Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Banking System of China Essay
The Chinese banking system is said to be undergoing some tremendous change in the wake of the emergence of China as a major player in the global economy. This is so after several years of state ownership and communism that was so prevalent in the country. The reforms in the Chinese banking system commenced in the 1980ââ¬â¢s to date. The structure of the Chinese banking system initially was monolithic with the Peopleââ¬â¢s Bank of China being the only bank allowed to do banking business in the country as its Central Bank. But this changed in the early 1980ââ¬â¢s when the Chinese government allowed some state owned banks that were specialized to start doing banking businesses and taking deposits. The banks licensed included: Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. This were the pioneer specialized banks in China and in 1994, there was the establishment of new banks whose purpose was policy specific lik e the China Development Bank, Export Import Bank of China and the China Development Bank CITATION Cla14 l 1033 (Claessens & Kodres, 2014). These banks have a varying ownership degree by the public that was done through the initial public offers but despite this, the majority shareholder of these banks is still the Chinese government. Several joint stock commercial banks and city c commercial banks have been licensed to operate in China. The government of China has also licensed banks that are dedicated to develop the rural centers of China. Foreign banks have also been allowed to operate in China. As of 2010, the total of the assets of the Chinese banking system were 14 trillion dollars. The four specialized banks in China at that time controlled 48 percent of these assets. The main regulatory body that controls the banking system is the CBRC (China Banking Regulatory Commission) that is charged with the responsibility of making rules and regulation of China banks CITATION Loo13 l 1033 (Looney, 2013). The CBRC is in charge of oversight and collects banking statistics to be used in the process of approval of bank expansion. It also goes a long way in solving the potential solvency and liquidity issues that might trouble banks. This Peopleââ¬â¢s Bank of China while acting as Chinaââ¬â¢s Central bank has quite an authority over the Chinese banking system. This includes the typical role played by the central bank of representation on international monetary forums and maintenance of monetary policy. Its other roles are the reduction of risk and promotion of financial stabilit y of the system. The PBC is also responsible lending regulation and the exchange of foreign currency between banks. It supervises settlement and payment system in the country. The Chinese banking system does not consist of a deposit insurance where the depositors are protected from the loss of their funds in case the banks get wound up. However reforms are underway to ensure that Chinese depositors are able to get insured for their deposits. In the beginning of 2009, the Chinese government encouraged a large credit boom in order to offset the possible effects of the global financial crisis. The larger part of this credit was used to finance infrastructure and construction of real estate which helped China to grow by forty five percent between 2008 and 2013. At the same time, the International Monetary Fundââ¬â¢s credit reports increase to 200 percent with much of it coming from bonds, loans and non-bank financing equivalent to 13 trillion dollars. Out of the 200 percent increase, non-bank financing accounted for two thirds of the total CITATION Loo13 l 1033 (Looney, 2013). This meant that the flow of credit was not from regulated Chinese banks but from Chinese financial institutions. The Chinese shadow banking system which has evolved over this period comprises of several layers which include capital markets, non-banking financial institutions and the informal sector. Review of Literature Globalization is a multifaceted term and deals with all the social, political and economic issues in the developed and developing world. The world has seen many changes in the form of innovation, technological advancements and economic prosperity. One of the major shifts in the current era has been the creation of a world with no boundary. This has resulted into integration of technology and modernization of production and working methods. This paper presents an in depth analysis on determining who have benefited from globalization in China. The term ââ¬Ëglobalizationââ¬â¢ has been a concept which has integrated in the world of current times. Globalization pertains to the growing relationships of people, culture, and economic activity on the global level. The term is often utilized to refer to the perspective of economic globalization: it is the production and distribution of the services and goods on the global platform and takes place with the help of the reduced obstacles of international trade. These trade barriers include the export fees, tariffs, and import quotas, and also comprise of the free movement of investment and capital in the entire world. There are many ways countries that have benefited from globalization in China CITATION Cla14 l 1033 (Claessens & Kodres, 2014). The impacts of trade brought by globalization could be seen by the diffusion of the art of glass making in China from Western. Religious ideology spread quickly in all directions through globalization. Mercantilism for instance spread fro m the West to the East through globalization. The easy flow of ideas, art and culture resulted in economic, cultural and social vibrancy that was unmatched anywhere else in the world. Globalization has made Chinaââ¬â¢s economy the fastest growing economy with an average of 9 percent of growth in the last three decades. China has the largest volume of goods imported and exported throughout the global market. Provinces at the coasts of China are more industrialized and developed than those in the hinterland. It is for this reason that China has a substantial influence on the world economy because of the large volume of trade. The most valuable sector of Chinaââ¬â¢s economy is industry and agriculture CITATION Moo99 l 1033 (Moore, 1999). The Agricultural output has been adversely affected by erratic and sporadic weather of East Asia. The industrial sector in China has advanced more than the agricultural sector in China because of incomes, technology and labor productivity. The differences in the two sectors of the economy are the reason for the social, economic and cultural disparity between the urban and rural areas. China is the leading producer of mineral an d industrial products like coal and oil. According to statistics, China has achieved a growth level of 10.9%, which is quite a massive growth. With this rapid growth, people are now quite able to achieve higher living standards which can be observed in China where people can now be more luxurious in the goods they buy over the inferior ones CITATION Loo13 l 1033 (Looney, 2013). The government of China can now provide timely and more efficient services for everyoneââ¬â¢s wellbeing. This is as a result of more people being able to pay their taxes as there are more employment opportunities. The availability of more revenue has enabled them to improve on the medical healthcare facilities and education. This not only has private benefit, but a healthy population can be more productive due to the increased life expectancy. With increasing globalization, Western Europe established favorable for trade and entrepreneurship through its educated workforce working in China. The development of infrastructural linkages in China favors trading in the region. This process has enhanced the rate of international trade of different services and goods. The production processes have been broken down into various stages separated by the geographical boundaries and is conducted on large scale. Moreover, an enormous expansion in the manufacturing exports has occurred from many developing countries. All these factors have created new opportunities and possibilities for the developing regions of the world.à For instance, during 1900s, the Japan and China experienced an increasing market share while the rest of the world witnessed the export share to be decreasing. Chinaââ¬â¢s globalization has also enhanced the participation of the developing world in FDI expansion. Due to the boosting of financial expansion in the industrial world, the developing nations have also obtained a platform to give their contributions in the financial world and enjoy the advantages of modern concepts CITATION Cla14 l 1033 (Claessens & Kodres, 2014). Globalization in China has encouraged increased flight of capital and ideas to other countries like Korea and Japan which have increased their inventiveness and expertise through the hiring of fresh and innovative human resources from the developed nations. Moreover, they are able to avail the opportunities of investing in the developed regions of the world as well as attracting newer investments from other parts of the world CITATION Yen14 l 1033 (Yen, Lai, & Wang, 2014). Chinaââ¬â¢s globalization has in turn influenced the neighboring countries. India for instance has picked a few lessons from China and has adopted a more open economy in the process. This has in the process transformed the nation as regards to development and creation of opportunities in the global scale for most multi-national companies. Globalization in China has resulted in an increased level of trade of China with other countries that are in different parts of the globe. Its recent growth has led to the revi val of Japanââ¬â¢s economy and in the process saving them from recession thus averting a serious global downturn. With the huge population figures in China, it has provided markets for American companies and their products. This has led to the flow of income from the U. S to China. The exported cheap products that are produced in the US has resulted in the increase of job opportunities thus an improvement of the living standards of the Americans and other countries nationals who are in active trade with China. With globalization China has been able to export some of its products to markets like the U.S thus managing to keep the level of inflation and interest rates down in the process prolonging the economic boom in America CITATION Cla14 l 1033 (Claessens & Kodres, 2014). The success of globalization in China has led to decreased cases of wars and conflict in the globe. China is often a quiet participant in global conflict and its lack of interest in conflict has been beneficial to the global stage. With globalization it has managed to steer away from instances of tug of wars with the other global super powers. It does not sponsor insurgencies in conflict prone areas like the Middle East Asia and Latin America unlike other superpowers. It has by all means through globalization supported the global financial institutions like the IMF in assisting the poor CITATION Moo99 l 1033 (Moore, 1999). As a result of this, third world countries have benefited the most from Chinaââ¬â¢ s generosity as regards to funding and sponsoring of development projects in their countries. In recent time China has been an active participant in the African scene f infrastructure with most of the projects in these countries being sponsored and conducted by China. This in esse nce shows Africa as the direct benefactor of globalization in China. China has been able to provide loans to these countries and in the process has strengthened ties with these nations. The concept of globalization has also proven to be a friend to the developing world by providing it the chances to stand in the line of competitors and thus, aim on attaining efficiency and competitive advantage Methodology The non-banking financial institutions constitute the larger part and they are subject to regulatory oversight. The oversight involves various degrees that include direct loans for surfeit funds from companies to trade credit or other borrowers, wealth management products and trust companies, pawn shops, micro credit providers, over 3000 private and equity providers partly funded by private investors, consumer credit institutions, and financial guarantors to finance companies. The capital markets allow institutional investors and insurance companies to by debt and equity securities. The informal sector poses as a major risk for the Chinese economy because it involves direct lending between secretive and individual lending which is often conducted by illegal loan sharks like back lane bankers and unrestrained capitalists who offer loans at high interests to small business enterprises. What drives this tremendous growth of the Chinese shadow banking system is the regulation and structu re of the countryââ¬â¢s financial system. Chinaââ¬â¢s credit markets is dominated by four major banks that are controlled by the state and focus on lending to government associated firms , enterprises owned by the state and projects with official sanctions. This makes it quite difficult for other businesses to gain access to bank credit which triggers shadow banking to fill this gap. This exemplifies a popular saying in Chinese culture which asserts thatââ¬â¢ countermeasures come from below while policies come from above. There is immense risk that is associated Chinaââ¬â¢s shadow banking system which questions the longevity of the Chinese financial welfare. Although it may be difficult to ascertain the exact size of the Chinese shadow banking system, it is evidently growing rapidly and accounts for approximately 70 to 100 percent of the countryââ¬â¢ GDP CITATION Yen14 l 1033 (Yen, Lai, & Wang, 2014). A major problem is that most of the financial guarantors and trust companies of the Chinese shadow banking system often lack enough capital. This forces them into an average leverage that is twenty times their worth given that most of the investments are of high nature. More so, the detail as to what exactly the investor will use the funds for is not clear. There is ambiguity regarding how to enforce security interests and due diligence by the investment enterprise or sponsor and the rights if the investor and borrower. The controls and oversight of the shadow banking system are weak since it operates with regulations that are limited. Main Issues/ Findings The share of lending by Chinese banks has now decreased from ninety percent over the past ten year to fifty percent showing how much the Chinese economy now relies on the shadow banking system as a vital financial source. This has mostly affected the local governments, small and medium sized enterprises and property companies. This interconnection between conventional banking systems and the shadow banking system lead to the creation of moral hazards and additional risk based on regulatory reasons CITATION Loo13 l 1033 (Looney, 2013). The banks often use the shadow banking system when shifting loan assets from their window financial statements and balance sheets for investors and regulators. For example, when Chinese banks are not able to lend funds at high interests to companies, they use Wealth Management Products and Trust Companies. They also create products of investment for investors looking for higher returns thereby acting as an intermediate between borrowers and savers Chine se banks has thus used shadow banking investment products like Security Brokers and Trust Companies to maintain the earnings and market share through the commissions and fees from the products. Currently, there has been an increase on the number of Wealth Management Products issued by Chinese banks has increased from roughly 100 billion dollars to 3 trillion dollars CITATION Kuh12 l 1033 (Kuhn & Yang, 2012). Shadow banking has caused uneven credit quality of many borrowers in the market. This is because of the variability in collateral used to secure loans. Although most of the wealth management products are invested as bond markets, interbank deposits and money markets whose large proportion is secured through real estate. The problem with real estate is that the investors are highly vulnerable to losses because property values fluctuate every now and then. This exposes them to high negative risk. There are also other risky forms of collateral in shadow banking which include invaluable commodities and industry machinery and other exotic forms like graveyards that also expose businesses to risk. Most importantly is the fact that the collaterals pledged may not even be in existence CITATION Cla14 l 1033 (Claessens & Kodres, 2014). A good example is that of Wealth Management Product the Golden Elephant Number 38 which was secured by a deserted housing estate located in rice filed within th e Jiangxi Province of China. This Wealth Management Product offered 7.2 percent to its investors on an annual basis. The collaterals used also entail substantial mismatches whereby long term assets are financed by short term funds that do not generate any income. This poses a liquidity crisis for the financial system and the conduit vehicles which face constant periodic payments and other refinance requirements. This is evidenced by the huge 660 billion dollarsââ¬â¢ worth of trust products that have matured as of 2014. The linkages between bank and shadow banking system in China are quite complex in nature. There are different transactions between the different shadow banking institutions. China growing concern over the debt accrued is complicated by the fact that there has been an increase in the rate of borrowing by most of its local government and the important role the shadow banking system plays in this economy. This is quite undermines the Chinese entrepreneurial spirit and highlights the huge problems in Chinaââ¬â¢s system of finance. The relaxation measures taken by the central government in the wake of 2007/2008 financial crisis led to increased government expenditure in an endeavor to increase economic activity. The legal limitation is that the local governments in China are not allowed to ask for any form of funding or rather borrowing. This was after the creation of Urban Development Investment Companies (UDIC) that was allowed to ask for any form of funding the local government need. Ideally, UDICââ¬â¢s are allowed to ask for funding from banks but the recent action by banks to reduce on loans led them to borrow from the shadow banking system. This has thus resulted in the local banks being left in the dark as there are disputes on the exact figure of borrowings made despite the growing level of scrutiny revolving the issue CITATION Loo13 l 1033 (Looney, 2013). There has been an increased rate of borrowing, misappropriation of funds and servicing of debts due to prices of property increasing in China. The growing concern by the lenders is more likely to reduce the availability of credit and as a result leading to a restrained cash flow. It can be said that the rise of the shadow banking has emerged from the structured financial system that is regulated. The limited access to funds and credit in bank has led to the emergence of shadow banking as the alternative solution to access credit. The regulation by the government in terms of deposits and interest rates has contributed majorly to the growth of shadow banking. The loss of purchasing power by consumers has led them to opt for the high interest rates offered by shadow banks CITATION Cla14 l 1033 (Claessens & Kodres, 2014). The Chinese central government has been on the offence through curtailing of expansion of credit through making reduction in loan quotas thus to a large extend limiting lending to certain sectors in the long run encouraging the growth of shadow banking. The shadow banking system is multi-faceted where there is lending in the informal sector say between individuals and underground lending through shylocks who offer high rates of interest on loans to small businesses. This can be seen as some form of harassment to the small businesses where they incur the high costs of interest rates charged to them by this shadow banking system. The problems by this shadow banking system are aggravated by the fact that this shadow banking system in China is made up of non-banking financial institutions like leasing companies, finance companies and guarantors that are supposed to be regulated. The dominating products in the non-banking institution sector are wealth management products. These trust companies thrive in financing riskier transactions and borrowers who banks cannot do business with because of the strict regulations that come with them. These companies raise money from investors who then invest in securities and loans. The attractions of such investments are the high returns in comparison to bank deposits. The financing of local government projects of infrastructure come from trust funds because of the reluctance of the Central bank to limit the local government financing. A common feature of Chinaââ¬â¢s shadow banking is the working relationship they have with banks. The banks act as an agent in loan from one financial institution to another. Short term government debts interest is administered by the respective Central bank of that particular country. This is so because the sole role of the Central government is the maintenance of economic growth and price stability CITATION Yen14 l 1033 (Yen, Lai, & Wang, 2014). With lower interest rates then there is economic growth this is because of the affordability of credit as the people are able to service their loans and debts at low costs. From Statistics of the Chinese Central Bank, there has been a steady decline and rise in the interest rate in China for the last decade. This could be attributed to the public outcry in the country calling for effective and efficient monetary policy measures by their respective departments of finance. These measures have thus maintained the interest rates to a bare min imum thus enabling the stable economic growth in China. The GDP growth rate figures are an indication of the wealth produced per capita in an economy. This then determines the levels of foreign direct investment that are attracted to an economy. A high GDP and growth rate like that of China shows a growing economy thus a high attraction rate for investors in the country CITATION Loo13 l 1033 (Looney, 2013). The high inflation rate in China erodes the purchasing power of the consumers. The inflation rate of China serves as an economic indicator of the economic direction of the country except for special global cases like Japan that despite low and negative inflation rates show no growth rate. ConclusionFrom this analysis therefore, it is clear that the economic policies and issues of the Chinese economy is determined by various economic variables provided by the Central Bank of China which plays a vital role to ensure the full realization of the economic vision. The central bankââ¬â¢s monetary role and the governmentsââ¬â¢ fiscal policy role determine the economic development. With a proper and effective economic policies then the economic development agendas can be easily arrived atCITATION nte06 l 1033 (International Monetary Fund, 2006). Shadow banking has grown in China and it is now rivaling conventional banking systems and this has made the country a focal point regarding macroeconomic attention. There is a lot of speculation as to whether or not Chinaââ¬â¢s economy will slow down and eventually cause critical financial upshot as a result of shadow banking CITATION Cla14 l 1033 (Claessens & Kodres, 2014). Consequently, this has become a serious issue that has gained global concern. In the beginning of 2009, the Chinese government encouraged a large credit boom in order to offset the possible effects of the global financial crisis. The larger part of this credit was used to finance infrastructure and construction of real estate which helped China to grow by forty five percent between 2008 and 2013. References Claessens, S., & Kodres, L. E. (2014). The Regulatory Responses to the Global Financial Crisis: Some Uncomfortable Questions. New York: International Monetary Fund. International Monetary Fund. (2006). Progress in Chinaââ¬â¢s Banking Sector Reform: Has Bank â⬠¦, Issues 2006-2071. Kuhn, R. L., & Yang, L. (2012). Chinaââ¬â¢s Banking and Financial Markets: The Internal Research Report of the Chinese Government. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Looney, R. E. (2013). Handbook of Emerging Economies. New York: Routledge. Moore, T. G. (1999). China and Globalization. Asian Perspective, 65-85. Yen, J., Lai, K. K., & Wang, M. (2014). Chinaââ¬â¢s Financial Markets: Issues and Opportunities. New York: Routledge. Source document
Tuesday, July 30, 2019
John Locke Essay
John Lockeââ¬â¢s Second Treatise of Government has been, and continues to be, a cornerstone in Western political philosophy. The theory of government he presents in this particular document ââ¬â that government is based on the sovereignty of the people ââ¬â has been overwhelmingly influential since its publication in 1690. Before going further, however, it is necessary to understand the events from which the Second Treatise stems. As stated, this document was published in 1690, and it was done so anonymously. Two years prior to the publication, the highly unpopular King James II of England had been deposed ââ¬â with no bloodshed whatsoever ââ¬â and replaced by King William III and his wife, Queen Mary, who was a daughter of the deposed king. This event was known to history as the Glorious Revolution. Yet, when it occurred, Locke was not residing in England. However, he did have ties to the party that oversaw the Glorious Revolution ââ¬â the Whigs. As a result of this relationship, Locke sought to justify the ascension of King William. Though the Second Treatise was written to justify the resistance that occurred to King Charles II, it was published to justify the Glorious Revolution. Lockeââ¬â¢s Second Treatise begins with the premise that society is made up of free and equal individuals, all of whom are endowed with natural rights. He goes on to state that these same individuals will want to acquire possession, and most likely will engage in conflicts with one another. Therefore, he suggests that the natural law of morality be utilized to govern them. One major presumption made by Locke is the fact that, for a society to best protect itself and its property, the individuals within that society must join together and form a body politic, in which they agree to adhere to certain standards of behavior. To accomplish this, they must give up some of their natural rights. As history has since demonstrated, the giving up of natural rights has not always been met with a good response, as in the case of the American Civil War, where statesââ¬â¢ rights was a major underlying cause. Within this civil society, the people must submit what they consider to be natural freedoms to the common law of that society. In return, they receive the protection of their government. An executive power ââ¬â i.e. president ââ¬â is given the authority to enforce the laws of the government, punishing any that break those laws. However, should the power held by the executive or other officials within the government fail to live up to their responsibilities, the people have the right and the responsibility to rebel against that government. Once they have rebelled against it, if they are successful in removing it, they must replace it with one that will abide by the laws set up for the smooth running of their society. It is this last concept that proves to be the crux of Lockeââ¬â¢s document. It was what served as his motivation to write the Second Treatise. He wanted the British to understand they had the right to replace one government with another. It would be this concept that would serve as one of the underlying philosophies that would inspire revolutions in both America and France, as well as the documents on which America was founded on: the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. The various ideas presented in the Second Treatise ââ¬â limited government based on natural rights and human dignity, unlimited personal property based on those same natural rights ââ¬â are what make this document a superbly constructed argument against the concept of absolutism. Thus, it remains a most influential work within the realm of political philosophy, and within history in general.
Monday, July 29, 2019
Broken Globe Stage 2 Essay
Characterization is the process by which authors make characters come alive for readers. Authors have many techniques available to portray characters, and they can broadly be divided into indirect and direct presentation. In the short story ââ¬Å"The Broken Globeâ⬠, author Henry Kreisel brillantly develops the two principle characters, Nick Solchuk and his father, through indirect presentation. Consistency is the key to good characterization. From ? rst person point of view, the reader obtains a full portrait of both Nick and his father indirectly by learning what the narrator sees and hears somewhat objectively. Nick, the narratorââ¬â¢s friend, is a successful geophysicist studying the curvature of the earth. He demonstrates persistance, passion, and determination in the study of the earth. He asks the narrator ââ¬Å"eagerlyâ⬠with ââ¬Å"his face reddeningâ⬠about his paper to the International Congress. Even under the torture of his father, he still keeps his goal of proving that the earth moves. He even retorts his father by saying ââ¬Å"You can beat me and break my globe, but you cannot stop [the earth] from moving. â⬠This passage shows his determination in his belief. On the other hand, Nickââ¬â¢s father adopts personas of sophistication during the short visit of the narrator. His father is stubborn that he only believes what he sees is the truth: ââ¬Å"[the earth] is ? at, and she stands still. â⬠He is also imptuous and fractious that he ââ¬Å"[beats] Nick like he is the devilâ⬠when he wants Nick to accept the same concept of the earth as he believes. Both characters are consistent and static, for they are still living in their own world: one lives in a ? at world and the other lives in the world of science. Another signi? cant objective of characterization is to reveal motivation. Kreiselââ¬â¢s story is set mainly in Alberta, a ââ¬Å"land ? attens until there seemed nothing. â⬠Living in Alberta, Nickââ¬â¢s father sees only the open prairies and ? elds every day; thus he perceives that the earth is exactly ? at and still as what he sees. Moreover, the reader learns that he is hard to change his mind because ââ¬Å"he received an education of sorts when he was a boy. â⬠Therefore, he believes that the earth is the center of the universe and the center is still. Similarly, Nickââ¬â¢s motivation is intrigued by a teacher who teaches him the earth is round and is moving. This teacherââ¬â¢s ââ¬Å"enthusiasm [is] infectiousâ⬠as Nick says. The teacher shows Nick a world larger than the ?at prairies, a world that is exuberent. Although the two charactersââ¬â¢ own views of the world contradict one another, they do care and love each other. To build characters that convincing, the author must make their actions realistic and believable. Nick and his father are plausible due to their backgrounds. Nickââ¬â¢s father is taught that ââ¬Å"the earth is ? at and still,â⬠and what he sees outside in Alberta is only the far-distant prairies with ââ¬Å"neither hill nor tree nor bush. â⬠Furthermore, Nick, suffering from the violence of his father, always illustrates indomitable perserverence in seeking the truth. He continually shows to his father a globe can move, even though he knows his father will be mad. People with bond ? de determination can achieve their goals, just like Nick achieves his goal and becomes a geophysicist (to prove his father wrong? ). Altogether, they both are rounded characters in that they demonstrate many attributes and traits. Nickââ¬â¢s father is a stubborn, impulsive, and fractious father whereas Nick is a passionate, indomitable, and persistent geophysicist. In the story ââ¬Å"The Broke Globeâ⬠Henry Kreisel effectively utilizes many techniques to develop characters, and further reveals a thoughtful insight into life. Nickââ¬â¢s father who insistently believes that the world is ? at and still lives in his own ââ¬Å"broken globeâ⬠, where ââ¬Å"Satan has taken over all the worldâ⬠but him. 1. Sample Task for English 12 Writing Prepared by Seaquam Page 15 Characterization: A Father and a Son, How the Apple Falls Characters can make a short story rich and worth reading. In Henry Kreiselââ¬â¢s ââ¬Å"The Broke Globeâ⬠the differences in ethics between a man and his father is seen through the eyes of a somewhat neutral narrator. Nick Solchuk is a brilliant man of science, while his father is the polar opposite. His father is a pious prairie farmer who does not value higher education or the values its teaches. Even though these characters are presented indirectly, Kreisel utilizes other methods to develop the characters. He shows them as static and round characters who are plausible and who remain consistent. Being ? rst person narrative, no direct presentation is used because the author cannot speak directly. He simply assumes the persona of a a narrator and therefore all presentation is indirect. One can ? nd out a lot about a character by what others say about him. Nickââ¬â¢s father is developed in the beginning during the conversation between Nick and the narrator. At this point the reader discovers that Nick and his father differ in many ways. Obviously, Nick is a man of great intelligence as the narrator say, ââ¬Å"he studied at Cambridge and got his doctorate there and was now doing research at the Imperial College. â⬠The reader also learns that despite being a brilliant man, nick whistfully remembers his simple childhood growing up in Three Bear Hills, Alberta. Nickââ¬â¢s father is developed much the same way later on in the conversation. Nick reveals that his father is a polar opposite. Nickââ¬â¢s father is shown as a religious prairie farmer with ââ¬Å"a strange imagination. â⬠Nick also explains why there is tension between himself and his father. ââ¬Å"Curious man my father. He had strange ideas and a strange imagination too. He couldnââ¬â¢t understand why I was going to school or university. â⬠ââ¬Å"I suddenly realized that the shape of the world he lived in had O been O ? xed for him by some medieval priest in the small Ukranian villiage he was born in O But he still lived in the universe of the medieval church. : The reader now knows that Nick and his father are very different. Dialogue becomes a very important part of this story. The reader learns a lot about the father by what he says and by what he says he does. The ? rst meeting between the father and the narrator shows a lot about the father. ââ¬Å"You friend of NickOWhat he do now? O still tampering with the earth? â⬠Now, it has been con? rmed that Nickââ¬â¢s ideas differ greatly from his fatherââ¬â¢s. Nickââ¬â¢s father may be a simple prairie farmer, but that does not mean that he is rude. The father acts very formally when inviting the narrator inside his house. He stands as the narrator comes in, which is a sign of respect; he even brings out coffee for the narrator. The reader continues to learn about the relationship Nickââ¬â¢s father has with his son, and certain other people. The father explains how he exploded at a teacher for ââ¬Å"letting Satan inâ⬠and for teaching Nick science at school. This act shows how the father deals with other people. The father goes on to elaborate on how he dealt with Nick as a child. ââ¬Å"I grab him by the arm and I shake him and I beat him like he was the devilOAnd he made me madder and madder because he doesnââ¬â¢t cry or shout or nothing. â⬠ââ¬Å"I would of killed him right there for sure. â⬠The reader now knows how he handles his son. Nick and his father are both static, round characters. They do not change at the end of the story, but they have many traits. Nickââ¬â¢s father proves he does not change by saying to the narrator ââ¬Å"Satan has taken over all the world. â⬠Then he suddenly rousled himself and hits the table with his ? st crying passionately, ââ¬Å"But not me! Not me! â⬠The characters act consistently throughout the story. ââ¬Å"The Broken Globeâ⬠is a deeply driven character story. Both main characters are well developed. In some cases, the apple falls very far from the tree.
Employment Relations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1
Employment Relations - Essay Example A few of the evidences such as CIPD (2011) provides a clear statement that there are very less organisations wherein the unions do not have any existence. It is also evidential that the labour unions have a high influence on the development of the business organisations. Justifiably, the trade unions have played a decisive role in the UK for developing the employment relationship with the help of introducing the procedure of collective bargaining and allowing the employers to design favourable policies for the employees (CIPD, 2011: 3-4). In an organization wherein both employers and unions are the part of work process, it can be stated that the employment relationship ensures successful running of business at large. With regards to the aforesaid subject, this essay is being prepared with an intention of gaining an insight about employment relationship, which prevails between the employers and the labour unions. The study has been conducted on this subject with reference to various literatures reviewed by different authors. In the conclusive part of the essay, a study has been made on the prevalence of employment relations in the organisations with unions and without the unions as well. Employment relationship, as mentioned in the earlier section is one of the prime aspects of every business organisation. In this similar context, it can be apparently observed that the unions have a significant role to play in building up of the employment relationship. For instance, as per the notion of Guest (2004: 542), employment relationship is considered as one of the wide framework of rights and responsibilities of both the employers and the employees towards forming a healthy relationship in order to reap significant benefits. Guest (2004: 542) also stated that in the ancient industrialization society of the UK and the USA, there was high prevalence of unionism in the majority of
Sunday, July 28, 2019
Which Philosopher Benefits the Working Class Essay
Which Philosopher Benefits the Working Class - Essay Example For example, Karl Marx is well known as the Father of Communism and his theories are being followed by some modern governments. It is interesting to study the views and theories of these historical thinkers and see how they serve to explain modern day structures and events. Some philosophers can concretely be proved more accurate than others while some theories are still matters of debate. At the base, what truly matters is the individual and where they see themselves. One may take upon oneself a theory as their self-description while another may very well deny the same theory and choose an alternative or opposing view. Herein shall be examined the position of various philosophers: Lenin, Marx, Smith, and Ortega y Gasset, as they relate to the life of one who is deemed ââ¬Å"working class.â⬠Vladimir Lenin was one of the great Russian political figures and a great thinker of the twentieth century (Historical Figures n.p.). He is the one responsible for the political structure o f the USSR. In Russia, he took up a fight on behalf of the working class. It was his position that the working class needed to be rescued from the capitalist oppressors that placed heavy burdens upon them. According to Lenin, a communist lifestyle greatly benefits the working class. They have the right to be free from those who would exploit them for the sake of financial gain. In his eyes, the capitalists regarded the working class as no more than a commodity and they used them to benefit their own pockets without regard for the suffering that the working class had to endure. However, Lenin acknowledged the fact that the tendency of the working class is not to take upon themselves a socialist society and that they, if the opportunity was presented, would simply switch from being the proletariat to being the bourgeois. As it has been reported, ââ¬Å"â⬠¦Lenin therefore concluded that if the proletariat was ever to realize its class interest the socialist idea would have to be br ought to it ââ¬Å"from withoutâ⬠by those who understood Marxââ¬â¢s scienceâ⬠¦Ã¢â¬ (Mayer159). It would seem that Lenin missed the mark in regard to the needs of the working class. The first and most obvious proof is the failure of his design, namely the USSR. Secondly, he neglected to fully recognize the cravings of the working class to be free from oppression. He did not see that his introduction of a socialist society is yet again just another form of oppression. For if the working class desires to advance in status, there ought be nothing to stop them but their own lack of determination. Yet, living in a socialist society, those who desire such freedoms would have to flee the country or abandon hope. Lenin is not accurate in the position of the working class from the view of a working class citizen. However, Lenin was not alone in his belief that socialism and communism are what will benefit the working class the most. His thoughts were greatly founded upon the vi ews of another well-known philosopher, Karl Marx. Marx, often considered the Father of Communism, also felt that capitalism was a social ill because it degraded the working class to a commodity for the rich whom they would serve. Marx blames private ownership and the ability to get wealth for many of the problems of society. Therefore, he prescribed a system where there would be no private ownership. Still, his views are not accurate to the working class who, without the ability to own privately, ends up working endlessly for naught. At least those who are working class and living in a capitalist society have the ability to hope for greatness and wealth. It is this hope that excites and brightens the eyes. They work all the harder, not only in their positions, but to improve
Saturday, July 27, 2019
Thomas Cook Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words
Thomas Cook - Essay Example These come because of a number of reasons including the failure of a leader to accomplish his/her missions within the period he/she expected (Casserly 2013). For example, Harriet Green had expected to revive Thomas Cook within a short time and move to another organisation with similar problems (Wadlow 2014). However, despite the various achievements and success in rescuing the company from collapse, the company was still experiencing problems after two years of her service. In addition, frustrations may also emerge when a leader faces new problems than those he/she expected before joining the organisation (Andersen 2012). Most probably, the rapid changes in the nature operations of the travel industry posed problems that were beyond Greenââ¬â¢s experience leading to frustrations. Under these conditions, a leader may decide to pave the way for another person with the characteristics required to deal with the situation. The stock exchange worth of Thomas Cook was slightly below à £2 billion throughout Harriet inexperienced time of departure compared to à £148 million once she rose to power in July 2012 (Press Association 2014). The success of Peter Fankhauser can show from his ability to additional maintain and increase the stock worth by a lot of or similar quantity among a shorter or equal length as inexperienced. Greenââ¬â¢s quest for continued success to succeeding section of the companys development is additionally a transparent challenge to the new leader as his success and failure within the next year can base on his ability to make and maintain a powerful team. Thomas shares slided by the maximum amount as two hundredth after Ms Greens declaration and a corporate notice that growth within the current year can moderate because of harder mercantilism conditions that have notably influenced European markets (Wadlow 2014). The success and failure of Peter Fankhauser within the next year can show from his ability to
Friday, July 26, 2019
Construction management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words
Construction management - Essay Example The schedule may specify the specific roles for the unskilled and skilled. For instance, starting time can be set at 7am and ending at 5pm. Similarly, construction manager is required to consider the pay rate of overtime schedule. The major role of the unskilled workers involves preparation of construction material mix, timely. The superintendent is responsible in carrying out the activities as instructed by the construction manager and with the help of the project or center map. The function of the superintendent to perform close examination to ensure that, the laid daily schedule is followed such that, the set down period for the whole construction process can be adhered to. More over, the superintendent ensures that the specified ratio of the materials is followed to the latter. The superintendent, ensures that proper records of equipment is well taken especially when begging the daily schedule and at the end of every day. This practice is endeavored to ensure safety and availabil ity of such equipment as to when and where they are needed in the right condition. Labor situation The concept of labor requires the underlying principle of availability to be embraced. Te superintendent, under the construction managerââ¬â¢s instruction should ensure that, the adequate labor is sustained all through the construction period. The labor schedule depends on the schedule of each day. For instance, less sub supervisors may be required when more work requires the supervisors. The superintendent, who in turn reports to the construction manager, directly does all this labor adjustments with proper consultation of the supervisors. However, in some cases, the superintendent can deny the construction managersââ¬â¢ projected schedule if it appears untenable. A successful completion of this project entirely depended on the cordial and timely coordination of among the supervisors, superintendent and the construction. There should be continuous flow of correct information fro m top to down and vice versa. It should be observed that, the three levels of command have to coordinate all the activities in the site wit all aspects of professionalism and ethics. Construction ethics is necessary follow element because of its fundamental benefits attributed to it. The site and construction ethics ensures smooth coordination and reduced incidents of accidents. Start up considerations At the commencement of the centerââ¬â¢s activities, numerous start-up considerations are critical for a good start. Some of these include the operation staff, which includes the management team and the ordinary staff, training of the employees, motivation and general maintenance of the center facilities. The considerations should be carried out with outmost honesty and professionalism, particularly when recruiting the staff to set a pace, which may form the companyââ¬â¢s norm. Operations staff The owner of the DMD intends to carry out all the activities involving management recr uitment. These activities include advertisement for various job opportunities. Having been the district human resource manager at the department of Health and sanitation, he has apt experience in recruiting the required team, which will perform assigned duties in tandem with the dynamism in this industry. The center owner will have to select the appropriate
Thursday, July 25, 2019
Assignment 2 Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words
2 - Assignment Example University of Oregon track coach Bowerman wanted lighter and more resilient racing shoes for his runners. One of them, Phil Knight, was trying to devise a marketing plan to fulfill a school project. During his trip to Japan, Knight met with a Japanese shoe manufacturer. He told them his company, Blue Ribbon Sports, would distribute the manufacturerââ¬â¢s running shoes in the USA. Knight was able to sell $8,000 worth of Japanese-made running shoes. Later, Knight and Bowman named changed their companyââ¬â¢s name to Nike. (A brief history of Nike, n.d.) Almost a decade after Nike was created Microsoft was invented by well-known software developers Bill Gates, Paul Allen and their friends because of their love for computers. Gate and Allen successfully wrote and sold a software program to Altair manufacturers. After this, they decided to form Microsoft. (The history of Microsoft, 2001) Even if I know how these brands were created, I would still buy their products. I believe in thes e brands. The quality of their products is always satisfactory. I think because of their status in the industry, the companies will always try to make excellent products. References: A brief history of Nike. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://xroads.virginia.edu/~class/am483_97/projects/hincker/nikhist.html on May 10, 2011.
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
The Business Plan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 8250 words
The Business Plan - Essay Example Dark Horse Imports Inc. is dedicated to providing the Australian public with the best tasting, premium beer the world has to offer and also aims to control and distribute all SHAG related products for Australia. Dark Horse Inc. is a local management company in Australia which depends directly on The Spirit, Hop and Grape Company (Asia) Ltd. Dark Horse will import Shag lager from Malaysia and will take responsibilities of all the logistic process, from Malaysia to the final consumer, and also all the marketing and promotion activities. The management team for Shag is highly motivated and well qualified for the job. It will consist of Joseph P. Keenan II (CEO), Jacint Fit (CFO) and Benjamin Jeffery (Marketing and Sales). The first product that we will be launching will be SHAG, a premium lager "microbrew" type beer due to the lack of any real competition in this marketplace. The second product will be Blue SHAG Vodka plus, a delightful Vodka drink based with taurine, guarana and caffeine. The third product is a "fab" drink. Following the trend of "fab" drinks, SHAG will launch its own exciting range of fruit-flavoured fermented alcohol drinks. SHAG Beer: Brewed traditionally in Holland, with long lagering and fermentation process, Shag Lager has an alcoholic content of 5% ABV. Using natural spring water, superior malt, hops and yeast from Holland respectively. The end result is a premium lager superior to other major brands. Shag is supplied in 24-pack cases consisting of 300ML bottles in cluster (six-pack) packaging. Major Benefits - Superior Lager - Superior taste compared to other major brands in the market Potentially Strong Market Presence - for the growing and large Australian Beer Market Unique and Attractive Packaging Use of Superior Products from Holland Supplied in Convenient Packaging Blue SHAG Vodka plus: Vodka-based drink with taurine, guarana and caffeine. Described as being a better tasting product than most other Blue drinks, Blue Shag has an alcoholic content of 5.5% ABV. Its unique, 250ml bottle and their marketing plan through merchandising will ensure people keep coming back for more. Major Benefits- Unique Taste Aim for Customers 'wanting more' of Shag - 250 ml bottle Unique Marketing Plan Saleable as the Best Blue Drink in the market Appropriate Alcohol Content SHAG "fab": Following the trend if "fab" also called flavored alcoholic beverages, SHAG will launch its own exciting range of fruit-flavored, fermented alcohol drinks. Fab's has been widely credited with a maintained sales in an wider alcoholic drinks markets as the more traditional spirits markets decline . The combination of naturally fermented alcohol and delicious fruit juices will
Casual Analysis of a Superhero Movie Trend Essay
Casual Analysis of a Superhero Movie Trend - Essay Example All the movie makers want a piece of the share of the market, thus resulting in a large number of feature films about a superhero of all forms. As the mass development of superhero films progresses, this raises the query of how many superheroes are required in the lives of human beings. It is also intriguing that the identical movie characters have existed throughout the days, with no decrease in the movie market supply or demand (King 67). This paper will analyze the origin, causes and probable consequences of superhero movies. The classic superhero model stemmed from comic books, but their eminence in widespread culture has enlarged to film and television. These superheroes were initially merely narrative means employed to mirror the present-day need for a guardian of public justice. Since that period, the superhero has developed into a versatile and timeless entertainment symbol. Just as the television industry, the movie sector has made a large number of remakes of superhero movi es. Spiderman is one of the utmost glaring films of all-time (King 46). In addition, the regard behind the superhero movies lies in their reliability and their predictability. For example, the superhero trope is without doubt identified with moviegoers. Moviegoers go to the movie theaters with a reasonably proper comprehension of the common story line; have an encounter with the superhero, observe their flamboyant powers; have an encounter with the baddies, dread their menacing strategies of evil. The plot frequently entails a rescue operation, which in due course finishes to the culmination of a heroic battle between virtuous versus wicked. There may be differences between the varying narratives, but the expectation of the viewers will always remain consistent (King 33). People are aware of what they are receiving from the superhero films. Nonetheless, the model is also varied enough to give numerous varying explanations in its characterization. Superhero characters are adaptable a nd may be categorized under different areas of ethical scale from a morally confusing antihero, for example, Catwoman to a straight-laced protector of justice, for example, Captain America. Consequently, the storytelling capacity could have infinite probabilities. While the plots may be the same, the dissimilarities in the directorial techniques, the cinematography, and in the characters differentiate one film from the other. Prior to Spiderman, superhero movies tended to lie in between different categories with regard to urban staging. They characteristically also failed or did not try to extensively deconstruct the goal of the comic-book superhero, and it still may be argued that, to a large degree, both of these concerns are still prevalent to the genre. But the puzzle trailer for Spiderman suggested both a new form of superhero city and also a prolonged unsettled take on urban slump that had been moderately absent from action cinema (DeScioli and Kurzban 248). Roland Emmerichâ⠬â¢s work had and still continues to teach viewers that the CGIââ¬â¢s epiphany is the absolute annihilation of the urban surrounding. With Spiderman, there was not only the World Trade Center, but also a sign of the urban literally intertwined with the superheroic. Even
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Strategy for Tablet Development Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words
Strategy for Tablet Development - Research Paper Example In order to bring a revolution in the existing business practices of the company, it is important that a new pricing strategy is devised that is based on the strategic objectives of each product individually. Furthermore, the decisions for the allocation of funds for the Research & Development (R&D) of each product should be taken individually and on annual basis to achieve the desired objectives of the product and the company. 1.1 Aim The aim of this report is to compare the previous two new pricing and R&D allocation strategies for the core products X5, X6 and X7 using CVP analysis and calculator and analyse their results. 1.2 Objectives To analyse the subsequent performance and life cycles of each product due to the difference in the decisions. To compare the new pricing decisions and R&D budget allocation strategy for each core product, namely: X5, X6 and X7 taken in 4 years (i.e. from 2012-2015). To provide rationale of the results proposed strategy with theoretical support. 2 A nalysis of Pricing and R&D Allocation Strategy Used in Phase 3 Due to the use of CVP calculator, in the year 2012, the price of the product X5 was $263 and experienced a growth of
Monday, July 22, 2019
Precipitation and Mother Nature Essay Example for Free
Precipitation and Mother Nature Essay There was a boy he lived high above the clouds in a glass house, the boy was about 6 feet tall, Black hair that is past his ears and covers one eye, his eyes are Grey and Black, under his lip there are 2 dots called snakebites and he had beautiful black angelic wings. This boys name was Rain, his name was Rain because whenever he was crying or sad it would rain in Washington State, Rain was sad a lot so it rained quite often. One day rain looked down on Washington and saw that it was snowing; this took rain by surprise because if he makes rain then someone makes snow and that person must live near him! Rain felt excited, in his head he made a plan to fly all around tomorrow and try to find this person. Night came and Rain went to bed so he can have energy for tomorrow. Morning came and Rain woke up feeling better than ever, He got up and went outside, Rain spread his wings and jumped. Rain felt wind rush through him and then his wings started to soar. Rain didnââ¬â¢t exactly know where he was going but he was either looking for a house or person. Rain thought he was out there for hours until he saw this house it looked like it was made out of crystal. Rain flew over there and landed on the crystal porch. He walked slowly to the door, He didnââ¬â¢t know what he was going to say until his thoughts got interrupted by the door opening, Rain shot his head up and there stood a girl, the girl took rains breath away. ââ¬Å"Hello can I help you? â⬠She said, Rain couldnââ¬â¢t even speak to her, her angelic voice kept ringing through his ears ââ¬Å"Hello? â⬠Rain snapped out of it. ââ¬Å"Sorry, but Iââ¬â¢m Rain I control rain obviouslyâ⬠¦ and I saw it was snowing down in Washington and if I make rain then someone makes snow so I was trying to find that person because Iââ¬â¢ve never really talked to someone. â⬠Rain said out of breath. Oh very well. Why donââ¬â¢t you come inside? Iââ¬â¢ve never actually had company either. â⬠She smiled Warmly, than Rain did something he never thought he would do he smiled. They walked inside and she asked him if he wanted a cup of tea he agreed and she turned around and Rain studied her figure, She had Pure white hair with bright blue eyes, she was kind of short compared to Rain, around 5â⬠2. She had Fur boots on with white jeans, a white top that formed down to crystals, a crystal necklace that glowed on her chest and white wings that seemed similar to Rains. ââ¬Å"I was wondering, What is your name? Rain hollered over to her. ââ¬Å"Oh How rude of me, Iââ¬â¢m Snow and I control snow. â⬠She chuckled and gave him his cup of tea ââ¬Å"Thank you. â⬠Rain mumbled and smiled. Rain was very confused on why he was smiling so much he has never really smiled. ââ¬Å"So Rain tell me about yourself? â⬠ââ¬Å"Well Iââ¬â¢m a mortal, Iââ¬â¢m 6,952 but I have the appearance of a 18 year old. My mother died when I was younger and thatââ¬â¢s how I toke over rain. â⬠Rain finished and looked up at Snow she had pity in her eyes. ââ¬Å"Oh Iââ¬â¢m very sorry but you must be going I have to make it snow tomorrow and need lots of rest. She smiled. Rain would usually smile when she smiled but he felt like crying. Without saying anything he walked out and spread his wings and flew off. ââ¬Å"RAIN, RAIN COME BACK MOTHER NATURE IS OUT, YOU CANââ¬â¢BE ROAMING. â⬠Rain ignored her and kept flying to his house. ââ¬Å"RAIN PLEASE!?!? â⬠He ignored her once again, if he looked at her he would probably start crying, He kept hearing the faint calling but didnââ¬â¢t pay attention to it. Rain looked up and saw Mother Nature, Rain froze and fear dropped all through his body. Rain turned around and bolted to Snow, He turned around to see of she was gonna turn around and she was just about to when one of her peasants paged for her and she turned around relief went through his body and hurried over to Snow. Rain got to snow and they bolted inside, right as they got in Rain bear hugged Snow, ââ¬Å"Im so sorry I shouldve listened. â⬠Snow let go and smiled up at Rain, ââ¬Å"Its alright, at least you OK. â⬠Rain spent the night instead of going home just to be safe. Morning came and Rain woke up before snow so he folded his blankets and cleaned around him and waited. Snow came out about 30 minutes later, ââ¬Å"Oh good youre up! She smiled and put on her Fur boots. ââ¬Å"Lets go! â⬠After long confusing hours Rain and Snow made it to Rains Glass house. ââ¬Å"Oh wow, its just so clear. â⬠she looked at the house amazed, ââ¬Å"I guess so. â⬠Rain chuckled. ââ¬Å"Snow can I ask you something? â⬠Rain asked nervously. ââ¬Å"Yes, anything. â⬠she walked over to him. ââ¬Å"Well you see I was wondering if you could be my um Girlfriend? â⬠Rain didnââ¬â¢t know if thatââ¬â¢s what there called but- ââ¬Å"Yes! â⬠Snow said smiling. ââ¬Å"Really?! â⬠Rain asked not believing she said yes, Snow laughed ââ¬Å"Yes. â⬠Rain smiled so big he thought his cheeks were going to fall off. ââ¬Å"Ill never be sad again. â⬠Rain thought. Two years have past and it hasnt rained sense in Washington. One day Rain and Snow were talking and laughing at stupid when there was a knock on the door, ââ¬Å"Mother Nature open up! â⬠Snow looked at Rain shocked and scared, ââ¬Å"Go hide NOW. â⬠Rain hid in a closet next to the door so he could see, Snow opened the door, ââ¬Å"Hello Mother Nature what brings you here? â⬠snow asked trying to sound polite. ââ¬Å"Well Im looking for a boy named Rain have you seen him? â⬠Mother Nature asked looking around the house. ââ¬Å"Oh I have never met someone named Rain sorry. â⬠Snow put on a Fake smile and Mother Nature looked at her closely to see if she was lying. Well I guess I will check somewhere else, Farewell darling. â⬠Snow smiled and said a quick Goodbye and shut the door. Rain came out, ââ¬Å"Snow I will just go to my house until Mother Nature stops searching for me. â⬠Rain said trying not to show how sad he was. ââ¬Å"Oh, I guess Goodbye Rain. â⬠She gave him a long embrace and smiled up at him and he left. Rain was shutting the door when someone screams ââ¬Å"THERES RAIN! â⬠Mother Nature wiped around and looked furious. Mothers Natures little creatures things held Rains arms down so he wont get away. Mother Nature walked up to Rains door, ââ¬Å"Oh Snow come out dear. Snow came out looking at me terrified and nearly in tears, ââ¬Å"Yes? â⬠She said trying to act innocent. ââ¬Å"Snow you lied to me and everyone knows you donââ¬â¢t lie to Mother Nature you know why? â⬠She didnââ¬â¢t even give Snow to answer, ââ¬Å"Because you will get punished, bad. â⬠Right before Mother Nature could raise her hand and zap snow and kill her, Rain broke free and pushed her off the porch. Snow ran up to Rain and hugged him, ââ¬Å"Im so sorry. â⬠Rain could only think of how he killed the one and only Mother Nature so the only thing he thought was appropriate was to cry, and down in Washington lied Mother Natures dead body.
Sunday, July 21, 2019
Development of Insulin using Recombinant DNA Technologies
Development of Insulin using Recombinant DNA Technologies Alistair Jones The use of biotechnology within medicine; diabetes and development of insulin using recombinant DNA technologies Abstract Proteins act as a catalyst for metabolic reactions and responsible for inter and intracellular reactions and signalling events essential for life(Ferrer-Miralles, et al., 2009) Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disorder with numerous aetiologies; it can be defined by chronic hyperglycaemia which will cause an effect on the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats and proteins. This detrimental effect is from the lack of insulin action, insulin secretion or a combination of them both. Diabetes causes long term damage, dysfunction and failure of a range of major organs. (Consulation, 1999) Through the use of clinical administration missing proteins can be sourced from external sources to reach normal concentrations within the tissular or systemic level. As a number of important studies have all confirmed the importance of the use of strengthened insulin treatment for the reduction and minimisation of long term diabetic complications; it is of great importance and pharmaceutical value that huma n proteins can be sourced (Lindholm, 2002) Through the use of biochemical and genetic knowledge the production of insulin has become available and this industrial scale of therapeutic protein production is the first true application of recombinant DNA technology. (Swartz, 2001, Walsh, 2003) E.coli can be considered as the first microorganism for the production of proteins and is primarily used for genetic modification, cloning and small-scale production for research purposes. Many historical developments within molecular genetics and microbial physiology have been based within this species which has results in a collection of both information and molecular tools. (Ferrer-Miralles, et al., 2009) Discussion Proteins act as a catalyst for metabolic reactions and responsible for inter and intracellular reactions and signalling events essential for life; consequently , a deficiency in the production of polypeptides or production of non-functional of relevant proteins will derive in pathologies which can range from mild to severe (Ferrer-Miralles, et al., 2009). Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disorder with numerous aetiologies; it can be defined by chronic hyperglycaemia which will cause an effect on the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats and proteins. This detrimental effect is from the lack of insulin action, insulin secretion or a combination of them both. Diabetes causes long term damage, dysfunction and failure of a range of major organs. The characteristics presented with diabetes are weight loss, polyuria, blurring of vision and thirst; the more severe cases will cause ketoacidosis or a non-ketotic hypersmolar state which will lead onto comas, stupor and left untreated death. As the symptoms are often not severe and go undetected for long periods of time, hyperglycaemia can cause pathological and functional changes before a diagnosis can be made. Diabetes causes a multitude of long term affects which include, but not limited to; the failure of the renal system, a two to four times increased risk of cardiovascular disease and potentia l blindness. There are a number of pathogenetic processes which can be involved in the development of diabetes; these will include the processes which destroy the insulin creating beta cells within the pancreas and the creation of a resistance to insulin action ( Alberti, et al., 2006, Consulation, 1999) A combination of metabolic disorders known as metabolic syndrome (MetS) is the combination of hyperglycaemia, hypertension and gout and other cardiovascular risk factors which predict a high risk of developing diabetes. People who have MetS are of the highest risk of the development of type 2 diabetes as it is present up to five times higher within people with this syndrome; this is due to the fact that glucose dysregulation is already present (Alberti, et al., 2006). Type 2 diabetes and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease can be seen to be of similar ascendants. Inflammation markers have been associated with the development of type 2 diabetes in adults; although this may be part of the autoimmune response they will also reflect the pathogenesis (Schmidt, et al., 1999) Abnormal metabolism of proteins, fats and carbohydrates is caused by the deficient insulin action on target tissues due to the insensitivity or lack of insulin. (Consulation, 1999) Through the use of clinical administration missing proteins can be sourced from external sources to reach normal concentrations within the tissular or systemic level. As a number of important studies have all confirmed the importance of the use of strengthened insulin treatment for the reduction and minimisation of long term diabetic complications; with human insulin being the first line of treatment; it is of great importance and pharmaceutical value that human proteins can be sourced, as this is difficult to do from natural sources (Lindholm, 2002) . We are far past the times of animal sourced insulinââ¬â¢s and we are reaching the turning point in the use of recombinant DNA technologies; which were developed during the late 70ââ¬â¢s and uses E.coli as a biological framework for the production of pr oteins of interest through relatively inexpensive procedures. Recombinant DNA technology not only offers the ability to create straightforward proteins but also provides the tools to produce protein molecules with alternative and modified features. (Mariusz, 2011) There are several obstacles in the production of proteins through the use of E.coli however, as it lacks the ability to make post-translational modifications (PTMs) present within the majority of eukaryotic proteins (Ferrer-Miralles, et al., 2009). Recombinant DNA insulinââ¬â¢s are, therefore, gradually being replaced by the more highly efficient insulin analogues (Bell, 2007, Ferrer-Miralles, et al., 2009). Clinically, insulin analogues have been used since the late 1990s, the reason behind insulin modification for subcutaneous injection is to produce absorption properties that better suit the rate of supply from the injection to the physiological need. (Jonassen, et al., 2012) Insulin analogues have the properties of being able to be either rapid acting such as glusine, aspart or lispro or be a long lasting molecule such as glargine and detemir, these can also be used in combination with protamine, these premixed insulinââ¬â¢s provide a more sustained action (Bell, 2007). The combination of biotechnology and the pharmaceutical industry is a product of an evolution within technology and product innovation; which has become a result in advances within science and business practices. The biotechnology based products are thought of as intelligent pharmaceuticals as they often provide new modes and mechanisms in the action and approach to disease control with improved success rate and better patient care. (Evens Kaitin, 2014) Through the use of biochemical and genetic knowledge the production of insulin has become available and this industrial scale of therapeutic protein production is the first true application of recombinant DNA technology. (Swartz, 2001, Walsh, 2003) Although, as insulin is required in such high volumes the product yields of the vast amount of the currently available secretory systems are not currently sufficient enough to make it fully competitive. The current ideas and strategies being used to help improve the efficiency and producti vity of secretion are numerous. (Schmidt, 2004) Cultivation of insulin can be done conveniently within microbial cells such as bacteria and yeast. During the 80ââ¬â¢s the FDA approved the use of human insulin produced from recombinant E.coli for the treatment of diabetes, this was the first recombinant protein pharmaceutical to enter the market. Thanks to the versatility and possibilities created through the use of recombinant protein production a large sector of opportunities for pharmaceutical companies opened up. (Ferrer-Miralles, et al., 2009) Since the approval of insulin in 1982 there are now currently more than 200 biotech products available commercially and research has expanded this to over 900 products being tested within clinical trials. Pharmaceuticals are engaged within the development of these products substantially as well as their commercialisation (Evens Kaitin, 2014). This acknowledges the fact that although the microbial systems lack the post translational modifications they are able to efficiently and conve niently produce functional mammalian recombinant proteins. Specific strains of many microbial species have now been created and adapted towards protein production; and the incorporation of yeasts and eukaryotic systems is now in place for protein production. (Ferrer-Miralles, et al., 2009). The use of E.coli expression system is the preferable choice for production of therapeutic proteins, amongst the 151 pharmaceuticals licensed in January 2009 30% where obtained in E.coli, this is due its ability to allow for efficient and economical production of proteins on both a lab scale and within industry (Mariusz, 2011, Swartz, 2001). During insulin production within E.coli the gene is fused with a synthetic fragment encoding for two IgG binding domains which have been derived from staphylococcal protein A. This product is then secreted into the growth medium of E.coli and purified using the IgG affinity. (Moks, et al., 1987) E.coli can be considered as the first microorganism for the production of proteins and is primarily used for genetic modification, cloning and small-scale production for research purposes. Many historical developments within molecular genetics and microbial physiology have been based within this species which has results in a collection of both information and molecular tools. (Ferrer-Miralles, et al., 2009) E.coli flourishes at a temperature of 37à °C but the proteins are in insoluble form. Fusion protein technology has been able to increase the solubility of over expressed proteins, through the modification of selected amino acid residues allowing for the collection of soluble proteins (Zhang, et al., 1998). Due to the lack of the mechanisms to enable PTMs in bacterial cells protein maturation and disulfide bridges can be, to an extent overcome through the use of protein engineering (Mariusz, 2011). PTMs are crucial in protein folding, stability, processing and activity; therefore, proteins lacking the PMTs may be unstable, insoluble or inactive. However it is possible to synthetically bind PTMs to products, and through genetic engineering of DNA, the amino acid sequence of the polysaccharide can be changed to alter its properties this has been observed within insulin. (Ferrer-Miralles, et al., 2009) For more sophisticated modifications the genetic fusion of two proteins is required (Mariusz, 2011) An increase number of proteins being produced are engineered and tailored to display altered pharmacokinetic profiles and reduce immunogenicity. (Walsh, 2003) Even with the pharmaceutical market progressively producing more protein drugs from non-microbial systems; cell-free protein synthesis and oxidative cytoplasmic folding offers alternatives to the standard recombinant production techniques, it has not effect or impaired the development and progression of products developed within microbial systems proving the robustness of the microbial systems. (Ferrer-Miralles, et al., 2009, Swartz, 2001) In the future Radio Frequency Identification technology will play an important role; however there are some barriers in place for the pharmaceutical supply chain, as there have been concerns raised concerning the potential detrimental effect on the proteins due to the electromagnetic exposure. Alterations have been detected after the RFID however the effect and damages to the protein remain unknown (Acierno, et al., 2010) Works Cited Acierno, R. et al., 2010. Potential effects of RFID systems on biotechnology insulin preparation: A study using HPLC and NMR spectroscopy. Complex Medical Engineering (CME), pp. 198 203. Alberti, K. G. M. M., Zimmet, P. Shaw, J., 2006. Metabolic syndromeââ¬âa new world-wide definition. A Consensus Statement from the International Diabetes Federation. Diabetic Medicine, 23(5), pp. 469-480. Bell, D., 2007. Insulin therapy in diabetes mellitus: how can the currently available injectable insulins be most prudently and efficaciously utilised?. Drugs, 67(13), pp. 1813-1827. Consulation, 1999. Definition, diagnosis and classification of diabetes mellitus and its complications. W. H. O., Volume 1. Evens, R. Kaitin, K., 2014. The Biotechnology Innovation Machineââ¬âA Source of Intelligent Biopharmaceuticals for the Pharma Industry: Mapping Biotechnologyââ¬â¢s Success. [Pre press] submitted to: Clinical Pharmacology Therapeutics, Volume Last excessed, 27/03/2014, p. Avalible from: http://www.nature.com/clpt/journal/vaop/naam/abs/clpt201414a.html. Ferrer-Miralles, N. et al., 2009. Microbial factories for recombinant pharmaceuticals. Microbial Cell Factories , 8(7). Jonassen, I. et al., 2012. Design of the Novel Protraction Mechanism of Insulin Degludec, an Ultra-long-Acting Basal Insulin. [Online] Available at: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11095-012-0739-z/fulltext.html [Accessed 2014 March 27]. Lindholm, A., 2002. New insulins in the treatment of diabetes mellitus.. Best Pract Res Clin Gastroenterol, 16(3), pp. 475-92. Mariusz, K., 2011. Engineering of Therapeutic Proteins Production in Escherichia coli. Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, 12(2), pp. 268-274. Moks, T. et al., 1987. Largeââ¬âScale Affinity Purification of Human Insulinââ¬âLike Growth Factor I from Culture Medium of Escherichia Coli. Nature Biotechnology, Volume 5, pp. 379-382. Schmidt, F., 2004. Recombinant expression systems in the pharmaceutical industry. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, 65(4), pp. 363-372. Schmidt, M. et al., 1999. Markers of inflammation and prediction of diabetes mellitus in adults (Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study): a cohort study. The Lancet, 353(9165), p. 1649ââ¬â1652. Swartz, J., 2001. Advances in Escherichia coli production of therapeutic proteins. Current Opinion in Biotechnology, 12(2), pp. 195-201. Walsh, G., 2003. Pharmaceutical biotechnology products approved within the European Union. European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics, 55(1), pp. 3-10. Zhang, Y. et al., 1998. Expression of Eukaryotic Proteins in Soluble Form in Escherichia coli. Protein Expression and Purification, 12(2), pp. 159-165.
Saturday, July 20, 2019
Mosquito Species Detection using Smart Phone
Mosquito Species Detection using Smart Phone Abstract-According to WHO(World Health Organization) re-ports, among all disease transmitting insects mosquito is the most hazardous insect. In 2015 alone, 214 million cases of malaria were registered worldwide. Zika virus is another deadly disease transmitted from mosquitoes. According to CDC report, in 2016 62,500 suspected case of Zika were reported to the Puerto Rico Department of Health (PRDH) out of which 29,345 cases were found positive. There are 3500 different species of mosquitoes present in the world out of which 175 types is found in United States. But only few of them are responsible for these above mentioned fatal disease. Therefore classification between hazardous and regular mosquitoes are very important. For regular person with no expertise in this field would be almost impossible to identify the difference. Even for the mosquito-expert, identifying different species is a very tedious and time consuming job. Hence in this paper, we have tried to classify 7 different species of dead mosquitoes with total 60 samples collected from Hillsborough County Mosquito and Aquatic Weed Control Unit,Tampa Florida by capturing image from smart phone cameras. With our approach we want to enable non-expert population to early identify the risk and act pro-actively. We pre-processed the image for removing noise and applied random forest classification algorithm to distinguish different species. Achieved good precision,recall,F1 measure and aggregate 83:3% accuracy. We are also planning to develop a smart-phone application which will leverage this learning model and help in empowering population to identify mosquito species without any knowledge in this field. INTRODUCTION Of all animals, mosquitoes are amongst the most deadly in spreading diseases. Mosquito borne diseases like Malaria, Dengue, West Nile Fever, and most recently Zika Fever have extracted devastatic tolls on humanity [1]. Combating the spread of mosquitoes is an important health-care agenda across the globe, and several organizations across the globe serve this purpose. For instance, one such organization is the American Mosquito Control Association (AMCA) is spread over 50 countries and conducts numerous programs to educate citizens of the dangers posed by mosquitoes and how to control them. According to CDC report, there are about 3500 different species of mosquitoes in the world, out of which about 175 different species are found in the USA. Among programs designed to combat mosquitoes spread, identification of the type and number of species in any par-ticular area is very important. Across the world, numerous mosquito control organizations have dedicated personnel that lay traps to catch mosquitoes in specific areas, and dedicated personnel visually look at each captured sample (via a mag-nifying glass) to identify the type of mosquito. It takes upto a minute to identify each sample, and with more samples, the time taken to identify each sample can take hours, and naturally significant manual effort. Contributions of this Paper: In this paper, we aim to de-sign a system that combines images from smart-phone cameras with machine learning algorithms for automatic detection of the type of mosquito species from their images. Towards this extent, our specific contributions are: a). Building a database of mosquito images: We visited the Hillsborough County Mosquito and Aquatic Weed Control in Tampa in Fall 2016 to collect numerous samples of mosquitoes that were captured in traps set up the county personnel. Subsequently, the personnel helped us visually identify the type of each sample. As a result, we collected 60 samples, that belonged to seven different species.Table I presents our database. Subsequently, each sample was imaged via a Sam-sung Galaxy S5 phone via multiple angles (at the same indoor light conditions) for a total of 200 images. This served as our database for subsequent classification. b). Designing Pre-processing Techniques: Generally, images are vulnerable to the different type of noises due to different environment condition and user expertise. Therefore, images need to be pre-processed for any noise removal and also for smoothening. In the process of noise removal, we need to make sure that edges and boundary of images are preserved otherwise images will lose the key information. We used median filter as it works very effectively when edges need to be preserved. This filter is widely used in image processing technique [2]. c). Designing Random Forest Based Classifiers: Random Forest is an ensembled supervised machine learning algorithm. It is a collection of decision trees, where each trees has been grown using subset of training dataset selected randomly. In most of the cases, it has shown significant improvement in accuracy as compare to other classification algorithm. Apart from that, it works very well on outliers and noise. It handles larger dataset efficiently and quickly without over-fitting the model as only a subset of training set is selected for each split.[3] [4] We conducted an extensive performance evaluation for our proposed techniques.We evaluated our experiment on 60 image samples of seven different species. 10-fold cross validation technique has been used and achieved 83:3% accuracy using RGB features. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In section II, related works are discussed. Followed by section III where experimental set up and data collection process are described. Section IV contains the detail about preprocessing of image data, extracting and selecting features, building the learning model using classification method and different metrics lever-aged for showing the results. We talked about experimental evaluation and validation in detail in section V. Finally, dis-cussion and conclusion sections are VI and VII respectively. RELATED WORK There are many studies which are dedicated to leverage the use of smart phone camera for image recognition. In this section we have emphasized few of the related and important works done. A. Related Work on Image Recognition In [5] system was developed for determining the effec-tiveness of soil treatment on plant stress using smart-phone cameras.In this paper, 34 images of plant leaves are captured using smart phone in two soils that is biosolids and unamended tailings. Then each images was preprocessed using mean, me-dian filter followed by segmentation into pixels.They extracted RGB,R,G,B,HSV and YCbCr features from the segmented pixels. Random Forest which is a supervised classification algorithm was designed to detect the stress of leaves and achieved 91.24% accuracy. A [6] survey has been done on Pixel-Based skin color detection techniques. They have applied various color spaces like RGB, Normalized RGB, HSV and YCrCb for recognizing skin. RGB is the most widely used color spaces for processing and storing digital images. Wen et.al [7] has proposed image-based automated insect iden-tification and classification method. In this paper eight insect species have been selected for experiment. These insects were frozen to retreive a non damaging kill of the insect and then they were placed on a white balance panel under the reflectance light base of a Nikon stereoscopic zoom microscope SMZ1000 (Nikon, Tokyo) with Plan Apochromat 0.5 objective. Images of these were taken by a DS-Fi1 color digital camera which was placed on the microscope. Features which had been taken in these are color, texture, invariants, contour and geometric. In color features, HSV color space features were considered. T Many classification algorithm i.e. minimum least square linear classifier (MLSLC), normal densities based linear classifier (NDLC), K nearest neighbor classifier (KNNC), nearest mean classifier (NMC), and decision tree (DT) were used for testing and training the model. Among these NDLC classification algorithm outperfor ms other classifier. 1) Comparing our Work w.r.t. Related Work: Our work is focused on capturing mosquitoes images from smart phone camera and using the captured image for training and testing the learning model. In [7], authors have identified insect species but it needs lab set up with microscope and high resolution digital camera which is not available in house generally. We have extracted RGB features for classification which is most widely used color spaces [6]. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP AND DATA COLLECTION In this section, we have discussed data collection process our experiment. A. Data Collection We collected dead mosquito species samples from Hillsbor-ough County Mosquito and Aquatic Weed Control Unit,Tampa Table I: Mosquito Species and Number of Samples Specie Name Number of Samples Cx Nigrip 10 An Quadrim 6 Ma Titillans 7 Ps Columpi 10 An Crucians 10 Ps Ferox 7 Cq Perturbans 10 Table II: Camera Specification Camera Specification Value Sensor Resolution 16 MP Focus Adjustment automatic Special Effect HDR Camera Light Source Daylight Florida. We carefully identified seven species, mentioned in Table I for our study. Since, dead mosquito physical properties like color, del-icateness etc changes as time passes. So, images of dead mosquitoes were taken in a single day to make sure envi-ronmental conditional are same while taking these images. A Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone was used for capturing images in regular day light. Each sample image was taken based on the knowledge aware fusion described on the mosquito and aquatic control weed control unit web site. A total of 60 images were captured for our study, having following camera configuration, mentioned in Table II. OUR APPROACH We have implemented two steps in our approach. First, pre processing of image has been done for noise removal and feature selection using filter like median,mean. Second, building a learning model using a classification algorithm based on random forest. Here our main aim is to build a learning model for identi-fying each mosquitoes species. The challenge here we faced is the image size. Images which were captured from smart phone is of 2988 X 5322 pixels. We reduced their size to 256 X 256 pixels to decrease its data dimensionality. To remove the noise from each sample we applied median filter technique.This has been elaborated in the next subsection. Since, our images were already in dark color.It is mandatory to keep background and foreground in contrast for building the model reasonably well. So, we did not use any segmentation technique as it converts the background into black. Here,we are using Random Forest, a supervised learning algorithm and used 10-fold cross validation technique for learning and testing. The process flow of our algorithm is described in Figure 2. For proceeding further, we need labeled image data for training the model. All images were tagged manually under the guidance of mosquito experts. Noise Removal Generally, digital images are susceptible to different type of noise. It can occur by several ways like capture, transmission etc. Accuracy of the result are affected badly by the same. There are many filters used to remove and reduce noise from image. Sharpening Filter: It refers as a enhancing technique which highlights edges and line details in the image. In this procedure, original image is passed through high pass filter which extracts its high frequency components and then the scaled output of high pass filter is added to original image which results in sharpened image. [8] Mean Filter: This filtering technique refers to replacing each pixel value in an image with the mean of pixel values of its neighbors which falls in the sliding window of n*n size. This technique removes noise more effectively if large window size is considered.This is also called average filter. [8] Median Filter: It is a nonlinear filtering technique. The approach behind this filtering technique is to replace each pixel value in the window of n * n size pixel by the median of all pixel values in that particular window.It is very used in digital image processing and it preserves edges while removing noise. We have used this filtering technique with 3*3 pixels window size for removing the noise from our digital images. The output with median filter and without this is shown in Figure 1. [2] Feature Selection Feature extraction and selection is very critical part of any supervised learning algorithm. Extraction is about reducing the data dimensionality as the size of data grows and its dimension increases and becomes very difficult to handle it manually . And then the need of automation comes into the picture. Feature Selection is a process of selecting those features which are most relevant for our problem and eliminating unnecessary, irrelevant and redundant features of data that do not contribute to the accuracy of learning model. In our proposed model, we are identifying different species of mosquitoes. Each species have contrastive color. As we can see in Figure 3, each mosquitoes have similar shapes but differ-ent body and wings color.So,the correct color channels or the combination of channel is important to take into consideration for the features. Few of the color channels are RGB, HSV etc. RGB has Red, Green and Blue channels. In RGB, each component supports a range of intensity levels from 0 to 255 (integer valued)[9] . Here, we extracted RGB feature from the mosquito image data. Then for feature selection, we applied Information-Gain attribute selection algorithm which is a good measure for deciding the relevance of an attribute. This feature selection technique generally helps in achieving high accuracy and using this we got 1000 features which serve as an input vector x into Random Forest Classification Algorithm for species detection. We calculated its precision, recall and F1-measure which is mentioned in Table III Table III: Combination of color channels accuracy comparison Combination Precision Recall F1-measure RGB 0.845 0.833 0.834 C. Classification Method Random Forest Algorithm: Random Forests(RF) is an ensemble supervised machine learning algorithm. It consists of a set of decision trees; h(x,i) i = 1, 2,, where x is a feature vector extracted from the smartphone image data and i consists of K integers which are independent identically distributed random vectors. Each decision tree predicts a class independently. A voting is performed on the results from each decision tree and finally the class which gets majority vote will be the final predicted class. The same has been explained in Figure 4 . Given a dataset set that contains N feature vectors, each consisting of M features, the RF algorithm builds the trained model using following steps: N samples are selected at random with replacement from the data set, for training the model of a particular tree. K features are randomly selected from the set of available features, where K M. Among the values for each of the K features drawn, choose the best split according to the Information gain IG(T; a) of the attribute. Information gain is measure of decrease in entropy which is caused by splitting the samples on an attribute. T denote a set of training sample for a single tree. ((x),y) = (x1, x2,.., xk,y) where (x) consist is a single sample and y is its class label. The information gain for an attribute a is as follow: The information gain for an attribute a is as follows: IG (T; a) = H (T ) v val(a) j(x T jTa = v) j :H (x T jxa = v) X x j j (1) [10] Here, xa vals(a) is the value of the ath attribute of example x. The randomization is present in two ways: Random selection of data for bootstrap samples as it is done in bagging Random selection of input features for creating individual base decision trees. Each tree will grow to its maximum size until the stopping criterion has not been fulfilled and there will be no tree pruning. Once the forest has been ensembled, testing data sample will be labeled mosquito species class based on a majority vote among all classes from all decision trees in the forest. Once the forest has been ensembled, testing data sample is labeled with one of the classes (species1; species2::::species7) by taking the majority vote: i.e., it is labeled with the class which has been selected by maximum number of trees. In the RF approach, given a feature sample x to be classified, the conditional probabilities for each class are computed by taking the average of the conditional probabilities given by the trees constructing 4 Figure 1: a) Original Image b) Image after applying sharpening median filterFigure 2: Process description of our experiment a). Cruciansb). Columpic). Feroxd). Nigrip e). Peturbansf). Quadrimg). Titillans Figure 3: Mosquito Color Images the ensemble. These conditional probabilities are computed as follows. Given a decision tree T, and an input feature sample x to be classified, let us denote by v(x) the leaf node where x falls when it is classified by T. The probability P (mjx; T ) that the sample x belongs to the class m, where m 2 fspecies1; species2; :::; species7g (for 7 species of interest to this paper), is estimated by the following equation: P (mjx; T ) = nm (2) n where nm is the number of training samples falling into v(x) after learning and n is the total number of training samples assigned to v(x) by the training procedure. Given a forest consisting of L trees and an unknown feature sample x to be classified, the probability estimate P (mjx) that x belongs to the species m is computed as follows: 1 L (3) P (mjx) = P (mjx; Ti) L =1 Xi P (m x; T ) by where th j i is the conditional probability provided the i tree and is computed according to Eq.(1). As a consequence, for the sample x to be classified, the RF algorithm gives as output the vector: = fP (species1jx) ; P (species2jx) : : : : : : P (species7jx)g The class(species) with the highest probability in the set(4)is chosen as classified class for the ith tree. The final class of our RF algorithm is the one which gets the majority vote among all activities from all decision trees in the forest [11]. The work flow of the RF algorithm with pre-processing, training and testing phase is formally shown in Algorithm 1.[3] [12] D. Metrics The results of Mosquito-Species detection are shown in terms of precision, recall, F1-measure and Confusion Matrix. Each metric is a function of the of the true positives (T P ), false positives (F P ) and false negatives (F N). The precision is the ratio of correctly classified classes to the total number of classes predicted as positive: P recision = T P (5) T P + F P Recall is the ratio of total number of classes predicted as positive to the total number of positive classes: Recall = T P (6) T P + F N 5 Figure 4: Work flow of the Random Forest Algorithm The F1-measure is the weighted average of precision and recall: P recisionRecall F1 = 2 P recision + Recall (7) The Confusion Matrix (CM) is a table that allows the visu-alization used to describe the performance of a classification model. Each column of the matrix represents the instances in a predicted class while each row represents the instance in an actual class (or vice-versa) [13]. Precision indicates the number of samples classified as a particular species actually belonged to that species. Recall gives us the number of species which are correctly classified. The F1-measure denotes the classification models accuracy.It is calculated as the harmonic mean of precision and recall. Confusion matrix makes the system easy to see how much predicted model is getting confused between different species. For example if a species is predicted correctly only 80% of the time, then this matrix will show how the algorithm confused its prediction with the other (wrongly classified) species the remaining 20% of the time. RESULTS Overview of Evaluation Methods: In this paper, we evaluated the performance of our system using 10-fold cross validation that are standard for our problem scope. Cross-validation is a model validation technique for assess-ing how the results of a classification model will generalize to an independent dataset 10-fold cross-validation divides the dataset into 10 subsets, and evaluates them 10 times. Each time, one of the 10 subsets is used as the test set and the other 9 subsets are put together to form a training set. Then, the average error across all 10 trials is computed for final result. It limits problems like over-fitting in the classification model. Results and Interpretations: We used RGB feature men-tioned earlier to train our classification model. To evaluate its accuracy we used 10-fold cross validation technique and calculated precision, recall and F1 measure of each species independently. The evaluation measures of RGB feature are shown in IV have also shown it graphically in Figure 5. Confusion Matrix of the same is shown in Figure 6. Algorithm 1: RF-based Algorithm for Mosquito-Species detection Training Image dataset = Id; Testing Image dataset= Ited; RGB Features extracted from Training Image dataset = F tRGB; RGB Features extracted from Testing Image dataset = F teRGB; Classified Species from Images= M S; Probability that feature F belongs to Species M S = P (M SjF ); No. of trees in Random Forest = 121; Step 1 Pre-Processing: Median filters are applied to remove accidental spikes from Id and Ited. Features F tRGB and F teRGB are extracted from processed data Id and Ited obtained from (1). Step 2 Training: Input: Training data set F tRGB Output: Random Forest model to classify different species of mosquitoes. Select a bootstrap sample of size N from the training data. Grow a decision tree T using following steps. Select K features at random from the set of M features. Choose the best feature/split-point among the K. Split the node into two daughter nodes. Grow the tree to its maximum size that is 6 and let the tree unpruned Step 3 Prediction: Input: Testing data set Ited Output: Final Mosquito Species prediction M Ss. Select the same attributes used for training the model from testing feature set F teRGB. Predict the species from the model using features selected in the above step. 6 Table IV: RGB Features accuracy of each species indepen-dently Species Precision Recall F1-measure An Crucians 0.889 0.8 0.842 An Quadrim 0.571 0.667 0.615 Cd Peturbans 0.727 0.8 0.762 Cx Nigrip 0.889 0.8 0.842 Ma Titillans
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