Coping and well-being
Psychologists have examined coping skills in the elderly. Various factors, such as social support, religion and spirituality, active engagement with life and having an internal locus of control have been proposed as being beneficial in helping people to cope with stressful life events in later life. Social support and personal control are possibly the two most important factors that predict well-being, morbidity and mortality in adults. Other factors that may link to well-being and quality of life in the elderly include social relationships (possibly relationships with pets as well as humans), and health.
Individuals in different wings in the same retirement home have demonstrated a lower risk of mortality and higher alertness and self-rated health in the wing where residents had greater control over their environment, though personal control may have less impact on specific measures of health. Social control, perceptions of how much influence one has over one's social relationships, shows support as a moderator variable for the relationship between social support and perceived health in the elderly, and may positively influence coping in the elderly.
Religion
Religion has been an important factor used by the elderly in coping with the demands of later life, and appears more often than other forms of coping later in life. Religious commitment may also be associated with reduced mortality, though religiosity is a multidimensional variable; while participation in religious activities in the sense of participation in formal and organized rituals may decline, it may become a more informal, but still important aspect of life such as through personal or private prayer.
Self-rated health
Self-ratings of health, the beliefs in one's own health as excellent, fair or poor, has been correlated with well-being and mortality in the elderly; positive ratings are linked to high well-being and reduced mortality.
Emotional improvement
Given the physical and cognitive declines seen in ageing, a surprising finding is that emotional experience improves with age.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Turing test
The Turing test is a proposal for a test of a machine's capability to demonstrate intelligence. Described by Alan Turing in the 1950 paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," it proceeds as follows: a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with one human and one machine, each of which try to appear human; if the judge cannot reliably tell which is which, then the machine is said to pass the test. In order to test the machine's intelligence rather than its ability to render words into audio, the conversation is limited to a text-only channel such as a computer keyboard and screen
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Useful software
software:
FlashGet
FileZilla
Windows command:
ping
ipconfig
tracert
netstat
nslookup
Mozilla firefox Add-ons
Stumble
All in one gestures
Answers
Fire FTP
Web developer
Web Service
No IP (No-IP is a dynamic dns provider (ddns))
FlashGet
FileZilla
Windows command:
ping
ipconfig
tracert
netstat
nslookup
Mozilla firefox Add-ons
Stumble
All in one gestures
Answers
Fire FTP
Web developer
Web Service
No IP (No-IP is a dynamic dns provider (ddns))
Thursday, August 2, 2007
CRM
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a broad term that covers concepts used by companies to manage their relationships with customers, including the capture, storage and analysis of customer information.
There are three aspects of CRM which can each be implemented in isolation from each other:
Operational CRM
Operational CRM provides support to "front office" business processes, including sales, marketing and service. Each interaction with a customer is generally added to a customer's contact history, and staff can retrieve information on customers from the database as necessary.
One of the main benefits of this contact history is that customers can interact with different people or different contact “channels” in a company over time without having to repeat the history of their interaction each time.
Consequently, many call centers use some kind of CRM software to support their call centre agents.
Collaborative CRM
Collaborative CRM covers the direct interaction with customers, for a variety of different purposes, including feedback and issue-reporting. Interaction can be through a variety of channels, such as web pages, email, automated phone (Automated Voice Response AVR) or SMS.
The objectives of Collaborative CRM can be broad, including cost reduction and service improvements.
Analytical CRM
Analytical CRM analyses customer data for a variety of purposes
The technology requirements of a CRM strategy can be complex and far reaching. The basic building blocks include
There are three aspects of CRM which can each be implemented in isolation from each other:
Operational CRM
Operational CRM provides support to "front office" business processes, including sales, marketing and service. Each interaction with a customer is generally added to a customer's contact history, and staff can retrieve information on customers from the database as necessary.
One of the main benefits of this contact history is that customers can interact with different people or different contact “channels” in a company over time without having to repeat the history of their interaction each time.
Consequently, many call centers use some kind of CRM software to support their call centre agents.
Collaborative CRM
Collaborative CRM covers the direct interaction with customers, for a variety of different purposes, including feedback and issue-reporting. Interaction can be through a variety of channels, such as web pages, email, automated phone (Automated Voice Response AVR) or SMS.
The objectives of Collaborative CRM can be broad, including cost reduction and service improvements.
Analytical CRM
Analytical CRM analyses customer data for a variety of purposes
The technology requirements of a CRM strategy can be complex and far reaching. The basic building blocks include
- A database to store customer information. This can be a CRM specific database or an Enterprise Data warehouse.
- Operational CRM requires customer agent support software.
- Collaborative CRM requires customer interaction systems, eg an interactive website, automated phone systems etc.
- Analytical CRM requires statistical analysis software as well as software that manages any specific marketing campaigns.
A typical CRM system is subdivided into three basic sub modules:
- Marketing
- Sales
- Service
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
ASP
Active Server Pages (ASP) is Microsoft's server-side script engine for dynamically-generated web pages. It is marketed as an add-on to Internet Information Services (IIS). Programming ASP websites is made easier by various built-in objects.
Most ASP pages are written in VBScript, but any other Active Scripting engine can be selected instead.
Most ASP pages are written in VBScript, but any other Active Scripting engine can be selected instead.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
The Long Tail
Anderson argued that products that are in low demand or have low sales volume can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, if the store or distribution channel is large enough.
They found a large proportion of Amazon.com's book sales come from obscure books that are not available in brick-and-mortar stores. They then quantified the potential value of the long tail to consumers. In an article published in 2003 these authors showed that, while most of the discussion about the value of the internet to consumers has revolved around lower prices, consumer benefit (a.k.a. consumer surplus) from access to increased product variety in online book stores is ten times larger than their benefit from access to lower prices online. Thus, the primary value of the internet to consumers comes from releasing new sources of value by providing access to products in the long tail.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Marketing
In a nutshell it consists of the social and managerial processes by which products (goods or services) and value are exchanged in order to fulfill the needs and wants of individuals or groups.
A market-focused, or customer-focused, organization first determines what its potential customers desire, and then builds the product or service.
Two major factors of marketing are the recruitment of new customers (acquisition) and the retention and expansion of relationships with existing customers (base management).
Strategic Marketing attempts to determine how an organization competes against its competition in a market place. In particular, it aims at generating a competitive advantage relative to its competition.
Operational Marketing executes marketing functions to attract and keep customers and to maximize the value derived from them, as well as to satisfy the customer with prompt services and meeting the customer expectations. Operational Marketing includes the determination of the marketing mix.
The four Ps are(Marketing mix):
Product: The product aspects of marketing deal with the specifications of the actual good or service, and how it relates to the end-user's needs and wants. The scope of a product generally includes supporting elements such as warranties, guarantees, and support.
Pricing: This refers to the process of setting a price for a product, including discounts. The price need not be monetary - it can simply be what is exchanged for the product or service, e.g. time, or attention.
Promotion: This includes advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and personal selling, and refers to the various methods of promoting the product, brand, or company.
Placement or distribution refers to how the product gets to the customer; for example, point of sale placement or retailing. This fourth P has also sometimes been called Place, referring to the channel by which a product or service is sold (e.g. online vs. retail), which geographic region or industry, to which segment (young adults, families, business people), etc.
The marketing department's goal is to bring people to the sales team using promotional techniques such as advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and public relations.
A market-focused, or customer-focused, organization first determines what its potential customers desire, and then builds the product or service.
Two major factors of marketing are the recruitment of new customers (acquisition) and the retention and expansion of relationships with existing customers (base management).
Strategic Marketing attempts to determine how an organization competes against its competition in a market place. In particular, it aims at generating a competitive advantage relative to its competition.
Operational Marketing executes marketing functions to attract and keep customers and to maximize the value derived from them, as well as to satisfy the customer with prompt services and meeting the customer expectations. Operational Marketing includes the determination of the marketing mix.
The four Ps are(Marketing mix):
Product: The product aspects of marketing deal with the specifications of the actual good or service, and how it relates to the end-user's needs and wants. The scope of a product generally includes supporting elements such as warranties, guarantees, and support.
Pricing: This refers to the process of setting a price for a product, including discounts. The price need not be monetary - it can simply be what is exchanged for the product or service, e.g. time, or attention.
Promotion: This includes advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and personal selling, and refers to the various methods of promoting the product, brand, or company.
Placement or distribution refers to how the product gets to the customer; for example, point of sale placement or retailing. This fourth P has also sometimes been called Place, referring to the channel by which a product or service is sold (e.g. online vs. retail), which geographic region or industry, to which segment (young adults, families, business people), etc.
The marketing department's goal is to bring people to the sales team using promotional techniques such as advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and public relations.
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