Did Microsoft Violate Antitrust Policy?

â€Å"The US complaint has been filed by a Tangent, a small Burlingame, California-based hardware vendor that says it is a Microsoft certified partner, but has still been â€Å"caused significant harm† by â€Å"Microsoft's exclusionary and restrictive practices†[1]The Northern California Company Tangent, who is also a Microsoft Certified Partner, has claimed that Microsoft has caused them â€Å"significant harm† through â€Å"exclusionary and restrictive† practices.[2]In its complaint, Tangent describes patterns of anticompetitive practices by Microsoft.     The activities listed by Tangent incorporate the procedure of no-option bundling of Outlook (electronic mail software) with Office (a suite of word processing, financial, media and various business software) and Active Directory (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol which provide central authentication and authorization services for Windows based computers) with Windows Server (host integration). The forced process under the bundling system also includes the Windows Media Player (a software application player and library for digital media) and Windows Media Server (advanced live video and audio streaming functionality) along with the desktop personal computer and the server operating system, e.g. XP, Vista, etc.Tangent attorneys’ stated in the law suit, â€Å"Microsoft's exclusionary and restrictive practices†¦have caused significant harm to (Tangent) by increasing, maintaining or stabilizing the price it paid for Microsoft's operating system software above competitive levels,† [3]In a filing with the US District Court for the Northern District of California, Tangent’s resident territory and the right of the plaintiff to file locally, is in the clear supportive position to show cause of how Microsoft has historically continued to engage in anticompetitive conduct and practices. Thereby causing irreparable financial and market damages by directly man ipulating by different means in a number of forms the price Tangent has paid for Microsoft's operating system software.   Clearly upon comparison and review the prices are openly above competitive degrees.Tangent has been able to list in the detail the historical relation of the personal computer and the Microsoft factor.   They contend that Microsoft, in the letter of the law as well as the spirit, has still failed to operate within number of instruction guidelines and continues to violate Section 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C.,  §2.Tangent has taken on the interesting position of requesting a jury to hear the case instead of a judge.   Clearly, the intent is to appeal to peers or citizens who will hear testimony as to the unfair practices of Microsoft.   There is the grave risk on the part of the Tangent argument that the issues are very complicated and so technically that only engineers or legally trained experts can decided on the case.   It can be equally promised that Microsoft lawyers will attempt to convolute the issue to a level of complicate techno speak in order to confuse the jury and possible deadlock or mistrial.   Either way, the path for appeal is being paved.Without the normal constraint of frank competition in the marketplace and also because of â€Å"exclusionary practices† invoked by Microsoft as a standard practice, Microsoft has been able to perform in a way that the increases the â€Å"playing field† edge in its favor. Additionally, this method employed by Microsoft works to preserve or artificially maintain prices at anti-competitive conditions that cause harm to vendors and business partners. [4]In essence, Tangent has charged that Microsoft has artificially inflated prices for the cost of the operating system software for certified partners who have no other choice in the matter thus injuring Tangent.One of the strongest positions taken by Tangent against Microsoft is that the Microsoft server OS (operatio n system) includes specific, unique, undocumented programs and screens (interfaces) accessed and employed by its servers to communicate seamlessly and tacitly with one another.   Primarily, the use of several servers (server farm) is within a multiple network server community.â€Å"Tangent alleged further that Microsoft entered into restrictive agreements with OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturer) and system builders, limiting or eliminating their ability to feature non-Microsoft products.† [5]Cleary, the most important aspect of the Tangents argument, which in this case can be asserted by any plaintiff, is for Microsoft to cease marketing products under the guise that the uniformity of it’s software is standardize and practical.   This is not the case nor has it been in quite a while.   The position by Microsoft does not give rise to a supportive community of certified partners.   Candidly, it causes a minor panic.Microsoft’s secretive and clandestine modus operand lends it self to a sense of obvious guilt.   The resistance to the release of the source code for any of it’s of its operating systems underlies its non-competitive practices.Demonstrating no lack of indignation, Microsoft has chosen not to respond to any comments on this complaint or that fact any other.   Their practice has been to only to acknowledge that the case is being reviewed.Tangent is based in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Burlingame and builds custom configured-to-order desktops, notebooks, thin clients and servers primarily for educational institutions, government agencies, business markets and proprietary enterprises.   The company is using the Microsoft Operating Systems. [1]   -Microsoft faces fresh US and EU antitrust complaints 23rd February 2006 [2] http://wowtechminute.com/93/antitrust-lawsuit-antithesis/ Antitrust Lawsuit Antithesis Posted by Brent Norris Technology News March 2006 [3] http://news.com.com/Computer+maker+files+an titrust+suit+against+Microsoft/2100-1014_3-6041788.html By Ina Fried Staff Writer, CNET News.com Published: February 21, 2006, [4] http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=29797 Off at a tangent By INQUIRER staff: Monday 20 February 2006, 10:10 [5] http://www.channelinsider.com/article/Tangent+Suit+Claims+Microsoft+Soaked+Partners/171923_1.aspx   Tangent Suit Claims Microsoft Soaked Partners DATE: 21-FEB-2006 By John Hazard

Comparative Essay: Hamlet vs. King Lear Essay

King Lear and Hamlet are two of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies where he has developed complex characters that create more problems for themselves as a result of their natures. Both Hamlet and King Lear are protagonists who believe that things around them should be inherently good at all times and that people’s motives and actions should always be truthful and fair. Nevertheless, within both novels we see different characteristics of these main characters as well that evidently separate them. Hamlet is a strong developed person who has difficulty coming to terms with any corrupt events that occur around him. He can be seen and noted as a very pessimistic and bitter minded individual; however, this attitude is mainly seen when he is attempting to suppress his hatred and fury towards the extreme events that have occurred in his life, this majorly referring to the death of his father. The greatest fatal flaw that he portrays within the entirety of the play would be over analyzing and over thinking every event that takes place in his place, regardless of the importance. For instance, in all of the soliloquies where Hamlet is speaking, he discusses and plots ideas involving avenging his father’s death; however, he has much delay when it comes to the murdering of his uncle. As a result of his faith in God, at one point he worried that if he had taken the life of his uncle whilst he was praying then his soul would be sent straight off to Heaven. This delayed him with acting upon his decision, and this is mainly as a result of the morals and beliefs that he has. The fatal flaw of over thinking in this situation obstructed his laid out path to the vengeance of his father’s life. Overanalyzing is also a key fatal flaw that is explored throughout the character of King Lear as well; however, in this circumstance, we see that after over thinking a situation, it is mainly his great pride that results in his downfall. King Lear ultimately wants to divide his kingdom up between his three daughters; however, in order to receive the greatest amount of land, King Lear decided that it would be just for each of his daughters to proclaim their love for their father. King Lear, being blinded by his own arrogance, did not see that his two oldest daughters directly lied to his face when proclaiming their devotion towards him. It was only his youngest daughter, Cordelia, who spoke to her father with complete honesty, even though it led to her banishment from the kingdom. The fundamental part of Lear’s error in judgment was that he only wanted to hear positive attributes about himself being exclaimed, and once he heard something remotely negative, he exploded with fury. He ends up giving away his land to his two eldest daughters, and later realizes that their intentions with it were completely selfish. We can see that King Lear, similar to Hamlet, did not see that people’s true intention could be so negative and demeaning. Especially from his own daughters he expected nothing but the purest of actions. His great pride overtook his whole mind and body, and as a result, Lear ended up within his own realm of madness, alone and fearful. Both of Shakespeare’s characters, King Lear and Hamlet, act in certain ways as a result of the world in which they find themselves placed in. This is mainly seen through King Lear, who starts off within the play as a character who requires constant attention and love, and later realizes that his blindness to the true intentions of his daughters is what led him to complete insanity and the loss of all feelings of pride. As a result of this, we notice that the age difference, and difference in generations in which King Lear and his daughters were raised in is what ultimately led to his blindness and the loss of all his possessions, for his daughters, Goneril and Regan, are directly opposed to any ideas of loyalty, authority, respect or order. With Hamlet, however, we see that the death of his father is one of the contributory factors that lead to the tragedies that followed along. Hamlet’s inherent tendency to overanalyze all situations that he is presented with is the biggest cause of his isolation and his removal from all reality by the end of the play. As a result of this, we see that Hamlet’s fatal flaw begins as something internal and carries out all throughout the play remaining untouched. Both characters, Hamlet and King Lear, possess characteristics and personality traits that lead them to their isolation and fear. Shakespeare brilliantly showed us that even a single fatal flaw within a character has the potential to ultimately lead them to extreme failure, and we see this characteristic especially within these two protagonists. Both of them started off inherently good, however, as a result of their failure to notice people’s ungrateful and selfish characteristics, they ended up with nothing.

Research Planning Uop Res728

Research Planning Paper University of Phoenix – RES 728 Research Planning Paper Funding for domestic violence shelters in Sebastian County, Arkansas has decreased with the decline of the state’s economy beginning in 2010, when most manufacturing jobs were outsourced to foreign countries. Funding now primarily comes from private and non-profit sponsors and donors. This change in funding has brought about the need to be responsive to the wants and needs of not only the victims but also of the donors that provide the funding for the shelters.The expectations of the donors with regard to the role of paid employees referred to as advocates and the volunteers has also changed. The donors expect the advocates and volunteers to be on call 24 hours a day 7 days a week and the shelters’ executives have had to establish in written form the boundaries established for the role of employees and volunteers. The focus of this study will be the actual role of the employees and vo lunteers versus the perceived role of the employees and volunteers by the private and non-profit sponsors and donors.This study will require data to be gathered from all persons involved with the domestic violence shelters, which will include donors, executives, employees, and volunteers. The data that will be collected during this study will be relevant to the perceptions of the domestic violence shelters’ executives, employees, and volunteers’ role versus what the donors to the shelters perceive to be the roles of the people that work on either a paid or volunteer basis. The data collection methods will include participant observations, informal interviews, and open-ended questionnaires. Data Collection and Sampling StrategiesThe data will be collected during the annual fundraiser by observing the interactions of the donors with the executives, employees, and volunteers that are participating in the fund raiser. Observations of the way each cohort interacts with one another, whether there is respect shown toward the employees, volunteers, executives, and donors. According to Kawulich (2005), observations allow the researcher to see the nonverbal expressions, determine who interacts with whom, determine the manner in which communication takes place and to ascertain how much time is spent on the various interactions.Kawulich also posits that observation allows for the checking of definitions of certain terms used within the environment by the participants while also allowing the observation of the mannerisms of the participants that indicate their resolve not to be impolite, politically incorrect, or insensitive. The informal interviews according to Turner (2010), work well for the spontaneous generation of questions within the natural interaction that occurs with informal conversation. The informal interview will not have a predetermined number of or structure of questions.It is the feeling of Turner and this researcher that this would interfere with the flexibility and naturalness of the interviews. The main disadvantage to this method of data collection is the potential to stray from the research topic. The last method of data collection will be the use of open-ended questionnaires, which will have five questions for the participants to answer after receiving instruction about the data collection tool. According to Sapsford and Jupp (2006), the chief advantage of the questionnaire is that it can be administered to a group of people at the same time.Sapsford and Jupp posit that the main disadvantage to questionnaires is that some people will not return the questionnaire to the researcher. Data Management and Analysis According to Merriam (2009), the preferred method of data analysis is to perform the analysis during the data collection. Merriam posits that without ongoing analysis prevents confusion, inability to focus, and may allow the sheer volume of the data to become overwhelming for the researcher. Bogdan and Biklen (1998) as cited by Merriam (2009, p. 171) offer ten suggestions for analyzing data as it is collected.Those suggestions include: 1) Make decisions to narrow the study 2) Make decision about the type of study you want to accomplish 3) Develop analytic questions 4) Plan data collection sessions according to what was previously experienced 5) Record as many observer’s notes as possible as you go 6) Write memos to yourself about what you are learning 7) Try out ideas and themes on participants 8) Begin exploring the literature while in the field 9) Play with metaphors, analogies, and concepts 10) Use visual devices.Data collection and analysis could possibly go on forever but once the researcher has reached saturation or in other words, information starts repeating itself then the researcher knows it is time to stop the collection of data. Managing the data during the collection process requires that coding or the assignment of some sort of shorthand designation that will allow the researcher to find the information quickly and with ease (Merriam, 2009). Data analysis can be performed by hand by developing categories or themes for the data collected.Coding is the assignment of notations next to data as you read over the data. It is like marking in the side margin what you the researcher believes is potentially relevant to your research (Merriam, 2009). Assigning codes to the pieces of data is the way the researcher begins categorizing the data. This process is used for each set of data to be analyzed. Data analysis can also be performed with the use of modern technology such as the computer and software programs developed especially for qualitative data analysis such as CAQDAS (computer assisted qualitative data analysis software), MAXQDA, ATLAS. i, HyperRESEARCH and NVivo. Bazeley asserts that the use of technology for data analysis further than is possible when performing analysis by hand (2006). According to Leech and Onwuegbuzie (2007), CAQDAS programs provide an excellent tool for recording, storing, indexing, and sorting the voluminous data that are the hallmark of many qualitative research studies. Bazeley also posits that another advantage to using CAQDAS programs is that the programs can record all of the major analytic decisions that the researcher makes, which then leaves an audit trail.However, it is noted by Leech et al. , that even though programs can help the researcher analyze the data the program cannot analyze the data for the researcher. Denzin and Lincoln (2005) make the point that the researcher is still the main tool for analysis and the flexibility, creativity, insight, and intuition of the researcher should never be replaced by mechanical analysis of data. Conclusion The use of multiple data collection and analysis methods allows the researcher to use the strength of all chosen methods in order to get a better picture of what they are focusing on in the study.Using multiple qualitative data analysis tools can help researchers to address what Denzin and Lincoln (2005) refer to as the crisis of representation, namely, the difficulty in capturing lived experiences via text. Denzin and Lincoln posit that using multiple types of data collection and analysis makes the process of qualitative research more rigorous, which may make qualitative research even more popular than it has become. References Bazeley, P. (2006). The contribution of computer software to integrating qualitative and quantitative data and analyses.Research in the Schools,, 13(1), 64-74. Bogdan, R. C. , & Biklen, S. K. (1998). Qualitative research for education: An introduction to theory and methods. Bosston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Denzin, N. K. a. L. , Y S. (2005). Introduction: The discipline and practice of qualitative research. In N. K. D. Y. S. Lincoln (Ed. ), The sage handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed. ). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Kawulich, B. B. (2005). Participant observation as a data collection method. Forum: Qualitative Social Research: Sozialforschung, 6(2). Leech, N. L. & Onwuegbuzie, A. J. (2005). Qualitative data analysis: Ways to improve accountability in qualitative research. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, Canada. Merriam, S. B. (2009). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Sapsford, R. J. , V. (2006). Data Collection and Analysis (2nd ed. ). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Turner, D. W. , III. (2010). Qualitative interview design: A practical guide for novice investigators. The Qualitative Report, 15(3), 754-760.

Sustainable Tourism from Http: //Www.Sustainabletourism.Net/Index.Html

ISSUE: As more regions and countries develop their tourism industry, it produces significant impacts on natural resources, consumption patterns, pollution and social systems. The need for sustainable/responsible planning and management is imperative for the industry to survive as a whole. FACTS: TOURISM IMPACTS: †¢880 million people travelled internationally in 2010 and this is expected to reach 1. billion by 2010 †¢The average international tourist receipt is over US$700 per person †¢Travel and tourism represents approximately 10% of total global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (if it include tourism related business (eg catering, cleaning) †¢The global travel and tourism industry creates 10% of world employment (direct & indirect) †¢At least 25 million people spread over 52 countries are displaced by violence, persecution and/or disasters – tourism receipts in every country are affected by this. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS: †¢The average Canadian household used 326 liters of water per day†¦. a village of 700 in a developing country uses an average of 500 litres of water per month AND a luxury hotel room guest uses 1800 litres of water per person per night†¦ †¢The average person in the UK uses approximately 150 litres of water per day – 3 times that of a local village in Asia †¢A species of animal or plant life disappears at a rate of one every three minutes †¢70% of marine mammals are threatened The Western world (with 17% of the worlds' population) currently consumes 52% of total global energy. †¢1 acre of trees absorbes 2. 6tonnes of CO2 per year †¢58% of the worlds coral reefs are at risk †¢Seawater is expected to rise 70 cm in the next 10 years †¢By 2050 climate change could have directly led to the extinction of 30% of species, the death of 90% of coral reefs and the loss of half the Amazon rainforest. †¢Since 1970 a third of the natural world has been destroyed by human activity †¢Half the world's population lives in urban areas and this figure is expected to increase. In Latin America and the Caribbean, 76% of the population live in urban areas †¢By 2036, there will be 1200 million cars on earth – double the amount today †¢A European uses 14x more energy than someone living in India †¢For every 1 degree rise in temperature above 34 degrees Celsius, yields of rice, maize and wheat in tropical areas could drop by 10% †¢Although 70% of the earth's surface is water, only 3% is potable Sources: FOC, 2002, WTO, 2000 & 2002, UNWTO, 2011, www. risingtide. co. uk, 2004, UN, 2003, Gov't of Canada, 2005, Tourism Concern, 2011, Science Msusuem, 2006) SOLUTION: Sustainable tourism is about re-focusing and adapting. A balance must be found between limits and usage so that continuous changing, monitoring and planning ensure that tourism can be managed. This requires thinking long-term (10, 20+ years) and realising that change is often cumulative, gradual and irreversible. Economic, social and environmental aspects of sustainable development must include the interests of all stakeholders including indigenous people, local communities, visitors, industry and government. WHAT CAN YOU DO? Address environmental and social concerns through policies, practices and initiatives with others. †¢Are you traveling? Use these guidelines for being a responsible traveler? †¢Are you traveling? Use these guidelines for being a carbon conscious traveler? †¢Are you a business or organization? Use these questions to guide you. †¢Have us help you with policy development, environmental management, business planning and marketing efforts. †¢ Read more or contact us directly. Click here for definitions and information about sustainable tourism.

CP

Nowadays, CAP has thousands of branches around the oral and number one chicken import and export in Asia and number one on animal food producer in the world. If we want to talk about CAP strategies, we have to go through Cap's history in 1962. In 1962, CAP was competed with many other crops companies to sell crop to Thai farmer in Thailand. However, at that time, farmers did not trust the crops that came from the companies because there were cases of rotten crops and the quality was very bad.CAP, at that time, depended mainly on animal crop which were the main revenues for CAP. Danni, owner of CAP, had the idea that will throw the competitors off the amen. He mixed and sold crops in packages instead of actual food for animals. He hired the specialist to control the product which it is rarely new in Thailand. CAP promised to every farmer that they willing to pay for everything that happen related to their products. Therefore, CAP gains farmer's trust since then. CAP slowly changed fro m selling animal crop to chickens due to the demand of chicken in Asia.In 1 967, CAP conducted four new minor companies to give opportunities for the one who has potential to show their management skill and CAP bought 90% of stock market on chicken packaging.. In 1 995, CAP has over 57 factories in 50 cities throughout Asia and Europe. Nowadays, CAP bought everything that help their business grows and reduces many competitors. For example, CAP bought 7-11 which are American Franchise Company and Macro as well. CAP revenues do not from only CAP product itself, but also other companies that CAP bought as well. There are Chester Grill, True Co-operation, Dang Motors, Pin An insurance and Asia Telecoms.So CAP basically sells cars, telephone, insurance and cable television too. That what make CAP so big that other companies do not want to compete with. In my opinion, this is one kind of the strategy too. Talking about mission and vision, CAP has set high standard on these two aspects. Ca p's vision basically to become most professional food company that fulfill the demands of their client and increases life quality for everyone which is of course their responsibility. Just the vision of the company makes me want to buy CAP product now.Cap's mission is to develop agricultural industries and become the leader of creating healthy eating habits to consumers by giving high quality and reliable product to ones who lacked protein. There are three main benefits in investment philosophy Of the CAP group which are benefit Of the country CAP invested in, benefits of people of that country invested in, and finally, the benefit of CAP Company. CAP strategies are based on these vision and missions. CAP keeps moving forward and expands their company bigger and bigger every day. CAP has achieved their goal 10 years ago. Talking about CAP competitions, if in Thailand, there is none.CAP has influences among those who do food company. Other word, it is on CAPS side. Many of the food c ompanies choose to work with the CAP instead of competing with it. The company that competes with CAP is Chinese COFFS Corporation Company in China which sold tea, wine, cooking oil, and chicken. There is also Eek Chord China Motors which compete with CAPS ASIA and Dang Motors which of course the size of the organization is not even comparable. Can overcome many obstacles and use their strategies to overcome every environmental aspect including Thai flooding, world economic crisis, and Thai on-going protest.In my opinion, the main strategy of CAP is to gain consumers trust and expectations. CAP does many charities and of course, Donating is a ere popular among Thai people and society. CAP is the professional to win the heart of the people. CAP also provides varieties of foods and not just chickens. Because of there is no competition to begin with, CAP can sold their products daily every;here and not afraid of other things but politic. Politic can really hurt big company such as CAP. In 2012, Thai government increase wages per worker to 300 baths a day which there is no strategy to help solving it.CAP and every other CEO and Chairman need to lost more money in employee costs. CAP is not affected at all. They are still standing to this very day. There is new CAP campaign called â€Å"Life Stations† which is targeted mainly on young people such as high-school, university students and office people. It is located in China with in the middle of office districts in Guanos. CAP understands the market well and designs Life Station to fit the personalities of those people who is going to be customers. For example, life station near the schools, it going to provide not just breakfast, milk, or bakery products. It also has stationery shop as well.If Life Station is near the office, it will provide ere wife and of course, many kinds of coffee. If Life Station opens in the city area, it will provide varieties of foods and provide best quality. The main strategy of L ife Station is the design of actual branch and gain more information on consumer to find opportunities in future products of CAP. Life stations are designed to fit people's life styles. The design will attract lots of people and they are willing to try new things. The best ways to be profitable is to reduce the cost of products which is cooking ingredients which CAP already as factories and farms around the world.The cost of products is cheap, that is why it is profitable. There will be obstacle such as economy and sometime lack of customers. Life Station will carry out promotion plan to attract more customers which are marketing departments job by using buy one gets one free or anything necessary to gain more consumers. Research and development department will work with human resources department to gain the information about people in the Life Station's area to develop an insight on consumers and gain more idea what to develop in the future.

Mr. Jones Healthcare Needs and Support for His Family Research Paper

Mr. Jones Healthcare Needs and Support for His Family - Research Paper Example Mr. Jones is in the dependent client role stage of illness. In this stage, the patient or client is dependent on healthcare professionals for medical services. The client also relies on the professionals for the relief of the symptoms or injuries (Lippincott & Wilkins, 2013). In the dependent client role, the patient receives and accepts sympathy, care and protection from the stresses and demands of life (Gulanick, 2013). Most importantly, a patient in this stage depends on healthcare professionals while in a healthcare institution. In addition, the patient accepts to adjust to the disruptions of daily schedules. Mr. Jones is in the dependent client role because he was admitted to the hospital, and he has stayed in the hospital for 4 days. The injuries he sustained in the accident and his age make him dependent on healthcare professionals. He sustained head injuries, shoulder dislocation and a fractured right femur. He also has chronic hypertension. According to Clark, Smith and Tayl or (2010) it requires close monitoring by healthcare professionals. He also recognizes that he cannot attend to his daily schedules because of his injuries and illness. Though he is the dominant figure in his family and business, Mr. Jones cannot move around or participate in decision making. Based on Mr. Jones previous behavior and cultural background, I do not believe that he will be cooperative. In his family, Mr. Jones is a dominant figure. He makes all the decisions concerning the family and his business.

Business management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Business management - Essay Example Nevertheless, society seemed to have heeded the call. Burke (2002) elucidated on the necessity of change in organizations as an avenue for survival and viewed such change as a means of adapting to their particular environment. In the realm of work and organizations, critical contrast is now being focused on modernism and post-modernism. I also believe that the gradual switch from the former to the latter workplace standard can provide an idea of how much change work and organisations endured in this generation. Grint (2005) ascribed ‘certainty, stability and consensus’ to modernist organizations vis a vis their opposites of ‘instability, uncertainty and dissensus’ to the post-modernist ones. Grint’s three sets of opposite words generalize the paradigm shift from modernism to past modernism in the course material depiction of structural change from rigid bureaucracies to flexible organizations; the consumption trend from mass markets to niche markets; from technological determinism to technological choic e; from differentiated, demarcated and de-skilled to highly de-differentiated, de-demarcated and multi-skilled jobs; and from central and standardized to complex and fragmentary employment relations based on Knights and Willmott (2006). Although the current model of organizational processes have revolutionized society and industry in more ways than one, I do, however, also acknowledge Harding’s (2003) argument that the so-called modernist epoch was never ‘superseded’ (Jameson, 2002) and has not really gone away, but metamorphosed into the ideals we know now as post-modernist to ‘fill voids of understanding that exist in the modern world’. Viewed in this sense, the transformations we perceived are not necessarily changes, but continuity, which in a way animates Weil’s (1968, cited in Grey, 2005) remark

The Core Competencies in Medical Practice Essay

The Core Competencies in Medical Practice - Essay Example The first theme involves the journey by Emirates Airlines via Dubai to London. On arrival at the immigration, we realized the immigration officers were ridiculing the international students and felt embarrassed about it. The classes started after two weeks, and the lectures were quite supportive and interesting. All staff member were helpful, and it was a good experience interacting with the students from diverse nationalities. We improved vocabularies by studying about the ward rounds. Ward rounds refer to visits paid by doctors to each of the patient in the hospital (Kaye et al., 2014). It is a complicated clinical process that extends beyond a bedside review of care (Thomas & Michel, 2009). The lecturer converts the class to dynamic and interesting learning experience by dividing the students into two groups and the students can express their opinions when they are with the ward rounds (Kaye et al., 2014). The doctors can extend the same and where students differ they can learn through discussion. Improvements of traditional ward rounds can be done through strong clinical leadership with all health care professionals (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2011). Theme two involved changing NHS culture, medical idioms, and leadership into academic skills. Studies revealed that over 3500 people died unnecessarily in NHS hospital last year because of mistakes and avoidable errors (Thomas & Michel, 2009).  

Critique Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 5

Critique - Essay Example A careful review proves that Many of the American militias suffer heavy loses personally but believe in the revolutions course. The Militia show courage as the film portray their force fragile compared to the military power of the British Army. However, Bravery is challenged in the film, and the story depicts how the men handle the challenges and continue to fight. The film despite an excellent effort by the director to portray the real life events of the revolution but, it does not represent the actual history. Many of the atrocities committed by the British particularly Tavington, are war crimes by the Nazis in 1940 and not what happened in 1770s. The mixture of the two clearly demines credibility of the film as an accurate account of the revolutionary war. A vital lesson from the film is war always comes with its spoils that curse both pain and joy to the two warring sides. Bravery is crucial in any war, and when mixed with the right experience and war tactics a win is most promising, in this

Global Business Environment Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Global Business Environment - Assignment Example This report will look at the different measures a country can take in such instances. There is essentially no simple strategy alone to prevent recession in a country. There are a number of factor at play which further complicates the problem of recession in a country. Like after world economic crisis in 2008, country like India faced many challenges with respect to its economic policies. India has high inflation rate along with soaring high interest rate. Keeping in mind the strong fundamentals in India, RBI took a number of measures to control recession in India. RBI plays a significant role by controlling and monitoring the lending rates of scheduled commercial banks. The inflation rate in any economy is dependent on the availability of goods and services. RBI uses its monetary and credit tools to maintain the price stability in the economy and thus support the economic growth in the economy. RBI being the central bank of India, monitors, regulates and controls the entire financial system. RBI through its monetary policy regulates the issue of bank notes so as to m aintain proper liquidity in the system (Schwartz, 2010, p. 7). The monetary policy adopted by RBI can be either expansionary or contractionary in nature. RBI uses expansionary policy during deep recession. When RBI finds excess liquidity in the system, RBI uses several monitory instruments like Cash reserve ratio, Statutory Liquidity Ratio, Repo Rate, Reverse Repo rate to adjust liquidity in the economy. During deep recession, RBI needs to inject liquidity in the system so that money can flow in the system and demand improves and consequently GDP improves. For that RBI can reduce Cash reserve ratio or Statutory Liquidity Ratio. This will inject more cash in the hands of Bank which Banks can lend to the customers and inject liquidity in the system (Hershey, 2004, p. 13). The main priority should be given to small scale industries as they are the main employment

Communcation ethics and society Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Communcation ethics and society - Assignment Example Despite being the newspaper’s employee, â€Å"her opinions are her own† (Sullivan, â€Å"About the Public Editor†). If the position serves its true purpose, the results and effects of having a public editor is toward ensuring journalistic credibility and integrity. It also gives the newspaper a more positive reputation in the eyes of the readers. A journalist’s ethics greatly affect the newspaper and its readers because the ethical standards are what guarantee accuracy, fairness, and clarity in journalism. Q1: In the diffusion of innovation theory, can it be assumed that information that the masses receive are already fated from the beginning (Fuchs 13), thus leaving the masses with no choice regarding what is presented to them? Q2: According to the media information utility theory, people in urban locations turn to various forms of media for information (Fuchs 16). With the influx of social networking sites providing vast amounts of information to people (Fuchs 18), how can newspapers guarantee that they are not swayed by the want and need to provide â€Å"breaking news† (that proliferate in such sites) in order to

The most important lessons Catholic school principals should draw from Essay

The most important lessons Catholic school principals should draw from the history of Catholic Church - Essay Example The principals should understand that the most important task of any Catholic School is to maintain continuous strength of the schools. The history of Catholic Church gives out the important lessons that the principals should be aware. Such lessons are; the school should be sustained by gospel witness, have supernatural mission and vision, founded on Christianity, animated by communion and community, and filled with Catholic principals throughout. This essay gives an outline of all these five important lessons that Catholic School Head teachers should be familiar. Supernatural Vision The Catholic Church terms education as the process of transforming children to fix their eyes on heaven. The major purpose of Catholic Church education is to educate students to be good citizens and God-fearing ones. Therefore, the Schools’ Principals should ensure that they produce citizens who have good morals and follow the will of Almighty. Catholic Schools, unlike other institutions such as Government, business, and media, which view education as an instrument for acquisition information to students to improve their living standard and chances of worldly success, Catholic Churches’ vision of education is to help student improve their moral behaviors, be God loving, and become saints of the world to come. Christian Anthropology Foundation The Catholic Churches emphasizes on Supernatural destiny of students meaning that schools should perfect all students to become good images of God. The Catholic history describes that graces depends on the nature of the human beings. Therefore, the Principals should be aware that Catholic School educators should be able to understand the human person. The educators should have both natural and supernatural power of perfection of the students under their care (Stewart, 2008:212). However, the Catholic history emphasizes on schools educational philosophy built on a proper understa nding of what human person is. All the Catholic School educators should teach his lessons with Christianity concept. Therefore, Catholic Schools, unlike other public schools is not a factory of teaching skills to fulfill the skill requirement for business and industry, and must be founded on Christian Anthropology. Animated on Communion and Community According to Catholic History, a school is a community of persons and faith. Due to this emphasis, Catholic Schools are different from public schools and roots to the nature of human being and church reality. Therefore, catholic schools are educational community. Schools' Principals should be aware that Catholic schools are as a community according to the church Council (Stewart, 2008:121). The dimension of this community is a theological perception rather than sociological group. Catholic History defines school in four areas: teamwork of the involved, educators and bishops’ cooperation, teacher-students’ interaction, and physical environment of the school. The principal should ensure that the school adheres to all these aspects for a smooth running of the schools. Schools should be always imbued with Catholic Worldview One of the key factors of a Catholic school is the permeation of Catholicism spirit throughout its curriculum. According to Catholic history, the purpose of education in school is to perfect growth of the students. Education has the main purpose of developing students’ capability by improving his or her physical, psychological, moral standards, and religious capabilities (Stewart, 2008:293). In order for the school to produce integral students, it must have gospel guidance. Therefore, the principals should ensure tha

Theories of Intelligence by Bruce Ballenger in The Curious Researcher Assignment

Theories of Intelligence by Bruce Ballenger in The Curious Researcher - Assignment Example He recalls memories of feeling intellectually inferior and derives meaning from things he has learned from research and the media and applies that knowledge to his life. Ballenger emphasizes the importance of people utilizing their strengths in order to become more accepting of their intelligence. He wrote that it took him a while to realize this. He recalled learning about he agreed with Gardner’s and Sternberg’s theories of intelligence. While he agreed with the theories, he felt that â€Å"there was a kind of intelligence that really counted and that I didn’t possess.† (p.16) Throughout the essay Ballenger takes the reader from his early childhood, to his current realization of his limitations and how this has helped him. 2. In the essay Ballenger mentions the results of a study on happiness that he learned while watching the news. The study suggested that everyone goes through a midlife crisis around the age of 52 because people at this age may come to feel that their lives did not turn out as they had hoped. These people usually feel better when they accept their strengths and weaknesses and accept that not all wishes will come true. After discussing these facts he offers commentary stating â€Å"It’s a great relief for me to know that things should be looking up.† ( p.13) On page 14 Ballenger discusses a youtube.com clip from the teen Miss USA contest where a contestant, Caitlin Upton responds incoherently to a question most people would view as common sense. Many people responded on by ridiculing Upton on the website. While Ballenger admits to ridiculing Upton, he acknowledged that he also sympathized with her because he could relate to the embarrassment that she must have been feel ing for appearing â€Å"unintelligent† He then discusses the research finding which states that American children tend to be rated on their intelligence beginning in elementary school, leading him to recall some

Printing and Advertising Services Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Printing and Advertising Services - Essay Example As the paper declares the ad is clear and strategically positioned so that everyone can read it just from any angle. This strategy improves the ad's visibility. Even passengers in moving vehicles can see it and perhaps put their seat belts on (if they did not have them on). The ad will then have reminded them that road safety is paramount and is the collective responsibility of not just law enforcers, but the passenger's as well. The ad depicts a man seated comfortably at the back seat, with no seat belts on; perhaps oblivious of the potential danger he is exposing himself to. This helps to show that the notion that passengers sometimes have; they think the back seat is "safer†. As the report stresses the billboard portrays an effective message; it tells people or passengers what they must not do if they want to be safe on the roads. In case they do not wear seat belts, they will be victims of their mistakes and negligence. Perhaps the ad also reinstates the need to be responsible road users, whether as passengers, drivers or pedestrians. Looking at the current accident trends, statistics suggest that 50% of all road accidents are preventable, among them by using seat belts. What a better way to pass this message than through the three-dimensional and colorful billboard ad! Car manufactures place seat belts in cars for a good cause. They realize that in case of an accident action and reactions forces will be involved.

Project management Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Project management - Assignment Example Team functionality and consequent performance depends on various collaboration aspects that are designed to enhance the realization of the project objectives. Communication is a fundamental aspect in the undertaking of a project that engages team work. There should be a clear flow of information from the team leader to the members and vice versa. This flow is designed to maintain a consistent system through which all players in the team are kept posted to emerging issues and expected trends in the project (Gowen, 2007). Team efficacy is highly influenced by modes and means of communication within and without the team. It is important that each member contributes to the design, formulation and implementation of a communication process that is properly suited to the specific variables of the project being undertaken. Running of a project is not always at par with the expectations. However, with effective communications designs, it easier for the entire team to deal with emerging challe nges in the process. The team encompasses diverse and dynamic reasoning, knowledge and skills. Project undertakings also require that balanced collaboration be observed if the desired results are to be achieved. For this reason, the team cannot avoid discussions and decision making at both individual and team level. This requires that effective communication among all stakeholders. ... Team coordination of project phases is characterized by numerous activities. These activities call for decision making from time to time, across every stakeholder. With proper communications designs, negotiations fall into place. Negotiations encompass critical evaluation and assessment of scenarios that need to accounted for as different project activities unfold. Negotiations are designed to bring on board different views of every person involved, so that what is decided upon binds to every team participant. Negotiation in the team level aims to bring to terms all the individual duties and responsibilities, so that what is achieved reflects a team effort. Although the team is made up of a number of players, each player’s contribution counts in the overall success or failure of the team. On the same note, the different players are divided in accordance to their specialization, prior to the activities that need to be undertaken, and the duties and responsibilities that need to be met. Therefore, the team operates in functional areas that range from management and leadership, finance, operations and human resource (Bollen, 2009). The interaction of these parties must encompass proper negotiations, so that in case anything goes wrong in the process, a blame game does not emerge. In such an instance, these functional areas engage in discussions, evaluations and assessments that account for misconducts realized if any. Team performance is highly dependent on the meetings aspect. Meetings are inevitable at all decision making levels. From the time the team is being formed to the completion of the project, meetings play an essential role in uniting all

Effect of Concentration on an Enzyme Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Effect of Concentration on an Enzyme - Essay Example Introduction Enzymes are substrate specific. They bind up with active sites on which they act upon. The by- product hydrogen peroxide is extremely toxic to living organisms cells. Aerobic respiration uses the oxygen produced from the reaction for oxidation of nutrients. Hydrogen peroxide is produced from the conversion of amino acids to lipids and from conversion of lipids to carbohydrates. Enzyme catalase is found in abundance in plants and in human beings. Without this enzyme most of the biochemical reactions in the cells will be extremely slow (Oslo, 2011). The major function of catalase in living organisms is to prevent accumulation of toxic substances such as hydrogen peroxide from accumulating in the body. According to Michaeli’s Constant principle (Catalase kinetics) the rate of a catalyzed increases first during the first stages of reaction then it slowly levels off regardless of how much the concentration has been used in that experiment. This further implies that an enzyme reaction is slow at low substrate concentration because after releasing products the molecules of the enzyme become free. At very high concentrations the reverse happens. In this experiment, filter paper is immersed into an enzyme and then placed into hydrogen peroxide. Oxygen is produced during this process and it is trapped and measured using the buoyancy disk. Time is measured from the time the buoyancy disk is from the bottom of the container until the time it will reach the surface of the solution. The reaction proceeds as follows; 2H2O2 catalase 2H2O + O2 This equation shows enzyme catalase converting hydrogen peroxide into hydrogen and water. Because enzymes are proteins, they can be denatured by high temperatures. They are also inactivated at low temperatures. Material and method used Potato, gram balance, blender, ice insulated ice bucket or water cooler, water bath at 10?, 30? and 40?, 500ml 1% H2O2, 1ml distilled water, 1ml adjustable pipettor, filter paper disks, forceps, 5 50ml beakers, 100ml graduated cylinder, thermometer and 1.5 ml plastic micro-centrifuge tubes. Procedure Six reaction tubes are prepared each containing distilled water and citrate buffer. H2O2 with higher concentration is used. The six tubes are then labeled according to their respective temperatures. The tubes are then placed in appropriate water bath and left for 10 minutes in order for them to reach equilibrium of their respective temperatures. The enzyme is then added and shaken well taking the reading at 0.00. The reading is maintained as a control reading for her remaining five experiments. Hydrogen peroxide is then added and the test tubes quickly returned to the water baths. The test tubes are allowed to stay in the water for as long as possible but taking the readings at every two minutes time interval and the data recorded. The spectrophotometer should be as close as possible to the water baths in order to end up accurate readings and the tubes should be wiped out with a tissue paper before they are placed in the spectrophotometer (T, 2006). Results and analysis 50g freshly peeled potato cubes are placed in 50ml cold distilled water. Crushed ice is then added to the mixture, which is then placed into a blender. The mixture is homogized for 30 seconds at a very high speed. The potato extract is then filtered into 100ml graduated cylinder. After this, cold distilled water is added into the mixture to fill it to the volume. The solution is then mixed properly. This solution acts as our

Concept Analysis Paper on Nursing Advocacy Essay

Concept Analysis Paper on Nursing Advocacy - Essay Example Historically, patient advocacy has been a moral obligation for nurses. During recent years, nursing literature has been focused on the advocacy role and nursing professions has adopted the term 'patient advocacy' to denote an ideal of the practice. Nurses assume that they have an ethical obligation to advocate for their patients. They also frequently describe their judgments and actions on behalf of a patient as "being a patient advocate. An examination of advocacy in the nursing literature reflects broad and at times different perspectives. Advocacy has been described in ethical and legal frameworks and, more recently, as a philosophical foundation for practice. It has also been described in terms of specific actions such as helping the patient to obtain needed healthcare, assuring quality of care, defending the patient's rights, and serving as a liaison between the patient and the health care system. Although multiple factors influence the need for advocacy, it is generally true that someone in the healthcare environment must assume the role of client advocate, particularly for the client whose self-advocacy is impaired. Generally, advocacy aims to promote or reinforce a change in one's life or environment, in program or service, and in policy or legislation. In healthcare delivery, these activities focus on health conditions, healthcare resources, and the needs of patients and the public. When nurses advocate for patients, they face certain risks and obstacles associated with the settings within which they work. Therefore, there is always the possibility that attempts to advocate for a patient can fail, and that nurses can experience many barriers when addressing the rights, choices, or welfare of their patients (Negarandeh 2006). The term "advocacy" has been used in nursing literature to denote a variety of nursing roles, each derived from a specific set of beliefs and values. The changing forms of advocacy may actually reflect the metamorphosis of nursing from the role of loyal, subservient handmaiden to autonomous health care provider. Strong yet diverse feelings regarding the appropriateness of nurses to be advocates are evident in the nursing literature and may stem from the use of one word label, "advocate," to represent several related and sometimes conflicting concepts. These concepts are defined as follows: beneficence-the principle of doing good; nonmaleficence-the principle of do ing no harm; unitary-transformative paradigm-a perspective that views human beings as unitary, self-organizing energy fields interacting with a larger environmental energy field; and utilitarianism-an ethical doctrine in which actions are focused on accomplishing the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Simplistic advocacy Mitty (1991) defined an advocate as one "who pleads the cause of another. She asserted that this role is implicit in the social contract between society and a profession such as nursing. She noted that although advocacy may occur at the individual or sociopolitical level, the underlying ethics guiding it varies from nurse to nurse. Ethics of justice might lead one nurse to advocate for a client's right to certain health care procedures, for example, whereas a nurse guided by an ethics of utilitarianism

A Memorable Event And Learnt Lesson Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

A Memorable Event And Learnt Lesson - Essay Example I remember vividly on that cold chilly morning on my way to take a bus to school, when I encountered a situation that has since taught me courage. This is the day I met with my worst fears face to face, but because of courage, I overcame my worst fear in life. My heart was pounding against my chest as I dropped the bag in my hand, which had my books, and raised both my arms. Deep inside, I was afraid, but with a little courage, I charged at my fears. Pit bulls! I was yelling at two pit bulls, which were charging a small boy that was ahead of me on the same lane. The small boy had run and was now helpless. He lay down in anguish, waiting to be mauled by the two animals. However, since I was behind the small boy and saw his helplessness, I did not want to experience the sight of a small helpless boy being mauled mercilessly right in front of me by two pit bulls.I continued to yell frantically at the pit bulls and ran toward the small boy. Even though I ran toward the boy, I had no idea of how I was going to save him. With my bag on the road and books scattered, I ran after the pit bulls toward direction of the boy, while continuing to yell at the pit bulls. Surprisingly, the pit bulls were distracted by my yelling, stopped running after the small boy, and drifted their attention to me. This was the defining moment. I would choose to either run away or face the pit bulls to allow the small boy to escape. I shouted at the small boy to rise up and run as far as he could. When I saw the small boy running away and the pit bulls coming after me, I felt a sense of relief, even though I was supposed to be afraid that the pit bulls would maul me. I tried running away and waving at a passing car to save me, but alas, the pit bulls were right there by my side. One pit bull jumped on me, while the other started to bite my legs. I closed my eyes and screamt in pain and anguish. Luckily, a car pulled over. I was highly relieved to learn that it was the owner of the dogs, as the dogs immediately rushed to the car when the person inside it stepped out. The owner, who was searching for his pit bulls was highly apologetic and helped me with first aid on the bites before driving me to the hospital. Although the pain on my body from the claws and bites of the pit bulls was excruciating, I afforded to smile when I remembered that I did it for a small helpless boy. After leaving the hospital on the same day, I went home and received a hero’

The American Indian and the Problem of Culture Essay Example for Free

The American Indian and the Problem of Culture Essay The Native Americans are perhaps the most culturally storied and richly diversified culture in the America. Indeed, the historical narrations of the Indian culture, way of life and lifestyle are narrated as rich in strife, struggle as well as triumph. In fact, a majority of the modern ways of life and lifestyle in the United States are directly or indirectly inherited or borrowed from the ancient Indian cultures of centuries ago. Yet, most Americans take for granted the many familiar symbols that trace their origin from the Native Indian Americans. The purpose of this paper is to describe the culture of the American Indians. The American Indians used various symbols that interwove the tapestry of their lifestyle. Integral symbols such as the totem pole, the teepee, the moccasins and the peace pipe formed a special cultural trait of the American Indians life (Barrett, 2004). Native animals and plants as houses and weather had a special cultural relationship with the American Indians. For instance, the American Indians revered animals for spiritual believes and ties in spite of their hunting practices. Animal hides and skins made drums and clothes while the meat was preserved and never wasted to nourish the community. The American Indians believed that the spirit of the animals killed lived through the community by inhabiting the tribe’s minds. The American Indians cultivated and later harvested various plants for different reasons and seasons such as making blankets and dyes (Biolsi Martin, 1989). Weather elements bore cultural meanings, attachments and endearments to the community, as well. For instance, the American Indians believed that the sun and the rain were supernatural powers and represented a change in the Indian’s seasons. Totem poles formed a special part of the America Indian’s culture (Hallowell, 1957). For instance, they believed that every person’s spirit in the community was attached to particular animal’s spirit. Therefore, the community believed that, at death, a person’s spirit was absorbed by his or her attached animal to live on or regenerate as another person at birth. As a tall and large wooden carving, the totem pole was framed to represent various animals with a certain animal representing a cherished but deceased member of the family. Today, it is easy to observe a dangling dream catcher hanged from rearview mirrors on cars driving in the United States’ roads. However, people rarely know or acknowledge the significance of the dream catchers. Indeed, this symbol traces back to the Lakota tribe’s legendary stories (Hallowell, 1957). It is a symbol of holding onto dearest things in a person’s life. In addition, the perforated holes in a dream catcher serve to filter ill feelings and thoughts. Another Interesting aspect of the American Indian’s culture is smoke signaling. The American Indians used smoke signals to send and relay messages over long distances and bore a proud heritage amongst the American Indians. The American Indians also believed in spirits and depended on them for the well being and nourishment of the society (Barrett, 2004). Spirits were tied to various outcomes in the society such as bumper harvest, natural disasters and tragedies and community health. As a result, the spirits were kept pleased to see to the survival and good harvest in the tribe. Sacrifices and offerings were made at sacred places to the spirits. For instance, the Pueblo tribes regarded various plants as sacred while the Aztecs offered human sacrifices to appease the spirits. References Barrett, C. A. (2004). American Indian culture. Pasadena, Calif.: Salem Press. Biolsi, T., Martin, C. (1989). The American Indian and the Problem of Culture. American Indian Quarterly, 13(3), 261. Hallowell, A. I. (1957). The Impact of the American Indian on American Culture. American Anthropologist, 59(2), 201-217. Source document

Journal Article on Juvenile Delinquency Essay Example for Free

Journal Article on Juvenile Delinquency Essay The study made by Kaplan and Johnson corresponds to the value of how people and corresponding social institutions perceive juvenile delinquency. In particular, it tackled the capacity of creating punishments and sanctions as an ideal norm that needs to be pursued. Such direction then fostered better means of analyzing the response of different social institutions towards these actions. Similarly, the aspect of labeling within the social model was also studied. In particular, it takes into consideration how this process corresponds to how individuals ascertain relationships and function towards functioning effectively within the specific standards established (Kaplan and Howard, p. 99). To achieve this perspective, the process of labeling was studied and determined by its capacity to promote deterrence. Similarly, careful study was also made in how a relationship may exist between the processes of social sanctions and the application of appropriate standards related to a model of deviant behavior (Kaplan and Johnson, p. 100). Through this, the study was able to establish specific patterns that allow the labeling process during deviant behavior to explain the motivation and resistance towards engagement. Such actions then help explain the manner on how people relate with social institutions and others accordingly. After careful analysis, the study then illustrated the value of utilizing labeling within the deviant behavior. Here, the principle is used to create better means of fostering distinctions between responses among individuals and social institutions (Kaplan and Johnson, p. 116). Seeing this, the idea then of labeling becomes both constructive in its capacity to motivate a change in behavior and deterrence of deviance. On the other hand, it also brings about a negative outcome that it promotes biased views and alienation among individuals who engage in such actions. Due to this, the principle then opens up greater opportunities to correlate in the process of role development and the creation of identity and behavior according to specific norms and establish specific responses due to negative social sanctions especially in the formulation of deviance. Reflecting on the article, it can be seen that the process of labeling remains to be an important component shaping perceptions among individuals concerning deviant behavior. It carries along the principle of facilitating norms and maintenance of status quo especially within different social institutions. Due to this, it both serves as deterrence for those who try to engage in such actions and hampers the relationship among peers. Such action then ensures the validity of ensuring stability among individuals and the manner they act and react to their specific environments. Similarly, the idea then of social controls provided towards deviant behavior remains to be innate in social norms. Analyzing these realities, it can be surmised that it functions towards establishing better means for people to act. By setting up these rules and standards, the manner of relationships and functions among people becomes effective and viable. Overall, the usefulness of this article revolves around its capacity to effectively understand the relationships surrounding deviance, social control, and social sanctions. It also tries to support the tenets of deviance theory by providing specific principles shaping and supplementing both its development and application of control. Such actions then increase the likelihood of establishing concrete definition and analysis. Lastly, this direction then opens up the capacity to understand the process of deviant behavior in the lens of sociology; as it tries to understand how it creates specific roles, develops relationship, and maintenance of control.

Urbanization: An analysis

Urbanization: An analysis 2.1 Urbanization 2.1.1 Current discourse in urbanization concept Urbanization is growing in most part of the world in line with technological discovery and human civilization. The rapid urbanization began at England’s industrial capitalism (Clark, 1998) at the end of 18th century and it spread rapidly after the use of coal for the industry primary raw material and a better transportation system (Hall, 1994). In developing world, urbanization started in 1950 after the Second World War (Crenshaw, 1991) and it is growing everywhere now especially in Africa and Asia. United Nation’s report indicated that by 2050, most population will be concentrated in cities and towns of developing countries. By this year, if Africa and Asia continue their current rapid growths, 50 percent of the population will live in urban areas and in 2010 it is predicted that the urban population is higher than the rural one (figure 2.1) Figure 2.1 Urban and rural population of the world, 1950 2030 (Source: Junaidi, 2006) There are four existing definitions for urbanization concept that mostly be the attention of urban planners. First, urbanization is seen as a process in which there have occurred transferring ideas and practices from urban areas into surrounding hinterlands. Second, urbanization is viewed as the increase both in behavior and problems considered to be urban types of rural area. The third, urbanization is related with the process of population concentration in which it is found the increasing ratio of the urban population to the total population (Phren. K. P, 1962) and the fourth, urbanization is seen as the combination of densification or the increase of density of people and building unit and the outward spread of people and built areas (Forman, T. www.cambridge.org). However, all of these definitions are interelated that all the urban planner needs to consider them in urban planning process integratedly. There are many related concepts involved from these in defining urbanization definition. From economic point of view, urbanization tend to connect it with labor division; demography related with density and population size, sociologic regarding to the way of living, and the last is geography from characteristics of the built up environment (Crenshaw, 1991). However, most analysts agree that demography is the basic criterion in differentiate urban and rural area (Clark, 1998, White, 1994, UNECA, 1968) because the population growth, including population density change, are the most quantified way to see the growth of an area. The most common example is United Nation that also uses the population size to standardize the urban localities and city among the nations. Mostly literatures argue that the driving force for urbanization is economic reason (Clark, 1998; Crenshaw, 1991, Jeremias, 1988), but there is a difference in the background of which. In developed world, rapid urbanization occurred because of industrial revolution, capitalism, and the invention of technology and a better transportation system while in developing countries, urbanization tend to occur because of economic imperial. The developing countries’ cities were previously prepared for supporting the economic interest of the powerful regime to earn money, to expand and control foreign trade, to create new markets for products and to acquire raw materials and cheap labor (Crenshaw, 1991). Many specific reasons for the driving force of urbanization and the traditional literature categorized them as push and pull factors. The push factor occurred because of the pressure of poverty problem and environment degradation in rural area. The poverty occurs because of limited job opportunities, limited land for agriculture and other natural resources limitation. The pull factor is related to the attraction of urban area for a better life. It is often related to a wider job opportunity, higher economic growth, better services and modern facilities (Baiquni, 2004). From this pull and push factors, it could be seen the disparities between urban and rural area are the main reason making more and more population concentrated in urban area. 2.1.2 Urbanization determinant The proximate determinants of urban growth can be grouped into three categories: firstly, the total population; secondly, rapid economic growth; and the third, percentage of built up area and areal extend (White, 1994). Population size The more population size of an area, the more urbanized it will be and it is positively related to the growth of urbanization (Rogers, 1982). The increasing of population size is caused by both migration and mortality. Migration flows occur because of employment availability in nearby cities and towns, ethnic connections in particular cities, the roads development and the accessibility of transportation (Connell et al, 1976). Some researches stated that the economic imbalance resulting wage disparities in urban and rural is a major reason for high levels of rural-to-urban migration. The size of population in urban area will be in line with the needs of water for these urban dwellers. Economic growth It appears that rapid economic growth related to urbanization (Becker Morrison 1988, Preston, 1979) that the urbanization level of an area can be marks by its rapid economic growth. Mostly in urban area people do not work in agriculture sector as in rural area, but in service and manufacture. The manufacture developments in urban area have triggered the employment opportunities for rural people to come, and a higher wage offered by manufacture sectors compared to the agriculture ones results in a better economic condition and quality of life. The quality of life will also influence to the water consumption quantity and quality. Percentage of built up area The urban characteristic can be seen from the density of people and the increase of building units. The sign is can be seen from the reduction of green spaces or the changing from low to high-rise apartment buildings. Other sign of urbanization is the city grows by expanding outward. Cities may also urbanize by rolling over suburbs, and suburbs urbanize by rolling over farmland or natural land (Crenshaw, 1991). The changing of landsape by built up environment will be related with the number of recharge area and wastewater quantity that will influence the groundwater. 2.2. Groundwater system on earth Groundwater constitutes about 98 percent of water on earth and both its storage and flow is one of the key elements of natural water systems (Foster, S, 1998). This fact makes groundwater an essential element to human life and economic activities. The details about groundwater hydrology are beyond the scope of this discussion, but a general overview will be presented. Figure 2.2. Hydrology Cycle Source: http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/stratplan2003/final/graphics/images/SciStratFig5-1.jpg Groundwater is water located beneath the ground surface in soil pore spaces and including one component of the earth’s water cycle. The water cycle is called the hydrologic cycle and it involves the movement of water as rain, snow, water vapor, surface water and groundwater. The earth’s water is constantly circulating from the earth’s surface up into the atmosphere and back down again as precipitation. When rain falls, a part of it infiltrates the soil. A proportion of this water will be taken up by plants while some will infiltrate more deeply, accumulate above an impermeable bed, saturate the pore space of the ground, and finally form an underground reservoir. This underground reservoir is called an aquifer, a place from which significant quantities of water can be abstracted for human needs. An aquifers productivity to store and transmit water are not the same, it depends on the fundamental characteristic of its constitute. Some of which are granular sediment such as sand, cement sediment such as sandstone and limestone, rock and fracture rock. The ground above an aquifer through is called the vadose zone; it is where the excess rainfall passed vertically. The level to which the ground is fully saturated is known as the water table. The nature, the occurrence of groundwater and the movement of water trough groundwater system is shown in the figure 2.2. 2.3 Urbanization and groundwater resources 2.3.1 Current Discourse Urbanization has been recognized as a trigger of social and environmental problems (Dogan Kasarda 1988, Timberlake 1985). The rapid expansion in groundwater exploitation of many industrialized nations occurred during 1950–1975 while in in most parts of the developing world it occurred during 1970–1990 (Zektser Margat 2003). The groundwater is estimated to provide at least globally 50% of current potable water supplies; 40% of the demand from industries, and 20% for water use in irrigated agriculture (Foster, 1998). These proportions vary widely from country to country and within countries depending on human activities on it. The groundwater is generally the main water resource to be tapped for urban dweller needs if a city has productive aquifers (Minciardi, 2007; Somma. 1997; Hiscock, 2002). This is because the groundwater has an excellent natural quality with significant savings in treatment costs compared to other surface water source. Other reason is because groundwater is a more secure source of water supply during long dry periods compared to the surface water resources (Clark, 1998, Ohgaki, 2007). Groundwater is also a suitable for public supply and independent private use, especially during the early stages of development (Foster, 1998). Two common methods for urban aquifer exploitation are by hand-dug wells and drilled boreholes (Foster, 1998). Hand-dug wells are usually less than 20 meters depth with diameters of 1 meter or more. In this method, the water is usually abstracted manually or by small pumps. The water supply boreholes are mechanically drilled, usually having smaller diameter than hand-dug wells, but much deeper ranging from 20 to 200 meters or more in depth. These two methods if developed in uncontrolled manner will cause groundwater depletion as it has occurred in many urban cities over the world (Ohgaki, 2007; Minciardi, 2006; Foster.S.S.D, 2001). 2.3.2 Urbanization impact to groundwater resources It has been identified that urbanization results in aquifer depletion, saline intrusion, and land subsidence, changing patterns and rates of aquifer recharge and affecting the quality and quantity of groundwater (Foster, 1998, White, 1994, Ohgaki, 2007, Minciardi, 2006). In this discussion the overall focus will be on the depletion of groundwater quantity related urbanization. Figure 2.2. Urban development and its impact to water resources Source: (Foster, 1998) From the figure above, it could be seen the urban development and its impact on the changing of urban groundwater. In the beginning, all cities evolve from small settlements; formal or informal. In this stage, the city dwellers can abstract groundwater using shallow well and boreholes as the groundwater is still abundant. As the infrastructure for wastewater either has not been adequate yet or less than the population needs, the wastewater starts discharging to the ground and starts to pollute the groundwater supply. When the town becomes city, the need of water supply is getting higher resulting from rapid urban population growth in contrast with the decline of groundwater supply. As the result, the well is deepened and there has been occurrence of land subsidence because of more urban dwellers do this deepening. The wastewater is still continuing to pollute the groundwater. The city then expands in line with the urbanization trend resulting to more water needed, more contaminant enters groundwater system and water table rises beneath the city. The urban dwellers start abandons their groundwater resources while the groundwater exploitation of hinterlands area as the alternate sources are getting higher. Because of the storage capacities of most aquifers are large, there is often a major time lag before the problems of groundwater depletion, water table rise and groundwater pollution becomes fully apparent (Foster, 1998). Further, there is increasing water supply scarcity with higher marginal costs for urban water supply. At the end, the traditional use groundwater that is low cost, minimally treated, and abundant for public water supply in urban areas is being threatened. Groundwater depletion The abstraction of groundwater has proved to be the cause of a qualitative decline in water levels. If abstraction is limited, the water level will be stabile at a new equilibrium. However, if occurs either a heavy or and concentrated groundwater withdrawal until it exceeds the local recharge, the water level may continue to decline over many years. As the result, there will be spreading of depress water level, land subsidence, water quality deterioration, sea water intrusion, up-coning and induced leakage of polluted water from the surface (Foster, 1998; Wangsaatmaja, 2006; Braadbaart, 1997) Mostly the problems and causes of aquifer depletion and contamination are clear while immediate solutions are not. General solutions involve some combination of increased recharge rate, reduced consumption rate, efficiency gains, and reduced or eliminated contaminant sources (Vo, 2007, Venkatesh Dutta, Foster.S.S.D, 2001). For example, reducing the velocity of runoff and providing time for recharge could enhance groundwater supplies significantly and at the same time reduce land-based sources of pollution to receiving waters. Land subsidence Land subsidence occurs for a variety reasons, but natural and manmade groundwater abstraction is one of the most contributor to this condition. The remedying efforts of the land subsidence impact involve a high economic cost (Foster, 1998). It is because differential subsidence damages roads, buildings, and other surface structures and it can seriously disrupt underground services such as water mains and water pipelines, sewers, cable conduits, tunnels, and subsurface tanks. In cities located on flat topography, subsidence can disrupt the drainage pattern of rivers and canals and can increase the risk of flooding. The land subsidence effects can be more serious in coastal areas because it can increase the risk of inundation (Hiscock, 2002). Saline intrusion The uncontrolled aquifer exploitation will impact on saline intrusion and it is usually occurs in coastal area. When the groundwater levels fall, the water flow direction change occurs. For thin and alluvial aquifers, this condition results in the formation of wedge shaped pattern and but in the thicker ones, salinity inversions often occur with intrusion of sea water in near-surface aquifer and fresh groundwater in deeper area. Once salinity has diffused into the pore water, its elution will take decades or centuries. Induced pollution Uncontrolled exploitation has consequences to contaminate the deeper aquifer. This induced pollution is caused by inadequate well construction, vertical pumping-induced, and sewage. Some rapidly developing cities have provided mains sewerage and generate large volumes of wastewater but this wastewater is normally discharged untreated or with minimal treatment to surface watercourses. It especially occurs in more arid climates (Anderson, 1987). 2.4 Urbanization Impact on groundwater management policy Although groundwater is the source of drinking water for most people, it is often ignored and taken for granted in urban planning program. The problem was expressed this way by the US Water Council in 1980: â€Å"The role of groundwater in water supply often has been slightenend in the past, one reason being believed that groundwater couldnot be adeqately evaluated in terms of avalibility, chemical quality, economics, or injuctive supply with surface water resources. However, substantial progress in groundwater analitical capability in recent years has made the resources more amanable to rational planning and management operation† (US Water Council in Grigg, 1996) Urban groundwater problems evolve over many years or decades as the result of slow the respond to most groundwater problem. The groundwater depletion and pollution problem are usually solved in incremental way by abandoning the shallow wells and replacing them with deeper boreholes to the aquifer (Grigg, 1996). However, this approach may only provide a temporary solution and if the urban planners continue this method, the groundwater supply will be in more stress condition. Therefore, the more comprehensive and sustainable groundwater planning and management approaches are needed to be developed (Tellman). 2.4.1 Groundwater Management Many literatures define groundwater management differently. Some emphasizes on the technical aspect such as engineering and hydrology, some are the process of managing and some others are the combination of them. However, the common similarity is on their objective that groundwater management is prepared to ensure that groundwater resources are managed in a fair, equitable and sustainable manner (Hiscock, 2002; Ohgaki, 2007; Minciardi, 2006;Venkatesh Dutta). Groundwater management can be defined as a number of integrated actions related to both natural and managed of groundwater pumping and recharge to achieve the long-term sustainability. California government in 2003 DWR Bulletin 118 2003 defines groundwater management as a set of activities including the planned and coordinated monitoring, operation, and administration of a groundwater basin or portion of a groundwater basin with the goal for long term sustainability of the resource. As the result, the groundwater management involves a number of engineering disciplines including survey and monitoring, geological interpretation, hydrological assessments, hydrogeological modeling, chemical and geochemical assessments and optimization. Groundwater management also deals with a complex interaction between human society needs and physical environment and it presents a difficult problem of policy design (Foster.S.S.D, 2001; Somma, 1997). For example, aquifers are exploited by human decisions for sustaining their lives and overexploitation cannot always be defined in technical terms, but as a failure to design and implement adequate institutional arrangements to manage people who exploit the groundwater resource. Common pool resources have been typically utilized in an open-access framework because of the characteristics of groundwater resources (Somma, 1997). When no one owns the resources, the users do not have any obligation to conserve for the future, and as the result, self-interest of individual users leads them to overexploitation. Groundwater management is a debated issue with very few examples of effective action on groundwater resources. However there some approaches that several studies concluded them as a successful groundwater methods, for example, sustainable groundwater development and management in the overexploited regions is treated by combining artificial recharge to groundwater and rainwater harvesting; management of salinity ingress in coastal aquifers; conjunctive use of surface water and groundwater; water conservation by increasing water-use efficiency; regulation of groundwater development.. Further, there also innovative methods of recharging the groundwater and storing water in floodplain aquifers along the river banks to enhance the ultimate irrigation potential from groundwater. The following four steps are essential for most groundwater management cases. Firstly, there must be regular and accurate assessment of actual groundwater use in both rural and urban areas to correlate with recharge and extraction. Secondly, expansion should be strictly monitored. Thirdly, separation of feeders for domestic and agricultural power and the fourth, ways must be explored to empower and entrust the communities to manage the groundwater uses. Development of groundwater management is usually begun by an assessment of groundwater problems and management issues, a compilation of groundwater management tools, an identification of action to address issues and problems, selection of the management plan and a discussion of implementation aspects of the plan. Mostly, the suitable groundwater management approaches are identified at the local water agency level and directly resolved at the local level. However, the State also has role in providing technical and financial assistance to local agencies for their groundwater management efforts. The Department publishes a regulatory framework for groundwater management to ensure that the groundwater resources are maintained and used in an orderly, equitable, and sustainable manner. If groundwater management is obeyed and the problem cannot be directly resolved at the local agency level, there is usually an additional actions such as enactment by local governments or decisions by the cou rts. 2.4.2 Sustainable groundwater management Groundwater is an important source of clean drinking water in many areas because of its characteristics, but mostly a sustainable management has not yet been established for this resource. Natural water bodies have become the place for storing human activities products, such as wastewater and other industrial pollution, causing little natural water storage capacity left. The sustainable groundwater management needs to involve a larger management system including the development of alternative surface water supplies, reallocation among economic uses of water, and regulatory limits on abstraction. Like other water resources management and other environment issues, all elements of active aquifer management must involve stakeholder participation and whole basin analysis. It means that sustainable groundwater management should take place on various levels, starting from the localized borehole owner and user to the regional aquifer, basin and catchment area. At the end, the groundwater development will much depend on management principles applied by Local authorities, Government and Inter Governmental development planning and management strategies. By taking appropriate measure, sustainable groundwater management development can be built. In urban planning practice these measures tend to reduce sewer overflows, improve the quality of treatment plant effluent and prevent falling water tables in areas around towns, cities, and the hinterlands. 2.4.3 Major approaches in sustainable groundwater management The literature generally literatures found that the approaches for sustainable groundwater management are divided into spatial and a-spatial approaches as below. The most common similarity in these approaches is that one method cannot stand alone but must be integrated and connected with other disciplines and other sectors. Integrating sustainable groundwater in spatial planning and management a.1) The use of `Hydrological Design Principles This approach involves zoning related to the catchment planning approach, the location approach, and buffering approach. The `Hydrological Design Principles as a basis for making spatial planning decisions or design of land use patterns is the most common approaches for groundwater management. The Catchment Planning Approach objectives are both to adjust land uses or activities with environmental requirements in the catchment area or drainage basin and to prevent peak discharges. This is implemented by allocating land use profiles to each catchment area and by taking account to maintain or increase the catchment areas’ water storage capacity. The attention to be paid is to both water quality and quantity aspects, which are to be managed with the most important goal for achieving an ecological balance with the land use activities. The Location Approach’s aims are to order the various land uses and activities within each catchment area so that the affect occurs is as little as possible to each of them. In this approach, the land uses that have greater demands on water quality are located upstream of more polluting ones, while the more vulnerable uses is located in areas of groundwater seepages. The clean land use activities are placed in the infiltration areas. The Buffering Approach is used to give chance the land uses with incompatible environmental requirements to co-exist. A well-known example at the local level is the hydrological buffering of natural sites from surrounding agricultural land. This can be achieved through appropriate design and management measures that can be implement in a relatively easy and quick manner. a.2) Integrating land use activities, groundwater systems and the environment The approaches are by water storage, habitat creation and natural water treatment combined with new urban development. In many places where the abstraction of drinking water causes damage to nature, water may be abstracted elsewhere instead, for example is in the hinterlands of that area. In some cases, groundwater abstraction should be stopped regarding to riverbank filtration. Water from the river can be pumped into the ground under the banks and later abstracted when it has been sufficiently filtered by passing through the sand and clay in the sub-soil. Raising storage capacity in the river basin through habitat creation, landscaping and establishing outdoor recreation areas are also other approaches for this method. The groundwater system had double function for human life. a.3) Ensuring enough room for water: Catch water where it falls It is mostly done in the areas around the main rivers or flood prone area. It can be in line with habitat protection because the raising the water storage capacity by lowering the ground level of the river or moving back the dikes back offer opportunities for nature development. The widening ditches and raising the drainage level can increase the water storage capacity. As the result, more room for water and the rainwater can be infiltrated into the soil instead of being drained away as quickly as possible to the sewer. An advantageous effect of giving water more room is the greater opportunity it presents to make use of natural filtration and water purification processes. a.4) Controlling subsurface contaminants load and ensuring sufficient clean water Water pollution problems can be partially minimized or controlled by delineating source protection zones around major groundwater catchment areas. On the other hand, there are some related approaches such as firstly; appropriate planning provisions or mitigation measures to reduce contaminants load in particular areas, especially where aquifer is highly vulnerable. Secondly, to moderate the subsurface contamination to acceptable levels by considering the vulnerability of local aquifers to pollution, land use planning to reduce potential pollution sources. Thirdly by selecting controls over effluent discharges and other existing pollution sources and the fourth is by planning waste water treatment or landfill disposal sites regarding to groundwater interests and impacts. Integrating sustainable groundwater in a-spatial planning and management b.1) Institutional management To improve groundwater management, a strong institutional framework is prerequisite. Regarding to groundwater characteristics, an ideal institutional framework should to include legislation to provide clear definition of water use rights that is separate from land ownership. It could be implemented through granting of licenses and tax for groundwater exploitation in a specified manner. Other approach is by regulating and supervising the discharge of liquid effluents to the ground, the land disposal of solid-wastes, and other potentially polluting activities with a need legal consent or planning approval. Some literatures also presented about the behavior change and prospectus in groundwater that is believed can be last longer than the technical approaches. b.2) Demand side management Groundwater management not only requires adequate assessment of available resources and hydrogeology by understanding of interconnection between surface and groundwater system, but also actions required for proper resource allocation and prevention of the adverse effects of uncontrolled development of ground water resources for short and long term. One of the important strategies for this is a-spatial sustainable management of groundwater by regulating the groundwater development in critical areas using demand side approach. Management of demand means managing efficiency of water use, interaction among economic activities that is adjusted with water availability. In demand side management, socio economic dimension plays an important role that it also involves the managing the users of water and land. It is because the regulatory interventions in demand side management such as water rights and permits and economic tools of water pricing will not be successful if the different user groups are not fully involved. As the result, for achieving effective management of groundwater resources, there is a need to create awareness among the different water user groups and workout area specific plans for sustainable development. From among these two characteristics, it can be concluded that there are two emerging broad types of management approaches for groundwater. Firstly, approaches including tools such as power pricing, subsidies for efficient technologies, economic policies discouraging water intensive crops, etc. Secondly, approaches dealing with specific aquifers on the basis of command and control management through a resource regulator. Whichever approach is adopted, the development and management of these resources must be based on an adequate knowledge of a clear comprehensive situation of groundwater aquifer system and its replenishment. Contents CHAPTER II 1 URBANIZATION AND GROUNDWATER PLANNING 1 2.1 Urbanization 1 2.1.1 Current discourse in urbanization concept 1 2.1.2 Urbanization determinant 3 a) Population size 3b) Economic growth 3c) Percentage of built up area 42.2. Groundwater system on earth 4 2.3 Urbanization and groundwater resources 5 2.3.1 Current Discourse 52.3.2 Urbanization impact to groundwater resources 6a) Groundwater depletion 8b) Land subsidence 9c) Saline intrusion 9d) Induced pollution 92.4 Urbanization Impact on groundwater management policy 9 2.4.1 Groundwater Management 102.4.2 Sustainable groundwater management 122.4.3 Major approaches in sustainable groundwater management 12a) Integrating sustainable groundwater in spatial planning and management 13a.1) The use of `Hydrological Design Principles 13a.2) Integrating land use activities, groundwater systems and the environment 13a.3) Ensuring enough room for water: Catch water where it falls 14a.4) Controlling subsurface contaminants load and ensuring sufficient clean water 14b) Integrating sustainable groundwater in a-spatial planning and management 15b.1) Institutional management 15b.2) Demand side management 15

Compression Techniques used for Medical Image

Compression Techniques used for Medical Image 1.1 Introduction Image compression is an important research issue over the last years. A several techniques and methods have been presented to achieve common goals to alter the representation of information of the image sufficiently well with less data size and high compression rates. These techniques can be classified into two categories, lossless and lossy compression techniques. Lossless techniques are applied when data are critical and loss of information is not acceptable such as Huffman encoding, Run Length Encoding (RLE), Lempel-Ziv-Welch coding (LZW) and Area coding. Hence, many medical images should be compressed by lossless techniques. On the other hand, Lossy compression techniques such as Predictive Coding (PC), Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT), Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) and Vector Quantization (VQ) more efficient in terms of storage and transmission needs but there is no warranty that they can preserve the characteristics needed in medical image processing and diagnosis [1-2]. Data compression is the process that transform data files into smaller ones this process is effective for storage and transmission. It presents the information in a digital form as binary sequences which hold spatial and statistical redundancy. The relatively high cost of storage and transmission makes data compression worthy. Compression is considered necessary and essential key for creating image files with manageable and transmittable sizes [3]. The basic goal of image compression is to reduce the bit rate of an image to decrease the capacity of the channel or digital storage memory requirements; while maintaining the important information in the image [4]. The bit rate is measured in bits per pixel (bpp). Almost all methods of image compression are based on two fundamental principles: The first principle is to remove the redundancy or the duplication from the image. This approach is called redundancy reduction. The second principle is to remove parts or details of the image that will not be noticed by the user. This approach is called irrelevancy reduction. Image compression methods are based on either redundancy reduction or irrelevancy reduction separately while most compression methods exploit both. While in other methods they cannot be easily separated [2]. Several image compression techniques encode transformed image data instead of the original images [5]-[6]. In this thesis, an approach is developed to enhance the performance of Huffman compression coding a new hybrid lossless image compression technique that combines between lossless and lossy compression which named LPC-DWT-Huffman (LPCDH) technique is proposed to maximize compression so that threefold compression can be obtained. The image firstly passed through the LPC transformation. The waveform transformation is then applied to the LPC output. Finally, the wavelet coefficients are encoded by the Huffman coding. Compared with both Huffman, LPC- Huffman and DWT-Huffman (DH) techniques; our new model is as maximum compression ratio as that before. However, this is still needed for more work especially with the advancement of medical imaging systems offering high resolution and video recording. Medical images come in the front of diagnostic, treatment and fellow up of different diseases. Therefore, nowadays, many hospitals around the world are routinely using medical image processing a nd compression tools. 1.1.1 Motivations Most hospitals store medical image data in digital form using picture archiving and communication systems due to extensive digitization of data and increasing telemedicine use. However, the need for data storage capacity and transmission bandwidth continues to exceed the capability of available technologies. Medical image processing and compression have become an important tool for diagnosis and treatment of many diseases so we need a hybrid technique to compress medical image without any loss in image information which important for medical diagnosis. 1.1.2 Contributions Image compression plays a critical role in telemedicine. It is desired that either single images or sequences of images be transmitted over computer networks at large distances that they could be used in a multitude of purposes. The main contribution of the research is aim to compress medical image to be small size, reliable, improved and fast to facilitate medical diagnosis performed by many medical centers. 1.2 Thesis Organization The thesis is organized into six chapters, as following: Chapter 2 Describes the basic background on the image compression technique including lossless and lossy methods and describes the types of medical images Chapter 3 Provides a literature survey for medical image compression. Chapter 4 Describes LPC-DWT-Huffman (proposed methods) algorithm implementation. The objective is to achieve a reasonable compression ratio as well as better quality of reproduction of image with a low power consumption. Chapter 5 Provides simulation results of compression of several medical images and compare it with other methods using several metrics. Chapter 6 Provides some drawn conclusions about this work and some suggestions for the future work. Appendix A Provides Huffman example and comparison between the methods for the last years. Appendix B Provides the Matlab Codes Appendix C Provides various medical image compression using LPCDH. 1.3 Introduction Image compression is the process of obtaining a compact representation of an image while maintaining all the necessary information important for medical diagnosis. The target of the Image compression is to reduce the image size in bytes without effects on the quality of the image. The decrease in image size permits images to save memory space. The image compression methods are generally categorized into two central types: Lossless and Lossy methods. The major objective of each type is to rebuild the original image from the compressed one without affecting any of its numerical or physical values [7]. Lossless compression also called noiseless coding that the original image can perfectly recover each individual pixel value from the compressed (encoded) image but have low compression rate. Lossless compression methods are often based on redundancy reduction which uses statistical decomposition techniques to eliminate or remove the redundancy (duplication) in the original image. Lossless Image coding is also important in applications where no information loss is allowed during compression. Due to the cost, it is used only for a few applications with stringent requirements such as medical imaging [8-9]. In lossy compression techniques there are a slight loss of data but high compression ratio. The original and reconstructed images are not perfectly matched. However, practically near to each other, this difference is represented as a noise. Data loss may be unacceptable in many applications so that it must be lossless. In medical images compression that use lossless techniques do not give enough advantages in transmission and storage and the compression that use lossy techniques may lose critical data required for diagnosis [10]. This thesis presents a combination of lossy and lossless compression to get high compressed image without data loss. 1.4 Lossless Compression If the data have been lossless compressed, the original data can be exactly reconstructed from the compressed data. This is generally used for many applications that cannot allow any variations between the original and reconstructed data. The types of lossless compression can be analyzed in Figure 2.1. Figure 2.1: lossless compression Run Length Encoding Run length encoding, also called recurrence coding, is one of the simplest lossless data compression algorithms. It is based on the idea of encoding a consecutive occurrence of the same symbol. It is effective for data sets that are consist of long sequences of a single repeated character [50]. This is performed by replacing a series of repeated symbols with a count and the symbol. That is, RLE finds the number of repeated symbols in the input image and replaces them with two-byte code. The first byte for the number and the second one is for the symbol. For a simple illustrative example, the string AAAAAABBBBCCCCC is encoded as A6B4C5; that saves nine bytes (i.e. compression ratio =15/6=5/2). However in some cases there is no much consecutive repeation which reduces the compression ratio. An illustrative example, the original data 12000131415000000900, the RLE encodes it to 120313141506902 (i.e. compression ratio =20/15=4/3). Moreover if the data is random the RLE may fail to achieve any compression ratio [30]-[49]. Huffman encoding It is the most popular lossless compression technique for removing coding redundancy. The Huffman encoding starts with computing the probability of each symbol in the image. These symbols probabilities are sorted in a descending order creating leaf nodes of a tree. The Huffman code is designed by merging the lowest probable symbols producing a new probable, this process is continued until only two probabilities of two last symbols are left. The code tree is obtained and Huffman codes are formed from labelling the tree branch with 0 and 1 [9]. The Huffman codes for each symbol is obtained by reading the branch digits sequentially from the root node to the leaf. Huffman code procedure is based on the following three observations: 1) More frequently(higher probability) occurred symbols will have shorter code words than symbol that occur less frequently. 2) The two symbols that occur least frequently will have the same length code. 3) The Huffman codes are variable length code and prefix code. For more indication Huffman example is presented in details in Appendix (A-I). The entropy (H) describes the possible compression for the image in bit per pixel. It must be noted that, there arent any possible compression ratio smaller than entropy. The entropy of any image is calculated as the average information probability [12]. (2.1) Where Pk is the probability of symbols, k is the intensity value, and L is the number of intensity values used to present image. The average code length is given by the sum of product of probability of the symbol and number of bits used to encode it. More information can be founded in [13-14] and the Huffman code efficiency is calculated as (2.2) LZW coding LZW (Lempel- Ziv Welch) is given by J. Ziv and A. Lempel in 1977 [51].T. Welchs refinements to the algorithm were published in 1984 [52]. LZW compression replaces strings of characters with single codes. It does not do any analysis of the input text. But, it adds every new string of characters to a table of strings. Compression occurs when the output is a single code instead of a string of characters. LZW is a dictionary based coding which can be static or dynamic. In static coding, dictionary is fixed during the encoding and decoding processes. In dynamic coding, the dictionary is updated. LZW is widely used in computer industry and it is implemented as compress command on UNIX [30]. The output code of that the LZW algorithm can be any arbitrary length, but it must have more bits than a single character. The first 256 codes are by default assigned to the standard character set. The remaining codes are assigned to strings as the algorithm proceeds. There are three best-known applications of LZW: UNIX compress (file compression), GIF image compression, and V.42 bits (compression over Modems) [50]. Area coding Area coding is an enhanced form of RLE. This is more advance than the other lossless methods. The algorithms of area coding find rectangular regions with the same properties. These regions are coded into a specific form as an element with two points and a certain structure. This coding can be highly effective but it has the problem of a nonlinear method, which cannot be designed in hardware [9]. 1.5 Lossy Compression Lossy Compression techniques deliver greater compression percentages than lossless ones. But there are some loss of information, and the data cannot be reconstructed exactly. In some applications, exact reconstruction is not necessary. The lossy compression methods are given in Figure 2.2. In the following subsections, several Lossy compression techniques are reviewed: Figure 2.2: lossy compression Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) Wavelet analysis have been known as an efficient approach to representing data (signal or image). The Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) depends on filtering the image with high-pass filter and low-pass filter.in the first stage The image is filtered row by row (horizontal direction) with two filters and and down sampling (keep the even indexed column) every samples at the filter outputs. This produces two DWT coefficients each of size N ÃÆ'-N/2. In the second stage, the DWT coefficients of the filter are filtered column by column (vertical direction) with the same two filters and keep the even indexed row and subsampled to give two other sets of DWT coefficients of each size N/2ÃÆ'-N/2. The output is defined by approximation and detailed coefficients as shown in Figure 2.3. Figure 2.3: filter stage in 2D DWT [15]. LL coefficients: low-pass in the horizontal direction and lowpass in the vertical direction. HL coefficients: high-pass in the horizontal direction and lowpass in the vertical direction, thus follow horizontal edges more than vertical edges. LH coefficients: high-pass in the vertical direction and low-pass in the horizontal direction, thus follow vertical edges than horizontal edges. HH coefficients: high-pass in the horizontal direction and high-pass in the vertical direction, thus preserve diagonal edges. Figure 2.4 show the LL, HL, LH, and HH when one level wavelet is applied to brain image. It is noticed that The LL contains, furthermore all information about the image while the size is quarter of original image size if we disregard the HL, LH, and HH three detailed coefficients shows horizontal, vertical and diagonal details. The Compression ratio increases when the number of wavelet coefficients that are equal zeroes increase. This implies that one level wavelet can provide compression ratio of four [16]. Figure 2.4: Wavelet Decomposition applied on a brain image. The Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) of a sequence consists of two series expansions, one is to the approximation and the other to the details of the sequence. The formal definition of DWT of an N-point sequence x [n], 0 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¤ n à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¤ N à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ 1 is given by [17]: (2.3) (2.4) (2.5) Where Q (n1 ,n2) is approximated signal, E(n1 ,n2) is an image, WQ (j,k1,k2) is the approximation DWT and W µ (j,k1,k2) is the detailed DWT where i represent the direction index (vertical V, horizontal H, diagonal D) [18]. To reconstruct back the original image from the LL (cA), HL (cD(h)), LH (cD(v)), and HH (cD(d)) coefficients, the inverse 2D DWT (IDWT) is applied as shown in Figure 2.5. Figure 2.5: one level inverse 2D-DWT [19]. The equation of IDWT that reconstruct the image E () is given by [18]: (2.6) DWT has different families such as Haar and Daupachies (db) the compression ratio can vary from wavelet type to another depending which one can represented the signal in fewer number coefficients. Predictive Coding (PC) The main component of the predictive coding method is the Predictor which exists in both encoder and decoder. The encoder computes the predicted value for a pixel, denote xˆ (n), based on the known pixel values of its neighboring pixels. The residual error, which is the difference value between the actual value of the current pixel x (n) and x ˆ (n) the predicted one. This is computed for all pixels. The residual errors are then encoded by any encoding scheme to generate a compressed data stream [21]. The residual errors must be small to achieve high compression ratio. e (n) = x (n) xˆ (n)(2.7) e (n) =x(n) (2.8) Where k is the pixel order and ÃŽÂ ± is a value between 0 and 1 [20]. The decoder also computes the predicted value of the current pixel xˆ  (n) based on the previously decoded color values of neighboring pixels using the same method as the encoder. The decoder decodes the residual error for the current pixel and performs the inverse operation to restore the value of the current pixel [21]. x (n) = e (n) + xˆ  (n)(2.9) Linear predictive coding (LPC) The techniques of linear prediction have been applied with great success in many problems of speech processing. The success in processing speech signals suggests that similar techniques might be useful in modelling and coding of 2-D image signals. Due to the extensive computation required for its implementation in two dimensions, only the simplest forms of linear prediction have received much attention in image coding [22]. The schemes of one dimensional predictors make predictions based only on the value of the previous pixel on the current line as shown in equation. Z = X D(2.10) Where Z denotes as output of predictor and X is the current pixel and D is the adjacent pixel. The two dimensional prediction scheme based on the values of previous pixels in a left-to-right, top-to-bottom scan of an image. In Figure 2.6 X denotes the current pixel and A, B, C and D are the adjacent pixels. If the current pixel is the top leftmost one, then there is no prediction since there are no adjacent pixels and no prior information for prediction [21]. Figure 2.6: Neighbor pixels for predicting Z = x (B + D)(2.11) Then, the residual error (E), which is the difference between the actual value of the current pixel (X) and the predicted one (Z) is given by the following equation. E = X Z(2.12) Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) The Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) was first proposed by N. Ahmed [57]. It has been more and more important in recent years [55]. The DCT is similar to the discrete Fourier transform that transforms a signal or image from the spatial domain to the frequency domain as shown in Figure 2.7. Figure 2.7: Image transformation from the spatial domain to the frequency domain [55]. DCT represents a finite series of data points as a sum of harmonics cosine functions. DCTs representation have been used for numerous data processing applications, such as lossy coding of audio signal and images. It has been found that small number of DCT coefficients are capable of representing large sequence of raw data. This transform has been widely used in signal processing of image data, especially in coding for compression for its near-optimal performance. The discrete cosine transform helps to separate the image into spectral sub-bands of differing importance with respect to the images visual quality [55]. The use of cosine is much more efficient than sine functions in image compression since this cosine function is capable of representing edges and boundary. As described below, fewer coefficients are needed to approximate and represent a typical signal. The Two-dimensional DCT is useful in the analysis of two-dimensional (2D) signals such as images. We say that the 2D DCT is separable in the two dimensions. It is computed in a simple way: The 1D DCT is applied to each row of an image, s, and then to each column of the result. Thus, the transform of the image s(x, y) is given by [55], (2.13) where. (n x m) is the size of the block that the DCT is applied on. Equation (2.3) calculates one entry (u, v) of the transformed image from the pixel values of the original image matrix [55]. Where u and v are the sample in the frequency domain. DCT is widely used especially for image compression for encoding and decoding, at encoding process image divided into N x N blocks after that DCT performed to each block. In practice JPEG compression uses DCT with a block of 88. Quantization applied to DCT coefficient to compress the blocks so selecting any quantization method effect on compression value. Compressed blocks are saved in a storage memory with significantly space reduction. In decoding process, compressed blocks are loaded which de-quantized with reverse the quantization process. Inverse DCT was applied on each block and merging blocks into an image which is similar to original one [56]. Vector Quantization Vector Quantization (VQ) is a lossy compression method. It uses a codebook containing pixel patterns with corresponding indexes on each of them. The main idea of VQ is to represent arrays of pixels by an index in the codebook. In this way, compression is achieved because the size of the index is usually a small fraction of that of the block of pixels. The image is subdivided into blocks, typically of a fixed size of nÃÆ'-n pixels. For each block, the nearest codebook entry under the distance metric is found and the ordinal number of the entry is transmitted. On reconstruction, the same codebook is used and a simple look-up operation is performed to produce the reconstructed image [53]. The main advantages of VQ are the simplicity of its idea and the possible efficient implementation of the decoder. Moreover, VQ is theoretically an efficient method for image compression, and superior performance will be gained for large vectors. However, in order to use large vectors, VQ becomes complex and requires many computational resources (e.g. memory, computations per pixel) in order to efficiently construct and search a codebook. More research on reducing this complexity has to be done in order to make VQ a practical image compression method with superior quality [50]. Learning Vector Quantization is a supervised learning algorithm which can be used to modify the codebook if a set of labeled training data is available [13]. For an input vector x, let the nearest code-word index be i and let j be the class label for the input vector. The learning-rate parameter is initialized to 0.1 and then decreases monotonically with each iteration. After a suitable number of iterations, the codebook typically converges and the training is terminated. The main drawback of the conventional VQ coding is the computational load needed during the encoding stage as an exhaustive search is required through the entire codebook for each input vector. An alternative approach is to cascade a number of encoders in a hierarchical manner that trades off accuracy and speed of encoding [14], [54]. 1.6 Medical Image Types Medical imaging techniques allow doctors and researchers to view activities or problems within the human body, without invasive neurosurgery. There are a number of accepted and safe imaging techniques such as X-rays, Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Computed tomography (CT), Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Electroencephalography (EEG) [23-24]. 1.7 Conclusion In this chapter many compression techniques used for medical image have discussed. There are several types of medical images such as X-rays, Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Computed tomography (CT), Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Electroencephalography (EEG). Image compression has two categories lossy and lossless compression. Lossless compression such as Run Length Encoding, Huffman Encoding Lempel-Ziv-Welch, and Area Coding. Lossy compression such as Predictive Coding (PC), Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT), Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), and Vector Quantization (VQ).Several compression techniques already present a better techniques which are faster, more accurate, more memory efficient and simpler to use. These methods will be discussed in the next chapter.