Hierachical levels.
ABILITY TO ADD FUNCTIONALITY (via modules, or whatever) for things like: events, news items, staff members, graphical calendar, site search, members-only part of site (is this possible? user management?), admin control (multiple admins with various admin capability), photo galleries, blogs (?), "store", .. etc.
Just looking for something that’s worth putting the effort, time, and energy into learning — something that’s customizable enough that it will work for plenty of sites, rather than finding out that it’s missing some core feature that we need for one, or whatever.
I’m pretty proficient in HTML and CSS. Just haven’t gotten a handle on this CMS stuff yet. We currently work with a programmer that does custom php solutions for us for most projects — just to give you an idea of where i’m coming from/what i’m familiar with.
anyway… thoughts anyone? advice? anything i should know? pointers? tips? 
You can go for Joomla.
Hi !
I work as a training officer/clerk in a training department of a financial firm. We are trying to do a complete reorganization for the dept. where we move from paper-based work into automation and management information systems. The section is almost chaotic , no proper filing , no standard data and templates , data are in separate data islands ! Our data is contained in MS Word docs and we want to re-think the whole dept. and put a working model in place. This is a management issue and not only a computerization matter. Where do we start ? from data modeling ? process mapping ?? I have a library of books but I’m confused what is the right starting point. This is a project for our section to be done by our section employees. We do not want to indulge the IT department in this project since they use a bulky dbms and program it awfully not utilizing intl. standards like HR-XML for instance.
I hope I described my situation clearly. Please provide help from your experience
1. Launch a pilot project (and secure the needed funding)
2. Attack the problem from both fronts. Process and IT.
3. Model the macro level and micro level processes.
4. If you are delineating the processes standardize on clear and simple interfaces.
5. Spin off teams with the constituent process and their implementation.
6. Hire a consultant to provide feedback.
7. Start with step no 2.
This is the first Assignment please post a sample proposal like this plzzz
listen….. this is a sample template you need to creat your own
DELIVERABLE #01:
Proposal of project (Follow the given template of proposal)
I. Proposal Template
1. Abstract: (In paragraph form)
a. Which product or service you have selected for online business?
b. Why do you want to do your business online?
c. Your website is product focus or customer service focus
d. Importance of online business
e. Potential benefits that you would drive from this kind of business.
2. Preliminary Problem Statement and Solution
a. Problem description
b. Solution
3. Feasibility Study
a. Budget
b. Resources
4. Cost of project
a. Direct Cost
i. Requirement Specification Cost
ii. Design cost
iii. Development Cost
iv. Hosting Cost
v. Maintenance Cost
b. Indirect Cost
i. Other than above cost
5. Cost and Benefit Analysis (CBA)
a. Give a proper weightage to each benefit
b. Benefits should be more than cost then it is feasible to more further
6. Payback Period
a. Initial investment/ Cash flows
7. Human Resources
a. Outsourcing of the project
b. In house development (it is appreciated)
i. Human Resources like Designer, Developer etc
8. Impact on the business
9. Time Frame
a. Start and End date of the project
b. GANTT Chart using Microsoft project management
c. PERT chart with CPM (optional)
d. Schedule for Project regarding tasks distribution (Post .jpeg image)
10. Support services / Dependencies
a. Internet connection Type
b. Computer systems Specification (optional)
c. What type of Networking Equipment is required? (optional)
d. What type of skill Training is required for Employees?
11. Conclusion (Summary / Rationale)
Take a look at: http://www.threehosts.com/business
There you can reach the three reputable companies that are leaders in the E-commerce web hosting industry. They fulfill all your requirements to sell online. By using each of them, everything you need for your business website is provided in one eCommerce Hosting Package.
I have been given the task of creating a disaster recovery plan. Can anybody suggest any templates, sites or programs which can help me with this?
I wondered if some project management software could help, but open to any help or suggestions.
Thanks
The business is sales focused and has 4 branches
Good luck. I had that project about 10 years ago for a very small office. I thought it was a waste of time until a water main broke in the building and drenched a lot of our records in the basement storage. That flowchart on who to call made things a lot simpler on getting the task done. Call paper recovery and computer recovery businesses in your area. They can usually provide you with a checklist and price plans.
General Adminstration & Facility Management, Procurement & Vendor Maangement Methodology, Infrastructure & project management – Templates and proceedures.
prepare a cool site.. make ads on well-known sites.. make ur work with perfection………..all d bst
I am looking for resources that would help me learn to run a web design/production shop. I understand project management, but I am not familiar with resource forecasting.
Some questions I need to answer at work:
-Can we take on project x if it takes 100 coding hours, 60 design hours, and 14 editorial considering the work we currently have on our plates
-How much free time do the designers have next week
-(from an editorial lead perspective) what is my team working on and how are individuals spending their time?
Any templates would be very much appreciated.
side question: Is this similar to how ad agencies are managed?
Operations management involves all aspects of the business where production management is only involved with scheduling and implementing the production of the product you are manufacture.
Exact Software has a good template and cellular manufacturing template/program called JOBBOSS…
