Fitness

Fitness may refer to:

See also

Fitness function

A fitness function is a particular type of objective function that is used to summarise, as a single figure of merit, how close a given design solution is to achieving the set aims.

In particular, in the fields of genetic programming and genetic algorithms, each design solution is commonly represented as a string of numbers (referred to as a chromosome). After each round of testing, or simulation, the idea is to delete the 'n' worst design solutions, and to breed 'n' new ones from the best design solutions. Each design solution, therefore, needs to be awarded a figure of merit, to indicate how close it came to meeting the overall specification, and this is generated by applying the fitness function to the test, or simulation, results obtained from that solution.

The reason that genetic algorithms cannot be considered to be a lazy way of performing design work is precisely because of the effort involved in designing a workable fitness function. Even though it is no longer the human designer, but the computer, that comes up with the final design, it is the human designer who has to design the fitness function. If this is designed badly, the algorithm will either converge on an inappropriate solution, or will have difficulty converging at all.

Fitness (magazine)

Fitness is a United States-based women's magazine, focusing on health, exercise, and nutrition. It is owned and published by the Meredith Corporation. The editor-in-chief of Fitness is Betty Wong.

History

Fitness was launched in 1992, and was acquired by the Meredith Corporation from Bertelsmann's Gruner + Jahr in 2005. In 2005, Fitness also launched its web presence, giving readers separate online resources for fitness and health tips alongside the magazine's monthly editorial content. Betty Wong became Editor-in-Chief in September 2008, incorporating several changes to the magazine, creating several new columns and features. In 2009, Fitness posted significant ad page gains according to the Publishers Information Bureau, increasing by 18.4% when overall magazine publishers' counts were down 27.9% industry-wide. It was recognized for several awards, having been awarded "Most Improved Publication" and best "How-To/Instructional" feature in minOnline's Editorial and Design Awards.

Budget

A budget is a quantitative expression of a plan for a defined period of time. It may include planned sales volumes and revenues, resource quantities, costs and expenses, assets, liabilities and cash flows. It expresses strategic plans of business units, organizations, activities or events in measurable terms. International Budget Partnership regularly monitors global budget information for the civil society.

Etymology

A budget (derived from old French word bougette, purse) is a quantified financial plan for a forthcoming accounting period.

A budget is an important concept in microeconomics, which uses a budget line to illustrate the trade-offs between two or more goods. In other terms, a budget is an organizational plan stated in monetary terms.

Purpose

Budget helps to aid the planning of actual operations by forcing managers to consider how the conditions might change and what steps should be taken now and by encouraging managers to consider problems before they arise. It also helps co-ordinate the activities of the organization by compelling managers to examine relationships between their own operation and those of other departments. Other essentials of budget include:

Budget Rent a Car

Budget Rent a Car System, Inc. is an American car rental company that was founded in 1958 in Los Angeles, California by Morris Mirkin. Budget's operations are headquartered in Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey.

With its original fleet of 10 cars, the company lived up to the 'Budget' name by undercutting the daily and per mile rental rates of the established airport based car rental companies. Mirkin was joined in 1959 by Julius Lederer (husband of columnist Ann Landers) who built the company, and made it an international company. In 1960, the headquarters moved to Chicago, Illinois and the rental fleet expanded with franchised and wholly owned rental outlets.

The company was eventually acquired by Transamerica Corporation, and then sold in 1986 in a leveraged buyout by Gibbons, Green and van Amerongen Ltd., along with management (led by CEO Clifton E. Haley) and selected investors. The company made its first public stock offering in 1987.

Team Rental Group purchased the public company in 1997 and took the name Budget Group. In 2002, it sold the company's assets to Cendant Corporation, which also owned Avis and in September 2006, Cendant Corporation separated into four independent companies. The real estate division became Realogy, Inc., its hospitality services division became Wyndham Worldwide, and the travel distribution services division became Travelport, Inc., an affiliate of The Blackstone Group. In 2006, following the Travelport sale, Cendant, now composed solely of its vehicle rental services businesses, renamed itself Avis Budget Group.

Scottish budget

The Scottish budget is an annual Act of the Scottish Parliament, giving statutory authority to the Scottish Government for its revenue and expenditure plans. For the financial year 2011-12 the budget was approximately £30 billion.

The Budget Bill is presented to Parliament by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, currently John Swinney.

Budget Acts