Stereotypes Versus Women Of All Ages Throughout Boob Tube Ads Essay

Stereotypes Versus Women Of All Ages Throughout Boob Tube Ads - Essay Example The truth is media is really a hand mirror where guild understands and automatically build up awareness in addition to routines. By far the most groundbreaking induction never to simply modifying awareness and also altering demeanor along with lifestyle with respect to press can be an advertisement (Alice as well as Johnson, age 14). The top, accurate, pernicious in addition to excessively influential these include the tv commercials. That is almost certainly given that tv set interests both the optical and ability to hear feelings to be able to effect into a mix of particularly influential emails which could probably create stereotypes associated with grammatical gender (Blain and McElroy 16). As a matter of fact, promoters are very well aware of this particular reality to a level they're able to adjust adverts in a fashion that powerfully stay in addition to pressure societal behavior dynamics. It really is nevertheless significant which television advertisement tends to sneakily d evelop a kinda mortifying, lowered and weak importance to fair sex (Maring 56). To help conclusively study this spread generalization against girls in media, enable’s explore forecasts of girls with regards to spouse and children, profession, political relation, enterprise, aroused counterbalance, sporting activities and also manual labor. The reason is, many of us assess these representations determined by a variety of issues with advertisement including the track record, item kind, and end feedback, argumentation of the advertisement, method involving presentment, prize kind, reliability time frame, area, but enthusiasm and also boiler suit political theory (Blain and McElroy 16). Resolution of the actual relativity theory involving these elements of idiot box advertising show wide-spread misrepresentations versus females.

Tsunami and Physical Protection Measures Essay Example for Free

Tsunami and Physical Protection Measures Essay What is tsunami? A tsunami (plural: tsunamis or tsunami; from Japanese: æ ´ ¥Ã¦ ³ ¢, lit. harbor wave;[1] English pronunciation: /suË Ã‹Ë†nÉ‘Ë mi/ soo-nah-mee or/tsuË Ã‹Ë†nÉ‘Ë mi/ tsoo-nah-mee[2]) is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explosions (including detonations of underwater nuclear devices), landslides, glacier calving, meteorite impacts and other disturbances above or below water all have the potential to generate a tsunami. [3] Tsunami waves do not resemble normal sea waves, because their wavelength is far longer. Rather than appearing as a breaking wave, a tsunami may instead initially resemble a rapidly rising tide, and for this reason they are often referred to as tidal waves. Tsunamis generally consist of a series of waves with periods ranging from minutes to hours, arriving in a so-called wave train.[4] Wave heights of tens of meters can be generated by large events. Although the impact of tsunamis is limited to coastal areas, their destructive power can be enormous and they can affect entire ocean basins; the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was among the deadliest natural disasters in human history with over 230,000 people killed in 14 countries bordering the Indian Ocean. The Greek historian Thucydides suggested in 426 BC that tsunamis were related to submarine earthquakes,[5][6] but the understanding of a tsunamis nature remained slim until the 20th century and much remains unknown. Major areas of current research include trying to determine why some large earthquakes do not generate tsunamis while other smaller ones do; trying to accurately forecast the passage of tsunamis across the oceans; and also to forecast how tsunami waves would interact with specific shorelines. Etymology (Literary meaning) Tsunamis are sometimes referred to as tidal waves. In recent years, this term has fallen out of favor, especially in the scientific community, because tsunamis actually have nothing to do with tides. The once-popular term derives from their most common appearance, which is that of an extraordinarily high tidal bore. Tsunami and tides both produce waves of water that move inland, but in the case of tsunami the inland movement of water is much greater and lasts for a longer period, giving the impression of an incredibly high tide. Although the meanings of tidal include resembling[8] or having the form or character of[9] the tides, and the term tsunami is no more accurate because tsunami are not limited to harbours, use of the term tidal waves discouraged by geologists and oceanographers. History Main article: Historic tsunami As early as 426 BC the Greek historian Thucydides inquired in his book History of the Peloponnesian War about the causes of tsunami, and was the first to argue that ocean earthquakes must be the cause.[5][6] The cause, in my opinion, of this phenomenon must be sought in the earthquake. At the point where its shock has been the most violent the sea is driven back, and suddenly recoiling with redoubled force, causes the inundation. Without an earthquake I do not see how such an accident could happen.[14] The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus (Res Gestae 26.10.15-19) described the typical sequence of a tsunami, including an incipient earthquake, the sudden retreat of the sea and a following gigantic wave, after the 365 AD tsunami devastated Alexandria.[15][16] While Japan may have the longest recorded history of tsunamis, the sheer destruction caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami event mark it as the most devastating of its kind in modern times, killing around 230,0 00 people. The Sumatran region is not unused to tsunamis either, with earthquakes of varying magnitudes regularly occurring off the coast of the island.[17] Generation mechanisms The principal generation mechanism (or cause) of a tsunami is the displacement of a substantial volume of water or perturbation of the sea.[18] This displacement of water is usually attributed to either earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, glacier calvings or more rarely by meteorites and nuclear tests.[19][20] The waves formed in this way are then sustained by gravity. Tides do not play any part in the generation of tsunamis. Tsunami generated by seismicity Tsunami can be generated when the sea floor abruptly deforms and vertically displaces the overlying water. Tectonic earthquakes are a particular kind of earthquake that are associated with the Earths crustal deformation; when these earthquakes occur beneath the sea, the water above the deformed area is displaced from its equilibrium position.[21] More specifically, a tsunami can be generated when thrust faults associated with convergent or destructive plate boundaries move abruptly, resulting in water displacement, owing to the vertical component of movement involved. Movement on normal faults will also cause displacement of the seabed, but the size of the largest of such events is normally too small to give rise to a significant tsunami. The energy released produces tsunami waves. Tsunamis have a small amplitude (wave height) offshore, and a very long wavelength (often hundreds of kilometers long, whereas normal ocean waves have a wavelength of only 30 or 40 metres),[22] which is why they generally pass unnoticed at sea, forming only a slight swell usually about 300 millimetres (12 in) above the normal sea surface. They grow in height when they reach shallower water, in a wave shoaling process described below. A tsunami can occur in any tidal state and even at low tide can still inundate coastal areas. Tsunami generated by landslides In the 1950s, it was discovered that larger tsunamis than had previously been believed possible could be caused by giant landslides. Underwater landslides that generate tsunamis are calledsciorrucks.[23] These phenomena rapidly displace large water volumes, as energy from falling debris or expansion transfers to the water at a rate faster than the water can absorb. Their existence was confirmed in 1958, when a giant landslide in Lituya Bay, Alaska, caused the highest wave ever recorded, which had a height of 524 metres (over 1700 feet). The wave didnt travel far, as it struck land almost immediately. Two people fishing in the bay were killed, but another boat amazingly managed to ride the wave. Scientists named these waves megatsunami. Scientists discovered that extremely large landslides from volcanic island collapses can generate megatsunamis that can cross oceans. Meteotsunamis Some meteorological conditions, such as deep depressions that cause tropical cyclones, can generate a storm surge, called a meteotsunami, which can raise tides several metres above normal levels. The displacement comes from low atmospheric pressure within the centre of the depression. As these storm surges reach shore, they may resemble (though are not) tsunamis, inundating vast areas of land.[24]

Colonial Woman and Religion-?Woman and Witchcraft? :: essays research papers

It was at staid Boston that Anne Hutchinson marshaled her forces; it was at peace-loving Salem that the Devil marshaled his witches in a last despairing onslaught against the saints. To many of its readers there seemed to be little or no connection between witchcraft and religion; but an investigation of the facts leading to the death sentence of the various martyrs to superstition at Salem will convince the skeptical that there was a most intimate relationship between the Puritan belief and the theory of witchcraft. Looking back after the passing of more than two hundred years, it was said to believe the bizarre explanation, skilled and thoroughly intelligent folk as the Puritans could have believed in the possession of this evil power. It especially appeared incredibly when it was remembered that here was a people that came to this country for the exercise of religious freedom, a citizenship that descended from men trained in the universities of England, a well-built band that under extreme privation has created an institution within sixteen years after the settlement of wilderness. It was borne in the mind that the Massachusetts colonies were not alone in this belief in witchcraft. It as common throughout the world, and was as aged as humankind. Deprived of the aid of modern science in explaining odd methods and activities, man had long been adapted to fall back upon devils, witches, and evil spirits as premises for his arguments. While the execution of the witch was not so common an event els ewhere in the world, during the Salem period, yet it was unknown among ‘so-called’ open-minded people. In 1712, a woman was burned near London for witchcraft and several city clergymen were among the prosecutors. The religion of Salem and Boston was well fitted for developing this very theory of hateful power in â€Å"possessed† persons. The teachings that there was a personal devil, that God allowed him to tempt mankind, that there were myriads of devils under Satan’s control at all times, ever watchful to trap the innocent, that these devils were rulers over certain territory and certain types of people. These teachings naturally led to the assumption that the goblins chose certain persons as their very own. The constant reminders of the danger of straying from the strait and narrow way, and of the tortures of the afterworld led to self-consciousness, introspection, and morbidness. The idea that Satan was all times seeking to weaken the Puritan church also made it easy to believe that anyone living outside of that church was an agent of the devil or bewitched.

The Intruder – Creative Writing

‘It's always best when the light is out, I am the pick in the ice Do not cry out or hit the alarm, you know we're friends 'til we die' – Thom Yorke (Radiohead), ‘Climbing Up The Walls' ‘Alone. The most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym.' Humphrey had read this somewhere, probably in a Stephen King book, he couldn't remember exactly which, but he agreed with the passage then and he sure as hell agreed with it now. Though Humphrey was not alone, he was anything but alone. Humphrey was crumpled into the corner of his bedroom, his arms covering his head, his entire frame trembling, his pores and eyes unreservedly discharging sweat and bitter tears. He sat there in his darkened room with Dread, who poked him mischievously with his cold fingers. With Sorrow, who warped his heart and ate him alive. With Darkness, who shrouded Humphrey and the entire room under his tattered cloak. But worse than any twisted emotion, worse than any mutual deception of the eye and the light, worse than any melancholic betraying thoughts Humphrey may have had, was Death, who came in the guise of an Intruder that occupied the downstairs of his house, ravaging his house in a relentless chaotic frenzy. Despite Humphrey's feeble efforts to block out the noise, he could still hear everything. The crash of the tableware and glass, falling and ultimately exploding into pieces as they collided with the floor and the walls. The loud bang as his television was thrown across the room, smashing into a wall and the sizzle of the circuits bursting. The scornful cackle of the Intruder. It was a hair-raising, vulgar, sharp screech that penetrated Humphrey's delicate ear-canal-walls, went straight to his brain and exploded, the shrapnel of the explosion cutting his soft organ. It took a moment for Humphrey's mind to register that all sound and movement had ceased downstairs. Gradually his brain escaped from the cycle of fear and earthly senses returned to him. He realised his pants were drenched in urine, which made him click his tongue disapprovingly. Humphrey's aged brain was working overtime attempting to process what had happened. Most of the day was a nauseating blur to him and passed by rather uneventfully, but he remembered dozing off, and he remembered Sleep's grasp on him loosening and faltering to the hostile sound of his back door crashing in. That's when the Intruder broke in. But the dust has settle and the Intruder has departed now, probably satisfied with the destruction caused and the items burgled. Humphrey picked up his walking stick and with immense effort he managed to summon the strength to get up. He intended to go downstairs and phone the police, but only managed two steps before he heard a bang on his door. The Intruder was still in the house. The Intruder was right outside his room. Humphrey's legs collapsed right on the spot, and that frosty familiar feeling of numb helplessness enveloped him again. He shrunk back into his corner and broke into a fit of hysterical sobbing. Outside the Intruder was pounding at the door. ‘Open up,' the Intruder said hoarsely, ‘open up, man, you've gotta open up. I need her back, man, open up!' The Intruder proceeded to pound at the door, slowly at first, but then he snapped and broke into a violent fury of pounding. ‘OPEN UP!!' After what felt like an eternity to Humphrey, the Intruder ceased pounding at the door and fell to the floor and, to Humphrey's great surprise, began to weep. ‘Open up,' the Intruder wailed, ‘I can get her back, he said I can, just open up.' For a brief moment a spark of pity for the Intruder lighted up in Humphrey's mind, but the spark dimmed as soon as it appeared, and Humphrey was back in his hopeless state of terror. Silence slithered around the room, but his tyranny was brief and hastily retreated when Humphrey's bedroom door collapsed in with an earth-shattering BANG, rattling Humphrey's brain inside his skull. The Intruder got in. He was a tall man, of medium build, in his mid-thirties with moon-pale complexion, as if the sunlight had only a nodding acquaintance with his skin. The Intruder stood there, looking down at Humphrey with the look of absolute discontent on his face, a sandwich in his hand. And a gun in the other. The Intruder's eyes were dim, with a hint of triumph in them, and Humphrey noticed that he was salivating. ‘I find you at last, demon!' the Intruder exclaimed with triumph. He fiddled with his gun, groping it with his index finger. It was not point directly at Humphrey, but it was dangerously close. The Intruder made a slight a motion, which made Humphrey recoil and defensively position his arms in front of his face, as if trying to defend against an incoming strike, but the Intruder merely took a giant bite of his sandwich, the rest of which he tossed away, along with his gun. ‘I have been lookin' for ya' for so long,' the Intruder grunted, ‘you ‘ave taken away that I hold dearest, you ‘ave taken away my light. Where is she?' Dread glumly retired his post behind Humphrey and was replaced by Confusion. Humphrey was flabbergasted, ‘what is this madman talking about?' he thought, but out loud he said, ‘I- I'm afraid I have no idea what you are talking about.' ‘Ya' know damn well wha' I'm on about. I wan' her back.' The Intruder spat. ‘I think y-you're mistaken, s-sir,' Humphrey murmured, ‘I'm just an innocent ol-‘ ‘WHAT DO YOU WAN' FROM ME?' The Intruder snapped, his eyes budging and his breathing getting heavy. Dread cheerfully resumed his post. ‘Listen, man, I'm begging you to give her back to me,' The Intruder got down on both knees and clasped his hands together and tears gathered in the corner of his eyes, ‘I'm an empty shell wiv' out her. An insect, I'll do anythin'!' Humphrey was cornered; he had not a hint of how to proceed. The Intruder was utterly insane, fragile, and capable of cracking at a moment's notice. He was a danger to himself and, more importantly, a danger to Humphrey. Humphrey's eyes desperately scanned the room, looking for something, anything, he could use against the Intruder. Time, that's what he needed. Time. And a damn miracle. In the past, time and time again, Humphrey's mind had failed him. Whether it was through an examination when he was young, an important job interview, when proposing or just during everyday endeavours. And today it was no different. Humphrey couldn't even move, he felt like a spectator observing through the eyes of someone else's body, he could only watch and not take party. ‘Fine. He told me you wouldn' cooperate. He told me you wouldn' give her back to me, he told me everythin'. But there's another way, if I kill you now, she will return to me. He told me.' The Intruder said through gritted teeth, as he progressed towards Humphrey. His teeth bared, his eyes filled with contagious madness and his veins popping out, on the verge of bursting. His bare, cold hands made contact with Humphrey's neck, which made Humphrey shiver, and squeezed. Humphrey's eyes started seeing shades of black, then stars and then no more. *** Humphrey woke up, rubbed his eyes, and then wearily scanned the environment. He had been here before, he couldn't remember when but he was certain he had definitely been here before. ‘Good morning,' a cheerful voice said, ‘are we doing alright?' Humphrey looked to his right and saw a young, pleasant man in a uniform. ‘Who are you? Where am I?' Humphrey asked, dazed. His eyes were burning ‘I'm officer Peter, just call me Peter, and you're in Worthington Hospital, you were brought in last night,' Peter replied in his cheery manner. ‘What happened last night?' ‘Well, we got a call from your neighbour reporting a break-in, and we came over as soon as we could and came just in time and the intruder is in custody now.' ‘What did the intruder want with me?' Humphrey questioned. ‘His name was John Gates, and he recently lost his wife in a car accident. Poor man was mad with grief, and was only last week taken into an insane asylum, from which he miraculously escaped and came for you.' Peter nervously answered. ‘He†¦' Humphrey trailed off, ‘he kept referring to a third-party who told him to come for me. Are you sure there was no real motive after coming after me?' ‘I can only speculate on who he was referring to, but Gates was mad beyond help. That person could have just been a persona, driving him to psychotic acts, which seemed reasonable to Gates.' Peter responded. ‘Oh†¦' They had said their goodbyes and Officer Peter left, leaving Humphrey alone. All alone.

General Motors Essay

A car for every purse and purpose† – Alfred P Sloan Jr, Former President & CEO General Motors. General Motors, one of the world’s largest automakers, traces its roots back to 1908. With its global headquarters in Detroit, GM employs 205,000 people in every major region of the world and does business in some 157 countries. GM and its strategic partners produce cars and trucks in 31 countries, and sell and service these vehicles through the following brands: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Daewoo, Holden, Jiefang, Opel, Vauxhall and Wuling. GM’s largest national market is the United States, followed by China, Brazil, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Italy. Company History: General Motors was founded on Wednesday, September 16, 1908, in Flint, Michigan, as a holding company for Buick by William C. Durant. Durant started acquiring many companies like Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Cartercar, Elmore, Ewing, Pontiac etc. Durant lost control of GM in 1910 to a bankers trust, due to the large amount of debt (around $1 million) taken on in its acquisitions. Durant left the firm and co-founded the Chevrolet Motor Company in 1911 with Louis Chevrolet. After a brilliant stock buy back campaign, he returned to head GM in 1916. GM surpassed Ford Motor Company in sales in the late 1920s thanks to the leadership of Alfred P. Sloan. Sloan was inventing new ways of managing a complex worldwide organization, while paying special attention to consumer demands. Car buyers no longer wanted the cheapest and most basic model; they wanted style, power, and prestige, which GM offered them. During the 1920s and 1930s, General Motors assumed control of the Yellow Coach bus company, and helped create Greyhound bus lines. They replaced intercity train transport with buses. GM needs a sense of urgency regarding revising a strategic plan that incorporates the next generation of vehicles. In today’s global economy and highly competitive auto industry GM has no time to procrastinate. As stated, GM has just too much at risk in not becoming an industry leader in alternative fuel technology. Fuel-economy legislation is sparking the race. This is a critical time in auto industry with many threats, but opportunities as well. The next several years will redefine GM. Vision Statement The GM vision is as follows: GM’s vision is to be the world leader in transportation products and related services. GM will earn our customers’ enthusiasm through continuous improvement driven by the integrity, teamwork, and innovation of GM people. The proposed new vision for GM is as follows: For GM to become the automotive industry leader in alternative fueled vehicles and providing superior quality products that global consumers call to mind when they think of quality and innovation. My vision for GM is to be the industry leader in innovation, and where all other industry competition strives to imitate. Mission Statement The current GM mission statements are as follows: Drive improvements in market share, revenue, brands, people, responsiveness, and cost effectiveness through the implementation of global common metrics and best practice sharing. The new proposed mission statement will be as follows: GM will become an industry leader, not a follower. To regain lost market share that was lost to foreign competition, and once again be the auto industry leader in sales and market share in today’s global market. Values Statement The auto industry just like the global economy is going through tremendous change, due to rising fuel prices, and environmental worries, such as global warming. GM must use these threats as opportunities, and take advantage of changing consumer buying habits. GM needs to change consumer perception of the company, from a dull, poor quality, vehicles to innovative, quality, and environmentally friendly company. To do this GM must portray an image that states that GM values what the consumer wants and what the environment needs. Listen to what consumers are saying directly and indirectly about GM’s current products, and create innovative, green, vehicles that turn consumers into customers. At the same time provide GM stakeholders pride and financial incentives to remain with GM. Environmental Analysis GM and the entire auto industry are currently challenged with the perfect storm. The auto industry is being hit by a weak US and global economy, rising fuel prices, and social and political environmental concerns and issues. In order to overcome these potential threat, GM should consider mass producing a range of alternative fueled vehicles, i. e. fuel cell, electric, and hybrid. SWOT Analysis Strengths 1. Large Market Share Although GM’s market share in the US has dropped it is still very much competitive at 26 percent. They also have an increasing share in the Chinese market. With the right decisions there is no reason for GM to not become the automotive leader it once was. . Global Experience As explained above even with GM’s recent decline they still have the market share and the experience to bounce back. They have been a worldwide company for nearly a century now and have established themselves as the global leader for most of them. If you recall I mentioned above that a current opportunity for GM is to expand globally and as we can see they a lready have the experience to do so. It is just a matter of the correct planning and proper implementation of those plans that will decided whether or not GM’s goals are achieved. 3. Variety of Brand Names GM as I mentioned has been the automotive leader for the majority of the last century. A large reason for that is the wide variety of quality brand names that appeal to all target markets. The current GM brands include: Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac, Buick, Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer, Saab, Daewoo, Opel, and Holden. 4. GMAC Customer Financing Program Since its establishment in 1919 it has proven to be GM’s most reliable source of revenue. 5. OnStar Satellite Technology Developed in 1996 OnStar currently has over 3 million subscribers and is standard on all GM vehicles. This technology allows the vehicles to be tracked in the event of an emergency or theft. It also allows the driver and or passengers the ability to communicate with OnStar personnel at the click of a button. Weaknesses 1. Behind on Alternative Energy Movement This is GM’s biggest weakness. The alternative energy/hybrid trend has begun to take place in the automotive industry and GM has been one step behind the competition in terms of alternative energy vehicles. This has led to many problems including loss of market share and a decrease in company profit. In order for any automotive company to be successful from this point forward they must be Hybrid friendly and fuel efficient. 2. Poor Organizational Structure As we can see in exhibit 1 of the case GM’s organizational structure seems to be too vertically integrated. This causes a lack of communication between employees from top to bottom and may have played a part in GM falling behind on the alternative energy movement. 3. Stagnant Profitability Looking at GM’s profit we see that they are certainly struggling with respect to the size of their company. Their profit margin was about 1. 5% and the ROE has dramatically decreased over the recent years dropping to 10% in 2004. This is a situation that shareholders will not be pleased with. 4. Overly Dependent on US market GM has become too dependent on the US market and must take advantage of the opportunity to expand globally. The competition is becoming too strong to focus on just one country. 5. Overly Dependent on General Motors Acceptance Corporation(GMAC) Financing GM has become too dependent on its financing program. Granted it is a great strength for GM, however they once again cannot rely solely on financing in order to turn profit, especially if they want to compete with Honda and Toyota who are rapidly growing. 6. Poor Credit Status GM’s credit status has like everything else has been steadily declining. Their current ratio is just barely above 1 and their acid test is even lower. Although, I don’t see them getting denied based on their credit at this point, the seriousness of the matter is certainly apparent. Opportunities 1. Alternative Energy movement It is obvious that GM was behind its competition with regards to the research and development of hybrid vehicles. However hybrid technology is still very much new giving GM the opportunity to once again become the automotive industry’s leader in innovation and technology. 2. Continuing to Expand Globally. Recently GM saw an increase in the Chinese automotive market, which proves their needs to be more emphasis put on foreign markets. If GM can infiltrate these markets and successfully grow along with their continuing focus on the US market they will be headed in a positive direction. . Low Interest Rates With the right marketing strategy the low interest rates have the potential to generate an immediate increase in sales. 4. Develop New Vehicle Styles and Models This is an opportunity that will never be satisfied, meaning that GM should always be attempting to develop the automotive world’s most popular vehicles, and as we know, what is in today will be out tomorrow. Th reats 1. Rising Fuel Prices With GM being a large producer in both trucks and SUV’s, sales have drastically decreased due to the lack of fuel efficiency. The rise in fuel prices has played a significant role in creating the opportunity for development of both hybrid and more fuel efficient vehicles. As you will find with most threats, an equal opportunity will usually emerge as is the case here with GM’s opportunity mentioned above. 2. Growth of Competitors GM no longer has the luxury of being the known leader in the automotive industry and faces the reality that they are in serious trouble. As I mentioned earlier Toyota took the first step in the direction of hybrid echnology and has since drastically grown and become the questionable automotive frontrunner to start the 21st century. 3. Pension Payouts. Part of this threat is their own doing and the other is simply unavoidable. GM is responsible for providing generous pension benefits to its employees, which at the time seemed like a great idea, however they are now experiencing problems as more and more people begin to collect. 4. Increased Health Care Costs GM, like many lar ge companies with quality employee health care benefits, is experiencing a large financial hit that only gets worse as time continues. . Rising Supply Costs, i. e. Steel Once again this threat affects the entire automotive industry and forces each company to cut manufacturing and production costs as much as possible, without taking away from the quality of the product. Core Competence The core competence of General Motors is innovation. This is the driving force behind its $190 above turnover. General Motors has been utilizing innovation in service ad technology to secure itself a dominant position in the automobile industry, since 1908. In 1911, it conceptualized, engineered and commercialized the self-starter engine for the first time. Then in 1926, its product Cadillac was the pioneer in devising a nationwide service strategy. In 1996 General Motors introduced OnStar satellite technology which allows equipped vehicles to be tracked in case of an emergency or theft and allows the passengers to communicate with OnStar personnel. Other new car concepts include minicars such as Chevy Aveo. However in the case of hybrid vehicles, General Motors was unable to keep up to the pace of the market demand.

Free Essays on Panopticism

the student â€Å"reports from the syndics to the indendants, from the intendants to the magistrated or mayor.† All teachers and administrators have their own roles and have their own positions in making the school run smoothly. The one postion separate is the security guard. They are the ones walking the hallways, patrolling the parking lots they are in place to keep the peace in school. They don’t follow the â€Å"h... Free Essays on Panopticism Free Essays on Panopticism Panopticism How many times while in school did you feel like you were in a prision? Is that the first thought that comes to ones mind while sitting in classes? Probably not, but it isn’t suprising is it? The idea that schools are like prisions is the idea that Michel Foucault tries to get readers to understand in his essay Panopticism. Schools and prisions alike have their â€Å"experts in normailty† as well as â€Å"key sites of survaillence and control†, which make the two so similair. The bell rings and all the students report to their first class. How do they know where to go and when to go their? Schools run on and with a schedule. Every student is given a schedule and on their schedule it states where to be and when. The school time is kept by a bell, classes starting and ending with a bell. The same is true with prisions; the prisoners are told to be somewhere at a certain time they are there with the sounding of the bell. The process of the schedule is organized allowing follow-ups to be made. Attendance is taken, if a student isn’t present at time of attendance they are repremanded. In schools there are many people who govern over the school in order for everything to move smoothly, the â€Å"experts in normailty†. The governing body starts off at the bottom, teachers are the†syndics†. If the student is still having problems the teacher can now report the student to the vice-principal the â€Å"indentant† and the last resort is the dreaded principal in other words the â€Å"magistrate†. In other words the student â€Å"reports from the syndics to the indendants, from the intendants to the magistrated or mayor.† All teachers and administrators have their own roles and have their own positions in making the school run smoothly. The one postion separate is the security guard. They are the ones walking the hallways, patrolling the parking lots they are in place to keep the peace in school. They don’t follow the â€Å"h...

Octane Number Definition and Example

Octane Number Definition and Example The octane number is a value used to indicate the resistance of a motor fuel to knock. Octane number is also known as octane rating. Octane numbers are based on a scale on which isooctane is 100 (minimal knock) and heptane is 0 (bad knock). The higher the octane number, the more compression required for fuel ignition. Fuels with high octane numbers are used in high performance gasoline engines. Fuels with low octane number (or high cetane numbers) are used in diesel engines, where fuel is not compressed. Octane Number Example A gasoline with an octane number of 92 has the same knock as a mixture of 92% isooctane and 8% heptane. Why the Octane Number Matters In a spark-ignition engine, using a fuel with too low an octane rating can lead to pre-ignition and engine knock, which can cause engine damage. Basically, compressing the air-fuel mixture may cause fuel to detonate before the flame front from the spark plug reaches it. The detonation produces higher pressure than the engine may be able to withstand.

Connective Adverbs However, Nevertheless, Nonetheless

Connective Adverbs However, Nevertheless, Nonetheless However, nevertheless, and nonetheless convey the same unexpected result. However, nevertheless and nonetheless are more formal and are usually used only in writing. These words are known as connective adverbs. In other words, they introduce an idea that connects to the preceding sentence. Example Sentences Were having difficulties with the project. Nevertheless, well finish on time.Weve been working hard all week. However, well have to continue next week as well. Sometimes its difficult to know whether to use a perfect form (Hes lived here for three years) or the progressive perfect form (Hes been working for three hours). Find out when to use either form in the past, present or future. Speaking English is not only about using proper grammar. To use American English effectively, you need to understand the culture in which it is spoken. Here are a number of important tips to remember when speaking English in the United States.

Lenovos Retail Supply Chain Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Lenovos Retail Supply Chain - Essay Example The paper tells that Lenovo is an individual-technology firm that is worth approximately twenty-one billion dollars and the second biggest dealer of personal computers. The company’s head offices are in Beijing, China while a second head office is in Morrisville in the United States. Six Sigma is a collection of techniques as well as implements that assist in the improvement of elements which was established by Motorola and embraced as a business strategy for General Electric in 1995. Computer manufacturers have applied six-sigma for progressive quality enhancement as well as lean manufacturing with the aim of decreasing process wastage so that they can in the best way meet the needs of the customers. The focus of this comprehensive essay is to review Lenovo’s retail supply chain as well as logistics operations as well as the effect on costs and consumer experiences for the retail customers. Initially, Lenovo’s supply chain was not properly incorporated partially for the reason that it had been developed from a union between two firms that did not have the same characteristics. The company had different distributors in various regions of the globe, with varying customer bases and operating under different models. The initial supply chain was also not created to deal with the volumes that the company started attaining and this made deliveries arrive at their destinations late. The company embraced Workout, which is a group based improvement approach that was initially developed by General Electrics, whereby, all the core decision makers on a difficult issue converge in a room and remain there until they find a solution. In some cases, the productivity of the manufacturing line was able to be doubled as a result of this.

The Greatest Impact on Western Civilization Essay

The Greatest Impact on Western Civilization - Essay Example In short, without the ideas that came from the Intellectual Revolution, there would be not much change in Europe and America, and revolutions for independence and efforts for the development of commerce and industry would not have been possible. The Intellectual Revolution was actually brought about by a deluge of scientific ideas that created an impact â€Å"on the way people live and think† and thus changed their â€Å"view of the nature of reality† (â€Å"Chapter 23†). Because of the scientific ideas brought about by the scientists of the Enlightenment like Newton, Copernicus and Pascal, â€Å"it [was] no longer possible to maintain that the sun [revolved] about a motionless earth, or that there [were] four terrestrial elements: earth, air, fire, and water† (â€Å"Chapter 23†). This implies that with the advent of the Scientific Revolution, people started assessing the validity of their beliefs through reason and stopped believing in superstition s. Moreover, perhaps the most important change was that people began to think and perhaps sought out the reasons for their own existence. Discoveries in the field of science like astronomy somehow also paved the way for people to make â€Å"exact [observations and to refuse] to accept any conclusion that did not square with all the observed data† (â€Å"Chapter 23†). ... This must have eventually led groups of people to evaluate their existence and position vis-a-vis a power hungry monarchy like that of France during the 18th century. Such revolutionary change in the way people thought would have indirectly led to the recognition of their rights as human beings by virtue of reason and thus eventually brought the French Revolution. The Intellectual Revolution also brought with it a new philosophy that perhaps awakened man’s sense of self. The political philosophy of John Locke, which was adopted by the constitutional monarchy of England, spread around Europe around this time and made those governed by absolute monarchy to rethink their positions and to consider the idea of having not an absolute king but three separate branches of government – executive, legislative and judiciary (â€Å"The Philosophies†). Moreover, the philosophy of Voltaire taught the people that â€Å"man’s desire to pursue one’s happiness [is] i nborn† (â€Å"The Philosophies†). Another philosopher, Montesquieu emphasized the legal system of each nation, and a great philosopher in the name of Jean Jacques Rosseau theorized that â€Å"the society in the state of nature [is] the society with no class-distinctions† (â€Å"The Philosophies†). This paralleled the Intellectual Revolution in America with Thomas Paine proclaiming the rights of man and the first 13 states finally declaring independence from the British. All this philosophy perhaps awakened in man a recognition of his innate right to freedom and, naturally, a desire to attain it at any cost. The philosophical aspect of the Intellectual Revolution thus helped to trigger the occurrence not only of the French Revolution but

Discuss the statement In the future, hierarchical management Essay

Discuss the statement In the future, hierarchical management structures will be less evident. The management of intellectual - Essay Example 23). Hierarchical management structure is an organisational structure in which each and every entity of an organisation follows a top down hierarchical level. It is true that the trend of hierarchical organisational management structure is shifting towards the flatter organisational management structure to enhance organisational communication process between several departments of the organisation (Boxall and Purcell, 2007, p. 98). There are several advantages and significance of flatter organisational structure. It enhances decision making process, operation cost control and better communication between the employees of different departments in an organisation. The essay will discuss on the statement that â€Å"In the future, hierarchical management structures will be less evident†. ... These economic issues and fluctuating global economic environment will motivate the leaders or the management of the organisation to adopt flatter organisational management hierarchy (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2010, p. 31). Each and every organisation is trying to focus on the business operation cost reduction. It is highly important for the organisations to control the operation cost in order to ensure high profit maximisation (Buelens, Sinding, Waldstrom, Krietner and Kinicki, 2011, p. 69). Several leading organisations are adopting flatter organisational structure in order to reduce business operation cost. A flat organisational structure can be defined as an organisation structure with limited or no management level between the staff and management level employees. Flat organisation structure deals with low employee supervision (Burke, 2012, p. 36). The leaders in a flat organisation use to promote the employees and involve them in the decision making process. Organisation can gain huge benefit through flat organisational structure in this economic distress period. The major objective of flat organisation structure is to eliminate the level and salaries of middle management. This reduction in management level and salaries help the organisation to reduce overall business operation cost and budget of an organisation (Dawson, 2003, p. 84). In addition to this, flatter organisational structure elevates the level of responsibility of the employees in an organisation as this organisational structure brings more efficiency in the organisational communication process (Maylor and Blackmon, 2005, p. 89). As this organisational structure removes the excess layers of a management structure, the speed of coordination and communication

The Amish Way of Life and Culture Research Paper

The Amish Way of Life and Culture - Research Paper Example The first is the pity on a person who would not take advantage of technological advancements to ease the burden of his life and will lack the distinctiveness of individuality and modernization to decide his own way towards progress. The other view is the honesty, integrity and qualities of the saint hood in the Amish culture and traditions that portray them as the only true Christians remained on earth. The stagnant nature of Amish society has turned it into a tourist attraction but by no means neither are an archaeological discovery nor are the relics of a forgotten world. The only thing is that they have evolved their own perspective about the modernization of the other large cultures and have learned their own way to life in homogeneity with the larger society. They exhibit a deviating strategy of modernization than others (Kraybill, 2001). So called civilized ways have as always been in disagreement with Amish ways of life and culture as decades ago. The argument that Amish impos e greater fatigue and stress on themselves and their generations by denying use of modern technology to ease life or that they really want a more simple life needs validation. Survival, increase in life expectancy and transformation of tribes into rural and urban societies has been taught by the developments in the civilizations. However, Amish ways have taught us the cost of human life, when children leave their parents to old homage, people estrange from neighbors and spiritual and traditional life is cast away in paced forward life style (Hostetler, 1993). The purpose of this report is to communicate the Amish way of life and culture to equip reader with the comprehensive knowledge and place him in a position where he can develop an understanding of diversity in human cultures. The reports focuses on the formulation of Amish believes, development of communal life, ability to avoid rapid modernization, and consequences of a slow changing society. The Amish History Hostetler (1993) is of the view that most of the followers of the European history are well aware of religious movement Protestant Reformations in 16th century led by Martin Luther with aim to counter the imprudent and lavish expenses of the church. However, in the same time another significant movement was in place to reform the church based on religious teachings of Christianity in around 1525 originated at Zurich led by Ulrich Zwingli. This group was formally named as Brethren, also known as Anabaptists meaning rebaptizers. The major principle of this group was to baptized volunteer adults rather than children and distance from the worldly desires. The aim of Brethren was to form a church free from any state and political influences. Soon after its formation, the movement grew rapidly and its members were persecuted both by Roman church and by the faction of Martin Luther, who felt threatened by their ideology and radicalism. The consequences of these persecutions were prayers at night and meeti ngs at secret places. This is often viewed as a strong reason of their withdrawal from society. In the beginning there were indeed no influential leaders, thus the movement remained divided among different factions each with their own agenda and path to achieve it. One of the most renowned Anabaptist leaders was Menno Simons, who joined the movement in 1536. He made many efforts to unite all the factions of the Anabaptist movement under one umbrella. His followers are now known as Mennonites (Hostetler,

Do the questions below. ( every questions should be more than 200 Term Paper - 4

Do the questions below. ( every questions should be more than 200 words) - Term Paper Example If, however, the apple goes rotten, then the use value diminishes to almost nothing. Utility is defined differently from use-value because the utility of an object can change depending on its condition. Many modern economists confuse these terms because they are very similar in meaning. But Marx says that utility can change because of the relationship between a human and an object such as the apple. Unlike use-value, which defines the usefulness of an object, the exchange-value is defined in terms of price. Marx, however, was not referring to currency because the value of money can change dramatically. What Marx was alluding to was price in terms of the values of other commodities that can be traded in exchange for an item. When a trade takes place, the utility of the traded object is not gained, but rather the use-value of that object until such time when a person decides to gain the exchange-value of the item. No, Marx would not agree with this statement because the labor process contributes towards the production of an item of value. Every commodity ever produced has required some form of labor to help the product be ready for sale. Labor can be broken down into many forms, but commodities that have an exchange-value do have value in the form of labor. For example, to produce a wooden desk or a pen requires a labor process to make sure that they are produced of high quality. The labor processes for these two items are very different, yet they both require labor to give the object some value. The wooden desk needs to have wood cut, sanded, and put together in order to produce the final product. On the other hand, a pen does not require hard manual labor and in fact a machine can help to produce much of it. People make up much of the labor process (except for objects which can be produced by machines) and so they contribute value towards making the object. Without labor being counted as value, it would be difficult to define the value of an

Profile of the origins and appeal of pilgrimages today Coursework

Profile of the origins and appeal of pilgrimages today - Coursework Example Up to the 4th century, when there was a paradigm shift and Christianity became legal, pilgrimage was considered as a purely pagan practice. Christianity in the 4th was controlled in its premature stage by the Constantine the â€Å"Great and the First Council of Nicaea of 325†. This was a contemplative practice since it made Christianity the national church in the Roman Empire. However, on the contrary to the widespread knowledge, the origin of the pilgrimage tradition in Christianity can be traced back to the initial years of the Church. The Christians wanted to visit the places where Jesus was born and resurrected such as Jerusalem and Bethlehem. In the 7th century, the holy lands were taken by Muslim Caliphates, making the pilgrimage a dangerous undertaking for Christians. The Crusaders successfully secured Christian access to the areas during the 12th century. Nonetheless, in the 13th century the area was retaken by the Ayubiddis, maintaining the status quo that had existed before the crusaders came. Hajj is perhaps the most famous pilgrimage tradition of our time. Various research articles point to the fact that the Mecca pilgrimage rituals trace way back to the days of Abraham. These days are considered as the once that generated the spiritual journey that every Muslim faithful is expected to undertake, at least once in his/her lifetime. Nevertheless, the patterns of this ritual that are being witnessed today were established by their prophet Muhammad. A pilgrimage journey is one that is motivated by internal contemplative needs. The objectives of conducting these missions may vary, but all of them are motivated by spiritual anticipations. For instance, when the early Christians went to Rome and Jerusalem, this was a way of showing penitence. This act was essentially to match the spiritual objectives by the Christians. Mother Teresa of Avilla also augmented this argument when she reckoned that the internal spiritual journey was a

Do the questions below. ( every questions should be more than 200 Term Paper - 4

Do the questions below. ( every questions should be more than 200 words) - Term Paper Example If, however, the apple goes rotten, then the use value diminishes to almost nothing. Utility is defined differently from use-value because the utility of an object can change depending on its condition. Many modern economists confuse these terms because they are very similar in meaning. But Marx says that utility can change because of the relationship between a human and an object such as the apple. Unlike use-value, which defines the usefulness of an object, the exchange-value is defined in terms of price. Marx, however, was not referring to currency because the value of money can change dramatically. What Marx was alluding to was price in terms of the values of other commodities that can be traded in exchange for an item. When a trade takes place, the utility of the traded object is not gained, but rather the use-value of that object until such time when a person decides to gain the exchange-value of the item. No, Marx would not agree with this statement because the labor process contributes towards the production of an item of value. Every commodity ever produced has required some form of labor to help the product be ready for sale. Labor can be broken down into many forms, but commodities that have an exchange-value do have value in the form of labor. For example, to produce a wooden desk or a pen requires a labor process to make sure that they are produced of high quality. The labor processes for these two items are very different, yet they both require labor to give the object some value. The wooden desk needs to have wood cut, sanded, and put together in order to produce the final product. On the other hand, a pen does not require hard manual labor and in fact a machine can help to produce much of it. People make up much of the labor process (except for objects which can be produced by machines) and so they contribute value towards making the object. Without labor being counted as value, it would be difficult to define the value of an

Article Critique Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 8

Article Critique - Essay Example Purpose of the research The research sought to establish the factors from the SCT standpoint that influence the consumption behaviour of fruits and vegetables among the adolescents in the low-income bracket of the black Americans in the lower Mississippi Delta region. Personal, environmental as well as behavioural factors have been investigated in the study to establish the extent to which they influence the consumption patterns of fruits and vegetables by the targeted adolescents. Method of the research This qualitative research used the focus group methodology to collect data from the participants. 42 adolescents between the ages of 10 and 13 years were involved in the focus groups which were divided equally into six. 21 female and 21 male adolescents were involved in this study. The advantage of this method is that it enabled the researcher to get personal opinions from the participants about the factors that influenced their consumption behaviour and patterns of fruits and vegeta bles. Results of the research The results of the research have been divided into three main categories of the Social Cognitive Theory which include behavioural, personal and environmental factors. ... Personal factors such as taste played a major role in influencing the consumption behaviour of fruits and vegetables among the youths who participated in the survey. There were both negative and positive connotations about the taste of fruits and vegetables. For instance, many youths revealed that they like fruits because of their sweet taste while the taste of vegetables produced more negative reactions. Many youths described the taste of vegetables as â€Å"nasty† and they said that they would rather prefer to eat vegetables that have been prepared with sugar or cheese since these ingredients could improve the taste. The results of the study also revealed that environmental factors have an influence on the consumption behaviour of fruits and vegetables by the youths. The aspect of availability played a major role in influencing the behaviour of youths towards fruits and vegetables. Many participants pointed out that fruits and vegetables were not readily available at their h omes as well as the nearby grocery shops. Some of the youths said they ate fruits and vegetables when they visit their friends’ places. This showed that the youths cannot be able to consume something they cannot readily access and this is seen as a barrier to their consumption behaviour of the fruits and vegetables. Conclusion of the research The purpose of this research was to explore factors that influence the low-income southern black American adolescents' fruit and vegetable consumption patterns with the aim of developing tools that are culturally relevant for intervention and measurement of behaviour among this target group with regards to choice of fruits and

Behavioural Approach Essay Example for Free

Behavioural Approach Essay The behavioural approach suggests that all behaviour is learnt. This includes abnormal behaviours. Behaviours can be learned through classical conditioning, operant conditioning or modelling. Ivan Pavlov discovered classical conditioning, where learning results from the association of stimuli with reflex responses. Classical conditioning can be used to explain the development of many abnormal behaviours, including phobias, anxiety disorders and taste aversions. An example of how classical conditioning might result in a phobia is the case of Little Albert. In an experiment carried out by Watson and Rayner, a 11 month old boy called ‘little Albert’ was taught to fear a white rat through associating it with a loud noise, a symbol behind his head. Each time he played with the rat the symbol would be hit which caused him to cry. Eventually he would do so even without the noise due to the classical conditioning theory. This research however, would not receive approval from an ethics committee today because it would be seen as unethical. Making the baby cry deliberately and teaching him to fear the rat would be seen as wrong because it could cause distress and would go against ‘little Alberts’ human rights. The theory of operant conditioning was proposed by Skinner. Operant conditioning involves learning from the consequences of actions. Actions which have a good outcome through positive reinforcement (reward) or negative reinforcement (removal of something bad) will be repeated. Actions which have a bad outcome (punishment) will not be repeated. Operant conditioning explains how abnormal behaviours might be maintained. This could be through positive reinforcement; behaviours which have a good outcome by bringing some sort of reward are said to be positively reinforced. On the other hand it could be down to negative reinforcement which is behaviours which have a good outcome by removing something unpleasant are said to be negatively reinforced. Finally, abnormal behaviours could also be learnt through modelling or social learning, which is learning through observation of an individual. What happens is simply an individual models the behaviour and the observer imitates the model. A strength of the behavioural approach is that it can be experimentally tested. The principles of learning have been and continue to be tested empirically in a laboratory. The focus on observable behaviour means it can be objectively measured. A further strength is that unlike the psychodynamic approach, it doesn’t require delving into the past, which is problematic because it could unearth traumatic experiences which can produce unreliable data. However, those who support the psychodynamic approach suggests the behavioural model only focuses on symptoms, not on the underlying causes of abnormal behaviour. Freudians claim it treats the symptoms while ignoring the root cause of the problem. Therefore it cannot work as the problem will just represent itself with different symptoms. Whereas, the biological approach cannot explain cultural differences in abnormality such as culture-bound syndromes, a strength of the behavioural approach is that it can account for this because It accounts for cultural differences because it recognises the importance of the environment in shaping behaviour. While behavioural treatments are often effective for certain disorders such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and phobias, they have not been found to be effective for many other disorders and have also often been criticised for being unethical because treatment is often painful and uncomfortable and is sometimes imposed on individuals without their consent. The behavioural approach is accused of being reductionist and simplistic. This is because it’s a simple approach with connections of stimulus. It neglects the influence of cognitions (The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought and experience). A further limitation is that much behaviourist research involves animal studies. While behaviourists argue that humans are fundamentally the same as non-human animals, others would argue that the greater complexity of the human mind makes it difficult to generalise findings from animal studies to humans. Overall the behaviourist approach shows all behaviour to be learnt through our experiences. It states that this learning can either be learnt through classical or operant condition and also the social learning theory. It can be experimentally tested and proven which makes the approach credible however it can be seen just to treat the symptoms of a abnormal behaviour rather than looking at the cause.

Speaker Recognition System Pattern Classification

Speaker Recognition System Pattern Classification A Study on Speaker Recognition System and Pattern classification Techniques Dr E.Chandra,  K.Manikandan,  M.S.Kalaivani Abstract Speaker Recognition is the process of identifying a person through his/her voice signals or speech waves. Pattern classification plays a vital role in speaker recognition. Pattern classification is the process of grouping the patterns, which are sharing the same set of properties. This paper deals with speaker recognition system and over view of Pattern classification techniques DTW, GMM and SVM. Keywords Speaker Recognition System, Dynamic Time Warping (DTW), Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM), Support Vector Machine (SVM). INTRODUCTION Speaker Recognition is the process of identifying a person through his/her voice signals [1] or speech waves. It can be classified into two categories, speaker identification and speaker verification. In speaker identification task, a speech utterance of an unknown speaker is compared with set of valid users. The best match is used to identify the speaker. Similarly, in speaker verification the unknown speaker first claims identity, and the claimed model is then used for identification. If the match is above a predefined threshold, the identity claim is accepted The speech used for these task can be either text dependent or text independent. In text dependent application the system has the prior knowledge of the text to be spoken. The user will speak the same text as it is in the predefined text. In a text-independent application, there is no prior knowledge by the system of the text to be spoken. Pattern classification plays a vital role in speaker recognition. The term Pattern defines the objects of interest. In this paper the sequence of acoustic vectors, extracted from input speech are taken as patterns. Pattern classification is the process of grouping the patterns, which are sharing the same set of properties. It plays a vital role in speaker recognition system. The result of pattern classification decides whether to accept or reject a speaker. Several research efforts have been done in pattern classification. Most of the works based on generative model. There are Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) [3], Hidden Markov Models (HMM) , Vector Quantization (VQ) [4], Gaussian mixture model (GMM) [5] and so forth. Generative model is for randomly generating observed data, with some hidden parameters. Because of the randomly generating observed data functions, they are not able to provide a machine that can directly optimize discrimination. Support vector machine was introducing as an alternative classifier for speaker verification. [6]. In machine learning SVM is a new tool, which is used for hard classification problems in several fields of application. This tool is capable to deal with the samples of higher dimensionality. In speaker verification binary decision is needed, since SVM is discriminative binary classifier it can classify a complete utterance in a single step. This paper is planned as follows. In section 2: speaker recognition system, in section 3, Pattern Classification, AND overview of DTW, GMM, and SVM techniques .section 4: Conclusion. SPEAKER RECOGNITION SYSTEM Speaker recognition categorized into verification and identification. Speaker Recognition system consists of two stages .speaker verification and speaker identification. Speaker verification is 1:1 match, where the voice print is matched with one template. But speaker identification is 1:N match, where the input speech is matched with more than one templates. Speaker verification consists of five steps. 1. Input data acquisition 2.feature extraction 3.pattern matching 4.decision making 5.generate speaker models. Fig 1: Speaker recognition system In the first step sample speech is acquired in a controlled manner from the user. The speaker recognition system will process the speech signals and extract the speaker discriminatory information. This information forms a speaker model. At the time of verification process, a sample voice print is acquired from the user. The speaker recognition system will extract the features from the input speech and compared withpredefined model. This process is called pattern matching. DC Offset Removal and Silence Removal Speech data are discrete-time speech signals, carry some redundant constant offset called DC offset [8].The values of DC offset affect the information ,extracted from the speech signals. Silence frames are audio frames of background noise with low energy level .silence removal is the process of discarding the silence period from the speech. The signal energy in each speech frame is calculated by using equation (1). M – Number of samples in a speech frames, N- Total number of speech frames. Threshold level is determined by using the equation (2) Threshold = Emin + 0.1 (Emax – Emin) (2) Emax and Emin are the lowest and greatest values of the N segments. Fig 2. Speech Signal before Silence Removal Fig 3. Speech Signal after Silence Removal This technique is used to enhance the high frequencies of the speech signal. The aim of this technique is to spectrally flatten the speech signal that is to increase the relative energy of its high frequency spectrum. The following two factors decides the need of Pre-emphasis technique.1.Speech Signals generally contains more speaker specific information in higher frequencies [9]. 2. If the speech signal energy decreases the frequency increases .This made the feature extraction process to focus all the aspects of the voice signals. Pre-emphasis is implemented as first order finite Impulse Response filter, defined as H(Z) = 1-0.95 Z-1 (3) The below example represents speech signals before and after Pre-emphasizing. Fig 4. Speech Signal before Pre-emphasizing Fig 5. Speech Signal after Pre-emphasizing Windowing and Feature Extraction: The technique windowing is used to minimize the signal discontinuities at beginning and end of each frame. It is used to smooth the signal and makes the frame more flexible for spectral analysis. The following equation is used in windowing technique. y1(n) = x (n)w(n), 0 ≠¤Ãƒ ¯Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  n ≠¤Ãƒ ¯Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  N-1 (4) N- Number of samples in each frame. The equation for Hamming window is(5) There is large variability in the speech signal, which are taken for processing. to reduce this variability ,feature extraction technique is needed. MFCC has been widely used as the feature extraction technique for automatic speaker recognition. Davis and Mermelstein reported that Mel-frequency cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) provided better performance than other features in 1980 [10]. Fig 6. Feature Extraction MFCC technique divides the input signal into short frames and apply the windowing techniques, to discard the discontinuities at edges of the frames. In fast Fourier transform (FFT) phase, it converts the signal to frequency domain and after that Mel scale filter bank is applied to the resultant frames. After that, Logarithm of the signal is passed to the inverse DFT function converting the signal back to time domain. PATTERN CLASSIFICATION Pattern classification involves in computing a match score in speaker recognition system. The term match score refers the similarity of the input feature vectors to some model. Speaker models are built from the features extracted from the speech signal. Based on the feature extraction a model of the voice is generated and stored in the speaker recognition system. To validate a user the matching algorithm compares the input voice signal with the model of the claimed user. In this paper three techniques in pattern classification have been compared. Those three major techniques are DTW, GMM and SVM. Dynamic Time Warping: This well known algorithm is used in many areas. It is currently used in Speech recognition,sign language recognition and gestures recognition, handwriting and online signature matching ,data mining and time series clustering, surveillance , protein sequence alignment and chemical engineering , music and signal processing . Dynamic Time Warping algorithm is proposed by Sadaoki Furui in 1981.This algorithm measures the similarity between two series which may vary in time and speed. This algorithm finds an optimal match between two given sequences. The average of the two patterns is taken to form a new template. This process is repeated until all the training utterances have been combined into a single template. This technique matches a test input from a multi-dimensional feature vector T= [ t1, t2†¦tI] with a reference template R= [ r1, r2†¦rj]. It finds the function w(i) as shown in the below figure. In Speaker Recognition system Every input speech is compared with the utte rance in the database .For each comparison, the distance measure is calculated .In the measurements lower distance indicates higher similarity. Fig 7. . Dynamic Time Warping Gaussian mixture model: Gaussian mixture model is the most commonly used classifier in speaker recognition system.It is a type of density model which comprises a number of component functions. These functions are combined to provide a multimodal density. This model is often used for data clustering. It uses an alternative algorithm that converges to a local optimum. In this method the distribution of the feature vector x is modeled clearly using mixture of M Gaussians. mui- represent the mean and covariance of the i th mixture. x1, x2†¦xn, Training data ,M-number of mixture. The task is parameter estimation which best matches the distribution of the training feature vectors given in the input speech. The well known method is maximum likehood estimation. It finds the model parameters which maximize the likehood of GMM. Therefore, the testing data which gain a maximum score will recognize as speaker. Support Vector Machine: Support machine was proposed in 1990 and it is one of the best machine learning algorithms. This is used in many pattern classification problems. such as image recognition, speech recognition, text categorization, face detection and faulty card detection, etc. The basic idea of support vector machine is to find the optimal linear decision surface based on the concept of structural risk minimization. It is a binary classification method. The decision surface refers the weighted combination of elements in a training dataset. These elements are called support vectors. These vectors define the boundary between two classes. In a binary problem +1 and -1 are taken as two classes. The size of the margin should be maximized to characterize the boundary between two classes. The below example explains pattern classification by using SVM. In the fig 3(a), there are two different kinds of patterns taken for process. A line is drawn to separate these two patterns. In the fig 3(b),by using a single line the patterns are separated, the patterns are presented in two dimensional space. The similar representation in one dimensional space in the fig 3(c), a point can be used to separate patterns in one dimensional space. a plane that separates these patterns in 3-D space ,represented in the fig 3(d),is called separating hyper plane. . The next task a plane should be selected from the set of planes whose margin is maximum. The plane with the maximum margin i.e. perpendicular distance from the marginal line is known as optimal hyper plane or maximum margin hyper plane as shown in fig 3(f). The patterns that lie on the edges of the plane are called support vectors While classify the patterns, there may exist some errors in the representation, as shown in the fig 3(g), such types of errors are called soft margin. Sometimes ,these errors can be ignored to some threshold value. The patterns that can be easily separated using line or Plane are called linearly Separable patterns .Non-linear separable patterns (fig-j,k,l)are difficult to classify. These patterns are classified by using kernel functions . In order to classify non-linear separable patterns the original data’s are mapped to higher dimensional space using kernel function. CONCLUSION In this paper we have explained about speaker recognition system and discussed about three major pattern classification techniques, Dynamic Time Warping, Gaussian mixture model and Support Vector Machine. SVM will work efficiently on fixed length vectors. To implement SVM the input data should be normalized for better performance. In future, we have planned to implement these techniques in speaker recognition system and evaluate the performance. The performance of the models will also be evaluated by incrementing the amounts of training data. REFERENCES [1] Campbell, J.P., Speaker Recognition: A Tutorial, Proc. Of the IEEE, vol. 85,no. 9, 1997, pp. 1437-1462. [2] Sadaoki Furui., Recent advances in speaker recognition,Pattern Recognition Letters. 1997,18 (9): 859-72. [3] Sakoe, H.and Chiba, S., Dynamic programming algorithm optimization for spoken word recognition, Acoustics,Speech, and Signal Processing, IEEE Transactions on Volume 26, Issue 1, Feb 1978 Page 43 49. [4] Lubkin, J. and Cauwenberghs, G., VLSI Implementation of Fuzzy Adaptive Resonance and Learning Vector Quantization, Int. J. Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing, vol. 30 (2), 2002,pp. 149-157. [5] Reynolds, D. A. and Rose, R. C. Robust text-independent speaker identification using Gaussian mixture speaker models. IEEE Trans. Speech Audio Process. 3, 1995, pp 72–83. [6] Solera, U.R., Martà ­n-Iglesias, D., Gallardo-Antolà ­n, A., Pelà ¡ez-Moreno, C. and Dà ­az-de-Marà ­a, F, Robust ASR using Support Vector Machines, Speech Communication, Volume 49 Issue 4, 2007. [7] Temko, A.; Monte, E.; Nadeu, C., Comparison of Sequence Discriminant Support Vector Machines for Acoustic Event Classification, ICASSP 2006 Proceedings, 2006 IEEE International Conference on Volume 5, Issue , 14-19 May 2006 [8] Shang, S.; Mirabbasi, S.; Saleh, R., A technique for DCoffset removal and carrier phase error compensation in integrated wireless receivers Circuits and Systems, ISCAS apos;03. Proceedings of the 2003 International Symposium onVolume 1, Issue , 25-28 May 2003 Page I-173 I-176 vol.1 [9] Vergin, R.; Oapos;Shaughnessy, D., Pre-emphasis and speech recognition lectrical and Computer Engineering†,Canadian Conference on Volume 2, Issue , 5-8 Sep 1995 [10] Davis, S. B. and Mermelstein, P., Comparison of parametric representations for monosyllabic word recognition in continuously spoken sentences, IEEE Trans. on Acoustic, Speech and Signal Processing, ASSP-28, 1980, No. 4. [11] Sadaoki Furui., Cepstral analysis technique for automatic speaker verification, IEEE Trans. ASSP 29, 1981,pages 254-272. BIOGRAPHIES Dr.E.Chandra received her B.Sc., from Bharathiar University, Coimbatore in 1992 and received M.Sc., from Avinashilingam University ,Coimbatore in 1994. She obtained her M.Phil. In the area of Neural Networks from Bharathiar University, in 1999. She obtained her PhD degree in the area of Speech recognition system from Alagappa University Karikudi in 2007. She has totally 15 yrs of experience in teaching including 6 months in the industry. Presently she is working as Director, Department of Computer Applications in D. J. Academy for Managerial Excellence, Coimbatore. She has published more than 30 research papers in National, International Journals and Conferences in India and abroad. She has guided more than 20 M.Phil. Research Scholars. Currently 3 M.Phil Scholars and 8 PhD Scholars are working under her guidance. She has delivered lectures to various Colleges. She is a Board of studies member of various Institutions. Her research interest lies in the area of Data Mining, Artificial Intelligence, Neural Networks, Speech Recognition Systems, Fuzzy Logic and Machine Learning Techniques. She is an active and Life member of CSI, Society of Statistics and Computer Applications. Currently she is Management Committee member of CSI Coimbatore Chapter. K. Manikandan received his Bsc from Bharathidhasan University, Tiruchirappalli in1998 and received his MCA from Bharathiadsan University, Tiruchirappalli in 2001. He received M.Phil in the area of soft computing from Bharathiyar university, Coimbatore in 2004. He has 12 years of experience in teaching. Currently, he is working as a Assistant Professor, Department Of Computer Science, PSG College of arts and Science, Coimbatore and pursuing PhD in Bharathiar University, Coimbatore.He has presented research papers in National and International Conferences and published a paper in International Journal. His Research Interest is Soft Computing . He is Life a member of IAENG. He has guided more than 4 M.Phil Research Scholars. Currently 3 M.Phil Scholars are working under his guidance. He has delivered lectures to various Colleges. M.S.Kalaivani received her BCA from P.S.G College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore, in 2005 and received her MCA from National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli in 2008.She has 4 years of working experience at software industry. Presently, she is working as a Research Scholar, Department of Computer Science, P.S.G. College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore. Her research interests are Machine Learning and Fuzzy logic.

Male and Female Relationships in Generation Y Essay -- Sex Abstinence

Male and Female Relationships in Generation Y Sexual relationships among teenagers today involve not only dating and sexual activity, but also health and lifestyle issues such as sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies. Today’s teens are more informed and willing to practice safe sex than previous generations. As a whole, trends like body piercing for sexual pleasure all the way to strict abstinence have been adopted by Generation Y youth (Codrington). Where did it all begin? Heterosexual relationships have existed from the beginning of time, when the God of Christianity created Adam and Eve. Since that time relationships among heterosexual partners have continued to evolve. Instead of fathers arranging to give away their daughters to deserving men, people in America today now chose who they want to have relationships with. Dating and the Attractive Partner Sexual relationships usually begin with dating. Dating is the time when two people get to know each other and a time when they start to consider if they can have a long-term relationship. For today’s teens the new trend in dating is dating in groups of four, six, or even ten people (Stapinski). Even with this new trend however, the men are still asking the woman out. According to Leland Elliott and Cynthia Brantley, authors of Sex on Campus, 77 % of college boys still ask for the first date, while a mere 16 % of college woman take charge (49). Also, most college students (76 %) date only one person at a time. What do both men and woman look for in the opposite sex? If a woman were to answer for a man, most would probably list physical attributes such as eyes, smile, butt, and breasts, but the truth is that the number one thing a man l... ...girls in Jeopardy.† Human Ecology Forum Summer 1997:12+. * Pseudonym, to protect privacy 1 â€Å"Founded in 1916, world’s largest and oldest voluntary family planning organization. It is dedicated to the principles that every individual has a fundamental right to decide when or whether to have a child and that every child should be loved.† (www.plannedparenthood.com) 2 The condom concept dates back to 1350 B.C. when ancient Egyptians figured covering the penis might prevent pregnancy†¦Vulcanized rubber made an appearance as condom material in the mid 1800s. ( Sex on Campus 1997). â€Å"The Trojan brand has been a leader in providing videos and teaching guides for use in high school health education classes across the United States.† (Vogel 33). 3 HIV is an abbreviation for â€Å"Human Immunodeficiency Virus.† This virus is what causes AIDS ( Sex on Campus 1997).

La Conciencia de la Mestiza Towards a New Consciousness

In this world of dualities—male-female, whites-other races, subject-object, self-society, among others—we are always confronted with identities. Essentially, these are struggles that co-exist, overlap, cascade and confront each other. Anzaldua’s concept of divided loyalties seeks to find the allies in the other, the Whites. The recognition of the truth is at the foremost of the consciousness call. Instead of disengaging or spreading animosity, Anzaldua aspires to transcend the world of dualities by engaging the â€Å"other† and creating something new out of this experience. Ultimately, I agree with Anzaldua’s concept of divided loyalties, specifically in the discussions on the duality of race.This paper seeks to present Anzaldua’s perspective of the new mestiza and her cognizance of the different struggles of dualities. This discussion will be followed by the discussion of divided loyalties and Anzaldua’s call towards acts of recogniti on and revisiting of buried truths that are indispensable features towards a more dignified humanity.Anzaldua’s argument inductively starts from a description of the self. The fact that the individual of the 21st century has her crisis of self-identity because of the problematic definition of boundaries is enshrined in the statement: â€Å"Because I, a mestiza/ continually walk out of one culture/and into another/ because I am in all cultures at the same time.† (Anzaldua 99) From this initial discussion the attempt to challenge the dualities of race and ultimately of identities is already surfacing. I also envision that this discussion is a vague description of the reality that every human being experience today—that of globalization, not only on the macro-level plane such as the political-economic sphere, but also on the level of the self.While â€Å"being in all cultures† seems like a very beautiful phenomenon, it is actually presented as a confrontatio n or struggle. The presence of different opposing cultural forces takes on the â€Å"self† as its battlefield. There is a clash happening within: â€Å"The ambivalence from the clash of voices results in mental and emotional states of perplexity†¦ The mestiza’s dual or multiple personality is plagued by psychic restlessness.† (100)Imagine this phenomenon of psychic restlessness taking place not just in a single person but collectively happening in commonly held boundaries such as race and culture. We then would have, what Anzaldua calls, un choque or a cultural collision. It is safe to assume that her understanding of un choque is comprehensive considering that she recognized that the struggle for collective identity takes its root on the struggle within the self.One might ask: why is an understanding of the iconic, self-identity-struggling mestiza essential in presenting an argument that would validate the concept of divided loyalties? Simply put the †Å"mestiza connection† is important because the struggle of the mestiza is a struggle of identity, a confrontation between mutually exclusive variables of cultures. Loyalties are given to defined boundaries of an identity; in this case, the boundary is culture. The dilemma of the mestiza lies in her multiple cultural boundaries. Most of the time, the mestiza identity is challenged by paradoxical cultural realities. Divided loyalties exist because of the constant redefinition of the self in the context of â€Å"conflicting information and points of view† (101). Why is there a tolerance for ambiguity? Anzaldua captures this in the statement: â€Å"Rigidity is death.† (101)The concept of divided loyalties elucidates the readers in the intricacies of the dualities of race. Before the â€Å"new consciousness†, people are consumed in the dualities of culture and race but Anzaldua recognized that without a transcendence of this bipolarization, a new consciousness will never be attained. The dual and mutually exclusivist nature of culture is fertile soil for hostility and animosity. The concept of divided loyalties is unique in such a way that the other (i.e. Whites) is perceived as allies instead of enemies.This is what I would call the â€Å"recognition of allies outside the boundaries of our identity.† Next to this recognition is the others’ revisiting of truths that were denied, forgotten or disregarded. Anzaldua affirms this by stating: â€Å"We need you to accept the fact that Chicanos are different, to acknowledge your rejection and negation of us. We need you to own the fact that you looked upon us as less than human, that you stole our lands, our personhood, our self-respect†¦ by taking back the collective shadow, the intra-cultural split will heal.† (107-108).While there is an attempt to seek for allies in â€Å"others† (i.e. enemies), there is also the need for revisiting past injustices. Without re visiting them, there would be reconciliation for the clashes, the un choque, within and without the self. Anzaldua’s call for an acknowledgement of mistakes and recognition of White allies might seem to be an anomalous response to the clash of cultures and yet ushering in a new consciousness calls for a new approach, a possible paradigmatic shift.It is tempting to assume that Anzaldua’s thoughts focus on the differences among the different dualities. The concept of divided loyalties is evidence supporting this fact. It is interesting to understand that divided loyalties show only one side of the multi-faceted and dynamic relation of identities and cultural boundaries. Crucial to the act of defining what makes different groups or individuals unique is also the act of finding the sameness co-existing among these differences.While there is the duality of Anglo and the Mexican, there is also the opposing identities and social constructions based on sexes. Male dominance fe atures strongly in Anzaldua’s discussions. The configurations of identities are complex that an area of sameness (i.e. Mexican culture) can also have independent elements that show differences (i.e. Mexican men and Mexican women). More importantly than posing the question what makes us different, is asking what makes us the same?The mestiza capability of â€Å"walking in and out of different cultures† can present a danger namely having a divided loyalty. Conversely, this same ability of the mestiza enables her to identify with others that are different by probing and looking into boundaries that are common denominators in different cultures. Of the Mexican-Indian difference, sameness can be found. Anzaldua writes, â€Å"It is imperative that mestizas support each other in changing the sexist elements in the Mexican-Indian culture. As long as woman is put down, the Indian and the Black   in all of us is put down. The struggle of the mestiza is above all a feminist on e.† (106).Despite the concept of divided loyalties and the conventional behavior of animosity towards the other, Anzaldua emphasizes on creating avenues of action that would highlight sameness in the midst of differences. This phenomenon actually transfigures the mestiza into someone transcendent of her boundaries. I allude to this as â€Å"reaching out to humanity.†One undeniably appropriate example for divided loyalties is the struggle of indigenous people, specifically Native American Indians, for their identity which is juxtaposed with the desire to belong to the American way of life. Ideally, one might pursue a life exclusively rooted in indigenous cultural identity or to embrace the American dream which leaves indigenous lifestyles behind. Surprisingly, Native American Indians show a hybridization of ideas and cultures. Some might call it a post-modern worldview—taking in, reinterpreting, reimagining and redefining the world and the self as one pleases. Cle arly, when an individual or the collective consciousness of a culture aspires for such hybridization, loyalties are automatically compromised or divided.It is important to reiterate that this new consciousness and new identity should not be seen in a negative way. In spite of the challenges to the indigenous peoples of the world, their identities thrive. Remember, â€Å"Rigidity is death.†Another example for divided loyalties is the diffused way of looking at things, as if we â€Å"have all melted in the pot, but haven’t.† (108). It is a conventional way of thinking for the rest of the world to abhor the US. Americanism, in a cultural sense, is largely detested. Politically, the US remains the world’s hegemonic power although many Americans would deny this as a fact. While Anzaldua does not point this out, the world has become an American mestiza. The countries of the world look at themselves and their clear-cut boundaries of identity are prominent.Howeve r, under this presupposition is the subtle trend towards Americanism, as evident in the world’s knowledge of American culture, love of Brangelina, desire for the American dream, skill of the English language, use of American technology, among other things. While the countries of the world quintessentially retain their identity, the majority have collectively fallen into the concept of divided loyalties. The countries still have their identities, but they take on new forms, they have the ability for mutually exclusive concepts such as nationalism diffuse with Americanism or internationalism.One might consider that the new consciousness ushered is a necessary embrace of the minorities towards its melting into the greater majority. Ironically, the melting happens, and yet the inimitable identities of the selves remain. While Anzaldua believes in compromise such as finding White allies to further the cause of minorities, and the concept of divided loyalties might show how one exc lusive boundary of identity can melt into the boundaries of another, her idea of a new consciousness still recognizes the legitimacy of the struggle of the less powerful. Talking in terms of race, this implies minority-majority conflictions that would need to be addressed. Furthermore, Anzaldua does not conform to passivity in the midst of constant changing of forms. This is indicated in the statement: â€Å"This land was Mexican once/ was Indian always/ and is./ And will be again.† (113).Divided loyalties exist because the boundaries of identities (both of the self and the collective) are no longer defined structures. Conflicting realities will never co-exist, albeit the mestiza has the capacity to transcend its dualities. While divided loyalties can be a threat to the self, it is capable of bringing forth a new beauty of a newly defined identity.Bibliography:Gloria, Anzaldua. â€Å"La Conciencia de la Mestiza, Towards a New Consciousness† Borderlands, La Frontera: Th e New Mestiza. 2nd Edition. Aunt Lute Books:

City Life Essay

Hello! I have a request for you to give me a feedback on my essay. Thanks in advance. Essay on city life see more:city living vs country living The migration from the countryside to city areas is merely a new phenomenon. This is a historic transformation on a global scale that consists of village culture being rapidly replaced by urban culture. Nowadays more than half of the world’s population lives in the cities. The majority of the people migrate of the better employment opportunities, the medical and educational facilities but there are also other reasons like the fun attractions of city life. City life is far more interesting and appealing to young people than rural life with its theaters, cinemas, night clubs, restaurants, shopping centers, places where you can practice some sport and get a professional to help you out with it and all sorts of other things you can imagine. Nevertheless urban life has its disadvantages too.Those ensue from the fact that inevitably life becomes more and more rapid in the city and that results in the way people act. They walk through life hurriedly without noticing the important things in life that are family and nature. They become more and more distant and loose their way to nature which leads to more and more medical conditions ensued by withdrawing from nature. Life in our cities will become more perturbed in the future. The main problem will be overpopulation therefore the streets will become crowded with people, it will take hours to get anywhere. Even if the traveling issues are solved overpopulation will result in many homeless people because there isn’t enough space for everybody even if skyscrapers are built to the sky. Other than that new technologies will develop even more and make life easier than today. In conclusion city life is very appealing but its developing rates are harmful for man’s survival and future. Future generations will have to solve this problem.

Calculating Ankle Joint Angular Kinematics Health And Social Care Essay

Kinematic information was obtained at 350Hz via an eight camera gesture analysis system as participants ran at 4.0ms-1+5 % , angles were created utilizing the coiling method and about XYZ, ZXY, XZY, YXZ, YZX and YXZ rotary motion cardan sequences.The consequences indicate that important scope of gesture chief effects were observed for the coronal and cross plane. Furthermore, it was besides observed that extremum angle chief effects were found for the coronal and cross planes. Post-hoc analyses revealed that ROM and extremum values utilizing the YXZ sequence and extremum values utilizing the ZXY sequence were significantly greater than the others.A popular method of quantifying the angular place of a stiff dynamic frame with regard to a mention frame is via the use of independent angles known normally as cardan or Euler angles ( Schace et al. , 2001 ) . Cardan/Euler rotary motions are obtained by agencies of an order sequence of rotary motions ( Schace et al. , 2001 ) . Rotations are considered to happen about the axis of the section co-ordniate system. For illustration during an XYZ cardan sequence of rotary motions, the section is rotated about the X axes by an angle A, so rotates about a revolved Y ‘ by an angle B and so eventually rotated about a twice rotated Z † axes by an angle C ( Scahce et al. , 2001 ) . For a given gesture, different cardan sequences can act upon the angular computations ( Cole et al. , 1993 ) . The International Society of Biomechanics ( ISB ) recommends that joint angles be calculated utilizing an XYZ sequence of rotary motions ( Wu and Cavanagh 1995 ) . However, the big sum of sagittal plane gesture during pace can encroach on the representation of motions outside the sagittal plane ( transverse talk ) , ensuing in greater than expected coronal/transverse plane articulation profiles ( Thewlis et al. , 2008 ) . As such it has been proposed that the XYZ sequence when applied to rotary motions outside the sagittal plane may non be the most appropriate method. A choice figure of probes have examined the influence that changing the sequence of rotary motions has on the representation of segmental kinematics ( Schace et al. , 2001, Kavaduna et al. , 2000, Tupling and Pierrynowski 1987 and Thewlis et al. , 2008 ) . However none of these probes have focused on the consequence that changing the sequence may hold on ankle joint kinematics. In add-on to the normally used method of Cardan angles, coiling angles ( Woltring et al. , 1985 ) can besides be used to depict joint gesture when projected on to a plane. The coiling method from a mention place is described in footings of rotary motion about and interlingual rendition along a individual line or axis in infinite ( Robertson et al. , 2004 ) . The ankle articulation plays a cardinal function in the stance stage pace rhythm. In combination with the hip and articulatio genus articulations the mortise joint facilitates motive power and transmits forces and minutes during the stance stage when the pes is regarded as the interface of the human locomotor system with the environment. Therefore, motion of the mortise joint is an of import constituent of pace mechanics and as such the right reading of its motion is indispensable in kinematic analyses. This survey investigated the influence of the coiling method every bit good as the 6 available cardan sequences on ankle joint kinematics in the sagittal, coronal and cross planes.MethodParticipants Eleven male participants volunteered to take portion in this probe ( age 19 + 1 old ages ; Height 176.5 + 5.2 centimeter ; Mass 78.4 + 9.0 kilogram ) . All were injury free at the clip of informations aggregation and completed an informed consent signifier. Ethical blessing for this undertaking was obtained from the School of Psychology moralss commission, University of Central Lancashire and each participant provided verbal consent. A statistical power analysis of pilot informations was conducted in order to cut down the likeliness of a type II mistake and find the minimal figure participants needed for this probe. It was found that the sample size was sufficient to supply more than 70 % statistical power in the experimental step. Procedure An eight camera gesture analysis system ( Qualisys Medical AB, Goteburg, Sweden ) captured kinematic informations at 350Hz from each participant running at 4.0ms-1. Velocity was controlled utilizing infrared photoelectric cells Newtest 300 ( Newtest, Oy Koulukatu 31 B 11 90100 Oulu Finland ) , a maximal divergence of + 5 % from the in agreement speed was allowed. Participants ran over a force platform ( Kistler, Kistler Instruments Ltd. , Alton, Hampshire, UK ; Model 9281CA ) , stance clip was determined as the clip over which 20N or greater of perpendicular force was applied to the force platform. The marker set used for the survey was based on the CAST technique ( Cappozo et al. , ( 1995 ) . Retro-reflective markers were attached to the 1st and 5th metatarsal caputs, median and sidelong maleoli, median and sidelong epicondyle of the thighbone, with a tracking bunch positioned on the right shank. A inactive test was captured to specify the pes and tibial sections. Kinematic parametric quantities were quantified utilizing Ocular 3-D ( C-Motion Inc, Gaithersburg, USA ) and filtered utilizing at 6 Hz utilizing a zero-lag low base on balls Butterworth 4th order filter following insertion with a maximal spread fill of 10 frames. Five tests of ankle joint rotary motion during stance were averaged for each participant. Angles were created about an XYZ, ZXY, XZY, YXZ, YZX and YXZ rotary motion cardan sequence referenced to organize systems about the proximal terminal of the section, where Ten is flexion-extension ; Y is ab-adduction and is Z is internal-external rotary motion. Statistical Analysis Descriptive statistics including agencies and standard divergences were calculated for each status. Differences in stance stage kinematic variables were examined utilizing perennial steps ANOVA ‘s with significance accepted at the P & A ; lt ; 0.05 degree. The Mauchly ‘s sphericalness premise was violated in all instances and as such the grades of freedom of the F statistic were adjusted via the Greenhouse Geisser rectification. The Shapiro-wilk statistic for each status confirmed that the informations were usually distributed. Appropriate post-hoc analyses were conducted utilizing a Bonferroni rectification to command for type I error. Effect sizes were calculated utilizing an Eta2. Cohen ‘s suggestion sing effects sizes was observed ( little R & A ; lt ; 0.3 ; medium R & A ; gt ; 0.3 and & A ; lt ; 0.5 ; big & A ; gt ; 0.5. All statistical processs were conducted utilizing SPSS 17.0.ConsequenceTables 1 and 2 present scopes of gesture and peak angles observed in al l three planes of rotary motion as a map of cardan sequence.Table1: Mean ( and standard divergence ) scope of gesture ( deg ) for each rotary motion as a map of cardan sequence ( * = important chief consequence ) n=11.Ten Yttrium Omega XYZ 27.94 + 10.34 5.62 + 3.86 4.67 + 3,21 XZY 26.75 + 11.35 5.29 + 5.13 5.88 + 4.52 YXZ 25.67 + 11.45 17.04 + 11.95 15.22 + 10.45 YZX 26.51 + 11.37 6.86 + 5.83 4.08 + 2.04 ZXY 26.38 + 10.12 15.96 + 27.51 28.78 + 11.73 ZYX 24.52 + 12.17 6.16 + 6.47 4.09 + 2.17 Coiling 25.45+8.64 5.26 + 6233 5.08 + 2.72 Main Effect**Table 2: Mean ( and standard divergence extremum values ) ( deg ) for each rotary motion as a map of cardan sequence ( * = important chief consequence ) n=11.Ten Yttrium Omega XYZ -87.65 + 3.83 -11.04 + 5.48 -2.14 + 4.53 XZY -87.70 + 3.57 -11.15 + 5.46 0.21 + 4.78 YXZ -84.07 + 5.05 -68.25 + 24.29 -71.01 + 20.91 YZX -87.64 + 3.68 1.00 + 4.97 -11.71 + 4.80 ZXY -87.7 + 3.66 1.07 + 20.47 -1.42 + 13.41 ZYX -84.6 + 3.75 -3.18 + 4.88 -11.78 + 4.81 Coiling -87.75 + 2.40 -7.40 + 7.68 -11.91 + 3.27 Main Effect**The consequences indicate that important scope of gesture chief effects were observed for the coronal F ( 1.85, 16.66 ) = 10.04, P & A ; lt ; 0.05, eta2= 0.53 and cross plane F ( 2.04, 18.39 ) =21.91, P & A ; lt ; 0.05, eta2=0.71. Post-hoc analyses revealed that both coronal and cross plane ROM utilizing the YXZ and ZXY sequences was significantly greater than the others. Furthermore, it was besides observed that extremum angle chief effects were found for the coronal F ( 2.28, 20.48 ) = 82.99, P & A ; lt ; 0.05, eta2=0.90 and transverse planes F ( 2.08, 18.72 ) = 80.49, P & A ; lt ; 0.05, eta2= 0.90. Post-hoc analyses revealed that peak coronal and cross plane angles utilizing the YXZ sequence were significantly greater than the others.Figure 1: Ankle joint kinematics in the sagittal, coronal and cross planes as a map of cardan sequence ( XYZ= black, XZY= red, YXZ=yellow, YZX=blue, ZXY= cyan, ZYX=green and Helical =purple.DiscussionEuler/Cardan angles are used extensive ly within the Fieldss of clinical and sport biomechanics. However, the consequence of changing the sequence of rotary motions has yet to be investigated with regard to the ankle articulation composite. The consequences indicate that changing the sequence of rotary motions when detecting kinematics in the sagittal plane has no important affect on joint scope of gesture parametric quantities. This is unsurprising given the laterality of sagittal plane gesture at the mortise joint during pace. Leading to the decision that choosing the appropriate sequence of rotary motions is non an issue when look intoing kinematics in the sagittal plane. However, for the coronal and cross planes a important consequence was found in footings of both the scope of gesture and peak angle observed during the stance stage. The consequences of this survey with regard to the mortise joint articulation found that the ZXY and YXZ sequences significantly affected ankle joint kinematics bring forthing highly big values for both scope of gesture and peak angles. The mistake associated with these sequences is such that the kinematic estimations are anatomically unrealistic. It is interesting to observe that the two combinations which were observed to be significantly different from the others ( YXZ and ZXY ) each had X 2nd in the order of rotary motions. This was the instance even when the principal axis under probe is placed foremost ( i.e. ZXY when detecting transverse plane rotary motion and YXZ when detecting coronal plane rotary motion ) , where one would presume that the comparative orientation could non be affected by the grade of sagittal plane gesture holding been placed after it in the sequence. It appears based on these consequences that the ISB recommendations are appropriate for the representation of ankle joint kinematics and as such its usage is encouraged, as it will let comparing of future research trying to quantify ankle joint gesture performed by different research workers. In add-on the consequences suggest that the YXZ and ZXY sequences produce the greatest mistake and therefore the use of these sequences to quantify ankle gesture outside the sagittal plane is strongly discouraged. This survey emphasizes the demand for methods leting joint kinematics to be measured accurately. Therefore, guaranting joint map is represented right.