Cross-Cultural Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1

Cross-Cultural Management - Essay Example However, it has also brought in certain major challenges for these organisations to succeed in the global arena. There are various determinants for international business that restrict the organisational capabilities to avail opportunities internationally. One of the major determinants that many experts have considered is the cross-cultural aspects of the international business. Cultural differences are often very difficult to observe and measure while failure to understand the culture may have intensified effects on the business organisation that can reduce the business performance (Ghemawat & Reiche, 2011). The poor understanding of cross culture has a radical influence on the business process as well as on the management as it may increase the propensity towards committing business blunders. Notably, the success or the failure of business greatly relies on the performance of human resources within organisations. Consequently, the limitation of certain understandings such language, business etiquette, norms and values by the human resources in an organisation at international level has often collapsed many business organisations (The Culturosity Group, LLC, 2004) Overview of the Airbus Consortium Airbus is a subsidiary company of Netherlands based European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS) with its headquarter located in Toulouse, France and the ingenuity of major European countries including France, Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom is combined to create a giant company to compete with other major companies such as Boeing of the United States. The consortium is a key manufacturer of military airlifters as well as commercial jetliners, continuously involved since previous 40 years (Airbus S.A.S., 2012). Airbus operates globally and creates value for its widespread customers and shareholders. The company employs more than 55,000 personnel from in excess of 100 nationalities around the world. The company’s operations greatly rely on industr ial cooperation as well as on partnership with world’s a few of the major companies. The company has more than 1500 suppliers spread over 30 countries. Its success is attributed to a mix of ideas, vision and knowledge such as a combination of diverse cultures in its work process. The company with its global presence and expanding business operations has now become an international family (Airbus S. A. S., 2012). Source: (Observatory of Sustainability in Aviation, 2012) Cross-Cultural Issues Faced By the Airbus Consortium Airbus consortium is a multi-national company which has workforce from all around the world. However, the company has always been cautious and has respected diversity and business ethics within the organisation. The company continuously strives to seek opportunities in order to reap the benefits provided by culturally diverse workforce committed towards accomplishing the organisational goals. The company with its multi-culture team ensures that it is efficien t to understand the various needs of its diverse customers, stakeholders and

Resistance of a wire Essay Example for Free

Resistance of a wire Essay We undertook an experiment to find the relationship between resistance and a length of wire. Equipment: Variable resister, Wire 1m long, Digital voltmeter, Digital ammeter, 4 X 1. 5 cell, 1m ruler, Connecting wires. Method We collected our equipment needed and set it out as the circuit diagram below. I started by drawing out my results table to record my results on. The headers for the columns where as follows: Length (cm), Current (A), Potential difference (V) and Resistance (I). At every 10cm we took a reading and entered it into our table. Some flickered between two values so I took both down. Starting at 1m and working down. On the second experiment I started at 10cm and worked the other way to see whether it affected the results. When using the variable resistor we kept it on the minimum resistance throughout the experiment. While taking the results we had more than one result for the current and potential difference, which in turn caused some results to have more than one resistance value. Because of this I had to alter our table slightly during the experiment to ensure we took down all the results. To ensure the test was as fair as possible I repeated the test to ensure the experiment was fair and true. Looking at my results in the table they are very similar which proves that it was fair. Results These tables show my results from the experiment and the sum for: V I R First experiment: Length (cm) Current (A) Second reading for (A) Potential difference (V) Resistance ? (I) Second result for (I). Second experiment: Length (cm) Current (A) Second reading for (A) Potential difference (V) Second result for (V) Resistance ? (I) Second result for (I) Third result for (I) Fourth result for (I) I have drawn graphs for these results: see appendix a and b. Analysis My results show that the resistant relates to the length of the wire used. As the current increases the potential difference does and the resistance decreases. As the length of wire is reduced the potential difference reduces and so does the current. There is a slight difference between our first and second experiment. Both graphs show that there is a definite pattern but there are some anomalies. The anomalies seem to be separate from the other results. But this anomaly happened on both experiments on 60cm. There may be some other reason for this. I cannot see why it should happen on both sets of results at the same measurement. Both graphs are similar and follow a very similar line. Graph A shows quite a straight line with only one less extreme anomaly where as graph B show a reasonably straight line with one major anomaly which stand out considerable from the rest. On both graphs the results take a wavelike form rather than a straight line. The results do to an extent follow Ohms law. On graph A, 4 of the plots run on the same line, which agrees with Ohms law, and graph B 4 plots do the same. The second graph started at a lower current and potential difference but I think it should be higher because of the use of the wire before which could have increased the temperature. On the second experiment there was more flickering on the ammeter and voltmeter, which caused the increase in the results. Although the flickering occurred it was constant. On table 1 the potential difference decreased in shorter stages that table 2. When plotting my results on a graph I had to take an average from my results. Conclusion Current id the flow of electrons around the circuit this is pushed by voltage. The resistance tries to oppose it. This is apparent from looking at our experiment results. The resistance stays constant as long as the component does not change its physical condition i. e. The wire does not get hot. George ohm was the first scientist to investigate this theory. The resistance is measured in Ohms Resistance at a constant temperature is proportional to potential difference. The relative size of the voltage and resistance decides how bit the current will be. By increasing the voltage more current will flow but by increasing the resistance the current is less. This is shown in our results. Our results agree with the theory. 100cm of wire = little current but a lot of P. D = lots of resistance 10cm of wire = lots of current but little P. D = little resistance This shows the longer the piece of wire the more resistance Wires of different material have different resistance: Copper wire I Steel wire V The graph shows above that cooper wire has a low resistance and is a good conductor. Steel has a higher resistance and a lower conductivity. Both wires have the same potential difference (voltage) across them. Wire A. I Wire B Wire C V As you can see above different wires have different resistance. Evaluation There were a few problems that occurred in our experiment such as the flickering of the ammeter and voltmeter, which caused us to have to take more than one result. On both graphs there was an anomaly on 60 cm. There may be some other reason for this. Both graphs are very similar and follow a very similar line. Graph A shows quite a straight line with only one anomaly where as graph B show a straight line with one major anomaly which stand out considerable from the rest. On 60cm the potential difference increased on both sets of results. The temperature of the wire was not taken to see whether it had increased in temperature during the experiment. It does not show increased resistance on the second table, which was taken straight after the first experiment, which could have affected it. By taking the temperature of the wire on the same resistance for a period of time we could see how long it takes for the temperature to increase and in turn for the resistance to increase. This could help with evaluating our results and also time the experiment to see how long the wire had current flowing through it and then if it had increased in temperature. The results are reasonably reliable because the do to an extent obey Ohms law. I think the reason for the unreliability could have been because the wire had changed its physical condition (got hotter). To further our investigation we could go on and use a longer piece of wire 2m and also use different types of wire such as steel and copper. Change the temperature of the wire because wire that is colder is a better conductor. I believe our results were reliable but need improving by the suggestions I have given above. Bibliography Hodder and Stoughton AQA GCSE Physics Class notes   CPG Revision and Practice Guide Alison Eatock GCSE Physics 30/11/03 Resistance of a wire 1 Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Electricity and Magnetism section.

The Crucial Role of Symbols in To Kill a Mockingbird Essay -- Kill Moc

The Crucial Role of Symbols in To Kill a Mockingbird  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚   In To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, themes and central ideas of the novel are emphasized by subtle symbols. Symbols shown throughout the novel not only represent concrete objects but also ideas, feelings, beliefs, and attitudes of the characters. Some symbols even represent more than one thing. Lee's recurring use of symbols contribute to the underlying themes and ideas of the novel. Lee's unusual title is a symbol itself and it keeps the reader in anticipation while waiting for a mockingbird to enter the story. Symbols contribute to literature by causing the reader to examine the piece of work and look for meanings other than the literal one. In To Kill a Mockingbird, the use of symbols play a crucial role in the development of the novel. One of the first major symbols that emerge in the novel is Tim Johnson, a mad dog who is infected with rabies. Just as the dog is infected with rabies, the people of Maycomb County are "infected" with racism (Jones 54). When Tom Robinson is brought to trial, convicted, and ultimately murdered for a crime he did not commit, no one in the town seems to show any compassion or regret for him other than Atticus. Atticus describes the people of Maycomb as "mad dogs that he must confront" by defending Tom (Lee 103). To prove the symbol further, Atticus is the person called upon to shoot and kill Tim Johnson. This action by the people of Maycomb, show their deep trust in Atticus. As Atticus shoots and kills the mad dog, he also shots and kills racism in Maycomb as he steps up and defends Tom Robinson with all of his power. Through this action, Atticus is attempting to protect his neighbors from rabies as he wishes he coul... ... and Boo are uncanny. It is obvious that Harper Lee chose both of them as her mockingbirds. Lee's choice of such an unusual title is simply another symbol present in the novel. Lee's use of symbols re imperative to the development of her novel. The symbols give structure and hidden meaning to the text. As the reader contemplates the use of symbolism, the main theme always emerges: it is a sin to kill a mockingbird. Works Cited Erisman, Fred. "The Romantic Regionalism of Harper Lee." Alabama Review April 26, 1973: 122-36. Johnson, Claudia. "The Secret Courts of Men's Hearts:Code and Law in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird." Studies in American Fiction (1991):129-139. Jones, Carolyn. "Atticus Finch and the Mad Dog." The Southern Quarterly Summer 1996: 56-63. Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York City, NY:   J.B.Lippincott Company, 1960.

Conflict Between Barbarism and Reason in Lord of the Flies Essay exampl

Conflict Between Barbarism and Reason in Lord of the Flies      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   William Golding's Lord of the Flies is a carefully constructed fable that was, in Golding's words, "an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature." (Grigson 189). The novel shows a group of English boys reverting to savagery on a Pacific island. The book deals with the conflict between humanity's inner barbarism on one side, and the civilizing influence of reason on the other.    Each of the two characters I have chosen to contrast and compare is presented in the novel as the most influential representative of each of the two sides. Jack, the chief of the hunters, representing the hidden human passion and almost animal cruelty, and Ralph, with Piggy and a few other children, who is representing human common sense. When the reader enters the book, they find the whole group of the boys on a small island after they had been evacuated from their hometown and after their plain had crashed leaving them on the island with no grown-ups.    At the beginning of the book the position of Jack and Ralph is more or less equal. They are both well-conditioned boys of school age, who find themselves on a lonely island with some other boys of various age, but not older than themselves. They share similar opinions about their situation and its solution. They both want to be rescued and taken home. They both realise that there are a lot of things they must do to survive on the island until all of them get rescued. And lastly, they both are dominant types, but yet at the beginning of the novel they both acknowledge each other's authority and behave to each other in a friendly way.    At the return Ralph found himself alone... ... Epstein, E.L. "Notes on Lord of the Flies." Lord of the Flies. U.S.A.: Puntnum Publishing Group, 1954. 185-90. Fitzgerald, John F. and John R. Kayser. "Golding's Lord of the Flies: Pride as Original Sin." Studies in the Novel 24 (1992): 78-88. Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. U.S.A.: Puntnum Publishing Group, 1954. Golding, William. "Lord of the Flies as Fable." Readings on Lord of the Flies. Ed. Bruno Leone. Sand Diego: Green Haven Press, 1997. 88-97. Houston, Daryl L. 1995 "Golding's themes" taken from http://www.lookup.com/Homepages/95416/golding.html The Concise Encyclopedia Of Modern World Literature (1963) ,edited by Geoffrey Grigson, New York, Hawthorn Books Inc., pg. 189-190 Woodward, Kathleen. "The Case for Strict Law and Order." Readings on Lord of the Flies. Ed. Bruno Leone. Sand Diego: Green Haven Press, 1997. 88-97.   

Different forms of social influence Essay

Most of the human behaviors are a result of influence. This impact can either come from the environment or from the people we leave with. The people we come across with are likely to influence our behavior, beliefs and even feelings. This impact will lead to the development of our day to day activities. Most of the activities we encounter every day in our life play a great part in how we are going to behave. The study on social impact is very wide. Psychologists have done a lot of research to understand it and as a result many theories have been developed which explain social influences. CITATION Noa06 l 1033 (Friedkin, 2006)Compliance (This is the first form) There are several forms which have been identified to influence social behavior. Compliance is one of these forms. Simply put, compliance means to accept. Individuals may change their behavior only because someone has told them to do so, and therefore, they comply with his or her request. Compliance involves taking action to change a person’s behavior and feeling towards someone or something, therefore, it is known as an active form of social impact. This form of power is initiated by a person intentionally. Sometimes compliance is a result of internal social influence which entails inner faith of an individual. A person can decide to change from within, without any external force .Compliance as a result of the change in personal faith is not the primary aim of compliance. Conformity (The second one) Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   The other form of social influence is conformity. It happens when individuals adjust their attitude behavior and sense to conform to a group’s norms or culture. People in most cases would like to be identified with a certain group of people; hence they can do anything to change the behavior, including their sense and faith towards something or someone so that they can be the same with the other members of the group. It takes the observation of the other members of the group for one to change his or her behavior and act like them. Some behaviors one has to learn slowly. In addition one can also be taught by the members of the group. For example, an individual who would like to be identified with a group of professionals would only require observing how they behave. He or she may observe their dressing code and finally he or she would behave like them. One cannot be identified with a set group if he or she does not conform to their standards an d behaviors (Pratkanis, 2011). A person can conform to a set group either internally by having the same faith and feeling or externally by acting as the people of that group. The members of a certain group can actively influence a person to act like them, and that kind of social impact is known as an active influence. Passive impact occurs where the members of the group does not directly influence one to act like them. Most of the youth are affected by this kind of social impact. Many young people today would like to be an associated with a particular group of people which they share common beliefs, behavior and sense therefore, they would try very much to have the same behavior which will make them conform to the standards and culture of that group. The same case happens to many organizations, when an individual is recruited to join the institution; he or she has to change his or her behavior feeling and approach so that he or she can be identified with the organization. Sources of Conformity (Expounding more on conformity) Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Conformity has three sources. The first one occurs when a person sees or senses someone else act in a certain way. First it should come to your understanding that a set group of people are doing a certain activity, then you will judge whether it the right thing for you or not .After a thorough consideration you will be able to make an informed decision on whether to conform to their behavior or not ( Zanna, 2014). These can take different forms; one can see what is being done whether good or bad, you can also hear from the media or a member of the group can also inform you of their undertaking. The second one is when people understand that what a particular group is doing is informational; hence it is the best way to do things. People all over the world are in search of information and knowledge, therefore if they realize what they been looking for is being done by a certain group of people, then they will have no option other than to join them. The information gotten from that group should be beneficial to the person conforming to their faith and belief; it should add value to the existing knowledge. Finally, people conform because of the concern for the social outcome of their behavior. People would like to know the final result of certain behavior depicted by a group of people. Most researchers would engage themselves with a particular group of people with a solemn aim of knowing the end result of that kind of behavior (Homans, 1966). Obedience (The third form) Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Obedience is another form of social influence. Unlike the other forms; obedience involves the change of action as a result of direct command from the person in authority. These kinds of power always involve command on the targeted audience to act in a certain manner. Influence by command if often found in the institution where strict adherence to law and regulation is required. A good example is the military unit; the officers have to follow strict command from the authority. Obedience as a form of social power is one sided; it does not require the consent of the other party. The authority will use power vested in them to command actions, this instructions must be followed. The end result would be change of behavior; it will also affect their sense of ideas as well as their faith. Obedience has been applicable in most institutions and also in the government, with the aim of changing the behavior of the targeted audience. The application of this form of social power can have positive or negative impact on the person being impacted (Tedeschi, 1972). Persuasion (the 4th form) Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Persuasion is another form of social impact. It involves an active attempt by a person to change the behavior, attitude feeling or belief of another person through some form of communication. The focus of this kind of impact is the internal change of perception, belief or sense of an individual. The power of a person to influence another is very important so that persuasion can take effect. The political leaders use this tactic to make people to have faith in them. The language use is very instrumental for changing the behavior of people; the person must have good knowledge of the language use. Also the understanding of the targeted audience is important for you to be able to change their behavior CITATION Car08 l 1033 (Hetzel, 2008). How psychologists have studied them (Add more here) Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Â   Many scholars have tried to define social influence, which has led to numerous definitions of the same subject. We can define social influence as a sum total of all the things that might alter the behavior, action feeling or thought of a person. This aspect has been extensively studied by psychologist and sociologist. Its application has also been studied carefully to establish how it affects the society.Professor Herbert ,one of the scholars of psychology defined social influence as a situation where an individual identify, comply and internalize to behave in a certain manner different from the way they had behaved in the past. The view of the scholars about social impact is that individuals may identify with influential person from a distance or the might have a close relation. They also believe that compliance can happen at the surface but deep in that person he might not be convinced .There are a lot of things which we can talk about concerning social impact; the bottom line is that it is aimed at changing the behavior of people. The reason why a person’s view of ideas can be influence has not been clearly know by scholars. References Friedkin, N. E. (2006). A Structural Theory of Social Influence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hetzel, C. J. (2008). The Effects of Social Influence on Personal Attitudes and Behavior Toward 0549498516, 9780549498513: ProQuest. Homans, G. C. (1961). Social behavior: Its elementary forms. Mark P. Zanna, J. M. (2014). Social Influence. london: Psychology Press. Pratkanis, A. R. (2011). The Science of Social Influence. 1136737049, 9781136737046: Psychology Press. Tedeschi, J. T. (1972). The Social influence Processes. london: Transaction Publishers. Source document

1949 UN Resolution Calling for Referendum on Kashmir

1949 UN Resolution Calling for Referendum on Kashmir Pakistan was carved out of India in 1947 as the Muslim counterweight to Indias Hindu population. Predominantly Muslim Kashmir to the north of both countries was divided between them, with India dominating two-thirds of the region and Pakistan one third. A Muslim-led revolt against the Hindu ruler triggered a build-up of Indian troops and an attempt by India to annex the whole in 1948, provoking a war with Pakistan, which sent troops and Pashtun tribesmen to the region. A UN commission called for the withdrawal of both countries troops in August 1948. The United Nations brokered a cease-fire in 1949, and a five-member commission made up of Argentina, Belgium, Columbia, Czechoslovakia and the United States drew up a resolution calling for a referendum to decide Kashmirs future. The full text of the resolution, which India never allowed to be implemented, follows. Resolution of the Commission of January 5, 1949 The United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan, Having received from the Governments of India and Pakistan, in communications dated 23 December and 25 December 1948, respectively, their acceptance of the following principles which are supplementary to the Commissions Resolution of 13 August 1948: 1. The question of the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India or Pakistan will be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite; 2. A plebiscite will be held when it shall be found by the Commission that the cease-fire and truce arrangements set forth in Parts I and II of the Commissions resolution of 13 August 1948 have been carried out and arrangements for the plebiscite have been completed; 3. (a) The Secretary-General of the United Nations will, in agreement with the Commission, nominate a Plebiscite Administrator who shall be a personality of high international standing and commanding general confidence. He will be formally appointed to office by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir.(b) The Plebiscite Administrator shall derive from the State of Jammu and Kashmir the powers he considers necessary for organizing and conducting the plebiscite and for ensuring the freedom and impartiality of the plebiscite.(c) The Plebiscite Administrator shall have authority to appoint such staff of assistants and observes as he may require. 4. (a) After implementation of Parts I and II of the Commissions resolution of 13 August 1948, and when the Commission is satisfied that peaceful conditions have been restored in the State, the Commission and the Plebiscite Administrator will determine, in consultation with the Government of India, the final disposal of Indian and State armed forces, such disposal to be with due regard to the security of the State and the freedom of the plebiscite.(b) As regards the territory referred to in A.2 of Part II of the resolution of 13 August, final disposal of the armed forces in that territory will be determined by the Commission and the Plebiscite Administrator in consultation with the local authorities. 5. All civil and military authorities within the State and the principal political elements of the State will be required to co-operate with the Plebiscite Administrator in the preparation for the holding of the plebiscite. 6. (a) All citizens of the State who have left it on account of the disturbances will be invited and be free to return and to exercise all their rights as such citizens. For the purpose of facilitating repatriation there shall be appointed two Commissions, one composed of nominees of India and the other of nominees of Pakistan. The Commission shall operate under the direction of the Plebiscite Administrator. The Governments of India and Pakistan and all authorities within the State of Jammu and Kashmir will collaborate with the Plebiscite Administrator in putting this provision into effect.(b) All person (other than citizens of the State) who on or since 15 August 1947 have entered it for other than lawful purpose, shall be required to leave the State. 7. All authorities within the State of Jammu and Kashmir will undertake to ensure, in collaboration with the Plebiscite Administrator, that: (a) There is no threat, coercion or intimidation, bribery or other undue influence on the voters in the plebiscite;(b) No restrictions are placed on legitimate political activity throughout the State. All subjects of the State, regardless of creed, caste or party, shall be safe and free in expressing their views and in voting on the question of the accession of the State to India or Pakistan. There shall be freedom of the press, speech and assembly and freedom of travel in the State, including freedom of lawful entry and exit;(c) All political prisoners are released;(d) Minorities in all parts of the State are accorded adequate protection; and(e) There is no victimization. 8. The Plebiscite Administrator may refer to the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan problems on which he may require assistance, and the Commission may in its discretion call upon the Plebiscite Administrator to carry out on its behalf any of the responsibilities with which it has been entrusted; 9. At the conclusion of the plebiscite, the Plebiscite Administrator shall report the result thereof to the Commission and to the Government of Jammu and Kashmir. The Commission shall then certify to the Security Council whether the plebiscite has or has not been free and impartial; 10. Upon the signature of the truce agreement the details of the foregoing proposals will be elaborated in the consultations envisaged in Part III of the Commissions resolution of 13 August 1948. The Plebiscite Administrator will be fully associated in these consultations; Commends the Governments of India and Pakistan for their prompt action in ordering a cease-fire to take effect from one minute before midnight of 1 January 1949, pursuant to the agreement arrived at as provided for by the Commissions Resolution of 13 August 1948; and Resolves to return in the immediate future to the Sub-continent to discharge the responsibilities imposed upon it by the Resolution of 13 August 1948 and by the foregoing principles.

How to Avoid a Computer Disaster (4 Tips on Backing Up Data)

How to Avoid a Computer Disaster (4 Tips on Backing Up Data) How to Avoid a Computer Disaster (4 Tips on Backing Up Data) Most college work is now written on computers, not by hand. There are many advantages to this, since you can edit work more easily on screen, and a printed paper is usually much easier to read. However, one benefit of pens is that they rarely break and delete several hours of your work. Computers, meanwhile, can crash without warning (especially if you’re prone to spilling your coffee on your laptop). As such, we’ve got a few tips on backing up data to share. 1. Save Regularly The first and most basic tip we can offer is to save your work regularly. One way to do this is to configure the auto-save options in your word processor to create a recovery file every few minutes. If your computer does crash, this should stop you from losing too much work. You can’t rely on auto-save completely, though, so make sure to save manually as well. Just hit Ctrl and S. Its that easy. 2. Using Multiple Saves In fact, while you’re saving manually, make sure you have at least two copies of any file you’re currently working on. That way you’ll have a backup in case you accidentally overwrite one. If you’re working on a longer document, like a thesis or dissertation, you might even want to save each new draft separately. This protects you against losing information, but also lets you compare different versions of a document during the editing process. 3. Backing Up Important Files Most important of all is not putting all of your (electronic) eggs in one (computer) basket. In other words, create a backup of all the important information on your computer. This applies to personal stuff (photos, music, etc.) as well as your college work. This could be on an external hard drive, via a cloud service, or on other storage media (e.g. CDs or DVDs). That way, if your computer does break, you have a way of quickly restoring lost data. Probably not a floppy disk, though, unless your computer is very, very old.(Photo: George Chernilevsky/wikimedia) How often you back up data is up to you, but we’d suggest doing it at least once a month. 4. Data Recovery Maybe you’ve found this blogpost because your computer has already crashed and won’t start again, so now you’re googling desperately for a solution. If so, we might have the answer. Data recovery is the process of retrieving data from a hard drive. If it’s just a case of having deleted something by accident, there’s a good chance you can retrieve it with the right software. But if the hard drive is damaged, recovering data is more difficult. Your college’s IT department might be able to help with this. If not, there are professional services that can. Data recovery can be expensive, though, so backing up your work before it comes to this is wise!

Top 10 Grammar and Spelling Errors from 2010!

Top 10 Grammar and Spelling Errors from 2010! In the past year as The Essay Expert, I’ve seen a lot of grammar and spelling errors. Here are some of the most common. Lets toast to learning something new in 2011! 10.   Lose vs. Loose. You lose your keys or your mind. Your belt might be loose, or you might let loose on the weekends. Click here for more: Common Spelling Mistakes:   Lose vs. Loose 9.   Lead vs. Led. A common resume mistake is to write â€Å"Lead† as a past tense verb. â€Å"Led† is the past tense of â€Å"lead.† If your position was in the past, start your bullet with â€Å"Led† (a great past tense power verb!) 8. Who vs. that. People are â€Å"who†; things are â€Å"that.† Don’t say, â€Å"I know a guy that can fix your car.† Say, â€Å"I know a guy who can fix your car.† 7.   I vs. Me. Don’t say â€Å"My dad really loves my sister and I.† You wouldn’t say â€Å"My dad loves I†; you would say â€Å"My dad loves me.† So why would you change â€Å"me† to â€Å"I† just because he loves your sister too? The correct sentence would be â€Å"My dad really loves my sister and me.† For more examples, see Common Grammatical Errors:   Between You and Me. 6.   Then vs. Than. â€Å"Then† relates to time. When? Then (it rhymes)! â€Å"I got up, then made my coffee.† â€Å"Than† is a comparison word. â€Å"This paper is longer than it’s supposed to be.† 5.   Affect vs. Effect. â€Å"Affect† is most often used as a verb:   â€Å"How did his words affect you?† â€Å"Effect† is most often used as a noun: â€Å"What effect did his words have on you?† There are limited exceptions to each of these generalities. â€Å"Affect† can mean someone’s countenance or attitude: â€Å"His pompous affect repelled us.† And â€Å"effect† can be a verb if used to mean â€Å"implement†: â€Å"His goal was to effect change in the legal system.† If you go with â€Å"affect = verb, effect = noun,† you’ll be right 99% of the time. 4. Periods and commas placed outside quotation marks. In the U.S., commas and periods always go INSIDE the quotation marks. In many other countries, they only go inside when they are part of the quotation. I even see people putting periods and commas outside the quotation marks when they are part of the quotation! That last one I don’t understand. Here’s my article on the topic, The Quandary of Quotation Marks. 3.   Comma splices. An example of a comma splice is â€Å"Last year I got great grades, I even won an award.† In this sentence, you need to replace the comma with a period or semicolon to correct it, or add an â€Å"and† after the comma. For my article on this aspect of using commas and semicolons, click here:   How to Use Commas and Semicolons. 2.   Apostrophes used to make plurals. The plural of brother is brothers. The plural of Smith is Smiths. When making a plural out of a noun or proper noun, there is no need for an apostrophe! Brother’s is the possessive of brother, e.g. â€Å"I covet my brother’s car.† Smith’s is the possessive of Smith, e.g., â€Å"Mr. Smith’s house is painted purple.† I talk about this issue a bit more in Why It’s Important to Write Right in the Legal Profession. 1. Its vs. It’s.   This one is the hands-down winner! Today I even saw, on a blog, â€Å"Would apple sell its’ products for $10?† The rule: It’s means it is and the apostrophe creates a contraction, just as in can’t or don’t. Its is the possessive of it and does NOT take an apostrophe. And its is not a word. It’s simple! My article on this topic is located here: Common Spelling and Grammar Errors: It’s vs. Its My great hope is that this list will be different for 2011. Can you help make it happen? Category:UncategorizedBy Brenda BernsteinDecember 27, 2010 18 Comments Roy Daniel DSilva says: December 28, 2010 at 9:18 am I am the guy who runs the site that says Its product for $10. Believe me I had to retype twice to get the wrong spelling now that you pointed it out! Goes to show that being lazy is as much as a crime as being uneducated! Log in to Reply The Essay Expert says: December 28, 2010 at 9:31 am Roy, Im thrilled that you commented here. Thank you for reading and for learning! Log in to Reply Rosanne Dingli says: December 28, 2010 at 9:23 am These, Brenda, are my all-time bug-bears. My clients make them all the time. When I was teaching primary school, I would slip in information like this to the students, who loved Little details, at the end of some lessons. And I didnt even teach English. I like how you say led is a strong verb. I might use it in next weeks blog look out for it. Log in to Reply The Essay Expert says: December 28, 2010 at 9:32 am Rosanne, perhaps the two of us can work together to change next years list 🙂 Log in to Reply Diane Kern says: December 28, 2010 at 8:22 pm Now I know why am so confused about (). I am American and my Mom was Welsh. My spelling and grammar are half and half. Ha,ha,ha Diane Log in to Reply Hajra says: December 29, 2010 at 2:26 am Hey, Loved the compilation. My personal experience has been to do with whose and whos! I dont know why many end up making these mistakes, there is a spell check and grammar option available in almost all writing applications Isnt it so? Looking forward to reading more of your stuff! Log in to Reply The Essay Expert says: December 29, 2010 at 8:36 am Thank you Hajra! Unfortunately spelling and grammar checks often highlight things that are actually correct. Some people might just not pay that much attention. For our readers, whose is an interrogative pronoun or relative pronoun: Whose life is it anyway? or I know a guy whose toes cant wiggle (dont ask where I came up with that one). Whos is the contraction of who is: Whos that guy with the weird toes? or I know a guy whos a lion tamer. If you cant insert who is and have the sentence make sense, use whose. Log in to Reply madhur says: December 29, 2010 at 9:29 am Nice one..these are pretty common mistakes.good to see it compiled in one place Log in to Reply The Essay Expert says: January 3, 2011 at 10:37 am Diana you are absolutely correct about the proper way to write dates. We say July 4th, 2011, but we write July 4, 2011. More and more errors are being made in many areas, not just this one! Log in to Reply Andy says: January 8, 2011 at 1:33 am Ummm, why are the words say and write in quotation marks? Arent you emphasizing them, and not quoting someone? You are confusing me. Log in to Reply The Essay Expert says: January 8, 2011 at 1:36 am Hi Andy, I think youre responding to one of my replies to a comment? I actually put stars around those words for emphasis, but maybe they are showing up on your computer as quotation marks? My apologies! Now that I am aware of the issue I will use italics instead for emphasis! Log in to Reply The Essay Expert says: January 4, 2011 at 9:28 pm Thanks Cameron. What a great trick! And Im so thrilled to have a 10th grader reading my blog! Log in to Reply The Essay Expert says: January 10, 2011 at 10:26 pm Staff can actually be singular or plural. See Rule #15 in the following article from Grammarbook.com There are other words that can also be treated as singular or plural, such as committee, family, and team. Log in to Reply The Essay Expert says: January 11, 2011 at 10:49 pm Thanks again for your comment Kplan. I like this explanation from Wiki Answers which encourages avoidance of the issue: Staff, for all intents and purposes, is singular. There is one staff. Definition 5.e. in Merriam-Websters entry allows for use as plural, however, the preferred use is singular. Think of staff as the sum total of the parts. (As the pie is made up of the slices.) PREFERRED: Fifteen members of the staff attended the meeting. AVOID: Fifteen staff attended the meeting. In addition, most publications that follow Associated Press guidelines will use only the singular. When in doubt, avoid the word. Recraft the sentence using a different word, like employees, or workers. Read more: https://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_the_word_staff_singular_or_plural#ixzz1An0WXWmb Log in to Reply Rose-Anne Raies says: February 5, 2011 at 10:50 am An excellent and much needed article in todays world. Unfortunately, there is not enough attention paid to proper grammar and punctuation and spelling too. My parents were sticklers for this and the skills they taught, along with my teachers, have served me well in the legal community and in writing for clients. Thanks for handy Top 10. It is a pet peeve of mine when people use words like its vs. its and whos vs. whose incorrectly. Every once in a while I still have to go back to the basics on words that cause trouble like affect and effect too. Well done! Log in to Reply The Essay Expert says: February 5, 2011 at 11:50 am Thank you Rose-Anne. I do what I can! Its amazing how much people love to learn about these things, yet make so many errors. Log in to Reply The Essay Expert says: July 18, 2011 at 11:36 am LOL I know what you mean! I cant seem to resist correcting even the people closest to me. Log in to Reply The Essay Expert says: October 20, 2011 at 5:03 am Thanks Leal I will definitely consider these for 2011 along with definitely vs. definately! Log in to Reply

Opportunities Analysis for Citigroup Project Essay

Opportunities Analysis for Citigroup Project - Essay Example Citigroup is being recognized as the largest company in the world as per Forbes in 2008. It also has a customer base of over 200 million. The business of the company is divided into three in order to enable specialized services for the customers. The three groups are Global consumer, Global wealth management, and Institutional clients group. "Citi is organized into three major business groups - Global Consumer, Institutional Clients Group, and Global Wealth Management." (How Citi is organized, 2007). Here the company plans to implement a project in which they focus on undertaking an up gradation in their computer systems. The new project is aimed at providing improved and speedy services for the customers. The company is very keen on providing services to the customers strictly on the basis of their needs. Inconvenience for their customers is something that the company cannot afford to happen. The company has thus come up with the idea that, for speeding up the process the systems in the company has to be improved and upgraded. This report looks into the various areas regarding the implementation of this project. The relevance of focusing extremely on customer needs is being discussed on the basis of Citigroup. It is explained in the report about the link between the goals and objectives of the company and the new project proposal. As the company is highly focused on the customer needs the new system will enable them to deliver even better quality results. In this section of the report, an analysis of the new project proposal is being done.Environmental scan of Citi group: Like any other business Citigroup too is influenced by the changes in the environment in which it operates. The major environmental factors that affect the company are political, economic and social conditions. Among all these, the economic condition is the factor that has the most influence. Any changes in the economic factors affect the company directly and indirectly. The interest rate dif ference made by the central bank on the basis of the economy makes the company revise its own interest rates. Similarly, political instability will adversely affect the better functioning of the company in the country. The changes in the attitude of the society towards the company also have an impact on the functioning. The strategies of the competitors of the company are one of the major external factors that affect the company. Citigroup faces very high competition from the other leading banks and financial companies. "Citigroup competitors are primarily in the Money Center Banks industry. Citigroup also competes in the Online Banking, Private Banking, and Asset Management sectors."(Citigroup competitors, 2008). The major competitors of Citigroup are Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, and JPMorgan Chase. These are some of the leading banks in the world along with Citigroup.Customer needs and expectations: The customers in this particular sector are very choosy. One of the reasons for this is that there are a number of service providers in this sector. Since there are a number of companies operating in the sector the customers are left with a sufficient number of products to choose from. The company already has a very large customer base in the market. The major expectation and desire of the customers are fast and better services from the banks.

Are Electric Cars Good for the Automotive Economy in the US Research Paper

Are Electric Cars Good for the Automotive Economy in the US - Research Paper Example These results are also backed by empirical evidence. Introduction With ever increasing growth of industrialization the need for transportation is also increasing rapidly. Automobile industry to match the escalating needs not only provided a wide variety of cars but came up with a broad range of innovative cars to pique the interest of the infatuated public. This resulted in concept cars such as hybrid cars and electric cars (Cleveland). Today’s market can be termed as in its early development stage of evolving technologies, designs and innovations to match the changing ever changing lifestyle of the twenty first century. Petroleum prices and economy of fuel has played an important role in the development of this technology. Recent volatility in petroleum prices has urged countries to look for self sufficiency in fuel. This need led to the emphasis on alternative fuel technology. In USA especially after the terrorist attack of 2011need for self sufficiency in fuel has aroused. This trend is depicted in the popularity of many SUV cars and other hybrid cars being manufactured by all major automobile manufacturers. This paper aims at studying the effects of electric cars on the US automotive industry. What impact it will have on the business of gas engine manufacturers, gas engine parts stores and the job of people who work on gas engines Review of related literature An electric car is not a new phenomenon. In fact the history of electric car dates back to 1890. The history of electric car can be divided into three phases. Firs the era 1890-1929 which can also be called the early years, second phase is 1895-1905 also called the golden era of dominance or the middle age and the third phase is the current years from 1990-to present. Current escalating fuel prices and growing concerns of environment has only sparked interest in the alternative fuels in recent times. The result is that today’s options of automobile include hybrid SUVs (Curtis Darrel Ander son). This recent resurgence and popularity of electric hybrid cars can be attributed to multitude of reasons. It includes environmental concerns such as harmful toxins released from internal combustion engine (ICE) of traditional cars, global warming, air pollution as well as more economical reasons such as depleting oil reserves and escalating petroleum prices. Gasoline composes 20% of the crude oil produced. Production of gasoline from crude oil requires two times of oil than any other fuel (Georgano). Gasoline is used in ICE of the cars used today. Hence it led to the need of finding more efficient use of the existing resources of the planet. A critical analysis of this electric hybrid car technology is required and the benefits of fuel efficiency should be weighed against its impact on the overall economy. These hybrid cars more expensive for the customers and the price difference called premium price is added to the cost to customers. In addition to that maintenance and replac ement cost of batteries of hybrid cars is another issue. Hybrid car is not free of its faults including some engineering faults and safety concerns as well as the pollution caused through manufacturing of these batteries (Friedman). It is estimated that this trend for electric cars will grow in the future. It is believed that in addition to

How do the cars effect the CO2 level of the air Lab Report

How do the cars effect the CO2 level of the air - Lab Report Example However, humans have been actively affecting the CO2 natural balance through activities that increase the accumulation of these gases in the atmosphere, a factor contributing to increased accumulation of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The typical combustion activities include burning of natural gases, oil coal and in transportation, where vehicles are the main contributors of pollution. In the US today, combustion of gasoline in transportation services accounts for 32% of the total emissions in the country and 27% of all greenhouse emissions; it is  the second largest contributor of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (Brugge, 3). Consequently, vehicles using gasoline are the second most significant source of greenhouse gases in the U.S, raising concerns on the use of carbon-based fuels. This practical was aimed at measuring the levels of carbon dioxide emitted by vehicles at two busy locations within the school. The aim was  to understand the effect of high vehicle densi ties and the differences in concentration of CO2 gas at two different locations. Vehicles play a significant role in increasing the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. As has been stated above, combustion is one of the major human activities has been blamed for increased cases of greenhouse gases. A primary agent of combustion that steadily increases the accumulation of these gases is the use of carbon-based fuels. As such, the testing of carbon dioxide levels in the parking area and at the school exit seeks to indicate the role played by vehicles in increasing the levels of emissions in the atmosphere. Utmost care was observed when handling the sensitive instrument to avoid damage.   Two or more people  had  to carry the device while holding the S.S probe  in position. The probe was also prevented from touching the ground where it could collect data and get damage. An important observation during the experiment was that when placing the digital CO2 sensor in the required

McBride Financial Services Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

McBride Financial Services - Essay Example In short, the problems of the firm are integral since the management organ of the firm has adopted customs that are not in line with the international standards of corporate governance. The firm is experiencing many challenges at the start up stage since it is a private and small firm. Unlike many brokerage firms, the management of the institution has a limited experience in the brokerage industry, and this can result to a downfall of the industry. The chief executive officer is one of the key challenges to the achievement of the firm since he is the owner of the firm and, as a result, there will be a tendency of putting his own interests first. McBride being the chief executive officer and the chairman of the board will have a significant influence on the decision made by the board of directors as well as the management team (Fayol, 1949). This is because being the head of the two organs he can refuse a decision that is not favourable to his own interest. Commercial analysts have cr iticized the organization for its inability to comply with the rules of investment and borrowing funds from beltway investment. Beltway investment on the other hand, emphasizes that; all the firms that seek any assistance from it must comply with all the requirements of investment, failure to which the application of the assistance will be null and void. The management of McBride investment is willing to obey and follow all the requirements of Beltway Investments. The management strategy of beltway investment seems to have some doubtful professional standards though McBride seriously opposes the perception. Beltway investment grants firm the freedom to manage on their own style. It emphasizes on the universal standards of corporate governance, and any equity based compensation plans in line with the achievement of the firm’s objectives. There should be no any form of discrimination. Even though McBride is seeking to fully comply with beltway investment he insists that his dec ision on the directors and the management

Re-Educating Healthcare Providers On Hand Hygiene Practice Essay

Re-Educating Healthcare Providers On Hand Hygiene Practice - Essay Example Resistance to change may originate from the organizational level as well as the local level (Anderson & Ackerman-Anderson, 2010). In the organization, the employees may not accept change because of the implications the change process may have on them. Locally, the change process may have effects that are likely to compromise the normal life of the individuals. To effect such a change, proper education is necessary for both the parties that will be affected by the change. Poor sponsorship of change may also affect the implementation and the sustainability of change. It may originate from the organizational or national practicum. The executives are necessary for the support of the change. Lack of the involvement of the executive may lead to poor resource allocation and support towards the change program (Cameron & Green, 2012). In response to the lack of sponsorship, the change will lack support as well as resources to implement it. Communication failures may arise from the organizatio nal setup. Poor communication of a given change may lead to ineffective reception and implementation of change (Anderson & Ackerman-Anderson, 2010). In an organizational setup, poor communication with employees, the executives, and the other stakeholders may hinder change. In response to the poor communication, the stakeholders may ignore the change or develop politics towards it.If the change is not well implemented, the organization entanglements will increase. This may result in organization, politics, and frictions

McBride Financial Services Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

McBride Financial Services - Essay Example In short, the problems of the firm are integral since the management organ of the firm has adopted customs that are not in line with the international standards of corporate governance. The firm is experiencing many challenges at the start up stage since it is a private and small firm. Unlike many brokerage firms, the management of the institution has a limited experience in the brokerage industry, and this can result to a downfall of the industry. The chief executive officer is one of the key challenges to the achievement of the firm since he is the owner of the firm and, as a result, there will be a tendency of putting his own interests first. McBride being the chief executive officer and the chairman of the board will have a significant influence on the decision made by the board of directors as well as the management team (Fayol, 1949). This is because being the head of the two organs he can refuse a decision that is not favourable to his own interest. Commercial analysts have cr iticized the organization for its inability to comply with the rules of investment and borrowing funds from beltway investment. Beltway investment on the other hand, emphasizes that; all the firms that seek any assistance from it must comply with all the requirements of investment, failure to which the application of the assistance will be null and void. The management of McBride investment is willing to obey and follow all the requirements of Beltway Investments. The management strategy of beltway investment seems to have some doubtful professional standards though McBride seriously opposes the perception. Beltway investment grants firm the freedom to manage on their own style. It emphasizes on the universal standards of corporate governance, and any equity based compensation plans in line with the achievement of the firm’s objectives. There should be no any form of discrimination. Even though McBride is seeking to fully comply with beltway investment he insists that his dec ision on the directors and the management

Argument prompt Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Argument prompt - Essay Example Many immigrant families have a vision of seeking a better future for their kids and have often have unfortunate circumstances beyond their control. Hence, illegal immigrants should be able granted amnesty because it gives immigrants new opportunities, benefits the American core values, and enhances the economy. Illegal immigrants should be granted amnesty because of the fact that they need the proper support for a better future. Undoubtedly, illegal immigrants should be given a chance to become citizens for variety of reasons. First and foremost is the fact that it would allow them to start all over again. Amnesty would offers millions of immigrants a chance to seek their provisions. Forgiving their crime of coming here illegally can be beneficial as it can certainly restore law. Providing illegal immigrants with amnesty would not necessarily be a self-burden to society. John Kerry brilliantly states his opinion as he states, "Absolutely. I supported and was prepared to vote for amnesty from 1986. And it is essential to have immigration reform. Anyone who has been in this country for five or six years, whos paid their taxes, who has stayed out of trouble, ought to be able to translate into an American citizenship immediately, not waiting." Instead it would give these individuals a chance t o prove themselves in a competitive work environment. The true version of living the American dream can certainly become a reality for these individuals. Moreover, one cannot refute the fact that this country was based upon the foundation of immigrants coming from different spheres of the world. America has been known as the â€Å"melting pot† of assimilation of cultures and has given new opportunities to immigrants throughout history. Another key reason why it is logical to legalize illegal immigrants is due to the fact that these immigrants are hard working individuals striving to seek provisions for themselves and their families.

Community Health Nursing Essay Example for Free

Community Health Nursing Essay The implementation of a program which makes health care accessible is a goal of any society. In line with this goal, the establishment of community health nursing was formed. This provided better opportunities for people to acquire the right health care assistance for each of their concerns. There were some factors that may be attributed in the formation of a health nursing. These influenced the creation of the program which intended to provide resolutions for problems that have long been encountered. The first source of influence may be justified even before the 19th century Europe. In the past, family members who were sick were just attended by female members of the family and were not able to access full health care from a professional or a specialist (Allender, 2004). One of the great problems which were encountered by societies was the minimal opportunity for ordinary people to go to a medical specialist. Almost always the case, only those who have the economic capability were able to avail these types of services. Add to that the seemingly underdeveloped infrastructures back then. This paved the way for an idea to bring at least satellite health care units in small communities to service the general public. One more attribute which lead to the development of community health care can be pointed out to religious charities. The monks in Florence, Italy had committed a historical health care service for those who encountered accidents. They even provided first aid solutions for people who needed their help even on a 24 hour basis. As a matter of fact, these religious figures even provided the necessary health care for various pilgrims to some of the considered holy lands based on religious beliefs. During the medieval times, there have also been great developments in community based health services. There was a time when a law catering to the poor of England was passed in 1601. This rule designated the instructions for health specialists to render their services to the poor who did not have any means of availing health care. Since the governing sector is centralized in the royal institution, it was really easy to disseminate the services to identifiable poor communities in the country. Another historic event took place in France when the Friendly Visitor Volunteers was formed. In 17th century France, there was a great deal in re-establishing the economy. This prompted the organization to render public health services by sending the service directly to the homes of the poor and disabled. The main funding process of the organization was initiated by wealthy women individuals of the society who cared for the welfare of the general public. The community health nursing was definitely a very good approach in caring for the needy and unfortunate. However, by the time the Industrial Revolution hit Europe and America, the group of these community based health units were greatly reduced. This paved the way for what the present health care structure societies have today. Hospitals and health centers were established even in bigger units and concentrated near urban areas. This was in direct contrast to the former approach of delegating specific health units among communities. Even though the extent of community health nursing is already reduced, newer counterparts in modern society today still has the same principle. Home nursing can be availed today via appointments with doctors and nurses. There are also some programs among today’s hospitals which can provide an extended health care service at home based on agreements. Moreover, the establishment of home care nursing centers provides at least a refuge for patients outside of hospitals. The modern day health professionals are partnering directly with individuals who want to improve their communities in promoting optimum health care (Richmond Health, 2001).

Algorithms for pre-processing and processing stages of x-ray images

Algorithms for pre-processing and processing stages of x-ray images 1.1 Introduction This chapter presents algorithms for pre-processing and processing stages of both cervical and lumbar vertebrae x-ray images. Pre-processing stage here is the process of locating and enhancement the spine regionof interestin the x-ray image, where the processing stage includes the shape boundary representation and segmentation algorithms based feature vectors extraction and morphometric measurement. In this research the spine vertebrae are introduced and the objectives of segmentation algorithm are discussed. Then various general segmentation approaches including those based on the shape boundary extraction are discussed and applied to our spinal x-ray image collection. The current approach is introduced with a flow diagram and then the individual blocks of the segmentation process are taken up and discussed in detail. 1.2 Image Acquisition A digital archive of 17,000 cervical and lumbar spine x-ray images from the second National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES II) is maintained by the Lister Hill National Center of Biomedical Communications in the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Among these 17,000 images, approximately 10,000 are cervical spine x-rays and 7,000 are lumbar x-rays. Text data (including gender, age, symptom, etc.) are associated with each image. This collection has long been suggested to be very valuable for research into the prevalence of osteoarthritis and musculoskeletal diseases. It is a goal of intramural researchers to develop a biomedical information resource useful to medical researchers and educators. Figure 3.1 shows two sample images from the database. Spine x-ray images generally have low contrast and poor image quality. They do not provide meaningful information in terms of texture or color. Pathologies found on these spine x-ray images that are of interest to the medical researchers are generally expressed along the vertebral boundary. (a) (b) 1.3 Proposed segmentation scheme The proposed process main stages scheme shown at Figure3.2, followed by a details review of the used methods applied to our spinal images and can be listed as follow: a. Pre-processing stage include image acquisition, region localization (RL) and region localization enhancement. b. Shape boundary representation and segmentation stage; include active shape model (ASM) segmentation based on two shape boundary representation 9-anatomical points and b-spline representation. c. Feature extraction stage; include feature extraction based shape feature vector and morphometric measurement-invariant features for indexing. d. Classification and similarity matching stage; include feature models classifier and similarity matching for diagnosis and retrieval 1.4 Pre-processingstage 1.4.1 Spineregion localization Region localization (RL) refers to the estimation of boundaries within the image that enclose objects of interest at a coarse level of precision. RL is important for assisting human experts in rapid image display and review (independent of its use in initializing a segmentation process). For example, with an algorithm that can rapidly, and with high probability identify the spine region with a marked line passing, this region of interest can be automatically zoomed on the display even though the location and orientation of the spine may vary appreciably in these images. This algorithm assumes that a line passing through the maximum amount of bone structure in the image will lie over a large part of the spine area, given a line passing through the image; Figure 3.3 shows the region localization (RL) selection of both cervical and lumbar images. (a) (b) 1.4.2 Enhancement approach Image enhancement is significant part of AVFAS recognition systems. Changes in lighting conditions produces dramatically decrease of recognition performance, if an image is low contrast and dark, we wish to improve its contrast and brightness. The widespread histogram equalization cannot correctly improve all parts of the image. When the original image is irregularly illuminated, some details on resulting image will remain too bright or too dark. Typically, digitized x-ray images are corrupted by additive noise and de-noising can improve the visibility of some structures in medical x-ray images, thus improving the performance of computer assisted segmentation algorithms. However, image enhancement algorithms generally amplify noise [17, 18]. Therefore, higher de-noising performance is important in obtaining images with high visual quality for that reason different enhancement techniques was implemented i. Adaptive histogram-based equalization ( Filter 1) Adaptive histogram-based equalization (AHE) can be applied to aid in the viewing of key cervical and lumbar vertebrae features, and its an excellent contrast enhancement method for medical image and other initially no visual images. In medical imaging its automatic operation and effective presentation of all contrast available in the image data make it a competitor of the standard contrast enhancement methods. The goal of using adaptive histogram equalization is to obtain a uniform histogram for the output image, so that an optimal overall contrast is perceived. However, the feature of interest in an image might need enhancement locally. Adaptive Histogram Equalization (AHE) computes the histogram of a local window centred at a given pixel to determine the mapping for that pixel, which provides a local contrast enhancement. However, the enhancement is so strong that two major problems can arise: noise amplification in flat regions of the image and ring artifacts at strong edges [12, 13]. Histogram equalization maps the input images intensity values so that the histogram of the resulting image will have an approximately uniform distribution [9-11].The histogram of a digital image with gray levels in the range [0, L-1] is a discrete function Where is the gray level, is the number of pixels in the image with that gray level, is the total number of pixels in the image, and k =0, 1, 2 L-1, basically gives an estimate of the probability of occurrence of gray level The local contrast of the object in the image is increased by applied histogram equalization, especially when the applied data of the image is represented by close contrast values. Through this adjustment the intensity can be better distributed on the histogram, this allows for areas of lower local contrast to gain a higher contrast without affecting the global contrast. (a) (b) ii. Adaptive contrast enhancement The idea is to enhance contrast locally analyzing local grey differences taking into account mean grey level. First we apply local adaptive contrast enhancement. Parameters are set to amplify local features and diminish mean brightness in order to obtain more contrast resulting image. After that we apply histogram equalization. Adaptive gamma value Gamma correction Gamma correction operation performs nonlinear brightness adjustment. Brightness for darker pixels is increased, but it is almost the same for bright pixels. As result more details are visible. 1.5 Shape boundary segmentation Shape boundary segmentation presented at this work is a hierarchical segmentation algorithm tailored to the segmentation of cervical and lumbar vertebrae in digitized x-ray images. The algorithm employs the both shape boundary representation schemes, 9-anatomical points representation (9-APR) and B-spline representation (B-SR) to obtain a suitable initialization for segmentation stage that utilize active shape models (ASMs) proposed by Cootes et al. The advantage of using ASMs in medical image segmentation applications is that rather than creating models that are purely data driven, ASMs gain a priori knowledge through a thorough observation of the shape variation across a training set. 1.5.1 Shape boundary representation Shape is an important characteristic for describing pertinent pathologies in various types of medical image and its a particular challenges regarding vertebra boundary segmentation in spine x-ray images. It was realized that the shape representation method would need to serve the dual purpose of providing a rich description of the vertebra shape while being acceptable to the end user community consisting of medical professionals. In order to model the spinal vertebra shape we presented by term of set points chosen to place point around the boundary , this must be done for each shape at training stage and the labelling point its important. Two schemes list has been used at this stage to determine a vertebra boundary shape in terms of list points i. 9-anatomical point representation (9-APR) We obtained segmentation data created by medical expertise at an early state of our segmentation work; the purpose of this task was to acquire reference data as a guideline for validating vertebrae segmentation algorithms. These data consisted of (x, y) coordinates for specific geometric locations on the vertebrae; a maximum of 9-anatomical points representation (9-APR) assigned and marked by board certificate radiologist that is indicative of the pathology found to be consistently and reliably detectable per vertebra were collected . Figure 3.7 shows below the points were placed manually on each vertebrae and which is the interest to medical researchers. Points 1, 3, 4, and 6 are indicative of the four corners of the vertebral body as seen in a projective sagittal view. Points 4 and 3 mark the upper and lower posterior corners of the vertebra, respectively; Points 6 and 1 mark the upper and lower anterior corners of the vertebra, respectively. Points 5 and 2 are the median along the upper and lower vertebra edge in the sagittal view; Point 8 is the median along the anterior vertical edge of the vertebra in the sagittal view. Note that Points 7 and 9 mark the upper and lower anterior osteophytes, so if osteophyte(s) are not present on the vertebra, then these points (7-9) coincide with points 6 and 1, respectively. ii. B-spline representation (B-SR) Representation of curves using piecewise polynomial interpolation to obtain curves is widely used in computer graphics .B-spline are piecewise polynomial curves whose shape is closely related to their control polygon a chain of vertices giving a polygonal representation of curves. B-splines of the third order are most common because this is the lowest order which includes the changes of curvatures. The Advantage of using B-spline techniques at this research is to enhance the 9-anatomical points, B-spline curves require more information (i.e., the degree of the curve and a knot vector) and a more complex theory than Bà ©zier curves. But, it has more advantages to offset this shortcoming. * B-spline curve can be a Bà ©zier curve. * B-spline curves satisfy all important properties that Bà ©zier curves have. * B-spline curves provide more control flexibility than Bà ©zier curves can do. * The degree of a B-spline curve is separated from the number of control points. More precisely [ReF]. We can use lower degree curves and still maintain a large number of control points and also we can change the position of a control point without globally changing the shape of the whole curve (local modification property). Since B-spline curves satisfy the strong convex hull property, they have a finer shape control. Moreover, there are other techniques for designing and editing the shape of a curve such as changing knots. B-spline is a generalization of the Bezier curve [Ref] , let a vector known as the knot vector be defined, Where, is a no decreasing sequence with and define control points, Define the degree as ,The knots are called internal knots. 1.5.2 Modelling Shape Variations In ASM, an object shape is represented by a set of landmark points and requires a good initialization of an objects pose in an image (i.e., location, size, and angle of rotation); therefore, we used the two schemes representation (9-APR B-SR) in our proposed segmentation technique to create this initialization. Several instances of the same object class are included in a training set and in order to model the variations we need to align the set of shapes. i. Training set In order to build a model that is flexible enough to cover the most typical variations of vertebrae, a sufficiently large training set has to be used. For the purpose of the investigation reported in this work, we locate the shape (by eye) and its important that the two schemes representations are accurately located and that there is an exact correspondence between labels in different instances of training shapes. In this research a set of 1100 vertebra for both cervical (400 vertebral) and lumbar (710 vertebra) has been used. ii. Aligning trainshapes The model that will be used to describe a shape and its typical appearances is based on the variations of the spatial position of each landmark point within the training set. Each point will thus have a certain distribution in the image space and therefore the shape model is being referred to as a Point Distribution Model (PDM). In order to obtain the PDM, we use the two shape representation, to align the shapes, and finally, to summarize the landmark variations in a compact form. In what follows, these steps are being described in some detail. We achieve the required alignment by scaling, rotating and translating the training shapes so that they correspond as closely as possible. 1.7 Shape boundary Indexing The shape analysis described here is related to the statistical analysis of vertebrae shapes to shape similarity matching and recognition. Three schemes of shape analysis implemented at this stage. First scheme is the shape analysis based feature vectors extraction includes statistical shape feature (SSF) and Gabor wavelets features (GWF). Second scheme is the shape analysis based morphometric measurement based angles measurement index (AMI) and intra-bone ratio measurement (IBRM). Last is the analysis based similarity matching, the index output result from each analysis will be considered as input to the classifier systems those schemes outlined are described below. Feature vector is an n-dimensional vector of numerical features represents object shape. Statistical models captured from active shape model, Gabor wavelets filter bank require a numerical representation of vertebrae shape based on both boundary shape representation (9-anatomical point model ,B-spline curve), since such representations facilitate processing and statistical analysis. Figure below shows schematic pattern recognition system based feature vectors. 1.7.1 Statistical shapefeatures(SSF) Each vertebral in the training set, when aligned can be represented by a single points in 2n dimensional space (eq2).Thus a set of N example shapes gives base on each shape boundary representation cloud of N point in this 2n dimensional space. We assume that these points lie within some region of the space which call the Allowed Shape Domain and that the points give an indication of the shape and size of this region. Every 2n-D point within this domain gives a set of landmarks whose shape is broadly similar to that of those in the original training set. Thus by moving about the Allowable shape domain we can generate new shapes in systematic way .The approach given below attempts to model the shape of this cloud in high dimensional space and hence to capture the relationship between the positions of the individual landmark points. 1.7.2 Gabor wavelets features(GWF) The objectives of this stage is to explore the feasibility of using Gabor wavelet-constructed spatial filters to extract feature-based vector from shape boundary consisting of cervical and lumbar vertebrae, and to use these extracted feature vectors to train and test with different classifier. To evaluate the robustness of the method, so many analysis based filter and mask size was experimented to select the suitable Gabor mask that will be convolute with the two vertebra shape boundary extracted. In order to briefly describe Gabor wavelets and provide a rationale for this stage of work, the Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT) and Gabor Transform need to be explained first. The Fourier transform is a fundamental tool of classical signal analysis. i. Gabor wavelets filter bank The Gabor wavelet function used in this research for AOs feature extraction was same as Naghdy (1996) used and was defined. Where: the different choices of frequency j and orientation constructed a set of filters. ii. Filter frequency and mask size analysis As the frequency of the sinusoid changes, the window size will be changed. (Fig. 3.28, 3.29, 3.30 and 3.32) shows real and imaginary parts of eight two-dimensional wavelets filters. When j is changed from 1 to 4, the sinusoid frequency is reduced whereas the Gaussian window size increases. In comparison, for the Gabor transform, Gaussin window size will remain same. iii. Convolution vertebral region with the filter bank The elementary Gabor wavelet functions were used to construct spatial domain filters, Each filter was made of a pair of filters, which were the real and imaginary part of the complex sinusoid. These pair was convolved with the green channel signal of texture image separately. The reason of choosing the green channel to do convolution was that the green channel was found to have the best texture quality, which means the best contrast level between plants and soil, among red, blue and MExG channels. This scenario is absolutely sensor dependent and may not be the case for other sensors. For one frequency level, the filtering output was the modulation of the average of the convolution output from real and imaginary filter masks on all convolved pixels in the green channel image, which was computed. iv. Gabor wavelets filer bank block diagram 1.8 Shape boundary morphometric measurement 1.8.1 Morphometric measurement-invariant features For efficient image retrieval, it is important that the pathological features of interest be detected with high accuracy. In this stage of Automatic Vertebral Fracture Assessment System techniques, new morphometric measurement-invariant features were investigated for the detection of anterior osteophytes, including lumbar and cervical vertebrae. The goal in this stage of work is to investigate a measurement algorithm for high accuracy and avoid the complex calculation. Two approaches morphometric measurement-invariant features were developed based: 1) Angles invariant features (A-IF) 2) Intra-distance ratio invariant features (ID-IF) The results of this morphometric extraction geometries calculation will produce a signal of two index based on angle and distance measurement that can be used to distinguish between the anterior osteoporosis classes and their severity implemented as input for classifier algorithm. Figure below show the block diagram of the shape analyses based morphometric technique. Stage 1: AOs detection Two classification schemes for anterior osteophytes were established by a medical expert to evaluate the accuracy of the PSM algorithm. The first is Macnabs classification, established by Macnab and his coworkers in 1956 on radiological and pathological bases [6, 7].Two types of osteophytes are adapted from Macnabs classification: claw and traction, as shown in Figure 1. Their visual characteristics are: 1. Claw spur rises from the vertebral rim and curves toward the adjacent disk. It is often triangular in shape and curved at the tips. 2. Traction spur protrudes horizontally, is moderately thick, does not curve at the tips, and never extends across the intervertebral disk space. The second classification is a grading system which was defined by the medical expert consistent with reasonable criteria for assigning severity levels to anterior osteophytes (AO). Three grades of AO are slight, moderate, and severe, also shown in Table 1. Their visual characteristics are: 1. Slight grade includes normal, where the corner angles on the vertebral boundary are approximately right angles. It may have a slight protuberance, where the tip of the osteophyte is round and no narrowing is observed at the base of the protuberance. 2. Moderate grade is characterized by evident protuberance from the ideal horizontal or vertical edge of the vertebra. The bounding edges of the AO form an angle of at least 45 degrees and the osteophyte has a relatively wider base than severe grade. 3. Severe grade is characterized by presence of hook, the angle is less than 45 degrees and has a narrow base, or protrudes far (about 1/3 of the length of the horizontal border) from the normal (ideal 90 degree) vertebral corner. Angles invariant features (A-IF) We explore three main angles for measurement that make sense of difference between the AO classes from the 9-anatomical landmarks model. Shape below show the angle of interest selected that will be used next as input for our classifier system to make decision (a) Turning Angle (b) Intra-Distance Across the Shape Turn Angle (TA) To capture the characteristics of shape in local regions, we use two different features. The first is Turn Angle (TA). Turn Angle is also called Turning Angle or Bent Angle. It is defined as follows [3]: if the points on the polygon are ordered in the counterclockwise direction, and the polygon is traversed in this direction, the Turn Angle is the angle between the direction vector for the current polygon segment and the next one; the sense of the Turn Angle is calculated such that a clockwise turn gives a negative angle whereas a counterclockwise turn gives a positive angle. Figure 3 (a) shows an example. For an arbitrary shape, the Turn Angle feature could be calculated from the approximating polygon for that shape. Turn Angle for a polygon with n vertices is simply a vector in Rn . For example, if the vertebra is represented as a polygon with 72 vertices (our sparse representation), the Turn Angle is a 72-element vector. If the polygon has the concept of an initial vertex, similarity computation is straightforward, e.g., with a Euclidean metric. If there is no initial vertex, similarity between two shapes may be computed by a combinatorial comparison of distances between possibly-matching sets of vertices. This computation may be optimized by dynamic programming. Intra-distance ratio invariant features (ID-IF) Distance across the shape [4] is another local shape feature. DAS is defined, for each vertex P in a polygon, as the length of the angle bisector at P, measured as the line segment from P to the intersecting side of the polygon. For Example, the interior bisector of angle à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã‚  P2P3P4 in the figure 3 (b) intersects the contour at point I3. The length of P3I3 is the DAS at point P3. If the bisector intersects the shape multiple times, the distance to the closest intersection is used. Similarly as for turn angle, if we represent the vertebra shape as a polygon with 72 sample points, the DAS feature may be calculated on those 72 points. Where, V: is called as vertical angle calculated between the points 7-8-9 H: is called as horizontal angle calculated between the points 1-2-3 C: is called as corner angle calculated between the points 8-9-1 Angle formula calculation between these three points coordinates as follow 1.9 Operation Step 1: Calculate the Horizontal angle and this calculation based on the Step 2: Calculate the Horizontal angle and this calculation based on the Step 3: Calculate the Horizontal angle and this calculation based on the Step 4: build the rule base and evaluate the result by visual inspection Intra-Distance ratio Measurement (I-DRM) Inter-bone ration is another morphometric measurement issue, it was explored based on the shape distance here we focused Where, : Represents the distance posterior height calculated between the points 3-4 : Represents the distance medial height calculated between the points 5-2 : Represents the distance interior height calculated between the points 1-6 : Represents the distance calculated between the points 8-mp, where mp Midpoint between the points 3-4, the Midpoint (mp) coordinates calculation formula as the following: With; (, ) is the point 3 coordinate, (,) is the point 4 coordinate Given the two points (, ) and (,), the distance between these points is given by the formula: The normal vertebra was estimated to have the following ratio distance Distance () =Distance () =Distance () Base on this estimation by expert radiologist we develop another rule base decision system that can work properly to and true classify the normal and abnormal and bone The criteria of the X= Stage 2: AOsLocation Detection of the Ao position conduct us to determine the location either upper or lower AO a) b) The position of the AO is determined by sample way calculation based of angles too Stage 3: Disc space narrowing (DSN) Stage 4 Stage 5:Subluxation/Spondylolisthesis Segmentation and Pre-processing The vertebra shapes were segmented using an active contours method modified to constrain evolving contour points to follow orthogonal curves [18], to avoid convergence to a self-intersecting solution contour at vertebra corners [9]. The solution contours have 36 points. Nine of these 36 points were distinguished as geometrical or anatomical reference points, with relative locations that are approximately constant across the veterbra shapes. The nine points, shown in Figure 2 were either manually marked by experts, or extracted automatically or semi-automatically by specialized algorithms [9]. For the current work, we preprocess these segmented shapes by curve smoothing (to reduce noise), fitting (for smoothness), interpolation, and re-sampling (for larger number of evenly distributed points) to obtain the final shape contour description. The curve fitting and interpolation are done with the natural cubic spline algorithm. Then the shape contour is resampled by equal arc length sampling. Finally, the vertebra whole shape is represented by two boundary point sets with different resolutions. The dense sampling set contains 180 points, and the superior and the inferior anterior corners are represented by 60 points, respectively. The sparse sampling set contains 72 points, with the superior and the inferior anterior corners represented by 25 points, respectively.

Sir Francis Bacon :: essays research papers fc

Sir Francis Bacon   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Sir Francis Bacon was born January 22, 1561. He died April 9, 1626. He was an English essayist, lawyer, statesman, and philosopher . He had a major influence on the philosophy of science. When he was 12 years old, he began studies at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1576 he entered Gray's Inn to pursue a career in law. He was first elected in 1584. Bacon's opposition to royal tax measures would probably have brought an end to his political advancement, but he had the support of the Earl of Essex, whose prosecution for treason he later managed. He was knighted in 1603 after the succession of James I. Bacon and he became solicitor-general in 1609, attorney-general in 1613, lord keeper of the great seal in 1617, and lord chancellor in 1618; he was also created Baron of Verulam I 1618, and Viscount St. Albans in 1621. Bacon retained James's favor by steadfast defense of royal prerogative, but in 1621 he was found guilty of accepting bribes and was removed from his office. Retiring to Gorhambury, he devoted himself to writing and scientific work.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Philosophically, Bacon wrote marks such as the Instauratio Magna (Great Restoration), setting forth his concepts for the restoration of humankind to mastery over nature. It was intended to contain six parts: first a classification of sciences; second a new inductive logic; third a gathering of empirical and experimental facts; fourth examples to show the effectiveness of his new approach; fifth generalization derivable from natural history; and a new philosophy that would be a complete science of nature.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Bacon completed only two parts, however, the Advancement of Learning in 1605, later expanded as De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum (On the Dignity and Growth of Sciences, 1620); and the Novum Organum (The New Organon, 1620), which was to replace Aristotle's Organon. Sciences were under the general headings of history, poetry, and philosophy. Their culmination was an inductive philosophy of nature, in which proposed to find the natural laws, of bodily action. To this end, he devised so-called tables of induction designed to discover such forms with the goal of mastery over nature.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Although Bacon was not a great scientist, he gave impetus to the development of modern inductive science.

teh rechartering of the national bank by Andrew Jackson :: essays research papers

The Rechartering of the National Bank In 1832, a Renewal Bill for the United States Bank came up to the President, Andrew Jackson. He vetoed this bill for the Bank, and in the address that he included with the veto stated that he knew that this would be an issue, and that people would not like it. He told in this address all of the clear and obvious reasons why he vetoed against the bank.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  First, Andrew Jackson, aimed towards all of the strict constructionists, brought up the point that the formation of a national bank is not in the Constitution, and therefore there is no reason why we should be able to use it. President Jackson also said how the national bank is â€Å"rebellious of the rights of the states, and dangerous to the liberties of the people†. Jackson could see that the bank was a monopoly, and the danger that this could bring. He said how the bank is run primarily by 25 people, 20 of which are elected by the bank stock holders, the other five are elected by the bank officials themselves, who in the long run can keep reelecting themselves, and corruption is bound to follow.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The main point that President Jackson made in his address for the veto was that too much of the money in the U.S. Bank was from foreign countries. When private stockholders from other countries don’t pay their debts, it hurts the U.S. economy, but even worse then that is the foreign business that the bank does creates an incredible amount of foreign dividend that the U.S. citizens have to pay for, in their taxes. The President says that the banking system should be entirely American; all of the stockholders in the United States Banking system should consist of U. teh rechartering of the national bank by Andrew Jackson :: essays research papers The Rechartering of the National Bank In 1832, a Renewal Bill for the United States Bank came up to the President, Andrew Jackson. He vetoed this bill for the Bank, and in the address that he included with the veto stated that he knew that this would be an issue, and that people would not like it. He told in this address all of the clear and obvious reasons why he vetoed against the bank.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  First, Andrew Jackson, aimed towards all of the strict constructionists, brought up the point that the formation of a national bank is not in the Constitution, and therefore there is no reason why we should be able to use it. President Jackson also said how the national bank is â€Å"rebellious of the rights of the states, and dangerous to the liberties of the people†. Jackson could see that the bank was a monopoly, and the danger that this could bring. He said how the bank is run primarily by 25 people, 20 of which are elected by the bank stock holders, the other five are elected by the bank officials themselves, who in the long run can keep reelecting themselves, and corruption is bound to follow.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The main point that President Jackson made in his address for the veto was that too much of the money in the U.S. Bank was from foreign countries. When private stockholders from other countries don’t pay their debts, it hurts the U.S. economy, but even worse then that is the foreign business that the bank does creates an incredible amount of foreign dividend that the U.S. citizens have to pay for, in their taxes. The President says that the banking system should be entirely American; all of the stockholders in the United States Banking system should consist of U.

Critical Thinking and Language Essay

I passed by an acquaintance who I have known for maybe three years already but had not actually become a friend. When we meet, we would throw few words just to get ourselves updated with the happenings of each other. That day we had a conversation longer than what we usually had. I’ve learned that he likes compiling episodes of several TV series which he saves and keep as soft copies so he could watch it with no interruptions from TV commercials. I asked for what he had that he could lend me. And he gave me Dexter. I watched the whole season one of TV series non-stop. Except of course when nature calls or when my stomach growls which signals me to take a few supplies from my mother’s chiller. Her chiller, not ours! She has made it her territory. She knows all of the contents of that cold box and she could easily notice if I took some of those cookies and brownies from it, the only content of it. She wouldn’t suspect anyone else but me. I’m the grinch who stole and will always steal her Christmas! Cookies and brownies are her happiness. It’s difficult for me to understand her addiction to it. My mom is a dog with her cookies and brownies the bones. Anyways, Dexter was a great watch! My mother finds it disturbing and morbid, but I like it. It actually started my addiction to TV series. Now, it became my midnight snack. And though it gives me extra luggage beneath my eyes, I’m still going to watch and watch more and more. What role does language and language diversity play in the critical thinking process? Critical thinking involves the input of information, the processing of this information, then, the analysis to come up with a conclusion. It is never always that critical thinking ends its phase when analysis is presented. Oftentimes, people use the result of the analysis to process new information and to come with more analyses leading to the best opinions and interpretation. This makes critical thinking a cycle. Language plays an important role in critical thinking. Because critical thinking involves input of information, the language used in the input of information becomes a critical factor in coming out the result of the analysis. The information can be fully understood, partly understood or completely misinterpreted. Input of information means understanding information before accepting it as a fact or a consideration for further analysis of the idea. That is the role of language. Sometimes, the exact set of words used can mean different things to different people. In the same way, some too different or inexact set of words can mean the same to a lot of people. It is when language diversity steps in. People associate different events, people and things to a word that sometimes, when a word is simple for one person, it becomes a strong word for another. We have different understanding of a language and we also have different use of that is why it becomes difficult for us to convey our messages to other people. What they have understood from what we said isn’t exactly what we meant although for us we said it right because of language diversity. In critical thinking, it is important to understand the context of a statement to ensure that one will arrive at the best conclusion and to prevent misinterpretation. Critical thinking is employed to come out with the best conclusion that is the nearest to the truth or the best interpretation and understanding of what the information or facts contain. If the input information isn’t what it is supposed to be, one will arrive with not good analysis of things. Language really gets in the way of understanding. How does language empower or limit the expression of our thoughts? Language is a powerful tool in expressing thoughts because it is the easiest way to express oneself aside from actions. It can become an art because we can find and select ways to effectively express ourselves the way we want it. It can empower the expression of our thoughts simply because it is our way of expressing it. It can further empower the expression of our thoughts when we choose appropriate words to present our thoughts the way we wanted. Language can put emphasis to our thoughts. A statement becomes a strong and powerful statement when the right words are used. This has made many great men in our history memorable—their statements and we quote them. Our thoughts are best expressed when people agree that there is no other way to bring that idea we had than how we had expressed it. Language makes a thought powerful. It can also limit the expression of our thoughts in several ways. One way is when we couldn’t find the right words to say to make our thoughts safe for other people to hear. It is when we opt not to say anything, but that is a matter of personal choice. Language diversity also limits the expression of our thoughts. When we couldn’t understand statements, it becomes difficult for us to exchange thoughts. Another way that language limits the expression of our thoughts is when people use a foreign language or a language that is unfamiliar for them. Because of the unfamiliarity with the language, it becomes difficult for the person to select words that will express his thoughts exactly how he has thought it. Unfamiliarity with the language makes people experience difficulty in clarifying themselves. What is the role of critical thinking in persuasion? Persuading people is one of the most difficult things to do. The person who is trying to persuade must have good communication skills to make him believable and to produce statements that are believable. Persuading involves presenting ideas and information to people and make these ideas and information seem the best to make people adapt to that idea or accept the information. Critical thinking is usually employed by those people who are being persuaded. Of course, not all information that is presented to us is true and not all ideas other people tell us are good that is why we have to be skeptical. To know if what the persuading person is telling us is worth believing and adapting, we use critical thinking. We analyze the ideas and information based on many more information other than what is presented on to us. Because we want to protect ourselves and our best interest, we need to discern every information and ideas before accepting them and be persuaded.