Tuesday, December 31, 2019

The Supreme Court Case of Gibbons v. Ogden

The case of Gibbons v. Ogden, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1824, was a major step in the expansion of the power of the federal government to deal with challenges to U.S. domestic policy. The decision confirmed that the Commerce Clause of the Constitution granted Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce, including the commercial use of navigable waterways.   Fast Facts: Gibbons v. Ogden Case Argued: February 5—February 9, 1824Decision Issued:  March 2, 1824Petitioner:  Thomas Gibbons (appellant)Respondent:  Aaron Ogden (appellee)Key Questions: Was it within New York State’s rights to issue laws regarding navigation within its jurisdiction, or does the Commerce Clause give Congress authority over interstate navigation?Unanimous Decision: Justices Marshall, Washington, Todd, Duvall, and Story (Justice Thompson abstained)Ruling:  As interstate navigation fell under interstate commerce, New York could not interfere with it, and the law was therefore invalid. Circumstances of Gibbons v. Ogden In 1808, the state government of New York awarded a private transport company a virtual monopoly to operate its steamboats on the state’s rivers and lakes, including rivers that ran between New York and adjoining states. This state-sanctioned steamboat company granted Aaron Ogden a license to operate steamboats between Elizabethtown Point in New Jersey and New York City. As one of Ogden’s business partners, Thomas Gibbons, operated his steamboats along the same route under a federal coasting license issued to him by an act of Congress. The Gibbons-Ogden partnership ended in dispute when Ogden claimed that Gibbons was undercutting their business by unfairly competing with him. Ogden filed a complaint in the New York Court of Errors seeking to stop Gibbons from operating his boats. Ogden argued that the license granted to him by the New York monopoly was valid and enforceable even though he operated his boats on shared, interstate waters. Gibbons disagreed arguing that the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the sole power over interstate commerce. The Court of Errors sided with Ogden. After losing his case in another New York court, Gibbons appealed the case to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the Constitution grants the federal government the overriding power to regulate how interstate commerce is conducted. Some of the Parties Involved The case of Gibbons v. Ogden was argued and decided by some of the most iconic lawyers and jurists in U.S. history. Exiled Irish patriot Thomas Addis Emmet and Thomas J. Oakley represented Ogden, while U.S. Attorney General William Wirt and Daniel Webster argued for Gibbons. The decision of the Supreme Court was written and delivered by America’s fourth Chief Justice John Marshall. â€Å". . . Rivers and bays, in many cases, form the divisions between States; and thence it was obvious, that if the States should make regulations for the navigation of these waters, and such regulations should be repugnant and hostile, embarrassment would necessarily happen to the general intercourse of the community. Such events had actually occurred, and had created the existing state of things.†Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬â€ John Marshall — Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824 The Decision In its unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress alone had the power to regulate interstate and coastal trade. The decision answered two pivotal questions about the Constitution’s Commerce Clause: First, exactly what constituted â€Å"commerce?† And, what did the term â€Å"among the several states† mean? The Court held that â€Å"commerce† is the actual trade of commodities, including the commercial transportation of commodities using navigation. Also, the word â€Å"among† meant intermingled with† or cases in which one or more states had an active interest in the commerce involved. Siding with Gibbons, the decision read, in part:   If, as has always been understood, the sovereignty of Congress, though limited to specified objects, is plenary as to those objects, the power over commerce with foreign nations and among the several states is vested in Congress as absolutely as it would be in a single government, having in its constitution the same restrictions on the exercise of the power as are found in the Constitution of the United States. The Significance of Gibbons v. Ogden   Decided 35 years after the ratification of the Constitution, the case of Gibbons v. Ogden represented a significant expansion of the power of the federal government to address issues involving U.S. domestic policy and the rights of the states. The Articles of Confederation had left the national government virtually powerless to enact policies or regulations dealing with the actions of the states. In the Constitution, the framers included the Commerce Clause in the Constitution to address this problem. Though the Commerce Clause gave Congress some power over commerce, it was unclear just how much. The Gibbons decision clarified some of these issues. John Marshall’s Role In his opinion, Chief Justice John Marshall provided a clear definition of the word â€Å"commerce† and the meaning of the term, â€Å"among the several states† in the Commerce Clause. Today, Marshall’s is regarded as the most influential opinions concerning this key clause.​ ... Few things were better known, than the immediate causes which led to the adoption of the present constitution ... that the prevailing motive was to regulate commerce; to rescue it from the embarrassing and destructive consequences, resulting from the legislation of so many different States, and to place it under the protection of a uniform law.†Ã¢â‚¬â€John Marshall—Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824 Updated by Robert Longley

Monday, December 23, 2019

The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne - 1714 Words

Some two hundred years following the course of events in the infamous and rigid Puritan Massachusetts Colony in the 1600s, Nathaniel Hawthorne, descendant of a Puritan magistrate, in the 19th century, published The Scarlet Letter. Wherein such work, Hawthorne offered a social critique against 17th Massachusetts through the use of complex and dynamic characters and literary Romanticism to shed light on said society’s inherent contradiction to natural order and natural law. In his conclusive statements regarding the life of Hester Prynne in relation to the extreme severity of the Puritan society from which she came, Hawthorne keenly and subtly reprimands aforementioned society. When discussing the acceptance of the ostentatious scarlet letter itself, Hawthorne remarks, â€Å"Throughout the remainder of Hester’s life, there were indications that the recluse of the scarlet letter was an interest with the inhabitants of another land†¦ letters came with armorial seals, though bearings unknown to English heraldry†(Hawthorne 165). Despite Puritan society not being explicitly mentioned, it is implied that for the remainder of her life, individuals who resided with Massachusetts Bay refused to communicate feelings of cordiality, verbally or not, with Hester. Only subjects of other sovereigns and of other states throughout the world were intrigued by Hester, her offense, and the letter that rested upon her chest. By acknowledging that the heraldry on the letters differed from that of theShow MoreRelatedThe Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne1242 Words   |  5 PagesLYS PAUL Modern Literature Ms. Gordon The Scarlet Letter The scarlet letter is book written by Nathaniel Hawthorne who is known as one the most studied writers because of his use of allegory and symbolism. He was born on July 4, 1804 in the family of Nathaniel, his father, and Elizabeth Clark Hathorne his mother. Nathaniel added â€Å"W† to his name to distance himself from the side of the family. His father Nathaniel, was a sea captain, and died in 1808 with a yellow fever while at sea. That was aRead MoreThe Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne960 Words   |  4 Pages3H 13 August 2014 The novel, The Scarlet Letter, was written by the author Nathaniel Hawthorne and was published in 1850 (1). It is a story about the Puritan settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, set around 1650 (2). The story is written in the third person with the narrator being the author. The common thread that runs through this novel is Hawthorne’s apparent understanding of the beliefs and culture of the Puritans in America at that time. But Hawthorne is writing about events in a societyRead MoreThe Scarlet Letter, By Nathaniel Hawthorne919 Words   |  4 Pagessymbolism in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s â€Å"The Scarlet Letter†. Symbolism is when an object is used in place of a different object. Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the most symbolic writers in all of American history. In â€Å"The Scarlet Letter†, the letter â€Å"A† is used to symbolize a variety of different concepts. The three major symbolistic ideas that the letter â€Å"A† represents in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s â€Å"The Scarlet Letter† are; shame, guilt, and ability. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s â€Å"The Scarlet Letter†, the firstRead MoreThe Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne1397 Words   |  6 PagesFebruary 2016 The Scarlet Letter was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850 which is based on the time frame of the Puritans, a religious group who arrived in Massachusetts in the 1630’s. The Puritans were in a religious period that was known for the strict social norms in which lead to the intolerance of different lifestyles. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the puritan’s strict lifestyles to relate to the universal issues among us. The time frame of the puritans resulted in Hawthorne eventually thinkingRead MoreThe Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne999 Words   |  4 Pages Nathaniel Hawthorne is the author of the prodigious book entitled The Scarlet Letter. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne commits adultery with Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Her husband, Roger Chillingworth, soon finds out about the incident after it becomes clear that she is pregnant. The whole town finds out and Hester is tried and punished. Meanwhile, Roger Chillingworth goes out then on a mission to get revenge by becoming a doctor and misprescribing Dimmesdale. He does this to torture DimmesdaleRead MoreThe Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne1037 Words   |  5 Pagesthat human nature knows right from wrong, but is naturally evil and that no man is entirely â€Å"good†. Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of the classic novel The Scarlet Letter, believes that every man is innately good and Hawthorne shows that everyone has a natural good side by Hester’s complex character, Chillingworth’s actions and Dimmesdale’s selfless personality. At the beginning of the Scarlet Letter Hester Prynne is labeled as the â€Å"bad guy†. The townspeople demand the other adulterer’s name, butRead MoreThe Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne1517 Words   |  7 PagesNathaniel Hawthorne composes Pearl as a powerful character even though she is not the main one. Her actions not only represent what she is as a person, but what other characters are and what their actions are. Hawthorne makes Pearl the character that helps readers understand what the other characters are. She fits perfectly into every scene she is mentioned in because of the way her identity and personality is. Pearl grows throughout the book, which in the end, help the readers better understandRead MoreThe Scarlet Letter, By Nathaniel Hawthorne1488 Words   |  6 Pages In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, the main character, Hester Prynne, is a true contemporary of the modern era, being cast into 17th century Puritan Boston, Massachusetts. The Scarlet Letter is a revolutionary novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne examining the ugliness, complexity, and strength of the human spirit and character that shares new ideas about independence and the struggles women faced in 17th century America. Throughout the novel, Hester’s refusal to remove the scarlet letterRead MoreThe Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne1319 Words   |  6 PagesPrynne and Arthur Dimmesdale are subject to this very notion in Nathaniel Hawthorne s The Scarlet Letter. Hester simply accepted that what she had done was wrong, whereas Dimmesdale, being a man of high regard, did not want to accept the reality of what he did. Similar to Hester and Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth allows his emotions to influence his life; however, his influence came as the result of hi s anger. Throughout the book, Hawthorne documents how Dimmesdale and Hester s different ways of dealingRead MoreThe Scarlet Letter, By Nathaniel Hawthorne1172 Words   |  5 Pagesfreedom, peace, and introspection. However, until the last century, the wilderness was often regarded with fear and resentment. Written long before John Muir and the conservation movement, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne was well ahead of its time for its depiction of wilderness. In The Scarlet Letter, Arthur Dimmesdale leaves the beaten path and seeks refuge in the forest. There, he gains the strength and willpower to throw off seven years of hopelessness and take his fate into his own hands

Sunday, December 15, 2019

Management and Smart Criteria Free Essays

University of Phoenix Material Goal Setting Worksheet Review this week’s resources (for example SMART criteria, and the Career Plan Building Activities). Respond to the following in 50 to 100 words each: 1. Describe one academic goal that you have created using the SMART criteria. We will write a custom essay sample on Management and Smart Criteria or any similar topic only for you Order Now How do SMART criteria contribute to your academic goals? One academic goal that I am using with SMART is passing my classes with a least a C. SMART contribute to my academic goals by helping me to improve in my classes, help me to allocate time to important activities such as my family and help me reduce stress due to college life work and personal life. . Describe one professional/career goal you have created using the SMART criteria and Career Plan Building Activities results. How did the results of the Career Interest Profiler and Career Plan Building Activity on Competencies contribute to your professional goal development? One professional goal that I have created with using SMART is to win employee of the year at my job. It contributes to my professional goal because I am a good listener. I like to work with people and I follow my employer’s rules. 3. Related article: Example Essay How to Study Smart Describe the stress and time-management strategies you have learned this week that will help you achieve your goals. Stress and time management strategies that I have learned this week that will help me achieve my goals are to prepare myself for that goal. When study I should take breaks so that I will not be stressed. I will also adjust my plan each day. 4. Describe how you will balance academic expectations and your personal and professional responsibilities. I will balance my academic expectations, personal, and professional responsibilities by Equally I will give my attention to them all. I would come up with a schedule where I would set time slots to give my time to each . I think by doing this I will not feel overworked and over whelmed. 5. How can understanding the importance of SMART criteria and your career interests and competencies help you move towards your career and academic goals? Understanding the importance of SMART and my career interest can help me move in my career and academic goals by helping me to stay focus and take control of my life direction. Using SMART can help me to be and stay motivated to see if I am succeeding in achieving my goals. How to cite Management and Smart Criteria, Essay examples

Saturday, December 7, 2019

Insomnia Argumentative Essay Example For Students

Insomnia Argumentative Essay In this research paper I will attempt to familiarize you, the reader, on therole of sleep, health risks of sleeping disorder that is most common, Insomnia. I will give you some of the aspects which cause Insomnia and how it can betreated. We human beings spend one third of our lives in a mysterious,potentially dangerous and seemingly unproductive state of unconsciousnessandno one knows exactly why. Scientists have attempted to study the effects ofsleep and its role on our existence but have yet to come up with an accuratereason why we need sleep. Yes, we do need sleep. All animals, be they mammal,amphibian, aquatic, etc., need some form of sleep in order to rejuvenate theirbody and/or mind. Without sleep our bodies tend to experience some type ofmental or physical malfunctions. Some of us human beings can even become downright incapable of proper social function. In other words, cranky frustratedemotional nutcases. So, sleep does play an important role in our dailyfunctions, and no matter what we must fit it into our lives/schedule. Edisonslight bulb can be considered one of the major technological curses of themodern age, says sleep re searcher Harvey Moldofsky, chief psychiatrist atToronto Western Hospital. Edison believed that his light bulb would liberate usfrom the night and in the process transform our lives. The fact that the lightbulb served as a reliable, controlled was to, banish the night, did not act asperhaps Edison hoped it would. Yet, it helped banish our need for sleep. Andwith this a change in our sleeping patterns. This is one of the ultimate causesof sleep problems. Insomnia is the perception or complaint of inadequate orpoor-quality sleep because of one or more of the following: difficulty sleeping,waking up too early, unrefreshing sleep, waking frequently through the night. When one has Insomnia it is difficult to initiate and/or maintain sleep. Somebelieve that Insomnia is not a disorder, it is a symptom that often indicatedother problems. Other diagnosis, hold that Insomnia is the most common of allsleep disorders and perhaps the most frequent health complaint after pain. Severe cases can disrupt social and occupational function and is associated withdepression, fatigue, and anxiety. There are different types of Insomnia whichaffect our sleep patterns in many different ways. Types of Insomnia are:? Sleep Onset Insomnia (delayed sleep Phase Syndrome): a disorder inwhich the major sleep episode is delayed in relation to the desires clock timewhich one wishes to be awakened. ? Idiopathic Insomnia: A life longinability to obtain adequate sleep that is due to an abnormality of theneurological control of the sleep-wake system. ? PsychophysiologicalInsomnia: A disorder or somatized tension (conversion of anxiety into physicalsymptoms) and learned sleep preventing associated with results in a complaintof Insomnia and associated decreased functioning during wakefulness. ?Childhood Insomnia (limit-setting Sleep Disorder): Primarily a childhooddisorder that is characterized by the inadequate enforcement of bed times by acaretaker with resultant stalling or refu sal to go to bed at the appropriatetime. ? Food Allergy Insomnia: A disorder of initiating and maintainingsleep due to an allergic response to food allergens. ? EnvironmentalInsomnia (Environmental Sleep disorder): A sleep disorder disturbance due to adisturbing environmental factor that causes a complaint of either Insomnia orexcessive sleepiness. ? Transient Insomnia (Adjustment Sleep Disorder):Represents sleep disturbance temporally related to acute stress, conflict orenvironmental change causing emotional agitation. ? Periodic Insomnia(Non 24-Hour Sleep-Wake Syndrome): Consists of a chronic steady patternconsisting of 1-2 hour daily delays in sleep onset and wake times in anindividual living in society. ? Altitude Insomnia: An acute Insomniausually accompanied by headaches, loss of appetite, and fatigue, that occursfollowing ascent to high altitudes. ? Hypnotic-Dependency Insomnia(Hypnotic Dependent Sleep Disorder): Characterized by Insomnia or excessivesleepiness that is associ ated with tolerance to or withdrawal from hypnoticmedications. ? Stimulant Dependent Sleep Disorder: Characterized by areduction of sleepiness or suppression of sleep by central stimulants andresultant alterations in wakefulness following drug abstinence. ? AlcoholDependent Insomnia (Alcohol Dependent Sleep Disorder): Characterized bythe sustained ingestion of sleep onset by the sustained ingestion of alcoholthat is used for its hypnotic effect. ? Toxins Induced SleepDisorders: Characterized by either Insomnia or excessive sleepiness produced bypoisoning with heavy metals or organic toxins. Transient and intermittentInsomnia generally occur in people who are temporarily experiencing eitherstress, environmental noise, extreme temperatures, change in ones environment,and sleep/wake schedule problems. Sleep is the way the body rests and allows themind to slow down and relax. Sleep is a distinct state of mind and body in whichthe body is deeply at rest, the metabolism is lowered, and th e mind becomesunconscious to the outside world. The sleeping mind does not become unconsciousentirely; instead, it shifts the direction of consciousness from a chair besideyour body to another chair inside your dream. Aristotle proposed that thepurpose of sleep was to help the body digest food although eating a big mealbefore getting into bed is one of the worst things you can do for your rest. Plagiarism EssayMonitoring of oxygen saturation is used in the assessment diagnosis of sleepapnea. The electrocardiogram (EKG) documents arrhythmias accompanyingrespiratory disturbances. Accompanying respiratory disturbances. EMG monitoringof the anterior tibilias muscles is used for detection of periodic leg movementsduring sleep. Most adults need seven or eight hours of sleep a night, but someadults are short sleepers and functions well and only there of fourhours. Being that the purpose of sleep could be to allow the body time to repairand rejurvenate- some find 4 to 6 hours as a sufficient amount at sleep. Sleepreduces fatigue and relieves stress and dreaming helps to clear the nervoussystems. The amount of time needed for sleep is eshonaly usaible from person toperson. The clinical significanes of insomnia is detemined according to itssevenrity, frequency, duration, and daytime sequence. Treatment for dramicinsomia consists of: -There are many foods you may try to get est tha twould/will aid in putting you to sleep. Foods such as oats, sweet corn, rice,zawgen, tomatoes, bananas, and barely all are rich in malnutrion which helpsreduce sleep. -Lifestyle changes can also hepls you to sleep better. -Herbalremedies that as help induce sleep are Valerian roots, skull cap, passionflower, wood betony or California poppy. -Over the counter sleep medicines arenot usually recommended for the treatment of insomnia . Though using sleepingpills without supervision of a physican for long periods of time can treatchronic insomnia. -Tayrs behavioral techniques to improve sleep, such asrehilbilation therpy, sleep restrictions therapy, and reconditioning may help. There are specific and effective technques through rehilbilation therapy thatcan reduces or eliminate anxiety and body tension. Insomnia can not be curedwithout treaty the underlying imbalance that causes it. The Association of SleepDisorders Caters was established in 1975; its purpose is to accidet clinics inthe United States and to promote professional education and the development ofstandards and guidelines for patient care. Most clinics are based in large urbanhospitals or university medical schools, usually in conjunction withsleep-research programs . Medical experts from widely diverse fields areinvolved in sleep clinics. Psychologists and psychiatrists, internist,psycologists and specialist in disorders of the heart, lungs, brain, respiratorysystem and central nervous system are involved can givers at sleep clinics. Conclusion Insomnia can be treated if diagnosed properly and medication can begiven to aid in the elimination of the problem.

Friday, November 29, 2019

Step to Writting a Good Essay Essay Example

Step to Writting a Good Essay Essay Upon deciding the topic for my final paper I decided on , Credit scores are a fair measure to help lenders to estimate potential risk. My point of view considering this topic is that I will explain why I agree with the issue then follow with supporting facts and details. I will proceed to explain the reasons why lenders and banks use scores t evaluate the risk. I will show that most people which have a repeated and unsatisfactory credit history usually, don’t change. I will share information on those with good credit established and how to maintain it. I will show how having good or bad credit affects your daily living. I will discuss how credit bureaus come up with credit scores, where their information comes from, and what to do if it is not correct. I will present factual evidence to support my views and opinions. I will begin my paper with enthusiasm, and confidence to keep my audience focused and interested. In my essay, I will disclose a number of issues that can destroy your credit. I will provide some ways to go about correcting your credit. I would like my audience to understand that your credit has a huge impact on not only your lifestyle but the economy as well. I want the audience to know that credit is something that you can without a doubt destroy within a matter of weeks or in as little as a month. I would like my audience to also be informed that it can be corrected as well, but it is a long and tedious process. I will facilitate my audience to understanding the pros and cons of both sides of credit scores. Having good or fair credit is always a must or a must try to have in this day in life. We will write a custom essay sample on Step to Writting a Good Essay specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Step to Writting a Good Essay specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Step to Writting a Good Essay specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Once I finalize my persuasive essay, I hope to have my audience in my court, and understanding why it is so critical to have credit scores to measure risk up front for lenders and bankers. Unless you resolve your old credit tribulations, it is almost impossible to obtain a new line of credit at a reasonable interest rate. People need to become conscious and aware that having good credit is critical and positive aspect in life. Potential employers can even check your credit and credit scores. If your credit or credit score is substandard then it is doubtful you will get the job, even if you are the best person for the job or highly qualified due to your credit or credit scoring. Furthermore, most people do not realize how their credit can affect their lifestyle, future wealth and wellbeing. We as consumers should become more aware that it is our behavior and decisions that we make used to determine our credit worthiness. The fact of the matter is that lenders have used this technique for years, and I doubt it will ever change in the near future.

Monday, November 25, 2019

buy custom Schizophrenia as a Mental Illness essay

buy custom Schizophrenia as a Mental Illness essay Introduction Mental illness is a problem that affects a persons health. It interferes with the way a person think, behave and how they interact with other people in the surrounding. This problem is also referred to as a mental disorder. However, there is a slight difference between mental illness and mental disorder. Mental illness is at times curable after sometime. Mental disorder may be inborn. It is said to cause a lot of problems to the people affected and the people around them. According to a report by the World Health Organization, mental illness becomes severe with time. Depression is one of the worst mental illnesses affecting many people today. This is due to the changing life circumstances. Some of the other types include eating disorder, personality problems, schizophrenia and anxiety. Thesis statement Mental illness is a norm in society just like other diseases and in our paper we will extensively look into schizophrenia. Schizophrenia has lead to alienation of the mentally sick in society and adequate measures should be taken to prevent this illness. Description of Schizophrenia Schizophrenia is one of the many mental illnesses and a person suffering from the disease experiences a disintegration of emotional responsiveness and thought processes. It is also characterized by wacky delusions, disorganized thinking and speech, auditory hallucinations and paranoia. These are accompanied by considerable occupational and social dysfunctions of the victims. Some of the contributing factors to this illness are social and psychological processes, genetics, early environment and some prescription and recreational drugs. The disorder is not only cognition but also leads to persistent emotional and behavioral problems, anxiety disorders and major depressions. Some social problems faced by these people include poverty, homelessness and unemployment for a long period of time. Due to the health problems and a high rate of committing suicide by these people with the disorder, their life expectancy is twelve to fifteen years less than the normal person. People with schizophrenia need a lot of support from the people around and a lot of encouragement and understanding. They should not be blamed for their situations. Most mental illness can be treated if the signs are realized in good time. It is said that this illness occurs depending on different situations, and this dictates how it can be treated. It is actually not true that people with mental illness are dangerous. These are just stereotypes that people have. Mentally ill people should not be isolated because they recover more when they interact with people. One of the biggest challenges that people with schizophrenia encounter is stigmatization. People do not want to associate with them because they are afraid of them. Mental illness in this case schizophrenia is said to be caused by stress and for others it may be inherited. With the increased work load and social expectations in society, stress and depression is said to be on the rise. People want to meet so many expectations. They multitask so that they can be able to cope with life changing situations and at the end of it all they cause stress to themselves. People compete to social class and economic empowerment in order to be at a certain level in society thus, ending up to be victims of mental illness. Aspects of schizophrenia Some of the schizophrenia aspects that affect many people are the panic disorder. This is normally caused by fear that something bad may happen. The person lives in fear and thus getting repeated attacks. Panic disorder normally affects women. Women are prone to panic than men. The cause of panic disorder has not yet been identified yet. It is at times mistaken with heart attack. Though heart attack is lethal that panic disorder. It is not predictable and it happens at any time and it takes about 10 to 20 minutes. Others however, take longer. Most of the people with this problem are always living in fear of another attack. This affects the way they lead their lives and some of them are afraid of being left alone either at home or work. Social phobia is also another aspect of schizophrenia. This may be caused by the fear to be in social places with many people. One develops the fear of being scrutinized or being seen by many people. This my be caused by overprotective parents or during adolescence. It normally affects women. This can be a very dangerous illness because the victims look for an alternative way to counter their phobia. They may engage in drugs or other things that may affect them negatively. People with social phobia are always very careful and are afraid of trying out new things when in public. It is characterized by trembling, sweating, difficult in talking and blushing. This phobia can be treated by seeing a psychiatrist for cognitive counseling. The other aspect of schizophrenia that is probably not very common is seasonal affective disorder. It normally occurs during cold seasons like winter and autumn. It however improves in hot or warm seasons, i.e. spring and summer. It is at times characterized by a lot of appetite and weight gain, loose of energy and sluggishness. This can be regulated by doing a lot of exercises, walking during the day to reduce the fatigue and being socially active. This means attending to social gatherings and hanging out with friends. The most common aspect of all mental illness and schizophrenia in the world is alcoholism. This is more of the physical addiction that a person goes through. They are always taking alcohol and do not care what happens to them. This is normally caused by depression or a psychological problem. This problem normally affects teenagers and men. For teenagers, it is all about fitting in to the social peers. They end up being addicts and not being productive in the society. This can only be stopped through total abstinence and avoiding places that have alcohol. History of Schizophrenia Reports of unintelligible, irrational or uncontrolled behaviors of individuals were common before the nineteenth century although evidence in reports indicating this are not there. In 1962, there was a case report which was regarded as the earliest cases in the psychiatric and medical literature of the illness. Emil Kraepelin elaborated schizophrenia as a syndrome that affected young adults and teenagers. Some other terms that were used in the past for the illness included dementia praecox. Emil Kraepelin came up with a distinction of mental disorders and broadly distinguished between mood disorder and dementia praecox. According to Kraepelin, dementia praecox was solely a disease that affected the brain that occurred later in life unlike the other types of dementia. Schizophrenia has its roots in the Greek heredity which roughly means splitting of the mind. Kraepelin came up with this meaning with his intention being to describe the disconnection between thinking, memory, personalit y and perception of a person suffering from the illness. He further described the symptoms of the disease as autism, flattened affect, ambivalence and an impaired association of ideas. The treatment to schizophrenia was renewed in the 1960s with the introduction and development of chlorpromazine. (Kraepelin 1962) Signs and symptoms of schizophrenia Someone diagnosed with this illness may experience delusions that are often persecutory or bizarre in nature, speech and thinking that is disorganized, and hallucinations that entail the victims hearing voices. When an individual experiences disorganized speech, the train of thought is lost and the meaning of sentences is lost due to them been loosely connected and incoherent. These people loose judgment and motivation; have hygiene and sloppy dressing code and they also tend to withdraw from the society. Some other people may even become mute or show signs of purposeless agitation or remain immobile in bizarre postures. The onset periods for schizophrenia are early adulthood and late adolescence. This is where the vocational and social development is high and at its peak. It is worth noting that twenty three percent and forty percent of women and men respectively, who were diagnosed of the disease, began having the symptoms of the condition when they were below nineteen years of age. (Weinberger 2011) Negative and positive symptoms The positive symptoms of schizophrenia are the ones that are present in people with schizophrenia but they do not experience them. They include disordered speech and thought, hallucinations such as auditory, visual, olfactory, and tactile hallucinations, and delusions. These symptoms react very well with medication and can be curred unlike the negative symptoms that require long term treatment. The negative symptoms include poor speech (logia), the lack of aspirations to form relationships, incapability to experience pleasure and lack of motivation. According to research, these negative symptoms are the greatest contributors to functional disability, burden on others and meager value of life. People with these symptoms respond very poorly to treatment. Causes of schizophrenia The environmental and genetic factors play a very big role in the development of schizophrenia. There is also a twenty to forty percent chance of people with a history of the disease in the family to suffer the disease too. It is probable that genes are involved in the spread of this disease to some small extent. One of the major threats for developing the disease is having a first degree relative who suffers or has suffered the disease in the past. These genes include NOTCH4, copy number variations, protein loci and zinc protein 804A. The environment also plays a vital role in the development of the disease. Such environmental factors include prenatal stressors, family dysfunction, the living environment, poor housing conditions, unemployment, immigration, social isolation and racial discrimination. Those individuals who have experienced trauma or abuse in their childhood years are at a very high risk of schizophrenia. Drugs such as cocaine, amphetamines, alcohol and cannabis have b een related to the causes of schizophrenia. Infection and hypoxia in pregnant women or malnutrition and stress have a slight risk of schizophrenia in the child later in life. Psychological factors have been said to cause and maintain schizophrenia. Those people in confusing circumstances or under stress have cognitive biases. Some brain imaging technologies such as the functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) have studied the brain and its connection to schizophrenia. It has been noted that those people with schizophrenia have changes in the chemistry and structure of the brain. (Szasz 1988) Other causes of schizophrenia include physical injury to the brain, allergic infection or reaction, hormonal activity or viruses, and stressful events in life. Medication/methods of treatment Treatment will include hospitalization whereby the patient is administered drugs. Antipsychotic or narcoleptic drugs are administered to the patients in order to control the positive symptoms of schizophrenia. These drugs have a sedative action which makes it even more difficult to deal with side effects. The side effects include rapid heartbeat, blurred vision, constipation and dizziness. There are also neuromuscular effects which include muscle shaking and stiffness and sexual side effects. Others such as chlorpromazine have permanent side effects such as muscle spasm and involuntary movement. People are being advised to use the newer narcoleptics like olanzapine, amisurpride and zotepine which not only have fewer side effects, but also improve the negative symptoms that are very hard to control and treat. The drugs may come in different forms: those that are inject able, syrup or tablets and may be taken monthly, fortnightly, weekly or daily. Some people may only take a very short time to get well and come out of medication unlike others who take a long time. Another method of treatment includes Individual therapy. It is known as Cognitive therapy and involves a therapist helping the schizophrenic patient learn ways of coping with stressful thoughts so as to reduce your risk of a relapse. For patients who lack family and social support, they may be helped through intensive case management programs that link to a range of community support services. This is a treatment on its own for patients as it assists in rehabilitation. Supportive and problem-focused forms of psychotherapy may also be helpful for many individuals Conclusion Schizophrenia has a very great impact on the overall well being of a person and causes a great deal of discomfort. It is therefore, paramount that people with schizophrenia are given the full support by the people around. This disorder can affect anyone, of whichever age. It is then required of people to be keen to any signs that are not consistent. It is only when people are cautious that such atrocities are prevented. Buy custom Schizophrenia as a Mental Illness essay

Friday, November 22, 2019

Supply chain management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Supply chain management - Essay Example Businesses make plans based on the time it takes to ship or airfreight goods from one place to the next. The time it takes from order to delivery is factored into the lead time and in arriving at a re-order level for inventory supplies. Some firms do not have enough warehouse space to store goods and so they depend on the goods to come when they are needed by the customer. Tang (2006) indicates that systems such as reducing the supply base, just-in-time (JIT) and vendor managed inventory, and outsourced manufacturing are some of the supply chain initiatives that have been used to increase revenue and reduce assets. However, Tang (2006) also indicates that although these are great initiatives in a stable environment they have created longer and more complex global supply chains which increase their vulnerability to disruptions. Although, the implementation of such systems are represents measures that firms employ in their attempt to become cost effective and therefore competitive. How ever, Lee (2004) indicates that there is generally a very large hidden cost which accompanies cost efficiency measures when disruptions occur. Therefore, cost efficiency needs to be balanced with agility, adaptability, and alignment. Lee (2004) also indicates that the objective of agility is to respond to changes in demand and supply that occur in the short term expeditiously; in the case of adaptability it is to make the necessary adjustment to the design of supply chains in order to accommodate changes in the market; and in terms of alignment, seek to improve the performance of supply chains by establishing incentives in order to motivate partners. Lee (2004) also suggests methods that can be used to achieve these objectives. When these disruptions take place there is loss of revenue as firms often run out of supplies. In the case where the supplies are finished goods it means that customers will be inconvenienced. This inconvenience is even greater when there is no other source o f supply. If the goods are raw materials it means that production may have to be halted until a new supplier is found or until the supplies of goods arrive. Therefore, customers will also have to wait longer before their demands can be satisfied. Firms also face increasing costs because of the fact that when supplies have to be sourced temporarily to fill demand it usually comes at a higher price than normal. While this is taking place permanent employees have to be paid even if they have nothing to work with. In most cases workers who are employed temporarily are laid off until things return to normal. Though the firm may be able to charge the customer based on the increased price, it is not normally possible especially when the price was already quoted. Additionally, increasing the price may result in the loss of customers. There may also be issues relating to reliability as customers do not expect firms to run out of stock without giving due notice. If the customer is dependent o n only one supplier then this will definitely have a negative impact resulting in a total loss of business from specific customers or a partial loss of business. This partial loss or reduction in demand from specific customers may result from their (the customers) application of various strategies to prevent any reoccurrence of this type of scenario. Therefore, instead of using one supplier the

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Instructional method and comprehension Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Instructional method and comprehension - Essay Example Thus, the terminology of ‘classroom management’ introduced in education with the objective is to create a positive relationship not only between teachers, but also among the peers themselves, and also to help those students who need psychological help (Stough & Emmer, 2001) The two domains of Instruction and learning play the most important role in the learning process of an individual. Instructional and learning style approach is discussed below. 1 Instructional method Methods are the means for instruction for the students. Mostly, instruction method depends upon the content, the students and the level of intellect of the students. Content is categorized into three main domains of knowledge, i.e., skills, attitudes, and values. According to the content and a set goal, students are made to engage themselves actively in the learning process. While, teaching skill, it is necessary to alter the content giving the learners more practical exposure and pointing out the important practical aspects. When teaching attitude, those methods are used which are required to apply in particular situations. There is several level of learning the knowledge of the content from simple recitation without complete understanding to learning so well that the learner has full understanding of listing, discussion, analysing, practical application, and extrapolation of the knowledge in a naà ¯ve situation (Bloom et al., 1956).

Monday, November 18, 2019

PLENTY Kitchen Roll Advertising Campaign Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

PLENTY Kitchen Roll Advertising Campaign - Essay Example These have a wider use widely because their usage is not limited to the kitchens. In case, you have a problem with cleaning your garage equipment’s, plenty kitchen rolls offer a solution. The idea is to make several layers of paper that can absorb grease from equipment leaving them sparkling clean. The product is usable when  wrapping food before putting it in a lunch box  (Crawford & Freedman, 2010). When planning to go for an outing, then one of the items you should not forget to carry is Plenty kitchen rolls. The reason being, it has outdoor usages that other towels cannot be able to meet as they are usable for first aids in case of a nosebleed. During product value proposition, it is imperative to understand the values or services it can deliver or fail to fulfil in the market. Key competencies are important considerations in value proposition. They outline the strategic advantages customers are most likely to derive from the product. Plenty kitchen roll has notable strategic advantages to its users. It has a honeycomb structure that renders it easy to use. They are ultra-absorbent for use on wet surfaces. The product is durable because they can be intact for a long time. They are applicable in cleaning various surfaces including spills and oil and grease blockages in sinks. An outstanding product value proposition should identify and define the target market and customers’ population. It defines the necessities of potential customers most likely to be served by the product (Rafinejad 2007, p. 84). It helps define how best to attain the customers’ demands. The most eligible customers for the product, Plenty kitchen roll, are domestic chefs. Domestic chefs use the product to clean their kitchen and other unclean surfaces. Operators of restaurants, where cleaning of cooking surfaces is important, also find Plenty kitchen roll useful. A compelling value proposition should outline the various competitors that the product faces in

Saturday, November 16, 2019

P300-based Brain-Computer Interface Performance Enhancement

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

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

The American Presidency: Evolution in Time Essay -- American History P

The American Presidency: Evolution in Time The American Presidency is undoubtedly one of the most widely recognized popular icons throughout the world. Although to most foreigners or those who have never resided in the United States or know little of its history, the executive branch of government may seem to be as dull and unyielding as the rest of the American politics, for those few rare individuals who have taken the time to examine and closely scrutinize this office of the American political system and its recent history, quite the opposite will be said. Unlike Congressional or local elections where typically a number of individuals of the same ideological background must be elected in order for a particular issue to be addressed by the government, when it comes to the presidency, one person, although checked by various other divisions of the same government, has the power and responsibility to literally, as history has proven, change the world. The American people, "like all people everywhere, want to have our (pol itical) cake and eat it too. We want a lot of leadership, but we are notoriously lousy followers" (Genovese). In other words the expectations the public has of the executive office are ever-changing since we demand that our leaders keep up with the evolving world around us and them. Throughout the past seventy eventful years alone, the American people's views, perceptions and demands of the Executive Office of American government have evolved simultaneously with the political and social events of that same time period. The 1930s was a time of not only political turmoil abroad, but of economic chaos on the home-front as well. After President Herbert C. Hoover's Presidency took the blame for launching the ... ...atter? The Role of Charisma in Public Leadership." Congress & the Presidency 29 (2002): 25-47. Genovese A., Michael. "'What Have You Done For Me Lately?: The Demands Placed On The American Presidency.' National Forum 80 (2000): 30-40. Iyengar, Shanto. "Public Opinion." 10 Nov. 2004 <http://ap.grolier.com/article?assetid=023 82400&templatename=/article/article.ht ml > Rosen A., Elliot. "Roosevelt, Franklin Delano." 10 Nov. 2004 <http: //ap. grolier. com/article?assetid=02501700&templatename=/article/article.ht ml > Saltzman, Joe. "All the News that Fits Our Views." USA Today Sept. 25, 2004: 55. Shea, Christopher. "Americans More United in Social Views." The Chronicle of Higher Education 43 (1997): A18. Weinstein, Michael A., Weinstein, Deena. "Hail to the Shrub: Mediating the Presidency." The American Behavioral Scientist 46 (2002): 566-581.

Monday, November 11, 2019

Rodrigo Duterte’s Early Presidency

Christian B. Mendoza Speech 30 THX-3 2018 – 00308 Prof. Mary Jannette Pinzon A Duterte Reader: Critical Essays on Rodrigo Duterte's Early Presidency by Nicole Curato (editor) Philippine political landscape is always subject to change, with the emergence of conflicting political ideologies embodied and practiced by former and current political leaders. One of the defining beacons in the Philippine history was the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution––a nonviolent mass demonstration that sought to overthrow the dictatorial regime of Ferdinand Marcos. Since then, governance in the Philippines has been consistent with â€Å"the reformist, albeit elitist, narrative of the liberal democratic regime† (Teehankee, 2016), as opposed to the authoritarian regime of Marcos. A shift to another form of government, however, does not necessarily mean that the country's condition would be improved in all aspects. In fact, people in authority have failed to deliver on their promises of initiating much needed reforms to conceive remarkable socioeconomic and political transformations. Therefore, the public's petition to bring about drastic solutions to the ills of the country was fulfilled by the sweeping electoral triumph of a former prosecutor and long-time mayor of Davao City, Rodrigo Roa Duterte, who now serves as the 16th and current president of the republic. Written by several scholars in academic disciplines, A Duterte Reader endeavors to understand the type of regime that the country now faces under the Duterte administration. It seeks to establish the factors that led to Duterte's landslide electoral victory in the 2016 presidential elections, and to examine the origin and level of support that the public has for his deadly â€Å"war on drugs,† which he vehemently declared to be the most pressing issue in the country. Moreover, the book sheds light on the legacy of American Imperialism in the country, and how it became a catalyst or one of the immediate causes to ignite a revolution among Filipino people, who have long been subject to systemic oppressions triggered by the machinations of the ruling class and the culture of elitism that it has instituted. The most striking parts of the book are the obvious manifestations of Duterte's presidential campaign slogan: â€Å"Change is coming.† Since his inauguration as the 16th President of the Philippines last June 30, 2016, these manifestations have surfaced in ways that prompted the public to engage in political discourse over all forms of social media. The driving force behind the citizens' political participation is that there is someone who finally recognizes their repressed anger towards social, economic and political injustices from which they have been suffering since the prevalence of elitism emanating from liberal democracy. To counter these injustices, Duterte has acutely focused on the obliteration of the illegal drug trade in the country through his controversial â€Å"war on drugs.† The rampant extrajudicial killings executed by corrupt police officers and vigilantes, who have no regard for the victims' human rights, are being justified by Duterte's portrayal of drug trade as something that poses a major threat to society and national security. Meanwhile, a certain chapter in the book was interesting to read in a sense that it is constantly encountered by people who use various social media platforms. Written by Cabaà ±es and Cornelio, The Rise of Trolls in the Philippines discusses the emergence of online political trolls, and its impact to promoting a democratic media in the country. This chapter also introduces Mocha Uson, a key figure in contemporary Philippine social media, who has branded herself as the voice of the ordinary people. The opportunity to enumerate the times when she has deliberately spread ‘fake news' in social media (Arias, 2017) was neglected by these two contributors. A Duterte Reader enables the readers to be mindful and critical of the affairs unfolding before their very eyes, especially in an era where the proliferation of disinformation, or commonly referred to as â€Å"fake news,† has hindered netizens from objectively engaging in political discourse online (Bueno, 2017). The book gives a panoramic view of the Philippine political history, starting from the historic EDSA Revolution to an impending shift to a federal system of government under the Duterte regime, which would certainly leave a long-lasting impact to the country's political landscape. In addition, the book allows the readers to scrutinize the reasons why some people constantly extend their support for Duterte, or why they should not turn a blind eye to how Duterte intends to solve these issues. Between the pages of the book is a message––similar to the one that went viral online last March 2018––for the readers to ponder on: â€Å"Kapag namulat ka sa katotohanan, kasalanan na ang pumikit,† roughly translating to: Once you've opened your eyes to the truth, it's a mistake to close them again. Based from the plethora of insights that the contributors have provided in this book, the readers should be able to discern this message. The book was written from a third-person point of view since the contributors wanted to discuss the factors affecting the politics of Duterte in an objective manner; thus, presenting both sides of the matter accordingly. The readers could somehow agree with what the contributors have stated regarding the several affairs of the country. They could observe the relevance of the information contained in the book when Duterte delivered his third State of the Nation Address (SONA) last July 23, 2018. He discussed the topics about different sectors such as businesses, conditions of the OFWs, his â€Å"War on Drugs,† foreign relations, agrarian sector, and tax reforms (Ranada, 2018). Some of the root causes of the points highlighted in his speech––persistent intervention of the American government in domestic political and economic affairs, and the incompetence of the previous administrations––have been thoroughly analyzed by the contributors. Moreover, it is important to recognize the contribution that the book offers to the public since everything they have included in the book is a product of Duterte's persuasive public speeches, which hinge on the three primary elements of Aristotle's Model of Communication: ethos, pathos and logos (Timonera, 2018). As each chapter is written through comprehensive research, coupled with an array of trustworthy references, the book could be included in the auxiliary reading materials for students of various academic fields, specifically students of politics; or could be used by authors and researchers as their reference material when writing about certain issues that the book failed to include. Nevertheless, the book is certainly for anyone who wants to fathom this confounding event in the history of Philippine politics. References:Arias, J. (2017). A list of Mocha Uson's fake news posts. Preen. Retrieved from http://preen.inquirer.net/58185/a-list-of-mocha-usons-fake-news-postsBueno, A. (2017). The anatomy of ‘fake news.' CNN Philippines. Retrieved from http://cnnphilippines.com/life/culture/politics/2017/10/12/fake-news-anatomy.htmlRanada, P. (2018). Quick point-by-point summary of Duterte's SONA 2018. Rappler. Retrieved from https://www.rappler.com/nation/208050-duterte-sona-2018-philippines-summaryTeehankee, J. C. (2016). Weak state, strong presidents: Situating the Duterte presidency in Philippine political time. Journal of Developing Societies, 32(3), 1-29. doi: 10.1177/0169796X16654594Timonera, P. G. (2018). The rhetoric of President Duterte's speeches and the Aristotelian conception of the rhetoric and public sphere.Paper presented at 25th World Congress of Political Science, Brisbane, Australia. Retrieved from https://wc2018.ipsa.org/sites/default/files/ipsa-events/wc2018/papers/paper- 101491-2018-07-01t111647-0400.pdf

Saturday, November 9, 2019

Canadian Women and the Second World War Essay

The changing roles of women throughout history has been drastic, and none more so than the period during and after World War II. The irrevocable changes that occurred once the war started and women went to work were unprecedented. In the end, the changing role of Canada’s women during the War was the beginning of a chain reaction of events that have forever changed the Canadian workplace and also that of men’s archaic views on the capabilities of women in general. Many look back to the period during the war in which women were encouraged to get out of the kitchen and go to work, and wonder how a five year period could be so instrumental in forever changing the norms of society? Two authors, who attempt to sift through a mountain of information and provide a clear picture in response to this question, are Jeff Keshen and Ruth Roach Pierson. Both authors paint a slightly different picture from the piles of papers, minutes, war diaries and publications that covered that pivotal period during World War II where so many Canadians women found their voice and their freedom from domesticity. Canadian Women and the Second World War Ruth Roach Pierson’s essay is written with purely the perspective of women in mind, and the article itself is geared towards a female audience. The writer briefly describes the conditions of Canada at the onset of the war and the societal views of the role of women. Although there are no quoted references sited for this essay, there was a vast amount of alternative reading where I am sure one could draw numerous conclusions. Even with the lack of references, I did find this essay the most compelling especially, given the current climate of women in the work force. Ruth Roach Pierson describes in great detail the plight women faced during the war, when they were encouraged by the government and the needs of their families to get out and help support their families financially while all of the men were away at war. She goes on to describe the working conditions and child care situations for working women which were less than adequate. As a member of the Canadian Forces and a woman, the most interesting part of the article for me was the descriptions of how women became a uniformed part of the military and how all three branches of service came to assimilate women into active duty and the roles they were allowed to serve in. Throughout the essay, we were told about the deplorable conditions, the lack of equality the women faced in the workplace, and the stereotypes that were attached to women that proved very difficult and almost impossible to overcome. At most concern was the inequality found between men and women’s pay, benefits and allowances throughout the World War II era and beyond. The lack of equal pay for equal work caused great contention for women and still does to this day (although it is not quite as blatant in the civilian workforce today). The argument of the writer is that the roles taken on by women during the war forever changed the roles of women in society. I agree with her argument. Had it not been for the war, and the call to work and the military, things would be very different in our society for women, even today. The war was the instrument to get Canadian women to work, and once there, women found their voices to fight the inequality with respect to working conditions and pay, and paved the way for the next generation of women to continue to work and fight for an equal playing field with their male counterparts . Revisiting Canada’s Civilian Women during World War II Jeff Keshen’s essay is without a doubt written from a man’s perspective without much sympathy to the plight civilian women experienced during the World War II era. This article is very well written and cites over 100 references, making for a very factual account of the times. This article was geared more towards what contributions were made by civilian women versus the article by Ruth Roach Pierson which put most of the focus on women’s roles within the military. Jeff Keshen’s article explains how the media plays a of the time played a pivotal role in doing two things specifically, one was to get the women out to work, support their families and contribute to the war cause. The second countered the last by telling women were over and over told how important their role in the home was. Throughout this article the writer makes numerous references towards how the government of Canada attempted to do the right thing towards female workers during the war, but it also shows how the government’s heart wasn’t into it, thus just making offers to female workers just to appease their complaints for the time being until the war was over. The government was terrible on providing financial support to women whose husbands were away at war, offering only meager amounts of their pay each month, thus forcing more women into the workforce. The article goes on to further explain how during the war, women felt empowered by their circumstances and how once the war was over that women continued to fight towards equality and many refused to ‘go back to the kitchen’ after the war and further challenged the norms by continuing to work. In conclusion, the most compelling argument found during both articles was the willingness of women to move forward and support their families, no matter the cost or the inequalities found between their male counterparts. I have always heard said that ‘women are the backbone of society’. Now, this may not be entirely true in the year 2011 with the shared roles of women and men in families, but it certainly can be said for the years during World War II. Women were faced with the challenge of having their spouses and breadwinners away from home, and they were also faced with the uncertainty of their safe return home to their families. When you couple this with the call from their government and society to join the work force to help the war effort and take over the roles of the men in society while they were away. Eagerly the women answered that call, and stepped up to take over the roles the men used to hold before the war. Not only were they working full-time jobs, but they were still in charge of their households and raising their children and taking over and completing the roles of husband and fathers for an extremely long period of time.

Thursday, November 7, 2019

Literature review The graduation and unemployment difficulties of adolescents with learning and behaviour disabilities

Literature review The graduation and unemployment difficulties of adolescents with learning and behaviour disabilities Introduction Among the significant percentage of people in the world suffering from various disabilities are adolescents in secondary schools, post-secondary institutions and colleges as well as those in employment. Two of the major disabilities affecting students are: learning disability and behaviour disability.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Literature review: The graduation and unemployment difficulties of adolescents with learning and behaviour disabilities specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Grenwelge, Zhang and Landmark (2010), defines leaning disability as inability of one of the primary or learning processes such as writing, spelling and reading is not functioning as effectively as it is supposed to. On the other hand, emotional or behavioural disability has been defined as a condition characterized by extreme emotional change leading to persistent behavioural change. These two conditions can adversely affect educational performance amongst the students, as well as career performance for the employed adolescents. A learning disability for example causes young children difficulty in achieving success in education, despite the fact that they can perform some tasks very effectively. This study explores the difficulties experienced by young adolescents with the two disabilities defined above, with the aim of coming up with effective strategies make the situation better for them. This literature review separately focuses on the two categorical difficulties faced by the young adolescents: negative outcome of graduation and negative outcome in employment (Al-Yagon, 2011). Graduation Negative Outcomes According to Hamzah, Subramaniam and Abdullah (2009), statistics indicate that in 2003 alone, there was a 10% high school dropout in the US, a larger portion of which was made up of students with disabilities. This is an indication that a large percentage of students with behavioural and learning d isability do not get to graduate from high school. There are a number of factors that lead to this. One of the causes of high school dropout of this group of students is the feeling of being out of place (Kemp, 2006). Students with learning and behavioural disability give up easily on high school education because they may feel that no one is there for them to identify with them and care for them. Most of the time they could be secure knowing that there is an elderly person to help them in making decisions when they cannot make them on their own. For example, learning disability is believed to be as a result of the inability of the nervous system to coordinate properly.Advertising Looking for essay on education? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More This causes a challenge in reception, processing and communication of basic information. This means that sometimes students suffering this disability cannot make important deci sions that affect their future, thus they need someone to look up to during such moments. Secondly, students with such disabilities are prone to be involved in risky behavior. According to Mihandoost (2011), students having learning disability may choose to be involved in risky behaviour in order to substitute the thought of being â€Å"stupid† with being â€Å"bad†. The result of such behaviour is suspension from school or poor academic performance, eventually resulting in failure to graduate. Poor academic performance especially for students with learning disabilities may result from lack of consistence in their knowledge. For example, a learning disability student may read and comprehend a topic well, but fail to do an examination on the same topic because that student cannot write what he knows. The end result is that this student won’t be able to graduate because he couldn’t pass his examinations (Kemp, 2006). Just like other students, learning and b ehavioural disability students undergo a lot of stress in life. Unlike other students, the students with these disabilities cannot withstand that much stress. This is why they reach a point where they disregard the value of post-secondary education in their future. The result of this is that they drop out and they don’t get to graduate (Sinclair, Christenson, Thurlow, 2005). Self-esteem is important in the academic performance of any student. There is a tendency of disabled students to lose their self-esteem when they face frustrations from themselves and from the surrounding people. This group of students will work so hard to achieve certain goals, but they are emotionally battered when they don’t achieve the goals. This leads to a rise in frustration and an eventual loss of interest in academics (Horowitz, 2009). Another factor that affects the graduation of students with disabilities is the lack of proper accommodation in schools. According to Reschly and Christens on (2006), research has shown that colleges and universities are increasing the efforts to provide necessary facilities to accommodate students with disabilities. Despite these effort, statistics carried out by NCES indicated that 20% of students in colleges who admitted to be having learning disabilities claimed that they were not receiving proper accommodation in their studies. Research has sadly shown that these students are made to feel out of place by some institutions. These are institutions which view students with disabilities as a cause of distractions for other â€Å"normal† students, thus the institutions have no place for such students. To make the situation even worse, sometimes the society does not think that these young people have any need for education; hence they don’t bother to support them in education. This leads to dropout before they graduate (Sin, Francis, Cook, 2010).Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Literature review: The graduation and unemployment difficulties of adolescents with learning and behaviour disabilities specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Unemployment Negative Outcomes The challenges experienced by young adolescents with learning and behavioural disabilities do not stop at the learning level. Even those who manage to graduate despite the many hindrances still face difficulty in the job market as a result of their disability. The challenges experienced in institutions of learning have a direct impact on the performance of young disabled people in different careers. Most of these people enter the job market with insufficient skills attained at the post-secondary institutions. This puts them in a very stiff position where they cannot compete favourably with others in the job market. The outcome is that they end up missing the positions of employment (Groce, 2004). According to George and Kidd (2011), some companies become hesitant to hire disable d people due to social prejudice as well as lack of confidence in their ability. Therefore, they rarely employ these people. Another cause of unemployment among young people with learning and behavioural disabilities is limitation in skills. Due to lack of proper coordination, this group of people has a limited choice of career, leading to limited skills. This makes it very hard and takes them very long to find relevant employment in their training field (Nind, Flewitt, Payler, 2010). According to the research conducted by Lehr and Lange (2003), some of the employees with learning and behavioural disabilities admit that their disability hampers them from using the most recent, common and effective technologies in their organizations. These employees are at a risk of being laid off their job for others who can use such technologies. Others disabled employees simply quit their jobs because they cannot cope with the conditions in these places in terms of accommodation for the workers with such disabilities. More research needs to be conducted to explore ways in which such organizations can come up with proper accommodation for workers with disabilities (Mallett, Stoddard-Dare, Workman-Crewnshaw, 2011). The same research also shows that most of the young employees who have learning, behavioural and other disabilities choose to hide these disabilities from their employers and workmates. The major reason for making this choice is fear of stigmatization discrimination in the work place.Advertising Looking for essay on education? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The research also indicates that the employees choose to hide the disabilities because there is a possibility that the employers will monitor them more closely with the anticipation of a mistake in their work, which makes it hard for them to cope as well as to avoid being fired (Maehler, Schuchardt, 2011). Finally, the study of Repetto et al. (2010), indicates that most of the people with learning disability at the job market cope with the conditions depending on their past experiences in secondary and post-secondary institutions. These experiences include self-esteem level, treatment by others as well as the academic skills obtained. Conclusion It can be concluded that there are many challenges that young adolescents with learning and behavioural disabilities face, both in attaining graduation and in search of employment. In line with the National Council on Disability (2004), there is a need to increase effort to ensure that many students in this disability group not only graduat e, but also find comfortable employment. Further research is therefore necessary to explore ways in which these conditions can be improved. References Al-Yagon, M. (2011). Fathers Emotional Resources and Childrens Socioemotional and Behavioral Adjustment among Children with Learning Disabilities. Journal of Child Family Studies, 20(5), 569-584. George, C., Kidd, G. (2011). Effectiveness of a parent training programme adapted for children with a learning disability. Learning Disability Practice, 14(8), 18- 24. Grenwelge, C., Zhang, D., Landmark, L. (2010). Comprehensive Leadership Training for Youth with Disabilities. Teaching Exceptional Children, 42(4), 62- 68. Groce, E.N. (2004). Adoloscents and Youth with Disability: Issues and Challenges. Asia Pacific Disability Rehabilitation Jourrnal, 15(2), 13-32. Hamzah, M., Subramaniam, V., Abdullah, S. (2009). Effectiveness of the selected techniques in enhancing the achievement in science among the children with learning disabilities: Sharing experiences. US-China Education Review, 6(9), 67-84. Horowitz, S.H. (2009). Behavioral and Learning Disabilities. Web. Kemp, S. (2006). Dropout Policies and Trends for Students with and Without Disabilities. Adolescence, 41(162), 235-250. Lehr, C., Lange, C. (2003). Alternative Schools Serving Students With and Without Disabilities: What Are the Current Issues and Challenges? Preventing School Failure, 47(2), 59. Maehler, C., Schuchardt, K. (2011). Working Memory in Children with Learning Disabilities: Rethinking the criterion of discrepancy. International Journal of Disability, Development Education, 58(1), 5-17. Mallett, C., Stoddard-Dare, P., Workman-Crewnshaw, L. (2011). Special Education Disabilities and Juvenile Delinquency: A Unique Challenge for School Social Work. School Social Work Journal, 36(1), 26-40. Mihandoost, Z. (2011). The Survey of Correlate Causes of Learning Disabilities Prevalence among Elementary Students. Asian Social Science, 7(7), 194- 198. Nat ional Council on Disability. (2004). Improving Educational Outcomes for Students with Disabilities. Web. Nind, M., Flewitt, R., Payler, J. (2010). The social experience of early childhood for children with learning disabilities: inclusion, competence and agency. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 31(6), 653-670. Repetto, J. et al. (2010). Virtual High Schools: Improving Outcomes for Students with Disabilities. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 11(2), 91-104. Reschly, A., Christenson, S. (2006). Prediction of Dropout among Students with Mild Disabilities: A Case for the Inclusion of Student Engagement Variables. Remedial Special Education, 27(5), 276-292. Sin, C., Francis, R., Cook, C. (2010). Access to and experience of child and adolescent mental health services: barriers to children and young people with learning disabilities and their families. Mental Health Review Journal, 15(1), 20-28. Sinclair, M., Christenson, S., Thurlow, M. (2005). Promoting School Comple tion of Urban Secondary Youth with Emotional or Behavioral Disabilities. Exceptional Children, 71(4), 465-482.