ICT203 - Foundations in Modern System Design Question 2

(a) Collection classes are to be used to model a number of real world situations, described in (i) to (iii) below. In each case:

• write down the name of the class that you think is most suitable;
• give a brief justification for your choice (no more than one or two sentences);
• write down an expression or expressions to create an instance of the collection class you have chosen, assign it to a suitably named variable, and add the example elements given in the description to the collection.

(i) An ICT203 tutor wants to store her students' myUni names as strings in such a way that she can easily look up an individual student, as in the table below. There are no two students in her group with the same name.

Student’s name      |      myUni name      

Charlie Dickens             Charles Dickens

Margie Hector               Margaret Hector

Terry Martin                  Terence Martin

(ii) When a hotel is fully booked, it holds a waiting list of customers in case of cancellations. Once a cancellation is received, the newly available room is allocated to the first person on the waiting list, who is then deleted from the list. On a particular day the first three customers added to the list are Ali Baba, Bibi Batek and Charlie Chan.

(iii) A video shop wants to store the titles of videos available for hire. It must be possible to list all the titles available but no particular order is required. Although the store may have more than one copy of a particular film, the title should only appear once. Titles available include: Iron Man, Crystal Skull and Dr Doplenty.

(iv) A property company has a block of luxury apartments for sale. The apartments comes in three models: modelA, modelB and modelC. During the year of its launch, it achieved the quarterly sales (in units) as shown in the table below:

(b) A hash map is to be used to store the addresses of students on a Uni course.

(i) The designer of the software needs to decide what to use as keys for the hash map, and considers student names and personal identifiers as possible candidates.  If you were designing the hash map, which of these would you choose? Briefly justify your answer.

(ii) During the discussions about the software to be used it becomes apparent that there

may be more than one student at the same address.  Would this affect your choice of a hash map as the appropriate collection class to use? Briefly justify your answer.

(c) Page 12 of Unit 3 shows how an Iterator object could be used to directly retrieve all the objects in a collection for further processing.  Using an appropriate example, explain whether this could be applied to a HashMap object.

Avoiding Plagiarism: Learning What is Plagiarism

Plagiarism, a word commonly heard these days. Just what constitutes plagiarism? Well, plagiarism is the use of word of ideas that are not your own and presenting them as if they were your own, without acknowledging and taking credit for someone else’s work. Plagiarism is considered a type of intellectual theft, and it is on the rise with the increased use of the Internet and the convenience of access to information it offers.

There are many forms of plagiarism, ranging from deliberately cheating (copying) to accidentally copying from a source without proper acknowledgment. Whenever words or ideas from another person’s work are used, you have to acknowledge where they came from. By learning how to reference properly, you will be able to clearly specify where you received your inspiration from and show the depth of your research and understanding.

One of the best ways to avoid plagiarism is to understand what it is and how to best avoid committing it. Although the Internet can be a great source of information, with readily available information, it does not imply that it is necessarily “free”. Information found on the Internet should be referenced, just like any other source; it should be fully acknowledged and evaluated in the same way you would information from print-based sources...Read more>>

Hyundai Motors Part 2 - Entering The High End Automobile Market

Discuses some of the challenges Hyundai Motor is likely to face in trying to reposition itself as a premium automobile brand, with its new premium model, the Genesis.

As Hyundai Motor tries to reposition itself as a premium automobile brand, one of the biggest challenges the company faces is its perception problem; being perceived as a manufacturer of entry-level cars and lack of prestige amongst consumers. This is evidenced in the first quarter sales of the Accent (least expensive car) increasing by 74%, while the Sonata sedan (more expensive) was down by 30%. (Gidman 2007) Hence, Hyundai Motor has the challenge of trying to change (improve) consumer brand knowledge, and convince consumers that they are capable of producing premium cars with prestige, which still maintains the company’s trademark affordability and durability.

Although Hyundai Motor has come a long way since its days of being branded as the “Worst Car Ever Made”, the notion amongst consumers that the Hyundai brand is inferior to Japanese car manufacturers such as Toyota and Honda is still prevalent. Gidman (2007) mentions that according to a May 2007 Business Week article, 71% of people who viewed an unidentified car without any Hyundai logo on it said that they would buy it, if a Toyota logo was on the car they were 20% more likely to purchase the car. However, once the Hyundai logo was shown, those willing to drive it out of the showroom dropped to 52% (lack of prestige).

As with any product line or family that is extended, there is always a risk of cannibalization. One such example can be seen when the sales of the Tucson affected the sales of the Santa Fe: the Tucson’s similar size and more affordable (cheap) pricing was the reason for the drop in the sales of the Santa Fe. (Ward's Dealer Business 2005) In its attempt to create a more up-market image for the whole brand with its latest luxury offering – the Genesis, sales of its other models may be affected or vice versa (Eisenstein 2008)...Read more>>

Hyundai Motors Part 1 - Hyundai Motors Success

Factors that have contributed to Hyundai Motor's success:

• Brand Equity:
The initial failure of the Excel propelled Hyundai Motor to improve their product quality and regain consumer confidence by "adding an unprecedented 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain warranty—assurance to buyers that the car wouldn't fall apart on the turnpike while speeding along in the passing lane" (Gidman 2007).

Due to its efforts, Hyundai Motor was able to reposition itself as a producer of affordable cars (with quality), and consumers overall confidence in the Hyundai brand improved. As a result, Hyundai Motor has since been recognized as a producer of quality cars which are reliable and affordable; being ranked 72nd in the 2007 Best Global Brand survey. Bunkley (2008) quoted senior director of automotive testing at Consumer Reports, David Champion, that Hyundai has made "phenomenal progress" in the quality and reliability of its vehicles.

Being focused on the consumer, and improving in areas such as quality, durability, value and warranty programs have contributed to the success of Hyundai Motor's brand equity. The company's focus on affordability and practicality, unlike its competitors (e.g. BMW choosing to focus on technology), set it apart from its competitors and contributed to its success. (Vasilash 2006)

• Product Differentiation:
By improving (augmenting) its cars' exterior design and engineering, while still maintaining its affordability, made it appealing to consumers and improved its brand image (from being the "Worst Car Ever Made"); giving it a competitive edge. For example, "Hyundai's sleekly redesigned flagship" - the Sonata - was equipped with "six airbags, electronic stability control and a long list of standard equipment, all for less than $20,00″ (Muller & Meredith 2005). Hence, according to Muller & Meredith (2005), "Hyundai is now dictating trends that others must follow": the company's "success with cheap cars inspired General Motors to buy its own Korean company, Daewoo, to try to match Hyundai's offerings", and "Hyundai's breakthrough ten-year, 100,000-mile warranty spawned extended warranty offers by Chrysler and Mitsubishi"...Read more>>

What is a Team?

Consisting of more than two individuals, Robbins and Judge (2007) describe a team as a group of interdependent individuals with special skills and/or knowledge, who have gathered together to achieve specific objectives; interaction is necessary and encourages “positive synergy through coordinated effort” (Robbins & Judge 2007, p299).

For example, 3 people (e.g. Lawyer, Programmer, Accountant) work together as a team producing high quality (computer/system) programs for an organization specializing in tax accounting. The programs produced require a high level of programming skills and aptitude to comprehend the law, with new laws and interpretation of existing laws have to be integrated quickly (and flawlessly) into the existing regulations and analysis tools. Each individual is equipped with the necessary (complimentary) skills and knowledge to integrate, as well as interpret new laws into the organization’s existing programs’ efficiently and effectively. Due to their education background and working experiences, each team member is able to contribute an area of expertise (law, accounting and programming); integrating desired objectives seamlessly and effectively through coordinated effort...Read more>>

ICT 203 - Q1d (Foundations in Modern System Design)

Three classes should be coded, each with its instance variables (if applicable), constructor, and accessor methods. The question also guides that each subclass should have a computeFee() method, as coded below: Question

For OrdinaryMember class:

public double computeFee() {

double payment = 0;

if (getIsOverseas())

payment = getMembershipFee() * 0.5;

else

payment = getMembershipFee();

return payment;

}


For AssociateMember class:

public double computeFee() {

double payment = 0;

if (getIsOverseas())

payment = getMembershipFee() * 0.5;

else

payment = getMembershipFee();

payment = payment + magazineCharge;

return payment;

}

ICT 203 - Q1c

I would check the location of the associate member within the subscribeMagazine method in the Associate subclass to determine if the Associate Member is eligible to subscribe for the magazine. If the member is eligible to subscribe for the magazine, within the subscribeMagazine method, it will check to see if the member wants to subscribe for the magazine. If the member is eligible and wants to subscribe to the magazine, the value of the variable subscribeMagazine (true) is returned, else false will be returned. The value of the variable subscribeMagazine returned will be used in the computeFee method. If the value of variable subscribeMagazine is true, the additonalFee variable will be added in the calculation of the totalFee, else the additionalFee will not be added to the totalFee.

Question

ICT 203 - Q1b ( Foundations in Modern System Design)

Question

ICT 203 - Q1a ( Foundations in Modern System Design)

Classes involved would be the superclass called Membership, and the subclasses Ordinary and Associate. The superclass Membership would be an abstract class with its common (generic) attributes such as memberName, address and totalFee, and methods such as computeFee(), which would be inherited and reused by the Ordinary and Associate subclasses. Thus, the Ordinary and Associate subclasses have a “is a” relationship with its superclass Membership.

Question

ICT203 - Foundations in Modern System Design Question 1

An employees’ union has two types of membership: ordinary and associate. Ordinary members pay $108 per year and receive a free monthly magazine. Associate members pay $72 per year, but they do not receive the magazine unless they pay an additional charge of $12 per year. Every  member gets a 50% discount off the membership fee, if he is stationed overseas; however, this discount is not applicable to the magazine charge for the associate member as the union does not send the magazine to associate members overseas.

(a) Identify the classes involved and explain the superclass-superclass relationship among  them. (answer)

(b) Draw a UML class diagram to depict the given information, showing the attributes for each  class, and the class hierarchy. (answer)

(c) Explain how you would record the fact that an associate member needs to pay for the  magazine. State also the class or classes concerned, and the attributes and/or methods added. (answer)

(d) Write Java code to define the classes and hierarchy you had identified above. In each class, include the attributes as instance variables of suitable data types, and appropriate  constructor(s) that initialize(s) the instance variables. Note that each subclass should have  its own implementation of the computeFee() method. (answer)

(e) (i) Explain how you might write the computeFee() method for the superclass.

(ii) What is the advantage of having this method in the superclass?

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