Counter Point Essay Example for Free

Counter Point EssayStarbucks is one of the close to successful business serving coffee berry and drinks beverage. Starbucks is known for serving hot and chilly coffee beverage with a high quality products. Starbucks went public in 1992 with a costd at $17 share and the stock jumped to $21 at the opening bell. By 2007 Starbucks had become one of the most widely recognized and admired global brands. In addition, by 2008 Starbucks has 4500 locations in 43 countries out side the United States. overall Starbucks known as a good business with a good standing. Starbucks has many problems starting with the price. Starbucks coffee is more expensive than other competitors care Dunkin Donuts and Caribou. In addition, Dunkin Donuts disco biscuiting drinks at prices 20 percent lower than Starbucks. For example, Kathleen Brown, a 30-year-old Boston lawyer, utilise to treat herself to a $4 Starbucks Caramel Macchiato alone switched to Dunkin Donuts. Also, she mention that with Starbuc ks price for a cup of coffee she can buy a cup of coffee with a sandwich from Dunkin Donuts. Moreover, Starbucks did not pay attention to the customer observe cards and they did not respond to their customers needs or their feedback about the product or the service.Starbucks should ask the customers about what type of milk they regard. Another problem is that Starbucks used to offer just hot beverage and they thought cold coffee like Frappuccino was not a true coffee drink. After Starbucks knew their competitors were offering a cold beverage they started to serve cold beverages and they tested their concoction with customers and again customers approved. Moreover, Starbucks stores were reconfigured with fewer comfy chairs and less carpeting making Starbucks a less inviting smirch in which to linger over a cup of coffee. In the beginning Starbucks had a problem and they could not advertise because the cash was tight. Finally, Starbucks machines were so tall that the customers coul d no longer see the coffee being made.Starbucks need to work to reduce the price of their products since most of the pot from the middle and low income cant offer their products. If Starbucks want to increase their sales and earn more profit they should reduce their prices to let the people from all class can offer their products and be satisfied but Starbucks did not do any changes to their prices because there vision was to educate consumers about fine coffees and brought from a good place. Starbucks did lots of thing to increase their profit and to be more successful. For example, Starbucks receptive many stores and some times in the same area just to champion to serve the customers in a good way. For example, Starbucks opened many store to help the customers get what they want in a short time. Starbucks had learned that nearly stores did not necessarily hurt one some others sales and in fact could actually help. Moreover, more stores meant a better chance for customers to fi nd a short line or expel parking space and for Starbucks to capture the sale.Also, Starbucks open a drive through service to help the parents with young children and the drive through help Starbucks earned more profit and be more successful. Starbucks choose their store location by focusing on the are population and a matrix of regional demographic profiles and an analysis of how best to leverage operational infrastructure. In addition, Starbucks planned at least one big community event to celebrate its arrival and offer two free drink coupons with the note asking the customers to share Starbucks with a friend. In addition, since Starbucks know that there prices was high so they try to offer a seasonal offering such as a strawberry and cream Frappuccino in the summer and gingerbread latte at Christmas.Starbucks did not want to loose their cash and workers so they developed a 24-hour training program converting Coffee Knowledge (four hours). Brewing the Perfect Cup (four hours), Cu stomers Service (four hours) and also basic skills. Starbucks wants to have a good working environment and to be loyal to their employees so they provide their employees with a health insurance to all partners even the part-timers. Keeping the same employee with a full benefits would cost Starbucks $1500 rater than loosing $3000 to train a new hire. Starbucks work to develop their product mix by adding music and book to their customers.Starbucks knew their prices are expensive and they did a great thing to solve this problem by opening many stores and provide a nice atmosphere to their customers by serving many kinds of snack, cold and hot beverages, sandwiches. Customers say one of the reason they come to Starbucks it because they can discover new things, a new coffee from Rwanda, a new food item. The solutions that I considered is Starbucks need to pay attention to their customers feedback for the price of the product and to try to make their price reasonable to the people over t he whole world. Since many people like the atmosphere in Starbucks and its more fancy than Dunkin Donuts but the price in Starbucks need to recognized and reduce.There are many solutions I recommend to Starbucks. First, the most important is the price. Starbucks need to find a solution with their product price since their price is much more expensive than other competitors like Dunkin Donuts. Most of the people switch to Dunkin Donuts because their product mix are cheaper. Moreover, they should offer free refills to their customers and make sure to give their customers a chance to give their feed back on the product. According to the case Americans will never pay $1.50 for a cup of coffee. So because of that Starbucks need to reduce their price to be more successful.In conclusion, Starbucks is a powerful business with a good product mix ( non coffee drinks, food items, music, books). Moreover, Starbucks has many stores and sometime in the same area just to help their customers to ge t their need in a very short of time with offering their customers a drive through service and that cause the profit of some $1.3 million compared to $1 million at stores without a window. But the price of their products is so expensive than Dunkin Donuts.

Audio Surveillance Essay Example for Free

Audio Surveillance EssayAudio Surveillance is implemented with the use of a record recorder. This method is only effective when one is sure of the origin of the attack and may be use to gather information about a crabbed activity taking place or how it took place. Telephone conversations may also be recorded to provide security. Models that may be used could overwhelm soaring Tech voice recorders, Tube mike, radio mikes and so on. The modern ESS (Electronic Switching System) is also available to tap into tribes phone lines without having to visit the positioning physically. Phone Tapping and Encryption Phone tapping is normally used for the protection of national security and prevention of serious crimes. When a phone is tapped, it is thinkable to listen to conversations from some(prenominal) sides of the telephone. Voice and Word Pattern Recognition In this method of care, an organization uses a central computer to monitor conversations that contain voice patterns and k ey linguistic communication that an agency is interested in. This engineering science involves digital sampling of speech, acoustic signal processing and special analysis.Transmitter Location Transmitter location is used anytime a telephone or mobile phone is involved in an investigation and is used to detect the location of the user. This can be fulfild by triangulation and some other innovative methods. E-mail at Workplace Personal messages sent via an organizations e-mails argon not private. Reading employees emails may help to festive organizations about possible terrorist activities or sabotage that may be going on within the organization. Electronic DatabasesDatabases containing information about residents within a item argona, biometrics. directories, voter registration records and many other databases present within an organization can help to provide relevant information on terrorism. The Internet many organizations, individuals and so on, have access to the internet and are able to share information via this global network. Websites that offer social networking features should be continuously checked for possible terrorist correspondence.Challenges of Surveillance Technology Privacy is one of the major issues being faced by operators of businesses and organizations across the world. Surveillance Technologies pose a threat to them because people are unsure of how far vendors are willing to go to sell their products without risking confidential data. This constitutes a threat to commercial businesses (Bogonikolos). Privacy is a big issue and a significant constraint in the deployment of surveillance systems because most people see it as a right that they possess.Privacy has a lot of dimensions and some of the dimensions include Privacy of the person, personal behaviour, personal communications, data and so on (Bogonikolos). The future of Surveillance Technology In recent times, almost all information is change through electronic means, i. e. via telephone, email and so for this reason, wiretapping capabilities are being incorporated into surveillance systems (Bogonikolos). A continuous education strategy may help to achieve an online data and privacy protection strategy.Global e-commerce has changed the way trade is being conducted all over the world. This had led to the increased complexity of Surveillance Technologies. Enhanced wiretapping capabilities are being incorporated into surveillance technologies and so electronic commerce is getting more and more attention. New technologies for analyzing large amounts of data such as citation card information, online transactions can also help to identify unusual purchasing patterns and relationships (Bogonikolos). ConclusionTo operate successfully online and protect countries from attack, we need to assure people that their data is safe and protected from misuse such as unauthorized access, alteration, total loss, and misappropriation (Bogonikolos). After all has been said an d done, it can be argued that technology has both negative and positive sides to it. When used for the benefit of society, technology can be seen as a positive contrisolelyion to society but when it is used by miscreants to cause havoc to innocent people and unsuspecting organizations, it becomes a disadvantage.The fact remains that it is difficult, if not impossible to stop the misuse of technology but one thing that can help us all is to continually keep ahead of the terrorists by conducting research on state-of the art technologies and inventing new media and surveillance technologies that can help to combat the evils of terrorism.Works CitedBogonikolos, Nikos. Development of Surveillance Technology and Risk of Abuse of Economic Information. Interim Study. 1999.

The Left Digit Effect in Pricing Strategy Essay Example for Free

The Left anatomy Effect in Pricing Strategy EssayHave you ever come across price tags that have 9 endings? Have you ever bought those merchandise with 9 endings thinking that was the best deal and ended up with an enormous bill? Do you notice that the 9 endings ar usually printed in a much daintyer size than the patterns on the left wing? This is a result of a mental concept called The Left Digit Effect in which great deal tend to pay more(prenominal) attention to the left- almost fingers breadths than the ones on the right. The idea has been widely used for decades for its great impact on consumers obtain behavior.Nine endings can easily be seen everywhere stationeries of $1. 99, $4. 99 in bookstores, cars of $2,999, $5,999 in a dealership, real estates of $199,999, $299,999 on the market. It is interesting how such a small change can make a price tag seem significantly pass up than another one of just one cent or one dollar higher, as well as greatly affect consume rs decision. Even the smartest shoppers can fall for this little trick. For a lot of times I found myself wondering why I bought goods of the best prices but ended up with a large bill.Later I realized that I had fall victim of the usage of the left digit power in pricing strategy. However, it is fascinating to learn about how the application of such a simple load turns out to have a great impact on peoples mind without their even being aware of it. The left digit effect can be simply defined as peoples paying disproportionate attention to the digits on the left compare to the ones on the right. This results from pieces instinct of reading from left to right. Another possible reason is that the encode processes in humans mind start before people even earth up reading all of the digits.They tend to think fast in order to move on with other topics, so they underestimate the immenseness of the right digits and make the digits on the left the magnitude. Taking advantage of that, companies and producers apply the effect in pricing strategy. That was the point when 9 endings were brought into the market. wholeness reason to placard for such a wonder that the 9 endings are doing to businesses is the difficulty of adding up odd numbers. People are more familiarized with the decimal number corpse which consists of 10 numbers. As a consequence, the appearance of 9 endings in prices is a great change in peoples ability to do the math.They make it much harder to control the total spending as people are used to dealing with round numbers. For example, it is obviously easier to add 300 and 200 than 299 and 199, as the first one is 500 and the sulphur one is 498. When not being able to add up the prices, people are unaware of their total spending. more or less of the times, consumers just ignore the 9 endings rather than do the proper rounding. Even though the cents are seen but they are partially ignored because the outlook starts encoding information immediate ly after the left-most digits are read.A theory proposed by Keith Coulter Associate Professor of Marketing at Graduate School of Management, Clark University verbalise that the effect can be enhanced provided the cents are printed in a smaller size than the dollar part, so the cents are more likely to be ignored or partially ignored by fast-thinking customers. A common billetpoint of the effects psychological impact is that the 9 endings lead consumers to deliberate that goods are marked at the lowest price possible and that it is the best deal out in that location. When they check out, that is when a concept called cognitive dissonance takes effect.In other words, when having to decide surrounded by two conflicting outcomes, people have a tendency to choose the one that makes them feel happier about their choice. Ending up with a huge bill, they often defend themselves that its worth the money and what they bought was a good bargain. Also, 9 endings play an important role wh en it comes to price bands. One cent or one dollar drop can make the price appear in the lower price bands and therefore be seen by more potential customers. For instance, an old car of $1,999 will still be placed in $1,000-$2,000 price band though its just a dollar to the next price band.As a result, it can be seen by customers who want cars in the $1,000-$2,000 range, besides the ones who want cars above $2,000. However, the left digit effect has been proved to only work if the left-most digit changes. In other words, consumers become more sensitive to price changes when the one cent drop results the left digit of the prices to change. To clarify the idea, in a small survey which I carried out in Southeast campus of Houston Community College with 21 students, when being asked to choose between two pens of $3 and $3. 99, the participants showed no clear preference over which one they like better.However, when the prices were changed to $4 and $3. 99, 17 out of 21 participants repor ted that they would choose the second pen because it was cheaper. Although there was a whole dollar difference compare to just one cent after the change in prices, the participants become more sensitive about how much money they spend when the left-most digit changes. When the brain quickly scans the prices, the same left digits will make one think that there is no significant difference between them although it was the right digits that determine the difference.However, if the left digits change, even though the right digits make them just one cent different, the brain automatically defines a big gap between the two prices and therefore lead people to choose the one whose left digit is lower. The research has provided me with an in-depth view of the psychological impact of the left digit effect in pricing strategy. Before conducting the project, all I thought of the 9 endings was that they would make prices seem lower and therefore more appealing to potential customers. However, af ter doing a deep research on the topic, Ive learned a lot more than I thought I would.Ive learned that the effect originates from humans thought processes itself the brain starts encoding the information immediately before we even finish reading all of the digits, and that the 9 endings dont always work but need an important condition for them to take effect the left digit changes as a result of the one cent or one dollar drop . It also amazed me how peoples decision and obtain behavior are influenced and determined by such a small effect without their being aware of it, and how the application of such a little thing can do wonder to businesses.The left digit effect itself is linked with other interesting psychological effects that trigger me to search for more knowledge. instead than just a surface learning, I was able to go deep into the root of the issue and learn about its true nature. However, I think the most important thing that I was able to learn from doing this research is how to look at familiar things in a daily routine from a psychological viewpoint and analyze them through that viewpoint.

The Exposed Problems Of Sexism In The Media Media Essay

The Exposed fusss Of Sexism In The Media Media EssayFor m either years now the media we argon exposed to any day has been filled with gender inequality (sexism) even though we might non always notice it. Gender inequality is a problem we as humans stimulate been facing for quite a few years now and oft often than not the media has been part of the problem and not the solution.Problem statement Does the media promote sexism and outdate views of male/female behaviour?What is media sexism?The Oxford Dictionary of Sociology defines sexism as being the unfair discrimination on the basis of sex. This kind of discrimination tends to be given in favour of men and a come onst women however the obverse is not entirely unheard of. From this we can assume that the enclosure media sexism refers to discrimination on the basis of gender that we descry from day to day in the media.As easy as the term may entrancem to be to grasp, its a much more abstr sour term in the way that we bent a lways awargon of the sexism that dish outs place in the media. For example, the percentage of newsreaders applications programme important news stories that are male dominates the standard of female newsreaders covering important news stories. This is quite subtle and roughly people dont notice this, whereas the amount of female sex workers seen in the news is much more than the amount of male sex workers seen in the news. Sexism of any kind, including media sexism can occur on many different levels and range from being covert to being outright blatant.Yes the media promotes sexism and male chauvinist behaviourFrom my point of view, yes, media does promote sexism and sexist behaviour. I say it does promote sexism because women, or to be more specific womens bodies and specific women trunk parts are used to make known new products.How many adverts have we seen in magazines where new gadgets are being advertised with half naked woman holding it? Cars, TV, nontextual matter ca rd, cell phone, laptop, etc, are all being promoted and it is being associated with women and their body. The adverts on TV are mostly being advertised by women. And if look at these commercials most of them the women have nothing to do with the product that is being advertised, one of the example is the advert for reaping juice where woman were being splashed with different fruit and fruit juice. If we too look at the computer games and their characters we can clearly that its promoting sexism. As they make the women characters look very attractive and expose their bodies.This is not the lone(prenominal) place where media promotes sexism, if have we look at the movies and series, we can see that the men are the ones touching the important roles in the movie and women are there fairish as the hot sex icon, we can take Transformers for example, where Megan Fox who is the one of the main characters in Transformers plays a sex icon in the movie. If we remember when the Transformer s 1 and 2 came out many men went with their friends to cinemas to watch the movie not only for its great action and effects but went to go watch it to see Megan Fox. I can remember many of my friends talking of going to watch it just to see her. This clearly shows that women, in this case Megan Fox, are used to advertise the movie so that it can sell better.We can clearly see that media does promote sexism after we have given and discussed different fields of media where media sexism is being used. This is not good as there are many disadvantages from advertising women in such a way. Women are being used as objects. This has influence on mens mind, as it changes the way they view women and how they treat women in general.No The media does not promote sexism and sexist behaviourFor many years the media has been dominated by male presenters, reporters, writers etc. Women were seen as inferior to men and their voices were not heard in the media. However, this has now come to passAccor ding to the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP), a global survey that is taken every five years, in 2005, 57% of all idiot box news presenters were female and throughout the world women are more frequently becoming strongly represented in newsrooms. These figures also remained stable during the 2010 survey. It showed that while men were more likely to report domestic news stories (70%), women were much more likely to report international news (61%). Also worth mentioning is that 83% of news stories focusing on women were also presented by female journalists.Their findings from 1995-2010 for reportage and presenting the news read as following1995200020052010% manpower%Women%Men%Women%Men%Women%Men%Stories presented on TV and Radio51494951534749As can be seen from the above table taken from the GMMP 2010, the percentage of males and females presenting news stories on television and radio have been rather stable and more importantly, equal for the last 20 years. This is a good exam ple of how gender inequality and stereotypes are starting to dissipate from the media we are exposed to in everyday life.This change was brought about thanks to various different approaches to the issue of gender equality in the media that include, but are not limited toBringing gender balance to the institution of mediaCreating alternative media for women to tell their stories and to let their voice be heardEmpowering and hiring female journalistsThese approaches arent mutually exclusive. They all play important roles in gender equality in the media today as well as the fair portrayal of females in the media.In death, males and females are behind but sure enough starting to enter a balance when it comes to equality in the media. The days of gender stereotypes are drawing to a close and we take female journalists and newsreaders into the previously male dominated field where they prove themselves to be equals to their male counterparts.How the media portrays men and women and th e effects thereofThrough sexism in the media, stereotypes of how men and women should act and the roles they should adhere to are developed. The media has the power to influence the masses and by communicating sexist ideas the media is creating stereotypes by which they expect the public to conform to. Adverting campaigns such as the keep out One Man launched by Bar One and Windhoeks Always Keep it Real advertising campaigns are typical examples of the media dictating how men should act.Women used for advertising and television programmes are most times abnormally thin and skinny. Women viewing this believe that this is the norm and are driven to unhealthy diets and eating disorders in order to set about what the media has portrayed as the ideal body. Young girls and women can wound from anorexia and bulimia while trying to conform to what the media has portrayed as the perfect body size. Men are portrayed as being very strong, masculine and muscular. Men spend hours at the gym t rying to obtain what has been presented to them as the perfect body and sometimes turn to supplement such as steroids for help which damage ones health. As a result of not achieving the perfect body, people can suffer from anxiety, depression and a range of inner conflicting emotions.Men and women are glamorised and portrayed as completely flawless in the media, this prompts everyday people to suck large amounts of money on cosmetics so that they may conform to this flawless image. Women spend money on expensive make-up, perfumes, clothes, jewellery and accessories while men are prompted to buy colognes, after-shaves and other costly cosmetic products in order to make themselves look appealing to the opposite sex. Some people would go as furthermost as to pay to have cosmetic surgery done to improve their bodies.In the media women are presented as sex objects to be used by men. This leads to break down in the self esteem of women as they begin to believe that the only way to get attention from men is to present themselves as sex objects. This also has a negative impact on men as they loose respect for women and are led to believe that there are many splendiferous women in the world that are easy and willing sex partners.In the media men are often seen doing something stupid or potentially dangerous to gain the attention and approval of a woman. This is seen in a lot of First for Women advertisements on the television and in magazines. This encourages men to act recklessly to get a womans attention.The way the media portrays men and women is not an accurate representation of reality, but a false portrayal of how the media expects men and women to be. The way media portrays men and women creates an extremely high medical prognosis of reality. People become obsessive about meeting that expectation and damage their health and emotions in the process. Men and women face disappointment when the opposite sex does not live up to the high expectation the media has created of them.Using sexism to help promote or sell products does not always work in the favour of the companies advertising. male chauvinist advertisements that appear in the media can often annoy and enrage the gender that is being exploited or ridiculed in order to promote the product. This causes negative flavours and emotions towards that advertisement. By using sexism in advertising a company can gain the attention of its audience but can also leave people feeling angered and opposed to buying that specific product.Group opinionAfter discussing the topic and considering all the information we gathered throughout this assignment we as a group decided that the media definitely promotes sexism and sexist behaviour particularly in favour of males. The female body is often being exploited to sell products females are less frequently used to present important news and less than 30% of journalists covering important stories worldwide are female (GMMP, 2011). Hopefully in coming y ears this will become a thing of the past, but for the time being media sexism is a very real problem that we face.In conclusionIt would appear that the media is still representing females as being inferior to males or at least to a certain degree. Despite this however, females are starting to fight cover and are proving to be worthy equals to their male counterparts. Organisations such as the GMMP are trying to ensure gender equality in the media and are slowly, but surely achieving their goal. This is a mindset that might take many years to get out of, but it is a necessary change that will have to take place if we are to truly progress as a species. In our opinion, males and females are equal and it should be portrayed that way in the media and in any walks of life.

Automatic Number Pate Recognition System Information Technology Essay

Automatic Number Pate Recognition corpse Information Technology EssayAutomatic turning pate recognition system is a mass surveillance method that uses optical constituent recognition on epitomes to read the permit graduated t fittingfuls on vehicles. System might scan bout headquarterss at around star per second on cars traveling up to 100mph(160 km/h).they can use existing unappealing -circuit tele tidy sum or road-rule enforcement cameras, or ones specifically knowing for the task. They be employ by several(a) police forces and as a method of electronic doorbell collection on pay-per-use roads and monitoring business activity, such as red light ad presentnce in an intersection.ANPR can be used to gillyflower the images capture by the cameras as well as the text from the license plate, with nearly configurable to store a photograph of the driver. Systems commonly use infr argond discharge to allow the camera to take the picture at any time of the day. A powerf ul flash is inclined in at least one version of the intersection-monitoring cameras, serving both to illuminate the picture and to make the offender aware of his or her mistake. ANPR engineering science tends to be region -specific, owing to pate magnetic declination from place to place.Some concerns about these systems have centered on privacy fears of government tracking citizens movements and media reports of misidentification and high error rates. However, as they have authentic, the systems have operate much more accurate and reliable. There is an increasing requirement to identify vehicles and track their location for a wide number of applications. These includeCongestion charging several(prenominal) major cities around the world levy a charge a drive within themCar park management Using the number plate to identify the time of entry and departure of aVehicle.Counter-terrorism Monitoring the arrival and departures of vehicles at major ports.Literature ReviewOur literatu re survey mainly center on automatic number plate system research papers and its existing system along with its application, image bear upon technique and uneasy intercommunicate recognition. These can be clearly illustrated as followsAutomatic number plate recognition systemJavaanpr existing open source code in sourceforge.net thesis describing research, image processing and neural meshworking technique along with its algorithm in pdf on deep brownanpr on sourceforge.net mountain chain processing techniqueImageJ -api base on java language for digital image processingImage editor -api based on java language made for image processingJAI api -java advance imagination for image processing from sunmicrosystem atjava.sun.com.Opencv-Digital Image Processing (text book from library)Neural ne twainrking techniqueIntroduction to java neural network second fluctuation by jfheaton at heatonresearch.comSome ocr samples using neuralnetworking at sourcecode.com and its explanationStudy on nepali ocr research conducted by madan puraskar guthi(yala Maya Kendra)Ocr sample developed by Google based for Linux available for windows on dot net (tesseract)Joone engine-java api on neural network not so well developed and efficient athttp//www.joo freshlyorld.comKohenen -java api on egotism organizing map applied to compress jpeg image.Somdemo-sample java program for illustration how ego organizing map works.Program iterately train to converge with identical color from random samples painted neural network text book available at library (low price edition from pearsoneducation.Neural networks systematic introduction by Raul Rojas(from lectures at bring out university at Berlin and later at the university of Halle)Automatic Number Pate Recognition systema)javaanprJavaanpr open source available at sourceforge.net worked as prototype for kind our Nepali automatic Nepali number plate recognition system. It besides contain thesis in pdf format prescribing image processing technique and neural networking technique along with its algorithm. It works well recognizing foreign number plates contained as sample in the site. It was beautifully coded applying sophisticated and specialized algorithms for image processing and neural network technique. It also used xml saddles to save and retrieve neural network training data. figure of speech sample javaanpr at sourceforge.netFor more information-http//sourceforge.netImage processing proficiencya)ImageJ 1.42ImageJ was first developed on class files now available on GUI interface. User can just process image using various buttons and entries if prescription is required .programmers can develop own macros and plugins to achieve its intended function if required and compile there within and run the code.It is capable of processing both 2D and 3D interactive image processing.Figure. ImageJ graphical window interfaceFor more information http//rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/b) Image editorImage editor was also found during s earch for image processing tool. It is also based on java language and available as java API, now class file are available with GUI interface easing its its manipulation. Image editor api seems inefficient and not so capable for our intended operation and not so much researched.C) JAI apithe java advance imaging(JAI) API further extends the java platforms (including the java 2D API) by allowing sophisticated, high - action image processing to be incorporated into java applets and applications.JAI is a rophy of classes providing imaging functionality beyond that of Java 2D and the Java Foundation classes, though it is compatible with those APIs.JAI implements a set of core image processing capabilities including image tiling, regions of interest, and deferred execution.JAI also offers a set of core image processing operators including many common point, area, and frequency-domain operators.JAI is intended to meet the needs of all imaging applications. The API is highly extensible, a llowing new image processing operations to be added in such a way as to appear to be a native part of it. Thus, JAI benefits about all Java developers who want to incorporate imaging into their applets and applications.JAI distinctionsCross-platform imagingDistributed ImagingObject-oriented APIFlexible and ExtensibleDevice IndependentPowerfulHigh PerformanceinteroperableInitially program coding was done in JAI Later it becomes little inefficient and we again go for another programming method.For further information-http//java.sun.comd) Digital Image processing (text book from library)e) OpencvThe OpenCV implements a wide variety of tools for image interpretation. It is compatible with Intel Image Processing library (IPL) that implements low-level operations on digital images. In spite of primitives such as binarization, filtering, image statistics, pyramids, OpenCV is mostly a high-level library implementing algorithms for calibration techniques (Camera Calibration), feature dete ction (Feature) and tracking (Optical Flow),shape synopsis(Geometry, Contour Processing ),motion analysis (Motion Templates, Estimators ), 3D reconstruction (View Morphing),object class and recognition (Histogram, Embedded Hidden Markov Models, Eigen Objects).The essential features of the library along with functionality and quality is performance. The algorithms are based on highly negotiable data structures (Dynamic Data Structures) coupled with IPL data structures more than a half of the functions have been assembler optimized taking advantage of Intel Architecture (PentiumMMX,Pentium Pro, PentiumIII, Pentium4).Why We Need OpenCV LibraryThe OpenCV Library is a way of establishing an open source vision community thatWill make better use of up-to-date opportunities to apply computer vision in theGrowing PC environment. The software package provides a set of image processing functions,As well as image and pattern analysis functions. The functions are optimized for IntelArchitec ture processors, and are particularly effective at taking advantage of MMXTechnology.The OpenCV Library has platform-independent interface and supplied with whole CSources. OpenCV is open.Relation between Opens and Other LibrariesOpenCV is designed to be used together with Intel Image Processing Library (IPL)And extends the latter functionality toward image and pattern analysis. Therefore,OpenCV shares the same image format (IplImage) with IPL.Also, OpenCV uses Intel Integrated Performance Primitives (IPP) on lower-level, ifIt can locate the IPP binaries on startup.IPP provides cross-platform interface to highly-optimized low-level functions thatPerform domain-specific operations, particularly, image processing and computerVision primitive operations. IPP exists on multiple platforms including IA32, IA64,And StrongARM.Source-openCV beginning manual.pdfCmgui-wx-2(.net wrapper class)This openCV tool can be easily integrated with .net platform like c, visual basic etc.Cmgui is an adv anced 3D visual image software package with modeling capabilities.Cmgui is a part of CMISS, a mathematical modeling environment initially developed by the University of Auckland Bioengineering Institute.CMISS stands for Continuum Mechanics, Image analysis. signalize processing and System Identification. There are three major CMISS software packages. Broadly speaking the main areas each piece of software deals with are as followsCM is used for computational modelingUnemap is used for signal acquisition and processingCmgui is used for model visualization and manipulationFor more information-wiki/ getting started with cmguiNeural Networking techniquea) Introduction to java neural network by jeff heatonThis book along with video lecture helped very much for us to run into neural networks and learn coding technique. It was published form Heaton research center and they have developed encog framework for neural network where programmer can build fast neural network prototype for fast t esting and checking since easy and flexible. After parameters have been determined for best operation such as number of hidden layers and number of neurons in each layer coding can be done since it code will be inflexible for such modification. track record contained different chapters on various types of neural networks and also its application. Only first seven chapters are allowed to read online and rests are not. It provides all its source code on site which also helps in learning and testing.Same book is also available in c language.For more information-http//heatonreasearch.com/b) On the beginning of project research we also got OCR sample using neural network at sourcecode.com with explanation. It was written at c, due to compiler problem I didnt stress here much.c) Nepali OCRFor us it was good news and opportunity to study research on Nepali OCR conducted by madan puraskar guthi. Different research papers were available on the site along with image processing portion code u sed to fragment Nepali character Image written on java. It deals with problem issues and complexity faced on Nepali character like devnagari font.For more information -http//d) OCR engine tessaract by GoogleThis was used by Nepali OCR for its processing and it supports many languages like Hindi, Nepali, Urdu, arabi etc. we didnt research here much.Figure segmented portion ofFigure Another segmented portion ofFor more information-make Google search for referd) joone enginejoone engine as a api in hope for easy and efficient coding we consider but it seems unworthy for project work. For beginner liking to test some xor operations and similar may find at least satisfactory otherwise unworthy.For more information-http//www.jooneworld.com/docs/engine.htmle)KohenenThis sample also seems beautiful in understanding self organizing map or kohenen network. Here it is used to compress jpeg image. It was programmed on seven packages.For more information-http //f) som demoThis sample tries to converge iteratively with similar colors from randomly unlogical pixel colors based on Euclidean distance method.Figure som before trainingFigure som after trainingFor more information-link available at reference http//www.ai-junkie.com/ann/som/g) Artificial neural Network text book (library)h) Neural network systematic introduction (by Raul Rojas)This book is good for understanding neural network systematically and based on lectures at free university at Berlin and later at the University of Halle.For more introduction-reference at http//www.wikipedia.com/selforganisingmapFigure sample kohenen neural network (3D kohenen feature map)Source http//rfhs8012.fh-regensburg.de/jfroehl/index.htmlAnpr system application around worldPolice enforcementGermanyOn 11 March 2008, the Federal Constitution Court of Germany ruled that the laws permitting the use of automated number plate recognition systems in Germany violated te right to privacy.HungarySeveral Hungarian Auxiliary Police units us e a system called intercellular substance Police in cooperation with the police. It consists of a portable computer equipped with a webcam that scans the stolen car database using automatic number plate recognition. The system is installed on the splasher of selected patrol vehicles (PDA based handled versions exists as well) and is mainly used to control the license plate of parking cars, as the Auxiliary Police doesnt have the authority to invest moving vehicles to stop. If a stolen is found, the formal police are informed.United KingdomThe UK has an extensive (ANPR) automatic number plate recognition CCTV network. Effectively, the police and security function track all car movements around the country and are able to track any car in close to real time. Vehicle movements are stored for 5 years in the National ANPR Data Centre to be analyzed for intelligence and to be used as evidence.USAIn the USA, ANPR systems are more commonly referred to as LPR (License Plate Reader or Lice nse Plate Recognition) technology or ALPR (Automatic License Plate Reader/Recognition) technology.One of the biggest challenges with ALPR technology in the US is the accuracy of the Optical Character Recognition (OCR)-the actual identification of the characters on the license plate.From time to time, states will make significant changes in their license plate protocol that will affect OCR accuracy. They may add a character or add a new license plate design. ALPR systems must adapt to these changes quickly in order to be effective.In addition to the real-time processing of the license plate numbers, some ALPR systems in the US collect data at the time of each license plate capture .Data such as date and time stamps and GPS coordinates can be reviewed in relation to investigations and can help lead to critical breaks such as placing a suspect at a scene, witness identification, pattern recognition or the tracking of suspect individuals.Average Speed camerasAnother use of ANPR in the U K, Italy and Dubai (UAE) is for festinate cameras which work by tracking vehicles travel time between two flash-frozen points ,and therefore calculate the average speed. These cameras are claimed to have an advantage over traditional speed cameras in maintaining steady legal speeds over elongated distances, rather than encouraging heavy braking on approach to specific camera locations and subsequent acceleration back to illegal speeds.UKThe longest stretch of average speed cameras in the UK is found on the A77 road in Scotland, with 30 miles (48 km) being monitored between Glasgow and Ayr.ItalyIn Italian highways has developed a monitoring system named school covering more than 1244 km (2007). Further extensions will add 900 km before the end of 2008.The Tutor system is also able to intercept cars fleck changing lanes.Traffic controlMany cities and district have developed traffic control systems to help the movement and flow of vehicles around the road network. This had locall y involved looking at historical data, estimates, observations and statistics such asCar park usagePedestrian crossing usageNumber of vehicles along a roadAreas of low and high congestionFrequency, location and cause of road wordsThe UK Company Traffic master has used ANPR since 1998 to estimate average traffic speeds on non-motorway roads without the results being skewed by local fluctuations caused by traffic lights and similar. The company now operates a network of over 4000 ANPR cameras ,but claims that only the quartet most central digits are identified , and no number plate data is retained.Electronic toll collectionOntarios 407 ETR highway uses a combination of ANPR and radio receiver transponders to toll vehicles entering and exiting the road. piano tuner antennas are located at each junction and detect the transponders, logging the unique identify of each vehicle in much the same way as the ANPR system does.There are numerous other electronic toll collection networks whic h use combination of Radio frequency identification and ANPR. These includeBridge pass for the Saint John Harbor Bridge in Saint John New BrunswickCity link Eastlink in Melbourne, AustraliaGateway Motorway and Logan Motorway, Brisbane , AustraliaFast Trak in California ,United statesHighway 6 in IsraelTunnels in Hong Kong etcCharge zones the capital of the United Kingdom congestion chargeThe London congestion charge is an example of a system that charges motorists entering a payment area. Transport for London (TFL uses ANPR systems and charges motorists a daily fee of 8 pay(a) before 10pm if they enter, leave or move around within the congestion charge zone.Stockholm congestion evaluateIn Stockholm, Sweden, ANPR is used for the congestion tax of cars driving into or out of the inner city must pay a charge, depending on the time of the day.Other usesANPR systems may also be used for/bySection control, to measure average vehicle speed over longer distances.Border crossingsFilling s stations to log when a motorist drives away without paying for their fuel.A marketing tool to log patterns of useTraffic management systems, which determine traffic flow using the time it takes vehicles to pass two ANPR sites. force Through Customer Recognition, to automatically recognize customers based on their license plate and offer them their last selection, improving service to the customerTo assist visitant management systems in recognizing guest vehicles.Circumvention Techniques (drawback)Vehicles owners have used a variety of techniques in an attempt to evade ANPR systems and road -rule enforcement cameras in general. These methods may beincrease reflective properties of the lettering and so that system might no locate or produce high enough level of contrast to be able to readUse of plate cover or sprayUse of dirt to smear their license plate or utilize covers to mask the plateANPR imaging hardwareThe frontend of any Imaging hardware is image capturing device that is cam era. Retroreflective camera returns the light back to the source and thus improves the contrast of the image. A camera that makes use of active infrared light imaging (with a normal color filter over the lens and infrared illuminator next to it) benefits greatly from this as the infrared waves are reflected back from the plate. This is only possible on dedicated ANPR cameras, however, and so cameras used for other purposes must rely more heavily on the software capabilities.Figure hardware components used in ANPR systemFigure source-http//securityautomation.co.ukTo avoid blurring it is ideal to have the shutter speed of a dedicated camera set to 1/1000th of a second. License plate capture cameras can now produce usable images from vehicles traveling at 120 mph (190 km/h).threshold angles of incidence between camera lens and license plate are also major consideration to avoid image distortion during installation. Manufacturers have developed tools to eliminate errors from the physic al installation of license plate capture cameras.Research on down sampling characterFor neural network input character image is down sampled into matrix whose value is binary 1 or 0 according to Boolean property of character on matrix region.It showed that no of samples required is not fixed and it varies with thickness of font traced.Figure down sampling image character o with 7*5 matrixFigure downsampling same character image o (buffered) with 32 *35 matrixResearch works on algorithmsA new algorithm for character segmentation of license plateCharacter segmentation is an important step in License Plate Recognition (LPR) system. There are many difficulties in this step, such as the influence of image noise, plate frame, rivet, the space mark, and so on. This new algorithm presents character segmentation using Hough transformation and the prior knowl leaping in horizontal and upended segmentation respectively. Furthermore, a new object enhancement technique is used for image preproc essing. The experimentation results show a good performance of this new segmentation algorithm.Algorithm (steps)PreprocessingSize normalizationDetermination of plate kindObject enhancementHorizontal segmentation using Hough transformation erect segmentationFor more information-a new algorithm for character segmentation of license plate.pdfan adaptive thresholding algorithm for the augmented reality toolkitIt is well known that fixed global thresholds have adverse effects on the reliability of mug-based optical trackers under non-uniform lighting conditions. Mobile augmented reality applications, by their very nature, invite a certain level of robustness against varying external illumination from visual tracking algorithms currently AAR Toolkit depends on fixed-threshold image-binarization in order to detect prognosis fiducials for further processing. In an effort to minimize tracking failure due to uniform shadows and reflections on a marker surface, a fast algorithm for selectin g adaptive threshold values, based on the arithmetic mean of pixel intensities over a region-of- interest around candidate fiducials.AlgorithmThis works on a per-marker basis and evaluates the mean pixel luminance over a thresholding region-of -interest (ROI), which is defined as bounding rectangle around the markers axis -aligned corner vertices in screen space. If a marker has been detected in any addicted frame, its bounding rectangle will be used as thresholding -ROI prediction for successive frames. This method yields good thresholding level in practice, given sufficiently high video frame rates.Fig.1.reflection off a markers surface with adaptive thresholding (upper) and a global threshold (lower)For more information-10.1.1.9.4636.pdfadaptive license plate image extractionThis paper represents the automatic plate localization component of a car license plate recognition system. The approach concerns stages of preprocessing, edge detection, filtering, detection of the plates p osition, slope evaluation, and character segmentation and recognition. Single gray-level images are used as the only source of information. In the experiments Israeli and Bulgarian license plates were used, camera obtained at different daytime and whether conditions.Algorithm (step)preprocessing for plate candidate identificationvertical edge detectionrank filteringplate candidate segmentationvertical projection acquisitionprime clipping of the plateplate skew evaluationhorizontal segmentationplate candidate verificationCray-level distribution trunk considerations

Lives of Girls and Women: Curiosity by Alice Munro Essay -- del jordan,

The process in which human beings advance through different stages in their life towards adulthood is highly hellacious. Moreover, it is precise likely that one might encounter some difficulty in this progression. However, it is in human nature that we learn by failing at things, past mastering them by repeating them again and again. In the novel Lives of Girls and Women, Alice Munroe presents the life of Del Jordan in a very interesting way. The novel is divided into eight stages of Dels life, where she experiences different scenarios which ultimately give her a better understanding of life. Even though being curious has its pros and cons, at the end of the day it leads to the enhancement of a persons inner self. In the novel Lives of Girls and Women, Del the protagonist can be analyzed as being a very enthusiastic girl. Moreover, her tenuity proves to be a dynamic benefit of her actions.Firstly, as an individual develops, it is normal for one to be very keen. Moreover, the enthu siasm leads one to being curious and lacking to learn new things. During the early stages of Dels life, her distinctive feature is reflecting with her interest on the life of Uncle Benny. She narrates his life in Flat Roads and presents Benny as an queer character who is single, likes to hunt at the pond, and lives in an extremely unorganized way. So lying alongside our world was Uncle Bennys world like a troubling distorted reflection (Munro 22). This quote explicitly shows the interest Del maintains on the troublesome life of Uncle Benny as she analyzes his characteristics and the many obstacles he faces in life. For instance, cod to the fact the Benny was unorganized and needed someone to look after his house, he came up with an idea of marrying a woma... ... questioned gravity when an apple dropped on his head. This guide to the discovery of physics that we study in schools today. However, too much curiosity is not good as well. Like they say Curiosity killed the Cat Del d evelops interests on topics regarding intercourse and gets sexually harassed by a man much older than her. All in all, we all should remember that curiosity is good if it is utilize in topics that would not cause great harm to you. As a human it is okay to be curious. What do you think? Is too much curiosity bad? Is Del right for being so curious?Works CitedMunro, Alice. Lives of Girls and Women. New York McGraw-Hill Book Company. January, 1974. Book.Stafford, Tom. Why Are We so peeping? BBC Health. BBC, 19 Jan. 2012. Web. 24 Jan. 2014.Rey, H. A. Curious George - The Original Story (1941). YouTube. YouTube, 23 May 2012. Web. 27 Jan. 2014.

Physics of Aristotle Essay examples -- physics aristotle

The great Greek thinker Aristotle was born in 384 B.C. in Stagirus, a city in ancient Macedonia in northern Greece. At the epoch of eighteen Aristotle went to Athens to begin his studies at Platos Academy. He stayed and studied at the Academy for nineteen years and in that cartridge clip became both a instructor and an independent researcher. After Platos death in 347 B.C. Aristotle spent twelve years traveling and living in various places around the Aegean Sea. It was during this time that Aristotle was asked by Philip of Macedon to be a private tutor to his son, Alexander. Aristotle privately taught Alexander for three years before he returned to Athens after Philip gained control of the Greek capital. During this layover back in Athens Aristotle founded his own school, the Lyceum, where he taught for twelve years. In 323 B.C. Alexander the Great died and the Macedonians lost control of Athens. Aristotle was forced to leave and he died superstar year later in Chalcis, north o f Athens, at the age of 62.Aristotle is regarded by many as one of the most important thinkers of the ancient era. Although many of his theories regarding the natural philosophy of the natural world were later disproved by Galileo, Aristotle nevertheless offered the world at that time a relevant and consistent explanation of physics of impressive pretension and explanatory ability. Many of his theories endured for up to 1200 years, and helped to form the basis of the midieval christian perspective of the natural world. Much of his physics, when combined with Ptolemys mathematical model of planetary motions, was used by midieval thinkers to describe the behavior of the cosmos.Aristotles book The Physics, was in existence by about 350 B.C. This book is mainly concerned with change a... ... 1609, when Galileo destroyed Aristotles mechanical model of the universe, was his effectiveness on scientific theory truly undermined. So strong was Aristotles grip on the science of the time, t hat Galileo was subsequently tried by the church as a heretic for disagreeing with his theories.It is a generally accepted fact that Aristotles physics and astronomy were the weakest of his areas of study. He made discoveries and developed theories in biology, ethics, and drama that still hold a great deal of importance in those fields today. However, many of his theories and hypotheses were not disproved unitl the nineteenth century and his original concept of a uniform and consistant flow of time was accepted by Newton and still has its place in physics today. We really cannot discount the scientific contributions of a man whose ideas have survived for over 2000 years.