Thursday, May 21, 2020

What Is Paired Data in Statistics

Paired data in statistics, often referred to as ordered pairs, refers to two variables in the individuals of a population that are linked together in order to determine the correlation between them. In order for a data set to be considered paired data, both of these data values must be attached or linked to one another and not considered separately. The idea of paired data is contrasted with the usual association of one number to each data point as in other quantitative data sets in that each individual data point is associated with two numbers, providing a graph that allows statisticians to observe the relationship between these variables in a population. This method of paired data is used when a study hopes to compare two variables in individuals of the population to draw some sort of conclusion about the observed correlation. When observing these data points, the order of the pairing is important because the first number is a measure of one thing while the second is a measure of something entirely different. Example of Paired Data To see an example of paired data, suppose a teacher counts the number of homework assignments each student turned in for a particular unit and then pairs this number with each student’s percentage on the unit test. The pairs are as follows: An individual who completed 10 assignments earned 95% on his or her test. (10, 95%)An individual who completed 5 assignments earned 80% on his or her test. (5, 80%)An individual who completed 9 assignments earned 85% on his or her test. (9, 85%)An individual who completed 2 assignments earned 50% on his or her test. (2, 50%)An individual who completed 5 assignments earned 60% on his or her test. (5, 60%)An individual who completed 3 assignments earned 70% on his or her test. (3, 70%) In each of these sets of paired data, we can see that the number of assignments always comes first in the ordered pair while the percentage earned on the test comes second, as seen in the first instance of (10, 95%). While a statistical analysis of this data could also be used to calculate the average number of homework assignments completed or the  average test score, there may be other questions to ask about the data. In this instance, the teacher wants to know if there is any connection between the number of homework assignments turned in and performance on the test, and the teacher would need to keep the data paired in order to answer this question. Analyzing Paired Data The statistical techniques of correlation and regression are used to analyzed paired data wherein the correlation coefficient quantifies how closely the data lie along a straight line and measures the strength of the linear relationship. Regression, on the other hand, is used for several applications including determining which line fits best for our set of data. This line can then, in turn, be used to estimate or predict y values for values of x that were not part of our original data set. There is a special type of graph that is especially well suited for paired data called a scatterplot. In this type of graph, one coordinate axis represents one quantity of the paired data while the other coordinate axis represents the other quantity of the paired data. A scatterplot for the above data would have the x-axis denote the number of assignments turned in while the y-axis would denote the scores on the unit test.

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Impact of Reality Television on Society - 2286 Words

The Impact Reality Television Has On Our Youth Misty Stouffer ENG 122 Marnie Nollette April 18, 2011 The Impact Reality Television Has On Our Youth Television serves nearly 30 hours of entertainment to children 8 to 18, weekly. Reality television is a phenomenon that is sweeping the globe. These programs are widely viewed by kids, tweens, and teens. Many of these kids idolize reality stars and mimic their every move and their vocabulary. This alleged reality is negatively affecting the well-being of children world-wide. Kids tend to imitate what they observe on television and these programs typically support the worst attributes of behavior. (Ludwig 2003). We must remember these words spoken by Dr. Ted Baehr, â€Å"Whoever controls†¦show more content†¦Thus, proving kids emulate what they see. With increased sexual activity while transmitting various diseases, it is not hard to know what the physical health affects are, and then couple that with distress to their mental health. â€Å"My Super Sweet 16† shows affluent parents spending hundreds of thousands, e ven millions of dollars celebrating their child’s 16th birthday. Large guest lists, lavish gifts, gourmet dinners are just the beginning to this show. Portraying these â€Å"parties† as normal is creating a self-centered ideal among teenagers, regardless of the financial health of the family. â€Å"If you loved me, you would† has become a staple statement teenagers are giving their parents. When parents do not nor can not produce such lavish parties and gifts, these kids feel unfulfilled and undeserving. Those feelings ultimately change and the teenager begins to feel like a failure. In Pediatrics it was stated that â€Å"children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable to the messages conveyed through television, which influence their perceptions and behaviors.† (Pediatrics, 2001). Parents need to stop allowing their kids to watch these programs. Other reality shows promote that happiness can be found in sex, money and being skinny. These fal se promotions will continue to relay poor self-image issues to young girls, not to mention the deplorable ideals placed into boys. 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The entire time I watch the episode I was constantly marking down technical events. Technical events affect out perception of reality. It might sound strange, but by using technical events the production companies are tricking our brains to believe that life happens in small

Rational Performance Testing Free Essays

Hello World: Rational Performance Tester Get to the bottom of application performance issues Skill Level: Intermediate Dennis Schultz (dennis. schultz@us. ibm. We will write a custom essay sample on Rational Performance Testing or any similar topic only for you Order Now com) Marketing Engineer IBM 12 Mar 2007 This tutorial in the Hello World series introduces you to IBM ® Rational ® Performance Tester and highlights its basic features. Practical, hands-on exercises teach you how to record automated performance tests, use data-driven techniques to ensure randomization, play-back tests, and evaluate real-time performance reports. Upon completing the tutorial you will be able to use Rational Performance Tester to determine the cause of performance problems in your applications. Section 1. Before you start About this series The Hello World series is for novice developers who want a high-level, hands-on overview of IBM software products. Each tutorial in the series provides simple exercises and step-by-step instructions to familiarize you with the components and use of a particular product. Upon completing a tutorial in the Hello World series you will know enough about the product to begin exploring and using it on your own. About this tutorial This tutorial uses hands-on exercises to familiarize you with Rational Performance Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 1 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks Tester. Step-by-step instructions teach you how to record an automated performance test, enhance the test using built-in data-driven techniques, play-back the test as part of a performance schedule, and evaluate real-time reports to determine the root cause of a performance problem. The maximum estimated running time for the tutorial is three hours. Objectives After completing this tutorial you should understand the basic functions of Rational Performance Tester and be able to use it to discover and analyze performance problems in your applications. Prerequisites This tutorial is for testers new to test automation and unfamiliar with Rational Performance Tester. As you are taking the tutorial, you can practice the steps yourself if you have access to the environment the tutorial requires. If you don’t have access to the environment, you can still read the tutorial and view the animated demos. You just won’t be able to try the steps for yourself. The easiest way to access the tutorial environment is through the Rational Performance Tester online trial system created for the tutorial. The trial system uses the Citrix Access Platform to provide you with a connection from your workstation to a remote server running Rational Performance Tester, WebSphere Application Server 6. 0, and the sample application to be tested. If you choose to set up the tutorial environment on your own machine, please use the Hello World: Rational Performance Tester (for downloadable trial code) version of this tutorial that is written for this purpose. In order to view the animated demos for the tutorial you must enable JavaScript in your browser and install Macromedia Flash Player 6 or higher. Animated demos If this is your first encounter with a developerWorks tutorial that includes animated demos you might want to know a few things about them: †¢ Demos are an optional way to see the steps described in the tutorial done for you. To view an animated demo, click the given Show me link and the demo will open in a new browser window. †¢ Each demo contains a navigation bar at the bottom of the screen. Use the navigation bar to pause, exit, rewind, or fast-forward portions of the demo. Rational Performance Tester Page 2 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks developerWorks ® †¢ The demos are 800 x 600 pixels. If this is the maximum resolution of your screen or if your resolution is lower than this then you will have to scroll to see some areas of the demo. †¢ You must have JavaScript enabled in your browser and Macromedia Flash Player 6 or higher installed to view the demos. Section 2. Getting started Overview of Rational Performance Tester IBM Rational Performance Tester, hereafter known as Performance Tester, is a performance test creation, execution, and analysis tool that helps development teams validate the scalability and reliability of their Web-based applications before deployment. Many of Performance Tester’s features have been explicitly designed with the novice load tester in mind. Performance Tester allows you to use one of several Web browsers (Internet Explorer, Mozilla, or Firefox) to test a Web-based application. The results of your interaction are captured and recorded on the operating system of your choice (Windows or Linux). The test is presented in a concise tree-based editor that is capable of exposing underlying details to the expert on an â€Å"as needed† basis. Test scripts are then grouped together in various combinations to reflect the multiple types of user that comprise the projected user population. You can specify the number of simulated system users at execution time. Test execution is accompanied by easy-to-read, real-time reports that update throughout the test run. Bottlenecks based on metrics such as round-trip performance, transaction rates, and system diagnostics are highlighted in these reports. You can also use Performance Tester to further identify the root cause of poor performance problems from the hardware- or software-component level through advanced resource monitoring and response-time tracking. Although this tutorial focuses on testing a J2EE, Web-based application, you can use Performance Tester to test any Web-based application. You can also extend Performance Tester to test the performance of additional application types such as Siebel, SAP, and Citrix (see Resources). Setting up the tutorial environment Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 3 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks As previously mentioned, the easiest way to access this tutorial is through the online trial system developed using the Citrix Access Platform. The trial system gives you free access to Performance Tester, WebSphere Application Server 6. 0, and the Adventure Builder sample application, and minimizes your installation and configuration time for the tutorial. Once you have registered for the online trial system, installed the Citrix Metaframe Presentation Server, and logged into the server, you are ready to begin. Performance Tester will launch in a Citrix client session and will appear just as if it were running on your local desktop. You can interact with it just as you would if it were installed locally. The countdown clock on the Rational Test Drive Environment Web page will keep track of the time remaining in your session. If you choose to set up the tutorial environment locally you will need to install and configure Rational Performance Tester and WebSphere Application Server 6. 0 in your workstation. Note that the Adventure Builder sample application used by this tutorial is only available with WebSphere Application Server 6. , not 6. 1. You should also allow additional time to create and configure a project in which to store your test artifacts before starting. The tutorial is written from the assumption that you are using the online trial system. Performance Tester and Eclipse Performance Tester is based on the open-source Eclipse platform. Eclipse provides a rich working environment for many tools, both open source and commercial, including many of the offerings of the Rational Software Delivery Platform such as Rational Software Architect, Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software, and Rational Functional Tester (see Resources). This provides a common user experience for tooling across the software development life cycle. Not only are these tools all based on Eclipse, but often times they actually share the same shell. In other words, the capability of each of these tools is presented to the user as a new perspective in the same shell. A perspective is a consolidation of tools and views focused on one particular task. The perspective for Performance Tester is known as the Test perspective. As the name implies, the Test perspective provides views that are needed by a developer or QA professional focused on testing a software application or system. The tutorial workspace and sample projects Assuming you are using the online trial system, Performance Tester will be associated to a pre-configured workspace. A workspace can be any directory location where your work is stored. In your case, this workspace contains two projects. The first project is the Adventure Builder Application. This project contains the source code for the Adventure Builder sample application you will be testing. The application has already been deployed to WebSphere Application Server on the online trial system. The project is only in your workspace so that Rational Performance Tester Page 4 of 26 Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks developerWorks ® Performance Tester can navigate to the source code later when you are attempting to find the root cause of a performance bottleneck. The second project, Adventure Builder Performance Tests, is the test project you will use to store your tests, datapools, schedules, and results. If you expand the project, you will see several folders used to organize your test assets. You can add, remove, and customize folders as you like. There isn’t much to examine in this project yet. You will look more closely at it once you have recorded a test. Figure 1. A Performance Tester workspace viewed in the Test Navigator Section 3. Record a test scenario Performance tests are most often created by recording your manual interactions with the system under test. In this section of the tutorial, you will use the automated HTTP recorder to capture the scenario of interacting with the Adventure Builder sample application to construct a vacation package and purchase it. The Adventure Builder application is already running in the online trial environment. All you need to do is connect to it through a Web browser while the recorder is engaged. Browser support Although you are using Internet Explorer in this tutorial, Performance Tester can work with any Web browser that supports SOCKS proxies. Performance Tester can automatically launch Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and Firefox. Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 5 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks Animated demo Would you like to see these steps demonstrated for you? me Show Start the recorder 1. Start the recorder by clicking Create a Test from Recording on the toolbar . This opens the Create New Test From Recording window. Figure 2. The Create New Test From Recording window 2. Select HTTP Recording and click Next. Rational Performance Tester Page 6 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks developerWorks ® 3. 4. On the next page of the wizard, select Adventure Builder Performance Tests Tests as the location to create the file. Enter PurchaseIslandAdventure as the test-file name and click Finish. Figure 3. The Create New Test From Recording window, page 2 5. The recorder is engaged and Internet Explorer is launched to the â€Å"Welcome to Performance Testing† page. Clear the cache of temporary files by selecting Internet Explorer Tools Internet Options †¦. Under Temporary Internet Files, click Delete Cookies and confirm. Then click Delete Files. Check Delete all offline content and click OK to confirm. Click OK to dismiss the Internet Options window. 6. Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 7 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks 7. Launch the Adventure Builder application by clicking the Adventure Builder button in the Internet Explorer Links toolbar. Figure 4. Launch the Adventure Builder application Navigate the application Animated demo Would you like to see these steps demonstrated for you? me Show Now that the recorder is engaged, you will navigate the application just as you normally would. 1. In the left navigation area of the page, click Island Adventures. Figure 5. Island Adventures link 2. Here you see an expanded list of island adventure trips. From the submenu on the Available Adventure Packages page, click Maui Survival Adventure. Figure 6. Maui Survival Adventure link Rational Performance Tester Page 8 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks eveloperWorks ® 3. This page shows you the options available for the package you have chosen. Click Select Package on the right side of the Adventure Package Details page. You are taken to the Package Options page. Here you can personalize your vacation package by changing the number of people, start date, number of days, etc. For now, just accept the defaults by clicking Se t Package Options. On the Adventure Package Details page, click I Will Provide My Own Transportation. On the Adventure Package page, click Checkout. Let’s keep it simple for now: on the Sign On page, click Sign In as a returning customer. On the Enter Order Details page, scroll to the bottom and click Submit. After a moment, you will be taken to the Checkout page. Here you should see your order ID. Figure 7. The Order ID link on the Checkout page 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 9 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks Note that your order ID will be unique and will not be exactly as shown here. Wait for several seconds after the checkout page loads, then check on the status of your order by clicking on the Order ID link. 10. Once the Order Tracking Results page loads, close the browser. This will cause Performance Tester to begin generating the test based on the traffic it has captured. Section 4. Review and customize the test Performance Tester generates a test based on the HTTP traffic it captured during the recording. The test is much more than a simple HTTP trace log, however. Behind the scenes, Performance Tester does a lot of processing to create a test that is robust, extensible, and easy to maintain. In this section, you will examine the generated test in greater detail and customize it to use unique data. Examine the test Animated demo Would you like to see these steps demonstrated for you? me Show The test is represented in a tree format in the left portion of the Test Editor view. Each top-level node in the tree represents a Web page visited during your recording session. The name of the node is based on the name of the Web page. Figure 8. The Test Contents tree view Rational Performance Tester Page 10 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks developerWorks ® 1. Expand the Welcome to the Adventure Builder Reference application node. Here is where the advanced performance test engineer can see all the details of the transactions behind the page. The first element is highlighted in blue to indicate that it is the primary request — the request for the page HTML contents. Figure 9. The expanded page in the Test Contents tree view 2. Click on the Protocol Data view in the bottom portion of the window, then Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 11 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks click on the primary request highlighted in blue in the tree. The details of the request and its corresponding response are shown in the Request, Response Headers, and Response Content tabs of the Protocol Data view. The Browser tab even renders the contents of the selected element. Figure 10. The Browser tab in the Protocol Data view 3. Detailed information about the selected element is also presented in the right-hand portion of the Test Editor view. You can edit this data if you need to change the host, URL, request header values, or any other field. Automatic data correlation Animated demo Would you like to see these steps demonstrated for you? me Show Web applications tend to be highly dynamic. For example, in the scenario you recorded you placed an order for a vacation package and were given a unique order ID. You then used that order ID to check the status of your purchase. When you play-back this test, it will place another order and you will be given a different order ID. You would want Performance Tester to check the status of that new order ID, not the one you previously recorded. For that reason, Performance Tester performs automatic data correlation. That is, it looks at data parameters sent to the server and matches them up with prior response data from the server. Accessing the correlated data is easy. Rational Performance Tester Page 12 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks developerWorks ® 1. Highlight the Order Tracking Results node in the Test Contents area of the Performance Test view. Now right-click inside the Test Data area to the right and select Show References. Notice that the orderId field is being substituted with data from a prior response. Figure 11. Show References for data correlation 2. Double-click orderId. This takes you to the URL of the actual request for that page. Figure 12. Correlated data in the URL of a request 3. Right-click the highlighted string and select Go To. This takes you directly to the orderId value in the response text of the Checkout request. During test playback, Performance Tester will substitute the orderId value it receives in this response for the orderId in the request for order tracking. Figure 13. Correlated data in the prior response Granted, you now know far more than you probably wanted to know about data correlation; but that is the beauty of Performance Tester: it does all this for you Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 13 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks without any hand coding or other effort on your part. Randomize the data Animated demo Would you like to see these steps demonstrated for you? me Show In performance testing it is essential to be able to randomize the data being sent to the server. Modern Web applications have many layers of caching. If you were to emulate a thousand users using the application doing exactly the same thing, you would not observe typical performance behavior. Once the first emulated user performed the transaction, all the subsequent users would be drawing information from the cache. For this reason, performance test engineers often spend much of their time configuring tests to pull random data from a â€Å"datapool† so that each emulated user uses unique information. Performance Tester automatically identifies likely candidates for datapool access and makes it possible to associate these fields with data sources you provide. 1. Select the Enter Adventure Package Details page node in the test contents. Notice in the Test Data area the start_month, start_year, and start_day parameters. These were the default values in the Options page, which were subsequently transmitted back to the server when the Set Package Options button was clicked. Figure 14. Datapool candidates 2. 3. 4. Set up a datapool to randomize the values used by your virtual users when you play-back this test. Select start_month in the Test Data area. Click Substitute From below the Test Data area. Select Datapool Value†¦. Figure 15. Substitute start_month from the datapool variable Rational Performance Tester Page 14 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks eveloperWorks ® 5. 6. 7. Click Add Datapool on the â€Å"Select datapool† column window. You will add an association to an existing datapool to this test. Select the existing VacationStartDates datapool and click Select. Back in the â€Å"Select datapool† column window, select start_month and click Use Column. Note that the â€Å"Substituted with† column next to the s tart_month variable now has a reference to the datapool column. Select start_year in the Test Data area. Repeat the process. This time you will not need to add the datapool reference; just select start_year and click Use Column. Repeat the above procedure for start_day. The three variable rows should be highlighted in green to indicate they are being substituted from the datapool and should show references in the â€Å"Substituted with† column. Figure 16. Variables substituted with datapool variables 8. 9. 10. Press Ctrl-S to save the test when finished. Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 15 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks Section 5. Schedule a workload One of the keys to a successful performance test is the ability to accurately model the anticipated system workload. Software systems typically have various types of users that perform varied tasks. Performance Tester provides a graphical interface to enable you to model your user activities. Create a schedule Animated demo Would you like to see these steps demonstrated for you? me Show 1. Expand the Schedules folder and double-click the AdventureBuilderLoadTest schedule to open it in the Schedule Editor view. This is a schedule that has been partially completed for you. Figure 17. AdventureBuilderLoadTest schedule in Test Navigator view 2. Two user groups have already been defined in this schedule. As you can see from the annotations on the Schedule Contents, browsers represent 20 percent of your emulated users while buyers represent 80 percent. Figure 18. Schedule Contents shows defined user groups Rational Performance Tester Page 16 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks developerWorks ® 3. Expand the Browsers user group and all contained elements in the Schedule Contents. Figure 19. Details of the Browsers user group Performance Tester offers many advanced constructs to help you test the impact of a realistic load on your system. The hierarchy under the Browsers user group can be interpreted as follows: Each browser will peruse three adventure packages. Browsers will randomly choose to look at either mountain adventures or western adventures but are twice as likely to look at mountain adventures. The action of browsing the adventure category is emulated by tests that were recorded in much the same way you recorded your test. After looking at each category, a browser will wait 1000 milliseconds before browsing another category. 4. The Buyers group has not been completed. Use the test you recorded earlier as an implementation for the Buyers test. Click the Buyers user group. Click Add ; Test and select PurchaseIslandAdventure from the Select Performance Tests window. Save the AdventureBuilderLoadTest schedule. 5. Section 6. Run an automated performance test Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 17 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks In this section you will learn how to execute your test against the Adventure Builder application and monitor the results. Launch the test Animated demo Would you like to see these steps demonstrated for you? me Show 1. Select the topmost node in the Schedule Contents — that is, the AdventureBuilderLoadTest node. A number of execution options are available in the tabs on the right-hand portion of the Performance Schedule Editor view. You can specify the number of users you want to emulate in the Number of users field on the General tab. Since the user groups in this schedule have been defined in terms of percentages, Performance Tester will do all the adjustments for you each time you change the size of your schedule. Leave the Number of users set to 5. The online trial environment is configured for a maximum of five emulated users and attempting to run with more users will result in a license error. Click Run on the toolbar. This launches your performance test. Figure 20. Run button on the toolbar 2. Monitor the test Animated demo Would you like to see these steps demonstrated for you? me Show While your test is running, you can monitor its progress in near real-time. The Overall tab of the Performance Report view will show you test progress in the bar across the top. The bar graph will show the status code success rate for pages and elements. Both should show 100%. While the test is running you can browse the various tabs on the report to see what is happening. 1. Select the Summary tab along the bottom of the report. Basic statistics about the test run, pages, and page elements are given here. Note that these statistics will continue to update until the run has completed. Rational Performance Tester Page 18 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks developerWorks ® 2. 3. Select the Page Performance tab. This tab presents a bar graph of the average page response time for the 10 pages with the highest times. Feel free to browse through the other report pages. The default information presented is relatively easy to read and gives you quick insights into the performance of Adventure Builder application. Note that the graph on the Resources tab will be blank: this is expected. When the test has finished (note the progress bar on the Overall tab), go back to the Page Performance tab. You should notice that the Checkout page is considerably slower than any of the other pages. 4. Section 7. Analyze the root cause At this point, you have successfully used Performance Tester to uncover a performance problem in your application. The next question you will ask yourself is, â€Å"What is causing the problem? † To get to the bottom of this question you will use Performance Tester’s Root Cause Analysis facilities. In this section, you will re-run your test with additional data collection tools engaged. The additional information will help you determine if you are facing a hardware or software issue and drill down to the root cause of the performance bottleneck. Engage resource monitoring Animated demo Would you like to see these steps demonstrated for you? me Show 1. 2. 3. Double-click the AdventureBuilderLoadTest schedule in the Test Navigator view. Revisit some of the additional execution controls on the schedule: start by selecting the top node of the Schedule Contents again. Select the Resource Monitoring tab in the Schedule Element Details area. Resource monitoring enables Performance Tester to log any system parameter from Windows perfmon, Unix or Linux rstatd, or Tivoli Monitoring. Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 19 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks 4. 5. Check Enable resource monitoring. Click Add New†¦ to define a new server on which to monitor resources. Note that you may need to scroll down the right portion of the Performance Schedule view to see the button. In the Resource Monitoring window, enter localhost as the host name. Check Windows Performance Monitor. Note that in this trial environment, the Web server, application server, and Performance Tester system are all running on a single machine: localhost. This is, of course, not a realistic situation. In a true performance testing environment, you can define any machines that might be part of your application or test system. Select the Resources tab. After a few seconds, you can see the extensive list of counters available. To keep it simple, deselect all counters except Memory Pages/sec and Processor % Processor Time. Click OK to close the Resource Monitoring window. 6. 7. 8. Engage Response Time Breakdown 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Select the Response Time Breakdown tab in the Schedule Element Details area of the Performance Schedule. Check Enable collection of response time data. This enables Performance Tester’s response-time data collection infrastructure. Since you know the only test that actually visits the Checkout page is PurchaseIslandAdventure, select only that test. In the Options area, set the Detail level to High. Save the schedule by pressing Ctrl-S. Click the Run button on the toolbar again. Performance Tester launches the test just as before, but this time with resource monitoring and response-time breakdown collection engaged. Examine resource-utilization data 1. While the performance schedule is executing, select the Resources tab Rational Performance Tester Page 20 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks developerWorks ® on the Performance Report. This time, you’ll see data for the resources you chose to collect in the schedule. Figure 21. The Resources tab on the Performance Report . The data you see here, although accurate, is not really representative of a typical load test. In this trial environment, the Performance Tester load generation, Web server, application server, and database server are all running on a single machine. You would normally track resources on each tier of your application. In addition, the load test you just ran was of very short duration. Normally, performance tests will be significantly longer, allowing the systems to reach a steady state. Nonetheless, the trial system gives you a sense of how easy it is to track resource utilization during a performance test. If you have a concern, you can now go to the Response vs. Time Detail tab, right-click on the graph, and click Add/Remove Performance Counters to overlay resource counters onto page response data. This helps you visually correlate any spikes in resource utilization with page activity. Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 21 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks 3. Since it doesn’t appear that the performance issue with Adventure Builder is hardware related, use the response-time breakdown data to find out if it is software related. Examine the response-time breakdown data 1. 2. Select the Page Performance tab of the Performance Report. Drill down into what went on behind the scenes for the Checkout page. Right-click on the bar in the graph for the Checkout page and choose Display Response Time Breakdown Statistics†¦. Select the /ab/checkout. do URL from the Selection Wizard and click Finish. The Response Time Breakdown Statistics view lists methods called on the server tiers of the Adventure Builder application. There are various ways to examine this information. Switch to the Tree Layout view using the Layout button in the upper-right corner of the view. Figure 22. The Tree Layout view 3. 4. Now sort by descending cumulative time by clicking twice on the Cumulative Time column header. Find the root cause of the problem The top node labeled rationaltd represents the machine. In this trial, all system-under-test and test-harness components are running on a single machine. In a real-world test, you would likely see multiple machines listed. The second-level node labeled J2EE/WebSphere†¦ is the WebSphere application server component. From the information here, you can quickly see that the J2EE facet type consuming the most cumulative time is the Servlet. 1. Expand the Servlet node and the com. sun. j2ee. blueprints. waf. controller. web package, and the Rational Performance Tester Page 22 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks developerWorks ® MainServlet class nodes. This tells you that the four invocations of the doPost method in the MainServlet class consumed 42. 113 seconds. Note that your actual values will probably differ. Figure 23. Response time of the doPost method of MainServlet 2. Right-click the doPost method and choose Open Source. Well, what do you know — you have located the source of your performance problem! Figure 24. A sleep statement in the source code Section 8. Summary This tutorial has introduced you to IBM Rational Performance Tester. In a very short time you were able to construct a test suite by recording a performance test for a Web application, customizing the test to randomize data upon playback, and using that test as part of a realistic performance test schedule. You executed that schedule on a small scale and used the near real-time reports to identify a slow page. Once you had identified the page, you gathered resource utilization data and response-time breakdown statistics, which you then used to investigate possible hardware and software causes. You then drilled down to the specific source code method causing the problem. Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 23 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks While you may have learned a lot in this tutorial, you have only scratched the surface of what Performance Tester can do. As you continue to explore Performance Tester you will discover many more features to assist you in testing the performance of your applications and releasing them with confidence. See Resources to learn more about Performance Tester and other IBM software products covered in the Hello World tutorial series. Rational Performance Tester Page 24 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks developerWorks ® Resources Learn †¢ The Hello World: Rational Performance Tester (for downloadable trial code) is another version of this tutorial that is written for people who would prefer to set up their own environment, rather than use the online trial of Rational Performance Tester. †¢ The Hello World series of hands-on tutorials introduces IBM software products that play a critical role in implementing an SOA foundation in your enterprise. †¢ See the Rational Performance Tester product page for technical documentation, how-to articles, education, downloads, and product information about Rational Performance Tester. â€Å"Using IBM Rational Performance Tester to find bottlenecks† (David M. Chadwick, developerWorks, September 2006) presents a real-world case study in using Rational Performance Tester. †¢ IBM Rational performance testing solutions provide scalability and load testing for J2EE, Web-based, Siebel, Citrix, and SAP applications. †¢ Learn more about the IBM Ration al Software Delivery Platform — a complete set of tools to build, integrate, modernize, extend, and deploy software and software-based systems. †¢ Learn more about the Eclipse development environment. Get products and technologies †¢ Download a free trial version of Rational Performance Tester. †¢ Build your next development project with IBM trial software, available for download directly from developerWorks. Discuss †¢ Participate in the discussion forum for this content. About the author Dennis Schultz Dennis Schultz joined Rational in 1995 as a technical sales engineer. For eight years, he worked closely with numerous clients, implementing Rational solutions in their projects. Dennis helped deploy solutions for software configuration management, change management, requirements management, and test management and implementation. Since 2003, Dennis has been a Technical Marketing Engineer for Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 25 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks IBM Rational software. Dennis holds a B. S. in computer engineering from Iowa State University. He is based in St. Louis, Missouri, and fills his non-work time with his four children. Rational Performance Tester Page 26 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. How to cite Rational Performance Testing, Papers

Saturday, April 25, 2020

The Sixth Sense Essay Essay Example

The Sixth Sense Essay Paper In a film of this genre, I would expect to find a lot of tension building up, atmosphere, music, lightening, shadows and various camera angles to make a supernatural thriller. In the film, The Sixth Sense a child psychologist named Malcolm Crowe incredible played by Bruce Willis tries to help one of his young patients Vincent Gray (Donnie Walberg) but failed you failed me a speech quoted by Donnie, because of his failure he gets shot, Malcolm gets obsessed with helping his patients, so his relationship with his wife suffers. A year later, another young patient, Cole Sear (a talented young actor) Hayley Joel Osment has the same problem as Vincent he needs Malcolms help. Cole Later tells Malcolm that he can communicate with the dead I see dead people a speech quoted by Hayley,Malcom then figures out a way to make the dead go away, by listening to them and helping them. The dead had come for help, they had a matter that they couldnt complete whilst they were alive and left the matter unresolved. They wanted Cole to help them solve the matter so they can move on. We will write a custom essay sample on The Sixth Sense Essay specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on The Sixth Sense Essay specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on The Sixth Sense Essay specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Later Malcolm helps Cole complete this task for a girl who was killed by her stepmother. Patient Cole in return, reveals some helpful information to Malcolm about his wife. In the end Malcolm discovers that he died the night he got shot. The first key scene I am going to examine is the red balloon scene. The scene starts where Cole and his mum Lynn Sear(Toni Collette) attends a birthday party, Cole hears weird noises coming from the top of the staircase and soon gets lured up by the weird noises. Meanwhile Coles mum Lynn is busy socializing with other mums she does not realize that Cole has been lured up the stairs. As the noises sounded like the dead Cole starts to get paranoid, suddenly some nasty kids come up from behind him and shoves Cole into the room, and slams the door after him. Immediately, he gets attacked by the ghost inside, he is screaming and shouting, but the music downstairs is too loud that no-one can hear him. The red balloon then pops, then she notices that someone is in trouble, so she wanders upstairs and realizes it was Cole, She tries her best to open the door, but it seemed to be locked. A minute later, everything goes silence. Coles screaming and shouting shops and the door unlocks . Finally Lynn lifts him out and takes him home. The director has put a lot of different camera angles, shadows, lightening and color in this scene he has uses a wide range of camera angles to show different outcomes, and color to create the scene mood and atmosphere. The picture of the spiral staircase shows the audience by using a high angle to emphasis the color red and tells the audience that danger is near. Another angle the director has used is the low angle shot to create tension usually a low angle shot would show power but somehow the director has made him look innocent and vulnerable in this low angle shot, we, the audience will then know that he is going to have a bad experience. The director has also used shadow and lightening as well as camera angles to create foreshadow to symbolize him being threatened or death already occurred. The second key scene I am going to examine is the red tent scene; I have chosen this scene because there is various music and soundtracks in this scene which make it horrifying and terrifying. The scene starts the thermostat on the wall reads, fifty-two degrees. Cole goes to the toilet a large figure moves past the doorway Coles knees starts to press together, his body becomes very still he stands there and stares into the darkness of the hall. Cole finally steps out into the hallway. His eyes catch a slant of light coming from the kitchen. His breath forms tiny clouds in the cold air. Cole hesitates before being drawn to the kitchen. He then moves briskly to the door halfway down the corridor. Continuing down the hall and turns the corner coming to a stop in the doorway of the kitchen. Cole stares at the back of a person cooking food on the stove. Cole thought it was him mum so his fear slowly fades away until the person turns around it was not Lynn it was a dead, the woman face was demented, Coles face immediately turned the colour of ash Cole backs up to the doorway and hurried down the hall and heads for his tent Cole is curled up in the tent. He lies still for a moment reaching over and flickering on a flash light then the tent get lit up and then suddenly the top of the tent starts ripping Cole starts to scared again and then he notices that a dead was in the tent. The director has put a lot of music to create tension in this scene he uses horrifying soundtracks making it an unsettling and horrifying atmosphere creating fear and suspense for the audience the tempo is what makes the music more horror as the suspense continues the tempo speeds up. As well as tempo of the music there is also cold air use in this scene when the dead are angry the atmosphere becomes cold which indicates something is wrong. Creating a cold atmosphere. The director M. Night. Shyalaman uses a wide range of techniques and methods to create different atmosphere in different scenes. Although red is seen in every scene. The color red is an important color in this film, it set a mood to the film, it is used to symbolize anything in the real world which had become tainted by the other world or anything related to death e. g. Cole red tent, the red balloon, the door knob to the basement all these red indicates to the audience that something is going to happen related to death. The use of red is very effective because it grabs our attention on focusing on the color making the audience more aware of what is happening it also gives the audience a clue to what is going to happen next which is a good idea to put in a film so it lets the audience guess and think first without knowing what is actually going to happen. The actors and actresses in this film are Bruce Willis as Malcolm Crowe Haley Joel Osment as Cole Sear Toni Collette as Lynn Sear Olivia Williams as Anna Crowe Glenn Fitzgerald as Sean Mischa Barton as Kyra Collins Donnie Walberg as Vincent Gray Bruce and Haley are both brilliant actors in this film they are classed as brilliant because they both can show thought and feeling using just there eyes without using word which is what make the film more successful. They both have very good facial expressions, body language and emotions because there faces when acting really convinces us that they are really in that situation. For example in the picture of Cole his eyes show us that he needs to tell us something but is too scared to do so. Lastly, I think this film is very effective and brilliant to watch because there are various techniques used thought the film especially how the director has used the red to make it different from other films which is more useful because we are more aware of the red than any thing else. Another reason why I like the film is because the director has uses a lot of different camera angles which make the audience think and feel a different way. So overall I think this film is successful and great to watch.

Tuesday, March 17, 2020

4 Tips for Writing Stellar Virginia Tech Essays

4 Tips for Writing Stellar Virginia Tech Essays SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Are you hoping to be part of Virginia Tech’s next matriculating class? If so, you’ll need to write strong Virginia Tech essays to supplement your application. All Virginia Tech applicants are required to answer four short answer questions as part of their application. In this article, we’ll break down what the Virginia Tech essays are and what the admissions committee is looking for in your answer. Why Does Virginia Tech Require Applicants to Answer Essays? Virginia Tech requires all applicants to answer four short answer questions. If you’re applying to the Honors College, your answers will also be shared with the Honors College admissions committee. You don’t need to answer any separate questions as an applicant to the Virginia Tech Honors College. The Virginia Tech essays are designed for the admissions committee to get a better sense of who you are, both as a student and a person. The short answers questions ask about your character, leadership, and goals. The admissions committee will use your answers to better understand you as a person - who are you? What do you care about? How will you fit in on Virginia Tech’s campus? It’s important to put some serious effort into your Virginia Tech essays so that you represent yourself well to the admissions committee. These essays are your chance to present a well-rounded version of yourself that makes the admissions committee say, â€Å"We have to admit this student!† What Are the Virginia Tech Essays? Virginia Tech requires that every applicant answer four short answer questions. These short answer questions are just that - short! Each has a word limit of 120 words. Let’s take a look at the questions: #1: Virginia Tech’s motto is "Ut Prosim" which means 'That I May Serve'. We are interested in learning more about your interests and how you have been involved and/or served. Briefly describe a group, organization, or community that you have been involved with. Is this a special area of interest for you, and why? How long have you been involved? What role did you play? What contributions have you made to this group? Were you able influence others and/or influence decisions for the good of the group? #2: Describe a situation where you were involved or witness to an act of discrimination. How, or did, you respond? Do you wish you would have responded differently? Did this situation cause any change to happen based on this event and did you have a role in that change? What did you learn from this experience? #3: Describe an example of a situation where you have significantly influenced others, took on a leadership role, helped resolve a dispute, or contributed to a group’s goals. What was your role, what responsibilities did you take on? Did you encounter any obstacles, and if so how did you respond, were you able to overcome them? What would you do differently? #4: Briefly describe a personal goal you have set for yourself. Why this goal, what is your timeline to achieve this goal, what precipitated this goal? Have you turned to anyone for advice or help, what was their role, what did you learn about yourself, are you still working toward this goal? Virginia Tech Essays, Analyzed Now that we know what the Virginia Tech essays are, let’s break down how to answer each one as best as possible. Since the Virginia Tech essays are so short, the key is to be super targeted in your responses. For each prompt, we’ll break down what the essay is asking and how you can tailor your response to make sure it’s what the admissions committee wants to hear. Virginia Tech’s motto is "Ut Prosim" which means 'That I May Serve'. We are interested in learning more about your interests and how you have been involved and/or served. Briefly describe a group, organization, or community that you have been involved with. Is this a special area of interest for you, and why? How long have you been involved? What role did you play? What contributions have you made to this group? Were you able influence others and/or influence decisions for the good of the group? This essay question is asking about your involvement or service with a specific organization. The admissions committee is looking for you to demonstrate a genuine commitment to a cause - what the cause is doesn’t matter as much as the fact that you genuinely care about it. You should pick an organization that you’ve made real, lasting change at. Don’t choose the committee or group that sounds the best if you haven’t actually done a lot for them. For instance, if you were a member of your school’s Habitat for Humanity club but didn’t actually attend very many meetings, don’t talk about how meaningful it was to build houses for disadvantaged people just because you think it sounds nice. Any insincerity in your application will be very obvious. Consider groups that you’ve had significant leadership roles in, as well as any organizations where you’ve affected policies or made choices about activities. These will be service experiences the group wants to hear about. Describe a situation where you were involved or witness to an act of discrimination. How, or did, you respond? Do you wish you would have responded differently? Did this situation cause any change to happen based on this event and did you have a role in that change? What did you learn from this experience? This second question can seem intimidating - are you supposed to represent yourself as a social justice warrior? What if you haven’t witnessed too many forms of discrimination? Luckily, the key here isn’t to show that you’ve tackled the patriarchy or changed racist laws in your community. Instead, the admissions committee simply wants to know if you approach situations with compassion and an open mind. They want to know that you can reflect on your behavior and asses how your choices affect others. You don’t need to pick a big incident. You can even choose something small that you’ve noticed daily. You also don’t need to pick an example where you were in the right - the key is to demonstrate that you’ve reflected on and learned from your experiences, not that you’ve known how to act and stand up for others from day one. Describe an example of a situation where you have significantly influenced others, took on a leadership role, helped resolve a dispute, or contributed to a group’s goals. What was your role, what responsibilities did you take on? Did you encounter any obstacles, and if so how did you respond, were you able to overcome them? What would you do differently? This prompt wants to know two things: first, have you taken on the responsibility of leading other people? Second, how do you deal with challenges? The admissions committee wants to know that you don’t shy away from leadership roles and growth opportunities. You don’t have to be president of a club or captain of a sports team to demonstrate leadership. Perhaps you took on the role of project coordinator for a classroom project or are section leader of a few instrumentalists in the band. The size of the role isn’t as important as the scope of your influence - how did your choices and actions influence others? The second half of the question focuses on overcoming obstacles. What challenges did you face? How did you defeat them? The key here isn’t to show that you can overcome problems easily. It’s to show that you’re open to growth. Admitting that you handled a situation poorly and would do so differently in the future is more powerful than saying â€Å"I was a great leader who did nothing wrong.† Show humility and self-reflection in your answer. Briefly describe a personal goal you have set for yourself. Why this goal, what is your timeline to achieve this goal, what precipitated this goal? Have you turned to anyone for advice or help, what was their role, what did you learn about yourself, are you still working toward this goal? The final Virginia Tech short essay question assesses your commitment to growth. Notice that the question asks about a personal goal - that means you don’t have to pick something lofty or world-changing. You just have to pick something that resonates with you. Maybe you decided to wake up 30 minutes earlier every day so you can meditate or do yoga before school. Maybe you made it a goal to complete all of your essays two days before they were due so you could revise your work. Maybe you made it a goal to try a sport this year when you normally hate sports. Whatever your goal is, you want to demonstrate that you’re capable of self-reflection and of positive growth - that you’re constantly assessing how to better yourself. You also want to show humility in this prompt - that you can rely on or ask for help from others when you need it. The admissions committee doesn’t expect that you’ll have all the answers yourself. They want to see that you can collaborate with and learn from others when you need to. Tips for Answering Your Virginia Tech Essays Follow these general tips for making sure that your Virginia Tech essays are as strong as possible. #1: Demonstrate Growth and Self-Reflection Virginia Tech places a strong emphasis on service and self-reflection. These qualities are reflected in the choices of essay topics. You should demonstrate these qualities in your answers. Show that you’re constantly working to better yourself. Demonstrate humility and understanding. Virginia Tech wants students who will grow on their campus - not ones who will matriculate already thinking they’re perfect. #2: Be Honest and Sincere All of the experiences that you outline in your Virginia Tech essays should be real - they need to have actually happened to you. It can be tempting to lie about or exaggerate your experiences to make them seem more impressive. Don’t do this! First of all, lying on your application is a major ethics violation and can get you in some pretty serious trouble if you’re caught. Second all, insincerity will be super obvious. The admissions committee reads thousands of applications every year. They can easily sniff out people who are lying. Be as honest as possible in your Virginia Tech essays and remember - they WANT to hear about how you’ve grown. #3: Proofread! It should go without saying, but your Virginia Tech essays should be the best examples of your work possible. Don’t just write your essays and be done with them. Take the time to formulate an answer and then go back and edit it. Make sure to proofread and run your work through a spelling or grammar checker to ensure it’s polished. #4: Get a Second Opinion Getting a second opinion on your work can be a helpful way to assess whether your Virginia Tech essays are demonstrating your best qualities. Ask someone to read your work who really knows you, so they can tell you whether or not you’re underselling yourself or missing a key feature of your personality that the admissions committee should know. That being said, there’s a fine line between getting a second opinion and plagiarism. It’s okay to ask for someone’s opinion on your work. It’s not okay to steal their ideas and pass them off as your own. Make sure you’re doing the former, not the latter. Recap: Responding to the Virginia Tech Essay Prompts The Virginia Tech essays are designed to show who you are as a student and how you’ll fit in on Virginia Tech’s campus. Do: Be honest and sincere. Highlight opportunities you’ve taken to grow and change. Edit and proofread your work to make sure it’s as strong as possible. Don't: Lie or over exaggerate to make yourself seem better. Steal anyone else’s ideas. Sweat the short answers too much. They’re important, but they won’t make or break your chances at admission to Virginia Tech. What’s Next? Want to know how to make your extracurriculars stand out even more?Check out this guide to four amazing extracurricular activities and learn why they're so impressive to colleges. Thinking of applying to other great schools likePrinceton, Brown, or Columbia? Then be sure to check out our guides to learn how you can write amazing essays for these schools' supplements. Want to write the perfect college application essay? Get professional help from PrepScholar. Your dedicated PrepScholar Admissions counselor will craft your perfect college essay, from the ground up. We'll learn your background and interests, brainstorm essay topics, and walk you through the essay drafting process, step-by-step. At the end, you'll have a unique essay that you'll proudly submit to your top choice colleges. Don't leave your college application to chance. Find out more about PrepScholar Admissions now:

Sunday, March 1, 2020

Beginning A Business Letter with First Person Singular

Beginning A Business Letter with First Person Singular Beginning A Business Letter with First Person Singular Beginning A Business Letter with First Person Singular By Maeve Maddox A reader wonders about beginning a letter with the first person pronoun: I was taught never to begin a letter (business or personal) with the word â€Å"I.†Ã‚  This must certainly have to do with the mostly outdated concept of humility being a virtue.  However, I continue to believe that humility is a virtue and that the root cause of much evil is egocentrism.  This rule does cause me to rewrite the beginning of many letters to comply with this admonition.   Like the reader, I was also taught not to begin a letter with â€Å"I† and often find myself struggling to avoid doing so. I even go back and take out the first person pronoun in the body of a letter if there seem to be too many. Apparently many of us were taught this â€Å"rule,† but as far I can discover, it isn’t and never was a rule. I possess an assortment of grammar books and style guides with various publication dates. The closest thing to a rule that I’ve found is this comment from a text published in 1907: Free use may be made of the personal pronouns [in correspondence], even of the First Person Singular; though it is better not to begin many sentences with â€Å"I.† The best practice is to choose the first word of a business letter according to the purpose of the letter. A sales letter might appropriately begin with you, while a letter of application might benefit from beginning with I. A University of Washington letter-writing guide offers five sample application letters. Each one begins with the first person singular pronoun. The caveat against beginning a business letter with I belongs with those other cherished grammar superstitions like â€Å"never end a sentence with a preposition.† Writers can choose to avoid doing it when possible, but there’s no need to suffer pangs of guilt when we can’t think of an alternative. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Business Writing category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Has vs. HadAwoken or Awakened?5 Tips to Understand Hyphenated Words

Friday, February 14, 2020

Introduction to Management Accounting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Introduction to Management Accounting - Essay Example Theories on motivation – presentation and analysis In order to understand the potential use of motivational theories in management accounting it would be necessary to refer to the context of ‘motive’, as the basis for the development of motivation, a process causing the willingness of individuals to be engaged or not in a particular activity or to put all their efforts in the achievement of a specific target. In accordance with Singla motive is ‘the latent power in a person which impels him to do a work’. Different approaches have been developed in literature regarding the explanation of motivation, as a factor influencing the performance of employees in businesses of different characteristics. In accordance with the reinforcement theory, each human is likely to decide considering the consequences of his behaviour. Knowing the results (outcomes) of his behaviour in advance, an individual can plan his behaviour accordingly so that the negative consequences are avoided and, if possible, the expected benefits are achieved. (Gitman et al. 2008). In the context of business environment, the reinforcement theory could have the following explanation: employees are promised specific rewards if they reach a particular level of performance; from a similar point of view, employees may be given a warning that if they fail to reach a minimum level of performance, they will be punished by a decrease in their payment or the deduction of certain of their common benefits – for instance, the mont hly subscription to leisure activities and so on. The punishment when used as a threat for pressuring employees to reach a particular level of performance is a policy based on the reinforcement theory, as explained above. In the study of McKenna (2000) reference is made to the theory of McFarlin and Sweeney (1992) on human motivation; in accordance with the above researchers, within modern businesses the motivation of individuals is depended on the following two factors: the distributive justice and the procedural justice; the former is reflected in the payment of equal salaries of employees reaching the same level of performance within the same organization; the latter means that within each organization the measures taken for the rewarding of employees in all departments are similar (McKenna 2000). The existence of distributive just