Wolfgang Kohlers Experiment And Insight Learning Essay -- essays resea

Wolfgang Kohler's Experiment and Insight Learning Have you ever been trying to figure something out that you just can't piece together and then all of a sudden have it hit you? If you have, you've experienced the type of learning called insight learning. The term insight refers to solving a problem through understanding the relationships various parts of a problem.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Wolfgang Kohler, a Gestalt psychologist who was born in 1887 and died in 1967, used chimpanzees in the study of insight learning. Kohler who was born in Revel, Estonia and moved to the United States in 1935, did pioneering studies in the behavior of apes that showed the importance of perceptual organization and insight in learning. His groundbreaking experiment involved one of his chimpanzees, Sultan. Sultan had learned to use a stick to rake in bananas outside of his cage. This time Kohler placed the banana outside of the reach of just one stick and gave Sultan two sticks that could be fitted together to make a single pole that was long enough to reach the banana. After fiddling with the sticks for an hour or so, Sultan happened to align the sticks and in a flash of sudden inspiration, fitted the two sticks together and pulled in the banana. Kohler was impressed by Sultan's rapid â€Å"perception of relationships† and used the term insight to describe it. He noted that such insights are not learned gradually through reinforced trials. They seemed to occur in a flash when the elements a...

Frog and the Nightingale Essay

The book is widely regarded as a classic in India since its first publication in 1946, and provides a broad view of Indian history, philosophy and culture, as viewed from the eyes of a liberal Indian fighting for the independence of his country. In The Discovery of India, Nehru argued that India was a historic nation with a right to sovereignty. (Calhoun, Craig, Nations Matter: Culture, History and the Cosmopolitan Dream, Routledge. In this book, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru tries to study the history of India starting from the Indus Valley Civilization, and then covers the country’s history from the arrival of the Aryans to government under the British Empire. He says that India in the past was country which lived in harmony and peace, but the entry of society evils had a very bad effect on people. The effect of these various people on Indian culture and their incorporation into Indian society is examined. This book also analyses in depth the philosophy of Indian life. This book was dedicated to the Prisoners of Ahmednagar jail. The book became the basis of the 53-episode Indian television series Bharat Ki Khoj, first broadcast in 1988. PREFACE OF THE BOOK BY JAWAHARLAL NEHRU:- This book was written by Jawaharlal Nehru in Ahmadnagar Fort prison during the five months, April to September 1944. Some of his colleagues in prison were good enough to read the manuscript and make a number of valuable suggestions. On revising the book in prison he took advantage of these suggestions and made some additions. No one, he need hardly add, is responsible for what he has written or necessarily agrees with it. But he expresses my deep gratitude to his fellow-prisoners in Ahmadnagar Fort for the innumerable talks and discussions they had, which helped him greatly to clear his own mind about various aspects of Indian history and culture. Prison is not a pleasant place to live in even for a short period, much less for long years. But it was a privilege for me to live in close contact with men of outstanding ability and culture and a wide human outlook which even the passions of the moment did not obscure. His eleven companions in Ahmadnagar Fort were an interesting cross-section of India and represented in their several ways not only politics but Indian scholarship, old and new, and various aspects of present-day India. Nearly all the principal living Indian languages, as well as the classical languages which have powerfully influenced India in the past and present, were represented and the standard was often that of high scholarship. Among the classical languages were Sanskrit and Pali, Arabic and Persian; the modern languages were Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu, Sindhi and Oriya. Jawaharlal Nehru had all this wealth to draw upon and the only limitation was his own capacity to profit by it. Though he was grateful to all his companions, he specially mentioned a few names;Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, whose vast erudition invariably delighted me but sometimes also rather overwhelmed me, Govind Ballabh Pant, Narendra Deva and M. Asaf Ali. The book remains as written in prison with no additions or changes, except for the postscript at the end. He does’nt know how other authors feel about their writings, but always he had a strange sensation when he read something that he had written some time previously. That sensation is heightened when the writing had been done in the close and abnormal atmosphere of prison and the subsequent reading has taken place outside. He could recognize it of course, but not wholly; it seems almost that he was reading some familiar piece written by another, who was near to him and yet who was different. Perhaps that is the measure of the change that had taken place in Jawaharlal Nehru So he has felt about this book also. It is his and not wholly his, as he is constituted today; it represents rather some past self of his which has already joined that long succession of other selves that existed for a while and faded away, leaving only a memory behind . Life in the Jail During his stay in the jail as a prisoner, he talked about the ruins that were there but were covered up by soil or have collapsed. He talks about a courageous, beautiful lady, named Chandbibi, who fought against akbar to protect the fort(where he was staying as prisoner). But at the end she was killed by her own army man. He asks himself that what is his ancestral gift? he discovers that, India is his ancestral gift. It is in his blood. he is the ancesteor of victories and defeats of the past kings, brave works of human from the earliest past to now. He is the heir of all these. A few of his chapters which tell about Jawaharlal Nehru’s life in prison and the various changes in India†¦ Time in Prison : The Urge to Action Time seems to change its nature in prison. The present hardly exists, for there is an absence of feeling and sensation which might separate it from the dead past. Even news of the active, living and dying world outside has a certain dream-like un-reality, an immobility and an unchangeableness as of the past. The outer objective time ceases to be, the inner and subjective sense remains, but at a lower level, except when thought pulls it out of the present and experiences a kind of reality in the past or in the future. We live, as Auguste Comte said, dead men’s lives, encased in our pasts, but this is especially so in prison where we try to find some sustenance for our starved and locked-up emotions in memory of the past or fancies of the future. There is a stillness and everlastingness about the past; it changes not and has a touch of eternity, like a painted picture or a statue in bronze or marble. Unaffected by the storms and upheavals of the present, it maintains its dignity and repose and tempts the troubled spirit and the tortured mind to seek shelter in its vaulted catacombs. There is peace there and security, and one may even sense a spiritual quality. But it is not life, unless we can find the vital links between it and the present with all its conflicts and problems. It is a kind of art for art’s sake, without the passion and the urge to action which are the very stuff of life. Without that passion and urge, there is a gradual oozing out of hope and vitality, a settling down on lower levels of existence, a slow merging into non-existence. We become prisoners of the past and some part of its immobility sticks to us. This passage of the mind is all the easier in prison where action is denied and we become slaves to the routine of jail-life. Yet the past is ever with us and all that we are and that we have comes from the past. We are its products and we live im-mersed in it. Not to understand it and feel it as something living within us is not to understand the present. To combine it with the present and extend it to the future, to break from it where it cannot be so united, to make of all this the pulsating and vibrat-ing material for thought and action—that is life. Any vital action springs from the depths of the being. All the long past of the individual and even of the race has prepared the background for that psychological moment of action. All the racial memories, influences of heredity and environment and training, subconscious urges, thoughts and dreams and actions from infancy and childhood onwards, in their curious and tremendous mix-up, inevitably drive to that new action, which again becomes yet another factor influencing the future. Influencing the future, partly determining it, possibly even largely determining it, and yet, surely, it is not all determinism. Whether there is any such thing as human freedom in the philosophic sense or whether there is only an automatic deter-minism, I do not know. A very great deal appears certainly to be determined by the past complex of events which bear down and often overwhelm the individual. Possibly even the inner urge that he experiences, that apparent exercise of free will, is itself conditioned. As Schopenhauer says, ‘a man can do what he will, but not will as he will. ‘ A belief in an absolute deter-minism seems to me to lead inevitably to complete inaction, to death in life. All my sense of life rebels against it, though of course that very rebellion may itself have been conditioned by previous events Life’s Philosophy:- The ideals and objectives of yesterday were still the ideals of to-day, but they had lost some of their lustre and, even as one seemed to go towards them, they lost the shining beauty which had warmed the heart and vitalized the body. Evil triumphed often enough, but what was far worse was the coarsening and distortion of what had seemed so right. Was human nature so essentially bad that it would take ages of training, through suffering and misfortune, before it could behave reasonably and raise man above that creature of lust and violence and deceit that he now was? And, meanwhile, was every effort to change it radically in the present or the near future doomed to failure? Ends and means: were they tied up inseparably, acting and reacting on each other, the wrong means distorting and some-times even destroying the end in view? But the right means might well be beyond the capacity of infirm and selfish human nature. What then was one to do? Not to act was a complete con-fession of failure and a submission to evil; to act meant often enough a compromise with some form of that evil, with all the untoward consequences that such compromises result in. Science does not tell us much, or for the matter of that any-thing about the purpose of life. It is now widening its boun-daries and it may invade the so-called invisible world before long and help us to understand this purpose of life in its widest sense, or at least give us some glimpses which illumine the pro-blem of human existence. The old controversy between science and religion takes a new form—the application of the scientific method to emotional and religious experiences. Some vague or more precise philosophy of life we all have, though most of us accept unthinkingly the general attitude which is characteristic of our generation and environment. Most of us accept also certain metaphysical conceptions as part of the faith in which we have grown up. How amazing is this spirit of man! In spite of innumerable failings, man, throughout the ages, has sacrificed his life and all he held dear for an ideal, for truth, for faith, for country and honour. That ideal may change, but that capacity for self-sacrifice continues, and, because of that, much may be forgiven to man, and it is impossible to lose hope for him. In the midst of disaster, he has not lost his dignity or his faith in the values he cherished. Plaything of nature’s mighty forces, less than a speck of dust in this vast universe, he has hurled defiance at the elemental powers, and with his mind, cradle of revolution, sought to master them. Whatever gods there be, there is something godlike in man, as there is also something of the devil in him. The future is dark, uncertain. But we can see part of the way leading to it and can tread it with firm steps, remembering that nothing that can happen is likely to overcome the spirit of man which has survived so many perils; remembering also that life, for all its ills, has joy and beauty, and that we can always wander; if we know how to, in the enchanted woods of nature. India’s Strength and Weaknesses:- The search for the sources of India’s strength and for her deterioration and decay is long and intricate. Yet the recent causes of that decay are obvious enough. She fell behind in the march of technique, and Europe, which had long been backward in many matters, took the lead in technical progress. Behind this technical progress was the spirit of science and a bubling life and spirit which displayed itself in many activities and in ad-venturous voyages of discovery. New techniques gave military strength to the countries of western Europe, and it was easy for them to spread out and dominate the East. That is the story not only of India, but of almost the whole of Asia. Why this should have happened so is more difficult to unravel, for India was not lacking in mental alertness and technical skill in earlier times. One senses a progressive deterioration during centuries. The urge to life and endeavour becomes less, the crea-tive spirit fades away and gives place to the imitative. Where triumphant and rebellious thought had tried to pierce the my-steries of nature and the universe, the wordy commentator comes with his glosses and long explanations. Magnificent art and sculpture give way to meticulous carving of intricate detail without nobility of conception or design. The vigour and rich-ness of language, powerful yet simple, are followed by highly ornate and complex literary forms. The urge to adventure and the overflowing life which led to vast schemes of distant coloni-zation and the transplantation of Indian culture in far lands: all these fade away and a narrow orthodoxy taboos even the crossing of the high seas. A rational spirit of inquiry, so evident in earlier times, which might well have led to the further growth of science, is replaced by irrationalism and a blind idolatory of the past. Indian life becomes a sluggish stream, living in the past, moving slowly through the accumulations of dead centuries. The heavy burden of the past crushes it and a kind of coma seizes it. It is not surprising that in this condition of mental stupor and physical weariness India should have deteriorated and remained rigid and immobile, while other parts of the world marched ahead. Every people and every nation has some such belief or myth of national destiny and perhaps it is partly true in each case. Being an Indian I am myself influenced by this reality or myth about India, and I feel that anything that had the power to mould hundreds of generations, without a break, must have drawn its enduring vitality from some deep well of strength, and have had the capacity to renew that vitality from age to age. No people, no races remain unchanged. Continually they are mixing with others and slowly changing; they may appear to die almost and then rise again as a new people or just a variation of the old. There may be a definite break between the old people and the new, or vital links of thought and ideals may join them. History has numerous instances of old and well-established civilizations fading away or being ended suddenly, and vigor-ous new cultures taking their place. Is it some vital energy, sonic inner source of strength that gives life to a civilization or a people, without which all effort is ineffective, like the vain attempt of an aged person to plav the part of a youth? Behind the past quarter of a century’s struggle for India’s independence and all our conflicts with British authority, lay in my mind, and that of many others, the desire to revitalize India. We felt that through action and self-imposed suffering and sacri-fice, through voluntarily facing risk and danger, through refusal to submit to what we considered evil and wrong, would we re-charge the battery of India’s spirit and waken her from her long slumber. Though we came into conflict continually with the British Government in India, our eyes were always turned towards our own people. Political advantage had value only in so far as it helped in that fundamental purpose of ours. Because of this govern-ing motive, frequently we acted as no politician, moving in the narrow sphere of politics only, would have done, and foreign and Indian critics expressed surprise at the folly and intransigence of our ways. Whether we were foolish or not, the historians of the future will judge. We aimed high and looked far. Probably we were often foolish, from the point of view of opportunist politics, but at no time did we forget that our main purpose was to raise the whole level of the Indian people, psychologically and spiritually and also, of course, politically and economically. It was the building up of that real inner strength of the people that we were after, knowing that the rest would inevitably follow. We had to wipe out some generations of shameful subservience and timid submission to an arrogant alien authority. Epilogue of the book:- Jawaharlal Nehru has covered a thousand hand-written pages with a jumble of ideas in his mind. He travelled in the past and peeped into the future and sometimes tried to balance himself on that ‘point of intersection of the timeless with time. His life has been full of happenings in the world and the war has advanced rapidly towards a triumphant conclusion,so far as military victories go. In his own country also much has happened of which he could be only a distant spectator, and waves of unhappiness have sometimes temporarily swept over me and passed on. Because of this business of thinking and trying to give some expression to his thoughts, he has drawn myself away from the piercing edge of the present and moved along the wider expanses of the past and the future. The discovery of India—what had he discovered? It was presumptuous of him to imagine that he could unveil India and find out what India is to-day and what it was in the long past. To-day India is four hundred million separate individual men and women, each differing from the other, each living in a private universe of though and feeling. If this is so in the present, how much more difficult is it to grasp that multitudinous past of innumerable successions of human beings. Yet something has bound them together and binds them still. India is a geographical and economic entity, a cultural unity amidst diversity, a bundle of contradictions held together by strong but invisible threads.

Promotion Case Study Essay

Mary Roberts had been with the company three years when she was promoted to manager of the tax department which was part of the controller’s division.Within four months she became a supervisor of ten staff accountants to fill a vacancy.Her superior believed her to be most qualified individual to fill the position. Many senior employees resent her that she so young to fill the position and what made them more upsets was the fact tax managers did not discuss the promotion. QUESTION: 1.What can Mary Roberts do about the resentful senior employees? Mary should tackle this head on she should be direct and assertive about her expectation and when people are crossing the line that means she need to be clear with people when their behavior doesn’t meet her standards and she need to be willing To set and enforce consequence if it doesn’t change 2. Can higher management do anything to help Roberts make the transitions to greater responsibility? Yes, because they are the one who put her in that position of course they will help Mary interms of guiding it `. 3. Will her lack of technical knowledge hinder Mary’s managerial effectiveness? No , because lacking on some aspects on technical knowledge cant bankrupt or destroy a company as long she have a guts to face and accepts failures 4. Should Mary’s superior have discussed the promotion with the senior employees before announcing it? No ,because its not their obligation to discuss it with the employee interms on promoting someone because higher management chooses who deserve and employees should accept it. 5. Could some of the resentment be based on the fact that Mary Roberts was a young woman? No ,because as long she love the job there is no resentment. 6. Should she have turned down the promotion to gain more technical experience? No ,because she is qualifiedfor the position ,not because many higher managers believed in her its because she had s leadership ability and commitment to her work 7. Can a person turn down such promotion without hindering her career in the company? Yes ,as long she is sincere to her decision not,because of the resentment of the senior personnel CASE STUDY NO.2 Leo Harris one of your fire insurance company he is meticulous and anything  coming out of his group is perfect.He always overworking,does not delegate authority and responsibility but rechecks in detail all the work turned out by his group. He keeps turning back to them careless and inaccurate work until it is perfect. QUESTION 1. What are some of the reasons why people do not delegate authority and responsibility? They are afraid that the work that they are working is a failure that they have to recheck and redo it again 2. What are Harris’ responsibilities as a supervisor? As a suoervisor Harri’s have the day to day responsibilities. He should watch or observe the employee performance to ensure that all activity are completed in accordance with spefication and deadline 3. Which can he delegate? Maintain supervisory control. Delegation is not the abandonment of tasks. As a leader, you are still ultimately responsible therefore time should be set aside to observe and meet with the subordinate for follow-through and review of the delegated areas. This follow-through will give you the opportunity to coach the subordinate in his new assigned tasks. Time spent with your subordinate will also provide you with the information to decide whether to intervene or to allow him to fail and learn from his mistakes. Be careful not to take a problem out of a subordinate’s hands and make a decision when he merely wants to discuss it with you. Let him take the wheeldo not make decisions that your subordinate could otherwise make for himself. 4. How should he go about delegating them? Select the task to be delegated and match it to the proper personDelegation is not the assignment of routine tasks to anyone who happens to be available. There is a need to assess strengths, weaknesses and previous experience of all available personnel and then match them with tasks that will utilize their strengths and experience. 5. What are some of the leadership characteristics that Harris lacks? When there’s a failure to communicate: When leaders are constantly flummoxed by those who don’t seem to get it, there exists both a leadership and communications problem. Show  me a leader with poor communication skills and I’ll show you someone who will be short-lived in their position. Great leaders can communicate effectively across mediums, constituencies, and environments. They are active listeners, fluid thinkers, and know when to dial it up, down, or off. It’s all about them: If a leader doesn’t understand the concept of â€Å"service above self† they will not engender the trust, confidence, and loyalty of those they lead. Any leader is only as good as his or her team’s desire to be led by them. An over abundance of ego, pride, and arrogance are not positive leadership traits. Real leaders take the blame and give the credit – not the other way around. Long story short; if a leader receives a vote of non-confidence from their subordinates 6. How can you go about developing them in him? Is to go out with your comfort zone try to communicate. CASE STUDY NO.3 The general manager has hired the services of a personnel administrator but has purposely not defined the newcomer’s role in the organization .As a line supervisor, have become involved in several arguments with this personnel administrator. You have mentioned this usurping of authority to your boss, the general manager, and have asked him to define the personnel job. The boss has answered that he is allowing QUESTION 1. Discuss the above situation from a line point of view  Specific job description should e disclosed to the line supervisor, Important since an administrator is hired there should already be a work that needs to be filled by the one hired. Even if the person is asked to find its own niche we still need to determine the role he applied and just modify it ,If additional work needs to be move. 2. Discuss the situation from a personnel administrator’s point of view. Still trying to identify what were the jobs that needs to be fulfilled by the administrator and his discovering what his boundaries are. 3. Develop a practical working relationship based on the principles of good organization. Know your position and modify what is still needs to be done based on the description trying to step out of the usual job description may have an impact on the role that needs to be performed by the rest of the team which is disorganization 4. It is desirable to allow  the personnel administrator to find his own niche in the organization? Yes , as long as he knows what his original role and just modify if the business needs

Phineas Gage and Emotional Intelligence

On aghast fateful day In September 1848, a Job he was a master at – safe explosions of rocks), a slight distraction caused him to sis a step In the process of blowing up rocks, a 13. 25 lb. Iron tampering rod, measuring 37 Inches entered sage's left cheek, peeling his skull and his brain before excellent at high speed through the top of his head. Miraculously, Epiphanies survived and lived through his accident with little or no Impact to his valuables. He responded to treatment, and In less than 2 months he was pronounced cured and well, he could talk. Elk and there was vision In his left eye behind which the rod pierced through. All was well after Epiphanies' recovery until he started showing signs of aggression, he sots his respect for social conventions, he basically lost his personality, and the once loved and respected foreman by family and friends was now a stranger. His new found temper and profanity cost him his job that he was once revered for and for the remaining 1 1 years of his life that he lived after the accident he was forced to become highway some will call a circus attraction to earn a living.The link between Epiphanies gage and emotional intelligence According GTAG Salesman's book 1995, emotional intelligence emotional intelligence is he capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in us and in our relationships. Sage's story also helps us to understand the complexity of the human brain that there is a portion dedicated to reasoning emotionally, managing a sense of responsibility towards self and others.Sage's accident took out his entire frontal lobe; a doctor named Harrow tried to explain the link between the accident and the changes in sage's behavior, The effect of the injury appears to have been the destruction of he equilibrium between his intellectual faculties and the animal propensities. He was now capricious, fitful, irreverent, impatient of restraint, vacillating†¦ Halls physical recovery was complete, but those who knew him as a shrewd, smart, energetic, persistent business man, recognized the change In mental character.

Using social media in classroom Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Using social media in classroom - Essay Example Social media allows all kinds of students to interact and participate. This brings forward those students who are relatively shy and less interactive otherwise. Since the students find a platform and medium through which they can co relate, participate and express their views, it is therefore that the social media makes it possible interacting more actively and overcoming the shyness and other obstacles that are otherwise felt by the students in the normal routine activities. The second advantage of social media is its helping hand towards increasing communication and means of interacting in the class. Since the communication over social media is more organized and formal, it allows more opportunity towards expressing the views and presenting the points that are otherwise difficult to express. Social media provides various platforms which in turn makes the communication means and concept more mechanized. This in turn leads to more improved opportunities and platform of extracting knowledge. The third aspect and benefit of social media is its usage in class has made the overall process of learning and teaching a more interactive one. It has led to the more colorful interaction and representation of facts, information and figures. The second most important element is the fact that since social media is directly associated with the internet and other online sources, it leads to more updated and more detailed view of the facts or a particular case which may not find as relevant and as updated versions in the textual forms or the standard text books which are published and updated at the end of the year or session. Each of these has various platforms in the form of groups, pages, walls and other communities which makes sharing of the information common, collective and easy to reach. The colorful presence of technology along with the platform availability makes it an eye catching source towards learning and interactive process. The

The Saga of Mr. Jose Padilla Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Saga of Mr. Jose Padilla - Essay Example The case took a surprising turn in November 2005, when â€Å"Bush administration† filed criminal charges against Padilla in a Miami court. Surprisingly, the new indictment did not contain the original charges against Padilla and consisted of entirely different criminal charges. The new indictment claimed that Padilla, a former member of a Chicago gang, was a member of a group supporting violent jihad campaigns in Afghanistan. The group by the name of â€Å"North American Support cell† was known to support Jihad from overseas between the tenure of 1993 to 2001. During the time the new indictment was announced, Padilla, due to extreme isolation and abuse for more than three years, was suffering from severe psychological damage and on these grounds his lawyers were determined to have the new indictment dismissed because Padilla was now simply incapable of enduring the trial. The judge did not rule on the merits of the defense accusations of psychological damages and denied the motion of dismissing the charges. (Anonymous, 2011). The saga of Jose Padilla captured tremendous media coverage because it raised numerous questions, the most important of the raised issues was whether the US government had the right to subject arrested US citizens to indefinite military detention with mental as well as physical abuse. However, these fundamental questions did not receive any resolution during the trial of Padilla and his two co-defendants because Federal district judge Marcia Cooke, who was presiding over the case, clearly stated Padilla’s military detention was completely justified and questions about its legitimacy were totally irrelevant. The legality of Padilla’s three and a half years military detention as an enemy combatant was heavily questioned by media across the United States of America. In December 2002, the Southern District of New York stated during the first litigation that the military detention was authorized. However, this author ization by the Southern District was reconsidered and reversed a year later by the Second Circuit. On jurisdictional grounds, the Second Circuit’s decision was vacated by the Supreme Court. Moreover, the Supreme Court demanded re-filing of habeas petition in South Carolina District. The South Carolina District Court supported the Second Circuit by stating that the detention was illegal and Padilla should not have been subjected to such harsh military viciousness however, in September 2005, it was reversed by the Fourth Circuit. (Vladeck, 2007). Padilla trial, in total took almost five and a half years, during which Padilla, despite being a US citizen, was brutally tortured, and was held in incommunicado thus, in simple words it can be safely stated that Padilla was denied basic democratic rights. During the trial, he was subjected to what I must say were trumped up charges. During the trial, Padilla was claimed to have received training from Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan in 1998. H is visit and training in Afghanistan was said to have been supported by Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyosi. Unfortunately, Padilla’s lawyers assumed that the Bush administration’s case against him was too thin and therefore, on Padilla’s behalf, they did not present any witness and evidence in court. Inevitably, it proved to be a major mistake and the damage it did was evident by the course of events which followed as the

Software Quality Assurance - The effectiveness of systems integrity Essay

Software Quality Assurance - The effectiveness of systems integrity assurance actions - Essay Example Mr. Spencer-Jones, the CEO admits that the firm has been under financial pressure due to reduced sales of their Maxil CC5 aircraft. This had been worsened by stiff competition from Vader Aircraft’s Vader XX8 and their yet to be launched Vader XX9 aircrafts. Nonetheless, Maxil has been a model aviation firm, until the recent tragic incident that involved one of their aircrafts, the recently launched Maxil FBW1. This report presents an analysis of the events leading to the accident; it not only indicates how the events contributed to the incident, but also makes recommendations on how improvements can be made in the development of safety critical systems at Maxil. Investigations reveal a lot of loopholes and inconsistencies that could have, in one way or another, caused the accident. Some of these include shortage of experts in engineering, design and programming, poor cooperation among project stakeholders, as well as threats and intimidation of staff. However, it is evident th at the most probable cause of the disaster was the software; data from the flight recorder indicated that the computer controlling the aircraft caused a severe height adjustment moments before the crash. Interviews with the various people involved in the design and development of the software used in the aircrafts indicate that there was a lack of professionalism, right from the programming to the testing phase. However, the most likely cause of the calamity was poor testing. Development and Testing of the Software Software testing starts during the coding of the application. The programmers identify and correct errors in the code as they continue with their work. In this case, despite the fact that Maxil has a team of capable programmers, their knowledge of the ADA and Assembler programming languages, which are utilized in the development of software in the aviation industry, was insufficient. They had to rely on Wayne Goldsmith, himself a design Engineer, to translate the code wri tten by the programmers into either ADA or Assembler. This provided an opportunity for many errors in the code to go unnoticed since only Wayne was sufficiently familiar with both ADA and Assembler. The other problem with testing came about right from management. The Metrics and Quality Manager, Sid Bentley is an expert in Mechanical Engineering, not Software Engineering. His knowledge in product and metrics testing was, therefore, not sufficient in software testing; he had just started learning about code analysis, GQM, CMM, and PROFES. He relied on the integrity and professionalism of the software engineers and a strict testing regime, hoping they would deliver quality software. However, this was not realized because of the unprofessional conduct of the programmers, coupled with the absence of a well structured testing rubric for the applications. These are evidenced by the fact that the team of programmers was not available to test the software when they were needed. In addition, much as they claimed to have the knowledge to test the software, it is not entirely professional for programmers to test their own software. The integrity of the software came into question after the testing session that was carried out by John Garside. The fact that Ralph Plunket delivered the code late, together with the threats