Sport Enhancement Drugs - 1667 Words

Steroids in Sports: Exploratory Essay The sports world has changed drastically over the past 10 years. The use of steroids has risen within that amount of time and it has changed the view of sports and the game itself. As a fan of all sports, it interests me why athletes feel like it’s ok or acceptable to take drugs to enhance their performance on the field of play. Athletes are always looking for ways to improve their skills on and off the field. With the use of steroids, athletes everywhere, not just â€Å"well-know† or â€Å"popular† athletes are putting their entire career on the line with steroid use. The use of steroids and other substances to enhance sports performance has risen to an all-time high over the last few years. Steroids are available to everyone, not just â€Å"athletes† since steroids are used for other uses, for example in cattle, farmers are injecting their cattle, especially males, with steroids to make them bigger and increase the amount of meat that you can get from o ne cow. Steroids are mainly used for building muscle mass at a rapid pace and it allows people to work out longer or lift heavier weights for a longer amount of time allowing the body to grow faster. Skepticism in baseball started back in the summer of 1998 when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were chasing the all time home runs total list. As the season continued on and the home run count was decreasing by every game, a reporter found out that McGwire had a collection of a weird dietary supplementShow MoreRelatedPerformance Enhancement Drugs For American Sports1493 Words   |  6 PagesThe growing issue of performance-enhancement drugs in American sports today brings about an image that all performance drugs are unhealthy. However, not all performance enhancement drugs are hurtful. The real issue of performance drugs is medical need versus physical want. Moreover, performance-enhancement drugs should still be allowed but with restrictions. The first issue of performance-enhancement drugs (PED) and probably the most recognized PEDs are the use of anabolic steroids.†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦anabolicRead MoreSports and Performance Enhancing Drugs Essay1221 Words   |  5 PagesPerformance enhancing drugs in todays pro sports have become a big deal, because of health stimulants and the benefits that such studies have on good development of the person and on fair athletic games. Pediatricians or trainers can play a huge role in helping the athlete or player that is using or taking performance enhancing drugs. By taking factual info about the true benefits and medical problems of these drugs and giving information about healthy food and working out. Tries to create a changeRead MoreEssay The Pros and Cons of Using Sports Enhancing Drugs 741 Words   |  3 PagesDrugs are good for you so you can get better at the sports you love and get stronger and get faster and faster and faster â€Å"brah† you can get as big as y ou can you could look like a balloon animal like really really big balloon animal thats why I think drugs should be good for you. People could use steroids, cocaine, marijuana, heroin, meth, and a lot more of drugs to use. So the players get pumped for the game. Its like their coffee in the morning to like wake up and get ready. The sports thatRead MoreThe Ethical Dilemma Of Performance Enhancing Drugs1364 Words   |  6 Pageson their worldview. The world of professional sports is a very tough and competitive place. It is full of top level athletes that are masters in their respective sports and the struggle that they all face is to be better than everyone else. With all these athletes working hard and looking for new ways to better themselves, some take the easy way over the right way. In this paper, the ethical dilemma of performance enhancing drugs being used in sports will be addressed and be given solution basedRead MoreShould Sports Enhancing Drugs Or Peds Should Be Allowed? Professional Sports?1608 Words   |  7 PagesFall 11/4/15 Clean or Not? Whether or not Performing enhancing drugs or PEDs should be allowed in professional sports is one of the most widely discussed topics amongst fans and league officials. It brings a lot of controversy as well as a lot of upside. Many people argue that there is an unfair advantage amongst â€Å"clean† athletes while others say that there are many health benefits given to the athletes taking these drugs. As most things in our society, there are many things that have prosRead MoreDoping And Performance Enhancing Drugs1262 Words   |  6 Pageshave had their reputations tarnished by using performance enhancing drugs (sometimes shortened to PEDs). In his interview with Opera Winfrey, Armstrong stated that â€Å"I didn t view [doping] [as cheating]. I viewed it as a level playing field† (Lance). With this statement, Armstrong is declaring that many professional cyclists and other professional athletes engage in illegal doping in order to improve their performances. These drug s can be useful for their ability to decrease recovery time, allowingRead MoreThe Benefits of Performance Enhancing Drugs Among Athletes Essay1044 Words   |  5 PagesSince the dawn of the twenty-first century, performance enhancing drugs have become a religious practice in â€Å"the lives of some sport figures.† The use of these supplements have given the user an edge, an edge to perform at maximum capability. Most major athletes all agree on the fact that the competitive drive to win can be quite intense. Besides the satisfaction of personal accomplishment, athletes commonly pursue high hopes of attaining a medal, a college scholarship or the once in a lifetime opportunityRead MoreThe Legalization Of Steroids Should Be Beneficial For The World Of Sport1226 Words   |  5 PagesSteroids seem to to be having a negative view for much of history. Steroids are drugs used by athletes to become stronger and achieve a strong physique. Steroids are illegal and are strongly discou raged to be used and may be seen first expressed during high school with the introduction of organized sport teams. The perspective against the legalization of steroids believes in the many benefits of legalization. The perspective for the legalization of steroid expresses the harmful effects of steroidsRead MorePerformance Enhancing Drugs For Sports1227 Words   |  5 PagesPerformance Enhancing Drugs Sport records are becoming harder   to break and seeing records are starting to become a thing of the past.. Players aren’t being able to hit these home runs or score long touchdown’s. Injured   players are getting kicked off the team or even quit because they can’t get to their peak performance that they were at before they got injured.   If more players were to use performance enhancing drugs they would be able to compete to the performance of past players. A performanceRead MorePerformance Enhancing Drugs Among Athletes Essay944 Words   |  4 PagesSince the dawn of the twenty-first century, performance enhancing drugs have become a religious practice in â€Å"the lives of some sport figures.† The use of these supplements have given the user an edge, an edge to perform at maximum capability. Most major athletes all agree on the fact that the competitive determination to win is intense. Despite all, most athletes have high hopes of either winning a medal, a full ride college scholarship or the once in a lifetime opportunity to play for a professional

Southern Hospitality Free Essays

Imagine living near your entire family in your hometown. Imagine that one of those people is your 6 months pregnant fiancee. Now imagine the fact that you have just received a job opportunity some 900 miles away, and the best thing for your future family is to take that job. We will write a custom essay sample on Southern Hospitality or any similar topic only for you Order Now What would you do? There are three major things that affect you and your life when you move away from home. Those three things are, missing your family, adapting to new living conditions, and expanding your responsibilities as a person and eventually a parent. When you live any distance away from your family, you will miss them with varied amounts of difficulty. Some of us have no problem missing our families, however. When I was eighteen years old I joined the United States Air Force. My first duty assignment was RAF Mildenhall, England. After the first year I became accustomed to missing my family. The largest difference about this move from Michigan to Georgia was, in fact, that I was engaged and that my fiancee was six months pregnant with my son, Derek. This was the most difficult thing I had ever had to endure as a person. When I first moved, she didn’t immediately want to move with me because it was much easier to move by myself, because we had no money, and no place to live. Eventually, after about three months and the birth of our son, she moved down with the help of her parents, and grandparents. When I first arrived in Georgia, it was much hotter than Michigan. Remember now, that I’ve lived in two different places in my life. The first place was Michigan, with its icy and brash winters and mild to medium summers. The second place, being England, with is bone chilling still aired winters and extremely mild summers. Now we move to Georgia with its extremely tolerable winters and scorching hot summers. Think about the differences here and imagine how much anyone would have to adapt to those differences. When I first moved here I had a ratty old Ford Explorer with no air conditioning and only two windows that worked. There was an immediate difficulty trying to regulate body temperature when such extremes are encountered. One thing that helped adapt to it was the friendly people that the â€Å"south† is so famous for. Everywhere you went, someone would say, â€Å"How are you hun? † or â€Å"Can we get you something sweetie? † This is one thing that anyone could get used to experiencing every day. All of these things have helped me grow into a better person. When I found out that my fiancee was in labor, it was an unbearable situation to deal with. I was able to take off of work for two weeks so I could make the sixteen hour drive back to Michigan to be with my family and see the birth of my son. When I made it back, I was able to witness the birth of my son. It was the single-handed most exciting moment and day of my life. After the two week â€Å"vacation† I had to make the trip back to Georgia, again, without my family. Now if that doesn’t make your stomach churn, I’m not sure what will. That was the most difficult thing I’d ever had to do. Think about the things that make you who you are. If I am having difficulty with anything in my life, I think of my children and one simple verse. Philippians 4:13 which reads, â€Å"I can do all things in God who gives me strength. † How to cite Southern Hospitality, Papers

Social Work Child Protection

Questions: Describe the following points.. Task 1: Recommendation and important features of the reports of Lord Laming and Professor Munro Task 2: Use of Lord Laming and Professor Munro reports on the social work practice Task 3: Current policy on fostering and adoption Answers: Task 1: Recommendation and important features of the reports of Lord Laming and Professor Munro After the murder of a child Victoria Climbi as a result of child abuse led to the report of Lord Laming on the issue of protection of the child. There were one hundred and eight recommendations in order to re fix the protection of the child (Garrett, 2006). Among these recommendations the most essentials have been given below. Firstly, he suggested that children and families board needs to be conducted by the senior ministers in the government in order to coordinate the policies and plans which tend to have a bearing on the safety and security of the children and families. He further recommended that a national agency needs to be formed that would be guided by the commissioner in charge so as to make sure that the local services are meeting the national standards for the protection of the child and the implementation of the reforms (Cowan, 2003). Lord Laming suggested that committees for the children and families should be made by council and in such councils there should be members from different fields such as education, police, housing, social work and NHS. Additionally, local management boards need to be developed that would be chaired by chief executives of the council along with the members of the various fields such as social work, education, services for probation, health and housing etc. These boards would also appoint a local director from the children and family services that helps to monitor the effectual working on the purposes of child welfare and protection. Also he suggested that a childrens database be also created in order to keep a track of the contacts that every child has with the members of staff that ranges from health care to police and to the local authorities ('Laming report is to be welcomed', 2009). Critical examination of the report by Lord Laming would state that most of the recommendations made by Lord Laming was appropriate. The only hitch is the proper implementation of the reports and to the extent they could be carried out by the authorities. Professor Eileen Munro is the Professor of Social policy, London School of Economic and is also an eminent academician in the area of child safeguard and protection. She was given the responsibility to prepare the national review on children protection. In this review it has been evident that the focus of the system of child protection should be on the requirements of the particular children and the young generation and not on the processes and targets imposed by the centre (Whittaker, 2011). The vital message that was given in the report by Munro is that the level of prescription by the government should be reduced and this also includes the elimination of other legal timescales. Further the forma procedures for child protection should be removed and more focus should be laid in to the local discretions and the judgment of the professionals. Nevertheless, the Munro also suggests that a new responsibility be placed on the partner agency and the local authorities. This is mainly done in order to safeguard the provisions relating to the early help services for the young people, the families and the children and also to produce a strategy planning on the purposes (Munro, 2000). Some of the most vital parts of the reports are firstly, that the government should not target the local authorities and hence the local service should be free. They should also exercise freedom from the IT systems and regulations so that they are able to design services and plans (Parton, 2011). Secondly, the authorities should conduct the inspections in an unannounced manner and the inspection should be carried out for all services including education, health etc. Thirdly the government should start working with the health professionals for instance the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in order to make sure that the NHS reforms do not have any negative effect on the effectual protection of the partnership arrangements. And finally the local authorities should employ a senior manager who would be very active in conducting the frontline work and also give the reports of the observations of the professionals in the management. Task 2: Use of Lord Laming and Professor Munro reports on the social work practice After Lord Laming had published the report on the child protection, the government had taken steps for the implementation of the recommendations of the report. The government tried to improve the training for the social workers for children by making a transformation fund for social work. Since a number of the recommendations were directed towards the social task force the government also made initiatives for the same. Supervision guidelines would be established for the social workers and further strategies would be made so as to address the recruitment processes and difficulties relating to retentions (Laming, 2003). The recommendation regarding the establishing of National Safeguard Delivery Unit was accepted by the government and in this regard explicit priorities and safeguarding of targets were developed. Further the hike in fees would be reviewed by the commission and amendments were made in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill so that new policies on the protection of the children are included. Also the amendments with regard to code of practice for the employers were to be done soon. On the other hand the recommendations made by Professor Munro regarding the protection and safeguard of children even though was considered as a huge success for the social workers, it has been observed that the implementation of the rules have not been in the manner it should have been. There has not been much change in the social work circuit and there has been no mention of the recommendations later (Ainsworth and Hansen, 2011). Even though Munro insisted that the social workers are free from the direct work it has been observed that social workers are doing more work. However there are a few places were the multi-agency safeguarding hub as recommended by Munro had been created and there has been work on the other vital suggestions by Munro. Further with regard to the training it must be noted that the recommendations regarding the Munro were not heard and the training facilities for the social workers still continue to be worse in most of the places. Hence it can be construed even though the recommendations by Lord Laming and Professor Munro was highly appreciated by all sectors when it came to the implementation of these polices the work on the part of the government has been extremely slow. In order to improve the scenario with regard to the protection of children and child abuse it is essential that these recommendations be implemented soon. Task 3: Current policy on fostering and adoption The United Kingdom laws on foster care and adoption were reviewed in the year 2000 and since then the Adoption and Children Act 2002 have been taking care of this issue. Adoption can be carried out with the help of adoption services and agencies that has been approved by the secretary of state (Lord, 2011). This indicates that private adoption has been prohibited by the government. Generally the court passes adoption orders in accordance to the laws under the Children Act 1989. Some of the other legislations that are essential in this regard are the European Convention on Human Rights 1950 and the Convention on the Rights of Child 1989 (O'Halloran, 2006). Also it must be noted that in most cases these adoption cases are lengthy and extremely complex which are conducted in closed courts. References Ainsworth, F. and Hansen, P. (2011). The Munro Review of Child Protection: Final Report A Child-Centred System: A Review and Commentary.Children Australia, 36(03), pp.164-168. Cowan, J. (2003). Risk management, records and the Laming Report.Clinical Governance: An Intl J, 8(3), pp.271-277. Garrett, P. (2006). Protecting Children in a Globalized World: 'Race' and 'Place' in the Laming Report on the Death of Victoria Climbie.Journal of Social Work, 6(3), pp.315-336. Laming report is to be welcomed. (2009).Early Years Educator, 11(1), pp.12-12. Laming, L. (2003). Victoria Climbi does the deliberate harm of children matter?.Criminal Justice Matters, 53(1), pp.46-47. Lord, J. (2011).Adopting a child. BAAF. Munro, E. (2000). Response to a required mind-set for child protection practice: comments on Munro (1999).Child Abuse Neglect, 24(4), p.447. O'Halloran, K. (2006).The politics of adoption. Dordrecht: Springer. Parton, N. (2011). The Munro Review of Child Protection: An Appraisal.Children Society, 26(2), pp.150-162. Whittaker, A. (2011). Social defences and organisational culture in a local authority child protection setting: challenges for the Munro Review?.Journal of Social Work Practice, 25(4), pp.481-495.

John Adams- On the Transmigration of Souls free essay sample

For many, attending a performance of John Addams new piece â€Å"On the Transmigration of Souls† written for the New York Philharmonic is like being invited to a party but being given the wrong address as a cruel prank. Early on, one realizes a mistake has been made, one grave enough to potentially ruin the entire evening. All is not lost on this musical experiment, however, which presents itself as a rambling, rather over-zealous source of mockery. What makes it all so frustrating is that everything (save for the music) is perfect: the elegant setting of the auditorium, the acoustics, the warm tonal qualities of the instruments, and the pristine pitch of the Oregon Symphony Choir. The piece, an orchestral homage to September 11, is intriguing in its nature but fails to lift itself from its initial melodramatics, languishing instead in its pretentious and overtly-modern filth. The precision of the symphony is undeniably honed, and although executed marvelously, â€Å"Transmigration† simply looms over ones head, like a pinata which spills forth Brussel sprouts instead of candy. We will write a custom essay sample on John Adams On the Transmigration of Souls or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page If â€Å"On the Transmigration of Souls† teaches us anything, it is to find the humor in any scenario, no matter how disappointing; although this joke is on us, we are all afforded a hearty laugh in retrospect.

Free Essays on Biography of M.C. Escher

Maurits Cornelis (M.C.) Escher was born on June 17, 1898, in the Dutch province of Friesland *lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/europe/Netherlands.jpg*. His parents, George Arnold Escher and Sarah Gleichman Escher, had three sons of which Maurits (called Mauk for short) was the youngest. His father, George, was a civil engineer. The Escher family was living in Leeuwarden in 1898, where George served as Chief Engineer for a government bureau. The family lived in a grand house named "Princessehof," which would later become a museum and host exhibitions of M.C. Escher's works. Young M.C. Escher moved with his family to Arnhem. He attended elementary and secondary school there, and also in the seaside town of Zandvoort, where he lived for a while to improve his health. In 1907, he started learning carpentry and piano. In secondary school, his marks were poor except in drawing. His art teacher took and interest in his drawing talent, and taught him to make linocuts. He failed his final exam and thus never officially graduated. In 1913, M.C. Escher met his lifelong friend Bas Kist in religious school (which he attended at his parent's direction, even though he wasn't very religious). Kist was also interested in printing techniques, and may have encouraged M.C. to make his first linoleum cut works. Amoung these early works is a portrait of his father which is the oldest surviving work by the artist. In 1917, the two friends visited the artist Gert Stegeman, who had a printing press in his studio. Some of M.C.'s work from this year were apparently printed at Stegeman's. Also, in 1917, the Escher family moved to Oosterbeek, Holland. During this year and the following few years, M.C. Escher and his friends became very involved in literature, and M.C. began to write some of his own poems and essays. In 1918, Escher began private lessons and studies in architecture at the Higher Technology School in Delft. He managed to get ... Free Essays on Biography of M.C. Escher Free Essays on Biography of M.C. Escher Maurits Cornelis (M.C.) Escher was born on June 17, 1898, in the Dutch province of Friesland *lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/europe/Netherlands.jpg*. His parents, George Arnold Escher and Sarah Gleichman Escher, had three sons of which Maurits (called Mauk for short) was the youngest. His father, George, was a civil engineer. The Escher family was living in Leeuwarden in 1898, where George served as Chief Engineer for a government bureau. The family lived in a grand house named "Princessehof," which would later become a museum and host exhibitions of M.C. Escher's works. Young M.C. Escher moved with his family to Arnhem. He attended elementary and secondary school there, and also in the seaside town of Zandvoort, where he lived for a while to improve his health. In 1907, he started learning carpentry and piano. In secondary school, his marks were poor except in drawing. His art teacher took and interest in his drawing talent, and taught him to make linocuts. He failed his final exam and thus never officially graduated. In 1913, M.C. Escher met his lifelong friend Bas Kist in religious school (which he attended at his parent's direction, even though he wasn't very religious). Kist was also interested in printing techniques, and may have encouraged M.C. to make his first linoleum cut works. Amoung these early works is a portrait of his father which is the oldest surviving work by the artist. In 1917, the two friends visited the artist Gert Stegeman, who had a printing press in his studio. Some of M.C.'s work from this year were apparently printed at Stegeman's. Also, in 1917, the Escher family moved to Oosterbeek, Holland. During this year and the following few years, M.C. Escher and his friends became very involved in literature, and M.C. began to write some of his own poems and essays. In 1918, Escher began private lessons and studies in architecture at the Higher Technology School in Delft. He managed to get ...

A Study Of The Use Of Microelectromechanical Systems

A Study Of The Use Of Microelectromechanical Systems In this paper, microelectromechanical system (MEMS) has been utilized to make miniaturized ion optics required for making the portable all-in-one mass spectrometer. Four different ion optics components were fabricated using deep-reactive ion etching (DRIE) of n-doped silicon-on-insulator. These components are 1 mm Bradbury-Nielsen gate, 500 Â µm coaxial ring ion trap (CRITter), reflectron optics and 500 Â µm Einzel lens. The Bradbury-Nielsen gate was made using a pattern of alternating electrode wires which either allows ions to pass or stop through the gate. The CRITter was made using five trapping rings and two end caps to make mass selection ion optics and it was also used in testing the alignment capability of fabrication process. The reflectron optics was made using a assembly of fifteen rectangular elements arranged in series. The fourth ion optics component was assembled MEMS Einzel lens which consisted of three lenses. It was used to focus the ions beam to increase the ion current and detectability. All the components were tested using ion produced with 70 eV EI ionization. These assemblies were characterized in terms of breakdown voltage, durability, and alignment. For current devices, the breakdown voltage was reported 750 V. The CRITter was tested with 1% toluene at pressure of 1 x 10-4 Torr. The resolution was limited due to the alignment errors and also aberration in etched designs got more impactful as the size of the ion trap was reduced. Current reflectron optics was not capable of resolving the peaks of toluene. Therefore, in the future analyzer path length will be increased by using multiple reflectrons. These miniaturized components were assembled using an encoded piezo-manipulator with pick and place capability. Resolution and ion attenuation was found to be the greatest concern of the current design at present. Fox, J.; Saini, R.; Tsui, K.; Verbeck, G., Microelectromechanical system assembled ion optics: An advance to miniaturization and assembly of electron and ion optics. Review of Scientific Instruments 2009, 80 (9), 093302. In this paper, a soft landing (SL) instrument has been developed with capability of depositing the ions onto the substrate for preparative analysis. The two important components of this instrument are custom made drift tube and two split rings. The drift tube is consist of 18 concentric rings along with two split rings at the end. The drift tube was filled with an inert buffer gas like He and operated from 1 to 100 Torr of pressure. High pressure gas thermalized the cluster ions on collision to 0.01 to 1.0 eV kinetic energy and separate the clusters formed by laser ablation. This helped in further analysis of deposited clusters on mica surface. Two functions of split-ring are to direct the cluster ions towards either detector or a landing surface. This instrument works on the principle of narrowing the kinetic energy of ions going through drift tube to prevent the fragmentation on landing. The gating function of split ring was performed using a homemade pulsing circuit that changes t he voltage across the split ring. The SL instruments was built with a quick door CF flange which reduced the number of gaskets required and helped in holding, adjusting and removing the detector and landing surface from the instrument without disassembling the instrument. A simple Faraday plate was used in SL instrument as detector. A 15 mm mica disk used for atomic force microscopy (AFM) was used as landing surface. Split ring pulsing helped in selecting and isolating the specific ion clusters. For initial experiments copper was used as analyte and it was ionized using laser ablation using ND-YAG laser. Mass spectrum of Copper was reported to have multiple peaks due to Cun+, CunOm+ ions formation in the presence of O2 as contaminant. After the cluster deposition on mica surface, surface was analyzed using AFM and was compared with the physical vapor deposition (PVD). In the future, other landing surfaces like gold, silicon, and highly ordered pyrolytic graphite can be used to bette r understand the deposition mechanism.

The movie Maria Full of Grace Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The movie Maria Full of Grace - Essay Example Maria, Frida and Tita are women that become faced with challenges in life and had to make hard decisions. In Maria Full of Grace, the character Maria is the main character becomes faced with difficult situations in life. Maria Together with other two girls, engage in transporting large quantities of cocaine, from Colombia to New York. At a tender age of 17 years, the young Colombian girl becomes forced to go into selling drugs after she remained the only daughter her family depended on. Despite her harsh economic status even after quiting job from her previous employer. In addition to her problems, she still got pregnant and refused to marry the guy. With increased financial pressure coming from both sides, Maria decided to make a terrible decision. Maria decides to join the Cocaine business as a transporter while in her pregnancy state just to raise money for the up keep of the unborn and her family. In comparison to Tito in the movie Like Water for Chocolate, she also became faced with challenges that made her take appropriate choices. In the beginning of the movie, one could realize the undying love Tita and Piedro had for each other, though her mother, Mama Elena did not consent their union. Piedro ends up marrying his eldest sister, Rosaura. Tita continued her pursuit for her lover by ensuring she cared her nephew after birth more than her sister. Her mother on realizing how Piedro and Tita came closer each day due to the Rosaura’s child, she arranges for Piedro and Rosaura to move to a distant place. This stressed Tita as she was deeply in love with Piedro and his son. The main character in the film Frida, also proved to be a strong willed woman. Even after getting polio, getting involved in an accident, she still manages to pull herself together and learn how to walk. It is her determination to walk after such an accident that shocks many. Furthermore, after recovery from the hospital, Frida manages to walk, but in pain. Are they fit choices or no t? From the three movies, a lot could be derived from the hardships they underwent to become what they did. These women hard to make tough choices some of which were inimical while others good. Tina after struggling with Mother Elena in life and even after life with her ghost, eventually becomes freed from the snare of tradition to marry her true love Piedro despite the many challenges that stood on her way. Tita knew that her eldest sister became forced to marry Piedro in an attempt to obey traditions and hence still persisted knowing Piedro will do in response. The story hence is a love story of two lovers that became bound to be together for life and afterlife. The main obstacle to Tita was her mother, Elena whom hated her. For instance, even after getting hurt after raiders injured her, she still refused food brought to her by Tita, eventually dying due to ingesting overdose of emetics. Tita’s choice of loving Piedro for life proved a terrific idea. For instance, after Pi edro and his wife moved to San Antonio with their child, it died since it was deriving its love from Tita. In as much as she was the youngest in the family, she treated her mother well, though her mother treated her badly. In the movie, when she becomes tormented by the ghost of Elena, she made a decision to condemn it. This ended up badly as Piedro became consumed with the dying flame from the ghost. Another decision Tita made was telling her husband John of her undying love for Piedro. John accepts, but just tells her to decide. Tita eventually agrees to get married to Piedro which they end up enjoying their passion to death. Maria engages in the illegal

How the Environment Affects the Family Unit Essay

How the Environment Affects the Family Unit - Essay Example Fathers are increasingly becoming more involved in child upbringing while mothers delve into occupational, educational and social spheres (Sarah, 2003). The composition of a family structure affects the development of a child .Research shows that children from single-parent families perform poorly when compared to children from a family with both parents. Children from single families are more prone to developing health, social and academic problems. However, in some instances, children with single parents perform well just like children from two-parent families (Sarah, 2003). It is important to study the functioning of the family as a unit to comprehend child development. Whole functioning of the family is a process where a family interacts closely and bond together. The wholesome functioning of the family affects the development of young one through the interactions occurring in the family. Positive characteristics such as warmth, closeness and cohesion serve to enable children face difficult circumstances later on in life (Sarah, 2003). Internal relationships within a family undoubtedly are the most effective way of influencing lives. However, social, economic and physical environment plays a major role in the functioning of the family as a

Improving Organization Retention Paper Essay Example for Free

Improving Organization Retention Paper Essay Organizations often experiences staffing issues; therefore, one department will be asked to cover for another. However, these issues can be generated from several aspects within an organization such as staffing issues, financial issues, and organization retention. Subsequently, the organization administration must endeavor to sort out the best strategy to resolve these issues. In this particular paper the underlying issues involves staffing. â€Å"Strategies for improving the employee selection process include tracking recruitment sources; using realistic job previews (RJPs); using assessment tools and interviews to predict turnover; and hiring for fit and motivation (Barrick Zimmerman, p. 1 Para 6 2005). Moreover, an organization that implements a successful staffing approach will essentially establish a positive influence regarding employee retention. Nevertheless with this paper organization retention will be discussed in details, and work motivation theories will be applied to improve employee recruitment and retention at JC’s Casino. An examination of potential occupational stressors that are considered as a negative influence on recruitment and retention as well as a significant proposal will be demonstrated. Furthermore, the role of job satisfaction and its influence on retention at the casino, and recommendations for improving job satisfaction of the employees, and how that can play a part in successfully improving retention will be discussed. Ultimately, a discussing regarding counterproductive employee behavior occurring at the casino as well as what suggestions that would reduce the counterproductive behavior and increase productive employee behavior will be demonstrated as well. JC’s Casino This particular casino is in disarray as the result of unpredictable staffing issues, which essentially caused the casino dealers to leave. In fact, the dealers obtain employment with other casino that merely offered a lower wage rate in contrast to his or her former employment. Moreover, the casino housekeeping staff itself was experiencing issues because of the absenteeism and the high turnover of rooms. Consequently, this issue essentially impinged on other departments within the casino because of the required staff needed to manage the casino was lacking. Indeed, this concern did not impress the casino customers; in fact, it merely produced more chaos as the hotel had to adjust the check -in times, and hire additional staff to work in the luggage room. The customers who arrived earlier had to be accommodating as the organization policy entailed. However, the owner is unaware of the magnitude of the issues, which surrounds the casino itself. In essence, the owner merely knows of the specifics such as the dealers was dropping off like flies, and casino customers were becoming increasingly displeased regarding the untimely check-in transformation. Following, these issues and the whole story enlighten; one could understand why this particular organization desires urgent assistance as a means to improving the organization retention. Motivation Work theories One of motivation work theories that will be employed involves the Douglas McGregor’s X-Y Theory. Douglas McGregor (1906-1964) was the creator of one of the leading exceptional management theories without comparison. He hypothesized that a management position is considered as one of the most significant position within a corporation. In essence, he proposed that it was the manager responsibility to encourage and unveil the vast creative capability within people. McGregor introduced two significant forms of management approaches, which essentially started the development of his X and Y theories: the authoritarian and the participative. The Theory X authoritarian management style, employees are inherently lazy, and the individual would generally have to be forced to work. Nonetheless, under the Theory Y participative management style, employees would discover work as favorable. McGregor also emphasize that, under the proper management, all employees are naturally Theory Y employees (Kallio, 2006). The X Theory is primarily centered on a fashion of management and leadership that is authoritarian, whereas the Y Theory tends to employ more constructive aspects of leadership. Consequently, McGregor’s theory can relate to JC’s Casino situation as it expresses organization development. The Y Theory will allow the staff members to make progress and advance. This way of thinking, in view of this aspect it would be a plus to employ as a means to enhance recruitment and retention within The JC’s Casino. To embark on this journey first, the Y Theory will permit the manager to support employees’ incentives in place of reprimand and demerits. The Y Theory managers deem that each employee like work, and work for the good of the organization, which generates capitalization on competency between the employees. The Y Theory manager would give employees the chance of an independence of creativeness, which would form motivated and faithful employees who appreciate his or her job. The Y Theory managers also work toward building meaningful and productive relationships with their employees. These managers contend with McGregor understanding that the responsibility of management is to allow their employees to express their vast creative potential (Skidmore, 2006). One significant aspect, the Y manager would offer an open dialog with employees and other departments and through displaying leadership by leading with example. Domination and reprimand are not always the best, and the only method to create profitable workplace. In fact, the work itself should be asked and not commanded as a manager subscribing to the X Theory would be more likely to perform. However, the success of either of these theories would essentially depend on -the -job as well as the individual. Some people require unvarying direction and others will excel with little or no direction. In essence, it would fall back on what the individuals work best with regarding Theory X and Theory Y would come into play motivational wise. Another significant theory is called the Z theory founded by William Ouchi. This particular theory is identified as the â€Å"Japanese Challenge† within the management, which is employs the Y Theory and modern Japanese management principals. Although the employee within this theory must have the proper mind-set at all times for tasks with complete liability regarding the ultimate result of tasks. â€Å"Nevertheless, Theory Z essentially advocates a combination of all thats best about theory Y and modern Japanese management, which places a large amount of freedom and trusts with workers, and assumes that workers have a strong loyalty and interest in team-working and the organization. An individual behavior and environment can change unexpectedly; thus, this particular theory lacks the strength, and direction contrasting to the McGregor X-Y theory that involves great motivational suggestions and reasoning. Occupational Stressors JC’s Casino organization have a high stress level profession as well as a high stress level that often surfaces between employees. This type of environment entails customers who are commonly inebriated and often irritated; thus, workers must intervene if necessary. Consequently, recruitment and retention should be meticulous because a casino environment can be challenging and not for everyone. According to researcher’s casinos that implement Anger Management courses that include procedures for recognizing and managing stress, which displayed a higher results regarding employee contentment (Internet Reference, Anger Stress in Casinos-www.andersonservices.com). Role of Job Satisfaction To implement employee satisfaction the primary focus would be directed toward researching other successful casino such as Ki-Joon Back, a Korean casino. This casino successfully has applied an employee job satisfaction and organizational assertion. The Korean casino embarks on requiring the employees to engage in a survey questionnaire; consequence aided management by enhancing the condition of employee satisfaction. Moreover, this type of method can be employed within JC’s Casino with the same results. One must first follow- up on the results such as provide ongoing training, health care benefits, and maintain an open dialog with employees. Each aspect should be permanent to ensure employee satisfaction, recruitment as well as retention. Furthermore, the organization should also present employees with necessary supplies according to the resources. When employees are provided with the required supplies it will create a better atmosphere and enhance self-respect and retention. It is significant to bear in mind that integrity generally starts on the top of administration and can seep into the workers (Internet Reference, CQX.com-Cornell Hospitality Quarterly Management). Employee Behavior According to Global Gaming Business regarding employee’s behavior within type of environment by which it emphasizes that when counterproductive behavior occurs in a casino the management should tackle the issue immediately as well as the peoples involved instead evading the situation. Casino policy should be made unquestionably and sincerely to employees who in turn create an appreciation amid management and staff. Management must be the voice of logic when dealing with rumor or complex concerns. Management must take the led to sort out personally grievances and issues on the floor during his or her shift, and one should by no means leave issues unresolved. However, JC’s Casino has two key vital focal points here concerning behavior perceived as counterproductive, which starts with Joe, the tyrannical pit boss, and the above rate of absenteeism among the housekeepers. Management must correct the issue with Joe; in fact, he needs to be taught that his method of working and dealing with his coworkers is causing counterproductive. His behavior is essentially causing the employees to perform inadequately, and resulting in employees to leave the casino. Joe must be retrained and needs to from this point on apply a Y Theory approach in which he works with his employees instead of his former method. In case for some reason he refuses or cannot adjust management must consider reinstating him or shifting him to a position because his behavior is not complimentary to the organization. Another point counterproductive to the company is the above rates of housekeepers as absent from work. The casino pays a fair wage, but because of the shortage of staff the housekeepers undergoing overworked and underappreciated beliefs. The casino needs to employ a new management agenda in which the managers had a better mentality and could create an enhanced working environment for the employees. Conclusion Indeed, based on this finding manager knowledge, skills, and abilities are highly necessary. A management position is considered as one of the most significant position within a corporation. The JC Casino entails numerous significant facets and layers that could be perceived as challenging and are causes for concern. If management maintains this model, change decision-making methods and mindsets, aid employees with healthier working conditions and with respect. This will lead to longer retention and will eventually lead to a better more efficient recruitment process, which will aid the JC Casino as it continues to soar, and becomes profitable. Management must correct the issue with Joe; in fact, he needs to be taught that his method of working and dealing with his coworkers is causing counterproductive. Ultimately, the corporation expects the manager to be prepared to work harder, and to put forth more effort than the others leading by the example. The effectiveness of either of these theories would ultimately come to depend on- the- job and the workers. References Barrick, M. R. Zimmerman, R. D. (2005). Reducing voluntary, avoidable turnover through selection. Global Gaming Business Vol.9. No. 2, (Internet Reference, CQX.com-Cornell Hospitality Quarterly Management. (Internet Reference, Anger Stress in Casinos-www.andersonservices.com (Internet Reference, Motivational theories-www.businessballs.com. (Internet Reference, http://www.businessballs.com/mcgregor.htm. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 159-166. Retrieved April 4, 2011 Kallio, B. (2006). Mcgregor, Douglas. Encyclopedia of Educational Leadership and Administration. Retrieved on April 4, 2011, from http://www.sage-ereference.com/edleadership/Article_n368.html Skidmore, M. (2006). Theory X, Theory Y. Encyclopedia of Educational Leadership and Administration. Retrieved on April 4, 2011 from, http://www.sage-ereference.com/edleadership/Article_n566.html /

Discrimintation Of Aids Patients :: essays research papers

AIDS, or the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome has been one of the most threatening diseases of the 20th century. Ever since it has been discovered in 1981, it has been constantly infecting men, women, adults, newly born children, homosexuals and heterosexuals. In definition AIDS is an extremely serious disorder that results from severe damage to the body’s defense against disease. Even though AIDS was born in an era of sophisticated medical and surgical developments, it still remains incurable. The ways through which the HIV, Human Immunodeficiency Virus, can be transmitted are: blood transfusion, contaminated needles used in drug addiction, from an infected husband to his wife through sexual intercourse, or from an infected mother to her new born baby during pregnancy. Because it is that much spread and so far incurable, AIDS has aroused a lot hysterical fears and a number of controversies and ethical questions related to the patient’s rights, doctor’s rights and the right of the public at large. While some people think that AIDS patients should be isolated in quarantines, alienated from the rest of the world, others find no reason in this harsh form of separation and discrimination against the infected patients. The patients must also have the right to lead a normal life that must be respected by all the public, and government too. Although AIDS is not more contagious than any other disease, its patients are suffering both social and medical discrimination, and that is not only unethical but could also cause an increase in the spread of the disease. The fact that AIDS is no more contagious than any other disease, makes the reasons behind the people’s fear of AIDS totally illogical. All people are thinking of is that it’s a deadly virus, but there is a lot more to know about AIDS than this. People must be more educated about this virus and how it may be transmitted in order to protect themselves and avoid their constant pa ranoia about AIDS patients. AIDS, unlike many diseases, is not transmitted by shaking hands, or through coughs, or by swimming in the same pool with an HIV positive. It has also been proven that even the exposure to body fluids such as saliva through deep kissing wouldn’t transmit the virus. This is because the HIV is found to be very weak in open air; it can easily be killed by ordinary household disinfectants (Kelly 33-34).

Existing Good or Service Business Proposal Essay

The Thomas Money Service, Inc. is a consumer finance company that has been granting loans and financing since 1940. Within the first five years the company expanded its business when it began â€Å"issuing business loans, business acquisition financing, and commercial real estate loans† (University of Phoenix, 2011, p. 1). By 1946 the company expanded to include equipment financing by creating a subsidiary named Future Growth Inc. (FGI). Due to increased demand in forestry and construction equipment in 1951 FGI purchased a manufacturing company so that the company was able to offer financing as well as their own brand of construction equipment. Over the past 67 years, FGI has held a monopoly on financing and manufacturing construction equipment and has seen only increased profits year after year. FGI has also never had to lay off any of its employees. â€Å"This track record has allowed their stock to grow from $5.00 to $85.60 with stock splits from 1975 to 1998. FGI has never issued bonds, and the present stock value is $35† (University of Phoenix, 2011, p. 1). Unfortunately, with the current economic downturns, natural disasters, and a decline in new-home sales, profits for FGI began to decline by 30% from the previous year. Due to the decline in production, the company was forced to layoff a third of their employees. Even with the current drop in new-home sales, there is still the opportunity for demand to increase as the economy becomes healthy again. Below the author will discuss how to increase revenue. Increase revenue FGI has many opportunities to increase revenue. Increasing revenue is not only dependent on the sales price of the product but also on what the companies expenses include. The company will need to re-evaluate the way it spends money and determine how to reduce outgoing costs. The first step FGI should take is to review its vendor list and communicate with the vendor to  determine the best way to reduce costs while saving the vendor money as well. FGI could request that all parts and supplies be purchased in bulk to cut down on freight charges as well as reach out to other businesses in the area to purchase supplies from the same vendor together. They would share the cost of freight, which would reduce the expense for both companies. Advertising is another expense that FGI needs to focus on. Currently FGI has cut back on its advertising efforts and has decided to only advertise during sporting events. This might not be a productive advertising strategy. It would be more lucrative to advertise in several venues such as direct mail, newspapers, and telephone books. This strategy will get the company name and services to a broader area of customers. Another expense is employee hours, schedules, and benefits that could use an overhaul. Currently FGI was forced to layoff a third of its workforce. The company needs to determine the best way to keep its employees while still saving money for the company. Department heads will need to review and re-evaluate employee schedules and hours to ensure that they are using the employee hours effectively. By re-scheduling and reducing employee hours, FGI will be able to save even more revenue. Benefits are also an expense that is offered by the company, but the company is not required to offer them to its employees. FGI should review and determine if it can continue to offer all of the benefits it currently does. If necessary, FGI could reduce 401k matching, reduce or stop employee bonuses and parties, and finally re-negotiate with insurance companies to find a more cost effective insurance package for the employees. Finally, the most effective way to ensure an increase in revenue is to cut t he sales price of the equipment. The chart below shows that the lower the price, the higher the demand. If FGI were to decrease its prices they would increase sales. Communicating with vendors, upping advertising, re-structuring employee hours and benefits, and cutting prices are all successful ways to increase revenue. Another aspect of increasing revenue that FGI needs to  consider is the spending power of its customers. The economy of the United States is currently on the down turn again, heading back into a recession. The credit market conditions are not very strong; the current unemployment rate is unchanged at 9.1% according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The fact that the unemployment rate has had no change means that the economy has not changed. There are no new jobs, which affect the construction industry. People cannot afford to build homes and they cannot apply for loans because their credit history is not strong enough. There is a silver lining for construction companies and equipment companies such as FGI. In 2009, the government created the 2009 Stimulus Package, which included â€Å"$131 billion allocated for construction-related spending† (The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2011, para 1). This stimulus allows for construction companies to bid for upcoming transportation construction jobs. Construction companies will need to upgrade their equipment to newer more efficient equipment that can handle the new workload and conditions. FGI will need to take advantage of the influx in construction equipment purchases by advertising and offering discounts and rebates to all new and current customers. Maximize Profit The concept of marginal cost and marginal revenue is used to determine how much it will cost to produce one more piece of equipment. â€Å"Companies typically look to reach a production equilibrium where marginal cost and marginal revenue are equal. At this point, the company will maximize its profit† (Vitez, 2003-2011). If an imbalance were to occur on either marginal costs or marginal revenue there will be inefficiencies with production. There is a possibility that it could cost the company more to produce the extra piece of equipment than it would profit from. According to Huter â€Å"The quantity that maximizes profit is where marginal profit shifts from positive to negative† (1999-2011). To determine the profit-maximizing quantity it is necessary to know the price, variable costs, marginal revenue, and quantity ordered. Looking at the chart above it is clear that the company is making money off of the maximum of 12 orders. If the order demand were to go from 12 to 13, there is the possibility that it would cost the company more to produce that many than they are able to charge for all 13. With that in mind, the  profit-maximizing quantity would be 13. Suggested Mix of Pricing and Non-Pricing Strategies FGI is no longer the only equipment manufacturing company for customers to choose from. In order for FGI to stay competitive, the company must include a mix of pricing and non-pricing strategies. Non-pricing strategies would include advertising the company as well as any discounts, financing, and warranties the company has to offer. Pricing strategies could include low-interest financing, longer payment terms, warranties, and product bundling. Product bundling could simply state that if a customer not only orders the equipment through FGI but also finances the purchase than they will receive a discount on the total price. According to the Wall Street Journal, â€Å"the Labor Department’s snapshot of the August jobs landscape, cuts in the public sector entirely offset the private sector’s gain of 17,000 positions. Figures from earlier months were lowered, due largely to deeper cuts by government. The unemployment rate remained at 9.1% but is likely to move higher in coming months amid the lackluster pace of job creation†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ (Reddy, 2011, para 4). Due to the possible economic downturn, FGI must consider a radical change in policy to stay competitive and on top of the market for construction manufacturing equipment. This radical change would be to offer customers the opportunity to rent or lease the construction equipment instead of purchasing it out right. Leasing construction equipment will allow construction companies to save money and will allow FGI to earn income and stand out among its competition. Create or Increase Barriers to Entry It can be difficult to create or increase barriers to entry when there is already competition in place. A few things that FGI could do to increase barriers to entry is to offer customers something that is totally different from the competition. Making the customers want to only purchase from FGI. Those differences would include the ability of the customer to rent the construction equipment for the duration of their contract and increase customer service. Increasing customer service would include offering the customers more options to contact FGI. FGI will need to utilize technology  such as the Internet, Websites, email communication, and QR codes, which allows customers to access company information and discounts. Increase Product Differentiation Product differentiation includes pricing and non-pricing strategies as well as increasing barriers to entry. FGI will need to make their construction equipment stand out from its competitors. In order to stand out, FGI will need to make changes to how it advertises its product, increase offers customers who purchase the equipment, and make the customers experience with FGI unique. Customers want to be excited about spending money, FGI should make their shopping experience exciting and rewarding. Customers who are happy about their purchases will spread the word to other potential customers who will then decide to purchase from FGI over other construction equipment companies. Other Ways to Minimize Costs A few ways to minimize costs for the product includes reducing the amount of employees, which FGI recently did. One way to minimize costs is for FGI to lease their manufacturing centers and financial offices instead of purchasing the buildings. Leasing will reduce costs to FGI because the owner of the buildings will need to pay for the upkeep and maintenance of the building and grounds. Reducing spending on supplies and manufacturing equipment is another way to minimize costs. The issue with reducing spending on supplies and is that the supplies could potentially be inferior products which would then make the products that FGI sells inferior. FGI will need to determine if the quality of their product is worth risking so that the company can reduce the cost of producing the equipment. International Trade International trade is beneficial to both the United States and foreign countries because it is the exchange of goods between both countries. â€Å"Trading globally gives consumers and countries the opportunity to be exposed to goods and services not available in their own countries† (Heakal, 2003, para 4). International trade can affect and is affected by each nations political issues. A current example is the Greek economic bail out. The Greek economy is currently in need of another debt bailout to hopefully  turn its economy around. The affect that the European bailout of Greece could have on the United States is that Europe will have less money to spend on American goods, which will then cause trade to decrease. â€Å"If a full default occurred, other troubled countries, notably Spain and Portugal, could also follow suit, leading to a wave of defaults that would severely affect the European zone and could send shockwaves all the way to Wall Street† (Katrandjian, 2011, para 13). As the Global Economy stands now, international trade has not been affected significantly. There is the possibility of international trade being affected if the European economy doesn’t stabilize. With that in mind FGI must consider how the international economy will affect the overhaul of FGI’s current marketing structure. FGI will need to make its products more lucrative for foreign companies to purchase. FGI would need to create a special package offer to foreign companies that includes special incentives such as discounts, extended warranties, and shorter lead times. Conclusion FGI has been a successful company since 1940. With the recent economic hardships and additional competition, FGI has determined that they need to re-evaluate their current marketing and product strategies. To increase profit and market value, FGI will need to revamp their spending, marketing, employee hours and benefits, and reduce the cost of their product. Another aspect of business that FGI needs to focus on is the marginal costs and marginal revenue to maximize profits so that they are not producing too much product that will end up costing them more than it is sold for. FGI has the opportunity to re-strategies their pricing and incentives to draw in more customers as well as increase blocking more companies from entering the construction equipment manufacturing industry. With the current credit markets being at an all time low, FGI will need to adjust their production and extended forecast to meet the potential decrease in sales. The 2009 Stimulus Package offers hope to FGI that sales will increase due to the government projected construction improvements on all Freeways and Highways throughout the country. Reference: Katrandjian, O., (2011) Greek Debt Bailout Could Affect the U.S. Economy. Retrieved September 5, 2011 from http://abcnews.go.com/Business/greek-debt-bailout-affect-us-economy/story?id=13879426 Heakal, R., (2003) What is International Trade? Retrieved September 5, 2011 from http://www.investopedia.com/articles/03/112503.asp#ixzz1X6dCaTuv Huter, S., (1999-2011) How to Calculate the Profit Maximizing Quantity. Retrieved August 20, 2011 from http://www.ehow.com/how_6713701_calculate-profit_maximizing-quantity.html Reddy, S., (2011) Job Growth Grinds to a Halt. Retrieved September 4, 2011 from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904583204576546220157206548.html The McGraw-Hill Companies (2011) Construction Stimulus Special Section. Retrieved September 4, 2011 from http://construction.com/stimulus/market_sectors/ University of Phoenix, (2011). Thomas Money Service Inc. Scenario [Computer Software]. Retrieved from University of Phoenix, Simulation, ECO561 website. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2011) Employment Situation Summary. Retrieved September 4 , 2011 from http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm Vitez, O., (2003-2011) What Is the Relationship Between Marginal Cost and Marginal Revenue? Retrieved August 21, 2011 from http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-relationship-between-marginal-cost-and-marginal-revenue.htm

Kindness and security Essay

At the end of scene IX, a woman comes outside selling flowers for the dead. This brings back her memories of Belle Reve, but she talks of them out loud as if she is reliving them at that moment. This shows that these memories still haunt her. At the beginning of scene X, Blanche has been drinking for hours after Mitch left. She has been packing and drinking, and is now in the soiled dress. She is still trying to forget what has happened by drinking. She is also talking to herself about a fun time, either in the past or in her head. She is trying to escape the present and go into the past by using alcohol. â€Å"Tremblingly she lifts up the hand mirror for a closer inspection. She catches her breath and slams the mirror face down with such violence that the glass cracks†. This shows that she forgets that it is now the present and she is angry that she is no longer who she was and does not look like who she was. Later in scene X, she tells Stanley about what happened with Mitch, but then she says that he returned with roses to say sorry, and then she told him to go. This is what she would have liked to happen, and maybe she doesn’t realise that it isn’t reality. Earlier in the play she had said; â€Å"I don’t want realism†¦ I want magic. † She also says that she had got a telegram from Shep Huntleigh inviting her on a cruise. Once Stanley tells her this is not true, she sees a ‘grotesque and menacing form’ in the shadow on the wall. This shows that she is not able to cope with the harsh reality, so she makes it up and believes it. In scene X, Blanche is raped by Stanley. After he tells her that he knows about her past, Blanche starts to see strange reflections on the wall and hear weird noises. This shows that her past is directly linked to her seeing things, and also with her fear of her past and Stanley’s dominance over her. It also shows that she cannot cope with her past. In scene XI, it shows Blanche cross fully into madness. She believes that the Doctor coming for her is Shep Huntleigh. When the matron turns up to take her, she lashes out and becomes violent, which she would never have done before as she would have wanted to be seen in a good light. Lastly, when the doctor shows her some kindness, she follows him quietly, as all she wants is kindness and security, even if it is from a stranger.

music influence essays

music influence essays I believe that it is the music of our time that will be remembered long after we are gone, and it is bands like Oasis that led the revolution which took place recently. Oasis, headed by brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher was the first band after The Beatles to lash out against what had become the normal way a band should be, and that is why they will be known for years to come as the band who changed rock music. Noel Gallagher was born on May 29, 1967 in Manchester, he was the second son of Thomas and Margaret Gallagher. Thomas, Tommy to the boys at the pub, was a construction worker. He and his wife, known to her pals as Peggy, resided in the working-class Manchester suburb called Burnage with their first boy, Paul. "God was playing a joke when He made me," Noel Gallagher once said. "You know, 'Let's make this guy a writer and a guitar player, but let's make him write with his left hand but play with his right, and let's have him born in the middle of May and give him a Christmas name like Noel. Little did Noel know that when he grew up he was to become the frontman of one of the most influential rock bands in music history at a time when music was the most influential form of speech on the planet. Little Liam arrived in the Gallagher household five years later, on September 21, 1972. He and Noel were forced to share a bedroom, something that always bothered Noel to no end, seeing how Paul, just a year-and-a-half older than him, had his own room. But Liam and Noel made the best of it, and the bedroom saw the beginnings of the somewhat loving, often heated relationship between the brothers. The boys kept a running record of their childhood by scrawling on their wall, later described by Tommy as their "wonderwall", later to become the title of one of their biggest selling singles. Bits of songs, poems, favourite bands, football teams and the like were all immortalised on their bedro...

Contemporary employment perspectives Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Contemporary employment perspectives - Essay Example Today, social work comprises a variety of functions, skills, and obligations. The nature of social work is essentially about dealing with the most serious social problems and reducing the scope of social exclusion, to promote positive change and enhance individual and social well-being. Childcare social worker: Job specification That social work is an indispensable component of social reality and progress cannot be denied. Burducea (2010) is correct in the origins of social work are modern. However, most, if not all, world civilizations were engaged in various social work activities, from sponsorship and personal financial assistance to philanthropy and the development of the sophisticated insurance systems. Although the role and importance of social work in the globalized work is well-documented, little is known about its functions. Childcare social workers are professionals with a Master’s degree in social work, dealing with problematic individuals and population groups, inc luding homeless youths. The goal of a childcare social worker’s job is to work in community, with individuals and families, who need professional assistance and face considerable emotional and social problems. Childcare social workers fulfill broad range of obligations and perspectives, including participation in multidisciplinary teams (Healy 2008). Childcare social workers deal with service users, assess their situation, and provide social and counseling support to those in need (Lyons & Carlsen 2006; Payne 2005). Homeless and runaway youths are rightly considered as one of the most socially vulnerable groups. The key tasks of a childcare social worker include analyzing and addressing new requests for social and emotional assistance to children, visiting their young clients at home, representing children in courts, and taking all actions that are appropriate for promoting children’s well-being. Childcare social workers are expected to contribute to the development of their service and work in multidisciplinary teams of social work volunteers. They must be prepared to work extra hours and pursue high degree of flexibility in job performance. Therefore, the job of a childcare social worker is essentially about detecting and finding runaway youths, assessing their situation and providing counseling support, to promote social inclusion, enhance their wellbeing, and guarantee that young people can meet their social needs. Childcare social work: theoretical underpinnings Social work is usually defined from the two different perspectives: that of science and that of an institutional arrangement with a solid normative and practical architecture (Burducea 2010). The key elements of social work as an institutional structure include benefits and beneficiaries, social work and normative systems (Burducea 2010). As a science, social work exemplifies a complex network of theoretical and methodological approaches to social problems (Burducea 2010). Social wor k as a profession uses multidisciplinary systems to assess the impact of the existing and emerging social problems on people and reduce their complexity (Burducea 2010). The social work paradigm is unique in the sense that it deals with the existing social problems â€Å"without violating the principles of social justice and human rights† (Burducea 2010). It would be fair to say that social workers serve a reliable buffer between

Grammer & Academic Writing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Grammer & Academic Writing - Essay Example The writer feels that his grammar has improved due to his constant usage of the language itself – be it in the form of written, spoken or reading comprehension. The hard work usually pays at the end on the part of the writer since he has been able to suggest quite a few changes to his repertoire of the vocabulary that he possessed back then (when he was starting on improving his grammatical acumen) and now. The change has been pretty obvious as he has taken giant strides and completely changed the way he sees the language as a result of the same undertakings. He has liked the whole concept of acquainting himself in line with learning the intricacies involved with grammar usage. However the strengths and weaknesses exist side by side and since man is always bent on a learning curve, the writer feels that there is still a long way to go before he could consider himself a fully developed native speaker, writer and a reader of repute. The strengths have been in the area of correct usage of nouns, pronouns, adverbs and adjectives. The writer has noticed that he is putting the required words at the end of the sentences where he used to fumble in the beginning of his quest. He has determined his weaknesses within this area and understood the manner by which the same have started to blossom as his strengths. This is surely a positive sign and suggests some good things for the future as far as acquainting himself with the language is concerned. In the end, the writer feels that he needs to back up his claims of improving his grammar by reading books, newspapers and above all, using the language with the people that he meets up with on a daily basis. He has to be proactive in his approach of the language so that his grammar improves and he starts to speak and write in a fluent manner. It is a given that this fluency would look good if correct usage of grammar is assured,

Article Critique Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Article Critique - Research Paper Example The model was measured as the best. Question 3: The key aspects noted on the article is that social disparities may have been a factor in the study since the community would not allow an individual who is sick and needs blood not to be given since this will cause problems in the community between the patients family and the entire community. Question 4: The study of Jehovah Witness can be used for future research on behavioral change within this population group to deriver to the society and culture more information that are not applicable and thus able to curb the ones may cause death to an individual. Question 5: According to the article the limitation of this study is that behavioral changes theories are not universally accepted and thus they are criticized by the community. Transtheoretical theory may be affected since it emphasizes change model for it to be applicable since the community is on there

Wastewater Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Wastewater Management - Essay Example Considering the sewer systems, earlier sewer systems were combined. They were designed to enable the collection of sanitary and storm wastewater in a single system. As such, they prevented flooding by warding off water from roofs and streets. As a result, early sanitarians concluded that the combined systems did provide adequate health protection. In recent times, this is known as Attached Growth Processes. Wastewater passes over a media along with air (oxygen). Methods like trickling filters and biotowers are effective in removing biodegradable organic wastewater materials. However effective these methods are, the passage of organic matter over oxygen releases some pollutants like poisonous gases like Ammonia and infectious micro-organisms that contaminate the water causing deadly diseases. There are advanced tertiary methods like the addition of chemical to primary clarifiers as a way of removing phosphorus and nitrogen. However, this is viewed as advanced treatment method hence em ployed when some specific wastewater constituents cannot be removed. An example of an advanced method is the Bardenpho-plant that involves the passage of Ammonia gas through several zones (Assano, 2007).

Data Multimedia Images

Data Multimedia Images Chapter I Introduction 1.1 What is meant by Multimedia Data? A number of data types can be characterized as multimedia data types. These data types are normally the essentials for the building blocks of core multimedia environments, platforms and integrating tools. The basic types can be described as text, images, audio, video and graphic objects. Following is a detailed explanation for the same. Text Text can be stored in a variety of different forms. In addition to American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) based files, text is usually stored in spreadsheets, annotations, processor files, databases and common multimedia objects. The task of text storage is becoming more and more complex due to the easy availability and abundance of Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) and text fonts, permitting unique effects such as text color, text shade etc. Images Digitalized images are nothing but a string of pixels that signify an area in the user’s graphical exhibit. There is an immense variation in the quality and dimension of storage for motionless images. For motionless (still) images, the space overhead varies with respect to complexity, size, resolution and compression format used to store any given image. The frequently used and accepted image formats (file extensions) consist of bmp, jpeg, tiff and png. Audio Audio, being another frequently used data type is relatively space intensive. A minute of sound takes up to 3 Megabytes (MB) of space. Numerous methods can be deployed to compress an audio into suitable formats. Video Another data type which consumes majority of space is categorized as the digitalized video data type. Videos are normally stored as a series of frames, the capacity of which depends on its resolution. A solo video frame can take up to 1 MB of space. Continuous transfer rate is needed to get a reasonable video playback with its proper transmission, compression, and decompression. Graphic Objects This data type consists of unique data structures that can define 2D and 3D shapes which further helps in defining multimedia objects. Today one can use different formats for image applications and video-editing applications. To list few examples Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) are graphic objects 1.2 How is Multimedia Data Different? Theoretically multimedia data should be considered like any regular data based on the data types for instance numbers, dates and characters. Though, there are a few challenges that arise from multimedia as described in [2]: Multimedia data is usually captured with various unreliable capturing techniques such as image processing. These multimedia processing techniques require capabilities for handling these various available methods of capturing content, this includes both automated and manual methods. In multimedia database, the queries created by the user rarely come back with textual answer. To a certain extent, the answer to user query is a compound multimedia presentation that the user can glance through at one’s leisure. The size of the multimedia data being large not only affects the storage, retrieval but also the transmission of data. Time to retrieve information may be vital while accessing video and audio databases, for example Video on Demand. Automatic feature extraction and Indexing: User explicitly submits the attribute values of objects inserted into the database in contrast to advanced tools with conservative databases, such as image processing and pattern recognition tools for images to extract the various features and content of multimedia objects. Special data structures for storage and indexing are needed due to the large size of data. 1.3 Basic Approaches for Data Retrieval Data management is being implemented since long. Many approaches have also been invented for the same to manage and inquire various types of data in the computer systems. The commonly used approaches for data management comprise of conventional database system, information retrieval system, content based retrieval system and graph/ tree pattern matching. The details for the same are as follows: Conventional database system It is the most extensively used approach to manage as well as investigate structured data. Data in a database system must match to some predefined structures and limitations (schema’s). The user should specify the data objects to be retrieved and the tables from which data has to be extracted. The user also has to predicate on which the retrieval of data will be based to formulate a database query. SQL, a query language has a restricted syntax and vocabulary that can be used for such databases. Information retrieval (IR) system This system is prominently used to search enormous text collections; where in the content of the data (text) is illustrated with the help of an indexer using keywords or a textual summary. The query demands are expressed in terms of keywords or natural language. For instance, searching for an image or video, the user is required to describe using words and also need means to store large amount of metadata in textual form. Content based retrieval (CBR) system This approach facilitates in the retrieval of multimedia objects from an enormous collection. The retrieval is based on various features such as color, texture and shape which can be extracted automatically from the objects. Though keyword can be considered a feature for textual data, conventional retrieval of information has a higher performance as compared to content-based retrieval. This is due to the fact that keyword has the demonstrated ability to characterize semantics while no other features have revealed convincing semantic describing capability. A key disadvantage of this particular approach is its lack of accuracy. Graph or tree pattern matching This particular approach seeks the retrieval of object sub-graphs from an object graph as per several designated patterns. Chapter II Data Structures for Multimedia Storage Many modern database applications deal with large amounts of multidimensional data. Multimedia content-based retrieval is one of the examples. Access Methods are essential in order to deal with multidimensional data efficiently. They are used to access selective data from a big collection. 2.1 Importance of Access Methods Efficient spatial selection support is the key purpose of access methods. These include range queries or nearest neighbour queries of spatial objects. The significance of these access methods and how they take into account both clustering techniques and spatial indexing is described by Peter Van Oosterom [3]. In the absence of a spatial index, every object in the database needs to be checked if it meets the selection criteria. Clustering is required to group the objects that are often requested together. Or else, many different disk pages will have to be fetched, resulting in a very slow response. For spatial selection, clustering implies storing objects that are not only close in reality but also close in computer memory instead of being scattered all over the whole memory. In conventional database systems sorting the data is the basis for efficient searching. Higher dimensional data cannot be sorted in an obvious manner, as it is possible for text strings, numbers, or dates. Principally, computer memory is one-dimensional. However, spatial data is 2D, 3D or even higher and must be organized someway in the memory. An intuitive solution to organize the data is using a regular grid just as on a paper map. Each grid cell has a unique name e.g. ’A1’, ’C2’, or ’E5’. The cells are stored in some order in the memory and can each contain a fixed number of object references. In a grid cell, a reference is stored to an object whenever the object overlaps the cell. However, this will not be very efficient due to the irregular data distribution of spatial data because of which many cells will be empty while many others will be overfull. Therefore, more advanced techniques have been developed. 2.2 kd Trees A kd-tree or a k-dimensional tree is a space-partitioning data structure used for organizing points in a k-dimensional space. kd-trees are a useful for several applications such as searches involving a multidimensional search key like range searches and nearest neighbour searches. Kd-trees are a special case of Binary Space Partitioning (BSP) trees. A kd-tree only uses splitting planes that are perpendicular to one of the coordinate axes. This is different from BSP trees, in which arbitrary splitting planes can be used. In addition to this, every node of a kd-tree, from the root to the leaves, stores a point. Whereas in BSP trees, leaves are typically the only nodes that contain points. As a consequence, each splitting plane must go through one of the points in the kd-tree. [4] 2.2.1 Addition of elements to kd trees A new point is added to a kd tree in the same way as one adds an element to any other tree. At first, traverse the tree, starting from the root and moving to either the left or the right child depending on whether the point to be inserted is on the left or right side of the splitting plane. Once you get to a leaf node, add the new point as either the left or right child of the leaf node, again depending on which side of the node’s splitting plane contains the new point. 2.2.2 Deleting from kd trees Deletion is similar as in Binary Search Tree (BST) but slightly harder. Step1 find node to be deleted. Step2 two cases must be handled: (a) No children replace pointer to node by NULL (b) Has children replace node by minimum node in right subtree. If no right subtree exists then first move left subtree to become right subtree. [1] 2.3 Quad-trees Each node of a quad-tree is associated with a rectangular region of space. The top node is associated with the entire target space. Each non-leaf node divides its region into four equal sized quadrants, likewise, each such node has four child nodes corresponding to the four quadrants and so on. Leaf nodes have between zero and some fixed maximum number of points. 2.3.1 Simple definition of node structure of a point quad-tree qtnodetype = record INFO: infotype; XVAL: real; YVAL: real; NW, SW, NE, SE: *qtnodetype end Here, INFO is some additional information regarding that point . XVAL, YVAL are coordinates of that point. NW, SW, NE, SE are pointers to regions obtained by dividing given region. [1] 2.3.2 Common uses of Quad-trees Image Representation Spatial Indexing Efficient collision detection in two dimensions Storing sparse data, such as formatting information for a spreadsheet or for some matrix calculations. 2.3.3 Representing Image Using Quad-tree: [7] Let us suppose we divide the picture area into 4 sections. Those 4 sections are then further divided into 4 subsections. We continue this process, repeatedly dividing a square region by 4. We must impose a limit to the levels of division otherwise we could go on dividing the picture forever. Generally, this limit is imposed due to storage considerations or to limit processing time or due to the resolution of the output device. A pixel is the smallest subsection of the quad tree. To summarize, a square or quadrant in the picture is either : entirely one color composed of 4 smaller sub-squares To represent a picture using a quad tree, each leaf must represent a uniform area of the picture. If the picture is black and white, we only need one bit to represent the colour in each leaf; for example, 0 could mean black and 1 could mean white. Now consider the following image : The definition of a picture is a two dimensional array, where the elements of the array are colored points. Figure 2.3: First three levels of quad-tree Figure 2.4: Given Image This is how the above image could be stored in quad-tree. Figure 2.5: 88 pixel picture represented in a quad-tree Figure 2.6: The quad tree of the above example picture. The quadrants are shown in counterclockwise order from the top-right quadrant. The root is the top node. (The 2nd and 3rd quadrants are not shown.) 2.3.4 Advantages of Quad-trees: They can be manipulated and accessed much quicker than other models. Erasing an image takes only one step. All that is required is to set the root node to neutral. Zooming to a particular quadrant in the tree is also a one step operation. To reduce the complexity of the image, it suffices to remove the final level of nodes. Accessing particular regions of the image is a very fast operation. This is useful for updating certain regions of an image, perhaps for an environment with multiple windows. The main disadvantage is that it takes up a lot of space. 2.4 R-trees R-trees are N-dimensional extension of Binary trees, but are used for spatial access methods i.e., for indexing multi-dimensional information. They are supported in many modern database systems, along with variants like R+ -trees and R*-trees. The data structure splits space with hierarchically nested, and possibly overlapping, minimum bounding rectangles.[4] A rectangular bounding box is associated with each tree node. [5]   Bounding box of a leaf node is a minimum sized rectangle that contains all  the rectangles/polygons associated with the leaf node. Bounding box associated with a non-leaf node contains the bounding box associated with all its children. Bounding box of a node serves as its key in its parent node (if any) Bounding boxes of children of a node are allowed to overlap. 2.4.1 Structure of an R-tree node rtnodetype = record Rec1, .Reck : rectangle P1, .Pk : âˆâ€"rtnodetype end A polygon is stored in one node, and the bounding box of the node must contain the polygon. Since a polygon is stored only once, the storage efficiency of R-trees is better than that of k-d trees or quad-trees. The insertion and deletion algorithms use the bounding boxes from the nodes to ensure that close by elements are placed in the same leaf node. Each entry within a leaf node stores two-pieces of information; a way of identifying the actual data element and the bounding box of the data element. 2.4.2 Inserting a node 1. Find a leaf to store it, and add it to the leaf. To find leaf, follow a child (if any) whose bounding box contains bounding box of data item, else child whose overlap with data item bounding box is maximum 2. Handle overflows by splits. We may need to divide entries of an overfull node into two sets such that the bounding boxes have minimum total area. 2.4.3 Deleting a node 1. Find the leaf and delete object; determine new MBR. 2. If the node is too empty: Delete the node recursively at its parent Insert all entries of the deleted node into the R-tree 2.4.4 Searching R-trees Similarly, for searching algorithms, bounding boxes are used to decide whether or not to search inside a child node. Here we need to find minimal bounding rectangle. In this way, most of the nodes in the tree are never touched during a search. If the node is a leaf node, output the data items whose keys intersect the given query point/region Else, for each child of the current node whose bounding box overlaps the query point/region, recursively search the child. 2.5 Comparison of Different Data Structures [1] k-d trees are very easy to implement. However, in general a k-d tree consisting k nodes may have a height k causing complexity of both insertion and search in k-d trees to be high. In practice, path lengths (root to leaf) in k-d trees tend to be longer than those in point quad-trees because these trees are binary. R-trees have a large number of rectangles potentially stored in each node. They are appropriate for disk access by reducing the height of the tree, thus leading to fewer disk access. The disadvantage of R-trees is that the bounding rectangle associated with different nodes may overlap. Thus when searching an R-tree, instead of following one path (as in case of quad-tree), we might follow multiple path down the tree. This difference grows even more acute when range search and neighbour searches are considered. In case of point quad-trees, while performing search/insertion each case requires comparisons on two coordinates. Deletion in point quad-trees is difficult because finding a candidate replacement node for the node being deleted is not easy. Chapter III Metadata Metadata is data about data. Any data that is used to describe the content, condition, quality and other aspects of data for humans or machines to locate, access and understand the data is known as Metadata. Metadata helps the users to get an overview of the data. 3.1 Need of Metadata The main functions of metadata can be listed as follows: [8] Description To describe and identify data sources. These descriptions help create catalogs, index, etc., thereby improving access to them. Querying Formulation of queries. Administration To provide information to help manage and administrate a data source, such as when and how it was created, and who can legally access it. Preservation To facilitate data archival and preservation like data refreshing and migration, etc. Technical To indicate how a system functions or metadata behaves, such as data formats, compression ratios, scaling routines, encryption key, and security, etc. Use To indicate the level and type of use of data sources like multiversion, user tracking, etc. 3.2 Metadata in the Life Cycle of Multimedia Objects A multimedia object undergoes a life cycle consisting of production, organization, searching, utilization, preservation, and disposition. Metadata passes through similar stages as an integral part of these multimedia objects [8]: Creation Objects of different media types are created often generating data of how they were produced (e.g., the EXIF files produced by digital cameras) and stored in an information retrieval system. Associated metadata is generated accordingly for administrating and describing the objects. Organization Multimedia objects may be composed of several components. Metadata is created to specify how these compound objects are put together. Searching and retrieval Created and stored multimedia objects are subject to search and retrieval by users. Metadata provides aids through catalog and index to enable efficient query formulation and resource localization. Utilization Retrieved multimedia objects can be further utilized, reproduced, and modified. Metadata related to digital rights management and version control, etc. may be created. Preservation and disposition Multimedia objects may undergo modification, refreshing, and migration to ensure their availability. Objects that are out-of-date or corrupted may be discarded. Such preservation and disposition activities can be documented by the associated metadata. 3.3 Classification of Metadata Metadata directly affects the way in which objects of different media types are used. Classifying metadata can facilitate the handling of different media types in a multimedia information retrieval system. Based on its (in)dependence on media contents, metadata can be classified into two kinds, namely content independent and content-dependent metadata [8]: Content-independent metadata provides information which is derived independently from the content of the original data. Examples of content independent metadata are date of creation and location of a text document, type-of-camera used to record a video fragment, and so on. These metadata are called descriptive data. Content-dependent metadata depends on the content of the original data. A special case of content-dependent metadata is content-dependent descriptive metadata , which cannot be extracted automatically from the content but is created manually: annotation is a well-known example. In contrast, content-dependent non-descriptive metadata is based directly on the contents of data. 3.4 Image metadata Some of the image files containing metadata include Exchangeable image file format (EXIF) and Tagged Image File Format (TIFF). Having metadata about images embedded in TIFF or EXIF files is one way of acquiring additional data about an image. Image metadata are attained through tags. Tagging pictures with subjects, related emotions, and other descriptive phrases helps Internet users find pictures easily rather than having to search through entire image collections. A prime example of an image tagging service is Flickr, where users upload images and then describe the contents. Other patrons of the site can then search for those tags. Flickr uses a folksonomy: a free-text keyword system in which the community defines the vocabulary through use rather than through a controlled vocabulary. Digital photography is increasingly making use of metadata tags. Photographers shooting Camera RAW file formats can use applications such as Adobe Bridge or Apple Computers Aperture to work with camera metadata for post-processing. Users can also tag photos for organization purposes using Adobes Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) language, for example. [4] 3.5 Document metadata Most programs that create documents, including Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Word and other Microsoft Office products, save metadata with the document files. These metadata can contain the name of the person who created the file, the name of the person who last edited the file, how many times the file has been printed, and even how many revisions have been made on the file. Other saved material, such as document comments are also referred to as metadata. Document Metadata is particularly important in legal environments where litigation can request this sensitive information which can include many elements of private detrimental data. This data has been linked to multiple lawsuits that have got corporations into legal complications. [4] 3.6 Digital library metadata There are three variants of metadata that are commonly used to describe objects in a digital library: descriptive Information describing the intellectual content of the object, such as cataloguing records, finding aids or similar schemes. It is typically used for bibliographic purposes and for search and retrieval. structural Information that ties each object to others to make up logical units e.g., information that relates individual images of pages from a book to the others that make up the book. administrative Information used to manage the object or control access to it. This may include information on how it was scanned, its storage format, copyright and licensing information, and information necessary for the long-term preservation of the digital objects. [4] Chapter IV Text Databases Basic text comprises of alphanumeric characters. Optical character recognition (OCR) practices are deployed to translate analog text to digital text. The most common digital representation of characters is the ASCII code. For this, seven bits are required (eight bits might be used, where in the eighth bit is reserved for a special purpose) for each character. Storage space for a text document that is required is equivalent to the number of characters. For instance, a 15 page text document consisting of about 4000 characters generally consumes 60 kilobytes. Now days, structured text documents have become extremely popular. They comprise titles, chapters, sections, paragraphs, and so forth. A title can be presented to the user in a different format than a paragraph or a sentence. Different standards are used to encode structured information such as HTML and XML (hyper text markup language and extensible markup language) There are different approaches like Huffman and Arithmetic Coding, which can be used for text compression, but as the storage requirements are not too high, these approaches are not as important for text as they are for multimedia data. [10] 4.1 Text Documents A text document consists of identification and is considered to be a list of words. Likewise, a book is considered to be a document, and so is a paper in the events of a conference or a Web page. The key identification used for a book may be an ISBN number or the title of the paper together with the ISBN number of the conference event or a URL for a Web page. Retrieval of text documents does not normally entail the presentation of the entire document, as it consumes a large amount of space as well as time. Instead, the system presents the identifications of the chosen documents mainly along with a brief description and/or rankings of the document. 4.2 Indexing Indexing refers to the derivation of metadata from their documents and storage in an index. In a way, the index describes the content of the documents. The content can be described by terms like social or political for text documents. Also, the system utilizes the index to determine the output during retrieval. The index can be filled up in two ways, manually as well as automatically. Assigned terms can be added to documents as a kind of annotation by professional users such as librarians. These terms can be selected often from a prescribed set of terms, the catalog. A catalog describes a certain scientific field and is composed by specialists. One of the main advantages of this technique is that the professional users are aware of the acceptable terms that can be used in query formulation. A major drawback of this technique is the amount of work that has to be performed for the manual indexing process. Document content description can also be facilitated automatically resulting in what are termed as derived terms. One of the many steps required for this can be a step in which words in English text are identified by an algorithm and then put to lower case. Basic tools are used in other steps such as stop word removal and stemming. Stop words are words in the document which have a little meaning and most of the times include words like the and it. These stop words are erased from the document. Words are conflated to their stem in the document through stemming. As an example, the stemmer can conflate the words computer, compute and computation to the stem comput. 4.3 Query Formulation Query formulation refers to the method of representing the information need. The resultant formal representation of information is the query. In a wider perspective, query formulation denotes the comprehensive interactive dialogue between the system and the user, leading to both a suitable query and also a better understanding by the user of the information need. It also denotes the query formulation when there are no previously retrieved documents to direct the search, thus, the formulation of the preliminary query. It is essential to differentiate between the expert searcher and the relaxed end user. The expert searcher is aware of the document collection and the assigned terms. He/ she will use Boolean operators to create the query and will be able to adequately rephrase the same as per the output of the system. In case the result is too small, the expert searcher must expand the query, and in case if the result is too large, he/she must be able to make the query more restrictive. The communication of the need for information to the system in natural language interests the end user. Such a statement of the need for information is termed as a request. Automatic query formulation comprises of receiving the request and generating a preliminary query by the application of algorithms that were also used for the derivation of terms. In general, the query consists of a list of query terms. This list is accepted by the system and it composes a result set. The system can formulate a successive query based on this relevant feedback. 4.4 Matching The matching algorithm is mainly the most important part of an information retrieval system. This algorithm makes a comparison of the query against the document representations in the index. In the exact matching algorithm, a Boolean query, which is formulated by an expert searcher, defines precisely the set of documents that satisfy the query. The system generates a yes or a no decision for each document. In the case of an inexact matching algorithm, the system delivers a ranked list of documents. Users can traverse this document list to search for the information they need. Ranked retrieval puts the documents that are relevant in the top of the ranked list, thus, saving the time the user has to invest on reading those documents. Simple but effective ranking algorithms make use of the frequency allocation of terms over documents. Ranking algorithms that are based on statistical approaches, halve the time the user has to spend on reading those documents. Chapter V Image Databases Digital images can be defined as an electronic snapshot scanned from documents or taken of a scene, for example printed texts, photographs, manuscripts, and various artworks. Digital image is modeled and mapped as a grid of dots, pixels or commonly known picture elements. A tonal value is allocated to each of these pixels, which can be black, white, and shades of gray or color. Pixel itself is symbolized in binary code of zeros and ones. Computer stores these binary digits or bits corresponding to each pixel in a sequence and are later reduced to mathematical representation by compressing them. After compression these bits are interpreted and read to generate an analog output by the computer for display or printing purposes. Figure 5.1: As shown in this bitonal image, each pixel is assigned a tonal value, in this example 0 for black and 1 for white. To further describe the grayscale of a pixel one needs to say that one byte is of eight bits. For a color pixel one needs three colors of one bye each, these colors are red, green and blue. So, for a rectangular screen one can compute the amount of data required for the image using the formula: A = xyb Where A is the number of bytes needed, x is the number of pixels per horizontal line, y is the number of horizontal lines, and b is the number of bytes per pixel. Using this formulae for a screen with value of x being 800, y being 600, and for b being 3; A=xyb thus A = 1.44 Mbyte. Compression is required for this significant amount of data. Image compression is based on exploiting redundancy in images and properties of the human perception. Pixels in specific areas appear to be similar; this concept of similarity is called Spatial Redundancy. Human’s views of images are tolerant r