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Friday, December 9, 2011

Design & Layout


This project for the fulfillment of Design & Layout subject. Powered by Google Sketchup and Renderin!



                                Proposed idea for the new Kafe Kreatif




                                Interior design of Kafe Kreatif



                              
                               Concept: casual dining





                               Multiple queue (menus are for illustration only)

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Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Chapter 3 - Carbohydrates


3.1 Functions
·      Main energy provider, spare protein:
o   Sufficient CHO will not prevent protein from being build, maintain and repair tissue body
·      Help body to use fat efficiently:
o   Fat burned into energy without CHO present is an incomplete process
o   Insufficient amount of glucose will result in ketone bodies. Accumulation of ketone bodies resulting in acidic blood that may cause ketosis in which leads to dehydration and fatal coma.
o   When the blood too acidic, protein will neutralize the blood.

3.2 Classifications
      i.         Simple CHO
·      Single sugar (monosaccharide C6H12o6) – glucose, galactose, fructose
·      Double sugar (double sugar/ disaccharides) – maltose, sucrose, lactose
o   Glucose + glucose = maltose
o   Glucose + galactose = lactose
o   Glucose + fructose = sucrose
·      3-4 sugar (oligosaccharides) – starchyose, raffinose

     ii.         Complex CHO or polysaccharides
·      Long chain sugar – 40-100 glucose (starch and fiber)
o   Starches – glucose is stored in plants
ü  Amylose – long chain (unbranched)
ü  Amylopectin – combination of glucose, larger than amylose (branched)
o   Glycogen – stored in animal in liver and muscle

3.3 Health Implication of CHO
·      Dental carries/ cavities – accumulation of sugars, bacteria ferment CHO results in acid. Deposit of bacteria, protein and polysaccharides resuting in plague that leads to tooth decay.
·      Diabetes – overconsumption of CHO, insufficient/ ineffective insulin contribute to this. Failed glucose to body cell will remain in blood will move to kidney and spills into urine. 2 types of diabetes:
o   Type I – no insulin produces since born (insulin dependent)
o   Type II – insufficient insulin produced
·      Obesity – extra glucose will convert into fat and carries to fat cells (obesity). Extra glucose transfer to blood and then arterial wall (heart disease).
·      Hypoglycemia – rapid rise of glucose in blood, insulin rush to glucose resulting in overproduction of insulin.
·      Lactose intolerance – lactose being rejected due lack of lactase.
·      Hyperactivity (ADHD)

3.4 Fiber and Health
·      Fiber is non-nutrients. Digestive enzymes cannot digest fiber.
·      Promote normal functioning of digestive system. Two types of fiber:
o   Soluble fiber – maximum water being absorb as sponge. Inside the cells and around plant cells include gums, pectin, mucilage and hemicellulose.
o   Insoluble fiber – absorb water but limited. Form structural part of plants includes cellulose, lignin and hemicellulose.

·      Fiber implication in health:
o   Heart disease – help remove cholesterol while digestion
o   Diabetes – controlling the blood glucose swing
o   Constipation – the food remaining in large intestine will be bind by fiber that acts as glue. Fiber will try to reabsorb the nutrients remain in food before the foods being excrete.
o   Hemorrhoids – the food remains in rectum and stored there.

Chapter 2 - Protein (Notes)

2.1 Functions Of Protein
·      To build, repair and maintain of the body tissue
·      As acid-base balance
·      Structural component of the body e.g. DNA, hair, skin
·      Make enzymes and hormones
·      Act as antibodies to fight infection
·      Transport iron, fats, mineral and oxygen
·      Provide energy as last resort
·      Helps blood clots (fibrinogen)

2.2 Protein Structure
·      Known as amino acid, link by peptide bond. 2 amino acids known as dipeptide and more than 3 amino acids known as polypeptide.
R
COOH          C         NH3
H
*R – sidechain, COOH – acidic, H – backbone, NH3 – nitrogen-containing compound. This structure known as an amphoteric.

2.3 22 Known Amino Acids
      i.         9 essential/ indispensible amino acids e.g. histidine, lycine, leucine, valine
o   known as high quality protein
o   need to obtained from food, cannot be produced by human body
o   cannot be synthesized in sufficient quantity by human body
o   can be divided into 2:
a.     Complete protein – contain all 9 essential amino acids e.g. from animal and soya.
b.     Incomplete protein – contain less than 9 essential amino acids e.g. from plants food. Need to combine few protein foods or mutual supplementation.
     ii.         13 non-essential amino acids e.g. serine, glycine, cysteine, proline.
o        Known as low quality protein
o        Can be produced by human body

2.4 Four Structures of Protein
·      Primary protein – number and sequence
·      Secondary protein – bending and coiling, involves attraction and repulsion forces e.g. hair
·      Tertiary protein – loop and fold, compact structural/ globule e.g. hemoglobin
·      Quaternary protein – combination of few tertiary protein structures
Denaturation – protein loses its shape and ability to function. It caused by high temperature, high salt concentration, acid/ base, UV radiation or mechanical action.
Coagulation – process after denaturation in which reforming the structure e.g. fried eggs. It is irreversible.

2.5 Protein and Health
·      Eating too much protein – excessive kcal, excessive fat if eating too much high-fat animal foods, Ca loss.
·      High intake of animal protein associates with colon cancer.
·      Eating too little protein – slowing down rebuilding and repairing process, weaken the immune system. It may lead to protein energy malnutrition (PEM).
·      PEM is a disorder caused by inadequate intakes of protein and energy. There are 2 diseases associates with PEM:
o   Kwashiokor – resulting from extreme low protein intake. The symptoms include weight loss and muscle wasting, peeling skin, retarded growth and development, protruding abdomen due to edema.
o   Marasmus – resulting from severe inadequate intake of protein, energy and other substances. The symptoms include stunted physical growth and brain development, anemia, severe wasting of muscle tissue.

·      Proper protein intake depends on activity level, age and health status.
·      Dietary References for protein is 0.8g/ kg of body weight.
o   NH3 balance – same NH3 intake as lose in which means 0 NH3 balance.
o   Positive NH3 balance – condition in which the body excretes less protein than taken in. It occurs during pregnancy and growth.
o   Negative NH3 balance - condition in which the body excretes more protein than taken in. It occurs during starvation and illness.


AMAZON’S NEW STORE: UTILITY COMPUTING


1. What technology services does Amazon provide? What are the business advantages to Amazon and to subscribers of these services? What are the disadvantages of each? What kinds of businesses are likely to benefit from these services?
Amazon provides cloud computing in which also known as on-demand computing or utility computing in which refer to refers to firms off-loading peak demand for computing power to remote, large-scale data processing centers. Amazon offers computing capacity on a per usage basis just like other utility providers of electricity, water and waste treatment.
Business advantages of these services show that Amazon could produce extra income from other businesses by offering its additional capacity to those that want it.  Like other establishments, Amazon used only a small portion of it total computing capacity at any one time.  Besides that, its infrastructure is considered by many to be among the most robust in the world. Subscribers to the Simple Storage Service (S3) can use only what they need without having to purchase their own hardware and software and decreases the total cost of ownership for small and medium-sized businesses. The system is scalable and dependable for both Amazon and their subscribers. In addition, the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service allows businesses to utilize Amazon’s servers for computing tasks without having the overhead costs.
In reflection of above statements, firms might want to go with reputable names in utility computing but Amazon is not known as a technology company as its business is more as a retailer. However, its competitors such as Sun Microsystems, HP, and IBM may keep on Amazon’s lead and offer utility computing without involving service-level agreements.  Some businesses are cautious of using a supplier that does not offer SLAs but promise the availability of services in terms of time.  The development of Amazon Web Services (AWS) could be risky to its Web services route as well as its retail line if the firm does not position itself to handle an increase in demand on its infrastructure. Other than that, another advantage includes customers may experience outages in the service and not have any compensate since there are no service level agreements but only Amazon’s word that will maintain 99.9 percent availability.
Large and small businesses could benefit from using AWS in which the service discharges small business from the TCO of having its own systems.  AWS creates the chance for others to work at Web scale without making the mistakes that Amazon has already made and learned from.  Large businesses can use AWS as an ancillary unit without having to increase their hardware and associated TCO.

2. How do the concepts of capacity planning, scalability and TCO apply to this case? Apply these concepts both to Amazon and to subscribers of its services.
Amazon must require hardware capacity planning and scalability for not just its own needs but for all its subscribers as well. Underestimating capacity and scalability would create shortages for its own business and its subscribers and overestimates would affect Amazon’s financial assets. Too many instances of non-availability could create the impression that Amazon can’t manage the service.  Estimating scalability for such a large and various numbers of users without breaking down is a huge duty.  Amazon must sustain the total TCO of its services, all the while ensuring it can generate revenue from it.  The services’ subscribers grant from not having to concern about these matters and not bearing the burden of TCO issues.

3. Search the Internet for companies that supply utility computing. Select 2 or 3 companies and compare them to Amazon. What services do these companies provide? What promises do they make about availability? What is their payment model? Who is their target client? If you were launching a Web startup business, would you choose one of these companies over Amazon for Web services? Why or why not? Would your answer change if you were working for a larger company and had to make a recommendation to the CTO?
Company that supply utility computing includes Hewlett-Packard (HP). They provide utility computing for PCs, server storage, mail and messaging, print, and centralized data center infrastructure through its distributed grid technology.  It focuses on small, medium and large sized companies for a variety of computing services with their availability at 99.9 percent.
Another company is Sun Microsystems that offers utility computing through grid computing.  It charges $1 per CPU hour.  It offers platforms for its target users in computational mathematics, computer aided engineering, electronic design automation, financial services, life sciences computing tasks. Software developers use Sun’s Network.com service for building, testing, and deploying new applications to their customers. It promises 99.9 percent availability. 
Amazon seems to be an easier service to incorporate into a start-up business because it has been focused towards small and medium sized businesses since its commencement.

4. Think of an idea for a Web-based startup business. Explain how this business could utilize Amazon’s S3 and EC2 services.
Amazon’s flexible and pay-as-you-go model gives an opportunity for those who want to startup a Web-based business because it gives a competitive advantage over companies that require service contracts or purchase its own storage. By using Amazon’s S3 and EC2 services, user pays exactly what they use and it provides inexpensive yet fast method for businesses to store data on a system.
An example of business could be an e-market network e.g. Mudah.my in which users could buy and find jobs, search cars for sale, houses for sale, mobile phones for sale, computers for sale and properties for sale in the region conveniently. By using S3, the business could store XML representation of the objects in which it is used to store and host the objects visited by the users. With EC2, the business has full control over the machines and choice of the environment. The business may run its own server in data center and EC2 acts as a system administrator. Therefore, by using S3 and EC2 would help a business towards cost savings and unnecessary to set up any hardware. 

TROUBLE WITH THE TERRORIST WATCH LIST DATABASE


1.   What concepts in this chapter are illustrated in this case?
The concept illustrated in this case is about managing data resourses. Managing data resources includes establishing an information policy, and ensuring data quality.  In this case, it tells about how they manage database about information on terrorists and how it being distributes to a wide range of government agency systems. Beside that, it also includes problems in managinf data resources.

2.   Why was the consolidated terror watch list created? What are the benefis of the list?
A database of suspected terrorists also known as the terrorist watch list created in response to criticisms that multiple agencies were maintaining separate lists and that these agencies lacked a consistent process to share relevant information concerning theindividuals on each agency’s list. The consolidated terror watch list created to collect and maintain terrorist information and nominate individual for inclusion in the Terrorist Screening Centre, TSC consoliated watch list. In order to create terror watch list, TSC was established to organize the standardize information about suspected terrorists between multple government agencies into a single list to enhance communication between agencies.
Some of the benefits from the watch list are it is easy to supply data for government systems. Beside that, the list can be distributed to a wide range of overnment agency systems for use in efforts to deter or detect the movements of known or suspected terrorist. At the same time, it can be used for prescreening passengers’ from all over the world that traveling and entering United State. Last but not lease, it can help to maintain country’s peacefulness.

3.   Describe some of the weaknesses of the watch list. What management, organization, and technology factors are responsible for these weaknesses?
Some of the weaknesses of the watch list are, the list contains inaccuracies and that policies for nomination and removal from the lists are not uniform between governmental departments. Moreover, there has also been public outcry resulting from the size of the list and well-publicized incidents of obvious non-terrorists finding that they are included on the list. Beside that, it also leads to the inclusion of people that do not belong on watch lists known as ‘false positives’. At the same time, there are also weaknesses on quality and accuracy of the data in the TSC consolidated watch list. It also being critisize that, whether or not a list that will soon grow to over a million entries could have any real usefulness or significance inapprehending terrorist.

4.   If you were responsible for the management of the TSC watch list database, what steps would you take to correct some of the weaknesses?
To correct some of the weaknesses of TSC watch list database, it requires a lot of effort and time in order to provide more sophisticated system. To avoid wrongful inclusion, not a simple and quick process but TSC could integrate the list with data in airline reservation system to include more specific information such as gender, middle name or date of birth in their reservation records. Therefore, these would decrease the probability of false matches. TSC also needs to quickly updating the list with new information and removing people from the list especially U.S. citizens or person who were no longer deemed a threat. This can be illustrated in the case of Yusuf Islam (formerly known as Cat Stevens) whose name was flagged as being on a no fly list and denial of entry into the United States. This shows that the watch list database does not provide accurate information because he is a citizen of the country. Therefore, TSC needs to conduct closer examination and integrate that list with those maintained by airlines, individual states and other localities using more information to differentiate individuals. Besides that, to improve the system, TSC could integrate with FBI to set up its standard and provide consistent procedures for nominating individuals to the list, performing modifications to information and not relaying those changes to other governmental offices.

5.   Do you believe that the watch list represents a significant threat to individual’s privacy or Constitutional rights? Why or why not?
This issue remains a big question mark due to its positive effects and drawbacks. The watch list database could provide even precise information by involving more personal data about individuals on the list. Therefore, this could be very useful for federal agencies to use this additional information to improve screening and help reduce the number of people who are unnecessarily for investigation and questioning. However, this issue had drawn criticism for potential privacy violations. This brings up the matter regarding the sensitivity and safety of the data it would collect. The responsible agencies should think of the consequences that the data may fall into wrong hands and the person may use the personal data to commit any unlawful acts or crimes if the system had been breached or hijacked.

THE COST-BENEFIT RATIO OF PURCHASING IT INFRASTRUCTURE IN HOTELS


IT infrastructure is a major investment for a firm and the value of IT infrastructure in today’s organizations is of growing importance. If the firm spent too much on infrastructure, it lies slow moving and is regarded as drag on firm financial performance. If the firm spent too little, the important business service areas cannot be delivered and performed, thus, firm’s competitors may outperform the underinvesting firm. Duncan (1995) as cited in Byrd and Turner (2010) defined IT infrastructure as a set of shared, tangible IT resources forming a foundation for business applications. IT infrastructure includes hardware, software and services that are shared across the entire firm. However, from the service perspective, it is defined as providing the foundation for serving customers, working with vendors, and managing internal firm business processes. In this sense, IT infrastructure focuses on the services provided by all the hardware and software. IT infrastructure is a set of firm-wide services budgeted by management and comprising both human and technical capabilities. Major IT infrastructure components include computer hardware platforms, operating system platforms, enterprise software platforms, networking and telecommunications platforms, database management software, Internet platforms, and consulting services and system integrators.

Over the past two decades, IT has been promoted as one of the resources that organizations could use to gain a competitive advantage (Byrd and Turner, 2010). IT infrastructure would be able to support the design, development, and implementation of business applications. In hotels, owners invest million dollars in IT infrastructure to ensure they are capable to enhance the organization performance. Hospitality industries have identified effective implementation of information technology as a vital component of the effort to promote and achieve their goals for successful description, promotion, distribution and delivery of hospitality products and services and have demonstrated a positive and significant relationship between the use of IT and the development of a competitive advantage (Ham et al., 2005). Moreover, IT investment has been found to contribute to increased company productivity and performance (Fink and Neumann, 2009). Metcalfe’s Law helps explain the mushrooming use of computers by showing that a network’s value to participants grows exponentially as the network takes on more members. As the number of members in a network grows linearly, the value of the entire system hypothetically continues to grow forever as members increase.

When a hotel decides to purchase IT infrastructure, they need to focus on the six elements underlying it. These competitive forces model can be used to determine how much to spend on IT infrastructure and where to make strategic infrastructure investments, starting out new infrastructure initiatives with small experimental pilot projects and establishing the total cost of ownership of information technology assets. First, market demand for the firm’s services (Laudon and Laudon, 2010). A hotel needs to make an inventory of the services they currently provide to customers, suppliers and employees. Second, the firm’s business strategy in which to analyze the firm’s five-year business strategy and try to assess what new services and capabilities will be required to achieve strategic goals. Third, the firm’s IT strategy, infrastructure and cost. The firm needs to examine the firm’s IT plans for the next five years and assess its alignment with the business plans. It also would require determining total IT infrastructure. Fourth, IT assessment in which the firm needs to identify the capabilities of the new technology established. Fifth, competitor firm services in which the firm needs to try to assess what technology services competitors offer to customers, suppliers and employees. This would help them to benchmark and identify the strategy used by their rivals. Sixth, competitor firm IT infrastructure investments in which benchmark expenditure for IT infrastructure against the competitors.

Basically, there are main areas that lodging industry look into when it comes to invest in IT infrastructure. It includes front-office applications, back-office applications, restaurant and banquet management systems, and guest-related interface applications (Ham et al., 2005). Hotel operator should underline the importance of these areas because it is vital in order to ensure the hotel perform according to the established standard. Much more attention should be paid to IT infrastructure because of constantly changing condition, especially in the current situation hotels are forced to deal more effectively with the speed and competition and increasing customer expectations.

Today’s guests arrive at a hotel with a high level of expectations. Whether they are traveling on business or on vacation with the family, they are all coming from an environment in which communications technology is an integral part of their daily lives. As a result, they expect that they will be able to stay connected with their business and social networks wherever they are, especially in a hotel environment that is supposed to be designed not only to be their home away from home, but also to offer new services, experiences and conveniences. That means today’s guests expect to be able to use their smartphones and notebook and netbook computers to maintain business and social connections over high-speed Internet access whether they are in their room, in the lobby or anywhere else on the property. A hotel’s existing infrastructure should be able to meet all these expectations today. Designed properly with proven technologies it should be able to exceed these expectations.

Firms will move from focusing on their own shareholder value by optimizing IT infrastructure and functions within their organization to maximizing business and shareholder value for all the firms across the supply chain through shared IT architecture, open source, applications, systems, services, and business processes (Collins et al., 2006). As for hotel operators, they need to compete to acquire the competitive forces model for IT infrastructure investment to create a strong foundation in order to develop their business strategy. Recently, hotels use Fidelio, a property management system used in many large hotel chains. It can essentially be the only management software a hotel needs, as it can handle reservations, customer profiles, housekeeping management, maintenance logs, cashiering, accounts receivable, agent commissions and third party interfaces such as minibar systems or guest television. Arrivals and in-house guests are served using the front desk features of the property management software. This system handles individual guests, groups, and walk-ins, and has features for room blocking, managing guest messages and wakeup calls, and creating and following up on interdepartmental memos. The impact and importance of IT in the infrastructure of the hospitality industry have had solid strategic implications for industry leaders (Ham et al., 2005). This shows that the investment on IT infrastructure has been discovered as competitive advantage in operating a hotel business. Furthermore, it would ease to manage the operation by adopting the software that would be required to achieve strategic goals.

However, cost of investing on Fidelio or other IT infrastructure may increase the firm’s expenses as it involves a high expenditure to be developed. One of the greatest issues regarding the advancement of technology in the hospitality industry is the difficulty in calculating return on investment. When the timing of the cash flows is unpredictable, and when the investment is perceived as risky, hotel operators will most likely channel their investment capital to projects with more certain returns and minimal risk. In contrast, efforts must be made to change this thinking and to develop financial models that can accurately predict and capture the financial benefits derived from technology. But, a firm does not necessarily need to spend as much as the competitors. Perhaps it has discovered much less expensive ways of providing services and this can lead to cost advantage (Laudon and Laudon, 2010). A long-standing issue among firm has been the question of who will control and manage the firm’s IT infrastructure. In contrast, when the firm does not invest in IT infrastructure will experience poor performance and losing market share and in future might be left behind as the competitors move forward. A related question is whether a firm should purchase its own infrastructure components or rent them from external suppliers. Siguaw and Enz (1999) as cited in Chathoth (2007) highlighted the use of IT systems in the hotel industry that firms implemented during the 90s in which stated that in a hotel, the customer–firm exchange takes place when the guest interacts with the hotel system during the pre-arrival, arrival, stay, and departure phases.

Hotels spend a considerable amount of money and time to build IT infrastructure. However, a large number of companies have not achieved their expected returns from their IT investment and they seem to drop into “IT black hole” (Xianfeng et al., 2008). Generally, customer service has been widely recognized as one of the main areas in which a hotel’s product can be differentiated from its competitors. This is the area most hotel focuses on to ensure they remain competitive among competitors and gain competitive advantage. In fact, the implementation of IT systems has resulted in decreased costs, greater productivity and increased revenues in the lodging industry, improving customer service and business operations (Ham et al., 2005). Hotel employees are positioned to assess increases or decreases in hotel performance due to their involvement with the implementation of IT applications to achieve their goals. However, hotels have been slow to implement new technology since the average firm in the industry has implemented new technology-based products and services several years after the technology was first introduced to the market (Chathoth, 2007).

In light of the above discussion, there are major challenges in developing IT infrastructure include dealing with platform and infrastructure change, infrastructure management and governance, and making wise infrastructure investments. Solution guidelines include using a competitive forces model to determine how much to spend on IT infrastructure and where to make strategic infrastructure investments and establishing the total cost of ownership of information technology assets. The total cost of owning technology resources includes not only the original cost of computer hardware and software but also costs for hardware and software upgrades, maintenance, technical support and training. These technologies enable lodging industry to deliver advanced guest-centered services immediately and position their facility for the future.


REFERENCE
Byrd, T. A., and Turner, D. E. (2010). An exploratory examination of the relationship between flexible IT infrastructure and competitive advantage. Information & Management, 39, 41-52.
Chathoth, P. K. (2007). The impact of information technology on hotel operations, service management and transaction costs: A conceptual framework for full-service hotel firms. Hospitality Management, 26, 395–408.
Collins, H., Gordon, C., and Terra, J. C. (2006). The information technology infrastructure dimension. Winning at Collaboration Commerce, 107-132.
Fink, L., and Neumann, S. (2009). Exploring the perceived business value of the flexibility enabled by information technology infrastructure. Information & Management, 46, 90–99.
Ham, S., Kim, W. G., and Jeong, S. (2005). Effect of information technology on performance in upscale hotels. Hospitality Management, 24, 281–294.
Laudon, K. C., and Laudon, J. P. (2010). Management Information System: Managing the digital firm (11th ed.). Pearson: New Jersey.
Xianfeng, Q., Boxiong, L., and Zhenwei, G. (2008). Conceptual Model of IT Infrastructure Capability and Its Empirical Justification. Tsinghua Science And Technology, 13(3), 390-394.