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CLASSIFICATION OF RESEARCH Research comes in many shapes and sizes. Before a researcher begins to conduct a study, he or she must decide on a specific type of research. Good researchers understand the advantages and disadvantages of each type, although most end up specializing in one. For classification of research we shall look from four [...]

SCIENTIFIC METHOD OF RESEARCH & ITS SPECIAL FEATURES Research produces knowledge which could be used for the solution of problems as well as for the generation of universal theories, principles and laws. But all knowledge is not science. The critical factor that separates scientific knowledge from other ways of acquiring knowledge is that it uses [...]

DATA MINING Data Mining can be defined as the task of discovering interesting patterns from large amounts of data, where the data can be stored in databases, data warehouses, or other information repositories. Data mining has a lot of business application in today’s world. We can identify the behavior of our customers and can effectively [...]

PRINCIPLES OF MACROECONOMICS PRINCIPLE #1 PEOPLE FACE TRADEOFFS “There is no such thing as a free lunch!” To get one thing, we usually have to give up another thing e-g guns vs. butter, food vs. clothing, leisure time vs. work, efficiency vs. equity. Making decisions requires trading off one goal against another. Efficiency vs. Equity [...]

PRICING WITH MARKET POWER (Continued) AIRLINE FARES Differences in elasticities imply that some customers will pay a higher fare than others. Business travelers have few choices and their demand is less elastic. Casual travelers have choices and are more price sensitive. Elasticities of Demand for Air Travel Elasticity First-Class Economy Plus Economy Price -0.3 -0.4 [...]

PRODUCER BEHAVIOR: PRODUCTION SIDE ANALYSIS (CONTINUED) ISOQUANT An isoquant represents different combinations of factors of production that a firm can employ to produce the same level of output. Isoquant can be used to illustrate the concepts of returns to scale and returns to factor. Labor Isoquant Map: Like an indifference map, an isoquant map consists [...]

FAMILY AND MARRIAGE IN TRANSITION There is a great diversity in the family and marriage arrangements. The globalization of societies, and with the emerging chances in Pakistani society one could expect further variations in this institution. Pakistani society is certainly experiencing the changing trend toward industrial-urban way of life. Every third person in Pakistan is [...]

DWH Life Cycle: Pitfalls, Mistakes, Tips Five Signs of trouble Project proceeded for two months and nobody has touched the data. End users are not involved hands-on from day one throughout the program. IT team members doing data design (modelers and DBAs) have never used the access tools. Summary tables defined before raw atomic data [...]

A Brief Introduction to Data mining (DM) What is Data Mining?: Informal “There are things that we know that we know… there are things that we know that we don’t know… there are things that we don’t know we don’t know.” Donald Rumsfield US Secretary of Defence Let’s start data mining with a interesting statement. [...]

Multidimensional OLAP (MOLAP) OLAP Implementations 1. MOLAP: OLAP implemented with a multi-dimensional data structure. 2. ROLAP: OLAP implemented with a relational database. 3. HOLAP: OLAP implemented as a hybrid of MOLAP and ROLAP. 4. DOLAP: OLAP implemented for desktop decision support environments. MOLAP physically builds “cubes” for direct access – usually in the proprietary file [...]

Introduction to Data Ware Housing–Part IV Does not follows the traditional development model Requirements gathering   Implement warehouse Analysis   Integrate data Design   Test for biasness Programming   Program w.r.t data Testing   Design DSS system Integration   Analyze results Implementation   Understand requirement Figure-4.1: Comparison of SDLC & CLDS Operational environment is created [...]

Introduction to Data Ware Housing – Part II Why a Data Warehouse (DWH)? Moore’s law on increase in performance of CPUs and decrease in cost has been surpassed by the increase in storage space and decrease in cost. Meaning, it is true that the cost of CPUs is going down and the performance is going [...]

ETHICAL & LEGAL ISSUES IN COUNSELING Two important ethical issues in the practice of counseling are described below: a) Keeping Relationships Professional Dual relationships Bartering Multiple clients b) Professional Responsibility Advertising & Soliciting Clients Credentials Evaluation, Assessment, and Interpretation Keeping Relationships Professional Dual Relationships: Dual relationship refers to professional’s assuming two or more roles simultaneously [...]

CULTURAL FACTORS IN COMPLEX DECISION MAKING Introduction: Small Decisions and Big Decisions Making decisions is a universal process. Human beings in all ages and cultures constantly find themselves in a position where they have a choice between two or more alternatives. Whether you try to attack the mammoth from the left or the right side, [...]

Enterprise Resource Planning Following are various modes of integration: Connect Existing modules/system Use Supply Chain Management (SCM) Software Use ERP Software The material on first two modes is available in the handouts of lecture 42. The third way of integrating is using an ERP software. Before we start of with what ERP is, I would [...]

Phases of decision-making There are five phases of the decision making process, the details of these phases have already been discussed in detail. These five phases will be elaborated in the form of an example for better understanding. Phases of decision-making process are: Intelligence – searching for conditions in the environment that call for decisions [...]

Data Mart Data warehouses can become enormous with hundreds of gigabytes of transactions. As a result, subsets, known as “data marts,” are often created for just one department or product line. Data Warehouse combines databases across an entire enterprise. However, Data Marts are usually smaller and focus on a particular subject or department or product [...]

What are Systems? A system is a group of elements that are integrated with the common purpose of achieving an objective. Organization having common goal for the achievement are functionally interactive units. All systems have inputs, outputs, and feedback, and maintain a basic level of equilibrium. For example, in the human body the heart functions [...]

Organization & Information Requirements Organizations have various attributes which distinguish them from each other. No two organizations are similar in all respects. There have to have certain distinctive lines keeping them unique from each other. Information requirements keep varying in accordance with Size of organization Its structure The Culture it follows Decision Making Structures Interested [...]

Defining Needs Decisions are required to be taken in day to day life. No single task in our life can be done without decision making. For every assignment we undertake, there has to be a process of making choices. Whenever we are faced with choices, there is an inevitable need of selecting one particular course [...]

LEADERSHIP PROCESS Managers versus Leaders As one expert puts it, “There are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept.” While almost everyone seems to agree that leadership involves an influence process, differences tend to be centred around whether leadership but be non-coercive and whether it [...]

DYSFUNCTIONS OF GROUPS Dysfunctions of groups refer to the negative functions of groups. These include the following four: Norm Violation Norm is the standard against which appropriateness of a behavior is judged. Thus, norms determine the behavior expected in a certain situation. By providing a basis for predicting others’ behaviors, norms enable people to behave [...]

PARTICIPATIVE DECISION MAKING TECHNIQUES Participative decision making techniques involve individuals or groups in process. As organizations move from centralized decision making to a non-centralized one, it has become important for all concerned people to be involved in the decision making process so that the decision is the best possible alternative. Participated decision making techniques range [...]

COMMUNICATION (Part II) Downward Communication Any communication that flows downward from a manager to employees is downward communication. Downward communication is used to inform, direct, coordinate and evaluate employees. When mangers assign goals to their employees, they are using downward communication. Managers are also using downward communication by providing employees with job descriptions, informing them [...]

ADOLESCENCE CONDUCT DISORDER AND ITS TYPES While 5 to 15 percent of all adolescents show “occasional” acts of antisocial behavior (Meeks, 1980), the conduct disorders are characterized by more displays of antisocial activity. Four types of conduct disorders share the DSM-III core description of repetitive and persistent patterns of antisocial behaviour that violate the rights [...]

ATTENTION & PATTERN RECOGNITION Attention is required to combine features to perceive patterns. Treisman & Gelade (1980) performed an experiment. They had the subjects try to detect a T in an array of 30 I’s and Y’s. They reasoned that subjects could do this by simply looking for the cross-bar feature of the T that [...]

CONDUCTING RESEARCH IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Aims: To make students understand how to conduct social psychology research using diverse methodologies. Objectives: 1. Describe empirical research and scientific method 2. Discuss basic steps in conducting social psychology research General Introduction of this topic spreading over six lectures Conducting social psychology research will be complete in almost 6 [...]

Applying Memory to Your Applications A remarkable thing happens to the software design process when developers accept the power of task coherence. Designers find that their thinking takes on a whole new quality. The normally unquestioned recourse of popping up a dialog box gets replaced with a more studied process, where the designer asks questions [...]

Types of qualitative research Social science and usability texts are full of methods and techniques for conducting qualitative research. We will discuss following qualitative research techniques: Stakeholder interviews Subject matter expert (SME) interviews User and customer interviews User observation/ethnographic field studies Literature review Product/prototype and competitive audits Stakeholder interviews Research for any new product design, [...]

Cost Involved Enjoying all these benefits of the database systems do have some additional costs on any organization which is going to adopt a database environment. These charges may also be known as the disadvantages of the database system. Different types of costs (Financial and Personnel) which an organization faces in adopting a database system [...]