My Synthetic Journey Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

My Synthetic Journey - Essay Example I say again "The streets are always wet, my ashes can hardly fly and make a nuisance of my dark overcoat". But it is a matter of no importance, I decided then and there. The wet floor becomes puddles at places, and I try to skip them by and nibble at the only question that nags my mind "Am I really regular" I try to dally with the answer for bedtime soporific musings. Then I think, If I must go home now, there will be so much to do with the rest of the day. For instance, I will have to avoid being alone amidst the whole of the neighborhood, praying before dinner, holding hands across fences or already making love in their kitchen. In the street, I only need to fear the rain and the sky that is chequered with the fate of the stars. It is never regular and yet always the forgotten limit. The street is now a little darker; every window looks warm and lost in velvety warmth that has withstood the daylights assault. There! that's my home, my house, and my shelter. I will have the darkness to stir from the porch to the bed till I leave a wake of flooded ennui. I am lost within my own rhythm of chores. A sensitized journey along the streets to the unique shelter that I call my home is undergone and homeostasis is reached for the day until the day begins again and I start from the same point. I was supposed to know you by name, but I shall call you 'My synthetic journey'.

Major Problem of teenagers today Essay Example for Free

Major Problem of teenagers today Essay Evangeline Pilar Beed II-B Informative Speech Plan Title: Major Problem of teenagers today. Specific Speech Purpose: To inform my engl.III audience what are the major problems of teenagers today. Statement: There are 5 major problems of teenagers today. Introduction I. .Attention Step: are you one of the teenagers who have a problem? You may program for it! In connection with this, I would like to take this opportunity to tell you about the recent finding on the major problem of the teenagers today. Read more: Speech about youth generation essay II. Clarification Step: Body I. Internet and Gaming Addiction a. Younger generations, unlike their parents generations, often socialize, hang out, and communicate online, rather than in person. They prefer to text rather than talk on the phone, and often prefer to socialize on Twitter or Facebook rather than in the local bar, on the street or at the town square. b. The digital divide: The younger generation has been referred to as being one of Digital Natives while the older generation has been referred to as one of Digital Immigrants. c. Unlike the older generation, young people are highly capable of effective multitasking, which is sometimes seen by the older generation as a lack of attention and focus. d. Some young people spend much too much time in front of a computer screen, spending up to 20 hours a day, seven days a week. e. Spending countless hours a day, every day, on gaming or perusing the Internet can interfere with young peoples emotional, physical, intellectual and spiritual development. II. Violence In Media a. T.V. influences behavior. If it didnt, Nike, Budweiser, Pepsi, etc. would not invest billions of dollars in advertisements. b. Violence on T.V. occurs in most programs and even more so, in cartoons. III. Bullying Online and At School a. Bullying is an ongoing pattern of harassment and abuse. It can be done directly by physical or verbal attacks or indirectly by exclusion, spreading rumors, etc. b. Cyberbullying is a growing problem among Middle and High School aged students. While it also occurs among College-aged students, for the most part young people have matured past cyberbullying at that point c. Bullies seek power through aggression and direct their attacks at vulnerable victims. In-person bullies often lose their popularity in high school and have a high likelihood of having a criminal record as adults. IV. Violent Culture a. There is a direct link between the way in which we use power with our children, our significant others, our neighbors and our environment and what we teach our children about violence. b. Cultures in which young children regularly receive loving touch have lower incidents of violent crimes. V. Violence At Home a. One of the main reasons that children become violent is because they are exposed to violence in their own homes, whether it is directed towards them or towards others. b. Violence at home can be of a physical nature, or it can be expressed verbally or through neglect and abandonment. Abusive homes and violent neighborhoods are stronger predictors of adult violent behavior than violence in the media. Most abusive parents were physically or sexually abused as children.

Solutions to Global Warming Essay -- Environmental Global Climate Chan

Solutions to Global Warming There are many solutions to reduce the amount of green house gases in the atmosphere, which causes Global Warming. A main culprit for global warming is the use of CFC's (chlorofluorocarbons). If the use of CFC's was reduced, the number of greenhouse gases will be reduced by a great deal (however there are many other thing that cause dramatic amounts of greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide). The items that contain CFC's are regular house hold items, but they can have a devastating effect on the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. They are found in aerosols, plastic foam and fridges. However now that the scientists have a greater knowledge on the effect of CFC's the government had banned the selling of objects with CFC's in; and also great care is needed when disposing of older items containing CFC's e.g. fridges. CFC's are 40 times more effective as a greenhouse gas then carbon dioxide. So reducing the amount of CFC's used will have a good effect on the atmo...

Introduction to Marketing Essay

You have been employed as a marketing intern with one of the UK’s largest marketing agencies and have been set various assignments to complete during your one-year internship. You will be required to demonstrate your research skills on various projects related to marketing, research and planning, marketing mix and online marketing. Task 1 P1 Describe how marketing techniques are used to market products in two organisations Due date: Refer to front sheet for date  M1 Compare marketing techniques used in marketing products in two organisations You are helping the marketing manager organise a ‘Marketing in Business’ conference. Your manager wants you to find out how other organisations use marketing techniques and has asked you to prepare a 10 minute presentation that you will deliver at the conference. You have been  asked to produce a leaflet to support the presentation, comparing the organisation. You have also been asked to produce speaker notes, which will be handed out at the conference. What to include in your presentation: Introduce your two organisations, their business and marketing objectives Describe what marketing is and why organisations use various techniques Describe clearly the marketing techniques they use to market a particular product/service or product range What to include in the leaflet: Compare the similarities and differences between the use of marketing techniques in your two organisations Growth Strategies (Ansoff’s Matrix) Survival Strategies Branding and Brand positioning Relationship marketing Due date: Refer to front sheet for date Task 2 Following your presentation about marketing techniques, you discovered that marketing activity is regulated and monitored by various bodies, codes of practice and laws. Using the 2 scenarios below, investigate and respond by letter to both: P2 Describe the limitation and constraints of marketing on the business. Suggested letter content: Introduce yourself and the department you work for.  Describe why abiding by marketing rules and regulations is necessary Identify the legal rules that apply to the case  Identify the voluntary factors that would apply to the case.  Stress the consequences of failing to comply with the legal and voluntary constraints. Due date: Refer to front sheet for date Scenario 1 A business organisation named â€Å"Fantasy† has recently spent 10 million pounds launching a new perfume. Fantasy has advertised on television as well as on YouTube. The advertisement is proving to be an international success and has raised a lot of interest from the young audience it is hoping to attract. Most importantly sales of the perfume have doubled over the last few months.  However, there have been a number of complaints regarding the content of the advertisement. For instance there are concerns with regards to nudity, language and the suitability of the advertisement for a younger audience. Of particular concern are the number of complaints that Fantasy use extreme methods when testing their products on animals. A number of pressure groups have campaigned for the ban of this advertisement from TV screens. Your task You have been asked to write a formal letter to Fantasy Head Office, Customer Complaints Division, identifying the limitations and constraints of marketing activities especially those that are relevant to the above scenario. Scenario 2 You have recently purchased a new mobile phone on arriving home you realise that the phone is unable to carry out the functions that you were promised. The phone was considerably expensive and you saved up for months in order to be able to buy it. However, when visiting the store you were offered the opportunity to purchase the product on credit. The store has also advised you it would be more efficient if you went on to their website and brought the product online and they have offered you a further discount for doing so. Two weeks later you are still waiting for your mobile phone to arrive. To make matters worse once you signed up for this product you have been bombarded with cold calls from other mobile phone companies, you fear that your personal details have been given out to other organisations without your consent. Your task How are you protected as a consumer? You must write a formal letter to the Office of Fair Trading expressing your concerns. You must identify the relevant Acts and regulations that protect you as a consumer. Due date: Refer to front sheet for date Task 3 P3 Describe how a selected organisation uses marketing research to contribute to the development of its marketing plans P4 Use marketing research for marketing planning  You have been approached by a new company that is interested in finding out  whether they should invest heavily in market research. Your first task is to produce a poster presentation on marketing research and planning, that you will deliver to the Board of Directors. Your suggested presentation content: Choose an organisation and agree choice with your teacher (www.thetimes100.co.uk case studies is a useful resource to use) Describe marketing research and marketing planning.  Describe the marketing research that is used by your organisation Describe how the marketing research collected is used by the organisation in their marketing planning Now you need to carry out marketing planning using marketing research Select an existing product/service or potential product/service for your organisation. Conduct primary and secondary research into customer perceptions and market analysis for the product/service and make proposals on how the organisation’s marketing planning can be developed. This should include a PESTLE/SWOT analysis, which shows the research you have conducted into your product. Your marketing plan should include the following: 1. Set clear SMART objectives regarding what you want your product or service to achieve 2. Conduct primary and secondary research on your product or service. 3. Conduct a SWOT analysis highlighting the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities of your product or service. 4. Conduct a PESTLE analysis, analysing the external environment and the impact this may have on your product or service. 5. Write a brief summary with regards to your findings. Due date: Refer to front sheet for date M2 Explain the limitations of marketing research used to contribute to the development of a selected organisation’s marketing plans D2 Make justified recommendations for improving the validity of the marketing research used to contribute to the development of a selected organisation’s marketing plans. Considering limitations of market research Your task is to identify and explain the limitations of the market research methods used by your organisation. You will need to submit a formal report  of the limitations that you have spoken about, for the directors. You have been asked to write a formal report to the Head of Market Research at Hammersmith and Fulham. You have to make recommendations on how they can improve the validity of marketing research used for marketing planning. Introduce yourself, your role and who you work for Explain why you are writing to the organisation. Make at least 3 recommendations for improving the validity of market research used by your organisation Provide a justification for each recommendation you make. End your report with an offer to help if they require more information. Due date: Refer to front sheet for date Task 4 P5 Explain how and why groups of customers are targeted for selected products You have been asked to develop a visual poster to explain how and why groups of customers are targeted for products. You should: Explain what is meant by market segmentation and DMU’s Explain the difference between customers, consumers and buyers Select 6 different target groups (this should include both B2C and B2B) and give examples of products that are aimed at them and why). Due date: Refer to front sheet for date Task 5 A dynamic new company have approached your marketing agency and want you to help come up with an exciting new marketing campaign. You will produce a 10 minute presentation on the marketing mix. Propose a marketing mix based on your research to a clearly defined group of potential customers. P6 Develop a coherent marketing mix for a new product or service M3 Develop a coherent marketing mix that is targeted at a defined group of potential customers. Using the research from your previous task you will now give a presentation of the new marketing mix you propose. Suggested presentation content: You will need to think about how you are going to present the marketing mix for the company (Product, Price, Promotion and Place). The product or service  that you choose does not have to be entirely new, it could be an established product or service introduced to a new market The marketing mix must be clearly targeted to a defined group of potential customers and needs to be detailed and clear so that all the 4P’s meet the exact needs and aspirations of the target group of customers. Due date: Refer to front sheet for date

Finding Nemo

â€Å"Finding Nemo† (2003) written and directed by Andrew Stanton, and Lee Unkrich, is the story of a father-son underwater adventure featuring Nemo, a boy clownfish, stolen from his coral reef home. His timid father must then travel to Sydney and search Sydney Harbour to find Nemo. Animated feature-length films have carved a niche in American culture as a viable and enduring art form. Animated films have offered a glimpse into another world that often could not be shown by any other filmmaking means.Finding Nemo's computer-generated ocean is full of animated characters that are an absolute blast. There is some real-world scenery, but the incredible graphics make it hard to tell what's real and what's not. Disney/Pixar brings to life an ocean full of funny marine life, like forgetful Dory, and Bruce the shark with his buddies, Chum and Anchor. There are these, like, totally cool hang ten turtles that are the raddest bunch of surfer dudes in the ocean. The animation in Finding Nemo is excellent; you would expect nothing less from Pixar.The scenery is dominated by bright blue ocean colors and colourful fish. The animation used cutting edge technology in the production of the movie, which was released in 2003 and the results still delight to this day. Even now when you look back at it, it is still of a very high standard. The animators at Pixar Animation Studios were expected to scuba dive as part of the preparation and production. This enabled them to understand how light is reflected underwater, and to see the interaction of the ocean's inhabitants for themselves.The experience then translated beautifully onto the screen through their realistic portrayal of Nemo's world. Nemo’s underwater masterpieces in my opinion are the greatest achievement in animation. During Marlin’s journey we see one of animation’s most visibly stunning scenes ever, the Jellyfish. As Marlin and Dory approach the trench, Marlin decides to swim over to it agains t the advice Dory shared and quickly forgot. As they swim over the trench, thousands of jellyfish descend into the shot. I was blown away.I found myself staring at what appeared to be a Discovery Channel special on underwater life. (To think I was playing Frogger just 20 years ago and computers can now do this! ) The visual design is a wonder. It's absolutely astonishing how the folks at Pixar are able to top themselves with each new movie. This is an excellent achievement in computer animation. While Disney/Pixar has redefined animation in the past with Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug’s Life, and Monsters, Inc. Now, Pixar is just showing off with Nemo.

Image Denoising Based on Soft Computing Techniques

Image Denoising Based on Soft Computing Techniques Free Online Research Papers Image Denoising Based on Soft Computing Techniques Abstract: Image Denoising is one of the existing problems in research area. This paper presents an interactive algorithm for image Denoising and segmentation. This paper explains the task of segmenting any given color image using soft computing techniques. The segmentation techniques used are Fuzzy Clustering (FC), Fuzzy C Means (FCM) clustering and Convolutional Networks (CN). After the image is segmented, the noise can be removed by using bilateral filtering. The denoised images are compared using image quality metrics. The image quality metrics are Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), and Mean Average Error (MAE). The time taken for Denoising is also used as a comparison parameter. The techniques have been tested with images of different size and resolution and the results are proven to be better than the existing state-of-art algorithms. Keywords: Denoising, segmentation, Fuzzy clustering, Fuzzy C Means (FCM), Convolutional Networks (CN), bilateral filtering. 1. Introduction Images are often corrupted by random variations in intensity values, called noise, either because of the data acquisition process, or because of occurring phenomena at scene of interest. The goal of image denoising methods is to recover the original image (better quality image) from a noisy one, in order to perform, in an easier and more accurate way, an image processing task as image segmentation. In computer vision literature, various methods dealing with segmentation, and feature extraction are discussed, which can be broadly grouped into region based techniques, edge based techniques, hybrid methods which combine edge and region methods, and so on. However, because of the variety and complexity of images, robust and efficient segmentation algorithm on color images is still a very challenging task and fully automatic segmentation procedures are far from satisfying in practical situations. This paper explains the task of classifying each pixel in an image into one of a discrete level of color classes using three main soft computing techniques, namely Fuzzy clustering, Fuzzy C Means, and Convolutional networks. The results obtained by soft computing techniques are compared with traditional hard c means technique. The results are found to be more accurate and reliable than the traditional method. The rest of this paper is explained as follows: in Section 2, the three types of soft computing techniques are explained, the use of bilateral filtering is explained in Section 3, segmentation based Denoising is explained in Section 4, the experimental results are shown in Section 5, and the conclusion is in Section 6. 2. Soft Computing Techniques: Extracting information from an image is referred to as image analysis. Image segmentation is a preliminary step in most automatic pictorial pattern recognition and scene analysis problems. It is one of the most difficult tasks in image processing. Image segmentation is the process of partitioning a digital image into multiple regions or clusters. Each region is made up of sets of pixels. Image segmentation simplifies and changes the representation of an image. i.e. the image is transferred into something that is more meaningful and easier to analyze. Image segmentation is typically used to locate objects of interest and boundaries like lines, curves in an image. The pixels of a color image are represented as vectors. Each pixel is represented a triplet containing red, green, blue spectral values at that position. The RGB color model is shown in fig.1. This is based on Cartesian coordinate system. A color expressed by an RGB vector is said to be a color represented in RGB space. Fig.1.RGB Color Model. RGB color representation is one of the numbers of color models. RGB color model is chosen for image segmentation due to its simplicity hence the fast processing speed that could be achieved [5]. Image segmentation refers to the process of dividing the image into connected regions where pixels of a region share a common property. For color images the common property is usually considered is the red: green: blue, color ratio. This ratio must be reasonably constant over the region. The color ratio does not have smoothly varying values when the pixel intensity is low. So color image segmentation based on color ratio requires that the intensity of the image must be above a threshold value. So instead of segmentation based on color ratio other techniques have been evolved. The requirements of good color image segmentation are as follows. A single region in a segmented image should not contain significantly different colors and a connected region containing same color should not have more than one label. All significant pixels should belong to the same labeled region. The intensity of a region should be reasonably uniform. Several image segmentation techniques have been suggested for gray scale images. In this paper we suggest the neural network approach for color images. 2.1.Fuzzy Clustering In non-fuzzy or hard clustering, data is divided into crisp clusters, where each data point belongs to exactly one cluster. In fuzzy clustering, the data points can belong to more than one cluster[3], and associated with each of the points are membership grades that indicate the degree to which the data points belong to the different clusters. Fuzzy clustering belongs to the group of soft computing techniques (which include neural nets, fuzzy systems, and genetic algorithms). In real applications there is very often no sharp boundary between clusters so that fuzzy clustering is often better suited for the data. Membership degrees between zero and one are used in fuzzy clustering [6] instead of crisp assignments of the data to clusters. The resulting data partition improves data understanding and reveals its internal structure. Partition clustering algorithms divide up a data set into clusters or classes, where similar data objects are assigned to the same cluster whereas dissimilar data objects should belong to different clusters. Areas of application of fuzzy cluster analysis include data analysis, pattern recognition, and image segmentation. The detection of special geometrical shapes like circles and ellipses can be achieved by so-called shell clustering algorithms. 2.2. Fuzzy C Means The most prominent algorithm is the FCM or Fuzzy C Means algorithm. The fuzzy C means algorithm was proposed as an improvement of the classic Hard C-Means clustering algorithm The FCM algorithm receives the data or the sample space, an n x m matrix where n is the number of data and m is the number of parameters. The number of clusters c, the assumption partition matrix U, the convergence value E all must be given to the algorithm. The assumption partition matrix has c number of rows and n number of columns and contains values from 0 to 1. The sum of every column has to be 1. The first step is to calculate the cluster centers. This is a matrix v of dimension c rows with m columns. The second step is to calculate the distance matrix D. The distance matrix constitutes the Euclidean distance between every pixel and every cluster center. This is a matrix with c rows and n columns. From the distance matrix the partition matrix U is calculated. If the difference between the initial partitio n matrix and the calculated partition matrix is greater than the convergence value then the entire process from calculating the cluster centers to the final partition matrix. The final partition matrix is taken and is used for reconstructing the image. Let us assume as a fuzzy C-Means Functional, (1) where ? = { x k | k â‚ ¬ [1,n]} is a training set containing unlabeled samples = { y j | j â‚ ¬ [1,c]} } is the set of centers of clusters; E j (x k) is a dissimilarity measure (distance or cost) between the sample x k and the center y j of a specific cluster j;U = [u jk] is the c x n fuzzy c-partition matrix, containing the membership values of all samples in all clusters; m â‚ ¬ (1, ?) is a control parameter of fuzziness. The clustering problem can be defined as the minimization of J m with respect to Y, under the probabilistic constraint: (2) The Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) algorithm consists in the iteration of the following formulas: for all j (3) And (4) ? ? ? 1,? if E j (x k) = 0 and u jk = 0 ? l ? j where, in the case of the Euclidean space: E j = xk ? y j 2 (5) It is worth noting that if one chooses m = 1 the fuzzy C-Means Functional J m (Eq. 1) reduces to the expectation of the global error (which we denote as ): (6) and the FCM algorithm becomes the classic Hard C-Means algorithm. 2.3. Convolutional Networks A Convolutional network is an alternating sequence of linear filtering and nonlinear transformation operations. The input and output layers include one or more images, while intermediate layers contain â€Å"hidden units with images called feature maps that are the internal computations of the algorithm. The activity of feature map a in layer k is given by (7) where Ik-1;b are feature maps that provide input to Ik;a, and denotes the convolution operation. The function f is the sigmoid f(x) = 1= (1 + e -x) and ?k;a is a bias parameter. We restrict our experiments to monochrome images and hence the networks contain a single image in the input layer. It is straightforward to extend this approach to color images by assuming an input layer with multiple images (e.g., RGB color channels). For numerical reasons, it is preferable to use input and target values in the range of 0 to 1, and hence the 8-bit integer intensity values of the dataset (values from 0 to 255) were normalized to lie between 0 and 1. We also explicitly encode the border of the image by padding an area surrounding the image with values of -1. 3. Bilateral Filtering: The idea underlying bilateral filtering is to do in the range of an image what traditional filters do in its domain. Two pixels can be close to one another, that is, occupy nearby spatial location, or they can be similar to one another, that is, have nearby values, possibly in a perceptually meaningful fashion. Closeness refers to vicinity in the domain, Similarity to vicinity in the range. Traditional filtering is domain filtering, and enforces closeness by weighing pixel values with coefficients that fall off with distance. Similarly, we define range filtering, which averages image values with weights that decay with dissimilarity. Range filters are nonlinear because their weights depend on image intensity or color. Computationally, they are no more complex than standard nonseparable filters. Spatial locality is still an essential notion. In fact, we show that range filtering by it selfmerely distorts an image’s color map. We then combine range and domain filtering, and show that the combination is much more interesting. We denote the combined filtering as bilateral filtering. Since bilateral filters assume an explicit notion of distance in the domain and in the range of the image function, they can be applied to any function for which these two distances can be defined. In particular, bilateral filters can be applied to color images just as easily as they are applied to black-and-white ones. The CIE-Lab color space [16] endows the space of colors with a perceptually meaningful measure of color similarity, in which short Euclidean distances correlate strongly with human color discrimination performance [16]. Thus, if we use this metric in our bilateral filter, images are smoothed and edges are preserved in a way that is tuned to human performance. Only perceptually similar colors are averaged together, and only perceptually visible edges are preserved. 4. Self Estimation Algorithm and Parameter Settings: If the number of clusters is manually specified, the segmentation may not be effective. Hence there must be a system to calculate the robust number of clusters. A method has been suggested for automatically finding no. of clusters with K means clustering [7]. That algorithm is modified for finding no. of clusters in our work. The self estimation algorithm used for fuzzy clustering techniques finds the Euclidean distance between the different cluster centers. If the maximum Euclidean distance between the cluster centers is greater than the specified value, then the number of cluster centers is increased by one else the clusters are merged.. The self estimation algorithm for neural network finds the difference between the weight vectors. If the difference between the weight vectors is greater than the specified value, then the number of cluster centers is increased by one else the clusters are merged. 4.1. Algorithm Step 0: Initialize weights wij.Set topological neighborhood parameters with its radius as Set learning rate parameters. Step 1: While stopping condition are false, do steps 2 6 Step 2: for each input vector x, do steps 3 – 5 Step 3: For each j, compute: D(j) = ?i (wij – xi)2 Step 4: Find index J such that D(J) is a minimum Step 5: For all units j within a specified neighborhood of J, and for all i: wij(new) = ij(old) + ?[xi – wij(old)] Step 6: Update learning rate The learning rate ? is a gradually decreasing function of training epochs. The formation of the competitive occurs in two phases. In the first phase the initial formation of the correct order takes place. In the second phase the final convergence. The second phase takes much longer than the first and requires a smaller value for the learning rate. Random values may be assigned for the initial weights. If some information is available concerning the distribution of clusters that might be appropriate for a particular problem, the initial weights can be taken to reflect that prior knowledge. 4.2. Parameter Settings: For the bilateral filtering part of the proposed method, we set the parameters as follows: Bilateral filtering with parameters ?d = 3 pixels and ?r = 50 intensity values is applied to the image in figure 3 (a) to yield the image in figure 3 (b). Notice that most of the fine texture has been filtered away, and yet all contours are as crisp as in the original image. Figure 3 (c) shows a detail of figure 3 (a), and figure 3 (d) shows the corresponding filtered version. The two onions have assumed a graphics-like appearance, and the fine texture has gone. However, the overall shading is preserved, because it is well within the band of the domain filter and is almost unaffected by the range filter. Also, the boundaries of the onions are preserved. Figure 3: A picture before (a) and after (b) bilateral filtering. (c,d) are details from (a,b). 5. Experimental Results: We derive training and test sets for our experiments from natural images in the Berkeley segmentation database, which has been previously used to study denoising [20, 4]. We restrict our experiments to the case of monochrome images; color images in the Berkeley dataset are converted to grayscale by averaging the color channels. The test set consists of 100 images, 77 with dimensions 321_481 and 23 with dimensions 481 _ 321. Quantitative comparisons are performed using the Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Mean Average Error (MAE) of the output image and comparisons are made based on the Error Image. The Error of the corresponding image is calculated by subtracting the original image from the image we obtained. 5.1. Peak Signal to Noise Ratio Signal-to-noise (SNR) estimates the quality of a reconstructed image compared with the original image. The basic idea is to compute a single number that reflects the quality of the reconstructed image[4]. Reconstructed images with higher metrics are judged better. In fact, traditional SNR measures do not equate with human subjective perception. Several research groups are working on perceptual measures, but for now signal-to-noise measures are used because they are easier to compute. Also to be noted that higher measures do not always mean better quality. The actual metric that is computed in this work is the peak signal-to-reconstructed image measure, which is called PSNR. Assume a source image f(i,j) is given that contains M by N pixels and a reconstructed image F(i,j) where F is reconstructed by decoding the encoded version of f(i,j). Error metrics are computed on the luminance signal only so the pixel values f(i,j) range between black (0) and white (255). First the mean absolute error of the reconstructed image is computed (MAE) as follows (11) The summation is over all pixels. PSNR in decibels (dB)[4] is computed by using PSNR = 10 log 10 (2552 / MAE). (12) 5.2. Error Image The other important technique for displaying errors is to construct an error image which shows the pixel-by-pixel errors. The simplest computation of this image is to create an image by taking the difference between the reconstructed and original pixels. These images are hard to see because zero difference is black and most errors are small numbers which are shades of black. The typical construction of the error image multiples the difference by a constant to increase the visible difference and translates the entire image to a gray level. The computation is E(i,j)=2[f(i,j)-F(i,j)] +128 (13). The constant (2) or the translation (128) can be adjusted to change the image. Some people use white (255) to signify no error and difference from white as an error which means that darker pixels are bigger errors. Figure 4: Denoising results on an image from the test set. The noisy image was generated by adding Gaussian noise with ? = 50 to the clean image. Non-blind Denoising results for the BLS-GSM, FoE, and Convolutional network methods are shown. The lower left panel shows results for the outlined region in the upper left panel. The zoomed in region shows that in some areas CN2 output has less severe artifacts than the wavelet-based results and is sharper than the FoE results. CN1 results (PSNR=24:12) are visually similar to those of CN2. Table below shows the comparison of the three techniques on their quality metrics. S.No. Method PSNR Execution Time 1. Fuzzy Clustering (Fuzzy) 28.24 253.14 2. Fuzzy C Means Clustering (FCM) 30.57 161.71 3. Convolutional Network (CN) 39.39 2.28 6. Conclusion: Out of the three methods tested competitive neural network is found to be good on the basis of image reproduction because of increased PSNR as well as image compression due to the increased compression ratio. We have found that the optimal ?r value of the bilateral filter is linearly related to the standard deviation of the noise. The optimal value of the ?d is relatively independent of the noise power. Based on these results, we estimate the noise variance at each level of the subbands decomposition and use the optimal ?r value for bilateral filtering. The key factor in the performance of the proposed method is the multiresolution application of the bilateral filter. It helped eliminating the coarse-grain noise in images. The wavelet thresholding adds power the proposed method. This work has several applications in various scientific fields like Satellite imaging, Map determination, Medical imaging, Optical character recognition (OCR), Non-Destructive testing, etc. The program developed has been tested with various pictures and the results were proven to be fruitful. The program has also been tested for its consistency and its reliability. References [1] C. Rosenberger,K. Chehdi, â€Å"Unsupervised Clustering Method with Optimal Estimationof the Number of Clusters: Application to Image Segmentation† in the proceedings of 15th International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR00) Volume 1 p. 1656. [2] Sven behnke and nicolaos b. Karayiannis, 1998, â€Å"Competitive neural trees for pattern classification†, in the IEEE transactions on neural networks, vol. 9, no. 6, pp.1352 -1369, november 1998. [3] Rezaee, M.R. van der Zwet, P.M.J. Lelieveldt, B.P.E. van der Geest, R.J. Reiber, J.H.C., 2000, â€Å"A multiresolution image segmentation technique based on pyramidal segmentation and fuzzy clustering† in IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, pp: 1238-1248, Vol. 9, No: 7, Jul 2000. [4] Hung-Ching Lu, Ted Tao,2006, â€Å"Closed-loop method to improve image PSNR in pyramidal CMAC networks† in the Computer Applications in Technology 2006 Vol. 25, No.1 pp. 22 29. [5] R. Krishnapuram, J.M. Keller., 1996, The possibilistic c-means:insights recommendations. IEEE Trans. Fuzzy Systems 4: 385-393, 1996. [6] Songcan Chen, Daoqiang Zhang, 2004, â€Å"Robust image segmentation using FCM with spatial constraints based on new kernel-induced distance measure† in IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Vol.34,No.4,pp: 1907-1916,Aug 2004. [7] Siddheswar Ray and Rose H Turi, 1999, Determination of number of clusters in k-means clustering and application in colour image segmentation, in 4th International Conference on Advances in Pattern Recognition and Digital Techniques (ICAPRDT99), 1999. [8]. C. Tomasi and R. Manduchi, â€Å"Bilateral filtering for gray and color images,† in Proc. Int. Conf. Computer Vision, 1998, pp.839–846. [9]. S. G. Chang, B. Yu, and M. Vetterli, â€Å"Adaptive wavelet thresholding for image denoising and compression,† Trans. Image Processing, vol. 9, no. 9, pp. 1532–1546, September 2000. [10]. D. L. Donoho and I. M. Johnstone, â€Å"Ideal spatial adaptation by wavelet shrinkage,† Biometrika, vol. 81, no. 3, pp. 425–455, 1994. Research Papers on Image Denoising Based on Soft Computing TechniquesAnalysis Of A Cosmetics AdvertisementIncorporating Risk and Uncertainty Factor in CapitalBionic Assembly System: A New Concept of SelfOpen Architechture a white paperMarketing of Lifeboy Soap A Unilever ProductMind TravelResearch Process Part OneThe Relationship Between Delinquency and Drug UseInfluences of Socio-Economic Status of Married MalesEffects of Television Violence on Children

Health care marketplace Essays

Health care marketplace Essays Health care marketplace Paper Health care marketplace Paper The healthcare industry is designed to meet the needs of many individuals in terms of their wellbeing. The approach or intervention would be preventive, curative, and soothing to persons who require such. It is also the collaboration of medical technology and human contact to address and tend to the health conditions of millions of people from the newborn to the elderly and the critically ill. Establishments providing healthcare normally function round-the-clock enduring even the harshest of conditions. â€Å"There are about 600,000 establishments that make up the health care industry; they vary greatly in terms of size, staffing patterns, and organizational structures.   Nearly 80% of health care establishments are offices of health practitioners. Although hospitals and hospices only comprise only 2% of all healthcare establishments, nevertheless they employ 35% of all workers; nursing and residential care facilities employ close to 24%, and other ambulatory health care services employ 20%.† (Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics) One renowned economist and author of The Health Care Marketplace, Dr. Warren Greenberg, emphasized about the competition of the business that â€Å"[competition] among physicians takes place locally among primary care physicians and on a wider geographical scale among specialists.†[1] Examples of the said competition would be between psychiatrists and psychologists; obgyne and infectious doctors. Furthermore, regarding competition between â€Å"physicians in a fee-for-service practice and those in managed care plans†, he mentions statistics and researches that were â€Å"lesser utilization of healthcare services, such as hospitalization and tests, with managed care plans.†[2] What are then the factors that affect the economics of the healthcare business? The identified factors are location, professional demeanor or behavior, and waiting time. To explain about the professional demeanor a concrete example to this is the behavior or conduct of surgeons in the big city compared to rural surgeons. Undoubtedly, doctors from the urban areas charge more than those in small town areas. â€Å"This demeanor has direct implications on the cost, options, services, and fees in the medical field, and also relationship to doctor education ad government funding for public health.†[3] There are factors that influence the cost of individual treatment. Physicians and doctors are one of the factors and they also cause an effect over the services and assets of hospitals and health care establishments. It is also identified that there are two main market perspectives in the healthcare industry; free market competition and government regulation. The latter is the most preferred of many individuals since they view it as a right rather than a privilege. There have been issuances of medicare programs where the poor and the elderly were given the opportunity to avail of the services in the healthcare industry. But is also a fact that some of the services rendered under the government-subsidized healthcare system lack the quality of service that patients deserve. In fact, critics of government regulation stress out its inefficiency. Then there came the rise of free-market competition. There are many identified reasons for the rise of the cost on healthcare: â€Å"Increase public expectations. New and expensive technology. The belief that healthcare is right. Competition between hospitals, resulting in duplication of technology and other services. The dissociation between cost of service and payee due to third party payers (insurances).†[4] Nonetheless, there is a means of lowering the cost of healthcare and that is coming up with new mechanisms in the implementation of healthcare services that are based on market trends and situations and this would also include the proper budgeting for the said services. Furthermore, it is needed that there is a revision of the practice for different related health professionals to allow them to be in private practice, â€Å"to accept patients without physicians’ referral and with government mandated third party insurance reimursability.†[5] Sources: Greenberg, W. (2002). The Health Care Marketplace. Beard Books. Healthcare Index. Retrieved June 16, 2009, from alternative-medicine.net/healthcare/index.html Web site: alternative-medicine.net/healthcare/market.perspectives.html Melillo, K (1994). Preparing and Preparing Testimony, Guidelines for the Health Care Practitioner Nurse. Patel, K, Rushefshy, M (1995). Health Care Politics and Policy in America. New York: M.E. Sharpe Inc. Bauer, J (1994). What the Doctor Ordered: Reinventing Medical Care in Amreica . Chicago: Probus Publishing. Enthoven, A (1993). Achieving Effective Cost Control in Comprehensive Health Care Reform. Health PAC Bulletin, 13-15. [1] Greenberg, W. (2002). The Health Care Marketplace. Beard Books.   [2] Greenberg, W. (2002). The Health Care Marketplace. Beard Books. [3] Healthcare Index. Retrieved June 16, 2009, from alternative-medicine.net/healthcare/index.html Web site: alternative-medicine.net/healthcare/market.perspectives.html [4]Healthcare Index. Retrieved June 16, 2009, from alternative-medicine.net/healthcare/index.html Web site: alternative-medicine.net/healthcare/market.perspectives.html [5] Healthcare Index. Retrieved June 16, 2009, from alternative-medicine.net/healthcare/index.html Web site: alternative-medicine.net/healthcare/market.perspectives.html

Chemistry Mnemonic Devices for Elements

Chemistry Mnemonic Devices for Elements A mnemonic (pronounced ne MON ik) is one useful way to remember a list. This chemistry mnemonic is a phrase, consisting of words made using the symbols of the first nine elements in the periodic table. Happy Henry Likes Beer But Could Not Obtain Food for: H - hydrogen He - helium Li - lithium Be - beryllium B - boron C - carbon N - nitrogen O - oxygen F - fluorine More Chemistry Mnemonics for Periodic Table Element Symbols Of course, there are many more mnemonic devices you can use to help remember the element symbols. Here are a few more. Keep in mind, youll remember the element symbols best if you pick (or write) a mnemonic that you find funny or memorable. Some chemistry mnemonics cover the elements through neon, while several continue on to calcium. Happy Harry Listens B B C Network Over France Nevertheless Nothing More Arose So Peter Stopped Cleaning Airgun K Ca.Happy Henry Likes Beer But Could Not Obtain Four Nuts.Naughty Magpies Always Sing Perfect Songs Clawing Ants.Harry Helped Little Benny Balmer Carry Neat Oranges From Neptunes Natural Menagerie Always Singing Polite Sonnets Clearly Arf Key Casually.Harry Helps Little Betty Brown Crack Nuts On Friday Nights.Ha. Healthy Little Beggar Boys Catching Newts Or Fish.Hell, Here Little Beatniks Brandish Countless Number Of Flick kNives.Nagging Maggie Always Sighs, Please Stop Clowning Around.Here He Lies Beneath Bed Clothes, Nothing On, Feeling Nervous.Naughty Margaret Always Sighs, Please Stop Clowning Around.Hi He Lied Because Boron Could Not Oxidize Fluorine. New Nations Might Also Sign Peace Security Clause. Arthur King Can. (elements up to calcium)Hi! Hey Little Ben Became Charlie’s Number One Fighting Nemesis.Native Magpies Always Sit Peacefully Searching Clear Areas .Hi! He Lies Because Boron CanNot Oxidize Fluorine. Necromantic Nato Mg (abbreviation for make good) All Silicon Ports. Superman Clean Argons K-Capture. Hi Hello Little Beryll Brown Cracking Nuts On Friday.Nellies Naughty Magpie Always Sings Pop Songs ClearlyAfter Killing Cathy.

The Narrative about My Exchange Program in Dubai Essay

The Narrative about My Exchange Program in Dubai - Essay Example The first day entails the trip to Dubai. The reason for my participation in the exchange program was the provisions that my university had to offer. However, the sight of Dubai made a change to all the casual involvement in the program. The city was beautiful, and the sound of traffic made me see how busy the population was at that very moment. The skyscrapers of Dubai were just incredible. The highest building Burj Khalifa was now a gesture that I had previously seen on pictures (Dubai). The building was tall and the tip that was the crest of the building made me wonder the height of the building. Our guide a native who had bright colored attire. The guide put forward that the Dubai was one a composition of the UAE. The most probable factor was that the beautiful city was the most popular of the eight nations that form the United Arab Emirates. The guide told me that Dubai was a center of business. The guide also wore an attractive perfume that was indigenous. The Burj Khalifa had a height of 828 meters. After a while, the guide took me to one of the best hotels in the city. The Burj Al Arab Jumeirah was our stop. The hotel is the face of Dubai in tourism as well as the hospitality advertisements. The hotel has a sail-like appearance. The structure is a mixture of blue and white. The building according to the guide is an actual symbol of the modernity that attributes to the city. There was a private point for the reception for each floor. The smell of the food was very charming, and the sight of the interior was comforting.  The guide also took me to the top of the building. The city was epic from the viewpoint. The city was subtle, and people were as small as ants.

Journal entry #7 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Journal entry #7 - Essay Example experience as a previous ESL student, the responses were gathered and evaluated addressing the specific research question, to wit: â€Å"On their own, outside of the structure of ESL classes, to what degree do International students use technology to practice English language and communication skills?† (KasapoÄŸlu-Akyol, 2010, p. 231). The findings revealed that all students relayed manifesting problems in at least one language skill from the identified speaking, writing, reading or listening skills. Further, all those interviewed confirmed that they used diverse technological tools such as software programs through the Internet, their laptops, digital cameras to record lip movements, and electronic dictionaries, among others. Finally, when asked how technology assisted them in improving language and communication skills, the participants responded that these tools facilitated learning enabling them to save time and effort and providing opportunities for practicing and learn ing in a more conducive and interesting environment. The article is useful for educators of ESL students in terms of enhancing awareness on the crucial role that technology plays in improving both communication and language skills. Through the experience of six ESL students from diverse cultural orientations, the study illumined academic practitioners in identifying which specific technological tools are instrumental in providing opportunities to practice and learn outside the classroom

Brain-based Learning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Brain-based Learning - Essay Example Since the brain has a finite amount of storage space, it attempts to connect and reconcile new information with previous information. The ultimate result of this process is a blending into general concepts called schema. As we acquire, process, and store more information concerning a specific schema, the neural connection grows and learning takes place (Hardiman, 2003; Huitt, 2003). While the specifics of the schema-forming process are not yet known, research in language acquisition has shown that humans are genetically predisposed to process information in specific ways. Thus scientists have created several learning theories which attempt to better explain the specifics. One such prevailing theory is the levels of processing theory which says that "learners utilize different levels of elaboration as they process information. This is done on a continuum from perception, through attention, to labeling, and finally, meaning" (Huitt, 2003, p. 1). But what does this mean in the classroom Educators must realize that students come to them with perceptions about life and school already in place. Skillful teachers will attempt to find out where their students are coming from and what prior knowledge they have before introducing new information. Review activities should be provided so students with a chance to repeat a specific learning task.

Levels of Prevention Paper (Primary Health Prevention levels by Essay

Levels of Prevention Paper (Primary Health Prevention levels by Community Health Nurses) - Essay Example Health relates to ensuring the optimal level of well-being in the individual. In the homeless this relates to ensuring that they are as well protected from the effects which being homeless may have on their health as possible. The nursing paradigm relates to the use of the skills of the community nurse in creating and maintaining a relationship with the individual as well as offering appropriate treatment and care. Taking these four metaparadigms into account, primary prevention would be considered to be an effective community health care strategy to use with the homeless. Primary prevention relates to the interventions which the community nurse creates to prevent risk behaviors before they start. In the case of the homeless aggregate this pertains to preventing behaviors which may put the homeless person’s health and well being at risk in order to maintain this at the optimal levels possible given the situation. This could also be considered in terms of maintaining the fourteen areas of nursing care as established by Henderson in the Interactive model of nursing (Tourville and Ingalls, 2003). This framework can be seen in Appendix 1. Primary prevention will be achieved through health promotion and education and health protection in line with this framework, focusing in preventing any behavior which may compromise the elements of the framework. The importance of primary prevention is that it is independent of diagnosis (Wenger, 2006). This means that it is an accessible form of health care, making it particularly suitable for those groups who m ay resist diagnosis, as may be the case for some subgroups of the homeless. This step of primary prevention focuses on the development of accessible health education programs for the homeless. This focuses on using education to prevent any behaviors which may put the health of the individual at risk, such as heavy alcohol consumption, unprotected sex and other risky behaviors. The strategies

Analytical Essay #1 Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Analytical #1 - Essay Example Based on the nature of the constitution and the provisions on the powers of the federal government, the American system has created a limited government scenario as the mandate of the federal government are limited by the fundamental constitutional provisions (Ginsberg, Lowi and Weir 47). Through different approaches, the federal government controls the supply of money into the economy as a way of strengthening the currency and inflation. Through this function, the government ensures that the economy is protected from the impacts of credit and financial crisis as witnessed in the previous years. The federal government is also constitutionally required to regulate the trade within different states in the country and with international markets. This ensures that unscrupulous trading activities are controlled and illegal entry of products restricted. Treaties that border on security and protection of the territorial boundaries of the country like the north Atlantic treaties are a role of the national government. As a result, no other branch of government or state can declare war against a foreign country as this is the constitutional role of the federal government (Ginsberg, Lowi and Weir 46). The role of the national government on issues that affect the life of the citizens has remained a controversial issue and this contributed to the limitation of the powers of the federal government. Before the American civil war, debates on the scope of the powers of the national government raged but most believed that the limitation of the federal government power would be in the interest of the people. The debates influenced the limitation of the powers of the federal government and different reasons have been cited for the limited nature of government in the country (Ginsberg, Lowi and Weir 73). One of the main contributing factors was the legacy of revolution which created the fear of the establishment of centralized power system

Please set up the topic for me 234 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Please set up the topic for me 234 - Essay Example It mainly lays emphasis on the people in an organisation. It is defined as a series of incorporated decisions which form the employment connection; their quality adds to the capability of the company as well as the employees to attain their objective. Human resource management is also referred as a collection of programmes, activities and functions designed as well as carried out to maximise the organisational as well as employee effectiveness (Aswathappa, 2005). Organisational behaviour explains people’s behaviour in an organisation. Organisations are the social systems encompassing different types of interconnected sub-systems such as social/human sub-system and another sub-system involves decision-making, production, administrative and technological sub-systems. The fundamental nature of social/human sub-system lays emphasis on the presentation of the employees of the company and the leadership and management required (Fox, 2006). Organisational behaviour drew its major inspiration from Hawthorn Studies, which was expressed by Elton Mayo in the late 1920s. These studies initially highlighted the complication of human nature in the organizational setting. This led to the identification of the significance of social context inside which work happens; as well as the means in which the groups’ turns into a considerable influence on the individual behaviour (Martin, 2005). Human Resource Management focuses on the people and human being’s behaviour. It is defined as an organizational tool that assists in efficient thinking and rationalization (Alvesson and Berg, 1992). It goes further than physical contributions in order to include cognitive, emotional, and creative aspects of workers. Employees communicate opinions, suggestions, feelings and complaints in order to boost production and satisfaction (Robbins and Judge, 2009). It is apprehensive with the workers both

Analytical Essay #1 Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Analytical #1 - Essay Example Based on the nature of the constitution and the provisions on the powers of the federal government, the American system has created a limited government scenario as the mandate of the federal government are limited by the fundamental constitutional provisions (Ginsberg, Lowi and Weir 47). Through different approaches, the federal government controls the supply of money into the economy as a way of strengthening the currency and inflation. Through this function, the government ensures that the economy is protected from the impacts of credit and financial crisis as witnessed in the previous years. The federal government is also constitutionally required to regulate the trade within different states in the country and with international markets. This ensures that unscrupulous trading activities are controlled and illegal entry of products restricted. Treaties that border on security and protection of the territorial boundaries of the country like the north Atlantic treaties are a role of the national government. As a result, no other branch of government or state can declare war against a foreign country as this is the constitutional role of the federal government (Ginsberg, Lowi and Weir 46). The role of the national government on issues that affect the life of the citizens has remained a controversial issue and this contributed to the limitation of the powers of the federal government. Before the American civil war, debates on the scope of the powers of the national government raged but most believed that the limitation of the federal government power would be in the interest of the people. The debates influenced the limitation of the powers of the federal government and different reasons have been cited for the limited nature of government in the country (Ginsberg, Lowi and Weir 73). One of the main contributing factors was the legacy of revolution which created the fear of the establishment of centralized power system

Property in South Korea Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 3

Property in South Korea - Essay Example An investment requires a medium of exchange and that is usually money. Money is a deteriorating asset in itself and loses value constantly. It is, for this reason, it is exchanged for property which is expected to retain its value. Here is the fallacy that in fact, property achieves a higher value on the fall of the value of money, or rather its purchasing power. Therefore the value of the property is increased due to the fall of the value of money. It is illogical to believe that property has obtained a higher value. But such is the force of the human mind that this has become an accepted belief. The main reason for this belief lies in another fact; that due to the constant expansion of markets the needs of the people increases. While the money supply can be expanded, the supply of physical property remains the same. This mismatch is the real reason why property prices increase due to increase in demand. Morgan Stanley has decided on an astonishing investment in the commercial property previously owned by Daewoo. It has bid a handsome amount of $ 1 billion for this office tower located near the railway station in Seoul, S. Korea. The demand for quality space located in prime business districts is increasing and existing land parcels are extremely difficult to consolidate, leading to unimagined high prices. This deal is no big surprise as Morgan Stanley has a large portfolio of property investments of even larger figures, and has the intention to acquire more properties around the world for its valued clients. The movement of economic liberalization that commenced some thirty years ago is now maturing and covering vast areas and countries, previously considered under-developed, are fast catching on to this progress. This has had multiple effects all around the world. International barriers to trade, movement, and communication are being removed or eased to facilitate free movement of capital and human resources.  

Starbucks Coffee Company Essay Example for Free

Starbucks Coffee Company Essay It’s an American global coffee company and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world ahead of UK rival Costa Coffee, with 23,305 stores in 65 countries and territories, including 13,049 in the United States, 1,909 in China, 1,555 in Canada, 1,089 in Japan and 927 in the United Kingdom. Starbucks locations serve hot and cold beverages, whole-bean coffee. Most stores also sell pre-packaged food items, hot and cold sandwiches, and items such as mugs and tumblers. Starbucks. Through the Starbucks Entertainment division and Hear Music brand, the company also markets books, music, and film. Many of the companys products are seasonal or specific to the locality of the store. Starbucks-brand ice cream and coffee are also offered at grocery stores. Starbucks had been profitable as a local company in Seattle. By the time it expanded into California in 1991 it had become trendy. The first store outside the United States or Canada opened in Tokyo in 1996, and overseas stores now constitute almost one third of Starbucks stores. The company planned to open a net of 900 new stores outside of the United States in 2009, but has announced 300 store closures in the United States since 2008. How the organization is organized Starbucks Organizational Chart Identify the activities of the functional areas Functional areas: Each organization is radically different ways by the structures, rules, positions and recognized chains of dynamic structures in which the communications staff of the organization is divided into fixed and is expected instead to keep width according to requirement. The basic methods of the organization are the people on the basis of the methods  according to geographical areas of the product Human resources: In Human Resources, they’re all about their partners. They have more than 500 partners working in groups such as Staffing, Learning and Development, Total Pay (Comp and Benefits), Organizational Development and Human Services. Each of us is a strategic partner to the business – no matter if we’re in a generalist or more specialist role. Together, we build programs that help our partners around the globe become their personal best. Finance: In Finance, theyll have the opportunity to work with their retail operations, consumer products and i nternational businesses. Their team is a key part of continued growth and profitability. There are more than 500 professionals working in fields such as accounting, business unit finance, corporate development, finance services, internal audit, investor relations, tax and customs, treasury and risk management, and safety and security. Marketing: Starbucks has a team of over 200 developing the strategy for all customer touch points in a Starbucks store and in the digital space. This includes campaigns for their products (like a favorite, the Pumpkin Spice Latte) or digital marketing campaigns like social media, promotions, as well as programs like Starbucks Card, CRM, ecommerce and mobile (Digital Ventures). Whether it’s on a mobile device or in one of their stores, they strive to deliver genuine moments of connection with their customers while driving transactions. One innovative thing they’ve done recently is partner with Square to launch mobile payments in their retail stores. Costumer Service: The Customer Service team receives and shares feedback that helps the company stand apart and grow. They listen to their customers and respond in kind. They analyze information and provide insights so that they continue to create inspired moments around the world every day. Sales: The Starbucks Sales team wo rks with retailers all over the world to launch their products in places like grocery stores, airlines and school campuses. They even serve Starbucks Coffee at The White House, Pentagon and on Air Force One. Production: This group of people as a team for the products they produce. As each company has different departments and groups are divided by service. Describe the relations between them The relations between these functional areas you can see as a kind of tracking system. Because every department is helping the other one work, The Human Recourses arranges everything inside the company and the opposite of that one is the department Marketing, they are looking for information outside the company. Eventually the marketing department can help the customer service to improve their service and the Human Recourses can help the Sales department and Production work better. Al last the Finance keeps everything around the company in control if it’s about the outcomes or revenue or the labor costs of the employers. P4 Explain how their style of organization makes it possible for them to fulfil their purposes. The Starbucks Mission Statement: Today, Starbucks Coffee Company has published two mission statements, one for the company and one that defines their commitment to the environment: â€Å"To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time† – Starbucks Coffee â€Å"Starbucks is committed to a role of environmental leadership in all facets of our business.† – Starbucks Environmental Mission Statement How the Organization Starbucks works Toward Its Mission Starbucks works on a certain way to make their purposes work. This way requires a lot of planning and work. Below I mentioned how the organization is working to fulfil their purposes: Our Coffee – High quality has always been the passion of Starbucks coffee, and hard work has been done to maintain and improve that. Our Partners – Everyone who works for Starbucks are partners because they all share a passion to create a place where everyone is treated to a standard that includes respect and dignity. Our Customers – Although Starbucks holds customer satisfaction through quality-made beverages as important, they also focus on the significance of human connection. Our Stores – The Starbucks mission statement also focuses on making their stores a â€Å"haven† for people to go to whenever necessary. Our Neighborhood – Starbucks considers their  stores as part of the community it is in, and are very passionate about doing their part and being responsible about it. Our Shareholders – Starbucks believes that actions towards success rewards everyone involved in the company. Therefore, Starbucks is fully accountable to uphol d its principles to the benefit of everyone connected with Starbucks. Onward – The Starbucks Mission Statement page leaves this without an explanation – but for good reason. The future may be unknown, but Starbucks regards it as important, and all decisions and actions have to contribute to making a better future for Starbucks and all its partners. Starbucks history has shown that having values, and practicing those values, will lead to success. ( All this information according to the Starbucks site itself) Describe how two businesses are organize. Identify the activities of the functional areas , and describe the relations between them. The next organization I chose is Greenpeace About Greenpeace: Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning organization that wants to change attitudes and behavior and they want to protect and conserve the environment and to promote peace by: (According to http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/about/) Accelerating an energy revolution to refer the number one threat facing our planet: climate change. Defending our oceans by challenging wasteful and destructive fishing, and creating a global network of marine reserves. Protecting the worlds ancient forests and the animals, plants and people that depend on them. Working for disarmament and peace by tackling the causes of conflict and calling for the elimination of all nuclear weapons. Creating a toxic free future with safer alternatives to hazardous chemicals in todays products and manufacturing. Campaigning for sustainable agriculture by rejecting genetically engineered organisms, protecting biodiversity and encouraging socially responsible farming. Greenpeace is in 40 countries across Eu rope, the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Pacific. Greenpeace doesn’t want donations from governments or corporations but they get their money from contributions from individual supporters and foundation grants. How the organization is organized Identify the activities of the functional areas ( all this information according to the Greenpeace site itself) Human Recourses: The mission of the Human Resources (HR) department is to support Greenpeace’s strategic vision and goals by recruiting and retaining diverse, passionate and exceptional team members; providing proactive services that foster a friendly and collaborative work experience; administering policies and benefits that protect both staff and the organization; and promoting a strategic and interactive staff development program to aid staff in reaching their full potential. The Human Resources intern will assist the HR department in reaching its goals through a combination of administrative support, research and project work. Marketing: The Direct Marketing team is an integral part of Greenpeaces Development Department, and is responsible for the management of fundraising for monthly and one-time donors at the $1-$499.99 level. The Direct Marketing team works with several out-of-house vendors to coordinate the mailing and telemarketing cultivation and solicitation of these donors. The team is also responsible for acquiring new donors, and for testing new methods of acquisition. Finance: Finance, Greenpeaces finance program, instrumentally increases the financial and political work of Greenpeace by raise new members on the street. Members of the finance department give monthly donations which support Greenpeace, online actions, phone banking, events and more. The Finance team provides administrative support to the Frontline program by tracking performanc e, liaising with other departments of Greenpeace, organizing, checking and submitting Finance payroll. The Finance intern will work closely with the Frontline Operations Team, the National Canvass Director, the Frontline Project Director, and the Frontline Training and Recruitment Coordinator and will report to a member of the Frontline Operations Team. Describe the relations between them. Because Greenpeace is a non-profit organization they don’t really focus on having a lot customers and revenue. So they have a kind of basic system for their organization. The relations between the functional is thereby very close to each other. Namely The Human Resources takes care of the distribution into the company, That makes it possible that the people can do exactly there work what’s needed by the company. For example the marketing employers are so divided that they can do their work what is asked from the company. P4 Explain how their style of organization makes it possible for them to fulfil their purposes. Greenpeace purposes: Greenpeace has a couple purposes that they want to reach: Halt climate change. Greenpeace, like most environmental organizations, places fighting global warming at the top of its list Protect oceans. Greenpeace is perhaps best known for its campaigns to protect whales and other large aquatic animals from hunters and trappers Save ancient forests. Logging and clear-cutting of ancient forests drive species of plants and animals toward extinction and threaten the lives of people whose survival depends on the forests resources Achieve disarmament and peace. The world maintains an armory of 30,000 nuclear weapons, and several countries actively pursue the technology to develop even more. Reduce toxic materials in products. Many electronics and other products contain toxic chemicals and heavy metals that are difficult to dispose of and impossible to recycle. Encourage sustainable agriculture. Greenpeace believes genetically modified crops decrease biodiversity and pose a threat to the food supply. This purposes can only be reached if the organization works together with each other, so Greenpeace has clearly purposes so it’s easy for them to work towards something. Because the Greenpeace doesn’t accepts money from the government it’s important for them that they make the Marketing work good, because they have to inspire and motivate people to donate money and support the organization. Greenpeace is already doing a good job at that because they’ve reached a lot of their purposes already. Next up is the Finance department: They make sure that the company spends their money at the right  place so that they can full their purposes. It’s not only for their purposes but also for the employers who have to get paid eventually. Only on that way the can make the company work. Al last the most important part I think is the Human Resources the make sure that the Finance, Marketing, Production, Service departments are doing their job. And helps them furt her.

Effect of Social Class on Children in the Educational System

Effect of Social Class on Children in the Educational System Social class and how it affects children aged 7 years and below within the English educational system This report considers recent research evidence related to inclusive education, and equality of opportunity, in relation to social class and how it affects children aged 7 years and below within the English educational system. A definition of inclusive education relevant to early educational practice will be offered. A literature review will be undertaken, that will principally examine the size of the social class differences amongst young children, and will go on to consider a case study of inclusive practice that was implemented at one English primary school. Recommendations for future research are made. Introduction Since the publication of the Plowden Report in 1967, it has been apparent that social class has a profound effect on the educational achievement of primary school children. In the past two decades, there have been a number of specific legislative changes that have altered the shape of primary school education. With the Education Reform Act(1988), schools have been required to undertake standardised testing of7 year old children in English, Mathematics and Science subjects. Furthermore, schools have been required to publish controversial ‘league tables’ of performance, alongside national averages, in their school prospectus publications. There have been several policies introduced to reduce the effects of deprivation on young children including Sure Start, and a planned widening of availability of nursery education all in the name of ‘inclusive education’ (Barnes, Belsky,Broomfield, Dave et al, 2004, p 46-9). Indeed, Geertz (2001) has argued that New Labour policy makers strive to â€Å"make all families like middle-class families, or at least the ideal-typical middle class family of much educational research† (p 7). However, there is surprisingly little empirical research evidence available on inclusive education, or equality of opportunity in early educational settings, with most studies focussing on secondary school children. This is also regrettable since Sammons and Sees (1998) have clearly shown that at the age of seven, prior attainment accounts for 26-43% of variance in national assessment results (p 389 – 407). Therefore, early teaching support of children with special educational needs, or affected by poverty or difficult personal circumstances would appear to be of immense importance to prevent children who start school behind their peers from falling further behind as their school careers progress. This report will critically assess available empirical studies related to the education of children aged 7 years and below within the United Kingdom. Furthermore, it will examine theoretical and philosophical perspectives on early inclusive education, and make recommendations for further research. Method The search strategy employed for the literature review involved searching electronic bibliographical databases for relevant research and policy papers related to the topic of inclusive education, and equality of opportunity, and social class issues with English school pupils aged 7 and under. No date restrictions were imposed on the searches, although most papers that were located and subsequently considered in this literature review were published in the 1990’s and2000’s. The electronic bibliographical databases that were searched were ERIC, the British Education Index and Psych Lit. Abstracts for each paper were inspected on an individual basis to assess their relevance to the literature review. Research papers within the terms of the literature review were then obtained from various library sources. However, it was felt that much of the research on early inclusive education would be found in the grey literature. Therefore, the Education Line database of conference proceedings, provided by Leeds University, was also searched for relevant papers. Finally, a search of the websites of highly regarded academic educational research centres, and government official statistics, was undertaken and further relevant research reports were obtained this way. Literature Review Although ‘inclusive education’ has been the buzz word of the education sector for many years, there is a lack of clarity in its definition. It broadly includes reference to a schools receptivity to accommodate the needs of all its pupils, and be â€Å"more responsive to pupil diversity†(Fiorina, Rouse, Black-Hawkins and Jull (2004), p 118). Furthermore, Fiorina et al (2004) have argued that inclusion and achieving high standards are not necessarily mutually exclusive goals, with some schools achieving both (p 115). Stephen and Cope (2003) have further elaborated on the interpretation of inclusive education, drawing distinction between the individual model where the deprived pupil is seen as ‘the problem’ (p 274) to be moulded into the school system, towards a social model of inclusive education. The social model acknowledges that there may be individual characteristics of the child that need to be considered, but also consider the possible institutional and operational barriers that hinder children’s entry and integration into infant schools. In their study, children from middleclass homes were supported by parents when they started infant schoolboy practising numeracy and literacy at home, and through more proactive involvement in school activities (p 273). Gallannaugh and Dyson (2003) have conducted a study of 25 practitioners working in three English LEA’s to assess what ‘inclusive education ‘development was possible in schools, and make sense of school responses to the inclusion agenda. Some teachers reported confusion over what ‘inclusive education’ was, since many official sources of information focussed on inclusion of children with special educational needs only(p 1). However, most teachers saw ‘inclusive education’ as provision for all children who were at risk of underachieving within the educational system, a version of inclusive education that is compatible with New Labour’s ‘social inclusion’ agenda ensuring that all members of society participate in the opportunities and activities of mainstream society (Blanket, 1999). A definition of inclusive education that attracted consensus amongst the teachers was â€Å"a set of broad values which we understood to be inclusive, and which we articulated as a commitment to equality, and increasing participation of all children (rather than one or other marginalised groups) in common education† (p 2). In synthesising research papers on social class related to early education, it is apparent that the term ‘social class’ has been interpreted in different ways by different authors. Sammons (1995) has highlighted that some researchers have attempted to â€Å"identify and separate the effects of different combinations of disadvantaging factors, noting that whilst not additive there is evidence of cumulative disadvantage (i.e. experiencing one factor such as low social class or low income on its own is less closely associated with low attainment than experiencing both these factors)† (p 467). Furthermore, Sparks (1999) has classified the different interpretations as including children from low income households, parental unemployment, paternal/ maternal occupation and inappropriate housing environment (p 10). She has examined research studies that look at each of these aspects, but only a few studies specifically examine the age range of 0 to 7 years. Pupils coming from a low income household, as indicated by eligibility for free school meals, appears to have marked effect on educational achievement at the age of 7 years and above (p 14). Furthermore, West, Pennell, West and Travers (1999) have shown that receipt of income support benefit by the household accounted for 66% of variance in educational achievement at a local authority level (p 10). Sparks (1999) has stated that â€Å"non-school factors are a more important source of variation in educational achievement than differences in the quality of education that students receive† (p 9).However, there is a broad consensus that schools can counteract some of the effects of social deprivation through inclusive educational practice. Indeed, empirical evidence suggests that schools have an independent effect of between 8% and 15%, and school effects are greater within the primary school sector (Reynolds, Sammons, Stoll, Barber et al, 1996 (p 140)). In the UK, research evidence on the effects of pre-school education are mixed (Sparks, 1999, p 12). However, research studies have indicated that when children receiving nursery education are compared to those receiving no nursery education, pre-school experience has a positive impact on achievement in national assessment tests at the age of seven (Sammons and Sees, 1998, p 400).However, poor families may not have access to quality services in areas where demand for nursery services is high. Middle class families, however, may have the advantage in that they can turn to the private sector provision where necessary. Smaller studies have shown an association between social class and early pupil attainment. However, stronger evidence is supplied by McCullum (1993) who compared aggregated Key Stage One results for local education authorities in England, against measures of social class obtained from the 1991 Social Census. This study clearly showed that social class, as evidenced through the number of social class 1 and 2individuals in the local population, showed a statistically significant and positive relationship with the Local Education Authority’s Key Stage One test scores, across all LEA’s sampled (p 95). Furthermore, Thomas (1995) has also shown how free school meal entitlement, and special educational needs, were strongly correlated with performance at Key Stage One (p 280). More recently, Sammons (1995) has studied 2000primary school children longitudinally at 50 ethnically diverse inner-city schools over a 9 year period. The children were monitored from the ages of 7 to 10 years. For the purpose of this report the results will be reported for the youngest of the cohort. The main purpose of the study was to assess primary schools effectiveness at developing cognitive and non-cognitive educational outcomes amongst children. Detailed records were kept on every child’s background characteristics such as ethnicity, socio-economic status and gender. For the purpose of the study, social class was measured as father’s occupation, and eligibility for free school meals. There were statistically significant differences in absolute attainment at ages 7, and above (p 479), with the biggest effect being in reading rather than mathematics performance. At 7 years, receiving free school meals accounted for just over 7% of variance in reading test performance, while having father working in an semi or unskilled profession accounted for 14.5%of variance, and having a father who was unemployed accounted for8.35%. However, for mathematics test performance, free school meals accounted for just 1.3% of variance, and having a father in a semi/unskilled profession accounted for 4.22% of variance while having father who was unemployed at the time of the study accounted for 2.57%of variance (p 471). This study was based on pupils attending primary schools in the decade of the 1980’s, and prior to the onset of the National Curriculum. It is the only longitudinal study of its kind that has been published using a British school population. With high statistical power afforded through the sample size, it is possible tube confident in the results. However, research studies are required that adopt a similar design but that are carried out now that the National Curriculum is an established format of educational provision within primary schools. Studies are also required that examine more dimensions of social class than the ‘outdated’ paternal occupation, and free school meals eligibility. In 1998, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority introduced a National Framework for Baseline Assessment for all pupils at the start of their school careers. The baseline assessment is a structured series of questions designed to assess pupils’ English ability, in terms of oral, reading and writing ability. In addition, early mathematical understanding is measured through a series of questions that require teachers to judge the ability of the child. Strand (1999) has studied the results of baseline testing of over 11,000 four year old children prior to their entry to primary school reception class. The data cover the period of 1993 to 1997, and are based at Wandsworth Local Education Authority in London. The results indicate that there are significant variations in baseline test score achievement based around a range of background factors such as age of child, gender, ethnicity and economic status. Measures of interest to the present literature review are length of preschool education by the pupil and entitlement to free school meals, which is the surrogate measure of social class used for baseline testing. Measures of attainment collected by the study were the LARR (Linguistic Awareness in Reading Readiness) test of emergent literacy and the teacher checklist described above. The results show statistically significant, strong correlations between school entrants on baseline measures and their subsequent overall Key Stage 1 achievement, in the region of 0.6 or above. Furthermore, the test battery are highly predictive of both English and Mathematics achievement in Key Stage 1 assessments in the individual subjects, with correlations in the region of 0.55 for mathematics, 0.55 for reading, and 0.49 for writing. The combination of the LARR objective measure of literacy, and the teacher checklist, together make the best overall indicator of later achievement for the children, compared to either test in isolation. Amount of preschool education received by children also significantly predicted Key Stage One achievement in all subjects. Furthermore, children in receipt of eligibility for free school meals were noted to score, on average, over five whole points less than their peers on baseline tests. Their mean scores were 29.7 (SD 11.4) compared to 34.9 (SD 12.2) for non-entitled children (p 20). In a further study, Strand (1997) tracked the educational progress of1669 Wands worth school children who had completed baseline assessments during 1992 and 1993. He considered the important of school effects, which is importance to social class considerations in the sense that schools are located in specific catchment areas that can be defined according the level of deprivation in the local community. The same assessment materials were used for this study as in Strand (1999). The pattern of achievement described for children eligible for free school meals at school entry was one where they started below other peers, in terms of baseline testing, and gradually fell further behind as time went by; as reflected in their Key Stage One performance (p 479). Composite measure of school effects of child performance at Key Stage One was taken to comprise of seven factors including gender ratio of school population, proportion of pupils with eligibility for free school meals and percentage of bilingual school pupils. Strand (1997)found that where there was a high rate of free school meal eligibility, this was one of the statistically significant factors, along with gender ratio and proportion of ESL pupils in school composite effects. â€Å"These compositional effects are significant even after each individual pupils baseline scores, sex, FSM entitlement and ESL background have been taken into account† (Strand, 1997, p 479). This means that school performance as a whole, as well as individual pupil progress, would appear to be associated with the proportion of free school meal claimants in the school population. Indeed, â€Å"It can be hypothesised that schools with a low proportion of socially disadvantaged pupils may have some benefits associated with their context: they may receive greater help from parents, have fewer disciplinary problems or an atmosphere more conducive to learning† (p 485). Buchanan-Barrow and Barratt (1998) have considered how young children understand school, and how this is affected by socio-economic factors, along with gender and birth-order. They suggest, â€Å"The school constitutes, in microcosm, a multifaceted and multi-layered society with an extensive and complex system†¦in order to operate successfully in this system, the young pupil needs to acquire an understanding of the connections between such important system-concepts as rules, roles, power and community† (p 250). A total of 112 children were included in the study from the age of 5 and upwards, at two primary schools in London. The first school had a free school meal ratio of 3% and was therefore broadly classified as a middle class school. The second school had a much higher free school meal ratio of 49% and the intake population was largely working class. Parents and teachers completed questionnaires, and the children were interviewed about their understanding of the power structure in the school, and their attitudes towards their school. In general, young children had the most positive attitudes towards school of all children studied. Furthermore, there were no differences in the attitudes towards school by socio-economic class, but there was a significant correlation between child and parental views on the school. The importance of the head-teacher in the power structure was evident in the responses of all children, butane understanding of the purpose of the class teachers was patchy until the middle primary years. The researchers closely examined the responses of the children at both schools for social class effects on comprehension and understanding of the school. At the middle-class school, the responses of the children followed general age trend patterns where children’s knowledge and understanding increased with years. However, for the working-class school, the pattern of responses were more complicated. Children were much less likely to discuss the role of parents, and children in the organisation and function of school compared to children at the other school. This suggests that children are not feeling ‘included’ in school, with a strong sense of membership that children often report at the middle class school (p263). Examination of parental responses to the questionnaire revealed broadly similar responses between schools, but working class parents reported feeling more welcome at the school than middle class parents. As Buchanan-Barrow and Barratt (1998) have suggested, â€Å"Since middleclass parents are likely to be readier to take issue, more assured of their ability to achieve their aims and better equipped to make their feelings known, it might be expected that the staff might be more wary of their interventions and less warm in their welcome. On the other hand, working class parents, without the same sense of empowerment, maybe seen as less threatening† (p 263). This is an important study in that it reveals age-trends in children’s understanding of school, and their place within the power structure and function of the school. According to Piaget cognitive theory, age-related differences in understanding are to be expected, as a combination of increased cognitive abilities with age. However, constructivism alone does not explain the individual differences in responses. The age related findings in the children’s responses may not be due to developmental changes in cognitive ability alone. In particular, social-interactional factors may have an important contribution to children’s understanding of the school, with parents, teachers and children’s interactions about the school being mediated by the age of the pupil. A social representation perspective would emphasise the individual differences in responses according to social class, gender and so forth (Elmer and Hana, 1993). However, this study showed that the acquisition of social knowledge and social understanding was more individual, than collective (p 265). Gallannaugh and Dyson (2003) have provided a useful detailed case study of how inclusive education can work at improving primary schoolchildren’s educational achievements. They collected data from one primary school (‘Broad mead’) in an urban area, primarily serving families of the local council housing estate where the eligibility for free school meals was above national averages. The school decided to address the specific issue of underachievement in writing ability during Key Stage assessments. The school had identified a group of middle ability school pupils who were failing to meet national expectations. School staff did not feel that poor teaching maybe the cause of the problem, and many teachers cited specific and concerted efforts by teachers to improve writing standards using a range of teaching strategies. However, â€Å"the school’s response to the problem was to problematize some of its existing practices. To some extent, this appeared to be a result of the realisation that customary practice simply did not ‘work’ in the sense that despite all efforts to hone teaching skills, the school had apparently reached a ceiling in attainment† (p 3). The school had moved towards a more experimental approach in the curriculum, and included new teaching strategies to help pupil learning such as thinking skills techniques. However, the actual underlying purpose of introducing a specific intervention was unclear, with more emphasis on anxiety about school performance compared to national standards, as opposed to inclusion for all. Nevertheless, it represented a departure from standard practice. Over the course of the project, the experience of implementing new approaches and of their impact on children’s learning led teachers to rethink their ideas about educational/ personal outcomes that are important to children. The original aim had been to improve achievement standards in writing, but the intervention had also appeared to impact on child self-esteem, learning in other subject areas, and educational confidence. The teachers reported that they valued these additional attainments in their own right amongst their pupils. Teachers had identified that the children had very limited learning techniques and strategies, and had therefore decided to focus on teaching children how to learn, in parallel to the curriculum subjects. When the research team interviewed teachers about why they felt their pupils had struggled in writing skills, it was generally felt that the critical barrier to raising all aspects of literacy was due to the fact that children entered school with very limited language skills that affected their access to most subjects. The head teacher felt that ‘catch up ‘once they started school was insufficient to counter the effects of poor literacy environment at home, and lack of family communication about education at home. This lack of preparation for school was complicated by local cultural factors such as socialisation of boys from working class households into the role of the ‘northern lad’ who was expected to behave stereotypically, and not necessarily express an interest in education. In summary, â€Å"some children came to school from families where education was not valued, with limited experiences, and(particularly in primary schools) limited language skills† (p 5). Gallannaugh and Dyson (2003) provide two competing perspectives on the work at Broad mead primary school. In one sense, teachers were willing to implement new teaching strategies as they had ‘internalised’ the demands of the national curriculum and school assessment system, but also the characteristics of working class children that make them deficit (p 7). This could be regarded as anti-inclusive practice since it aimed to socialise working class children into middle class ideals. However, an alternative perspective on the work at Broadmeadis that the school resisted the pressure and constraints of current educational policy, and found time to try out alternative learning strategies, which children self-reported as beneficial. Furthermore, teachers’ deficit view of the working class children was increasingly challenged as they were equipped with new skills to allow them to demonstrate their true abilities. Conclusion Recent Government policy has moved towards emphasising inclusive education, particularly in the early years. However, there is a danger that policy will remain mere ‘rhetoric’ unless there is evidence based research to provide teachers with practical skills to provide equality of opportunity for their pupils. Research studies have consistently shown that working class children are regarded as the ‘problem’ that must be adapted to the middle class educational environment of the infant school classroom. However, a social model of inclusive education that acknowledges individual difficulties in adaptation, as well as institutional barriers to learning maybe a more constructive approach. Teachers working within English schools are constrained in the classroom by their need to meet national curriculum requirements, and achieve required standards from their pupils. Conversely, teachers recognise that some children enter infant school poorly prepared forth demands of formal education through their home backgrounds, and require additional support. Implementation of special strategies to enhance the language, communication and thinking skills of children, such as at Broad mead school, maybe one solution. However, children of lower social class backgrounds may require long term intervention if ‘inclusive education’ is truly ‘inclusive’ throughout their school careers. This literature review has revealed the lack of research studies to support teachers’ implementation of effective strategies to promote learning amongst young children from deprived backgrounds. To date, research studies have concentrated on identifying the size of the discrepancy in performance between school pupils. The next step is to develop longitudinal, vigorous research programmes within English infant schools to inform evidence-based teaching practice. Furthermore, there is a need to explore the concept of social class, and how it affects young children, in more detail, and to understand how it interacts with other risk factors such as English as a second language. Sparks (1999) has shown that factors, such as social class, are associated with educational attainment, amongst young children. However, it is less clear about what aspects of social class are causal, and not merely correlated (p 10), and there is a need to investigate the specific aspects of social class that maybe associated/causing educational difficulties for children. References Barnes J, Balky J, Broomfield K, Sana D, Frost M, Melhuish E and the National Evaluation of the Sure Start Research Team (2005)Disadvantaged but different: variation among deprived communities in relation to child and family well-being. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 46.9, pp. 952 – 962. Blanket D (1999) Excellence for the many, not just the few. CBI Presidential Address 19 July 1999 (DFEE, London). Buchanan-Burrow E and Barratt M (1998) Individual Differences in Children’s Understanding of the School. Social Development 7.2, pp250-268. Elmer N and Hana J (1993) Studying social representations in children: just old wine in new bottles? In G Break well and D Canter (ends)Empirical Approaches to Social Representatives (Oxford University Press, Oxford). Fiorina L, Rouse M, Black-Hawkins K and Jull S (2004) What can national data sets tell us about inclusion and pupil achievement. British Journal of Special Education 31.3, pp. 115 -121. Gallannaugh F and Dyson A (2003) Schools understanding of inclusion: issues in inclusion and social class. (British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Edinburgh). Geertz S (2001) Cloning the Blair’s. Journal of Educational Policy 16.4, pp. 365-378. McCollum I (1993) Testing Seven Year Olds – performance and context. Population Advice Note, pp. 93-101 (London Research Centre, London) Reynolds D, Sammons P, Stoll P, Barber M and Hillman J (1996) School effectiveness and school improvement in the United Kingdom. School Effectiveness and School Improvement 7, pp. 133 – 158. Sammons P (1995) Gender, ethnic and socio-economic differences in attainment and progress: a longitudinal analysis of student achievement over 9 years. British Educational Research Journal 21.4, pp. 465-485. Sammons P and Sees R (1998) Measuring pupil progress at key stage one: using baseline assessment to investigate value added. School Leadership and Management 18.3, pp. 389 – 407. Sparks J (1999) Schools, Education and Social Exclusion. (Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE, London). Stephen C and Cope P (2003) An Inclusive Perspective on Transition to Primary School. European Educational Research Journal 2.2, pp. 262 -275. Strand S (1997) Pupil Progress during Key Stage 1: A Value Added Analysis of School Effects. British Educational Research Journal 23.4,pp 471 – 487. Strand S (1999) Baseline assessment results at age 4: associations with pupil background factors. Journal of Research in Reading 22.1, pp. 14-26. The Plowden Report (1967) Children and their Primary Schools. (HMSO: London) Thomas S (1995) Considering primary school effectiveness: an analysis of 1992 Key Stage 1 results. The Curriculum Journal 6, pp. 279 – 295. West A, Pennell H, West A and Travers T (1999) The financing of school based education. (Centre for Educational Research, London). Effect of Social Class on Children in the Educational System Effect of Social Class on Children in the Educational System Social class and how it affects children aged 7 years and below within the English educational system This report considers recent research evidence related to inclusive education, and equality of opportunity, in relation to social class and how it affects children aged 7 years and below within the English educational system. A definition of inclusive education relevant to early educational practice will be offered. A literature review will be undertaken, that will principally examine the size of the social class differences amongst young children, and will go on to consider a case study of inclusive practice that was implemented at one English primary school. Recommendations for future research are made. Introduction Since the publication of the Plowden Report in 1967, it has been apparent that social class has a profound effect on the educational achievement of primary school children. In the past two decades, there have been a number of specific legislative changes that have altered the shape of primary school education. With the Education Reform Act(1988), schools have been required to undertake standardised testing of7 year old children in English, Mathematics and Science subjects. Furthermore, schools have been required to publish controversial ‘league tables’ of performance, alongside national averages, in their school prospectus publications. There have been several policies introduced to reduce the effects of deprivation on young children including Sure Start, and a planned widening of availability of nursery education all in the name of ‘inclusive education’ (Barnes, Belsky,Broomfield, Dave et al, 2004, p 46-9). Indeed, Geertz (2001) has argued that New Labour policy makers strive to â€Å"make all families like middle-class families, or at least the ideal-typical middle class family of much educational research† (p 7). However, there is surprisingly little empirical research evidence available on inclusive education, or equality of opportunity in early educational settings, with most studies focussing on secondary school children. This is also regrettable since Sammons and Sees (1998) have clearly shown that at the age of seven, prior attainment accounts for 26-43% of variance in national assessment results (p 389 – 407). Therefore, early teaching support of children with special educational needs, or affected by poverty or difficult personal circumstances would appear to be of immense importance to prevent children who start school behind their peers from falling further behind as their school careers progress. This report will critically assess available empirical studies related to the education of children aged 7 years and below within the United Kingdom. Furthermore, it will examine theoretical and philosophical perspectives on early inclusive education, and make recommendations for further research. Method The search strategy employed for the literature review involved searching electronic bibliographical databases for relevant research and policy papers related to the topic of inclusive education, and equality of opportunity, and social class issues with English school pupils aged 7 and under. No date restrictions were imposed on the searches, although most papers that were located and subsequently considered in this literature review were published in the 1990’s and2000’s. The electronic bibliographical databases that were searched were ERIC, the British Education Index and Psych Lit. Abstracts for each paper were inspected on an individual basis to assess their relevance to the literature review. Research papers within the terms of the literature review were then obtained from various library sources. However, it was felt that much of the research on early inclusive education would be found in the grey literature. Therefore, the Education Line database of conference proceedings, provided by Leeds University, was also searched for relevant papers. Finally, a search of the websites of highly regarded academic educational research centres, and government official statistics, was undertaken and further relevant research reports were obtained this way. Literature Review Although ‘inclusive education’ has been the buzz word of the education sector for many years, there is a lack of clarity in its definition. It broadly includes reference to a schools receptivity to accommodate the needs of all its pupils, and be â€Å"more responsive to pupil diversity†(Fiorina, Rouse, Black-Hawkins and Jull (2004), p 118). Furthermore, Fiorina et al (2004) have argued that inclusion and achieving high standards are not necessarily mutually exclusive goals, with some schools achieving both (p 115). Stephen and Cope (2003) have further elaborated on the interpretation of inclusive education, drawing distinction between the individual model where the deprived pupil is seen as ‘the problem’ (p 274) to be moulded into the school system, towards a social model of inclusive education. The social model acknowledges that there may be individual characteristics of the child that need to be considered, but also consider the possible institutional and operational barriers that hinder children’s entry and integration into infant schools. In their study, children from middleclass homes were supported by parents when they started infant schoolboy practising numeracy and literacy at home, and through more proactive involvement in school activities (p 273). Gallannaugh and Dyson (2003) have conducted a study of 25 practitioners working in three English LEA’s to assess what ‘inclusive education ‘development was possible in schools, and make sense of school responses to the inclusion agenda. Some teachers reported confusion over what ‘inclusive education’ was, since many official sources of information focussed on inclusion of children with special educational needs only(p 1). However, most teachers saw ‘inclusive education’ as provision for all children who were at risk of underachieving within the educational system, a version of inclusive education that is compatible with New Labour’s ‘social inclusion’ agenda ensuring that all members of society participate in the opportunities and activities of mainstream society (Blanket, 1999). A definition of inclusive education that attracted consensus amongst the teachers was â€Å"a set of broad values which we understood to be inclusive, and which we articulated as a commitment to equality, and increasing participation of all children (rather than one or other marginalised groups) in common education† (p 2). In synthesising research papers on social class related to early education, it is apparent that the term ‘social class’ has been interpreted in different ways by different authors. Sammons (1995) has highlighted that some researchers have attempted to â€Å"identify and separate the effects of different combinations of disadvantaging factors, noting that whilst not additive there is evidence of cumulative disadvantage (i.e. experiencing one factor such as low social class or low income on its own is less closely associated with low attainment than experiencing both these factors)† (p 467). Furthermore, Sparks (1999) has classified the different interpretations as including children from low income households, parental unemployment, paternal/ maternal occupation and inappropriate housing environment (p 10). She has examined research studies that look at each of these aspects, but only a few studies specifically examine the age range of 0 to 7 years. Pupils coming from a low income household, as indicated by eligibility for free school meals, appears to have marked effect on educational achievement at the age of 7 years and above (p 14). Furthermore, West, Pennell, West and Travers (1999) have shown that receipt of income support benefit by the household accounted for 66% of variance in educational achievement at a local authority level (p 10). Sparks (1999) has stated that â€Å"non-school factors are a more important source of variation in educational achievement than differences in the quality of education that students receive† (p 9).However, there is a broad consensus that schools can counteract some of the effects of social deprivation through inclusive educational practice. Indeed, empirical evidence suggests that schools have an independent effect of between 8% and 15%, and school effects are greater within the primary school sector (Reynolds, Sammons, Stoll, Barber et al, 1996 (p 140)). In the UK, research evidence on the effects of pre-school education are mixed (Sparks, 1999, p 12). However, research studies have indicated that when children receiving nursery education are compared to those receiving no nursery education, pre-school experience has a positive impact on achievement in national assessment tests at the age of seven (Sammons and Sees, 1998, p 400).However, poor families may not have access to quality services in areas where demand for nursery services is high. Middle class families, however, may have the advantage in that they can turn to the private sector provision where necessary. Smaller studies have shown an association between social class and early pupil attainment. However, stronger evidence is supplied by McCullum (1993) who compared aggregated Key Stage One results for local education authorities in England, against measures of social class obtained from the 1991 Social Census. This study clearly showed that social class, as evidenced through the number of social class 1 and 2individuals in the local population, showed a statistically significant and positive relationship with the Local Education Authority’s Key Stage One test scores, across all LEA’s sampled (p 95). Furthermore, Thomas (1995) has also shown how free school meal entitlement, and special educational needs, were strongly correlated with performance at Key Stage One (p 280). More recently, Sammons (1995) has studied 2000primary school children longitudinally at 50 ethnically diverse inner-city schools over a 9 year period. The children were monitored from the ages of 7 to 10 years. For the purpose of this report the results will be reported for the youngest of the cohort. The main purpose of the study was to assess primary schools effectiveness at developing cognitive and non-cognitive educational outcomes amongst children. Detailed records were kept on every child’s background characteristics such as ethnicity, socio-economic status and gender. For the purpose of the study, social class was measured as father’s occupation, and eligibility for free school meals. There were statistically significant differences in absolute attainment at ages 7, and above (p 479), with the biggest effect being in reading rather than mathematics performance. At 7 years, receiving free school meals accounted for just over 7% of variance in reading test performance, while having father working in an semi or unskilled profession accounted for 14.5%of variance, and having a father who was unemployed accounted for8.35%. However, for mathematics test performance, free school meals accounted for just 1.3% of variance, and having a father in a semi/unskilled profession accounted for 4.22% of variance while having father who was unemployed at the time of the study accounted for 2.57%of variance (p 471). This study was based on pupils attending primary schools in the decade of the 1980’s, and prior to the onset of the National Curriculum. It is the only longitudinal study of its kind that has been published using a British school population. With high statistical power afforded through the sample size, it is possible tube confident in the results. However, research studies are required that adopt a similar design but that are carried out now that the National Curriculum is an established format of educational provision within primary schools. Studies are also required that examine more dimensions of social class than the ‘outdated’ paternal occupation, and free school meals eligibility. In 1998, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority introduced a National Framework for Baseline Assessment for all pupils at the start of their school careers. The baseline assessment is a structured series of questions designed to assess pupils’ English ability, in terms of oral, reading and writing ability. In addition, early mathematical understanding is measured through a series of questions that require teachers to judge the ability of the child. Strand (1999) has studied the results of baseline testing of over 11,000 four year old children prior to their entry to primary school reception class. The data cover the period of 1993 to 1997, and are based at Wandsworth Local Education Authority in London. The results indicate that there are significant variations in baseline test score achievement based around a range of background factors such as age of child, gender, ethnicity and economic status. Measures of interest to the present literature review are length of preschool education by the pupil and entitlement to free school meals, which is the surrogate measure of social class used for baseline testing. Measures of attainment collected by the study were the LARR (Linguistic Awareness in Reading Readiness) test of emergent literacy and the teacher checklist described above. The results show statistically significant, strong correlations between school entrants on baseline measures and their subsequent overall Key Stage 1 achievement, in the region of 0.6 or above. Furthermore, the test battery are highly predictive of both English and Mathematics achievement in Key Stage 1 assessments in the individual subjects, with correlations in the region of 0.55 for mathematics, 0.55 for reading, and 0.49 for writing. The combination of the LARR objective measure of literacy, and the teacher checklist, together make the best overall indicator of later achievement for the children, compared to either test in isolation. Amount of preschool education received by children also significantly predicted Key Stage One achievement in all subjects. Furthermore, children in receipt of eligibility for free school meals were noted to score, on average, over five whole points less than their peers on baseline tests. Their mean scores were 29.7 (SD 11.4) compared to 34.9 (SD 12.2) for non-entitled children (p 20). In a further study, Strand (1997) tracked the educational progress of1669 Wands worth school children who had completed baseline assessments during 1992 and 1993. He considered the important of school effects, which is importance to social class considerations in the sense that schools are located in specific catchment areas that can be defined according the level of deprivation in the local community. The same assessment materials were used for this study as in Strand (1999). The pattern of achievement described for children eligible for free school meals at school entry was one where they started below other peers, in terms of baseline testing, and gradually fell further behind as time went by; as reflected in their Key Stage One performance (p 479). Composite measure of school effects of child performance at Key Stage One was taken to comprise of seven factors including gender ratio of school population, proportion of pupils with eligibility for free school meals and percentage of bilingual school pupils. Strand (1997)found that where there was a high rate of free school meal eligibility, this was one of the statistically significant factors, along with gender ratio and proportion of ESL pupils in school composite effects. â€Å"These compositional effects are significant even after each individual pupils baseline scores, sex, FSM entitlement and ESL background have been taken into account† (Strand, 1997, p 479). This means that school performance as a whole, as well as individual pupil progress, would appear to be associated with the proportion of free school meal claimants in the school population. Indeed, â€Å"It can be hypothesised that schools with a low proportion of socially disadvantaged pupils may have some benefits associated with their context: they may receive greater help from parents, have fewer disciplinary problems or an atmosphere more conducive to learning† (p 485). Buchanan-Barrow and Barratt (1998) have considered how young children understand school, and how this is affected by socio-economic factors, along with gender and birth-order. They suggest, â€Å"The school constitutes, in microcosm, a multifaceted and multi-layered society with an extensive and complex system†¦in order to operate successfully in this system, the young pupil needs to acquire an understanding of the connections between such important system-concepts as rules, roles, power and community† (p 250). A total of 112 children were included in the study from the age of 5 and upwards, at two primary schools in London. The first school had a free school meal ratio of 3% and was therefore broadly classified as a middle class school. The second school had a much higher free school meal ratio of 49% and the intake population was largely working class. Parents and teachers completed questionnaires, and the children were interviewed about their understanding of the power structure in the school, and their attitudes towards their school. In general, young children had the most positive attitudes towards school of all children studied. Furthermore, there were no differences in the attitudes towards school by socio-economic class, but there was a significant correlation between child and parental views on the school. The importance of the head-teacher in the power structure was evident in the responses of all children, butane understanding of the purpose of the class teachers was patchy until the middle primary years. The researchers closely examined the responses of the children at both schools for social class effects on comprehension and understanding of the school. At the middle-class school, the responses of the children followed general age trend patterns where children’s knowledge and understanding increased with years. However, for the working-class school, the pattern of responses were more complicated. Children were much less likely to discuss the role of parents, and children in the organisation and function of school compared to children at the other school. This suggests that children are not feeling ‘included’ in school, with a strong sense of membership that children often report at the middle class school (p263). Examination of parental responses to the questionnaire revealed broadly similar responses between schools, but working class parents reported feeling more welcome at the school than middle class parents. As Buchanan-Barrow and Barratt (1998) have suggested, â€Å"Since middleclass parents are likely to be readier to take issue, more assured of their ability to achieve their aims and better equipped to make their feelings known, it might be expected that the staff might be more wary of their interventions and less warm in their welcome. On the other hand, working class parents, without the same sense of empowerment, maybe seen as less threatening† (p 263). This is an important study in that it reveals age-trends in children’s understanding of school, and their place within the power structure and function of the school. According to Piaget cognitive theory, age-related differences in understanding are to be expected, as a combination of increased cognitive abilities with age. However, constructivism alone does not explain the individual differences in responses. The age related findings in the children’s responses may not be due to developmental changes in cognitive ability alone. In particular, social-interactional factors may have an important contribution to children’s understanding of the school, with parents, teachers and children’s interactions about the school being mediated by the age of the pupil. A social representation perspective would emphasise the individual differences in responses according to social class, gender and so forth (Elmer and Hana, 1993). However, this study showed that the acquisition of social knowledge and social understanding was more individual, than collective (p 265). Gallannaugh and Dyson (2003) have provided a useful detailed case study of how inclusive education can work at improving primary schoolchildren’s educational achievements. They collected data from one primary school (‘Broad mead’) in an urban area, primarily serving families of the local council housing estate where the eligibility for free school meals was above national averages. The school decided to address the specific issue of underachievement in writing ability during Key Stage assessments. The school had identified a group of middle ability school pupils who were failing to meet national expectations. School staff did not feel that poor teaching maybe the cause of the problem, and many teachers cited specific and concerted efforts by teachers to improve writing standards using a range of teaching strategies. However, â€Å"the school’s response to the problem was to problematize some of its existing practices. To some extent, this appeared to be a result of the realisation that customary practice simply did not ‘work’ in the sense that despite all efforts to hone teaching skills, the school had apparently reached a ceiling in attainment† (p 3). The school had moved towards a more experimental approach in the curriculum, and included new teaching strategies to help pupil learning such as thinking skills techniques. However, the actual underlying purpose of introducing a specific intervention was unclear, with more emphasis on anxiety about school performance compared to national standards, as opposed to inclusion for all. Nevertheless, it represented a departure from standard practice. Over the course of the project, the experience of implementing new approaches and of their impact on children’s learning led teachers to rethink their ideas about educational/ personal outcomes that are important to children. The original aim had been to improve achievement standards in writing, but the intervention had also appeared to impact on child self-esteem, learning in other subject areas, and educational confidence. The teachers reported that they valued these additional attainments in their own right amongst their pupils. Teachers had identified that the children had very limited learning techniques and strategies, and had therefore decided to focus on teaching children how to learn, in parallel to the curriculum subjects. When the research team interviewed teachers about why they felt their pupils had struggled in writing skills, it was generally felt that the critical barrier to raising all aspects of literacy was due to the fact that children entered school with very limited language skills that affected their access to most subjects. The head teacher felt that ‘catch up ‘once they started school was insufficient to counter the effects of poor literacy environment at home, and lack of family communication about education at home. This lack of preparation for school was complicated by local cultural factors such as socialisation of boys from working class households into the role of the ‘northern lad’ who was expected to behave stereotypically, and not necessarily express an interest in education. In summary, â€Å"some children came to school from families where education was not valued, with limited experiences, and(particularly in primary schools) limited language skills† (p 5). Gallannaugh and Dyson (2003) provide two competing perspectives on the work at Broad mead primary school. In one sense, teachers were willing to implement new teaching strategies as they had ‘internalised’ the demands of the national curriculum and school assessment system, but also the characteristics of working class children that make them deficit (p 7). This could be regarded as anti-inclusive practice since it aimed to socialise working class children into middle class ideals. However, an alternative perspective on the work at Broadmeadis that the school resisted the pressure and constraints of current educational policy, and found time to try out alternative learning strategies, which children self-reported as beneficial. Furthermore, teachers’ deficit view of the working class children was increasingly challenged as they were equipped with new skills to allow them to demonstrate their true abilities. Conclusion Recent Government policy has moved towards emphasising inclusive education, particularly in the early years. However, there is a danger that policy will remain mere ‘rhetoric’ unless there is evidence based research to provide teachers with practical skills to provide equality of opportunity for their pupils. Research studies have consistently shown that working class children are regarded as the ‘problem’ that must be adapted to the middle class educational environment of the infant school classroom. However, a social model of inclusive education that acknowledges individual difficulties in adaptation, as well as institutional barriers to learning maybe a more constructive approach. Teachers working within English schools are constrained in the classroom by their need to meet national curriculum requirements, and achieve required standards from their pupils. Conversely, teachers recognise that some children enter infant school poorly prepared forth demands of formal education through their home backgrounds, and require additional support. Implementation of special strategies to enhance the language, communication and thinking skills of children, such as at Broad mead school, maybe one solution. However, children of lower social class backgrounds may require long term intervention if ‘inclusive education’ is truly ‘inclusive’ throughout their school careers. This literature review has revealed the lack of research studies to support teachers’ implementation of effective strategies to promote learning amongst young children from deprived backgrounds. To date, research studies have concentrated on identifying the size of the discrepancy in performance between school pupils. The next step is to develop longitudinal, vigorous research programmes within English infant schools to inform evidence-based teaching practice. Furthermore, there is a need to explore the concept of social class, and how it affects young children, in more detail, and to understand how it interacts with other risk factors such as English as a second language. Sparks (1999) has shown that factors, such as social class, are associated with educational attainment, amongst young children. However, it is less clear about what aspects of social class are causal, and not merely correlated (p 10), and there is a need to investigate the specific aspects of social class that maybe associated/causing educational difficulties for children. 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