A Preprocessing Framework for Underwater Image Denoising Essay

Abstract A major obstacle to underwater operations using cameras comes from the light absorption and scattering by the marine environment, which limits the visibility distance up to a few meters in coastal waters. The preprocessing methods concentrate on contrast equalization to deal with nonuniform lighting caused by the back scattering. Some adaptive smoothing methods like anisotropic filtering as a lengthy computation time and the fact that diffusion constants must be manually tuned, wavelet filtering is faster and automatic. An adaptive smoothing method helps to address the remaining sources of noise and can significantly improve edge detection. In the proposed approach, wavelet filtering method is used in which the diffusion constant is tuned automatically. Keywords: underwater image, preprocessing, edge detection, wavelet filtering, denoising. I. INTRODUCTION The underwater images usually suffers from non-uniform lighting, low contrast, blur and diminished colors. A few problems pertaining to underwater images are light absorption and the inherent structure of the sea, and also the effects of colour in underwater images. Reflection of the light varies greatly depending on the structure of the sea. Another main concern is related to the water that bends the light either to make crinkle patterns or to diffuse it. Most importantly, the quality of the water controls and influences the filtering properties of the water such as sprinkle of the dust in water. The reflected amount of light  is partly polarised horizontally and partly enters the water vertically. Light attenuation limits the visibility distance at about twenty meters in clear water and five meters or less in turbid water. Forward scattering generally leads to blur of the image features, backscattering generally limits the contrast of the images. The amount of light is reduced wh en we go deeper, colors drop off depending on their wavelengths. The blue color travels across the longest in the water due to its shortest  wavelength. Current preprocessing methods typically only concentrate on local contrast equalization in order to deal with the nonuniform lighting caused by the back scattering. II. UNDERWATER DEGRADATION A major difficulty to process underwater images comes from light attenuation. Light attenuation limits the visibility distance, at about twenty meters in clear water and five meters or less in turbid water. The light attenuation process is caused by the absorption (which removes light energy) and scattering (which changes the direction of light path). Absorption and scattering effects are due to the water itself and to other components such as dissolved organic matter or small observable floating particles. Dealing with this difficulty, underwater imaging faces to many problems: first the rapid attenuation of light requires attaching a light source to the vehicle providing the necessary lighting. Unfortunately, artificial lights tend to illuminate the scene in a non uniform fashion producing a bright spot in the center of the image and poorly illuminated area surrounding. Then the distance between the camera and the scene usually induced prominent blue or green color (the wavelength corresponding to the red color disappears in only few meters). Then, the floating particles highly variable in kind and concentration, increase absorption and scattering effects: they blur image features (forward scattering), modify colors and produce bright artifacts known as â€Å"marine snow†. At last the non stability of the  underwater vehicle affects once again image  contrast. To test the accuracy of the preprocessing algorithms, three steps are followed. 1) First an original image is converted into grayscale image. 2)  Second salt and pepper noise added to the grayscale image. 3) Third wavelet filtering is applied to denoise the image. Grayscale images are distinct from one-bit bi-tonal black-and-white images, which in the context of computer imaging are images with only the two colors, black, and white. Grayscale images have many shades of gray in between. Grayscale images are also called monochromatic, denoting the presence of only one (mono) color (chrome). Grayscale images are often the result of measuring the intensity of light at each pixel in a single band of the electromagnetic spectrum and in such cases they are monochromatic proper when only a given frequency is captured. Salt and pepper noise is a form of noise typically seen on images. It represents itself as randomly occurring white and black  pixels. An image containing salt-and-pepper noise will have dark pixels in bright regions and bright pixels in dark regions. This type of noise can be caused by analog-to-digital converter errors, bit errors in transmission. Wavelet filtering gives very good results compared to other denoising methods because, unlike other methods, it does not assume that the coefficients are independent. III. A PREPROCESSING ALGORITHM The algorithm proposed corrects each underwater perturbations sequentially.  addressed in the algorithm. However, contrast equalization also corrects the effect of the exponential light attenuation with distance. B. Bilateral Filtering Bilateral filtering smooth the images while preserving edges by means of a nonlinear combination of nearby image values. The idea underlying bilateral filtering is to do in the range of an image what traditional filters do in its domain. Two pixels can close to one another, occupy nearby spatial location (i.e) have nearby values. Closeness refers to vicinity in the domain, similarity to vicinity in the range. Traditional filtering is a domain filtering, and enforces closeness by weighing pixel values with coefficients that fall off with distance. The range filtering, this averages image values with weights that decay with dissimilarity. Range filters are nonlinear because their weights depend on image intensity or color. Computationally, they are no more complex than standard nonseparable  filters. So the combination of both domain and range filtering is known as bilateral filtering. A. Contrast equalization Contrast stretching often called normalization is a simple image enhancement technique that attempts to improve the contrast in an image by ‘stretching’ the range of intensity values. Many well-known techniques are known to help correcting the lighting disparities in underwater images. As the contrast is non uniform, a global color histogram equalization of the image will not suffice and local methods must be considered. Among all the methods they reviewed, Garcia, Nicosevici and Cufi [2] constated the empirical best results of the illuminationreflectance model on underwater images. The low-pass version of the image is typically computed with a Gaussian filter having a large standard deviation. This method is theoretically relevant backscattering, which is responsible for most of the contrast disparities, is indeed a slowly varying spatial function. Backscattering is the predominant noise, hence it is sensible for it to be the first noise Anisotropic filtering Anisotropic filter is used to smoothing the image. Anisotropic filtering allows us to simplify image features to improve image segmentation. This filter smooths the image in homogeneous area but preserves edges and enhance them. It is used to smooth textures and reduce artifacts by deleting small edges amplified by homomorphic filtering. This filter removes or attenuates unwanted artifacts and  remaining noise. The anisotropic diffusion algorithm is used to reduce noise and prepare the segmentation step. It allows to smooth image in homogeneous areas but it preserves and even enhances the edges in the image. Here the algorithm follow which is proposed by Perona and Malik [5]. This algorithm is automatic so it uses constant parameters selected manually. The previous step of wavelet filtering is very important to obtain good results with anisotropic filtering. It is the association of wavelet filtering and anisotropic filtering which gives such results. Anisotropic algorithm is  usually used as long as result is not satisfactory. In our case few times only loop set to constant value, to preserve a short computation time. For this denoising filter choose a nearly symmetric orthogonal wavelet bases with a bivariate shrinkage exploiting interscale dependency. Wavelet filtering gives very good results compared to other denoising methods because, unlike other methods, it does not assume that the coefficients are independent. Indeed wavelet coefficients in natural image have significant dependencies. Moreover the computation time is very short. IV. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP AND EVALUATION To estimate the quality of reconstructed image, Mean Squared Error and Peak Signal to Noise Ratio are calculated for the original and the reconstructed images. Performance of different filters are tested by calculating the PSNR and MSE values. The size of the images taken is 256Ãâ€"256 pixels. The Mean Square Error (MSE) and the Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) are the two error metrics used to compare image compression quality. The MSE represents the cumulative squared error between the compressed and the original image, whereas PSNR represents a measure of the peak error. The lower the value of MSE, the lower the error. In Table 1, the original and reconstructed images are shown. In table 2, PSNR and MSE values are calculated for all underwater images. PSNR value obtained for denoised images is higher, when compare with salt and pepper noise added images. MSE value obtained for the denoised images has lower the error when compared with salt and pepper noise added images. e D. Wavelet filtering Thresholding is a simple non-linear technique, which operates on one wavelet coefficient at a time. In its most basic form, each coefficient is thresholded by comparing against threshold, if the coefficient is smaller than threshold, set to zero; otherwise it is kept or modified. Replacing the small noisy coefficients by zero and inverse wavelet transform on the result may lead to reconstruction with the essential signal characteristics and with the less noise. A simple denoising algorithm that uses the wavelet transform consist of the following three steps, (1) calculate the wavelet  transform of the noisy image (2) Modify the noisy detail wavelet coefficients according to some rule (3) compute the inverse transform using the modified coefficients. Multiresolution decompositions have shown significant advantages in image denoising. best denoised image. In clearly, the comparisons of PSNR and MSE values are shown in Fig -1a and Fig -1b. V. CONCLUSION In this paper a novel underwater preprocessing algorithm is present. This algorithm is automatic, requires no  parameter adjustment and no a priori knowledge of the acquisition conditions. This is because functions evaluate their parameters or use pre-adjusted defaults values. This algorithm is fast. Many adjustments can still be done to improve the whole pre-processing algorithms. Inverse filtering gives good results but generally requires a priori knowledge on the environment. Filtering used in this paper needs no parameters adjustment so it can be used systematically on underwater images before every pre-processing algorithms. REFERENCES [1] Arnold-Bos, J. P. Malkasse and Gilles Kervern,(2005) â€Å"Towards a model-free denoising of underwater optical image,† IEEE OCEANS 05 EUROPE,Vol.1, pp.234256. [2] Caefer, Charlene E.; Silverman, Jerry. &Mooney,JonathanM,(2000) â€Å"Optimisation of point target tracking filters†. IEEE Trans. Aerosp. Electron. Syst., pages 15-25. [3] R. Garcia, T. Nicosevici, and X. Cufi. (2002) â€Å"On the way to solve lighting problems in underwater imaging†. In Proceedings of the IEEE Oceans 2002, pages 1018–1024. [4] James C. Church, Yixin Chen, and Stephen V., (2008) â€Å"A Spatial Median Filter for Noise Removal in Digital Images†, page(s):618 – 623. [45 Jenny Rajan and M.R Kaimal., (2006) â€Å"Image Denoising Using Wavelet Embedded anisotropic Diffusion†, Appeared in the Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Visual Information Engineering, page(s): 589 – 593. [6] Z. Liu, Y. Yu, K. Zhang, and H. Huang.,(2001) â€Å"Underwater image transmission and blurred image restoration†. SPIE Journal of Optical Engineering, 40(6):1125–1131. [7] P. Perona and J.Malik, (1990) â€Å"Scale space and edge detection using anisotropic diffusion,† IEEE Trans on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, pp.629-639. [8] Schechner, Y and Karpel, N., (2004) â€Å"Clear Underwater Vision†. Proceedings of the IEEE CVPR, Vol. 1, pp. 536-543. [9] Stephane Bazeille, Isabelle, Luc jaulin and Jean-Phillipe Malkasse, (2006) â€Å"Automatic Underwater image PreProcessing†, cmm’06 – characterisation du milieu marine page(s): 16-19. [10] Yongjian Yu and Scott T. Acton, (2002) â€Å"Speckle Reducing Anisotropic Diffusion†, IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, page(s): 1260-1270, No. 11, Vol.11.

Demat Account Essay

I would like to thank my Branch Manager for being a support throughout my Project work. Mr. Deepak Chaudhary has always encouraged me to stay focused towards my project no matter what the conditions are. I have furthermore to thank my respected Project Guide Dr. Renuka Sharma who gave and confirmed this permission and encouraged me to go ahead with my Project. She always guided me in the right direction whenever I asked her for help. I would also like to thank God for giving me the patience throughout my project and my parents who supported me and helped me in all ways. Without all, I could not have successfully completed my project properly in time with adequate data and relevant substance in it. Thanking you, Mehak Mehta CUN120550046 3 Executive Summary This project is about creating a portfolio product that would help Angel Broking. We all know that stock market is a risky investment alternative for all but it is good if investor can make money out of it. The regulatory body for the stock market is SEBI who controls all the activities of the market on daily basis and try to do transaction in a legal way so as to avoid the scams and to protect the interest of the investors. Now days there are many Portfolio managers and Fund managers who invest on the behalf of the investors and they assured them fixed rate of return on their investment in a particular period of time. They all applied various kinds of model to measure the risk available in the market and the tools to manage that risk. There are various kinds of risk which is mainly categorize in two parts 1. Macro level risk 2. Micro level risk I. Macro level risk :- It consist of Systematic and Unsystematic Risk. Systematic risk is that which cannot be reduced but Unsystematic risk can be controlled. Micro Level risk:- It consist of various kinds of risk which are prevailing in the market like Business risk, Market risk, Liquidity risk, Exchange rate risk, Financial risk, Currency risk and Country risk The above are the broad categories of the risk in the market. As we can see from the recession that the global markets also have their impact on the Indian market because now a days companies are doing business at global level so the market of one country can affect the market of other countries also. So we cannot avoid the risk but we can manage the risk and minimize it. In my project I have done the same thing by applying the various models or tools which are helpful to manage the risk while doing an investment. Purpose/Objective of the study:? ? The purpose of the study is to give a portfolio product to Angel Broking as per the needs of the population of Ludhiana region. Endeavour to create wealth over the medium to longer term through investments in equities, across market capitalization by focusing solely on the following:? To measure the risk available in the market, taking into consideration the Nifty 50 stocks. To look deep into the fundamentals of the companies as well as the concerned industry. ? To calculate the expected return from the shortlisted stocks as well as from their concerned industry. ? To measure the risk/reward value of investors’ assets class choices 4 Research Methodology Used in the Project:Type of research project is Descriptive and Exploratory. To make a research project we need to see that whether there would be scope of this study or not, because if our study is not having scope then the whole work done will not be effective. The scope of this study is there in the market because in today scenario everyone looks for the safe and risk free return but they don’t know how to manage the risk which is there in the market so by the help of this study and after seeing the relevance, the Financial managers or the investment companies can take benefit out of it. Because by this they will come to know about the tools to manage the risk and they will be able to sell more investment products because by using it they will be able to give safe return to the investors which will lead to an increase in their goodwill in the market. Methodology used to making of this project is Descriptive research design. Once we decide with the type of research design we need also to know about the collection of data. I have used the secondary method to collect the data from the market. For this purpose different websites are being search out for the relevant information for making the project and various research paper and articles were also studied so as to get reference from those articles. Once I am done with the data collection and fundamental analysis, I then need to apply the tools. In my project I have used mainly four tools BETA, CAPITAL ASSET PRICING MODEL (CAPM), STANDARD DEVIATION and SHARPE INDEX. Sharpe Index tells us the excess return we can generate from the investment. Beta tells about the volatility of the risk. CAPM tells us about the Expected return on the stock, and Sortino ratio tells us that out of the stocks which are giving negative return which will be the stock that will give positive return in near future. Thus by applying all these models we come to know that we can also minimize our risk but for that analysis should be done so as to enjoy the safe return on the investment. Findings:- After applying all the above models I have come to know the Beta of my portfolio, expected return that my portfolio will generate. CAPM help us to know that how much would be expected return on the stock and then we can compare the actual return with the expected return and invest accordingly. Beta helps us to know the volatility of risk in the market and then we can do risk return tradeoff so as to invest in best stock as per our analysis. And Result of Sharpe ratio helps us to compare with the expected return and then do the Sortino ratio if required. 5 Table of Contents I. Introduction to the corporation. Business carried on by parent company and group companies along with brief history, promoters & vision Introduction to the parent firm Main competitors Number of employees Organization Structure Study of functioning of all the departments of the company SWOT Analysis Financial Statement Analysis Trend Analysis Strategies adopted Profitability Analysis Review of Literature ? ? ? Review of articles Need of the study Objectives of the study III. Research Methodology adopted IV. Details of actual work undertaken V. Interpretation & Analysis VI. Conclusion and Suggestions ? ? VII. Findings of the study Recommendations of the study Glossary VIII. Bibliography 6 Chapter-1 Introduction to the corporation and company 7 Business carried on by the parent company 8 Angel Broking Registered Office Corporate Office G-1, Ackruti Trade Center, Road No -7, 6th Floor, Ackruti Star, Central Road – MIDC, MIDC, Andheri (E), Mumbai – 400 093. Andheri (E), Mumbai – 400 093. Tel: (022) 2835 8800 / 3083 7700 Tel: (022) 3935 7600 9 About the company Angel Broking’s tryst with excellence in customer relations began in 1987. Today, Angel has emerged as one of the most respected Stock-Broking and Wealth Management Companies in India. With its unique retail-focused stock trading business model, Angel is committed to providing ‘Real Value for Money’ to all its clients. The Angel Group is a member of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), National Stock Exchange (NSE) and the two leading Commodity Exchanges in the country: NCDEX ; MCX. Angel is also registered as a Depository Participant with CDSL. Vision To provide best value for money to investors through innovative products, trading/investments strategies, state of the art technology and personalized service. Motto To have complete harmony between quality-in-process and continuous  improvement to deliver exceptional service that will delight our Customers and Clients. 10 CRM Policy. A Customer is the most Important Visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us, but we are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity to do so. † – Mahatma Gandhi Business Philosophy ? ? ? ? Ethical practices ; transparency in all our dealings Customers interest above our own Always deliver what we promise Effective cost management Quality Assurance Policy We are committed to providing world-class products and services which exceed the expectations of our customers, achieved by teamwork and a process of continuous improvement. 11 Evolution of Angel Group ? MR DINESH THAKKAR, CHAIRMAN ; MANAGING DIRECTOR, ANGEL GROUP, started this Journey as a SUB-BROKER in 1987 with 3 Employees and 25 Clients. 1997-2003 ? Dec’97: Incorporation of Angel Broking ? July’98: Angel Research Division started ? Mar’02: Web-enabled back office software developed 2004 ? Apr’04: Incorporation of Commodities Broking ? Sep’04: Launch of internet trading platform 2005 Awarded prestigious â€Å"Major volume driver† award 12 2006 ? ? ? ? Jul’06: PMS function launched Sep’06: Commences MF and IPO distribution Oct’06: Awarded â€Å"Major volume driver† award Dec’06: Crossed 2,500 business associates 2007 ? Oct’07: â€Å"Major volume driver† award for third consecutive time ? Nov’07: Crossed 1. 5 lakh mark in DP account ? Dec’07: IFC acquired 12. 35% stake in Angel Group 2008 ? ? ? ? ? Jan’08: Commences insurance distribution Feb’08: Ranked 1st by NSE for Registered intermediaries May’08: Third party distribution business ramped up Sep’08: Ranked 1st on NSE for largest sub-broker network Major volume driver† award for the 4th consecutive time 2009 ? Jan’09: Ranked 1st on NCDEX on the basis of turnover ? May’09: Awarded the â€Å"Best Retail Broking House† and the â€Å"Broking House with Largest Distribution Network† by Dun ; Bradstreet ? Two Analysts won the ET Starmine Analyst Award ? â€Å"Major volume driver† award for the 5th consecutive time 2010 ? Nov’10: â€Å"Major volume driver† award for the 6th consecutive time 13 2011 ? Mar’11: Awarded the Best Contribution in Investor Education ; Category Enhancement of the Year – Angel Broking Ltd and Broker with Best Commodity Research of the Year – Angel Commodities Broking Pvt. A very strong and dedicated Research and Advisory desk. ? One of the highest success ratios in both technical and fundamental calls. ? An excellent IT infrastructure in place with over 18144 trading terminals and 610 VSATs with a server uptime of 99. 9%. ? 100% Retail centric focus and total commitment towards retail customers. ? Some of the best fund managers running our Portfolio Management Services to enable clients to minimize their risk, enhance return and diversify their portfolios. ? Training Programs to upgrade the knowledge base ; competency levels of our employees, channel partners ; even our end customers. Understanding client’s risk ; return profile Offering the right blend of sector and stock exposure Giving dedicated Investment Advisors Giving a choice of different schemes to suit every individual investor preferences Catering to Individuals, HUFs, Corporate, NRIs, Trusts ? Angel Commodities ? ? ? ? Personalized services through branches ; regional hubs Trading ; Relationship Mgmt. Services in Bullion, Base Metals, Energy ; Agri. futures Opportunities in hedging ; portfolio diversification, speculation ; arbitrage Training ; Educational Seminars on Commodities ? Angel Currency Futures ? ? ? ? Comprehensive coverage on Currencies (‘Rupee’ to ‘Euro’, ‘Dollar Index’ to ‘Yen’). Reports covering in-depth fundamentals of the currencies. Latest economic data releases with their likely impact, along with â€Å"Technical levels† Comprehensive reports on currencies ideally suited for any investor / trader. ? Angel Gold ? ? ? ? Personalized Investment Advisory Portfolio Restructuring ; Continuous Monitoring Guidance from Experienced Research Team Periodic Group Meetings with Investors. ? Specialized Products Margin Funding ? Facility to allow clients to take higher exposure 20 ? ? ? Instant Liquidity for Clients Margin is deposited in Cash as well as Collaterals Enabling Clients grab Earning Opportunity Pre-Paid Brokerage ? ? ? ? ? ? Zero Account Opening Charges Attractive Brokerage Rates Free DP AMC for 1 year Assured gifts worth thousands with every account Easy ; Fast Recharge Free Financial Investment Application with every account ? Depository Services ? ? ? ? ? No physical instruction required for the client’s sell obligations Lowest transaction charges in the country Acceptance ; execution of instruction on fax A combined monthly ‘Bill-Transaction-Holding cum Ledger’ statement Efficient pledge mechanism ? Value Added Services Request response SMS Example – DP Holding, Pool Holding, Ledger update etc ? Insurance ? ? ? Products to meet the triple objectives of risk coverage, investment and tax planning Assessment of your Insurance needs after proper risk profiling A wide array of individual life cover plans to meet your Protection, Savings and Retirement needs ? Mutual Funds ? ? ? ? ? Tie- ups with all major AMCs Dedicated Relationship Manager for Business Partners Exclusive MF Research Reports by Angel (Daily/ Weekly/Monthly Mutual Fund Reports) MF Portfolios as per Investors Financial Goal Common Gateway for all Mutual Funds related queries ? Loans, IPO and Fixed Deposits Products distributed by Angel include: Unsecured Loans ? Personal/Business Loans/Credit Cards Secured Loans ? Home Loans/ Loan Against Properties ? Loan Against Securities / Gold IPO – Distribution, Advisory and Helpdesk Fixed Deposits NHB Term Deposits 22 Distribution Model Short form Full form Details CSO Central Statistical Organization Mumbai RO Regional Offices 24 Branches Branches 190 SB Sub-Brokers 10000+ Clients Clients 1900000+ 23 Business carried on by the particular firm 24 Angel Broking Regional Office. Rewards ; Recognition 27 E-broking Unique Online Trading products customized to suit different Investment / Trading needs – ? ? ? Angel Investor Angel Diet Angel Trade Back-Office Online Client Details includes – ? Ledger balances ? Cash Deposits with Angel ? Securities Holdings ? ? Charges levied/paid in the client’s account Last auction / close-outs effected ? DP Holding for the last 3 transactions 28 Advisory Intraday calls BTST calls Long term calls Angel Trading 29 Positional calls Main Competitors Major players in the region are as follows:- 30 History of broking firms Brief history of some broking firms – The birth of Karvy was on a modest scale in 1981. It began with the vision and enterprise of a small group of practicing Chartered Accountants who founded the flagship company, Karvy Consultants Limited. ? They started with consulting and financial accounting automation and carved inroads into the field of registry and share accounting by 1985. ? Since then, karvy utilized its experience and superlative expertise to go from strength to strength, to better their services, to innovate, diversify and in the process, evolved as one of India’s premier integrated financial service enterprise.

Learning process in behaviour Essay

Learning is a permanent change in behaviour caused by experience. The learner does not need to have the experience directly; we can also learn by observing others . It is an ongoing process. Our knowledge of the world is continually being revised as we are exposed to new stimuli and receiving ongoing feedback that allows us to modify our behaviour when we find ourselves in a similar position again Psychologists who have studied learning have developed advanced therories on the process of learning. Here we will discuss the two major approaches to learning; instrumental and classical conditioning. Classical Conditioning It occurs when a stimulus that elicits a response is paired with another stimulus that initially does not elicit a response on its own. A Russian physiologist , Pavlov introduced classically conditioned learning by pairing a neutral stimulus ( a bell ) with a stimulus known to cause a salivation to dogs ( he squirted dry meat powder). The powder was an unconditioned stimulus because it was capable of causing the response. Over time, the dog has learned to associate the bell with its meat powder and begin to salivate at the sound of the bell only. The drooling of these canine consumers because of a sound now has a linked to feeding time, was a conditioned response ( CR ). This basic of classical conditioning applies to responses controlled by the autonomic and nervous systems. When these cues are consistently paired with a conditioned stimuli such as brand names, we as consumers may feel hungry, thirsty or aroused when later exposed to brand cues. Conditioning effects are more likely to occur after the (CS) conditioned and  unconditioned ( UCS ) stimuli have been paired a number of times. Repeated exposures increases the strength of stimulus-response associations and prevent the decay of these associations in memory. Many marketing strategies focus on the establishment of associations between stimuli and responses. Behavioural learning principal applies to many consumer phenomena, ranging from the creation of a distinctive brand image to the perceived linkage between a product and an underlying need. The transfer of meaning from an unconditioned stiulus to a conditioned stimulus explains why made-up brands like Marlboro, Coca-Cola or IBM can exert such powerful effects on consumers. Operant conditioning Over the years behaviourist have carried out operant principals out of the narrow world of the skinner box and into the wider room of society. The use of the operant techniques to help people change unwanted, dangerous, or self-defeating habits in real world settings is called behaviour modification ( applied behaviour analysis ) Behaviour modification has had enormous success, behaviorist have taught parents to toilet train their children in only a few sessions etc. as you can see from everyday world behaviour modificaton is not a science but an art. Operant Conditioning : process of applying the law of effect to control behaviour by manipulating its consequences. Law of effect: behaviour followed by pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated; behaviour followed by unpleasant consequences is not 4 basic reinforcement strategies is use in operant conditioning; – positive reinforcement -negative reinforcement -punishment -extinction Positive reinforcement : the process by which people learn to perform acts leading to such desirable outcomes. Whatever behaviour led to the positive outcome is likely to occur again, thereby strengthening that behaviour by making a pleasant consequences contingent onto its occurrence. Negative reinforcement: Negative reinforcement is the process by which people learn to perform acts that lead to removal of undesired events or unpleasant consequence contingent onto its occurrence. Punishment: administrating of negative consequences or withdrawal of positive consequences that tend to reduce the likelihood of repeating the behaviour in similar settings Extinction: ceasation of previously established reinforcer that is maintaining a behaviour by removal of a pleasant consequence of its occurrence. Positive reinforcement can take many forms. One of the strongest is praise and recognition for the good work. It is good rewards management. It shifts the emphasis and energy of the manger towards a larger number of employees, rather than focus all the attention and time on poorer employees. If done correctly it can make all but the worst employees feel that the organization recognizes and appreciates their effort and contributions. If the desired behaviour is specific in nature and is difficult to achieve , a pattern if positive reinforcement called shaping can be used. Shaping is the creation of a new behaviour by the positive reinforcement of successive approximations leading to the desired behaviour. Negative reinforcement governs a good deal of our behaviour. Some people do  think that it is a reasonable way to manage people at work that is, employees who engage in undesirable behaviour should expect something to happen to them. But there are some difficulties with this approach. First it creates a tens environment ( difficult to work everyday where the main motivation is to prevent unpleasant outcomes ) secondly, relationships often deteriorates when superiors represent a constant threat to be avoided. There can be adverse side effects in using punishment. – An action intended to punish may instead be reinforcing because it brings attention -the recepient of punishment often responds with anxiety ,fear or rage -the effectiveness of punishment is often temporay, depending heavily on the presense of the punishing person or circumstances -most misbehaviours is hard to punish immediately thus resutingin the reinforcement of the undesired behaviour -punishment conveys little info Extinction is important and quite commonly used. This strategy decreases the frequency of or weakens the behaviour . The behaviour is not â€Å"unlearned†; it simply is not exhibited. Since the behaviour is no longer reinforced, it will reappear when it is reinforced again. Whereas positive reinforcement seeks to establish and maintain desirable work behaviour, extinction on the other hand is intended to weaken and eliminate the undesirable behaviour Law of contingent reinforcement states for reward to have the maximum reinforcing value ; it must be delivered only if the desired behaviour is exhibited . Secondly, the law of immediate reinforcement states , the more immediate the delivery of a reward after the occurence of a desirable behaviour, the greater the reinforcing value of the reward. Timing of postiove reinforcement; a) the continuous reiforcemnt schedule administers a reqrd each tie a desired behaviour occurs b) b) an intermittent or patila reinforcement schedule rewars a behaviour only periodically. – 4 varieties of partial reinforcement schedule – a) Fixed interval schedules b)Variable interval schedules c)Fixed ratio schedules c) Variable ratio schedules In general , a mange can expect that the continuous reinforcement will draw a desired behaviour more quickly than will intermittent reinforcement Steps in positive reinforcement program; @identify specific behaviour that are to be changed; must be accurate and reliably observed and then recorded. Behaviour should be measurable and observable. @ determine the links between the target behaviour, its consequences and stimulus condition leading to the beaviour) @develop and set specific behaviour goals for each person and target behaviours @recording process toward the goal @apply appropriate consequences; rewards, punsihmnets,extinction

Explain the relevance of marketing concept to the 21st century Essay

Explain the relevance of marketing concept to the 21st century business of Virgin Group - Essay Example In the case of Virgin Group, it can be observed that the overall goal of the organization is to partner with different business groups in order to create recognised brands. Therefore, the element of mutual relationship among the stakeholders involved is very important since it helps the partners involved to pull their resources towards the same direction. As such, the marketing concept that is suitable for this noble cause is relationship marketing since it is designed to improve the viability of the organization through unifying all the stakeholders involved in a certain business. This marketing concept is effective since it is oriented towards fulfilling the needs and wants of all the stakeholders involved in Virgin Group’s activities. Introduction The success of business in its operations mainly depends on the marketing concept adopted. As such, this paper seeks to evaluate the relevance of relationship marketing (RM) to the operations of Virgin Group which is regarded as t he 21st century business. The paper starts by describing above mentioned marketing concept and this is followed by a brief introduction of the chosen organization, Virgin Group. The main body of the paper will focus on explaining the relevance of the marketing concept to the 21st century business under spotlight. The main points discussed in the paper will be summarised in the conclusion. Description of the marketing concept Relationship marketing is described as the process of establishing, maintaining, enhancing and commercialising customer relationships so that the objectives of the parties involved are met Strydom (2004). Relationship marketing is particularly concerned with satisfying the customer needs and wants. During the contemporary period, it can be noted that markets are characterised by stiff competition such that it becomes imperative for the organisations to retain their customers in order for them to operate viably in the future, (Athanasopoulou N.D). This can be ach ieved through establishing quality relationships around services of the customer, suppliers and other stakeholders as well as their values. These stakeholders in business particularly the customers are the main component in the relationship mix. Concerted efforts ought to be taken in order to satisfy the needs of the customers which can lead to creation of loyalty among them. In case of Virgin Group, this strategy can go a long way in creating competitive advantage for the organization. The concept of relationship marketing often involves high customer involvement and contact whereby mutual understanding can be created among the parties involved. Strydom (2004) posits to the effect that relationship marketing is a continuous process. Essentially, the concept of relationship marketing evolved from transactional marketing in order to serve the interests of the customers profitably. The concept of relationship marketing is also centred on creation of value chain which will help the org anization to gain a competitive advantage if its products and services are regarded as more valuable than the ones offered by the other competitors in the same industry (Wang et al, 2004). Positive consumer perceptions about a product play a pivotal role in creating quality relati

The Franco-American Trade Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The Franco-American Trade - Essay Example French exports stood at 1,427 billion francs ($285.4 billion) in 1995, 22% of GDP while the imports amounted to 1,322 billion francs ($264.4 billion). The figured showed a substantial increase in the surplus in durable goods (over 58 billion francs, $11.6 billion), a 20 billion-franc surplus ($4 billion) in farm products, a surplus of 31 billion francs ($6.2 billion) in agri-foodstuffs, a declining energy bill and a rise of 19% in electricity exports.(Stern 47) Being a member of the European Union results in a lot of internal trading between the EU countries, hence France's European Union partners absorb 64% of its trade. According to the survey carried out in the 1990s, the country had a trade surplus of 27 billion francs ($5.4 billion) with the EU in 1995. The main trading partners of France are Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Belgium and Spain, along with the United States. As pointed out above France and United Kingdom are major trading partners. France is UK's third largest market and has been importing from Britain for the last twenty odd years. France has the distinction of being UK's third largest supplier providing 7.2% of UK imports only behind Germany (14.6%) and the USA (9.5%), while ahead of the Netherlands (7.1%) and China (6.8%). The United Kingdom is Frances's fourth export market making 8.3% total exports, after Germany (14.7%), Spain (9.9%) and Italy (9.5%). The United Kingdom is France's seventh supplier, as it pr... As Chinese products have flooded the global markets, the scenario has been similar for France who has been importing from China on an increasing rate. (Stern 51) On the other hand, United Kingdom has lost the France market and this is mostly explained by the downward trend in the oil exports by the UK to France. Other main category products whose export level has also suffered have been cars, electronic and electrical equipment, chemicals, clothing and meat. However, this has been slightly off set by increasing UK exports in sectors such as machinery (gas turbines), pharmaceuticals, aerospace, iron and other heavy metals, precious stones and beverages. The main categories or rather sectors which have been of prime trading importance between UK and France apart from the energy sector are: machinery, electrical equipment, transport, chemicals, food and consumer goods. According to the latest figures, the imports by France from UK include mostly machinery while France mostly exports transport equipment to the UK. (Gilbert 2004) Machinery constitutes the largest share in the bilateral trade by having nearly 80% representation while it is followed by the energy sector in UK exports at 11.7% and oil in UK imports at 5.9%. Energy's share in UK exports was 11.7% (10.6% being oil) and 5.9% in UK imports. Another important trading partner of France is the United States of America (USA). The foreign trade allows them to deepen the understanding of good faith that that the two countries have established. The foundation of their global trade is based on a solid arrangement. According to the latest figures published in the State publications, the average trading between the two nations is of 1 billion dollars -commercial activities and

Specific questions on avionic regulations, certifications and Essay

Specific questions on avionic regulations, certifications and standards - Essay Example gnificant in the overall performance of the plane, for instance, light bulb; however, such items may also affect the safety of the aircraft since they are connected to other major parts, i.e. the light bulb, for example, is part of the electrical channel of the aircraft (Transport Canada 22). Reason: The type certificate clearly and precisely gives a definition of the requirements of the changes and modifications that have to comply with the stipulations of airworthiness; this is also a requirement of the change product rule. Reason: An AFM supplement is provided in the case of any change that may tamper with the regulatory data that may be contained in the Fundamental AFM. Regulatory data contained in the supplemental manual is confirmed by the TCCA (Delegation and Engine Design ppt). The correct answer is (c): Continuing Airworthiness is achieved in part by the development, issuance and distribution of Airworthiness Circulars and the Approval of the Alternative Means of Compliance. Reason: The issuance of Airworthiness Circulars and the approval of the Alternative Means of Compliance form part of the requirements needed to obtain a Certificate of Continuing Airworthiness which is later approved by the Minister (Transport Canada 10). Reason: The approval of Alternative Means of Compliance or exemption to AD requirements is given by the Airworthiness Directives Department of Transport Canada and not the Airworthiness Certification Department (Transport Canada

Marketing in France Report II Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Marketing in France Report II - Essay Example Some countries have banned some or all the forms of alcohol advertising (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-18960770). In France, advertising for any drink that has alcohol content that is above 1.2% is prohibited on television, radio (between 5 pm to midnight, and on Wednesdays) and on print media that are targeted at teenagers and kids (http://www.theguardian.com/media/2001/jul/26/advertising). Advertising is allowed in the remaining printed media, on radio between midnight and 5 pm, billboards, posters, and leaflets. Since 2009, using the Internet was allowed except on websites that target the youth or related to sports (Nic, Gormley, and Usher 61). Given this information, we will gear our advertising more towards internet marketing because of the media restrictions through television. The French government is stepping up its effort so as to gather more of the taxes that owners of TV set are to pay to assist public service broadcasting. This has led to the private TV companies t o respond by increasing up their rates of advertising making the advertising cost high and this contributes towards effective regulation of liquor consumption and moral responsibility (http://www.theguardian.com/media/2001/jul/26/advertising). Overall use of TV for advertising in France stands at 35.4% (Austin, Barnard, Galli and Hutche, 3). The competition between Television stations in France has become intense. TV also has to compete against the other media, i.e. radio stations that are commercial, public sector and the press. At the same time, expansion in the TV sector has led to jockeying for dominating the market so as to win for advertisers and audience. The market in supplying through the TV is relatively open and the costs are lower as compared to the other forms of media. Print media advertisements greatly vary and this depends on the publication, number of insertions, circulation, quantities (if it is flyers, direct mail, handouts,