Researching Topics Of Interest Is A Key Starting Point For...

Researching Topics of Interest Developing topics of interest is a key starting point for the research effort. Performing a complete literature review related to the topics of interest is important in the development of a proper doctoral level research. By performing a complete research effort this will allow me to gain the necessary information to effectively answer the research questions, resolve the research problem, and meet the purpose of the research (Leedy Ormrod, 2013). The following sections include the formulation of potential topic areas of interest for my doctoral level research. Earnings Management: An Examination of Ethical Implications, Fraud, and the Related Impacts to Stakeholder Interests The first topic area involves an observation of how managers and accountants currently utilize loopholes in FASB accounting standards to present better earnings results to investors, creditors, and regulatory authorities. Many business professionals support earnings management as routine practices that stay within authoritative boundaries, while other business professionals view these activities as unethical. The practitioners of earnings management misapply discretionary judgment to avoid the intent of accounting standards. In his speech The Numbers Game, on earnings manipulation, Arthur Levitt listed five, accrual-based earnings management practices: (a) â€Å"big bath† restructuring charges, (b) creative acquisition accounting, (c) â€Å"cookie jar reserves†, (d)Show MoreRelatedShould College Athletes Be Paid Essay924 Words   |  4 PagesIn trying to decide what research topic I wanted to use, I took many ideas into thought. I decided that the one idea that interests me most is whether student athletes should be paid or not. This is very intriguing to me since my master’s program is sports management. In order to do this research there must be many ways to use research as well as ideas from other people. This project is a very big topic in today’s discussion amongst sport fans, college administrators, and student athletes themselvesRead MoreThe Egyptian Revolution And The Arab World1453 Words   |  6 Pages Being tasked with creating a project that addressed any topic related to the Arab world can be a daunting assignment. Nevertheless, my group was able to create a unique project that highlighted a monumental string of events that shaped the Arab world as we see it today. The topic decided upon was the Arab Spring in Egypt, specifically looking at how Facebook existed in its timeframe as a mechanism f or collaboration and action toward a revolution and regime change. Together, we set to understandRead MoreHow Do You Choose a Good Research Topic? Give Five Examples of a Good Research Topic and Justify Why You Choose Them, I E. Problem Issues in Each Topic and Why They Must Be Researched Upon.2331 Words   |  10 Pageschoosing an appropriate topic seem like a herculean task as a lot of problem areas may come to mind at the time of choosing the topic. What is more frustrating is being able to settle on a brilliant topic. Choosing the research topic is one of the most critical steps in conducting a successful by all standards. The truth is, the search for a good research topic is a daunting task, especially when researchers are often expected to know how to identify or figure out a good research question by themselvesRead MoreThe Meaning of Qualitative Research an Understanding of It1340 Words   |  6 PagesThe Meaning of Qualitative Research an Understanding of It Eric Oliver Flores MGMT801 Research and Writing I Maureen Clemmons October 15, 2011 Colorado Technical University Abstract In this paper an accepted and cultured common agreement and understanding of what Qualitative Research does really means, as it is understood will be presented. Through reflections of the material there’s a need to seek and review established definitions and in doing so there’s a possibility to arrive atRead MoreHow Do You Choose a Good Research Topic? Give Five Examples of a Good Research Topic and Justify Why You Choose Them, I E. Problem Issues in Each Topic and Why They Must Be Researched Upon.2343 Words   |  10 Pageschoosing an appropriate topic seem like a herculean task as a lot of problem areas may come to mind at the time of choosing the topic. What is more frustrating is being able to settle on a brilliant topic. Choosing the research topic is one of the most critical steps in conducting a successful by all standards. The truth is, the search for a good research topic is a daunting task, especially when researchers are often expected to know how to ident ify or figure out a good research question by themselvesRead MoreScheme of Work6264 Words   |  26 Pagesdelivery. However, SoW are also extremely flexible teaching guides that can be moulded to take account of local teaching needs and resources. There is no set method for developing schemes. Colleges that responded to requests for information whilst researching this article approached SoW in their own way. All were agreed on the importance of accurate schemes to guide subject delivery. One respondent compared SoW to a ?road map of a journey?. Many colleges incorporate the need to develop and make widelyRead MoreWhy Equine Assisted Therapy?3884 Words   |  16 PagesColumbia International University â€Å"The horse acts as the teacher and unlocks the client. The animal facilitates emotional breakthroughs, and the effect, therapists report, can be magical† (Hayley Sumner). Definition and Explanation of the Topic and Interest: Equine Assisted Therapy (EAT), specifically, Equine Assisted Psychotherapy/Learning is a type of therapy that is primarily solution-focused and client-centered. The heart of Equine Assisted Psychotherapy/Learning is captured within the EGALARead MoreEYFS Assignment Part 12566 Words   |  11 Pagescompletely different the next (Tassoni, P. 2008). This essay examines some of the many factors that make an effective early years setting. Such as staffing, qualifications and training and how this links to raising children’s self esteem through the key person approach. The Department for Children, Schools and Families state that warm, trusting relationships with knowledgeable adults support children’s learning more effectively than any amount of resources (DCSF 2008c:2.3). In addition, it investigatesRead MoreA Project On The Project Life Cycle2081 Words   |  9 Pages Discussion Board Forum 3 Sana Gilani Liberty University BUSI 650 April 23, 2016 The Project Life Cycle Explanation A project is a transitory effort attempted to develop an exceptional merchandize or service. Since all projects are distinctive in nature and include a specific level of ambiguity, they are distributed into particular stages that improve and support overall management and control. According to Hormozi, McMinn, and Nzeogwu (2000), every â€Å"projects have a life cycle andRead MoreThe Importance Of Being A Performance Designer3579 Words   |  15 Pageswill have to understand the topic and concept, to observe the details and find the clues and key points of the story. Many artists might say that art and design don’t have a specific sequence, they might say that they create random stuff being inspired from whatever. For me design does not work like that. Most of the times I want to be fully informed to create a design, I need to know the concept and the important key elements that I can use in order to communicate my topic to the audience. I don’t

Interview Question and Ans Free Essays

Tell me about yourself? Ans1) My name is Sakshi Malhotra. I am from Faridabad. I have done my graduation degree in BBA from MD University, Rohtak. We will write a custom essay sample on Interview Question and Ans or any similar topic only for you Order Now I am currently pursuing PGDM degree from IMS college. Apart from the academic interests I am a creative person. Q2) What is your greatest strength? Weakness? Ans2) (i) Strengths: * Good communication skills * Strong will power * Dedicated nature. (ii) Weakness: * I cannot tolerate back biting. I may easily lose temper if I come across dishonest people. Q3) Why did you choose to interview with us? Ans3) I chose to interview with you because the job profile fits ideally with the kind of work experience that I am looking forward to. This is the firm in which I can realize my full potential and gain quality experience in my professional life. Q4) What are your short-term and long term goals? Ans4) (i) Short –Term Career Goals: To work in any of the four competitors –KPMG, E amp; Y, PWC, DELLOITE (ii) Long Term Goal: Long-Term Goal of mine is to broaden my experience in different departments and work processes of the industry so that I can become qualified enough to lead a company as the CEO. Q5) Describe a time you had to make a difficult decision? Ans5) The most difficult decision I had to make so far was to choose between a career in Hotel Management and a career in management. With the help of my family I decided to choose a career in management as it will still fulfill my dream of managing and I also get to choose the industry I want to work in. Q6) What do you do when a team member is not pulling his/her weight? Ans6) When a team- member is not pulling his/her weight then I will try to find out the reason for the de motivated behavior of the team member. If a can resolve the issue then I will put my efforts in that direction else if I cannot find the reason then I will try to lead by example by putting extra efforts and involving the team member. Q7) Think about a time you made a mistake. What did you learn from it? Ans7) The mistake that I made was very trivial and hence not worth mentioning here but the lesson that I learnt was much more important. I learnt that it is always easier and better to admit your mistake and apologize for it. Trying to hide the mistake is just another mistake. How to cite Interview Question and Ans, Papers

Chorein Deficiency and Alzheimer Disease

Question: Discuss about the Chorein Deficiency and Alzheimer Disease. Answer: Introduction Sarah Polleys film Adaption Away from Her is a Canadian drama film that was released in 2006 and featured Gordon Pinsent, Julie Christie and Olympia Dukakis as the starring casts. The film showcases themes on friendship, hate ship, courtship, lover ship, and marriage. The story focuses on a couple whose marriage is strained when the character of Christie starts to suffer from Alzheimer. She after that moves into a nursing home where she practically loses memory regarding her husband and eventually initiates a close relationship with another resident in the particular nursing home. Therefore, this paper's center of interest is based on critically reflecting upon the represented issues in the film and developing a new understanding of the problems presented by various articles on the same based on the findings. The paper will also discuss how Alzheimers disease reshapes the couples marriage and relationship. Emerging Issues in the Film In the short story, Grant remains remorseful because of committing adultery. On the other hand, his wife Fiona contracts Alzheimers disease. The irony comes in when Grant fails to provide forgiveness. Nevertheless, he still expresses the desire to redeem himself after being involved in adultery behind the wifes back. He does this with the exception that Fiona has already spoken about forgiving him for being unfaithful in their marriage. The underlying theme here is forgiveness. Later on, Grant is forced to adapt to the change when his wife goes to a home for the elderly in Meadow Lake. Here we see Grant trying as much as he can to get Fionas forgiveness and pardon himself too. From the flashbacks, it is evident that Grant was engaged in many other extramarital relationships although the intimate details are not brought out clearly. However, he chose to keep it a secret by professing his love for Fiona even during his infidelity (Lister, 2013). We would have expected Grant to abandon his wife despite failing to reveal any particular attachments. It draws ambiguity by letting the readers and those watching the film form their opinions and to also make more interpretations of the feelings and affections of Grant. There is also the issue of Fiona falling sick and taken to a nursing home whereby Grant used to visit her often (Herrera, 2013). She had developed Alzheimer. He does this in the belief that by assisting her wife, their deteriorating marriage would be salvaged. He is convinced that by being nice to Fiona would earn him forgiveness. It depicts the love that Grant felt for his wife, Fiona. Interestingly in this way, the film is not about judging Grant regarding the mistakes he committed in the past but rather watching him make up for them all. He plans to achieve this by being supportive to Fiona in her relationship with another man. It was easy for Grant because his wife seemed to have forgotten the fact that she was married to him. Fiona should have realized that her husband was not straight with her all this time. However, Alzheimer makes it almost impossible for Fiona to respond to Grant's inner questioning thus giving him an opportunity to step aside and allowing forge a new relationship. Various articles have upheld the ambiguity and irony of the Alzheimer's disease regarding its effects of memory loss (Goldman et, al, 2015). The disease has resulted to adaptation for both Grant and Fiona. In this article, the issue of how Alzheimers ironically influences the past and present lives of the couple compares to the films unfolding effects of the disease on Grant and Fionas relationship. The article questions Polleys film, Adaption Away from Her as it impacts on the lives of the two. It presumes that there are absurd effects of Alzheimers disease on the couples marriage thus relating to assignments question that asks how the wifes ailment affects their relationship. The unfortunate implications of the disease ar e also evident in the film whereby it compromises their marriage. How Alzheimers disease Reshape the Couples Marriage. The Alzheimers disease quickly consumes Fionas conscious (Filley, 2007). It is after a series of unfortunate accidents perpetrated by her illness that she begins to realize she is turning out to be a risk to herself and decides to check into a nursing home. Being admitted to the hospital was not a good idea to the couple's relationship for several reasons. For instance, she had to adhere to the mandatory policy of not seeing any visitors at least for 30 days. It would piss off her husband, Grant. Usually, it is logical for patients to be visited by their loved ones, but in this case, it was different. For married couples, it would be better for them to be allowed to see each other as many times as possible for the purpose of maintaining and strengthening their relationship. Visiting the patient help them to heal emotionally. Grant waits eagerly for a whole month to end so that he can be allowed to visit his wife in the nursing home. Unfortunately, Grant gets to the health facility an d finds out that Fiona, his wife can barely remember him (Velayoz Danek, 2017). Also, she had already developed a romantic relationship with another resident. He feels bitter and heartbroken by the woman he once believed to have loved him. Grant in dismay is compelled by the circumstance to cope with terrible effects of Fiona's disease as he powerlessly watches his wife push him out of her life (Wood, 2012). The condition practically makes Fiona a zombie; with a deficiency of lucidness, she could be described as "walking dead." Lack of perception overwhelms Fiona and turns her into a monster (Carr, 2007). She does not care anymore about his husband and resolves to betray him. She does this without feeling any form of remorse in herself. At this point, their marriage is on the verge of crumbling because of the devastating effects of Alzheimer's disease which had infected Fiona. Conclusion The Alzheimer's disease can adversely affect relationships that people share especially those in marriage. It is important to understand the way this disease operates in a victim's body. By doing so, we will be able to treat and relate well with the people suffering from the disease. As a society, we should not perceive dementia patients negatively by comparing them to zombies in film and literature because it will cause them stigmatization (Althouse, 2003). It is also dehumanizing. References Althouse, T. (2003). Memory Aging From 18 to 80.Alzheimer Disease Associated Disorders,17(3), 162-167. Carr, C. (2007). Away from Her Capri Films, 2007.Neurology Now,3(4), 12. Filley, C. (2007). AWAY FROM HER A LOVE STORY IN THE GRIP OF ALZHEIMER DISEASE.Neurology Today,7(12), 20. Herrera, J. (2013). Away from Her? Sarah Polley's screen adaptation of Alice Munro's "The Bear Came Over The Mountain." Brno Studies In English,39(2), 107-120. Lister, R. (2013). Adapting the Short Story: Fidelity and Motivation in Sarah Polleys Away From Her.Journal Of Adaptation In Film Performance,6(1), Student: Article 1: Goldman, Marlene Powell, Sarah. (2015). Alzheimer's, ambiguity, and irony: Alice Munro's 'The Bear Came Over the Mountain' and Sarah Polley's Away from Her, Issue 225, 82. Velayos-Baeza, A., Danek, A. (2017). Chorein Deficiency and Alzheimer Disease.Alzheimer Disease Associated Disorders,31(1), 80-81. Wood, H. (2012). Alzheimer disease: Prostaglandin E2 signaling is implicated in inflammation early in the Alzheimer disease course.Nature Reviews Neurology.

Mercury Essays (520 words) - Matter, Health, Chemistry, Mercury

Mercury Mercury Atomic Number: 80 Latin: hydrargyrum ?liquid silver? Atomic Symbol: Hg Atomic Weight: 200.59 Mercury is the only common metal that is a free-flowing liquid at room temperature. It is slightly volatile in room temperature and becomes solid when subjected to a pressure of 7640 atmospheres. The metal dissolves in nitric or concentrated sulfuric acid. The chief ore is cinnabar; Spain and Italy produce about 50% of the world's supply of the metal. The commercial unit for handling mercury is the ?flask,? which weighs about 76 pounds. The metal is obtained by heating cinnabar in a current of air and by condensing the vapor. The metal is widely used in laboratory work for making thermometers, barometers, diffusion pumps and many other instruments. It is used in making mercury vapor lamps, advertising signs, mercury switches and other electronic apparatus. Other uses are in making pesticides, dental preparations, antifouling paint, batteries and catalysts. The most important salts are mercury chloride (a violent poison), mercurous chloride (occasionally still used in medicine), mercury fulminate (detonator widely used in explosives) and mercuric sulfide (a high-grade paint pigment). Mercury is a virulent poison and is readily absorbed through the respiratory tract, the gastrointestinal tract, or through unbroken skin. Most human exposure is by inhalation. Air saturated with mercury at 20 degrees C contains a concentration that exceeds the toxic limit many times. Mercury vapor diffuses across the alveolar membrane without difficulty. It is lipid soluble therefore it can get into the blood stream and has a strong affinity for the central nervous system. The danger increases at higher temperatures thus it's important that mercury be handled with care. Chronic mercury poisoning causes irreversible brain, liver and kidney damage. For example, Minamata disease was discovered in 1956 and in 1968 it was announced that it was a pollution disease caused by the Chisso Co. Ltd. The Chisso Company polluted Minamata Bay of Japan with factory wastewater that contained methyl mercury. The methyl mercury got into the fish and people of Japan ate the fish and got the disease. The methyl mercury that entered the body mainly attacked the central nervous system, including the brain and caused various symptoms including numbness and unsteadiness in the legs and hands, tiredness, ringing in the ears, narrowing of the field of vision, loss of hearing, slurred speech, and awkward movements. Some early severe victims of Minamata disease went insane, became unconscious, and died within a month of the onset of the disease. There are also victims with chronic symptoms, such as headaches, frequent tiredness, loss of the senses of smell and taste, and forget fulness, which are not easily visible but make daily life difficult. Moreover, there are congenital Minamata disease patients, who were born with handicaps after being attacked by methyl mercury while in the wombs of their mothers who consumed polluted fish. No fundamental cure for Minamata disease has yet been discovered, so treatment consists of attempts to lessen the symptoms and physical rehabilitation therapy. Bibliography Bibliography Klaassen, Curtis D. Casarett & Doull's Toxicology The Basic Science of Poisons, 1996 McGraw-Hill, p 710 Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2000. ?Mercury (element)? http://encarta.msn.com Science

Descartes and Meditations on Philosophy essays

Descartes and Meditations on Philosophy essays Rene Descartes, a French philosopher, departed to Holland in order to pursue his dream of writing. During this period while he was in Holland, he wrote many works including one of his most known, Meditations on First Philosophy. In this work Descartes uses a specific method, sometimes referred to as the Cartesian Method and the Method of Universal Doubt, in order to reach a certain goal. In this paper I will be discussing the basic steps and goals of his method, while referring to the first four meditations in Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy, to show how the method has been put into action. Descartes method begins immediately in the first meditation, in Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy, when he explains, I have freed my mind of all cares, secured for myself a period of leisurely tranquility, and am with drawing into solitude (Descartes 13). Descartes wants to be alone and have peace while writing his meditations so that he can be able to concentrate and look at every aspect of his argument, to make sure the his logic and reason makes sense. He is not going to procrastinate anymore. The main goal of the first meditation was that Descartes wants to demolish all opinions (Descartes 13). He decides to wipe out everything that he once believed in, in order to establish a foundation for his argument that is sturdy. He knows it will be hard not to go back to these old opinions that he used to believe in as a child and young adult, but the only way to get to the truth is to doubt all these opinions and start a completely new form of thought. For example, he does th is by looking at the argument of the dream. He explains that when we dream the experience we have seems to be true and because of this how will anyone be able to distinguish being awake from being asleep (Descartes 14). This is why Descartes thinks we should doubt all things because our senses are not reliable. Furthermore, t...

At the Turn of a Dime

The only thing I could think of as I stood at the end of the vault runway were my sweaty feet. As a nervous habit, I fidgeted, making it obvious that I felt a little uneasy. It seemed silly that I had trained so many demanding hours to perform this one vault skill, and that I was still anxious. Once I saluted the judge indicating I was ready, I thrust all negative thoughts to the back of my mind and launched into an aggressive sprint hurtling towards the vault. The next two seconds consisted of me holding my breath as I pushed off the vault table and completed a full 360 degree flip until I landed on my feet almost with ease. Immediately, I felt joy swell inside of me as I knew I had just performed the best vault I had ever done in my entire gymnastics career. As I walked back to the end of the running strip, my teammates clapped me on the back giving encouragement and support. The exhilaration I had felt after my first vault supplied me with adrenaline. When I began my second vault, I pounded down the runway with new energy and power. However, once I was in the process of flipping, I knew something was wrong. I ended up landing short, causing my ligaments to jam and tear within my left ankle. The audience that was once before bubbling with exuberance, instantly became deflated and silent as I lay there motionless on the mat. But I didn’t cry, I just gritted my teeth. I didn’t scream, I just shook my head. And I didn’t get up, I just sat there clutching my ankle with one hand while resting my head on the other, face down. Sharp pains exploded through my ankle and I could feel everyone’s stares burning a hole right through me. Needless to say, I probably scared the pants off my parents. From success to disappointment, I had learned that life could change on a dime. After this incident, I dedicated my time to my recovery and I began to understand that in the real world, people experience ups and downs too. Whether it may be about losing a job or going through a heartbreak, it’s the recuperation process that helps strengthen our character. While I was frustrated at first with my injury, I learned to cope with it and began to feel optimistic about how it could help me in the long run. I was determined to not let this slow me down, but rather build it up as a motivation and an extra push. Gymnastics has been my building blocks for life that I will continue to carry with me into the future. All the countless hours toiling away in the gym have given me the basic fundamentals for achieving accomplishments in life. I have been able to utilize these skills that I have learned, such as determination, perseverance, and time management, and use them to my advantage in school and work experiences. Getting home at a late hour every night has forced me to efficiently get my homework done since I know I don’t have a minute to spare, and when I help my parents in their flower shop, I make good use of my time. The principle of time management has been drilled into my head after so many years of steadily keeping my busy schedule on track. I have attained the qualities of patience, dedication, and focus patience in the way that I can accept the drawbacks along the way to achieve something greater, dedication in the way my willingness can persevere challenges without giving up, and focus in the way I can accomplish anything by being mentally tough. I intend to employ these attributes that I have gained from gymnastics as I begin my quest into the real world.

Managerial Economics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 2

Managerial Economics - Essay Example Hence, the significance to be paid on any particular type wholly depends upon the investor and manufacturer’s choice of short term or long term prospects. The present paper deals with two variants of profit theory, viz., frictional profit theory and innovation profit theory. Each of these concepts define or explain economic profit in their own discreet ways and hence, are relevant in deciding various aspects of the underlying business, for the benefit of investors as well as manufacturers to some extent. Furthermore, the economy gains as well if economic units sort out the most efficient avenues of production or investment, since that would mean a speedier progress towards national growth. Broadly speaking, there are two different explanations to economic profit, namely, disequilibrium theories of profit and compensatory theories of profit. While the previous theory explains the logic behind an industry earning super-normal profits despite the presence of market disequilibria or discrepancies, the latter accomplishes how innovative activities taking place in a firm can assure super-normal profits to the same. Nonetheless, both these theories encompass many others within themselves (Hirschey, 2009, p. 12). Of them, only two belonging to each type, will be discussed underneath, namely, frictional profit theory and innovation profit theory. The discussion will involve comparison between the two concepts inclusive of evidences in support of the logics underlying them. Frictional theory of profit, as the name suggests, is the generation of super-normal profits due to frictions present in the economy. These are untimely events, leading to shocks in the market and thus confusing the normal state of the market. An industry is often characterised by a large number of buyers and sellers, so that there is no scope to earn super-normal profit. However, a sudden shock might shift the

Biological Theories of Aging Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Biological Theories of Aging - Research Paper Example This paper briefly explains some of the biological theories of aging mentioned above. Simple Deterioration Theory argues that Aging is the accumulative result of universal deteriorative processes such as oxidation, molecular damage, wear and tear, or accumulation of adverse byproducts (Goldsmith, p.3). Even though man and machine are two entirely different things, both of them have certain similarities in their functioning. No machine is able to function more than particular period of time because of the wear and tear due to continuous work. Same way bodies of the living things are also undergoing continuous work which causes damages to the parts of the body. Even though we refill the fuels in the form of food, nutrients and water, there are certain limitations for the body of the living things to survive for a longer period. In chemistry, most of the chemical reactions yield products and by-products. These by-products are not necessarily the intended one. Same way our body chemistry also yields different by-products which are harmful to our health and may reduce our life span. At the same time we cannot avoid the production of such by-products Non-programmed theory of aging believes that aging is a passive result of an organism’s inability to better resist fundamental deteriorative processes. Moreover aging serves no purpose, is not an adaptation, and is not programmed (Goldsmith, p.8). Our body is undergoing lot of changes and processes virtually in very seconds. Most of the activities inside our body are beyond our control. For example, the pumping of blood by the heart is not done with our permission. We cannot stop any of the internal functions. Everything inside our body is tuned to do certain things and any malfunctions occur inside our body may result in diseases. We are passive observers of our body functions. â€Å"Organisms are purposely designed and genetically programmed to age or

Event Will Never Forget Essay Example for Free

Event Will Never Forget Essay Comparison of Di erent Neighbourhood Sizes in Simulated Annealing Xin Yao Department of Computer Science University College, University of New South Wales Australian Defence Force Academy Canberra, ACT, Australia 2600 Abstract Neighbourhood structure and size are important parameters in local search algorithms. This is also true for generalised local search algorithms like simulated annealing. It has been shown that the performance of simulated annealing can be improved by adopting a suitable neighbourhood size. However, previous studies usually assumed that the neighbourhood size was xed during search. This paper presents a simulated annealing algorithm with a dynamic neighbourhood size which depends on the current emperature value during search. A method of dynamically deciding the neighbourhood size by approximating a continuous probability distribution is given. Four continuous probability distributions are used in our experiments to generate neighbourhood sizes dynamically, and the results are compared. combinatorial optimisation. A method of generating dynamic neighbourhood sizes by approximating continuous probability distributions is given in this section. Section 4 compares the experimental results of using di erent continuous probability distributions to generate dynamic neighbourhood sizes. Finally, Section 5 concludes with some remarks and directions of future research. 2 General Simulated Annealing Although SA can be used in both continuous and discrete cases, this paper only considers combinatorial optimisation by SA unless otherwise indicated explicitly. A combinatorial optimisation problem can be informally described as nding an optimal con guration X from a nite or in nite countable con guration space S . Each con guration X 2 S can be represented by its n (gt; 0) components, i. e. , X = (x1; x2; ; xn ), where xi 2 Xi , i = 1; 2; ; n. An excellent discussion of combinatorial optimisation and its complexity can be found in Garey and Johnsons book 8]. A general model of SA, which is applicable to both continuous and discrete problems, can be described by Figure 1, where function generate (X; Tn) is decided by the generation robability gXY (Tn ), which is the probability of generating con guration Y from con guration X at temperature Tn , function accept (X; Y; Tn) is decided by the acceptance probability aXY (Tn ), which is the probability of accepting con guration Y after it has been generated at temperature Tn , and function update (Tn ) decides the rate of the temperature decrease. These three functions determine the convergence o f general SA 5, 6, 9], but parameters in general SA, such as the initial temperature, initial con guration, inner-loop stop criterion, and outer1 Introduction Simulated Annealing (SA) algorithms can nd very good near optimal solutions to a wide range of hard problems, but at the high computational cost. Various methods have been proposed to speed up its convergence, which can roughly be divided into three categories: (1) Optimising functions and parameters in SA 1]; (2) Combining SA with other search algorithms 2, 3]; and (3) Parallelising SA 4]. This paper falls into the above rst category. Section 2 of this paper describes a general SA algorithm 5, 6] which uni es di erent variants of the classical one 7]. Section 3 presents SA with a dynamic neighbourhood size and its application in Published in Proc. of Fourth Australian Conf. on Neural Networks, ed. P. Leong and M. Jabri, pp. 216{219, 1993, Melbourne, Australia. generate initial con guration X at random; generate initial temperature T0; REPEAT REPEAT Y = generate(X; Tn); IF accept(X; Y; Tn) THEN X = Y ; UNTIL `inner-loop stop criterion satis ed; Tn+1 = update (Tn ); n = n + 1; UNTIL `outer-loop stop criterion satis ed Figure 1: General simulated annealing. loop stop criterion, can have signi cant impact on its nite-time behaviour. That is, the computation time in practice depends on the three functions as well as these parameters. Most research on SA has concentrated on the update and accept function and various algorithmic parameters, only limited attention has been paid to the generate function. However, the generate function decides an important part | the neighbourhood structure and size | of a local search algorithm regardless of whether it is a deterministic one or a stochastic one like SA. The neighbourhood NX of a con guration X is de ned by con guration. The xed-size neighbourhood clearly does not conform with the basic search strategy behind SA. It is appealing to have a neighbourhood size which can adjust itself in the di erent search stages. Fast SA 12] can be regarded as an example of SA with a dynamic neighbourhood size, but it is only used in the continuous case. The application of dynamic neighbourhood size in combinatorial optimisation, to our best knowledge, has not been well-studied. 3 Dynamic Neighbourhood Size in Simulated Annealing This section gives a method of dynamically deciding the neighbourhood size in SA according to the temperature parameter 5, 6]. In the high temperature stages, SA algorithms have high acceptance probability for both good and ad moves, i. e. , exploration plays a major role in search, and thus a large neighbourhood size is used to enhance such exploration. In the low temperature stages, exploitation plays a major role in search, and thus a smaller neighbourhood is more suitable. In the following discussion, we say that the Hamming distance between two con guration X = (x1 ; x2; ; xn ) and Y = (y1; y2 ; ; yn ) is if there are exactly di erent elements between them. Let f (x) be the continuous density function which is used to generate the Hamming distance between the current con guration and the next one. Denote the set of con gurations which are distant from the current con guration X as SX ( ), SX ( ) = fY 2 S; gXY (Tn) gt; 0g where X 62 NX , and X 2 NY i Y 2 NX . NX = fY jY (1) ing search once de ned for a problem. Goldstein and Waterman 10] and Cheh et al. 11] carried out some experiments on comparing SA with di erent neighbourhood sizes, but the sizes are still xed once decided. A limitation of SA with a xed neighbourhood size is its inability to perform search at di erent scales in di erent stages of search. As indicated in our previous study 5], SA can be viewed as an attempt to combine exploration of a space and exploitation of a sub-space into the same algorithm, i. e. , coarse-grained search in the high temperature stages explores the con guration space and tries to locate promising regions, while ned-grained search in the low temperature stages exploits the promising regions and tries to nd a good near optimal gXY (Tn ) = 1=jNX j, where jNX j is the size of NX , i. . , the number of con gurations in NX , and is the same for all X in S . Moreover, jNX j is xed dur- Previous research on SA normally assumed that j Y 2 S; dXY = g (2) The probability of generating con guration Y , which is dXY distant from con guration X , is dened as 1 = jS (1 )j P rob dXY ? 2 lt; X dXY Z dXY + 1 2 f (x)dx = jS (1 )j 1 X dXY dXY ? 2 f (dXY ) jSX (dXY )j 2 gXY (Tn ) dXY + 1 2 (3) Suppose the maximum Hamming distance allowed for one move is dmax 1 , then the normalised generation function is f (dXY ) / jSX (dXY )j gXY (Tn ) = (4) FX (Tn ) where FX (Tn ) = X X f (d ) max XZ jSX (dXZ )j dXZ =1 Z 2S 4 Experimental Results We adopt the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) as a benchmark to evaluate our SA algorithms because of its clear mathematical de nition and high computational complexity. Goldstein and Waterman 10] and Cheh et al. 11] have experimented with TSPs using di erent but xed neighbourhood sizes and found that a small neighbourhood size is better than a large neighbourhood size. That is, the SA algorithm performs the best when dXY = 1. TSPs with 40 cities are used in our experiment and are generated at random. The same initial conguration, inner-loop stop criterion, out-loop stop criterion, and temperature decreasing rate are used in our experiments in order to evaluate the impact of the neighbourhood size on the performance of SA algorithms. Our experiments, albeit preliminary, have demonstrated that SA with a dynamic neighbourhood size outperforms SA with a xed neighbourhood size. Table 1 gives the results of four typical runs of two kinds of SA algorithms. Table 2 gives the results of using di erent distributions to generate neighbourhood sizes. roblem instance 1 2 3 4 initial value 15080 12260 13760 15820 NorSA 2540 2140 2560 2300 CSA 3120 2520 2880 2460 Table 1: Comparison of SA with a xed neighbourhood size (CSA) and SA with a dynamic neighbourhood size (NorSA). Normal distribution is used to generate the neighbourhood size. (5) Theorem 3. 1 ( 5]) Suppose the acceptance function in an SA algorithm is aXY (Tn ) = min 1; exp ? ? cY T cX n : (6) and the generation function is (4), where f (x) in (4) can be anyone of the following, (a) the Normal function N (0; Tn), i. e. , 1 exp ? d2 XY f (dXY ) = p 2Tn 2 Tn (b) the exponential function E (Tn ), i. . , f (dXY ) = ! 1 exp ? dXY Tn Tn (c) the Cauchy function C (Tn ), i. e. , 1 T f (dXY ) = 2 n 2 dXY + Tn (d) the stable function with index 1 13], i. e. , 2 f (dXY ) = q exp ? 2d1 XY 2 d3 XY 1 5 Concluding Remarks Neighbourhood size is an important parameter in local search algorithms, but only a xed size was adopted in previous application of SA to combinatorial optimisation problems. This paper proposes a method of using a dynamic neighbourhood size in SA based on our analysis of SA search. Preliminary experiments have demonstrated the advantage of a dynamic neighbourhood size in SA. The idea of a dynamic neighbourhood size could also be introduced into other local search algorithms. It is, in fact, related to a more profound 3 Then the SA algorithm converges to global minima if the cooling rate is Tn = ln n + n0 ; n = 1; 2; (7) where and n0 are positive constants. It is set to n, the number of elements in a con guration, in our experiments. 1 problem instance initial value CauSA NorSA ExpSA StableSA 1 17800 2480 2540 2640 3760 2 15500 3000 3340 3180 4420 3 16600 3300 2920 3460 4500 4 14780 3000 2980 3280 3760 References 1] P. J. M. van Laarhoven and E. H. L. Aarts, Simulated Annealing: Theory and Applications, D. Reidel Publishing Co. , 1987. 2] D. H. Ackley, A Connectionist Machine for Genetic Hillclimbing, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, 1987. 3] X. Yao, Optimization by genetic annealing, In M. Jabri, editor, Proc. of ACNN91, pages 94{97, Sydney, 1991. 4] D. R. Greening, Parallel simulated annealing techniques, Physica D, 42:293{306, 1990. 5] X. Yao, Simulated annealing with extended neighbourhood, International J. of Computer Math. , 40:169{189, 1991. 6] X. Yao and G. -J. Li, General simulated annealing, J. of Computer Sci. Tech. 6:329{ 338, 1991. 7] S. Kirkpatrick, C. D. Gelatt, and M. P. Vecchi, Optimization by simulated annealing, Science, 220:671{680, 1983. 8] M. R. Garey and D. S. Johnson, Computers and Intractability: A Guide to the Theory of NP-Completeness, W. H. Freeman Co. , San Francisco, 1979. 9] S. Anily and A. Federgruen, Ergodicity in parameteric nonstationary Markov chains: an application to annealing methods, Ope r. Res. , 35:867{874, 1987. 10] L. Goldstein and M. Waterman, Neighborhood size in the simulated annealing algorithm, Amer. J. of Math. and Management Sci. , 8:409{423, 1988. 11] K. M. Cheh, J. B. Goldberg, and R. G. Askin, A note on the e ect of neighborhood structure in simulated annealing algorithm, Computers and Oper. Res. , 18:537{547, 1991. 12] H. H. Szu and R. L. Hartley, Nonconvex optimization by fast simulated annealing, Proc. of IEEE, 75:1538{1540, 1987. 13] W. Feller, An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications, volume 2, John Wiley Sons, Inc. , 2nd edition, 1971. 4 Table 2: SA with a dynamic neighbourhood size which is generated by the Cauchy function (CauSA), Normal function (NorSA), Exponential function (ExpSA), and Stable function with index 1=2 (StableSA). esearch issue in search theory, i. e. , the issue of exploration versus exploitation or global search versus local search. Although local search based on some heuristics can be quite e cient under many circumstances, the problem of local optima is very hard to deal with. Some kind of global search has to be used if a global optimum or near optimum is required. However, the computational cos t of global search is often prohibitively high for most real-world applications due to the vast search space. It is bene cial to combine global and local search together. An open question here is how to decide when global or local search should be performed. It is also di cult to draw the line strictly between local and global search in practice. Dynamic neighbourhood size offers a way to deal with the problem by transferring from global search to local search smoothly based on a control parameter, temperature in SA. However, more work has to be done on deciding which kind of generation functions is most suitable for an application, i. e. what is the optimal rate of reducing the neighbourhood size. As indicated before, Fast SA 12] o ers a big improvement over classical SA 7] due to the adoption of Cauchy distribution. An interesting topic is to investigate whether the discrete version of Fast SA can o er similar improvement over classical SA. Our preliminary experiments seem to give a negative answer. Acknowledgement | The author is grateful to Drs. B. Marksjo and R. Sharpe for their support of his work while he was with CSIRO Division of Building, Construction and Engineering.

hatchet Essay -- essays research papers

The story The Hatchet is about a boy, Brian Robeson and how he gets stranded in northern Canada when the pilot of the plane he is on has a heart attack. He is left without food, water, and shelter. This is the story about how he survived. His dad lived up near the tundra in Canada. Brian was on his way to see him because his mother had cheated on his father and divorced him, so his father moved away. Brian’s mother didn’t know that Brian knew she had left his father for another man and the secret was killing him. His mother gave him a hatchet before he left to see his father. He then left and got onto the small bush plane. The pilot was going along merrily when he had a heart attack and died right in front of Brian. Brian didn’t know what to do so he sort of steered the plane and kept going. The plane had been turned a bit while the Pilot was having a heart attack so Brian had no idea where he was going. The radio wouldn’t work and he was looking for a lake to land in so he would have a slightly bigger chance of survival. Once he woke up he realized he was on a beach and insects were tearing him up. He had landed in a lake and drug himself up. He was still very tired and hurt from the crash so he just fell back asleep again. Once he woke up we went to the lake and got a drink, he was hungry. All he had to survive was a 20-dollar bill, the clothes on his back, and the hatchet his mother had given him before he left. He found a shelter and some berries. One night while he w...

Brave New World †Freedom Essay

The concept of freedom is always changing and is often open to interpretation. What, exactly, is freedom? and why is it so important that we be free? In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley leaves the reader in continuous suspense over which character is truly free or has freedom. The citizens of the World State do not possess any notion of freedom, they are unable to control the way they think, feel and make decisions; however, John has the ability to do all of these things. The World State holds the citizens captive of their most fundamental rights to freedom through Soma, the media and hypnopedia; whereas, John, free from society’s captivities, has complete control over himself and his mind. The citizens of the World State are enslaved by their ruler, they are devoid of emotions, all emotions except for that of happiness. They lack the state of consciousness needed to make their own decisions and that, in turn, creates a society that is solely governed by one process of thought. The World State uses Soma to control the emotions of the citizens in order to create and maintain stability in the world. This control not only takes away the pleasures of experiencing real, genuine emotions but also corrupts one’s ability to react according to how they feel in a situation. The citizens have the â€Å"freedom† to react as they please but with the constant restraints on which emotions they are allowed to feel even that freedom has been taken from them. †Ã¢â‚¬ Now don’t lose your temper,† she said. â€Å"Remember one cubic centimetre cures ten gloomy sentiments. â€Å"â€Å" (Huxley p. ). Freedom is reacting based on emotions that one’s self has come up with, emotions that have been drawn from a wide spectrum, not carefully selected by one’s ruler. The second most powerful tactic the World State uses to control their citizens is through the media along with debilitating the desire to not want to be a part of the social body. They engineer a culture that shelters citizens from what is really happening and what truly lies beneath the surface at all times. â€Å"She was appalled by the rushing emptiness of the night†¦ â€Å"Let’s turn on the radio. Quick! â€Å"†¦ â€Å"but I want to look at the sea in peace,† he said. â€Å"It makes me feel as though†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ †not so completely a part of something else. Not just a cell in the social body†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ But Lenina was crying. â€Å"It’s horrible, it’s horrible,† she kept repeating. â€Å"And how can you talk like that about not wanting to be a part of the social body? â€Å"(Huxley p. ). They, the citizens, are never given the opportunity to think for themselves or by themselves; thus, taking away the possibility of critical or analytical thinking. During the decanting period (birth) and even prior to that, the citizens of the World State are unable to choose their destinies, their futures are laid out before them before they are even processed as people. Not only are they devoid of the most common emotions, they lack any individuality at all because they are created to have a certain level of intelligence, a certain status in society, they’re engineered to have certain likes and dislikes and are even under the control of society when choosing what colour to wear. â€Å"From the ranks of the crawling babies came little squeals of excitement, gurgles and twitterings of pleasure†¦ Small hands reached out uncertainly, touched, grasped, unpetaling the transfigured roses, crumpling the illuminated pages of the books. The Director waited until all were happily busy. Then, â€Å"Watch carefully,† he said. And, lifting his hand, he gave the signal†¦ There was a violent explosion. Shriller and ever shriller, a siren shrieked. Alarm bells maddeningly sounded. The children started, screamed; their faces were distorted with terror. â€Å"And now†¦ now we proceed to rub in the lesson with a mild electric shock. â€Å"†¦ There was something desperate, almost insane, about the sharp spasmodic yelps to which they now gave utterance. Their little bodies twitched and stiffened; their limbs moved jerkily as if to the tug of unseen wires†¦ Offer them the flowers and the books again. â€Å"†¦ but at the approach of the roses, at the mere sight of those gaily-coloured images of pussy and cock-a-doodle-doo and baa-baa black sheep, the infants shrank away in horror, the volume of their howling suddenly increased†¦. â€Å"They’ll grow up with what the psychologists used to call an ‘instinctive’ hatred of books and flowers. † (Huxley p. ). This kind of control leads to the complete destruction of individual and collective freedom. The World State holds the citizens captive of their most fundamental rights to freedom therefore, they are not free. Freedom is constantly questioned throughout the novel and John has the power of free will on his side because he has the capability to feel his own emotions, think critically, and act accordingly. That is something society simply will never have the opportunity or ability to experience. When he is inflicted in a situation he lacks no restrictions on his feelings, he feels love for Lenina and he feels pain for being an outcast, being different. John, who has the ability to feel everything. â€Å"†Is there any hope? † he asked. â€Å"You mean, of her not dying? † (He nodded. â€Å"No, of course there isn’t. When somebody’s sent here, there’s no †¦Ã¢â‚¬  Startled by the expression of distress on his pale face, she suddenly broke off. â€Å"Why, whatever is the matter? † she asked. She was not accustomed to this kind of thing in visitors. (Not that there were many visitors anyhow: or any reason why there should be many visitors. ) â €Å"You’re not feeling ill, are you? † †¦. Anger suddenly boiled up in him. Balked for the second time, the passion of his grief had found another outlet, was transformed into a passion of agonized rage. â€Å"(Huxley p. ). In contrast with the other citizens of the World State who cannot make out the most simple of genuine emotions and one’s ability to react according to how they feel in a situation, this really puts the concept of freedom into perspective. He is not only able to feel a wide selection of emotions but because of that freedom he can think critically and make logical and rational decisions about the State’s affairs and his own life. Due to his personal freedoms he is able to see things for what they really are instead of what they are made out to be by the World State. â€Å"†We don’t,† said the Controller. â€Å"We prefer to do things comfortably. â€Å"But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin. † â€Å"In fact,† said Mustapha Mond, â€Å"you’re claiming the right to be unhappy. â€Å" â€Å"All right then,† said the Savage defiantly, â€Å"I’m claiming the right to be unhappy†¦ not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen to-morrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind. There was a long silence. â€Å"I claim them all,† said the Savage at last. † (Huxley p. ). John is and forever will be free from the World State for the simple fact that he can think critically and make logical and rational decisions. To want to expanding his individuality and intelligence is another attribute the citizens of the World State will never posses; however,John has the desire and wonder to read Shakespeare, absorb information about religion, beliefs and his surroundings. â€Å"â€Å"The Savage’s face lit up with a sudden pleasure. â€Å"Have you read it too? † he asked. I thought nobody knew about that book here, in England. † â€Å"Almost nobody. I’m one of the very few. It’s prohibited, you see†¦ â€Å"But why is it prohibited? † asked the Savage†¦ The Controller shrugged his shoulders. â€Å"Because it’s old; that’s the chief reason. We haven’t any use for old things here†¦ we don’t want people to be attracted by old things. We want them to like the new ones. â€Å"†¦. â€Å"But the new ones are so stupid and horrible. Those plays, where there’s nothing but helicopters flying about and you feel the people kissing. â€Å" He made a grimace. â€Å"Goats and monkeys! Only in Othello’s word could he find an adequate vehicle for his contempt and hatred. † (Huxley p. ). The natural demonstration of this attribute reflects how thoughtless his free will is, strongly contrasting the captivity those of the World State are under. Others that are led by the rules of the World State are merely human-looking machines that carry out meaningless lives to keep the rulers happy and society stable.. John has presented a state of being that the rulers of the World State have tried to exterminate- free will. He is who he wants to be and has pushed away the man society has created. And that, is freedom.

Purple Hibiscus

Symbols within Purple Hibiscus Ben Redman The novel Purple Hibiscus, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, is a story of a girl learning to find her own voice and speak out against her violent oppressive father. The novel is set in post-colonial Nigeria, in a time in which the government was run by a military dictatorship. There are a number of symbols used to help develop ideas of the novel; the three most predominant ones being purple and red hibiscuses and Mama’s figurines.The red hibiscuses are symbolic of the violence and bloodshed in Kambili’s life whereas the purple hibiscuses symbolize freedom, defiance and the courage to speak out. The figurines are symbolic of Mama’s submissive character and denial of the violence in her home. These symbols help to develop one of the main themes of freedom vs. oppression. The color red also adds to the symbolism of the red hibiscuses. Red is a color which is often associated with anger, violence and bloodshed. These are all recu rring motifs in the novel with her father's reign of terror over the family.Red is the color that seems to haunt Kambili, ever since the beginning when she had to clean up her mother's blood, after the father abused and cause her to have a miss carriage. For a long time after the horrific incident, Kambili could not concentrate on anything but the â€Å"red blur† and the â€Å"narrow lines of blood† which hold together the images of her dead baby brother and her badly beaten mother. The red hibiscuses that are planted in the garden of the family's home in Enugu suggest the family's oppression, as it is only through Papa's violence that he keeps them under his control.Kambili, shows major changes throughout the story in her confidence and personality by gaining a voice. Kambili is an extremely shy girl because of she lives with the constant terror that her father reigns down on her, the father has scared Kambili to the point where she cannot even think for herself. Adic ihie shows Kambili's transformation mainly using dialogue and internal monologue, these changes Kambili made in herself where crucial in the story because they explained how she learns to break free from her fanatical father.At the beginning of the novel Kambili is perceived by her fellow class mates and peers to be stuck up and different because the students knew Kambili came from money and power, and thought she was ignoring them because maybe she thought she was better than everyone else. When in fact her silence and awkwardness is due to the fact that her father has crippled her self esteem so badly by showing oppressive parenting techniques. Her transition from silence to a full speaking girl is the most obvious change in the novel and it is what progresses the plot.Like I mentioned before the red hibiscuses planted at their home symbolizes the fathers terrible ways, and the power he has over the home. The red plants showed complete dominance over the household to the point whe re any of Kambili's thoughts or emotions where showed to reader through actions or internal monologue. The only time she would ever really speak was to mimic her father's preaching â€Å"God will deliver us,† in her repeated efforts to gain approval of her treacherous father. However some light begins to show during her stay in Nsukka.Before Kambili and Jaja went to stay with their aunt in Nsukka, they have never seen purple hibiscuses before. Purple hibiscuses in this story represents freedom, defiance and courage to speak out. This is very symbolic as it is only during their visit to their aunts home where they learn what true freedom is. Kambili's internal monologue beings to show signs of branching away from her silence and gaining a voice of her own. At first we see her struggling to break the silence as if she is scared that her father will find out somehow.She was described censoring herself from talking back to her cousin Amaka because she is smart mouthed and that sh e might be upset with Kambili herself. The first time Kambili truly spoke with thoughts of her own was when her beloved Father Amadi asked her why she is so quiet and why she hasn’t asked a question all night. Kambili was puzzled because no one has ever came to her and asked her to speak on something other than religious matters. What she said was â€Å"You don't have to shout, Amaka†¦ I don’t know how to do the orah leaves, but you can show me. Before this, they had known only of Papa’s violence, his ‘hurting love’ and his oppressive, dictator-like control. Purple is a color that is often associated with royalty but also self-expression. This is important, as it is only through expressing oneself and speaking out against oppressors can freedom truly be achieved. We also learn that it is only through experimentation that gardeners can create the rare purple hibiscus. This emphasizes the fact that Kambili and Jaja take their first tentative ste ps of speaking out and defying their father’s tyrannical rule.The purple hibiscuses that grow at Aunty Ifeoma's house in Nsukka are described as in the novel as â€Å"rare fragrant, with undertones of freedom†. These flowers are the most important symbols in the story as they are what represent Kambili's transformation. When the kids returned back to their miserable home Jaja brought some cuttings of the purple hibiscus's and hid them in fridge, to give him and Kambili a sense of security and protection from their father.He was afraid however that papa would find them and confiscate them, therefore almost crushing his rebellion. The contrast between the purple and red hibiscuses also is a large symbolic tool Adachi uses. The purple showing love, warmth, laughter and free expression what they experience in Nsukka, while red representing the constant fear they live under. Jaja bringing home the flowers brings inspiration to strive for freedom within their own home. Purple Hibiscus Symbols within Purple Hibiscus Ben Redman The novel Purple Hibiscus, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, is a story of a girl learning to find her own voice and speak out against her violent oppressive father. The novel is set in post-colonial Nigeria, in a time in which the government was run by a military dictatorship. There are a number of symbols used to help develop ideas of the novel; the three most predominant ones being purple and red hibiscuses and Mama’s figurines.The red hibiscuses are symbolic of the violence and bloodshed in Kambili’s life whereas the purple hibiscuses symbolize freedom, defiance and the courage to speak out. The figurines are symbolic of Mama’s submissive character and denial of the violence in her home. These symbols help to develop one of the main themes of freedom vs. oppression. The color red also adds to the symbolism of the red hibiscuses. Red is a color which is often associated with anger, violence and bloodshed. These are all recu rring motifs in the novel with her father's reign of terror over the family.Red is the color that seems to haunt Kambili, ever since the beginning when she had to clean up her mother's blood, after the father abused and cause her to have a miss carriage. For a long time after the horrific incident, Kambili could not concentrate on anything but the â€Å"red blur† and the â€Å"narrow lines of blood† which hold together the images of her dead baby brother and her badly beaten mother. The red hibiscuses that are planted in the garden of the family's home in Enugu suggest the family's oppression, as it is only through Papa's violence that he keeps them under his control.Kambili, shows major changes throughout the story in her confidence and personality by gaining a voice. Kambili is an extremely shy girl because of she lives with the constant terror that her father reigns down on her, the father has scared Kambili to the point where she cannot even think for herself. Adic ihie shows Kambili's transformation mainly using dialogue and internal monologue, these changes Kambili made in herself where crucial in the story because they explained how she learns to break free from her fanatical father.At the beginning of the novel Kambili is perceived by her fellow class mates and peers to be stuck up and different because the students knew Kambili came from money and power, and thought she was ignoring them because maybe she thought she was better than everyone else. When in fact her silence and awkwardness is due to the fact that her father has crippled her self esteem so badly by showing oppressive parenting techniques. Her transition from silence to a full speaking girl is the most obvious change in the novel and it is what progresses the plot.Like I mentioned before the red hibiscuses planted at their home symbolizes the fathers terrible ways, and the power he has over the home. The red plants showed complete dominance over the household to the point whe re any of Kambili's thoughts or emotions where showed to reader through actions or internal monologue. The only time she would ever really speak was to mimic her father's preaching â€Å"God will deliver us,† in her repeated efforts to gain approval of her treacherous father. However some light begins to show during her stay in Nsukka.Before Kambili and Jaja went to stay with their aunt in Nsukka, they have never seen purple hibiscuses before. Purple hibiscuses in this story represents freedom, defiance and courage to speak out. This is very symbolic as it is only during their visit to their aunts home where they learn what true freedom is. Kambili's internal monologue beings to show signs of branching away from her silence and gaining a voice of her own. At first we see her struggling to break the silence as if she is scared that her father will find out somehow.She was described censoring herself from talking back to her cousin Amaka because she is smart mouthed and that sh e might be upset with Kambili herself. The first time Kambili truly spoke with thoughts of her own was when her beloved Father Amadi asked her why she is so quiet and why she hasn’t asked a question all night. Kambili was puzzled because no one has ever came to her and asked her to speak on something other than religious matters. What she said was â€Å"You don't have to shout, Amaka†¦ I don’t know how to do the orah leaves, but you can show me. Before this, they had known only of Papa’s violence, his ‘hurting love’ and his oppressive, dictator-like control. Purple is a color that is often associated with royalty but also self-expression. This is important, as it is only through expressing oneself and speaking out against oppressors can freedom truly be achieved. We also learn that it is only through experimentation that gardeners can create the rare purple hibiscus. This emphasizes the fact that Kambili and Jaja take their first tentative ste ps of speaking out and defying their father’s tyrannical rule.The purple hibiscuses that grow at Aunty Ifeoma's house in Nsukka are described as in the novel as â€Å"rare fragrant, with undertones of freedom†. These flowers are the most important symbols in the story as they are what represent Kambili's transformation. When the kids returned back to their miserable home Jaja brought some cuttings of the purple hibiscus's and hid them in fridge, to give him and Kambili a sense of security and protection from their father.He was afraid however that papa would find them and confiscate them, therefore almost crushing his rebellion. The contrast between the purple and red hibiscuses also is a large symbolic tool Adachi uses. The purple showing love, warmth, laughter and free expression what they experience in Nsukka, while red representing the constant fear they live under. Jaja bringing home the flowers brings inspiration to strive for freedom within their own home.

Understanding Mental Health Illness The WritePass Journal

Understanding Mental Health Illness Introduction Understanding Mental Health Illness ) was one study that specifically focused on the effects of a variety of environmental factors on schizophrenia among subjects with a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia. The study found that maternal mental illness was the most significant childhood adversity (44.6%) while disruption in the family setting was identified as the next significant childhood adversity (40.0%). Cannabis smoking was also identified as an important risk factor at 24.5%. Overall the study reported significant association between these cumulative risk factors and the onset of schizophrenia. Galletly et.al (2011) also contributed with the findings that childhood exposure to familial adversities and cannabis smoking carry a high risk for psychosis.     In our case study it is important to notice that Mr. John has experienced some of these childhood adversities that carry a high risk factor for schizophrenia. John’s parents separated 12 years ago when John was just a young 7 year old boy.   The disruption in the family setting and consequently the rearing environment must have caused significant stress for John. Compounding this stress is the fact that John has witnessed violent attacks on his mother by his father and even now continues to witness heated arguments between his mother and his elder sister. It transpires that the cumulative effect of these multiple environmental stressors might have triggered the onset of schizophrenia symptoms in John who has just completed puberty, which is a vulnerable stage as discussed in the previous sections. Treatment for Schizophrenia Pharmaceutical treatment Effective diagnosis constitutes the first step in the treatment of schizophrenia. Though pharmaceutical therapy is available in the treatment of schizophrenia, currently they do not promise a cure for the disorder but help a lot in alleviating the psychotic symptoms.  Ã‚   Antipsychotic drugs are the main pharmaceutical intervention used in the treatment of schizophrenia.   Thorazine, Haldol and Prolixin are some of the earlier antipsychotic medicines used in treating schizophrenia. However, these drugs had adverse effects including tremors, and cognitive dulling for instances (University of Maryland, 2013). Over the last two decades another class of antipsychotics with limited side effects such as Risperdol, Zyprexa are used particularly in the treatment of the acute phase of schizophrenia when the symptoms flare up (Harvard Medical School 2006).  Ã‚   More recently however, a new class of antipsychotics namely injectable long acting antipsychotics are available.   These dru gs are particularly effective among schizophrenia patients who are not medically compliant (Manchanda et.al, 2013). The key to effective management of schizophrenia is to adhere to the treatment plan. It must be noted, however, that though antipsychotic medications are effective against psychotic symptoms they are not useful in the treatment of the so called negative symptoms of schizophrenia.   Other forms of therapies, such as psychotherapy should be utilized. One of the important psychotherapies is cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT). Cognitive-Behavioural therapy Early intervention using both pharmaceutical as well as behavioural therapies provides the optimum treatment plan for schizophrenia patients. Since providing optimal intervention at the earliest is considered the best for achieving better outcome, it is necessary to include concomitant behavioural therapies. Several studies have proven the efficacy of CBT in the management of the symptoms of schizophrenia (University of Maryland, 2013).   Coupled with family therapy, CBT is found to be very effective in the management of schizophrenia. The underlying idea in cognitive therapy is to change the thoughts and then the behaviour of the patient.   CBT focuses on normalizing the psychotic experience of the patient (Turkington et.al, 2006). CBT provides an action plan for the patient so the next time symptoms appear they are better able to manage them (Turkington et.al, 2006). In the context of the present case study CBT offers an excellent therapy as it is known that CBT is more effecti ve in early stages of psychosis. One significant advantage of CBT is that it has no known side effects (Addington Lecomte, 2012). Diagnosis and management of schizophrenia is very important since suicide presents as a prominent risk for schizophrenia patients.   Palmer et.al (2005)   pointed out close to 5% risk for suicide among schizophrenia patients. Erlangsen (2012) was a recent study that reported a heightened risk for suicide among elderly schizophrenia patients. CBT is a very effective therapeutic tool in aiding self monitoring of thoughts and in developing coping strategies among schizophrenia patients.   As such, John must be provided with CBT. Schizophrenia Support Services Despite the significant improvements in our understanding of the cause of mental illnesses there is very little improvement in terms of the quality of services offered to schizophrenia patients and their families (Schizophrenia Commission, 2012).   In the UK, the recent report by the schizophrenia commission confirms this dismal picture.   The report highlighted that there is only â€Å"a broken and demoralized system that does not deliver the quality of treatment needed for recovery† (Kelland, 2012).   There have been funding cuts for early intervention services despite the fact that research evidence point to the effectiveness of these programs in preventing relapse of psychotic episodes and in improving the overall outcome for the patient.   Another highlight of the report is the poor plight of the psychiatric wards and the lack of treatment plan. It is reported that only 1 in 10 patients are provided with CBT and other forms of beneficial psychological intervention s while in the majority of cases drugs are the only treatment.   Ã¢â‚¬Å"Some wards are so anti-therapeutic that when people relapse and are in need of a period of care and respite, they are unwilling to be admitted voluntarily; so compulsion rates rise.†(Kelland, 2012)  Ã‚   There is also a distinct lack of employment support services with only 8% of schizophrenia patients still working. There is also widespread stigma associated with schizophrenia and other mental illnesses which causes additional burden on the caregivers. There is also increasing coercion in the UK with patients being forced into secure care. As Robin Murray, a psychiatric professor with the British institute of psychiatry puts it, If you develop psychosis and your mind is disturbed and you think people are against you, youd want to be admitted for a period of care and respite and calm and some gentle pharmacological and psychological treatments.   But in fact that doesnt happen. Here, you get admitte d to a mad house. And some of these places are very anti-therapeutic not only for patients but also for staff. No sensible person would want to be admitted to one of these places. (Kelland, 2012). However many private charities and voluntary groups have emerged across Britain that offer useful service to the patient and the carer. For instance, ‘Carers trust’ is a charity group operating across the UK that provides useful respite services for schizophrenia carers and thereby reduces their burden and carer burnout. Similarly the government led ‘meals on wheels’ scheme would be very useful for carers of patients who live alone to ensure that their loved ones are served with hot meals every day.   The government also provides the ‘Independent living fund’ (ILF) that could be utilized to pay for personal assistants to help the schizophrenia patients in managing their day to day tasks (NHS, 2012). Conclusion Schizophrenia is a chronic debilitating mental disorder that impairs social functioning and the autonomy of the patient. As yet, the aetiology remains rather obscure with a myriad of contributing symptoms making diagnosis a lot complicated. Since schizophrenia is a heterogeneous disorder carrying an array of symptoms, an interdisciplinary approach including research based on both biological and behavioural models is necessary to gain valuable insights into its aetiology. Early adulthood is a particularly vulnerable phase with the onset of symptoms.   In view of the symptoms and the risk factors that were discussed in the paper it is clear that Mr John, the 19 year old young adult, is clearly experiencing the various symptoms of schizophrenia. Early parental separation, witnessing family violence, smoking cannabis are all high risk factors. These environmental factors are the triggers for the onset of schizophrenia symptoms. It is clear that in majority of the cases, such as John’s, there is an undue delay in the diagnosis as there is hesitance in approaching a psychiatrist due to the stigma associated with mental illnesses.   Interventions during this early phase of the disorder are critical and offer the best opportunity for delivering optimal care. In John’s case, immediate consultation with the psychiatrist followed by adherence to medication along with psychological therapies like CBT should ensure control of the psychotic symptoms. This would enable John to continue his life with minimal hindrance. The main point is the emphasis that though schizophrenia and some other forms of mental illnesses do not have a cure as of yet, they could be effectively managed with drugs and other behavioural therapies that would drastically improve the quality of life for the patient. Another important and largely ignored fact is that deinstitutionalisation of mental health care also implies a growing burden on the family members as caregivers. Caregiver burden should also be the focus of mental health policies. Respite services must be improved. There is also a need to increase awareness to destigmatise schizophrenia and other mental disorders. Stigma effectively prevents the utilisation of support services. Much work needs to be done. References Addington J, Lecomte T., 2012. Cognitive behavioural therapy for schizophrenia, F1000 Med Rep   4:6. APA., 2000. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , 4th Edition, Paperback. Arendt M, Rosenberg R, Foldager L, Perto G, 2005. Cannabis- induced psychosis and subsequent schizophrenia-spectrum disorders: followup study of 535 incident cases. British Journal of Psychiatry 187, 510-515. Blakemore S, Burnett S, Dahl R., 2010.   The role of puberty in the developing adolescent brain, Human Brain Mapping, 31(6) 926-933. Bruer J., 1999. Neural connections: Some You Use, Some You Loose, [online] Available at: oecd.org/edu/ceri/31709587.pdf [Accessed Nov 25th 2013] Daniel J, Roman K, Lin T, Evelyn J , 2010. Cannabis use and the course of schizophrenia: 10 year followup after first hospitalization. The American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol 167, no 8. Erlangsen A,  Eaton WW,  Mortensen PB,  Conwell Y., 2012. Schizophrenia –a predictor of suicide during the second half of life? 134(2-3):111-7. Faludi G, Mirnics K., 2011. Synaptic changes in the brain of subjects with schizophrenia.  International Journal of   Developmental Neuroscience.  29:305–9 Feinberg I., 1983. Schizophrenia: Caused by a fault in programmed synaptic elimination during adolescence.  J Psychiatr Res.  ;17:319–34. Galletly C, Van Hooff M, McFarlane A., 2011.Psychotic symptoms in young adults exposed to childhood trauma- a 20 year follow-up study.  Schizophr Res.;127:76–82. Harvard Medical School., 2006. Drug treatment of schizophrenia, [online] Available at: health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/update0205a.shtml [Accessed Nov 23rd 2013] Johns A., 2001. Psychiatric effects of cannabis, The British Journal of Psychiatry, 178:116-122. Kelland K, Britain condemned for mad house treatment of schizophrenia patients, [online] Available at: reuters.com/article/2012/11/14/schizophrenia-britain-care-idUSL5E8MCDDY20121114 [Accessed Nov 23rd 2013] Kinney D, Hintz K, Shearer E, Barch D, Riffin C, Whitley K and Butler R ., 2009. A unifying hypothesis of schizophrenia : Abnormal immune system development may help explain roles of prenatal hazards, post pubertal onset , stress, genes, climate , infections and brain dysfunction, Medical Hypothesis , [online] Available at: http://ccpweb.wustl.edu/pdfs/medhyp09.pdf [Accessed Nov 23rd 2013] Manchanda R,  Chue P,  Malla A,  Tibbo P,  Roy MA,  Williams R,  Iyer S,  Lutgens D,  Banks N., 2013. Long acting injectable antipsychotics : evidence of effectiveness and use, Can J Psychiatry.  58(5 Suppl 1):5S-13S. NAMI., 2013. Mental Illnesses, [online] Available at: nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=By_Illness [Accessed Nov 22nd 2013] NHS ., 2012. Support services, [online]Available at:   nhs.uk/CarersDirect/guide/practicalsupport/Pages/Supportservices.aspx [Accessed Nov 23rd 2013] NIH ,. 2011. The Teen brain: Still under construction, [online] Available at: nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-teen-brain-still-under-construction/index.shtml [Accessed Nov 25th 2013] NIH., 2013. What is Schizophrenia, [online] Available at: nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/schizophrenia/index.shtml [Accessed Nov 23rd 2013] Paolicelli RC, Bolasco G, Pagani F, et al., 2011. Synaptic pruning by microglia is necessary for normal brain development. Science.  333:1456–8 Palmer BA, Pankratz VS, Bostwick JM., 2005. The lifetime risk of suicide  in schizophrenia: a reexamination.  Arch Gen Psychiatry.62(3):247–253. Phillips L , McGorry P, Franz CP, Yung A., 2005.   The British Journal of Psychiatry, 187: 33-44. Schizophrenia Commission., 2012. The Abandoned illness : A report by schizophrenia commission, [online] Available at: rethink.org/media/514093/TSC_main_report_14_nov.pdf [Accessed Nov 25th 2013] Turkington D, Dudley R, Warman D, Beck A., 2006. Cognitive behavioural therapy for Schizophrenia: A Review, Focus, vol 4 , no 2 223-233. University of Maryland,. 2013. Schizophrenia, [online] Available at: http://umm.edu/health/medical/reports/articles/schizophrenia [Accessed Nov 25th 2013] WHO., 2013. Mental Health Action Plan,   [online] Available at: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/89966/1/9789241506021_eng.pdf [Accessed Nov 22nd 2013] WHO., 2013. Schizophrenia, [online]   Available at: who.int/mental_health/management/schizophrenia/en/ [Accessed Nov 23rd 2013] WHO., 2004. Prevalence, Severity and Unmet need for treatment of mental disorders in the World Health Organization World mental Health Surveys, JAMA, 291(21):2581-2590

Critical Discussion of Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi Essay

Critical Discussion of Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi - Essay Example There's no way for prayer to be disentangled from belief because when we pray, we raise our hearts and minds to God and during that spiritual and mental immersion, we are able to access the supernatural truth about our belief and only then can we claim that we are true believers (O'Brien 2002, p.169). prayers are expressed in its liturgy, particularly in sermons and hymns, where the faithful also contribute their own personal prayers, the liturgy is the lex orandi. Theology is obviously lexed credendi because its purpose is to encapsulate dogmas that the faithful may believe. The first salvo of dissension was thrown when Prosper of Aquitaine argued that the Church's prayer is the source and thus determines Theology. The implication, therefore, is that what was prayed for by the faithful, must necessarily be taught as Theology (Hohenstein 2008). Contradictory to this is the classicists stand that the law of belief determines the law of prayer (Toon 1992, p.1). This connotes that the whole liturgy and all the sacraments must be prescribed by what was written in theological texts. If this is so, the liturgy is condemned to be rigid, repetitive and boring and thus subject to rejection by a portion of the faithful who would be dazzled by the wide dimension of freedom of worship by some Protestant sects. The Catholic Church realizing such pitfalls repeatedly convened ecumenical councils to thresh out the problems and hammer out meaningful changes to the liturgy. The Council of Trent, thus reformed the Missal and the Breviary. More earthshaking was Pope Paul VI's Novus Ordo Missae. For the first time the concept of "lex orandi, lex credendi" was subjected to a complete overhaul as it is now viewed as "the Church prays as the Church believes".  

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Theory in Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

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Pros And Cons Of Wind Power Environmental Sciences Essay

Pros And Cons Of Wind Power Environmental Sciences Essay Wind power has been used by people throughout history and converted into usable energy. Small windmills have been providing power for rural homes throughout the world since almost a hundred years ago. They were used for powering water pumps and also converted wind into useable electricity for homes. In the 1930s, programs to bring electricity to more remote areas extended the electrical grid system to these areas causing windmill generated power to gradually be replaced by electricity generated by power stations which burnt fossil fuels such as oil and coal to generate electricity. This eventually caused the disappearance of windmills in rural areas. However, in recent times, new more modern and advanced wind machines are beginning to appear on the landscape of many regions of the world. Discovery of windy rural areas has enabled people to harness the power of the wind in much larger quantities than ever before. 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Wind energy has many advantages, for example, wind is free and with modern technology it can be captured efficiently. Wind is naturally produced when there are pressure differences in the air above the earths surface. When air gets heated up, it rises creating a low pressure area. Cooler, high pressure air from the surroundings the rush in the take its place. This creates wind. This is especially true in coastal areas due to the fact that water takes longer to heat up as compared to air, therefore resulting in a great difference in pressure between the air above the water and land, which results in exceptionally strong winds. Mountainous areas also have strong winds that could potentially power wind turbines. As different slopes are heated at different times of the day, pressure differences are created in the mountain range creating wind. In certain instances, the shape of the mountains and valleys may also act as a funnel, causing the wind to accelerate to higher speed as the approa ch these areas. Once wind turbines are built in place, the energy they produces do not cause green house gases or any other form of pollution. This means that with time, the operation of the wind turbine would actually make up for whatever carbon footprint it has left because of its construction. The power produced by the wind turbine over time would exceed what was used in the form of fossil fuels, and raw materials during it construction. Given enough time, a wind turbine would actually pay for its own construction and maintenance through the revenue it generates by producing power. Although wind turbines often reach up to above 50 meters tall, each single turbine only takes up a small plot of land. This is due to advancement of technology where thanks to modern materials and designs. Wind turbine towers are and with space aged materials which are strong and light and designed to have minimum drag resistance. Also because turbines have to be spaced a certain distance from each other, the land in between them can still be used for other purposes such as farming or even for building homes. Remote areas which are located far away from the main power grid can use wind turbines to produce their own electricity. Just a few wind turbines could potentially supply power to a small community located far away from the power grid, saving the cost of extending the grid to the community. Wind turbines are also available in many different sizes. This means that people from all walks of life can make use of wind turbines be it for personal use to supply electricity to a single home or to supply power to business or even small town or villages. As wind occurs all over the world, there is no place in the world that the power of wind cannot be harvested. This could be an advantage for third world countries where there is no electricity supply. Since wind turbines only require an initial start-up cost and minimal maintenance cost, it could be possible to provide electricity for poorer settlements or countries. However, the strength of wind will almost never be constant. It varies from nothing at all to storm force. This implies that wind turbines will not be able to produce consistent electricity at all times. There will even be times when it produces on energy at all. Due to this, the wind turbine has to be located in a location where there is enough wind so that it would be able to run at energy producing speeds for most of the year. For this to happen, many factors have to be taken into consideration. Wind speed data has to be recorded for a specific location at least a year to ensure that the wind conditions would be suitable for building a wind turbine. Other factors that have to be considered include any obstacles that the wind may encounter before it is able to reach the turbine such as buildings and trees. Location of wind turbines due to their nature would usually have to be located in open areas. This in turn brings other difficulties such as ease of transportation of materials to the build site and connection to the power grid. Furthermore locations with the highest winds are usually costal areas. Building offshore wind turbines, although does not require any land space, is very expensive to build due to the extra structural reinforcements needed to build standing structure in the ocean. Many people also feel that the countryside should not be spoilt by building large structures would reduce the aesthetic appeal of the environment. Conservationists also oppose the building of wind farms for fear that they may kill of interfere with wild life such as migratory routes of birds. Wind turbines, depending on perspective, are noisy. Each turbine generates about the same level of noise as a car travelling at approximately 70 miles per hour. Therefore if there are homes located near the wind turbine, residents may be disturbed by the noise generated by the wind turbines. During the manufacture of wind turbines, pollution is also produced in the form of energy consumed for fabrication of materials and pollution produced by vehicles used during the transportation and building of the turbines. Therefore it cannot be said that wind power produces no pollution at all. Finally, if an entire communitys needs were to be provided by a single wind farm, the wind farm itself would have to be extremely big considering that the largest turbines available today would only be able to power just under 500 homes. If a town or city of 100, 000 homes were to run on solely wind power, then a farm of almost 200 turbines would be needed. Taking the distance needed between each turbine, then an immense area of land would be needed just to power this town. After considering both advantages and disadvantages of wind turbines, I have come to the conclusion that although it is impractical and unrealistic to supply the entire worlds power with wind power, it is a highly efficient way of harnessing free energy from the environment. If as much available space as possible were to be used as wind farms, coupled with other renewable energy sources such as solar, bio-fuels, and hydro-electric power were used to substitute fossil fuels whenever possible, then the impact on the environment would be greatly lessened. This would greatly reduce the usage of fossil fuels, thus giving researches more time to come up with solutions to the worlds energy needs without relying on fossil fuels which will eventually run out and also how to reduce the load of burning fossil fuels on the environment.