Is Current UK Government Policy On Training And Development Fit For Essay

Is Current UK Government Policy On Training And Development Fit For Purpose - Essay Example It is evidently clear from the discussion that the policy of the United Kingdom on training and development is reflected in the document, Further education-new horizon: Investing in skills for sustainable development, produced by the United Kingdom Department for Business, Innovation & Skills or BIS. One important feature of the UK government policy is that â€Å"the case for state investment is strongest for young people and those with low skills†. In particular, the focus is on â€Å"young people aged 19 up to 24†.   However, â€Å"the further education resource budget will be reduced by 25%†. This is a very important feature of the UK government policy on training on development. The UK â€Å"will progressively introduce a new loan facility, which will remove grant funding from the 2013/14 academic year, providing the capacity to sustain learner participation with government-backed fee loans for individuals aged 24 or over studying at qualifications at leve l 3 and above†. BIS elaborated â€Å"there will be no up-front costs and the repayments made on an income-contingent basis.† In addition, â€Å"the government has made available  £129m in 2013-14 and  £398m in 2014-15 for these fee loans†. The BIS claims, however, that while public investment will be reduced, the UK government will â€Å"free the sector from top-down targets and direction to enable a truly demand-led system to develop†. The government will seek â€Å"greater contributions from individuals and employers who benefit most and can afford to pay†. For 2011-12, â€Å"the total Teaching and Learning budget will be  £3.1bn, of which  £605m will be earmarked for adult apprenticeships†. However, spending on adult apprenticeships and, relative to the previous government, â€Å"will increase by up to  £250m by the end of the SR period†. Informal adult and community learning will be retained although they will be â€Å"r eformed†. There will also be â€Å"progression routes for those looking for a way into formal learning. Importantly, â€Å"there will also be helpful for those who are unemployed on active benefits†. The UK government policy on training and development comes with â€Å"fundamental policy changes†. The â€Å"Train Gain† will be abolished. â€Å"Funding for workplace training on SMEs will be prioritized†.

The Storm by Kate Chopin Essay Example for Free

The Storm by Kate Chopin Essay The short story The Storm by Kate Chopin revolves around a setting that is both exciting and enticing. Chopins portrayal of the storms setting reinforces the plots main thematic elements through descriptive imagery that coincides with the characters emotions throughout the story. The characters in this story, Alcee and Calixta in particular, each make their own best of the situation as the storm hits. The storm is described as a violent one, with thrashing winds and blinding rain. The cracking of the thunder is frightening to Calixta, and jump-starts an emotional reunion between her and Alcee. Alcee takes shelter in Calixta and her husband, Bobintots home before the storm begins. Alcee, hearing the rumble of the thunder and the uneasy voice of Calixta, tries to comfort her. While the rain beats against the door, he reminds her of a moment that they shared in Assumption. They then began to kiss one another as they did that night in Assumption. One thing led to another and they ended up engaging in a sexual encounter that was purely for the pleasure of each of them. In the late 1800s sex was not looked upon as an experience that was meant to be pleasurable for a woman, instead it was looked upon as an obligation of a wife to her husband. The setting of this story seems to act as a catalyst for these two individuals to look back at their past together and to relive it. While Calixta and Alcee are fornicating, her husband and son, Bibi, are taking cover in a cistern from the storm. They were out getting shrimp for Calixta to cook for dinner. Bibi had been splashed with mud on his good pants and the collar of his shirt, and his father commented My! Bibi, wat will yo mama say! (Chopin 117). They then freshened up a bit to appear more becoming when they returned home. It seems that Bobintot cares very much for his wife and always wants him and his son to look presentable when they are around Calixta. It also seems as though the two are not too worried about Calixtas welfare during the storm, although the story does make mention of whether she will be alright or not. When Alcee and Calixta are talking inside her house about their time in Assumption, Chopin writes: For in Assumption, he had kissed and kissed and kissed her; until his senses would well nigh fail, and to save her he would resort to a desperate flight. If she was not an immaculate dove in those days, she was still inviolate; a passionate creature whose very defenselessness had made her defense, against which his honor forbade him to prevail. (Chopin 116). This is telling the reader that they did not make love back in Assumption. Calixta was a virgin then and they were too afraid of being caught to give themselves to each other. If they had sex, Calixta would have probably become pregnant and their reputations would have been destroyed. She would have been labeled a harlot and Alcees honor would have been ruined. However; now in this moment of the storm, she is married, and if they have sex and she gets pregnant, everyone will assume that the baby belongs to Bobintot and she will not be caught. Then storm then ended and Alcee rode off on his horse. Bobintot and Bibi returned home with the shrimp and Calixta acted very excited to see them. She got excited and told her husband: Shrimps! Oh, Bobintot! You too good fo anything! (Chopin 117) and kissed him and Bibi excessively. The reader also learns that Alcee has a wife that is staying in Biloxi. Alcee wrote a loving letter to her that night telling her that he is doing well and that she should stay in Biloxi if she and the children are fairing well there. The setting often invokes emotional responses that force the characters to react accordingly, which, in turn develops the plot. The surrounding storm is a representation of Calixtas bound up inner emotions. She seems to feel like she has no pleasure in her life and cant do anything that she wants to do. This is why she so effortlessly acts out in the manner she does with Alcee. The story tells the reader that while Calixta is in Alcees arms, the thunder and wind do not faze her whatsoever when Chopin writes: They need not heed the crashing torrents, and the roar of the elements made  her laugh as she lay in his arms. She was a revelation in that dim, mysterious chamber; as white as the couch she lay upon. (Chopin 116). On any given afternoon, a storm of this magnitude would easily frighten Calixta, as she was frightened before Alcee took her into his arms, however; while romancing with Alcee, Calixta was at peace with the storm. The reader can infer that Calixta is overwhelmingly enthused by the situation that she is in. Furthermore, the storm actually acts as a sort of door that allows these actions to take place. The Storm was written and set in the late 1800s, when women had few purposes in life other than cleaning, cooking, bearing children, and pleasing their husbands. Kate Chopin seemed to contradict this in her writing. Writing a story about a womans extramarital affair with a man, who is also married, was something that few people wrote about or agreed with in her day. In fact, the majority of society strongly disagreed with her work. So much even that she was not allowed to publish anymore after her novel The Awakening. In conclusion, Chopins portrayal of the storms setting reinforces the plots main thematic elements through descriptive imagery that coincides with the characters emotions throughout the story. Chopins use of descriptive imagery in The Storm draws the reader into the setting and provides essential elements for plot development. Chopin utilizes the stormy setting to portray the characters participating in sinful acts that at the time were considered taboo. Also, the setting of The Storm provides for the reader an atmosphere capable for understanding and relating to the plots many themes. Not only does the setting provide essential elements for plot development, it also acts somewhat as a separate character in itself by affecting the mood and actions of the main characters. Works Cited Chopin, Kate. The Storm. Literature An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Eds. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 3rd. ed. New York: Longman, 2002. 114-118.

The Decline of the Holy Roman Empire Essay -- Martin Luther, Protestan

The Holy Roman Empire was an empire in central Europe consisting of many territories and ethnicities. Once very powerful, the empire’s authority slowly decreased over centuries and by the Middle Ages the emperor was little more than a figurehead, allowing princes to govern smaller sections of the empire. Though the various ruling princes owed loyalty to the emperor, they were also granted a degree of independence and privileges. The emperor, an elected monarch, needed the allegiance of the princes and other aristocracy to support him, in turn giving them power or money. This tenuous allegiance between powers was greatly strained in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as religious reform dominated Europe and religious tensions divided the empire. Beginning in the sixteenth century, the empire’s power significantly declined because of the Protestant Reformation. The Reformation split the empire’s states into Protestant and Catholic divisions, straining the peace between territories. Though the relationship between the princes and the emperor had already been tenuous, the princes, seeing the religious divisions, sensed weakness in the empire and further challenged imperial authority. The Holy Roman emperors battled Protestant princes in Germany into the seventeenth century, where tensions were still high from the Reformation and wars of religion – initially contained to the German territories – began to include other territories and states. As more European states joined the conflict, the Holy Roman Empire continued to deteriorate. From the early sixteenth to the mid seventeenth century, the Holy Roman Empire’s power declined greatly because of its internal religious rifts, conflicts (in particular the Thirty Years War, whic... ...> * Crankshaw, Edward. The Habsburgs. New York: Viking, 1971. Print. Greengrass, Mark. The Longman Companion to The European Reformation, C. 1500-1618. London: Longman, 1998. Print. Hsia, R. Po-chia. Social Discipline in the Reformation: Central Europe 1550-1750. London: Routledge, 1989. Print. Linder, Robert Dean. The Reformation Era. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2008. Print. McElwee, W. L. The Reign of Charles V: 1516-1558. London: Macmillan and, 1936. Print. Scribner, Bob. â€Å"Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation.† History Today 1 October 1982: 10-14. Print. â€Å"The Twelve Articles of the Peasants.† 1525. TS. Marxists Internet Archive. The Peasant War in Germany. Web. 11 Nov. 2015. â€Å"Treaty of Westphalia.† 1648. TS. Lillian Goldman Law Library, New Haven. The Avalon Project - Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy. Web. 17 Nov. 2015.

Enron

The Enron scandal has far-reaching political and financial implications. In just 15 years, Enron grew from nowhere to be America's seventh largest company, employing 21,000 staff in more than 40 countries. But the firm's success turned out to have involved an elaborate scam. Enron lied about its profits and stands accused of a range of shady dealings, including concealing debts so they didn't show up in the company's accounts. As the depth of the deception unfolded, investors and creditors retreated, forcing the firm into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December. More than six months after a criminal inquiry was announced, the guilty parties have still not been brought to justice. Leaders Leadership is critical to the creation and maintenance of culture; there is a constant interplay between culture and leadership. Leaders create the mechanisms for cultural embedding and reinforcement. Cultural norms arise and change because of what leaders tend to focus their attention on, their reactions to crises, their role modeling, and their recruitment strategies. Referring to Enron, the major mistake made by leaders are as follows: Compensation Programs As in most other U. S. companies, Enron’s management was heavily compensated using stock options. Heavy use of stock option awards linked to short-term stock price may explain the focus of Enron’s management on creating expectations of rapid growth and its efforts to puff up reported earnings to meet Wall Street’s expectations. The stated intent of stock options is to align the interests of management with shareholders. But most programs award sizable option grants based on short-term accounting performance, and there are typically few requirements for managers to hold stock purchased through option programs for the long term. The experience of Enron, along with many other firms in the last few years, raises the possibility that stock compensation programs as currently designed can motivate managers to make decisions that pump up short-term stock performance, but fail to create medium- or long-term value (Hall and Knox, 2002). Dishonestly concealed debt and overstated earnings. Management t Enron Corp. admitted it overstated earnings for nearly five years. In an SEC filing, Enron said financial statements from 1997 through the third quarter of 2001 â€Å"should not be relied upon, and that outside businesses run by Enron officials during that period should have been included in the company's earnings reports. As a result, Enron is reducing earnings for those years by $586 million, from $2. 89 billion to $2. 31 billion. The company also acknowledged that part of earnings came from deals with partnerships controlled by recently sacked CFO Andrew Fastow. These transactions are already being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Enron said these deals enabled Fastow to earn more than $30 million. Enron also conceded that three entities run by company officials should have been included in its financial statements, based on generally accepted accounting principles. In addition, the company revised its debt upward in each year from 1997 to 2000. As a result, Enron's debt at the end of 2000 was $10. 86 billion, $628 million more than previously reported. Enron’s Performance Review System. PRC featured two basic motivational forces – fear and greed. Skilling wanted to keep only â€Å"the very best,† meaning those who produced their profit and volume target– so every six months one or two out of every ten employees were dismissed. In pitting employees against each other, the rank-and rank System acted to stress the imagined weaknesses of individuals and to obfuscate organizational problems. In sum, this led to an erosion of employee confidence in their own perceptions and, most crucially, to further compliance with the organization’s leaders in a way that strengthened conformist behavior. In practice, the PRC system worked to encourage â€Å"entourages† or â€Å"fiefdoms† (Dallas 2003) of loyal employees who gravitated towards powerful players for protection. The PRC was a powerful mechanism for preventing the emergence of subcultures running counter to the organizational tone set by Enron’s hierarchy. Members of the Risk Management and Assessment Group who reviewed the terms and conditions of deals (and who were largely inexperienced recent MBA graduates) as well as internal auditors, were fearful of retaliation in the PRC from persons whose deals they were reviewing (Chaffin and Fidler 2002; Dallas 2003). At best, control was compliance-based, seldom encouraging employees to follow either the letter or the intent of laws (Dallas 2003). This punitive environment brought the consequences of dissent sharply into focus. Enron’s culture has been characterized as â€Å"ruthless and reckless †¦ lavish rewards on those who played the game, while persecuting those who raised objections† (Chaffin and Fidler 2002, 4-5). Led by Skilling’s cavalier attitude to rules, top management conveyed the impression that all that mattered was for employees to book profits. In sum, this led to an erosion of employees’ confidence in their own perceptions and, most crucially, to further compliance with the organization’s leaders in a way that strengthened conformist behavior. Former employees have noted how â€Å"loyalty required a sort of group think† (Chaffin and Fidler 2002, 2) and â€Å"that you had to ‘keep drinking the Enron water’† (Stephens and Behr 2002, 2). A myth of smooth, flawless operations was perpetuated with problems â€Å"papered over† (McLean 2001, 58). The net effect of the rank-and-yank system was to decrease the likelihood that employees would raise objections to any illegal or unethical behavior of powerful players. The competitiveness the PRC created was exacerbated by Enron’s bonus regime. As one insider put it, â€Å"sure, the culture at Enron was treacherous, but that was the point† (Swartz and Watkins 2003, 56). Ultimately, the overestimation of profits and underestimation of costs was endemic to the organization. The cheat on debt and financial report lead to character erosion which destroys the image of this company and loss of business and social standing. The harsh policy alliance the relationship between managers and ordinary workers, make well-intentioned employees were inhibited from doing the right thing. Board Board of Directors in Enron’s collapse concluded that the firm had developed a pervasive culture of deception (Senate Subcommittee 2002). As such it was designed and operating at the level of connivance. CEO Lay used direct force to fire any possible successor with whom he disagreed and either he or other top Enron managers used indirect force to deceive and manipulate employees and other stakeholders for top executive advantage. Whatever standard operating procedures were developed at the level of conformance were honored only to the extent that they did not infringe upon executive perks or interfere with top executives exercising a type of feudal control over internal subjects. When external compliance threatened to restrict Enron corporate prerogatives, aggressive tactics to reduce or liminate regulatory standards were routinely employed. The extent and degree to which illegal non-compliance was the cultural norm at Enron will be determined in the courts. Enron did not reach the commitment level; it never democratized its power structures so that employee and community input could shape strategic direction or restrain executive perks. For all intents and purposes, the work culture of Enron was that of a moral jungle where abuse of power dominated principled economic democratic norms; it was a moral powder keg ready to explode. (1) Fiduciary Failure.  The Enron Board of Directors failed to safeguard Enron shareholders and contributed to the collapse of the seventh largest public company in the United States, by allowing Enron to engage in high risk accounting, inappropriate conflict of interest transactions, extensive undisclosed off-the-books activities, and excessive executive compensation. The Board witnessed numerous indications of questionable practices by Enron management over several years, but chose to ignore them to the detriment of Enron shareholders, employees and business associates. 2) High Risk Accounting. The Enron Board of Directors knowingly allowed Enron to engage in high risk accounting practices. (3) Inappropriate Conflicts of Interest. Despite clear conflicts of interest, the Enron Board of Directors approved an unprecedented arrangement allowing Enron’s Chief Financial Officer to establish and operate the LJM private equity funds which transacted business with Enron and profited at Enron’s expense.  The Board exercised inadequate oversight of LJM transaction and compensation controls and failed to protect Enron shareholders from unfair dealing. (4) Extensive Undisclosed Off-The-Books Activity. The Enron Board of Directors knowingly allowed Enron to conduct billions of dollars in off-the-books activity to make its financial condition appear better than it was and failed to ensure adequate public disclosure of material off-the-books liabilities that contributed to Enron’s collapse. (5) Excessive Compensation.  The Enron Board of Directors approved excessive compensation for company executives, failed to monitor the cumulative cash drain caused by Enron’s 2000 annual bonus and performance unit plans, and failed to monitor or halt abuse by Board Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lay of a company-financed, multi-million dollar, personal credit line. (6) Lack of Independence. The independence of the Enron Board of Directors was compromised by financial ties between the company and certain Board members. The Board also failed to ensure the independence of the company’s auditor, allowing Andersen to provide internal audit and consulting services while serving as Enron’s Outside Accountants/Auditors Andersen's auditors were pressured by Enron's management to defer recognizing the charges from the special purpose entities as their credit risks became clear. Since the entities would never return a profit, accounting guidelines required that Enron should take a write-off, where the value of the entity was removed from the balance sheet at a loss. To pressure Andersen into meeting Enron's earnings expectations, Enron would occasionally allow accounting firms Ernst & Young or PricewaterhouseCoopers to complete accounting tasks to create the illusion of hiring a new firm to replace Andersen. Although Andersen was equipped with internal controls to protect against conflicted incentives of local partners, they failed to prevent conflict of interest. Revelations concerning Andersen's overall performance led to the break-up of the firm, and to the following assessment by the Powers Committee (appointed by Enron's board to look into the firm's accounting in October 2001): â€Å"The evidence available to us suggests that Andersen did not fulfill its professional responsibilities in connection with its audits of Enron's financial statements, or its obligation to bring to the attention of Enron's Board (or the Audit and Compliance Committee) concerns about Enron's internal contracts over the related-party transactions†. Ethical Code/Process Enron senior management gets a failing grade on truth and disclosure. The purpose of ethics is to enable recognition of how a particular situation will be perceived. At a certain level, it hardly matters what the courts decide. Enron is bankrupt—which is what happened to the company and its officers before a single day in court. But no company engaging in similar practices can derive encouragement for any suits that might be terminated in Enron’s favor. The damage to company reputation through a negative perception of corporate ethics has already been done. Enron’s top managers chose stakeholder deception and short-term financial gains for themselves, which destroyed their personal, and business reputations and their social standing. They all risk criminal and civil prosecution that could lead to imprisonment and/or bankruptcy. Board members were similarly negligent by failing to provide sufficient oversight and restraint to top management excesses, thereby further harming investor and public interests (Senate Subcommittee 2002). Individual and institutional investors lost millions of dollars because they were misinformed about the firm’s financial performance reality through questionable accounting practices (Lorenzetti 2002). Employees were deceived about the firm’s actual financial condition and deprived of the freedom to diversify their retirement portfolios; they had to stand by helplessly while their retirement savings evaporated at the same time that top managers cashed in on their lucrative stock options (Jacobius and Anand 2001). The government was also harmed because America’s political tradition of chartering only corporations that serve the public good was violated by an utter lack of economic democratic protections from the massive public stakeholder harms caused by aristocratic abuses of power that benefited select wealthy elite.

‘Of Mice and Men’ by John Steinbeck Essay

‘Of Mice and Men’ is written by John Steinbeck. The novel is set in the 1930s during the great depression in California. The two protagonist characters, George and Lennie are farm workers who have a dream of one-day owning their own ranch. They find work in a ranch near Soledad, after escaping from Weed because of George’s incident. They are met by different characters on the farm that all have a dream. To be lonely means to lack friends or companionship and to feel isolated. Most of the characters are lonely and the only thing that keeps them alive is their dreams. Some of the loneliest characters they meet are Candy, an old man with only one hand, Crooks, a black cripple and Curley’s Wife, a woman who has no identity, she is lonely even though she is married. Although they are all on the ranch together, they are lonely because of who they are and their history. ‘Of Mice and Men’ is an emotional story with many different themes and characters. Steinbeck presents Curley’s wife as the only women in the ranch and because she doesn’t have a name it shows that she is not important and she is someone’s belonging. The first time you hear about Curley’s wife is when candy describes her to George. Candy uses expression such as â€Å"she got the eye† and goes on to describe her as looking at other man because of this they call her a â€Å"tart†. Through Candy’s words, we could develop an initial perception of Curley’s wife as Flirty and even promiscuous. This manipulates us by leading us into having a negative view of her. Her first appearance in the Novel focuses on her appearance. The way she acts, the way she looks and the way she speaks with others. The first sentence about her was â€Å"the rectangle of sunshine in the doorway cut off† this shows how she stands there to get attention and get noticed by the ranchers. This make us think as a reader in other way she stood in that certain place because she knows that they will look at her. Her physical appearance of â€Å"full†, â€Å"rough lips† and â€Å"wide-spaced eyes†,† Heavily made up† and â€Å"her fingernails were red† this shows how see got the natural shape on an actor. The â€Å"heavily made up† this shows that she want to make herself look attractive so the ranchers will look at her and feel love in her. The colour â€Å"red† shows that it’s a symbol of danger and on the other side the thick bright colours stands out from other things so this can make herself get noticed by others that is all she wanted. George seems to believe Candy he says to Lennie â€Å"don’t you even take a look at that bitch† this shows the feelings that George got towards Curley’s wife. She is lonely â€Å"stands there looking in† which shows she nothing to do and because of her loneliness she wanted to be loved by others so she acts like she is flirting. They say she is a â€Å"flirty† but it is the only way she knows how to get attention.

Good At, Good In, and Good With

Good At, Good In, and Good With Good At, Good In, and Good With Good At, Good In, and Good With By Maeve Maddox A reader wonders about the difference between saying, â€Å"I’m good in English† and â€Å"I’m good at English†: I always felt that theres a different nuance there when Im saying it. I just cant pinpoint it exactly. One of the numerous meanings of good is â€Å"competent, skillful, clever at or in a certain action or pursuit.† The two expressions in the reader’s question are often used interchangeably, but generally speaking, â€Å"good at† is used with an activity: He’s good at football. She’s good at product design. Her mother is good at Trivial Pursuit. When Fatima was only six, she was good at drawing. When it comes to school subjects, both â€Å"good at† and â€Å"good in† are used: Jere is good at math: he always finishes first. Jere is good in math: he makes all A’s. It’s difficult to formulate a rule for â€Å"good in.† An actor can be â€Å"good in a role.† Someone who is â€Å"good at sex† is said to be â€Å"good in bed.† A level-headed friend is â€Å"good in an emergency.† A similar expression used to indicate competency is â€Å"good with†: Because Daiki is good with numbers, he plans to study accounting. Maribel is good with children; she wants to be an elementary teacher. Amos is good with his hands; he remodeled the entire house. Lilah is good with money; she saves at least 40% of her allowance every week. Here are some examples of all three expressions as used on the Web: Michael Phelps:  Good at swimming, better at golf Why are  humans  and dogs so  good at  living together?   School shootings: Were good at finding fault, not so good at finding a solution Is it true that people who are good at music can learn a language sooner? Are you good in a crisis? Are pit bulls good with kids? Are you good or awful with money? When it comes to using prepositions in idioms, memorization is often necessary. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:5 Uses of InfinitivesThe Writing ProcessApostrophe with Plural Possessive Nouns

Travellers motivations on tourist typology Essays

Travellers motivations on tourist typology Essays Travellers motivations on tourist typology Essay Travellers motivations on tourist typology Essay for illustration Costa del Sol in Spain was considered alien, but in short period of clip expand into a mass tourer finish, and pull allocentric tourers ( Tourism: A Modern Synthesis, 2001 P ; 63 ) . One facet is that tourers and finishs change over the clip. Handiness Tourists normally travel off from place but without conveyance paths, tourers can non make their finishs. Indeed, the conveyance available is normally a factor in taking a finish. ( Appendix 1 ) shows that the most popular manner of conveyance by far for UK outbound tourers is air. Most long draw travel is by air for grounds of clip and convenience ( P. Lavery, 1989 ) . Traveling by air give easy entree to distanced states for illustration USA generated air tourers as a figure of 1,539,857 estimated in March 2009 ( tinet.ita.doc.gov ) or China 1610 million people travelled by air in 2007. ( inet.ita.doc.gov ) . States in European Union for illustration Spain and France create partnership and organize a common market by extinguishing trade barriers. France and Spain joined Euro zone known as Schgengen and removed boundary line control and checkpoints between their states. The remotion of controls agencies that citizens can easy go from one state to another. They have adopted EU currency Euro which makes easier for economic activity within EU. Merely British tourers made 12.5 million visits to Spain in 2002, compared enchantress 12.1 million to France ( news.bbc.co.uk ) . Geographic characteristics Costal touristry Costal countries offer some of the most desirable resources for touristry on the Earth. Sun, sand and sea provides an of import commercial sector of the touristry industry. Costal countries seaside have great entreaty to households. Visitors to a costal country or resort will be attracted by this sense of topographic point and will be acute to seek out coveted experiences, for illustration in Spain. Spain has many to offer from lovely beaches, beautiful metropoliss to mountains. The cardinal entreaty factor in Spain is seaside for illustration The Canaries, the group of islands with touristry concentrated on the four largest. These are Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura. The islands are chiefly volcanic. Fuerteventura has broad, flaxen beaches but those on Tenerife are less appealing dwelling of black volcanic sand ( Rough Guide to Spain, 2007 ) .National statistics says The Canaries has lost 15 % of tourers in 2009 compared to last twelvemonth 9.2 million, that repr esents autumn of 1.38 million. However France have something to offer, The Gallic Riviera Beaches are known as expensive and glamourous. Corsica is a Gallic island has a 100s of beaches appealing to everyone. Sing to WTO in 2008 922 1000000s international tourers visited Gallic seashore, with a growing of 1.9 % , compared to 2007. Hawaii in USA has appealing factor of sea, Sun and sand. A tropical island Eden of aureate sand beaches, waterfalls and exuberant woods. Aloha State attract more than 6 million visitants a twelvemonth. An stray archipelago in the center of the Pacific Ocean, the islands have alien landscape and epicurean cordial reception offer a wealth of experiences from volcanic eruptions and universe category surfboarding and beautiful beaches ( Eyewitness Travel, USA, 2004 ) Mountain Yellow Mountains is the most popular attractive forces in China. There are located in the South of Anhui state. The beauty and singularity of Yellow Mountain has become one of the great symbols of China ( Alone Planet, China 2009 ) . However France is the UK s favorite ski finish, The Alps are likely the most celebrated mountain in France, and Europe. The highest extremum is Mont Blanc, visitants in winter 60.000 per twenty-four hours. Spanish Pyrenees besides attract with broad scope of activities from boosting, skiing to mountain biking. Traveller will bask arresting positions and fresh air, sing to statistics tourers spend 4.5 million euro in 2008. Rocky Mountains in USA, 3,000 stat mis in length from U.S State of New Mexico through western U.S to Canadian s British Columbia. The Rockies include over 100 mountain scopes. The highest point in the Rockies is Mt. Elbert, it stands at 14,433 ft. Statistics says 2.7 million one-year visitants came to Rocky Mountains in 2006 ( nps.gov ) . Urban touristry A 2nd class of finish is the town or metropolis. Urban touristry turning in cultural activities such as visits to museums, art galleries and theaters. Cities entreaty to architecture, shopping and as a leisure activity ( J.C Holloway, 2006 ) . Urban countries offer concentration of installations and attractive forces that are connectively located to run into visitants and occupant demands. Diverseness of urban countries size, map, location and history contributes to their singularity ( Tourism: A Modern Synthesis, 2001 ) . Paris is one of the taking metropoliss for short-break vacations, uniting all benefits of short stay good stores and eating houses, outstanding architecture, quality hotels, all right museums ( J.C Holloway, 2006 ) . Paris deriving 23.5 million visitants annually. Most celebrated attractive force is Eiffel Tower which is the most recognizable memorial in Europe, statistics for 2002 6.2 million visitants harmonizing to Paris Office of Tourism. Low transatlantic monetary values made New York popular as short interruption finish, chiefly for shopping as dollar dropped the value against lb and euro. New York City throbs with energy commercially, socially and culturally. World-class museums and broad assortment of shopping, dining and amusement options, is one of the most visited metropolis Centres in United States. Its most typical sight, nevertheless, is the Statue of Liberty the symbol of freedom for 1000000s who made this metropolis their place ( S. Davey, 2004 ) . In 2008 figure of visitants reached 47 million ( nycstatistics, 2010 ) . China s best known urban tourers attractive force is Hong Kong. City is a prime tourer finish in Asia. Above streets with people and traffic, sleek luxury dress shops and five-star hotels stand following to ageing tenement blocks and traditional Chinese stores. Hong Kong is the metropolis that lives to eat, offering spoting diners beyond in cheap nutrient markets, street stables and eating houses. Statisticss for January 2008 were 2,518,566 million people visited the metropolis ( Alone Planet, China, 2009 ) . Madrid capital metropolis of Spain, located in the bosom of the state. A widely distributed metropolis, a concern Centre, place of the Spanish Royal Family. Great museums Prado, Reina Sofia and the Thyssen-Bornemisza, state-of-the-art places to fabulous arrays of modern Spanish picture including Picasso s Guernica. Madrilenos one of the cardinal attractive forces of capital metropolis, sitting in the traditional coffeehouse. Madrid is characterized by intense cultural and artistic activity and really lively nightlife ( Rough Guides, Spain 2007 ) . Sing to WTO fact and figures in 2007 about 60 1000000s international tourers visited Madrid. Rural Tourism Third class of touristry, the countryside, offers different vacation experience. Rural countries have featured conspicuously in the development of touristry and leisure. For tourer countryside is reliable and offers chances such as hike, fishing and Equus caballus equitation. Rural touristry is based on nature touristry and agrotourism, although focused more on vegetations and fauna experience ( L. Lomine and J. Edmunds, 2007 ) . Many rural countries attract big figure of tourers, for illustration Yellowstone National Park, America s first national park. Located in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. Favourite finish to 1000000s of visitants and great for households. Visitors can detect wildlife of silvertip bears, bison, wolves and moose. Experience all admirations of Yellowstone National Park, most popular geysers and hot springs, the universe s largest calderas with thermic characteristics, petrified woods and waterfalls. Visitors can bask boosting, bivouacing and fishing ( yellowstonenat ionalpark.com,2007 ) . National Park Service Public Use Statistics Office says 3,295,187 visitants in 2009 comparing to 1904 13,727. The rural touristry development in China has become a new economic growing sector. Guizhou state, place to 17 cultural minorities, have developed rural touristry. Situated in southwest China, mountains and hills where tourers could see alone milieus, varied topography, great conditions. China s countryside acquiring more than 300 1000000s tourer every twelvemonth sing to China National Tourism Administration. Andalucia in Spain is the southmost portion of the Iberian peninsula. Andalucia is an ideal part for bivouacing, siting, walking and mountain bicycling. Mild clime and about 300 yearss of sunlight a twelvemonth, with broad natural environment ( Rough Guide, Spain 2007 ) . 17 % land of Andalucia has been confirmed Nature Parks. Rural touristry industry offers eco-tourism ( andalucia.com 2008 ) . 8.1 million tourers visited Andalucia during the 3rd one-fourth of 2009, 10.8 % less than the same one-fourth in 2008. ( UNWTO ) Gallic can be proud of their rural touristry in Ardeche south France. The Ardeche is a fast flowing river that has carved narrow gorges making breathtaking canon. Ardeche has a dramatic cragged alleviation with great positions and beautiful historical small towns. Region has a booty to offer for rural tourers from fantastic scenery that you wont bury, caves and museums to gastronomy and feature activities ( Lonely Planet, France 2009 ) . Statistics stating 350000 people visited Ardeche River ( UNWTO ) . Decision Motivation factors are different for each tourer, diverseness of ways to make finish every bit good as appealing factors which convince tourers to go. Costal touristry can be appealing with sea, Sun and sand factor. Mountain with their singularity and distinction from boosting to extreme athleticss. Urban touristry that entreaties with concentrations of installations and attractive forces. Rural touristry appealing with abandon and nature captivation.

7 Free Online Courses That Will Make You Happier

7 Free Online Courses That Will Make You Happier Here’s something to smile about: These 7 free online courses are waiting to teach you how to create a happier, more fulfilling life. Learn about the study of happiness from professors and researchers at top universities as you implement techniques such as meditation, resilience, mindfulness, and visualization into your own life. Whether you’re going through a rough spot or are simply looking for a few tips on creating a happier life, these courses can help bring a little sunshine your way. The Science of Happiness (UC Berkeley) Created by leaders in UC Berkeley’s â€Å"Greater Good Science Center,† this extremely popular 10-week course gives students an introduction to the concepts behind Positive Psychology. Learners study science-based methods of increasing their happiness and monitor their progress as they go. The results of this online class have also been studied. Research shows that students who consistently participate throughout the course experience an increase in well-being and a sense of common humanity, as well as a decrease in loneliness. The Year of Happy (Independent) Want to make this year your happiest yet? This free email course walks recipients through one major theme of happiness each month. Every week, receive an email related to that theme containing videos, readings, discussions, and more. Monthly themes include: gratitude, optimism, mindfulness, kindness, relationships, flow, goals, work, savoring, resilience, body, meaning, and spirituality. Becoming a Resilient Person: The Science of Stress Management (University of Washington) When stress strikes, how do you react? This 8-week course teaches students how to develop resilience – the ability to positively withstand adversity in their lives. Techniques such as optimistic thinking, relaxation, meditation, mindfulness, and purposeful decision-making are introduced as ways to develop a toolbox for dealing with stressful situations. Introduction to Psychology (Tsinghua University) When you understand the basics of psychology, youll be better prepared to make decisions that bring you ongoing happiness. Learn about the mind, perception, learning, personality, and (ultimately) happiness in this 13-week introductory course. A Lifetime of Happiness and Fulfillment (Indian School of Business)   Developed by a professor nicknamed â€Å"Dr. HappySmarts,† this 6-week course draws on research from a variety of disciplines to help students understand what makes people happy. Be prepared for videos featuring interviews with happiness experts and authors, readings, and exercises. Positive Psychology (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) Students in this 6-week course are introduced to the study of Positive Psychology. Weekly units focus on psychological techniques that are proven to improve happiness levels - upward spirals, building resilience, loving-kindness meditations, and more. Psychology of Popularity (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) If you think that popularity doesn’t affect you, think again. This 6-week course introduces students to the multitude of ways that experiences with popularity in their younger years shape who they are and how they feel as an adult. Apparently, popularity can even change DNA in unexpected ways.

TQM Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

TQM - Research Paper Example The paper will discuss the history of the balanced scorecard as a tool of performance measurement and management and outlines the detailed four perspectives of measuring the performance of the organization. The paper will also outline some benefits that are offered by the balanced scorecard as a tool of process improvement and performance measurement. The balanced scorecard was developed by Robert Kaplan and David Norton in 1995 and considers four perspectives of organizational performance that include the financial perspective, customer perspective, internal business process and finally learning and growth perspective (Niven, 2005). According to Kaplan and Norton, the tool translates the organizational mission and strategy in set of performance measures that will determine the short-term and long-term organizational progress in executing the mission and strategy of the company (Niven, 2005). In this case, the tool is useful since it clarifies the vision and strategy and links the strategic objectives with the measures and further enhances the strategic feedback of the attainment of the corporate objectives. The financial perspective measures the economic performance of the actions taken by the firm such as the increase in revenues, the increase in profitability, the decline in the operational costs and decline in bad debts (Meyer, 2002). The short-term financial measures can include an increase in the number of sales units while the long-term financial measures will include increase in overall profitability and reduction in the operating costs. The customer perspective is geared at identifying the market segments and ensuring higher customer satisfaction and retention. High customer satisfaction will lead to higher customer loyalty and retention thus reducing the marketing costs and increasing the business revenues (Niven, 2005). The customer measures of performance include the number

Water Movie Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Water Movie - Essay Example s taken to a holy city of Baranas to live with other elderly widows where she is destined to spend the rest of her life although she keeps hoping that her mother would come and take her home. Another character in the movie is Kalyani, a young widow who falls in love with Nayaran, a follower of Gandhi, and she is presented with the dilemma of keeping the Hindu tradition or marrying him. The movie therefore explores the fate of the young widows and their struggle to remain afloat in the deep waters of the Hindu tradition and religion. In this paper, the film water (2005) will be used to identify and discuss the various intercultural communication concepts. The film water (2005) offers a controversial presentation of stereotypes in the Hindu culture. Widows are considered as unlucky and cursed members of the Hindu society and culture. According to the Hindu religion and culture, widows are the Zamindar prostitutes. They are confined to the widow dorm, exploited and have nowhere to go to. Chuyia hopes that her mother would come to take her away from the widow dorm but this is not the case because she is bound by the Hindu culture and she only has three options at her disposal; to remarry her dead husband’s brother, to die on the husbands pyre or to commit her entire life into celibacy. She is violated, abused and misused in the Zamindar where she is sent for child prostitution. One of the more rational widows, Shakuntala feels sorry for her, arranges to get her out of the suffering of the widow house, and entrusts her under the care of Gandhi. Kalyani, another widow falls in love with Nayarana and agrees to marry him. She however commits suicide in shame upon realizing that she had been his father’s prostitute. The roles of Kalyani as the woman who commits suicide as a way of escaping the cruel cultural norms and the other widows as those who conforms to the rules of culture and religion represents the social stereotypes in the movie. On the other hand, the

Case analysis Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 6

Analysis - Case Study Example Specifically, there was immense pressure from the US government for this program to be declared operational and to beat its deadline as part of the space race with the USSR (Edmondson; A 1). Finally, there was pressure from Congress for the program to become financially self-supportive. The environment NASA was operating in forced them to operate pseudo-commercially (Edmondson; A 2), which resulted in a culture of short-cuts, stress, and conflict between and within different contractors and NASA. Pressure increased before the launch of the Challenger, although they were still confident after conducting 24 successful launches. However, prior to the Challenger launch, NASA was faced with territorial battles and internal strife due to competing interests and political pressure. In short, NASA seems to have been operating in a semi-controlled decision making phase as they tried to serve industry, scientific, and military demands with a shuttle that was declared operational prior to completion of development. The decision-making process was also open to political manipulation (Edmondson; A 2), which left an impression on the employees that decision making was a political directive, leading to complacency among employees with safety decisions traded for keeping political deadlines. Roger Boisjoly was an engineer working under the Director of the Solid Rocket Motors project at Morton Thiokol (Edmondson; A 4), which was one of NASA’s contractors. His opinion on the decision to launch was that Challenger’s launch should be stopped. He gave this opinion based on data he had found about the rocket boosters meant to lift the Challenger into space, writing a memo to the Vice President of Engineering Robert Lund that the O-rings in the SRM joints were eroded and that this should be rectified (Edmondson; B 9). During the teleconference just before the Challenger launch, Boisjoly made a presentation to managers

Daughter from danang Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Daughter from danang - Essay Example The movie depicts how at every stage of her life, Heidi had to face untold miseries on account of circumstances related to of her birth, abandonment by the parents, and the cultural clashes to which she was exposed to. Her destiny was linked to the destinies of two nations. On being sent to America with the consent of her mother, primarily for safety considerations in Vietnam, she was adopted by a single mother, in a township of Pulaski, Tennessee. As she reached adulthood, her relationship with the adopted mother deteriorated and she began intense search for her own mother. She succeeded in her efforts, got a link to her whereabouts and came to know that she lived with her half-siblings. Heidi decides to visit her at the native homeland, notwithstanding the deep cultural differences. The plot of the movie is not smooth-sailing one, but full credits to the producer, they maintain a non-judgmental approach and it involves several questions for which satisfactory solutions are difficul t to find. Her birth mother has abandoned Heidi, and it is not expected of her to show love and sympathy for her.

Expanding small business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Expanding small business - Essay Example Sam was told that the company should have adopted change management methods and planned change policies prior to bringing about change. According to Nelson and Winter (1982) routine interactions within the working environment forms the basis of organizational culture and a predictive pattern emerges. Deal and Kennedy 19820 describe it as â€Å"the way we do things here†. The importance of this routine is gaining importance as has been acknowledged by Cohen et al (1972) and Hedberg et al (1976. Topmost in handling change is to motivate the people to achieve the purpose of the change. This means highlighting the glorious future and contrasting it with the disgraceful past. However it has to be conveyed positively with rewards accompanying results. Effective communication will be required to generate support and participation at all levels. Teamwork and togetherness is the core issue here. To bring about active involvements in the procedure the employees have to be given a vision of the future. The vision requires standing up for fair practices with genuine efforts backed by world class products and to inform the customers that they could depend upon the company to be competitive and more efficient. The objectives are the values the vision creates and the value features are the consistent commitment to quality and service to be provided to the customers. For the change to be effective and for the realization of the company vision it is imperative that all the stakeholders support the various steps all along the way. The attempts have to be genuine and in common interest for benefits all round. The primary requirement is to have the knowledge of all sources of power in the company and to harness them and motivate them to work for a common goal. The ideal is to get them to agree on and obtain a consensus to avoid sudden conflicts of interest midway between any initiatives. It is often

Daughter from danang Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Daughter from danang - Essay Example The movie depicts how at every stage of her life, Heidi had to face untold miseries on account of circumstances related to of her birth, abandonment by the parents, and the cultural clashes to which she was exposed to. Her destiny was linked to the destinies of two nations. On being sent to America with the consent of her mother, primarily for safety considerations in Vietnam, she was adopted by a single mother, in a township of Pulaski, Tennessee. As she reached adulthood, her relationship with the adopted mother deteriorated and she began intense search for her own mother. She succeeded in her efforts, got a link to her whereabouts and came to know that she lived with her half-siblings. Heidi decides to visit her at the native homeland, notwithstanding the deep cultural differences. The plot of the movie is not smooth-sailing one, but full credits to the producer, they maintain a non-judgmental approach and it involves several questions for which satisfactory solutions are difficul t to find. Her birth mother has abandoned Heidi, and it is not expected of her to show love and sympathy for her.

The level of the different agencies in the administrative structure of Term Paper

The level of the different agencies in the administrative structure of the Federal Government - Term Paper Example The United States of America has different categories of agencies which ease the operation of the federal government given the nations’ size and population. Each of the agencies has its own line of operation which makes a significant contribution the government duties. It also provides support to the department of defense under which it is formed. The US Bureau of Land Management is an executive department agency found within the Department of The Interior. This agency is responsible for administering public lands in the United States of America. It has an office of law enforcement and security which is also a Federal Law enforcement agency in the federal government of the United States. The Environmental Protection Agency of the United States is an independent agency of federal government. This agency is responsible for protecting both the environment and human health. It does this through writing and also enforcing regulations derived from the laws made by the US congress. T he United States Secret Service Agency is an executive agency. It is also a law enforcement agency which is found in the department of Homeland Security of the United States as suggested by Gaines (2001). Appropriation Subcommittees Responsible for Jurisdiction over Each Agency’s Budget Request The Appropriation subcommittees usually work off the budget request of the administration and the previous year’s bills expenses while including any of the upcoming congress priorities. There are twelve appropriation subcommittees each comprising of twelve members. ... Each year it is the mandate of the congress to pass appropriation bills for water and energy development. This budget incorporates funding, studies maintenance and the construction of particular projects. The House Interior and Environment Appropriations subcommittee is responsible for the budget request of the bureau of Land Management as suggested by Congress (2003). The Interior and Environment appropriations Committee has jurisdiction over the Environment protection agency of the us regarding the age n cy’s budget request. The Interior and Environment appropriation committee is under the chairmanship of Mike Simpson. The committee constantly criticizes the agency’s budget to ensure that it is in line with planned projects. It hand les issue such as handling interior bills as it is one of the tough bills the congress needs to pass. The homeland and security appropriations committee is responsible for jurisdiction over United States Secret Service agency’s budg et request. The committee is also responsible for other agencies related to homeland d security such as transport security administration, United States coast guard among others. It is also responsible for fun ding state and other local preparedness efforts. The budget from the subcommittees usually forms approximately twelve percent deduction of the President’s budget proposal. The homeland security appropriation subcommittee is currently chaired by Mary Landieu who is a democrat from Louisiana. The Environment Protection agency is also under Interior and Environment appropriation committee chaired by Mike Simpson. The subcommittee here approves annual spending bills of he environment al protection agency.

Teaching grammar in context Essay Example for Free

Teaching grammar in context Essay According to Constance Weaver’s book entitled Teaching Grammar in Context, this particular aspect of education helps the students used their language in a correct manner of putting phrases and thoughts together to create a single message that sends a rightful idea to the readers or the listeners of the message. This I the primary reason why teaching grammar is encourages to be within the context of teaching speech and writing practices to the students. This is to primarily allow the students to use in actual practice what they are learning regarding grammar through writing and speaking as well. Knowing the basic ideas regarding the facts about what process writing and teaching grammar in context means, elaborating the ideas that pertain to this particular discussion indeed helps in enriching the discussion presented herein. Through the utilization of the ideas of other writers in this particular matter, proving the fact that teaching grammar in context within the curriculum of teaching the processes of writing is a more effective approach in t4eaching language to students of all ages. Presentation of sources As mentioned earlier, the book entitled â€Å"Teaching grammar in context† as authored by Constance Weaver discusses the most basic ideas that pertain to the fact that the effects of teaching grammar and process writing in an integrated manner gives better results among students, especially in the manner that they try to apply their learned strategies of writing in an effective manner that they are able to send the ample and actual message that they want to sent to their readers. In this particular reading material, Weaver points out several important points of consideration that would indeed help in the process of integrating grammar lessons within the procedures of teaching writing skills to students. The said points are as follows: teaching concepts of subject, verb, clause, sentence, and related editing concepts When teaching the basic skills that are needed to be considered in writing, the lessons on verbs as well as subjects and other parts of speech would indeed help in the procedures of helping the student understand the importance of using the right words and right phrases to be able to send the actual message needed to be conveyed to the readers. teaching style through sentence combining and generating When editing processes are discussed, the sentence structure discussion could also be generated to help the students identify what particular parts of the written work needs to be revised so as to be able to send the correct ideas to the reading audience. teaching sentence sense and style through manipulation of syntactic elements Syntactic elements and being able to understand the importance of this particular aspect of grammar in creating sensible sentences helps the writers create a better piece of work with a much clarified message and a much more furnished work. teaching the power of dialects and dialects of power The correct usage of language helps in creating a more clarified message within the context of any written work. Being able to learn this particular power of language shall encourage students, or writers at that in careful choosing the words that they use in their writing as well as furnishing the grammar that they utilize in their writing procedures. Teaching punctuation and mechanics for convention, clarity, and style- the impact of learning how to clarify the messages through the effective use of punctuations and clarifying styles of writing shall indeed help writers in being able to understand the importance of sending clarified ideas through the enhancement of the usage of correct punctuations within sentences to denote impact and feelings of the writers towards the topic.

Curvelet-based Bayesian Estimator for Speckle Suppression

Curvelet-based Bayesian Estimator for Speckle Suppression Curvelet-based  Bayesian  Estimator  for  Speckle  Suppression  in  Ultrasound  Imaging Abstract.  Ultrasound images are inherently affected by speckle noise, and thus the reduction of this noise is a crucial pre-processing step for their successful interpretation. Bayesian estimation is a powerful signal estimation technique used for speckle noise removal in images. In the Bayesian-based despeckling schemes, the choice of suitable statistical models and the development of a shrinkage function for estimation of the noise-free signal are the major concerns. In this paper, a novel curvelet-based Bayesian estimation scheme for despeckling of ultrasound images is developed. The curvelet coefficients of the multiplicative degradation model of the noisy ultrasound image are additively decomposed into noise-free and signal-dependent noise components. The Cauchy and two-sided exponential distributions are assumed to be statistical models for the noise-free and signal-dependent noise components of the observed curvelet coefficients, respectively, and an efficient low-complexit y realization of the Bayesian estimator is proposed. The experimental results demonstrate the validity of the proposed despeckling scheme in providing a signifi cant suppression of the speckle noise and simultaneously preserving the image details. Keywords:Ultrasound imaging, curvelet transform, speckle noise, Bayesian estimation, statistical modeling. Introduction Ultrasound imaging is important for medical diagnosis and has the advantages of cost effectiveness, port-ability, acceptability and safety [1]. However, ultrasound images are of relatively poor quality due to its contamination by the speckle noise, which considerably degrades the image quality and leads to a negative impact on the diagnostic task. Thus, reducing speckle noise while preserving anatomic information is necessary to better delineate the regions of interest in the ultrasound images. In the work of speckle suppression in ultrasound images, many spatial-based techniques that employ either single-scale or multi-scale filtering have been developed in the literature [2-4]. Earlydeveloped single-scale spatial filtering [2] are limited in their capability for significantly reducing the speckle noise. More promising spatial single-scale techniques such as those using bilateral filtering [4] and nonlocal filtering [3] have been recently proposed. This work was supported in part by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada and in part by the Regroupement Strategique en Microelectronique du Quebec (ReSMiQ). These techniques depend on the size of the fi lter window, and hence, for a satisfactory speckle suppression, they require large computational time. Alternatively, multi-scale spatial techniques [5], based on partial differential equations, have been investigated in the literature. These techniques are iterative and can produce smooth images with preserved edges. However, important structural details are unfortunately degraded during the iteration process. As an appropriate alternative to spatial-based speckle suppression in ultrasound images, many other despeckling techniques based on different transform domains, such as the ones of wavelet, contourlet, and curvelet, have been recently proposed in the literature [6-8]. Wavelet transform has a good reputation as a tool for noise reduction but has the drawback of poor directionality, which makes its usage limited in many applications. Using contourlet transform provides an improved noise reduction performance due to its property of fi‚exible directional decomposability. However, curvelet transform offers a higher directional sensitivity than that of contourlet transform and is more efficient in representing the curve-like details in images. For the development of despeckling techniques based on transform domains, thresholding [7] has been presented as a technique to build linear estimators of the noise-free signal coefficients. However, the main drawback of this thresholding technique is in the difficulty of determining a suitable threshold value. To circumvent this problem, non-linear estimators [6] have been statistically developed based on Bayesian estimation formalism. For the development of an efficient Bayesian-based despeckling scheme, the choice of a suitable probability distribution to model the transform domain coefficients is a major concern. Also, while investigating a suitable statistical model, the complexity of the Bayesian estimation process should be taken into consideration. Consequently, special attention should be paid to the realization complexity of the Bayesian estimator that results from employing the selected probabilistic model in one of the Bayesian frameworks. In this paper, to achieve a satisfactory performance for despeckling of ultrasound images at a lower computational effort, a new curvelet-based Bayesian scheme is proposed. The multiplicative degradation model representing an observed ultrasound image is decomposed into an additive model consisting of noise-free and signal-dependent noise components. Two-sided exponential distribution is used as a prior statistical model for the curvelet coefficients of the signal-dependant noise. This model, along with the Cauchy distribution is used to develop a low-complexity Bayesian estimator. The performance of the proposed Bayesian despeckling scheme is evaluated on both syntheticallyspeckled and real ultrasound images, and the results are compared to that of some other existing despeckling schemes. Modeling of Curvelet Coefficients The multiplicative degradation model of a speckle-corrupted ultrasound image g(i,j) in the spatial domain is given by g(i,j) = v(i,j)s(i,j)(1) where v(i,j) and s(i,j) denote the noise-free image and the speckle noise, respectively. This model of the noisy observation of v(i,j) can be additively decomposed as a noise-free signal component and a signal-dependant noise: g(i,j) = v(i,j) + (s(i,j) à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢1)v(i,j) = v(i,j) + u(i,j)(2) where (s(i,j) à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢1)v(i,j) represents the signal-dependant noise. Taking the curvelet transform of (2) at level l, we have y[l,d](i,j) = x[l,d](i,j) + n[l,d](i,j)(3) where y[l,d](i,j), x[l,d](i,j) and n[l,d](i,j) denote, respectively, the (i,j)th curvelet coefficient of the observed image, the corresponding noise free image and the corresponding additive signal-dependant noise at direction d= 1,2,3, ·Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ·Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ·,D. In order to simplify the notation, we will henceforth drop both the superscripts land dand the index (i,j). In this work, in order to reduce the noise inherited in ultrasound images, we propose exploiting the statistical characteristics of the curvelet coefficients in (3) to derive an efficient Bayesian estimator. Thus, one needs to provide a prior probabilistic model for the curvelet coefficients of xand n. It has been shown that the distribution of the curvelet coefficients of noise-free images can be suitably modeled by the Cauchy distribution [9]. The zero-mean Cauchy distribution is given by px(x) = (ÃŽÂ ³/à Ã¢â€š ¬)(x2 + ÃŽÂ ³2)(4) where ÃŽÂ ³is the dispersion parameter. The noisy observation is used to estimate the Cauchy distribution parameter ÃŽÂ ³by minimizing the function 2   Ãƒ Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  yyt (t) à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Ãƒ Ã¢â‚¬  (t) eà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ dt(5) where à Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  y(t) is the empirical characteristic function corresponding to the curvelet coefficients yof 22 the noisy observation, à Ã¢â‚¬  y(t) = à Ã¢â‚¬  x(t)à Ã¢â‚¬  E(t), à Ã¢â‚¬  x(t) = eà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ³|t|, and à Ã¢â‚¬  E(t) = eà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢(à Ã†â€™Ãƒ ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½/2)|t| deviation à Ã†â€™Eobtained as with the standard à Ã†â€™E= MAD(y(i,j)) 0.6745 (6) In (6), MAD denotes the median absolute deviation operation. Now, in order to formulate the  Bayesian estimator, a prior statistical assumption for the curvelet coefficients of nof the signal dependant noise should also be assumed. From experimental observation, it is noticed that the tail  part of the empirical distribution of ndecays at a low rate. Hence, in this paper, we propose to use  a two-sided exponential (TSE) distribution given by 1 pn(n) =eà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢|n|/ÃŽÂ ² 2ÃŽÂ ² (7) where ÃŽÂ ²is a positive real constant referred to as the scale parameter. The method of log-cummulants  (MoLC) is adopted to estimate the parameter ÃŽÂ ², and thus the estimated ÃŽÂ ²Ãƒâ€¹Ã…“ is obtained by using the  following expression: ÃŽÂ ²Ãƒâ€¹Ã…“ = exp 1N1  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   N2 log(y(i,j))+ ÃŽÂ ¾ (8) N1N2 i=1j=1 where ÃŽÂ ¾is the Euler-Mascheroni constant and N1 and N2 defi ne the size N1 ÃÆ'-N2 of the curvelet  subband considered. Bayesian Estimator Due to the fact that each of the Cauchy and TSE distributions has only one parameter, one could expect the process of Bayesian estimation to be of lower complexity. The values of the Bayes estimates xˆ  of the noise-free curvelet coefficients xof a subband under the quadratic loss function, which minimizes the mean square error (MSE), are given by the shrinkage function: xˆ (y) =px|y(x|y)xdx P pn(yà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢x)px(x)xdx =P p(yà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢x)p(x) (9) It is noted that a closed-form expression for xˆ (y) given by the above equation does not exist. Thus, in order to obtain the Bayesian estimates for the noise-free curvelet coefficients, the two integrations associated with (9) are numerically performed for each curvelet coefficient. Since this procedure requires an excessive computational effort, the bayseian estimates are obtained by replacing the associated integrals in (9) with infi nite series as suggested in [10]. Accordingly, the Bayesian shrinkage function can be expressed as eà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢y/ÃŽÂ ²[f (y)ÃŽÂ ¶] + ey/ÃŽÂ ²[ f(y) + ÃŽÂ ¶] xˆ (y) =(10) eà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢y/ÃŽÂ ²[f21(y) + ÃŽÂ ¶2] + ey/ÃŽÂ ²[à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢f22(y) + ÃŽÂ ¶2] where f11(y) = f12 (à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢y) = sin(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) Im E( à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢y+ jÃŽÂ ³)à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Si(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) + à Ã¢â€š ¬ 1ÃŽÂ ²2 à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢y+jÃŽÂ ³ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢cos(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²)   Re   E1(ÃŽÂ ² + Ci(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) ,(11) f(y) = à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢f 1à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢y+ jÃŽÂ ³ (à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢y) = à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ sin(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) Re E()+ Ci(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) 2122ÃŽÂ ³1ÃŽÂ ² 1à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢y+jÃŽÂ ³Ãƒ Ã¢â€š ¬ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ³cos(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²)   Im   E1(ÃŽÂ ² à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Si(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) + 2 ,(12) ÃŽÂ ¶1 = lim f12 yà ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Ãƒ ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¾ (y) = sin(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Si(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) + à Ã¢â€š ¬ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢cos(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²)Ci(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²), and(13) ÃŽÂ ¶= lim f 11 (y) =sin(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²)Ci(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) +cos(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) à Ã¢â€š ¬ Si(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) + (14) 222 yà ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Ãƒ ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¾ In the equations above, j= à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡Ãƒ ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢1, Im{ ·}and Re{ ·}are the imaginary and real parts, respectively, of a complex argument, and E1( ·), Si( ·) and Ci( ·) are, respectively, the exponential, sine and cosine  integral functions obtained as in [10]. Experimental Results Extensive experimentations are carried out in order to study the performance of the proposed despeckling scheme. The results are compared with those of other existing despeckling schemes that use improved-Lee fi ltering [2], adaptive-wavelet shrinkage [6], and contourlet thresholding [7]. Performance evaluation of the various despeckling schemes is conducted on synthetically-speckled and real ultrasound images. In the implementation of the proposed speckling scheme, the 5-level decomposition of the curvelet transform is applied. From the experimental observation, applying a higher level of decomposition of the curvelet transform does not lead to any improvement in the despeckling performance. Since the curvelet transform is a shift-variant transform, the cycle spinning [11] is performed on the observed noisy image to avoid any possible pseudo-Gibbs artifacts in the neighborhood of discontinuities. In the proposed despeckling scheme, only the detail curvelet coefficients are despec kled using the Bayesian shrinkage function in (10). The peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) is used as a quantitative measure to assess the despeckling performance of the various schemes when applied on synthetically-speckled images. Table I gives the PSNR values obtained when applying the various schemes on two synthetically-speckled images of size 512ÃÆ'-512, namely, Lenaand Boat. It is obviously seen from this table that, in all cases, the proposed despeckling scheme provides higher values of PSNR compared to that provided by the other schemes. To have a better insight on the despeckling performance of the various schemes, the results in Table 1 are visualized in Figure 1. It is obvious from this fi gure that the superiority of the proposed scheme over the other schemes is more evident when a higher level of speckle noise is introduced to the test images. In order to study the performances of the various despeckling schemes on real ultrasound images, two images obtained from [12] and shown in Figure 2 are used. Since the noise-fr ee images cannot be made available, one can only give a subjective evaluation of the performance of the various despeckling schemes. From Figure 2, it is clearly seen that the schemes in [2] and [6] provide despeckled images that suffer from the presence of visually noticeable speckle noise. On the other hand, the scheme in [7] severely over-smooth the noisy images thus providing despeckled images in which some of the texture details are lost. However, the proposed despeckling scheme results in images with not only a signifi cant reduction in the speckle noise but also a good preservation of the textures of the original images. Table 1: The PSNR values obtained when applying the various despeckling schemes on Lenaand Boatimages contaminated by speckle noise at different levels. 34 [2] 32[6] 30[7] Proposed 28 26 24 22 20 18 0.10.20.30.40.50.71 Standard deviation of noise (a) 32 [2] 30[6] 28[7] Proposed 26 24 22 20 18 16 0.10.20.30.40.50.71 Standard deviation of noise (b) Fig. 1: Quantitative comparison between the various despeckling schemes in terms of PSNR values: (a) Lenaimage; (b) Boatimage. Conclusion In this paper, a new curvelet-based scheme for suppressing the speckle noise in ultrasound images has been developed in the framework of Bayesian estimation. The observed ultrasound image is fi rst additively decomposed into noise-free and signal-dependant noise components. The Cauchy and twosided exponential distributions have been used as probabilistic models for the curvelet coefficients of the noise-free and signal-dependant noise components, respectively, of the ultrasound image. The proposed probabilistic models of the curvelet coefficients of an observed ultrasound image has been employed to formulate a Bayesian shrinkage function in order to obtain the estimates of the noise-free curvelet coefficients. A low-complexity realization of this shrinkage function has been employed. Experiments have been carried out on both synthetically-speckled and real ultrasound images in order to demonstrate the performance of the proposed despeckling scheme. In comparison with some other ex isting despeckling schemes, the results have shown that the proposed scheme provides higher PSNR values and gives well-despeckled images with better diagnostic details. (b) (c)(d)(e)(f) (g)(h)(i)(j) Fig. 2: Qualitative comparison between the various despeckling schemes. (a)(b) Noisy ultrasound images. Despeckled images obtained by applying the schemes in (c)(g) [2] ,(d)(h) [6] ,(e)(i) [7] and (f)(j) the proposed scheme. References Dhawan, A.P.: Medical image analysis. Volume 31. John Wiley Sons (2011) Loupas, T., McDicken, W., Allan, P.:   An adaptive weighted median fi lter for speckle suppression in medical ultrasonic images. IEEE transactions on Circuits and Systems 36(1) (1989) 129-135 Coup ´e, P., Hellier, P., Kervrann, C., Barillot, C.: Nonlocal means-based speckle fi ltering for ultrasound images. IEEE transactions on image processing 18(10) (2009) 2221-2229 Sridhar, B., Reddy, K., Prasad, A.: An unsupervisory qualitative image enhancement using adaptive morphological bilateral fi lter for medical images. International Journal of Computer Applications 10(2i) (2014) 1 Abd-Elmoniem, K.Z., Youssef, A.B., Kadah, Y.M.: Real-time speckle reduction and coherence enhancement in ultrasound imaging via nonlinear anisotropic diffusion. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering 49(9) (2002) 997-1014 Swamy, M., Bhuiyan, M., Ahmad, M.: Spatially adaptive thresholding in wavelet domain for despeckling of ultrasound images. IET Image Process 3(3) (2009) 147-162 Hiremath, P., Akkasaligar, P.T., Badiger, S.: Speckle reducing contourlet transform for medical ultrasound images. Int J Compt Inf Engg 4(4) (2010) 284-291 Jian, Z., Yu, Z., Yu, L., Rao, B., Chen, Z., Tromberg, B.J.: Speckle attenuation in optical coherence tomography by curvelet shrinkage. Optics letters 34(10) (2009) 1516-1518 Deng, C., Wang, S., Sun, H., Cao, H.: Multiplicative spread spectrum watermarks detection performance analysis in curvelet domain. In: 2009 International Conference on E-Business and Information System Security. (2009) Damseh, R.R., Ahmad, M.O.: A low-complexity mmse bayesian estimator for suppression of speckle in sar images. In: Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), 2016 IEEE International Symposium on, IEEE (2016) 1002-1005 Temizel, A., Vlachos, T., Visioprime, W.: Wavelet domain image resolution enhancement using cycle-spinning. Electronics Letters 41(3) (2005) 119-121 Siemens   Healthineers:   https://www.healthcare.siemens.com/ultrasound. Accessed:   2017-01-06.

Internet Crime Essay example -- Technology Computers Web Essays

Internet Crime New times bring new crimes. Actually, as time moves on and our world becomes more technologically dependant, the same old time-tested crimes evolve to fit the arena of the Net. To be specific, the most common Internet crimes are forgery, assault, fraud, and theft.[1] Identity Identity—it’s our most valuable commodity. It defines who we are and is essential to doing business and carrying on personal relationships. But on the Net, identity is ambiguous. To paraphrase Microsoft's ad campaign, Who do you want to be today? More appropriately, who might want to be you today? Email has become the written communication medium of choice for many of us—it's fast, cheap, convenient, private, and secure. Right? Unfortunately, three out of five is bad. Digital forgery is becoming increasingly common on the Net, particularly email forgery. Virtually anyone can duplicate your email return address and use it to send false, malicious, and even legally actionable messages using what appears to be your name and identity. Forged email can also be used to acquire information, create enmity among friends, ruin reputations, defraud people of money or valuable information such as passwords, and even spread hate messages and false death threats. In short, anything a forger can attempt to accomplish in the paper world can be done in the electronic world--but much more easily. The best—If not the most convenient—way to protect yourself against email forgery is by encrypting your email, rendering the message unintelligible to anyone but its intended recipient. Here are five keys to protecting yourself from forgers. 1- Be alert for any responses to emails that you don't believe you have sent. 2- Be alert... ...rs as passwords. In conclusion, crimes committed through the Internet medium are the same proverbial monkey that has been on society’ back for years, just wearing a different mask. The most common Internet crimes include forgery, assault, fraud, and theft. If you are concerned abut possible security holes in your PC network or Internet connection, go to http://coverage.cnet.com/Content/Features/Dlife/Crime/Quiz2/1,140,,00.html?, take the security survey, and these guys will help you beef up the security of your system. [1] http://coverage.cnet.com/Content/Features/Dlife/Crime/ [2] http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,6577,00.html [3] http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,120,00.html [4] http://www.metro.ch/avpve/ [5] http://www.bocklabs.wisc.edu/~janda/gtvh_faq.html [6] http://www.usps.gov/ [7] http://www.infowar.com/sample/results.html-ssi

American History: 1912 Election

The Presidential Election of 1912 was called one of the most important and memorable elections as well as one of the most dramatic events in American history. The election was remarkable because there were four candidates the representatives of four different parties that sought the presidency that year. It was William Howard Taft from Republican Party, Theodore Roosevelt representing the newly organized Bull Moose Progressives Party after the split in his own Republican Party, then Democrat Woodrow Wilson and Eugene Debs from Socialist Party.One of the main issues of that time reflected in the Party Platforms was tariffs and anti-trust legislation. Republican Party tariff policy was aimed to protect American industries and economy. It was said in the platform â€Å"the import duties should be high enough, while yielding a sufficient revenue, to protect adequately American industries and wages† (â€Å"Political Party Platforms in 1912†), and only â€Å"Some of the exis ting import duties are too high, and should be reduced† (â€Å"Political Party Platforms in 1912†).Republicans were expecting to get enough revenue to the budget and still stuck to the protectionism policy. As for the anti-trust legislation Republicans insisted on â€Å"the enactment of legislation supplementary to the existing anti-trust act which will define as criminal offences those specific acts that uniformly mark attempts to restrain and to monopolize trade†¦Ã¢â‚¬ (â€Å"Political Party Platforms in 1912†).Progressive Party declared in the platform that it was necessary to reduce tariff as unjust to the citizens of the country and that the party â€Å" is committed to the destruction of the protective system through a tariff for revenue only—a policy which would inevitably produce widespread industrial and commercial disaster† (â€Å"Political Party Platforms in 1912†). While discussing the anti-trust legislation during the conv ention the conflict aroused.Roosevelt suggested federal regulation of the trusts but he had no support eventually this issue was deleted from the platform. Democrats considered â€Å"the high Republican tariff is the principal cause of the unequal distribution of wealth; it is a system of taxation which makes the rich richer and the poor poorer† (â€Å"Political Party Platforms in 1912†) thus they insisted on the reduction of the tariff and limiting the Federal Government to â€Å"collect tariff duties, except for the purpose of revenue† (â€Å"Political Party Platforms in 1912†).Concerning the Anti-Trust Law democrats strived to cancel the amendments to the Sherman anti-trust law in order to re-establish it in its original version to make it more efficient. Socialists were close to the reformists and they believed in the significance of tariff revision and in the importance of anti-trust legislation. Also the goal of the platform was to struggle for equa l political and democratic rights for the laboring class (Socialist Party. National Campaign Book).The point is that it was crisis of the Republican government that had been supporting the conservative course. The country was in bad need for reforms so the government had had to change the policy. Conservative Republicans had not realized the necessity of the reformation and despite the great support William Taft had lost a chance to be re-elected for the second term. Socialists gained the extreme popularity but it was not enough to win. But still Eugene Debs got more than 6% of the total votes and it was incredible success of the Socialist Party.The main struggle was between Roosevelt and Wilson. Their platforms were similar so it was even a suggestion from the progressives to give up in favour of Wilson but Roosevelt refused to quit without struggle. Woodrow Wilson won by getting about 42% of the total votes. Together Taft and Roosevelt get more than 50% of the total votes it means that Roosevelt had a real possibility to be elected had he been the Republican party nominee for the presidency. Personally I would have voted for Roosevelt because he was charismatic personality and the great leader.He was more flexible than Wilson in the policy and was smart enough to comprehend the importance of the changes. The history would have changed if Theodore Roosevelt had been elected for his third term. BIBLIOGRAPHY Political Party Platforms in 1912. 12 October 2004 http://www. presidency. ucsb. edu/showplatforms. php? platindex=D1912 Presidential elections: 1872-1912. 12 October 2004 http://www. apstudents. com/ushistory/outline. php Republican Party History. 12 October 2004 http://www. gop. org/history. html Socialist Party. National Campaign Book. Chicago, p. 3.

Love and Memory in Deuteronomy Essay

Love and Memory in Deuteronomy, is the prompt for this weeks reflection paper. First, we must identify what each of those terms means to us in context to Deuteronomy and for me Love does not just mean love in the sense that we all know. Although you could easily write a reflection amount the many ways God displayed his love to his people, like when he parted the seas for them and crushed the Egyptians behind them, or when he was slow to anger when they chose to worship Baal while Moses was a top Mt. Sinai, but I choose to interpret love in Deuteronomy as God’s continued faithfullness to his people. â€Å"Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations.† (Deuteronomy 7:9, English Standard Version) Here God is described as a faithful God, and one who will always love those that love him, and follow his word. This is such a powerful verse and really speaks to the faithfullness of God to his people, here it shows that God is obligated to us, that he must love those that love him. I think it also shows that he is bound to look out for us because he is our â€Å"faithful† creator, and that as the creator he is obligated to look out for us, to satisfy us, and provide for us, and ultimately look out for us enough so that we may seek him out and follow him with out Faith. That creation of the Covenant is the ultimate example of God’s faithfullness to us as it takes out all mystery and makes things most certain for us, and shows his commitment to us as a people, because of the covenant we know all the cornerstones of His divine government. The many ‘I wills’ in Deuteronomy cover everything that we as a people might need in both the past, present, and future. There is no avenue of life that we can venture to where we can not find God, and he has given us clear definition of His heart and intentions by his word and covenant. God’s love in Deuteronomy can best be described as his faithfullness to us, and as mentioned prior, there is no greater example of this than his Covenant, and new Covenant with us through Jesus Christ. â€Å"And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.† (Deuteronomy 8:2, English Standard Version) Memory plays a huge role in Deuteronomy as God is very clear in this verse, that the people are to remember, that all they have been through was a way for God to see what was in their heart, to see what kind of people they were. Memories, in general, throughout time are always a great way to see someone’s true heart. There were times the people worshipped false idols or cried out against the Lord, and in those moments peoples true natures were revealed, the memories of those times are a great reminder of where people stood, and as it says in that verse that is what it was all about, was for God to measure their true hearts. This principle is still the same today, we are often judged by our past deeds, and it is not because we do not believe people can not change or that people do not deserve new chances, but often times we are what we do, and again the memories of our past actions are a great way to measure who we are as people.

The Impact of Video Games on Children Essay

Video games have been available to consumers for the last 30 years. They are a unique form of entertainment, because they encourage players to become a part of the game’s script. Today’s sophisticated video games require players to pay constant attention to the game, rather than passively watching a movie. This has both positive and negative impacts on players. Several studies have been published that explore these impacts on today’s children. Sections: What impact does playing video games have on children or adolescents? Tips on managing your child’s media consumption The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) References What impact does playing video games have on children or adolescents? The most widely used â€Å"positive† impact video games are said to have on children is that they may improve a player’s manual dexterity and computer literacy. Ever-improving technology also provides players with better graphics that give a more â€Å"realistic† virtual playing experience. This quality makes the video game industry a powerful force in many adolescent lives. However, numerous studies show that video games, especially ones with violent content, make teens more aggressive. Part of the increase in aggressive behavior is linked to the amount of time children are allowed to play video games. In one study by Walsh (2000), a majority of teens admitted that their parents do not impose a time limit on the number of hours they are allowed to play video games. The study also showed that most parents are unaware of the content or the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) rating (see below) of the video games their children play. In another study conducted by Gentile, Lynch, Linder & Walsh (2004, p. 6) â€Å"adolescent girls played video games for an average of 5 hours a week, whereas boys averaged 13 hours a week†. The authors also stated that teens who play violent video games for extended periods of time: Tend to be more aggressive Are more prone to confrontation with their teachers May engage in fights with their peers See a decline in school achievements. (Gentile et al, 2004). The interactive quality of video games differs from passively viewing television or movies because it allows players to become active participants in the game’s script. Players benefit from engaging in acts of violence and are then able to move to the game’s next level. Gentile & Anderson (2003) state that playing video games may increase aggressive behavior because violent acts are continually repeated throughout the video game. This method of repetition has long been considered an effective teaching method in reinforcing learning patterns. Video games also encourage players to identify with and role play their favorite characters. This is referred to as a â€Å"first-person† video game (Anderson & Dill, 2000, p. 788) because players are able to make decisions affecting the actions of the character they are imitating. After a limited amount of time playing a violent video game, a player can â€Å"automatically prime aggressive thoughts† (Bushman & Anderson, 2002, p. 1680). The researchers concluded that players who had prior experience playing violent video games responded with an increased level of aggression when they encountered confrontation (Bushman & Anderson, 2002). In a Joint Statement (2000) before the Congressional Public Health Summit, a number of American medical associations — the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychological Association, American Academy of Family Physicians and American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry — caution parents about violence in the media and its negative effect on children. Their report states that exposure to violent media can elevate aggressive feelings and thoughts, especially in children. These effects on aggressive behavior can be long-term. Although fewer studies have been conducted on interactive video games, evidence suggests that playing violent video games may have a more dramatic influence on the behavior of children and adolescents (Joint Statement, 2000). Back to top Tips on managing your child’s media consumption Because of the popularity of video games, completely eliminating them from your child’s life might be difficult. But you can decrease the negative impact that they have on your child. Here are a few tips: Know the rating of the video games your child plays (see below). Do not install video game equipment in your child’s bedroom. Set limits on how often and how long your child is allowed to play video games. Monitor all of your child’s media consumption — video games, television, movies and Internet. Supervise your child’s Internet use — there are now many â€Å"video games† available for playing online. Take the time to discuss with your children the games they are playing or other media they are watching. Ask your children how they feel about what they observe in these video games, television programs or movies. This is an opportunity to share your feelings and grow closer with your child. Share with other parents information about certain games or ideas for helping each other in parenting. Back to top The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) The ESRB is a self-regulatory body established in 1994 by the Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA). The major video game manufacturers created this board after concerned groups applied pressure over the content of video games. Similar to the movie industry’s rating system, all major game companies now submit their new products for rating to specially trained raters at the ESRB. The ESRB rates over 1,000 games per year. The ESRB looks at a number of factors when rating games. In particular, it considers the amount of violence, sex, controversial language and substance abuse found in a game. Based on its developed guidelines, the ESRB then gives an age recommendation and content descriptor to each game submitted. The following are the rating symbols currently in use, according to the ESRB Web site. Early Childhood (EC): Content should be suitable for children 3 years and older and contain no objectionable material. Everyone (E): Content suitable for persons ages 6 and older. The game may contain minimal violence and some â€Å"comic mischief. † Teen (T): Content suitable for persons ages 13 and older. Content is more violent than (E) rating and contains mild or strong language, and/or suggestive themes. Mature (M): Content suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Content definitely has more mature sexual themes, intense violence and stronger language. Adults Only (AO): Content suitable only for adults and may contain graphic sex and/or violence. Adult Only products are not intended for persons under the age of 18. Rating Pending (RP): Game has been submitted to the ESRB and is awaiting a final rating. The ESRB Web site has more details about this rating system, as well as the â€Å"content descriptors† that are used in conjunction with the ratings on game packaging. The site is also useful for parents who want to search for the rating of a particular game. Back to top References Bushman, B. & Anderson, C. (2002). Violent Video Games and Hostile Expectations: A Test of the General Aggression Model. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1679-1686. Gentile, D. A. & Anderson, C. A. (2003). Violent video games: The newest media violence hazard. In D. A. Gentile (Ed. ), Media violence and children. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishing. Gentile, D. A. , Lynch, P. , Linder, J. & Walsh, D. (2004). The effects of violent video game habits on adolescent hostility, aggressive behaviors, and school performance. Journal of Adolescence, 27, 5-22. Joint Statement on the Impact of Entertainment Violence on Children: Congressional Public Health Summit. (July 26, 2000. ) Available: http://www. aap. org/advocacy/ releases/jstmtevc. htm. Walsh, D. (2000). Interactive violence and children: Testimony submitted to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, United States Senate. (March 21, 2000. ) Back to top Source: http://www. pamf. org/preteen/parents/videogames. html By Andrea Norcia, college student writer Reviewed by the Web Content Committee of PAMF Additional articles: Violent Video Games and Aggressive Behaviors, By Andrea Norcia, college student writer Join the conversation: Website Feedback Site Map  © 2012 Palo Alto Medical Foundation. All rights reserved. Sutter Health is a registered trademark of Sutter Health ®, Reg. U. S. Patent. & Trademark office. 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