The East Asia Essay Example for Free

The East Asia Essay The East Asia is basically an Asian sub region. In geographical sense, the East Asia is known to have 12,000,000 km2 under its expanse. This is equivalent to 28% of the Asian continent. This also means that the East Asia outdoes Europe geographically by 15%. Asia also enjoys a large population, given that it hosts a population that is equivalent to that of a quarter of the world’s population. Many communities at the same time continue to be part and parcel of the East Asia. Some of these societies are Mainland China, Japan, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Macau, Taiwan, South Korea and North Korea. The capital cities that are under the jurisdiction of the East Asia are Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul, Taipei, Pyongyang and Ulan Bator. The major cities that fall under the East Asia are Hong Kong, Yokohama, Busan, Kaohsiung, shanghai, Osaka and Guangzhou, among others. At times, the East Asia is also referred to as North East Asia so that it includes the Southeast Asia (Holvin and Mandy, 2001). On the other hand, Europe conventionally stands out as a continent. Europe consists of the Eurasian westernmost Peninsula, being apportioned from the Asian continent to the east by the Ural Mountains’ water divide such as the Ural River and the Caspian Sea. It is also partitioned to the southeast by the Caucasus Mountains. To the north of Europe, there is the Arctic Ocean, to the south, the Mediterranean Sea, to the west, the Atlantic Ocean and to the southeast, the black sea, and other water bodies that connect the Mediterranean to Europe. Being the second smallest continent, the continent covers 10,180,000 km2. This is equivalent to 2% of the earth’s total surface. However, the demographics of Europe makes up for it, given the fact that it is the third most populous continent in the world, following after Asia and Africa. Numerically, Europe’s population translates to approximately 11% of the global population, although the UN estimates that this demographic status of Europe is likely to take a plunge by 4% by the year 2050. The largest cities in Europe are Moscow, Istanbul, London, Madrid, Saint Petersburg, Rome, Berlin, Athens and Kiev, among others (United Nations, 2003). Bautista (2000) points out that presently, the East Asia’s economy has been growing by leaps and bounds, compared to that of Europe that seems to be stagnant. For instance, whereas the economic growth of Europe from 2005 to 2006 is said to have been 2. 1%, that of East Asia is known to have hit the 5% mark, in this same period alone. While this can be thought to be dismal, yet, when this is compared to the fact that in the 90s this figure would be limited to 1. 01%, it can be easily deduced that East Asia seems to be expediting its economic growth with more vigor than her counterpart Europe (Foders, 1998). The above situation has led to speculations and prognosis by economic pundits that it is only a matter of time when East Asia will outshine Europe’s economy. The above debate of East Asia’s economic growth’s proclivity to overtake that of Europe is therefore tackled in this paper by looking not just at the current growth rate of these blocks, but by also analyzing other factors that underpin both domestic and international trade. In the first place, apart from the four Asian Tigers (otherwise known as Asian Tiger Nations), the majority of the Asian nations are not highly industrialized or completely developed. This means that these Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in East Asia have to remain reliant on the external aid. Fingleton (2003) says that ever since the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of Cold War, there came about a new wave of political and economic systems that seemed to insinuate that the US emerged as a winner of the then just- ended war. This is to the effect that majority of the countries globally assimilated capitalism as the chief mode of economic production and democracy as the way of politics and government, whereas on the other hand, the cause of communism and socialism seemed to have waned. As if this is not enough, because of the huge financial pool of resources, majority of countries turned to America and her allies for economic help and political advice. However, it is unfortunate that America and Europe are the most developed in the world. Even the communist Russia and Germany fall under the domains of Europe. However, it is true that since the economic powerhouses were mainly US or Western Europe, it became expedient that these nations seek intervention from these quarters of the world. At the same time, it became expedient that these two quarters formalize the course of offering financial assistance to these countries so as to bury any indications of neocolonialism by creating the two Breton woods institutions- the International Monetary Funds (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) (Wendy, 2000). East Asian economic pundits maintain that it is these institutions that have continued to derail the cause of economic growth in the region. For instance, based on the policies of International Trade, the two institutions maintained that it was inevitable that the countries in the East Asia open up their markets to allow the globalisation of trade. The problem with this is that by that time, East Asian nations have not been industrialised, while on the other hand, the US, UK and countries in Western Europe had already undergone industrial revolution (Gill and Kharas, 2006). Shinn (1998) posits that the above condition led to a situation whereby the East Asian countries were flooded by exotic products that were of superior value and minimal prices as these highly industrialised countries were able to produce surplus products. This causes an industrial slump as the locally manufactured products became overwhelmed by the cheap, second hand but superior products, causing spiraling effects and foreclosures of local industries, especially in the fabric, cotton, and foods and beverages industries. At the same time, this only means that these countries were to remain dependent dumping sites for the US and the West. Isaac (2000) says that at the same time, majority of the developing nations in East Asia are still suffering from the resultant industrial foreclosures as unemployment and losses of jobs became the order of the day. With unemployment being a major problem, other factors such as insecurity and lawlessness from the unemployed youth searching for means of livelihood crept in and scared off active investors from these countries. The fact that these governments are deprived their means of local livelihood also cannot be gainsaid (US Congress, 2003). In about the same wavelength, it is still a World Trade Organization post DOHA construction that all participants were to ensure equal competition by making sure that all the interactions on international trade are bereft of the exaction of international trade. However, this did and does not auger well for East Asian countries given the fact that these countries are economic fledglings and as such, were highly dependent on the exaction of trade tariffs as a source of income. The reversal of the exaction of tariffs has only been succeeding in depriving these nations of sources of domestic income. Francks et al (1999), say that the DOHA reconstructions at the same time made stipulations that these governments (including the rest of the LDCs) are not to lend subsidies to the farmers. Joseph and Michael (2007) maintain that the WTO DOHA reconstructions maintained that this was an artifice to ensure that farmers were at par in this international trade competition. Nevertheless, it is sad that this only succeeded in eradicating the domestic farmers out of this trade as the cost of fertilizers, research, hybrid seeds, livestock insemination became too much for them to handle by themselves. To this effect, the main beneficiary remains the farmer in the developed economies or Europe who is already skilled and has larger financial pool to afford farming incentives. These LDCs in East Asia remains shortchanged in international sector (Pain, N. 2004). It is no wonder that on January 11th, 2005, riots erupted in Cancun, Philippines and in other numerous pockets of LDCs as farmers and locals in all LDCs took to the streets in protest of these unrealistic WTO Objectives. According to Matthew (2003), this came in the wake of revelations that the Bush Administration had already raked 25 billion dollars in one decade, whereas the LDCs were making losses out of international trade in the agricultural sector. Western (2000) says that it is also an observation that in the international trade, it is a principle that the respective governments are to allow for a laissez faire condition to exist. This means that the governments are to cede away the power to regulate the prices of commodities. On the contrary, it is those who deal in the production and distribution of such products that are to set the prices thereof. This concept of market fundamentalism is still being misused by these market forces as they up the prices on poor defenseless populations. The stipulations that had been introduced by the IMF and the WB as the panacea to the East Asian LDCs did not ameliorate matters either. In order to assuage the widespread poverty that was threatening to smother these LDCs, it was proposed by the IMF and WB that the LDCs ratify the policies known as Cost Sharing (Columbus, 2000). To this effect, these East Asian LDCs were to attenuate the volume of financial pool being channeled towards the educational sector. The amount of loans and incentives being issued to fund tertiary levels of learning were to be cut down. The above resulted into a situation whereby university education became a preserve of the rich as those who were poor could no longer fund their educational programmes. For the first time, in 1991, students in these countries were being dismissed from the universities on account of not having cleared fee payment. As far as the East Asian LDCs are concerned, the situation still persists, leading to massive brain drain (Martin, 2002). Nevertheless, as far as the Europe and the US are concerned, gains are being realised from the above impasse in the educational sector as mass exodus of East Asian students for oversee education continues to see the best of intellectual potential go to Europe or the US (Neuhaus, 2006). These, after being trained, are offered jobs in these foreign countries and accorded a status of citizenship. There is no regional block or economy that can thrive outside the reality of sound educational logistics or skilled minds. The above situation means that Europe continues to realize positive proceeds out of East Asian LDCs’ woes. As a matter of fact, it is argued by international economic pundits such as Rodrigo (2001) that there is a rather stark incongruence that is defined by losses on one side, and benefits on the other, and that it is out of East Asian LDCs’ economic losses that Europe realizes its profitability. Political economists such as Crafts and Toniolo (1998) posit that it is East Asian LDCs’ woes that make these LDCs to depend on Europe, as Europe finds the chance to exploit these LDCs. Conclusion Political scientists and economists argue that despite the hard work and resilience that the comparatively enormous East Asian population may bring, and the large pool of resources that these countries may own, there is no way the Tiger Nations and the countries in East Asia will grow to overtake Europe. It is postulated by these groups that the only way out of the stalemate is for these East Asian countries to change their trading partners. To this effect, all the LDCs that lie within the East Asia are to trade and borrow ideas from leading countries in Asia such as China. This proposition is feasible since the Banana Republics that have turned to China are getting better ever since the onset the 21st century. The other recourse is for East Asian countries to table their plight in the oncoming post DOHA reconstructions. These countries must remind the WTO council that they are highly dependent on small scale agriculture and that there is no way these small scale farmers can carry out agricultural activities without government support. At the same time, the WTO council must be reminded that there is no way in which small nations in East Asia can realize any profitability if tariffs are not exacted on well off to do countries in Europe. References Bautista, R. , East Asian poverty alleviation and economic growth, Southeast Asian Studies Institute, 2000.Crafts, N. and G. Toniolo, Europe’s economic growth, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998. Columbus, F. , Economic and political issues on Asia, Colombia, Nova Science, 2000. Francks, P. , et al, The relationship between agriculture and economic development in East Asia, New York, London, 1999. Fingleton, B. , Europe and regional economic growth, Ashgate Publishing, Berlin, 2003. Foders, F. , European capitalism and world economic growth, California University Press, California, 1998. Gill, I. and H. Kharas, East Asian ideas for economic growth, World Bank, 2006. Holvin, R. and R. Mandy, Unequal economic relations and economic stagnation, Blackwell, Birmingham, 2001. Isaac, T. , International trade after Cold War, Prentice Hall, New York, 2000. Joseph, C. and M. Michael, WTO and East Asian Economic Growth, John Wiley and Sons, 2007. Martin, P. , World Trade Reconstructions, WTO, 2002. Matthew, C. , European and East Asian economic growth, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003. Neuhaus, M. , Economic growth between Europe and East Asia, Springer

Monomania Psychology Analysis: Ideal Ego and Ego Ideal

Monomania Psychology Analysis: Ideal Ego and Ego Ideal Abstract: This paper Moby Dick: Obsession, Evil and the Passion of Ignorance, argues that monomania is a passion of ignorance. It contends that this passion of ignorance is situated precisely between the ideal ego and the ego ideal. The ideal ego is the fantasy an individual has of themselves, a narcissistic illusion of completeness. It is a representation based on an image of the self fixed at the infantile period. The ego ideal is the goal of a process, a movement towards an idealized self based on internalised significant early role models, people admired and preferred in favour of the self. In monomania, the ideal ego seeks to eradicate the other, the ego ideal. This is an act of envy, an attempt to kill and steal the others good because it represents what one should be or could have been. Such an act is never conscious. It is a passion of ignorance. The saga of Captain Ahab and his obsessive desire to obliterate the Great White Whale is illustrative of this dynamic. The yearning for absolutes is a hall-mark of monomania. Monomania is a passion of ignorance and is to be found in the boundary between love and hate. It is inherently evil because it excludes and destroys reality. In monomania, ignorance functions as a parochial and universalised concept of reality, marked by a certainty and rectitude which enables the harming of others with humanitarian conviction and moral purpose. The passion of ignorance is situated precisely between the subject and the fantasy of himself. The ideal ego wishes to eradicate the other, the ego ideal, What is at the heart all psychopathological behaviour is an incapacity to communicate with aspects of the self that have, as part of the self protective mechanism of the psyche, been obscured because they are too painful to be addressed. At the time of obfuscation, the only perceived path for survival has been the isolation and dissociation of something intrinsic. Analytical psychology recognizes that there are dark recesses people carry deep within in which lurk forbidden secrets which are treated as unapproachable. These dark places and forbidden secrets are not passive, they pulsate with the presence of malignant, carnivorous forces that reek of fear and anarchy. It is no accident that the developmental arm of analytical psychology is preoccupied to the determining effects of family history, for it is in the family setting that people experience the strongest and most primitive feelings, where relationships take on their most stark and forceful forms. A persons experience within the context of family has its genesis at a time before coping mechanisms are developed, before and independent sense of security and stability has had time to consolidate. Analytical psychology understands that the individual is deeply affected by the net of past experiences. They impact on the way in which present experiences are assimilated or repressed. They determine what may be allowed to come to consciousness and what must be assigned to the unconscious. The unconscious is occasioned by a number of factors, by repression, instinctual inheritance, social conditioning and repressed trauma. It can be personal or collective. In all its aspects, the unconscious represents that part of an individuals psychic existence that is, by multiple strategies, consigned to function without conscious control. Thus analytical psychology attempts inexorably to draw one deeper and deeper into a journey of confrontation with ones self. It calls on the individual to overcome his defences, to transcend the bounds of secure systems he has established to keep full and immediate experience at bay. In the tale of Moby Dick, Ahab misuses his power, disregards the safety of his crew and the profitability of the voyage, even forfeits his own life in order to avenge himself on the whale who robbed him of his leg. He does this, all to avoid a confrontation with himself and his own vulnerabilities. The Story: The tale of Moby Dick begins with the enigmatic words of the narrator, Having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntary pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet, and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping onto the street and methodically knocking peoples hats off – then, I account it high time to get to see as soon as I can. (Melville 1992 p. 1) With these words Ishmael the story teller announces his intention to go to sea. He makes the journey to New Bedford, Massachusetts where he takes accommodation at a whalers inn, but as the inn is very full he finds himself sharing a bed with a stranger, Queequeg, a harpooner from the South Pacific. Queequeg is a cannibal from a South Sea Island. His strange physical form appears bizarre to Ishmael. He is covered in strange tattoos and apart from his alien appearance has strange habits and customs. Ishmael is terrified by the encounter but as time passes he is able to move beyond the outward exterior of Queequeg to understand that they are both men, and this strange creature from the South Seas, far from being a terrifying beast is human, and one with a particularly kind heart and generous spirit. The two men join forces and set out to seek work together as whalers. They secure work on the Pequod, a whaling vessel decked out with the bones and teeth of its victims, Peleg and Bildad, t he Pequods Quaker owners, tell them of their Captain, Ahab, who on his last voyage found that sperm whales are not defenceless victims, but creatures with teeth; Ahab has had his leg ripped from him by an enormous white whale. The hunted became the hunter and had struck back. The Pequod leaves the safety of the harbour in Nantucket on a bitterly cold Christmas Day, its crew a diverse mixture of nationalities and cultures. Days later, as the ship makes into warmer waters, Ahab finally appears on deck, balancing unsteadily on his prostheses carved from the jaw bone of a sperm whale. Ahabs intention: to pursue and kill Moby Dick, the great white whale who took his leg. To Ahab, this whale is the embodiment of evil. He must be killed and killed by Ahab. To this end he nails a gold doubloon to the mast and announces to all that the man who first sights Moby Dick will have the coin. Aboard one of these ships is a crazed prophet called Gabriel who predicts doom to all who pursue Moby Dick and the superstitious crew of the Pequod share their sea-stories of how those who hunted the whale met with ill fortune. It is not long before misfortune is seen and known by the crew. While butchering their catch, the harpooner Tashtego falls into the mouth of a dead whale which tears free of the Pequod and sinks. Queequeg dives after the drowning man, slashes into the slowly sinking head with his knife and frees the seaman. During another whale hunt, the black cabin boy Pip, jumps from a whaleboat and is left stranded at sea. He is rescued but the trauma renders him mentally disturbed. He is left mindless and uncanny, a prophetic jester onboard the ship. Still the hunt continues. One day, the Pequod encounters the whaler, the Samuel Enderby. Captain Boomer the skipper has lost an arm in a chance meeting with Moby Dick. As the two captains discuss the whale the contrast becomes evident. Boomer is happy simply to have survived his encounter, and he cannot understand Ahabs lust for vengeance. Queequeg becomes ill and asks the carpenter on board the Pequod to make him a coffin in preparation of his death but he does recover, and the coffin becomes the Pequods replacement life buoy. In expectation of finding Moby Dick, Ahab orders a harpoon to be forged and baptizes this harpoon with the blood of the Pequod harpooners, and his own. Although the Pequod is still hunting whales, it is the hunt for Moby Dick that always hangs over the life of the ship. Then, one day, Fedallah makes a prophesy regarding the death of Ahab. Ahab will see two hearses, the second made from American wood and he will be killed by hemp rope. To Ahab, this means he will not die at sea, for at sea there are no hangings and no hearses. A tropical storm encompasses the Pequod, illuminating it with electrical fire. To Ahab this is a sign of imminent confrontation and success. To Starbuck, the ships first mate, it is a bad omen and he contemplates murdering Ahab to end the obsession. The tempest ends, but then one of the sailors plummets from the ships masthead and drowns—a grave forewarning of what lies ahead. As Ahabs obsessive desire to find and destroy Moby Dick intensifies, the mad Pip becomes his constant companion. It is near the equator that Ahab expects to find Moby Dick, and it is here that the Pequod meets two whalers, the Rachel and the Delight; both have had recent fatal encounters with the Great Whale. The Captain of the Rachel pleads with Ahab to help him find his son, lost in the battle with Moby Dick, but Ahab has only one goal, to find and kill the whale. Days pass, and then, finally, Ahab sights Moby Dick. The harpoon boats are launched. Moby Dick rams Ahabs harpoon boat, destroying it but Ahab is saved by his crew. The next day, Moby Dick is sighted once more. The whale is harpooned but again, Moby dick strikes back and once again rams Ahabs boat. Fedallah is trapped in the harpoon line, is dragged overboard to his death. Starbuck saves his Captain by manoeuvring the Pequod between Ahab and the enraged beast. On the third day, the boats are launched once again and are sent after Moby Dick. The whale turns and attacks the boats, and they see that Fedallahs corpse is still lashed to the whale by the harpoon line. In the ensuing battle, Moby Dick rams the Pequod and she begins to sinks. Ahab, caught in a harpoon line, is hurled out of his whale boat to his death. The remaining whaleboats and crew are caught in the vortex of the sinking Pequod and dragged to their deaths. Ishmael, thrown from his boat at the beginning of the hunt, is the only man to survive. He floats, alone on Queequegs coffin, the only remaining flotsam from the wreckage, an isolated figure in a watery world. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan. (Melville 1992 p. 583) An Uncanny Tale In telling the story of Moby Dick, Melvilles narrator, Ishmael, engages in a process of repetition that brings the dead back to life. His narrator offers what appears to be a sober account of his real experience but in the recounting it is immediately evident that this experience is anything but commonplace. Melvilles combination of reality and the fantastic, the credible and the incredible, compel the reader to accept the narrative on its own terms. The tale confronts the reader with narratorial anxiety in both the telling of the tale and in the horror of its content. Melvilles narrative method exemplifies the de-familiarisation of the familiar, the domestication of terror that characterises the uncanny. Freud characterises the uncanny as that which arouses dread and horror; (Freud 1919 p. 339) it is that class of things which lead us back to what is known of the old and familiar. (Freud 1919 p.340) It is precarious, this combination of the familiar and the unfamiliar, where the opposites of the homely, customary and congenial also denote the secret that is concealed and kept from sight. (Freud 1919 p. 347) We believe we are at home in the immediate circle of beings. That which is, is familiar, reliable, ordinary. Nevertheless, the clearing is pervaded by a constant concealment in the double form of refusal and dissembling. At the bottom, the ordinary is not ordinary; it is extra-ordinary, uncanny. (Heidegger 1971 p. 53) Freud argues that one of the most anxiety-producing devices of the uncanny is the double. Freud considers the uncanniness of the double to be the effect of the egos projection of the object ‘outwardly as something foreign to itself. What is inside is experienced as coming from outside, (Freud 1919 p.358) split off and isolated through a process of repression and dissociation. The subject may identify with another to the extent that he is not sure which identity he is or he may substitute the extraneous self for his own. In the tale of Moby Dick it is this lack of difference which dominates Ahabs relationship to the whale. While Ahab may try to establish himself as a saviour, he too, deep down, is dangerous and destructive. It is this sameness that is problematic. When it becomes too obvious that the other is contained in the self, the other becomes an object for irrational hostility. In this dynamic, both the object (the whale) and the subject (Ahab) become doubles of each othe r in the psyche of the person who is enmeshed in the projection. The notion of the double always inspires the subject with dread and can be summed up as a dividing and interchanging of the ego. There is an inevitable cyclic repetition of the initial trauma. It is an inescapable loop until the doubling is concluded. Aboard ship, Ahab imposes an irresistible dictatorship in order to pursue his obsession. Moby Dick had injured him and that fact contravened Ahabs entire view of how the world should be ordered. The self-righteous, imposing Captain of the Pequod smoulders with the fires of hell. His all consuming pride and rage against the white whale blaze in the great speech before his crew where he proclaims, That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or the white whale principal, I will wreak my hate upon him Talk to me not of blasphemy, man, Id strike the sun if it insulted me. (Melville 1992 p. 167) Ahab cannot see Moby Dick for what the great while whale is, because the reality of the animal is subsumed under the passion of Ahabs projection. But because this ‘relationship is skewed, the rest of Ahabs world suffers. Ahab has no connection to any other person or thing beyond the white whale. It is inevitable that the whale proves to be his nemesis; it is the whale that inflicts retribution and vengeance, not Ahab. The Orphan With the first sentence of Moby Dick we are confronted with the complex figure of Ishmael. The narrative begins with the words Call me Ishmael. The name has come to symbolize orphans and social outcasts but it has another aspect to it. The word literally means ‘God hears. Ishmael, according to the Hebrew Scriptures, was the first son of Abraham, born to a slave woman, Hagar because Abraham believed his wife Sarah to be infertile. But when God granted Sarah a son of her own, Ishmael and his mother were turned out of Abrahams household. Isaac inherited the birthright from Abraham. Ishmael was left to die under a bush in the wilderness by his distraught and starving mother. But in her distress she cried out and God heard her cry and the cry of the child. 15When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. 16 And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him. 19Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink. 20God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. (Genesis 21: 15 – 20 The Bible NRSV 1988) From a Judeo-Christian perspective Ishmael was an outcast, the result of his fathers failure to believe and obey YHWHs promise to give him a son through his wife Sarah. As a consequence, Ishmael was the one repressed and rejected. But Ishmael was heard and taken care of by God. Throughout his life, Melville was preoccupied with the imagery of orphans and in particular with the character Ishmael. In Mardi he writes, But as sailors are mostly foundlings and castaways, and carry all their kith and kin in their arms and legs, there hardly ever appears any heir-at-law to claim their estate. (Melville 2004 p. 139) In Redburn, Melville writes, at last I have found myself a sort of Ishmael on the ship, without a single friend or companion. (Melville 1957 p. 60) In Pierre Melville writes, so that once more he might not feel himself driven out, an Ishmael into the desert, with no maternal Hagar to accompany him and comfort him. (Melville 1962 p. 125) Edward Edinger argues that Melville had an Ishmael complex which had two sources; personal life experience and identification with an archetypal image. (Edinger 1995 p. 23) The personal cause would be the insanity and death of his father and the ensuing hardships this caused. Melville was twelve and a half when his father died, close to the age of the biblical Ishmael who was thirteen. In addition, he was rejected by his mother, who favoured her first son. According to Arvin Newton, Melville, as an elderly man, once remarked to his niece that his mother had hated him. (Arvin 1950 p.30) The pain of his rejection is poignantly evident in the tale of Mob y Dick Most of the action is seen through the eyes of Ishmael. He will thus represent the authors ego (Edinger 1995 p. 24) Ishmael, the lone survivor of this misadventure is the story teller. At the outset of the story, Ishmael presents as one who is in pain and internal distress. He is impoverished, hostile, depressed and potentially suicidal. He heads for the sea, to Nantucket to find work on a whaler. In the past he has found sea voyages as a way of containing his internal conflict and pain. But before he can find a ship, his poverty forces him to find accommodation in a squalid inn, sharing a bed with a harpooner. When the harpooner enters the room in which Ishmael is sleeping he awakes in horror at the apparition before him, a man who appears to have just returned from the ministrations of a surgeon, his face covered with sticking plaster. But that is not the reality. The harpooner is a cannibal from the pacific, tattooed in his native islander tradition. He carries a tomahawk, a seal skin purse with the hair still attached and a shrunken head. The overall impression is alien, bizarre and terrifying to Ishmael. He watches from beneath the counterpane as the stranger uses the tomahawk as a pipe, then quietly turns into the bed with Ishmael. He is unaware of Ishmaels presence and reacts with instinctive aggression. In the fracas that follows Ishmael calls out in terror to the landlord for help. ‘Landlord! Watch! Coffin! Angels! Save me! (Melville 1992 p. 25) Peter Coffin, the landlord, soothes the moment. He introduces the men to each other and Ishmael is suddenly aware that this frightening apparition is a person, with a name. Queequeg is no longer a nameless savage, a cannibal with a shrunken head and a death dealing tomahawk. The tomahawk is also a peace pipe, and he shares the smoke from this unique instrument with Ishmael. The tomahawk-pipe has now become a symbol for both life and death, a symbol of reconciliation and peace. In this initial encounter with Queequeg a transformation is begun in Ishmael. In symbolic terms, he has embraced, in the symbolic form of Queequ eg, both death and life as indivisible partners, and when he wakes the following morning he begins to see the world from a different perspective. Ishmael understands the mixture of life and death that Queequegs tomahawk-come-pipe represents, and realizes, at least in that moment, that such experience can lead to renewal. The Obsession, Ahab demonstrates the dangers of an all consuming focus; the object of his obsession is the solitary great white whale, nicknamed Moby-Dick by the whalers. On his previous voyage, Ahab had his leg ripped off by Moby-Dick, and at the Ishmaels story begins, he has sworn to take his vengeance by hunting down and killing the great whale. It never occurs to Ahab that he lost his leg while trying to take the whales life and while in the process of killing countless other whales for monetary gain. Ahabs obsession has more to do with what Moby Dick represents than with the great whale himself. He saw Moby Dick as the prey and could not cope with the idea that he was not omnipotent in this relationship, that he was outdone by another creature. As Ahab reasons in a fiery speech to the crew of the Pequod, all visible objects are like pasteboard masks that hide some unknown but still reasoning thing. Ahab hates that inscrutable thing that hides behind the mask of appearance. The only way to figh t against it, he proclaims is to strike through the mask! Moby Dick, as a mysterious force of nature, represents the most outrageous, malevolent aspect of natures mask. To kill it, in the mind of Ahab, is to reach for and seize the unknowable truth that is hidden from all people. He cannot conceive of the concept that there is a simpler reality; he is not the master of all other species. He sees his failure to be able to take life at will as a reversal of his role as the predator and therefore can only conceive of himself now as the one preyed upon. This he cannot accept and so is driven to destroy that which in his mind denies his appropriated reality. Ahabs insane obsession and hunt for Moby Dick describes the consequences of viewing the world as a mask that hides unknowable truth. It is Ahabs frustration with the limits of human knowledge and power that lead him to reject both science and logic and instead embrace violence and the dark magic of Fedallah his demonic advisor. Like Christopher Marlowes Doctor Faustus, he has made a pact with the devil. Thinking he is immortal, Ahab attacks Moby Dick, striking at the mask of appearance that supposedly hides ultimate truth. His devotion to the idea that truth exists behind or beyond the physical world forces him to destroy himself in the attempt to reach it. Ahab can only relinquish his illusion by dying, or killing the object upon which his illusion has rested. Ahabs ideal ego, that is the fantasy he has of himself as one who is in control and omnipotent, is in the process of destroying his ego ideal, that is, his potential as man, captain and hunter. He believes he must eradicate the evil of the whale, but in reality, because he is caught in this doubling with the whale, he is intent on murdering himself. His passion of ignorance has overwhelmed his reason, blinded him to his own creative potential. All that is left is the passion and it knows no reason People thus reduced inflict the traumatic pain of their void on others. The evil they engender is not just about destruction but emerges from the chaotic principle of pure drive which has loss at its centre and therefore must occasion more loss. The important point is not that the symbolism of what Ahab lost, but the symbolism of the loss itself. Revenge is only sought when there has been a great loss, a loss that is seen to embody an injustice, and an injustice imposed by an enemy over whom victory should have been assured. Ahab lost his leg to a beast, an inferior creature. His quest for revenge could just as easily have been instituted by the loss of an arm, a child, or a father. The loss implies inferiority to a foe that is deemed to be unworthy of such a victory. Revenge becomes obsession because only with revenge can the world become again that which supports the adopted perception of order. For Ahab, revenge can only be perceived as the re-imposition of superiority and ascenda ncy. It is the adoption of this delusional sense of what order is, that gives rise to the monomania that attends a thirst for revenge. Ahabs loss of limb is immediate and it is personal but despite losing a leg he can still walk, he can still captain, he can still go on a whaleboat and harpoon. It is the greater loss which is the mechanism standing behind the driving revenge and his monomaniacal pursuit of it. As if to be human is forever to be prey to turning your corner of the human race, hence perhaps all of it, into some new species of the genus of humanity, for the better or for the worse. (Cavell 1998 p.154) For this reason Ahab must inflate the object of his revenge and recreate it as something larger in context. To accomplish this, Ahab must imbue Moby Dick massive power, power beyond comprehension. By placing the capacity of evil upon the whale, Ahab can fool himself into thinking that Moby Dick is a greater being than he really is and therefore his own loss appears greater than it really is. For Ahab, the delusion attendant to the psychosis of revenge suppresses the reality that he is merely a man bent on attempting to restore his lost sense of superiority. This reality is replaced with a grandiose vision of one who is a redeemer for humanity. But it is not humanity Ahab is attempting to redeem; it is his own inflated ego whose ascendancy has been usurped. By imputing to Moby-Dick a demonic power he does not really possess Ahab, blinds himself to any reality of what Moby Dick actually is, to any real strength and intelligence that the whale possesses. This blindness springs not from mere ignorance, but from a consciously willed ignorance, from the desire not to know, from the ambition not to understand. In order to sustain his delusional conception of himself, he must appoint concomitant distortion to the world which surrounds him, and particularly to the object of his obsession. Ahab desperately wants Moby Dick to be inscrutable. He wants him to be a thing that is incapable of being understood, because that enables him to categorize his nemesis as sheer evil. Therefore he is compelled to refuse any effort at understanding and it is this iron-willed ambition to remain ignorant, to label this thing as ultimate evil that generates the ironic twist whereby Ahab himself becomes the ultimate danger, the evil which he imagines he is seeking to eradicate. It is Ahab who causes the complete destruction of all that surrounds him. Evil and the Passion of Ignorance Ahab desires to attach to Moby Dick all the evil that exists in the world. Moby Dick is a creation of his infantile envious omnipotent sadistic phantasies. Ahab himself identifies the ultimately personal source of what he sees as a universal evil when he says, It was Moby-Dick that dismasted me; Moby-Dick that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now it was that accursed white whale that razeed me; made a poor pegging lubber of me for ever and a day! (Melville 1992 p.166). Moby Dick took away Ahabs ability to literally stand on his own two feet. The loss of his leg can also be seen as a symbolic emasculation and that symbolism is made all the more apparent by the fact that Ahabs quest is for a sperm whale. Moby-Dick contains sperm; Ahab does not. In his quest for revenge, all of Ahabs creative potential is voided because he cannot accept that there is a reality that is greater and stronger than himself. It is in the attempt to deny the reality and existence of that which surpasses him that he divorces himself from his own creative life potential. Captain Ahab is both the psychotic parent in command of the infant and the infant overwhelmed with his own omnipotent phantasy. In the tale of Moby Dick, Herman Melville created a character whose motives of vengeance typify the behaviour of a psychotic person. Captain Ahab, in his delusion, could not allow Moby Dick to share the same space in his paranoid and infantile world. Ahab experienced the loss of his leg as a lethal wound that was potentially reparable only by a copy-cat act of vengeance taken upon the alleged guilty Moby Dick. That intangible malignity which has been there from the beginning Ahab did not fall down and worship it, but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it He piled upon the whales hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot hearts shell upon. (Melville 1991 p. 187) We Cannibals must help these poor Christians. The relationship between Ishmael and Queequeg is the antithesis of the relationship between Ahab and Moby Dick. Ishmael and Queequeg develop a relationship that is based on the recognition of their dissimilarity and separateness. Ahab and Moby Dick are joined together by Ahabs projection and obsession. With Queequeg and Ishmael, the difference is something to be explored. The relationship between Queequeg and Ishmael has a germ of creativity; that between Ahab and Moby Dick is founded on destruction and butchery. The initial encounter between Queequeg and Ishmael provokes both terror and aggression. The landlord intervenes, calming the situation and bringing them both to an awareness of the necessity of living alongside of each other. This generates a realisation in both Ishmael and Queequeg that they are both men despite the visual and cultural dissimilarities. As time passes and conversation is enjoined, they begin to comprehend both their differences and their commonly shared objectives. According to the customs of Queequegs home, Ishmael and Queequeg are married after a social smoke out of the tomahawk pipe. Queequeg gives Ishmael half of his belongings, and the two men continue to share a bed. The tattooed body of Queequeg is much like the patchwork quilt that covers them both as they sleep. These tattoos are a written narrative of the universe but no one, save the prophet who inscribed them can decipher their meaning, not even Queequeg. And this tattooing had been the work of a departed prophet and seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written out on his body a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a mystical treatise on the art of attaining truth; so that Queequeg in his own proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrous work in one volume; but whose mysteries not even himself could read, though his own live heart beat against them; and these mysteries were therefore destined in the end to moulder away with the living parchment whereon they were inscribed, and so be unsolved to the last.(Melville 1992 p. 491) For Ishmael, Queequeg represents the dangerous and the forbidden for which Ishmael secretly yearns. Queequeg also symbolizes the explorative and adventurous aspect of Ishmaels personality. Once Ishmael recognizes this, his fears lessen and he embraces the savage into his life. Ishmaels initial hostility to Queequeg is a projection of the suppression of a part of his own personality. Exotic and unique, Queequeg represents the unknown. Ishmael is able to recognise this, to admit it, and to realise that his fear is due to ignorance. With this awareness comes the further realisation that he, Ishmael, must travel to the sea in order to gain life experience by exploring and embracing the unknown. The friendship between the two men, although troubled by prejudice and slow to develop into a full understanding of one anothers character, is solidified with their ‘marriage contract. They effectively become one person, illustrating the full integration of Queequegs otherness into Ishmaels personality. At the end of the book, Ishmael survives because of Queequegs coffin. In accordance with their marriage contract, Queequeg offers Ishmael protection from the sea-hawks, sharks and sea in the form of his coffin. In turn, Ishmael carries on Queequegs spirit, carved into the wood of the coffin. Queequeg represents that part of Ishmael which

Essay examples --

Location and layout: A physical location is important to our firm but a website will make our services more accessible to more customers located in different regions. Physical location will have to be offices that include small offices for our human resources, website designer and finally rooms and conference room for the training. The address should be in a neighborhood where there are a lot of offices and businesses. Such a location will be effective because it will put us in proximity to businesses that we can easily reach and in their turn will spread the word about us quicker. Also being located near other known businesses makes locating us easier by referring to their offices or location to be near us. We won’t buy the property but have a lease, preferably to have landlord who will be responsible for property taxes, insurance and maintenance. . The office should have a room for the main training and a space for open offices where employees will have different tasks to do. The total square meter should be between 50 and 60 to meters squares. We found offices with similar criteri...

Letter to Complain to the Creator of the Simpsons Matt Groening :: essays research papers

To Matt Groening (Creator of the Simpsons), I am writing to you regarding a particularly concerning episode of the Simpsons. I am a big fan of the simpsons and have enjoyed watching it for years, and until this day have never had to complain about it. I am shocked, furious and appalled about the way you, in the episode blood feud, represented the elderly in a very stereotypical way, the use of inappropriate language, the showing of death also the disgusting display of nudity. I am aware that many people find these things funny, you may well be one of them, but I am not, neither are the hundreds and thousands of parents who have had to punish their children because they have imitated the simpsons and consequently hurt themselves or some other innocent person. Firstly I would like to inform you, because you obviously you do not already know, that in our modern society it is up to us to teach our children respect for the elderly, it is already hard enough with out you showing the elderly to be cruel, greedy and in homers fathers case boring. I understand that a lot of characters are stereotypical in your show to make it funny, but I advise you in future to make the characters less offending. Secondly the amount of unnecessary violence is not funny, Is not attracting more viewers and is not good for children to see. It is teaching children :?if some body annoys me I can only make the situation better by strangling him or her.? Thirdly I must express my concern for the sickening display of nudity. I must say Mr.Burns?s bottom is not a very pleasant sight. I would appreciate it if you thought long and hard if this high level of nudity is necessary. my forth point I would like you to take into consideration is the scene which shows Mr.

Missionaries in Pre-Colonial and Early Colonial Nigeria Essay -- Colon

Missionaries in Pre-Colonial and Early Colonial Nigeria In any study of colonial Nigeria, the groundwork accomplished by the missionaries in pre-colonial days must be a central concern. They were instrumental in setting the scene which would meet the colonists when they started arriving. Missionaries were used by the colonial power as an avant garde, to expand into new regions, a fact keenly displayed by Achebe in Things Fall Apart. For many Nigerians, missionaries were the first Europeans with whom they came into contact. The missionaries first made their presence felt through their work in abolishing the slave trade. As Crowder notes, they took the emphasis away from the ''human products'' of Africa in a bid to use more fully her abundant natural resources. The overall, and idealistic, aim was to promote a more healthy and mutually beneficial trade between Africa and Europe. Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton once put forward the argument that ''the only way to save Africa from the evils of the slave trade ... would be call out its own natural resources''(Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, 111). Right from the outset, there was both a commercial and religious context to all missionary work in Nigeria. If anything, it could be argued that initially, the commercial aspect was more pressing than the religious, due the urgent need to find a quick substitute for trading slaves so that the traders would not feel their profit was at stake. Outcry in England against the horrors of the slave trade reached unprecedented levels. Never before had there been such unanimous public support over a single issue. Cheap pamphlets and tracts were sold in abundance, meaning that the public was fairly well informed in matters such as the cramped and pes... ...y consulted their oracle. Yet, the underlying forces at work behind the missions, as well as their inextricable links with commercial activities should never be overlooked. From the outset, the missions were seen as ideal vehicles for gaining the trust and confidence of the tribal leaders, before the real monied interest moved in. It could argued that the missions were one part of the wheel of business and economics that starting to turn in Nigeria, while a substitute for slaves was sought. The humanitarian touch they seemed to bring disguised these motives behind a facade of peaceful and beneficent civilisation. It would be naive to assume that the missionaries were innocently unaware of the drastic consequences their opening of the African heartland would bring. In this sense they must, at least in part, be held answerable for the colonial predicament of Nigeria.

Appropriate Technology Essay

Emerging economies all across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East frequently look up to the developed ones in Europe and North America. This has less to do with cultural and social values and more to do with their relative level of prosperity. As Alex Steffen (2006, pp. 18-19) asserts, the kids of Cape Town and Novosibirsk don’t want to be Americans, rather they want to be who they are but with the benefits of technological modernity and development. Many pundits wrongly presume that improving less-developed communities requires implementation of a Rostovian model of development – linear evolution from certain economic states to more sophisticated ones –   but the problem is that they have limited success in nations where there are deficits in political will, infrastructure and in some cases, resources. As the Sustainable Times (2008) notes, many of these nations are â€Å"worse off than before they began to ‘develop’.† Village Earth’s (n.d.) Appopriate Technology Sourcebook opines that the result has been the ‘modernization of poverty’ in which farmland ownership has becoming increasingly consolidated, communities have become divided and individuals must operate on the fringe of economic activity to survive. As it stands, much the success of Rostovian models of modernization and development in European and Northern American nation-states have been born from exploitation and colonialism, if not entirely unsustainable. Nonetheless, the issue of development (or lack thereof) descends to levels deeper than just material prosperity, but matters of acquiring basic amenities such as clean water, decent shelter and a reliable food supply. With the aforementioned deficits in mind, it becomes necessary to find creative ways of fulfilling these needs rather than relying on the centralized forms of development which keep developed nations from sliding into a grim meathook future. This is where appropriate technology comes in, which is quite literally technology that is appropriate to the needs of a certain community, and suited to its uniquely salient attributes. Most commonly, this means addressing the deficits that exist because of a lack of capital-intensive development particular to modern urbanity. But a more critical understanding of appropriate technology is the recognition that technology does not follow a single path. Instead it is about realizing that the uniqueness of communities has a particular bearing on what kind of technological future is best suited to their needs. As the Village Earth notes: â€Å"It is a way of thinking about technological change; recognizing that [it] can evolve along different paths toward different ends. It also [recognizes that technology embodies] cultural biases and sometimes have political and distributional effects that go beyond a strictly economic evaluation.† (Village Earth, n.d.) Appropriate technology can be divided between hard technology and soft technology. The former refers to the application of engineering, machine science, physical structures and other forms of material technology devoted towards the realization of economic goals, whilst technologies dealing with the essence of human interactions, motivational psychology and social structures fall under the category of soft technology. (Albertson & Faulkner, 1986) Environmentalists, particularly those of the bright green camp which embrace technological solutions to the concerns of the planet, are known to endorse appropriate technology because they posses many features that are relevant to issues of sustainability such as low cost implementation, maximization of limited resources and to some extent, the development of   closed-loop systems which make such low-cost efficiency possible. For the most part, this involves employing creative solutions to common problems. Take for instance the problem of water supply in sub-Saharan Africa. For the vast majority of its people, acquiring water requires distant trips to water sources that are kilometers away. One solution to this is the Roundabout PlayPump, which utilizes the energy generated by children playing on an outdoor merry-go-round to pump underground water from depths of up to 40 meters into a 2,500 liter tank at the rate of 1,400 liters per hour. Over 500 of these pumps have been installed in South Africa, where clean water is scarce, and freeing children of the time they spend hauling water during after-school hours. (Danby, 2004) Another example of creative design is the Q-DRUM, which is essentially a wheel-shaped water container. It’s a simple approach – making a heavy barrel that bruises the neck and strains the spine into a rolling wheel – that makes you wonder why they didn’t think of it before. By running a rope through the wheel’s hole, the chore of water hauling becomes much less burdensome. (Project H Design, 2007) Surprisingly enough, low cost solutions are not limited to the simplest of needs. MIT-based inventor Amy Smith has developed many low cost solutions to problems in the developing Third World. One of her inventions is a method for producing charcoal, from agricultural waste such as sugar cane bagasse, for use as a cooking fuel. Previously, Haitians harvested trees for their cooking fuel and this innovation has been used to help address deforestation in Haiti, where thousands die annually from massive flooding. (Dean, 2004) Another invention of Smith’s is a phase-change incubator. She has also developed a phase-change incubator that relies on a highly portable fuel source – essentially a cheap chemical compound shaped into marble dimensions – to maintain a temperature of 37 °C for a period of 24 hours and obviating the need for an existing power grid, a concern all too common in the most lowly developed of communities. (Kennedy, 2003)

Developing Approaches of Supply Chain Management Systems

296 The International Arab Journal of Information Technology, Vol. 5, No. 3, July 2008 Developing Approaches of Supply Chain Management Systems of Enterprises in Pakistan Danish Irfan1, 2, Xu Xiaofei1, and Deng Sheng Chun1 1 School of Computer Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, China 2 Department of Computer Science, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Pakistan Abstract: This paper identifies the problems of pakistani enterprises concerning supply chain networks and orders solutions to improving its overall performance and competitiveness.Seldom, a non-trivial amount of research efforts has been made in emergent nations to improve and enhance supply chain management paradigm. Our survey comprised nine enterprises; among them four are successfully modelled and presented. The detailed supply chain structure and study is also made. The paper concludes by suggesting and adopting modelled approach to the corporations in their move towards implementing supply chain management strategies. Keywords: Supply chain, supply chain management, supply chain networks. Received October 14, 2006; accepted April 25, 2007 1. Introduction Supply Chain Management (SCM) has gained ignificance as one of the 21st century’s manufacturing technology and innovative paradigms for improving organizational competitiveness. SCM has been considered a competitive strategy for integrating suppliers and customers with the objective improving response time and flexibility [6]. Competitiveness in today’s marketplace depends closely on the ability of a firm to grip the challenges of reducing lead-time, cost estimation, increasing customer service levels and improving product quality. Conventionally, sourcing, production, distribution and marketing have been working independently. Unfortunately, although they seem to be working owards a common goal, the organizational units have different objectives. Nowadays, the focus is shifting toward digitally integra ted demand and Supply Chain (SC) configurations that are built around establishing networks of relationships between the firm, its suppliers, customers and partner entities. In our paper, we explain the work of different enterprises of pakistan considering their abilities and the SCM key challenges faced in developing their SCM approach. The data utilized for different SCM systems in this paper are derived from large, nationwide and cosmopolitan pakistani corporations, mong them four of which we refer to as enterprises A, B, C and D. Section 1 gives a brief introduction of the four enterprises from SCM perspective. Section 2 describes the related work in SCM. In section 3, we study existing systems and propose the SCM models for each enterprise. Section 4 concludes the study and presents future directions and strategies. 2. Related Work Unfortunately, there is no explicit narration of SCM or its activities in the literature [2]. The ultimate success of firms will depend on managemen t’s ability to integrate the company’s intricate network of business relationships, allowing improved decision making and onsequently, reducing cost and customer response time. SCM is not only this but much more and beyond. SCM concerns neither to minimize nor to maximize but rather to optimize (integration, coordination, variability, uncertainty management and control) processes for the enterprise. An efficient and responsive SCM aims to move from a simple SC Figure 1 (a) to a well structured and extended SC Figure 1 (b). (a) Simple supply chain. (b) Extended supply chain. Figure 1. Supply chain type. Developing Approaches of Supply Chain Management Systems of Enterprises in Pakistan Literary summary shows the SCM concepts as ollows: centralized vs. decentralized control, business process re-engineering strategies, information distortion, detrimental effect of bullwhip factor, SCM for suppliers and firms performance, incorporating model between supplier and retailer; benefits, impact, influence, activities, challenges to integrated SCM, need for performance measures for support of global supply chain improvement; value of information in a two level SCM; modelling the complexity and dynamics; design and management for SC systems; information sharing; and applications of lean thinking to manufacturing operations [3].Supply chain strategy assessment including sourcing, development of inventory planning and management processes, benchmarking and SC Key Performance Indicators (KPI) collectively approach improvement of SC performance. It combines a strategic approach with practical tactical solutions that save time and money for the consumers. Nowadays, few enterprises are in commencement to adopt SCM to improve their performance and to address their unfavourable inter-organizational purchaser-supplier relationships and disjointed processes. Although SCM in erection is still in its infancy, there is a need for SCM adoption to date and o scrutinize whe ther its maturity matches the key features of such a class of improvement. SCM featuring market saturation driven, operationally agile, consumers customized, logistics optimized and trade focused prioritization are accenture’s successful supply chain strategies which are widely varied but are equally successful [1, 5]. In [4] the SCOR reference model captures the â€Å"as-is† state of the business process with the objective of achieving the desired â€Å"to-be† future state of PTC, pakistan. In the next section we proceed with the modelled SCN schema of the following enterprises. 3. Typical Enterprises Concerning SCM inPakistan In this section, we describe the enterprise structure one by one. Firstly, enterprise ‘A’ describes the SCM phase inspection of certain Vehicle (V). Secondly, enterprise ‘B’ gives proposal of Business to Consumer (B2C) model for development of electrical appliances. Then, enterprise ‘C’ discusses SCM for design and manufacture segments of communication equipment and lastly, enterprise ‘D’ shows the SC mechanism at a research oriented enterprise. We refer to appendix A for acronyms used in this paper. 3. 1. Enterprise ‘A’: SCM Phase Inspection† of Certain Vehicle (V) In this enterprise study, we only focused on the SCM hase inspection of certain Vehicle (V). Its key 297 segments are forecasting, planning, scheduling, demand of components and procurements. The purpose of this phase inspection is to access and evaluate: †¢ Usage of vehicle ‘V’. †¢ Calendar based inspection schedule staggered so as to assure the SC procurement. †¢ Induction of vehicle for inspection in the presently available time. The hierarchy of phase inspection in the enterprise ‘A’ concerning SCM is shown in Figure 2. In Charge Engineering Branch Control Branch Sub Engineering Branch Phase Inspection Branch Figure 2. Hierarchy of phase in spection in enterprise ‘A’.If vehicle usage is more than the specified time then inspection time held is decreased, i. e. , from 10 months to one year. The types of phase inspection as described by OEM along with its codes are shown in Table 1. Table 1. Types of phase inspection as described by OEM. Inspection Code M1 M2 M3 M4 Time (Days) 20 21 22 25 The ‘premeditated maintenance’ branch views the item’s checklist. It receives the current stock levels for a variety of stock types required for inspection and monitors the flow of materials in and out of inventory. All the items are prerequisite before phase inspection’s induction starts.The control branch takes responsibility and forecasts to keep living items recorded and tracks them for timely replacement. It forecasts the processes on three-monthly, six-monthly, yearly and bi-yearly basis. The demand process is initiated by the user and a query is sent to the logistics department. Jet warehou se takes action on demand via Automatic Logistics Management System (ALMS). The demand is processed to the depot for accomplishment; otherwise the item is put on demand from source abroad in consultation with the head office of the department. The SC in phase inspection of the vehicle is shown in Figure 3.It includes procurement agencies, depot Ware Houses (WH), logistics, jet stores, material control and the users. Table 2 shows demand priorities over the lead times of the phase inspection. The ‘designator priority system’ of current enterprise is based on historical assumptions, experience, system log-in, log-out time, intercontinental and local logistics 298 The International Arab Journal of Information Technology, Vol. 5, No. 3, July 2008 in-between lead times and depot area. Here the consumption is based on usage value. Table 2. Demand priorities over the lead times. Demand Priority Code Lead Times (Days) 03 06 13 2 – 13 16 – 17 69 – 84 Alterin g the item criteria for phase inspection is defined as: †¢ Mandatory change items as specified by OEM are forecasted, procured and kept as a kit. †¢ Conditional change items are demanded if the bench checks fail. Firstly, items are sent for Local Repair (LR) and issues Dead-Line-Date (DLD). If it succeeds, items are sent back to procurement department; otherwise a query is placed to the Local Manufacture (LM) department. Automated Logistics Management System – ALMS Automatic inventory management system – AIMS Deport automated inv. management system – DAIMS DAIMS financial management systemAIMS financial management system Purchase order management system – POMS Local purchase management system – LPMS Clothing exchange management system – CEX Catalogue management system – CMS Stowage tracking system – STS Transportation management system -TMS Preservation data collection & analysis system – PDCAS Serialized parts management system – SPMS Calibration management system -CMS Worker training system – WTS Figure 4. Automatic logistics management system. Figure 3. SCM phase inspection of a certain vehicle (V). In the proceeding section we discuss ALMS, an automated system adopted by enterprise ‘A’. 3. 1. 1.Automatic Logistics Management System Automatic Logistics Management System (ALMS) is an interactive, fully automated, incorporating data processing, knowledge base and effective support to all operational units in the organization. It is a family of software implemented on an IBM 3090 machine. Its main functions are inventory and maintenance management. Mainly, it contains a maintenance and supply module as shown in Figure 4. The ALMS characterises the SCM phase which make the whole system. SC modules of ALMS are comprised of Automatic Inventory Management System (AIMS), Deport Automated Inventory Management System (DAIMS), Purchase OrderManagement System (POMS), Loc al Purchase Management System (LPMS), Clothing Exchange Management System (CEX), Catalogue Management System (CMS) and Transportation Management System (TMS). These components results in: †¢ Featuring the whole SC of phase inspection of the enterprise. †¢ Online requisitioning and feed back status. †¢ Auto requisitioning based on demand level. †¢ Assets visibility to all authorized users. †¢ Repairable asset control through Stowage Tracking System (STS). Essential supply reports are made daily on a document register and submitted to higher authorities for completion indication of this phase. Here it oncludes the SCM of phase inspection of Vehicle (V). 3. 2. Enterprise ‘B’: Proposal of Business to Consumer Model for Development of Electrical Appliances Enterprise ‘B’ gives a SCM model for proposal of B2C development of electrical appliances. The main objectives include: †¢ Multiple vendor development for large scale production. †¢ Efficient demand and supply management system. †¢ Self driving automated network. †¢ After sales support network for production support services like spare parts and repair. †¢ Awareness of SC actors. The first objective explains the contingency plan, i. e. , not depending on a single vendor and must have eliable supplier/s. The Main SCM activities of the B2C model for electrical appliance growth are shown in Figure 5. Depending upon product status and type, the customer interaction with the SC can be categorized into three parts. First, in case of complex products e. g. , ship. Customers have to directly contact the manufacturers or the OEM. Second, e. g. , in case of a car, the customer can contact a repair factory and the repair factory or agent can contact the manufacturer. Last, in the example of a desktop computer, the customer contacts with the sales distributors, who further link with the regional suppliers and so on.Developing Approaches of Supply Cha in Management Systems of Enterprises in Pakistan Figure 5. SCM activities flow and coordination in B2C model for development of electrical appliances. Figure 6 describes the use case diagram of the characters of the â€Å"as is† schema of current enterprise. Our main characters include national and regional suppliers, manufacturer, local shop and the customer. 299 In the current system, SCM comprises three main departments: sales and marketing, production and planning control, and procurement and inventory management which serve as the backbone of the SC. The planning phase goes through MRP which checks hat, for whom and how much to order. Capacity planning overviews the additional investment (if any) to meet the targets. Then production planning looks for facilities, technical and transportation phases. Sourcing makes the order scarification. In Bill Of Materials (BOM) it shows the item source code from local and foreign production within the enterprise and then assembles. I t lacks in maintaining a standard of vendor evaluation. The enterprise ‘C’ schema is shown in Figure 7. Figure 6. Case diagram of â€Å"as is† process. The time frame of implementing SCM activities flow is shown in Table 3. The current enterprise chema lacks in customer relationship phase. Regional suppliers must be expanded to give a broader scope for its customers and local retailers. Table 3. Time frame of implementation for different phases. The goal to eliminate the vast majority (costs of receiving, shipping, expediting, data entry, data processing, accounting, and error follow-up) of regional suppliers need Just-In-Time (JIT) interaction with the manufacturer for enhancement of effective SC. 3. 3. Enterprise ‘C’: Design and Manufacture Segments of Long Message Equipment Enterprise ‘C’ discusses design and manufacture segments of long message equipment with the bjective to acquire and develop a sophisticated technological base for long message systems and to enlarge and expand production of components. Durable AS400 system support is available for its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Supply Chain Network (SCN). Figure 7. Design and manufacturing framework for enterprise ‘C’. For ordering, quotations are called and regarding the minimum amount quotation the order is placed. The steps include: †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ Quotations call/ float. Cost comparison statements. Selection of potential customers. Order placement. The Receiving/ storing section receives the items in orm of Semi Knock Down (SKD) and Completely Knock Down (SKD). Right from the main entry of the goods in the enterprise, a receipt is generated against the goods received. The phases include Incoming Good Inspection (IGI), Incoming Goods Forwarding (IGF), Incoming Goods Receiving (IGR), allotting code No’s to items and updating inventory in the system. The Quality Control (QC) of the engineering department ensure s the quality of the received products. The receipts along with the inspected goods are frontward to the store department. Here an inventory code is generated for each item. The make/ deliver ensure alue addition and quality inspection. The question arises why to have an inventory? Our requirements fulfil the answer for the question. First, we want to meet anticipated demand and smooth production requirement. Second, we want to have a buffer of items and avoid stock out. It also takes advantage of the order cycle and hedges against price increase. The business nature of the under discussed 300 The International Arab Journal of Information Technology, Vol. 5, No. 3, July 2008 enterprise can be categorized as â€Å"make-to-order† and â€Å"engineer-to-order†. The customer tells specification and the RandD of the enterprise works on the required emand of its customer. The main work in current enterprise ‘C’ is made on â€Å"inventory turn over† or â₠¬Å"turnaround time calculation†. For this, let inventory turnover be Q, inventory I, sales S, cost C and time taken t for the system. Then Q is defined as number of times a company is able to convert its inventory I into sales during the course of a year. It is calculated by dividing cost of sales by average inventory. Q= C( t ) I( t ) (1) Turnaround time= Cost of goods sold from stock sales during one year (2) Average inventory investment during one year past Table 4. Annual inventory turnover. Year Annual Cost ofGoods Sold ($) Inventory ($) Investment Annual Inventory Turnover 2000 – 01 85692 12312 2001 – 02 2002 – 03 2003 – 04 2004 – 05 77600 99356 50000 65000 14923 21981 9766 15330 6. 96 5. 20 4. 52 5. 12 Average 4. 24 5. 21 Table 4 shows the annual inventory turnover which converts inventory into saleable goods for this product. Most of the inventory is pilled up which also checks sales vs. inventory. The disadvantage of annual inventory turnover shows the block up inventory of the enterprise which could be used for some other purposes in the enterprise. Some of the reasons for the pilling up of inventory show that: This analysis of inventory has revealed the cases for increase in inventory over the years. †¢ Some stock is held to cater for after sales support during the warranty period as well as for providing repair services against invoices. †¢ For items where backup support from the main supplier has been stopped, the enterprise has to keep some inventory to provide backup support to its customers. †¢ In order to meet the spare requirement for customers under the contractual obligations, a certain stock of modules is kept. †¢ Pre-ordered materials that are not converted into sales also add up to stock up inventory. Some items are pilled up due to Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) requirement. The imperfections found in the system are tribulations to manufacturing. First, there is demand of items but no traceability. Demand section is unable to predict the items to fulfill the demand. Second, there is no entry of lead times showing the absence of items from inventory physically. 3. 3. 1. Recommendations for Improvement in Turnover Time of Inventory †¢ All items (sales stores as well as main stores) required after-sales-support during the warranty period may be shifted for the repair (R code) warehouse. The items lying in repair may be xcluded from inventory evaluation. †¢ After the completion of delivery against a project or near the closing of the financial year, if the bulk of the project is delivered, which ever is earlier, the sales and marketing department will transfer an appropriate quantity of modules for backup support during the warranty period to the repair warehouse. †¢ The cost of such items, as worked out by the finance department should be charged to the after sales support account. †¢ When the product is phased out and its backup support i s stopped by the main supplier to other collaborators, the balance of materials for that roduct may be zero valued. †¢ The responsibility of the issuance of material from the repair warehouse should rest with the customer services department. In order to realize some of the struck up funds in the preordered existing inventory of the enterprise, the same may be offered as discounted prices to prospective customers. †¢ Greater emphasis may be given on accurate forecasting to avoid losses resulting from failure to sell pre-ordered material. †¢ The purchase committee should also take care in placing orders against anticipated customer orders. If possible, an agreement should be made with the upplier where it will be bound to take back the materials if the expected customer order is not received. The exercise for obsolescence should be carried out regularly especially after every six months and the materials identified as obsolete should be disposed of to rationalize inven tory value as well as to free storage space. The above SCM study gives opportunity to gain knowledge about: †¢ Envisioning the whole SC and understand its impact on inventory †¢ Cost reduction for a better inventory control †¢ Differentiation between visualizing different ordering types in an enterprise like make to order, ake to engineer and assemble to order etc. , and the same, can be compared with current systems. †¢ Understand how a surplus inventory plays a vital role in lashing up the capital investment of an enterprise (turnover value). Developing Approaches of Supply Chain Management Systems of Enterprises in Pakistan †¢ Understand and calculate turnaround value and its benefits by considering the saved investment to be utilized in an additional business opportunity for the same enterprise. †¢ Understand the impact of ABC analysis on Economics Order Quantity (EOC). †¢ Understand the importance and various aspects of oftware utilization for a good inventory management through visibility and traceability of information. †¢ To use jargons of SC and inventory management effectively and confidently while discussing relevant issues in the current enterprise. 301 receives items from the supplier, called the incoming inspection department. Then items go through various phases from a vendor. The targets for incoming inspection are based on acceptance or rejection of the receiving goods. Specifications of the items like standard, grade, dimension, drawing etc. , are given by that particular department‘s program management which require particular components.A conformance report of the product with specifications acts as a base for rejection or acceptance of incoming items. If a regular obsession is bought then it only needs an OEM certificate. 3. 4. Enterprise ‘D’: SC Mechanism at a Research Enterprise Enterprise ‘D’ embraces the Planning and Production Control (PPC) department, logistics, supplier, log warehouse, QC and demand department for completion of its SCM. It adopts a Supplier Quality Management (SQM) system in the enterprise. Its significance concludes: †¢ The enterprise demands very high standards of its products and in-time delivery of the components. Failure of hardware or software in the business can be calamitous. †¢ Implementation of quality system model AS9100 Quality Management System (QMS) for quality assurance in design, development, production and installation. AS9100 QMS is being used for supplier support. For this, the enterprise provides modern equipment and training for its suppliers. AS9100 was formed to bring all of its vendors to one platform for production of a high standard product. SQM system starts with the implementation of the Master Production Schedule (MPS) of the enterprise. It maintains a database of all suppliers for supplier performance analysis.By communication, it makes a confirmation that synchronization exists betw een the production and supplier components, happening at component level by using cards. The components which are falling short or at production line are mentioned by the card. The components at assembly are measured by the operator who accordingly upgrades and passes it to the logistics department, manually or through the ERP system. The logistics department has visibility about components falling short or in excess. It sends orders to its suppliers whether they bring items internationally or locally. How does quality play an important role in SCM?The system not only ensures JIT delivery but also ensures the right quality of product has been delivered. The QMS works for Quality Control (QC), Quality Assurance (QA) and supplier evaluation system. The link to SC is built through the QC department which Figure 8. SCM pyramid for research enterprise. The focus on supplier control in AS9100 QMS machine gives globalization, diversity of regional requirements, challenges of assuring quali ty of products and suppliers throughout the world and intime delivery. Various vendors/ suppliers or tiers are distributed all over the world, so it is very difficult to align them at ne quality level. Figure 8 shows SCM pyramid tiers for this research enterprise. In the current enterprise, tier 1 produces the vehicle, tier 2 concerns in the software development and tier 3 deals with component assembly and so on. Now, how do we assure that all of these tiers are manufacturing products at a quality and attuned with the standards, or according to the pattern given by the organization? For assurance and conformation of the above scenario, we apply the demand-pull logic of JIT theory. For its deployment, multitasking is ensured, various components are being manufactured at various vendors nd they are required for final assembly. MPS is made commune to all vendors. Since the enterprise status is online, all the components are brought in time to final assembly and fabricated and then deli vered to customers. The current enterprise’s MPS is analyzed on the basis of orders, forecasting, and capacity. It depends upon the size of this period and ABC classification of the supplier. The demand planning shows the supplier visibility/ negotiation and the cumulative lead time of the system. The system SC cycle contains the works orders which are issued on the basis of MPS and orders. The job ards play an important role in this scenario. 302 The International Arab Journal of Information Technology, Vol. 5, No. 3, July 2008 for quality, supplier training, seminar/ exhibition, supplier quality audit and supplier improvement strategies. Hence, we conclude adaptation of the most promising innovations enabled by the modern ITenhanced SCM systems. The modelled approach of the SCM system provides a foundation for future experimentation with prospect scenarios and strategies. Acknowledgments Anonymous reviewers are acknowledged. This work was supported by the National Key Techn ology R andD Program of China (Grant No. 2006BAH02A09) and the High Technology R and D Program of China (Grant No. 2006AA04Z165). PhD Scholarship for Mr. Danish Irfan is awarded by COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT), Pakistan. Figure 9. JIT pull logic for customer demand. References [1] 4. Conclusions Our current exertion demonstrates that SCM can make a huge impact on the enterprise’s bottom line and customer’s satisfaction level. In the enterprise ‘A’ study, the schema needs design enhancement. Alteration of â€Å"lead time† and â€Å"cycle time† is desired to be minimized and optimized further.Enterprise ‘B’ needs to improve the customer relationships. Regional suppliers must be expanded to give a broader scope for its customers and local retailers. Regional suppliers also need JIT interaction with the manufacturer for enhancement of effective SC. In Enterprise ‘C’, we conclude that the SCM structu re can be made easy by categorization of the items, focused lead times for delivery, cost and quality to acquire and develop a sophisticated technological base for enlarging and expansive production of components. Delivery target of the product to customer is scheduled keeping the view main items in our designed SCM.Thus, it also enables managers to reduce their cost through more effective contract negotiations. Concerned managers now can direct that class A items may be reviewed frequently to reduce the average-lot size and to keep their inventory records accurate. In Enterprise ‘D’, SC targets its goals by making demand visibility through an online ERP system. It has compressed time and breaks down barriers for the top management/ leadership of the enterprise. It has also learnt the organization as working together and teamwork brings up an active SC domino effect. The effective SC has also lead the enterprise to break down arriers by efficient communication, initial planning meetings, communication during contract, partnership [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Tompkins J. , â€Å"Beyond Supply Chain Management,† Supply Chain Management Review, http://www. scmr. com/article/CA629657. html, 2000. Cooper M. , Lambert D. , and Pagh J. , â€Å"Supply Chain Management: More than a New Name for Logistics,† The International Journal of Logistics Management, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 1-13, 1997. Hurst B. and Jennifer J. , â€Å"A Network Based Methodology to Model Supply Chain Systems,† PhD Thesis, The University of Iowa, 2002. Irfan D. , Xiaofei X. , and Shengchun D. , â€Å"ASCOR Reference Model of the Supply Chain Management System in an Enterprise,† International Arab Journal of Information Technology, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 292-299, 2008. Saad M. , Jones M. , and James P. , â€Å"A Review of the Progress Towards the Adoption of Supply Chain Management (SCM) Relationships in Construction,† European Journal of Purchasing and Supply Manageme nt, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 173183, September 2002. Wu J. , Ulieru M. , Cobzaru M. , and Norrie D. , â€Å"Supply Chain Management Systems: State of the Art and Vision,† in Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Management of Innovation and Technlogy (ICMIT), pp. 59-764, 2000. Danish Irfan is a PhD scholar in School of Computer Science and Engineering at Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China PRC. His research interests include data clustering applications, business intelligence, and SCM. Developing Approaches of Supply Chain Management Systems of Enterprises in Pakistan Xu Xiaofei is a professor and dean of School of Computer Science and Engineering at Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China PRC. His research interests include computer integrated manufacturing system, database systems, supply chain management, agile virtual enterprises, management nd decision information system, and knowledge engineering. He has published more than 200 academic papers. He is the stand ing member of the Council of China Computer Federation, member of the Expert Group for Discipline of Computer Science and Technology in the Academic Degree Committee of China State Council. 303 Deng Sheng Chun is an associate professor in School of Computer Science and Engineering at Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China PRC. His research interests include computer integrated manufacturing system, supply chain management, business intelligence, and data mining applications.