A Heart of Fire essays

A Heart of Fire essays Slowly he walked down the hallways. His head ducked down, and his eyes slightly closed. His head was slightly turned towards the wall; he was trying to hide his tears. The slow movement of his tears felt like wet drips of sand, gently carving paths of heartbreak across his face. His heart felt as if it was on fire, and his mind was a jumble of thoughts. Why did kids have to be so mean to him? Was he really so different then them? Was he really the freak they accused him of being? A door jutted open in front of him, and turning quickly out of the way, he ran to the bathroom. He had to be alone. As he entered the bathroom he caught site of his reflection. Turning his face slightly toward the mirrors, he took a good long hard look at himself. He starred into his own deep dark brown eyes. His tears streamed down his chubby cheeks. His glasses seemed to fog from his misting eyes. "I hate VT," his words echoed around the old cement room. " I want to go home" John had moved to VT a few months earlier. He had hated the idea from the beginning. He was happy in NY. Why should he have to uproot from the only home he has ever known? " I grew up in that house," he thought. " Why can't my dad just keep working at the same place." A truth a, realization, something I found. When I was at the age of eight years old, I discovered a truth about mankind. We are cruel. Now to some, this seems like nothing short of common sense. But to a child, a child of a pure and gentle heart. This comes as a shock. I remember this day very clearly and the pain I felt. I remember the years after, and the torturous teasing, beatings, and stabbing that I endured. My case of Harassment wasn't just any normal sticks and stones. My peers horribly ridiculed me. And would you like to know the reasons why? " Oh Paul you are just one of those kids who always gets made fun of, its just who you are." I also made a realization. One of my stature could fight back. A ...

Free Essays on Ethnocentism

How do you learn about another culture without passing negative judgments on areas that are different? This is the main question for me regarding ethnocentrism. I grew up in three different countries within three different cultures and I luckily learned how to suspend judgments in other people’s practices in order to understand their own culture. As a war refuge, I’ve experienced many horrible things and unjustified judgments about my own culture. I don’t want to go in details about it, but I also don’t want anybody to experience what I did. Based on everything I went through, as an adult, I am doing my best to respect every culture and their practices even if they differ from my own culture’s point of view. Let me explain a recent magazine article written by Serbian journalist. The conflict between three nations in Bosnia (Serbs, Croats and Muslims) led to a war that took countless number of lives. Everything that happened in those five years of war was caused by ethnocentrism and hate. People just didn’t want to accept each other the way they are. The writer of this article is trying to say how everything â€Å"his† people (Serbs) do is right and whatever others do is wrong. Here, we can see a typical illustration of ethnocentrism, â€Å" Seeing the success of Croatian Nazis in turning the clock back to 1941, Islam fundamentalist Muslims of Bosnia are trying to turn the clock even further back into the Balkan past. They are trying to turn the clock more than 100 years back. Back to the time when Bosnia was part of Turkish Empire.... And non-Muslims were only second class citizens†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.† This article contributed a great deal to cultural misunderstanding about Croats and Muslims If anyone who’s not from those surroundings reads this article, they are going to think that Muslims and Croats in Bosnia are some kind of animals. I am from th... Free Essays on Ethnocentism Free Essays on Ethnocentism How do you learn about another culture without passing negative judgments on areas that are different? This is the main question for me regarding ethnocentrism. I grew up in three different countries within three different cultures and I luckily learned how to suspend judgments in other people’s practices in order to understand their own culture. As a war refuge, I’ve experienced many horrible things and unjustified judgments about my own culture. I don’t want to go in details about it, but I also don’t want anybody to experience what I did. Based on everything I went through, as an adult, I am doing my best to respect every culture and their practices even if they differ from my own culture’s point of view. Let me explain a recent magazine article written by Serbian journalist. The conflict between three nations in Bosnia (Serbs, Croats and Muslims) led to a war that took countless number of lives. Everything that happened in those five years of war was caused by ethnocentrism and hate. People just didn’t want to accept each other the way they are. The writer of this article is trying to say how everything â€Å"his† people (Serbs) do is right and whatever others do is wrong. Here, we can see a typical illustration of ethnocentrism, â€Å" Seeing the success of Croatian Nazis in turning the clock back to 1941, Islam fundamentalist Muslims of Bosnia are trying to turn the clock even further back into the Balkan past. They are trying to turn the clock more than 100 years back. Back to the time when Bosnia was part of Turkish Empire.... And non-Muslims were only second class citizens†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.† This article contributed a great deal to cultural misunderstanding about Croats and Muslims If anyone who’s not from those surroundings reads this article, they are going to think that Muslims and Croats in Bosnia are some kind of animals. I am from th...

Law of Obligations (Tort Law)LLB Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Law of Obligations (Tort Law)LLB - Essay Example The employer, on the other hand, may have a claim for damages against Beatrice for her negligence. Employer's Duty of Care and its Breach. In the recent case of Jones v BBC, 2007 WL 2187023 (QBD), where Jones, a freelance sound recordist for defendant BBC claimed that he suffered personal injury when a windmill rotor fell onto his back causing severe spinal injury rendering him paraplegic. In ruling for the claimant, the court stated that since BBC's safety crew had identified a risk of the falling mast, a discussion before filming should have been made to warn the crew not to go beneath it. But the safety crew did not give the warning. Such failure of BBC, through the safety crew, is considered negligent which caused Jones' accident. Thus, the BBC was liable for Jones' injuries. Also, the cameraman and Jones worked as a team because their equipment was linked. Jones with his equipment was following the cameraman who had decided to pass beneath the mast thereby leading Jones into the hazardous area. The cameraman was then in breached of his duty of care and the BBC was vicariousl y liable for that negligence. In Wilsons & Clyde Coal Company, Limited v English, [1938] A.C. 57, the House of Lords stated as follows: " primarily the master has a duty to take due care to provide and maintain a reasonably safe system of working in the mine, and a master, who has delegated the duty of taking due care in the provision of a reasonably safe system of working to a competent servant, is responsible for a defect in the system of which he had no knowledge" By the Jones and Wilsons cases, it is clear that the employer is under a duty of care to provide the employee with competent fellow employees including a qualified medical personnel, properly maintained site and facilities, and to provide a safe place and system of work. The question of whether the employer breached that duty of care depends on the standard of care owed by the employer to its employee and whether it has taken reasonable steps considering the circumstances. (Latimer v A.E.C. Ltd.[1953]) In Jones, the bre ach of the employer's duty consists in BBC's failure (through its safety crew) to discuss with the cameraman and Jones the risk of the falling mast and to warn the cameraman and Jones in unequivocal terms that they must not go beneath it. In Wilsons, the breach by the employer consists of its failure to provide competent fellow employees, properly maintained mine and equipment, and to provide a safe place and system of work. In the case of the employee here, the failure of the employer considering its nature of business to properly provide and maintain a safe place and system of work free from insects such as wasps, to provide sufficient number of medical personnel and qualified immediate treatment which caused the employee's permanent disability to do manual work constitute a breach of the standard care required from the employer. Considering that the company is engaged in hazardous chemicals, not having any emergency doctor onsite is a breach of its standard of care. It can reason ably be expected that injuries are bound to occur in a chemical factory because, by the very nature of its business alone, the environment with chemicals is susceptible to accidents. Hence, the

Sample Statistic, p-value, Confidence interval Assignment

Sample Statistic, p-value, Confidence interval - Assignment Example 1) What is the null hypothesis (H0) tested? H0: Ï€ ≠¤ 0.5 2) What is the alternative hypothesis (H1)? H1: Ï€ > 0.5 3) Sample statistic: a. What is the meaning of the sample statistic? A sample statistic is calculated numerical value that characterizes some aspect of sample set of data, often meant to estimate the real value of the corresponding parameter in an underlying population. What is its value? 0.05 4) Test statistic: a. What is the meaning of the test statistic? The test stat is the distance of the sample proportion from the population proportion in standard errors of the distribution of the test statistic b. What is its value? 0.8944 5) Critical values: a. What is the meaning of critical value? Critical value(s) is a factor used to compute the margin of error. Critical value(s) of the test statistic bounds the rejection region(s) of probability alpha = the risk we are willing to take of rejecting H0 when H0 is true b. What is (are) the critical value(s)? Critical lower value is 1.6449

English Language Learners Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

English Language Learners - Research Paper Example This essay discusses that when one viewed the wealth of materials regarding the topic ‘English Language Learners’ from the online search medium, one would be awed at the magnanimity of results amounting to more than 16 million in various informational categories. The fact signifies the extensive interest on the topic manifested by an array of practitioners and users, especially in the field of education. This area of education would thereby be more explored in the current research to proffer pertinent details that led to the development and continued focus on English Language Learners (EELs) in the contemporary academic setting. This area is chosen to enhance one’s awareness on the subject of interest and thereby enable one to share the knowledge, including crucial information to assist and guide other ELLs that one would potentially interact with in the near future, specifically in terms of improving learning outcomes. The discourse would initially present the de finition of key terms, evolution, historical development and continued growth within this area of academic discipline. Likewise, one would determine current legislation that shapes it in contemporary times; in conjunction with expounding on the best practices related to curriculum and instruction utilized in English as the Second Language (ESL) setting. In addition, one would also identify and describe specific technological applications and future trends that influence and affect English Language Learners (ELLs). ... 1). On the other hand, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) differentiated analogous terms such as ELL, ESL (English as Second Language), LEP (Limited English Proficiency) and EFL (English as Foreign Lanuage), as summarized in Table 1 below: Table 1: Definitions of Key Terms KEY TERMS DEFINITIONS ELL (English Language Learner): an active learner of the English language who may benefit from various types of language support programs. This term is used mainly in the U.S. to describe K–12 students. ESL (English as a Second Language): formerly used to designate ELL students; this term increasingly refers to a program of instruction designed to support the ELL. It is still used to refer to multilingual students in higher education. LEP (Limited English Proficiency): employed by the U.S. Department of Education to refer to ELLs who lack sufficient mastery of English to meet state standards and excel in an English- language classroom. Increasingly, English Language Lear ner (ELL) is used to describe this population, because it highlights learning, rather than suggesting that non-native-English-speaking students are deficient. EFL (English as a Foreign Language)Students:nonnative- English-speaking students who are learning English in a country where English is not the primary language. Source: (National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), 2008, p. 2) Historical Development The origin of instruction to ELL was actually traced as early as the 1600s and 1700s when some states were reported to establish private and public schools with bilingual education regulations during the European colonization of the United States

Albanian Mobile Communications (AMC) Analysis

Albanian Mobile Communications (AMC) Analysis Albanian Mobile Communications Market segments characteristics. (Demands type) Business and Residential are the main customer segments for Data and Internet services. According to ERG Report on regulation of access products necessary to deliver the business connectivity, business customers distributed with remote branches/offices nationally, tend to order wholesale services ordered by the headquarter rather than ordered as separate packages by the remote branches and while this is typical for big and organized business, smaller one sometimes find themselves convenient to buy and use the retail offered services (ERG, 2009). Regarding the demand from business customers different needs are found and a clear line between the high-end and low-end business customers can not be set but what separates them is often the quality of services demanded and the way of ordering the services as a complete network solution from one provider only or having different providers and the company itself does the role of the integrator (ERG, 2009). Another common behavior of businesses is the demand for a full solution for communication services covering the range of fixed and mobile services while it is noted that big business and in addition while the standard users are more sensitive for the price, the business big ones stick to well known brands, quality and reliability of services and after sales support provided (ERG, 2009). Big Business Multi-site customers seem to have different needs when compared to residential users or to small business users: Different services such as mobile, fix, data networking, convergent products and value added services; high quality communication services; quick response and good support; dedicated personnel as account manager (ERG, 2009) 5. AMC Company Profile Albanian Mobile Communications (AMC) is the biggest Mobile Network operator in Albania and is part of the Cosmote Mobile Telecommunications, the mobile part of OTE SA Greece. Part of Cosmote Group which is operating in 4 countries Greece, Albania, Bulgaria and Romania, AMC is operating in Albanian market since 1996 and has constantly dominated the market by means of customer base and revenue. AMC is founded as a state owned company by early 1996 and launched the standard GSM services on May 1996. It was privatized in 2000 when Cosmote Telenor Consortium became the controlling shareholder privatizing 85% of the shares while around 2% were provided to the employees and the rest of 13% remained to the state. Now 97% of the shares it is owned by Cosmote and 3% by the employees. At the time of privatization AMC was offering the services only to about 30,000 postpaid customers and only at xxx% of the territory and xx% of the population. (ASK ILIR) After the privatization, due to the low level of development of fixed telephony, lack of real completion and the investments made by the Greek company Cosmote, the company developed very fast by expanding the network to all the territory of Albania, offering the services to prepaid customers segment and adding a broad range of mobile services such as SMS, MMS, VMS and Internet access. After Vodafone entrance in the Albanian market in 2001, the competition in the market forced the constant decrease of prices, increase of number of services and their quality. The third operator, Eagle Mobile, entered in the market in 2008 and further busted the competition among the three operators. Positioning itself as a low cost services operator, Eagle mobile initiated a price war in the market forcing further decreases of services prices. Today AMC is the biggest Mobile operator in Albania, dominating the market by having around 1.9 million of customers with 43.3% market penetration. AMC is covering 99.8% of the population and 90% of the territory in Albania. Roaming agreements are established with more than 300 GSM operators worldwide. Major mobile product and services offered to individuals are: voice, SMS, MMS, voice mail, internet access, WAP portals and push email for residential. Corporate push email, data internetworking, ISP and VPN services are provided to corporate customers. EDGE technology is implemented covering 86% of the population and 63% of territory offering the possibility to the customers to access the internet through the mobile at acceptable rates. 3G technology is not yet licensed in Albania but the licensing process is expected to start during this year. AMC has around 530 employees highly qualified and trained. Around xx% of employees have a university degree and xx% of them are under the age of xxx. Personnel is organized in three main division, Commercial, Technical, Finance and Operations Administrative. The revenues for 2008 were at 191,272 millions, the OIBDA margin was at 64.7% and the net profit margin was at xxx%. During 2009, due to several factors present in the market such as the third entrant competition, world financial crises and intervention of regulatory body in decreasing the retail and interconnection termination tariffs AMC has faced some challenges on realizing the revenue objectives although the figures were still very good: revenue at 145,744mil, OIBDA at 57% and net profit at xxx%. For the future, considering the expected fierce competition due to also to the entrance of the fourth operator in the market and present financial crisis as well, AMC is looking to realize the targets through orienting the business towards the customer, finding other revenue streams, offering a wide range of products and services, the best technology in the market and best network quality. Offering of 3G services within 2010 and enrichment of products portfolio with services that this technology makes possible are considered as good opportunity for AMC in the near future for increasing the revenue. 6. Current Situation Analysis 6.1 General environment factors Political Albania is a small country located in southeastern Europe bordered by Adriatic Sea, Greece, Montenegro and Kosovo. Territory is 28,748 sq km and population at 3,639,453. After the Second World War, Albania established a communist regime which has ruled the country for 46 years until 1991 when it collapsed and a new democratic system was established. Albania has gone through a difficult process of transforming society to a democratic one and of developing the market economy. The process has proven to be very challenging and although a lot of progress has been done, the country is facing a lot of problems and deficiencies related to corruption, week infrastructure, unemployment, organized crime and sometimes lack of political stability. Since starting the transition process in 1991, the progress of Albania has been impressive although the transition period has taken longer than enough. Albania has established the institutions of democracy, has developed the capacities of public institutions, and has established the foundations of market economy (World Bank, 2010). Albania has joined NATO in 2009, has signed in 2006 the agreement for Stabilization and Association with EU and is one of the potential candidates for joining the EU. As part of EU association agreement, Albania since ten years has transformed and adopted the legislation based on EU recommendations and framework. The legislation improvement has been a continuing process and is performed under the tough monitoring and supervision of EU. In this regard, currently we may say that Albania has a very good legislation frame although there are evident gaps between the legislation and practical implementation of the laws in the country. The country has joined the WTO in 2000 and since then has adopted its international trading policies in accordance with the agreement with this organization. Government policies and strategies on Electronic communications are focused on liberalization, development of market and competition, attraction of foreign direct investments, protection of consumer and are developed in compliance with the National Strategy for Development (covering years 2007-2013) and the EU integration directives. Economy Albania is a country with low to middle income with a gross domestic income per capita of $3740 in 2008. The Economy of the country has been totally transformed during the transition period from a communist economy towards a market-based economy. Albania has achieved a sustainable economic growth, while containing inflation almost constant every year. During the transition period, the structure of economy has been transformed from an agriculture and industry to services and construction. Large scale migration has fueled high workers remittances, which make up around 8-13 percent of GDP (World Bank Web Page, 2010, Albania in Brief). During that period the GDP growth rates of around 5-6 percent per year have been achieved while the poverty level has been reduced constantly. The absolute poverty rate was 25.4 % in 2002 but dropped to 18.5 percent in 2005 and to 12.4 percent in 2008. The extreme poverty rate decreased from about 5 to 3.5 percent but inequality has increased significantly (World Bank Web Page, 2010, Albania in Brief). According to World Bank data, the Albania GNIP (Gross National Income per Capita) in 2008 was at 3840$ ranking at 113th position while PPP (Purchasing power Parity) was at 7950$ during 2008 ranking at 108th position worldwide (World Bank, 2008). The GDP composition by sectors the year 2009 was as following: agriculture 20.06%, industry 18.8% and services 60.6% (CIA Fact book, 2010). In 2009 unemployment rate was at 12%, population under the poverty line 25%, Inflation rate 2.1% and has been kept within the range of 2-4% since 2002 (CIA Fact book, 2010). Major agriculture products are wheat, corn, vegetables, potatoes, fruits, sugar, grapes and meat while the industrial ones are food processing, textiles and clothing, oil, hydropower, cement, chemicals, mining and basic metals. In 2009 the exports were at 1994 billion while the imports were at 3602 billion (CIA Fact book, 2010). Strong growth has been seen during the years 2002 -2008 at the rate of 14-15% in the construction industry which has been considered as very successful one in the country. Evidences of global crises effects have been shown during 2009 when the GDP growth was 4% less than 2008. The remittances and bank deposits have declined much during 2008 and 2009 causing the slowdown of consumption while imports went down from 4,898 in 2008 to 3.602 Billion in 2009 (INSTAT, 2010). The deposit rates during 2007 were at the average of 6.3% while the bank interest rates were at 13.6% (INSTAT, 2010). Following are shown the main competitiveness indexes for Albania provided by the Harvard University, M. Porter in The Global Competitiveness Report. Source: M. Porter, The Global Competitiveness Report, 2008-2009 Based on this report, Albania is categorized in the group of countries being at the stage of efficiency driven economy, has many deficiencies in infrastructure, technology and innovation and market efficiency while fits with the standards of this category for macroeconomic stability, health and primary education, labor market efficiency and institutions, Source: M. Porter, The Global Competitiveness Report, 2008-2009 From the above report we can see that corruption, inadequate infrastructure, governing efficiency and bureaucracy and Tax regulations are the main problematic factors for doing business in Albania. Source: World Bank, Doing Business 2010 Albania According to World Bank, Albania is currently well positioned to continue with its strong economic growth and is able to make significant movements towards the integration with the European Union but the government must strongly address the governance problems, maintain a stable macroeconomics framework, improve the business environment and attract investments, upgrade public infrastructure, develop its human capital and make sure that the development benefits are fairly distributed to different categories of society with a special attention to supporting the poor ones (World Bank 2010). Although it has sustained high growth rate by keeping the microeconomic stability during the last decade, Albania remains still one of the poorest countries in Europe showing a large scale of informality in economy, a week and inadequate energetic and transportation infrastructure. Shortages in Energy caused from the dependency from hydropower plants and inadequate distribution infrastructure contribute much in a poor business environment and is a factor for not being successful in the process of attracting the foreign investors. According the European Commission 2009 report , Albania has kept and maintained the macro-economic while the worldwide crises had only a limited impact on the country, inflation was low, exchange rate has been stable, liquidity of banks have been ensured (EU Commission, 2009) Social According to INSTAT, 46 % of the population is between the age of 15-44 years and average age is 32.1 years therefore we may say that Albania has a young population however the population has started aging for the reason of decreased rate of births and longer life rate (INSTAT,2010). The number of people living in urban areas has increased from 35.8% in 1989 to 45% in 2004. Consumer telecom utilization and spending is high and at around 6 % of the total household expenditures. New generation like the new technology of mobiles and are followers of offers. Some future social trends are mentioned below: Urbanization will continue therefore increasing the chances for the fast rollout of broadband technologies Economic inequality will increase, therefore the customer segmentations should be considered and product and services should be customized to each segment needs Family size will decrease People joining the social networks will increase Regulatory The country has adopted the national legislation in accordance with the EU 2003 regulatory recommendations and framework. The Law No. 9918 (May 19, 2008) is the main legal instrument for the electronic communications industry regulation. It defines the responsibilities of government and regulatory institutions for this regulation. Based on this law, the Minister of State for Reforms and Parliamentary relations is the administration body for the electronic communications services and it is responsible for drafting the related legislation and for preparing the plan for radio frequencies. Based on the proposals submitted by the regulatory, the Ministry has the authority to approve the tenders for limited spectrum assignment and universal service providers. In 2009, the Council of Ministers has approved the National Frequency Plan while there is under the approval process the policy for the sector development for the period 2009-2014 which is oriented on liberalization, European integration and convergence. The regulatory authority (AKEP) is an independent, self-financed entity which covers the regulatory tasks for the electronic communications. Under its authority belong also some tasks related to adoption, administration and implementation of legislation. For the industry of Electronic Communications, the regulatory body should safeguard the competition, guaranty the quality of services offered and delivery of them, protect the consumer, license and develop the market through promoting the investment and latest technology implementation. AKEP can impose prices control, set administration fees and define methodologies for regulation of tariffs and defines its own structure and salaries without any intervention from the Ministry. The financing is taken from fees applied to operators and service providers. It reports to the parliamentary assembly. The privatization of Albtelecom and Eagle Mobile, in 2007, increased the level autonomy and independence for the AKEP and the Ministry although the state still owns 25% of the shares. Lately the government has announced these shares will be sold. Another institution was established by the government in April 2007, National Agency on Information Society (NAIS) which role is to coordinate the government activities for the information society and communications. It prepares and proposes the national strategies, draft ICT legislations and coordinate the projects of government in ICT. With regards to market access and authorizations, Albania has moved forward with the gradual process of liberalization. In 1998 the liberalization started with the rural local networks, then in 2003 was liberalized the operations for the domestic long-distances networks and in 2005 for international ones. In 2006 the market was liberalized for urban operation of local alternative providers. The law of 2008, established the concept of â€Å"General authorization† based on which the networks and services which do not require the usage of limited resources could start operating without getting a license but just by sending a notification for their start to the regulatory authority within 15 days of operations. Based on this, the need for getting the license remained only for the frequencies and numbers. Based on the law, AKEP can use the SMP (Significant Market Power) designation mechanism in order to regulate the competition in the market. The decision for designation should be based on a Market Analysis procedure results. In 2007 AKEP has designated AMC and Vodafone as SMP in the market of retail mobile services and for the wholesale voice termination. Based on that, AKEP imposed to these two operators obligations related to non-discrimination, transparency in RIO (Reference Interconnection Offer), imposed the prices of interconnect termination by cutting them by 31.2%% and applied a reduction in retailed prices of 30% for on-net and 40%for the off-net calls for a period of two years. In 2007, AKEP has designated Albtelecom as SMP in six markets related to fixed voice services offered to customers and for voice transit services. Obligations were set to Albtelecom including the imposed reduction of retail and transit tariffs. Following a review of the markets in wholesale and retail tariffs done in 2009, the competitive safeguards LLU and CS/CPS were imposed to Albtelecom which are not yet implemented. AKEP has already launched several markets analysis procedures on most of the wholesale and retail markets such as: Mobile wholesale market for call termination, access and call origination; fixed retail access and call services for wholesale interconnection. In December 2009, AKEP introduced to operators a reference document with the model of BULRAIC cost calculations for mobile services MTR based on which the data have been provided to AKEP by the operators. As the result of these analyses, it is expected that AKEP imposes the Mobile Terminated Rates for national calls while the rates for the international calls will be reviewed. During 2009 AKEP has launched the market analysis and public consultation process for wholesale and retail leased lines markets and finalization of it is expected by mid 2010. As result of public consultation process, is expected to be defined the services, demands, providers, supply structure and markets and then based on these is expected that regulatory designates the SMP operators for which the tariffs for their services will be regulated. During Q1 2010, AKEP has launched a public consultation process on â€Å"The rule for the indexes of service quality† which is expected to be finalized during Q1 2010. The above mentioned actions which regard regulation of competitions can be considered as steps to develop the competitive safeguards environment, however we can mention other steps not yet realized by the regulatory although the process has already started. Such missing measurements are: number portability, carrier selection and pre-selection (CS, CSP) not in practice yet, local loop un-bundling (LLU) not in practice yet, national roaming, MVNO and whole sale line rental. Number portability public consultation is in progress and based on AKEP plans, the service will be available in the market by end 2010 while the process for licensing for wireless broadband spectrum (WiMAX and mobile 3G) are expected to start with public consultations opening by March 2010 and be finalized by mid 2010. According to latest European Commission assessment, there were noted some progress including the alignment of primary legislation, while still some secondary lines laws have to be adopted yet, market liberalization and competition still are at early stage and administrative capacities of the ministry and regulator was not sufficient (Cullen, 2008). Technological In the area of mobile communication technology, GSM 2.75 technology (EDGE) is implemented since 2006 and now three operators offer it to the customers, AMC, Vodafone and Eagle. Regulatory has not yet provided the licensing for the Mobile 3G CDMA and broadband technologies HSPA and HSPA+. There is a delay in this aspect and the licensing for 3G technologies may be provided only now, at the end of lifecycle for 3G technology and at the time that other markets have started trialing and adopting the 4G network technologies (LTE). Video Digital Broadcasting (DVB-H) services are offered by three operators (DIGITALB, TRING and TV SHIJAKU) already to the market through terrestrial or satellite broadcasting. Number of PCs and PC utilization at home is low and estimated to xxx% of the houses while the utilization in companies and government is high. Internet services are provided in the country by more than 36 ISPs and technology for access is mainly fixed broadband xDSL, hybrid fiber coax and dial-up. Wireless broadband spectrum available for WiMAX is not licensed yet by the regulatory while the WiFi networks are frequently used for the Internet access in cafes. Points to multipoint systems such as LMDS are not present in the country. Fiber networks are present only in the main cities such as Tirana and Durres and implemented by some ISP-s for the purposes of internet access or triple play services provided to the end user. Fiber backbone is missing and the mobile operators backbone is mainly build of microwave transmission links based on SDH or PDH technology. Two of mobile operators have taken already some steps on offering the mobile fix substitution services to the customers but not providing the convergence of the mobile and fix telephone number. Content development is weak and mainly is based on external international resources. The main technology factors that will shape the next decade of electronic communications development are the following: Convergence of networks Fixed and mobile network differences will vanish and a common network providing integrated services will serve the customers. Mobile to fix substitution and integration has already started Convergence of network technologies to an all IP networks Traditional telecom networks and internet (ISP) will merge together to a next generation carrier network which is based on all IP technology. Services will clearly separate from transport networks and competition will be focused and oriented on services Convergence of services Convergence of networks and network technology will make possible to design, combine and deliver to the customer services which traditionally have been provided before by different technology, networks and vendors such as triple play services, (video, voice and internet) provided all at one network access point, accessed through same application environment which run in many different types of devices. Unified services access and unified messaging Customers can access through same software environment and through same or different devices and from everywhere (office, home, when traveling) same set of applications and services. Reduction of cost for hardware and increase of software role and power Software will run on standard hardware. Big software players will play a big role while the network HW vendors will become more software oriented. Growth of video content and internet utilization while the voice remains strong Demands for capacities will be huge while the needs for integrating all sets of services at one management and control will increase. Increase of connected number and types of devices Web connected devices will increase. PCs, mobiles, TVs, game devices, etc. There will be a need to standardize the applications to all these set of devices. 6.2 Electronic communications industry analysis We will use the M. Porters â€Å"Five forces model† for analyzing the industry. We selected this model as being already one of the most worldwide known, widely recognized and used model for industry analysis. The analysis done based on that model will be used for business strategy development recommendations. Market overview General data The following graphs show the sector revenue growth and market in 2008 compared to the other countries in the region. Source: (Cullen Report, 2010) Source: (Cullen Report, 2010) Mobile telephony In May 1996, AMC a state owned company by this time launched for the first time in Albania the GSM services becoming one of the first countries in the region to offer such services. Currently there are three companies operating in the mobile services market AMC, Vodafone and Eagle Mobile. The fourth operator is licensed and is expected to launch the services on July 2010. On July 2009, the mobile customers were at 3.52 millions, mobile service penetration was at 110% of the population, and more than 99% of population and 90% of territory is covered by GSM signal. Around 93.8% of customers are prepaid and 6.2% are postpaid. AMC has 43.30% of customer base, Vodafone AL 43.00% and Eagle 13.7 % (Cullen, 2010). Technology used is 2G EDGE while 3G spectrum is expected to be licensed by mid 2010. Main services offered in the market are voice, SMS, MMS, WAP, internet access and GPRS intranets. 43.3% of market share is owed by AMC, 43% by Vodafone and 13.4% by Eagle Mobile. Fixed telephony Albtelecom is the incumbent fixed operator in the market while more than 70 alternative operators operate mainly in the rural zones. Number of fixed telephony users by July 2009 end was 360,000 which represents 11.3% penetration while alternative operators customers are at 49, 690 representing 14% of this number(Cullen, 2010). 99.92 % of the fixed telephony is digitized. In July 2009 the numbers of PSTN lines were at 359,100, ISDN lines at 929, lines given to residential customers were at 338,300 and to business customers at 21,700 (Cullen, 2010). Leased lines and Data services Albtelecom and the three mobile operators are the providers of leased lines services at national and international access. Albtelecom has had the monopoly of such services until few years ago and kept it for international access until 2006. Albtelecom has implemented a few fiber lines connecting some main cities while internationally have access of fiber backbones to Italy and to Greece and other Adriatic see countries through the Adria fiber backbone. The mobile operators have not build yet a backbone to be used for leasing yet but are offering for the moment free capacities of their backbone build for their core business, mobile services. Besides AMC, there are not any clear evidences and data on the leased lines or data services provided by the other two mobile operators (Vodafone and Eagle Mobile). Albtelecom and mobile operators are moving forward their plans for implementation of a national Fiber backbone which will serve future needs for capacities nationally or for international access. AMC has provided data internetworking services to banks and other business or government institutions. More than 200 local networks of xxx customers are internetworked nationally and xxxx connections to international networks are established. COMPLETE STATISTICS Use Cullen report data on lease lines (pages 53-67, here are prices only) Broadband and Internet Services These services are offered for the moment by fixed operators while the mobile broadband services are not yet licensed by regulatory authority. Broadband penetration rate was at 2.51 % on January 2010 and was the lowest one in the region while EU penetration was at 23.9% (Cullen, 2010). About 36 ISPs are operating in Albania mainly providing the services in Tirana area and few in the other western cities. According to Cullen report, by January 2010, the number of broadband connections was 80,000, narrowband connections were at 28,512 and 30% of people are regularly using the Internet (Cullen, 2010). Number of internet users in 2008, including the mobile internet access users, was at 580,000. Main operators are Albtelecom, Abisnet, ABCOM, Alfa cable and ASC (AKEP, 2010). 65% of broadband market is owned by Albtelecom and 35% by the alternative operators. Broadband technology used is ADSL and HFC. The following table shows the internet penetration progress over the years. Source: (Internet world statistics, 2010) Albtelecom offers upstream capacities of internet access to retail customers from 512Kbps to 4Mbps while Abisnet from 1 to 3 Mbps. Albtelecom is the main operator offering to other ISP-s high capacity access to internet international gateway through fiber. Other alternative operators access the international gateways through Albtelecom use other alternative microwave links. The internet backbone access capacity in October 2009 was 5.5GB and was one of the lowest in the region. The threat for substitute product and services AMC offers Data Internetworking and Internet services through ISP in addition to its core business mobile services. International IP transit services are provided through the partnership established with OTEGlobe which is an international data services provider. The type of service is IP transit, (Layer3 Networking) where turnkey IP network is provided through delivering the end routers, installation and configurations of them and IP packet encryption as well. IP capacities provided are dedicated. Availability of services is above 99.9% and quality of network is very good. For such type of data services, substitute services in the market are considered the MPLS VPN-s, satellite data links, internet VPN services, GPRS Intranets and data dial-up. MPLS VPNs are becoming standard services worldwide but not yet present in the local market. This comes mainly due to the reasons of lack of a dedicated data backbone in the country, the lack of development of IP backbones technologies by the operators for the moment and the lack of fiber backbones. Since the data IP backbone is missing for the moment and establishing it will need time and big investments, MPLS VPNs may present a substitution threat after some years. There are not operators offering such products for the moment. Satellite data links are established through satellite terminals installed at the local remote offices locations. Links are aggregated to the satellite nub and then connected to the headquarter network. These links have the advantage of installing anywhere in the country and this represent an advantage considering the terrain but are more convenient to be used as point to point links rather than in a distributed multipoint top Albanian Mobile Communications (AMC) Analysis Albanian Mobile Communications (AMC) Analysis Albanian Mobile Communications Market segments characteristics. (Demands type) Business and Residential are the main customer segments for Data and Internet services. According to ERG Report on regulation of access products necessary to deliver the business connectivity, business customers distributed with remote branches/offices nationally, tend to order wholesale services ordered by the headquarter rather than ordered as separate packages by the remote branches and while this is typical for big and organized business, smaller one sometimes find themselves convenient to buy and use the retail offered services (ERG, 2009). Regarding the demand from business customers different needs are found and a clear line between the high-end and low-end business customers can not be set but what separates them is often the quality of services demanded and the way of ordering the services as a complete network solution from one provider only or having different providers and the company itself does the role of the integrator (ERG, 2009). Another common behavior of businesses is the demand for a full solution for communication services covering the range of fixed and mobile services while it is noted that big business and in addition while the standard users are more sensitive for the price, the business big ones stick to well known brands, quality and reliability of services and after sales support provided (ERG, 2009). Big Business Multi-site customers seem to have different needs when compared to residential users or to small business users: Different services such as mobile, fix, data networking, convergent products and value added services; high quality communication services; quick response and good support; dedicated personnel as account manager (ERG, 2009) 5. AMC Company Profile Albanian Mobile Communications (AMC) is the biggest Mobile Network operator in Albania and is part of the Cosmote Mobile Telecommunications, the mobile part of OTE SA Greece. Part of Cosmote Group which is operating in 4 countries Greece, Albania, Bulgaria and Romania, AMC is operating in Albanian market since 1996 and has constantly dominated the market by means of customer base and revenue. AMC is founded as a state owned company by early 1996 and launched the standard GSM services on May 1996. It was privatized in 2000 when Cosmote Telenor Consortium became the controlling shareholder privatizing 85% of the shares while around 2% were provided to the employees and the rest of 13% remained to the state. Now 97% of the shares it is owned by Cosmote and 3% by the employees. At the time of privatization AMC was offering the services only to about 30,000 postpaid customers and only at xxx% of the territory and xx% of the population. (ASK ILIR) After the privatization, due to the low level of development of fixed telephony, lack of real completion and the investments made by the Greek company Cosmote, the company developed very fast by expanding the network to all the territory of Albania, offering the services to prepaid customers segment and adding a broad range of mobile services such as SMS, MMS, VMS and Internet access. After Vodafone entrance in the Albanian market in 2001, the competition in the market forced the constant decrease of prices, increase of number of services and their quality. The third operator, Eagle Mobile, entered in the market in 2008 and further busted the competition among the three operators. Positioning itself as a low cost services operator, Eagle mobile initiated a price war in the market forcing further decreases of services prices. Today AMC is the biggest Mobile operator in Albania, dominating the market by having around 1.9 million of customers with 43.3% market penetration. AMC is covering 99.8% of the population and 90% of the territory in Albania. Roaming agreements are established with more than 300 GSM operators worldwide. Major mobile product and services offered to individuals are: voice, SMS, MMS, voice mail, internet access, WAP portals and push email for residential. Corporate push email, data internetworking, ISP and VPN services are provided to corporate customers. EDGE technology is implemented covering 86% of the population and 63% of territory offering the possibility to the customers to access the internet through the mobile at acceptable rates. 3G technology is not yet licensed in Albania but the licensing process is expected to start during this year. AMC has around 530 employees highly qualified and trained. Around xx% of employees have a university degree and xx% of them are under the age of xxx. Personnel is organized in three main division, Commercial, Technical, Finance and Operations Administrative. The revenues for 2008 were at 191,272 millions, the OIBDA margin was at 64.7% and the net profit margin was at xxx%. During 2009, due to several factors present in the market such as the third entrant competition, world financial crises and intervention of regulatory body in decreasing the retail and interconnection termination tariffs AMC has faced some challenges on realizing the revenue objectives although the figures were still very good: revenue at 145,744mil, OIBDA at 57% and net profit at xxx%. For the future, considering the expected fierce competition due to also to the entrance of the fourth operator in the market and present financial crisis as well, AMC is looking to realize the targets through orienting the business towards the customer, finding other revenue streams, offering a wide range of products and services, the best technology in the market and best network quality. Offering of 3G services within 2010 and enrichment of products portfolio with services that this technology makes possible are considered as good opportunity for AMC in the near future for increasing the revenue. 6. Current Situation Analysis 6.1 General environment factors Political Albania is a small country located in southeastern Europe bordered by Adriatic Sea, Greece, Montenegro and Kosovo. Territory is 28,748 sq km and population at 3,639,453. After the Second World War, Albania established a communist regime which has ruled the country for 46 years until 1991 when it collapsed and a new democratic system was established. Albania has gone through a difficult process of transforming society to a democratic one and of developing the market economy. The process has proven to be very challenging and although a lot of progress has been done, the country is facing a lot of problems and deficiencies related to corruption, week infrastructure, unemployment, organized crime and sometimes lack of political stability. Since starting the transition process in 1991, the progress of Albania has been impressive although the transition period has taken longer than enough. Albania has established the institutions of democracy, has developed the capacities of public institutions, and has established the foundations of market economy (World Bank, 2010). Albania has joined NATO in 2009, has signed in 2006 the agreement for Stabilization and Association with EU and is one of the potential candidates for joining the EU. As part of EU association agreement, Albania since ten years has transformed and adopted the legislation based on EU recommendations and framework. The legislation improvement has been a continuing process and is performed under the tough monitoring and supervision of EU. In this regard, currently we may say that Albania has a very good legislation frame although there are evident gaps between the legislation and practical implementation of the laws in the country. The country has joined the WTO in 2000 and since then has adopted its international trading policies in accordance with the agreement with this organization. Government policies and strategies on Electronic communications are focused on liberalization, development of market and competition, attraction of foreign direct investments, protection of consumer and are developed in compliance with the National Strategy for Development (covering years 2007-2013) and the EU integration directives. Economy Albania is a country with low to middle income with a gross domestic income per capita of $3740 in 2008. The Economy of the country has been totally transformed during the transition period from a communist economy towards a market-based economy. Albania has achieved a sustainable economic growth, while containing inflation almost constant every year. During the transition period, the structure of economy has been transformed from an agriculture and industry to services and construction. Large scale migration has fueled high workers remittances, which make up around 8-13 percent of GDP (World Bank Web Page, 2010, Albania in Brief). During that period the GDP growth rates of around 5-6 percent per year have been achieved while the poverty level has been reduced constantly. The absolute poverty rate was 25.4 % in 2002 but dropped to 18.5 percent in 2005 and to 12.4 percent in 2008. The extreme poverty rate decreased from about 5 to 3.5 percent but inequality has increased significantly (World Bank Web Page, 2010, Albania in Brief). According to World Bank data, the Albania GNIP (Gross National Income per Capita) in 2008 was at 3840$ ranking at 113th position while PPP (Purchasing power Parity) was at 7950$ during 2008 ranking at 108th position worldwide (World Bank, 2008). The GDP composition by sectors the year 2009 was as following: agriculture 20.06%, industry 18.8% and services 60.6% (CIA Fact book, 2010). In 2009 unemployment rate was at 12%, population under the poverty line 25%, Inflation rate 2.1% and has been kept within the range of 2-4% since 2002 (CIA Fact book, 2010). Major agriculture products are wheat, corn, vegetables, potatoes, fruits, sugar, grapes and meat while the industrial ones are food processing, textiles and clothing, oil, hydropower, cement, chemicals, mining and basic metals. In 2009 the exports were at 1994 billion while the imports were at 3602 billion (CIA Fact book, 2010). Strong growth has been seen during the years 2002 -2008 at the rate of 14-15% in the construction industry which has been considered as very successful one in the country. Evidences of global crises effects have been shown during 2009 when the GDP growth was 4% less than 2008. The remittances and bank deposits have declined much during 2008 and 2009 causing the slowdown of consumption while imports went down from 4,898 in 2008 to 3.602 Billion in 2009 (INSTAT, 2010). The deposit rates during 2007 were at the average of 6.3% while the bank interest rates were at 13.6% (INSTAT, 2010). Following are shown the main competitiveness indexes for Albania provided by the Harvard University, M. Porter in The Global Competitiveness Report. Source: M. Porter, The Global Competitiveness Report, 2008-2009 Based on this report, Albania is categorized in the group of countries being at the stage of efficiency driven economy, has many deficiencies in infrastructure, technology and innovation and market efficiency while fits with the standards of this category for macroeconomic stability, health and primary education, labor market efficiency and institutions, Source: M. Porter, The Global Competitiveness Report, 2008-2009 From the above report we can see that corruption, inadequate infrastructure, governing efficiency and bureaucracy and Tax regulations are the main problematic factors for doing business in Albania. Source: World Bank, Doing Business 2010 Albania According to World Bank, Albania is currently well positioned to continue with its strong economic growth and is able to make significant movements towards the integration with the European Union but the government must strongly address the governance problems, maintain a stable macroeconomics framework, improve the business environment and attract investments, upgrade public infrastructure, develop its human capital and make sure that the development benefits are fairly distributed to different categories of society with a special attention to supporting the poor ones (World Bank 2010). Although it has sustained high growth rate by keeping the microeconomic stability during the last decade, Albania remains still one of the poorest countries in Europe showing a large scale of informality in economy, a week and inadequate energetic and transportation infrastructure. Shortages in Energy caused from the dependency from hydropower plants and inadequate distribution infrastructure contribute much in a poor business environment and is a factor for not being successful in the process of attracting the foreign investors. According the European Commission 2009 report , Albania has kept and maintained the macro-economic while the worldwide crises had only a limited impact on the country, inflation was low, exchange rate has been stable, liquidity of banks have been ensured (EU Commission, 2009) Social According to INSTAT, 46 % of the population is between the age of 15-44 years and average age is 32.1 years therefore we may say that Albania has a young population however the population has started aging for the reason of decreased rate of births and longer life rate (INSTAT,2010). The number of people living in urban areas has increased from 35.8% in 1989 to 45% in 2004. Consumer telecom utilization and spending is high and at around 6 % of the total household expenditures. New generation like the new technology of mobiles and are followers of offers. Some future social trends are mentioned below: Urbanization will continue therefore increasing the chances for the fast rollout of broadband technologies Economic inequality will increase, therefore the customer segmentations should be considered and product and services should be customized to each segment needs Family size will decrease People joining the social networks will increase Regulatory The country has adopted the national legislation in accordance with the EU 2003 regulatory recommendations and framework. The Law No. 9918 (May 19, 2008) is the main legal instrument for the electronic communications industry regulation. It defines the responsibilities of government and regulatory institutions for this regulation. Based on this law, the Minister of State for Reforms and Parliamentary relations is the administration body for the electronic communications services and it is responsible for drafting the related legislation and for preparing the plan for radio frequencies. Based on the proposals submitted by the regulatory, the Ministry has the authority to approve the tenders for limited spectrum assignment and universal service providers. In 2009, the Council of Ministers has approved the National Frequency Plan while there is under the approval process the policy for the sector development for the period 2009-2014 which is oriented on liberalization, European integration and convergence. The regulatory authority (AKEP) is an independent, self-financed entity which covers the regulatory tasks for the electronic communications. Under its authority belong also some tasks related to adoption, administration and implementation of legislation. For the industry of Electronic Communications, the regulatory body should safeguard the competition, guaranty the quality of services offered and delivery of them, protect the consumer, license and develop the market through promoting the investment and latest technology implementation. AKEP can impose prices control, set administration fees and define methodologies for regulation of tariffs and defines its own structure and salaries without any intervention from the Ministry. The financing is taken from fees applied to operators and service providers. It reports to the parliamentary assembly. The privatization of Albtelecom and Eagle Mobile, in 2007, increased the level autonomy and independence for the AKEP and the Ministry although the state still owns 25% of the shares. Lately the government has announced these shares will be sold. Another institution was established by the government in April 2007, National Agency on Information Society (NAIS) which role is to coordinate the government activities for the information society and communications. It prepares and proposes the national strategies, draft ICT legislations and coordinate the projects of government in ICT. With regards to market access and authorizations, Albania has moved forward with the gradual process of liberalization. In 1998 the liberalization started with the rural local networks, then in 2003 was liberalized the operations for the domestic long-distances networks and in 2005 for international ones. In 2006 the market was liberalized for urban operation of local alternative providers. The law of 2008, established the concept of â€Å"General authorization† based on which the networks and services which do not require the usage of limited resources could start operating without getting a license but just by sending a notification for their start to the regulatory authority within 15 days of operations. Based on this, the need for getting the license remained only for the frequencies and numbers. Based on the law, AKEP can use the SMP (Significant Market Power) designation mechanism in order to regulate the competition in the market. The decision for designation should be based on a Market Analysis procedure results. In 2007 AKEP has designated AMC and Vodafone as SMP in the market of retail mobile services and for the wholesale voice termination. Based on that, AKEP imposed to these two operators obligations related to non-discrimination, transparency in RIO (Reference Interconnection Offer), imposed the prices of interconnect termination by cutting them by 31.2%% and applied a reduction in retailed prices of 30% for on-net and 40%for the off-net calls for a period of two years. In 2007, AKEP has designated Albtelecom as SMP in six markets related to fixed voice services offered to customers and for voice transit services. Obligations were set to Albtelecom including the imposed reduction of retail and transit tariffs. Following a review of the markets in wholesale and retail tariffs done in 2009, the competitive safeguards LLU and CS/CPS were imposed to Albtelecom which are not yet implemented. AKEP has already launched several markets analysis procedures on most of the wholesale and retail markets such as: Mobile wholesale market for call termination, access and call origination; fixed retail access and call services for wholesale interconnection. In December 2009, AKEP introduced to operators a reference document with the model of BULRAIC cost calculations for mobile services MTR based on which the data have been provided to AKEP by the operators. As the result of these analyses, it is expected that AKEP imposes the Mobile Terminated Rates for national calls while the rates for the international calls will be reviewed. During 2009 AKEP has launched the market analysis and public consultation process for wholesale and retail leased lines markets and finalization of it is expected by mid 2010. As result of public consultation process, is expected to be defined the services, demands, providers, supply structure and markets and then based on these is expected that regulatory designates the SMP operators for which the tariffs for their services will be regulated. During Q1 2010, AKEP has launched a public consultation process on â€Å"The rule for the indexes of service quality† which is expected to be finalized during Q1 2010. The above mentioned actions which regard regulation of competitions can be considered as steps to develop the competitive safeguards environment, however we can mention other steps not yet realized by the regulatory although the process has already started. Such missing measurements are: number portability, carrier selection and pre-selection (CS, CSP) not in practice yet, local loop un-bundling (LLU) not in practice yet, national roaming, MVNO and whole sale line rental. Number portability public consultation is in progress and based on AKEP plans, the service will be available in the market by end 2010 while the process for licensing for wireless broadband spectrum (WiMAX and mobile 3G) are expected to start with public consultations opening by March 2010 and be finalized by mid 2010. According to latest European Commission assessment, there were noted some progress including the alignment of primary legislation, while still some secondary lines laws have to be adopted yet, market liberalization and competition still are at early stage and administrative capacities of the ministry and regulator was not sufficient (Cullen, 2008). Technological In the area of mobile communication technology, GSM 2.75 technology (EDGE) is implemented since 2006 and now three operators offer it to the customers, AMC, Vodafone and Eagle. Regulatory has not yet provided the licensing for the Mobile 3G CDMA and broadband technologies HSPA and HSPA+. There is a delay in this aspect and the licensing for 3G technologies may be provided only now, at the end of lifecycle for 3G technology and at the time that other markets have started trialing and adopting the 4G network technologies (LTE). Video Digital Broadcasting (DVB-H) services are offered by three operators (DIGITALB, TRING and TV SHIJAKU) already to the market through terrestrial or satellite broadcasting. Number of PCs and PC utilization at home is low and estimated to xxx% of the houses while the utilization in companies and government is high. Internet services are provided in the country by more than 36 ISPs and technology for access is mainly fixed broadband xDSL, hybrid fiber coax and dial-up. Wireless broadband spectrum available for WiMAX is not licensed yet by the regulatory while the WiFi networks are frequently used for the Internet access in cafes. Points to multipoint systems such as LMDS are not present in the country. Fiber networks are present only in the main cities such as Tirana and Durres and implemented by some ISP-s for the purposes of internet access or triple play services provided to the end user. Fiber backbone is missing and the mobile operators backbone is mainly build of microwave transmission links based on SDH or PDH technology. Two of mobile operators have taken already some steps on offering the mobile fix substitution services to the customers but not providing the convergence of the mobile and fix telephone number. Content development is weak and mainly is based on external international resources. The main technology factors that will shape the next decade of electronic communications development are the following: Convergence of networks Fixed and mobile network differences will vanish and a common network providing integrated services will serve the customers. Mobile to fix substitution and integration has already started Convergence of network technologies to an all IP networks Traditional telecom networks and internet (ISP) will merge together to a next generation carrier network which is based on all IP technology. Services will clearly separate from transport networks and competition will be focused and oriented on services Convergence of services Convergence of networks and network technology will make possible to design, combine and deliver to the customer services which traditionally have been provided before by different technology, networks and vendors such as triple play services, (video, voice and internet) provided all at one network access point, accessed through same application environment which run in many different types of devices. Unified services access and unified messaging Customers can access through same software environment and through same or different devices and from everywhere (office, home, when traveling) same set of applications and services. Reduction of cost for hardware and increase of software role and power Software will run on standard hardware. Big software players will play a big role while the network HW vendors will become more software oriented. Growth of video content and internet utilization while the voice remains strong Demands for capacities will be huge while the needs for integrating all sets of services at one management and control will increase. Increase of connected number and types of devices Web connected devices will increase. PCs, mobiles, TVs, game devices, etc. There will be a need to standardize the applications to all these set of devices. 6.2 Electronic communications industry analysis We will use the M. Porters â€Å"Five forces model† for analyzing the industry. We selected this model as being already one of the most worldwide known, widely recognized and used model for industry analysis. The analysis done based on that model will be used for business strategy development recommendations. Market overview General data The following graphs show the sector revenue growth and market in 2008 compared to the other countries in the region. Source: (Cullen Report, 2010) Source: (Cullen Report, 2010) Mobile telephony In May 1996, AMC a state owned company by this time launched for the first time in Albania the GSM services becoming one of the first countries in the region to offer such services. Currently there are three companies operating in the mobile services market AMC, Vodafone and Eagle Mobile. The fourth operator is licensed and is expected to launch the services on July 2010. On July 2009, the mobile customers were at 3.52 millions, mobile service penetration was at 110% of the population, and more than 99% of population and 90% of territory is covered by GSM signal. Around 93.8% of customers are prepaid and 6.2% are postpaid. AMC has 43.30% of customer base, Vodafone AL 43.00% and Eagle 13.7 % (Cullen, 2010). Technology used is 2G EDGE while 3G spectrum is expected to be licensed by mid 2010. Main services offered in the market are voice, SMS, MMS, WAP, internet access and GPRS intranets. 43.3% of market share is owed by AMC, 43% by Vodafone and 13.4% by Eagle Mobile. Fixed telephony Albtelecom is the incumbent fixed operator in the market while more than 70 alternative operators operate mainly in the rural zones. Number of fixed telephony users by July 2009 end was 360,000 which represents 11.3% penetration while alternative operators customers are at 49, 690 representing 14% of this number(Cullen, 2010). 99.92 % of the fixed telephony is digitized. In July 2009 the numbers of PSTN lines were at 359,100, ISDN lines at 929, lines given to residential customers were at 338,300 and to business customers at 21,700 (Cullen, 2010). Leased lines and Data services Albtelecom and the three mobile operators are the providers of leased lines services at national and international access. Albtelecom has had the monopoly of such services until few years ago and kept it for international access until 2006. Albtelecom has implemented a few fiber lines connecting some main cities while internationally have access of fiber backbones to Italy and to Greece and other Adriatic see countries through the Adria fiber backbone. The mobile operators have not build yet a backbone to be used for leasing yet but are offering for the moment free capacities of their backbone build for their core business, mobile services. Besides AMC, there are not any clear evidences and data on the leased lines or data services provided by the other two mobile operators (Vodafone and Eagle Mobile). Albtelecom and mobile operators are moving forward their plans for implementation of a national Fiber backbone which will serve future needs for capacities nationally or for international access. AMC has provided data internetworking services to banks and other business or government institutions. More than 200 local networks of xxx customers are internetworked nationally and xxxx connections to international networks are established. COMPLETE STATISTICS Use Cullen report data on lease lines (pages 53-67, here are prices only) Broadband and Internet Services These services are offered for the moment by fixed operators while the mobile broadband services are not yet licensed by regulatory authority. Broadband penetration rate was at 2.51 % on January 2010 and was the lowest one in the region while EU penetration was at 23.9% (Cullen, 2010). About 36 ISPs are operating in Albania mainly providing the services in Tirana area and few in the other western cities. According to Cullen report, by January 2010, the number of broadband connections was 80,000, narrowband connections were at 28,512 and 30% of people are regularly using the Internet (Cullen, 2010). Number of internet users in 2008, including the mobile internet access users, was at 580,000. Main operators are Albtelecom, Abisnet, ABCOM, Alfa cable and ASC (AKEP, 2010). 65% of broadband market is owned by Albtelecom and 35% by the alternative operators. Broadband technology used is ADSL and HFC. The following table shows the internet penetration progress over the years. Source: (Internet world statistics, 2010) Albtelecom offers upstream capacities of internet access to retail customers from 512Kbps to 4Mbps while Abisnet from 1 to 3 Mbps. Albtelecom is the main operator offering to other ISP-s high capacity access to internet international gateway through fiber. Other alternative operators access the international gateways through Albtelecom use other alternative microwave links. The internet backbone access capacity in October 2009 was 5.5GB and was one of the lowest in the region. The threat for substitute product and services AMC offers Data Internetworking and Internet services through ISP in addition to its core business mobile services. International IP transit services are provided through the partnership established with OTEGlobe which is an international data services provider. The type of service is IP transit, (Layer3 Networking) where turnkey IP network is provided through delivering the end routers, installation and configurations of them and IP packet encryption as well. IP capacities provided are dedicated. Availability of services is above 99.9% and quality of network is very good. For such type of data services, substitute services in the market are considered the MPLS VPN-s, satellite data links, internet VPN services, GPRS Intranets and data dial-up. MPLS VPNs are becoming standard services worldwide but not yet present in the local market. This comes mainly due to the reasons of lack of a dedicated data backbone in the country, the lack of development of IP backbones technologies by the operators for the moment and the lack of fiber backbones. Since the data IP backbone is missing for the moment and establishing it will need time and big investments, MPLS VPNs may present a substitution threat after some years. There are not operators offering such products for the moment. Satellite data links are established through satellite terminals installed at the local remote offices locations. Links are aggregated to the satellite nub and then connected to the headquarter network. These links have the advantage of installing anywhere in the country and this represent an advantage considering the terrain but are more convenient to be used as point to point links rather than in a distributed multipoint top

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  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Arthritis.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Arthritis is a disease that in some way effects everyone. Whether you have arthritis or not, chances are, you know someone who does and can see the effect it has on them. There are some common misconceptions about arthritis, types of arthritis, and the causes. There are in fact some different types of the disease that most people don’t know about.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One type of arthritis is osteoarthritis. It is a degenerative arthritis (a condition in which joint cartilage breaks down). New tissue, which grows at the ends of bones, has no cartilage cap to shape it. This new bone forms into lips and ridges that grind and grate against each other and get in the way of how the joint moves. Osteoarthritis is common in older people after years of using a joint more that one usually uses one. The thin cartilage wears away on bone rubs on bone. Osteoarthritis can also result from diseases like Paget's disease (in which the long bones of the body curve), or osteoporosis. Osteoarthritis of the spine is called Spondylosis. That happens when joints degenerate and the weight of the body is supported unevenly. Other forms of arthritis can also cause what’s called a secondary osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis does not happen to all people when they get old. Only some elderly people get the disease. Women are affected more than men. Us ually their heredity and the strength of their immune systems are the reasons why. Medical science still isn’t quite sure of all the reasons why some people get it and others don’t. But they do offer some suggestions for treatment. Exercising to keep joints flexible and improve muscle strength. Different medications are used to control pain including corticosteroids, NSA... ...nbsp;  www.arthritis.org/conditions/DiseaseCenter/oa.asp Arthritis foundation (no date   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  given) Retrieved Apr. 14th, 2003 2.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  (No author given) â€Å"Arthritis† www.kineretrx.com/rhumatoid_arthritis.htm   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Amgen 2001 Retrieved Apr. 14th, 2003 3.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  (No author given) â€Å"Arthritis† www.aaos.org/wordhtml/pat_educ/aritis.htm   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  American academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. 2000 Retrieved Apr. 13th, 2003 4.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  (No author given) â€Å"New Studies Link Rheumatoid Arthritis and Heart Disease†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   www.allaboutarthritis.com/portal/DPUY/AAA DePuy Orthopaedics 2003 Retrieved Apr. 15th,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   2003 5.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  (No author given) â€Å"Examples of Rheumatic Diseases†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  www.niams.nih.gov/hi/topics/arthritis/artrheu.htm#art_a National institute for   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  arthritis and   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  musculoskeletal and skin disease. Feb 2002. Retrieved Apr. 16th,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  2002

Pediatric Developmental Analysis Essay

1. Describe the stage the client should be in based on the age. Refer to your text for this information. Include the characteristics of the stage. The client should be in the school age. The developmental task of the school age is to develop industry versus inferiority. The child at this stage is learning how to do things well. The children in this stage are encouraged in their efforts to do practical tasks or make practical things and are praised and rewarded for the finished results, so that their sense of industry grows. It is in this stage also that when children are not recognized and are thought of as mischiefs develops a sense of inferiority rather than pride and accomplishment. A child’s world during this age grows to include the school and community environment and the success or failure can have a big impact on the child and on his later stages of development. An important part of developing industry is learning how to solve problems. Parents and teachers help children in doing this by encouraging practice. They can foster this by allowing the child to commit mistakes and helping the child in the tasks in which he/she has a hard time to do. At this age the child has the ability to view concepts and retain ideas. 2. Describe the stage in which the client is actually functioning. Use the client’s behavior to support your claim. The client is in the in the school age where she actively participates in school. She participates in activities such as school plays, recital of poems and associate with her classmates. She can accomplish small tasks independently. She is able to collect items such as dolls. At this stage the child also enjoys helping in the kitchen making cookies and salads. She is also involved in simple science projects and experiments that promote her association skills and she has been able to achieve well in her class. She can tell the time, month and can count numbers more appropriately. She can even add and subtract simple numbers. 3. How was the client’s current health problem/admission interfered with accomplishing the developmental tasks for this child? The child has a fever and cough which interfered with her performance in accomplishing things.   The child cannot perform well at school and cannot perform the task that she used to because the fever makes her weak that is why the child feels no accomplishments have been made. Since the health condition of the child affects her performance the quality of the work is also at stake therefore the child is not able to accomplish the task there is no reward or recognition given to the child in turn the child may feel or develop inferiority. Health problems as simple as fever and cough, reduces the child’s chance of doing things and accomplishing things in order to get rewards or acknowledgement therefore the development during this stage may be hindered. 4. List activities/ interventions to support or promote this client’s growth and development.  · The client can be fostered with activities such as assembling and completing small projects so that the child feels rewarded for the accomplishment.  · Help the child gain independence even if admitted, at the hospital make the child a part of his care. You can do this by simply having the child perform his self care like brushing his teeth, dressing up and other self care activities that are not harmful to his/her condition.  · Allowing the child to read and write are activities that can help the child pass the hour of sickness.  · Promote adequate rest and sleep with activities.  · Parents can give encouragement by helping the child in difficult situations or advise them with alternative way of how to accomplish the difficult task.  · The parents can offer support to the child and praise the child for accomplishments.  · Allow the child to participate in school activities such as sports and other recreational activities  · Allow the child to make a mistake. If the child makes a mistake do not discourage him or her, instead explain to him why such things happen and encourage the child to pursue  · At home, give the child household responsibilities, such picking up the toys and other scattered materials that are not invasive.  · Allow the child to express feelings and concerns.

Needs and risk assessment of physical disabilities Essays

Needs and risk assessment of physical disabilities Essays Needs and risk assessment of physical disabilities Essay Needs and risk assessment of physical disabilities Essay Brief 188020 Title: Analyse the procedure, methods and ethical quandary involved in set abouting a demands and hazard appraisal in a instance of physical disablements. Case Study ( from Aust 1996 ) Emma and Anne who are both in their early mid-twentiess have known each other for many old ages, holding met through a twenty-four hours Centre for people with physical disablements. As a consequence of a head hurt, Emma can non walk at all and uses a wheelchair. Anne has intellectual paralysis and besides uses a wheelchair. The misss have decided that they now want to populate together, but their parents are objecting to this thought stating that they would be excessively vulnerable in the community. Anne’s parents besides consider Emma to be too dominant and manipulative’ sing their ain girl. ( Aust 1996: 178 ) The instance presents the societal worker who is to transport out a hazard appraisal with a overplus of jobs. The essay will sketch the values, general ethical theories and the assorted theoretical accounts that can be utilised when measuring hazards for Emma and Anne’s move. It will besides reexamine the model for hazard appraisal that is available to societal workers and measure its utility in making a feasible solution to the aspirations of Emma and Anne to populate independently. Although it may non strike an perceiver as an ethical quandary at first, the legion facets involved in the determination devising procedure necessitate any societal worker to weigh the benefits and disadvantages of alternate classs of actions non merely for the two immature adult females but besides for any other involved party such as carers and so the societal worker herself ( Carson 1996 ) . This exercising of measuring benefits across those who are involved in the procedure of attention for Em ma and Anne in the past and in the hereafter under new fortunes needs to pull on ethical norms and constructs. The essay will undertake the assorted facets in bend and will chalk out a possible solution to the job every bit far as the fortunes that must necessarily act upon any determination are known in this instance. Risk appraisal has undergone a extremist transmutation over the last decennary in England and Wales ( Garrett 2003 ) . While ethical theories still play a more fringy function in concrete determination devising procedures in societal work, the work of practicians is to a great extent influenced by new theoretical accounts of appraisal, altering values and bureau processs. Although many local governments strive to formalize and standardize the procedure of hazard appraisal for their societal workers, there is merely loose and general counsel available from national administrations ( HSE 2002 ; Carson 1996: 11 ; with the exclusion of kid appraisal for which the UK authorities has provided a close compulsory appraisal model, californium. Garrett 2003 ) . Consequently the burden of measuring bing and possible hazards to persons is placed on societal workers who need to be equipped with robust theoretical accounts of appraisal in order to get at valid and sensible determinations. Additionally, although the Centre of determination devising is easy switching to service users, authorization of clients must stay a distant possibility if sufficient resources are non made available to ease the determinations taken by users and societal workers. Social workers are therefore put in a place in which they have beliing truenesss ; on one manus to place that class of action that is of most benefit to the service user ( BASW 1985 ; GSCC 2002 ) , on the other manus, to administer existing resources in the fairest manner across those entitled to have resources. The literature identifies several values that inform societal service hazard appraisal and societal work in general in the UK ( Banks 2006 ; Beckett 2005 ) . Social workers must endeavor to protect the self-respect of service users, heighten the possibility for self-government and recognize the worth of any person in their battle with clients ( BASW 1985 ; GSCC 2002 ) . While the more general thoughts that underlie societal work are frequently identified as societal justness in the wider social context, theoreticians frequently point out that specific norms such as forestalling favoritism on evidences of physical or learning disablement every bit good as societal inclusion and equity in administering existing resources and supplying entree to them flux logically from the more abstract impression of persons entitled to esteem and equal intervention. Additionally, some argue that continuing the unity of societal work professional is besides a basic value that should regulate societal w ork pattern, something that has found its manner into the assorted codifications of pattern in the UK ( BASW 1985 ; GSCC 2002 ) . Three sets of theories are seen as relevant to a more profound apprehension of the nature of societal work. Banks identifies principle based ethical theories, such as deontological ( Kantian ) and useful moralss, aboard virtue moralss and extremist theory. There has been ample argument about whether or non codifications of moralss reflect anything close to valid ethical theories. Banks ( 2003 ) argues that ethical codifications are really much the result of schemes of professions to circumference a sphere of duty accessible merely to practicians of the peculiar profession. They are vehicles of procuring position and privilege for societal workers and legalizing the liberty of the profession as a whole from external regulative intervention ( Banks 2003: 139 and 142 ) . International comparings reveal that professional codifications vary widely in length, content and signifier. Consequently they are capable to reviews from different angles. A cardinal unfavorable judgment nevertheless seems to use to about all codifications of moralss and that is that they often fail to carry through their chief map to steer societal workers in their professional pattern ( Banks 2003: 140 ) . Codes of moralss tend to be idealistic insofar as they formula te abstract moral rules as the foundation of societal work. If professional codifications are elevated to regulative position, violation of these rules might take to disciplinary action, an absurd scenario since the application of moral rules in concrete instances is unfastened to debate and reading ( Banks 2003: 141-142 ) . More significantly, Garrett ( 2003 ) argues that elaborate appraisal models carry through a political function and should be seen in the UK as portion of the wider New Labour scheme for cut downing unfairnesss in society. While this may look commendable, the merely elaborate appraisal model that Tony Blair’s authorities introduced carries deep paternalistic deductions and its societal inclusion rhetoric disguises the fact that the bordering scheme of New Labour’s economic repertory remains †¦essentially the neo-liberal one’ ( Garrett 2003: 451 ) . The instruments of societal alteration every bit remain conventional and undisputed. Garrett points out that New Labour envisages waged work as the chief tool for societal inclusion, thereby blatantly cut downing the complexnesss of societal justness and inclusion to material well-being ( Garrett 2003: 449 ) . He criticizes the late implemented kid appraisal model as excessively reliant on graduated tables, while still neglecting to supply a clear grounds base for opinions and recommendations’ ( Garrett 2003: 453 ) . Assessment frameworks hence may merely neglect to promote brooding and critical pattern of societal workers and overemphasise attachment to governmental ordinances and processs. Since societal work pattern is fatally wedded to a New Labour vision of society-government relationship in which the authorities knows best, assessment models can at best be vehicle for paternalistic supervising of parents and kids ( Garrett 2003: 447 ) . Previously to the challenge of the established theoretical account, the impression of hazard was defined as the possible to do injury to the service user or any others in the populace or the private sphere ( Carson 1996: 9 ) . The important difference between the more advanced impression of hazard and the older theoretical account of hazard appraisal is that hazard is today defined in a broader manner and relates to the quality of life of handicapped people ( Ross 1996 ) . Consequently, societal workers are tasked to see hazard that are unnecessarily placed on handicapped people which may take to societal exclusion and unacceptable low degrees of societal battle ( Parker 2003: 13 ) . This has resulted in a extremist re-formulation of the demands of handicapped people in society. Hazard now carries positive every bit good as negative intensions and may take to both good and harmful results ( Ross 1996: 81 ) . Social workers are urged to take both sides into history in their appraisal. In the given instance, the societal worker would hold to weigh the benefits for Emma and Anne by populating independently against the hazard that may be present in the event that necessary support may non be available at certain times in their level. Social workers therefore need to gauge the probability and size of known possible results that result from interaction of known and unknown factors’ ( Ross 1996: 82 ) . In this new strategy of things, hazard is a state of affairs where a individual is exposed to chances, jeopardies, and dangers’ ( Ross 1996: 82 ) Since one desired facet of hazard appraisal is non merely to guarantee that clients are consulted but actively take part in the determination devising procedure, any societal worker who carries out hazard appraisal must besides see who bears duties in instance things go incorrect ( Carson 1996 ) . If for illustration, Emma and Anne would disregard the indicant by the societal worker that there are no sufficient resources to vouch uninterrupted round the clock support in their new level, the societal worker must explicate to them that this may present an incalculable hazard to their well being. In the terminal the societal worker must guarantee that they arrive at a determination that balances their demands for independent life with those of the assorted stakeholders in the procedure. There are foremost the parents and carers of both Emma and Anne whose concerns must be heard and considered. By the same item, the societal worker would hold a duty to weigh these concerns against the possible involvements of the carers to forestall Emma and Anne from populating independently, non because it is non in their best involvement, but because it may non function themselves and their established fiscal and familial agreements. In a study of assessment pattern in societal work and determination devising processs, Holland has pointed out that since appraisal by practicians relies to a great extent on verbal interaction, those clients who manage to set up a relationship with societal workers that purports to rest on shared values predisposes determination shapers favorably towards the carers. On the other manus, those carers who do non go on to hold a sufficient articulacy, do non show equal co-operation with the societal worker or fail to offer an agreed plausible account for the household state of affairs do non win in household re-unification or other aims ( Holland 2000 ) . The nucleus standard for a positive appraisal appears to be the willingness of carers to accept in an articulate and convincing manner the position of the societal worker on past events and current fortunes of the household ( Holland 2000: 158-159 ) . Access to resources or the power to do determinations that affect households may therefore easy interpret into coercive relationships between societal workers and households, while the latter are compelled to acknowledge the societal worker’s reading of the family’s state of affairs as the lone valid 1 ( Holland 2000 ) . Calder outlines the assorted phases of hazard appraisal ( in kid attention contexts ) and distinguishes between the hypothesis on possibilities, information assemblage, information testing, determination devising and rating of this determination. But even with this elaborate step-by-step algorithm ( similar in Milner 2002: 62-63 ) , while it is possible to measure single hazards, it remains vague how societal workers are supposed to weigh hazards against each other ( Calder 1996: 35 ) . This is where societal doctrines are coming into drama. Social workers may moderately trust on their intuition sing the differing weight that they may desire to tie in with different hazards. Such a quandary may tend societal workers towards the original theoretical account of hazard appraisal one time once more, where impressions of single physical or emotional injury predominate the appraising procedure. Emma and Anne’s proposal for independent life may be rejected on these evidences. Inciden tally, Emma and Anne may besides be denied the want to travel into a level merely because non sufficient resources can be found to back up them at that place, and while this is a frequent external restraint it emerges in the hazard appraisal scheme as a legitimate ground to forestall Emma and Anne’s wants. Scarce resources therefore may forestall societal workers from traveling to a more balanced and advanced theoretical account of hazard appraisal as lineation earlier and forces them to return back to the original impression of hazard that was found wanting by protagonism groups and handicapped people themselves. In add-on societal workers may be confronted with a important deficiency of fit’ between their assessment recommendations and the existent opportunities of seeing this through by using bing collaborative webs between bureaus. Unless more resources are made available it is hard to see that the new theoretical account of hazard can meaningfully be implemented across societal service appraisals. Ross argues that societal workers should ideally use an exchange theoretical account of appraisal which assumes that the worker has expertise in job work outing [ while ] the user has expertise about the problem’ ( Ross 1996: 88 ) . Yet, any such sophisticated theoretical accounts of appraisal must be considered against the background of practical restraints such as budgetary restrictions, which may frequently annul assessment results and recommendations by societal workers. Mentions Aust, A. , Hazel Kemshall, Jane Lawson e.a. ( 1996 ) . Using Hazard in Practice: Case Studies and Training Material.Good Practice in Risk Assessment and Risk Management. H. Kemshall and J. Pritchard. London and Bristol, Pennsylvania, Jessica Kingsley: 176-197. BASW ( 1985 ) . A Code of Ethics for Social Work, British Association of Social Workers ( BASW ) . Banks, S. ( 2003 ) . From oaths to rulebooks: a critical scrutiny of codifications of moralss for the societal professions.European Journal of Social Work. Vol. 6, No. 2, 133-144. Banks, S. ( 2006 ) .Ethical motives and Valuess in Social Work. London, Palgrave. Beckett, C. and Maynard, A. ( 2005 ) .Valuess and Ethical motives in Social Work. An Introduction. London Thousand Oaks New Delhi, Sage. Calder, M. C. ( 2003 ) . The Assessment Model: A Critique and Reformulation.Appraisal in Child Care. Using and Developing Frameworks for Practice. M. C. Calder and S. Hackett. Dorset, Russell House Publication: 3-60. Carson, D. ( 1996 ) . Risking Legal Repercussions.Good Practice in Risk Assessment and Risk Management. H. Kemshall and J. Pritchard. London and Bristol, Pennsylvania, Jessica Kingsley: 3-12. Garrett, P.M. ( 2003 ) . Swiming with Dolphinfishs: The Assessment Framework, New Labour and New Tools for Social Work with Children and Families.British Journal of Social Work. 33, 441-463. GSCC ( 2002 ) . Code of Practice for Social Care Workers and Code of Practice for Employers of Social Care Workers. General Social Care Council. ( available at www.gscc.org.uk ) Hackett, M. C. Calder and S. Hackett, Eds. ( 2003 ) .Appraisal in Child Care. Using and Developing Frameworks for Practice. Dorset, Russell House Publishing. Holland, S. ( 2000 ) . The Assessment Relationship: Interactions between Social Workers and Parents in Child Protection Assessments.British Journal of Social Work. 30, 149-163. HSE ( 2002 ) . Five Stairss to Risk Assessment. Health and Safety Executive ( available at www.hse.gov.uk ) Kemshall, H. and Pritchard, J. , Eds. ( 1996 ) .Good Practice in Risk Assessment and Risk Management. London and Bristol, Pennsylvania, Jessica Kingsley. Milner, J. and Patrick O’Byrne ( 2002 ) . Appraisal in Social Work. Second Edition. Basingstoke, Palgrave. Parker, J. and Bradley, G. ( 2003 ) . Social Work Practice: Appraisal, Planning, Intervention and Review. Exeter, Learning Matters. Waterson, L. R. a. J. ( 1996 ) . Hazard for Whom? Social Work and Peoples with Physical Disabilities.Good Practice in Risk Assessment and Risk Management. Edited by H. Kemshall and J. Pritchard. London and Bristol, Pennsylvania, Jessica Kingsley Publishers: 80-92.