Advantages and Disadvantages of the HPV Vaccine in Adolescent Girls: An Ethical Essay

Human papillomaviruses (HPV) are a group of more than 40 types of viruses that infect the genital areas, throats (recurrent respiratory papillomatosis), and mouths of males and females and is the number one most common sexually transmitted disease (Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2009). It is spread by genital contact. It is most easily spread by vaginal and anal sex, but also through oral sex and even just genital-to-genital (skin-to-skin). In 90% of people that contract HPV, their own immune system clears it up within two years, most never even developing any symptoms from it (CDC, 2009). Out of the many types of HPV types, most end up causing warts on one of the above-mentioned areas, while a certain few are known to cause cervical cancer. Lockwood-Rayermann & McIntyre (2009) state that â€Å"[t]he most common oncogenic/high-risk virus types worldwide and in the United States are Types 16, 18, 31, 45, and 52; 11% of invasive cervical cancers in the United States are caused by Types 16 and 18 (55% by Type 16 and 22% by type 18). HPV Types 31, 45, and 52 comprise another 8% of all cases.† Cervical cancer is usually not detected until it is quite advanced, which is why women should get screened for cervical cancer regularly. There is also another precaution women can take. The Food and Drug Administration approved the very first vaccine to prevent cervical cancer by the types of HPV that cause it in June of 2006 (Thomas, 2008). This vaccine, being new, and therein little is known about its long term effects, has caused ethical debates about the use of it, particularly in adolescent girls. Thomas (2008) mentions that the CDC recommended, by a unanimous vote, that girls aged 11 to 12 years old receive this new HPV vaccine. This may seem  young, but in order for the vaccine to be effective, it must be administered before a person has been exposed to HPV, which happens during sexual encounters. Since few girls are sexually active at this age, most of whom haven’t gone through puberty yet, this is an ideal age to have them be vaccinated (Thomas, 2008). Thomas (2008) also goes on to say that this vaccine has been administered to 11,000 girls around the world with no serious side effects. Their ages ranged from 9 to 26 years old. This vaccine is given by a series of three shots over the course of six months and it’s important that they get all three to be effective, since little is known about the effectiveness of people who only receive one or two (2008). But is it ethical for a girl as young as nine years old to be receiving such an invasive procedure in order to avoid a sexually transmitted disease? After all, what nine year old is even thinking about sex and STDs? That is why this issue is one that is left for the parents to decide, and opinions are unsurprisingly mixed. One of the main arguments against vaccinating young girls with the HPV vaccine is cost. Thomas (2008) lists the total cost of this vaccine, for all three shots, as around three hundred dollars, relatively inexpensive considering the detrimental consequences of contracting one of the types that are known to cause cancer. There is another issue to take into consideration, though, when accounting for the price of this vaccination; the effects for protection are only estimated to be four or five years (2008). If a young girl were to be vaccinated at nine years old, and again at ages twelve, sixteen, and twenty, you are looking at close to one thousand dollars in total. How are parents with poor health insurance coverage or none at all supposed to protect their daughters for this virus that can cause cervical cancer? A parent can also anticipate losing a day’s pay to take their child to the doctor’s office or the clinic on three different occasions to receive all three shots. Because of the cost, and the limited duration of effectiveness, a lot of women decide not to get vaccinated and not to vaccinate their daughters, hoping that a better, longer lasting, and less expensive alternative will â€Å"arrive on the pharmaceutical market† at some point in the near future (2008). Another popular argument against HPV vaccination is that some parents view it as a green light for their daughters to behave promiscuously (Thomas, 2008). Much like condom distribution at high schools, there are those that view HPV vaccination as another way to promote, and cause a rise in irresponsible sexual behavior (2008). Thomas (2008) goes on to describe a conservative political group called the Traditional Values Coalition and how they have publicly denounced the HPV vaccine and claim that genital warts, cervical cancer, etc. are not a national health concern, and â€Å"that HPV can be prevented through abstinence and marital fidelity.† This group attributes â€Å"monetary gain† by pharmaceutical companies as a motive for the mandate for HPV vaccination. Like most every ethical or moral dilemma going on in this country, this issue rests in the parents’ religious and personal beliefs. Studies have shown that despite abstinence programs, teenagers still engage in sex, proving that something as insignificant as a vaccine is not going to encourage kids to have sex—they are having it anyway. Thomas (2008) cited a study that showed that 90% of teens are using condoms when they engage in sexual intercourse, but condoms alone cannot protect you from HPV, making the vaccine all that more important for young girls to receive. If a parents cannot set aside their religious and personal beliefs long enough to acknowledge that this vaccine has the potential to save their daughter’s life, then they may require a lot more than just education. Each year 6.2 million new cases of HPV come about and currently, 20 million people in this country are infected with HPV. The vaccine that is available has the potential to save 70% of the people it would otherwise infect from cervical cancer in young women (Thomas, 2008). â€Å"In 2008, an estimated 11,070 women in the United States will be diagnosed with cervical cancer, and 3, 870 women will die from the disease† (Lockwood-Raverrmann &McIntyre, 2009). Lockwood-Raverrmann & McIntyre (2009) go on to explain that the prevalence of HPV in peaks in women in their early twenties, and also go on to say that even younger women, i.e. teenagers, are more susceptible to the virus. They describe one possible explanation for this is because in younger women, it â€Å"could be the changing histology of the cervix following the commencement of puberty.† They go to say that â€Å"during this period of time, large populations of cells are undergoing maturation and are more  suscep tible to the development of an HPV infection† (2009). With all of this statistical data, it is confusing to think that some little girl’s parent’s are prepared to deprive her of a vaccine that could potentially save her life should the opportunity arise and she chooses to have sex. Again, said girl wouldn’t even have to have vaginal intercourse to contract Type 16 HPV, which would years later cause cervical cancer in which she could quite realistically die from. It is a frustrating and infuriating thought—that this girl could die because of her parent’s ignorance and/or their undyin

Justus Case

Just Us! Case Just Us! is a corporation that imports, roasts and sells primarily organic coffee from fair traded certified coffee producers. Their vision is: â€Å"to be a leading Fair Trade business that builds on quality, professionalism and innovation for the benefit of all our stake holders. Since its inception, Just Us! had experienced healthy growth in the maritime provinces of Canada, mainly supported by its corporate values: social and environmental responsibility, sustainability, ethical practices in all the areas of the business and in all stakeholders, and product differentiation.They even opened a fair trade museum to help educate the public on the social impact and benefits of fair trade. Once roasted and packed, the coffee and other products are shipped to retail outlets, supermarket chains, health food stores, coffee shops and churches. A substantial portion of Just Us! revenues came from wholesaling to large retail stores such as supermarket chains. Their coffee is a lso offered in the Just Us cafes, which were meant to be a place where customers could enjoy a cup of premium fair trade coffee and gather information about fair trade. The locations were not standardized as a typical chain.A major competitor in the retail organic fair trade coffee market is Kicking Horse which also offers products that are certified organic and fair traded. Its main channels are: coffee shops, gourmet food stores, grocery chains and restaurants. The growth of fair trade product sales had prompted several major food brands to offer fair trade products, such as: Kraft Foods, Procter & Gamble and Nestle. Also, in Canada, large super market chains such as Loblaws were offering also fair traded private labeled products which was concerning for Just Us, since supermarkets is one of its most important channels.In the coffee shop area, there was a lot of competition since some independent coffee shops and well-known chains (Ex. Starbucks) were trying to tap into the  "fair trade trend†. Due to the original management team lack of marketing experience a new Marketing Director was hired and part of the initial issues she found was that Just Us! did not spend much on advertising. 2009 had been set at $20,000. There was a massive growth opportunity in the fair trade market in Canada but the economy was on recession, therefore, the expansion needed to be planned carefully.The marketing director had several specific questions to answer to help develop a marketing plan to bolster the growth of Just Us! First off, how was Just Us! going to target new buyers given the current competition and what segment would those buyers belong to? College students were clearly a growing customer base and Just Us! already had a strong presence in three college universities. Therefore, marketing should be directed at the young, educated demographic that are willing to pay a premium for products.Furthermore, the majority of their sales are business to business and their marketing needs to emphasize the benefits of fair trade to the end user. The case stated that the internet was a great tool for increasing awareness of fair trade products, along with initiatives that enhance word of mouth (p. 3). In order to reach new customers they should consider expanding their internet marketing, such as using search engine optimization/ search engine marketing. They can also utilize co-op advertising with other organizations that emphasize fair trade, organic, and environmentally friendly practices.The fair trade museum should also be utilized to educate potential customers and will be discussed in more detail below. All Just Us! advertising needs to emphasize the story behind the products in order to educate new customers. Educating customers on the benefits of fair trade is the key to growth and will set Just Us! apart from competitors with brand recognition. In order for Just Us! to enhance the cafe’s performance they need to improve the custom er experience and become customers’ first choice of â€Å"place outside the home to enjoy coffee. Surveys and focus groups should be used to find out what customers like to do in their cafes as well as what customers like about the competitors cafes (Starbucks and Trident) and incorporate those into Just Us! ’ cafes. Additionally, the current Just Us! cafes are stand-alone destination shops. Just Us! should open up new stores in large commercial shopping centers in densely populated cities with multiple Universities. This would allow Just Us to still market to the young educated demographic that have long customer lifetime values that they have had success with and reach new customers via foot traffic in the shopping center.By keeping the overall educational theme about fair trade and brand awareness the same across all of the cafes should be able to convert new customers into loyal customers. Another questions the Marketing Director had to consider was how Just Us! c an expand their loyal customer base? This could be achieved through improving the customer experience mentioned above. However, offering opportunities for the customers to get involved would create a concept of community among their customers and which could develop into a core competency and set them apart from their competitors. Just Us! ould achieve this by having guest speakers or workshops on fair trade in the stores or even get involved with community organizations to help educate people about fair trade. Customers could sign up to receive emails for upcoming events, new products, new services, and new social initiatives. These actions would all help expand their loyal customer base. The Marketing Director also needed to make several changes to the marketing program in order to benefit the cafes. The marketing budget should be increased to reflect the company sales and growth potentials. A larger budget will allow Just Us! o compete with similar fair trade coffee companies suc h as Java Factory and threatening new mainstream entrants such as Starbucks who can capture the market share quickly. The existing market media plan (Case exhibit 8) should be updated to focus on product differentiation and increase channel diversity. Just Us! should advertise in multiple newspapers, magazines, and outdoor locations to increase customer reach. Furthermore, Just Us! should promote more direct communication to events around colleges and young professionals emphasizing their fair trade and environment responsibility concept in order to foster community involvement.A major customer segment for Just Us is students and young professionals who are mostly tech-savvy. Therefore, internet should be a main advertising vehicle to reach mass marketing. Just Us should use internet marketing tools including emerging social media (e. g. Facebook, Tweeter, blogs), mobile advertisement (e. g. Groupon), search engine marketing, and co-op advertising on sites offering similar fair trad e concepts. Finally, the Marketing Director needs to utilize the fair trade Museum as a way to spread awareness as well as promote brand awareness just like they should in the new locations but take it one step further.Just Us! could hold free concerts or guest speakers at the museum to attract potential new customers. They could also charge for the concert and allow free admission if you bring a reciept from a recent purchase at the Grand Pre store. Just Us! could sponsor a local race or work with local University fundraisers in the community. Once again, Just Us! needs to be involved with the community to educate people about fair trade and get their customers involved to create a sense of community that can lead to new customers and extend the lifetime customer value of existing customers.

Inequalities in Health

Inequalities in health have many factors but these can be argued against as to whether they are the actual cause. Social class is a factor, along with region, age, gender, ethnicity etc. Measuring the impact of social class is difficult because social classes have changed over the years, eg) working class living conditions have changed, and there is a delay in the onset of diseases, eg) Asbestos related illness. (NICE 2009) However the Black Reports (1980) finding was that the death rate for men in the lower social classes was twice that for men in the higher social classes, and the gap between the two was increasing not reducing.It also showed that some people in the lower classes were experiencing worse health than in the 1950s, maybe giving evidence that the change in working class living conditions wasn’t such a contributory factor. The report showed that British rates of infant mortality were in some cases higher than those in many developing countries, which doesnâ€℠¢t point towards a class inequality. The Black Report identified four explanations of health inequalities, the artefact explanation, natural or social selection, the cultural/behavioural explanation and materialist or structural explanation.The artefact explanation stated that the relationship between class and health is artificial rather than real, arising either through the inadequate measurement of social class and health, or in the measurement of the relationship between the two. (UCEL 2003) The natural and social explanation involved the idea that health was a cause of social class position rather than a consequence, and that individuals are selected into higher classes, while the weakest go down the social scale to occupy the lowest position.The cultural/behavioural explanation defined culture as a set of specific behaviours (smoking, excessive drinking, unhealthy diet and physical inactivity) which have consequences for health. These behaviours were regarded as cultural becau se of the understanding that they are within the control of individuals. The materialist or structuralist explanation explained the role of economic and structural factors in the distribution of health and well being. Research was conducted to provide evidence for the materialist/structuralist explanation.It found a link between low birth  weight and high blood pressure in adulthood which leads to increased coronary heart disease. (UCEL 2003) The Inverse care law stated that working class people receive poorer treatment from the health service. It stated that in poorer areas, qualified doctors are less likely to set up practices so people in lower classes are less like to receive efficient healthcare, when in fact they may be the ones that need it most due to bad living conditions & housing etc. The postcode lottery refers to this suggesting postcodes in richer areas tend to have more money to spend on health care than poorer areas.  (DH 2011)The Acheson Report (1998) showed man y similarities with the Black Report. It found that there are still inequalities in different class groups, with evidence it is still growing. The report put forward several solutions including policies to reduce stress at work, improved access to health services for all classes, improve nutrition in schools, improved benefits and access to benefits for the most needy families. (DH 2011) In summary the evidence shows there are social class based health inequalities, however there are problems in measuring class and health.The issue of social change, and delay in the onset of diseases should be taken into account when looking at this inequality. Evidence shows life expectancy is lower in poorer, less developed countries. The Acheson Report is in depth, but prefers to advise how funds should be allocated and not what should be done to solve the problems. Some evidence for social class health inequality is more conclusive than others, however social class can involve status, wealth, cu lture, background and employment. There is not a simple relationship between class and ill health. Everyone will experience a number of different influences on their health.

Response Phase 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Response Phase 2 - Essay Example am also pleased to see that you did not choose to have a one-size-fits-all contract in the transaction that you undertook but considered the best alternative in each case. This is a very insightful discussion, very well-researched and thought of. I learned a lot from it. Thanks. Your discussion has depth and substance by allowing me to absorb details on how to make the purchase a success. Your emphasis on the processes and factors which will ensure the smooth running and success of the scheduling tool is commendable. I like it that you made suggestions in some areas which will enable ADC to possible avoid mistakes and mitigate risk while operating the tool. However, let me suggest that you need to define your acronyms in order to be understood by the class. For example, instead of just saying FFP, you can elaborate by mentioning Firm Fixed Price. Also, you should add Guaranteed Maximum Shares Savings (GMSS) into your types of contracts. Having all of them for discussion will enable you to choose the best one.. ï Å  Your paper’s main strengths is its focus on two factors which allows ADC to make decisions according to the bases being risk minimization and time constraint. These factors are always present in real world situations and should really be taken into account when deciding about purchasing and installing tools for business operations. The process that you outlined in procuring the software is very logical. Yes, a company would have to search for vendors, products, and features available and a choice is made. The cost plus incentive contract that you choose is reasonable noting that the vendor and ADC shares the risk. However, I believe that you should also have outlined how it will work. Like how much costs should be shared and how much cost is fixed. With the company’s target of risk minimization, it should be prepared how to handle this situation. I suggest that instead of choosing a type of contract for the number of tasks, you could choose one

Chemistry assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Chemistry assignment - Essay Example Thus we must multiply 3 to get the integers 3 and 4, for Fe and O subscripts respectively. This is the simplest, or empirical, formula because the subscripts are the smallest integers that express ratios of atoms present in the compound. Certain elements appear to violate the rules in electron configuration. The electron configuration of chromium is rather than , as one might have expected. Similarly, the configuration of copper is instead of . This anomalous behavior is largely a consequence of the closeness of the 3d and 4s orbital energies. It frequently occurs when there are enough electrons to lead to precisely half-filled sets of degenerate orbitals (as in chromium) or to completely filled d subshell (as in copper). Increasing the distance from the nucleus decreases the attraction between the electrons and the nucleus. As this attraction decreases, it becomes easier to remove the electron and, thus, lower ionization energy. Element A has the largest atomic number (greatest distance between outer electron and nucleus) because it has the least ionization energy. The ionization energies for an element increase in magnitude as successive electrons are removed. But when the next electron removed is an inner-shell electron, there is a sharp increase in ionization energy. The figure shown below tells us which group elements A-E should be placed. 19. 27.823g of Na2CO3.xH2O crystals were dissolved in water and made up to 1000 cm3 of solution. 25 cm3 of this solution required 48.8 cm3 of 0.1 mol dm-3 HCI for complete neutralisation. Find the value of x in Na2CO3.xH2O using the following steps: 20. 4.00g of lawn sand (a mixture of sand and ammonium sulphate) was weighed into a conical flask, and 25 cm3 of 2.0 mol dm-3 sodium hydroxide solution was pipetted into the same flask. The conical flask was boiled for 20 minutes, after which time all the ammonia had been driven off,

Effects of discipline on children Annotated Bibliography

Effects of discipline on children - Annotated Bibliography Example The source will be useful in the classification of the various disciplinary actions and their effects on children behaviors during the research. The chapter â€Å"Discipline by Parents and Child Psychopathology† defines discipline and the various methods that are used to administer discipline in children including corporal punishments. It further analysis the effects including cultural and antisocial behavior that each discipline action is associated with particularly the psychological effects. The source is credible as it is written by accredited authors and uses primary data from its study to analyses the effects of discipline on children. It will be used by the research to distinguish disciplinary actions that have more effects compared to others. The article presents an analysis of the effects of physical punishment on children through the identification of patterns that have been used to implement disciplinary measures among children. It further analyses the possible positive effects of promoting nonviolent parenting. The source is credible as an accredited PhD holder author was behind the analysis. It will be used in the analysis and comparison of the effects of physical and nonviolent discipline among children/ GÃÆ' ¡mez-Guadix, M., Carrobles, J., Almendros, C., & FernÃÆ' ¡ndez-Alcaraz, C. (2010). Physical punishment and long-term consequences: the moderating role of parental context. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 5, 2093-2097. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.07.419 The article explores the long-term consequences of physical punishment on children including both behavioral and psychological problems. The study conducted indicated that physical punishment is related to negative outcomes irrespective of the parental context in which are applied. The source is credible as a university press published it and scholars conducted the study. It will be used in the analysis of long-term consequences

Health traditions model by Leininge, Rachel Spector Research Paper

Health traditions model by Leininge, Rachel Spector - Research Paper Example This research will begin with the statement that Health Traditional Model (HTM) came to the existence in 1994 when health tradition immigrants were flooding Ellis Island. This model talks about the transcultural concept that takes place in nursing care and it is applicable to all the programs in nursing education that are licensed by nursing programs. Health tradition model incorporates a theory by Ester and Zitzow on how individual’s way of life reflects the traditional culture that he/she comes from. In this model, heritage consistency refers to the level in which one’s lifestyle reflects the tribal culture that he/she comes from. The model focuses on different traditional cultures for different ethnic sets, for example, the Africans, Europeans, and Hispanics. In the model, Spector uses a holistic health concept to discover methods that people apply for them to restore and care for their health. The model gives a relationship between physical, spiritual and mental hea lth with caring and restoring health. This model states that for one to be able to retain physical health, he/she is supposed to use the traditional clothing and food that the culture recommends. In order to safeguard mental health of an individual, one needs to get emotional and communal care from the community at large and family members. In health tradition model, Spector provides a tool to assess heritage for one to know the level that people stand by their traditions and the way they observe their cultures.... In order to safeguard mental health of an individual, one needs to get emotional and communal care from the community at large and family members (Sagar, 2011) In health tradition model, Spector provides a tool to assess heritage for one to know the level that people stand by their traditions and the way they observe their cultures. She concludes that, traditional people are more close to their traditional cultures compared to acculturated people who distance their traditional practices. Spector argues cultural competence by emphasizing its relationship with culture together with poverty, demographics and immigration. She insists that for one to be a qualified culture care, he/she should acquire attitude and skills for excellent deliverance of the services (Sagar, 2011) In the model, Spector arranges cultural diversity involved in health together with illness in four portions. These portions comprise cultural competency establishment; health, sickness and culture; beliefs that a give n community practices and issues affecting their health; and applying cultural knowledge in general health care. Spector compares tradition to a burden that everyone carries throughout her/his whole life and hands it over to the following generation. Every burden has beliefs, which are tangible or not, together with differing values depending on the background of his/her beliefs. According to this model, culture shows various things that a given group of people shares. For example, it may show that they share geographic origin, religious conviction, dialectal, race and food of preference (Sagar, 2011). Why I choose Health traditional model I choose the health traditional Model because as a nursing student, I think the model will

McDonald's Takes the Blame for Obesity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

McDonald's Takes the Blame for Obesity - Essay Example The following is an examination of Critical Concepts: Experts blame the adverts targeting children to be responsible for causing obesity. The most relevant concepts in the case against first food joints are their marketing policies. Perhaps the aim is to cripple the allure junk food produces through adverts which are particularly appealing to children. However, Ronald McDonald in the same light as Joe Camel is a bit of a stretch. Attacking the marketing strategies of business entities to me amounts to clutching at a straw. There are rules that govern the world of production and marketing. In a situation where a product has production rights, the production company has the right to market it. In view of the above sentiments, McDonald should consider rebranding its image but not to exclude Ronald McDonald. Marketers, especially in France argue that positive ad inclusions such as, â€Å"eat fruits daily, exercise, and drink a lot of water† appeal more to customers than severe hea lth warnings. For instance the caption, â€Å"cigarette smoking is harmful to your health, did not reduce the number of smokers in Europe or America. Therefore, adding health messages as proposed by the French is a constructive move. When McDonald includes the health messages in its ads it will go a step further to include healthy substitutes to its menu. Negative publicity led to drop in sales in McDonald’s. This caused McDonald to add healthy food to their menu such as porridge and salad. The move led to a 90% positive turnaround in sales. It should be noted that the increased sales result from consumption of â€Å"non-healthy† foods such as burgers and fries. Some European nations in their fight against obesity push for a ban on fast food advertisements that target children. However, it is imperative to note that advertisements not directed to children may still influence them. In a situation, where bans on advertising directly to children are in place such as in N orway, the food companies will still advertise for adults. Nevertheless, the bans are crucial because they eliminate at least one influence of obesity. Conforming to the ban is also a positive marketing strategy for McDonald’s. Consumers will see their efforts in implement change, and this will retain their loyalty to their products as mentioned above. Problems facing McDonald’s positive ad strategy. The state of obesity has not improved ever since the launch of positive ads by McDonald’s. This is not the company’s fault, but critics do not seem to think so. Governments and health regulatory institutions are up in arms against McDonald’s. For instance, Prince Charles of England out rightly attributes obesity to McDonald’s. In response to the above situation, McDonald responds just like most companies in the food production industry. Self regulation in regard to advertisement is a common strategy where the company reduces adverts directed at children. In the case of fast foods, the company specifically cuts down on use of celebrities and cartoon characters in advertisements. McDonald, however, is not fully committed to this strategy. In the U.K, its dominant market is children under the age of sixteen, and it does not intend to lose this market. McDonald instead favors positive health messages to run alongside their advertisements. That way McDonald’

The influence of diet and probiotics on the intestinal microbiome Essay

The influence of diet and probiotics on the intestinal microbiome - Essay Example These microbiota are influenced by various external factors and internal factors. Some of the external factors which are widely studied and are interesting for human health are diet and probiotics. In this essay, influenceof diet and probiotics onintentinal microbiota will be discussed. The intestinal microbiota play a major role in the various nutritional, immunological, physiological and metabolic processes of the human body. Certain dietary polysaccharides are indigestible and intestinal microbiota extract energy from these resistant starches and fibers. Such metabolic activities cause release of various vitamins like vitamin K, folic acid and B12, short chain fatty acids and various aminoacids which are not produced in the human body. The microbiota also participate in various pathogenic defence mechanisms like resistance of colonisation and production of various compounds with antimicrobial properties. The microbiota are also involved in the maturation, development and maintenance of various sensory and motor functions of the gastrointestinal tract, the barrier system of the intestine and also the immune system of the intestinal mucosa (Gerritsen et al, 2011). According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organi zation (cited in Hemarajata and Versalovic, 2013), probiotics are defined as ‘living microorganisms, which when administered in adequate amounts confer health benefits on the host.’ The most commonly used probiotics are Bifidobacterium and lactobacillus. Other probiotics in market include certain species of enterococcus, streptococcus, propionibacterium and bacillus. Yeast like Saccharomyces are also used as probiotics. The probiotic organisms interact with the intestinal microbia either directly or through enzymatic action. They interact directly with the epithelial and mucosal layer of the intestine and thereby influence the functions of the intestinal

The Role of Art in Poetry Essay Example for Free

The Role of Art in Poetry Essay These different ways of addressing this theme are partly because of their different styles of poetry. Keats is a Romantic poet, while Auden is more of the modern style. In these two poems we can see the marked differences between these two writing styles. We can also see the similarities in the message that these authors are trying to get across. This common message is one of the permanence of art in an ever changing world. First let’s take a minute to examine the two different styles of literature that these men used in the pieces. These poems were written in two distinct methods, â€Å"Ode on a Grecian Urn† was written in the Romantic style, and â€Å"Musee des Beaux Arts† was written in the modern style. These two ways of writing are very different both in style, themes, and methods. While the earlier style of romanticism was more about a reflection of man in nature and the world around him, the modern style is more of a true telling of what is happening in the poets mind. The modern style may not be as flowery, or flattering as romanticism, but it is the truth as the poet sees it. Some authors have been both Romantic and Modern poets but most of the poets that we have studied in this class are from one style or the other. Romantic poetry is a style that was marked by a fascination with the power of the interior of humans and the grand nature of human faculties. (Sanger, 2013) I think one of the best definitions of this poetic era comes from romantic poet William Wordsworth who said â€Å"All poetry is spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings reflected upon in leisure† (Sanger, 2013) . Before the Romantic period, poetry’s purpose was to imitate nature or to create a Mimesis. Greenblatt, 2006) The purpose of the written word was to record tradition, and there were rules of format that had to be followed. In the Romantic period however, it was the author who created nature and poetry was more spontaneous. There were no rules anymore. Poets were now lead by the heart and not the head. (Sanger, 2013) The Romantic period’s key idea was that the world is created by us when we experience it. This was an idea introduced by the philosopher Emmanuel Cant. Romantic poet Percy Shelly echoed this thought when he said â€Å"all things exist as they are perceived. (Sanger, 2013) Another great idea of this period was that if two ideas contradicted each other that it didn’t necessarily mean that they both weren’t true. That was the great thing about this age. It was all about the experience put down on paper, which is very similar to Modern poetry in that way. It was the way that they went about it that made these two styles so very different. The Modern period of literature was marked by a more fluid style. The poems in this period were filled by a stream of consciousness and were more experimental in nature. The rules of rhyme and meter that were more popular in the Romanic period and were required in the eras before that were thrown out of the window for the most part. Modern poets were not as concerned with nature as the Romantic poets who went before them. The modernists were more focused on individual experience, and were very interested in experimentation with language and forms of literature. As modern poet W. H. Auden himself said, â€Å"Poetry is not magic, but a form of truth telling that should disenchant and disintoxicate. (Greenblatt, 2006) This is similar to the idea of defamiliarization which we learned about in Critical Writing and Literature Analysis. In Modern poetry there are even fewer rules than there were in Romanticism. The authors had free range to make up words, leave out punctuation and capitalization, and reinvent ancient mythologies. This was a whole new literary world. (Sanger, 2013) â€Å"Ode on a Grecian Urn† was written by John Keats in 1820 and it was written in the Romantic style of poetry. This poem was part of the famous series of Odes that was written by Keats at the culmination of his poetic abilities. (Greenblatt, 2006) In this piece we see an ancient urn of unknown origin that is clearly admired by our author. Who are the figures on the Urn? Are they men or Gods? We will never know, but the answer to these questions is not very important. What they have to say and what we can learn from them is what is important. We learn the value of poetry and art from this poem. In this poem Keats starts out speaking to the urn itself. He calls it â€Å"Thou still unravishd bride of quietness! Thou foster-child of silence and slow time† (Greenblatt, 2006) Here he is speaking directly to the Urn and tells us that the Urn and its figures do not speak for themselves, that he does that for them with this poem. Its â€Å"father† who was the artist started this conversation, and now Keats is picking up where the unknown sculptor has left off. Keats goes on to say. â€Å"Sylvan historian, who canst thus express a flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme† (Greenblatt, 2006) . In this he is saying that the sculptor has done much better than the poet ever can. This is classic self deprecation that we have seen in other poems by our author. Keats is well known for these tactics. As Keats continues this poem he goes on to ask us several questions about the sacrifice that is depicted on the urn. We are never given the answers to these questions because the urn cannot speak for itself. It cannot answer the questions that are put to it. The sculptor of this urn is long dead, along with anyone else that was around when it was made or when those depicted were in existence. The urn is left to stand alone through time in silent testament to history and art. In this stanza he is telling us of the permanence of art. Once the piece of art is completed it is unable to change, the world changes around it, but the figures on the urn are forever young. As he starts the second stanza Keats leads with a statement in which he tells us that sometimes the mental experience of something is better than the actual experience. â€Å"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter† (Greenblatt, 2006) However, he also tells us that being depicted on an urn may not be all good. â€Å"Fair youth beneath the trees, thou canst not leave† (Greenblatt, 2006) . These figures have not only been immortalized, they have also been trapped. We can see that this in a way is both a blessing and a curse. The youth will never get to kiss the one he loves but he can also never disappoint her. But Keats tells the youth â€Å"do not grieve; she cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, for ever wilt thou love, and she be fair† (Greenblatt, 2006) The Urn works both ways, the woman he loves cannot disappoint him either by aging or changing in any way. He also uses this stanza to drive home the idea of the permanence of art by repeating the word â€Å"Forever† throughout this part of the poem. Keats then goes on to addresses the objects he sees on the Urn. In doing this he is telling us what he admires in life and nature as reflected in this artifact. These are things that Keats wishes he could hold onto forever instead of being sickly. He wants us to notice these things that he is pointing out because they are what keep art and poetry alive. They are representations of the best of life. Here we also find Keats’ use of nature in this poem which marks him as a romantic poet. â€Å"Ah, happy, happy boughs! That cannot shed your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu† (Greenblatt, 2006). These trees are also unchanging, they can’t shed their leaves or change seasons. Keats is the same in a way because he will always be young. He will never be able to grow and mature, much like the tree on the urn. Keat s then goes on to talk more about the mysterious sacrifice he sees depicted on the urn and which he mentioned in the first stanza. He wonders about the possible lives of these people and where they are going. Again we are given no answers by the urn because it cannot speak. This is a repeat of the ideas we saw in the first stanza. It keeps the mystery of the urn alive. Who are these individuals? We don’t need to know. We can only guess at their intentions. It is also his own way of saying that art has a life of its own. The people depicted could be nice everyday people, or they could be mass murderers. There is no way to know, that is a beautiful thing about art that it is very subjective. In the final stanza of this Ode we are reminded again that this Urn is a piece of art that has stood the test of time. The Urn has been around hundreds of years and will continue to last as long as someone cares for it. Even if the Urn itself is destroyed we will always have this poem to remember it by. Throughout this poem we see the same theme over and over, things that do not, and cannot change. This we can see from this piece is both a blessing and a curse. While the figures depicted are visually always the same, they will never get to experience the wisdom and fulfillment that comes with a full life. I come finally to the most quoted line of this poem â€Å"Beauty is truth, truth beauty† (Greenblatt, 2006) . This line is the epitome of the transcendental ideals which are another cornerstone of the Romantic ideals. This idea shows that there are three sides to the same thing. Truth is reality, goodness is in accord with truth, and beauty reveals something’s goodness. Sanger, 2013) We can see when we look at this statement in the correct light and using this theory that a thing is beautiful if it reveals its truth. (Sanger, 2013) I believe that this poet has accomplished the goal that he has set for himself with this final line. This poem reveals the truth of art and poetry and how one can reflect on the other. The Urn is in a way a poem itself. What Keats says about the urn is also true about the poem. He is creating his own Urn when he writes this poem. We can see the dying poet wishing that he himself was more like the urn he speaks of. Keats wishes that he was the â€Å"fair youth† that the Urn depicts. It is interesting to note that often in ancient times urns were used for funerary rites and would even sometimes contain the remains of people. This urn that Keats has created contains him in a way as it has helped keep his memory alive for hundreds of years after his death. This poem is Keats’ own stab at the immortality that the urn has attained for its sculptor, even if we don’t know who that sculptor was. He is writing a poem that he hopes will outlive us all like the urn has. Keats uses art to depict a theme of hopeful hopelessness. He knows he will not live and is doing his best to leave his mark upon the world much like the maker of the urn has. Clearly this Urn has stood the test of time since presumably it has been around for centuries at this time. This is what Keats is attempting to do with all of his poetry and I believe he was successful or we would not be discussing him in this class. The second poem for this assignment, â€Å"Musee des Beaux Arts† was written by W. H. Auden in 1938. The style of this poet in our book is described as â€Å"flat, ironic, and conversational† (Greenblatt, 2006) and I think that is a good description of this poem in general. It is almost like we are eavesdropping on a conversation about a recent visit to an art museum. In this conversation we see though that there is a value to the art that he is describing to us. In the first stanza of this poem we are introduced to the artist of the painting without actually knowing who he is or what painting we are talking about. What we do know is that he was one of the â€Å"Old Masters† and that in Auden’s opinion they had the right way of looking at things. They could see the truth of human existence and that the great and the terrible can happen alongside each other. They saw things as they should be seen. They noticed things that most people don’t, as we see when we go further into the piece. Auden goes on to depict a birth that he describes as miraculous. As we discussed in class this can be seen as the birth of Christ (Sanger, 2013) However since I have no religious knowledge, when I read this piece I saw it as birth in general. All births are in their way miraculous. There are also often children waiting alongside the aged for their younger siblings to be born. While the old people love to see babies born the children often wonder if the baby will take their place. In this vignette we can see that there are two sides to every story. Next Auden reminds us again that the masters have not forgotten the truths that our author is talking about. One of these being, â€Å"That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course† (Greenblatt, 2006). With this he is reminding us that although bad times can come and we often feel abandoned that it too will pass. He is saying that no matter what is happening in the world the dogs and horses of the world go on doing their thing and that the world continues turning. Finally in the last stanza Auden tells us the name of the painting that he admires so much. The painting that he calls â€Å"Brueghel’s Icarus†, is in fact the painting â€Å"The Fall of Icarus† by Pieter Brueghel. According to the notes in our textbook â€Å"Auden also alludes to other paintings by Brueghel: the nativity scene in ‘The Numbering at Bethlehem’, skaters in ‘Winter Landscape with Skaters and a Bird Trap’, a horse scratching it behind in ‘The Massacre of the Innocents’† (Greenblatt, 2006) We can see from this that Auden seems to have a full knowledge of this artist’s works. In Brueghel’s Icarus we have a very interesting scene. The mythological figure Icarus struggles against death after his famously disastrous flight and crash. While this is happening the people around him just go on with their days. Many of the people who are present n this painting seem to know what has happened and simply go about their business anyway. We are clued in to this fact when he describes Icarus’ calls for help with the evocative imagery of â€Å"the forsaken cry† (Greenblatt, 2006). This phrase brings to mind a cry that is heard but ignored. The ploughman hears this but goes on with his work. The crops wait for no one. We continue to see in this poem that despite this horrible thing happening to Icarus the world goes on around him. The sun still shines even on the drowning boy’s legs. The ship that encounters him has better places to be so they simply sail past the drowning teenager. â€Å"The expensive delicate ship that must have seen something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on. † (Greenblatt, 2006) Auden clearly tells us here that the ship had to have seen the boy but the crew still went about their business as if nothing had happened. An interesting thing to note in this piece is that throughout this poem Icarus is addressed as a boy. I believe that the author does this to tell us that even mythical people are just that, people. The mythical, the amazing, and the horrible all exist alongside each other. This whole poem is about this theme. The great things that we hear about are also things that just happen to people. Most of the time, the world around these people does not, or chooses not to notice the great and terrible everyday events. These things that happen are ignored and moved past on a daily basis. Even the people who they happen to are expected by the world to move on and get over it. There is no way to know if Auden meant this poem as a criticism of society, or a wakeup call to those who read it, but in a way we can see how it would be one or both of these. The world is asleep; we see the suffering in the world all around us and generally we do nothing to stop it. He is saying that bad things happen next to good things, and that the world is an amazing place. We often don’t notice that fact unless it is pointed out to us as it has been pointed out to us by Auden with this poem. We can see when we look at these poems side by side that while they are very different they are attempting to do the same thing. Both of these authors are using poems about art to show us great truths about the world and how we see it. They are both trying to tell us that art has great value. Paintings and Urns are in their own ways a kind of time capsules that we can use to look back on the past and these poems have that power as well. They are time capsules because each of them is a great example of their respective genres of poetry. â€Å"Ode on a Grecian Urn† is a great example of Romantic poetry because in it Keats uses nature imagery and tells us of the great human faculties that exist in all of us if we just look around us. At the same time â€Å"Musee des Beaux Arts† is a great example of Modern poetry with its lack of rhyme scheme or pattern. Auden’s style is much more casual but still gets the point across. The point of this poem is that art is there to be a representation of the world, that we should take the time to look at it, and the world around it. Art and poetry are both about how they affect you as a person, how they shape your world. These poems both do a great job of awakening the power of art in all of us. If we take another look at both of these poems we can see that while they are very different that they do share some similarities. They both share the same theme of art and artists, and the permanence of art in a changing world. In â€Å"Ode on a Grecian Urn† Keats writes â€Å"When old age shall this generation waste, thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe† (Greenblatt, 2006). This passage reads almost like a line from â€Å"Musee des Beaux Arts†. In this line we can see the great parallel in these poems. Keats is saying here exactly what Auden has, that the world does not stop for great events. The Urn will sit â€Å"in the midst of woe† (Greenblatt, 2006) much like the world that we see in â€Å"Musee des Beaux Arts† moving around both great and horrible events happening. People go on with their lives despite these things. The great masters in Auden’s piece along with the Sylvan historian in Keats’ understood this fact. This is why art is created, to remind us of the world that was. It may not be a true representation of the world, because it is the artist’s version of the world. Bibliography Greenblatt, S. (2006). The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W. W. Norton ;amp; Company, Inc. Sanger, K. (2013). Class Notes. (D. M. Phelps, Performer) Flint, MI, USA.

Malay Speech Corpus

Malay Speech Corpus CHAPTER 3 MALAY SPEECH CORPUS 3.1 Introduction The knowledge related to the structure of the rules and grammar for any language must be understood in depth prior to the development of any Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) systems. This chapter is intended to discuss the related issues concerning the Malay language and its speech sounds.   The Malay corpus and the test collections used for this study are also presented in the following sections. 3.2Malay Speech Sounds and Language Rules Malay is an Austronesian language spoken by the Malay people who are native to the Malay Peninsula, southern Thailand, Singapore and parts of Sumatra and also known locally as Bahasa Melayu. It is the official language of Malaysia and is an agglutinative language, meaning that the meaning of the word can be changed by adding the necessary prefixes or suffixes that will be explained through out of this section. The smallest unit in any language is known as phoneme.   The substitution of this unit for another might make a distinction of meaning (Nong et al. 2001).   Integrating the phonemes produces the syllable and words.   Generally, phoneme classification for Malay language is divided into three major groups that consist of Vowels (V), Consonants (C) and other miscellaneous (Manaf Hamid 1996).   This structure is relatively same with the English language as shown in Figure 3.1 (Karim 1996). The vowel class comprises of six vowels that is: /a/, //, /i/, /o/, /u/ and /e/.   The vowel sound is produced when the air exit from the lunges and mouth without ant noise. The second category, which is consonant class, can be further divided into seven different categories that is the stops or plosive group, affricates, nasals, glides, liquids, fricatives and the semivowel.   The sounds from consonants are produced by air from lungs and consist of noise.   The noise is generated in mouth and nose, for instance, phoneme /p/and /b/.   Figure 3.2 describe the consonant utterances classification for the Malay language. The last category, miscellaneous category, consists of the diphthong and vowel functions.   Vowel function is a combination of two different vowel (ia, io and iu) and most often used in words absorbed directly from its English equivalent such as radio and audio, and in some original Malay words such as nyiur (coconut), hias (decorate) (Hussain, 1997). 3.2.1Malay morphology Malay morphology is defined as study of word structures in Malay language (Lutfi Abas, 1971). A morpheme is the term used in the morphology. A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in a language. In another words, morpheme is a combination of phonemes into a meaningful unit. A Malay word can be comprised of one or more morphemes. When we talk about Malay morphology, we cannot avoid from discussing the process of word formation in Malay language. It is a language of derivative which allows the addition of affixes to the base/root or primary word to form new words. The language itself is different from the English. In English language, the process involves the changes in the phonemes according to their groups. The processes of word formation in Malay language are in the forms of primary words, derivative words, compound words and reduplicative words. 3.2.1.1Primary word Primary or root words are either nouns or verbs, which is does not take any affixes or reduplication. A primary word can be comprised of one or more syllables. A syllable consists of a vowel (V) or a vowel with a consonant (C) or a vowel with several consonants. The vowel can be presented at the front or back of the consonants. In Malay language, primary word with one syllable accounts for about 500 only (Nik Safiah Karim et al. 1995). Some of the primary words are taken from other languages such as English and Arabic. The structures of the syllable are shown in Table 3.1. Primary words with two syllables are the majority in the Malay language. The structures of the words are shown in Table 3.2 with example of words that illustrated as in Figure 3.3. Primary words with three and more syllables exist in a few numbers. Most of them are taken from other languages as shown in Table 3.3. Table 3.1:   Structure of words with one syllable Syllable Structure Example of word CV Ya (yes) VC Am (common) CVC Sen (cent) CCVC Stor (store) CVCC Bank (bank) CCCV Skru (screw) CCCVC Skrip (script) Table 3.2:   Structure of words with two syllables Syllable Structure Example of word V + CV Ibu (mother) V + VC Air (water) V + CVC Ikan (fish) VC + CV Erti (meaning) VC + CVC Empat (four) CV + V Doa (pray) CV + VC Diam (silent) CV + CV Guru (teacher) CV + CVC Telur (egg) CVC + CV Lampu (lamp) CVC + CVC Jemput (invite) E R + T I V C + C V J E M + P U T C V C + C V C C Consonant V Vowel Table 3.3:   Structure of words with three syllables or more Syllable Structure Example of word CV + V + CV Siapa (who) CV + V + CVC Siasat (investigate) V + CV + V Usia (age) CV + CV + V Semua (all) CV + CV + VC Haluan (direction) CVC + CV + VC Berlian (diamond) V + CV + CV Utara (north) VC + CV + CV Isteri (wife) CV + CV + CV Budaya (culture) CVC + CVC + CV Sempurna (perfect) CVC + CV + CVC Matlamat (aim) CV + CV + VC + CV Keluarga (family) CV + CVC + CV + CV Peristiwa (event) CV + CV + V + CVC Mesyuarat (meeting) CV + CV + CV + CVC Munasabah (reasonable) V + CV + CVC + CV + CV Universiti (University) 3.2.1.2Derivative word Derivative words are the words that are formed by adding affixes to the primary words. The affixes can exist at the initial (Prefixes), within (Infixes) or final (Suffixes) of the words. They can also exist at the initial and final of the words at the same time. These kinds of affixes are called confixes. Examples of derivative words are â€Å"berjalan† (walking), â€Å"mempunyai† (having), â€Å"pakaian† (clothes) and so on. 3.2.1.3 Compound word Compound words are the words that are combined from two individual primary words, which carry certain meanings. There are quite lots of compound words in Malay language. Examples of compound words are â€Å"alat tulis† (stationery), â€Å"jalan raya† (road), â€Å"kapal terbang† (aeroplane), â€Å"Profesor Madya† (associate professor), â€Å"hak milik† (ownership), â€Å"pita suara† (vocal folds) and so on. Some of the Malay idioms are from the compound words such as â€Å"kaki ayam† (bare feet), â€Å"buah hati† (gift), â€Å"berat tangan† (lazy), â€Å"terima kasih† (thank you) and so on. 3.2.1.4 Reduplicative word Reduplicative words, as its name suggests, are the words that are reduplicated from the primary words. There are three forms of reduplication in Malay language: full, partial and rhythmic. Examples of reduplicative words are â€Å"mata-mata† (policeman), â€Å"sama-sama† (welcomed) and so on. 3.3Malay Speech Corpus Design Malay speech design basically involves the proper selection of speech target sounds for speech recognition.   The Malay phonemes can be analyzed according to the descriptive analysis and distinctive feature analysis.   Generally, the descriptive analysis is preferred over the distinctive feature analysis because it is easier to be implemented. To develop a baseline system for spoken Malay utterances or word model, we need database for isolated spoken Malay words.   However, very little of the literature and reference material in Malay is available in raw electronic form to support research and development work. These materials are sometimes not suitable for the real life speech recognition system due to their setting environments and most of these materials are recorded the planned or read text.Since no spoken Malay database exists, we develop the Malay corpus based on Hansard documents from Parliament of Malaysia. The hansard documents consists of Dewan Rakyat(DR)Parliamentary debates session for the year 2008.   It contains spontaneous and formally speeches and it is the daily records of the words spoken by 222 elected members of DR. The hansard documents comprises of 51 huge raw video and audio files (.avi form) of daily recorded parliamentary session and 42 text files (.pdf form). Each part of parliamentary session contains six to eight hours spoken speeches that surrounded with medium noise condition or environment (less than 30 dB), speakers interruption (Malay, Chinese and Indian) and different speaking styles (low, medium and high intonation or shouting).   The reason of chosen this kind of data is due to their spontaneous and natural way of speaking in a formal or standard Malay speech during the debates session. The analysis has been done to the whole recorded session from mid-term until the end 2008 of hansard documents. Out of 42 text documents and 51 video files, only 22 text documents and 22 video files were being selected due to their perfect matched in terms of the contents of video and audio source files. The remaining of the text documents and video files have not been chosen due to the missing of some text documents that could not be downloaded, some video files having corrupted during recording session and some of the recorded video having missed sounds.   This study focused and concerned to the video that have audio sounds since it will be used to develop the Malay corpus and to evaluate the performance of isolated spoken Malay speech recognition system. The quantitative information analysis, about the videos and text documents being selected is given in Table 3.4. Table 3.4: Quantitative information of Hansard documents selected. No. Video Text Documents No. of Topic No. of Speakers Total Words 1. DR28052008 (MEI) 11 129 40,283 2. DR29052008 (MEI) 15 114 39,612 3. DR24062008 (JUNE) 13 154 49,212 4. DR25062008 (JUNE) 10 118 38,053 5. DR30062008 (JUNE) 10 175 58,013 6. DR02072008 (JULY) 14 187 67,906 7. DR03072008 (JULY) 12 120 48,411 8. DR07072008 (JULY) 16 210 72,890 9. DR10072008 (JULY) 13 132 42,350 10. DR28082008 (AUGUST) 10 123 40,780 11. DR03112008 (NOVEMBER) 17 232 78,750 12. DR04112008 (NOVEMBER) 11 136 43,440 13. DR10112008 (NOVEMBER) 10 105 39,560 14. DR20112008 (NOVEMBER) 16 109 42,795 15. DR26112008 (NOVEMBER) 10 186 38,880 16. DR27112008 (NOVEMBER) 10 147 41,450 17. DR01122008 (DECEMBER) 7 118 38,430 18. DR02122008 (DECEMBER) 9 176 56,815 19. DR03122008 (DECEMBER) 12 152 48,616 20. DR04122008 (DECEMBER) 11 192 56,780 21. DR10122008 (DECEMBER) 6 130 38,677 22. DR11122008 (DECEMBER) 10 143 52,369 TOTAL The process of documents analysis shows that the majority of the Malay words are comprised of primary word with two syllables and mono (one) syllables. Among the Malay words, the syllables structure of VC, CV and CVC are the most common.   These structures are preferred because they are easy to be pronounced exactly as its written and their number is quite substantial in the hansard documents. In order to get a good distribution of consonants and vowels for the dataset from the hansard documents, the most frequently primary (root or base) words spoken by speakers during Parliamentary debates are used. As mentioned previously, most of the root words are the primary words that are either in nouns or verbs without adding any derivations (affixes and suffixes) or reduplication to the root words. Thus, from the text documents analysis, we determined 100 primaries words that mostly spoken by the committee members during the debates that consist of 10 primary words of one syllable, four p rimary words from three or more syllables structures and 86 primary words that form two syllables structures as depicted in Table 3.5. The details quantitative analysis of each words distribution is represented in Appendix A. Each primary word has maximum number of 50 repetitions that uttered by same or different speakers. Thus, there are a total of 5000 isolated spoken Malay words used for this research. The challenging task is to capturing and segmenting the exact words being uttered accordingly to the audio sounds in the video files. The process of creating isolated spoken Malay corpus is illustrated as in Figure 3.4 and briefly explained in the following sections. Table 3.2: Selection of 100 isolated spoken Malay words as the speech target sounds. No. Words Structures No. Words Structures 1 ADA V + CV 51 LAGI CV + CV 2 AHLI VC + CV 52 LAIN CV + VC 3 AKAN V + CVC 53 LAMA CV + CV 4 AKTA VC + CV 54 LANGKAH CVCC + CVC 5 ARAH V + CVC 55 LEBIH CV + CVC 6 ATAS V + CVC 56 MAKLUM CVC + CVC 7 ATAU V + CVV 57 MANA CV + CV 8 BAGI CV + CV 58 MASA CV + CV 9 BAIK CV + VC 59 MASIH CV + CVC 10 BAKAL CV + CVC 60 MESTI CVC + CV 11 BANK CVCC 61 MUNGKIN CVCC + CVC 12 BARU CV + CV 62 NANTI CVC + CV 13 BEKAS CV + CVC 63 OLEH V + CVC 14 BERI CV + CV 64 ORANG V + CVCC 15 BINCANG CVC + CVCC 65 PADA CV + CV 16 BOLEH CV + CVC 66 PIHAK CV + CVC 17 BUAT CV + VC 67 PRINSIP CCVC + CVC 18 BUKAN CV + CVC 68 PULA CV + CV 19 DALAM CV + CVC 69 PUN CVC 20 DAN CVC 70 RAMAI CV + CVV 21 DASAR CV + CVC 71 RIBU CV + CV 22 DATANG CV + CVCC 72 RUJUK CV + CVC 23 DENGAN CV + CCVC 73 SAH CVC 24 DIA CVV 74 SAMA CV + CV 25 EKONOMI V + CV + CV + CV 75 SANGAT CV + CCVC 26 ESOK V + CVC 76 SAYA CV + CV 27 HADIR CV + CVC 77 SEBAB CV + CVC 28 HAK CVC 78 SEBUT CV + CVC 29 HAL CVC 79 SEDANG CV + CVCC 30 HARI CV + CV 80 SEDIA CV + CVV 31 HENDAK CVC + CVC 81 SUDAH CV + CVC 32 IAITU VV + V + CV 82 SUSAH CV + CVC 33 IALAH VV + CVC 83 TADI CV + CV 34 INGAT VC + CVC 84 TAHU CV + CV 35 INGIN VC + CVC 85 TAHUN CV + CVC 36 INI V + CV 86 TIDAK CV + CVC 37 ISU V + CV 87 TANYA CV + CCV 38 ITU V + CV 88 TELAH CV + CVC 39 IZIN V + CVC 89 TENTANG CVC + CVCC 40 JADI CV + CV 90 TERIMA CV + CV + CV 41 JANGAN CV + CCVC 91 TIDAK CV + CVC 42 JAWAB CV + CVC 92 TIPU CV + CV 43 JUGA CV + CV 93 TUAN CV + VC 44 JUTA CV + CV 94

Thor: Comparison of Myths and Comic Books

Thor: Comparison of Myths and Comic Books The modern day image of a superhero consists of either Superman or Batman riding in a high-speed car and swinging off of buildings hundreds of feet from the ground, desperately trying to save the innocent victim. A Norse God with long blonde hair, a winged metal helmet, and a bright red cape with blue leggings is probably not an ordinary image being pictured in ones head. Superheroes come in all varieties, shapes, and forms, but behind each superhero lies a secret to why they were created. The reasons for creation range from events that previously occurred in history to recent changes in todays society. Comic book superheroes were indeed influenced by history, but the comic book superheroes also continually influence history itself. This reciprocal influence continues to affect the generations of comic book fans for years on end. Comic book creators have been known for using a strategy to create characters which tend to resemble infamous gods to separate the common ideal mortal heroes from the indestructible immortals. By using this strategy, comic book creators are able to give their characters a fierce outer shell with a scholarly uplift (Reynolds 53). With the creation of the Mighty Thor comic book character in 1962, Lee and Thomas used this strategy perfectly (54). Asgardian characters were just ready-made superheroes waiting to be transformed into the comic-book world (57). Being named one of the most unusual creations in comic book history, Thor truly defined â€Å"†¦the first successful attempt to harness existing mythology on a large scale to construct the mise en scene of a superhero† (54). In relation to history, Thor was the son of Odin, the universal father, and Frigga queen of the gods. His name dates back to ancient Norse Mythology where he was known for his incredible strength and enormous size. This continually amazed the gods (Guerber 59). Recognized as the god of thunder with a magical hammer, he was â€Å"honoured as the highest god in Norway† (60). Thor was always right in the middle of action when it came to battling against raging monsters, deadly giants, and prehistoric forces. There are three main properties that define Thors character when he becomes involved in battle. The first is his infamous hammer Miollnir which symbolizes the crushing skulls of monsters and giants. The second is his belt of strength which when buckled, makes his godlike powers multiply. Last are his iron gloves which he must wear in order to swing his hammer (Page 40). There is a direct correlation between the mythical Thor and the comic-book character the Mighty Thor. From both the physical aspects and the characteristics of their personalities, Norse legends have heavily influenced the modern comic-book superheroes (Knowles 29). The Mighty Thor is visualized as a tall robust man, with strawberry blonde locks, and blue eyes. He also speaks in a very distinct old English accent. An example is when the mighty Thor proclaims, â€Å"Thy work is done, father! Let it be known far and wide that the full might of Mjolnir is restored† (0000). Whereas the mythical Thor is closely described â€Å"†¦as a man in his prime, tall and well formed, with muscular limbs and bristling red hair and beard†¦(Guerber 60).† Both characters also share the same love of being involved in battle, and depend on their mighty hammer. Although, the mythical Thor depends on his hammer for security and power, the Mighty Thor uses his hammer to transform into Don Blake and back into Thor (Page 13). The mythical Thor was also known for his outlandish and dangerous outrages which eventually became uncontrollable. Consequently, his mother sent him away from home and placed him in the care of Vingir and Hlora. This is where his other names â€Å"Vingthor† and â€Å"Hlorridi† derived from (Guerber 59). Much like the mythical Thor being sent away from his homeland, the Mighty Thor was sent away from Asgard to earth as a punishment from his father because of his arrogance (Reynolds 54). From these comparisons one can obviously conclude that the artist, Jack Kirby, was truly fascinated with Norse legends. Since his childhood, Norse legends formed the basis for his imagination and gave him great inspiration when it came to graphically representing the Mighty Thor on paper (Misiroglu 599). History has indeed influenced the creation of the Mighty Thor, but another question should be raised. Has the Mighty Thor influenced history? With the debut of the Mighty Thor in 1962, the hippie era was on the rise. Long hair, bell bottom jeans, and tie-die were some of the trends getting ready to appear. The country was also getting ready to be faced with the Vietnam turmoil which would greatly influence comic-book creators and their story-lines to come. The Mighty Thor has always been known for fighting out against powerful Communists and mad scientists (Knowles 191). Throughout most of the Marvel comic-books, villains were represented as Communists. Some superheroes would actually have to travel straight into the heart of the Viet-Cong for battle. In the famous 1965 series, Journey into the Mystery, the Mighty Thor was found in South Vietnam assisting a group of anti-communist peasants. Both the peasants and Thor were taking on the merciless Viet Cong military. Along the way, Tho r also liberated a Vietnamese family from Communism where he promised a village he would return (Wright 222). With the Vietnam conflict raging among citizens all over the United States, young adolescents were getting ready to burst out. The Mighty Thors heavy anti-communism propaganda, influenced readers of all ages. One way Thor truly influenced the youth culture was actually unintentional towards young men. Preceding a couple of years after the Might Thors debut, his long golden hair would become a fashionable trend. This long hair then became a symbol of rebellion and rage for young people all over the nation (213). The hippie era had begun.

Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Essay: An Analysis -- Love Song J. Alf

An Analysis of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock The general fragmentation of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is obvious. The poem seems a perfect example of what Terry Eagleton calls the modern "transition from metaphor to metonymy: unable any longer to totalize his experience in some heroic figure, the bourgeois is forced to let it trickle away into objects related to him by sheer contiguity." Everything in "Prufrock" trickles away into parts related to one another only by contiguity. Spatial progress in the poem is diffident or deferred, a "scuttling" accomplished by a pair of claws disembodied so violently they remain "ragged." In the famous opening, "the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherised upon a table," and the simile makes an equation between being spread out and being etherised that continues elsewhere in the poem when the evening, now a bad patient, "malingers, / Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me." There it "sleeps so peacefully! / Smoothed by long fingers . . . ." This suspe nsion is a rhetorical as well as a spatial and emotional condition. The "streets that follow like a tedious argument / Of insidious intent" lead not to a conclusion but to a question, a question too "overwhelming" even to ask. Phrases like the "muttering retreats / Of restless nights" combine physical blockage, emotional unrest, and rhetorical maundering in an equation that seems to make the human being a combination not of angel and beast but of road-map and Roberts' Rules of Order. In certain lines, metaphor dissolves into metonymy before the reader's eyes. "The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes" appears clearly to every reader as a cat, but the cat itself is absent, repr... ...becomes a collection of individual parts, just as the poem's human denizens had been little more than parts: "And I have known the eyes already, known them all"; "And I have known the arms already known them all." The instantaneous movement from part to whole, from eyes, arms, evenings, mornings, to "all," expresses the emptiness between, the gap between dispersed parts and an oppressive whole made of purely serial repetition. The very reduction of human beings to parts of themselves and of time to episodes makes it impossible to conceive of any whole different from this empty, repetitious "an." As Burke says, metonymy substitutes quantity for quality, so that instead of living life Prufrock feels "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. Â   Works Cited Michael North, The Political Aesthetic of Yeats, Eliot, and Pound. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991.

Macbeth :: essays research papers

Through the chronicles of history there have always been heroes. Men and women that stand up and take charge and are moral leaders of countries. Joan of Arc, Napoleon, Genghis Khan and Churchill are only a few examples of people that are remember eternally for what they have done. There are also other leaders that people would like to forget because they are moral cowards killing their subject and causing evil. Stalin, Fidel Castro, and the Character of Macbeth are all examples of this. Macbeth is a moral coward. During the play Macbeth often shows that he is morale coward. For instance, when he is planning Duncan’s murder. Likewise he also shows cowardice by killing Banquo. Lastly he shows how spineless he is when he orders Macduffs family to be murdered. A coward is an individual that is easily scared or has difficulty performing functions because of possible reprocutions. Macbeth shows notable cowardice when planning the murder of Duncan. Macbeth leans from one side to the other because he is fearful of the reprocutions. Macbeth says, “ If {we} should fail';. This shows that he is fearful and too cowardly to act. Lady Macbeth also states, “Are thou afeard to be the same in thine own act';. Again showing how cowardly Macbeth is because he will not act. Likewise Macbeth is a coward because he murders Duncan in the middle of the night and does not give a formal challenge. Instead he pretends to be his friend then kills Duncan while he is sleeping. This is what a coward would do. Likewise Macbeth also shows cowardice by killing Banquo. This shows cowardice on Macbeth’s part because his only true reason for killing him is that he is afraid of Banquo’s royalty of nature. Banquo poses no real threat to Macbeth’s throne and is visibly loyal to him. Still Macbeth fears Banquo because he is a good guy and is very respected. Macbeth is spineless because he even believes that his friend is after him and is a danger to his throne. Macbeth says “our fears in Banquo stick deep, and in his royalty of nature reigns that which would be feared';. Macbeth is pusillanimous to the point that he even believes that his friend posses the greatest opposition for him as king. As well as this Macbeth is also a coward because he himself does not kill Banquo.

International Coach Federation Code of Ethics

International Coach Federation Code of Ethics International Coach Federation Code of Ethics Professional Conduct at Large #7 – I will maintain, store, and dispose of any records created during my coaching business in a manner that promotes confidentiality, security, and privacy, and complies with any applicable laws and agreements Professional Conduct with Clients 12 – I will not knowingly take any personal, professional, or monetary advantage or benefit of the coach-client relationship, except by a form of compensation as agreed in the agreement or contract. Professional Conduct with Clients #18 – I will not become sexually intimate with any of my current clients or sponsors. Confidentiality/Privacy and Conflicts of Interest. #22 – I will maintain the strictest levels of confidentiality with all client and sponsor information.I will have a clear agreement or contract before releasing information to another person, unless required by law It is very interes ting to learn that a coach and a teacher are very much alike in many ways, especially when it is about ethics. I learned also that the coach’s pledge is very similar to the teacher’s. As an ICF Professional Coach, I acknowledge and agree to honor my ethical and legal obligations to my coaching clients and sponsors, colleagues, and to the public at large.I pledge to comply with the ICF Code of Ethics, and to practice these standards with those whom I coach. If I breach this Pledge of Ethics or any part of the ICF Code of Ethics, I agree that the ICF in its sole discretion may hold me accountable for so doing. I further agree that my accountability to the ICF for any breach may include sanctions, such as loss of my ICF membership and/or my ICF Credentials. Reference International Coach Federation Code of Ethics. Retrieved from www. coachfederation. org/ethics/En  cache  Ã¢â‚¬â€œÃ‚  Similares

Compare the presentation and content of the article in the Mirror and the article in the Guardian

‘Communities in Britain aren't used to gun culture'. However, what is gun culture? Although gun crime is increasing, is it the so-called glamorous ‘culture' that is fuelling it? On the other hand, is it the society we live in and our failure to instil morals and principles in our children? In this essay I am going to compare how a tabloid and the website of a broadsheet presents and reports this issue. I shall be looking at the different presentational devices and visual images used, language and the structure and context of the material. Firstly, the difference in media is immediately clear. The Mirror, a tabloid paper, has a big picture of Ice Cube the rap artist spread across two pages as its main focal point with the heading ‘Don't let music take the rap'. In contrast, the Guardian's website has very little in the way of pictures and has the text as the main focal point with a small heading. As this is a broadsheet, I would expect it to be much the same in the actual paper. On the other hand, both papers have used puns in their headings. The Mirror uses ‘Don't let music take the rap' and the Guardian uses ‘Bullet points'. Both headlines are used for the same reason- to catch the reader's attention and to inform the reader what the article is about. Furthermore, in the tabloid paper the picture of Ice Cube holding a gun promoting his film is very similar to the one of Trevor Nelson in the main article, since they are both wearing black leather jackets and black hats. Implying that both of them are involved in the same sort of lifestyle. The Guardian does not use such presentational devices to make the article more appealing to the reader but it does have a small picture with the words ‘Gun violence in Britain' on a red back ground suggesting blood. Both papers have a number of articles relating to the main subject but have them displayed in very different ways. The Mirror has a number of small columns relating to the main editorial, which are spread around the outside of the two pages, Dealing with various aspects of gun culture, so as to hold the readers attention the info has been broken down into digestible ‘bites'. On the other hand, it may distract the reader's attention from the main article. However, the Guardian has a number of hyperlinks to related articles so there are no other actual pieces on the same page as the ‘Bullet points' article. This once again shows the difference in media and how the two papers are able to present their articles. At the bottom of the main article in the Mirror there is a section asking the public to write in if gang life has affected them. Here the Mirror is inviting readership participation, much as TV shows such as Jerry Springer and Oprah, this invites an on going discussion, which may provide the paper with a good story. They are also probably expecting sensationalist replies. The Guardian does not use this since its editorship probably thinks its readers have the confidence to write in anyway. Since the presentation of the two articles is so different and the fact that one paper is a tabloid and the other is a broadsheet, you would expect the content of the two articles to be very different. First of all, the difference in paragraph sizes is immediately clear. The Trevor Nelson piece in the Mirror is mostly single sentence paragraphs. On the other hand, the paragraphs in the Guardian are slightly longer with three to four sentences in a paragraph. Apart from this, the articles are not very different, both articles are against blaming music for gun crime, ‘†¦it is wrong to blame gun crime and violence on music', and ‘To blame gun violence on music is to simplify and distort the problem.' This in the Mirror's case is contradictory to the picture of a rap star holding a gun. The Mirrors main article is supposed to be Trevor Nelson's views on the subject written by a reporter. On the other hand, Willber Willberforce, a programs editor at ‘1Xtra', expressing his views on the subject, writes the Guardian's main piece: Both articles are mainly opinion and have little or no facts in them; this is a sentence from the Mirror's article. ‘All a kid has to do to prove he is the baddest boy in the area is to get a rumour going he's got a gun.' This is a sentence from the Guardian's piece. ‘Music is in everybody's house, in everybody's car, but does not dictate peoples morals.' Furthermore, the language in both articles is quite informal; ‘†¦if you pardon the pun, would be not to give them any ammunition.' since the Guardian is a broadsheet, a more formal approach to the subject would have been expected. Moreover, the difference in the level of vocabulary used by both papers is little or none; this is an extract from The Guardian: ‘†¦It is a social problem that has lots of contributing factors. To blame gun violence on music is to distort and oversimplify the problem.' In contrast, here is a sentence from the Mirror: ‘Nelson is adamant that it is wrong to blame gun crime and violence on music and says the fault lies in the heart of society.' Here you can see that the level of vocabulary is the same. Although, both papers use people in the music industry to write their articles the way two papers choose to do this is very different. The Mirror does this by getting a reporter to interview Trevor Nelson and then write an article expressing his views. On the other hand, The Guardian gets the Programmes editor at 1xtra to write his own article expressing his views this enables him to speak directly to the reader rather than through the filter of a reporter. Moreover, the way the two pieces are structured is very different; The ‘Bullet points' article starts of by talking about how gun crime has got worse, ‘gun violence has undoubtedly got worse'. Then goes on to discussing the reasons why people feel the need to carry guns, and then it blames the media for the way they portray urban musicians, ‘Megaman visits a hospital, but that's not newsworthy.' Finally, the writer chooses to end the piece talking about how most popular urban artists don't actually talk about guns and violence in their songs, ‘†¦the biggest selling urban acts today†¦ are basically singing love songs.' In contrast, the Trevor Nelson article in the Mirror begins by talking about how music is not to blame for gun crime and violence but society, ‘†¦the fault lies at the heart of society.' Then the article goes on to talk about how what is happening with urban music is no different to football hooliganism: ‘But this is no different to the hooligan days when yobs used football as vehicle for their aggression.' Lastly, the article ends talking about Trevor Nelson's first hand experience of gun crime at a club he was DJ-ing at. ‘I was devastated. To know someone got killed at a party where I was DJ-ing†¦' I think the Trevor Nelson article makes its points most effectively it is better structured and is well thought out. Moreover, Nelson has more credibility because he has given an MBE for bringing urban music to the UK, whereas Wilberforce is less well known. On the other hand, due to the readership of both papers it is not very lightly that the readers will know who either Nelson or willberforce are. The ‘Bullet Points' article in the Guardian did not have a main point on why not to blame music, it seemed to push the blame to the media. In addition, it said that the most popular urban artists sing love songs, in spite of the fact that Eminem is one of the biggest selling urban acts and one of the most controversial due to the nature of his lyrics. Furthermore, in this piece there are a number of questions asked by the writer that are left unanswered: ‘If there were no records glorifying guns, would they still feel they needed to carry a gun?' Or ‘Where do the influences on peoples behaviour begin and end?' In conclusion, the way in which the two papers covered the issue was very different from each other, although surprisingly they did have their similarities in vocabulary and language. Moreover, there were clearly some advantages and disadvantages in the medium chosen to report the subject, such as; for the Guardian, the internet enabled them to use a number of hyperlinks to satellite article but the reader would have to know the web address to get to their site first. In contrast the Mirror could guarantee that the reader would at least glance at each article whether they chose to read it or not but because they were using paper they had a limited amount of space available for articles.

A make up artist job

The job of a make-up artist is my lifelong ambition. Since early childhood, I was impressed with the mysterious world of stage and cinema and eager to make a contribution to the sphere. I believe that make-up artists are making a great deal to make artists’ appearance before cameras intriguing and appealing. There are also a number of things about the career that appeal to me at this point. First, it involves communication with people. As make-up artists work with movie stars, television hosts, and theatre actors, this means communication with interesting, talented people who bring their gifts to stage presentations. As someone fascinated with the artistic world, I am eager to foster relationships in it that can turn into lasting friendships. Contributing to their looks on the screen and on stage, I can become an important person in their lives and one to whom they turn for support and advice. Second, I like the creativity of the job. A human face can appear to the world in such a distinct variety of looks that it is really breath-taking to imagine. The make-up artist can use one’s innate ability to add a new touch to anybody’s face, making it more or less impressive. I am excited to learn ways to present the same face from a different standpoint, demonstrating its different aspects and qualities. I believe that there is great opportunity to use one’s creative abilities in this kind of job. Since I am always booming with ideas, I feel that a job of such kind is right for me. Third, it is very important that this job relates to human beauty. Personally, I sometimes admire how good-looking people can be. People are so different, and the make-up artist’s job is to bring out their individuality, underscoring their most appealing qualities. Working on the human face is so exciting because, no matter how trite this phrase seems, the face is the mirror of the soul and is thus the most important part of appearance. Trying to reveal the beauty of the human face is very exciting, especially when one works with a face that does not fit into social beauty standards. I would be especially thrilled to work on such faces, attempting to show the world the inner beauty of these people. I also enjoy the technical part of the profession and its various challenges. I know that I will have to gain a thorough understanding of technical issues involved and details of the photographic process, shooting, colors, special effects, and the like. I am really interested in seeing all these details in work and gain a thorough understanding of them. When I finish the make up artist school, I intend to seek a job, perhaps on television or in the movie industry. This is my first choice because I believe that a make-up artist has a lot to do in those areas. This work is going to be creative and offer opportunities for self-development. I would love to secure a permanent job with a film-making company or a TV channel. I understand that it may be unrealistic at some point and therefore am prepared to deal with assignments on a contract basis, offering my services to different companies for temporary projects. I hope that over time, as my experience increases, I will obtain access to interesting projects with attractive compensation. Preparing make-up for a well-known movie would be the pinnacle of my career. To attain this goal, I plan to do a lot of networking in the industry and related trade bodies and associations. In this way, I can increase my participation in the industry and foster good connections. I would also love to find a mentor who can guide me through the intricacies of the profession. This is why I would gladly accept an assistant position as my first job. I hope that with due effort, a career in this industry can become a reality for me. Â   Â  

Inequality in our Education System Essay

Education is vital to all individuals. It is the foundation of one’s development in order to achieve personal distinction. In addition, it also equips people the capacity to properly interact with other people. Education serves as a weapon for survival. It empowers one’s capacity and provides an edge in any endeavor that one wishes to get involved in. For example, in securing a job, a decent   and impressive educational attainment is one of the qualifications necessary in order to get hired.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Schools are designed to provide the adequate needs for attaining quality education. Schools should provide competent teachers, rigorous curriculum and modern facilities and equipments. But few   Americans are aware of the massive disparity and inequality that are consuming the educational system. Although it is not proper and ideal, the social status of an individual greatly affects the quality of education that one receives (Darling- Hammond, 2008, p. 208).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Tracking, in the area of education, recognizes the gap between the low-income, minority students and their well-off peers. Ethnic and linguistic minority students coming from low-income background oftentimes only afford admission to general and vocational courses, thus decreasing their chance, if not totally depriving them from pursuing college education (Mehan and Hubbardm, 1999, n.p). Schools with high concentration of low-income and minority students receive fewer and poor quality learning resources than the other schools within the same district (Darling- Hammond, 2008, p. 208).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Along with medical assistance and social welfare, ideally the education sector should be alloted with a larger portion from the state budget and should be appropriately divided among all the schools. But ironically, educational fund in the United States has also been unequally distributed to all schools. 10% of the wealthiest school district in the most industrialized country spend 10 times more than the 10% least fortunate. The number of poor and minority students are definitely higher in the least funded schools, mostly located at the central cities and rural areas, which is lowly funded than the schools in the suburban districts. Recent study shows that Alabama, New Jersey, New York, Louisiana, and Texas and schools with higher ratio of students of non-White American descent receive fewer resources than schools serving a greater number of White Americans (Darling- Hammond, 2008, p. 208).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   To address the issue of racism within the educational system, the idea of hidden curriculum was coined. Hidden curriculum pertains to the messages passed on by the organization or pedadogical institution apart from their public statements. The hidden curriculum is aimed to teach the students of school routines and to enable students in getting along in school and in the society in general. The messages in hidden curriculum may complement or contradict each other. In a way, it opens the minds of students to the possibility that some of the innate principles and natural laws enclosed within the democratic political system, may not at all times be practiced (Cornbleth. 2008, n.p).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Earlier studies proved that hidden curriculum conveyed in public and private schools were different. Public schools mainly focuses on academic classrooms with an emphasis on things like race, ethnicity, disability, and gender or sexual orientation as well as social class, politics, and culture (Cornbleth, 2008, n.p).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Over the years, we have overcome indecency caused by racism. As our culture succumbs to the tenets of globalization, people of different faces and races have been drawn closer towards each other. And this trend would ideally suggest equality among people born out of different ethnicities. The irregularities in our education systems rooted from unjust   policies have caused inequality in our schools.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Tracking, has kept the students separated from others based on their skin color and income. Tracking is therefore a form of racism, wherein students coming from different race and low-income background can never avail of the same oppurtunities, benefits and treatment that other students get. School funding policies branch from tracking, where schools serving more students who they believe are from inferior color and race, receive lesser funds than other schools. And last, hidden curriculum disposes messages that rationalized disparity among students.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In any way, the school shall serve as an institution where values and culture formation is hastened. But if an important and delicate institution like schools inculcate disparity amongst the people, then students and the whole society will be deprived of the rights that everyone must equally enjoy. References Cornbleth, Catherine. (2008). Hidden Curriculum. Retrieved May 3 2008 from http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1899/Curriculum-School-HIDDEN-CURRICULUM.html Darling-Hammond, Linda. (2001). Inequality in Teaching and Schooling: How Opportunity Is Rationed to Students of Color in America. In The Right Thing to Do, The Smart Thing to Do Enhancing Diversity in the Health Professions (pp. 208-233). National Academy. Mehan, Hugh and Lea Hubbard. (July 1999). Tracking â€Å"Untracking†: Evaluating the Effectiveness of an Educational Innovation. Retrived May 3 2008 from http://crede.berkeley.edu/research/tier/rb3.shtml