Agriculture: Evolution or Devolution? Essay -- Environment Environment

Agriculture: Evolution or Devolution? Considering that the alarming excess and continuing growth of the current world population (of humans) is directly tied to food production and availability, the question of how and why we even developed the technology of agriculture in the first place is becoming more and more relevant to human survival as we collectively continue to destroy the environment in which we live due in part to these very agricultural techniques and strategies that we are continuing to employ today. Current estimations show that at around the same time that agriculture was beginning to develop and thrive, the population of our ancestors started to double at a rate that was far higher than what it had been previously for the more than 2 million years of prior human existence. What does this then mean, and what does it say about humans and their attitude towards the environment? This hinges largely on the viewpoints to which we allow ourselves to be open. The most common view taken is that most (if not all) technologies we create mark an "advance" for humankind. Perhaps because they are prized so much either for their practical or symbolic value, it has become difficult to regard the technologies without a bias towards their immediate effects on human society as opposed to the overall compatibility with the rest of the natural world. Within this mindset, it is very hard to put aside the very "advanced" tools that seem to form the foundation of what a complicated, sophisticated, intelligent human is supposed to be. In this light, a complex process like agriculture cannot be anything but an advance, and any lifestyle that dates prior to the agricultural advent must, by subtle implication, be inferior. This infe... ...e technologies we created, from market economy and weapons of mass destruction to the simpler-scale household appliances. This suggests that many do not really see the frictions such technologies impose on our surroundings as problems, but rather according to their perception of the way things are, the tools they use are only doing exactly what they were supposed to and it cannot be helped. And moreover, this is so ingrained in most modern human cultures that the constituents of said cultures do not even see a problem with that. Sources Ehrlich, Paul R. "Human Natures: Genes Cultures, and the Human Prospect". Island Press, 2000. Cipolla, Carlo M. "The Economic History of World Population". The Harvester Press, 1978 Ponting, Clive. "A Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations". St. Martin's Press, New York, 1991.

triggering an eating disorder :: essays research papers

* Triggers If people are vulnerable to eating disorders, sometimes all it takes to put the ball in motion is a trigger event that they do not know how to handle. A trigger could be something as seemingly innocuous as teasing or as devastating as rape or incest. Triggers often happen at times of transition, shock, or loss where increased demands are made on people who already are unsure of their ability to meet expectations. Such triggers might include puberty starting a new school, beginning a new job, death, divorce, marriage, family problems, breakup of an important relationship, critical comments from someone important, graduation into a chaotic, competitive world, and so forth. There is some evidence to suggest that girls who achieve sexual maturity ahead of peers, with the associated development of breasts, hips, and other physical signs of womanhood, are at increased risk of becoming eating disordered. They may wrongly interpret their new curves as "being fat" and feel uncomfortable because they no longer look like peers who still have childish bodies. Wanting to take control and fix things, but not really knowing how, and under the influence of a culture that equates success and happiness with thinness, the person tackles her/his body instead of the problem at hand. Dieting, bingeing, purging, exercising, and other strange behaviors are not random craziness. They are heroic, but misguided and ineffective, attempts to take charge in a world that seems overwhelming. Sometimes people such as diabetics who must pay meticulous attention to what they eat become vulnerable to eating disorders. A certain amount of obsessiveness is necessary for health, but when the fine line is crossed, healthy obsessiveness can quickly become pathological. Perhaps the most common trigger of disordered eating is dieting. It is a bit simplistic, but nonetheless true, to say that if there were no dieting, there would be no anorexia nervosa. Neither would there be the bulimia that people create when they diet, make themselves chronically hungry, overeat in response to that hunger, and then, panicky about weight gain, vomit or otherwise purge to get rid of the calories. Feeling guilty and perhaps horrified at what they have done, they swear to "be good.

All Good Things Must Come to an End Essay

The amazing thing about literature is that it can be interrupted differently by each person who reads it. Which means that while one piece of writing is amazing, creative, and witty to one person to another person it could be the most boring, uninteresting, and redundant piece of literature they have ever read. In this semester of Literature 221, I was given the opportunity to read works from many different genres, time periods, and styles of writing. Some of which, like Emily Dickinson’s Life I and Life XLIII, Joyce Carol Oates’ Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?, and Sherman Alexie’s What You Pawn I Will Redeem I thoroughly enjoyed and learned from. While others such as Ernest Hemingway’s Big Two-Hearted River, Mark Twain’s excerpt When The Buffalo Climbed a Tree from Roughing It, and the excerpt from Sula by Toni Morrison weren’t exactly my cup of tea. Emily Dickinson is a remarkable poet who often writes from a very emotional and self-examining perspective. This is why I really enjoyed the two selections of her work we had to read this semester. In her first poem Life I, the very first two lines make you stop and think, â€Å"I’M nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too?† (Dickinson 2) Bam! I was hit in the face with self-reflection. Am I somebody? Or am I a nobody? Emily Dickinson continues by saying â€Å"how dreary to be somebody!† (Dickinson2 ) as if to be somebody is a bad thing. I love that Emily Dickinson questions the ideology of having to be surrounded by people and having to constantly be in a spotlight. Every move that you make is questioned and examined by people. Instead of being able to live for yourself and for your own happiness you are forced to live by the way society sees you. It made me see that maybe it truly is better to be a happy, content nobody. In her poem Life XLIII, Dickinson again made me pause and self-reflect but this time on the beauty of the human mind and it’s capabilities. In this poem she states that the brain is â€Å"wider than the  sky†, â€Å"deeper than the sea†, and â€Å"is just the weight of God† (Dickinson 3). The sky, the sea, and God. Three powerful, endless, and even omnipotent to the human eye and yet the brain is more than that because it has the capability to imagine all of it. You can hold images of God, the sea, and God all in your mind. Dickson wrote these poems with such beautiful imagery that really does make a reader stop and think. This is why her works are among my favorite reads from this semester. Joyce Carol Oates brought a real life serial killer to life in her tale Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Based off the actual murders of Charles Howard Schmid Jr., Oates tells the story of Arnold Friend and a young girl named Connie and the events that would eventually lead up to Connie’s murder. I loved this tale because Oates gave a real voice to the real life victims of Schmid. While an article by the Daily News stated that, â€Å"Despite his creepiness, ladies loved Smitty† (citation here news article) in Oates’ tale it was made evident that Connie wanted nothing to do with Friend and instead she tried to call the cops and even told him to â€Å"Get the hell out of here!† (Oates 340) When I read a tragic news article I will feel sorrow for the victim and their families for a moment and then go on with my life and forget about them. Yet when I read a piece of work that captures my soul and really moves me to feel emotionally about a character as if they were a real person, I can recall them for years afterwards. Oates’ made me feel for Connie because she gave her a background of a beautiful girl with a mother who disapproved of all she did and constantly compared her to her more homely sister, June. â€Å"Why don’t you keep your room clean like your sister? How’ve you got your hair ?xed—what the hell stinks? Hair spray? You don’t see your sister using that junk.† (Oates 333) A girl that may have been desperate for love and attention. Suddenly, in my mind, Oates’ has not only weaved a haunting tale of young, naive girl who made mistakes and talked to the wrong stranger on the wrong day but she also made me feel for the real life victims of Schmid. Suddenly they became more than just names on a page and their names, Alleen Rowe, Gretchen and Wendy Fritz, will foreve r be in my mind and probably countless others who have read her work and know who it was based on. While Oates’ is a talented writer and her words were beautifully written the reason her piece stands out as one of my  favorites of this semester were for the deeper meaning and the legacy she left for the victims of a cruel, sick, twisted man. A reader cannot help but root for a character who has redeemable qualities despite whatever odd, crude, or socially unacceptable behavior they may exhibit. Such is the case in my final favorite piece of writing from this semester, Sherman Alexie’s What You Pawn I Will Redeem. In this tale of a homeless, alcoholic, money floundering Spokane, Washington Native American Indian named Jackson Jackson, a reader cannot help but fall in love with his spirit of never-ending generosity and unbreakable ties with tradition and family. Alexie’s particular style of writing gave light to Jackson’s seemingly uncaring, lazy, and unapologetically unmotivated he attitude in a way that a reader cannot help but find just a little bit comical. It is written in first person from the rambling mind of Jackson and lines such as â€Å"Piece by piece, I disappeared. And I’ve been disappearing ever since. But I’m not going to tell you any more about my brain or my soul† (citation here page 401) made me laugh out lou01d at the standoffish behavior of this character. Jackson was unable to maintain a job, any of his marriages, or his relationships with his children. In fact, the only thing he did seem capable of maintaining was a constant drunken stupor throughout the entire tale. Yet when he came upon his Grandmother’s stolen regalia at a local pawn shop he was determined to find a way to raise the $999 needed to rebuy this long lost family heirloom and return it to its rightful place. Each time he managed to earn or was gifted money for his mission he could not help but immediately spend it. However he was never selfish with his spending. He made sure that whatever he was given he shared with his fellow Indian. Never even coming close to making the necessary money to buy it make but still I found myself cheering him on. Because of his generosity, I was rooting for him to find a way to purchase back that precious connection to his family. And in the end, despite never actually managing to acquire the necessary cash, the pawn owner returned the regalia to Jackson, and I inwardly rejoicing in his success. And Alexie captured the moral for me in this thought, â€Å"Do you know how many good men live in this world? Too many to count!† (Alexie 415) A lexie challenged the stereotypes of a good person because he showed that even a drunken person who is unsuccessful in every  societal standard can be a good person because he is a kind, generous soul. This is the reason why this is another of my favorites from this semester’s readings. When thinking of a literary legend a name like Ernest Hemingway often comes to mind, yet in this semester’s reading of Big Two-Hearted River, Mr. Hemingway missed the mark for me. While I appreciate the concept of a post-war soldier suffering from PTSD, I had a hard time really getting into this piece. Hemingway’s commonly used iceberg principle style of writing was apparent in this piece with its overall lack of a substantial plot and its seemingly never-ending descriptions of just about everything. It is just not a style that appealed to me as a reader. I found it boring and extremely long. The symbolism was often obscured by the unnecessary descriptions of the surrounding scenery. â€Å"On the left, where the meadow ended and the woods began, a great elm tree was uprooted. Gone over in a storm, it lay back into the woods, its roots clotted with dirt, grass growing in them, rising a solid bank beside the stream. The river cut to the edge of the uprooted tree.† (Hemingway 262) It just seemed excessive and unneeded to me. While this is definitely one of my least favorite of this semester’s readings, I have to say that Hemingway was a beautiful wordsmith who could make you feel as though you were part of the story. In this sentence, â€Å"He sat on the logs, smoking, drying in the sun, the sun warm on his back, the river shallow ahead entering the woods, curving into the woods, shallows, light glittering, big water-smooth rocks, cedars along the bank and white birches, the logs warm in the sun, smooth to sit on, without bark, gray to the touch; slowly the feeling of disappointment left him† (Hemingway 262) you can practically feel the heat of the sun on your back and the relief that Nick feels as if a burden was lifted from your own chest. This story had some beautiful imagery overall though it was just not a tale I enjoyed reading. Mark Twain is an inspirational writer with amazing talent and has written some remarkable classics. However, the excerpt from Roughing It When the Buffalo Climbed a Tree, will not be joining my list of his beloved masterpieces. Instead I found this fictional account tedious to read and found myself drifting off to sleep while at the same time trying to  understand the particular vernacular used in this piece. The narrator of the majority of this tale was a character named Bemis whose style of speech was rambling and over-the-top. For example, â€Å"Well, I was first out on his neck – the horse’s, not the bull’s—and then underneath, and next on his rump, and sometimes head up, and sometimes heels—but I tell you it seemed solemn and awful to be ripping and tearing and carrying on so in the presence of death, as you might say.† (Twain 16) I can just imagine Bemis being this rambling, fool telling this ridiculous story with no ending in sight. It was just exhausting and mindless drivel that did not succeed in making me think about anything substantial or self-reflect which are qualities I rather enjoy when reading. I understand that according to Mark Twain, â€Å"to string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they absurdities, is the basis of American art†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Twain 13) and he accomplished that task beautifully. Nevertheless, it is just not a style that appealed to me and I struggled to enjoy reading this story. This semester was my first time reading any of Toni Morrison’s works. The excerpt from Sula was all of over the map for me. I had a hard time deciphering any real plot. It started off with two 12 years old girls walking through town and getting objectified by the men in the town. And if it wasn’t bad enough that two young girls were being gawked at by grown men, the girls actually seemed to enjoy it. â€Å"So, when he said â€Å"pig meat† as Nel and Sula passed, they guarded their eyes lest someone see their delight.† (Morrison 346) That line made my skin crawl with utter disgust. Then suddenly the girls are playing near a lake when a young boy named Chicken Little ends up drowning before their very eyes and their only reaction was â€Å"Nel spoke ?rst. ‘Somebody saw.’† (Morrison 351) I had a hard time reading a story about such loss of innocence at such a young age. Morrison’s writing was beautiful and captivating. The only reas on this makes my least favorites list from this semester was I just genuinely felt sick the entire I was reading it. Completely horrified by these young girls lives and saddened by the fact that many girls’ lives of this time period were like this. This semester of Literature 221 was full of amazing pieces of writing. Tales  that completely delighted, inspired, and captured my heart like those from Emily Dickinson, Joyce Carol Oates, and Sherman Alexie. As well as others who, for me, just did none of those things such as those from Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, and Toni Morrison. Overall I really enjoyed this class. I felt as though most of the forums gave me the opportunity to share my thoughts on each piece as well as opened my eyes to different perspectives. If I could give any constructive criticism it would be that sometimes I felt as if I could not quite meet expectations in the essay requirements because I felt as though they were not clearly stated. Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed this class and I feel as though I learned a lot. It definitely has made me look forward to taking other literature classes in the future. Works Cited Alexie, Sherman. â€Å"What You Pawn I Will Redeem† American Literature Since the Civil War. Create edition. McGraw-Hill, 2011. 401-415. e-Book. Works Cited Dickinson, Emily. â€Å"Life I & XLIII American Literature Since the Civil War. Create edition. McGraw-Hill, 2011. 2-3. e-Book. Hemingway, Ernest. â€Å"Big Two Hearted River.† American Literature Since the Civil War. Create edition. McGraw-Hill, 2011. 253-264. E-book. Morrison, Toni. â€Å"From Sula.† American Literature Since the Civil War. Create edition. McGraw-Hill, 2011. 346-354. e-Book. Oates, Joyce Carol. â€Å"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?† American Literature Since the Civil War. Create edition. McGraw-Hill, 2011. 333-344. e-Book. Twain, Mark. â€Å"From Roughing It. When The Buffalo Climbed a Tree.† American Literature Since the Civil War. Create edition. McGraw-Hill, 2011. 16-18. e-Book. Twain, Mark. â€Å"How To Tell a Story† American Literature Since the Civil W ar. Create edition. McGraw-Hill, 2011. 12-15. e-Book.

Epistemic Dilemma: Hume Versus Descartes Essay

While Descartes believes that knowledge can be gained by reason alone, Hume’s Empiricism suggests that we can only gain knowledge from the experiences of perceptions, which he called â€Å"Impressions.† Rationalists use skepticism to find the most clear and distinct truths and build their foundations from there. Ultimately, Descartes states there are 3 substances that exist- God, mind and body. From doubt and confusion, Descartes finds clarity. Empiricists on the other hand, reject rationalism suggesting knowledge that can not be traced back to an impression from the outside world does not have any meaning. Hume also believes that there is no causality in the world, therefore we can never gain knowledge from events that we have witnessed in the past or the future. Unlike Descartes, how starts in skepticism and ends in clarity, Hume starts with a strong view of how our minds collect raw sense data and ends in skepticism. I argue that Hume’s philosophy is more practical because it relies on the senses. Both philosophies were born from the rise of the Scientific Revolution. According to Descartes, to gain true knowledge, you must first doubt everything. When you reach the point at which you cannot doubt anymore, you achieve the foundation of knowledge. When you doubt everything, you realize that the only thing you cannot doubt is that you are a doubting thing; therefore you must exist in some way. From there, you can reason that there is a more perfect being that exists because you are not perfect if you doubt, and you have an idea what a perfect being is. This perfect being is God. God is also a good being because  Descartes calls these truths, these clear and distinct perceptions. From reason alone, we can affirm the existence of God, Mind and the Body.

Nike’s CSR challenge Essay

It can be seen from the passage that Nike’s Asian factories audited hundreds of factories in 2003 and 2004 and found cases of abusive treatment in more than a quarter of its South Asian plants.And in 2005 Nike returned to report its social and environmental practices. It said that staffs and employees work in a poor environment .Between 25% to 50% of its employees and staffs in the region restrict access to toilets and drinking water during the workday. Besides , a lot of staffs have to work for extra hours per week and wage level is lower than other industries. These kind of social and environment issues not only happen in Nike ,but also in many other industries. However , Nike start to report the detail of all its factories and in fact Nike devote more to improving conditions than its competitors. New method to solve CSR problems are needed. Nike come out a new realization. This new realization lead to a new strategy,which involves the company engaging labor ministries, civi l society ,to establish companies’ standards of social and environmental performance. Nike have realized that the responsibility of one is to work towards the accountability of all. The strategy is that instead of the closed system , company will establish an open system. Nike also realize that the company’s future depends on the way customers, suppliers, investors and others relate to it. Leadership is another challenge that Nike is facing. Traditional leadership make the manager only do their duty, but not thinking about other fact. New Corporate leadership require managers be ‘leaders beyond borders’,which means they should reach across such borders to engage others in dialogue and action to address. In addition ,Nike should consider wider issues of trade flows, governance, media, financial markets and politics,if it wants to survive in new open system. Nike’s efforts will be meaningless if Nike do not make changes in financial markets Case Questions Q1: In referring to the opening profile and the closing case for this chapter, discuss the challenges regarding corporate social responsibility that companies in the apparel industry face in its supply chains around the  world? Answer: There have been cases reported abusive treatments in more than a quarter of its South Asian plants. Another report is that 25%-50% of factories in the region restrict access to toilets and drinking water during the workday. The same percentage that was reported also applied to factories denying workers at least one day off of the seven days they already work.Nike’s CSR Challenge highlighted that difficulty of bring wholesale to change to a company that isn’t centralized. Instead the challenge is now to reform the way business is done. Leadership was traditionally seen as guiding employees towards the goal of the company. What is needed is a more open form of leadership that calls for collaboration among mutually parties in order to solve systemic problems.The challenges are too reshape the signals being given out by its supply chains group to itself and its competitors. So that the companies can operate in a sustainable and just way, which is also financially viable Q2: Discuss the meaning and implications of the statement by a Nike representative thatâ€Å"consumers are not rewarding us for investments in improved social performance in supply chains.† Answer: Nike start to create a positive environment and change system for upgrading.As a result ,Nike will attract more consumers and bring feedback from consumers. This will help Nike continue going forwards. Q3: What does it mean to have an industry open-systems approach to social responsibility?What parties are involved? Who are the stakeholders? Answer: It depends on the way consumers , suppliers ,investors and other related to it. It means all the groups of company need to consider social and environment problems.The open system involve labor ministries, civil society and competitors.The stakeholders are customers, suppliers, investors, and others relate to it. Q4: What is meant by â€Å"leadership beyond borders†? Answer: It means people who can see across borders created by others,such as the borders of their jobs,and reach across such borders to engage others in dialogue and action to address systemic problems. Q5: Is it possible to have â€Å"a compatibility of profits with people and planet†? Whose responsibility is it to achieve that state? Answer: Yes ,it is possible. Companies’ first aim is profit. Through making profit a company can survive .However ,at the same time ,company should take care of their staffs and employees,or they will fail to make the profit. In addition ,environment is also very important. Company should protect the environment as well as making profit.Environment should not be neglected. People, environment and profit should be balanced.It’s all consumers, suppliers and investors,and employees responsibility to achieve that state. Conclusion: This case talks about CSR challenges that Nike are facing. The fact is not only Nike ,but also other industries are facing these challenges. However,Nike devotes itself to making a new strategy. It makes a positive environment. Besides, leadership is also a challenge for Nike and other industries. Companies should focus on â€Å"leadership beyond borders†, which means management is expected to beyond borders created by others such as the borders of their job, and reach across such borders to engage others in dialogue and action to address systemic problems. In a word ,environment, profit and human should be balanced.

An Interesting Place To Visit

It is good to travel. Traveling is instructive, and it is also teaching us about other cultures. That is the best way to learn about people, their way of living, their cultures, and their past history. In fact, Wahoo Bay Beach is very an attractive place to visit. Anybody who likes to travel should plan to visit one day. First, a guest at Wahoo Bay Beach has two options to admire its beautiful view. He or she can choose accommodation near the pool or a quiet location by the garden.There, he or she can relax as he or she watches the surfers gently sweep over the tumbling ocean waves. Seeing the tall palm trees slow movement back and forth in the wind is relaxing as they are making gentle, peaceful sounds. The terrace overlooks the tops green trees and vividly bright color flowers on one side, also a seemingly endless sandy beach and crystal clear water on the other side. During summer time, as anybody lies in the sand, he or she can see kites rise above the clouds and soar gracefully in the wind, which is blowing gently through the trees and sand.Besides the pool and beach, water lovers can sunbath on the stabilized raft. Second, everything on Wahoo Bay Beach has its own unique feature. The multi-tiered grounds are a lush garden of plants and flowers that add to beautiful backdrop of the blue sea and the green mountains. The rooms are large, spacious, and clean exceptionally. The view is to die for. The place is a quiet atmosphere from hustle and bustle of the city. The food is tasty.All meals are specially prepared to the guests liking. Whether it is spicy lobster, beef filet, Creole chicken or any of their menu options anybody chooses, regardless of selection he or she will not be disappointed as Wahoo Bay Beach is noted for its finely prepared cuisine. To sum up, Wahoo Bay Beach is an amazing place to visit mainly because of its view sight, nature sounds. Anybody who visits Wahoo Bay Beach would feel that he or she is in his or her own world.

Decision Support System

ASSIGNMENT OF INFORMATION SYSTEM AND ADMINISTRATION NAME : QUDSIA AZEEM CLASS: BBA 3B DATE : 27-3-2013 JINNAH UNIVERSITY FOR WOMEN SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS AND WEB TECHNOLOGIES: A STATUS REPORT DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS, WORLD-WIDE WEB, DATA DRIVEN DSS, MODEL-DRIVEN DSS, IMPLEMENTATION. Introduction to DSS: A decision support system (DSS) is a computer-based information system that supports business or organizational decision-making activities. DSSs serve the management, operations, and planning levels of an organization and help to make decisions, which may be rapidly changing and not easily specified in advance.Decision support systems can be either fully computerized, human or a combination of both. DSSs include knowledge-based systems. A properly designed DSS is an interactive software-based system intended to help decision makers compile useful information from a combination of raw data, documents, and personal knowledge, or business models to identify and solve problems and make decisions. World-Wide Web technologies have rapidly transformed the entire design, development and implementation process for all types of Decision Support Systems.In particular, Web technologies have provided a new media for sharing information about decision support and a new means of delivering decision support capabilities. For DSS developers, the big leap forward is to use the â€Å"Web as computer†. Modern decision support systems (DSS) provide managers a wide range of capabilities. Computerized systems support decision tasks like information gathering, model building, sensitivity analysis, collaboration, alternative evaluation and decision implementation. Also, decision support is increasingly integrated in business processes and DSS are used for ad hoc analyses.This paper reviews the current status of Decision Support Systems in the context of developments in Web technologies. The article contains brief historical reviews, discussions on implem entations of decision support system and the major part of this article is ‘’State of Practice of DSS in 2001’’ HISTORY: Information Systems researchers and technologists have built and investigated computerized Decision Support Systems (DSS) for approximately 40 years. This article chronicles and explores the developments related to building and deploying DSS.The journey begins with building model-driven DSS in the late 1960s, theory developments in the 1970s, and implementation of financial planning systems, spreadsheet-based DSS and Group DSS in the early and mid 1980s. Data warehouses, Executive Information Systems, OLAP and Business Intelligence evolved in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Finally, the chronicle ends with knowledge-driven DSS and the implementation of Web-based DSS beginning in the mid-1990s. The field of computerized decision support is expanding to use new technologies and to create new applications.. Web-Based Decision Support System s :Power (1998b) defined a Web-Based Decision Support System as a computerized system that delivers decision support information or decision support tools to a manager or business analyst using a â€Å"thin-client† Web browser like Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer. The computer server that is hosting the DSS application is linked to the user's computer by a network with the TCP/IP protocol. The idea of Web-enabled or Web-Based Decision Support Systems as services has been explored by various researchers and involves the concept of offering decision computation technologies as services on the Web.The recent popularity and widespread use of the World Wide Web and the Internet has been accompanied by the development of a variety of computing technologies that enable the realization of the â€Å"decision technologies as services† vision. Bhargava and Krishnan (1998) discussed the role of a series of enabling technologies in the context of Model-Driven DSS, covering technologies that enable the use of the Web for communication of decision information and computation, technologies that enable the remote and platform-independent access of DSS, and technologies that allow DSS components to be distributed over the Web.Web Technologies and DSS Tasks: Web technologies are making it possible to perform all of these tasks via a remote Web client. In thinking of such tasks, it is useful to recall the distinction made by Sprague (1980) about application-specific DSS that consist of software, data, and models for a specific decision problem and DSS generators that provide tools and algorithms for building a variety of specific DSS. Application-specific DSS are far easier to build, but rarely reusable; DSS generators are far more complex to build but can be adapted to build many specific systems.Figure 1 summarizes the relationships among 10 major tasks involved in building and using Data and Model-Driven DSS. For example, using an application-specific Mod el-Driven DSS, a user would be given the relevant decision models and data, and would focus on tasks such as model execution, development of reports, or analysis. Using a corresponding DSS generator, on the other hand, would require the performance of additional tasks such as model definition and creation of a custom user interface. IMPLEMENTATIONS OF DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM : STATE OF PRACTICE 2001:In a number of prior papers, we have examined the extent to which current DSS products have â€Å"Web-enabled† the above decision support related tasks, and we have examined the evolution of DSS and especially Web-Based DSS. In this section, we provide an informal tour of our major findings. Web technologies provide both the communication of decision-related information and software and a means of providing remote access to distributed DSS components. We discuss the first function in terms of the Web as media and the second we call the Web as computer.How these capabilities or fun ctions can be used to support decision-making is still evolving. There is much scope for imagination here, but we have identified a few important beneficial uses of these capabilities and we will now review recent developments in each of these areas. WEB AS MEDIA: The Web has facilitated the creation of a number of industry-wide DSS Information Portals . For example, the OLAP Report and Data Ware housing Online Both are industry-wide decision support portals that offer information about software products, vendors, methodologies, and white papers in the context of OLAP and data warehousing technologies.DSSResources. COM is a â€Å"knowledge repository† for a broadly defined set of Decision Support Systems. IBM’s COIN initiative (http://oss. software. ibm. com/developerworks/opensource/coin/) and e-optimization. com offer similar portals for optimization. Info Harvest and the Decision Analysis Society have created portals related to decision analysis. Individual firms ha ve used Web technologies to communicate information about their decision support products and methods, or allow users to conduct various tasks like ordering, payment or Internet delivery related to purchasing DSS products.In the context of using the Web for â€Å"providing company and product information† there is substantial activity across all categories of Decision Support Systems. WEB AS COMPUTER: We generally discuss the use of the â€Å"Web as computer† capabilities in three categories: digital product demonstrations, preview using online interactive examples, and on-line, Web-based Decision Support Systems. The first category, product demonstrations, represents a baseline for the use of the Web’s capabilities for remote computation.Online demonstrations can be delivered as animated multimedia documents (e. g. , QuickTime movies, or Shockwave animation) that require or allow little user interaction. As a next step, online interactive examples allow users t o interact (e. g. , by setting parameter values, or choosing which command to execute next, or designing the format of a report) with the DSS tool in the context of a specific example. The next step in the use of the â€Å"Web as computer† capabilities is to offer application-specific DSS to users that have decision problems within the supported categories.Recall our earlier example of OptAmaze. com which provides paper trim optimization and transportation optimization services to paper mills. Grazing Systems Limited offers decision support services in the agricultural sector. The value of such deployment of DSS may be appreciated by considering the difficulties that user firms would have in installing, maintaining and applying complex DSS tools on their own; Web-enabled DSS allow such firms to use decision support tools without encountering these difficulties.CONCLUSION: The practice of building Decision Support Systems can benefit in many ways from the availability of Web t echnologies. These technologies provide platform-independent, remote, and distributed computation and the exchange of complex multimedia information. The state of practice has benefited considerably from these technologies but e need to resolve technological, economic and social and behavioral challenges to realize the benefits the Web can provide as a platform for building Decision Support Systems.DSS developers must continuously find ways around these limitations, or make use of recent and anticipated developments such as the new version of Internet protocols. To offer decision support as a service, providers must experiment with new payment models. Decision support capabilities are of great interest to a broad range of stakeholders and enormous resources have been and will be committed to building systems that promise to improve the quality, speed and effectiveness of specific decisions. We need to do much more than implement our technologies to build effective Decision Support S ystems.