Welfare of Government Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Welfare of Government - Essay Example This paper discusses the ways in which various governments influence the process of innovation and technological developments, and ways in which the government approaches can help achieve sustainable levels of energy use. Innovation and the Government Governments across the globe support technological innovations, including their creation and demonstration, to give confidence and promote the private investors in their countries to adopt these new technologies. Governments will get involved in innovations through initiating technological research, development and demonstration projects in which they offer wide financial support. Further, governments support innovations and technological developments in their nations through subsidizing programs that support these developments (Deutch 2005). The governments have acknowledged that innovation is the process through which they can effectively achieve technical change. The governments are actively involved in the initial step of innovation , which is the creation of technology in their countries. This is often accomplished through supporting the discovery of new technologies and sciences. As earlier mentioned governments together with the help of the private sector and other foundations, sponsor and fund the discovery activities (Deutch 2005). The research and development activities are performed in industries, hospitals, universities as well as laboratories. Governments also help to deploy new discoveries of science and technology in business enterprises or society. Governments encounter challenges in technological changes when deploying new technological innovations because of the uncertain investment decisions involved, the changes involved in the production process with the personnel and customizing these new products or services to meet the needs and the demands of the customers (Deutch 2005). Government Energy Policy Options The governments are greatly concerned with the energy sector and its policies across the globe. The governments’ involvement in energy policies is because energy is a very significant aspect of the economy. The availability, the pricing and the efficiency of energy in all countries affects the performance of the economy. In addition, energy use significantly affects the environment, more specifically the global climate change, which must be addressed by the governments. In certain governments, such as the United States, the reliance on imported oil, and progressively more gas, has essential security implications for the country as well as its partners (Deutch 2005). Most of the global energy policies for various governments are a shift from nuclear dominated power to renewable energy because of their capacity to be environmentally sustainable. Options in energy policy are defined by security of the energy, the reduced costs and alternatives that aim at promoting sustainable environment across the globe. This renewable energy policy options can be achieved by gov ernments reducing their dependence on the nuclear powering their medium and long-term policy plans (Maeda 2012). More important, the governments should enhance the safety of energy in their countries. Moreover, to achieve environmentally sustainable use of energy levels, the governments ought to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels, and reduce the levels of carbon monoxide emissions into the atmosphere (Maeda 2012). Support Options Governments can support the technological innovations through setting the regulations and rules that govern the innovation activities. This will enable the innovations and influence the performance of the process. The support options by the governments include

Bill of Material Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Bill of Material - Essay Example and SAP Inc. designs the BOM for many enterprises depending on the nature and ERP needs of the enterprise in question. The technology companies have to make the BOM application user-friendly so that the management may find ease and efficiency when using it. BOM is a merely a list of the components required to build a product by detailing and providing the manufacturers part number and the amount of quantity need for a particular component. For example, Microsoft deals with production of computer hardware, which typically consists of different parts. The company, therefore, uses the BOM track the components needed to complete a single computer hardware. That enables the company to track the production cost per unit head. Similarly, SAP is a computer technology and hardware company that assembles computer hardware parts to supply to their clients. Consequently, SAP uses the BOM track the cost of particular parts needed for completion of a single product design. Additionally, SAP management can use the information generated to manage its stock and plan for deliveries from suppliers in time. The policies concerning stock control effectiveness is easily monitored through BOM In general, BOM benefits Microsoft Dynamics and Systems, Applications and Products (SAP) in many ways. Some of the benefits include; facilitating and the location of items. Hence, it saves time spent. Additionally, the software identifies the changes that materials have undergone with respect to a particular time. The rules that govern the use materials can be useful using BOM. Lastly, BOM software, gives reports of the full audit of the material usage, all the approvals made during requisition of materials and all the costing involved (Hua & He, 2010). He, P., & Xu, X. (2009). Improving process flexibility through products assignment with bill of material constraints.  Robotics And Computer-Integrated Manufacturing,  25(3), 582-588.

Obesity in Kuwait Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Obesity in Kuwait - Research Paper Example Data taken on the temporal changes in BMI and prevalence of obesity are even more so (Al†Asi). Women in Kuwaiti have been exposed to extreme physical as well as social variations in society in the past few years, and there has not been any study of this nature that has been carried out on them (Al†Asi). The main aim of this study is to respectively explore temporal changes in mean prevalence of obesity and BMI between the two independent samples of 1171 and1705 women of Kuwait between the ages of 18 years and older that were studied in1980-1981 and 1993-1994 (Al-Mahroos). 3- In Kuwaiti, white rice is the staple food both in the past and currently. It is believed that people in Kuwait take white rice once or twice in a day mostly for lunch and at times for dinner too (El-Bayoumy). Though there is no data on the average consumption of rice, data on the population consumption of the intake of rice is not available, data suggests that 17%of total energy available is consumed from white rice (El-Bayoumy) 1- There were two independent studies that were used to analyze and compare the temporal changes in the prevalence of obesity and BMI among the women in Kuwaiti BMI (Al-Awadi).The first study was a national study of 1171 women which was completed in 1980-1981 as it dealt mainly with the â€Å"Nutrition Status Assessment of Adults.† The second study to be carried out was a cross-sectional study of 1705 women which was completed in 1993-1994 and it was based on assessing the prevalence of obesity among Kuwaitis (Al-Awadi). The sample carried out between 1980-1981 sample of 1171 women was gotten from 17 randomly selected primary health care from the clinics situated in all of Kuwaiti five regions and sampling was taken randomly in accordance to the Kuwaiti’s population sex ratio (El-Bayoumy). The samples were divided among the clinics and the division was defined proportionally by the size of the area that was reserved by each of

Bill of Material Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Bill of Material - Essay Example and SAP Inc. designs the BOM for many enterprises depending on the nature and ERP needs of the enterprise in question. The technology companies have to make the BOM application user-friendly so that the management may find ease and efficiency when using it. BOM is a merely a list of the components required to build a product by detailing and providing the manufacturers part number and the amount of quantity need for a particular component. For example, Microsoft deals with production of computer hardware, which typically consists of different parts. The company, therefore, uses the BOM track the components needed to complete a single computer hardware. That enables the company to track the production cost per unit head. Similarly, SAP is a computer technology and hardware company that assembles computer hardware parts to supply to their clients. Consequently, SAP uses the BOM track the cost of particular parts needed for completion of a single product design. Additionally, SAP management can use the information generated to manage its stock and plan for deliveries from suppliers in time. The policies concerning stock control effectiveness is easily monitored through BOM In general, BOM benefits Microsoft Dynamics and Systems, Applications and Products (SAP) in many ways. Some of the benefits include; facilitating and the location of items. Hence, it saves time spent. Additionally, the software identifies the changes that materials have undergone with respect to a particular time. The rules that govern the use materials can be useful using BOM. Lastly, BOM software, gives reports of the full audit of the material usage, all the approvals made during requisition of materials and all the costing involved (Hua & He, 2010). He, P., & Xu, X. (2009). Improving process flexibility through products assignment with bill of material constraints.  Robotics And Computer-Integrated Manufacturing,  25(3), 582-588.

Job Reflection Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Job Reflection - Essay Example My job in the organization was to design measures to collect funds for those people. For this reason, there were frontline and rear marketing teams, which had the objectives of advertisements and finding sponsors respectively. I was in the Rear Team and my goal was to present HOPES mission to other companies and enterprises and asks for their kind help through charities. It looked a quite simple job at the first place, where I had to make calls and visit different companies where I can present them with my organization’s objective and what benefit they will get by contributing in our mission. However, it turned out to be an altogether different story as most of the people were least interested in even listening to the call. I was supposed to go for two visits per day, but this started looking very difficult to achieve. On my first visit to a company, my senior colleague accompanied me and my job was to analyze how he conveys the message and convince the next person to contribu te funds to HOPES. The most vital thing I learnt from my first visit was that in the business world, people look for their self interest before anything. Hence, in giving charity also, top level managers and executives are not really concerned with benefits it will give to humanity, but how it can be useful in generating more profits. So, the most important thing is to put the correct thing first and that is giving them information about the promotion strategies of our organization that can help increase brand visibility of their company. Another psychological fact that I understood in my first job was that every person can be fascinated by the same incentives. The perspective of an HR manager would be different from that of a sales manager and that is also an important consideration in business meetings (Skinner, 2008). For dealing with different people, I have to learn about the background of the person I’m dealing with and analyze the gap between their expectations and my understanding of it. In the second month, I did far better work than in the first month after better understanding the human physic and business behaviors. Applying the tool of team work also worked well in my job. In the following months, larger groups accompanied me and that increased the impact of our dealing with other office personnel. When we visited a manager in bigger groups, the first impression was of unity and strength among employees and proved useful in lifting the trust of other organizations’ managers in our team. A Theoretical Perspective These experiences of mine can all be related to the theories on Organizational Behavior. The Incentive Theory of Motivation can be best applied to the above reflective scenario. It suggests that people in the corporate world are always seeking for benefits and praises. These incentives can be a factor of their intrinsic or extrinsic motivation and can lead them to do extraordinary things. The Principle Agent Model, as illustr ated by Laffont, David Martimort, explains that the approach of people towards incentive vary with the kind of business and the nature of their job. Some people look for short term benefits and others seek out long term benefits. Therefore, it is essential to understand the need description of people to motivate them in buying something or doing business (Laffont & Martimort, 2002). This model defines that incentives can be in different forms and for this reason the need structure becomes further complex. My job was to motivate business people that doing charity in HOPES will be a good investment for their companies; as

Nestle Essay Example for Free

Nestle Essay Nestle, one of the largest packaged food company has been unanimously declared a leader in its field. Founded and located in Vevey, Switzerland, it was established in 1905 and from then on it started its journey of delivering quality food products to consumers worldwide (About Nestle, 2008). Any firm, regardless of its size, national or multinational relies heavily on its purchasing department and supply management to add value to the firms operations. f a firm compromises on its purchasing standards it will suffer losses in its manufacturing process and ultimately in sales. For any manufacturing firm, purchasing and supply management are the first step which are directly linked to all consequent stages of the manufacturing process ,thereby it is extremely important to start of the entire process with an efficient and effective purchasing procedure so that it is reflected in the final product (Stilson Bachman, Sep. 2009). The globalization of Nestle as well as the accelerating competition in the food sector emphasizes on the need for regular assessments of their purchasing strategies and supply management system. The purchasing system at Nestle functions as part of the supply chain management rather than an independent function and aims to achieve cost minimization and profit optimization (Swerdlick, Summer 2008). At Nestle there are a few basic purchasing objectives: †¢ Efficient and timely delivery of goods, materials and services. †¢ Continuous assessment of the performance and reliability of suppliers. †¢ Adding value to the company functions and contributing to the growth and profitability of the company. †¢ Availing benefits offered by suppliers and encouraging competition among suppliers which tends to create a healthy working environment (Swerdlick, Summer 2008). At Nestle there are two basic purchasing roles which take into consideration the strategic and operational activities taking place within the company: †¢ Strategic buyers along with the expert opinions of other professionals are responsible for performing market analysis, screening suppliers and selecting the most appropriate ones, negotiations and contract management. Amongst the many responsibilities the most important ones that strategic buyers are faced with is the safeguarding of quality standards, adding to product development and channelling supplier technology to add value to the company products. †¢ Operational buyers, on the other hand are responsible for the operational part of the purchasing process i.e. sending purchase orders, receiving delivery for them etc. these functions can be performed by any department in the organization which requires any goods or services (Czerwonka, Summer 2008). Planning and strategy determination are extremely crucial factors involved in the purchasing process, since they are the basic steps towards the achievement of growth and profitability objectives of the company. although the basic aim that is kept in mind while determining the strategy is cost minimization but at the same time equal importance is given to the issue of supplier commitment to work with Nestle. At the same time ,strategy determination also takes into account factors of business sector objectives and value addition opportunities. These objectives eventually form the basis of a sustainable and unique market advantage (Stilson Bachman, Sep. 2008). The next step is then to come to an agreement with suppliers to impose few standardized specifications which would not only result in an efficient supply chain management but also lead to lower costs and greater price leverage (Weiss, Summer 2008). At Nestle it is strongly emphasized that purchasing is not just restricted to just one specific department rather it’s a cross functional team effort where everyone has a say in the operational activities of the purchasing process (The Keys to Success, Summer 2008). A good supplier selection is extremely important since in the long run it is the supplier who adds value to the company’s operations and contributes to its growth and success relative to its competitors. And it is for this reason that Nestle strongly believes in maintaining amiable relations with suppliers based on mutual trust and understanding. It believes that suppliers are a vital part of the company’s development process where they have a big role in identifying niche opportunities in the market, providing new product ideas and adding their innovativeness and creativity to the overall business operations. Therefore, Nestle has set a standard criteria based on which it selects the most ideal suppliers who will prove to be beneficial to both the companies (The Keys to Success (AN 32186182), Summer 2008). The criterion is: †¢ Level of innovativeness that the supplier believes in implementing in his company. †¢ Financial position and reputation in the market. †¢ Organizational structure and mode of operations in the company. †¢ Ability and willingness to adapt to the working practices and ethics followed by Nestle (About Nestle, 2008). Since Nestle is involved in food manufacturing, quality management is a crucial issue because lack of quality in food products is not only a risk to consumer health but is also a serious criminal offense in certain countries. To maintain quality standards, Nestle is highly dependent on its suppliers to assure Nestle of the delivery of top quality products and services. For this it is absolutely necessary for the suppliers to be aware of Nestlà ©Ã¢â‚¬â„¢s quality policy as well as its safety and quality control standards (Czerwonka, Summer 2008). To further ensure that quality standards are maintained, suppliers of raw materials and packaging materials undergo an audit process where the quality of goods and services provided by any given supplier are properly assessed and inspected (Margarella, Aug. 2003). Nestle requires from its supplier that defective and faulty goods are replaced or rectified within a reasonable time period. Each supplier that gets a chance to work with Nestle undergoes intense scrutiny before it gets an approval because Nestle cannot afford to compromise on its years of excellence in delivering hygienic, nutritional, safe and high quality food products to its consumers. To ensure that the competitive advantage of quality is maintained, Nestle evaluates the ethics and business conduct, competence, sustainable environmental practices and process controls before giving its final approval to any supplier. Purchasing is not just a one-time process rather it’s an on-going process for a huge company like Nestle which is generating revenue in millions (Principles of Purchasing, 2008). For this reason it has employed a computerized information system that maintains inventory management, list of suppliers, quality issues pertaining to certain goods or suppliers, variation in prices in the market, forecasted prices etc.This system allows for timely and better decision making since real time data comprehensive data is available at all times and also the management can be immediately informed of any discrepancies in the purchasing procedure or any unexpected problems that may arise (Stilson Bachman, Sep. 2009). Nestle uses an internal web based tool (Purchasing intranet) which is extremely effective in communicating with the internal purchasing community about quantities being supplied, price variations or any such matters (Principles of Purchasing, 2008). In this age of information technology, Nestle has realized the importance of integrating technology into their day to day operations for better efficiency, cost benefits and enhancement in services to customers and it is for this reason that Nestle is also currently involved in e-procurement which has seemed to cut down on considerable costs for the company. Nestle is a strict disciplinary when it comes to following legal obligations and requirements. Purchasing is a business process which involves the entering into an agreement with a third party to purchase and facilitate the delivery of goods and services. For this reason it is extremely important to have written agreements where the terms are clearly defined and are precise thereby eliminating any chances of potential misunderstanding between both the parties   (Principles of Purchasing, 2008). Nestle feels that there is a strong link between efficient purchasing and supply management and the quality of personnel employed in the company (Principles of Purchasing, 2008). The professionalism, competence entrepreneurial qualities and pro-activeness are factors that need be there in the human resources to avail maximum benefits while procuring goods and services from suppliers (The Keys to Success (AN 32186182), Summer 2008). A motivated and dedicated purchasing team will provide and effective function and may represent a competitive advantage for the company. To avail this advantage the human resources at Nestle are trained, motivated and encouraged to create new challenges and expand knowledge while keeping in view the company objectives and policies.

Wide Dynamic Range Compression Benefits Health And Social Care Essay

Wide Dynamic Range Compression Benefits Health And Social Care Essay Adults with a moderate sensorineural hearing loss have a need for soft sounds to be amplified to help with clarity of speech without going over a level which the person finds too loud. Moderate sensorineural hearing loss is caused by damage to outer hair cells, which can lead to a reduced dynamic range and ultimately, recruitment. The dynamic range is the range between the threshold of hearing and the uncomfortable loudness levels (ULL). Venema (1998) refers to this as the floor (threshold) being raised and the ceiling (ULL) remaining the same. When the ULLs are unchanged, as thresholds worsen, an irregular increase in loudness is perceived typically referred to as recruitment. In order to distinguish between different types of hearing aids and find the most suitable for this type of hearing loss we have to look to see if the hearing aids can encompass the persons dynamic range without going over their uncomfortable loudness levels. It has been suggested that output limiting compress ion (CL) and wide dynamic range compression (WDRC) hearing aids are more beneficial for this type of hearing loss compared to linear hearing aids with peak clipping. Ultimately, for a moderate sensorineural hearing loss it is believed that WDRC is the most beneficial type of amplification at this time. The outer hair cells in the organ of Corti have been referred to as the amplifiers of the cochlea (Brownell, et al., 1985). In the absence of outer hair cell function, a moderate sensorineural hearing loss of around 40-50 dB is present (Ryan and Dallos, 1975). The most prevalent type of hearing loss in adults is presbyacusis or age-related hearing loss (Valente, et. al. 2008). Presbyacusis begins as a bilateral, symmetrical, high frequency sensorineural hearing loss affecting the outer hair cells in the basal end of the cochlea. People with this type of hearing loss tend to complain about background noises such as speech babble in a noisy pub. This can account for, what is commonly referred to as the upward spread of masking, which is caused by lower frequencies masking higher frequencies (Valente et. al., 2008). This results in softer, higher frequency sounds from speech such as consonants being masked by lower frequency speech sounds such as vowels. Presbyacusis causes a subtle dec rease in hearing over time (Valente et. al., 2008) and as a result, patients do not usually attend clinics until their families notice that the television is too loud or the patient themselves realize that they cannot hear as well in noisy situations as they used to. Hearing aids can include different types of compression circuits, which can benefit different types of hearing loss. Lets first look at input and output compression circuits. They differ to each other depending on where the volume control is located in the circuit. Output compression circuits have the volume control before the compression takes place. This type of compression affects the compression kneepoint and the gain but not the maximum power output. It is also the type of circuit used with CL amplification strategy and is associated with high compression ratios and kneepoints. Input compression has the volume control located after the compression circuit; therefore the sound is compressed before the volume control affects the sound. This means that the kneepoint is unaffected while the gain and maximum power output are. This type of compression circuit is what tends to be used with wide dynamic range compression (WDRC) strategy and is associated with low compression ratios and kneepoints (Venema, 1998; Dillon, 2001). The first type of compression is output limiting compression amplification. The input is linear until it reaches a high kneepoint and then it compresses the sound with a high compression ratio (Venema, 1998; Valente, et. al., 2008). This type of compression is very similar to peak clipping (PC), which is found in linear hearing aids, however it is more pleasant for the listener than PC because there is less distortion. People with normal hearing or mild to moderate hearing loss will notice that the quality of speech is more distorted with limiting when compared to people with severe to profound hearing loss who will not notice this effect as much (Dillon, 2000). In a study of 12 adults with mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss, sound quality and clarity were improved with output limiting compression when compared to peak clipping (Hawkins and Naidoo, 1993). It is generally accepted that linear hearing aids with peak clipping no longer have a place in audiology clinics and hear ing aid companies have stopped manufacturing them. Wide dynamic range compression (WDRC) is a compression strategy that aims to amplify soft sounds by a lot, medium sounds by a moderate amount and loud sounds by a small amount (Souza and Turner, 1998). WDRC tends to give more gain to soft sounds and has fairly short attack and release times (Marriage, et al., 2005). WDRC is a nonlinear compression strategy, which tries to mimic the non-linearity of the cochlea and attempts to account for loudness recruitment with sensorineural hearing loss (Moore, et al., 1992). The threshold kneepoint is usually low at around 50 dB in order to amplify quiet sounds, compressions ratios are usually lower than 4:1 and attack and release times are short so that consonant sounds are not masked by vowel sounds (Valente, et. al., 2008). WDRC is a relatively new compression strategy that is used commonly in modern digital technology hearing aids. There are mixed views as to whether WDRC is of more benefit than linear amplification. It has been noted in some literature that measurable benefits of WDRC include improved hearing for soft speech sounds (Souza and Turner, 1998), speech in quiet, speech in noise, more comfortable listening situations for loud speech (Moore, et. al., 1992; Davies-Venn, 2009) and improved acclimatisation (Yund et. al., 2006). In contrast it has also been reviewed that WDRC may improve audibility but not necessarily intelligibility when compared to linear amplification (Marriage, et. al., 2005; Souza and Turner, 1998). WDRC may be of more benefit for people with mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss compared to people with severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss. This may be due to the suggestion that as hearing gets worse i.e. in severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss that temporal cues are relied on more heavily to understand speech. Since fast WDRC can change temporal cues it may be that this population of hearing aid wearers benefits more from compression limiting (Jenstad and Souza, 2005; Davies-Venn et. al. 2009). In 1992, Brian Moore, et. al. tested twenty subjects with moderate sensorineural hearing loss, measuring speech discrimination ability in quiet and speech reception thresholds (SRTs) in noise. The subjects were fitted with two types of hearing aids: Linear amplifiers and two-band WDRC compressors. They were tested with their new hearing aids and also in an unaided condition and with their own original hearing aids. With the compression hearing aids the subjects had good speech discrimination scores at all intensity levels in the quiet and the other three conditions showed decreasing speech intelligibility as the intensity level got quieter. The WDRC aids proved to help subjects achieve lower SRTs in noise compared to the other conditions. Patients with reduced dynamic ranges also benefited from the compression hearing aids more than the linear aids in that they found the loud sounds more comfortable. When surveyed the subjects also preferred the sound of the WDRC hearing aids (Moore, et al., 1992). Another benefit of WDRC over liner amplification is improved acclimatisation. Acclimatisation is the time it takes for the brain to get accustomed to sound from a particular type of amplification and to have increased speech recognition. Yund et. al. (2006) did an acclimatisation study with 39 subjects with mild to moderate sloping sensorineural hearing loss, who had never worn hearing aids. They showed that subjects who wore the WDRC hearing aids experienced acclimatisation, whereas the patients who wore linear hearing aids did not show any increased speech discrimination scores. They believed this was because the WDRC hearing aid was able to process the normal hearing dynamic range into the dynamic range of subjects with mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss. After a period of wearing linear amplification, subjects were then fitted with WDRC hearing aids. These subjects still struggled with acclimatisation after a period with their WDRC hearing aids and needed extra help in t he form of auditory training to get rid of the effects of the linear amplification on the brain. Overall, it was concluded that hearing aids with more sophisticated technology may be the best aids for acclimatisation (Yund, et. al., 2006). One study compared the benefits of linear and nonlinear hearing aids with speech tests and Glasgow Hearing Aid Benefit Profile (GHABP) questionnaires. The majority of subjects preferred the WDRC nonlinear hearing aids compared to the linear hearing aids. They showed better scores on speech tests, had better speech recognition, and preferred the overall listening experience with the WDRC hearing aids. WDRC hearing aids can be programmed with fast or slow attack and release times or a combination as this can be adjusted for different channels. In this study the researchers found that there was more of a preference for slow attack and release times for the most comfort and satisfaction compared to fast WDRC (Gatehouse, et. al., 2006). In comparison, Shi and Doherty (2008) found better speech recognition scores for both slow and fast, attack and release times compared to linear hearing aids, however found no difference between scores for slow and fast times in WDRC. When attack and relea se times are shorter the soft speech sounds are amplified more than the louder ones. If the release time is long then the soft and loud speech sounds are amplified at the same level, which may result in the softer phonemes being masked by the louder ones (Valente, et. al., 2008). Where to set attack and release times may be different for each patient depending on their preference; however in these studies it has been shown that having attack and release times using WDRC improves speech recognition scores compared to linear hearing aids. WDRC multi-channel hearing aids have a distinct advantage over single channel hearing aids because they have the ability to use BILL and TILL (features of WDRC) at the same time (Sandlin, 2000). BILL is the bass increase at low levels and TILL is the treble increase at low levels (Dillon, 2001, pp 169). BILL will tend to go into compression a lot more with low frequency sounds and not as much with high frequency sounds. The strategy of BILL is to allow the hearing aid wearer to hear better in background noise. TILL will go into compression more often with high frequency sounds and not as much with low frequency sounds. The strategy of TILL is to increase audibility of high frequency sounds. Both BILL and TILL used in conjunction can create a good fitting strategy for a flat moderate high frequency sensorineural hearing loss (Venema, 1998). Dillon (2000) described two problems that can arise with WDRC hearing aids. The first problem is that while WDRC hearing aids amplify very soft speech well, they also amplify very soft background noises such as the clock ticking or the sound of clothes moving (Dillon, 2000). Fortunately with newer digital technology, hearing aids are able to separate speech from background noise more intuitively than with analogue technology. A way to deal with these very low level background noises is to use expansion. Expansion is the opposite of compression and aims to make the weakest sounds in the quietest environments unnoticeable as it is below the listeners aided threshold (Valente, et. al., 2008). The second disadvantage is the problem of feedback being introduced when the hearing aid wearer is in a quiet environment and the gain is increased (Dillon, 2000; Valente, et. al., 2008). In the past few years digital feedback suppression/cancellation has become more sophisticated and this does not seem to be a problem with WDRC in hearing aid wearers as long as a suitable earmould is fitted. Wide dynamic range compression has been shown to have advantages over linear amplification using compression limiting and peak clipping circuits. In some researchers opinions it has still not been unequivocally proven that WDRC is the best fitting strategy for all types of hearing loss. As levels gets worse than moderate sensorineural hearing loss, the loss of outer and inner hair cell function causes temporal cues to worsen. It is unclear whether fast WDRC may be causing distortion in speech signals due to this. What is clear is that for mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss, most commonly observed with presbyacusis, WDRC seems to improve speech recognition in quiet, in noise, overall comfort and it is easier to acclimatise to wearing hearing aids. There is not a great amount of recent literature on the subject of the benefits of WDRC in the moderate sensorineural hearing loss category. It would be interesting to see new research conducted to determine whether there are more b enefits in multichannel WDRC with newer, more intuitive, digital technology hearing aids.