Saya Robot

SAYA ROBOT ABSTRACT This Article describes an electronic mechanical machine with a Tele-operated android robot named SAYA. A robot is an electro- mechanical device which maybe appears as humanoid and it can performs tasks automatically. It may be done by using a remote control or a computer interface. The Branch of Technology that deals with Robots is called ROBTICS. It was found in the daily lives for example; the pet-type robot named AIBO, and a mental therapy robot and its effectiveness for elderly people. But the first uses of modern robots have been built by William Grey Walter in 1961s as industrial robots.THE ANDROID ROBOT SAYA After 15 years of research by Saya's developer Hiroshi Kobayashi, the Professor at Tokyo University of Science; Saya is being tested as a teacher and it is being trialed at a primary school in Tokyo. After working as a receptionist and secretary. Also the robot Saya already used as traffic wardens and one is even being developed to provide company to Al zheimer's sufferers. She can speak multiple- languages; also can express some basic emotions like surprise, disgust, smile, sadness. Because her face has simple structure and basically consists of mechanical frame and facial skin.SAYA THE ROBOT TEACHER In the classroom, there are Saya and some control equipment and the control system of Saya requires a compressor and electronic equipments. In the other side, there's an operation room with two monitors one of them is used for the control, and the other one used for the observation. Saya is able to assign tasks to students, as well as perform facial expressions to denote her current mood. She also able to catch students passing notes in class, as well as plagiarizing one another’s homework. The operator is able to hear students from the speakers and respond to students as well.THE MAIN PURPOSES OF SAYA ROBOT The robot's main purpose was to encourage children to be interested in science and technology; it's also expected to cont ribute to children's motivation to learn, in addition; it would benefit schools suffering from a shortage of human teachers. The robot was originally developed for companies who want to cut costs by replacing office workers such as secretaries and receptionists with an android. BIBLIOGRAPHY LIST – cdn. intechweb. org/pdfs/19461. pd – http://www. news. com. au/news/saya-robots-new-job-as-a-schoolteacher/story-fna7dq6e-1111119087968

American Has Too Many Malls Essay

Many traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are being threatened with â€Å"economic destruction† by their online competition. I’ve had the opportunity to spend some time looking at this issue, and I believe we’re seeing clear signs that the e-commerce revolution is seriously impacting commercial real estate and will continue to do so. Online retailers are relentlessly acquiring success in many retail categories. As a result, many offline businesses are fighting to survive for their economic life. A number of physical retailers have already succumbed to online competition including Circuit City, Borders, CompUSA, Tower Records and Blockbuster. Many other physical businesses are also showing signs of serious economic distress. While many of these large businesses collapsed due to their inability to compete online, The shopping mall is also in danger from the â€Å"online shopping revolution. † Many malls are closing stores by the thousands, and there are few large physical chains opening stores to take their place. The recession in 2008 was the catalyst for bringing down many of these businesses, but competition from online retailers continued the financial difficulties for many offline retailers. The mall business isn’t economically healthy either. Most professionals understand that profound changes are afoot. Don Wood, CEO of federal realty investment trust, says â€Å"there is too much retail supply in this country. † The wall street journal reports: green street advisor (forecasts) that 10 percent of the roughly 1,000 large malls in the U. S. will fail within the next 10 years †¦. That’s a conservative estimate. Many mall CEOs predict the failure rate will be higher. I agree with the above perspectives. A report from Co-Star observes that there are more than 200 malls that have vacancy rates of 35 percent or higher. This is a â€Å"clear marker for shopping center distress. † In short, These malls are becoming ghost towns. They are not economically successful now and will only get less so as online business continues to steal retail sales from physical stores. Hundreds of malls will soon need to be repurposed or demolished. Strong malls will stay successful for a while since retailers are willing to pay for foot traffic and customers, but even they stand in the path of the shift of retail spending from offline to online. However, despite the decline of physical commerce, there has been a huge rise in online commerce. If I were thinking of starting a new retail brand right now, I would unquestionably start it online. many very talented entrepreneurs are doing just this. I personally shop at Bonobos for pants, J. Hilburn for sweaters, Ledbury for shirts and Warby Parker for eyeglasses. In the past, these retailers have started in the mall but they now are starting online. This is a trend that will undoubtedly continue. There will clearly be fewer new offline retailers to take the space vacated by the disappearing brick-and-mortar chains. This puts further pressure on malls to try and make money. While doing research for this article, I came across a fascinating website called deadmalls. com. it is a site that chronicles the stories of hundreds of already or soon-to-be dead malls. Unfortunately for mall owners and people who work inside them, the content on deadmalls. com is about to expand substantially. There just are too many malls in America, and this will only get worse.

Local Practice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Local Practice - Essay Example Even as minority ethnic groups may deem equality of treatment in healthcare, it has to be acknowledged that differences in physiological makeup make it prudent to offer differentiated healthcare. Furthermore cultural practices also call for a differentiation of healthcare since, different local practices result into differentiated healthcare needs. Discussion Engagement in Risky Behavior Risky behavior is in many instances an important predictor of the health of a population. While human beings acknowledge that risky behavior is a cause for poor health it is also a fact that instances of obesity as a result of engaging in the risky behavior of eating of junk food still exists. There are other risky behaviors such as smoking and drinking which despite education on their effects still continue to unexplainably show high rates of prevalence among the American population. The same may also be said of cultural practices which though proven to be negative continue to be adhered by certain populations. While some cultural practices lead to negative and risky behavior, the cultural practices of some ethnic groups have the opposite effect. A good example of this is the prohibition of alcohol and tobacco among the Amish and the prohibition of alcohol among the Arabs. On the other hand the immigrants in America are led to alcohol consumption due to the stress of attaining the American dream.

Financial Market Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Financial Market - Assignment Example The random walk behavior of macroeconomic aggregates can be produced by a wide variety of complicated behavior at the microeconomic level. If income follows a random walk process, any innovation in income or a change in income due to an economic shock is an unexpected change in permanent income affecting consumption growth. The predictive ability of unexpected permanent or actual growth in income is consistent with permanent income hypothesis (PIH). Within the framework of time-series modeling, it was suggested that the standard test is biased towards finding excess sensitivity when disposable income follows a random walk process. If income follows a random walk, the permanent income equals current income. Assuming that permanent income hypothesis is true and consumption equals income since series contains a unit root, the procedures of standardized testing are not valid. If both consumption and income are de-trended, spurious cycles would be exhibited by both series. Since consumption tracks income perfectly over these transitory cycles, it can be concluded that consumption is excessively sensitive to contemporaneous income. The excess sensitivity of consumption does not provide evidence against the permanent income hypothesis unless the income is shown as not to have properties of random walk. The random walk process is followed by the real disposable income. Actual real disposable income approximates real permanent disposable income which determines household consumption. The origins of random walk process of real disposable income are on the supply side including factors of capital market restrictions, changes in trade, capital accumulation, technological adaptation and innovation, climatic and weather change etc. These supply-side shocks have a long-term impact on income and consumption.

Capital Asset Pricing Model Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Capital Asset Pricing Model - Assignment Example Usually, the overall volatility of the market is measures through proxies when implementing this model, for instance, the use of FTSE index. Such proxies are not usually the true measures of the market volatility which is at the core of the CAPM assumptions. Therefore, the model estimations from CAPM with use of market proxies for volatility can only predictions that are approximates and not the accurate measures of risk and return relationships. Another unrealistic assumption the CAPM model makes is the existence of a free risk security. In reality, there is not security that is free from risk. Usually, researchers use government security as a risk free security. The truth is while the government may not default (thus considered no risk), other factors such as inflation are uncertain and may impact on the real rate of return. There is also the assumption in the CAPM that the lending and borrowing rates are equal. In reality, this is incorrect as these rates usually differ. The model also makes an assumption that investors will hold highly diversified portfolios. This is not always the case as investors may not hold such highly diversified portfolios and therefore the entire market indices may not be well diversified. This therefor affects the results of CAPM model in estimating market returns. It is therefore unlikely, given these assumptions, that investors behaviour can be accurately explained by this model and also accurately measure the risk of investment. Another limitation of the CAPM model is that given the assumptions it makes, it is difficult to establish its practical validity as well as its empirical validity. Empirical results on whether there is a significant relationship between beta and expected return has been mixed. For instance, some studies have found positive but weak correlations. Others have revealed that returns were not only related to betas but also with other risks such as firm specific risks. Further, other studies find no relationsh ip between beta and returns. Returns have also been found to be highly correlated with other factors such as size of the firms, market and book value ratios, among other factors. These call for need to establish whether beta can be used to measure the risk of securities and whether it is correlated with expected return. Without this, practical and empirical validity cannot be assumed. Another conceptual problem that is linked to validity is the fact that empirical studies on CAPM model have used actual past data and not expected prices to test the model. This introduces bias and there is need to use expected prices to test the model to examine its validity. Another assumption of capital asset pricing model is that betas are assumed to remain stable over time. This is not possible. From the model, beta is a measure of future risk of securities. Investors on the other hand only have past data of share prices and market portfolios, and not future data. Beta can therefore only be estima ted from past data. When past data is used to measure beta, such beta can only be a reliable measure of future risk if it can remain stable over time. This is not possible as studies have found that individual securities do not remain stable over time. Therefore, historical betas are not good predictors of future risk of securities. Describe Roll’s critique of the early empirical tests of the CAPM. Roll has two issues with the CAPM model. The first criticism is stemmed from one of the

Information Security Master Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 10500 words

Information Security Master - Essay Example IT security policies in the private sector are also reviewed. In part II (3.0 -- 3.7) we shall focus attention on plans and efforts to implement the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) by the computer security division of NIST. NIST has created what it describes as the "FISMA Implementation Project" which NIST has broken down into three phases. Phase I discusses security standards and Guidelines, Phase II delves into organizational accreditation program while phase III is called the Security Tool Validation Program. We review too Department of Defense (DoD) security certification and accreditation (DITSCAP) program. We take a look too at funding sources for implementing FISMA and how the private sectors are reacting to FISMA. Part III of this thesis (4.0 - 5.0) takes a deep look at the impact of FISMA in federal government agencies and departments and compliance efforts. We examine a few case studies and then move on to look at the private sector compliance initiatives, including software produced by the private sector software industry to help government agencies and departments achieve compliance easily We link how the various policies, circulars and presidential executive orders shaped management of information and information systems in the federal government. Our methodology is to link how the various policies, circulars and presidential executive orders shaped management of information and information systems in the federal government. We analyze the US Government Accounting Office (GAO, 2006) report and the House 'FISMA Report Card' (Federal Computer Security Grades: 2001 -2005) In the Thesis conclusion we show that FISMA has infact reduced the risk, albeit slowly, to information security in Federal

Progress of Women in Middle East Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Progress of Women in Middle East - Essay Example In fact Islamic culture never allows women community to develop as rapidly as the men community does. Even in the twenty first century, women in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain etc are facing huge challenges and oppression in their social life. In Saudi Arabia, women are not even allowed to drive their vehicles. The cases of women in other countries in Middle East are also not much different. Dominant male community is causing huge problems to the development of women community in Middle East. Many people believe that the living conditions of Middle Eastern women at present are far better than the Middle Eastern women in the past. The legal system, societal norms, development of science and technology, engineering etc are playing a vital role in the development of women any regions. The cases of Middle East are also not an exception. The call for democratization and the recent incidents in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia forced the Islamic dictators in Middle East to th ink seriously about democratization and giving more freedom to women. This paper analyses how legal system, societal norms, development of science and technology, engineering etc gave momentum to the progress of women in Middle East. In Kuwait, a decade and a half ago, the now late emir promised women suffrage. But that measure was defeated twice by the parliament, including by some liberals, and only passed late in 2005. It will likely take several years before any women actually get elected to the government (Women in the Middle East: Progress or Regress?). Many people have the illusion that the rulers (King or the Emir) are preventing women from getting freedom in the Middle East. In reality, even the so called liberal leaders are not much interested in giving enough freedom to the women community which is evident from the above facts. It should be noted that in most of the Middle Eastern countries, no woman yet to become a minister. In fact the legal systems in Middle East preve nt women from securing top spots in the government. However, the scenario has been changed a lot in the recent past. Sincere efforts are currently made by most of the Middle Eastern governments to give enough participation for women in critical positions. The following statistics give us a clear idea about the developments in legal systems to contribute to the progress of Middle Eastern women. In Morocco, a new family law makes it easier for women to get a divorce, keep custody of their children following a divorce, and puts restrictions on polygamy. Two businesswomen in Saudi Arabia won election to the chamber of commerce. Women hold about 20 percent of the seats in Iraq's national assembly --that's a higher percentage than in the U.S. Congress (Women in the Middle East: Progress or Regress?). It should be noted that even in most important democratic countries such as India or America, women community failed to hold more than 10% of parliament seats. In India, the law enforcing at least 35% women participation in parliament is still under discussion. Under such circumstances, 205 women participation in Iraqi parliament is not a mean act. Even family laws are changing in Middle East at present. Earlier, it was easy for the dominant male community to marry as much as women and divorce them whenever they wanted to do so. The divorced women

Mintaka Star Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Mintaka Star - Research Paper Example While looking up to the sky during the Tasmanian Summer, it is possible for one to pick up the popular Orion constellation. One of the major captivating features that people see in the Orion belt is the three stars, which people consider to be the giant’s belt. Mintaka is the star that is situated to the westernmost end of the belt, and it is an Arabic word that is associated with a belt. Alnilam is the central star and it refers to â€Å"a belt of pearls†. Alnitak is situated to the easternmost side and it refers to a â€Å"girdle†. All these stars are said to have been formed at the same time and are also situated at an equal distance from earth. Rigel, Saiph, Bellatrix and Betelgeuse stars were formed almost at the same time as the three stars (Gonzalez). When observing all these stars on the celestial sphere, Rigel appears to be the brightest one, and it is characterized by a white/blue appearance, while star Betelgeuse shines brightly with a reddish hue. The other stars have varying degrees of brightness, all emitting whitish color. Like in the case with most constellations, the unique stars which are associated with a unique figure are positioned at varying degrees of distance from the viewing positions that people adopt here on earth but they do not have a mutual â€Å"ancestry.† However, in Table 1, the stars that are situated in Orion’s belt together with the other fainter stars that are above and to the right of the belt share a common distance, which is approximately 1000 light years from earth (Starr).

Communication in Health and Social Care Essay Example for Free

Communication in Health and Social Care Essay Identify nine different reasons why people communicate and give an example for each reason. 1 to express there needs, to explain to people exactly what it is that they need and why. 2. `to share ideas – people learn from each other by sharing ideas this can help resolve a problem or situation. 3. to reassure – if people do not communicate they can feel unsure, it is important to diffuse rumours by communicating effectively with people so that they are sure of a situation, this will have a positive effect on morale. It is also important to re-assure people that you are listening and understand what they are saying. 4. to express feelings – to let people know if you are, happy, sad, angry or confused. It could be that you have mixed feeling or are unsure. 5. to share experiences – a work colleague could share an experience of a similar position/case that you are in/working on. 6. to ask questions – people don’t always give you the answers you need without you asking questions, you can ask open answer questions that require more than a yes or no answer. . socialise – this form of communication is usually relaxed, where you will talk socially to people about things that have happened in your week, or about a holiday or what is in the news. People will laugh and joke together. 8. to build relationships – through communication people get to know each other, there needs and build trust. 9. Information – to pass information between people Identify 5 ways communication can help you in your work and why 1. To enable service users to develop a relationship in which they feel confident to share there thoughts and feeling with you, they feel you are listening to their needs and understand their situation. 2. Effective communication prevents mis-understandings and people know exactly what is expected from them. 3. Supports the development of own needs and knowledge, by talking to work colleagues you can often gain from their knowledge and understanding. 4. Good communication ensures that you understand the needs of others and able you to get the right support plan in place. . to build trust amongst both work colleagues and service users Explain why it is important to observe an individual’s reactions (facial expressions, body language etc) when you are communicating with them Observing an individual’s reaction is important as it will give you an idea on whether the person is interested in the subject matter, if they are lying to cover a blunder, to see if there is a purpose t o the subject you are trying to discuss, to see if they understand, or youre both understanding. If the person is hesitant to answer any questions, or make any comments or questions, he may be showing disagreement or just shy, then you need to coach them into talking. Facial expressions, will show you if they are feeling angry, body language can indicate that a person is adjitated or uncomfortable with a situation, or if they are relaxed and comfortable. Identify twelve barriers to effective communication Language Barrier, Hearing impairment, visual impairment, under the influence of alcohol or drugs, distractions i. e, noise, flashing light, Judgemental statements i. e. Don’t do it that way† or â€Å"your wrong†. Inappropriate language for the age of the person, Learning difficulties, ie ‘unable to read and write, shyness, attitude, people may not List eight ways you can reduce barriers to communication include sources of information and support services Give four examples of how you can check a person has understood what you have communicated? What do es the term ‘confidentiality mean? Give three examples of when confidential information may need to be passed on How do you seek advice regarding confidentiality When would you ask advice about confidentiality

The Fifth Discipline Essay Example for Free

The Fifth Discipline Essay Introduction The organizations that will truly excel in the future will be those that discover how to tap people’s commitment and develop the capacity to learn at all levels in an organization. Deep down, people are learners. No one has to teach an infant to learn. In fact, no one has to teach infants anything. They are intrinsically inquisitive, masterful learners. Learning organizations are possible because at heart we all love to learn. Through learning we re-create ourselves and are able to do something we were never able to do earlier. Through learning we reperceive the world and our relationship to it. Through learning we extend our capacity to create, to be part of the generative process of life. There is within each of us a deep hunger for this type of learning. This seminal book by Peter M Senge explains how learning organizations can be built. The building blocks Systems Thinking Business and other human endeavours are systems of interrelated actions, whose full impact may be seen only after years. Since we are part of these systems, it’s hard to see the whole pattern of change. Instead, we tend to focus on snapshots of isolated parts of the systems, and wonder why our deepest problems never seem to get solved. Systems thinking is a conceptual framework, to make the full patterns clearer and to help us see how to change them effectively. Personal Mastery Mastery means a special level of proficiency. People with a high level of personal mastery are able to consistently realize the results that matter most deeply to them in effect. They approach their life as an artist would approach a work of art, by becoming committed to their own lifelong learning. The discipline of personal mastery, starts with clarifying the things that really matter to us, of living our lives in line with our highest aspirations. Mental Models Mental models are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures of images that influence how we take action. Very often, we are not consciously aware of our mental models or the effects that they have on our behavior. Many insights into new markets or outmoded organizational practices fail to get put into practice because they conflict with powerful, tacit mental models. Institutional learning is the process whereby people change their shared mental models of the company, their markets, and their competitors. Building Shared Vision If any one idea about leadership has inspired organizations for thousands of years, it’s the capacity to hold a shared picture of the future we seek to create. When there is a genuine vision, people excel and learn, not because they are told to, but because they want to. But many leaders have personal visions that never get translated into shared visions that galvanize an organization. All too often, a company’s vision revolves around the charisma of a leader, or around a crisis that galvanizes everyone temporarily. But, people must pursue a lofty goal, not only in times of crisis but at all times. What is needed is a discipline for translating individual vision into shared vision – not a â€Å"cook book† but a set of principles and guiding practices. Team Learning The discipline of team learning starts with â€Å"dialogue,† the capacity of team members to suspend assumptions and enter into a genuine â€Å"thinking together.† Dialogue also involves learning how to recognize the patterns of interaction in teams that undermine learning. The patterns of defensiveness are often deeply engrained in how a team operates. If unrecognized, they undermine learning. If recognized, they can actually accelerate learning. Assessing the organization’s learning disability Most organizations learn poorly. The way they are designed and managed, the way people’s jobs are defined, and most importantly, the way people have been taught to think and interact, create fundamental learning disabilities. When people in organizations focus only on their position, they have little sense of responsibility for the results they produce. Moreover, when results are disappointing, we tend to find someone or something outside ourselves to blame when things go wrong. All too often, â€Å"proactiveness† is reactiveness in disguise. True proactiveness comes from seeing how we contribute to our own problems. Actions in organizations are dominated by concern with events: last month’s sales, the new budget cuts, the last quarter’s earnings, who just got promoted or fired, the new product our competitors just announced, the delay in launching a new product, and so on. Our fixation on events is actually part of our evolutionary programming. The irony is that today the primary threats to our survival, both of our organizations and of our societies, come not from sudden events but from slow, gradual processes. The arms race, environmental decay, the erosion of our society’s public education system, increasingly obsolete physical capital, and decline in design or product quality are all slow, gradual processes. Learning to see slow, gradual processes requires slowing down our frenetic pace and paying attention to the subtle as well as the dramatic. We learn best from experience but we never directly experience the consequences of many of our most important decisions. The most critical decisions made in organizations have systemwide consequences that stretch over years or decades. Systems thinking Systems thinking is the fifth discipline. It is the conceptual cornerstone that underlies all the five learning disciplines. The easy or familiar solution is not only ineffective; sometimes it is addictive and dangerous. The long-term, insidious consequence of applying non-systemic solutions is the increased need for more and more of the solution. There is a fundamental mismatch between the nature of reality in complex systems and our predominant ways of thinking about that reality. The first step in correcting that mismatch is to let go of the notion that cause and effect are close in time and space. Tackling a difficult problem is also a matter of seeing where the high leverage lies, a change which – with a minimum of  effort would lead to lasting, significant improvement. This point is quite similar to what Malcolm Gladwell makes in his book, â€Å"The Tipping Point†. Without systems thinking, there is neither the incentive nor the means to integrate the learning disciplines that have come into practice. Systems thinking is the cornerstone of how learning organizations think about their world. Sophisticated tools of forecasting and business analysis, as well as elegant strategic plans, usually fail to produce dramatic breakthroughs in managing a business. They are all designed to handle the sort of complexity in which there are many variables. Senge calls it detail complexity. But there is another type of complexity, where cause and effect are subtle, and where the effects over time of interventions are not obvious. This, Senge calls dynamic complexity. Conventional forecasting, planning, and analysis are not equipped to deal with dynamic complexity. When the same action has dramatically different effects in the short run and in the long run, there is dynamic complexity. When an action has one set of consequences locally and a very different set of consequences in another part of the system, there is dynamic complexity. When obvious interventions produce non-obvious consequences, there is dynamic complexity. The real leverage in most management situations lies in understanding dynamic complexity, not detail complexity. Unfortunately, most â€Å"systems analyses† focus on detail complexity, not dynamic complexity. Systems thinking is useful for describing a vast array of interrelationships and patterns of change. Ultimately, it helps us see the deeper patterns lying behind the events and the details. In mastering systems thinking, we give up the assumption that there must be an individual, or individual agent, responsible. Everyone shares responsibility for problems generated by a system. That does not necessarily imply that everyone involved can exert equal leverage in changing the system. But it discourages the search for scapegoats. In reinforcing processes, a small change builds on itself. A small action snowballs, with more and more and still more of the same, resembling compounding interest. But there’s nothing inherently bad about reinforcing loops. There are also â€Å"virtuous cycles† – processes that reinforce in  desired directions. If we are in a balancing system, we are in a system that is seeking stability. If the system’s goal is one we like, we will be happy. If it is not, we will find all our efforts to change matters frustrated until we can either change the goal or weaken its influence. Nature loves a balance – but many times, human decision makers act contrary to these balances, and pay the price. In general, balancing loops are more difficult to see than reinforcing loops because it often looks like nothing is happening. Leaders who attempt organizational change often find themselves unwittingly caught in balancing processes. To the leaders, it looks as though their efforts are clashing with the sudden resistance that seems to come from nowhere. In fact, the resistance is a response by the system, trying to maintain an implicit system goal. Until this goal is recognized, the change effort is doomed to failure. Systems seem to have minds of their own. This is specially evident in delays between actions and their consequences. Delays can make us badly overshoot the mark, or they can have a positive effect if we recognize them and work with them. That’s one of the lessons of balancing loops with delays. Aggressive action often produces exactly the opposite of what is intended. It produces instability and oscillation, instead of moving us more quickly toward our goal. Symptomatic intervention A reinforcing (amplifying) process is set in motion to produce a desired result. It creates a spiral of success but also creates inadvertent secondary effects (manifested in a balancing process) which eventually slow down the success. Instead of trying to push growth, we must remove the factors limiting growth. An underlying problem generates symptoms that demand attention. But such a problem is difficult for people to address, either because it is obscure or costly to confront. So people â€Å"shift the burden† of their problem to other solutions – well-intentioned, easy fixes which seem extremely efficient. Solutions that address only the symptoms of a problem, not fundamental causes, tend to have short term benefits at best. In the long term, the problem resurfaces and there is increased pressure for symptomatic response. Meanwhile, the capability for fundamental solutions  can atrophy. Symptomatic intervention; the â€Å"quick fix,† solves the problem symptom quickly, but only temporarily. In case of a more fundamental response to the problem, it takes longer to become evident. However, the fundamental solution works far more effectively. It may be the only enduring way to deal with the problem. The shifting burden structure explains a wide range of behaviors where well-intended â€Å"solutions† actually make matters worse over the long term. Opting for â€Å"symptomatic solutions† is enticing. Apparent improvement is achieved. Pressures, either external or internal, to â€Å"do something† about a vexing problem are relieved. But easing a problem symptom also reduces any perceived need to find a more fundamental solution. Over time, people rely more and more on the symptomatic solution. Without anyone making a conscious decision, people have â€Å"shifted the burden† to increasing reliance on symptomatic solutions. A special case of shifting the burden, which recurs with alarming frequency, is â€Å"eroding goals.† Whenever there is a gap between our goals and our current situation there are two sets of pressures: to improve the situation and to lower our goals. Dealing effectively with the situation requires a combination of strengthening the fundamental response and weakening the symptomatic response. Strengthening fundamental responses almost always requires a long-term orientation and a sense of shared vision. Weakening the symptomatic response requires willingness to face the truth about palliatives and â€Å"looking good† solutions. Leverage The bottom line of systems thinking is leverage. We must see where small actions and changes in structures can lead to significant, enduring improvements. The best results come not from largescale efforts but from small well-focused actions. Nonsystematic ways of thinking consistently lead us to focus on low-leverage changes, on symptoms where the stress is greatest. So we repair or ameliorate the symptoms. But such efforts only make matters worse in the long run. Systems thinking means organizing complexity into a coherent story that illuminates the cause of problems and how they can be remedied in enduring ways. The increasing complexity of today’s world leads many managers to assume that they lack the information they need to act effectively. The fundamental â€Å"information problem† faced by managers is not too little information but too much information. What we  most need are ways to know what is important and what is not  important, what variables to focus on and which to pay less attention to. This will generate leverage. Personal Mastery Organizations learn only if individual employees who learn. Individual learning is a necessary, through not sufficient condition for organizational learning. We must make personal mastery a part of our lives. This involves continually clarifying what is important to us. We often spend too much time coping with problems along our path that we only have a vague idea of what’s really important to us. We also need to see current reality more clearly. We’ve all known people entangled in counterproductive relationships, who remain stuck because they keep pretending everything is all right. In moving toward a desired destination, it is vital to know where we are now. The juxtaposition of vision and a clear picture of current reality generates â€Å"creative tension†. The essence of personal mastery is learning how to generate and sustain creative tension in our lives. The gap between vision and current reality is a source of creative energy. If there is no gap, there wo uld be no need for any action to move toward the vision. But when there is a gap between the goals and the current reality, negative emotion may also arise. We may lower our goals when we are unwilling to live with emotional tension. On the other hand, when we understand creative tension and allow it to operate by not lowering our vision, vision becomes an active force. Truly creative people use the gap between vision and current reality to generate energy for change. Mastery of creative tension leads to a fundamental shift in our whole posture toward reality. Current reality becomes our ally not an enemy. An accurate, insightful view of current reality is as important as a clear vision. If the first choice in pursuing personal mastery is to be true to our own vision, the second fundamental choice in support of personal mastery is commitment to the truth. What limits our ability to create what we really want is belief in our powerlessness and unworthiness. People cope with these problems in different ways. Letting our vision erode is one such strategy. The second is to try to  manipulate ourselves into greater effort toward what we want by creating artificial conflict, such as through avoiding what we do not want. Some people psyche themselves up to overpower all forms of resistance to achieving their goals. Willpower is so common among highly successful people that many see its characteristics as synonymous with success: a maniacal focus on goals, willingness to â€Å"pay the price,† ability to defeat any opposition and surmount any obstacle. Being committed to the truth is far more powerful than any technique. It means a relentless willingness to root out the ways we limit or deceive ourselves from seeing what is, and to continually challenge our theories or why things are the way they are. It means continually broadening our awareness. Focusing on the desired intrinsic result is a skill. For most of us, it is not easy at first, and takes time and patience to develop. As soon as we think of some important personal goal, almost immediately we think of all the reasons why it will be hard to achieve – the challenges we will face and the obstacles we will have to overcome. While this is very helpful for thinking through alternative strategies for achieving our goals, it is also a sign of lack of discipline when thoughts about â€Å"the process† of achieving our vision continually crowd out our focus on the outcomes we  seek. We must work at learning how to separate what we truly want, from what we think we need to do in order to achieve it. A useful starting exercise for learning how to focus more clearly on desired results is to take any particular goal or aspect of our vision. If we ask ourselves the question. â€Å"If I actually had this, what would it get me?†, the answer to that question reveals â€Å"deeper† desires lying behind the goal. In fact, the goal is actually an interim step to reach a more important result. Ultimately, what matters most in developing the subconscious rapport characteristic of masters is the genuine caring for a desired outcome, the deep feeling that it is the â€Å"right† goal. The subconscious seems especially receptive to goals in line with our deeper aspirations and values. People with high levels of personal mastery do not set out to integrate reason and intuition. Rather, they achieve it naturally – as a by-product of their commitment to use all the resources at their disposal. They cannot afford to choose between reason  and intuition, or head and heart. The discipline of seeing interrelationships gradually undermines older attitudes of blame and guilt. We begin to see that all of us are trapped in structures embedded both in our ways of thinking and in the interpersonal and social milieus in which we live. Our knee-jerk tendency to find fault with one another gradually fades, leaving a much deeper appreciation of the forces under which we all operate. Mental Models New insights fail to get put into practice because they conflict with deeply held internal images of how the world works. That is why the discipline of managing mental models – surfacing, testing, and improving our internal pictures of how the world works holds the key to building learning organizations. The problems with mental models arise not because they are right or wrong but because we often act without being aware of them. The healthy corporations are ones which can systematize ways to bring people together to develop the best possible mental models for facing any situation at hand. Learning skills fall into two broad classes: skills of reflection and skills of inquiry. Skills of reflection concern slowing down our own thinking processes so that we can become more aware of how we form our mental models and the ways they influence our actions. Inquiry skills are concerned with how we operate in face-to-face interactions with others, especially in dealing with complex issues. People who become lifelong learners practice â€Å"reflection in action,† the ability to reflect on one’s thinking while acting. Our mind tends to move at lightning speed. We immediately â€Å"leap† to generalizations so quickly that we never think of testing them. Our rational minds are extraordinarily facile at â€Å"abstracting† from concrete particulars – substituting simple concepts for many details and then reasoning in terms of these concepts. But our very strengths in abstract conceptual reasoning also limit our learning, when we are unaware of our leaps from particulars to general concepts. Leaps of abstraction occur when we move from direct observations (concrete â€Å"data†) to generalization without testing. Leaps of abstraction impede learning because they become axiomatic. What was once an assumption becomes treated as a fact. To spot leaps of abstraction, we need to keep asking what we believe about the way the world works – the nature of business, people in general, and specific individuals. We need to ask â€Å"What is the ‘data’ on which this generalization is based?† We need to ask, â€Å"Am I willing to consider that this generalization may be inaccurate or misleading? This is a powerful technique for beginning to â€Å"see† how our mental models operate in particular situations. It reveals ways that we manipulate situations to avoid dealing with how we actually think and feel, and thereby prevent a counterproductive situation from improving. Most managers are trained to be advocates. In fact, in many companies, what it means to be a competent manager is to figure out what needs to be done, and enlist whatever support is needed to get it done. Individuals became successful in part because of their abilities to debate forcefully and influence others. Inquiry skills, meanwhile, go unrecognized and unrewarded. But as managers rise to senior positions, they confront more complex and diverse issues. Suddenly, they need to tap insights from other people. They need to learn. Now the manager’s advocacy skills become counterproductive. What is needed is blending advocacy and inquiry to promote collaborative learning. When operating in pure advocacy, the goal is to win the argument. When inquiry and advocacy are combined, the goal is no longer â€Å"to win the argument† but to find the best argument. When we operate in pure advocacy, we tend to use data selectively, presenting only the data that confirm our position. When we explain the reasoning behind our position, we expose only enough of our reasoning to â€Å"make our case,† avoiding areas where we feel our case might be weak. By contrast, when both advocacy and inquiry are high, we are open to disconfirming data as well as confirming data – because we are genuinely interested in finding flaws in our view. Likewise, we expose our reasoning and look for flaws in it, and we try to understand others†™ reasoning. Learning eventually results in changes in action, not just taking in new information and forming new â€Å"ideas.† That is why recognizing the gap between our espoused theories (what we say) and our â€Å"theories-in-use† (the theories that lay behind our actions) is vital. Otherwise, we may believe we’ve â€Å"learned† something just because we’ve got the new language or concepts to use, even though our behavior is completely unchanged. Systems thinking is equally important to working with mental models effectively. Most of our  mental models are systematically flawed. They miss critical feedback relationships, misjudge time delays, and often focus on variables that are visible or salient, not necessarily high leverage. Understanding these flaws can help to see where prevailing mental models will be weakest and where more than just â€Å"surfing† the mental models will be required for effective decisions. Ultimately, the payoff from integrating systems thinking and mental models will be not only improving our mental models but altering our ways of thinking. T his will result in shifting from mental models dominated by events to mental models that recognize longer-term patterns of change and the underlying structures producing those patterns. Shared vision Shared vision is vital for the learning organization because it provides the focus and energy for learning. While adaptive learning is possible without vision, generative learning, occurs only when people are striving to accomplish something that matters deeply to them. In fact, the whole idea of generative learning will seem abstract and meaningless until people become excited about some vision they truly want to accomplish.  Vision creates the spark, the excitement that lifts an organization out of the mundane. Shared vision fosters risk taking and experimentation. People know what needs to be done. Even if they don’t know how to do it, they keep experimenting till they succeed. But even when they experiment, there is no ambiguity at all. It’s perfectly clear why they are doing it. Organizations intent on building shared visions continually encourage members to develop their personal visions. They want people to have their own vision, not to â€Å"sign up† for someone else’s. That leads to compliance, not commitment. On the other hand, people with a strong sense of personal direction can join together to move toward what they truly want. Personal mastery is the bedrock for developing a shared vision. This means not only personal vision, but commitment to the truth and creative tension – the hallmarks of personal mastery. The origin of the vision is much less important than the process whereby it comes to be shared. It is not truly a â€Å"shared vision† until it  connects with the personal visions of people throughout the organization. In many organizations, most people are in states of formal or genuine compliance with the organization’s goals and ground rules. They go along with â€Å"the program,† sincerely trying to contribute. On the other hand, people in non-compliance or grudging compliance usually stand out. They are opposed to the goals or ground rules and let their opposition be known, either through inaction or through grudging obedience. An organization made up of genuinely compliant people will be very productive and cost effective. Yet, there is a world of difference between compliance and commitment. The committed person brings an energy, passion, and excitement that cannot be generated if he is only compliant. The committed person does not play by the â€Å"rules of the game.† He is responsible for the game. If the rules of the game stand in the way of achieving the vision, he will find ways to change the rules. A group of people truly committed to a common vision is an awesome force. They can accomplish the seemingly impossible. Building shared vision is actually only one piece of a larger activity: developing the â€Å"governing ideas† for the enterprise, its vision, purpose or mission, and core values. These governing ideas answer three critical questions: â€Å"What?† â€Å"Why?† and â€Å"How?† †¢ †¢ †¢ Vision is the â€Å"What?† – the picture of the future we seek to create. Purpose (or â€Å"mission†) is the â€Å"Why?† the organization’s answer to the question, â€Å"Why do we exist?† Core values answer the question â€Å"How do we want to act? A company’s values describe how the company wants life to be on a day-to-day basis, while pursuing the vision. There are two fundamental sources of energy that can motivate organizations: fear and aspiration. Fear can produce extraordinary changes for short periods, but aspiration is a continuing source of learning and growth. Vision spreads because of a reinforcing process of increasing clarity, enthusiasm, communication and commitment. As people talk, the vision grows clearer, enthusiasm for its benefit builds and the vision starts to spread in a reinforcing spiral of communication and excitement. Enthusiasm can also be reinforced by early successes in pursuing the vision. If the reinforcing process operates unfettered, it leads to continuing growth  in clarity and shared commitment toward the vision, among increasing numbers of people. But any of a variety of limiting factors can come into play to slow down this virtuous cycle. The visioning process can wither if, as more people get involved, the diversity of views dissipates focus and generates unmanageable conflicts. People see different ideal futures. Must those who do not agree immediately with the emerging shared vision change their views? Do they conclude that the vision is â€Å"set in stone† and no longer influenceable? Do they feel that their own visions even matter? If the answer to any of these questions is â€Å"yes,† the enrolling process can grind to a halt with a wave of increasing polarization. This is a classic â€Å"limits to growth† structure, where the reinforcing process of growing enthusiasm for the vision interacts with a â€Å"balancing process† that limits the spread of the vision, due to increasing diversity and polarization. In limits to growth structures, leverage usually lies in understanding the â€Å"limiting factor,† the implicit goal or norm that drives the balancing feedback process. In this case, that limiting factor is the ability (or inability) to inquire into diverse visions in such a way that deeper, common visions emerge. The visioning process is a special type of inquiry process. It is an inquiry into the future we truly seek to create. If it becomes a pure advocacy process, it will result in compliance, at best, not commitment. Approaching visioning as an inquiry process does not mean that we have to give up our views. On the contrary, visions need strong advocates. But advocates who can also inquire into others’ visions open the possibility for the vision to evolve, to become â€Å"larger† than our individual visions. Visions can die because people become discouraged by the apparent difficulty in converting them into reality. As clarity about the nature of the vision increases, so does the awareness of the gap between the vision and current reality. People become disheartened, uncertain, or even cynical, leading to a decline in enthusiasm. In this structure, the limiting factor is the capacity of people in the organization to â€Å"hold† creative tension, the central principle of personal mastery. This is why personal mastery is the â€Å"bedrock† for developing shared vision – organizations that do not encourage personal mastery find it very difficult to foster sustained commitment to a lofty vision. Emerging visions can also die because people get overwhelmed by the demands of current reality and lose their focus on the vision. The  limiting factor becomes the time and energy to focus on a vision. In this case, the leverage must lie in either in finding ways to focus less time and effort on fighting crises and managing current reality, or to break off those pursing the new vision from those responsible for handling â€Å"current reality.† A vision can die if people forget their connection to one another. This is one of the reasons that approaching visioning as a joint inquiry is so important. The spirit of connection is fragile. It is undermined whenever we lose our respect for one another and for each other’s views. We then split into insiders and outsiders – those who are â€Å"true believers† in the vision and those who are not.