Pancakes

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1 liter milk

1 tablespoon white sugar

1 tablespoon sunflower oil

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

A pinch of salt

2 1/2 cups flour

Directions:

In a large bowl, sift together the eggs, milk, sugar, oil, baking powder and salt. Then start adding flour and keep mixing to keep it smooth.The substance should be liquid so that it can expand on a surface of frying pan.

Smear very little sunflower oil on a frying pan and put on gas. Start pouring small scoop size substance onto pan and make sure it expands and transforms into the form of pan. It should be smooth and thin. Brown each pancake from both sides.

You can add different fillings with a pancake: sweet or salty.

Bon Appetit!

The Role of Technological Progress in Promoting Sustainable Development

If the great powers continue to look for solutions in the area of science and technology only, the result will be to worsen the situation.

(Science 162, 13 December 1968, pp 1232-1248)

Introduction

The term “Sustainable Development” (SD) was used for the first time by the Brundtland Comission, and it refers to kind of development, which will meet the needs of current generations in terms of human environment and natural resources, that will not compromise the needs of future generations. SD is conceptually divided into three basic parts: environmental, economic, and social/political sustanability. This paper is mainly focused on economic growth and its impact on global environment. Currently the humanity faces potential problems of running out of natural resources and shortage in food supply that will occur shortly. These global problems force us to think of solutions, and probably the worst fact about it is that the humanity doesn't even consider to cut the amount of resources used so aggressively, but focuses on technological progress, that might perhaps bring us to certain solutions in terms of alternative resources of energy and food.

So here we will start with discussion of the renewable and non-renewable resources on the earth, and the way they are used nowadays. Second, we will talk about the global food supply in scope of population exponential growth worldwide. Then, the current state of art will be taken into account, as well as the path of technological progress and the possible future outcomes.

Renewable and non-renewable resources on earth

Natural resources are the basic ground to maintain life on our planet (whether it is a life of a human, an animal, or any other creature). So the natural resources are classified as renewable and non-renewable. Natural resource stocks can be represented as agricultural land, forest land and its multiple products and services, natural land areas, fresh and salt water fisheries, mineral fuels and non-fuels, non-mineral energy sources of solar, tidal and wind, water resources, etc. As can be assumed from this sample list, some of these items are renewable, but does it actually mean the humanity has the luxury to waste those resources as much as it likes to? In fact the answer is no, and the reason is that the renewable resources have certain individual rates for reproduction, and when the rate of consumption is above the rate of reproduction, then the resource is naturally wasted without a hope of having more for future generations. Here comes the concept of sustainable yield, which can be estimated per microlevel or small-scale models of resource extraction in renewable and nonrenewable resources. The right amount of resource usage according to sustainable yields concept can be achieved when the depletion rate of a resource is less than the replacement rate.

However, in order to keep track of all the numbers of resources used and replaced in the world, global environmental policies should be applied. There has been an empirical research done in order to find the connections between air and water quality and human health and productivity, which made it possible to set appropriate environmental standards. With the accelerating increases in the consumption of all kinds of resources throughout the last centuries, industries in countries have been transforming into bigger and bigger forms, which resulted in desertification, soil erosion and the salinization of productive lands. Additionally, it was proven only recently that an industrial action in one country could have a curcial effect on the environment of another country, which might not nesseccarily be located in neighborhood. For instance, the building of the Aswam High Dam in Egypt has reduced the nutrients reaching the Mediterranean via the Nile delta and adversely affected fish stocks; the mysterious decline of the albatross population on Possession Island was directly linked to the fishing techniques of Japanese vessels operating hundreds of miles to the north; and the stimulation of the winter demand for cut flowers in Northern cities might have contributed to the numbers of landless poor in Kenya. Problems that appear radically different may in fact be directly linked.

The linkages and the knock-on effects may be harder to trace on larger scales. A newly-equipped industrial fishing fleet may have a wide range of impacts, including the impoverishment of “subsistence” fishermen and the malnutrition of their families in areas far from its home. The fleet itself may partly be a response to a rising demand for protein in countries with rapidly growing economies, where there has been an influx of capital that has been withdrawn from high-wage production on the other side of the world.

What does this all mean? - That having regulatory policies of resource consumption in different countries is not enough, the world needs something more. Till the 20^th century the countries in the world were mostly developing independently, all the models of development were only on a national level. So, only after the start of globalization process it has become more realistic to have common rules and regulations for the consumption of natural resources of our planet.

It has been estimated that today the humanity is consuming about 40 percent of total terrestrial photosynthetic production. This is not about reducing only the resources we have, but also has a serious polluting effect. Energy generation, industrial processes, transport, high-input agriculture and domestic consumption continue to make bigger and bigger demands of the capacities of the earth and the atmosphere to absorb CO₂, sulphur. NOX and methane emissions, CFCs, and a range of toxic chemicals including radioactive wastes threaten widespread endemic pollution. These impacts extend globally accompanied by increasing rates of deforestation, decline in fish stocks, loss of agricultural land, loss of soils, depletion of fresh water, loss of habitats, loss of species and loss of biodiversity. It was already estimated that around 100 species die every day. The World Bank estimated that the output generated by different industries in the world might increase by a factor of three by 2030, and if nothing changes till then in terms of the pattern of industrialization and consumption, tens of millions of people could get sick or die each year from industrial pollution.

So, what is the current pattern? Here is a good example: the United States, with per capita income lower than that in Japan, emits more than nineteen tons of carbon per person, approximately twice the level emitted in Japan. This is largely because the United States keeps the cost of energy low. Meaning, that the developed countries in the world encourage people to waste more natural resources, at the same time requiring developing countries to pollute less and be more environmentaly friendly.

However, to be more precise in this topic, better to talk about facts. A scientist has calculated, that the currently known reserves of natural resources are 100 times more than the humanity uses annualy, and if we continue the usage with the same rate, these resources will be exhausted in 36 years, and even if the reserves doubled thanks to some big discovery, the rate of use would increase and the reserves would survive 48 years only. The depletion of natural nonrenewable resources such as oil and gas had not only an effect of pollution and decrease of the earth's natural wealth, but also had a geopolitical effects on countries that owned the resources. Most of these countries are situated in the south, and suffer wars and extreme poverty, mostly because of exploit from the northern countries which are the main consumers of goods.

As can be concluded the issue of depletion of natural resources is related with two concerns: (1) public health and securit; (2) and sustainability.

Food supply and population growth

The problem with food supply in the world has arisen with the exponential growth of population. According to Thomas Robert Malthus the world had to inevitably face mass famine because of the unlimited population growth that would naturally be bigger than the growth of the capacity to produce food. Fortunately that did not come true. However, there is a real and serious problem with the amount of food produced in the world. With the growth of population per capita share of food will be steadily decreasing, resulting in malnutrition, increase of poverty in the world, as well as more aggressive political regimes. The forecasts for the future are not the one we would like to have for our generations: it is clear that we will greatly increase human misery if we do not immediately assume that the world resources available for humanity as sources for energy and food are finite. A finite world can support only a finite population; therefore population growth must eventually equal zero till it stabilizes.

In terms of biological fact any organism needs to have a source of energy (food) to live. This energy is utilized for two purposes: mere maintenance and work. For a simple maintenance of life a human-kind requires about 1600 kilocalories in a day. A greater number would be needed to work and do other activities such as sports, arts, study, etc. So, in order to have enough food for everyone we wil need to take the minimum number of kilocalories and divide the food in the world by this principle. However, in this case if a person doesn't do anything during his life, staying alive will not make any sense. So anyway, how to distribute the sources of energy so that everyone get enough... The appearance of atomic energy has led some scientists to assume it would be a solution. What we saw after the invention of atomic energy? We had the World War Two.

It is still accepted that currently the world produces enough food to feed the present population (despite an estimated on billion suffering from chronic malnutrition). With the pattern of food consumption there should be at least a doubling of production if the population of 2040 is to be adequately fed. Yet per capita food production has declined. At the same time, there is an assumption that by the year 2040 the gaps between North and South, rich and poor will be much bigger. The rich will continue wasting food even in a more aggressive manner, while there will be more poor dying of malnutrition.

These dramatic forecasts led Paul and Ann Ehrlich, co-authors of The Population Explosion, to assert that “Arresting global population growth should be second only in importance to avoiding nuclear war on humanity's agenda”. On the other hand, we have already an example of China's family planning program which is a terrible violation of human rights. Women get forced to make abortions, or get sterilized if they have already one child. Additionally, many couples decide to abort fetus if it is going to be female, since many couples want to have boy-babies. As a result, the number of young male adults in China is much more than the number of young female adults, which makes marriage crisis in that republic.

The pollution problem is another consequences of population. As population becomes denser, the natural chemical and biological recycling processes become overloaded, calling for a redefinition of property rights.

Poverty level also grows with the population density. For example, a poor farmer has a land of a certain size and has two sons. He would not be able to educate his sons, as he doesn't have enough money and he also needs his sons to help him grow food for the family. When his sons grow up, he will divide the land into two parts, and grant those parts his sons. So, as a result there would be two poor men with their own families, with even smaller pieces of land to feed the family (which also means even poorer), and so on, and so on.

This process is exponentially increasing the number of poor population in the world.

Technological progress

Technological progress in terms of global development can be viewed from different perspectives: first, it can be a tool helping to find new resources for life maintenance; second, it can have distructive effects on the planet. In both of the cases the scientists know that the pattern we have chosen has no long-term projection with the current state of art in its basics, however, they rely on possible future technological inventions that might change something. This is unfortunately their ideal plan that has no guarantee at all to come true. Besides the hopes that the technological progress provides, it also had negative effects such as Bhopal, Chenobyl, the Exxon Valdez disaster, the setting alright of the Kuwait oil wells during the Gulf War, the Siberian oil pipeline disaster, etc. Additionally, a group of scientists rely on such kind of technological improvements that will make us capable of moving to another planet when our planet is unrecoverably exhausted. However, this option is too unrealistic in terms of the time limits.

One of the most dangerous things in scope of investing in global R&D and waiting something back from it is that popular scientific journals are publicly calming humanity down by telling that almost every problem in the world has a technical solution (which is defined as one that requires a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of morality). But does the technological progress create problems that later need technological solutions to fix? Apparently, yes. So, why then invest in R&D?

In the limits of technological progress the issues of sustainable development are concerned with:

1. global pollution of atmosphere and oceans;

2. concern about intergenerational flows of natural and manmade capital in a “full world” where natural capital is the limiting factor of production;

3. industrialization and integration of finance, and marketing and advertising in the global marketplace.

In order to stay somehow more environmentally friendly, the technological progress should at least be regulated counting and satisfying criteria of the above mentioned points.

There are also some positive paths that scientists try to follow in technological improvements (though not always the best options). For example, they are trying to find new ways of getting energy that would be by depleting the nonrenewable resources. Scientists are also trying to create synthetic food that would be similar to natural food.

As for food, it is unrealistic to have anything similar to natural. We have the example of McDonalds in the U.S. that produces genetically modified food. We know that the population using McDonalds food is not only overweight but also has problems with health. So, genetically modified food is not a solution. As for the energy there are several methods suggested (such as solar-, wind- and hydro- energy), some of which are already being used in developed countries.

Solar energy is primarily the use of solar radiation for practical ends. There are several methods of how to capture, convert and distribute solar energy, such as photovoltaic panels, pumps, fans (to convert sunlight into useful outputs), selection of materials that have favorable thermal properties, design of spaces that naturally circulate air, and reference of the position of a building to the sun. However, the heat that the sun gives to humanity has also some negative effects (namely UHI) especially in emtropolitan areas. UHI is abbreviated as Urban Heat Islands, and the average temperature is much higher in those areas than that of the surroundings. These higher temperatures are a result of increased absorption of the Solar light by urban materials such as asphalt and concrete that have higher heat capacities.

Currently there are many spheres and industries that use sunlight to optimize the alternative use of other resources:

• urban planning;

• agriculture;

• water heating;

• heating, cooling and ventilation;

• cooking;

• electricity;

• solar vehicles.

Humanity also gets energy out of wind. There are a few types of wind-powered electrical generators. The device used to convert kinetic energy from wind into mechanical is called wind turbine. Often this energy is later converted to electricity. Wind turbines are very useful in terms of the basic resources they need to create electricity, however, they also require large space of land to be installed. Thus, except of giving energy, they also pick out portion of land that could be used for food production.

Another way to get energy almost without wasting the natural resources of the earth is per hydro-energy. Here the electricity, or better to say hydroelectricity, is generated by hydropower, wich is the production of electrical power through the use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water. Currently 20 percent of energy in the world is produced by hydropower.

Conclusion

As discussed in the paper, the humanity is desperately searching for paths to skip the crisis that

will inevitably arise in the near future. At the same time people in the world do not want to make compromises, and they continue wasting more and more natural resources. Perhaps this is because a human being believes that he is the master of the planet, and is sure that human mind can solve any problem, and thus can provide more energy and more food with the help of technological progress. Unfortunately, this is not true at all. The arrogance of humanity is infinite, and it leads us to a collapse, since the natural resources , on the other hand are finite.

If the governments and scientists were more attentive to the development pattern during the latest centuries, they might have noticed that although the material prosperity has been constantly rising and people have been becoming wealthier, the quality of life on the earth has been actually steadily declining. We should also consider, that although the scientists try to find alternative ways of survival (i.e. the alternative sources of energy), a portion of people in the world, that is in addition the richest part, will be fighting against implementing of those technologies in industries, because this portion of people is getting its' wealth by depleting natural resources (namely oil, gas, coal, etc.) which in turn leads to wars and aggressive actions.

“the various global crises... are not separate crises: an environmental crisis, a development crisis, an energy crisis. They are all one.”

Brundtland Report (WCED, 1987, p4)

Bibliography

Earth System: History and Natural Variability

S. B. Suslick, I. F. Machado, 2002

Sustainable Exploitation of Renewable Resources

R. Hilborn, C. J. Walters and D. Ludwig, 1995

Sustainable Development: An Introductory Guide

D. Reid, 1995

The International History Review

Carley, M. Jabara, 1994

Wikipedia

"Technological Forecasting in Perspective" - critical analysis

The original article “Technological Forecasting in Perspective” was published in the “Management Science” magazine in October 1966, by Raymond S. Isenson. According to the author, countries in the world are creating models to predict the future development trends, which gives them power to control the technological development, by giving enough, or applying restrictive policies in order to stop development when neccessary. So, the development model is actually a long range planning tool for governments. The forecasters assist decision makers, or politicians in choosing policies to keep a government alive in our unstable world.

The historical evidence tells that centuries ago even pharaoas were trusting forecasters in order to stock up on food against famine years. The predictions were based on statistics from earlier years that gave forecasters a chance to think of possible developments. However, because the wealth in past was described mostly by agricultural goods and natural resources, the predictions were not very precise. Many variables have been added in predictions with time, based on the fact that statisticians were finding more and more relationships between their dependent variable and the new factors. The method of verification of those variables was simple, though timely. The forecasters were adding variables, and making economical estimations for future years, and then when those years were passed, they were checking if their estimations were precise. With these experiments economists came to the concept of Economic Projection that explores theoretical capabilities of economics. Since the future is almost impossible to predict, the economic forecast can only tell what might be achieved under the assumed set of circumstances. Because of this limitation on the innovation factor in economic forecast, the world has suffered a lot after the Industrial Revolution in the 18^th century, and the technological boom in the 20^th century. Thus, statisticians tried to create a mathematical model for innovations, or more exactly, a mathematical model for the “state of art”:

K(t)=∫₀^tI(t)dt

where:

K(t) is the state of knowledge at time T;

I(t) is the number of new information bits added during an increment of time and is a function of time.

I_i(t)=p(t)*Q*N_i(t)[1+b*N_i(t)]

where:

p(t) is the probability that a scientist will make a contribution during a given time increment;

Q is the average productivity factor of a single scientist;

b is the coefficient of connection between scientists (in terms of exchange of information), that speeds up the process of producing new information;

N_i(t) is the number of scientists actively engaged at time t.

Since the topic of the article is pretty indefinite in quantitative terms, it is obvious that scientists have been blindly trying to transform the facts into mathematical models based on time series by taking historical data and trying to find a trend for the future, as well as expressing Knowledge based on cross-sectional data: a dependent variable (K(t)) related to the average probability of a contribution into innovations (p(t)), scientist's average productivity coefficient (Q - taken from sample number of scientists in centuries), the effect of globalization on the state of art defined as nodes effect between scientists at one point in time (b), and the overall number of scientists active at the same point of time (N_i(t)).

This model is a very good example, showing the fact that the world doesn't consist of only quantitative problems, but also qualitative ones. Statisticians should be able to think out of box, and express qualitative factors in a way, that simplifies understanding of the phenomena, as well as forecast future developments of it. Our “knowledge” model is a mix of cross-sectional regression and time-series estimation, that cannot be categorized as a classical regression model, since it is more qualitative variable. With the model, we can always count the average level of information available for the humanity in the world. The independent variables in the model were collected and added to the model during many years. The most interesting part in this concept, however, is that an independent variable may not neccessarily exist at this moment, but, say, starting from some point in time it should be added to the function. For example, in the initial model, the “b” coefficient was not included, since there was no globalization factor. As the state of knowledge has improved, and the Internet was invented, the model became more ineffective, and the “b” was added. So, the main shortcoming of the model is apparently the need of complicating it all the time, as new information is being added with an increasing rate, which also creates new factors influencing the process of creating new information, consequently creating new independent variables to be included in the model.

As a conclusion to the analysis, it should be noted, that the original regression for the knowledge state does not tend to answer questions like “when the humanity will be capable to find a new Galaxy”, but only serves to indicate the possibility of achieving new goals. In fact, newer and apparently better models can be created for the same estimations: biologists can think about the same topic in the limits of one-cell organisms and their transformations in time, physicians may discuss the topic in terms of atoms and the kinetik and potential energies, etc. Same ideas can be described in many ways, but the main concept will always stay the same, and at the end of the day, all the scientists will come to one point – the concept of estimation of Information.

_____________________________________________________________________________

by Mary D. Haroutyounyan,
2011

Armavia - the national Armenian airline (small stories from life)

About 2 months ago I had a task to find solution for. I needed round-trip tickets from Yerevan to Zurich and then back. Basicly, there are 3 airlines serving the mentioned routs, and each of them provides different deadlines for booking (more often INconvenient for visa application timings) at different rates.

I was happy to find a good deal offered by Armavia, and as soon as the visas were stamped in the passports, I went to their head office to get the tickets.

The day of the flight was coming closer and closer, and everything seemed to be fine... till the moment, when I got a call from Armavia.

They have taken off the back flight from Zurich to Yerevan, and suggested another route for the same flight (from Paris), refusing to pay the additional costs I had to cover to get from Zurich to Paris.

When I asked about the compensation, they redirected me to their commercial department. I was trying to get them on phone during 3 days. No one answered me on phone..

Then I went to their head office again, and asked if they had a book of complaints (I thought, apparently their bosses read that book, and I was not sure if the young lady selling tickets would ever pass my words to their bosses). Well, the young lady said they don't have any book of complaints! In their head office!

Shame! Shame! Shame!

(fyi: Baghdasarov is the owner of Armavia)

Now, will I ever fly with Armavia?

Armenian Freelance Web Developers in the International Market

Edging the integration path of Armenian freelance web developers into the World Web Market.

Introduction

A web developer is a person who creates web applications and designs them. Thus, there are two main types of developers: programmers and designers (though in some cases one person may do the both jobs). A freelancer is a person, who is self-employed, may have a mobile workplace, and usually works a short period of time for each of the employers. “The term “Freelancer” was first used by Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) in Ivanhoe to describe a “medieval mercenary warrior” or “free-lance” (indicating that the lance is not sworn to any lord's services, not that the lance is available free of charge)” (freelancer, wikipedia.org). Today the number of freelance web developers is dramatically rising in Armenia, which has certain reasons. If you take a look at the Armenian universities, you will see that we have around 200 graduate web professionals each year. Check the listing of companies providing web services in Spyur Business Directory and you will find around 140 studios. Suppose each of these studios have 10 employees on average. The simple mathematical calculation will show that we have around 1400 employed web professionals in Armenia (which is the sum of the number of graduate students in 7 years). Consequently, the demands of local web market is more than satisfied. What should the rest of the talented web developers do? Many of them prefer to switch to freelancing, and the perfect target for this is the market of developed countries.

A similar situation, but of different scope is observed in India. According to India Demographics (2008), it now appears that Indian nation has the capability to graduate over 500,000 engineers annually, a big part of which turns into freelancers. In addition, Indians have clearly represented their freelance force in the net, which plays an important role in outsourcing business.
With the current trend of developments in Armenia, it is very possible that we will also win outsourcing income in future.

This paper will be helpful for apprentice freelancers, who will be able to find here steps of project management, paths of project searches, team creation ways and pricing strategies.

Chapter 1: Plan of Actions

“Freelancers have it hard” (Jeff Gardner, 2009). In comparison with an employee at an office, a freelancer should additionally be a manager and accountant.
As a manager, a freelancer should split the work into milestones, define deadlines for them, and take care of the time and effort put in the work.
As an accountant, a freelancer has to learn creating invoices and payments.
An active freelancer doesn't need only skills, he needs clients. Consequently, to be an attractive choice for a client, a freelancer has to gradually sharpen skills in Web technologies, programming languages, graphic editors, animation technologies and rules of web PR and optimization. Additionally, he should be hard-working, meet deadlines and keep up with the latest developments in Web.
According to Dmitry Fadeyev's (2009) approach AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) a freelancer needs to work also on public for success in business. It is beneficial for a freelancer to spread his name and work on self-identification in business world. For this, he has to register in professional networks, establish a blog and generally work on his online appearance. PR techniques are useful for self-branding. Keeping in mind, that the future benefits are highly dependent on the initial investments, freelancer should also advertise his services in Facebook and Google (the noted websites are extra-convenient in terms of choosing a perfect audience), visit developers workshops abroad and collect useful contacts. The mentioned actions are good, but for better results a freelancer needs to turn into more dynamic rhythm: and make direct searches for projects.

Chapter 2: Search for Projects

A search for projects, is first of all a search for clients. The clever freelancers work on both: attract clients and search for a perfect client-base. In his interview an experienced freelance designer John Muijen (2003) states that he gets new clients by gradually increasing his network and by word of mouth.
So, one method of winning a new project, is referral from previous clients. First of all, this means, that a freelancer should be interested on the impression his work quality makes on the majority of his clients.
Moreover, it would be even more profitable, to contact the potential clientèle, introduce the best way and offer services. This last advice, however, requires a developer to be slightly prudent, not to look like tedious and desperate freelancer, who will agree to work for any project.
Another useful thing is to meet and keep in touch with other web developers. This kind of socialization keeps the freelancer updated and skills sharp. Additionally, the developer community refers projects to his members.
Some of the offered projects, however, can be no-motivating. The best solution in this case is simply looking for new opportunities. Freelancer is free to decide, and that is the main advantage. So, the opportunities may be different: projects can be small and interesting, no-motivating as mentioned before, and sometimes big and attractive. The next chapter will discuss how to deal with bigger projects, that require a labor force.

Chapter 3: Temporary Team Creation

The more a freelancer is known, the bigger project offers will be. Normally, it is challenging, sometimes even impossible for a one-person-shop to manage such work alone. To handle it, a freelancer can get in touch with developers community and create a temporary web team.
In fact, freelancers are not supposed to work in a permanent group of people, as it requires stable and serial investments from the group leader. On the other hand, the work flow is always better established in permanent teams than in temporary ones. It is very probable, that temporary teams will suffer certain inconveniences not only in terms of work flow, but also the most primal intercommunication. To quickly create mobile temporary teams, that will work, it is essential priorly to create trustful relations between people. For this, developers should organize social events (like picnics, hikes, seminars etc.), where they will be able to get in touch, share experiences, find ways to co-operate more effectively and simply make friends. As soon as the relations quality satisfies the members of the group, people have to try to work on little projects together, so that they learn working with each other.
Financing issues also need to be solved before an actual team is created. This includes signing papers with the team members about a short-term employment, creating invoices and payments etc.
In fact, experts get the best projects. So, it is essentials to develop skills, learn management and accounting. The advantages of expert web developers freelancing in Armenia is earning more than they are offered at offices, at the same time charging less than in web studios.

Chapter 4: Pricing Strategies
Earning more by freelancing is an amazing opportunity and looks like a perfect option. In practice though, it is a lot more than just working on amazing projects for amazing clients from the comfort of your own home.
When turning to freelance, the developer has to set the pricing strategies clearly, because the western world is used to certainty. Here the QPR (quality-price-ratio) plays the crucial role. According to Jeff Gardner's “Quality-Price-Ratio in Web Design” (2009), the QPR, from the point of view of a client, falls into four categories:

1. A bad website, that is expensive. Client is not interested in this offer.
2. A bad but cheap website. Client understands, he gets what he paid for.
3. Good website that is expensive. A great product, but has a high price.
4. And a good website that is cheap. This is the perfect option for any client, and the QPR is the greatest.

Out of these 4 categories, a good freelancer is more likely to provide a service, that is more comparable to the last category with the highest QPR.

The pricing strategy has to consider the cost of business (viz. computer price, cost of software, technical support expenses, rent price of the office (if any), clipart usage), creativity price and the quality of the work. There is a commonly used formula for the price of a project, which is Price=Creativity Coefficient x Cost of doing business (Gardner J., 2009). However, the formula has to be flexible in special situations, for instance extra-difficult projects.

On the other hand, there is another way of pricing a project: Price=price unit x time (Gardner J., 2009). For the price unit, usually an average price for an hour is taken. Different

7

freelancers charge different amount of money for an hour. For example, in the UK the newbies will charge around 50 USD/hour and experts 100 USD/hour.

In the scope of our country, we have to realize that companies or clients, who are interested in freelancers and outsourcing, need a cheaper way of doing business. Which means never charge as much as other developers abroad. The most attractive ratio of outsource and insource prices for clients is 1:2. In this case, the client gets the best quality-price- ratio and freelancer still benefits.

Both of the pricing strategies have their advantages and shortcomings, although in some cases one method will work better than the other. Some freelancers refuse one of the strategies and use the other one. It's all up to the developer.

Conclusion
Being almost 5 years old freelance designer in Armenia, I have tried to be helpful in guiding Armenian apprentice freelancers in the integration process. Even so, none of the used sources was written for Armenia, though interviews with local freelancers also had impact on this paper. Thus, the research was preliminary de facto.
As for future, I would recommend other freelancers to make further research and come up with discussions on this topic, possible establishment and development of a freelance community.

References

• Gardner J. (2009). Marketing rules and principles for freelancers. Smashingmagazine.com
• Gardner J. (2009). Quality-Price-Ratio in web design (pricing design work). Smashingmagazine.com
• Laidlaw G. (2003). Interview with an experienced freelancer. Articles.sitepoint.com
• Fadeyev D. and others (2009). Design to sell. The smashing book.
• Thukral R. K. (2010). India demographics.
• 2010. Freelancer. Wikipedia.org