The Concept of e-Healthcare Information Security and Issues in Essay

The Concept of e-Healthcare Information Security and Issues in e-Healthcare Information Security - Essay Example The problem with electronic based healthcare information is that efforts need to be made to stop people who are not authorized to access the information from accessing it. It is essential to ensure that people are not only physically, but even virtually stopped from accessing this information if that are not authorized to do so. There are several issues linked with the security of electronic healthcare information such as the inconsistency between the laws that govern healthcare and the policies of different healthcare institutes (Shoniregun 23). Another issue is that just because of politics and lack of proper culture different healthcare systems such as the e-healthcare information systems and the physical employees are obstructed from successful implementation of the system. Same issue is experienced when the healthcare system tried to integrate different electronic healthcare systems such as guidelines for practicing as a clinical and the decision support system (Shoniregun 24). The information of electronic healthcare is derived from a diverse range of sources which makes the information monitoring analysis and security quite difficult. Other than that the internet and other technologies have further added to the challenges of securing and managing healthcare information that is electronic in

Robust Face-Name Graph Matching Essay Example for Free

Robust Face-Name Graph Matching Essay 1. Login In this module is going to explain the Robust Face-Name Graph Matching for Movie Character Identification designing and how we did the face detection and recognition in this project. The images will explain about the facial fetching details. After that admin going to login with the details which needed for the login page. 2. Detection In this module we are going to detect the face of the movie characters. In this module we are using the emgu cv library we must install the emgu cv library. After installing the emgu cv lib in our project we need to add reference with the name emgu.cv, emgu.cv.util, emgu.cv.ui. When you will complete the references you will get the emgu controls in the toolbox. 3. Recognition In this module we are going to recognize the face of the movie characters which is we previously stored on the face database. We just found that the give the real name of it. This is going to be done here. Here we are using the With the help of these eigenObjectRecognizer we are going to recognize the face. Chellangess In This Methodology :- 1. We detect the face in minute this is a big challenge for us because exiting system take more time for detection. 2. More challenging problem due to the huge variation in the appearance of each character. 3. It is increase speed of matching character and identify the character. Objectivies :- The Robust Face-Name Graph Matching for Movie Character Identification designing and how we did the face detection and recognition in this project. In this project we present two schemes of global face-name matching based framework for robust character identification. It is use in movies, video, cartoons. Problem Analysis :- 1. It is difficult to Complex character changes are handled by simultaneously graph partition and graph matching. 2. Many character are not easily matching and identification face in movies. 3. It is hard to be increase speed of matching character and identify the character. Existing Work :- This project is used to detect the face of movie characters and recognize the characters in minute process and the existing system are taking the too much time to detect the face. But this one we can do it in a minute process. Proposed Work :- In this Robust Face-Name Graph Matching for Movie Character Identification is used to detect the face of movie characters and the Proposed system is taking the minimum time to detect the face. In this One we can do it in a minute process. Robust Face-Name Graph Matching for Movie Character Identification Jitao Sang, Changsheng Xu, Senior Member, IEEE Abstract—Automatic face identification of characters in movies has drawn significant research interests and led to many interesting applications. It is a challenging problem due to the huge variation in the appearance of each character. Although existing methods demonstrate promising results in clean environment, the performances are limited in complex movie scenes due to the noises generated during the face tracking and face clustering process. In this paper we present two schemes of global face-name matching based framework for robust character identification. The contributions of this work include: 1) A noise insensitive character relationship representation is incorporated. 2) We introduce an edit operation based graph matching algorithm. 3) Complex character changes are handled by simultaneously graph partition and graph matching. 4) Beyond existing character identification approaches, we further perform an in-depth sensitivity analysis by introducing two types of simulated noises. The proposed schemes demonstrate state-of-the-art performance on movie character identification in various genres of movies. Index Terms—Character identification, graph matching, graph partition, graph edit, sensitivity analysis. Fig. 1. Examples of character identification from movie â€Å"Notting Hill†. I. INTRODUCTION A. Objective and Motivation The proliferation of movie and TV provides large amount of digital video data. This has led to the requirement of efficient and effective techniques for video content understanding and organization. Automatic video annotation is one of such key techniques. In this paper our focus is on annotating characters in the movie and TVs, which is called movie character identification [1]. The objective is to identify the faces of the characters in the video and label them with the corresponding names in the cast. The textual cues, like cast lists, scripts, subtitles and closed captions are usually exploited. Fig.1 shows an example in our experiments. In a movie, characters are the focus center of interests for the audience. Their occurrences provide lots of clues about the movie structure and content. Automatic character identification is essential for semantic movie index and retrieval [2], [3], scene segmentation [4], summarization [5] and other applications [6]. Copyright (c) 2010 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to use this material for any other purposes must be obtained from the IEEE by sending a request to pubs [emailprotected] ieee.org. This work was supported in part by the National Program on Key Basic Research Project (973 Program, Project No. 2012CB316304) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 90920303, 61003161). J. Sang and C. Xu (corresponding author) are with the National Lab of Pattern Recognition, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; and also with the China- Singapore Institute of Digital Media, Singapore, 119613 Character identification, though very intuitive to humans, is a tremendously challenging task in computer vision. The reason is four-fold: 1) Weakly supervised textual cues [7]. There are ambiguity problem in establishing the correspondence between names and faces: ambiguity can arise from a reaction shot where the person speaking may not be shown in the frames 1; ambiguity can also arise in partially labeled frames when there are multiple speakers in the same scene 2. 2) Face identification in videos is more difficult than that in images [8]. Low resolution, occlusion, no rigid deformations, large motion, complex background and other uncontrolled conditions make the results of face detection and tracking unreliable. In movies, the situation is even worse. This brings inevitable noises to the character identification. 3) The same character appears quite differently during the movie [3]. There may be huge pose, expression and illumination variation, wearing, clothing, even makeup and hairstyle changes. Moreover, characters in some movies go through different age stages, e.g., from youth to the old age. Sometimes, there will even be different actors playing different ages of the same character. 4) The determination for the number of identical faces is not trivial [2]. Due to the remarkable intra-class variance, the same character name will correspond to faces of huge variant appearances. It will be unreasonable to set the number of identical faces just according to the number of characters in the cast. Our study is motivated by these challenges and aims to find solutions for a robust framework for movie character identification. B. Related Work The crux of the character identification problem is to exploit the relations between videos and the associated texts in order 1 I.e., the name in the subtitle/closed caption finds no corresponding faces in the video. 2 I.e., multiple names in the subtitle/closed caption correspond to multiple faces in the video. Fig. 2. Framework of scheme 1: Face-name graph matching with #cluster pre specified to label the faces of characters with names. It has similarities to identifying faces in news videos [9], [10], [11]. However, in news videos, candidate names for the faces are available from the simultaneously appearing captions or local transcripts. While in TV and movies, the names of characters are seldom directly shown in the subtitle or closed caption, and script screenplay containing character names has no time stamps to align to the video. According to the utilized textual cues, we roughly divide the existing movie character identification methods into three categories. 1) Category 1: Cast list based: These methods only utilize the case list textual resource. In the â€Å"cast list discovery† problem [12], [13], faces are clustered by appearance and faces of a particular character are expected to be collected in a few pure clusters. Names for the clusters are then manually selected from the cast list. Ramanan et al. proposed to manually label an initial set of face clu sters and further cluster the rest face instances based on clothing within scenes [14]. In [15], the authors have addressed the problem of finding particular characters by building a model/classifier of the character’s appearance from user-provided training data. An interesting work combining character identification with web image retrieval is proposed in [17]. The character names in the cast are used as queries to search face images and constitute gallery set. The probe face tracks in the movie are then identified as one of the characters by multi-task joint sparse representation and classification. Recently, metric learning is introduced into character identification in uncontrolled videos [16]. Cast-specific metrics are adapted to the people appearing in a particular video in an unsupervised manner. The clustering as well as identification performance are demonstrated to be improved. These cast list based methods are easy for understanding and implementation. However, without other textual cues, they either need manual labeling or guarantee no robust clustering and classification performance due to the large intra-class variances. 2) Category 2: Subtitle or Closed caption, Local matching based: Subtitle and closed caption provide time-stamped dialogues, which can be exploited for alignment to the video frames. Effingham et al. [18], [3] proposed to combine the film script with the subtitle for local face-name matching. Time-stamped name annotation and face exemplars are generated. The rest of the faces were then classified into these exemplars for identification. They further extended their work in [19], by replacing the nearest neighbor classifier by multiple kernel learning for features combination. In the new framework, non-frontal faces are handled and the coverage is extended. Researchers from University of Pennsylvania utilized the readily available time-stamped resource, the closed captions, which is demonstrated more reliable than OCR-based subtitles [20], [7]. They investigated on the ambiguity issues in the local alignment between video, screenplay and closed captions. A partially-supervised multiclass classification problem is formulated. Recently, they attempted to address the character identification problem without the use of screenplay [21]. The reference cues in the closed captions are employed as multiple instance constraints and face tracks grouping as well as face-name association are solved in a convex formulation. The local matching based methods require the time-stamped information, which is either extracted by OCR (i.e., subtitle) or unavailable for the majority of movies and TV series (i.e., closed caption). Besides, the ambiguous and partial annotation makes local matching based methods more sensitive to the face detection and tracking noises. 3) Category 3: Script/Screenplay, Global matching based: Global matching based methods open the possibility of character identification without OCR-based subtitle or closed caption. Since it is not easy to get local name cues, the task of character identification is formulated as a global matching problem in [2], [22], [4]. Our method belongs to this category and can be considered as an extension to Zhang’s work [2]. In movies, the names of characters seldom directly appear in the subtitle, while the movie script which contains character names has no time information. Without the local time information, the task of character identification is formulated as a global matching problem between the faces detected from the video and the names extracted from the movie script. Compared with local matching, global statistics are used for name-face association, which enhances the robustness of the algorithms. Our work differs from the existing research in threefold: Regarding the fact that characters may show various appearances, the representation of character is often affected Fig. 3. Framework of scheme 2: Face-name graph matching without #cluster pre-specified. by the noise introduced by face tracking, face clustering and scene segmentation. Although extensive research efforts have been concentrated on character identification and many applications have been proposed, little work has focused on improving the robustness. We have observed in our investigations that some statistic properties are preserved in spite of these noises. Based on that, we propose a novel representation for character relationship and introduce a name-face matching method which can accommodate a certain noise. Face track clustering serves as an important step in movie character identification. In most of the existing methods some cues are utilized to determine the number of target clusters prior to face clustering, e.g., in [2], the number of clusters is the same as the number of distinct speakers appearing in the script. While this seems convinced at first glance, it is rigid and even deteriorating the clustering results sometimes. In this paper, we loose the restriction of one face cluster corresponding to one character name. Face track clustering and face-name matching are jointly optimized and conducted in a unique framework. Sensitivity analysis is common in financial applications, risk analysis, signal processing and any area where models are developed [23], [24]. Good modeling practice requires that the modeler provides an evaluation of the confidence in the model, for example, assessing the uncertainties associated with the modeling process and with the outcome of the model itself. For movie character identification, sensitivity analysis offers valid tools for characterizing the robustness to noises for a model. To the best of our knowledge, there have been no efforts directed at the sensitivity analysis for movie character identification. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap by introducing two types of simulated noises. A preliminary version of this work was introduced by [1]. We provide additional algorithmic and computational details, and extend the framework considering no pre-specification for the number of face clusters. Improved performance as well as robustness are demonstrated in movies wit h large character appearance changes. C. Overview of Our Approach In this paper, we propose a global face-name graph matching based framework for robust movie character identification. Two schemes are considered. There are connections as well as differences between them. Regarding the connections, firstly, the proposed two schemes both belong to the global matching based category, where external script resources are utilized. Secondly, to improve the robustness, the ordinal graph is employed for face and name graph representation and a novel graph matching algorithm called Error Correcting Graph Matching (ECGM) is introduced. Regarding the differences, scheme 1 sets the number of clusters when performing face clustering (e.g., K-means, spectral clustering). The face graph is restricted to have identical number of vertexes with the name graph. While, in scheme 2, no cluster number is required and face tracks are clustered based on their intrinsic data structure (e.g., mean shift, affinity propagation). Moreover, as shown in Fig.2 and Fig.3, scheme 2 has an additional module of graph partition compared with scheme 1. From this perspective, scheme 2 can be seen as an extension to scheme 1. m1) Scheme 1: The proposed framework for scheme 1 is shown in Fig.2. It is similar to the framework of [2]. Face tracks are clustered using constrained K-means, where the number of clusters is set as the number of distinct speakers. Co-occurrence of names in script and face clusters in video constitutes the corresponding face graph and name graph. We modify the traditional global matching framework by using ordinal graphs for robust representation and introducing an ECGM-based graph matching method. For face and name graph construction, we propose to represent the character co-occurrence in rank ordinal level [25], which scores thestrength of the relationships in a rank order from the weakest to strongest. Rank order data carry no numerical meaning and thus are less sensitive to the noises. The affinity graph used in the traditional global matching is interval measures of the co-occurrence relationship between characters. While continuous measures of the strength of relationship holds complete information, it is highly sensitive to noises. For name-face graph matching, we utilize the ECGM algorithm. In ECGM, the difference between two graphs is measured by edit distance which is a sequence of graph edit operations. The optimal match is achieved with the least edit distance. According to the noise analysis, we define appropriate graph edit operations and adapt the distance functions to obtain improved name-face matching performance. 2) Scheme 2: The proposed framework for scheme 2 is shown in Fig.3. It has two differences from scheme 1 in Fig.2. First, no cluster number is required for the face tracks clustering step. Second, since the face graph and name graph may have different number of vertexes, a graph partition component is added before ordinal graph representation. The basic premise behind the scheme 2 is that appearances of the same character vary significantly and it is difficult to group them in a unique cluster. Take the movie â€Å"TheCurious Case of Benjamin Button† for example. The hero and heroine go through a long time period from their childhood, youth, middle-age to the old-age. The intra-class variance is even larger than the inter-class variance. In this case, simply enforcing the number of face clusters as the numberof characters will disturb the clustering process. Instead of grouping face tracks of the same character into one cluster, face tracks from different characters may be grouped together. In scheme 2, we utilize affinity propagation for the face tracks clustering. With each sample as the potential center of clusters, the face tracks are recursively clustered through appearance-based similarity transmit and propagation. High cluster purity with large number of clusters is expected. Since one character name may correspond to several face clusters, graph partition is introduced before graph matching. Which face clusters should be further grouped (i.e., divided into th e same subgraph) is determined by whether the partitioned face graph achieves an optimal graph matching with the name graph. Actually, face clustering is divided into two steps: coarse clustering by appearance and further modification by script. Moreover, face clustering and graph matching are optimized simultaneously, which improve the robustness against errors and noises. In general, the scheme 2 has two advantages over the scheme 1. (a) For scheme 2, no cluster number is required in advance and face tracks are clustered based on their intrinsic data structure. Therefore, the scheme 2 provides certain robustness to the intra-class variance, which is very common in movies where characters change appearance significantly or go through a long time period. (b) Regarding that movie cast cannot include pedestrians whose face is detected and added into the face track, restricting the number of face tracks clusters the same as that of name from movie cast will deteriorate the clustering process. In addition, there is some chance that movie cast does not cover all the characters. In this case, pre-specification for the face clusters is risky: face tracks from different characters will be mixed together and graph matching tends to fail. 3) Sensitivity Analysis: Sensitivity analysis plays an important role in characterizing the uncertainties associated with a model. To explicitly analyze the algorithm’s sensitivity to noises, two types of noises, coverage noise and intensity noise, are introduced. Based on that, we perform sensitivity analysis by investigating the performance of name-face matching with respect to the simulated noises.

Influences and Reality Essay -- Media Magazines Society Beauty Essays

Influences and Reality As adults do we tend to read the styles we've grown up with? Do we find ourselves subscribing to and reaching for magazines in the checkout line that our parents read? I do. As I become more independent I see subtle changes in the styles around me but find myself grounded in what my parents, my brothers and my environment have familiarized me with. Strewn around me are volumes of "Outdoor Life", "Prevention", "Better Homes and Gardens", "Midwest Living", "Vogue" and "Masonry Construction." A magazine to satisfy many interests, each containing pieces of my life. You will not find "Time" or "Forbes" in my hands unless I have research to do in them for school. I am not familiar with politics, big business or urban life and I find the style dull. I can't convince myself to pick up political magazines for pleasure. Richard Lanham in Revising Prose says, " A style that at first seems peculiar may not be a "bad "style but simply eloquent about an unexpected kind of reality, one that you may or may not like" (106). I read styles that are my reality and though some may not find "eloquence" in "Masonry Construction", I do. You may guess that someone in my family is involved in construction and wonder why I read such literature if it is not my career. As the daughter of a brick and stone mason I have grown up listening to my dad talk construction and have always been interested in what he does. Though "construction" doesn't have a soft tone to it, possibly not possessing "eloquence" , writing about it and the finished product can. Articles in "Masonry Construction" explicate the fine details of this labor through straightforward writing and a calm informative voice. I can "hear" my dad explaining the qualiti... ... I used to think it was funny and at a young age believed some of it; not to be fooled now. I used to read it for pleasure but since I started working with womens' and mens' clothing I've become interested in what is new in the world of fashion, the fabrics and styles. The writing style in "Vogue" and similar magazines is classy and fast paced (if writing can be that). The catwalk and thumping techno music seems to be in front of my eyes. For a while I find it interesting and exhilarating but soon find myself wanting to return to the country. I find that the styles strewn about me are influenced by my parents style; conservative, down to earth, knowing the importance of physical labor to make a living and seeing the beauty in what has been offered to us-where we live and what we've experienced. This is how I was raised and I will continue to live in this style. Influences and Reality Essay -- Media Magazines Society Beauty Essays Influences and Reality As adults do we tend to read the styles we've grown up with? Do we find ourselves subscribing to and reaching for magazines in the checkout line that our parents read? I do. As I become more independent I see subtle changes in the styles around me but find myself grounded in what my parents, my brothers and my environment have familiarized me with. Strewn around me are volumes of "Outdoor Life", "Prevention", "Better Homes and Gardens", "Midwest Living", "Vogue" and "Masonry Construction." A magazine to satisfy many interests, each containing pieces of my life. You will not find "Time" or "Forbes" in my hands unless I have research to do in them for school. I am not familiar with politics, big business or urban life and I find the style dull. I can't convince myself to pick up political magazines for pleasure. Richard Lanham in Revising Prose says, " A style that at first seems peculiar may not be a "bad "style but simply eloquent about an unexpected kind of reality, one that you may or may not like" (106). I read styles that are my reality and though some may not find "eloquence" in "Masonry Construction", I do. You may guess that someone in my family is involved in construction and wonder why I read such literature if it is not my career. As the daughter of a brick and stone mason I have grown up listening to my dad talk construction and have always been interested in what he does. Though "construction" doesn't have a soft tone to it, possibly not possessing "eloquence" , writing about it and the finished product can. Articles in "Masonry Construction" explicate the fine details of this labor through straightforward writing and a calm informative voice. I can "hear" my dad explaining the qualiti... ... I used to think it was funny and at a young age believed some of it; not to be fooled now. I used to read it for pleasure but since I started working with womens' and mens' clothing I've become interested in what is new in the world of fashion, the fabrics and styles. The writing style in "Vogue" and similar magazines is classy and fast paced (if writing can be that). The catwalk and thumping techno music seems to be in front of my eyes. For a while I find it interesting and exhilarating but soon find myself wanting to return to the country. I find that the styles strewn about me are influenced by my parents style; conservative, down to earth, knowing the importance of physical labor to make a living and seeing the beauty in what has been offered to us-where we live and what we've experienced. This is how I was raised and I will continue to live in this style.

Doubt and the Acquisition of Knowledge Essay

Is doubt of any value in acquiring facts and knowledge? There are a number of approaches to tackling this question. If we were to look at various religious philosophies such as the teachings of Hinduism, Buddha and Christ, the disadvantages of doubt can be ascertained. The Bible says that there is a proper time for everything under the sun: â€Å"Every activity and every purpose has its proper time† (Ecclesiastes 3:17) This statement has bearing on the question as to the role doubt can play in acquiring knowledge. It implies that there is a proper time for doubt. I feel that one such time is when doubt serves as a driving force towards acquiring knowledge. Doubt certainly can be a stumbling block in acquiring knowledge and using it. Doubt can make an individual leery and hesitant. Yet, like most aspects of life, doubt can have both positive and negative effects on anything, including the process of learning and acquiring knowledge. While doubt can make one skeptical, it can also serve as a driving force to motivate a person to find the truth. In the opening quote, Dr. Bartus points out that insecurity and uncertainty can have value. Elsewhere in his book, he says that false assumptions and self-delusions are our greatest obstacles to solving problems (p. 107). This idea has bearing on the role of doubt in acquiring knowledge. Certainly, doubt can be an obstacle to acquiring knowledge, but when doubt causes a person to examine (or re-examine) his or her assumptions and discover his or her self-delusions, then doubt has served a valuable service that can lead to a search for answers and knowledge. While doubt can make people closed minded, I feel that doubt can drive people to ask probing questions that increase one’s knowledge when they pursue the answers to their questions. Columbus and Magellan doubted that the world was flat. They resolved to prove their point by sailing around the world to India. Even though the world is round, these explorers took a great chance. There was no guarantee that one could sail from Europe to India even if they were correct about a round world. They had no idea as to what dangers might lay ahead. There could have been scorching deserts, impassable jungles, large continents covered by marshland, hostile people, man eating animals, bitter cold or any one of an infinite number of unknown dangers. Whatever they encountered would have confirmed or refuted their doubts and added to the knowledge of the time. So, doubt can definitely assist one in acquiring knowledge. Attempting to answer questions that arise from doubt can cause/create insecurity. It takes courage to face the uncertainties that arise when challenging and facing your doubts and the unknown, but the reward gained in pursuit of the challenge can be worthwhile and valuable Ultimately, I must conclude that doubt can serve as both an asset and a hindrance in acquiring knowledge, but those who are willing to face their doubts may find their efforts rewarding. In the end, perhaps doubt leads to questions that bring about the acquisition of knowledge. I would like to think that is the best outcome and reward from doubt. We do not progress by being perfect. We progress by making mistakes and correcting them, and we do not acquire knowledge without doubt, but by having doubts and resolving them. Perhaps that is as it should be. The uncertainty and insecurity of doubt propels us forward towards greater knowledge.

Practicum in Educational Leadership

‘As for the best leaders, the people do non detect their being ; the following best, the people honour and praise ; the following, people fear ; the following, the people hate†¦ when the best leader ‘s work is done, the people say, â€Å" We did it ourselves. † ‘ Lao-tsu ( circa 500 BC ) . The Council of Chief State School Officers has adopted the undermentioned as the organisation ‘s mission statement: CCSSO, through leading, protagonism, and service, assists main province school officers and their organisations in accomplishing the vision of an American instruction system that enables all kids to win in school, work, and life. Introduction During old ages as a instructor, leading manner has been collaborative, enthusiastically seeking sense engagement. Always take part in determination devising and seeking an chance. I believe that instructors learn a great trade from their experience, and besides â€Å" I see failure as an chance for alteration † . I will seek to stand for the features of effectual leaders in schools. Research workers say that pupils gain important accomplishment in schools in which principals province a clear school mission, present in schoolrooms and hallways, hold high outlooks for instructors and pupils, spend a major part of the twenty-four hours working with instructors to better tuition, are actively involved in naming instructional jobs and make a positive school clime. A twenty-four hours in the life of a principal can be spent seeking to maintain little unpleasant incidents from going an unattractive chief catastrophe. Good principals in some manner find clip to develop a vision of what that school should be and to portion that vision with all members of the educational community. Successful principals can show a specific school mission, and they strain invention and betterment. A Clear School mission could be ‘providing instruction of first-class quality to all students irrespective of spiritual economic, cultural and societal background ‘ and a Clear School Vision could be ‘to aid upgrading the educational degree of Cyprus youth set uping Cyprus as an one good educated state with a really valuable human resource plus. In less effectual schools, instructors do non hold a common apprehension of the school ‘s mission, and they seem as persons be aftering their ain separate classs. The demand for the principal to portion his or her vision expands non merely to instructors but to parents as good. When instructors work as a group and parents are connected with the school ‘s mission, the kids are more likely to carry through academic success. The cardinal function for a caput instructor is that of authorization, making a civilization in which the ability and endowment of the staff is non merely valued, but to the full applied. If caput instructors do non do it clear that all staff ( learning and support staff ) have the authorization to do determinations, to be advanced and originative, so they will presume that they do non. If that happens, the immense assets of cognition and experience that exists in all schools will remain undeveloped. ASPECTS OF THE SCHOOL School context We consider a High School which functioning about 960 pupils. A large chance starts at a school which its edifice appears to be non to the full constructed and the school premises are 25-year-old. It is a challenge of first principal. It is really a comprehensive school, with approximately 85 % of bulk cultural pupils. The school enjoys a really good repute, locally and nationally, as a successful, advanced school and has done for many old ages. On entry to the school, pupil public presentation is loosely in line with national outlooks. More than 70 % of pupils systematically achieve nucleus topics. 58 % of pupils achieved five or more A* to C classs ( 2005 ) . 95 % of pupils achieved A-E classs at GCE A degree, with about all pupils deriving their first pick higher instruction topographic point. Consequences across the school have been systematically good for many old ages, although betterment is a current focal point for us. The aim is to make a unagitated professional environment in which pupils move about in smaller, calmer groups. Some schools have managed to accomplish a state of affairs where staff takes their categories down to interrupt or tiffin during an drawn-out lesson, and return to go on the lesson.A These relationships between staff and students are implicative of extremely effectual acquisition environments.Prosecuting instructorsAll of the developments discussed here rely on holding the right staff making the right occupations. Teachers should be involved in advancing the positive values of the school and the school civilization, planning and implementing the most effectual and motivational lessons possible. Teachers will be back uping all pupils to guarantee that they are larning every bit good as possible and supervising the advancement of all students so that they can move where advancement is unequal. That is a immense occupation. School leaders should non let instructors to go delayed in inordinate study authorship, look intoing behavioral issues, executing societal attention ( beyond that which we would anticipate from any caring instructor in that it could be provided in the schoolroom ) , school responsibilities, screen for absent co-workers ( unless there is a clear educational ground for making so ) . Workforce development has moved us on well with this. It is non that we should non make these things in school ; it is merely that we should use the right people to make them, and they are non teachers.A Many of these activities are so of import that we need professional staff to see them as their chief function in school. We should non go forth them in the custodies of instructors who may be able to suit them in between lessons, at interruption or at lunchtime, while seeking to concentrate on their instruction activities. Future programs We are committed to the thought that every pupil should win and accomplish, although they may show this in many ways.A The Government has set a considerable challenge for us through its docket, which opens up the course of study to present a scope of vocational and academic paths. It has besides challenged us to put a new outlook that most pupils will go on instruction in a coherent and planned manner to the age of 19, with GCSE, IGCE and tantamount makings merely a marker along the way.A To run into the challenge of this immense course of study entitlement, we must join forces with other schools and colleges in a manner we have non seen earlier. Schools and colleges will necessitate to better their footings to run into the demands of all pupils, instead than convert students that the footings we have traditionally offered is what they want.A To make this, the collaborative spirit will hold to replace the competitory spirit. The hereafter is non so much about being an effectual school as it is about being in an effectual teamwork to supply broad-ranging individualized acquisition. Plan OF ACTIVITIESSurviving the first twelvemonthPlan your clip. Decide what issues you are traveling to work on during the hebdomad. If you assign clip to work on fixing points required for regulating organic structure meetings, so seek to maintain to this timetable. It is impractical to believe that you will be able to maintain stiffly to the timetable you have made. Trust others and larn to depute. As a new caput instructor, deputation is sometimes a small hard to take clasp of. Schools are full of professional and really capable people. Let people cognize your outlooks and enable them to acquire on with the undertaking in manus. Get to cognize your leading squad. However large or little your school is, your senior leading squad is important and their support, committedness and finding to take the school with you are critical. Allocate quality clip to speak, work and reflect with this group of persons and listen to what they have to state. Stay focused and productive. Try non to do instant determinations and dramatic alterations that affect the work of other staff and kids, where they have had no engagement or make non understand the principle behind the determination made.Detecting effectual schoolsAn effectual school is a school in which pupils achieve high criterions that they can utilize in their future instruction or the workplace, a school where pupils experience safe and happy. It promotes those values that will assist pupils to go good and responsible citizens, enable them to go involved in their community and go good household members. We all write these kinds of things in our school mission statements and school paperss, but we are all excessively frequently distracted from them in daily planning.A High criterions are non the preserve of a few socially advantaged persons and we should ne'er take down our outlooks on the footing of societal background. For that ground, contextual informations can go forth us excessively easy satisfied with hapless performance.A I am privileged to hold worked in some effectual schools with staff that have developed extremely effectual schemes. There are many extremely effectual schools across the state. Visiting them with an unfastened head makes you come off with a firing desire to develop something of what you have seen for your ain school. I would urge this as a scheme for caput instructors every bit good as for instructors, support staff and pupils from across the school.A Establishing precedences in your ain school will needfully come from a audience with school stakeholders.A I have sometimes found it utile to keep visioning yearss, where stakeholders are invited to place future precedences for the school and these are so used to assist the senior squad set precedences within the school betterment program. When making this it is of import to affect all stakeholders: instructors, support staff, pupils, parents, governors, spouse schools and many other groups that work with the school.Bettering behaviorThe get downing point in any school has to be behaviour. We all know how to cover with the Acts of the Apostless of terrible verbal or physical aggression that sometimes take topographic point in our schools. They are upsetting but they are, in general, occasional and are non the major break from assisting pupils to learn.A The behavior jobs that cause a existent job in schools are by and large low degree, but can render everything else we attempt to make virtually useless. Lack of attending from pupils, speaking out of bend and small argues in the schoolroom are far more likely to damage effectual instruction than anything else.A It is this type of behavior that instructors seldom deal with efficaciously or mention to other school leaders. While it is of import that we continually back up instructors to make a schoolroom environment in which they are in charge and which encourages good behavior, we besides have a responsibility as school leaders to pull off the effects of hapless behaviors centrally.ADevelop Behaviour for larning programme.The attack is simple: no student is allowed to interrupt another pupil ‘s acquisition or to do anyone feel uncomfortable, threatened or unhappy. Students are made cognizant of the effects of making these things and all grownups in the school are empowered to enter the fact that a student has disobeyed this codification. A cardinal squad of staff, including senior staff and support staff, ensures that the effects are ever carried out.A Students and parents regard the programme as just and consistent. It empowers all staff ; given all staff do precisely the same thing when a pupil misbehaves. It besides ensures that instructors carry on making their occupation, learning the well behaved pupils who are all excessively frequently left waiting while they watch instructors seeking to cover with uncooperative students.A Wagess for larning are every bit of import and can be administered in accurately the same manner. The thought that pupils can derive wagess that have financial value and can be spent in a school wagess house is peculiarly effectual. Behaviour for larning schemes can hold dramatic effects on a school in footings of drawing the whole school community together around a common focal point.Making right larning environmentWe are seeking to develop a school that is professional larning environment, where pupils feel that they are in school to larn and will be supported from the minute they walk in through the door.A Create this through good thought out be aftering when the school was built. Whatever type of edifice we have, it will normally be possible to make the infinite to observe pupil accomplishment and guarantee that everyone who visits the school and every pupil who enters the school knows how well pupils achieve and how good they, as persons, will accomplish in the future.A The issue of corridor behavior and overcrowding may look unimportant but it is an facet of school life that pupils do non like and sometimes fright. Surely, overcrowded corridors and the hapless behavior that frequently accompanies them sabotage our efforts to make professional acquisition environments. We need to undertake the ‘school mill ‘ environment through originative timetabling and school administration. One manner we have gone about this is to make an uninterrupted twenty-four hours.Achieving personalised acquisition in patternMaking the right civilization, environment and ethos in a school, where pupils know they have come to larn, hold high self-pride and swear the school to present, are critical innovators to good instruction and learning.A No sum of attempt to better criterions of instruction will hold much impact unless they are in topographic point. However, holding established the right civilization, the schoolroom experience must present and run into the single demands of every student. This requires each instructor to cognize the demands of each single student, and for constructions to be where pupils can be assigned to the right instruction groups to run into those needs.A The personalizing acquisition docket presents us with many challenges. First of wholly, it is now indispensable that every instructor has instant entree to student informations in the schoolroom in an utile signifier. This means that either every schoolroom needs a computing machine or every instructor needs a laptop that will entree the school network.A Right construction If head instructors create level leading structures that inquire all staff to lend to problem-solving, that do non get down out with defined solutions that everybody else is supposed to think, so that corporate cognition and experience will be used to travel the school forward.A Structures need to reenforce the construct that every member of staff can do determination. This is non to state that staffs are non accountable for their determinations ; it is of import that they are. It is non to state that a caput instructor or other senior leader should non set forward their ain positions or solutions ; they should. It is non to state that we should non sometimes justice that, on this juncture, this is a affair that the caput instructor needs to make up one's mind. However, it is of import to listen to all members of staff ( and parents and pupils for that affair ) , to be clear about which determinations you are doing and which 1s they are able to do and to swear them to do many more determinations than has been the instance traditionally in schools. Trusting on coaction Making an effectual school is believing about coaction, sharing thoughts and networking. I am thankful to those who have shared their thought with me and look frontward to future duologue, which I trust will assist us all to develop first-class schools for all immature people. Choosing the appropriate webs to work with is a affair of personal pick and school context. It is deserving developing relationships through national webs excessively. The advantage to working in webs outside your ain vicinity is twofold. On the one manus the scope of schemes to which you become exposed is greater and will affect schools that have developed otherwise and under different restraints. It is frequently easier to look objectively at a school when you do non hold a preset image of the school and when you are non in competition with it for students.A Safe and organized ClimateSurely before pupils can larn or instructors can learn, schools must be safe. An insecure school is considered uneffective and besides the public see it as deficiency of subject to be among the most serious jobs confronting schools. Schools must supply safe acquisition environments. Safe schools focus on academic accomplishment, the school mission, affecting households and communities in school activit ies, and making an environment where instructors, pupils and staff are treated with regard. Student jobs are identified early, before they get worse into force. School psychologists, particular educationA plans, household societal workers, and school broad plans increase communicating and cut down school emphasis.Monitoring Student ProgressWe could observe attractive shows of pupil work on bulletin boards and walls. Besides, posted few pupil documents and charting of advancement towards academic ends. Students could hold a clear sense of how they were making in their surveies ; they kept advancement charts in their notebooks and think of ways to better their academic public presentation. Teachers referred to student booklets that contained thorough records of pupil tonss onA standardised trials, every bit good as samples of category work, prep, and public presentation on hebdomadal trials. It is really of import that school carefully proctors pupil advancement and communicates this information to pupils and parents. Effective schools carefully monitor and assess pupil advancement in a assortment of ways. Using trials such as Norm-referenced testsA and Objective-referenced testsA to compare single pupils with others in a nationwide mean group and step whether a pupil has a ‘chosen ‘ organic structure of cognition ( assessment trials ) . Furthermore, some instructors ask pupils to follow their ain advancement in acquiring class aims as a manner of assisting them presume more duty for their ain acquisition. Homework is another scheme to supervise pupils. Homework additions student achievement tonss and accomplishment is increased when prep is ranked and commented on. Even though ranked prep is an of import ingredient in pupil accomplishment.High ExpectationsStudents could have extraordinary tonss on a trial than predicted and kids could achieve outstanding academic additions. An effectual school ever depend on the power of instructor outlooks in determining pupil accomplishment. A termA of self-fulfilling prophecyA is publicized as ‘students may larn as much or every b it small as instructors expect ‘ . Although, teacher outlooks do, in fact, produce high pupil accomplishment, and low outlooks produce low accomplishment. Excessively frequently, teacher outlooks have a negative impact. An inaccurate judgement about a pupil can he do because of mistake, unconscious bias, or stereotype. For illustration, fine-looking, well-groomed pupils are often thought to be smarter than their less attractive equals. Often, male pupils are thought to be brighter in math, scientific discipline, and engineering, while misss are given the border in linguistic communication accomplishments. Students of coloring material are sometimes perceived as less capable or intelligent. A hapless public presentation on a individual standardised trial ( possibly due to illness or an â€Å" off † twenty-four hours ) can do instructors to keep an inaccurate appraisal of a pupil ‘s ability for months and even old ages. Even a insouciant remark in the instructors ‘ sofa can determine the outlooks of other instructors. When instructors hold low outlooks for certain pupils, their intervention of these pupils frequently differs in unconscious ways. Typically, they offer such pupils fewer chances to react, less congratulations, less ambitious work and fewerA nonverbalA marks ( oculus contact, smilings, positive respect ) . In effectual schools, instructors hold high outlooks that pupils can larn, and they translate these outlooks into learning behaviors. They set aims, work toward command of those aims, pass more clip on direction, and actively monitor pupil advancement. They are convinced that pupils can win. Do high outlooks work if pupils do non believe they be? Probably non, and that is excessively frequently the instance. While a bulk ofA secondary schoolA principals believe that their schools hold such outlooks for their pupils, merely 39 per centum of instructors believe this to be true and even more discouraging, merely one in four pupils believe their school holds high outlooks for them. We need to make a better occupation of pass oning these outlooks to pupils, and doing certain that these outlooks genuinely challenge pupils. And it is non lone pupils who benefit from high outlooks. When instructors keep high outlooks for their ain public presentation so the full school benefits. Always endeavoring for excellence, these instructors felt that no affair how good a category was taught, following clip it could be taught better. Methodology Actions to do effectual schooling ( Memoranda-Letter )Early startHigh-quality plans include parent preparation, particular showing services, and appropriate acquisition chances for kids. Such plans are rare, but can significantly raise IQ points and enhance linguistic communication accomplishments. Some of the kids are notA readingA at grade degree and by the terminal of the first class face a one-in-eight opportunity of of all time catching up. In math, pupils who do non get the hang basic constructs find themselves playing catch-up throughout their school old ages. Effective schools identify and rectify such lacks early, before pupil public presentation get worse.Smaller classesASmaller categories are associated with addition pupil larning, particularly in the earlier classs. Children in categories of 15 outperform pupils in categories of 25, even when the larger categories have a instructor ‘s protagonist in attending.Increased acquisition timeALonger school yearss, longer s chool old ages, more efficient usage of school clip, and more ranked prep are all proved methods of heightening academic acquisition clip and pupil public presentation. Appraisal: A Investing clip is utile, but measuring how efficaciously the clip is spent is besides of import. Testing pupil public presentation has been tied to greater accomplishment, and some territories have gone so far as to pay instructors inducements for betterments in student trial tonss.Teacher trainingAThe best manner to better school effectivity is by puting in teacher preparation. Stronger instructor accomplishments and makings lead to greater pupil larning. On the other manus, pupils pay an academic monetary value when they are taught by unqualified and uncertified instructors.TrustTrusting relationships among parents, pupils, principals and instructors is a necessary ingredient to regulate, better, and reform schools. As trust degrees addition, so does academic public presentation.What about engineering? ASchools that are unsure to pass financess on instructor preparation, category size decreases, orA early childhood educationA plans nevertheless are speedy to put important amounts in computing machines and upgraded engineering.Get to cognize the schoolACreate an being without being over-powering. Spend some clip standing in the resort area in the forenoon and after school. Welcome the kids into school in the forenoon, smiled and talked to parents as they looked suspiciously at the new caput and spoke to the community constabulary officers who control the traffic in the busy route around the school. You will derive a huge sum of information about the school from the kids, got to cognize the parent population and enabled them to see that you are interested in what they had to state about the issues that mattered to them. Do non walk around the school without a clear intent. Teachers and learning helpers have categories to settle at the beginning of the twelvemonth and do non desire to experience that they need to affect the new caput as you all of a sudden turn up in their schoolroom. By no agencies that you do non see schoolrooms and spend clip observing and acquiring to cognize staff and kids, but this should be planned into your apprehension of the school procedure and should hold an purpose of which the staff should be made cognizant.Developing the bigger pictureA ATell staff and kids ( what you feel is relevant ) about yourself, your experiences, and your outlooks. It is of import that they see you as a individual and non merely as the caput ship. Ask the staff what they expect of your function and what they hope you will accomplish in your first twelvemonth. I personally found this a really interesting exercising. Expectations ranged from back uping them and listening to their positions to bein g a confident leader and enabling them to portion and contribute.A It is of import to pass planned clip with each of the categories speaking to the students. Ask them what they like larning about, what frustrates them about the school, what their want for the school would be, what they believe your function within the school is and how are they able to assist you better the school. Above all, ask for the staff and kids to state you about what they truly like about the school, what would do it even better for them personally and for the school community as a whole. Remember that this is the ‘getting to cognize the school ‘ procedure and, while you will derive priceless cognition about the school, staff and kids, store the information you gain to develop your apprehension of the school you have been appointed to take. Do n't, nevertheless, promise to alter the universe or connote that you will take on every suggestion for betterment it will non go on overnight and you will merely be puting self-expectations that you may non be able to run into instantly. Always remember that you are non entirely. The fantastic staffs in the office frequently have a immense sum of cognition, understanding and skill that they are trusting you will do usage of. Their cognition of the parent population, pupil attending forms and local concern contacts should surely non be underestimated. Parents It would be a fantastic accomplishment if all parents were all of a sudden on the side of the new caput ; eager to delight, raise tonss of money for the school fund and line up up to lend to the school betterment program. It may be an unrealistic idea ab initio, but working on acquiring the relationship right with parents will guarantee that positive support is achieved from these valuable stakeholders. Invite parents to run into with you in an informal but structured scene. Held two separate meetings in order to supply parents with a pick of clip. During the meetings acquiring the balance right is important. Do n't offer a vision that you may non be up to gaining in the immediate hereafter as it will merely take to discouragement. Do portion with them, nevertheless, some of your values and rules and how you see them working with you. Invite them to state you in the signifier of a simple questionnaire what they believe to be positive facets of the school, countries they would wish to see improved in the immediate hereafter and what they would wish to see improved in the longer term. Keep parents good informed of any school betterments, peculiarly when a alteration has been made in response to facets that parents have suggested. Memoranda – Letterss Beloved Parent ( s ) : It is hard to show the exhilaration I am experiencing in being the new principal. It is an honor and privilege to be at the service of an outstanding faulty and the fantastic parents and pupils that make up the community of the school. With the reaching of new first, 3rd, and 4th class instructors, every bit good as a new secretary, I think you will experience and see a sense of newness and exhilaration as you walk through the halls of our school. I hope that you will experience welcome as you become involved with your kid ‘s experiences. Throughout the school twelvemonth, your kid ‘s instructor and I will be doing a particular attempt to remain in touch with you. We will maintain you informed of your kid ‘s advancement and school activities. Look for documents coming place from school each twenty-four hours, newssheets, invitations, updates, tips, and reminders. Your communicating with us is really of import, excessively. Please do n't waver to reach your kid ‘s instructor, or me, whenever you have a inquiry or concern. The school ‘s phone figure is 22-xxxxxx, and our facsimile figure is 22-xxxxxx. I hope you will take portion in your kid ‘s instruction by asking about their clip spent at school. Ask about their friends and instructors. Get involved as they complete their prep or seek you help on particular projects.. I am confident that your kid will show greater motive as you continue to demo involvement in their academic and societal experiences. We will surely work on our terminal to supply your kid with the best instruction possible. Let ‘s work together to do this an first-class school twelvemonth in every manner! Thank you for your support. Sincerely, PrincipalPrincipal ‘s Message to instructorsOctober is here and larning is in full move backwards and forwards! Before I highlight the exciting activities we can anticipate toA enjoy this twelvemonth, allow me foremost reexamine the work that has occurred this far.A Thank you to everyone who attended our New Families Orientation, The Welcome Coffee, Back to School Night, Parent Volunteer meeting and a host of grade degree events. It ‘s ever a dainty to see old faces, recognize new 1s, and to see the exhilaration that these events bring to the beginning of the twelvemonth. As usual, your energy and enthusiasm for doing this a fantastic twelvemonth is infective and exciting! Along with the societal events, the start of the school twelvemonth besides marks the beginning of instructors acquiring to cognize their pupils. In September, we began the first of a series of treatments refering to our appraisals and the analysis of our SPSA ( Single Plan for Student Achievement ) . These treatments involved grade degree and cross class degree analysis of pupil public presentation and how we as a staff can aline our resources to guarantee the academic advancement and accomplishment of our pupils. These conversations will be ongoing throughout the twelvemonth and will climax in the development of new ends and challenges for ourselves and for our students.A Even though we are difficult at work, there is still clip for merriment by implementing some alterations! In October we start the month off with our fund-raising event of the twelvemonth, Family Picnic on first Sunday! This is a fantastic event that showcases our school and our community. Thankss to the dedication and coordination attempts of many, the twenty-four hours is filled with walking, games, nutrient and merriment. I look frontward to seeing everyone there.A During the twelvemonth, every Wednesday is walk to school twenty-four hours, staff and parents will be observing the twenty-four hours by walking to school with those of you who choose to make so. Come walk with us and assist the environment at the same clip! It ‘s of import that we support and provide the construction and assortment of a ambitious academic plan every bit good as a rich array of extracurricular activities. Our larning environment must supply our pupils with the chance to meet issues, inquire examining inquiries, appreciate differing positions, and grapnel with understanding. In making such an environment, we need to maintain in position, a vision. The confidently cognizant and oddly engaged alumnus, armed with a important organic structure of cognition, plus the tools to encompass, decipher and contribute to the universe which awaits them. With this terminal in head we are challenged to make much more than merely present a prescribed course of study. We must continually look for chances for pupils to build significance, make connexions across subjects, engage in relevant and ambitious undertakings and show their sentiments on a broad array of subjects drawn both from their texts and their experiences. This twelvemon th, we will be committed to supply clip for the module to work together in grade-level squads to put wide aims for all pupils to get the hang and so to analyze the chances which exist to incorporate and organize the bringing of lessons in such a manner that pupils can associate what they are larning to the universe around them. Keeping the pupil ‘s learning experience at the Centre of our planning, we will be taking a close expression at prep outlooks and all of the excess demands our school plan demands with the end of streamlining and incorporating these demands in a manageable work burden and calendar. We will besides be concentrating on the usage of engineering in direction, the development of strong research accomplishments in all class degrees and increasing an consciousness of environmental issues in our school, community and beyond. We have a strong course of study, knowing and inspiring instructors, a supportive community and ample resources to maintain our school invariably working to supply the best possible acquisition experience for our pupils. I will be describing our advancement in making our ends as the twelvemonth in front unfolds. We ‘re off to a great start! PleaseA allow me cognize if you have any inquiries or concerns.A Sincerely, PrincipleA

Self-reports in psychology Essay Example

Self Self-reports in psychology Paper Self-reports in psychology Paper Using examples, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the use of self-reports in psychology.  One of the strengths of using self-reports as a method of data collection in psychology is that, if we are to believe the cognitive approach, this is the only way in which we can extract information about the way a person thinks. To clinically interview a person, such as in Ellis’ study on Rational Analysis as a means of treating an affective disorder can provide important information about the individual that otherwise cannot be seen, as the cognitive approach believes that mental processes, or cognitions, are hypothetical constructs and the only way we can establish reasons for behaviour is to ask the individual themselves. Another strength of self-reports in psychology is that you can collect both quantitative and qualitative data from them. With the use of closed questions whereby predetermined answers are provided (multiple choice questionnaires, e.g. a Likert scale), researchers can collect quantified measurements of the number of people who chose a certain answer, like in Holmes Rhe’s study of Life Changing Events, where the majority of participants rated the bereavement of a spouse/partner as the hardest thing to adjust to on the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS), giving in a collective rating of 100/100. With open questions however, there is room for elaboration, meaning the participants can explain and illustrate reasons behind their decision to, for example, strongly agree/disagree with a statement the questionnaire makes, etc. A weakness of the self report method however is the introduction of social desirability. In almost all studies on medical adherence there is a worry of social desirability affecting the answers. In Becker’s study into providing empirical evidence for the support of his Health Belief Model, he conducted self-reports on the mothers of asthmatic children and whether they stuck to their child’s prescribed regimens. It could be argued here that the mothers may have lied about their adherence to the regimen in order to make themselves appear a responsible mother who, regardless of interferences, gave their child their prescribed regimen of asthma medication. A further weakness of self-reports in psychology is that there is no real way of making self-reports ecologically valid as answering questionnaires about psychological research is not something humans regularly involve themselves with. In almost all studies, but particularly studies like Farrington, et al.’s into delinquent development, where ecological validity can be considered relatively high, the use of self-reports interviews during the participants development into an adult reduce the ecological validity as the participants had to be contacted and visited to conduct the interview, thus making self-reports’ ecological validity a limitation in psychology.

Why Study World Religions Essays

Why Study World Religions Essays Why Study World Religions Paper Why Study World Religions Paper PHL230 Religions of the World I think that it is important to study world religions because it can help people to become more tolerant of other’s beliefs and more compassionate to other people’s causes. With so much war and misunderstanding in the world based on religious viewpoints, it is important to take the time to find out where and why people believe the way that they do. While I find that most people in the world follow a religion based on their geographical location, this is not the case in the United States. Because the US is a country where people from all over the world can come to live it is a place where many different religions are practiced. It is important, especially for people in this country, to study world religions in order to know how to relate to others who live here. Religion has an influence on many aspects of life from politics, education, and the arts. It is important that we study all religions so we get a better understanding of how and why it influences these things. I think the greatest reason to study world religions is for appreciation. I think that studying these religions I have gained a better understanding of people in other areas of the world. I also find that I see many similarities, as well as some differences, in religious ideas and rituals. I think that how we started our studies in this class, with indigenous religions we learned the basics of beliefs and where they originated. I think that because the essence of animism’s â€Å"everything is alive† theory we start to see how people first connected with God and nature. I think that most religions believe that God, or whatever they call him in that religion, is everywhere, that His hand was in the creation of all living things and that there is a purpose for everything. I also find it interesting that although most indigenous people never came into contact with anyone else, and lived in different regions of the world, many of the beliefs are similar. I understand more now how indigenous people could believe that violent weather can be perceived as a wrath from a god because of mistreatment of nature. I think that this is something that can be thought of in today’s world because of global warming. We have mistreated the land for so long and it seems to be taking revenge on us with various weather patterns. Even though in today’s world we see this as just an environmental thing, indigenous religions would see it as a god’s wrath because of the poor treatment of the land. I enjoyed learning about Hinduism and the aspects of karma and samsara I found to be the most interesting parts of the Hindu faith. I think because of the Hindu belief in these things they work towards living a more moral and respectful existence. Karma is the notion of moral consequences that are carried along with every act. (Molloy 87) Samsara is the wheel of life. It is a circle of constant rebirth, suggesting that the world is full of change. (Molloy 87) Because the Hindu believes that the things they do in life have consequences in their reincarnation it makes them try to live better so that their next life may be in a higher position. I find it interesting that in this religion what happens to the person in their next life is up to that individual himself, and it is up to that person to find their own path to their enlightenment. Hinduism is said to be a religion of one truth and may paths. This is something I also found to be different because in my religion of Christianity what happens to you after death is based only upon your belief in Jesus being your savior. The other religion I feel I became more knowledgeable about because of the studies in this class is Buddhism. I had no previous knowledge about this religion other than it existed. The most important concept I feel that I learned from Buddhism is part of the three marks of reality. These are made up of, change, no permanent identity and suffering. In no permanent identity each person and each thing is changing and made up of parts that are also constantly changing. It means that people have no permanent soul or no self. (Molloy133). In suffering it is the fact of life that when life is lived conventionally it can never be fully satisfying because of change. (Molloy pg 134) The mark of reality I found the most interesting is change. The concept of change in Buddhism has us look at life as it really is. Things change gradually and we notice the changes over time. We don’t expect change but nothing ever remains the same. Molloy132) When I learned this I looked over my life and have to admit, that much has changed over time. No matter how we try and keep things the same it is impossible. Children grow up, our body ages, our relationships change. Even things in the world things are constantly changing, landscapes change naturally from things like the tide or erosion, and seasons come and go. In Buddhism the belief is that we are responsible for accepting this and not trying to change the outside world but we need to change ourselves and the way we experience the world. Molloy 134) In studying the world religions I learned that there are similarities; they all seem to have a similar moral code. The basic concept of all religions is to treat everyone with kindness. Ahimsa, â€Å"do no harm†, is a fundamental practice found in religions like Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. This is similar to the â€Å"do unto others† concept in Christianity. People should be kind to people as they want people to treat them kindly. I feel that prayer or meditation relate in a way to each other in different religions. Meditation in religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism are a way people can achieve inner peace and improve themselves as human beings. I find that prayer also can bring peace to a person. Prayer in religions like Christianity and Judaism is the way people speak and become closer to God. So in both prayer and meditation people improve themselves and achieve an inner peace. One difference that I learned in the course would be the concepts of time as they relate to religions. Religions such as animism, Hinduism and Buddhism have a cyclical view of time. This means there is no beginning or end but everything goes in a cycle. In Hinduism this is seen in the concept of samsara you are born, live, and are reincarnated so time is always going in a circle of life. In a religion like Christianity, there is a beginning and an end to time. The belief is that one day Jesus will return and then the end of the world where non believers will be sent to hell and the believers will ascend to heaven will happen. Another difference I learned about is in the amount of gods there are or the lack of any god in some religions. In Christianity, Judaism and Islam there is one God and God alone is worshipped. In a religion like Hinduism there are several deities that are worshipped. In Hinduism there is the Brahma, god of the universe, creation. Vishnu is the god of preservation in the universe. Shiva is the god associated to destruction. There are also several other gods in Hinduism like Devi, Durga, Kali, Krishna, and Vishnu. A religion like Daoism has no definite god only a belief of the Dao which is nameless and everything is a manifestation of the Dao. (Molloy 221) I would say that by studying world religions I did come away with many things I had not thought of or knew of before. I think it was beneficial for me because it gave me a better understanding of how people in different regions of the world think. Religion has an effect on many aspects of a person’s thinking. I think because of this, myself being a psychology major, the study of world religions has been very beneficial for me. I will know how to better relate to people of other cultures and schools of thought better because of my study. : Molloy, Michael. Experiencing the Worlds Religions, Tradition, Challenge, and Change 5th Edition. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 2010.

The Most Abundant Types of Insect Fossils

The Most Abundant Types of Insect Fossils Since insects lack bones, they didnt leave behind skeletons for paleontologists to unearth millions of years later. How do scientists learn about ancient insects without fossilized bones to study? They examine the abundant evidence found in the different types of insect fossils described below. For the purpose of this article, weve defined a fossil as any preserved physical evidence of insect life from a time period prior to recorded human history. Preserved in Amber Much of what we know about prehistoric insects is derived from evidence trapped in amber, or ancient tree resin. Because tree resin is a sticky substance – think of a time when youve touched pine bark and come away with sap on your hands – insects, mites, or other tiny invertebrates would quickly become trapped upon landing on the weeping resin. As the resin continued to ooze, it would soon encase the insect, preserving its body. Amber inclusions date as far back as the Carboniferous period. Scientists can also find preserved insects in resin dated just a few hundred years old; these resins are called copal, not amber. Because amber inclusions form only where trees or other resinous plants grew, the insect evidence recorded in amber documents the relationship between ancient insects and forests. Put simply, insects trapped in amber lived in or near wooded areas. Studying Impressions If youve ever pressed your hand into a freshly poured bed of cement, youve created the modern equivalent of an impression fossil. An impression fossil is a mold of an ancient insect, or more often, a part of an ancient insect. The most durable parts of the insect, the hard sclerites, and wings, comprise the majority of impression fossils. Because impressions are just a mold of an object that was once pressed in the mud, and not the object itself, these fossils assume the color of the minerals in which they are formed. Typically, insect impressions include only a mold of the wing, frequently with sufficiently detailed wing venation to identify the organism to order or even family. Birds and other predators that might have eaten the insect would find the wings unpalatable, or perhaps even indigestible, and leave them behind. Long after the wing or cuticle has decayed, a copy of it remains etched in stone. Impression fossils date back to the Carboniferous period, providing scientists with snapshots of insect life from up to 299 million years ago. Compressions Some fossil evidence formed when the insect (or part of the insect) was physically compressed in sedimentary rock. In a compression, the fossil contains organic matter from the insect. These organic residues in the rock retain their color, so the fossilized organism is conspicuous. Depending on how coarse or fine the mineral comprising the fossil is, an insect preserved by compression may appear in extraordinary detail. Chitin, which makes up part of the insects cuticle, is a very durable substance. When the rest of the insect body decays, the chitinous components often remain. These structures, such as the hard wing covers of beetles, comprise most of the fossil record of insects found as compressions. Like impressions, compression fossils date back as far as the Carboniferous period. Trace Fossils Paleontologists describe dinosaur behavior based on their study of fossilized footprints, tail tracks, and coprolites – trace evidence of dinosaur life. Similarly, scientists studying prehistoric insects can learn a great deal about insect behavior through the study of trace fossils. Trace fossils capture clues to how insects lived in different geologic time periods. Just as hardened minerals can preserve a wing or cuticle, such fossilization can preserve burrows, frass, larval cases, and galls. Trace fossils provide some of the richest information about the co-evolution of plants and insects. Leaves and stems with obvious insect feeding damage comprise some of the most abundant fossil evidence. The trails of leaf miners, too, are captured in stone. Sediment Traps Younger fossils – if one can call 1.7 million-year-old fossils young – are recovered from sediment traps representing the Quaternary period. Insects and other arthropods immobilized in peat, paraffin, or even asphalt were entombed as layers of sediment accumulated over their bodies. Excavations of such fossiliferous sites often yield tens of thousands of beetles, flies, and other invertebrates. The La Brea tar pits, located in Los Angeles, is a famous sediment trap. Scientists there have excavated well over 100,000 arthropods, many of them carrion feeders that were preserved along with the large vertebrate carcasses on which they fed. Sediment traps provide scientists with more than a catalog of species from a certain geological time frame. Quite often, such sites also offer evidence of climate change. Many, if not most, of the invertebrate species found in sediment traps, are extant. Paleontologists can compare their fossil finds with the current known distributions of living species, and extrapolate information about the climate at the time those insects were entombed. Fossils recovered from the La Brea tar pits, for example, represent terrestrial species that inhabit higher elevations today. This evidence suggests the area was once cooler and moister than it is now. Mineral Replications In some fossil beds, paleontologists find perfect mineralized copies of insects. As the insects body decayed, dissolved minerals precipitated out of solution, filling the void left as the body disintegrated. A mineral replication is an accurate and often detailed 3-dimensional replica of the organism, in part or whole. Such fossils typically form in places where water is rich with minerals, so animals represented by mineral replications are often marine species. Mineral replications give paleontologists an advantage when excavating fossils. Because the fossil is usually formed of a different mineral than the surrounding rock, they can often dissolve the outer rock bed to remove the embedded fossil. For example, silicate replications can be extracted from limestone using an acid. The acid will dissolve the calcareous limestone, leaving the silicate fossil unscathed.

Art History- South and southeast Asia before 1200 Research Paper

Art History- South and southeast Asia before 1200 - Research Paper Example The emergence of contemporary era has molded and changed forms of art, including the Buddha statues. The Buddha and Attendants in the Kushan Period (late 1st – early 2nd century) is in reference with the Amida, the Buddha of Infinite Light, and Two Attendants during the Edo Period of Japan (18th century). The Buddha and Attendants in the Kushan Period have height of 27 Â ¼ inches while the Amida, the Buddha of Infinite Light, and Two Attendants is only 1 3/8 inches in height (Thorndike, n.p.). The two sculptures are related because they depict the practice of Buddhism, specifically the practice of how people should meditate and mourn. They are also related because of similarities in the two attendants that are believed to welcome the souls of the dying person. I found the contemporary example compelling and exciting as well as poor and uninspiring in reference to the original. The Amida, the Buddha of Infinite Light, and Two Attendants is compelling and exciting because the sculpture is made with wood and gold. Anyone who would see the sculpture might draw attention due to the distinguished gold color. On the other hand, I found the contemporary sculpture poor and uninspiring compared to the original because of its size. The contemporary example is too small compared to the original. During the Kushan Period, the size of the reclining Buddha clearly discerned the emotional reaction of the mourners, which explains why the size of the reclining Buddha increases dramatically in size (Karetzky, 43). If the belief could be applied to the contemporary example, it would be disrespectful to the mourners to make a Buddha of approximately an inch in height. In addition, the small size of the contemporary example makes it uninspiring because the beauty of the structure of Buddha cannot be completely appreciated. I also believed that when it comes to religious beliefs and other arts concerning religion, artists should maintain the traditional sculpture and simplicity of

Low-Carbohydrate Diets Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Low-Carbohydrate Diets - Essay Example o consult a doctor first before considering a low-carb diet because, although there are testimonials of being effective in weight loss, as reported, low carb diets posed negative side effects such as ketosis, a metabolic disorder that may cause the body to higher secretion of sodium and water loss due to increase level of ketones caused by deficiency of carbohydrate in the body. At this stage, a dieter may feel sluggish and tired and may experience low levels of energy, due to deficient level of carbohydrate, since carbohydrate is the major source of energy in the human body (paras.4,5). Furthermore, with low-level of carbohydrate in human body, protein will be burned to produce energy as a replacement for the function of carbohydrates. That’s why some low-carb diets menu include high-protein diets. Yet, the main function of protein in human body is for growth and repair, such as making new cells and repairing damaged cells. So, burning protein for energy source will set aside the other function of protein in human body, therefore losing its main function. An article in the internet source reminds us that using carbohydrate to provide energy for the body allows protein to be saved for its main function. It asserted that the protein sparing effect of carbohydrates â€Å"conserves protein for muscle tissues† (DeVault, 2011). If the protein will perform the supposedly function of carbohydrate of supplying energy to the body, it seems that high-protein diet as supplement for low-carb diet is suitable. . But that is not sensible because according to some research, abundance of protein in human body system may lead to several health problems such as heart disease and cancer. So, excess proteins must undergo deamination, primarily by the liver, a body process that will removed amino groups form the excess proteins and converting it into usable resources such as hydrogen and carbon. This process may tend to occur during physical bodily exercise (Sumayao, 2011,

Mediation and intercultural communication Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Mediation and intercultural communication - Essay Example is to ensure the best performance of his duties, connected with finding an acceptable agreement between opposing parties. As far as mediation in Saudi Arabia is concerned, completely confidential and satisfactory for both parties resolution of the conflict should be meant, while mediation sphere in this country comprises one of the best professionals in this area. Mediators in Saudi Arabia are divided by the sphere of professional interest: for example, in order to solve dispute concerning employment agreement, it is necessary to contact with mediator in Saudi Arabia, who specializes in labor contracts. Other kinds of disputes, which can be handled by mediators in Saudi Arabia, include consumers, business, divorce etc. Saudi Arabia, being a multicultural country, faces disputes in which representatives of opposing cultural views are involved. Intercultural relations and communication are of the great importance in such cases, as it is tremendously necessary to tolerate opposin g parties in order to come to an agreement, which will satisfy both. In such cases mutual understanding and intercultural communications play an integral part and share each other’s thoughts and views, help to understand other opinions and to come to common solutions. To conclude, mediation in Saudi Arabia is a basic instrument in solving disputes and finding agreements. Intercultural relations and communication make it possible to understand opposing parties and to reach a common goal Seat, K. (2012, March 19). International Mediation Developments – November 2013.International Mediation Developments - November 2013. Retrieved June 21, 2014, from http://www.mediate.com/articles/intlmeddevNo Zemanta, A. (2010, January 11). Virtual Mediation Lab.  Virtual Mediation Lab. Retrieved June 21, 2014, from

International Perspectives in Employment - Individual Business Report Essay

International Perspectives in Employment - Individual Business Report - Essay Example The next step will be to devise a packaging that is made from recycled products. This will not only reduce costs but will also be a good strategy to attract customers from the Corporate Social Responsibility Perspective. The next step will be a challenge for the marketing department. Their marketing strategies especially advertising will have to take a 360 turn and promote products as healthy, environmentally friendly and low in cost. 2 Findings 3 Conclusion 5 Recommendations 5 Following are the recommendations for the company after this evaluation: 5 Bibliography 6 Terms of Reference Introduction In order to conduct an evaluation for Nature Foods about how it should react to the changing business environment, it is extremely vital to take care of a few important points that will help in changing the way it operates. The evaluation is intended for the internal usage of the company, as an analysis of its position that is declining because of the global economic downturn as well as env ironmental concerns for customers that have become strong enough to make them switch brands. The recommended changes will help Nature Foods to adopt new strategies that will help them increase their sales as well as customer satisfaction. Following the research that has been conducted by the relevant staff of Nature Foods, a plan needs to be developed for making the required strategic changes for the company. This process of evaluation will try to involve as many people from the organization as possible, so that a unanimous decision can be made regarding the changes, and so that relevant people can be gathered who on one table can together decide what strategies are likely to be more effective. Procedure For attaining the objectives above, the procedure to be followed will long and will be implemented throughout the organization. First of all, the production department will be called for a meeting to help devise modified products that are entirely focused on health. The formulas and ingredients of the products will be changed after discussions with the senior management as well as the operations department, in collaboration with relevant medical help such as nutritionists. The next step will be to devise a packaging that is made from recycled products. This will not only reduce costs but will also be a good strategy to attract customers from the Corporate Social Responsibility Perspective. The next step will be a challenge for the marketing department. Their marketing strategies especially advertising will have to take a 360 turn and promote products as healthy, environmentally friendly and low in cost. Findings Global Business involves more than just making money After all the research that had been conducted, available material on this subject indicates that Global business is not just about making money anymore according to Czinkota, Ronkainen, & Moffett (2008). It involves many other things such as complying to international standards, a sustainable busine ss that is concerned about the future and that provides lower prices to the consumers in this era where they have many choices and switching costs are low, especially for evyday products like FMCG’s, to which Nature Foods belongs. Moreover, it is very difficult to ensure brand loyalty from the customers who are very rational and highly aware of global and market trends as well as opportunities

Advantages of Breastfeeding Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Advantages of Breastfeeding - Research Paper Example The World Health Organization, health care unions, and government health organizations confirm the logical confirmation of the obvious advantage of human milk as well as the risks associated with artificial milk products. The WHO along with the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that mothers exclusively breastfeed their newborns al least for the initial six months, and carry on for at least two and a half years. Human milk gives best advantages for babies, together with premature, as well as sick infants. Human milk is only one of its kinds. Advanced nutrients as well as useful substances are present in human milk that cannot be replaced. â€Å"Breastfeeding offers best physical condition, nutritional, immunologic and developmental benefits to newborns as well as protection from postpartum complications and future disease for mothers† (Sears, p. 190). Breast milk is the most comprehensive type of nourishment for newborns. Experts have indicated, â€Å"It has just the exa ct amount of fat, sugar, water, and protein that is needed for a baby's growth and development† (American Academy of Pediatrics, p. 301). Most newborns find it convenient to digest breast milk as compared to formula-feed. As a result, breastfed babies grow precisely the way they are supposed to. They are likely to gain less extra weight and to be leaner. This may result in staying away from being overweight during the teenage years or even after that. Breast milk has antibodies in it to help defend newborns from germs and viruses. Latest researches on this topic revel that children who are not exclusively breastfed for at least six months are more expected to develop a wide range of contagious diseases together with ear infections, diarrhea, and respiratory illnesses (American Academy of Pediatrics, p. 301) and have additional hospitalizations. In addition, babies who are not breastfed have a 19 percent higher post neonatal newborn death rate in the United States. A number of studies imply that babies who are not breastfed have increasing rates of ‘sudden infant death syndrome’ (SIDS) (Newman, p. 320-23) during the initial year of life, and higher rates of â€Å"type 1 and type 2 diabetes, lymphoma, leukemia, Hodgkin's disease, overweight and obesity, high cholesterol and asthma† (Newman, p. 323). For children, breastfeeding sustains best growth and defends against severe and chronic sickness. For mothers, breastfeeding assists with improvement from pregnancy as well as from childbirth and gives lifetime health benefits. For society, breastfeeding offers a variety of financial as well as environmental rewards. Breast milk is a remarkable substance that cannot be replaced by some artificial means. Matchless in its composition and function, breast milk has a perfect balance of nutrition that the newborn can digest without difficulty. It changes eventually, and even d the course of a day, to meet the varying requirements of the growing b aby. It has substances vital for best development of the infant’s intellect, with effects on both cognitive as well as visual function. It provides growth factors that ‘join to mature the infant gut’. It gives the newborn with immune factors made to fight allergens as well as diseases particular to the mother’s and newborn’s atmosphere (Hausman, p. 192). Advantages for Children In particular, experts have identified that breastfeeding provides benefits for children no other alternative of feeding can duplicate. The advantages of breastfeeding start from the initial moments following childbirth and last for a number of years once breastfeeding stops. In comparison

Week two questions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Week two questions - Essay Example Fats play a number of roles in the human body. Their basic function is protection. This consists of the insulation needed to maintain the body temperature, and providing a cushion to protect the body organs. Fats also encourage the growth and subsequent development, as well as the maintenance of the cell membranes. It is necessary in the digestion of vitamins. Carbohydrates are the main source of energy in the body and also a source of calories to help maintain the weight of the body. A meal containing an optimum carbohydrates level may help prevent the body from fat accumulation. Carbohydrates are also influential in the development of the body organs and also the nerve cells, and also in the definition of individual’s biological identity like their blood group. The government should try and promote the eating of healthy foods, without passing their boundaries, since a healthy people are a productive people. It is in the best interest of the government to promote healthy eating. Yes, everything should have set standards. This will be able to prevent unscrupulous producers come up with low quality goods that will be harmful to the general health of the people. The government should ensure laws are in place, to prevent illegal foods that are harmful to the citizens, reach the tables. Supplements like the Folic acid, that is a B vitamin are beneficial as it helps boost the fertility and to prevent birth problems like spina bifida. It also stimulates the development of new cell growth. Tryptophan that works hand in hand with the natural Melatonin that gets created in the brain, to help in the regulation of sleep has side effects like mental changes and also a fast heart

Advantages of Breastfeeding Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Advantages of Breastfeeding - Research Paper Example The World Health Organization, health care unions, and government health organizations confirm the logical confirmation of the obvious advantage of human milk as well as the risks associated with artificial milk products. The WHO along with the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that mothers exclusively breastfeed their newborns al least for the initial six months, and carry on for at least two and a half years. Human milk gives best advantages for babies, together with premature, as well as sick infants. Human milk is only one of its kinds. Advanced nutrients as well as useful substances are present in human milk that cannot be replaced. â€Å"Breastfeeding offers best physical condition, nutritional, immunologic and developmental benefits to newborns as well as protection from postpartum complications and future disease for mothers† (Sears, p. 190). Breast milk is the most comprehensive type of nourishment for newborns. Experts have indicated, â€Å"It has just the exa ct amount of fat, sugar, water, and protein that is needed for a baby's growth and development† (American Academy of Pediatrics, p. 301). Most newborns find it convenient to digest breast milk as compared to formula-feed. As a result, breastfed babies grow precisely the way they are supposed to. They are likely to gain less extra weight and to be leaner. This may result in staying away from being overweight during the teenage years or even after that. Breast milk has antibodies in it to help defend newborns from germs and viruses. Latest researches on this topic revel that children who are not exclusively breastfed for at least six months are more expected to develop a wide range of contagious diseases together with ear infections, diarrhea, and respiratory illnesses (American Academy of Pediatrics, p. 301) and have additional hospitalizations. In addition, babies who are not breastfed have a 19 percent higher post neonatal newborn death rate in the United States. A number of studies imply that babies who are not breastfed have increasing rates of ‘sudden infant death syndrome’ (SIDS) (Newman, p. 320-23) during the initial year of life, and higher rates of â€Å"type 1 and type 2 diabetes, lymphoma, leukemia, Hodgkin's disease, overweight and obesity, high cholesterol and asthma† (Newman, p. 323). For children, breastfeeding sustains best growth and defends against severe and chronic sickness. For mothers, breastfeeding assists with improvement from pregnancy as well as from childbirth and gives lifetime health benefits. For society, breastfeeding offers a variety of financial as well as environmental rewards. Breast milk is a remarkable substance that cannot be replaced by some artificial means. Matchless in its composition and function, breast milk has a perfect balance of nutrition that the newborn can digest without difficulty. It changes eventually, and even d the course of a day, to meet the varying requirements of the growing b aby. It has substances vital for best development of the infant’s intellect, with effects on both cognitive as well as visual function. It provides growth factors that ‘join to mature the infant gut’. It gives the newborn with immune factors made to fight allergens as well as diseases particular to the mother’s and newborn’s atmosphere (Hausman, p. 192). Advantages for Children In particular, experts have identified that breastfeeding provides benefits for children no other alternative of feeding can duplicate. The advantages of breastfeeding start from the initial moments following childbirth and last for a number of years once breastfeeding stops. In comparison