Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Benefits Of Using A Computerized Accounting System

Introduction Anita, an independent CPA, and accounting software consultant, has several clients in her practice located in Louisville, Kentucky. XYZ Company has used the same journal and ledger manual system for more than twenty years. On the other hand, other small, medium and large business clients prefer an automated accounting system because of the advantages. In the end, independent accountants serve multiple types and sized businesses. Which accounting system is the best in a public accounting (CPA) environment; computerized, manual or both? In the book â€Å"Financial Accounting†, authors Duchac, Reeve, and Warren (2014) write: â€Å"The computer prevents transactions in which the total debits do not equal the total credits.† In this basic entry, the software will notify the user an error has occurred; then the correction can be made immediately. This is one of the many advantages of using a computerized accounting system. However, what’s on the mi nds of most small business owners, and, managers of medium to large operations; is what is working now. Many users of manual systems get accustomed to their own method of accounting and resist change to something new. As a result of this kind of thinking, the independent accountant must be flexible enough to handle the demands of the client. Automated vs. Manual Systems Many small businesses continue to use their own form of accounting including keeping receipts in bags and boxes, etc. They argue that what has paid theShow MoreRelatedComputerized vs. Manual Accounting1630 Words   |  7 PagesFor : Mr. Nelson Title: | Computerized Accounting should completely replaces Manual AccountingPrepared By : Ali H. Al-MuslimID#: 200628620Section# : 05SN#: 02Group#:01Word Count:1,333 | 10/7/2012 10/7/2012 Table of Contents Table of Contents II Introduction 3 I. Manual Accounting 4 A. Benefits 4 1. Cost effective 4 2. Availability 4 B. Limitations 4 1. Finding Errors 4 2. Time Factor 5 II. Computerized Accounting 5 A. Benefits 5 1. Speed 5 2. SavingRead MoreData Collection and Analysis1675 Words   |  7 Pages The objectives of this School Based Assessment include to: 1. Justify the use of standards in Accounting; 2. Assess the impact of technology on Financial Accounting; 3. Assess critically the advantages and disadvantages of the various forms of organization; 4. Discuss the social and ethical issues in financial reporting; 5. Prepare financial statements in a form suitable for publication, using disclosure requirements and relevant legislation. Data collection and analysis The data accumulatedRead MoreEssay Pros and Cons of Computerized Accounting662 Words   |  3 PagesPros and Cons of Computerized Accounting There are many benefits of using a computerised accounting which I am going to list below and talk about in a little more detail. Ø Timesaving Ø Increased speed and accuracy Ø Less staff required Ø Less space need Timesaving It is fair to say that a computerised accounting system is much quicker than a manual accounting system as all the user has to do is enter the data into the computer and the computerRead MoreEssay Accounting Systems1667 Words   |  7 PagesAccounting Systems In accounting systems, certain controls are needed to ensure that employees are doing their jobs properly and ensure that the system runs properly. These checks are in the best interest of the organization. These controls come in the form of internal and external controls for the system. The internal controls are the checks that are placed in the system by the companys own management and directors. Today more and more companies are moving from the manual accounting systemsRead MoreImpact of Ict on Accounting Practice in Nigeria1663 Words   |  7 PagesThe impact of ICT on accounting practice in Nigeria CHAPTER ONE Introduction 1.1  Ã‚  Ã‚   Background of the study   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the recent past centuries, before the inception of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), the accountants of an organization were using a socially acceptable behavioural method of reporting accounting and economic reports, carried out during accounting year ends, the preparation of accounting records, book such as the profit and loss account, the balance sheetRead MoreAssesing the Effectiveness of Computerized Accounting System10736 Words   |  43 PagesABSTRACT The study aimed at assessing the effectiveness of computerized accounting systems in organizations (the general objective of the study). It employed a case study design and Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs was chosen as the case of the study. Various literatures were consulted to get the theoretical and empirical thoughts of stupendous authors about the topic under study to help the researcher craft and refine her methodology. Questionnaires, documentation and interviews wereRead MoreM1: Compare the Benefits of Using Manual and Computerised Accounting System to Record Business Transactions.1444 Words   |  6 PagesUnit 8: Computer and computerised accounting system M1: Compare the benefits of using manual and computerised accounting system to record business transactions. In this assignment I will be comparing the benefit of using manual and computerised accounting system to record business transactions. Accounting software available Microsoft Excel Features: Excel allows users to auto sum where it helps you to add the contents of a column of adjacent cells. This is easier for businesses because theyRead MoreComputerized Accounting Functions and Organizations Productivity4059 Words   |  17 PagesTYPES OF COMPUTERIZED ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS By Kathy Adams McIntosh, eHow Contributor Businesses use financial information to create statements and to file income tax returns at the end of the year. Some businesses use manual accounting systems, but many businesses opt for computerized accounting systems to simplify the process and reduce errors. Businesses can choose between different types of computerized accounting systems. 1. Purpose * A computerized accounting system serves many purposesRead MoreEspecially For You Jewelers. This Paper Will Discuss Various1558 Words   |  7 Pagesaspects of new direct sales and accounting system for Especially for You Jewelers (EFYJ). First, it will suggest at least five expected business benefits that the EFYJ Company might derive from a new system, and provide a rationale for these suggestions. Next, this paper will propose at least five system capabilities for the company, and provide a rationale for these proposals. Further, it will ascertain three possible scenarios in this new direct sales and accounting system. Subsequently, this paperRead MoreEssay on Accounting Software1234 Words   |  5 Pagesbeen influenced by the presence of computer as a remarkable innovation in human history. The emerging of a new concept called Computerized Accounting Information System (CAIS) particularly, is one example of this â€Å"cutting-edge calculator’s† interven tion on bookkeeping activities. As many companies tend to apply this new frame to treat their transaction recordings, many accounting software developers try to provide an advanced computer program as the main engine of the companies’ CAIS. Some of the softwares

Monday, December 16, 2019

Ansoff’s Matrix Business Studies Gce Free Essays

Ansoff Matrix Ansoff’s Matrix: A method by which businesses can classify their strategies for expansion. It includes; Market Penetration, Product Development, Market Development and Diversification. Market penetration Market penetration is the name given to a growth strategy where the business focuses on selling existing products into existing markets. We will write a custom essay sample on Ansoff’s Matrix Business Studies Gce or any similar topic only for you Order Now Market penetration seeks to achieve four main objectives: Maintain or increase the market share of current products – this can be achieved by a combination of competitive pricing strategies, advertising, sales promotion and perhaps more resources dedicated to personal selling †¢ Secure dominance of growth markets †¢ Restructure a mature market by driving out competitors; this would require a much more aggressive promotional campaign, supported by a pricing strategy designed to make the market unattractive for competitors †¢ Increase usage by existing customers – for example by introducing loyalty schemes A market penetration marketing strategy is very much about â€Å"business as usual†. The business is focusing on markets and products it knows well. It is likely to have good information on competitors and on customer needs. It is unlikely, therefore, that this strategy will require much investment in new market research. Market development Market development is the name given to a growth strategy where the business seeks to sell its existing products into new markets. There are many possible ways of approaching this strategy, including: †¢ New geographical markets; for example exporting the product to a new country †¢ New product dimensions or packaging: for example New distribution channels †¢ Different pricing policies to attract different customers or create new market segments Product development Product development is the name given to a growth strategy where a business aims to introduce new products into existing markets. This strategy may require the development of new competencies and requires the business to develop modified products which ca n appeal to existing markets. Diversification Diversification is the name given to the growth strategy where a business markets new products in new markets. This is an inherently more risk strategy because the business is moving into markets in which it has little or no experience. For a business to adopt a diversification strategy, therefore, it must have a clear idea about what it expects to gain from the strategy and an honest assessment of the risks. How to cite Ansoff’s Matrix Business Studies Gce, Papers

Sunday, December 8, 2019

Contemporary Art in a Consumer Society free essay sample

Society has many influences that dictate the way a population will interact with one another, one of these influences is consumerism. Consumerism is the consumption of goods and services by society and how these products affect the society they reach. Society can be heavily influenced by consumerism. This is prominent throughout social environments; such as the media, television, advertising, etc. This high level of saturation and influence is represented through art. Often artist creations are derived from society and how the society functions and interacts with these influences. Contemporary art raises many questions as to the reasoning behind the artist’s creation. Some questions to keep in mind are: How society views consumerism through contemporary art? How is society represented in contemporary art? How does society influence contemporary art? An analysis of consumerism in art can be made from observing particular pieces from such artists as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Tom Wesselmann, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, and Takashi Murakami, to name but a few. Turning the focus to Jeff Koons, who uses consumer objects in many of his pieces. One piece in particular; Hennessy, The Civilized Way to Lay Down the Law, 1986. This painting is an oil ink on canvas. The painting depicts a couple in a dimly lit room, the man is sitting at a desk reviewing books, as the woman approaches with two glasses of Hennessy and is leaning over the man’s shoulder and offering a glass to him. In the top left corner of the painting there is a quote that reads â€Å"Hennessy the civilized way to lay down the law† and in the bottom right corner is a promotion that reads â€Å"the world’s most civilized spirit†. The painting is essentially an advertisement for Hennessy, which is a consumer product, and in this ad we can observe several subtle nuances that portray social activities. The painting describes a setting in which people are interacting with the product, this allows the audience to relate to the piece because it is a product that any person can buy, and the situation is common place and realistic. The painting also suggests that the product will increase the likelihood of this kind of scenario; the Hennessy is portrayed to have some ability to create this interaction. Not only does the painting depict a high class intellectual setting, but it also uses sex appeal to get the viewer’s attention, the suggestive pose of the subjects reads as a romantic encounter that causes the viewer to be intrigued by the painting and more importantly the product and situation the painting conveys. Koons uses consumer objects, such as the Hennessy to create a realistic setting that viewers will understand and relate to. By using consumer products as a subject, Koons is able to speak clearly to his audience and convey his message about how consumers interact with the products they buy. Perhaps one of the most well known artists to use consumer objects is Andy Warhol. During the 1960’s he created pieces using well know consumer products and even social icons. Warhol attempted to remove the artist’s interaction from his works by using subjects that viewers knew very well, such as Campbell’s soup and Marilyn Monroe. Warhol is credited with the creation of â€Å"Pop Art† which is art that uses popular culture in society to create works that depict this culture in various ways. Roy Lichtenstein however used this same style in many of his works before Warhol. Pop art usually breaks traditional methods of art, and uses a more progressive, modern style. One particular Warhol piece, Green Coca Cola Bottles, 1962 is a great example of consumerism in art. Warhol created this oil on canvas painting, displaying several coca cola bottles lined up next to each other, most full but some are less full or empty. Warhol uses the familiar consumer product as the subject to express the continuity of society. The bottles represent mass consumerism, which Warhol wanted to achieve as a way of creating himself as a product. The use of the bottles displays the sameness that is created by consumer products. Regardless of social class, all consumers are the same and this is a product all consumers can identify with. The lay out of the painting is intentional, the bottles are lined up next to each other this is to create a sense of consumerism as well, it is similar to the way objects are presented on store shelves. Also in displaying the bottles in this way, Warhol is able to eliminate the feel or touch of the artist, which aids in the representation of the consumerism. Products are made exactly the same in factories, by removing the element of the artist, Warhol further creates the sense of consumerism. Warhol liked the appeal of mass consumerism, and strived to depict consumerism through his art. Warhol also wanted to position himself as a product rather than just another artist. This appeal to mass consumerism is also seen in other, more recent artist. Takashi Murakami is another artist who is attracted to the appeal of mass consumerism. Like Warhol, Murakami has positioned himself as product, creating works and then mass producing them, such as pillow cushions and T-shirts. But perhaps the best example of consumerism is Murakami’s alliance with Louise Vuitton. In a recent exhibition held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, Murakami featured works that displayed his â€Å"Super Flat† style and Anime, cartoon like pieces. These works also includes other media such as video and sculptures. However the most interesting part of the exhibit was the Louise – Vuitton store front, which was actually part of the Murakami exhibit. Murakami embraces the consumerism of society by forming an alliance with the high-end French fashion designer Louse Vuitton. Murakami used his â€Å"super flat† style to create an artist pattern that Vuitton now uses as a pattern for hand bags and luggage. The popularity of Vuitton products appealed to Murakami, whose work is interested the new age pop culture and affluent fashion enthusiasts. An example of his work is Murakami’s Eye Love Monogram, 2003, this pattern maintains the fashion design that is signature to Vuitton products, but also applies Murakami’s â€Å"super flat† style. Murakami positioned his work in a way that the consumer can identify with his art, by creating the pattern for Vuitton, Murakami has positioned his work as a consumer product. Consumerism influences the way society interacts, the products that consumers buy are sometimes the objects society identifies with. These objects become representations of individual personalities. Art has embraced this influence to society by becoming consumer based, as most people identify with the consumer products they buy.

Saturday, November 30, 2019

Styrene monomer Benzoyl peroxide Essay Example

Styrene monomer  Benzoyl peroxide Paper Abstract The aim for this experiment is to find out how inhibitors or retarders can affect the process of polymerisation. As an initiator, a system of Benzoyl Peroxide was applied. Benzoquinone (inhibitor) and Nitrobenzene (retarder) were used in this experiment. This experiment contained three different samples all consisting Styrene and Benzoyl Peroxide. An inhibitor was added to the samples to conduct the experiment: Sample A was left as is; Sample B had Benzoquinone added; and Sample C had Nitrobenzene added. Each sample was then observed to measure its rate of polymerisation. It was found that the initial rate of polymerisation was almost steady for all samples within the first 20 minutes. From then, the rate of polymerisation changed in each sample. In Sample A, where no inhibitor or a retarder was used, the rate of polymerisation was dramatically increased. Whereas in Sample B and C which contained an inhibitor and retarder, had a slower rate of polymerisation. However, it was found that Sample C containing Nitrobenzene (retarder) had a faster rate of polymerisation than Sample B which contained Benzoquinone. The experiment concluded that the greater the content of the polymer and the higher the viscosity of the reaction system, the sooner the rise in the rate of polymerisation system. The experimental evidence of this study makes it possible to control the synthesis of Polystyrene from monomer to polymer. Objectives The following questions will be answered once this experiment has been carried out:   To find out the roles played by Benzoyl Peroxide, Benzoquinone and Nitrobenzene.   To find out how long the induction period lasts. We will write a custom essay sample on Styrene monomer  Benzoyl peroxide specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Styrene monomer  Benzoyl peroxide specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Styrene monomer  Benzoyl peroxide specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer To find out how Benzoquinone and Nitrobenzene slow down the rate of polymerisation of styrene.   To work out the rate constant for decomposition of Benzoyl Peroxide. Introduction The synthesis of Polystyrene by free radical addition polymerisation involves three major kinetic steps: Initiation; Propagation; and Termination. Benzoyl Peroxide is a common initiator to start the reaction. General Equation 1- Initiation: On heating, Benzoyl Peroxide decomposes to give two free radicals. The initiation step usually includes the addition of the first monomer molecule: In this reaction the free radical attacks the monomer and adds to it. The double bond is broke open and free radical reappears at the far end. 2- Propagation: After initiation reactions, many monomer molecules are added rapidly, perhaps in a fraction of a second. On the addition of each monomer, the free radical moves to the end of the chain. 3- Termination: In the termination reaction, two free radicals react with each other. Termination is either by combination where R represents a long chain of portions or by disproportionation where hydrogen is transferred from one chain to the other. This latter result produces in a two final chains. While the normal mode of addition is a head-to-tail reaction, this termination step is normally head-to-head. Methodology Materials used: The following materials were used in order to conduct the experiment:   Styrene monomer   Benzoyl Peroxide (initiator) Benzoquinone (inhibitor)   Nitrobenzene (retarder) Equipments used: The following equipments were used in order to conduct the experiment:   Abbe refractometer   Sodium light   Separating funnel   Vacuum oven Procedure to be followed: Note: Before starting the experiment, following measurements were taken to ensure safety:   Safety glasses were worn at all times while conducting the experiment When handling the hot screw-cap jars, gloves were always worn Stage 1: Firstly, a 110 cm3 of the styrene solution is shaken with an equal amount of dilute sodium hydroxide solution in a separating funnel. The mixture is then shaken twice with an equal volume of deionised water. Once this procedure has been carried out, the aqueous solution is disposed off. By carrying out this procedure, the inhibitor is removed from the styrene.

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Ethic and Contemporary Issues in Multimedia and IT

Ethic and Contemporary Issues in Multimedia and IT Professional code of conduct as well as ethics is important in an individual’s way of live and work. This is of great importance to the world of technology that includes multimedia and information technology sectors. The Multimedia and IT field in the recent years have shown great improvement due to advancement in internet through the use of optical fibber that have led to social networks sites such as the twitter, Facebook, and the bloggers.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Ethic and Contemporary Issues in Multimedia and IT specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More In addition, the development of internet gadgets such as mobile phones, modems, laptops and the networking of computers have posed a great threat to the ethics of multimedia and IT. The increase in use of these sites and other IT related gadgets have brought the maintenance and integrity of ethics in the communication and media field to a threat. According t o the media associations, the work of the media and IT is to inform people about the happenings of the world and a means of communication that would bring growth rather than disasters. However, the main objective of the communication and media field has changed as in the recent cases of the Arab countries. In Egypt, during the Anti-Mubarak protests, the protesters used the social networks to organize themselves, spread rumours, and keep each other informed of the progress of the protests Sharp (2011, p. 2). They used several forms of communication especially the use of social networks. Sharp (2011, p. 2) asserts that after the government realized the role of the media to the protests, they blocked all forms of media including the use of internet. In addition, in 2009 the social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and bloggers and Yu tube played a great role in organization of protests to show their feelings after the result Kamalipour (2010, p. 62). Kamalipour (2010, p. 62) further asserts that this social media sites informed the world on the situation in Iran. Like in Egypt, the Iranian government responded by blocking the use of internet in Iran, especially the social network sites Kamalipour (2011, p. 62). The media was further used to send rumours of the situation on the grounds such as the magnitude of the people killed by the riot police as they tried to seek for sympathizers from the world Sharp (2011, p. 9). During these instances, the media generally focus only on one of the parties involved. For instance during the Egypt protests the major focus was on the killings of the protestors by the riot police. The media and communication ethic on public matter has been to preach peace and unity but in several instances, the media has caused political instability. Further, media has spread hate speeches and rumours either between political affiliates or between countries.Advertising Looking for essay on ethics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Several nations have experienced political instabilities in the recent years due to the conflicting information passed through the media or through social networks. For instance in many countries after elections, tribal clashes are highly initiated by the tallying proceedings that are broadcasted in different stations. Communication and media ethics further dictate that media has the right to influence the people’s morals in a positive manner. However, with the extensive use of internet, TV’s, video films and video games, media has influenced the moral behaviours of many youths. The use of media have exposed people to several programs, movies and sites that are not worth to be viewed by different kinds of people. For instance, young people who have access to internet on their phones and private laptops have been exposed to information that has influenced their behaviours. Technology advancement has affected the morals of the people as they are exposed to them. Further, the media and IT ethics have been affected by the increase in media and IT crimes. With the improved technology, the knowledge of people has greatly changed causing a great threat in the media fields. The cases of cyber crimes and cyber burying have tremendously increased with time. This has put the security of the people and government at risk. Cyber crimes such as cyber theft where thieves steal through the internet by getting access to other peoples accounts have increased. Other cyber crimes include hackling of websites and email addresses, the use of email to send spam messages to other people. People use the media to send messages in request of ransoms for an internet crime committed or to con other people over the internet. Further, IT has been used to impersonate and in copyrights. Copyrighting being a crime has violated many people’s rights. Those who perpetuate these crimes copy and sell the pirated copies for the ir own benefit. Further, there are media sources that cause fear to the audience or the people. In May 2006, an American TV (ABC) aired a movie in name â€Å"Fatal Contact: bird Flu in America† Perebinossoff (2008, p. 75-76) that had excessive and rumours of the H5N1 virus that causes bird flu. This movie was also made available in DVDs, which caused great fear to the people. The movie further exaggerated the threat of the H5N1virus. Conclusion With the advancement in technology, the ethics in the communication and media has greatly fluctuated. This is due to the increase in the number of people using the media sources. There have been great efforts by the government and the media associations but to date their efforts have not brought good results.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Ethic and Contemporary Issues in Multimedia and IT specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Their efforts have been greatly affected by th e fact that media and IT cannot be abolished completely. In day-to-day activities, media and IT has to be involved and in the government. However, more and more efforts need to be inputted to bring a long-term solution that will raise the ethics of media. This will help in maintenance of peace and order as well as to increase the security of the citizens through reduction of cyber crimes. References Kamalipour, Y 2010, Media, power and politics in the digital age: The 2009 presidential uprising in Iran, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Maryland. Perebinossoff, P 2008, Real-world media ethics: Inside the broadcast and Entertainment Industries, Elsevier, Oxford. Sharp, J 2011, Egypt: the January 25 revolution and implication for US foreign policy, Congressional Research service, Washington DC.

Friday, November 22, 2019

Emoji

Emoji Emoji Emoji By Maeve Maddox Ancient Egyptians had hieroglyphics. Modern Man has emojis. Since the 1980s, symbols to express emotions have proliferated in cyberspace. At first they were made with what was available on the keyboard, like the smiley face made with a colon, a hyphen, and a parenthesis. Now, thanks to Unicode, they appear as true pictures: faces, hands, heads, cupcakes, robots, even a swirly pile of brown poop with eyes and a smile. These symbols acquired a name in 1990: emoticon, a portmanteau word made by combining emotion and icon. In 1997 or so, the Japanese word for pictograph- emoji- went international as a term for emoticons produced with Unicode. Note: The similarity of emoji to emoticon is coincidental. The Japanese word was coined in 1928, perhaps on the model of English pictograph: Japanese e = picture; moji = letter or character. So far, more than 700 emojis are available, with more on the way. Vyvyan Evans, a professor of linguistics at Bangor University (Wales), refers to the use of emojis as a language called Emoji: Emoji is the fastest growing form of language ever based on its incredible adoption rate and speed of evolution. As a visual language emoji has already eclipsed hieroglyphics, its ancient Egyptian precursor, which took centuries to develop. According to a Table Talk Mobile survey of 2,000 Britons, ages 18-65, â€Å"more than eight in 10 Brits are now using emoji to communicate regularly.† Users in the 18 to 25-year-old age bracket said they found it easier to put their feelings across in emoji icons than in text. Of the over forties, 54% said they were confused by what the symbols meant. Professor Evans doesn’t think that pictorial language will replace the kind that depends on words, but he does expect it to augment written language, making it â€Å"more appealing to younger readers†: I think it’s conceivable that emoji will increasingly be used to complement digital versions of written works. For instance, the inclusion of emoji to help convey meaning in abridged versions of Shakespeare could help bring those great stories to life for a whole new generation. Although I think that emojis are fun to use, I’m glad that I learned to understand and appreciate Shakespeare without the aid of picture writing. My high school generation not only read the plays as they were written, we memorized whole swathes of words from Julius Caesar (9th grade), As You Like It (10th grade), Romeo and Juliet (11th grade), and Macbeth (12th grade). I suppose this description from Macbeth could be rendered in Emoji, but I doubt the drawings of a bird and some trees would send goose bumps down my arms all these years later: Light thickens, and the crow Makes wing to th rooky wood. Good things of day begin to droop and drowse; Whiles nights black agents to their preys do rouse. But, different times, different customs. BBC’s Newsbeat, a site aimed at a young audience, features a weekly news quiz written in emoji. Tennis player Andy Murray tweeted about his wedding in emoji. Note: There is disagreement as to the plural of emoji. Some speakers prefer to use the same form for both: one emoji/two emoji. Others think that emoji should follow the English rule and add s to form the plural: one emoji/two emojis. The AP Stylebook has ruled in favor of emojis. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:"Because Of" and "Due To" Hyper and HypoEbook, eBook, ebook or e-book?

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Affordable care act Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Affordable care act - Essay Example The Act paves the way for the construction more health centers and National Health Service Corps at a cost of $12.5 billion across the period 2011-2015. The measures in the Act reduce the cost of coverage for ordinary citizens. In fact, the Affordable Care Act is expected to reduce the number of citizens without insurance by 50% (Rosenbaum, 2011). The employers, pharmaceutical companies, and medical equipment manufacturers contribute a tax towards the general health of the public. Thus, the Act covers citizens regardless of age, gender, and race, thereby allowing for a healthy population. The affordable care act leaves a huge role for nurses. The Act provides for health promotion and insists on primary care. Such roles are dedicated to nurses. In the Act, nurses have a responsibility of ensuring that common health problems are contained at the source by communicating health information to the people and prevent vulnerabilities. By so doing, nurses reduce the pressure on healthcare system, thus reducing the cost of healthcare. The point implies that the role of nurses has widened due to the implementation of the Act. Department of Human and Social Services. (2013, September 11). Improving the Public’s Health through the Affordable Care. Retrieved from

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Analysis of General Theories of History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Analysis of General Theories of History - Essay Example Experiences from one generation to another do not vary greatly; thereby it is important to learn lessons from the overall course of history. The first attempt to record the science of history was undertaken by the Greeks about twenty-five hundred years ago. The need to comprehend history and translate its effects into the future does not arise in societies with long-standing and relatively steady social structures. Such a state of affairs is not given much consideration. However, when societies face sudden drastic turmoil which triggers changes in the social structure, then understanding the underlying motives which led to the change becomes imperative. Usually wars, travelling, trade and colonization result in an entirely different culture being imposed on the society which they come into contact with. This forced integration of diverse cultures culminates in a clash between different social strata; so it becomes crucial to identify and comprehend the sources and foundations of such oppositions. Men of knowledge compare and contrast various sorts of governments and social structures in an attempt to resolve differences and bring harmony to the society. It is obvious that conflict resolution is not possible unless conflict description and diagnosis are accurate enough. The role and responsibility of creating accurate problem diagnosis is within the domain of political theorists. Neither has history been created nor have our social structures evolved in accordance with a pre-defined plan. Nature has not dictated the course of events rather it is the people who compose societies who chose their cultural norms, established various institutions and developed ideologies. It is time to realize that the human nature itself is determined by changes in life and labour. History has been shaped by economic progress, division of society in different social-economic strata, changes in condition of labour, advancements in production and trading. In this respect there have be en a number of different contributions to thought on political history from various quarters. The evolution of political history in its current forms can be seen as deriving from the Age of Enlightenment where thinkers such as Hegel and Kant picked up the gauntlet to define history in such a manner. This work was carried on later by numerous others including Karl Marx who has had a major impact on the modern day given his role in the creation of a communist ideology. In more modern terms, the earliest thoughts on the philosophy of history derived from the views and work of Kant. He held that humanity had been driven into its current state of autonomy through the use of enlightened despotism (Kant, 1991) (Murphy, 1994). Kant’s views on the issue can be seen more clearly through his work titled Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose. Kant produced a paradoxical picture by expounding on the one hand that national liberation was only possible through enlightened despotism while ultimate autonomy rested entirely with the individual’s will to gain it (Williams, 1992). Kant recognised that history ensured that progress had to come in human affairs but Kant’s method of delineating the mechanism remains self-contradictory (Hampsher-Monk, 1993). Strangely he holds that liberation lies solely through

Saturday, November 16, 2019

Citic Tower Essay Example for Free

Citic Tower Essay Stakes in firms such as Cathay Pacific, Dragonair and a string of trading and property companies * Citic Tower (Original) Property development team had gained extensive expertise and knowledge in the property business * Development began in 1995 and completed in less than two years * Despite post-Asian financial crisis, Citic Tower maintained a relatively high occupancy rate Concerns * The discounted cash flow analysis shows a negative net present value Commercial real estate market is extremely cyclical * No guarantee that Citic Tower II would be able to survive the economic downturn (perform as well as Citic Tower I has performed) Situation Larry Yung is interested in this property but hesitant due to uncertainty of future economic conditions * Member of the property development team suggested that CPL acquire rights to the land, and thus the development by offering to purchase an exclusive option from the seller * In the past land owners would not even have considered negotiating an option to purchase development sites but property developers are much more cautious after the Asian financial crisis Calculated by finding the standard deviation of return on assets proportional to time * Net option value=51 million Decision * CPL should (NOT? ) purchase the option *it seems like the price of the option is 77 million (5% equity stake) and if the option value is only 51 million then it seems like a bad idea for them to purchase the option†¦so I’m confused a little about this part still†¦maybe you guys could talk to him about this or figure it out

Thursday, November 14, 2019

The Theme of Love in Poetry :: Love Poems Poets Poetry Essays

The Theme of Love in Poetry For this essay I am going to read and analyse three poems on the theme of love: "Cousin Kate" by Christina Rossetti, "Goodbye" by Anna Landucci, and "The Library of Love" by John Citizen. The three poems are set in different times and show the difference of attitude of love between time periods. In Victorian time the topic of love was very private and was not shown in public. Today's' society is totally different where people will show their love to one another anywhere and freely talk about it to their friends. Although love in society has changed, love has always been discussed in arts such as literature and poems emphasising how important love is to mankind. "Cousin Kate" by Christina Rossetti. This poem is the oldest of the three being discussed. It was written in 1862. The poem is about a poor cottage maiden who was in love with the local Lord, became pregnant to him but was cast aside when he married her cousin Kate instead. Her love for the Lord was full of joy at first but when he rejected her all sorts of emotions were released. Hurt, anger, jealousy, regret, shame, and finally pride are all expressed in this poem. The whole poem is written as a reflection of the girl's life. Love changed her life completely. As it was written in 1862 it had more of an effect on her life than if the same thing happened today. She would have been sneered upon for having had sex outside marriage and been sure that no other man would marry her. The girl in the poem sees how she was influenced by the Lord's power. She saw him as a very special man as in, "Why did a Great Lord find me out?" The word "great" suggests she saw him as a superior person. If he were a commoner without the Lord's wealth and power I think the circumstances would have been different. As the poem goes on it shows that she had become aware of the fact that the Lord took advantage of her. This can be shown in, ""He lured me to his palace home." The verb "lured" suggests she was led into a trap like an animal and "palace home" indicates the seduction of wealth again. The use of alliteration and repetition in the text, "To lead a shameless, shameful life," emphasises that the Lord gets away with a lot because of his sex, wealth and power. The girl realises her mistakes. She realises that the Lord was just using her and had no permanent relationship on his mind.

Monday, November 11, 2019

Pathophysiology Of Hypertension Therapeutic Intervention Health And Social Care Essay

The normal scope of blood force per unit area in a healthy individual is 120/90 millimeter Hg. Clinically a individual is said to be hypertensive if their blood force per unit area is 140/90 millimeter Hg or supra, on two separate occasions. ( 1 & A ; 2 ) The left ventricle of a hypertensive individual is enlarged due to the increased work burden on the bosom. This increases the oxygen demand of the cardiac musculus. In order to run into this increased demand, the coronary circulation increases the cardiac end product ( 1 ) Imbalance in cardiac end product volume and peripheral opposition leads to a rise in blood force per unit area. ( 3 ) . Cardiac end product is defined as the volume of blood pumped from the bosom and Entire peripheral opposition is the opposition of flow of blood in smaller arteriolas and ) viscousness of blood ( 1 & A ; 2 ) There are two chief types of high blood pressure viz. primary ( indispensable high blood pressure and secondary high blood pressure. In primary high blood pressure, high blood force per unit area is non accompanied by an implicit in disease. Secondary high blood pressure is a rise in arterial blood force per unit area due to an implicit in disease, examples include nephritic and neurotic diseases Early surveies of high blood pressure showed that there was a little addition in cardiac end product before any alteration in peripheral opposition. ( 3 ) From these findings it was suggested that the cardic end product ab initio rises due to sodium and H2O retension, this leads to an autoregulatory rise in peripheral opposition. The cardiac end product so fell once more as a consequence of cardiovascular physiological reactions, nevertheless the blood force per unit area remained somewhat elevated To understand the pathophysiology of high blood pressure, it is of import to understand the mechanisms involved in modulating blood pressure.i.e. The homeostatic mechanisms that taken topographic point ( 92 ) Baroreceptors detect a alteration in force per unit area. Figure 1 shows the neurogenic mechanism triggered by high blood pressure. When the force per unit area rises an afferent signal is sent to the vasomotor system, in the myelin oblongata of the encephalon. This consequences in cut downing motorial sympathetic activity taking in arterial dilation and decreased myocardial contractility, therefore seeking to return force per unit area to its original value. In chronic high blood pressure the homeostatic physiological reactions are reset to a higher degree [ 4 ] The mechanism of indispensable high blood pressure is non wholly known and is a subject that is presently under research. ( 88 )Assorted factors regulate blood force per unit area, these include.A break in one or more of these could be a possible cause for high blood pressure[ 3 ] Factors that are linked to primary high blood pressure are environmental factors, organic structure weight, intoxicant consumption, dietetic factors, exeThere is a important relationship between kidney disease and high blood pressure.Renin is an enzyme, and is chiefly found in the juxtaglomerular setup in the kidney. ( Fig )The secernment of renin is initiated by a lessening in perfusion force per unit area in the kidney and alterations in Na concentration of the distal cannular fluid.As shown in fig. Renin catabolises angiotensinogen, a protein from the liver, and signifiers angiotensin I. Angiotensin I is activated by angiotonin change overing enzyme and as a consequence it yields Angiotensin II. Angioten sin II is 40 times more powerful in raising blood force per unit area as compared to noradrenalin. The renin-angiotensin system is besides thought to modulate the elimination of Na by the kidneyPhaeochromocytoma is a tumor of the adrenal secretory organ which causes increased secernment of the endocrine epinephrine. This leads to an increased arterial force per unit area. This is an illustration of secondary high blood pressureReflux neuropathy is a nephritic disease where the kidneys get disrupted due to the backward flow of piss in the kidney. The image below shows an affected arteria ( 172 )( 3 )Factors that increase the hazard of[ 10 ] ..et Al suggested that high blood pressure should be seen as a multifactorial inflammatory disease. The survey showed that inflammatory processes play an of import function in prolonging systematic high blood pressure [ 10 ]( 600 )There are legion interventions for high blood pressure.Primary high blood pressureWhile sing the usage of drugs, we sh ould do certain that the drug is†¦ i.e. its benefits outweighs its side-effects.Figure aa‚ ¬ † demoing systems responsible for the homeostatic control of blood force per unit area together with mark sites for anti-hypertensive drugsBeginning: [ 6 ]As shown in Fig the sympathetic nervous system, the rennin-angiotensin-aldosterone system and the tonically-active endothelium derived autocoids are the chief systems responsible in the ordinance of high blood pressure. [ 6 ]Mentioning to fig and postpone 1[ 6 ][ 11 ] Recently†¦ et Al performed a complete Pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic and clinical rating of the drug aliskiren. The survey showed that Aliskiren was a prospective anti-hypertensive drug [ 11 ][ 7 ] †¦ et Al showed that usage of initial combination therapy of the drugs aliskiren and amlodipine for the control of blood force per unit area improves early eA?A ¬a‚ ¬ectiveness and is more effectual to each monotherapy in early control of bl ood force per unit area [ 7 ]The intervention of high blood pressure by drugs is most effectual when accompanied with lifestyle alterations including regular exercising, healthy diet, weight and intoxicant decrease and no smoke.Drug intervention for high blood pressure is non really effectual in all patients..et Al showed that pharmacological intervention was merely effectual on tierce of patients enduring from high blood pressure. The survey concluded that there was a important relationship between psychological factors and hapless high blood pressure control [ 8 ][ 12 ] †¦ showed that 60-70 % of high blood pressure in grownups is caused by fleshiness and suggested mechanisms such as insulin opposition, Na keeping, increased sympathetic nervous system activity, activation of renin-angiotensin-aldosterone, and altered vascular map are obesity-relatedhigh blood pressure. †¦ suggested that consciousness of the disease is the most reasonable long term solution [ 12 ]( 183 )In decision, high blood pressure is a multifactorial disease, that is caused by a figure of factors including environmental factors, genetic sciences, lifestyle etc. The mechanism of high blood pressure is a subject which is still being researched. Depending upon the implicit in disease and the badness, secondary high blood pressure may be able to be treated surgically.Primary high blood pressure if diagnosed at an early phase can be combated with medical specialties and simple alterations like regular exercising, healthy low salt and low fat diet, reduced alcohol consumption etc.( 80 )

Saturday, November 9, 2019

Quality Of Life Elderly Osteoarthritis Health And Social Care Essay

Health and quality of life are of course interrelated. This gives rise to the construct of Health-related quality of life ( HRQOL ) . HRQOL is a multidimensional construct that covers a wide facet of wellness and good being of a individual both the constructive and unconstructive facets of life. . Harmonizing to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( 2000 ) , HRQL is regard as the most suited facet of quality of life ( QOL ) for probe in footings of which facet of QOL have the impact of a disease or any medical status, and defined it as â€Å" an person ‘s or group ‘s sensed physical and mental wellness over time. † . By analyzing HRQOL of a disease, it will be possible to mensurate and show the impact of wellness on quality of life scientifically. HRQOL covers many facets of good being including the emotional, physical, societal and subjective feelings that reveal patients ‘ appraisal and response to their unwellnesss. It is suited particularly in look intoing on the functional wellness position and wellbeing which are perceived and self-reported by the persons. DeSalvo, Bloser, Reynolds, He, Muntner ( 2002 ) showed that self-reporting by persons on their wellness position has proved to be a important forecaster of mortality and morbidity compared to other nonsubjective steps of wellness. Therefore, it has been recognized as a suited wellness index and service demands index in many diseases including arthritis. Problems that are associated with arthritis are simply non merely in medical unwellness. It besides has significant impacts on patients ‘ functional capacity and QOL. Escalante and Del Rincon ( 1999 ) had emphasized that the joint stiffness, changeless hurting, and joint harm due to arthritis cause important physical disablement and give negative influence in many facets of the patients ‘ lives, including functional disablement, work, relationships, and psychological impact. It has been shown that populating with arthritis is associated with decreased in QOL ( Nadal, 2001 ) . Harmonizing to WHO ( 2003 ) , arthritic diseases which include degenerative arthritis ( OA ) are the chief cause of morbidity throughout the universe and the diseases have an of import influence on the single wellness and quality of life. OA is peculiarly common among older people. Longitudinal surveies have found that incidence of degenerative arthritis increased with progressing age ( Sowers, Zobel, Weissfeld, Hawthorne and Carman, 1991 ) . The bing QA continues to come on in a long tally with the rate of patterned advance increased as the person aged. No uncertainty that in both the development and developed states where the life anticipation has increased in recent decennaries and with the alterations in the life style and diet, a rise in the incidence and prevalence of non-communicable diseases which includes the OA has present. This phenomenon is markedly seen in developing states which show betterments in wellness results. Statistically, WHO ( 2003 ) claimed that the prevalenc e of OA is that 10 % of the universe ‘s population who are 60 old ages or older. It besides claimed that about 40 % of the aged age of 70 old ages and above enduring from OA of the articulatio genus, and about 80 % of patients with OA have restriction of motion in assorted grade, and worst of all, about 25 % of patients with OA can non execute their major day-to-day activities of life. Osteoarthritis is the most common signifier of arthritis and is considered as one of the stressful, chronic unwellness and extremely prevalent in our society. Arthritis including OA is one of the major chronic unwellnesss that affect the morbidity of Malaysian ( Doris Padmini, et al. , 2010 ) . The prevalence of OA is in the Asia Pacific part is about 10-20 % of the grownup population. In all populations studied so far the prevalence of articulatio genus OA is higher than that of hip OA but this is more pronounced in Asiatic populations ( WHO, 2003 ) . The similar status occurs in Malaysia in which the most common signifier of OA is the articulatio genus OA ( Veerapan, Wigley and Valkenburg, 2007 ) . Although there is no exact figure of patients with knee OA, the Community Orientated Program for Control of Rheumatic Diseases ( COPCORD ) survey showed that 21.1 % of grownup Malaysians complained of arthritic hurting and the ailment rate increased with age those as shown as the prevale nce of OA was 53.4 % in those over 65 old ages. The exact prevalence of articulatio genus OA in Malaysia is non known. There is merely one survey done in primary attention puting in Malaysia and the survey showed that patient with articulatio genus OA go toing the authorities wellness clinic had comparatively hapless QOL in their physical wellness but there was less in their mental wellness. ( Zakaria, Bakar, Hasmoni, Rani and Kadir, 2009 ) There is a batch of information proposing that musculoskeletal diseases including OA have a negative consequence on HRQOL. One big wellness study ( Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey ) done yearly in United States of America ( USA ) by CDC Atlanta incorporating informations from 32,322 grownups in 11 provinces showed that those persons with arthritis had about three times higher HRQL damage compared to those without the creaky disease ( 28.6 % vs. 8.3 % ) . They besides accounted a significantly larger figure of yearss when usual activities were restricted and physical and mental wellness was hapless ( Cook, Pietrobon and Hegedus, 2007 ) . Therefore, their creaky status made it difficult for them to populate in state of affairs they wanted. In the other states, assorted survey done on OA, for illustration in Korea in which the findings noted that OA are common in the elderly grownup population with the prevalence of 37.3 % for radiographic OA and 24.2 % for diagnostic OA, and significantly more in adult females ( Inje, Hyun, Yeong, Jin and Dong, 2010 ) . In Greece with prevalence of diagnostic OA of 8.9 % showed similar findings in gender, where OA was significantly higher among adult females and it increased with age significantly. Similar state of affairs occurs in Britain, in which the most normally reported ground of morbidity among persons aged 65 old ages and over peculiarly among adult females, is the upset of the musculoskeletal system ( Brown, Bowling and Flynn, 2004 ) . Findingss from the IQOLA Project Group ( 2004 ) gave groundss that legion surveies have shown that patients with musculoskeletal diseases have worse HRQOL, but the worst HRQOL was reported by patients with OA, Rheumatoid Arthritis ( RA ) , Oste oporosis and Fibromyalgia ( Picavet and Hoeymans, 2004 ) . These similar findings were seen in a survey done in Hong Kong which concluded that patients with knee degenerative arthritis had more impact on the HRQOL than other chronic diseases ( Lam and Launder, 2000 ) .Problem StatementThis survey is designed to analyze the wellness related quality of life in aged with OA go toing authorities wellness clinics in Kuala Lumpur. OA is chiefly an unwellness of aged individuals presented as moderate to severe symptoms ( McCarty, 1989 ) . For those who have mild symptoms normally will non seek medical attention. Harmonizing to Brown et Al. ( 2004 ) , the factors that may act upon the HRQOL in patients with OA are the demographic factors such as age, gender and socioeconomic position ; the OA conditions ( illness-related stressors ) that can impaired the patients ‘ day-to-day activity and the intervention for the status could besides impact people ‘s wellness perceptual experien ce. These factors will be studied as the dependent variables. The illness-related emotion and the header schemes that the patients have, would be the go-between variables.Theoretical ModelHarmonizing to Ventegodt, Merrick and, Andersen ( 2003 ) , Quality of Life ( QOL ) indicate ‘a good life ‘ , which imply a life with a high quality. HRQOL is one of the studied constituents of QOL, by and large referred to ‘a good life ‘ patient/client- based outcome indexs of wellness and societal attention engagement. OQL is a multi-level and obscure construct. It is accepted as the terminal of the rating of public policy. Although the cardinal spheres of QOL were identified in the literature are applicable to grownups of all ages, most of the research community has accepted no unequivocal theoretical model of quality of life, and no individual research model has been utilised in its probe ( Brown et al. 2004 ) . However, Ventegodt, et Al. ( 2003 ) presented a theoretical model of ‘the integrative theory of the quality of life ‘ ( IQOL theory ) refering facets of a good life which is showed in Figure 1. This integrative theory is an overall theory or meta-theory embracing eight more factual theories including the theory aspired by Maslow, in a subjective-existential-objective spectrum. By presenting this IQOL theory, a strength into the wellness and societal scientific disciplines is a measure towards a new recognition and regard for the profusion and complexness of life. Using the IQOL and Stress Coping Model ( Lazarus and Folkman, 1984 ) , the conceptual model for this survey will be based on. The HRQOL manifests itself as the index variable. The header schemes and the stressors ( assessment of demands and end ) will be the go-between. In this survey, the internal and external resources will non being studied. The constituent that being written boldly in the theoretical account above is the chief elements that will be look into.JustificationThe HRQOL has ne'er been studied in an urban scene in Malaysia boulder clay today, except in Putrajaya which has different population composing compared to other province. Kuala Lumpur being the most urbanised metropolis in Malaysia and populated by about 72,345 aged ( Department of Statistic Malaysia, 2010 ) . The composing of races and age is about similar to other urban puting in Malaysia The figure of aged with OA in Kuala Lumpur is non known. By put to deathing this survey, the basal line of prevalence of OA go toing the authorities wellness clinics can be obtained. Another ground why analyzing HRQOL in OA patients is of import because harmonizing to Woolf and Pfleger ( 2003 ) , musculoskeletal upsets are the most common cause of terrible long-run hurting and physical disablement, and it affects the societal operation and mental wellness of the patient and later diminishes the patient ‘s HRQOL. Arthritis diseases which include OA are one of the groups of diseases that cause a major public wellness job. Not merely are they progressive enfeebling diseases with no known remedy, but they besides have a annihilating impact on HRQL. This disease affects the patient ‘s capableness to populate a full and active life. In the study of The Bone- and Joint Decade 2000-2010, it has highlighted the significance of bettering the patients ‘ HRQOL with musculoskeletal upset. With the outgrowth of ageing population in Malaysia, the incidence and prevalence of people who suffer from chronic diseases such as OA, RA, osteoporosis and low back hurting, will go on to increase. The musculoskeletal upsets will and hold taken up a big proportion of healthcare resources compared to other chronic diseases, ( Osborne, Nikpour, Busija, Sundararajan and Wicks, 2007 ) . Clinicians and public wellness decision makers are concern about the wellness attention resources effects of arthritis ( March and Bachmeier, 1997 ) . Normally the results in wellness attention have been determined by the medical appraisal but the perceptual experience of the patient is besides an of import variable. Therefore, the importance of measuring wellness attention has shifted increasingly towards ratings of medical/health-related results from the patient ‘s position. This can supply excess information more than what being obtained by the traditional wellness measurings, and, therefore is valuable in assisting to understand the OA conditions.Significant of StudyFor Malaysia Ministry of Health, quality of life betterment is an indispensable public wellness end. The policy involvement in quality of life in older age is illustrated in the Malaysia National Policy for The Elderly, in which one of its purposes is â€Å" To develop the potency of the aged so that they remai n active and productive in national development and to make chances for them to go on to populate independently † . Therefore, HRQOL can be a national wellness criterion which can associate different subjects and other services. By mensurating HRQOL, the ministry will be able to supervise the national wellness advancement, in carry throughing the national wellness aims. To do alterations in some federal policy, the information on HRQOL needed to complement current public wellness ‘s traditional morbidity and mortality measuring because HRQOL is related to both self-reported chronic diseases and their hazard factors- giving valuable new penetrations on the relationships between HRQOL and hazard factors. Other than that, it can besides assist to happen out the load of chronic diseases, place which subgroups in population that have hapless perceived wellness and this will assist in steering intercessions to better their state of affairss and prevent more serious effects. Wi th all the information gathered, it can assist in placing the demands in the wellness policies and statute law, aid to administer resources consequently based on unmet demands, conduct the strategic programs development, and supervise the effectivity of the intercessions. Since OA is one of the chronic diseases with high morbidity, survey in its impact on the HRQOL may change the policy devising of the chronic diseases. Besides that, HRQOL appraisal is an of import public wellness tool for the aged. As mentioned above, informations from the appraisal will able to find the hazard factors of chronic diseases. In this epoch, when the life anticipation is increasing, the figure of aged will be increasing. It is the purpose of the public wellness that the aged will hold healthy ageing despite the overall wellness effects related to normal ripening and pathological disease processes. It is expected to be concerned with easing the aged in keeping their mobility, prolonging their independency and go oning their active engagement in society. The aged should be able to respond expeditiously to the physical, psychological and societal challenges of ageing. In other words, the consequence of all the activities should add quality to old ages of aged life. The information from HRQOL can be interpreted into the cognition, consciousness and pattern taking towards healthy ageing that will be executed to the communit y. The information from the survey will be able to assist physicians and wellness attention givers in placing the demands of patients with chronic diseases. It shall better their services and could be more patient-centred. As betterment in interventions and pull offing patient with OA take topographic point, new and better ways will emerge to back up the patients in take part a more active function in commanding their disease. Consequently, betterments in the HRQOL of OA patients can be seen in the hereafter old ages. The pathological definition for degenerative arthritis is of a status characterized by focal countries of loss of articular gristle within the synovial articulations, associated with hypertrophy of the bone ( osteophytes and subchondral bone induration ) and inspissating of the capsule. However in this survey merely the diagnostic OA will be studied which based upon the American College of Rheumatology standards. The chief standards is joint hurting with at least 3 out of these 6 clinical findings nowadays: age more than 50 old ages, crepitus, stiffness more than 30 proceedingss, bone tenderness, no tangible heat, bony expansion and bony tenderness ( Altman et al, 1986 )Health Related Quality Of LifeHarmonizing to CDC ( 2000 ) , HRQOL is defined as a wide multidimensional construct of quality of life that normally includes self-reported steps of physical and mental wellness by the inidividuals. To mensurate the HRQOL, the survey will be utilizing outcome survey of 36-item short signifier ( SF-36 ) . It is a multi-item graduated table that step eight wellness constructs.Illness Related StressorAny signifier of emphasis that derived from the disease. Illness-related stressors are traveling to be measured by the six subscales utilizing the Arthritis Impact Measurement Scales. The subscales are: Permission to carry on the survey in the authorities wellness installations need to be requested from the Ministry of Health, before pursues the survey. All the aged with OA that will be registered by the wellness personal will be informed about the survey and requested to take part in it. For those who agree to take part, the wellness personal will necessitate to hold the participants to subscribe the written consent. The wellness personal will carry on and help the aged in replying the questionnaire that will be taken topographic point in a one to one unfastened interview session. The questionairres will be prepared in three linguistic communications which are Bahasa Melayu, Chinese Language and Indian Language. If the aged does non able to understand the inquiries proposed to them due to linguistic communication barrier, the research worker will name a linguistic communication transcriber.Data CollectionThe research workers will ab initio inquire the permission from the Ministry o f Health in July 2011 to utilize their installations to carry on this survey, and informing the authorities wellness clinics sing the survey. In December 2011, the research worker will name at least 13 helpers to assist carry oning this survey. The helpers will be the wellness attention personals in which they are good verse with the medical footings and conditions. The helpers will be informed sing the aims, the consent needed from the aged, the information needed, the entry of informations in informations sheet and every bit good trained and brief on the behavior of the survey in footings of utilizing the questionnaires. The research workers and helpers will be carry oning the survey in 1 January 2011 boulder clay 30 June 2011 manually. The aged who fulfil the inclusion standards will be accepted in the survey whereas those who fulfil the exclusion standards will be excluded. The research workers and helpers will inquire the consent from the aged before questioning them. The consent signifier shown in Annex 2. The informations collected from the interviews will be collected and natural informations will be entered in SPSS statistical programme by the research worker. The information will be cleaned and edited. The Arthritis Impact Measurement Scales ( AIMS ) . The graduated tables used are scored in a consistent manner so that a low value indicates a high wellness position. The trial for dependability showed that the Guttman graduated table coefficients for scalability is more than 0.6. Whereas, the Guttman graduated table coefficients for duplicability is more than 0.9. The internal consistence by Cronbach ‘s alpha is more than 0.60 for each of subdivisions. The points in AIMS are based on the constituent of the Rand Health Survey Questionnaires, the Quality of Well-Being Scale, and Katz ‘s Index of Activities of Daily Living. Factor analysis identified three factors that have been replicated in following surveies. ( Meenan, Mason, Anderson, Guccione and Kazis, 1990 ) The Stress Questionnaire. The questionnaire has 16 points included in the four subscales of injury, challenge, menace and benefit. It is used to mensurate illness-related emotions which show how people review their nerve-racking brushs. Folkman & A ; Lazarus ( 1986 ) stated that high alpha coefficients between 0 80 to 0-87 for these graduated tables and maintain for their concept cogency via a factor analysis attack, the Cronbach alpha coefficients of 0.76 to 0.85 The Jalowiec Coping Scale ( JCS ) . JCS content cogency has been evaluated by expert panels and it is supported by a broad theoretical and empirical foundation. Construct cogency has been calculated. The 60 points in JCS are categorized into eight subscales, with concept cogency runing from 94 % on the Supportive subscale to 54 % on the Emotive subscale. The dependability of the graduated table is evaluated with Cronbach ‘s alpha coefficients. Based from consequences of 24 different surveies the Cronbach ‘s alpha coefficients for the usage subscales ranged from 0.48 to 0.81 and for the effectivity subscales from 0.48 to 0.82. ( Sigstad, Pedersen and Froland, 2005 ) .

Thursday, November 7, 2019

Segu essays

Segu essays In the novel Segu, By Maryse Conde, the Islamic religion and culture is very heavily infused within the existing animistic culture of the Bambaras in Segu. The characters are vastly changed because of this infusion, which leads to the development of a whole new culture. The author depicts this new culture because of her personal feelings on the existence of "Africans" in areas around the world. Her position on the blending of numerous cultural identities is that the people within them must accept all of them, not just one. From the beginning of the story, the Islamic religion penetrates itself into the existing culture in the Segu Empire. The traditional religion was one in which there are many gods and spirits that control the lives and destinies of mortal humans. Fetishism was also commonplace in the culture, in the sense that people decorate themselves with various objects in order to please their gods and to maintain a good future for them, as in the case with Nya offering an egg to the family boli to promote peace and a good life for the newborn. Magic was also a staple in Bambara culture, with the existence of soothsayers and fetish priests, who used magical powers to predict the future. Islamic religion first showed its "face" in Segu by the presence of their way of dressing and the eastern goods that existed within the city limits. Merchants also inhabited the city, which instilled a more capitalistic presence in Segu. The mosque was also a display of the presence of Islam within Segu. The character that was the most affected by the presence of Islam was Tiekoro, who easily embraced the religion. Curiosity of something out of the norm was what drew him to the mosque, where he learned of the written word, which was completely opposite of the oral tradition which was existed in Segu. Tiekoro's passion for non-conformity is what brought him into Islam. He liked the fact that in Islam, there was more a more tangibl...

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

The Voyager Mission

The Voyager Mission In 1979, two tiny spacecraft were launched on one-way missions of planetary discovery. They were the twin  Voyager spacecraft, predecessors to the  Cassini spacecraft at Saturn, the Juno mission at Jupiter, and the New Horizons mission to Pluto and beyond. They were preceded in gas giant space by the Pioneers 10 and 11. The Voyagers, which are still transmitting data back to Earth as they leave the solar system, each  carry an array of cameras and instruments designed to  record magnetic, atmospheric, and other data about the planets and their moons, and to send images and data for further study back on Earth.   Voyagers Trips Voyager 1 is speeding along at about 57,600 kph (35,790 mph), which is  fast enough to travel from Earth to the Sun three and a half times in one year. Voyager 2 is   Both spacecraft  carry a gold record greeting to the universe  containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. The two-spacecraft Voyager missions were designed to replace original plans for a Grand Tour of the planets that would have used four complex spacecraft to explore the five outer planets during the late 1970s. NASA canceled the plan in 1972 and instead proposed to send two spacecraft to Jupiter and Saturn in 1977. They were  designed to explore the two gas giants in more detail than the two Pioneers (Pioneers 10 and 11) that preceded them. The Voyager Design and Trajectory The original design of the two spacecraft was based on that of the older Mariners (such as Mariner 4, which went to Mars). Power was provided by three plutonium oxide radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) mounted at the end of a boom. Voyager 1 was launched after Voyager 2, but because of a faster route, it exited the Asteroid Belt earlier than its twin. Both spacecraft got gravitational assists at each planet they passed, which aligned them for their next targets.   Voyager 1 began its Jovian imaging mission in April 1978 at a range of 265 million kilometers from the planet; images sent back by January the following year indicated that Jupiters atmosphere was more turbulent than during the Pioneer flybys in 1973 and 1974. Voyager Studies Jupiters Moons On February 10, 1979, the spacecraft crossed into the Jovian moon system, and in early March, it had already discovered a thin (less than 30 kilometers thick) ring circling Jupiter. Flying past Amalthea, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto (in that order) on March 5th, Voyager 1 returned spectacular photos of these worlds. The more interesting find was on Io, where images showed a bizarre yellow, orange and brown world with a least eight active volcanoes spewing material into space, making it one of the most (if not the most) geologically active planetary bodies in the solar system. The spacecraft also discovered two new moons, Thebe and Metis. Voyager 1s closest encounter with Jupiter was at 12:05 UT on March 5, 1979, at a range of 280,000 kilometers. On to Saturn Following the Jupiter encounter, Voyager 1 completed a single course correction on April 89 1979, in preparation for its rendezvous with Saturn. The second correction on October 10, 1979, ensured that the spacecraft would not hit Saturns moon Titan. Its flyby of the Saturn system in November 1979 was as spectacular as its previous encounter. Exploring Saturns Icy Moons Voyager 1 found five new moons and a ring system consisting of thousands of bands, discovered a new ring (the G  Ring), and found shepherding satellites on either side of the F-ring satellites that keep the rings well defined. During its flyby, the spacecraft photographed Saturns moons Titan, Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, and Rhea. Based on incoming data, all the moons appeared to be largely composed of water ice. Perhaps the most interesting target was Titan, which Voyager 1 passed at 05:41 UT on  November 12th at a range of 4,000 kilometers. Images showed a thick atmosphere that completely hid the surface. The spacecraft found that the moons atmosphere was composed of 90 percent nitrogen. Pressure and temperature at the surface were 1.6 atmospheres and -180 ° C, respectively. Voyager 1s closest approach to Saturn was at 23:45 UT on November 12,  1980, at a range of 124,000 kilometers. Voyager 2 followed up with visits to Jupiter in 1979, Saturn in 1981, Uranus in 1986, and Neptune in 1986. Like its sister ship, it investigated planetary atmospheres, magnetospheres, gravitational fields, and climates, and discovered fascinating facts about the moons of all the planets. Voyager 2 also was the first to visit all four gas giant planets. Outward Bound Because of the specific requirements for  the Titan flyby, the spacecraft was not directed to Uranus and Neptune. Instead,  following the encounter with Saturn, Voyager 1 headed on a trajectory out of the solar system at a speed of 3.5 AU per year. It is on a course 35 ° out of the ecliptic plane to the north, in the general direction of the Suns motion relative to nearby stars. It is now in interstellar space, having passed through the  heliopause boundary, the outer limit of the Suns magnetic field, and the outward flow of the solar wind. Its the first spacecraft from Earth to travel into interstellar space. On February 17, 1998, Voyager 1  became the most distant human-made object in existence when it surpassed Pioneer 10s range from Earth. In mid-2016, the  Voyager 1  was more than  20 billion kilometers from Earth (135 times the Sun-Earth distance) and continuing to move away, while maintaining a tenuous radio link with Earth. Its power supply should last through 2025, allowing the transmitter to keep sending back information about the interstellar environment. Voyager 2 is on a trajectory headed out toward the star Ross 248, which it will encounter in about 40,000 years, and pass by Sirius in just under 300,000 years. It will keep transmitting as long as it has power, which may also be until the year 2025.   Edited and updated by Carolyn Collins Petersen.

Saturday, November 2, 2019

Methods available for the assessment of alcohol abuse Essay

Methods available for the assessment of alcohol abuse - Essay Example neurotransmitters like the opioid systems, dopamine, serotonin and gamma-amino-butyric acid (GABA) and their interactions are most affected (Chastain 2006). Being volatile, alcohol can be inhaled during ingestion and freely diffused into the airways (George, et al. 1996). This property became the basis for the breath test for estimating levels of blood alcohol (Hlastala 1998). Changes in levels of important enzymes were based on the effect of alcohol on hepatic functions and characteristics (Purohit and Brenner 2006) and other diseases (Purohit, Khalsa and Serrano, 2005). Liver damage due to alcohol has been attributed to increased oxidative stress which could be due to alterations in the liver’s antioxidant defense mechanism. Chronic ethanol intake was found to decrease cytosolic and mitochondrial glutathione/glutathione peroxidase-1 activities by 40% and 30%, respectively thereby promoting the oxidative modification of liver proteins (Bailey, et al. 2006) (Cunningham and Bai ley 2001). The long-term mean daily intake of 61.6 g of ethanol increases the frequency for fatty liver and alcoholic hepatitis (Savolainen, et al. 2007). Ethanol transfers from the blood into the air sacs in the lungs, and thus, consumption can be routinely determined by what is known as the breath test (Hlastala 1998). The breath alcohol concentration predicts the blood alcohol concentration at certain time points. The development of breath testing instruments (â€Å"breathalyzers†) has resulted in a low-cost, accurate, rapid and painless ethanol quantification. The level of alcohol exhaled is then multiplied with a factor to get an approximation of blood alcohol. However, many factors can affect the breathalyzer results; among these is diabetes (which can increase blood alcohol levels due to ketogenic reactions in the body (Berg, Tymoczko and Stryer 2002). In emergency cases where a breath test is not suitable, ethanol concentrations can be determined from blood, urine and saliva

Thursday, October 31, 2019

Vodafone Group Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Vodafone Group - Case Study Example Vodafone Group Plc is the world largest telecommunications company, with a significant presence in Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Far East through the Company’s subsidiary undertakings and investments. It provides an extensive range of mobile telecommunications services, including voice and data communications. The Group's mobile subsidiaries operate under the brand name 'Vodafone'. In the United States the Group's associated undertaking operates as Verizon Wireless. During the last two financial years, the Group has also entered into arrangements with network operators in countries where the Group does not hold an equity stake. Under the terms of these Partner Network Agreements, the Group and its partner networks co-operate in the development and marketing of global services under dual brand logos. Aims & Objectives: -> Vodafone’s vision is to be the world’s communication leader – enriching customer’s life, helpi ng individuals, businesses and communities be more connected in a mobile world. -> Enhance the customer services being provided. -> Enhance the relationships with the stakeholders and deliver value. -> Increase the net profit – expansion of international business.... The eight markets where it has more than ten million proportionate customers are the United Kingdom, Germany,India,Italy, Spain, Turkey, Egypt and the United States. In the U.S., these customers come via its minority stake in Verizon Wireless, and in the other seven markets Vodafone has majority-controlled subsidiaries. Organization structure of Vodafone Group The type of structure adopted by an organization depends on several factorsincluding: the size and complexity of the organization the diversity of the products and services produced or provided the geographical spread of the organization the activities performed by the organization and the objectives and goals which are set out by the organization. Vodafone follows the hierarchical structure model. The communication flow takes the form of top-bottom approach. Every unit or department works as an entity and have its own significance and importance. Given below is a critical approach to the Finance, Marketing and HRM departments of Vodafone Group. Finance: The year 2007 had been so far a successful year for Vodafone, a comparative approach reveals an excellent progress in reducing costs across the business, and clear signs of sustainable revenue growth was also indicated. The year indicated an increase in the market share of new business. A comparative approach taken on the financial condition of the group for the last three years clearly indicates that there had been a significant increase in the finance sector of the firm. This is reflected in the figure below: The key highlights of the profit performance for the six months - Sep 2007 are - - Group revenue of 17.0 billion, an increase of 9.0%, with

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Diasability challenges Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Diasability challenges - Essay Example Normally, it does not even take me a second to peel a banana. In case there was anyone observing me; he/she would undoubtedly think I had lost my mind. They could see the frustration and the struggle that I went through. It was extremely devastating. Therefore, I have learnt to appreciate all friends and workmates with disabilities after realizing how hard it can be for them to do what we use no effort to do (Workers with Disabilities, Challenges, and Solutions, n.d). I will mobilize others in supporting them; giving them necessary aid and making them feel wanted in order to offer them a favorable working environment. Under the vision challenges, I chose to thread a needle blindfolded. I could not locate the needle hole putting in mind that it is so tiny to be felt. After almost thirty minutes of futile attempts, I gave up. My eyes were even paining. This is something that I have been doing on almost a daily basis, and it had never crossed my mind that I could barely do it without my sight. I have learnt just how beneficial it is to see. I had never considered how hard it always is for my blind peers to handle most tasks. It requires patience and the strong will to do it. Therefore, I will not look down upon them and will learn to appreciate them for their efforts, accept them and treat them like normal peers. This will keep them encouraged and give them a sense of belonging. Finally, I tried to watch Oprah’s TV show, my favorite, without sound to try figure out what was happening. I could barely tell what was going on, all I could see were pictures; people laughing or maybe sad. I could not tell why the laughter or sad looks at all. I just could not comprehend a thing. Therefore, I learnt that having the ability to hear is a gift that we should not just take for granted. I will share this with other peers at work and help others in understanding how sad it could feel to be ignored, jeered or even

Sunday, October 27, 2019

Smart Music Player Integrating Facial Emotion Recognition

Smart Music Player Integrating Facial Emotion Recognition Smart Music Player Integrating Facial Emotion Recognition and Music Mood Classification 1Shlok Gilda, 2Husain Zafar, 3Chintan Soni, 4Kshitija Waghurdekar Department of Computer Engineering, Pune Institute of Computer Technology, Pune, India Abstract Songs, as a medium, have always been a popular choice to depict human emotions. Reliable emotion based classification systems can go a long way in facilitating this. However, research in the field of emotion based music classification has not yielded optimal results. In this paper, we present an affective cross-platform music player, EMP, which recommends music based on the real-time mood of the user. EMP provides smart mood based music recommendation by incorporating the capabilities of emotion context reasoning within our adaptive music recommendation system. Our music player contains three modules: Emotion Module, Music Classification Module and Recommendation Module. The Emotion Module takes an image of the user as an input and makes use of deep learning algorithms to identify the mood of the user with an accuracy of 90.23%. The Music Classification Module makes use of audio features to achieve a remarkable result of 97.69% while classifying songs into 4 different mood c lasses. The Recommendation Module suggests songs to the user by mapping the emotion of the user to the mood of the song, taking into consideration the preferences of the user. Keywords-Recommender systems, Emotion recognition, Music information retrieval, Artificial neural networks, Multi-layer neural network. I. Introduction Current research in the field of music psychology has shown that music induces a clear emotional response in its listeners[1]. Musical preferences have been demonstrated to be highly correlated with personality traits and moods. The meter, timber, rhythm and pitch of music are managed in areas of the brain that deal with emotions and mood[2]. Undoubtedly, a users affective response to a music fragment depends on a large set of external factors, such as gender, age[3], culture[4], preferences, emotion and context[5] (e.g. time of day or location). However, these external variables set aside, humans are able to consistently categorize songs as being happy, sad, enthusiastic or relaxed. Current research in emotion based recommender systems focuses on two main aspects, lyrics[6][12] and audio features[7]. Acknowledging the language barrier, we focus on audio feature extraction and analysis in order to map those features to four basic moods. Automatic music classification using some mood categories yields promising results. Expressions are the most ancient and natural way of conveying emotions, moods and feelings. The facial expression would categorize in 4 different emotions, viz. happy, sad, angry and neutral. The main objective of this paper is to design a cost-effective music player which automatically generates a sentiment aware playlist based on the emotional state of the user. The application designed requires less memory and less computational time. The emotion module determines the emotion of the user. Relevant and critical audio information from a song is extracted by the music classification module. The recommendation module combines the results of the emotion module and the music classification module to recommend songs to the user. This system provides significantly better accuracy and performance than existing systems. II. Related Works Various methodologies have been proposed to classify the behaviour and emotional state of the user. Mase et al. focused on using movements of facial muscles[8] while Tian et al.[9] attempted to recognize Actions Units (AU) developed by Ekman and Friesen in 1978[10] using permanent and transient facial features. With evolving methodologies, the use of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) for emotion recognition has become increasingly popular[11]. Music has been classified using lyrical analysis[6][12]. While this tokenized method is relatively easier to implement, on its own, it is not suitable to classify songs accurately. Another obvious concern with this method is the language barrier which restricts classification to a single language. Another method for music mood classification is using acoustic features like tempo, pitch and rhythm to identify the sentiment conveyed by the song. This method involves extracting a set of features and using those feature vectors to find patterns characteristic to a specific mood. III. Emotion Module In this section, we study the usage of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to emotion recognition[13][14]. CNNs are known to simulate the human brain when analyzing visuals; however, given the computational requirements and complexity of a CNN, optimizing a network for efficient computation is necessary. Thus, a CNN is implemented to construct a computational model which successfully classifies emotion in 4 moods, namely, happy, sad, angry and neutral, with an accuracy of 90.23%. A.   Dataset Description The dataset we used for training the model is from a Kaggle Facial Expression Recognition Challenge, FER2013[15]. The data consists of 4848 pixel grayscale images of faces. Each of the faces are organized into one of the 7 emotion classes: angry, disgust, fear, happy, sad, surprise, and neutral. For this research, we have made use of 4 emotions: angry, happy, sad and neutral. There is a total of 26,217 images corresponding to these emotions. The breakdown of the images is as follows: happy with 8989 samples, sad with 6077 samples, neutral with 6198 samples, angry with 4953 samples. B. Model Description A multi-layered convolutional neural network is programmed to evaluate the features of the user image[16][17]. The convolutional neural network contains an input layer, some convolutional layers, ReLU layers, pooling layers, and some dense layers (aka. fully-connected layers), and an output layer. These layers are linearly stacked in sequence. 1) Input Layer: The input layer has fixed and predetermined dimensions. So, for pre-processing the image, we used OpenCV for face detection in the image before feeding the image into the layer. Pre-trained filters from Haar Cascades along with Adaboost are used to quickly find and crop the face. The cropped face is then converted into grayscale and resized to 48-by-48 pixels. This step greatly reduces the dimensions from (3, 48, 48) (RGB) to (1, 48, 48) (grayscale) which can be easily fed into the input layer as a numpy array. 2) Convolutional Layers:A set of unique kernels (or feature detectors), with randomly generated weights, are specified as one of the hyperparameters in the Convolution2D layer. Each feature detector is a (3, 3) receptive field, which slides across the original image and computes a feature map. Convolution generates different feature maps for the same input image. Distinct filters are used to perform operations that represent how pixel values are enhanced, for example, blur and edge detection. Filters are applied successively over the entire image, creating a set of feature maps. In our neural network, each convolutional layer generates 128 feature maps. Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) has been used after every convolution operation. After a set of convolutional layers, a popular pooling method, MaxPooling, was used to reduce the dimensionality of each feature map, all the while retaining the critical information. We used (2, 2) windows which consider only the maximum pixel values within the window from the feature map. The pooled pixels form an image with dimensions reduced by 4. Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) has been used after every convolution operation. 3) Dense Layers:The output from the convolutional and pooling layers represent high-level features of the input image. The dense layer uses these features for classifying the input image into various classes. The features are transformed through the layers which are connected with trainable weights. The network is trained by forward propagation of training data and then backward propagation of its errors. Our model uses 2 sequential fully connected layers. The network generalizes well to new images and is able to gradually make adjustments until the errors are minimized. A dropout of 20% was applied in order to prevent overfitting of the training data. This helped us control the models sensitivity to noise during training while maintaining the necessary complexity of the architecture. 4) Output Layer:We used softmax as the activation function at the output layer of the dense layer. Thus, the output is represented as a probability distribution for each emotion class. Models with various combinations of hyper-parameters were trained and evaluated utilizing a 4 GiB DDR3 NVIDIA 840M graphics card using the NVIDIA CUDA ® Deep Neural Network library (cuDNN). This greatly reduced training time and increased efficiency in tuning the model. Ultimately, our network architecture consisted of 9 convolutional layers with one max-pooling after every three convolution layers followed by 2 dense layers, as seen in Figure 1. C. Results The final network was trained on 20973 images and tested on 5244 images. At the end, the model achieved an accuracy of 90.23%. Table 1 displays the confusion matrix for the module. Evidently, the system performs very well in classifying images belonging to the angry category. We also note interesting results under happy and sad category owing to the remarkable differences in Action Units as mentioned by Ekman[11]. The F-measure of this system comes out to be 90.12%. IV. Music Classification Module In this section, we describe the procedure that was used to identify the mapping of each song with its mood. We extracted the acoustic features of the songs using LibROSA[18], aubiopitch[19] and other state-of-the art audio extraction algorithms. Based on these features, we trained an artificial neural network which successfully classifies the songs in 4 classes with an accuracy of 92.05%. The classification process is described in Figure 2. A.Dataset Description The dataset comprises of 390 songs spread across four moods. The distribution of the songs is as follows: class A with 100 songs, class B with 93 songs, class C with 100 songs and class D with 97 songs. The songs were manually labelled and the class labels were verified by 10 paid subjects. Class A comprises of exciting and energetic songs, class B has happy and joyful songs, class C consists of sad and melancholy songs, and class D has calm and relaxed songs. 1) Preprocessing: All the songs were down sampled to a uniform bit-rate of 128 kbps, a mono audio channel and resampled at a sampling frequency of 44100 Hz. We further split each song to obtain clips that contained the most meaningful parts of the song. The feature vectors were then standardized so that it had zero mean and a unit variance. 2) Feature Description: We identified several mood sensitive audio features by reading current works[20] and the results from the 2007 MIREX Audio Mood Classification task[21][22]. The candidate features for the extraction process belonged to different classes: spectral (RMSE, centroid, rolloff, MFCC, kurtosis, etc.), rhythmic (tempo, beat spectrum, etc.), tonal mode and pitch. All these descriptions are standard. All the features were extracted using Python 2.7 and relevant packages[18][19]. After identifying all the features, we used Recursive Feature Elimination (or RFE) to select those features that best contribute to the accuracy of the model. RFE works by recursively removing attributes and building a model on those attributes that remain. It uses the model accuracy to identify which attributes (and combination of attributes) contribute the most to predicting the target attribute. The selected features were pitch, spectral rolloff, mel-frequency cepstral coefficients, tempo, root mean square energy, spectral centroid, beat spectrum, zero-cross rate, short-time Fourier transform and kurtosis of the songs. B. Model Description A multi-layered neural network was trained to evaluate the mood associated with the song. The network contains an input layer, multiple hidden layers and a dense output layer. The input layer has fixed and predetermined dimensions. It takes the 10 feature vectors as input and uses ReLU operation to provide non-linearity to the dataset. This ensured that the model performs well in real-world scenarios as well. The hidden layer is a traditional multi-layer perceptron, which allowed us to make combination of features which led to a better classification accuracy. The output layer used a softmax activation function which produces the output as a probability for each mood class. C. Results We achieved an overall classification accuracy of 97.69% and F1 score of 97.692% after 10-fold cross-validation using our neural network. Table 2 displays the confusion matrix. Undoubtedly, the level of performance of the music classification module is exceptionally high. V. Recommendation Module This module is responsible for generating a playlist of relevant songs for the user. It allows the user to modify the playlist based on her/his preferences and modify the class labels of the songs as well. The working of the recommendation module is explained in Figure 3. A. Mapping and Playlist Generation Classified songs are mapped to the users mood. This mapping is as shown in figure 1. The system was developed after referring to the Russell 2-D Valence-Arousal Model and Geneva Emotion Wheel.After the mapping procedure is complete, a playlist of relevant songs is generated. Similar songs are grouped together while generating the playlist. Similarity between songs was calculated by comparing songs over 50ms intervals, centered on each 10ms time window. After empirical observations, we found that the duration of these intervals is on the order of magnitude of a typical song note. Cosine distance function was used to determine the similarity between audio files. Feature values corresponding to an audio file were compared to the values (for the same features) corresponding to audio files belonging to the same class label. The recommendation engine has a twofold mechanism; it recommends songs based on: 1. Users perceived mood. 2. Users preference. Initially, a playlist of all songs belonging to the particular class is generated. The user can mark a song as favorite depending on her/his choice. A favorite song will be assigned a higher priority value in the playlist. Also, the interpretation of the mood of a song can vary from person to person. Understanding this, the user is allowed to change the class label of the songs according to their taste of music. B. Adaptive Music Player We were able to implement an adaptive music player by the use of a very popular online machine learning algorithm, Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD)[23]. If the user wants to change the class of a particular song, SGD is implemented considering the new label for that specific user only. Multiple single-pass algorithms were analyzed for their performance with our system but SGD performed most efficiently considering the real-time nature of the music player. Parameter updates in SGD occur after processing of every training example from the dataset. This approach yields two advantages over the batch gradient descent algorithm. Firstly, time required for calculating the cost and gradient for large datasets is reduced. Secondly, integration of new data or amendment of existing data is easier. The frequent, highly variant updates demand the learning rate ÃŽÂ ± to be smaller as compared to that of batch gradient descent[23]. VI. Conclusion The results obtained above are very promising. The high accuracy of the application and quick response time makes it suitable for most practical purposes. The music classification module in particular, performs significantly well. Remarkably, it achieves high accuracy in the angry category; it also performs specifically well for the happy and calm categories. Thus, EMP reduces user efforts for generating playlists. It efficiently maps the user emotion to the song class with an excellent overall accuracy, thus achieving optimistic results for 4 moods. References [1] Swathi Swaminathan, E. Glenn Schellenberg. Current Emotion Research in Music Psychology, Emotion Review Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 189 ­-197, April 2015 [2] How music changes your mood, Examined Existence. [Online]. Available: http://examinedexistence.com/how-music-changes-your-mood/. Accessed: Jan. 13, 2017 [3] Kyogu Lee and Minsu Cho. Mood Classification from Musical Audio Using User Group-dependent Models. [4] Daniel Wolff, Tillman Weyde and Andrew MacFarlane. Culture-aware Music Recommendation [5] Mirim Lee, Jun-Dong Cho. Logmusic: Context-Based Social Music Recommendation Service on Mobile Device, Ubicomp 14 Adjunct, September 13-17, 2014, Seattle, WA, USA. [6] D. Gossi and M. H. Gunes, Lyric-based music recommendation, in Studies in Computational Intelligence. Springer Nature, 2016, pp. 301-310. [7] Bo Shao, Dingding Wang, Tao Li, and Mitsunori Ogihara. Music Recommendation Based on Acoustic Features and User Access Patterns, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUDIO, SPEECH, AND LANGUAGE PROCESSING, VOL. 17, NO. 8, NOVEMBER 2009 [8] Mase K. Recognition of facial expression from optical flow. IEICE Transc., E. 74(10):3474-3483, 0ctober 1991. [9] Tian, Ying-li, Kanade, T. and Cohn, J. Recognizing Lower. Face Action Units for Facial Expression Analysis. Proceedings of the 4th IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition (FG00), March, 2000, pp. 484 490. [10] Ekman, P., Friesen, W. V. Facial Action Coding System: A Technique for Measurement of Facial Movement. Consulting Psychologists Press Palo Alto, California, 1978. [11] Gil Levi and Tal Hassner, Emotion Recognition in the Wild via Convolutional Neural Networks and Mapped Binary Patterns [12] E. E. P. Myint and M. Pwint, An approach for mulit-label music mood classification, 2010 2nd International Conference on Signal Processing Systems, Dalian, 2010, pp. V1-290-V1-294. [13] Peter Burkert, Felix Trier, Muhammad Zeshan Afzal, Andreas Dengel and Marcus Liwicki. DeXpression: Deep Convolutional Neural Network for Expression Recognition [14] Ujjwalkarn, An intuitive explanation of Convolutional neural networks, the data science blog, 2016. [Online]. Available: https://ujjwalkarn.me/2016/08/11/intuitive-explanation-convnets/. Accessed: Jan. 13, 2017. [15] Ian J. Goodfellow et al., Challenges in Representation Learning: A report on three machine learning contests [16] S. Lawrence, C. L. Giles, Ah Chung Tsoi and A. D. Back, Face recognition: a convolutional neural-network approach, in IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 98-113, Jan 1997. [17] A. KoÅ‚akowska, A. Landowska, M. Szwoch, W. Szwoch, and M. R. WrÃÅ' obel, Human-Computer Systems Interaction: Back-grounds and Applications 3, ch. Emotion Recognition and Its Applications, pp. 51-62. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2014. [18] Brian McFee, ., Matt McVicar, ., Colin Raffel, ., Dawen Liang, ., Oriol Nieto, ., Eric Battenberg, ., à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Adrian Holovaty, . (2015). librosa: 0.4.1 [Data set]. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.32193 [19] The aubio team, Aubio, a library for audio labelling, 2003. [Online]. Available: http://aubio.org/. Accessed: Jan. 13, 2017. [20] E. E. P. Myint and M. Pwint, An approach for mulit-label music mood classification, 2010 2nd International Conference on Signal Processing Systems, Dalian, 2010, pp. V1-290-V1-294. [21] J. S. Downie. The music information retrieval evaluation exchange  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   (mirex). D-Lib Magazine, 12(12), 2006. [22]  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   Cyril Laurier, Perfecto Herrera, M Mandel and D Ellis,Audio music mood classification using support vector machine [23] Unsupervised feature learning and deep learning Tutorial, [Online]. Available: http://ufldl.stanford.edu/tutorial/supervised/OptimizationStochasticGradientDescent/. Accessed: Jan. 13, 2017