Long Way Gone Study Guide Essay Example for Free

Long Way Gone Study Guide Essay 1.What does Ishmael say the war is about? Ishmael says nothing about the causes of the war, or what each side was fighting for, or of the overall political and social conditions in Sierra Leone that caused the war. This was a deliberate strategy on the part of Beah, the author. He wanted to present the war through the eyes of a child. As a boy of twelve, when the war first affected him, he had no interest in politics. He had no reason to be interested—his main interest, understandably for a boy of his age, was in singing and dancing to rap music and hanging out with his friends. When the war comes to him, it is for him a battle for personal survival, not a political cause. He is also fueled by feelings of revenge—instilled into him by his army officers—against the rebels because they killed his family. Once again, these are personal feelings not political beliefs. For the reader, then, transported to a land he or she knows nothing about (for the American reader, that is), the war seems not only almost unimaginably brutal but also meaningless. It consists of one side mindlessly killing the other, and vice versa, in skirmishes in small villages. Ishmael does report Lieutenant Jabati’s speeches to his men, in which he says they are defending their country (â€Å"We kill them [the rebels] for the good and betterment of this country† [p. 123]), but such appeals to patriotism are not what inspire Ishmael. Ishmael’s ignorance of politics is again stressed when he is in Freetown during his rehabilitation and sees a convoy of cars and military vans. He is told that the new president, Tejan Kabbah, who had won an election eight months earlier is passing by. â€Å"I had never heard of this man,† Ishmael writes pointedly. This confirms the tenor of the book as a whole: Ishmael is a boy caught up in a war he knows nothing about for a cause he does not care about. 2.Why was the war fought and what course did it take? During the 1980s Sierra Leone was a one-party state governed by the All-People’s Congress (APC) party. However, this period was marked by extensive government corruption and abuse of power. Although Sierra Leone is rich in natural resources it became one of the poorest countries in the world because of mismanagement. The civil war in neighboring Liberia helped to create conditions for war in Sierra Leone because a Liberian war leader reportedly sponsored the rebel group called the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) as a way of destabilizing Sierra Leone, which at the time was a base for a United Nations peacekeeping force. The war broke out in 1991 in villages in eastern Sierra Leone that were near the Liberian border. The aim of the RUF was to seize and control the diamond sector, and in 1991 it took control of the diamond mines in the Kono district. (It is the mining area around Ishmael’s home town of Mogbwemo that the rebels seize in 1993.) In 1992 a military coup took place that established the National Provisional Ruling Council, replacing the civilian government. However, the new military government was powerless to prevent the RUF from controlling much of the country. It was the years immediately after this, from 1993 to January 1996, that Ishmael was a soldier. The war continued after Ishmael was rescued from it, as he himself found out when he went to stay with his uncle in Freetown after his rehabilitation. There had been an election in April 1996, and a civilian government had taken power, but in May 1997 there was another military coup, and the new military government known as the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) invited the RUF to participate in it. The following year, when Beah was safely in the United States, the military government was ousted and the civilian government restored. But this did not stop the violence as the AFRC and its RUF allies fought to regain power. Fighting returned to Freetown in 1999, before a peace accord was signed in July 1999. But this did not last, and the war dragged on, finally ending in January 2002, with the civilian government in charge. According to the CIA’s World Factbook, the civil war resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the displacement of more than two million people—about one-third of the population of Sierra Leone. 3.What is the situation in Sierra Leone today? According to the CIA’s World Factbook, Sierra Leone is gradually returning to a fully democratic government following the ravages of the civil war. There was a general election in 2007 that led to one civilian government being peacefully replaced by another. The nation has also tried to come to terms with the recent past. In 2002 the government set up a Special Court to try those responsible for war crimes during the civil war. It also set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The Special Court indicted many of those held responsible for the atrocities. Some died before they could be tried, but in June 2007, the Special Court found three men guilty of war crimes, including not only murder, terrorism, and enslavement but also the act of conscripting or enlisting children under fifteen into the armed forces. As refugees from the war are slowly returning from neighboring countries, the Sierra Leone government is trying to create jobs and end political corruption. Revenues from diamond mining have increased significantly since the end of the war. Diamonds account for about half of Sierra Leone’s exports. However, Sierra Leone, with a population estimated in 2009 as 5,132,138, remains an extremely poor country with wide disparities in how wealth is distributed. According to the World Factbook, â€Å"The fate of the economy depends upon the maintenance of domestic peace and the continued receipt of substantial aid from abroad.† 4.How widespread is the use of child soldiers? It would be comforting to think that the forced conscription of children into the armed forces during the war in Sierra Leone was an aberration, not something that can happen again in the modern world. However, that is not the case. Even in the twenty-first century, the use of child soldiers is common in armed conflicts around the world. According to Human Rights watch, an international nongovernmental organization, as of 2007, there were an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 children fighting in various wars. According to a Global Report published in 2008 by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, at the end of 2007 children were used as soldiers in seventeen armed conflicts around the globe. The coalition noted that this was down from twenty-seven conflicts in 2004, but the downturn was more because the conflicts had ended than because child soldiers were no longer being recruited. The Global Report identified the following countries where children were recruited for paramilitaries, militias, civilian defense forces or armed groups linked to or supported by governments: Chad, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Iran, Ivory Coast, Libya, Myanmar, Peru, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Uganda. The most flagrant offender, according to the Global Report, is Myanmar, where the government uses thousands of children in its battle against rebel groups. In Uganda, tens of thousands of children have been forced into joining armies over a period of nearly twenty-five years. In some of these countries, including Uganda, girls as well as boys have been forced to become soldiers. There have in recent years been concerted international efforts to end the use of child soldiers. Sierra Leone, which has tried and convicted men responsible for recruiting child soldiers, has become a leader in this issue. The use of child soldiers has now been prohibited by international law. The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict has been ratified by 120 states. The UN Security Council has adopted resolutions calling for the establishment of a monitoring mechanism on children and armed conflict. However, these and other prohibitions are no guarantee that when new conflicts break out, child soldiers will not be recruited. 5.Is Beah’s story factually accurate? A Long Way Gone achieved popular and critical success, but questions have been raised by some regarding the factual accuracy of a number of events Beah recounts in the book. Beah writes that his village was attacked in January 1993 and after that he became a refugee from the war. Critics claim that there are school records showing that Beah was in school later than this date, and that the village was attacked in 1995, not 1993. This would mean that Beah would actually have been recruited at the age of fifteen, not thirteen as he writes in the book. This would have meant that he was only a child soldier for a few months, rather than over two years. Some critics point to the structure of the book to confirm this. They point out that most of the book deals with Beah’s wanderings as a refugee and the months he spent in rehabilitation. Only two chapters (13 and 14) cover his actual experiences as a soldier (although he does present more incidents from his military service at various points in flashbacks). Questions have also been raised about the account Beah gives of the fight between the former boy soldiers at the rehabilitation home, in which several boys were killed. There are no independent reports of such a fight ever taking place. Some believe that Beah used others’ experiences as his own and that he embellished his tale. They point to his interest in creative writing at Oberlin College and the fact that his adoptive mother was a storyteller. The suggestion is that Beah was encouraged by those around him to tell a more vivid story. Others have more charitably suggested that Beah simply got his dates mixed up, and his memory may have been unreliable because on his own admission he was high on drugs most of the time he was in military service. Beah has vehemently denied that he invented anything, however. In an article published in Publishers Weekly in 2008, Beah wrote, â€Å"Sad to say, my story is all true.†

SQL Injection and Buffer Overflow Attack Detection

SQL Injection and Buffer Overflow Attack Detection CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION This chapter discussed about research requirement for this research. It discussed briefly the research background in section 1.1, problem statement in 1.2, research objectives in 1.3, research questions in 1.4, scope of research in 1.5, research elements in 1.6 and research significant in 1.7 1.1 Research Background The internet which is a free, supportive and self-sustaining facility reachable to hundreds of millions of people worldwide, have become one of important communication’s medium today. The greatest widely used part of the Internet is the web or World Wide Web (WWW). The Web uses the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to convey data through the Internet as HTTP is a well-known language over the Internet. There is a Web Browser that acts as the main door to the Internet if user wants to view the web pages in different websites. Web pages is a document that may contain text, videos, sound, images or any multimedia components created in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). In addition, to make the process of searching specific web pages easier, there is Uniform Resource Locator (URL) where it standardized naming convention for addressing documents available over the Internet or Intranet. As Internet become more and more significant, there are some individuals identified as hackers that have the ability to interrupt the peace of using Internet. For that reason, network security is required. Network security emphasis on securing networks from any violence or exploit especially from hackers and typically handles by network administrator on each organization that applies security policy. Thus, to ensure the three main goals of security which are integrity, availability and confidentiality is guarantee, network security become the main role to some kind of vulnerabilities in web application. Vulnerabilities can be referring as the flaws where attacker can take benefit by exploiting it to gain unauthorized access to their target. There are two of the most common web application vulnerabilities that exist in a web application are Structured Query Language (SQL) Injection and Buffer Overflow (BOF). SQL Injection is an attack in which the attacker inserts SQL commands into form or parameter values. It exploits the use of SQL query in the application. SQL Injection has become a predominant type of attacks that target web applications. The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) ranks it on top among the Top-10 security threats. Buffer Overflow is an exploit that can make the memory allocated to a certain application become massive. For example, an application expecting a five-digit postcode therefore the programmer only allocates enough memory for the perimeter. If an attacker enters more than five digits for example hundreds of digit, the application will end up using more memory than what it should. As of September 2010, 12 of the 20 most severe vulnerabilities ranked by US-CERT were Buffer Overflow related. There are a lot of web application vulnerabilities detection scanners existing in Internet. Either it free source or need to buy, there are more or less problems faced by these tools. The common problem meet by some of the scanner are false positive and false negatives. A false positive is when there is an error whereby a web application tested for is mistakenly found the vulnerabilities which actually there is none. Meanwhile, false negatives are the scanner does not found any vulnerability in a web application and telling user that the web is secure. However, actually the web application may have some vulnerability. Thus, by proposed a method for detecting the web vulnerabilities through searching for the suspicious and defined web vulnerabilities criteria, it will help the web application administrator to take a look and always standby in secure mode to avoid and secure mode for avoiding any attacks from the attacker. 1.2 Problem Statement Usually developers of a web application does not realize that their web application have vulnerabilities. They only realize it when there is an attack or manipulation of their code by someone. This is normal as in a web application, there are thousands of lines of code so, it is not easy to detect if there is some mistakes (Houghton, 2013). Nowadays lots of new hacker are born as the tools and tutorials are easier to get. According to Dougherty (2012), even though SQL Injection is very easy to protect against, there are still large numbers of the system on the internet are vulnerable to this type of attack because there will be a few subtle condition that can go undetected. Besides, in Buffer Overflow, although many methods have been proposed to address this problem, it mostly very high overhead involves considerable additional resources (Zheng, Zhou Liu, 2015). Therefore, a detection method for detecting the SQL Injection and Buffer Overflow while producing minimum false positive a nd false negative was proposed. 1.3 Research Objective There are two objectives that have been achieved in this dissertation: To construct a detection method that can detect SQL Injection and Buffer Overflow attack in web application based on acknowledged features and characteristics of the vulnerabilities. To evaluate the performance of proposed method in term of accuracy and efficiency by conducted two sets of experiments under laboratory testing environment. 1.4 Research Questions There are four research questions that have been addressed in this dissertation: Is it possible to employ a dynamic method for SQL Injection and Buffer Overflow detection in web application? What are the criteria used to detect SQL Injection and Buffer Overflow in the proposed detection method? What is the evaluation metrics used to measure the performance of the proposed detection method? How to measure the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed detection method? 1.5 Scope of Research This dissertation focused on the web application vulnerabilities which are more specific on SQL Injection and Buffer Overflow. This dissertation limited to: Detection of web application vulnerabilities which are limited on: SQL Injection Buffer Overflow A number of vulnerable website’s URL collected from: http://www.thetechnism.com/ http://pastebin.com/ For detection of web application vulnerabilities of SQL Injection and Buffer Overflow, the criteria used are: Get the URL of website Tokenize the URL Match the pattern with the matching criteria based on Boyer-Moore Algorithm Get the web application vulnerabilities The evaluation metrics that used in this dissertation are accuracy and efficiency 1.6Research SIGNIFICANCE There are two significances of this dissertation: This dissertation able to provide a method that can detect SQL Injection and Buffer Overflow attack based on Boyer-Moore String Matching Algorithm. This proposed detection method also able to generate the report regarding the level of vulnerability of the web application. The proposed method can assistance the web application developer or administrator to take any extra action to protected their application from being attacked by the unethical person outside the network to SQL Injection and Buffer Overflow attack.

Of Mice And Men :: essays research papers

â€Å"Of Mice and Men† was written bye John Steinbeck and is a fictional book. â€Å"Of Mice and Men† is a book about two life long friends named George and Lennie. They go to a farm to do some farm work after having to run away from their old town Weed. In their new farm, they meet many people including Curley, a little boxer guy who hates big guys like Lennie, and Curley’s wife, who is a tart. Lennie and George have many grand adventures on the farm, but one day while George is out playing horseshoes, Lennie accidentally kills Curley’s wife. Lennie runs away but when the guys come back to find Curley’s wife dead, George is forced to kill his friend. The four people responsible for Lennie’s death are George, Curley’s wife, Lennie, and Curley. The person most responsible for Lennie’s death is George. The reasons why I think this is mainly because George shot Lennie in the end of the book. Also George left Lennie alone in the barn giving Curley’s wife a chance to come and talk to him, and that is when Lennie killed her. George should have given Lennie more instructions on what he was supposed to do while George was out with his friends. The second most responsible for Lennie’s death is Curley’s wife. The reasons why I think this is because she provoked Lennie into talking to her and into petting her hair. She was lonely and wanted someone to talk to, but she also was very flirtatious with Lennie. When she yelled she scared Lennie which made him hold on to her neck harder. Curley’s wife shouldn’t have been flirting and seeking other men while she had a husband. The third most responsible person for Lennie’s death is Lennie himself. The reason I think this is because Lennie killed Curley’s wife, which made George have to kill Lennie. He also has no control over his strength since he was retarded, which is another reason why he died. And more importantly he disobeyed George by talking to Curley’s wife, which George told him absolutely not to do. The last responsible person for Lennie’s death was Curley. Curley was very mean to Lennie and was picking on him for only the reason that Lennie was bigger than Curley. Curley was also very possessive over his wife, which lead her to look for other men.

Essay on Jake Barns as a Code Hero in Ernest Hemingways The Sun Also Rises :: Hemingway Sun Also Rises Essays

Jake Barns as a Code Hero in The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway is a renowned American author of the Twentieth century who centers his novels on personal experiences and affections.   He is one of the authors named "The Lost Generation." He could not cope with post-war America, and therefore he introduced a new type of character in writing called the "code hero".   Hemingway is known to focus his novels around code heroes who struggle with the mixture of their tragic faults and the surrounding environment.   Traits of a typical Hemingway Code Hero are a love of good times, stimulating surroundings, and strict moral rules, including honesty.   The Code Hero always exhibits some form of a physical wound that serves as his tragic flaw and the weakness of his character.   In Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises Jake Barnes is the character who maintains the typical Code Hero qualities; while Robert Cohn provides the antithesis of a Code Hero. Jake Barnes, the narrator and main character of The Sun Also Rises, is left impotent by an ambiguous accident during World War I.   Jake's wound is the first of many code hero traits that he features. This physical wound, however, transcends into an emotional one by preventing Jake from ever consummating his love with Lady Brett Ashley.   Emotional suffering can take its toll on the Code Hero as it did with Jake Barnes.   Despite the deep love between Jake and Lady Brett, Jake is forced to keep the relationship strictly platonic and stand watch as different men float in and out of Lady Ashley's life and bed. No one other than Jake and Brett ever learn the complexity of their relationship because Jake's hopeless love for Brett and the agony it entails are restricted to scenes known to themselves alone. Therefore, Jake suffers in silence because he has learned to trust and rely only upon himself, which is conducive to the Hemingway Code as well. Jake is an American who travels to Europe to satiate his appetite for exotic landscapes and to escape his pain.   Jake tries to live his life to the fullest with drinking, partying, and sporting with friends.   With these pastimes, Jake hopes to hide from his fault and get on with the life he has been made to suffer.   Watching and participating in sports help accentuate the Code Hero's masculinity and provide the sense of pride Jake has lost.

Stratospheric Ozone Depletion and Its Effect on Skin Cancer Incidence E

Introduction This term paper is situated in an area of specific health related and environmental concern: the human dimensions of global change. For about a decade now there has been growing scientific interest in the global environmental changes resulting from anthropogenic activity. However most of this research has focused on the scientific bases of environmental transformations with little attention to how human social responses are linked to global change. As a result, scientists and researchers alike are beginning to ask questions about the symbiotic relationship between human well being and physical change. Abstract This research compilation plans to use one environmental health component of the global change phenomena - ozone depletion and skin cancer - to advance and deepen your understanding of the relationships between human wellness and environmental change. This project should deepen understanding by developing a framework for conceptualizing environmental health policy issues. In this way the relationships between scientists, policy makers and the public will be explored theoretically as the interactions of science, the state, and society as a whole. The Relationship of Skin Cancer Prevalence and the Increase in Ultraviolet-B Exposure due to Ozone Depletion Ultraviolet-B radiation damages the human skin: Acute exposure causes sunburn and chronic exposure results in loss of elasticity and increased aging. Increased absorption of UV-B triggers a thickening of the superficial skin layers and an increase in skin pigmentation (both of which act to protect the skin against future sunburns). This protective mechanism however, also makes the skin more vulnerable to skin cancer. Strong evidence exists of a dose... ...tion/2.html Mahaney, Francis X., "Nocturnal Animals Help Shed Light on Human Melanoma," __Journal of the National Cancer Institute__, 87 (21): (1 November 1995). Available on the World Wide Web at http://wwwicic.nci.ni h.gov/jnci/iss8721/87-1584.html. Roses, Daniel F., Stephen L. Gumport, Matthew N. Harris, and Alfred W. Kopf, __The Diagnosis and Management of Common Skin Cancers__ (Atlanta, Georgia: American Cancer Society, 1989), 89- 50M-No. 3373-PE. Schein, O.D. et al., "Ocular and Dermatologic Health Effects of Ultraviolet Radiation Exposure from the Ozone Hole in Southern Chile," __American Journal of Public Health__, 85 (4): 546-550 (April 1995). "Stat Bite: Trends in Melanoma Incidence," __Journal of the National Cancer Institute__, 87 (20): (1 November 1995). Available on the World Wide Web at http://wwwicic.nci.ni h.gov/jnci/iss8720/statbi20.jpg.

Qualitative Study on COPD Essay

This is a qualitative study conducted at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler as a randomized controlled trial to determine the effectiveness of a lifestyle behavioral intervention to increase physical activity among patients with moderate to severe COPD. (Wortz, K. 2012) 54 patients of age 45 or older were randomly selected from April 2010 through January 2011 using a patient registry database with a coded diagnosis of COPD along with physician referrals. Data collection consisted of: baseline, demographic, clinical and self-management needs, smoking status, spirometry, 6-min walk distance, BMI, Obstruction, SOB, Exercise Capacity (BODE) index, Chronic Respiratory Questionnaire (CRQ); which includes 10 open ended questions and Geriatric Depression Scale. A sample of 47 interviews with the mean age of 68.4 years old, 53% male, 87% white were used in the analysis. 57.5% has moderate COPD, 31.9% sever COPD, and 10.6% very severe COPD. (Wortz, K. 2012) The results of this analysis suggest that the content of self-management support with COPD should focus on addressing patients’ fears associated with the uncertainty, progression, suffering of their disease, expectations about overcoming or replacing losses, their needs for improved health literacy and their desire for improved care. Attention to these areas may enhance patient self-efficacy and motivation to improve self management.

Technology and Management Functions

The diversely changing business environment has called upon strong models of technological outfit which address the core competencies with which organizations thrive on. Generally, the competitive advantage of the modern organization has only been possible pursuit to the advancement in the technological growth which has consequently helped to streamline the core organizational functions with their goals and objectives. Principally, technology has been of importance in aligning the core management functions towards a resting point of productive layout which gives such an organization adequate stepping stones towards which they can explore the proactive business opportunities within the highly competitive business environment.My organization has indeed rested upon strong technological proximities as a tool for organizational governance based on adequacy in approach of the basic core management functions. This is to imply that, technology has been used as a good source of organizational competence with which my company leverages on, providing it with a long lasting solution for competitive advantage. The technological component within my organization therefore has been a compound of various technological outfits which have been described as inherent in the modern business world in providing functionality, systems design, management and operational ability for the various activities and processes within the organization.Technological has not only been inherent subject to the use and employment of machines and tools, but also the use of intangible technologies and process that help to provide a continuous co-ordination of the day to day organizational activities within the organization as well as with the external stakeholders of the company (Dibrell, Craig, 2008). Various strategic and managerial issues have thus arisen from the same technological development. This has been leveled from the fact that technological development within the organization provide candid grounds with which the management can spearhead various managerial process aimed at strengthening the core management functions as well as other strategic ideologies that arise as a   result of development in technology.Conceptually, technology has continued to play wide range of importance in our organization, bringing into a close realization the core management functions with the expected strategic models of the company. Just to mention, the four management functions which are organizing, controlling, planning and leading, have all been subject to various technological implications. Adequacy in the functionality of the four has been provided by the interactive phenomenon between each and at least a specific technological component, which help in information dissemination and coordination across all the organizational components.An important facet of technology within my organization has been that of information technology, with which classically wide array of communication fram ework across the different organizational components has been necessitated (Lee, Tseng, 2009). Development and investment in business technology within my organization, that runs from simple mobile phone technology, to other information exchange and core production technological tools has been perhaps the building block of our current state of competence in the business environment that uses various operational advantages to address its needs within its approach.Business technology has been the corner stone with which my organization continues to embrace a widely classified competitive advantage from its operational symmetry classified with various advantages. Of importance also has been the investment in digital technology with which the organization uses to channel most of its activities and process through. The step towards management in business technology has thus helped my organization in unifying management and growth in technology towards a center stage of optimal decision m aking and attempt to build a long lasting spirit of the entrepreneurial motive.The quest for technology within my organization has rested on multiple of provisions which include software development, solution in communicating networking, maintenance in computer hardware, technical support systems and the diverse development in the productive technology of the organization. Reliance in computing and other computer related technological components have helped in giving a motive of strong reliance with which my organization can achieve its broad productive mission.By and large, technology has by far helped to address the organizational needs not only by providing an arms length with which the various management functions can continuously integrate with each other, but also from the managerial perspective of comparative advantages it provides to the organization. Just to mention, advancement and investment in technology has provided various statutory benefits and implications for the or ganization.One, technology has been the basic tool with which my organization can undertake its processes and activities in a fast and speedy manner. This has also been doubled with high quality and quantity in output thus meeting the organizational objectives of competitive advantages (Dibrell, Craig, 2008). The use of computer and other technological devices for organizational production has been helpful in providing grounds with which activities can be done in fast and speedy manner. Deliveries and consignments have been able to be provided within their prescribed time frames.Technology has also been a cornerstone for which efficiency can be increased in all organizational undertakings. Efficiency in this perspective has been an importance hallmark with which logistic models that provide competitive advantage for the organization can be enhanced. My organization has thus been able to change and respond instantaneously to various business demands and expectations which foster opti mal executions of their activities. Bias to informational technology for example, data can be stored in various formats which can be explored in a fast and efficient manner to bring about the need for corporate efficiency.Of importance also is the need for multi-tasking with which my organization has been able to embrace adequately subject to the investment in various technological provisions.   For, example, the use of computer and other computer related tools has enabled various persons at different levels of managerial components to perform different tasks at the same time. Multi-tasking within my organization has been one of the important attributes which help to provide optimal resource functionality.Additionally, technology within my organization has been perhaps the most important sediments and a path towards which cost precept can be internalized. The use of a wide framework of technology both in the computing, information technology and the productive process has been imp ortant in safeguarding the cost intercept of the organization (Lee, Tseng, 2009). Both information technology management and business process management have leveraged their axes on the importance of technology as a quest with which the organization can meet its productive layout without much difficult.Summarily therefore, business technology within my organization has thus been used as the core tool for improving communication as well as maximizing the efficiency component within the work place. The company has continuously used structural components of information technology as the main tool with which it can achieve classically various advantages in its productive framework.   It has seldom been able to align its strategic goals and objectives with its various managerial functions. A realized relationship has been achieved between the four levels of management subject to the use of technology as the core model with which it can address its wide array of its activities.Reference Dibrell, C. & Craig, J. (2008). â€Å"Fueling Innovation through Information Technology in SMEs† Journal of Small Business Management, Vol.46, pp.67-79Lee, Y. & Tseng, H. (2009). â€Å"Exploring the Relationship between Information technology Adoption and Business Process Reengineering† Journal of Management and Organization, Vol.15, pp.1-18 Technology and management functions IntroductionAny hospital, whether public or private, requires a clear and comprehensive system of management that will enhance the quality of all organizational initiatives. As with any other type of organization, a hospital must be able to handle tactical and strategic issues, and to guarantee smooth operation and continuity of all business processes. At the age of technological advancement, technology determines the quality, speed, and cost-effectiveness of organizational decision-making. That is why the development and implementation of integrated IT frameworks is the key to a better quality of all planning, organizing, directing, and controlling processes that take place within a highly complicated clinical environment.PlanningPlanning is â€Å"unending course of action† (Buzzle, 2008). The hospital I used to work at was trying to enhance the quality of all planning processes by using an Executive Integrated System (EIS), where budgeting tasks were reasonably combined with other key management functions. The hospital had successfully launched an effective software system, to provide managers with objective financial information and to eliminate wasteful paper-based operations.The system made it possible to track and manage medical order supplies, to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of all medical services, and to address spend management issues. Fully automated reports contained brief critical information with regard to costs and productivity indices for a given period of time. The previous information system had failed to deliver information in a usable form; very often, the needed information had been delivered too late. The newly launched EIS was efficient in a sense that it provided real-time information and maintained flexible approaches to planning (Keegan & Baldwin, 1992). Any changes in financial or strategic management data were immediately reflected and delivered to the hospital’s management, with the latter being able to timely respo nd to the emerging issues.OrganizingObjectively, â€Å"management must organize all its resources well before in hand to put into practice the course of action to decide that has been planned in the base function† (Buzzle, 2008). In hospital, organizing is probably the most complex and the most responsible management mission, which requires using a well-developed system of software solutions and maintaining reasonable combination of electronic and manual organizing procedures. The use of wireless communication systems has become the critical factor leading the hospital to total care quality standards.The introduction of bar coding for all medication items, the use of laptop computers at the bedside, and a new advanced paging system were aimed at providing employees with a better understanding of their responsibilities and tasks. However, despite the visible effectiveness of all these organizing solutions, hospital’s personnel were largely unprepared to using advanced t echnologies in the workplace, and only with time, all administration and business organization processes have been harmonized to serve the needs of patients. By using the new wireless system of communication, the hospital’s management has finally achieved the five major goals of the organizing process, including the effective division of labor, staff positioning, reasonable departmentalization, delegation, and equalizing the power.DirectingAlthough organizing is the most responsible of all management functions, it loses its relevance, if organizations cannot direct and motivate their employees. Our hospital had initially been trying to change the traditional vision of health care management, and to make the directing function of management â€Å"more technological†. It should be noted, that a hospital usually resembles a kind of a virtual team, where team members are scattered across different physical locations but need to maintain continuous intrapersonal relationshi ps. At our hospital, voice conferences were used as the means of synchronous communication between different hospital departments.Voice conferencing was chosen as the communication tool, which did not distract employees from their direct functions, but could be used to ensure that all of them understood the hospital’s strategic goals. Emails and written documentation were used to enhance the quality of virtual communication with employees and between employees and the senior hospital’s management. Unfortunately, technology could not resolve all directing issues; very often, employees needed face-to-face consultations to establish credibility of their organizational efforts. However, with time voice conferences have substantially changed the quality of employee relations at workplace, providing management with an effective real-time tool for directing and motivating medical personnel.ControllingControlling is the last out of four functions of management, which â€Å"in cludes establishing performance standards which are of course based on the company’s objectives† (Buzzle, 2008). In case of the hospital, controlling was used to evaluate employee performance by means of several automated performance appraisal systems in the workplace. As a result of technologies implementation, the time allowed for the completion of performance evaluation forms was dramatically reduced; the hospital’s management was given an opportunity to manage workflows and to track the progress of the performance evaluation process.Although the majority of medical personnel needed time to learn additional technical skills, the system has significantly improved the quality of all business processes within the controlling area. Technology has proved to be an excellent tool of developing cohesive relationships between employees, as well as between employees and the senior management, and has finally created a technologically enhanced management environment acro ss all hospital departments.ConclusionThe use of reliable technological solutions is the key to developing and implementing an effective management system in a highly complicated hospital setting. With the use of budgeting solutions, automated organizing techniques, voice conferences and performance appraisal strategies, a hospital is likely to turn into a technologically advanced, and as a result, a highly organized system of employee interrelationships, which in turn substantially improve the quality of medical services delivered by the hospital to all groups of patients.ReferencesBuzzle. (2008). Management concepts – the four functions of management. Buzzle.com.Retrieved January 16, 2009 from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/management-concepts-the-four-functions-of-management.htmlKeegan, A.J. & Baldwin, B. (1992). EIS: a better way to view hospital trends – executiveinformation systems. Healthcare Financial Management. Retrieved January 16, 2009 from http://findartic les.com/p/articles/mi_m3257/is_n11_v46/ai_14176789/pg_3?tag=artBody;col1