Thursday, October 31, 2019

Conventional Wars, Rules of Engagement, Chain of Command Essay

Conventional Wars, Rules of Engagement, Chain of Command - Essay Example The implementation of the rule of engagement led him to victories as his attacks were effectively launched. The chain of command broke down responsibilities based on the allocation of specific responsibilities at each position. In addition, each official reported to the one above them (Bevin, 2014). It shows the flow of duties through ranks, from the commander in chief of the armed forces to the individual soldiers in the field. The rules of engagement define the conduct of opposing sides in a war situation Napoleon’s military had individual soldiers in the field who executed decisions made by senior persons in authority. They were the junior most officials of his military. They formed the basis of every attack. Their fundamental task was going out to the battlefield and fighting their opponents. They focused on defeating their enemies in the shortest span of time. The process involved employing tactical methodologies and strategies in launching their attacks to force the opponents do things against their own will. This has always been the fundamental goal of any war (Greene, 2007). The attacks would be organized in troops that had adopted a policy that involved ambushing supply columns. The military had battalion commanders who would execute command from division commanders. The battalion commanders were second lowest in command. They directed orders to the soldiers in the field, who are a fundamental group to any military unit. They would mentor and coach their subordinate staff officers and company commanders. They would be involved in giving morale, enthusiasm in their organizations and training. This would eventually boost their performance at war and consequently lead them to victories. The battalion was capable of independent missions and operations of a specific period of time and scope The military had division commanders who would receive orders from the general. They directed their orders to the battalion commanders. They

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Action Research Essay Example for Free

Action Research Essay Abstract This paper reports the results of an action research (RA) on the effectiveness of teaching stories in a new way â€Å"Teaching Stories without Telling Them†. The purpose of this research was to justify that how interactive ways of teaching stories enables students to perform better in the classroom, how the interactive teaching expands the knowledge of both teachers and learners, and how the teacher, at the same time, is teaching and drawing on and learning from the knowledge and experience of the students. That creates an ideal teaching cycle, a self-reinforcing teaching and never ending learning process. Introduction The teacher can choose particular designs and techniques for teaching a foreign language in a particular context. No quick fix is guaranteed to provide success for all classroom situations. Every learner is unique; every teacher is unique; so is every learner-teacher relationship. The teacher’s key task is, therefore, to understand the properties of these relationships and set the classroom environment accordingly. In other countries such as Nepal, students are taught to view their teachers  as an authority and a knows-everything person in the classroom, and this value-based relationship hinders the learners from freely expressing themselves in the classroom. In this firmly established teacher-centered system, it is often offensive for the students to contradict the teacher’s point of view. This unequal classroom relationship is often seen as a cultural disposition. I believe that this is not a new issue. Many published writings have critically looked at it. However, a teacher can always adopt various strategies to increase students’ participation in the classroom activities. In order to justify this possibility, I used a technique that I have termed as â€Å"teaching stories without telling them†. If the stories are carefully chosen, students feel what they do in the classroom is relevant and meaningful to their lives. Moreover, when asked to respond personally to the texts, students become increasingly confident about expressing their own ideas and emotions. The stories involve emotions as well as intellect, which adds to motivation and contribute to personal development. This is in particular very useful where the classroom is often only source of English. Background I’m a new English Teacher at Kaunlaran High School but I have been teaching English for the last four year. The pre-requisite to join this programme is School Leaving Certificate (SLC). Practically, the students who join this course range from SLC graduates to University graduates. I also work at â€Å"English Speaking and Research Club† that runs classes for those who want to improve their speaking skills. Interestingly, the members coming to this Club include school students to professionals and businesspersons. Certainly, the classes in both settings are multilevel in nature. I would like to refer to Hess’s (2002) definition multilevel class is the class in which students vary considerably in their language and literary skills. In my case, students not only differed in language level, but also in age, motivation, expectations, attitude and interest. The Procedure In both places, I began with a pre-test in order to diagnose the learners  level of English. The candidates were tested all their skills – first day reading and writing and the second day speaking and listening. Later they were divided into three groups named as triple five (those scoring less than 50%), triple seven (those scoring between 50-60 %) and triple six (those scoring 60% above) according to their test results; but they were not informed about it. Action plan teaching process Selecting a story: (I selected stories from books available in the market. I purposely chose books that had an appropriate level of difficulty and length.) Briefing the students about the different nature of class: (I told my students that they would have to read the text and be able to answer the questions I would ask them in the class. I did not read the story. My role as a teacher and facilitator was to ask questions very carefully so that I would be able understand the story and students’ role was to make me understand the story.) Giving students the story to read at home as reading assignment: (I gave each student a copy of the same story to read at home.) Grouping the students according to their language proficiency level and carrying out the class: (I asked simple factual questions to below average group i.e. 555; reflective questions to average group i.e. 777; and interpretive and judgmental questions to above average group i.e. 666. This actually engaged every student in the classroom activity. Moreover, they were very attentive when someone was speaking. This various types of questions actually motivated all level students to participate in the classroom activity.) Carry out discussion: (I was very careful while carrying out the discussion. Sometimes the students gave contradictory answers to the same question I asked. In such situation I played a very careful role – I gave the students equal opportunity to justify their answers. My job was to facilitate them to come to an agreeing point.) Giving home assignment: (I gave different tasks to different group – I asked the below average group to write a summary of the story, I asked the average group to imagine one of the characters in the story and write the story from their own perspective. For example, imagine that you are the Brahmin in the story, write a paragraph how these three thieves cheated you. I asked the above average group to interpret t he story using their own feelings and emotions. For example, do you think you would punish these thieves if you  were a judge? Write a very logical paragraph of your argumentations. The students at the beginning were little puzzled but did not express openly. However, they participated very actively in the classroom activities. My primary aim was to promote learner autonomy, by encouraging them to take charge of their own learning (Nguyen, 2005). This became even more interesting as I purposely did not read the story to create a real information gap. If I had read the story, I would already have known everything and then the questions I asked in the classroom would have been merely mechanical ones. For this reason, I claim that the classroom language was authentic. Classroom activity In the classroom, I asked four different types of questions: factual, reflective, interpretive, and judgmental. It is vital that we understand the nature of the different types of question. I have briefly described what they mean and quoted some sample questions I used in my classroom and their respective answers that students gave. They are as follows. a) Factual questions: the questions are very simple and they can pick up the answer from the text very easily such as: T: what is the title of the story? 555: Brahmin and thieves (they can pick from the text) T: How many characters are there? 555: There are four; one Brahmin and three thieves. b) Reflective questions: the types of questions are related with peoples’ emotions, feelings and associations for which the students have to use their won feelings to characters, event and plot of the story such as: T: What could be another suitable title? 777: Brahmin and the goat (they have to associate with the text.) T: why did they try to fool the Brahmin? 777: because they want the goat. c) Interpretive questions: the types of questions are related with meaning,  purpose and values such as: T: Why do you think the title should be Brahmin and goat? 666: Because the goat also has main role in the story. d) Judgmental question: these sorts of questions allow the students to decide their feelings, emotions and response to the topic and discussion they have had together such as: T: Write a very logical description, why do you want to punish one? 666: I should judge very carefully. We all know that if we miss judge then there is no one to help poor people. In this case, any way the Brahmin is (sis) victim †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. In this way, every learner participated in the class. Though the class was multilevel, the task designed for different levels was really challenging. The classroom rule was that only the group was supposed to answer the question, in case they did not answer then other group would answer. As far as the error correction concerned, I did not correct all the errors they made in the discussion. It does not mean that I ignored all the errors. I corrected only global error not the local error. I agree with Brown’s (2000) definition that the local error is clearly and humorously recognized and recommended that they may not be corrected as long as the message is understood and correction may interrupt a learner in the flow of communication. The global error needs to be corrected in some way since the message may otherwise remain unclear and rather ambiguous. I have corrected the errors watching the situation without disturbing in their attempt to produce the language. The result I found a dramatic change in the classroom atmosphere: all trying to say something, listening to others what they say. In fact, I had never had such satisfaction in my class before even though I used pair work, group work and role-play. In this sense, I agree with Nunan’s (as cited in Hiep 2005) suggestion that the teacher should use such activities that involve oral communication, carrying out meaningful tasks and using language which is meaningful to the learners and as well as the use of materials that promote  communicative language use. Such activities helped the learners to find the ways of helping them to connect what is in the text to what is in their minds. One of the major advantages of this approach is that texts can be selected based on the richness and diversity of the language and on the relevance to the English learners who should find them both meaningful and motivating. I refer Nguyen (2005:5) â€Å"Exposing students to varieties of stories let them experie nce not only the beautiful language but also something beyond, such as sympathy with characters and engagement with emotional situations that relate to their actual lives. As a result, I found the activities vital for progress in language learning process. Such discussion certainly enhances students’ ability to pay attention, remember new grammar and vocabulary, process ideas and response appropriately. Moreover, students get enough chances to express their own ideas and opinions and discuss the opinions and ideas of other students. I agree with Byrd and Cabetas (1991:9) ‘by discussing these differences students learn to use English more clearly and to understand it better.† Moreover, they learn to clarify their own ideas, values, perspectives, and learn from others. A major innovation that I have noticed about this technique is to systematically build students’ ability to present their own ideas, opinions and feelings both accurately and confidently. I have particularly focused on maximizing student-talking time and minimizing teacher-talking time in the classroom setting. This action research proved the idea of Breen and Candlin (as cited in Byrd and Cabetas 1991) that the teacher has two roles: the first role is to facilitate the communicative process and to act as an independent participant within the teaching-learning process; second role is that of researcher and learner.

Saturday, October 26, 2019

Intrusion detection system for internet

Intrusion detection system for internet ABSTRACT The visibility to detect the rapid growth of Internet attacks becomes an important issue in network security. Intrusion detection system (IDS) acts as necessary complement to firewall for monitoring packets on the computer network, performing analysis and incident-responses to the suspicious traffic. This report presents the design, implementation and experimentation of Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS), which aims at providing effective network and anomaly based intrusion detection using ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) statistic. A generic system modelling approach and architecture are design for building the NIDS with useful functionalities. Solving the shortcomings of current statistical methods in anomaly based network intrusion detection system is one of the design objectives in this project as all of them reflect the necessary improvements in the network-based IDS industry. Throughout the system development of NIDS, several aspects for building an affective network-based IDS are emphasized, such as the statistical method implementation, packet analysis and detection capabilities. A step by step anomaly detection using ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) test has been calculated in the report. Chapter 1 Introduction This chapter is introduction to the whole project. This chapter introduce the project, its motivation, main objective and advance objectives. The chapter also give brief methodology of the research. Introduction The Though with the rapid growth of computer networks make life faster and easier, while on the other side it makes life insecure as well. Internet banking, on line buying, selling, on internet, is now part of our daily life, along with that, if we look at growing incidents of cyber attacks, security become a problem of great significance. Firewalls are no longer considered sufficient for reliable security, especially against zero error attacks. The security concern companies are now moving towards an additional layer of protection in the form of Intrusion Detection System. D.Yang, A.Usynin W.Hines (2006) explain intrusion and intrusion detection as: Any action that is not legally allowed for a user to take towards an information system is called intrusion and intrusion detection is a process of detecting and tracing inappropriate, and incorrect, or anomalous activity targeted at computing and networking resources [16]. Idea of intrusion detection was first introduced in 1980 (J.P Anderson) and first intrusion detection model was suggested in 1987 (D.E.Denning). Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) is considered as first line of defence and Intrusion Detection Systems are considered as second line defence [16]. IDS are useful once an intrusion has occurred to contain the resulting damage. Snot is best example of working Intrusion Detection System and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IDS/IPS) developed by Sourcefire. Which combine the benefits of signature, protocol and anomaly based inspection. IDS can be classified in to misuse detection and anomaly detection. Misuse detection or signature based IDS can detect intrusion based on known attack patterns or known system vulnerabilities or known intrusive scenarios where as anomaly intrusion detection or not-use detection systems are useful against zero -day attacks, pseudo zero-day attack. Anomaly based IDS based on assumption that behaviour of intruder is different from normal user. Anomaly detection systems can be divided into static and dynamic, S.Chebrolu, et al A.Abraham J.P.Thomas (2004). Static anomaly detectors assume that the portion of system being monitored will not change and they mostly address the software area of the system [17]. Protocol anomaly detection could be the best example of static anomaly detection [17]. Dynamic anomaly detection systems operate on network traffic data or audit records and that will be the main area of my interest in research. Anomaly IDS has become a popular research area due to strength of tracing zero-day threats, B.Schneier (2002). It examines user profiles and audit records etc, and targets the intruder by identifying the deviation from normal user behaviour and alert from potential unseen attacks [18]. Active attacks have more tendencies to be traced as compared to passive attacks, but in ideal IDS we try to traces both. Anomaly based Intrusion detection system are the next generation IDS and in system defence they are considered as second line of defence. In that research my main concentration will be Denial of service attacks their types and how to trace them. Motivations Though Internet is the well knowing technology of the day but still there are security concerns such as internet security and availability. The big threat to information security and availability is intrusion and denial-of-service attacks. Since the existing internet was developed about 40 year ago, at that time the priorities were different. Then unexpected growth of internet result exhaustion IPV4 address along with that it brings lots of security issues as well. According to the CERT statistical data 44,074 vulnerabilities had been reported till 2008. Intrusion is the main issue in computer networks. There are too many signature based intrusion detection are used within information systems. But these intrusion detection systems can only detect known intrusion. Another approach called anomaly based intrusion detection is the dominant technology now. Many organizations are working on anomaly based intrusion detection systems. Many organizations such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology are providing data set for this purpose. Motivated by the observation that there is lots of work is done using the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) data sets. Another aspect of the anomaly based intrusion detection system is statistical method. There are too many good multivariate statistical techniques e,g Multivariate Cumulative Sum (MCUSUM) and Multivariate Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (MEWMA) are used for anomaly detection in the wild of manufacturing systems [3]. Theoretically, these multivariate statistical methods can be used to intrusion detection for examining and detecting anomaly of a subject in the wild of information science. Practically it is not possible because of the computationally intensive procedures of these statistical techniques cannot meet the requirements of intrusion detection systems for several reasons. First, intrusion detection systems deal with huge amount of high-dimensional process data because of large number of behaviours and a high frequency of events occurrence [3]. Second, intrusion detection systems demand a minimum delay of processing of each event in computer systems to make sure an early d etection and signals of intrusions. Therefore, a method which study the variation is called ANOVA statistic would be used in this research. But there is no research available that have implemented ANOVA and F statistic on data sets collected by The Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA). The data sets provided by CAIDA are unique in their nature as it does not contain any session flow, any traffic between the attacker and the attack victim. It contains only reflections from the attack victim that went back to other real or spoof IP addresses. It creates trouble in estimating the attack. I will take that trouble as challenge. Research Question In this section I will explore the core objective of the research and a road map to achieve those objectives. During that research I will study data sets called backscatter-2008, collected by CAIDA for denial of services attacks. I will use statistical technique ANOVA to detect anomaly activities in computer networks. My research is guided by five questions. What is an intrusion and intrusion detection system? How can we classify intrusion detection system? What are different methodologies proposed for intrusion detection systems? How to analyse the CAIDA Backscatter-2008 data sets and make them ready for future study and analysis. How to figure out the different types of DOS attacks. How to implement ANOVA statistical techniques to detect anomaly in networks traffics Aims and Objectives Dos attacks are too many in numbers and it is not possible to discuss all the dos attacks in one paper. In this paper I will look to detect anomaly in network traffic using number of packets. Main/Core objectives of the research Review literature of recent intrusion detection approaches and techniques. Discuss current intrusion detection system used in computer networks Obtaining a data set from CAIDA organization for analysis and future study. Pre-process the trace collected by CAIDA, make it ready for future analysis. Recognizing the normal and anomaly network traffic in CAIDA dataset called backscatter-2008. Investigate Analyse deviated network traffic using MATLAB for different variants of denial of services attacks. Review of existing statistical techniques for anomaly detection Evaluation of the proposed system model Advance Objectives of the research Extend the system model to detect new security attacks. Investigating and analysing the ANOVA statistical techniques over other statistics for anomaly detection in computer networks. Nature and Methodology The area of research is related with detecting anomaly traffic in computer networks. The revolution in processing and storage capabilities in the computing made it possible to capture, store computer network traffic and then different kind of data patterns are derived from the captured data traffic. These data patterns are analysed to build profile for the network traffic. Deviations from these normal profiles will be considered anomaly in the computer network traffic. This research presents a study of vulnerability in TCP/IP and attacks that can be initiated. Also the purpose of research is to study TCP flags, find distribution for the network traffic and then apply ANOVA statistical techniques to identify potential anomaly traffic on the network. Report Structure Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter is about the general overview of the project .First of all introduction about the topic is given then motivation of the research is discussed. Core objectives and general road map of the project is discussed under the heading of research question. Aims and objectives are described to enable readers to understand the code and advance objectives of the research and general overview of the research. Nature and Methodology includes the nature of research and what methods will be used during that research to answer the research question and to achieve core and advance objectives. Lastly at the end all chapters in the report are introduced. Chapter 2: Research Background The main focus of this chapter to explain what is Intrusion and Detection why we need Intrusion Detection Systems, types and techniques being used for Intrusion Detection Systems, Challenges and problems of Intrusion Detection System. Chapter 3: Security Vulnerabilities and Threats in Computer Networks This area of report is dedicated to the Network Security in general and issues with computer networks. Then types of Denial of services attacks are described in general. This chapter also include Types of DOS attacks and brief description of each attack. Chapter 4: Data Source Data sets collected and uploaded by CAIDA on their web site are not in a format to be processed straight away. This chapter described in detail how to obtain those data sets. Then all the necessary steps that are carried out on the data sets to convert that trace into format that is understood by MATLAB for final analysis. It also includes the problems faced during the pre-processing of data sets as there not enough material available on internet for pre-processing of datasets and the application used during that phase. Chapter 5: System Model As the research is based on TCP/IP protocol So it is vital to discuss the TCP and the weak points that allow that attacker to take advantage and use them for malicious purpose. What measures could be taken to recognize the attacks well before they happen and how to stop them. In this chapter I will discuss the Intrusion detection Model and features of proposed IDS and finally the steps in proposed model. Chapter 6: ANOVA Statistic and Test Results Implementation in Proposed Model This chapter is the core chapter of this project. This chapter all about focus on statistical test in intrusion detection systems particularly on ANOVA statistics. In this chapter first, the existing statistical techniques are analysed for intrusion detection. ANOVA calculation, deployment in intrusion detection system, backscatter-2008 data set distribution and other categories wise distribution will be explained in this chapter. Finally in the chapter, includes the graphs of the data sets and ANOVA and F statistic graphs are shown. Chapter 7: Discussion and conclusion Finally I will sum up my project in this chapter. It will include conclusion of research. Personal improvements of during that project because during that project I been through my experiences that later I found in the project that is helpful in other areas. Finally the goals that are achieved through entire project. Summary This chapter will enable reader to understand the general overview of the research. First of all the different research questions are identified. Then the objectives of the research are described which includes both core and advanced objectives. What is the nature of the research and which method will be used in it are in picture. The topic provides overall background information. Furthermore explanation of the report structure and brief description of all the chapters are also included in this chapter. Chapter 2 Research Background Introduction The focus of this chapter is to explain, what is intrusion and intrusion detection system. Why we need Intrusion Detection System. This chapter also discuss types and techniques used for Intrusion Detection Systems. Goals, challenges and problems are the main parts of the Intrusion Detection System are also explained in this chapter. Intrusion Detection System (IDS) A computer intrusion is the number of events that breaches the security of a system. Such number of events must be detected in proactive manner in order to guarantee the confidentiality, integrity and availability of resources of a computer system. An intrusion into an information system is a malicious activity that compromises its security (e.g. integrity, confidentiality, and availability) through a series of events in the information system. For example intrusion may compromise the integrity and confidentiality of an information system by gaining root level access and then modifying and stealing information. Another type of intrusion is denial-of-service intrusion that compromises the availability of an information system by flooding a server with an overwhelming number of service requests to the server over short period of time and thus makes services unavailable to legitimate users. According to D. Yang, A. Usynin W. Hines, they describe intrusion and intrusion detection as: An y action that is not legally allowed for a user to take towards an information system is called intrusion and intrusion detection is a process of detecting and tracing inappropriate, and incorrect, or anomalous activity targeted at computing and networking resources. Why we need Intrusion Detection System To provide guarantee of integrity, confidentiality and availability of the computer system resources, we need a system that supervise events, processes and actions within an information system [1]. The limitations of current traditional methods, misconfigured control access policies and also the misconfigured firewalls policies in computer systems and computer network security systems (Basic motivation to prevent security failures), along with increasing number of exploitable bugs in computer network software, have made it very obvious to design security oriented monitoring systems to supervise system events in context of security violations [1]. These traditional systems do not notify the system administrator about the misuses or anomaly events in the system. So we need a system which provides proactive decision about misuse or anomaly events, so therefore from last two decades the intrusion detection systems importance is growing day by day. Now a days intrusion detection system plays vital role in an organization computers security infrastructure. Types of Intrusion Detection System Intrusion detection system is a technique that supervises computers or networks for unauthorized login, events, activity, or file deletion or modifications [1]. Intrusion detection system can also be designed to monitor network traffic, so it can detect denial of service attacks, such as SYN, RST, ICMP attacks. Typically intrusion detection system can be classified into two types [1]. Host-Based Intrusion Detection System (HIDS) Network-Based Intrusion Detection System (NIDS) Each of the above two types of intrusion detection system has their own different approach to supervise, monitor and secure data, and each has distinct merits and demerits. In short words, host based intrusion detection system analyse activity occurrence on individual computers, while on the other hand network based IDSs examine traffic of the whole computer network. Host-Based Intrusion Detection System Host based intrusion detection gather and analyse audit records from a computer that provide services such as Password services, DHCP services, web services etc [1]. The host based intrusion detection systems (HIDS) are mostly platform dependent because each platform has different audit record from other platforms. It includes an agent on a host which detect intrusion by examining system audit records, for example audit record may be system calls, application logs, file-system modification (access control list data base modification, password file modification) and other system or users events or actions on the system. Intrusion detection system were first developed and implemented as a host based [1]. In host based intrusion detection systems once the audit records is aggregated for a specific computer, it can be sent to a central machine for analysis, or it can be examined for analysis on the local machine as well. These types of intrusion detection systems are highly effective for detecting inside intrusion events. An unauthorized modification, accesses, and retrieval of files can detect effectively by host based intrusion detection system. Issues involve in host based intrusion detection systems is the collection of audit records for thousands of computer may insufficient or ineffective. Windows NT/2000 security events logs, RDMS audit sources, UNIX Syslog, and Enterprises Management systems audit data (such as Tivoli) are the possible implementations of the host based intrusion detection system. Network-Based Intrusion Detection System Network-based intrusion detection system (NIDS) is completely platform independent intrusion detection system which predicts intrusion in network traffic by analysing network traffic such as frames , packets and TCP segments (network address, port number, protocols TCP headers, TCP flags etc) and network bandwidth as well. The NIDS examines and compared the captured packets with already analysed data to recognize their nature for anomaly or malicious activity. NIDS is supervising the whole network, so it should be more distributed than HIDS. NIDS does not examine information that originate from a computer but uses specials techniques like packet sniffing to take out data from TCP/IP or other protocols travelling along the computer network [1]. HIDS and NIDS can also be used as combination. My project focus on network based intrusion detection systems, in this project we analyse TCP flags for detecting intrusions. Techniques Used in Existing IDS In the above section we discussed about the general existing type of the intrusion detection system. Now the question arises that how these intrusion detection system detect the intrusion. There are two major techniques are used for above each intrusion detection system to detect intruder. Signature Detection or Misuse Detection Anomaly Detection Signature Detection or Misuse Detection This technique commonly called signature detection, this technique first derives a pattern for each known intrusive scenarios and then it is stored in a data base [3]. These patterns are called signatures. A signature can be as simple as a three failed login or a pattern that matches a specific portion of network traffic or it may be a sequence of string or bits [1]. Then this technique tests the current behaviour of the subject with store signature data base and signals an intrusion when there is a same pattern match. The main limitation in this technique, that it cannot detect new attacks whose signatures are unknown. Anomaly Detection In this technique the IDS develop a profile of the subjects normal behaviour (norm profile) or baseline of normal usage patterns. Subject of interest may be a host system, user, privileged program, file, computer network etc. Then this technique compare the observed behaviour of the subject with its normal profile and alarm an intrusion when the subjects observe activity departs from its normal profile [3]. For comparison, anomaly detection method use statistical techniques e,g ANOVA K-mean, Standard Deviations, Linear regressions, etc [2]. In my project, I am using ANOVA statistic for anomaly detection. Anomaly detection technique can detect both known and new intrusion in the information system if and only if, there is departure between norm and observed profile [3]. For example, in denial of service attack, intrusion occurs through flooding a server, the ratio of the events to the server is much higher than the events ratio of the norm operation condition [3]. Issues and Challenges in the IDS An intrusion detection system should recognize a substantial percentage of intrusion while maintain the false alarm rate at acceptable level [4]. The major challenge for IDS is the base rate fallacy. The base rate fallacy can be explained in false positive false negative. False positive means when there is no intrusion and the IDS detect intrusion in the event. False negative when there is an intrusion in the events and the IDS does not detect it. Unfortunately, the nature of the probability includes, and the overlapping area between the observed and training data, it is very difficult to keep the standard of the high rate of detections with low rate of false alarms [4]. According study held on the current intrusion detection systems depicted that the existing intrusion detection systems have not solved the problem of base rate fallacy [4]. Summary An intrusion into information system compromises security of the information system. A system, called intrusion detection is used to detect intrusion into information system. The two major types of IDS are HIDS and NIDS. The host based intrusion detection system monitor mostly the events on the host computer, while the NIDS monitor the activity of the computer network system. There are two approaches implemented for intrusion detection in IDS, anomaly and signature. Anomaly use statistical methods for detecting anomaly in the observed behaviour while signature check patterns in it. Base rate fallacy is the major challenge for IDS. Chapter 3 Security Vulnerabilities and threats in Networks Introduction In this chapter we are going to discuss the computer and network security. For computer security, there are some other terminologies like vulnerability, exploitability and threats are discussed as well in the chapter. Then chapter focus on Denial of Service attack, which is the most dominant attack in the wild of computer science. The chapter also concentrate the all aspects of the denial of service attack. Computer Security In the early days of the internet, network attacks have been a difficult problem. As the economy, business, banks and organization and society becomes more dependent on the internet, network attacks put a problem of huge significance. Computer security preclude attacker from getting the objectives through unauthorized use of computers and networks [5]. According to the Robert C. Searcord Security has developmental and operational elements [5]. Developmental security means, developing secure software with secure design and flawless implementation [5]. Operational Security means, securing the implemented system and networks from attacks. In computer security the following terminologies are used most commonly [5]. Security Policy: A set of rules and rehearses that are typically implemented by the network or system administrator to their system or network to protect it from attacks are called security policies. Security Flaw: A software fault that offers a potential security risk is called security flaw. Vulnerability: the term vulnerability is a set of conditions through malicious user implicitly or explicitly violates security policy. Exploit: a set of tools, software, or techniques that get benefit of security vulnerability to breach implicit or explicit security policy [5]. The term information security and network security are often used interchangeably. However, this project focus intrusion in computer networks, so we are going to discuss network security. The term network security is the techniques that are used to protect data from the hacker travelling on computer networks. Network security Issues There are many issued involved in the network security but the following are the most common. Known vulnerabilities are too many and new vulnerabilities are being discovered every day. In denial of service attack when the malicious user, attack on the resources of the remote server, so there is no typical way to distinguish bad and good requests. Vulnerability in TCP/IP protocols. Denial of service Attacks A denial of service attacks or distributed denial of service attack is an attempt to make computer resources exhausts or disable or unavailable to its legitimate users. These resources may be network bandwidth, computing power, computer services, or operating system data structure. When this attack is launched from a single machine, or network node then it is called denial of service attack. But now days in the computer wild the most serious threat is distributed denial of service attack [4]. In distributed denial of service attack, the attacker first gain access to the number of host throughout the internet, then the attacker uses these victims as launch pad simultaneously or in a coordinated fashion to launch the attack upon the targets. There are two basic classes of DoS attacks: logic attacks and resource attacks. Ping-of-Death, exploits current software flaws to degrade or crash the remote server is an example of the logic attacks. While on the other hand in resource attacks, the victims CPU, memory, or network resources are overwhelmed by sending large amount of wrong requests. Because the remote server, does not differentiate the bad and good request, so to defend attack on resources is not possible. Various denials of service attacks have some special characteristics Oleksii ignatenko explain the characteristics of the denial of service attacks as in the figure 1. Your browser may not support display of this image. Figure 1 Denial of service attack characteristics Attack type: a denial of service can be a distributed (when it comes from many sources) or non-distributed (when it comes from only one source). Attack Direction: attack direction may be network or system resources. Attack Scheme: Attack Scheme can be direct from malicious users source or it can be reflections form other victims systems, or it can be hidden. Attack Method: Method means that vulnerability that allows attack. Targeted attack utilizes vulnerability in protocols, software and services, while consumption method consumes all possible resources. Exploitive attacks take advantages of defects in operating system. operating system Methods for Implementing Denial of Service Attacks A denial of service attack can be implemented in many ways; the following are the most common implantation techniques Attempt to flood a network, thereby stopping legitimate network traffic Attempt to interrupt connections between two systems, thereby preclude access to a service Attempt to prevent a specific user from accessing a service The flood method can be deployed in many ways but the following are well known in the wild of networks system. TCP-SYN Flood ICMP Flood RST attack TCP-SYN Flood: In order to achieve the TCP-SYN flood the attacker tries to establish the connection to the server. Normally a client establishes a connection to the server through three way handshake. In three way handshake, The client or any sender sends the TCP packet with the SYN flag set. The server or receiver receives the TCP packet, it sends TCP packet with both SYN and ACK bits are set. The client receives SYN-ACK packet and send ACK packet to the server. The three way handshake can easily be understood in the figure 2: Client Server Your browser may not support display of this image.Your browser may not support display of this image.Your browser may not support display of this image. Your browser may not support display of this image. Your browser may not support display of this image. Figure 2 Three way Handshake This is called three way handshake of TCP connection establishment. So in SYN flood what the attacker does, he sends SYN packet to the server and the server responds with SYN-ACK packets but the attacker does not sends the ACK packet. If the server does not receive the ACK packet from the client it will resends a SYN-ACK packet again after waiting for 3 seconds. If SYN-ACK still does not arrive, the server will send another SYN-ACK after 6 seconds. This doubling in time continuous for a total of 4 or 6 attempts (the exact number depends upon the implementation of the TCP protocol on the server side) [8]. So in SYN flood the attacker install Zombies on Internet hosts and sends huge amount of SYN request from spoof IP to the server or any host on the internet and utilize all the server or host memory and data structure. In this way the server get busy and is not able to accept request or respond to

Friday, October 25, 2019

Confucianism and Taoism :: Chinese China History

Confucianism and Taoism The Chinese people have three main traditions in their history- Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. I am going to be talking about Confucianism and Taoism. Both of these date back to the Sixth Century B.C. The traditional founder of Taoism is Confucius and Laozi. On top of many other things Confucius was a very influential speaker. Throughout time, his teachings, and preaching developed into a religion. He spoke to a wide variety of people. Daoist tend to look back to Laozi as their founder. Over centuries, Taoism was transformed from a small religion, very conservative, into a loosely organized religion. During the Second Century B.C., a ruler named Han had the most part in it. A large number of religious groups rose from this because of the social and political disorder. One of these groups named the Yellow Turbans in eastern China., fought Han in 184 B.C. This led to a civil war. Han lost authority and power, and his generals became warlords. Then, in Western China, a group known as the Way of the Celestial Masters came into power. From the Second Century B.C., Taoists and others believed it was possible to find an elixir which would make them immortal. An elixir is a sweetened alcoholic medicinal preparation, but back in ancient philosophy it was thought to be for changing base metals into gold, or for prolonging life. Research flourished because of this belief. But the chief ingredient, cinnabar, was found to be poisonous. Many imperial deaths ensued from this. But this was not the only way to achieve immortality back in ancient times. Another belief said that a man would have to acquire 108 women to get granted 10,000 years of life. For more than 2,000 years ,Chinese, Japananese, and Korean people have lived in cultures that were greatly influenced by the thoughts of Confucius. Confucius saw himself as an ordinary man doing a good deed for a diverse group of cultures. He taught his fellow human beings moral behavior and good family relationships. He thought that they are the key to a well ordered society. People valued his opinions and teachings very much and followed them in every day life. Confucius himself avoided talking about religion, but at the same time recognized the importance of worshipping his ancestors. He believed that he was not guided by religion, but by a higher power called heaven. Confucius lived at a time when China was changing.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Learning Organizations Essay

In the 1990, Peter Senge published a book called The Fifth Discipline that created a flurry of change within management thinking, or at least that is what people say has happened as they avidly quote him. In the September/October 1999 issue of the Journal of Business Strategy, he was named a â€Å"Strategist of the Century†; one of 24 men and women who have â€Å"had the greatest impact on the way we conduct business today. † (Smith 2001) In recent book reviews on amazon. com he is still lauded and his work touches the international business community as evidenced by reviews from UAE and India: (The emphasis within the reviews has been added by the author) Amazon. com Peter Senge, founder of the Center for Organizational Learning at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, experienced an epiphany while meditating one morning back in the fall of 1987. That was the day he first saw the possibilities of a â€Å"learning organization† that used â€Å"systems thinking† as the primary tenet of a revolutionary management philosophy. He advanced the concept into this primer, originally released in 1990, written for those interested in integrating his philosophy into their corporate culture. The Fifth Discipline has turned many readers into true believers; it remains the ideal introduction to Senge’s carefully integrated corporate framework, which is structured around â€Å"personal mastery,† â€Å"mental models,† â€Å"shared vision,† and â€Å"team learning. † Using ideas that originate in fields from science to spirituality, Senge explains why the learning organization matters, provides an unvanished summary of his management principals, offers some basic tools for practicing it, and shows what it’s like to operate under this system. The book’s concepts remain stimulating and relevant as ever. –Howard Rothman [pic]The Book that began a fad, January 26, 2003 | |Reviewer: ggxl from Bangalore, India |This book was written quite a long time ago (in 1990) and shifted the boundaries of management from concentrating on silos (marketing, HR, finance, production) to looking at organizations as open systems which interact with outside systems and put into motion forces that may not be easily understood using traditional systems to assessment. This ability of Systems Thinking Senge called the â€Å"Fifth Discipline†, the other four being: 1) Building Shared Vision 2) Mental models 3) Team Learning 4) Personal Mastery The field of Systems Thinking was developed in MIT under Prof Jay W. Forrester, but Senge gave it the ‘managerial’ flavour, cross-fertilising [sic] it with folk beliefs, spirituality and scientific thought from around the world. The belief being, once an organization has mastery of all the five disciplines, the organization can become ‘a learning organization’. This book, therefore triggered the craze and fad on part of organizations to become ‘learning organizations’ and the rise of the ‘knowledge economy’ was perfect timing for it. Now when the hoopla has settled, it is time again to revisit the true essence of Senge’s work and what he REALLY means. [pic]An inspiration†¦ , February 7, 2002 | |Reviewer: la-layl from Dubai, UAE | The Learning Organization remains one of the most talked-of management concepts in today’s business world, and nobody is as capable of explaining exactly what is a Learning Organization or what are the requirements for such an elusive concept than Peter Senge. Senge’s five disciplines are common concepts in many corporate offices. Often quoted in the management literature, he is considered by many to be the founder of the concept of the learning organization. Thirteen years later, the buzz has died down, and while Senge is still quoted, have the principles of the learning organization been implemented? Are organizations learning? A search of the term â€Å"learning organization† produces 133,000 hits on google. com, so people still embrace the concepts. This paper will endeavor to examine the literature on the learning organization in an attempt to define it and review some of the theories about it. It will also provide examples of the attempt to experiment with the concepts of the learning organization in two organizations. The first, an education department of a church undergoing transformation and the second, the training department of a large managed healthcare network provider. What does it take to become a learning organization? Are organizations by nature, learning entities? This paper is an attempt to answer these questions. Defining the Learning Organization Learning organization, organizational learning, organizational development, knowledge management†¦ these are key terms to differentiate at the beginning of the journey of this discovery process. These are my definitions: Organizational development is a defined methodology of looking at an organization from a holistic perspective with the intention of improving it. Organizational learning is what happens as an organization matures and improves; in essence, recognizing and changing the widget-making/serving process it is involved with to build a better widget maker/server. The learning organization is an organization that takes a step back to look at the big picture of how it benefits from new ideas and errors with the intention of continuous improvement. It is a deliberate process,  and one component of organizational development. Knowledge management is the storage and retrieval of the tacit and implicit information contained within an organization, whether it is procedural or content oriented. Knowledge management makes information that is within individuals available and externalizes it for the availability of the organization. Others define these differently and have written much about them. In the research literature, there does not appear to be a common, well accepted definition of these terms, though they are used frequently. The next section will explore the theories and definitions of others. From the Experts Peter Senge In the opening (page 3) of Senge’s flagship book, The Fifth Discipline, he defines the learning organization as â€Å"†¦organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together. † (Senge 1990) As mentioned earlier, he defines the core of learning organization work based on five â€Å"learning disciplines†. To expand on them, in Senge’s words they are Personal Mastery Learning to expand our personal capacity to create the results we most desire, and creating an organizational environment which encourages all its members to develop themselves toward the goals and purposes they choose. Mental Models Reflecting upon, continually clarifying, and improving our internal pictures of the world, and seeing how they shape our actions and decisions. Shared Vision Building a sense of commitment in a group, by developing shared images of the future we seek to create, and the principles and guiding practices by which we hope to get there. Team Learning Transforming conversational and collective thinking skills, so that groups of people can reliably develop intelligence and ability greater than the sum of individual members’ talents. Systems Thinking A way of thinking about, and a language for describing and understanding, the forces and the interrelationships that shape the behavior of systems. This discipline helps us to see how to change systems more effectively, and to act more in tune with the larger processes of the natural and economic world. (Senge, Roberts et al. 1994) Senge believes that â€Å"the learning organization exists primarily as a vision in our collective experience and imagination. † ( p5, 1994) He also believes that the impact of practices, principles and essences are highly influential. Practices are â€Å"what you do†. Principles are â€Å"guiding ideas and insights,† and essence is â€Å"the state of being those with high levels of mastery in the discipline. † (Senge, 1990, p 373) He looks at leaders as teachers, stewards and designers—quite a different metaphor than the traditional business practices of the time. It is the leaders who must pave the way to the creation of the learning organization, and they must also model the process. The authors of the companion work The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook (1994) see the learning organization as something that develops within a team, and is part of a â€Å"deep learning cycle† where team members develop new skills and abilities, which in turn create new awareness and sensibilities, which it turn creates new attitudes and beliefs. These new attitudes are the things that can change the deep beliefs and assumptions inherent in an organization and product transformation. Within the learning organization a sense of trust and safety are established and the members are willing to reveal uncertainties and make and acknowledge mistakes. This cycle provides a â€Å"domain of enduring change† within the organization. The architecture of a learning organization is considered a â€Å"domain of action† and consists of guiding ideas, innovations in infrastructure, and theory, methods and tools. The guiding ideas include the vision, values and purpose of the organization. They have philosophical depth and are seen as ongoing. They include the philosophy of the whole, the community nature of the self and the generative power of language. The development of tools and methods test these theories and cause them to be shaped and refined, and bring about the cyclical nature of this domain of action. These changes create infrastructure innovations and â€Å"enable people to develop capabilities like systems thinking and collaborative inquiry within the context of their jobs. † (1994, p34) Senge’s philosophy has been graphically illustrated using the domain of enduring change as a circle and the domain of action as a triangle (Figure 1). It is the interaction between the two that creates the dynamic of the learning organization. [pic] Figure 1 Adapted from Senge, et al, 1994, p42 It is difficult to assess the results in this type of a system because â€Å"deeper learning often does not produce tangible evidence for considerable time. † (p. 45) The core concepts contained in this model are: â€Å"At its essence, every organization is a product of how its members think and interact†¦Learning in organizations means the continuous testing of experience, and the transformation of that experience into knowledge—accessible to the whole organization, and relevant to its core purpose. † (p 48-49) The creation of this type of learning organization comes from establishing a group that learns new ways to work together: discussing priorities, working through divergent thinking, clarification, then convergent thinking to come to conclusions and implementation of the solution. The learning organization discovers how to best work with individual styles, allowing for reflection and other individual needs. It becomes a safe place to take risks, make mistakes, and learn from the results. The learning organization also works through the five disciplines of 1) building shared vision, 2) creating mental models 3) reinforcing team learning, 4) developing personal mastery and 5) understanding systems thinking. Much of what occurs is the creation of shared vocabulary to produce common understandings. Learning about systems thinking concepts of links, reinforcing and balancing loops helps to define problem issues. Following the publication of The Fifth Discipline, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook (Senge, Roberts et al. 1994) and The Dance of Change (Senge, Kleiner et al. 1999) were released with exercises to assist in the organizational development process and support the changes it created. Both contain resources helpful in the implementation process. To summarize, Senge’s model is based on the interaction and the learning that goes on between individuals in an organization. It is an intangible process, but one that can be enhanced by taking certain measures to foster development. Peter Kline Peter Kline’s work on learning organizations, Ten Steps to a Learning Organization (Kline and Saunders 1998) focuses primarily on cultural change. He believes â€Å"to have a Learning Organization, you must begin by having an organization of learners, then show them how to function in such a way that the organization as a whole can learn. † (p8) He differentiates how individuals learn versus how organizations learn: The most obvious difference between the way organization and individuals learn is that individuals have memories, which are essential to learning, while organizations don’t†¦The main difference between a learning individual and a Learning Organization is in the information storage process. Individuals store their learning primarily in their memories, augmented by libraries, notes and other aids to memory. Organizations store it primarily in their cultures, with a secondary backup in documentation that is useful only if the culture is committed to making use of it†¦In simple terms, individuals learn through the activation and updating of their memories while organizations learn through change in the culture. (p24) Kline discusses the difficulties of creating change in the organization, realizing that people in general are resistant to change. He defines ten conditions to build a learning organization, allowing people to be able to cope with the ambiguity of the change process. These conditions are: 1) Assess the current learning culture to create a benchmark, Then have: 2) Positive expectation that dilemmas can be resolved. 3) Support for the learning process itself. 4) Willingness to delay closure long enough to arrive at significant Gestalts rather than forced and trivial ones. 5) Communication processes that bring people together to consider in a friendly and noncompetitive atmosphere many different perceptions, templates, habits of thought and possible solutions, from which the most useful may then be chosen. 6) A cultural habit that encourages exploring apparently meaningless ambiguities with the expectation that meaning can be found in them—as an expression of both a personal and organizational commitment to learning over the long haul. 7) The establishment of contexts within which meaning for new possibilities can be found as they emerge. 8) A set of modeling skills, strategies and techniques or mechanisms that allows people more easily to construct meaning out of apparent chaos. 9) A cultural understanding which is shared throughout management of the systemic interactions that will inevitably be present as complex Gestalts are formed. 10) An intuitive feeling for how complex interactions will be likely to occur. (p32) Kline’s third point is one of the key elements of creative thinking—learning to continue to look for solutions rather than just accepting the first one that fits as best. His fourth point is similar to Senge’s concept of the team learning to work together in new ways, and incorporates convergent and divergent thinking. Kline presents his change model as â€Å"The Great Game of Business,† with three elements: 1) know the rules, 2) keep score, and 3) have a stake in the action. (p 35) Knowing the rules is working to choose rules that emerge from self-organizing systems to select the ones that lead to the most productive behavior. Keeping score is about measurement, and having a stake in the action is about employee buy-in. He encourages that one of the rules must be the breaking down the cultural barriers between managers and workers. Rules should also include integrative learning, (the restoration of the natural learning of early life), strategic micromanagement tools for decision making, communication and problem solving, generally originating from the people who use them; and expanding the scoring system beyond financial reports. (p 38-39) Kline also acknowledges that the most valued asset of the organization is people, and the development of relationships between them if highly important so they can work together well. In the end of his book, Kline equates business to a theatre metaphor, by â€Å"getting the show on the road. † He speaks of improvisation, ensemble work, and creativity; then continues the metaphor making workers the actors and leaders the directors. He emphasizes the need for continuous improvement and awareness of what everyone is doing while excelling in one’s individual role as would occur in a theatrical production. He begins the process with an assessment of the culture from an institutional perspective: to learn what everyone thinks, then from an individual perspective: take responsibility for what you think and what you do. He stresses looking for fear, which can be disabling to an organization. Kline has created an assessment to look at the culture of the organization. It is designed to be filled out by the members of the organization, and discussed as a group to explore differences. The assessment may be scored by averaging the rating numbers for each question to provide an overall score of the conditions for creating a learning organization, or the individual scores may be entered in a matrix, which assigns the different questions to one of the ten steps of his later plan. Using the matrix, scores are obtained for each of the ten areas, providing a more specific idea of which areas the organization needs the most work in. In filling out the form within an organization, it is anticipated that different groups within the establishment will have different perceptions of the organization itself. He recommends creating an overall report for the organization and asking the members to voice agreement or disagreement with the results. He also encourages that at this stage, the ideal state of the organization is discussed to determine where it would like to be at the end of the process. A large portion of the learning comes from the discussions and the decisions for direction that follow afterwards. This is a similar pattern to DiBella’s model of assessment. After the assessment is completed, the organization is instructed to work through steps two through ten. Kline provides numerous activities that focus on a variety of thinking skills, working to change attitudes and behaviors of individuals. Learning to reframe things in a positive way by â€Å"looking in two directions at once: at the current reality and the positive outcome that can be developed from it† (p 70) is just one of the many ideas given for step two. He deals with learning styles, mind mapping, and teaches people how to listen to one another. He creates safe ways for people to take risks. Unlike some of the more theoretical books on Learning Organizations, Kline’s book contains practical steps for developing a group to become a Learning Organization. Working through the ten steps as a team would do remarkable things within the group as they learn to learn together. Chris Argyris/Donald Schon Argyris is best known for his concepts of single and double-loop learning. In a book written with Donald Schon (1974), they believe that organizations learn through individuals acting as agents. Organization learning is the detection and correction of error. Their key concepts revolve around single- and double-loop learning. Single-loop learning results in the organization continuing in the existing policies while remedying the situation at hand, while double-loop learning examines and modifies norms, policies and objectives as necessary. There are needs for both types of learning. Argyris’ model is much earlier than most of the other organizational learning literature, and he is revered as a founding father by others and like Senge, often quoted in discussions on the learning organization. As a side note, Argyris was one of Senge’s influential teachers: Despite having read much of his writing, I was unprepared for what I learned when I first saw Chris Argyris practice his approach in an informal workshop†¦ Ostensibly an academic presentation of Argyris’s methods, it quickly evolved into a powerful demonstration of what action science practitioners call ‘reflection in action’†¦. Within a matter of minutes, I watched the level of alertness and ‘presentness’ of the entire group rise ten notches – thanks not so much to Argyris’s personal charisma, but to his skilful practice of drawing out†¦ generalizations. As the afternoon moved on, all of us were led to see (sometimes for he first time in our lives) subtle patterns of reasoning which underlay our behaviour; and how those patterns continually got us into trouble. I had never had such a dramatic demonstration of own mental models in action†¦ But even more interesting, it became clear that, with proper training, I could become much more aware of my mental models and how they operated. This was exciting. (Senge 1990, p. 182-183) In the December 2002 issue of Reflections, the Society of Organizational Learning Journal on Knowledge, Learning, and Change, Argyris’ article on Teaching Smart People How to Learn is reprinted as a â€Å"classic. † In this article, he references single- and double-loop learning, but discusses the need for â€Å"managers and employees [to] look inward. They need to reflect critically on their own behavior, identify the ways they often inadvertently contribute to the organization’s problems, and then change how they act. † He makes the observation that the individuals in leadership in an organization are not accustomed to failing, therefore they â€Å"have never learned to learn from failure†¦they become defensive, screen out criticism, and put the ‘blame’ on anyone and everyone but themselves. In short, their ability to learn shuts down precisely at the moment they need it the most. † He sees the learning from mistakes something that must become a â€Å"focus of organization learning† and part of the continuous improvement programs within an organization. He discusses how often individuals â€Å"turn the focus away from their own behavior to that of others [which] brings learning to a grinding halt. † This type of behavior creates what he calls the â€Å"doom loop† where people do not follow the theories they espouse, acting inconsistently. He calls what they do as behaviors that apply â€Å"theories-in-use. † This type of behavior without examination creates repetition without reflection, and doesn’t promote improvement. His first recommendation is to step back and examine what is occurring, and challenging it beginning with the uppermost strata of the organization. Argyris and Schon’s model involves governing variables, action strategies, and consequences. The governing values are the individual’s theories-in-use, and the action strategies are what keeps their behavior within the boundaries created by the theories-in-use. The resulting actions are the consequences. The interaction between these concepts is illustrated in Figure 2. [pic] Figure 2 from (Smith 2001) When the consequences of the action strategy used are what the person anticipated, the theory-in-use is confirmed because there is a match between intention and outcome. There also may be a mismatch between intention and outcome. Sometimes, however, the consequences may be unintended or not match, or work against the person’s governing values. This is where double-loop learning needs to be applied and processes and concepts revised. When only the action is corrected, Argyris refers to this as single-loop learning. (figure 3) [pic] Figure 3 (from Smith, 2001) Anthony DiBella DiBella defines organizational learning as â€Å"the capacity (or processes) within an organization to maintain or improve performance based on experience. This activity involves knowledge acquisition (the development or creation of skills, insights, relationships), knowledge sharing (the dissemination to others of what has been acquired by some), and knowledge utilization (integration of the learning so that it is assimilated, broadly available, and can also be generalized to new situations. )† (DiBella, Nevis et al. 1996) DiBella’s work in How Organizations Learn (DiBella and Nevis 1998), overviews the Learning Organization literature of that time, and classifies the writing into three categories: the normative, the developmental and the capability perspectives. In the normative perspective, the â€Å"learning organization presumes that learning as a collective activity only takes place under certain conditions or circumstances†¦The role of organizational leaders is to create the conditions essential for learning to take place† (DiBella 1995) Senge’s model fits this category. In the developmental perspective, the learning organization is a stage in the development of a maturing organization or in parallel, the development phase of the organization determines its learning styles and character. The third perspective, capability, identifies that organizations develop and learn as they mature or by strategic choice, and that â€Å"all organizations have embedded learning processes. † Rather than ascribing to perspectives one or two, DiBella and his colleagues believe that all organizations have learning capabilities. These seven areas are labeled â€Å"learning orientations† and each runs on a continuum of opposites. For example, the knowledge source may be internal or external. These seven orientations and their descriptors are: Seven Learning Orientations. |Orientation |Spectrum |Description | |Knowledge source |Internal/External |Where does the organization get information from? Primarily | | | |from the inside or outside world? | |Content-Process focus |Content/Process |Which is more important: the content of the information, or | | | |the process of doing it? | |Knowledge Reserve |Personal/Public |Where is information stored? Is it accessible to all, or in | | | |the heads of individuals? | |Dissemination Mode |Formal/Informal |How is information given out in the organization? Through | | | |informal conversations, or in official meetings or written | | | |communication? | |Learning Scope |Incremental/Transformative |When learning occurs, are the changes little by little or | | | |dramatic ones? | |Value-Chain Focus |Design-Make/Market-Deliver |Is the focus more on how something is created and made, or | | | |promoted to the customer? | |Learning Focus |Individual/Group |Is intentional learning geared toward individuals, or | | | |groups? | Figure 4 These orientations are facilitated by ten factors called Facilitating Factors. These factors enhance certain orientations, and increase the likelihood of the organization functioning as a learning organization. Facilitating Factors |Facilitating Factor |Description | |Scanning Imperative |Gathering of information on best practices and conditions outside of the organization | |Performance Gap |Shared perception in the organization between the current and desired performance | |Concern for Measurement |Desire to measure key factors and discussion about the statistics | |Organizational Curiosity |Interest in creative ideas and technology, with support for experimentation | |Climate of Openness |Sharing of lessons learned, open communication about all areas at all levels | |Continuous Education |Commitment to quality resources for learning | |Operational Variety |Valuing different methods; appreciation of diversity | |Multiple Advocates | New ideas can be advanced by anyone in the organization; multiple champions for learning exist | | |throughout | |Involved Leadership |Management is personally involved in the learning and perpetuation of the learning organization | |Systems Perspective |Recognition of interdependence among organizational units and groups; awareness of the time delay | | |between actions and their outcomes | Figure 5, adapted from DiBella In the analysis process utilizing DiBella’s methods, the organization determines its current status and desired status using the learning orientations and facilitating factors. There is an interrelationship between the ten facilitating factors and the seven orientations, and focusing on specific factors can help an organization become a better learning organization. In an article written with DiBella, Edwin Nevis calls learning â€Å"a systems-level phenomenon because it stays within the organization, even if individuals change†¦Organizations learn as they produce. Learning is as much a task as the production and delivery of goods and services. † (Nevis, DiBella et al. 1995) Nevis et al sees â€Å"three learning-related factors important to an organization’s success: 1. Well developed core competencies that serve as launch points for new products and services 2. An attitude that supports continuous improvement in the business’s value-added chain. 3. The ability to fundamentally renew or revitalize. † They see these factors as â€Å"some of the qualities of an effective learning organization that diligently pursues a constantly enhanced knowledge base. † There is also an assumption made about the learning process following three stages: knowledge acquisition, sharing and utilization. There is the belief that all organizations are learning systems, that learning conforms to culture, there are stylistic variations between learning systems and that generic processes facilitate learning. The model supporting all this is comprised of the learning orientations and facilitating factors. Other perspectives Consultants online define the learning organization in similar ways. From the UK, David Skyrme (Farago and Skyrme 1995) quotes several other theorists on his website: â€Å"The essence of organisational learning is the organization’s ability to use the amazing mental capacity of all its members to create the kind of processes that will improve its own† (Nancy Dixon 1994) â€Å"A Learning Company is an organization that facilitates the learning of all its members and continually transforms itself† (M. Pedler, J. Burgoyne and Tom Boydell, 1991) â€Å"Organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to learn together† (Peter Senge, 1990). Fargo and Skyrme use these thoughts to create their own definition: â€Å"Learning organizations are those that have in place systems, mechanisms and processes, that are used to continually enhance their capabilities and those who work with it or for it, to achieve sustainable objectives – for themselves and the communities in which they participate. † They speak of four elements that create learning organizations: learning culture, processes, tools and techniques and skills and motivation. They define these as: Learning Culture – an organizational climate that nurtures learning. There is a strong similarity with those characteristics associated with innovation. Processes – processes that encourage interaction across boundaries. These are infrastructure, development and management processes, as opposed to business operational processes (the typical focus of many BPR initiatives). Tools and Techniques – methods that aid individual and group learning, such as creativity and problem solving techniques. Skills and Motivation – to learn and adapt. They also define things that inhibit learning organizations: †¢ operational/fire fighting preoccupation – not creating time to sit back and think strategically †¢ too focused on systems and process (e. g. ISO9000) to exclusion of other factors (bureaucratic vs. thinking) †¢ reluctance to train (or invest in training), other than for obvious immediate needs †¢ too many hidden personal agendas. †¢ too top-down driven, overtight supervision = lack of real empowerment Fredrick Simon and Ketsara Rugchart define a learning organization as â€Å"one that is continually enhancing its ability to get the results it truly wants. † (Simon and Rugchart 2003) They see organizational learning as â€Å"facilitative of knowledge management by first aligning common vision reduces competitiveness†¦allowing for greater demand for the shared knowledge (the information retrieval side of the equation)†¦ The greatest learning takes place in failure, when things don’t go as expected†¦[sharing] leads to a willingness to be open and to risk vulnerability by sharing the learning from failure (the input side of the equation. ) †¦Organizational learning does not replace knowledge management tools, but can provide a substantial accelerator to the KM effort. † DaeYeon Cho looks at the connectio.

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Business Ethics Stealing from Employer

Business Ethics Stealing from Employer Introduction Ethics refers to moral values that define the behavior of an individual or a group of people. It defines the perception of the good or wrong things in a society. Business ethics thus define the ethical values that relate to a business environment. This paper seeks to discuss business ethics.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Business Ethics: Stealing from Employer specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The paper will look into a case of an employee who is stranded between reporting a friend whom she has caught stealing from their employer or protecting the friend. Case John and Joanne are employees in an organization in which John has been working for the past ten years. John is quite frustrated with the organization as it has seemingly failed to acknowledge his efforts and hard work. He is then caught in an act of stealing by his friend Joanne who is then torn between turning John in or risking being charged fo r being an accomplice. Advice to Joanne The basis of ethics is to differentiate between a good and bad thing. When an individual is faced with an issue, the first step of application of ethics is the determination of whether the issue is morally right or wrong. The first step in helping Joanne is therefore to aid her perception of ethics or morality with respect to John’s act. She must identify the act as either ethical or not in order to make her decision. She must therefore be brought to ethical values to help her gain insight into the issue. Joanne should for example be asked whether or not John was being honest with the organization or even with himself when he resorts to steal from the company. She should also be asked to determine in her opinion whether John’s act of attempting to steal was lawful. Was John under any conflict of interest in stealing? Was he acting in the benefit of the organization at all?Advertising Looking for essay on business economi cs? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Was John being fair to the organization and his fellow employees who may be depending on the office supplies for their work in the organization? These questions will help Joanne to actually understand that John’s action was not ethical at all in terms of â€Å"basic honesty and conformity to law, conflict of interest and fairness† (National 1). Although ethical dilemmas are common issues in business environment, an individual is expected to apply critical reasoning together with â€Å"moral creativity, negotiating skills and personal values to solve such dilemmas† (Weiss 96). A consideration of ethical values reveals that John has acted unethically and thus Joanne ought to act in accordance with the values of honesty to her employer and avoidance of conflict of interest. Ethics dictates that the interest of her employer comes first before that of her friend. Joanne sho uld therefore use her â€Å"moral creativity and negotiation skills† (Weiss 96) to convince John not to attempt stealing again. She needs to help John in understanding moral principles and better ways through which his problems in the organization can be resolved such as negotiations to promotions. Joanne should however take no action towards John’s supervisor especially if John is remorseful over his act and if he doesn’t have a history of such behavior or otherwise report him. Failure by Joanne to take any action will promote the act in John. The key terms related to this case that are associated to business and professional ethics are honesty and fairness. National. Values and ethics. AUF, n.d. Web. au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ndu/strat-ldr-dm/pt4ch15.htmlAdvertising We will write a custom essay sample on Business Ethics: Stealing from Employer specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Weiss, Joseph. Business Ethics: A S takeholder and Issues Management Approach. New York, NY: Cengage Learning, 2008. Print.