Impact of the Construction Industry to Its Nation

Abstract Construction sector and construction activities are considered to be one of the major sources of economic growth, development and economic activities. Construction and engineering services industry play an important role in the economic uplift and development of the country. It can be regarded as a mechanism of generating the employment and offering job opportunities to millions of unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled work force. It also plays key role in generating income in both formal and informal sector.It supplements the foreign exchange earnings derived from trade in construction material and engineering services. Unfortunately construction sector is one of the most neglected sectors in Kenya. Although the construction sector has only a 2. 3 percent share in GDP, its share of the employed labor force was disproportionately large at 6. 1 percent in FY07. The construction sector is estimated to have grown by 17. 2 percent in 2006-07 as against 5. 7 percent of last year.Th e higher demand for construction workers is also reflected in a continued double-digit rise in their wages since FY05. Their wages increased by 11. 1 percent in FY07. Keywords: Construction Sector, GDP, Causal Relationship, Co-integration. 1. Introduction The construction industry plays an essential role in the socio economic development of a country. The activities of the industry have great significance to the achievement of national socio-economic development goals of providing infrastructure, sanctuary and employment.It includes hospitals, schools, townships, offices, houses and other buildings; urban infrastructure (including water supply, sewerage, 280 drainage); highways, roads, ports, railways, airports; power systems; irrigation and agriculture systems; telecommunications etc. It deals with all economic activities directed to the creation, renovation, repair or extension of fixed assets in the form of buildings, land improvements of an engineering nature. Besides, the const ruction industry generates substantial employment and provides a growth impetus to other sectors through backward nd forward linkages. It is, essential therefore, that, this vital activity is nurtured for the healthy growth of the economy. The main purpose of this study is to see whether growth in construction industry actually caused the economic increase or, alternatively, did economic expansion strongly contribute to construction growth instead? 1. 1 Global Distribution of Construction Output and Employment: Globally, construction industry is regarded as one of the largest fragmented industry. An estimate of annual global construction output is probably closer to U.S $ 4. 5 trillion in 20041. The construction industry is also a prime source of employment generation offering job opportunities to millions of unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled work force. Global picture of construction output and employment in developing and developed countries can be seen in table -1 below. It can be seen from the table-1 that total construction output worldwide was estimated at just over $3,000 billion in 1998. Output is heavily concentrated (77 per cent) in the high income countries (Western Europe, North America, Japan and Australasia).The contribution of low and middle income countries was only 23 % of total world construction output (ILO Geneva2001). The data in employment situation table 2 tells a rather different story so far as employment is concerned. It can be seen that there was an excess of 111 million construction workers worldwide in 1998 and most of them were in the low- and middle-income countries. The distribution of construction employment is, in fact, almost the exact reverse of the distribution of output. The high-income countries produce 77 per cent of global construction output with 26 per cent of total employment.The rest of the world (comprising low- and middle-income countries) produces only 23 per cent of output but has 74 per cent of employment (IL O Geneva2001). ———————————————— 1 Source: Engineering News Record, USA 281 1. 2 Construction Industry in Kenya; The housing and construction sector in Kenya plays an important role in developing aggregate economy and reducing unemployment. It provides substantial employment opportunities as it contributes through a higher multiplier effect with a host of beneficial forward and backward linkage in the economy.The sector through linkages affects about 40 building material industries, support investment and growth climate and helps reduce poverty by generating income opportunities for poor household. It provides jobs to about 5. 5 per cent of the total employed labor force or to 2. 43 million persons, (2. 41 million male and 0. 2 million female) during 2003- 04 (Economic Survey 2004-05) Unfortunately the construction sector is one of the most neglected sectors in Kenya. It is at low ebb, which can be judged from the fact that per capita consumption of cement in Kenya is one of the lowest among the developing countries. 2.Literature Review: Construction in any country is a complex sector of the economy, which involves a broad range of stakeholders and has wide ranging linkages with other areas of activity such as manufacturing and the use of materials, energy, finance, labor and equipment. The contribution of construction industry in the aggregate economy of a country has been addressed by a number of researchers and valuable literature available on the linkage between construction sector and other sectors of the economy. Several researchers conclude that the construction sector has strong linkages with other sectors of the national economy.Hirschman (1958) first defined the concept of ‘linkage’ in his work The Strategy of Economic Development. He emphasized the significance of ‘unbalanced’ growth among supporting sectors of the economy as opposed to a balanced development of all interrelated economic activities (Lean, 2001). Park (1989) has confirmed that the construction industry generates one of the highest multiplier effects through its extensive backward and forward linkages with other sectors of the economy. It is stated that the importance of the construction industry stems from its strong linkages with other sectors of the economy (World Bank, 1984).However, interdependence between the construction sector and other economic sectors is not static (Bon, 1988; Bon, 1992). Strout (1958) provided a comparative inter-sectoral analysis of employment effects with an emphasis on the construction. Ball (1965) and Ball (1981) addressed the employment effects of the construction sector as a whole. Many studies (Fox, 1976; Bon and Pietroforte, 1993; Pietroforte and Bon, 1995) use the strong direct and total linkage indicator to explain the leading role of the construction sector in the national economy. . 1 Con struction Industry and National Economy: Construction activities and its output is an integral part of a country’s national economy and industrial development. The construction industry is often seen as a driver of economic growth especially in developing countries. The industry can mobilize and effectively utilize local human and material resources in the development and maintenance of housing and infrastructure to promote local employment and improve economic efficiency.Field and Ofori (1988) stated that the construction makes a noticeable contribution to the economic output of a country; it generates employment and incomes for the people and therefore the effects of changes in the construction industry on the economy occur at all levels and in virtually all aspects of life. This implies that construction has a strong linkage with many economic activities, and whatever happens to the industry will directly and indirectly influence other industries and ultimately, the wealth of a country.Hence, the construction industry is regarded as an essential and highly visible contributor to the process of growth (Field and Ofori, 1988). The significant role of the construction industry in the national economy has been highlighted by Turin (1969). On the basis of cross section of data from a large number of countries at various levels of development, Turin (1969) argued that there is a positive relationship between construction output and economic growth. Furthermore, as economies grow construction output grows at a faster rate, assuming a higher proportion of GDP.In a recent article Drewer returns to the ‘construction and development’ debate. Using data for 1990 similar to that assembled by Turin for 1970, he shows that global construction output has become increasingly concentrated in the developed market economies. He goes on to argue that this new evidence does not support Turin’s propositions. The issue of concern here is whether the cons truction sector and the aggregate economy are fragmented or mutually dependent, and whether construction activity contributes to economic growth and /or vice versa.Studies have shown that the interdependence between the construction sector and other economic sectors is not static but changes as the nation’s economy grows and develops 2. 2 Tools for Measuring Strength of Linkage: Two analytical tools, which most widely used for measuring the strength of the linkage, sector vise economic performance and production interdependence and to analyze economic relationships, are: (i) Leontief’s (1936) Input–output analysis and ii) The new econometric methodology developed by Engle and Granger Bon (1988) is one of the few researchers who applied the concept of Leontief input-output matrix to the construction industry. He considered the input–output technique to be ideal, for it provides a framework with which to study both direct and indirect resource utilization i n the construction sector and industrial interdependence. He also found that the input–output tool can be used for studies of the construction sector in three broad aspects: employment creation potential, role in the economy, and identification of major suppliers to the construction industry.Rameezdeen et al, (2006), also used input283 output table to analyze the significance of construction in a developing economy and its relationships with other sectors of the national economy. With the popularity of the new econometric methodology presented by Engle and Granger, many modeling studies related to economic and financial issues have applied this new technique to analyze economic relationships. Green (1997) applied the Granger causality test to determine the relationship between GDP and residential and non-residential investment, using quarterly national income and gross domestic product data for the period 1959–1992.His results showed that residential investment causes, but is not caused by GDP, while non-residential investment does not cause, but is caused by GDP. He concluded that housing leads and other types of investment lag the business cycle (Lean, 2001). Tse and Ganesan (1997) is also used the same econometric technique (Granger causality test) to determine the causal relationship between construction flows and GDP using quarterly Hong Kong data from 1983 to 1989. They found that the GDP leads the construction flow and not vice versa. 2. Research Objective: The objective of the present paper is to examine the specific lead lag relationships between construction flow and gross domestic product (GDP). For obtaining this goal we will use annual data for construction sector and economic GDP of Kenya from 1950 to 2005. Granger causality methodology is commonly applied to investigations on the relationships among money supply, stock prices and inflation, but very few researchers tested the linkages between the construction sector and the aggrega te economy using this method.Here we will use the same approach to identify whether there is a unidirectional or bidirectional causal relation between construction sector and economic growth in the case of Kenya. In addition, we will use unit root tests to examine the stationarity of both series (construction sector and GDP) and co integration test will use to find out the existence of long run relationship between these variables. It is a powerful concept, because it allows us to describe the existence of an equilibrium or stationary relationship among two or more time series, each of which is individually non- stationary. . Methodology: A simple statistical and econometric analysis will be used to know the general properties of data and to see the relationship among variables of interest like construction sector (LCNS) and aggregate economy of Kenya (LGDP). This study uses time series annual data (1950 to 2005) to demonstrate the causal relationship between construction sector and GDP in Kenya. A time series is a sequence of values or readings ordered by a time parameter, such as hourly and yearly readings.When time series data is used for analysis in econometrics, several statistical techniques and steps must be undertaken. First of all unit root test has been applied to each series individually in order to provide information about the data being stationary. Non-stationary data contains unit roots. The existences of unit roots make hypothesis test results unreliable. If the data are non-stationary, then frequently stationarity can be achieved by first differencing (Granger and Newbold, 1986) that is, obtaining the differences between the current value and that of the previous period.Once stationarity is determined, structural modeling of the variables or testing for causality can take place. The causality test aims to verify whether historical variations of the construction data follow or precede the GDP. To test for the 284 existence of unit roots and to determine the degree of differences in order to obtain the stationary series of LGDP and LCNS, Augmented Dickey- Fuller Test (ADF) has been applied. If the time series data of each variable is found to be non-stationary at level, then there may exists a long run relationship between these variables, LGDP and LCNS.Johansen’s (1988) co-integration test has been used in order to know the existence of long run relationship between these variables. A series is said to be integrated if it accumulates some past effects, such a series is non-stationary because its future path depends upon all such past influences, and is not tied to some mean to which it must eventually return. To transform a co-integrated series to achieve stationarity, we must differentiate it at least once. The number of times the data have to be differenced to become stationary is the order of integration.If a series is differenced d times to become stationary, it is said to be integrated of order I(d). However, a linear combination of series may have a lower order of integration than any one of them has individually. In this case, the variables are said to be co-integrated. The following section presents the results of the simple descriptive statistical analysis and then unit root analysis to study the stationarity of GDP and construction flow. Accordingly, we employ Granger causality methodology to investigate the lead lag relationships between the construction flow and the GDP. . 1 Data and Descriptive Statistical Analysis: The annual data for the period 1950 to 2005 is being used for empirical analysis. Construction industry flows (LCNS) and Gross Domestic Product (LGDP) data in local currency is employed to analyze the dynamic relationship between GDP and construction sector. All the variables are expressed in natural logarithms so that they may be considered elasticity of the relevant variables. We examine the contemporaneous correlation and check for the evidence of Granger causality between these two variables.Table-3 presents summery statistic of the data and table- 4 tell us that there is a strong correlation between construction sector and GDP of Kenya during 1950 to 2005. Annual observations of GDP and construction sector are taken from Handbook of Statistics of Kenya Economy, 2005 and various issues of Economic Survey of Kenya. Table 3 Descriptive statistics LCNS LGDP Mean 8. 605299 11. 98993 Median 8. 996238 11. 90110 Maximum 11. 87699 15. 62865 Minimum 4. 976734 9. 126524 Std. Dev. 2. 184803 2. 082374 Skewness -0. 140903 0. 195506 Kurtosis 1. 651252 1. 664931Jarque-Bera 4. 429918 4. 515697 Probability 0. 109158 0. 104575 Observations 56 Apparently as the government is geared to enhance rural development in its development agenda, the construction industry faces the daunting task to be part of the development philosophy. The construction industry has to ensure that it has the capacity to deliver development projects as per the needs of the government and in the time scale specified. Many a development projects are in the pipeline, most notable, road projects, schools, police and teachers’ houses, boreholes, among many others.The construction industry would add value to the country’s development agenda through successfully undertaking the said projects. Certainly, the construction industry loses credibility, trust and reputation in the eyes of the publics if projects it undertakes do not live to the expectations of the people. The government’s rural development project could further spur the growth of indigenous construction companies which will in the end trickle-down economic benefits to the country and the citizens.The mushrooming of indigenous construction firms with capacity to handle large scale jobs will save the country from losing forex as most projects will be handled locally, hence requiring no need for forex to pay international construction firm. This could certainly write a new chapter in the histo ry of the construction industry in the country. As the small construction firms will be developing they will certainly be competing for construction jobs in other countries within Africa and possibly beyond. This could make the construction industry a reliable partner in bringing into the country the required forex.The exposure of the construction industry abroad could as well play the ambassadorial role of marketing services that Malawi can offer in Africa and beyond. If one sector successfully storms the international market, other sectors stand an easy chance as they actually ride on the success of the pioneer service provider. References Anaman K. A and Amponsah. C, (2007). Analysis of the causality links between the growth of the construction industry and the growth of the macro economy in Ghana, Institute of Economic Affairs, Accra, Ghana Ball, C. M. 1965) Employment effects of construction expenditures, Monthly labour Review, 88, 154- 158. Ball, R. (1981) Employment created b y construction, expenditures, Monthly labour Review, 104, 38-44. Bon, R. (1988). Direct and indirect resource utilization by the construction sector: the case of the USA since World War II, Habitat International, 12(1), 49–74. Bon, R. (1992). The future of international construction: secular patterns of growth and decline. Habitat International, 16(3), 119–28 Census and Statistics Department of HKSAR (1985–2002) Hong Kong Monthly Digest of Statistics, Census and Statistics Department of HKSAR, Hong Kong.Bon, R. and Pietroforte, R. (1990) Historical comparison of construction sectors in the United States, Japan, Italy, and Finland using input-output tables, Construction Management and Economics, 8, 233- 247. Bon, R. and Pietroforte, R. (1993) New construction versus maintenance and repair construction technology in the USA since World War I. , Construction Management and Economics, 11, 151–62. Bon, R. , Birgonul, T. and Ozdogan, I. (1999) An input– output analysis of the Turkish construction sector, 1973– 1990: a note. Construction Management and Economics, 17, 543–51.Chen, J. J. (1998) The characteristics and current status of China’s construction industry, Construction Management and Economics, 16, 711-719. Dickey, D. A. and Fuller, W. A. (1979) Distributions of the estimators for autoregressive time series with a unit root. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 74, 427- -31 Drewer, S (1997) Construction and development: Further reflections on the work of Duccio Turin. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Construction Industry Development, Singapore 9- 11 December. Engle, R. F. and Issler, V. 1993) Estimating Sectoral Cycles Using Co integration and Common Features, Working Paper No. 4529, National Bureau of Economic Research. Field, B. and Ofori, G. (1988) Construction and economic development – a case study. Third World Planning Review, 10(1), 41–50. Fox, L. P. (1976) Building construction as an engine of growth: an evaluation of the Columbian development plan. Ph. D. dissertation, The University of North Carolina. Granger, C. W. J. and Newbold, P. (1986) Forecasting Economic Time Series, Academic Press, Orlando, FL. Granger, C. W. J. and Newbold, P. (1974) Spurious regressions in econometrics.Journal of Econometrics, 2, 111–20. Green, R. K. (1997) Follow the leader: how changes in residential and non-residential investment predict changes in GDP. Real Estate Economics, 25(2), 253–70. Harris, R. (1995) Using Cointegration Analysis in Econometric Modeling, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Hassan. S. A. (2002) Construction Industry. (Kenya) published by Economic Review 2002. Hillebrandt, P. (1985) Analysis of the British Construction Industry, Macmillan, London. Hirschman, A. O. (1958) The Strategy of Economic Development, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.Hua. B. G. (1995). Residential construction demand forecasting us ing economic indicators: a comparative study of artificial neural networks and multiple regression School of Building and Estate Management, National University of Singapore ILO Geneva (2001), The construction industry in the twenty first century: Its image, employment prospects and skill requirements, International Labor Office Geneva Lean, S. C. (2001), Empirical tests to discern linkages between construction and other economic sectors in Singapore, Construction Management and Economics, 13, 253-262 290

Hamlet Essay †Misogyny Essay

Misogyny, by definition, is the hatred of women and girls. In Hamlet by William Shakespeare, misogyny affects women in negative ways that both impact how a woman is portrayed along with how these stereotypes and controls influence her actions and ultimately lead to her demise. Gertrude and Ophelia, the only major female characters of this play, are both women who must confront various factors and adverse effects of misogyny. Shakespeare uses the patriarchal system to suggest the effects of men’s misogynistic behavior towards women. The patriarchal system allows men to objectify women by using them as pawns, and gives men the power to control and manipulate women as they please. Shakespeare demonstrates this through the words and actions of Polonius, Ophelia’s father. Firstly, the patriarchal system gives Polonius the power to treat Ophelia like an object and control her actions. Claudius, Gertrude, and Polonius all come together in this scene to make a plan on how to di scover why Hamlet has gone so mad. In their conversation, Polonius says, â€Å"At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him.† (II.ii.174) Here, the word â€Å"loose† emphasizes the cynical unconcern that he has for his daughter. The use of â€Å"loose† in this context is also a pun. Loose means cow, so Shakespeare uses this line as a metaphor to say that Polonius is soon going to â€Å"loose† his daughter, a cow, to a bull, who is none other than Hamlet. Polonius does this again while talking to Ophelia about how she shouldn’t believe Hamlet’s words or rely on any of his promises because according to Polonius, Hamlet doesn’t truly love Ophelia; he simply has a strong lust for her at the moment. â€Å" Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know, / When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul/ Lends the tongue vows,† Polonius explains. (I.ii.120) Shakespeare uses diction here to emphasize what Polonius thinks of his daughter. â€Å"Springes† are snares to catch fools and a â€Å"woodcock† is a bird that is easily taken. In simple terms, Polonius is comparing Ophelia to this foolish type of bird, saying that she is easy to get and fool. Once again, he compa res her to an animal – objectifying her and bringing her down from her status as a human and woman in society. Shakespeare demonstrates how sexuality is portrayed as something crude and wrong through the actions of Queen Gertrude. Hamlet’s aversion towards his mother’s sexuality upkeeps the idea that sexuality is obscene. Hamlet is absolutely disgusted by his mother and while talking to himself, exclaims: â€Å"O, most wicked speed, to post/ With such dexterity to  incestuous sheets!† (I.ii.158-159) Gertrude’s sexuality makes her inappropriate because she remarried with â€Å"wicked speed.† The word â€Å"wicked† has a negative connotation to it. It implies that Gertrude’s speed in remarrying was bad and evil because she betrayed King Hamlet so quickly and the quickness of her actions makes her seem sexually vulgar. Hamlet is disgusted by the fact that his mother was both quick and agile with becoming incestuous. Furthermore, the idea that sexuality is vulgar is further demonstrated when the ghost of King Hamlet reveals his disgust towards Gertrude’s incest. â€Å"So lust, through to a radiant angel linked, / will state itself in a celestial bed/ And prey on garbage.† (I.v.59-60) Even though sexuality can be pure like a â€Å"radiant angel,† it will glut (â€Å"sate†) and â€Å"prey on garbage.† Shakespeare uses imagery with these words to reveal that Gertrude is garbage and that she is searched for like junk by a scavenger. The word â€Å"sate† shows Gertrude as a gluttonous animal, implying that her sexuality makes her an animal; thus sexuality is vulgar. Shakespeare emphasizes that virginity is essential to a women’s value in society, for it makes her both pure and desirable. Ophelia’s conversations with her brother Laertes and her father Polonius provide evidence that both Laertes and Polonius place a very high value of Ophelia’s sexuality and her obligation to protect her virginity. Laertes and Ophelia have one last conversation before he departs to France. He gives her advice about rejecting lust and desire in order to keep her virginity and thereby make herself honorable. In their conversation with each other, Laertes warns Ophelia to not let herself be seduced and lose her honor by losing her virginity. He says, â€Å"The canker galls the infants of the spring/ Too oft before their buttons be disclosed.† (I.ii.42-43) Shakespeare uses some interesting metaphors in this scene to stress the value of Ophelia’s maidenhood by comparing it to a flower. The phrase â€Å"infants of the spring† im plies both innocence and fertility. This metaphor compares women, in this case Ophelia; to new spring flowers whose buds still haven’t been opened (still virgins). Laertes is saying that Ophelia is still young so she must resist her desires in order to save her virginity; doing so would also save her honor, which is something that is very valued especially for women in society. Polonius also warns Ophelia about the value of her virginity, but  for other reasons. Unlike Laertes, who is more concerned about Ophelia’s happiness and emotional well-being, Polonius is more focused on himself and the respect of his family. He says to her: â€Å"You do not understand yourself so clearly/ As it behooves my daughter and your honor.† (I.ii.102-103) Here, Polonius is saying that Ophelia does not yet understand how to behave in a way that is suitable for someone who is his daughter and who is under his name and household. He is afraid that if Ophelia loses her virginity, she will disgrace the family and hurt his reputation; all in all, he fears that the respect of his family will be damaged. This makes it evident that Shakespeare believed th at along with altering a woman’s reputation and social standing, women’s chastity also affected men’s social standing in society. Seeing that virginity is given such high value, Shakespeare also clearly demonstrates the consequences that a woman experiences by losing her virginity before marriage. He uses Ophelia’s character to illustrate how losing a woman’s virginity causes her to lose relationships with people she loves, her social status and reputation, her sanity, and ultimately, her life. OPHELIA. By Gis and by Saint Charity, Alack, and fie, for shame! Young men will do ’t, if they come to ’t. By Cock, they are to blame. Quoth she, â€Å"Before you tumbled me, You promised me to wed.† He answers: â€Å"So would I ’a’ done, by yonder sun, An thou hadst not come to my bed.† (IV.v.59-67) After losing her father, Ophelia has become insane and is singing this song while reminiscing about the love that she and Hamlet once had. She has been driven to this madness because of her instability after her father is killed and Hamlet leaves her. Slowly everyone she loves is drifting away and she feels that is because she didn’t listen to her father and brother about protecting her virginity before, so now she is suffering the consequences.  In this scene, she is specifically singing about how Hamlet did not keep his promise of marrying her after they had slept together. â€Å"Young men will do’t if they come to’t,/ By cock, they are to blame,† she explains. In other words, she is saying that men will have sex whenever they have the opportunity. With the phrase â€Å"by cock, they are to blame,† she is saying that the â€Å"cock† represents the vulgar corruption of God because they are the ones who take a woman’s virginity. Furt hermore, Hamlet does not want to marry Ophelia anymore because she isn’t a virgin and all men want to marry a woman who is pure and untouched. Ophelia’s madness in this scene expresses how losing her virginity led her to insanity because she was incapable of dealing with losing all of her loved ones. Additionally, she loses any respect that she had, along with her social status, because she has done something that is completely unacceptable for a young woman to do in such a society in that time. All of this ultimately causes Ophelia to take her own life as a way to end the chain reactions of heartbreak and misery that she has had to experience, all because she decided to go and lose her virginity to Hamlet. In conclusion, Shakespeare uses the patriarchal system to suggest men’s ability to manipulate women, and ultimately gives an explanation of the reactions to men’s misogynistic behavior towards women. Common stereotypes of women gravely impact women’s perception of themselves and shape women to fit under certain archetypes in a patriarch-run society. Misogyny destructively affects the fate of â€Å"Woman† and, slowly but surely, leads to the deterioration of her idea of self and identity.

Phishing Attack

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION In the field of computer security, Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Phishing is a fraudulent e-mail that attempts to get you to divulge personal data that can then be used for illegitimate purposes. There are many variations on this scheme. It is possible to Phish for other information in additions to usernames and passwords such as credit card numbers, bank account numbers, social security numbers and mothers’ maiden names. Phishing presents direct risks through the use of stolen credentials and indirect risk to institutions that conduct business on line through erosion of customer confidence. The damage caused by Phishing ranges from denial of access to e-mail to substantial financial loss. [pic] Fig 1. 1 the simplified flow of information in a Phishing attack 1. A deceptive message is sent from the Phishers to the user. 2. A user provides confidential information to a Phishing server (normally after some interaction with the server). 3. The Phishers obtains the confidential information from the server. 4. The confidential information is used to impersonate the user. 5. The Phishers obtains illicit monetary gain. Steps 3 and 5 are of interest primarily to law enforcement personnel to identify and prosecute Phishers. The discussion of technology countermeasures will center on ways to disrupt steps 1, 2 and 4, as well as related technologies outside the information flow proper. CHAPTER 2 PHISHING TECHNIQUES Phishers use a wide variety of techniques, with one common thread. LINK MANIPULATION Most methods of Phishing use some form of technical deception designed to make a link in an e-mail appear to belong to the spoofed organization. Misspelled URLs or the use of sub domains are common tricks used by Phishers. In the following example, http://www. yourbank. example. com/, it appears as though the URL will take you to the example section of the yourbank website; actually this URL points to the â€Å"yourbank† (i. e. Phishing) section of the example website. An old method of spoofing used links containing the ‘@' symbol, originally intended as a way to include a username and password. For example, http://www. oogle. [email  protected] tripod. com/ might deceive a casual observer into believing that it will open a page on www. google. com, whereas it actually directs the browser to a page on members. tripod. com, using a username of www. google. com: the page opens normally, regardless of the username supplied. 1 2 FILTER EVASION Phishers have used images ins tead of text to make it harder for anti-Phishing filters to detect text commonly used in Phishing e-mails. WEBSITE FORGERY Once a victim visits the Phishing website the deception is not over. Some Phishing scams use JavaScript commands in order to alter the address bar. This is done either by placing a picture of a legitimate URL over the address bar, or by closing the original address bar and opening a new one with the legitimate URL. [pic] Fig 2. 1 An website which does not shows real address bar PHONE PHISHING Messages that claimed to be from a bank told users to dial a phone number regarding problems with their bank accounts. Once the phone number (owned by the Phishers) was dialed, prompts told users to enter their account numbers and PIN. Vishing (voice Phishing) sometimes uses fake caller-ID data to give the appearance that calls come from a trusted organization. pic] Fig 2. 2 How Phishing Attack can take place CHAPTER 3 REASONS OF PHISHING Let's consider some of the reasons people fall victim to Phishing scams. TRUST OF AUTHORITY When a Phishing email arrives marked as â€Å"High Priority† that threatens to close our bank account unless we update our data immediately, it engages the same authority response mechanisms that we've obeyed for millennia. In our modern culture, the old markers of authority – physical strength, aggressiveness, ruthlessness – have largely given way to signs of economic power. â€Å"He's richer than I am, so he must be a better man†. If you equate market capitalization with GDP then Bank of America is the 28th most powerful country in the world. If you receive a personal email purported to come from BOA questioning the validity of your account data, you will have a strong compulsion to respond, and respond quickly. TEXTUAL AND GRAPHIC PRESENTATION LACKS TRADITIONAL CLUES OF VALIDITY Most people feel that they can tell an honest man by looking him in the eye. You can spot a â€Å"professional† panhandler before he gets to the fourth word in his spiel. Without clues from the verbal and physical realms, our ability to determine the validity of business transactions is diminished. This is a cornerstone of the direct mail advertising business. If a piece of mail resembles some type of official correspondence, you are much more likely to open it. Car dealers send sales flyers in manila envelopes stamped â€Å"Official Business† that look like the envelopes tax refund checks are mailed in. Banks send credit card offers in large cardboard envelopes that are almost indistinguishable from FedEx overnight packages. Political advertisements are adorned with all manner of patriotic symbols to help us link the candidate with our nationalistic feelings. E-MAIL AND WEB PAGES CAN LOOK REAL The use of symbols laden with familiarity and repute lends legitimacy (or the illusion of legitimacy) to information—whether accurate or fraudulent—that is placed on the imitating page. Deception is possible because the symbols that represent a trusted company are no more ‘real' than the symbols that are reproduced for a fictitious company. Certain elements of dynamic web content can be difficult to copy directly but are often easy enough to fake, especially when 100% accuracy is not required. Email messages are usually easier to replicate than web pages since their elements are predominately text or static HTML and associated images. Hyperlinks are easily subverted since the visible tag does not have to match the URL that your click will actually redirect your browser to. The link can look like http://bankofamerica. com/login but the URL could actually link to http://bankofcrime. com/got_your_login CHAPTER 4 ANTI PHISHING TECHNIQUES To counter the phishing threat, a number of anti-phishing solutions have been proposed, both by industry and academic world. The anti phishing techniques can in general be divided into three categories. 1. Spam Filters 2. Anti-phishing tool bars and 3. Password protection mechanism Spam Filters A class of anti-phishing approaches aims to solve the phishing problem at the email level. The key idea is that when a phishing email does not reach its victims, they cannot fall for the scam. Hence, filters and content analysis techniques are often used to attempt to identify phishing emails before these emails are delivered to users. Clearly, this line of research is closely related to anti-spam research [10]. By continuously training filters (e. g. , Bayesian filters), a large number of phishing emails can be blocked. This is because such emails often contain words that may be identified as suspicious tokens that do not frequently occur in legitimate emails (e. g. , ? update? , ? login? , etc. ). The main disadvantage of anti-spam techniques is that their success depends on the availability of these filters and their proper training. That is, when the user does not actively help in training the filter, the filter typically does not perform as expected. Furthermore, even when filters are trained well and a user rarely receives any spam or phishing emails, once a phishing email bypasses the filter, the user’s belief of the legitimacy of this mail is strengthened. Anti-Phishing Toolbars To identify a page as a phishing site, there are a variety of methods that can be used, such as white lists (lists of known safe sites), blacklists (lists of known fraudulent sites), various heuristics to see if a URL is similar to a well-known URL, and community ratings. The toolbars examined here employ different combinations of these methods. By using publicly available information provided on the toolbar download web sites as well as observations from using each toolbar we get a basic understanding of how each toolbar functions. Some of the toolbars that are used for anti-phishing are 1) eBay Toolbar The eBay Toolbar uses a combination of heuristics and blacklists. The toolbar also gives users the ability to report phishing sites, which will then be verified before being blacklisted. 2) GeoTrust TrustWatch Toolbar GeoTrust’s web site provides no information about how TrustWatch determines if a site is fraudulent; however, it is suspect that the company ompiles a blacklist that includes sites reported by users through a button provided on the toolbar. 3) Google Safe Browsing Google provides the source code for the Safe Browsing feature and says that it checks URLs against a blacklist 4) McAfee SiteAdvisor SiteAdvisor claims to detect not just phishing websites, but any sites that send spam, offer downloads containi ng spyware, or engage in other similar bad practices. The determination is made by a combination of automated heuristics and manual verification. 5) Microsoft Phishing Filter in Windows Internet Explorer This toolbar largely relies on a blacklist hosted by Microsoft. However, it also uses some heuristics when it encounters a site that is not in the blacklist. Users also have the option of using this feature to report suspected phishing sites 6) Netcraft Anti-Phishing Toolbar The Netcraft toolbar also uses a blacklist, which consists of fraudulent sites identified by Netcraft as well as sites submitted by users and verified by the company. The toolbar also displays a risk rating between one and ten as well as the hosting location of the site. [pic] Fig 4. 1 Netcraft Anti-Phishing Toolbar ) Netscape Browser 8. 1 It appears that the functionality of Netscape Browser relies solely on a blacklist, which is maintained by AOL and updated frequently. When a suspected phishing site is encountered, the user is redirected to a built-in warning page. Users are shown the original URL and are asked whether or not they would like to proceed. 8) Spoofguard Spoofguard does not use white lists or blac klists. Instead, the toolbar employs a series of heuristics to identify phishing pages. 9) AntiPhish AntiPhish is an academic solution which keeps track of where sensitive information is being submitted to. 0) Dynamic security skins Dynamic security skins is also an academis solution which allow a remote server to prove its identity in a way that is easy for humans to verify. Most of the tools that were tested used blacklists, but only half of them were able to identify the majority of phishing web sites. We don’t know the size of the blacklists used by each toolbar, nor do we know what heuristics are used by any of the toolbars other than Spoofguard. We suspect that the toolbars that performed best use larger and more frequently updated black lists. They may also use heuristics that allow them to detect phishing sites that haven’t yet been put on the blacklist. The only toolbar known to make no use of blacklists was Spoofguard. While it was able to identify the majority of phishing sites using only heuristics, it still missed some phishing sites and it had a very high false positive rate. Spoofguard could potentially be improved through the use of a whitelist, which would prevent the problems that occurred when phishing sites were visited before their corresponding legitimate sites. The whitelist would not necessarily need to be extremely large or updated frequently to be effective. Password Protection Mechanism A password is a secret word or string of characters that is used for authentication, to prove identity or gain access to a resource. The password should be kept secret from those who are not allowed for access. So, the major concern for any user is to safeguard his/her password. The password can be cracked with the attacks such as Guessing attack, Brute-force attack, Dictionary attack, Phishing attack etc. ,. Another problem regarding password is single password problem where the user uses a single password for both vulnerable sites and financial sites. The hackers can break into the vulnerable sites that simply stores username and password and apply those retrieved combination of username and password on high security sites such as banking sites. All these problems at a single stroke can be solved by hashing the master password using domain name as key on client side. Some of the applications/tools that use this powerful technique are 1) Password Composer This extension [25] puts a tiny red icon to the left of a password entry field. If one clicks on this icon, the password field is overlaid with a replacement input, where one can supply a single, secure password (Master Password). 2) Magic Password Generator This extension combines master password and the domain name of the site to make another unique password for that site. For advanced users, with a catchall address at a domain, just put â€Å"@example. com† (whatever one’s domain is) for the address, and MPWGen will make a different email for every site too. Alternately, use â€Å"[email  protected]†¦Ã¢â‚¬  and the value will be inserted after the + sign, for email accounts that support this feature, like gmail. ) Password generator Password Generator gets the hostname from the page's URL and mixes it together with one’s personal master password using a little cryptographic magic MD5. It always gets the same result if given that hostname and master password, but will never get that result if either changes. 4) Hassapass Hasspass automatically generates strong passwords from a master password and a parameter like domain name. The password generation is performed inside this very browser window in JavaScript 5) Genpass GenPass is a JavaScript/MD5 bookmarklet-based password generator. GenPass is no longer being updated. Presently consider using SuperGenPass; however, note that SuperGenPass is not compatible with GenPass—given the same input, they generate different passwords. 6) Password Hasher When the master key is given to Password Hasher and it enters the hash word into the site's password field. A hash word is the result of scrambling the master key with a site tag. Click on a # marker next to a password field or press the Control-F6 key combination when in a password field or choose Password Hasher from either the Tools menu or the right-click popup menu on a password field to enter the master key. ) Pwdhash Pwdhash is a browser extension that transparently converts a user's password into a domain-specific password. The user can activate this hashing by choosing passwords that start with a special prefix (@@) or by pressing a special password key (F2). Pwdhash automatically replaces the contents of these password fields with a one-way hash of the pair (password, domain-name). Based on t he features like application type, hashing algorithm, security, password strength, spoof proof, visibility to webpage, visibility to user etc. Pwdhash is the best among the above mentioned applications. But some of its disadvantages are as follows a) Invisible to user – Password hashing done by Pwdhash is invisible to user. If this extension stops working, user will not know about this, i. e. , passwords will not be hashed. b) Visibility of activation to webpage – Webpage gets the intimation about the activation of Pwdhash. This made Pwdhash vulnerable for JavaScript attacks. So webpage can put some efforts to know the original master password. ) Password availability as plain text – The master password is directly filled in password field given by webpage. i. e. , password is available in plain text. d) Easily spoof-able – As activation is visible to webpage and by using Alex’s corner method it is very easy to know the master password of user by f ake webpage. e) Affect on others / Affecting webpage – Pwdhash have some side-effects on websites. Any JavaScript attached with password fields will not work properly. For ex. keyPress event will not work properly. f) Not secure – Finally, Pwdhash is not looking so secured. CHAPTER 5 ANTI-PHISHING There are several different techniques to combat Phishing, including legislation and technology created specifically to protect against Phishing. SOCIAL RESPONSES One strategy for combating Phishing is to train people to recognize Phishing attempts, and to deal with them. Education can be effective, especially where training provides direct feedback. One newer Phishing tactic, which uses Phishing e-mails targeted at a specific company, known as Spear Phishing, has been harnessed to train individuals at various locations. People can take steps to avoid Phishing attempts by slightly modifying their browsing habits. When contacted about an account needing to be â€Å"verified† (or any other topic used by Phishers), it is a sensible precaution to contact the company from which the e-mail apparently originates to check that the e-mail is legitimate. Alternatively, the address that the individual knows is the company's genuine website can be typed into the address bar of the browser, rather than trusting any hyperlinks in the suspected Phishing message. Nearly all legitimate e-mail messages from companies to their customers contain an item of information that is not readily available to Phishers. Some companies, for example PayPal, always address their customers by their username in e-mails, so if an e-mail addresses the recipient in a generic fashion (â€Å"Dear PayPal customer†) it is likely to be an attempt at Phishing. E-mails from banks and credit card companies often include partial account numbers. However, recent research has shown that the public do not typically distinguish between the first few digits and the last few digits of an account number—a significant problem since the first few digits are often the same for all clients of a financial institution. People can be trained to have their suspicion aroused if the message does not contain any specific personal information. Phishing attempts in early 2006, however, used personalized information, which makes it unsafe to assume that the presence of personal information alone guarantees that a message is legitimate. Furthermore, another recent study concluded in part that the presence of personal information does not significantly affect the success rate of Phishing attacks, which suggests that most people do not pay attention to such details. The Anti-Phishing Working Group, an industry and law enforcement association has suggested that conventional Phishing techniques could become obsolete in the future as people are increasingly aware of the social engineering techniques used by Phishers. They predict that Pharming and other uses of malware will become more common tools for stealing information. TECHNICAL RESPONSES Anti-Phishing measures have been implemented as features embedded in browsers, as extensions or toolbars for browsers, and as part of website login procedures. The following are some of the main approaches to the problem. Helping to identify legitimate sites Most Phishing websites are secure websites, meaning that SSL with strong cryptography is used for server authentication, where the website's URL is used as identifier. The problem is that users often do not know or recognize the URL of the legitimate sites they intend to connect to, so that the authentication becomes meaningless. A condition for meaningful server authentication is to have a server identifier that is meaningful to the user. Simply displaying the domain name for the visited website as some some anti-Phishing toolbars do is not sufficient. A better approach is the pet name extension for Firefox which lets users type in their own labels for websites, so they can later recognize when they have returned to the site. If the site is not recognized, then the software may either warn the user or block the site outright. This represents user-centric identity management of server identities. Some suggest that a graphical image selected by the user is better than a pet name Browsers alerting users to fraudulent websites Another popular approach to fighting Phishing is to maintain a list of known Phishing sites and to check websites against the list. Microsoft's IE7 browser, Mozilla Firefox 2. 0, and Opera all contain this type of anti-Phishing measure. Firefox 2 uses Google anti-Phishing software. Some implementations of this approach send the visited URLs to a central service to be checked, which has raised concerns about privacy. To mitigate the problem of Phishing sites impersonating a victim site by embedding its images (such as logos), several site owners have altered the images to send a message to the visitor that a site may be fraudulent. The image may be moved to a new filename and the original permanently replaced, or a server can detect that the image was not requested as part of normal browsing, and instead send a warning image. Augmenting password logins The Bank of America's website is one of several that ask users to select a personal image, and display this user-selected image with any forms that request a password. Users of the bank's online services are instructed to enter a password only when they see the image they selected. However, a recent study suggests few users refrain from entering their password when images are absent. In addition, this feature (like other forms of two-factor authentication) is susceptible to other attacks. Security skins are a related technique that involves overlaying a user-selected image onto the login form as a visual cue that the form is legitimate. Unlike the website-based image schemes, however, the image itself is shared only between the user and the browser, and not between the user and the website. The scheme also relies on a mutual authentication protocol, which makes it less vulnerable to attacks that affect user-only authentication schemes. 1 Eliminating Phishing mail Specialized spam filters can reduce the number of Phishing e-mails that reach their addressees' inboxes. These approaches rely on machine learning and natural language processing approaches to classify Phishing e-mails. 2 Monitoring and takedown Several companies offer banks and other organizations likely to suffer from Phishing scams round-the-clock services to monitor, analyze and assist in shutting down Phishing websites. Individuals can contribute by reporting Phishing to both volunteer and industry groups, such as PhishTank. LEGAL RESPONSES On January 26, 2004, the U. S. Federal Trade Commission filed the first lawsuit against a suspected Phisher. The defendant, a Californian teenager, allegedly created a webpage designed to look like the America Online website, and used it to steal credit card information. In the United States, Senator Patrick Leahy introduced the Anti-Phishing Act of 2005. Companies have also joined the effort to crack down on Phishing. CHAPTER 6 HOW ANTI-PHISHING SOFTWARE WORKS Anti-phishing software consists of computer programs that attempt to identify phishing content contained in websites and e-mail. It is often integrated with web browsers and email clients as a toolbar that displays the real domain name for the website the viewer is visiting, in an attempt to prevent fraudulent websites from masquerading as other legitimate web sites. Anti-phishing functionality may also be included as a built-in capability of some web browsers Common phishing tactics take advantage of a visitor by requesting them to link out to another site, asking that the enter personal information and passwords, or redirecting them to another site completely for registration. The process usually begins by sending out a forged e-mail that looks like it was sent from the company. Some tactics include saying an account has expired and needs to be updated, or has experienced unauthorized use and needs to be verified. Many banking and financial institutions become targets for these types of scams, and they can be a considerable threat to millions of account holders and users. Many leading web browsers and software programs have realized the impact of this trend, and have created programs that can limit the frequency of these types of scams. Micirosoft Windows Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2. 0, Google Safe Browsing, and Earthlink ScamBlocker are just a few programs that have reduced the risks involved. In Firefox 2. 0, Phishing Protection is always turned on and checks the sites automatically for any potential risks or hazards. The list is reviewed on a regular basis, and can be configured to Firefox Security settings for maximum control. When Phishing Protection in enabled, the sites are downloaded into a list and checked for any anti-phishing services. A warning sign will appear if any suspicious activity is detected. The Netcraft toolbar makes use of a risk rating system, allowing you the option of entering a password (or not). TrustWatch makes the Internet Explorer toolbar, and can help validate a Web site and provide a site report when needed. This option also allows you to review all suspected sites and find out which ones use SSL technology. Earthlink Toolbar with ScamBlocker will verify any popup messages that you may encounter as you visit a site, and can help you find out all the details on current phishing scams. Anti-phishing software is designed to track websites and monitor activity; any suspicious behaviour can be automatically reported, and even reviewed as a report after a period of time. Anti-phishing toolbars can help protect your privacy and reduce the risk of landing at a false or insecure URL. Although some people have concerns over how valuabe anti-phishing software and toolbars may be, security threats can be reduced considerably when they are managed by the browser program. Other companies that are trained in computer security are investigating other ways to report phishing issues; programs are being designed that can analyze web addresses for fraudulent behavior through new tactics, and cross-checking domain names for validity. The best and in most using Anti-Phishing Software is Netcraft Anti-Phishing Toolbar Netcraft is an Internet Services Company located in the United Kingdom and is devoted to tracking online technology. Additionally, Netcraft has actively taken up the sole of patrolling the cyberspace to sniff out phishing emails. The antiphising toolbar from Netcraft not only protects you and your savings from phishing attacks but also lets you check the hosting location and Risk Rating of every site you visit. Once you download and install the toolbar, you join a giant neighbourhood watch scheme whose most alert and most expert members defend everyone in the community against phishing frauds. This antiphishing group working to protect you is one of the finest ways to fight phishing. This could be downloaded through internet [pic] [pic] Fig 6. 1 Downloading Netcraft anti-phishing tool bar CHAPTER 7 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF USING ANTI-PHISHING Advantages †¢ Protect your savings from Phishing attacks. †¢ When a Phishing website or phishing email appears it will informs to the user. †¢ Some Anti-Phishing software's also allows seeing the hosting location and Risk Rating of every site you visit. †¢ Anti-phishing software is designed to track websites and monitor activity; any suspicious behavior can be automatically reported and even reviewed as a report after a period of time Disadvantages †¢ No single technology will completely stop phishing. So Phishing attacks can not be completely stopped †¢ Even Anti-Phishing software's should be upgraded with respect to the Phishing attacks. CHAPTER 8 FEW SNAPSHOTS OF PHISHING WEBSITES [pic] Fig 8. 1 Phishing Peoples Bank Web site [pic] [pic] Fig 8. 2 Phishing US Bank Web site CONCLUSION No single technology will completely stop phishing. However, a combination of good organization and practice, proper application of current technologies, and improvements in security technology has the potential to drastically reduce the prevalence of phishing and the losses suffered from it. In particular: High-value targets should follow best practices and keep in touch with continuing evolution of them. Phishing attacks can be detected rapidly through a combination of customer reportage, bounce monitoring, image use monitoring, honeypots and other techniques. Email authentication technologies such as Sender-ID and cryptographic signing, when widely deployed, have the potential to prevent phishing emails from reaching users. Analysis of imagery is a promising area of future research to identify phishing emails. Personally identifiable information should be included in all email communications. Systems allowing the user to enter or select customized text and/or imagery are particularly promising. Browser security upgrades, such as distinctive display of potentially deceptive content and providing a warning when a potentially unsafe link is selected, could substantially reduce the efficacy of phishing attacks. Anti-phishing toolbars are promising tools for identifying phishing sites and heightening security when a potential phishing site is detected. Detection of outgoing confidential information, including password hashing, is a promising area of future work, with some technical challenges. BIBLIOGRAPHY [1] http://en. wikipedia. org/ [2] http://webopedia. com/ [3] http://computerworld. com/ [4] http://www. anti-phishing. info/ [5] http://lorrie. cranor. org/ ———————– Not the real address bar Not the proper domain for peoples. com

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Petrophysics Essay Example for Free

Petrophysics Essay Abstract The South Tapti gas field, located in the Arabian Sea off the western coast of India, has been on production for the last three years. Drill Stem Tests (DST) conducted in five zones in the first appraisal well showed high sand production in all the tests at drawdowns as low as 20 psi. Due to the unconsolidated nature of the reservoir sand, it was decided to gravel pack all future wells. Initially, the High Rate Water Pack (HRWP) technique was used on 13 completions including some stack and selective completions. Due to a change in the drilling fluid to an oil based mud (OBM) system and the higher damage associated with the it, it was later decided to switch the gravel packing technique to ‘Frac and Pack’. This involved creation of a small frac to bypass the near wellbore damage using a gel-based fluid, followed by gravel placement using the HRWP. The Frac Pack technique was tried on 10 completions. Extensive production and pressure data collected on the above completions show that the ‘Frac Pack’ technique has led to a decrease in the mechanical skin by almost 70 %. More importantly, it has also been responsible for decreasing the Rate Dependent Skin Coefficient, D, by 50 %, which has a greater impact on the well productivity since these wells are produced at average rates of 25 MMSCFD. This paper describes the gravel packing techniques used in the South Tapti gas field, their evolution and the results achieved. Inroduction The South Tapti field, located off the Western coast of India, is represented by a series of alternating sand and shale sequences. The upper reservoir intervals are dominated by tidal-bar and channel sands deposited in a deltaic environment while the lower sands represent incised valley deposits consisting largely of alluvial/fluvial channels, tidal bars and tidal creeks. The exploratory wells drilled in the field indicated strong sand production tendencies due to the unconsolidated nature of the reservoir rock. This was corroborated by extensive testing of the first development well when all the five zones tested produced sand even under extremely low pressure drawdown conditions. The completion policy for the field focused on preventing sand ingress while minimizing the near well-bore damage inherent in any sand control application. The early development wells were gravel packed using the high rate water pack (HRWP) technique. These initial completions were highly successful in preventing sand production but also induced significant damage in the process. The problem was accentuated when the drilling mud system was changed to an oil base system in an attempt to offset recurrent drilling problems arising out of unconsolidated sandstone and presence of reactive clays. This called for a change in completion philosophy in order to ensure that the wells retain high productivity with effective sand control. Geologic and Reservoir Characterization The South Tapti field is localized by a broad SW-NE trending, doubly plunging anticline. The field has up to 13 different Oligo-Miocene gas bearing sands, separated by shales. The reservoir sands were deposited in both incised valley and deltaic settings. Reservoir sands within incised valleys consist of alluvial/fluvial channels, tide-influenced channels and tidal bars. The channel sands typically are the cleaner sands with excellent porosity permeability and up to 20 m thick, whereas the tide-influenced channels and tidal bars are shalier, with more modest porosity and permeability. CLAY MINERALS 1. Abstract: Tapti Basin in Surat Depression, Bombay Offshore is characterized by entirely siliciclastic succession. The cores and cutting samples, and wireline logs provide important information about the stratigraphy, basin fill, mineralogy, source and reservoir rock characteristics. Well under study is located in South Tapti sub-basin and contains gas-bearing sandstone within Mahim Formation of Late Oligocene age. The cuttings and cores have been megascopically examined and with the aid of electrical log data, the litholog of the well is prepared. The study involves XRD and major element analysis of selected samples. The XRD and digital log data from Natural Gamma Sepctrometry (NGS) log indicate that montmorillonite is the major clay mineral present in the upper part of the succession, whereas kaolinite present in the lower part (1868 m MD to 2427 m MD). Kaolinite is apparently formed by early stages of burial diagenesis, whereas montmorillonite is a weathering product of the Deccan Basalt. Interpretative lithology from the well log response shows that reservoir sandstones have developed within the depth interval of 1865m TVD to 1945 m TVD within dominantly shale lithology. Reservoir sandstones are semiconsolidated, medium to coarse grained and moderately well sorted. Quartz is the dominant detrital component in all the sandstones. Pay sands are quartz arenite whereas non-pay sands are quartz wacke with varying amount of clay matrix. Kaolinite in the reservoir section reduces the permeability of quartz wacke, but enhancing porosity in microlevel. Carbonate, siderite and iron oxide are main cementing material. Major element data showing that clastic sediments were delivered to the basin possibly by the Proto Tapti river but they may be having dual source of origin. The discriminant functions of Meyer and Nederlof, 1984 has indicated that the studied formations do not have source rock potential. Key words: Tapti Basin, Bombay Offshore, hydrocarbons, provenance and clay minerals. quartz wacke, but enhancing porosity in microlevel. Carbonate, siderite and iron oxide are main cementing material. Major element data showing that clastic sediments were delivered to the basin possibly by the Proto Tapti river but they may be having dual source of origin. The discriminant functions of Meyer and Nederlof, 1984 has indicated that the studied formations do not have source rock potential.

Performance Related Pay And Employee Rewards Management Essay

Performance Related Pay And Employee Rewards Management Essay Performance Related Pay (PRP) has been defined by several scholars including Armstrong (2002:261) and CIPD (2009). They suggested that PRP is a method of remuneration that provides individuals with financial rewards in the form of increases to basic pay or cash bonuses which are linked to an assessment of performance, usually in relation to agreed objectives. This definition captures what performance related pay is all about. In order to understand how PRP works in practice in relation to theories, it is been analysed with the help of the current practices which are prevalent in the organisations of repute. The organisation mentioned here is Mc Donalds which is also referred to as McD, which is a private sector fast food chain with 31,000 centres in 118 countries around the globe, McD uses performance related pay in order to motivate their staff, and also has different pay structures. The main aspects of performances related pay schemes have been identified as the nature of performan ce measures, assessment of the performance against fixed standards and how this is related to pay schemes (Kessler Purcell, 1992; cited in Thorpe Homan, 2000). PRP started becoming popular by the early 1980s and have been a major factor in the pay and reward scenes for many organisations. PRPs effect is more than just motivation alone; it is a significant phenomenon in the change management philosophy of the modern organisations. Now they have much more expectations thrust upon them like improving quality and skills, changing the work culture and promoting co-operation apart from the normal roles like recruit, reward and retain employees (Cannel Wood, 1992). In recent years people have been the key source to competitive advantage and it is not surprising on how employers try buying employee commitment. However the question of if the methods adopted are successful is still debated. Motivational theories can be traced back to the time of Taylorism and the theories have evolved from scientific management to Hawthorne, Maslow amongst others. However the report will focus on Vrooms 1964 expectancy theory on which PRP is based. According to CIPD (2009) there are three main objectives of PRP systems. Firstly it motivates employees to give their best performance by linking performance to the pay scales. Secondly PRP encourages the organisation to build up a strong high performance based organisational culture. Thirdly the fact of fair-trade policy. The better performed employee in the organisation gets the best monetary reward. The Expectancy Theory points out that management needs to communicate and disseminate information to employees that efforts will be recognised and rewarded also it is managements responsibility to establish schemes to reward the behaviour they want. Furthermore, the theory also implies that money is a significant motivator for most, and will usually alter our behaviour either by increasing or directing effort in specific directions to secure a higher salary or bonus payment. Also, it suggest that money is important not simply for its own sake, but because it is a means to achieve other ends (Taylor 2000:19). The theory has three central concepts. The first is Performance Outcome Expectancy which implies employee working in a particular way will yield foreseeable consequences while the Concept of Valence is the second. It examines the value derived from the outcome of behaviour and the final concept is Effort Performance Expectancy which examines employees perception of the likelihood of achieving a desired objective (Marchington and Wilkinson 2005). However PRP can not be discussed without looking at the old pay and new pay. The old pay was more compatible with traditional organisations structures and employment relationship in the 1970s and 1980s. The concept was characterised to be bureaucratic, based on incremental progression, lacks horizontal integration with other HR activities and it detached pay from the strategic objectives of the organisation (Philbeam and Corbridge 2006:231). The system faced lot of challenges because; pay had become a form of entitlement to employees, was not motivating and does not drive change. In contrast to the above, the main concerns of the old pay were fairness, consistency, equity and transparency but; was criticised for inhibiting organisational development in the twenty first century (Philbeam and Corbridge 2006:231). Lawler (1971) developed the new pay system which was in response to the issues raised in the old pay. It was the opposite of the old system which sets out to achieve challenges faced by the old system. The new pay was supposed to replace the old pay, he however stated that the new pay doesnt necessarily mean implementing new reward policies or abandon the traditional ones; it means identifying new pay practices that enhance the organisations strategic effectiveness (Lawler 1995:1). It was also suggested that the new pay helps link the financial success of the employee and the organisation, shows a connection between employee pay and performance and suggests that employee are rewarded when they exhibit a desirable behaviour (Tropman and McAdams 2001, Philbeam and Corbridge 2006). However, the new pay has since evolved giving birth to various forms of pay such as team based pay, competency pay, skills based pay et cetera. Performance related pay varies between sectors and the 1998 IPD research shows that PRP is used by 72% of employers in the financial services and 41% in the public sector (Armstrong 2002:266). Furthermore, the idea of linking a portion of pay directly to performance appraisal and to the achievement of specific performance objectives has proved particularly attractive to employers and such approaches are becoming popular in both the private and public sector (Taylor 2000:19). Moreover, PRP has a beneficial effect on employee performance and the achievement of organisation objectives and goals (Lawson 2000: 311). A typical example is when the bank introduced PRP in 2008. Here, monthly targets were given to employees and those who met their targets at the end of the month were rewarded in cash to encourage them, this is also applicable in the trust but the competition is between doctors. This worked for sometime but led to mistrust between employees. Employees began working on customer relationships that were not assigned to them and blacklisting of fellow colleagues with customers and senior management became the norm. This is supported by Marc Thompson (1992) who stated that new forms of pay can have a damaging impact on trust and working relations (Armstrong 2002:268). Similarly, PRP motivates and de-motivates employees at the same time. This is supported by Marchington and Wilkinson (2005) who identified from their research that 83.4% of the sample believes that PRP de-motivates while the others believe otherwise. Employees who meet their target are motivated to put in more effort some who have not met their targets will try keeping up with the drive however in a situation where a staff has met 99% of its target and their effort is not rewarded will lead to de-motivation and this will have a ripple effect for other staff will take up the attitude of why put in more effort when the organisation will not reward a colleague who met 99% of their target and this is applicable in both organisations. This also leads to lower job satisfaction on the part of the de-motivated employee and vice versa (Price 2007:484). However, the employer prefers PRP because it enables them pay few people more money rather than promoting the hardworking staff who has not me t their targets thereby saving cost. Again it depends on how effectively it works as a motivating tool to reflect organisational performance, employee development, loyalty, responsibility and the sense of achieving the organisational goals (LGE, 2008). . However employers use PRP to attract and retain people to their organisations by offering them competitive financial rewards. The basic assumption of employment is that services are exchanged for benefits which could come inform of money. Moreover, in an industry such as the financial services where PRP is a norm and the pay is competitive, staff retention is substantially important because; it may lead to the loss of business when the employee is recruited by a competitor and is offered higher pay. At the present situation of credit crunch most of the organisations are looking to reduce the number of employees as well as attract and retain only the employees who are high performing and multi skilled employees. Again high performing employees eight out of nine times is most likely to agree with the system of pay for performance and the organisations needs to put this scheme in order to attract and retain high performing employees (Thompson, 1992). In simple, establishing a standard f or measuring and rewarding for high performance can assist in retaining the most industrious employees. On the other hand it causes unfairness to the other employees because they get to share the target of the staff that leaves the organisation. This leads to the employer requiring the employee to put in more effort to achieve the new target under the same scheme. The doctors in the trust are not faced with this pressure because their targets are not financial and it lies more towards overtime hours and on call visits. One of the key concerns of the old pay was to promote fairness in the workplace. However PRP could lead to unfairness. PRP in both organisations is based on performance appraisal where the manager will recommend a staff for reward at the end of an appraisal period. In a situation where the manager recommends an average performer for PRP and does not recommend a top performer because the manager believes the employee has not done enough while it is evident to other managers and team members that it was the recommendation was a case of favouritism. This highlights a key issue affecting PRP which has been argued of not having a consistent method of judgement (CIPD 2009). The difference with the process in the bank is the entitlement of the employee to fill in their comment at the end of the appraisal and decide if the appraisal was fair or not based on listed reasons. This also cements the fact that PRP leading to conflict and in this case a rocky relationship between the appraiser and the appraise. Furthermore, CIPD (2009) suggest that linking of pay awards to performance review process may inhibit an open and honest discussion of an individuals training and development needs. This statement could be interpreted as PRP identifying developmental needs of the employee during appraisal process. Using the trust as an example the PRP scheme requires employees with the exception of doctors to present their continuous development plan (CPD) during appraisal period to show how they have developed, their future plans and the manager helps identify where the employee is lacking and how they can develop those areas. When compared to the process in the bank, there is no CPD presented during appraisal but the manager and employee identifies the areas where there is need for development to improve performance and make recommendations to management. However, both organisations only review the staff development at the next appraisal. It is assumed that team working yields better results. UNISON suggests that efficient and effective service depends on cooperation from staff Labour Research Development (1994:5). However PRP undermines team working because it does not put into consideration group efforts but it rather promotes individual working. The practice in both organisations promote team working but staff are only rewarded individually, which leads to uncooperativeness from team members, poor service delivery, de-motivation and it generally promotes poor performance. Marchington and Wilkinson (2005:341-342) states that with emphasis PRP places on individual performance-leads to a short-termist approach whereby individuals look for quick returns from small scale projects rather than addressing more fundamental problems. This shows PRP motivates better in short term compared to long term. The McDonald company lives up to the philosophy of Pay for Performance when it comes to rewarding their employees. While examining the situation in McD, it was noted that the organisation keep broadband pay data both internally and externally of the employees base salary after screening their performance which actually helps the employees to review their performance. McD offers TIP or Target Incentive Plan which is an incentive pay plan offered at corporate and regional employees helping them to link their pay to the performance in the sector they work. Kohn (1993) states that by and large, rewards succeed at securing one thing only: temporary compliance. When it comes to producing lasting changes in attitudes and behaviour, however, rewards, like punishment are strikingly ineffective.. there is no firm basis that paying people more will encourage people to better work or even in the long run, more work (Armstrong 2002:272). PRP is introduced to organisations to improve performance and maybe promote staff development during the process. However, it has been noted that with the existence of PRP in an organisation, there is a lesser drive for self development. People want to develop themselves initially to get be able to earn more money while a lesser percentage wants to improve their knowledge. PRP ensures people get the money, but de-motivates the staff on the long run while not accomplishing the initial goal which is to improve performance. Kohn (1993,1998) suggests that extrinsic rewards can erode intrinsic interest and that there is no firm basis for the assumption that paying people more will encourage people to better work or even in the long run more work (Armstrong 2002:272). Critique of the Performance Related Pay System Having examined performance related pay as a motivational instrument, it was noted that it is a widely used instrument in private and public sector organisations both nationally and internationally. It has proved overtime as a valid instrument for motivation but it has been criticised by various authors CIPD (2009) inclusive which states it has proved in some circumstances a rather crude instrument and the 1990s witnessed a number of challenges to the theory. It was also criticised of not been the only or even an effective motivator. According to Brown Heywood (2002) PRP increases the stress factor among the employees. most of the line managers having the view that staffs tends to put more pressure on themselves as they get motivated by the rewards and incentives which are put forwarded for individual performances and achieving set targets. The employees feel pressurised by the fact that their promotions and appraisals are heavily linked by the performance based approach. Because of this the workers tend to feel more stressed and can even lead to the breakdown of a staff member. Beer (1984) corroborates this while suggesting that when pay is tied to performance, it reduces the intrinsic motivation which comes when individuals are spontaneously involved in work because they are given freedom to manage and control their jobs also, it signals that it is management that is in control which reduces the individuals feeling of competence and self determination (Armstrong 2002:272). Several academics have criticised PRP as an instrument which promotes jealousness among staff which can lead to organisational conflict. However, Oswald (2002) disagrees with this and suggested that if salaries were confidential, then there s no way it can lead to conflict also he suggested that people should be paid on merit and effort (Wright 2004:122).PRP is measured using performance appraisal systems but the decisions of line managers makes reduces the viability of the process. PRP undermines team working and works more as a de-motivator rather than a motivator this is supported by Thompson (1993), Marsden and French (1998). While Pfeffer (1998) states that it is time consuming, undermines team working and it undermines the performance of both the organisation and individual in reality (Wright 2004:118). Conclusion The search for a positive relationship between PRP and performance as been described as looking for the holy grail (Fletcher and Williams 1992, Price 2007) while CIPD (2009) said it was the holy grail of the 1990s. Having examined PRP has a motivator, on reflection it shows it is a motivating instrument which is more applicable and effective in some industries compared to the others. Also, even though it has been criticised by several authors for its weaknesses, it shows that every theory has a weakness and its weakness has given birth to other forms of performance related pay thereby giving hope to more research on how performance can be improved in an organisation. The Labour Research Department (1999:2) quoting a personnel manager who stated money is really a de-motivator and a company that states the constant measuring of people against each other fed into staffs sense of job insecurity by generating evidence of failure to meet jobs. However, with its negative effect on performa nce, motivation, team working and the fact that the process could be subjective and expensive organisations are still applying it and trying to modify appraisal methods in order to get it right. Likewise the manager employee relationship is considered the main important factor in determining the success of PRP in an organisation (Thompson, 1992). However, Armstrong (2002:287) states that PRP has a limited power to provide incentive through financial means alone should be recognised, but that does not mean it should be rejected out of hand. It does work as a reward process in some circumstances and it does satisfy the basic principle that it is equitable to reward people who do well more than those who do badly.