Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Investigating the inverse square law Essay
The intensity of the influence at any given radius, r, is the source strength divided by the area of the sphere. ââ¬Ë 1 The inverse square law can also be applied to gravity, electric fields, light and sound. In relation to electric fields, the electric force in Coulombââ¬â¢s law follows the inverse square law: ââ¬ËIf gamma rays are a form of electromagnetic radiation and undergo negligible absorption in air, then the intensity, I, should vary inversely as the square of the distance between the source and the detector. 2 Air acts as an almost transparent medium to ? -rays, and the intensity (rate of energy arrival per unit area) of ?-rays emanating from a point source varies inversely as the square of the distance from the source. 3 ?-rays fall into many distinct monoenergetic groups because of their variable energies which emanate from any particular emitter. The least energetic radiation will only pass through very thin foils, whereas the most energetic can penetrate up to several centimetres of lead. 4 As ? -rays tend to produce 10-4 times as many ion-pairs per unit length as ? -particles do, measurements are usually carried out using a Geiger-Mi ller (G-M) tube. 5 G-M tubes are widely used for detecting radiation and ionising particles. The anode is kept at a positive potential and the cathode is earthed. The tube may also have a thin mica end window. 6 When radiation enters the tube, a few electrons and ions are produced in the gas. If the voltage is above the breakdown potential (The minimum reverse voltage to make the diode conduct in reverse)7 of the gas, the number of electrons and ions are greatly multiplied. The electrons are attracted to the anode, and the positive ions move towards the cathode. The current flowing in the high resistance resistor (R) produces a pd which is amplified and passed to a counter which registers the passage of an ionising particle or radiation through the tube. 8 The tube cannot be filled with air as the discharge persists for a short time after the radiation is registered. This is due to electrons being emitted from the cathode by the positive ions which arrive there. Instead, the tube is filled with argon mixed with a halogen vapour which quenches, reduces the intensity, the discharge quickly, ensuring that the registered radiation does not affect the recording of other ionising particles. When the G-M tube is detecting one particle, if another enters the tube it will not be detected. This is known as dead time; the average maximum being approximately 90 microseconds. 9 Because this number is so small, it can justifiably be ignored for this experiment. Background radiation must be taken into account when taking readings from the source. Background radiation primarily comes from cosmic radiation and terrestrial sources. 10 This radiation will affect the count and must be corrected. The level of this radiation varies with location and must be measured before conducting the experiment. N0e-? t so ? = gradient/ N0e-? t Safety Precautions: To ensure the utmost safety before, during and after this experiment, some guidelines should be followed:à Food and drink should not be consumed whilst in the same room as the source Food items should not be stored in the same room as the source. The source should only be handled with long handled source handling tongs, and as little as possible à Hands should be washed thoroughly after contact with the source If in contact with the source for an extended period, it is recommended that a monitoring badge is worn à As the source will radiate in only one direction, it should not be pointed at anyone à The source should be locked away in a lead lined box when not in use à Open wounds should be covered securely. Protective gloves should be warn when handling potentially contaminated items Errors: To reduce the possible errors within the experiment, an optical bench will be used to ensure that the G-M tube and the source are properly aligned throughout, as the source radiates in one direction, the alignment must remain standard. Also, for small distances, specifically the distance d0 which is the distance the source is from the opening of the holder plus the distance of detection from the window in the G-M tube, vernier callipers will be used to hold as much accuracy as possible. Vernier callipers read to fractions of a millimetre, making them much more accurate than other measuring devices. Other distances, such as distance d, can be measured with a metre rule as the distances are larger which decreases the possible error in measuring. There will also be the error of human reaction times from observing the final count and pressing the stopclock. To ensure accuracy, practise using the stop-clock and count switch until reasonably consistent results can be obtained. Preliminary Work: To decide on an appropriate voltage to use, the G-M tube and source set-up should be tested. Place the source approximately 10 cm from the window of the G-M tube and increase the voltage slowly, until the count rate stops changing dramatically. Plot a graph of the count-rate, C, against EHT voltage, V. Record the voltages V1 and V2 between which the rate of counting does not vary too much. If the rate of counting begins to rise after remaining much the same for a range of voltage do not raise the voltage any higher or the tube may suffer damage. 14 The optimum operating voltage will be halfway between the voltage where the plateau begins and the voltage where it ends. To decide on the range of distances used, the source was moved close to the window of the G-M tube and was moved back slowly until the scaler could count adequately (5 cm). This is the smallest distance that will be used. To find the other extreme, the source was moved back until the count rate fell to a low value, but could still provide adequate results (35 cm). From these preliminary results I have decided to time for 10,000 counts at 5 cm from the source, 5000 counts for 10cm from the source, and 1000 for 15 ââ¬â 30cm. This is because any higher values will take considerably longer to measure. I will take three readings from each, as radioactive decay is a random process and it would be unlikely for more than three readings to be similar. An average will be calculated from the three values and the reading for the background radiation will be subtracted to find the corrected count rate. Equipment: Geiger-Mi ller tube of i sensitive type. Decade scaler with variable EHT supply à Sealed cobalt-60 source ââ¬â sealed to prevent contact with the source and to prevent isotropic radiation à Long handled source handling tongs ââ¬â to prevent contact with the source Optical bench with source holder ââ¬â to ensure constant alignment à Stop-clock, readable to at least two decimal places Vernier callipers ââ¬â to measure the distance d0 to a higher level of accuracy à Metre rule ââ¬â to measure the distance d Diagram: Where: à B is the optical bench with source holder, H à G is the Geiger-Mi ller tube à S is the decade scaler with variable EHT supply. R is the sealed radioactive source, cobalt-60 Cobalt-60 will be used as the gamma source as it is easily produced, by exposing natural cobalt to neutrons in a reactor, and therefore easy to acquire. 15 It also produces ? -rays with energies of 1. 17 MeV and 1. 33 MeV. Method: 1. Clamp the G-M tube to one end of the optical bench and attach it to the input socket of the scaler 2. Set the variable EHT voltage on the scaler at a minimum and turn it on, allowing a few minutes for the scaler to warm up 3. Change the variable EHT voltage on the scaler to the value found through preliminary work and set it to count pulses from the G-M tube. 4. Start the stopclock and measure the background radiation for an adequate length of time, e. g. 25 minutes, as background radiation is variable 5. Place the holder containing the ? -source at 5. 0 cm from the window of the G-M tube 6. Start the stopclock and stop after 10,000 counts are registered. Record this value and repeat twice 7. Move the ? -source to 10. 0 cm from the window of the G-M tube and repeat procedure 5, instead only counting 5000 counts 8. Move the ? -source to 15. 0 cm from the window of the G-M tube and repeat procedure 5, instead counting only 1000 counts 9. Repeat procedure 7 for sets of 5. 0 cm until a distance of 30. 0 cm is reached 10. Tabulate these results and find the average count rate for each distance 11. Evaluate 1/(d + do)2 12. Using the recorded value for background radiation, evaluate the corrected count rate for each distance 13. Plot the graph of corrected count rate against 1/(d + do)2 1 http://hyperphysics. phy-astr. gsu. edu/Hbase/forces/isq. html 2 Essential Pre-University Physicsââ¬â¢ ââ¬â Whelan & Hodgson, page 953 3 ââ¬ËEssential Principles of Physicsââ¬â¢ ââ¬â Whelan & Hodgson, page 472 4 ââ¬ËEssential Principles of Physicsââ¬â¢ ââ¬â Whelan & Hodgson, page 472. 5 ââ¬ËEssential Principles of Physicsââ¬â¢ ââ¬â Whelan & Hodgson, page 472 6 http://www. imagesco. com/articles/geiger/03. html 7 http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Breakdown_voltage 8 ââ¬ËEssential Pre-University Physicsââ¬â¢ ââ¬â Whelan & Hodgson, page 406 9 http://www. imagesco. com/articles/geiger/03. html 10 http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Background_radiation 11 ââ¬ËAdvanced Level Practical Physicsââ¬â¢ ââ¬â M Nelkon & JM Ogborn, page 218 12 ââ¬ËA Laboratory Manual of Physicsââ¬â¢ ââ¬â F. Tyler, page 269 13 http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Cobalt 14 ââ¬ËAdvanced Level Practical Physicsââ¬â¢ ââ¬â M Nelkon & JM Ogborn, page 212 15 http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Cobalt. Source: http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Geiger-M%C3%BCller_tube The anode is a central thin wire which is insulated from the surrounding cathode cylinder, which is metal or graphite coated.
Housing Industry Research Essay
People would often refer to real estate and housing industry as the best way to build up riches, or possibly the best, easiest and fastest way for anybody to get rich. Most of the time, the terms real estate industry and housing industry are being used interchangeably by people, not knowing the very basic distinctions between the two terminologies. Real estate industry more formally refers to the industry that focuses on simply buying and selling real estate properties. Whereas, the housing industry is more concerned on developing and incorporating improvements to a real estate property. Basically, those that are in the real estate industry are doing much more of retail business, while those in the housing industry are doing much more of service and nonetheless, research, design, and manual work. The housing industry is the industry which is primarily concerned in building and developing houses and housing designs for private individuals, for government housing projects and for a local community. Moreover this is also the industry which provides the basic materials such as the building materials, and hard escape materials for a housing project. When you drive or ride through a community, the variety of architecture often reflects some of the history of the community or the locality. Architectural styles of the past are illustrated in the older neighborhoods but also influence the styles of homes built today. In a community, the housing industry is the one which is mainly concerned in all these. For most communities, there is only one housing industry which can be regarded as the main housing industry of the community. This can be a company, or a group of companies that would generally dominate all the housing projects within the locality, be it a private housing project or a housing project from the government. Mostly, these housing industries would dominate the landscaping industry, hard escape industry, and the hardware, building equipments and materials industry as well. Since most people believe in the logical trend that as one industry goes up the black, a counter industry would fall down the red; this would lead many to believe that the immediate spike in the information technology and communications industry would leave other industries such as the real estate industry and housing industry, to experience its most protracted slump for several years. This is actually the opposite of whatââ¬â¢s really happening in the economy, for many years, the housing industry has remained as one of the most stable industries all over the globe. Indeed the housing industry has had its share of downs and suffered greatly from economic destabilizations, inflations and other economic fluctuations, but in spite of all these, it has retained itself as still one of the most promising, and stable industry. With nearly 17 million new conventional homes added over the past decade, the home building industry continues to set new records and standards. In 2005 alone, single-family starts exceeded 1. 7 millionââ¬âfar and away the largest number ever. Thanks to a stable economy and low mortgage interest rates, the home building industry has not seen a significant downturn since the early 1990s. This undeniable stretch of strong, stable growth in the home building industry has ushered-in a period of prosperity for major builders and supported a wave of mergers and acquisitions within the industry. In the early 1990s, the top 10 builders in the country accounted for less than 10 percent of all conventional new single-family home sales. By 2004, their share had risen to over 20 percent in most major metropolitan areas; larger builders hold an even greater market share. There are three major reasons for the dramatic increase in the scale among the home builders. The change in the access to capital is one of these reasons. After World War II, the savings and loan industry was the principal source of capital for the home building industry. With the collapse of many of these institutions in the late 1980s, builders had to turn to other sources of financing. Banks and private funds companies have thus, stepped in to fill the need for capitals and investments. These funding companies gave an edge to the housing industries since their presence meant easier access to capitals. Another reason is the change in the land use regulation. More and more communities are restricting residential development in an effort to manage growth. As a result, the development process in many locations takes longer than it once did, with land assembly and entitlement typically more complex and costly. This again creates a premium for scale of operations, since smaller builders often lack the resources to work with local officials over extended periods to secure the necessary approvals. The third reason is the change in economic environment. This has favored large-scale home builder industries. The strong economic environment for home construction over the past decades has ushered a stable growth and low mortgage interest rates that have prevented a major recession in the home building industry since 1991. This combination of market conditions has produced stunning increases in top-line growth and bottom-line financial performance for large home building companies. Between 1999 and 2004, builders of 500 units or more each year realized inflation-adjusted revenue growth of 135 percent. In addition, their gross margins on homes sold and net income each increased about 4. 5 percentage points. With industry consolidation have come new opportunities. To increase their scale and overall capabilities, larger-scale builders have incentives to reinvest in their operations by adding information systems for estimating, scheduling, and purchasing, or investing in panel plants to save time and costs in the construction process. With such investments, larger home builders continue to improve their operating performance, at a much faster rate relative to smaller builders. Better performance encourages even more builder consolidation, which in turn produces even greater scale economies, creates more incentives for investments to leverage these opportunities, and so on. This cycle would dictate further consolidation and greater efficiency in the home building industry in the years ahead. When asked to name the single most important reason for their recent financial performance, over half of the corporate-level survey respondents attributed their success to strong housing market fundamentals, and nearly a third cited their land assembly strategies. Another 13 percent considered improved customer satisfaction the key to profitability. In sharp contrast, few respondents attributed their success to shorter construction cycles, savings on product purchase, man power, on-site construction costs, and other operational efficiencies. Still, evidence of operational improvements does exist, particularly within the divisions of national and international home builders. Although their homes have become bigger and have incorporated higher-quality materials in recent years, national and international home builders have been cut the construction time to minimal, keep cost increases at modest levels, and significantly improve customer satisfaction scores, in parallel to improvements in the quality of finished products. Local divisions of regional builders have been less successful in improving the efficiency of their operations. Improvements in home building efficiency were the most common results from the implementing of innovative operating practices. Studies from Harvard have cited four general types of operating practices that homebuilders especially those at large scale, have used to their advantage. 1. Coordination with subcontractors. Subcontractors are typically the ones who purchase the materials used in home building, making payments to contractors a major expense category for homebuilders. Innovative builder practices in this area include initiatives such as making scheduling information easily accessible to subcontractors, automatically notifying subcontractors of schedule changes, and frequently updating the job site production schedule. As a result, increased efficiencies in the building process and lower production costs is maintained. 2. Component preassembly. Preassembling major components such as roof trusses allows greater precision in manufacturing and often provides cost savings by substituting semi-skilled off-site labor for skilled on-site labor. The preassembly process is also more efficient when done off-site, thereby creating the potential for shorter construction cycle time, and even so, smaller labor costs. 3. Supplier installation. In many product categories, builders have begun to purchase installation services from the manufacturers or distributors. Supplier installation helps to limit product disputes over the source of any problems. In addition, this practice can reduce construction labor needs since product manufacturers and distributors typically serve broader geographic areas than subcontractors. 4. Supply chain management. Supply chain management covers a broad range of practices from price negotiations for products and value-added services to the implementation of information systems to support purchasing and inventory management. Supply chain management is an area where scale economies give larger builders an obvious edge over their smaller competitors. Innovative operating practices help large home builders not only run their operations more efficiently and use their market power more effectively, but also better manage risk especially financial risks and risks in operations. Builders have reduced their exposure by controlling more land through options, joint ventures, and other approaches that keep land costs off their books until they buy the entitled lots. In this way, builders only incur these expenses close to the time of construction. With more efficient operations and better management controls, large builders typically do not begin construction until a home is pre-sold. Across builders surveyed, 73 percent of all homes closed in 2004 were sold before construction began an increase from 70 percent in 1999. National builders pre-sold over three-quarters of homes closed in 2004, while regional builders pre-sold about two-thirds. Larger builders have incentives to adopt innovative operating practices because they have the market power to implement these efficiencies and can leverage the benefits across a broader range of operating divisions. The financial payback for these improvements, however, depends greatly on conditions in the local market. Over the past years, consolidation of the home builders has dramatically changed the home building industry. In addition to improved financial performance, the adoption of innovative practices and methodologies related to product distribution and assembly line and development, has improved the operational performance of large builders along such dimensions as construction cycle time, efficiency of the building process, stability, style, and overall quality of structures, and customer satisfaction. In generating these efficiencies, builders have helped to streamline processes throughout the entire homebuilding industry. Home buyers have also benefited in parallel to the home building improvements. More efficient builder operations have kept construction costs low and customer satisfaction levels high, allowing builders to offer more model home options and more product choices without any corresponding increases in prices. In addition, greater efficiency has enabled builders to pre-sell more homes, which in turn has reduced the risk of overbuilding, and thus reduced the risk or putting the company financial trend line on the red. By keeping supply in line with demand, home builders have helped to bring greater stability to house prices, since overbuilding has historically been a principal cause of house price declines. Whether these improvements will continue as market conditions change remains to be seen. One encouraging sign is that operating efficiencies, as opposed to financial performance, have increased most in more competitive markets. If the housing market weakens in the years ahead and competition increases, larger builders still have the potential to improve their operations and maintain their strong financial performance. In communities where demand is strong but residential development opportunities are limited, house price appreciation tends to be high. In markets where price appreciation is low, land is generally more accessible and builders face fewer barriers to entry. As a result, construction activity can respond very quickly to changes in demand. As market conditions shift, however, builders can get caught with excess inventory, which drives down area-wide house prices. In these markets, builders must run their operations efficiently to remain profitable. In high-appreciation markets, demand for new homes is generally greater than the number of homes that can be added under existing land use and building regulations. This limits the risk of rapid overbuilding. Given that it takes more time and resources to build in these markets, higher barriers to entry and higher land costs push up the average price of homes sold. Builders working in these communities generally put a premium on their land acquisition and development strategy. Since they are often able to achieve higher margins on homes sold in these markets, they may put less emphasis on operational efficiencies. The market conditions that have helped to create a more efficient home building industry over the past years have also, in turn, favored the housing consumers. A more stable economy, with more muted cycles and low inflation, has produced some of the lowest long-term interest rates in a generation. Low interest rates, together with low unemployment rates, have also provided greater financial security for many citizens and thus given them more initiative to build their own households or improve their current household. Internationally, house prices have raised an average of 127 percent since 1990, with nearly half of this increase coming since 2000. Until recently, economic cycles interacted with housing cycles to produce tremendous volatility in home prices. From 1975 to 1993, house prices rose more slowly than overall inflation in 10 of the 19 years, or over half of the time. In each of the 12 years since 1993, however, house price appreciation has exceeded the pace of inflation. Builders that have already adopted more innovative practices have clearly profited from their investments. New practices related to product distribution and assembly has improved the operational performance of large builders, particularly in terms of construction cycle time and customer satisfaction, and thus greatly increasing their profits. Although being in the housing industry has a lot of economic advantages it is undeniable that there are still various external, economical, factors that can negatively affect this industry. A low economy, and low living standards, would most likely correspond to a decrease in the demands for housing industries. Natural disasters and calamities such as earthquakes, floods and typhoons that would occur at an unfortunate time, would leave home builders hanging in the deadlines for finishing their projects, since building cannot continued during such occasions. Generally speaking, the housing industry reflects the type of economy in a given region or locality. A region with a high economic state, low inflation, and high monetary value would most likely have a high level of housing industry in turn. The houses in the said region would also be of high quality; however, man power for construction would also come at higher rates at such an area. A stable economy in terms of monetary value and inflation would be the most ideal economy for a successful housing industry. Even high-performing builders still have the potential to make more improvements. Given that their strong financial performance has largely resulted from their leading land positions in booming housing markets, builders just have not to focus on implementing innovative practices and on maximizing operational efficiencies. Larger builders are those that would especially benefit from focusing on efficiency. Local builders with closings of 10,000 homes or more in 2004 reported implementing only half of the common innovative practices, while the divisions of builders with sales of 2,500 to 10,000 homes implemented less than 40 percent of the innovative practices. There are many valid reasons why implementation has been relatively weak. The corporate offices of larger builders report above-average development of innovative procedures, but implementation at the division level has often lagged. With the increase in the number of acquisitions in recent years, many of these divisions have only recently come under management of the acquiring builder and may thus need additional time to implement new systems and procedures. Furthermore, given their strong financial performance in recent years, corporate offices have less incentive and reason to develop new procedures for their local divisions, and local divisions have less incentive and reason to implement such changes. Whether builders will seize these opportunities remains to be seen. One encouraging sign, however, is that operational improvements have increased the most where house price appreciation is relatively low and no one builder dominates the market. If the house building industry weakens in the years ahead, house price appreciation is likely to slow and more builders are likely to compete within individual markets, these are exactly the conditions that lead to the development and implementation of operational improvements made in recent years. This means that a crisis such as the weakening of the economy leading to the weakening of the housing market, although has its undeniable negative effects in the housing industry, on the positive side, it would somehow force the home building industry to continuously and further develop and implement more and more innovations in their systems. Nonetheless, this would consequently lead to further innovations and efficiencies in the home building industry, and thus more high quality and affordable choices of homes for the consumers. References Whatââ¬â¢s next for housing industy CIOs. Retrieved April 20, 2008, from http://www. cio. com/article/134004 Seiders, D. F. (2006, September 19). Housing economics. Retrieved April 20, 2008, from http://www. nbnnews. com/houseecon/issues/2006-09-19. html Milt N. (2005, April 27). Housing market crisis threatens economy. Retrieved April 20, 2008, from http://www. workers. org/2005/us/housing-0505/ Schoen J. W. (2007, June 19). Housing industry still looking for the bottom. Retrieved April 20, 2008, from http://www. msnbc. msn. com/id/19311316/ Buban C. E. (2007, December 22). Housing developers and current industry trends. Retrieved April 20, 2008, from http://showbizandstyle. inquirer. net/ lifestyle/view_article. php? article_id=108293 Zito K. (2006, June 16). Billions to state from housing. Retrieved April 20, 2008, from http://www. sfgate. com/cgi-bin/article. cgi? f=/c/a/2006/06/16/BUG77JER951. DTL Housing slump reflects worsening economic crisis. Retrieved April 20, 2008, from http://en. internationalism. org/inter/144/housing-slump A new paradigm of the housing industry. Retrieved April 20, 2008, from http://www. meti. go. jp/english/newtopics/data/nBackIssue20080408_01. html Brief overview of the housing economy. Retrieved April 20, 2008, from http://www. oppapers. com/essays/Brief-Overview-Housing-Economy/116741 Barry S. Housing industry, subprime loans and mortgage woes: how serious is it? Retrieved
Tuesday, July 30, 2019
Critical Response Final Draft
Children should have a mind of their own when it comes to their entertainment. At an early age children are called to choose a toy from the isle of the toy store that is labeled and colored accordingly to fit the differences of their sex and not their entertainment needs. Children are not the ones to blame for the belief that every aspect of this world is categorized according to genders because this idea has been in our society for ages and there has always been a debate on this topic.In Christina Hoff Somers' article ââ¬Å"You Can Give a Boy a Doll, But You Can't Make Him Play With Itâ⬠published on the 6th of December 201 2, in the newspaper The Atlantic she seems to be a firm believer that genders are different, each sex has separate needs and tendencies but remain equal. This is the reason why she opposes to the Swedes who are aiming for uniformity through gender-free catalogues and new stereotype-free preschool called Agile. On the other hand, Peggy Orenstein in her artic le ââ¬Å"Should the World of Toys Be Gender-Free? Published on the 29th of December 2011 in the newspaper The New York Times, she appears to support cross-sex toys and play activities. Orenstein believes that with cross-sex entertainment it would be easier and beneficial for the children to interact and communicate in the future, due to their shared experiences and that toys should not be separated according to sex. In response to Somers' main argument I feel that I agree with the points the author is making.Each individual is different by nature; genders have different needs and preferences. Not allowing children to play with toys that suit their personality but rather oblige them to play with something labeled as ender-neutral that will eventually lead into equality is absurd to me because then the children will not learn to have voice of their own but rather a false idea of who they are. To begin with, one point I agree with Somers is as she states it â⬠Men and woman can b e different- but equalâ⬠(par. ). In other words the author does believe that although genders differ due to biology, as humans they remain equal. The reason agree with her is because the Swedes' way of achieving a gender neutral environment is by ignoring the differences of the genders and trying to introduce a way of dealing with people as if they are one thing. To make it clearer, when I was young I played with boys as well with girls. We were a team, we played with dolls and with trucks and we learned each ones needs.The boys helped us build things and as girls we learned them to take care of our baby dolls. This experience made me learn and inhabit that each gender provides something that lacks to the other. When we learn and accept each ones differences that is when we will become equal not by providing kids with a gender-neutral toy catalogue because then uniqueness will not exist. Another point agree that Somers has made is when she opposes to the new preschool Agile, w hich has removed gender specific items from their curriculum.In Orenstein article she states that â⬠Every experience, every interaction, every activity-when they laugh, cry, learn, play-strengthens some neural circuits at the expense of others, and the younger the child the greater the effectâ⬠(par. 10). In other words if the children in Agile are offered an unhealthy, monitored schooling and are forced to get rid of their natural likings which benefits them while rowing up that will lead to â⬠undermine children's healthy developmentâ⬠(Somers par. 1). Finally, another point which Somers could not have expressed better my opinion on the topic kids and entertainment is â⬠just leave him alone and let him play as he wantsâ⬠(par. 16). In making this comment, the author says that the criteria on which the object of a child's entertainment will be chosen by, will not have to do with what gender is the toy addressed to but with what the child's entertainm ent needs are at that certain point.For a child to make an unbiased choice about his entertainment, demands an environment which will has raised it up knowing that although toys differ according to gender there is nothing wrong in choosing a toy of your opposite sex and not raise him up in a person who believes otherwise. In other words, â⬠the environment in which children play and grow can encourage a range of aptitudes or foreclose themâ⬠(Orenstein par. 11). In conclusion, the reason why I am in favor of Somers is because she accepts that sexes are different but does not believe that creating uniformity will provide us with equality.Accepting each ones differences and who we are is what will provide us with equality. Children should be let alone to explore their own likings without being obliged to be something they are not. Bottom line is that the differences of each human being are what make this world interesting. A world full of same people will lead us to routine.
Monday, July 29, 2019
Quantitative Research Article Critique Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words
Quantitative Research Article Critique - Essay Example These are; Annual Survey of Hospitals, views from regular nurses and coordinators from the respective hospitals. During the research, conflicting definition about nurse staffing developed different results. One view of nurse staffing was the duration that patients are under complete care of nurses. The other view is the Canadian view. This view looked at the literal numbers of nurses proving healthcare services to patients. The results achieved from the former view in relation to medication errors established that the two factors never related statistically. The latter view revealed a correlation between the number of nursing staff and the medical errors reported in a nursing unit. The Mplus program and the ALT model was used to analyze the data collected. The analysis resulted to the establishment of four coefficients. The first coefficient reveals the relationship between the predictors and medical errors. The second category of coefficient determines the relationship between medical errors and a particular predictor variable. It reveals the changes implicated on medication errors. The third category of coefficients focuses on monthly medication errors on the following errors. The last coefficient category focuses on the variables in medical error and nurse staffing variables. The divergent views in the definition of nurse staffing implicate difficulties in the establishment of the relationship between nurse staffing and the medical errors. Only two coefficients from the 16 were fruitful. Many limitations experienced during the research could not assist in deriving substantial relationship between nurse staffing and medical
Sunday, July 28, 2019
The Impact of On-line Learning And Its Potential to Improve Standards Essay
The Impact of On-line Learning And Its Potential to Improve Standards In Secondary Education - Essay Example This essay stresses that online learning does not provide the spontaneous situations for learning through peer interaction. Traditional interaction between students, between teacher and student, between student and other employees like the librarian or bus driver will enter a new dynamic or become passà ©. Anecdotally, school yard tyrants wonââ¬â¢t be able to teach the harsh realities of the outside society. How does is peer social interaction affected? Will there be any impact on social and emotional development, and the acquisition of the stereotypical sex roles. The proposed research project is likely to face difficulties regarding detailed feedback on assignments; telephonic contact with the university whereby students can engage with tutors and administrative staff in order to solve academic or other difficulties, and assistance in the formation of study groups. Other factors that may make the study difficult include Geographical isolation or lack of a study partner, family problems, noisy neighbours and a lack of understanding of assignment questions. The technological aspect may also pose problems like difficulties with navigation and with the ease of doing some of the interactive exercises. One of the major hurdles is in the form of the lack of opportunity to plan experimental work with single variables and controls. Moral considerations prevent the notion of providing one kind of service to one cohort of students, and another, perhaps less expensive, service to another group for the purpose of research - and yet this is done in the med ical profession.
Saturday, July 27, 2019
Tesla (electrocar) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words
Tesla (electrocar) - Essay Example The use of electric cars is increasing in all economies in the current epoch. A battery stored electrical energy or electric motor helps to run the contemporary electric cars manufactured by Tesla Motors. The modern electric cars produced by Tesla comprises of efficient electric motors that facilitates in generating torque. Torque helps to generate smooth and strong acceleration to such cars. The Tesla electric cars are considered to be the safest cars in the automobile market. There are many car models of Tesla:- Model S: a 7 seating electric car generating no emissions. 265MI EPA range of certification. 4.2 sec, 0-60 (acceleration). Model X: comprising of a dual motor, one of the motors is well equipped to work well in all road and climatic conditions, generating a torque of 50%. 5 sec, 0-60 (acceleration). It has a 60 or 85 kWh powered battery. The model uses does not uses any gasoline. The firm has planned for its new designed electric car, Model X Design Prototype, the car would be launched for sale from 2014 and its price would be that of Model S. All the products of Tesla are eco friendly and unique in style (Teslamotors, 2013). Other Large Competitors. Vehicule Electriques Pininfarina Bollore, BYD Auto, Nissan and Renault are four giant automobile companies that have launched excellent models of electric cars. Such cars symbolize class, status and environmental consciousness of the users. SIC Codes. The Standard Industrial Classification Code (SIC) of the automobile industry in United State is 37111. Trade Magazines and Labor Unions. The automobile firms like Tesla require large number of laborers for its manufacturing, operational, marketing and retail outlets. Several trade magazines have talked about the good virtues of the automobile industry facilitating high employment generation. However, it should also be considered that when the number of employees in an industry is high, the bargaining power of the workers rises. Labor union leaders ensure int erests of the employers in the workplaces. It has been empirically observed that the strong labor unions of the automobile market in U.S. have compromised the competitive powers of the companies in the global market. In the last thirty years it has been found that the labor union leaders have forced American firms to increase the level of trade barriers. Labor unions have made U.S. automobile companies lose their market shares to the foreign rivals. The labor unions demand for high wages from the companies. Delphi pays $76/hr to its workers. It is estimated that in every car sales of a company in U.S., the labor union achieves a benefit of $2000. Sometimes the big automobile companies like Ford have ceased some of its operating plants for pricy labor costs (Teslamotors, 2013). Figure 1: U.S. Auto Labor Markets (Source: Authorââ¬â¢s Creation) The above graph shows the U.S. auto market, high intervened wages rates set by the labor unions reduce the quantity of car produces and incr eases the cost prices. It generates a deadweight loss into the industry. Imports and Exports. Despite of the disturbances of labor unions, U.S. auto industry enumerated a surplus trade balance from 2010 to 2011. The aggregate imports and exports of cars across the world on average in U.S. have increased. The percentage change in imports is 12.4% and percentage change in exports is 17.9%. On total, aggregate sales have increased and have changed by 7%. However, when regional disparities are
Friday, July 26, 2019
Learners with cognitive, behavioral and learning disabilities Article
Learners with cognitive, behavioral and learning disabilities - Article Example Thus, issues central to the current interests of educational psychologists have been the subject of discussion throughout the centuries. To understand the characteristics of learners in childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age, educational psychology develops and applies theories of human development. "Often cast as stages through which people pass as they mature, developmental theories describe changes in mental abilities (cognition), social roles, moral reasoning, and beliefs about the nature of knowledge"1. "The most influential of these developmental theories is Jean Piaget's theory of development, according to which children mature through four stages of cognitive capability"2. Piaget also proposed a developmental theory of moral reasoning in which children progress from a naive understanding of morality based on behaviour and outcomes to a more advanced understanding based on intentions. Piaget's views of moral development were elaborated by Kohlberg into a stage theory of moral development. The basic underlying concept of both Piaget's and Kohlberg's theories is that these developmental theories are presented not as shifts between qualitatively different stages, but as gradual increments on separate dimensions. These two theories represent the basis for further research and the practical application of the gained knowledge in the field of educational psychology. ... chology to create effective theories and practical application of those theories to assist learners that have cognitive, behavioural and other learning disabilities. When dealing with learners with such problems, there are 2 main aspects to consider: the student with the problem, and the teacher involved in the educational process. Lately, educational psychologists have been focusing more on the teachers, rather on identifying the students with the problems, since in the previous centuries there has been extensive research in that area. Psychologists mostly explore the perception of the teachers of the students, and how teachers adapt to the needs of the student accordingly. This is believed to be the first step towards improving the educational program concerning students with learning disabilities. With the research done by Sheila O. Walker and Robert Plomin, teachers' perception was shown concerning genetic and environmental influence on personality, intelligence, behaviour proble ms, learning difficulties, and mental illness. For these five domains of behaviour, the percentages of teachers who reported that genetics were at least as important as environment were .87, .94, .43, .94, and .91, respectively. They also found that 80% of teachers reported no coverage of genetics during teacher training. (The Nature & Nurture Question: Teachers' perceptions of how genes and the environment influence educationally relevant behaviour; volume 25, Number 5 / October 2005, Educational Psychology). In a another research, which deals with the behaviour problems that high school teachers find most troublesome, found that similar behaviours were reported as troublesome in the secondary school classroom compared with the primary classroom, although differences were demonstrated
Thursday, July 25, 2019
Willa Seidon at Tides Center Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words
Willa Seidon at Tides Center - Essay Example while the recession is highlighted by increased competition, low market share and financial constraints and instability. Even in these circumstances the organization needs to survive through its strategies. Often different strategies are adopted for survival which requires organizational restructuring and change management. A visionary leader, with clarity in ideas about how to proceed and effective change implementation is required at this stage. Leadership: Leadership is a subjective concept. There is no particular definition of leadership; there are as many definitions of leadership as the number of people who tried researching on the vast subject. Leadership is a social process embedded in the minds of leaders of followers. Great leaders help us see the current situation and see a brighter future through the dark times. They see new opportunities and combine every one to work for a common goal, during which they make critical decisions to set a direction to proceed. Some research ers view leadership as power relation by which they can affect and introduce change in people. Some view it as transformational process by which the followers are able to achieve more than what is expected from them. While some scholars view it as skills perspective where they argue certain skills and knowledge are required to be effective leaders. (Northouse, Peter.G. 2009 ; Gallos, Joan.V. 2008; Koestenbaum, Peter. 2002) The arguments about leaders are born or made is a never ending debate. Many researchers say it could be both. A natural ability to lead is important and found in every leader. On the other hand various workshops and courses are conducted on effective leadership programs. Therefore leaders possess natural ability and skill to lead which can be further polished and converted into more effective leadership. (Lussier, Robert. N, Achua, Christopher. F. 2009; Avolio, Bruce J. 2005) Effective leaders motivate and inspire followers; they have the skills to take out the be st from people. Leadership is exercised on group of people and teams, usually with the aim to make them achieve one common goal rather individual goals. Successful leaders need to understand tasks, people and processes in the organization. They must attend the current situation work through them to identify future possibilities, provide a vision and strategies to fulfill that vision and related missions, create a learning organization where peopleââ¬â¢s development and growth is paramount of importance and direct their minds in strategizing and initiate collaboration among different sections, departments and processes in the organization. The function of management and the function of leadership are often confused together. Management provides order and consistency to the organization and works for order and stability while leadership initiates change and improvement and seeks adaptive and constructive changes. Leadership is all about establishing direction- setting vision, missi on, strategies and goals, aligning people- bring clarity in goals, seek commitment and built team work and last but not the least motivating and inspiring- by empowering and satisfying development needs. (Northouse, Peter.G. 2009 ; Gallos, Joan.V. 2008) Like many great leaders, Willa Seldon is one of the inspiring leaders who helped Tides Centre and guided them through the difficult times. With her vision and ability to manage effective change she led Tides Centre (TC). She was appointed as a Chief Executive Director in September 2003, when Tides applied for the ââ¬Ëseed grantââ¬â¢ of $ 1 million was offered by Kellog Foundation. During that time TC and the entire fiscal sponsorship sector was struggling for financial
Visual Arts - Scuplture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words
Visual Arts - Scuplture - Essay Example A professional artist ensures that he or she has all the essential materials before commencing into any work of arts. Any person who has ever worked on a newspaper printing station will understand this best. Space is a fundamental factor in sculpture (Slobodkin 118). The same principle applies to sculpture. An artist should also accustom and remind themselves of terms like bottom-heavy and top-heavy. He or she should also be aware if the object in the visual field is correctly and well distributed to easily give a sense of balance. All these fall under composition, that is, the wise use of space and balance in artistic works. The next concept that artists need to know is to move into any position that will distribute the visual information in a wise manner. They may also need to add a background material in order to get everything balancing well (Slobodkin 119). An example is the existence of a pair of slippers beneath every female nude. Another consequence of this is the way with wh ich the shapes of the formed objects line up with each other. They look like a piece of the puzzle. Despite the fact that the object always appear in a 3-dimensional space, much consideration is put on how 3-D visual information manages to impact on a two dimensional plane. Through this, any two dimensional shape can easily interact with a three dimensional form in a perfect manner. Artists sometimes use basic forms of sculpture and ensure that they echo them in various places in the same visual field. Moreover, artists sometimes increase the variations such as a fugue by the Bach. An example of this type of a compositional dance is the great Newberryââ¬â¢s Blithe, in which two-dimensional tapestry behind a woman echoes and reflects the curves on her body. Another important concept of a sculpture is the sweeping forms. Some sculptures look as if they are about to fall or move. Such sculptures make viewers feel as if they will fall or move behind their backs (Slobodkin 120). Such sculptures hold the eyes and make the viewers watch them with a lot of suspicion and probably wait for something to happen. The eyes flow over the cascading limbs and muscles. The key to comprehending this effect is trying to locate the eye-catching points. Such points include feet position, kneecaps alignments, hands location, finger directions, waist and chest axes, limb joint position, hair strands, and the eyes. After the location of these points, they are connected to the sweeping and twisting lane. The intensity of this plane normally varies across figures but it usually grows in a uniform direction of movement. There may be an expansion of twisting lines of contact or intensity, depending on the existing pieces. There is a sequence of events in every sculpture. This sequence exits in time but are sometimes held stationary by the bronze. This movement comes from the viewerââ¬â¢s eye motion, as they tend to follow these striking features. In a very short time, an individual is able to experience subconsciously this sweeping form without the ability to identify and determine the direction consciously. However, taking the eyes and carefully moving them over the piece enables an individual, one is able to watch and see how the sculpture is generated, built up and explodes in denouement, and in a resolution of various interacting forms.
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
Operations in the News Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words
Operations in the News - Research Paper Example For example, top law firms target the rich and large co-operations. The type of service delivered is different. According to Ayers (1), if people want top class service, then they should be willing to pay dearly. Some firms insist on feedback after service delivery and even check on their customers to see how well they are moving on. This sentimental approach creates a good rapport between the consumer and the company. Firms ensure that their products and services are delivered in time (Gillette 1). When their products are delivered in time it shows that they are reliable. It is a clear indication that they are dedicated to serving the consumers. Also, firms that offer services make sure that their employees uphold high discipline standards (Gillette 1). This is in order to ensure that their clients are treated with the respect they deserve. Good employees who display a high level of etiquette create a good working environment, and clients can recommend the services of the firm to their friends and family. This plays out as a leading strategy of marketing as people tend to believe their fellow family members and friends (Gillette 1). Firms also try as much as possible to uphold a good track record and avoid scandals as much as possible. Scandals tarnish the name of the firm and the outcome a disaster. Not only do clients fall back, but also investors to (Miles and Bennett 1). This is merely by the fact that no individual would like to be associated with unlawful acts. So maintaining a good track record helps to keep clients. Firms have different competitive strategies depending on what their core business is. Though different, they relate to each other in an impeccable manner. For example, the use of social media to market products has been taken up by many firms (Miles and Bennett 1). This is because of the emerging trends in the market whereby about 60% of the consumers use social
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Education and Development Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words
Education and Development - Essay Example This paper stresses that UNESCO has also identified three dynamically interrelated factors involved in the relationship between education and development: ââ¬Å"the economic benefits of education; the impact of education on population growth, health, and social well-being; and the relationship between education and democratic societyâ⬠(UNESCO). These serve as three paths or channels in which education can boost economic development. Nigerian education is said to evolve into a number of stage and formed by quite a number of influences such as the colonial influence, the military rule, the impact of independence and a new constitution. Tgis essay makes a conclusion that many realize that the current development trend may not prove to be sustainable and as such public awareness, education and trainings are crucial in moving towards sustainability. As a deviation to the normal concept of development, sustainable development is deemed as one ââ¬Å"that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needsâ⬠. With this definition, it is realized that education is the key to sustainability. This crucial role of education to sustainable development is established through the necessity of two major issues in sustainable development: population and resource consumption. The UN believes that the two things that can jeopardize sustainable development namely over population and excessive use of resources can be remedied with education. (United Nations General Assembly). Female education is found to have a negative relationship with fertility rates. Specifically, the supply of children is determined by the level of education through four intervening variables: (1) age at marriage, (2) breast feeding (3) post-partum abstinence and (4) child mortality (Akmam). A study in South Asia revealed that women with education around two to five years later than uneducated women (John Cleland). With regard to child mortality, "high rates of child mortality reduce the supply of children, which in turn is likely to increase the demand for children" (Akmam). Since educated parents have higher rates of their child surviving, they do not see the need to have more children thus abating population increase (Akmam).
Monday, July 22, 2019
The role, purpose and responsibilities of a chosen uniformed public service army Essay Example for Free
The role, purpose and responsibilities of a chosen uniformed public service army Essay Having respect for one another in the army is an advantage as it boosts thoughtfulness, demands decency, and recognizes the value of everyone Respect is the root source for people living in harmony and being consideration toward others. Respecting one another shows that you have put aside your differences such as race, color, sexuality and religion. Respect is earned and isnââ¬â¢t given. In order to gain someone respect you must show them a positive character. Being able to be loyalty is a main attribute as in the battle field you will need to have each otherââ¬â¢s back. For example if one of your men has injured them self you will need to make him priority and stop fighting and put attention on him, because his life is more important than fighting with opponent. Being loyal also means not to turn your back in one of your team mates will they need your help. For example if your team mates have not got his army shoes you could maybe lead him some so that you both are able to work on the front line. Also if you team mate has ran out of bullets supplying him with extras that you may have is involved in loyalty. Courage I feel is a key skill for a solider, you will need to be able to face tough situation and know how to deal with them using the appropriate action. Courage will be need to overcome tough, painful and difficult circumstances. Courage is fear holding on a minute longer -Gen. George Patton- http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/4120 09/10/12 The role of the army is to protect the country. The armyââ¬â¢s main reasonability is to look out for the citizens that live in the United Kingdom and ensure their safety. They will have to protect them from terrorism and wars. These people are highly trained individuals who have over gone a series of test physically, mental and social side of it in order to get in the army. Everyone who joins the armyââ¬â¢s needs to have good fitness whether they are applying for the cookââ¬â¢s role or the front line as everyone in the army are so ldiers first Secondly they have a responsibility towards the United Nations, European Union and the NATO. These larger scaled organizations are formed in order to promote peace, safety and protection to the different countries part of the organization. Part of being in these different organizations they United Kingdom have committed to send any sorts of military equipment or troops when and where needed. The troops who areà called from different countries come together in the needed country in order to help their army out in what where they need. Such as help to patrol, help to stabilize the army, use the different equipment and to create a effective and efficient team Furthermore the United Kingdomââ¬â¢s army may go into different countries to help them. Our British army is currently in Iran. They are there in order to teach them how to govern the country. Help them by stabilizing their army and economy. Teaching them the basics of discipline so that they benefits and enforce this in their country. However some countries dislike this as they feel that the British troop are interfering with their country and feel they taking over. On the other hand some people feel it is beneficial as it helps them become independent and are able to stand alone. The army also steps in in major incidents. When the London 7/7 took place all the emergency services and the army came together so that they were able to calm the public and get everything back on track as soon as possible.
Sunday, July 21, 2019
Face Recognition Using PCA Algorithm
Face Recognition Using PCA Algorithm Bollini Lokesh, Abhishek Nallamothu, Mr.S.Planiappan ABSTRACT Day by day technology is changing and way of securing and automation is also trending. Facial recognition (or face recognition) is a type of biometric software application that can identify a specific individual in a digital image by analyzing and comparing patterns. Facial recognition systems are commonly used for security purposes but are increasingly being used in a variety of other automation applications. In real time, face recognition algorithms deal with large data base. Execution of these face recognition algorithms take high computational power and time on large database. Our objective is to improve speed of face recognition on large data base by using PCA algorithm. The goal of our proposing PCA algorithm is to reduce the dimensionality of the data by mapping the data into a lower dimensionality subspace while retaining as much as possible of the variation present in the original dataset. We formally prove this algorithm on ORL face data base with best precision. Keywords: PCA: Principle Component Analysis, MATLAB: Matrix Laboratory, ORL: Olivetti Research Laboratory INTRODUCTION Facial recognition (or face recognition) is a type of biometric software application that can identify a specific individual in a digital image by analyzing and comparing patterns. Facial recognition systems are commonly used for security purposes but are increasingly being used in a variety of other applications. The Kinect motion gaming system, for example, uses facial recognition to differentiate among players. Currently, a lot of facial recognition development is focused on smartphone applications. Smartphone facial recognition capacities include image tagging and other social networking integration purposes as well as personalized marketing. A research team at Carnegie Mellon has developed a proof-of-concept iPhone app that can take a picture of an individual and within seconds return the individuals name, date of birth and social security number. Facebook uses facial recognition software to help automate user tagging in photographs. Hereââ¬â¢s how facial recognition works in Facebook: Each time an individual is tagged in a photograph, the software application stores information about that personââ¬â¢s facial characteristics. When enough data has been collected about a person to identify them, the system uses that information to identify the same face in different photographs, and will subsequently suggest tagging those pictures with that personââ¬â¢s name. Facial recognition software also enhances marketing personalization. For example, billboards have been developed with integrated software that identifies the gender, ethnicity and approximate age of passersby to deliver targeted advertising. The main aim of this project is to improve the computational speed of face recognition by using PCA algorithm. This can be done by reducing the dimensionality of images, while doing computations on images in data base. We propose a PCA algorithm with reduced dimensionality in calculations, and we formally prove this algorithm on ORL face data base of ten different images of each of 40 distinct subjects with best precision. RELATED WORK The proposed face recognition system by using PCA algorithm overcomes certain limitations of the existing face recognition system. It is based on reduction of dimensionality and extracting the dominating features of a set of human faces stored in the database and performing mathematical operations on the values corresponding to them. Hence when a new image is fed into the system for recognition then it will reduce dimensionality of new image and extract the main features to compute and find the distance between the input image and the stored images. Thus, some variations in the new face image to be recognized can be tolerated. When the new image of a person differs from the images of that person stored in the database, the system will be able to recognize the new face and identify who the person is. The proposed system is better mainly due to the use of facial features rather than the entire face. Its advantages are in terms of: Recognition accuracy and better discriminatory power Computational cost because of reduction in dimensionality and removing of noise from data set Concentrating on main features require less processing to train the PCA. Because of the use of dominant features and hence can be used as an effective means of authentication Principle Component Analysis Principal Components Analysis (PCA) was invented by Karl Pearson in 1901 and is now used in many fields of science. It is a way of identifying patterns in data, and expressing the data in such a way as to highlight their similarities and differences. Since patterns in data can be hard to find in data of high dimension, where the luxury of graphical representation is not available, PCA is a powerful tool for analyzing data. The other main advantage of PCA is that once you have found these patterns in the data, and you compress the data, ie. by reducing the number of dimensions, without much loss of information. The main aim of this project is to improve the computational speed of face recognition by using PCA algorithm. This can be done by reducing the dimensionality of images, while doing computations on images in data base. We propose a PCA algorithm with reduced dimensionality in calculations, and we formally prove this algorithm on ORL face data base of ten different images of each of 40 distinct subjects with best precision. Actually issues arise once performing arts face recognition in a very high-dimensional area (curse of dimensionality). therefore we have a tendency to area unit managing spatiality issues in face recognition performance. important enhancements will be achieved by 1st mapping the information into a lower-dimensional sub-space. Mapping knowledge|of knowledge|of information} into lower dimensional data is feasible by PCA formula. In PCA formula, 1st itll convert all face pictures (N X N pixel) in knowledge base into face vector (N2X1 dimensionality).It hundreds of these face vectors into one matrix (N2X M matrix; here M=number of face pictures in database).It cipher average face vector(N2X1 dimensionality) by doing mean on all face vectors. It calculate normalized face vectors matrix (N2X M dimensionality) by subtracting average face vector from every face vector. It calculate variance matrix to search out out best Eigen|chemist}|chemist} vectors (best Eigen vectors represent best Eigen faces).It calculate signature of image and place it in( M X S dimensionality; here S=number of signatures). PCA converts input image (image for face recognition) into face vector, then it converts into normalized face vector and thereby it verify weight vector of input image. Finally it compare weight vectors and thereby it verify the person. Face recognition bioscience is that the science of programming a laptop to acknowledge a personalitys face. once someone is listed during a face recognition system, a video camera takes a series of snapshots of the face and so represents it by a singular holistic code. once somebody has their face verified by the pc, it captures their current look and compares it with the facial codes already hold on within the system. The faces match, the person receives authorization; otherwise, the person wont be known. the prevailing face recognition system identifies solely static face pictures that just about specifically match with one among the photographs hold on within the information. once this image captured nearly specifically matches with one among the photographs hold on then the person is known and granted access. once this image of someone is significantly totally different, say, in terms of facial features from the photographs of that person that area unit already hold on within the information the system doesnt acknowledge the person and thence access are denied. The existing or ancient face recognition system has some limitations which mayà be overcome by adopting new ways of face recognition: The existing system cannot tolerate variations within the new face image. It needs the new image to be nearly specifically matching with one among the photographs within the information which can otherwise end in denial of access for the individual. The performance level of the prevailing system isnt considerable. CONCLUSION The PCA method is an unsupervised technique of learning that is mostly suitable for databases that contain images with no class labels. PCA improve speed of face recognition by mapping higher dimensionality of face image into lower dimensionality. PCA provides best precision in face recognition process. In future we are planning to implement automation in security and automation in attendance by using this algorithm. We will try to get more efficiency and precision by combining this algorithm with other algorithms. We are planning to implement this algorithm for recognizing multi faces by combining this algorithm with other face recognition algorithms. REFERENCES: [1] A.S Syed navaz, T. Dhevi sri Pratap mazumdar ââ¬Å"Face recognition using principle component analysis and neural networksâ⬠International Journal of Computer Networking, Wireless and Mobile Communications (IJCNWMC) ISSN 2250-1568 Vol. 3, Issue 1, Mar 2013, 245-256 [2] Lindsay I Smith ââ¬Å"A tutorial on Principal Components Analysisâ⬠February 26, 2002 [3] Sasan Karamizadeh, Shahidan M. Abdullah, Azizah A. Manaf, Mazdak Zamani, Alireza Hooman ââ¬Å" An Overview of Principal Component Analysisâ⬠Journal of Signal and Information Processing 2013, 4, 173-175 [4] Toshiyuki Sakai, M. Nagao, Takeo Kanade, ââ¬Å"Computer analysis and classification of photographs of human face,â⬠First USA Japan Computer Conference, 1972 [5] Yuille, A. L., Cohen, D. S., and Hallinan, P. W., Feature extraction from faces using deformable templates, Proc. of CVPR, (1989).
Auditor Predecessor Successor
Auditor Predecessor Successor Question: What is the purpose of predecessor-successor auditor communications? Which party, the predecessor or successor auditor, has the responsibility for initiating these communications? Briefly summarize the information that a successor auditor should obtain from the predecessor auditor. The purpose of the predecessor-successor auditor communications is to help an auditor determine if a firm should engage with a new client. This communication will inform the auditor about the history of the client with the previous auditor and possibly expose some information that would suggest that accepting this client is not in the best interest of the firm. In recent times it has become important to carefully choose with whom a firm engages in an agreement with for representing them as their auditor. Not only is the firms reputation at stake but they can be held liable for their clients fraudulent activities. The Auditing Standards Board has issued a Statement on Auditing Standards Number 84 in October of 1997. SAS No. 84 replaced the SAS No. 7 which has the same title and was written to update the statement to the present environment. SAS No. 84 defines the required communications between the predecessor and successor auditor before accepting an engagement; what to do when the predecessor limits the responses to the successor; contains sample client consent and an acknowledgement letter and a successor auditor acknowledgement letter. Many of the CPA firms use caution when accepting new clients and go through a detailed procedure before accepting a new client. This is necessary to protect the firm from potential future liabilities based on their clients activities. SAS No. 84 made several modifications or improvements to SAS No. 7 which include communications prior to engaging with the client, discusses the usage and types of working papers, discusses the use of different types of correspondence letters for the predecessor-successor with examples, and outlines actions that the successor should follow if the financial statements are found to be misstated. This Statement was then amended by no. 93 because the statement didnt address the case where an auditor started an audit but didnt complete it. SAS No. 93 clarifies the definition of the predecessor auditor to include this situation. The definition was refined to include any auditor who is engaged to perform an audit but does not complete it. In the ZZZZ Best case study, Greenspan was an independent auditor that completed an audit of the ZZZZ Best Company in 1986. He used analytical techniques to look at the financial data and he confirmed the existence of their jobs by reviewing their documents. After completion of the audit, Minkow that owned the ZZZZ Best Company dismissed Greenspan and retained Ernst Whinney as the companys auditor. A congressional subcommittee was probing into the predecessor-successor communications that occurred when this transition occurred. When the congressional subcommittee asked what information he provided to the successor auditor, Greenspan was said ââ¬Å"Nothing. I did there was nothing because they never got in tough with me. Its protocol for the new accountant to get in touch with the old accountant. They never got in touch with me, and its still a mystery to me.â⬠According to SAS no. 84, the successor cannot accept the new client until they have communicated with the predecessor and have reviewed their responses. Even though the successor is required to initiate the communication, the predecessor is required to respond. The predecessor is required to get permission from the client before providing any information about the client. This means that there is a possibility that the predecessor will state that they will not be providing any information but they must respond stating this. If the predecessor doesnt provide any information, this most likely means that the client doesnt want them to disclose some potentially harmful information about the client and raises some concerns about accepting the new client. In the ZZZZ Best Company case, Ernst Whinney said that they communicated with Greenspan prior to accepting ZZZZ Best as an audit client. They didnt state any details related to the communication and Greenspan did not confirm this communication. Even if Ernst Whinney did initiate communication with Greenspan, given that neither one confirmed the details of what was communicated means that Ernst Whinney didnt follow requirement of reviewing the predecessor responses before accepting the client. The successor auditor should obtain information that will help decide whether to accept the client as their auditor. The type of information that the successor auditor should be inquiring about is related to the integrity of the management and any disagreements that the predecessor had with the management over accounting or auditing procedures. If theres has been issues with management integrity or concerns about their integrity from the predecessor auditor, it most likely will be an ongoing concern which may cause problems in the future. Also, if the predecessor auditor had disagreements with the client about accounting or auditing procedures then it would best to discuss these procedures with the client before starting the engagement with the client. Another item that the successor auditor should request is access to the predecessors working papers. ââ¬Å"SAS no. 84 includes a list of the working papers ordinarily made available to the successor, including documentation of planning, internal control, audit results and other matters of continuing accounting and auditing significanceâ⬠.1 The predecessor may limit the access to this working papers for reasons such as confidentiality agreements or litigations. These working papers provide the good insight into the client and give exposure to the predecessor and clients working arrangements. They will be the fastest and most detailed information for evaluating the client. When responding to the successor after the initial communication, the predecessor may request a written agreement disclosing the terms of what they disclose. They may request that the successor keep the information confidential and agree not to engage in litigations against the predecessor related to the material disclosed. Another item they should discuss is the reasons for the change in auditors. This information could show some insight into any management integrity issues if the predecessor auditor withdrew as the auditor. The successor will need to document the communications with the predecessor. They should document when the communications occurred, the results of the communications, and details of what material was disclosed. Even though the communications may be oral instead of written, it is good practice to document the details of what communications were made and the nature of the communications. SAS No. 84 doesnt require the documentation of this communications but the successor auditors working papers should show the details of communications that occurred. The predecessor-successor auditor communications is the key to determining if the firm should accept the new client. This communication will allow significant information to be gathered in determining whether to proceed into an agreement or not. The success auditor must initiate the communication with the predecessor. The completion of this exchange of information is vital to protect the firm from potential future liabilities based on their clients activities.
Saturday, July 20, 2019
Teenagers On After-school Jobs Essay -- essays research papers
Almost every teenager wants a job, yet many people are against it. I believe teenagers should have after-school jobs for a number of reasons. First, having a son or a daughter that works can financially help the parents. Also, the experience the teenager will acquire from after-school jobs will help him or her on future jobs. Finally, teenagers should have after-school jobs because it will keep them away from trouble. Parents should realize that as long as their son or daughter wants an after-school job and it does not affect his or her performance at school, they should let their child have one. Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Usually, families that have financial problems have their teenage children go to work. Having an extra family member bringing money into the house will increase a f...
Friday, July 19, 2019
British Empire Essay -- British English History
THE BRITISH EMPIRE The British Empire was the largest empire in history and for a time was the foremost global power. It was a product of the European age of discovery, which began with the maritime explorations of the 15th century, that sparked the era of the European colonial empires. By 1921, the British Empire held sway over a population of about 458 million people, approximately one-quarter of the world's population. It covered about 36.6 million kmà ² (14.2 million square miles), about a quarter of Earth's total land area. As a result, its legacy is widespread, in legal and governmental systems, economic practice, militarily, educational systems, sports, and in the global spread of the English language. At the peak of its power, it was often said that "the sun never sets on the British Empire" because its span across the globe ensured that the sun was always shining on at least one of its numerous colonies or subject nations. During the five decades following World War II, most of the territories of the Empire became independent. Many went on to join the Commonwealth of Nations, a free association of independent states. This astonishing empire was never undone in the way that the Roman Empire was: instead it dissolved peacefully, by mutual consent, and the British, apart from creating the world's largest empire, also had the privilege of being the only empire builders not to be destroyed in their far flung empire itself. ORIGINS UNDER ELIZABETH I The first moves by the British to establish an empire came during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603). Elizabeth was a far-sighted sovereign who financially supported the voyages of exploration, mainly through her favorite, Sir Francis Drake, who in 1580, became the first... ...FORMER OTTOMAN TERRITORY IN MIDDLE EAST The outcome of the First World War in 1919, saw the British Empire at its height: the Treaty of Versailles gave Britain most of the German Empire in Africa, while the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East led to the British acquisition of Palestine and Iraq in 1918. DISSOLUTION OF THE EMPIRE AFTER WORLD WAR II The British Empire only finally started dissolving after the First World War, with the process being speeded up dramatically in the aftermath of the Second World War. The primary reason for the dissolution of the empire was economic and political rather than racial: after the Second World War, Britain was simply too impoverished to continue holding on to an empire created in a previous century, and it was easier to grant independence to the far flung colonies, especially when some of these turned violent.
Thursday, July 18, 2019
Competition Act :: Essays Papers
Competition Act The Competition Act at large focuses on forbidding, respective, agreements between undertakings or concerted practices which may restrict the competition within the market. It forbids all practices, which amount to the abuse of a dominant position in the Market by an undertaking where the practice could potentially, affect trade between its members. The rules of the Act set out the basic framework, providing for the maintenance of effective competition in the market. The Competition Act based on Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty of Rome provides control to business practices within our market. "The following shall be prohibited as incompatible with the common market: all agreements between undertakings , decisions by associations of undertakings, and concentrated practices which may effect trade between member states and which have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition within the common market " Therefor any agreement, decision, and practice caught by Section 5(1) must have the following conditions 1. There must be some form of collusion between the undertakings 2. Trade must be affected 3. There must be must some adverse effect on competition. This Section covers such agreements, decisions, practices which: a. Directly or indirectly fix the purchase or selling price or other trading conditions b. Limit or control production , markets, technical development or investment c. Share markets or sources of supply d. Impose the application of dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions which other parties outside such agreement, thereby placing them at a competitive disadvantage e. Make the conclusion of contrast subject to the acceptance by the other parties of supplementary obligations, which by their nature or according to commercial usage, have no connections, which the subject of such contracts. The competition act analyzes various aspects so as to promote a healthy business environment. It gives a clear picture in respect to positioning in the market. Clearly, the narrower the definition of the relevant market, the greater the importance of an undertakings share of that market. Once one has defined the relevant market, one must determine whether the questioned undertaking has a dominant position in that market. In general, an undertaking has a dominant position if it can act on the market independently from its competitors. Thus, if a seller can ask any price for a product, even though its competitors are selling a similar product for much less, it is likely that the seller in question has a dominant position.
India & Mexico: the two stories Essay
By the end of 20th century, the world had realized that the next century is going to be driven by developing nations from South America, Central America and Asia on economic ground. The role of the economically developed nation will get reduced to that of investor and consumer while the developing nations will be converted into producers with foreign direct investment will bring capital and technology for that production. Looking into Asia, the nations which is supporting the above mentioned view are neither Japan nor the South East Asian tigers comprising ASEAN; but the worldââ¬â¢s two most populated nations namely China and India. Many economists called this advent of the two nations as the arrival of Chindia. The China has now become the factory of the world while India is a service sector giant while leading in the sectors like software development and BPO industry (Perkovich, 2003). And in case of Central America and South America, the countries which are expected to match the growth of other developing nations are Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. These nations have a very different past if things like political stability and economic policies are taken into consideration. India and its late rise à à à à à à à à à à à Though both China and India have now become a very successful case of FDI channeled development model but the structure of economy of these two nations are at the two ends of any of the economic theory. In China, being a one party communist state and very strong central government economic decisions are taken irrespective of what is actually the people at ground wish while in India, being a secular democratic nation with multi-party political system decisions related to economy are often taken while considering the compulsions like electoral promises and is very much populist in nature. à à à à à à à à à à à The governments which includes both central and states are always under pressure from both opposition parties and popular public demand and many a times the decisions get affected due to this factor. At the same time, Indiaââ¬â¢s economic stand for more than forty years of its independence had been protective and least connected with the world (Bromley, Mackintosh, Brown &à Wuyts, 2004, p. 196). Its neutral stand during the cold war and strategic military relationship with USSR caused very less interaction with western world led by USA. The country continued to pursue its independent political stand and entered 21st century, its economic structure saw extreme changes and the country now boasts of having the USA as its largest trading partner and at the same time, US has also found great interest in worldââ¬â¢s largest democracy and the recently signed nuclear treaty between the US president George Bush and Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh clearly underlines the growing interest between the two. à à à à à à à à à à à So the new India or better to say the liberalized India post reforms presents a beautiful case where Kenneth Waltzââ¬â¢s theory of International Relations which states that the action of a state can often get affected due to pressures being exerted by international forces and thereby limiting the options available to them(1979). The neorealist or structured model has been developed with the aim to explain the repeating patterns of state behavior and power and its extent which is the combination of its capacity to resist external influence while influencing others to behave according to its wishes. à à à à à à à à à à à The liberalization process in India began in early 1990s in the tenure of the Prime Minister P. V. Narashimha Rao under the leadership of then Finance Minister Dr. Manamohan Singh. The reform process and Indiaââ¬â¢s integration into world economy was widely appreciated with International Monetary Fund or the IMF calling it a long term corrective measure. The reform process which began with India signing GATT and becoming a part of WTO was widely appreciated by almost all economic quarters (Bromley et. al, 2004, p. 173). The Narashimha Rao govt. continued with his reforms though slowly despite stiff resistance from major opposition parties by destroying the opposition unity (Bromley et. al, 2004, p. 167). à à à à à à à à à à à After entering into a new economic fold, the Indian Stateââ¬â¢s decision showed the signs of getting influenced through external international forces which includes IMF, World Bank and other trade partners including US and EU. On economic issues, the Indian government for obtaining loans from IMF and World Bank had to observe their demands. Some of the demands that IMF made were import liberalization, tariff reduction, decontrolling the food grains market, decreasing subsidies in food and agricultural sector, PSU privatizations, enabling law for attracting FDI in manufacturing and infrastructure projects and opening the domestic banking and insurance sector i.e., financial liberalization (Bromley et. al, 2004, p. 199).. The Indian government reacted cautiously but in a considerably long period, opened some of the sectors with foreign players holding majority stakes while in most of the sectors FDI was promoted to some percentage that may be 26 percent or up to 49 percent (Govt. of India, 2005). à à à à à à à à à à à The economic reforms of Indian economy went into super fast mode during the regime of new political party. The BJP government was found to be pro-reformist with measures taken by continued to follow the path initiated by the Narashimha Rao Government. This stand of BJP was in sharp contrast to what it had observed during the beginning of the reform movement (Bromley et. al., 2004, p. 168). Under the BJP government, India tested five nuclear weapons and was widely criticized by most of the countries (Perkovich, 2003). The US government imposed a series of economic sanctions and the relationship between the two nations started showing down turn. But the Indian economy showed resilience and even the US congress and other western nations realized this fact and the sanctions were removed in a number of phases. The terrorist attack of September 11 2001 changed the scenario and the world under US leadership started considering terrorism as an international threat and India being a victim of Pakistan sponsored terrorism gave unequivocal support to US led war against terror (Perkovich, 2003). à à à à à à à à à à à But the real success of India has been observed in form of the success of software giants like Infosys, TCS, Wipro and many smaller ones (Bromley et. al., 2004, p. 209). These companies opened new era of business through outsourcing of jobs from US and this led to the advent of many of the US based MNCs like Accenture, IBM, GE and others investing a lot in India. The condition has become so different that the growth of Indian firms is dependent on US. Now the other sectors like retail, automobile, telecommunication etc. are getting large input through FDI channel (Perkovich, 2003). à à à à à à à à à à à Now this US supported growth of economy has made the government to follow foreign policies with extra care so that the interests of US must be taken into account and the mutually beneficial relationship between the two countries should remain intact. These things are clearly showing that the countryââ¬â¢s stand on different international issues have started getting affected by economic policies of developed nations especially USA (Kapila, 2006). Mexico & Economic Liberalization à à à à à à à à à à à Now when we think of the continent of North America, we normally have the picture two economically very developed countries namely United States of America and Canada. But Mexico is another major economy of the region but with a different structure and status. Basically a developing country with a very unusual past when compared with other major countries of the region mentioned above, the countryââ¬â¢s economic policy in the major part of 20th century had been without any vision. The political establishment has always supported various ideologies at the same time. The left centered administration and economic policy of Cuba and other left economies of the world got support from most of the Mexican government over the past 50 years but the same governments had reacted sharply against any move to any communist movement in the nation. Before 1970, the economy policy of Mexico was that of Private Public supported and investment by foreign companies had been given high priority. But after the massacre in the Plaza of the Three Cultures, the newly elected government started following an economic policy leaned more towards left philosophy of collective ownership. And despite flagging economic condition of the nation, populist policies for earning political mileage became a national policy. With every new government the country followed comparatively different policies creating more economic and monetary instability instead of any straight forward economic growth. à à à à à à à à à à à The year 1994 saw the beginning of a new era in trade relations among three major countries of North America. With the launch of North America Free Trade Agreement i.e., NAFTA, comprising of worldââ¬â¢s two most powerful economies USA and Canada and Mexico, the whole economic situation of the region has become a matter of close observation. If the case of Canada and USA is looked upon, there already exist a number of bilateral agreements on issues from defense, border security to trade and commerce. But from Mexican point of view, NAFTA has been much more than a simple regional trade agreement. Despite being a platform for boosting trade, participation of Mexico in NAFTA has been seen as the most effective tool to achieve two important missions. The first one has been for the purpose of directing the Mexican economy to an export-led growth path on a non-inflationary note. With USA as the major economic partner, NAFTA has been seen by the Mexican government as a platform to initiate large scale export to its much superior economic partner. Internal structure of the Mexican economy has also been made available on a platter to get a change with new set policies ensuring free trade initiative and drastic reduction in terms of tariff and quota issues to promote intra-regional trade (Moreno-Brid, Validiva & Santamaria, 2005). The second objective of the above mentioned reform process was to make the nature of this process very much irreversible. Though NAFTA accord has made sufficient provision so that any attempt to be made by the governments of future would cause the imposition of international legal and extra-legal constraints thereby deterring any attempt of returning back to the days of trade protectionism but the Salinas administration along with other supporters blunted all attack by its opponents to ensure the path of reform unruffled. The whole purpose of this treaty for Mexico was to make the nation a very lucrative region for the manufacture of products that can easily be exported to USA (Moreno-Brid et. al., 2005). à à à à à à à à à à à Now itââ¬â¢s been more than a decade that NAFTA came into existence and if the economic condition of Mexico is viewed then the expectations that was raised by the Salinas govt. has actually been partially satisfied. The country has made considerable economic advancements and these things are visible through the era of small budget deficit, low inflation that followed the treaty. Also the export of non-oil products has reached a very high level with surge in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). But euphoria associated with the treaty loses its charm when the number of jobs being created in the liberated economy is taken into account. The rate of growth of the GDP is still below the level which the economy had attained in days much prior to liberalization (Moreno-Brid et. al., 2005). à à à à à à à à à à à So, for Mexico, the outcome of being a part of NAFTA has been very limited. If the limited gains are compared with what had been expected before, the NAFTA will appear more as a failure than a success. In 1994 only, the possibility of this sort of result was predicted by eminent US political scientist Stephan Krasner. While depending on realist model Krasnar had clearly stated that though NAFTA is an excellent attempt to have a very beneficial regional agreement but from Mexico point of view itââ¬â¢s not going to yield any golden egg (Bromley, Mackintosh, Brown &à Wuyts, 2004, p. 264). The extreme differences in the business culture and size of the economies of US and Mexico will be a very important reason behind the limited success of the agreement and expecting a broad result of something like the one between US and Canada can never be achieved (Extra Material, p. 10). The economic policy of US has been more of imperialistic in nature. This very US policy gives rise to anti-Americanism. The actually reduces the extent up to which both US and Mexico could have cooperated. This is very much in agreement to Waltz theory, which has clearly mentioned that the international condition is very much anarchic due to the lack of any common controlling authority giving rise to the issues like national threat and rise of conflicts of both military and economic nature (1979). As a result the apprehensions with rich nations fearing the rise of issues of illegal migration and human trafficking, the extent of cooperation between the two states will be very limited (Hollifield, 2006). The states would be found more concerned towards maintaining their relative power in relation one another and at the same time will avoid any permanent loss to existing relationship (Bromley et. al, 2004, p. 278). à à à à à à à à à à à The much analyzed theory of Waltz on International Relations valid in almost every case can be successfully used in understanding the case of NAFTA and Mexico. The history is full of differences and conflicts between the US and Mexico with Mexico in constant fear of losing its sovereignty. This fear and the bitterness of past has always been a very important reason the success of any pact between Mexico and US. Even the economic policy of US has widely been considered as imperialistic and Mexico had become a part of NAFTA for increasing its exports especially to US, hence the Mexican establishment will always be under the influence of US economic policies and decisions and may have to modify its international economic and business policies to suit US and the economic benefits Mexico is having with the trade with such a large neighbor (Bromley et. al, 2004, p 264). à So the fear of the past was the invasion over geographical boundary with Mexico preferring Latin culture rather the pro-US North American trend. Now becoming a very important part of North American economic group, Mexico is under continuous fear of losing is control over its economy and currency and might have to face economic colonialism. à References Hollifield, J. F. (2006). Trade, Migration and Economic Development: The Risks and à à à Rewards of Openness. Retrieved June 01, 2007, from the World Wide Web:à à à à à à à à à à à http://www.dallasfed.org/news/research/2006/06migr/hollifield.pdf Moreno-Brid, J. Validiva, J. C. R. & Santamaria, J. (2005). Mexico: Economic growth à exports and industrial performance after NAFTA, Economic Development Unit. à à à à à à à à à à à Retrieved June 01, 2007, from the World Wide Web:à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à http://www.wilsoncenter.org/news/docs/Mexico_after_NAFTA_ECLAC.pdf Bromley, M. Mackintosh, W. Brown & M. Wuyts (2004).à Making the International: Economic Interdependence and political Order. Pluto Press Waltz, K. N. (1979).Realist Thought and Neorealist Thesis 1979. Journal of International à à à à à à à à à Affairs.à Retrieved June 01, 2007, from the World Wide Web:à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à http://classes.maxwell.syr.edu/PSC783/Waltz44.pdf Govt. of India (2005). Investing in India Foreign Direct Investment -Policy & Procedures à à à à à à à à Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, à à à à à Government of India, New Delhi Retrieved June 01, 2007, from the World Wide à à à à à à à à à à Web:à à http://dipp.nic.in/manual/manual_03_05.pdf Kapila, S. (2006). Iranââ¬â¢s nuclear issue: India well advised to be objective. South Asia à à à Analysis Groupà Retrieved June 01, 2007, from the World Wide à à à à à à Web:http://www.saag.org/%5Cpapers17%5Cpaper1694.html Perkovich, G. (2003).The measure of India: what makes greatness? 2003 Annual à à à à à à à à à à Fellowsââ¬â¢ Lecture, University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved June 01, 2007, from the à à à à World Wide Web:à à à à à à à à à à à www.sas.upenn.edu/casi/publications/Papers/Perkovich_2003.pdf Ã
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