Ethics Mod 5 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Ethics Mod 5 - Essay Example SHA asks employers in the United States to comply with its regulations to ensure that they provide safe and healthful workplace, and it constantly monitors strict compliance to these regulations by conducting inspections, whistle-blower activities, post-incident follow-ups etc. According to the norms of this act, employer is basically held responsible for employees’ falls or injuries that occurred due to employer’s failure to provide adequate safety and health measures instructed in the OSH Act. OSH Act imposes a duty on employers to take steps to control risks to employees or third parties from slips, trips and falls. However, employees are also held responsible for falls or injuries if it happened due to their mistakes, because they are under the duty to behave in a responsible way to ensure their own safety and the third parties near to them. Even after 44 years since Congress passed the OSHA of 1970 by strictly instructing employers to provide workplace safety, security and health to make employees free from hazards, the toll of workplace injuries and deaths still remain unjustifiably high. As of OSHA’s report, there were 4,405 death cases in the United States due to falls or injuries in workplaces in 2013 (osha.gov, 2015). Work injuries and hazards cause severe impacts on income inequalities and create a big burden of medical and other expenses on employees. In order to eliminate workplace injuries and its impacts, OSHA has not only made it stricter that employers are responsible for employees’ injuries, but also asked employers to become familiar with standards applicable for their establishments or workplace environments. According to many health and safety professionals today, simply complying with OSHA standards is not sufficient to safeguard all employees in the workplace. Instead, these professional s have developed extensive written compliance programs with which compliance is achieved and maintained as part of the all-encompassing safety and

Medications in Nursing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Medications in Nursing - Essay Example 228). As a nondepolarizing agent, this drug causes skeletal muscle paralysis by blocking the myoneural junction, interfering acetylcholine’s bid for cholinergic receptor sites and then binding with the nicotinic cholinergic receptor at the postjunctional membrane (Stoelting and Miller, 2007). Unlike other depolarizing agents however, vecuronium does not have much agonist activity and has no depolarizing impact at the motor endplate (McEvoy, et.al., 2009). As a muscle relaxant, this drug acts first on the eyelids and the jaw, then acts on the limbs, the abdomen, and then the diaphragm and the intercostals (Bledsoe, Clayden, and Papa, 2005). Adverse reactions of the drug may include skeletal muscle weakness and prolonged respiratory insufficiency or apnea (NDH, 2006). The intubating dose of 0.1mg/kg is sufficient to create intubating conditions within 3 minutes with effects lasting up to 45 minutes (Kovacs and Law, 2008). Co-administration with antibiotics can enhance neuromuscu lar blockade, thereby also causing increased muscle relaxation and increasing the potency of the drug (NDH, 2006). Using the drug with opioid analgesics can also increase neuromuscular blockade, thereby also causing increased skeletal muscle relaxation. ... This drug also acts on the CNS to improve the vagal tone, thereby, slowing the conduction through the nodes and thereby ensuring antiarrhythmic effect (NDH, 2006). Digoxin has a significant role in reducing ventricular rate in supraventricular arrhythmias in atrial fibrillations; hence it is the better drug choice for Mr. Jian. It can however cause fatigue, muscle weakness, agitation, headache, anorexia, vomiting, and diarrhea (NDH, 2006). In relation to other drugs, co-administration with verapamil and quinidine can increase the blood digoxin levels and provoke atrioventricular block; administering it with diuretics can cause hypokalemia which can increase the risk of ventricular arrhythmias (Berger, 2010). This drug is not advised for those with hypersensitivity to digoxin, for those with digitalis-induced toxicity, ventricular fibrillation, or ventricular tachycardia (NDH, 2006). For the nurse, there are various nursing precautions which should be considered in the administration of digoxin. After administration of the drug, the nurse needs to monitor Mr. Jian’s pulse rate because extreme slowing of the pulse may indicate digitalis toxicity (NDH, 2006). The nurse also needs to monitor the patient’s potassium levels carefully and take appropriate action before hypokalemia occurs. Before the drug is administered, the nurse needs to take the apical-radial pulse for 1 minute. She then needs to notify the prescriber for any changes (any significant increase or decrease in pulse). If such increase of decrease is seen, the patient’s BP needs to be checked and for an ECG to be performed (NDH, 2006). Question 3: Flecainide and Dofetilide Flecainide is a Class Ic

Handwritten Character Recognition Using Bayesian Decision Theory

Handwritten Character Recognition Using Bayesian Decision Theory Abstract: Character recognition (CR) can solve more complex problem in handwritten character and make recognition easier. Handwriting character recognition (HCR) has received extensive attention in academic and production fields. The recognition system can be either online or offline. Offline handwritten character recognition is the sub fields of optical character recognition (OCR). The offline handwritten character recognition stages are preprocessing, segmentation, feature extraction and recognition. Our aim is to improve missing character rate of an offline character recognition using Bayesian decision theory. Keywords: Character recognition, Optical character recognition, Off-line Handwriting, Segmentation, Feature extraction, Bayesian decision theory. Introduction The recognition system can be either on-line or off-line. On-line handwriting recognition involves the automatic conversion of text as it is written on a special digitized or PDA, where a sensor picks up the pen-tip movements as well as pen-up/pen-down switching. That kind of data is known as digital ink and can be regarded as a dynamic representation of handwriting. Off-line handwriting recognition involves the automatic conversion of text in an image into letter codes which are usable within computer and text-processing applications. The data obtained by this form is regarded as a static representation of handwriting. The aim of character recognition is to translate human readable character to machine readable character. Optical character recognition is a process of translation of human readable character to machine readable character in optically scanned and digitized text. Handwritten character recognition (HCR) has received extensive attention in academic and production fields. Bayesian decision theory is a fundamental statistical approach that quantifies the tradeoffs between various decisions using probabilities and costs that accompany such decision. They divided the decision process into the following five steps: Identification of the problem. Obtaining necessary information. Production of possible solution. Evaluation of such solution. Selection of a strategy for performance. They also include a sixth stage implementation of the decision. In the existing approach missing data cannot be recognition which is useful in recognition historical data. In our approach we are recognition the missing words using Bayesian classifier. It first classifier the missing words to obtain minimize error. It can recover as much error as possible. Related Work The history of CR can be traced as early as 1900, when the Russian scientist Turing attempted to develop an aid for the visually handicapped [1]. The first character recognizers appeared in the middle of the 1940s with the development of digital computers. The early work on the automatic recognition of characters has been concentrated either upon machine-printed text or upon a small set of well-distinguished handwritten text or symbols. Machine-printed CR systems in this period generally used template matching in which an image is compared to a library of images. For handwritten text, low-level image processing techniques have been used on the binary image to extract feature vectors, which are then fed to statistical classifiers. Successful, but constrained algorithms have been implemented mostly for Latin characters and numerals. However, some studies on Japanese, Chinese, Hebrew, Indian, Cyrillic, Greek, and Arabic characters and numerals in both machine-printed and handwritten cas es were also initiated [2]. The commercial character recognizers were available in the 1950s, when electronic tablets capturing the x-y coordinate data of pen-tip movement was first introduced. This innovation enabled the researchers to work on the on-line handwriting recognition problem. A good source of references for on-line recognition until 1980 can be found in [3]. Studies up until 1980 suffered from the lack of powerful computer hardware and data acquisition devices. With the explosion of information technology, the previously developed methodologies found a very fertile environment for rapid growth addition to the statistical methods. The CR research was focused basically on the shape recognition techniques without using any semantic information. This led to an upper limit in the recognition rate, which was not sufficient in many practical applications. Historical review of CR research and development during this period can be found in [4] and [3] for off-line and on-line cases, respectively. The real progress on CR systems is achieved during this period, using the new development tools and methodologies, which are empowered by the continuously growing information technologies. In the early 1990s, image processing and pattern recognition techniques were efficiently combined with artificial intelligence (AI) methodologies. Researchers developed complex CR algorithms, which receive high-resolution input data and require extensive number crunching in the implementation phase. Nowadays, in addition to the more powerful computers and more accurate electronic equipments such as scanners, cameras, and electronic tablets, we have efficient, modern use of methodologies such as neural networks (NNs), hidden Markov models (HMMs), fuzzy set reasoning, and natural language processing. The recent systems for the machine-printed off-line [2] [5] and limited vocabulary, user-dependent on-line handwritten characters [2] [12] are quite satisfactory for restricted applications. However, there is still a long way to go in order to reach the ultimate goal of machine simulation of fluent human reading, especially for unconstrained on-line and off-line handwriting. Bayesian decision Theory (BDT), one of the statistical techniques for pattern classification, to identify each of the large number of black-and-white rectangular pixel displays as one of the 26 capital letters in the English alphabet. The character images were based on 20 different fonts and each letter within 20 fonts was randomly distorted to produce a file of 20,000 unique instances [6]. Existing System In this overview, character recognition (CR) is used as an umbrella term, which covers all types of machine recognition of characters in various application domains. The overview serves as an update for the state-of-the-art in the CR field, emphasizing the methodologies required for the increasing needs in newly emerging areas, such as development of electronic libraries, multimedia databases, and systems which require handwriting data entry. The study investigates the direction of the CR research, analyzing the limitations of methodologies for the systems, which can be classified based upon two major criteria: 1) the data acquisition process (on-line or off-line) and 2) the text type (machine-printed or handwritten). No matter in which class the problem belongs, in general, there are five major stages Figure1 in the CR problem: 1) Preprocessing 2) Segmentation 3) Feature Extraction 4) Recognition 5) Post processing 3.1. Preprocessing The raw data, depending on the data acquisition type, is subjected to a number of preliminary processing steps to make it usable in the descriptive stages of character analysis. Preprocessing aims to produce data that are easy for the CR systems to operate accurately. The main objectives of preprocessing are: 1) Noise reduction 2) Normalization of the data 3) Compression in the amount of information to be retained. In order to achieve the above objectives, the following techniques are used in the preprocessing stage. Preprocessing Segmentation Splits Words Feature Extraction Recognition Post processing Figure 1. Character recognition 3.1.1 Noise Reduction The noise, introduced by the optical scanning device or the writing instrument, causes disconnected line segments, bumps and gaps in lines, filled loops, etc. The distortion, including local variations, rounding of corners, dilation, and erosion, is also a problem. Prior to the CR, it is necessary to eliminate these imperfections. Hundreds of available noise reduction techniques can be categorized in three major groups [7] [8]: a) Filtering b) Morphological Operations c) Noise Modeling 3.1.2 Normalization Normalization methods aim to remove the variations of the writing and obtain standardized data. The following are the basic methods for normalization [4] [10][16]. a) Skew Normalization and Baseline Extraction b) Slant Normalization c) Size Normalization 3.1.3 Compression It is well known that classical image compression techniques transform the image from the space domain to domains, which are not suitable for recognition. Compression for CR requires space domain techniques for preserving the shape information. a) Threshold: In order to reduce storage requirements and to increase processing speed, it is often desirable to represent gray-scale or color images as binary images by picking a threshold value. Two categories of threshold exist: global and local. Global threshold picks one threshold value for the entire document image which is often based on an estimation of the background level from the intensity histogram of the image. Local (adaptive) threshold use different values for each pixel according to the local area information. b) Thinning: While it provides a tremendous reduction in data size, thinning extracts the shape information of the characters. Thinning can be considered as conversion of off-line handwriting to almost on-line like data, with spurious branches and artifacts. Two basic approaches for thinning are 1) pixel wise and 2) nonpareil wise thinning [1]. Pixel wise thinning methods locally and iteratively process the image until one pixel wide skeleton remains. They are very sensitive to noise and may deform the shape of the character. On the other hand, the no pixel wise methods use some global information about the character during the thinning. They produce a certain median or centerline of the pattern directly without examining all the individual pixels. In clustering-based thinning method defines the skeleton of character as the cluster centers. Some thinning algorithms identify the singular points of the characters, such as end points, cross points, and loops. These points are the source of problems. In a nonpareil wise thinning, they are handled with global approaches. A survey of pixel wise and nonpareil wise thinning approaches is available in [9]. 3.2. Segmentation The preprocessing stage yields a clean document in the sense that a sufficient amount of shape information, high compression, and low noise on a normalized image is obtained. The next stage is segmenting the document into its subcomponents. Segmentation is an important stage because the extent one can reach in separation of words, lines, or characters directly affects the recognition rate of the script. There are two types of segmentation: external segmentation, which is the isolation of various writing units, such as paragraphs, sentences, or words, and internal segmentation, which is the isolation of letters, especially in cursively written words. 1) External Segmentation: It is the most critical part of the document analysis, which is a necessary step prior to the off-line CR Although document analysis is a relatively different research area with its own methodologies and techniques, segmenting the document image into text and non text regions is an integral part of the OCR software. Therefore, one who works in the CR field should have a general overview for document analysis techniques. Page layout analysis is accomplished in two stages: The first stage is the structural analysis, which is concerned with the segmentation of the image into blocks of document components (paragraph, row, word, etc.), and the second one is the functional analysis, which uses location, size, and various layout rules to label the functional content of document components (title, abstract, etc.) [12]. 2) Internal Segmentation: Although the methods have developed remarkably in the last decade and a variety of techniques have emerged, segmentation of cursive script into letters is still an unsolved problem. Character segmentation strategies are divided into three categories [13] is Explicit Segmentation, Implicit Segmentation and Mixed Strategies. 3.3. Feature Extraction Image representation plays one of the most important roles in a recognition system. In the simplest case, gray-level or binary images are fed to a recognizer. However, in most of the recognition systems, in order to avoid extra complexity and to increase the accuracy of the algorithms, a more compact and characteristic representation is required. For this purpose, a set of features is extracted for each class that helps distinguish it from other classes while remaining invariant to characteristic differences within the class[14]. A good survey on feature extraction methods for CR can be found [15].In the following, hundreds of document image representations methods are categorized into three major groups are Global Transformation and Series Expansion, Statistical Representation and Geometrical and Topological Representation . 3.4. Recognition Techniques CR systems extensively use the methodologies of pattern recognition, which assigns an unknown sample into a predefined class. Numerous techniques for CR can be investigated in four general approaches of pattern recognition, as suggested in [16] are Template matching, Statistical techniques, and Structural techniques and Neural networks. 3.5. Post Processing Until this point, no semantic information is considered during the stages of CR. It is well known that humans read by context up to 60% for careless handwriting. While preprocessing tries to clean the document in a certain sense, it may remove important information, since the context information is not available at this stage. The lack of context information during the segmentation stage may cause even more severe and irreversible errors since it yields meaningless segmentation boundaries. It is clear that if the semantic information were available to a certain extent, it would contribute a lot to the accuracy of the CR stages. On the other hand, the entire CR problem is for determining the context of the document image. Therefore, utilization of the context information in the CR problem creates a chicken and egg problem. The review of the recent CR research indicates minor improvements when only shape recognition of the character is considered. Therefore, the incorporation of contex t and shape information in all the stages of CR systems is necessary for meaningful improvements in recognition rates. The proposed System Architecture The proposed research methodology for off-line cursive handwritten characters is described in this section as shown in Figure 2. 4.1 Preprocessing There exist a whole lot of tasks to complete before the actual character recognition operation is commenced. These preceding tasks make certain the scanned document is in a suitable form so as to ensure the input for the subsequent recognition operation is intact. The process of refining the scanned input image includes several steps that include: Binarization, for transforming gray-scale images in to black white images, scraping noises, Skew Correction- performed to align the input with the coordinate system of the scanner and etc., The preprocessing stage comprise three steps: (1) Binarization (2) Noise Removal (3) Skew Correction Scanned Document Image Feature Extraction Bayesian Decision Theory Training and Recognition Pre-processing Binarization Noise Removal Skew correction Segmentation Line Word Character Recognition o/p Figure 2. Proposed System Architecture 4.1.1 Binarization Extraction of foreground (ink) from the background (paper) is called as threshold. Typically two peaks comprise the histogram gray-scale values of a document image: a high peak analogous to the white background and a smaller peak corresponding to the foreground. Fixing the threshold value is determining the one optimal value between the peaks of gray-scale values [1]. Each value of the threshold is tried and the one that maximizes the criterion is chosen from the two classes regarded as the foreground and back ground points. 4.1.2 Noise Removal The presence of noise can cost the efficiency of the character recognition system; this topic has been dealt extensively in document analysis for typed or machine-printed documents. Noise may be due the poor quality of the document or that accumulated whilst scanning, but whatever is the cause of its presence it should be removed before further Processing. We have used median filtering and Wiener filtering for the removal of the noise from the image. 4.1.3 Skew Correction Aligning the paper document with the co-ordinate system of the scanner is essential and called as skew correction. There exist a myriad of approaches for skew correction covering correlation, projection, profiles, Hough transform and etc. For skew angle detection Cumulative Scalar Products (CSP) of windows of text blocks with the Gabor filters at different orientations are calculated. Alignment of the text line is used as an important feature in estimating the skew angle. We calculate CSP for all possible 50X50 windows on the scanned document image and the median of all the angles obtained gives the skew angle. 4.2 Segmentation Segmentation is a process of distinguishing lines, words, and even characters of a hand written or machine-printed document, a crucial step as it extracts the meaningful regions for analysis. There exist many sophisticated approaches for segmenting the region of interest. Straight-forward, may be the task of segmenting the lines of text in to words and characters for a machine printed documents in contrast to that of handwritten document, which is quiet difficult. Examining the horizontal histogram profile at a smaller range of skew angles can accomplish it. The details of line, word and character segmentation are discussed as follows. 4.2.1 Line Segmentation Obviously the ascenders and descanters frequently intersect up and down of the adjacent lines, while the lines of text might itself flutter up and down. Each word of the line resides on the imaginary line that people use to assume while writing and a method has been formulated based on this notion shown fig.3. Figure 3. Line Segmentation The local minima points are calibrated from each Component to approximate this imaginary baseline. To calculate and categorize the minima of all components and to recognize different handwritten lines clustering techniques are deployed. 4.2.2 Word and Character Segmentation The process of word segmentation succeeds the line separation task. Most of the word segmentation issues usually concentrate on discerning the gaps between the characters to distinguish the words from one another other. This process of discriminating words emerged from the notion that the spaces between words are usually larger than the spaces between the characters in fig 4. Figure 4. Word Segmentation There are not many approaches to word segmentation issues dealt in the literature. In spite of all these perceived conceptions, exemptions are quiet common due to flourishes in writing styles with leading and trailing ligatures. Alternative methods not depending on the one-dimensional distance between components, incorporates cues that humans use. Meticulous examination of the variation of spacing between the adjacent characters as a function of the corresponding characters themselves helps reveal the writing style of the author, in terms of spacing. The segmentation scheme comprises the notion of expecting greater spaces between characters with leading and trailing ligatures. Recognizing the words themselves in textual lines can itself help lead to isolation of words. Segmentation of words in to its constituent characters is touted by most recognition methods. Features like ligatures and concavity are used for determining the segmentation points. 4.3 Feature Extraction The size inevitably limited in practice, it becomes essential to exploit optimal usage of the information stored in the available database for feature extraction. Thanks to the sequence of straight lines, instead of a set of pixels, it is attractive to represent character images in handwritten character recognition. Whilst holding discriminated information to feed the classifier, considerable reduction on the amount of data is achieved through vector representation that stores only two pairs of ordinates replacing information of several pixels. Vectorization process is performed only on basis of bi-dimensional image of a character in off-line character recognition, as the dynamic level of writing is not available. Reducing the thickness of drawing to a single pixel requires thinning of character images first. Character before and after Thinning After streamlining the character to its skeleton, entrusting on an oriented search process of pixels and on a criterion of quality of represe ntation goes on the vectorization process. The oriented search process principally works by searching for new pixels, initially in the same direction and on the current line segment subsequently. The search direction will deviate progressively from the present one when no pixels are traced. The dynamic level of writing is retrieved of course with moderate level of accuracy, and that is object of oriented search. Starting the scanning process from top to bottom and from left to right, the starting point of the first line segment, the first pixel is identified. According to the oriented search principle, specified is the next pixel that is likely to be incorporated in the segment. Horizontal is the default direction of the segment considered for oriented search. Either if the distortion of representation exceeds a critical threshold or if the given number of pixels has been associated with the segment, the conclusion of line segment occurs. Computing the average distance between the l ine segment and the pixels associated with it will yield the distortion of representation. The sequence of straight lines being represented through ordinates of its two extremities character image representation is streamlined finally. All the ordinates are regularized in accordance to the initial width and height of character image to resolve scale Variance. 4.4 Bayesian Decision Theories The Bayesian decision theory is a system that minimizes the classification error. This theory plays a role of a prior. This is when there is priority information about something that we would like to classify. It is a fundamental statistical approach that quantifies the tradeoffs between various decisions using probabilities and costs that accompany such decisions. First, we will assume that all probabilities are known. Then, we will study the cases where the probabilistic structure is not completely known. Suppose we know P (wj) and p (x|wj) for j = 1, 2à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦n. and measure the lightness of a fish as the value x. Define P (wj |x) as the a posteriori probability (probability of the state of nature being wj given the measurement of feature value x). We can use the Bayes formula to convert the prior probability to the posterior probability P (wj |x) = Where p(x) P (x|wj) is called the likelihood and p(x) is called the evidence. Probability of error for this decision P (w1 |x) if we decide w2 P (w2|x) if we decide w1 P (error|x) = { Average probability of error P (error) = P (error) = Bayes decision rule minimizes this error because P (error|x) = min {P (w1|x), P (w2|x)} Let {w1. . . wc} be the finite set of c states of nature (classes, categories). Let {ÃŽÂ ±1. . . ÃŽÂ ±a} be the finite set of a possible actions. Let ÃŽÂ » (ÃŽÂ ±i |wj) be the loss incurred for taking action ÃŽÂ ±i when the state of nature is wj. Let x be the D-component vector-valued random variable called the feature vector. P (x|wj) is the class-conditional probability density function. P (wj) is the prior probability that nature is in state wj. The posterior probability can be computed as P (wj |x) = Where p(x) Suppose we observe x and take action ÃŽÂ ±i. If the true state of nature is wj, we incur the loss ÃŽÂ » (ÃŽÂ ±i |wj). The expected loss with taking action ÃŽÂ ±i is R (ÃŽÂ ±i |x) = which is also called the conditional risk. The general decision rule ÃŽÂ ±(x) tells us which action to take for observation x. We want to find the decision rule that minimizes the overall risk R = Bayes decision rule minimizes the overall risk by selecting the action ÃŽÂ ±i for which R (ÃŽÂ ±i|x) is minimum. The resulting minimum overall risk is called the Bayes risk and is the best performance that can be achieved. 4.5 Simulations This section describes the implementation of the mapping and generation model. It is implemented using GUI (Graphical User Interface) components of the Java programming under Eclipse Tool and Database storing data in Microsoft Access. For given Handwritten image character and convert to Binarization, Noise Remove and Segmentation as shown in Figure 5(a). Then after perform Feature Extraction, Recognition using Bayesian decision theory as shown in Figure5(b). Figure 5(a) Binarization, Noise Remove and Segmentation Figure 5(b) Recognition using Bayesian decision theory 5. Results and Discussion This database contains 86,272 word instances from an 11,050 word dictionary written down in 13,040 text lines. We used the sets of the benchmark task with the closed vocabulary IAM-OnDB-t13. There the data is divided into four sets: one set for training; one set for validating the Meta parameters of the training; a second validation set which can be used, for example, for optimizing a language model; and an independent test set. No writer appears in more than one set. Thus, a writer independent recognition task is considered. The size of the vocabulary is about 11K. In our experiments, we did not include a language model. Thus the second validation set has not been used. Table1. Shows the results of the four individual recognition systems [17]. The word recognition rate is simply measured by dividing the number of correct recognized words by the number of words in the transcription. We presented a new Bayesian decision theory for the recognition of handwritten notes written on a whiteboard. We combined two off-line and two online recognition systems. To combine the output sequences of the recognizers, we incrementally aligned the word sequences using a standard string matching algorithm. Evaluation of proposed Bayesian decision theory with existing recognition systems with respect to graph is shown in figure 6. Table 1. Results of four individuals recognition systems System Method Recognition rate Accuracy 1st Offline Hidden Markov Method 66.90% 61.40% 1st Online ANN 73.40% 65.10% 2nd Online HMM 73.80% 65.20% 2nd Offline Bayesian Decision theory 75.20% 66.10% Figure 6 Evaluation of Bayesian decision theory with existing recognition systems Then each output position the word with the most occurrences has been used as the  ¬Ã‚ nal result. With the Bayesian decision theory could statistically signi ¬Ã‚ cantly increase the accuracy. 6. Conclusion We conclude that the proposed approach for offline character recognition, which fits the input character image for the appropriate feature and classifier according to the input image quality. In existing system missing characters cant be identified. Our approach using Bayesian Decision Theories which can classify missing data effectively which decrease error in compare to hidden Markova model. Significantly increases in accuracy levels will found in our method for character recognition

Bermuda Triangle Essay -- Science Exploratory

Bermuda Triangle The Bermuda triangle, or the devil’s triangle, is an imaginary area located off the southeastern Atlantic coast of the United States. It is the greatest modern mystery of our supposedly well understood world. It is noted for a very high incidence of unexplained losses of ships, small boats, and aircraft. The tips of the triangle are generally thought to be Bermuda, Miami, Fla., and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Many theories attempting to explain the many disappearances have been offered throughout the history of the area. The most practical seem to be environmental and those that involve human error. Some reports even go as far as to saying that there are UFO’s kidnapping ships and planes, and that the lost city of Atlantis is below the Bermuda triangle. Weird disappearances and sightings in the Bermuda triangle date back to 1492, when the first voyage to America took place. Christopher Columbus when sailing through the imaginary place called the Bermuda triangle wrote of weird sightings in the ship log. He recorded that he and his crew had observed a large ball of fire fall into the sea and that the ship's compass was behaving differently. On October 11, which is the day Columbus landed on Cuba, Columbus and another man saw a light over the water, which disappeared suddenly. Within hours land was sighted. These incidents have been thought to be the first known indications that the Bermuda Triangle is filled with bizarre happenings, Columbus himself was not apparently bothered by what he had seen. The ball of fire might have been a meteor, a fire on the shore, a torch in an Indian's boat or even a hallucination. Whatever it was, Chris Columbus provided the Bermuda Triangle with a five hundred-year story. (3) Many ships and planes have been lost in the triangle. Of unexplained stories, the most famous of them all is of flight 19. The mission called for the thirteen men to fly due east fifty-six miles to Hens and Chicken Shoals to conduct practice-bombing runs. When they had completed that objective, the flight plan called for them to fly an additional sixty-seven miles east, then turn north for seventy-three miles and finally straight back to base, a distance of 120 miles. This course would take them on a triangular path over the sea. About an hour and a half into the mission Lt. Taylor reported that his compass was not working. Planes t... ...pearances occurred. Each was a world away from the other. One was off Australia, the other off Puerto Rico in the Bermuda Triangle, yet both were very similar. Both pilots were sober, one was a US Marine. Both reported a strange object harassing or, at the very least, very interested in their aircraft. Both could not describe exactly what it was. But in both cases, when it came in closer, it apparently caused a disruption of radio communication and cut out electro-magnetic power, causing the engine to sputter. Neither aircraft left any trace. Both carried ELTs, automatic alarms that are jettisoned when the aircraft impacts. This triggers them to send their electronic SOS signals, guiding rescuers to the point of the incident. Yet in both these incidents they were hushed, for no signal was ever picked up. (2) The Great Bermuda Triangle is one of the biggest mysteries still alive today. It has created many stories, some true, some untrue; there have been many unexplained disappearances in this imaginary place. Peoples lives have been lost, and ships and planes seemed to enter and never come out. Whatever it is, it will always be a mystery, a mystery of the Great Bermuda Triangle. Bermuda Triangle Essay -- Science Exploratory Bermuda Triangle The Bermuda triangle, or the devil’s triangle, is an imaginary area located off the southeastern Atlantic coast of the United States. It is the greatest modern mystery of our supposedly well understood world. It is noted for a very high incidence of unexplained losses of ships, small boats, and aircraft. The tips of the triangle are generally thought to be Bermuda, Miami, Fla., and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Many theories attempting to explain the many disappearances have been offered throughout the history of the area. The most practical seem to be environmental and those that involve human error. Some reports even go as far as to saying that there are UFO’s kidnapping ships and planes, and that the lost city of Atlantis is below the Bermuda triangle. Weird disappearances and sightings in the Bermuda triangle date back to 1492, when the first voyage to America took place. Christopher Columbus when sailing through the imaginary place called the Bermuda triangle wrote of weird sightings in the ship log. He recorded that he and his crew had observed a large ball of fire fall into the sea and that the ship's compass was behaving differently. On October 11, which is the day Columbus landed on Cuba, Columbus and another man saw a light over the water, which disappeared suddenly. Within hours land was sighted. These incidents have been thought to be the first known indications that the Bermuda Triangle is filled with bizarre happenings, Columbus himself was not apparently bothered by what he had seen. The ball of fire might have been a meteor, a fire on the shore, a torch in an Indian's boat or even a hallucination. Whatever it was, Chris Columbus provided the Bermuda Triangle with a five hundred-year story. (3) Many ships and planes have been lost in the triangle. Of unexplained stories, the most famous of them all is of flight 19. The mission called for the thirteen men to fly due east fifty-six miles to Hens and Chicken Shoals to conduct practice-bombing runs. When they had completed that objective, the flight plan called for them to fly an additional sixty-seven miles east, then turn north for seventy-three miles and finally straight back to base, a distance of 120 miles. This course would take them on a triangular path over the sea. About an hour and a half into the mission Lt. Taylor reported that his compass was not working. Planes t... ...pearances occurred. Each was a world away from the other. One was off Australia, the other off Puerto Rico in the Bermuda Triangle, yet both were very similar. Both pilots were sober, one was a US Marine. Both reported a strange object harassing or, at the very least, very interested in their aircraft. Both could not describe exactly what it was. But in both cases, when it came in closer, it apparently caused a disruption of radio communication and cut out electro-magnetic power, causing the engine to sputter. Neither aircraft left any trace. Both carried ELTs, automatic alarms that are jettisoned when the aircraft impacts. This triggers them to send their electronic SOS signals, guiding rescuers to the point of the incident. Yet in both these incidents they were hushed, for no signal was ever picked up. (2) The Great Bermuda Triangle is one of the biggest mysteries still alive today. It has created many stories, some true, some untrue; there have been many unexplained disappearances in this imaginary place. Peoples lives have been lost, and ships and planes seemed to enter and never come out. Whatever it is, it will always be a mystery, a mystery of the Great Bermuda Triangle.

Evils of War Essay

There is no doubt that war is an evil one. It is the greatest catastrophe that can befall human beings. It brings death and destruction, merciless slaughter and butchery, disease and starvation, poverty and ruin in its wake. A particularly disturbing side of modern wars is that they tend to become global so that they may engulf the entire world. But though war is an evil, we must recognize the fact that it is a necessary, inescapable evil. A glance at the past history of the world will show war has been a recurrent phenomenon in the history of nations. We have had wars of all types wars lasting for a year or so and a war lasting for hundred years. Clashes of arms have always occurred. In a world war has ways been waged. War has indeed, been such a marked feature of every age and period. This has come to be regarded as part of The normal life of nations. Poet and prophets have dreamt of a millennium – an utopia in which war will not exist and eternal peace will reign on earth, but these dreams have not been fulfilled. The occurrence the Second World War however, conclusively proved that to think of an unbroken peace’s to be unrealistic and that no institution or assembly can ever ensure the presence of peace. The United Nations Organisation, with all the good work that it has seen doing, is not proving as effective as was desired. A large number of wars, The most recent ones behind the one in Vietnam, the other between India and Pakistan, or Ind-China war, Iran-Iraq war or Arab Isreal war. The fact of the matter is that, fighting is a natural instinct in peace. It is, indeed, too much to exact so many nations to live in a state of eternal peace. Besides, there will always be wide differences of option between various nations, different angle of looking at matters that have an international importance, radical difference in policy and ideology and they cannot be settled by mere discussion so that resort to war becomes very necessary in these cases.

Feminism & Postcolonialism in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre Essay

As a representative work of a female author who was well ahead of her times, Jane Eyre can safely be regarded as the magnum opus of Charlotte Bronte. A literary career that spanned for a meager six years, it was really incredible as to how Charlotte Bronte could excel so much as a novelist so as to be able to pen down the account of a lonely and principled woman who has since been looked up as the very epitome of womanhood, let alone the politic of feminism. Moreover, elements of postcolonialism and their influence on individual behavior can also be traced in the polarized character sketching of Jane Eyre and Bertha Mason. In contemporary literature, gender and postcolonial discourses do not seem to rest solely on any stereotypical convention of characterization. Instead, such approaches tend to de-categorize women according to their individual identity. In other words, a female character in today’s literature would rather have patchy dispositions, as opposed to having lofty and focused ideals. What makes Jane Eyre a true critique of postcolonial and feminist literature is its assimilation of the contradictory traits of womanhood – good and bad, elegance and vileness, civility and impudence – within a single narrative framework. In the light of this observation, this paper attempts to justify Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre as a fictional illustration of feminism and postcolonialism. To substantiate the thesis, the paper will look into chapters 26 and 27 – a transitory phase in the storyline of Jane Eyre. Most of Charlotte Bronte’s novels, including Shirley (1849) and Villette (1853), deal with a vivid picture of colonial Europe and document how social conventions are shaped and redressed by colonial aggressions. At the end of chapter 26 of Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester asks Jane to accompany him to France – a place not colonized by Great Britain. This shows how the concepts of meta-colonization were imbued in the author’s mind while writing the novel. What it also brings out is how the male protagonists of Bronte, while most of whom have a sardonic and bipolar attitude to romantic relationships, invariably prefer women having a distinct colonial background in order to rule out the possibility of a foreign intrusion into their hardnosed Victorian veils. Meyer points out that there is a fusion of postcolonial societal doctrines and racial synthesis in the way Bronte treats her women characters in Emma (1853) and Jane Eyre. This hints at a dichotomy of social prejudices regarding how a common European would respond to the color of human skin on one hand, and how it would be treated as a benchmark for social permissibility. The paradigm of postcolonialism is embedded at the heart of the novel when Mrs. Reed grows an aversion to little Jane on the ground of her ethnic background, alien to the former’s own (249). Meyer further discusses the literary tropes Bronte uses in Jane Eyre to signify race relations prevalent in contemporary English societies. Bronte, according to Meyer, uses the concept of blackness in a figurative way to connect the actual history of British colonization with racial â€Å"otherness†. This psychological practice of attributing â€Å"otherness† to was a result of a colonizer’s preoccupation with Whiteness. There is a paradigmatic shift from literature to life, however, in the way Bronte pinpoints the presence of both class and race discrimination in the British society. She does this to unmask the patriarchal impositions that were central to the overall aura of dominance practiced by the British over their colonies. The politics of feminism in Jane Eyre is quite complex in nature, simply because a number of related factors are interwoven in the plot. Quoting Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Meyer argues that Jane Eyre and Bertha Mason represent two distinct leagues of feminism. While Jane is a sober and progressive woman capable of bettering her situation on her own accord, Bertha Mason is a compulsive character, almost an obstacle character, lying beyond the scope of self-improvement or redemption. Bertha Mason is a representative of the aboriginal race, precariously positioned between human and bestial instincts. In dealing with the development of a meaningful character, Bertha Mason is deliberately stripped of the very qualities that are bestowed to Jane Eyre. Consequently, Jane grows to be the epitome of womanhood with all her feminine virtues (250). But Meyer does not take Spivak’s argument at face value. She further questions the validity of the claim that Spivak makes about the correlation between feminism and imperialism in Jane Eyre. If imperialism can be cited as a tentative offshoot of postcolonialism, it would be easier to substantiate the thesis. From imperialistic perspectives, Bertha Mason qualifies as a colonial woman who is supposed to have an individualistic entity of her own. But then again she is also portrayed as a native woman, which seems to obfuscate the earlier attribution to imperialism. Going by Meyer’s argument, it is clear that traits of both imperialism and postcolonialism cannot coexist within a single character, and if it does, one must remain dormant for the other to thrive (250-1). Hence, it is logically better to link patriarchy with colonial dominance, as both have their origins rooted in the nineteenth century British high-bloodedness that had historically been proved to be discriminating on gender issues. Rositsa Kronast examines Bronte’s introduction of the â€Å"female colonial Other† in the context of a male dominated regime. Citing Jane Eyre as her principle reference, along with Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea, Kronast shows how the tables can turn with changes in power and hierarchy. It may be noted, however, that this change may or may not come from internal agents. As is the case with Jane Eyre and Bertha Mason, the change is imposed by the Victorian norms that were outright puritanical. Consequently, Jane, despite being a woman of substance, is pitted against seemingly insolvable situations especially when her love affair with Mr. Rochester comes under serious threat from Bertha Mason. While Jane is drained of her power, Bertha Mason steps in as an empowered woman, capable of inflicting great damage at a public level. The reversal of fortune is only possible because the Victorian times in colonial England allowed for total submission of women before male whims. The Victorian concept of womanhood that Jane embodies is based on relative compatibility with men. Women were seen to be playing second fiddles to their gender counterparts in a number of roles – from mother to wife (3). What is interesting to note from Kronast’s argument is that if Jane is the Other woman, she is at once powerless and empowered. This brings us to the same logical fallacy that has been mentioned earlier in the paper – two contradictory traits cannot control a character’s life in any way. So to put matters in the right context, it is reasonable to infer that the Creole woman portrayed by Bertha Mason must give in to the author’s intention of representing the colonized face of womanhood, in order to accommodate for a lofty and ideal feminine role for the individualistic Jane (Staines 42). In essence, reading into the feministic and postcolonial components in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre brings out the difference between what is intrinsically feminine and what is not. It is basically a novel based on modern concepts of feminism. Jane’s personality exudes a rich ardor of feminine grace and beauty. Postcolonialism, on the other hand, is only introduced for putting the concept of feminism into perspective. Therefore, Jane and Bertha continue to hold their respective positions of significance, with the latter playing the role of a borderline character. Works Cited Kronast, Rositsa. The Creole Woman and the Problem of Agency in Charlotte Bronte’s â€Å"Jane Eyre† and Jean Rhys’s â€Å"Wide Sargasso Sea†. Munich: GRIN Verlag, 2010. Meyer, Susan L. â€Å"Colonialism and the Figurative Strategy of Jane Eyre. † Victorian Studies. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1990. Staines, David. Margaret Laurence: critical reflections. Ottawa, Ontario: University of Ottawa Press, 2001.

Idiom

Idiom Idiom Idiom By Maeve Maddox Because I’m in the habit of blithely flinging the word idiom about as if everyone should know what I mean by it, this comment from a reader brought me up short: I guess I dont know what an idiom is. The word idiom derives from a Greek word meaning â€Å"appropriate to oneself.† In the context of language, an idiom is a usage peculiar to a particular language. When I use the word idiom, I usually mean one of two things: 1. A construction or usage peculiar to English For example, in English, we state our age with the verb to be: â€Å"I am twenty-one years old.† Speakers of French and Spanish, on the other hand, use their verbs for to have (avoir and tener): â€Å"J’ai vingt-et-un ans.† â€Å"Tengo vientiuno†- literally, â€Å"I have twenty-one years.† These distinctive ways of stating age in different languages are idioms. 2. An expression that means something other than what is expressed by the individual words in it For example, consider the words kick and bucket. The meaning of to kick is â€Å"to thrust out the foot or feet with force.† The meaning of bucket is â€Å"a vessel for catching, holding, or carrying liquids or solids.† Kick and bucket may be used with their denoted meanings: The girl overturned the bucket when she kicked it. The frustrated farmer kicked the bucket down the hill. But the idiom â€Å"to kick the bucket,† conveys a meaning that has nothing obvious to do with kicking or buckets: I don’t want to kick the bucket until I’ve seen Rome. The idiom â€Å"to kick the bucket† means â€Å"to die.† The adjective for idiom is idiomatic. When I say that a particular usage as idiomatic, I mean that it â€Å"sounds right† in English. For example, here are two examples of unidiomatic English from sales letters: UNIDIOMATIC ENGLISH: I have a huge interest in making business with you. IDIOMATIC ENGLISH: I’m very interested in doing business with you. UNIDIOMATIC ENGLISH: On getting an opportunity, I can add value to your content writing solution. IDIOMATIC ENGLISH: Given the opportunity, I can add value to your site content. The word idiom is also used with these meanings: 3. The kind of language and grammar used by a particular people at a particular time or place. So, too, in the expressive language  of Wall Street  do we find illumination of all that has taken place. For in its  idiom  is crystallized the wisdom of a hundred years. 4. The style of writing, music, art, etc. that is typical of a particular time or place. Coplands music was infused with the folk and jazz idioms of America. Related post: Idiomatic English 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 Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Creative Writing 10144 Resume Writing TipsTrooper or Trouper?

Summary In Praise of the F Word Essays

Summary In Praise of the F Word Essays Summary In Praise of the F Word Paper Summary In Praise of the F Word Paper Summary: â€Å"In Praise of the ‘F’ Word† In this article, â€Å"In praise of the ‘F’ word†, Marry Sherry makes the point that in order to help kids do their school work and get their education; they must be threatened with failing. Before she started teaching her class, she would blame the poor academic skills our kids have today on drugs, divorce and other impediments to concentration necessary for doing well in school. She had an experience with her sons grade 12 English teacher. The teacher told Marry that because her son was talking in class, she wasn’t going to move him since he was a senior but was going to flunk him. At first she was a little put off by the fact that the teacher was going to take sure a drastic measure, but after a moment of thinking she realized that the teacher was making a reasonable decision. Marry goes on to talk about passing students who haven’t mastered school work cheat themselves, as well as their future employers who expect them to have those basic skills from high school. Their excuse for not having those skills is that kids can’t learn if they come from bad environments, but really the reason is that kids don’t put the right amount of school work into their lives as they should. Students that attend night classes are more determined to get their education and they make it their number one priority. Marry really believes in using flunking to help motivate kids to work harder because passing kids who aren’t actually doing the work are just going to suffer in the long run. Sherry, Marry â€Å"In Praise of the ‘F’ Word† Developing Reading Versatility. 2003: Page 200-201

A Moment that Lasts Forever Essay Example for Free

A Moment that Lasts Forever Essay ? I turn around to see the audience cheering their lungs out for me. Even though I’ve been through so many competitions before, none of the competitions could even compare to the contrasting feelings I was having at the moment. Although at the time, I still did not know who won in the finals of one of the biggest competitions in California, nor did I know what the judges thought of me, I knew that I had successfully completed a memory that would have a big impact on my life. I knew that I had worked hard and tried my best, and even if I ended up not even winning a place, I would have earned something from this extreme event. My teacher had been trying to decide what piece to give me for my next competition: MTAC, the Music Teacher’s Association of California. What does that mean? It means that I will be competing in one of the biggest, and hardest competition in California again. It would be the 3rd time in this competition for me, after failing the first time, and barely achieving ‘Honorable Mention’ the second time. I knew that this was my chance, my chance to finally show all the critics, all the people that believed I was just a talentless girl with extremely well-known teachers, that I actually was able to play the piano. â€Å"Oh! How about this piece?† my mentor suggested.   I looked up to see my teacher, a young boy stuck in a old man’s body, look at me, so happy and excited about something that he was almost bouncing off the floor. I see him holding a green book, and I see as he opens the book to the 5th page, the words â€Å"Abegg Variations† by Schumann. I nearly fainted right there and then. â€Å"How did this teacher expect me to play this super hard piece that even Lang Lang made mistakes in when he played, when I couldn’t even play my Mendelssohn well?† I thought to myself, â€Å"but I probably can’t do anything about it, especially not with my mom looking like a dog that just managed to get its owner to give it a thousand bones, also.† The first big obstacle came quick enough. My mom announced that I was going to play at her student’s recital, only a few months after I first got the piece. I nearly fainted after all the screaming, crying, yelling I did. â€Å"It would be a good experience and excellent practice for your competition† she said. â€Å"But I’m not ready!† I replied back trying to use imploring eyes to achieve a change of mind. â€Å"You are playing, and that’s final!† she answered. I knew there was absolutely no point in arguing anymore, and that all I could do was practice. Turns out, I was completely right about one fact: I was not ready for this recital at all. I messed up, and I didn’t mess up small, I messed up humongous, huge, extreme, terrifyingly big. As I disembarked from the stage, I could just see how much practicing I would have to do to prepare for my second obstacle: my piano teacher’s recital. Apparently, all the practicing I did before this next recital was not enough, because I managed to embarrass myself at my piano teacher’s recital also. My fate was inevitable, and I knew by then that I was going to be practicing like crazy now, if I didn’t before. I also knew how furious my mom was going to be at me. My prediction was completely correct, as I was told to practice so much that my fingers were about to fall off. To be exact, I practiced sixty times for each variation, and Abegg Variations has multiple variations. T hough it took more than 4 hours every day, I stayed persistent, and slowly and steadily I improved. As I was about to go into a room for the first round of the competition, all I could think was†¦ â€Å"What if I mess up, what if I mess up†¦ I’m going to mess up, I’m going to mess up, I’M GOING TO MESS UP!!! GAHH~~!!!† The door holder called out, â€Å"Anna Yang†, and it was my turn. I went in, and was surprised to find three judges, different from the previous year. My face literally turned as bright as the sun when I did not see the judge that absolutely detests my teacher, *a*c* *e*s*n (for privacy reasons, I will exclude her name from this essay). I turned as hyper as a kid could become, and I was about to scream from happiness right then. Every single time I am in a competition, and she’s a judge, she always marks me down. Luckily, she was not here this time, and instead, sitting in her place, was a nice, friendly looking old lady, a not very skinny lady who’s facial expressions seemed a bit like the evil stepmother from Cinderella, and a Jasmine look-a-like lady who’s only difference from Jasmine was that she looked like she was about to poison me with a poisonous apple. As I bowed to them, I became more relaxed at the smile of the nice, friendly looking old lady. Although I was still frightened at the prospect of messing up, I was shaking a considerably less amount than I was before. I made a mistake, but I was lucky. Right when I made the mistake, the nice, friendly looking judge dropped her cushion from her chair, and everyone rushed to help her pick it up. My mistake had gone by unnoticed by the crowd. By that time, I was so ecstatic that my smile was about to reach the sky. The results of the first round came out soon enough. As I went on the MTAC website on my phone, I could hear both my mom’s heartbeat, and also my heartbeat beating as fast as a hare would beat while being chased by a extremely furious tiger. The page finally finished loading, and I scrolled down to see: Grand Prize: Anna Yang. I celebrated for about 2 minutes thinking about how all that practice had actually been beneficial, and then I realized what that meant†¦ I was going to have to compete one more time, this time against the winner of the Southern California group. I scrolled down to see who exactly I had to compete against during the final, and I went ballistic when I saw. Sherry Tang was the winner of Southern California. I was going to play against THE Sherry Tang, the girl who was on From the Top and won against college kids. The girl who won a national competition. By that time, I was already dead cast against the fact that I would never win, but my mom calmed me down with her comforting words, telling me that I should not give up, even if there is almost no chance of winning. I did not give up. I continued playing and practicing every day, and I ended up not regretting it. A few months later, a judge called out Sherry’s name before they called my name. As I heard the words â€Å"1st place, Anna Yang†, I walked towards the auditorium stage. As I walked on stage, I did not cry. I could only smile. Who wouldn’t? Why would you be unhappy about the fact that you had just won one of the biggest competitions in California? Though I do not practice as much anymore, I still always have a certain self-confidence while playing piano. I also learned that as long as I put in effort and I have fun, the audience and judges will also have fun, and they will feel the effort I have put in. A Moment that Lasts Forever. (2016, Dec 13).

Comparative Approaches in Employment Relations Assignment

Comparative Approaches in Employment Relations - Assignment Example termines the country’s labor force and the rate of either employment or unemployment is equally dependent on this vital body in a country’s structure (Bamber, Lansury and Wailes, 2011, 61). The employment relations, also cuts across the way in which the employees are treated by the government and their employers. It also stipulates the way in which the employees can fire their grievances and the rights and privileges entitled to them. However, the HRM and the ER vary from country to country depending on the development status of the nation. It is determined by various factors that hold the country’s GDP and economic status of a country Bamber (2011, 112). Basing our comparison between two nations of different economic status, therefore, it is important to narrow our discussion on Nations of two different classes. That is a developed country and a low developed country or rather an underdeveloped country (Barry, 2011, 91). To begin with, a developed country is a country in which it is has fully or effectively utilized its existing natural resources and whose per capita income is relatively high and most of its citizens are able to acquire or live according to the trends of standards of living. On the other hand, an underdeveloped country is one which has not utilized its existing natural resources, and the level of standards of living is low. The GDP of such a country is too low, and the per capita income is also too low. To consider and compare the HRM and ER in such countries has a number of factors to consider. In a developed country such as Australia, which has a stable economy and a high GDP, the human resource management is well established. Australia is known to be the twelfth nation in the economic power as far as GDP is concerned as well as total wealth of 6.4 trillion dollars. It has a population which is approximately 23.13 million, and the labor force is approximately 12.15 million. In such a country, the levels of employment are high. In such a

Managing Radical Changes in an Organization Essay

Managing Radical Changes in an Organization - Essay Example The use of organizational teams by most organizations to implement radical changes has been a core recommendation by most scholars however, the requirements for these teams to be successful in the change implementation are not clear. However, the composition of the change teams and how they are selected, their motivation and influence of engaging with the employees on the need to make changing to the company, are critical to the success of the change implementation. In this study several theories are put in place to identify the strategies that any team carrying out change must observe for it to be successful. Nevertheless, the adoption-innovation theory, and the ability based theory of emotional intelligence proposes that the teams that observe the views of the employees, the team that uses the cognitive style will no fact be successful in the implementation of any form of change. Moreover, the leader of the team has a direct effect on the success of radical change implementation (A ntonakis 2009). ... While there might be several factors behind these failures, there is the underestimation of the quantity of time and the energy required that would create a new organizational culture so that the employees might be accepted and feel this change in the organization. Without employee engaging in any type of change, there is little realization of the profits or the required results. The organizational change is therefore a slow and dynamic process that needs careful planning. The external forces in the present economic and social environment have made many organizations to seek the best ways in which to adapt and implement the changes they need in the organization. Nevertheless, the need to maintain the legitimacy of the company and the need to maintain the viability of the resources (Armenakis 1999). Thus therefore, there is a need to focus on radical change initiatives for the organizations to benefit from any form of change they are about to implement. The radical changes in the mobi le banking industry are often associated with some form of risk and difficult to implement. Change Process Models According to Baron (1997), change is a slow and dynamic process in an organization. It consists of several phases that need to be successive. These he referred successive phases as â€Å"unfreezing, moving, and refreezing† (Barbuto 2006). Several other recent studies have based their ideas on this phase model and come up with related models that aim to show the practical aspect of the implementation of the radical changes by an organization. Baron (1997) asserts that the implementation of the radical changes in an organization is a daunting task and therefore throughout the

Business plan and some figures.a Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Business plan and some figures.a - Essay Example These partnering companies are called Pks and Shane. The companies will each buy 1000 units of wigs each month. This means therefore that we will produce 2000 units each month at  £450 per unit. The company is looking forward to securing a loan with your bank to ensure a boost in the sales and advertisements for the company’s products as well as its expansion. In the budgeted financials for the first year of operation the company expects to report promising returns from venturing in the industry. The company’s budgeted profits are  £7,242,400.00 for the first financial year. The company has we are looking to increase the market share thus we will require additional financing from your bank of an amount amounting to  £10,000,000. We are requesting the amount based on our projected revenues and a further increase of 30% of our budgeted expenses. The current market interest rate is at 7% which will be conducive for our organisation. The company’s management is aware of the repayment period of three year. Paying monthly payments of  £308,770.97 as per the loan amortization schedule shown in the appendix, the organisation will be committed in repaying the loan without failure. Wonderland Company intends to venture in the beauty industry in selling and distribution of female wigs both locally and internationally. The company has established two main distributors in the local market. These distributers are the PKs and the Shane companies limited. The company is looking forward to expanding is market to the international market thus the main reason to securing a business loan. The company will be sourcing its virgin hair ingredients from India, this is because of the great confidence that local consumers have on the hair. Indian hair is voted to be the best quality and consumer friendly in terms of price. The decision was reached after conducting research of the afro Caribbean hair

1.Should the United States act alone and begin carbon cap and trade or Essay

1.Should the United States act alone and begin carbon cap and trade or should we only do it if the rest of the world does as well - Essay Example With the debate ensuing regarding the US taking the first step towards environment protection and its possible implications on global impact, economic growth and possible trend setting role, there are many angles to study this concept from. This paper is aimed at highlighting the various aspects of imposing a carbon cap in the US, its pros and cons and the feasibility of taking such step in the long and short term. It is not a new fact that the pollutants that are exhausted into the atmosphere as a result of industrial activities damage and human activities cause climatic changes and other greenhouse effects. Carbon dioxide is the leading greenhouse gas and comes not only from industrial operations and human activities like burning of fossil fuels and in energy but also from some other natural sources such as animal respiration, volcanic eruptions and decay of plants. The accumulation of large amount of carbon dioxide from the diverse sources in the atmosphere results into catastrophic impacts of climate change in the environment. To tackle climatic changes and the negativities that emerge as a result of pollutants, it has become imperative for countries to strive on their level to minimize their contribution towards environmental harm. Carbon Cap is one such concept that has emerged as a result of this changing trend towards environment friendliness. It basically restricts the extent of carbo n emissions into the atmosphere and exceeding the prescribed limit makes the operating firm liable to pay a carbon tax (Shapiro, 2007). Carbon cap and trade is an approach to curb environmental destruction by greenhouse gases. This approach is environmentally and economically feasible and practical which is centrally driven by global warming. â€Å"Cap† and â€Å"trade† terms imply setting limits for greenhouse emissions and

The Adventist Church National City Concert Report Research Paper

The Adventist Church National City Concert Report - Research Paper Example The concert was governed by a program, which, in my view, presented the event as become the most interesting. There were various items on the program, but were all characterized by intercessions of songs and plays. In particular, a story was told before a song followed. In my view, this aspect of intercession was meant to address audience boredom; hence, making the concert to be particularly interesting.Perhaps, one of the unique aspects of the concert was that its program featured a Midsummer night’s dream, which was recited production by F.Mendelssohn, which was based on the Shakespearean play. In this regard, there might also have been no interesting bit of the concert other than the music brought with it the history live on stage. The concert was attended by many people across various groups, including the interested locals and the tourists. The Midsummer night Dream featured Grossmont Symphony Orchestra, as well as the women of the Grossmont Master Chorale. Randal Tweed w as the music director, but also featured Darron Devillez, Bonin Zackary, Albert Bolina, Andra Nagby, Denise MaMillan, as some main actors, actress and soprano team. These are the figures the figures that are argued as the Most-attend-when-playing. Another interesting bit in the concert presentation is the fact that customs were highly highlighted. The presentation was that which took the audience to the life in the medieval societies, documenting the differences in the customs in the current world and the gone days.

Business plan and some figures.a Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Business plan and some figures.a - Essay Example These partnering companies are called Pks and Shane. The companies will each buy 1000 units of wigs each month. This means therefore that we will produce 2000 units each month at  £450 per unit. The company is looking forward to securing a loan with your bank to ensure a boost in the sales and advertisements for the company’s products as well as its expansion. In the budgeted financials for the first year of operation the company expects to report promising returns from venturing in the industry. The company’s budgeted profits are  £7,242,400.00 for the first financial year. The company has we are looking to increase the market share thus we will require additional financing from your bank of an amount amounting to  £10,000,000. We are requesting the amount based on our projected revenues and a further increase of 30% of our budgeted expenses. The current market interest rate is at 7% which will be conducive for our organisation. The company’s management is aware of the repayment period of three year. Paying monthly payments of  £308,770.97 as per the loan amortization schedule shown in the appendix, the organisation will be committed in repaying the loan without failure. Wonderland Company intends to venture in the beauty industry in selling and distribution of female wigs both locally and internationally. The company has established two main distributors in the local market. These distributers are the PKs and the Shane companies limited. The company is looking forward to expanding is market to the international market thus the main reason to securing a business loan. The company will be sourcing its virgin hair ingredients from India, this is because of the great confidence that local consumers have on the hair. Indian hair is voted to be the best quality and consumer friendly in terms of price. The decision was reached after conducting research of the afro Caribbean hair

The Adventist Church National City Concert Report Research Paper

The Adventist Church National City Concert Report - Research Paper Example The concert was governed by a program, which, in my view, presented the event as become the most interesting. There were various items on the program, but were all characterized by intercessions of songs and plays. In particular, a story was told before a song followed. In my view, this aspect of intercession was meant to address audience boredom; hence, making the concert to be particularly interesting.Perhaps, one of the unique aspects of the concert was that its program featured a Midsummer night’s dream, which was recited production by F.Mendelssohn, which was based on the Shakespearean play. In this regard, there might also have been no interesting bit of the concert other than the music brought with it the history live on stage. The concert was attended by many people across various groups, including the interested locals and the tourists. The Midsummer night Dream featured Grossmont Symphony Orchestra, as well as the women of the Grossmont Master Chorale. Randal Tweed w as the music director, but also featured Darron Devillez, Bonin Zackary, Albert Bolina, Andra Nagby, Denise MaMillan, as some main actors, actress and soprano team. These are the figures the figures that are argued as the Most-attend-when-playing. Another interesting bit in the concert presentation is the fact that customs were highly highlighted. The presentation was that which took the audience to the life in the medieval societies, documenting the differences in the customs in the current world and the gone days.

Article on a Person I Admire Essay Example for Free

Article on a Person I Admire Essay Depressed bulimic is a role model However inadequate to being a role model a depressed person struggling with bulimia might seem, our history holds an unquestionably notable one. Married to The Prince of Wales, Diana Frances became the first high-profile celebrity to be photographed touching an HIV-infected child and at once the most loved Princess of all times. Her life and activities had a significant impact on changing people’s attitudes and making the world a better place, for which I admire her greatly. The first Englishwomen married into the Royal Family had it not downhill, but no sooner had she been allowed to speak for herself irrespective of the Palace opinions than she became immersed in numerous charitable causes including getting involved in the AIDS research, which was strongly disapproved of by the Royals. Despite all criticism Lady Di continued throughout her marriage to patronise over one hundred nonprofit organisations. Increasing public awareness of the land mines issue and its dreadful consequences is also an achievement we should ascribe to The Princess of Wales. Doing all the charity stuff is, one may say, one thing and changing people’s lives is another, but still we have to give credit where credit is due, and the „Queen of Hearts† sure deserves one. Having problems as serious and discomforting to talk about as the rest of the nation (loveless marriage, bulimia, depression) and openly talking about them brought her closer to people than any other prominent figure has ever been. Her strength and confidence while overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles inspired others and encouraged them to make the best of a bad job. Although it has been over a decade since her death, Princess Diana is still looked up to and thought of as a women who was at once a royal personage and a compassionate friend. She would use all the media attention she was being given due to her position, status and fame to help those in need, especially the victims of diseases, poverty and social intolerance. (337)

Comparison between hmv and itunes stores

Comparison between hmv and itunes stores Introduction: In the past 10 years the internet or e-technology has altered how the industries operate. More affected by the new technology is the music and video industry later the book industry with eBooks. Traditionally consumers have purchased music, video or a book from a store. If it is a music or a video it is bought on CD / DVD and but with the internet came new ways of getting digital content. Apple has launched ITunes for delivery of digital content directly to the consumer, with no physical presence. HMV is using a mixed strategy of maintain a physical store as well as having a website for selling the digital content but the delivery is through shipment of CD/ DVDs. They both operate under the same model B2C. But they have different ways of delivering the goods / services to customer. HMV HMV is the UK and Irelands leading specialist retailer of Music, DVD/Video, Computer Games and Related Products. The company operates around 200 stores in key shopping locations nationwide, equating to over 1million sq. ft. of trading space, as well as a successful online store at www.hmv.co.uk, operated by HMV Guernsey1. HMV sells content in physical from and operates in physical as well as virtual space. ITunes Store The iTunes Store is a software-based online digital media store operated by Apple Inc. Opening as the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003, with over 200,000 items to purchase; it was as of April 2008 the number-one music vendor in the United States. As of January 2009, the store has sold 6 billion songs, accounting for 70% of worldwide online digital music sales and making the service the largest legal music retailer. As of Sep 2009 the sales of ITunes are 8.5 billion songs, 1+ million HD movies and TV episodes, 2 billion apps with a combines revenue of $ 6.7 Billion 2 . ITunes sells digital content and has virtual presence only. SWOT Analysis: HMV Strengths: * Has both online and physical store presence. Customer can access any of the 2 ways to interact with HMV. * Can sell any item MUSIC/ DVD/ GAMES, no need for any arrangement with HMV. * Can deliver physical items like gaming consoles, posters/ cards etc. Weakness: * Cannot sell individual items in music albums or individual episodes in TV shows. * Not available all the time (except online, which requires shipping of product) Opportunity: The opportunity for stores lies in enhancing the customer experience at the stores. Threat: The physical stores are fast losing significance; the rivals like Zavvi, Woolworths have closed most of their physical stores. Becoming obsolete is the threat faced by the stores of HMV. Itunes: Strengths: * Suits the needs of the current generation. * Content is immediately available for consumption. * Available anytime and anywhere. * It is backed by one of the best companies in the tech world, Apple. Weakness: * Can sell only the products like music that it has been agreement with companies and is authorized to sell. * Cannot sell and deliver online physical items like posters/ cards etc. * Cannot sell items that are huge in size in terms of memory. Games DVDs are usually of a size of 4 Giga Bytes or more and are difficult to download online. * Not available in all the countries. Opportunity: The opportunities lie in expanding into other segments of digital content like eBooks. The Ibooks which is a past of iStore is planning to sell eBooks directly to the customer. Threat: The model of ITunes is easily replicable. The threat is from rivals like Amazon and HMV who want to sell digital music to sell directly to customers same way as ITunes does now. SLEPT Analysis Before creating any business strategy or while evaluating an existing strategy it is extremely important to scan the external environment. SLEPT analysis is an investigation of the Social, Legal, Economic, Political, and Technological influences on a business3. Social: The changing demography of the people will have an impact on the business. The social changes can be psychological, demographical etc. The psychological change that is witnessed is the need for making things happen fast. People do not want to wait for placing an order and waiting to receive it by post. Most of the music albums have one or two hot songs and todays consumers are not willing to pay for the entire album. They want to pay only for the songs they like. Legal: Since the advent of new technology the music industry has been losing its revenue. The illegal file sharing has eaten into the revenues of music companies. Music companies have been suing the file sharing sites like Napster and more recently the piratebay. Even the individuals are sued by the industry; Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has successfully sued a Minnesota woman for copy right infringement and illegal file sharing4. Legal battles resulted in buying of digital content by the consumers. The legal issues lead to the online stores like ITunes that sell music legally online. Legal structure is well in place to support the business of ITunes and HMV. Economical Economy and business cycles affect the business. We are in the middle of an economic recession. Customers will be counting every penny they spend. The most the costs associated with dealing a company the more the customers shy away from that company. HMV: The costs associated with purchasing content from HMV are far more compared to buying music from iTunes. Customer needs to visit a store, browse through a variety of catalogues before zeroing on the music / video to buy. This involves time and travel cost. ITunes: customer can access iTunes by sitting in their homes. Carry the music with them in an iPod. Buying a single song instead of buying an entire album is always cheaper. Political Political changes are related to the influence that government has upon the industry. The political changes usually do not affect much the entertainment industry. In rare cases the governments may feel that some music / video content may be decided to be inappropriate for their country or will hurt the sentiments of the people. They ban the particular content from distribution and delivery. Technological: If there is any singular factor that changed the dynamics of an music industry, it is technology. With the ubiquitous internet, people are able to share digital content freely, which includes music, videos etc. Technology also facilitated the illegal copying and distribution of music and video. Technology also deintermetized the content delivery. As the music is directly delivered to the consumers there is no need for the manufacturers or suppliers of CDs/ DVDs. Technology made it possible to carry the content with us in our IPods, Laptops, Phone etc. Digital content everywhere and on any device is the MANTRA of technology. Companies that fast adapt to this tsunami of technology changes survive while others perish. BCG MATRIX: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) MATRIX is developed by BRUCE HENDERSON of the BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP IN THE EARLY 1970s. According to this technique, businesses or products are classified as low or high performers depending upon their market growth rate and relative market share ITunes: Growth: The Itunes is the undisputed star in the BCG matrix . Between 2000 and 2009 the population using internet has become 1.7 billion from 360 million5. High internet users mean high growth potential for the itunes. Cashflows: Itunes revenues are steadily increasing every year. Strategy: The strategy to be adopted for stars is to hold or invest for growth. Apple is investing in ITunes store by adding app store, which sells games and applications for mobile and computers. With the launch of Ipad Apple is adding the fastest growing segment , eBooks to iTunes , calling it as iBook store as a part of Itunes. HMV: Growth: The growth of the HMV stores has been moderate and better. The increase in sales also partly due to the demise of its closest rivals like Zavvi , Woolworths6. Cashflows: The cash flows for the physical stores are steady but not exactly encouraging. The online stores sales are increasing, hmv.com grew by 16% and waterstones.com grew by a phenomenal 60%7. Strategy: The recommended strategy is to hold or add market share. The company is losing sales as well as sales in the physical stores domain but is growing in the online space. That is why HMV is launching its own delivery of music and other content through direct download from its own website. Shopping Experience: The shopping experience is diametrically different for both HMV and itunes HMV Customer has 2 ways of interacting with HMV. A physical store visit and through online at the website of HMV for purchasing content. its own web site, which operates a sales model of e business. Customer can walk into the HMV stores, touch and feel the products and buy them. This is required especially while buying products like cards and posters. They can seek assistance from the store assistants, whenever they need it. When a customer visits the website www.hmv.com he can buy CDs that are delivered to him by post. When a customer buys any product directly from the store he can use it immediately, but when ordered online using the stores, he needs to wait till he receives the product by post to start using the product. The payment methods are cash or card for physical store payments and only through cards for online payment. ITunes To be a part of ITunes customers need the following: 1. A computer 2. Access to Internet 3. Download iTunes software 4. Have credit / Debit card 5. Error free internet connection. Customers are connected virtually. Customers can search the item they are looking for in no time. Customers can buy the item and start using them immediately, no need to wait for any shipment to arrive. The payment method is only through cards and NO CASH payments. Pricing of goods: HMV: The pricing of goods is entirely dependent on the content (CD/ DVD) that customer is going to buy. Music is sold through albums and the price is fixed per album. The individual items in a Music album or individual episodes in a TV show are not available for purchase. ITunes: The items are sold as bundled products like albums or sold separately as individual items. For example a customer wanting to buy music has an option of buying the complete album or individual songs in the album. Return Procedures: HMV The return policy is dependent on the kind of product purchased. Unwanted, damaged and incorrect or faulty items can be returned to HMV and customer can get a refund or get a damaged item replaced. ITunes When shopping with the iTunes Store, all sales are final. The customer needs to decide what are the items he wishes to buy and add them to the shopping cart. As soon as he clicks the BUY button, the purchases are charged to his account. The money is taken from his debit or credit card account. Once the order is placed there is no way a customer can cancel the order or get a refund. It is the responsibility of the customer to check for compatibility of the items purchased. Type of technology for website: HMV: The technology used by the HMV is * A browser interface for content viewing, no need to for any software (like iTunes). Anyone can view the content with the help of popular browsers like IE, Firefox or Chrome. * Order acceptance via website. No user account needed for buying items from HMV.com * Handles acknowledgement of payment and shipment delivery details for the order ITunes: The technology used by ITunes is Apple proprietary. Items are not sold through a web browser interface like other ecommerce sites. Anyone wanting to access ITunes need to download the software from APPLE and all the actions are through the software. The ITunes comprises of: * An interface for viewing the music/ video catalogs * An order processing system via iTunes account and credit card/ debit card * A delivery system via download from iTunes. ITunes restricts the sale of digital content to those people who are not having iTunes software. HMV and ITunes and E-Business Ladder Technology has changed the way the business happens. E-business is any process that a business organization conducts over computer-mediated network channels. Business organizations include any for-profit, governmental, or non-profit entity. Examples of these processes are on-line purchasing, on-line sales, on-line logistics, customer support, employee training and recruiting, and vendor-managed inventory, production design and control 8. The e business ladder is the ladder that shows where the organization stands with respect to what is possible to achieve in terms of available technology. The ladder shows how effectively the organization is using the advantage of technology and has integrated with business strategy. We will see where HMV and ITunes stand with respect to e -business ladder model of Cisco e-Adoption Ladder (DTI, 2000) HMV needs to move up the ladder to compete with Itunes. HMV is making moves towards this. HMV is adding another business dimension to its website www.hmv.com. The new delivery channel is by means of downloads directly from the website of HMV. This is currently under construction and will be available soon9. Which means HMV is moving up the ladder from just taking orders online and processing them offline to accepting orders and delivering through internet. ITunes is at the top of the ladder. It has tie ups with all leading content providers (music production companies, TV studios, movie producers etc). The customers just need to visit iTunes store to buy any content. This is a seamless integration of suppliers and buyers by iTunes acting as a intermediary facilitating B2C transactions. Emerging Technologies in e-business The emerging technologies that can be used for e-business are * Cloud computing * Mobile computing. ITunes has already made inroads into mobile computing by offering iTunes in its iphone. But iTunes is available only for iPhones. HMV can use the other platforms for mobile computing like Android from Google, Windows Mobile from Microsoft for building applications to sell content on mobiles. Cloud computing is the area that both iTunes and HMV needs to explore. The current business model is delivering the content to the customer by means of download or physical delivery of CD/DVD. Apple restricts the number of machines that can play the content that is downloaded from iTunes. We cannot play the content on more than 5 machines and those machines need to be authorized using the users iTunes account. With cloud computing the content is not necessarily delivered but it can be accessed from anywhere when connected to internet. A customer who buys a music album or songs need not download it to his computer but can access from anywhere and from any computer or any device, say , mobile. Cloud computing is possible only when the connectivity is always established with internet, which is not impossible in near future. How can HMV and ITunes increase market share HMV 1. Showing growth in the existing websites which is possible by new offerings like making downloads available 2. Introducing new product range like selling e readers and new gaming hardware like DSI 3. Introducing loyalty cards. 4. Strong tie up and product sharing with group company Waterstones for selling books and eBooks. 5. Live ticketing , HMV wants to sell tickets for events of the artists along with albums. 6. Starting Pay to Play gaming centers as the new gaming fever catches up across all age groups for games like Call of Duty. ITunes 1. Make it accessible to more people, via browser interface. 2. Make eBooks available 3. Remove the restrictions on the usage of the content bought from iTunes. Conclusion There are valuable lessons to be learnt from the strategy and models adopted by HMV and ITunes. Companies need to be aware of the forces that affect their business including competitors, customers, technology, suppliers, and at times most importantly new entrants into the market. The ITunes has once again proved that, the how ever dominant is the firm in the market it is never safe. Companies must be aware of the technological circumstances that surround the business in order to be on the cutting edge of new developments in the market. New entrants must also be aware of the technology that can give them the advantage over firms that are already dominating the market. Disintermediation is one important way that firms can use technology to streamline production and increase profits. And most importantly, a firm must never become complacent; they must always be on the lookout for new markets in which to expand. References http://hmv.com/hmvweb/navigate.do?pPageID=1083 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes_Store http://www.thetimes100.co.uk/theory/theoryslept-analysis235.php http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/business/69220.html?wlc=1264844838 http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm http://www.moneyweek.com/news-and-charts/company-news/rivals-demise-boosts-hmv-100114-0729-31157.aspx www.hmv.com www.census.gov/econ/estats/papers/digitalecon.pdf http://hmv.com/hmvweb/navigate.do?pPageID=1530

America 1900 - 1930 :: American History

Throughout centuries, we as a society have come to realize American history's pros and cons. It has been both optimistic and unconstructive, throughout the late 18th century through the end of WWII. Politicians and business leaders showed us how our societies have eventually come together in the creation of modern society. It has been an extensive and tough struggle from the 1870's horizontal and vertical integration to the 1930s great depression and the ending of World War II. In this essay I will discuss how the government and big businesses impacted and intertwined with one other in the growth of modern society. In the early 1870s, people were eager to expand and control their society. It was around this time, which also showed us consumerism at its best. It was the start of the big business boom, which included different methods and parts, some even involving corrupt politicians in order to gain control. A man by the name of Andrew Carnegie led this era of the industrial society. Carnegie was ambitious and hard working which showed people that anyone could do it. He would work a low paying job and take classes at night like most of us citizens do today. Carnegie would just grow in the corporate world and gain knowledge by getting promoted in Pennsylvania Railroads. After years of developing his skills, he decided to build his own steel mill. He introduced us to vertical Integration, meaning purchasing all the products, which are needed. Carnegie would buy the mountain, create a melting device, hire cheap labor and initially create a factory. This form of integrated goods made the process a lot cheaper. Carnegie was in the steel production integration scene, which was used to create the railroads. (Boyer, P. 369). These railroads helped create a form of transportation for local businesses to transport goods. In "The Enduring Vision", the author explains by the 1900s, 193,000 miles of railroad track crisscrossed the United States. (Boyer, 369) Connecting every state in the union opening an internal market. This illustrates the relationship between railroad expansion and corporate America. It also was a start for John Rockefeller, a local oilman who believed in vertical integration and also created horizontal integration. Horizontal integration was a form of control, which meant buying out your competitor legally or illegally. His method was very similar to Carnegie's: cost cutting and efficiency. Rockefeller would use aggression and dishonesty to force out competitors.

Euthanasia Ends Suffering Essay -- Euthanasia Physician Assisted Suic

Euthanasia Ends Suffering      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Death is deeply personal, generally feared, and wholly inescapable, but medical technology now can prolong our biological existence virtually indefinitely, and, with these advances, comes the question of whether we should pursue the extension of life in all cases.   Most people would agree that, under certain circumstances, it would be preferable to cease our hold on life.   Nearly everyone can agree that there are situations when terminally ill patients have the right to call for a halt to life-extending treatments, and that their physicians will have the moral obligation to comply.   What appears to be quite difficult for us as a society to come to terms with is the thought that someone would actively intervene in the "natural" process of the death of another human being.   Why is it tolerable, even desirable, to intervene (with decidedly unnatural technology) in the "natural" process of death when it results in extending life, but intolerable and morally abhorrent when we act to speed the patient to his or her unavoidable death?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Certain members of society see active euthanasia as "killing," where passive euthanasia is viewed in the more favorable light of "letting one die".   My question is this: how are the two morally different?   Examine the following case:      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Perry L. was a nineteen-year-old who played in a local band, loved the outdoors, and planned to become a doctor.   One night in 1989 while driving a skidoo he ran headlong into a tree.   Perry no longer has any cognitive abilities, he does not recognize anyone that he once knew, he cannot communicate in any way, and he has no meaningful control over his body or its functions.   Perry will never recove... ... Brody, Baruch. Life And Death Decision Making. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Chapman, Carleton. Physicians,Law,& Ethics. New York: New York University Press, 1984. Friedman, Emily. Ethics Issues For Health Care Professionals. Baskerville: American Hospital Publishing, 1986. Gay-Williams, J. "The Wrongfulness of Euthanasia", Social Ethics: Moral and Social Policy, McGraw-Hill, 1982. 48-52 Low, Charlotte. Euthanasia - Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1989. Maguire, Daniel. Death By Choice. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1984. Rachels, J. "Active and Passive Euthanasia", Social Ethics: Moral and Social Policy, McGraw-Hill, 1982. 52-56 Reich, Warren. Quality Of Life. New York: Paulist Press, 1990. Rothenberg, M. & Chapman, C. Barron's Medical Guide Second Edition, Barron's Educational Series', 1989