The Role Of The Media (In Australia) Essays - News Media, Media Bias

The Role Of The Media (In Australia) Select one of the three major themes in Australian thinking about media,communication and information identified by Osborne & Lewis (1995) and explore the ideas that underpin it. Explain when and where these ideas emerged in history and say something about why they have had an ongoing influence in this country. Osborne and Lewis state that [a] preeminent theme in Australian thinking about the use of communication is the extent to which it has been viewed as a form of control . There has been concern in recent times of the enormous power communication holds as an agent of societal control. This is due to a number of factors, such the media mogul dominated media, which promotes a very conservative view and does not allow for alternate opinions to be voiced. The wide-reaching capabilities of the media, particularly electronic media via the Internet allows for the influence to spread across the entire country to remote areas and therefore heightens a sense of societal control. Although there have also been calls for harsher and more defined regulations to be set down on the media industry in light of its influence, the concepts of free speech and censorship have existed ever since the introduction of the mass media. With the current trends in Australia moving towards an essentially corporatised system of public communication , concerns about the extent to which media and communication controls society will continue to be of relevance in Australia. The very basis for Australia, that is colonialism and settling a new land, formed the foundation for the media of the nation. In 1803, The Sydney Gazette, a government publication, became the first Australian newspaper to be circulated in the colony. It dealt with legal news, farming news and other areas of interest for the colonisers. Of course, it was aimed only at educated white colonials and not indigenous people or convicts. Despite starting as a government controlled newspaper, by 1824, the year that The Australian was started, all government ownership of the press has ceased and private owners were involved. This was a sign of things to come and is the root of current problems with dominant ownership of the press. Although by 1923 there were twenty-six metropolitan dailies owned by twenty-one proprietors, this balanced industry was not to remain and by 1983 there were only three major owners in the press industry. In 2001, two major media companies dominate the Australian pres s NewsLtd, and Fairfax. A government controlled media is not possible in a democratic society, however a media industry controlled by media moguls with widespread influence is hardly a better option, and results in a greater and more centralised control over society. The media-mogul dominated industry presents enormous problems and certainly contributes to the fear of controlling power held by the media. The fact that one person, family or company could control the majority of newspaper media that is being fed to society is consistent with the growing fear of social control. Rupert Murdoch, and his company NewsCorp, currently owns more than half of the newspaper industry in Australia, as well as about one-third of British newspapers. He also has film, TV, newspaper and publishing interests in the USA and owns Star Television in Asia. NewsLtd, the Australian subsidiary of NewsCorp, publishes 67.8 per cent of the capital city and national newspaper market; 76.1 per cent of the Sunday newspaper market; 46.6 per cent of the suburban newspaper market; and 23.4 per cent of the regional newspaper market. Fairfax owns and controls 21.4 per cent of the capital city and national newspaper market; 22.8 per cent of the Sunday newspaper market; 18.1 per cent of the suburban newspaper market; 15.4 per cent of the regional newspaper market. This total domination by two companies over what information is provided to Australians via the press is disturbing and further enhances the notion of the powerful control of the media over society. Although the situation is not uncommon in other nations, particularly the USA where Murdoch owns controlling interests in a variety of media formats, the concentration of media ownership is more pronounced in Australia than in any other modern Western society. Therefore, this form of communication

Toyota Recall Case Essays

Toyota Recall Case Essays Toyota Recall Case Essay Toyota Recall Case Essay Toyota was forced to recall millions of its vehicles in the US and Europe and reports of accelerator defects emerged. The Japanese automotive giant was criticised for putting profits ahead of safety, and an ill-coordinated communications response did not help matters. Toyota’s brand values- reliability, safety and quality- came under sustained scrutiny. Analysis: â€Å"Like most Japanese companies, corporate communications and overall corporate message development, was heavily centralized in Japan,† according to Kreab Gavin Anderson Japan managing partner Deborah Hayden and New York CSR director Mark Boutros. This caught Toyota’s Japan HQ, dominated by its engineer-led, consensual culture, flatfooted. â€Å"There was a lack of leadership from Japan, which meant countries had to pick their own strategy in the early days,† explains Porter Novelli corporate practice leader Neil Bayley. â€Å"This meant they appeared paralyzed, reacting in different ways across key markets. † â€Å"The findings that are emerging from lawsuits are showing that there does not appear to have been a fundamental product problem; at the end of the day Toyota faced a public relations problem,† adds Hayden. Handling a PR problem of this magnitude was not something that Toyota was equipped to do. â€Å"The media went chasing Toyota and the eventual press conference, where Mr Toyoda wore a surgical mask, didn’t do the company any favors,† says Bell Pottinger head of issues and crisis management Alex Woolfall. â€Å"Sadly, nor did his faltering English. † The press conference itself was held in Nagoya, further inflaming international media sentiment, and was conducted largely in Japanese.

Clean Water Act by EPA Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Clean Water Act by EPA - Research Paper Example In United States, nearly all manufacturing companies discharge their wastewater or storm water. Such emissions and discharges are extensively regulated by EPA in collaboration with federal and state authorities through programs of standards and permits under the Clean Water Act (CWA) (Garrett, 2003, p.1). Federal Water Pollution Control Act or Clean Water Act is the primary law that regulates pollution aspects of nation's surface waters. First enacted in 1948, it was modified by 1972 amendments. The 1972 legislation specified programs for water quality improvement. Since its enactment, the law is continuously modified and implemented by industries and municipalities. Congress made amendments in 1977, brushed up some parts in 1981, and expanded the law with further amendments in 1987 (Copeland, 2010, p.1).This paper briefly explores the Clean Water Act initiated by EPA. Background During late 1950s and 1960s, water pollution control programs were based on four laws that modified the 1 948 statute. Primarily, these laws addressed federal assistance to municipal dischargers and federal enforcement programs. Within this time period, federal role and jurisdiction was expanded to navigable interstate and intrastate waters. In 1965, water quality standards were incorporated in the law, requiring states to establish interstate water standards which would be utilized to assess pollution levels and control requirements. By the late 1960s, it was a common perception that not only enforcement procedures were time-consuming but water quality standard approach was also defective. Moreover, there were increasing concerns over the slow progress of pollution cleanup and lacking implementation of increasingly developed technologies. Such perceptions and increasing public interest in environmental protection led to the 1972 amendments. The 1972 statute established new laws rather than building on basic elements of prior laws. The statute established optimistic and promising goals: all municipal and industrial wastewater treatment before the discharge into waterways, better and restructured enforcement, and enhanced federal assistance for municipal treatment plant construction. It also extended the federal role and ensured that individual states fulfill their responsibility for day-to-day implementation of the law (Copeland, 2010, p.2). Prime Objectives The 1972 legislation announced that its prime objective is to restore and sustain the chemical, physical, and biological reliability of the nation's waters. Some other major objectives included zero emission of pollutants by 1985 and, where possible, maintenance of water quality as fishable and swimmable by mid-1983. Despite the fact that these dates have passed, the goals and efforts to achieve them remain (Copeland, 2010, p.2). Overview of the Law Clean Water Act (CWA) forms the basic structure for the regulation of pollutants discharge into waters of the United States and for maintenance of surface waters q uality standards. The basic CWA was implemented in 1948 and called Federal Water Pollution Control Act, but it was widely acknowledged and expanded in 1972. EPA has implemented pollution control programs under Clean Water Act such as establishing water standards for industries and quality standard for all contaminants in surface waters. The CWA has established that any kind of pollutant discharge from a certain source into passable waters is illegal, unless the discharger has a permit. National Pollutant Discharge

'To many outside Europe and North America, globalization looks like Essay

'To many outside Europe and North America, globalization looks like Westernalization'. Is this the case in cultural terms - Essay Example From a historical standpoint, what made this possible and is this a positive thing for the rest of the world? Why for many people is American culture still a problem? Seeking to address these questions and many more with respect to perceptions of American cultural hegemony and the world today, this essay will provide an in-depth exploration of American culture and the globalization phenomenon today. According to Kelly and Prokhovnik, â€Å"although the globalization of culture seems in some ways obvious in our daily lives, it is not an entirely straightforward matter. Culture is a complicated and pervasive phenomenon, taking many forms.† (48) Addressing charges of cultural imperialism and the role of the United States in cultivating a mass market â€Å"world culture†, the following will begin with a concise overview the charges leveled against the United States as an economic and cultural hegemon. Following this, we will explore glocalization and the cultural hybridity created when different cultures interact, and persuasively argue that globalization has in fact been a positive force in inter-cultural relations. Chapter Three of A Globalizing World describes the phenomenon of globalization as â€Å"the process by which markets and production in different countries are becoming increasingly interdependent due to the dynamics of trade in goods and services and flows of capital and technology† (85). Accordingly globalization, as it exists today, rests largely on the shoulders of neoliberal economics and the global entrenchment of capitalism as the dominant economic system across the world. This is an important and often neglected component of American cultural imperialism: the internationalization of the US economic system. Neoliberalism, the belief in laissez-faire economics, was best articulated by Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States in the 1980s. US

Edgar Degas Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Edgar Degas - Research Paper Example Moreover, being a romantic and lively creative person, he also drew the exotic pictures of women, which maintain perpetual captivation and unabated fascination in it. It is therefore his work experience splendid acknowledgement and admiration. Though, he could not earn fame in the beginning, and had to make hard efforts to win the attention of the art-lovers, yet he left his contemporary artists far behind by dint of his intelligent creativity and superb imagination. Consequently, his paintings are still making business in almost all parts of the globe. Aspects of Degass work - mainly, his ballet paintings from the 1880s - have long been popular with a broad audience; too much so for their own good. (artchive.com) The bath and combing oil paintings of women, produced by Degas, remind the literary viewers the most glamorous character of Belinda and her dressing room created by famous English poet of Classical Era Alexander Pope in his wonderful poem Rape of the Lock. Belinda is viewed as the most glamorous character ever created in the history of Continental Literature. Being the lover of art, I also appreciate the paintings created by Degas related to the bath and toilette, where he has skillfully drawn every crease of the body while drawing the sketch of the woman after bath. The color combination of the landscape is very close to natural beauty. The picture also reveals deep observation of this proficient artist, who has included everything that essential in a fashionable toilette of the ladies belonging to elite stratum of socie ty. It is therefore the future artists imitate his style and try to make portraits and drawings in the same lines adopted by

The Biometric Technology For Effective Payroll System

The Biometric Technology For Effective Payroll System Payroll is one of a series of accounting transactions, dealing with the process of paying employees for services rendered, it is electronic software, where all the employees information is recorded and captured. Companys experiences a lot of payroll fraudulent occurring by utilizing this payroll software which affects the companys capital due to a high increased payroll cost. Background and Motivation Money being a valuable asset to the company, I have chosen to research more on payroll and how can the effective security level be implemented to enhance the security on payroll by the use of biometrics, as I believe in Physical Attributes identification like finger prints, palm prints, and facial. To solve the security risks, biometrics technology (implemented in the ReCon Biometrics Keyless Identification Security System) uses physical attributes to identify an individual. This solution is ideal because biometrics authentication does not require the user to have any physical access objects present or remember any passwords. With ReCon Biometricss advanced facial recognition technology, we can now overcome many problems that other systems have encountered in the past (Rogan, 2002). Rather than using personal identification because, as (Rogan, 2002) stated that in personal identification A Personal Identification Number (PIN) is another widely adopted means of authentication, and is a standard example that uses memorized passwords or pass codes. The advantage to this approach is that no physical means are required for authentication. However, this method still suffers from security risks if an unauthorized individual gains access to an authorized users PIN. Further complications can arise when authorized users forget or misplace a PIN. Turner, a payroll specialist for a large Florida nonprofit organization, was a sick man. Most employees who steal do so out of greed, but Turner had a different motive-he was HIV-positive and needed expensive drugs to control the disease. Turners duties included posting time and attendance information to the computer system preparing payroll disbursement summaries. Adding and deleting employee master records were separate tasks, performed by another staff member. As an additional safeguard, a supervisor approved all payroll disbursements, and the company deposited them directly into employees personal bank accounts. When the coworker who added and deleted master records logged onto the system, Turner peeked over her shoulder and noted her user ID and password. This enabled him to add fake master records-for ghost employees to the system (Wells and Joseph, 2002). Where there is money to be made, dishonest and unscrupulous individuals can find ways to bilk the system (Michaels, 1998). As with any financial instrument, the key to success is prevention, and FIS continues to create new fraud prevention and monitoring tools as new trends develop (Mccann, 2008). A lot of money becomes missing and records being edited because of unauthorized users who hack the payroll system or being able to retrieve the passwords into accessing the payroll system, so the purpose of this research is to investigate the roots of hacking in the payroll so as to find a lasting solution to it and eliminate ghost employees. It is intended that in this research a suitable biometric system will be introduced providing greater reliability and accountability, in order to enhance the security level of The INNOVATIONHUBS VIP payroll and the staff. 1.2 Problem statement Payroll encompasses every employee of a company who receives a regular wage or other compensation. Some employees may be paid a steady salary while others are paid for hours worked or the number of items produced. All of these different payment methods are calculated by a payroll specialist utilizing a payroll system, and the appropriate paychecks are issued. So for an employee to get their paycheck a time sheet is submitted so that the payroll specialist can capture the data on the time sheet example number of hours worked, and then compute the salary for the employee, so companies often use objective measuring tools such as timecards or timesheets completed by supervisors to determine the total amount of payroll due each pay period. Payroll system is an electronically software that calculates employees salary. The problem is that when employees fill in their time sheets or timecards, they easily forge their attendance of being present at work or working overtime knowing they did not, they do what is called buddy punching which is when an employee punches a time card for another person. This is done by employees reason being earning more money, or earning money even though they did not work for it, because we all want to get our hands on money this affects the companys productivity and payroll cost. However payroll specialists easily get away with fraud because, usual solutions to the problem of enhancing security is identity involve using systems that rely on what a legitimate user knows example, passwords or personal identification numbers or what a legitimate user possesses example , ID cards or keys. However, these methods are susceptible to fraud and security threats as they do not identify the person but simply identify the information that is provided by that person (Gupta, 2008). Companies need to have an absolute trust in the identity of their employees, customers, and partners that is, they are really who they say they are. Taylor Farm, a processing plant for bagging produce, was incurring 20 percent of payroll cost due to buddy punching (Gupta, 2008). Kahn et al (2002:57) found that the System provides an automated, centralized back end payroll service with a full-featured web-based payroll system. Both aspects of the system have access to a central database, which includes, for example: profile information on employers and employees; timesheet, salary and hourly wage data; employee benefit data and information regarding third-party providers and miscellaneous payee. According to Krons (2010:109), the YMCA was committed to keeping its payroll in-house and was looking for a flexible and configurable system that would enable it to do so efficiently. With Kronos, they have been able to cut payroll processing time by 50 percent largely due to the automation of payroll data from the time and attendance system into payroll. With more than 1,800 full- and part-time employees at 12 facilities across Ohio, many employees often perform multiple jobs in the same pay period. With Kronos, the YMCA is able to keep track of position management and ensure that payment is applied correctly. After implementing a new time and attendance system for its labor intensive operation, Fantasy Cookie Co. has realized a 90% reduction in payroll errors and return on investment of one year (Hitchcock, 1993:70). Some of the motivations to change payroll frequencies include best practice or industry standards, possible future sale or acquisition, cost savings, union contract requirements, or even employee requests (2010:8). My intention is to find a way by means of biometrics systems to enhance the security level on VIP payroll at The Innovation Hub and monitoring employees presence at work. 1.3.1 Goal The primary goal of this study is to introduce Biometrics System for the security of VIP payroll at The Innovation Hub. 1.3.2. Objectives To investigate the security problems being encountered at the payroll and monitoring employees timesheet or timecards of the Innovation Hub To find out what is the security system applied in the payroll of the Innovation Hub. To explore the use of Biometric technology as a security system in this company to solve the security problems discovered. 1.3.3 Research questions What are the security problems being encountered at the payroll of the Innovation Hub? What is the security system applied in the payroll of this organization? How does Biometric system can be applied to solve the security problems identified? 1.3 Scope There are three types of payroll systems the first being the manual payroll system typically serves small medium and macro enterprise (SMME), and all this is done by hand with a manual payroll system. Secondly being the In-house Payroll a company with up to 60 employees can benefit from a computerized in-house payroll system. Thirdly is the external Service (outsourcing) company with more than 60 employees usually hiring an external payroll service. They are a separate firm that specializes in payroll processing. The basis of the definition supplied by Justice Buckley is that in order for a fraud to exist a lie must be told and something tangible obtained by virtue of the operation of that lie on the mind of the person receiving the information. That premise has been extended through common usage and the media so that now fraud is referred to as the obtaining of property through any dishonest means. Those means do not necessarily include the telling of a lie and can include what is considered corrupt activity by a person in authority (Jarrod 2006). There is no easy fix for Social Security. No silver bullet or miracle accounting will painlessly fix the problem posed by our 70-year-old national retirement system. At a recent meeting in Washington, D.C., the ABA Government Relations Council reaffirmed a strategy first advocated by ABA in 1999. It calls for ABA to act as industry spokesman for reform, work with Congress on a bipartisan basis and support the creation of personal retirement accounts those special accounts that would allow younger workers to place a portion of their payroll taxes in private retirement accounts they manage themselves (Duke 2005:20). Swart (2002:5-15) found that the payroll systems are cumbersome and problematic, they require the use of a middleman payroll service to either send or calculate and send the employees net pay data to the bank, which increases costs to the employer. These cost are ultimately passed on to the employees and public, such systems also take significant amounts of time to acquire, transfer, translate and process all of the data required to determine and distribute net pay to the employee, and employees are therefore forced to wait one or two weeks before even receiving their paychecks another disadvantage of the prior art payroll system is the use of centralized data processing for calculation of net pay, such as used by ADP. The allegations ranged from accepting kickbacks, committing bank larceny against the Orleans Parish Credit Union, and forging and passing bad checks, to theft, income tax violations, insurance and mail fraud, as well as extortion.6 With encouragement from State Superintendent Picard, the New York-based firm of Alvarez Marsal was selected in July 2005, by the Orleans Parish School Board and the Louisiana Department of Education, to address and resolve the districts numerous systemic financial improprieties.7 Employees of Alvarez Marsal immediately found significant payroll discrepancies estimated to cost the district approximately $12 million per year (Pamela Frazier 2008). Systems that lack a secured authorization detector can end up being history to the owners and costly. HIGH-PROFILE payroll problems have plagued a $25 million PeopleSoft ERP implementation in the Palm Beach County School District in Florida after just five months of operation.Since the Oracle Corp. software went live in July, there have been numerous instances of employees being underpaid or not paid at all, said Mike Guay, a Carlsbad, Calif.-based consultant hired in early September to help fix the problems. In many cases, the payroll errors have caused significant hardship to workers, added Sharon Barmory-Munley, president of thse local office of the National Conference of Firemen Oilers, a union representing more than 4,000 school district employees.In September, payroll problems prompted some 300 bus drivers to picket the school board. Other employees have complained to the U.S. Department of Labor, said Barmory-Munley (Barton, 1992). Its horrible, she said. Some people cant pay their bills, mortgage payments are late, and theyve ruined their credit. This is disastrous (Marc, 2006), this report shows how serious and harmful the system can get if not resolved in time. Payroll Express Corp., a company that provided paycheck cashing services for about 100 corporate clients, has gone bankrupt, and owner Robert Felzenberg has been accused of diverting customers funds to its own uses. Payroll Express bank, United Jersey Bank (Hackensack, NJ), is being sued by some Payroll Express customers for not monitoring the business more closely and for allegedly ignoring and glossing over Payroll Express troubles. The bank says the charges are without merit (Barton, 1992). Not all of the IT specialist do the right job or what they are suppose to do, you find IT hackers who can do anything to get their hands on money, money being an object that everyone wants to get their hands on. A large local employer in a small town had its office burglarized. Nothing appeared to be taken but there was some vandalism. The company assumed it was just some kids. A few days later, on a late Friday afternoon, a group of about 20 people with heavy accents came into the local bank and cashed payroll checks drawn on the local employer. On Saturday, the same 20 people went back to each of the bank branches again cashing more checks. It was then discovered that these checks were forged. The blank checks had been stolen during the break-in. Encouraging or requiring businesses to use a Positive Pay System will prevent these losses. When using Positive Pay, the business customer provides the banks computer with check numbers and amounts before providing the checks to recipients (Towle, 2010:17). There is no end to Queenslands payroll debacle with a report finding it will take another six months to make critical fixes to the system and 18 months for it to be fully re-implemented.Queensland nurses and midwives were waiting for a formal response from the states health department after a report recommended sticking with the flawed system (2010-2011:15). No matter what industry an organization serves, there is one common element the customer. That customer can be external or internal. The key focus in having quality be part of everyones job is to make sure customer value is the primary purpose of the organization. Everyone in the organization should know the customers and what they consider important. All functions accounting, payroll, information systems, engineering, sales play a role in how these customers view the work. Tools such as customer survey analysis, best practice studies and publisher customer audits are used to determine what customers really want, as are graphs of customer complaints over a specific time period (Whitarcre, 2001). 1.4 Significant This study is very significant in the sense that there is a serious implication of financial security to the survival of any organization especially the InnovationHub. Electronic security has also become a global issue in the discourse of a virile Information System, while the biometric system is a current security application of IT in the security system. The report of this work will also add to literature on the state of the art applications of IT study while the solution can be applied in all payroll systems. 1.5 Key words Payroll, System, Access, Security, Biometric Literature review Companies need to able to have absolute trust in the identity of the employees, that they are really who they say they are. Fraud can occur in the payroll department in many ways. These can include (Journal of Trade, 2010): phantom employees being paid; fraudulent additions to approved time records; increases in hourly rates; payments of commissions, bonuses, or incentives that are added to an employees normal paycheck; deduction reversals that add to an employees net pay; illegal advanced earned income credit payments; and Child support garnishments that are mailed to a custodial parent but never deducted from a paycheck. Identification is a one-to-many matching process that ascertains the existence of an individual in a database. This process merely determines that the person exists. If access control is predicated only on the existence of an individual, then the individual is given access to the system when the required identifier is found to exist in the access database. There is no confirmation or proof that the person who is given access is indeed the person who initiated the access procedure (Chandra Calderon, 2003). Everyone is a potential fraud, and only careful hiring and strong internal control are effective in preventing fraudulent to the organization (Seidman, 1985). Payroll accounting shows another area where authentication issues assume importance. The importance for effective authentication exists in at least three processes: time-keeping and attendance records, pick-up of paychecks, and linking employees to specific tasks in the organization. Three broad categories of factors that organizations use for automated authentication-possession, knowledge, and biometrics. Authentication can be predicated on a single factor (e.g., a password, a PIN, or a picture ID) or on multiple factors (e.g., password and picture ID, or PIN and picture ID). Vertical movements within the pyramid are associated with increases in the strength and focused nature of the authentication process. The likelihood that the verified identity is not that of the true owner also decreases with vertical movements in the pyramid (Chandra Calderon, 2003). The user must present a physical possession (such as a token or a key) to be authenticated. Though visible and usually portable, possessions can be lost, stolen, shared, duplicated, forgotten, or destroyed. Possession-based authentication factors provide assurance that a user presents a valid token or card. Within the context of an automated authentication process, these factors do not provide direct assurance that a user who is allowed access into an information system is indeed the person he or she claims to be. In the second category, the user provides information about his/her knowledge (such as, password, or passphrase). Passwords and other knowledge authentication factors are highly portable, invisible (unless written down), can be changed often, and can be designed to be relatively secure. However, they can be forgotten, reused, stolen, guessed, or shared. Passwords offer assurance that the person at the keyboard knows the password. They do not offer assurance that the person at the keyboard is indeed the person he/she purports to be (Chandra Calderon, 2003). Fraud in payrolls always involves over statement of the total of the payroll, and usually involves either (1986): Padding the payroll by including names of new employees before they started to work, or names of employees who have left, or names of men who are simply non-existent, or who exist but do not work for the company. Overstating payroll footings, carry forwards etc Failure to account for unclaimed wages, overpayments. Etc. One private sector problem is what is called buddy punching which is when an employee punches a time card for another person. Taylor Farm, a processing plant for bagging produce, was incurring 20 percent of payroll cost due to buddy punching. (Gupta, 2008). People are our business and managing such a large workforce that operates on diverse client sites is a challenge. We recognized that a standard time and attendance system that could provide as many access methods for clocking on as possible biometric, internet, proximity, telephone yet could be managed both centrally and remotely, was an essential requirement for our business (Pollitt, 2008). The real cushion against fraud, however, is in the type of individual employed. This means concern not so much with an applicants technical background, as with human background. Things like his mode of living , his social habits, his family troubles, his financial stresses and strains all of these are vital in the fraud potential (Seidman, 1985). The construction foreman of a large chemical company is responsible for a maintenance crew of about fifty employees who include tradesmen and labourers. He is also responsible for the deployment of a large amount of tools and equipment for the repair and maintenance of the plant. The employees are permitted to work overtime. The foreman started his own handyman/small construction company specializing in week end work. To carry out this work he utilized the tools and equipment of his employer and the time for the labour of the employees engaged in this nefarious activity was paid for by the employer by way of overtime for working on the weekend. The foreman authorized their overtime cards, certifying they had worked the overtime for the company. Employees were paid for their work, but the foreman, who charged his private clients, did not have to pay any costs of the construction whatsoever. The foremans behaviour was such that he obtained a financial advantage because hedid not have to pay for the labour of his workers or the tools and equipment he used onhis jobs. He was convicted of deceiving his employer into paying for the labour cost (Bowditch, 2006). The paymaster of a large technical company on the north shore was a trusted and valued employee until a co worker saw him driving a brand new Porsche on the week end. An investigation revealed that he had been systematically paying himself overtime at the rate of five times his regular salary. No subterfuge, he was just authorizing the payment to himself of more hours overtime than there are hours in the week. The fact that he could have got away with this brazen fraud for over twelve months showed a lack of any sort of control by management in the running of the company, and certainly no thought to fraud control (Bowditch, 2006). The state sales manager for a leading liquor distributor was offering the clients on his run a special discount for cash. He was fulfilling the orders and obtaining the cash and writing an invoice and receipt from a loop he had installed in the company computer which had a program to generating the invoices, receipts and stock upgrades. He got away with hundreds of thousands of dollars until a physical reconciliation was done between the stock and sales figures and the crime discovered (Bowditch, 2006). American businesses lose nearly $12 billion a year to check fraud, and small businesses are frequent victims of fraud artists, who consider them easy prey (Blackwood, 1998). Dont trust any person with money, always check on them and then check more. 3. Theoretical frame work Using Autopoietic theory as a framework for biometrics Autopoiesis is a pseudo Greek word coined from ÃŽÂ ±Ãƒ Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ãƒ Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ãƒ ³ (auto) for self and à Ã¢â€š ¬Ãƒ ³Ãƒâ€žÃ‚ ±ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ·Ãƒ Ã†â€™ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ¹Ãƒ Ã¢â‚¬Å¡ (poiesis) for creation, production or forming that was first introduced by the Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela in 1973 to denote the type of phenomenon they had identified as a characteristic that distinguishes living systems from other types of systems. They claimed that living systems are autonomous entities that reproduce all their properties through their internal processes. Later on this term was introduced into social theory as well as formal organization theory by Niklas Luhmann who claimed that social systems are systems of communication that emerge whenever an autopoietic communication cycle comes into being that is able to filter itself out of a complex environment (Schatten, 2008). Luhman argues that there are three types of social systems: societal, interactional as well as organizational. Any social system has its respective information subsystem described through their communicative processes. Systems that are not autopoietic (systems that produce something other than themselves) are considered to be allopoietic (technical) systems (Schatten, 2008). This is how the theory of Autopoietic will be applied to my research, the theory which represents a framework for describing complex non-linear and especially living systems is described in a context of biometric characteristics. It is argued that any living system by performing an internal process of reproducing its structural components yields physical biometric characteristics. Likewise any living system when structurally coupling to another (eventually allopoietic) system yields a behavioral or psychological characteristic of the living system (Schatten, 2008). It is revealed that a system that can be considered as autopoietic can potentially be measured, authenticated and or identified using biometric method, and thus biometrics is appropriate to any autopoietic system it can be people, social systems, organizations as well as information systems. So biometric is a method of series, steps or activities conducted to practice biometric samples of some biometric feature usually to find the biometric features holder or a special feature of the biometric sample. A biometric template or extracted structure is a quantity or set of quantities acquired by a conscious application of a biometric feature extraction or preprocessing method on a biometric sample. These templates are usually stored in a biometric database and used for reference during the recognition, training or enrolment processes of a biometric system (Schatten, 2008). The diagram below illustrates how the biometric technology will be intergrated with the payroll system, and this is how the autopoietic theory will be applied to my study. Diagram of payroll system integrated with iris biometric device Back up a data center The time sheet detail is captured in the payroll system. Time sheet (time in and out) about the employee is recorded. Employee scans his or her Iris in the iris scan device. The payroll specialist forwards the employees paycheck, using timesheet information from the captured payroll. Paycheck is transferred by the finance department to the employees accounts. 4. Methodology This is an exploratory research because it is the goal of formulating problems more precisely, clarifying concepts, gathering explanations, gaining insight, eliminating impractical ideas, and forming hypotheses. The method of data collection that I will use is qualitative method as it is used when a question needs to be described and investigation in some depth, or examining the meaning of an experience (Shields and Twycross). How I will compile my research I will seek to interview those who are knowledgeable and who might be able to provide insight concerning the payroll system and monitoring of time sheets to verify employees presence at work. I will interview 20% of the staff members and all the staff at the finance department and the payroll specialist, I will use audio tapes for recording my interviews and a method of transcripts of conversation. Some of the questions Ill ask the staff members: Do you use any type of access to enter into your office or the building of the company? What monitors your presence at work? Do you submit weekly or monthly time sheet? Who witness the time sheet? Some of the questions Ill ask the payroll department: What attributes or information do you need to capture for a new employee? How do you handle information of ex employee? When do you do roll over of the payroll? How are different leaves captured? Some of the questions Ill ask the finance department: When do the employees receive their pay check? How do you monitor costs of payroll, after how long? Im going to carry out my research at The Innovation Hub focusing on their VIP payroll system, time sheets and the clocking in and clocking out of work method used. This is a brief introduction of my solution framework Biometrics refers to the process of automatically recognizing a living person using his or her distinguishing, measurable traits. Biometric systems identify the person rather that what the person has (like ID cards) or what they remember (like passwords). The term biometric refers to the statistical analysis of biological phenomena and measurements and has been widely used to describe technologies used for personal identity management (Gupta, 2008). Biometrics technology uses unique, measureable, human characteristics to automatically recognize and verify an individuals identity. Biometrics can measure both physiological and behavioural characteristics. Physiological biometrics is based on precise and accurate measurements of unique features of the human body, and includes: Finger scan which matches the minutiae, pattern, ultrasonic or moirà © fringe imprint, most common of all devices (Chandra Calderon, 2003). Facial scan is designed primarily to find close matches of particular facial features such as eyes, nose, mouth, cheekbones, chin, and forehead against a database of static facial images (Clodfelter, 2010). Iris scan technology relies on the distinctly colored ring that surrounds the pupil of the eye. Irises have approximately 266 distinctive characteristics, including a trabecular meshwork, striations, rings, furrows, a corona, and freckles. Typically, about 173 of these distinctive characteristics are used in creating the template. Irises form during the eighth month of pregnancy and are thought to remain stable throughout an individuals life, barring injury (Rosenzweig, 2004). Retina scan a digital image of the retina of the eye is created to match the pattern against a live sample, scanning done by low-intensity light via an optical coupler (Chandra Calderon, 2003). Hand geometry relies on measurements of the width, height, and length of the fingers, distances between joints, and the shape of knuckles (Rosenzweig, 2004). Behavioral biometrics (based on measurements and data derived from an action) include: Voice recognition measures the wavelengths and frequencies of the voice (Chandra Calderon, 2003). Signature recognition traditional device, a behavioural device, it checks the way a person signs his or her name, and writes letters (Chandra Calderon, 2003). Keystroke recognition a behaviourable biometric device, it measures the force applied and the pattern used to push keys on a keyboard (Chandra Calderon, 2003). I will be utilizing the iris biometric system because: Iris recognition technology is relatively easy to use and can process large numbers of people quickly. The iris is the most unique identifier on the human body. It is the most reliable form of biometrics. Iris patterns are unique and stable, even over a long period of time. Furthermore, iris scanning and recognition systems are very user-friendly. Less intrusive than retina scan, higher matching performance, works well with glasses, across ethnic groups. Biometrics

Virginity In Chronicle Of A Death by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel :: Virginity Chronicle Marquez Chocolate Essays

Virginity In Chronicle Of A Death by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel Latin American society has placed a very high value on women being virgins when they marry. This value is one of the primary themes in Chronicle of a Death foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In contrast, virginity does not appear to hold significance in Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. However this is only on the surface but as one delves into the deeper meanings of each book it almost seems as if the authors view this social doctrine as childish. Throughout the stories contained within both books, a mockery is made out of the idea that celibacy is for those not yet married. The plot of Chronicle of a Death Foretold is totally based on the understanding that maintaining a woman’s virginity is important enough to kill for and conversely that anyone violating this social moray was risking death. Virginity is viewed as synonymous with honor. This aspect is what Garcia Marquez challenges with the use of irony. Throughout the book, he inserts aspects that speak directly to the importance of this theme and reinforces this concept by use of several devices, of which irony is the most prominent. â€Å"No one would have thought, nor did anyone say, that Angela Vicario wasn’t a virgin. She hadn’t known any previous fiancà © and she’d grown up along with her sisters under the rigor of a mother of iron. Even when it was less than two months before she would be married, Pura Vicario wouldn’t let her go out alone with Bayardo San Roman to see the house where they were going to live, but she and the blind father accompanied her to watch over her honor.† The idea of protecting her virginity is so important as to have a blind father as a chaperone. This is absurd, to make a blind man to â€Å"watch† over Angela Vicario, and is how Gabriel Garcia Marquez ridicules the preconception of pre-marital virginity. The societal value placed on these preconception is also demonstrated in small ways like the name of the mother, â€Å"Pura.† Pura in spanish means pure; virginity and pure in this society were one and the same. Pura’s sole purpose throughout the book is to keep Angela’s virginity safe from those who would puncture it, and to punish Angela for making the mistake of losing her virginity before marriage.

The Role of Alan Turing in the History of Computing

The role of Alan Turing in the history of computing Alan Mathison Turing was born on 23 June 1912, Paddington, London. He was a true pioneer in computer science and if it were not for this man, no one would probably be typing an essay based on him on a modern computer. He is renowned for his passion of mathematics and the invention of the Turing machine/test, breaking the German enigma code during World War One, and for making the first automated computing machine (the ACE).At an early age he was sent to preparatory school by his parents, he attended these until enrolling at Sherbourne in 1926. His teachers there were surprised to find him working through the long way for the answers to questions, after Sherbourne Turing enrolled at King’s College where he became a mathematics scholar in 1931 where he began his studies in maths and logistics. He was elected at King’s and won the Smith’s award in 1936 for a paper he wrote on the â€Å"Gaussian error function†, this is when he began work to develop The Turing Machine. Copeland, 2004) But later in 1936 he moved to the United States to study at Princeton for two years where he studied the theory of computation and in 1937 presented a paper called â€Å"On computable numbers, with an application to the â€Å"Entscheidungs problem† and soon to challenge David Hilbert’s three questions put forward to the best of the mathematical minds, which were; Was maths complete? Was maths constant? , was maths decidable? (Hodges, 1992; Copeland 2004).Though his work on the Entscheidungs problem he began working on to define what a method was, and through that he came up with the Turing machine theory which can be said to be a mechanical process that was able to perform all the operations a person working with a logical system would be able to perform this theory compares human thought processes to that of a machine, which in the Turing machine theory are categorized as terms of inputs, o utputs and machine states.The Turing machine is a simple computer. It’s limited to a logical set of instructions by reading and writing symbols on a tape and moving the tape one step to the left or right and then look at what’s written in the resulting square, each symbol had a specific way to be turned into a new symbol e. g. if the symbol is a â€Å"0† move it two spaces right and turn it into a â€Å"1†. So a algorithm for a calculation the list of instructions are quite long, but the complexity of instructions are very short.The Turing Machine at the time was the only one designed to perform multiple tasks and functions. Turing’s vision was what we currently use today as a modern computer (Copeland, 2012). Soon after this period World War two began and the Polish were bracing themselves from an invasion from the Germans, When Polish mathematician Marian Rejewski attempted to break the German enigma machine which is a mechanical ciphering machin e which had the purpose of a message only being read and understood by the receiver.Marian made the polish bomby which works like a combination of many enigma machines e. g. if SAW stood for GJK then both would be put in the bomby and every possible combination would be sorted through and would stop when a possible match was found, this worked well until 1938 when Germany added two more rotors to the Enigma (Schmidl, 1998), sadly the Polish had to leave Poland and forced to team up with the English and French and this where Alan Turing’s true genius was put into application and saved hundreds and thousands of lives.Turing then put the Polish’s efforts into action, the British had a lot more resources which consisted of about ten thousand people working on the encoding of the Enigma, Turing created The Turing Bombe which was a lot more efficient than the bomby and it differed in the way that instead of trying to rely on a certain indicator decode a certain message sent, it went after the specific message using word probability.Once the message was solved a ’menu’ was put on the bombe and was then put in its proper setting, was given information and let it run until it matched with the rotors, Three to Seven months later a set of three rotors were place in the scrambler unit, this made the processing a lot faster as the scrambler unit made the current go from the fast, medium then the slow rotor.Eventually the codes made by the Germans became clearer and they lost their advantage in World War two, and the U boats who were sinking the supply ships from America and Canada to Great Britain, could not locate the supply ships for the first 23 days of June 1941 (Kozaczuk, 1984). After World war two Turing went to work for the National Physical Laboratory in 1945 where he made the first plan for the first Automated Computing Machine for the Association for Computing Engineering (the ACE). Unfortunately the ACE was never completed as he moved to the University of Manchester to develop an even more advanced computing machine (MADAM).With all of Turing’s work he had proved David Hilbert wrong with all three questions with the fact that a certain class of mathematical problems which could not be solved by automatic machines and had introduced the concept of a single theoretical universal computing machine, which of course is now known as the Turing Machine. In 1947 he tried to find out if there was any relationship with computers and nature and Turing was certain that by about the year 2050 that a thinking machine would mimic the thoughts of a human and it was in 1949 he published a paper called â€Å"intelligent machines† (Copeland, 2005)Alan Turing passed away on 7 June 1954, he was found in his bed with an half eaten apple beside his bed, which was apparently dipped in cyanide on purpose by himself so he could commit suicide as he was supposedly depressed after being found guilty of homosexuality by the Br itish courts. But there is little evidence to support this theory of Turing committing suicide (Pease, 2012). Bibliography Schmidl, H. , (1998) On Enigma and a Method for its Decryption http://www. cs. miami. edu/~harald/enigma/index. html Kozaczuk, W. (1984), Enigma: How the German Machine Cipher Was Broken, and How It Was Read by the Allies in World War Two, (2nd ed. ), Frederick, Maryland: University Publications of America. Hodges, A. , (1992), Alan Turing: the enigma, London: Burnett Books. P. 26-34. Copeland, B. J. , (2004) The Essential Turing. Oxford: Oxford University Press Pease, R. , Alan Turing: Inquest's suicide verdict ‘not supportable' (June 26,2012). , BBC News, science and environment. Copeland, B. J. , Alan Turing. net, the Turing archive for the history of computing (2012). The Role of Alan Turing in the History of Computing The role of Alan Turing in the history of computing Alan Mathison Turing was born on 23 June 1912, Paddington, London. He was a true pioneer in computer science and if it were not for this man, no one would probably be typing an essay based on him on a modern computer. He is renowned for his passion of mathematics and the invention of the Turing machine/test, breaking the German enigma code during World War One, and for making the first automated computing machine (the ACE).At an early age he was sent to preparatory school by his parents, he attended these until enrolling at Sherbourne in 1926. His teachers there were surprised to find him working through the long way for the answers to questions, after Sherbourne Turing enrolled at King’s College where he became a mathematics scholar in 1931 where he began his studies in maths and logistics. He was elected at King’s and won the Smith’s award in 1936 for a paper he wrote on the â€Å"Gaussian error function†, this is when he began work to develop The Turing Machine. Copeland, 2004) But later in 1936 he moved to the United States to study at Princeton for two years where he studied the theory of computation and in 1937 presented a paper called â€Å"On computable numbers, with an application to the â€Å"Entscheidungs problem† and soon to challenge David Hilbert’s three questions put forward to the best of the mathematical minds, which were; Was maths complete? Was maths constant? , was maths decidable? (Hodges, 1992; Copeland 2004).Though his work on the Entscheidungs problem he began working on to define what a method was, and through that he came up with the Turing machine theory which can be said to be a mechanical process that was able to perform all the operations a person working with a logical system would be able to perform this theory compares human thought processes to that of a machine, which in the Turing machine theory are categorized as terms of inputs, o utputs and machine states.The Turing machine is a simple computer. It’s limited to a logical set of instructions by reading and writing symbols on a tape and moving the tape one step to the left or right and then look at what’s written in the resulting square, each symbol had a specific way to be turned into a new symbol e. g. if the symbol is a â€Å"0† move it two spaces right and turn it into a â€Å"1†. So a algorithm for a calculation the list of instructions are quite long, but the complexity of instructions are very short.The Turing Machine at the time was the only one designed to perform multiple tasks and functions. Turing’s vision was what we currently use today as a modern computer (Copeland, 2012). Soon after this period World War two began and the Polish were bracing themselves from an invasion from the Germans, When Polish mathematician Marian Rejewski attempted to break the German enigma machine which is a mechanical ciphering machin e which had the purpose of a message only being read and understood by the receiver.Marian made the polish bomby which works like a combination of many enigma machines e. g. if SAW stood for GJK then both would be put in the bomby and every possible combination would be sorted through and would stop when a possible match was found, this worked well until 1938 when Germany added two more rotors to the Enigma (Schmidl, 1998), sadly the Polish had to leave Poland and forced to team up with the English and French and this where Alan Turing’s true genius was put into application and saved hundreds and thousands of lives.Turing then put the Polish’s efforts into action, the British had a lot more resources which consisted of about ten thousand people working on the encoding of the Enigma, Turing created The Turing Bombe which was a lot more efficient than the bomby and it differed in the way that instead of trying to rely on a certain indicator decode a certain message sent, it went after the specific message using word probability.Once the message was solved a ’menu’ was put on the bombe and was then put in its proper setting, was given information and let it run until it matched with the rotors, Three to Seven months later a set of three rotors were place in the scrambler unit, this made the processing a lot faster as the scrambler unit made the current go from the fast, medium then the slow rotor.Eventually the codes made by the Germans became clearer and they lost their advantage in World War two, and the U boats who were sinking the supply ships from America and Canada to Great Britain, could not locate the supply ships for the first 23 days of June 1941 (Kozaczuk, 1984). After World war two Turing went to work for the National Physical Laboratory in 1945 where he made the first plan for the first Automated Computing Machine for the Association for Computing Engineering (the ACE). Unfortunately the ACE was never completed as he moved to the University of Manchester to develop an even more advanced computing machine (MADAM).With all of Turing’s work he had proved David Hilbert wrong with all three questions with the fact that a certain class of mathematical problems which could not be solved by automatic machines and had introduced the concept of a single theoretical universal computing machine, which of course is now known as the Turing Machine. In 1947 he tried to find out if there was any relationship with computers and nature and Turing was certain that by about the year 2050 that a thinking machine would mimic the thoughts of a human and it was in 1949 he published a paper called â€Å"intelligent machines† (Copeland, 2005)Alan Turing passed away on 7 June 1954, he was found in his bed with an half eaten apple beside his bed, which was apparently dipped in cyanide on purpose by himself so he could commit suicide as he was supposedly depressed after being found guilty of homosexuality by the Br itish courts. But there is little evidence to support this theory of Turing committing suicide (Pease, 2012). Bibliography Schmidl, H. , (1998) On Enigma and a Method for its Decryption http://www. cs. miami. edu/~harald/enigma/index. html Kozaczuk, W. (1984), Enigma: How the German Machine Cipher Was Broken, and How It Was Read by the Allies in World War Two, (2nd ed. ), Frederick, Maryland: University Publications of America. Hodges, A. , (1992), Alan Turing: the enigma, London: Burnett Books. P. 26-34. Copeland, B. J. , (2004) The Essential Turing. Oxford: Oxford University Press Pease, R. , Alan Turing: Inquest's suicide verdict ‘not supportable' (June 26,2012). , BBC News, science and environment. Copeland, B. J. , Alan Turing. net, the Turing archive for the history of computing (2012).

Dromedary Camel (Camelus dromedarius)

Dromedary Camel (Camelus dromedarius) The dromedary (Camelus dromedarius or one-humped camel) is one of a half-dozen of camel species left on the planet, including llamas, alpacas, vicunas, and guanacos in South America, as well as its cousin, the two-humped Bactrian camel. All evolved from a common ancestor some 40-45 million years ago in North America. The dromedary was probably domesticated from wild ancestors roaming in the Arabian peninsula. Scholars believe that the likely site of domestication was in coastal settlements along the southern Arabian peninsula somewhere between 3000 and 2500 BC. Like its cousin the Bactrian camel, the dromedary carries energy in the form of fat in its hump and abdomen and can survive on little or no water or food for quite a long period. As such, the dromedary was (and is) prized for its ability to endure treks across the arid deserts of the Middle East and Africa. Camel transport greatly enhanced overland trade throughout Arabia particularly during the Iron Age, extending international contacts throughout the region along caravansaries. Art and Incense Dromedaries are illustrated as being hunted in New Kingdom Egyptian art during the Bronze Age (12th century BC), and by the Late Bronze Age, they were fairly ubiquitous across Arabia. Herds are attested from Iron Age Tell Abraq on the Persian Gulf. The dromedary is associated with the emergence of the incense route, along the western edge of the Arabian peninsula; and the ease of camel travel compared to substantially more dangerous sea navigation increased the use of overland trade routes connecting the Sabaean and later trading establishments between Axum and the Swahili Coast and the rest of the world. Archaeological Sites Archaeological evidence for early dromedary use includes the predynastic site of Qasr Ibrim, in Egypt, where camel dung was identified about 900 BC, and because of its location interpreted as dromedary. Dromedaries did not become ubiquitous in the Nile Valley until about 1,000 years later. The earliest reference to dromedaries in Arabia is the Sihi mandible, a camelid bone direct-dated to ca 7100-7200 BC. Sihi is a Neolithic coastal site in Yemen, and the bone is probably a wild dromedary: it is about 4,000 years earlier than the site itself. See Grigson and others (1989) for additional information about Sihi. Dromedaries have been identified at sites in southeastern Arabia beginning between 5000-6000 years ago. The site of Mleiha in Syria includes a camel graveyard, dated between 300 BC and 200 AD. Finally, dromedaries from the Horn of Africa were found at the Ethiopian site of Laga Oda, dated 1300-1600 AD. The bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus or two-humped camel) is related to, but, as it turns out, not descended from the wild bactrian camel (C. bactrianus ferus), the only survivor species of the ancient old world camel. Domestication and Habitats Archaeological evidence indicates that the bactrian camel was domesticated in Mongolia and China about 5,000-6,000 years ago, from a now-extinct form of camel. By the 3rd millennium BC, the bactrian camel was spread throughout much of Central Asia. Evidence for the domestication of Bactrian camels has been found as early as 2600 BC at Shahr-i Sokhta (also known as the Burnt City), Iran. Wild bactrians have small, pyramid-shaped humps, thinner legs and a smaller and slender body then their domestic counterparts. A recent genome study of wild and domestic forms (Jirimutu and colleagues) suggested that one characteristic selected for during the domestication process may have been enriched olfactory receptors, the molecules which are responsible for the detection of odors. The original habitat of the bactrian camel extended from the Yellow River in Gansu province of northwest China through Mongolia to central Kazakhstan. Its cousin the wild form lives in northwestern China and southwestern Mongolia particularly in the Outer Altai Gobi Desert. Today, bactrians are mainly herded in the cold deserts of Mongolia and China, where they contribute significantly to the local camel herding economy. Attractive Characteristics Camel characteristics which attracted people to domesticate them are pretty obvious. Camels are biologically adapted to harsh conditions of deserts and semi-deserts, and thus they make it possible for people to travel through or even live in those deserts, despite the aridity and lack of grazing. Daniel Potts (University of Sydney) once called the bactrian the principal means of locomotion for the Silk Road bridge between the old world cultures of the east and west. Bactrians store energy as fat in their humps and abdomens, which enables them to survive for long periods without food or water. In a single day, a camels body temperature can vary safely between an astounding 34-41 degrees Celsius (93-105.8 degrees Fahrenheit). In addition, camels can tolerate a high dietary intake of salt, more than eight times that of cattle and sheep. Recent Research Geneticists (Ji et al.) have recently discovered that feral bactrian, C. bactrianus ferus, is not a direct ancestor, as had been assumed prior to the onset of DNA research, but is instead a separate lineage from a progenitor species which has now disappeared from the planet. There are currently six subspecies of bactrian camel, all descendant from the single bactrian population of the unknown progenitor species. They are divided based on morphological characteristics: C. bactrianus xinjiang, C.b. sunite, C.b. alashan, C.B. red, C.b. brown, and C.b. normal. A behavioral study found that bactrian camels older than 3 months are not allowed to suck milk from their mothers, but have learned to steal milk from other mares in the herd (Brandlova et al.) See page one for information about the  Dromedary Camel.   Sources Boivin, Nicole. Shell Middens, Ships and Seeds: Exploring Coastal Subsistence, Maritime Trade and the Dispersal of Domesticates in and Around the Ancient Arabian Peninsula. Journal of World Prehistory, Dorian Q. Fuller, Volume 22, Issue 2, SpringerLink, June 2009. Brandlov K, BartoÃ… ¡ L, and Haberov T. 2013. Camel calves as opportunistic milk thefts? The first description of allosuckling in domestic bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus). PLoS One 8(1):e53052. Burger PA, and Palmieri N. 2013. Estimating the Population Mutation Rate from a de novo Assembled Bactrian Camel Genome and Cross-Species Comparison with Dromedary ESTs. Journal of Heredity: March 1, 2013. Cui P, Ji R, Ding F, Qi D, Gao H, Meng H, Yu J, Hu S, and Zhang H. 2007. A complete mitochondrial genome sequence of the wild two-humped camel (Camelus bactrianus ferus): an evolutionary history of camelidae. BMC Genomics 8:241. Gifford-Gonzalez, Diane. Domesticating Animals in Africa: Implications of Genetic and Archaeological Findings. Journal of World Prehistory, Olivier Hanotte, Volume 24, Issue 1, SpringerLink, May 2011. Grigson C, Gowlett JAJ, and Zarins J. 1989. The Camel in Arabia: A Direct Radiocarbon Date, Calibrated to about 7000 BC. Journal of Archaeological Science 16:355-362. Ji R, Cui P, Ding F, Geng J, Gao H, Zhang H, Yu J, Hu S, and Meng H. 2009. Monophyletic origin of domestic bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus) and its evolutionary relationship with the extant wild camel (Camelus bactrianus ferus). Animal Genetics 40(4):377-382. Jirimutu, Wang Z, Ding G, Chen G, Sun Y, Sun Z, Zhang H, Wang L, Hasi S et al. (The Bactrian Camels Genome Sequencing and Analysis Consortium) 2012. Genome sequences of wild and domestic bactrian camels. Nature Communications 3:1202. Uerpmann HP. 1999. Camel and horse skeletons from protohistoric graves at Mleiha in the Emirate of Sharjah (U.A.E.). Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 10(1):102-118. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0471.1999.tb00131.x Vigne J-D. 2011. The origins of animal domestication and husbandry: A major change in the history of humanity and the biosphere. Comptes Rendus Biologies 334(3):171-181.

The Complete Guide to AP Human Geography FRQs

The Complete Guide to AP Human Geography FRQs SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips The free-response section is the hardest part of any AP test. Although AP Human Geography is much more straightforward than some other humanities AP exams, if you don't have your stuff down, the free-response section can still hit you where it hurts. In this article, I'll take you through the structure of the free-response section, some tips for answering AP Human Geography FRQsstrategically, examples of what actual questions look like, and a few places where you can find the best practice materials. AP Human Geography Free-Response Section Format There are three questions on the free-response section, each worth the same percentage of your score.You’ll have an hour and 15 minutes to answer all three questions.Free-response prompts will ask you to: Demonstrate an understanding of geographic models Analyze and evaluate geographic concepts Cite and explain examples of various geographic processes Synthesize different topics covered in the curriculum Most free-response questions have multiple parts, and you can earn anywhere from 6-10 raw points on each of them.It’s usually fairly obvious where the points are earned on these questions, as you’ll see in the examples in the upcoming sections. How to Answer AP Human Geography FRQs Before we get into examples with answer explanations, I’ll give you some essential steps for answering these types of questions.AP Human Geography free-response questions are typically pretty straightforward so you can attack them in a methodical fashion. Here's a sample question from the 2015 exam that I'll use as a reference so you can see how the different steps apply: Step 1: Read the Introductory Statement Before you start in on the first part of the question, make sure you read the short introductory blurb.It sets up the topic you’ll be analyzing and gives you firmer ground to stand on when addressing the rest of the question. In the sample question above, the introductory statement makes it clear that the question will deal with refugees and the political and social origins of mass emigration. Reading all the introductory statements for the three free-response questions in the section before you start answering any of them can help you decide where to begin.If you see a topic that is especially familiar, you might go for that question first because you’ll be able to answer it the fastest. Step 2: Identify the Key Command In each part of the question, underline what it’s asking you to do.Common examples of key commands include â€Å"compare,† â€Å"describe,† â€Å"identify,† and â€Å"explain.†It’s helpful to underline these words to keep yourself on track when responding to the question.This is also useful because it will get you in the habit of paying closer attention to the differences between each of these tasks. For example, a question that asks you to â€Å"identify† something will merit a much more succinct answer than one that asks you to â€Å"describe† it.In part A of the sample question, the key command is "define," meaning you could just give a one sentence answer that clearly outlines what a refugee is. For part B, the key command is "discuss," which denotes a longer answer that elaborates on each reason for refugees leaving their countries of origin. In part C, the key commands are "identify and explain," which would mean a very succinct answer followed by greater detail. The final part of the question asks you to "explain" two economic impacts, which means a couple of sentences of further clarification for each example you give.You’ll save time and earn points if you’re careful to make these distinctions! Step 3: Hit the Points Now it’s time to answer the question.Make an estimate of how many points are possible in this part of the question.For example, if a question tells you to give two examples of how a concept applies to a certain country’s economic landscape, there are likely two points that you can potentially earn for that part of the question.In the sample question, you can see relatively clearly that part A is worth one point, part B is worth three points, part C is worth two points, and part D is worth two points. Part C is the only tricky part - notice that you're only asked for one reason, but you must identify AND explain it. There is typically one point available for completing each key command.After making this determination, write a clear answer that addresses all of the points thoroughly and will make it easy for the grader to find your responses. Step 4: Reread and Double Check When you’ve finished writing your answer, reread the question and your response to make sure you’ve done everything it asked you to do.If you’re satisfied, move onto the next part of the question, and repeat the process of identifying key commands and hitting all the possible points.After you finish the last part, check over all of your answers for that question one last time to ensure that everything is the way you want it to be. Then you can move onto the next free-response question. Review your answers with a second, more critical eye. I think this picture is photoshopped, but I don't know for sure because I don't feel like Googling "can you have two pupil/iris combos within one eyeball?" Just kidding, I did Googleit, and it's probably not a thing, but not even the internet knows for sure.OoOoOoOo. AP Human Geography FRQ Examples In this section, I'll go through the answers to two different free-response questions that were asked on real AP Human Geography tests within the last couple of years. Here's the first question: For this question, a knowledge of the most prevalent geographic models and theories is very important.You need to be able to relate one of these models to the economic development of a specific country.This question requires almost all the skills listed in the first section of this guide. As you may have guessed, there were three points possible for the answer to the first part.Here are some examples of differences between the two models that you could identify and compare: Rostow’s five-stage model says that national economies are developing forward over time (never moving backward) while Wallerstein’s core-periphery model says that countries are static or can move backward in development. Rostow’s model says that international trade may help countries to grow economically while Wallerstein’s model says that international trade strengthens development in core countries and constrains development in peripheral countries. Rostow’s model provides a national-level analysis while Wallerstein’s model provides an international-level analysis. For part B, you need to show that you can apply these models in the context of Mexico and Brazil, countries that are in the midst of fully developing and modernizing their economies.One point would be earned for identifying a stage or part of one of the models, and a second point would be earned for explaining that stage or part.For example, you could talk about Stage 4, or the Drive to Maturity, in Rostow’s model.This stage is exemplified by increased manufacturing specialization and integration into the global economy. For part C, you would have to identify two examples of the core-periphery concept below the national level.One example might be a core city and its peripheral suburbs.Another example might be a core productive area surrounded by a less developed or impoverished periphery. Now, let’s take a look at a second example with an image component: Forpart A, we have to consult the map and determine one characteristic that the shaded countries have in common.Examples of characteristics you could mention include: They’re all developing countries. They’re former colonies. They all use plantation or small-scale agriculture. They’re all equatorial countries. Part A was worth one point.Notice that this only requires a very broad understanding of the nature of these countries or a basic knowledge of climate in different parts of the world. For part B, you could earn two points for identifying each impact of coffee farming.Possibilities include: Economic development:Coffee farming leads to increased employment, growth in GNP, development of infrastructure, improved foreign exchange, increased global trade and better international relations. Environmental impacts:Coffee farming causes harmful effects from agricultural chemicals, water use issues, deforestation, biodiversity loss, and soil erosion. You could also talk about how coffee farming might lead to too much economic dependence on a single commodity and cause the land to be used for commercial agriculture rather than food. Part C was also worth two points, one for identifying a way that increased consumption affects coffee-producing countries and one for explaining the effect in more detail.For example, you might say that increased consumption leads to increased production.This, in turn, means more resources dedicated to coffee production, the adoption of new technologies related to the industry, increased profit, and the introduction of new producers into the coffee industry. Finally, for part D, you have to explain a specifically urban change in the developed world related to coffee production.You might say that more coffee shops will start to spring up in urban areas.That gets you one point.Then, you could earn a second point if you got into a more specific discussion about how the placement of coffee shops is related to geographic theories.You might explain it in the context of consumer proximity, central place theory, and diffusion. How to Practice AP Human Geography FRQs You can find plenty of sample AP Human Geography free-response questions (and their corresponding answer guidelines) online.The College Board site has real test questions that were administered between 2004 and 2015 with sample responses and scoring guidelines.This is the best resource for free response questions because you can be sure that they’re accurate representations of what you’ll see on your exam in terms of content and difficulty level.There’s nothing wrong with using free-response questions crafted by test prep companies for preliminary practice, but you should always incorporate real questions into your studying at frequent intervals. Barron’s has a free practice test that you can take in timed or practice mode depending on how serious you’re feeling.It might be good to make use of the timed mode when you’re close to the real test so you can get an accurate feel for the conditions.It has three free-response questions just like the actual AP test, and you can consult scoring guidelines to check your answers (the multiple-choice portion of the test is scored automatically, but you have to do a little more work for free response).If you’re not averse to spending a bit of money ($25), you might also register with Learnerator to get access to a bunch of additional AP Human Geography practice free-response questions. It's time to fly free! Go, respond. It is your destiny. What's Next? If you want an overview of the whole exam with examples of multiple-choice and free-response questions, take a look at my survey of the AP Human Geography test including study tips and sample questions. Looking for more resources to use in preparing for this test? Check out my ultimate study guide for AP Human Geography! If you want more free response practice, you might consider getting a review book to supplement the online resources listed in this article. Here's a list of the best review books for AP Human Geography.

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