Decision Making Assessment (Synthesis) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Decision Making Assessment (Synthesis) - Essay Example The study deals in focusing on the decision making concept with reference to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Frame is defined as â€Å"the structural core of the paradigmatic mental model that brings to a problem† (Johnson & Russo, 1994, p. 290). In simple terms decision making frames creates its own ideas and focuses on the environment. By ideas it is meant that the environmental issues should be considered that are affected by the decision (Johnson & Russo, 1994, p. 290). U.S. Army Corps of Engineers considers environmental sustainability as their key principle. The Corp team diligently works to strengthen the security of the nation by developing and preserving the infrastructure of America and offering military facilities (About us, n.d.). Any type of decision making is backed by reasoning. A bad decision comes from distortion and biases, which creates a series of mental flaws and obstructs the sense of reasoning. So before coming to any decision reasoning should be done properly (The Hidden Traps in Decision Making, n.d.). Behind any decision taken by the organization, the main reason is to â€Å"strengthen the security system, energize the economy and reduce the risks from disasters† (Mission & Vision, n.d.). For this reason a group of trained individual is continuously working to provide innovative and sustainable solutions (Mission & Vision, n.d.). Declarative knowledge in decision making gives importance to the ordering of attributes and relative desirability of various levels within the attributes that are required to implement the strategy. Thus the experience and expertise of a decision maker is bound to be affected by the declarative and procedural memory in following a plan (Goldstain & Weber, 1995, p.116). U.S. Army Corps of Engineers always transform the ways they do their business based on the Campaign Plan. A set of experienced, trained and certified workers, work as per

EBay as an International Business Firm Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

EBay as an International Business Firm - Essay Example French computer programmer Pierre Omidyar established the eBay on 3rd September, 1995 at San Jose, California. This establishment was actually in the favor of his wife to sale her collectibles. Initially the name of organization was AuctionWeb which was renamed as eBay in 1997 (catalogs.com). A laser printer amounting $14.83 was the first sold item. In November 1996, eBay made its first third-party licensing deal with Electronic Travel Auction to sell air tickets and different travel products. The site hosted 250,000 and 2,000,000 auctions during 1996 and 1997 respectively (Lewis, 2008). In 2002, the company bought PayPal, the leading transaction medium of the world. In 2008, the company’s revenue reached 7.7 billion dollars and the strength of manpower exceeded by 15,000. eBay successfully purchased the rights of Skype in 2009 for an amount of 2.75 billion dollars (Washington Post, 2009) Scope of Business eBay is an international firm which deals a huge of variety of items fo r sale and purchase. This huge list of items include a variety of collectibles in the field of electronics, fashion, motors, antiquates, sports, household items, movies, music and games etc. The firm uses PayPal for payment which is one of the fastest, secure, and the largest online transaction medium. Key Management of eBay Corporate and strategic planning are fundamentals of this facet of the firm. It includes the Management Information System (MIS) and some other controlling agencies like accounting, electricity, and human resource departments. However, eBay provides a web based environment works which is like newspapers-classified section. It entertains consumer to consumer transactions but does not take responsibility of the custody of sold items. Areas of Operations Presently eBay operates about 30 countries in terms of different categories of its business. The countries include Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Ge rmany, Greece, France, Hungary, Hong Kong, Ireland, India, Italy, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, and United States (www.ebay.com). Achievements After launching in 1995, the firm has done tremendous achievements in all facets of business. Today about 147 million people use this site in more than 30 countries across the globe. After 16 years, the company manpower strength has reached about 17,700 (finance.yahoo.com). The company market capitalization had surpassed that of even Amazon.com, helping to make it the world’s most worthwhile Internet retail outlet. In 1997, there have been 40 types of products available; the actual publishing associated with collectibles as well as antiques experienced a significant growth. Other categories with regard to these things were demanded by customers. At social level, the primary concern of eBay had been to ascertain confidence amongst remote control as well as unknown potential traders that could possibly in no way have interaction yet again. This had been done through the review programs pertaining to setting up reputations with online community subscribers who

TTS Systems for Android

TTS Systems for Android   ABSTRACT There are different kinds of TTS (Text to Speech) systems are already available for Personal computers and web applications. In the Platform of Smart Phone, few of TTS systems are available for Bangla Language. Nowadays android is a popular platform considering Smartphone. There are few Bangla TTS Systems are Available with different kind of Mechanisms and techniques, various kind of tools were used. Here we tried to introduce all mechanisms together and proving a summary above all existing system. Introduction There are more than 250 million people over 4 states of 2 countries in the world speaks Bengali. We are looking for a device which would be able to read any bangla text aloud. So now there is no other device than mobile phone as a better option. There are more than 14 million mobile users in Bangladesh and 30% of them are using smart phones. Use of smart phones are increasing day by day because of reliability, maximum features, capable of using faster internet and eligible for open source application based system. So these kind of features are making our communication very easier and maximum communication is happening over text messaging. So for making our life very easier there are many TTS engines are available for English and many other languages. For bangla there are few more TTS Systems are available in smart phones Platform. Text and Speech both are very powerful communication infliction. If we can make it easier by converting from text to speech or vice versa than it would be a great achievement in communication life cycle, it will make communication easier than before. People would be able to speak their own words by texting only via Mobile Phone. Speech is the most natural form of communication and interaction. Speech Synthesis is a major part of TTS engine and for Bangla it is done in many different ways by different authors. From all those we will get the basic idea of Speech Synthesis Techniques. It is apparent that we are using pre recorded voices for TTS engines yet. Maximum system renders symbolic linguistic representation. So we will discuss about the existing system and possibilities of making the voice very much realistic. The concatenation of final token of speech should be patterned as like real communication. Recorded voices are stored in Database. System differ in the size of the stored units. As for being the speeches or words recorded by human then the clarity may vary. Maximum author tried to put most of the effort to code optimization and database compression. Theyve tried to found many new methods of Speech Synthesis also. Android is a popular Smart phone operating system because of it allows open source applications to install and use, For this reason anyone can try for making better applications for using or business purpose. So it is very important to build a bangla TTS for android. The purpose of our research is to introduce with all of the best TTS Existing systems for Bangla in Android Platform, and ensuring the quality research outputs , findings and Placing possible future works .We discussed about the key points of individual authors and at the end we shown the comparison between all of those. Edification and research for Bangla TTS Engine was improved very highly in last few years. For Android mobile there are many publications available. So here we will discuss about few of them. Case Study 1: After studying the paper Title (A benglai Speech Synthesizer on Android OS), authors names (Sankar Mukherjee and Shyamal Kumar Das Mandal ), we have found that they were trying to develop Bengali speech synthesizer on mobile device. They have used Epoch Synchronous Non Overlap Add (ESNOLA) based concatenative speech synthesis technique for Speech generation. They work hard for database compression because where as space was very limited, small diaphone database was being used in previous days which reduced the quality of synthesized Speech. But in other hand (Pucher, M. and Frohlich, 2005) introduced with large unit selection database, they used a Server for synthesized output speech. It was mandatory to transferred the wave form to a mobile device over a network. They tried a quality output in almost real-time on Mobile device. Speech synthesis is the method of input text data to speech waveforms conversion. The Synthesis method ascertained by the vocabulary size. For utterances of the speech need to be modeled. There are many speech synthesis techniques such as rule-based, articulatory modeling and concatenative technique. But here they developed their synthesizer based on Epoch Synchronous Non Overlap Add (ESNOLA) concatenative speech synthesis method. ESNOLA provides moderate processing for proper matching between different segments during concatenation and it supports unlimited vocabulary without decreasing the quality. So this could be proposed as a good technique of Speech Synthesis. They have designed their full operational method as the given diagram. They divided the system in 4 parts including Input text and output speech state. In between they have planned two important states which is Text analysis module and Synthesizer Module. Where the major operations designed to be performed. A perfect speech required many things such as intonation, prosody, phonological words. And specially handling exception is mandatory while converting text to speech. In this paper they have tried to work with all those parts have mentioned. In their system model they introduced a module named Text analysis module. Which have two sections named phonological analysis module and other one is Analysis of the text for prosody and intonation. They work with the exceptional words at the first Phonological rule part. They developed and implemented phonological rule analysis of the text for prosody and intonation as (Basu, J et al., 2009). They have also work with the exceptional dictionary due to requirement of language analysis. So total processing of text related part ends in phonological analysis module. And synthesizing will be done by the next module. Synthesizer module works for generating a realistic and quality speech .after getting the finalized text from text analysis module they generate a token and then combine splices of pre-recorded Speech and generate the synthesized voice output using ESNOLA approach as in Shyamal Kr Das Mandal, et al. (2007). In ESNOLA approach, the synthesized output speech is generated by concatenating the basic signal segments from the signal dictionary at epoch positions. They synthesized like e.g à  Ã‚ ¦Ã‚ ­Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¦Ã‚ ¾Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¦Ã‚ ²Ãƒ  Ã‚ §Ã¢â‚¬ ¹ = bh + bha + a + aL+o . They had implemented their application in below System specification. Memory management is a major issue in android platform otherwise it wouldnt be used broadly. In this paper they have mentioned that This context will live as long as this application is alive and does not depend on the activities life cycle. It is obtained by calling Activity.getApplication(). They kept the partneme database in external storage card. And the best part is after producing output the final speech file will be deleted. For this TTS system there are total 596 sound files stored in the partneme database. Total size of the database is 1.0 Mb and application size is 2.26 Mb. The best part of this TTS system is it can read Bengali message from phones inbox and it also can generate speech by writing the Bengali word using English alphabet format. Performance And Quality Evaluation is the major part of any Application. Here the total processing time is counting from the starting time ( button is pressed to speak) to the first speech sound is pronounced. They had test the application in many ways and the output of all result is given below They have also judged their application by audience. To measure the output speech quality 5 subjects, 3 male (L1, L2, L3) and 2 female (L4, L5), are selected and their age ranging from 24 to 50. 10 original (as uttered by speaker) and modified (as uttered with android version) sentences are randomly presented for listening and their judgment in 5 point score (1=less natural 5=most natural). The result is given below. The total average score for the original sentences is 4.72 and the modified sentence is 2.88. In their paper, they describe about implementation of a Bengali speech synthesizer on a mobile device. Their goal was to develop a text-to-speech (TTS) application that can produce real time Speech. They modified several components in ESNOLA to make it run on android device. Case Study 2: The objective of a TTS engine is to convert some language Text into its spoken equivalent by a series of modules. For a better TTS engine language modeling and Speech synthesis is major units. After Studying the paper Title( Text to speech for Bangla Language using Festival) authors names (Firoj Alam , Promila Kanti Nath and Dr. Mumit Khan) we found they have used the open-source third party tool Festival TTS engine. Festival provides a frame work for building speech synthesis systems for any TTS engine. The Festival system is written in C++ and uses the Edinburgh Speech Tools Library for low level architecture and has a Scheme (SIOD) based command interpreter for control. Festival Provides API documentation. In their TTS engine they have used two different kind of concatenative methods: unit selection and multisyn unit selection which supported in Festival. In their research they have discussed about Text Analysis, Phonetic analysis Grapheme to phoneme Conversion, Prosodic Analysis, Speech Database or Waveform Synthesis, Speech Output and Analysis of output result. The input text may come in non standard way, considering this problem they have used the text analysis part to convert all non standard words to standard words. Their grapheme-to-phoneme module produces strings of phonemic symbols based on information in the written text. Final speech synthesis is accomplished by concatenative unit selection technique and multisyn unit selection technique. In their proposed system the first step is text analysis. the job of a TTS engine is to convert the input text to equivalent Speech, for this reason the input text should convert to a standard format. There is always a chance that the input text may contain NSW (Non-Standard Word) type words. Here the author listed the NSW words as e.g. numbers (year, time, ordinal, cardinal, floating point), abbreviations, acronyms, currency, dates, URLs. They have used Text normalization for formatting NSW to SW (Standard Word) and they disambiguate the ambiguous token using rule. In their research they didnt work with Unicode directly because Festival doesnt support Unicode, So that they convert Unicode text to ASCII. In text analysis part they Split the token based on white-space and punctuation. They consider white space as a separator and Punctuation can separate the raw tokens. Festival Ordered list of tokens, each with features of white-space, and punctuation. For tokenization White-space is the most commonly used .they have identified Bangla Language have more than 10 types of NSW, so each NSW can identify as separate token by token identifier rules. They used scheme regular expression in festival to identify the token. After identifying of all NSW they convert it to standard word by pronunciation lexicon or (letter to sound) LTS rule. Pronunciation of a word sometimes doesnt match with the pronunciation form. They have solved this problem by using list of lexicon and LTS rule. They inserted 900 lexicons with its pronunciation in the lexicon dictionary. The Steps of Phonetic Analysis within festival: 1. Building large amount of lexicon. 2. Building letter-to-sound rules. They have used three techniques for concatenative synthesis: diphone, unit selection and multisyn-unit selection.They identified 45 phones excluding 31 diphthongs with their features based on articulatory analysis. To build diphone database they include diphthong as well. In their implementation they excluded the diphthongs. The duration they added is taken from Kiswahili TTS system but This is not exact duration for the phone set of Bangla language. They have approximately recorded 500-900 utterance to cover most frequent words of language. The analogy of the system was tested in two ways: in terms of acceptability/naturalness and in terms of intelligibility. Synthesized speech was evaluated on three levels: sentence level, word level and phrase level. In case of sentences level the intelligibility rate being close to 85%. On phrase level it is 83.33% and word level it is 56.66%. In their second experiment, degree of naturalness of the synthesized speech was assessed, again on sentence 90%, phrase 85% and word level 65%. The results Obtained are shown in below Figure. Case Study 3: Their model consist of three part, 1st one is LINGUISTIC MODULE what generate a linguistic representation from text. 2nd one is ACOUSTIC MODULE which generates speech from the linguistic representation. And the 3rd and final one is VISUAL MODULE which driving a talking head based on the linguistic representation. They created a relational lexical database from three source lexica: The Carnegie Mellon Pronouncing Dictionary, Moby Pronunciation II and COMLEX English pronouncing lexicon. There have almost entered 200,000 word, of which over 1500 are non-homophonous homographs. The interesting part of their project is they used animated image which will moved on the subject. In their Linguistic Module they token textual input and looks up word pronunciations and tags in the lexical database. Which words are not present in their lexical database they used a dynamic programming alignment algorithm that algorithm described for aligning sequences from the same alphabets. In Letter-to-sound neural network they defined features for a letter to be the union of the features of the phones that that letter might represent. When they get competitive results they thought that improved performance will come from simplifying the phonological representations found in the dictionary. By this they built a prelimi nary linguistic representation of the utterance. Then the linguistic representation submitted to a postlexical module where lexical pronunciations derived from the lexicon are converted to postlexical pronunciations typical of the speaker. They consider the distance to word, phrase, clause, and sentence boundaries was included. After converting the linguistic representation they send it to the Acoustic Module, which has three stage 1.Duration Neural Network , 2.Phonetic Neural Network and 3.Waveform Synthesizer . The acoustic module established the timing of the speech signal by associating segment duration with each phone in the linguistic representation. An acoustic representation, consist of input parameters for the synthesis portion of a vocoder, is generated for each ten-millisecond frame of speech. Finally, the synthesis portion of the vocoder is used to generate speech from these acoustic descriptions. The most interesting part of their module is that they are providing the video for the speech, so it looks like natural. And that reason they collect the animated image from the nature. The video subsystem takes the output of the linguistic module and the output of the duration neural network and generates an animated figure by using an additional neural network. Case Study 4 : Sanghamitra Mohanty has developed a very intelligent tool, which provides four Indian language Speech output at a time Hindi, Odiya, Bengali and Telegu. For all language she has considered a common system what she named Priyambada. She found Indian languages are phonetic in nature, and the progenitor phoneme mapping is linear. So the vowel and the consonant of the language are almost same except some of them. She took those in consider and apply algorithm for that. We found three stage on this TTS system. First one is Speech Corpora Creation. Here she identified speakers for four native languages, and get them in a laboratory environment using noise cancellation microphone. The sampling rate is 16 bit in single channel of 16000 Hz.By this way she collect the voice from the speakers. Secondly she creates a database for the Different Syllables from the text. She also stored individual polysyllables for different languages in a .wav file format. Finally she played the .wav files for the represented data. There she does not give the solution for the new word what is not in her present. With C++ language she developed a very interesting tool what plays very important role. Case Study 5: They actually focus to normalize the text. Most probably their work is same, their processes are tokenization, token classification, token sense disambiguation and word representation. They found some ambiguous tokens in bangla language. Like, Bangla use many language(English, Arabic, Hindi etc) in their language. the most challenging part of token are the numbers, dates, year, time, multi-text genre etc. To solve this problem they found two ways. One is to token normal bangla language and another table is to handle the ambiguous words. They levels three stage to token a word i) Tokenizer what will used to token the English and other South Asian scripts Bangla ii) Splitter is used for Punctuation and delimiter and iii) to token phone number, year, time and floating point is used Classifier. It also check the contextual rules, different form of delimiters was removed in this stage, for each type of token, regular expression were written in .jflex format all are checked in this stage. To make the ambiguous token natural this part is used for. The ambiguous words like non-natural number cardinal, ordinal, acronym, and abbreviations will sound natural. For this the used some stages. Those are (i). traverse from right to left. (ii). Map first two digits with lexicon to get the expanded form (i.e. 10 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ ten). (iii). After the expanded form of the third digit insert the token hundred. (iv). Get expanded form of each pair of digit after third digit from the lexicon. (v). Insert the token thousand after the expanded form fourth and fifth digit and lakh after expanded form of sixth and seventh digit. They will continue those stages. After each of second block they insert the token koti to make it natural By this way they believe they can make perfection of 99% of the ambiguous words. Summary of 4 case studies: Topics Case study 1 Case study 2 Case study 3 Case study 4 Case study 5 Tools ESNOLA FESTIVAL NA Priyambada JFlex Processing text type ENGLISH ASCII, UNICODE ENGLISH NOT DEFINED ENGLISH Input text type BANGLA ENGLISH ENGLISH ENGLISH ENGLISH Voice source Pre recorded Pre recorded Pre recorded Pre recorded Pre recorded Total Modules 2 3 Audio format Not define Not define Not define .Wav Not define intonation Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Utterance Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Prosody Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Phonological words Yes Yes Not defined Not defined Yes Exception Handling Yes Yes No No Yes Database length 596 files Not defined 200,000 Not defined Not defined Database size 1.0 Mb Not defined Not defined Not defined Not defined Speech quality evaluation 2.88 out of 5.00 Intelligibility rate No 85% No No Yes Word Processing speed 0.45 sec/ 2 word ( no of syllable -6 ) Not defined Not defined Not defined Not defined Accuracy 57.8% 85% 87% Not define 99% for Ambiguous word [1] Frances Alias, Xavier Servillano, Joan Claudi socoro and Xavier Gonzalvo Towards High-Quality Next Generation Text-to-Speech Synthesis:A multi domain Approach by Automatic Domain Classification,IEEE Transactions on AUDIO,SPEECH AND LANGUAG PROCESSING, VOL16,NO,7 september 2008. [2] Qing Guo, Jie Zhang, Nobuyuki Katae, Hao Yu , High -Quality Prosody Generation in Mandrain Text-to-Speech system, FujiTSu Sci.Tech,J., vol.46, No.1,pp.40-46 ,2010. [3] Gopalakrishna anumanchipalli,Rahul Chitturi, Sachin Joshi, Rohit Kumar, Satinder Pal Singh,R.n.v Sitaram,D.P.Kishore, Development of Indian Language Speech Databases for Large Vocabulary Speech Recognition System, [4] A.Black, H.Zen and K.Tokuda Statistical parametric speech synthesis, in proc.ICASSP, Honolulu, HI 2007, vol IV, PP 1229-1232. [5] G.Bailly, N.Campbell and b.Mobius, ISCA special session: Hot topics in speech synthesis, in proc.Eurospeech,Genea, Switzerland, 2003, pp 37-40. [6] M.Ostendorf and I.Bulyko, The impact of speech recognition on speech synthesis, in proc, IEEE Workshop Speech Synthesis, Santa Monica,2002,pp. 99-106. [7] Text To Speech Synthesis a knol by Jaibatrik Dutta . [8] Silvio Ferreia,Celina Thillou, Bernaud Gosselin, From Picture to Speech: an Innovative Application for Embedded Environment, [9] M.Nageshwara Rao, Samuel Thomas, T.Nagarajan and Hema A.Muthy, Text-to-Speech Syntheis using syllable line units [10] Jindrich Matousek, Josef Psutks, Jiri Krita, Design of speech Corpus for Text-to-Speech Synthesis. Beckman M. and Elam G. Guidelines for ToBI Labeling. Manuscript, version 3, 1997. [11] Corrigan G., Massey N., and Karaali O. Generating Segment Durations in a Text-to-Speech System: A Hybrid Rule-Based/Neural Network Approach. Proc. Eurospeech 97, Rhodes, September 1997. [12] Gerson I., Karaali O., Corrigan G., and Massey N. Neural Network Speech Synthesis. Speech Science and Technology (SST-96), Australia, 1996. [13] Karaali O., Corrigan G., and Gerson I. Speech Synthesis with Neural Networks. Invited paper, World Congress on Neural Networks (WCNN-96), San Diego, September 1996. [14] Karaali O., Corrigan G., Gerson I., and Massey N. Text-to- Speech Conversion with Neural Networks: A Recurrent TDNN Approach. Proc. Eurospeech 97, September 1997. [15] Kiparsky P. Lexical phonology and morphology. Linguistics in the morning calm, ed. by I.S. Yang. Seoul: Hanshin, 1982. [16] Kruskal J. An overview of sequence comparison. Time Warps, String Edits, and Macromolecules, edited by Joseph Kruskal and David Sankoff. Reading, MA: Addison- Wesley, 1983. [17] Linguistic Data Consortium. COMLEX English pronouncing lexicon. Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, version 0.2, 1995. [18] Miller C., Karaali O., and Massey N. Variation and Synthetic Speech. NWAVE 26, Quebec, October 1997. [19] Nusbaum H., Francis A., and Luks T. Comparative valuation of the quality of synthetic speech produced at Motorola. Research report, Spoken Language Research Laboratory, University of Chicago, 1995. [20] OShaughnessy, D. Modeling fundamental frequency, and its relationship to syntax, semantics, and phonetics. Ph.D. thesis, M.I.T., 1976. [21] Sejnowski T. and Rosenberg C. NETtalk: a parallel network that learns to pronounce English text. Complex Systems 1.145-168, 1987. [22] Seneff S. and Zue V. Transcription and alignment of the TIMIT database. M.I.T., 1988. [23] Tuerk C. and Robinson T. Speech Synthesis using Artificial Neural Networks Trained on Cepstral Coefficients. Proc. Eurospeech 93, Berlin, September 1993. [24] Ward G. Moby Pronunciator II, 1996. [25] Weide R. The Carnegie Mellon Pronouncing Dictionary. cmudict.0.4, 1995.

Male Specific Neurons In Flies Essay -- Biology Fly

Have you watched a fly chase another fly all around the room and ever wonder how they manage to always be so close together even though the prey is trying its best to get away? Well, some scientists wondered. They were intrigued with this "mating chase" of the male fly after the female fly. You could say that the female was trying to play hard to get while the male lustily engages the pursuit. The male nearly always gets his "prey". However, if the female fly tried to chase the male, she would have no such luck. This is due to the sexual dimorphism of the fly. The male fly has a superior visual system to the female which he can use to locate and intercept the female fly in flight; however, the female fly does not have this advantage. The male-specific neurons that control the fly's superior visual system are complicated and intricate. The history behind the study of the fly's neurons begins with a 19th Century scientist by the name of Cajal. He studied neural systems and was the first to isolate nerve cells near the surface of the brain. His work led to a greater study of neurobiology and the passion for attempting to understand the workings of the nervous system. However, real progress in this field did not culminate until Land and Collett established a remarkable theoretical model of the two part visual system of the fly's brain. This model was incredibly close to the actual structure and function of the male fly's visual system. The structure of the male's eyes are even different to the female's. When looking at the two side by side, one can readily see the differences. Even these outer physical differences attribute to the male's superiority with his binocular vision and the ability to keep a target continually in his... ...y will compensate, yaw, pitch, and thrust, to return the target image into the area of male specific neurons. This behavior is found only in male flies, and while female flies are attracted to flickering objects as males are, they do not use have a different system to control yaw torque as males do. The males employ a position- independent system of tracking using yaw adjustments, relying on direction. This allows the males to intercept a target or change direction in tracking without overshooting the target. Females are unable to do this. The males also use pitch and thrust to pursue other flies. The position of the target in the mid-sagittal plane drives the pitch, based on the elevation of the target's image. Thrust relates to the distance between the pursuer and the target. The relationship between target range and velocity is shown to be male-specific behavior.

Doubt Is the Key to Knowledge

Doubt is the key to knowledge† (Persian Proverb). To what extent is this true in two areas of knowledge? Firstly, to understand fully the proverb, definitions should be given. Doubt is the psychological status of being stuck between believing and disbelieving, involving uncertainty and distrust in a particular situation or issue or when there is lack of hard evidence and facts to support the alleged information, action, motive or decision.When you question a notion or you are open to inquisition or reassessment of it, you are having doubt. Only when you can find the justification for your doubt, one that satisfies whatever convinces you to think otherwise, then you will no longer have doubts. To have knowledge is like to have an explanation, understanding or reasoning   to things in the world. Knowledge can be both personal and collective, and not all knowledge is a fact. The big bang theory , the theory of relativity, and the string theory etc. rovides us explanations and re asoning to why the world is the way it is. These theories are what we know but are not necessarily the fact – we do not know if these theories are correct, but still knowing these theories count as our knowledge. Knowledge can come from our personal experience as well. This essay will seek to address the extent to which doubt is manifested as a key to knowledge regarding two areas of knowledge, Science and History.According to Academic Press Dictionary of Science & Technology, science is the systematic observation of natural events and conditions in order to discover facts about them and to formulate laws and principles based on these facts and also the organized body of knowledge that is derived from such observations and that can be verified or tested by further investigation. There is a view that science is seen as provisional, which means that it is subjected to being falsified.In an ever-developing world were new discoveries are made all the time leading to new theories and realizations, older theories are always at the threat of being falsified. Even the new theories, the scientific community will vigorously doubt and criticize any ideas until enough evidence is produced to back them up. It is without ground to say that the basis of scientific growth is on inferred or even imagined hypotheses by scientist in an attempt to create or explain something new or unexplained.Experiments are carried out and positive results can turn these hypotheses into theories and possibly knowledge, of course until they are doubted and contested against by new theories that explores the opposition of the theory in question. Throughout the history of Science, knowledge has been derived from the selfsame processes. In early Mesopotamian study, the Earth was believed to be a flat disk with a dome, until Ferdinand Magellan managed to prove that Earth was spherical after successfully circumnavigating the Earth in the 15th Century.Another example would be of the Italian phy sicist Galileo Galilei who, despite the endless controversy, criticism and denouncing made against him, proved false the long withheld notion of the geocentric view that the Earth was at the center of the Universe. Thus, it is evident that through the use of scientific theories, unless disproved otherwise, knowledge is updated and will remain as such through continual doubt. Hence we can see that as long as there is doubt, new things will be explored and old laws might be disproved of although it is perceived as knowledge to everyone.Although doubt leads to more and more correct viewpoint of an issue, we can never be certain that what we think of as knowledge now is definitely the real truth and can never be disproved. However, with that being said, I believe that doubt and doubt alone cannot be the sole key to gain scientific knowledge, but continual doubt can actually leads to wasting of time and effort and worst is to eliminate the correct fact that is suppose to be true which ca n lead to a regression of knowledge.Firstly, there are many theories in science that remain in the gray area that cannot be logically proven with our current knowledge, like for example the existence of black holes. No scientists have been successful in proving its existence. However, one of the many theories of the black hole might actually be true but as nobody can prove it so, scientists in the field may invest pointless effort into developing new theories instead of directing that effort into proving the theory, which is actually true. Also there are truths that can never be doubted or proven otherwise like the fact that the Earth orbits around the word.Thus, although doubt lends to the progress of science and hence knowledge, it also has limitations which might prove detrimental to the growth of knowledge. The next issue is that of religion. Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. According to New York Times writer Peter Steinfels, published in July 19, 2008, religion is no longer like it was in the past when religious faith was present in everything people do, even for oubters. Nowadays it is almost inevitable that believers must live in a condition of doubt and uncertainty. We often think that there is no room for doubt within faith, that doubt is weakness. Even worse, most conservative faiths regard doubt as something to be battled against because it is dangerous to one's faith. It can lead to heresy, doubting the existence of God, and, according to their belief, perhaps loss of salvation and eternal torture in the fires of Hell.Of course , it had been pointed out by religious thinkers a long time ago that being doubtful about a religion is not the opposite polar of the religion but it is actually the better way of having faith rather than blind belief. Personally, although I am a devout Buddhist, many a time I have found myself doubting my own re ligion. For example, I sometimes question whether there is such thing called karma or does everything just happen by chance and karma is just a way to scare believers into doing good deeds for they fear of having to suffer the consequence afterwards.Ultimately there are people who are kind-hearted and yet still suffer every day. I found my answer not long ago about how it is related to another issue of reincarnation and bringing over karma. I did feel guilty of doubting Buddha and his words but then I learned that he said: Do not accept any of my words on faith, Believing them just because I said them. Be like an analyst buying gold, who cuts, burns, And critically examines his product for authenticity. Only accept what passes the test By proving useful and beneficial in your life.The Buddha (Jnanasara-samuccaya) Doutb, to Buddha is necessary because there is no point in following a religion blindly. According to the Buddha, religion should be left to one's own free choice. Religion is not a law, but a disciplinary code which should be followed with understanding. That’s why the Buddha told his disciples not to blindly follow his teachings but test them and verify them through their own experience like a goldsmith tests the purity of gold. However sometimes fir belief in the spiritual side of things can be necessary or at least comforting.In the book : â€Å"The Age of Doubt: Tracing the Roots of Our Religious Uncertainty†, an example of a 20-year-old boy was given. He is of an agreeable and intellectual appearance,† but he's soon beset with existential and religiously-inflected questions, tied to his faith, that he feels compelled to ask his doctor: â€Å"What am I? What are all these things that are made like me? Why am I? â€Å". â€Å"Why am I? † is perhaps the most remarkable of these questions, with religion offering an answer more confident and comforting than science perhaps ever could.But as his doctor explains, the patien t finds no comfort in theology. He is in one sense suspended between two options, greater faith and firmer uncertainty, yet neither strikes him as possible or appealing. Ultimately religions are spiritual havens that most followers take refuge in; and by constantly doubt its truth, it defeats the purpose of having religions as people are always have this insecurity that what they are doing, adhering to may not do any good to them despite what their religions says.In conclusion, due to the broadness and ambiguity of the knowledge areas of Science and History, it is impossible to accurately evaluate doubt and its ability to present itself as the key to attaining knowledge. Nonetheless, through careful study and research on these various areas of knowledge, this essay presents the stand that doubt, to a large extent, is an indispensable and important factor as the key to knowledge. 1505 words ———————————â€⠀Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€- [ 2 ]. Sharpe, Alfred. â€Å"Doubt†. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 5 (New York: Robert Appleton). Retrieved 2008-10-21. [ 3 ]. http://blogs. yis. ac. jp/13hwangj/2011/09/05/definition-of-knowledge/ [ 4 ]. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Religion#cite_note-0 [ 5 ]. http://www. nytimes. com/2008/07/19/us/19beliefs. html [ 6 ]. http://viewonbuddhism. org/dharma. html [ 7 ]. http://www. budsas. org/ebud/whatbudbeliev/277. htm

Marxism

  The United States prides itself on being the epitome of a successful free market society, with its democratic ideals working in perfect conjunction with its capitalist economy.   Additionally, it also bases much of its existence on the freedom of religion, though government leaders still take many measures to ensure that their particular religious beliefs take precedence over secularism.   However, like few other countries on the planet, the U.S. could succeed as a communist nation if it were to adopt a few of Karl Marx’s simple precepts and abandon some of its current practices.With its increasingly secular population and views, as well as its democratic ideals that lend themselves well to the collectivization encouraged by communism, the United States could completely remove God from consideration in the country’s legislation and create a strong social welfare system that protects workers and the poor far better than current standards allow.While religion is f irmly protected in the Constitution, the freedom from religion is just as important, though often ignored.   Politicians often rely on their religious beliefs and voting populace to propose religiously-oriented legislation, most of the time despite the widespread secular ideals of most Americans.   A current example of this is stem cell research, which is firmly opposed by President Bush and many religious factions and politicians who foist their views of morality on the rest of the country that believes stem cell research is in the best interests of human progress.While morality has its place in society, reason can lead to just laws that most can agree upon, and religious sentiment should not be involved in legislation or its opposition whatsoever.   For Marx, religion is a type of illusion, used to control the populace, as well as to retain the power structure of those at the highest levels of society.   In America, this can be seen in the powerful sway that religious fact ions have on politicians, even in spite of an increasing secularization.Marx was a fervent supporter of social criticism, and he believed that the criticism of religion was foundation of all social criticism.   In his view, he found it to be a type of illusion.   Marx believed that man makes religion, not vice-versa, and in creating God in his own image, man had â€Å"alienated himself from himself† (Marx, 1978/1848, p. 53).   This means that man has created a greater being in contrast to himself, reducing himself to a despicable creature that needs both the dogma of the church and the laws of government to guide and control him.Marx described religion as the, â€Å"sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, the soul of soulless conditions,† adding that religion was â€Å"the opium of the people† (1978/1848, p. 54).   In the United States, religion is afforded all kinds of special protections, including tax breaks that surely cos t the country billions of dollars a year.   Religious institutions receive donations from their constituents and are not required to pay anything to the federal government.In a Marxist America, provided that religion is still protected by law, the first step would be to tax religious organizations as any other company.   Perhaps once religions are taxed the same as any other organization that makes money and owns property, the next natural step will be that they no longer have the power sustain themselves and people will be free to pursue a life free of religion, and therefore free of illusion.To Marx, religion prohibits man from realizing himself as the center of his existence, an in place, creates an environment in which religious belief dictates his action.   Men can never be free, as long as they accept their existence as subservient beings, indebted to an omnipotent Supreme Being or organization dedicated to perpetuating belief in such a thing.   Marx believed that if r eligion were abolished human beings would overcome their self-inflicted alienation.   The abandonment of this illusion, in Marx’s view, could be one of many crucial steps mankind towards advancement.After religious sentiment and the power the religious factions hold over the populace has been displaced, America will be more receptive to other aspects of Marx’s communist philosophy.   While it may be a difficult task to ask those with great wealth and influence to sacrifice either, including corporations that virtually run the country, but it is necessary to create the kind of equality promised by democracy, and guaranteed by communism and withheld by the inequality of capitalism.   Marx claimed that in a capitalist society the struggle between the working class, or proletariat, and the ruling business class, or bourgeoisie, would eventually end in the formation of a new society, a classless society: â€Å"Society can no longer live under this bourgoeisie, in oth er words, its existence is no longer compatible with society† (1978/1848, p. 483).Corporations and individuals with immense wealth would be required to sacrifice a significant portion of their wealth to contribute to the overall health of the proletariat.   Even if someone like Bill Gates was required to hand over ninety percent of his wealth, he would still have hundreds of millions of dollars left.   When one considers that a salary of fifty thousand dollars a year is considered not only adequate to live in the United States, but decent, it signifies that the disparity in wealth created by unchecked capitalism.   The situation created by the immense disparity of wealth also contributes to what Marx sees as an increased alienation between the people of the nation, and in the U.S., this situation has become apparent in recent years as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.This contributes to the classes become hostile towards each other in Marx’s estimation: â€Å"Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes† (1978/1848, p. 483).   Though class struggle in America has largely been relegated to race struggle, which is almost the same considering that most racial riots center around impoverished people looting, the potential exists for further complications if the wealthy in America are not willing to compromise and share the wealth.   Alienation even exists in America between men and women, where women are notorious for making significantly less money than men.   In a communist society, women would no longer be relegated to quasi-second class status.A communist America would not only provide more opportunities for workers, but would also help relations between different races and genders.   Amongst the many little-known facts about the philosophies of Karl Marx, was his support for women’s liberation in a time when they did not share the privileges of men.   He believed that this would encourage greater equality within societies, therefore making life better for the society as a whole.   More than a century ago, many years before women were allowed to vote in the United States, Marx wrote of his views towards women’s rights.In the modern bourgeoisie society, Marx explained in so many words, that women in a capitalist system were nothing more to men than another instrument of production.   Men, who controlled the world as wells as it’s productive forces, also controlled women.   Because the instruments of production are to be exploited, women are exploited.   With the abolition of the bourgeoisie society, women would be free from every form of prostitution, public or private.   For the Communists, there was, â€Å"no need to introduce community of women; it has always existed almost from time immemorial† (1978/1848, p. 488).But traditional capitalistic values make this fact all but impossible to notice, and in the United States, the quiet discrimination against women, largely inspired by the centuries of dogmatic religious misogyny, would be eliminated, and along with it, the alienation felt between people.   Otherwise, further alienation between people will take place.Marx applied this idea of alienation to private property, which he said causes humans to work only for themselves, not for the good of their species.   Because capitalism has its roots in private ownership, he felt that it created an environment, ripe for greed and avarice to develop: â€Å"The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property† (1978/1848, p. 483).   Ã ‚  The control imposed upon the proletariat by the bourgeoisie in the United States reflects many of Marx’s fears, as people fall under the sway of Walmart, utility monopolies, and media confusion.   This state prevents man from focusing on cooperating, and maximizing their potential, whereas a Marxist society would be one that would provide for all.A communist United States is a highly unlike, but possible if certain segments of the population are willing to listen to reason and make certain sacrifices.   Religion is a key in building the foundation for a communist society, as the religious organizations that enjoy tax protection must be treated equal to other companies.   Corporations and individuals must be willing to make sacrifices concerning individual income and pay a significant amount of taxes to help those less fortunate.After all, it makes little sense to keep one’s neighbors hungry.   And, though communism has been considered revolutionary for over a hundred years, a communist revolution in America can begin only with the conscientious objections of the working class.   Anyone with ample reason would be able to see the benefits of helping their fellow man, and the benefits of pooling the nation’s collective talents towards a common goal.   In the end, it relies on those that are currently oppressed to make their voice be heard and heed the clarion call of Karl Marx: â€Å"WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!† (1978/1848, p. 500).Works Cited:Marx, K. (1978/1848). Communist Manifesto. The Marx-Engels Reader. Trans. Tucker, R.C., Second Edition. New York: W. W. Norton.

Anyone Can Cook! Professor Ramos Blog

Anyone Can Cook! When I was younger, I absolutely loved waking up to the smell of waffles coming from the kitchen. My mom would always make me waffles for breakfast before school. She would add a beautiful mix of sweetened fruit on top along with butter and syrup, and it quickly became my favorite breakfast meal of all time. Not only would she make amazing breakfast dishes every morning, she would also make and pack me incredible lunches that I would thoroughly enjoy every day. From french dip sandwiches to homemade donuts, my mom was able to make anything I would ask for. My friends would always stare at my lunches in jealousy because of how good my food looked everyday. Unpacking my lunch pail always excited me because everyday my mom would pack me something different. As I got older, I started to watch my mom make the delicious food she would prepare for me. I was always amazed and interested in how her food came out smelling, tasting, and looking so incredible. My mom then started teaching me how to cook and allowed me to help her in any way possible. I would hand her ingredients, cut things up, mixed whatever she needed, etc. Overtime, helping my mother in the kitchen became normal for me to do. Not only did I learn how to cook by watching her, but we grew a stronger connection. Even till this day, I still go into the kitchen to watch and help my mom cook. I thought it would be cool if I was able to cook by myself without help from my mom so I could cook meals for my friends and family. Learning to cook by watching my mom cook became so intriguing to me. Watching a meal be prepared into something so delicious and being able to eat it at the end was so satisfying. There is even excitement in not knowing how the dish will turn out. When my mom would try new exotic recipes sometimes they didn’t always turn out the best. However, I always admired my mom for taking risks when cooking and not being afraid to mess up. After years of watch ing my mom cook and helping her in the process, I had this urge to try to cook by myself without her help. When I was about 10 years old, I started to test out my cooking skills and fed my creations to my friends and family. For my very first dish, I attempted to prepare macaroni cheese. I vividly remember walking into the kitchen and craving macaroni and cheese. I looked in every cupboard and inside of our pantry for microwavable mac cheese, but I wasn’t able to find anything. I never really enjoyed the microwavable version and I liked my mom’s version way better. I decided to go to my mom’s room and said to her, â€Å"Mom I’m starving and I really want mac cheese can you please make me some?† My mom looked at me in somewhat annoyance and said, â€Å"I’m actually really busy right now you should try to make some by yourself.† I got up and left the room and went back to the pantry to find stuff to make mac cheese with. Without knowing what exactly what I was looking for, I went back to my mom and asked her if she could get the ingredien ts out for me. She agreed and we both walked back to the kitchen, and I watched her take out the ingredients to make the mac cheese. I’ve made macaroni cheese in the past with my mom so I roughly knew what I had to do. After thirty minutes of hard work I finally finished making the macaroni cheese. I was afraid that it wouldn’t taste as good as my mom’s, but as soon as I took the first bite I was taken back by how good it tasted. I was so excited that I was able to cook something that tasted delicious. I ran up to my mom with a bowl of my freshly made mac cheese and told her to try some. After my mom took the first bite she smiled and said to me, â€Å"Wow this tastes amazing Alex! I’m so proud of you this tastes really good.† In that moment I was ecstatic that my mom was proud of me for being able to cook mac cheese all by myself. I ran to my sister and told her to try it and she also looked at me in shock and told me it was amazing. I was fi lled with joy that I was able to cook a meal by myself and was able to share it with my family. Even though my mac cheese probably didn’t even taste that great, these words of encouragement propelled me to cook more in the future. Ever since that day, I tried to cook meals by myself. At first it started with simple dishes, but then as I grew older I began to make more intricate dishes. I started making meals for my family every week and whenever I have free time I would just practice making dishes in the kitchen. I think that having the ability to cook and prepare meals out of anything and everything is a great and handy skill to hone. Cooking for other people brings me a different kind of joy because I can see how my food can brighten someone’s day and help them feel better even if it’s just by a little. The development of my cooking skills, at first, was very difficult just like all skills that have to be learned. In this case practice really does make perfect, seeing the noticeable progress in the way I cook is rewarding. I love how I can see myself improving every time I cook compared to how I was when I started. A lot of mistakes were made on the way to getting better, but like most talents it was all worth it. In the end, seeing how far I have come and how much I have accomplished is the most rewarding feeling. Cooking has always been a part of my life and the time I have spent doing it has made me appreciate it even more than before. I’m always going to thank my mother for showing me the ways of working around the kitchen and how to cook for myself and others. My mom inspired me to cook and I am so grateful that she has been so supportive of me. Cooking allowed my mom and I to develop a strong bond and I am so thankful for all that she has taught me. This skill I have developed allows me to make others happy with the dishes I create. I absolutely love being able to cook and I am forever appreciative of those who have encouraged me to keep cooking.

SAT Percentiles and Score Rankings (Updated 2018)

SAT Percentiles and Score Rankings (Updated 2018) SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Have you taken the SAT recently and need help deciding whether you should retake the test? Or maybe you haven’t taken the SAT yet but want to develop a target score. One of the best ways to understand your SAT scores is to understand your SAT score percentiles. You can learn to maximize your study time, find the biggest score gains, and impress your dream school by understanding percentile rankings. Read on for a guide to maximizing your SAT score- and your college admissions chances- by using SAT score percentiles. Bonus: Want to get a perfect SAT score? Read our famous guide on how to score a perfect 1600 on the SAT. You'll learn top strategies from the country's leading expert on the SAT, Allen Cheng, a Harvard grad and perfect scorer. No matter your level, you'll find useful advice here - this strategy guide has been read by over 500,000 people. Read the 1600 SAT guide today and start improving your score. What Are SAT Score Percentiles? In addition to the composite score you get on the SAT (i.e., that number between 400 and 1600), you'll get a percentile ranking, ranging from 1 to 99. The SAT gives you a percentile ranking for your overall composite score as well as for each of the twosection scores: Evidence-Based Reading and Writing (EBRW) and Math. Your percentile tells you how you did on the SAT compared with everyone else who took the test. For example, if you got a composite percentile of 76, this means you scored higher than 76% of students on the whole test. If you got a percentile of 47 on the Math section, you did better than 47% of students on SAT Math. An example of an SAT score report with percentiles. Your percentile score is not like a grade out of 100.For instance, if you get a percentile of 90, this doesn't mean you got exactly 90% of the questions right. It just means that compared with everyone who took the SAT, you scored higher than 90% of them. (For more info on how the SAT is scored, see our scoring guide.) So, why do percentiles matter? Colleges use percentiles to compare you with other students. If you got, say, an SAT score in the 90thpercentile, this would make you competitive for many schools since you scored better than 90% of students nationwide. Paying attention to your percentile ranking, as well as your composite score, can give you the best idea of your performance and help you make strategic choices about which colleges to apply to. What Are the Percentile Ranges for the SAT? OK, so you get that percentile rankings are important. But if you haven’t taken the SAT yet or have taken it and plan to retake it, what composite SAT score should you shoot for in order to get a certain percentile ranking? Luckily, the College Board releases data about composite scores and matching percentile rankings to help you figure this out. These numbers change slightly from year to year, but we have the most recent info from 2018. We've summarized the SAT percentile ranges here in a percentile chart. Just find your score to see your estimated percentile. SAT Composite Score Range Percentile Score 1550-1600 99+ 1500-1550 99 to 99+ 1450-1500 97 to 99 1400-1450 94 to 97 1350-1400 91 to 94 1300-1350 87 to 91 1250-1300 81 to 87 1200-1250 74 to 81 1150-1200 67 to 74 1100-1150 58 to 67 1050-1100 49 to 58 1000-1050 39 to 49 950-1000 31 to 39 900-950 23 to 31 850-900 15 to 23 800-850 10 to 15 750-800 5 to 10 700-750 2 to 5 650-700 1 to 2 600-650 1- to 1 550-600 1- 500-550 1- 450-500 1- 400-450 1- Something to note about these percentile ranks is that they change the fastest with the middle scores. For example, the difference between 1450 and 1600- the highest possible score- is only 3 percentile points, 98 to 99. However, the same point gap between 1100 and 1250 has a vast percentile difference- 58 to 81. This means that if you scored 1100 or lower, increasing your overall composite by just 150 points would give a vast boost to your percentile rank and your admissions competitiveness! Did you know boosting your SAT score by 160 points can dramatically change your chances of getting into your dream school?We've written a guide about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now: SAT Percentile Charts by Section We also have data on percentile rankings for score ranges in EBRW and Math. Check out the chart below to see how your scores stack up. Section Score Range SAT EBRW Percentiles SAT Math Percentiles 780-800 99+ 98 to 99+ 760-780 99 to 99+ 97 to 98 740-760 98 to 99 96 to 97 720-740 97 to 98 94 to 96 700-720 94 to 97 92 to 94 680-700 92 to 94 89 to 92 660-680 88 to 92 86 to 89 640-660 84 to 88 83 to 86 620-640 78 to 84 79 to 83 600-620 72 to 78 75 to 79 580-600 66 to 72 69 to 75 560-580 59 to 66 64 to 69 540-560 52 to 59 57 to 64 520-540 45 to 52 49 to 57 500-520 38 to 45 40 to 49 480-500 31 to 38 34 to 40 460-480 25 to 31 28 to 34 440-460 19 to 25 22 to 28 420-440 14 to 19 17 to 22 400-420 9 to 14 13 to 17 380-400 6to 9 9 to 13 360-380 3 to 6 6 to 9 340-360 2 to 3 3 to 6 320-340 1 to 2 1 to 3 300-320 1- to 1 1 280-300 1- 1- to 1 260-280 1- 1- 240-260 1- 1- 220-240 1- 1- 200-220 1- 1- Source:SAT Understanding Scores 2018 Again, note that the percentile ranks change dramatically toward the middle scores: 500 in EBRW is only 38%, but 600 is 72%. In other words, a 100-point improvement- which is very manageable with some smart studying- could transform your score from poorto good. Note that the Math curve is more competitive near the top than the EBRW curve is. A 750 is in the 96thpercentile on Math but in the 99thpercentile on EBRW, and a 700 is in the 92ndpercentile on Math but in the 94thpercentile on EBRW. This means that if you were aiming for the same percentile on both sections, you'd have to get a higher score on Math than you would on EBRW. For more info on SAT scores and rankings, check out our guide to average SAT scoresin which we also look at score breakdowns by gender and ethnic group. How Can Knowing Your SAT Percentile Help You? We know that percentiles are important and that, in some cases, a relatively small composite score increase can have a huge effect on your percentile ranking. However, your target composite score for the colleges you want to apply to is the most important. While percentiles help college admissions officers compare your scores, schools also have their own score ranges that typically don’t change much from year to year. To find a college’s SAT score ranges, search â€Å"[School Name] SAT scores PrepScholar† on Google to find our Admission Requirements page with its SAT/ACT score ranges and info on GPA ranges and overall competitiveness. For more tips on how to use this strategy (and for a table you can fill out for your specific colleges), see our guide onwhat a good SAT score is. Maximize your study time by setting a personal SAT target score. Finally, SAT percentile rankings can be a useful tool for you. Especially if you’re deciding whether or not to retake the SAT, percentiles really help put your SAT scores in context. For example, the difference between your 700 in EBRW and 600 in Math might not seem enormous, but that EBRW score is in the 94th percentile, while that Math score is in the 75th percentile. A huge difference! This means you can get more bang for your buck if you focus on the Math section for your retake. Increasing your Math score by 100 points can raise your percentile from 75 to 92. However, raising your EBRW score from 700 to 800, though super impressive, only improves your percentile ranking by 5%. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should ignore EBRW- in fact, a gain of just 50 points would put you in the 99th percentile! But recognizing that you stand to gain more with Math can ultimately help you prioritize your study time better. Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points? Tired of wasting time prepping in ways that don't work? We have the industry's leading SAT prep program. Built by Harvard grads and SAT full scorers, the program learns your strengths and weaknesses through advanced statistics, then customizes your prep program to you so you get the most effective prep possible. It's the best prep program available right now. Best of all, we guarantee your money back if you don't improve your score by 160 points or more. Check out our 5-day free trial today: Improve Your SAT Score by 160+ Points, Guaranteed What’s Next? Now that you know the ins and outs of national SAT percentiles, check out what the average SAT scores are, and take a look at the average SAT scores in your state. Trying to figure out your SAT target score? Or maybe you took the SAT but aren't sure whether your score is competitive. Our guide can help you develop a personal SAT target score based on the colleges you're applying to. Reaching for the stars? Check out what a good SAT score for the Ivy League looks like. Want to learn more about the SAT but tired of reading blog articles? Then you'll love our free SAT prep livestreams. Designed and led by PrepScholar SAT experts, these live video events are a great resource for students and parents looking to learn more about the SAT and SAT prep. Click on the button below to register for one of our livestreams today!

Assess the Contribution of Functionalism

Functionalists view the family as an institution that is present in society to maintain social order and stability. Functionalist’s also view society’s functions very similar to that of the human body. The Brain in the human body is the organ that controls all other functions. In Society the Government is the main control over the country as a whole. The heart of the body is what keeps the body alive. In society the family is the heart. Overall if the family and heart is taken out, the body and society would collapse and die. Although both of these have necessary back-up systems, the society has the Army, Police services and Laws if the government should collapse. And the body has immune systems and antibodies to fight of any infections and diseases. Family is seen to be the key to society because it means reproduction to keep the society functioning. According to Functionalists the only family that would mean perfect functioning of society is the Nuclear Family. The nuclear family consists of a working man, a housewife, and children. The man is the breadwinner, he earns the money that the wife uses to buy food and necessities to help keep the family together. Functionalists views of this concept believe that heterosexual couples, adopted children and divorces do not fit into the smooth running of society. Murdock (1949) states that ‘The nuclear family is a biological necessity because it is universal’. What he means by this is that the main reason that reproduction of children is a necessity to society is because it is world-wide, it is happening everywhere and it can be found in all societies. Murdock also says that there is 4 key points. Stable Satisfaction of the sex drive (Less promiscuity), reproduction, primary socialisation and economic needs. Parsons extends on Murdock’s theory with the warm bath theory. This theory is based on how the family is seen to be a stress reliever. The man arrives home from work and is expected to be presented with a meal cooked by the wife. The family home is supposed to be a relaxed stress free environment for the man to wind down after a long day at work. Parsons also developed the functional fit theory which means a given family will fit the needs of the society in which it is found, for example, the extended family is only usually found in the pre-industrialisation period (according to Functionalists). And the Nuclear Family happens in the industrialisation period. The Nuclear Family is seen to be geographically mobile, higher wages also means socially mobile, and they are able to move up the social ladder. Parsons also adds to his theory the loss of functions; stabilising adult personalities and primary socialisation.

Review 6 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Review 6 - Essay Example Rail transport includes a path that provides wheeled vehicles. The operating characteristic for rail transport is that it uses containers to transport commodities. The operating characteristics of the pipeline mode of transport are that it can be on water and land. Maritime transport is the most efficient manner to carry bulky pieces of stuff for long distances. Operating characteristics are that it is expensive to build and maintain. In addition to, it is the most convenient to carry large quantities of over long distances. Air transport operates by transports human beings over long distances. Its operating characteristics are that it focuses on being efficient to most individuals. Transport system plays an important part in the movement of persons from one point to another. The transport system is a means by which goods and individuals move from one point to another. A facility consists of equipment and logistics that are vital to transport passengers and goods. A transport system covers the major forms of transport, and it exists to coordinate the movement of goods and individuals in order to utilize routes efficiently (Rangarajan, Long, Tobias, & Keister 2013). Participants of the transport systems include the people who are directly involved in the movement of goods across the transport system. The participants have the responsibility of managing and operating the transport system. It enables the transport system to become lively and sustainable. The participants also have the responsibilities of running and serving the community priorities. The participants have the responsibilities of improving the transport system. In relation to, members provide infor mation to support the choices of individuals. The responsibilities of individuals are to promote reliable and efficient means of moving people and commodities around the transport system (Shah, 2009). Transport systems are a major contributor to the economy of most countries in the world.

Terrorism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 10

Terrorism - Essay Example They therefore result to terrorism as a fight back mechanism and to destabilize the government. Some also want to loot the national resources and this cannot be done in a stable country. They therefore strike then when the chaos ensue they loot and defraud the government. Yungher identifies a number of goals that terrorists want to achieve with their activities. They include political motives. Since a certain group is not satisfied with the government that is ruling they result to terrorism to destabilize it. Economic reasons. This is evident mainly in the ocean where ships are taken and a ransom required to flee them. This has been one of the major ways of getting an income from the terrorists. Another goal is to intimidate a certain group of people. This is done in regions where they want to dominate. Religious terrorism is also common and religious intolerance has facilitated the rise in terrorist activities across the world. The major component is fear. A certain group feels insecure that they result to terrorism to feel secure. The other one is violence. After being attacked, certain people result to terrorism as the way of fighting back. Violence is a major component of terrorism and many terror attacks are depicted by the violence involved. Religion. Religion has played a key role in shaping terrorism. Religious intolerance has been seen as a major reason in boosting terror activities. Civilian targets. Many terrorists will attack the civilians as a way o passing their message. A good example is the September 2001 attack in the US. Terrorists use the social media to execute their terror activities. From my opinion, the social media is a good choice due to the large number of people that they are able to reach. The anonymity that is guaranteed by the social media is also needed. Propaganda has been used as a tool for long in various mischiefs and so many terrorists use it to intimidate their target. They therefore use it to claim

Web Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Web - Essay Example Java and JavaScript use the same set of syntaxes that were used for C Syntax. JavaScript also has the same naming conventions and Java names (Flanagan, 2002). Java was developed Java was developed by Sun Microsystems as a programming language. It forms the core component of the Java Platform and was developed using the syntax of C and C++. Java can be used for creating full scale very powerful applications and can be used to activate databases and other assets of the IT systems. the JVM - Java Virtual Machine on the client side to run. Java has its own class libraries, compilers and other assets that make the software language. Java was released as open source software though Sun holds the copyrights. Java has many classes such as Applets, Servlet, JavaServer Page, Swing Application and Class Libraries. Java is used to create and run applications on its own while JavaScript is designed to run in an HTML or a Java enabled page. Creating Java applications requires training and learning how to program as it is a core programming language (Sierra, 2005). DHTML – Dynamic HTML is created by client side scripting and may be formed specific for a user as per specific variables. It is a combination of JavaScript, HTML and CSS. DHTML would change the appearance of a static HTML page content. It is used to create pop up menus and buttons, drop-down menus, rollover buttons and other such dynamic effects that are displayed when a mouse over is used. In eLearning packages, DHTML is used to display extra text that appears when a user clicks on a link and the text is again hidden when the link is clicked again. One need not be an expert programmer to know DHTML but a basic knowledge of HTML is sufficient (Goodman, 2002). To sum up the differences and similarities, Java, JavaScript and DHTML are all part of the web development languages and scripts. Java is a core programming language that has its own class files, library and needs a

Compare Democrats to Republicans Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Compare Democrats to Republicans - Term Paper Example This question requires one to indicate the main similarities along with some of the key differences. The following are among the differences existing between the two parties. Unlike the democrats, the republicans encourage individuals in the society to work extremely hard in catering for themselves, their families, as well as the elderly and the disabled (Dempsey, 2009). The democrats conversely believe that the government ought to be answerable for the wellbeing of all its citizens. Moreover, the republicans champion the usage of the free enterprise, which they believe to possess a momentous economic gain. Alternatively, the democrats hold to the idea that conducting business is a strenuous undertaking thus permitting the government intervention (Dempsey, 2009). The republicans dedicate much of their effort in sinking the government spending through tax reduction. On the contrary, the democrats encourage taxation as they regard it a necessary tool in meeting their citizen’s needs. Despite the many differences, the two systems hold some similar notions such as illegalizing of abortion. Additionally, both practice the liberal governance although they possess an element of conservatism (Dempsey, 2009). They also champion for honesty in their leadership, and aim at enhancing peace. It deems necessary to focus on both the similarities, as well as differences. This is because of its significance making the interested entities understand how the two systems operate. After reading the essay, readers should clearly understand both the democrats, as well as the republicans. The different parallel points of contrast and comparison that the essay will address include each of the party’s ideology on taxation, education, national defense, and immigration. The topic chosen stands the chance of being the most suitable, and workable topic since it is of international interest. It is evident

Prompt Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Prompt - Essay Example Prince Hamlet’s spiritual reckoning with his dead Father and his trust in him motivates him to kill Claudius.(Thesis) In this play the main theme is the revenge of Prince Hamlet and his expedition to kill his Father’s murderer. Here the King, who is Hamlet’s Father was killed by his brother – in law for wealth and power. Claudius being the murderer of King, marries his wife that is his sister and rules Denmark .Hamlet being ignorant of these facts gets encountered by his Father’s soul and understands the reality. Hence forth, he is motivated to kill Claudius by trusting his Father’s spirit’s words Claim 1 : Hamlet’s spiritual reckons his dead Father In this play ‘Hamlet’ the prince Hamlet is guided by his father’s spirit and this proves that death is not an end to life. The prince hears that some people have witnessed his father’s spirit and he believes in the same. Afterwards , he himself encounter hi s father ‘s spirit which gives him an insight about his father’s death and the person who is behind it. ... Here in this case of Prince Hamlet, he believes in spirit and after life only after he had experienced it. He have heard of his Father’s ghostly presence from outsiders , but when he comes in contact with it in reality , he gets more indulged in the concept of spirit. His father let out the fact that he was murdered by Claudius and he wants his son to take revenge for it. Evidence : Spirituality The concept of spirituality proves that human body is merely matter and the main force which directs body and psyche is human spirit. This spirit is the soul that exists in human body and it is indestructible and unconquerable. In case of unnatural death the soul or spirit of a human is believed to be wandering on earth to take out it’s vengeance on their enemy. This aspect can be evident in the play when people said to have find the spirit of the King previously to Prince Hamlet‘s vision of it After encountering his Father’s spirit , Hamlet gets obsessed with the c oncept of death and views death and spirit from various angles. He is concerned about spirits awakening after death and the concept of ghost on a wider perspective. Although spirits existence is reality and there is scientific facts exists regarding it. Example – Believing in spirit is filled with uncertainty. Spirits lives in other realm of life and believing them is filled with risk and uncertainty. This is because none can establish the true motive of spirits. The spirit can announce many things with less authenticity or truthful background. If one believe in them ,then he may have to take actions which is unethical and immoral just to satisfy the wavering intentions of the encountered spirit. It is not really sensible to trust on the words of spirit as

Web Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Web - Essay Example Java and JavaScript use the same set of syntaxes that were used for C Syntax. JavaScript also has the same naming conventions and Java names (Flanagan, 2002). Java was developed Java was developed by Sun Microsystems as a programming language. It forms the core component of the Java Platform and was developed using the syntax of C and C++. Java can be used for creating full scale very powerful applications and can be used to activate databases and other assets of the IT systems. the JVM - Java Virtual Machine on the client side to run. Java has its own class libraries, compilers and other assets that make the software language. Java was released as open source software though Sun holds the copyrights. Java has many classes such as Applets, Servlet, JavaServer Page, Swing Application and Class Libraries. Java is used to create and run applications on its own while JavaScript is designed to run in an HTML or a Java enabled page. Creating Java applications requires training and learning how to program as it is a core programming language (Sierra, 2005). DHTML – Dynamic HTML is created by client side scripting and may be formed specific for a user as per specific variables. It is a combination of JavaScript, HTML and CSS. DHTML would change the appearance of a static HTML page content. It is used to create pop up menus and buttons, drop-down menus, rollover buttons and other such dynamic effects that are displayed when a mouse over is used. In eLearning packages, DHTML is used to display extra text that appears when a user clicks on a link and the text is again hidden when the link is clicked again. One need not be an expert programmer to know DHTML but a basic knowledge of HTML is sufficient (Goodman, 2002). To sum up the differences and similarities, Java, JavaScript and DHTML are all part of the web development languages and scripts. Java is a core programming language that has its own class files, library and needs a

Prompt Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Prompt - Essay Example Prince Hamlet’s spiritual reckoning with his dead Father and his trust in him motivates him to kill Claudius.(Thesis) In this play the main theme is the revenge of Prince Hamlet and his expedition to kill his Father’s murderer. Here the King, who is Hamlet’s Father was killed by his brother – in law for wealth and power. Claudius being the murderer of King, marries his wife that is his sister and rules Denmark .Hamlet being ignorant of these facts gets encountered by his Father’s soul and understands the reality. Hence forth, he is motivated to kill Claudius by trusting his Father’s spirit’s words Claim 1 : Hamlet’s spiritual reckons his dead Father In this play ‘Hamlet’ the prince Hamlet is guided by his father’s spirit and this proves that death is not an end to life. The prince hears that some people have witnessed his father’s spirit and he believes in the same. Afterwards , he himself encounter hi s father ‘s spirit which gives him an insight about his father’s death and the person who is behind it. ... Here in this case of Prince Hamlet, he believes in spirit and after life only after he had experienced it. He have heard of his Father’s ghostly presence from outsiders , but when he comes in contact with it in reality , he gets more indulged in the concept of spirit. His father let out the fact that he was murdered by Claudius and he wants his son to take revenge for it. Evidence : Spirituality The concept of spirituality proves that human body is merely matter and the main force which directs body and psyche is human spirit. This spirit is the soul that exists in human body and it is indestructible and unconquerable. In case of unnatural death the soul or spirit of a human is believed to be wandering on earth to take out it’s vengeance on their enemy. This aspect can be evident in the play when people said to have find the spirit of the King previously to Prince Hamlet‘s vision of it After encountering his Father’s spirit , Hamlet gets obsessed with the c oncept of death and views death and spirit from various angles. He is concerned about spirits awakening after death and the concept of ghost on a wider perspective. Although spirits existence is reality and there is scientific facts exists regarding it. Example – Believing in spirit is filled with uncertainty. Spirits lives in other realm of life and believing them is filled with risk and uncertainty. This is because none can establish the true motive of spirits. The spirit can announce many things with less authenticity or truthful background. If one believe in them ,then he may have to take actions which is unethical and immoral just to satisfy the wavering intentions of the encountered spirit. It is not really sensible to trust on the words of spirit as

Inside Islam notes Essay Example for Free

Inside Islam notes Essay

Integrated Approach To Tourism Planning And Management Tourism Essay

Integrated Approach To Tourism Planning And Management Tourism Essay Tourism is one of the worlds biggest industries. For developing countries, it is also one of the biggest incomes generators. Early literature in tourism development emphasized the role of tourism in economic development, particularly for developing countries (Erbes, 1973). However, the negative social, cultural impacts of tourism has increased in the past two decades , calling for more aware of planning and management of tourism development(WTO, 1996; Mathieson Wall,1982, Wahab, 1997). The benefit of tourism in the countrys economy is a major incentive for developing countries due to three pro-tourism arguments. First, the evolution of the request for international travel is scheduled to continue at astonishing rate because of the economic stability and travel preferences of people in the developed regions such as Europe, Asia and North America. Secondly, income elasticity of demand for the tourism means that, as the family income for the developed world increased, the disposable in come would be directed to travel. Thirdly, developing countries need the foreign exchange earnings to support its economic development initiatives, in order to meet the needs of their local residents. By pro-tourism arguments, many developing countries are choosing, or being encouraged to develop tourism over some of the more traditional industry alternatives such as agriculture and manufacturing (Mill Morrison, 1999). The major problems with agriculture are that overly dependent upon a few specific crops or products. In the competitive world market, where externalities and price are uncontrollable and unpredictable, countries dependent on agriculture have an unreliable and inconsistent source of revenue. Under these circumstances, the tourism industry can play the role in diversifying economy and the supplement the income has brought in through the agriculture. For example, after introducing tourism into the Caribbean island economies, the $9 billion tourism sector brought in six times the revenue of all traditional agricultural exports (Simon, 1995). Other developing countries have set up manufacturing as an economic development policy option. In order to manufacture, a country need to have easily accessible source of raw materials for production. The country which has rich in natural resources is more successful in manufacturing. Many developing countries has shortage of skilled labour which is one of the necessary inputs for manufacturing. even when these problems are non-existent export oriented industries still face full international competition in selling their products (Mill Morrison, 1999). Tourism also need land , skilled labour, capital resources to access . Yet, tourism, in the way that the product is produced and delivered, may be a more viable alternative for developing countries. Most developing have the basic raw materials resources for tourism industry. Using the countrys heritage, architecture , the natural and cultural resources makes a destination unique and marketable to visitors. Accessing tourism is a good choice for the development of economics and requires more than simply understand the projected growth. Tourism requires many other reasons to make a suitable fit for developing countries. Unlike agriculture and manufacturing industries, tourism produces an invisible export. Tourism also allows countries to manipulate exchange rates to influence visitor expenditures. For instance, the destination can lower the exchange rates in order to attract more number of visitors. Tourism affect directly or indirectly to other sectors of economy more than other industry. The strategies to maximize the economic benefits from tourism for developing countries are to bring in more money from visitors and organize tourism to minimize leakage of money and jobs. The statement looks simple but it actually complex due to some reasons. Government and private sector play in establishing policy and encouraging development in developing countries. National policies on tourism in developing countries are usually the domain of the state, whereas in more developed countries, private entrepreneurs often dominate policy formation and enactment (Liu, 1998). In most developing countries, owing to the small size of the private sector and the shortage of funds, the government necessarily takes on the role of entrepreneur (Shurland, 1998). This is usually in response to proposed private foreign investment. Governments in the developing world generally have the responsibility of formulating and enforcing tourism policy, and for many, sustainable tourism goals are central to their tourism plan. This should include, as already stated, increasing the economic impact of tourism to the local economy by reducing the leakage of foreign exchange earnings. As previously mentioned, one of the ways to increase the tourism development is to bring in tourist who spend money in the developing country. As the mass tourism markets is criticized for the negative environmental and social impacts they cause, there is growing attention to those with higher household income expecting that they will spend more money during their visit. Although this sounds logical, the strategy has its critics (Mill Morrison, 1999). Although it is not clear, visitors with high incomes may spend more but they may also require substantial investment in infrastructure and facilities with high import content.

Traveling with Fuller and Thoreau Essay -- Literary Analysis, Summer o

Traveling with Fuller and Thoreau The mid 1800’s was a time of continued physical exploration of the landscape of America, and an era of opportunity for an intimate inspection of the land; areas sometimes found by the traveler with the assistance of Travel Journals and maps. These detailed records, reflected a destination, and also allowed an intellectual travel of the mind. In Margaret Fuller’s, â€Å"Summer on the Lake,† and Henry David Thoreau, â€Å"Cape Cod,† we experience both their physical, and internal travels, and how each author relates, both physically and mentally, to the natural landscape; the similarities, the differences, and what elucidated each, to seek their journeys. The observed, physical differences of the natural landscapes will be compared, followed by a deeper encounter with Thoreau, as to why, and to whom, his more desolate and dark descriptions of the natural landscape, reached a distinctive, psychological appeal, and how these two views relate to contemporary America. Just the title, â€Å"Summer on the Lake,† creates a refreshing image of glistening water and sunshine, surrounded by evergreens and the voices of children at play, right? As well it should, for that is what the author, Margaret Fuller, had intended to experience as she traveled that summer of 1843, to the Great Lakes. Margaret describes the many travel books and journals she studied to prepare for her trip. â€Å"Murray’s travels I read, and was charmed by their accuracy and clear broad tone.† (Fuller p.27) Yes, she was â€Å"charmed† by another’s words; another’s description of a place she had yet to travel. She Schoener 2 was expecting to find beauty an... ...cape of America, it is even more so today. The major difference is that we are able to learn from authors like Thoreau and Fuller, not to just read the words, but to â€Å"see† what they are saying, and to use that knowledge to envision a landscape that is not just in a travel book, or on a sandy beach, but one that is truly ubiquitous. References: Emerson, RW. The Portable Emerson. Viking Edition:1981 Fuller, Margaret. Summer on the Lakes. Reprint 2010 Thoreau, HD. The Portable Thoreau. Viking-Penguin Edition 1977 Thoreau, HD. Cape Cod. Dover Publications. 2004 Encyclopedia Britannica, online â€Å"Transcendentalism† 2010 Abrams: Class notes: 10-4 through 10-25 Note: RE: Fuller. My text was missing the intro-page 7. I used several other editions found online to gather information, therefore, my page numbers may not relate correctly to any one edition.

Should We All Move To Moorsetown? :: essays research papers

Should We All Move To Moorsetown?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Why do people choose to live where they do? With a country as big and diverse as the United States is it possible that most people can agree on the best place to live? Money Magazine and CNN/Money (2005) just published their Best Places to Live 2005 study. According to Money, Moorsetown, New Jersey is the best place to live in the whole country. Money says Moorestown has, â€Å"a Main Street made for the cover of the Saturday Evening Post†. Moorestown also has, â€Å"Top schools†, â€Å"Good Jobs† and â€Å"Nice homes at reasonable prices†. Moorestown sounds like a great place to live but, would everyone put it at the top of there list?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Money started their survey with 40,000 places (not necessarily official cities or towns) across the United States. Money based their survey on data collected from the US Census Board, the Bureau of Labor, the IRS, and other sources. Money only considered places with more than 14,000 people, above-median household income, and population growth and real estate appreciation over the past 5 years. These filters narrowed their list to 1,231 places. Money then rated each place based on criteria in eight areas. These areas were: affordable housing; plentiful leisure activities; plentiful cultural options; low pollution; low crime rate; low auto insurance; short commute time; and access to quality health care. The Money study also focused on areas considered most important for people raising families. Money gave economic, education, and safety factors twice the weight they gave to other social and leisure factors. Finally, Money visited the top places and interviewed resi dents to make the final ranking.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The issue of the â€Å"best place to live† caught my attention because the town where I live, Tolland, Connecticut, was ranked 29th on the Money Magazine list. The town proudly displays this recognition on their Home Page. Tolland is 29th in the Top 100 Best Places to Live in the U.S. (Town of Tolland, n.d.).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The local weekly newspaper (Ciparelli, 2005) wrote a front page story about the honor of Tolland being 29th on the list. Tolland is a small town in north-eastern Connecticut about 25 miles from Hartford, 75 miles from Boston, and 120 miles from New York City. Tolland has a population of about 15,000 people spread over 40 square miles. Why did Tolland make the list? According to Ciparelli, Tolland scored well in several key criteria used by Money Magazine.

Theme of Duplicity in

THEME OF DUPLICITY IN THREE SHORT STORIES OF HENRY JAMES: THE LIAR, THE REAL THING, AND THE BEAST IN THE JUNGLE Nazan Gokay Theme of Duplicity in Three Short Stories of Henry James: â€Å"The Liar,† â€Å"The Real Thing,† and â€Å"The Beast in the Jungle† The genius of Henry James manifests itself in duality of meaning in both his shorter and longer works. Appearance and reality provide for two levels of expression. On one level the theme is explicit as told by the narrator, but underneath lies the ambiguous meaning which is in a sense the main theme of the story. The ambiguity is usually embedded in the narrative; it is the task of the attentive reader to seek it out, understand it and enjoy it. James does not make this task easy for the reader. His style is subtle, vague, and demands a lot of attention. One clue to the real meaning of James’s stories is the irony employed. Most of James’s narrators are unrealiable in the sense that they are deceptive. Their unreliability is either a result of their blindness or unawareness of their situation and environment, or an egotistical engagement in their own affairs so as to distort reality. The unreliable narrator misleads the reader. The Jamesian irony clarifies the story, brings out the real meaning beneath the apparent and reveals the unreliable narrator. â€Å"The Liar† is a perfect example of the use of an unreliable narrator and the existence of two levels of meaning, the real and the apparent. Although the story is not told from a first person point of view, the narrator confines himself only to the mind of Oliver Lyon, a painter and former suitor of Mrs. Capadose. The events are recorded through Lyon’s mind and we perceive people through his eyes. According to Lyon, Colonel Capadose is a villainous liar who has to be exposed. Lyon’s conception of Capadose as a liar and his envy of the Colonel have blinded Lyon to appreciate him as an amiable human being which in fact he is. Lyon treacherously plans to expose the Colonel in a portrait he will paint as â€Å"the liar† and eventually renew his friendship with Mrs. Capadose. Lyon’s account of the event is the apparent and superficial meaning of the story. Colonel Capadose is the liar and he has corrupted his wife through their years of marriage, for at the end of the story she, too, lies in order to save her husband. Lyon, as the disillusioned hero, watches them depart from his life, thinking that â€Å"he had trained her too well. † On a deeper and more significant level, Oliver Lyon is the real liar. Although Colonel has been known as a liar, he is a harmless man who is only engaged in a social game. In society, in human relationships, one has to wear a mask. Lyon himself points out at the dinner party that people like others not because they are strictly honest but because they are skillful in deception. Lyon’s treachery is much more significant than Colonel’s social games. Lyon tries to violate the integrity of another man’s character; moreover, he plans to expose him to the public. Subtle but definitely present Jamesian irony brings out the essence of the story. The most obvious ironical device is the name Oliver Lyon, who is the real liar. The exposure of the couple at the end is ironically at the expense of Lyon who loses forever any chance he might have had with this ideal woman, the woman that he has loved for so long. Through the story Lyon plots against the Colonel, but in fact he is bringing about his own disillusionment. In this manner, the real meaning of â€Å"The Liar† emerges as a result of Lyon’s self-defeat, not from humiliation of Colonel Capadose as Lyon had anticipated. The circumstance of â€Å"The Real Thing† is slightly different than the â€Å"The Liar. † Although the theme of duplicity, dichotomy between the apparent and the real is still the central issue, there is no unreliable narrator. In â€Å"The Liar† the superficial is conveyed through accounts of the unreliable narrator and the real is embedded in the ironical and false character of Oliver Lyon. In â€Å"The Real Thing† the dichotomy between the real and the apparent is explicitly stated. In this story James is concerned with the mission of the artist who seeks for expressive and imaginative realism in potential nothings rather than in concrete, conventional real things. Mr. and Mrs. Monarch, as their names imply, are types or norms of a superior humanity. They are ideal, real, and aristocratic in life, but they are not right for art. When the painter tries to paint them, their portraits materialise as rigid, photograhic images. The painter-narrator discovers that Miss Churm and Oronte who are socially nothings prove to be the real things for art. They can adopt aristocratic poses better than those who are really aristocratic in life. On a social level Mr. and Mrs. Monarch, â€Å"a gentleman and a lady† as the porter’s wife announces them, are the real things. The social institution, their married life is perfect, they are devoted to each other. On an aesthetic level, the artist’s imagination is the real thing. On this level the reality of Monarchs is no longer valid; Miss Churm and Oronte replace them. The irony of the story rests on the fact that for the artist, the represented subject is more essential than the real thing. The Beast in the Jungle† is the story of a man who is haunted by fear and expectation simultaneously that something will happen to him. John Marcher is the typical blind hero of James. His self-indulgence prevents him from seeing the reality, thus his view, through which the story is narrated, is unreliable. John Marcher is similar to Oliver Lyon in that his self-deception resul ts in inflicting pain to others, although his motives are not aggressive like Lyon’s. Marcher is not a villain as Lyon is. He causes May’s and his own unhappiness unwittingly. His flaw is his blindness, but certainly not treachery. His situation is as ironic as Lyon’s in that he tries to be ordinary and hide his uniquenesss, while he is unaware that his uniqueness is that he is, in fact, ordinary. The double meaning is conveyed through the two characters of the story. John Marcher manifests the superficial and apparent aspect, while May Bartram presents the real and underlying theme. Most of the story is related through John Marcher’s point of view as the â€Å"The Liar† was told through Lyon’s point of view. The underlying theme is expressed in the dialogues with May Bartram, who is a very perceptive and intelligent woman. Soon after she has made his acquaintance, she sees his real issue. She comes to love him, but he is too engrossed in his expectations to notice her unquestioned presence and friendship. As years go by she sees â€Å"it† not happening. Finally, before she dies she tells him that â€Å"It has come†, but he is still unaware. His moment of recognition comes when he visits her grave and realizes that he has lost her forever, and that he is â€Å"the man, to whom nothing on earth was to have happened. As in the other two stories, the names of the characters are significant in stressing the theme of duplicity. Marcher is winter; May is spring. Marcher is fear; May is love. Marcher advances in a stately manner, but never reaches May in her lifetime. In â€Å"The Liar† and â€Å"The Beast in the Jungle† unreliable narrators are used to convey and st ress the double meaning. In â€Å"The Real Thing† the dichotomy between the real and the apparent is presented as a problem confronting the artist. In either case the theme of duplicity is employed to add richness and depth to the meaning of the stories. The double meaning, irony, and unreliable narrators have become indispensable elements of Jamesian fiction. BIBLIOGRAPHY Matthiessen, F. O. Henry James: The Major Phase. New York: Oxford University Press, 1963. Powers, Lyall H. Henry James: An Introduction and Interpretation. New York: Holt , Rinehart and Winston, Inc. , 1970. Stone, Edward, ed. Henry James: Seven Stories and Studies. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc. , 1961. Tompkins, Jane P. , ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Turn of the Screw and Other Tales. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. , 1970.