Sleeping Disorder

Sleep disorders/disturbances can cause your sleep to be disturbed. Disturbed sleep includes the inability to fall asleep, the inability to go back to sleep, and frequent waking up during the night. Sleep disorders can make you feel tired, fatigued, and irritable, making it difficult for you to concentrate during the day. Sleep is a behavioral state that is a natural part of every individual’s life. We spend about one-third of our lives asleep. Nonetheless, people generally know little about the importance of this essential activity. Sleep is not just something to fill time when a person is inactive.Sleep is a required activity, not an option. Even though the precise functions of sleep remain a mystery, sleep is important for normal motor and cognitive function. We all recognize and feel the need to sleep. After sleeping, we recognize changes that have occurred, as we feel rested and more alert. Sleep actually appears to be required for survival. Rats deprived of sleep will die within two to three weeks, a time frame similar to death due to starvation. Most people have experienced sleep disturbances at some point in their lives.Anyone at any age can develop a sleep disorder/disturbance. Depending on the cause and the treatment, sleep disturbances can be short-term or long-term. According to HelpGuide. org â€Å"Sleeping disorder are problem with sleeping including trouble falling or staying asleep at the wrong times, too much sleep, or abnormal behaviours during sleep. There are more than 100 different sleeping and waking disorder. They can be grouped into four main categories. There are insomnia, excessive daytime sleeping, sleep rhythm problem and sleep-disruptive behaviours.Sleep can often be a barometer of our overall health. In many causes, people in good health distution to sleep well, whereas those suffering from repeated sleeping problems might have an underlying medical or mental health problem, be it minor or serious. Sleeping well is essential to our physical health and emotional well-being. Unfortunately, even minimal sleep loss can take a toll on your mood, energy, efficiency and ability to handle stress. Ignoring sleep problems and disorders can lead to poor health, accidents, impaired job performance and relationship stress.If you want to feel your best, stay healthy, and perform up to our potential, sleep is a necessity, not a luxury. † Sleep problems can be caused by various factors. Although causes may differ, the end result of all sleep disorders is that the body’s natural cycle of slumber and daytime wakefulness is disrupted or exaggerated. Factors that can cause sleep problems are; physical, medical, psychiatric, or environmental. Lack of sleep can cause accidents, serious health problems like heart disease , high blood pressure and including bad performance among students.Sleep disorders also can cause depression, hypertension and gain weight among students. Usually, students facing sleeping disor der when they are stress and tension due to the extra assignment that they have to finish within a short period. This will give them more pressure and may causes them to do something that will affect their own health. Another meaning of sleeping disorder is when someone did not have enough time to sleep, overslept, or they slept in wrong time . People that facing sleeping disorder is primary and secondary school students, college students, university student and employee.This is because they did not manage their time properly and continuously especially for their studies, outing, gathering, or with their family. The effect of sleeping disorder is this will make them feel tired and loses of energy during the next day especially during classes and lecture. Hence, they cannot give their focus for 100% and cannot understand and catch up the lesson what the teachers had teaches. In addition to the primary sleep disorders, there are three categories of sleep disorders that are caused by o r related to substance use or other physical or mental disorders.Sleep disorders related to mental disorders. Many mental disorders, especially depression or one of the anxiety disorders, can cause sleep disturbances. Psychiatric disorders are the most common cause of chronic insomnia. Sleep disorders due to medical conditions. Some patients with chronic neurological conditions like Parkinson's disease or Huntington's disease may develop sleep disorders. Sleep disorders have also been associated with viral encephalitis, brain disease, and hypo- or hyperthyroidism. Substance-induced sleep disorder.The use of drugs, alcohol, and caffein frequently produces disturbances in sleep patterns. Alcohol abuse is associated with insomnia. The person may initially feel sleepy after drinking, but wakes up or sleeps fitfully during the second half of the night. Alcohol can also increase the severity of breathing-related sleep disorders. With amphetamines or cocaine, the patient typically suffers from insomnia during drug use and hypersomnia during drug withdrawal. Opioids usually make short-term users sleepy. However, long-term users develop tolerance and may suffer from insomnia.In addition to alcohol and drugs that are abused, a variety of prescription medications can affect sleep patterns. These medications include antihistamines, corticosteroids, asthma medicines, and drugs that affect the central nervous system. As a matriculation student, we would like to know either this habits infectious KMNS students or not. So, we need to do research to find out the causes and effect of sleeping disorder towards KMNS student as they are having the most difficult time to study and stay here.

viloence in military Essays

viloence in military Essays viloence in military Essay viloence in military Essay Name: Instructor: Course: Date: Violence in military The high rate of violent incidents among military men and personnel retired from active duty is alarming. The highest instances of military violence have been recorded in the least expected areas like military towns, such as Schofield Barracks, that have been categorized as the world’s most dangerous areas. The high number of domestic violence cases among military families serves to aggravate the situation and bring more attention to stopping the violent rampage. The core activity within military circles involves operations that inevitably require a soldier to be violent. While this may be the job description, it does not necessarily mean that good soldiers need to have a violent predisposition. The various manifestations of violence within military circles raise various questions that can be answered through a combination of sources. First, what are the various forms of violence exhibited by military personnel? In her article, Szegedy-Maszak, mentions domestic violence and torture as the two main forms of violence. Other authors mention these two, but also include rape, mass slaughter and murder. Another vital question is what are the major causes of military violence? Violence among military personnel may be as a direct result of their job description that may involve restoring peace and order through force (Bojanski 18). Although this is the argument given by George Orwell, in his book Shooting an Elephant, even he had mercy and great respect for human life and strived to preserve it at any opportunity he grasped. This proves that military work might be violent but does not mean that violence is necessary or acceptable. The article â€Å"Was it conditions at Abu Gharib or perverse human nature that led to these atrocities† by Szegedy-Maszak Marianne focuses on the innate aggression within human natures as one of the major causes of excess aggression and violence among military personnel in modern day warfare, as was witnessed in Abu Gharib and other war-torn areas (Szegedy-Maszak 38). She argues that exposure to violence among young American recruits transformed them from peaceful liberators into merry sadists. Szegedy-Maszak Marianne provides two psychological solutions that try to discover the ability for wickedness that resides in normal military men. She referred to the simulated prison experiments in 1971 by Philip Zimbardo that resulted in the mock guards indulging in forms of torment and degradation. In conclusion, she narrowed down the excess violence within the forces to the environment, overzealous personnel and other minor factors such as racism and imperialism (Szegedy-Maszak 19). The situation witnessed by George Orwell in Burma was slightly different. He was a government official with the British Government in India where they were exceedingly oppressive, discriminative and dominant over the natives. Obviously, violence was a main tool in instilling discipline and compliance (Orwell 27). This source is critical since it brings out the fusion between violence and authority that makes the issue of military violence exceedingly difficult to analyze. A more focused approach toward the expression of violence among military personnel was capture by Justin McCurry in his article â€Å"Arrests of US Sailors in Okinawa Reignites Opposition to Bases† that talk about violence against women by military men (McCurry 78). In this case, military men allegedly raped a woman in Okinawa. Once again, the combination of authority and violence makes it difficult to determine whether the two American sailors committed the atrocity under the pressure of active military duty or purely out of the need to exploit an opportunity. Whatever the case, it is evident that the training methods employed by the US military (Watson 37). The issue of violence within the military and the different manifestations of violence outside the boundaries of the military have been on for many years without much intervention from governments and other stakeholders. Locals have had the worst experiences at the hands of military people, and this situation needs to be changed through the development of new solutions. Bojanski Heather. Domestic violence and the military. Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. Accessed on 7 December 2012. Retrieved from http://dhhs.ne.gov/behavioral_health/Documents/Bojanksi-DomesticViolence.pdf The article Domestic violence and the military were published to expose the situation of domestic violence in the context of military families. The article revealed that soldiers were at risk of having adjustment issues after they were done with the wars and had to go back to their families. The military officers displayed signs of heightened anger and petulance when it seemed that the adjusting process was becoming very difficult. The changes to the family that happened when they were away also served to aggravate the situation. The article gave examples of military officers who perpetrated acts of domestic violence due to their inability to adjust to the normal life. In such situations where soldiers have been unable to fit in to their new lifestyles, there are several solutions that could be attempted. One, the soldiers should be place under a monitoring program to study their behavior. In this way, uncooperative and violent behavior can be controlled before they cause casualties. The military should also provide peer-to-peer support programs that will allow soldiers going through the same issues to help each other sort their problems. McCurry Justin. Arrests of US Sailors in Okinawa Reignites Opposition to Bases. U.S. Military Violence against Women. Accessed on 7 December 2012. Retrieved from csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2012/1018/Arrests-of-US-sailors-in-Okinawa-reignites-opposition-to-bases-video In the article, two soldiers were arrested in connection with raping an innocent young girl when they were on duty in the quiet neighborhood of Okinawa in Japan. The two officers, Christopher Browning and Skyler Dozierwalker angered the Japan government who termed the incident as â€Å"egregious and vile† (McCurry 38). However, the American government which is responsible for the training of the military personnel and who promoted the use of aggression and violence took a softer stand and promised to investigate into the matter. The response was a clear indication that violence among military soldiers was condoned and cultivated by the military system. This increases the argument pointing at the military academies for producing flawed training modules that nurture violent tendencies among soldiers. Orwell, George. Shooting an Elephant: And Other Essays. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1950. Print The book Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell was based his real life experiences as the sub-divisional police officer of the town of Moulmein. In the book, Orwell openly displays his disgust with the British method of governance in India. His contempt and guilt put him at crossroads because, as the police officer, the government required him to engage in some potentially violent activities against the natives. On the other hand, the natives also treat him with distrust and hatred that makes their relationship highly volatile and malicious. Orwell uses the metaphor of â€Å"killing the elephant† to show the destructive strength of imperialism, and in the metaphor, he expresses the guilt, hatred and anger that developed within him as he shot the elephant. The Orwell story illustrates the effect that violence has on the military which serves to exacerbate the violence within them. Modern day soldiers are most of the time forced to act against their will in the same way that Orw ell was forced to kill the elephant, though he thought it was a harmless and misunderstood animal. Szegedy-Maszak Marianne. Was it conditions at Abu Gharib or perverse human nature that led to these atrocities? US News. Accessed on 7 December 2012. Retrieved from usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/040524/24torture.htm The American soldiers in Abu Gharib were reported to have used excessive force in securing the territory during the Gulf War. This excessive display of violence caught the interest of Marianne Szegedy-Maszak who attempted to address the reasons behind the behavior by the soldiers. She argues that every individual has the potential to become violent and torture another. Within Abu Gharib, the soldiers were however letting of the anxiety, stress and helplessness of their work on the innocent community members. These difficult conditions increased the anxiety and stress. She even mentioned sexual tension as a reason for the pent up energy that was translated into violence. Watson Bruce. High crimes: Military towns are among the country’s most dangerous. Daily Finance. Accessed on 7 December 2012. Retrieved from dailyfinance.com/2009/11/16/most-dangerous-military-towns/ The author of the article Bruce Watson discusses the violent and aggressive behavior exhibited within military towns and areas that experience regular military activity. He explains that the military bases and the surrounding neighborhoods exhibit peaceful, safe and organized environment, but in reality, the serene atmosphere harbored high levels of criminal and violent activity. The Schofield Barracks topped the list as the most violent military neighborhood in America. It reported about 759 property crimes per 1,000 people, which represents 20 times more than the average crime rate for other parts of the world. Military men are expected to be at the forefront in promoting law and order, and it is understood that military bases and their neighborhoods should experience the highest levels of security. Military bases have a tendency to comprise of high concentrations of youthful, solitary men living together in close lodgings. One likely reason for these increases in crime rates could be that young soldiers, detached from parental and communal supervision feel more tempted to perpetrate various types of crimes.

Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research - Essay Example On the other hand, hopeful patients wait for concrete results from different laboratory tests to confirm that it is indeed an answer to their ailment. The purpose of this paper is to give a brief background on some facts about the human embryonic stem cells. Particularly it will explore answers to the following questions: Each of us started as a single living cell that resulted from the union between a sperm and an egg. From this single cell, certain chronological events took place that eventually led to the development of different body parts. Cells increase in number and differentiated to many cell types until we reached and assumed a human form. Many doctors agree that this is a miracle of Science. On the other hand, some started to try and make this miracle happen in a petri dish for purposes of helping fertilization occur between couples wanting to have babies. Eventually, this simple experiment led to the discovery of another potential wonder that these dividing young cells could give. Thus, embryonic stem cells became a word of mouth in all scientific publications and journals. These cells are found in a 4-5 day old embryo. They have a unique capability to continuously divide that enables them to self-renew. ... Embryonic stem cells are also capable of differentiating and developing into many cell types such as brain, heart, liver, skin cells, etc upon instructions of biological signals (NIC 2006). Hence, they are also called pluripotent cells. History of Embryonic Stem Cell Research Embryonic Stem Cell Research began through the efforts of Gail Martin, Matthew Kaufman and Martin Evans when they derived mouse embryonic stem cells way back in 1981 (The White House 2001). However, the breakthrough happened in February 1998 when James A. Thomson of the University of Wisconsin and his team announced that they had successfully isolated and cultured the first human stem cell line derived from blastocytes. The team obtained these blastocytes left over from successful in-vitro fertilization procedures (Stem Cells Portal 2008). Thomson revealed that the obtained cells transformed into different types when it was injected under the mice's skin. Furthermore, there were also remnants of the fundamental mammalian embryo layers proving that these cells are also flexible during the course of their development. The results obtained from the study shed hope gearing towards finding a medical treatment for some diseases (Pedersen 1999). Just about the same time that year, another group of scientists were conducting experiments similar to that of Thomson. John D. Gearhart of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore was also extracting and culturing the same cell types from human fetal ovaries and testes (Pedersen 1999). Other developments and laboratory experiments soon followed with the same aim of developing their own embryonic stem cell line. One major scientific development took place in May of 2003 when researchers announced that they have successfully

Murabahah in Islamic Commercial Law Application within Islamic Banking Essay

Murabahah in Islamic Commercial Law Application within Islamic Banking and Finance Industry - Essay Example Now there are more than two hundred Islamic financial establishments all over the world. Actually, Murabahah is a term associated with Islamic Fiqh, which indicates to a particular type of sale, and it has nothing to do with financing. Islamic scholars still argue that, the structuring of  Murabahah  financing is rather different from the overdraft facility prepared along conventional lines as the former one offers numerous benefits to the bank and its customers. In fact, murabahah as a means of finance was permitted by the Sharia scholars with certain conditions. Unless these conditions are fully observed, murabahah is not allowable. According to Sharia, if the conditions are ignored, the transaction becomes void or worthless. â€Å"Murabaha is a sale contract for selling a specified item at a mutually agreed mark-up (profit) added to the purchase price† (Trade Based Financing Murabaha Cost-Plus Sale) n.d.). Issues in  Murabahah 1. Securities against  the Murabahah Pa yments received from sale are called receivables, and for this purpose, the clients are asked to provide a security. 2. Guaranteeing Murabahah The seller can request the client to provide a  third  party guarantee. The guarantee doesn’t have the option to charge fee from the client. The reason is that, a person who is charged with a fee for advancing loan may fall under the definition of riba. . 3.  Penalty of Non-Payment: In case a client fails to make payment of the fee on the due date, the fee should not be increased. â€Å"In Murabahah financing, once the price is fixed, it cannot be increased† (Important Issues Involved in Murabahah n.d.). 4.  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Rollover in  the Murabahah† (Roll Over in Murabahah 2011): Once a commodity is sold through Murabahah, its possession transfers from the bank to the client, and therefore the seller may not have any right on the property. The seller can claim only the price agreed. 5.  Rebate on Former Payments: Occa sionally some debtors often like to pay before time to obtain discounts. However within Islam, a large section of Muslim scholars as well as the major schools of thought regard this as un ­Islamic. On the other hand, if the Islamic bank or the financial institution gives somebody a discount on its own, it is not offensive, particularly if the clients are needy. The Significant Issue in Murabahah Financing. The subject of debate among the modern Shariah scholars is that the bank or financier can go for a real sale while the client requests Murabahah financing from the bank, because the obligatory commodity, at this stage is not possessed by the bank, and the person cannot sell goods not possessed by him nor can he facilitate a forward sale. It is also decided that the commodity which is sold is given as a security to the seller. Some scholars have the opinion that this can be done only after the buyer has undertaken its delivery and not prior to that. Critically Discuss and Analyze the Discourse from the Different Legislations and Jurisdictions by Presenting the Islamic Finance Cases that Have Come Before the Courts. Islamic banking denotes a system of banking activity or banking that is reliable with the principles and rules of Islamic law (Sharia), and its practical application in the course of the growth of Islamic economics. â€Å"Sharia forbids† the payment of fees for lending cash (Riba, usury) on specific conditions, in addition to investing in businesses that offer goods or services measured contrary to its principles (Haraam, forbidden). At the same time, as these principles were employed as the support base for a flourishing financial system in earlier times, it is merely in the late 20th century that numerous Islamic banks were created to apply these principles to semi-private

Making decisions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Making decisions - Essay Example aineà ­s† (Iris Kempe) Most of the decisions political decisions taken in Ukraine seems to be like the decisions of an emperor rather than a democratic country. â€Å"In November 2004, fraudulent presidential elections in Ukraine touched off seventeen days of mass protests whose goal was to overturn the official result† (Regina Smyth) Though the elections were held in an appropriate manner, the agitations started to began against the legally elected prime minister which is extra ordinary when we compare the elections of a democratic country. Since the Ukrainian people were unaware of the principles of democracy, because of the extended communist rule before, the public began to start agitations against even an elected government. lections on March 26, 2006. International observers noted that conduct of the Rada election was in line with international standards for democratic elections, making this the most free and fair in Ukraines history On April 3, 2007, On April 3, 2007; President Yushchenko dissolved the Supreme Rada and called for preterm elections. Months of political stalemate followed, with the Anti-Crisis Coalition continuing to hold Rada sessions, even after opposition parties Our Ukraine and BYuT resigned their seats and deprived the parliament of a constitutional quorum. On May 27, Yushchenko, Yanukovych, and Rada Speaker Moroz reached a political agreement on new elections, which were held September 30, 2007. (Ukraine) Even though the elections were conducted in an appropriate manner, President has got other ideas which are still unknown to the public. In a democratic setup mostly only after the prime minister loses the confidence of the parliament, the president will dissolve the parliament if no other options are available. But in Ukraine’s case the political observers looking suspiciously over the motives of president in dissolving the parliament. Reports showed that the president and the parliament (Rada) speaker have taken the decisions of

Time Warner Inc. Essay Example for Free

Time Warner Inc. Essay Time Warner Inc. is one of the biggest media conglomerates in the world it is only behind Walt Disney and News Corporation. The main areas of activity are film making, publishing and TV broadcasting. Time Warner combines subsidiaries like Warner Bros., New Line Cinema, Turner Broadcasting, through the last the company runs on air popular channels CNN, TBC and TNT. Also paid channels HBO and Cinemax are ran by Time Warner. The company affects almost all areas of media business thereby covering a large part of the media market. All sort of media productions are being produced to satisfy customers of any age category, gender and interest, which lead to the expansion of the range in concernment of company’s products. In order to have competitive advantage over the rivals, the company is improving service and the quality through their free movie channels, video based cable and new marketing to increase the number of customers, and also they attracted a big number of customers by their broadband and telephone services. To come to the point, Time Warner Cable launched its VoIP telephone service that included voice over IP (VoIP) communications, subscription-based and on-demand video services, and high-speed Internet access, launching this service critical differentiation from the competitors took place in the company, by that taking a large share of customers which used the services of traditional phone companies. One of the brightest strategic examples that the company experienced is Internationalization, a couple years ago Time Warner entered the Asian market, China and India and had 2 different consequences. All attempts to develop its media resources in China were failed because of harsh censorship and too many restrictions, also the company faced with problem of piracy. Favorable environment in Indian market allowed the company to flourish. Their strong competitor Viacom Company has also entered the Indian market with success and become top rated in recent years, Mtv India of this company is broadcasted in more than 30 million houses. For me the next wise decision for the company was collaboration with Netflix Inc. Time Warner gave to this online service a license to broadcast the shows of CW network. There are 2 positive things in this collaboration the first is optimal way of monetizing money and the second is that nowadays more and more people prefer to use internet for watching different shows and news, so this will help to hold customers. Part 2 1) Internationalization strategy. Jeffrey Bewkes chef of the company is going to expand the business overseas. The aim is to capture foreign markets which have future perspectives. They have already spent enough money on acquisition foreign production companies in India and in Eastern Europe and both projects are successful. For Bewkes Germany is a start point for penetration other European countries, and the company realized 19 movies for German market last year. In this strategy Time Warner faced with strong competition with Viacom Company which has spread much in the foreign market the owner of Mtv, Paramount film studio and Comedy Central. Data was taken from http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_07/b4166060309334.htm 2) Mobile Strategy. As it is very popular nowadays to use mobile phones and tablets, Time Warner Cable decided to move their business to these devises. The company states that a half of their consumers, choose to order mobile services using their own devices. As a result mobile sales of the company have grown from 0% to 10% in 3 months. Also Viacom Company is now allowing Time Warner subscribers to see their shows on their devices that certainly will have a positive impact. Data was taken from http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/time-warner-cable-exec-20pc-of-digital-sales-come-from-mobile 3) Pricing Strategy. Time Warner Cable introduced their new â€Å"tiered pricing strategy† their aim was that if a customer increases network usage their costs also go up, this tactics should reduce a bill for customers with lower usage The data was taken http://ajnyc.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/the-real-culprit-behind-timewarners-pricing-strategy/ Part 3 1) Proceed Internationalization Strategy – There are still many countries that are favorable to expand business in. For example Russia is a big beneficial market for media companies, people of this country tend to watch western shows but it is not always possible. The company’s competitor Viacom successfully launched Mtv Russia in the mid. 90’s that is an example of successful foreign media project in Russia. 2) Joint Venture- We know about collaboration of Time Warner with companies AOL and Netflix, The first project was failed. But Netflix is a favorable case, it is a chance of expanding company’s capabilities to sell their products in a virtual network. So they should deeply analyze markets of companies that will help them to increase media broadcasting in a wider range. 3) Diversify the content- I think that Time Warner one of the biggest media groups have a potential to diversify its content launching more competitive projects, I would suggest them to open some music channel, it is very popular at present and attracts a large audience all over the world. The simple thing about that, the modern music is easily accepted by any culture in our planet.

Benefits and problems concerning traditional approach to budgeting

Benefits and problems concerning traditional approach to budgeting In order to advise two different businesses about the benefits and problems associated with traditional approach to budgeting and budgetary control, i have collected and compiled the information regarding budgeting and divided it into different parts so that the reader may easily understand . 1.INTRODUCTION : A budget is a planning and controlling tool for an oraganisation.This tool can work effectively only when it is used with due care.It is not only the a cost monitoring mechanism but also an integral part of an organisations planning and control activities.It aims at achieving organisational objectives and motivating the personnel concerned.For the success of budgetary system gathering the essential informationand choosing an appropriate budgetary system etc.are necessary. The ideal budegting system is one that encourages goal congruence(i.e. a situation where the personal goals of the employees match the oraganisational goals).Ensuring the greater participation of the supervisory level in the management process can ensure goal congruence. Budgets may be of different types to suit the different practices followed by different organisations.An organisation using a conventional systemof budgeting may somtimes need to switch over to another to suit its requirements.Changing a budegtary system is not a simple task.An oraganisation has to face certain difficultiesin the form of resistance to change by the personnel of the organisation,changes required in the existing support systems etc., inorder to change its budgetary system.The Success of a budget is also largely dependant on the level of accuracy in estimating the revenues and costs for the budget period.There are several statistical techniques which may prove useful in forecasting the figures to be incorporated in budgets. 2. TRADITIONAL BUDGETING: 2.1. Introduction: First of all we begin this topic with the simple definition of budget.In short budget can be defined as Quantitative economic plan made with regard to time. Therefore, for something to be characterised as a budget it must comprise the quantities of economic resources to be allocated and used, it has to be expressed in economic i.e. monetary terms, it has to be a plan not a hope or a forecast but an authoritative intention, and it must be made within a certain period of time (Harper, 1995, p. 318). Only a plan that has such characteristics can be called a budget. However, if a budget is looked upon in its wider context, it can be defined as a management tool that puts executives in control of the financial health of their company. It is an objective measure of the financial structure of companys operation and a tool that forces management to be accountable in a structured and objective way. Budgets as management tools by themselves are neither good nor bad. How managers administer budgets is the key to their value. When administered wisely, budgets facilitate planning and resource allocation and help to enumerate, itemize, dissect and examine all of the products and services that a company offers to customers (Seer, 2000, p. 187). In short and taken at its simplest level, a budget is a mathematical exercise, but in reality it is much, much more than numbers on spreadsheets, which is what following text will definitely show. The purpose of budgeting is that it gives management an idea of how well a company is meeting their income goals, whether or not expenses are in line with predicted levels, and how well controls are working. Properly used, budgeting can and should increase profits, reduce unnecessary spending, and clearly define how immediate steps can be taken to expand markets (Thomsett, 1988, p. 5). In order to achieve this, management needs to build a budgeting system, the major objectives of which are to (Viscione, 1984, p. 42): Set acceptable targets for revenues and expenses. Increase the likelihood that targets will be reached. Provide time and opportunity to formulate and evaluate options should obstacles arise. Since budgeting as a process is very complex, it comes as no surprise that budgets are trying to fulfil numerous functions such as (Harper, 1995, p. 321, and Churchill, 1984, p. 162): Planning a budget establishes a plan of action that enables management to know in advance the amounts and timing of the production factors required to meet desired level of sales. Controlling a budget can be used to help an organization reach its objectives by ensuring that each of the individual steps are taken as planned. Coordinating a budget is where all the financial components of an organization Individual units, divisions, and departments are assembled into a coherent master picture that expresses the organizations overall operational objectives and strategic goals. Communicating by publishing the budget, management explicitly informs its subordinates as to what exactly they must be doing and what other parts of the organization will be doing. A budget is designed to give managers a clear understanding of the companys financial goals, from expected cost savings to targeted revenues. Instructing a budget is often as much an executive order as an organizational plan since it lays down what must be done. It may, therefore, be regarded by subordinates as a management instruction. Authorising if a budget is a management instruction then conversely it is an authorisation to take budgeted action. Motivating in that a budget sets a target for the different members of the organization so that it can act to motivate them to try and attain their budgeted targets. Performance measuring by providing a benchmark against which actual performance can be measured, a budget clearly plays a crucial role in the important task of performance measurement. Decision-making it should never be assumed that a budget is set in concrete and when changing course a well-designed budget is a very useful tool in evaluating the consequences of a proposed alternative since the effect of any change can be traced throughout the entire organization. Delegating budgets delegate responsibility to the managers who assume authority for a specified set of resources and activities. In this way budgets emphasise even more the existing organizational structure within the company. Educating the educating effect of a budget is perhaps most evident when the process is introduced in a company. Operating managers learn not only the technical aspects of budgeting but also how the company functions and how their business units interact with others. Better management of subordinates a budget enhances the skills of operating managers not only by educating them about how the company functions, but also by giving them the opportunity to manage their subordinates in a more professional manner. The requirements that all these functions impose upon a budget make it difficult for one system to meet them all. It is precisely because these requirements differ, that role conflicts in budgeting system arise. These need to be appropriately dealt with so that dysfunctional behaviour like budget padding or other damaging budget games for the company do not appear. Since there are three major roles for any budgeting system, at least three conflicts may arise (Barrett, Fraser, 1977, p. 141): Planning versus motivation For a budget to be most effective in the planning role, it should be based on a realistic assessment of the companys operating capabilities and on managements judgment about what is most likely to happen in the future. Yet this kind of budget runs the risk of setting targets so low that motivation is adversely affected since to motivate properly, budget objectives should be set higher than those for planning and be difficult yet attainable. On the other hand, these difficult yet attainable objectives lead to an overly optimistic budget and run the risk of falling short and under using company resources. Motivation versus evaluation There is a widely held belief that budget objectives should be set as fixed standards against which performance can be judged. Managers are also likely to be more committed to achieving this kind of objective since they know that the performance standards by which they are evaluated are not constantly changing. On the other hand, managers motivation can be impaired by rigid application of a fixed standard philosophy which doesnt consider the impacts of uncontrollable or unforeseeable events and doesnt allow for their removal from budget standards. Planning versus evaluation The planning roles requirement of providing realistic assessment of future prospects can conflict with the need to eliminate the effects of uncontrollable or unforeseeable environmental variables from the budget used for evaluation purposes. Yet, because they are separated in time, the conflict between these requirements is considered a minor one since it can be considerably reduced if appropriate adjustments are done at the end of the budget period. As can be seen in the previous paragraph, functions that typical budgets want to cover are very wide. It comes then as no surprise that those budgets are being used today in practice for many purposes. Bunce, Fraser and Woodcocks (1995) survey showed that general uses of budgets can be divided into financial and operational type of uses. Figure 2 clearly indicates that, of the various uses of budgeting for management, the most important are those financially oriented like the use of budgets for financial forecast, cost control, cash flow management, and capital expenditure supervision. The operational management uses of budgeting have been less common but the interviewed companies have concluded that, in todays business environment, they are of growing importance. The need to improve performance is intensifying to the point that it is no longer enough just to control costs, but That company must also pay attention to things like strategy, communication, and employee evaluation. These are purposes for which budgets have not been used so much in the past. As stated in the opening definition, budgets are plans set for a certain period of time, such as a month, quarter, and year and so on. This time period is then usually broken into smaller sub periods. The most frequently used budgets are annual budgets that are subdivided by months for the first quarter and by quarters for the remainder of the year. Of course, actual time periods for which budgets are made depend mostly on their purpose and use, and it is solely the decision of individual companies as to what time periods will be utilized for their budgeting process. 2.2. History of budgets: The English word budget stems from the French word bougette and the Latin word bulga which was a leather bag or a large-sized purse which travellers in medieval times hung on the saddle of their horse. The treasurers bougette was the predecessor to the small leather case from which finance ministries even today in countries like Great Britain and Holland present their yearly financial plan for the state. So after being used to describe the word wallet and then state finances, the meaning of the word budget in 19th century slowly shifted to the financial plan itself, initially only for governments and then later for private and legal entities (Hofstede, 1968, p. 19). It was only then that budgets started to be considered as financial plans and not just as money bags. The use of budgets as financial planning and control tools for business enterprises is historically a rather young phenomenon. In the US, early budgetary principles in companies were mostly derived from the budget techniques in government. The other source of budgetary principles for business in the US was the Scientific Management Movement, which in the years between 1911 and 1935 conquered the US industry. Many historians agree that early budgeting systems can be seen as a logical extension of Taylors Scientific Management from the shop floor to the total enterprise. However, it was not until the depression years after 1930 that budget control in US companies started to be implemented on a large-scale.Budgets with their focus on cost control simply became a perfect management tool for that period of time (ibid., p. 20). In Europe the idea of using budgets for business was firstly formulated by the French organization pioneer Henri Fayol (1841-1925). There was, however, little appli cation in practice. Another practical stimulus came from the ideas of the Czech entrepreneur Thomas Bata (1876-1925) who introduced the so-called departmental profit-and-loss-control as a tool for decentralizing his international shoe company into a federation of independently run small businesses. Nevertheless, the main inducement for the development of budgets and their implementation in European companies came from across the Atlantic in the years following the Second World War (ibid., p. 21). Companies like Du Pont and General Motors in the U.S., Siemens in Germany, and Saint Gobain and Elà ©ctricità © de France in France, which pioneered the M-form (multidivisional) organizational structure in the 1920s, first started to use budgets to support their rapid growth as they expanded into new products and markets. This was to help them to reduce the complexity of managing multiple strategies (Hope, Fraser, 1997, p. 20). The enormous diversity in the product markets served by these vertically integrated corporations required new systems and measures to coordinate dispersed and decentralized activities. In this kind of environment, budgets and ROI measure rightly played a key role in permitting central management to coordinate, motivate and evaluate the performance of their divisional managers, and perform a proper allocation of internal capital and resources (Johnson, Kaplan,1991, p. 11). However, it is was only in the 1960s that accountants started adding to budgets other functions (like management performance evaluation and motivation) in addition to those functions for which they had originally been devised planning and control (Hope, Fraser,1999b, p. 50). In that period, budgets became the central and most important activity within management accounting or in the words of Horngren, Foster and Datar: the most widely used accounting tool for planning and controlling organizations (2000, p. 178). This is exactly how budgets have remained to this day. The only thing that has changed in the meantime is the competitive environment in which todays companies operate and which has provoked many discussions about budgets disadvantages and their alternatives, some of which will be presented in later parts of this assessment. 2.3. Budgeting Process: The process of budgeting generally involves an iterative cycle which moves between targets of desirable performance and estimates of feasible performance until there is, hopefully, convergence to a plan which is both feasible and acceptable (Emmanuel, Otley, Merchant,1990, p. 31). Alternatively, if we look beyond many details and iterations of the usual budgeting process we can see that there is a simple universally applicable budgeting process, the phases of which can be described in the following manner (Finney, 1994, p. 16): Budget forms and instructions are distributed to all managers. The budget forms are filled out and submitted. The individual budgets are transformed into appropriate budgeting/accounting terms and consolidated into one overall company budget. The budget is reviewed, modified as necessary, and approved. The final budget is then used throughout the year to control and measure the organization. The inevitable dependence of individual budgets on one another requires that budgets be prepared in a hierarchical manner. Figure 3 indicates a common hierarchical form of the budgeting process together with the necessary data flow between particular budgets and phases of their making. This picture shows that despite having only a few general phases, the budgeting process, due to its linearity and iteration loop, is in fact a very complex and time consuming process. Since it is so complex and important, the budgeting process requires lots of decision making on the particular choices that developers of budgets have at their disposal. Churchill (1984, p.151) has provided a list of eight budget choices that managers have to be concerned with when setting up the budgeting system. Thereby, these concerns vary according to whether the company intends to use its budgets primarily for planning or for control. These budget choices are: Whether it is to be prepared from the bottom-up or top-down, How it is to be implemented, How the budget process is linked to the strategic planning process, Whether it should be a rolling budget and how often it should be revised, Whether performance should be evaluated against the original budget or the one relating to the actual activity level of the organization, Whether compensation/bonuses should be based on budgeted performance, What budget evaluation criteria should be used, and What degree of stretch should be incorporated into the budget. In general, accounting theory suggests that large companies should be concerned more with operational efficiency and emphasize coordination and control aspects of budgets, while smaller innovative firms should concentrate more on the planning aspects of their budgets. 2.4. Types Of Budgets: A budget is not a unitary concept but varies from organization to organization. The basic concept of budgeting involves estimating future performance, comparing actual results with the estimate, and analyzing the differences between them. Factors that are relevant in determining the type or style of an organizations budget and its effects include: the type of organization, the leadership style, personalities of people affected by the budget, the method of preparation, and the desired results of the budgeting process (Cherrington, Cherrington, 1973, p. 226). In general, budgets can be classified into two primary categories (Cohen, Robbins, Young,1994, p. 171): Operating budgets: Operating budgets consist of plans for all those activities that make up the normal operations of the firm. The main components of the firms operating budget include sales, production, inventory, materials, labour, overheads and RD budgets. Financial budgets: Financial budgets are used to control the financial aspects of the business. In effect, these budgets reveal the influence of the operating budgets on the firms financial position and earnings potential. They include a cash budget, capital expenditures budget and pro forma balance sheet and income statement. In figure 4, all major budgets that can be used in a typical company and how they are linked and interconnected within the larger system of the master budget can be seen. This confirms what has already been said about the budgeting process that individual budgets are dependent on one another which requires that they be prepared in a hierarchical manner. Except for the usual division of companies budgets into operational and financial, budgets can also be differentiated based on expenditure authority. Using this approach, two major groups of budgets can be defined (Kemp, Dunbar, 2003, p. 3): Line-item budgets These are budgets where the name of each line is set, as is the amount of money that can be spent on each item. If one works within a line-item budget, one can not overspend a specific line item and then compensate this with savings on other line (or vice versa). The authority to move money from one line item to another must be granted at a higher level. Block budgets These are the opposites of line-item budgets. Here a block of money is given. The details of the budget are presented but, later on, if one wants to spend more money on one item and less on another, one is free to do so. As long as the block of money is not overspent before the end of the year, the budget remains under control. 2.5. Budgets as planning tools: Welsch, Hilton, Gordon (1988, p. 73) have defined the budgeting process as a profit planning and control process and in that way not only have identified the two most important functions of budgets in organizations, but have also presented budgeting process in a wider context than it is usually depicted. Figure 5 clearly shows that the budgeting process is more than just a process of combining quantitative financial plans. It is a tool with which top management cascades strategy goals to operating levels. Budgets are ideal for this purpose since they are in essence the detailed quantification of targets for short-term choices of actions. Before continuing, it must be emphasised here that budgeting is not planning it is just the quantification of planning. Since the budget is fundamentally a plan, planning is the first important element of budgeting work. Planning is one of the elementary functions of management. It is the process of developing enterprise objectives and selecting a future course of action to accomplish them. It includes establishing enterprise objectives, developing premises about the environment in which they are to be accomplished, selecting a course of action for accomplishing the objectives, initiating activities necessary to translate plans into action and current replanning to correct deficiencies (Welsch, Hilton, Gordon, 1988, p. 3). It is a phase that involves the interpretation of the broader strategic policies derived during the formulation of strategy and their translation into more specific shorter-range plans. Once these short-term plans are quantified, they become budgets. That is why in many instances short-term planning and budgetary planning are used as synonyms. However, as figure 6 will show, connect ion between planning and budgeting is not isolated from influences of other elements that constitute corporate planning system and it is precisely the coherent functioning of the complete system that allows corporate planning to be implemented, period by period, through the budgetary process and its two elementary phases budgetary planning and budgetary Control (Lucey, 1996, p. 104). Apart from the purposes of setting desired objectives and goals and linking them with strategic long-range and tactical short-range plans, the fundamental objective of management planning within budgeting system is to provide a feedforward process for operations and control. It is this feedforward process that renders the planning phase of the budgeting system vitally important since it allows control and corrections of plans before they are even implemented. The difference between feedback and feedforward concepts is that feedback monitors past results to detect and correct disturbances to the plan, while feedforward reacts to immediate or forthcoming dangers by making adjustments to the system in advance in order to cope with the problem on time, i.e. feedback monitors, feedforward warns (Lucey,1996, p. 144). Since in any organizations it is unlikely that pure feedforward or pure feedback control could operate in isolation because feedback control is too slow, while feedforward control is too risky, these two concepts usually function within a single budgeting system as can be seen in figure 7. 2.6. Budgets as control devices : At the beginning of the period, the budget is a plan. At the end of the period, the budget is a control device to measure performance against expectations so that future performance may be improved. Control is achieved through continuous reporting of actual progress and expenditures relative to plans i.e. budgets (Shim, Siegel, 1994, p. 15). The aim of budgetary control is to provide a formal basis for monitoring the progress of the organization as a whole and of its component parts towards achievement of the objectives specified in budgets (Lucey, 1996, p. 147). Budgetary control process usually functions in a closed loop. This loop, which is illustrated in figure 8, starts with the planning phase, then records actual transactions, and finally reports against the plan and generates management response. In accounting literature, budgeting is also known as responsibility accounting. This means that plans and the resulting information on the performance of the plans are expressed in terms of human responsibilities because it is people, not reports that control operations. We can define responsibility accounting as a system of accounting in which costs and revenues are analysed in accordance with areas of personal responsibilities so that the performance of the budget holders can be monitored in financial terms (Lucey, 1996, p. 147). So the crucial thing for profit control is the division of authority and responsibility to managers. This means that managers should accept responsibility only over those figures that they have control. However, in practice, controllability1 is difficult to pinpoint for at least two reasons (Horngren, Foster, Datar, 2000, p. 195): Few costs are clearly under the sole influence of one manager. Over a long enough time span, all costs will come under somebodys control. For this reason, companies, alongside traditional responsibility centres2, also usually set up budget centres. These can be defined as a part of an organization for which a given manager has responsibility and authority and to which profit control data can be assigned (Harper,1995, p. 320). For budgeting control purposes, a special type of budget is prepared called the flexible budget. In order to understand why only those budgets can be used for the accurate measurement of performance, firstly the difference between them and fixed budgets must be explained. The fixed budget is based on the level of output planned at the start of the budget period. On the other hand, the flexible budget is developed using budgeted revenues or cost amounts based on the level of output actually achieved in the budget period (Horngren, Foster, Datar, 2000, p. 220). For this reason, from a control viewpoint, the fixed budget is likely to be inappropriate (unless by pure chance the actual level of activity turns out to be the same as the planned level which is highly unlikely) and should not be used for control purposes. It is with respect to this sort of budget that the old saying the budget is out of date before the budget period even begins is often a correct one (Harper, 1995, p. 336). 2.7. Benefits and problems associated with traditional budgeting: It is claimed that today as many as 99 percent of European and US companies are using budgets and have no intention of abandoning them (Better Budgeting: A report, 2004, p. 2). However, on the same page, it is stated that as many as 60 percent of those companies claim that they are not completely satisfied with their current budgeting systems and are continuously trying to improve them (ibid., p. 3). From this evidence, it is obvious that budgets carry with them many benefits and problems. Here is a list of some of the benefits that traditional budgeting can bring into organization if properly implemented and administered (Lucey, 1996, p. 161): It is a major formal way by which the organizational objectives are translated into specific plans, tasks and objectives related to individual managers and supervisors. It is an important medium for communication of organizational plans and objectives and of the progress made towards meeting those objectives. The development of budgets helps achieve coordination between the various departments and functions of the organization. The involvement of all levels of management in setting budgets, the acceptance of defined targets, the two way flow of information and other features of a properly organized budgeting system all help to promote a coalition of interest and to increase motivation. Managements time can be saved and attention directed to areas of greatest concern by the exception principle which is at the heart of budgetary control. Performance at all levels is systematically reported and monitored thus aiding the control of current activities. The investigation of operations and procedures, which is part of budgetary planning and the subsequent monitoring of expenditure, may lead to reduced costs and greater efficiency. The regular systematic monitoring of results compared to the plan (i.e. the budget) provides information upon which current operations are adjusted to bring them into line with the previous plan or, adjustments are made to the plan itself where this becomes necessary. The integration of budgets makes it possible to better manage cash and working capital and makes stock and buying policies more realistic. Nobody has better summarized in one sentence all the advantages of traditional budgeting as did Umapathy in his major work on budgeting practices in U.S. industry from 1987.Umapathy stated: There is no other managerial process that translates qualitative mission statements and corporate strategies into action plans, links the short-term with the long-term, brings together managers from different hierarchical levels and from different functional areas, and at the same time provides continuity by the sheer regularity of the process (Umapathy, 1987, p. xxii). It is exactly because of this that budgets will soon celebrate their century long existence. Since budgets encompass so many different functions and are used for so many things in organizations, it is obvious to expect them to have certain weaknesses. A group of authors at the Cranfield School of Management made an extensive review of budgeting literature. As part of their research, they identified 12 significant weaknesses of traditional planning and budgeting practices. These factors fall into three principal categories and can be listed as follows (Neely, Bourne, Adams, 2003, p. 23): Competitive strategy Budgets are rarely strategically focused and are often contradictory. Budgets concentrate on cost reduction and not value creation. Budgets constrain responsiveness and flexibility, and are often a barrier to change. Budgets add little value since they tend to be bureaucratic and discourage creative thinking. Business process Budgets are time consuming and costly to put together. Budgets are developed and updated too infrequently, usually annually. Budgets are based on unsupported assumptions and guesswork. Budgets encourage gaming and dysfunctional behaviour. Organizational capacity Budgets strengthen vertical command and control. Budgets do not re ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å¡ect the emerging network structures that organizations are adopting. Budgets reinforce departmental barriers rather than encourage knowledge sharing. Budgets make people feel undervalued. Furthermore, one of the biggest problems with budgets is that they tend to promote an inward-looking, short-term culture that focuses on achieving a budget figure, rather than on implementing business strategy and creating shareholder value over the medium to long term. For all these reasons, it is believed that these weaknesses lead collectively towards business underperformance and should therefore be dealt with (ibid). The above listed benefits and disadvantages of budgeting system have been present since the first d