Texas Constitution and New Hampshire Constitution

The constitution is the fundamental principles of law that the state's law system is base on. Regardless of where it was created, New Hampshire or Texas, the constitution always went through different processes of drafting, revising, and amending several times over the courses of history to result in the modern constitution as people look at it today. At a glance, there is Texas, a state that is known for its notorious cowboy culture and rebellious history, to be compare to New Hampshire, a quiet little state that locate in the northeast corner of the US.In omparison and contradiction, the two states' constitution share many similarities in their bills of rights but maintain many differences in their legislature, especially in the meeting cycles. Whether or not Texas should change its constitution in order to ensure the effectiveness of legislative session in a given time frame is still in debate. One of the major and most obvious similarities that appears in almost every state's con stitution is the freedom of religion.In Texas constitution, this category is worded as â€Å"freedom of worship†, section 6 of article 1 states, â€Å"All men have a natural nd indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences. No human authority ought, in any case whatever, to control or interfere with the rights of conscience in matters of religion†¦ † (Texas Constitution. Art. l, sec. 6. In a like manner, the New Hampshire constitution states, â€Å"Every individual has a natural and unalienable right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and reason; and no subject shall be hurt, molested, or restrained, in his peers on, liberty, or estate, for worshipping God. † (New Hampshire Constitution. Part 1 . Art. 5) The first two sentences from each section of the two states constitutions strongly proclaim that it is the natural right of the people to worshiping any kind of deity without getti ng punish or being force to worship a different deity against their wish.This similarity of religious freedom from both constitutions illustrated the state founders' strong desire for a society in which people are free to pursuit a faith of their own. However, within these similarities there are still some important differences. To be more specific, the second sentence of religious freedom on the New Hampshire constitution does mention that the right to worship can be achieved only if â€Å"†¦ he doth not disturb the public peace or disturb others in their religious worship. (New Hampshire Constitution. Part l. Art. 5). This statement means to say that one individual cannot use their freedom of worship to disturb other individual's life or his or her freedom of worship. Texas constitution did not state specifically the same idea but it took into account another important element- the equality of religions: â€Å"It shall be the duty of the Legislature to pass such laws as may be ecessary to protect equally every religious denomination in the peaceable enjoyment of its own mode of public worship. (Texas Constitution. Art. I, sec. 6). This is one very important element that the New Hampshire constitution does not mention. Texas, in the other hand, put down in text that the government is responsible to protect every religion the same as others by passing such law to Speaking of the government structure, both Texas and New Hampshire have the basic form of government in which the structure is similar to the United States federal government. Each has three branches: legislative, executive and Judicial.The Texas legislature, however, has one substantive difference to the New Hampshire legislature, the meeting cycle. The Texas constitution requires the legislature to meet in regular session once every two years. â€Å"The legislature shall meet every two years at such time as may be provided by law and at other times when convened by the Governor. † (Tex as Constitution. Art. Ill, sec. 5). Normally, the session held on the second Tuesday in January of odd-numbered years and may last for 140 days.The New Hampshire constitution requires the state legislature to meet more often. Article 3 of Part II of the New Hampshire constitution states that the state legislature is to meet in session for once a year in January (New Hampshire Constitution. Part II. Art. 3); a session usually last until June. In addition, the legislature has to meet again on December of the next even-numbered year for organization purposes, bringing the number of session to three times every two years.The difference between each state legislature's meeting cycles is particularly stood out because Texas is geographically huge state with large population, and the fact that its meeting cycle is too far away from each other is very uncommon among other large states. The difference between Texas and New Hampshire constitutions in regard to the frequency of legislative mee ting can be explain by several reasons. According to Texas former senator Will Harnet, â€Å"Annual sessions are expensive and can chase off quality law-maker that are paid as little as $7,200 a year† (Schechter).But in contrast, meeting annually has advantages that included dealing with complex problems, inishing works on time and reducing the number of special sessions (Schechter). For a state that is the second most populous in the nation, Texas is the only large state that has legislature meet every two years, the other states are Montana, Nevada and North Dakota, all with tiny populations (Schechter). Recently, this frequency of meeting has shown its disadvantage. The most obvious example is that during the summer of 2013, Texas Governor Rick Perry has called three back-to-back special sessions (Schechter).This puts a question mark on the Texas constitution, why ouldn't change the legislative meeting cycle to annual if Texas law-makers are not able to get their business done on time? New Hampshire has a much smaller population than Texas and still able to meet annually without any restrictions. The legislature meeting cycle is one big problem that Texas needs to amend into the constitution, not only to save the budget from all the extra special sessions but also giving law-makers a more flexible cycle to work on many complex problems.In the end, both Texas and New Hampshire constitution serve one and only one urpose is to maintain their societies within the law of the state and also in respect to the United Stated constitution. A society in which every individual are born with natural and unalienable rights including the right to worship, and that no human authority can restricts people from doing so. On the other hand, the differences of population, geographic and political beliefs are reflected on the word of each state's constitution, which in this case is the difference between the legislative meeting cycles.The Texas legislature apparently had experience the flaws of their cycle, eing said, it is now the time for the Texas government to reconsider amending their constitution, in order to create a better legislative system that is capable of getting their business to finish on time.

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove Chapter 4~5

Four Estelle Boyet As September's promise wound down, a strange unrest came over the people of Pine Cove, due in no small part to the fact that many of them were going into withdrawal from their medications. It didn't happen all at once – the streets were not full of middle-class junkies rocking and sweating and begging for a fix – but slowly as the autumn days became shorter. And as far as they knew (because Val Riordan had called every one of them), they were experiencing the onset of a mild seasonal syndrome, sort of like spring fever. Call it autumn malaise. The nature of the medications kept the symptoms spread out over the next few weeks. Prozac and some of the older antidepressants took almost a month to leave the system, so those people slipped into the fray more slowly than those on Zoloft or Paxil or Wellbutrin, which was flushed from the system in only a day or two, leaving the deprived with symptoms re-sembling a low-grade flu, then a scattered disorientation akin to a temporary case of attention deficit disorder, and, in some, a rebound of depression that dropped on them like a smoky curtain. One of the first to feel the effects was Estelle Boyet, a local artist, successful and semifamous for her seascapes and idealized paintings of Pine Cove shore life. Her prescription had run out a day before Dr. Val had replaced the supply with sugar pills, so she was already in the midst of withdrawal when she took the first dose of the placebo. Estelle was sixty, a stout, vital woman who wore brightly colored caftans and let her long gray hair fly around her shoulders as she moved through life with an energy and determination that inspired envy from women half her age. For thirty years she had been a teacher in the decaying and increas-ingly dangerous Los Angeles Unified School District, teaching eighth graders the difference between acrylics and oils, a brush and a pallet knife, Dali and Degas, and using her job and her marriage as a justification for never producing any art herself. She had married right out of art school: Joe Boyet, a promising young businessman, the only man she had ever loved and only the third she had ever slept with. When Joe had died eight years ago, she had nearly lost her mind. She tried to throw herself into her teaching, hoping that by inspiring the children she might find some reason to go on herself. In the face of the escalating violence in her school, she resigned herself to wearing a bullet-proof vest under her artist smocks and even brought in some paintball guns to try to gain the pupils' interest, but the latter only backfired into several incidents of drive-by abstract expressionism, and soon she received death threats for not allowing students to fashion crack pipes in ceramics class. Her students – children living in a hyperadult world where play-ground disputes were settled with 9 mms – eventually drove her out of teaching. Estelle lost her last reason to go on. The school psychologist re-ferred her to a psych iatrist, who put her on antidepressants and recommen-ded immediate retirement and relocation. Estelle moved to Pine Cove, where she began to paint and where she fell under the wing of Dr. Valerie Riordan. No wonder then that Estelle's painting had taken a dark turn over the last few weeks. She painted the ocean. Every day. Waves and spray, rocks and serpentine strands of kelp on the beach, otters and seals and pelicans and gulls. Her canvases sold in the local gal-leries as fast as she could paint them. But lately the inner light at the heart of her waves, titanium white and aquamarine, had taken on a dark shadow. Every beach scene spoke of desolation and dead fish. She dreamed of le-viathan shadows stalking her under the waves and she woke shivering and afraid. It was getting more difficult to get her paints and easel to the shore each day. The open ocean and the blank canvas were just too fright-ening. Joe is gone, she thought. I have no career and no friends and I produce nothing but kitschy seascapes as flat and soulless as a velvet Elvis. I'm afraid of everything. Val Riordan had called her, insisting that she come to a group therapy session for widows, but Estelle had said no. Instead, one evening, after finishing a tormented painting of a beached dolphin, she left her brushes to harden with acrylic and headed downtown – anywhere where she didn't have to look at this shit she'd been calling art. She ended up at the Head of the Slug Saloon – the first bar she'd set foot in since college. The Slug was full of Blues and smoke and people chasing shots and running from sadness. If they'd been dogs, they would have all been in the yard eating grass and trying to yak up whatever was making them feel so lousy. Not a bone gnawed, not a ball chased – all tails went unwagged. Oh, life is a fast cat, a short leash, a flea in that place where you just can't scratch. It was dog sad in there, and Catfish Jefferson was the designated howler. The moon was in his eye and he was singing up the sum of human suffering in A-minor, while he worked that bottleneck slide on the National guitar until it sounded like a slow wind through heartstrings. He was grinning. Of the hundred or so people in the Slug, half were experiencing some sort of withdrawal from their medications. There was a self-pity contingent at the bar, staring into their drinks and rocking back and forth to the Delta rhythms. At the tables, the more social of the de-pressed were whining and slurring their problems into each other's ears and occasionally trading hugs or curses. Over by the pool table stood the agitated and the aggressive, the people looking for someone to blame. These were mostly men, and Theophilus Crowe was keeping an eye on them from his spot at the bar. Since the death of Bess Leander, there had been a fight in the Slug almost every night. In addition, there were more pukers, more screamers, more criers, and more unwanted advances stifled with slaps. Theo had been very busy. So had Mavis Sand. Mavis was happy about it. Estelle came through the doors in her paint-spattered overalls and Shetland sweater, her hair pulled back in a long gray braid. Just inside, she paused as the music and the smoke washed over her. Some Mexican laborers were standing there in a group, drinking Budweisers, and one of them whistled at her. â€Å"I'm an old lady,† Estelle said. â€Å"Shame on you.† She pushed her way through the crowd to the bar and ordered a white wine. Mavis served it in a plastic beer cup. (She was serving everything in plastic lately. Evidently, the Blues made people want to break glass – on each other.) â€Å"Busy?† Estelle said, although she had nothing to compare it to. â€Å"The Blues sure packs 'em in,† Mavis said. â€Å"I don't much care for the Blues,† said Estelle. â€Å"I enjoy Classical music.† â€Å"Three bucks,† said Mavis. She took Estelle's money and moved to the other end of the bar. Estelle felt as if she'd been slapped in the face. â€Å"Don't mind Mavis,† a man's voice said. â€Å"She's always cranky.† Estelle looked up, caught a shirt button, then looked up farther to find Theo's smile. She had never met the constable, but she knew who he was. â€Å"I don't even know why I came in here. I'm not a drinker.† â€Å"Something going around,† Theo said. â€Å"I think maybe we're going to have a stormy winter or something. People are coming out of the woodwork.† They exchanged introductions and Theo complimented Estelle on her paintings, which he'd seen in the local galleries. Estelle dismissed the compliment. â€Å"This seems like a strange place to find the constable,† Estelle said. Theo showed her the cell phone on his belt. â€Å"Base of operations,† he said. â€Å"Most of the trouble has been starting in here anyway. If I'm here already, I can stop it before it escalates.† â€Å"Very conscientious of you.† â€Å"No, I'm just lazy,† Theo said. â€Å"And tired. In the last three weeks I've been called to five domestic disputes, ten fights, two people who barricaded themselves in the bathroom and threatened suicide, a guy who was going house to house knocking the heads off garden gnomes with a sledgehammer, and a woman who tried to take her husband's eye out with a spoon.† â€Å"Oh my. Sounds like one day in the life of an L.A. cop.† â€Å"This isn't L.A.,† Theo said. â€Å"I don't mean to complain, but I'm not really prepared for a crime wave.† â€Å"And there's nowhere left to run,† Estelle said. â€Å"Pardon?† â€Å"People come here to run away from conflict, don't you think? Come to a small town to get out of the violence and the competition in the city. If you can't handle it here, there's nowhere else to go. You might as well give up.† â€Å"Well, that's a little cynical. I thought artists were supposed to be idealists.† â€Å"Scratch a cynic and you'll find a disappointed romantic,† Estelle said. â€Å"That's you?† Theo asked. â€Å"A disappointed romantic?† â€Å"The only man I ever loved died.† â€Å"I'm sorry,† Theo said. â€Å"Me too.† She drained her cup of wine. â€Å"Easy on that, Estelle. It doesn't help.† â€Å"I'm not a drinker. I just had to get out of the house.† There was some shouting over by the pool table. â€Å"My presence is required,† Theo said. â€Å"Excuse me.† He made his way through the crowd to where two men were squaring off to fight. Estelle signaled Mavis for a refill and turned to watch Theo try to make peace. Catfish Jefferson sang a sad song about a mean old woman doing him wrong. That's me, Estelle thought. A mean old worthless woman. Self-medication was working by midnight. Most of the customers at the Slug had given in and started clapping and wailing along with Catfish's Blues. Quite a few had given up and gone home. By closing time, there were only five people left in the Slug and Mavis was cackling over a drawer full of money. Catfish Jefferson put down his National steel guitar and picked up the two-gallon pickle jar that held his tips. Dollar bills spilled over the top, change skated in the bottom, and here and there in the middle fives and tens struggled for air. There was even a twenty down there, and Catfish dug in after it like a kid going for a Cracker Jack prize. He carried the jar to the bar and plopped down next to Estelle, who was gloriously, eloquently crocked. â€Å"Hey, baby,† Catfish said. â€Å"You like the Blues?† Estelle searched the air for the source of the question, as if it might have come from a moth spiraling around one of the lights behind the bar. Her gaze finally settled on the Bluesman and she said, â€Å"You're very good. I was going to leave, but I liked the music.† â€Å"Well, you done stayed now,† Catfish said. â€Å"Look at this.† He shook the money jar. â€Å"I got me upward o' two hundred dollar here, and that mean old woman owe me least that much too. What you say we take a pint and my guitar and go down to the beach, have us a party?† â€Å"I'd better get home,† Estelle said. â€Å"I have to paint in the morning.† â€Å"You a painter? I never knowed me a painter. What you say we go down to the beach and watch us a sunrise?† â€Å"Wrong coast,† Estelle said. â€Å"The sun comes up over the mountains.† Catfish laughed. â€Å"See, you done saved me a heap of waiting already. Let's you and me go down to the beach.† â€Å"No, I can't.† â€Å"It 'cause I'm Black, ain't it?† â€Å"No.† â€Å"‘Cause I'm old, right?† â€Å"No.† â€Å"‘Cause I'm bald. You don't like old bald men, right?† â€Å"No!† Estelle said. â€Å"‘Cause I'm a musician. You heard we irresponsible?† â€Å"No.† â€Å"‘Cause I'm hung like a bull, right?† â€Å"No!† Estelle said. Catfish laughed again. â€Å"Well, you wouldn't mind spreadin that one around town just the same, would you?† â€Å"How would I know how you're hung?† â€Å"Well,† Catfish said, pausing and grinning, â€Å"you could go to the beach with me.† â€Å"You are a nasty and persistent old man, aren't you, Mr. Jefferson?† Estelle asked. Catfish bowed his shining head, â€Å"I truly am, miss. I truly am nasty and persistent. And I am too old to be trouble. I admits it.† He held out a long, thin hand. â€Å"Let's have us a party on the beach.† Estelle felt like she'd just been bamboozled by the devil. Something smooth and vibrant under that gritty old down-home shuck. Was this the dark shadow her paintings kept finding in the surf? She took his hand. â€Å"Let's go to the beach.† â€Å"Ha!† Catfish said. Mavis pulled a Louisville Slugger from behind the bar and held it out to Estelle. â€Å"Here, you wanna borrow this?† They found a niche in the rocks that sheltered them from the wind. Catfish dumped sand from his wing tips and shook his socks out before laying them out to dry. â€Å"That was a sneaky old wave.† â€Å"I told you to take off your shoes,† Estelle said. She was more amused than she felt she had a right to be. A few sips from Catfish's pint had kept the cheap white wine from going sour in her stomach. She was warm, despite the chill wind. Catfish, on the other hand, looked miserable. â€Å"Never did like the ocean much,† Catfish said. â€Å"Too many sneaky things down there. Give a man the creeps, that's what it does.† â€Å"If you don't like the ocean, then why did you ask me to come to the beach?† â€Å"The tall man said you like to paint pictures of the beach.† â€Å"Lately, the ocean's been giving me a bit of the creeps too. My paintings have gone dark.† Catfish wiped sand from between his toes with a long finger. â€Å"You think you can paint the Blues?† â€Å"You ever seen Van Gogh?† Catfish looked out to sea. A three-quarter moon was pooling like mercury out there. â€Å"Van Gogh†¦Van Gogh†¦fiddle player outta St. Louis?† â€Å"That's him,† Estelle said. Catfish snatched the pint out of her hand and grinned. â€Å"Girl, you drink a man's liquor and lie to him too. I know who Vincent Van Gogh is.† Estelle couldn't remember the last time she'd been called a girl, but she was pretty sure she hadn't liked hearing it as much as she did now. She said, â€Å"Who's lying now? Girl?† â€Å"You know, under that big sweater and them overalls, they might be a girl. Then again, I could be wrong.† â€Å"You'll never know.† â€Å"I won't? Now that is some sad stuff there.† He picked up his guitar, which had been leaning on a rock, and began playing softly, using the surf as a backbeat. He sang about wet shoes, running low on liquor, and a wind that chilled right to the bone. Estelle closed her eyes and swayed to the music. She realized that this was the first time she'd felt good in weeks. He stopped abruptly. â€Å"I'll be damned. Look at that.† Estelle opened her eyes and looked toward the waterline where Catfish was pointing. Some fish had run up on the beach and were flopping around in the sand. â€Å"You ever see anything like that?† Estelle shook her head. More fish were coming out of the surf. Beyond the breakers, the water was boiling with fish jumping and thrashing. A wave rose up as if being pushed from underneath. â€Å"There's something moving out there.† Catfish picked up his shoes. â€Å"We gots to go.† Estelle didn't even think of protesting. â€Å"Yes. Now.† She thought about the huge shadows that kept appearing under the waves in her paintings. She grabbed Catfish's shoes, jumped off the rock, and started down the beach to the stairs that led up to a bluff where Catfish's station wagon waited. â€Å"Come on.† â€Å"I'm comin'.† Catfish spidered down the rock and stepped after her. At the car, both of them winded and leaning on the fenders, Catfish was digging in his pocket for the keys when they heard the roar. The roar of a thousand phlegmy lions – equal amounts of wetness, fury, and volume. Estelle felt her ribs vibrate with the noise. â€Å"Jesus! What was that?† â€Å"Get in the car, girl.† Estelle climbed into the station wagon. Catfish was already fumbling the key into the ignition. The car fired up and he threw it into drive, kicking up gravel as he pulled away. â€Å"Wait, your shoes are on the roof.† â€Å"He can have them,† Catfish said. â€Å"They better than the ones he ate last time.† â€Å"He? What the hell was that? You know what that was?† â€Å"I'll tell you soon as I'm done havin this heart attack.† Five The Sea Beast The great Sea Beast paused in his pursuit of the delicious radioactive aroma and sent a subsonic message out to a gray whale passing several miles ahead of him. Roughly translated, it said, â€Å"Hey, baby, how's about you and I eat a few plankton and do the wild thing.† The gray whale continued her relentless swim south and replied with a subsonic thrum that translated, â€Å"I know who you are. Stay away from me.† The Sea Beast swam on. During his journey he had eaten a basking shark, a few dolphins, and several hundred tuna. His focus had changed from food to sex. As he approached the California coast, the radioactive scent began to diminish to almost nothing. The leak at the power plant had been discovered and fixed. He found himself less than a mile offshore with a belly full of shark – and no memory of why he'd left his volcanic nest. But there was a buzz reaching his predator's senses from shore, the listless re-solve of prey that has given up: depression. Warm-blooded food, dolphins, and whales sent off the same signal sometimes. A large school of food was just asking to be eaten, right near the edge of the sea. He stopped out past the surf line and came to the surface in the middle of a kelp bed, his massive head breaking though strands of kelp like a zombie pickup truck breaking sod as it rises from the grave. Then he heard it. A hated sound. The sound of an enemy. It had been half a century since the Sea Beast had left the water, and land was not his natural domain, but his instinct to attack overwhelmed his sense of self-preservation. He threw back his head, shaking the great purple gills that stood out on his neck like trees, and blew the water from his vestigial lungs. Breath burned down his cavernous throat for the first time in fifty years and came out in a horrendous roar of pain and anger. Three of the protective ocular membranes slid back from his eyes like electric car windows. allow-ing him to see in the bitter air. He thrashed his tail, pumped his great webbed feet, and torpedoed toward the shore. Gabe It had been almost ten years since Gabe Fenton had dissected a dog, but now, at three o'clock in the morning, he was thinking seriously about taking a scalpel to Skinner, his three-year-old Labrador retriever, who was deep in the throes of a psychotic barking fit. Skinner had been banished to the porch that afternoon, after he had taken a roll in a dead seagull and refused to go into the surf or get near the hose to be washed off. To Skinner, dead bird was the smell of romance. Gabe crawled out of bed and padded to the door in his boxers, scooping up a hiking boot along the way. He was a biologist, held a Ph.D. in animal behavior from Stanford, so it was with great academic credibility that he opened the door and winged the boot at his dog, following it with the behavior-reinforcing command of: â€Å"Skinner, shut the fuck up!† Skinner paused in his barking fit long enough to duck under the flying L. L. Bean, then, true to his breeding, retrieved it from the washbasin that he used as a water dish and brought it back to the doorway where Gabe stood. Skinner set the soggy boot at the biologist's feet. Gabe closed the door in Skinner's face. Jealous, Skinner thought. No wonder he can't get any females, smelling like fabric softener and soap. The Food Guy wouldn't be so cranky if he'd get out and sniff some butts. (Skinner always thought of Gabe as â€Å"the Food Guy.†) Then, after a quick sniff to confirm that he was, indeed, the Don Juan of all dogs, Skinner resumed his barking fit. Doesn't he get it, Skinner thought, there's something dangerous coming. Danger, Food Guy, danger! Inside, Gabe Fenton glanced at the computer screen in his living room as he returned to bed. A thousand tiny green dots were working their way, en masse, across the map of the Pine Cove area. He stopped and rubbed his eyes. It wasn't possible. Gabe went to the computer and typed in a command. The map of the area reappeared in wider scale. Still, the dots were all moving in a line. He zoomed the map to only a few square miles, the dots were still on the move. Each green dot on the map represented a rat that Gabe had live-trapped, injected with a microchip, and released into the wild. Their location was tracked and plotted by satellite. Every rat in a ten-square-mile area was moving east, away from the coast. Rats did not behave that way. Gabe ran the data backward, looking at the rodents' movements over the last few hours. The exodus had started abruptly, only two hours ago, and already most of the rats had moved over a mile inland. They were running full-tilt and going far beyond their normal range. Rats are sprinters, not long-distance runners. Something was up. Gabe hit a key and a tiny green number appeared next to each of the dots. Each chip was unique, and each rat could be identified like airplanes on the screen of an air traffic controller. Rat 363 hadn't moved outside of a two-meter range for five days. Gabe had assumed that she had either given birth or was ill. Now 363 was half a mile from her normal territory. Anomalies are both the bane and bread of researchers. Gabe was excited by the data, but at the same time it made him anxious. An anomaly like this could lead to a discovery, or make him look like a total fool. He cross-checked the data three different ways, then tapped into the weather station on the roof. Nothing was happening in the way of weather, all changes in barometric pressure, humidity, wind, and temperature were well within normal ranges. He looked out the window: a low fog was settling on the shore, totally normal. He could just make out the lighthouse a hundred yards away. It had been shut down for twenty years, used only as a weather station and as a base for biological research. He grabbed a blanket off of his bed and wrapped it around his shoulders against the chill, then returned to his desk. The green dots were still moving. He dialed the number for JPL in Pasadena. Skinner was still barking outside. â€Å"Skinner, shut the fuck up!† Gabe shouted just as the automated answering service put him through to the seismology lab. A woman answered. She sounded young, probably an intern. â€Å"Excuse me?† she said. â€Å"Sorry, I was yelling at my dog. Yes, hello, this is Dr. Gabe Fenton at the research station in Pine Cove, just wondering if you have any seismic activity in my area.† â€Å"Pine Cove? Can I get a longitude and latitude?† Gabe gave it to her. â€Å"I think I'm looking for something offshore.† â€Å"Nothing. Minor tremor centered at Parkfield yesterday at 9 A.M. Point zero-five-three. You wouldn't even be able to feel it. Have you picked something up on your instruments?† â€Å"I don't have seismographic instruments. That's why I called you. This is a biological research and weather station.† â€Å"I'm sorry, Doctor, I didn't know. I'm new here. Did you feel something?† â€Å"No. My rats are moving.† As soon as he said it, he wished he hadn't. â€Å"Pardon me?† â€Å"Never mind, I was just checking. I'm having some anomalous behavior in some specimens. If you pick up anything in the next few days, could you call me?† He gave her his number. â€Å"You think your rats are predicting an earthquake, Doctor?† â€Å"I didn't say that.† â€Å"You should know that there's no concrete data on animals predicting seismic activity.† â€Å"I know that, but I'm trying to eliminate all the possibilities.† â€Å"Did it occur to you that your dog might be scaring them?† â€Å"I'll factor that in,† Gabe said. â€Å"Thank you for your time.† He hung up, feeling stupid. Nothing seismic or meteorological, and a call to the highway patrol confirmed that there were no chemical spills or fires. He had to confirm the data. Perhaps something was wrong with the satellite signal. The only way to find out was to take out his portable antenna and track the rats in the field. He dressed quickly and headed out to his truck. â€Å"Skinner, you want to go for a ride?† Skinner wagged his tail and made a beeline for the truck. About time, he thought. You need to get away from the shore, Food Guy, right now. Inside the house, ten green dots were moving away from the others toward the shore. The Sea Beast The Sea Beast crawled up the beach, roaring as his legs took the full weight of his body and the undertow sucked at his haunches. The urgency of killing his enemy had diminished now and hunger was upon him in re-sponse to the effort of moving out of the ocean. An organ at the base of his brain that had disappeared from other species when man's only living an-cestors were tree shrews produced an electric signal to call food. There were many prey here, that same organ sensed. The Sea Beast came to the fifty-foot cliff that bordered the beach, reared back on his tail, and pulled himself up with his forelegs. He was a hundred feet long, nose to tail, and stood twenty-five feet tall with his broad neck extended to its full height. His rear feet were wide and webbed, his front talonlike, with a thumb that opposed three curved claws for grasping and killing prey. On the dry grass above the beach, some of the prey he had called already waited. Raccoons, ground squirrels, a few skunks, a fox, and two cats ca-vorted on the grass – some copulated, others dug at fleas with blissful abandon, others just rolled on their backs as if overcome by a fit of joy. The Sea Beast swept them into his great maw with a flick of his tongue, crunching a few bones on the way down, but swallowing most whole. He belched and savored the skunky bouquet, his jaws smacking together like two wet mattresses, and a flash of neon color ran across his flanks with the pleasure. He moved over the bluff, across the Coast Highway, and into the sleeping town. The streets were deserted, lights off in all the businesses on Cypress Street. A low fog splashed against the pseudo-Tudor half-timbered buildings and formed green coronas around the streetlights. Above it all, the red Texaco sign shone like a beacon. The Sea Beast changed the color of his skin to the same smoky gray as the fog and moved down the center of the street looking like a serpentine cloud. He followed a low rumbling sound coming from under the red beacon, broke out of the fog, and there he saw her. She purred, taunting and teasing him from the front of the deserted Texaco station. That come-hither rumble. That low, sexy growl. Those silver flanks reflecting fog and the red Texaco sign called to him, begged him to mount her. The Sea Beast flashed a rainbow of color down his sides to display his magnificent maleness. He fanned the gill trees on his neck, sending bands of color and light into their branches. The Sea Beast sent her a signal, which roughly translated into: â€Å"Hey, baby, haven't seen you around before.† She sat there, purring, playing coy, but he knew she wanted him. She had short black legs, a stumpy tail, and smelled as if she may have recently eaten a trawler, but those magnificent silver flanks were too much to resist. The Sea Beast turned himself silver as well, to make her feel a little more comfortable, then reared up on his hind legs and displayed his aroused member. No response, just that shy purring. He took it as an invitation and moved across the parking lot to mount the fuel truck. Estelle Estelle placed a mug of tea in front of Catfish, then sat down across the table from him with her own. Catfish sipped the tea and grimaced, then pulled the pint from his back pocket and unscrewed the cap. Estelle caught his hand before he could pour. â€Å"You have some explaining to do first, Mr. Bluesman.† Estelle was more than a little rattled. When they were only half a mile away from the beach, she had been overtaken by a sudden urge to return and had fought Catfish for control of the car. It was crazy behavior. It frightened her as much as the thing at the beach had, and when they got to her house she immediately took a Zoloft, even though she'd already had her dose for the day. â€Å"Leave me be, woman. I said I'd tell you. I needs me some nerve medicine.† Estelle released his hand. â€Å"What was that at the beach?† Catfish splashed some whiskey into Estelle's tea first, then into his own. He grinned, â€Å"You see my name wasn't always Catfish. I was born with the name of Meriwether Jefferson. Catfish come on me sometime later.† â€Å"Christ, Catfish, I'm sixty years old. Am I going to live long enough to hear the end of this story? What in the hell was out in the water tonight?† She was definitely not herself, swearing like this. â€Å"You wanna know or not?† Estelle sipped her tea. â€Å"Sorry, go ahead.†

Assess the practical usefulness and the relevance of game theory in Essay

Assess the practical usefulness and the relevance of game theory in light of the demanding assumptions behind the concept of the - Essay Example On e would be able to find out the importance and demerit of using Nash equilibrium in the real world. Introduction Game theory refers to the study of the techniques of decision making. The study gives calculated methods of giving a strategic decision in an economic issue. It puts related disciplines of philosophy, mathematics and psychology in making strategic decision making. Since its invention in 1944 by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, it has undergone severall improvement and applications. The Nash equilibrium is a concept in game theory that gives solutions to games that involves more than one player. In Nash equilibrium, every player makes the best decision considering that the opponent would make their own best decision too. Jon Nash realized that one has no capabilities to tell and predict others’ decisions by only viewing one case. Isolation prevents proper analysis of decisions. In addition, every player knows that there is nothing to gain by changing their strategy. Therefore, the only option left for a player is to get know what one player would do by considering the others’ decisions in the process. Game theory uses the concepts of Nash equilibrium when making an analysis of strategic interaction that occurs between the decision makers. Throughout history, Nash’s equilibrium concept has been useful with practical application in times of war and arms races. Some of the practical applications of Nash equilibrium include; mitigation of members in conflict by use of repeated interactions, determining the point in which people of different preferences may agree to cooperate, occurrence of currency crises, the flow of traffic on busy roads, setting up regulatory regulations and during soccer when kicking penalties (Myerson 2013, p56). In Nash equilibrium, everybody gets involved in a game the moment their fate is a point where the decision depends on the other person playing the game. The game does not have all the practical conditions that exist in the real world. Some of the unrealistic assumption that the game assumes are as follows; the concepts operate in the assumption that the players possess powerful computing techniques, through which, they analyze every situation giving no chance to any faults. Human beings operate under situations that may involve a lot of unforeseen situations. Thus, humans are prone to making incorrect decisions during the period. In addition, the concepts call for radical decisions that raise a lot of questions (Zhao 2007, p89). Another unrealistic nature is that it gives either the optimum or a value at equilibrium. It does not give a true value. In pratically, the scenarios are true and would require two choices giving true results. That is; the results of the prisoner’s dilemma are not as optimum as the theory tends to show. In some of the cases, the concept could be unreliable and misleading the practical user. However, such cases are limited since the Nash equ ilibrium has registered many instances of positive feedback. Nash equilibrium sets up a base in which other theories and practical scenarios can base their applications for success in the real world (Zhao 2007, p77). Conditions that exist in the real world seem to be more complicated that in examples. For example, if an event that two competing companies set their market price at say, $10, one company would attempt to set a slightly lower price to increase its sales, as long

Creating value or Customer loyalty Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Creating value or Customer loyalty - Essay Example Many corporate mission statements set customers as the focus of an organisations business activities, and key thinkers have defined the quality of goods and services with reference to how well they satisfy needs and expectations of the customer base. Many corporate mission statements set customers as the focus of an organisation’s business activities, and key thinkers have defined the quality of goods and services with reference to how well they satisfy needs and expectations of the customer base. At the other end, some companies are paying performance premiums. These are companies that have failed to realize the strategic importance of their stakeholder management processes. Such companies are victims of their actions as they have unintentionally set up conflicting objectives between engineering, marketing, purchasing and manufacturing that form barriers to good stakeholders management (David and John1993P.1). This paper looks into the various ways through which a company or individual creates value for its customers and stakeholders. The model used in this paper is the stakeholder mapping theory. The paper, will first of all discuss the various expectations of the various stakeholders in a company such as Wal-Mart, and subsequently the paper looks into the various ways through which customers and stakeholder’s expectations could be satisfy by an organisation. The last part of the paper argues that, satisfying stakeholder’s expectation is the beginning of value creation. Defenders of stakeholder theory as the gateway of value creation for customers such as Wal-Mart are benefiting from performance premiums. Other companies that that have failed to realize the strategic importance of their stakeholders management processes are victims of their actions as they have unintentionally set up conflicting objectives between stakeholders

Analysis of Financial Service Industry Literature review

Analysis of Financial Service Industry - Literature review Example Besides having a stronghold in the financial service industry, Citi Corp mirrors the vision and goals of Intersect Investments. Benchmarking is the process of observation and validation of procedures and practices that the most successful companies employ. It is a process of studying and following time tested practices from well-performing organizations to improve your own performance. In other words, it is the borrowing of standards for success. This involves determining where you need to improve, finding an organization that is exceptional in this area, then studying the company and applying its best practices in your firm. Benchmarking systematically studies the absolute best firms, and uses their best practices as the standard of comparison; a standard to meet or even surpass. Through a comprehensive assessment of strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities of Intersect Investments, the management has realized that a lot of critical areas have to be reviewed if the firm is to achieve its goals and objectives. Issues range from redefining the organizational vision to devising a proper career incentive system for its employees. Sharing a similar organizational mandate, Citi Corp has fared a lot better in the industry particularly with regard to these critical areas. Citi Corp has long stood with its principle of customer intimacy and procedural simplifications. These principles have given it an edge over its competitors and made it one of the leaders in the industry for a long time. Given the nature of the products, services, and customer orientation involved, any business in the financial service industry cannot afford to ignore these basic values. Intersect Investments should do a proper visioning exercise and tune it properly to that of the Citi Corp. All the while, customer friendly services, and humanistic approach should be the cornerstone of the exercise. Employee turnover is increasing and the cost of employee turnover is expensive. Therefore, employee retention is critical. Numerous studies suggest that the majority of the workforce is considering leaving their current job for another as the economy improves. Based on this realization, Citi Corp strongly advocates employee retention and value system. Employee retention matters. A continual effort to replace departing workers-to keep the revolving door full, instead of stopping it altogether-is bleeding organizations dry. It is expensive to constantly replace people that turnover. The cost of attracting, recruiting, hiring, training, and getting new people up to speed is tremendously more costly as well as more wasteful than most realize. Second, productivity and profitability are directly tied to employee retention.  

LGBT Community in the workplace Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 7000 words

LGBT Community in the workplace - Research Paper Example Early in the morning hours of Saturday, June 28, 1969, plainclothes officers and uniformed patrolmen from the New York City Police Department’s Public Morals Squad raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular but illegal gay bar in Greenwich Village. The raid sparked several days of demonstrations and clashes with police, ranging in intensity from passive to confrontational. The demonstrations culminated in the first gay pride’s march from Washington Square Park to Central Park (Teal, 2010). The riots that followed the Stonewall Inn event are regarded as the beginning of the transformation of gay rights movement. Since then, the gay rights movement evolved into a controversial and powerful social and political force in today’s society. In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its official list of mental disorders. In January 1978, Harvey Milk, an openly gay man, was sworn in as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Mr. Milk’s first feat was to sponsor a bill that would outlaw sexual orientation discrimination. The same year in the month of November, Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk were assassinated by Dan White, another member of the board who recently resigned and who wanted back in. (www.infoplease.com) After 40 years of fighting, political leaders are embracing the movement and are knocking down walls such as lifting the ban on participation in the Armed Forces and legalizing gay marriage in support of what has evolve to be the LGBT community. The evolution of the movement has had such a tremendous influence in the political arena that it has led to â€Å"nominating at least two transgender officials, for the first time in history, to senior posts in the federal government under the Obama administration† (Teal, 2010). The intensity of homophobia in America has led to many gays being viewed as mentally ill in medical terms, sinners in religious terms and criminals in legal terms. Gays have

Viacom Company Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Viacom Company - Case Study Example Beginning in 1970s as cable operator, Viacom has managed to become a global entertainment content company. Currently a major media conglomerate operates through two main segments: Media Networks and Filmed Entertainment, producing and distributing a huge variety of motion pictures. Collecting sufficient number of failures and losses during long period of its formation, in late 1980s the company was bought by Sumner M. Redstone, who managed to see great potential of his acquisition. Hence with a help of numerous successful projects of launching classic sitcoms, Showtime movie network, Ha! Channel a leading conglomerate was able to purchase five television and nine radio stations. However, a decline in popularity of pay-TV compelled the senior management of Viacom to switch the main sphere of its performance, setting new challenges. In this respect, Redstone decided to aim at video rental markets. In 1990s the company made the biggest and most profitable deal, purchasing oldest produce r of motion pictures, Paramount Communications Inc. Later on acquiring Blockbuster, suddenly Viacom became the owner of thousands of video and music stores.

BUSINESS PLAN Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

BUSINESS PLAN - Essay Example Founded by Jorge Tapia, this testing facility furnishes a learning platform for local students studying in private and public schools, universities and graduation programs. There are two categories of authorized Cambridge ESOL centres, internal and open centers. Open centre have authority to conduct examinations for all candidates, regardless of whether they are enrolled in the institution or not (University of Cambridge, 2013). Vision statement Our corporation aims at educating masses of Guayaquil, helping them to gain fluent grip over English language within least time period and at lowest costs and thereby achieve success in globally recognized examinations. ... s: Strong barriers to entry by currently existing businesses Strict regulations, quality standards and close surveillance by Cambridge Market study This centre shall aim at catering students residing in localities of Guayaquil and Quito and other neighboring suburbs of Ecuador. Educational reforms in this region is one of the most underfunded and neglected national aspects (Pineo, 1996). Moving towards urbanization, these highly populated areas of Ecuador are gaining educational awareness. Recent statistics show that 37.6%, 34% and 12.7% of population has easy access to primary, secondary and superior education respectively. About 62% of total population (9.1 million people) represents the age group that can be targeted for providing FCE education while 66% represents the urban educated population (INEC & Quito Town Hall, 1990 & 2002). Mostly adults, especially males, have received some form of education, thereby indicating that masses are inclined to take educational measures (Carri on and Vasconez, 2003). Majority of citizens are moving towards learning English since this is the dominant language that is needed for public dealings and communications in foreign ties. Therefore, it has become a necessity for them now. To cater this, large number of institutes exists currently in both the territories that have a well-established market share and reputation, including Southern Cross Teacher Training Centre, EF School of English and British School of Language. However, I claim to provide exclusive and differentiated services to students with excellent trained faculty, career counseling mentors, technology-based teaching methods, tailored services and individual attention for each student at lowest costs. Marketing strategy Since these areas of Ecuador are most populated

Social Networking and Law Enforcement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Social Networking and Law Enforcement - Essay Example l individuals and groups use social networking as well as the way that law enforcement utilizes the same medium to attempt to stem the growth and proliferation of crime via this new and expansive medium. Furthermore, this analysis will review the ways in which law enforcement entities are using social networking to connect with and reach out to the jurisdictions and communities which they serve. Social networking provides individuals with a way to meet, interact with, and network among an exponentially larger group of people than had previously been possible. This has allowed people to build a complex web of relationships which would otherwise not have been possible using the technology that has been traditionally available (Patrashek 2010). Imagine a situation where a criminal would like to form a link to another criminal for purposes of organized prostitution, drugs or any manner of other crime. Due to the complex nature of the links and connections that social media provides, the amount of time from origination of the idea to commit crime to the contact with a fellow accomplice can take only a few seconds. This rapid increase in the free flow of communication and its subsequent use by criminals and criminal organizations has necessitated law enforcement to become highly involved and familiar with social networking as it currently exists. However, this involvement by law enforcement has a definite number of distinct drawbacks. The first and most obvious of these drawbacks is the overall level of privacy that users can expect when communicating via this medium. A great deal of information has recently been in the news media with relation to social networking and privacy levels, this issue is taken to a new level with the inclusion of law enforcement as a factor in the equation. Although it should be assumed that any and all information that is freely shared amongst social networking users will be subject to review and dissemination by law enforcement

Activities of the Ku Klux Klan Essay Example for Free

Activities of the Ku Klux Klan Essay With the Civil War over and tensions still high between the south and the north; the country saw a rise in violence against African Americans. Those in the south still didn’t believe blacks rated the same as them. In this paper I will discuss the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, the activities the Klan participated in, and the eventual fall of the Klan. After the Civil war ended many southerners still had the belief that the Blacks were not equal and should not be put in the same class or jobs as white men and women. With tensions rising violence began to break out and Blacks were the main target as well as anyone that was assisting the Black community. On December 24th, 1865 six confederate veterans got together and formed the first Klan. To historians the Klan was formed as a post Civil war insurgent rise that was fighting against the dramatically changing social situation our country was facing. The Klan used public violence against blacks as intimidation; attempting to keep them out of jobs and off the land that whites believed they did not and should not own. To the Klan Blacks were a inferior race and should stay that way; working for whites as a labor force. As the years went by the Klan attempted to create a hierarchy with the various chapters in the south, however the plan failed and the various chapters went on to terrorize their areas and settle feuds that were boiling. During the time of the Klan, the members acted in many differing activities. The Klan choose to ride at night and use the darkness as their ally as they terrorized the black community. When they would ride at night they often dawned white masks to mask their identity from the community, mainly for the simply reason that the members of the Klan were often high ranking officials of the military or of the community. When the Klan would ride they often targeted black political leaders as well as heads of the families, along with the leaders of the churches, and community groups because these men and women were a icon in the community. The Klan was also against blacks voting, in a matter of weeks that Klan had killed or wounded over two-thousand black voters in Louisiana before the Presidential election of 1868. By 1868, just 2 years after the creation of the Klan its activities began to fade and die down. In 1870 the government stated that the Klan was an organized terrorist group and began to indict members of the Klan. A reporter in Georgia wrote in January 1870, A true statement of the case is not that the Ku Klux are an organized band of licensed criminals, but that men who commit crimes call themselves Ku Klux.† (1) As the Klan decreased its unpopularity also shot down, in 1870 the Klan was destroyed in South Carolina and discriminated against in the rest of the south. In 1872 the Klan was completely disbanded and didn’t come back till 1915. In conclusion, the Klan was a group of men and some women that still held the beliefs that the black community was underneath the whites. They did not see them as equals and did not agree with what the north was trying to do after the Civil war. In the beginning the Klan was strong and had nearly 550,000 members that terrorized the south, but the lack of leadership and differing views ultimately led to their demise and eventual destruction of the Klan.

Real Time Video Processing and Object Detection on Android

Real Time Video Processing and Object Detection on Android Real Time Video Processing and Object Detection on Android Smartphone Abstract – As Smartphone is getting more potent, can do more superior stuffs that previous required a computer. For employing the high processing power of Smartphone is mobile computer vision, the ability for a device to capture; process; analyze; understanding of images. For mobile computer vision, Smartphone must be faster and real time. In this study two applications have been developed on Android platform using OpenCV and core library called as CamTest with own implemented algorithms. Efficiency of two Android applications have been compared and found that OpenCV performs faster than CamTest. The results of examining the best object detection algorithm with reverence to efficiency shows that FAST algorithm has the finest blend of speed and object detection performance. Next projected object recognition system using FAST algorithm, which uses SVM, BPNN for training and validation of object in real time. The application detects the object perfectly with recognition time arou nd 2 ms using SVM and 1 ms using BPNN. Keywords—Android; Video Processing; object detection; SVM; FAST corner detector; BPNN I. INTRODUCTION As Smartphone is the perfect combination of personal digital assistant, media player, camera and several other stuffs. It has entirely changed the past about mobile phone. In the early days of Smartphone application development only mobile company was able to develop. After the introduction of Android OS in 2007, Smartphone application development is high in demand. Android was developed by Google with Linux core kernel and GNU software stuffs. [16]. The introduction of Smartphone with camera Real Time video processing becomes very trendy now and having most critical computation tasks. Nearly all Smartphone applications uses a camera to use mobile computer vision technology [2]. Mobile computer vision technologies playing vital role in developing our day to day activities applications [1].This technology having many objectives like object finding, segmenting, location recognition [2]. As Smartphone processors such as MediaTek, ARM, NVIDIA Tegra, and Snapdragon are achieving more computation capability showing a fast growth of mobile computer vision applications, like image editing, augmented reality, object recognition. Long processing time due to the high computational difficulty averts mobile computer vision algorithms from being practically used in mobile phone applications. To overcome this problem, researchers and developers have explored the libraries such as OpenGL and OpenCV [2]. Application developers will face lot problems as he does not having basic idea to process real time video. OpenCV library is the solution which is written in C, C++ language, reduces the complexity for development and research [17] [2]. Real-Time recognition and detection of objects is complex and favorite area for research in the today’s fast growing mobile computer vision technology. Applications like machine vision, visual surveillance; robot navigation are the best examples [4].Object detection and recognition consist of three steps basically, first is the feature extraction, second classification and third is the recognition of object using machine learning and several other technologies [3]. Due to the growth of Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT)[10], the object detection method using matching filter changed to key point matching based object detection method [8] [10].SIFT is more focusing on invariant key point matching. On the similar concept new algorithms were born such as the Speeded-Up Feature Transform (SuRF)[11],Center Surrounded Extrema (CenSurE)[22], Good Features to Track (GFTT)[26], Maximally-Stable Extremal Region Extractor (MSER)[24], and Oriented Binary Robust Independent Elementary Features (ORB)[21], and Features from Accelerated Segment Test (FAST)[12] [4] [6] [8]. In this paper, real time video processing efficiency was find using OpenCV [17] and CamTest with support of core library. Next analyze best object detection algorithm with respect to efficiency in support with OpenCV library. Projected real time object recognition system using FAST algorithm [12], SVM [15] and BPNN [25]. All the stuffs have been conducted on LG Optimus Vu Smartphone with Android 4.0.4 OS. II. ANDROID ARCHITECTURE The Android operating system is like other Smartphone OS, with stacked structure [2][16]. Android operating system stack consist on several layers such Kernel Layer,System Libraries,Dalvik Virtual Machine layer (i.e Android Runtime layer),Application Framework layer and on top Applications layer [2][16].The Kernel gives basic funtionalities like network management memory management, process management, device management. Libraries are used for different oprations like internet security [2][16].Android Runtime consist of Dalvik Virtual Machine which is optimized for Android and provides core libraries.The Application Framework layer gives services to the installed applications in the form of Java Class Library. [2][16].Application developers takes the services of this layer for application development [2][16].Application layer is the top layer in the stack where your application will get install [2][16]. III. OPENCV IN ANDROID The OpenCV library was officially developed and introduced by Intel in 1999 to enforce CPU and GPU exhaustive application [17]. The earlier version of OpenCV was written in C[27]. From the edition 2.0 OpenCV provided both C and C++ interfaces[27]. In the next edition of 2.2 they had introduces Android port with some sample applications of image processing. Currently it has several optimized methods with the version OpenCV 2.4.9[27] [17]. IV. real time video processing methods To find and compare the efficiency of OpenCV and CamTest, each processing method of mobile computer vision was applied and average value was calculated [2]. The input format of video frame should be in standard form such as RGB space[2][27]. The input video frame to RGB conversion is done by following relation [28] R = 1.164(Y 16) + 1.596(V 128) G = 1.164(Y 16) – 0.813(V 128) – 0.391(U 128) B = 1.164(Y 16) + 2.018(U 128) (1) Each pixel of video frame is threshold with a constant number T. If it is greater than T, pixel will be set 1, otherwise 0. g(x,y) = 1, if f(x,y) > T = 0, otherwise (2) Where f(x, y) is the original frame and g(x, y) is the threshold frame. The descriptions of processing methods are shown in Table I. TABLE I. FRAME PRCESSING METHODS AND ITSDESCRIPTION V. METHODOLOGY First designed application layout using JAVA and XML. Then, the processing methods and object detection algorithms are written using JAVA and OpenCV. The tools used for designing and programming are Android SDK [16], OpenCV [17] and JAVA SDK.Application file is then installed to the LG Optimus Vu. If there are no errors, then started to measure the result regarding frame processing rate. After all the data had been collected, and the result is analyzed and compared with the theory. The Application flow is shown in Fig.1.0 and Fig.1.1 A) System Flow of Real Time Video Processing and Object Detection Algorithms No Yes Next Real Time Video Frame z Fig. 1.0: Real time video processing flow B) System Flow of Real Time Object Detection Algorithms No Yes Next Real Time Video Frame Fig. 1.1: Real time object detection algorithms flow. VI. EXPERIMENT RESULTS A) Performance of Real Time Video Processing Methods For the calculation of processing efficiency of OpenCV and CamTest is calculated by following formula. (7) The unit of FPR is frames processed per second i.e. fps. If the value of Frame Processing Rate(FPR) is high for the particular processing metohd then theat method is more efficient. Higher the value of FPR represents the method is more efficient. Table II. Shows real time video processing methods and frames processed per second by CamTest, OpenCV test. TABLE II. REAL TIME VIDEO PROCESSING METHODS AND FPS OF CAMTEST AND OPENCV TEST Frame Processing Ratio is as follows, FPR Ratio = (OpenCV FPR – CamTest FPR)/OpenCV FPR (8) As from Table II, FPR shows significant differences between OpenCV and CamTest.If there is Positive FPR ratio value e.g N, then OpenCV is 1/N times better than CamTest.If there is Negative FPR ratio value e.g –M,then CamTest is 1/M times better than OpenCV.As shown in Table III, Frame Processing Rate Ratio(average) is 0.64,leads to a conclusion that OpenCV (1/0.64 times) 1.56 times faster and better than CamTest. TABLE III. REAL TIME VIDEO PROCESSING METHODS AND FPR RATIO Fig. 2.0: Frame processing rate using CamTest and OpenCV test for eight image processing methods. B) Performance of Real Time Object Detection Algorithms TABLE IV. REAL TIME OBJECT DETECTION ALGORITHMSAND THEIR FPS Fig. 2.1: Frame Processing Rate for object detection algorithm. As shown in Table IV and Fig. 2.1, FAST algorithm is having the highest fps value and 10 times faster as compare to SIFT and SURF.The minimus fps for real time object recognition should be at least 15 fps and FAST achieves the almost same thing. So that FAST is having optimum performance in real time scenario while executing real time object detection operation. VII. APPLICATION As from experimental results shown above in Table IV, we concluded that FAST algorithm [12] is almost several times faster than other algorithms. To recognize the object in real time video FAST algorithm almost achieves 15 fps. As FAST algorithm extracts the corner features accurately and it requires less time for it. So proposed a Real Time Object Recognition system using FAST algorithm is as follows. A) System Flow of Real Time Object Recognition As shown in Fig. 3.0 Input object image is captured by Smartphone camera and it is saved to internal storage. FAST corner detector [12] algorithm is applied on the captured image to extract the features. The extracted features should have the same number and location as the viewpoint and corner changes. So the extracted features should be adjusted to the same number and it called as normalization. After the features are adjusted to the same number, weight is calculated for SVM [15] and BPNN [25] for training the features. After that feature database will get created. After the preparation of database object will get recognized in real time video via SVM [15] and BPNN [25]. As system recognizes the object it shows the feature count and recognition time on the display of Smartphone. No Input Database Yes Fig. 3.0: Real Time Object Recognition Flow A) Results The Real time object recognition system shown above in Fig. 3.0 was developed for LG Optimus Vu and Android platform 4.0.4. The development environment consist of Microsoft Windows 7 with Intel Core i3,2GB RAM,Android SDK,NDK and JAVA SDK.The object used for training was Hand Watch and training time was 102 ms using SVM and 1115 ms using BPNN.The Table V presents the recognition time for object (Hand Watch) using FAST corner detector, SVM and BPNN. TABLE V. RECOGNITION TIME FOR HAND WATCH OBJECT VIII. CONCLUSION As per the above experimentation and results, Most of the real time video processing methods executed using OpenCV having high performance with respect to efficiency than the CamTest. OpenCV gives more attention towards the efficinecy than the CamTest.As per the result obtained from the real time object detction application, FAST algorithm achieves high efficiency, almost 15 fps compared to other algorithms.For the futurescope, like to enhance the FAST algorithm in terms of accuracy.The proposed real time object recognition system gives faster and accurate recognition of object(Hand Watch) on the Smartphone using SVM and BPNN. In future would like to introduce multi object recognition, location tracking on Smartphone platforms,also like to introduce the concept like GPU and parallel computing with OpenCL. REFERENCES [1] Nasser Kehtarnavaz and Mark Gamadia, â€Å"Real-Time Image and Video Processing: From Research to Reality†, Synthesis Lectures On Image, Video and Multimedia Processing Lecture 5, 2006. [2] Khairul Muzzammil bin Saipullah and Ammar Anuar, â€Å"Real-Time Video Processing Using Native Programming on Android Platform†, 8th IEEE International Colloquium on Signal Processing and its Applications, 2012. [3] Kanghun Jeong and Hyeonjoon Moon, â€Å"Object Detection using FAST Corner Detector based on Smartphone Platforms†, First ACIS/JNU International Conference on Computers, Networks, Systems, and Industrial Engineering, 2011. [4] Paul Viola, Michael Jones, â€Å"Robust Real-time Object Detection†, Second International Workshop on Statistical and Computational Theories of Vision, July2001. [5] L. Zhang and D. Yan, â€Å"An Improved Morphological Gradient Edge Detection Algorithm†, IEEE International Symposium on Communications and Information Technology (ISCIT), Vol. 2, pp. 1280-1283, 2005. [6] O. Folorunso, O. R. Vincent and B. M. Dansu, â€Å"Image edge detection, A knowledge management technique for visual scene analysis†, Information Management and Computer Security, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 23-32, 2004. [7] D. G. Kamdar and C. H. Vithalani, â€Å"Simulation and Performance Evaluation of Edge Detection Techniques in Differential Time Lapse Video†, IEEE International conference on Computational Intelligence and Computing Research (ICCIC), 2012 [8] David G. Lowe, â€Å"Object Recognition from Local Scale-Invariant Features†, the Proceedings of the Seventh IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, pp. 1150-1157, 1999. [9] Clemens Arth, Christian Leistner, â€Å"Robust Local Features and their Application in Self Calibration and Object Recognition on Embedded Systems†, Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 2007. IEEE Conference, June 2007. [10] D. G. Lowe, â€Å"Distinctive Image Features from Scale-Invariant Key points†, International journal of Computer Vision, 60(2), pp. 91-110, 2004. [11] H. Bay, T. Tuytelaars, L. V. Gool, â€Å"SURF: Speeded Up Robust Features†, Proceedings of the European Conference on Computer Vision, 2006. [12] E. Rosten and T. Drummond, â€Å"Machine learning for high-speed corner detection†, European Conference on Computer Vision, Vol. 1, pp. 430-443, 2006. [13] E. Rosten and T. Drummond, â€Å"Fusing points and lines for high performance tracking†, Tenth IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV05), Vol. 2, pp.1508-1515, 2005. [14] Y. Hirose, K. Yamashita and S. Hijiya, â€Å"Back-Propagation Algorithm Which Varies the Number of Hidden Units†, Neural Networks, Vol. 4, pp.61-66, 1991. [15] E. J. A. K. Suykens and J. Vandewalle, â€Å"Least Squares Support Vector Machine Classifiers†, Neural Processing Letters (ICCV05), Vol. 9, pp. 293- 300, 1999. [16]K. Owen, an Executive Summary of Research in Android Integrated Development Environments, April 2011. [17]OpenCV, Open source Computer Vision library. In http://opencv.willowgarage.com/wiki/, 2009. [18] Edward Roston and Tom Drummond, â€Å"Machine Learning for high-speed corner detection†, Department of Engineering, Cambridge University, UK. [19] Y. Khairul Muzzammil bin Saipullah and Ammar Anuar, â€Å"Coparision of Feature Extractors for Real-time Object Detection on Android Smartphone†, Journal of Theoretical and Applied Information Technology, Vol. 47, 2013. [20] Y. Khairul Muzzammil bin Saipullah and Ammar Anuar, â€Å"Analysis of Real-time Object Detection Methods for Android Smartphone†, 3rd International Conference on Engineering and ICT (ICEI2012), 2012. [21] Ethan Rublee Vincent,Gary Bradski, â€Å"ORB: an efficient alternative to SIFT or SURF† [22] Agrawal M,K. Konolige,â€Å"CenSurE: Center Surround Extremas for Realtime Feature Detection and Matching†, Computer Vision – ECCV, Springer Berlin/Heidelberg,vol.5305,pp.102-115,2008 [23] Calonder M,V.Lepetit, â€Å"BRIEF:Binary Robust Independent Elemetary Features†, Computer Vision – ECCV, Springer Berlin/Heidelberg,vol.6314,pp.778-792,2010 [24] Donoser M,Bischof H, â€Å"Efficeint Maximally Stable External Region(MSER) Tracking†, IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, pp.533-560,June 2006 [25] Y Hirose,K. Yamashita, â€Å"Back-Propagation Algorithm which varies the Number of Hidden Units†, Neural Networks,vol 4, pp.61-66,1991 [26] Shi J,Tomasi C, â€Å"Good Features To Track In Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition†, CVPR 1994,pages 593-600,1994 [27] Amar Anuar,Khairul Muzzamil Saipullah, â€Å"OpenCV Based Real-Time Video processing Using Native Android Smartphone†, International Journal of Computer Technology and Electronics Engineering(IJCTEE),Vol 1,Issue 3 [28] Khairul Muzzamil Saipullah ,Amar Anuar, â€Å"Measuring Power Consumption For Image Processing On Android Smartphone †, American Journal of Applied Sciences,pages 2052-2057,2012

A Tale Of Two Cities Notes :: essays research papers

A Tale of Two Cities - Book I (Chapters 1 - 4) Summary "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness . . ." Dickens begins A Tale of Two Cities with this famous sentence. It describes the spirit of the era in which this novel takes place. This era is the latter part of the 1700s - a time when relations between Britain and France were strained, America declared its independence, and the peasants of France began one of the bloodiest revolutions in history. In short, it was a time of liberation and a time of terrible violence. Dickens describes the two cities at the center of the novel: Paris, a city of extravagance, aristocratic abuses, and other evils that lead to revolution and London, a city rife with crime, capital punishment, and disorder. In both cities, the capabilities of an angry mob were a dangerous thing, to be feared by all. The tale begins on a road between London and Dover (in southern England) in 1775. Three strangers in a carriage are traveling along this dangerous road. The carriage encounters a messenger on a horse who asks for one of the passengers, Jarvis Lorry of Tellson's Bank. They are wary, because the messenger could be a highwayman, robber, or other undesirable. However, Mr. Lorry ventures out into the rain to receive the message. He recognizes the messenger as a man named Jerry, who works for Tellson's Bank, as well. Jerry tells him to wait at Dover for the young lady. Lorry tells Jerry to relay to the people at the Bank this message: Recalled to Life. Jerry has no idea what it means and rides off into the rain. Dickens then ponders how the heart of a person is a true mystery. Lorry can tell who or at least of what class the two other passengers are. Traveling on, Lorry dozes in and out of dreams. His dreams reveal to the reader that his mission is to metaphorically dig a man out of the grave. He dreams of imaginary conversations with this man he is to recall to life. "Buried how long?" Lorry always asks. "Almost eighteen years," replies the man. Lorry brings the man in his dreams to see a woman (the young woman of which Jerry the messenger spoke). But the man does not know if he still wishes to live or if he can bear to see the young lady after having been "buried" for eighteen long years.

Writing from the Center: The New York Times and the Florida Election Dispute :: Essays Papers

Writing from the Center: The New York Times and the Florida Election Dispute The result of the 2000 Presidential election was one of the most closely contested elections in our nation’s history. Soon after the polls closed, it became apparent that the final tally between the Democratic candidate Al Gore and the Republican candidate George W. Bush would be extremely close. Network news programs broadcast on election night well into the next morning as one candidate, then the other, seemed to gain the advantage. As the election results became more distinct, however, attention turned to Florida, where less than one thousand votes separated the candidates, with Bush enjoying a tenuous lead. Over the next few weeks the Florida election dispute went through several Byzantine twists and turns, with the Gore team pushing for—and in some cases getting—recounts of Gore‑friendly counties, and the Bush forces feverishly working to declare the whole matter settled and Bush the new President of the United States. Finally, in early December, the matter went to the United States Supreme Court. The Court decided in Bush v. Gore that there were insufficient grounds for continuing the recount process and in effect declared Bush the next President. The mainstream media—including The New York Times—were fixated with the entire electoral drama, with the story usually given the lead slot on the evening news or the front page of the newspaper. Yet after the Court handed down its decision, this coverage virtually ceased except for a cursory analysis of the Court’s decision. There was little attempt to question the basis of the Court’s ruling, or whether Gore would have had sufficient votes to achieve victory had a recount been allowed to proceed. Why? The answer, it seems, lies in the â€Å"centrist† bias of The New York Times. Jeff Cohen, the executive director of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has argued that mainstream media outlets such as The New York Times emphasize â€Å"syst em supporting news† that focuses on how well â€Å"the system works† in resolving difficult situations, rather than questioning the wisdom of the system itself.1 By comparing how the Times portrayed the aftermath of the Court decision with the coverage given by media outlets on the left (The Nation, Extra!) and outlets on the right (The National Review) we will be able to see the â€Å"centrist† bias of the Times and its editorial mandate to preserve the authority and status of â€Å"the system.

Equal Employment Opportunity Complaint Essay -- Discrimination Complai

Equal Employment Opportunity Complaint In order for John to file a discrimination complaint against his employer, he is required to file a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Complaint counselor or representative of the company. Once the charge has been filed, an investigation is made, or the charge maybe selected to an EEOC program and maybe dismissed. In this case, John is given a certain number of days to file a lawsuit on his behalf. This process would have to go through several lengthy stages such as the EEOC administrative process. If gone to trial it must go through filing of a summons, response and answer, discovery process, enlisting of experts, pre-trial, actual trial and a possible appeal.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the EEOC’s Charge Process, John must go to his EEOC’s representative within this company and file a complaint. This is considered the administrative process. Pertinent information must be given about the plaintiff and defendant such as name, address and phone number, the date and a brief description of the charge. Once the charge has been filed the employer is notified that charges have been filed. The charge would be thoroughly investigated. A written description and date of alleged violation is requested again; interviews with people, documents are reviewed; and sometimes the facility is visited which the alleged discrimination occurred. As an alternative the charge may be assigned to the EEOC Mediation Program instead of an investigation, which both parties must consent to. If the mediation is unsuccessful, the charge returns back to investigation. There is a possibility that the charge be dismissed. If this is the case, John will be able to fi le a lawsuit on his behalf within 90 days.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  After given the notice of a right to sue from EEOC, John can then file a lawsuit within two years. This is where the statue of limitation comes into place. The suit must be filed within the discovery of the charge. John must then file a summons or a complaint in the appropriate court. Attached to the summons is a detailed complaint of the allegations and relief required in case. The defendant, John’s employer, will then receive the summons notifying them of the lawsuit.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  After the defendant receives the summons, they must respond by filing an answer or preliminary motion within the federal court or preliminary objection within the state court. Th... ...d other employees would benefit by becoming knowledgeable of their rights under the laws of EEOC and corrective or preventive actions would be taken to discourage discrimination. This is why it is so important that an employer must educate management, as well as, employees so that problems, such as, John’s won’t escalade to the point of a complaint being filed within the EEOC administration. Employer’s may lose, as well as, employees and may become devastating where as both parties are negatively affected. REFERENCES Bennett, Alexander, Hartman (2003), Employment Law for Business, Fourth Edition I., The Regulation of the Employment Relationship, The McGraw-Hill Companies. Bennett, Alexander, Hartman (2003), Employment Law for Business, Fourth Edition II. Regulation of Discrimination in Employment 3. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, The McGraw-Hill Companies. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Retrieved from http://www.eeoc.gov on April 1, 2004 U.S. Courts Federal Judiciary. Retrieved from http://www.uscourts.gov on April 1, 2004 Discrimination Complaint Procedures. Retrieved from http://www.lacity.org/per/EEO/discrime.htm April 1, 2004

Midterm Review for Book Creating Effective Group

Interdependence: each part relies on one another Synergy: sum of the parts is greater than the whole 2. Mutual influence: implies cause and effect are interchangeable. 3. Adaptation: an individual will change or the group as a whole will adapt to situations presented such as behaviors differences, culture differences, situational differences, skill differences, etc. 4. Equiflnality: there are multiple ways to accomplish the same goal, not Just one right way. One person can go one way; one person can go another and meet at the same end. 00What does systems thinking entail?The idea that all the parts of a group or organization are ultimately connected to one nother and hat low leverage change can shift large structures within an organization. 00What are the three basic needs that Schutz suggests motivate individuals to become members of a group, and what does each need entail? Inclusion: feel accepted into the group Control: feel some influence on the outcome Affection: feel needed and appreciated in the group 00What are the four phases of Fisher's model of group development, and what does each phase entail? . Orientation: getting to know one another, primary tension stage 2. Conflict: differences of opinion come up, secondary tension stage 3. Emergence: Focus on shared understandings, come to some agreements, establish yourself as a group 4. Reinforcement: make your decisions and implement them development theorizes, and what does each track entail? 1. Task Track: Where somebody does a task that further develops them as a unit 2. Relational track: building the relationships 3.Topic track: what are we trying to do in the first place? *Does not go in a linear fashion. 00What does the multiple sequence model of group development suggest about how group development happens? Some groups invest more time on the task track than on the relational track and ice versa. It doesn't have to go in order either. They move back and forth all along the track. You can go ahead wi th the task before the relationship is developed whereas with Fisher's model you could not.Know, recognize the definition, and be able to apply or express the significance of the following terms and concepts: Dyad: 2 people System: collection of interdependent parts arrayed in such a way that a change in one of its components will effect changes in all other components Synergy: sum of the parts is greater than the whole Task Dimensions: writing and turning in reports like suggesting on better traffic flow or construction on school days Social Dimensions: building interpersonal relationships â€Å"Kay calling Ray a dumbass† tells us that they can Joke, greeting someone *Individual roles: putting own interests before matters of the group Norm: rules that regulate behavior, things you should or shouldn't do Implicit norms: Implied Explicit norms: written out Conformity: follow the norm Clarifying the norm: making sure you understand the rule Challenge the norm: offer alternative s to the norm, question the norm primary tension: getting to know one another, orientation secondary tension: differences of opinion coming up, conflict Chapter 2: 00What does openness to self-discovery entail, and why is it important for small group communication? To know yourself- your strengths as well as your weaknesses, your beauty as well as your ugliness- is helpful in getting to know others. To be open to yourself is the first step in being open to others. 00What does accepting yourself entail, and why is it important for small group communication?You are less likely to look for other group member's approval if you accept your own strengths and weaknesses. If you accept yourself, and are comfortable admitting our weaknesses, we are more likely to accept imperfections in others as well. communication? Silencing our Judgment, condemning our mind for a while and listening to others, even if their ideas are opposite of ours. It means we overlook differences and seek similarities . Without this, interactions in groups can be rigid, intolerant, and blaming. following terms and concepts: Old learning: any idea we have about ourselves and who we think we are. The majority of these ideas come from others. They can come from the media.They tell us what who we should be and what we should want. Decompression time: taking a break from the busy every day routine for a few minutes to be alone, catch your breath, and collect yourself, making you a cheerful person again. Chapter 3: OOIn what ways is communication a learned behavior? By the age of five, most of our adult language and basic communication patterns have been established. However, throughout the rest of life, people can learn new ways of speaking, listening, and interacting with others. 00What four principles of verbal communication does FuJishin suggest to keep in mind when working in groups? It is symbolic It is governed by rulesIt defines and limits It lets us create 00What five principles of nonverbal c ommunication does FuJishin suggest to keep in mind when working in groups? It is continuous It conveys emotions It is more universal than verbal communication It is multichanneled It is ambiguous OOHow do individuals' backgrounds influence the processes of encoding and decoding? The personal history, as well as personality, gender, race, age, knowledge, experiences, attitudes, beliefs, and emotions influence his/her communication experience. Culture changes how people communicate and respond. Receivers don't lways give feedback and the sender is okay with that whereas in our society when that happens we think people are ignoring us. 00What are the four levels of communication, and what does each level entail?Surface talk – small talk Reporting Facts – not getting too personal, verifying facts; â€Å"things that Just are. † Giving Sharing feelings- Really opening up 00What does Tannen suggest about men's and women's conversational strategies in her book You Just Don't Understand? Women speak and hear a language of connection and intimacy, while men speak and hear a language of status and independence. ollowing terms and concepts: Controller- takes control of everyone Blamer- blames everyone else when something goes wrong Pleaser- pleases everyone Distractor- Joking around Ghost- doesn't do anything Communication: transactional process in which communicators attempt to influence and are influenced by others

Argumentative Speech Essay

Argumentative Speech Freedom of Speech We all know what the general meaning of freedom of speech is. But let me tell you a deeper meaning of freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is the right, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, to express beliefs and ideas without unwarranted government restriction. Speech is built in to our lives as a way to communicate with others. That’s why I believe everyone has the freedom and right to speak. Some nations still restrict the people’s right to speak. One of them is North Korea. North Korea is one of the 5 remaining countries that adopt the communist ideology. According to Wikipedia, anybody in North Korea who tries to speak to the public about the government will be sent to labor camps and be forced to work there. Worst case scenario, they get executed. North Korea is not the only country who does this. Myanmar, Nepal, and the rest of the communist countries do this as well. I believe this has to stop for all humans have the same rights and none of us are superior to anyone. It’s also a matter of honoring human rights. There has to be steps taken to ensure that freedom of speech is available to everyone. The first major movement in freedom of rights is the creation of the First Amendment. According to Wikipedia, the First Amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15 1791 as one of the Ten Amendments. I believe that from that point on, freedom of speech has been more widespread and movements like that make the world a better place. Democratic countries are the perfect examples of a country that honors the freedom of speech. In a democratic country, the people are the rulers, and the freedom of speech is used by the people to make the country better. The freedom of speech has a significant impact in our social life. For example, without the freedom of speech, we wouldn’t be able to object to something that the people think doesn’t seem right. A few months ago, the workers in Jakarta asked for a minimum wage increase because of rising prices on goods. The workers are using their freedom of speech to express their thoughts to the government. The government finally increased the minimum wages. Another example is without freedom of speech, the government would control the people. The government would make rules that doesn’t honor human rights, like North Korea. I’m sure no one wants that to happen. Some might argue that there should be huge limits on freedom of speech. That freedom of speech should be limited to our society only and that freedom of speech does not cover the right to speak about the government. But think about it, if freedom of speech is limited, we won’t be able to change rules that are made by the government. We won’t be able to change what’s wrong with the rules. A good example is the US right now. Recently the US has been discovered to spy on US citizens and other countries through the internet. This was revealed by somebody who works inside that government. If freedom of speech didn’t exist, the US citizens would have never known that their government was spying on them. But because freedom of speech exists, we are able to know. Countries shouldn’t be able to limit our freedom to speech. We know now how important freedom of speech is. How crucial it is for every one of us. We all have the right to know, we all have the right to tell. We all have the right to protest if something is wrong in the government. We might feel offended by something someone says. We might also offend someone by something we say. But the world has decided that freedom of speech is important, and it has been shown by the creation of the First Amendment. No one should be able to restrict our minds and restrict our rights to speech. There has to be steps taken to ensure our freedom to speech. So far it has been good, but we need more progress. We need to speak out our thoughts. So far the US has been the country that pushes freedom of speech the most. We all have to follow their example and push the rights to speech. I wouldn’t even be talking here if freedom of speech didn’t exist.

Women in Sports

In today’s society women are not allowed to play baseball with men due to patriarchal myths and misconceptions that have been around since the emergence of baseball in America. All women should be able to play baseball with men and there is no legitimate reason why they shouldn't. Women are physically, mentally, and emotionally capable of playing baseball just as men are. With that being said their biological sex or gender should not and does not affect their ability to play baseball in the company of men. In addition their sex should not deem their athletic ability as inferior in comparison to men.Since the adoption of baseball as an American pastime, the sport of baseball has been cultivated and altered to amputate women exuding the masculinity of baseball. The emergence of baseball as popular and profitable sport has failed to acknowledge and highlight the athletic abilities women. Instead its conception has affirmed women to be fragile and it has also depicted women to not have the skills or talents to play and compete alongside men. There are numerous individuals who are opposed to fusion of women and men on the baseball field.These individuals use demeaning stereotypes and beliefs to support their claims. Often these claims are false and are not supported by factual or scientific data. For example these claims say that women are weaker than men, women are not physically capable of playing sports, or a woman's place is in the home rather than on the playing field. These claims have been in existence since the beginning of time and have filtered into the arena of baseball. These claims are used as agencies to enforce the superiority of men and the inferiority of women.Those who are opposed to the idea of men and women playing baseball together, often defend their argument with the belief that women are not physical capable of participating in sports. In addition they often entice the belief that women are more susceptible to injury than men. This is not a valid reason to exclude women and there is an abidance of research that refutes this claim. In addition to excluding women based on their sex, the sport of baseball is connected to racial segregation. It was believed that baseball was a white man's sport and only men who were white possessed the ability to play the sport.This ideology has filtered into present society, resulting in a few number of African Americans or people of color who participate in the sport. With that being said race is absolutely a factor in whether or not women can play baseball with men. Women who are not white are seen as inferior and they are not expected to be successful in playing baseball. There are great deal of stereotypes that surround race and a person's athletic ability. These stereotypes have been around since the â€Å"Americanization† of baseball and traces of them are still evident today.Physical size and strength, the possibility of injuries, and the color of one's skin have been used as strong reasons to prohibit women and girls from entering the world of baseball, all of these claims are absurd and false, these issues should not just be associated women due to their biological sex. Women regardless of race are just as capable as men to participate in the sport of baseball. We can alleviate and erase these myths surrounding the inferiority of women and the superiority of men in the arena of sports.To solve this problem we must start early, we must preparing girls early to have the ability and skill to play baseball amongst their male counterparts. Girls are often shunned away from little league games due to the toughness, manliness, or the possibility of becoming a tomboy. In addition, it is argued that girls would get hurt playing baseball and boys would quit the team. (Ring, 2009, p. 121) The idea that girls and boys don't share the same physical abilities in conjunction with excluding girls for their protection are often used a tools to keep girls from p laying boys.Girls are expected to play the feminine version of baseball, which was constructed to limit the physical capacities of women and girls and to prevent them from acting in a manly of masculine manner. It is commonly believed that boys are better suit for playing sports and girls are not regarding their physical capabilities. There are minimal differences in the physical development of boys and girls. Boys and girls are commonly equal regarding their physical capabilities, except that boys have greater forearm strength and girls have a greater range of flexibility. With the proper training or practice these differences can be reduced.It is also argued that girls are more susceptible to injury than boys and that their bones are not as strong as boys. The claim is just as false as the others that are used to exclude girls or women from baseball. According to Dr. Joseph Trog, â€Å"any age disparity in bone strength was negligible between the ages of ages of eight and twelve, and if anything, girl's bones tend to be more resistant to breakage than boys. â€Å"(Ring, 2009, p. 123) If girls are allowed to begin training at an early age there should not be any reason why girls and women should be prohibited from competing and playing amongst men.There are barely any developmental differences between young boys or girls and if there are they can be easily overcome with proper training. â€Å"The real difference in sizes and strength show up by the middle of high school, when boys and girls are fifteen or sixteen years old. † (Ring, 2009, p. 149) This refutes the belief that young girls and boys cannot play sports together due the so called differences in their physical capabilities. If individuals who are opposed actually did research instead relying on false claims they would see that there is no legitimate reason to separate boys and girls regarding differences in physicality.Instead of playing baseball girls and women are expected to play softbal l, which is seen as inferior with respect to baseball. The association of women and softball was thought to alleviate the issue of women playing baseball with men, â€Å"It served the purpose, so much on the minds of turn-of-the-century health and education experts, of providing women with safe, nonviolent way to get exercise, and it removed the threat to baseball of contamination by female participation. â€Å"(Ring, 2009, p. 60) This exhibited the fear of men regarding women playing baseball along with them.It wasn't that women were not physically capable of sharing the field with men, they were afraid of women taking the spotlight. With that being said, we need to start modeling our young girls into the wonderful and talented baseball players that they can be, instead of allowing them to settle for sport that was developed to limit their physical capabilities. I am not by any means suggesting that girls should not play softball because some women may be comfortable playing amon gst the ranks of men.I am saying that would limit those who are interesting in playing baseball. Once a woman has surpassed the collegiate level of softball, she is not able to pursue a higher level of success in softball. The only option is the major or minor leagues which solely based of baseball. It would be extremely difficult for softball players to revert to playing baseball. The sport of softball requires just as much skill and dedication as baseball and sadly they are segregated by gender with one being superior and the other inferior.Physical size and strength are not factors in the whether or not a woman is capable of playing baseball among men. Women of any size and strength who has the proper training and dedication for the sport of baseball are just as able as any man to play the sport. Individuals opposed to women sharing the field often use the excuses that women are not as strong as men and smaller them as well. They often associate women with weakness with women, as said before with the proper training and skill women are just able as men to play baseball.With that being said women can participate in the same training programs as men and receive the same results in strength gains. According to the National Strength and Conditioning Association, a women's absolute strength is less than that of a men's, but if strength is expressed relative to fat free mass or muscle cross sectional area the difference is greatly reduced or nonexistent. (Kramer, 2004) Although there are many myths circulating that men are significantly stronger than women, scientific studies repudiate those myths.Training programs need not to be different or toned down to perpetuate the notion that women are weaker than men and that they should play separately, and train according to different guidelines. According to Robert Conatser who is a certified athletic trainer and certified strength and conditioning specialist with a master's degree in athletic training believes that tr aining and experience would make it possible for some women to succeed at the integrated game. Ring, 2006, p 148) In addition, critics of baseball often claim that a woman’s naturally small stature in comparison to most men will inhibit their success in baseball. Individuals often associate a woman's size with weakness and this feeds this belief that women are not capable of playing with men. Women who are smaller than men are just as capable if not more of performing well in the sport. In the case of baseball, size is not a factor nor is gender or sex. The performance standards of baseball should solely be based on performance and technique.On average, males are 10 to 15 percent larger in physical stature than women. (Ring, 2009, p. 149) In my opinion this is not a substantial difference between the two and therefore size should not be a factor in baseball performance. The occurrences of injuries are negatively associated with women and are used as excuses to exclude women f rom playing baseball alongside mean. According to Robert Conaster, â€Å"Part of the resistance to letting women play with men is injury prevention. † (Ring, 2009, p. 48) It is obvious that most women are smaller than men, and if injury occurs due to a collision the woman is going to be more susceptible to an injury, but that is a risk taken. I feel as though the occurrence of an injury is possible with any sport regardless of gender or size, no one is safe from any injury. Critics often say that a woman’s bones are weaker than men making her prone to the occurrence of an injury as the result of a possible collision while playing baseball. That is also used as a form of resistance to suggest that women should not play with men. Even if a women were smaller than a man, if she strong or well conditioned her muscles would protect her bones in a collision just as a man's would. † (Ring, 2009, p. 149) This supports my reasoning why women should be allowed to play with men, if they train properly, possess the skills to perform the sport well, and exhibit dedication passion there should be no liable reasons to deny them the opportunities to playing with men. â€Å"Breaking a bone is not a predictable event: it has much to do with specifics of a hit, regardless of whether the player involved is a man or a women. Ring, 2009, p. 149) It takes skill, talent, passion and sometimes luck to prevent the occurrence of any injury, For example, â€Å"The ability of a pitcher to avoid injury from a line driven streaming at him or her from sixty feet away is the result of training, reflexes, not gender. (Ring, 2009, 149) There are so many ways to get around the myth that women are incapable of playing men as result of their gender, but a as a culture we have trained to associate men with strength and power and women with weakness and submissiveness.The success or ability in a specified sport is reflection of dedication, skill, talent, and passion refuting th e idea that its related to one's chromosomes. Baseball is immersed in a great deal with discrimination, in addition to someone being ostracized based on their gender; individuals are marginalized due to the color of their skin. The sport of baseball since its inception as an American passed time has excluded those who were not white or male. This made it difficult for both women and people of color to participate in the beloved sport.Although there were separate leagues they did not receive the same praise or respect as players who were white, instead they were seen as inferiors or alternatives. With that being said race is affects whether or not women play baseball with men and it has been an issue since its rebirth in America. Race is used another form of exclusion or definitive mark of superiority. Just as woman's biological characteristics were used a weapons of exclusion, race is used as well. These reasons are supported by the cultivation of seasoned stereotypes.For example Af rican Americans are expected to be fast and only perform well as basketball players or track stars, it is often said that baseball is not suited for African Americans. Currently there is absence of women of color within teams that are only for women, this was also relevant during the Americanization of baseball. African Americans were not allowed to play among white women and they had to form their own teams. African American women and other women of color were hit a double whammy, there were not allowed discriminated against as a result of their gender and their ethnicity as well.Race is a strong determinant in whether or not a woman participates in baseball. If women were allowed to play baseball among men, there would still be an absence of women of color. Women of color are not socially expected to play baseball and they are not expected to be good at baseball. This results in the limit or absence of women of color in baseball, thus causing disparities regarding race in baseball . Therefore there is a lack of women of color sharing the field with men and white women. I think white women would be accepted more than women of color if given the opportunity to share the field with men.Besides, due to the low number of women of color participating baseball will limit the integration of women of color and men. It is widely believed that if women were allowed to play baseball with there would be a shortage of available positions for men. I feel as though women wouldn't affect the opportunities for men to play. Individuals who are capable of performing a particular position as desired should be able to play regardless of their gender and those of the opposite sex should not feel threatened especially if they are on the same team.An individual’s talents or abilities should not be labeled by their gender, especially in the case of women. Men are threatened by a woman who may perform a sport better than them and often use the excuse that women are taking their positions. Would man say to his male counterpart who just happened to be more sufficient for a particular position, I would have to say no. The integration of women and me on the baseball field does not limit the opportunities for men. If a man performs a certain position better than a woman then the man should take the field or vice versa.Skill and technique should be the only determining factors not one's gender. Women are shunned away from baseball and are provided limited opportunities to share the field with me. Our society has developed many stereotypes and ideals to keep women out of the realm of baseball, these ideals are supported by numerous arguments, most of which are completely false. Since the evolution of baseball in America women have been seen as subordinate species regarding baseball and their abilities. In addition a lot of talented female baseball players have not acknowledged in history.Their accomplishments have been diminished by feminizing remarks, these wome n are not respected. It is widely accepted that women and baseball are not compatible especially regarding the integration with men. These stereotypes and beliefs have been lingering around for centuries; it is about time they are erased. Women should no longer be denied to play and be successful at baseball, we as a culture need to uplift and support women who want to play baseball alongside their male counterparts. Women are very capable of playing baseball with men, sciences proves it and the talented women who look to play baseball exhibit it.