Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Informative Essay Borderline Personality Disorders

Borderline Personality Disorders Hunter Boumans Central Louisiana Technical Community College †¢ DEFINITION- Aka BPD, is a mental disorder marked by ongoing intense mood swings, self-imaging problems, and impulsive behavior usually surfacing during adolescence to early adulthood and can lead to major psychological disorders later in life. †¢ POSSIBLE CAUSE/RISK FACTORS- The exact cause has not been distinguished yet. However, research shows that genetics, and environment as well as social factors are likely involved. Risk Factors Include: ïÆ'Ëœ Genetics- According to NIMH (nation institute of mental health) BPD is 5X more likely to occur if an immediate family member has it. ïÆ'Ëœ Environmental Social Factors- Research from Mayo Clinic has found that many people diagnosed with BPD have reported traumatic life events during childhood development. ïÆ'Ëœ Brain- Multiple research has found that certain abnormalities in the brains anatomy that regulate impulses and emotions may not be functioning normally and could be root of the cause. †¢ SIGNS/SYMPTOMS- Severe dissociative symptoms (ex. observing themselves from outside of their body), Uncontrollable and intense anger rages, Chronic depression Unstable and intense mood swings, episodes ranging in length from hours to days. Reoccurring suicide threats and self-harm Impulsive, dangerous behaviors such as driving fast and substance use Unstable relationships †¢ TREATMENT- ïÆ'Ëœ Therapy- †¢ General Psychiatric Management-Show MoreRelatedEssay on Factors Affecting the Complexity of Criminal Behavior1489 Words   |  6 PagesThis essay will consider the notion that any person could become a criminal. In considering this, the question ‘what makes a criminal a criminal’ will be discussed. Defining criminal behaviour is itself, difficult as it could be considered a wide range of behaviours from tasting fruit at the market to speeding to swearing at someone in frustration. Further to this discussion is a consideration of the roles that society and individuals have in defining and contributing to people engaging in criminalRead MoreWhat Makes a Criminal? Essays1778 Words   |  8 Pages Answering and understanding these questions is the core work of criminologists as most criminologists attempt to make sense of why people do certain things (Garland, Sparks 2000). This essay will consider the notion that any person could become a criminal and in so doing consider the initial question. This essay will outline a range of theories that attempt to describe human behavior in relation to criminal behavior given the complexities of behaviour. Several theories will be considered as no singleRead MoreLogical Reasoning189930 Words   |  760 Pagesprobable good consequences of each action and the probable bad consequences while weighing the positive and negative impact of each consequence. It’s a kind of cost-benefit analysis. Exercises 1. Columbus Day is an American holiday. Write a short essay that weighs the pros and cons and then comes to a decision about whether there should be more or less public celebration (by Americans and their institutions) on Columbus Day, October 12. Here is some relevant background information to reduce yourRead MoreDeveloping Management Skills404131 Words   |  1617 Pages Core Self-Evaluation Scale 103 Scoring Key 103 Comparison Data 103 2 MANAGING PERSONAL STRESS 105 SKILL ASSESSMENT 106 Diagnostic Surveys for Managing Stress 106 Stress Management Assessment 106 Time Management Assessment 107 Type A Personality Inventory 108 Social Readjustment Rating Scale 109 Sources of Personal Stress 111 SKILL LEARNING 112 Improving the Management of Stress and Time 112 The Role of Management 113 Major Elements of Stress 113 Reactions to Stress 114 Coping with StressRead MoreMetz Film Language a Semiotics of the Cinema PDF100902 Words   |  316 Pagesconstitute Chapter 5 was first read, and the Festival of the New Cinema (Pesaro, Italy), which organized the round-table discussion during which the last chapter in this volume was originally presented. The idea of bringing together a number of my essays in a single volume, thus making them more easily available, originated with Mikel Dufrenne, Professor at the University of Paris-Nanterre and editor of the series in which this work was published in French. He has my very warm gratitude. C . M. Cannes

Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Corporate Reporting in India - 9449 Words

REPORTING PRACTICE OF THE CORPORATE SECTOR IN INDIA Sham Lal amp; Sonia Lecturer in Commerce, Guest Faculty, Govt. Bikram College of Commerce, Patiala . Research Scholar, Dravidian University, Kuppum, AP. MA Economics Part II, Punjabi University, Patiala Abstract Disclosure is the communication of various details regarding the activities of the business which are to be disclosed either statutorily or otherwise, and it is to convey a true and fair view of the operating results and financial position to the users of financial reports. The study points out that the effective corporate reporting can only be achieved by a voluntary change in the corporate reporting philosophy. In order to achieve high standards of corporate reporting†¦show more content†¦They have suggested that the management of a company should take more interest in this area. . D.R. Singh and S.K. Bhargava (1978) in their study â€Å"Quality of Disclosure in the Public Sector Enterprises† have examined the annual reports of 40 public sector enterprises for the year 1972-73. They have concluded that the quality of disclosure varies from enterprise to enterprise. They have suggested that the quality of disclosure of information in the annual reports should be imp roved. Jawahar Lal (1985) in his book entitled â€Å"Financial Reporting by Diversified Companies† has examined an important issue namely whether diversified companies should report their results on segmental basis in their annual reports. He has discovered that the majority of Indian investors covered in the study prefer segment reports on the basis of broad industry grouping. Claire Marston (1986) in his published dissertation entitled â€Å"Financial Reporting in India† has attempted to compare and contrast the financial reporting practices in the United Kingdom and India. He has concluded that the financial reports in India fail to satisfy the needs of the investors. H.S.Oza (1990) in his research paper â€Å"New Perspectives in Corporate Financial Reporting in India† has highlighted the new perspectives in corporate financial reporting in India. The main developments include Interim Financial Reporting, Board’s Report, Auditors’ Report, Inf lationShow MoreRelated The Greenhouse Gas Protocol1577 Words   |  7 Pagesare developed. Such accounting of GHGs is a common practice in developed countries and is increasingly being adopted in developing countries as well. However, need for an internationally acceptable standardized and comparable GHG accounting and reporting was felt necessary that lead to the establishment of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol), which has developed protocols, standards and guidelines for the objective. What is the GHG Protocol? The GHG Protocol is the most widely used and internationalRead MoreAnalysis Of Corporate Governance Disclosure Practices Of Listed Companies1000 Words   |  4 PagesProblem Ever since India opened up its economy to privatization, liberalization and globalization there has been rapid institutionalization of the corporate sector and private enterprise. This has quickened the pace of economic growth since 1992. In this changed scenario, the quality of Corporate Disclosures has been an important factor not only for survival of the companies but also for influencing the company’s ability to raise money from capital market. In recent times, corporate governance has attractedRead MoreSample Essay1741 Words   |  7 PagesOperations – SPV, Holding companies †¢ Corporate Trust – Tender Option Bonds Event Management †¢ Private Bank Operations – Corporates and Family Office †¢ Corporate Trust – Client Instruction Web Portal †¢ Custody – Instructions Processing and Instruction Settlement †¢ Derivatives – Option and Futures monitoring †¢ Custody – Corporate Actions Instruction, Trades instructions, FX instructions and Settlement †¢ Custody services – Exchange traded funds settlement †¢ Reporting Regulation –FATCA, Dodd Frank TitleRead MoreLegal Framework For Environmental Accounting Essay1614 Words   |  7 Pagesspecial status. (vi) Last but not the least, build up trust and confidence among the community. 1.3 Legal Framework for Environmental Accounting in India The Constitution of India (Article 51A) imposes as one of fundamental duties of every citizen to protect and improve the natural environment; hence this statement imposes environmental responsibility of corporate citizen also. Apart from the article 51A, various laws have been enacted for environmental protection such as Water (Prevention and Control ofRead MoreCorporate Management : Corporate Governance Essay1550 Words   |  7 PagesChapter-1 Introduction to Corporate Governance 1.1 Introduction Corporate Governance is a buzz word in the business world. It is envisioned to enhance the accountability of a concern and to evade huge disasters before they occur. The concept of corporate governance dived to global attention after the sudden crashes of Enron, World Com, Xerox, Lehman Brothers, Parmalat, Satyam etc. The failure of these colossal business houses horrified the corporate world with their unethical and unlawfulRead MoreCorporate Social Responsibility : A Comparative Study Of Sbi And Icici Essay1611 Words   |  7 PagesCorporate Social Responsibility: A Comparative Study of SBI and ICICI in India Ms. AnkitaPatel1 1Research scholar, Business Studies Dept., Sardar Patel University AdhyapakSahayak, Anand Law College, Anand-388001, Gujarat, India. Email – 2007ankitapatel@gmail.com Abstract: At present Banking sector plays a significant role in the development of the nation, not only as a pillar of the financial system of the nation but also by contributing toward the society. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)Read MoreSocial Responsibility And Its Impact On Society1579 Words   |  7 Pagesaccountability and transparency of resources became the basic ingredients for social responsibility. Only in 1953, Bowen raised a question â€Å"What responsibility to the Society can business people be reasonably expected to assure† that evaluated the term Corporate Social Responsibility abbreviated as CSR. The CSR in 1966 was then defined as:â€Å"Social responsibility, therefore, refers to a person’s obligation to consider the effects of his decisions and actions on the whole social system. Businessmen apply socialRead MoreCorporate Social Responsibility : Asia A Seven Country Study Of Csr Web Site Reporting1352 Words   |  6 Pagesand Moon, J Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Asia A Seven-Country Study of CSR Web Site Reporting This essay will discourse Chapple and Moons’ (2005) study of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Asia. The argument will be done through a critical review of Chapple and Moons’ (2005) paper by considering exploration methods, limitations, findings and theoretical bases. CSR has a long History and is traceable within literature but came in action in the 20th century. Corporate Social ResponsibilityRead MoreSwot Analysis : Corporate Social Responsibility785 Words   |  4 PagesThe term â€Å"corporate social responsibility† (CSR), is described by the International Organization for Standardization (known as ISO) strategic advisory group on CSR as â€Å"a balanced approach† which organizations use to handle economic, social and environmental issues in order to benefit people, communities and society (ISO, 2002). Also, Burchell (2008: 252) believes that CSR has â€Å"the power to rebuild† the values of the contemporary corporation and the subsequent behavior and practice that such valuesRead MoreScm in Banking Sector1398 Words   |  6 PagesSECTOR 1 PRESENTATION FLOW Service Industry – Features ï‚ ¢ SCM in Service Industry ï‚ ¢ Banking Industry – Overview ï‚ ¢ Problem Statement ï‚ ¢ Objectives for FY2010 ï‚ ¢ Retail Banking (Liquidity and Credit Management) ï‚ ¢ Credit Card Delivery Mechanism ï‚ ¢ Corporate Banking ï‚ ¢ HNI Banking ï‚ ¢ 2 UNIQUE FEATURES OF SERVICE INDUSTRY ï‚ ¢ The customer – a participant in the service process ï‚ ¢ Simultaneous production and consumption ï‚â€" Perishability ï‚ ¢ Limited Scale Economies ï‚ ¢ Labor Intensiveness ï‚ ¢ Intangibility

Monday, December 9, 2019

ACCA Global - Prudence and IFRS

Question: Discuss about the ACCA Global, Prudence and IFRS. Answer: Introduction NONI B LIMITED is an Australian based company. This company is been rewarded as the best loved company by the ladies in the country. It is a fashion retailer company. The company was listed on the Australian Stock exchange in the year 2000. The ownership of the company have passed from multiple hands and in the year 2014 the company was sold to Alceon Bidco. After this change, the management of the company acquired certain other brands which include Queens Park and Events etc. The management of the company believes that every day is special and thus we should look fabulous to cherish the same. The management in order to attract customers have focused more on style, fit and superior service and as result the same has been quiet successfully over the period of last so many years. ( Noni B) On the other hand, the LOVISA HOLDINGS LIMITED was established in the year 2010. The company has been developed as the leading company in the country that deals in fashion jewellery. The company has its retail outlets whose numbers crossed the mark of 240 not only in Australia but in New Zealand, Singapore, and Malaysia, South Africa and United Kingdom and other franchised stores in the Middle East. The company has developed a model through which the latest trend that identified quite easily and the targeted customers are been provided with a broad and quality range of the products. The company has itself developed a business model that has been used to designs, develops, sources and merchandises 100% of its Lovisa branded products. The company after been started in the year 2010 has opened its first international store in New Zealand in June 2010. The growth and vision of the company is very much evident with the fact that the management of the company within a period of one year fr om the date they went operational has opened 51 stores all across the globe. (Lovisa) Conceptual Framework Looking at the financial report of both the companies, the directors report and the auditor report that has been provided, the management of both the companies has clearly meet out the reporting requirements imposed on accountants and those charged with governance of corporations. As per companies law, the management of every company or the persons charged with governance , in the directors report is required to state that they have complied with the accounting standards and with all the required provisions which are applicable on the company and based on the same the auditor in his audit report highlight this point. In case of both the companies, the director and the audit report contains both these points clearly and is very much evident The Lovisa Holding Company is an Australian domiciled company which has been set up with an intention of making profit through the help of carrying out retail sale of fashion jewellary and accessories. The consolidated financial statement of the company includes the information for the holding as well for the subsidiaries companies. The notes to the financial statements demarks that the financial statements of the company are prepared in accordance with the Australian Accounting standards provided by the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) and the Corporations Act 2001. The financial statements of the company at the same time comply with the International Financial Reporting Standards as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board. The management for the purpose of preparation has used the Australian and the IFRS interpretations that have been issued by the International Accounting Standards Board. The management of the company has adopted all the new accounting s tandards and any change in the interpretations that has been introduced during the period while preparing the financial statements of the company. The consolidated financial statements and supporting notes form a general purpose financial report. It: Has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Corporations Act 2001, Australian Accounting Standards (AASBs) including Australian Accounting Interpretations, adopted by the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) and International Financial reporting Standards (IFRS) and Interpretations as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board; Has been prepared on a historical cost basis except for derivative financial instruments which are measured at fair value. Non-current assets are stated at the lower of carrying amount and fair value less costs to sell. Snap Shot from Annual report In the Audit independence note, the auditor of the company has clearly demarked that there has been no contravention of the provision of the corporation act in relation to the audit. There has been no evidence in the annual report which states that the management of the company hasnt complied with the accounting standards. On the other hand, in case of Noni B limited, the financial statements of the company are again prepared in accordance with the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) and the Corporations Act 2001. The directors of the company are responsible to ensure that the financial statement of the company gives a true and fair view in accordance with the applicable Australian Accounting Standards and the Corporations Act 2001. The directors in Note 1 to the financial report have clearly highlighted the facts and have complied with the provisions of AASB 101, Presentation of Financial Statements. These general purpose financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the Corporations Act 2001, Australian Accounting Standards and Interpretations of the Australian Accounting Standards Board and International Financial Reporting Standards as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board. The Group is a for-profit entity for financial reporting purposes under Australian Accounting Standards. Material accounting policies adopted in the preparation of these financial statements are presented below and have been consistently applied unless stated otherwise. Except for cash flow information, the financial statements have been prepared on an accruals basis and are based on historical costs, modified, where applicable, by the measurement at fair value of selected non-current assets, financial assets and financial liabilities. There has been no evidence in the annual report which states that the management of the company hasnt complied with the accounting standards and the applied IFRS provisions or has contradicted with any of the interpretation that has been provided in by the board. The concept of prudence is likely to address the disparity in the corporate reporting. As per the prudence concept the expenditure and the liabilities are likely to be recognized in the books at times when the same has actually been occurred whereas in case of assets and income the same is likely to be recognized at times when the same has been realized. In the current scenario, the accountants and the accounting standards are facing the most criticism is in areas where the profit and the asset of the company are overstated. This risk has been addressed by including prudence in the accounting standards. The prudence concept now although been embedded in the accounting standards itself but still the same is required to be exercised separately by the preparers. Currently the prudence is very well discussed at the framework level at times of setting up the accounting standards. In the corporate governance statement, the management of both the companies has highlighted the importance of prudence and ensured that the financial statements of the company are prepared considering the prudence concept. The directors in the report has provided that the revenue and assets are recognized in the books only when they are certain whereas the expenses and the related liabilities are required to be recognized at time when the numbers are probable. Differences in disclosures NONI B LIMITED LOVISA HOLDINGS LIMITED companies are complying with the AASB standards and the Australian Corporations Act 2001, and the UK Companies Act 2006. There might be instances in the annual report of the two companies which shows that the disclosures made in the annual report for the same item may be different in both the companies considering the difference in the nature of the business. This difference in the disclosure requirement is also been highlighted in the below report out. NONI B LIMITED is an Australian based company. This company is been rewarded as the best loved and known ladies fashion retailer company in the country. The company is functioning only in Australia and is dealing only in the fashion retail. Thus there is no scope of going in for the segment reporting as there is only one operating segment in functioning. On the other hand, the LOVISA HOLDINGS LIMITED was established in the year 2010. The company has been developed as the leading company in the country that deals in fashion jewellery. The company has its retail outlets whose numbers crossed the mark of 240 not only in Australia but in New Zealand, Singapore, and Malaysia, South Africa and United Kingdom and other franchised stores in the Middle East. Thus I that case, the company have two reportable segments which include one as Australia and New Zealand and another one is rest of the world. As per the reportable segments, the management can have a better perception about the revenue and income that has been coming from the different segments. Both the companies are accounting in for Goodwill and are going through the impairment testing over the period so that if required the same can be charged off in the profit and loss account. In the case of Lovisa Holding limited, the company still has goodwill left for setting amortized and thus we have a separate schedule in the financial report where the same has been disclosed. On the other hand, in case of Noni B, the goodwill amount has already been impaired thus there has been no schedule in the report to project the movement. Lovisa Holding limited has been functioning in different locations, thus the company is required to take retail outlets on lease and thus accordingly some lease improvements are required. Thus in the books the management of the company is required to make some specific disclosure for the same with proper addition, depreciation and disposal. No such disclosure has been made in the books for Noni B Limited. Conclusion Both the companies are domiciled in Australia. They have clearly made all the disclosures that are required to be made in the books in line the applicable accounting standards and IFRS considering the nature of business that have been carried out by them. References Noni B, About the company, Viewed on 15th April 2017, Retrieved from https://www.nonib.com.au/ Lovisa, About the company, Viewed on 15th April 2017, Retrieved from https://www.lovisa.com.au/ Noni B, Annual report of the company, 2016, Viewed on 15th April 2017, Retrieved from https://d2wi7oxueeetcg.cloudfront.net/ts1490728469/attachments/Page/18/annual-report-2016.pdf Lovisa, Annual report of the company, 2015, Viewed on 15th April 2017, Retrieved from https://www.lovisa.com.au/media/wysiwyg/pdf/2015_ANNUAL_REPORT.pdf ACCA Global, Prudence and IFRS, Viewed on 15th April 2017, Retrieved from https://www.accaglobal.com/content/dam/acca/global/PDF-technical/financial-reporting/tech-tp-prudence.pdf

Sunday, December 1, 2019

Why do people drink soft drinks Essay Example

Why do people drink soft drinks? Paper In a review of 146 published reports, it was found that nothing comes close to water as the most preferred drink. It has does not have calories, doesn’t post danger to the health, and only gives so much benefits (Brody, 2007). Therefore it is an enigma why millions of people still consume an artificially sweetened and flavored carbonated drink, commonly called ‘soft drinks’, to quench their thirst while there exists a better option, i. e. water. Michael Jacobsen, the executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, aptly called soft drinks as ‘liquid candy’. Soft drinks high fructose corn syrup content makes a solo 12-ounce can of it roughly equivalent to 13 teaspoons of sugar (West, 2007). It now comes into question: how did the public acquire a taste for soft drinks? To answer this question, let us take a journey into the roots of the soft drinks industry and also of soft drink consumption. The Origin of Soda A predecessor of soda was sold in France by a company named Compagnie de Limonadiers, which was formed in Paris in 1676. They called their product ‘soft drinks’ as opposed to the intoxicating hard drinks known to them during those times. However, the said drink is just a noncarbonated version of soda, mixed with water and lemon juice, then sweetened with honey. The company’s vendors used to dispense cups of lemonade from the tanks that they carried on their backs. Even then, when soft drinks were not yet carbonated, it was already a lucrative business. The right to sell this kind of drinks was granted only to the said company, thus giving monopolistic power to it (Soft drink, 2007). We will write a custom essay sample on Why do people drink soft drinks? specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Why do people drink soft drinks? specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Why do people drink soft drinks? specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Then came the ‘seltzer water’. The term seltzer, referring to â€Å"seltzer water (after the village Nieder Setters near Wiesbaden in West Germany where it occurs naturally)† (Coyle, 1982, p. 132), was most probably where Alka-Seltzer derived its name. To make seltzer water, a tablet that can be purchased from the drugstore is put on tap water to make it bubbly and is taken as a cure for indigestion. Back then, taking baths in natural springs was considered good for the health since mineral water was thought to have the power to cure diseases. Bubbling water was then equated with wellness of health. Thus came the idea that if the bubbling waters in the mineral springs were good to soak in, it will be much better if one can drink it too. Doctor Joseph Priestley Not long after, in their desire to imitate the bubbling water of the mineral springs, it was discovered by scientists that ‘gas carbonium’ or ‘carbon dioxide’ is what makes the mineral water bubble. In 1767, a doctor in England named Joseph Priestley was able to come up with the first ever potable artificial glass of carbonated water. Commercialization of bottled seltzer water was started in 1807 by a chemist professor in Yale University named Benjamin Silliman (Carbonated Beverage, 2004, p. 8495). This sparkling water was presumed to have healing properties such as aiding digestion, and calming the nerves. Soda comes to America It was in the year 1798 when the coinage of the term ‘soda water’ happened. While still in London, John Matthews had learned from inventor Joseph Bramah the basics about making carbonic acid gas and building carbonating machinery. In 1831, John Matthews immigrated to the United States where he invented his apparatus for making carbonated water. He was called the Father of American Soda Water by the soda fountain industry and most historians credit him in bringing soda to America. He then began supplying carbonated water to establishments in the New York area where he immigrated (American Heritage, 1947, p. 11-12). After 1830, sweetened and flavored (lemon-lime, grape, orange) carbonated drinks became popular (Carbonated Beverage, 2004, p. 8495). Among these was carbonated lemonade, also known as ‘ginger ale’, which heralded the advent of the popular carbonated drinks or sodas of today – ‘soft drinks’.

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Gothic Barock Essays

Gothic Barock Essays Gothic Barock Essay Gothic Barock Essay Due to the different timeperiods this styles where developed, they give a totally different impression to the viewer. In the time when the gothic style was developed, the whole of europe was dominated by the ideas and influence of the church. So most of the gothic buildings are churches, or cathedrals The cathedrals had outsatnding hights and often dominated the whole skyline of a city which was also a sign of the power that the church had. Especially the early- and middle-Gothic buildings where build of big grey stones blocks which made them appear dark and mystik In the late gothic the architects became more advanced in the use of decorations and glasswindows, which made the buildings appear a bit more friendly. The Barock style of architecture started it s dvelopment in the 16th century. The only ones which could really afford this kind of architecture where certain rich families, the church and the monarchs. The style of Barock architecture always appears a bit exagerrated. The Barock style of architecture is also much more advanced and developed then the Gothic style of architecture The Barock stlye consits of much more movements and motion. While the Gothic has it s special heavy-dark appearance, the Brock style looks much lighter and full of shapes and variety. Inside the buildings it is pretty much the same contrast. While the Gothic buidings were kept more basic inside. The first thing you normally recognize when you enter a gothic building, is the hight of the sealing. The inside s are decorated with woodwork and paintings which where hanging at the wall. The whole impression is more pure and basic but still facinating. The Barock buildings where filled with wallpaintings, stucco and other decoratinons. Parts of the walls and doors where often painted with patterns and shapes, most often this was done with gold colour. The Barock buildings even look too much deorated and too exagerrated. They seem to drown in colours and shapes. : In general we always have to keep in mind that these styles of architecture developed under totally different circumstances. Both styles were strongly an expression of superiorty, domination and power of the rich, the monarchs and the church.  Both styles where enourmous achievements for their time, and even if the Gothic lookes more plain and simple to us, it must have been an a totally new dimension for the people at that time.  I think that the Barock style of architecture is really a bit too exagerrated. I think it just looks too much.

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Saint Josephs University Admissions - What It Takes

Saint Josephs University Admissions - What It Takes Saint Josephs University in Philadelphia admits over 78  percent of the applicants. Students with good grades and a strong application are likely to be admitted. To learn about the school, including application requirements and deadlines, be sure to visit the schools website, or get in touch with the admissions office at Saint Josephs. SJU is test-optional, so applicants are not required to submit SAT or ACT scores. They will need to send in an application and high school transcripts, however. Calculate your chances of getting in with this free tool from Cappex. Admissions Data (2016) Saint Josephs University Acceptance Rate: 78  percentTest Scores 25th / 75th PercentileSAT Critical Reading: 520 / 610SAT Math: 530 / 620What these SAT numbers meanACT Composite: 23  / 28ACT English: 23  / 29ACT Math: 23  / 27What these ACT numbers meanGPA, SAT and ACT Graph for Saint Josephs: SJU is test-optional, but you can see data from Cappex on test scores. International students from non-English speaking countries must submit either a TOEFL or SAT/ACT language to show English proficiency.SAT comparison for Catholic collegesACT comparison for Catholic collegesAtlantic 10 Conference SAT score comparisonAtlantic 10 Conference ACT score comparison Saint Josephs University Description Located on a 103-acre campus in western Philadelphia and Montgomery Country, Saint Josephs University is a highly-regarded private Catholic University with a history dating back to 1851. The colleges strengths in the liberal arts and science earned it a chapter of  Phi Beta Kappa. Many of Saint Josephs most popular and distinguished programs, however, are in business fields. Undergraduates can choose from 75 academic programs. In athletics, the Saint Josephs Hawks compete in the NCAA Division I  Atlantic 10 Conference  as well as the Philadelphia Big 5 conference. Lacrosse competes in the  Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. Enrollment (2016) Total Enrollment: 8,415  (5,377  undergraduates)Gender Breakdown: 45 percent male / 55 percent female87  percent full-time Costs (2016-17) Tuition and Fees: $43,020Books: $825 (why so much?)Room and Board: $14,524Other Expenses: $1,205Total Cost: $59,574 Saint Josephs University Financial Aid (2015 -16) Percentage of Students Receiving Aid: 97  percentPercentage of Students Receiving Types of AidGrants: 97 percentLoans: 60 percentAverage Amount of AidGrants: $22,407Loans: $10,017 Academic Programs Most Popular Majors:  Accounting, Business Administration, English, Finance, Health Services, Marketing, Psychology,  Special EducationWhat major is right for you?  Sign up to take the free My Careers and Majors Quiz at Cappex. Graduation and Retention Rates First Year Student Retention (full-time students): 91  percent4-Year Graduation Rate: 72 percent6-Year Graduation Rate: 80  percent Intercollegiate Athletic Programs Mens Sports:  Lacrosse, Rowing, Cross Country, Track and Field, Basketball, Baseball, Golf, SoccerWomens Sports:  Field Hockey, Lacrosse, Soccer, Rowing, Basketball, Tennis, Track and Field, Cross Country If You Like Saint Josephs, You May Also Like These Schools Fordham University: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphDrexel University: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphTemple University: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphUniversity of Pittsburgh: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphArcadia University: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphBoston College: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphJames Madison University: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphPennsylvania State University: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphSyracuse University: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphFairfield University: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphUniversity of Delaware: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT Graph Data Source: National Center for Educational Statistics

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Difference between Real and Artifial in the Age of Digital Technology Essay

Difference between Real and Artifial in the Age of Digital Technology - Essay Example Digital technologies refer to accessing any information, anywhere, anytime through a digital device. It also allows interacting by sharing comments, feedbacks, live chats etc. furthermore, the digital media is very close to the forms of art and science. The technology, equipment and gears used are the scientific postmodern advancements that have been made and which greatly allow the digital media to take over. However, art also has a close link with the digital media which has influenced the media world (Angela, p251). Although arts is something which is created, innovated and formed by the imaginations of an artist, the meaning can be taken in another way which is the transformation and artificiality of the real picture. The digital media is not only influencing the scientific world, but it is also changing the role of an artist. An artist is meant to use his imaginations to produce creativity, but today the digital world has lead an artist to work on the transformations of reality to artificiality. Digital technologies have enabled powerful forms of artistic creation, simulation and special effects but there are already questions that artists have begun to ask. One of the question is that is the use of digital media a threat to the original innovation and imagination of an artist. A piece of art tends to show the imaginations of an artist conceiving the 3D world around us, however when it comes to digital technologies, science believes that there is more than just the 3D world. Thus, they call it ‘technoetics’. They use this word because they believe in recognizing the technology with the wide imaginations of an artist. They believe that the consciousness can be well represented through the digital technologies as the visualization is immense. The best example which can be seen around is the use of digitalization in images. It involves the use of new artistic creations, simulations and special effects that are done by the use of graphics in digit al technology. There is an original art in the visualization of reality into a painting, sculpture, drawing or photograph. A photograph captures reality and every photograph shows a new piece of art to the people. However, the use of digital media on such a photograph can change the view of the picture from being realistic to fiction (Monahan, p15). An image, despite being taken originally has to go through digitalization in this modern era. This includes alterations made on these images; transformations, editing and renovations. A graphic designer would hold the job to modify a real picture through the many tools available. The detailing and working on a picture would lead it to have special effects that would make it evident that the picture has been simulated. This way a picture loses its natural look and the originality that shows the vision of the artist. The original handmade work of an artist is the real form of artistic creation. Though digital graphics is also a type of art s which is greatly used in the modern era in place of handmade art works, it includes the use of graphic plates and digital pens. It is a form of art which allows an artist to express his views on a digital medium rather than a paper or canvas. This is the artificial form of artistic creation, not because of the difference in ideology, but because of the mediums of technology used in both these types. A practical example

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Gun shooting problems Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Gun shooting problems - Essay Example These laws vary widely and there is a need of promotions or campaigns to enhance public awareness. Following measures can be taken in order to prevent gun shooting at schools. There are many varieties of solutions each has different grades of expense and levels of security. These are designing of laws and policies to inhibit children from gaining access to guns, equipping all school entries, as well as all related rooms, with bulletproof doors within a school that automatically lock upon shutting, lower technology doors that should be opened only from the inside or from the outside with keys, introduction of jamblock, a portion of steel that can rapidly be protected under a classroom door, efficiently locking it and significantly reducing the movement of anyone determined on breaking in and Having metal sensors or .,detectors at the secure entry. 4. Social and cultural contexts: Crisis in youth culture educational institutions, especially public schools, Widespread availability and acceptance of guns, Drugs and medications, bullying, media and video games, areas with a strong conservative religious population Today in United States increasing gun violence in school and other areas of society become a serious national and social issue. The United States has been suffering from prevalent levels of gun violence yearly. There are greater than 100,000 Americans who become victims of gun violence every year according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Gun ownership is prevalent in United States and gun violence is rampant. Fatal school shootings at a widespread variety of schools have claimed over 400 undergraduates and faculty lives since columbine. In summer 2012, there have been may well publicized school shootings in America. On February 10, 2012 in Walpole, 14 year old students shoot himself in front of his fellow students. Former classmates opened fire on three students and kill them and injured six

Sunday, November 17, 2019

Women on the Marketing Frontline Essay Example for Free

Women on the Marketing Frontline Essay This is the changing scenario of world, where globalization has an impact on the conscience of world economy. Foreign stakes in Indian Industries opened global avenues for Indian venture. Strategic planning of staffing emerged as the extreme need for the Corporate and industries, to hold the league of competition. In India few years back where every segment of the opportunities were opened only for males. Hence Indian industries tend to be called as male dominated. Today the women of India are on equal status as much as their male counterparts whether that is public or private Sector. As we know some of the sectors / fields had a male dominance but today it is on the equal anvil. Women also have tremendous opportunities in pre male dominated sector i. e. marketing. There are major firms in India opt for women presence in the field of marketing especially Pharma Marketing. Long ago when Tie-walas were the beauty of clinics and hospitals at the outside in waiting queue most earnestly than patients, is now like a shifting paradigm of this job profile in India. Now a day’s responsibility has been taken over by their female counterparts. Doctors might have some relax session after the close hours with the patients. Today it is a common sight to see a lady medical representative (MR) or lady field executive waiting alongside a group of male MRs for her turn to call on a doctor. Likewise, at cycle meetings and product launch meetings, the sight of a lady Product Executive (PE) or lady Product Manager (PM) conducting the meeting is also a familiar sight. But such was not the case two-three decades ago. Traditionally, in 1970s and early 1980s, the Indian pharmaceutical industry, like most other industries, was a male dominated industry. Girls graduating in pharmacy in 1980s were chosen mainly for quality control or packing department, while post-graduate ladies were chosen either in analytical development or formulation development or they ended up teaching at pharmacy colleges. On their part, ladies too, preferred to tread only on the tested paths and hardly dared to experiment with newer career options. In the late 80s wave changed. With more girls opting for pharmacy than boys, a few girls ventured into the unexplored terrains of pharma marketing and sales. Indian companies such as Gufic Laboratories, Unichem and Lupin Laboratories were among the foremost to give ladies a chance in the typical male-dominated jobs such as MRs and PEs. Have women done their new role in pharma marketing and sales? Now we know sky is not the limit for the females as they have been empowered by their own vital thinking, whereas experts have an interesting expression Women tend to opt for a more open environment. However, we notice that companies in general are beginning to hire women, as they prove to be far more committed, added Sanjeev Duggal, MD, NIS Sparta, an organization, which imparts sales training for companies. (Source: internet blog posted on 27 Dec. 2007) Nagpur is witness for projected growth in pharma sector where 1500 Male Representatives earn their bread and 125 female representatives exist comparatively at lower ratio level. Every year 35% male left the jobs from pharma sector. It again gets high on the female part i. e. 60%. Women mainly deprived of maternity benefits which remain matter for concern after marriage according to Shri D. G. Deshpande Secretary- MSMRA (Maharashtra Sales and Medical Representatives Association). On the other hand Shri V. S. Ranade Vice President FMRAI (Federation of Medical Sales Representatives Association of India) put his positive remark on the maternity benefits. Accordingly females are now entitled for these benefits as it was not on the list of companies agenda. This very step have brought radical change and proved helpful for the recruitment of females in the sector. In a detailed discussion with Mr. D. G. Deshpande on the female entrance and presence in the pharma sector, we came to know that their organization is concerned for working hours that should be not more than eight hours. Being a woman, security always comes first after the convenience. It is clear that job for female MRs more secured than it was earlier. It is sure that different motto can be considered while recruiting these charms towards high outcome in business. In a hectic field schedule some can find lovely atmosphere at their field work that might help to increase energy amongst colleagues. Female Representatives are welcomed by Doctors with increased interest at the detailing side of the business by these female MR. Our society even has raised their thumb as the backbone for the profession in women. Dr. Anad Asia generously made his positive statement for the work of female MR. Everyone knows male dominance as prevalent in a sector and even was the identity of the same which initially was the hurdle while Ms. Shital Analkar got selected by one of leading pharma company Cipla Protec. Shital’s family unwillingly gave their consent for the pharma job but gradually they find it more secure and even lucrative. When we thought about business it is competition make every venture more comprehensive. It is spirit get ignited when workplace cheered after the achievements appreciated, if it is crowned by female representatives. Boys even feel the heat if the stance made by a lady MR, which itself spread the sense of competition. Then it is regardless to say this has proved fruitful for organization. Mr. Anup Detharia ASM, Zydus (Cadila) gave concluding word to his responsibilities, sometimes arranged in above manner. Even colleagues expressed their amiable relationship with the female counterparts when had the discussion with Mr.  Akash Wadibhasme MR Zydus (Cadila). To get up to the doctors and made them write specific prescriptions is not an ending task of pharma marketing. After the successful detailing, retailing brings sales outcome. Concluding visit in evening with retailers distributors pave an extra way to meet the demand that created by MRs towards their sales target. It is hazardous when MRs neglect or remain irregular at this point. Once demand come into action it is necessary to be available in market sufficiently. Retailers again found that all irregularities curbed out since the presence of female MR. When drugs are prescribed it should be available with market and once it is available throughout the market it is again to be sold out in time, it is only when visits being carried out regularly. M/s Bakshe Medical and General Stores leading chemist put his expression to back up the ladies force. These female MR are the face of the company and much of what they do and sell on the field; reflect in the companys bottom-line. However, pharma companies spurt like mushrooms. Some flourish. Some vanish. While these charming messengers of life-saving drugs work, sure for their future.

Thursday, November 14, 2019

The Importance of Joseph Conrad’s Congo Journey Essay -- Biography Bio

It was the year 1868. A young boy of about nine years of age stood looking at a map of Africa. The boy raised up his hand and stuck his finger directly into the middle of the â€Å"dark continent.† â€Å"When I grow up I shall go there,† said this boy with great enthusiasm (Conrad 13). Little did he know that some years later his childhood wish would come true. Joseph Conrad grew up to become quite the sailor, starting as an apprentice on a French vessel in 1875 and working his way to become a master of English ships from 1878-1889 (Jean-Aubrey 19). He spent fifteen years at sea, traveling to destinations all over the globe. After much traveling he returned home to Europe. While there, he tried desperately to find a new ship to command, but there were none available. He spent months searching and still could not find a ship to call his own. It was then, while stuck in Europe with nothing to do, that Conrad wrote Almayer’s Folly, his first novel. When Conrad was presented with the opportunity to go to the Congo in 1889, he did not hesitate. After months of correspondence between himself and members of the Societe Anonyme pour le Commerce du Haut-Congo in Brussels and the killing of a steamboat captain by natives in the Congo, Joseph Conrad was ready to journey deep into the heart of Africa. The first part of Conrad’s trip would take him to Brussels, where he would sign the final contract, obligating himself to serve for three years as an officer on river steamboats in the Congo. Conrad was to sail on the Ville de Maceio to get to â€Å"Boma, seat of the Government of the Independent State of the Congo since 1886† (Jean-Aubry 46). On the steamer, he traveled with a man by the name of Harou. He was a â€Å"Belgian officer who had mad... ...e, including â€Å"attacks of fever and gout† (Jean-Aubry 73). But, more importantly, the trip had changed who Conrad was. The best way to describe this change would be to quote his lifelong friend Edward Garnett who said, â€Å"Conrad’s Congo experiences were the turning-point in his mental life and that their effects on him determined his transformation from a sailor to a writer† (Garnett 8). Works Cited Conrad, Joseph. A Personal Record. New York: Harper, 1912. Garnett, Edward. Letters From Joseph Conrad 1895-1924. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1928. Jean-Aubry, Georges. Joseph Conrad in the Congo. New York: Haskell, 1973. Karl, Frederick Robert and Laurence Davies, eds. The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad Vol. 1-6. New York: Cambridge U., 1983. Najder, Zdzislaw, ed. The Congo Diary and Other Uncollected Pieces. New York: Doubleday, 1978.

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Slumdog Millionaire Analysis

The film †Slumdog Millionare† tells a compelling story of an eighteen year old Indian boy from the dirty slums of Mumbai who manages to cash in the main prize of the TV-show †Who wants to be a millionaire?† Combined with the directing of Danny Boyle and co-direction from Indian Lovleen Tandan, this 2008 movie is a great mash up between Hollywood and Bollywood. The film based on Vikars Swarup’s novel tells a dramatic and romantic story with a twist of humour through a set of very cogent actors. The protagonist of this movie is eighteen year old â€Å"slumdog† Jamal Malik. Taking Jamal’s past in consideration, it’s highly unlikely that an uneducated boy from the Mumbai slums is able to reach the final question of â€Å"Who want’s to be a millionaire?† Some people aren’t happy with this, and he is being accused for deceit. This is primarily what we are being introduced to in the opening scene, and it starts off with Jamal being interrogated and tortured by suspicious minds who think he has cheated. The story then flashes back in time to the day he participated on the TV show. Shortly after the story takes a leap back to his childhood, where Jamal and his brother, Salim, and some friend are running away from Indian officers for playing of private property. Throughout the movie we unravel more stories of his life, which ultimately helps him win the main prize. As Jamal continues to answer questions, he looks back at his childhood. We soon find out that Jamal’s mother is killed and that Jamal is forced to live on the streets with his brother, Salim. During their stay at the reckless streets of Mumbai they meet a girl named Latika. The three of them is then later discovered by a man who runs an orphanage where they get shelter and food, in return the children is sent out on the streets during the day to collect money as beggars. As it turns out the man is not as nice as he appears to be and Jamal and Salim manages to escape, unwillingly leaving Latika behind. Once again Jamal and Salim are back on the streets. As the story progresses Jamal is portrayed as a person who never gives up on what he sets out to do. In this context, it’s his quest to find the love of his life, Latika. His love for her sets him out on a life experiencing journey which finally places him in the seat of â€Å"Who wants to be a millionaire?† His brother, Salim on the other hand is portrayed as a more dynamic person. In fact he is quite unreliable, he is not an evil person, but his selfishness and hunger for money and control hurts the ones around him, tearing him apart from his own brother and rescinding their connection. As stated earlier there are flashbacks in this movie, in fact the flashbacks are present throughout the whole movie. The fascinating thing about this though is how cleverly the directors have combined two stories running parallel to each other, making them crash together during the end and creating the present. This leaves the viewer curious how Jamal will answer the final question in an exciting and creative way. Through clever camera use and light setting, the film has an intriguing feeling to it. There is a lot of shifting between warm colours and dark colours, the latter mostly used in dramatic and scenes shot during the night. The warm colours on the other hand create a feeling of heat which fits perfectly to the setting. Also the music plays a big role in setting the mood of the film. The use of Indian music especially furthers the intriguing feeling. Focusing on camera use, it’s interesting to see the way the directors shot scenes from a children’s point of view during the flashback scenes from Jamal’s childhood. This gives the viewer a feeling that the children are small compared to the big wide world. Furthermore a lot of close-up shots are used during conversations which give the viewer the ability to see more detailed facial expressions which is something that pulls the viewer more in to the story. Also worth mentioning is the contrast we see of the wealthy parts of India compared the poor parts through the use of camera. For example we get an overview from the Mumbai slum during one of the flashbacks; this really helps stating that India has had an enormous economic growth during recent years. In my eyes the film creates a message that’s telling you to never let go of your goals, and to be optimistic and focused. Just because someone grew up with a poor and tough childhood, it does not mean that this person have a lesser intellect life or is worth less than you. Anything is possible, with good dose luck. Subliminally I think this movie also wants to show off India’s present economic situation compared to a decade ago and how India’s wealth has increased. Personally I really enjoyed watching this film, one of the main reasons for that is the way the story is laid out. It makes it exciting and it also blows some new life in to the well know â€Å"Who wants to be a millionaire?† It is certainly not the first thing I would have thought making a movie about. The fact that behind every question there is a story is quite exciting and it leaves me waiting for the next turn. On this foundation, I strongly recommend this movie to everyone.

Saturday, November 9, 2019

“A Conversation with my Father” by Grace Paley Essay

A Conversation with My Father is a fictional story about a daughter and her dying father. At his bedside, he asks her to tell a story. She tells a tragic story of a woman who gets involved in drugs because of her son but then the son leaves her and she is stuck in the drug lifestyle. She soon after decides to get her life back on track and she succeeds in doing so. The father rejects the daughters ending because he believes that she is avoiding tragedy. Through ambiguity and connotation in the conversation between daughter and father, Grace Paley shows that people are often afraid of confronting tragedy or even accepting it. Paley repeats the word end throughout the story. The father in A Conversation with My Father is the one that uses both words the most. In lines 6-7, the father says, Poor woman. Poor girl, to be born in a time of fools to live among fools. The end. The end. The father at first shows some sort of sympathy by recognizing that this woman was not in the best condition but he goes on to say that it is the end. By the end he means the end of her life and that her life cannot get back on track no matter what. Anytime that the narrator uses the word end it is meant to describe the end of the drug addict woman in the daughters story (Lines 6-8, 14). Grace Paley also has repetition of the word tragedy. The word tragedy is also ambiguous throughout the story. In line 9, the father says, what a tragedy. The end of a person. In this line the fathers usage of the word tragedy is not ambigious because it is clear that he is describing the end of the mother in the story. In line 14 the father says, Tragedy! Plain tragedy! Historical tragedy! In these lines it is unsure in what context that father is talking about tragedy. It is hard to tell whether he is talking about the character from the story or his own daughter. It seems like he is most likely talking about his daughter because in the line before that he says, You dont want to recognize it. The you refers to the daughter and the it refers to tragedy. The father believes that a weakness of his daughter is that she does not recognize or accept tragedy. The usage of the word tragedy and end together is what helps get Grace Paleys point across to the readers in this story. In several lines the father  mentions both words together in order to show that people are afraid of confronting tragedy or even accepting it (Lines 9, 14). In line 9 the father states that the end of a person is tragic but the daughter goes on to show her naà ¯vetà © ness by saying that it does not have to be the mothers end because in reality, the mother could go on to be successful at her current job or become even more successful at something else. It is this point in the story when the father tells the daughter that her writing is no good because she does not recognize tragedy and therefore there is no hope for her. After he tells her that there is no hope for her, he goes on to say The end. In that point in the story the phrase is used to describe how the father feels about his daughters future (Line 14). In the last line the father says, Tragedy! You too. When will you look it in the face? Here he is pointing out his daughters refusal to recognize or accept tragedy. He is calling her a tragedy because she will not recognize tragedy. At every point in the story before this, the author either used the word tragedy when talking about the mother from the story or about society as a whole but this is the point in the story when he lets his true feelings out. The father believes that society as a whole chooses not to recognize tragedy just like his daughter. He wants to show his daughter that she is turning into a tragedy because she will not accept tragedy like the rest of society. The father seems to believe that if you do not make tragedy a reality then you will become a tragedy yourself. Although there are specific examples throughout the story to show how the father believes that the daughter denies tragedy, there are several parts where the father also comments on the naà ¯vetà © of society when it comes to tragedy. In line 6 the father says, †¦born in a time of fools to live among fools. The word fools refers to society as a whole. The father is trying to say that we are all naà ¯vetà © because noone recognizes tragedy. He continues in this line to use the phrase the end (Line 6). The connotation of the phrase the end changes in this line. In this line it more refers to the entire general population instead of the specifically the mother from the story or his own daughter even though it seems like that is what he is referring to. In lines 22-23 the daughter says, Im sorry for her. Im not going to leave her there in that house crying (Actually neither would Life,  which unlike me has no pity.) By stating that the daughter shows that she does not believe in tragedy and that she refuses to let a story have a bad ending because it is immoral. This line not only shows that the daughter will not recognize tragedy but the second part, where she states that life would not leave the mother in the same condition either, proves that society feels the same way about tragedy. The phrase in the parentheses is interesting because it points out that life itself would not accept tragedy even though in general life pities no one. The whole point shows that although we as a people generally do not pity anyone or anything, we do make an acceptation for tragedy. The word tragedy and end are two very strong words in this short story. No other words would get the authors point across. The author used them ambiguously in order to get her point across to the audience. The father uses the story that he had his daughter tell to show her tragedy. He hoped to show her that people are afraid of it and that they often do not recognize it. He wanted her to realize her own tragedy before it led to her end because he believed that denying tragedy is what leads to failure or the end.

Thursday, November 7, 2019

Factor Analysis Essay Example

Factor Analysis Essay Example Factor Analysis Essay Factor Analysis Essay Factor Analysis Introduction Basic Concept of Factor Analysis Factor analysis is a statistical approach to reduce a large set of variables that are mostly correlated to each other to a small set of variables or factors. It is also used to explain the variables in the common underlying factors. (Hair et al, 1998) Malhotra, 2006 mentioned that factor analysis is also an interdependence technique that both dependent and independent variables are examined without making distinction between them Conducting Factor Analysis 1. Formulate the problem In this research, researcher’s objective is to determine the factors that influence customers’ satisfaction with their internet service provider in Malaysia such as Streamyx, Digi Broadband, Maxis Broadband, P1 and others (Malaysia Central, 2011). Mall intercept was used to interview a total of 30 respondents at Midvalley Megamall. Questionnaires were distributed and respondents are required to show their degree of agreement with the statements below whereby means very strongly disagree and means very strongly agrees: [pic] [pic] Figure 1. 1: Input in SPSS . Is the data appropriate? a) The correlation matrix Base on the data above, the correlation matrix was run to examine if the factor analysis is appropriate. Variables opt to be inter-related in order to be suitable to conduct a factor analysis. In other words, if all the variables have nothing in common, they can’t be analyzed into common factor. Hair et al, 1998 indicates that rule of thumb for factor analysi s is a considerable correlation of 0. 3. Field, 2009 has emphasized that if there is any value greater then 0. 9, the variables may be omitted. According to the result, V3 (quality support), V5 (sincere interest in problem solving), V6 (prompt service), V7 (willingness to help), V8 (politeness) and V9 (knowledgeable) have high correlations about more than 50% (as highlighted in yellow) All the 5 variables may be inter-related under the same factor. |Figure1. 2: Correlation Matrix | | | |Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy. |. 55 | | | | | |Bartletts Test of Sphericity |Approx. Chi-Square |166. 649 | | |df |36 | | |Sig. |. 000 | 3. Method of Factor Analysis After examining the suitableness to apply factor analysis in these data, right method of factor analysis would be selected. There are two approaches are the principal components analysis and common factor analysis. Malhotra 2006 indicates that principal components analysis takes into account the total variation of the data to generate the factor. In this research, principal component analysis is employed as the objective is to identify least number of factors to explain a maximum variance. a) Communalities Figure 1. 4 below shows the table of communalities before and after extraction. The initial assumption of principal component analysis is that all variance is common. Hence, the communalities equal to 1 before extraction. (Field, 2009) The extraction explains the common variance of the data which show researcher the relationship of the variables with each others. So for example, 72. 3% of the variance related with V1 is common or shared. In this research, all 9 variables have accounted high value, hence, they fit well with the factor solution and none of them would be dropped from the analysis. Field 2009 mentioned that communalities after extraction to be of value above 0. 5. |Figure 1. 4: Communalities | |Initial |Extraction | |V1 |1. 000 |. 723 | |V2 |1. 000 |. 894 | |V3 |1. 000 |. 760 | |V4 |1. 000 |. 837 | |V5 |1. 000 |. 775 | |V6 |1. 000 |. 788 | |V7 |1. 000 |. 807 | |V8 |1. 000 |. 771 | |V9 |1. 000 |. 818 | |Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. | b) Eigenvalues In addition to the Principal Component Analysis, researcher would take into account the Eigenvalue which signify how much each factor explains towards total variance (Malhotra, 2009). At this stage, research would look into initial Eigenvalues. At the preliminary stage, the Eigenvalues will have 9 linear components which are as many factors as the variables. The results also display the percentage of variance explained, so for example factor 1 explains 48. 796 of the total variance. SPSS will then remove the eigenvalues less than 1 and only remain 3 factors which the column is labeled as ‘Extraction sums of Squared Loading’. Subsequently, SPSS generated the 3rd column which is rotated eigenvalue. Before rotation, factor 1 has explained greater variance. For the subsequent steps, researcher would look into several considerations of Eigenvalues in order to find out the numbers of factors that should be used in this analysis. |Figure 1. 5: Total Variance Explained | |Component |Initial Eigenvalues |Extraction Sums of Squared Loadings |Rotation Sums of Squared Loadings | | | . Determine the Number of Factors At this point, researcher would determine how many factors to explain the maximum variance. Malhotra, 2009 has specify 6 methods which are base on scree plot, eigenvalues, percentage of variance, significance test, split half reliability, and a prior determination. In this analysis, researcher has chosen 4 methods to determine the number of method. a) A Priori Determination This method is used when the researcher has prior knowledge of the number of factor that can be extracted beforehand. Hence, this ou tcome may be observed from the correlation matrix (Figure 1. ). There are possibilities that V3, V5, V6, V7, V8 and V9 will be one factor and hence, the remaining variables may be categorized another factor. Besides, researcher may denote the specific number of factors he or she wants. In this case, there are three factors is identified. b) Determination Based on Eigenvalues There is a criteria that researcher will to take into account when basing on Eigenvalues. Aaker et al, 2009 signify that factors with Eigenvalues that is lesser than 1. 0 will be ignored and excluded from the model. Hence, base on Figure 1. 5, only 3 factors is retained. Malhotra, 2009 adds on that the factors with Eigenvalues less than 1. 0 is as equal to single variable. c) Determination Based on Scree Plot A scree plot is plotted with Eigenvalues on the y-axis against the number of factors in x-axis. In general, the plot will show a distinct break with a steep slope or inflexion point on the curve due to the large Eigenvalues and the curve will tail off with the small Eigenvalues. The inflexion point represents the number of factors to be included according to experimental evidence (Malhotra, 2009). However, Malhotra (2009) notify that the scree plot may have more factors than the Eigenvalue criterion. As a result, Figure 1. 6 illustrates that three factors should be included in the model. [pic] Figure 1. 6: Scree Plot d) Determination based on Percentage of Variance In order to identify the number of the factors extracted, the cumulative percentage of variance extracted by factors should achieve a satisfactory level which is 60 percent. (Aaker et al, 2009). Therefore, referring to Figure 1. 5, the number of factors determined is two at 67. 476%. The satisfactory level (60%) falls in component 2 and confirms 2 factors. Figure 1. 7 is a summary of result of all the methods above. The result has shown that three factors would be a reasonable conclusion for factors to be included in the model. This is due to Eigenvalues result will be taken greater consideration than others determination even though determination base on cumulative percentage variance indicates 2 factors. |Method |Observation |Decision | |A Priori |Correlation matrix |3 factors | |Eigenvalue |Eigenvalue ; 1. |3 factors | |Scree Plot |Distinct break of scree |3 factors | |Cumulative percentage variance |Marginal % gain in variance |2 factors | Figure 1. 7: Summary of Numbers of Factor Determination 5. Factor Rotation Figure 1. 8 shows the component matrix which is also known as the unrotated factor matrix in factor analysis. The unrotated factor matrix denotes the relationship between the factors and individual variables. For example the factor loading V1 (Connection Speed) has large value of 0. 836 indicates that connection speed is closely related with the factors. As the factors are correlated with many variables, it is rarely that the results can be interpreted, even though the unrotated factor matrix shows the correlation between the factors and the variables. For instance, V2 and V4 are loading on two factors. So this makes researcher difficult to interpret the factors. Therefore, it is made easy for researcher to interpret the matrix generated if the factors are rotated. Figure 1. 9 shows the rotated component matrix. So what does it means by rotating the factors? The rotation is known as orthogonal rotation when the axes are retained at the correct angles (Malhotra, 2009). In this case, researcher has chosen the most commonly method which is the varimax procedure which boost interpretability by minimizing number of variables loading on a factor. Both unrotated and rotated component is set as not showing any loading lower than 0. 3 as it is insignificant for the model. The result of Figure 1. 9 shows three factors are extracted. It is clearly shown that V3, V5, V6, V7, V8 and V9 load highly on Factor 1. Although V3 and V5 load on more than one factor, it is significant that the loading value on Factor 1 is higher as compared. On the other hand, the loading for V1 may be uncertain. However, looking into various areas, V1 as connection speed seem to be related to V2 (Easy to connect). Hence, V1 with higher loading and V2 are correlated with Factor 2. In that case, V4 (Billing) only is loaded in Factor 3. |Figure 1. 9: Rotated Component Matrixa | | |Component | | |1 |2 |3 | |V1 | |. 648 |. 40 | |V2 | |. 942 | | |V3 |. 813 |. 308 | | |V4 | | |. 910 | |V5 |. 753 |-. 339 |. 307 | |V6 |. 872 | | | |V7 |. 898 | | | |V8 |. 873 | | | |V9 |. 898 | | | |Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. | |Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. |a. Rotation converged in 5 iterations. | | | |Figure 1. 8: Component Matrixa | | |Component | | |1 |2 |3 | |V1 | |. 836 | | |V2 | |. 799 |-. 493 | |V3 |. 800 | | | |V4 | |. 508 |. 757 | |V5 |. 768 | |. 416 | |V6 |. 869 | | | V7 |. 897 | | | | V8 |. 874 | | | |V9 |. 901 | | | |Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. | |a. 3 components extracted. | 6. Interpret Factors Interpretation can be done by identifying the variables which have high loadings on the same factor (Malhotra, 2009). From the Rotated Component Matrix, Factor 1 has high coefficient with V3 (quality support), V5 (sincere interest in solving problem), V6 (prompt service), V7 (wiliness to help), V8 (politeness) and V9 (knowledgeable). All this variables are related to customer service which is the supporting service element. Therefore, Factor 1 is labeled as the supporting service. On the other hand, Factor 2 has high coefficient with V1 (connection speed) and V2 (easy to connect). Both variables are the core service of an internet service provider (ISP). Thus, Factor 2 is labeled as Core Service. Lastly, Factor 3 only has high coefficient with V4 (billing) and thus the factor is labeled as Facilitating Service (Billing). (Referring to Figure 1. 10) Figure 1. 10: Factor Labeling Supporting Service |Core Service |Facilitating Service | | |V1 (connection speed) | | | |V2 (easy to connect) | | |V3 (quality support) | | | | | |V3 (billing) | |V5 (sincere interest in solving problem) | | | |V6 (prompt service) | | | |V7 (wiliness to help) | | |V8 (politeness | | | |V9 (knowledgeable) | | | 7. Determine the Model Fit The determination of the model fit is the last step of factor analysis. This can be done by examining the difference between the observed correlation and the reproduced correlation. The difference is known as residual (Malhotra, 2009). Therefore, Malhotra, 2009 indicated that if there are more than 50% of residuals exist, the factor model is a poor fitting model. Examining the upper triangle of residual in Figure 1. 11, there are 21 (58%) of non-redundant residuals with absolute values greater than 0. 05. As a result, the factor model provides poor fitting to the data. Reconsideration towards the model needs to be taken. This issues occurs in this case might be due to small sample size of 30 or respondent bias. Hence, the model can be enhanced by increasing the sample size. |Figure 1. 11: Reproduced Correlations | | | |a. Reproduced communalities | |b. Residuals are computed between observed and reproduced correlations. There are 21 (58. 0%) nonredundant residuals with absolute values greater than 0. 05. | Conclusion In conclusion, factor analysis has reduced the data and summarizes the variables into 3 factors which are supporting service, core service and facilitating service. The method used, principals components analysis has determine the minimum number of factors which is three factors and yet explain as much as possible towards the variance. Regression Analysis Introduction Regression analysis is a statistical technique to analyze the relationship between a metric dependent variable (criterion variable) and one or more independent variables (predictor variables) (Malhotra, 2009). The aim for this procedure is to build a regression model or equation in relation to the dependent variable to independent variable(s) (Lind et al, 2010). In this case, multiple regression analysis is used when there are more than one independent variables. With the factors that were developed in Factor analysis, now the relationship between the dependent variables, V10 (Customer satisfaction) and three independent variables (Core services, Supporting Service, and Facilitating Services) In general, a multiple regression equation for predicting Y can be expressed a follows: (Berger, 2003) [pic] Conducting multiple regression analysis 1. State the Objectives The objective of this analysis is to predict the customer satisfaction towards ISP (Y) with the respect to the following independent variables (Xs): i. Supporting Services ii. Core Services iii. Facilitating Service 2. Plot the Scatter Diagram (Linearity) The relationship between variables can be determined through scatter diagram. It is plots the dependent variable on x-axis against the independent variable on y-axis. Plotting a scatter diagram may bring attention to the researcher to a pattern in the data and identifying possible problems (Malhotra, 2009) [pic] Figure 2. 1: Scatter Plot (Customer Satisfaction against Supporting Services) Figure 2. 1 has shown mere relationship between customer satisfaction against supporting services as it is complex to draw proper linear on the plot. [pic] Figure 2. 2: Scatter Plot (Customer Satisfaction against Core Services) Figure 2. shows similar result as the previous relationship that it has little relationship between customer satisfaction and supporting services. The number of outliers seems to be more extreme in this case. [pic] Figure 2. 3: Scatter Plot (Customer Satisfaction against Facilitating Service) Figure 2. 3 shows rather better result than the previous relationship that researcher can draw a straight line relationship between customer satisfaction and facilitating services. Base on the 3 scatter plot of different variables, there isn’t clear relationship towards the customer satisfaction. However, the plot may not be able to show clear linear relationship between variables as the sample size taken is only 30. Different results may occur if another 30 respondents is examined. In addition, this issue may be due to the sample size is base on convenient sampling and bias respondents. Figure 2. 4 below study the relationship between the three variables on hand. For example, if there is any variable that is highly related with another variable, one of them may be removed to create a better result in regression. According to Pearson Correlation below, there are mere relationships between supporting service and core services which is only 0. 005. Likewise, supporting services has small negative relationship with facilitating service. Lastly, the core services is about 27% towards facilitating services which is still consider as slightly related. |Figure 2. Correlations | | | |Supporting_ |Core_ |Facilitating_ | | | |Services |Services |Service | |Supporting_Services |Pearson Correlation |1 |. 005 |-. 056 | | |Sig. (2-tailed) | |. 978 |. 69 | | |N |30 |30 |30 | |Core_Services |Pearson Correlation |. 005 |1 |. 273 | | |Sig. (2-tailed) |. 978 | |. 144 | | |N |30 | 30 |30 | |Facilitating_Service |Pearson Correlation |-. 056 |. 273 |1 | | |Sig. (2-tailed) |. 769 |. 44 | | | |N |30 |30 |30 | Figure 2. 5 is a method which researcher used to cross check the variables entered into SPSS system. Listed variables are the independent variables which would influence the dependent variables which is the customer satisfaction. Incorrect input in the independent variables and dependent variables may causes error in output and mistake interpretation. |Figure 2. 5 Variables Entered/Removed | |Model |Variables Entered |Variables Removed |Method | |1 |Facilitating_Service, Supporting_Services, |. Enter | | |Core_Servicesa | | | |a. All requested variables entered. | 3. Estimate the Regression Model At this point, stepwise regression which is a procedure that the independent variables entered or removed from the regression equation one at a time is used in this analysis. There are several methods that can be used which include forward inclusion, backward elimin ation and stepwise solution. Backward elimination will be employed as all independent variables are included in the equation and the variable is removed one at a time. (Malhotra, 2009) a) Overall Fit of the Model Figure 2. is a summary of model which R denotes the correlation coefficient between independent and dependent variables (Malhotra, 2009). The result shows that 66. 5% of the independent variables (Facilitating Service, Supporting Services, and Core Services) correlated to customer satisfaction. Subsequently, the R-square signify how much the independent variables explain the variation of the dependent variables. The value indicates 0. 443 which interpret that 44. 3% of the total variation of customer satisfaction is accounted by the variation of the predictors. The models points out predictors explain 37. 9% which means 62. 1% of the variation in customer satisfaction is not explained. Hence, there opt to be other variables that influence the satisfaction. This issue occurs might be due to the small sample size. By increasing the sample size, the value of ‘r’ may increased to at least 0. 6 |Figure 2. 6 Model Summaryb | |Model |R |R Square |Adjusted R Square |Std. Error of the Estimate | |1 |. 665a |. 443 |. 379 |. 83194 | |a. Predictors: (Constant), Facilitating_Service, Supporting_Services, Core_Services | |b. Dependent Variable: Customer_Satisfaction | b) ANOVA Table With the model on hand, researcher will use the analysis of variance (ANOVA) to check if the model considerably good degree of ‘best guess’ the outcomes (Field, 2008). Referring to the result of ANOVA has generated F at 6. 889 with the significant level of 0. 001. This shows that the model can predict the outcome of the customer satisfaction significantly well. |Figure 2. 7 ANOVAb | |Model | |b. Dependent Variable: Customer_Satisfaction | |Regression Coefficients | |Figure 2. Regression Coefficientsa | |Model | At this step of the analysis, Figure 2. 6 shows the details of the model parameters with the beta values and significance of each variable. (Field, 2009) Before building any equation model base on the regression coefficients, the significant value of each variable is first taken into considerations. The t-statistic tests the null hypothesis that the b is zero. If researcher fail to reject the hypothesis, it indicates that the independent variable contribute si gnificantly to the customer satisfaction. The variable, facilitating service is at significant level of 0. 30 which is less than 95% confident level. This has indicated that the facilitating service is not important towards the customer service. Hence, this variable would be removed and regression analysis is rerun. As a result, facilitating service is removed and only left two variables which are shown as below (Figure 2. 7) |Figure 2. 9: Variables Entered/Removed (with Facilitating Service Removed) | |Model |Variables Entered |Variables Removed |Method | |1 |Core_Services, Supporting_Servicesa |. |Enter | |a. All requested variables entered. After removing the facilitating service from the model, R results shows that 62. 5% of the core and supporting service is related to the customer satisfaction. Figure 2. 10 shows that there is a slight decrease of R and R-square as compared to before removing which may indicate that facilitating service explain not much towards customer satisf action. a. Overall fit of the model with Facilitating Service Removed |Figure 2. 10: Model Summary with Facilitating Service Removed | |Model |R |R Square |Adjusted R Square |Std. Error of the Estimate | |1 |. 625a |. 390 |. 345 |. 85401 | |a. Predictors: (Constant), Core_Services, Supporting_Services | |b. Dependent Variable: Customer_Satisfaction | b. ANOVA Table with Facilitating Service Removed Figure 2. 11 shows a similar result as before omitting the facilitating service. The model has a good prediction of the outcome of customer satisfaction. |Figure 2. 1: ANOVA with Facilitating Service Removed | |Model | |b. Dependent Variable: Customer_Satisfaction | c. Regression Coefficients with Facilitating Service Removed After deleting the facilitating service (Figure 2. 12), researcher can observe the relationship between customer satisfaction and independent variables (supporting services and core services) from the b value. Deleting the facilitating service has made changes towards the values of b as compared to the earlier result. Thus, the core service has a beta value of 0. 492 larger than the supporting service of 0. 366. This would indicate that the core service which is the connection related variables would have a greater impact on the customer satisfaction over the supporting service (customer service). In addition, both independent variables have positive relationship with the customer satisfaction as the b value is positive. Thus, when the supporting services or core services increases, the customer satisfaction would increase as well. Moreover, Collinearity Statistics column helps to identify multicollinearity. As a rule of thumb, if the value of tolerance is below 0. 20, multicollinearity is a problem. The higher the correlation between independent variables, the smaller the value of tolerance becomes. Field, 2009) On the other hand, variance inflation factor (VIF) value has always been greater than or equal to 1. If the value of VIF is high, there is high multicollinearity and instability of the b and beta coefficients (Field, 2009). After deleting the unwanted variables, the tolerance value and VIF value and improved. Hence in this case, there isn’t a problem for multicollinearity. |Figure 2. 12: Regression Coefficientsa with Facilitating Service Removed | |Model | d. Collinearity Diagnostics Figure 2. 13 also helps indicate if there is any problem with multicollinearity. There isn’t very low Eigenvalue and high condition index; hence, they might be no indication of problem with multicollinearity |Figure 2. 13 Collinearity Diagnosticsa | |Model |Dimension |Eigenvalue |Condition Index |Variance Proportions | | | 4. Interpret Regression Variate With the current result, both variables seem to be contributed significantly to the model. And so, linear relationship equation can be generated with two independent variables: Y = ? + ? 1X1 + ? 2X2 The appropriate model will show as below when the ? is substitute with the value in Figure 2. 12: Customer Satisfaction = 0. 652 + 0. 366 (Supporting Services) + 0. 492 (Core Services) Furthermore, the model explains that even there is no supporting services and core services, there will be a minor satisfaction level (0. 652) which is the constant ? value. 5. Validate the results In order to validate the results of regression analysis, the plot below is generated. The examination of residuals provides useful insights in determining the appropriateness of the underlying assumptions and the regression model fit. Figure 2. 14 show that the graph shows a quite clear linearity. Hence the results of regression may be valid [pic] Figure 2. 14 Conclusions Through the regression analysis, the model below is generated. Customer Satisfaction = 0. 652 + 0. 366 (Supporting Services) + 0. 492 (Core Services) In conclusion, base on the sample size of 30, it is clear that facilitating services (billing) is not significant towards the customer satisfaction. As a result, the supporting services and core services is important in influencing the variation of customer satisfaction of internet service provider. The model may not be generalized to the population as the sample size is small and data is collected base on convenient sampling.

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

Up Style and Down Style

Up Style and Down Style Up Style and Down Style Up Style and Down Style By Maeve Maddox Book titles–and newspaper and magazine headlines–are usually formatted in one of two styles: â€Å"up style† and â€Å"down style.† Up Style This style calls for capitalizing the first and last words in the title or headline and all â€Å"major words† in the title. Not all style guides agree as to what should be considered a major word. Most agree that nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinating conjunctions (if, because, as, that, etc.) are major words and should always be capitalized. That leaves articles (a, an, the), prepositions, and coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, for, nor) in the minor league where lowercase prevails. Unfortunately, as is frequent with arbitrary rules, style guides don’t always agree. Both the Chicago Manual of Style and the AP Stylebook agree that articles (a, an, the), and coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, for, nor) should not be capitalized unless they are the first or last word of the title, but when it comes to prepositions, they differ. CMOS says never capitalize a preposition unless it is the first word in the title. AP says leave short prepositions in lowercase, but capitalize prepositions and conjunctions of four or more letters. Here is how the same title would be formatted according to CMOS and AP: CMOS: Four Theories concerning the Gospel according to Matthew AP: Four Theories Concerning the Gospel According to Matthew Most stylebooks state that all verbs are capitalized, including is, am, and be, but that the to of an infinitive is to be treated like a preposition and put in lowercase: How to Train Your Dragon, How to Be a Better Parent. Down Style The only words capitalized in down style are the first word of the title and any proper nouns that appear in the title: Four theories concerning the Gospel according to Matthew. (book title) Coastal Commission enters fray over San Mateo County beach access (headline) Down style has been adopted by many newspapers because it calls for fewer rules. The purpose of having style guides is to make reading pleasant by providing a clear, consistent manner of presenting written material. If you write for yourself, adopt any style you wish for your blog or other publications. If you write for hire, follow your employer’s house style. The following headlines and book titles taken at random from the Web illustrate the fact that not everyone follows the same stylebook: Journey Home Finally Begins for the Victims of Malaysia Airlines Flight (headline, NYTimes) Why Triumphant Jihadis In Iraq Will Help Assad Crush Opposition In Aleppo (headline, HuffPost) Modern Identity Changer: How To Create And Use A New Identity For Privacy And Personal Freedom (book listed on Amazon) Gone With The Wind (AMC filmsite.org) Gone with the Wind (Imdb) Gone With the Wind (Rotten Tomatoes) Hardball: How Politics Is Played, Told by One Who Knows the Game  (book listed on Amazon) How To Hide Anything  (book listed on Amazon) Why Government Fails So Often: And How It Can Do Better (book listed on Amazon) I’ll save the question of â€Å"Italics or Quotation Marks?† for another post on book titles. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Style category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Comparative Forms of AdjectivesPeople versus Persons75 Synonyms for â€Å"Hard†

Sunday, November 3, 2019

Adult Education or Training Graphic Organizer Essay

Adult Education or Training Graphic Organizer - Essay Example It is against this background that this paper provides an explicit comparison of computer science PhD education in Germany and the USA. Higher learning institutions in both countries offer relative programs in this field of specification. Enrolls a comparatively lower number of students in the program and has a smaller population base to source students from. Hence classrooms are smaller and the professionals teaching the subject equally less. The learning environment and nature of program allows for limited attendance of conferences, public talks and publications of research papers. The government however funds for a significant percentage of publications made by the students. In sum, the computer science program at the Phd level in both countries is comprehensive and tasking. As it has come out from the graphic presentation, there are distinct variations in the nature and quality of the respective program. As aforementioned, this is attributable to a host of factors that range from resource availability to legislative and institutional policies governing the

Thursday, October 31, 2019

Something to Smile About Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Something to Smile About - Essay Example Further, the changes in temperature of the foods and water we usually intake affect the colors of our teeth. Aging and other internal activities such too much fluoride may also stain the teeth ("Something to Smile About". Metro. July 2005. Volume 15 (6). pp 86). However, this teeth discoloration issue can easily be solved through various methods. At home bleaching such as the use of specially prepared toothpastes can be an alternative. Laser tooth whitening is another option for those who would want a shorter process, because this would only entail a one to two-hour session. The topic is again very simple yet a very helpful tip for its readers. I know for a fact that teeth discoloration has been a pertinent problem of most people now a days, especially because beauty and physical appearance now matters a lot. I also liked the simplicity of its presentation. Just the smile of a person having perfect teeth is enough to connote what is inside the story. It does not need further graphics nor pictures because those can only look the page a bit messy. What seemed a bit awkward to me was the mentioning of Colgate's Simply White product. It looked like it was just advertising the product and not giving tips to the readers. May be this could be minimized if Colgate's product was shown in a not too "hard sell" way. A small picture of its product on just one small corner of the page is enough to denote that this product is made to help people to maintain perfectly white teeth. Conclusion As for its "ethos", the magazine where it was published or advertised maintains a good credibility standards. Metro Magazine has been in the publishing industry for several years already, and so far, everything that is published or written in the every issue of this magazine are found to be of good value. Every reader who will be reading this material will surely not have any second thoughts on believing what has been claimed in the advertisement. With regards to the "pathos" aspect, the magazine advertisement is very objective. It has directly 'attack' the emotions of the readers, particularly the feeling of 'vanity'. I personally believe that each and every person desires to look good so as to feel good. The advertisement has made use of this idea. More so, it has created a tremendous impact to all the reader's minds that white teeth can indeed make one look beautiful and of course neat. Needless to say, this ad has attacked the mind and the hearts of all readers. It has enlightened the minds of the people on how one can maintain a pearly white teeth, while providing the hearts an avenue to aspire for additional beautiful attribute. With regards to the third aspect which is the "logos", this ad has provided logical proofs of what to do best with discolored teeth. It has given several alternatives or methods on cleaning one's teeth so as to remove stains and other matters that make it looks dirty. These things alone make this ad credible. on the first

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Five causes for the public not to trust government, and five causes Coursework

Five causes for the public not to trust government, and five causes for the public to trust government - Coursework Example (Nye Jr., 1997) These are indeed pretty much required because the public views the government as its ultimate savior at the end of the day and if the government misses out on this tangent, then the public has only the government to blame and no one else. The third cause for the public not to trust the government is the way in which government officials run away from the people after they have been elected to their respective offices. This creates a sense of insecurity within the people and they start disrespecting law since they are being continuously treated the wrong way by the government. The fourth cause is the way the government changes its stance every now and so often when it comes to the general and important policies which are drafted by the government on a consistent basis. This is a very pivotal aspect of the debate since these policies indeed pave the way for the future lives of the public. The fifth and last cause includes the government giving up on the service aspect o f the public. This usually happens when the government loses the plot and goes into doubling its own assets and forgets the general public. (Diiulio Jr., 1994) There are also moments when the public trusts the government and this is indeed an aspect which could be seen in the positive aspects under the relationship between the two. First cause includes the way when the government meets the expectations of the public as well as exceeds the very same time and again. This is appreciated by the public and is looked up with a sense of pride and confidence by the people. The second cause of the public trusting the government is when the government takes care of the most basic utilities that are related with the people. This is a very positive aspect and one that needs high praise for the government. The third cause for the public to trust the government is when there are rescue and relief operations carried out on a quick basis by the

Sunday, October 27, 2019

A Memetic Algorithm for Multi Level Redundancy Allocation

A Memetic Algorithm for Multi Level Redundancy Allocation Abstract Reliability Redundancy allocation problem determines the component reliability and redundancy level for each subsystem in order to improve the system reliability. Redundancy allocation problem is NP-hard problem and hence various Heuristic and meta-heuristic approaches are being applied.[1] This paper proposes a memetic algorithm to solve the RAP problem. Although the real engineering experience deals with multi-level systems, in this paper prior assumptions are made such that the algorithm has been applied to single level systems. This proposed MA is then compared against the HGA of a two multi-level systems and the proposed MA has outperformed the HGA of two multi-level system. INTRODUCTION of Articles In this article, a new Memetic algorithm has been proposed to solve the Redundancy Allocation Problem which has attained great attention in recent years. Prior assumptions has been made in order to investigate the Multi-Level Redundancy Allocation problem and the three important assumptions are: If a unit is not at its lowest level then its child units are assumed to be serial and they are fixed. The second assumption is that the redundancy can be allocated to the units at any level and the final assumption is that the quality of each component is predefined and the cost and the reliability are calculated based on child units if and only if the unit is not a component. From the various literature review which has been carried out, it is found that there are few approaches to MLRAP and these are rarely being investigated. Genetic Algorithm and the modified Genetic Algorithm which is the Hierarchical Genetic Algorithm is although considered to be the significant approach for MLRAP, the effectiveness of these approaches can be improved. Thus for the improvement in these approaches, the new Memetic Algorithm has been proposed in this article. Memetic algorithm is a population based eta-heuristic search method which uses the combination of global search engines along with the local search heuristics. According to the article MA is more successful than the GA because of two key issues. One is the appropriate balance between the global and local search engines and the other is the cost effectiveness. In this article two new genetic operators and a new problem specific local search operator are incorporated in the MA framework and a new MA has been proposed for approaching the MLRAP. In this article, the parts of a multi-level serial system has been defined hierarchically at the topmost level and the sub system has been defined at the lower level and the components in the lowest level. As per the assumption made previously, there is fixed number of child units for each unit except a component. The redundancy allocation procedure always starts from the system level and moves to the component level for a multi-level serial system. The reliability of the multi-level serial system can be calculated using, While the reliability of the units at the lower level can be calculated on the basis of the components using, Also the cost for the multi-level serial system is calculated using, When applying the Conventional GA for solving MLRAP, the decision variables becomes in fixed number during problem solving. Whereas in MLRAP problem solving the decision variable changes due to the change in redundancy allocation to a unit. Hence to overcome this problem, a hierarchical structure has been proposed in the article which is capable of changing the decision variables. Nomenclature Explanation of the work presented in journal articles The proposed MA in the article has two types of operators which consists of the genetic operator for global explorations and the local search operator for exploitation. This section explains the articles you reviewed. In the proposed model, the quality of the solutions should be evaluated and from the literature the author of the article has pointed out many techniques to measure the quality of the solution out of which a penalty function which has been proposed by Gen and Cheng has been used to derive the fitness function to evaluate the quality of the solution during the search process. This fitness function is given by, ÃŽÂ ¨(x) is the penalty function which measures the extent of the solution violating the constraints. The initialization of the MA is generally done at the system level and it starts from generating the random population of solutions. For a system of multi-level series, K integer is generated randomly for n child unit n X k redundancy units have to be generated at the second level and goes on until an individual is obtained. Of the two proposed genetic operators, before being applied the hierarchical representation need to be selected. And hence the solution highly depends on type of the hierarchical representation being selected. Then the two genetic operators will be applied to the iteration and both the operator treat the unit or the system at the same level. Of the two genetic operators, the crossover between two individuals occurs in three steps. Initially an intermediate is selected from the system and component level and the higher level is being assigned higher probability. Finally the selected levels exchange their lower structures to give two new individuals. Whereas the mutation also occurs in three steps but is applied to individual level. The first two steps remains the same as the crossover and the third step is replacing the redundancy of the selected unit by a randomly generated integer. Also when changing the redundancy corresponding decision variable o the parent unit should also be updated. The other operator of the proposed MA is the local search operator. In the new MA proposed in the article, local search operator is implemented in three steps. The population solution are evaluated through the metric which is given by, Then a single individual is chosen from the population solution. The local search is carried out based on it. Then the individual with the higher metric is selected for local search. For an MLRAP, it is desired to have an optimal system for a higher reliability and the reliability to cost ratio serves as a measure to determine the potential of the individual solution. The local search operator randomly selects ten pairs of components and for each pair the redundancy of the components are modified and during this search newly generated individual will be stored in the archive if and only if it donot violate the cost constraint. Finally, the preserved inividual will be mixed with the population solution and arranged descendingly and the top most individuals will be used discarding others. Discussion of Contributions Two systems has been taken into consideration. One system with three levels and the other system with four levels. With this systems into consideration, the performance of the proposed MA is to be evaluated and compared with the performance of conventional HGA. Since there are a number of control parameters in both HGA and the proposed MA, there are some values which are to be preset before beginning the experiment. For fair process, the values which has been set for HGA is used as same for the proposed MA for problem A. In this experiment the aim is to study the convergence behavior of the proposed MA in order to compare it with HGA. The best solution obtained in each generation is recorded and the corresponding system reliability is calculated. It is seen that both the methods converged fast whereas the convergence of the proposed MA is significantly better than the convergence of the HGA which is shown in Fig 1. Fig:1 Comparison of convergence between HGA and MA for Problem A.[1] Furthermore the comparisons has been carried by varying the numerous cost constraints. 20 cost constraint values are varied between the intervals 150 to 340 leaving the system parameters unchanged. For every constraint values, MA and HGA were applied 10 times to each cost constraint. The observations are made for each and every run and the reliability and the cost constraints are calculated and compared between MA and HGA. From the calculative comparison, it is evident that the proposed new MA has outperformed the conventional HGA for problem A that is the system with three levels. The same kind of experiment is carried out for problem B to examine whether the advantage of MA holds a variety of system parameters. Similar to the problem A, ten test instances are obtained and the MA and HGA are applied to each instances for ten times. The convergence of MA is significantly better than the convergence of HGA which is shown below. Fig:2 Convergence of MA and HGA for problem 2[1] Since the same kind of experiment was done on problem B, the results were also quite the same. The proposed MA has outperformed the conventional HGA. Discussion of Dificiency and Potential Improvements The article being reviewed here discusses only about the multi-level serial system and the experimentation has been done considering this system alone. Changing the condition and the structure of the system changes the reliability and the cost function of the corresponding solution changes. Also the proposed MA gives significant reliability for the multi-level serial system, the proposed MA should also be extended to multi-level serial systems of complex structures. Also the problems which is being formulated in the article are single objective or are of only one goal of increasing the reliability of the system by having the cost reduction as only one constraint. Instead, in the future research, the problems can be formulated with multiple objective and multiple constraint along with the cost constraint. This type of approach with multiple objective problems will yield multiple solutions which has trade-off between the system reliability and cost constraint. Summary The RAP which has attained a global attention among the researchers motivating them to find the solution for the RAP. Though many algorithms, techniques and approaches have been proposed by many researchers around the world, there is something which can be improved in each and every approach proposed by researchers to solve the MLRAP. In this article, the author has given a detailed approach on how does a reliability problem works and formulated in a way that the problem deals with the multi-level serial system of simple structure. Upon formulating a problem, the author tries to make proper assumptions to advocate the formulated problem. Then the author just solves it with the conventional GA approach which yields a good system reliability. Then the problem is again solved with the new method. This new method is being proposed by the author is the novel Memetic Algorithm where some preconditioning is being done to the solution that is being selected form the population solution. The solution is checked for the quality by using a fitness function. Now the population solution will be initialized and the two search operators of the MA is applied to the selected and preserved solution from the population samples of solution. The solutions which are being obtained from the search operators are then being combined with the population and the best among them is selected. The process is repeated for various generations and the best individual will be selected as the solution for the MLRAP. Then the approaches are compared and it is found that the proposed MA has outperformed the conventional HGA irrespective of the type of multi-level serial system of same structure. Acknowledgments I would like to thank Dr. Wang,   fellow, IEEE, and Dr. Tang, fellow, IEEE and Dr. Yao, fellow, IEEE for their research study that was done by them to prepare the article, which helped me to understand the concept behind the RAP and MLRAP and the techniques used to solve or approach MLRAP. I would also like to express my Thanks to Dr. Pingfeng Wang, Graduate Coordinator in Wichita State University for his valuable advice which guided me through this project and helped me to complete this review successfully. References [1] Wang, Z., Tang, K., Yao, X. (2010). A memetic algorithm for multi-level redundancy allocation. IEEE Transactions on reliability, 59(4), 754-765. [2]  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   Sharifi, M., Cheragh, G., Maljaii, K. D., Zaretalab, A., Daei, A. V. F., Vahid, A. (2015). RELIABILITY OPTIMIZATION OF A SERIES-PARALLEL K-OUT-OF-N SYSTEM WITH FAILURE RATE DEPENDS ON WORKING COMPONENTS OF SYSTEM. International Journal of Industrial Engineering, 22(4), 438-453.