Assignments paper

In which development situations would it be unnecessary or even detrimental to define requirements? Some of non-functional requirements are not necessary for some development situation. Sometimes team has to develop some small functionality, for example some update or additional function, etc. In this case follow to all non-functional requirements bring excess price and time spending. Also when the team is building a system which is pre-existing and add on to that system.When user is enhancing or updating the system What are the most frequent types of requirement errors and why are they critical for the final product? ; Usually customers do not know what they exactly want ; Requirements alter during all project lifestyle ; Customers do not understand real timeliness ; Communication problem between customers, engineers and project managers ; Development teams do not understand customer company politics. All of these problems may result of wrong requirements gathering, of course it wil l be a result of serious errors in requirements. The errors are causes of extra costs or even a project failure.What are non-functional requirements and how do they relate to functional requirements? A non-functional requirement is a requirement that specifies criteria that can be used to Judge the operation of a system, rather than specific behaviors. This should be contrasted with functional requirements that define specific behavior or functions. Also Requirements that are not The plan for implementing non-functional requirements is detailed in the system architecture. (can use the table from text book page number 12) Reliability It indicates the quality It measures the number of errors or defects per thousand lines of code Defects /

Irony In The Canterbury Tales Essay

Chaucer’s Use of Irony in The Canterbury Tales In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer compiles a mixture of stories on a pilgrimage into a figurative depiction of the medieval society in which he lived. Chaucer’s stories have a punch and pizzazz, which, to an average reader, seem uncommon to the typical medieval writer, making his story more delightful. Certain things account for this pizzazz, especially the author’s use of irony. Many of Chaucer’s characters are ironic in the sense that they are so far from what one would expect in the roles they depict, and also the fact that they are larger than life. Every character has his distinct personality with his own behavioral traits. Chaucer also uses irony in his humor, with its unexpectedness and randomness. The wife of Bath is a prime example of one of Chaucer’s characters who is larger than life. She obviously is not what one would expect of a relatively wealthy woman in her time. Her notorious traits such as not only having five husbands, but also marrying a majority of them for wealth and money stick in the mind with their ironic abnormality and appalling connotations: â€Å"ËÅ"Johnny and Dame Alice And I myself, in the fields we went My husband was in London all that Lent; All the more fun for me†Ã¢â‚¬ I only mean The fun of seeing people and being seen By cocky lads; for how was I to know Where or what graces Fortune might bestow’. (273) Chaucer accents her irregular character in this excerpt by portraying her promiscuous actions and her lack of virtue. The wife of Bath also shows irony in her actions by her need for control over others, especially her husbands. † â€Å"ËÅ"So help me God, I have to laugh outright / Remembering how I made them work at night! / And faith I set no store by it; no pleasure / It was to me’ (264)†. Here, the wife of Bath describes her domination and control over her past, old, wealthy husbands. She shows no signs of virtue in her actions to win her husbands, and to literally take their money from them. Because of these ironic, larger than life characteristics of the wife of Bath, she is a character that allows the reader to figuratively develop an intimate relationship with her. She sticks in the reader’s mind, and is a character who is remembered forever due to her unexpected ways and exaggerated traits. The Friar is also an ironic character in his uniqueness and unexpected  traits. Part of this irony is due to the enormous amount of corruption the friar possesses. â€Å"He’d fixed up many a marriage, giving each / Of his young women what he could afford her. / He was a noble pillar to his Order (8)†. In this quote, the unexpectedness totally captures the reader by surprise as he finds out that the Friar actually impregnates women and then marries them to men. This is an ideal quote to show Chaucer’s extra pizzazz in his stories, adding to the appeal of the reader. As the friar’s larger than life traits are exposed, a mental picture develops, to almost as if the reader is in the story. â€Å"Sweetly he heard his penitents at shrift / With pleasant absolution, for a gift / He was an easy man in penance-giving / Where he could hope to make a decent living (9)†. Here, it is seen that the friar is a very worldly man who puts money at a high priority i n his life. Ironically, he took the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, and pathetically breaks all three vows. One of the most ironically corrupt characters in the book is the Prioress. Throughout her tale and the prologue, Chaucer portrays her as someone completely different from what she should be in accord with her vocation as a nun. First of all, the Prioress’ characteristics and actions make it appear that she is going on the pilgrimage not because of her love and respect for God, but instead to travel and to go on an adventure. â€Å"She certainly was very entertaining / Pleasant and friendly in her ways, and straining / To counterfeit a courtly kind of grace, / A stately bearing fitting to her place, / And to seem dignified in all her dealings (6-7)†. This shows that the Prioress is faking her personality, counterfeiting her true purpose of being on the pilgrimage. Also, the Prioress is one of the most hateful characters in the whole story. In the Prioress’ tale, she constantly states her anti-Semitic view towards Jews, implying that the best Jewish person is a dead Jewish person. The ironic part is that the Prioress should be a caring, loving person, for she is a holy representative of God on earth. Strangely enough, the Prioress becomes terrified at the sight of a hurt animal but could care less about Jewish people. â€Å"She used to weep if she but saw a mouse / Caught in a trap, if it were dead or bleeding (7)†. Overall, the Prioress is one of Chaucer’s most ironic characters in his story, and her actions seem unrelated to the vocation of being a nun. Chaucer frequently and successfully uses ironic humor to add to the punch of the story. Because the humor is unexpected and imaginative, it draws from the reader a yearning and interest to read on. The fable of Chanticleer and Pertelote provides an ideal illustration of Chaucer’s humor. † â€Å"ËÅ"For shame,’ she said, â€Å"ËÅ"you timorous poltroon! / Alas, what cowardice! By God above, / You’ve forfeited my heart and lost my love. / I cannot love a coward, come what may’ (216-17)†. Here, it is ironically humorous to not only have animals portraying human traits, but also to create a situation that is comparable to a married couple sitting down at the breakfast table bickering. The humor is directly exposed to the reader due to the unexpected being brought to words, mixed with a tinge of absurdity of the situation. The hilarious irony is that the married couple is actually a rooster and a hen. By using such scenes, Chaucer adds to his stor y a new twist that makes it more gratifying and amusing to read. The randomness of some of Chaucer’s tales also adds to the humor of the story. For instance, it is amusing to think about the randomness of the miller’s tale and the imaginative mind one must have to come up with such a chaotic and hilarious story. The miller’s tale is so intricately laced with puns, sexual jokes, raunchy statements, that it adds an amusing humorous side of Chaucer to the story. Between the stupid carpenter, and the outraged Absolon, dirty scenes are depicted, contributing to Chaucer’s humorous style. All in all, the randomness in Chaucer’s imaginative and unusual comic stories is associated with irony due to the fact that the stories are so unexpected. The ironic and unanticipated characteristics of some of Chaucer’s humorous scenes make the reader laugh, blush, grin, and snicker. â€Å"He lay there fainting, pale beneath his tan; / His arm in falling had been broken double†Ã‚ ¦ They told the town / That he was mad, there’d got into his blood / Some sort of nonsense about â€Å"ËÅ"Nowel’s Flood (105)†. Here, when the carpenter falls from the ceiling in his apparatus to save his life and his wife’s, it is seen how truly random and unexpected Chaucer can be. Overall, irony adds strength and diversity to Chaucer’s story, making his writings more successful. Irony combined with Chaucer’s imagination, wit,  humor, and intelligence makes The Canterbury Tales successful and interesting to the reader. This irony presented in Chaucer’s characters and his humor helps to intensify Chaucer’s writings. Conclusively, the real success of the story relies in the incredible ingeniousness of Chaucer. However, the lack of Chaucer’s use of irony would make the compilation of tales much duller and less unique. Because of this, the irony in the story adds vigor, and it allows for Chaucer to increase his overwhelming success with his readers.

McBride Financial Services

McBride Financial Services is a premier one-stop mortgage provider in the five-state area of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota. The company specializes in providing low-cost, flat-rate fee mortgages to members of its communities shipping for a new residential mortgage. The company is currently privately held but is exploring opportunities to go public through an Initial Public Offering (IPO), acquiring another company in its same industry or merging with another organization.Through utilization of the SWOT method, management will evaluate each approach and determine which is the best method to take McBride Financial Services public. Strengths in Going Public If McBride Financial Services chose the option of going public with an IPO there are a couple of strengths that it would benefit from. The first distinct strength is the raising of capital. Additional capital would allow for brick and mortar expansion, investment opportunities, and added cash flow to improve products and services. An IPO can help reduce debt and the applicable risk rating given by creditors.If the IPO is successful, the options for additional financing will be open. By utilizing the option of an IPO, an organization’s awareness within the community arises. Most companies gain profits when establishing an IPO. Consumers become aware on a local and even a national level of what your organization produces. They will take a risk if currently unhappy with their current financial services and experiment with your products and services. If the customer relationship is cemented from the beginning, the consumer is sure to now produce additional clientele via word-of-mouth.All of this additional business is generated by creating and offering an IPO. If McBride’s chose to acquire another organization within the same industry, it has several advantages it could benefit from. One advantage from the start is that the open locations could potentially be in lucrative loc ations that would create a stronger voice and curb appeal. Financing options become available as well. The current financier used by McBride, will be ready and willing to offer other financing options if needed because of additional income that is now a potential.The potential for additional consumers and vendor relationships is tremendous depending on the size of the organization acquired. It can be beneficial for McBride, as some of those vendor contracts may be more cost effective in the future. Within the same notion of cost effectiveness, the additional staff that is acquired with the new organization brings experience and dependability. It allows the two organizations that are now one to continue to run smoothly and not have higher costs of training and development.There are two major advantages to merging with another organization if that is the choice McBride’s Financial Services commits to. The first advantage is that once the merger is completed, competition within the industry community becomes less of a threat. The other advantage to a merger is the strategic planning and restructuring of the organization. Usually the two organizations will coercively plan and stage a strong management lead to run the larger institution. Weaknesses in Going Public Conducting an IPO is time-consuming and expensive.It can take up to a year or more to complete and can cost several hundreds of thousands of dollars for attorneys, accountants, printers, and additional fees. The SEC disclosure rules are very extensive and mean all financial information is made public. McBride will be subject to review by the SEC to ensure compliance with regulations through proper filings and relevant disclosures. Decision-making among management may be affected by the market price of the shares and the feeling they must receive market recognition for the company’s stock. McBride could lose market confidence should shares of the company’s stock fall.Decreased valuatio n of the company can affect lines of credit, secondary offering pricing, the company’s ability to maintain employees, and the personal wealth of insiders and investors. â€Å"’In today’s global business environment, companies may have to grow to survive, and one of the best ways to grow is by merging with another company or acquiring other companies,’† according to consultant Jacalyn Sherriton. In principle, a merger or acquisition is a capital budgeting decision much like any other. However, much like an IPO, mergers have their weaknesses as well.The value of a merger may depend on such things as strategic fits which can be difficult to measure. The accounting, tax, and legal aspects can be complex. Mergers often involve issues of corporate control and are a means of replacing existing management. Mergers affect the value of a firm and further affect the relative value of the stocks and bonds. Finally, mergers are often unfriendly. Although many c ompanies have found acquisitions to be highly beneficial to their operations, many more encounter problems that can prove disastrous to the future position of the firm.A poorly executed acquisition can harm McBride’s financial and strategic situation. Problems with financing an acquisition can arise before and after the transaction. Expenses for acquisitions can be astronomical when they involve lawyers, consultants, financiers, and advisors that helped make the deal possible. Additionally, filing and legal fees because of complications in the transaction can further exacerbate the already extremely high costs of acquisition. Oftentimes, quality employees are lost in an acquisition because the acquiring firm is too caught up in transaction to recognize they exist within the acquired firm.The long-term strategies of a firm can be negatively affected if it is pursuing a diversification strategy. Rather than improving upon the factors that led to its competitive advantage, manag ement focuses on running a diversified company, which could result in the company losing its core business advantage and severely hampering the future success of the firm. Opportunities in Going Public Major companies and corporations that comprise a big part of the United States economy take advantage of certain opportunities such as going public through IPO’s, acquisitions, and mergers.These three approaches provide an additional resource and many times an advantage to expand, become more profitable, or simply save a company’s existence. McBride Financial Services, for instance, can raise capital by doing an IPO. This gives the company an opportunity to expand its business by becoming a part of the stock market and hence becoming well-known. This also provides enough funds to be put back into the company for profit, and for any other expenses necessary to remain successful and in existence.In the case of an acquisition, which is the taking over of another company, Mc Bride will benefit because the company being acquired is already established. It takes less investment, time, and energy than to start-up a new company. A merger also can be a beneficial opportunity for the company because both parties agree to come together as one organization to improve and grow stronger than as individual companies. A merger eliminates part of the competition, creates a bigger and stronger company, and strengthens the balance sheet.Without methods such as IPO’s, acquisitions, and mergers, â€Å"†¦a company may simply become financially non-viable [and] not able to meet its debt and trade obligations† (Collier, p. 5). Threats in Going Public With the opportunities that McBride Financial Services has with these three options of expansion, there exist certain threats as well. If McBride chooses to go public through an IPO, then it has to worry about the new owners of the company and their ideas about what the company is and should be doing. In a w orst case scenario, Mcbride’s competitors can buy the company and decide to do with it what they want.They can take full control of the company and manipulate it in ways McBride never imagined or they could even just dissolve the company into nonexistence. If McBride needs the money to expand that it would get if it went through with the IPO, then acquiring another organization in the same industry is indeed going to be difficult to do, if not impossible. Even if McBride does find a way to get the money to acquire another company without going public, then it would most likely go into eventual bankruptcy because of the debt it will accumulate because of increased costs.If McBride wants to merge with another organization to expand, it will not be an easy task because the two become one company with a common purpose. If they do not learn how to work with each other and compensate for the other’s weaknesses, then they will eventually fail and both companies will be out of business. Conclusion Based on the information provided while researching each of the approaches for going public, the management team at McBride Financial Services has opted to go public via an IPO.Although it can be costly and time-consuming, it seems to be the best method to maintain the current managerial make-up and integrity of the organization. References (n. d. ) Merger and acquisitions. Retrieved on November 2, 2010 from http://www. answers. com/topic/mergers-and-acquisitions Collier, Steve. Mergers and acquisitions: Special dangers and opportunities. Retrieved November 4, 2010, from EBSCOhost database. Keown, A. J. , Martin, J. D. , Petty, W. , & Scott, D. F. (2005). Financial Management: Principles and Applications.Pearson Education, Inc. Steffens, Gregory (n. d. ). Common problems with acquisitions. Retrieved on November 2, 2010 From http://www. gaebler. com/common-problems-with-acquisitions Taubman, L. E. (n. d). Considerations of an IPO. Retrieved on November 2, 20 10 from http://library. findlaw. com/2001/Jan/1/127967. html Chapter 22 Problems 1. What new problems and factors are encountered in international as opposed to domestic financial management? * Foreign Currency Exchange Fluctuation: International financial management involves cash flow in foreign currency.Foreign currency exchange rate keeps fluctuating. International business is exposed to foreign currency exchange risk as fluctuation in wrong direction affects the business adversely. There are many ways to hedge the cash flow in foreign currency, but no strategy provides complete protection. * Fund flow between countries – International financial management deals with capital flow between countries. In many countries banking system is not mature and /or fund raising is not easy. In that case, company has to raise fund outside the country.International financial management involves the fund flow from one country to other country. * Laws and regulations – Different cou ntries have different business laws, labor laws, laws related to taxation etc. International financial management is affected by the prevailing laws and regulations in a particular country. * Country risk – International business is exposed to the country risk of the country company is doing business in. Country risk involves political risk, general economic environment etc.Because of country risk, additional risk premium is required. International financial management deals with this issue as well. 2. What does the term arbitrage profit mean? Arbitrage profit refers to making risk free profit without investing your own money. The opportunity of arbitrage profit arises because of pricing mismatch. In the simplest form, if the same financial instrument is selling at different price at two different places, one can buy the security where it is selling at the lower price and sell where it is selling at the higher price.This gives the seller a risk free profit without using his m oney. Another example of arbitrage profit is Triangular arbitrage. It is the process of trading out of the first currency into a second currency, then trading it for a third currency, which is in turn traded for first currency. Arbitrage profit can be earned from trading from the second to the third currency if their direct quotes are not consistent with the cross exchange rates. 3. What can a firm do to reduce exchange risk? The firm can hedge against foreign exchange risk in a number of ways.First, they can deposit funds into the foreign country's banks in the foreign denomination in a sufficient quantity so as to hedge against a downturn in the domestic currency. There are some opportunity costs associated with this method as the interest rate earned on the deposited funds will be less than could be earned elsewhere, but the difference is like carrying insurance. In addition, the firm could enter into forwards, futures, or options. 4. What are the differences between a forward co ntract, a futures contract, and options?A forward contract is one that locks in an exchange rate now for a transaction in the future. It is possible the economy will render the forward more expensive than actual exchange rates would have made the transaction to begin with, but again, the forward acts like an insurance policy against negative shifts on exchange rates. Futures contracts are similar to forward contracts except that forward contracts are private agreements and may be molded accordingly. Futures are traded on open markets and, as such, are held to higher levels of scrutiny.Forward contracts can only be executed on one specific date. Futures (because they are traded) are open for transaction any day until their expiration. Options set an exchange rate and, as the name implies, gives the firm the option of exercising the rate at the time the contract is due. This gives the firm flexibility and allows them to take advantage of unforeseen upticks in the global economy that a ctually make exchange rates favorable at contract execution time. Options are more expensive, however (the flexibility afforded by options costs a premium).

Web design project. Phebra, Australia Case Study

Web design project. Phebra, Australia - Case Study Example Phebra is a pharmaceutical company based in Australia. They specialise in medicines which are considered to be innovative for the hospital market. Their market place is tailored to serious and life-threatening conditions. They are specialists in their field. They have a range of pharmaceuticals to cater for the majority of conditions in the "serious" and "life threatening" categories.This project has arisen out of a need to review and improve the existing Phebra website. The task of the new look website will be to communicate the Phebra message in a simple easily readable format. As much information about the company should be placed on a single page, rather than splitting the information into separate pages. This should also make the site easier to navigate. As Phebra were previously known as PharmaLab, it could also be considered as a "rebranding" promotion. Therefore the look and feel of the new site is important, from the perspective of customer branding and effective marketing.T he existing design is based on a blue and white colour scheme. The main focus of the front page is the pull down menu which details the products on offer from the company. The site is fairly simplistic on the front page, in that the main sections include the business, products, ordering information and a contacts page. The main theme of the business is covered with the title "Life-enhancing medicines." This is quite effective. The news section on the left of the web page provides information on recent events. At the right of the home page a typical product is featured. The target audience is not obvious from the home page, even though the intended audience is hospitals. There are no links or information on current customers, even though they market to several countries. The areas Phebra cover is not easily identifiable from the home page information. The colour scheme is easy on the eye, and has a friendly outlook. The marketing message is good overall, but leaves room for improvement and could be more targeted. The information on the products however, is not easy to understand to the lay-person i.e. anyone who is not a pharmaceutical professional, and could be improved. Evaluation of existing design solution The existing design of the Phebra website is partly based on history, following the change in branding from "PharmaLab" to "Phebra". The site is well established and is attractive. The main problem with the site is that the information is quite technical and not understood by the everyday user. The site may be fine for pharmaceutical professionals, but in order for managers and the general public to find information a description of terms and products could be provided in a more user-friendly manner. They provide a useful contact us page, and the current format is suitable, as is. From a marketing perspective the text used does get to the point, but could do with a facelift. Their objective is to sell pharmaceutical products to hospitals in several countries. Therefore a simple statement about the products they sell is fine up to a point. However, in order to compete with numerous other companies in the same field, it would help to include demonstrations of products perhaps in flash movie format. Another way of gaining competitive advantage would be to include testimonials and a list of established customers. This would enhance Phebras reputation is a market leader in their field.