Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah Terrorist Organizations Research Paper

Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah Terrorist Organizations - Research Paper Example The consequences of terror campaigns are about all the time catastrophic. Individuals or groups, which commend these crimes, are known as terrorists. Terrorists are present all over the globe. There are a small number of terrorists who operate unaccompanied, but generally they are fraction of one or many global terrorist organizations. Terrorism has been approximately since the commencement of time. It has caused realms to go up and to fall, and allowed certain people to obtain immensely destructive power. Terrorism by nature is difficult to define, roughly it could be said that â€Å"Terrorism as a word in its usual usage has a connotation of evil, indiscriminate violence or brutality.† (Lutz, 2008, p.7). Some groups those are not in any ways committing brutal acts but voicing out randomly for the commoners or for freedom of nation are also labeled as terrorist groups. This is really condemnable, because â€Å"People and organizations are degraded when labeled as terrorists, and political or religious movements can lose followers and funding as a result of the label† (Griset & Mahan, 2003, p. xiii). Terrorism involves ferocious and gruesome actions such as bombing, assassination of important people, mass killing or massacres, taking hostages by hijacking etc. Terrorism is directed towards the military sections, rather for religious or political entities. Several terrorist groups have shaken the world with their violent and horrible attacks and threatened the entire mankind repeatedly in all the parts of the world. Some infamous terrorist groups are working by encompassing global networking system, like Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Chechens, Hizbool Mujahideen, Taliban etc. They have succeeded to terrorize the entire world. Al Qaeda and Hezbollah are extremely active terrorist groups that have created their unique history of terror throughout the globe. Al Qaeda is the most prominent and matured global terrorist organization in the global history of

Philosophy of Truth Essay Example for Free

Philosophy of Truth Essay There are many theories on the meaning of truth, and with those theories come beliefs and questions as to why one is more adequate than the others. The theory that I will discuss as the most adequate is the correspondence theory. Honestly, I dont possess the capabilities to fully determine the most sufficient theory of truth. I do, however, have empirical evidence and solid reasoning to support the correspondence theory. There are many valid arguments and questions of this theory that I am not qualified to completely refute. For the sake of this essay I am only able to continue this age old discussion, not to conclude with an exact theory of truth to follow. First I will introduce the basic ideas of the correspondence theory and then I will show why I support these ideas. Then I will present what some other philosophers have said in regards to the correspondence theory and how I interpret these statements. To end, I will discuss the basic arguments against the correspondence theory, and show reasons as to why these arguments are applicable to any theory. The concept of the correspondence theory says that a statement is true only if the facts given match up with reality. (Solomon p. 268) This can be a very simple approach to determining the truth. The basic idea is that if, based on my understanding of reality, the statement given matches that reality then the statement is true. If the statement does not correspond to reality then it is false. A statement is a sentence that can be determined to be true or false but not both at the same time. So ultimately I use past experiences and beliefs to determine my concept of reality. Then, based on my idea of reality, I determine if a statement is either true or false. To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true (Solomon p 268) This was Aristotles belief in Metaphysics and seems to be a very clear-cut statement on how to determine truth. Either a statement is true or false. The law of contradiction says that a statement and its denial cannot both be true. (Solomon p. 266) This reinforces the belief that a statement cannot be true and false at the same time. As Aristotle also said in Metaphysics It is impossible for the same man to suppose at the same time that the same thing is and is not. (Solomon p 266) This however, as some still argue, does not solve the problem that what may true to one, may be false to another. If reality is based on my experiences, then having different experiences can cause different perceptions of reality. The argument of whom or what would determine the final truth is well beyond my qualifications. This can cause a contradiction of truth. This contradiction, based on an individuals idea of reality, is another concept that I am able to only understand and take a position. I do not have the final answers to these arguments but I do have a perspective. An individuals concept of reality is unique to that individual. Based on ones experiences comes that persons concept of reality. Just because someones experiences cause them to believe one truth, doesnt mean they are wrong if I believe another truth. This idea of reality is what causes philosophers to discuss different theories of truth and their credibilitys on many different levels. These extreme cases and abstract ideas is where the correspondence theory draws in the critics. I feel that some of these arguments, though valid, are applicable to any theory. The first argument of this theory roots from the name itself. This argument of the correspondence theory states that there is no such thing as a statement or belief that by itself is capable of corresponding to anything. (Solomon p268) This means that mainly because our words have different meanings in different languages there is not one single statement that can correspond to anything. I feel that this is a weak argument in that it would mean that nothing can be true. There are many different languages and there is no single word I know of that is universal. This argument could be applied to any theory of truth. If what I say is not true to everyone, then it is false. That seems to be the basis of this argument and because of this belief nothing could be true. To me that is an outrageous and un-realistic argument. The next point critics of the correspondence theory make is that there in some cases may be physical implications with verifying correspondence. One example of this for me may be my diabetes. If I say my blood sugar is low the only way to verify if that is true is through the use of my glucose meter. Without the correct equipment there is no way to tell if that statement is true. (At least until Im in a coma! ). To me this still seems to have a simple solution; the truth isnt known until it can be verified. I truly do not know if my blood sugar is low until I have tested it. This may cause me to have to rely on another persons statement but then I can only form an opinion. If I cannot verify the truth physically then I do not know if it is true. This brings up the next argument. The final point I will talk about is that of abstract ideas. Some people will argue that the correspondence theory does not work for abstract ideas, such as love and feelings. These are difficult to verify since they are mostly feelings. There is no concrete source to match them up with. To find the truth in these areas is very difficult with any theory of truth. The best answer I have to counter this objection is that the truth to these abstract ideas is unique to every individual and is really more of an opinion. If someone says I am hungry that is really more of an opinion than a statement. Therefore these claims cannot be either true or false, they are a feeling and that is not for me to judge as truth or not. This leads me to conclude that the correspondence theory is the most adequate theory for determining truth. As long as a belief or statement corresponds with my perception of reality then it is the truth. Though there are valid arguments against this theory I feel that they are a stretch and can be argued against any theory of truth. Bibliography Solomon, Robert, Introducing Philosophy, 8th edition, (Oxford University Press, NY 2005) pp266-279.

Commerce, Politics and the City in A Room of Ones Own and Mrs. Dallowa

Commerce, Politics and the City in A Room of One's Own and Mrs. Dalloway      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   "...At this moment, as so often happens in London, there was a complete lull and suspension of traffic. Nothing came down the street; nobody passed. A single leaf detached itself from the plane tree at the end of the street, and in that pause and suspension fell. Somehow it was like a signal falling, a signal pointing to a force in things which one had overlooked ... Now it was bringing from one side of the street to the other diagonally a girl in patent leather boots and then a young man in a maroon overcoat; it was also bringing a taxi-cab; and it brought all three together at a point directly beneath my window; where the taxi stopped; and the girl and the young man stopped; and they got into the taxi; and the cab glided off as if it were swept on by the current elsewhere." (A Room of One's Own 100)    "Virginia Woolf" - the version of her that narrates the "events" of A Room of One's Own - observes the above urban scene from her window. In a pattern that she had perfected in Mrs. Dalloway four years earlier, the rhythms of urban existence are closely articulated with those of the natural world - and that rhythmic coordination in turn serves as a kind of authorization of that urban existence, a guarantee of the transcendent meaning of the evidently constructed human world. Thus the quietly definitive dropping of a leaf from its branch not only seems a sort of rhythmic blueprint for the ballet-like convergence of "girl," "man" and "taxi-cab", but also in fact the mystical cause of that convergence, a "signal" "bringing" this ... ...fied royal, the skywriting of an advertiser's airplane) are analogues of the narration's own confident focalizing sweep - now airborne, now moving down city streets, now fanning out across parks, always able to join disparate characters in a cohesive narrative line. But they are uneasy analogues, for they are patently the product not of some transcendent or natural meaning but of powerful modern interests: the nation, entertainment, commerce. Clarissa's intimations of timeless spiritual connectivity, and the narration's own performance of that connectivity, move in the grooves set down by these very modern institutions.       Works cited:    Virginia Woolf. Mrs. Dalloway. London: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1925.    ____________. A Room of One's Own. London: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1929.

Where Do You Find the Bodies??

The lack of planning involved from local managers to corporate headquarters is affecting their Boomtown, Colorado location significantly. The Auto Service Center management and supervisors are not doing enough to influence the strategic direction of their Boomtown location and they are not analyzing the environment efficiently. From the gathered statistics about the fifty percent increase in population and three percent unemployment, we know the towns economic richness is on the rise.The top management of Auto Service Center should utilize the human resources In the organization more Intelligently. Human resource planning will ensure your employees have the competencies and skills required for your business to succeed. An efficient plan will help determine the resources needed, prepare you for staff turnover, recruitment, and strategic hilling. Failure to anticipate changes in the workforce often leads to you making Irrational decision. In essence Auto Service Center is not implement ing proper recruitment: maintain distraction with current employees or developing their managers to suit their long term organizational goals.Implementing a proper human resource plan will clear up common misunderstandings between top management, supervisors and employees while achieving other plans and strategies. The organization should resolve underlying issues so a motivated and committed workforce can operate effectively. Currently, without a proper human resource plan in place the Boomtown location for Auto Service Center will suffer in output and contribution in a situation where the opposite is easily possible.Milt Sonorant is in an awkward situation because his short term solution in hiring new mechanics will lead to same results without proper strategic planning and hiring. 2. The Auto Service Center top management and supervisors are not determining the right recruitment needs in Boomtown. An important part of the recruitment process is to avoid previous mistakes, anticip ate shortages, and reduce dissatisfaction in the process. Not only does Milt Sonorant need to recruit the right response he also needs to establish the training needs of employees.Training programs are important for improving quality and skills of employees In the organization. Without the proper funding and schedule a training program can create dissatisfaction from managers and employees. Auto Service Center must understand the costs and benefits of hilling and the risks of not hiring. Several different strategies could be used In hilling new mechanics at Boomtown, Colorado such as entering different labor markets, Improving relations In local labor market, advertising electronically, attending Job fairs, producing Job and task descriptions.However, a proper Job analysis should be conducted for Auto Service Center to determine the person who would fit the organization properly. Overall, multiple recruitment methods could be used by Auto Service Center to recruit the proper mechani c in their Boomtown location. Where Do You Find the Bodies † By mossback 1. I believe the case â€Å"Where Do You Find the Bodies † illustrates the lack of human utilize the human resources in the organization more intelligently. Human resource deed, prepare you for staff turnover, recruitment, and strategic hiring.Failure to anticipate changes in the workforce often leads to you making irrational decision. In essence Auto Service Center is not implementing proper recruitment; maintain programs are important for improving quality and skills of employees in the understand the costs and benefits of hiring and the risks of not hiring. Several different strategies could be used in hiring new mechanics at Boomtown, Colorado such as entering different labor markets, improving relations in local labor market,

Good Habits

Practicing good things in our lives, make us and our surrounding happy. Every individual should engage in good deeds to becomes good human being . There are many tall leaders ,who became our role models. The reason behind their greatness is, indulging themselves in good habits . The habits like, reading books that radiates knowledge and moral , or attending religious ceremonies ,or participating in group sports ,would make a comprehensive or a complete human being .Lets discuss in detail. Firstly, good habits are very essential for leading a harmonious life. if we look in to biography of famous people, we can learn that they had indulge healthy habits like reading books or spending their most of the time in library. Reading enhances our knowledge and perception towards outer world. There are many beautiful books that teach, the proper way of personal and social life. Hence one must cultivate this habit to lead a good life.Secondly, religion teaches the holistic way of life, that incl udes respecting elders and nature . Attending these religious ceremonies will change individual behavior and make them to live a moral and virtue life. Irrespective of any religion, all teaches to become a good human being . By spending some time from our daily life in religious rituals, will inculcate high moral in people. Further more , participating in sports especially in group sports,also help us to construct our personality in positive direction .Playing in team teaches to how to be a part of team, and it also show co-ordination of each other to get success ,it could be in sports or in personal life. To put it in to nut shell,indeed good habits make a good human being . Spending time with good books or attending religious ceremonies ,certainly bring changes in personality . And plying group sports enhance harmony and integrity in our social life. Good Habits Good Habits Did you know that a person can be defined and be judge by his or her appearance. If someone is dirty maybe his personal hygiene or his good habits are not well practiced. A good habit may result to one’s cleanliness and we all know that cleanliness is next to godliness. The assigned person will be using some pictures to show the students the different good habits a person should practice. And every picture the students will be asked to give their opinion about it and reflect to themselves if they are doing the habit indicated in the picture or not. 1. Sleeping early is one good habit to practice.We should always go to bed early to be able to have enough rest for the day and to regain energy for the next day. Because being sleepy in school is not a good attitude a student should have. Growing kids like you should have at least 8-10 hours of sleep for you to be able to grow taller and most especially energetic for the rest of the day. 2. Brushing your teeth. We shoul d brush our pearly white teeth 3 times a day to be able to keep them from cavities. Using dental floss and mouthwash are also required to keep our gums healthy. Also we should visit our family dentist to have our teeth check so that our teeth will be free from cavities.We should take care of our teeth since we use them for eating. 3. Cutting our nails. We should keep our nails clean and short and we should do it weekly. Since our hands are the dirtiest part of our body we should always make sure they are clean. We could also bring alcohol and hand sanitizer to keep our hands and nails clean. 4. Combing our hair. Especially to the girls since we do not want to look like we just got off the bed we should comb our hair to be presentable to others. And also to look beautiful and handsome. 5. Exercising. As children you always play outside so it is a good habit since we stretch and exercise our bodies.And we should not always watch TV and play computer games. Outdoor activities are more fun than indoor activities since as kids you are able to explore your surroundings and appreciate nature. 6. Taking a bath or shower. It is important to be able to keep our bodies clean most especially after playing outdoor games with friends. Also change your underwear regularly, make sure they are clean and also washing of our hands before and after eating. 7. Well balance diet. A well balance meal is always good for our bodies and especially to your growing bodies. We should consult the food pyramid to be able to know how to balance our diet.A meal should compose of Go, Grow, and Glow foods to be able to give our bodies the necessary vitamins, nutrients and minerals for us to be able to do our works and chores for the day. In addition, they will sign an oath stating that they will be practicing the good habits everyday and help their fellow classmate to do the same thing. The oath is indicated below: â€Å"I, (Name) promise to practice the good habits regularly. In addition, I p romise also to help my fellow classmates to do the same thing. † This activity will be submitted next meeting. Also they are required to bring coloring materials for next week’s activity.

Free Essays on Gender Selection

Sociology Research Paper I approached this paper in a much different way then any other paper I have ever written. The topic that I have chosen is sex selection and since this topic is so new I felt that every resource was very unique and had a lot to offer. That is why I have chosen to write this paper in order of the resources I have found. I hope that you do not mind. Technology nowadays is phenomenal. There is so much that technology is now able to do, and there is also a lot of competition out there concerning technology. With the technology today there truly is no limit to what someone can do. Technology has become so advanced that couples can now even decide what sex they want their child to be. Sex selection is an unbelievably expensive and quite silly process. I would think that as long as a couple has a healthy baby that they would be happy, but not any more. Couples want it all and now they are capable of doing just that. Sex selection has always been around but not the way it is today. Accurately selecting the sex of ones child has been a goal of many cultures since man has been on earth. Some superstition has created many outrageous practices for the reproduction of a child of a desired sex at the time of conception. Recommendations for having males include, having sex in dry weather when the moon is full, the nut harvest is plentiful, and there is a north wind. Many parents throughout history have resorted to selective abortion and infanticide, to guarantee them the sex of their children. With more recent advances in technology couple have more assistance with an accurate method of selecting the sex of their child before conception. At this time there are two methods that provide the best results for sex selection, they are pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) of embryos and sperm-sorting through flow cytometry. The ethical and legal dilemmas presented with pre... Free Essays on Gender Selection Free Essays on Gender Selection Sociology Research Paper I approached this paper in a much different way then any other paper I have ever written. The topic that I have chosen is sex selection and since this topic is so new I felt that every resource was very unique and had a lot to offer. That is why I have chosen to write this paper in order of the resources I have found. I hope that you do not mind. Technology nowadays is phenomenal. There is so much that technology is now able to do, and there is also a lot of competition out there concerning technology. With the technology today there truly is no limit to what someone can do. Technology has become so advanced that couples can now even decide what sex they want their child to be. Sex selection is an unbelievably expensive and quite silly process. I would think that as long as a couple has a healthy baby that they would be happy, but not any more. Couples want it all and now they are capable of doing just that. Sex selection has always been around but not the way it is today. Accurately selecting the sex of ones child has been a goal of many cultures since man has been on earth. Some superstition has created many outrageous practices for the reproduction of a child of a desired sex at the time of conception. Recommendations for having males include, having sex in dry weather when the moon is full, the nut harvest is plentiful, and there is a north wind. Many parents throughout history have resorted to selective abortion and infanticide, to guarantee them the sex of their children. With more recent advances in technology couple have more assistance with an accurate method of selecting the sex of their child before conception. At this time there are two methods that provide the best results for sex selection, they are pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) of embryos and sperm-sorting through flow cytometry. The ethical and legal dilemmas presented with pre...

The Great Gasby essays

The Great Gasby essays Time tells us that success often comes with a price. Often money will create more problems than it can solve. The richness of a persons soul can be hidden in the folds of money. Such is the case of Jay Gatsby. Jay Gatsby is constantly altering in the readers mind due to the various puzzling events that transpire in the novel creating a level of mystery. First off, Gatsby is a man who feels secure in his privacy and allows very few people into his personal life due to lack of trust. Jay often throws parties at his lavish house, only to shrink away from contact with his various guests that frolic in his privately funded bashes. He does not drink, mainly because he has a high level of composure that cannot be compromised by the effects of alcohol. When the narrator, Nick Carraway, is allowed to venture into Gatsbys personal life Gatsby tells Nick only what he feels is necessary to keep him from being suspicious. The eerie thing about this is that while doing this he is so guarded that Nick often questions how concrete and truthful the information is. When discussing his past Gastby is choppy and uncomfortable telling Nick about his education and war experiences. Only when Gatsby produces a metal of valor earned in the war does Nick believe in his war service stories. Even then Nick has a hard time believing Gatsbys educational background because of his uncomfortable declaration that he attended Oxford, a very prestigious English university. Trust is not a strong point of Gastbys makeup and lifestyle. Therefore, when looking at Gatsbys most impressive traits one thing that pops up is his energetic smile, vibrant personality, and loyalty to those who he respects or cares about. It is important to mention the fact that Gatsby always seemed to make every person feel important and at ease while conversing with him. It was his nature to express courtesy to any guest ...

The Definition of the Phrase Slut Shaming

The Definition of the Phrase Slut Shaming ÑSlut shaming is the deliberate act of calling a woman a slut, a whore or impugning her character in sexual terms in order to embarrass, humiliate, intimidate, degrade or shame her for actions or behaviors that are a normal part of female sexuality. Although the act of slut-shaming is not exclusive to either gender, females of every age from girls to adults often engage in slut-shaming to put down or express contempt for another female. Slut-shaming is often associated with mean girl behavior but is not restricted to that age group. A slut-shaming story from a personal blog illustrates how this practice can happen in the unlikeliest of settings: [O]ne church member...called another member a slut because of the latter’s shoes (which had been part of a Halloween costume) with stiletto heels. It was a joke...[which] hints at the truth...that even if you are a good Christian, if you also happen to be wearing certain clothes, you will be stigmatized sexually if you are a woman. Slut shaming entered the public consciousness in 2010 due to two separate events: the suicide of Phoebe Prince, a high school student who was so humiliated by her classmates that she hanged herself; and the 2010 midterm election in which two Congressional candidates, Christine ODonnell, and Krystal Ball, were attacked by the website Gawker which published an anonymous tell-all about a night spent with ODonnell and candid photos of Ball at a Christmas party posing with sex toys. Slut shaming was also depicted in the CBS series The Good Wife when a female candidates breast augmentation surgery was revealed by her male opponent. In the episode which originally aired November 9, 2010, the candidate directly addressed the situation and revealed she was a breast cancer survivor who had kept her double mastectomy a secret and was having breast reconstructive surgery following cancer treatment.

Business Management (Introduction to Management and Organisations ) Essay

Business Management (Introduction to Management and Organisations ) - Essay Example The management of change is really essential for the effective and useful results. The change happens for the enhancement of the potential working and structure enhancement. These potential enhancements can be physical or logical. During the change the business leader needs to pay effective attention towards the management of changes. Change management is the practice throughout which we can organize the transforms/changes of a system during its development or implementation. Change management saves organizations from the ongoing changes during the project execution. For this purpose they establish a predefined model or framework for the incorporation of some practical changes or modifications in the project (Nickols, 2008). When administrators or managers are scheduling to handle change, there are five main and most significant factors regarding the handling of change, these factors need to be kept in mind by change managers (Teamtechnology, 2009): One most important sense of the change management is to the formulation of changes in an intended and systematic or orderly way. The most important reason of change is to add additional efficiency and latest techniques and arrangements in an ongoing organization. The transformation to be directed lies inside and is proscribed through the business (possibly the most recognizable example of this type of transformation is the â€Å"change control management† phase of IT system improvement developments.) (Nickols, 2008).  Despite the fact that, these inner transformations can have activated through activities initiated outside the business, in what is frequently expressed as â€Å"the atmosphere.† Consequently, the subsequent sense of administration transform, particularly, the respond to changes in excess of which the business workout small or no management (for example public and political

Close reading a poem and thesis-driven essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Close reading a poem and thesis-driven - Essay Example The negative disposition intensified due to the dominance in her life. As such she perceives her problems as resulted to by the parent. Sylvia uses similes, allegories, various types of rhymes as well as enjambment between stanzas in reinforcing the contrasting themes of love and hate. Sylvia uses allegories and similes when she makes references to the Nazi of Germany. In doing this, she directly compares her relationship with her father to the relationship between a Nazi and a Jew. There are many circumstances where the persona or the poet mentions the Nazi of Germany or makes statements that allude to the Nazi regime. The poet says, â€Å"Not God but a Swastika† (46). Swastika was a symbol associated with the Nazi Germany. Through referring to his father as a Swastika, he tends to associate him with the Nazi Germany. Therefore, she indirectly refers to the symbol of the Nazi to depict the weakening bond between her and her fathers as she grows old. Another instance where the author mentions Nazi Germany is when she uses it to refer to the fear that he had for her dad. The narrators’ fear of the father compares to the Jew’s fear of the Nazi in the period of the Holocaust. Even though the Nazi Germany is not mentioned directly, the following lines insinuate that the poet made a direct reference to the Nazi. When the speaker elucidates the relationship between the Nazi-Jew cases she explains, â€Å"I thought every German was you / and the language obscene. Chuffing me off like a Jew The poem also uses nursery rhyme motif significantly to foster her message. In the very beginning, the poet mentions the lines, â€Å"You do not do† twice repeatedly. The verse portrays the seriousness of the narrator. She introduces the difficult or hard time that his father created. Additionally, the poet in describing his father says, â€Å"And your Aryan eye, bright blue† (43-45) The rhyme displays widespread

Unit 4 Science DB Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Unit 4 Science DB - Essay Example This list serves as guide for EPA determining which sites warrant further investigation. It was painfully surprising to know that even Florida is also having as many as 49 such sites. Though, with EPA’s efforts, 21 sites have already been cleaned up.One such site in our nearby was BMI-Textron with EPA ID as FLD052172954. It is situated at 1211, Silver Beach Road in the Tri-City Industrial Park, Lake Park, Florida. It was proposed in NCL list on 06/24/88 and it was deleted from it on 11/18/04 after cleanup. BMI-Textron (BMIT) was in business of making of chrome backed glass plates, used for manufacture of electronic components. Materials and chemicals that were used for this product included cerium oxide, ceric ammonium nitrate, chromium, acetone, potassium ferrocyanide and possibly fluoride (EVA website). Various processes of manufacturing operation like chromium stripping operations, glass cleaning, coating, polishing, rinse waters and reverse osmosis water purification etc., generated liquid wastes. These wastes were disposed of on site. Initially BMIT used percolation ponds under a Florida Department of Environmental Regulation (FDER) permit for disposing of cyanide wastes and later installed additional drain field to dispose of wastewater from a Reverse Osmosis plant. As per terms of FDER permit four wells were constructed on site to monitor permit compliance. A monthly report of sample was also to be taken. One monthly report of sampling data showed higher than permitted standards for nitrate, total dissolved solids and pH. Accordingly in 1983, FDEP issued a violation notice BMIT. Later investigations determined concentrations of arsenic, cyanide, fluoride, and sodium contamination in the soil and groundwater. It was affecting approximately 106,000 people in Lake Park, Riviera B each, North Palm Beach, Palm Beach Shores, and Palm Beach Gardens. These contaminations can

Management Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Management - Research Paper Example Proper management is crucial to the success of any business or organization. However, if management is poor, it may end up having more disadvantages than advantages for a business or organization. This paper will discuss the need for management, highlighting its pros and cons. The need for management The need for proper management in any organization or business can never be underestimated. Businesses are ongoing activities that cannot operate on their own. Just as a car needs a good driver to steer it to its destination, or a ship needs a sailor to lead it to its destination, so does a business or organization requires a good manager(s) to lead it to success (Griffin, 2010). It is important to note that management can either aid or deter the success of a business or organization. With proper management, a business or organization will have set goals and objectives that it aims to achieve, and it will most likely succeed at achieving them. On the other hand, without proper management , businesses and organizations are likely to fail since improper management is worse than no management at all (Kochan & Schmalensee, 2003). Therefore, management has its pros and cons in any business or organization. Pros of management Proper management usually has very many advantages for businesses and organizations. Management helps organizations and businesses to achieve group goals. Through management, the factors of production can be arranged together, and resources can be organized and assembled (Kochan & Schmalensee, 2003). Management can then integrate the factors of production and the available resources in an effective manner that will assist in the achievement of goals. Management can direct all group efforts and resources towards goal attainment. Management is also responsible for defining organizational objectives, thus minimizing the waste of effort, money and time (Plunkett, Attner, & Allen, 2007). Management also ensures that there is optimum and proper utilization of organization resources. This is by making productive use of all human and physical resources that are available. This promotes efficacy within an organization or business. Management selects the best possible use of scarce resources, thereby ensuring optimum utilization. The need for management is also important because an organization’s management makes use of the services, knowledge and skills of professionals and experts in achieving organizational goals (Kochan & Schmalensee, 2003). Therefore, if management ensures that both physical and human resources are producing their maximum results, then management is totally necessary in any organization or business. Management is necessary in a business or organization because it is responsible for reducing costs. Management should ensure that maximum results are achieved through minimum input. This can only be possible if management carries out its core functions. The core management functions include planning, staffing, coo rdinating, organizing, leading, directing and controlling (Daft & Marcic, 2010). When planning, management is responsible for setting objectives and deciding the best possible courses of actions that can be taken to achieve the predetermined objectives. In the staffing function, management is

IBM's workforce management initiative(WMI) Essay

IBM's workforce management initiative(WMI) - Essay Example ) is basically an approach to the human capital management which would make the company a global integrated enterprise whose operations cut across wide geographical areas and which placed various value creation processes in a worldwide arena that optimized their productivity and efficiency (Boudreau 2010). The idea of WMI actually was developed by the then IBM’s chief human resource officer, Randy MacDonald in 2003 and was later supported by other members of the work force. This idea required a lot of changes to be done in the management. According to the IBM’s management, one of the important moves towards the achievement of its goal was to start a business metaphor for the IBM which would be a basis for what was referred as ‘decision Science’ for talents. The ‘decision science’ is what actually the IBM envisioned. The idea here was to consider the existing employees, applicants, vendor supply and learning as alternative sources of talents supply which were actually based in different geographical areas and within different individuals (Boudreau 2010). It had also to consider some other factors as the language used in such areas as job description; competencies and knowledge, skills and abilities. This is used in describing the resources and also defining and organizing decisions and views towards the resources. There was also need for an expertise taxonomy which would help classify the jobs by identifying things like job roles(JR) and job role skill sets (JRSS) and also identifying coming upon with common descriptors around the tasks executed by different people. By the year 2003, IBM had hundred thousands of full-time employees, over 90,000 contactors and above 40,000 applicants. These were grouped into roles such that by the year 2008, there were around 331 roles needed to define the company’s work force. Each role here represented hundreds of both applicants and contractors and over 1000 employees. There are several impacts associated with the

Management Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Management - Research Paper Example Proper management is crucial to the success of any business or organization. However, if management is poor, it may end up having more disadvantages than advantages for a business or organization. This paper will discuss the need for management, highlighting its pros and cons. The need for management The need for proper management in any organization or business can never be underestimated. Businesses are ongoing activities that cannot operate on their own. Just as a car needs a good driver to steer it to its destination, or a ship needs a sailor to lead it to its destination, so does a business or organization requires a good manager(s) to lead it to success (Griffin, 2010). It is important to note that management can either aid or deter the success of a business or organization. With proper management, a business or organization will have set goals and objectives that it aims to achieve, and it will most likely succeed at achieving them. On the other hand, without proper management , businesses and organizations are likely to fail since improper management is worse than no management at all (Kochan & Schmalensee, 2003). Therefore, management has its pros and cons in any business or organization. Pros of management Proper management usually has very many advantages for businesses and organizations. Management helps organizations and businesses to achieve group goals. Through management, the factors of production can be arranged together, and resources can be organized and assembled (Kochan & Schmalensee, 2003). Management can then integrate the factors of production and the available resources in an effective manner that will assist in the achievement of goals. Management can direct all group efforts and resources towards goal attainment. Management is also responsible for defining organizational objectives, thus minimizing the waste of effort, money and time (Plunkett, Attner, & Allen, 2007). Management also ensures that there is optimum and proper utilization of organization resources. This is by making productive use of all human and physical resources that are available. This promotes efficacy within an organization or business. Management selects the best possible use of scarce resources, thereby ensuring optimum utilization. The need for management is also important because an organization’s management makes use of the services, knowledge and skills of professionals and experts in achieving organizational goals (Kochan & Schmalensee, 2003). Therefore, if management ensures that both physical and human resources are producing their maximum results, then management is totally necessary in any organization or business. Management is necessary in a business or organization because it is responsible for reducing costs. Management should ensure that maximum results are achieved through minimum input. This can only be possible if management carries out its core functions. The core management functions include planning, staffing, coo rdinating, organizing, leading, directing and controlling (Daft & Marcic, 2010). When planning, management is responsible for setting objectives and deciding the best possible courses of actions that can be taken to achieve the predetermined objectives. In the staffing function, management is

Black on the Block Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Black on the Block - Essay Example   Ã‚   Question 1 Mary’s main idea in the book, Black on the Block mostly focuses on the middle class people who were living a middle class lifestyle in Chicago. High percentage of the people who were in this group comprised of the blacks who were struggling to keep their standards as those of most Europeans who had high class lifestyle. These efforts were also aimed at reducing discrimination on the blacks due to their race. Mary claims that the blacks were not given equal chances as the whites but she forgot that this was not their land of origin. Mary therefore focuses mostly on the poverty of the blacks and the challenges the faced as a result of this poverty. An area in Chicago by the name North Kenwood-Oakland was the resident for both the rich and the poor. However, the number of the rich was highly increasing in the area. That was a great challenge to the people in the middle class level since it subjects them to a risk of being pushed away and looses their houses to the rich. Mary believed that that would subject them to more poverty but they had no alternative. Mary claimed that financial institutions would loan them but that could not be right since they owned nothing as they were in a foreign country. This discrimination blocked them from borrowing a loan from financial institutions that could have helped them in coming up with projects which could have initiated profit generation. They thought that the main reason for the discrimination of the black was as a result of their race and skin color but it was their home origin. The blacks did all they could to see to it that their rights as human beings were respected. They wanted to be given equal privileges like the fellow citizens. This led to riots in the streets of Chicago.    Question 2 Mary takes the reader through several things that were done to the black community living in Chicago and the problems they faced. She talks a lot of negative things concerning Chicago some of them being on how the whites were going to better schools than the blacks. She exaggerates this story so much on the negativity of Chicago. As she approaches the end of the story, she focuses mostly on the on the unity of the black community and how they worked together on fighting the discrimination that was subjected to them. This shows that she was very happy for the black since she was in their support. This proves that the research she did was not recommendable since she was biased and she favored the blacks. The reason for this was because she was also in the middle class as the African-America community.   What the blacks were going through was not discrimination since Chicago was not their land and that was the result for the ir poverty. However they were lucky to be treated as the whites after their demonstrations. Question 3 For an individual to be in a position of writing such a book, a lot of information is required. This can be easily proved by a lot of history that is contained in this book.   For instance, as Mary continues with her story, she gives a information in form of numerals and ratios to show the progress that the blacks were making in order for them to win this battle of discrimination. Within duration of twenty years, the black’s community increased from 21% to 99%, which was through interactions within themselves and also with the white. This increase helped them to be

Greedy Based Approach for Test Data Compression Using Geometric Shapes Essay Example for Free

Greedy Based Approach for Test Data Compression Using Geometric Shapes Essay As the complexity of systems-on-a-chip continues to increase, the difficulty and cost of testing such chips is increasing rapidly. One of the challenges in testing SOC is dealing with the large size of test data that must be stored in the tester and transferred between the tester and the chip. The cost of automatic test equipment (ATE) increases significantly with the increase in their speed, channel capacity and memory. As testers have limited speed, channel bandwidth and memory, the need for test data reduction becomes imperative. This project deals with lossless compression of test vectors on the basis of geometric shapes. It consists of two phases: i) Encoding or Compression and ii) Decoding or Decompression. During the compression phase we exploit reordering of test vectors to minimize the number of shapes needed to encode the test data. The test set is partitioned into blocks and then each block is encoded separately. The encoder has the choice of encoding either the 0‘s or the 1‘s in a block. In addition, it encodes a block that contains only 0‘s (or 1‘s) and x‘s with only 3 bits. Furthermore, if the cost of encoding a block using geometric shapes is higher than the original cost of the block, the block is stored as is without encoding. We have created a new greedy based algorithm to find the shapes present in a block in minimal time. This algorithm after analysis seems to be at least 50% more efficient than the algorithm proposed by the author of the original paper which has been implemented in our program. During the decoding phase the data is read from the compressed file and decoded based on the format in which it was encoded. These phases have been implemented using software. The application gives a good compression ratio of nearly 50% under average conditions, is extremely fast and the shape extraction algorithm used provides fast extraction of shapes. To test a certain chip, the entire set of test vectors, for all the cores and components inside the chip, has to be stored in the tester memory. Then, during testing, the test data must be transferred to the chip under test and test responses collected from the chip to the tester. One of the challenges in testing SOC is dealing with the large size of test data that must be stored in the tester and transferred between the tester and the chip. The cost of automatic test equipment (ATE) increases significantly with the increase in their speed, channel capacity and memory. As testers have limited speed, channel bandwidth and memory, the need for test data reduction becomes imperative. 1. 2 Systems on a chip A system on a chip or system on chip (SoC or SOC) is an integrated circuit(IC) that integrates all components of a computer or other electronic system into a single chip. It may contain digital, analog, mixed-signal, and often radio-frequency functions—all on a single chip substrate. A typical application is in the area of embedded systems. A typical SoC consists of: †¢ A microcontroller, microprocessor or DSP core(s). Some SoCs nbsp—called multiprocessor system on chip (MPSoC)—include more than one processor core. †¢ Memory blocks including a selection of ROM, RAM, EEPROM and flash memory. †¢ Timing sources including oscillators and phase-locked loops. †¢ Peripherals including counter-timers, real-time timers and power-on reset generators. †¢ External interfaces including industry standards such as USB, FireWire, Ethernet, USART, SPI. †¢ Analog interfaces including ADCs and DACs. Department of Computer Science and Engg, TKMCE Page 4 Greedy Based Approach to Test Data Compression using Geometric Shapes Voltage regulators and power management circuits. These blocks are connected by either a proprietary or industry-standard bus such as the AMBA bus from ARM Holdings. DMA controllers route data directly between external interfaces and memory, bypassing the processor core and thereby increasing the data throughput of the SoC. Figure 1 Department of Computer Scien ce and Engg, TKMCE Page 5 Greedy Based Approach to Test Data Compression using Geometric Shapes 1. 3 Data Compression Data compression, source coding orbit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation would use. Compression is useful because it helps reduce the consumption of expensive resources, such as disk space or transmission bandwidth. On the downside, compressed data must be decompressed to be used, and this extra processing may be detrimental to some applications. For instance, a compression scheme for video may require expensive hardware for the video to be decompressed fast enough to be viewed as it is being decompressed (the option of decompressing the video in full before watching it may be inconvenient, and requires storage space for the decompressed video). The design of data compression schemes therefore involves trade-offs among various factors, including the degree of compression, the amount of distortion introduced (if using a lossy compression scheme), and the computational resources required to compress and decompress the data. Several test data compression techniques were proposed in the literature. These techniques can be classified into two categories; those that require structural information of the circuit and rely on automatic test pattern generation and/or fault simulation and those that are more suitable for intellectual property (IP) cores as they operate solely on the test data. Techniques of the first approach include some of the linear decompression-based schemes and broadcastscan-based schemes. Techniques of the second approach include statistical coding, selective Huffman coding , run-length coding , mixed run-length and Huffman coding , Golomb coding , frequency-directed run-length (FDR) coding , alternating run-length coding using FDR (ALT-FDR), extended frequency-directed run-length (EFDR) coding , MTC coding , variable-input Huffman coding (VIHC) , multilevel Huffman coding , 9-coded compression , Block Merging (BM) compression and dictionary-based coding . Test compression techniques in this class can be further classified as being test independent or test dependent. Test-independent compression techniques have the advantage that the decompression circuitry is independent of the test data. Changing the test set does not require any change to the decompression circuitry. Examples of test-independent compression techniques include Golomb coding, frequency-directed run-length (FDR) coding, alternating run-length coding Department of Computer Science and Engg, TKMCE Page 6 Greedy Based Approach to Test Data Compression using Geometric Shapes using FDR (ALT-FDR) , extended frequency-directed run-length (EFDR) coding , MTC coding , 9- coded compression and Block Merging (BM) compression 1. 4 Automatic Testing Equipment Automatic or Automated Test Equipment (ATE) is any apparatus that performs tests on a device, known as the Device Under Test (DUT), using automation to quickly perform measurements and evaluate the test results. An ATE can be a simple computer controlled digital multimeter, or a complicated system containing dozens of complex test instruments (real or simulated electronic test equipment) capable of automatically testing and diagnosing faults in sophisticated electronic packaged parts or on Wafer testing, including System-OnChips and Integrated circuits. ATE is widely used in the electronic manufacturing industry to test electronic components and systems after being fabricated. ATE is also used to test avionics and the electronic modules in automobiles. It is used in military applications like radar and wireless communication. . 4. 1 ATE in the Semiconductor Industry Semiconductor ATE, named for testing semiconductor devices, can test a wide range of electronic devices and systems, from simple components (resistors, capacitors, and inductors) to integrated circuits (ICs), printed circuit boards (PCBs), and complex, completely assembled electronic systems. ATE systems are designed to reduce th e amount of Figure 1. 2 test time needed to verify that a particular device works or to quickly find its faults before the part has a chance to be used in a final consumer product. To reduce manufacturing costs and improve yield, semiconductor devices should to be tested after being fabricated to prevent even a small number of defective devices ending up with consumer. Department of Computer Science and Engg, TKMCE Page 7 Greedy Based Approach to Test Data Compression using Geometric Shapes Chapter 2 2. 1 Problem Definition As the complexity of systems-on-a-chip continues to increase, the difficulty and cost of testing such chips is increasing rapidly. To test a certain chip, the entire set of test vectors, for all the cores and components inside the chip, has to be stored in the tester memory. Then, during testing, the test data must be transferred to the chip under test and test responses collected from the chip to the tester. Our application must be able to compress the test vectors by a significant percentage and it must also be lossless. In addition to these two basic requirements the program must extract the shapes from each block in an optimal manner (here the technique to be used is a greedy approach rather than a brute force one). Moreover the test data must be sorted and partitioned before shape extraction is done. The application must also be able to correctly decompress the encoded data. In order to obtain the shapes covering the bits in as little time as possible, we have created a greedy based algorithm which works in an overall time of O(n4). The original algorithm proposed by the authors of ? Test Data Compression based on Geometric Shapes? [1] on other hand requires one O(n4) operation to identify all possible covers and another O(n4) to find the optimal among them which is a brute force approach. 2. 2 Motivation for Project One of the challenges in testing SOC is dealing with the large size of test data that must be stored in the tester and transferred between the tester and the chip. The amount of time required to test a chip depends on the size of test data that has to be transferred from the tester to the chip and the channel capacity. The cost of automatic test equipment (ATE) increases significantly with the increase in their speed, channel capacity and memory. As testers have Department of Computer Science and Engg, TKMCE Page 8 Greedy Based Approach to Test Data Compression using Geometric Shapes limited speed, channel band-width and memory, the need for test data reduction becomes imperative. 2. 3 Problem Analysis The problem can be divided into the following phases 2. 3. 1 Test Set sorting Here sorting is done on the basis of its neighbors. Also to achieve maximum compaction the first vector after sorting must contain maximum number of zeroes. 2. 3. 2 Test Set partitioning Partitioning of test vectors into blocks can be done easily. But in the case of partial blocks which appears if the number of test vectors and size of test vectors are not integral multiples of N(block is of size N*N) we can partition the block as N*N and use a mark array to indicate which bits are not to be processed. . 3. 3 Shape Extraction Here the shapes must be extracted optimally which means we have to use a greedy algorithm. This algorithm was created and works superbly. 2. 3. 4 Decoding This is only a simple matter of finding the code and based on the code of filling up the test vectors. Department of Computer Science and Engg, TKMCE Page 9 Greedy Based Approach to Test Data Compression using Geometric Shapes Chapte r 3 3. 1 Encoding Phase 3. 1. 1 Test Set Sorting 3. 1. 1. 1 Description Sorting the vectors in a test set is crucial and has a significant impact on the compression ratio. In this step, we aim at generating clusters of either 0‘s or 1‘s in such a way that it may partially or totally be fitted in one or more of the geometric shapes shown in Table 3. 2. The sorting is with respect to both 0‘s and 1‘s (0/1-sorting). The technique is based on finding the distance D between two vectors A and B that maximizes the clusters of 0‘s and 1‘s. The next vector with the highest distance to the existing vector is selected during the sorting process. The distance D may be computed with respect to 0‘s (0-distance), to 1‘s (1-distance) or to 0‘s and 1‘s (0/1-distance) as follows: here k is the test vector length and W(Ai, Bi) is the weight between bits Ai and Bi. Table 3. 1 specify the weights used in computing the 0/1-distance between two vectors. Note that for i = 0, W(Ai, Bi-1) = 0 and for i = k 1, W(Ai, Bi+1) = 0. Table 3. 1 Department of Computer Science and Engg, TKMCE Page 10 Greedy Based Approach to Tes t Data Compression using Geometric Shapes Table 3. 2 3. 1. 1. 2 Algorithm 1. Find the vector with the maximum number of zeroes and interchange with first vector 2. i? 1 3. Compare ith vector with all other vectors from i+1 and calculate the distance based on the equation 4. Exchange the vector with maximum distance with ith vector 5. If ilt;n then i? i+1 Department of Computer Science and Engg, TKMCE Page 11 Greedy Based Approach to Test Data Compression using Geometric Shapes 3. 1. 2 Test Set Partitioning 3. 1. 2. 1 Description A set of sorted test vectors, M, is represented in a matrix form, R? C, where R is the number of test vectors and C is the length of each test vector. The test set is segmented into L? K blocks each of which is N? N bits, where L is equal to R/N and K is equal to C/N. A segment consists of K blocks. In other words, the test set is segmented into L segments each containing K blocks. For test vectors whose columns and/or rows are not divisible by the predetermined block dimension N, a partial block will be produced at the right end columns and/or the bottom rows of the test data. Since the size of such partial blocks can be deduced based on the number of vectors, the vector length and the block dimension, the number of bits used to encode the coordinates of the geometric shapes can be less than log2N. 3. 1. 2. 2 Algorithm 1. Partition the test vectors into 88 blocks( partial or full) 2. If block is partial then a. Mark the rest of the bit positions as already processed Department of Computer Science and Engg, TKMCE Page 12 Greedy Based Approach to Test Data Compression using Geometric Shapes 3. 1. 3 Shape Extraction 3. 1. 3. 1 Description This algorithm was created by our group to obtain the optimal covers of the shapes in as little time as possible. In our algorithm we begin by assuming that all other points before (i,j) has been processed. This means that if any new shape exists in this block it may only begin at a point greater than or equal to (i,j). Now if we are starting from (i,j) we need to check only four points adjacent to it along with (i,j). These positions are shown Figure 3. 1. This is a direct consequence of our initial assumption. Now let us assume that a shape begins from (i,j). Since no other shape has been detected so far, (i,j) is a point. Now the algorithm checks the four adjacent points to see whether the make any other shape when taken in combination with (i,j). Since (i,j) is classified as a point, the next possible shape that can be formed is a line. There are four possiblities for this. This is shown in Figure 3. 2. Figure 3. 1 Department of Computer Science and Engg, TKMCE Page 13 Greedy Based Approach to Test Data Compression using Geometric Shapes Now if another of the adjacent points is a valid bit and if the current shape s a line,then the next figure that can be formed from 3 points is a triangle. This also has four different possiblities. This is shown by Figure 3. 3. Figure 3. 2 If the current shape is a triangle(type 4) and if another point adjacent to (i,j) is of the bit we are checking for then, the only remaining possiblity is a rectangle. This is shown by Figure 3. 4. Figure 3. 3 In orde r to avoid the possiblity of rechecking bits that have already been processed our algorithm uses a ? mark‘ matrix similar to the block of bits,except that every position other than what has already been included in a shape are marked as zeroes. Those that have been identified as belonging to a shape are marked as ones. We also insert the points that have to be processed by the algorithm in the next stage into a queue for faster processing of the rest of the shape. Department of Computer Science and Engg, TKMCE Page 14 Greedy Based Approach to Test Data Compression using Geometric Shapes Figure 3. 4 The anomalies that can occur during this approach are: ? There can be other shapes starting from the same point (i,j). Since we are performing a greedy search, the only possiblity that comes under this category are additional lines emanating from (i,j). This can be easily solved by saving the current shape as well as the newly identified line into the list of shapes. Then the algorithm performs all the above mentioned steps, i. e. marking the bits processed and inserting the points to processed later into the queue. ? Another problem related with this simple approach is that the type 1 traingle may recognized as a rectangle and a few lines if its size is greater than one. This can be avoided by computing the length of the side of square that may contain the triangle(if it exists ) and the length of both the diagonals. If the length of a side is the same as that of a diagonal then its indeed a traingle or a square. To distinguish between these we check whether the length of both diagonals are same. If they are not, then the shape is a triangle,otherwise it‘s a rectangle. The reason these anomalies needs to be carefully implemented is that anomaly 2 can increase the computational complexity of our oerall algorithm significantly if its to be solved. Once the shapes have been detected for what they are we process only those positions that may be a continuation of the shape are processed. Also the proceesing of these bits are only done in the direction of interest(for example, in the case of say type 1 line the only possible extension of the shape occurs in the downward direction and hence this is the only direction processed). This means that not all of the four adjacent positions need to be checked during further processing, which in turn reduces complexity. Department of Computer Science and Engg, TKMCE Page 15 Greedy Based Approach to Test Data Compression using Geometric Shapes Once a shape has been completely detected, which begins from (i,j), we start the processing of the next bit at position (i,j+1) or (i+1,1). This is necessary so as to ensure that we do not miss any shapes during proceesing. Department of Computer Science and Engg, TKMCE Page 16 Greedy Based Approach to Test Data Compression using Geometric Shapes 3. 1. 3. 2 Algorithm Department of Computer Science and Engg, TKMCE Page 17 Greedy Based Approach to Test Data Compression using Geometric Shapes 3. 1. 3. 3 Complexity Analysis As we have seen the algorithm needs 3 loops. Out of this two is used to traverse the entire block. This gives us an outer loop complexity of O(n2). Then the third loop is always executed 4 times in order to check neighboring points. The actual detection of shapes is only a matter of addition of indices to (i,j) and checking to see whether they satisfy any of the conditions of the algorithm. Addition is done in constant time. Now although the detection of the kernel of shapes can be done in a constant time we need to spend some additional time in the case of anomaly 2. As mentioned earlier this can be solved by finding the length of the sides of the square containing it and the length of both the diagonals of the square. Also this must be the square that may contain the whole triangle. This means that in the worst case the lengths may be of size n. This gives us the complexity for this step to be 4O(n). The further processing of shapes that has been detected is done using a queue. The maximum number of times the queue can be executed is O(n2). This because there are at most that many bits in a block. Therefore the overall complexity for shape detection is O(n2) x4x(4O(n) + O(n2))=O(4n3 + n4)=O(n4). Now in average cases the queue will not need to contain the entire block, as the block can be assumed to be comprised of equal parts required and unrequired bits. This means that in the average case, shape extraction process predominates and average case complexity becomes O(n3). This is much better than a brute force approach to shape extraction. Even in the worst case our algorithm performs better as we do not need to perform a covering step to find the most optimal covers for the shapes detected. This would have taken another O(n4) which we avoid by directly using a greedy approach. Department of Computer Science and Engg, TKMCE Page 18 Greedy Based Approach to Test Data Compression using Geometric Shapes 3. 1. 4 Encoding 3. 1. 4. 1 Description The encoding process will be applied on each block independently. The procedure Extract_Shapes(b) will find the best group of shapes that cover the bits that are equal to b as shown in the algorithm. Encode_Shapes determines the number of bits, a, needed to encode this group of shapes. There are two cases that may occur: a) The block contains either 0‘s and X‘s or 1‘s and X‘s. In this case, the block can be encoded as a rectangle. However, instead of encoding it as a rectangle, it is encoded by the code 01‘‘ (indicating that the block can be filled by either 0‘s or 1‘s) followed by the bit that fills the block. Hence, the number of bits to encode the block a = 3. We call such blocks filled blocks. ) The block needs to be encoded by a number of shapes. We call such a block encoded block. In this case, we need the following: ? 2 bits to indicate the existence of shapes and the type of bit encoded. If the encoded bit is 0, then the code is 10, otherwise it is 11. ? P = 2 ? log 2 N ? 3 Bits to encode the number of shapes, S. If the number of shapes exceeds 2P, then the number of bits needed to encode the shapes is certainly greater than the total number of bits in the block. In this case, the block is not encoded and the original test data is stored. 3. 1. 4. 2 Algorithm 1. While there are shapes to be encoded a. Find shape and type of shape b. Find x,y coordinates of shape c. If shape has a length parameter calculate its value d. Depending on shape and type encode the parameters as per table 2. 2 Department of Computer Science and Engg, TKMCE Page 19 Greedy Based Approach to Test Data Compression using Geometric Shapes 3. 2 Decoding Phase 3. 2. 1 Description The pseudo-code of the decoding algorithm is given below. It first reads the arguments given by the encoder and computes the parameters needed for the decoding process. These parameters include the number of segments, the number of blocks in a segment and the dimensions of the partial blocks. For each segment, its blocks are decoded one at a time. The first two bits indicate the status of the block as follows: ? ? ? ? 00: the block is not encoded and the following N*N bits are the original test data. 01: fill the whole block with either 0‘s or 1‘s depending on the following bit. 10: There are shapes that are filled with 0‘s. 11: There are shapes that are filled with 1‘s. For those blocks that have shapes, the procedure Decode_Shapes is responsible for decoding those shapes. It reads the number of shapes in the block and then for each shape it reads its type and based on this it reads its parameters and fills it accordingly. Based on the arguments read first, the decoder can determine the number of bits needed for each variable (e. g. the coordinates and the distances). These are used for the partial blocks when only one block of each segment remains and when the last segment is being decoded. Department of Computer Science and Engg, TKMCE Page 20 Greedy Based Approach to Test Data Compression using Geometric Shapes 3. 2. 2 Algorithm Department of Computer Science and Engg, TKMCE Page 21 Greedy Based Approach to Test Data Compression using Geometric Shapes Chapter 4 4. 1 Language Specification The above project has been implemented in C/C++. This is because C/C++ is a language very well suited for bit level manipulations and provides other features which can be easily implemented using hardware directly. Another consideration that is of paramount importance here is the degree by which C/C++ lends itself to system level programming. The key considerations can be summed up as: ? ? ? ? ? ? Simple Very High Speed Very close to assembly language Can be used to directly implement application using hardware Bit level manipulations are possible Dynamic . 2 Hardware Specification CPU RAM Main Storage Medium Monitor : Pentium II or above : 4 MB : 1 GB HDD : Standard VGA 4. 3 Software Specification Operating System Design Tools : DOS : C/C++ Department of Computer Science and Engg, TKMCE Page 22 Greedy Based Approach to Test Data Compression using Geometric Shapes Chapter 5 5. 1 Application One of the challenges in testing SOC is dealing with the large size of test data that must be stored in the tester and transferred between the tester and the chip. The amount of time required to test a chip depends on the size of test data that has to be transferred from the tester to the chip and the channel capacity. The cost of automatic test equipment (ATE) increases significantly with the increase in their speed, channel capacity and memory. As testers have limited speed, channel band-width and memory, the need for test data reduction becomes imperative. To achieve such reduction, several test compaction and lossless compression schemes were proposed in the literature. The objective of test set compaction is to generate the minimum number of test vectors that achieve the desired fault coverage. The advantage of test compaction techniques is that they reduce the number of test vectors that need to be applied to the circuit under test while preserving the fault coverage. This results in reducing the required test application time. Department of Computer Science and Engg, TKMCE Page 23 Greedy Based Approach to Test Data Compression using Geometric Shapes CONCLUSION In order to check the effective compression ratio produced by the application several different test sets were taken and the algorithm was applied. The test vectors were sorted to maximize the compression. In this work, test vectors were sorted based on a greedy algorithm. Test vectors sorting based on the 0/1-distance was performed. For 0/1-distance sorting, the test vector with more 0‘s was selected as the first vector. The compression ratio is computed as: In the case of large vectors with only sparsely populated positions the application was found to produce very high compression ratio. In the average cases the compression ratio was nearly 50%.

Sibling rivalry and birth order

Sibling rivalry and birth order SIBLING RIVALRY AND BIRTH ORDER INTRODUCTION Sibling rivalry and the power of birth order are as alive today as it was in the Old Testament, even though there have been many centuries between the time of the Old Testament and today. While birth order doesnt cause sibling rivalry by itself, the fact of the matter is that it can definitely affect sibling rivalry (Parenting Magazine). What follows is a comparison between siblings in the age of the Old Testament with siblings of the world today. This study will demonstrate that the centuries have done little to produce substantial change or progress. Todays siblings continue to struggle in their efforts to get past jealousy, resolve conflict and fulfill their desire for power. Sibling Rivalry and the power of birth order are as alive today as it was in the Old Testament. Although there have been years between the Old Testament and todays families episodes of rivalry, there are similar reasons for its prevalence today. While birth order doesnt cause sibling rivalry by itself, the fa ct of the matter is that it can definitely affect sibling rivalry (Parenting Magazine). I want to compare Old Testament siblings with siblings of the world today. I will unfortunately compare there has not been much change or progress through the decades. We still encounter not only sibling rivalry, but also adult, friend, and co-worker rivalry. There seems to have been no improvement in our abilities to get past jealousy, conflict or the need for power in our society. The biggest cause of sibling rivalry in children and in adults is jealousy. It may be that one sibling is moresuccessful in an area, such as their career, than another sibling. Or, it could be that one sibling has more positive experiences in relationships than the other. While competition is not always a bad thing, if one sibling constantly feels as though they are behind their sibling in one way or another it will lead to sibling rivalry. (Parenting magazine) I. BIRTH ORDER A. Firstborn society also places favoritism towards oldest siblings, natural born leaders, rule-conscious, exacting, conservative, organized, responsible, jealous, fearful, high achieving, competitive, high in self-esteem and anxious often pressured to succeed on the other hand, youngest siblings often idolize the first born, putting the first born in a position of leader of the children of the family B. Middle born tends to be forgotten never truly in the spotlight so can be natural mediators they avoid conflict, often have many friends and highly loyal to peer groups they may become a fighter of injustice or they may have trouble finding their place C. Youngest baby of the family, outgoing, entertainer out of all the siblings the youngest has the least aversion to risk often an endearing and delightful friend The study confirmed older siblings had distinct advantages, and that birth order was more important than gender in shaping sibling relations. (Horin) Although the advantages of the older siblings seem to have a proportional advantage to other siblings in todays society, we find that God had favor over the younger siblings. Gods choice of the second born is a recurring theme in the Hebrew Scriptures. The eldest is passed over for the fathers blessing and inheritance, leaving his or her descendants filled with resentment and hatred. We have to wonder though if the birth order of the Old Testament brothers was a factor in their relationships as well. Not much has changed in regards to peoples personalities of greed, vanity, sin and power. Then I would tend to believe that birth order did play a factor in relationships in the Old Testament. II. Cain and Abel In the story of Cain and Abel, Cain was the first son of Adam and Eve. He was a farmer while his brother, Abel, was a shepherd. The two brothers had each brought a sacrifice to God (Genesis 4:3-4). God rejects Cains field offering but has regard for Abels offering of an animal sacrifice (Genesis 4:5). Although both offerings were considered appropriate sacrifices, God was more pleased with Abels. Perhaps he believed Abel had a better heart in his giving than Cain (Genesis 4:7). Cain became angry with Gods favoritism and he killed Abel (Genesis 4:8). God confronted Cain about his brother, judged him, and pronounced a curse upon him, driving him out to the land of Nod, which was east of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 4:9-16). It doesnt state how the two brothers relationships were to each other before this event or the family dynamics with their parents. Genesis does not mention if they were always at odds from earlier days or if it came later after they became adults. But it does show th at even from the onset of time we have had the desire to succeed and be better than the others. It shows how we often displace our anger towards the wrong people too. Because of Cains anger toward God he killed Abel. III. Ishmael and Isaac In the story of Ishmael and Isaac, Ishmael was Abrahams first son. His mother was Hagar, Sarahs Egyptian handmaid. Isaac was the son of Abraham and Sarah his wife. Abraham and Sarah did not have a son to make a great nation of the childless Abraham (Genesis 17:4). Even though God had promised them an heir, Sarah felt that God had restrained her from bearing a child (Genesis 16:1-2) and took matters into her own hands. In unbelief, Sarah offered to Abraham her maid Hagar (Geisler). Hagar was promised a son named Ishmael, meaning God hears, because of her affliction (Genesis 16:9-11). Abraham and Sarah received him as the son of Gods promise. They both laughed in disbelief when the birth of Isaac was announced (Genesis 17:17). God promised to make Ishmael the father of twelve princes, from which would become a great nation. But the covenant would be established with Isaac (Genesis 17:20-21). Believing Ishmael was mocking Isaac she wanted Hagar and Ishmael to be cast out. At the insiste nce of his wife, Abraham expels his Ishmael and his mother Hagar, from his camp after Ishmael behaves inappropriately with his half-brother, Isaac (Genesis 21:9-21). Ishmael married an Egyptian and fathered 12 sons and a daughter. He was the half brother of Isaac and wasEsaus father-in-law.He is also considered the prophet of the Muslims, inheritors of Ishmaels legacy. Once again God favors the second born, Isaac, not Ishmael, inheriting the blessings of the covenant. I do speculate on how things would have possibly been different if Sarah had just trusted God instead of taking matters into her own hands. Even now we try to do the same thing; we forget or fail to keep our trust and faith in God. In regards to Ishmael and Isaac they were born to two different mothers. This undoubtedly made a hedge between them from the onset. Having two different mothers, from two different backgrounds surely made the difference. Even though Abraham loved both of his sons, the mothers of the boys were of two different statuses and backgrounds. The conflict between the mothers had to appear to the sons somewhere during their upbringings. From the very beginning, it would have been hard for harmony to be achieved due to Sarahs jealousy and Hagars different background and the rivalry between the two. I think it is important here to see that the sibling rivalry between the two focused more on the mothers rivalry between each other, than the actual relationship between the sons. It appears that not just personalities between siblings can cause rivalry. But, perhaps rivalry within the family causes rivalry to be imminent between children. We must realize the impact of our actions to our children an d those around us. IV. Esau and Jacob Just as the blessings and promises of God pass from Abraham to Isaac, they must also pass from Isaac to his son. But Isaac had twin sons, Esau and Jacob (Geisler 46). When Abrahams son Isaac was grown he married Rebekah. He pleaded with God that his wife might bear children (Genesis 25:21). The children struggled together within her, when she inquired of God he said that there were two nations in her womb. They shall be separated from your bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger (Genesis 25:22, 23). As a result, she bore twin sons, Esau the hairy one and Jacob supplanter. Jacob was described as grabbing Esaus heels upon birth, as if trying to come out first and become firstborn. Esau became a hunter, and Isaac favored him. Jacob was more of a settler and farmer and was favored by his mother (Genesis 25:24-28). Jacob was also crafty and took advantage of Esaus extreme hunger one day. He bargained with his older brother to exchange his birthright for some lentil stew. Possession of the birthright secured for Jacob a double portion of the inheritance (Genesis 25:28-33). Although Esau was Isaacs favorite son, he displeased his father by marrying two Hittite women who were not descendants of Abraham. This made life extremely difficult for his parents (Genesis 26:34-35). Near the end of his life, when it came time for Isaac to give his blessing on Esau, he is deceived into blessing Jacob instead (Geisler). Rebekah overheard his instructions to Esau. She encouraged Jacob to deceive the blind old man by disguising himself as Esau and taking his brothers blessing. The deception succeeded, and Isaac gave Jacob the blessing of the firstborn. When Esau appeared to receive his blessing he was too late. He was very bitter against Jacob because of what had happened. After this, Esau was so angry that Jacob left for Haran. Twenty years later Esau generously forgave his brother and the brothers were reunited (33:4-16). Two decades later a rich and prosperous Jacob returned with his family. Esau and Jacob finally made peace before Isaac died. Even before they were born Jacob and Esau were in a battle for supremacy. But unlike Ishmael and Isaac they were twins from the same mother. Twins we tend to believe are closer because of similar genes. They are known to act alike and know what each other are feeling or thinking at times it is said. In Jacob and Esaus case this was not true. They seemed to try to battle it out even before birth. During their upbringing we see that their relationships with their parents may have played a role also. Jacob was more favored by this mother and Esau was favored more by his father. I find it interesting to see how the family dynamics of children may be influenced by the favoritism of their parents. Along with their personalities and how children are molded by which parent they are favored by in regards to male or female. V. Joseph and his Brothers Joseph was one of twelve sons of Jacob. He was the first born son of Rachel (Genesis 30:22-24). Jacob also had four sons by Rachaels sister, Leah (Genesis 29:31-35) Leah then bore sons five and six, Issachar and Zebulun, followed by a daughter, Dinah (Genesis 30:14-21). She gave her maid Bilhah to Jacob and Bilhah bore him Dan and Naphtali (Genesis 30:1-8). At this point Leah gave her maid Zilpah to Jacob as a wife. Zilpah brought forth Gad and Asher (Genesis 30:9-13). Joseph was the favorite of his father, since he was the son of Jacobs old age (Genesis 37:3) and the firstborn son of his favorite wife. Because he showed his favoritism so openly that the other sons became jealous of Joseph. Josephs brothers hated him. Plus, Joseph was a bit of a show off and a tattletale, acting as his fathers spy in their eyes. Their jealousy and envy towards Joseph only got worse when Jacob gave Joseph a ground-length, long-sleeved, multicolored robe (Genesis 37:3-4). The animosity of his brothers increased even more when Joseph revealed to them he was having dreams where his brothers would one day bow down before him (Genesis 37:5-11). Because of this, when Jacob sent Joseph to check on his brothers and the flocks near Shechem, his brothers tricked him and sold him to a caravan of traders going down to Egypt (Genesis 37:25-28). Josephs brothers then took his robe, dipped it in goats blood, and brought it back to Jacob, who was overwhelmed with grief (Genesis 37:31-35). Joseph went on to live out his visions from God and attained a high position in Egypt. He eventually faced his brothers again during the famine, and reveals his identity to them (Genesis 42-44). Joseph forgives his brothers after realizing that they will no longer sacrifice a brother for their own means or gains (Genesis 44:18-34). This sho wed Joseph that his brothers were changed men from their past dealings with Joseph. Josephs relationship with his brothers was one of resentment by his brothers a story of tragedy and deception. It shows a group of brothers having sibling rivalry over one brother. The dynamics of the family shows the partiality of Jacob over Joseph in comparison to the other brothers. This favoritism was not hidden by their father and shows the dangers of favoritism and the extent of how dangerous rivalry can become. VI. Amnon and Absalom Amnon was the son of King David and Ahinoam (2 Samuel 3:2). Absalom was the son of King David and his wife Maacah (2 Samuel 3:3). Thus Amnon and Absalom were half-brothers, likeAbrahams sonsIshmaelandIsaac. Absalom was a handsome young prince known for his long, thick hair (2 Samuel 14:25-26). He had a beautiful sister Tamar; Amnon brought shame upon Tamar by forcing himself on her and then refusing to marry her (13:1-20). Absalom allowed his dejected sister to live with him in his house, believing that his father King David would punish Amnon for what he had done. After two years of waiting, Absalom plotted his own revenge after his father did nothing to Amnon for his behavior towards Tamar. Absalom gave a feast for King David and his princes at his estate in the country. King David did not attend, but Amnon did; Absalom got him drunk and then had his servants kill Amnon (2 Samuel 13:26-28). Afraid of King Davids anger, Absalom fled across the Jordan River to King Talmai of Geshur, the father of Absaloms mother (2 Samuel 13:29-39). After three years hiding far away from home, Absalom was called back to Jerusalem by Davids general, Joab. After two years he was back in full favor with the king (2 Samuel 14) and began plotting ways to gain the throne for himself. He worked to make the people think well of him, while also lowering peoples opinion of his father, the king (2 Samuel 15:1-6). Eventually, Absalom planned a rebellion against King David, gathering the people who wanted him to be king together in Hebron. After Ahithophel, one of King Davids wisest counselors, joined Absalom, the prince announced that he was now king. By the time news of Absaloms conspiracy reached him, King David was unable to do anything but flee from Jerusalem (2 Samuel 15). When it finally came down to the battle between King Davids men and Absaloms men, Joab slew Absalom. He found Absalom hanging from an oak tree by his hair and slain him, even though King David had asked that Absalom not be harmed (2 Samuel 18). The story of Amnon and Absalom shows that rivalries often drive people to destroy one another. Amnon and Absalom were like Ishmael and Isaac being of two different mothers also. From early on they were against each other due to Amnons crime against Tamar. In addition, King David showed a pattern of defending his sons even though he knew they had done wrong. He seemed to turn his head at all the wrong times. This may be due to King Davids sins of his past. King David had unwittingly pronounced a fourfold judgment on himself in his responses to Prophet Nathans parable (Geisler 119). I wonder if he had been more of a role model in the sense of not sinning with Bathsheba that it would have changed any outcomes of his sons. The consequences of King Davids sins brought greater sorrow on him than had he died himself (Geisler 119). No matter what his sons had done, as all parents do, he continued to love them in spite of their troubles. How many times have we as parents never realized at the time the influences we have over our children. It is the perfect lesson of the do as I say and not as I do. King David did not act out in hypocrisy, but he did live in a sinful lifestyle at times. Allowing our sinful nature to be so prominent sends a message to our children that its okay. We must be a role model and teacher for all. Summary In summary I believe birth order played a part in each of the sons personalities. Although, Gods plans are more significant than the birth order process, sibling rivalry, family dynamics, or personalities and his plans follow through. . Throughout the Old Testament we see the same characteristics of rivalry, power; desire and resentment come to a head in each of these families. We see anger being taken out on the wrong people, as in Cain and Abel, where the anger was directed toward Abel, instead of God. We read of many forms of deception in several of the Old Testament families. Whether you could say that the oldest had more power than the other siblings, in terms of the personalities and birth order, it did not seem to matter in the end. God had a plan that would be implemented no matter what the circumstances were. Some people trace the hostility between Israeli and Arab to the rivalry between Isaac and Ishmael. Todays bloody disputes over territory spring from Gods promise of a land for his people (Knowles). The tragedy of strained relations between Islamic and Judeo-Christian countries is a part of everyday life. One need only pick up a newspaper or check the news story of the day via television, radio, or internet to learn of the latest violent attack. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, three of the worlds great religions, have their roots in the Middle East. All three religions revere Abraham as a common ancestor. Yet all three have had bloody interchanges throughout history. How and why did Abrahams children become such a dysfunctional family? Where is God in these family feuds? Even if there was a way to get past human characteristics of jealousy, power, conflict and self-centeredness, we would not be able to get past the differences in religious beliefs. When there is no ability for us as a society to come together as a whole then there is no way to rise above the problems.

Essay --

Air pollution has become a major public health issues and it harms both human health and the environmental, over time in Europe air pollution have decrease greatly (EEA 2013), and this air pollutants include carbon monoxide (CO), ozone (O3), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), particulate matter (PM), sulfur dioxide (SO2) and also lead (pb) (WHO 2011), particulate matter and Ozone are now been identify as the two main pollutant that have most major effect on human health, long or short exposure to this pollutant can have both mild and severe impact on health such as impaired respiratory system, cardiovascular diseases or even death (EEA 2013), also exposure to particulate matter decreases life expectancy by an average of one year, indoor pollution as a result of the biological agents in the indoor air which is due to damp and mould also increase the risk of developing respiratory disease in children, there are two man type of pollutant which are the primary pollutant (WHO fact sheet 2011). Pollu tant can be classified into two namely primary pollutant and secondary pollutant; primary pollutants are the pollutants release directly into the atmosphere from the source while secondary pollutants are those type of pollutant forms when primary pollutants react with other chemical in the atmosphere, also type of pollutant and concentration can be indoor or outdoor pollutant, indoor pollutant include carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, volatile organic compounds and smoke, while outdoor pollutant are ozone, sulphur dioxide and particle. (COMEAP 2013) WHO define health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity (WHO 1948) Environment generally affects human health directly or indirectly... ...ssion standards of generator plants, industries emission and car emissions. - Deforestation bush burning and also incinerator burning should be barn all around the country in other to improve the air quality. - Laws should be put in place to barn public smoking as its been done in United Kingdom. - Long chimneys should be compulsory for all industries making use of fossil fuels and also emitting smoke into the atmosphere to avoid pollutants and acid rain which also affect the health of the populace. CONCLUSION Good air quality is vital for human health, Air pollution expose human to ill-health and by reducing the level of pollutant emission in the atmosphere general risk of disease can be reduce worldwide; considerable reduction in the exposure to air pollution can be achieved through the decrease in the concentration of the pollutants in the atmosphere.

Behaviour Self Management Essay

Behaviour Self-Management Project to Increase Studying Behaviour Behaviour Modification is a technique or approach used by behavioural psychologists to modify a particular behaviour and is largely used in a clinical or educational setting, particularly with those with learning disabilities (Atherton, 2011). Moreover, it also considered to be a treatment approach, as it substitutes undesirable behaviours with desired ones through the process of positive or negative reinforcement (Gary, 1988). Furthermore, behaviour modification has been used to treat numerous mental problems such as obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), phobias, enuresis, generalised anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder and many more. Subsequently, this technique has also been used to correct maladaptive behaviours by changing undesirable behaviours such as smoking, overeating, nail biting and others, as it aims to encourage the substitution of good behaviours such as studying, weight loss and etc (O’Donohue and Ferguson, 2006). The principles of behaviour modification were first developed by B. F Skinner, who had formulated the concept of operant conditioning. Skinner, had developed the concept of positive reinforcement or punishment, whereby behaviours are changed or encouraged through a reward system. Furthermore, the operant conditioning theory also states that for learning to occur, it is important that the subject is an active participant (Sheldon, 1982). In addition, behaviour modification was also formulated by Ivan Pavlov and is famously known as classical conditioning, as it is merely based on a stimuli-response formula. Besides that, Albert Bandura also contributed to behaviour modification principles, through his theory of social modelling (Baldwin & Baldwin, 1981). The theory states that learning occurs as a result of copying or imitating other people, and is termed as vicarious learning. Additionally, the theory also states that external reinforcers are important because it enables learning to occur independently of the reinforcements. Consequently, behaviour modification underlies a number of theoretical positions such that human behaviour can easily be influenced by the presentation of consequences and could be strengthened if the behaviour is followed by rewards, as well as substandard if followed by negative consequences (Guez & Allen, 2000). Moreover, human behaviour is not only controlled by internal factors, but is also driven by external factors such as social rewards like praises or gifts. Thus, the principles of behaviour modification is different compared to other techniques in changing behaviours, because it addresses the surrounding factors as well as individual factors that can promote or derail behaviour change. Additionally, behaviour modification has also proved its effectiveness in increasing student’s appropriate classroom behaviours. A study had employed behaviour modification in two second grade Negro girls in a demonstration school for the culturally deprived (Wasik, Senn, Welch, & Cooper, 1969). Data collected in the study was based on type, duration, and frequency of teacher’s verbal interactions with the student. The study also had implemented an ABAB design, whereas treatment included positive social reinforcement when appropriate behaviours occurred. Punishment had included the use of timeout from social reinforcements, as these behaviours were contingent on inappropriate attention getting behaviours. It was observed that after 25 days, desirable behaviour in the classroom had increased remarkably from 80. % in baseline to 99. 20% in treatment and continued to remain high even after three months. Therefore, this shows that behaviour modification is an effective method to increase desirable behaviours. Target Behaviour It is essential and important that the target behaviour an individual wants to change is operationally defined. The particular behaviour would also require assessment, through collection of the baseline data. Furthermore, the behaviour that I want to change is to increase my studying behaviour, which is a behavioural deficit. Ever since I was in school, I was always known to study towards the end of the semester and could generally be considered as last minute studying. Subsequently, I would tend to be easily distracted by external stimuli such as watching movies or series on the computer, calling up friends and talking for hours as well as easily persuaded to go out. I have been known since young to be very outgoing, thus whenever friends call and ask me to meet up with them, I am bound to go. Therefore, it usually delays my ability to follow my studying schedule that I have created before the semester starts. Moreover, my main antecedent that unable me to complete my suggested two hours studying per night every weekday is also because I have a tendency to download movies or series on the computer and wasting 4 hours or more watching it. There are also consequences that I face because of my procrastination to study, because after watching these series, I would only tend to study less than an hour or not at all if I am tired. Consequently, I would cram all the materials during study week and end up being exhausted. This also is a reason as to why I tend to get ill during exam week, because it causes me to have high level of stress and in turn would affect my health. Hence, these are valid reasons as to why I feel like I need to change my behaviour and start studying more hours as I should so that I would not be stressed out during exams. Besides that, stress could also cause ulcers and the common cold, which in turn could be a setback to me during exam week as I am prone to get ulcers. Additionally, it would also allow me to focus more to improve my grade ratings to my expectations as I will soon complete my undergraduate program. Other than that, increasing my studying behaviour would also allow me to get sufficient sleep and rest for the upcoming exam and it would also benefit me in terms of managing my time efficiently. Method Design The design that I have chosen for this particular self management project is the ABAB reversal design. This design represents the attempt to first measure the baseline, the treatment that follows the initial baseline, the introduction of the second baseline as well as the reintroduction of the treatment again. Additionally, this method of application helps identify the effects of treatment and measure what happens when treatment is removed. Hence, this research design would help establish whether functional relationship exists between the target behaviour and intervention. Materials The materials used in this project include a structured diary that is recorded in the computer, behaviour contract, handphone, post-it notes, playing cards and reminders. Procedure Additionally, for this particular behaviour modification project, the operational definition is first defined as reading pages from the textbook and underlining as well as understanding sentences in the text and reading notes from the lectures for two hours. Furthermore, the behaviour would be recorded through self monitoring during baseline and treatment period as the behaviour does not occur frequently throughout the day and it only occurs during the period when no one else is around to observe. The observational period is recorded in the natural setting, which is in the study room at my home, and it is where studying behaviour typically occurs. The type of behavioural recording used is the duration recording, whereby studying behaviour is observed for two hours, between 8. 30p. m to 10. 0p. m on weekdays only. Next, in order to increase studying behaviour during weekdays, a generalised conditioned reinforcer, which is the token economy system is used because it reinforces the behaviour and minimises the need to use reactive strategies to deal with setbacks as well as it enables the ability to pair up with a variety of other reinforcers. In addition, the token economy is a playing card with my housemate’s signature on it, and one card would be given each day, whenever the desired behaviour occurred at least 2 hours a day. Furthermore, the acquired tokens would be eligible to trade with certain privileges and would be forfeited if the behaviour does not meet the expected requirements. Hence, a variety of backup reinforces are used in exchange with the accumulated playing cards on every Friday to determine the type of privileges that would be given and further information is provided in the behavioural contract (Appendix A). Besides that, punishment would be provided if I fail to meet the expected requirement. Additionally, the schedule of reinforcement chosen for this particular project is fixed interval, whereby studying behaviour is reinforced only if it occurs for at least two hours. The behaviour occurrence would also be recorded in the computer, as the behaviour occurs at home in the study room. Besides that, during the treatment period, my friends and housemate have also promised to give me social support and reinforcements. In addition, various types of response and stimulus prompts are also used in this project. Verbal prompts such as reminders to study are used by friends and housemates to evoke the desired behaviour in myself. They will do this by not persuading me to go out with them and reminding me to study instead. Furthermore, environmental prompts are also used in this project such as post its on the mirror, computer in the study room and class file that I carry to class every day, as well as using the hand phone to set alarm to study. In addition, within prompt fading was used in the second treatment period, for response prompts, whereby friends and boyfriend provided fewer verbal prompts as the week progressed during treatment period. Next, stimulus fading was also used in the second treatment period for environmental prompts, whereby on the first day, removal of alarm clock would be used and for subsequent days, one post its would be removed from either the mirror, computer or class file until the last day of treatment. Results The baseline and treatment data was collected for a period of four weeks and intervention was applied during treatment 1 and treatment 2. Figure 1: Studying behaviour in baseline and treatment weeks. Figure 1 shows that during the first baseline, studying behaviour did not occur at all for the first two days, one hour for the third, again none on the fourth and two hours on the fifth day. Hence, the average studying hours for the first baseline week is 0. 4 hours or 24 minutes. Furthermore, this could be clearly seen in the structured diary attached for the first baseline (Appendix B). Next, intervention took place in the second week, whereby various strategies were used to increase studying behaviour. Results showed that studying behaviour had occurred for two hours for the first and second day, one hour for the third day, two hours for the fourth day, and none on the fifth day. This shows that studying behaviour had increased to an average of 1. 4 hours a day and that there was an increase of 50% from the initial baseline to the treatment period. Moreover, the self management project had returned to baseline on the third week and results showed that studying behaviour had occurred for 2. hours on the first day, one hour on the second, none on the third and fourth and two hours on the fifth day. Thus, the average studying behaviour was 1. 1 hours a day for the second baseline period. Although the average hours were less compared to the treatment period, however, there was definitely an increase compared to the first baseline period, whereby average hours were only 0. 4 hours. Next, intervention was again applied and the second treatment results showed that studying behaviour occurred for one hour on the first day, 2. hours on the second, two hours on the third, one hour on the fourth, and two hours on the fifth day. Hence, the average studying hours is approximately 1. 7 hours a day. Thus, this also shows that there is an increase of studying behaviour between the second baseline and second treatment period. Besides that, there is also a staggering increase from the initial baseline and second treatment period, that precedes to fluctuate in the second baseline, when intervention was removed. Discussion  The behaviour modification project to increase studying behaviour was definitely a success because the graphs showed an increase in hours of studying as compared to the baseline data, thus indicating that there us a functional relationship between the target behaviour and the procedure. Furthermore, it is clear that the token economy system was a contributor to the success of increasing studying behaviour because once token economy was removed in the second baseline; the target behaviour had decreased tremendously. In addition, the target behaviour had increased when the second intervention was applied in the fourth week. Moreover, the use of reinforcements and punishment also helped me to keep myself motivated and determined to achieve the weekly goal that was set. Besides that, the use of within stimulus fading helped me generalise my behaviour to the subsequent weeks ahead, hence I had gradually adjusted myself with getting used to having less and less prompts throughout the week. However, there were also some limitations in this project, whereby, the duration of treatment intervention is too short to allow the behaviour to fully adjust and be generalised without the use of prompts. In addition, self monitoring was used during observation of behaviour for the baseline data. Observer may not be trained enough to record her own behaviour, hence data may not be as reliable as compared to having an inter rater observation. Moreover, the implementation of reinforcement contingency was my housemate, and sometimes the reinforcements were given a day later because she is not around. This has affected the effectiveness of the token as a reinforcing consequence as some deliveries of the token did not occur immediately after the response occurred according to the expected schedule. Furthermore, due to the delay between the response and token, it could have also affected the connection strength of the behaviour. In conclusion, behaviour modification is definitely an effective treatment method to help increase, decrease or develop new behaviours and it is applicable to use in a variety of problematic behaviours.