England's Seven Years War Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

England's Seven Years War - Essay Example For some historians, the Seven Years’ War is seen as an extension of the War of Austrian Succession. Frederick II of Prussia had forced Austria into the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa signed only to buy time to rebuild Austria’s military and extend its alliances. Austria successfully created bonds with France and Russia, while Prussia’s sole but powerful ally was England. England and Prussia formed a strong alliance, due to the military dominance of the former on the sea and the latter on land.2 According Schultz, while the causes of the Seven Years’ War were European in nature3, across the globe, France and England competed for commercial and colonial supremacy. In America especially, the attempts of the British colonies to expand westward were thwarted by French presence in the Mississippi Valley. The French built a series of forts there to stop British movement, which became a focal point for armed conflict.4 In Europe, bolstered by the support of England, Frederick II attacked Saxony and Prague. The Russians attacked and bested a force in East Prussia at the Battle of Gross-Jagersdorf. Austria and France worked to crush the Prussian army in 1757, but Frederick II was able to victor at the Battles of Rossbach and Leuthen, restoring the Prussian advantage.5 The French enjoyed early successes in the war. Sloan notes that French troops were vigorous in asserting their presence in New York, while the English did very little.6 The French general Montcalm easily took Fort Oswego there and began to assert a real and threatening presence in North America.7 The French also had victory at Fort William Henry, which they surrounded and attacked for five days, killing 300 British who were also suffering from a small pox epidemic. Although Montcalm had promised the British they could

International Business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

International Business - Essay Example The Indian FDI policy allows 100 percent under the automatic route for Greenfield projects. British Airways, due to the options available for investment in India, aims to devise strategic framework to enter the Indian market. Introduction International business is different from domestic or national business operations and management. Conducting business in different countries requires strategic thinking from the management of the company. There is a greater difficulty in performing the functions effectively and integrating them to serve organizational objectives (Aswathappa, 2010). According to Johnson and Turner (2009) the essence of international business is based on the firm undertaking and dealing with the consequences of international diversity which is mainly driven by globalization of markets, firms following customers, the desire to overcome limitations of the home market, exploitation of differences between countries and regions based on culture, regulation and specific eco nomic factors. Katsioloudes and Hadjidakis (2007) mention that laws, cultures and economic conditions differ within countries which are usually less marked that those among various countries. It is further stated that polices in most of the countries vary altering the decision of the company to operate in a particular country. Internationalization of business has benefited many organizations like TCS, Asian Paints, GE, Hewlett Packard and many more (Aswathappa, 2010). Moreover globalization has also led to the internationalization of business breaking the national boundaries allowing foreign companies to operate in their backyard. Underpinning the importance expanding its business operations, British Airways (BA) is planning to initiate business operations in India and other Far East countries in view of the increasing traffic, population and FDI policies. This paper analyses the opportunities and examine other factors for expansion strategy of British Airways. British Airways Briti sh Airways is one of the world’s leading airlines and it has been on an apparent roller coaster with highs and lows since its privation in 1987. The airline has always been a strong supporter of the process of globalization and has tried to exploit the opportunities (Homer and Swarbrooke, 2004). BA aims to serve existing routes and markets, to identify new opportunities for branded services and products and to ensure its freedom to compete in world markets, all being undertaken in such a manner as to meet the paramount and subsidiary objectives (www.britishairways.com). British Airways operates a fleet of over 243 aircraft to around 140 destinations in 75 countries catering over 35 million passengers in 2006 (National Audit Office, Great Britain, 2007). Since its merger with Iberia, Willie Walsh, CEO of British Airways declared of examining the possibility of entering the Indian and Far Eastern markets. Therefore the paper examines the internationalization strategies by evalu ating the cultural and sociological impact on the staff in context of India. Internationalization Strategies Jansson (2008) mentions that multinational corporation’

A Study About Blue Eye Technology

A Study About Blue Eye Technology Blue Eyes system provides technical means for monitoring and recording the operators basic physiological parameters. The most important parameter is saccadic activity1, which enables the system to monitor the status of the operators visual attention along with head acceleration, which accompanies large displacement of the visual axis (saccades larger than 15 degrees). Complex industrial environment can create a danger of exposing the operator to toxic substances, which can affect his cardiac, circulatory and pulmonary systems. Thus, on the grounds of plethysmographic signal taken from the forehead skin surface, the system computes heart beat rate and blood oxygenation. The BlueEyes system checks above parameters against abnormal (e.g. a low level of blood oxygenation or a high pulse rate) or undesirable (e.g. a longer period of lowered visual attention) values and triggers user-defined alarms when necessary. Quite often in an emergency situation operator speak to themselves expressing their surprise or stating verbally the problem. Therefore, the operators voice, physiological parameters and an overall view of the operating room are recorded. This helps to reconstruct the course of operators work and provides data for long-term analysis. BlueEyes consists of a mobile measuring device and a central analytical system. The mobile device is integrated with Bluetooth module providing wireless interface between sensors worn by the operator and the central unit. ID cards assigned to each of the operators and adequate user profiles on the central unit side provide necessary data personalization so different people can use a single mobile device (called hereafter DAU Data Acquisition Unit). The overall system diagram is shown in Figure 1. The tasks of the mobile Data Acquisition Unit are to maintain Bluetooth connections, to get information from the sensor and sending it over the wireless connection INTRODUCTION: Imagine yourself in a world where humans interact with computers. You are sitting in front of your personal computer that can listen, talk, or even scream aloud. It has the ability to gather information about you and interact with you through special techniques like facial recognition, speech recognition, etc. It can even understand your emotions at the touch of the mouse. It verifies your identity, feels your presents, and starts interacting with you .You ask the computer to dial to your friend at his office. It realizes the urgency of the situation through the mouse, dials your friend at his office, and establishes a connection. Human cognition depends primarily on the ability to perceive, interpret, and integrate audio-visuals and sensoring information. Adding extraordinary perceptual abilities to computers would enable computers to work together with human beings as intimate partners. Researchers are attempting to add more capabilities to computers that will allow them to interact like humans, recognize human presents, talk, listen, or even guess their feelings. The BLUE EYES technology aims at creating computational machines that have perceptual and sensory ability like those of human beings. It uses non-obtrusive sensing method, employing most modern video cameras and microphones to identifies the users actions through the use of imparted sensory abilities . The machine can understand what a user wants, where he is looking at, and even realize his physical or emotional states. EMOTION AND COMPUTING: Rosalind Picard (1997) describes why emotions are important to the computing community. There are two aspects of affective computing: giving the computer the ability to detect emotions and giving the computer the ability to express emotions. Not only are emotions crucial for rational decision making as Picard describes, but emotion detection is an important step to an adaptive computer system. An adaptive, smart computer system has been driving our efforts to detect a persons emotional state. An important element of incorporating emotion into computing is for productivity for a computer user. A study (Dryer Horowitz, 1997) has shown that people with personalities that are similar or complement each other collaborate well. Dryer (1999) has also shown that people view their computer as having a personality. For these reasons, it is important to develop computers which can work well with its user. By matching a persons emotional state and the context of the expressed emotion, over a period of time the persons personality is being exhibited. Therefore, by giving the computer a longitudinal understanding of the emotional state of its user, the computer could adapt a working style which fits with its users personality. The result of this collaboration could increase productivity for the user. One way of gaining information from a user non-intrusively is by video. Cameras have been used to detect a persons emotional state (Johnson, 1999). We have explored gaining information through touch. One obvious place to put sensors is on the mouse. Through observing normal computer usage (creating and editing documents and surfing the web), people spend approximately 1/3 of their total computer time touching their input device. Because of the incredible amount of time spent touching an input device, we will explore the possibility of detecting emotion through touch. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENT SPEECH RECOGNITION: It is important to consider the environment in which the speech recognition system has to work. The grammar used by the speaker and accepted by the system, noise level, noise type, position of the microphone, and speed and manner of the users speech are some factors that may affect the quality of speech recognition .When you dial the telephone number of a big company, you are likely to hear the sonorous voice of a cultured lady who responds to your call with great courtesy saying Welcome to company X. Please give me the extension number you want. You pronounce the extension number, your name, and the name of person you want to contact. If the called person accepts the call, the connection is given quickly. This is artificial intelligence where an automatic call-handling system is used without employing any telephone operator. THE TECHNOLOGY: Artificial intelligence (AI) involves two basic ideas. First, it involves studying the thought processes of human beings. Second, it deals with representing those processes via machines (like computers, robots, etc). AI is behavior of a machine, which, if performed by a human being, would be called intelligent. It makes machines smarter and more useful, and is less expensive than natural intelligence. Natural language processing (NLP) refers to artificial intelligence methods of communicating with a computer in a natural language like English. The main objective of a NLP program is to understand input and initiate action. The input words are scanned and matched against internally stored known words. Identification of a key word causes some action to be taken. In this way, one can communicate with the computer in ones language. No special commands or computer language are required. There is no need to enter programs in a special language for creating software. SPEECH RECOGNITION: The user speaks to the computer through a microphone, which, in used; a simple system may contain a minimum of three filters. The more the number of filters used, the higher the probability of accurate recognition. Presently, switched capacitor digital filters are used because these can be custom-built in integrated circuit form. These are smaller and cheaper than active filters using operational amplifiers. The filter output is then fed to the ADC to translate the analogue signal into digital word. The ADC samples the filter outputs many times a second. Each sample represents different amplitude of the signal .Evenly spaced vertical lines represent the amplitude of the audio filter output at the instant of sampling. Each value is then converted to a binary number proportional to the amplitude of the sample. A central processor unit (CPU) controls the input circuits that are fed by the ADCS. A large RAM (random access memory) stores all the digital values in a buffer area. This digit al information, representing the spoken word, is now accessed by the CPU to process it further. The normal speech has a frequency range of 200 Hz to 7 kHz. Recognizing a telephone call is more difficult as it has bandwidth limitation of 300 Hz to3.3 kHz. As explained earlier, the spoken words are processed by the filters and ADCs. The binary representation of each of these words becomes a template or standard, against which the future words are compared. These templates are stored in the memory. Once the storing process is completed, the system can go into its active mode and is capable of identifying spoken words. As each word is spoken, it is converted into binary equivalent and stored in RAM. The computer then starts searching and compares the binary input pattern with the templates. t is to be noted that even if the same speaker talks the same text, there are always slight variations in amplitude or loudness of the signal, pitch, frequency difference, time gap, etc. Due to this reason, there is never a perfect match between the template and binary input word. The pattern matching process therefore uses statistical techniques and is designed to look for the best fit. The values of binary input words are subtracted from the corresponding values in the templates. If both the values are same, the difference is zero and there is perfect match. If not, the subtraction produces some difference or error. The smaller the error, the better the match. When the best match occurs, the word is identified and displayed on the screen or used in some other manner. The search process takes a considerable amount of time, as the CPU has to make many comparisons before recognition occurs. This necessitates use of very high-speed processors. A large RAM is also required as even though a spoken word may last only a few hundred milliseconds, but the same is translated into many thousands of digital words. It is important to note that alignment of words and templates are to be matched correctly in time, before computing the similarity score. This process, termed as dynamic time warping, recognizes that different speakers pronounce the same words at different speeds as w ell as elongate different parts of the same word. This is important for the speaker-independent recognizers. THE SIMPLE USER INTERST TRACKER (SUITOR): Computers would have been much more powerful, had they gained perceptual and sensory abilities of the living beings on the earth. What needs to be developed is an intimate relationship between the computer and the humans. And the Simple User Interest Tracker (SUITOR) is a revolutionary approach in this direction. By observing the Webpage a netizen is browsing, the SUITOR can help by fetching more information at his desktop. By simply noticing where the users eyes focus on the computer screen, the SUITOR can be more precise in determining his topic of interest. It can even deliver relevant information to a handheld device. The success lies in how much the suitor can be intimate to the user. IBMs BlueEyes research project began with a simple question, according to Myron Flickner, a manager in Almadens USER group: Can we exploit nonverbal cues to create more effective user interfaces? One such cue is gaze-the direction in which a person is looking. Flickner and his colleagues have created some new techniques for tracking a persons eyes and have incorporated this gaze-tracking technology into two prototypes. One, called SUITOR (Simple User Interest Tracker), fills a scrolling ticker on a computer screen with information related to the users current task. SUITOR knows where you are looking, what applications you are running, and what Web pages you may be browsing. If Im reading a Web page about IBM, for instance, says Paul Maglio, the Almaden cognitive scientist who invented SUITOR, the system presents the latest stock price or business news stories that could affect IBM. If I read the headline off the ticker, it pops up the story in a browser window. If I start to read the story, it adds related stories to the ticker. Thats the whole idea of an attentive system-one that attends to what you are doing, typing, reading, so that it can attend to your information needs. PARTS OF A BLUE EYE SYSTEM : The major parts in the Blue eye system are Data Acquisition Unit and Central System Unit. The tasks of the mobile Data Acquisition Unit are to maintain Bluetooth connections, to get information from the sensor and sending it over the wireless connection, to deliver the alarm messages sent from the Central System Unit to the operator and handle personalized ID cards. Central System Unit maintains the other side of the Blue tooth connection, buffers incoming sensor data, performs on-line data analysis, records the conclusions for further exploration and provides visualization interface. THE HARDWARE: Data Acquisition Unit Data Acquisition Unit is a mobile part of the Blue eyes system. Its main task is to fetch the physiological data from the sensor and to send it to the central system to be processed. To accomplish the task the device must manage wireless Bluetooth connections (connection establishment, authentication and termination). Personal ID cards and PIN codes provide operators authorization. Figure Showing Jazz-multi Sensor Communication with the operator is carried on using a simple 5-key keyboard, a small LCD display and a beeper. When an exceptional situation is detected the device uses them to notify the operator. Voice data is transferred using a small headset, interfaced to the DAU with standard mini-jack plugs. The Data Acquisition Unit The Data Acquisition unit comprises several hardware modules figure showing data acquisition unit  · Atmel 89C52 microcontroller system core  · Bluetooth module (based on ROK101008)  · HD44780 small LCD display  · 24C16 I2C EEPROM (on a removable ID card) CENTRAL SYSTEM UNIT : Central System Unit hardware is the second peer of the wireless connection. The box contains a Bluetooth module (based on ROK101008) and a PCM codec for voice data transmission. The module is interfaced to a PC using a parallel, serial and USB cable. The audio data is accessible through standard mini-jack sockets over view of central system unit To program operators personal ID cards we developed a simple programming device. The programmer is interfaced to a PC using serial and PS/2 (power source) ports. Inside, there is Atmel 89C2051 microcontroller, which handles UART transmission and I2C EEPROM (ID card) programming. THE SOFTWARE: Blue Eyes softwares main task is to look after working operators physiological condition. To assure instant reaction on the operators condition change the software performs real time buffering of the incoming data, real-time physiological data analysis and alarm triggering. The Blue Eyes software comprises several functional modules System core facilitates the transfers flow between other system modules (e.g. transfers raw data from the Connection Manager to data analyzers, processed data from the data analyzers to GUI controls, other data analyzers, data logger etc.). The System Core fundamental are single-producer-multi-consumer thread safe queues. Any number of consumers can register to receive the data supplied by a producer. Every single consumer can register at any number of producers, receiving therefore different types of data. Naturally, every consumer may be a producer for other consumers. This approach enables high system scalability new data processing modules (i.e. filters, data analyzers and loggers) can be easily added by simply registering as a costumer Connection Manager is responsible for managing the wireless communication between the mobile Data Acquisition Unit the central system. The Connection Manager handles:  · communication with the CSU hardware  · searching for new devices in the covered range  · establishing Bluetooth connections  · connection authentication  · incoming data buffering  · sending alerts Data Analysis module performs the analysis of the raw sensor data in order to obtain information about the operators physiological condition. The separately running Data Analysis module supervises each of the working operators. The module consists of a number of smaller analyzers extracting different types of information. Each of the analyzers registers at the appropriate Operator Manager or another analyzer as a data consumer and, acting as a producer, provides the results of the analysis. Visualization module provides a user interface for the supervisors. It enables them to watch each of the working operators physiological condition along with a preview of selected video source and related sound stream. All the incoming alarm messages are instantly signaled to the supervisor.The Visualization module can be set in an off-line mode, where all the data is fetched from the database.Watching all the recorded physiological parameters, alarms, video and audio data the supervisor is able to reconstruct the course of the selected operators duty. The physiological data is presented using a set of custom-built GUI controls:  · a pie-chart used to present a percentage of time the operator was actively acquiring the visual information · A VU-meter showing the present value of a parameter time series displaying a history of selected parameters value. BLUE-EYES BENEFITS: Prevention from dangerous incidents Minimization of ecological consequences financial loss a threat to a human life Blue Eyes system provides technical means for monitoring and recording human-operators physiological condition. The key features of the system are:  · visual attention monitoring (eye motility analysis)  · physiological condition monitoring (pulse rate, blood oxygenation)  · operators position detection (standing, lying)  · wireless data acquisition using Blue tooth technology  · real-time user-defined alarm triggering  · physiological data, operators voice and overall view of the control room recording  · recorded data playback Blue Eyes system can be applied in every working environment requiring permanent operators attention:  · at power plant control rooms  · at captain bridges  · at flight control centers. APPLICATIONS : One of the main benefits of speech recognition system is that it lets user do other works simultaneously. The user can concentrate on observation and manual operations, and still control the machinery by voice input commands. Another major application of speech processing is in military operations. Voice control of weapons is an example. With reliable speech recognition equipment, pilots can give commands and information to the computers by simply speaking into their microphones-they dont have to use their hands for this purpose. Another good example is a radiologist scanning hundreds of X-rays, ultrasonograms, CT scans and simultaneously dictating conclusions to a speech recognition system connected to word processors. The radiologist can focus his attention on the images rather than writing the text. Voice recognition could also be used on computers for making airline and hotel reservations. A user requires simply to state his needs, to make reservation, cancel a reservation, or ma ke enquiries about schedule. CONCLUSION: The nineties witnessed quantum leaps interface designing for improved man machine interactions. The BLUE EYES technology ensures a convenient way of simplifying the life by providing more delicate and user friendly facilities in computing devices. Now that we have proven the method, the next step is to improve the hardware. Instead of using cumbersome modules to gather information about the user, it will be better to use smaller and less intrusive units. The day is not far when this technology will push its way into your house hold, making you more lazy. It may even reach your hand held mobile device. Any way this is only a technological forecast. In future it is possible to create a computer which can interact with us as we interact each other with the use of blue eye technology. It seems to be a fiction, but it will be the life lead by BLUE EYES in the very near future. ordinary household devices such as televisions, refrigerators, and ovens may be able to do their jobs when we look at them and speak to them.

Find the concentration of sucrose in a potato cell - Plan :: GCSE Biology A2 A-Level Coursework

Find the concentration of sucrose in a potato cell - Plan Plan For Osmosis/Plasmolysis Experiment AIM In this experiment, I am trying to find the concentration of sucrose in a potato cell. Also I can observe when a cell is totally plasmolyised. PLAN I plan to complete this experiment within an hour. Firstly, I will cut 15 potato chips, 3 each for 5 different solutions, each weighing 1.2grams, cut with a 4mm corer to approx (full word) 4cm. I will measure weight, as length is less accurate. The weight of the chip may vary as much as 0.02 g each way, which will make it a lot easier to do, but may provide me with less accurate results. I will use 5 different molar solutions of 20 cm3 each, shown to the right. 0M (water), 0.5M, 1M, 1.5M and 2M. I will create 0.5 molar solutions by mixing 10cm3 of water and 10cm3 of 1 molar solution. I will use 3 of each solution to ensure that my results are correct, and to prevent any anomalies disturbing my result graphs. One of each solution will be dropped into the solution at 10-second intervals. They will be taken out 30 minutes after precisely, to ensure a reliable result. They will then be dried on a paper towel, and quickly weighed, and recorded in a pre-written table. RELIABILITY/ FAIR TEST I must control many variables in this test. I will control the time that they are left in the solution, as this will greatly affect results if they are left in for different amounts of time. Also I must control how much I dry the chips before weighing them, because if I leave some excess water on one of them, it will be an unfair test, as ill be weighing the water as well as the chip. Another point is simple, but just to make sure that the scales I am weighing the chip on are at 0 before weighing the chip, as it may add some mass to the chip. I will use 5 different solutions, starting at 0 molar and going up in 0.5 molar concentrations. I have chosen this because they are equidistant, allowing for easy graph drawing, and also because from the preliminary experiment, I know that this will give me results that can show me the concentration of sucrose in the cells sap, and also go on to show me the concentration that the cell will plasmolyise at. I will also control the variety of potato- I will only use 1 brand, as

Love in Different Country Essay

Studying in the U.S. for nearly a year, I learned a lot of knowledge and I made a lot of friends. Some of them are foreigners. This year’s study is very effective for me. In the United States, I found some phenomenons are different between my country and the U.S. Now I mainly want to talk about love in the U.S. and China. The United States is a free country. The United States advocates free development. It pays attention to every person’s personality. Some American friends told me that love is very easy in the United States. Both men and women like each other, then they can fall in love. The parents will not hinder the child’s decision. So children can choose their partner if they want. In China, love and marriage is a very serious and very important thing. The parents always provide a lot of requirements to their children. For example, if my child is a boy, I will tell him, â€Å"Your wife in the future must be a very nice woman. Her family condition must be consistent with our condition.† because in China, many parents consider that only if both parties are consistent with their conditions, the future life can help each other, and the lives will be happy. In my opinion, I think the two points of view are so different, but each opinion has its reason. My questions are: What makes loving anybody in the United States not similar? How do different people in the U.S. falling in love It also represents the different cultures between China and the U.S. If I were allowed to choose which waysuits me, I will choose the American way because I love freedom. Notes: This needs more information in the second and third paragraphs about the reasons why each country has these â€Å"rules† about love. Then, in the conclusion, you can talk about how freedom is an American trait of love and that these reasons are why you want to choose an American style of love or choosing a partner.

Clique Pens Analysis Essay

Currently Clique pens is stuck in a situation where they are competing with other pen brands including BIC, Scripto, Pentel, Pilot, Papermate, and Sharpie. The fight for shelf space is among some of the biggest retailers worldwide such as Wal-Mart, Target, CVS, and Kroger. Because of the immense power retailers hold in this market, companies like Clique need to make sure they are allocating their funds in ways that deem appropriate to stay on the shelves. Pens are a high profit and high-turnover items which for retailers is great, but because retailers haven’t changed the price for almost over a decade, manufacturers are receiving less and less profit from their items. Retailers hold the power over the manufacturers in this market due to the amount of brands available; if one brand wasn’t working for the retailer, they could simply choose another brand. In order to remain profitable Clique’s brand managers have worked with different marketing and ad agencies to d evelop an integrated package of advertising, trade and consumer promotions to maintain the market share. Clique allocated 15% of its total promotional budget to advertising, 30% to consumer promotions, and 55% to trade promotions. Types of advertising Clique used consumer promotions and price off deals through the retailer, in such ways you would see in an ad in a magazine, â€Å"available at target†. Consumer promotions were mostly used as coupons distributed to the customer through newspapers, in-store displays, and cash register receipts. Coupon redemption rates deemed useless for the most part considering rates were about 1.3% lower than most other consumer products. Elise Ferguson (president of the writing implements division of U.S. home) has a very important decision to make; whether or not the company should spend their time and money marketing towards retailers or towards consumers, in order to grow Clique’s profits. One option that the company could choose to go with would be marketing towards the consumers rather than the retailers. Logan Chen, vice president of marketing feels that reducing trade discounts and establishing a consumer oriented MDF (Market Development Funds), coupled with additional consumer-targeted marketing programs is the way to ensure that consumers are receiving the full benefit of Clique’s promotional dollars. However, Ross McMillan, sales vice president disagrees on that course of action whole heartedly. If Clique were to use a majority of their sales and marketing funds towards the consumer the company could  lose considerable shelf space and sales to competitors, due to the reduced marketing controlled funds. Consumers in this market also do not hold much if any brand loyalty, which means they wouldn’t pay much mind to advertising. Another large factor to keep in mind would be the fact that coupon redemption rates are 1.4% lower than other consumer products, which means wasting money that was spent on this type of advertising. Going with this option would be extremely costly for Clique as well as a dangerous move in the already fragile market; one wrong move towards the retailers and Clique could kiss their shelf space goodbye.