Punctuated Equilibrium Theory

Punctuated Equilibrium Theory Puppet www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFcqvBk1gNA With businesses becoming increasingly dependent on IT systems which are constantly becoming larger and more complex, its critical that they are managed efficiently. Systems administrators are tasked with the management of these systems, with a large amount of their time being spent on repetitive processes such as deployment, configuration and updates. Puppet provides an expansible configuration management platform that can be used to help automate these tasks, increasing the speed, reliability and auditability of the process. Puppet works by providing a language that allows you to define exactly how your infrastructure should be configured. This provides consistency across the infrastructure and increases security by ensuring all systems are configured correctly. If a configuration change is needed, the change only must be made once before it can then be pushed out and applied to the entire infrastructure. This also inherently improves the auditability of the infrastructure by ensuring all security and compliance policies are rolled out across the entire organization. A graphical dashboard allows the status all parts of the organizations infrastructure to be tracked and can generate reports, providing a quick and easy way to complete security and compliance audits. The Health industry has some of the most onerous compliance requirements to ensure the strict security of patient data. Implementing Puppet would allow system administrators to streamline the compliance process by pushing required configuration and software updates across their entire infrastructure quickly and easily. An important part of demonstrating compliance of security policies is ensuring users only have access to the systems they are authorized to use. Puppet includes role-based access control features which allow administrators to assign specific permissions to users on both an individual and group level and can be integrated with existing directory services such as Active Directory and OpenLDAP. Ensuring users have access to the systems and hardware they require to complete their respective roles without impacting productivity whilst maintaining security and compliance is key to ensuring a successful workplace. Larger Health organizations such as Ramsay Health Care which has over 220 hospitals and day surgery facilities across Australia, France, the United Kingdom, Indonesia and Malaysia (About Ramsay Health Care, n.d.) could take advantage of the high availability and scalability of Puppet. High availability configurations eliminate downtime by having multiple Puppet servers across multiple locations which provide failover and redundancy in the event of an outage at another location while also ensuring performance. Puppet can be configured to manage any number of nodes across any number of locations which can help consolidate staff and ensures consistency across all locations. The Punctuated Equilibrium Theory suggests that within the Information Technology industry, technology is primarily in a state of equilibrium, with only minor changes occurring. However occasionally technology can go through short revolutionary period that can disrupt the equilibrium and bring on large disruptive change, which will then become the basis for the next equilibrium period. Adoption of this technology offers to change how infrastructure is managed in a revolutionary way. The implementation and management of the underlying systems can be automated in a way that allows staff responsible for these tasks to spend less time on repetitive system configurations and fixing known issues. With business becoming increasingly reliant on on-premises, cloud and hybrid-cloud infrastructures its only a matter of time before automation platforms such as Puppet become commonplace. References Grudin, Jonathan. (2012) Punctuated equilibrium and technology change. interactions 19, 5 (September 2012) 62-66. doi: 10.1145/2334184.2334200 Krum, S., Hevelingen, W. V., Kero, B., Turnbull, J., McCune, J. (2013). Pro Puppet. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4302-6041-7 Puppet. (n.d.). Puppet The shortest path to better software. Retrieved March 11, 2017, from www.puppet.com Puppet. (2016, August 2). How Puppet works.[Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFcqvBk1gNA Ramsay Health Care. (n.d.) About Ramsay Health Care. Retrieved 15 March 2017, from http://www.ramsayhealth.com/About-Us

Should Australia Introduce Any Tax Or Gst Changes? :: essays research papers

Why do we need taxes?Taxation makes up majority of our government's income. With this income the government can provide us with proper infrastructure and social services for little, if no cost at all. These include Medicare, social security and education. (These facilities are known as recurrent expenditures because it is needed time after time.) Other expenditures include transportation, lighting, recreation etc. These services are granted to us at no costs. In many 3rd world countries where taxation is low or doesn't exist, all of these services are to come out of one's own pocket. Over the many centuries, in which taxation was existent, people have cheated and avoided paying these taxes. Nowadays people with high-income put their money into trusts, superannuation, or incorporate it into businesses. Businesses would try and receive more cash transactions. This has led to a decrease in our government's revenues, thus leading to a tax reform in hope of a more effective result. What makes a good tax system?There are four elements in a successful tax system. They are effectiveness, efficiency, equitability, and simplicity. 1) Effectiveness: is the performance compared to the desired effect. E.g. the number of people who pays tax, how much tax is received.2) Efficiency: is the cost of running the system. The system may be very effective with a million tax officers, but it would cost millions to hire so many people. 3) Equitability: is the fairness of the system. This is an impossible goal to achieve. From different people's point of views, the system will always be unfair to them in some way. Not to mention the tax cheats. The best solution is to broaden the number of people who pay the tax, which is only fair. 4) Simplicity: A tax system should never be too complexed, it is otherwise not efficient neither understandable. The income tax Act that just started off at just 120 pages in 1936 is now over 3300 pages and has doubled in size over the last 7 years. A complex system means that those who can afford expensive tax advice minimize their tax. But those that can't, pay the full share. It is impossible to have a system where all four elements are satisfactory. Where a system may be effective and efficient it will not be equitable or simple. It is impossible to fit the whole population all under one roof. Under these circumstances the government proposed a new way of taxation- GST.

Company Q Social Responsibility Essay

Company Q Social Responsibility Social responsibility is often viewed as an inconvenience that cuts into shareholder profits. An organization that with this outlook on social responsibility is missing a significant opportunity to improve public perception and drive profits. This is clearly the view of company Q. When twice presented with the opportunity to create both social and monetary capital, they failed miserably. This likely contributed to the closure of 2  stores due to low performance. Not only are they harming their stakeholders (the communities in which they operate) but, they are also harming their shareholders by not capitalizing on revenue opportunities. (Ferrell et al., 2013) There are three clear answers to their deficiencies. The first and most obvious is to begin donating the items that are expired to the local food bank as requested. The second is to implement a code of ethics in the corporate guidelines. Lastly, they should be expanding the current selections of healthy and organic foods. If th ese steps are followed, can the Company Q dig itself out of the loss column and see some profits? The answer is yes. Company Q was recently approached by the local food bank, and asked to donate the day old foods that Company Q had been throwing away. Management declined, opting instead to to continue to write the food off as a loss and throw it into the trash. The reason that was cited was concern for fraud and employee theft. This is an example of the company taking the short term bottom line approach. They have completely ignored an opportunity for positive public relations and social capital. Both of which have been shown to have a positive impact on monetary capi- Running Head: Company Q Social Responsibility There are few opportunities that a business is given where the benefits are so obvious with very little capital investment. How does Company Q accomplish this without risking fraud and employee theft. The answer is simple. Management is clearly not showing a commitment to ethical behavior and it has trickled down to the employee level. An organization cannot expect individual ethics to self govern organization ethics. (Ferrell et al., 2013) If Company Q were to draft a corporate code of ethics, there would be clear guideline to follow when it came to employee expectations. In a perfect world company would draft provisions within this code of ethics for positively impacting the communities they operate beyond offering goods and services for sale. This would send a clear message to  employees of expectations give the company a more positive outlook on social responsibility. Thereby, benefiting both stakeholders and shareholders alike. (Ferrell et al., 2013) Company Q has a fiduciary responsibility as well as a social responsibility. Their fiduciary responsibility is to their shareholders. Management has missed out on opportunities to grow the business in market segments that had been previously ignored. It is not often that customers give direct feedback that translates to higher profits. In the case of healthy organic food options being requested by customers, this is the case. Not only have customers stated that they will buy these items, but these are high margin items that will drive profits, and allow them to increase value for their shareholders. At the same time their social responsibility obligations are being fulfilled by offering these healthy foods to customers. Running Head: Company Q Social Responsibility In a time when many small local businesses struggle to compete with large mega corporations such as Wal-Mart, they cannot afford to ignore an option for strengthening their business. Even if it is different than what they have traditionally done. Reference Ferrell, O. (2013). Business Ethics 2009 Update: Ethical Decision Making and Cases [VitalSouce bookshelf version]. Retrieved from http://online.vitalsource.com/books/9781285279985/id/ch2-L1

Why The Prodigy Artist Is Intrigued By Them - 2323 Words

Question 2 Leung Ka Ho (s1659467) RAPHAEL, LETTER TO POPE LEO X, ARCHITECTURAL DRAWINGS: WHY THE PRODIGY PAINTER IS INTRIGUED BY THEM Architectural drawings, despite its many crude forms, has existed long before the time of the Italian painter-architect Raphael Sanzio da Urbino. Nevertheless, with reference to Wolfgang Lotz, the prodigy painter’s letter to Pope Leo X has been regarded as the trailblazer of â€Å"the rendering of interior in architectural drawings†. Such fundamental foundations to architectural drawings are in fact the collaborative work of Raphael and several individuals, more specifically intimate friend humanist Baldassare Castiglione, translator of Vitruvius’ De Architectura Fabio Calvo and teams of scholars due to his inept expression through literal means. As a result, at least three versions of the letter are created (in chronological order of the date of publication or discovery) : a now-lost manuscript owned by Scipione Maffei in a collection of works of Baldassare Castiglione published by the Giovanni Antonio and Gaetano Volpi in Padua (1733); a Munich manuscript publi shed in 1847; and a draft with the first parts of the letter that could decipher the complete text surfaced in the Castiglione family archives in Mantua and later published in 1910. The letter sets up the rudimentary foundations for architectural drawings to flourish and its significance is twofold: to depict RenaissanceShow MoreRelatedHow Facebook Effects Relationships1670 Words   |  7 Pageslot of curse words associated. The posts pop on the community wall so a person doesn’t have to go to each individual’s page to see their plans. This feature is beneficial because it allows a friend to discover plans and therefore work with, or around them to be able to see or communicate with that person without having to go through to hassle of keeping in touch every hour or having to send a text to twenty of your friends about what you’re doing that day. Another benefit of Facebook is it allows aRead MoreCrossing the Chasm76808 Words   |  308 Pageshighly changing world. The chasm model represents a pattern in market development that is based on the tendency of pragmatic people to adopt new tech- Preface to the Revised Edition ix nology when they see other people like them doing the same. This causes them to hang together as a group, and the group’s initial reaction, like teenagers at a junior high dance, is to hesitate and watch. This is the chasm effect. The tendency is very deep-rooted, and so the pattern is very persistent. As