Employee Re-sourcing & Development Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Employee Re-sourcing & Development - Essay Example Since January Safeway have refocused their activities on managing change and over 120 staff members have participated in these courses to date. Safeway's normal skills training for store staff, launching apprenticeship programmes for butchers, fishmongers and florists. Additionally, 210 bakers completed the craft baking NVQ, while over 7,000 of Safeway's people have now received craft skills and systems training at one of Safeway's three regional training centres. (Beardwell, 2001-58-62) Delivering the best customer service continues to be a high priority. During the year Safeway extended Safeway's Star Service programme to include a new initiative designed to help Safeway become the "friendliest store in town". Safeway's people in stores have been asked to concentrate on "smiling, greeting, helping and thanking" customers every time they have contact with them. High standards are expected and by the end of the year independent monitoring showed that over 90% of Safeway's stores were either meeting or close to meeting all of these targets. (Corbridge, 1998, 78-86) Safeway employs approximately 85,000 people in stores, depots and offices across the UK. Through Safeways employment policy Safeway aim to provide fair treatment for all colleagues, invest in their development, protect their well-being and keep them both informed and involved. In 2004/05 Safeway defined 12 employment and training targets to ensure that these aims were achieved. For example: Safeway encourages open and honest communication through a range of initiatives. Safeway conduct a 6-monthly survey of Safeways colleagues, "Survey for Everyone", which allows every individual to give feedback on their job, their manager, their location, Safeway as a place to work and their perception of the Company's performance. At local level, teams of colleagues are empowered to take action on anything arising from the survey results. Other initiatives such as focus groups and Safeways intranet facility ("Grapevine") are referred to in the Chief Executive's review. Safeway have established a Colleague Council for the Hayes site, with representatives elected from all Head Office divisions. The meetings have opened up a valuable channel for two-way communication with employees to discuss how Safeway can improve the way in which Safeway work together. Such has been their success that Safeway have already begun to roll this out to other areas of the business. Safeway's centralized recruitment centre at Warrington is now fully operational and receives an average of over 11,000 hotline calls per week. Safeway also receive over 800 job applications through Safeways website every week. Safeway have enjoyed ongoing success in working with the Investors in People framework, with several divisions achieving recognition and a significant proportion of Safeways store colleagues working towards accreditation. Storebrand Investment's assessment of 86 retailers worldwide in 2005, which included Safeway in the top 30% "best in class" of its sample. Safeway are pleased with these results and will continue to work with all these

Keystone XL Pipeline Analysis Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Keystone XL Pipeline Analysis - Research Paper Example The fourth and final phase of the Keystone Pipeline system is referred to as the Keystone XL Pipeline. This is by far the most ambitious expansion of the existing pipeline system. The Keystone XL Pipeline calls for the installation of over 1000 miles of 36† steel pipe beginning in Hardisty, Canada and ending in Steele City, Nebraska. This additional piping will increase the carrying capacity of the entire Keystone Pipeline system to over one million barrels of crude petroleum products per day. While the first three phases of the Keystone Pipeline have has supporters at all levels of government and in the business sector, the Keystone XL segment has been met with protest and controversy almost from the first moment is was proposed. Many different groups have taken their turn criticizing the pipeline project. The controversy has caused the Obama administration to suspend the permitting process that is necessary for the project to get started. Through regulatory control, the Obama administration has halted planned construction since March of 2013. The depth and breadth of the protests has caused this regulatory action. The first set of protests against the Keystone XL segment centers on environmental concerns. ... The aquifer is massive but relatively shallow. The importance of keeping this aquifer clean and safe from petrochemical pollution cannot be overstated. The primary use for the Ogallala Aquifer is irrigation of crops. The invention of center-pivot irrigation in the 1940’s and broad implementation of the technology in the 1950’s allowed farmers in the Great Plains to dependably raise crops such as corn, soybeans and peanuts that traditionally needed to be grown in more humid climates. This shift in land use forced out less water intensive forms of agriculture such as dry land ranching and created an agricultural economy heavily dependent on irrigation for success. Before the advent of the Keystone pipeline system, the greatest threat to the Ogallala Aquifer was over pumping. Some regions of northern Texas and Oklahoma discontinued or diminished water extraction from the aquifer because the water table was dropping at and increasing rate. Withdraw from the aquifer greatly exceeded the rate of recharge, threatening all agricultural activity in the region. Farmers were forced to adjust their methods of cropping and pasturing. The water table has since bounced back and is at near normal levels because of these changes made in the 1980’s. This example of cooperation between environmentalists and farmers is offered to show that the population of the Great Plains region recognizes that protecting the Ogallala Aquifer is in the best interest of everyone in the entire region. This explains the widespread opposition to the Keystone XL portion of the pipeline. In addition to providing water for irrigation, over 80% of the drinking water for residences is extracted from the aquifer. The Keystone XL phase cuts

Design of Spatial Decoupling Scheme

Design of Spatial Decoupling Scheme Design of Spatial Decoupling Scheme using Singular Value Decomposition for Multi-User Systems Abstract In this paper, we present the use of a polynomial singular value decomposition (PSVD) algorithm to examine a spatial decoupling based block transmission design for multiuser systems. This algorithm facilitates joint and optimal decomposition of matrices arising inherently in multiuser systems. Spatial decoupling allows complex multichannel problems of suitable dimensionality to be spectrally diagonalized by computing a reduced-order memoryless matrix through the use of the coordinated transmit precoding and receiver equalization matrices. A primary application of spatial decoupling based system can be useful in discrete multitone (DMT) systems to combat the induced crosstalk interference, as well as in OFDM with intersymbol interference. We present here simulation-based performance analysis results to justify the use of PSVD for the proposed algorithm. Index Terms-polynomial singular value decomposition, paraunitary systems, MIMO system. INTRODUCTION Block transmission based systems allows parallel, ideally noninterfering, virtual communication channels between multiuser channels. Minimally spatial decoupling channels are needed whenever more than two transmitting channels are communicate simultaneously. The channel of our interest here, is the multiple input multiple output channels, consisting of multiple MIMO capable source terminals and multiple capable destinations. This scenario arises, obviously, in multi-user channels. Since certain phases of relaying involves broadcasting, it also appears in MIMO relaying contexts. The phrase MIMO broadcast channel is frequently used in a loose sense in the literature, to include point-to-multipoint unicast (i.e. private) channels carrying different messages from a single source to each of the multiple destinations (e.g. in multi-user MIMO). Its use in this paper is more specific, and denotes the presence of at least one common virtual broadcast channel from the source to the destinations. The use of iterative and non-iterative spatial decoupling techniques in multiuser systems to achieve independent channels has been investigated, for instance in [1]-[9]. Their use for MIMO broadcasting, which requires common multipoint-to-multipoint MIMO channels is not much attractive, given the fact that the total number of private and common channels is limited by the number of antennas the source has. Wherever each receiver of a broadcast channel conveys what it receives orthogonally to the same destination, as in the case of pre-and post-processing block transmission, the whole system can be envisaged as a single point-to-point MIMO channel. Block transmission techniques have been demonstrated for point-to-point MIMO channels to benefit the system complexities. Other advantages includes: (i) channel interference is removed by creating $K$ independent subchannels; (ii) paraunitarity of precoder allows to control transmit power; (iii) paraunitarity of equalizer does not amplify the channel noise; (iv) spatial redundancy can be achieved by discarding the weakest subchannels. Though the technique outperform the conventional signal coding but had its own demerits.   Amongst many, it shown in cite{Ta2005,Ta2007} that an appropriate additional amount of additive samples  still require individual processing, e.g. per- tone equalisation, to remove ISI, and   the receiver does not exploit the case of structured noise. However, the choice of optimal relay gains, although known for certain cases (e.g. [10], [11]), is not straightforward with this approach. Since the individual equalization have no non-iterative means of decoding the signals, this approach cannot be used with decode-and-forward (DF), and code-and-forward (CF) relay processing schemes. The use of zero-forcing at the destination has been examined [12], [13] as a mean of coordinated beamforming, since it does not require transmitter processing. The scheme scales to any number of destinations, but requires each destination to have no less antennas than the source. Although not used as commonly as the singular value decomposition (SVD), generalized singular value decomposition (GSVD) [14, Thm. 8.7.4] is not unheard of in the wireless literature. It has been used in multi-user MIMO transmission [15], [16], MIMO secrecy communication [17], [18], and MIMO relaying [19]. Reference [19] uses GSVD in dual-hop AF relaying with arbitrary number of relays. Since it employs zero-forcing at the relay for the forward channel, its use of GSVD appears almost similar to the use of SVD in [1]. Despite GSVD being the natural generalization of SVD for two matrices, we are yet to see in the literature, a generalization of SVD-based beamforming to GSVD-based beamforming. Although the purpose and the use is somewhat different, the reference [17, p.1] appears to be the first to hint the possible use of GSVD for beamforming. In present work, we illustrate how GSVD can be used for coordinated beamforming in source-to-2 destination MIMO broadcasting; thus in AF, DF and CF MIMO relaying. We also present comparative, simulation-based performance analysis results to justify GSVD-based beamforming. The paper is organized as follows: Section II presents the mathematical framework, highlighting how and under which constraints GSVD can be used for beamforming. Section III examines how GSVD-based beamforming can be applied in certain simple MIMO and MIMO relaying configurations. Performance analysis is conducted in section IV on one of these applications. Section V concludes with some final remarks. Notations: Given a matrix A and a vector v, (i) A(i, j)  gives the ith element on the jth column of A; (ii) v(i)  {ˆ y1 }R(r+1,r+s) = ˜Π£{x }R(r+1,r+s) + _ UHn1 _ R(r+1,r+s) ,   {ˆ y2 }R(pà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢t+r+1,pà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢t+r+s) = ˜Άº{x }R(r+1,r+s) + _ VHn2 _ R(pà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢t+r+1,pà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢t+r+s) , {ˆ y1 }R(1,r) = {x }R(1,r) + _ UHn1 _ R(1,r) , {ˆ y2 }R(pà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢t+r+s+1,p) = {x }R(r+s+1,t) + _ VHn2 _ R(pà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢t+r+s+1,p) . (1)  gives the element of v at the ith position. {A}R(n) and  {A}C(n) denote the sub-matrices consisting respectively of the  first n rows, and the first n columns of A. Let {A}R(m,n)  denote the sub-matrix consisting of the rows m through n  of A. The expression A = diag (a1, . . . , an) indicates that  A is rectangular diagonal; and that first n elements on its  main diagonal are a1, . . . , an. rank (A) gives the rank of  A. The operators ( à £Ã†â€™Ã‚ » )H, and ( à £Ã†â€™Ã‚ »)à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢1 denote respectively the  conjugate transpose and the matrix inversion. C mÃÆ'-n is the  space spanned by mÃÆ'-n matrices containing possibly complex  elements. The channel between the wireless terminals T1 and  T2 in a MIMO system is designated T1 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢T2.   II. MATHEMATICAL FRAMEWORK Let us examine GSVD to see how it can be used for  beamforming. There are two major variants of GSVD in the  literature (e.g. [20] vs. [21]). We use them both here to  elaborate the notion of GSVD-based beamforming. A. GSVD Van Loan definition Let us first look at GSVD as initially proposed by Van Loan [20, Thm. 2]. Definition 1: Consider two matrices, H à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€ C mÃÆ'-n with  m à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¥n, and G à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€ C pÃÆ'-n, having the same number n of  columns. Let q = min (p, n). H and G can be jointly  decomposed as H = UÃŽÂ £Q, G = VΆºQ (2) where (i) U à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€ C mÃÆ'-m,V à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€ C pÃÆ'-p are unitary, (ii) Q à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€  C nÃÆ'-n non-singular, and (iii) ÃŽÂ £= diag (à Ã†â€™1, . . . , à Ã†â€™n) à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€  C mÃÆ'-n, à Ã†â€™i à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¥0; Άº= diag (ÃŽÂ »1, . . . , ÃŽÂ »q) à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€ C pÃÆ'-n, ÃŽÂ »i à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¥0. As a crude example, suppose that G and H above represent  channel matrices of MIMO subsystems S à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢D1 and S à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢D2  having a common source S. Assume perfect channel-stateinformation  (CSI) on G and H at all S,D1, and D2. With  a transmit precoding matrix Qà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢1, and receiver reconstruction  matrices UH,VH we get q non-interfering virtual broadcast channels. The invertible factor Q in (2) facilitates jointprecoding  for the MIMO subsystems; while the factors U,V   allow receiver reconstruction without noise enhancement. Diagonal  elements 1 through q of ÃŽÂ £,Άºrepresent the gains  of these virtual channels. Since Q is non-unitary, precoding  would cause the instantaneous transmit power to fluctuate. This is a drawback not present in SVD-based beamforming. Transmit signal should be normalized to maintain the average  total transmit power at the desired level. This is the essence of GSVD-based beamforming for  a single source and two destinations. As would be shown  in Section III, this three-terminal configuration appears in  various MIMO subsystems making GSVD-based beamforming  applicable. B. GSVD Paige and Saunders definition Before moving on to applications, let us appreciate GSVDbased  beamforming in a more general sense, through another  form of GSVD proposed by Paige and Saunders [21, (3.1)]. This version of GSVD relaxes the constraint m à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¥n present  in (2). Definition 2: Consider two matrices, H à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€ C mÃÆ'-n and  G à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€ C pÃÆ'-n, having the same number n of columns. Let CH = _ HH,GH _ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€ C nÃÆ'-(m+p), t = rank(C), r = t à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢rank (G) and s = rank(H) + rank (G) à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢t. H and G can be jointly decomposed as H = U (ÃŽÂ £ 01 )Q = UÃŽÂ £{Q}R(t) , G = V (Άº 02 )Q = VΆº{Q}R(t) , (3) where (i) U à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€ C mÃÆ'-m,V à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€ C pÃÆ'-p are unitary, (ii) Q à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€ C nÃÆ'-n non-singular, (iii) 01 à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€ C mÃÆ'-(nà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢t), 02 à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€  C pÃÆ'-(nà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢t) zero matrices, and (iv) ÃŽÂ £Ãƒ ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€ C mÃÆ'-t,ΆºÃƒ ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€  C pÃÆ'-t have structures ÃŽÂ £_ à ¢Ã… ½Ã¢â‚¬ º à ¢Ã… ½Ã‚  IH ˜Π£ 0H à ¢Ã… ½Ã… ¾ à ¢Ã… ½Ã‚   and Άº_ à ¢Ã… ½Ã¢â‚¬ º à ¢Ã… ½Ã‚  0G ˜Άº IG à ¢Ã… ½Ã… ¾ à ¢Ã… ½Ã‚  . IH à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€ C rÃÆ'-r and IG à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€ C (tà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢rà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢s)ÃÆ'-(tà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢rà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢s) are identity  matrices. 0H à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€ C (mà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢rà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢s)ÃÆ'-(tà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢rà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢s), and 0G à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€  C (pà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢t+r)ÃÆ'-r are zero matrices possibly having no  rows or no columns. ˜Π£= diag (à Ã†â€™1, . . . , à Ã†â€™s) ,˜Άº= diag (ÃŽÂ »1, . . . , ÃŽÂ »s) à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€ C sÃÆ'-s such that 1 > à Ã†â€™1 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¥. . . à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¥ à Ã†â€™s > 0, and à Ã†â€™2 i + ÃŽÂ »2i = 1 for i à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€  {1, . . . , s}. Let us examine (3) in the MIMO context. It is not difficult  to see that a common transmit precoding matrix _ Qà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢1 _ C(t) and receiver reconstruction matrices UH,VH would jointly  diagonalize the channels represented by H and G.  For broadcasting, only the columns (r+1) through (r +s)  of ÃŽÂ £and Άºare of interest. Nevertheless, other (t à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢s)  columns, when they are present, may be used by the source  S to privately communicate with the destinations D1 and configuration # common channels # private channels S à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ {D1,D2} S à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢D1 S à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢D2 m > n,p à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¤n p n à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢p 0 m à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¤n, p > n m 0 n à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢m m à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¥n, p à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¥n n 0 0 m + p à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢n n à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢p n à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢m (m + p) > n n à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¥(m + p) 0 m p TABLE I NUMBERS OF COMMON CHANNELS AND PRIVATE CHANNELS FOR  DIFFERENT CONFIGURATIONS D2. It is worthwhile to compare this fact with [22], and  appreciate the similarity and the conflicting objectives GSVDbased  beamforming for broadcasting has with MIMO secrecy  communication. Thus we can get ˆ y1 à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€ C mÃÆ'-1, ˆ y2 à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€ C pÃÆ'-1 as in (1) at  the detector input, when x à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€ C tÃÆ'-1 is the symbol vector  transmitted. It can also be observed from (1) that the private  channels always have unit gains; while the gains of common  channels are smaller. Since, à Ã†â€™is are in descending order, while the ÃŽÂ »is ascend  with i, selecting a subset of the available s broadcast channels  (say k à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¤s channels) is somewhat challenging. This highlights  the need to further our intuition on GSVD. C. GSVD-based beamforming Any two MIMO subsystems having a common source  and channel matrices H and G can be effectively reduced,  depending on their ranks, to a set of common (broadcast) and  private (unicast) virtual channels. The requirement for having  common channels is rank (H) + rank (G) > rank (C) where C = _ HH,GH _ H. When the matrices have full rank, which is the case with  most MIMO channels (key-hole channels being an exception),  this requirement boils down to having m +p > n . Table I  indicates how the numbers of common channels and private  channels vary in full-rank MIMO channels. It can be noted  that the cases (m > n,p à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¤n) and (m à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¥n, p à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¥n)  correspond to the form of GSVD discussed in the Subsection II-A. Further, the case n à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¥(m + p) which produces only  private channels with unit gains, can be seen identical to zero  forcing at the transmitter. Thus, GSVD-based beamforming is  also a generalization of zero-forcing. Based on Table I, it can be concluded that the full-rank  min (n,m + p) of the combined channel always gets split  between the common and private channels. D. MATLAB implementation A general discussion on the computation of GSVD is found  in [23]. Let us focus here on what it needs for simulation:  namely its implementation in the MATLAB computational  environment, which extends [14, Thm. 8.7.4] and appears as  less restrictive as [21]. The command [V, U, X, Lambda, Sigma] = gsvd(G, H);  gives1 a decomposition similar to (3). Its main deviations  from (3) are,   1Reverse order of arguments in and out of gsvd function should be noted. ) ) D1 y1 , r1 S x ,w ( ( ) ) D2 y2 , r2 _ H1 __ n1 _ __ H2 n2 Fig. 1. Source-to-2 destination MIMO broadcast system  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ QH = X à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€ C nÃÆ'-t is not square when t . Precoding  for such cases would require the use of the pseudo-inverse  operator. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ ÃŽÂ £has the same block structure as in (3). But the structure  of Άºhas the block 0G shifted to its bottom as follows: Άº_ à ¢Ã… ½Ã¢â‚¬ º à ¢Ã… ½Ã‚  ˜Άº IG 0G à ¢Ã… ½Ã… ¾ à ¢Ã… ½Ã‚  . This can be remedied by appropriately interchanging the  rows of Άºand the columns of V. However, restructuring  ÃƒÅ½Ã¢â‚¬ ºis not a necessity, since the column position of the  block ˜Άºwithin Άºis what matters in joint precoding.   Following MATLAB code snippet for example jointly  diagonalizes H,G to obtain the s common channels (3)  would have given. MATLAB code % channel matrices H = (randn(m,n)+i*randn(m,n))/sqrt(2); G = (randn(p,n)+i*randn(p,n))/sqrt(2); % D1, D2: diagonalized channels [V,U,X,Lambda,Sigma] = gsvd(G,H); w = X*inv(X*X); C = [H G]; t = rank(C); r = t rank(G); s = rank(H)+rank(G)-t; D1 = U(:,r+1:r+s)*H*w(:,r+1:r+s); D2 = V(:,1:s)*G*w(:,r+1:r+s); III. APPLICATIONS Let us look at some of the possible applications of GSVDbased beamforming. We assume the Van Loan form of GSVD  for simplicity, having taken for granted that the dimensions  are such that the constraints hold true. Nevertheless, the Paige  and Saunders form should be usable as well. A. Source-to-2 destination MIMO broadcast system   Consider the MIMO broadcast system shown in Fig. 1,  where the source S broadcasts to destinations D1 and D2.  MIMO subsystems S à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢D1 and S à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢D2 are modeled  to have channel matrices H1 ,H2 and additive complex   Gaussian noise vectors n1 , n2. Let x = [x1, . . . , xn]T ) ) R1 y1 , F1 ( ( S x ,w ( ( ) ) D y3 ,r1 y4 ,r2 ) ) R2 y2 , F2 ( ( _ ___ H3 _ n3 H1 ___ n1 _ ___ H2 n2 _ H4 ___ n4 Fig. 2. MIMO relay system with two 2-hop-branches  be the signal vector desired to be transmitted over n à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¤Ã‚  min (rank (H1 ) , rank (H2 )) virtual-channels. The source  employs a precoding matrix w. The input y1 , y2 and output ˆ y1 , ˆ y2 at the receiver filters   r1 , r2 at D1 and D2 are given by y1 = H1wx + n1 ; ˆ y1 = r1 y1 , y2 = H2wx + n2 ; ˆ y2 = r2 y2 . Applying GSVD we get H1 = U1 ÃŽÂ £1 V and H2 = U2 ÃŽÂ £2V. Choose the precoding matrix w = ÃŽÂ ± _ Và ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢1 _ C(n) ; and receiver reconstruction matrices r1 = _ U1 H _ R(n) _ , r2 = U2 H _ R(n) . The constant ÃŽÂ ± normalizes the total average transmit power. Then we get, ˆ y1(i) = ÃŽÂ ±ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ £1(i, i) x(i) + Ëœn1(i) , ˆ y2(i) = ÃŽÂ ±ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ £2(i, i) x(i) + Ëœn2(i), ià ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€  {1 . . . n}, where Ëœn1 , Ëœn2 have the same noise distributions as n1 , n2 .  B. MIMO relay system with two 2-hop-branches (3 time-slots) Fig. 2 shows a simple MIMO AF relay system where a  source S communicates a symbol vector x with a destination  D via two relays R1 and R2. MIMO channels S à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢R1, S à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ R2, R1 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢D and R2 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢D are denoted: Hi , i à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€  {1, 2, 3, 4}. Corresponding channel outputs and additive complex Gaussian  noise vectors are yi , ni for i à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‹â€  {1, 2, 3, 4}. Assume relay  operations to be linear, and modeled as matrices F1 and F2 . Assume orthogonal time-slots for transmission. The source  S uses w as the precoding matrix. Destination D uses  different reconstruction matrices r1 , r2 during the time slots  2 and 3. Then we have: Time slot 1: y1 = H1wx + n1 , y2 = H2wx + n2 Time slot 2: y3 = H3 F1 y1 + n3 Time slot 3: y4 = H4 F2 y2 + n4 Let ˆ y = r1 y3 +r2 y4 be the input to the detector. Suppose n à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¤min i (rank (Hi )) virtual-channels are in use. ) ) R y1 , F ( ( S x ,w ( ( ) ) D y2 ,r1 y3 ,r2 _ ___ H3 _ n3 H1 ___ n1 H2 _ n2 Fig. 3. MIMO relay system having a direct path and a relayed path  Applying GSVD on the broadcast channel matrices we get H1 = U1 ÃŽÂ £1 Q and H2 = U2 ÃŽÂ £2 Q. Through SVD we  obtain H3 = V1 Άº1 R1 H and H4 = V2 Άº2 R2 H. Choose w = ÃŽÂ ± _ Qà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢1 _ C(n) ; F1 = R1U1 H; F2 = R2U2 H; r1 = _ V1 H _ R(n) ; r2 = _ V2 H _ R(n) . The constant ÃŽÂ ± normalizes  the total average transmit power. Then we get

Beloved - Overall Summary Essay -- Essays Papers

Beloved - Overall Summary One of the most common reader responses to Beloved is speechlessness. Readers attempt to deal with that speechlessness by trying to determine whether Sethe's attempt to kill her children was morally justified or not. These almost always seem like stilted, insufficient answers to a beautiful, poetic, and profoundly disturbing novel. It is as though the novel haunts the reader until he or she incorporates it into some structure of moral judgment. Perhaps trying to overcome the speechlessness with an awkward attempt at moral reasoning is not the most productive way to respond to Beloved. Instead, we might discover that the effect of speechlessness relates to the broader thematic content of the novel. The circumstances of Beloved's death are horrific. Life in slavery is equally horrific. For the former slaves that populate the novel, the past is unspeakable. Every day, Sethe beats back memories of her enslavement at Sweet Home. For a long while, Paul D can only verbalize his experiences through song. One of the most common forms of punishment for slaves was gagging with an iron bit. Sethe's own mother was forced to wear the bit so often that she has a permanent smile frozen on her face. Robbing the slave of the power of speech is a powerful way to make him or her feel like a beast. Paul D feels even less than the rooster that struts around him as he sits, mute and chained. Baby S...

Organizational behavior in Southwest Airlines Essay

Organizational behavior is a tool that any organisation that wants to be successful must use in order to attain its goals and objectives. Organizational behavior interprets all the relationships in an organization and manipulates them in order to attain the organizational objectives. The relationships that are assessed include the relationships between the organization and a person, people, groups and the society in general. The major goal of organizational behavior is to improve all these relationships so that in the process, the organizational objectives can be achieved. It is a broad concept that can be viewed from different dimensions. Organizational behavior has many elements which are dictated by the management’s approach to operations of an organization. The approach used determines the culture in an organization. Culture is the way in which an organization carries out its activities, including the communication links, leadership style, and other dynamics which workers derive their motivation from. The motivation determines the performance and growth of the organization. Four models are usually used within organizations, and the model used is determined by the management strategy. The first model is the autocratic model and it vests power with the management, according to Davidson (2003). He says that the employees are required to obey the chain of command and that this approach does not usually yield high performance results. The second model is the custodial model and it is geared towards rewarding the employees according to the performance. This type of approach does not yield optimum performance results as employees cooperate with the management passively. The third model, he further explains, is the supportive model and this model stresses the need for a leadership structure that supports employees in terms of performance. This approach motivates the employees to achieve optimal performance. The last model is the collegial model and this emphasizes team work among employees in performance of their duties. It encourages discipline and responsibility thus achieving moderate performance results. It is important to note that most organizations use a combination of the models to achieve their goals. Organizational structure Southwest airlines was started in 1971 by Herb Kelleher and Rolling King, according to Harris (2001). The reasoning behind the idea, he says, was that passengers would use an airline if the airline reached the destination on time, was reasonably priced and if passengers enjoyed their flights. That idea is what has propelled Southwest airlines to be the among the top four largest airlines in the United States. Every year, the airline transports over 60 million passengers across 30 states using over 300 air-crafts (Cohan, 2003). The airline specializes in the low-fare transport and it has a model that is so impressive that it is being emulated by other airlines. The success of Southwest Airline can be attributed to the organizational approaches that are used in the daily operations of the airline. The organization uses certain concepts of organizational behavior that help the management achieve the goal of the airline. One of the concepts that Southwest Airline uses is the organizational structure. This is the nature of relationships along the hierarchical structure of the organization. The organizational structure usually determines how the operations of the airline are carried out. This is because it guides the sharing of responsibilities among the employees according to their ranks. In the Southwest Airline, some people describe the organizational structure as a pyramid that is inverted. This implies that the people that are at the top levels of management go to the bottom levels to motivate the employees. This is a characteristic that is featured in the supportive model. When the managers talk to the people at the lower levels of management and listen to their views, they end up motivating their employees. Herb Kelleher, one of the founders of Southwest Airlines is reported to have stayed in a bar until the wee hours of the morning so that he could talk to his mechanic and hear his views concerning the airline. His leadership style ensures that everyone participates in the making of a decision. This is important since it ensures that everyone is bound by decisions they make as opposed to decisions being imposed upon them. Kelleher tries to motivate his employees to be open minded and to express themselves freely without constraints such as ranks between themselves. Kelleher is at the forefront of practicing what he believes in and is said to know names of almost all of his employees. This organizational structure is reflected even in the board where the directors are elected by shareholders. This enables all stakeholders to have confidence in the running of the airline as they have a right to choose the people who run the airline. The management of Southwest Airlines is very keen to reduce bureaucracy as it is aware of the negative effects it has in an organization. This is done through decentralizing responsibilities to the employees. The Southwest Aviation organizational structure is in such a way that employees have access to information. The rationale behind it, is that it is important for employees to have unlimited information so that they can make independent decisions, which is vital in a dynamic industry like aviation. This structure also takes care of the needs of the clients. There are links available in the airline’s website that address any complaints and suggestions that the clients may have. There are also avenues where customers write letters expressing the same, and the management makes sure all the letters are replied to. In fact, customers write over one thousand letters every week and each letter gets a reply within one month. At times, the schedule of flights may be changed in order to cater for the needs of frequent fliers. Motivation. This is the focus of energy towards the achievement of a certain goal. The motivation of someone to do something may arise from internal forces such as interests and beliefs or external forces such as danger. There are several things that the management can do to motivate employees. One, the management should align the goals of the organization with the needs of the employees. This means that the nature of jobs that the employees do should be aligned with their beliefs. For example, if the company conducts its affairs in a fraudulent manner, the employees are also likely to perpetrate fraud against the company. The company should also reward good behavior since it will motivate the employees to work harder. The rewards need not be big, a ‘thank you note’ is sufficient. The senior managers should set good examples to their employees by obeying the rules they set so that the employees can also do the same. Another factor that brings motivation to employees is development of morale and team spirit. This means that the working environment should be pleasant to the employees and they should look forward to going to work. The employees should also identify with the company. Participation is another factor that can increase motivation. This means that the employees participate in the making of decisions and solving of problems to ensure that they feel as part of the process and are thus bound by it. Southwest Airline was the first airline in the United States to begin a profit sharing plan, with its employees. It began sharing its profits with its employees in 1974 and has done it since then. In the year 2000, Southwest Airline offered its employees $138 million in the profit sharing plan (McConnell, 2002). This is a major motivation to the employees since they feel appreciated by the airline. This incentive also motivates them to work harder so that the following year they can get higher benefits. Besides these benefits, there are other incentives and awards, like ’employee of the month’ award. However, an unusual way of praising employees is visible in a bill board at Southwest Airline’s headquarters in Dallas. The billboard praises the employees of Southwest Airline for making Kelleher’s dream come true. The corridors are further lined with photographs of parties that employees attended in order to complete the picture. In case of illnesses or child birth, the employees are given presents by the airline (Cohan, 2003). All this demonstrates to the employees that they are the most important assets of the the company. Southwest Airline goes a step further and trains over twenty thousand employees every year in its own university. The university teaches the employees values of the airline and encourages open minded thinking. Southwest Airline is also very supportive of its employees in terms of encouragement to come up with new ideas or doing the same things, differently. An example is ‘walk a mile in my shoes’ program where co-workers exchange jobs with their colleagues from different departments for one day in order to experience what the other employees go through. Lastly, the greatest motivation from the airline comes from Kelleher. He has a great sense of humor, he has ‘hands on’ style of leadership and has a vision that inspires employees to work harder to achieve. Some people actually regard Southwest Airline as the most friendly airline in the United States. Power and politics Politics is present in all aspects of society. Politics creates power and thus an impact that is felt by everyone in the society. It is virtually impossible to separate politics from society (Hessian, 2000). Politics is present in educational institutions, in religion and other elements of a social network. Eventually, politics finds its way into the business world. It is important to prevent politics from interfering with the operations of a company as this prevents the company from achieving its goals and could lead to its downfall. There are however positive aspects that come about as a result of power and politics in an organization. Large companies are able to seal deals, merge with other companies, acquire the smaller companies and so on. Others are the economies of scale, that include the ability to acquire loans from banks, discounts from suppliers due to buying in bulk and the goodwill that attracts customers to the company as a result of being a brand name. Southwest is a very big airline, and the fact that it is among the four largest airlines in the United States guarantees that it is powerful. Its strategy to cater for low cost customers has seen it grow and own over three hundred air-crafts, all Boeing models. The power means that the airline is susceptible to political interference. This is something that the board should guard against. Unfortunately, there have been a few weaknesses in the airline as a result of power and politics. Southwest Airline offers coach seats and it does not offer in-flight meals, it just offers snacks. This is as a result of the growth that it has experienced due to investment in the low cost model. Unfortunately, other airlines have imitated the model due to its popularity. This is unfortunate since in the near future, the model will have become so common that passengers will no longer associate it with Southwest Airline. Another problem associated with the lack of in flight meals is that other airlines are taking full advantage of it when advertising since that is the only area that they are superior to Southwest Airline. Either due to power or politics, the airline does not pay attention to these perceived minute, but major details that may lead to its downfall. According to Brown (2001), regulators allowed Southwest Airline to violate safety regulations, on numerous occasions, without facing consequences. This arose because of the power that the airline has that enables it to have a close relationship with Federal officials. The report by the inspector general revealed that Southwest Airline had violated more regulations than it had been thought. The report also revealed that managers of the Federal Aviation Administration had negligently given the airline a pardon. It finally became clear that the airline violates safety regulations repeatedly. Further investigations revealed that the airline has violated at least eight regulations including an error that cost $10 million in fines. The fine led to some employees facing compulsory leave but that in many people’s opinion, is a case of ‘too little, too late’. This cannot be acceptable since flouting such regulations is not only gambling with the airline’s goodwill that has taken years to build, but it is gambling with people’s lives. Such negligent acts can be attributed to power and politics and should be avoided at all costs. The airline has also faced numerous lawsuits ranging from accusations of failure to inspect the plane before take off to negligently allowing a crash landing, in Illinois in 2005 which led to fatalities. It is important to note that before passengers choose an airline, they check the safety record. This is the reason that passenger traffic reduced after the September 11, 2001 attacks. In light of this, regardless of whether the airline is a major player or not, it will lose its customers if these kinds of allegations continue being reported. That will be the downfall of an airline whose reputation took years to build. The airline should be very wary when dealing with the lives of its passengers and should not take its power and support for granted. Conclusion. Southwest Airline has been transformed from being a simple idea to being one of the top players in the aviation industry. It has become evident that for an airline to succeed, it should target a specific class of customers and that it should take the welfare of its employees very seriously. Some of the best ways of motivating employees are inexpensive, a pat on the back can do a lot in raising the self esteem of an employee in an organization. Motivating the employees will help them achieve their potential. Bureaucracy should be eliminated to ensure free flow of information. Managers should work with the lower cadre employees in order to make them feel appreciated. Lastly, politics and power should be regulated to prevent interference with the workings of organizations. Southwest Aviation should correct the few weaknesses that it experiences and it will hopefully become the biggest airline in the United States in future.

Analysis of ‘Teenage challenge’ article

Q.- Read the article ‘The Teenage Challenge' and comment on:- * The content of the article. (message) * The language features. * The design features. * Any other aspect you think is relevant. > Structure The article ‘The Teenage Challenge' was published in The Daily Mail, Friday, December 27, 2002. It is divided into two parts/sections, the first section written by Sarah Harris, Education correspondent; and the second by Edward Enfield (Father of Harry†¦). > The content of the article. The article ‘The Teenage Challenge' is divided into two sections and is written in response to Charles Clarke's (education secretary) ideas of introducing the 18 ‘Basic skills'. The first section by Sarah Harris projects both the positive and negative view points, supported by comments from various personalities. Edward Enfield, in the second section is deadly against the education secretary's views and is rather sarcastic in his comments but rarely supported by authoritative opinions. > The language features The title ‘The Teenage Challenge' consists of three words which perfectly suit the conventions about the title. The sub-heading of the first half seems like a continuation as it begins with ‘OR'. The subheading of the second half looks like a sentence rather than a title. The by-line is given in both the sections. In the case of the first section, the designation of the writer (Education Correspondent) Sarah Harris is given, while in the second the Edward Enfield is just identified as a father of Harry, who created Kevin the Teenager. The beginning of the first half is capitalized ‘ANYONE' which catches the reader's attention. This also provides a generalized viewpoint. Throughout the article; we can see many examples of alliteration as well as assonance. These serve to stress the ideas put forward by the writer, e.g.: ‘picking up piles', ‘from their bedroom floor', ‘top five task' and ‘this is his business', ‘traditional parental' are assonance. The alliteration and assonance used in ‘Parents' patience' in the sub-heading of the first half gives it more effect similarly, the alliteration and assonance in the sub-heading of the second half -‘The useful thing would be teaching them how to read'. The paragraphs are kept relatively short, that sometimes a single sentence takes us the whole paragraph, so we can say sentences used mainly are complex and in some cases compound. E.g.: ‘Yet, with the experience of two months as Education Secretary, Charles Clarke reckons parents should be requiring them to do a whole lot more' this is a complex sentence having one main clause ‘Charles Clarke†¦..more' and the subordinate clause ‘Yet with the experience†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.Secretary'. ‘Of course it maybe that teenagers of today are particularly stupid, but I think they are only stupid at intelligent things like reading books' is a compound sentence having two independent clauses joined together by the conjunction ‘but'. Most of the paragraphs seems like a continuation of the previous one, beginning with conjunctions, otherwise called paragraph connectives. E.g.: ‘Yet', ‘like', ‘And'. All throughout the article, there are words in a single speech marks/quotes. This gives a suggestion that somebody else's word not necessarily approved by the writer. E.g.: ‘life skills', ‘nanny state', ‘top five'. When the quotation continues to the next paragraph, the speech marks are not closed but are reopened. ‘As†¦..without help. ‘we†¦adult life. ‘I†¦.old'. To support her viewpoints, Sarah Harris has quoted from different sources. E.g.: ‘Rebecca O'Neil, a researcher', ‘Conservative Education spokesman oraham Brady', all their words adds more authority. Edward Enfield, on the other hand has only given his personal opinions, not at all imbibing other's ideas. The first half of the article henceforth looks more objective, while the second seems subjective. The scientific terminology as well as mathematical terms add weight to this article. E.g.: ‘botulism', ‘proteins', ‘imperials', ‘metric units'. The positive word used by the economist ‘boom' ends the article in an affirmative tone. The quotes are introduced by, e.g.: ‘Conservative education spokesman Graham Brady said' rather than followed by it as in the case of fiction. The use of statistical or numerical data shows how precise the authors are. E.g.: ‘All by the age of 16.', '18 basic activities', '15 other things'. The slang and colloquial language used in the article makes it an informal one and shows the friendly approach of the writers and their effectiveness. E.g. ‘any of this is his business.', ‘he was flipped'. The use of hyphen gives a pause to the reader, as well as to show the breakup of ideas. E.g.: ‘As any parent-or indeed any TV viewer familiar with my son's comic creation-can testify, teenagers are proud to be ‘Kevins'. There are many compound words used especially in the second half, e.g.: ‘not-too-difficult', ‘over-joyed', ‘rave-up'. The use of the rhetorical question ‘why on earth†¦such trivia?' is meant to give a stress on the basic idea it tries to convey. The 18 basic skills put forward by Charles Clarke is introduced by using -ing form of the word. E.g.: ‘cooking', ‘working', ‘cleaning'. The second half is dominated by the use of the negative words, e.g.: ‘shattered†¦.noise†¦.filthy'. the collective noun ‘horde' which normal refers to hooligans shows the uncivilized nature of the youngsters. > The design features: The entire article is enclosed in a rectangular frame. The title ‘The Teenage Challenge' is written in bold, big lettering and stands out from the rest of the copy. The sub-heading of the first half is larger than the text but not as striking as the title. It is also underlined. Whereas, the sub-heading of the second half is bolder but not as the title and is not underlined. The by-line in both the halves is written in bold and in the second section, a close-up photograph of the writer is also given. The picture of the clumsy slouching teenager taken from a close-up, eye-level shot is immediately striking to the reader's eyes. The teenager covers a rectangular frame which has the title ‘Preparing for life in the real world' written in white lettering on a black background. Within the rectangular frame, there are three photographs and a note pad. The photographs are given with a caption. The picture of Prince William, a royal example adds authority. The second picture uses the proverb ‘knowledge is power'. These photographs can be considered as a photo-montage taken from a high-level, close-up shot. The notepad is slightly titled and comes out from the frame which shows the power the youngsters will have once they acquire these 18 Basic Skills. These skills are mentioned in the notepad with numbering and on alternate dark and light backgrounds. > Any other aspect you think is relevant. This is an article written using the code of written language and still graphic images. This is meant for youngsters, their parents and adults who are mostly involved in teenager's education. The purpose of this article is to inform us about Charles Clarke's idea of 18 Basic Skills and persuade the readers to give their opinions and suggestions to it. The article was effective in conveying the idea of 18 Basic Skills. As a reader, I was able to grasp both the positive and negative viewpoints behind introducing these 18 Basic Skills in school curriculum. According to my opinion, the schools must concentrate more on academics rather than the practical skills. The basic skills can be learned at home but they shouldn't be made a criteria for judging the teenagers.