Conundrum engulfing Persian Gulf Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Conundrum engulfing Persian Gulf - Essay Example More leaders in the Gulf could take strict stances on issues such boundaries and religious issues, making the governance system be biased in some way3. The rise of conundrum in the Gulf could external influences such as the US coming in to install some more democratic systems and fighting those that offer a threat to its wellbeing4. The war between the Christians and the Islamic has been manifested to a great extent in the Middle East. The Jews, Christians and the Muslims have always disagreed to a great extent based on religious issues5. Islamic global terror has been significantly minimized since the death of Osama Bin Laden. However, the rise of radical Islamic terror groups such ISIS threatens the gains that have been made in the fight against terror6. Christianity, which is a more peaceful outfit, is threatened by the rise of the Islamic radicals. More persecutions of the Christians could be manifested due to the rise of Islamic global terror in the modern dispensation. Ian O. Lesser, Bruce R. Nardulli, and Lory A. Arghavan: Sources of Conflict in the Greater Middle East. 2014. Available at: Ziadeh, Radwan, Leon Hadar, Mark N. Katz, and Steven Heydemann. 2012. "Crisis in Syria: What Are the U.S. Options?."  Middle East Policy, 19, no. 3: 1-24.  International Security & Counter Terrorism Reference Center, EBSCOhost (accessed November 11,

Factors That Influence the Loyalty of a Hotel Customer

Factors That Influence the Loyalty of a Hotel Customer Kandampully (2000) defines tourism as a unique product as it is composite in nature, an amalgam of the tangible and intangible which includes everything that tourists experience. Tourism is a fast-growing industry, which now had become one of the industries that playing an important role in financial status of a country. The number of the tourist is growing from year to years. According to Inskeep(1996), Tourism is a fast expanding sector, which brings an important contribution to the foreign exchange earnings of some country nowadays. Tourism industry not only related with government, but public and non government sector also playing a rarely important role in it. The figure above shows that the country and the total international tourism receipts for the countries from year 2006 to year 2008. As we can see from the figure, the income of the tourism sector of the country is increasing from time to time. Tourism is particularly adapted to highlight the nature of the upheavals implied by the development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in service activities. With roughly 11 % of the world total employment or Gross Domestic Product (GDP), tourism is often presented as the first worldwide industry. Europe is by far the first tourist continent. This economic strength of tourism, associated to a strong potential of growth, has induced deep competitive processes and significant industrial reorganization. Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been changing the global tourism industry rapidly. The implications of the Internet and other growing interactive multimedia platforms for tourism promotion are far reaching and alter the structure of the industry.The tourism does not follow the usual rules of economic theory, or of any other theory; besides, many authors are used to make reference about the indiscipline of tourism (Leiper, 2000, Tribe, 1997, Tremblay, 1 999). Tourism is not just a great industry to work in, but it is also a key for a countrys economy. The tourism industry in the UK is more than 4 % of the UKs Gross Domestic Product, which is worth around  £76 billion. It employs 2.1 million people, or almost 7.5% of the working population and approximately 1 in 5 of all new jobs created will be in tourism industry. So the government for UK had invested a huge budget available for tourism promotion and quality development. Tourism industry not only affects public sector management, but also influences business of private sector and it is an income creation for a company. Tourist can be people from oversea and it can be people from this country as well, but they does not intend to stay permanently. Tourist taking time to visit the places that they dont normally see.Tourism gathers all the activities dedicated to the satisfaction of the needs of the tourists, and borrows to a multitude of other activities. Tourist products are complex and heterogeneous products, combination of elements separated in time and space (Caccomo and Solonandrasana, 2001). Tourist products also often pre-defined packages assembling interrelated products and services (transport, accommodation services, leisure services). Contrary to the traditional good sectors, tourists have to go to the resources where resources are transformed to be delivered to the customers: whatever their intrinsic qualities, the resources acquire an economic value only with the organization of the traveling of the tourists and development of the activity (Spizzichino, 1991). Tourist products and services are often experience goods, the quality or utility are not known ex ante by the consumers; a system of advices and critics is thus necessary to the formalization of choices (Gensollen, 2003). The World Tourism Organization predicts that by 2020 tourist arrivals around the world would increase over 200%. Tourism has become a highly competitive business for tourism destination over the world. Competitive advantage in tourism industry it no longer depends only to what we provide to the customer, but it is now increasingly driven by science, information technology and innovation. The volatility of changes in the external and international environment also influences the performance of other business in tourism industry, such as hotel business, restaurant business and many more. An economic upswing or downturn will have an almost immediate impact on its performance. Tourism industry in Malaysia Service sector had become an important sector in Malaysia where it contributes approximately 50% of the nations real Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Tourism industry had been paying enough attention by the government since the Tourism Development Corporation (TDC) was established in year 1972. The Tourism Development Corporation is build to further expand the tourism through its marketing program and publicity campaigns to both locally and abroad. But the TDC only stand for 20 years and then replaced by Malaysian Tourism Promotion Board with the objective to stimulate and entice the number of visitor and tourist that visit to the country. The growth of total amount world tourism and Malaysia is one of the potential tourism destinations. It had contributed to the changes and focus in the tourism sector in the country. To enhance the tourism industry in Malaysia, the VMY campaign had been introduced. The fist Visit Malaysia Year (VMY) campaign was launch by year 1990 and tourism industry had become Malaysias third major foreign income exchange earner. But theres was some downturn in worldwide travel in year 1991 because of the Gulf War and this had causes the number of tourist had decreased moderately. The second Visit Malaysia Year (VMY) campaign was launch on year 1994. The growth rate remained far behind the first campaign despite of an increase of tourist in Malaysia about 10.7% in year 1994. The overall of the tourism industry in Malaysia showed an upward trend until the happening of the global financial crisis in year 1997. The total amount of the tourism receipts in year 1995 amounting to Ringgit Malaysia (RM) 9.2 billion had surpassed the target for the year 2000 in the National Tourism Plan which in about RM8.36 billion. Therefore, the investment approved for hotel and tourism-related projects has increased from RM8.801 billion to spur the growth of the tourism industry during the Sixth Malaysian Plan period to RM18.2 billion during the Seventh Malaysia Plan period (Economic Planning Unit, 2001). In an effort to succeed the tourism industry, Tourism Malaysia had signed a  £2 million deal with Manchester United in an effort to promote the visit Malaysia Year 2007 in September 2006. Besides that, Tourism Malaysia also signs a deal with Chelsea Football Club to promote the tourism industry in Malaysia and to succeed the VMY plan. Hospitality Industry Hospitality industry is major service sector in world economy and the industry encompasses an extensive variety of service such as food service, tourism and hotels. The hospitality industry can be divided into two parts. One is entertainment part like bar, pub, clubs; another one is accommodation such as resorts, public house, hotels, motels, inn, apartment and motels. Tourism support commercial activities such as travel agents and airline cabin staff are included in hospitality as well. Hotel Industry The early evidence of the existence of hotels and the hospitality industry has been recorded as far back as biblical times when Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem during the census, which is during 4 Before Christ (B.C.) of the Julian calendar, where Joseph went to Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David (Luke 2:1-4). People have start traveled for religion, family, needs, immigration, commerce, education, health, and recreation, since the beginning of time. As a result, hotels and inns had begun catering to the pleasure traveler in an effort to encourage visitors with the influence of the Roman Empire. It was recorded that the first inn located in America was in the year 1607. It leads the way with many other firsts in the hospitality industry (searchandgo.com). The first modern hotel (the Tremont) opened in Boston in year 1809. The first ever publicly held hotel (the City Hotel) was opened in New York in year 1792 and the first business hotel (the Buffalo Stat ler) opened in year 1908. Following that, a surge of hotels flooded America and the rest of the world with prominent names such as Radisson, Marriot and Hilton. According to the precious previous research, hotels, which also mean home away from home for the travelers and tourist, provide four types of service and product which had accommodation, foods, drinks, leisure or entertainment (Wood, 1997; Knowles, 1998). The hospitality industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the worldwide. The hospitality industry began to utilize information technology (IT) more than three decades ago (Berchiolly, 1997; Hensdill, 1998), well before many other industries. Hotels nowadays are much more than just a place to sleep, as many tourists view them as an integral part of a getaway experience. Spiffed-up budget properties, and novelty accommodations, travelers can choose a hotel that is as much a selling point as the destination itself with the recent boom of boutique hotels (Yashroy, 2008). The industry surge with expansions and new entrants in times of economic growth, with the tourism sector is growing as well. The hospitality industry was thus as early as the 1960s and 1970s in adopting operational information systems where a room management application was installed at the New York Hilton in 1963 (Sayles, 1963) and a property management system was installed at the Waikiki Sheraton in 1970. But according to Worcester (1997), he found that the main drawback of hospitality information systems was lack of accurate and timely information caused by the need to rekey information from various reports, instead of having access to integrated information managed in one consolidated database. The statement was support by Hensdill (1998), saying that the experts believe that in terms of IT the hospitality industry is about 2 years behind other industries. To survive in competitive advantage among the hotels, there are some factors that playing a fairly important role in it, such as brand image of the hotel, through the promotions and many more. Brand image plays a very important role in retaining customer loyalty and fulfill customers satisfaction in hotel industry to repurchasing the service again. According to the previous research by Zeithaml and Bitner (1996), image is also considered as a factor that can influence customers perception of the services and goods that been provide and also requires the ability to be communicated effectively and consistently to consumers. As a result, information and useful data such as the importance of maintaining a good image to retain loyal customers and also increase the corporate profit will be provide to hotel organization. As mentioned by Chaudhuri and Holbrook (2001), higher customer loyalty entails a higher market share and an ability to demand relatively higher prices compared to competitors. Consequently, the hotel organization would need to focus on customer loyalty in order for hotel organizations to survive. The statement is similar with the previous research by Aaker (1997) . With reference to Aaker (1997), increased customer loyalty has many advantages such as reduce marketing costs, solicit more customers, and successfully operate trading leverage. Hence, with factors involving Zeithaml et al. (1996), loyalty factors are crucial to an organization as it is the most reliable success indicators. Besides that, a favorable and famous brand image also helps to reduce the uncertainty of the products quality and increase the probability of consumers decision to purchase the product. According to Dick and Basu (1994), loyal customers encourage positive word-of-mouth promotion and challenge their competitors strategies. Thus, in regards to Fornell and Wernerfelt (1998) and Reichheld et al. (1996), increased customer loyalty will result in generating higher corporate profits. Strong brands are important to the hospitality industry. There are several issues in developing a brand, one of them is customers trust. And it has been suggested that service quality has a direct effect on organizations profits since it is positively related with customer retention and customer loyalty (Baker and Crompton, 2000; Zeithaml and Britner, 2000). Product or individuals public perception will be evaluating through market research to stresses the importance of modern public relations. After collect the data and challenges are identified, the process of counting and solution will be presented will be presented in a campaign strategy to met goals. Though techniques may different from campaign to campaign but theres some standard tools used are implemented in forms of press releases, press kits, satellite feeds, pod casts, web casts, wire service distribution of information and internet placement. Besides the technique mention above, other technique which include entertainment product placement (television, events, celebrity), product launches, press conferences, media seminars, producing events, speechwriting, establishing partnerships and more is often required, in which the perception obtain from the public through such means will result in positive views as a goal. Most of the hotels have different facilities for their customer. According to the research by Bauer et. Al (1993), he examined that the tourist from Asian and Non-Asian countries have different demand and differences for the facilities in hotel. Asian travelers appeared to looking for more entertainment facilities, such as karaoke, while for the Non-Asian travelers, they looking for more concern in health facilities, such as gym and swimming pool. And with the references to previous research, facilities are one of the factors that influence the satisfaction of the customer. Research Question Most of the hotel customers decide on which hotel to stay based on the reason below. Many customers repurchase the service after experience it and satisfied with the service they provide. Other factors such as brand image, service quality, public relations perception, service innovation and facilities also should take into consideration before making their decision. Thus, the main research problem of this study is to examine the factors that influence the loyalty of a hotel customer in Malaysia. To accomplish the study purpose, the following questions need to be responded: What are the critical factors that influence the loyalty of the hotel customer in Malaysia? Are there any interaction between the critical factors and hotel customer in Malaysia? How does the critical factor have an affect on the loyalty of hotel customer in Malaysia? Objectives of Study The overall goal or the general objectives of this research is determined and identify the critical factors that influence the loyalty of a hotel customer in Malaysia. The following specific objectives are established to aid accomplishing the goal of this research: To determine the critical factors (brand image, service quality, public relations perception, service innovation and facilities) that influences the loyalty of the hotel customer in Malaysia. To examine interaction between the critical factors (brand image, service quality, public relations perception, service innovation and facilities) and hotel customer in Malaysia To determine the critical factor (brand image, service quality, public relations perception, service innovation and facilities) have an affect on the loyalty of hotel customer in Malaysia. Scope of Study The focus of this study is in hotel industry. This is because the tourism sector had been increase highly and playing an important role in the financial status in a country nowadays. And the number of tourist is increasing from years to years and tourism industry had becoming one of the major industries in Malaysia. The research will be done by the tourist, especially which is having a visit in Malaysia currently. This study is going to be focused on customers both male and female who patronize hotels in Malacca. The age range would be targeted on customers ranging from the age of 20 until 50. The mentioned age group was chosen as a majority as they are the ones who have a stable job and earn their own income. They are the category of customers who are able to afford to patronize hotels and hold a valuable link to the study. A questionnaire was handed out to the customers to obtain their opinions and views regarding issues that influence their loyalty and satisfaction towards certain hotel brands. The study also focuses on the perceptive viewpoint of the aforementioned age group in which, their loyalty and awareness towards the particular line of hotel brand is measured to determine the effectiveness of brand advertising and public relation media. Definition of Terms Customer Satisfaction: A customers emotional response react after the usage of a product or service (Oliver 1981). Customer satisfaction is more likely complex human process that involves the cognitive and affective processes and it also involve other psychological and physiological influence (Oh and Parks, 1997). Customer Loyalty: The loyalty business model assumes the philosophical validity of pursuit of self-interest. True customer loyalty can be defined as customers resistance to competitors offerings (Gundlach et al., 1995) and the persuasive tactics to attract new customers (Dick and Basu, 1994). Service Quality: Parasuraman et al. (1985) that views quality as the customers perception of service excellence, i.e. quality is defined by the customers impression of the service provided. Brand Image: Brand image is considered to have the ability to influence customers perceptions of the goods and services offered (Zeithaml and Bitner, 1996). Public Relations Perception: Cultip et al., (1985) definition of public relations perception is the management function that identifies, establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the various public on whom its successes or failure depends. Structure of Project The present study is organized into five chapters. Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter shows and details the intention and reason for the carrying out of this research. This chapter also consists of sub-topics such as research background, research questions, research objectives, importance of study, scope of study and definition of terms which are aimed to increase readers understanding of this whole research. Chapter 2: Literature Review This chapter contains more detailed information on the e-commerce and tourism industry. This chapter also detailed information about evaluation of the relationship of service quality, brand image and public relations perception on customer loyalty. The early and present day history of hotel organizations is also included in this chapter. Besides that, this chapter also contains the discussion on the various variables and its validity which will be tested in this study. The findings of previous researchers on these variables are also taken into account. Chapter 3: Methodology This chapter entails the methods and approaches that are selected for the testing of variables in this study. This chapter also consists of further discussion on sub-topics such as sources of data, questionnaire design, measurement, sampling method, sample size, data analysis techniques and unit of analysis. The findings from previous studies are also considered in the further understanding of the approaches used. Chapter 4: Data Analysis This chapter involves the incorporation of the interpretation of the collected data from respondents via quantitative method. The determination of the acceptance or rejection of the stated hypotheses will also be tested. A software called Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) will be used in this research to measure the results. Chapter 5: Discussions and Conclusions This chapter explains the outcomes of the testing of the hypotheses determined from Chapter 4: Data Analysis. The acceptance or rejection of the hypothesis is discussed as well. Additionally, the concluded results of the hypothesis testing from this study are compared with results from previous researches to identify the differences and similarities. Chapter 2: Literature Review Introduction The purpose of this research is to determined and to identify the critical factors that influence the loyalty of a hotel customer in Malaysia. Due to an increase in travel expenditure, the tourism industry has also seen an evident growth over the recent years. Goeldner and Ritchie (2003) have predicted that by 2011, global travel and tourism are expected to generate US$7.0 trillion in economic activity and offer 260 million jobs. Ongoing globalization, in addition to permeable borders and easier transfers between countries has promoted a growth in tourism. They have more varieties of services to choose from In line with the abundant services offered to customers. Therefore, competition among competitors to provide the best services possible is created among the tourism organizations. Hotel Industry in Malaysia The hotel nowadays is not only just a place for travelers to sleep, but an integral part of a getaway experience. According to Yashroy(2008), travelers can choose a hotel that is a much a selling point as the destination itself, With the recent boom of boutique hotels, spiffed-up budget properties, and novelty accommodations. As tourism industry is playing an important role in financial status of a country, the hospitality industry in Malaysia too has seen an increase in contributing to the countrys GDP. The example of the Genting Group which represented Malaysia in the hotel, restaurants and leisure industry and was ranked at 1198th position in the Forbes Global 2000 ranking in 2008 (The Global 2000, Forbes) has shown to the public that the hospitality industry is beginning to emerge as one of the important service sub-sectors in Malaysia. The table above illustrates the contribution of various sectors to Malaysias GDP from year 2002 to 2007. As we can see from the table, the private service industrys GDP had increased from 44.7% in year 2002 to 46.4% in year 2007. The private service sector which includes restaurant, hotels, wholesale and retail trade, finance, insurance, real estates and business services sub-sectors. This shows that the services industry is one of the sectors concentrated by the government for improvement as it is gradually contributing a big portion to the countrys GDP. Besides that, Malaysian Association of Hotels (MAH) (hotels.org.my), has recorded that there has been evident growth in the hospitality sector, with average hotel occupancy rates having risen throughout 2007, from the mid-60% range at the beginning of the year to over 70% in 3Q 2007. The hotel industry nowadays has been recognized as a global industry since the development in the industry had been growing rapidly and steadily. The different lifestyle and culture of the customer have changed over time and the facilities in the hotel such as gym, swimming pool, and restaurant are no longer counted as luxuries but an essential component of their lifestyle. Tourism is a largest global export industry and due to the increasing growth of it, the number of hotels around the world had been increased as well. This had caused the intense competition among the hotels in the marketplace. Strong competition had been faces by the hotel organization to differentiate their organization from others by improve their service and facilities, increased choices, value for their money and also superior levels of service. As a result, service quality, brand image, public relation perceptions, and innovation of information technology as well as the improvement of the facilities in the hotel are important in catering to customers needs and as a strategy to retain them. Customer Loyalty According to Dick and Basu (1994), the forces of attitude and behavior had been assumed as factors that can influence the customers loyalty. Oliver (1999, p.35) had defined customer loyalty as: a deeply held commitment to re-buy or re-patronize a preferred product or service consistently in the future, thereby causing repetitive same-brand set or same brand-set purchasing despite situational influences and marketing efforts having potential to cause switching behavior. Although there are many variations about the definition of customer loyalty, but seems theres to be no unanimously agreed of definition for it, according to Jacoby and Chestnut (1978); Dick and Basu (1994); Oliver, (1999). However, there are instead three popular concepts about customer loyalty as below: Loyalty as primarily an attitude that sometimes leads to a relationship with the brand, Loyalty mainly expressed in terms of revealed behavior (i.e. the pattern of past purchases); and Buying moderated by the individuals own characteristics, circumstances, and/or the purchase situation. Many authors also had stressed the existence of a relationship between customer loyalty and business performance (Reichheld and Sasser, 1990; Reichheld, 1993; Sheth and Parvatiyar, 1995) and Barroso Castro and Martin Armario (1999) supported the statement by stated that loyal customers is not only increase the value of the business, but it is also an evident in enable the businesses to maintain the costs lower than those related with attracting new customers. Loyal customers not only help to encourage positive word-of-mouth promotion, challenge competitors strategies (Dick and Basu, 1994), but also generate higher corporate profits (Fornell and Wernerfelt, 1988; Reichheld et al., 2000). Besides that, the increasing of customer loyalty entails an increase in the market share and enables the companies to have the ability to demand relatively higher prices for their products or services than their competitors (Chaudhuri and Holbrook, 2001). This statement is supported by Aaker (1997) by stating that the company with higher customer loyalty can help the companies lower their marketing costs while seek more customers as well as successfully operate trading leverage in the same time. De Ruyter et al. (1998) stated that early customer loyalty studies also solely focused on the behavioral aspect but later shifted to an attitudinal approach. It was added that the latter approach can be studied by means of dimensions such as word of mouth, complaining behavior and purchase intention. There has also been some disagreement between researchers regarding to the attitudinal aspect of loyalty. The conflict focused on the argument was that the needed to be strong attitudinal commitment to a brand in order for true loyalty to exist (Day, 1969; Jacoby and Chestnut, 1978; Foxall and Goldsmith, 1994; Mellens et al., 1996; Reichheld, 1996). Dick and Basu (1994) have explained that these attitudes is measured on maybe by questioning people on how much they like a brand, how much of confidence they have commitment to it, will they recommend it to others, and having positive beliefs and feeling about it, as in comparison to other competing brands. Other than that, the five-item scale which was adapted by Zeithaml et al. (1996) had been used to measure as customer loyalty by earlier researches. However, Bernà © (1997) has mentioned that loyalty was measured indirectly by using an attitude scale in another research. He also pointed out that it is the most generally used system of measurement as a result of the complexity that is involved in attaining sequential information about repurchase intentions. In line with this, a seven-point, Likert scale was used in that particular research to measure customer loyalty. Service Quality Service quality is defined from the marketing fields which give the values to human interaction between a business and its customers. Service is important in business because services not only help the company to remain its customers loyalty, but also to enhance the firms image in the marketplace. In tourism sector, service quality is an important aspect that customers will look into before they decided to engage in purchasing the service. Therefore, those tourism organizations such as hotel organizations face an intense and fierce competition from their competitors to provide the best service and product to their customers. The term service has been defined in several ways. Service had been defined by Grà ¶nroos (2002, p.58) as: A service is an activity or a series of activities of a more or less intangible nature that normally, but not necessarily, takes place in the interaction between the customer and service employees and/or physical resources or foods and/or systems of the service provider, which are provided as solutions to customer problems. A definition also adopted by Zeithaml and Britner (1996), which stated by Quinn et al. (1987) whom defined services as: all economic activities whose output is not a physical product or construction, is generally consumed at the time of it is produced, and provides added value in forms (such as convenience, amusement, timeliness, comfort or health) that are essentially intangible concerns of its first purchaser. On the other hand, Horovitz (1986) had identified the three distinctive characteristics of service quality: the consumer will perceive all limitations in quality because most of the services are consumed at the same time as they are produced; a service is made up of a set of benefits, but it is predominantly an experience; and a fundamental aspect of service quality is derived from the quality of relationship between the service provider and the consumer. Parasuraman et al. (1988) defined service quality as a global judgment or attitude relating to the overall excellence or superiority of the service. Although there are many definitions about service quality, but theres one common definition that accepted by most researchers is the traditional notion provided by Parasuraman et al. (1985). He stated that views quality as the customers perception of service excellence, as quality is defined by the customers impression of the service provided. However, Bergman and Klefsjà ¶ (2003) stated service quality as the quality is often related with satisfied or preferably delighted customers. Service quality is important in retaining customer loyalty. Heskett et al. (1994) considered customer loyalty as behavior for increasing the profits and growth of a business. Quality is also the general impression of the relative inferiority or superiority of the organization and its services, according to Bitner and Hubbert (1994). Moreover, when looked at from a tourism organizations perspective, the functional aspects of services for example, is how they are offered, and has a much higher probability in influencing customers emotional feelings, than the technical aspects, for example, what is offered. Besides this, service literature also claims that the major issue of customer satisfaction is perceived quality (Parasuraman et al., 1988; Bitner, 1990; Carman, 1990). However, there are also some authors that giving the opposite relationship, stated that perceived quality is considered an antecedent of customer satisfaction (Cronin and Taylor, 1992; Anderson and Sullivan, 1993). Althou

Brave New World and Gattaca :: Brave New World

Brave New World and Gattaca Huxley   Living in a genetically perfect world is not necessarily a great achievement to mankind.   It makes one think, "where do you draw the line in the advancement of eugenics?"   Both worlds, the Brave New one and Gattaca, are alternative futures (clearly dystopic), written and shown in a believable way (not as much in BNW, though) through the use of satire.   Also, for GATTACA, the director incorporates the traditional elements of movie - a murder-mystery tied in with a love story PLUS a science fiction touch - very effectively.   Satire in Huxley's novel is glaringly obvious (mockery of the education system and the morals of today along with many more topics), as he writes with the purpose of teaching and humoring at the same time.   However, with GATTACA, the satirical messages are not immediately perceivable - even after having seen the movie three times.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   It is apparent that within the GATTACA institution, there is a definite discrimination against the genetic underclass; that naturally born.   Director Niccol is mocking the present-day view of prejudice and racism.   In the future of GATTACA, this prejudice is referred to as genoism - genetic discrimination.   Racism is a less specific form of genoism, and although such discrimination is outlawed, the laws are unenforceable because in this dystopian society, as it is in BNW, one's "genetic quotient" is known from birth.   The underclass people of this world are limited but aware of their social status and they are not particularly happy with it.   With the BNW, the lower castes seem to be (they are made to believe so) aware but they are conditioned to like their "light,...childishly simple" work. (p.204 BNW)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Another satirical message explored in both works in that of publicity.   Our society is becoming increasingly accessible, yet controlled, through the use of surveillance of ID.   Huxley and Niccol are merely pointing out that it is incredibly disconcerting to think that one day, our identities will be verified through daily blood and urine samples.   On this topic, the one difference between the BNW and GATTACA is the in BNW, the Director or Controller is aware of the "individuals'" level of promiscuity or behaviour through the word of mouth.   There is also one major similarity; in both worlds, the Director is quite conscious of the existence of the Alphas and in the case of GATTACA, the elites.

National cinema

The concept of national cinema in the age of globalization has several aspects to be debated upon. The matter demands attention specifically to be justified from the cultural point of view as well as commercial point of view. Firstly, the relationship between National identity and Cinema needs to be clarified. Each Nation or Country has some of its specific or salient traits in terms of its food, attire, language, sports, flora and fauna, country flag etc., which may be classified as the specific traits of a nationality, each of the said traits are restricted within the boundary of a nation and signifies the essence of   nativity. Cinema has commonly been analyzed as a medium of expression, specific to a geographically situated culture and within Cinema’s taxonomy, privilege has been granted to national cultures. The term National cinema is commonly used in film theory and film criticism to describe the films associated with a specific country, which   is hard to define, and its meaning is debated by film scholars and critics.A film may be considered to be part of the â€Å"national cinema† of a country based on a number of factors, such as the country that provided the financing for the film, the language spoken in the film, the nationalities or dress of the characters, and the setting, music, or cultural elements present in the film. To define a national cinema, some scholars emphasize the structure of the film industry and the roles played by â€Å"†¦market forces, government support, and cultural transfers. But, as cinema holds its root in the trade industry and it may be expressed in terms of exhibition and consumption, it calls for the importance of its trans-national exposure in this era of globalization. As a sequel, Cinema being an Industry, may be defined explicitly on economic terms, concerning basic infrastructures of production, distribution, exhibition on the capitalization and integration scale, as has also been depicted by Andrew Higson, 1997. It also involves patterns of ownership and control, size and constitution of workforce of the production unit, the size of domestic market, the degree of penetration of foreign markets , extent of foreign intervention ( from economic or cultural perspective) and the relative economic health of the industry. Thus, the history of ‘national’ cinema turns out to be portrayal of the history of a business seeking a secure position in the financial market with a view to maximize profits and generation of employment and hence, it is improper to assume that Cinema and film culture is bound by the national or state limits (Higson, 1997).   Ideally, any commodity when labeled national is bound to be primarily confined and positively contribute towards its place/state of origin. But in today’s era of liberalization /globalization, classification of Cinema cannot be restricted to any nation’s boundary. It would not be imprudent to mention here that ‘cinema’ originating from a specific country can only be termed as ‘national’ in true sense, when it projects the theme of nationhood, highlighting some national specific characters, ideologies, culture, traditions etc., without any sort of deviation from the same. But, in today’s world how many such films are released in the whole world is a million dollar question. The ultimate motive of Cinema which essentially goes transnational is to attain the status of popular Cinema, which is grossly different from so called, national theme cinema, hardly worthy of critical appreciation. Thus, it becomes imperative that it is not at all feasible to use the term national cinema in today’s global era where everything is transnational. Actually, there is only one Cinema of vertical integration, or the cinema which facilitates the production, distribution and consumption of films. Demarcation of   Cinema as ‘French’, ‘American’ or ’British’ concedes far too much to the misguided ideal of national culture. Although, all moves need not be portrayed of a nation, it is proved that when cinema goes global, at least up to some extent, it reflects the culture of its country of origin, the traditions, the economic and political scenario, across the transnational boundaries there by enriching the knowledge of the target audience across the global boundaries facilitating wider acceptance of the same. For instance, as per Scott MacKenzie, University of Glasgow, Canadian cultural and film critics have long debated how Canadian national cinema can be defined, or whether there is a Canadian national cinema. Most of the films shown on Canadian movie screens are US imports. If â€Å"Canadian national cinema† is defined as the films made in Canada, then the canon of Canadian cinema would have to include lightweight teen-oriented fare such as Meatballs(1979), Porky's (1983) or Death Ship (1980). Other critics have defined Canadian national cinema as a â€Å"†¦reflection of Canadian life and culture.† Similarly, France's national cinema includes both popular cinema and â€Å"avant-garde† films. French national cinema is associated with the auteur filmmakers and with a variety of specific movements. Avant-garde filmmakers include Germaine Dulac, Marie and Jean Epstein. Poetic Realism filmmakers include Jean Renoir and Marcel Carne. The French New Wave filmmakers include Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut. The 1990s and 2000s â€Å"postmodern cinema† of France includes filmmakers such as Jean-Jacques Beinex. German national cinema was influenced by silent and sound â€Å"Bergfilm† (this translates to â€Å"mountain film†). During 1920s and early 1930s, German national cinema was known for the progressive and artistic approaches to filmmaking with â€Å"shifted conventional cinematic vocabulary† and which gave actresses a much larger range of character-types. During the Nazi era, the major film studio UFA was controlled by Propaganda Minister Goebbels. UFA produced â€Å"Hetzfilm† (anti-Semitic hate films) and films which emphasized the â€Å"theme of heroic death.† Other film genres produced by UFA during the Nazi era included historical and biographical dramas that emphasized the achievements in German history, comedy films, and propaganda films as quoted by Sabine Hake (2002). According to film scholar Marek Haltof, the Polish School of directors made films which can be described as the â€Å"Cinema of Distrust.† In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Wajda, Krzysztof Zanussi and Barbara Sass made influentual films which garnered interest outside of Poland. At times, it proves highly tarnishing for the image of the country of origin of the Cinema, when the original piece of work is either, dubbed, subtitled or remade in the local languages, which attributes to wrong portrayal or misinterpretation on the part of the target global viewers and its impact may not be the same in all the nations, as foreseen. Thus, the national cinema need not be the best way to portray the nation trans-nationally. At the same time, if a cinema does well, internationally, its popularity and acceptance hold the nation high and sometimes it becomes a marketable brand. On the contrary, we may view the traveling of cinema effortlessly across the national borders as a powerful means of celebrating cultural diversity, transnational experiences and multinational identities. Even the impact of global cinemas falls on the production of local films, which definitely calls for a better standard, as far as the technical aspects are concerned. For example, reportedly, Boot-legged video cassettes of Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993) were available in subway stations in Moscow the day before the film was released in United States. Many Americans, as well as audiences in other nations, have developed a taste for Japanese anim’e and martial art films from Hong Kong. Hong Kong Cinema has influenced the style of Hollywood movies, ranging from the works of   Quentin Tarantino to the Wachowski brothers, if certain elements of American crime films have been appropriated by Hong Kong directors, ninja choreography is at home in Los Angeles, not only in movies but also in dance moves on MTV. Increasingly, we are seeing the emergence of hybrid. Indian films are screened in Africa, England and even United States often catering to diaspora audiences. But at the same time, there lies a risk of the local indigenous cinemas promoting national identities to be displaced. It may be inferred that though it is not feasible to categorize cinema as ‘national’ cinema in this era of globalization, it would certainly culminate to the fact that as cinemas goes trans-national the cohesiveness among the nations based on the portrayed common platform of thoughts or ideologies being conveyed through films/cinema. Also, the cinema personalities, figures happen to become popular and acceptable worldwide. If the concept of ‘modern nation’ is referred, we consider the entire area of reach of a film under the jurisdiction of one single nation, which reaps the benefit of the cinema. Hence, we may consider the national cinema as a global brand in the age of globalization, which enriches, entertains and caters to the intellectual needs of the target audience globally. Bibliography Author : Andrew Higson (1997) – ‘Waving the Flag’ : Construction a National Cinema in Britain, Publisher :Clarendon Press, Oxford Publication. Cinema and Nation , Contributors : Mette Hjort (2000), Editor, Scott Mackenzie, Publisher : Routledge, London Publication. Theorizing National Cinema, Edited by Valentina & Paul (June, 2006) Scott MacKenzie, University of Glasgow. National Identity, Canadian Cinema, and Multiculturalism. Available at: http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:tDs13p3Z-rkJ:www.uqtr.ca/AE/vol_4/scott.htm+national+cinema&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=20 German National Cinema, by Sabine Hake. London and New York: Routledge, 2002. Trade paper, ISBN 0-41508-902-6. Reviewed by Robert von Dassanowsky. Available at: http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/38/booksgerman.htm ^ Shelia Skaff. The cinema that is Marek Haltof's Polish National Cinema. Review of Marek Haltof's book Polish National Cinema. Available at: http://www.kinoeye.org/02/14/skaff14.php World Cinema Critical Approaches, Edited by Johnhill and Pamela Church Gibson, Oxford University Press Publication         

Antiphishing

Name: B. sreevidya Rno: 08491D5804 FINDIND & STOPING OF PHISHING ATTACKS THROUGH ONLINE ABSTRACT: Phishing is a new type of network attack where the attacker creates accurate copy of an existing web page to fool users ex submitting personal, financial, or password data to what they think is their service provider’s website. The concept is an anti-phishing algorithm, called the Link Guard, by utilizing the generic characteristics of the hyperlinks in phishing attacks. The link Guard algorithm is the concept for finding the phishing emails sent by the phisher to grasp the information of the end user.Link Guard is based on the careful analysis of the characteristics of phishing hyperlinks. Each end user is implemented with Link Guard algorithm. Existing System: 1) Detect and block the phishing Web sites in time: If we can detect the phishing Web sites in time, we then can block the sites and prevent phishing attacks. But it's difficult to find those phishing sites out in time . There are two methods for phishing site detection. a) The Web master of a legal Web site periodically scans the root DNS for suspicious sites. ) Since the phisher must duplicate the content of the target site, he must use tools to (automatically) download the Web pages from the target site. It is therefore possible to detect this kind of download at the Web server and trace back to the phisher. Drawbacks:-Many phishing attacks simply do not require a DNS name. For phishing download detection, clever phishers may easily write tools 2) Enhance the security of the web sites: The business Websites such as the Web sites of banks can take new methods to guarantee the security of users' personal information.There two method to enhance the security a) Using hardware devices: For example, a hand-held card reader b)Biometrics characteristic: e. g. voice, fingerprint, iris, etc. Drawbacks:-All these techniques need additional hardware and also will increase the cost. Therefore, it still need s time for these techniques to be widely adopted. Block the phishing e-mails by various spam filters: The phishers hide their identities when sending the spoofed e-mails, therefore, if anti-spam systems can determine whether an e-mail is sent by the announced sender the phishing attacks will be decreased dramatically.The techniques that preventing senders from counterfeiting their Send ID (e. g. SIDF of Microsoft) can defeat phishing attacks efficiently. SIDF is a combination of Microsoft's Caller ID for E-mail and the SPF (Sender Policy Framework). Both Caller ID and SPF check e-mail sender's domain name to verify if the e-mail is sent from a server that is authorized to send e-mails of that domain and from that to determine whether that e-mail use spoofed e-mail address. If it's faked, the Internet service provider can then determine that e-mail is a spam e-mail.The spoofed e-mails used by phishers are one type of spam e-mails. the spam filters can also be used to filter those phi shing e-mails. Spam filters are designed for general spam e-mails and may not very suitable for filtering phishing e-mails since they generally do not consider the specific characteristics of phishing attacks. 4) Install online anti-phishing software in user’s computers: Despite all the above efforts, it is still possible for the users to visit the spoofed Web sites. As a last defense, users can install anti-phishing tools in their computers.The anti-phishing tools in use today can be divided into two categories: blacklist/white list based and rule-based. a) When a user visits a Web site, the antiphishing tool searches the address of that site in a blacklist stored in the database. If the visited site is on the list, the anti-phishing tool then warns the users . They cannot prevent the attacks from the newly emerged (unknown) phishing sites. b) Uses certain rules in their software, and checks the security of a Web site according to these rules.Examples Spoof Guard and Trust W atch provide a toolbar in the browsers all the above defense methods are useful and complementary to each other, but none of them are perfect at the current stage. PROPOSED SYSTEM A. Classification of the hyperlinks in the phishing e-mails The hyperlinks used in the phishing e-mail into the following categories: 1) The hyperlink provides DNS domain names in the anchor text, but the destination DNS name in the visible link doesn't match that in the actual link. For instance, the following hyperlink: <a href= â€Å"http://www. profusenet. et/checksession. php†>https://secure. regionset. com/EBanking/logon/ </a> appears to be linked to secure. regionset. com, which is the portal of a bank, but it actually is linked to a phishing site www. profusenet. net. 2) Dotted decimal IP address is used directly in the URI or the anchor text instead of DNS name. For example. <a href= â€Å"http://61. 129. 33. 105/secured-site/www. skyfi. Com/ index. html? MfclSAPICommand=Sig nInFPP&UsingSSL= 1†³> SIGN IN </a> 3) The hyperlink is counterfeited maliciously by using certain encoding schemes.There are two cases: a) The link is formed by encoding alphabets into their corresponding ASCII codes. See below for such a hyperlink. <a href=†http://034%02E%0333%34%2E%311%39%355%2E%o340o31:%34%39%30%33/%6C/%69%6E%64%65%78%2E%68%74%6D†> www. citibank. com </a> While this link is seemed pointed www. citibank. com, it actually points to http://4. 34. 195. 41:34/l/index. htm. b) Special characters (e. g. (in the visible link) are used to fool the user to believe that the e-mail is from a trusted sender.For instance, the following link seems is linked to amazons, but it actually is linked to IP address 69. 10. 142. 34. http://www. amazon. com:[email  protected] 10. 142. 34. 4) The hyperlink does not provide destination information in its anchor text and uses DNS names in its URI. The DNS name in the URI usually is similar with a famous company or organization. For instance, the following link seems to be sent from PayPal, but it actually is not. Since paypal-cgi is actually registered by the phisher to let the users believe that it has something to do with paypal <a href= â€Å"http://www. aypal-cgi. us/webscr. php? Cmd=Login†> Click here to confirm your account </a> 5) The attackers utilize the vulnerabilities of the target Web site to redirect users to their phishing sites or to launch CSS (cross site scripting) attacks. For example, the following link <a href=†http://usa. visa. com/track/dyredirjsp? rDirl=http://200. 251. 251. 10/. verified/†> Click here <a> Once clicked, will redirect the user to the phishing site 200. 251. 251. 10 due to a vulnerability of usa. visa. com. B. LINK GUARD ALGORITHM:LinkGuard works by analyzing the differences between the visual link and the actual link. It also calculates the similarities of a URI with a known trusted site C. LI NK GUARD IMPLEMENTED CLIENT: It includes two parts: a whook. dll dynamic library and a LinkGuard executive. Whook is a dynamic link library; it is dynamically loaded into the address spaces of the executing processes by the operating system. Whook is responsible for collecting data, such as the called links and visual links, the user input URLs. LinkGuard is the key component of the implementation.It’s composed of 5 parts Comm: This collects the information of the input process, and sends these related information’s to the Analyzer. Database: Store the white list, blacklist, and the user input URLs. Analyzer: It is the key component of Link Guard, which implements the Link Guard algorithm; it uses data provided by Comm and Database, and sends the results to the Alert and Logger modules. Alerter: When receiving a warning message from Analyzer, it shows the related information to alert the users and send back the reactions of the user back to the Analyzer.Logger: Archive the history information, such as user events, alert information, for future use. Software And Hardware Specification HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS * Hard disk:20 GB and above * RAM:256 MB and above * Processor speed: 1. 6 GHz and above SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS * Operating System: Windows 2000/XP * Documentation Tool:Ms word 2000 * Technology used : jsp,servlets,Apache Tomact 5. 5 * Database : Oracle XE