Research Project Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Project - Research Paper Example Ukrainian language is related to Russian (Kubicek 2008). However, grammatically, it more closely resembles Polish and Czech. Due to the fact that Ukraine has not been integrated with Europe for over 70 years (as a result of the Soviet Union), there are few English speakers available to an â€Å"English only† tourist (Risch 2011). As such, it would be a strong recommendation to obtain a tour guide and/or hire a native speaker who could act to guide the tourist as well as negotiate prices. The culture displays many nuances that a Westerner would not fully understand unless it was explained to him/her. For instance, like many Asian cultures, Ukrainians are very prone to remove their shoes prior to entering into a house or place of employment. Slippers are often provided for guests so that they can conveniently remove their shoes while still having something to cover their feet while moving around inside. Furthermore, whereas one might be tempted to put one’s feet up on the couch or rest them on a chair, such a practice is frowned upon in Ukraine and other Eastern European countries. Similar to many Mediterranean cultures, Ukrainians often express themselves using high levels of body language. Whereas those from a more Anglo-European background would find this waving of hands and other gestures to be out of the ordinary, even rude, they are used to great effect to convey meaning, levels of irritation, expressions of finality, and frustration with a given topic or person. Due to the effects of communism, many people are non-religious and/or atheist. However, the historical strength of the Orthodox Church is gaining in influence and it is difficult to go very far without seeing the onion domes of the Orthodox churches that dot the countryside. Although the exterior of these churches do not closely mirror those that a Western European or American might be familiar with, the theology of belief is very much similar to that of the Catholic Church from which the Orthodox Church originally derived. The Orthodox Church, or more specifically the Eastern Orthodox Church (to distinguish it from its Greek counterpart) was born from the schism that resulted from the sacking of Constantinople by the Romans during the 1st Crusade (Korostelina 2011). Resultantly, the church leaders in Constantinople (currently Istanbul) decided that they no longer wanted to be considered under the same religious umbrella that Rome placed over them. Consequently, the Orthodox Church was born into existence. It is hard to over-emphasize the importance of the Orthodox Church as it relates to Eastern Europe and specifically Ukraine. This can be understood for a number of reasons but mostly due to the fact that during the days of the Russian Empire (of which Ukraine was a part), the Orthodox Church was considered on equal place with the Tsar (Velychenko 2007). One may remember seeing the double headed eagle that represented Imperial Russia. The eagles’ heads r epresent the head of the state and the head of the church (metropolitan). These metropolitans were and are similar in nature to the position that is occupied by the Pope in Rome. As such, these religious leaders held a great deal of power over the nation and the laws that affected it up until the Bolshevik Revolution. An example of

Kaizen Costing Method And Its Role In The Management Of An Entity Accounting Essay

Kaizen Costing Method And Its Role In The Management Of An Entity Accounting Essay 1. Introduction The purpose of my article is to let the managers know about a costing method, which applied even in the current crisis, will not only lead to an avoidance of bankruptcy, but may lead to even make a profit by improving competitiveness and financial efficiency. Quality means to continuously meet the customers demands, total quality means to continuously meet the customers demands in terms of minimum cost, and total quality management ensures to continuously meet the customers demands in terms of minimum cost, involving all employees. 2. Objectives The main objective of this research is to identify a solution to permanent increase of production quality while reducing cost and time of selling. To achieve this goal, we conducted a theoretical fundamental research, through which I tried to transpose several features of Japanese management plan for a new costing method. 3. Methodology With no intention to exhaust the limits of thissubject matter, I made appeal in my scientific approach to a rigorous study of the literature and analyzed various points of view raised by specialists in this field. I made appeal to research methods such as documentation, analysis, synthesis. Assumptions, methodology approach and the results are my own contributions. 4. Analyses Maintenance and improvement are two inseparable concepts in Japanese management. Improvement is assessed by two terms: kaizen and innovation. Kaizen is a Japanese management concept launched by Masaaki Imai, which proved to be the key to Japanese competitive success. The significance of this concept is: KAI = Change and ZEN = for better, and the translation is continuous improvement, that means small improvements to the ongoing efforts. Unlike the Western conception, implying total change, at large intervals of time, using large amounts of resources and a high cost level, Kaizen Costing seeks daily, gradual, slow, but continuous improvements, which take place at minimal cost. Kaizen Costing message strategy is that a single day should not pass without an improvement to intervene in the activity of each employee or each entity. The Japanese have shown that by applying this strategy, improvement is achieved with minimal expenditure. Specific characteristics that ensure successful approach of Kaizen activities are the following: disregards all ideas implemented so far in the organization of production; rejects the whole existent situation; it does not look for perfection, seeking a 40-50% improvement of the existent situation, but at an acceptable cost; allows any manager to use their knowledge and personal skills; the ideas produced by many people are better than the ideas of a single person; the improvements have no limits. Cost is one of the basic synthetic indicators that characterize the effectiveness of an entitys activity. The importance of production cost is related to the functions it fulfills in the context of economic-financial mechanism, schematically presenting itself as follows: ensures the resumption of production, measures the means of production and labour, allows the calculation of some efficiency indicators and the real knowledge of activity quality, sizes the profitability of economic entities, etc.  [1]   Kaizen Costing Management is focused on improving each process of a technological product sheet, the main goal being eliminating losses and minimizing costs. Process improvement ensures production efficiency, kaizen type activities ensuring maximization of product value corresponding to the requirements of the beneficiary, a qualitative differentiation of this. There are eliminated all those functions of the product which the customer has no interest in and which bring a cost increase without a correspondent in value. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¾The KAIZEN principles presumes a practical approach and low costs of improvement. The Kaizen management system is based on the continuous loss reduction by means of methods that do not rely on investments, but on the improvement of the processes and the employeesperformance. According to the Kaizen principles, we must be sure that, when we take an action, our action will go on in the best possible way and is not merely an intermediate action to generate a temporary result  [2]   Innovation is achieved by sudden changes and generates radical improvements, compared to the initial situation, which is due to significant investments in technology, performance and equipment. Figure no. 1 shows the distinction between innovation, kaizen and maintenance: Source: Imai 1997 Figure no. 1 Therefore, Imai (1997) describes that the improvement can be divided into Kaizen and innovation. Kaizen signifies small improvements as a result of ongoing efforts. Innovation involves a drastic improvement as a result of large investment of resources in new technology or equipment. The author also explains that in the context of Kaisen, management has two major functions: maintenance and improuvement. Maintenance refers to activities directed towards maintaining current technologies, managerial and operating standards, and upholding such standards through training and discipline. Under its maintenance function, management performs its assigned tasks so that everybody can follow standard operating procedure.  [3]   Thomas M. Fischer and Jochen A. Schmitz K in Control Measures for Kaizen Costing-Formulation and Practical Use of the Half-Life Model considered that Kaizen costing focuses on continuous reductions of costs, which should be realized for existing products in a company. For planning and control purposes, comprehensive and efficient tools for measuring performance are required  [4]  . 4. Critical In implementing Kaizen Costing strategy, managers rely on other techniques, methods and tools such as: quality circles, suggestions system, kanban, total productive maintenance, action plans, etc. The success of this strategy is subject to a number of changes in the entitys culture and value system on which it is based. Suggesting small steps strategy, Kaizen Costing is a concept of umbrella which treats the basic methods and concepts applied in quality management in Japan and whose value is recognized worldwide (Figure no. 2).The superiority of the concept stems from the fact that, by applying small steps strategy, the necessary resources are insignificant, while the strategies based on innovations involve huge investments, although the results are relatively the same. In addition, Kaizen brings in the forefront the employees of the entity, who are motivated to participate consciously and responsibly to achieve the objectives of the entity. In this process the most important dimension is the organizational one, the ability to communicate. Successful implementation of this approach is given by the technical and managerial knowledge, put together, and by the across application of some management tools (ABC, benchmarking). Source: http://afr.kaizen.com; Imai (1986) Figure no. 2. The implementation of Kaizen Costing management system in economic organizations in our country would bring immediate gains by eliminating waste and losses, increasing labour productivity by 20-30%, reducing operating costs by 15-20%, reducing used areas, reducing the equipment needs and increasing the use of the remaining, increasing staff motivation. Kaisen Costing focuses the entity interest and attention on those places where you can reduce costs, this means on operating the production process and its development in the most efficient way. Unlike Target (used by design staff before the product is in production), Costing Kaizen Costing is used by production staff during product manufacture. Both follow the same target, but they differ in the method of settling the target: on perspective, Target Costing is based on customer considerations, while Kaizen Costing is based on profitability targets imposed by manager. As a method of cost calculation and resizing, Kaizen Costing represents the expression of returning to the source, through the causes of performance and the roots of productivity, what is possible in a cross-viewing, and performing a process analysis under the ABC Method. Cost reduction approach results by comparing the target-cost to the estimated one, and is fulfilled in terms of value, through an iterative process of continuous improvement.  [5]   Thus, Kaizen Costing is not interested in the product but in manufacturing process, which is more than just a cost method, but a global management tool. Obviously, there are factors that hinder implementation and obtaining good results in Romanian entities. Among them the most influential one is the mentality, or psychological profile of Romanians, which do not encourage the achievement requirements of such management, but there is great criticism concerning the stress staff has to deal with. 5. Conclusions In conclusion Kaisen Costing is the ideal management system to reduce costs. Through the application of this management style in managerial accounting, entities with limited resources could significantly mitigate the negative impact of current economic and financial crisis. As Masaaki Imai shows, Restructuring or reinventing your company can be destructive, expensive and often inoperable. Applying Kaizen in gemba (job, where the action occurs), significant improvement is achieved with low costs in core business processes production and services and can be obtained, as never before, major leaps in customer satisfaction, in quality, productivity and profitability. For those who want to learn and apply this management system, I mention the following advantages: implementation costs are reduced, as Kaizen makes better use of existing resources and does not require large investments in improving technology, staff training costs are lower than for other methods, in Romania there are consulting firms in the field, entities that have implemented Kaizen have achieved remarkable results in labor productivity, in cost reduction and competitiveness increase.

death penalty :: essays research papers

When turning on the television, radio, or simply opening the local newspaper, one is bombarded with news of arrests, murders, homicides, and other such tragedies. There are many things that I don't agree with in today's society but, out of all the wrongdoing that takes place, I believe murder including the death penalty is the worst of them. I am strongly against the death penalty because it violates God's rules, costs the tax payers too much money, the possible "wrongly accused," and it is cruel and unusual punishment. How often do these concepts creep into the public's mind when it hears of our `fair, trusty' government taking away someone's breathing rights? I do not support having the death penalty because it violates religious beliefs. Many religions, such as my own, Catholicism, follow the rules that God sent to use through the Ten Commandments. One of the most important of those ten states, "Thou shall not kill." If you are executing an individual, that clearly violates this commandment. Murdering any person, no matter what the individual has been convicted of, is a mortal sin. Therefore, God will punish anyone who aids in executing people. I believe that religious beliefs, such as the Ten Commandments, are the corner stone for our law system. Executing someone should not be made an exception to God's rule. My next reason against the death penalty is that taxpayers waste too much of their money with the death penalty. The average death penalty case is appealed three times. This means that the taxpayers must pay for the same trial to be heard three times. This is a very expensive practice. Also, the average convicted murder spends 12 years on death row. If supporters of the death penalty are positive enough to kill the person for committing the crime, shouldn't the supporters be confident enough to execute them in a timely manner? Why spend the taxpayer's money keeping these inmates in jail for so long? Taxpayer's money should go to better society, not to accommodate the prisoners that are going to end up dead. There's always the chance of the innocent being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Nicomachean Ethics on Moral Virtue Essay

Aristotle believes that virtue, or excellence, can be distinguished into two different types. One being intellectual virtue, and the other being moral virtue. Aristotle encompasses intellectual virtue as being philosophical wisdom, understanding and practical wisdom. He considers moral virtue to be of liberality and temperance. Aristotle distinguishes between the two types using his previous argument about the irrational element. Aristotle shows that the irrational element is comprised of a vegetative element as well as a desiring element, while the rational is separate from the vegetative. The point that Aristotle makes is that the irrational can be composed of subdivisions and each could have an impact on the other. The same idea is carried into his argument about virtue being distinguished into two types. Intellectual virtue comes from a sense, logical reasoning, or rational thought. The ability to understand and act in accordance with that which is held to be virtuous. Aristotle defines the split between intellectual and moral virtue in its perception of how it is obtained. Intellectual virtue is obtained through teaching requiring time and experience. This goes hand in hand with his definition for logical reasoning and rational thought. How can one distinguish between that which is considered virtuous? Since it is the person who must decide what is virtuous and that which is not, they must rely on life teachings to understand the difference. Aristotle claims moral virtue becomes a result of habit. Aristotle relates moral virtue with nature. Nature has a certain course of action, which must be followed. Anything contradicting the course of nature would be classified as non-uniform. Using the examples of throwing a ball. Its natural state is to come down and no matter how much you throw the ball up, it will never go against its nature to come down. Moral virtue arises in us from nature, it does not need to be taught externally, it is born with us, and it is through habit that we are able to perfect our moral virtue. Moral virtue becomes a trait that is acquired through activity. In practice it becomes perfect, and by nature we are all accessible to it. Aristotle uses the analogy of builders having to build to become good builders. The same concept applies to the development of moral virtue. Moral virtue can then be stated to apply through action. It is action, which will then define how well we display levels of moral virtue. Aristotle uses this point to lead way into his next argument about the development of states of character. As stated earlier, moral virtue is a way of nature. Nature implies that actions must be of a certain kind or characteristic. In application to the states of character, Aristotle claims that it is the differences, which define the states of character. Therefore measurement of a person’s state of character lies on the ability to see the differences between a person’s action and how far that action is from a natural course of action. The natural course of action becomes the next argument, for how does one measure the natural state of character or the norm? Aristotle begins by tackling this argument by defining what is considered not the normal. With this Aristotle gives rise to moral vices. Moral vices become defined as the extremes of moral action. In order to re-enforce this Aristotle uses examples of health and eating. If a person is hungry, they can choose how much to eat, but what is considered a healthy amount to eat? There are now two extremes present, to eat nothing, or to overeat. In the case of eating nothing this would constitute as bad for the health, for there are no nutrients to fuel the body. Conversely in the argument, if one were to eat too much, this may lead to obesity which then gives high rise to a greater number of cardiovascular issues leading to a downfall in health. The point of this argument is to define that there are extremes and that these extremes can have adverse affects toward the goal in question. Vices therefore have adverse affects towards goals. In order to build up moral virtue they must not follow vices. Aristotle points out that it becomes the mean, which becomes that which one should follow. Relating back to moral virtues being that of habit, it can be said that as actions are carried out, character is being built based on these actions. As character builds, they become more and more likely to do the same actions over and over, because it is defined in that characteristic state. For example if I were to run 2 miles every single day, for the first few days I would feel sore and unacquainted with running, but as time goes on, my muscles will naturally become adapt to the running environment, and will not cause me much pain. However if I were to stop running all in all after months of habitually running then I would begin to find myself feeling out of shape and un-fit and my muscles would once again to begin to adapt to my laziness. In order to build character, one must stay away from vices, and stick to preservation of the mean, and during this process, they must stay with the mean, and not deviate, for its these deviations away from the mean, in which a character would begin to follow a building of unmoral virtue. Therefore it is the mean action that will define what constitutes as a moral virtuous action. Aristotle begins to further his argument over moral virtue by explaining virtue in terms of actions. Though there has to be some underlying constitution, which states that these actions are of valid in terms of building moral virtue. Aristotle claims that a person who lacks virtue may perform a virtuous action. Their actions will hold no sustenance if they do not comply with the three things which Aristotle points out must be held true in order to perform a virtuous action. A virtuous action consists of three things: they must have knowledge, choice of the action, and must do so from an unchangeable character. Actions, which will arise from a person who follows these, are indicative of a person who is in character and have developed a state of character. In order to differentiate between a person who is virtuous and a person is non-virtuous, they must meet the criteria above. For an action is simply an action, and it may be a good action, however if the person does not know what they are doing, and it does not follow in a state of accordance with their character then that person is not doing the virtuous action for the sake of being virtuous. A person who does a virtuous action will perform actions that they view as being virtuous and having knowledge of the actions themselves as being virtuous and it is because that person is doing this action in character that they are virtuous. They have habitually grown into a virtuous character because their state of character had already been previously built from previous virtuous actions. Aristotle’s arguments over the debate of virtue is that it becomes a slight paradox. For a character to become virtuous they must first perform virtuous actions. The paradox comes in that if a character were to become virtuous, that means that they are starting from a state of un-virtue. If this is the case, then it would contradict Aristotle’s third point of performing a virtuous action. Virtuous action being built upon a character that is un-virtuous would therefore contradict the third requirement for an action to virtuous. The third requirement being that it must come from a firm and unchangeable character. If a character is unchangeable then the question remains, how does a person become virtuous? For now it can be agreed upon that it is over the course of time and nature that a person is virtuous, they must perfect it through habit, and doing what is virtuous. In other words, if a person so desires to be virtuous they must habitually work towards performing virtuous actions. Therefore a state of character can be changed as time progresses based on actions that are performed.

Apples Don’t Fall to Far from the Tree

Tree In every family there things that some family members have in common and there are some things that they don't. My family Is one of them, starting from my dad to my mom, my 14 year old sister next to my 6 year old sister; there has to be some things we have in common and some things we don't. Starting with my dad since he is the head of the household as my family says. Something we have In common is the fact that we both enjoy watching college football. Our favorite team is the wolverines from University of Michigan.We can stay up all night watching college football but the other family members hate watching football. They don't quite get It the way my dad and I do. Also my dad has to live with all girls so I think its best that he has someone to watch football with him. Another thing my dad and I have in common is the choice of our favorite animal which Is the African elephant. My dad collects paintings and knick-knacks. He gave me a stuffed animal that is an elephant from Kore a where he was stationed for the army when he was in college and I was a newborn and I still eve that stuffed animal till this day and I called it Allele.Some dislikes that we have Is our cooking skills. My dad is a personal chef and he owns his catering business and he works at a restaurant. I on the other hand can't cook to save my live so we definitely don't have that In common. People say that I am the spitting Image of my mother. And majority of them are correct, that is something I have in common with my mother. But we also have some dislikes as well. For example she once was a cheerleader In high school.I on the other hand will never be a cheerleader, the only thing is I tried cheerleaders in fourth grade and disliked it; I am more of a dancer rather than a cheerleader. But we both are volleyball players she played in high school and so am l. My two sisters are people that you either like or don't, there Is no in-between. My younger sister her name is Kenned but we call her Z oe which is her middle name. She is 14 years old and we are 2 years apart, she is my dad's clone which I am my mom's so that's something we don't have in common.Some things we have in common though are the way we think. By this I mean that we can sit in a room and it would be dead silent and we read each other's eyes and know what each other are thinking about. My other sister her name Is Trinity and she Is six years old and something we have in common are our eyes. The shape of our eyes most people say look like cat eyes. In conclusion my is the type of family that you either dislike or like you can't live without them so It's a matter of 50/50 one day Its good next day Is a mystery.Apples Don't Fall to Far from the Tree By polysyllables are some things that they don't. My family is one of them, starting from my dad to my we have in common and some things we don't. Starting with my dad since he is the head of the household as my family says. Something we have in common is the fact other family members hate watching football. They don't quite get it the way my dad of our favorite animal which is the African elephant. My dad collects paintings and have that stuffed animal till this day and I called it Elli.Some dislikes that we have is he works at a restaurant. I on the other hand can't cook to save my live so we definitely don't have that in common. People say that I am the spitting image of my cheerleader in high school. I on the other hand will never be a cheerleader, the only school and so am l. My two sisters are people that you either like or don't, there is no other are thinking about. My other sister her name is Trinity and she is six years old like you can't live without them so it's a matter of 50/50 one day its good next day is a

Leadership and the Madonna Beer Scare †Management Essay (100 Level Course)

Leadership and the Madonna Beer Scare – Management Essay (100 Level Course) Free Online Research Papers Leadership and the Madonna Beer Scare Management Essay (100 Level Course) This trimester for my leadership project Heather Jones, Cara Livornese, and I once again hosted â€Å"The Madonna Beer Scare†. By working with the SMART program the second time around with the Beer Scare, we were able to specifically work on individual parts of the bear scare to make the overall result great. Starting late into the year it was hard to apply time-wisely to our project, But we acted as best and quick as we could. When the bear scare was hours away it was as if realistic didn’t apply we did things I never could imagine yet in a sense it was realistic. At the end of the night even though we were exhausted the compliments and smiles were endless, at that moment we knew our success was truly measurable. I feel as an individual I gave a lot into making the bear scare happen. I spent many hours shopping, setting up, plotting, as well as calling local grocery stores for donations. I gave my best because I knew if I didn’t I would let Madonna down. After all I am Vice President I should be setting examples so hopefully, next year kids will take on the Bear Scare and really see how hard I worked. But I didn’t do this alone I had much appreciated help from Heather (my co-host for the Bear Scare) without her this wouldn’t be possible. At times where I found myself slacking off, Heather would be right there to pick me up and put me to work again. She worked just as hard as I did and really made a great effort. As for Cara Livornese I felt she didn’t contribute enough to the Bear Scare to be recognized for it. I felt as if she was only in with â€Å"helping† because were her friends and she didn’t care what she did. Leadership is about finding something your passionate about and incorporating it into a project. Not about getting credit for something you did unwillingly. I chose to do the Bear Scare again because I enjoy working with kids of all ages. I love to have kids walk around school and say â€Å"wow she is a great leader† because I am trying to set an example not only for the millions of cousins I have at Madonna but for everyone. As an elder at Madonna it is all of our 8th graders jobs to show the younger students how to be a role model. This years 2004 Leadership class has given me a lot, but some of the gifts I have been given stand out more then the others. I learned â€Å"With great power comes with great responsibility.† I never realized how many kids look up to me, at the night of the bear scare when I began cleaning up kids noticed and started doing the same. If they did as I did and I was a horrible leader I would lead them down the wrong path. It was amazing to see that I could have such a big impact on those little kids’ lives. Without this class I don’t think I would have ever realized that. Now that I know I feel I must keep up with my good work, and please Madonna as a whole. I thank you personally Mrs. Jones because without you, there would be no leadership class. Without it some kids could have ended up going down the wrong path. Leadership is not only about being a leader its taking charge, walking down your own path leading followers the right way your own way. I took a stand and can’t wait to see who’s bound to take one next. Thanks again. Research Papers on Leadership and the Madonna Beer Scare - Management Essay (100 Level Course)Hip-Hop is ArtBringing Democracy to AfricaEffects of Television Violence on ChildrenLifes What IfsAnalysis of Ebay Expanding into AsiaPersonal Experience with Teen PregnancyResearch Process Part OneThe Project Managment Office SystemThe Effects of Illegal ImmigrationStandardized Testing

A List of Programming Contests and Challenges

A List of Programming Contests and Challenges Link to C TutorialsLink to C TutorialsLink to C# Tutorials Not every programmer wishes to test his programming skills in a contest but occasionally I get a new challenge to stretch me. So here is a list of programming contests. Most are annual but some are continuous and you can enter at any time. The experience of stepping outside your programming comfort zone is entirely beneficial. Even if you dont win a prize, youll have thought in new ways and be inspired to have another go. Studying how others solved the problem can also be educational. There are many more contests than I have listed here but Ive winnowed these down to ten that anyone can enter. Most important of all you can use C, C or C# in these. Annual Contests International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP). This has been running for a decade and happens in June or July each year. Though its based in Germany, anyone can enter using any programming language, from any location. Its free to enter and your team isnt limited by size. In 2010 its from June 18-21The BME International is an intense free to enter contest that takes place in Europe once a year for teams of three, and you have to bring your own computers and software. This year, the 7th took place in Budapest. This has had some interesting challenges in the past- how about driving a car over a virtual terrain? Other past tasks included controlling an oil-company, driving an assembly line robot and programming for secret communication. All programs were written in one 24 hour intense period!International Collegiate Programming Contest. One of the longest-running  - this started in 1970 at Texas AM and has been run by the ACM since 1989 and has IBMs involvement since 1997. One of the bigger contests it has thousands of teams from universities and colleges competing locally, regionally and ultimately in a world final. The contest pits teams of three university students against eight or more complex, real-world problems, with a gruelling five-hour deadline. The Obfuscated C contest has been running for nearly 20 years. This is done on the internet, with email submissions. All you have to do is write the most obscure or obfuscated Ansi C program in under 4096 characters length according to the rules. The 19th contest took place back in January/February 2007.The Loebner Prize is not a general programming contest but an AI challenge to enter a computer program that can do the Turing test, ie talk to a human sufficiently well to make the judges believe they are talking to a human. The Judge program, written in Perl will ask questions like What time is it?, or What is a hammer? as well as comparisons and memory. The prize for the best entrant is $2,000 and a Gold Medal.Similar to the Loebner Prize is the Chatterbox Challenge. This is to write the best chatter bot- a web-based (or downloadable) application written in any language that can carry on text conversations. If it has an animated display that syncs with text then that is even better- you get more points! International Problem Solving Contest (IPSC). This is more for fun, with teams of three entering via the web. There are 6 programming problems over a 5 hour period. Any programming language is allowed.The Rad Race - Competitors in teams of two have to complete a working business program using any language over two days. This is another contest where you have to bring along equipment, including a router, computer(s), cables, a printer etc. The next one will be in Hasselt, Belgium in October 2007.The ImagineCup - Students at school or college compete by writing software applicable to the set theme which for 2008 is Imagine a world where technology enables a sustainable environment. Entries started August 25th, 2007.ORTS Competition. ORTS (open real-time strategy game) is a programming environment for studying real-time AI problems such as path-finding, dealing with imperfect information, scheduling, and planning in the domain of RTS games. These games are fast-paced and very popular. U sing the ORTS software once every year there is a series of battles to see whose AI is best. The International Obfuscated C Code Contest (abbreviated IOCCC) is a programming contest for the most creatively obfuscated C code. It started in 1984 and the 20th competition started in 2011. Entries are evaluated anonymously by a panel of judges. The judging process is documented in the competition guidelines and consists of elimination rounds. By tradition, no information is given about the total number of entries for each competition. Winning entries are awarded with a category, such as Worst Abuse of the C preprocessor or Most Erratic Behavior, and then announced on the official IOCCC website. Theres no prize except if your program is featured on the site then you won!Google Code Jam. Running since 2008, its open to anyone aged 13 or other, and you or a close relative dont work for Google or a subsidiary country and you dont live in a banned country: Quebec, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Syria, Burma (Myanmar). (The contest is prohibited by law). Theres a qualification round and three oth er rounds and the top 25 travel to a Google office for the Grand Final. Continuous or Ongoing Contests Hutter Prize. If you can improve on the compression of 100 MB of Wikipedia data by 3% or better then you can win cash prizes. Currently, the smallest compression is 15,949,688. For every 1% reduction (minimum 3%) you win â‚ ¬500.Project Euler. This is an ongoing series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems that will require more than just mathematical insights to solve. computationally the problems should be solvable in less than a minute. A typical problem is Find the first ten digits of the sum of one-hundred 50-digit numbers.Sphere Online Judge. Run at Gdansk University of Technology in Poland, they have regular programming contests - with over 125 completed. Solutions are submitted to an automatic online judge that can deal with C, C and C# 1.0 and many other languages.Intels Threading Programming Problems. Running from September 2007 until the end of September 2008 Intel have their own Programming Challenge with 12 programming tasks, one per month that can be solved by threading. You get awarded points for solving a problem, coding elegance, code execution timing, use of the Intel Threading Building Blocks and bonus points for posting in their problem set discussion forum. Any language but C is probably the preferred language. Codechef is Indias first, non-commercial, multi-platform online coding competition, with monthly contests in more than 35 different programming languages including C, C and C#. Winners of each contest get prizes, peer recognition and an invitation to compete at the CodeChef Cup, an annual live event. Annual Contests Hewlett Packard (HP) Codewars is for high school students and takes place every year on Hewlett-Packards Houston campus. its been run every year since 1999. Not only do students get the high-tech HP environment, a wide range of programming challenges, large amounts of good programmer food (pizza and caffeine), music, plus loads of giveaways. There are trophies for the top competitors in each of two classifications, plus loads of exciting door prizes like computers, scanners, printers, software, and accessories. This is the ultimate high school computer programming competition. Dont forget the About C, C and C# Programming challenges. No prizes but you get fame!