Explore the ways E.A. Poe uses his narrators to create a sense of terror and suspense Essay

Throughout all the stories I have read during the course of studying Edgar Allen Poe, the narrating has been fairly similar and a great sense of tension, fear and believability have been created inn all of them. The stories are all written in the first person, so it is more like a story is being told to you by some one, which makes them all more believable. In ‘The Black Cat’ and ‘The Tell Tale Heart’, it is something that drives the narrator mad that forces him to commit the murders, and in ‘The Premature Burial’ his fear, being buried alive, is driving him mad. In fact he is being driven over the edge of insanity in all the stories we have studied except two – ‘The Fall of the house of Usher’ and ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’, both in which he is nearly killed. In all of them we learn a lot about the narrator, for example, in ‘The Premature Burial’, we learn about his background, and a lot about catalepsy and his fear of being buried alive. The narrators are very descriptive of the other characters in the stories and this really adds atmosphere, and makes the reader feel as if they are part of the tale. For example, in ‘The Tell Tale Heart’, Poe describes the old man- â€Å"One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture- a pale blue eye, with a film over it.† He often uses similes and metaphors, which also helps and makes symbols using characters or objects he mentions, for example, in ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’, he describes the candles on a table, as angels, next to the jury that was about to sentence him to death by torture, as images of the devil. In all of the stories we studied, I can’t remember the narrators describing any of the other characters as ‘good’; they were all evil or bad. I don’t know whether this portrays that Edgar Allen Poe stereotyped people as bad or evil, but all of the narrators he wrote about did. The emotions that were felt by the narrators were very varied, at times they were scared, at other times, they were afraid, but whatever emotions they were feeling, they were very well portrayed and very detailed vocabulary was used. For example- ‘I was sick- sick unto death with that long agony; and when that at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me’. The emotions that the narrators felt affected the stories and the more descriptive they were, the more you could picture them and the more the story came to life in your imagination. This could be why Poe was such a successful writer. The narrators always describe their surroundings and the position they are in very well and this also makes it a lot easier to picture the story in your head. For example, in ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ the opening page is only the narrator describing, in detail, the house and it’s surroundings: – â€Å"During the whole of a dull, dark and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens.† This amount of description continues for over a page and sets the scene very effectively. You feel like you are there, almost as if you are telling the story from personal experience. All of the stories we have studied have had very good description in them and all scenes were set very believably. For another example, in ‘The Pit and The Pendulum’, the introduction is in Latin, which gives you the impression that the story was set or written a long time ago. After that, there is a long, descriptive page, setting the scene of the story- â€Å"It conveyed to my soul the idea of revolution – perhaps from its association in fancy with the burr of a mill-wheel† The narrators’ reactions to either the murders they had committed or events that were about to happen to them were different every time, unlike the narrator’s feelings about other characters, which were often similar. In ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ the narrator did not seem particularly concerned when he saw the sight of his own certain death swinging above him – â€Å"While I gazed upwards at it (for it as position was directly above my own) I fancied that I saw it in motion†. But as the pendulum dropped, his language became much more descriptive and intense – â€Å"Down – still unceasingly – still inevitably down!† It gripped you more and makes you want to read on. Maybe this is why he had so many occasions in his stories when he was irate or mad, so the reader became gripped and more interested. The endings of Poe’s stories are often the most memorable part as it is often in the last part of the story where the main murder or event occurs. For example, in ‘The Black Cat’, ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ and ‘The House of Usher’, the main event/murder is at the end of the story, with little said after it. In ‘The Black Cat’ for example, after the murdered cats and wife are found, there are only about twenty lines left of the story, which is not much, considering the huge amount of description Poe uses- † I walled up the monster within the tomb† In a sense it is really only the narrators in his stories that create all the tension, terror and suspense. If it was written in anything other than first person, the same effect would not be given and I don’t think his stories would be as good, or as effective.

Industrial Growth in the United States for 1860-1900 Essay

Many important factors helped to promote America’s huge industrial growth during the period from 1860 to 1900. Before the blossom of this industrialization, the United States consisted of mostly farms and small towns. The development of factories and urban cities soon changed all of this. The railroad system expanded and eventually turned into a goldmine for commerce in the United States. Machinery started to decrease the amount of animal labor used, which allowed the consistency and production of goods to rise. As it reached the brink of the 20th century, America had surprisingly become the world’s greatest industrial nation in history. The Civil War, caused by Southern states seceding from the Union, sparked the beginning of the United States’ industrial growth. As the war came to and end, reconstruction within the country began to take place. Many new ideas and inventions began to pop up and American business leaders recognized them. One of these ideas was a railroad that would run from coast to coast. In 1862, the building of this Transcontinental Railroad began. It was finished by 1869 and drastically increased cultural diffusion. The Republican party of the Federal Government was in control during most of the country’s industrial boom. Their platform wanted to impose tariffs, or taxes, on foreign goods to keep America’s spending within its own borders. They also supported the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. The railroad allowed goods to be sold throughout the whole country, which in turn increased production and sales. At that point in time, as well as today, time equaled money. Travel times were cut, and therefore money was raked in more than ever before. By 1900, there was almost 200,000 miles of railroad track in America. This was an increase of over 160,000 miles from 1860. The United States was â€Å"on track† to becoming a huge industrial nation. During the period of time between 1860 and 1900, there were many needs in industry. These needs included communication, natural resources, power sources, cheap labor, and applied technology. In the 1850s, 52% of all power came from animals while only 35% came from water and coal. By the 1900s, the use of water and coal more than doubled to 73% of all power sources. Many business tycoons realized his growing use of resources. One man by the name of John D. Rockerfeller created a monopoly over the entire oil industry  through his plan of Horizontal Consolidation. With this plan he was able to bring together many firms in the oil business and combine them into a single unit called a trust. Another man, Andrew Carnegie, had similar views on gaining total control of a commodity. In 1882, he used the idea of Vertical Consolidation to gain control of the growing steel industry. His business, the Carnegie Steel Company, therefore controlled every factor in the production of steel. Rockefel ler and Carnegie both became very rich men, and the United States Congress soon recognized this. They responded by drafting the Sherman Antitrust Act, which outlawed the combination of businesses that would destroy competition. As more and more people moved to the West in search of better lives, the need for communication grew. Systems of sending messages through wires and electric currents soon began to appear. These inventions were called the telegraph and the telephone. People in the West could now communicate with the friends and loved ones in the East that they moved away from. In turn, their fear of isolation soon disappeared. Although the trouble of communication was diminished, life on the job continued to be a problem. Workers demanded better working conditions. Factories soon began to run faster and more smoothly than in the past. Working conditions also improved and provided less risk of injury and strain on workers. (Document 1) Conditions were only getting better, but the need for lower wages was a growing problem for factories. Immigration rates to America began to increase. From the 1860s to the 1900s, the number of immigrants rose to over eight million people. This allowed wages for workers to go down because immigrants would work for less money. The factories could now spend more money on the production of goods. The many demands of industrial growth were met throughout America’s industrial boom. During the second half of the 19th century, the United States shocked the world by transforming into a dynamite industrial nation. It’s population increased from six million people in 1860 to over thirty million in 1900. Power sources played a major role in industry at this time. Communication devices and railroads also increased commerce. Big businesses were on the rise and American’s soon left their farms for factories. These factors helped to promote the United States’ successfully rapid industrial growth during the period from 1860 to 1900.

Monroe Versus Madison.

Corey Salva Mr. Vieira APUSH 10/15/10 Marbury vs. Madison In 1803, a single case managed to change how America's government would be run forever. In John Adams' last few days as president, he appointed a small group of Federalists into power. When Thomas Jefferson was elected into office, and he told James Madison to not bring the commissions to an appointed â€Å"midnight judge† named William Marbury. This gave the newly appointed Chief Justice, John Marshall, a great opportunity to spread his Federalist influence deeper into the American government.When Marbury found out that his commission was being held back by Madison, he sued for its delivery. This event brought about the case of Marbury vs. Madison. Marbury v. Madison was the first time the Supreme Court declared something â€Å"unconstitutional†, and established the concept of judicial review in the U. S. (the idea that courts may oversee and nullify the actions of another branch of government). The landmark dec ision helped define the â€Å"checks and balances† of the American form of government. This case influenced how the government would establish laws forever.The biggest issue in the case was whether or not the commission could be forced on its delivery. The biggest questions of the case were: does Article III of the Constitution create a â€Å"floor† for original jurisdiction, which Congress can add to, or does it create an exhaustive list that Congress can't modify at all? If Article III's original jurisdiction is an exhaustive list, but Congress tries to modify it anyway, who wins that conflict, Congress or the Constitution? Most importantly, who is supposed to decide who wins?On February 24, 1803, the Court rendered a unanimous (4-0) decision, that Marbury had a right to his commission, but Congress did not have the power to force Madison to deliver it. This seemed like a loss for the Federalist people in the government, but in fact, it changed how the government wou ld work forever. Marshall was enable to enact Judicial Review, which gave the Supreme Court the ability to determine whether a law passed by Congress was constitutional or not. This was extremely influential in America's government, for this is still in use today. Marbury was never appointed a Justice of Peace in the District of Columbia.

Crime Increases on Campus Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Crime Increases on Campus - Essay Example It is essential for students to be provided a safe and secure environment at the campus they are studying. Such a secure environment may lead to an increased interest of students in their studies as they may feel the campus to be similar to that of their own home. So in order to ensure such an environment for learning, many aspects are needed to be sought out and taken in to consideration. One such important aspect is the safety and security of the students within the campus. In order to be safe and secure a campus requires being adequately equipped with emergency accidental cases as well as the ability to curb the crimes within the campus. The mishaps of campus fierceness have appealed notice of broad publicity recently due to the increased crime rate within campuses. To address this issue there are two ways of addressing the problem. The common law is the foremost that provides regulations regarding the conduct within educational institutions. These laws and regulations are common for all campuses. Another way is the use of administrative authority of the campus to enforce its own formulated regulations to control the campus violence. Besides the authoritative enforcement, the modern technology helps in the attainment of the goal of a safe and sound environment within the campus by bridging the gaps in the security by manual monitoring (Hyland, 2003). Upon completion of project the crime rate within the campus could be declined by 90% resulting in the resolution of campus violence completely. The safe and secure environment will result in increased admissions within the campus and better results. This security plan has been tested by Central Alarm Security Systems in a violent campus within States and the quoted results were attained as the crime rate was declined by 90% within the campus. The installation of CCTV camera system will require 2 days and

Technological Determinism and Media Determinsim Essay

Technological Determinism and Media Determinsim - Essay Example (Williams) Technological determinism, attributed to Marshall McLuhan, frames questions around technology in terms on what effect technology has on culture. Marshall McLuhan when discussing media determinism states that the medium is the message. The personal and social consequences of any medium result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves or by new technology. The medium of conveying the information is bigger that the information, the information results as a consequence of the medium. He goes further to state that it is not the media but what one does with it that makes it important, makes it have consequences. (McLuhan) Raymond Williams on discussing cause and effect states that for a piece of technology to be in existence, something must have necessitated its creation. Alternatively, he states that technology occurred as a result of a sequence of events which might not have necessarily been geared toward the discovery of that piece of technology. Through all this he maintains that technology is self-generating. (Williams) I choose to look at technology as being developed with certain purposes in mind, and not in a haphazard manner as Williams tends to suggest. Taking the example of the television, one would be remiss not to see that there was a need to capture and transmit so as to occupy the time of the citizenry at the time, i.e. fulfil a particular purpose. Debates were had as to how much time one would spend watching television but none of them envisioned the impact that the television would have on their culture. (Williams) Another way to look at technology would be technological advancement brought about by the realization that the particular piece of technology would be used in a particular way. Necessity leading to invention, because of the lack thereof of a certain thing, it prompts an individual to set forth and try to come up with

Theory into Practice Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 7000 words

Theory into Practice - Assignment Example ical Limited are considered; one of which have adopted successful CSR strategies while the other could not succeed in devising relevant CSR strategies in Indian pharmaceutical industry. With the beginning of internalization and globalization, the operation in modern day business has transformed to a great extent (Asongu, 2008). The phenomenon has brought in excessive competition and complexity in the business environment; this has challenged the managers and board of directors of well-known companies to measure its overall performance in the competitive industry. Because of globalization and internationalization, the managers and boards has to track the changes that have taken place in the external environment. In order to develop a un-interruptive business environment for the companies, the managers have undertaken several Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities (Boeger, 2010; Birch and Moon, 2008). These activities have helped them to deal with the complexities that dominate the external business environment and also balance the interest of the stakeholder so as to maintain the equity investments (Birch and Moon, 2008). Over the past few decades, CSR activities have occupied a significant place in every industry across the world. The CSR activities have the capability to enhance value of the firm (Servaes and Tamoya, 2013). The project takes into account pharmaceutical industry, which is a well regulated industry. The company that is considered for case study is GlaxoSmithKline Plc. The CSR activities undertaken by GSK are discussed in the project and it is also compared with its competitors. The main motivation behind choosing the topic is to acquire in-depth knowledge regarding the companies who undertake CSR activities and explore the concept more precisely so as to examine the challenges that are related to CSR. The global pharmaceutical industry is threatened by the rule and regulations as a result it is very interesting to know how the

No one should be condemned unheard Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

No one should be condemned unheard - Case Study Example I am assuming that you were given sufficient notice and if not, you ought to have been given so that you prepare against the allegations. But the main point which you need to take in mind is that you are entitled to a prior notice before the hearing is done and before you appear for the same. (www.wikipedia.org)At the same time Paul, you need to understand that the adequate notice you are entitled to under the principles of natural justice ought to be accompanied by an explanation of the allegations which were levelled against you in the complaint, and at the same time notice about procedure for determination of the alleged misconduct should have been communicated to you to constitute sufficient notice."According to Fortescue J, the first hearing was given in the Garden of Eden". (J.J.Upadhaya, Administrative Law, Central Law Urgency, 4th edition.2001, pg151). His Lordship observed in King vs. .Chancellor, University of Cambridge. "Even God himself did not pass sentence upon Adam, be fore he was called upon to make his defence" "Adam," says God "where art you Has though not eaten of the fruits of the trees whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldn't not eat"(ibid).In the above the lord is trying to state that before any condemnation is made or a decision, which is going to adversely affect the alleged, a hearing must be given. After having been given a notice, if at all it was given to you Paul, the Institute's disciplinary committee ought to have given you a hearing. As I mentioned above, you have the right to that hearing otherwise, this must have been unfair hearing simply because you were not given that right. Paul, I have based my argument on the principle that no one should be condemned unheard (www.welfare.i.e). Before any adverse action was taken against you they ought to have given you an opportunity of being heard. "In Cooper v.Wandersworth Board of works. The Board had power to demolish any building without giving an opportunity of hearing, if it was erected without prior permission. The Board issued order under which the house of the plaintiff was demolished. The action was brought against the board because it had used that power without giving the owner an opportunity of being heard. Although the action of the board was not in violation of the statutory provision, the court held that no man can be deprived of his property without having an opportunity of being heard". (Administrative Law, by J.J.Upadahaya, Central Law Urgency, pg 170,4th edition, 2001).In the above case Paul, statutory provisions provided that demolition be done if the structure was erected illegally but the court was not of the opinion that,such action be taken without the owner of the building being afforded an opportunity of being heard. As much as the regulatory body felt that your licence should not be renewed, simply b ecause of a complaint, true or not true, the mistake committed hear is that they ought to have allowed you to defend your self by affording you a hearing. I have also had an opportunity to note that, upon reaching their decision, the regulatory body did not disclose the reason, which they relied on to arrive at their decision of not renewing your licence, Paul, and you ought to be given a reason for that. Every decision that adversely affects an aggrieved person must contain reasons supporting it. In their decision Paul, they

Reaction Paper on the book The Souls of Black Folk Essay

Reaction Paper on the book The Souls of Black Folk - Essay Example The book portrays a new direction of his thinking. He writes passionately about the spirit of African-Americans and how they have succeeded in maintaining their humanity and strength in spite of centuries of oppression of the worst kind. According to Du Bois the best, and perhaps the only way, African Americans could rise above their situation was to understand their circumstances and embrace intellectualism and. Some critics felt that he should have advocated a more aggressive kind of social change but I believe that it was the right approach. Du Bois shows how a veil has been put over African-Americans and how others are unable to see them as they are. Race prejudice is the lens through which they are viewed. It is this veil that has created "double consciousness", a situation where the blacks see themselves in two ways, one what they think about themselves and the other how others view them. Du Bois’ feels that this veil on human beings divides the identity of the blacks. He describes this situation thus:† this twoness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings . . . in one dark body.† (Du Bois, 1903) This is wrong and must be condemned. He wants the reader to understand that the African-Americans have a cultural identity of their own and all Americans must acknowledge and respect this. Some scholars felt that his concept of double consciousness is a defining moment in the history of African-American thought. Here I have to say that Du Bois’ description of how an African American feels in America is excellent. The words â€Å"He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face† are truly powerful. Du Bois through his essays wants us to realize that silent acceptance of racism

Microeconomics Questions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Microeconomics Questions - Essay Example Therefore, a product with high total revenue is less elastic than the products with less or low total revenue. Bottled water is elastic since there exists alternative or substitute to bottled water like un-bottled water which might be cheaper. Toothpaste is also very elastic since there exists very many brands of toothpaste and some people may go without using toothpaste so they consider it not so necessary. The cookie dough ice cream has inelastic demand for changes in price leads to a small change in quantity demanded. This is because the product is not a necessity. Fresh green beans have an elastic demand for it is a perishable good, a small change in price will lead to a larger change in quantity demanded. Also, given a short time period allowed for the customers to adjust to the prices, the elasticity of the fresh green beans less elastic. For gasoline, being that there exist several substitutes for the product, there is a greater elasticity of the product. That is, a small chan ge in the price can lead to a larger change in the quantity demanded. Externalities: a positive externality is the effect of a project on the people not involved in the project but in a way that is productive or in a beneficial way to those people. For example, a project to tarmac a road leading to a sugar cane plantation benefits even those who are not concerned directly with the plantation when they enjoy the goodness that comes with a tarmac road even to access market with their own goods. On the other hand, a negative externality is the negative effect of a project or a cost to those who are not directly involved in the project. For instance, a paper milling factory emits poisonous gasses and heavy compounds to the environment posing the society around to health risks. The government therefore needs to encourage and promote positive externalities by providing subsidies and reducing taxes for the materials that are used in such projects. For negative externalities, the government needs to price higher the license for starting up such projects, can impose heavy taxes, tough regulations and charges or even issue a barn order to initiating such kind of projects. For instance, for the above examples, the government needs to subsidize the road construction or remove taxes on the materials used to build the road and in the case of the paper milling company; the government should impose tough regulations such as the factory should put up a hospital to treat the affected people freely and also to carry out frequent checks on the people to find out any developing diseases from them. Others can be to force the factory to reduce their waste into less harmful gases by installing pollution control devices which might be very expensive to install or impose heavy taxes on the factory if it is necessary to exist. Short and long run: being that the customers are so many in the restaurant on a daily routine and they eat without tables brings some sense that the issue on the table is not a very urgent need that should be dealt with as a short run problem. Therefore, the restaurant can just continue making profits with the already available fixed inputs and equipment and plan to provide tables much later after the business has made enough profits. In the short run therefore, the restaurant can major on how to increase labor that is used to prepare

Irans Misty Wonders Essay Example for Free

Irans Misty Wonders Essay In Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, both the movie and the book were able to portray the main idea of Marjane Satrapi Marjis life. The main idea being for us to look at how Marji evolved into a grown women with struggles along the way. Throughout both we were able to clearly understand what a difficult childhood she lived and we were able to get a sense of what her life was like back then. Like in many cases, the book informed us of every detail possible in order to get a clearer message across. When it came to the movie, it lacked many details that were included in the book and if you would not have read the book it would cause you to be confused and lost. There are a couple scenes in the movie that seem to just happen, there was no type of development or leading actions involved. There was a specific scene in the movie where Marji and her mother walk past a conversation that her father and neighbors are having, the female neighbor seems to have some type of scar in her cheek but we are not sure what it is and if it even matters. If we take a look at the book we see that the scene is different. Marji and her family briefly talk with their neighbors, a husband and wife, and the husband tells her father â€Å"Look! A bullet almost hit my wife’s cheek,† (44). This was a piece of information that could and should have been briefly added because it gives us a bigger picture of how dangerous their lives were during the revolution. This would only help us, the viewers, have a bigger reaction to the plot. Another example that comes to mind was the absence of certain characters. The family’s maid, Mehri, as well as Marjis good friend, is never mentioned in the movie. This was an important factor because throughout an incident that is described in the book we are able to learn the big issues with social class and in the movie it is something that we miss out on since it is not mentioned at all. The incident was that Mehri falls in love with the neighbor’s son and once Marjis father knows of this he tells Hossein, the neighbors son, that she is a maid therefore Hossein decided to stop seeing her. Marjis Father explains to Marji, â€Å"You must understand that their love was impossible.  Because in this country you must stay withi n your own social class, (37). Many of the characters are also lacked full description, for instance, Mohsen, and Anoosh. From the movie all we hear about Mohsen is that he is found drowned in a bath tub and it leaves many unanswered questions such as why did it happen and who was he. In the book we know that he visited the Satrapi family the same day that Siamak visits but that is never portrayed in the movie. When it comes to Anoosh, in the movie towards the end of the story he is telling Marji, she asks if he has any family, and ends the conversation. On the other hand, in the book he tells Marji â€Å"†¦I married and had two children, two girls†¦Ã¢â‚¬  And we are also able to learn that his marriage did not turn out very well. Although, there were many details missing in the movie that were included in the book, I do not think that it takes away the intention of the book. A message is clearly stated throughout the movie as well as the book. In both resources we are able to see how the main character grows up and how her surroundings, and everything she has experienced, influence the person she became. In my personal opinion I feel as if the book was more appealing than the movie. The movie was short and brief and got to the main points of the story and was still able to get a message across. I feel as if the book was more detailed which made the plot clearer. Every character was described perfectly and every scene made sense and fell into place with the other scenes, so that they could all make sense. The details that are included in the book make the story bring more emotion to the reader for the fact that everything is explained, even the smallest details. The visual style for the movie was the same as the book, both were comics. The movie is all cartoons, which is something that I found interesting. I feel that making it into a cartoon was a smart decision because it makes it so simple and easy to follow. I enjoyed the fact that I was able to understand the movie very well, although it was in French, because many of the scenes were similar to the book. In the end, I think both the book and movie were enjoyable. What helped was that I had read the novel, before watching the movie. The lack of details and description of characters could have easily confused someone. On the bright side, a message was still able to get across through both sources.

Speaker Independent Speech Recognizer Development

Speaker Independent Speech Recognizer Development Chapter 4 Methodology and Implementation This chapter describes the methodology and implementation of the speaker independent speech recognizer for the Sinhala language and the Android mobile application for voice dialing. Mainly there are two phases of the research. First one is to build the speaker independent Sinhala speech recognizer to recognize the digits spoken in Sinhala language. The second phase is to build an android application by integrating the trained speech recognizer. This chapter covers the tools, algorithms, theoretical aspects, the models and the file structures used for the entire research process. 4.1Research phase 1: Build the speaker independent Sinhala speech recognizer for recognizing the digits. In this section the development of the speaker independent Sinhala speech recognizer is described, step by step. It includes the phonetic dictionary, language model, grammar file, acoustic speech database and the trained acoustic model creation. 4.1.1 Data preparation This system is a Sinhala speech recognition voice dial and since there is no such speech database which is done earlier was available, the speech has to be taken from the scratch to develop the system. Data collection The first stage of any speech recognizer is the collection of sound signals. Database should contain a variety of enough speakers recording. The size of the database is compared to the task we handle. For this application only little number of words was considered. This research aims only the written Sinhala vocabulary that can be applied for voice dialing. Altogether twelve words were considered with the ten numbers including two initial calling words â€Å"amatanna† and â€Å"katakaranna†. Here the Database has two parts, the training part and the testing part. Usually about 1/10th of the full speech data is used to the testing part. In this research 3000 speech samples were used for training and 150 speech samples were used for testing. Speech database Before collecting data, a speech database was created. The database was included with the Sinhala speech samples taken from variety of people who were in different age levels. Since there was no such database published anywhere for Sinhala language relevant for voice dialing, speech had to be collected from Sinhala native speakers. Prompt sheet To create the speech database, the first step was to prepare the prompt sheet having a list of sentences for all the recordings. Here it used 100 sentences that are different from each other by generating the numbers randomly. 50 sentences are starting with the word â€Å"amatanna† while the other half is starting with the word â€Å"katakaranna†. The prompt sheet used for this research is given in the Appendix A. Recording The prepared sentences in the prompt sheet were recorded by using thirty (30) native speakers since this is speaker independent application. The speakers were selected according to the age limits and divided them into eight age groups. Four people were selected from each group except one age group. Two females and two males were included into each age group. One group only contained two people with one female and one male. Each speaker was given 100 sentences to speak and altogether 3000 speech samples were recorded for training. The description of speakers such as gender and age can be found in Appendix A. If there was an error in the recording due to the background noise and filler sounds, the speaker was asked to repeat it and got the correct sound signal. Since the proposed system is a discrete system, the speakers have to make a short pause at the start and end of the recording and also between the words when they were uttered. Speech was recorded in a quiet room and the recordi ngs were done at nights by using a condenser recorder microphone. The sounds were recorded under the sampling rate of 44.1 kHz using mono channel and they were saved under *.wav format. Sampling frequency and format of speech audio files Speech recording files were saved in the file format of MS WAV. The â€Å"Praatâ€Å" software was used to convert the 44.1 kHz sampling frequency signals to 16 kHz frequency signals since the frequency should be 16kHz of the training samples. Audio files were recorded in a medium length of 11 seconds. Since there should be a silence in the beginning and the end of the utterance and it should not be exceeded 0.2 seconds, the â€Å"Praat† software was used to edit all 3000 sound signals. 4.1.2 Pronunciation dictionary The pronunciation dictionary was implemented by hand since the number of words used for the voice dialing system is very few. It is used only 12 words from the Sinhala vocabulary. To create the dictionary, the International Phonetic Alphabet for Sinhala Language and the previously created dictionaries by CMU Sphinx were used. But the acoustic phones were taken mostly by studying the different types of databases given by the Carnegie Mellon University’s Sphinx Forum (CMU Sphinx Forum). Two dictionaries were implemented for this system. One is for the speech utterances and the other one is for filler sounds. The filler sounds contain the silences in the beginning, middle and at the end of the speech utterances. The attachment of the two types of dictionaries can be found on the Appendix A. They are referred to as the languagedictionaryand thefiller dictionary. 4.1.3 Creating the grammar file The grammar file also created by hand since the number of words used for the system is very few. The JSGF (JSpeech Grammar Format) format was used to implement the grammar file. The grammar file can be found in Appendix A. 4.1.4 Building the language model Word search is restricted by a language model. It identifies the matching words by comparing the previously recognized words by the model and restricts the matching process by taking off the words that are not possible to be. N-gram language model is the most common language models used nowadays. It is a finite state language model and it contains statistics of word sequences. In search space where restriction is applied, a good accuracy rate can be obtained if the language model is a very successful one. The result is the language model can predict the next word properly. It usually restricts the word search which are included the vocabulary. The language model was built using the cmuclmtk software. First of all the reference text was created and that text (svd.text) can be found in Appendix A. It was written in a specific format. The speech sentences were delimited byandtags. Then the vocabulary file was generated by giving the following command. text2wfreq svd.vocab Then the generated vocabulary file was edited to remove words (numbers and misspellings). When finding misspellings, they were fixed in the input reference text. The generated vocabulary file (svd.vocab) can be found in the Appendix A. Then the ARPA format language model was generated using these commands. text2idngram -vocab svd.vocab -idngram svd.idngram idngram2lm -vocab_type 0 -idngram svd.idngram -vocab svd.vocab –arpa svd.arpa Finally the CMU binary of language model (DMP file) was generated using the command sphinx_lm_convert -i svd.arpa -o svd.lm.DMP The final output containing the language model needed for the training process is svd.lm.dmp file. This is a binary file. 4.1.5Acoustic model Before starting the acoustic model creation, the following file structure was arranged as described by the CMU Sphinx tool kit guide. The name of the speech database is â€Å"svd† (Sinhala Voice Dial). The content of these files is given in Appendix A. svd.dic -Phonetic dictionary svd.phone -Phoneset file svd.lm.DMP -Language model svd.filler -List of fillers svd _train.fileids -List of files for training svd _train.transcription -Transcription for training svd _test.fileids -List of files for testing svd _test.transcription -Transcription for testing All these files were included in to one directory and it was named as â€Å"etc†. The speech samples of wav files were included in to another directory and named it as â€Å"wav†. These two directories were included in to another directory and named it using the name of the database (svd). Before starting the training process, there should be another directory that contains the â€Å"svd† and the required compilation package â€Å"pocketsphinx†, â€Å"sphinxbase† and â€Å"sphinxtrain† directories. All the packages and the â€Å"svd† directory were put into another directory and started the training process. Setting up the training scripts The command prompt terminal is used to run the scripts of the training process. Before starting the process, terminal was changed to the database â€Å"svd† directory and then the following command was run. python ../sphinxtrain/scripts/sphinxtrain –t svd setup This command copied all the required configuration files into etc sub directory of the database directory and prepared the database for training. The two configuration files created were feat.params and sphinx_train.cfg. These two are given in Appendix A. Set up the database These values were filled in at configuration time. The Experiment name, will be used to name model files and log files in the database. $CFG_DB_NAME = svd; $CFG_EXPTNAME = $CFG_DB_NAME; Set up the format of database audio Since the database contains speech utterances with the ‘wav’ format and they were recorded using MSWav, the extension and the type were given accordingly as â€Å"wav† and â€Å"mswav†. $CFG_WAVFILES_DIR = $CFG_BASE_DIR/wav; $CFG_WAVFILE_EXTENSION = wav; $CFG_WAVFILE_TYPE = mswav; # one of nist, mswav, raw Configure Path to files This process was done automatically when having the right file structure in the running directory. The naming of the files must be very accurate. The paths were assigned to the variables used in main training of models. $CFG_DICTIONARY = $CFG_LIST_DIR/$CFG_DB_NAME.dic; $CFG_RAWPHONEFILE = $CFG_LIST_DIR/$CFG_DB_NAME.phone; $CFG_FILLERDICT = $CFG_LIST_DIR/$CFG_DB_NAME.filler; $CFG_LISTOFFILES = $CFG_LIST_DIR/${CFG_DB_NAME}_train.fileids; $CFG_TRANSCRIPTFILE = $CFG_LIST_DIR/${CFG_DB_NAME}_train.transcription; $CFG_FEATPARAMS = $CFG_LIST_DIR/feat.params; Configure model type and model parameters The model type continuous and semi continuous can be used in pocket sphinx. Continuous type is used for continuous speech recognition. Semi continuous is used for discrete speech recognition process. Since this application use discrete speech the semi continuous model training was used. #$CFG_HMM_TYPE = .cont.; # Sphinx 4, Pocketsphinx $CFG_HMM_TYPE = .semi.; # PocketSphinx $CFG_FINAL_NUM_DENSITIES = 8; # Number of tied states (senones) to create in decision-tree clustering $CFG_N_TIED_STATES = 1000; The number of senones used to train the model is indicated in this value. The sound can be chosen accurately if the number of senones is higher. But if we use too much senones, then it may not be able to recognize the unseen sounds. So the Word Error Rate can be very much higher on unseen sounds. The approximate number of senones and number of densities is provided in the table below. Configure sound feature parameters The default parameter used for sound files in Sphinx is a rate of 16 thousand samples per second (16KHz). If this is the case, then the etc/feat.params file will be automatically generated with the recommended values. The Recommended values are: # Feature extraction parameters $CFG_WAVFILE_SRATE = 16000.0; $CFG_NUM_FILT = 40; # For wideband speech its 40, for telephone 8khz reasonable value is 31 $CFG_LO_FILT = 133.3334; # For telephone 8kHz speech value is 200 $CFG_HI_FILT = 6855.4976; # For telephone 8kHz speech value is 3500 Configure decoding parameters The following were properly configured in theetc/sphinx_train.cfg. $DEC_CFG_DICTIONARY = $DEC_CFG_BASE_DIR/etc/$DEC_CFG_DB_NAME.dic; $DEC_CFG_FILLERDICT = $DEC_CFG_BASE_DIR/etc/$DEC_CFG_DB_NAME.filler; $DEC_CFG_LISTOFFILES = $DEC_CFG_BASE_DIR/etc/${DEC_CFG_DB_NAME}_test.fileids; $DEC_CFG_TRANSCRIPTFILE = $DEC_CFG_BASE_DIR/etc/${DEC_CFG_DB_NAME}_test.transcription; $DEC_CFG_RESULT_DIR = $DEC_CFG_BASE_DIR/result; # These variables, used by the decoder, have to be user defined, and # may affect the decoder output $DEC_CFG_LANGUAGEMODEL_DIR = $DEC_CFG_BASE_DIR/etc; $DEC_CFG_LANGUAGEMODEL = $DEC_CFG_LANGUAGEMODEL_DIR/ ${CFG_DB_NAME}.lm.DMP; Training After setting all these paths and parameters in the configuration file as described above, the training was proceeded. To start the training process the following command was run. python ../sphinxtrain/scripts/sphinxtrain run Scripts launched jobs on the machine, and it took few minutes to run. Acoustic Model After the training process, the acoustic model was located in the following path in the directory. Only this folder is needed for the speech recognition tasks. model_parameters/svd.cd_semi_200 We need only that folder for the speech recognition tasks we have to perform. 4.1.6Testing Results 150 speech samples were used as testing data. The aligning results could be obtained after the training process. It was located in the following path in the database directory. results/svd.align 4.1.7Parameters to be optimized Word error rate WER was given as a percentage value. It was calculated according to the following equation Accuracy Accuracy was also given as a percentage. That is the opposite value of the WER. It was calculated using the following equation To obtain an optimal recognition system, the WER should be minimized and the accuracy should be maximized. The parameters of the configuration file were changed time to time and obtained an optimal recognition system where the WER was the minimum with a high accuracy rate. 4.2Research phase 2: Build the voice dialing mobile application. In this section, the implementation of voice dialer for android mobile application is described. The application was developed using the programming language JAVA and it was done using the Eclipse IDE. It was tested in both the emulator and the actual device. The application is able to recognize the spoken digits by any speaker and dial the recognized number. To do this process the trained acoustic model, the pronunciation dictionary, the language model and the grammar files were needed. The speech recognition was performed by using these models in the mobile device itself by using the pocketsphinx library. It is a library written in C language to use for embedded speech recognition devices in Android platform. The step by step implementation and integration of the necessary components were discussed in detail in this section. Resource Files When inputting the resource files to the Android application, they were added in to theassets/directory of the project. Then the physical path was given to make them available for pocketsphinx. After adding them, the Assets directory contained the following resource files. Dictionary svd.dic svd.dic.md5 Grammar digits.gram digits.gram.md5 menu.gram menu.gram.md5 Language model svd.lm.DMP svd.lm.DMP.md5 Acoustic Model feat.params feat.params.md5 mdef mdef.md5 means means.md5 mixture_weights mixture_weights.md5 noisedict noisedict.md5 transition_matrices transition_matrices.md5 variances variances.md5 Assets.lst models/dict/svd.dic models/grammar/digits.gram models/grammar/menu.gram models/hmm/en-us-semi/feat.params models/hmm/en-us-semi/mdef models/hmm/en-us-semi/means models/hmm/en-us-semi/mixture_weights models/hmm/en-us-semi/noisedict models/hmm/en-us-semi/sendump models/hmm/en-us-semi/transition_matrices models/hmm/en-us-semi/variances models/lm/svd.lm.DMP Setup the Recognizer First of all the recognizer should be set up by adding the resource files. The model parameters taken after the training process were added as the HMM in the application. The recognition process was depended mainly on this resource files. Since the grammar files and the language model were added as assets, these two can be used for the recognition process of the application as well as the HMM. The utterances can be recognized from either the grammar files or language model. The whole process is coded using the Java programing language. 4.3Architecture of the developed Speech Recognition System

Verification Of Faradays First Law Of Electrolysis

Verification Of Faradays First Law Of Electrolysis My research question How can Beers law be used to verify Faradays First law of electrolysis and to determine Avogadros number and Faradays constant by electrolysis of 1.000 mol dm-3 copper sulfate (CuSO4) solution using graphite electrodes? is an indirect question to the investigation. I was always interested in verifying laws and learning about interdependence between laws. I was so keen in finding how that how the nature of one law depends upon another law as chemistry a whole subject depends upon multiple concepts. So I took this opportunity to show how one law can be proved using another law. Here in my research I have shown how Beers law can be used to verify Faradays First law of electrolysis and I have also used Beers law to determine Avogadros number. This research clearly indicates that there is interdependency between laws. In the verification of Faradays First law of electrolysis of CuSO4, we generally focus on mass of Cu deposited, but not much on color. My focus was that how to use this phenomenon / property of change in intensity to calculate mass indirectly. The same concept of absorbance in Beers law applies while determining Avogadros number. I did the experiments to verify Faradays First law of electrolysis and to determine Avogadros number in indirect manner. Indirect methods have often helped scientists to get their results better and we also have good examples for Back titration and chromatography. So with the same expectation in mind, I came with such a topic for my research. Slight modification in the experiments can really help. I did use graphite electrodes because they are cheap, it is therefore widely used in electrolysis rather than platinum as it is costly. The disadvantage for graphite electrodes is, it flakes off and therefore mass readings of Cu deposited over graphite electrode are highly unreliable. So as the result is highly unreliable, we might not get the accurate readings of the mass of Cu deposited at cathode. But if we use the colorimeter technique to find out the deposition, the mass of graphite lose in the electrolysis process is not affected. I mainly focused upon the absorbance value by the diff erence of color. Once while performing an experiment on electrolysis during my school days, I was using graphite electrodes and I noticed that graphite particles were flaking off the electrodes in electrolyte solution during the experiment. The amounts of carbon particles lost from graphite were very less and so was neglected but later I thought that it might be affecting the result in some or the other way as in the experiment we were supposed to weigh the electrodes to find out the amount of Copper deposited on the cathode. I used to think that if graphite electrodes are themselves losing some mass, then how the electrode can give accurate readings or a reliable result. The copper deposit over cathode is not strongly attached to the cathode thus there are chances that copper deposited on cathode may be lost by mishandling of the electrode before taking direct mass reading; this made me think about an alternative method which would be more accurate as well as reliable, where in the electrodes will n ot have to be removed from the experimental set-up at all! 2. THEORY I would like to start by mention something about electromagnetic spectrum as my experiment deals with Beers law which can be obtained through absorbance value. Absorbance in the colorimeter is found by setting a particular wavelength and there is different wavelength for different objects, similarly there is a particular wavelength absorbed by CuSO4. Electromagnetic radiations have frequencies and all the possible frequencies are covered in the range known as electromagnetic spectrum. The property of characteristic distribution of electromagnetic radiation emitted or absorbed by any specific object is the electromagnetic spectrum of that object. Electromagnetic spectrum has its range from low frequencies which are used for modern radio to the high frequency like gamma radiation. It covers wavelength from thousand kilometers to small fraction. The limit for the long wavelength is the universe itself and shortest wavelength is near to the Plank length even if the principal states the s pectrum is infinite and continuous which is truly acceptable. In the Vernier colorimeter we have option to select the wavelength from range 430nm, 470nm, 565nm and 635nm. According to the user guide for Vernier colorimeter CuSO4 will yield a good Beers law curve at 635nm. Therefore it says that the wavelength absorbed by CuSO4 lies in the range 635nm and I had used 635nm range throughout the experiment for finding the absorbance of CuSO4. In the study of light we have the Beer-Lambert law which is also known as Beers law and the law is related to the absorption of light to the properties of the material from which the light passes. Electrolysis is a process to separate bonded elements and compounds .The methodology followed is by passing an electric current through bonded elements and compounds. Electric current is passed through a conductor called as electrode. Electrodes are found in various forms like wires, plates, and rods. Electrodes are mainly constructed of metal, such as copper, silver, lead, or zinc. Electrodes can also be made up of nonmetal substance, such as carbon. There are commonly used Graphite electrodes which are made up of carbon. In my experiments as I have used graphite electrodes, I am indirectly using nonmetal substance having carbon. Inert electrodes do not take part in the chemical reactions for Examples, Graphite and Platinum electrodes. Active electrodes take part in chemical reactions where the anode itself produces metal ions which get discharged at the cathode for Example, Copper electrodes. I noticed that graphite rod was losing carbon particles on stirring, thats the reason why direct method to find mass of copper deposited was not adopted by me. The electrodes which I used for the experiments were Inert electrodes and I used graphite electrodes because platinum electrodes were not available and they were costly. An electrode passes current between a metallic part and a nonmetallic part of an electrical circuit. Most frequently, conductors that are metallic carry electrical current. In other circuits, however, current is passed through a nonmetallic conductor. In an electrochemical cell, an electrode is called either an anode or a cathode. An anode is an electrode at which current leaves the cell and oxidation takes place. For example, an anode is the positive electrode in a storage battery. Faradays 1st Law of Electrolysis states that, The mass of a substance altered at an electrode during electrolysis is directly proportional to the quantity of electricity transferred at that electrode. Quantity of electricity refers to the quantity of electrical charge, typically measured in coulomb. Throughout the investigation I had rounded off few of the readings to get correct significant figures. Using a colorimeter: This method is only useful if one of the reactants or products is coloured. It is a more satisfactory method than titration for two reasons: firstly, no sampling is needed, and secondly, a reading can be taken almost instantaneously. So quite rapid reactions can be followed, especially if the colorimeter is interfaced to a data logger or computer which can plot a graph of concentration versus time as the reaction proceeds. A colorimeter consists of a light source with filters to select a suitable colour (i.e. set of wavelengths) of light which is absorbed by the sample. The light passes through the sample onto a detector whose output goes to a meter or a recording device. The colorimeter usually needs to be calibrated and even I calibrated the Vernier colorimeter with distilled water before conducting the experiments. Calibration is done to establish the relationship between its readings and the concentration of the copper sulfate used. 3. INVESTIGATION My investigation was divided into three main sections, starting with verification of Faradays First law of electrolysis, secondly to determine Avogadros number and finally in determining Faradays constant. I had predicted that the results of investigating Faradays First law by direct method and indirect method will give almost the same result and I was successful in getting that. But according to my assumptions, more accurate readings can be obtained by the indirect method of colorimeter using Beers law technique. It is also useful to determine Avogadros number and Faradays Constant as the result which I got through the Beers law technique was almost near to the true value of Avogadros number and Faradays constant. 3.1 APPARATUS AND MATERIALS Beakers (250 cm3 ÃÆ'- 1) Volumetric flask (100 cm3 ÃÆ'- 5 and 1000 cm3 ÃÆ'- 1) Measuring Cylinder (100 cm3 ÃÆ'- 1) Digital Weighing Balance Graphite electrodes Copper sulfate (CuSO4) Ammeter (0-500mA) Rheostat (0-500 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¦) DC variable voltage source (0 12 V) Vernier labquest colorimeter Cuvette 3.2 CIRCUIT DIAGRAM OF EXPERIMENTAL SET UP The above shown diagram represents the electric circuit diagram of the entire experimental setup. A DC variable voltage source (0-12 V) was used as a battery. Rheostat was use to control the current coming from the battery because I was recording the Ammeter readings and I wanted the readings on the Ammeter to be constant throughout the experiment. I used Rheostat because the Ammeter reading was fluctuating and not remaining constant. The positive terminal of the battery was connected to the one end of Rheostat and the negative terminal of the battery was connected to the cathode. The connections were made in series as it was suppose to be for this experiment. The experimental set up was not disturbed during the electrolysis. During the investigation, there goes a chemical reaction within the experimental setup for the electrolysis of copper sulfate. Below are shown the reactions using graphite anode inert electrode. At cathode: Cu2+ + 2e- à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ Cu At anode: OH1- 1e- à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ OH x 2 [2OH à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ H2O + [O] ] 4OH à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ 2H2O + O2 Product at anode: Oxygen gas 3.3 PREPARATION OF SOLUTION Preparation of 1 dm-3 of reagents: The salt which I used in preparation of solutions was Copper sulfate pentahydrate, we commonly call it as copper sulfate. The molar mass of CuSO4.5H2O is 249.68 gmol-1. Therefore, to prepare a 1.000 molar of CuSO4 solution, I took 124.84 g of CuSO4 weighing upon a digital balance and then I diluted 124.84 g of CuSO4 in 500cm3 of distilled water. I had used distilled water to dilute the chemicals and to clean the apparatus rather using tap water because distilled water is more pure and using tap water can affect the result as it can indirectly react with the chemicals used for the experiments. It was very difficult to dissolve CuSO4 by using glass rod. Therefore, I had used magnetic stirrer to dissolve the crystals of Copper sulfate in distilled water. It was very time consuming in dissolving CuSO4 in distilled water but within few minutes the 500cm3 solution of 1.000 molar of CuSO4 was ready. From that 500cm3 of 1.000 molar of CuSO4, I prepared different 100cm3 solutions of concentration 0.8 molar, 0.6 molar, 0.4 molar and 0.2 molar. The volumes of Copper sulfate and Water in the different molar solutions are given in the below table: Concentration ( ±0.001 mol dm-3) Volume of CuSO4 ( ± 0.05 cm3) Volume of H2O ( ± 0.05 cm3) 1.0 mol dm-3 100 cm3 00 cm3 0.8 mol dm-3 80 cm3 20 cm3 0.6 mol dm-3 60 cm3 40 cm3 0.4 mol dm-3 40 cm3 60 cm3 0.2 mol dm-3 20 cm3 80 cm3 3.4 VERIFICATION OF BEERS LAW Beer in 1852 studied the effect of absorption of light on the concentration of solutions and found a similar relationship. Beers law states that when a parallel beam of monochromatic light enters an absorbing medium, the rate of decrease of intensity of the light with concentration is directly proportional to the intensity of radiation. Alternative statements can be expressed thus: When a parallel beam of monochromatic light passes through an absorbing medium, the intensity of transmitted radiation decreases exponentially as the concentration of the absorbing species increases arithmetically. Successive layers of equal concentration and thickness absorb equal fraction of incidental radiation. The readings for my Beers law experiments are as follows: Concentration ( ±0.001mol dm-3) Transmittance (%T) Absorbance ( ±0.001) 0.0 100.04 0.000 0.2 25.92 0.586 0.4 8.17 1.088 0.6 3.02 1.520 0.8 1.33 1.875 1.0 0.97 2.015 The graph which was obtained for Beers law: The graph was taken from vernier colorimeter using logger pro software to get the accurate readings for the absorbance of CuSO4. Here I observed a curve in graph and I felt that this abnormal for Beers law but later when I searched the reason for this, I got satisfactory answer as I was not gone wrong. Beers law is true for dilute solutions and therefore it is sure to obtain a straight line graph for dilute solutions. In the cases of highly concentrated solutions we get a curve which flatters if extended further due to the high concentration. This is the same case with my Beers law graph because the solution of CuSO4 was much concentrated. Deviations from Beer Lamberts Law: According to Beer-Lamberts law, absorbance A is directly proportional to concentration c. Thus, a graph of Absorbance v/s concentration should give a straight line passing through the origin. Often we find that the graph is not linear, and deviations occur. If the straight line curves upwards or downwards it indicates positive or negative deviations respectively from Beer Lamberts law. Deviations from Beer-Lamberts law a : no deviation; law is valid b : positive deviation c : negative deviation I got negative deviation for my Beers law graph. Negative deviation is shown in the above graph with option c. The Negative deviation in the graph was expected as the CuSO4 solution was highly concentrated. Deviations fromBeer-Lamberts law can be of three types: Real deviations: which are fundamental in nature. Instrumental deviations: which arise as a consequence of the manner in which the absorbance measurement is made. Chemical deviations: which arise as a result of chemical changes associated with concentration changes. The deviation which I got in my Beers law graph was Real Deviations and such deviation occurs due to Effect of concentration. The Beer-Lamberts law is valid for dilute solutions only. If the concentration of the solution is more than 0.01 M, Beer-Lamberts law does not strictly hold well, and deviations occur. At higher concentration, the molecules of the absorbing species come closer to one another, and due to this, charge distribution of neighboring molecules is affected. This results in an alteration in the ability of the species to absorb a particular wavelength of radiation. The extent of interaction depends on the concentration of the solution and therefore deviations are observed in concentrated solutions. The molar absorptivity à Ã‚ · depends on the refractive index of the solution. If the solution is too concentrated it refractive index changes and thus à Ã‚ · changes. This causes deviations from Beer-Lamberts law. This effect is negligible in concentrations

Essay --

Stalin’s Rise What effective tactics did Joseph Stalin use to rise to power? Emily Goetz 3-10-2014 Word Count 4th hour Question: What effective tactics did Joseph Stalin use to rise to power? Thesis: Over the course of several years, Stalin consolidated his power through the use of political scheming, maintaining a respectable image, and by out-maneuvering his opposition in the Communist Party. A. Plan of Investigation: Over the course of several years, Stalin established his power through the use of political scheming, maintaining a respectable image, and by out-maneuvering his opposition in the Communist Party. Stalin’s rise shows the importance of how political figures maneuver their way to the top and how a dictator achieves legitimacy. In the future, when leaders are rising, they can be compared to Stalin’s and stopped if there are close similarities in ruthlessness. This paper is narrowed to Stalin’s rise to better elaborate on several of the tactics Stalin used to obtain power. I need to find videos from history to show what Stalin was like physically around others. I need to locate speeches, and perhaps recording by other party members about Stalin to show Stalin’s ruthlessness. B. Summary of Evidence: Stalin was drawn into the city’s revolutionary circles after â€Å"discovering the works of Karl Marx† (McKinney). In 1903, the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party split into two, known as the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. Stalin joined the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin. Between â€Å"1902 and 1913 Stalin was arrested and sent into Siberia seven times† (Haugen). Between exiles Stalin continued work for the Bolsheviks and met Lenin for the first tim... ...de sure to give only those who agreed with him any power, and eventually Congress was filled with a majority of Stalin supporters. When Stalin’s opponents took the left side, Stalin took the right and vice versa. As a result, Stalin maneuvered his way into the Party so much that he practically guaranteed his own success as Lenin’s successor. By the time the Party's core realized what had happened, it was too late, and the only person with the authority to challenge him, was on his deathbed and incapable of speech after a series of strokes. Stalin took down Leon Trotsky and in 1925, and forced Trotsky to resign from the party. Stalin exiled Trotsky from the Soviet Union in 1929, and had him assassinated in Mexico in 1940 (Stalin). Stalin knew how to use his position as an advantage, even to the point of abusing his powers, so they he could defeat his opponents.

Betty Friedans The Feminine Mystique and Sue Kaufmans Diary of a Mad

Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique and Sue Kaufman's Diary of a Mad Housewife Bettina Balser, the narrator of Sue Kaufman’s Diary of a Mad Housewife, is an attractive, intelligent woman living in an affluent community of New York City with her successful husband and her two charming children. She is also on the verge of insanity. Her various mental disorders, her wavering physical health, and her sexual promiscuity permeate her diary entries, and are interwoven among descriptions of the seemingly normal and easy routine of a housewife. Betty Friedan, in writing the Feminine Mystique, describes the plight of millions of American women directly parallel to that of Bettina’s. Through her exhaustive research and interviews, Friedan documents extensive evidence of the adverse effects of â€Å"Occupation: Housewife.† The women she speaks with are all like Bettina: they lead desirable, healthy lives on the surface, and yet they are slowly deteriorating inside. Friedan discusses the effects of the unnatural and illogical mirage of femininity forced upon women, and analyzes why being just a housewife is not enough. Bettina’s situation will be analyzed through Friedan’s theories on the feminine mystique. Despite her misery, Bettina Balser is quite aware of how blessed she is to have the life of which millions of women can only dream. She begins her diary with a long catalogue of all of the things she should, in all reason, be grateful for: â€Å"Shall I say the obvious, the thing I’ve told myself every day for weeks- that I know I’m a Very Lucky Girl, and really must be crazy to get into the state I’m in these days, when I have everything A Girl Could Want? I have two bright, healthy, attractive children†¦ I have... ...e the nervous tics, the various phobias, the alcoholism, and the insomnia, Bettina survives through to the end of Diary of a Mad Housewife. Bettina made it through ten years of marriage in the inhumanly confining role as a housewife because she was able to hold on to ideas that made her Bettina Balser instead of just a housewife. Bettina is an outstanding woman when compared to the millions of women described by Friedan whose creativity and individuality was wasted on living solely as a wife and mother. However, Bettina also embodies the disastrous effects that the feminine mystique debilitated American women with during the 1950’s, as profoundly described by Betty Friedan in the Feminine Mystique. Works Cited Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. New York: Norton, 1963. Kaufman, Sue. Diary of a Mad Housewife. New York: Random House, 1967.

Environmental Impacts of Airport Operations

Lutehr’s article focuses on the importance of understanding the environmental impacts of airport operations at both local and international level.According to Lutehr, only by having senior airport management develop such understanding would help in improving environmental quality and relations with airport neighborhood and stakeholders. Lutehr further argues that Airport management should ensure that various stakeholder groups are involved in matters pertaining to airport pollution and therefore agree on ways of pollution control.The most important stakeholder groups include airport neighborhoods that get affected by pollution and airlines whose activities lead to the pollution itself. Lutehr states water quality, noise, and air as the main forms of pollution emitted from airports and should therefore receive special and utmost attention.The author has improved his arguments through in depth research. For instance, he has borrowed heavily from EPA (Environmental Protection Age ncy) regulations concerning pollution. Luther has supported his arguments at two levels. The first one regards what should be done during the planning (construction and expansion) session and during the actual airport operation period.I completely agree with Lutehr’s arguments considering the impact of airport pollution. Most importantly, Lutehr has pointed the importance of brainstorming of possible pollution even before airports are constructed or expansion projects are undertaken. In other words, feasibility studies of pollution should be undertaken when airport construction and expansion plans are underway.This would ensure inclusion of pollution control plans in airport operations. As a stakeholder in airport pollution, I find myself well convinced by Lutehr’s arguments, especially considering the wide body of knowledge that supported his assertions. The author has indeed done a good job of convincing readers.ReferencesLutehr, L. (2007). Environmental Impacts of A irport Operations, Maintenance, and Expansion. Retrieved July 10, 2009, from http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33949.pdf.Wayne, L. (2009). Airport Projects Delayed or Canceled. Retrieved July 10, 2009, from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/business/23airports.html?_r=4&src=twt&twt=nytimestravel&pagewanted=print

Semantic and phonetic interference in memory recall

Additionally, a significant difference was visible between all three conditions, with the semantic and honesty conditions scoring a lower recall level in comparison to the controlled condition. Introduction The active difference between short-term memory and long-term memory is anything but exact. Although, there is an understanding that long-term memory is being examined when a list is displayed several occasions over an interval of time calculated in minutes and recalling is measured after minutes, hours and days, and short-term memory is being examined when a list is displayed once and at a rate of fewer than 30 seconds.Within cognition a key question is whether information is forgotten due to a function of time. A strong amount of research proposes that information is not forgotten due to time, but as a result of interference (see, e. G. , Lavabo, Annoys, & Masters, 2002; Neat & Surprising, 2003; Bureau & Kiel, 2006). However, many academics have thought that unrehearsed informat ion is forgotten over several seconds (e. G. , Biddable, 1986; Tows, Hitch, & Hutting, 2000), since supported theories (e. . , Biddable & Scott, 1971; Cowan, Nugent, Elliot, & Greer, 2000; Mueller, Seymour, Sierras, & Meyer, 2003). The matter continues to be uncertain. Our skill to selectively remember earlier information is a vital specs of our long-term memory system. Prior research proposed that in many circumstances individuals have the ability of selectively seeking information in memory, preceding to their subsequent remembrance.Even with research for this skill to selectively seek information from our memory, we still do not have much information on how we actually achieve this complex task. Able and Bump's (2013) research focuses on participants revising items from different categories and then continually recalling specific items from specific categories, recall rehearsal normally increases recall of he rehearsed information although impairs retrieval of associated but unre hearsed information, relative to manage information from unrehearsed categories.The results displayed the belief that memory impairment following extended intervals between practice and test and in the occurrence of retroactive interference. In opposition, both the rehearsed and the related unrehearsed information displayed barely any failure to remember under these conditions. Unshorn, Brewer and Spillers' (2013) conflicting study observed the impact of proactive and retroactive interference on memory Argentina, examining how individuals concentrate their search on a target list when accompanied by proactive or retroactive interference.Results showed that long-term memory targeting is steered by noisy temporal-contextual cues (unless other salient cues are current) that trigger equally relevant and irrelevant memoranda that are then exposed to a post recovery supervising process; these findings challenge the results from Able and Bump's (2013) study. This research among other findi ngs (see, e. G. , Lavabo, Annoys, & Masters, 2002; Neat & Surprising, 2003; Bureau & Kiel, 2006; Unshorn, Brewer & Spillers', 201 3) motives the present study.This research examines not only the question of whether there will be a difference between semantic and phonetic interference during memory recall, but also if the results will show a significant difference between the retroactive interference conditions and the controlled condition. Additionally, this study has also been motivated due to there not being prior research comparing semantic interference and phonetic interference in memory recall. The hypothesis of this study is there will be a significant difference between semantic interference and phonetic interference in memory recall.Methods Design In this experimental study, a between participant design was utilized to examine the difference between the effect of semantic and phonetic words on the memory recall of a list of words. The independent variable was the type of ret roactive words used (semantic and phonetic). The dependent variable was the amount Of items correctly recalled from a list Of 1 5 words. Participants A sample of 30 student volunteers were employed from Nottingham Trend University, ASK. 15 male and 15 Female participants were used, in an age angel of 18-21 years old.The mean age of the participants was 19. 5. Materials The stimuli consisted of a list of fifteen words. All three conditions consisted of the same fifteen words, although condition two consisted of another fifteen semantic words (See Appendix Two) and condition three consisted of another fifteen phonetic words (See Appendix Three). One mark was awarded for each correct memorized word. Procedure All student partakers were separately put in a room where they were requested to complete a consent form prior to partaking in the current study (See Appendix Four).The partakers were presented with presentation slides matching to their condition. Partakers in condition one were e xplained, The next slide will display fifteen words, they will appear for four seconds each, separately. Please memories as many words as you possibly can'. A one minute interval was given then partakers were asked to recall as many words as they could on paper. Partakers in condition two and three were explained, The next slide will display fifteen words, and you will then be shown another 15 words, they will appear for four seconds each, separately.Please only memories words from the first slides shown'. A one minute interval was given then partakers were asked to recall as many words from slide one as they could on paper. Condition two's second set of words were semantic words and condition three's second set of words where phonetic. One mark was given for every correct word recalled. After the task was finished, partakers were asked if they had any questions before being debriefed about the study. Rest Its Table 1 shows the mean number of words correctly recalled, standard devia tion and range for each condition.The findings show that those in indention two (semantic) and condition three (phonetic) recalled less words than in the controlled condition. Additionally, there was a significant difference from those in condition two (semantic) and condition three (phonetic). Therefore, it is clear that retroactive interference had an impact on number of target items being correctly recalled. Table 1 : Descriptive Statistics for scores on the number of words correctly recalled in each condition. Mean SD Ra Eng Condition 1 10. 60 1 . 34 10 Condition 2 Condition 3 9. 20 7. 10 1 . 03 1 . 6 A one-way NOVA was carried out to compare condition one; a list of 15 rods (mean = 10. 60, standard deviation = 1. 34), condition two; semantic words, (mean = 9. 20, standard deviation = 1. 03), and condition three; phonetic words, (mean = 7. 10, standard deviation = 1. 86) on the number of words that were correctly recalled. The results showed there was a significant difference be tween the groups, F(2, 27) = 21. 54, p = 0. 001 Post hoc analysis, using Bonfire corrected appraise comparisons, found that all three conditions had a significant difference in comparison to each condition.Discussion The results from the descriptive statistics (see table 1) were fairly draughtswoman, representing a distinct interference in relations of both semantic and phonetic interference. Particularly, in comparison to the controlled condition, condition two and three were associated with lower recall levels, suggesting that the presence of a non-target list presented after the target list interfered with the recall of target items. Additionally, as put forward by Shuffling (Bibb), retroactive interference effects were of a comparable scale across the measures of importance.These findings are consistent with the previously stated hypothesis drawn upon in the introduction that there will be a difference between the semantic and phonetic interference on memory recall. Supporting r esearch (Unshorn, Brewer and Spillers, 201 3) suggests that participants can usually mentally recall the information from the target list, however due to a certain amount of doubt regarding which items were really shown in the target list in relation to the interference list, participants create a wider selection to make sure that the target items will be incorporated in the search set.Therefore, likelihood of accurate recall is lowered when recollecting from the target list (controlled indention) due to non-target list items are added in to search set. Also, this interpretation calculates that the search set will be placed on the target list, although items shown in close time-based proximity to the target list will likewise be added in the search set. Overall, this concept is very much consistent with our findings.Future research is required to grasp an improved understanding with regards to the conditions wherein the search set can and cannot be focused on only target items, the procedures that are employed in order to recall context for events while trying to avoid only pending solely on the present context, and how partakers utilizes context to observe the results of retrieval and how this affects managing decisions during recall.

Pride and Prejudice: Women and Social class in the Regency Era Essay

Women were not considered to be equal to men. Women were regarded as being more fragile, mentally and physically, than men, and in need of care and protection. Wives were expected to defer to their husbands. Women laboured under certain legal disadvantages. When a woman married, for instance, any property she owned or any moeny she earned or ineherited automatically belonged to her husband. A husband could divorce his wife for adultery (though even for a man,divorce was difficult to come by, and carried a strong social stigma) but a woman could not divorce her husband even if he was cruel, deserted her etc. It ws possible to obtain a legal seperation, but that ws very difficult to come by. For upper or middle class women who needed to earn a living, teaching was one of the very few respectable options, and to be a teacher was not regarded as a particularly desirable occupation. A woman who became a teacher might be a governess (teaching the children of one family in their own home) or she might be a teacher in a school. Universities did not admit women at this time, and there were no female university professors, nor could women be doctors or lawyers or go into the church. The standard of education in girls’ schools was very variable, most concentrated mainly on fashionable accomplishments like dancing, music, French, and drawing, but some had more demanding curriculums. Mary Russell Mitford (who was a few years younger than Jane Austen) went to a school that taught Latin and Astronomy as well as the more usual subjects. And there were books aimed at girls which offered more challenging subjects. for instance, an immensely popular book in the Regency era was ‘Conversations in Chemistry’ by jane marcet, which taught chemistry in the form of conversations between a governes.s and her two pupils. This book was extremely popular and went through many editions. It was intended mainly for girls, but was read by men as well, the scientist Michael Faraday said that it was one of the two books that had influenced him most in his life (the other was the Encyclopedia Britannica). However, as you can see from reading the novels of Jane Austen, gentlemen were expected to treat ladies with respect. Most girls of the upper and middle class expected to stay at home until they married, but most were probably quite happy with this. It was not usual in those days for people to work unless they really needed to. This applied to men as well as women, a gentleman like Mr Darcy or Mr Bingley for instance would not expect to have to work for a living, any more than most women of their class would. Relations between men and women were often very good, for instance you can see from the letters of jane Austen that she had a lot of affection for her brothers, and they for her. It was different for working class women of course. They, like working class men, would be expected to work for a living from an early age. One of the commonest forms of employment for women in this period ws domestic service. Almost everyone who could afford it kept at least one servant, and a wealthy family might have dozens. One of the very few working class characters in Jane Austen is the housekeeper at Pemberley (mr Darcy’s home) who speaks about him so warmly when Elizabeth and her aunt and uncle visit the house. The housekeeper was the most important female servant in a large household, and she would be in charge of all the other servants, give the orders as to what they were to do, manage the household accounts etc. It was a responsible and important position. The fact that Elizabeth Bennet is impressed by the housekeeper’s good opinion of Mr Darcy shows that a servant’s opinion of her employer could be a valuable guide to his character.

Aids in India

Why is the A.I.D.S. epidemic prevalent in India? There are several factors that contribute to the spread of the disease but in my opinion, two are more pronounced than the rest. Prevailing cultural practices and economic factors would count as one. This will prove beyond a doubt that my observation is acceptable, as the factors below would reveal.If we observe the geographical boundaries of India, it appears that the AIDS epidemic is more concentrated with the Southern provinces than it is in the North. The reason of course is the disparity in the context of economic conditions.While the South enjoys a much better standard of living, it likewise becomes more susceptible to the spread of the AIDS virus. Remember that AIDS/HIV transmission transpired first in more advanced urban centers like the West and East Coast of the United States (Atwal & Alexander).In India, the epidemic follows the same route; the influx of migrant workers is a take off point. Naturally in the course of their s tay, they are bound to have a casual rendezvous with the local sex workers. This is typical with workers coming from the Northern States (Uttar Pradesh) for example enters Mumbai to become part of the labor force, so in effect they are the source of HIV transmission.This phenomenon likewise limits the spread of the disease to the Northern States because said migrant workers stay indefinitely and often postpone trips back home, thus delaying the transmission of the virus to their wives (Atwal & Alexander).Another factor that definitely promotes the spread of HIV points to the cultural upbringing of the populace. Did you know that sex, as a topic, is taboo to most in India? Moreover, discussion of sex in public is inviolable where age-old traditions of the religious denominations abhor even the slight mention of the word. So what happens next (Indo-Asian News Service)?Besides, the majority of the population are illiterate and unschooled, so you can rule out the possibility of educatin g them on the merits of HIV prevention. Culture further contributes by keeping residents mum about the disease.Even though the symptoms manifest in them, still they refuse to enter treatment centers because of the stigma that is likely to follow. Even monogamous women become inflicted with the HIV virus, simply because their partners have illicit affairs with other women. In fact there the incidence for HIV is higher in women (Frith).Due to these cultural barriers, health workers cannot educate the majority and up to this day, inhabitants still practice unsafe sex where low condom use has been found responsible for 84% of reported cases.Migration and mobility – due to economic reasons, workers prefer to extend working hours that keep them away from a healthy social environment surrounded by their families and community. This eventually puts them at risk, being prone to unusual behavior (â€Å"Preventing HIV/AIDS in India).Recent studies indicate that a number of drug users t oday are switching from the inhalation to the injection of drugs, which is relevant to HIV transmission that is more often triggered by the use of unclean needles and syringes. Infections have also been attributed to the low status of women under the norms of Indian society.Given unequal power in relations as well as limited access to human, financial, and economic assets weakens the stance of protection in the context of demanding safer sex, thereby increasing the risk (â€Å"Preventing HIV/AIDS in India).The ethnic composition in India is likewise a big factor as the population has roughly 800 million Hindus and 150 million Muslims. This is vital because these religious sects never practice circumcision. And the health manuals are explicit in the assumption that circumcision indeed can reduce health risks, the risk being seven times for uncircumcised males (Russell).As mentioned above, aside from economic factors that helps spread the virus, cultural leanings as well helps to hid e the actual incidence of HIV transmission. Government figures are so low that they seem to downplay the seriousness of the situation.Even President George Bush of the United States has been disheartened by the fact that India shows no interest and restricts the outside world from helping curb the AIDS epidemic. That is the reason why the United States’ campaign against AIDS has been transferred to Vietnam (Russell).As of today, 22 million lives worldwide have been lost to the HIV/AIDS virus and most of these casualties originated from Southern Africa. Will India be next? All indicators point out to India to likely suffer the same fate, as 200 million of its population are already infected with the virus and a little over 5 million are actually suffering from a full blown AIDS infection (Indo-Asian News Service).When will HIV/AIDS reach uncontrollable proportion? The HIV/AIDS situation in India is starting to manifest its ugly head through government neglect and unsound progr ams. Detailed below are the failed attempts of the government as well as the unfruitful intervention of NGOs and private foundations in the drive against the spread of HIV/AIDS in India.The sub-Saharan region of Africa already registered 13 million deaths due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic while another 25 million are reported be infected with the virus. Recent reports from other countries once categorized as heavily infected have shown signs of abating (Beaubien).Thought of as the main reason for the onset of the AIDS epidemic happens to be poor rain conditions that have made a significant impact on local harvests; adding most likely to the severe food crises.During its heyday, the African epidemic pulls out healthy and productive workers from the fields due to sickness or to aid in the care for a sick relative. And due to this shortage apart from the desire to avert hunger, some women traded sex for food, which thereby increases the risk further.Africa has the highest rate of HIV infect ion in the world to date, but not anymore because as mentioned, figures could be deceiving (Evers).Given the present rate of HIV infection in India, the number for AIDS could reach a total of 25 million by the year 2010 to eclipse the cases registered in Africa. That is if the Government in India would disregard all efforts to curb the disease.The government should accept the fact that the infection has reached epidemic proportion, so a world effort from the United Nations, donor countries and NGO’s could help thwart the virus in its tracks (â€Å"World AIDS News†).A medical expert from India, Dr Ishwar Gilada presents a bleak assessment of the situation. Sooner or later, India will be home to half of the world’s HIV-infected people with around 200 million of its population infected with the virus, of which around 10 million already contracted a full-blown status where roughly 1 million patients have already died.And if the Government fails in its endeavor to co ntrol the epidemic, then the projected 25 million cases could be expected in the next two years (â€Å"World AIDS News†).The projection is bleak indeed since the Global Fund intended for the prevention of AIDS urgently needs some 700 million dollars to support its outlined projects. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for example has pledged 200 million dollars in its India AIDS initiative.The grant will be used to help support HIV prevention measures in the Indian States of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Manipur and Nagaland (â€Å"World AIDS News†).What has the Government done so far? India’s fight against AIDS started in 1992 through the World Bank-financed National AIDS Program. The effort was nationwide in scope that set-up AIDS control offices in 32 states and union territories.The program somehow increased access to information, education and communication programs, using media and regular communication mediums such as folk music, festivals, HIV consciousness campaigns and even elephant parades to broadcast the risks involved in HIV (â€Å"India: Stemming the AIDS Epidemic†).Other Government initiatives include blood safety measures or the mandatory screening conducted by most blood banks, which banned professional blood donations while promoting it as voluntary and systems-wide strategy to improve blood banks services.All these somehow raised public awareness on the evils of HIV/AIDS, informing around 80% of the population; 64% in the countryside, particularly the high-risk group.Some positive observations have already been stipulated with reports coming from the states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal, all presenting encouraging feedback for their HIV programs (â€Å"India: Stemming the AIDS Epidemic†).There are still persistent reports that the Government effort does not suffice with the continued rise of the HIV/AIDS. The information drive and prevention measures seem to have failed in its drive to educate t he majority.The think-tank in New Delhi failed to show remarkable strides in the desire to contain the epidemic. The world may just as well brace for a 19% full-blown AIDS infection rate by 2020 or that would be around 200 million cases.

Tourism in Mexico Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Tourism in Mexico - Essay Example Mexico’s temperature and unique culture, which is a blend of European (predominantly Spanish) and Meso-American cultures, make good tourist attraction. Tourist season peaks during mid-summer, December, Easter holiday and Spring Break. Tourist season is not without brief surges over winter. WTTC notes that Mexico’s tourism consumer segment comprises mostly college and university students from the US and Canada. It indicates as well a burgeoning consumer segment of local tourists with the emergence of an affluent middle class in Mexico. Mission Statement According to Mexico’s Tourist Board, the mission statement is to elevate the country’s attractiveness to tourists through addressing a wide range of tourist needs. The goal is to make Mexico the leading leisure tourism destination through a comprehensive program of research, promotions, advertising, social media, public relations, Internet marketing, and other marketing strategies. Their mission statement al so includes promoting environmental sustainability under the auspices of the going green movement. (Wilkerson 47) Pillars of Tourism Mexico is endowed with enormous tourist resources ranging from historical artifacts and lavish beach resorts to geographical terrain and a unique culture. Mexico City, an ancient Meso-American city, is a major tourist attraction in itself with the National Museum of Anthropology and History, Metropolitan Cathedral and Mexican National Palace (Berger & Wood 78). On the Pacific coast lays Acapulco Bay and Cabo San Lucas, which are major tourist attraction sites. Sun bathers often frequent the beautiful beach resorts at the San Jose del Cabo, Baja California Sur stretching all the way Ixtapa and the Riviera Maya costal strip where they find the Playa del Carmen beach town. Meso-American ruins include "The Castle" of Chichen-Itza, which is one of the New Seven Wonders. Tourists have also expressed a growing curiosity to the unique culture especially as it relates to the love of football as a sport, mode of dressing and the unmatched traditional cuisine, which is an integral part of the Mexican culinary delights (World Economic Forum 1). Competitiveness Mexico emerges as a key player in the global tourism industry with its tourism sector registering an inflow of billions of dollars every year. The tourist competitiveness of any given country is a measure of the capacity of that country to create a higher proportionate growth rate and wealth capacity than other countries. Mexico’s competitiveness is thus the extent to which it can produce tourist services that overcome global market challenges under free and equitable market conditions while increasing the national income at home. In 2011, the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report, which included 139 major global tourist competitors, highlighted Mexico’s competitiveness under the auspices of the Travel and Tourism Competitive Index (World Travel and Tourism Council 1) . The TCCI is a measure of the factors that make a country a major tourist attraction by way of comparison of recent patterns and tourist trends and the factors responsible for such trends (Theobald 6). TCCI elaborates how these trends contribute to the tourism sector of the given country. Mexico’s Travel and Tourism

The high level of corruption in central and eastern Europe Essay

The high level of corruption in central and eastern Europe - Essay Example In relation, this essay will try to explain the high level of corruption in Central and Eastern Europe. The discussion will tackle the reasons of the social problem. It will also include the methods that to be adopted in dealing with corruption. Corruption is indeed a social and legal problem. It is a social problem since the society as a whole is the one primarily affected of its effects. In almost all sectors, traces of corruption are eminent. It is also a legal problem since it is punishable under the laws of the community. The nations of the world have created their own laws against corruption. Nevertheless, corruption is still a pressing problem. Only a few corrupt individuals are successfully convicted and punished. Thus, there is a need to devise strategies that would effectively curb the acts of the corruption especially in the developing world. In connection, the majority of the countries making up the Central and Eastern part of Europe are actually considered developing sta tes. Benjamin Olken describes corruption like a tax. It adds to the expenses of conducting businesses and providing public services. In countries where corruption is imminent, public services are often poor and inadequate. Corruption lessens the budget needed to effectively and efficiently serve the people in a community. On the side of the business sector, putting up and maintaining a business would be harder than ever due to corruption. As cited by Nathaniel Heller, corruption presents a great barrier to the development and progress of any nation.7 This statement is quite logical. Anyone can in fact understand the rationale behind such contention. In a country, if corruption is present, the budget for the delivery of basic services would be low, unproportioned, and insufficient. For instance, there would only be low budget for education and health. If this is the case, one could expect that teachers will have low salary and educational resources for students would be scarce. In another aspect, medical centers will not have enough supply of medicines and equipments to cure the minor diseases of the people. The ultimate problem about corruption is that it makes the rich people become richer while the poor becomes poorer. It is a fact that only rich persons can thrive in a system which is full of corruption. The poor citizens on the other hand bear the costs of corruption. There is a negative impact in this sense.8 Cor ruption per se destroys the very foundation of a society. It undermines the faith in government and unwinds a lot of links between citizens and governmental institutions.9 Stated otherwise, corruption is the reason why there are people who do not believe in the establishment of governments. They believe that a government does not bring them any good except poverty and injustices. This should not be the case. Corruption in CEE In Central and Eastern Europe, there have been numerous cases of official corruption ranging from top level positions to local levels and across governmental