High School Forever Essay

After reading this article I thought to myself that this is exactly what high school sounds like it is just a social combat, some people are already on the top and do not have to try and others try to climb to the top but never make and some just stay on the bottom they do not even make an effort to climb. I know that in adolescence us teenager try to find out who we really are and to be able to define ourselves and according to the article high school is one of the hardest places to do that in. But I think that even though people experience social fear because they are sensitive towards what other people think and have the least amount of control I think that high school is beneficial because it prepares you if what is ahead. Because in life you will encounter these things so it is better to have experienced it before hand but the difference between life and high school is that in high school it is really easy to be judged and labeled where as in real life you do not really fear what others think because after high school you find who you really are, you bloom, and you become more confident in yourself and stand for what you truly believe in. So I think that even though high school can be hell sometimes it really prepares us for what is ahead, because life is not fair and we have to learn that the hard way. Well after reading the article I thought Holden Caulfield was like Kenji in the article; even though Kenji was not very popular in high school he became a very successful and became a very attractive person after high school. I think that, that will be the case with Holden because he does not really fit in anywhere. I think that he will grow out of his â€Å"not fitting in† phase and find who he really is and what matters most in his life. But I also think that he will still be judgmental and think everyone is a phony. I also think that he will realize that growing up and becoming an adult is not as scary as he presumes it may be. I think that it will take him a while after graduating high school, if he does not get kicked out of any more schools and he gets into another school. But when he does I think he will realize that maturing and being responsible is not hard. I think Caulfield is really confused when it comes to life because he does not have any grown up to really tell him what it is like to grow up, so I think that impacts his behavior towards people. I think that even though you are not the most popular and you may not have many friends in high school, it may not matter because if you know why you are there, to learn and become successful in your life, then it all works out in your favor in the end, but it is nice to have friends to not a lot just maybe a couple.

Personnel to Human Resource Management Essay

Personnel management refers to a set of functions or activities including recruitment, training, pay and industrial relations performed effectively but often in isolation from each other or with overall organisation objectives. In 1991, Hilmer noted that the Australian tradition of many sub-specialities or functions (industrial relations, compensation, training and pay) was out of date. The early 1990s was an are of great speculation on the future of the functions in managing people. The concept Human Resource Management (HRM) began to influence the practice of integrating functions with each other and organisation objectives. Coppleston (1991) explained â€Å"the HR function within any enterprise must first of all serve the organisation†¦ an investment area rather than a cost to the organisation.† Reinforced by other writers, human resources should be viewed as ‘human capital’, and that HR managers should strive to use them as investment creating an environm ent where the appropriate strategy is likely to emerge. (Williams, 1991) Alternate perspectives of HRM emphasise either the effective management of employees through greater accountability and control, the greater involvement in decision making processes, or both of these. (Nankervis, Compton & McCarthy, 1993) In countries such as Australia, the personnel management function arrived more slowly than its USA counterparts and came from a number of avenues. The orientation of personnel management was not entirely managerial. In the UK, its origins were traced to ‘welfare officers’ where it became evident that there was an inherent conflict between their activities and those of line managers. There were not seen to have a philosophy compatible with the view of senior managers. The welfare officer orientation placed personnel management as a buffer between the business and the employees. In terms of organisational politics this was not a viable position for those wishing to further their careers, increase their status, earn high salaries or influence organisation performance. Industrial relations further compounded the distinction through their intermediary role between unions and line management. (Price, 2005) However, during the 1970s, many Australian organisations found themselv es in turbulent business and economic climates with major competition from the USA, Europe and Asian markets. Concurrently, the Institute for Personnel Management (IPMA) and training institutions such as TAFE and universities were becoming more sophisticated in their approaches incorporating more  recent approaches such as ‘Excellence† and ‘Total Quality Management’. During this period the IPMA held national and international conferences, initiated relationships with the Asia-Pacific region, developed an accreditation process and the now titled Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources. (Nankervis et al, 1993)By the 1980s, personnel had become a well-defined but low status area of management. Traditional personnel managers were accused of having a narrow, functional outlook. Storey (1989) comment that personnel management â€Å"†¦has long been dogged by problems of credibility, marginality, ambiguity and a ‘trash-can’ labelling which has relegated it to a relatively disconnected set of duties – many of them tainted with a low status ‘welfare’ connotation.† In practice, the background and training of many personnel managers left them speaking a different language from other managers and unable to comprehend wider business issues such as business strategy, market competition, labour economics and the role of other organisational functions. (Price, 2005) This set the scene to integrate personnel management with wider trends in management thinking. In 1999 (cited in Gollan 2005), Hunt suggested, ‘the key link to the success of the function lies in the struggle to acquire more influence, something that is being carried out in a climate of downsizing and outsourcing. Even the change of name from personnel to HR is indicative that the way people view and perform this role is changing – with the new name communicating a desire to break with the past and to throw off an image that was limp and limiting†¦ The future of the HR function may be far from certain †¦ [however] †¦ In situations of uncertainty, it is the confident who win through †¦ I know of no organisation whose senior managers believe their company will operate, in the future, without any human beings. Whether ensuring the supply of those human beings resides in a function called HR or not is rather irrelevant. Such themes included ‘human capital theory’ and human resource accounting, however, HRM gained further ground and prominence once introduced to the Harvard Business School MBA course in 1981. The four main approaches founded during the 1980s were: The strategic matching theories from the Michigan and  New York Schools; Multiple Stakeholders theory from the Harvard School; Political and Change Process Theory from the Warwick School and a Behavioural Transformation Theory from the Schuler School. (Price, 2005) Each theory expressed models that stress people as human resources which are a resource different to any other the organisation may have and therefore require to be managed differently. This could be conceived as rather confusing, however Townley (1994) argued that much of the confusion over the role of human resource managers is due to two factors: 1. The conflict between the welfare tradition of personnel management and the strategic orientation of more modern HRM and; 2. A gender divide between female or soft personnel management at lower management and administrative levels and male, hard nosed human resource managers within upper management. Benchmarking and best practice have become widely used terms in the past decade. HRM benchmarking is a process which provides knowledge of the key HR levers which are important to business outcomes; comparison with other businesses with better performance and ways of using that information to improve HR processes. This allows HR processes and outcomes to be quantified so that objectives can be set meaningfully and realistically. This was a revolutionary approach for many HR professionals who were used to subjective job descriptions and values with a focus on process rather than outcome which did not gain much credibility with other business units who were used to objective and quantifiable measures of performance. (Nankervis et al, 1993; Price, 2005) Vilinas and Harper (2005) explored the impact of performance management on staff, the organisation and the business. Performance management was found to be useful in improving role clarity, identifying and standardising performance objectives,, increasing performance feedback and assisting in the development of more useful and meaningful performance measures. The authors found that how performance management was viewed depended on the performance of the team. That is, if the team were performing well, it was viewed positively, if the team were not performing well, it was viewed negatively. Furthermore, Vilinas and Harper (2005), found difficulty in evaluating the impact of performance management systems in organisations. There fore it is difficult to determine the impact this human resource strategy on organisation performance in a  quantitative sense. Royal and O’Donnell (2005), argue that qualitative human capital analysis would assist in predicting organisation sustainability and future financial performance by providing substantial evidence indicating the link between particular HR practices and organisation performance. These practices included learning and development, flexible work policies and performance management. The focus on long term relationships between the organisation and staff was the impact on organisation performance rather than an economic exchange. Exploring the impacts of downsizing on organisation performance, Farrell and Mavondo (2005) reported on the contradictory evidence in the literature about this relationship and surveyed manufacturing companies in order to test the impact. The findings concluded that when redesign of organisations drive downsizing the impact on the business is positive, but it is negative when the organisation redesign is driven by downsizing. This indicated that good HR practice linking with the organisation strategic plan is more likely to provide a positive business outcome. According to McGrath-Champ and Baird (2005), HRM practices and the role of HR and employee relations practitioners have been undergoing major changes since the 1980s. Particular changes include the shift to enterprise bargaining. The authors used data from numerous surveys aimed at exploring the changing role of HR practitioners and the implications on the skills required in order to fulfil the changed role. This, in turn, impacts on the capability of the HR area in its ability to support and influence organisational performance. Given that small business is a significant employer in Australia, Bartram (2005) found they are not as likely to use participative management techniques, invest in training in the area of employee relations or develop organisation strategy. However, without the use of HRM practices, small business can be effected detrimentally particularly in a global economic climate. The evidence suggests that organisation performance will usually benefit from the integration of human resource management and product and market strategies, improved understanding of the needs of employees at the workplace, and better use of their skill and ingenuity. Strategies designed to achieve a more comprehensive use of employees’ human potential, desire to learn, flexibility and personal responsibility would appear capable of delivering higher levels of performance (Gollan & Davis, 1998). This is at the heart of the argument for more attention to HRM. Other things being equal, it will assist improve profitability through changing employee attitudes, overcoming resistance to change. (Gollan & Davis, 1998) Moreover, there will be experience of mutual advantage. Management can benefit from improved performance and reduced levels of turnover and absenteeism and being an employer of choice in the current labour tight market. As a result employees may enjoy more job security, development opportunities, autonomy and incentives to take ownership and responsibility for quality outcomes. (West & Patterson, 1998) While HRM approaches are worthwhile in terms of improving organisation performance, it can be difficult to measure the link between the improvement and the HR practice. The length of time can be fraught with problems when considering the impact of HRM on organisation performance. A short term consultation with staff could pay off years ahead in performance. The most difficult obstacle is in the change of organisation culture for both managers and employees in terms of leadership skills, strategy and resources for development. Based on research statistics of over 30 000 HR professionals, Brockbank (2005), stated ‘the HR field is outstanding at doing what it says it will do, in terms of delivering the basic HR infrastructure activity †¦is an intersection of HR competencies and agendas that have to do with managing the culture, contributing to strategic decision making, managing change and creating process of information flows that continually integrate the organisation†¦ HR professionals are mediocre at this set of activities†¦ the logic of HR’s role in bringing critical information about the external business world into the firm, disseminating it and using that information on  a broad scale within the organisation as the basis for integration, unity and ultimately organisational responsiveness.’ Brockbank (2005) further identified that HR’s market driven connectivity rates at 17 per cent of strategic contribution’s impact on organisation performance. The direct impact of HR on business performance has increased about 300 per cent since 1992. This is factored around the shift from focusing on traditional personnel functions and moving towards strategic input into the organisation’s development coupled with technological change and a global economy. In other words, this indicates that in order to make an impact, HR needs to understand the business their organisation is in including the customers, shareholders and stakeholders. To surmise, the evidence suggests there is a great deal of participation taking place in Australia, (Morehead, Steele, Alexander, Stephen & Duffin, 1997) however, findings from the research highlight the quality of many HRM practices need to be appropriate measured and reported in order to continue to develop the link between HR practices and organisation performance. From the research synthesised in this paper, it is evident that some human resource practices can contribute to high levels of organisational performance. Explored from a range of perspectives, the problems in demonstrating this relationship are highlighted. The number of dimensions to the problems making study comparisons difficult include: definitions used as a basis for the research; the ability to draw a relationship between human resource practices and organisational performance; methodological issues and; differences and variable measurement. There is further interest in identifying and demonstrating the impact HRM has on organisation performance none more highlighted than through the importance of people in the knowledge economy and organisation sustainability in a global market. References: Bartram, Timothy 2005, ‘Small firms, big ideas: The adoption of human resource management in Australian small firms’, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, vol 43Brockbank, Wayne 2005, ‘Turning Inside Out’, HR Monthly, April. Coppleston Peter 1991, ‘Present issues and future trends’, HR Monthly, April p8-9Farrell, Mark A., & Mavondo, Felix 2005, ‘The effect of downsizing-redesign strategies on business performance: Evidence from Australia’, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, vol 43Gollan, Paul 2005, High involvement management and human resource sustainability: The challenges and opportunities, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, vol 43Gollan, P. & Davis, E. 1998, High involvement management and organisational change: Beyond rhetoric. Macquarie Graduate School of ManagementHilmer F 1991, ‘Hilmer discusses the future for Australians at work’, HR Monthly, August p9. McGrath-Champ, Susan & Baird, Marian 2005, ‘The mercurial nature of Australian HRM under enterprise bargaining’, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, vol 43Morehead, A., Steele, M., Alexander, M., Stephen, K. & Duffin, L. 1997, Change at Work: The 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey. Melbourne: LongmanNankervis, Alan R., Compton, Robert L. & McCarthy, Terence E. 1993, Strategic Human Resource Management, Thomson Nelson Australia. Price Alan 2005, Human Resource Management in a Business Context, 2nd ednRoyal, Carol & O’Donnell, Loretta 2005, ‘Embedding human capital analysis in the investment process: A human resources challenge’, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, vol 43Storey, J. 1989, Human Resource Management: A Critical Text. Thomson Learning, 2nd ednTownley B. 1994, Reframing Human Resource Management: Power, Ethics and the Subject of Work, Sage. West, M. & Patterson, M 1998. People Power: The link between job satisfaction and productivity. Centrepiece, Autumn, p2-5Williams Ross 1991, ‘Transformation or chaos? HR in the 1990s’, HR Monthly, November, p10. Vilinas, Tricia & Harper, Sarah (2005), ‘Determining the impact of an organisations performance management system’, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, vol 43

Epidemiology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 2

Epidemiology - Essay Example An archetypal epidemiologic question may entail the number of new cases of AIDS that were reported in relation to teenager in the American society in a given year. The estimates will demonstrate the occurrence of the disease and whether an increase or decrease is experienced in the age group. Epidemiology is a vital tool for the health and safety of communities, and the whole populace, as epidemiologists discover and measure events associated with health within a chosen population. As a result, the scientific field formulates various models of how an event occurs to develop a better understanding of the health events on an advanced level. In this case, the field is utilized as problem-solving process. For instance, the occurrence of an unknown virus within a population requires the expertise of epidemiologists to analyze its root causes. The analysis results in advanced knowledge about the virus and, as a result, its root causes are discovered, which proves beneficial in the prevention of a similar occurrence (Oleske, 2009). The scientific field is imperative to public health as it provides a basis for scrutinizing, prioritizing, and evaluating as well as developing public health activities and programs. Health programs are developed when need arises, and the field of epidemiology is beneficial in the assessment of needs. For instance, the scientific study answers question associated with current problems typifying a community and adequacy and accessibility of health services. In this context, epidemiology can be utilized as a health surveillance tool to assess the scope and frequency of potential health problems through surveys in order to evaluate the need for health programs (Smith, 2001). The realm of medicine requires more studies that analyze the various aspects of contemporary issues, because it is a human biology as well as a social science typified by rapid changes. Epidemiology is broad with enormous

Living Longer than Expected Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Living Longer than Expected - Essay Example The main reason life expectancy has increased is the improvement in medicine in general, with particular emphasis on the development of brand-new drugs during the 20th Century, namely antibiotics. The influence of these remarkable drugs can be summed up in a single fact: more people are saved in a single year from antibiotics than the c.100,000,000 who were killed in wars during the whole of the Twentieth Century (Cooter, 2002). Ironically, the final push towards the development of antibiotics occurred because of the mortality rates from infections within soldiers during the worst of those wars, WWII (Cooter, 2002). Together with the development of antibiotics to treat infections, another whole class of drugs - vaccinations, were developed and perfected during the century. One of the worst killers of previous centuries had been tuberculosis, By the middle of the century it was virtually a fading memory in much of the developed world because of the invention and perfection of a simple, safe vaccine (Bloom, 2002. Together with other vaccinations a whole host of deadly diseases were virtually wiped out, ensuring far more children survived into the relatively healthy adult years. Improved sanitation and nutrition also helped to increase life expectancy in the first half of the century. In the last decades of the Twentieth Century the increased efficacy of medicine treating serious diseases from cancer to heart disease has enabled older people to live through conditions that would have previously killed them. Operations such as bypass surgery, transplantation and a whole array of new drugs have increased life-expectancy. While the current "obesity epidemic" (nih, 2006) may slow the increase in life expectancy, it is clear that babies being born today may well have a lifespan approach an average of ninety. This is an extraordinary situation: the doubling of life expectancy over a single century. Present Effects of Increased Longevity The present effects of increased vary from those that are fairly obvious, such as more old people, to those a little more intangible, such as changes in marriage patterns. The effects of increased lifespan on the health industry are profound. While advances in medicine are largely accountable for longevity, the healthcare industry also bears the brunt of the pressures that are created by the changing demographics of its patients. Old people tend to become sick more often, and the nature of their care is also different: Population aging can have an important impact on health expenditures (both public and private) as well as on the optimal design of health care systems. The technologies associated with diseases of the old tend to be more expensive than the technologies associated with diseases of the young. (James, 1999) Also, about 30 of healthcare costs now stem from treatment in the last six months of life (nih, 2006). These were people (often old) who would normally have died in earlier times. Ethical questions regarding

Epistemology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Epistemology - Essay Example Philosophers have come up with theories best to meet varied retail management strategies and aligning them with varied customers’ needs with time (Tsoukas, 2005). Douglas McGregor in his book â€Å"Human side of enterprise† acknowledged an method of making an atmosphere in which employees are encouraged through imposing, direction and control or integration and self-control which he called theory x and theory y. Abraham Maslow on the other hand developed a scientific management approach called Third force psychology. In retail management, organization of employees is of paramount importance due to their respective roles in running the activities of the retail outlet. They may range from cashiers, sales persons to assistants on technical aspects of the products and services. Customers’ needs on the other hand are varied and keep changing with time, seasons and preference. With McGregor’s theory, retail mangers need to ascertain the optimum transfer of autho rity and/or power to their employees incorporating Abraham Maslow’s needs and preference principles to help run the retail outlet smoothly. The two theories have similarities and differences of which can be viewed in a business perspective to assist in analysis of their concepts. In business core values, values like respect, commitment to personal and professional development and focus on friendly environmental practices and unwavering commitment to quality will match well with McGregor’s theory on employees’ motivation and control, and that of Maslow’s self-esteem, confidence, achievements and respect of others and by them. In developing goals, setting results expected of different employees of the outlet, the administration, financial segments and the outlet at large can provide a benchmark of realizing departmental efforts and capabilities and an insight about what requires change. This matches well with Maslow’s self-actualization pillar where molarity, problem solving, lack of prejudice and acceptance of facts which will be a product of the employees organization. In tem endorsed product line, the two theories are similar in that retail managers will need to assign employees to their best performing sections so as to align with the customers’ immediate wants. This is due to the fact that in endorsing a product line, employees need to intensively know their products and â€Å"think big† about the possible queries by expected customers and their respective answers so as to convince the customers. The two ideologies differ in the application to meet the employees need to change in their working conditions in terms of rules and regulations company aspirations and perspectives towards their development in one hand, and customers/consumers’ need of incorporation of their changing needs and preferences on the other hand. This calls for further study on retail management and analysis of ways to merge the man agement styles with the customer needs. For instance McGregor’s theory of authoritative, direction and control varies with the theory of integration and self-control in that there is no clear cut of the optimum type and level of authority to the employees to achieve maximum returns (Cooper, 1999). That is, if managers use the authoritative and control style, how would employees perform in relation to meeting the customers’ needs? On the other hand if management opts for integration and s

Oedipus -Discussion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Oedipus -Discussion - Essay Example Can you relate to him as such? Is there any way that he reminds you of yourself? If so, how? (If not, explain that too.) I like Oedipus’ desire to struggle with fate. I would do the same if I were Oedipus and actually we are fighting with our fate every day in the modern world. Thus, Oedipus is really rather modern personality and his qualities would help him if he lived in the today’s world. 1) Being a politician in today political climate means not keeping your word, "smear campaigning" and building secret alliances with others for self interest. Todays politician will just about say anything to hold and retain a public post. These qualities contradict our tragic hero Oedipus. Unlike politicians today Oedipus was a man with honor and character. Creon, the king Oedipuss brother-in-law, says"If you wish to hear the news in public, Im prepared to speak. Or we could step inside."108 This gave me a first glimpse as to his character and commitment to his constituents. Todays politicians like former presidents Richard M. Nixon and his Watergate scandal or Bill J. Clinton and his Whitewater scandal prefer secret misdeeds to be kept from public knowledge. Yet, Oedipus chose to address all matter publicly. I admire the tenaciousness of our tragic hero for standing on his moral compass oppose to allowing public opinion to shape his every decision. Throughout our protagonist, Oedi pus, remained honest even when he possessed the power to forgive his own misdeed. Would these previously mentioned former presidents have done the same given the humiliation they suffered? Oedipus would keep his campaign promises, be open with information, and would have earned my vote. Although, It is difficult to imagine Oedipus style of politic with todays ; I would vote for Oedipus given the other alternative politicians. Many African-Americans, not to far in todays past, dare imagined a President of the United State of America

Global Sexual Politics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Global Sexual Politics - Essay Example The present research has identified that globalization of sexuality simply refers to the changes witnessed by the world populations in the wake of tremendous alterations in all fields of life, leading towards the amalgamation of the sexual patterns adopted by various cultures and civilizations. In other terms, globalization of sexuality mirrors the acceptance of the sexual behavior and activities associated with the occidental cultures, which were considered to be sexual taboo and perversion in the oriental societies of the world. Consequently, identical with the globalization of corporate, economic, political, scientific and literary activities, sexuality has also experienced globalization partly due to the universality of sexuality. It is, therefore, globalization of sexuality is viewed to be one of the most noticeable features attributed to the contemporary era political, cultural and social life of the individuals belonging to different parts and regions of the world at large. Co nsequently, the homosexuals, once used to be looked down upon, had obtained profound liberty of getting involved into sexual activities without having any fears of persecutions at the hands of the dogmatists, moralists and other like-minded groups and communities, which used to condemn homosexuality by declaring it to be strictly contradictory to the religious values and moral principles. On the one side, the homosexual orientation is mistakenly stated to be against the prevailing social norms and cultural values; and on the other side, the torch-bearers of sexual freedom have determined the norms to be adopted by the individuals while observing the same activities.

FOUNDATIONS FOR RESEARCH 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

FOUNDATIONS FOR RESEARCH 2 - Essay Example (2009), reducing anxiety in adults though the relaxation-breathing techniques has been used severally and proved through clinical trials as being effective in the production of good asthma outcomes. It is true that all research works aims at bridging a certain gap in information in less researched areas. In this case, more evidence will prove the importance of using such interventions in asthmatic children. The article was properly titled while the contents are in line with the title. This is proved by performing a search on the article using the key words like relaxation, breathing, asthma, trial, controlled etc. The research report abstract has enough information and readers can determine if the research has enough evidence to qualify it as being relevant. It is an overview which is visible since it is concise and brief and has all key findings articulated by the researcher. The abstract captures all key elements of the research work. In brief, the research abstract gives the resea rchers objectives which include evaluation of the effectiveness of combined self-management and relaxation breathing training for children with moderate-to-severe asthma compared to self-management-only training (Li-Chi Chiang et al. 2009), the research background, the methodology, the design, the sample and the results. A good abstract has to contain all the above as it summarizes the researchers assertions in a nutshell and makes it easier for many to understand the research work without flipping each page as Alasuutari, P. et al. (2008) puts it. An important part included here is the background part. This is key in any research work as it gives the information gap which forms a justification for the research. The authors start by first explaining Self-management programs, there use, when they have been used and their successes. Further, it gives perceptions towards their use and gives an indication that if used on children, then successes can be realized. At the end of the abstra ct, the researchers gives a summary of the findings from the analyzed data concluding that a combination of self-management and relaxation-breathing training can reduce anxiety, thus improving asthmatic children’s health. These results can serve as an evidence base for psychological nursing practice with asthmatic children (Li-Chi Chiang et al. 2009). In addition, the authors further gives the addition knowledge contributed to by the paper and the gap it attempts to fill, its relevance and its application and integration into the existing knowledge base. In the research study report, the independent variable were combined self-management and relaxation-breathing training for children and self-management-only training while the dependent variable was severity of asthma and are specified in the report abstract. In the study report, the researchers report that data on anxiety levels, self-perceived health status, asthma signs/symptoms, peak expiratory flow rate, and medication u se was collected. Here the independent variables are anxiety levels, self-perceived health status, peak expiratory flow rate, and medication use while the dependent variable is asthma signs/symptoms. Other important considerations made on the data included interaction effects among the two groups and research timelines. The impact of interactions at times is enormous such that its omission leads to un-biased results. It is always important to tell in

Human biology and nutrition Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Human biology and nutrition - Essay Example The model deals with the alleviation of the health condition of the individual. The social model of health entails how determinants other than the absence or presence of a disease affect the health of individuals. Some of these determinants include the culture, beliefs of the individuals as well as the level of income, housing and education. Moreover, the political, socio-economic and the environmental conditions that the person is exposed to can have an impact on health. The social interactions of the people also influence their health (CDHN). The model deals with the alleviation of the health condition of the individual. The model helps to bring down the rate of deaths and early death. The physician will study the various pathological aspects of diabetes and the organs that it is involving. This includes the heart, kidneys, brain, liver and blood vessels as well as the extremities of the body. The model would help the person from his or health condition by considering the social determinants of health. The doctor will make an analysis of the genetic linkage of the disease as well as the intake of sugar in the diet of the person. If the person is overweight the doctor will make an analysis of the income of the patient and the dietary habits. Disadvantage: The doctor can do little or nothing about the health condition of the patient if irreversible damage has been done. However the patient can be advised on the management of the health condition. The physician makes an assessment of what is wrong with the body and accordingly fixes that part of the individual. In the case of heart disease, it is the heart that is the most affected. Other organs maybe affected as a consequence the inability of the heart to pump correctly. For instance, inability of the heart to achieve a normal stroke output can result in pooling of blood in the ventricles, and subsequently the atria. If blood pools up in the left atrium, it

What is a Clausewitzian definition of war Essay

What is a Clausewitzian definition of war - Essay Example To some, it is an act of glory while for others the same activity appears as a gory to them. Carl Philipp von Clausewitz was a soldier from Prussia. He is acknowledged as a great military historian and military theorist. He is mostly famous for his military treatise known by the name of Vom Kriege translated into English as ‘On War’. His theories documented in this book make him the author of one of the most celebrated contemporary theories upon war. Although Clausewitz participated in many wars, yet he always retained his interest in examining military theories and war tactics. Clausewitzian definition of war encapsulated in his famous ‘On War’ is a systematic, careful and philosophical examination of war in all its perspectives of both the way he saw it and he was being taught. On War is considered as the west’s premier document throwing light on the philosophy of the war. His contentions regarding war and the art of ware fare was so detailed and carefully sorted out that he could only finish a part of the treaty at the time of his death. Clausewitz revised the document in the year 1827 and just before his death he added some more thoughts into the portion dealing with counter - insurgency and different forms of war apart from the War Between the States. Clausewitz and Tolstoy both were much influenced by the events of the Napoleonic era. Clausewitz rendered a long intricate definition of war based on his first hand observation and experience that he gathered during the French revolution and Napoleonic era .The definition of war given by Clausewitz does not only throws light on the considerable historical research into the war,. It also reshaped the Clausewitz’s strong interest in art, science and education. Clausewitz defined war as â€Å"nothing but a duel in an extensive scale. If we would conceive as a unit the countless number of duels which make up a war, we shall do so best by supposing to ourselves two wrestlers. Each strives by

European History World War I Essay Example for Free

European History World War I Essay The focal point of this essay is to evaluate and analyze the position of female nurses in World War I. The paper overall could be enumerated about the impact of World War I on the home front to the countries involving especially women. For the purpose references would be taken from predominantly four books. The first one is It’s a long way to Tipperary: British and Irish Nurses in the Great War by Yvonne McEwen and the second one used in this paper is Nurses at the Front: Writing the Wounds of the Great War by Margaret R. Â  Higonnet. The third and fourth book used for this paper would be The woman of Royaumount: A Scottish women’s hospital on the western front by Eileen Crofton and War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa by Joshua S. Goldstein. Apart from all these an article by Margaret H. Darrow would also be used that was published in the American Historical Review Vol. 101, No 1 in February 1996 titled French Volunteer Nursing and the Myth of War Experience in WWI. All these texts would be valuable resources for determining the true position of women during the First World War. Yvonne McEwen book deals with the characters that are often overlooked while dealing with the greater perspective of a vast incident like the First World War. These are the people who practically work behind the scene but make tremendous contribution to the cause but more often than not are not mentioned by academicians. Such characters are the female nurses of the First World War. The author presents a testimony to all those nurses of the First World War who proved to be people with astonishing courage and ability to bear hardship. It is not only the soldiers of the First World War who showed all these qualities but the author mentions that it is the female nurses who went unsung after proving themselves to be no less dedicated to their country and service than the soldiers. The sacrifices of these people are hardly written down and thus the author is instrumental in presenting to us the untold stories of the female nurses and their position in the First World War. At the same time the author mentions the other side of this profession and service where the female nurses is mobilized in a large number to compete among rival nursing service agencies. The net result often proved to be uncalled for. This is because though there was a huge demand of female nurses in the First World War it was desirable that the female nurses participating and volunteering to serve are trained adequately. It is almost a certainty that due to this mobilization in mass numbers the quality of the female nurses was diminishing. In the same context it should also be said that this lack of practicable knowledge was often covered up by the will to serve and work extremely hard. However, the author indicates several accounts that show the humane aspects of the First World War female nurses and their position in the social order as they were viewed by the soldiers as saviors though in most cases they were only comforters at the most. But in a time of mass destruction and agony this was more than sufficient for a dying young soldier. The author narrates this aspect of the female nurses with great affection and indulgence. (McEwen, 2006) The second text by Higonnet reveals more of personal account of the two most famous nurses from the United States, Mary Borden and Ellen N. La Motte. Their personal views of the First World War, as brought for forward by the author between the same covers, shows the inner world of the female nurses during the period of the war. These are women who saw the war extremely closely and thus narrates the extremely difficult practice of military medicine under ruthless conditions. Their accounts are often haunting and both reflects the dilemma of treatment where the patient for whom the nurses work so hard would ultimately return to the war zone either to be killed or to kill. At this point the text becomes very touching and humane but at the same time shows us the true position of the female nurses during the First World War. It appears that the female nurses were, in a sense, just comforting medium or toll provided by the government to heal their killing machines. It is true that this cost of war is often difficult to digest with its harsh realities of death and decay of the human mind where most of the humane principals are drained off under unbearable circumstances. But the nurses depict their accounts not only from the point of view of observers but from a point where it appears that they are actually cursing their need of healing the blood river. There is a certain point of motherhood or motherly feeling involved in their accounts. Their text not only becomes extremely important for determining the true position of the nurses during the First World War period but also presents us with humane narratives that are inspirational, thoughtful and moving. (Higonnet, 2001) Eileen Croftons The Women of Royaumont, A Scottish Women’s Hospital on the Western Front is a story of a hospital in Royaumont which was within few miles from the western front during the First World War. This story also tells the account of Miss Frances Ivens who works as a surgeon in this hospital. Miss Ivens was also responsible for the set up of this fully equipped hospital to serve the wounded soldiers from the front. This is a wonderful story about the personnel of this hospital where death and pain became a regular feature during the First World War period these were the people who never loosed any hope and lead life with hardship and service from 1915 to the end of the war in 1919. Here we find the daily life of the female nurses with their fear and hope and determination. It is a interesting notion to read the parts where they are seen celebrating Christmas or other such festive moods along with their heavy schedule where doctors were allowed on about three hours of sleep due to rush of patients. Here we find the whereabouts of the female nurses with details accounts such a number of patients during a specific period of time in the middle of the war and the total number of treatments along with details of maladies along with their race and religions. The writer makes us aware that these are personnel who worked amidst shells and gun fires and still maintained their high level of professional skills. Here we also find the aspects of humor, like the festivals or games, helped their moral to continue the harsh days of the First World War period. We also come across the diplomatic situation where the management handled the matter with well formulated strategies to survive. Thus this text reveals a huge amount of details that is needed to determine the position of nurses in the First World War period. We can easily understand the high position these women occupied in the minds of the patients but sadly the same was hardly true when it came to bureaucracy and government. If judged from Eileen Crofton’s point of view it was the outsiders who never shared the life of the nurses and failed to pay their due respect. But at the same time it is true that while evaluating the position of the female nurses during the period of the first World War it becomes certain that the elite of the society hardly paid any respects to these brave service providers even though some of the noted female nurse came from this class. However, the main concerns to the nurses were the well being of the soldiers and there they were highly respected and honored. Goldstein’s text presents a different angle to the entire discussion and along with it places a very interesting point of view too. Goldstein aims at the perspective that states that the impact of gender difference and the significance of gender differences are most visible during the period of war. Yet controversial arguments, and the dispersion of erudition across scholastic regulations, have covered understanding of the nature of war and its implementation on the aspects of gender. According to the writer the affect war cause on gender and the gender difference affect the nature of war is mutual and simultaneous. To venture this mode of circumstances the author explores the aspect of war in general throughout the history of human conflict and notes in a lively yet very authoritative manner that almost always women were excluded from direct combat situation. The write even indicates that this has been the general norm and it is applicable for all race and culture. However the author did mention and evaluated the incidents where the women fought in direct battlefield with much success. In the same context the author also mentions the nature of male complexity in the parameters of social behaviors cause mainly due to secretion of testosterone. This part is a very interesting topic as it looks upon the basic aspects of the concepts relating to the construction of femininity and masculinity under the parameters of war and particularly the First World War. To explain the issue the author illustrates the book into seven broad chapters that deals various aspects of war and the subsequent affects on women in general. The first chapter is A Puzzle: The Cross-Cultural Consistency of Gender Roles in War where the homogenous nature of women’s position is discussed in the light of war. The second chapter is named Women Warriors: The Historical Record of Female Combatants where the role of active participation is noted. The third chapter is Bodies: The Biology of Individual Gender where the author looks into the details of the differences between the sexes. The fourth chapter seeks the social position of women and it named Groups: Bonding, Hierarchy, and Social Identity. The fifth chapter deals with the representation of war as a means of construction of male identity and thus it is named Heroes: The Making of Militarized Masculinity. The sixth chapter is named Conquests: Sex, Rape, and Exploitation in Wartime and it looks into the brutal aspects of male dominance during war and thus reveals the detrimental affects that war causes in the ramification of the women. The last chapter concludes the entire scenario and tries to venture into the connection of women and war and thus it is named Reflections: The Mutuality of Gender and War. It should be mentioned that according to Goldstein the First World War included greater participation of women than before predominantly as nurses. However she points out that it is not natural for a human being to kill but during the First World War it was found that women along with men were forced to commit this act and according to the author this was a direct affect of the War. To prove the points the author presents a number of illustrations that includes drawings, graphics, photographs and related materials from numerous scholarly texts that include diverse academic disciplines. This book by Goldstein is a unique approach in the context of content and approach and it could well be stated that it is a fascinating book to read apart from being a book on a distinct issue that reflect much about the position of women during the WWI. (Goldstein, 2001) The article by Margaret H. Darrow titled French Volunteer Nursing and the Myth of War Experience in WWI is a true text to conclude this entire paper. This is because this article emphasizes on the aspects of the First World War and the involvement of women, particularly female nurses in it. Though it predominantly describes the details of women of France it is nevertheless reveals the position of women during the First World War and particularly about the nurses unlike Goldstein who presents the total perspective and the relation between woman and war. Darrow mentions that women were very much involved in the First World War than previous battles but it was mostly indirect in nature. She mentions that the women joined the jobs that were left behind by their men and even took active participation ministry of military affairs but maximum and direct involvement of the women in the First World War was as nurse. The author clearly mentions this and emphasize that the position of the women at this war was almost equivalent and important as that of the male doctors and it could be further stated that a huge amount of inspirations were drawn from the dedication to the service by the female nurse during the First World War. This is the most important point to be mentioned and this is what makes the involving of the female nurses relevant in the context of the First World War. (Darrow, 1996) In conclusion it should be stated that the being a part of a noble profession it was the opportunity for the female nurses of the First World War to gain importance to their community and help substantially to the ultimate cause of the purpose. It is true that they were often treated badly or were not given their dues for their hard works but if we take into consideration the basic position of women in the society or the importance that they enjoyed before the First World War it could be a well placed statement that the First World War provided a respected position for the female nurses in the cantonment and in the society as well.

The Introduction To The Reflective Practice Education Essay

The Introduction To The Reflective Practice Education Essay Introduction Johns and Freshwaters (1998) define reflection as accessing and looking back into previous experiences helping to develop tacit and intuitive knowledge. Reflection as having to develop tacit and intuitive knowledge as defined by Johns and Freshwaters (1998) means having a common understanding about something with being sensitive to links with previous knowledge and experiences. Ghaye and Lillyman (2000) also defined reflection as a transformative process that changes or alters individuals and their motives. Reflection is also a way to reach awareness of how and why things have happened as stated by Johns (2002). Bout et al (1985) however gave a more in depth definition of what reflection is, they suggested that reflection in the context of learning is a generic term for those intellectual activities in which individual engage in on a daily basis to explore their experiences that will lead them to newer understandings and appreciations of what they have done. Moon (1999) concluded tha t reflection appears to be the engine that shifts learning into deep learning and that reflection transforms knowing in action into knowledge in action as stated by Moon (1999) and Schon (1983). Baird and Henderson (2001) then argued that this occurs because reflection allows an individual to gain the proper perspective on the field of action and to attain the understanding of the change in practice required. Reflection is also the process of reviewing an experience in order to describe, analyse, evaluate and so inform learning about practice as defined by Reid (1993). Reflection in the context of learning helps us to learn and grow and develop within ourselves. He also believes that reflection is an active process that requires self-control and self-discipline for it to be focused on one direction that could lead to personal development in practice. Learning can be defined as multi-dimensional in terms of where and how it takes place and yet, learning is also a very individual process and what is carried forward by an individual is what can only be truly be gauged by the learner. West et al. (2007) defines lifewide learning as a form of learning that is not only limited to the classroom, but also extends into many other areas of life. This means that we dont just learn in classrooms but we also learn by the experiences we go through in our lives. This is where reflection comes into relation as a way of learning as Moon (1999) concluded that reflection appears to be the engine that shifts learning into deep learning. Lifelong learning also refers to a process of learning that continues across our lives (Jarvis, 2004). This means that, we never stop learning as we grow older and that we learn different things as each day comes. In relation to nursing, lifelong learning is a professional reality for nurses and other health care pro fessionals because the healthcare and the technologies that support it are constantly evolving. Because of this, learning in the healthcare industry often takes place in the form of practice development and professional development (Mason and Whitehead-Mason, 2008). Many models have been introduced to aid people to reflect effectively with positive results. Taylor (2000) suggested that reflection requires effort that utilises the qualities of determination, courage, and a sense of humour in order to be able to deal with what an individual might find out. This means that an individual reflecting into something must possess these qualities in order to establish an effective outcome. For that, there have been many reflective models that have been introduced to suit the reflector. Using a model helps an individual to identify key stages of his or her reflective learning and the structure can help the individual to keep going when he or she is dealing with complex situations. It is then important to choose what model suits the individuals needs and that he or she might find it easy to use. Reflective cycles offer the possibility to connect what has been learned from one experience with another. One of the most widely used reflective cycles is Gibbs (1998) reflective cycle. The cycle outlines specific steps to guide the learning individual through different processes. The first step of the cycle is to ask the learner to describe an event that has happened which then leads on the second stage where the individual thinks about how he or she felt during the event relating to what has been described in the first stage, by acknowledging the emotions involved during the event, the learner will be able to consider processes such as how to deal and cope with emotions in difficult situations that may be aroused by caring work and learning. Thirdly, the learner then evaluates the event or activity whether it was good or bad and what steps needs to be considered following the event. Evaluation also allows the learner to begin thinking about what are the main issues that needs to b e resolved. This stage can then lead the learner to analyse in greater detail by considering what knowledge is available or might need to be developed, and what other choices might have been available in the given event or situation and the possible consequences if one of those choices had been chosen instead. The analysis of the event will help the learner to critically think about what has really happened and what steps should be made in order for him or her to solve the given situation and to reflect upon on. Given the analysis of the situation or event, this stage will help the learner to make sense of what has happened which will lead to the stage of coming up with a conclusion from what they have thought about during the whole process. The conclusion will ask the learner what other steps could have been done to improve the given event or situation which will then lead to an action plan. Another model that can be used in reflection is Driscolls (2007, p44.) reflective cycle. Driscoll developed Bortons (1970) 3 stem questions; what?, so what?, and what now?. He matched the three questions to the stages of an experimental learning cycle and this cycle views reflection as a process of interrogating. These three questions encompass the need to be clear in the interpretation, interrogation and presentation of learning through reflection. By using this model of reflection, the learner will then ask him or herself three simple questions. The first question or the what stage will always refer to being able to describe the given situation in words. Some trigger questions maybe what happened? or what was my reaction to the event or situation?. The next stage is the so what stage where the learner begins to analyse the important aspects of the given situation and experience from which new findings can be made. And the final question is the what now? stage where the individual p roposes new actions based on the findings that was found in the second stage which may be reworked in multiple different situations. This model of reflection is simple but effective because it is easy to remember three simple questions and can easily be asked as a part of most conversation between individuals within practice (Jasper 2003). Johns (2004) developed a model for structured reflection. This identifies how an individual might want to examine his or her experience more extensively and in greater depth in order to really learn from it. The models starting point is the creation of a space for reflection which means stilling the mind so it can focus. The model then encompasses a number of reflective cues or questions in which the practitioner or individual is asked to think about in the course of reflecting on a given situation. The cues are: aesthetics, personal, ethical, empirical and reflexive aspects. Aesthetics relates to how the individual feels about, responds to and perceives the situation and those involved. Personal aspects explore what from the person was influencing them. Ethics refers how actions are related to ethical guidelines and beliefs. Empirics are concerned with what knowledge is used and lastly, reflexivity relates to how experiences are connected and the possibility of given alternatives to doing things differently. Reflective Practice Schon (1991) identified reflective practice as an important aspect of the learning life of professionals. Rolfe (1998) also defined reflective practice as a process that develops understandings of what it means to be a practitioner and makes the link between theory and practice through the practitioner consciously thinking through the individuals experience as stated by Jasper (2003). This concept is particularly important for practitioners to aid the development of a clearer understanding of their position and support the learning and developing of new skills, with this context, reflection occurs within the experience or by looking further back at the previous experience. This is where the idea of reflective practice comes in hand. Schon (1991) identified these concepts and ideas as reflection in action and reflection on action. Reflection in action is defined as knowing what to do and making a difference within a given situation whereas reflection on action is referred to as examin ing some of those in moment decisions for the possibility of differing choices. Reflective practice requires careful consideration of knowledge and ideas and also, reflective practice considers practice as a holistic entity that cannot be always be rationalised as holism means looking at the wider picture and going in greater detail with it. This therefore concludes that reflective practice is based on an individuals own experiences and intuitive learning. Knowledge derived from practice does not always add up to professional knowledge unless it has been reflected on for its significance (Eraut, 1994).

Video summarization techniques

Video summarization techniques 1. INTRODUCTION Recently, the number of videos has been increased and the ability of individuals to capture or/and create digital video has been grown at the same time. So there is a growing need for video summarization. Video summarization refers to a summary creation of a video where is has to address three main beliefs. First, the video summary should contain the most important scenes and events from the video but it should be as short as possible. For example, in soccer game, the summary must contain goals, fouls, scuffles, and some other important scenes. Second, the video summary should show a good continuous connection among scenes. It means that the video summary should not show video segments concatenated together in a blindly way. Finally, the video summary should not contain any redundancy. In other words, the video summary should have a free repetition. However, it is kind of difficult to achieve that. For instant, it is very common that goals in soccer game be replayed many times during the match which makes it really difficult to distinct between the goal and the reply of that goal. As a result, the redundancy will be there for each time the goal been replayed. Video summarization is considered one of the most important features which it makes the search away easier and useful than before. Also, video summarization is a very important tool where people can use it to get the main idea and the important scenes without watching the full original video. For example, in any companies which use surveillance video to secure their building, they wish that they can see only the important events that happened there. So, in order to achieve that video summarization is the only solution. Also, some of the large movie databases such as Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and movie sellers want to have software that can summarize the movies automatically. As a result, companies can save time and afford by using video summarization. There are many techniques that have been used recently for video summarization. In this paper, I will address some of most interesting techniques and methods. These techniques are used to summarize video based on camera motion, meeting recording, sports video, surveillance, and presentation. 2. VIDEO SUMMARIZATION BY USING CAMERA MOTION Video summarization based on many methods and one of these methods is based on camera motion. In [1], there are two methods have been addressed for video summarization. The first method is to give an explanation for making summary for a given video and the second method is to evaluate that video summary by comparing it with other video summary. In other words, they are trying to create a good video summary by evaluating the result based on camera motion. Also in [1], there are three different families have been proposed a video summarization based on camera motion. In [1], the first family divides the video instead of selecting the keyframes by using camera motion. In [2], the moving objects have been detected by using the camera motion. Therefore, the video summary will be built according to this detection. For example, the illustration of detecting the moving objects is shown in 1. The images on the left are two shots where the object has been marked and on the right side there is a made up background image. There are two modules for object recognition. The first one is segmentation module and the second one is classification module. The process of object recognition is shown in 2. In [3], authors used camera motion to divide the shots into segments and the selecting of keyframes has been done under 4 different measures. This system called video snapshot. The system Architecture of this technique is shown in 3. There are six steps to create a video snapshot as follow: 1) Clustering the connection between sub-shots which are decomposed of the video. 2) Detecting the current scenes according to the relationship of the clustering that has been done in the first step. 3) Sorting out the sun-shots which are not important to make the number of them is equal or less than the given grid cell number. 4) The grids cells are allocated to dissimilar scenes based on the key events number in each topical scene that has been detected in the second step. 5) In a respectively way, the keyframes sub-shots in each scene are lined up from top to bottom and from left to right in the area that has been assigned to scenes. 6) Besides the black background and the rectangle border box, to guide browsing and enhance visual orderliness, the vertical and the horizontal splitting lines are added to the boundaries of scenes [3]. In [4], based on camera motion, shots has been segmented and after that MPEG motion vectors which has the objects and camera motion has been used to identify the motion of each frame and select the keyframes. However, this technique is used more to segment the video than to summarize the video. Authors proposed a method called InsightVideo which is a system where it analysis and retrieves the video. The system flow for InsightVidoe is shown in 4. InsightVideo system has three divisions. The first one is video feature extracting. The second division is hierarchal video content table. The last division is progressive video content access. In [1], the second family is focusing on the existing of motion or not. In [5], the shots have been selected first, then find out whether there is a camera motion or not. On one hand, if there is a camera motion, then the shots are represented by three keyframes. On the other hand, if there is no camera motion, then the shots are represented by one keyframe. In [6], the video summary method used both camera motion and object motion. So in order to get the video dynamic features, authors designed a method to select the segments that contain large motions. The segments with a camera motion provide keyframes which are added to the summary; nevertheless these approaches are based on simple consideration which exploit little information contributed by camera motion [7]. In [1], the last family tries to find the similarity between frames and then choosing keyframes according to that similarity. In [8], by calculating the distance between two frames, the similarity has been computed. Therefore, if the distance between two frames is small, it means that they are close to each other in term of content and a few keyframes are selected. The calculating of the similarity between two frames is shown in 5. In [9], it has the same idea of [8] where Fauvet et al determine from the estimation of the dominant motion, the areas between two successive frames which are lost or appear. Then, a cumulative function of surfaces which appear between the first frame of the shot and the current frame is used to determine the keyframes. In [1], a new method has been addressed for video summarization which is based on camera motion and /or on static camera. Camera motion as authors believe is really important because it carries a lot of interesting information. For instance, to catch the viewers awareness, a zoom in is one of the ways that makes it achievable. Also, a change of location can be shown when there is a translation. As a result, the features of the camera motion have been used to select the keyframes. Indeed, the method has an advantage where it avoids a straight contrast among frames and the classification of camera motion is the only one that is based on. There are two principles that the video summary works based on camera motion. The first principle is the recognition of camera motion. In [1], camera motion detection is based on the recognition of translation, zoom and static camera. The structural design of the system, which is illustrated in 6, has three phases. The first phase is the extraction of motion parameter which by the model of an affine parametric, it focuses in the estimating of the main motion between two frames in a row. The second phase is consisting of three different stages which called the classification of camera motion. In [1], the first stage of the second phase is to change the model of the motion parameters into values which are symbolic. The second stage is to separate the static frames from the dynamic frames. The last stage is to integrate the dynamic frames temporally. Finally, the third phase is to find out the features by extracting on each segment of the video. In [1], the second principle of summarizing method that is based on camera motion is selecting the keyframes according to camera motions. Moreover, there are three ways to select the keyframes. The first way is to select the keyframes according to the sequence of camera motions as shown in 7. For example,if there are two segments and none of them is static, the first frame of each segment will be selected. However, if there is a static segment, then the first and the end of the motion segment will be selected. The second way to select keyframes is according to camera motion magnitude as illustrated in 8. For example, if there is one segment and that segment is translation and it has low magnitude, then the last frame of the segment will be selected. in other case if the segment has high magnitude and rectilinear translation, then the first and the last frame will be selected. Also, if a high magnitude and no rectilinear translation have been found in the segment, then the first, middle, and last frame will be selected. Moreover, if there is a zoom segment and it has a low magnitude, then the last frame of that segment will be selected. But if the zoom segment has high magnitude, then the first and the last frame will be selected. Finally, the last way is to select the keyframes according to both succession and magnitude of camera motion as shown in 9. In other words, it is simply combining the first and the second ways to one way. 3. VIDEO SUMMARIZATION TECHNEQUE USED FOR MEETING RECORDINGS. In [12], taking a video for a meeting is really important instead of just writing it down in a document. There are many leaks for the information that has been transformed into a written document. It takes a long time to write it down in a document and it loses the accuracy of the information. Also, since it is only a written document, it loses the presence reaction during the meeting. Moreover, it may not cover everything that occurs there, so there might be leaks in the completeness of the meeting for any reason. Therefore, video summarization is really useful for meeting recording and there are many proposed method to achieve that. In [10], a multimodal meeting summarization method has been explained and this method includes audio, visual, and speech transcriptions. Also, in this method authors proposed a measure where it can localize the sound and the scale of the audio signal. The illustration of this method according to the localization of the sound, the output of audio activit ies and the transcriptions of speech is shown in 10. Moreover, this method can detect the relations between the presence and the contributor according to the loud speech. In [10], visual activities also have been analyzed in order to get a specific event in a video sequence. There is not that much motion in the video sequence for any meeting. For example, when a contributor tries to make a presentation or when people tries to join the meeting. In 11, shows some high motions that occur in a video of a meeting. In [10], the text has been analyzed based on the language analysis techniques in this method. This method computed the Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF). In [16], the Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) is a well known term which specify in a document, the words that relatively important. In [11], the method that has been used in this paper is really useful only for video browsing and searching by keyframes based representation. In [12], author has proposed a summarization technique for any meeting content by skimming the video with the aspect of user-determine length. In 12, the method of any meeting processing is illustrated. The files of audio have been sent to the detection of speech and the brows meeting by the program recorder that includes the identify speaker module. Then, the displayed result has sent by three modules with their data from the brows of meeting front end and the three modules are summarization, emotion and discourse. Finally, the archive of the meeting has accessed. In [13], the method that has been used in this paper is an automatic method that can create video skimming for different types of video such as presentation video which is kind of similar to meeting recording video. The illustrated of this method process is shown in 13. There are two steps that create a summarization process. The first step is dividing the video into segments, then some features such as visual, audio, and textual are putting together from the extraction of stream video to assign the scores by using segments. The second step is to collect the segments and then the summary will be created. In [14], instead of playing the content faster, authors created techniques that can save the time by deleting parts of the content. As a result, the summary of this technique can be away shorter than others techniques. In [15], in this paper, authors found out that the analysis of the audio that came together with the analysis of visual is a way better than the skims that comes when they combined the analysis of the audio and uniform sampling. This result came out after authors compared the skimming of a video in three different techniques. The first one is the analysis of the audio according to the amplitude of audio and the analysis of the term frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF). The second technique is the analysis of the audio which comes together with the analysis of the image according to face detection, text detection, and camera motion. The last technique is video sequences based on uniform sampling. In 14, the illustration of video skim process is shown. 4. VIDEO SUMMARIZATION TECHNIQUES USED FOR SPORTS VIDEO. In [17], sports videos have been increasing recently and by video summarization process, people can control this increasing. There are many researchers have been proposed many techniques to compress sports video by applying video summarization process. In [17], authors have proposed a technique that can suit all different kind of users and applications and they called this technique complete sports videos summarization. In 15, the illustration of the hierarchy of sports video based on plays, breaks, and highlights. The framework of this technique is a combination of plays, breaks, collection of highlights and highlights as it is shown in 15. The definition of each part of the framework is as follow: 1) Play is a collection of shots where the play does not stop. 2) Break is also a collection of shots but play does not run. 3) Collection of highlights is a group of highlights. 4) Highlight is a collection of shots but they represent events. In [17], play-break sequence model is shown in 16 which is considered as a fix model for any sports. In [17], authors described the summarization technique of sports video with a method that can integrate highlights into play-breaks. So, in order to achieve that, we need to know which highlight integrates to whether play or break. For example, in soccer game, if there is a foul then the play will stop and then there will be an old highlight playing during the foul and before the play resumes. In 17, the illustration of the integration in soccer game of highlight into play-break is shown. However, this model is easy to be modified for any other sport so it is not only suitable for soccer. In [17], there are three different detection models. The first one is play-break detection and in this detection the camera views classification can be used to detect the play-break transitions. The second model is highlights detection and in this model the detection of highlights is based on the slow-motion replay scenes. The advantage of this way is that slow-motion replay is used to represent any interesting scene. However, the disadvantage of this way is that sometimes there will be no slow-motion replay for some reason after interesting scenes. As a result, we will miss that event and some interesting events will be ignored. Finally, the last model is text detection. During any sport, there will be after any interesting events a text displayed on the screen so this model is specialize to detect this text. For most sports videos, the text that displayed will be in a horizontal way. So authors used this idea to detect the text displayed. However, if the text is not displayed in a horizontal way, then their technique will not work. In [18], a content-based video summarization technique for large archives in video sports has been proposed by the authors. Also, authors used metadata which is the content, quality, condition, and semantic information that have been explained by the data. In 18, the metadata composition has been illustrated. There are five different parts of information for each scene unit type, classification, players, events, and the time of media. In [18], authors have proposed a technique that makes a summary by using metadata which is based on play scenes ranking. This method has two main parts. The first part is the selection of play scene which is consists of two sections, play scenes significance and the highlights selection. Play scenes significance based on three components, the ranks play, the occurrence time of play, and the replays number. The second section is highlights selection where authors explained the creation of a video summary according to the play scenes significance. The se cond part of that method is visualization. There are two types of visualization. First, video clip where the user can select the length of the video summary based on the time that user want. Two methods are proposed by the authors to choose the significance play scenes, greedy method and play-cut method. The second part of visualization is the poster of the video where authors proposed a system that is visually spatial and presents keyframes of the image. Each image keyframes can symbolize a scene in the summary. Authors illustrate their system interface in 19. In 19.a, in each row there are important scenes represented by keyframes. In 19.b, in each row symbolize an inning of the game. In 19.c, at-bats are symbolized in each row. In 19.d, plays are represented in each row. In [19], extracting highlights method has been proposed by the author for a sport TV broadcast. The approach of domain specific and generic for this method has been illustrated in 20. Author models the excitement according to his approach in [20] where he model the effect of three low level characteristics on the excitement for the users. The first characteristic is the overall motion activity measured at frame transition [20]. The second characteristic is the density of cuts [20]. And the last characteristic is the energy contained in the audio track of a video [20]. The time curves of the three characteristics on the excitement are shown in 21. In [21], authors have proposed sports video technique where they can combine highlights and play break scenes. Researchers have identified that each type of sports have a typical and predictable temporal structure, recurrent events, consistent features and fixed number of views [22]. In [21], authors said that to create highlights there is one approach is to optimize the visual characteristics based on their use. For example, in [23], authors generated the highlights for a soccer game according to penalty, midfield, in between midfield, corner kick, and shot at goal. On the other hand, in [24], authors generated the highlights of a basketball game according to left- right- fast-break, dunk, and close up shots. In [21], on one hand it is very efficient to summarize the sports video without the breaks scenes because spectators will focus only in the important events. On the other hand, the break scenes sometimes contain some really important events that it will not be displayed in the highlights that do not include break scenes. For instance, during any free kick, teams are trying to put a plan to manage their teams whether they are offensive or defensive. Also, sometimes the most important scenes occur between play scenes and break scenes. In 22, the framework of sports video summarization is illustrated. There are three types of detection that authors proposed, whistle detection, excitement detection, and text displayed detection. In [21], tracking the voice during any sport game is kind of difficult especially when there are noises form human and background. Nevertheless, authors have found that whistle sound is very different than any other sounds and it is very unique. In 23, the whistle spectrogram is shown where authors found out the difference in sound according to HZ. According to the whistle sound, authors have indicated three different situations that the referee will use his whistle during soccer match as follow: 1. The start of the match, the end of the match, and the playing period. 2. When referee stops the playing. 3. When referee resumes the playing. In [25], authors found out that the whistle sound that comes from the referee during the game has a very high frequency and strong spectrum that people can distinct from any other sounds. Also, they found out the range of the whistle sound where it is between the ranges of 3500-4500. In [21], the second type of detection is excitement detection where authors indicated eight candidates that represent the excitement in any games as follow: 1. The loudness of the crowd and the commentator. 2. When the commentator has a high pitch rate. 3. When the commentator has less pauses which means he becomes more talkative. The framework of the excitement detection is illustrated in 24. We can see that in The last type of detection is text display detection where authors proposed a technique in order to achieve the requirement. In [26], authors used the gradient of color image to calculate the complex-values from edge orientation image which is defined to map all edge orientation between 0 and 90 degree and thus distinguishing horizontal, diagonal and vertical lines. Also in [27], authors localized character regions by extracting strong still edges and pixels with a stable intensity for two seconds. However, in [21], authors proposed that according to the method which works with 99% of different cases, the horizontal text is the only one that has been used among all different type of sport. In 25, the illustration of using a horizontal text is shown. The team players names is displayed in 25.a and the score line for the match is displayed in 25.b. Also, In 25.c, the players substitution name is shown. T he static text is displayed of the whole game is shown in 25.c. In [21], authors proposed prediction method for the text to be displayed in the video and it is illustrated in 26. However, it is not the only possibility for the text to be displayed, there are more events that cannot be detected. In [28], authors have presented a framework for a sport video summarization based on text semantic annotation. A lot of video summarization techniques that are based on sports video have been questioned [29, 30]. In other words, these kinds of techniques are depending on low level characteristics. But semantic level events were generally inferred if special sequences of production level events occur [31]. In [28], authors have indicated three distinguish key characteristics to support their framework as follow: 1. The framework is not fixed for one type of sport and it can be modified to suit other sport. 2. Analysing the text does not ensure text webcasts which is well built. 3. According to the time and the score, events can have different importance. In [32], authors have proposed a technique for sports video summarization based on audio pitch, and energy in order to recognize the excitement of the games. However, in [28], authors presented a framework that can detect events according to play-by-play text webcasts and logic-based technique. There are five models that are connected to the center of this framework system architecture as shown in 27. The first model of this framework is the Graphical User Interface which makes it easy for the user to connect with the centre. The second model is web parser which is in control for analysing HTML and creates plain text, and then it sends it to the third model. The third model is text analyzer which is responsible to detect the semantic events form the plain text as shown in 28. The fourth model is video processing which takes the data whether it is video or audio and retrieves their keyframes. The last model is logic engine which is responsible to choose the important events and put th em in list to be ready for summarize. In [33], author proposed a system in which can detect the event and the text from the HTML parser as shown in 29. 5. VIDEO SUMMARIZATION TECHNIQUES USED FOR SURVEILLANCE VIDOES. In [34], there are two reasons for people to use video surveillance. The first reason is that it serves to detect events online and alive. The second reason is that people can use it offline and can analysis the video and retrieve any data they want. So for people to go through the entire video is kind of boring and waste of the time. For example, if there is a crime happens then the operator needs to spend too much time viewing the entire video to get all the important scenes. As a result, authors proposed a summarization technique for surveillance videos. This technique is based on skimming the video and they call it adaptive video skimming. The scheme of this adaptive summarization is illustrated in 30. The general structure of this adaptive summarization scheme is illustrated in [34], optical flow estimation is a very important factor that contributes in the adaptive summarization technique. Among consecutive video frames, optical flow estimation in the same pattern calculates t he dislocations of pixels [35, 36]. In [37], authors have proposed a technique for video surveillance that is based on recognition and clustering method in order to create static and dynamic summary. This technique is different than the one proposed in [34] because this technique tries to gather between video skimming and the keyframes that arranged in a cluster in order to achieve faster browsing of the entire video. In [38], there are two different styles for video surveillance summarization technique that have been explained. The first style is doing a summarization services over home network. The second style is doing a summarization services over the internet. In [39], authors have proposed a technique for surveillance video summarization that is based on viewing optimization time, skip framing, and bit rate limitation. In [37], authors developed their algorithm according to a still surveillance video camera that is fixed in one point and never moves. Also, the detection of event has three steps where we can combine them to two main stages. The first stage is that for each frame, the frame different and its energy are measured. The second stage is that the reference frame is refreshed after showing the frames event is found. Also, the three steps for the algorithms are as follow: 1- Difference frame calculation. 2- The energy of the difference frame calculation. 3- Frames selecting based on threshold. in 32, the deference estimation for frame energy is illustrated. In [37], the overview process of event detection and summarization is illustrated in 33. The first row of this (I) is representing a set of frames of the video before the summarization. The second row (II) is representing the interesting events that come from (I) after the analysis. The third row (III) is representing a set of frames in a different set of events. The fourth row (IV) is representing the clusters of keyframes. The last row (V) is representing the final summary after the clustering. In [40], authors have proposed a technique called OVISS (Omnidirectional Video Visualization and Summarization) where it visualizes the contents of video surveillance and creating a summary. There are three features for this proposed system. The first one, video and audio can be analyzed together to detect events. The second feature, the index of temporal-spatio based on event. The third feature, by realizing the temporal and spatial relations with event, it makes the visualization for at-a-glance very easy. The last feature, video summarization is not limited to one area or one event. The OVISS system can be divided to many processing models as follow: 1. Sensing. 2. The analysis of the video. 3. The transformation of an image. 4. The models of visualization and summarization. In 34, we can see the real environment that authors deal with. There are four doors to enter and exit. Also, the OVS signal in the center of the room and there are four areas in this room and they have the same size. In 35, the connection between these four areas according to omnidirectional is illustrated. In [40], there are four types of events, such as, In, move, stay, and out and the explanation for them is as follow: 1- In is representing the time of the object when it show up till the time it closes the door. 2- Move is representing the time of the object when it is moving in the area. 3- Stay is representing the time of the object when it is staying at the same place. 4- Out is representing the time of the object when it is opens the door till the time it gone. In 36, we can see the diagram of the event transition. Also, we can see that authors have added new type of event but actually it is only the initial state before even the event started in the area. In [40], the interface of OVISS is illustrated in 37. We can see the time line and the map of spatial in the top. Also, the sequence of the image is displayed down the system interface. 6. VIDEO SUMMARIZATION TECHNIQUES USED FOR VIDEO-TAPED PRESENTATIONS. Videos have been increased recently whether at home such as personal video or work and such as meeting and presentation. As a result, researchers are trying to find some techniques that allowed them to summarize these kinds of videos. In section 4, meeting summarization techniques is already described but now we need to talk about summarizing the meeting videos. In [41], there are two types of analyzing the structure and the content of the video. Detection the keyframes and scene breaks are considering the major focus that attracted researchers [42, 43, 44]. In [41], authors proposed a method to summarize the video-taped presentation to constrict the video sequences and the place that they are planning to do their experiments. They want to focus the camera in one location. The camera maybe zooms in or out it depends in the situation. In 38, the sample of web-based interface for video browsing is illustrated [45]. The one that does not have any related semantic explanation is called Nuisance change as it illustrated in 39. For example, when the presenter tries to move one of the slides by using his/her hands or his/her body. However, in [41], authors do not want to include Nuisance changes to their technique or the analysis. The other type does have seman

Amish Gone Wild Essays -- essays research papers

Amish Gone Wild   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The main point of this video was to show how the lives of Amish teens are changed drastically when between the ages of 16 and 21 they are faced with a whole new lifestyle. This then leads them to face a very difficult decision. Durring the ages of 16 and 21, Amish teens are 'let lose' or able to live the life that English children live. They can move out, get their license, wear normal clothes and party on a regular basis. Then after this is over with they must make their decision, they can either continue to live the life of an English person and basically be free, or they can join the church and give their lives to God and the Amish ways. When these kids were allowed to be free they seemed to chose the wrong road, many following the path of drugs and alcohol. They weren't just messing around with common drugs either, they were actualy getting into more dangerous drugs like crystal meth, and in some cases even gettin involved with drug dealers and police. There w ere definitely elements of structural funtionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionalism present in this video. Structural functionalism was present in their everyday behavior. Their society is so stable in their own world because of how they work things out. They marry, grow beards and work for the rest of their lives for God. This all helps their own society function. They comitt their lives to the church and they are all content with that. They stick to the ...

Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide - Eliminate the Pain or Eliminate the P

Eliminate the Pain or Eliminate the Patient? Â   Â   Proponents of euthanasia argue that "mercy-killing" is necessary because patients, particularly those with terminal illness, experience uncontrollable pain(1). They argue that the only way to alleviate the pain is to eliminate the patient. But is there a better way? This essay proves that there is a better way, and this medical opinion is backed up by the best medical opinion available. Â   The better response to patients in pain is not to kill them, but to make sure that the medicine and technology currently available to control pain is used more widely and completely. According to a 1992 manual produced by the Washing ton Medical Association, Pain Management and Care of the Terminal Patient, "adequate interventions exist to control pain in 90 to 99% of patients."[2] The problem is that uninformed medical personnel using outdated or inadequate methods often fail in practice to bring patients relief from pain that today's advanced techniques make possible. Â   Doctor Kathleen Foley, Chief of Pain Services at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, explained in the July 1991 Journal of Pain and Symptom Management how proper pain management has mitigated patient wishes for assisted suicide: We frequently see patients referred to our Pain Clinic who request physician-assisted suicide because of uncontrolled pain. We commonly see such ideation and requests dissolve with adequate control of pain and other symptoms, using combinations of pharmacologic, neurosurgical, anesthetic, or psychological approaches.[3] Â   In treating "Total Pain" [4], it should be remembered that the social and mental pain suffered by terminally ill patients may exace... ...tional Cancer Institute, "Questions and Answers about Pain Control," (1992), pp. 43-51. 9. Matthew Conolly, M.D., letter to author, August 2, 1993. 10. Louis Saeger, "Patient Controlled Analgesia (PCA) in Caner Pain Management," Supra Note 1, pp. 149-53. 11. Ibid. 12. Chuck Michelini, "Patients Put in Control of Their Pain Medication," Medical Tribune (October 29, 1986): p. 46. 13. Gene Bylinsky, "New Gains in the Fight Against Pain," Fortune (March 22, 1993): p. 116. 14. Matthew Conolly, M.D., letter to author, August 2, 1993. 15. Jane M. Anderson, "Pain Management: Challenging the Myths," Medical World News (April 1992): p. 20. 16. David E. Weissman, June L. Dahl, and John W. Beasley, "The Caner Pain Role Model Program of the Wisconsin Cancer Pain Initiative", Journal of Pain and Symptom Management v. 8 (January 1993): p. 29.

Osteopathic Medicine Essay -- Medical Health Papers

Osteopathic Medicine I. Introduction of the D.O. Currently there are two main types of licensed physicians in the United States. The first is the medical doctor or the allopathic doctor. About 95% of licensed doctors have been educated at one of over 120 allopathic medical schools and have thus obtained a medical doctor degree (M.D.). The second type of doctor, the doctor of osteopathy, is less common. Osteopathic doctors make up about five percent of the physicians in the nation (Peters 730). Although this represents a significant amount of physicians many people are unfamiliar with the second type of doctor. In a 1981 the AOA (American Osteopathic Association) released the results of a survey about public familiarity with the osteopathic doctor. Only 20% of the 1,003 individuals surveyed, age eighteen and over, were familiar with the D.O. (doctor of osteopathy) abbreviation. Furthermore only 50% of those that were familiar with the title could correctly give the unabbreviated version (Gevitz 154-55). The results of this survey are to a certain extent outdated, but an overall atmosphere of unfamiliarity still looms about the doctor of osteopathy. The following discussion will attempt to clarify this modern enigma. A brief history of the much-maligned doctor of osteopathy will be provided along with a contemporary description of the doctor's focuses and responsibilities. Given the current situation of health care costs the legitimacy of the D.O. will be discussed as well as the capability to contest these rising costs intrinsically possessed by this form of doctor. Finally, the integration of D.O. and M.D. treatments will be discussed. Through subsequent arguments the reader will learn t... ...mberly and Matt Popowsky. "Open Season." Kiplinger's Personal Finance 56.12 (2002): 78-79. McGirt, Ellen. "Health Insurance: Less Costs More." Money 31.12 (2002): 146-48. Newswanger, Dana L. "Osteopathic Medicine in the Treatment of Low Back Pain." American Family Physician 62.11 (2000): 2414-15. "Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment May Benefit Patients." Women's Health Weekly 11 Oct. 2001: 13. Peters, Antoinette S., Nancy Clark-Chiarelli and Susan D. Block. "Comparison of Osteopathic and Allopathic Medical Schools' Support for Primary Care."Journal of General Internal Medicine 14.12 (1999): 730-39. Stieg, Bill and Lisa Jones. "What's the Diff?" Men's Health 17.5 (2002): 50. Tyler, Lawrence. Understanding Alternative Medicine: New Health Paths in America. New York: Haworth Press, 2000.