Dell Computer Technology essays

Dell Computer Technology essays Dell was founded in 1984 by Michael Dell. Dell has a broad product development scope, ranging from home PCs to products for businesses, such as notebooks, network servers and workstations. The market for PCs targeted for all ages such as kids, teenagers, corporate and institutional customers. The company was based on a simple concept that Dell could best understand customers needs and efficiently provide the most effective computing solutions. The key components of its strategies are quick-moving, direct distribution channels and build to order, customization concept. As far as this particular strategy plan is concerned, Dell will develop and provide various choices for different customers to cater their needs and satisfactions. THE STRATEGIES OF DELL COMPUTER CORPORATION Dell has a number of distinctive competences. Dell was the first PC manufacturer to cut out the middleman and sell PCs directly to consumers. The strategy of Dell is using direct sales as the channel of distribution. This is necessary to keep the cost of the product down as per the strategy of Dell. In addition, the ability to continue to improve infrastructure (personnel and information systems) has made Dell to continually increase its operational efficiencies as the so-called Price for Performance. This superior design attracted many consumers and also other competitive rivals like (IBM, Compaq and Hewlett Packet. Dell utilizes the Internet (E-Commerce) for procurement, management, and distribution. More importantly, Dell is the low price leader in the PC market, Dell can consistently under price rivals by reducing its value chain and also support programs tailored to customer needs such as customization, service and support, and latest technology. The competitive advantage of Dell is the ability to bring to the market the computer system that is desired by the cus ...

How To Outline A Memoir A 3-Step Guide To Organization

How To Outline A Memoir A 3-Step Guide To Organization How to Outline Your Memoir (in 3 Powerful Steps) For aspiring memoirists, one of the trickiest hurdles comes after the beginning moment of inspiration. You get the brilliant idea to write a memoir, sit down at your computer all ready to spill out your story, and†¦you realize you don’t know how to start.Now you might be hit by a flurry of doubts:Where should I begin writing my life-story?How do I know what to include in my memoir?How can I make sure that other people want to read about me and my story?If you’re asking these questions, the solution is simple: write an outline. In this post, we look at how you can turn your assorted memories into a rock-solid outline that will make it that much easier to write (and publish!) your memoir.Why outline?According to Zadie Smith, there are two types of writers in the world: micro managers and macro managers. They are sometimes known as plotters and pantsers. If you’re the former, you may already have started outlining your memoir in your head - so skip ahead to th e next section for concrete tips and get the ball rolling on your outline.If you’re a pantser (someone who writes â€Å"by the seat of their pants†), you may need convincing as to the benefits of outlining. In a nutshell: a week of outlining now could save you a year of torturous revision down the road. Outlining - and figuring out such things as theme and scope - can give your story a sense of purpose before you even start writing it. It’s particularly important for memoirists to have a firm grasp on this before entering the drafting stage. Otherwise, they’re particularly susceptible to simply spilling unstructured memories on paper. Tip: 1 week of outlining now can save you 1 year of torturous revision in the future. As you write your memoir, you may recall another compelling moment from your life or come to an epiphany that might change the thematic direction of your memoir. You should never hesitate to explore them. However, a â€Å"goal without a plan is just a wish,† as Antoine de Saint-Exupà ©ry said. It’s good to spend some time on an outline and have an initial roadmap in front of you, so that you know in which direction you’re heading - and what point you’re trying to make.

Sponsorship Agreements of Turkish Airlines Dissertation

Sponsorship Agreements of Turkish Airlines - Dissertation Example The intention of this study aviation industry that characterized by financial crisis arising from oil prices, augmenting competition, decline in fare rates, changing consumer expectations and political and economic constraints. Under such turbulent environment, one airline company, which has showed signs of constant growth and responsive marketing, is Turkish Airlines. Turkish Airlines was established in the year 1933 with an initial aircraft fleet of only five. However, with its strategic approach and aggressive marketing tactics, it very soon grabbed the status of a 4-start company with a jaw-hopping 144 aircraft fleet running across 166 destinations. It also bagged the Award of Best Airline in Southern Europe. It also signed sponsorship agreement with Manchester United as an extension of its sponsorship activity and will serve as the medium of travel for players and officials for three and a half years. Despite less connection between Manchester United and Turkish Airlines fleet a nd destinations, its officials remark the deal as one step ahead in contributing to their brand value and demonstration of quality and service in their offerings. However, rumours are rising on the Club’s intention of sailing through their debt position with the help of this deal and no promising advantages accruing to the Airlines in return. The national airlines company of Turkey, Turkish Airlines’ moves to participate in the sponsorships for the golf events to be held in Turkey is considered another key step for the marketing of its brand. The airlines company has already tied itself with international brands like FC Barcelona and Manchester United for its sponsorship events in the field of football. Turkish Airlines new sponsorship event was tagged as â€Å"Turkish Airlines Challenge† and was tied up with the European Golf event European Challenge Tour. Another sponsor for a sub-event in the golf arena was also done by Turkish Airlines to sponsor the women p articipation in the golf event. These types of events held at the international level draws in huge crowds and is aired across national and international borders. Thus aiming to sponsor such events signify introducing the company to a

Collaboration and Peer Reviews Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Collaboration and Peer Reviews - Essay Example Also, a project can be completed much faster when collaborating because each team member can focus just on what they are good at. Working as an individual requires someone to be involved in every role; group work means that each person can specialize. On the other hand, collaboration on a project means that some people may slack off because they think that others will do the work for them. Some people are just naturally lazy, so being part of a group allows them to receive a grade that they don’t deserve. Another disadvantage to working as a group is that there can be disagreements among group members. A famous saying that shows this is â€Å"too many cooks spoil the broth.† The same can sometimes be true in collaborating on a project—everyone thinks that they know what is best for the group and they try to impose their views on others. No one is willing to compromise and, as a result, the project turns out to be a disaster. By reviewing my peers’ writing, I have been able to get different views on how to write a paper. Everyone has a different style when it comes to writing, so to learn from someone else’s style can benefit my own writing. Of course, some of my peers’ writing may not be up to scratch; this is where I can offer advice and hopefully improve their writing ability. In doing this, I can think through the thought processes that go into writing and I can adapt my style so that I am a better writer in the long term. The good thing about getting my papers reviewed by my peers is that hopefully they will pick up on something that I may have missed. Because they have attended most of the classes with me, they have been taught the same writing principles that I have. Sometimes, another person can catch something that I haven’t because they are reading it with fresh eyes. A negative to having my peers review my papers is that they perhaps do not have a

Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks Essay Example for Free

Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks Essay ABSTRACT. Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks is a kind of special wireless ad hoc network, which has the characteristics of high node mobility and fast topology changes. The Vehicular Networks can provide wide variety of services, ranges from safety and crash avoidance to internet access and multimedia applications. Attacking and misusing such network could cause destructive consequences. It is therefore necessary to integrate security requirements into the design of VANETs and defend VANET systems against misbehaviour, in order to ensure correct and smooth operations of the network. In this paper, I propose a security system for VANETs to achieve privacy desired by vehicles and traceability required by law enforcement authorities, in addition to satisfying fundamental security requirements including authentication, nonrepudiation, message integrity, and confidentiality. Moreover, we propose a privacy-preserving defense technique for network authorities to handle misbehaviour in VANET access, considering the challenge that privacy provides avenue for misbehaviour. The proposed system employs an identitybased cryptosystem where certificates are not needed for authentication. I show the fulfilment and feasibility of our system with respect to the security goals and efficiency. 1 INTRODUCTION VEHICULAR ad hoc networks (VANETs) are receiving increasing attentions from academic and deployment efforts from industry, due to the various applications and potential tremendous benefits they offer for future VANET users. Safety information exchange enables life-critical applications, such as the alerting functionality during intersection traversing and lane merging, and thus, plays a key role in VANET applications. Valueadded services can enhance drivers’ traveling experience by providing convenient Internet access, navigation, toll payment services, etc. Other applications are also possible including different warning messages for congestion avoidance, detour notification, road conditions (e.g., slippery), etc., and alarm signals disseminated by emergency vehicles (e.g., ambulance) for road clearance. The attractive features of VANETs inevitably incur higher risks  if such networks do not take security into account prior to deployment. For instance, if the safety messages are modified, discarded, or delayed either intentionally or due to hardware malfunctioning, serious consequences such as injuries and even deaths may occur. This necessitates and urges the development of a functional, reliable, and efficient  security architecture before all other implementation aspects of VANETs.Fundamentally,VANET security design should guarantee authentication, nonrepudiation, integrity, and in some specific application scenarios, confidentiality, to protect the network against attackers. Besides the fundamental security requirements, sensitive information such as identity and location privacy should be reserved from the vehicle owner’s perspective, against unlawful tracing and user profiling, since otherwise it is difficult to attract vehicles to join the network. On the contrary, traceability is required where the identity information need be revealed by law enforcement authorities for liability issues, once accidents or crimes occur. In addition, privilege revocation is required by network authorities (e.g., network administrator) once misbehaviour is detected during network access. It is less difficult to prevent misbehavior of unauthorized users (i.e., outsiders)since legitimate users and roadside units (RSUs) can simply disregard communication requests from outsiders by means of authentication. Nevertheless, misbehaviour of legitimate users of VANETs (i.e., insiders) is more difficult and complex to prevent, the reason being that insiders possess credentials issued by the authority to perform authentication with peer vehicles or RSUs who canbe  easily tricked into trusting the insiders. Consequently, the insiders misbehaviour will have much larger impact on the network and will be the focus of this paper. I proposed system in this paper and many recent proposals on VANET security provide the option of using anonymous credentials in authentication, rendering it even more complex to handle misbehaviour in VANETs, since the user identity is hidden and cannot be linked arbitrarily which curbs the punishment of misbehaving users. Contributions. Given the conflicting goals of privacy and traceability, and the challenges in designing a privacy-preserving defense scheme for VANETs,  i motivated to propose a security system that can effectively and efficiently solve the conflic ts and challenges. Specifically, my main contributions in this paper include: 1. I propose a pseudonym-based scheme to assure vehicle user privacy and traceability. 2. I design a threshold signature-based scheme to achieve nonframeability in tracing law violators. In this scheme, an innocent vehicle cannot be framed by a corrupted law enforcement authority due to rolesplitting mechanism. 3. A novel privacy-preserving defense scheme is proposed leveraging threshold authentication. It guarantees that any additional authentication beyond the threshold will result in the revocation of the misbehaving users. This defense scheme differs from others mainly in that it yields flexibility in the revocation (i.e., not all types of misbehaviour should be punished). Moreover, the dynamic accumulators in the threshold authentication technique facilitates each user to place further restrictions (besides the threshold) on other communicating users, which is an attractive feature to service providers. 4. My design incorporates mechanisms that guarantee authentication, nonrepudiation, message integrity, and confidentiality. 2 RELATED WORK There is a large body of research work related to the security and privacy in VANETs. The most related works are on the design of privacypreserving schemes. Raya and Hubaux [1]investigated the privacy issue by proposing a pseudonym-based approach using anonymous public keys and the public key infrastructure (PKI), where the public key certificate is needed, giving rise to extra communication and storage overhead. The  authors also proposed three credential revocation protocols tailored for VANETs, namely RTPD,RC2RL, and DRP [5], considering that the certificate revocation list (CRL) needs to be distributed across the entire network in a timely manner. All the three protocols seem to work well under conventional public key infrastructure (PKI). However, the authors also proposed to use frequently updated anonymous public keys to fulfillusers requirement on identity and location privacy. If this privacy preserving technique is used in conjunction with RC2RL and DRP, th e CRL produced by the trusted authority will become huge in size, rendering the revocation protocols highly inefficient. A lightweight symmetric-key-based security scheme for balancing  auditability and privacy in VANETs is proposed in [2]. It bears the drawback that peer vehicles authenticate each other via a base station, which is unsuitable for inter vehicle communications. Gamage et al. [6] adopted an identity-based (IDbased) ring signature scheme to achieve signer ambiguity and hence fulfill the privacy requirement in VANET applications. The disadvantage of the ring signature scheme in the context of VANET applications, is the unconditional privacy, resulting in the traceability requirement unattainable. Group signature-based schemes are proposed in [4] where signer privacy is conditional on the group manager. As a result, all these schemes have the problem of identity escrow, as a group manager who possesses the group master key can arbitrarily reveal the identity of any group member. In addition, due to the limitation of group formation in VANETs (e.g., too few cars in the vicinity to establis h the group), the group-based schemes [4]may not be applied appropriately. The election of group leader will sometimes encounter difficulties since a trusted entity cannot be found amongst peer vehicles. There are also a number of defense techniques against misbehaviour in VANET literature besides those in [1]. An indirect approach via the aid of infrastructure is used in [4].The TA distributes the CRL to the infrastructure points which then take over the TA’s responsibility to execute the revocation protocol. The advantage of this approach is that vehicles never need to download the entire RL. Unfortunately, the conditional anonymity claimed in [4]. only applies to amongst peer vehicles, under the assumption that the infrastructure points are trusted. The infrastructure points can reveal the identity of any vehicle at any time even if the vehicle is honest. Recently, Tsang et al. [7]proposed a blacklistable anonymous credential system for blocking misbehavior without the trusted third party (TTP).The blacklisting technique can be applied to VANETs as: if the vehicle fails to prove that it is not on the blacklist of the current  authenticator, the authenticator will ignore the messages or requests sent by this vehicle. Although not proposed specifically for VANETs, the proposal in [7] has a similar claim as the capability of a TTP (network authority in this paper) to recover a user’s identity in any case is too strong a punishment and highly undesirable in some scenarios. The downside of this  technique is the lack of options to trace misbehaving users, since any user in the system(misbehaving or not)will by no means be identified by any entity including the authorities. I proposed a privacy-preserving defense scheme against misbehavior in [8] leveraging threshold authentication technique. This scheme and the scheme in [3] both preserve user privacy, and simultaneously provide trace ability (i.e., tracing law violators by enforcement authorities in [3] and tracing misbehaving users by network authorities in [8]). The major differences between these schemes are the different technical realizations of the privacy and traceability schemes, due to the different application 3 SYSTEM MODEL We describe the functionalities of our security system and define security requirements in this section. 3.1 Overview Major entities in a VANET environment are depicted in A VANET system diagram. As mentioned before, traceability is needed by law enforcement authorities (LEAs) who require the identity of a violating vehicle to be disclosed for investigating the cause of accidents or crimes. Due to the seriousness of liability issues, if a single authority (e.g., the police) is fully capable of revealing the vehicle identity, this privilege may be abused. It is desirable if two or more authorities (e.g., the police, judge, special agents, and other possible law enforcement authorities) are granted distributed control over the identity retrieval process. One benefit in doing so is that corrupted authorities (the number being less than the threshold) cannot arbitrarily trace vehicle users to compromise their privacy. Another benefit is that malicious authorities cannot falsely accuse (or frame) honest users. Such role-splitting is not required for network authorities since the threshold authentication technique in our defense scheme prevents a network authority from falsely accu sing honest users. The proposed security system primarily consists of techniques addressing the privacy, traceability, nonframeability, and revocation (only by network authorities) issues. The  logic diagram of the entities interactions is depicted in logic diagram, where the arrowed lines indicate the direction of packet flow or physical communications, the bracketed numbers near each line index the major events or procedures between the connected entities. The vehicle users are split into access group owners and members, whereas the RSUs can only be access  group owners. The entities and events/procedures are described in what follows. 3.2 Entities and Procedures The entities in this system are the regional transportation authorities (RTAs), law enforcement authorities (LEAs),network authorities, roadside infrastructure including border RSUs for pseudonym management and regular RSUs (simply RSUs) for Internet access, and vehicle users. Considering practical scenarios, the RSUs in this system are mainly responsible for providing infrastructure access and network services. The RSUs are assumed to be operated by third-party service providers (SPs) who have business contracts with the RTA to build access infrastructure in the RTA’s region. The RSUs are thus not owned by the RTA and have no preestablished trust relationship with the RTA. On the other hand, borders RSUs are owned and operated by the RTA, and can be considered as the agents who are delegated with the RTA’s authority. These entities are involved in the following procedure:  may be caused by malfunctioning hardware and thus is incidental. These types of misbehavior share a common feature, i.e., their occurrence or frequency is low, specifically, lower than a predetermined threshold. Threshold authentication-based defense further consists of six sub-procedures: Membership registration: RSUs and vehicle users register with the RTA to use VANETs. Upon successful registration, a member public/private key pair (mpk;msk) is issued to each RSU and vehicles. The RTA associates the member’s credential with the issued public key and includes this pair of information into a credential list IDlist. Access group setup: RSUs and vehicles setup their own access groups, the member of which is granted privilege to communicate with the access group owner. The group owner adds members to the group and updates related public information. Each added member obtains an access key mak for the group. Access group revoking: The access group owner revokes the granted privilege when deciding to stop communications with a member, due to some decision criteria for misbehaviour. The access group owner removes the member from the access group and updates related public information. Threshold authentication: This procedure is executed between an RSU and a vehicle, or between peer vehicles. We call the authenticator in this procedure Alice who announces the threshold k possibly different for each user being authenticated. The  authentication succeeds if and only if the following conditions are met simultaneously: the user Bob authenticating with Alice is a registered member of the VANET system, Bob is a legitimate member of Alice’s access group (if Alice is an access group owner) whose member privilege has not been revoked, and the authentication threshold has not been exceeded. Alice records the authentication transcripts in AUTHlog: Tracing: This procedure is used by Alice to trace a misbehaving member Mn who attempts to authenticate more than k times. Alice relies on the AUTHlog and public information, and obtains Mn’s credential n as the procedure output which is reported to the RTA.Revocation/recovery: Upon receiving the complaints from other entities in the system as the output of Tracing, the RTA decides if the misbehaving member’s credential needs to be revoked. The RTA then performs the identity recovery by looking up the same pseudonym lookup table PLT (cf.System setup above) which also records the correspondence between the credential n and identity IDn. Note that for the ease of presentation, we assume the RTAs to act as network authorities for the defense scheme in this paper. In reality, when the roles of RTA and network authority System setup: This procedure is executed by the RTA for initial VANET system setup including domain parameter publication, public/private key assignment for entities in the system to perform desired tasks, and database creation for storing necessary records (i.e., the pseudonym lookup table PLT). Pseudonym generation and authentication for privacy: RTA and border RSUs execute this procedure to assign pseudonym/private key pairs to both vehicles traveling in their home domain and vehicles from other RTAs’ domains, so that these vehicles are able to authenticate with RSUs and other vehicles to obtain services and useful messages. Threshold signature for nonframeability: This procedure is invoked by LEAs to share the secret information for recovering a guilty vehicle’s identity. Meanwhile, it prevents corrupted authorities from gathering full power to accuse an innocent vehicle. The functional component of this procedure is the threshold signature. Threshold-authentication-based defense: Designed for the network authorities, this procedure is used to revoke a misbehaving vehicle’s credential, refraining the vehicle from further disrupting system operations. As the core of this procedure, the threshold authentication  technique provides a mechanism to allow certain types of misbehavior that should not result in revocation. For instance, the misbehavior  are separate, the network authority can simply take charge as the RTA in the above sub procedures. Nonetheless, in the execution of Revocation/recovery, the network authority needs to establish trust with or be delegated by the RTA in order to access the PLT. When we mention network authorities in what follows, we implicitly refer to RTAs in the network authority role. 3.3 Security Requirements I define the security requirements for a VANET security system, and will show the fulfillment of these requirements after presenting the design details. 1. Privacy: The privacy requirement states that private information such as vehicle owner’s identity and location privacy is preserved against unlawful tracing and user profiling. 2. Traceability: It is required where the identity information of violators need be revealed by law enforcement authorities for liability purposes. The traceability requirement also indicates that a misbehaving user will be identified and the corresponding credential revoked, if necessary, by network authorities, to prevent this user from further disrupting system operations. Certain criteria have to be met for the traceability of a misbehaving user as explained in the next section. 3. Nonframeability: Nonframeability requires that no entity in the system can accuse an honest user for having violated the law or misbehaved. 4. Other requirements: A secure VANET system should satisfy several fundamental requirements, namely, authentication, nonrepudiation, message integrity, and confidentiality where sensitive information is being exchanged, to protect the system against unauthorized-message injection, denial of message disseminations, message alteration, and eavesdropping, respectively. Nonrepudiation also requires that violators or misbehaving users cannot deny the fact that they have violated the law or misbehaved. 4 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK I have presented the VANET security system mainly achieving privacy, traceability, nonframeability, and privacy-preserving defense against misbehaviour and reducing traffic in the network. These functionalities are realized by the  pseudonym-based technique, the threshold signature, and the threshold authentication bas ed defense scheme. The ID-based cryptosystem facilitates  us to design communication and storage efficient schemes. Our future work consists of simulating the proposed security system and experimenting it in real VANET settings. REFERENCES [1] M. Raya and J-P. Hubaux, â€Å"Securing Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks,† J. Computer Security, special issue on security of ad hoc and sensor networks, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 39-68, 2007. [2] J.Y. Choi, M. Jakobsson, and S. Wetzel, â€Å"Balancing Auditability and Privacy in Vehicular Networks,† Proc. First ACM Int’l WorkshopQoS and Security for Wireless and Mobile Networks (Q2SWinet ’05), pp. 79-87, Oct. 2005. [3] J. Sun, C. Zhang, and Y. Fang, â€Å"An Id-Based Framework Achieving Privacy and Non-Repudiation in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks,† Proc. IEEE Military Comm. Conf., pp. 1-7, Oct. 2007. [4] X. Lin, X. Sun, P.-H. Ho, and X. Shen, â€Å"GSIS: A Secure and Privacy-Preserving Protocol for Vehicular Communications,†IEEE Trans. Vehicular Technology, vol. 56, no. 6, pp. 3442-3456, Nov. 2007. [5] M. Raya, P. apadimitratos, I. Aad, D. Jungels, and J.-P. Hubaux,â€Å"Eviction of Misbehaving and Faulty Nodes in Vehicular Networks,† IEEE J. Sele cted Areas Comm., vol. 25, no. 8, pp. 15571568,Oct. 2007. [6] C. Gamage, B. Gras, B. Crispo, and A.S. Tanenbaum, â€Å"An Identity Based Ring Signature Scheme with Enhanced Privacy,† Proc.Second Int’l Conf. Security and Privacy in Comm. Networks (SecureComm ’06), Aug. 2006. [7] P. Tsang, M.H. Au, A. Kapadia, and S.W. Smith, â€Å"Blacklistable Anonymous Credentials: Blocking Misbehaving Users without TTPs,† Proc. ACM Conf. Computer and Comm. Security (CCS),pp. 72-81, 2007. [8] J. Sun and Y. Fang, â€Å"A Defense Technique against Misbehavior in VANETs Based on Threshold Authentication,† Proc. IEEE Military Comm. Conf., Nov. 2008.

The Leitmotif of Pursuit in Hardys Tess of the dUrbervilles Essay

The Leitmotif of Pursuit in Tess of the d'Urbervilles      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Pursuit recurs in Tess of the d'Urbervilles as a strong leitmotif.   Starting with their first encounter, Alec Stoke-d'Urbervile lusts after Tess with his desire for steadily increasing thereafter.   He withholds the crucial information that he is not her cousin, and they in fact have no familial relationship whatsoever. While under the impression he is her cousin, Alec uses this ignorance to get closer to her. Feeding her strawberries in an obviously erotic manner momentarily appeases his lustful hunger.   His longing for her never abates from contact with Tess - perhaps even the opposite might be said: the more contact he has with her, the more he seems to want her.   Alec, ... ...e only way to stop this vicious cycle of pursuit is death.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Angel's description of Tess as Demeter, the goddess of chastity, and as Artemis, goddess of the hunt, seems quite fitting for Tess.   Tess Durbeyfield is, as Hardy's subtitle indicates, a pure woman and as the men in the novel demonstrate by their actions, a hunted animal. 3      

Saint George And The Dragon

This oil painting on canvass was created in 1470 by Paolo Uccello (whose real name is Paolo di Dono), an Italian artist. The subject of the painting is the story of Saint George as he overpowers and slays the dragon that has been a menace and a fright to the citizens of the city. As Saint George kills the dragon, the Libyan Princess was saved. The painting illustrated a space that is 3-dimensonal. Uccello effectively applies his skill in linear perspective. He has likewise decorated his pattern beautifully and colorfully. This can be clearly seen on the wings of the dragon. Using the canvas as a medium demonstrated the renaissance characteristic of the work of Uccello (which is the Italian word for â€Å"bird†), as he and his work belonged to that period of rebirth. Just like the way he has painted Saint George and the Dragon, the canvas vividly tells a story and thus a rational approach to the work. The characters painted in the story are presented to be elegant, beautiful and graceful. The lighting that is illustrated in the painting is not real but created for purposes of highlighting the story and not necessarily the reality of how and when the story happened. Saint George and the Dragon’s linear perspective is a semblance of old Gothic technique in painting. The skill was a challenge that renaissance artists like Uccello faced. He illustrated his paintings that convince â€Å"illusion of the way our world looks†. This then signified the temperament of artists in the Renaissance such as a sense of independence; the utilization of subjects of secular in nature as the object of the art; and the freedom of the individual style. Therefore, Paolo Uccello indeed illustrated in Saint George and the Dragon what is significant in the story as he emphasizes what is specific and at the same time, subtle ability of his imagination.

Effects of Bio fuels on the Environment Essay

Bio fuel is a type of fuel that is made out of both living or lifeless biological material and specifically, the plants as per the definition given by Shepardson, (2009). According to Shepardson, most bio fuels are in the form of esters, alcohols among others and a good example of this type of fuel is bio ethanol and bio diesel. This fuel is mostly used in vehicles and for it to be considered as a bio fuel according to Connor Steve (2008), it must consist of about 80% of renewable materials. The production of this kind of fuel has been said to be impacting negatively on the environment however though this is the case, the benefits of bio fuels cannot be dismissed altogether. As a result of this disagreement, a lot of discussions have been held over this issue something that has polarized the society between those who argue that it does not impact negatively on the environment and those that maintain that it does. This becomes the basis of this essay where the paper will take a stand and support the claims that indeed bio fuels impact negatively on the environment. According to Mongobay. com (2008), there are various types of bio fuels and one of these is E10 which over time has been greatly improved in terms of quality in that initially it contained about 90 percent of petroleum and 10 percent of ethanol but of late it is called E100 because it is almost made up of ethanol alone and about 4 percent of water. The invention of this type of fuel according to Shepardson (2009) is something that has greatly revolutionised the transport industry. These fuels have particularly been cited as one of the best ways to reduce green house gas emissions unlike it is the case with other types of fuel especially fossil fuels. Even though they are praised for this, the negative environmental consequences they have are innumerable. One of these effects according to a scientific study that was conducted in 2008 contradicts the alleged potential of this fuel to reduce greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide among others; this is as per the Mongobay. com (2008). As per this study, Mongobay. com (2008) argues that growing crops with an aim of producing bio fuel leads to an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This claim according to the Green Website. co. uk is given weight by reports that were published in a science journal known as Journal Science that showed that plants that are specifically grown for the production of this fuel produce more carbon dioxide than what these plants can naturally absorb. According to these scientists Mongobay (2008), it would take decades to reverse the trend or to balance what they termed as ‘carbon debt’. Or in other words the amount of oxygen released to the atmosphere in the course of growing these crops and is yet to be absorbed. The US and the European Union have particularly been on the forefront in propagating the idea for the production of biomass as the surest way of controlling global warming (Shepardson, 2009). According to Shepardson this has forced researchers from all over the world who aims at protecting the environment to conduct researches in their bid to understand better how this would impact on the environment. One of the researches that were conducted as per the report compiled by Connor, (2008) shown that clearing Amazon’s forested land to grow soybeans would create a carbon debt that would take 319 years to be restored not mentioning the magnitude in which forests and bushes would be destroyed to grow these crops Production of biomass is labour intensive and requires a big land according to Sawahei (2009), what this means is that a lot of bushes and forests are cleared to produce raw materials for bio fuel thereby leaving the ground with no cover thereby increasing the possibility of soil erosion taking place. To Sawahei, the world requires large tracts of land for it to feed its population now amounting over six billions. By growing biomass as an alternative source of fuel would require more land that what is needed for growing crops as per the Action for Global Health (2008) and eventually there will be no natural vegetations as all land will either have been cultivated for crop production or biomass production or both. According to the Action for Global Health (2008), this greatly destroys the environment considering that vegetation cover protects soil erosion and again it is a habitat to millions of animal species (Sawahei, 2009). Apart from this, the risk of polluting water sources with phosphates and nitrates from fertilizers that are applied to boost crop production are very high (Biofuel, 2003). Water is also polluted by chemicals that are used in the production of biomass such as pesticides sprayed to get rid of pests that attack and destroy these plants. These chemicals not only pollute water but they also kill micro organisms present in the soil that in one way or the other keep the eco system working (Action for Global Health. 2008). Rogercopenh (2008) contends that by the United States embarking on campaigns to push for the use of bio fuels might mislead many third world countries into substituting land meant for growing food crops for biomass production because of the money this business would bring. According to Rogercopenh (2008) this might in turn lead to the encroachment of forests and other natural habitats which are home to millions of wild animals. It should also not be forgotten that when this green matter is harvested, there are chances that some will rot thereby producing a very bad smell and apart from rotting, some of these plants produce bad odour naturally and thus they are an environmental hazard in that they pollute the air. As per the evidence given by Franke and Reinherdt (1998), Bio fuel also kills biodiversity in terms of the variety of plants growing in a field. For biomass to be produced in large quantity, enough to keep the world going, then its production must be professionally done. What this means according to Franke and Reinherdt (1998) is that a whole field is filled with only one type of plants leading to what is known as monoculture and by doing this, other types of plants are not given a chance to grow something that indirectly leads to their extinction (Franke and Reinherdt, 1998). In doing this according to Randooke (2009), animal are also not spared in that deforestation must take place, grasslands must be cleared and wetlands are destroyed. The truth is that these areas are habitat to many species of animals and thus what this means is that these species will be killed while others are displaced. Trees naturally preserve water catchments areas and thus when land is prepared for the cultivation these reserves are destroyed (Randooke, 2009). According to the Action for Global Health, (2008) the whole bio fuel production process requires a lot of energy and basically the type of energy that is used is fossil fuel. The argument raised by the Action for Global Health (2008) is that the amount of carbon that is emitted by burning bio fuels is absorbed by crops that are grown purposely for bio fuels production but the problem is that the amount of carbon that is emitted during their production considering that carbon emitted during planting, spraying, treating and harvesting season where machines that uses fossil fuels is not cleared from the air. This claim is supported by Sawahei, (2009) who argues that even after these crops are harvested, more carbon is emitted to the atmosphere in that coal or other forms of fossil fuels such as gas are used to heat the raw materials that are used in the production of bio fuels. Though bio fuels are heavily criticised in that they cause serious negative environmental ramifications according to Connor (2008), there are other various researches that have been done which prove otherwise. Researches show that production of other forms of fuel such as fossil fuel leads to the release of more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than it is the case with bio fuels (Science for environmental policy, 2008). One research that strongly supports this claim is the one that was done in the United Kingdom. According to the same source, what they call first generation process Life Cycle Analysis, carbon dioxide emissions are reduced by over sixty percent unlike other forms. As per Biofuels (2003), the second generation process carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced by over 80 percent. Generally according to this report, carbon dioxide emissions can be saved by an average of about 50 to 60 percent. Another advantage of using this kind of fuel according to the Greencar website (2009) is that bio fuel does not contain sulphur which is one of the main components that causes acid rains. Also considering that it is made by bio degradable materials, its chances of destroying the soil are low unlike other fuels such as fossil fuels which contaminate water sources and destroy soil when they leak into them (Science for environmental policy, 2008). In consideration of the massive evidence that is provided here above, one is justified to say that biofuels are an environmental hazard. There are a lot of researches that have been done by different researchers and most of them point to the fact that the production of bio fuels produces many effects that in one way or the other destroys the eco system for example, fertilizers that are applied on crops meant to produce biomass releases phosphates and nitrates thereby destroying soil and water. Another way through which biofuels destroys the environment is that despite the fact that a lot of forests and bushes have already been cleared for crop production, more land is snow needed for biomass production something that leads to soil erosion due clearance of bushes and the destruction of habitats that are home to many species. This indirectly leads to the extinction of these species whether plant or animals. Bibliography: Action for Global Health. 2008. New study demonstrates bio fuels negative impact on poverty, hunger and environment. Available at http://docs. google. com/gview? a=v&q=cache:elry2KJk0UgJ:ec. europa. eu/environ ment/integration/research/newsalert/pdf/1si4. pdf+biofuels+,+negative+impacts+,e nvironment&hl=en&gl=ke Biofuel, 2003. Bio diesel Impacts on the environment. http://www. biofuelus. com/biofuel/biodiesel/biodiesel-impact-on-the- environment. php Connor Steve, 2008. Biofuels make climate change worse, Scientific Study concludes. Available at http://www. independent. co. uk/environment/climate-change/biofuels- make-climate-change-worse-scientific-study-concludes-779811. html

How I Became a Competitive Gamer essays

How I Became a Competitive Gamer essays To most kids, gaming has an unlimited attraction - in fact, for some, it seems to have almost taken over their souls. Nearly every kid likes to be the hero in their video games. And, I admit that I am one of them. I started playing video games when 8 years old. At first, it was all about having fun. Then, one day, I began to play a game called "Counter-Strike 1.5". This game was influential in making me thee serious competitive gamer I am today. My first memory of playing video games was "FC" games. I had to go to the gaming station to play them secretly, because my parents thought playing games was harmful to my studies and an FC was too expensive for a normal family. Unfortunately, one day I was caught right outside the station by my mother. She was angry and warned me that if I went back there to play the games again, I would lose all my allowance and pocket money. I was frightened by this threat, so for a very short while, I gave up video games. After two game-less weeks, my desire to get my hands on a game controller kicked into overdrive because my uncle bought a new game system. He was a gamer even though at that time he was 35 years old. Although he was not rich and the FC machine would cost him 200 yuan, which was as much as his monthly salary, he finally made the purchase. My aunt knew that I wanted to play badly too, so she brought the machine to my house for me on every holiday. It was great to play in my own house and also, because it was on holidays, my parents didn't stop me from playing. Those were the happiest days of a year for me. I began to dream of one day buying myself my own FC. Although I could not go into the station and play anymore, I could stand outside and watch the other kids play. I really wanted my own FC. Popular games at that time were Warriors of Fate, Cadillac's of Dinosaurs, Street Fighter, Captain Commando, and the classic RaidenX and at that time, I was a better watcher than a ...

Why School Attendance Matters and Strategies to Improve It

Why School Attendance Matters and Strategies to Improve It School attendance matters. It is arguably one of the most important indicators of school success. You cannot learn what you are not there to learn. Students who attend school regularly improve their chances of being academically successful. There are obvious exceptions to both sides of the rule. There are a few students deemed academically successful who also have attendance issues and a few students who struggle academically who are always present. However, in most cases, strong attendance correlates with academic success, and poor attendance correlates with academic struggles. To understand the importance of attendance and the influence the lack thereof has, we must first define what constitutes both satisfactory and poor attendance.   Attendance Works, a non-profit dedicated to improving school attendance, has categorized school attendance into three distinct categories. Students who have 9 or fewer absences are satisfactory. Those with 10-17 absences are exhibiting warning signs for potential attendance issues.   Students with 18 or more absences have a clear cut chronic attendance issue. These numbers are based on the traditional 180-day school calendar. Teachers and administrators will agree that the students who need to be at school the most are the ones that are seemingly seldom there. Poor attendance creates significant learning gaps. Even if students complete the make-up work, they most likely will not learn and retain the information as well as if they had been there. Make-up work can pile up very quickly. When students return from an extended hiatus, they not only have to complete the make-up work, but they also have to contend with their regular classroom assignments. Students often make the decision to rush through or completely ignore the make-up work so that they can keep pace with their regular class studies.   Doing this naturally creates a learning gap and causes the student’s grades to drop. Over time, this learning gap increases to the point where it becomes nearly impossible to close. Chronic absenteeism will lead to frustration for the student. The more they miss, the more difficult it becomes to catch up. Eventually, the student gives up altogether putting them on a path towards being a high school dropout. Chronic absenteeism is a key indicator that a student will drop out. This makes it even more critical to find early intervention strategies to prevent attendance from ever becoming an issue. The amount of schooling missed can quickly add up. Students who enter school at kindergarten and miss an average of 10 days per year until they graduate high school will miss 140 days. According to the definition above, this student would not have an attendance problem. However, all together that student would miss nearly an entire year of school when you add everything together. Now compare that student with another student who has a chronic attendance issue and misses an average of 25 days a year. The student with a chronic attendance issue has 350 missed days or almost two entire years. It is no wonder that those who have attendance issues are almost always further behind academically than their peers who have satisfactory attendance. Strategies to Improve School Attendance Improving school attendance can prove to be a difficult endeavor.   Schools often have very little direct control in this area. Most of the responsibility falls on the student’s parents or guardians, especially the elementary aged ones.   Many parents simply do not understand how important attendance is. They do not realize how quickly missing even a day a week can add up. Furthermore, they do not understand the unspoken message that they are relaying to their children by allowing them to miss school regularly.   Finally, they do not understand that they are not only setting their children up to fail in school, but also in life. For these reasons, it is essential that elementary schools in particular focus on educating parents on the value of attendance.   Unfortunately, most schools operate under the assumption that all parents already understand how important attendance is, but that those whose children have a chronic attendance issue are simply ignoring it or do not value education. The truth is that most parents want what is best for their children, but have not learned or been taught what that is. Schools must invest a significant amount of their resources to educate their local community adequately on the importance of attendance. Regular attendance should play a part in the daily anthem of a school and a critical role in defining the culture of a school. The fact is that every school has an attendance policy. In most cases, that policy is only punitive in nature meaning that it simply provides parents with an ultimatum that essentially says â€Å"get your child to school or else.†Ã‚   Those policies, while effective for a few, will not deter many for whom it has become easier to skip school than it is to attend. For those, you have to show them and prove to them that attending school on a regular basis will help lead to a brighter future. Schools should be challenged to develop attendance policies and programs that are more preventive in nature than they are punitive. This begins with getting to the root of the attendance issues on an individualized level. School officials must be willing to sit down with parents and listen to their reasons for why their children are absent without being judgmental. This allows the school to form a partnership with the parent wherein they can develop an individualized plan for improving attendance, a support system for follow through, and a connection to outside resources if necessary. This approach will not be easy. It will take a lot of time and resources. However, it is an investment that we should be willing to make based on how important we know attendance to be.   Our goal should be to get every child to school so that the effective teachers we have in place can do their jobs. When that happens, the quality of our school systems will improve significantly.

Multinational corporation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Multinational corporation - Essay Example The areas of corporate social responsibility are such as management of the environment, maintaining labour standards and good working conditions, engagement of stakeholders, observance of human rights and practicing good governance. A multinational corporation will show corporate irresponsibility on failure to take the social responsibility measures (Adeyeye, 2012). According to McIntyre et al (2009) one of the corporate irresponsibility incidents of multinational corporations is the violation of human rights by these corporations, and another one is environmental mismanagement. For instance the MCNs in oil extracting countries have been observed over the years to have violated the rights of the oil bearing communities. The violation usually arises from the conflicts between the two groups concerning land rights and compensation for the ecological damages that are caused by these corporations during oil extraction. The extraction mainly causes negative effects on the environment and the MNCs show corporate irresponsibility by not finding the appropriate measures of managing the effects caused. The multinational corporations further fail to meet the expectations of these communities concerning compensation as well as environmental management. The result of this corporate irresponsibility is frustration of the communities arising from unfulfilled expectations as well as violence as form of response. The operations of these multinational corporations have been attributed to the cases of underdevelopment in the countries (Sornarajah, 2010). The efforts of free trade markets to better the global economy and making sure that multinationals are accountable for their effects on the environments and stakeholders, have failed since the multinational corporations are making more efforts to cover their abuses on the environment as well as the human rights instead of preventing them. Among the multinational

Reflection paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 3

Reflection paper - Essay Example The role of books has been downplayed to an extent where books are slowly fading off the scene. Literary works such as Harrison Bergeron, The Cold Equations, The Pedestrian, The Pit and the Pendulum and 1984 are some which deserve to be read on by generations to come due to their remarkable content and style. Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut is set in the future where government control is quite strong. Harrison is the fourteen year old son of Hazel and George but has to be taken away from his family by the government (1). Equality is strictly implemented, which means everything or everyone has to be average. This implies that no one can be stronger, more beautiful or more intelligent. Equality, in essence, is maintained through the use of â€Å"handicaps† (Vonnegut, 1). This is one reason why George has a radio implanted in his ear that inhibits his thought process by using periodical noise tuned by the transmitter controlled by the government. The story provides a graphical journey to the future where individual qualities are suppressed and technology dominates social lives while the government presents the worst form of a controlling authority. Due to its far-thinking storyline, the book should be read by people and thus should be kept from the hands of the firemen. Another futuristic story, although controversial, is presented by Tom Godwin in his book The Cold Equation. The book is set in a science fiction like setting where an EDS (Emergency Dispatch Ship) is heading towards the planet Woden. According to the rules, any stowaway discovered on the way is to be jettisoned off the EDS (Godwin, 1). The pilot faces the dilemma after he finds an eighteen year old young girl named Marilyn, who wants to see her brother after ten years. However, in the desperation of the situation, Marilyn is ejected out of the spacecraft out into the space or the whole EDS could have suffered. Again, the book wonderfully creates a fictitious