Overeating and obesity Essay - 1333 Words

Why do Americans overeat to the point of becoming obese and what are the effects on the body? As the world looks at society today, clearly Americans have an issue with being overweight and becoming obese especially compared with other countries. â€Å"Approximately 17% (or 12.5 million) of children and adolescents aged 2—19 years are obese,† and â€Å"more than one-third of U.S. adults (35.7%) are obese† (Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, 2013, Data and Statistics). History suggests that overeating is a choice, an addition similar to smoking cigarettes caused by lack of will power, boredom or simple gluttony. With new research, society is beginning to learn there is more behind obesity than just a choice or addition. For instance, a†¦show more content†¦Obesity can lead to diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, even some cancers and potentially death. These are all very serious medical issues that need to be addressed. The psychological change would be effects on self-esteem, depression and even face professional and social discrimination. Overweight people may not be hired just based on their weight. If an employer has another candidate for the position that isn’t overweight, that person is more likely to be chosen over an obese person. Obese people can meet the requirements, but due to weight, the individual may not be chosen because the potential employer may think if they can’t control their eating, then they can’t control other behaviors. Society may judge an obese person as messy or not organized but anyone could be messy and disorganized. There are many stereotypes of obese individuals which is part of why depression is common among obese people. Depression is much more than just sadness. A depressed individual may feel tired, worthless, hopeless, and unimportant. Obese people may suffer from insomnia or excessive sleep, and can have recurrent thoughts of suicide or death. Depression greatly affects the individual’s self-esteem and stress levels. Fortunately depression is treatable with antidepressants and therapy. Children may have bullies at school, or even at home, that pick onShow MoreRelatedThe Medical Discourse Of Overeating And The Obesity Epidemic Within Western Societies And How Television Comedy900 Words   |  4 Pageshave chosen to explore the medical discourse of overeating and how it is contributing to the obesity epidemic within We stern societies and how television comedy Mike and Molly (2010) challenges the representation of the plus size body in a refreshingly encouraging way for people with a plus size body to relate. A large proportion of television programs depict the plus size body equalling unhealthy and undesirable. Three discourses surrounding obesity are Mike and Molly however open the social discourseRead MoreEssay on Greg Cristers quot;Too Much of a Good Thingquot;993 Words   |  4 PagesThing Greg Crister, the author of the op-ed essay that was featured in the Los Angeles Times, Too Much of a Good Thing, argues that in order to stop obesity, we should stigmatize overeating. Crister states that we should place shame on overeating due to the rising obesity epidemic that faces the world today. The U.N. proclaims that obesity is a dominant unmet global health issue, with Westernized countries topping the list. Crister states that twenty five percent of all Americans under theRead MoreObesity : Obesity And Obesity1472 Words   |  6 PagesObesity in our society continues to grow at an alarming rate. America is the richest country but has the largest population of obese people in the world. â€Å"Nearly 36.5% of American’s are obese (Adult Obesity Facts).† It is important to note that obesity is defined as having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of â€Å"30% or more† (The Socioeconomic Causes of Obesity). People become obese over times for many reasons like feeli ng there is less of a need to exercise and eat healthy. There are also more fast food selectionsRead MoreFactors That Affect Overweight And Obesity935 Words   |  4 Pagesoverweight and obesity. It does not necessarily have to be a single gene that can cause overweight, but a multiple of them can play that role. Some people who get overweight have inherited the problem from their parents. The improvement in quantitative genetics and genomics has helped in understanding the relationship between genetics and overweight better. Conditions of overweight and obesity usually occur within a certain family. Some families had a history of overweight and obesity since a longRead MoreEssay on Rhetorical Analysis: Too Much of a Good Thing1292 Words   |  6 Pageschildhood obesity. Overall, Cristers argument succeeds and his audience walks away convinced that childhood obesity is, in fact, an epidemic that plagues children in their own country and that they must act immediately themselves to help fight the fight and insure that it does not become a problem with their own children. One common rhetorical strategy is ethos, which is the use of credible sources to support a claim. Since Crister is a writer and not an expert on childhood obesity himself, itRead MoreObesity : A Dangerous Disease1503 Words   |  7 PagesObesity is known as a condition where a person has excessive fat in their body and it is also defined as being a genetic and environmental factor, which can occur to anyone from child to adult. It is a factor where people eat the wrong foods and do not watch their diet. Obesity or overweight is a very dangerous disease because it can be the leading cause of diabetes, hypertension and even sleep apnea and many more symptoms can be caused by the disease. Obesity or overweight has become, a common factorRead MoreChildhood Obesity: A Growing Problem in Our Society Essay1122 Words   |  5 Pageslife. In order to prevent the obesity epidemic in our country, the major causes and root problems of obesity must be explored and abolished. Obviously, overeating and a lacking of physical activity both contribute immensely to obesity. The one most unaware to the public eye is the overwhelming availability of cheap food and how that affects social classes. Childhood obesity, an issue slowly swallowing the United States, becomes more pronounced every day due to overeating, little to no exercise, andRead MoreChildhood Obesity Essay examples1472 Words   |  6 Pageschildhood obesity was rarely a topic of conversation. A survey done in the early 1970s showed that 6.1% of children between the ages 12 and 19 were overweight. Eight years later the same survey was done and 17.4% were considered overweight (Iannelli). â€Å"Childhood obesity epidemic in America is now a confirmed fact since the number of overweight or obese children has more than tripled during the last 30 years† (Childhood Obesity Epidemic). â€Å"Over the last 20 years, the prevalence of obesity in childrenRead MoreFood Is Fuel For The Body856 Words   |  4 Pagesbasic definition of overeating is, excessive eating. Excessive eating is consuming more calories than necessary and usually consuming them in large portions that cause a person to feel uncomfortably full. People who engage in overeating regularly tend to eat when not hungry and may eat alone because they are embarrassed about the portions of food they are consuming. In addition, they may spend enormous amounts of time fantasizing about their next meal. Another sign that overeating has become a problemRead MoreObesity : A Major Problem Today Society Within The United States1548 Words   |  7 PagesObesity is a major problem in today’s society within the United States. To be more spec ific, childhood obesity. Childhood obesity is becoming worse, and the adults don’t realize the impact it has on the rest of the child s life. According to Americas Let’s Move initiative the definition of Obesity is, â€Å"excess body fat. Because body fat is difficult to measure directly, obesity is often measured by body mass index (BMI), a common scientific way to screen for whether a person is underweight, normal

South Island Is A Beautiful Place - 1163 Words

South Padre Island All adults have lives that are filled with some form of stress, even if we don t truly accept the fact. School and work can get really stressful and we often start to feel anxiety about meeting deadlines or pivotal determinations. Everyone can enjoy a vacation from time to time, and for many people the beach signifies relaxation and a great stress free environment. Touring places or doing activities with your family is a great way to forget about work and make great memories. South Padre Island is the perfect getaway you can enjoy with your family and take a break from our everyday routines. A beach vacation is the perfect vacation for couples and families that need to relax and be undisturbed in time together.†¦show more content†¦While fishing on the bay side, also has an amazing view of the island and the long elevated bridge. Another great activity South Padre Island offers is horse back riding on the beach which offers different times of the day you can choose. Horseback riding is fun but what makes it more amazing is you can enjoy it while being on the beach. It is really a great time to enjoy with your family and just ride along the beach hearing the sound of the ocean. One of my other favorite activities that I love to visit every summer when we have the whole family down is Schlitterbahn Waterpark. It has amazing rides for the family to enjoy and cool down on a hot summer day. They recently opened an indoor pool which is really cool just in case you want a take a break from the hot sunny day. South Padre Island also has many tours you can enjoy with your family. Theirs charters that take a couple of groups around the bay and they already know what spots has more dolphins. We took my nieces and nephews to the Dolphin Watch a couple of summers ago and they had an amazing time. Seeing their little faces overjoyed when they would see the dolphins coming up out of the water and making a show for us made me really happy. At one point so many dolphins were making a great show that we took a picture of the whole family and in the background some dolphins were captured. It was beautiful and I m glad we were able to take pictures with the dolphins we can have memories to cherish. Sea

Education for Child Psychology and Science- myassignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about theEducation for Child Psychology and Developmental Science. Answer: Concept probed Activity used to probe the concept Method used to probe childrens understandings An object floats if it is light for its size and sink if it is heavy for its size Doing experiment using figure objects in water Drawings Questions Whether an object floats depending on the material it is made of and not its weight Experiment on sinking made of different materials Drawings Questions The activity used in the probing of the floating and sinking concept is mainly experiments. Due to the young age of the children, it will be challenging for them to concentrate and try to understand the concept of floating and sinking if there are no illustrations on what the idea is about. This calls for the use of a technique that will attract their attention and ensure they are eager to learn what is just yet to be taught to them(Gamble, 2013, p.89). By bringing the experimental items into the class, some of which they have not seen before, their curiosity will be enhanced and thus it will be very easy to elaborate to tem the concept of floating and sinking. Still, the use of experiment facilitate the ability of the children to easily recall the concepts they shall have been taught. The young children have minds that have not matured up and thus have challenges recalling what they heard. It is instead easier for them to vividly narrate what they saw even though it might not be as clear as it exactly was at the time of experience(Arif, 2012, p.152). The experiments are thus yet another avenue for ensuring that the children are able to easily remember what they have learnt. Experiments are a way of engaging the children in the learning process and thus shifting the mode of learning from teacher centered to student centered. This gives the children an opportunity to learn numerous things by themselves as opposed to listening as the teacher narrates everything to them(Crowell, 2013, p.58). During the experiments, data is collected and observations are made. Data collections and the observations are made by the children as the role of the instructor will be centered on facilitating asking questions as well as drawing the attention of the children to the interesting results achieved. When properly designed, the experiments serve to rule out the misconceptions that the children have been holding and give attention to the ideas that will be needed by the children in order to properly understand so as to enhance deeper and further learning. The children illustrated having a rough idea on what floating and sinking is following their responses to the various questions they were asked. The questions were of various types and from their responses it was established that they had to some extent information on floating(Lerner, 2015, p.117). Most of the questions they were asked were open ended questions so as to get their idea without necessarily confining their though a specific thing when it comes to floating. Asked to define what floating and sinking was, the responses were found to be within the science concept. Whereas they had challenges with the choice of words to define floating, they were able to establish that sibling refers to when an object disappears. In their explanation, the disappearance was not with regard to any liquid but rather just technical loss of existence from the sight(Smith, 2015, p.187). With reference to alternative conceptions, research was done to establish what conceptions the children held behind the sinking and floating of objects(Santos, 2011, p.148). While one of the conceptions was big things sinks and small ones float, another one was that an object would sink if the surface above the water of a floating objet was cut out. The first conception was an attempt to explain the difference in the sinking properties of various materials. This was in line with the misconceptions held by one of the children that big things are heavy and have to sink while small things are light in weight and therefore remain suspended over the water. This conception assumed that sinking and floating are affected by the size of an object as opposed to the shape among other scientific illustrations(Papathanasiou, 2012, p.102). The second misconception was founded on the argument that the part of a floating object that remains suspended over the water is the part that floats while the other part submerged sinks. This conception held the notion that a single object can sink and float at the same time. Questioning helped the children gained insights into the floating and sinking concept and thus could easily understand the experiment as they went into it(McTighe, 2013, p.88). Open ended questions gave the children an opportunity to say anything on what they know and have heard about on sinking and floating. Through this any misconceptions were noted and left to be tested during the experiment. Productive and unproductive questions helped opening up the knowledge of the children on the concept and encouraging discussion among the children respectively(Sussman, 2015, p.145). The questioning session dwelt so much on open ended questions and closed ended questions due to the limited range of knowledge on the topic by the children. Through the use of these question types the children could directly be involved and as not have to strain their minds thinking too deep into the concept. Probing the understanding of each child is important in gaining knowledge on the prior information that a child has on a concept and establishing the level of misconceptions in the knowledge held. Still, probing aids the facilitation in establishing which areas needs to more attention and focus when delivering a concept to a child(Fisher, 2015, p.116). Children have different levels of weakness and varied understandings which might only be established through probing. In dealing with the childrens prior knowledge, I will adopt the following strategies: Avoid overdoing it to avoid being carried away by the contents of such information. Prior knowledge should only be used to engage what the learner knows on the concept prior to learning the topic as opposed to forming the basis of the discussion of the concept(McTighe, 2013, p.99). Use of multiple reading to solve problems that are brought about by prior knowledge especially in cases where the prior knowledge is mainly misconceptions- Alternatively the use of different numerous experiments would help in solving any issues that arise from prior knowledge. The children will gain full understanding and confidence in what they are learning and thus easily drop their previous incorrect knowledge following experimental results established. Only handle prior knowledge should it likely to bring about understanding problems. Making straight points which are not clear are important aspect of dealing with prior knowledge. Under circumstances that prior knowledge coincides with the hypothesis of the science concept, it is prudent to proceed to explaining and illustrating the concept to the learners without necessarily having to dwell so much on the prior knowledge(Arif, 2012, p.104). References Arif, M.M., 2012. Probing Understanding: Emergent Second Language Readers' Visual Literacy. 3rd ed. New York: Jabatan Pendidikan Bahasa dan Literasi, Fakulti Pendidikan, Universiti Malaya. Crowell, S.G., 2013. The Prism of the Self: Philosophical Essays in Honor of Maurice Natanson. 3rd ed. New York: Springer Science Business Media. Fisher, D., 2015. Checking for Understanding: Formative Assessment Techniques for Your Classroom, 2nd edition. 5th ed. New York: ASCD. Gamble, T.K., 2013. Interpersonal Communication: Building Connections Together. 3rd ed. Kansas: SAGE Publications. Lerner, R.M., 2015. Handbook of Child Psychology and Developmental Science, Socioemotional Processes. 4th ed. New York: John Wiley Sons. McTighe, J., 2013. Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding. 3rd ed. London: ASCD. Papathanasiou, I., 2012. Aphasia and Related Neurogenic Communication Disorders. 4th ed. Manchester: Jones Bartlett Publishers. Santos, E., 2011. Catalysis in Electrochemistry: From Fundamental Aspects to Strategies for Fuel Cell Development. 5th ed. London: John Wiley Sons. Smith, D.G., 2015. Strata and Time: Probing the Gaps in Our Understanding. 4th ed. London: Geological Society of London. Sussman, E.S., 2015. Probing auditory scene analysis. 5th ed. Beijing: Frontiers E-books.

Research Proposal on Phonics Essay Example

Research Proposal on Phonics Essay Phonics is the method of the school learning of the language or more general in linguistics. The system of pronunciation is the methodology which teaches to read words dividing them into letters and phonemes and then vice versa create full syllables and words from phonemes and letters. The method of phonics was the substitution of the previous popular system called syllable reading based on the teaching practice based on the interpretation, not separate letters but syllables, for example, STU-DY. The method of phonics transferred this approach into such way of teaching: S-T-U-D-Y when the child observes every letter to catch the right order of the letter in the word. The method of phonics first appeared in Germany in the 19th century, and it is quite useful for the learning of the languages which possess the same pronunciation and writing of their words. For example, the German language is quite simple for reading, because the person reads the word letter for letter (the combinations of letters seldom create a single sound). We will write a custom essay sample on Research Proposal on Phonics specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Research Proposal on Phonics specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Research Proposal on Phonics specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer The use of phonics in the English language is quite a troublesome practice because the majority of the English words do not sound the same as they are written (for example, it is possible to confuse the words â€Å"night† and â€Å"knight†). The new way substituted the method of phonics called the Whole language, which is based on the understanding of the logical processes, spelling, and phonetics. So, the phonics is quite a useful approach towards the teaching of reading, but it should be applied to the learning of the languages which can accept the methodology without confusion and misunderstanding. Phonics is an interesting problem for the research for every student who is interested in pedagogy, linguistics, and phonetics in particular. The student can observe the issue of phonics and share his own opinion about the method with the professor writing a research proposal which dwells on the pluses and minuses of the methodology of the system. The young professional can focus on the points and aspects attractive to him and apply phonics in the brand new situations and practice. It is essential to provide the methods of the research of the paper and find the right sources to collect the reliable and up-to-date arguments. The student can prepare a worthy research proposal if he communicates with the expert or at least looks through a quality free example research proposal on phonics written by the well-trained writer online. The student can catch the entire process and manner of writing, the research approach and formatting of the text using a free sample research proposal on phonics observed by an expert adequately. At EssayLib.com writing service you can order a custom research proposal on Phonics topics. Your proposal will be written from scratch. We hire top-rated PhD and Master’s writers only to provide students with professional research proposal help at affordable rates. Each customer will get a non-plagiarized paper with timely delivery. Just visit our website and fill in the order form with all proposal details: Enjoy our professional research proposal writing service!

Ethics In Criminal Justice - Forgiveness Essays - Virtue, Emotions

Ethics In Criminal Justice - Forgiveness Essays - Virtue, Emotions Ethics In Criminal Justice - Forgiveness Ethics in Criminal Justice Forgiveness The issue to be discussed concerns the act of forgiving. Forgiveness can be shown in many different ways. The degree of forgiveness depends on ones personal beliefs. There are many ethical systems that one can apply forgiveness to. But I will apply forgiveness to my own ethical system. I live my life as a Christian and I try to live by its principles. I also believe that my God is a forgiving God and that I should be in his likeness. In this particular situation, I would have to forgive Carl for what he had done. Christianity teaches that one should be forgiven, no matter what the circumstances are. Christians believe that God sees our faults and he forgives our faults daily. So we in turn have to forgive our brother, because God is so forgiving to us. Simon could have been bitter because of what had happen to his people. But in my ethical system, he is not allowed to hold on to those feelings. First, I would tell Carl, that I would forgive him. Carl would be a bit shocked because he wouldnt expect me to be so forgiving. Then, I would go into explaining that my ethical beliefs would not allow me to hold any ill feelings toward him. I would tell Carl that my ethical beliefs are based upon forgiveness. I would advise Carl that he should pray and ask God for forgiveness. Forgiveness, according to my ethical system is not based on what the action is or what the punishment will be. But rather it focuses how one needs to go beyond anothers faults and forgive them anyhow. Compared to ethical formalism, it is very different because motive or intent is not a determining factor in my ethical system. Christianity teaches that one should be forgiven in spite of. My ethical system can be compare to utilitarianism because it is based on a decision that will benefit of the whole. When a man admits that he has done wrong and he is sincerely sorry, then he should be forgiven. By Simon forgiving Carl he saved another person from dying a silent death.

Columbia Business School Programs and Admissions

Columbia Business School Programs and Admissions Columbia Business School is part of Columbia University, one of the worlds most esteemed private research universities. It is also one of six Ivy League business schools in the United States and part of the informal network of prestigious business schools known as the M7. Students who attend Columbia Business School have the benefit of studying in the heart of Manhattan in New York City and graduating with a degree from one of the most recognizable business schools in the world. But location and brand awareness are just two of the reasons why students enroll in the programs at this business school. Columbia is a popular business school due to its large alumni network, 200 electives, 100 student organizations, an ever-evolving curriculum taught by a respected faculty, and a reputation for groundbreaking research. Columbia Business School offers a range of program options for students at the graduate level. Students can earn an MBA, Executive MBA, Master of Science, or a Ph.D. The school also offers executive education programs for individuals and organizations. MBA Program The MBA program at Columbia Business School features a core curriculum that offers foundational knowledge in business topics like leadership, strategy, and global business. In their second term, MBA students are allowed to customize their education with electives. There are more than 200 electives to choose from; students also have the option of taking graduate-level classes at Columbia University to further diversify their studies. After being admitted to the MBA program, students are split into clusters consisting of about 70 people, who take their first-year classes together. Each cluster is further split into small teams of about five students, who complete core course assignments as a group. This cluster system is meant to encourage close relationships among diverse people who can challenge each other. MBA admissions at Columbia Business School are competitive. Only 15 percent of those who apply are admitted. Application requirements include two recommendations, three essays, one response to a short-answer question, GMAT or GRE scores, and academic transcripts. Interviews are by invitation only and are typically conducted by alumni. Executive MBA Programs Students in the Executive MBA program at Columbia Business School study the same curriculum under the same faculty as full-time MBA students. The main difference between the two programs is the format. The Executive MBA program is designed for busy executives who want to complete the program on the weekend or in 5-day blocks. Columbia Business School offers three different New York based programs: EMBA-NY Saturday: Students take classes every Saturday for 24 months.EMBA-NY Friday/Saturday: Students take classes every other Friday/Saturday for 20 months.EMBA-Americas: Students take classes in 5-6 day blocks once a month for 20 months. Columbia Business School also offers two EMBA-Global programs for students who would rather study outside of the United States. These programs are offered in partnership with the  London Business School and the University of Hong Kong. To apply to the EMBA program at Columbia Business School, students must be fully employed. They are required to submit a range of application materials, including two recommendations; three essays; one response to a short-answer question; GMAT, GRE, or Executive Assessment scores; and academic transcripts. Interviews are required for admission but are conducted by invitation only. Master of Science Programs Columbia Business School offers several Master of Science programs. Options include the: Master of Science in Financial Economics: A two-year program consisting of MBA and Ph.D. courses in finance and economics.Master of Science in Marketing Science: A one-year program consisting of core courses, MBA courses, and Ph.D. courses in marketing analytics.Master of Science in Accounting and Fundamental Analysis: A three-semester program consisting of MBA and Ph.D. courses in accounting and quantitative analysis. All of the Columbia Master of Science programs are designed to provide more focused study options than the Columbia MBA program but less of a time investment than the Columba Ph.D. program. Admission requirements vary by program. However, it should be noted that every program is competitive. You should have high academic potential and a record of academic achievement to be considered a candidate for any of the Master of Science programs. PhD Program The Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)  program at Columbia Business School is a full-time program that takes about five years to complete. The program is designed for students who want a career in research or teaching. Areas of study include accounting; decision, risk, and operations; finance and economics, management, and marketing. To apply to the Ph.D. program at Columbia Business School, you need at least a bachelors degree. A masters degree is recommended, but is not required. Application components include two references; an essay; a resume or CV; GMAT or GRE scores; and academic transcripts.

Article Critique 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Article Critique 2 - Essay Example As a student engages in physical exercise such as playing basketball or any other health promoting physical exercise, his/her interpersonal skills and interactions increase. The thesis is also clear as it helps a reader to generally interpolate that idle students may engage in acts like alcohol consumption. In addition, students who have strained interpersonal relationships with peers may be suffering from stress. As a means of stress management, they may resort to alcohol consumption. Intended audience The study has a number of audiences that are addressed. One of the audiences is students already studying in college and those wishing to join college. The study addresses them directly as they are the subjects of the study. Other audiences are parents and university administration as they are responsible for the student’s wellbeing. The review of literature is sufficient and relevant as it looks at the three main variables in details. The literature also focuses on recent rese arch, which shows its relevance. Hypothesis The hypothesis is that college students who participate in regular physical activity have low stress levels, better interpersonal relationships, as well as low levels of alcohol consumption. The sample for the study The sample of the study drew participants from a public university in south eastern United States, whereby freshmen aged between 18 and 25 were selected. The participants must also have taken alcohol within the past three months, and they must be able to read and speak English. Samples were randomly selected from seminar classrooms and residence halls. The main mode of data collection was through the HPLP-II and Daily Drinking questionnaire (Wilson-Salandy & Nies, 2012). Critique of the conclusion The conclusion shows that the hypothesis was disapproved. The conclusion shows that there is no relationship between the three variables that the study sought to test. However, other studies reveal a positive correlation between physi cal activity and alcohol consumption, interpersonal relationships and stress management. This study shows no relationship at all. This may imply that the study may have been skewed in terms of questions asked and sampling techniques. The next step for this study is that the same study needs to be repeated in another region to examine whether the same results will be achieved. The results imply that there is no significant effect on interpersonal relationship, alcohol consumption and stress management whether students engage in physical activities or not. This may discourage students from engaging in healthy exercises. My overall impression concerning the study is that the review of literature was well grounded, but the method of data collection was skewed. The study ought to have carried out a study with a single objective such as effects of physical activity on alcohol consumption, and the other variables to be considered as subsets or minor variables. This will have helped in prec ise analysis of data. Another impression is that the study ought to have sampled students from various universities in different locations, in order to ensure that results are fairly balanced. I disagree with the results, especially from the verity that all the three variabl

Advantages of using solar cells Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Advantages of using solar cells - Research Paper Example The environment has become a big issue around the whole world. During the last decade, it started to change quickly. The earth is becoming warmer and because of that, there are a lot of natural problems and disasters around the world.This is called global warming. People on earth caused this change in temperature. Further, people need energy in their daily lives. They need electricity, fire, hot water, heating and cooling. To produce energy that is enough for all of these activities, we need fossil fuels and coal. All the countries around the world use these two fuels to make electricity and to heat water or air. Many rich countries depend on countries in the Middle East to give them fossil fuels like oil and gas to be able to serve their people. Countries around the world have been using these forms of energy production almost for a hundred years now. The people on earth are increasing every day, and their needs of energy are also increasing. The price of making energy in the old wa ys is also becoming higher and higher. In the past, the effects of the use of fossil fuels and coal were not known. However, we now know what we are doing to our world and to our future generations. Therefore, we have to do something to change this. Many countries and governments have started to look for new technologies for energy production. These new energy technologies should be good for the environment. They should not make our problem worse and they should be cheap. One of the new energy technologies is solar energy.... For instance, nuclear plants, which are referred to as a clean source of energy by some people, produce waste that is very harmful to human beings and the environment. The United States actually faces a serious problem because there are no facilities to store and process nuclear waste. This will be a problem in future as more and more nuclear waste is stored in the nuclear plants themselves. Coal fired plants also produce ash waste that is very dangerous to the health of human and animals. Some of this waste was used in the past to produce building equipment, but these products were found to be harmful as well. Moreover, even hydro plants can make problems for the wildlife and put waste into rivers and lakes. On other hand, solar cells only use sunlight to produce power. There are basically no byproducts or waste from the solar plants. The only waste may be in the form of damaged solar cells. However, the damaged solar cells are usually reprocessed to produce new cells. For example, Doug Smock wrote â€Å"Solar Plane Takes Flight† in 2010 in Design News to show the first solar airplane. The author shows how the airplane was built using over ten thousand solar cells to power it and reduce waste from fossil fuel airplanes (Smock 45). This is an example of how solar cells can be used as an alternative clean energy source as compared to fossil fuels. In addition, pollution from the old energy sources has become an important issue of debate as many scientists have confirmed that our planet is warming very quickly. Solar cells give a good solution to the issue of pollution because they produce no emission into the air. â€Å"Solar energy is one of the cleanest energy resources that does not

Accounting Capstone Essay Example for Free

Accounting Capstone Essay It appears to me that both companies have had some weaknesses and have shown some improvements. I am wary of Pepsico because its current liabilities have increased faster than its assets. However, Coca-Cola’s assets have decreased along with its liabilities. Both companies have increased inventory, though Pepsico’s increase has been much higher than Coca-Cola’s (9.86% to 0.28%). Normally, this is cause for concern, but both companies’ inventory turnover also has improved. There are several other pros and cons for both companies. One reason to be cautious about either one is that they both have weak acid test ratios. Pepsico’s fell from 0.95 to 0.87. Coca-Cola’s fell from 0.81 to 0.72). An acid-test ratio of less than 1 shows that a company will have difficulty paying its debts. My final decision is based on profitability. Pepsico’s profit margin decreased from 14.4% to 12.5%. Coca-Cola’s decreased from 22.3% to 21.1%. See more:  Manifest Destiny essay Both have decreased, but Coca-Cola’s is much higher. So, I would choose Coca-Cola. What Does Acid-Test Ratio Mean? A stringent indicator that determines whether a firm has enough short-term assets to cover its immediate liabilities without selling inventory. The acid-test ratio is far more strenuous than the working capital ratio, primarily because the working capital ratio allows for the inclusion of inventory assets. Calculated by: Investopedia explains Acid-Test Ratio Companies with ratios of less than 1 cannot pay their current liabilities and should be looked at with extreme caution. Furthermore, if the acid-test  ratio is much lower than the working capital ratio, it means current assets are highly dependent on inventory. Retail stores are examples of this type of business. The term comes from the way gold miners would test whether their findings were real gold nuggets. Unlike other metals, gold does not corrode in acid; if the nugget didnt dissolve when submerged in acid, it was said to have passed the acid test. If a companys financial statements pass the figurative acid test, this indicates its financial integrity

Pygmalion :: essays research papers

Shaw’s play "Pygmalion" and the movie "Born Yesterday" both explore many of the same issues and characteristics. They are similar because they both portray that what other people think should not matter as much as what you think of yourself but, what show yourself to be is how people will think and view of you. This is shown by similarities between the characters Billie and Eliza and the combined attitudes of Harry and Paul to Henry Higgins. They also both share the plot of taking someone who does not belong and changing them to belonging. Both pieces have quite similar themes. They both focus on the idea that the way you carry yourself and the way you speak shows to the outside world what type of person you are. They also explore that what you think of yourself should matter more then what others think of you. In "Born Yesterday" Billie, played by Melanie Griffith, is viewed by her intellectual level and not for her soul. When her intellect grew so did her self worth. In her growth of self worth she began to carry herself confidently. In exchange people treated her better. In "Pygmalion", Eliza is also judged on superficial matters. Even though Eliza did not have much class she still had some pride in herself that kept her strong. But unfortunately, Higgins did not pay attention to her words. He only paid attention to how she said them. He showed how he thought of her when he said, "It’s almost irresistible. She’s so deliciously low, so horribly dirty." [p 26] Higgins never once says what a nice woman Eliza is only how irritating her voice is. In both stories, there is also the sub-theme that the lead female is misplace by the changes that are thrust upon them. Billie feels less happiness about all her old favorite things when exposed to knowledge. Eliza realizes that the truthfulness of her old life when she is exposed to the superficial way of high society. This brings out the theme that ignorance is bliss and that we should not take anything we already have for granted. Eliza shows this point when she says, "I an a child in your country. I have forgotten my own language and can speak nothing but yours. That is the real break off with the corner of Tottenham court road." [page 94] The characters in "Born Yesterday" And "Pygmalion" are uncannily similar to one another.

Little Prince

Matthew Majewski Mrs. Loudis English IV October 29, 2012 Little Prince Essay God’s will, a moral imperative and a fresh outlook, drove Antoine De Saint-Exupery to the stars and back for answers to his own questions. Even though we don’t see much influence in Saint-Exupery’s work what we do see is mostly from the existentialist philosophy. Saint-Exupery was always trying to find the meaning of life through the choices that he made throughout his life.These existentialist views are seen all throughout Antoine De Saint-Exupery’s book The Little Prince. Existentialism is the philosophy that would like to find the meaning of life through life choices and personal responsibilities. â€Å"Soren Kierkegaard who, a century earlier, told himself what he most needed was that which would make it clear what he must do, not what he must know; to find a purpose, God’s will; to find a personal truth hat will lead him to meet crucial situations in an honest and res ponsive matter† (Webster 6).What Kierkegaard said was the basis for Saint-Exupery’s life. While we see similarities in Saint-Exupery’s quest for his moral imperative, research cannot connect any philosophers’ influence to Saint-Exupery’s work directly said by The Life and Death of the Little Prince by Paul Webster. In Saint-Exupery’s existentialist mindset he strongly believed in what Pascal and Nietzsche wrote down saying â€Å"Man should reach beyond himself for, if not greatness, at least goodness.Saint-Exupery believed that man must rise above social, political and even moral conventions even if the decision that was made was wrong or right. Saint-Exupery wanted people to realize that life is a painful journey and that everyone has problems and despair in their life but it is the moral duty of the individual to move past all the problems and positively participate in life. The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery has a lot of symbol s of the existentialist views that Saint-Exupery believed in throughout he book.While Saint-Exupery wanted people to adapt to their social environment in real life he showed how the pilot in The Little Prince adapted with the little prince the character. All the different inhabitants of the planets all teach us a lesson on how easy it is to g wrong in our life choices said by www. theatlantic. com. For example, the red faced man was to busy being serious to â€Å"stop and smell he roses† and the businessman who counts stars, so he can then own them but is to busy counting stars to enjoy being rich.These examples are exactly the opposite of what Saint-Exupery was trying to emphasize. Saint-Exupery wanted people to reach beyond themselves and what the serious man and businessman did was stay in their bubble and be content with their boring lives. The thought that The Little Prince is a children story is absurd and is worthy of an adult designation more than most other â€Å"ad ult† books. While most little kids look at the pictures in awe, the fact of the matter is that the issues are serious from when it was written, to today.

Critically Evaluate the Use of Personality Assessment in Work Settings

Critically Evaluate The Use Of Personality Assessment In Work Settings. What Are The Important Professional Issues? Abstract Personality tests are used in a work setting, predominantly for the purpose of recruitment and selection. A number of professional issues exist around the use of personality tests in this setting, and practitioners should be clear of the possible flaws involved in the use of personality tests. The literature has highlighted concerns with the faking of personality tests. Individuals faking tests can mean those who obtain the highest scores are the ones who are recruited.This should be considered where personality tests are used for recruiting the top candidates as opposed to being used for removing the least suitable candidates. The validity of personality tests has to be considered when being used for selection purpose. A high face validity of tests can increase the likelihood of faking tests; yet low face validity can result in the personality tests being reje cted by candidates. Practitioners have to also take into account a number of ethical issues before using personality tests in a work setting.Key Words: Personality testing; Faking; Validity; Recruitment; Ethics. Introduction Personality tests are used in a work setting at the stage of recruitment, and also once people are within a job, to assess their working preferences. Personality traits have been found to be predictive of a number of outcomes, ranging from health behaviours to task performance (Hough & Oswald, 2008). Work specific factors related to personality types include Job Performance, Work Motivation, Leadership and Adaptability (Morgeson et al. , 2007). Using the Big Five personality traits, Judge et al. (2001) found that Conscientiousness, significantly predicts job performance across different organisational settings, and Emotional stability also predicts overall Job Performance. Organisations wish to recruit the candidates who show the greatest probability of performi ng well in the role and those who are going to benefit the most from the use of all of the training opportunities provided by the organisation (Shum, O’Gorman & Myors, 2006:147). However, the use of personality assessments can be debated, and a number of factors have to be considered before using personality tests to make important decisions about individuals’ careers.The focus of this essay is on the use of personality assessment in organisations, primarily in recruitment and selection, and the issues practitioners need to be aware of before using personality assessments. Faking Faking of personality tests is been described by terms such as â€Å"response distortion, impression management, social desirability, displaying unlikely virtues, and self-enhancement† (Griffin, Chmielowski & Yoshita, 2007). The many definitions may account for the substantial number of published articles relating to the faking of personality tests (Morgeson et al. , 2007).Researchers h ave suggested that it should be expected that individuals will give inaccurate responses in self-report tests due to the value attached to the outcome (Hogan, Barrett, & Hogan, 2007). However, there is little consensus in the research, about the frequency of faking, or how to address the issue. As selection is often carried out in a top-down approach, where those who perform in the top 5-10% are selected to progress (Arthur, Woehr, Graziano, 2001), the possibility of candidates faking personality tests should be a serious consideration for practitioners, otherwise those who have falsely represented themselves will be selected.Where it is obvious what is being tested in self-report questionnaires, there is likely to be a greater opportunity to fake responses. The face validity of questionnaires is an important issue, as it is likely to contribute to faking. Furnham & Drakeley (2000) found that managers tend to use personality tests with high face validity, due to concerns about havin g to rationalise the use of the test to participants. Alternatively, using low face validity personality tests could mean the participants reject the appropriateness of the test, and do not fully engage with it (Kline, 2000:430).However, where face validity of personality tests is high, the accuracy of personality tests scores can be distorted by individuals who assume they know what the â€Å"best response† is, and give an extreme rating. Arthur et al. ,(2001) suggest that it is easy to assume the extreme scores on a scale are the most or least desired, due to the wording of questions. Ironically, ‘fakers’ may overrate themselves and appear to be inappropriate for a role.For example, conscientiousness has been found to be easier to fake than other personality traits such as â€Å"Openness to Experiences† (Griffin, Hesketh & Grayson, 2004); therefore individual who rate themselves to be overly Conscientious may be restrained by rules and be unsuitable for the position. Practitioners have to be aware of the limitations of high face validity and the likelihood of faked responses (Kline 2000: 255). Much of the research around faking of personality tests has been lab-based, and carried out on students (Judge et al. 2008), therefore the question as to whether they do cheat in reality needs to be examined (Griffin, Chmielowski & Yoshita, 2007). Hogan et al. ,(2007) looked at responses to personality tests in the application process for a customer service role, and compared responses given at two stages by 5,266 applicants, over a six month interval. Hogan et al. , suggested that if individuals do fake personality tests at the recruitment stage, they are most likely to do so once they have been rejected from the job on a previous occasion. The findings indicated little difference in the personality measures from time one and time two.These findings would suggest that not all applicants attempt to fake in actual recruitment settings. However , findings by Griffin et al. ,(2007) indicated that some participants do fake their personality when applying to jobs, and this has an impact on the rank order of scores. A professional implication of these findings is that practitioners have to be cautious when interpreting personality scores, but should not be cynical by disregarding personality measures totally. As well as being aware of issues around faking, practitioners should be aware of the methods used to reduce or identify faking.A proactive method used included the use of forced-choice, or ipsative inventories, in which neither option is more socially desirable than the other. An alternative option is to use instructional warnings against faking. A reactive method for â€Å"fixing† faking can be the use of social desirability scales or a lie scale within the inventory which indicate if a respondent is faking. However, there is little evidence supporting the effectiveness of strategies such as instructional warnings and forced choice item format (Hogan et al. , 2007), and social desirability questions are likely to be more transparent in their urpose, and therefore prone being to faked (Griffin et al. , 2007). With all of the issues surrounding faking of personality tests, it has been argued that instead of using the tests as a method of recruiting the â€Å"best† performers on the test, there is actually a greater benefit in using the measures as a form of rejecting the poorest performers when using tests to â€Å"select out† (Mueller- Hanson, Heggestad & Thornton, 2003). Using personality tests for selecting out applicants would allow those who have performed poorly, and those who have faked but not been successful in obtaining the benchmark score, to be rejected.Validity In the past decade there has been considerable evidence in the academic literature for the support of personality tests for selection, but a there have been concerns about the predicative validity of personali ty tests relating to work related behaviour (Meyer et al. , 2001). However, practitioners continued to use personality measures for selection purpose (Bartram, 2004), disregarding the academic arguments. Critics often highlight the â€Å"low† validity scores of the best predictor in the Big Five with Job Performance, Conscientiousness (r=0. 23; Judge et al. 2008), where as other methods of assessment, such as the use of General Mental Ability tests which have been found to have a predictive validity of r=0. 51 (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998). However, the validity score of Conscientiousness should not be dismissed. Meyer et al. , (2001) identified a large number of medical and psychological interventions, which produce correlations of approximately . 15 to . 30, are commonly accepted by professionals, such as taking regular aspirin to reduce risk of heart attacks. It can be argued that academics are actually focussing on a â€Å"gold standard† score of validity (Judge et al. 2008), and not looking at the benefits of other interventions that have similar predictive validities. Schmidt & Hunter (1998) suggest that using a combination of measures with relatively low validity on their own, when combined would be more than sufficient for use in recruiting, for example combining a conscientiousness tests, work sample tests and a job knowledge tests. Practitioners should have a clear understanding of the criterion validity of personality measures in relationship to job performance, and be aware of large degree of unaccountable variance that can occur.There is no guarantee that an individual who scores highly on a personality measure will be successful in their role, and an individual’s skills and ability are likely to account for a large part of their performance in the role (Shum et al. ,2006:161). Ethics It is important that ethical issues are taken into consideration when using personality measures in a work setting. First of all, organisations have to be aware of the qualifications required by the individual administering the personality tests and interpreting them.In the UK, the British Psychological Society sets a requisite standard through the attainment of Level A & Level B qualifications in order to administer and interpret both ability and personality tests. However, not all individuals who administer tests are responsible for interpreting the data, therefore the those who are administering the test should obtain the Occupational Test Administration qualification (British Psychological Society, 2000). Insufficient training on the use of a personality measure can result in misinterpretation of the results and render the test useless.Where individuals have not been provided with sufficient training to administer tests, there is the possibility of providing inconsistent instructions to participants, and leading to errors or biases in the results (Kline, 2000:9). An issue that ties in with the Level B training is that practi tioners are trained to use one specific test, therefore they may only ever use this one test, and not take into consideration the appropriateness of the test they are using for the specific needs of the organisation. Organisations need to be aware of the issues around the feedback they provide to individuals who take part in personality measures.How feedback is interpreted by individuals should be considered, and whether they will understand the meaning of the scores (Kline, 2000:431). Where a candidate completes a personality test, but does not score at the top of the group, they may feel they are not suitable for the organisation, or the type of role they are applying for. The implications of what is reported back to the candidates can result in an individual making major decisions about the type of role they apply for in the future, should they be told that they scored significantly â€Å"poorly† in the personality test (Toplis, Dulewicz & Fletcher, 2005:37).Practitioners should clearly explain the reason for the personality measures used, and ensure the feedback they provide will not have a negative impact on the individual. An important consideration for practitioners should be the possible biases held within personality tests, which can be biased towards a gender, race, social class or disability. These factors can influence the score of a personality test, and can mask actual scores (British Psychological Society, 2000). However, there is evidence to suggest that the use of personality measures balances out the biases of ability tests, when comparing different racial groups.Therefore the combined use of ability and personality tests can be beneficial (Bartram, 2004). When testing individuals with disabilities, factors such as the time required, the environment being tested in, and the method of testing, all have to be considered to ensure the testing process is fair (Toplis, Dulewicz & Fletcher, 2005:42). Conclusion Researchers have identified cl ear benefits in using personality measures in a work related environment, especially when recruiting to a post.However, the use of personality assessment should be considered as a supplementary method of selection into a role, due to the number of possible factors that can influence the results of a personality test. It is clear that faking of tests is a well researched area, however, little consensus exists with how to best address the possibility that individuals will fake a test that has a value attached to the outcome (Hogan et al. , 2007). One possible solution is to use the tests as a form of selecting out those who are in the lowest percentile (Mueller-Hanson et al. 2003), and using additional measures to support the selection of those who perform in the upper percentile. The concerns about the criterion validity of personality measures and job performance have raised doubts about the suitability of personality assessments. When comparing single personality traits with altern ative methods of assessment for their predictive validity, it is clear that alternative methods are stronger predictors of work related behaviours (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998), however, personality measures are still considered reliable measures, therefore should be used to supplement alternative methods or assessment.It is clear that the ethical implications of using personality assessments are an important factor, as they can influence the outcome of the tests as well as the responses of the participants. If practitioners do not follow the correct procedures by providing adequate instructions and ensuring standardised conditions, it is likely that individuals will reject the tests (Kline, 2000:9). It is also important to consider the effects of taking a personality assessment, and then knowing you failed to meet the cut off point.The way in which feedback is given can have detrimental effects of individuals therefore the issue should be approached with caution (Toplis et al, 2005:37). In conclusion, there are a number of issues that need to be considered when using personality assessments in a work setting. The benefit of gauging an individual’s behaviour through assessing their personality is clear, however, practitioners should be aware of the flaws in personality assessment, and be aware of alternative forms of assessment when selecting individuals for a job, to supplement personality assessments.Word count: 2173 REFERENCES Arthur W. J. , Woehr D. J. , Graziano W. G. (2001). Personality Testing In Employment Settings: Problems And Issues In The Application Of Typical Selection Practices. Personnel Review, 30(5),657-677 Bartram, D. (2004). Assessment In Organisations. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 53, 237-259. British Psychological Association,(2000). Psychological Testing: A User’s Guide Psychological. Leicester: The British Psychological Society Furnham, A. , & Drakely, R. (2000). Predicting Occupational Personality Test Scores.J ournal of Psychology, 134, 103-111 Griffin, B. , Hesketh, B. , & Grayson. D. (2004). Applicants Faking Good: Evidence of Item Bias In The Neo Pi-R. Personality and Individual Differences, 36 (7), 1545-1558. Griffith R. L, Chmielowski T. S, Yoshita Y. (2007). Do Applicants Fake? An Examination Of The Frequency Of Applicant Faking Behavior. Personnel Review, 36 (3), 341–355. Hogan, J. , Barrett,P. , & Hogan R. (2007). Personality Measurement, Faking, And Employment Selection. Journal Of Applied Psychology, 92,(5), 1270–1285 Hough, L. M. , &Oswald, F. L. 2008) Personality Testing and Industrial– Organizational Psychology: Reflections, Progress, And Prospects Industrial And Organizational Psychology, 1, 272–290. Judge, T. A. , Klinger, R. , Simon, L. S. , & Yang, I. W. F. (2008). The Contributions of Personality to Organizational Behavior And Psychology: Findings, Criticisms, And Future Research Directions. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2, 1982-2 000. Kline P. (2000) The Handbook Of Psychological Testing, (2 Ed). London: Routledge, Meyer, G. J. , Finn, S. E. , Eyde, L. D. , Kay, G. G. , Moreland, K. L. , Dies, R.R. , Et Al. (2001). Psychological Testing And Psychological Assessment: A Review Of Evidence And Issues. American Psychologist, 56, 128–165. Morgeson, F. P. , Campion, M. A. , Dipboye, R. L. , Hollenbeck, J. R. , Murphy, K. , & Schmitt, N. (2007). Are We Getting Fooled Again? Coming To Terms With Limitations In The Use Of Personality Tests For Personnel Selection. Personnel Psychology, 60, 1029-1049 Mueller-Hanson, R. , Heggestad, E. D. , & Thornton III, G. C. (2003). Faking and Selection: Considering The Use Of Personality From Select-In And Select-Out Perspectives.Journal Of Applied Psychology, 88 (2), 348-355. Schmidt, F. L. , Hunter, J. E. (1998). The Validity and Utility Of Selection Methods In Personnel Psychology: Practical And Theoretical Implications Of 85 Years Of Research Findings. Psychological Bul letin, Vol. I24 (2), 262-74. Shum, D. , Myors, B. , & O'Gorman, J. (2006) Psychological Testing and Assessment. Oxford:Oxford University Press Toplis, J. , Dulewicz, V. , & Fletcher, C. (2005) Psychological Testing (4th eds). London:Institute of Personnel & Development.

Elizabeth Keckley, Mary Lincolns Dressmaker and Friend

Elizabeth Keckley, Mary Lincolns Dressmaker and Friend Elizabeth Keckley was a former slave who became the dressmaker and friend of Mary Todd Lincoln and a frequent visitor to the White House during the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. Her memoir, which was ghost-written (and spelled her surname as Keckley though she seemed to have written it as Keckly) and published in 1868, provided an eyewitness account to life with the Lincolns. The book appeared under controversial circumstances, and was apparently suppressed at the direction of Lincolns son, Robert Todd Lincoln. But despite the controversy surrounding the book, Keckleys accounts of Abraham Lincolns personal work habits, observations on the everyday circumstances of the Lincoln family, and a moving account of the death of young Willie Lincoln, have been considered reliable. Fast Facts: Elizabeth Keckley Born: About 1818, Virginia.Died: May 1907, Washington, D.C.Known for: Former slave who opened a dressmaking business in Washington, D.C., before the Civil War and became a trusted friend of Mary Todd Lincoln.Publication: Wrote a memoir of life in the White House during the Lincoln administration which provided unique insight into the Lincoln family. Her friendship with Mary Todd Lincoln, though unlikely, was genuine. Keckleys role as a frequent companion of the first lady was depicted in the Steven Spielberg film Lincoln, in which Keckley was portrayed by actress Gloria Rueben. Early Life of Elizabeth Keckley Elizabeth Keckley was born in Virginia in 1818 and spent the first years of her life living on the grounds of Hampden-Sydney College. Her owner, Col. Armistead Burwell, worked for the college. Lizzie was assigned work, which would have been typical for slave children. According to her memoir, she was beaten and whipped when she failed at tasks. She learned to sew growing up, as her mother, also a slave, was a seamstress. But young Lizzie resented not being able to receive an education. When Lizzie was a child, she believed a slave named George Hobbs, who belonged to the owner of a another Virginia farm, was her father. Hobbs was allowed to visit Lizzie and her mother on holidays, but during Lizzies childhood the owner of Hobbs moved to Tennessee, taking his slaves with him. Lizzie had memories of saying goodbye to her father. She never saw George Hobbs again. Lizzie later learned that her father was actually Col. Burwell, the man who had owned her mother. Slave owners fathering children with female slaves was not uncommon in the South, and at the age of 20 Lizzie herself had a child with a plantation owner who lived nearby. She raised the child, whom she named George. When she was in her mid-twenties, a member of the family who owned her moved to St. Louis to begin a law practice, taking Lizzie and her son along. In St. Louis she resolved to eventually buy her freedom, and with the help of white sponsors, she was eventually able to obtain legal papers declaring herself and her son free. She had been married to another slave, and thus acquired the last name Keckley, but the marriage did not last. With some letters of introduction, she traveled to Baltimore, seeking to start a business making dresses. She found little opportunity in Baltimore, and moved to Washington, D.C., where she was able to set herself up in business. Washington Career Keckleys dressmaking business began to flourish in Washington. The wives of politicians and military officers often needed fancy gowns to attend events, and a talented seamstress, as Keckley was, could obtain a number of clients. According to Keckleys memoir, she was contracted by the wife of Senator Jefferson Davis to sew dresses and work in the Davis household in Washington. She thus met Davis a year before he would become president of the Confederate States of America. Keckley also recalled sewing a dress for the wife of Robert E. Lee at the time when he was still an officer in the U.S. Army. Following the election of 1860, which brought Abraham Lincoln to the White House, the slave states began to secede and Washington society changed. Some of Keckleys customers traveled southward, but new clients arrived in town. Keckley's Role In the Lincoln White House In the spring of 1860 Abraham Lincoln, his wife Mary, and their sons moved to Washington to take up residence in the White House. Mary Lincoln, who was already gaining a reputation for acquiring fine dresses, was looking for a new dressmaker in Washington. The wife of an Army officer recommended Keckley to Mary Lincoln. And after a meeting at the White House on the morning after Lincolns inauguration in 1861, Keckley was hired by Mary Lincoln to create dresses and dress the first lady for important functions. There is no question that Keckleys placement in the Lincoln White House made her a witness to how the Lincoln family lived. And while Keckleys memoir was obviously ghost-written, and is no doubt embellished, her observations have been considered credible. One of the most moving passages in Keckleys memoir is the account of the illness of young Willie Lincoln in early 1862. The boy, who was 11, became sick, perhaps from polluted water in the White House. He died in the executive mansion on February 20, 1862. Keckley recounted the sorrowful state of the Lincolns when Willie died and described how she helped prepare his body for the funeral. She vividly described how Mary Lincoln had descended into a period of deep mourning. It was Keckley who told the story of how Abraham Lincoln had pointed out the window to an insane asylum, and said to his wife, Try to control your grief or it will drive you mad, and we may have to send you there. Historians have noted that the incident could not have happened as described, as there was no asylum within view of the White House. But her account of Mary Lincolns emotional problems still seem generally credible. Keckley's Memoir Caused Controversy Elizabeth Keckley became more than an employee of Mary Lincoln, and the women seemed to develop a close friendship which spanned the entire time the Lincoln family lived in the White House. On the night Lincoln was assassinated, Mary Lincoln sent for Keckley, though she did not receive the message until the following morning. Arriving at the White House on the day of Lincolns death, Keckley found Mary Lincoln nearly irrational with grief. According to Keckleys memoir, she remained with Mary Lincoln during the weeks when Mary Lincoln would not leave the White House as Abraham Lincolns body was returned to Illinois during a two-week funeral which traveled by train. The women stayed in touch after Mary Lincoln moved to Illinois, and in 1867 Keckley became involved in a scheme in which Mary Lincoln tried to sell some valuable dresses and furs in New York City. The plan was to have Keckley act as an intermediary so buyers would not know the items belonged to Mary Lincoln, but the plan fell through. Mary Lincoln returned to Illinois, and Keckley, left in New York City, found work which coincidentally put her in touch with a family connected to a publishing business. According to a newspaper interview she gave when she was nearly 90 years old, Keckley was essentially duped into writing her memoir with the help of a ghost writer. When her book was published in 1868, it attracted attention as it presented facts about the Lincoln family which no one could have known. At the time it was considered very scandalous, and Mary Lincoln resolved to have nothing more to do with Elizabeth Keckley. The book became hard to obtain, and it was widely rumored that Lincolns oldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln, had been buying up all available copies to prevent it from achieving wide circulation. Despite the peculiar circumstances behind the book, it has survived as a fascinating document of life in the Lincoln White House. And it established that one of the closest confidantes of Mary Lincoln was indeed a dressmaker who had once been a slave. Sources: Keckley, Elizabeth. Behind the Scenes, Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years In the White House. New York City, G.W. Carleton Company, 1868. Russell, Thaddeus. Keckley, Elizabeth.  Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, edited by Colin A. Palmer, 2nd ed., vol. 3, Macmillan Reference USA, 2006, pp. 1229-1230.  Gale Virtual Reference Library. Keckley, Elizabeth Hobbs.  Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed., vol. 28, Gale, 2008, pp. 196-199.  Gale Virtual Reference Library. Brennan, Carol. Keckley, Elizabeth 1818–1907.  Contemporary Black Biography, edited by Margaret Mazurkiewicz, vol. 90, Gale, 2011, pp. 101-104.  Gale Virtual Reference Library.

The History of How Time Zones Came to Be

The History of How Time Zones Came to Be Prior to the late nineteenth century, time keeping was a purely local phenomenon. Each town would set their clocks to noon when the sun reached its zenith each day. A clockmaker or town clock would be the official time and the citizens would set their pocket watches and clocks to the time of the town. Enterprising citizens would offer their services as mobile clock setters, carrying a watch with the accurate time to adjust the clocks in customers homes on a weekly basis. Travel between cities meant having to change ones pocket watch upon arrival. However, once railroads began to operate and move people rapidly across great distances, time became much more critical. In the early years of the railroads, the schedules were very confusing because each stop was based on a different local time. The standardization of time was essential to efficient operation of railroads. The History of the Standardization of Time Zones In 1878, Canadian Sir Sandford Fleming proposed the system of worldwide time zones that we use today. He recommended that the world be divided into twenty-four time zones, each spaced 15 degrees of longitude apart. Since the earth rotates once every 24 hours and there are 360 degrees of longitude, each hour the earth rotates one-twenty-fourth of a circle or 15 degrees of longitude. Sir Flemings time zones were heralded as a brilliant solution to a chaotic problem worldwide. United States railroad companies began utilizing Flemings standard time zones on November 18, 1883. In 1884 an International Prime Meridian Conference was held in Washington D.C. to standardize time and select the prime meridian. The conference selected the longitude of Greenwich, England as zero degrees longitude and established the 24 time zones based on the prime meridian. Although the time zones had been established, not all countries switched immediately. Though most U.S. states began to adhere to the Pacific, Mountain, Central, and Eastern time zones by 1895, Congress didnt make the use of these time zones mandatory until the Standard Time Act of 1918. How Different Regions of the Word Use Time Zones Today, many countries operate on variations of the time zones proposed by Sir Fleming. All of China (which should span five time zones) uses a single time zone eight hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (known by the abbreviation UTC, based on the time zone running through Greenwich at 0 degrees longitude). Australia uses three time zones its central time zone is a half-hour ahead of its designated time zone. Several countries in the Middle East and South Asia also utilize half-hour time zones. Since time zones are based on segments of longitude and lines of longitude narrow at the poles, scientists working at the North and South Poles simply use UTC time. Otherwise, Antarctica would be divided into 24 very thin time zones! The time zones of the United States are standardized by Congress and although the lines were drawn to avoid populated areas, sometimes theyve been moved to avoid complication. There are nine time zones in the U.S. and its territories, they include Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, Alaska, Hawaii-Aleutian, Samoa, Wake Island, and Guam. With the growth of the Internet and global communication and commerce, some have advocated a new worldwide time system.

Employment Law Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Employment Law - Article Example They are the only ones who can file a complaint under this law. But, they are required to show proof of the alleged discrimination because in all cases coming under the jurisdiction of judicial or agencies exercising quasi-judicial functions it is necessary that there is proof to support any claim. Opinions or belief of discrimination are not accepted. There must be proof to show that discrimination did occur. Witness as to events or truth of contents of documents and the actual documents must be presented. A complaint by a person aged 40 or older demonstrating that he/ she was replaced by somebody younger than aged 40 is insufficient. He/ she must show that the younger person has less competence and experience than him/her to handle the tasks of the position as delineated in the office job description. Because it may be possible that the younger person is more knowledgeable, competent and experienced for the job, in such a case there is no discrimination. As in the case of Cerutti v BASF Corp., where the court ruled that there was no discrimination in the case filed by 10 workers laid off due to the restructuring of the corporation because the "employees (retained, though some of younger age) had the skills needed for future performance given the restructuring." Texas has its own Child Labor Law patterned after the Federal Law but some provisions were added or clarified to the needs of the State of Texas. The purpose of the Texas Child Labor Law is to ensure that a child is not employed in an occupation or manner that is detrimental to the child's safety, health, or well-being. Children aged 14 and above are allowed to work except for some tasks that the law either totally prohibits the child to do, or may be allowed at certain ages. There are also tasks that although are prohibited for a certain age but may still be allowed if the child is an Apprentice or a Student Learner. In such cases there are requisites that must be met in order that the task given to the child may be considered legal: For an Apprentice the child must be employed in a recognized apprenticeable trade; works incidental to training; works intermittently, short, and under close journeyman supervision; and registered or under written agreement about work standards. For a Student Learner the child must be enrolled in an authorized cooperative vocational training program; and employed under a written agreement providing that: (1) work is incidental to training; (2) work is intermittent, short and under close supervision; (3) safety instruction are given by school and employer; and a schedule of organized and progressive work is prepared. Guided by the explanations above and the Texas Child Labor Law, as the New Manager of Minyard's Grocery Store located in Texas I have assessed each child worker and found out that only the 16-year-old operating the cardboard bailer violates the Texas State Law for being a prohibited occupation or hazardous occupation (TWC 817.23, no. 8 and 12. Note that in both cases, if the child is an apprentice or a student-learner he/she is not covered by the prohibition.) The rest of the child workers are alright as long as they follow the restrictions as follows: A 14-year-old bagging groceries every Saturday for four hours is not contrary to Chapter 51 of the Texas State law as long as he/she is not assigned to work between midnight and 5 a.m. A 16-year-old slicing lunch meat at the deli counter

Disappearing Technology of the Twentieth Century Essay

Disappearing Technology of the Twentieth Century - Essay Example Steam locomotive being the most influential example of steam engine technology, its disappearance from the modern railroad deserves to be reflected on. According to Lindqvist, the general perception about history of technology holds that â€Å"the initial stages of growth and development of new technologies are far more interesting than the boring routine maintenance and depressing dismantling of older technological systems.†1 However, research on older technological systems helps us not only to analyse the dynamics of industrial demands but also to understand the contemporary political and social values. Moreover, economic analysis of the decline of a technological system may have extremely useful implications for the future technologies. This paper is divided into four major parts: Introduction, Literature Review, Analysis and Conclusion. Reputable scholarly resources and contemporary literature of twentieth century have been used for research and reflection on the topic. Ca ses of USA and UK have been discussed with special emphasis. Research Question: Give an account of a disappearing technology of the twentieth century. Why has its use decreased? Literature Review The steam engines have been part of a gigantic technological system which dominated the world almost throughout the twentieth century. ... acilitated political organisation, industrial production and transportation, Theoretical Perspective: Innovation can be regarded as the driving force of technological development which is designed to meet the socio-economic demands of the populace. So, too much emphasis on the developmental phase of a technological system may appear to be natural; but this is not a wise option always.2 â€Å"We know, for example, more about the first automobiles and the infancy of the automobile industry than we know about the dominating transportation technologies at the same period.†3 But the importance of an older technological system lies in the fact that it may not be necessarily abandoned at the introduction of a new system. Although cases of exponential decline of a technology are known, older and modern technologies do exist in our world side by side. Illustrating the American charcoal industry, Schallenberg has put forward that evolution, adaptation and survival are the key phases in the life cycle of a technology which may eventually culminate at a slow or exponential decline.4 In the case of steam engine technology, the pace of phasing out the steam locomotives has been fast in some countries (e.g., Britain, USA, etc.) and slow in some other countries (e.g. India, China, etc.). The extent of once powerful steam engine technology has been truly international and impressive. Evolution of Steam Locomotives: Steam locomotive capable of passenger conveyance was invented by the British engineer George Stephenson in 1825. Hence UK can be regarded as the first country in the world that developed its steam powered railway system. In USA, steam locomotive was first operated in the year 1829. Subsequently, locomotive manufacturing industry started off in the country. In the 1830s and

The key to understanding common law system is their adversarial nature Essay

The key to understanding common law system is their adversarial nature - Essay Example Today, the common law is said to be a mixture, not only of court judgments, but also of statutes and equity and still retaining its distinguishing characteristic of being unwritten, as opposed to statutory law, although many leading and precedent cases have seen printing in law reports and journals. 1 The common law system, is however best understood by studying the components of its adversarial nature. Anglo-Saxon kings like Ine in 689-725 and Alfred the Great (875-900), caused the issuance of codes and laws during their reigns that were largely reflections of ancient customs in addition to some new innovations. The primitive practice, for example, of private vengeance in blood-feuds although not outlawed, but there were subtle moves to restrain them imposing upon a tariff called wergild set by the king, where a man’s value, determined by his social standing, had a corresponding price to be paid when he is wronged. 2 The common law countries, like the Great Britain, the United States and Australia, employ the adversarial mode of trial whilst Continental Europe observes the non-adversarial or inquisitorial judicial system. The distinction between the two is that â€Å"the adversarial mode of proceeding takes it shape from a contest or a dispute: it unfolds as an engagement of two adversaries before a relatively passive decision maker whose principal duty is to reach a verdict. The non-adversarial mode is structured as an official inquiry. Under the first system, the two adversaries take charge of most procedural action; under the second, officials perform most activities.† 3 Moreover, adversarial systems are characterised by the following: the parties to the action control its flow or conduct; the trial consists of a continuous hearing and is the center of the judicial system; the production of evidence falls in the hands of the contending parties; the rules of court has no compulsory role. This is

P300-based Brain-Computer Interface Performance Enhancement

P300-based Brain-Computer Interface Performance Enhancement Enhancing Performance and Bitrates in a P300-based Brain-Computer Interface for Disabled Subjects by Phase-to-Amplitude Cross-Frequency Coupling Stavros I.Dimitriadis1,2*, Avraam D. Marimpis3 1Institute of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences, Cardiff University School of Medicine, Cardiff, UK 2Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Center, School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK 3Brain Innovation B.V., Netherlands Abstract A brain-computer interface (BCI) is a communication system that transforms brain-activity into specific commands for managing a computer or other home or electrical devices. In other words, a BCI is an alternative way of interacting with the environment by using brain-activity instead of muscles and nerves. For that reason, BCI systems are of high clinical value for targeted populations suffering from neurological disorders. In this paper, we present a new processing approach of a well-known P300-BCI system for disabled subjects. Estimating cross-frequency coupling (CFC) and namely ÃŽÂ ´-ÃŽÂ ¸ phase-to-amplitude coupling (PAC) within sensor, we succeeded high classification accuracy and high bitrates for both disabled and able-bodied subjects. The system is tested with four severely disabled and four able-bodied subjects. The bitrates obtained for both the disabled and able-bodied subjects reached the fastest reported level of 10 bits/sec. The new preprocessing approach based o n recordings from the single-sensor Pz while the classification accuracy is tested also for others electrodes. Keywords: Brain-computer interface; P300; Disabled subjects; cross-frequency coupling; accuracy *Corresponding author: Dr.Dimitriadis Stavros Research Fellow School of Medicine, Cardiff University, UK CUBRIC Neuroimaging Center, Cardiff,UK Introduction From the very first work of Farwell and Donchin [1] the majority of P300-based Brain Computer Interface (BCI) systems focused on developing new application scenarios [2,3], and on developing and testing new algorithms for the reliable detection of the P300 waveform from noisy datasets [4-8]. For a review of P300, an interested can read the [9-10]. Ten years ago, two pioneer studies have been first published presenting a P300 BCI system on disabled subjects. Piccione et al. (2006) [11] design a 2D cursor BCI control system where subjects had to concentrate on four arrows flashing every 2.5 sec in random order occupied the peripheral area of a computer screen. Five disabled and seven able-bodied subjects were participated on this experiment. For controlling this cursor, this four-choice P300 flashing arrow cursor was used. EEG signals were recorded using four EEG sensors and electro-oculogram. Using independent component analysis and neural networks, Piccione et al. [11] demonstrated that P300 can be a valuable control signal for disabled subjects. However, the communication system was too low compared to state of the art systems [5,8]. Sellers and Donchin (2006) [12] designed a four choice BCI experiment with four stimuli (YES, NO, PASS, END) that were presented every 1.4 s in random order, in two different modalities either visual or auditory or in a combined mode. Three subjects suffering with ALS and three able-bodied subjects performed the experiment. EEG recordings from three sensors were classified using a stepwise linear discriminant algorithm (LDA). They demonstrated that communication via a P300 system is possible for subjects suffering from ALS. Additionally, they demonstrated that communication is possible in different modalities like the visual, auditory, and also in a combined auditory-visual mode. However, both the classification accuracy and the communication rate were low compared to the state of the art results. One of possible explanations of low accuracy and communication rate could be the low number of EEG sensors, the long inter-stimulus intervals and the low number of trials. McCane et al., demonstrated a BCI system where both accuracy and communication rate did not differ significantly between ALS users and HVs. Although ERP morphology was similar for the two groups, the target ERPs differed significantly in the location and amplitude of the late positivity (P300), the amplitude of the early negativity (N200), and the latency of the late negativity (LN) [13]. Hoffmann et al.,, demonstrated a six-choice P300 paradigm which was tested in a population of five disabled and four able-bodied subjects. Six different images were flashed in random order with an ISI of 400 ms [7]. They tested how the electrode configuration can influence the accuracy in order to detect the best channel selection. For four out of five disabled subjects and for all the able-bodied subjects both the communication rates and the classification accuracies were higher compared to the aforementioned studies [11,12]. The datasets in Hoffmann et al., study can be freely downloaded from the website of the EPFL BCI group (http://bci.epfl.ch/p300). In the present study, we used the dataset from Hoffmann et al., study to demonstrate an alternative algorithmic approach with main scope to improve the bitrates up to the limits. For that occasion, we adopted a cross-frequency coupling (CFC) estimator namely phase-to-amplitude coupling (PAC) to quantify how the phase of the lower frequency brain rhythms modulates the amplitude of the higher oscillations. The whole approach was followed in a trial basis and within sensors located over parieto-occipital brain areas. PAC proved to be a valuable estimator in many applications like the design of a biomarker: for amnestic mild cognitive impairment subjects during an auditory oddball paradigm [14], for dyslexia [15], for mild traumatic brain injury [16]. The layout of the paper is as follows. In Section 2, we described the subject population, the experiments that were performed, and the methods used for data pre-processing steps of the proposed pipeline and the classification procedure. Results are presented in Section 3. Discussion is devoted in Section 4. 2. Materials and Methods 2.1. Experimental setup Users were facing a laptop screen on which six images were displayed (see Fig. 1). The images showed a television, a telephone, a lamp, a door, a window and a radio. The images were selected according to an application scenario in which users can control electrical appliances via a BCI system. The application scenario served however only as an example and was not pursued in further detail. The images were flashed in random sequences, one image at a time. Each flash of an image lasted for 100 ms and during the following 300 ms none of the images was flashed, i.e. the inter-stimulus-interval was 400 ms. The EEG was recorded at 2048 Hz sampling rate from 32 electrodes placed at the standard positions of the 10-20 international system. A Biosemi Active Two amplifier was used for amplification and analog to digital conversion of the EEG signals. [Figure 1 around here] 2.2. Subjects The proposed methodology was applied to P300 BCI-oriented recordings derived from five disabled and four healthy subjects. The demographics of the four disabled are presented in (Table 1). Disabled subject 5 as excluded from further analysis. Subjects 6-9 were Ph.D. students that were recruited from EPFL BCI groups laboratory (all males, age 30 ±2.3). None of subjects 6-9 had known neurological deficits. For more information regarding the subjects, an interested reader should refer to the original paper [7]. Table 1. Subjects from which data was recorded in the study of the environment control system S1 S2 S3 S4 Diagnosis Cerebral palsy Multiple sclerosis Late-stage amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Traumatic brain and spinal-cord injury, C4 level Age 56 51 47 33 Age at illness onset 0 (perinatal) 37 39 27 sSex M M M F Speech production Mild dysarthria Mild dysarthria Severe dysarthria Mild dysarthria Limb muscle control Weak Weak Very Weak Weak Respiration control Normal Normal Weak Normal Voluntary eye movement Normal Mild nystagmus Normal Normal 2.3. Experimental schedule Each subject completed four recording sessions. The first two sessions were performed on one day and the last two sessions on another day. All subjects were recruited within maximum two weeks between the first and the last session. Each of the sessions consisted of six runs, one run for each of the six images. For further details about the protocol followed on this experiment see the original paper related to this dataset [7]. The following protocol was used in each of the runs. (i) Subjects were asked to count silently how often a prescribed image was flashed (for example: Now please count how often the image with the television is flashed). (ii) The six images were displayed on the screen and a warning tone was issued. (iii) Four seconds after the warning tone, a random sequence of flashes was started and the EEG was recorded. The sequence of flashes was block-randomized, this means that after six flashes each image was flashed once, after twelve flashes each image was flashed twice, etc. The number of blocks was chosen randomly between 20 and 25. On average 22.5 blocks of six flashes were displayed in one run, i.e. one run consisted on average of 22.5 target (P300) trials and 22.5ÃÆ'-5 = 112.5 non-target (non-P300) trials. (iv) In the second, third, and fourth session the target image was inferred from the EEG with a simple classifier. At the end of each run the image inferred by the classification algorithm was flashed five times to give feedback to the user. (v) After each run subjects were asked what their counting result was. This was done in order to monitor performance of the subjects. The duration of one run was approximately one minute and the duration of one session including setup of electrodes and short breaks between runs was approximately 30 min. One session comprised on average 810 trials, and the whole data for one subject consisted on average of 3240 trials. 2.4 Offline Analysis The impact of different single-sensor recordings on classification accuracy was tested in an offline procedure. For each subject four-fold cross-validation was used to estimate average classification accuracy. More specifically, the data from three recording sessions were used to train a classifier and the data from the left-out session was used for validation. This procedure was repeated four times so each session served once for validation. 2.4.1. Preprocessing Before learning a classification function and before validation, several preprocessing operations were applied to the data. The preprocessing operations were applied in the order stated below. Referencing. The average signal from the two mastoid electrodes was used for referencing. Filtering. A third order forward-backward Butterworth bandpass filter was used to filter the data.. The MATLAB function butter was used to compute the filter coefficients and the function filtfilt was used for filtering. The predefined frequencies were : ÃŽÂ ´ {0.5-4 Hz},ÃŽÂ ¸ {4-8 Hz},ÃŽÂ ±1 {8-10 Hz}, ÃŽÂ ±2 {10-13 Hz},ÃŽÂ ²1 {13-20 Hz},ÃŽÂ ²2 {20-30 Hz} and ÃŽÂ ³1 {30 45 Hz}. (iii) Downsampling. The EEG was down-sampled from 2048 Hz to 512 Hz by selecting each 4th sample from the bandpass-filtered data. (iv) Single trial extraction. Single trials of duration 1000 ms were extracted from the data. Single trials started at stimulus onset, i.e. at the beginning of the intensification of an image, and ended 1000 ms after stimulus onset. Due to the ISI of 400 ms, the last 600 ms of each trial were overlapping with the first 600 ms of the following trial. (v) Electrode selection. We applied our analysis to recordings from single-sensor activity and mainly, PZ,OZ,P3,P4,P7 and P8. (vi) Feature vector construction. As appropriate feature for each trial, we used the phase-to-amplitude coupling (PAC) which already has been shown its potentiality in building reliable biomarkers (Dimitriadis et al., 2015,2016). PAC was estimated for each frequency pair (see ii)). The description of PAC is given in the next section. As a complementary feature that can separate the counted stimuli from the non counted stimuli, alpha relative signal powers have been estimated. Alpha power level can give us a valuable and objective criterion when a subject attends or not attends to the stimulus. Our idea is to create an initial binary classifier that will cut-off the attended from the non-attended stimuli for each subject prior entering the main multi-class classifier. CFC metric computation CFC estimates the strength of pairwise interactions and identifies the prominent interacting pair of frequencies, both between and within sensors [17-19]. Among available CFC descriptors, phase-amplitude coupling (PAC), which relies on phase coherence, is the one most commonly encountered in research [20]. The PAC algorithm as adapted to continuous MEG multichannel recordings is described below. ÃŽÂ ¤he within-sensor CFC version is described. Let x(isensor, t), be the EEG activity recorder at the isensor-th site, and t=1, 2,. T the successive time points. Given a frequency-limited signals x(isensor,t) , cross-frequency coupling is estimated by allowing the phase of the lower frequency (LF) oscillations to modulate the amplitude of the higher frequency (HF) oscillations. The complex analytic representations of each signal zLF(t) and zHF(t) are derived via the Hilbert transform (HT[.]). Next, the envelope of the higher-frequency oscillations AHF(t) is bandpass-filtered within the range of LF oscillations and the resulting signal is submitted to an additional Hilbert transform to derive its phase dynamics component à Ã¢â‚¬  '(t) which expresses the modulation of the amplitude of HF-oscillations by the phase of the LF-oscillations. Phase consistency between the two time-series was measured by means of both the original definition [21] and the imaginary portion of PLV, as synchronization indexes to quantify the strength of PAC. The original PLV is defined as follows: and the imaginary part of PLV as follows: The imaginary portion of PLV is considered to be less susceptible to volume conduction effects in assessing CFC interactions. While the imaginary part of PLV is not affected by volume conduction effects, it could be sensitive to changes in the angle between two signals, which not necessarily imply a PLV change. In general, the imaginary portion of PLV is only sensitive to non-zero-phase lags and is thus resistant to instantaneous self-interactions associated with volume conductance [22]. For further details and applications, an interested reader can read our previous work [14,15]. In the present study, as was already mentioned we used 8 frequency bands which means that PAC is estimated for 7*6/2=21 cross-frequency pairs e.g. ÃŽÂ ´Ãƒ Ã¢â‚¬   ÃŽÂ ¸A ,ÃŽÂ ´Ãƒ Ã¢â‚¬   ÃŽÂ ±1Awhere à Ã¢â‚¬   and A denote the phase and amplitude of each frequency band. Figure 2 demonstrates the pre-processing steps of the PAC estimator for a trial of subject 6 at target image 6. [Figure 2 around here] Signal Power We estimated the relative power of each band-pass frequency signal segment with the following equations: The first equation quantifies the signal power (SP) of each frequency as the sum of the filtered signal squared per sample (3) while equation (4) divides the SP by the sum of the SP from all the frequencies which gives the relative signal power (RSP). The whole approach was repeated for every trial, sessions and subject. 2.4.4. Machine learning and classification Training data sets contained 405 target trials and 2025 non-target trials and validation data sets consisted of 135 target and 675 non-target trials (these are average values cf. Section 2.3). Adopting sequential feature selection algorithm, we detected the characteristic cross-frequency pair via PAC value that gives the highest discrimination of each target images compared to the rest based on the training data set. Additionally, we used the same feature extraction algorithm to detect the relative signal power that separate the counted flashing images from the non-counted images. We trained a multi-class SVM classifier based on the selected PAC estimate from specific cross-frequency pairs and then we tested the classifier to the validation data to get the response tailored to each target image [23]. The training test consisted of the first session while the rest three sessions were used for validating the whole analytic scheme. A k-nearest neighbour (k-NN) classifier was applied to differentiate the attended from the non-attended flashing images prior to multi-class SVM classifier. 2.4.5 Performance Evaluation Classification accuracy and ITR were calculated for the offline experiments separately. The method for calculating ITR (in bits per second) was as follows (5): Where N is the number of classes (i.e., 6 in this study), P is the accuracy of target identification, and T (seconds per selection) is the average time for a selection. Results ÃŽÂ ´-ÃŽÂ ¸ Phase-to-Amplitude Coupling as a Valuable Feature for the BCI-P300 System We estimated both PAC and relative signal power (RSP) for the first 32 samples (60 ms) increasing the window up to 500 ms (256 samples) with a step of 12 samples (5 ms) . The sequential feature selection algorithm detected only one PAC feature from the 21 possible cross-frequency pairs as the unique candidate feature to separate the six classes of images-stimuli. ÃŽÂ ´Ãƒ Ã¢â‚¬   ÃŽÂ ¸A was the selected feature for both disabled and able-bodied subjects. The group-averaged classification performance was for each sensor location using the first 100 ms for both able-bodied and disabled subjects. The errors were detected on the trials where the subject missed the flashing image. The classification performance with the use of a kNN-classifier prior to the multi-class SVM was 100 % for every subject and for all the pre-selected sensors namely PZ,OZ,P3,P4,P7,P8 EEG sensors. Figure 3 and Figure 4 illustrates the trial-related (grand-averaged) PAC-connectivity patterns (comodulograms) for subject 6 (able-bodied) and subject 1 (disabled) correspondingly from target and non-target trials for each flashing image. Comodulograms differed by contrasting target vs non-target within each subject and target image but also between the two images. ÃŽÂ ´Ãƒ Ã¢â‚¬   ÃŽÂ ¸A was the unique feature for both disabled and able-bodied subjects that can clearly predict the target image for both groups. [Figures 3 and 4 around here] Attention and Alpha Power Prior to multi-class SVM, we applied a kNN-classifier based on ÃŽÂ ±1 signal power which was selected as the feature that can discriminate counted from non-counted flashing images. The kNN-classifier performed 100 % clear filtration of attended from non-attended trials for each subject and further improved the performance of multi-class SVM to 100 %. We achieved this performance using ÃŽÂ ±1 signal relative power estimated from the first 100 ms for both able-bodied and disabled subjects. The classification performance with the kNN-classifier was 100 % for every subject and for all the pre-selected sensors namely PZ,OZ,P3,P4,P7,P8 EEG sensors. Table 2 summarizes the group-averaged relative signal power (RSP) of ÃŽÂ ±1 frequency band for attended versus non-attended images. Table 2. Group-averaged ÃŽÂ ±1 signal relative power for attended and non-attended images. Attended Non-Attended Able Bodied Disabled Performance Evaluation In the present study, we succeeded bitrates of 10 bits/sec for both disabled and able-bodied subjects correspondingly for all the sensor locations used on the whole analysis. The time for estimation of PAC and testing the trial was 0.00001 sec on a Windows 7 -Intel 7 8-core machine. Discussion A novel approach of how to analyse single-trials in a BCI system was introduced based on the estimation of cross-frequency coupling (CFC) and namely phase-to-amplitude coupling (PAC). PAC was estimated within EEG sensors from single-trials recorded during a visual evoked experimental paradigm. The proposed analytic scheme based on the extraction of unique features from the CFC patterns on a single-trial basis and namely the ÃŽÂ ´Ãƒ Ã¢â‚¬   ÃŽÂ ¸A coupling, as a unique feature for both able-bodied and disabled subjects. Our experimentations showed a high classification rate (99.7%) based on the proposed PAC feature. Additionally, the superiority of our approach compared to alternative popular methodologies like the use of the original recordings was evident from the succeeded bitrates (10 bits/sec) and also of the response time of the classification system (0.00001 sec). Complementary, using a binary classifier trained with ÃŽÂ ±1 relative signal power prior to the multi-cl ass SVM, we differentiated the attended from the non-attended stimuli which further improved the classification performance up to 100% in both groups. Compared to many other P300-based BCI systems designed for disabled users, we succeeded the highest classification accuracy and bitrates higher than the original presented dataset [7]. In previous studies like the one of Sellers and Donchin (2006) [12], the best classification accuracy for the able-bodied and ALS subjects was on average 85% and 72% correspondingly [12]. Hoffmann et al., succeeded absolute classification accuracy for both disabled and able bodied subjects for the first demonstration of the current dataset. However, he used longer time series of over 15-20 secs by concatenating trials in order to train better the classifier. Additionally, he used one classifier per image per each of the twenty block and the final outcome derived as the majority voting of the twenty classifiers. Here, using phase-to-amplitude coupling as the appropriate descriptor of the evoked response in the parietal brain areas and a multi-class SVM classifier, we performed almost absolute accuracy ( 99.97) on a trial basis. Using an additional binary k-NN classifier and ÃŽÂ ±1 relative signal power prior to multi-class SVM, we separated the attended (counted) from the non-attended (not counted) trials leading to zeroing the misclassified trials from the multi-class SVM classifier for every subject. This procedure further improved the classification performance from 99.97 to 100% for each subject. We succeeded bitrates faster (10 bits/sec) than any other BCI system including the fastest spelling system presented recently (5.32 bits/sec ; [24]). In a previous study of Piccione et al. (2006) [11] average bitrates of about 8 bits/min were reported for both disabled and able-bodied subjects. Hoffman et al., 2008 [7] reported average bitrates obtained with electrode configuration (II) (8 electrodes) 12.5 bits/min for the disabled subjects and 10 bits/min for the able-bodied subjects. According to Klimeschs ÃŽÂ ± theory, on the early stages of perception, ÃŽÂ ± directs the information flow towards to neural substrates that represent information relevant for the encoding system (e.g. visual stimulus to visual system, voice/sound to auditory system). The physiological main function of ÃŽÂ ± is linked to inhibition. Klimeschs ÃŽÂ ± theory hypothesizes that ÃŽÂ ± enables to have access to stored information by inhibiting task-irrelevant neuronal substrates and by timing/synchronizing the cortical activity in task-relevant neuronal systems. A lot of research findings showed that both evoked ÃŽÂ ± and phase locking are evidence of a successful encoding of global stimulus features in an early post-stimulus interval of about 0-150à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ °ms [25]. Besides the cross low-frequency/high-frequency coupling (e.g.,ÃŽÂ ¸-ÃŽÂ ³; 26,27), there are many evidences [28-31] that CFC exists also between the low-frequency bands (e.g., delta-theta, delta-alpha, and theta-alpha). Lakatos et al. (2005) [29] introduced a hypothesis about the hierarchical organization of EEG oscillations suggesting that the amplitude of the brain oscillations at a characteristic frequency band can be modulated by the oscillatory phase at lower frequency. In particular, they found that ÃŽÂ ´ (1-4 Hz) phase modulates ÃŽÂ ¸ (4-10 Hz) amplitude, and ÃŽÂ ¸ modulates ÃŽÂ ³ (30-50 Hz) amplitude in primary auditory cortex of awake macaque monkeys [29]. This multiplex coupling or nesting of brain rhythms might reflect a general brain organizational principle, as evidence of coupling (mainly ÃŽÂ ¸-ÃŽÂ ³) has also been observed in animals (e.g. rats,cats) and humans [32]. For instance, in auditory cortex, ÃŽÂ ´-band modulates the amplitude of ÃŽÂ ¸-band ICMs, whose phase in turn modulates the amplitude of ÃŽÂ ³-band ICMs [33]. This indirect enhancement effect uses the ongoing activity of local neural activity in the primary auditory cortex. Their hypothesis supports the notion that neural oscillations reflect rhythmic shifting of excitability states of neural substrates between high and low levels. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that oscillations can be predicted by visual input such as the auditory input arrives during a high excitability phase and is amplified. In the present study, we demonstrated that ÃŽÂ ´ (0.5-4 Hz) phase modulates ÃŽÂ ¸ (4-8 Hz) amplitude over visual brain areas due to flashing images, their content and mainly was observed on parietal EEG recording sites. We should also mention that the reason why ÃŽÂ ´Ãƒ Ã¢â‚¬   ÃŽÂ ¸A coupling discriminates the six flashing images can be directly linked to the content of the images. Visual attention samples image stimuli rhythmically demonstrating a peak of phase at 2 Hz [34] while flashing images induced rhythmic fluctuation at higher frequencies (6-10 Hz) [35] here within ÃŽÂ ¸ frequency range [4-8 Hz].Finally, the work of Karakas et al., ([36]) showed that the ERP represents interplay between the oscillations that are mainly in the ÃŽÂ ´ and ÃŽÂ ¸ frequencies and directly linked to P300 [37]. Conclussion In this work, an efficient algorithmic approach was presented to a P300-based BCI system for disabled subjects. We have shown that absolute classification accuracies and the highest reported bitrates can be obtained for severely disabled subjects under the notion of cross-frequency coupling and namely phase-to-amplitude coupling. Specifically, ÃŽÂ ´ (0.5-4 Hz) phase modulates ÃŽÂ ¸ (4-8 Hz) amplitude proved to be the candidate feature from PAC estimates that supported the highest classification accuracy, the fast bitrates and the fast response time of the multi-class system. Due to the use of the P300, only a small amount of training (trials from 1st session as a training set and 100ms per trial) was required to achieve good classification accuracy. Future improvements to the work presented could be the design of useful BCI applications adapted to the needs of disabled users. Also it might be useful to perform exploratory analysis on larger populations and on real-time to further validate the results found in the present work. Acknowledgements SID was supported by MRC grant MR/K004360/1 (Behavioural and Neurophysiological Effects of Schizophrenia Risk Genes: A Multi-locus, Pathway Based Approach) References Farwell LA, Donchin E. Talking off the top of your head: toward a mental prosthesis utilizing event-related brain potentials. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol 1988;70:510-23. Polikoff J, Bunnell H, Borkowski W. Toward a P300-based computer interface. In: Proceedings of the RESNA95 Annual Conference; 1995. Bayliss JD. Use of the evoked P3 component for control in a virtual apartment. IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehab Eng 2003;11(2):113-6. Xu N, Gao X, Hong B, Miao X, Gao S, Yang F. BCI competition 2003 Data Set IIb: Enhancing P300 wave detection using ICA-based subspace projections for BCI applications. IEEE Trans B